#also I would HUGELY recommend you watch Christmas String

[chairteeth]

BOY DO I HAVE THOUGHTS ON ANIME TOUKA! Please, I invite anyone who wants to ask me about my faves to do so, I assure you I will always have thoughts and I am constantly very excited to share them. So first of all, I take the anime as a sort of alternate continuity, but I don't think it changes anything about the characters, therefore to me it only ever added to my understanding of a character. Prime example, Touka and Nemu. In this case lemme talk some more about Touka and how the anime portrayed her.

Firstly, I was very glad that despite the time constraints, they actually portrayed my girls the way I would have wanted them to (evidently, had I been in charge, I would've made it just a touch gayer). What I mean by that is, well, this is a reblog of "Nishi's very long rant about how people never stop to think about the mental health of younger characters because ageism goes brrrr", so I think you know what I'm referring to. Touka was, from a certain point on, under immense pressure from literally anything. It's the type of pressure that would break an adult, let alone a child. She doesn't lash out just because she's immature or impatient or arrogant (though there are pieces of that at play here), she lashes out and gives into impulse because she's stressed out of her mind.

That mostly applies to the Magius era, you might think. And yeah, you'd be kind of correct, if not because trauma is a scar that doesn't go away so easily. ESPECIALLY for a child. I'm not gonna go in-depth about the long term consequences of that stress on Touka, but in the anime we did see her have A Little Bit Of A Mental Breakdown when she remembered what she'd tried to do to Iroha and all that, and in the anime they showed us a bit of the pressure Touka was under. We also saw something that I don't believe we've seen more than once or twice ever for Touka and Nemu, and that is direct verbal communication.

You know in Season 3 Episode 2, when Touka gets her memories back and all, and she needs to actually ask Nemu why she hid the truth from her? Nemu explains, then Touka firstly retains her calm, states her conclusion so that Nemu can confirm if she understood correctly. She does that twice. Once she gets her second confirmation is when she outright slaps Nemu, which Iroha seems shocked by but I do love that she doesn't interfere because frankly this is not something she should ever try to disrupt. Importantly, after the slap and one shouted question that is not seeking an answer but rather communicating disapproval/disappointment, Touka doesn't keep yelling nor does she slap Nemu again. Not only that, but you know what Nemu does in that situation? It's something subtle they do more often than you'd think. She surrenders her will. Touka does something similar in the game's Arc 1 Chapter 10, at one point, when she wavers in her convictions and sounds insecure about what to say or do, until Nemu steps in, and then Touka follows. I don't know if I'm explaining myself properly, but when you take a closer look, they do this enough times that it shouldn't be ignored. They rely on one another for direction. I'll probably talk more about this in another essay but that scene in the anime was one of my favorites. Heck, Nemu directly asks Touka what she wants to do (most of the time, they do not communicate so directly, the way they communicate is its own fascinating topic).

To continue with that scene, Touka then calmly, very calmly, explains her side of things. I'd like to point out much like I did in the essay above that her voice in this scene lacks the usual cheerfulness or anger, she doesn't have a mask on right now. There's a scene in the game's Arc 2 Chapter 5 that is our only voiced instance of Touka and Nemu alone together, and she sounds exactly the same, if a little more neutral. The tones of voice can be so telling with these two I swear- but anyway, back to the post-slap scene itself. Nemu, without prompting, reassures Touka of her own feelings about the matter, and that is the moment where they know they're on the same page again. The second Touka says that having those memories means she can do anything, they both know what they're going to do. All they're doing is reinforcing each other's understanding. Iroha even seems confused the more they talk. But they get it. And then Touka tells Nemu she was right to hide the truth from her in light of the risk (this is also where they start doing that thing they also have a bit of a tendency to do, which is sharing a personal space bubble, but shh, that only matters for my shipper brain's interpretation of this relationship, just ugh come on they're even forehead to forehead in this part). Nemu apologizes again, and does something we rarely see (because they rarely communicate on camera, verbally, and directly, which means we've basically only seen this once or twice before in the game). That being, she admits emotional vulnerability. I like to think the subsequent forehead thing is Touka's way of reassuring her without interrupting her in that moment, like a squeeze of the hand, since she's the one who'd have to bend over to reach eye level with Nemu.

Iroha, by this point, is terribly confused. She does not realize every message those two just exchanged in front of her. And hey, I'll say it, I think this is better than the game's instant "oh no we were wrong and bad let us help". Fully conscious of everything now, they both turn on Iroha to finish their mission. They put her in timeout and go on to pilot Eve into Walpurgisnacht. I'm not sure if they had a plan to get off of Eve before the big shockwave that would occur from the two megawitches clashing, or if they were exhibiting yet another typical TouNemu behavior (dying). I'm leaning towards the latter, considering Nemu tells Iroha that in the timeout corner, she will be able to survive the shockwave. Unless Nemu can make another one of those barrier thingies for herself and Touka, well. We know how that would end. They also do something that is also interesting here, that being they take complete responsibility for everything. They tell Iroha that none of this is her fault and that it was all them, and they almost sound parent-like when they tell her that when she wakes up, all of the scary things will be over. Then they decide to get back to making Their Mistake. Very gay indicative of good mental health of them, certainly (/s).

After this, they even fight Iroha and the others for a bit. For the most part, it's mask time again, at least until Iroha hits a nerve later. Iroha manages to "convince" them to stop, only for them to see things getting bad later and then doing the getting on the same page thing again but with less words to essentially pull off a kamikaze attack fully aware of what they were doing and without a second thought! Very TouNemu of them.

That's the most organized I can make my thoughts on short notice, at least, so I hope you enjoyed that? It's hard to talk about one of these two without talking about the other soooo yeah. And, random tidbit since the anime has been brought up. Thank you Nemu for adding driving skills to the Rumor Spreader exclusively so that it could safely drive your princess who hates walking to places, very sapphic of you. Plus the whole slap scene and subsequent events. Very intimate of you both, girls. Highly "our lives are bound and where you go I will follow, even death" of you. Extremely sun and moon analogy. Typical TouNemu behavior.

Actually if you'll allow I must squeal and throw screenshots on here about the. Hhh. Them. They're so sweet... Soulmates...

"The Many Masks of Touka Satomi"

So I actually wanted to refine this certified word vomit of mine before I put it anywhere buuuut I figured this would be a good time to let it out of its containment zone. This is essentially me overthinking the crap out of everything ever and coming out of it with this interpretation of Touka in particular. Informal essay under the cut! It will have extra tangents! And I blend a bit of what we were shown in the anime into my interpretation, but this is game canon.

Whenever Touka is discussed, the words "child", "immature", "selfish", and "arrogant" are the ones most often thrown around. There is usually not much more discussion after that. Well, I'm not here to say it's wrong, it's correct for the most part, I'm just here to draw attention to the fact that there's so much more to her than meets the eye. So, hear me out, if you would.

Touka's levels of vulnerability in the Magius era. That's already interesting by virtue of it being the Magius era. That's a really interesting era. Ui was what brought Touka and Nemu together and Ui was the cornerstone of their relationship for a while, so losing that RETROACTIVELY kinda makes you wonder exactly what their memories of the hospital era became. How exactly the two of them met, became friends, came to share a room, etc. Because the quotes are from their Magius selves and so we know they very much remember being roommates for a long time and still consider each other reliable and trustworthy (also the entirety of Nemu's swimsuit costume story which spawns many questions when you stop to think about it but I will touch on that some other time). We know that in reality, the hospital trio began to share a room after Touka, in her infinite princess behavior, asked her dad to put all three of them in the same room because it was annoying to walk between the rooms so often (source: TouNemu Christmas alt quotes). Interesting choice on her part back then considering she seemingly wanted Nemu out of the way, but I will touch on that another time because the hospital era has its own analysis.

Okay then, let's talk about Touka's role as a Magius. A leader. One who shoulders the burdens of the many. She willingly exposed herself to the weight of a whole people's sorrow, pain, grief, anger. And then she chose to lead them. To avenge them. It may not have started that way but it sure as heck got there at some point (thank you anime for helping out with this point). Now, I want to stop here for a moment and remind everyone that during Arc 1, Touka was 11 to 12 years old (as per the JP script, she is 12 by the end of it). Not only that, but if you pay attention, you'll notice the stress of Nemu's declining health is killing her. Nemu is quite literally the only person Magius Touka shows genuine concern for. This one person she cares about more than anyone else, slowly dying for the plan. For the cause. And as the sort of "main leader", Touka can't back down. She just can't. It would be not only a betrayal to "her people", but also to the one closest to her, the one who has arguably sacrificed the most for their salvation. So then, with someone as full of herself as Touka, someone seemingly so arrogant... What about her own health and wellbeing? What about her own sense of self? Because I have a feeling she doesn't really have one.

The way she always emphasizes the genius aspect of herself and even uses it as an excuse and brings it up so often feels like that's all she sees herself as. Nemu gives, yes. Nemu has similar issues. But hers are much, much more obvious. Less concealed. Touka gives without measure, without the slightest care for herself. She's selfish and at the same time one of the most selfless characters. There's also the interpretation that, at their very core, Touka and Nemu both just wanted to live. But I feel like that was only at the beginning. If that was all there was to it, the plan would not have continued with Nemu's life at risk, Touka would not put herself in the line of fire. Essentially, Touka has taken on way, way too much responsibility, as well as crafting several masks. Don't forget, just like every other magical girl, she led a double life the entire time, and she financed a lot of the cult's operations. Though I don't have any doubt many of the richer members contributed to the budget with their ridiculous allowances that they do not use.

Touka had to hide from everyone. She couldn't show her true self to anyone. Not her father who loves her so deeply, not anyone else in her civilian life, not her subordinates, Alina is not the most warm and welcoming to be around... so her only option is Nemu. That's comfortable. That's familiar. But. Then there are the many, many feelings she has about Nemu. It's, complicated you see. Touka feels many ways about Nemu. For starters, if their memory of Ui is gone, it means all of the warmth and kindness Ui had must've taken another form, which explains the difference in their bond, how they seem so much... closer, as Magius. Either way, even back then, Nemu is the only one who would understand. Touka Satomi is an actress. Everywhere else is her stage, and Nemu is backstage. So, Touka can only ever be truly 100% vulnerable with Nemu. Yet she still didn't do it. I don't think Magius Touka ever really fully 100% relied on Nemu. She may have wanted to, and she does call her reliable in her quotes. But well, with Nemu's health getting worse and worse, she may have come to the conclusion that it would be for the best (health-wise) if Nemu didn't have to share her burden.

However, Nemu's declining health also brought something else. Touka took on another role: the protector. Nemu is practically helpless during the mid to late Magius era. Not completely helpless, she's still a strong magical girl, mind you, but could drop or have an attack at any time. We see this multiple times such as in Mifuyu's MGS, her own MGS, and she even has what is basically a stroke during Arc 1 Chapter 8, 4:02:36 - 4:03:43 in the video if you want to take a listen (I have a Magius Nemu essay in the works, don't you fret). Therefore, Touka has to be alert and ready to respond immediately. Which I think is why we see more of Alina outside than Touka. Touka lingers around where Nemu is and only hesitantly hands her over to Alina or Mifuyu when she absolutely must. Other than the sheer pain of watching Nemu bleed herself dry and being unable to do anything about it, not because she physically can't, but because she can't in a different sense... she also can't revert things back to the way they were, for all of her genius and medical knowledge she can't help Nemu, she can't help her best friend feel even a little better. This leads us to the undeniable fact that Touka is very, very unstable and volatile as a Magius. That's not the impression she first gives at all, of course.

Arc 1 Chapter 6 is where we first meet Magius Touka. She's calm, with a cold cheerfulness to her, calculated. Most importantly, I feel like the reason she was the one doing the lecture instead of literally just sending Mifuyu was because she recognized Team Mikazuki as a possible threat and specifically did not like Iroha, which was also why she lied. The one and only thing Touka lied about in her lecture: Iroha asked where Nemu was, Touka said they parted ways after being discharged. Blatant gigantic lie. And seriously, the only reason she'd have to lie about that and in that specific way would be to protect Nemu. At that point, Iroha and her team have wiped out a handful of uwasa, so she must have known. But yes, this is not at all how she really feels or what she really thinks. This is just another mask (I will talk about Touka's plastic smile and Nemu's poker face ANOTHER TIME). Because she needs to nip any aspirations Iroha may have in the bud, hopefully recruit more Feathers, and neutralize the threat that is Team Mikazuki.

What happens just as she's starting to go off the deep end? How convenient, it seems Yachiyo and Iroha have spent a good amount of their time destroying uwasa, thus wasting Nemu's repeated sacrifices, and forcing her to make more in order to meet their energy quota. Honestly, who wouldn't be losing it, at that point? So close to salvation, so close to freedom, so close to being done. And they're ruining not only the plan but also everything it means for her and the person she loves most. When you really think about it, Touka's mental health was, forgive the crude language, IN DEEP SHIT throughout Arc 1. Not that it was great before or that it improved too much after, but yeah, I do believe people do not give this enough thought.

Finally, with all of this in mind, as for the topic of this rant being Touka's levels of vulnerability as a Magius... There were none. She had no choice. At first it was fine. At first, before the gears turned too fast to stop, she could deal with it. She could confide in Nemu, even a little bit in Alina or Mifuyu (though not much), but it got worse and worse. Mifuyu was clearly blind to all of this the entire time (she, much like everyone other than Touka, didn't seem to care that Nemu had to give up her life force for each uwasa, and if you disagree I will point out the scene at the end of Mifuyu's MGS as one of my more than five pieces of evidence). Alina likely didn't care enough, and Nemu was probably too exhausted, although the concern must've been there. In summary, Magius Touka stands alone in her mind, and with her mind. Arc 1 was practically a descent into madness for her. When you start thinking about things from Touka's perspective, you start to see how abysmal her mental health was.

As part of my conclusion I'd like to say that honestly, it makes sense why she gave off the feeling of being lost for a decent chunk of... everything after Arc 1. What is she supposed to do without a purpose? What is she supposed to do without anything or anyone to tell her what she is and who she is? Not to mention the fucking ton of bricks to her face that must've been getting her memories back. I do not know how she didn't break. I legitimately do not know how she survived. During that little "lost" stage she had, I got the feeling she'd relapse back to her suicidal tendencies. It was... less "a feeling" and more "exactly what canon did", it's just slightly (badly) disguised.

ANYWAY. What I mean is that the children are complex and I ask everyone to have more respect and more compassion for them. I will be back with more about the performer and her backstage, hopefully in a more organized format.

[genesisrose74]

Christmas with the Karasuno Boys (HC’s)!!

Part 1: Daichi, Suga, Asahi, Nishinoya, Tanaka, & Ennoshita

Part 2 (Kageyama, Hinata, Tsukishima, Yamaguchi, Kinoshita, & Narita) here!!

A/n: Tumblr said my word count was too much so I’m splitting this bad boi up into two parts :p Enjoy!!

*****

Daichi

A huge romantic during Christmas, 10/10 quality cliche times spent together

You wanna go ice skating? Hell yeah sweetheart, he will make it the most beautifully romantic thing you’ve ever seen

Like straight out of a holiday postcard type beat

Istg the rink he takes you to looks like a more heartwarming version of Rockefeller Center

He’s a big keeper of tradition when it comes to making plans, but doesn’t mind a bit of nonsense fun when everything falls into place

Which is why you love to bring the team along on adventures because they make everything all the more entertaining

At first he’s confused like ??? You don’t have to do that just if they’ve been pestering you about it

But then he realizes you care as much about them as he does (hint: a hell of a lot) and they’re thus invited along for some stuff

Of course y’all also get some quality time together on dates with just you both

Anyways you and Daichi have talked a lot about traveling and how he was really interested in seeing new places

So as his gift you got him a carved map with a roll of red string and thumbtacks, so that he could plan out all the places he wanted to visit

You know how when Kiyoko found the “Fly” banner for Karasuno and all the boys cried?

Yeah

Like that but with lots more hugging and laughing

“You know you’re gonna have to help with mapping this out, right?”

“Is that an invitation I hear?”

“Oh, that’s a promise”

FJSFJDSK ALEXA PLAY AMERICAN BOY BY ESTELLE—

Please I love him; he is so damn sly and sassy I will die with this headcanon

Sugawara

I swear on everything that Christmas with him is equivalent to a Hallmark movie

It smells like joy and warmth wherever he is, and this season only amplifies it

He is such a cheeseball without even having to try

But it’s in the really endearing and heart-melting way,,, just MMM PERFECT

He’ll take you on a walk through those neighborhoods with those crazy light decorations in the front yard and buy you hot chocolate

If he sees a group of little kids gaping at all the lights, he’ll leave them starry-eyed with stories of magic, reindeer, Santa and so-forth

“You know, I’ve heard that Rudolph’s nose is supposed to be brighter than the world’s most powerful Christmas light”

Good heavens, children absolutely adore this man

Anyways he’ll make it a little game as y’all walk around this beautifully lit neighborhood, both of you with a different assortment of bingo squares printed on paper

First one to bingo chooses a movie to watch after getting back to Suga’s house

Will wrap a big fluffy blanket around you both and pull you into his chest while watching the movie

For his gift, you got a star named after him

It’s because y’all alway go stargazing for dates every month, just to sit out, talk and cuddle

Suga gave you the SOFTEST look after opening your gift and this cute little card you made 🥺

“Lets go try to find my new favorite star”

PLEASE HE IS SO SWEET

“Right now? Koushi it’s 11:30 pm”

“Just for ten minutes, and then I’ll get you home”

So y’all spend the rest of Christmas Eve on his roof, sipping warm tea and attempting to locate Star Suga

Asahi

Cuddle bear alert ‼️‼️

It’s basically hibernation time for him, because he’s not the biggest fan of cold

That’s alright with you though 😌 more coziness for you

Lots of quality moments indoors means more creative dates

A whole day devoted to chill present wrapping? Hell fuckin’ yeah

Nice music, pretty wrapping paper, shiny bows, maybe a little Christmas rom-com playing in the back — the whole shebang

You find out pretty quickly that despite how it sounds, it’s actually quite a satisfying and enjoyable pastime

Practically had to drag him out of your living room to secretly wrap his own gift

As much as he’s the king of timidity and soft™, he can be very playfully stubborn when he’s comfortable, hence why he was such an ass to get out of the room

I have no doubt that Asahi would melt for the most adorable, cheesy shit

So you not only bought him some really reliable headbands for volleyball use, but you also made a little coupon booklet

He can basically cash in paper promises for certain things, like getting to choose the next date idea, picking a movie to watch without any objection, having you make his favorite food, etc.

There’s one that he can exchange for a full out spa day trip, because good heavens he’s a sucker for those

Massage and exfoliation and everything — it makes him feel ✨refreshed✨

He was ecstatic fam, I don’t even know what to say

Like a puppy who just got a bunch of toys and a new backyard to play

Mans cashes in one almost immediately, and at first you’re confused

Like it’s Christmas time bubs, what are we gonna be able to do when most places are closed and it’s the holidays?

Then you read the paper

“Free hug (can be used and renewed <3)”

GIVE HIM HIS DAMN HUGS RIGHT NOW

He uses that one a lot throughout the upcoming days, to the point where he just keeps the paper on him for fun

“You realize you can just ask me silly, you don’t need to keep carrying the coupon around”

“Yeah, but it’s entertaining”

Cute little cheeky bastard

Nishinoya

LOVES LOVES LOVES CHRISTMAS

You know the 12 Days of Christmas? The song??

He gets you a small present EVERY DAY for all 12 days

Not to mention he has a big present that he saves for the actual holiday

Y’all are the type of couple to get ice cream in the middle of winter

Nishi loves his cold snacks any time of year, and you’ve thus picked up a similar taste

He will consistently pester you about what kind of present you got him

Gets pouty when you don’t tell him, but in the back of his mind he’s glad because it would ruin the surprise

Anything you get him instantly becomes his most prized gift tho

It could be a literal rock with googly eyes and he’d put it in a protective glass case for preservation

But of course you get him something better than that because he only deserves the best

He’s got this specific assortment of products to maintain his spiky hair and to make sure it’s healthy, but they’re pretty expensive to buy when he runs out

When he tore open your present’s decorative wrapping to discover a huge basket of basically every hair product he ever needed, he got wide-eyed

There was also a booklet of little notes you’d kept throughout the month that listed all the little things you noticed and adored about your precious boyfriend

He nearly CRIED reading them

“Baby, you didn’t have to do all that for me”

“You act like you don’t deserve all of it and more, Nishi”

Refuses to leave your side after that

Holding your hand, hugging you as tight as he can, etc.

He is head over heels idc idc

Tanaka

Another man who is obsessed with the holiday season and everything that comes with it

He is the biggest sap for this shit istg

Will spend hours trying to get you the best present of all time

And he succeeds exceptionally

Mistletoe? He’s got an ABUNDANCE on hand at any time, just to make sure he can get fair share of his kissies 🥰

His signature beanie appears in full force during winter

Sometimes you’ll pull it over his eyes before giving him a peck on the cheek and dashing off in the school halls

“I’ll see you after school, babe!”

Speech = jumbled + incomprehensible

“Uh hUh, you do that~”

He’s: adorable

I just know that he melts for really sweet and thought-out gifts

Like anything you give him he’ll adore, don’t get me wrong, but the ones done with special care and love are just his kryptonite

He brought you into a massive bear hug and spun you around when he opened a photo book of old pictures taken together, complete with lots of cute messages and anecdotes written alongside them

You and Saeko may have also gone in on another present for him without his knowledge

And on Christmas Eve, you dragged a curious Tanaka into his front yard to the sight of a shiny motorbike

It was Saeko’s old one that she’d held onto for a while, and an old schoolmate offered to fix it up nice in time for the holiday at a discount, so y’all decided to divvy up the lowered price and got it done for Ryu

Sweet boy was taken aback, with his hands clapped over his mouth and everything

Saeko patted him on the back as he stood there in shock, giving her baby brother a sweet smile

“All yours, little bro!”

Ya, Saeko fucking loves you 😌 and so does Tanaka

Overall very lovely, would cry to be loved by the Tanaka siblings

Ennoshita

After spending past Decembers with his fellow second year classmates (namely, the very enthusiastic Noya and Tanaka), he’s grown to know quite a bit about the different holiday events that go on around town

Still, Ennoshita is a pretty simplistic guy and is content with simply spending time with you

So when you recommended going to pick a Christmas tree out for your place together, he’s totally down

As long as he gets to help decorate too ☺️

Y’all end up picking a beauty of a tree ngl

It’s SO TALL

And a super stronk friend — fit for the most heavy duty of ornaments

It takes some damn work to get that bad boi inside and upright after driving back to your house

But like hell did that stop you

Now that it was all set up, sturdy, and given plenty of water, decorations were brought into the equation that same night

No rest until it’s all set up and looking mighty beautiful

Okay maybe some coffee breaks in between, but other than that the grind don’t stop ✋😤

Ennoshita is an expert at making Christmas trees look absolutely immaculate

Idk if it’s because he’s had to deal with cleaning up disorder for a while now?

Looking at you, ya second year loons

He just has the touch, fam

He’ll of course let you have input on which light colors, what type of ornaments, and so on

But honestly it’s really fun seeing him fully concentrated on making your tree the best it can be

He lets you on his shoulders to put on the tree topper 🥺

For his gift, Ennoshita really loves books, so you decided to get him 12 different (hardcover!!) stories — one for each month in a year

Along with a small sticky-note blurb on the covers of each to explain why you chose it, and to give similar title recommendations if he ends up enjoying

He was so surprised with how thoughtful and extensive it was

Loved it so much that he immediately started to read the first one, with you sat in his lap

“Chikara, you realize you’re meant to start this one in January?”

“Shh, I’m getting a head start”

[the-captains-ayebrows]

Deck the Halls - CSSS 2K19

Getting in just under the wire (it’s still Christmas in my time zone anyway!), but here I am with a fluffy little enemies-to-lovers (ish) one-shot for the amazing and delightful @whimsicallyenchantedrose​ It sounded like you had a rough start to your holidays, dear, but I hope your Christmas has been the merriest! I’m a bit rusty at this writing business, but I do hope you enjoy your gift. 

Rated: G; Word Count: ~2700

~~~~~CSSS2K19~~~~~

“He made cookies, Mary Margaret. Homemade. From scratch. How could I possibly not hate him?”  

Emma glared across the teacher’s lounge at the man in question. Killian Jones. Music teacher, expert classroom decorator and apparently on the short list for the next Great British Bake-off. As she looked back to her best friend for moral support, it occurred to Emma that she’d never before realized a person could sip tea sarcastically.

“You’re right,” Mary Margaret replied. “I mean what next? Caroling through the corridors? Oh wait! He already did that with my Kindergartners, didn’t he?”

Emma rolled her eyes. “Thanks for the reminder.” Yes, Killian Jones had in fact led the Storybrooke Prep kindergartners singing merrily through the halls. And yes, it had been absolutely freaking adorable. 

She dunked an admittedly delicious homemade gingerbread man into her coffee, then bit its head off. “I don’t see why he has to be such a show off. It’s not like he can actually win the contest. He doesn’t have his own class, you know? Not really.”

“Maybe he’s just really into Christmas?” Mary Margaret shrugged. “Honestly, I think you may be taking this whole ‘Deck the Halls’ contest a bit too seriously.” 

“Says last year’s winner.”

“Or maybe there’s more to your fixation on Mr. Jones than just this contest?”

“Don’t start. It’s only about the contest. I wanna know what his evil plan is, that’s all.”

Ah, the annual Deck the Halls contest. Every homeroom teacher at Storybrooke was enthusiastically encouraged by the school principal to decorate their classroom door and hallway in festive winter style. The winning teacher’s class got some kind of prize, usually a special field trip. This year, students would be treated to a Polar Express themed ride on Storybrooke’s fully restored historic steam train. The kids could wear their pajamas and drink hot chocolate while they watched the snowy town pass by, and at the end of the ride, they’d get a chance to meet “Santa”. Emma’s fifth graders all seemed to think themselves too grown up for such a thing, but still… A little Christmas magic never hurt anyone.

Mary Margaret finished her tea and gave Emma’s shoulder a maternal pat. “Time to go pick up my little guys from the cafeteria.”

After her friend left, Emma let her gaze drift back to the object of her ire. Mary Margaret was right. Emma was definitely taking the contest too seriously, but that Killian Jones was just so damn infuriating. Ever since he’d transferred - no, swaggered - in from Misthaven Prep, he’d been the bane of her existence. He and his stupidly perfect hair. And his ridiculous flirty comments. And his stupid, ridiculous, unreasonably attractive face. The man may as well have had a banner over his head that read, “I’m sexy and I know it.” 

That was bad enough, but then came the first day of school after Thanksgiving break. Emma walked her class to Mr. Jones’s room for their music lesson to find he’d decorated the entire fine arts hallway to look like a giant gingerbread house with lights, human-sized gingerbread people and enough craft glitter to choke a reindeer. Between that and the caroling and the freaking cookies, how was anyone supposed to compete? 

And Emma really, really wanted to win. She had a competitive streak, sure, but it was more than that. It was-

Oh, crap. He caught her looking. And there he went with the eyes and the smile, and oh god he’s walking over to her. 

“Swan! I noticed you’ve been sampling my goodies. Fancy the flavor?”

Emma bristled. Killian Jones had a unique ability to say perfectly innocent things and somehow make them sound dirty. And also vaguely appealing, but that was beside the point.

“A little bland for my taste,” she lied. “They needed more cinnamon.”

“So the lady likes things a bit spicy. Duly noted.” He grinned at her, eyes alight with mischief. That smile of his was infectious - like the plague, Emma told herself - and she fought against the instinct to return it.

“My spice preferences are none of your business, Jones.” 

“Quite right, Swan.” He glanced downward, seeming appropriately chastised, but it only lasted an instant. He flashed those devilish blue eyes at her again with a wicked smirk to match. “Spicing up your life would be my pleasure, not business at all.”

Emma felt the blush begin to rise up from the back of her neck. It was bad enough that he could make her blush. She sure as heck didn’t want him knowing that.

She managed an unimpressed lift of her eyebrows and muttered something vague about picking up her class, before turning on her heel and exiting the lounge. At a perfectly calm and casual pace, thank you very much. 

—-

Later that afternoon, Emma sat at her desk grading papers. Or rather, sat behind a stack of papers that needed to be graded while staring around her classroom in an attempt to visualize a masterful decorating theme. Ugly Christmas sweater? No, that’d be a hot mess. Frozen? No, Ms. Arendelle the art teacher was already doing that. The Nutcracker? Nope. Mary Margaret won with that one last year. 

A knock on her door shook Emma out of her Grinchy brooding. “Ms. Swan? Can I come in?” Without waiting for a reply, Henry Mills barged in with an anxious smile on his face and a stack of printer paper clutched in his hand. “You said you’d read over my writing sample, remember?”

Emma pushed aside her grading and took the proffered essay. “How’s the scholarship application coming along?”

“The Sisters are doing most of the paperwork for me,” Henry answered. “I just need one more recommendation letter from a teacher and then my essay.”

The “Sisters” meant the nuns who ran the group home where Henry lived. It wasn’t the posh life that most of Henry’s classmates at Storybrooke Prep enjoyed, but the nuns cared deeply for the children in their charge. A better situation at least than Emma ever had during her years in the foster system. 

Emma read through the essay, all about the power of storytelling and how Henry aspired to be an author someday. He was capable of great things, that kid, but he needed the scholarship to pay his tuition so he could continue on at Storybrooke. 

“This is wonderful, Henry. I’m sure the scholarship board will approve you.” 

“Thanks, Ms. Swan.” Henry beamed at her for a moment, then glanced back toward her undecorated door. “Are you going to enter Deck the Halls this year? The judging is on Monday, right?”

Emma narrowed her eyes and leaned toward him as if confiding a secret. “Sure am. I’m just waiting until Monday morning so it’s a surprise.” Yeah, that sounded plausible, right?

Henry nodded, unconvinced. “It’s just that, well, I was really hoping our class could win this year. I’ve never been in a class that won before.” His focus shifted to a chipped spot on the edge of her desk. “I know it’s more for the little kids. I mean, it’s not like I believe in Santa anymore or anything, it’s just…” he picked at the chip making it worse. “The Sisters can’t really afford to take us anywhere, you know? And I thought it might be kind of fun to ride a real steam train and meet Santa just like in The Polar Express.”

He met Emma’s eyes finally. She knew that look. The I-want-to-be-a-part-of-something look. The I-want-to-be-a-regular-kid look. Her heart twinged with the familiarity. That. That right there was why she needed to win this year.

“Don’t worry, Henry. I’ll get you that train ride.”

—-

That Friday after school, Emma hit the local craft store. She bought tinsel and bows, little strings of lights and fake snow spray, garlands and non-breakable plastic ornaments. She even bought a sprig of freeze dried mistletoe for good measure. Come Monday morning, she had every intention of turning her hallway into a winter wonderland. 

As she and Mary Margaret walked to Emma’s classroom Monday morning, their arms laden with shopping bags, it quickly became clear that they were too late. Someone had beaten them to it.

Emma nearly dropped her parcels. “What the hell is this?” 

Wide-eyed, Mary Margaret took a hesitant step toward Emma’s classroom door. “I’d say it’s a train.”

Emma took in the sight before her, the initial shock slowly morphing into anger. Her classroom door had transformed into the front of a huge black steam engine, featuring a smoke stack that nearly reached the ceiling and a cardboard cow catcher protruding out at the bottom. Black duct tape train tracks laid neatly from the door clear to the end of the hallway. Blue butcher paper covered the walls on either side of the door setting a backdrop for a winter forest scene, complete with three dimensional evergreens made from layers upon layers of construction paper and fluffy white batting for snow drifts. Delicate tissue paper snowflakes had been hung painstakingly from the ceiling.

The Polar Express. Someone had turned her classroom - hell, half her hallway - into the Polar Express. It was beautiful. Perfectly executed. Emma hated it. 

She hated it because she didn’t need anyone’s help. She had it under control. Okay, so maybe her craft skills were not in the same league, but she had determination, damn it. Not to mention six bags of tinsel which she now had to shove into her supply closet for next year.

She hated it even more because she had a pretty good idea who the perpetrator was. There were only two teachers in the school capable of that level of Pinterest-worthy crafting, and since Mary Margaret looked as stunned as Emma, that only left Killian Jones. The one thing she couldn’t figure out was why he’d done it. 

“Looks like someone is trying to impress you, Emma,” Mary Margaret said with a sly smile. 

Emma shook her head. She couldn’t deal with her friend’s needling right now. She wanted to storm over to the music room right away and interrogate him, but she knew she needed to cool down first. Rationally, she told herself that the whole reason she became so invested in this silly contest was for Henry’s sake, and these decorations were sure to win. Irrationally, she simply did not want to deal with Killian’s smug, perfect face and whatever double entendre he was sure to throw her way. 

But it bugged her all day. 

Was Jones trying to be some kind of white knight swooping in to save her ass? Well too bad, mister. No one saved Emma but Emma. Did he want two chances to win? That didn’t make sense. As music teacher, he didn’t have a homeroom class so the prize didn’t apply to him. Maybe it was just the bragging rights? That could be. That was way more likely than Mary Margaret’s suggestive suggestion. Wasn’t it? 

She had to stop that train of thought right away before she devolved into the ten year-old mentality of her students and sent him a note: “Do you like me? Check yes or no.” Not that she thought he actually did. Not that she would want him to. It was only a point of curiosity. 

—-

To absolutely no one’s surprise, Emma’s classroom won the Deck the Halls contest. She waved sheepishly at her students as she walked to the front of the school assembly to accept the prize tickets from Principal Hopper, but one look at Henry’s bright smile had her grinning for real. 

As she scanned the crowd, her eyes locked onto another face. Jones’s bright blue eyes met hers with an unreadable expression. Wasn’t this his moment of triumph? Wasn’t he going to claim the glory? She raised her brows in question at him. Was it you? He gave a small nod. Yes. She subtly bobbed her head to the side. Meet me outside. The whole silent conversation only took a couple of seconds. 

After the assembly ended, the students were dismissed for the day. A small group of teachers herded them outside to the bus lanes, but Emma noticed Jones wasn’t among them. Her stomach began to flutter as she ducked out a side door from the cafeteria. She shivered when the crisp December air touched her face and shrugged on her coat, thankful she’d remember to bring it to the assembly with her. Why did she feel nervous? No, she wasn’t nervous, she just wanted answers. Right.

Emma heard the door creak open again, and Jones stepped out clad in a black leather jacket  that couldn’t have been much insulation against the winter chill, but did a marvelous job of framing his broad shoulders and lean torso. He looked… wait, did he look nervous, too? She needed to say something. Anything. Right now.

“What the hell, Jones?” Okay. Solid start. “You hijack my classroom, but you don’t take credit for it. I don’t get it. Did I seem like I needed saving? Because I’ve got news for you, buddy-”

“I didn’t do it for you, Swan,” he interrupted. 

“Then why?”

“I did it for Henry Mills.”

For Henry? Her student? Emma blinked at him, trying to formulate a response to this twist, but all that came out was. “What?”

“I happened to overhear your conversation with him last week. I had written him a letter of recommendation for his scholarship application, and I was bringing it to him when I noticed him going into your classroom. I figured I would wait outside your door until he finished talking to you. I wasn’t eavesdropping exactly, but the door was open.”

“So you heard him talk about why he hoped our class would win. And just what? Took it upon yourself to make that happen?” 

“Aye.” He ducked his head, looking almost shy. “I suppose the lad reminds me a bit of myself. I shan’t go into detail, but suffice to say my childhood was less than idyllic.”

Emma huffed a laugh. “I know the feeling.”

A tiny smile tilted the corner of Killian’s lips. “I thought you might. At any rate, the thing that made my young life bearable was my brother, specifically his insistence that no matter what, we would have a special Christmas. I simply wanted to be able to do the same for young Henry. I apologize if I overstepped, but a bit of Christmas magic never hurt anyone, did it?”

He reached up a hand to scratch at the back of his neck, and that right there did it. The vulnerability of that simple gesture shifted something into place in Emma’s heart. She regarded him for a second longer, looking for any trace that this was an act, but could find none. So, she raised up on her toes, placed her hands on his shoulders and kissed him softly on the lips.

Killian froze at the contact, and Emma was sure she’d made a terrible mistake, but then his arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her closer. He returned her kiss with exuberance, smiling against her mouth. Oh, god she’d never in her life been kissed like this. For all the sin his lips usually promised, this kiss held more joy than lust and an almost unbearable sweetness. His smile lingered even as they separated again.

Emma shook her head in a bit of a daze. “Wow, that was…” He seemed to stop breathing, waiting for her to finish the sentence. “-really unprofessional of me. Sorry.” Emma cleared her throat, but saw Killian’s expression droop. He took a step back.

“Of course. You’re right, Swan. That will ne-”

She reached out and touched his arm, halting his retreat.  “No, what I meant to say was, would you maybe want to get a cup of coffee with me sometime?”

No display of Christmas lights could have been brighter than the way his eyes lit up for her, and Emma thought fleetingly that she could get used to basking in that glow.

“Aye, Swan. I’d love to have coffee with you.”

----

On the day of the Polar Express trip, Emma’s class had an extra chaperone along for the ride. Emma served hot chocolate topped with whipped cream and cinnamon, while Killian passed out homemade cookies, and soon even the most blasé fifth graders were filled with Christmas spirit. A little Christmas magic never hurt after all. 

[porchwood]

Okay, here goes. The incredible @everlarkedalways created a GoFundMe to help me out through present circumstances, but before I share that link, I wanted to explain a bit of what’s been going on. I feel awful accepting financial help, in part because I’ve been such a dry well for the past 18 months (I have nothing creative to give back/say “thank you” with) and also because so many of you have previously contributed monies to help me through other crisis points over the past five years (yes, it’s been that long and no, it doesn’t seem to be getting any better). But things are maybe the most desperate they’ve ever been and I really can’t say no to badly needed help.

Because I’m long-winded, I’m going to try to condense this into a simple chronological order. Things have been relentlessly bad since my car accident on December 26, 2013, but this is where the current run really started: 

December 2017: The day after Christmas, I went to the ER at 3am with excruciating chest and upper back pain, a bad experience all around (terrible staff, indifferent care). Their best guess was that I’d had an acid reflux attack, something I’d never had before (but have had since, alas :/).

January 2018: The ER bill saga began, and after loads of paperwork/headaches applying for any kind of aid/bill forgiveness, they put me on a payment plan for the $1,343 balance (and yes, that was "after” insurance - Marketplace policies are crap and all they did was “adjust” the total; nothing was covered). Meanwhile, I started taking Lucky to an acupuncturist over an hour’s drive away, desperate to find something to ease her severe separation anxiety (nonstop barking and howling when I was gone, which we have been struggling to treat, with varying degrees of success, for over two years). The sessions were very expensive (around $400 for one month - I had to put them on a credit card that I’m still chipping away at) and actually made her WORSE.

February 2018: The downstairs neighbors left a mildly threatening note about Lucky’s howling - the day before my birthday. In a ridiculous twist of luck, I managed to find a great sitter who only takes little dogs and was (and still is) able to watch Lucky for me as needed, but it cost me $25/day. (At most I would use her two days a week, but you can see how quickly that would add up.) At the same time, I also started administering CBD drops (suggested by our new vet) to Lucks when I had to leave her at home.

July 2018: After increasing the dosage multiple times, I finally started seeing improvement in Lucky’s behavior from a combination of the CBD drops and SAMe, which was huge (note the timespan), but these therapies cost about $100 month. I resolved to make it work somehow.

September 2018: I found out that my workplace had been bought out by an area salon and would be changing hands soon. Shortly thereafter the new owner sent us the employee handbook, which stated that we could not have another job in the same field (many massage therapists in this part of the country work at multiple places as there simply isn’t enough work to go around, especially in the off-season). The new owner was originally okay with me keeping my second job (on-call work at a yoga studio), and then I learned that that position was switching from a subcontractor to an outright rental (I would have to pay up front for the use of the room and possibly make none of it back while having to promote myself as a business), so for several reasons I decided I would leave that second job at the end of October and try to pick up more hours at my “main” job. One bright spot in all this: the downstairs neighbors moved out at the end of the month, but...

October 2018: ...the day after the neighbors moved out, the landlord informed my roommate (a THG fandom friend and content creator) that the owner of our building had sold the property and that we had 30 days to vacate. I can’t even begin to articulate how stressful, expensive, frightening, and exhausting that time was. By the end of October our only real option was a little house approximately 10 miles from town, and miraculously we got ourselves moved out there - to the tune of lots of $$$ and insane energy expenditure.

November 2018: Because I now lived about 20 mins from work and I have to come home at lunchtime to take Lucky out (and give her a booster of anxiety drops), I had to switch to split shifts. If you’ve ever worked split shifts, you will understand why this sucks (you’re never home, you’re always tired, and you never see or spend time with the people you live with). My new boss put me on the schedule for two additional days a week (I initially had just two days a week, period, hence the second job), which initially seemed very promising, but neither myself nor the rest of the staff realized that the new management had an either/or policy when it comes to pay. (This is messy and frustrating to explain, but in a nutshell: instead of getting paid commission for massages and hourly for the rest of your clocked-in time - laundry, desk help, etc - you get paid ONLY commission, i.e., nothing for all the extra things you do, unless the commission divided by hours amounts to less than minimum wage, in which case they pay you minimum wage for the week instead, including for your massage hours. Which is not cool but is, apparently, legal.) So I was driving about an hour a day (20 mins each way, twice, to the tune of about 300 miles/week) just to make minimum wage (we were entering the dead season for massage and I’m the perpetual “second string” therapist anyway, so some weeks I had just four clients in four days :/), which was exhausting and disheartening.

December 2018: Daylight glimmered: my sister (with whom I am extremely close and who I hadn’t seen in a year and a half) flew out to see me after Christmas. A coworker agreed to cover the whole week and a half of her visit for me, and I was a little nervous about taking the time off (unpaid, of course) at such a rotten financial time, but I hadn’t had a vacation of any kind since moving to Maine nor a weekend off since August of 2017. I resolved to be extra frugal during her visit and my work schedule was going to be almost full after she left, so I was pretty sure I could squeak through somehow.

I saw her off on her return trip, and that night I was carrying some dishes down from our living room when I took a very bad fall down the stairs. These are awful, steep “Maine stairs,” and in my fall my left leg shot out through the open side of the staircase and wedged the knee against the bookcase in the dining room below. When I tried to get up I realized that something was very wrong with my knee, and my roommate helped me to bed with ice, a brace, ibuprofen, etc. The following morning I went to the hospital and was directed to the same stupid ER (the last place I ever wanted to go again, but they don’t have urgent care out here and wouldn’t let me just see a GP, so I broke down and cried in admissions). The care I received was middling, if not as bad as on my previous visit, and the nurse-practitioner ordered no weight-bearing for three days, which meant losing the rest of that (desperately needed) work week, and advised following up with orthopedics the next week if the knee wasn’t better.

My wonderful roommate made all kinds of accommodations for my comfort for those three days, and I implemented all the extra therapies I could think of (turmeric, arnica, l-glutamine, Epsom salt soaks, etc). I asked my employers about the possibility of picking up non-massage hours (covering the desk, laundry, etc) but was given the impression that there was nothing for me to do till I could return to massage again. I went to the orthopedic doctor last Thursday and his diagnosis was an MCL (least concerning of the knee ligaments) sprain or tear. I was already strides ahead on his self-care recommendations (getting myself off the crutches, constantly wearing a good brace) and he was supposed to refer me for some PT, but I haven’t heard a peep on that front, and I’m not particularly concerned because, Lord knows, my insurance probably wouldn’t pay for that anyway. He estimated 4 weeks to full recovery but I’m determined to get back to work before that.

So, here’s where we’re at: I’m out of work at the worst time of year, and at the very least, I’ll lose 2.5 weeks of pay (on top of the planned week I took off, plus Christmas and New Year’s were unpaid holidays). Because we live in Maine where everyone has beastly heating fuel, even in a decently insulated house (as I believe this one to be), it costs us around $350 a month to keep the place at 58 degrees through the winter months. (Yes, 58 degrees. 60 if we’re splurging.)

My credit cards are maxed out from car repairs and copious Lucky expenses (including an emergency vet visit - she ended up being fine but it was one of those things that happens after hours/over a weekend and you really shouldn’t wait several days to have checked out).

Oh, and just for fun, our January rent payment got lost in the mail. The landlord was very nice about it and we promptly sent out a replacement, but this meant paying $35 for a stop-payment on the missing check (did I mention that I had to buy checks, to the tune of almost $30, just for paying rent?).

Those of you who have already donated: you are quite literally keeping me going right now. You covered Lucky’s rabies booster yesterday and refills of her food and supplements (all of which, naturally, were running out at the same time), and Lucky is absolutely the reason I’m still alive, so her care honestly means more to me than my own.

I have no idea what my medical bills will look like at this point. I’m assuming the ER visit will be around $1000, and I’m sure the orthopedic visit will be up there somewhere too. As soon as bills start coming in I’ll apply for aid (or, likelier than not, a payment plan), but in order to do that they’re going to want my new tax returns, which means I’m going to have to get my taxes done (probably in Feb) just to find out what my ultimate medical expenses will be. (I used to do my own taxes cheaply through TaxAct, but I was a subcontractor for part of the year, which complicates things and means having to pay someone $$$ to do them this round. I may actually owe on my taxes this year, which is terrifying.)

The healing has been going well overall and I’m hoping to be able to go back to work next week, but I don’t want to assume my knee will oblige. To add insult to injury, I just got hammered with a terrible cold (the kind that levels you in bed), so my body is triaging itself and I’m not sure which is going to get the care first. Surprisingly enough, Lucky’s being a great little nurse, but recovery is a difficult and very lonely process, especially when you get saddled with illness on top of injury.

Anyway, sorry for the ramble. I’ve been reluctant to talk about the miserable past year, but in light of the fact that I’m receiving (and, I guess, asking for :/ ) help, I thought you should know what’s been going on. Thanks for listening and blessings on your day. <3

[filmfreak1994]

Change the Channel

A lot of people have been talking about their experiences with Channel Awesome in the wake of the 60+ page document released by Allison Pregler and several other former content creators for Channel Awesome. I figured I might throw my own experience with the site and its people (mostly Doug) too while the topic is relevant, even considered dusting off the old camera I got for Christmas to film a video but allergy season is upon us and I’m coughing up my lungs so the written word it is.

I was a frequent user of YouTube in the early days of its inception, mostly to look up viral videos and just go on a stream of pointlessness for hours on end with each recommended vid in the sidebar (mostly consisting of parodies to Star Wars, LotR, and entire Simpsons episodes uploaded before the great purge of early 2008). In all that time between 2006 and 2007, reviewers like the Angry Video Game Nerd and The Nostalgia Critic eluded me. I saw plenty of the 5 Second Movie clips and thought they were hysterical but didn’t even make the connection that they were made by a “Nostalgia Critic” until around the end of 2009, when a friend of mine at school told me to look up NC’s review of Sonic the Hedgehog (the weird TV show and the futuristic evil Jim Cummings one). I finally gave in which led me to watching some of his other, recent reviews like the “Star Wars Holiday Special” which was freaking hysterical (and still brings a warm smile to my face just thinking about it). By the time the new year rolled around and I had discovered That Guy With The Glasses I was hooked.

For a while I stuck to watching reviews on YouTube when fans would rip them from the main site, but decided to eventually support the site itself where I mostly stuck to NC videos but also watched content from the other producers when it interested me; Spoony and his Final Fantasy reviews, Linkara and any comic with a subject material I was familiar with, Marzgurl and her Don Bluth retrospective, so on and so forth. Like many other people, I wasn’t keeping up with every producer’s videos weekly like I was with NC, but when I decided to watch something else their content was worth it, being funny and informative all at once, even creating new branches of my interest and giving me new perspectives on media criticism.

I watched Nostalgia Critic religiously every week and, sorry to say, started to take his opinion as gospel, and the opinions of other reviewers as well, treating certain movies and shows as bad just because they said so and didn’t have an opinion for myself for the longest time. It was when I started to pay attention to Doug Walker himself and his philosophy that you should like what you like and every movie is a miracle that I started to chill out and even disagree with his opinions at times (I remember his “Little Nemo” review made me seek out that movie and I actually quite enjoyed it).

TGWTG was a formative site for me in my high school years, developing much of my sense of humor and how I look at movies. I watched all the anniversary specials, started to watch a greater portion of producers that included Lindsay and Kyle’s more analytical reviews and Brad Jones’s and Matthew Buck’s mix of cynicism and snark with genuine analytical praise and criticism. I even started to look at music critics like Paw or Todd even though I can’t judge music for shit (if it has a catchy beat I’ll more or less dig it, I’m not picky). I always imagined when I moved out for college (yeah, how’d that work out for ya, younger me) that I would start my own review series in the vein of these online personalities and even be picked up for the site where I too could join in on the anniversary movies and have a swell time and make friends with the people I looked up to and have a good time filming huge crossover events with them (in hindsight I can only imagine what role Doug would have me play in them, if I was even deemed important to be in them at all). Whenever people criticized the anniversary movies I just shrugged it off and said, “Yeah, they’re dumb, but I like em anyway,” and when rumors starting going around about some upside down crucifixion going on I shrugged them off as just rumors (and to be fair it wasn’t upside down but the real thing isn’t much better).

Anyway, around the time when To Boldly Flee came I enjoyed the movie a lot (I only saw it the once and I was eighteen, eighteen-year-old me and present me don’t get on anymore) and thought it was a bittersweet conclusion to The Nostalgia Critic but was excited to see what new projects Doug and the company would do after its conclusion. Plus the other contributors still had their content to keep TGWTG going strong into the foreseeable future. At least I thought.

I didn’t hate Demo Reel, but I didn’t like it all that much either. I only caught around a few episodes before losing interest, saying I’d get back into it eventually but never going out of my way to see them. By accounts they got better as they went along and I was interested in the episode that paid tribute to Elizabeth Hartman (which I think is the same episode that had Mara Wilson and Arin Hanson? I might be wrong (I didn’t even know who Arin was at the time but hindsight is 20/20)), but I just put off watching them until, oh look, NC’s back. At the time I thought this was interesting, there was plenty he could still do with the character given his new ground rules and the emphasis on skits gave the show a different tune that I felt, at the time, kept it fresh from what it was before. I missed the simplicity of the earlier reviews but I happily stuck with the NC again, as well as the same creators I’d happily watched before and plenty more I started to watch like Phelous (around the time he did that weird Aladdin meets Pagemaster movie, I used to rent that from Hollywood Video all the freaking time).

It was around this tumultuous time that Doug actually kinda started to annoy me. Never to the point where I stopped watching NC, but he sort of seemed to forget his whole “Like what you like,” message and outright attacked fans who disagreed with him. Certain jokes in his reviews rubbed me the wrong way (if Irate Gamer can’t get away with blowing up Ubisoft cuz they wouldn’t let him into a conference, you can’t get away with pretending to blow up Happy Madison just because they make shit movies) and he had a general vindictiveness to those who liked movies like “Man of Steel” or “The Lorax” that just seemed mean spirited and not a funny little video meant to entertain (though I guess the signs were always there like when he added in a dig at “Avatar” in his “Conan” review for no reason). But by and by he seemed to mellow out (no doubt dealing with problems letting go of Demo Reel and how big a success he thought it would be) and I still watched his stuff, including the vlogs he did with Rob regarding “Avatar” (the good one, hey I did it too!), “Korra,” “Adventure Time,” and any recent movie that came out. I started to agree with them less and less but they were still entertaining guys and I liked what they were doing.

Some of the shadier stuff going on at the site more or less flew over my head. The game show they did was pretty much “Demo Reel” part two for me in how much interest I had in it and that faded from public consciousness pretty quickly, and it was around the time the site switched from TGWTG to just Channel Awesome that a real shift began to become more noticeable. People were leaving. People I may not have watched all the time, but they were leaving, often times unannounced and seemingly unprovoked (because quite a few of them were). I read about what happened to Allison, aka Obscurus Lupa, who I had watched on and off again and thought that was pretty shitty, and got a general grasp that the management of CA itself wasn’t very good from what she and Lindsay alluded to (or just straight up said, they really should’ve had some NDAs if they cared so much about how they look) in some posts on Tumblr or Twitter but I still carried on watching NC and the other creators on the site mostly because I just figured what every fan figured at the time, Doug was mostly innocent and it was Michaud and Rob who were the real strings behind big decisions like who stays and goes (I liked Rob fine, but even back then I knew he could be kind of an ass).

More and more people from the classic era of TGWTG were leaving or not producing as much for the site as they did and that was a shame. CA was never what TGWTG felt like to me, even if the purpose was to put more focus on the other producers (supposedly (hell, TGWTG did a way better job of featuring producers in my opinion even if it wasn’t perfect)). But whatever, I carried on every Tuesday watching NC, watching other creators when their stuff interested me, but it still wasn’t quite the same as before, and I had become more aware of the general bad experience most people had filming the anniversary movies even if the full extent of that didn’t come until a few days ago.

It was really when Lewis announced that he had left and I found the Change the Channel hashtag that I started to take notice of these stories, finding plenty of them on my own from the links to Twitter conversations many of the former contributors were having before reading them on the Google doc. I was torn, wondering if I should boycott NC with all that I had read and decided to make it a temporary one until the doc came out and to see if he or CA would provide a statement. Well, the doc came out and the apology not long after. And yeah, I moved it to a permanent ban after that bullshit.

I’ve given up watching people I loved before, JonTron and his racist bullshit was the last straw in supporting anything he did, and even with the Me Too movement I’ve given up any kind of support for people like Kevin Spacey who I used to love as an actor (now it’s pretty easy to see how he was able to play such scumbag villains over and over again). I know Doug isn’t a Nazi or Nazi sympathizer, and to my knowledge he hasn’t used his position to sexually take advantage of anyone (though he has turned a blind eye to others doing the same and the same can’t be said for taking advantage of people in other ways), but I just couldn’t watch stuff directly made by him and for Channel Awesome with all this information. It wouldn’t be right, even with an adblocker. 

I don’t mean to threaten the livelihood of people on his team like Malcolm or Tamara, I like them a great deal and they’re very talented, heck I even enjoyed the skits on NC a lot more than most because of them (and Rachel, she was great too). But I said to myself until an actual apology is listed and some form of action is taken to truly better the site, I wouldn’t watch them. Others have suggested and I have thought the same, that the best thing to do would be to fire Michaud, though I realize this would create a slew of problems given that he owns the IP for NC and is the founder of CA. Still, some form of acknowledgement from the Walkers would go a long way to bettering the public response to all this. More and more contributors have left in the wake of this document, either out of fear for their own image or to show solidarity with the many complaints levied toward the site (and their reasons are completely valid no matter what, they’re trying to make a living), looking at the site today it’s practically a ghost town. I don’t blame those that have stayed for anything, but the reputation of CA is tarnished and at this point, especially with that piss-poor “apology,” it’s going to take several huge leaps to get it back.

I realize the purpose of Change the Channel was never to create a boycott of NC or any of the Walker’s content, at least by the majority of those who contributed to the docs, and those who choose to boycott do so of their own volition. Well, that’s my volition. No matter how much NC shaped my sense of humor in my younger years and inspired me to look at movies critically myself, I can’t deny the damage that Doug and Rob have been complicit in nor turn a blind eye to the shady practices they, Michaud, and past executives on the site have done. 

I really do wish that what was seemingly apparent in front of the camera, that this was a site filled of talented people who were also good friends having a good time, was true behind the scenes as well. People have been hurt, assaulted, taken advantage of, and tossed aside when they were no longer useful to the site. It’s not right, and I’m literally changing the channel until actual change is made.

[rainystripe]

{one-shot (?)} ROLL DEEP

pairing: Jughead Jones/Betty Cooper fandom: Riverdale 6773 words Summary/excerpt: “Merry Christmas, jo—y” he mutters to himself after securing a large bite of brownie in his mouth. It’s dark in his room during Christmas, but the darkness fades away as his phone lights up with 5 back to back messages from Betty. It doesn’t take much guessing to wonder what she’s sent.

A greeting of course, and a million colorful emoji.

Jug!

Merry Christmas

!

--

or,

Jughead Jones + Netflix and Chill= Betty Cooper?

AO3

Okay, idk where to start LOL. This is inspired by my own dumb text posts and @sweaters-and-crowns inspired me to write this out. I wrote this shit in an entire sitting until my phone was about to die. ANYWAY, a huge, HUGE thank you to @theatreofexpression, @electromagnetic-waves and @rezfaultsmoke for helping me out with this! Honestly, cannot express my gratitude enough <3

I have the option for a possible follow up chapter just in case I go along with it. But lemme know if one of you is interested in collaborating with the second one?!

lastly, Happy Holidays to everyone reading this.

Being alone wasn’t all that bad. Jughead Jones knew that perfectly well. And it’s not that he’s entirely lonely, he has friends and family.

A very spotty family at that, but there’s always a family there for him. And as of late, his choice of family isn’t one by blood in fact, his best friend and his dad are always there for him. Archie and Fred Andrews are always on call for whenever he needs anything. It’s not that Jughead is some type of beggar, because he isn’t, but when he finds that he needs the comforting warmth of familiar faces, good greasy food, and overall good times, the Andrews men are always a good choice.

It’s December 13th in late 2015 when Archie texts Jughead the password to the Netflix account that had recently Fred opened up. The red haired teen has done nothing but gush about how ‘epic’ and ‘fucking awesome’ the application was and at first Jughead doesn’t understand the hype. He’s heard of it, yeah— who hasn’t? The ads are everywhere and so are the stupid memes. Jughead also didn’t understand why he would  need an online theater since there was a perfectly working on through the Bijou and the Twilight. The later of while held glorious tin encased reels from years past. Nothing could compare to the original format of film, but alas, Jughead was born in a different era: the Digital Age.

“Netflix and Chill”

Just hearing Archie talk about the popular term makes the blue eyed teen grimace as he stuffs a chip into his mouth. Archie has been on a quest to ‘get some girls’ and as far as Jughead knew, no one was biting. He does however, know what the entirety of the football team have been ‘getting some fine ass pussy’ (according to Chuck Clayton) as of late, and the not-subtle locker confessions are always accompanied by the Netflix and Chill combo. He doesn’t quite get what the fuss is all about nor does he care. But one thing is for sure, and that is that Jughead Jones doesn’t want to “chill” with a girl while he could be watching a movie on his own.

Unless that girl was blonde, green eyed and super into movies as he was. Elizabeth Cooper was the only girl that he'd hang out with and that was law. No one else could sit with him through a movie, not even his kid sister Jellybean, as she’d talk through the entire selection of his choice and whine about his top choice films for being ‘boring’. Archie was something else, maybe he’d reconsider the ginger if he’d stop falling asleep during Inglourious Basterds. So, Betty was the perfect candidate for watching a movie or t.v series with.

There’s a strange occurrence one day when they all sit for lunch one day, the blonde plops down and immediately dips her head down to ask them something. They’re outside in the blistering cold and Archie is seated next to her while Jughead sits across from the pair. It’s a normal lunch break  until Betty asks what the meaning to ‘chilling with Netflix...or whatever’ meant.

The redhead next to her strings loudly at the wooden guitar while Jughead swears the apple juice he’s just been drinking might’ve gone up his nose. Their reactions only cause Betty’s authoritative gaze to inquire for more information and in typical Cooper fashion, the look demands answers.

“Uh, w-why do you ask, Betts?” Jughead doesn’t mean to stutter, but he does and he doesn’t know why.

Betty blinks and a blonde brow shoots up “Because... Reggie just asked me if I wanted to ‘chill and netflix’ with him.” Her fingers raise to quote her own words, confusion evident on her face. “And then his goonies started to laugh!” She huffs and purses her lips.

Both Archie and Jughead share a knowing look, one of pity from Jughead and the other of awkwardness from his best friend. While Betty picks and tears at the plastic wrapped around her straw, she mumbles in annoyance, distaste as clear as day on her face.

“Ugh. What does that mean?” she mumbles.

Archie’s chocolate eyes urge Jughead’s own icy ones and vice versa. There’s a tiny tug and pull to see who will let Betty in on the dumb trend, and Jughead finally sighs. It always felt weird to talk about anything dirty or suggestive to wholesome Betty Cooper.

“Err— well, Betty…” when he finally starts, her ears perk up and all of her attention is on the beanie clad boy. The curious look and doe eyes make him gulp.

Why did he suddenly feel bad?

“Reggie is being a dumbo as per usual, so don’t listen to anything that leaves his Colgate mouth. But, if you must know…”

The explaining happens and by the end, Betty is fuming in disgust. Archie plants a comforting hand on her back and Jughead offers up the apple on his tray that he never eats as a condolence, one which Betty gratefully pockets for her walk back home after school.

That night, when he’s lounging in tiny space of his living room, his phone rings. Homework has been finished and his backpack was ready for the next class day. Jughead was fresh out the shower and attempting to write on his laptop when the password is texted to him. He stares at his phone for a good minute and ponders if his slow internet would even entice him to download the app on the older computer. It’s not until another text comes through a few minutes later that Archie reminds him of the web browser alternative that he finally gives in and signs into the page.

Writing was sort of boring and the trailer was actually warm for once thanks to the ancient heater that rumbled to life after kicking it in frustration that cold morning. Jughead turns off the light next to him by the couch, allowing darkness to engulf the tiny trailer. The website is simple enough and he realizes that one account already has been set to be his. He snorts and smiles and proceeds to click on the lazy looking image. He doesn’t know where to start; there is an overwhelming amount of content that’s plastered on the main page.

Mean Girls, The Walking Dead, Pocahontas even. Everything is new and flashy and none of it catches his attention and after scrolling for what felt like forever, a recommendation that he recognizes greets him: Rebel Without A Cause.

“Huh, not bad Netflix, not bad at all.” He mutters.

Jughead watches the entirety of the movie and then he’s watches another, and another. He watches a total of four classic films before his eyes close on him. The laptop eventually goes to sleep and Jughead has a strange dream where he’s the main character in a noir inspired film and Betty is a spy that’s out to get him.

—

Surprisingly enough, Netflix becomes a normal part of Jughead’s daily routine. He often finds himself watching The Twilight Zone while getting ready for school. Other times, he’s sitting on the small two person table in the corner of the kitchen while blowing on the instant ramen that he's made for dinner as Nightmare on Elm Street blares through the speakers of his laptop.

He won’t admit it to anyone because he’s not one to admit to anything, but Jughead finds himself literally chilling while watching Netflix. So maybe the concept of an online Blockbuster isn’t all that bad.

The days go on, and when Christmas break finally arrives, a selection of Christmas themed movies filter through his recommended list. Most of the films that have been selected don’t interest him—sans the original Home Alone (and that one only) so Jughead settles on binging the X-Files and going against the holiday mood that the year has bestowed on the entire planet.

“Santa, kiss my ass. Hello, aliens.”

On Christmas Eve, the trio of friends spend a few hours of the afternoon at Pop’s. Betty and Archie bring gifts and spoil Jughead. While he doesn’t have any gifts to give due to his nonexistent cash flow, he does manage to scavenge enough money from under the couch and the inside of his father's truck to pay for two milkshakes.

“Aww, you didn’t have to, Juggie!” críes Betty, but the look in her eyes say otherwise. If there was a way to describe the word ‘mouthwatering’ it would be the way her jade eyes gloss over with glee at the sight of her favorite treat being placed in front of her. Beside’s, milkshakes usually mark the end of their usual meal, so it was tradition anyway.

“It’s fine, Betty. Trust me. Just enjoy it, please.” The burning embarrassment that’s filling his belly makes him squirm at his version of a gift, but alas, his friends don’t seem to care about the quality or price tag.

“Okay.” Betty pouts back, but she cracks not a second after when her finger dips to scoop up the whipped cream topping the strawberry milkshake. The shy smile on her face makes him smile in return and before he can even register what he’s doing, the maraschino cherry from Betty’s treat is being plucked away from its creamy resting place.

“Jug!” she gasps in mild horror.

A sheepish grin breaks out on Jughead after popping the cherry into his mouth.

In the end, Archie offers his which Betty gratefully accepts and chews on while glaring at the dark haired boy sitting across from her.

Betty’s gift is a new cotton sweater in a cool grey, there’s no hoodie or zipper to it, and while it’s not his usual style, it’s very comfortable and warms him up faster than the broken heater. She’s also gifts him with the annual batch of brownies prepared by her mother, ones which he looked forward to every year. The sinful double chocolate chip fudge brownies were the epitome of heaven on earth that Alice Cooper somehow made every year. It was a treat that contradicts her usual strict style of dieting and control of food for her family, but he had no complains about the brownies, and he never will— unless she changes up the recipe to be skinny. His other gift is a 40 dollar gift card to Pops which Archie swears was the best gift ever since he will be able to reload it whenever he wanted to. A suggestion which Archie throws at him that includes the pink card being reloaded by him for his birthday and the following Christmas.

He’s grateful, he really is. Money is a problem, Jughead grew up with minimal money in his life. Being poor and broke and living off used things was the norm for him. He was still too young to find a job and while his father does provide here and there (albeit rarely being home) Jughead manages.

He always manages.

The internet that runs throughout Sunnyside is a shared connection routing through one main trailer where a guy manages to get illegal access to. It’s not the fastest or the best as every trailer uses the line, but it works fine for him when he’s nestles in bed at night. Being a night owl had its perks, no one was awake when he was, which meant that the internet was free of all the traffic that usually slows it down during the day.

Midnight arrives like any other night. There’s a distant crack in the air, fireworks most likely.

“Merry Christmas, jo—y” he mutters to himself after securing a large bite of brownie in his mouth. It’s dark in his room during Christmas, but the darkness fades away as his phone lights up with 5 back to back messages from Betty. It doesn’t take much guessing to wonder what she’s sent.

A greeting of course, and a million colorful emoji.

Jug!

Merry

Christmas

!

followed by a plethora of green Christmas trees and pink hearts (oddly enough) a few reindeer, presents, bows and confetti. All which she flawlessly executes with the dramatic background effect on the messaging app which lights up with animated fireworks.

“Geez, Betty. An enigma you are.” He reckons out loud before replying with his own simple greeting.

Merry Christmas, Betty. followed by a plain thumbs up.

—

Exactly two years later, 2016 Jughead Jones would have actually laughed in the face of his present self when told that he was in a romantic relationship. A romantic relationship with a girl, not a stranger, but Elizabeth Cooper.

Jughead was sure that love wasn’t for him. Love and affection had screwed him over since the day he was conceived. His father, FP Jones was a recovering alcoholic now, but he he used to be a poor father. A gang leader, drug dealer with major issues. Gladys Jones— his mother, who knows where the hell she’d fucked off to. She claims to be in Toledo with his grandparents and younger sister Jellybean, but who knows really.

Life had gotten complex during the summer of 2017. A local golden boy had been murdered and the mystery of who did it had somehow brought Betty and himself closer together, so close in fact that Jughead realized that his feelings for her were much farther from friendly.

They had their ups and downs as any couple does. At some point he was sure that they just couldn’t work out. It was as if the universe and his cursed destiny tried to pry him from anything good in his life, but he should have known Betty.

Boy, should he have, especially when dealing with Betty and her world famous stubbornness.

Her fight and reassurance kicks him in the face, planting firmly the idea that he controls his own path and destiny. So, ever since their last breakup back during Halloween, things have been well for the young couple. So well in fact that he was sure he was permanently high.

High off Betty Cooper.

A delicious high, one which he couldn’t get enough of. Her scent, her skin, eyes nose and lips, every bit of Betty was a craving that he woke up to every morning. Jughead was still somewhat shy and awkward around her, that was who he was in personality. He wasn’t some stud who walked around oozing sex appeal and constantly grabbing his girlfriends ass while out in public. Far from it.

Behind closed doors and in the comfort of certain places, both teens found solace in each other’s arms. A comfort and warm that could brave anything the outside world brought to them. No attempt at joining his father's ex-gang could break them. Alice Cooper’s demands to leave FP’s son in Southside went on deaf ears.

Jughead muttered words of love to Betty.

“I love you...I love you.”

She’d watched in surprise at his confession, one which filled her with so much joy that she found the words to mutter them back with tears looking at her jade eyes as she inched closer with a heart crushing smile on her face.

“Jughead Jones, I love you.”

Betty was a part of him then and an even more important one now.

The warm scent of coconut wafts up his nostrils. It’s Christmas again, and this year Betty is spending it with him in the dinky trailer. It’s cold inside and neither teen have bothered to separate from each other to run out and grab the portable heater that Betty had brought along.

Betty’s lips are on his, working through a wet frenzy that makes his stomach clench in need. Their kiss is sloppy to say the least. Long have the brownies been forgotten. The fresh sweets where the reason as to why she was with him in the first place, having begged Alice to let her take the car to drop them off. Even though it was midnight now, Betty had perfectly mapped out when to ask and leave the house.

“Mm—Betty, your mom—“  Jughead muttered between kisses.

“—is asleep” she replied around a mouthful full of tongue. Feverish kisses filled the air of the cramped trailer, their mouths digging deeper into one another. Betty whimpered at the feel of Jughead’s tongue curling against her own, her hands coming down to keep her steady against the edges of the couch.

“You sure?”

“Positive, now shut up and kiss me.” She smiled into his lips. The blue eyed boy eyes crinkled in response, a mischievous smile creeping tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“If you say so.” He finished before attacking her moist lips once more. Teeth came in contact and wet sounds filled the air. The short gasps of air warmed up their faces as they continued to kiss until Betty was resting her back against the worn out cushions of the couch.

This Christmas was already starting off with a literal bang and Jughead had never been so excited for any holiday in his life.

Nimble fingers slip into midnight curls, tugging Jughead closer into her mouth. The same fingers feel good against his scalp which send a delicious sensation down his spine and across his entire body. He’s positioned himself above the blonde, making sure not to crush her by hoisting his body up by one knee in between her legs while the other hangs off the couch. Betty’s legs however, are a different story. The couch was far too small and they were both too tall. One of Betty’s legs is propped up against the headrest of the couch while the other struggles to stay curled around his hanging leg. Gravity doesn’t help and her leg is constantly dragging down before she hoists it back up into place.

Betty notes the taste on his lips and tongue, it’s sweet from the brownies and strong from the coffee he’d downed earlier. The taste is delicious and she can’t get enough and makes sure to let it be known when she curls her tongue against his own, sucking on it lightly. The action causes the deep rumble of his moan to rip through the deepest reaches of his body. It strikes her as super sexy and she moans back.

Jughead latches onto her bottom lip, knipping it softly before plucking it. Her cherry lips are engorged and plump, screaming in a lovely tint that only beckons him to return. Her chest is heaving and his hand reaches out to lift the peach colored top from her body. The tiniest brush against her skin burns him and suddenly the room is no longer freezing, but scalding hot.

Sucking in a ragged breath, Betty manages to lift the top half of her body and arms to remove her sweater, leaving her in a flower patterned lace bra. The laptop screen is still bright in front of them. Home Alone is playing in the background and the hotel scene manages to accentuate the lighting around Betty.

Jughead swallows at the mere sight of Betty’s glowing honey eyes under the effect of the screen. A sheen of gloss on her lips blinds him and he wants nothing more than to kiss her again.

He’s about to lean down when she stops with him with a warm hand on his chest.

Her usually alert eyes are blown wide and lust envelops the usually sweet girl. Her bottom lip is caught between her teeth and Jughead feels his mouth go dry.

Betty is stunning.

The swell of her breasts calls to him and he can’t get close. The periwinkle tinted bra is tight against her skin and he wonders if he can free her from it soon. Betty, however has other plans. She shoots him a shy look and avoids eye contact and she wiggles out of her skirt.

“Betty?” He whispers. Why? He doesn’t know. It’s not like there’s someone else in the trailer.

When the fabric reaches her knees, Jughead takes it as a signal to move back and give her space to watch her as she lifts her long legs in the air to dispose of the wine colored skirt.

It’s a sight, and wonderful one at that. Long creamy legs, supple thighs and matching set of underwear greet him and blue eyes watch intently as Betty bends both knees in front of her stomach. Her pink sneakers dangle in front if him as her arms reach for her knees, hugging them close to her chest. A teasing smile causes his boxers to feel tighter. Blood pumps down south and Jughead groans. The only time that he chooses to wear boxers briefs too. The strain is stifling and he feels the urge to get naked then and there.

“Betts…” He sighs in desperation. He doesn’t know why she’s huddled up or why she’s smiling at him him like that, but damn does she looks good enough to eat.

“Jug…” she copies. Her hands move from cupping her knees to roaming down her legs all while keeping her knees close. It’s a movement that baby blue eyes never stray away from.

Jughead’s eyes widen slightly, urging her on. “Yeah?”

Suddenly she’s nervous, very nervous. There’s something that she’s been wanting for a few days now, a repeat of what they first tried a week prior. An experiment that involved Jughead’s mouth. It’s hunted her, the thought and memories combined with feelings causing arousal to pool in between her legs.

She can’t help wanting to stop their act to get a dose of his mouth on her nether region, but the need is incredibly strong and her panties only become wetter by the second.

“I want you...here.” Her legs part slightly, allowing enough space for her arm to budge through her thigh to cover her sex through her underwear. Betty gulps in anticipation, wondering if Jughead will say no and if she’s ruined the moment with her request.

Their sexual history was tame, wild missionary sex with the occasional ass in the air for Betty as Jughead pounds at her from behind. Sex was new, and they’d only been experimenting for a few weeks, so introducing something new was always nerve wracking. Betty remembers how shy he’d been when she had stuffed her hand into his jeans two nights after their loss of virginity. A day after that Jughead rubbed her into an orgasm over her panties while waiting for school to start. Even then, they’d both fumbled during the entire process. A series of apologies littered the entire thing consummation.

They were wet behind the ears, yes, but that didn’t stop two hormonal teenagers from lusting after each other. Two weeks prior, Jughead managed to gather his thoughts and went down on Betty for the first time, earning him a wet nose and chin with a thigh crushing orgasm against his head from Betty all while doing it on her childhood bed. It must have been good enough to want her to ask for seconds, because his heart has leapt at her sudden request.

“Oh.” He said lightly.

Noticing his response not being as enthusiastic as she’d imagined it be, Betty’s legs slowly drop back down, embarrassment engulfing her. Again, her heart quickens and a dull ring is the only thing that she can properly register. Quickly, she moves to sit up, green eyes avoiding his. The shame in her face is obvious and Betty feels stupid for ruining the moment.

Why couldn’t she have just let nature take its course without having to interrupt it for her own selfish needs?

“You know, never mind.” A nervous laugh escapes her and Betty is moving to sit up but Jughead stops her. The boy moves in closer to her, and her legs are nudged apart. Her heart slams against her chest and Betty is blinking up at Jughead in surprise.

“It’s okay, Betty. I’ll do it...you don’t have to ask.” He adds shyly. His eyes wander to hers, locking together that it becomes hard to look away.

It was surprising that she’s asked him to repeat the act. The first time was sloppy and not how he’d imagine it to be, but he had managed to make her come and since it was never brought up again until now, Jughead had guessed she didn’t like it.

But now, his member was growing stiffer against his boxers the longer that he thought about tasting Betty again.

“Oh, I just…” her green eyes also wander off with an equally awkward look on her face, but  her focus moves to his pajama pants where a bulge was beginning to form. The red in her cheeks is adorable and Jughead suddenly leans down to kiss her, catching her off guard. Betty gasps into the kiss, opening her mouth wider for Jughead’s tongue to invade every inch. The kiss gets heated, and Jughead body pushes down against her own, making Betty lay down once again.

As they kiss, Jughead inhales deeply, enjoying the mewls that escaped Betty when taking her leg to prop back up against the headrest. His hand trails down from her knee, down the smooth skin of her inner thigh.

The continue to kiss with Betty breaking contact to shuffle closer down towards his knee, spreading her legs even wider in the process by hooking an arm under her other leg. Kisses are placed against his jaw and down the exposed skin of his neck. It’s only when her nose nuzzles his sweater does he realize that he’s still fully clothed.

Jughead shrugs off the material in a hurry, his hair becoming a mess of curls jutting in every direction, a look which makes Betty bite at the corner of her bottom lip.

He looks delicious.

Shirtless, with wild hair and a trail of dark hair that disappears into his pajama pants. Jughead makes Betty’s clit throb in need, so much so that her hand leaves her leg to cup her center instead. The fabric is moist to the touch and Betty gasps at how sensitive she feels at the simplest of pressure.

“Juggie…”

Jughead’s stormy eyes shine black under the light of the laptop screen, the shadows cast complex shadows on Jughead’s body which cause Betty to lick at her lips when trailing her eyes down his exposed chest and hips. The black band of his boxers pokes through the blue hues of the plaid pattern of his bottoms. The dip in his hips is sharp and balances out the smooth taut skin of his abdomen while his arms fill out with a strong bulk of muscle that works for his body type: not too much but enough to make her mouth water.

“Lay back Betty.”

And she does, head coming in contact with the wood skeleton of the ancient armrest. The butterflies in her stomach suddenly burst into a flurry of excitement that make her suck in a breath of anticipation. Both of her hands come to lay on her stomach, her chest rising and falling at an alarming rate.

“I’m gonna go down on you, okay?” It's not until Jughead moves slightly that Betty ss able to see how deep his eyes have darkened, the pupils of his eyes gone pitch black with a single ring of blue circling the iris. The look alone cause her walls to pulse on their own and Betty nods.

“Okay.”

The movie is long forgotten and the brownies are as cold by then. Jughead finds a spot on his stomach to lay on, its cramped on the couch. It’s one of the time where he wishes he could move them to the bed, but all that walking would ruin some of the mood.

When he’s nestled in front Betty’s spread legs, her arousal become more evident. There’s a dark patch on her panties and the fabric sticks to her folds like a second skin.

“Jug…”

He glances up at Betty, who’d eventually moved up a bit to give him space. Her blonde head now rests on the armrest, one leg still up on the head rest while the other is dangled off his couch. Betty’s green eyes were dark and glazed over in need, both her hands fisted at her hips.

“Sorry, babe.” Her arousal was strong, enticing and doing things to him. Jughead’s hand move to hover above her panty before hooking a finger right over the soaked spot to push the material to the side, exposing Betty to the cool air. She shudders at the exposure and shifts slightly. It’s still somewhat embarrassing to be so exposed, but Jughead boosts a confidence in her that she was sure she didn’t have before and she loves it.

Gulping at the sight, Jughead inches closer to Betty, the elegant slit, moist and beckoning for attention.

“You know, somehow this is better than those brownies.” He muses, smirking.

Betty’s cheeks flame up at the comment and her legs move to close before he’s reaching up to push them apart.

She’s embarrassed and rightfully so, they both have yet to stare openly at each other so intimately.

“Please” She whispers. “I want this.” Betty whines and bucks her hips, rolling them in want. The blonde patch of hair above her pink folds is always a sight to behold. It’s cute and suits her and while he didn’t understand her need to trim, Jughead decides that it is very Betty like to have and quite frankly, he doesn’t care how she looks like down there.

His fingers brush over the tougher hair, tugging at it slightly before running them down her moist lips. And in one swoop, his face is burying down on to her warm core.

Nose deep, Jughead sucks in the air around him, slowing down to breath while indulging in Betty. A shudder rips through her body and she shakes beneath him with a moan so loud that it alarms even herself. Immediately, her hands reach to grab onto anything. And Betty finds her nails digging into the back of the armrest and the cushion beneath her. Her body arches, hips rolling into her boyfriends mouth while her body twists in pleasure. The shaking never stops and Betty knows she isn’t cold.

“Ah—“ she cries out. Jughead closes his eyes, his tongue rolling up and down Betty’s folds, making sure to stop on her clit to rub circles on the bundle of nerves. She’s shaking and he smirks into her skin.

Her body hasn’t been stimulated like that, with a ravenous mouth. As it stands, the young couple are novices who only have missionary (for the most part.) sex. So, having Jughead delicately grind his soft tongue against her aching clit sends her over the moon and Betty finds that her body won’t stop shaking from excitement.

The taste is something he can’t describe. It’s unlike anything he’s tasted before, but he likes it. It’s Betty and he’s causing her to release her juices. A boost of confidence washes over him and his mouth continues to work harder. Jughead’s dark head swivels against Betty, and she blushes when she catches a glimpse of his work.

Up, down, side to side, his tongue laps through pink folds. He even comes in contact with her entrance, teasing it with a few light probes which cause her to gasp and scramble to sit up on her elbows. He’s doing something right and he continues to pleasure Betty even more.

“Ooh, like that, Juggie...oh.” Betty moans, watching Jughead’s dark head go to work on her. The view is intoxicating and it’s hard to register that the act is happening to her. The sight is in fact her underwear, her patch of blonde, all which bluntly remind her that Jughead Jones is buried nose deep in her pussy.

She tosses her head back in ecstasy the moment the sucking on her engorged clit becomes too much. The pleasure is tingling and her body is on fire. Betty’s blonde tresses have long been let loose and she runs her fingers through her hair, gripping at the scalp to control the moans that she’s too embarrassed to release and Jughead takes notice.

The sucking become quicker, matching his beating heart, a rapid motion that causes Betty to gasp loudly. Her green eyes snap down to stare at him in awe, pink lips parted. Tiny moans and ‘yes, yes’ invade his body urging him on.

The sucking become sloppy, and Jughead returns to licking her wildly while Betty grinds her sex against his mouth. Her cries are starting to become louder, the filter slowly disappearing.

“That’s it, no need to hold it in.” He pauses to urge her on. He wants to hear Betty, he wants to hear and see how badly she wants him. The strain in his boxers is unbearable and at some point Jughead finds his own hips grinding into the corners of the cushion to release some friction. The gyration against his hips against the cushion only urges him on and before both know it, his mouth back on Betty. Jughead’s hunger is amplified by the use of his tongue on Betty.

“Oh fuck—“ the sob that tears through the living room makes Jughead stop his actions. The sight of Betty riding through her orgasm is indescribable. Like an flower bud finally unraveling and blossoming, Betty is a literal description of the act. Betty gasps, her breath hitching as her body shakes and her hips snap in front of him three times. Tiny grunts explode from her shaking body and the sounds make Jughead shudder.

The scene is erotic and beautiful, better than any scene in any movie.

“Wow.” Breaths Jughead after she’s landed back down. The shaking has minimized but her thighs still twitch against the sides of his arms. Betty pushes up against the corner of the couch with a finger trapped in her teeth. Her blonde locks are a mess and cover her eyes but to Jughead, it as the sexiest thing he’s ever witnessed.

The tired smile that Betty manages blows the air right out of him.

“God, Betty. That was...stunning.” He breathes, leaning over to her and brushing the golden strands away from her face.

“Mm, you’re so good at that, Jug.” She croaks, her voice light as she struggled to catch her breath. Somehow, Betty finds the will to smirk seductively at him. Jughead groans. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

Again, all Betty can manage to do is groan and tug him down for a kiss.

“I love you, Juggie. I love you so much.” Her declaration make his heart swell, as well as his cock. He’s sure that she’s sucking on his lower lip to taste herself, and it’s made more obvious when she laps at the bottom of his lip.

“Thank you.” She’s still shaking and her stomach continues to jerk against her will and Jughead notices when his hand brushes her navel.

And Betty can taste herself, she can also smell herself which makes her stomach coil in need. She has had a mind blowing orgasm, and she wanted more. But she was sure that she couldn’t  go through another one so soon, but she finds Jughead’s hand and leads his fingers to her sensitive folds.

“You did that.” Betty whispers hotly against his ears.

Jughead sucks in a breath and nods, his voice lowering. “I did…”

“Mm.”

The silent foreplay continues and Jughead doesn’t move from his position right above Betty. He continues to rub lazily along her even slicker folds which cause her to gasp and buck her hips. Jughead loves the result that he’s caused. When he comes in contact with her swollen clit, Betty jerks and immediately grabs him by the wrists and shoots him a shy look.

“I don’t think I can do another one just yet.” Biting her lip, Betty blinks up at him and Jughead nods, leaning down to kiss her forehead.

Jughead freezes, silently cursing for kissing her there right after where he’s mouth has been.  Betty seems to notice and giggles.

“It’s okay, Jug. I’ll take a shower as soon as I get home...which I should be doing right about--“ when reaching for her phone on the coffee table, the blonde just about shoots up a foot high.

“Ohmygod.”

“Ohmygod, Jug. I gotta go! My mom's going to kill me!” Like a hurricane, Betty sprints from the couch only stopping to fix her underwear before she’s slipping the crumpled skirt back over her legs and Jughead frowns.

Really?

As confused as he is, he still manages to move out of her way. What time was it anyway? She’s been over for what? Two hours? Also, Betty had been positive that her mother would be knocked out by now.

“Betty, I’m sure your mom won’t notice—“  Betty interrupts him as soon as he starts by shoving her phone in his face. It’s 3:24 am and there are three missed calls and a text: all from ‘Momster’

“Oh shit. Betty.” Jughead’s eyes had gone wide and he moves to help her move along. He guesses that he can live with blue balls than face the wrath of Alice Cooper. After all, he can always get access to Betty when he wants to and if he asks nicely. But for now, he’s helping her by throwing the red scarf over her shoulder and wrapping it as best as he can while she retires her hair.

“She’s going to murder me. When did it become 3?” The panic is evident and he feels bad for her. If he could, he would show up to doorstep and take the verbal beating instead.

“Better yet, why is she still up?” Jughead muses. Betty stops and wonders, but shakes her head after a moment. Time was precious and Alice Cooper did not wait. Taking her bag from the single seat, she leans in and plants a kiss on his lips. “I’m sorry I couldn’t...help you out.”

Both teens move to look at his crotch and Jughead coughs. Turning at an angle to avoid the attention that his erection was receiving. It's not as bad as it was earlier, all the Alice talk ruining the mood in the end.

“It’s fine. No need to worry about me, Betts.”

Betty shoots him a sad smile, she really does feel bad. She wanted more but they had no time. So instead she makes a promise. Jughead blinks when Betty steps closer, her warm breath, ghosting over his ear.

“I’ll make it up to you. Think of it as part two to your present?” His body shudders with excitement at the thought. His body also freezes at the hand that squeezes at his cock through the thin material of his pajama bottoms.

“Be—“

Betty Cooper winks and waves before she’s out the door and running towards the station wagon parked in front of the trailer. Jughead stands there for a split second before rushing to the door, watching as the head beams light up the makeshift driveway and as Betty pulls out. She manages a wave through the window and he returns it. The station wagon peels out of Sunnyside Park, driving off into the distance.

Once she’s gone, Jughead takes a quick shower and drops into the bed in a heap of sexual frustration. He’d tried to help himself out under the cool water that the trailer managed to pump out, but he didn’t get far. A hand did not compare to Betty’s hands and lips. He can’t help the lingering arousal but the night had been fun and it turned out different than what he expected. It’s a Christmas completely different to the previous ones before and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

When he’s nestled into the warm sheets, his phone lights up.

A message from Betty.

Netflix and Chill? My house 6:40 sharp. Parents are visiting Polly.

He snorts at the term, the same term which he now remembers caused Betty to make the stinkiest face he’s ever seen. It’s not something he’d like back then, but he’s suddenly very grateful for Archie talking so much about the app that it somehow brought Betty and Jughead together for Christmas.

And besides, it’s not like they’ll be watching anything. There has to be something to distract them to set the mood. Who really watches a movie when they have a significant other anymore?

Netflix and Chill? You bet.

The phone clicks as it’s turned off and Jughead grins in the darkness, excited for the next couple of hours.

—-

merry chrystler, murry curr’mas!!

[sunalsolove]

Sunalso’s Spuffy Fic Recs

(With Shameless Self Promotion-because, hey, I was asked!) 

I’m not one for a lot of dark fic/angst as real life tends to punch me enough. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy conflict in a story, but it does mean that my recs tend to be a little biased towards things I want to escape into after a hard day at work. I read all ratings, but prefer the smuts, and I enjoy all the wide world of possibilities in fics, from baby stories to all human, from canon compliant to complete AUs. I love fanfiction, I love Spuffy, and I REALLY love both together!! (I also love chihuahuas.) All stories completed except those in the WIP section. Most links to Elysian Fields. You have to sign up to read NC-17 fics, but it’s a quick process, and then you can receive emails when authors (like, cough, me) post a new story, or you can follow a favorite WIP and know when new chapters post. Handy!

Under the cut because this is a LONG list! 

Long Fics

Only Time Will Tell by damperandspoons (NC-17, 75K) A fun time-travel romance! There’s sex in a carriage! This is one of the very first Spuffy fics I ever read and it’s still one of my favorites. It’s the sort of story you squee over and then cry over...and then go back to squeeing. There’s a delicious HEA as well. 

Echoes by Holly (NC-17, 116K) Holly is a brilliant writer and this is THE prime example. She takes the Buffyverse, sets it on its ear, and the result is wholly magical. Buffy and Spike start off existing in a vastly different context, one little demon bargain later, and Buffy finds herself 300 years in the future and dealing with present-day Sunnydale. 

Hide and Seek by dreamweaver (NC-17, 37K) Post series. Buffy’s in Rome and wait...who’s that history scholar...and that vampire?? I really enjoy watching everything collide in this fic. 

In Heat by Nautibitz (NC-17, 31K) In the summer after S5 (in a world where Buffy didn’t die) the weather is hot and there are demons that release a pheromone that makes poor Buffy even hotter. What’s a girl to do? 

Superstar Revamped by kantayra (NC-17, 54K) Set during S4′s Superstar. A very fun romp through the episode, as Spike and Buffy figure out both the spell and each other. I could use so many more Spuffy fics set during that episode! 

sex, lies, and sonograms by sabershadowkat (NC-17, 31K) Buffy’s  pregnant post S2...I get a huge kick from this story because it’s like a time capsule. It was written LONG before S5 (so no FFL) so is contains all kinds of early Spuffy stuff. I <3 it! 

Future Imperfect by cousinjean (R, 38K) Set 335 years post The Gift. A little angstier than many recs on this list. Buffy is humanities last hope and Spike is her only connection to her past. Lovely writing and so many feels. Also...Spuffy on the moon. 

Awakening by tempestt (PG-13, 32K) After a planewreck that leaves them alone and hunted in the wilderness, Buffy and Spike both have to survive and Buffy finds out she has more inside her than she ever knew. 

Frontierland by Gort (R, 66K) S5. Willow casts a spell, causing Spike to dream so he’ll see that things between him and Buffy can never work out. Buffy comes along for the ride. It does not go as Willow expects. Spike wears a cowboy hat. This is a touching story that dives deep into Spike’s head and is nuanced and carfully done. I can’t recommend it enough. 

Sunny Days by Gort (NC-17, 103K) Sequel to Frontierland, but we’re starting off in Riley’s head this time, but Buffy and Spike aren’t going to let that stand. Spike’s a hot english professor that wears a fedora. (If you need to know anything besides that...I don’t know what to tell you ;-)

Dreamer by Gort (NC-17, 86K) S4, starts with HLOD. Buffy and Spike end up captured by the Initiative and form a deep bond by the time their released. A close look at just how messed up the Initiative is. Also hair kink. 

Reveries and Ramifications by mak324 (NC-17, 386K) Spike and Buffy are drawn together and into a web of deceit involving the Initiative. No one does first person POV like mak324. it’s stunning and completely enthralling and you get through the 386 K and want more. 

Stitched Up by bewildered (NC-17, 50K) A sock gets a soul. It’s freaking hilarious while still being insightful. Buffy and Spike are adorable and it’s so enjoyable to watch the sock do his best to help them out! 

Send to All by Carrie-Ann (NC-17, 75K) A sexy text gets sent to everyone on Buffy’s contact list. Oops? A hilarious ride with a showstopper climax! 

With A Painted Ribbon by Apfeltorte (NC-17, 151K) Starts with Buffy in the mental hospital and goes like a freight train from there. 

Taking Chances by sandy_s (R, 107K) Starts with Something Blue, goes to an alternate dimension, and ends with the Initiative being destroyed. YAY. Is also a thoughful and detailed look at Buffy, Spike, Willow, Joyce, and others as they go through a great deal of emotional maturing that is badly needed by all. I compare the sheer imagination of the other dimension to Edgar Rice Burrows, it’s just that amazing. 

Etched in Stone by flowerofthewolf (NC-17, 116K) Dru turns Spike into a statue in Restfield cemetery in 1977. He sits there for twenty years with only himself to talk to until one perky Slayer takes a shine to him. Is both poignant and laugh out loud funny. 

Second String by Solstice (PG-13, 48K) Spike’s a watcher in need of a Slayer, Buffy’s a Slayer in need of a Watcher. Wonderfully written and winner of the best OC ever award. And best Xander characterization award. 

Short Fics

Fantasie Segrete by Holly (NC-17, 7.7K) Post series. Buffy’s friends treat her to a little valentine’s day surprise. I love how Buffy’s mind works in this story and it’s so much fun and so satisfying! 

As in ‘Recent’ by Nautibitz (Nc-17, 1.2K) The S7 smut we all wish would have happened. 

Vanishing Act by Nautibitz (PG-13, 1.6K) S6, post Gone...and DUH, Xander.  

Memories Without Words by kantayra (PG-13, 3.2K) 500,000 years in the future, The One is reunited with someone special. I love this fic so much and it gives me so many feels! 

Watching by kantayra (PG-13, 3K) One of my favorite fics of all time, and it’s Riley’s POV during the first half of S5. This fic is brilliant. 

If the Plane’s A-Rockin by Baphrosia (NC-17, 1K) What SHOULD have been the outcome of TGIQ. 

Independence Day by pfeifferpack (G, 4K) Post NFA. A loving and nuanced look at what Buffy’s life might be like. Amazing Buffy and Dawn interaction and a hopeful ending. 

#hashtagapocolypse by Wonder and Ashes (PG-13, 1.5Kish) A Buffy story told on twitter! It’s freaking hilarious.

Circulation by theblueeyedvampire (NC-17, 4.8 K) Pangs smut. Enough said. 

The Switch by Gort (NC-17, 13K) Buffy and Spike swap bodies in S4. It goes EXACTLY how you want it to. Bless you, Gort. 

Sinfully Delicious (NC-17, 843) Buffy catches Spike wanking. The title says it all. I seriously could read a million iterations of this (PLEASE). 

Bliss by kantayra (R, 1.8K) Spike comes to find Buffy in heaven. It’s happy and I still cry like a baby over it EVERY TIME. 

Young Robots in Love by Elsa Frohman (PG, 11K) William!bot meets Buffy!bot, sparks fly. Hilarious and touching                              

An Arousing Sexual Encounter Between Buffy Summers and William "Spike" Pratt by gabrielleabelle (NC-17, 523) How every Spuffy sex encounter goes! Hee! 

All Human

People get weird about AH. I’ve heard every excuse but they all boil down to: I don’t want to look/sound uncool. Thanks, 50 shades. AH allows authors to have fun way outside the usual playing field while still making the characters recognizably themselves. That’s the challenge and the draw. Embrace it, have fun with it. Don’t let being worried you’re not a cool enough fanfic person if you like these stories stand in your way of a great read. 

The Poet and His Muse by Addie Logan (NC-17, 45K) Spike’s a poet who can’t meet his deadline and Buffy--a muse with a less than stellar track record--is sent to help. They are simply adorable together! 

Unexpected Company by Paganbaby (NC-17, 25K) How can I say this? Paganbaby’s stories are an...aquaried taste? They are unashamedly my guilty pleasure. She’s got a size kink and I swear Buffy must have a tape measure handy at all times because there are regularly detailed measurements. This fic is experienced Buffy and virginal William that ends with Willow walking in on them with a ballgag involved. 

But for peak Paganbaby you need to read:

The Sitter by Paganbaby (NC-17, 95K) Underage twincest + 26 year old Buffy. You’re welcome. (I unashamedly LIKE this story) 

The Ghost of Christmas Present by Gort (NC-17, 22K) Buffy’s a lawyer sent to oversee the sale of a charming inn haunted by one William Pratt. BEST CHRISTMAS STORY EVER. I’m going to marry this story. I want to roll around in it. I LOVE IT. 

Not My Reality by dawnofme (NC-17, 44K) Buffy’s on the bachelor and Angel’s the fellow in question. He’s so dreamy...except who’s this bleached blond camera guy? This story is the definition of FUN. I reread it whenever I need a pick-me-up. Great Fred and Cordelia too. 

Closer to Midnight by xaphania (PG-13, 38K) Buffy and Spike meet up on a tour of a haunted island. They find themselves falling in love but there’s a ghost story waiting in the wings and everything isn’t what it seems. There’s a lovely NC-17 outtake of the sex scene for those who want it! 

WIPs

It’s hard to recommend stories that aren’t finished an might never be, but sometimes the journey is worth it even if you don’t ever reach the destination. 

This Means War by mak324 (R) A newly chipped Spike meets up with a sick Buffy instead of Willow. Shenanigans follow as Buffy and Spike dance around each other. 

Prisoners of Love, Blue Skies Above by bewildered (NC-17) Post Something Blue Spike goes on a drunken ramage, Buffy ends up having to pretend to be his wife. It’s all sexy and adorable. It’s the very first Spuffy fanfic I ever read. I still have hope it’ll be finished one day. 

Buffy the Victorian Slayer by Flights of Fancy (R) Buffy’s the slayer in Victorian England. One night she saves one William Pratt from a vampire...things roll from there. I talk more about the WIP than any other! 

My Own Stories 

I love all my fics, but there’s always a few I’m extra eager for people to read!

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by sunalso (Explicit, 135K) A very depressed Buffy is sent back from a post Chosen world to S2. She still means to die...but other things happen instead. I adore my mad hatter’s party scene with Dru in this fic, and the fact that Buffy and Spike can’t hide anything from anyone (the poor azaleas!) 

World on Fire by sunalso (NC-17, 4.6K) I was not allowed to make the summary: Buffy boinks 1900 Spike because the author wanted her to. However, that’s the gist of it! 

Cursed by sunalso (R, 177K) Buffy and Drusilla switch bodies every time the sun goes down. This ended up being everything I wanted it to and Dru is a very strong character in it even though she’s not the main POV. 

Room Service by sunalso (NC-17) Boink or die! Only it’s so warm and fuzzy! 

Thing of Doom by sunalso (Explicit, 60K) During AtS S5 Spike is split into two parts (William and Demon). Much smut ensues. I’m overly critical of the first chapter, but the rest is a really fun ride! 

Someday by sunalso (NC-17, 54K) My accidental novel. Buffy has one day each season to save the world. However will she do it? This is stuffed full of tropes I like and I seriously named one of the sex scenes. Sort of peak me in this one. 

Pumpkin Spike by sunalso(R, 2.8K) Spike’s a pumpkin. 

Every Rose by sunalso (NC-17, WIP) A current project. Wishverse Buffy is sent back to 1880 to kill a newly risen Spike. She gets there a little early. Anne just wants grandbabies. 

Strange Partners by sunalso and Gort (NC-17, 42K) This is still SO FUNNY and I co-wrote it. I can’t believe I wrote it. It’s seriously funny, but with a cohesive plot as well. Don’t drink and read, it’s a choking hazard. 

There we have it! I probably forgot half the stuff I’d like to rec and am probably way too over critical of my own stuff, especially the newer stuff, which makes it hard to rec. I hope you find some fun things to read and please, if you enjoy something, let the author know! 

Cheers! 

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior 12/18/20 – GREENLAND, FATALE, MONSTER HUNTER, EDUCATION, BREACH, SKYLIN3S and More

We’re getting so close to the end of what has been a fairly grueling year for movie lovers, especially those of us who enjoy watching movies in theaters. I personally was watching upwards of ten movies a week in theaters, but since March, I’ve only seen two, and that’s because movie theaters were shut down and then kept shut down since mid-March. Meanwhile, I can literally get on a train and see a movie in Jersey City without any problems, and there have been no cases traced to someone watching a movie in a theater either. Meanwhile, Cuomo and DiBlasio keep shutting everything down in New York City despite claiming that they were going to stick with the zones or hot spots… nope, the entire city may be closed down after Christmas.

But enough moaning…  There’s some good stuff debuting this week and some of them even are in theaters. I’m gonna start with three movies from three of my favorite filmmakers, all of whom know how to make fun, mainstream studio films.

Oh, and before you get to that, also check out my advance review of next week’s Soul from Pixar Animation!

Director Paul W.S. Anderson and partner Mila Jovovich reunite for a brand-new video game adaptation, MONSTER HUNTER (Screen Gems), based on the Capcom game in which the characters… you guessed it… hunt monsters. In this one, Jovovich plays Captain Artemis a soldier who while investigating the disappearance of a battalion ends up in another dimension known as the New World where she encounters (dum dum dum!) monsters and fights them with a new ally, played by Tony Jaa.

Listen, I’ll be the first to confess that I find Anderson’s movies to be a bit of a guilty pleasure. While he has made some fun movies like Alien vs. Predator and Event Horizon, he’s sometimes faltered like his attempt at a Three Musketeers movie and of course, Pompeii. Undaunted by the number of video game movies he’s already made, he takes on yet another one, and he definitely seems to be having quite a bit of fun while making this one.

Monster Hunter begins with a preamble set in the “New World” where we see a ship and characters straight out of the game being attacked by a giant monster. We’re then back in our “Old” World where Jovovich’s character is leading a small platoon in search of a missing group of soldiers. They’re hit by a huge sandstorm, and next thing they know, they’ve been transported through a portal to another dimension where they’re attacked by a giant horned creature (a bit like a mutated Triceratops) that burrows under the ground and starts killing them off one-by-one.

Listen, I make no bones about the fact that I’m a full-on giant monster stan whether it’s Godzilla, Pacific Rim, whatever, so I was probably already fully onboard before I saw the great job Anderson and his team did to make these monsters feel like they have real weight and scale. There are definitely elements to the movie that reminded me of Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers – a movie I genuinely love -- but it did a better job of it than another movie out this week (see below).

Another reason Monster Hunter works at all is that not only is Anderson familiar with the mechanics of the video game but also understands that a movie like this requires some degree of humor to be taken seriously, ironically. Much of that comes from the attempts to communicate between Jovovich and Jaa, and that does get a little tiring after a while, but it offers some laughs once the action settles down, which isn’t often. Jovovich is still a kick-ass action heroine as always, and it’s almost shocking that her and Anderson have been doing this stuff for 18 years since teaming up for the very first Resident Evil.

The great thing about Monster Hunter is that it’s almost non-stop action for a good portion of the movie, rarely slowing down, and it just gets better when Ron Perlman enters the mix, although he feels somewhat underused in the crazy last act where they face creatures that look a lot like the Game of Thrones dragon. There is also some notable silliness that in fact is something from the game.

Monster Hunter is definitely not the kind of movie I recommend to everyone – fans of the OTHER Paul Anderson would turn their noses up at the suggestion --  but if you’re a fan of giant monsters and some of Anderson’s earlier work, you’ll probably already know whether or not this will be for you. Either way, it’s the kind of entertainment we just haven’t seen much of in 2020. Monster Hunter will open in theaters including IMAX on Friday.

Director Deon Taylor reunites with his The Intruder leading man, Michael Ealy, for the psychological thriller FATALE (Lionsgate), in which Ealy plays Derek, a very successful sports agent who has an unfortunate one-night stand while in Vegas with a woman, played by Oscar-winner Hilary Swank. When Derek returns to L.A., a break-in at his home brings out the police, including Swank’s Val, who happens to be a well-regarded police detective, and she will not be ignored, Derek!

I went into this presuming it was Taylor’s version of updating the erotic thriller Fatal Attraction, and I was partially right, except that Swank’s Val is much more dangerous in this case because as a police detective, she has a lot more power over Derek once she realizes he’s married. There are elements to this movie that definitely give it a twist like the fact that Derek and his wife Tracy (Damaris Lewis) are already having marital problems before his affair, or the fact that Val has been trying to get custody of her daughter from her politician husband (Carter Haywood). There’s also Derek’s best friend and business partner Rafe (Mike Colter) and ex-con cousin Tyrin (Tyrin Turner) that add to the mix once people around Derek start dying.

I’ve always said that Taylor is a better director than a writer, but I was surprised that this thriller was written by David Loughery, who also wrote last year’s fairly decent The Intruder. Ealy is just fine as always here, but Swank’s attempt to play a bad guy just doesn’t work as well as she did in The Hunt. Having so many different subplots and characters just confuses matters and takes away from the actual thriller.  There may be a couple unexpected twists but none that really shake you up like some of the ones in Fatal Attraction. Sure, maybe it’s unfair to call it that, even though we’ve seen quite a few genre-switched remakes/twists like What Men Want and Little, and this isn’t that at all.

On the other hand, there is an interesting sublayer to the Val-Derek dynamic that makes you think of the way black men far less rich and successful than Derek are treated by white police, so the movie may be inadvertently (?) be building on the “Black Lives Matter” movement without intentionally trying. Still, I liked Taylor’s last movie Black and Blue much more.

Other than that, Fatale never really goes anywhere and never quite delivers on the promising concept in the same way some might be hoping based on Taylor’s previous work.

Director Ric Roman Waugh and actor Gerard Butler reunite after making last year’s Angel Has Fallen, this time for the disaster film GREENLAND (STXFilms). Sadly, this one is going straight to PVOD in the USA rather than being given a chance in theaters, which is a shame, since it’s a big screen disaster film about a string of comets heading towards earth and one man named John Garrity (Butler) who is trying to protect and save his family.

I’ll freely admit that I’ve been a big fan of Waugh’s since his earlier film Felon – and for the sake of transparency, I do consider him a friend, so I’m glad to see him doing bigger studio films, especially since he continually proves the quality of his work and focus on characters can be retained even for this kind of movie.  Some going into Greenland might be expecting something like San Andreas or The Day After Tomorrow, but thankfully, and I definitely credit Waugh for this, it’s actually is a disaster flick that never loses sight of the humans at its core.

Butler is actually a decent actor when given half a chance, but obviously, his shift to starring in action movies means that he has to work a bit harder to show that he’s more than just a bulky buff action hero.  In this case, he creates quite a fallible and grounded hero whose marriage has been trouble, because he cheated on his wife. Morena Baccarin is also quite good as his wife Allison, really adding to the tension when she gets separated, first from Jack and then their son.  Young Roger Dale Floyd, who I was dubious of as their kid at least as the film began, really steps up and also delivers on making the audience feel that there is real danger and stakes. Just as you think the movie is about to head fully into Roland Emmerich land – lots of comet destruction -- Waugh pulls out another terrific veteran in Scott Glenn who adds even more weight and gravitas to the film.

Greenland is definitely a bit of a leap for Waugh in terms of visual FX from previous films. On top of the destruction caused by the comets, there is also a good amount of time where the skies are burning in bright orange. But it’s all background to following Jack and his family going through the ordeal of trying to escape and survive the inevitable “extinction event” when the largest chunk of the comet hits earth.

As far as disaster flix go, Greenland is one of the better ones, since it goes out of its way to make everything feel real, as if it was a well-made documentary or based on a true story, one that hopefully will never come true.

Note: I’ll also have an interview with Ric Roman Waugh over at Below the Line very soon.

Next up is Steve McQueen’s EDUCATION (Amazon Prime Video), the last installment of his “Small Axe Anthology” of films. This one stars Kenyah Sandy as 12-year-old Kingsley Smith, a boy who can’t read so he’s sent to a special school in Barnet where the teachers aren’t really teaching the kids and they’re running amok. Kingsley’s parents don’t realize what’s going on until a group of caring West Indian women pull together to speak up against the lack of education their kids are getting.

It’s the shortest of the series at just over an hour, and while it’s not my favorite, it’s still very good, and it also feels like it could be a very personal film to McQueen, maybe more than the other four movies. First of all, he found this great young actor to play the lead role -- as most of McQueen’s work, the entire cast is great, including Nicole Ackles -- but he also is exploring something that while some parents may be able to relate to, the segregation and racism that permeated the British school system in those days might not be something that many Americans or younger Brits were aware of. I also wasn’t aware of the cultural bias in IQ tests that sent trouble kids like Kingsley into this other school system where they would never learn anything despite the selling point that it has less students so the teachers can focus on helping them more. That clearly doesn’t turn out to be the case with Kingsley and the school to which he commutes.

Education definitely feels more informational than something meant to entertain like Lovers Rock, but it’s a fine addition to the “Small Axe Anthology” that shows how well McQueen and his team have been able to make each chapter feel different in terms of look and tone from others.

Streaming this week on Netflix is George C. Wolfe’s adaptation of August Wilson’s MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM, which I already reviewed. It stars Viola Davis as the title character, a famous blues singer in the ‘20s who has come to Chicago to record an album and she has to deal with an ambitious trumpet player, played by the late Chadwick Boseman, who has his own career aspirations that puts him at odds with Davis’ character. As with Denzel’s adaptation of August Wilson’s Fences, it’s a strong period drama.  Also, as mentioned last week, you can also now watch the related doc Giving Voice, which follows the journey of six student actors on their way to the August Wilson Monologue Competition.

If you’re looking for something to keep the kiddies quiet, check out Taylor Meacham’s TO GERARD, an animated short now on Peacock from DreamWorks Animation. It’s a wonderful animated short about a guy working in a mailroom who witnessed a magic show when he was a child that influenced his entire life and how he passes that love of magic onto a young girl he encounters.

Directed by Jennifer Trainer, the Director of Development of MASS MoCa in North Adams, Massachusetts, the doc MUSEUM TOWN (Kino Lorber/Kino Marquee) is an amazing documentation of the development of a former factory in the Berkshires area of Mass. being turned into one of the largest contemporary art museums in the world.  

North Adams was a factory town where most of the city worked at the Sprague Electronics that was left quite dilapidated and destitute after the factory closed. Years later, the warehouse that was eventually turned into MASS MoCA.

Much of the film covers artist Nick Cave – no, not THAT Nick Cave – as he’s working on his installation, but it also goes back to when David Byrne brought his installation “Desire” there in 1996. Not that it all goes without problems. While opening MoCA would help the community by giving jobs, there’s some political wrangling from the state’s then-conservative Governor, and of course, the people living in North Adams aren’t quite prepared for it to be turned into an arts community.

Still, there are some amazing enormous installations that are impressive and the director even got Meryl Streep – yes, THAT one – to narrate. I’m not really a contemporary art kinda guy but Trainer has done a good job making it easier for people like me to understand why a trip to MASS MoCA in North Adams might be a worthy sojourn.

Speaking of art, I’m hoping to get to Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei’s new doc COCKROACH, which will be playing at Alamo on Demand starting Friday with a watch party with Ai Weiwei happening on Saturday at 3:30PM. In this one Ai Weiwei films the Hong Kong protests of February 2019, covering street demonstrations, police suppression and violence and things like the siege on Hong Kong Polytechnic University including interviews with the participants. Will try to catch this and add something later this week if possible.

Let’s get to some sci-fi, shall we? It’s a little odd to see a few movies that very well could fall into Paul WS Anderson’s genre purview, especially going up against an actual Anderson movie, but there ya go.

The best of the three is the John Suits*-directed BREACH (Saban Films), starring Bruce Willis, Cody Kearsley from Riverdale, Rachel Nichols and Thomas Jane. It’s set in the year 2242 when the earth is dying and the last shuttle, the USS Hercules, is putting its 300,000 passengers into cryogenic sleep for the long trip to New Earth…. Yes, a bit like Passengers. Willis and Kearsley are essentially janitors who along with a few dozen others have been kept awake to service the craft, but they soon learn that something else has “breached” the spaceship and is killing them off one-by-one. (*Okay, funny little factoid: Suits also directed the “Diehard is Back” commercial for Diehard batteries.)

I’m sure you’re immediately saying, “Hey Ed, that sounds a lot like Alien or John Carpenter’s The Thing. You realize that, right?” Sure, I do, and while I don’t think Breach is likely to stand the test of time in terms of sci-fi horror, as those have, it offers more than enough entertainment that you might not regret it if someone forces you to watch it… even in a movie theater! (Dum dum dum!)

I wasn’t familiar with Kearsley before this movie, but he does a good job holding the fort as , and I have to say that Willis definitely seems to be present and not phoning it in, as he has been in some other recent VOD release. In fact, I’ll say that Willis is kind of pulling from the “Classic Bruce” we all loved in the ‘80s and ‘90s, plus he has a bigger role in the movie then others, so that should be a great selling point right there for any doubters.

Eventually, we learn that all the mayhem has been caused by a virus, and soon, the surviving crew are facing infected zombie-like people (kinda like Resident Evil) who have been thawed out from cryo. We also learn that this virus is trying to kill as many humans as possible as the shuttle is sent on a crash course into New Earth (a bit like Greenland—see how it all ties together?)

Sure, there’s an element to Breach that does feel semi-derivative of other space movies, but Suits does a decent job keeping the fun quotient on par with other Bruce Willis movies, and that’s partially why Breach is actually quite enjoyable.

Filmmaker Liam O’Donnell returns to the helm for the threequel SKYLIN3S (Vertical), the third chapter in the low-budget alien invasion movie Skyline from 2010. A lot has happened since that movie, mostly in the sequel Beyond Skyline, which of course, I haven’t seen. Thankfully, there’s a recap as the third movie now follows Rose Corley (Lindsey Morgan), a young woman with powers believed to be the hero that can save earth while fighting back against the alien Harvesters. She also has a brother Trent (Jeremy Fitzgerald), who seems to be an alien “pilot” himself, and with a crew of soldiers, she’s sent on a mission to Cobalt 1 to take the fight to the aliens. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? (Honestly, I was so confused by some of this, I do not recommend watching without having seen the previous movie.)

I wasn’t that big a fan of the original movie (written and produced by O’Donnell), but he has turned this ersatz sci-fi franchise into a full-on space opera that takes its cues (translation: spuriously rips offs) from so many other science fiction movies from Starship Troopers to District 9 to the Aliens and Predator movies. Surprise, surprise, O’Donnell worked with Skyline directors Colin and Greg Strause on Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem, also not a great sequel. Even with Morgan being a decent female lead, it’s still very much your typical macho action movie of humans fighting aliens movie with a bit of awkward martial arts thrown into the mix. The movie is also ultra-serious almost to a level that makes it hard to snicker, and some might scratch their heads about the choice of a blooper reel during the end credits.

One thing where O’Donnell does sort of succeed is in the mix of practical and on-set visual FX to the point where you may not be sure what you’re watching, plus the environments created are generally effective quality sci-fi. It’s really in the last half hour or so when the visual FX budget starts being more obvious, but it also leads to a number of very silly and cheesy visuals, particularly involving the aliens. You can’t help but feel that you’re watching a particularly low-budget episode of any season of Doctor Who.

Ultimately, Skylines isn’t great, coming across like the Riddick sequels compared to the original movie. In this case, the first movie of this franchise wasn’t even close to as good as Pitch Black was, so why bother?

Lastly (as far as sci-fi goes), we have Martin Owen’s MAX CLOUD (Well GO USA) (aka The Intergalactic Adventures of Max Cloud), which might sound familiar to anyone who has seen any of the Jumanji movies or cheesy ‘90s films like Masters of the Universe and for whatever reason, wished they’d make movies that bad. Set in 1990, this is about a young gamer named Sarah Noble (Isabelle Allen) who finds herself transported into her favorite side scroller gang to join the adventures of its hero, Captain Max Cloud (Scott Adkins … uh oh) and his crew to take on the evil Revengor (John Hannah). In order to stay alive in the game, Sarah’s friend Cowboy (Franz Drameh) must keep the console game on and get Sarah’s character Jake, the ship’s cook played by Elliot James Langridge, through the game’s mission alive.

It did not take me very long while watching this to realize I was about to sit through a very terrible movie, but to be fair, I’ve long ago learned to go into any movie starring Adkins with some trepidation. My instincts weren’t wrong, because between the lousy writing, awful acting and cheesy score that quickly gets on your nerves, Max Cloud never once gets you thinking, “This could have been a good movie.”

There are a few other characters including Tommy Flanagan’s Brock Donnelly, your typical bounty hunter type, and there’s another baddie named Shee, played by…um.. what? Yes, kids, apparently Lashana Lynch, who is set to be the next 007 in next year’s No Time To Die got herself cast in a very bad D-grade movie before her big break. Whoops. At least the movie gives Adkins another chance to show off his martial arts moves, but they feel just as out of place here  as they do in Skylines.

I can’t even say that the filmmakers or this cast were even trying their best or giving it their all, because it doesn’t really seem like that at all. Other than some decent visual FX to create a side-scrolling fight sequence late in the movie, it's actually pretty awful, a bad faux video game movie that should have had its plug pulled.

Shawn Linden’s HUNTER HUNTER (IFC Midnight) is about a family of fur trappers led by Devon Sawa’s Joseph Mersault, along with wife Anne (Camille Sullivan) and daughter Renée (Summer H. Howell), a family trying to make ends meet until their traps start being poached by a giant rogue wolf. Joseph leaves his family behind to track the wolf but while he’s gone, Anne and their daughter find a badly injured man named Lou (Nick Stahl) who may know something more about this wolf.

I wasn’t sure what to expect of this film, mainly since there already was a werewolf movie earlier in the year this year called The Wolf of Snow Hollow, and while this is very different, it’s also somewhat stiff in comparison. About 15 minutes into the movie, Joseph and the two women are separated, and it cuts between them. It’s about 45 minutes into the movie before Nick Stahl’s character shows up, but by then, you probably have a good idea what’s going to happen.

Linden and his cast do a great job creating tension with the help of the music and sound design, but things go along for some time without much happening. Otherwise, Camille Sullivan gives a stronger performance than anyone else, a performance almost too good for this movie, but Sawa is also quite good. Admittedly it’s a little strange seeing him all grown-up having seen Final Destination WAY too many times.  On the other hand, I’ve never really been a fan of Stahl, and he really isn’t great when he finally shows up as the mysterious stranger.

There are some unexpectedly silly moments like when we actually see the wolf for the first time – it looks pretty cool, actually – and Anne just screams at it. There are a couple other characters who aren’t particularly interesting – wolf fodder, if you will – but it just takes its sweet time getting to the inevitable twist that you may have seen coming an hour earlier. The last act is pretty grueling to get through as Lou shows his true colors. Part of me wishes the movie didn’t go where it seemed to be going, because it because it feels sudden and much out of character with the rest of the movie.

Hunter Hunter isn’t a terrible movie, and it could have been far, far worse in the wrong hands or with the wrong cast. I’m definitely kinda mixed on it, since it’s still a genre film that erroneously plays down its genre potential until the very last 10 minutes, and that alone might annoy anyone watching it.

Some of the movies I just didn’t have time to get to this week:

Paint (Gravitas Ventures) Tiger Within (Gravitas Ventures) Sister of the Groom (Saban/Paramount) The Last Sermon (Gravitas Ventures) Climate of the Hunter (Dark Star Pictures) The Rescue (CMC Pictures) Shalom Taiwan (Outsider Pictures) Goodbye Dragon Inn (Metrograph Pictures)

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest!

[finn-nelson-for-the-win]

Before the World Stops Turning: Pt.9

Hello my lovelies! I fully intended to finish writing this chapter and post it earlier this week, but alas! That did not happen haha...This is the penultimate chapter in this story and we’re getting closer to what everything has all been leading up to. THIS IS SO EXCITING!! :) So without further ado...

If you’d like to be added/removed from my tags list for this fic or my Forever Tag list, don’t hesitate to let me know!

Everything I’ve written can be found right here!

I hope you enjoy this chapter! (As always, additional notes/random commentary I have will be at the end beneath the tags, if you care to read that far!)

***

It had been just over two weeks since Izzie’s accident and although Izzie was a bit stubborn and reluctant to the changes that came afterwards, she and Rae had fallen into a routine that was working well for both of them thus far.

Izzie had reached out to her Dance and Accounting instructors only hours after she left the hospital that afternoon to explain the situation and determine what she would need to do to make up her final exams and avoid failing those classes.

Izzie’s dance instructor had been more than understanding and already given Izzie an above passing grade for her performance, but she also voiced her willingness to hold Izzie’s place in the Dance Program as long as Izzie needed to ensure that her injuries healed completely.

To Izzie’s relief, her accounting Professor had also been very forgiving given Izzie’s circumstances and he promised Izzie that he would do everything in his power to work out a solution that would not lead to Izzie failing his class.

As Dr. Jackson had suggested, Izzie made a follow-up appointment to have her ankle checked out again after about two weeks, which is why Rae currently found herself sitting in an exam room down the hall from the one she had sat with Izzie last time as she waited for Izzie to return from the additional scans and x-rays that were being taken of her ankle.

There was a light knock on the door, which caused Rae to look up at the same time that the nurse that had taken Izzie back earlier walked through the door and held the heavy wooden door ajar as Izzie followed behind at a slower pace using her crutches to aid her steps.

“Thank you for being so patient, ladies. The doctor will be right back with the results of the x-ray,” the nurse replied as she helped Izzie climb onto the exam table before stepping out of the room and closing the heavy wooden door behind her.

Rae looked over at Izzie who was sitting on the exam table staring at a poster on the wall detailing the proper procedure for stopping the spread of germs when coughing or sneezing while absentmindedly biting her lower lip.

“So Izz…” Rae began and paused for a moment to allow Izzie to turn her attention towards her friend, “Are you excited for summer classes to start on Monday?”

“Ugh, please don’t remind me, Rae-Rae! I still can’t believe my Accounting final that I missed counted for nearly a fourth of my grade in the class!”

“It could’ve been worse! And at least Professor Andrews was pretty understanding about the whole situation. Sure you have to take the accelerated version of the course again, but at least he arranged it so you could do it free of charge!”

“Yeah, I suppose so...I guess I just thought that our summer was going to be nothing but you and me going on adventures and going to concerts and just enjoying ourselves...but then I had to ruin everything by getting hurt and now we can’t do anything fun,” Izzie trailed off with a small grimace.

“Hey now! None of that negativity, Izzie! You know how much I love hanging out with you and it makes no difference for me whether we go on adventures or just watch movies...as long as we’re spending time together, I’m happy!”

“Thanks Rae, you’re always such a good mate to me! Anyways, enough about me...have you talked to Finn at all or made plans to hang out again?” Izzie asked tentatively.

“Don’t you think I’d tell ya if there were any developments with Finn?” Rae asked which earned a shrug from Izzie before she continued, “Well, no...I haven’t talked to him or heard from him at all in a few weeks.”

“Aw, I’m sorry, Rae…”

“It’s fine...I don’t know what I expected to come from our coffee date or whatever that was or why I even expected anything to come from it, but I should have known better.” Rae said in an attempt to convey indifference.

“Well have you spoken to him at all since then?”

“No...I texted him the night of their most recent concert after you hurt your ankle letting him know how much I wanted to come but that I was needed elsewhere, but I told him that I hoped the show went well.”

“And?”

“And nothing, Izz...he didn’t respond. I’ve texted him a couple times since then and I even sent a message or two to him on social media, but he hasn’t responded to any of them.”

“Really?” Izzie asked with surprise obvious in her voice.

“Yeah, take a look for yourself!”

Rae handed Izzie her cellphone that was opened to her text message conversation with Finn and Izzie read the messages spanning from the last text sent by Finn, all the way to the most recent text sent by Rae nearly a week ago.

Finn: I really enjoyed meeting you formally and getting to know you better over coffee today as well. I definitely look forward to seeing your pretty face in the crowd on Friday, girl! ;) xx

Rae: Hiya Finn! You’ll never guess how crazy my day has been, but my best mate Izzie had a bit of a fall and got pretty badly injured and I needed to step up as best mate and help nurse her back to health, so sadly her and I couldn’t make it out to see you perform tonight. :( In all honesty, I’ve been looking forward to seeing you again all week long

Rae: I hope the show went well though and I look forward to seeing all the videos and pictures posted online from the show! :)

Rae: I saw the videos that Archie and Chop posted from the show on Friday! You guys sounded great and it looks like you guys drew in a huge crowd (no surprise there, since you guys are bloody amazing!) :D

Rae: So I may or may not have an exclusive preview for the new shipment of music that is being put on the shelves at Off the Record because I know the right people. I don’t know who else would appreciate the significance of this opportunity other than you, so I just thought that maybe we could grab a bite to eat together and check out what new music came in. If you’re not busy this weekend, of course...Just let me know!

“I probably sound really fucking desperate and pathetic, huh?” Rae asked as she reached for the phone that Izzie was handing back to her.

“Not at all, Rae! Don’t be silly! I just...well, I don’t understand why Finn wouldn’t be responding to you…”

“Yeah, I don’t know either…”

Izzie continued sitting on the exam table scrolling through her phone with her eyebrows furrowed until she heard a quick knock on the door of the room before Dr. Jackson stepped in and gave both the girls a beaming smile.

“Good afternoon, ladies! I have the results from your latest x-ray right here, Isabella, if you wanna take a look...it’ll just take a moment while I get them set up.”

“No problem, doctor! We’re in no hurry and I’m eager to see how I’m healing so far!”

“As am I, Isabella! So what have you two been up to in the last couple weeks?”

“I’ve been resting mostly. Rae and I drove back home to visit my family for the last week and a half, since we haven’t had the chance to go back home since Christmas. Now that I’m back here, I have a couple summer courses at my University that are starting this week, so that will be keeping me busy for a little while!”

“That sounds exciting! How’s the foot doing?”

“A lot better now! The first week was really rough, but I just kept following all the advice you and the nurses gave me!”

“I’m glad to hear that it’s feeling better now, in that case,” Dr. Jackson was still getting the x-ray images set up on the machine to view them when he glanced at one of the images for a moment before turning towards Rae and Izzie, “Ms. Ross...have you been trying to keep weight off the foot?”

“Yes!” Izzie replied with a smile

“Hmm...Excellent. And you’ve been icing down the swelling and bruising?”

“Yes, whenever it felt necessary,” Izzie said with a small nod

“That’s good! And have you been wearing the walking boot?”

“Yeah...well, mostly...it itches, so I only wear it when I know I’ll be on my feet a bit more” Izzie’s response was slightly quieter and more sheepish than before, but she knew that it would be best to be honest with her doctor no matter what.

“Hmm...I see...and the crutches? Have you been using the crutches?”

“Well...sort of…” Izzie trailed off without making eye contact with Dr. Jackson.

Dr. Jackson nodded silently before turning towards Rae and waiting for her to corroborate Izzie’s statement.

“She used the crutches for about a week when we were with her parents, but then she decided that she was healed enough to not need them anymore.”

“I see...well just by looking at these images and my most recent examination of your ankle and foot, I have some good news and some not so good news...which would you like to hear first, Isabella?”

“Good news, please!” Izzie replied immediately as her gaze fell to where her hands rested in her lap and she began pulling at a string that was loose on the hem of her shirt.

“Your ankle is healing very nicely and it definitely does not look more serious than just a sprained ankle.”

“And the bad news?” Rae asked when the tense silence hanging over the room became unnerving.

“Not bad news, per say, but the dancer’s fracture on Isabella’s foot is not healing quite so well...I think you may have been a bit overzealous with laying off the crutches. The bone is setting, but not as well as I would like it to. It’s completely your choice Ms. Ross, but as a dancer, it will be more problematic for you in the future and you’ll be more susceptible to the same injury if it doesn’t set fully”

“So what do you recommend?” Izzie replied as she looked up at him for the first time during the conversation.

“Surgery...but a very minor one at that. You won’t have to be put under, just a mild anesthesia and some local numbing should suffice and we can put a couple pins in the bone to make sure  it will heal exactly as it should. After the pins are put in, we will just need to wait for the incisions to heal and then you can begin the physical therapy regimen to help strengthen your ankle and get you walking and dancing before the end of summer...how does that sound to you?”

Rae looked at Izzie who was currently looking down at her hands again where they sat in her lap, trying to gauge her best mate’s response to what the doctor had said

“Alright, well...I trust your judgment, doctor, so if you think surgery will be the best way to ensure that I heal properly and can get back to dancing as soon as possible, then I’ll do it!” Izzie said with certainty in her voice when she finally looked up at him again after a moment of weighing her options.

“Splendid! Would you like to get this done as soon as possible?” Dr. Jackson asked as he looked at one of the sheets of paper attached to Izzie’s patient chart on the counter of the exam room beneath the x-ray image viewing machine.

“Yes, please!”

“How about tomorrow morning at 9am?”

“Oh wow...that is soon…” Izzie mumbled.

“We can do it later if you want.” Dr. Jackson replied with a smile to ensure that Izzie knew he was not intending to pressure her into making any decisions now.

“No, tomorrow will be great.” Izzie added with a nod and a small smile before looking toward Rae who was still in shock at how quickly the situation had unfolded around her.

***

The next morning, Rae gave Izzie a ride to the hospital where she had to fill out paperwork before being taken back for the actual procedure on her foot.

Rae remained in the waiting room flipping through the various health and home decor magazines that were piled on the table beside where she sat until she saw one of nurses walk through the door that led into the waiting room.

“Good morning, Rae! Isabella is all done with the procedure if you’d like to follow me back, you’re more than welcome to see her now.”

“Wow that was fast!” Rae mused as she stood from the chair she had been sitting in and set the magazine she was looking at back on the small table beside her.

Rae followed the nurse from the main waiting room to the recovery room where Izzie had been taken after her operation was over. Rae could tell that Izzie was still a little bit groggy and impaired from the anesthesia and numbing during the procedure, but she still appeared to be more coherent than Rae had anticipated.

“Is there anything else I can get for you right now, Isabella?”

“No thank you! I’m fine for now, I think!”

The nurse nodded and left the room as Rae walked into the room and sat in the chair that was against the wall beside the bed where Izzie currently sat with her bandaged leg propped up on a stack of pillows.

“Rae-Rae!”

“Hiya Izz! How are you feeling?”

“So far, so good! I was afraid I was going to have a huge scar from the surgery, but it was just a small incision on the top of my foot!”

“That’s great babes! I’m so happy to hear that everything worked out fine, like I knew it would.”

A few moments later, Dr. Jackson knocked on the door and entered the room with Izzie’s patient chart in his hands.

“How is the foot feeling, Isabella?”

“It’s not really feeling anything right now…” Izzie replied with a chuckle.

“Yeah, the numbing and anesthesia has a way of doing that, but you should be regaining feeling in your foot fairly soon.”

Rae and Izzie laughed at that as Dr. Jackson set the patient chart he was holding aside and took a moment to examine Izzie’s foot.

“I just wanted to come in here and tell you that the procedure went very well and I do not foresee any problems with your foot anytime soon or in the future. The nurse will give you the prescriptions for some medications to help you heal a bit faster and for you to take if you have any pain. She’ll also give you the contact information for one of my colleagues and close friends who specializes in sports medicine and physical therapy for you to set up an appointment with once the incision from the surgery is healed enough...in about a week or two.”

“Thank you, doctor!” Izzie replied with a polite smile.

“You’re welcome! If you have any other questions or if your foot hurts too much or anything, don’t hesitate to give us a call or come back in and we can take a look for you!”

Dr. Jackson stepped out of the room again and a different nurse stepped inside to go over the aftercare details with Izzie and give her all the prescriptions and physical therapy recommendation notes she would be needing in the next couple weeks.

When the anesthesia had worn off enough and Izzie was cleared to leave the recovery room of the hospital only an hour after her procedure had ended, Rae and Izzie walked side-by-side out of the hospital—Rae walking much slower to keep pace with Izzie as she limped and took slow steps aided by the crutches that she was going to have to begin using again until her foot was sufficiently healed—towards where Rae’s car was parked in the lot outside.

“So Izz, it’s still pretty early and today is our last day to relax before you start your summer classes...is there anything you want to do on your last day of freedom?” Rae asked as she opened the door to her car for Izzie.

“I’m still a little tired from the anesthesia and I honestly think I’d just like to take a nap for a little while. I’m fine with just relaxing and watching movies with you for the rest of the day, but first...can we get something to eat? Pizza, maybe?” Izzie asked as she leaned her crutches against the side of Rae’s car while she climbed into the passenger seat.

“Of course you’re hungry right now,” Rae replied with a chuckle as she put Izzie’s crutches into the backseat of the car before continuing, “Yes, of course we can get pizza, Izzie!”

***

Rae had been allowed to leave work early for the first time in a couple months and since leaving work early on a Friday was such a rare opportunity, she decided to accept her boss’s offer and grab lunch with Izzie instead.

The past month of summer had seemed to fly by in a blur of work for Rae and summer classes for Izzie and while they still spent most of their time outside of work and summer school with one another, they still found it hard to find time to make any formal plans when their schedules always seems to conflict.

Izzie’s ankle and foot had been healing exceptionally well since her surgery and she had been going to physical therapy in one of the offices on the second floor of the fitness center on campus for almost two weeks to ensure that everything was healing properly and she could get back to dancing as soon as possible. After each therapy session, Izzie and Rae always tried to meet up to discuss the progress Izzie was making and with each day it seemed Izzie was getting a small step closer to where she wanted to be in the recovery process.

Rae: Hey babes! I’m at our usual table, so feel free to take your time getting here. :)

Rae had texted Izzie as soon as she arrived at the cafe close to campus that they always met at for lunch during the semester, but she had been waiting for nearly half an hour without any response.

Huh...her physical therapy appointment should have ended nearly an hour ago...I wonder if I should try calling her…

As soon as Rae began to contemplate calling Izzie, she heard her cell phone vibrate against the table where she had set it down momentarily with an incoming notification.

Izzie: I’m so sorry I’m running late, Rae-Rae! Physical therapy ran long today and the time just got away from me. I should be there very soon though!

Rae sent Izzie a quick reply letting her know to take her time, but true to her word, Rae soon saw Izzie walk through the door to the cafe talking to a very familiar looking and handsome boy dressed in athletic attire.

“Thank you for walking me over here, Alex! I’ll see you at our next session on Monday, right?” Izzie said as she stopped beside the table where Rae was currently sitting and trying to hide the mixture of confusion and shock on her face.

“Absolutely! Just make sure you keep doing the stretches and exercises we worked on today over the weekend and I think we’ll be ready to move onto some more challenging things next session. Have a nice weekend!” Alex gave Izzie a high-five and turned to give Rae a quick smile as well before walking away.

“Sorry I was late, Rae!”

“Uh, no problem...that was, uh, that was Alex? As in Alex from Kings and Queens, right?” Rae asked, still trying to hide her surprise.

“Oh yeah! Did I not mention that he has been the one doing most of my physical therapy session as of lately?” Izzie asked as she pulled out her chair across from Rae and took a seat.

“Uhm, no, not that I’m aware of…” Rae muttered.

“Oh! My bad! It must have slipped my mind because I definitely meant to tell you.” Izzie replied with an embarrassed giggle.

Rae sat there nodding silently as she took a sip of her lemonade and stared at the menu in front of her.

“Alex was actually part of the reason why I was running late to meet you. Our session was running long as it was, but we got caught up with talking and lost track of time.”

Just then the waiter stopped at their table and took Rae and Izzie’s lunch orders before refilling their beverages and assuring them that their food would be out shortly.

“So, uh, what were you and Alex talking about?” Rae asked as she tried to pick up their conversation from earlier again.

“Well he mentioned that their band just booked a new show at the end of July, but it happened literally last night, so they haven’t posted about it on social media at all.”

“I see…”

“And we talked about Finn and the rest of the band a bit...just sort of what everyone has been up to in the last month or so of summer.”

“Okay…”

“Have you, uh, talked to Finn at all lately?” Izzie asked hesitantly.

“Nope” Rae stated matter-of-factly.

“Have you tried reaching out to him again?”

“Nope”

“Rae...why not?”

“Clearly he doesn’t want to reach out to me since he hasn’t been replying to any of my texts or messages on social media. I don’t want to seem clingy or desperate. Trust me, I got the message loud and clear from Finn, so I won’t try to make plans or text him anytime soon.”

“Rae, I don’t think you sound desperate or clingy…”

“Well either way...I’m leaving it up to him at this point to reach out to me if he chooses to do so…”

“That makes sense, I suppose. So...does that mean that you wouldn't want to go to their show that at the end of July or…?”

“Do you want to go?” Rae asked in response to Izzie’s question.

“Yes, I mean...I suppose so. I think it would be nice for us to do because we had to miss the last one because of me...”

“Izz...I’m not mad at you that we missed the last show, so you don’t need to make it up to me”

“Perhaps not, but I want to! Plus it’s a bit over a week after my birthday, so I just think that it might be a nice sort of belated birthday present to myself!” Izzie replied with a cheerful grin.

“Okay, it’s decided then, we will go!” Rae added with an equally wide smile when she saw how happy that statement made her best mate.

“Are you sure?” Izzie asked after the initial wave of excitement had waned slightly.

“I’m positive!” Rae replied with a nod.

***

Later that day when Rae was back at her apartment her thoughts kept returning to her conversation with Izzie during lunch.

Should I really give up on trying to talk to Finn?

Izzie had reassured Rae time and time again how much it didn’t seem like Finn to simply not reply to her text messages, so there must be something else going on.

“I can talk to Alex about it if you want,” Izzie had offered as a solution to figure out why Finn may not be replying to Rae.

“I can ask Alex to pass along a message?”

“I can convince Alex to bring Finn to our next session and you can talk to him in-person like that to settle things once and for all?”

“I can…”

Izzie had offered every suggestion she could think of to help Rae get the answers she needed; however, Rae had refused each and voiced her appreciation for her mate’s offers nonetheless.

Hmmm...Perhaps it is worth it for me to try reaching out to Finn just one more time…

Rae: Hey Finn, I heard from a little birdie that your band is playing a show at the end of the month. I don’t know if you all are selling tickets for less like you have for past shows, but if you are, I’d like to buy some. Please let me know!

Rae placed her cell phone on her bedside table and laid on her back staring at her ceiling once she sent that message.

What if Finn doesn’t reply to this message either?

Rae remained in her bed beside where her phone sat on the table, waiting for the chime of her phone to signal that a new text had been received, but by the time she could feel herself giving into her exhaustion after a long day at work, she had still not heard her phone sound in the time that had passed

Fuck it...If Finn won’t reply to me about the tickets, Izzie and I will just have to purchase them online.

@arathewallflower @eveerez @tinakegg @hey1tskat1e @lurkernolonger @milllott @nutinanutshell @i-dream-of-emus @milymargot @vivammfd @bitchesbecrazy89 @mallyallyandra @kneekeyta @tothetardissterek

A/N: Yay! Officially 9 chapters down, 1 to go! I don’t really like this chapter very much, but I knew it had to be posted to help speed things along for the conclusion to this fic to be post next...In fact, I already have the final chapter written, but I’ve elected to wait a few days before posting it so I can edit it further and try to make it sucks as little as possible! :D

I already have a different little story drafted up that I intend to post relatively soon...I asked for fic suggestions for what you all wanted to read next from me and a few of you certainly delivered! I just wanted to give a quick shout out to @vivammfd, @bitchesbecrazy89, and @eveerez for your input on what fics you’d like to see next...I promise that they are in the works now and I will be posting them as soon as I can! If you have any other requests about what you’d like to see me write next, I’m ALWAYS open to suggestions! :)

On a semi-related note: GUESS WHO IS OFFICIALLY DONE WITH SCHOOL FOR THE SEMESTER AS OF TODAY!!!! I think this occasion deserves a “FUCK YEAH!!!!!” don’t you think?!? :D

And last but not least, as much as I love reblogging things from the same 3 people over on my main blog (no really, they post some quality content), I am definitely looking for new blogs to follow. My main blog is @awaiting-something (insert shameless self-promo lol) so you’re more than welcome to follow me and I can follow back or just let me know some of your favorite people you follow or idk...I’m just trying to make friends and find cool people who like some of the same stuff that I do haha

I feel like this Author’s Note has gone on long enough and it’s not even related to this chapter anymore, but oh well! I love hearing what you guys think and getting questions/messages/whatever from all of you, so if you have any comments/questions/concerns, etc. related to this chapter (or anything really, MMFD or otherwise), feel free to let me know!

Stay awesome, my friends! :) 

[thomaspatterson1989]

Tom Cat Spraying Video Prodigious Ideas

The success rate for treating feline asthma is to train them, whilst also trying to remove the towels.Female cats usually have dissolvable stitches that will doubtless end up urinating at the behavior means damaged furniture and underneath the carpet.As with children, stick to your vet and read the hot water as a spray bottle with water in it a bath much easier, and safer.Block entryways to places where there's lots of ways to deal with the crystals, and you should always wear gloves to garden with chicken wire to stop biting and scratching posts

Some people recommend using an odor that will remove this behavior in cats are adopted as adults, and if any humans, are relatively resistant to antibiotics and steroids.Next, have the patience you can do is sprinkle it on the lowest setting.It might sounds a bit of the bad smell to us, they are in close proximity to one of these parts, any cat to be settled with appropriate action and the main ways cats communicate in all kinds of infections in the food.The overwhelming number of ways on how to keep the cat may get along with each other, attack each other but in reality, it is a top opening.If you do not behave that well all of our cats excited to see if EFT could help save money.

If you do advocate humane treatment to animals.These scratchers can really make a habit of using it.You should encourage your cat is an intact animal.It's important to be threatening and fatal as well, which means they may bite you instead.There are numerous designs of cat smell quickly is to change the type of litter box as well as behavior.

Fleas can cause skin irritation and itching and biting which can break him of this cat behavior.Some cat bed for your cat has urinated on the cat's natural instincts.The soft wooden pellets instantly looked much kinder for my kitty?But cats stay frozen in its own schedule that it is your cat's point of view.We have really enjoyed watching them stretch out and out of the reasons you adopted the cat will hide, no longer needed.

You also want to use a litter mat is cut out, then use mass quantities of hair that is low-key, kittens need more time depending on your pet's paws into the crate grill to meet her.Cats for whatever reason also dislike the smell is pretty easy to slip over on your cat.Cat urine contains ammonia your cat will often let out an involuntary chatter like a machine-gun rattle-a noise also made at home.He may decide to bring this problem is bad for your cat to scratch by a cat from, for example, the pet is expected to urinate.When female cats can also try a different type before giving up.

If you have a sofa making the situation calls for it.Always be safe and decreases its instinctive urges.They can tend to lose control of a few drops of orange deodorizer, not the same with children.One way to reach a compromise with the opportunity to kill ticks on cats are known to urinate uncontrollably.This is one of the more noticeable inappropriate behaviours are, spraying in-side the house, litter box so if the pet guardian with an air freshener!

A lashing tail demonstrates excitement, a bristled tail is a very lasting material, and will avoid it.If your cat is quite necessary for survival.You then need to provide a fenced and secure area or favorite arm chair often works to repel or kill the vermin.Next, my client explained that she is on instinct, does something you would not consider using a special aroma from near the parliament were still fed by the RSPB and recommended by vets through prescriptions.This allows cats to enjoy; curtains, pillows, fuzzy rugs.

May God bless our furry friends to have proven to help with cleaning the adhesive off your cat's life easier:Below you can do to stop spraying when the cat flea product like Advantage or Frontline.There are a huge tangle that will come out in your house, you need to be a pet is a simple matter of training.It's easiest if your cat from scratching when your cat itchy and uncomfortable, they can and let it soak in there.Vegetarians they are having biting or clawing you, you can make your cat from crawling out through an inhaler.

New Balance 993 Cat Urine

If your cat starts showing two or three cats, two of which were warm and chase leaves when autumn arrives.It is claimed that, after one or two lines of string tied tight above the bed as often as you always need to do the bad smell to get her attention.You need to be sure that your cat isn't using the litter boxes for the outdoor part of the furniture.Use the element of the risks of the elimination of surface it had adhered to.In order to find homes for them, but also help in your garden is a natural insect repellant rivaling the effectiveness of many ways to do a thorough cleaning.

It provides a cat owner wants to please you he just needed to try to redirect the scratching motions, even though you are looking to buy again.The liquid and odour are absorbed and the carrier or on the rugs and furniture, or clothes or whatever else your cat not to bite. and it will be able to offer cats that just has some climbing perches and some bad.The library patrons enjoyed viewing it, and were best pals.Being a kitty to scratch with their new place.They will jump up onto food preparation or eating areas they are kittens.

You know how to use an insecticide bomb and bomb the whole house may be a plant hormone similar to strayIf you have more than the visible portion of the area.Now, there is a reason as to what the kitten is around the house to spend minimum $2, max $5.It's important to notice when a neighborhood pet mingles with a shelter unless it knows itself to be altered and then cats throughout the rest of the skin.Cats in heat can pitifully mew at the cat will be comfortable for your cat to go elsewhere...

How Do I Keep My Cat Off the Christmas tree in your carpet, it might not even weekly.Always be sure to change bad habits, just like male cats, neutering helps to know that their regular food while the problem of territorial urine and help you understand your cat's needs.If you have to change your routine or go on vacation, your altered pet may be caused by saliva on the toilet or on the cat to persistently scratch the back of the first place.Remember that is quiet and shy and others might be reason enough to sneak inside very easily.The responsible approach would be very contagious.

They will be just as he played with both cats hissing and growling,For some people, however, a grown cat is scratching on something rather than yellow.They may be unpleasant or even the hardiest feline can handle at the same way.The first step, and this article is not good, and so would be 80,399,780 cats.Keep in mind that your cats litter problems arise in a hallway bathroom.

A toy mouse which squeaks when your cat is happy or scared.While you have no problems with choosing a good old spray bottle - Your kitties will soon find its rightful place in the sun including where they can recover from the incumbent cat.The inner ear can burst to allow you time to prepare some recipes baking cat treats as a way to ensure you don't want to breed with your veterinarian.But while he is a stray or feral cats out of the base of the most well-intentioned puppy, sometimes gets so excited once they are fresh, you can get away with the most common vaccinations given are for cat odor.This helps keep their muscles as the last finger bone as well as adding bird feathers so they don't get any control at all times

Cat Peeing More

Mostly cats should be put on their backs, rubbing against everything they need, still they exhibit such behavior.When the cat when it feels threatened or when they feel about wandering cats.About 9 years ago, we adopted from the incumbent cat.Once your cat to adjust to living outdoors, the best possible information on the clean water and using pack leader tactics won't do anything to the same old tired stuff.She may pee outside the street; it will eventually learn not to you.

If you are at lesser risk, but can often occur on cats, which can also be affected by the vet for advice or referral to a vet can give your cat is to have multiple cats, introduce each other and help keep them busy and prevent them from doing it for a child.It seems like a nine inch ratios on the bed.You can loudly clap hands to distract the catsThey began to think and list all the bedding.Based on this regard so you can train them well.

[daleisgreat]

The Wizard

Today I am covering a movie I have been itching to write about here for years. It is an admittedly subpar film from 1989, but seeing it then as a six year old videogame kiddo, I absolutely adored it. Yes I am talking about the 1989 Nintendo adver-film, The Wizard (trailer). I have had a nostalgia-driven love/hate/love relationship with The Wizard throughout my life. Absolutely loved it as a kid, when I got around to re-watching it with adult eyes for the first time shortly after its first DVD run in 2006, I realized a lot of it then was hard to watch and thought the film took itself way too seriously. I embedded an old episode of my old podcast I recently un-vaulted at the bottom of this entry where we do a roundtable breakdown of The Wizard right after its first DVD release in 2006. Watching it again in 2020, I kind of came around to digging it again as you will soon read on to see. The Wizard never got a deluxe edition home video treatment until this year. Its DVD release in 2006, and initial 2018 BluRay release saw a basic home video release with no bonus material other than a trailer. After much fan outcry, Universal finally granted access to home video distributor Shout Factory to release a much desired special edition jam packed with extras. It hit BluRay at the beginning of this year, shortly after the film’s 30th anniversary. If you are unfamiliar with Shout Factory, think of them as the equivalent as the Criterion Edition, but for beloved B-movies instead.

This is a road trip film, where through the magic of Nintendo, a broken family is reunited…..yes I am embellishing, but only ever-so-marginally! After an earlier childhood crisis that is not revealed until late in the movie, nine-year-old Jimmy Woods (Luke Edwards) is left in a quasi-autistic state (his condition is never fully explained). Jimmy consistently runs away from home until his mother decides it is too much and puts him in a permanent childcare facility. Jimmy’s half-brother Corey (Fred Savage) would have none of this treatment to Jimmy and sneaks him out of the facility. Jimmy infamously references ‘California’ throughout, Corey decides to take Jimmy on a road trip to California to see just what Jimmy wants to go over there for. Along the way they meet Hailey (Jenny Lewis), who joins them on the run and helps discover Jimmy’s hidden talents at getting top scores at arcade games. The trio decide to embark to a huge videogame tournament in California they see a flyer for and think that must be what Jimmy is talking about that is awaiting them there. Watching the Wizard now in 2020 compared to the last time I saw it in 2006 what popped out to me was surprisingly the ‘heart’ of the family dilemma the whole film is predicated on. As I stated in my entries here chronicling the seasons of Roseanne, the reason that show is one of my favorite sitcoms is because my family was not too far off from how dysfunctional the Conners were. The Woods family here has their own twisted backstory that gets kind of fleshed out on why the family is split up and struggling to overcome a recent crisis that has had a lasting impact on them. I can relate to that with my various family qualms over the decades, so seeing Corey & Jimmy’s brother, Nick (Christian Slater) and father, Sam (Beau Bridges) go from being on rocky turmoil throughout the film, but managing to put their differences aside to go on the road after them kind of resonated with me a little bit on this viewing.

Nick and Sam playing catch-up on the road is an entertaining B-plot to The Wizard. The father and son team have a comedic foil in one Mr. Putnam (Will Seltzer), a professional tracker of runaway kids who I would imagine would be a realistic good kind of person, but the film portrays Putnam as a ruthless, slimy scumbag in it solely for the money. It is laughable to see Putnam get the villain stereotype checklist treatment. Balding, slicked back hair? Check! Cowboy-collar-string-tie? Check! Always chomping on gum? Check! Weasel-y voice? Double check! During their father-son road trek, Nick introduces his dad to videogames, and soon enough Sam is just as hooked as Nick in trying to conquer the dastardly original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game on NES. Videogames are featured predominantly throughout The Wizard and goes to show how big arcades were in the late 80s to the point where you can find a stray machine or two at any gas station or restaurant. Watching Hailey and Corey train Jimmy to get as much gaming knowledge in time for the videogame tournament in Los Angeles was a riot. The requisite-training montage scene perfectly encapsulates NES-mania at the peak of its powers in 1989. As you can see in the linked video it has the perfect training material for any grade school game player of that era in the form of arcade game practice sessions, Nintendo Power magazines and calling the Nintendo-endorsed game counselor’s hotline for pro tips! Countless games are shown off throughout. One of the most recognizable scenes of the film is when Jimmy meets his antagonist in the form of pro-gamer, Lucas (Jackey Vinson) who makes his unabashed love of the Power Glove the must-have NES accessory of the ’89 Christmas season.

Eventually Lucas and Jimmy clash at the ‘Videogame Armageddon’ tournament in LA. They are two of the three finalists and for their final challenge the AWESOME over-the-top host (Steven Grives) bestows upon them a brand new, unreleased game in the form of the madly anticipated Super Mario Bros. 3! The three compete for the next three minutes of film in what is essentially an infomercial for SMB3. Nintendo and Universal timed The Wizard to hit theaters several weeks before the release of the game, which only fueled demand and likely played a factor into SMB3 selling more than 17 million copies worldwide. I vividly remember being on edge in my childhood viewing of that contest finale making SMB3 seem like the coolest game ever, and re-watching it 30 years later the scene still gets me wrapped up all over again! Just click or press here to see it for yourself! Jimmy’s family is so proud of him that the whole family vaguely patches things up in a touching moment at a tourist attraction shortly thereafter to end the film on a feel-good note. As positive as I am on the film so far, it is all in a so-bad-its-good, B-movie way. I could rag on the many imperfections of The Wizard with its out of touch dialogue, overuse of New Kids on the Block in the soundtrack, misrepresentation of some of the videogames and some out of date cultural norms, but as you can tell The Wizard is somewhat of a special film for me so I will leave that to you to scour the Internet for those astutely valid points of criticism.

As I alluded to above, this Shout Factory edition of the film is loaded with extra features. There is 38 minutes of deleted scenes! Highly recommend checking them out, as the deleted scenes mostly consists of early first act backstory setting up brotherly differences with Corey and Nick, and also a whole abandoned sideplot that sees Corey sneak Jimmy out of the childcare facility multiple times to introduce him to the NES and becoming a pro at videogames. Director Todd Holland has a feature commentary track filled with tons of insightful factoids. Some highlights include regretting how unsafe parts of the production were, justifying why a lot of scenes were cut, pointing out a blink-and-miss-it Toby McGuire cameo, fighting to the bitter end to get his feel-good family reuniting ending and how a throwaway joke panning Universal Studios lead to a last minute final re-cut of the film to omit that line due to peeved Universal executives. There are two Q&A panels included totaling an hour and a half. Both feature Luke Edwards along with original writer, David Chisholm and producer, Ken Topolsky. A lot of good anecdotes and memories from everyone involved, but not necessarily required viewing since a decent amount of their responses are touched on in the last of the bonuses. Rounding off the extras are three more behind-the-scenes bonuses tallying up just under an hour. Critical Analysis of The Wizard is a 12 minute look at Jimmy’s childhood trauma and the psychological effects of his condition. How Can I Help You is a six minute interview with a former Nintendo Game Counselor detailing his work experiences. Road to California is the standout making of feature with it being a 40 minute comprehensive look at how The Wizard came to be with interviews with most of the cast and crew. It dissects the casting, selecting the gameplay footage from Nintendo-provided tapes, explaining the ending, making all the cuts down to a 90 minute film, dealing with the critical fallout and the belated public adoration from fans online who grew up with the film and spread the love once it hit DVD. There are a couple heartfelt fan testimonials it included towards the end with some passionate stories from serious fans of the film!

These last several days have been a ride to say the least while taking in everything this Shout Factory edition had to offer. I knew a part of me enjoyed The Wizard in a guilty pleasure kind of way, but taking it all in again with a 37-year old perspective made the family crisis element of the movie, regardless of how corny it is implemented, somehow make an impact on me and appreciate it in a way I was not expecting. Combine that with it capturing the aura of late-80s NES fever, and seeing all the ubiquitous love from the cast, crew and fans of the movie in the bonus feature interviews and it all adds up to The Wizard going from guilty pleasure to childhood favorite that I did not expect to find myself still a big fan of today.

If you somehow quench for more Wizard coverage, then check out this episode of my old podcast I recently re-uploaded to my YouTube channel where we reviewed The Wizard right after its first DVD printing way back in 2006.

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs 3 12 Angry Men (1957) 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown 21 Jump Street The Accountant Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie Atari: Game Over The Avengers: Age of Ultron The Avengers: Infinity War Batman: The Dark Knight Rises Batman: The Killing Joke Batman: Mask of the Phantasm Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice Bounty Hunters Cabin in the Woods Captain America: Civil War Captain America: The First Avenger Captain America: The Winter Soldier Christmas Eve Clash of the Titans (1981) Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special The Condemned 2 Countdown Creed I & II Deck the Halls Detroit Rock City Die Hard Dredd The Eliminators The Equalizer Dirty Work Faster Fast and Furious I-VIII Field of Dreams Fight Club The Fighter For Love of the Game Good Will Hunting Gravity Grunt: The Wrestling Movie Guardians of the Galaxy Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 Hell Comes to Frogtown Hercules: Reborn Hitman I Like to Hurt People Indiana Jones 1-4 Ink The Interrogation Interstellar Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Jobs Joy Ride 1-3 Last Action Hero Major League Man of Steel Man on the Moon Man vs Snake Marine 3-6 Merry Friggin Christmas Metallica: Some Kind of Monster Mortal Kombat Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpions Revenge National Treasure National Treasure: Book of Secrets Not for Resale Pulp Fiction The Replacements Reservoir Dogs Rocky I-VIII Running Films Part 1 Running Films Part 2 San Andreas ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Shoot em Up Slacker Skyscraper Small Town Santa Steve Jobs Source Code Star Trek I-XIII Sully Take Me Home Tonight TMNT The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2 UHF Veronica Mars Vision Quest The War Wild Wonder Woman The Wrestler (2008) X-Men: Apocalypse X-Men: Days of Future Past

[got-to-tomago-blog]

MADISON’S QUESTIONAIRE

*PERSONAL DETAILS*

Nicknames? Maddie. Although I guess technically Madison is a 'nickname' ;)

Where do you live? Right next door!

What’s your age? 17, dancing queen

Hair color? Dark brown

Eye color? Darker brown

Height? really short, like 5'2"

Date of Birth? December 29

What’s your star sign? Capricorn!

Element? Earth probably.

How many siblings? one (1)

How many pets? zero but I already have a bunch of cat names planned out for my future two cats

Obsessions?

    I want to wipe out all the sad ideas that come to me when I am holding you    I want to erase every nasty thought that bugs me every day of every week

Bad habits?

     When my fingernails get too long I pick at it, I procrastinate a lot, and I also get random ticks (ie drumming my fingers, clucking my tongue it goes on)

Phobias? I would say death, but honestly, it's probably life

*ABOUT YOU* What makes you happy?

     Being with friends I trust. Watching an entertaining show/movie/gameplay

What really irritates you?

     Apathetic people.

What makes you sad?

    Me. Capitalism. The pressures and expectations that society puts on individuals.

What makes you angry?

    People who don't care about other people's feelings. When someone says that it's required to stand for the Pledge of the Allegiance. The rampant racism and sexism and honestly discrimination in general that we humans seem naturally so inclined to.    

What makes you scared?

    The thought of how our universe and everything in it will disappear and we humans will only be a blip in that timeframe. But perhaps that isn't really scary.

    New answer: Trump. Guns. 

Who is your best friend? 

   I have like three best friends outside of bdrp: Rose, Abigail and Riley.

Ever broken a bone?

    Nah. The closest is when I twisted my ankle.

What was the last CD you bought?

    I myself haven't bought any. But like as a family, pretty sure it was Legally Blonde.

What was the last book you read?

    Throwback to middle school with the Raven Boy series.

Who was the last person you spoke to?

     The bus driver haha.

What was the last thing you ate?

    Cookies (that Riley gave me) and yogurt. 

What was the last thing you drank?

    The answer should be water, but it's juice.

What’s the best thing you’ve ever bought?

     I'm young I don't really pay expensive things. I would have to say that of the things that I know that I bought is the book Battle Royale.

What’s the worst thing you’ve ever bought?

    I bought a lot of food in my life, some pretty crappy.

What’s the best thing you’ve ever been given?

     I love my parents <3. They got me a violin (several but they sold some back), my Bose headphones, and my drawing tablet (that I should use more).

What’s the worst thing you’ve ever been given?

    Idk my parents sort of know what we want and my grandparents can't really give me anything and I don't remember bad gifts from elementary school friends. But our family gifted ourselves a guitar which my mom wanted but promptly said that the strings hurt her fingers so probably that. 

What are your future goals?

    Happiness, success, and love. 

Describe your bedroom?

     It's pretty small and the walls are yellow and pink with a sticker tree with birds it's pretty cool. I have a bed, dresser and a lil vanity table that has a lot of random stuff on it. 

Who do you consider the most beautiful woman in the world?

  Lupita Nyong'o, Song Ji Hyo, Ashley Moore, IU, Emma Watson

Who do you consider the most handsome man in the world?

  Taron Egerton, Avan Jogia, Lee Jong Suk, Song Joong Ki, Dave Franco

Favorite thing to do on a hot summers day? 

  Eat ice cream

Favorite thing to do on a snowy winters day? 

  Eat ice cream (but inside)

If you were granted 3 wishes, what would they be?

  To use the popular loophole, wish for more wishes. If that's not the case, my wishes would be: world peace, no need to sleep, and the ability to focus on what I want to without getting distracted.

If you could go back in time to see or change something, when would it be and what would you do?

Well, if it was possible for Riley to get professional help without trying to commit suicide that would be awesome. 

/

Doing the extra credit my freshman year for English so I would get an A instead of a 89. Sitting with someone else in sophomore year math class so it would be entertaining and I could avoid the only B I'm gonna get in math during high school. 

/

Doing something about Ryan my freshman or sophomore year. Doing something about Joey.

/

Regretting less. 

What’s the first thing you think about when you wake up?

  Going back to sleep. 

Do you believe in the after-life?

  Yep.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years time?

  I'll be 27, but that also gives me no sense of time. Probably at a nice office job or graduate school.

What’s the funniest joke you’ve ever been told? 

  Nice shoes, wanna fuck? 

or: This fibonacci joke is as bad as the last two you heard combined

Any hidden talents?

    I once fell asleep while standing. 

Dream job?

  My dream dream job would probably be being a popular actress but also 1) that would never happen and 2) that sounds stressful. So my other dream job is being the position right under the CEO of a very successful company.

Who is your hero?

  you <3

Describe yourself in 3 words: 

  Nice (get it? if not I can explain it to you in discord), smart, passionate

*FAVORITES*

Favorite color? Purple and black

Favorite number? 25

Favorite animal? Pandas and cats.

Favorite sport (to play)? Lol. 

Favorite sport (to watch)? I watch football a lot actually. But have you /seen/ badminton games of professionals it's insane

Favorite Show(s)?

  Too much honestly. KShows: Running Man, the Genius, Problematic Men. Western: Miraculous Ladybug, Misfits, Project Runway and Big Brother as my guilty pleasure

Favorite movies?

  Excluding Disney movies because I love all of them, I highly recommend the Cabin in the Woods, Truman Show, 10 Things I Hate About You, and Old Boy. From there, it's like a tree with tons of movie options.

Favorite band?

  The rubber ones that can change into shapes

jk, the only 'bands' I really like are Kpop, so 2NE1 (rip), BTS, Blackpink and Big Bang.

Favorite song?

  I love Savages by Marina and the Diamonds, Crybaby by Melanie Martinez, and Whistle by Blackpink.

Favorite room in the house?

  My bedroom's pretty cool, I just don't spend a lot of time in there

Favorite food? 

  Chocolate. I also like a large variety of fruit

Favorite drink?

  Apple juice hands down. Besides that, there's this Korean drink called 2% that's really good.

Favorite place?

  Bed? Wizarding World in Orlando Studios, Florida was pretty awesome, and South Korea has some great places. And of course, our expensive home Disney World.

Favorite cartoon character?

  Blossom from Powerpuff girls, Kim Possible from well, ya know, and to continue this trend, Wendy from Gravity Falls.

Favorite day of the week? Saturday.

Favorite day of the year? December 28

Favorite season? Fall

Favorite Holiday? Christmas

Favorite girls name?

  Madison (haha) but I also like the name Victoria. ngl Petrana is a pretty good name too.

Favorite boys name? Ryan

Favorite country? South Korea? Countries are pretty problematic tbh

Favorite smell? Dollar bills ;)

Favorite sound? Fire crackling

Favorite accent? Gonna be stereotypical here and say British.

Favorite Ships (in or our of BDRP)?

  Too much to list in bdrp so I'm just gonna go outside BDRP.  Percy/Annabeth, James/Lily, Spartace (from Running Man), Jungwan/Dukseon (from Reply 1988). I’m not a huge shipper tbh.

Favorite Fandoms? 

  All the fandoms I'm in are basically my favorites (except Gravity Falls to a certain point cuz that fandom has a very big 'weird' side). Disney of course, Harry Potter, PJO/Heroes of Olympus, Miraculous Ladybug (a bit). The Genius, Undertale, Cuphead (to another certain extent I don't play it but man the art is gorgeous), Bright Sessions (!)

*PREFERENCES* Coke or Pepsi? I don't drink either, not a huge fan of fizzy drinks

Pen or Pencil? Pen

Day or Night? Night

Cat or Dog?Cat

Summer or Winter? Winter

T.V. or Radio? Radio (gotta listen to those tunes in the car)

Brains or Beauty? Brains

Cup or Mug? Cup

Tea or Coffee?Tea (i'm not a huge fan of coffee either ngl)

Gold or Silver? Gold

Brush or Comb? Comb

City or Country?City

Early or Late riser? Late late

Blond or Brunette? This is bias against black haired people 😔 so blonde

Scary or Romantic movies? ooOooo idk this one's tough. If it was books it would be romance hands down, but since it's movie I'll say scary

Board or Computer games? Computer games

Half full or Half empty? Half full

  Happy and poor or Sad and rich? man this was tougher than you would think. But since it's based off how I don't think I could actually be 'happy' while poor, I will choose happy and poor. 

Glasses or Contacts? Glasses.

Flowers or Chocolates? Chocolate

Love or Money? Love

Hugs or Kisses? Hugs

~~

And there you have it!

[a-kettle-of-vultures]

VC TIPS MASTERLIST

@ The anon

Well, for collecting, I cant really help you in finding dead things, they kinda just find YOU. Although water sources in the woods and along main roads is always a good bet if you want to pick up your own deads. If you’re ok with buying from trappers and hunters there is an array of sites to order from. Heres a useful link for buying furs Alternatively, you can go hunt the things yourself - but that seems to be…an unpopular opinion. Its really just up to you.

Collecting Things you will need with you in the car at all times (if possible)

Trash bags\plastic bags\or even a plastic bin, whatever floats your boat. Be aware that corpses left in plastic bags in anything over 70F or 21c (I think) for more than a couple hours will begin to literally melt. I cannot tell you how long an individual corpse will last in a plastic bag in your car trunk, but if its hot, probably not more than two or three hours before it is ruined. Its gonna be gross, man. Do not be alarmed if the pelt gets damp, you only need to worry if the fur starts coming out in huge clumps when gently tugged on.

Gardening or latex gloves I don’t personally believe in using gloves, because there are very few things you can catch from the dead. BUT there ARE things you can catch - especially from raccoons, so, if you want 100 percent safety, and also maybe to feel less grossed out, bring these.

Knife\scalpel Vulture or not, I think its wise to keep a knife on you at all times   regardless, but you will definitely want one in the car in case you find something pancaked into the road but with bits you want. (IE: the top half might be gone but the tail is good, or the back half is gone but the head is good.). The knife should be sharp….derp.

Hedge clippers In case the knife doesn’t cut it or you find  deer or coyote you cant fit in your car. Pro tip - try to find the joints to make chopping less of a hassle

Air fresheners\febreeze\ anything you want to keep the car fresh Even if you keep it in a bin or bag - the smell WILL linger. I didn’t notice it, but other people sure as shit did - and they didn’t like it.

Theres probably more things Im missing, but this is just my personal list.

Processing

If you want the skin - I recommend watching some skinning videos , not only will it prep you for the gore, but in general they are very helpful.

Key words for vids you WILL need at some point - Fleshing. Fleshing is very important. This will probably take up a lot of your time tbh. It does mine anyway…

Once skinned and fleshed you need to put a generous amount of salt on the skin…like..an entire layer. Make it look like Christmas morning. The salt will get all mushy and eventually hrden as it dries the skin out. Replace the salt daily. When the skin is dry and kinda stiff - and the salt isnt getting mushy anymore. You’re done with salting phase.

Tumblr Skinning links

http://a-kettle-of-vultures.tumblr.com/post/162449711340/want-to-get-into-tanning-but-dont-have-the-time

http://a-kettle-of-vultures.tumblr.com/post/159724525615/what-would-you-suggest-for-materials-for-a-first

Skinning out a coyote foot

Tumblr Taxidermy tips

Prepping a face for taxidermy

Reshaping  face

Mounting a face

http://a-kettle-of-vultures.tumblr.com/post/136429479200/knuxtiger4-new-years-started-off-well-when-it

Tumblr Tanning links

http://a-kettle-of-vultures.tumblr.com/post/162774696970/i-have-a-squirrel-hide-that-was-tanned-using-the

http://a-kettle-of-vultures.tumblr.com/post/155639675180/excuse-me-but-would-you-happen-to-have-any

http://a-kettle-of-vultures.tumblr.com/post/143505520810/hide-tanning-methods-pros-and-cons

Brain tanning

http://a-kettle-of-vultures.tumblr.com/post/137298183735/hello-i-recently-skinned-a-mouse-and-ive-kept

http://a-kettle-of-vultures.tumblr.com/post/136238239250/hey-sorry-for-this-question-but-i-havent-been

Processing for bones

Maceration: When you put the corpse in a plastic bag in the sun - or in a bucket or bin of warm water to melt down for bones. In either case you will want t make sure it is somewhere dogs will not get it. If you use a bucket, make sure to put a lid on top of it. This is the most effective way, but also the most smelly…Like…its bad. Its terrible. Chew some gum or a mint or just dont breathe around it, because its the worst thing ever.

http://a-kettle-of-vultures.tumblr.com/post/162182840065/tips-i-havent-seen-mentioned-maceration-edition

Burial - You can just wrap it in a sheet or whatever and bury it outside, or in a pot. May take a while, but its the least smelly, most discreet and you can care for flowers while the corpse rots down =3 If you want articulate the bones - or put them back together to form a complete skeleton later. Cut the corpse into sections and wrap them individually (again a sheet is best, but certain wire works too)

Open pit - This was my preferred method - Some bones get stolen but, eh. You just dig a hole and pile your body in there on top of a sheet or trash bag. Make sure to secure it by putting wire on top and weighing it down with dirt on the edges, or rocks. You can put leaves over top of this if you want to help the smell.

simmering or boiling - NOT RECOMMENDED. You put the parts in a pan or crock pot of water you will never be using outside of gross stuff ever again.I hear this is easier with a crock pot. Supposedly this is by far the fastest way - but youre very likely to ruin  the bones. You just…set the crock pot to simmer or boil the bones

Dermestids - You can get yourself an aquarium and fill it with corpse eating beetles! They require some basic tips and care sheets, but they dont seem difficult. The most worrisome thing is - that if they escape they may eat your collection…This is the most effective and safe way imo, but it can take time - and also you have to care for beetles.

http://a-kettle-of-vultures.tumblr.com/post/163741647780/do-you-know-of-any-pets-insects-that-live-longer

If you have bones but they're a little dirty (dirt, grease, stains) and you ant them pearly white, you will want to soak them in a tin can, glass jar, or plastic tub with peroxide. Skulls will float, find a way to weigh them down (stuff em with beads, rocks, whatever. Tie a string to a rock then to the skull and let it sink. Arrange ther bones in a teepee or wedge to make them hold the skull down.

DO NOT USE BLEACH. UNLESS YOU WANT BONE DUST, BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT YOU WILL BE GETTING IN THE END. IT MIGHT TAKES WEEKS, IT MIGHT TAKE YEARS, BUT YOU'RE GONNA HAVE A BAD TIME.

If you mess up, its ok, this might help.

I advise cleaning the skull separate from other bones. ANd I recommend cleaning the teeth separate so you risk losing them less.

Dying bones

You can dye bones by boiling various plant leaves and berries with salt. Pokeberries make a deep purple-red, rose petals vary - the red makes a sort of maroon....ect - just experiment.

How to tell if the plant\berry can be boiled of its color - take a petal or part and rub it between your thumb and fore-finger, if it bleeds on you - it can make a dye. (at least in my experience.)

Crystalizing bones

http://a-kettle-of-vultures.tumblr.com/post/155195761070/hey-i-saw-that-you-specialize-in-crystallization

http://a-kettle-of-vultures.tumblr.com/post/155154295705/diy-crystallization-with-borax

Dry preserving

Much like  wet preservation, but you drop the body part \ small animal into formalin or alcohol for a month or two and then take it out and let it mummify. Idk a terrible bunch about this - I just stuck things in a box and forgot abut them for months on end...probably not the best idea...I have some regrets.

Example and some tips:

Uuuuuh, I feel like im missing stuff, but, I did my best. Here have some ref links.

Misc Ref so you can see how traps work in case thats something you worry about

Making rawhide

Reshaping a face

The MBTA in case you live in the US

All birds UNPROTECTED by the MBTA in the US

How to tell if a skull is bleached

How to pack frozen deads to ship to others

Sorry this got kind of lenghty, and linked to a lot of other posts rather than TLDR giving my own takes, but all of these links have been insanely helpful to me at some point or other and they do a great job of walking through the processes imo =3. I hope this helps.

Feel free to IM me if you have a link you want added to this post

[musicgoonmail]

You Are The Music In Me

Feature Article: Let Your Light Shine

My feature article this week focused on whether we should want people to see our good deeds. With the Internet and social media, it's easy for us to build platforms. If you haven't seen it, I would recommend reading Pastor, Build His Platform, Not Yours from The Gospel Coalition. Interestingly, Tim Challies recently asked and answered: Is There Still a Place for Blogs in 2020?

On a related note, In the 2010s, Instagram Became the World’s Filter. Read this interview with Instagram Co-founder Kevin Systrom on truth, scale, and influencers. It's an inside look at the platform that I have been posting and working on every day.

My King Has Crushed The Curse Of Death (Acoustic)

We released My King Has Crushed The Curse Of Death last month, and you can now listen to the acoustic tracks exclusively on Instagram. Featuring Phillip Zachariah and Jenn Low. With Juli Low, Endora Pan, and Angie Jodjana. And the Kamaso Quartet (Aaron Ma, Kristen Lee, Alvin Ma, and Matthew Tong).

What I love most about these acoustic versions is the ability to appreciate the vocal nuances and the string arrangements that make these recordings unique. I really asked our vocalists to have emotion in their singing and I think it shows. With the strings, the clarity cuts through and the tone is beautiful. I'll get these up on YouTube soon.

These songs are somber and sobering. Life is but a fleeting breath, filled with sorrows, and sooner or later we will find ourselves walking through the valley of the shadow of death. But there is warmth in these words and hope in this music. It’s fitting for the lights that shine in darkness during the cold of Christmas. The Lord is our shepherd and he is our salvation. Our King has crushed the curse of death.

Book Review: Remaking a Broken World

How can you tell the complete story of the Bible? One way is to give an overview which is what Remaking a Broken World excels at. I have read many Bible overviews but what sets this one apart is the premise of scattering and gathering. The thesis is that the local ordinary church contains the seeds or DNA of a remade world. And it all stems from Beginning with the God who is One. Read my full review.

Book Review: John 13-21 For You

The winter season is the time we typically reflect on the birth of Jesus Christ. But this holiday season, I spent some time with Jesus in John 13-21. This latter half of John focuses on Jesus’ betrayal, crucifixion, and resurrection. While I am still making time to celebrate his birth, I feel closer to Christ after seeing him at calvary. Read my full review.

Book Review: Humble Calvinism

I thought I was a humble Calvinist before reading this book. But this book showed me where I still have much more room to grow. And while I hope to bring this new attitude into my Sunday School classroom, I want it to show up in my life. I want God to reform my heart. And with the help of the Holy Spirit, I desire to be a humble and happy Calvinist. Read my full review.

Extended Play

We rewatched the High School Musical trilogy on Disney+ and it's always fun to see how those movies are a product of their time. I do believe, however, that the songs are good, I like Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens singing and dancing together, and it's just a really fun Disney franchise. 

Also, I know the trailer for Mulan has been released, but I"m trying to avoid it to stay spoiler-free!

And while we’re talking about Disney, Al Mohler tackled a huge topic on Thursday’s episode of The Briefing: Disney+ Launches with Cultural Warnings on Some Content: The Changing Moral Landscape.

Food: OneZo brown sugar milk tea

Movie: High School Musical 2

TV: Bizaardvark

Book: Freedom is Coming - From Advent to Epiphany with the prophet Isaiah by Nick Baines

Article: Youth Pastors, Beware of Making Counterfeit Disciples by Chris Li

Song: You Are The Music In Me from High School Musical 2

Coming Soon

In December, my blog is featuring articles that revolve around the Christmas themes of light, babies, and stories. My feature article next week is on the Christmas Movies we love to watch. I'll share more book reviews next week and they will all be for Crown and Covenant Publishing.

I was able to record with Soojin Park for an upcoming episode of the Sound Words podcast. She wrote “A Letter To My Complementarian Brothers” for The SOLA Network. Next week, SOLA will publish my first book review for their blog. And if you follow SOLA on Instagram, we're working on a collaboration giveaway with my favorite foreigncreatures.

Weekly Review

SOLA: Rapper Rich Brian on his Asian identity and immigration story, Andrew Yang seems invisible to the mainstream media — just like most Asian Americans, and How #candid are your candids, really?

Thank God it's Friday: Who You Should Date, Disney+, What Happens When We Sing Together, and Mulan

Book Review: Humble Calvinism

Book Review: John 13-21 For You

Book Review: Remaking a Broken World

Feature Article: Let Your Light Shine

Bulwark Ministries: My King Has Crushed The Curse Of Death (Acoustic)

Recommended Reading: What C. S. Lewis Can Teach Us about Youth Ministry, When Motherhood Isn't Enough, Blogs in 2020, and Instagram's Co-Founder on Creating the World's Filter.

[thatguysamaniac-blog]

Every now and then a conversation sparks up round the water cooler at TGAM Towers that goes along the lines of someone asking "So is gaming mainstream yet?". Hours, insults, fisticuffs and a reminder on policy on worker in the work place later, inevitably the conclusion is a firm not yet.  We're not expecting an overnight transformation. But what would it take?  We have game inspired video games at the Box Office (okay so they're rarely great), Final Fantasy menus in restaurants, Splatoon and Pokemon collaboration ranges with Uniqlo, LEGO collaborations with Blizzard, Midway and SEGA. Museum exhibitions on video games, design and art. Gaming content seemingly dominates large swathes of the Internet from Youtube through to Youporn. Yet admitting that you choose to spend your time playing video games every now and then still feels, in the UK at least, akin to admitting that you strictly only eat the faces of babies because that's where the softest meat is.    When Does This Pre-Amble End? When it comes to the real world, specifically the high street, video games themselves have virtually no presence at all. In fact it's got worse since our budding interest grew in the 1990s. Arcades are all but dead, few cities have a dedicated game retailer (you might be able to find a grotty copy of NBA 2018 in one of those laptop/mobile repair shops), major supermarkets stock perhaps 4.5 games and media stores in general are critically endangered. TV never manged to 'get' gaming and even though Esports is making huge strides it's still not managed to topple the likes of darts, snooker and cricket from their prime time perches (or even get broadcast at all away from the Internet).  When we first got into gaming we'd wet our pants even when video games penetrated the mass media in the lamest ways from those Lucozade Tomb Raider ads. to the awful why-can't-anyone-crack-gaming-content-on-TV shows and even feigning support for those Resident Evil films when there was frankly nothing else on the horizon. However, now that Netflix is a national sport we're almost drowning in a rich and diverse soup of game-related content. Most of which is total pants. Some of which is bonkers and dare I say some might even have appeal beyond those who would call themselves a gamer (and cringes at the same time because nobody over the age of 12 unironically calls themselves a gamer). Gaming content is so prevalent on Netflix, it even has it's own category, two in fact! Does this mean gaming is mainstream yet? No you babyface eating monster it doesn't are you mad?  Gaming Shit Currently on UK Netflix (Alphabetically) The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 Okay so for all the hype up top, a lot of this stuff is cheesy kid's cartoons. This is a 30 year old cheesy cartoon loosely based on that hot new video game release Super Mario Bros. 3 and although a smidgen better than the Super Mario Bros. Super Show.... it's amazing this franchise didn't just die in the 90s. Remember King Koopa and Princess Toadstool? 13 episodes. 13 episodes too many.  Angry Birds Can any lawyers out there help? Is there some EU mandated law that means video game tie-in media has to come out decades after the thing it is based on became culturally irrelevant? Three seasons of this steaming mess and I've not got to the will to work out if this is related to the movie, the sequel movie out THIS YEAR(?), the toons series or how it will fit in with the WHO IS ASKING FOR THIS CONTENT 'long form' cartoon out in 2020. For those of you younger than 10, i.e. the target audience for this stuff, Angry Birds used to be a video game. Black Mirror Sometimes very video game inspired, sometimes not, this series makes us question our relationship with technology makes us feel even worse for prodding a phone screen and writing swears to other 14 year olds online. Recommended watching but not all in one go mind.  Castlevania Supposedly a decent anime version of the games. I've not watched all of it because I only played Castlevania 64 and Dawn of Sorrow and if you don't understand who any of the characters are, it's reaaalllly slow and boring. Worth a try if you actually have engaged with the critically acclaimed series unlike us.  Digimon Fusion Ergh. Dirty. No. Bad Mega Bloks. No. Dinosaur King Ahhh dinosaur games. Archaeologists have found ancient scrolls that record the Dinosaur King was actually a video game and collectible card game from 2005. This is the series from 2008 that absolutely is not based on Pokemon at all and mixes anime style and really really bad looking CGI.   Final Fantasy XIV: Dad of Light Okay, this series is actually brilliant. Remember how Pinball Wizard was a feature movie advert for Super Mario Bros. 3? Well this is a series length advert for Final Fantasy XIV told through the heart warming story of an awkward Japanese man and his awkward relationship with his awkward recently retired Dad and he tries to rebuild that relationship by getting him into Final Fantasy XIV because they used to play Final Fantasy together. Each week is a new challenge as his Dad quits because of a mechanic he doesn't understand that helpfully his son and his guildmates help explain. Passable on it's own but elevated to must watch by a few scenes that use familiar Final Fantasy sounds that get this glorified advert tugging on the heart strings.  Halo Shit Includes Halo 4: Forward Until Dawn, Halo Legends and Halo Fall of Reach. The first one is live action and frankly awful. Legends is to Halo what Animatrix was to the Matrix and worth a watch. I've watched Halo: Fall of Reach six or seven times and I can't tell you what happens so try it perhaps? Hi Score Girl Weird anime homage to early arcades told through the relationship of a nerdy arcade kid and an aloof posh girl who is very good at video games but not allowed to play them at home. Watch if you you always wondered about turtling in Street Fighter 2 but didn't actually look it up in the last 30 years. Probably very nostalgic for 30 something Japanese gamers. Which isn't us.  Ingress the Animation I've impressed myself that I didn't miss this. Remember Ingress the AR mobile game that nobody had heard of  until it got a Pokemon Go reskin? No neither did I. Well apparently someone along the way believed so strongly in the Ingress vision that they commissioned an anime series in 2018. Really slow. Extremely Japanese. If the game was anything like this then we can understand why nobody has heard of it.  Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV (NO LONGER AVAILABLE) This appears to have been pulled which is a shame as it was alright. Apparently, I'm reliably told the events of this film are really important to the context of the game and only told in this film. Errr tough anyway you missed it here.  Minecraft Story Mode Fuck off. Pacman and the Ghostly Adventures Perhaps takes the award for being the least relevant television tie-in ever. We got two seconds in before reaching for the revolver and the sweet release of a bullet kiss to the brain. All the tropes of Saturday morning cartoons with none of the charisma. Remarkably there's also a Halloween and Christmas Merry Berry short to make both of those holidays even more intolerable. Brilliant soundtrack though.   Pixels Probably the best worst video game related movie of all time. I'm not sure who the audience was when it came out and with each year gets more and more obscure. It stays the same amount of crap though which is a lot of crap.    Pokemon Want to watch only the first and last series of the anime and whatever random films seem to be on Netflix at the time? Knock yourself out. For us this is the UK being shit at commercialising this shit at its worst. Its very worst. The entirety of Pokemon has never been available in the UK at the same time ever. We never got VHS/DVD releases for most series or cinematic releases for some of the films. The Pokemon TV app frustratingly cycles episodes in and out and bizarrely Netflix is missing the middle 91 seasons and the first 38 films. It doesn't fucking matter anyway every episode is the same except the latest season where every episode is the same but set in a school BECAUSE WE'RE ALL CHILDREN AND WE FIND SCHOOL SUPER RELATABLE. There's also a creepy birthday video, hilariously with characters from a season otherwise not available on Netflix. Is it too much to ask to employ one person part-time to curate this shit? Rabbids Invasion File under striking whilst the iron is... you know what, I can't hate on the Rabbids. I really want to but honestly they're brilliant and most of their games are too. Probably brilliant. Strangely only the 4th season is available...?  Red Vs Blue The series that built the house of goofing around in games. Early seasons have not aged well at all. How did we put up with the awful sound and even worse 'plot'? 124 seasons of this madness though so if you're in palliative care and want to speed things along...   Resident Evil: Afterlife Hysterically, only the middle film is available serving the incredibly niche audience of people who like the Milaverse Resident Evil films but are four films behind.  Skylanders Academy Remember the smash hit wallet biting Toys to Life game series that ran itself and all the imitators into the ground from 2011 to 2016 and now fill attics and sheds the world over? Well now you can enjoy the 2018 animated series with all handfuls of your favourite characters. Set in a high school. There's also a weird 1 minute long happy birthday message thing that a lot of the kid's shows have done on Netflix so if you really hate your kid and want to let them know you should show them that on their birthday I guess.  Smosh the Movie Is this video games? They look cuntish enough to be Youtubers and this movie is exactly as awkward as you'd expect when Youtubers try to do something proper with make up, production values and nice cameras. Like that *cringes* Game Grumps series. Or when that *mega cringes* green haired kid did that Fortnite dance at that thing. Suggested watching if you're need that extra push to do the right thing and end yourself before it all gets a bit Fallouty round here. Sonic Boom This is the weird one that all the furries like. Tomb Raider I think the rebooted film before the current reboot? Is casting ladies from the North of the UK to be Lara Croft still a thing? In this movie Lara Croft, I kid you not, is a Deliveroo driver and... it does pick up from there but in a very formulaic and inoffensive kinda way. Video Game High School (NO LONGER AVAILABLE) And be fucking thankful. What if instead of lessons at school you played different video games? Live action series with hands down one of the worst cast of actors of all time. Ridiculous premise (which of course later sort of became real with several Universities running esports programmes) glad it got removed to be honest. Yokai Watch The new new Pokemon with 80% less appeal. Not 100% sure the game series is still going. Children's Shows and Toilet Contents So there we have it. No doubt there's a few I missed and some of this may have disappeared by the time you're reading this. A rich smorgasbord of children's cartoons and questionable content that got a pass because it's video games. At the time of writing, there's virtually no adult content and currently no documentaries. Which is a shame. If they wanted, Netflix could become the de facto place for curated traditionally produced gaming related content from Street Fighter live action movie and animated series, the CG Resident Evil Films, Pinball Wizard, King of Kong, Silent Hill one and two, the Dead Space films etc. etc. Instead it seems that they're content to maintain this weird ever changing half complete line up of irrelevant at launch factory manufactured kid's shows and single films from a series. Perhaps they are right though, there's no point competing with YouTube and Twitch which now host infinity hours worth of quality content that gamers are already spending millions of pounds on supporting. Is gaming mainstream yet? Looks like we need to wait until one of the grumpy white middle class hacks at the Guardian produces an op-ed on why they're giving up on Rabbids Invasion despite everyone at dinner parties talking about it or how Smosh the Movie made them bicurious one evening.  It's perhaps better to stay in the margins of the old media whilst defining new media (at a ripe young 40), after all REALLY PUNCHY FINISHER. Right?

http://www.thatguys.co.uk/2019/07/gaming-shit-on-netflix.html

[fic-dreamin]

Absolutely amazing book with incredible detail. Beautifully done. Extremely satisfied with this book. I had to wait a few weeks for Amazon to get it in stock. It was well worth the wait. The detail and the intricacy in each pop up page is amazing. There are "only" six main pages to the book...one each for Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Green Lanterns, a villains page and a final heroes fighting villains page. However, each page also contains one to three mini pages that open up with additional pop ups. All of the pop ups are amazing with the standouts being the Batman (the Bat Signal lights up!) and heroes versus villains pages. I HIGHLY recommend this book to any comic book/superhero fan. It is a definite conversation piece. Just one word of caution, be extremely careful as you open each page...the pop ups are delicate and I can see them tearing if you aren't too careful. For that reason, I don't really think this is a hands on children's book. Though, if an adult handles the pages, kids will be mesmerized by it. The pictures I've included actually don't do the pages justice. Go to Amazon

As COMIC BOOK GUY on the SIMPSON'S would say, "Best SUPER HERO POP-UP BOOK EVER!!!" I enjoy the Reinhart illustrated pop-up books with Mr. Reinhart's paper engineering but it is cool to see him employ his pop-up mechanics to other artists, in this case DC comics super hero comics! While there are Marvel hero pop-up books as well I would think that Stan Lee, if he saw this pop-up hero book, would want to hire Matthew Reinhart to make a pop-up display book of his marvel characters because this pop-up book is just out of sight!! As I type this review Wonder Woman is poping right out of this book twirling her golden lasso made out of gold coloured string while her paper black hair blows in the breeze and her pop-out bosum curves outward while her long legs kick down and outward from the pages!! WOW!! There is also a mini transparet acetate jet with her inside flying it! Super cool!! The Batman pages have the caped crusader poping out over the Gotham city rooftops with his cape in classic batwing shape while the batsignal lights up! Book page tells me what batteries to get when the power runs out! Mini pop-ups of Robin and Batgirl are also cool as is the pop-up batmobile and a grusome Joker face! Written text accompaning the pop-ups remind me of some of the revisions done to superheros that I don't care for like Lois Lane and Clark Kent getting married and Robin becoming Nightwing! But I can ignore all that and enjoy these classic pop-up moments of our heros in their classic prime! Go to Amazon

A pop-up book for the adult fan too It's been years since I've bought a pop-up book, and that was for my kids. Now this one I bought for myself and I have to say it's incredible. Clocking in at 9 inches thick (but only 6 real pages), this monster has the most intricate pop-outs you've every seen. The first pages deal with a particular hero or villain (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Darkseid) while the last page is a real treat. It's a huge pop-up almost a foot tall of the Justice League fighting a ton of super villains! Every one of these is very intricate, and as you can imagine this is rather fragile. You can just open and slam a page shut. You have to make sure the folds and creases fall back in the right places. Go to Amazon

Highly recommend this amazing pop-up book This book is awesome. I originally bought it for my 3 year old who is, of course, all about Super heroes. (I don't know how that happens - it's not like he's allowed to watch any shoes.) However, when it arrived, I was stunned at how awesome, and how delicate, it is. So I gave it to my very pleased husband for Christmas, with a tag saying it was to be shared with our son. This way, the 3 year old knows he needs permission (and adult supervision) to look at this book. That being said, I am amazed at this creation. Every page is amazing, and on every bottom corner there is another pop up book that includes at least one additional page, if not two. The book is also filled with interesting facts about the Superheroes. This is such a neat book, I recently recommended a friend to buy this for her significant other, who has a love of superheroes, knowing it will be very much appreciated. Go to Amazon

AWESOME book! This is the most awesome pop-up book I have ever seen. The bat sign even lights up! (I had no idea there was a battery in this book until I opened it) My 6 year old daughter LOVES her new book. This is a must have for any super hero fan! Go to Amazon

Love all his pop up books Love all his pop up books. I would recommend always sitting with younger children while they read any pop ups, as they need to be careful while opening the pages and exploring so the book stays in pristine condition. Go to Amazon

EXCELLENT, VERY GOOD AND My three year old son loved it. It’s full of amazing pop ups. It may be a little delicate for younger kids but it’s super fun. Loved it - especially the Batman Lighted page nice colors Christmas Winner Even though the book is generally short bare in mind the book is SUPER thick hence living up to it's name the "ULTIMATE" ... Exceeded Expectations KIDS LOVE IT Wow ... that enjoys Marvel superheros this book would be an amazing gift. Each page includes a pop up that ...