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vicarfelix · 4 years

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A Team Matter

Felix Millstone x Fem. Captain

Warnings: Language

Word Count: 2,036

“This is our mission. You just happen to be the captain of it.”

Her team was like family to her. From the young and youthful Parvati to the auto mechanic SAM, every single one of her crew had a special place in her heart. Truth be told, none of the missions she had been on so far would’ve been possible without their help along the way. The Captain admired their hard work ethic and their loyalty. It was rare for any of them to question her judgement or decision making. Whatever she would do or say, they would be there to back her up. That was truly special to her.

That wasn’t to say that they didn’t bump heads with each other every now and then. That was life in a nutshell. It was impossible to get along all the time. 6 different people and 1 robot...all with completely different personalities. It was inevitable for there to be tension and disagreements at times.

The person who had grinded the Captain’s gears today was none other than the esteemed priest himself. She respected Max a lot. She put a lot of faith into him. He had an interesting backstory that had a couple of holes in it. She knew he had been to prison, spent a huge portion of his life searching for...well, that as the part she never quite understood. He was a trained hacker and served as an important asset to her team. That was why she had no issue with deciding to help him with a favor. She traveled with Max to Fallbrook to find an old scholar friend of his. Although, once she arrived and located him, she discovered that “friend” was not at all the case.

She was able to detect during the conversation that Max had lied to her in order to be sure she’d accept the task of his favor. She did not take kindly to lying, especially when Max knew what the bigger objective at hand was. It was her decision to make whether Max’s request was worth taking the time to do. The fact that he had fibbed in order to manipulate her decision did not make her happy. It infuriated her beyond description.

She scolded Max and expressed her anger for what he had done. He seemed genuinely sorry, acknowledging that he let his own personal feelings get in the way of what was important. She chewed him out royally and even made him cower a little bit. Thankfully, the Captain had brought Parvati along and she was able to fizzle things out before the Captain did something she’d soon regret. She seriously considered firing him on the spot and leaving him behind in Fallbrook. In the end, she decided that wouldn’t be right. She couldn’t leave anybody behind.

Still, she made sure that he knew if he ever pulled anything like that again then he’d be gone. The trek back to The Unreliable was quiet. Not even Parvati dared to say anything to try and ease the mood. Usually, Captain tended to avoid being spotted by raptidons and go around them. However, she had some serious negative energy to burn off and she made it a point to shoot at every single one they passed.

Eventually, Captain entered the ship, closing the door behind her selected crew. ADA greeted them per usual, her voice echoing through the ship. Parvati was quick to climb the stairs to the upper level because she could barely handle the tension anymore. Max knew that the Captain had nothing more to say to him and that she likely didn’t want to see him for the rest of the night. So, he returned to his bunk and called it a day.

She usually would huddle with her crew to wind the evening down and discuss the game plan for the next day, but truthfully she just wanted to be alone for a little bit.

The rest of the crew was upstairs sitting around the kitchen area. They found it odd that Max didn’t stick around to chat, but it all made sense when Parvati explained in a hushed voice.

“I would leave Captain alone until tomorrow if I were y’all,” She advised; “She’s madder than a stuck primal.”

This surely got everybody’s attention, especially Felix’s. He always worried about Captain. Even more so now that they were an item. He knew she could handle herself and anything thrown her way, but he still didn’t like it when she was upset about something. Nyoka, who was standing at the counter, chimed in soon after;

“Why’s that, P? What happened?” She asked for Parvati to elaborate.

Parvati looked to make sure Max wasn’t in the room before continuing;

“Mr. Vicar lied to her and she found out. She hollered at him and I was sure she was going to let him go. She went straight to her quarters when we got back just now.” She said, taking a seat next to Felix.

Ellie let out a low whistle. She was standing at the head of the table, arms crossed and brows raised;

“She always checks in before turning in for the night. That must’ve been some lie to make Captain that upset.” She stated.

Felix was fiddling with the tossball that he always kept in his pocket. The wheels in his head were turning. He knew how Captain felt about traitors, liars, people who abuse their power. She wasn’t a fan when someone told a lie for personal gain, but even Felix knew it was peculiar for her to be this frustrated over it.

“I’ll say. That’s not normal at all.” Felix claimed.

Knowing that there wouldn’t be a team meeting, the rest of the crew scattered into their own rooms just to start the day over tomorrow. Felix, on the other hand, decided to pay her a visit once he knew she had some time to mellow out. He crept quietly downstairs, careful not to wake anybody up who might have been asleep. He could be a bit heavy footed and he had his fair share of being yelled at for activating SAM in the middle of the night. To avoid this, he was sure to remove his shoes to soften his footfalls.

He came to the Captain’s doorway, peeking his head in to see her standing at the long tabletop, leaning against it. He watched intently as her eyes gazed over the planet in front of her, deep in thought. She eventually noticed his stare which prompted him to offer a bright grin.

“Hey, Felix,” She said in a rather monotone voice; “I’m guessing you’re here to check on me.”

He shrugged. She was half-right. He did indeed want to check on her, but he also just wanted to see how her day went. Although, based on what Parvati had said, he was sure it didn’t go so well. He took that as an invitation to enter and approach her. He stood next to her, his hand finding the small of her back;

“I just wanted to see my favorite gal,” He said cheekily; “And to check on you.”

She knew once Felix figured out that something had gone awry that he’d come bopping in to see what was up. Truth was, she was relieved to see him and to have someone who was always willing to listen.

“You know the situation I’m in,” She began; “The situation I’ve dragged all of you into.”

“I think it’s fair to say we brought ourselves into it. You didn’t exactly ask me to be a part of this crew...I asked you for a job.” Felix corrected.

“But I didn’t tell you my mission until after I hired you,” She retorted, moving across from him to sit on the bed; “I’ve been tasked by some crazed scientist for all I know to save the colony. I wasn’t given a lot of instruction other than to take this ship and keep in touch with Phineas. I don’t even know what the endgame is gonna be.”

Felix was listening closely. He turned from the window to face her, leaning back against the table. It was all starting to make sense now. It was simple. She was stressed and the pressure was beginning to get to her. He let her go on;

“I’m the one who’s got to save Halcyon. To be successful, I need our crew to be honest with me and all on the same page. I need to be able to put my trust in this team,” She said; “That’s why I got so upset with Max today. He lied to me to ensure that I would do something that he wanted. It didn’t affect anything too bad, but that was a serious blow to my trust in him.”

Felix understood where she was coming from. He believed that honesty was extremely important, especially with the way things were now. He saw both sides of the coin. He saw her position as a captain with a life changing goal ahead, but he also understood how much finding Reginald meant to Max.

“Max didn’t mean any harm. He understands that he should’ve handled it differently,” He suggested; “The mission wasn’t affected any. We’ve still got time.”

Felix had a point, but she was still irritated. As the captain, she was the one who had to decide what was worth their time. She got to decide what they had time for. She never minded doing something for someone in your beloved crew, but she still had a big mission hanging over her head.

“I know that, Felix, but what’s going to happen when I set us out on a mission that does affect what I’m trying to do here?” She said with your voice having a slight edge to it; “Then the colony’s fate is destroyed just because I thought it was a good idea to let the vicar have a fucking book translated.”

He would admit, he would never want to be in her shoes. That was one hell of a weight to carry alone. He was just fine being a crew-hand. However, she was perfectly able. She had what it took to save Halcyon. She had a badass squad, a family, by her side to help the cause.

“What’s this ‘I’ nonsense I keep hearing? This isn’t your burden anymore. This became a group matter the second you hired the first person of this crew,” He said with a sense of urgency. He couldn’t let her go on any longer thinking this was all on her; “This is our mission. You just happen to be the captain of it.”

Her heart was warmed by his words. That was unbelievably comforting. She needed their help, each and every one. She couldn’t do this alone. She knew this. Phineas knew that when he brought her from her 70 year hibernation that she’d be able to find companions to assist you along the way if she wanted it.

“You're saying if I go down with this mission, then you’re going down too?” She asked semi-joking.

He smirked, raising and settling his brows quickly;

“Damn right we will. It’s all or nothing, boss. We’re in this together.” He said moving to join her on the small bed.

“Thanks, Felix. I needed that.” She admitted; “And I thought I told you that you don’t have to call me boss?”

Felix smiled proudly. He knew he could lift her spirits. She was sounding like herself again. He leaned back onto her pillow and stretched out. Looked like he’d be staying the night here. Not that she minded.

“I like calling you boss. Even if you weren’t my captain, you’d still be the boss of this relationship.” He laughed heartily.

She playfully smacked his leg, a little offended at his statement.

“You calling me bossy?” She asked with a giggle.

“Yeah, I am actually,” He confessed; “But I wouldn’t want you any other way.”

She blushed. What a guy. She was thankful that she ran into him that fateful day on Groundbreaker. There’s no way this mission would still be afloat without him and the team she’d built. They’d be by her side no matter what.

For that, she was forever thankful.

#felix millstone #felix millstone x reader #felix millstone x you #felix millstone fanfiction #the outer worlds #the outer worlds felix millstone #felix millstone oneshot #felix millstone x female captain

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galaxina-the-pyro · 4 years

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Isabella!! For the character ask

Bless your heart, I love you, thank you.

Favorite Thing About Them: Isabella is such an adorable bean and such a potent badass. Every time I see her in an episode, even for a moment, the enjoyment just increases. I guess you could say that I appreciate that she’s...a girl. She’s not a tomboy, not a girly-girl, not some kinda stereotype even though the show makes you think that at first, she’s just a girl. A girl who likes selling cupcakes, singing songs, being cute, all the stuff girls are stereotypically known for to the point of pink being her iconic color - and then you see her doing stuff like making a manly announcement about a truck rally, taking on Buford, being incredibly competitive and loving extreme sports, earning insane, non-conventional patches, FIGHTING ROBOTS, she’s a flipping beast. And she does it as HERSELF - there’s no one telling Isabella she shouldn’t like pink or should conform to one line of thinking. Heck, her whole shtick is just having a crush on a boy - and even though fans may complain about that, and even if the universe seems against Isabella at times, her friends never show disdain toward her feelings, it’s never implied that Isabella is WRONG for doing or liking things. She’s just...being her. She’s a girl - and a girl can like dolls and they can like bb guns. Heck, Isabella’s the character who made me realize how stupid labels really are, and that I should just focus on being me instead of trying to avoid being a stereotype.

I can also very much relate TO her crush on Phineas - I’ve felt that same fear whenever I had a crush on a boy. Heck, my favorite Isabella centered episode, “Operation Crumb Cake” really nails down all the aspects of Isabella that I ESPECIALLY adore. Isabella’s loyalty to Phineas is just...so wholesome and loving. More on that later.

Least Favorite Thing About Them: Isabella is a feminist icon - probably more-so than even Candace, Vanessa, or any other female in the show. As a result, though it’s not TOO often, she’s usually the mouthpiece for certain propaganda regarding the whole “girls are better than boys” fallacy that seems to be littered in children’s programming, Phineas and Ferb sadly being no exception. On one hand, it can be done relatively well - I liked her interactions with Buford in “Got Game?”, as she never once implied that girls were necessarily better than boys, rather that girls COULD beat boys.

On the other hand, you have Mission Marvel, where Isabella complains that there are NO superheroines in the group, even though she’s never had a problem being the only female in the group in the past. It greatly weakens her character whenever she plays a propaganda mouthpiece - this goes without saying for any character, but a character like Isabella especially.

Favorite Line: “Oh, Phineas, yes! I've been right here in front of you all along just waiting for you to...oh...wait. You were talking about the puppet, weren’t you?”

(Much like Phineas, Isabella has A LOT of good lines that are underappreciated - “Do we have chopped liver? What do you think this place is? Chopped li-- oh, that doesn’t really work.”, “See what I mean? One woman’s capris pants is another’s...what’d I miss?”, and ya’ll know how much I love her “IT’S EXTREME!” tangents.)

brOTP: Isabella’s got a good list of brOTPs, namely with the Fireside Girls, Candace, Ferb, and of course Phineas - since I’m just gonna be gushing about Phinabella in the next part, I’m just gonna talk about the obvious:

I like how The Fireside Girls are in sync, but they’re also not perfect. They’re a clique of sorts, but not necessarily in a bad way. They still make mistakes, like pick on Ginger, and they seem to follow Isabella a little too easily, but their bond is, regardless, part of what makes them all so likable. I really wish we had more Fireside Girls episodes, because those girls deserved more development, and Isabella ROCKS that uniform.

Isabella and Candace’s relationship isn’t as forward as the others, but I really like their interactions - Isabella’s always willing to give Candace advice even if it wasn’t asked for, and Candace was so earnest in comforting Isabella when Pinky went missing and was even supportive of Isabella’s crush on Phineas even though she personally didn’t get the attraction. These two are gonna be rad sister inlaws.

Then there’s Ferb, which was a very interesting development. Isabella went from simply acknowledging him, to outright trying to push him and the others out of the picture, to appreciating him, and finally to really truly getting to know how he thinks. Ferb is an awesome wingman, and a supportive friend - he’s also a total troll, and I love him all the same.

Edit: Adding this here, I also really love Isabella’s friendship/rivalry with Doofenshmirtz, like, they were kinda hostile at first but then she became like? So supportive? She gave him a patch and everything, and I think that’s like, so important, because not many people believe in Doofenshmirtz and assume the worst, and then here’s Isabella who’s gotten to know him and believes he can accomplish his goal enough to give him a patch revolving around it - it’s so wonderful, and if we ever get more content I want them to interact again because any positive reinforcement for Doof is fantastic.

OTP: Phinabella. That’s a given, let’s all be real here. Isabella’s love for Phineas has always been a personal source of joy for me, and I hope to be as devoted as her when I find that special someone. Phineas and Isabella are just...so very in sync, and have such a great bond with each other. Sure, it’s hilarious whenever Isabella’s shot down, but what REALLY makes this ship is just their interactions. Whenever they dance together, whenever Phineas involves Isabella with a project or asks her what they should do, the puns they shared in “De Plane! De Plane!”, how protective they are of each other, how much they care for their feelings - it’s just so darn sweet.

It actually is all the stronger given how oblivious Phineas is, because that let’s you know that those gestures are ALL the more sincere. Phineas just so very deeply cares for Isabella, and Isabella cares very deeply for Phineas. I wish “Act Your Age” showcased this more instead of tearing them a part for a while, because I have a hard time believing they’d lose touch even if Isabella were to try to move on from Phineas - because their friendship isn’t just BECAUSE of Isabella’s crush, and their chemistry isn’t because of romance itself, it’s from the fact that they’re deeply connected in the most pure ways imaginable. I just...love them so much.

I like shipping Isabella with other characters, mostly OCs and...well...Buford oddly enough, but I can’t really see any of those ships being truly endgame. It’s always Phinabella in my heart, it always has to be.

nOTP: Let’s see, uh...Doofbella, Isabella/Candace, Isabella x any of the Fireside Girls, Isabella x Perry...I’d put Ferbella here, but I’m actually okay with that ship. I don’t CARE for it, but I don’t outright despise it either.

Random Headcanon: Based on the events of “La Candace-Cabra”, pulling Isabella’s dress inside out reveals that it doubles as a goat costume; she claims that all the dresses of this particular style and brand do this, and that she only has this dress because “there was a sale at the Googleplex mall”. She ultimately despises the fact her dresses have this feature, but appreciates how soft the goat-costume fur makes the outfit.

Unpopular Opinion: I kinda sorta wish that there was an episode where Buford won against Isabella? Or maybe, just put Isabella in a position where she didn’t necessarily SUCCEED against an opponent. I’d find that kinda conflict interesting.

Song I Associate With Them: “A Thousand Years” by Christina Perri

Favorite Picture of Them:

To be fair there’s like...too many pictures to count, but if I had to choose, it’d be this one...oh, and uh, this one too (I know it’s a gif, but c’mon, this is amazing):

Wow...I talked about Isabella A LOT. Maybe she really IS my favorite...

...nope. Still a three-way draw.

#Phineas and Ferb #isabella garcia-shapiro #phinbella #phinabella #pnf #ask game #character ask #i really like isabella a lot #she just makes me super happy #lol

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transxfiles · 4 years

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What are some shows you like?

Here’s some of the ones that come to mind, and why I like them :D

Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts - post apocalypse done well, every character is a person of color, world building is very sound and believable, animation’s cute, also the soundtrack fucking slaps

Round Planet - nature documentary with commentary that just fucking slaps, very funny, please watch it

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power - overall good show, cute animation, the ending made me very happy, has some arcs i didn’t like but the overarching storyline made up for it, lovely lgbt rep

Gilmore Girls - i like watching this with my family, the dialogue is well-written and banter-y, fun characters and plot that i can disappear into, small town vibes that are written by someone who has obviously never lived in a small town but i’ll excuse it because i enjoy the show

Steven Universe - animation is adorable, love the dynamic of the three aliens trying to figure out how to raise a small human child who also has alien powers, lots of great lessons on various things, the world building is lovely and the characters are three-dimensional and believable, there are lgbt characters here too

Buzzfeed: Unsolved - i just really enjoy the dynamic between the two hosts, also appreciate how they literally know nothing about anything they investigate, true crime but they’re always just like “fuck this dude was messed up”, hosts drink their respect women juice, as someone who believes in ghosts because family members have been known to come into contact with them there’s definitely an element of genuine paranormal activity in this one

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? - i watched this a lot as a kid and it makes me very happy because it’s kind of like a comfort show for me

What’s New, Scooby-Doo? - again, watched it as a kid, comforting when i’m having a bad day

Antiques Roadshow - love learning about different old things it makes me happy, fun to find out that a plate a lady’s been serving potatoes on for years is actually a picasso, even better when you see this old white man try to sell off something as an ‘ancient indian relic’ but it turns out he was fucking scammed

Avatar: The Last Airbender - this show is just amazing, it’s got so many great themes it would take too long to list them all here, the character arcs are great, love how the world is built so it feels almost like our world but not quite, all characters are asian, sibling dynamic between two main characters is so fucking relatable, even the episodes that feel like filler episodes aren’t really filler, best villain redemption ever, just a wonderful show overall

The Great British Bake Off - the best cooking/baking show ever, incredibly pure, everyone’s kind to each other and it’s quite lovely, plus all the bakes look really tasty and the hosts are fun!

Good Omens - wonderful book-to-show adaptation, probably one of the better takes on christianity in general (i went to catholic school for my primary education so it was fun to see biblical elements of the show) but it’s also not really a religious show at all, the characters are fun, love the witch character because she’s just pretty badass, the kids are written so that they feel very much like kids which a lot of writers have a hard time doing

Phineas and Ferb - the plot’s repetitive but i can still watch multiple episodes back to back without getting bored, i love all the characters, the villain is great because he’s super smart but he devotes all of his time to fighting his platypus nemesis and building crazy machines the he thinks will help him take over the tri-state area, all of the songs are bops, the protagonists are little rays of sunshine, the dialogue always makes me smile, protagonists come from multiple different cultural backgrounds

Gravity Falls - i'm a sucker for mysteries and conspiracy so this is a fave, the animation’s really fun and adds to the story, a great overarching plot line for a kid’s show, the family dynamic is believable and relatable, accurate portrayal of sibling relationship, kids summon demons: not clickbait

Milo Murphy’s Law - in the phineas and ferb universe, overarching plot lines that are fun, time-travelers and middle school shenanigans, the protagonist always has the worst happen to him but he always has a positive attitude which is really wonderful and he’s honestly just a ray of sunshine

Gayle - a youtube series, so fucking funny, pretty much the chronicles of a karen

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palizinhas · 4 years

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For the asks, I'll ask Phineas and Ferb! And if you've already done that, Phineas for the character asks! :)

You know what, I’ll do both!

This is enourmous though, so under the cut.

PnF:

Favorite character: Ferb!! I just think he’s so chill and fun to watch. So many of my favorite moments in the series come from him, because he may not say much, but he says everything he needs to say and more than makes up by his lack of lines by crushing every single one he does have. Also helps that whenever he sung the song was an absolute highlight for me.

Least Favorite character: God. Linda. It’s just. IDK. She’s so unable to take Candace seriously, and if she really thinks that “there’s something wrong with her”, she should do something about it. I know, I know, it’s just for the jokes, but that has always bothered me.

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): My only real pnf ships are Phinabella and kinda Perryshmirtz (it’s just this thing where there’s so much cute art for them that I’ve just come to accept it as not being that weird, though I don’t blame people for being grossed out by it). I’m also lowkey fond of Candace/Vanessa and Buford/Baljeet, but I’m not sure I’d say that I really ship them. To round it up with number 5... I’ll cheat and say PnF SW Phinabella, just because PnF really got me to buy into the Skysolo expy huh.

Character I find most attractive: Growing up it was definitely Vanessa, but they’re all my children now.

Character I would marry: Lawrence seems like a chill husband.

Character I would be best friends with: Baljeet’s subplot in CATU being how much he likes Space Adventure was super hashtag relatable as someone who is super into SW. We could nerd out together, it would be fun.

a random thought: I wish they’d make a sequel to PnF SW. I’ve joked about it being named “Emperry Strikes Back” in the past, but it’s just... I love SW. I love PnF. PnF SW is a masterpiece. Let me have more of it.

An unpopular opinion: I’m not even sure what counts or not as unpopular, I’m not that involved with the PnF fandom like I was three years ago, but I think I enjoy CATU more than ATSD. Not because I think it has a stronger story - ATSD just has a lot of plotlines everyone always wanted to see, so no PnF movie will ever touch it in that sense - but I just think CATU is more fun. It definitely has a better soundtrack, but even outside of that I find myself thinking about CATU more than I ever did ATSD outside of writing fic where they remember everything.

My Canon OTP: Phinabella, of course. It will always be so weird to call them “canon”, but they are. AYA’s quality or lack thereof aside, I’ll always be glad for the episode for being the first PnF episode I watched in years and getting me back into the show, and I don’t think that would have happened were it not for my 13-year-old self struggling to read in English because there were no good PnF fanfics in Portuguese.

My Non-canon OTP: I already talked a bit about Perryshmirtz, so I’ll talk about Candace/Vanessa instead. I just think it’s so cool how their relationship evolved over the course of the show. A great thing about PnF is that despite having a very strict formula, there are some relationships that changed over the course of the summer, and these two legit had never even met before the show began and turned out to have such great chemistry.

Most Badass Character: You can’t not say Isabella. There’s Perry too, of course, but I think Isabella impresses me more because she’s not some badass secret agent, she’s just... a kid.

Most Epic Villain: Darth Ferb!!! I went into PnF SW mostly unspoiled and that was so cool.

Pairing I am not a fan of: Um. I have nothing against Canderemy, per se, but I always preferred Candace when she had plots with her brothers or Vanessa than her plots with Jeremy.

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): Sometimes I think about the Mission Marvel episode and randomly get mad. It’s not even one specific character, I just don’t think that crossover worked. It’s probably the only episode of the show I only watched once, and I just... really don’t like how some of the characters were written in it.

Favourite Friendship: The kid crew is the best, man. All five of them are such fun characters, and I love all of their interactions. My favorite pair within it is probably Buford and Isabella, who I just think had some really fun scenes together, but you can’t go wrong with these five.

Character I most identify with: Growing up it was definitely Baljeet, as the nerd kid who got picked on and all that. Now, I’m not sure?

Character I wish I could be: Honestly, any of the fireside girls. They seem like they’ve got their life together. Wish I could relate.

Phineas:

How I feel about this character: Phineas is such a good kid. I always preferred Ferb, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think Phineas is awesome. He’s so nice, such a genuinely great person who just wants to help everyone so they can have as great a time as he is having.

Any/all the people I ship romantically with this character: Just Isabella, really. I think there’s probably some good fanfic that makes a case for Phineas and other people (Baljeet could be cute, I guess?) but I just can’t really see Phineas with anyone else.

My favorite non-romantic relationship for this character: Ferb!! They just get each other so freaking well, and for all that the actual story of PnF is less about the two of them and more how the other characters react to them, I don’t think the show would have worked if their relationship wasn’t as good.

My unpopular opinion about this character: Again, not sure what counts or not as unpopular. Maybe that I wasn’t into the “Phineas gets angry at Candace” scenes? Like, I remember before CATU came out people would always talk about wanting another, but I was so glad when the movie came out and we didn’t get one. Get on the trike was funny, but after that it got annoying.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I found the Phineas and Ferb Effect (the actual thing, not the episode) a weird choice, but if they were going to go there, I’d have enjoyed some actual aknowledgment on how weird it was. I know a lot of things got cut from the crossover for time, so I get it, but I do wish there was more of a reaction from Phineas and Ferb to finding out about it.

Favorite friendship for this character: I do really enjoy Phineas and Isabella’s friendship? Like, while I do ship them, I was never really one to wish they’d get together within the show because I didn’t want their dynamic to change, because it was just so good on its own. They’re such good friends regardless of anything else and I really appreciate that.

My crossover ship: I don’t do crossover shipping most of the time, tbh.

#phineas and ferb #authenticcadence18

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helly-watermelonsmellinfellon · 6 years

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Fantastic Beasts: CoG Thoughts and Observations

*SPOILERS* Press ‘J’ if you want to skip to the next post.

Grindelwald is a badass. I don’t even like him and yet he’s a fucking badass. He was in fucking prison for 6 months and they had to change his guards multiple times because he’s so damn charismatic that he kept luring the Aurors to his side!

He then got out long before he was supposed to be transported and literally took out everyone on the transport team. And he drove the damn carriage and without even looking behind him, directed bolts of lightning to take out some of the Aurors on their brooms.

He did not come to play.

Newt is still my adorable child. He’s so awkward and still feels like he did in the first film which is great. A lot of people whined about how he wasn’t ‘manly enough’. Because Newt shows compassion on the regular and is more soft-spoken and not interested in ‘manly professions’ or some shit, so he doesn’t fit the ridiculous type of masculinity Hollywood shoves down our throats and dudebros can’t relate to him.

“There are no strange creatures, only wicked people,” is a great line and should be used in reference to animals as well since some people still walk around acting like sharks and pitbulls are evil incarnate. I really love Newt.

Leta knows him well enough to know what he’d say in response to her comment. They have an awkward air of camaraderie about them.

Newt stood up to a teacher with that line of his and got a month’s worth of detention. Leta left a dungbomb in his office to get back at him so she could join Newt. Good friends fight the intolerant assholes in charge of your education together.

Theseus gives off this smarmy vibe. I seen people praise him as a good brother but at present just the way he stands annoys me. And it makes me sad that Newt feels like he can’t be himself in order to be rightfully treated like a human being should be treated.

The dude playing Theseus really does resemble Eddie though, so props for getting that right at least. I can believe they’re siblings.

As usual the Ministry is useless. Grindels is literally the reason NYC got fucked up. Him and his messing with Credence. Newt made some mistakes but actually worked to fix them and then saved all their asses in the process. Why is he getting blamed with misinformation? Even in the 20s Magical Britain’s Ministry is full of morons.

There’s a black dude in a high Ministry position. I think there are more POC in this film than all the HP films combined, jfc. ‘bout time!

Also, they never told Newt that Credence is alive and are now using that fact as a way to try and guilt-trip him into joining the Ministry. Cleverish I suppose, but I still don’t like them.

Some dude just referred to Credence as an IT. wtf? Credence is a wizard who, because magical people suck at getting abused children the help they need, ended up a massive mess. He’s not some thing to be treated like shit!

The brothers are arguing and Newt starts spouting off things he’s mostly likely heard from Theseus and his parents. I will admit Theseus seems less annoying now that he’s spoken a bit, but the fact that Newt starts saying, “Okay, right, here we go, selfish, irresponsible-” speaks of somebody who is used to being compared to another and having what others consider to be ‘faults’ shoved in his face and complained about. That sucks a lot.

Okay, Theseus isn’t as annoying as I expected him to be. He does seem to care for Newt and understand how his mind works to an extent. He isn’t offended that Newt doesn’t go to hug him back. Newt is just awkward with physical contact from humans. He’s always seemed to be on the spectrum for me and I’ve only recently found out that others feel the same, which makes his character more interesting imo.

Grindels is in lift shoes! Needs that extra height that badly? 5′10 isn’t short or anything but he really needed that lift to 6′0″? XD

At least Grindels and the Gang are only using AKs(silently btw). I don’t get why everyone always acts like AK is the absolute worst spell in HP when literally it’s just a quick and painless death. There are a bajillion others spells that are actually terrifying.

Newt easily noticing that he’s being followed and fucking with his stalker is the best. People who say Newt is weak are effin stupid.

I would not take the hand of some random glove hovering in my face. Now way, no how. idc who it might belong to, that’s some shady shit. I don’t trust people.

Though we have to admit that the glove forcibly Apparating him, even if it’s a small distance is pretty cool. Dumbles annoys me but as Phineas Nigellus will say in the future, “He’s got style.”

The fact that Newt knew it was Dumbles makes me wonder if Dumbles has done this before.

Dumbles literally just summoned a big ass fog to cover the city! I don’t like him but he keeps impressing me! It’s annoying! Stop it!

“A Phoenix will come to any Dumbledore in desperate need.” Interesting.

A wizard doing sleight of hand. Oi vey. Dumbles is a drama queen to the umpteenth degree.

God he was a cryptic asshat even back then. It’s very easy to believe this dude becomes the Dumbledore we all know. I think people are just bitching because they refuse to see Dumbledore for who he is. Lots of people whining about ‘how manipulative Jude’s Dumbledore is’ not realizing that HP-Dumbles is literally a Master Manipulator.

Baby Nifflers are effin adorable and I love how well Newt knows them!

Newt literally has someone working for him. And he’s been nothing but reassuring in his own way. He especially tells her to avoid the Kelpie because he doesn’t want her to get hurt. I have seen several people whining about him ‘being mean’ to her and I just have to ask, are y’all fucking stupid? He knows his creatures and when he tells her to not go near one alone because of how dangerous it is and she might lose a finger, he’s not being mean. He’s being a responsible employer. I know some of your bosses don’t give a shit about your well being, but Newt is actually a decent bloke. Chill the fuck out.

She’s flirting with him and is really bad at it. But it’s kinda funny at the same time.

Also can we just stop and talk about how talented Newt is that he can create such realistic habitats in such seemingly small and cramped places? He’s really good at magic.

Queenie and Jacob are cute. And to all the people whining about how ‘unnecessary’ he is to the plot, can y’all chill? He is there for a reason. To show how fucked up MACUSA is when it comes to dealing with Muggles. Queenie will literally be imprisoned if they find out she’s with a Muggle. It’s ridiculous and his character is supposed to show how even the American wizards are messed up.

Queenie calling Newt, ‘honey’ is sweet. I swear she’s the Molly of this new group of friends. Seems like she wants to take care of people and just adopts everyone who comes along.

God, even the magical gossip rags are shit even back then. They deliberately made it so it looked as if Newt and Leta were a thing. Though tbh nothing really happened between Newt and Tina in the first film so her being all offended over him possibly marrying another woman is ridiculous.

These weird shots that are supposed to be directly from someone’s point of view are a bit annoying, I must admit. It’s kind of like watching through a somewhat less annoying fish-eye lens, but still annoying anyway.

Newt is very smart. He notices very quickly that Jacob is out of sorts and that he hasn’t been acting normally. He deduces very quickly that something is up and then stops it.

I really like how level-headed Jacob is about everything considering all the crap he’s just thrown into. He cares enough about Queenie to not want her to be imprisoned/possibly killed for breaking a stupid law. I got really emotional at that part because MACUSA is full of idiots.

Jacob is right though, she’s not being sensible. There’s a lot at stake and it isn’t smart for them to marry yet no matter how much they want to.

Jacob looks at the bird thing and then’s just like, “I got my own problems.” He’s been through enough shit to just not care atm.

And now everyone’s basically going to Paris anyway.

Walking through weird barriers into new places should no longer impress me but it still does!

The magical circus looks kind of awesome but the I’m also not a fan of how circuses are handled. So it’s this cross between amazement and annoyance at the inhumane way animals(in this case creatures) are being handled.

Literally, they are kept locked up in filthy places, I am unhappy! Also Claudia Kim, who portrays Nagini, is so very beautiful and I am so very gay.

Nagini’s hair has that little serpent-like curl at the end as it rests against her neck. It’s such an awesome little detail to throw in there.

Her transformation is really cool btw.

Wow! You treat the creatures like shit and mock them, and get all confused when they attack you? I hope pain was dealt.

What is it with all the bad guys in everything having to incorporate skulls into their dirty business? Is this supposed to be a play on the whole skulls and crossbones thing meaning death?

Though Grindels does make it more interesting than some wiggly tattoo at least.

Dumbles is considered the greatest threat to his cause when he’s practically been doing nothing but playing teacher. That’s some high praise I suppose.

He’s already known as ‘The Great Albus Dumbledore’! What did he do to gain such belief in his prowess? He’s like 46!

Newt’s asking Jacob for advice on what to say when he sees Tina again, and Jacob gives him great advise. “Best not to plan these things.” It’s good. And then Newt’s like, “She has eyes just like a salamander,” and Jacob’s tune changes immediately! XD “Don’t say that!”

Jacob is a good friend. I really like him!

Jacob’s reactions are the greatest because he’s literally like an in-universe representation of the fandom when we saw magic in the movies for the first time!

Do people know that Eddie Redmayne actually licked the ground?

Newt talking about how narrow Tina’s feet are and Jacob just being like, ‘okaaaaaaay’ is the best!

Queenie must be so lost. Hearing all these thoughts and not knowing the language they’re in. And it must be stressful to not only be in an unfamiliar place but also be completely unprepared for everything going on.

That is the perfect moment to trick her. Literally, I don’t get how people can’t see that she’s emotionally vulnerable and a prime target for manipulation right now.

Credence is just a mess. He needs friends. Glad Nagini seems to be filling in that role but honestly he needs a few more. Those who are ‘cursed’ in essence, like he is. So they’ll understand him.

I really love Jacob’s character. He’s just so amazed by magic and all the things it can do. ^-^

Newt! Knows how to tame and capture creatures he’s never even met before! Zuowus are cute imo.

Hedwig’s Theme, I am crying!

Also, Hogwarts brings back my feels.

Very confused about the McGonagall thing unless this involves time-travel which idk how advanced that was at the time.

The fucking Aurors just break into the class and Head dude’s like, “I can go wherever I please. OUT!” And all the kids just standing there and look to Dumbledore for direction. It’s fucking hilarious that they won’t even listen to the dude who could imprison them with whatever excuse he can make up.

Now, there seems to be students of all ages in this classroom, which makes me wonder if it’s actually a class or Dumbledore has a Dueling Club set up, because he’s literally teaching a Gryffindor how to not make the same mistakes in a duel, right before owning his ass. idc what anyone says, no class of 17/11 year olds will have multiples students the size of first/seventh years in it. People are either really really tall or really really short. So I vote for a Dueling Club happening.

The Gryffindor who just lost the duel gets up in the dude’s face and is like, ‘he’s the best teacher we’ve got’. Props.

Dumbledore is way better than this Travis dude. And I mean by power and presence. I don’t like him any more than I do the Travis dude. Meaning not at all, But you get what I mean. Dumbles is far better for the good guys than this hoity toity asshat who thinks that because he’s Head Auror he can do anything he wants. Him ignoring Dumbledore’s warning is going to get a lot of people killed.

“We were closer than brothers.” How else can anyone take that? What is closer than a familial tie? A romantic one! Duh!

He’s banned from teaching DADA. But he isn’t banned from teaching any other class! Travis should have been more specific! This is probably how Dumbledore ended up teaching Transfiguration during Tom’s time at school since he doesn’t fight Grindels until 1945. I love loopholes!

Are the candles in the Great Hall just lit all the time?

I for one, think that ‘Talk Shit, Get Hit’ is a very wonderful saying to take to heart. So when people were talking shit about Leta, she damn well deserved to tear them a new asshole over it! I applaud her for cursing that gossiping little bitch’s mouth shut in the corridor. She deserved it. I am a blood-thirsty bitch!

Young-Newt literally looked like a young Eddie Redmayne. Superb casting on that part, God damn! He even got all of Eddie’s chosen mannerisms down!

You know, I’m not shocked that Leta’s being harassed by Gryffindors. The whole school treats Slytherins like shit the moment they’re Sorted. Even when they aren’t raised on the magical side and know nothing about Slytherin’s reputation.

I have mentioned how annoying I find the weird fish-eye-like lens view, right? ‘Cause it’s annoying me again.

BTW, I will always firmly believe that Hufflepuff/Slytherin friendships are the strongest. That is a deadly combination right there.

Albus admits that he didn’t love Ariana as much as he should have. Age does somewhat remove that veil from the eyes, doesn’t it?

I really, honestly think that people just decided that anythngn they saw in this movie was going to be horrible and that’s why y’all are being a bunch of whiny bitches over everything. Queenie didn’t just up and decide hey, I’m joining Grindels! She’s honestly at the end of her rope and is getting manipulated. Y’all are fucking ridiculous. Don’t pay for tickets if you intend to find fault in everything the movie has to offer.

The good sis stands up and points her wand at Grindels despite knowing full well she wouldn’t be able to do shit to him. Temerity ftw.

You gotta give Grindels some props. This dude knows how to play on everyone’s soft points. He just sees them and immediately goes in for the kill. Was Voldy like this in the 70s? It makes more sense that people would follow him if he acted like this before ‘dying’ the first time. ‘Cause after his resurrection he wasn’t follow-worthy imo. Too frantic and mad to take seriously.

He literally tells her that she’s an ‘innocent’ and that ‘he doesn’t wish her harm’. He then tells her to leave, which puts her under the impression that she’s safe from him and can make her own choices. This is a prime manipulation tactic because she’ll come back eventually once she remembers that he supposedly gave her a choice and no one else will. She told Jacob he wasn’t giving her a choice, and now Grindels, the supposed bad guy, is doing just that. And he makes it like he understands her suffering in her desire for love without restriction. Even good guys make mistakes. Y’all want to kiss Dumbledore’s ass for every shit thing he did by saying he was trying to save the world, so you can get over Queenie having a lapse of judgment during an emotionally and mentally trying period.

Ah, the Mirror of Erised, in which you see your heart’s greatest desire. And Dumbledore sees him and Grindelwald alone.

Also, I’m just saying that pressing their hands together would have been enough to make the blood mix. Linking their fingers is not necessary at all.

Finally it’s just Grindelwald as he currently is, staring him down with an innocent expression. And Dumbledore’s sad smile is the only thing we see as the scene fades to black.

Newt is so good with creatures, I love him!

Every time he comes out of that case I am reminded of how slight Eddie is.

Newt asks Jacob to get the tweezers from his bag, but after the mishaps in the last film where British and American English were proven to be different to a degree, he goes on to explain what they look like and both Tina and Jacob are like ‘we know what they are, dude’. XD

They disinfect the unconscious dude, Tina gets her info and heads off. And Jacob tries to get her to come back and then looks at Newt and is all, “You didn’t mention salamanders, did you?”. XD

Upon Jacob’s insistence he goes after Tina and tells her she’s different from other Aurors because she’s got Middle Head, in reference to the middle head of a Runespoor which is said to be a Visionary/Dreamer and doesn’t argue like the heads on either side of it. Tina doesn’t want to kill Credence like everyone else which makes her a different kind of Auror.

So that whacky black shroud that covers the city is Grindels’ way of calling his peeps together?

Grindels’ appears before Credence and tells him he ‘wants nothing from him and wants everything for him, that Grindels never had’. He and Dumbles are perfect for each other. Master Manipulators. A certain kind of Dynamic Duo. Grindels even uses the whole ‘my boy’ thing!

The shot is on Jacob. His stomach growls and it pans down and then up. And Flamel is right behind him when it comes back up! Shit like that always gets me in films! The only kind of jumpscare I’m not into. I don’t like my back being exposed so shots like this kill me.

The Flamels don’t keep food in their house. What exactly was the exchange for living so long? Like, I just thought the Stone kept them youthful and stopped their aging, you know? Apparently they have no need of food. Wouldn’t living that long be boring as hell when you can’t even enjoy the basics of life?

“You don’t look a day over 375.” I love Jacob! XD

Seriously though. Nicki looks like he’ll fall apart at any moment. Is living forever like this really worth it?

Nicki “Hasn’t seen action in 200 years,” OMG!

Newt Polyjuices himself into looking like Theseus and calls him ‘an Auror and a hugger’ in this long-suffering but fond tone.

Theseus and Leta are literally right there too!

It was all going so well and then Theseus looks down and isn’t it always like that? The plot must continue on somehow? I’m dying! XD It was a good plan until that happened.

Tina gets him down with a flick of the wand? The War Hero? Really? Good for her!

Newt is such an awkward turtle. I love that they didn’t insist upon Eddie changing up the way he portrays him!

Newt describes Tina’s eyes as “Having and effect in person. Like fire in water, dark water,” and if that isn’t the nicest way to describe dark brown eyes idk what is. HE’S TRYING SO HARD NOT TO SAY THE SALAMANDER LINE! XD

SHE SAID IT INSTEAD! XD How she got that I have no idea. I don’t know shit about salamanders.

And Leta finds them and runs with them. I wonder if Tina is feeling awkward.

He’s known the Zouwu for so little time and it’s already cuddling up to him! The Snow White of fucking wizards, everyone! He is a cinnamon roll and must be kept safe!

Honestly I am proud I kept up with the whole Lestrange family tree business because holy shit it was convoluted!

The Lestranges are so sexist. Only the men get recorded on the family tree, what bullshit. Leta’s father Raped her mother via Imperius and never loved her. Frankly, a child being jealous of a new sibling that he did love shouldn’t be surprising. Kids make mistakes all the time and hating her for making a rash decision she didn’t fully understand at that age, is ridiculous. She didn’t even mean to get him killed. It’s not like she’s some super horrible person for that.

Newt gets this! He literally gets it! And she tells him “You’ve never met a monster you couldn’t love”. I hurt. She’s not a monster, she’s a fucking human being who made a grave mistake when she was like 7 and it haunted her for the rest of her life.

Nagini doesn’t trust Purebloods because, “They kill the likes of us for sport”. Her life must have sucked.

And here’s where is all leads up to. The literal Crimes of Grindelwald. And not in the sense of law-breaking, although there has been a lot of that. The title means in reference to an act of of great offense which isn’t illegal but still considered morally reprehensible, against another person or persons. He’s spent this whole time manipulating the hell out of everyone and doing things both illegal and simply sinful. Lying isn’t against the law, but the way he’s doing it is wrong, and it helps him commit his ‘crimes’.

Also what the hell is with evil people and graveyards/tombs? Is this a requirement in joining the dark side?

Grindels finds muggles “Not disposable but of a different disposition.” He’s really workin’ it because he knows the kinds of people who showed up to this little speech thing of his and he’s getting all of them at once.

He’s literally showing them a vision of what will happen in WWII with the bombs in order to scare them into joining his side. It’s what will ‘rise up’ from the muggles, and Jacob understands it instantly. Scare tactics ftw! He has a point in a sense. Could we really say that the leading governments of our world wouldn’t try to enslave magicals in order to have the most power over all other countries?

The Aurors are called down to face the crowd and Grindels knows just what to say to stir up feelings of distrust. Though they’re cops so it’s not shocking. They’re all power-hungry and with the experience a lot of the people have with Aurors, plus Grindels sweet-talking them all, of course some chick just up and moves against them and get murdered on the spot. Not even detained. Cops kill first and ask questions later, not shocking magic ones do the same.

Auror used an AK without hesitation. But you know, everyone says that is the most evil spell in HP, right? And no one, not even Aurors, should use it?

And as expected, it all plays in Grindels’ plans. I’m not shocked. “Spread the word. It is not we who are violent.” Right after an Auror just murdered someone. Talk about playing on the emotions.

The fire Grindels’ conjures is blue, compared to normal fire. Which means it’s hotter. Voldy’s fire was also blue. Is this just because they’re magically powerful or are both Dark Lords?

Grindelwald uses magic like he’s a conductor. It’s interesting because everyone else but Voldy has only ever had a death grip on their wands. Voldy holds his wand more gracefully and loosely.

Nagini does not side with Grindelwald. And she has a point. He knows what Credence is, not who he is.

Okay, so a lot of people died in the blue fire, but Newt was able to hold the fire off from consuming him several times. My child is so powerful! He’s just never violent with it! *APPLAUSE*

Queenie’s desperation makes me so sad. She and Jacob love each other but go about it very differently.

I can’t tell if Leta was saying ILY to Newt or Theseus. Maybe to both but with different meanings? Romantic Love isn’t the only kind of love out there. One is her long-time friend whom she could have romantic feelings for if their bond is deep enough. The other is her fiance though her bond with him doesn’t seem that deep. Confusing and shot deliberately like that to confuse us too.

She tries to kill Grindels knowing it won’t work. I like Leta. I don’t get why people don’t like her.

He’s literally using his fancy Fiendfyre to destroy Paris. This dude aims big!

Flamel is a genius and a bunch of people, most who aren’t trained Aurors, just had to put out some powerful magic that would have destroyed a whole city.

Newts hugs Theseus!

The Niffler lives and got the Blood Pact thing from Grindels! How did he not notice it?

Queenie’s skills are very useful to Grindels in how to deal with Credence without scaring him off. He knew what he was doing in manipulating her to his side.

Grindels and Dumbles agreed not to fight one another. Wonder what would happen if they turned their wands on each other with intent to do harm. Pain? Or maybe... their spells being directed elsewhere by some unseen force and hitting nearby things(*cough* Ariana *cough*)?

So here’s where I am confused but I have many thoughts. A.) Percival Dumbledore died some time after 1890 but no date is given. He was in Azkaban during the time and immoral things happen in prison. He could be the father. B.) Kendra Dumbledore died in 1899 and Credence was born ‘circa’ 1901(meaning around that time frame but no specific details are known) so she could have birthed him. Albus wouldn’t know since he wasn’t very present at home and was distant to his siblings. Kendra isn’t actually a Dumbledore but she had the name, Credence doesn’t know the details, and Grindels could have sent the Phoenix in some way. C.) Grindels is just lying altogether but he’s really believable. D.) He used the word ‘brother’ to mean family, like how he addressed the people as his ‘brothers and sisters’. His fellow magical people. So perhaps he meant as in like Credence’s kin. So he could be a child of Aberforth who would be old enough to sire a child(teens do it all the time), or of their Aunt Honoria who could have had a kid for all people know.

Dumbles is the one to tell us all about the Phoenix thing first. Grindels strengthens that fact later on, making it not just some children’s tale. It’s all left to us to wonder if he’s lying about Credence or not.

I observed a lot.

So for the cinematography, it was really well done save for the fish-eye lens crap. I really didn’t like that. But I am a sucker for panning from above. Also clever use of the camera while certain people speak. Angles can do wonders to tell a story.

I thought the plot was very easy to follow. I’ve seen people whine about it not making sense but literally, in stories about multiple people, the POV shifts. A lot. In order to understand why everyone is doing what they are doing, you need to know what is going on from their ends. So yeah, why is everybody just randomly in France of all places? Paying attention lets you find out!

I do have one really big annoyance and it’s more for it taking this long instead of it happening at all. In the original HP films there really aren’t a lot of non-white actors portraying characters, even if they’re just extras to fill in for other students and such. In this film there were extras of all kinds of nationalities. I saw a lot of Black and Asian folks just filling up the background. And I’m glad the universe now seems more realistic and diverse. It’s just annoying that the most diverse of all the films in this fictional world, is the newest one and kinda makes the others a bit disappointing since the 20s were less progressive than the 90s.

My initial opinions on certain characters did change. Naturally I hate Dumbledore as a character no matter what but he’s more interesting than before. And I don’t really like Grindels all that much but he is a badass and watching him is interesting. Theseus and Leta grew on me with such little time. I cried for both of them. I’m disappointed but not shocked or angry at Queenie’s actions. I cried for her too. Flamel creeps me out still. I like Nagini. She’s been through some tough shit and is mildly distrustful of everyone. And now she’s away from possibly her only friend(I got not romance vibes between she and Credence btw).

I liked all the story-telling. There were a lot of creatures. A lot of talking. A decent amount of action. And humor spread out here and there for some levity.

I thought it was a fine film. It was good. I’d re-watch it with the first without hesitation. I had moments where I laughed, moments where I cried, and moments where I wasn’t sure what I was feeling at all.

Grade: A

#Fantastic Beasts Spoilers #FBAWTFT #HP #omg #Fantastic Beasts #Crimes of Grindelwald #Crimes of Grindelwald Spoilers

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sunny-jac-blog · 6 years

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This Is Where You Wanna Be (Carlwheeler)

it is almost 5 a.m. and i have not slept and instead i wrote this but it was WORTH IT!!! THIS WAS SO FUN TO WRITE!!! ft. Anne, Lettie, and Charity bein besties in a modern boarding school, Anne having Relationship Issues, and phillip and phineas loving their gals!!! this was requested from a great person on the TGS amino! hope yall like it!!

Word Count: 2.3k

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Anne groaned as she stomped into the dorm room, barely casting a look at Lettie and Charity as she fell face first onto the hard, uncomfortable bed. The two other girls stopped their conversation, which was probably about how that Phineas Barnum from the boy's school across town had “eyes like a God” or something dumb like that. Anne didn't bother listening.

There were a few beats of silence, until Lettie slowly sat up from her lying position on Charity's bed. She crossed her arms and smirked, giggling softly as she stared at Anne. “Let me guess: It was that Carlyle boy, wasn't it?” She nudged Charity, who cooed.

Anne only groaned into her purple pillow. Of /course/ it was that Carlyle boy.

Since the two schools had had some dumb co-ed event held at one of the large local theaters, there had been a lot more intermingling with the boys and girls. The event was to push the students to broaden their horizons, some sort of college fair, where students could meet others and talk about their interests.

Anne was lucky enough to run into a cute guy named Phillip Carlyle, who reached for the same brochure that she did. What kind of cliche high school chick flick was she living? Especially since Phillip had been sneaking out to see her, despite her obvious attempts to get him to stop before he got in trouble. He never listened. And this time, he asked her out on a date.

She ran away.

As Anne sat up and hugged her pillow close to her chest, she let out a deep, dramatic sigh. She pulled her hair into a lopsided messy bun, looking at Lettie and Charity. “Why do boys have to be so complicated?” She asked with a frown.

She knew she could trust Lettie and Charity with her secrets. Charity, bless her, was an angel. She had a heart of gold and helped everyone she could, despite growing up in a rather snobbish family. She was trustworthy with relationship problems, as she had been dating her man candy, Phineas, since they were both thirteen years old. Now, at age nineteen, she was more than happy to help her roommate out of some boy trouble.

“Woah, woah- before you dump all of this on us, we need /backstory/, sweetie. What was he wearing? Was he nervous? What did he say?” Charity asked, straightening out her plaid skirt as she moved to sit on her knees. The school didn't have a very strict dress code, yet Charity always looked like she had walked out of any stereotypical movie.

“Uh-- Um, jeans, a maroon shirt, and… converse? Yeah. White converse. He was really fidgety and stuff, and he… He, uh… asked me to go see a movie with him. This weekend. Saturday.” Anne placed her hands on her lap, a soft blush rising to her cheeks.

Charity and Lettie both looked at each other, and let out the same high pitched squeal. “Aww, little miss forever lonely is going on a /date/! With a soccer player? He plays soccer, right? He looks like the kind of guy to play soccer,” Lettie chimed in, smiling wide. Lettie was much less proper than Charity. Though she was sometimes quiet and reserved, around her girls she took over the position of ringleader. She was a total badass in Anne's mind. She took no shit from anyone, and luckily lived in the room right across the hall from Charity and Anne.

“Hey, calm down! I-... I didn't say yes,” Anne admitted, rubbing her arm.

“You what?!” Charity yelled loudly, her eyes wide. “Anne, I-- How could you /not/ say yes?! He likes you so much and he's so sweet and Phineas says he's really kind for a rich kid, and--”

“I didn't say no, either…” Anne mumbled, rubbing her forehead. “He caught me by surprise and I- I ran away. I said, “Oh, what?” And I ran away.”

Lettie groaned, shaking her head. “My God, Anne, you screwed yourself over,” She huffed. “I mean, come on, even /I/ would say yes to that.”

“Are you saying Phillip looks like a girl?” Anne raised a brow.

“I mean, he does look kind of pretty sometimes,” Charity murmured, raising a brow and crossing his arms.

Anne only shook her head, gulping. “Okay- Yeah, okay. What should I do, then? He probably isn't here anymore, and he definitely won't come back after this…”

Charity thought for a moment, before grinning. “He's Phin's roommate! I can just have Phin tell him to come see you again!”

“Or, y'know, you could always sneak out yourself and go find your precious little Juliet,” Lettie shrugged. “Your call, Romeo.”

Anne bit her lip. Both options were tempting, she had to admit, but… She liked Lettie's plan more.

“Okay. Yeah. You two are going to help me sneak out, right after you help me with this freakin’ chemistry paper,” She muttered, grabbing her book bag off of the ground.

_______________________________________

The plan went into action the next night. Anne had worked extremely hard in all of her classes that day to ensure she wouldn't have any homework, and even had time to squeeze in a quick shower after her dance class, so she would be able to put all of her attention onto breaking out and finding Phillip.

After her afternoon classes were finished, she met with Charity and Lettie behind the school building. As she walked up, she couldn't help but see how badly Charity stuck out in their little group. Charity was wearing a blue summer dress with quarter sleeves and a pair of white ballet flats with blue polkadots. She glanced at Lettie, who was wearing something more… Lettie-ish. She was in a pair of blue skinny jeans, with a white t-shirt underneath. Her curly hair was pulled into a bun on top of her head, making sure her entire leather jacket was shown off to the world. To top it off, she completed the look with a pair of red converse.

When the two saw Anne, rather than have a look of giddy happiness, they shared an equal look of disgust. “Anne, sweetie, don't take this the wrong way, but are you really meeting up with your dream guy in… that?” Charity asked softly, glancing at Anne's purple, paint-stained t-shirt and black leggings, not to mention her no-makeup/bedhead.

“For once, I agree with Char. You look like a hobo, babe. Don't you have something sexier to put on?” Lettie raised a brow, but before Anne could say anything, Charity slapped her arm.

“Lettie! She is meeting up with a classy young man, not a hormone-driven twelve year old. She needs to look sophisticated!”

“Guys--”

“Charity, no, she should look hot and badass to impress him--”

“Uh, guys?”

“Oh, my God, not everyone is going to look like a badass butch when they meet the love of their life!”

“Come on, Anne could definitely pull off the badass butch look--”

“Guys!” Anne yelled, crossing her arms. “Can you quit it for a minute and actually /help/ me get ready, instead of arguing over what /my/ decision should be?” Charity and Lettie both sighed, but nodded. The three of them walked to their dorm, laughing away after the whole ordeal.

_______________________________________

It took the girls an hour and a half to finally get Anne ready. They started with hair and makeup. Lettie curled Anne's hair to perfection, leaving it looking both styled and natural, while Charity focused on giving Anne a natural, sweet makeup look. As most of the clothes she owned were sweatpants, hoodies, and t-shirts, Anne ended up borrowing clothes from the other two girls. She wore a pair of Charity's black skinny jeans with one of her white tank tops, and stole an oversized purple flannel from Lettie, who also gave her a few bracelets and a pair of earrings. She insisted on wearing her own black and white Adidas, and soon, she was ready to go out. She took her wallet, her ID, and her student pass, hugging each of the girls before walking out and down the hall.

Sneaking out was much easier than she anticipated, despite being caught. She simply told the principal that she was visiting her brother who had come to town. Which, it wasn't a complete lie- he /was/ in the city, but she had no intentions on seeing him this time.

_______________________________________

“Do you really think she's going to be able to do it?” Charity asked Lettie as they sat on the beds in the small dorm room.

Lettie shrugged, and smiled. “Come on, Char. Annie is a smart girl, she'll be fine.” She assured her, crossing her arms.

“I'm just a little worried, that's all… I've heard some people call Carlyle a bit of a scandal,” She said softly, frowning.

“Charity, do you really believe that?” Lettie raised a brow. “I mean, come on. They called me a bit of a scandal too,” She grinned.

“Speaking of scandal… How are you and that girl from your trig class?” Charity smirked, and Lettie instantly went red, smiling wide. It was nice to see Lettie so happy, and Charity knew that the new girl would take good care of her best friend.

_______________________________________

Anne reached the entrance of the boy's school after a thirty minute walk. She glanced around and quickly climbed the large gate, running toward the nearest building. Charity had said that Phineas and Phillip shared room 203 on the second floor, and from where she was sitting, Anne could see straight through the windows. She gulped as she saw the familiar face.

Phillip was sitting at a desk in their room, writing away. He was right in front of the window, and Anne could feel her heart flutter in her chest, though she would never admit it. She quickly ran to the side of the building, glancing around. She had taken gymnastics her entire life. She did arial yoga for fun. She and her brother would climb things all the time.

She wasn't surprised when she found herself scaling the building, stopping right next to Phillip's window. Really, it was too easy.

When she gently knocked on the glass, she heard a loud scream, and what appeared to be a loud crash. Her eyes went wide and she ducked her head, but slowly looked up when she heard the window open, a shocked phillip greeting her as he rubbed a red spot on his forehead. “Hiya, Carlyle… Mind if I come in?” She asked with a nervous grin.

Once inside, she was grateful that Phineas was nowhere to be seen. She looked around, tilting his head. One side of the room was extremely messy and untidy, while the other was neat, clean, and proper. She could tell from all of the literary quotes hanging on the walls that that side was Phillip's. She hesitated before climbing onto his bed, crossing her legs. “I, uh… I just came to apologize for yesterday,” She said as she glanced over at him.

For once, he was the one that looked bad during one of their meetings, but she still thought he looked gorgeous. He was shirtless and was wearing gray sweatpants, and looked like he hadn't slept at all. She noticed a few scars littering his chest and shoulders, but didn't mention it.

Phillip shook his head and ran his hand through his messy hair, gulping. “No, no- It's completely fine. Really. Don't worry about it.” He said with a rigid smile, crossing his arms as he leaned against the desk.

Anne bit her lip. She hesitated and glanced down, before rubbing her arm. “...I also snuck out of my school to come all the way here to tell you yes. I would love to go see a movie with you.”

At those words, Phillip's eyes widened. He gulped and smiled nervously, but after a moment he let out a soft chuckle, smiling wide as he tilted his head. “Really? You want to?” He asked softly.

“Of course I would. Just tell me when and where to meet ya, and I'll be there.” She smiled, sitting on the edge of the bed with her feet hanging off.

“Actually, let me pick you up. I have somewhere special in mind,” Phillip murmured, taking a few steps closer.

_______________________________________

Once again, Anne enlisted the help of Charity and Lettie to help her get ready for the date. She decided on something a little different, and Lettie did her hair and makeup this time, deciding to borrow a dress from Charity. The girls gushed over her, gave her a stereotypical first date parent speech, and sent her on her way. That night, Anne felt happier than she had in a long time.

That night, she and Phillip danced under the stars after the movie ended, her lavendar dress twirling around her as Phillip spun her around. Their night ended in a kiss, one of many more to come, but once she got back to the dorm, looking dopey and extremely happy, the night of gushing about Phillip had only begun.

Maybe coming to boarding school wasn't such a bad idea after all. After all, she had two amazingly great friends who helped her through all of her oblivious teen girl struggles, a new boy that was there for her whenever she needed him, and a great plan for her future. Anne finally felt like she belonged somewhere, both in a group hug with her two best friends, and in her loving boyfriend's arms.

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Zombie Fishbowl - Episode 1

Haunted Battlefields

In our first episode, we talk about the phenomenon of ‘haunted battlefields’ after we introduce ourselves and explain WTF ‘Zombie Fishbowl’ actually means!

Listen to the episode here!

---

[Intro music]

Melanie: Hello!

Danielle: Hello!

Melanie: Welcome to Zombie Fishbowl, a podcast about random shit!

Danielle: Zombie Fishbowl? What does that even mean?

Melanie: Not a damn thing.

Danielle: And everything at the same time! Wow!

Melanie: All right, so let's start by introducing ourselves.

Danielle: Hello! I'm Danielle, I live in Northwest England, in a very damp, seaside town. But I did live in California for about 13 years, hence the weird accent. I'm studying for a master's degree in archaeology after deciding that I wanted to change my career after being a support worker for 10 years. So, I fucking love history and logic, and am, as you will get to know, very skeptical of the paranormal world (which we will probably do a lot of talking about because it's the most fun). And, even though I roll my eyes at ghost hunters and psychics and spooky YouTube videos, I still fucking love it! I love a ghost story. I love a weird happening. My mum and I share this enthusiasm. She kinda passed it on to me.

But although I am absolutely intrigued by the unknown, I also like to have a look and see what reason there might be behind something. So, I'll be bringing the scientific papers and whatever reliable publications I can find to try to explore humanity's obsession and consistent claim that there is something, some other world that we cannot see or test or measure.

Melanie: And I'm Melanie and I live in California, USA. Daughter of a horror novelist and a porn star, I'm an enthusiast for the bizarre, taboo, and fun. I am pagan, a recovering medium, a horror and fantasy fanatic, and mythology nerd so, needless to say, whatever she doesn't believe in? I just might. Or, at least, will enjoy the telling.

So, backstory. Danielle and I were best friends growing up in southern California. We were nerds with a punk/goth twist that were never quite cool enough for the punks or the goths or even the nerds. But we partied together, grew together, and basically been through hell and high water. We grew up and I stayed in California...

Danielle: And I moved back to England to be with my loverboy.

Melanie: So here we are, in our 30s, continents apart. But whenever we get a chance to chat, it's always insane, fun, and full of information. So we thought we'd share our love of the random, macabre, fun facts and turn it into a podcast.

Danielle: Also, in regards to the name of our podcast, I suppose you do need some kind of explanation. Well, we tried being clever, intellectual, and punny, but nothing was quite working until Melanie, randomly, in an exasperated moment threw out Zombie Fishbowl which was the name of the band we almost-tried-to-but-didn't-quite-ever-have in high school, although I did attempt to learn how to play the bass, and I can still play the intro to Crazy Train like a total badass.

Melanie: And I can sing, so that was something. [laughs] It doesn't mean anything but it could mean so much.

Danielle: So throw it all in a zombie fishbowl and eat it up!

Melanie: So here's the plan. We have a list of wide-ranging topics from magic to UFOs, and every week we throw them into a randomizer and then research the shit out of it. Hopefully, as this podcast grows, we'd love to hear from you. All of our social media information will be holla-ed at you at the end of the podcast.

Danielle: But we're going to steer clear of current affairs, politicky stuff, because it is so so so so divisive and polarizing and just plain frustrating. We will no doubt get political, it is in our very nature, but not as a topic, and we'll try not to be overtly preachy.

Melanie: Also, sports because we do not sport.

Danielle: Nope, I can't sport and neither can Melanie, so no sport. Anyway, one more thing before we get into the topic this week: we have The Purge.

Melanie: Dun dun dun! So this is where we, mostly Danielle, will have a moan for a couple minutes to clear the air before starting. So what do you want to vent about this week, Danielle?

Danielle: Wet rain.

Melanie: [laugh]

Danielle: Not normal rain that just comes down and you can, you know, put your umbrella up and you're quite happy walking across the street looking all emo and [unintelligible], but the kind of rain that just makes everything on your body damp and no matter what you do, everything is just wet and miserable and it just...it makes everything difficult. Uh! I just fucking hate wet rain. It's that stuff that comes from the ground as well as the skies, comes from the left and it comes from the right, and there's nothing you can do about it, and you're just damp all the time and--

Melanie: It's like a soggy miserable rain.

Danielle: Yeah, which is pretty much 90% of the weather in this bloody town. It's really, really grim out there right now. It's been grim for a couple days, but then there's like an hour of beautiful sunshine and everyone runs out in their shorts just--just 'please give me the vitamin D! Please give me the vitamin D!' and then everybody runs back inside as soon as it starts to rain again. It's June! It's supposed to be lovely outside but it's like looking at a November...ugh, so miserable. That's--that's what I wanted to get off my chest. I got wet earlier today and I haven't got over it yet.

Melanie: [laughs] I'm sorry for your soggy life over there.

Danielle: Well, you know, it's what I signed up for, I guess. You gotta have the bad damp horrible weather in order to appreciate and really take advantage of lovely sunshine which I can see you're having right now, ya bitch.

Melanie: Oh yes, the sunniest of sunshines. And it's not quite yet at like 90 degrees. I think we're at a nice medium 65 heading toward 70.

Danielle: That sounds perfect!

Melanie: Yeah, yeah that's that's the sweet spot, but give us about two hours and it's gonna probably be like 85.

Danielle: Yeah, it kind of goes OTT after a while. I don't know why I said OTT! I don't say that in my daily life. I'm gonna say it fully: over the top.

Melanie: [laughs] Okay, good because I'm old, and when you said OTT, I have no idea what that meant.

Danielle: I read a lot of Reddit. [laughs] I learned the lingo of the youths.

Melanie: Yeah I'm not, I'm not hip with the kids today with their their letters instead of words.

Danielle: I have to admit, every so often I have to Google an acronym, but...

Melanie: I have to Google an acronym almost every day. It's awful.

Danielle: [laughs] fantastic. Right, okay. Do you have anything you want to purge?

Melanie: Oh I suppose we'll go with cats. No, I love cats. I have two cats. I--I love my cats, but they can be such fucking cats. Like Phineas, my big fat old one. He's fine. He's too lazy and slow to really do anything much as far as the bothersome cat behavior. He just has that Siamese cat meow which makes you want to kill something, but other than that? But my kitten is such a kitten and I can't stand it! She, I have a cup of water above my bed every night, and every night I get clunked in the head with a glass full of water. And you'd think I'd learn.

Danielle: Yeah. [laughs]

Melanie: But I don't because I keep forgetting that she's such a cat. Like not just...the little things, you know, knocking things off the things, the technical term. Why?! Why! It's so cute until it actually is in your life and then you're like 'why the fuck are you catting so hard!'

Danielle: [laughs]

Melanie: So that's--that's my purge because I keep getting knocked in the head with water at like 2:00 in the morning.

Danielle: Patrick started...it's his summers sick ritual which is, you know, when the summer comes around, cuz he's a long-haired cat, and every other day he'll be hacking up a hairball. But he just doesn't do it over the--the wood floor, it's all over the carpet and it's all over multiple carpets because he moves three feet between each regurge.

[Laughter]

Danielle: So, you know, swings 'em roundabouts, really. They're awesome, they're awesome. I love my cats, they're my little dudes, but yeah. They don't knock water into my face but they certainly make for a Russian Roulette when you're walking around the house barefoot. Yeah, all right, I feel better, do you?

Melanie: I think I do. A little bit.

Danielle: All right. Let's take a deep breath and we'll start this week's factotastic Zombie Fishbowl podcast.

Melanie: Ready?

Danielle: Ready.

[Sounds of exaggerated deep breaths and laughter]

Danielle: That's never gonna get old.

[Laughter]

Melanie: All right. So, this week's topic randomly picked from our random topic picker is:

[In unison]: Haunted battlefields!

Danielle: Wow, that was shit, fantastic. You go.

Melanie: I felt good about it, I don't know about you.

Danielle: [laughs]

Melanie: I really did.

Danielle: Fantastic.

Melanie: Okay, so I suppose I'll start. Being in America, we have had a bloody civil war, which we all know, but really getting a grasp on the numbers of it was was phenomenal. So, out of all of the soldiers that have ever fallen in a war, every single American soldier, if you add them all up from the beginning of American soldiers being a thing to present day, if you add all those casualties up, half of them took place in the Civil War. But brother against brother so, no matter who fell, it was an American falling and it was just so, so much and that's not even including all of the battles against the Native Americans and--and the Mexicans and--and just--just the slaughter that took place here all over the place. There are many ways I could have gone, and I kind of got stuck in the Civil War, mainly because I have never in my life had any interest in it. So I thought, this thing that I--I know enough about to pass like, what, third grade, but it never really hit me as anything super interesting, so I researched into it.

Danielle: I feel you on that. I'm not a big warfare history buff. I like my history and stuff like that but, you know, battlefields and war and battles, it's never really been...because it's--it's a little bit repulsive.

Melanie: Yeah! Yeah! And it's funny because, instinctively, I think we're just kind of like 'oh yeah, no, this happened' but if you actually just take a second to really try and grasp what happened, it's heartbreaking and hideous and then just horrifying.

Danielle: Yep.

Melanie: So, um, I started by researching the top ten bloodiest battles of the Civil War.

Danielle: Oh, god.

Melanie: Which is so fucking significant like, oh my god. And poor Virginia, man. Well not so much poor Virginia but, Jesus, the amount of people who died there for this--this war is staggering. It's like at least 15,000 just in a couple of these battles? It's just absurd. Anyway, so we'll start with the--the biggest, which is the Battle of Gettysburg.

Danielle: The most famous, I think, in American history.

Melanie: It is the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. It lasted for three days in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Grand total casualties including wounded was almost 50,000 people in three days. 5,425 people just went missing. Which I think is interesting, and looking at all of these battles, you don't see a number so much for people just missing. But with the Battle of Gettysburg, almost 5,500 people just, poof!, disappeared. So, Battle of Gettysburg. With so many dead, dying, injured, and just missing, it's--it's one of the most haunted sites in America.

Danielle: Mm-hmm.

Melanie: All right, the battle took place across this one field, but it also took place over mountains; it even went into the city itself. It was so bad that in some of the houses that were healing the--the injured, people were like ankle deep in blood.

Danielle: That sounds like an exaggeration.

Melanie: It's an exaggeration, but--but the--the walls? Covered. The floor? Covered. Like completely covered. Ankle deep, yeah, is a bit of an exaggeration, but to say that they were at least heel deep in blood I don't think is an exaggeration.

Danielle: They were slipping in the stuff.

Melanie: Yeah.

Danielle: Yeah.

Melanie: But one of the things, with all the battlefields that I researched, I found that most recurring...thing was when...hold on, I got the word...residual hauntings.

Danielle: Mm-hmm

Melanie: The residual hauntings are really just a replay of the events.

[Overlapping talk]

Danielle: I have heard that. Yeah, sorry, you, go ahead, you say it.

Melanie: [laughs, then with a lisp] So from a psychic pagan perspective…

Danielle: [laughs] Yes.

Melanie: All right, with residual hauntings, I believe that...when you have that much death and that much rage and fear and--and just--just really amped up energy, it sort of leaves an imprint. I mean, you go into a room where somebody's been, you know, beaten their whole lives, even if you don't have any context of what happened there before, that room feels dark and oppressing and not great. So when you go to a battlefield or go to a place where, you know, the soldiers were taken to be treated and eventually probably die or have their legs amputated with no anesthesia, there's a lot of emotion there and so with residual hauntings, a lot of it is just, you see these people replaying these moments, whether it's somebody's specifically getting up and walking across the room or [clears throat] a lot of the times they'll see people standing on (or sitting on) horses just sort of standing there in the field, just--just chillin'.

Danielle: So my--my knowledge of this means that they're not intelligent, they can't interact with them, and they don't interact with you. In fact, they probably don't even see you. It is an imprint of emotion left, so this kind of definition within the metaphysical world implies that it's not actually the human soul; it's not actually a person who is dead, it is actually more like a film being replayed.

Melanie: Yes exactly. Exactly. And so, you know, when it comes to those kinds of hauntings I don't find them particularly---

[Children's screams]

Danielle: Ahh!

Melanie: Holy Jesus! I'm gonna close that window!

[both laugh]

Melanie: Lord have mercy!

Danielle: Hopefully people with earphones didn't suddenly think some child was screaming in their ears.

Melanie: It's my own ghost child...so when it comes to residual hauntings, I don't find them particularly spooky because, again they're, yeah, they're unintelligent, they don't have a motive or instinct or reason; they just are replaying.

Danielle: Mm-hmm. I think and also, by its own definition, it's not proof of an afterlife.

Melanie: Absolutely! Absolutely! Yeah, they're--they're not so much ghosts to me as like, yeah, holograms, imprints.

Danielle: Yeah.

Melanie: But one thing I thought was really interesting at Gettysburg is people getting wafts of phantom scents of mint or vanilla. And they'll come out of nowhere.

Danielle: Vanilla?

Melanie: Vanilla because, back then, back in the day, after the war, you know, the streets are piled up with bodies, just--just piled up in the middle of Pennsylvania's summer which, I gotta tell ya, it's hot. Not only is it hot, it's humid. So bodies were swelling to twice their size and they were just sitting in the streets. But it still had to function as a city, so people would have to walk through these streets, and they would douse their handkerchiefs with peppermint oil or vanilla oil to try and mask the smell.

Danielle: Oh, I'd definitely be a peppermint, because, if I was smelling the rotting corpses of the dead and vanilla, it'd be like that sickly sweet...oh no, mint for me, definitely mint.

Melanie: It would put you off [unintelligible] forever

Danielle: Yeah, seriously.

Melanie: But yeah, I think--I think that's interesting, especially because, you know, it's not that mint isn't native to it, but when you get just a waft from out of nowhere, and it's gone within a second, I mean, that's--that's a little bit more telling than sort of been like 'well, no, there's probably people just growing mint all over the place' no, it's a strong, concentrated smell.

Danielle: And people in Gettysburg still get whiffs of that?

Melanie: Oh yeah. Oh yeah, it--it's just, to them, it's just sort of what it's like there now. But people who go to visit, they'll be walking and they'll smell, like, you know, just regular street, they'll smell flowers, they'll smell the baker, and all of a sudden just a bomb of menthol in your nostrils.

Danielle: It's interesting that it's that and not the smell of rotting corpses.

Melanie: That's what I thought, too! Why not the smell of corpses? I mean, you'd think that would be more predominant, but I think because the intention, there's that very strong intention of, you know, masking this smell or--or even, because mint was also believed to help prevent disease and decay, it was sort of like also as a medicinal buffer from the dead? I think the fear from--from...while inhaling such a scent is what left its imprint rather than the whiff of the dead bodies.

Danielle: Okay, okay. Plus, if you smelled what you thought was dead bodies, you possibly just misinterpret it as the drains? [laughs] Who knows?

Melanie: There's that, too.

Danielle: I don't know. Anyway, carry on.

[Both laugh]

Danielle: I find smells very hard to believe because, like you said leading up to it, it can just easily be coming from someone who's growing some mint in their back garden or, you know, the smell of some concentrated vanilla isn't that unusual in the 21st Century with cupcake shops and doughnuts and stuff. So, you know, if it was something like, you know, really unique, like the smell of a very particular cigar or something like that, maybe I'd be a little bit more intrigued, but mint and vanilla, to me, I could write straight off. Poof! Those are common smells.

Melanie: And--and, I was willing to write it off too until I was reading the accounts of people. It's like, no, it's not just a subtle mint smell, it's like, it's like being chloroformed with mint, just...

Danielle: All right.

Melanie: You know, really strong, strong whiff. [with a lisp] So that's what I got for Gettysburg. [back to normal speech] There's--there's so many. God, the amount of people that died is just insane. Next one I wrote out was Little Bighorn. Do you know much about that?

Danielle: Native American battle...was that...I'm going to sound really ignorant...west coast?

Melanie: So Little Bighorn...shit, I don't think I even wrote down where it fucking was.

[Both laugh]

Danielle: The Matterhorn is in California? And that, maybe that's what I'm mixing it up with.

Melanie: So the battle of Little Bighorn took place somewhere very important...

[both laugh]

Danielle: Over there.

Melanie: Over there. And there was a whole bunch of tribes involved, and that was basically one of Custer's last battles. It was his last battle. There we have the Sioux nations, Hunkpapa Lakota, Sans Arc, Blackfoot tribes, whole bunch fought against Custer's 7th Cavalry. On January 25th, 1876, most of the native warriors survived, but almost every single one of the troops that went into battle died. There was a rumor or a legend or a myth that the only soldier to come out of there alive was the horse named Comanche.

Danielle: On the American side?

Melanie: On the American side. Well, I guess they're all Americans. So Custer went over there with 600 troops. Only 300 entered the battle. Sitting Bull gathered his warriors and ensured the safety of women and children, while Crazy Horse left with a large force to attack. Custer was quickly defeated. Including Custer, over 260 troops of the 300 died. The hauntings again seem to be residual, but they do seem to be a little bit more intense. And I think a lot of that comes from either the Native Americans' connection to the land itself, I think it just has a deeper significance to them. But most of them, again, it's residual. Warriors on horses just surveying the field. Occasionally believed to see some of the federal soldiers looking for their limbs.

Danielle: Nice.

Melanie: Which I found this interesting.

Danielle: How do we know they're looking for their limbs?

Melanie: Probably just that lost look and that one arm reaching...'it's gotta be here somewhere.'

Danielle: Someone hopping along and saying 'has anyone seen my foot?'

[Both laugh]

Danielle: 'My country for a foot!'

Melanie: [laughs] And then from there I have cryptids. So I want to hear what you've got before I go into cryptids.

Danielle: Cryptids on battlefields.

Melanie: Mhmm.

Danielle: Melanie told me that she was going to cover the continent of the USA, Northern America. Or, did you go into South America? Because you did just say continent.

Melanie: I did not. I'm a big fibber. I was pretty strictly on my end...

Danielle: Right, that's fine, that's fine because, I did--I did a couple. You can tell me whether you want to hear both of them at the same time or one at a time. But the first one I did was one called the Battle at Culloden Moor. Or [repeats name slightly differently] I don't want to sound like I'm doing the Scottish accent, but it's in Scotland. And it's up in the Highlands. It was during the Jacobite rebellions. So, for those over the pond that don't know, the Scottish really don't like the English, and at every opportunity have fought tooth and nail to not be part of English sovereignty, if you will. You'll still hear about that today. They really don't like it. The Jacobites were basically these, sort of, people of the Highlands of Scotland who did not want to be a part of the English Kingdom, but the king was pretty adamant that they should better bend the knee kind of thing. So it's up in the Highlands, near Inverness, so if you wanted to take a look for it, it's in a lovely little place which is on the crook[?] of the Moray Firth which is a part of the North Sea that goes into Scotland. Lovely part of the country. Never been. On me list. It took place in 1746. It's the last battle of the Jacobite rebellion. They've been fighting for 31 years, so this was a long time coming.

Melanie: Good grief.

Danielle: It was horrific, it was bloody; you can imagine, we're still using swords and, you know, stabby things at this point.

Melanie: Pointy sticks.

Danielle: Pointy sticks, throwing shit, stones, all that horrible stuff. And, unfortunately, it's the infamous death of Bonnie Prince Charlie, and loads of his followers. I'm not going to get into why he was called Bonnie Prince Charlie, I will let you imagine why the Scots call him Bonnie Prince. I'm sure it won't take you very long to work it out. It also lasted less than an hour. I mean, they were annihilated, and it was the end of the Jacobite rebellion, and the king was victorious in the end. So not only were they horrendously defeated, apparently their suffering didn't end at the end of the battle because they still haunt the battlefield to this day, so people say, anyway. Every year on April 16, which is the anniversary of the battle, people see, I guess, a residual haunting of a reenactment of this battle. So...I'll get more into that bit in a bit but, um, people have apparently seen this reenactment, but it gets funny. But I'll tell you about this afterwards because I want to tell you this--this story about these two old ladies because this is the cutest ghost story I've ever heard.

Melanie: Nice.

Danielle: So, right, I like it because it works backwards, and to me, that is more logical than when somebody's told something's haunted and then sees a ghost.

Melanie: Mm-hmm.

Danielle: Other way around. So, I will show you this. These two old dears show up at a National Trust for Scotland site. National Trust for Scotland, basically, we put up an office in a nice little Museum next to historical buildings and places of historical interest and charge people to get into it to keep and maintain it because we love that shit. On a bank holiday weekend, we'll go to a castle, go through the cafe, go sit down in the castle, have a look around, come out, go through the gift shop and have another brew. That is a bank holiday weekend to the tee.

Melanie: Nice

Danielle: Literally tea. Anyway, so these two old dears go to this National Trust of Scotland site, and they asked if they could see a map which would show the route for this infamous Jacobite retreat. Now, the bit that I didn't talk about before was that, prior to the actual battle, there had been a failed surprise attack by the Jacobites. So, they had split into two and decided to ambush the Duke of Cumberland, which was the son of the king at the time (and nicknamed The Butcher) who they were going to be battling at some point or another, but they split into two to decide to go and surprise attack them. One of the armies, one side of the army, decided that it was just not workable, we're going home...well back to the camp, and went back. And that was about 2:00 a.m. in the morning. Well, the other half didn't get the message until nearly daybreak, when they were literally on top of Cumberland's camp, was, like, literally about to attack as far as I understand it, and then someone was like 'no! call it off!' so they all had to run. So this lady knew about this retreat, but she wanted to see the route of it, so she and her friend were looking at this map, and the--the helpful people in the gift shop at the National Trust were showing them the route that the--the retreats took (because we did take very good notes, I guess; someone took the time to write it down). So they're looking at this, and then the woman goes 'ah! there's my house!' So she sees on the route of the retreat that it runs right through her back garden. And she turns to her--her best friend, or old lady friend over there, and goes 'see! see! I told you! I told you!' Apparently, about five times over the last ten years, she'd been woken up in the early hours of the morning to the sounds of, very distinctly, soldiers running through her garden. Now, I don't know what soldiers running through a garden sounds like, but I imagine it probably gives off a little bit at a different aura, difference aural sound...

Melanie: Yeah.

Danielle: Transmission or whatever than your average running man? But she says that it sounds like soldiers. So she--she'd run up to the window to see, what the heck, who's running through her garden. And then she wouldn't see anything, but she'd still be able to hear them. And she was like 'I've always heard soldiers running through my garden.' and--and so this kind of gave her a little bit of validity in that the route of the retreat most likely went through her garden. So she is pretty convinced that she's heard the residual sounds of the Jacobites in retreat, which is quite interesting. Because it works backwards, I'm more likely to believe an old lady trying to prove herself right (because I know how that is) than somebody that goes somewhere that is known to be haunted and saying 'oh I saw a specter.' Well, you were expecting to see it so you're gonna see something. That's the other way around, it's a little bit more believable.

Melanie: Exactly.

Danielle: And the actual battlefield itself...I forgot what it's called already...Culloden, Culloden Moor, the actual battlefield itself has your typical array of ghosty apparitions. Mostly sounds: war cries, clashing swords, screaming in agony, those sorts of things. Especially around the anniversary of the event itself. So this is what I'm gonna get a little bit cynical because, interestingly enough, the author of the Outlander novels, name's Diana Gabaldon, have you heard of Outlander?

Melanie: Yes.

Danielle: Yeah. So the writer of these novels, right when she was releasing a book which happens to be talking about star-crossed lovers who were separated by this very specific battle, came out to say that she's been to the battlefield, and she was brought to tears by the feeling of dread and sadness of the--of the souls that were on the battlefield. So it was pretty highly, not highly but, you know, it was put in all the press and all the tabloids and everything about how she feels it was so much...she's just...knows it's haunted. She just knew, Melanie, when she went; she knew it may be haunted by all these souls. ‘Buy my book! It's so haunted, it's so, you know, it's such a horrible thing. Buy my book.’ So that happened.

Melanie: [laughs]

Danielle: Some other stuff that's happened: locals and tourists say that they are visions of unearthly specters over the graves of the Jacobites. Basically, the Jacobites were buried in mass graves right in the battlefield.

Melanie: Mass graves are the worst.

Danielle: Yeah there's loads of the burial mounds, there's loads of things like that around the battleground, they're just chucked in. One person claimed to have seen a tartan-clad man lay maimed and bloodied on the ground on the moor. So I wanted to look at see if the Jacobites would have actually worn tartan, but then I forgot and didn't. There's this whole thing about how tartan is associated with the Scots...Scottish. Ooh, they don't like, sorry with the Scots, Scottish...Scots.

Melanie: Stop offending people.

Danielle: I know, I just, you don't say Scotch, you say Scots. There's a whole thing about how the certain tartans weren't actually around until hundreds of years later and things like that, so I meant to go and have a look if it was even likely that someone in this battle would have been wearing tartan, but I didn't. I'm sorry...

Melanie: We'll never know!

Danielle: But that's the one thing I'm like, right, okay so if you're going to say that something so specific that they're wearing tartan, I'm gonna go find out if it was even likely that a Jacobite was wearing tartan, but I'll get into that another time. But the thing that the actual site themselves claim is that birds do not go near it. That is something that can be verified. So apparently birds don't go near the battlefield, and they certainly don't sing. So if they are passing by, or hopping along, they won't sing while they're at the battlefield. Now that is something the site itself, like, the sort of touristy bit of the site claims - there's no birdsong so that's definitely something that I'd like to explore further. that is, literally, you just have to go there and stand there, and if you don't hear any birds, you go 'huh, no birds. That is weird.' But if I hear a bird, then I'm gonna be like 'well that's obviously BS.' So...

Melanie: Bullshit!

Danielle: Yeah. So with this sort of battlefield ghosts, I mean, it was--it was horrendous and it was devastating for Highlanders. It's really gotta sting; this was their defeat. So I feel like these legends just ensure that the story of the battle continues. And that people don't forget how shit and nasty the English can be. So I don't blame them; ghost stories are a perfect way to do this. But I can't take away from peoples’...I can't take away peoples’, like, personal experiences. So I'm not pooh-poohing anyone that feels like they have actually seen something or heard something on any scale because I wouldn't be so bold as to say that I'm right and they're wrong. But it just seems too perfect for me that a place where the Scottish would want people to remember a battle that they want people to be pissed off about, you know, the best way to do that is to build a legend around it. So the legend around it is that it's incredibly haunted

Melanie: Yeah.

Danielle: So it's a really good way to transmit a cautionary tale, you know, about how shit the English are. You'd think we'd learn but, you know...and that was Culloden Moor, anyway. Do you want me to do my other one?

Melanie: Yeah, do it!

Danielle: The second one that I thought I'd do...I knew you'd have to do Civil War, if you were doing the US; that's the only war you fought on your own soil. Unless you did Pearl Harbor, which I don't really know if counts as a battlefield, really.

Melanie: Right?

Danielle: It's a location of war, but it's, you know, like warfare but not necessarily battlefield. It was a bit one-sided.

Melanie: Yeah, a battlefield is where two forces are clashing.

Danielle: So I thought that I would sort of educate, in a way, your side of the pond in that we also had a civil war. So we have, you know, we have had a civil war was between the Parliamentarians and the Royalists, because there was a time in our history where the kings and queens of the Royals were not looked upon favorably by a certain sector of the population. They were taking the piss and so Parliamentarians, people that wanted to have a more democratic - I'm gonna say that with a pinch of salt because it was…it was a religious revolution more than it was a political one. And one of the greatest battles of the Civil War took place in 1642 in Warwickshire. It was called the Battle of Edgehill. It was, as you can imagine, pretty horrendous; thousands died and it ended up being strategically moot because both sides lost about the same amount of people. It added no strategic advantage to one side or the other, and the war continued, and it didn't seem to really have much of an effect other than the fact that they all had less people. But they ALL had less people so, you know, it didn't leave anyone with any advantage, so it was kind of a bit, you know, shittily planned battle.

Melanie: Yeah, pointless.

Danielle: Yeah. The funny thing about this particular haunting is that it happens almost immediately. So, you know, you've usually got a little bit of time between when a tragedy occurs and you start seeing ghosts.

Melanie: Yeah.

Danielle: Well, this literally happens less than two months later. So it happens in about November, that was (I’m trying to remember now) October, at the end of October, in 1642, and just before Christmas, a shepherd reported seeing a reenactment of the battle. But not just, you know, on the ground, like your typical reenactment. Up in the sky! Above the battlefield. Right, so you could hear the clashes of armor, cries of the dying, screams, voices, even horses up in the sky. So he runs and he tells his priest like ‘I just saw this great battle in the sky over the battlefield at Edgehill.’ And what does the priest say, do you think?

Melanie: That he's drunk.

Danielle: No. ‘I saw it, too!’

Melanie: Oh, shit.

Danielle: The priest tells him ‘I saw it too! I thought I was going mad!’ Now, I don't think if he said that bit but he said ‘I saw it, too’. And over the next few days, apparently, more and more locals reported to seeing the phantom battle in the sky. So much so that they produced a pamphlet in 1643 (so this is the next year) called A Great Wonder in Heaven. And it detailed all the different peoples’ accounts of this battle.

Melanie: Yeah.

Danielle: Right. So this little, you know, town who's made this pamphlet about this haunted battlefield, and the king finds out, and he's very intrigued. So he sends his, he sends his bros down to see what the fuck is going on, right? So it's in Warwickshire, so it's not that far. He sends him up from London. And, lo and behold, his cronies see the phantoms at the battlefield, too! Not only did they see this phantom battle going on in the sky, but they could recognize people who were in it. This only happened two months previous. Their comrades up there, and I can actually see, apparently, their friends and their, you know, their confidants up in the sky.

Melanie: Oh no, it’s Jeff, he's getting stabbed! Run, Jeff!

Danielle: Exactly. There's one particularly interesting one which was the king’s standard bearer. And for those of you don't know what a standard bearer is, it's the person that is tasked with holding the flag that has the standard of the king on it. So they don't actually fight, they're not soldiers, but they're usually highly…they were soldiers, and usually are very highly decorated, but their role on the battlefield is not to take part in the battle but to hold the standard. And if the standard falls into the hands of the other side, it's kind of like they win the battle. It's kind of like capture the flag.

Melanie: Wow…

Danielle: [laughs] So I don't think that people would just, like, surrender if the other side had the flag, I think people would keep fighting, but it's kind of like symbolic? If the other side has your standard, then it's like ‘oh shit, we're losing!’ So, you know, it could either serve as motivation to fight a little harder or it could make you feel despair that you're losing. It depends on your predisposition

Melanie: I would imagine they kept those guys at the back, right? They had to work their way through?

Danielle: I mean, it would usually be quite close to the king, so the king will be pretty heavily protected. Or, you know, like the commander of the particular rank…you know, the most highly ranked person there because you'd have to have a standard bearer there to sort of decree so everybody knew whose side was who, I guess. I'm not an expert on these things, but there's always somebody holding a standard. I think that it shows up in Game of Thrones at some point, so if you guys wanted…that really did happen, people did really hold flags. But this guy, Sir Edmund Verney, was the standard bearer for this battle and had gallantly refused to let go of the standard when it was being, like, yanked from him by the other side. So they chopped off his hand and his arm to get at the standard and then got it. So, apparently, these guys who had come down or up from London to have a look, saw their friend Sir Edmund Verney getting his hand lobbed off and the standard taken. PSI…is it PSI? Side note: the Royalists do get the standard back, and, apparently, they get it back and his hand was still clasping onto the pole. What a guy! Still, you know, and the Parliamentarians hadn't, you know, tried to rip it off. It was time-consuming, I guess. So apparently when they got the standard back, his hand was still attached. So this guy was pretty well thought of. There's this sort of…he's almost martyred, if you will. The standard bearer of the King, ‘til his dying breath, held the standard and had to have his arm cut off before he would be able to have it pried from his hands, right? So, can you say propaganda with me?

Melanie: Yeah.

Danielle: So these people that have come up from the king just happen to see the hero of the battle, if you will, Sir Edmund Verney, getting his hand lobbed off and the--the standard being yoinked. So I'm not saying the story’s bullshit or anything, but [laughs].

Melanie: I don't know, watching the whole battle in the sky sounds pretty realistic to me.

Danielle: I just mean that their--their particular account of their friend Sir Eddie there. So yeah, but it certainly makes for interesting telling to the king when they get back, which they do, more on that later. So the villagers and, I imagine the priest, who in no way makes any money from this, wink wink, decide to give all the corpses a proper Christian burial. So they get the proper rite, it's the Christian rites, as they're being…because obviously they've just been kind of dumped in this field. It was only two months ago; some of them were probably still sticking out of the ground. And apparently, for the time being, the great ghost battle in the sky stopped. So apparently burying them in Christian graves by the priest and getting all of their last rites, apparently settled their souls for a time.

Melanie: That's usually the way to do it.

Danielle: Yeah, well, it seems to be pretty consistent in these kind of stories that they need some kind of resolution, unfinished business, if you will.

Melanie: Yeah.

Danielle: Contradictory to this, people still report to hear shit to this day. So, at the time, they were quite happy with settling, you know, settling it and saying, ‘Listen we gave them all Christian burials and everything went away.’ Well that's very good Christian propaganda, end of story, right? Well, as time has gone on, people have latched on to the ghost story a little bit more. And the whole thing about God Almighty letting them all settle at the end, you know, as long as they've got their rites? That's finished, we don't believe that anymore, do we? So people still report to hear shit like screams, cannon fire, hooves galloping, and battle cries on the site, especially around the anniversary. Like a week or so before a fair or a carnival or something that doesn’t need press or publicity or anything. Suddenly people will start hearing shit and it gets into the local paper and at the bottom of it might seem like ‘oh we're having a carnival!’ I'm not cynical or anything…

[Both laugh]

Danielle: But it's infamously haunted, this place, Edgehill. Interestingly, and this is my last little fact on this, because this is--this is the most fun fact for me because of all the…both these stories I can easily dismiss as…the first one was Scottish making up legends to try to, you know, demonstrate how shit the English are, and then this one clearly a religious one because the Civil War was a religious war. But this, this is funny because this is the historical impact that this ghost story's had on our country. Because the king sent this official committee, if you will, to go and investigate this? Their account is held in the public records office.

Melanie: Nice.

Danielle: So it is the only officially recognized phantom battlefield in Britain. In fact, any ghosts whatsoever. It is an officially recognized haunted location according to the public records office because the king sent an official group of people to go and get an account. They wrote it all down, it went into the public records, eventually into the archives. So, legally, it’s haunted.

Melanie: Yeah, totally real. That’s awesome.

[both laugh]

Danielle: I don’t know if there’s any other legally, you know, officially recognized haunted places. I think things that are of historical interest, the haunting will be included in that. But in this particular case, the haunting is the record.

Melanie: Wow, that’s awesome.

Danielle: I thought that was pretty cool. I actually tried to find the official document within the public records, but it's not that easy to track down because it's not really called like the public records office anymore, it's like the National Archives. And they haven't digitized everything yet. So it's there, but I’d have to actually go to London and go through the National Archives and find it.

Melanie: If you ever do that, you could put that in the notes on our sites.

Danielle: I wanted to quote it. I wanted to quote it, I wanted to read it and be able to tell you what these dudes actually said. Like, ‘Lo, before me ‘twas the face of Sir Edmund, my friend.’ [laughs] I wanted to hear what he actually had to say. Anyway, so those are my battlefields.

Melanie: All right. Well then, in our last few minutes, let me just get in a cryptid and a yokai.

Danielle: All right.

Melanie: So the one cryptid that I did want to bring up is [says ominously] Old Green Eyes.

Danielle: Okay.

Melanie: So Old Green Eyes, he appeared...it's believed that he appeared before the battle but he really became popular around the time of the Battle of Chickamauga. And I have some details on that. It's the second bloodiest battle of the Civil War, second only to the Battle of Gettysburg. A shit ton of people died…where is me notes? Ope, there it is. Sorry.

Danielle: Organized as ever!

Melanie: Yeah, right? So the Battle of Chickamauga took care took place in Catoosa City in Georgia. It was a two day long battle. 3,969 people died. And right after that, even during the battle, it was said that the--the smell of blood, the screaming, the devastation…so much blood was spilled that a creature of great malice was drawn to the devastation. Most people believe it's a ghoul. It's not so much a ghost as a creature that stands about six to seven feet tall, humanlike. Some people say it's got long black hair and bright green, glowing eyes. They kind of, they have that--that green that almost turns orange; that shift of, like, night vision, like in a wolf.

Danielle: Like 1990s, you know, Fresh Prince hats.

Melanie: [laughs] Yes. But he has a huge deformed jaw and terrifying fangs (some people say fangs and some people say tusks) protruding. And he came to eat the dead. I wanted to, I didn't have enough time, but I wanted to see if there was any sort of, you know, native lore on a creature like that that might have been around that area. I'm still going to research that and, if I can come up with some facts, then I'm gonna throw that on one of our pages because I thought it was really interesting.

Danielle: Was it in Virginia again?

Melanie: Georgia, I believe. [Sound of notes shuffling] Yes, Georgia. And he's been seen over and over and over again. There was this one telling that there was this guy who was like a park ranger, and he'd seen it a good couple times. I meant to write down his name. I think it was Tidds or Timmons or Tiddly. [Laughs]

Danielle: TT, my friend!

Melanie: The park where this battle took place, it's kind of like Lovers Lane. It's a good makeout spot for a lot of people, and there have been numerous people that felt, like, while they were making out, all of a sudden this hot breath on the back of their neck.

Danielle: That’s very romantic.

Melanie: Then they turn around and they'll just see these big, bright green eyes. Then, of course, [clap sound] they fucking book. Sorry about my loud clapping. And then they fucking book. And this one park ranger had seen him a good few times. And it's interesting that, as the years progressed, the ghoul progressed. So whereas before he was a mostly naked kind of ghoul, but some people will see him now and they see him with a top hat or like a long black coat. And back in the 60s or…60s? I want to say 60s or 70s. No. Yes. One of them have this really racist viewing of it. They saw this tall…with gold green eyes and had the six feet tall and a big white head as if it was hair was wrapped up in something. And the person who walked upon it seeing it, seeing this giant, like, not hairy but human-like thing but so dark in the shadows but this big white thing on their head, they hear a baby crying, and they go to go approach them and, you know, say ‘what--what was going on? Can--can we help?’ and they described it as looking like an African American with their head wrapped up in a towel and then said in a big burly deep voice [speaks in growly voice] ‘just leave me alone’.

Danielle: Sounds like a Voodoo demon. I'm trying to remember. There's lots of fun folklore about particular, um, I think he's the sort of Voodoo version of death or, you know, like the Grim Reaper type of thing. Sounds a bit like him. I'm trying to remember what he's called.

Melanie: Oh, I know it.

Danielle: He’s sort of like half zombie half, you know, beast humanoid with the green theme is running through that one as well, but he's got white face paint on. He's definitely a black man with the top hat.

Melanie: I know his name. I have it in my flipping head.

Danielle: I know, it’s so bugging me.

Melanie: It’s like Big Daddy Saminy...Samily? Sam…something. Shit.

Danielle: We’ll remember like ten seconds after we finish this.

Melanie: Yeah.

Danielle: But Big Green sounds a lot like that legend.

Melanie: Old Green Eyes evolved and I think probably, I think initially it was just something that somebody was seeing when they were really, really terrified though. All of this monstrosity is going on, a monster in the mix really doesn't seem that out of place right now. But…

Danielle: So people on the battlefield themselves reported to seeing this thing before they went into battle?

Melanie: Yeah or during, in the middle of battle.

Danielle: Ooooh.

Melanie: Yeah. That was interesting. So some people had seen it or had been talking about it before the battle. But none of the soldiers who were there knew anything about it at all. They all of a sudden just see this--this tall huge creature with this massively deformed jaw just, like, slinking out from the woods to grab a corpse and pull it back in to eat it.

Danielle: Could it not possibly be an animal, but it's all fucked up and mangy looking because there's a war going on?

Melanie: Absolutely, especially because of the--the green eyes. And some people say that the green eyes turned from green to orange so it had that nighttime reflective much like a wolf, I think like that. But I did think that was neat with the whole, like, the tusks and the deformed jaw, I think it's really terrifying. Some of the images I found were downright spooky. And I love a good monster so I--I'm all about Old Green Eyes. But, over time, I think that it was interesting that he sort of evolved to just sort of be this like racist creature.

Danielle: Yeah, it’s a bit odd, that’s very telling.

Melanie: Yes, and that's how humans are, you know? We latch onto a story, and we sort of evolve it with--with us. And then my last thing I want to mention is my yokai because, with any topic, there's a yokai for that. My yokai is…I went with the Kosenjōbi which is a demon fire. It's made from the blood of warriors and animals that died in battle. The blood soaks into the earth and then the Kosenjōbi rises from the--the blood-soaked earth into the air at night, creating fiery shapes or orbs. They occasionally take the form of fallen warriors or animals, but mostly it just sees just balls of flame. And that's really predominant a lot of Japanese, like, mythology. Same thing with Chinese mythology, too. They do the big flaming balls of hate, fear, children, all kinds of things. But these ones are specific to battlefields. It’s said they, once again, they wander around the fields looking for their missing body parts. They're harmless but spooky.

Danielle: See, to me, oh you know the whole thing, everything that we've both researched, that all of it is not happy, right? And it’s never going to be happy when you're researching the ghosts of fallen soldiers. But these particular stories have a very clear message. All of them have a clear message: that war and battles and death like this is just bullshit. It's just...shit, it's shit; it creates horrible monsters, it creates balls of flame that could possibly represent like anger and hatred. You know the great sort of battles that are being reenacted with our friends dying over and over and over again, all of it has a very...although you can sort of twist it and mold it to your own narrative as much as you want. Overwhelmingly the, you know, without any doubt, going into it and coming out of it, this topic was going to come out. The moral of the story is: war is bad, m’kay?

Melanie: War sucks.

Danielle: War sucks. So yeah, any story that comes out of a battlefield, anything like that, I'm going to be a little, I suppose, I'm very skeptical and cynical of it, obviously. But I am NOT cynical of the message that is being…so if in Japanese culture they believe in this fiery, you know, beast if…sorry in this fiery yokai. If in Georgia they believe in this, you know, cannibalistic man-pig thing that comes and devours these bodies of the dead and--and--and mine as well, it just, you know, it's sad. It's sad that we don't listen to these things and…or at least that we manipulated the actual stories of the event to fit this kind of weird spooky side story and not actually tell the true stories or what actually…I'm sorry, I'm getting a little preachy, but I don't really like war.

[Both laugh]

Melanie: War, not so much fun.

Danielle: No, it's a little bit depressing. Because, after all of this, like, we've had a laugh and we've added this or we’ve added that, but these people really did actually exist at one point and they were killed horrendously. So just thought I'd end our little topic there, just like, sorry guys, you know...shit, no, sorry guys, sorry.

Melanie: I wanted to go into the stories of what generals took what where and--and all those details but there's so much and war, it's such a huge, huge topic that I unfortunately went the lame route of just, like, there was a battle and people died there. It was, you know, they had names they--they had families and the amount of places that General E Lee apparently haunts is hysterical.

Danielle: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I imagine. I think I've seen a few documentaries because allegedly the spirit of, you know, you’re going ‘yeah well isn't he meant to be haunting that other place?’ Like, he gets around.

Melanie: You know he seriously haunts, like, 60 different places.

Danielle: If you could, would you multi-haunt? Like, if you were a ghost and you could go on holiday and haunt loads of different places, wouldn't you?

Melanie: Probably.

Danielle: Yeah! You wouldn’t want to be in the same spot all the time.

Melanie: You’re, like, stuck here, you might as well…I'm gonna haunt Disneyland. Was never there, but I’m gonna do it.

Danielle: I'm gonna latch on to this guy because this accent does not sound familiar, and I want to know where it goes.

Melanie: Hey, where does he come from?

Danielle: [in slight southern accent] Oh Spain! I’ve never been here before!

Melanie: [in southern accent] This is neat!

Danielle: That was my really bad southern accent, but I tried not to do it over the top. [laughs] Okay, so, well, that was a lot of shit there for the Zombie Fishbowl.

Melanie: Indeed it was. I think we did some stuff.

Danielle: Stuff definitely happened.

Melanie: Definitely.

[Both laugh]

Danielle: And if, after all that stuff, you enjoyed it and want to listen to us again for some reason, please, please, please subscribe. And, if you could, rate and review us, that would be awesome.

Melanie: And tell your friends.

Danielle: Yes please! You can also follow us on Twitter and Instagram and join our Facebook page all under Zombie Fishbowl Podcast. It's dead easy.

Melanie: And if you want to contact us to tell us where we're wrong about something, which I'm sure there's plenty of that, and want to request a topic to be added to the random topic picker, you can email us at Zombie…hold on, my brain, [email protected].

Danielle: No hate mail, though.

Melanie: Speak for yourself. [evil laugh]

Danielle: All right. Thank you so much for listening to our little podcast. If we, sorry, we really want to do well, so any feedback would be received with much, much love and humility. Also, if you want my list of sources or Melanie’s list of sources at any point, give us a shout and we'll give you the details. I'll keep track of any scientific journals and stuff whenever I mention them, which I didn't this episode. It was a bit tricky to shoehorn in, but I'll try harder next time

Melanie: Well that just leaves us to say goodbye and thank you.

Danielle: And I will leave you with a quote by one of the greatest minds of the 20th century: ‘In critical moments, men see exactly what they wish to see.’

Melanie: Danielle, is that a Spock quote?

Danielle: Yes.

Melanie: For fuck's sake.

[Laughter]

Danielle: Bye!

Melanie: Wait! We need to pick a topic!

Danielle: Oh shit! I forgot!

[Laughter]

Danielle: Right, okay. I'll pick a topic right now. I'm going to the random topic picker. [Singing] Random topic picker, random topic picker, pick a random topic, I’m a topic random picker.

[Laughter]

Melanie: That was solid!

Danielle: You want to know our next topic?

Melanie: Yes.

Danielle: Mummies!

Melanie: Oh, that's exciting!

Danielle: Yes.

Melanie: And on that note, bye!

Danielle: Bye!

[Laughter]

[Outro music]

#podcast #podcast transcript #transcripted podcasts #paranormal #paranormal podcast #transcript

0 notes

noddytheornithopod · 7 years

Note

001 for pnf

Favorite character: Phineas, though Candace and Doofenshmirtz follow really closely.

Least Favorite character: I’m too nice to this show, uh… Suzy, maybe? But only really in the sense that she’s kind of supposed to be hateable?

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): Phinabella (sigh), Perryshmirtz, Canderemy, Bujeet (when they’re older and more mature of course), Ferbella.

Character I find most attractive: Nobody in show I feel sticks out to me right now, though if we consider cut material I will say adult Stacy that was designed for Act Your Age is kinda cute.

Character I would marry: Uh… I don’t think I’d marry anyone? Especially since I want everyone to be happy as they are?

Character I would be best friends with: This is an interesting one, since I’m not really sure if I could just pick one. I could see me working with many of them in some way, especially the Autistic coded characters (so the Flynn-Fletcher kids, Doof and Baljeet, at least that’s who I have in mind).

A random thought: #LetStacyDoThingsWithPerry2k17

An unpopular opinion: I never really cared for Ferbnessa, I just never got why Vanessa would reciprocate what was basically an infatuation from someone quite a bit younger than her (a lot if Act Your Age is to be believed), and even when Ferb is older I don’t get why she’d suddenly take notice of him. Cue my disbelief when Act Your Age happened (especially since Monty was a thing, hell there’s another unpopular opinion - I like Monty and am perfectly fine with him :V).

My canon OTP: Phinabella (SIGH, yeah I think you can tell I’m embarrassed to have this as mine lol).

Non-canon OTP: I don’t really have one (of course there’s the ships I mentioned above, but none really are OTP material for me).

Most badass character: Candace or Isabella. Both have really awesome moments, I feel. I guess by extension we could also include Candace-2 and Star Wars Isabella here, since they end up taking the awesome levels even higher?

Pairing I am not a fan of: There isn’t really any pairing I have any real animosity towards (except for stuff that’s, you know, OBVIOUSLY bad), the above Ferbnessa example is more “I just don’t get it” and confusion at how popular it is than anything.

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): http://phineasandferb.wikia.com/wiki/Act_Your_Age

Favourite friendship: Since there’s nothing about familial relationships on this I’ll say the Flynn-Fletcher siblings are my favourite relationship on the show, especially when it comes to the dynamic between Candace and her brothers. I’m just so happy that we have such a positive yet complex dynamic here, one where there’s no true animosity even if they do have issues here and there, and that they really do care for each other. Also seriously, how much Phineas adores Candace and loves her more than anything is the sweetest thing ever.

#ask #meme #Phineas and Ferb

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noddytheornithopod · 8 years

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I was tagged by @fryferbfringefan44. Now, I have to post 10 characters from 10 fandoms. I’m gonna take some liberties here and bend the rules by not necessarily picking top faves, but faves nonetheless and characters I want to talk about that I don’t really get to in other memes. Be ready, I’m gonna use this to let off some steam. :V

1. Isabella Garcia-Shapiro (Phineas and Ferb): I can’t help but feel controversial here because while I’d hardly call her unpopular, I always get the feeling that most people either don’t care about her much or that the main reason they like her is because they ship her with Phineas (or Ferb, or some other character even). Meanwhile I’m sitting here cringing at my old Phinabella days, and am in that odd sliver that seems to really like her but don’t really focus too much on the Phineas aspect, even if I still have some dreaded Phinabella inside me I’m trying to suppress? I mean, I didn’t even realise she had a crush on Phineas until a year after I discovered the show (yep, I didn’t see crush episodes like how Linda never sees Phineas and Ferb’s inventions). So anyway, I just think she’s really damn cool. She’s hypercompetent like the rest of her peers, she cares about things that matter (in particular the Fireside Girls) as well as her friends, she’s not afraid to speak her mind (well, besides one thing), plus she’s funny, cute and while probably being the most “normal” out of Phineas and Ferb’s group of friends can still have her moments of quirkiness (just watch Return Policy or Face Your Fear, lol). I also find some of her flaws quite interesting, like a lot of her friends we actually see she cares enough about the Fireside Girls to the point where it has given her anxiety over potential failure, and sometimes she has a need for attention (I really like the episode where she’s competing with Candace over attention for Melissa the young Fireside Girl because of this). Granted her central character arc still revolves around Phineas and I understand why some don’t really care for that, but admittedly I like that kind of stuff too (in b4 “problematic fave” comments from people). On one hand I feel like we focused only on her crush at specific times and not nearly as much as some people make it out to be, but on the other hand her crush on Phineas is just super adorable? I think it might actually be because I kind of relate to her (I often remind myself of her at times admittedly, even if there’s other characters I’m more like XD), like there’s loads of characters that exist as love interests but Isabella actually managed to engage me probably because we actually followed her and her feelings instead of her just being some random girl for Phineas to try and impress (I guess I’m saying she was at least active in her own romance storyline, before then I had only really seen boys chasing after girls)? IDK if I’m making sense, but I guess I’m saying even if I think she’s able to stand on her own with her other attributes and is admirable in that regard I can’t help but really relate to the crush stuff too, which is maybe why I like her more than some people (and again, still not in the super shippy wants-her-to-be-with-Phineas-at-all-costs way). But yeah, as you can see I think Isabella is awesome and she’ll always have a special spot as a fave.

2. Jasper (Steven Universe): I choose Jasper because I feel like some people are being somewhat unfair on her? Like, I feel like some people are underestimating how complex she is and that she’s not going to be the “true villain.” Steven Universe never works that way, not even with characters like the Diamonds, you can even ask the writers and they’ll say they don’t do actual villains. Plus, lots of people have gone “true villain” on characters like Peridot when she first appeared, and now look at where she is! Anyway, Jasper’s story is honestly really gripping and also quite tragic. Sure, she works as a great antagonist against the Crystal Gems, but when we piece together where she came from we really get to see why she is the way she is, and she’s actually quite sympathetic. I mean, in her last appearance in Earthlings, I was on the verge of tears. She’s not just some thug, she has things she cares about and has experienced real hurt, and has become quite messed up as a result. Oh, and I can’t wait for her to come back. She’s gotta be back eventually.

3. CT-5555, aka “Fives” (Star Wars): I always enjoyed the clone troopers, but one of my favourites was always Fives. I was always invested in the Domino Squad storyline, and how they rose through the ranks and eventually became ARC Troopers. However, when things got really interesting for me was the Umbara story arc. Here, we not only saw Fives’ capabilities as a soldier, but with Pong Krell taking control of the 501st Legion he actually started to show more colours to his personality. In particular, we got to see that he cared more about what he thought was right than simply following orders without question. Unfortunately, even if that saved him and his fellow clones on Umbara, it would doom him when he learned about Order 66. Fives may have done the right thing, but when the entire Republic is against you for trying to reveal what they perceive as some conspiracy theory, you’re not going to go out well (especially if you have the Sith involved). I just really liked seeing a clone grow rebellious and then renegade but still cared about his duty because it’s either all loyalty or fuck the army, it was a nice balance. It was just committing the crime of asking questions that doomed him (and gosh his death is so sad). At least Rex seemed to listen to his warning though. :’)

4. Bradley Nicholson (Milo Murphy’s Law): IDK if I’ve talked about Bradley much, but he’s just such a blast to watch. Of course there’s the added bonus of Vincent Martella voicing a character radically different from Phineas, but even then he’s just really funny, the voice acting just enhances that. He’s also quite interesting, given that he’s jealous of Milo and the attention he gets, plus he seems kind of lonely. I really want to see him interact with Milo in the future and see whether he changes his opinion on him, or if he somehow grows even more envious while he grows on the others.

5. Makuta Teridax (Bionicle): Yeah, Teridax here is a pretty standard villain with standard villain traits. Selfish, arrogant, wants power, views his subordinates as nothing but tools, associated with darkness, etc. The reason he has left a mark on me is because he’s not only good at what he does, he’s epic at it. They could’ve just had him be some typical dark lord type, but he ended up developing into a character that is able to plan things out to a ridiculous extent. As a result, he would always find ways to be steps ahead of the heroes, and he would even go as far as letting himself be severely defeated and letting them win if it meant achieving his ultimate endgame. Everyone was being played like a puppet, he was powerful but his manipulation and planning is what made him so competent. Oh yeah, and he ended up winning. It literally took a moon to the head to finally take him down, but even then he had already unleashed so much terror on the world that was now his.

6. Keith (Voltron: Legendary Defender): I’m pretty new to VLD so I might not really be as in-depth here now, but Keith is definitely one of my favourite characters in the show. For starters, he’s just really badass. Seriously, he might be reckless at times, but at least he’s not to the point of being foolish, he’s really good at what he does. Also the whole storyline with him being Galra was really interesting, The Blade of Marmora is probably one of my favourite episodes of the show so far. I was already invested in his need for answers, but there he was willing to go to dangerous lengths to get what he wanted. At least the hell he went through was worth it.

7. Alister Azimuth (Ratchet and Clank): Most of the final bosses in Ratchet and Clank games are villains, but here it was literally the mentor character for Ratchet. Granted I’ve never been too savvy with video games, but this twist here when I first saw A Crack in Time blew me away. He’s one of the last of his entire species and has lost everyone who was ever close to him, but when he sees the chance to go back in time, he can’t help but take it. Problem is that he will rip apart time if he actually tries that. It’s actually really dramatic to fight him at the end because throughout the entire game Azimuth had been helping out Ratchet despite stuff from his past slipping into the open (oh yeah, he also feels personally responsible for unwitting helping the one to get rid of the Lombaxes), but when Ratchet and Clank tell him using The Great Clock to alter time would be dangerous, he decides to stop playing nice. He’s rough throughout the entire game, but now he’s not taking anything from anyone. He needed to go back and undo the mistakes of the past, but he had to end up fighting someone who is the son of his once best friend to do it. Granted he’s brought to his senses by the end, but he does end up dying to reverse the time travel process.

8. Connor Temple (Primeval): I don’t remember much of Primeval, but I always liked Connor. Sure, a lot of the time he was there to be goofy and provide comic relief, but he was also really intelligent and knew his stuff. It’s also cool seeing him grow more important with each series, even if in the end his technological skills almost fuck up the Earth since he was being played by the antagonists. Just a fun and cool character.

9. Max Jerry Horowitz (Mary and Max): Mary and Max isn’t a film for the faint of heart (...like me), but Max has always meant a lot to me. He was the first time I had ever seen an Autistic character that felt real, and not just some stereotype or gag. We get to know him and all of the stuff he’s been through, and you can’t help but feel for the guy. He also wasn’t afraid to be himself despite how much hell the world put him through, which is really great to see. Also yay for a character that actually supports neurodiversity in some shape or form!

10. Donna Noble (Doctor Who): Donna was the first companion I got to know on Doctor Who, and she’s still my favourite. I enjoyed seeing someone with a relationship with the Doctor that was platonic but still strong and obviously meant as much as any other kind of relationship, and she was a lot of fun. I understand some found her annoying at first, but if she didn’t start there she wouldn’t have had such great character growth, learning to grow more confident in herself and overcome her insecurities. She was really funny as well, not to mention unafraid to speak up about things. The way she left the show was absolutely heartbreaking though...

I’m not tagging anyone, but if you’re reading this an interested feel free to do this.

#ask #meme #long post #Phineas and Ferb #steven universe #star wars #milo murphy's law #bionicle #voltron: legendary defender #ratchet and clank #primeval #mary and max #doctor who

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