#and i feel even crazier for entertaining the possibility that it might work out

[banghwa]

i’m down bad guys it actually rly pathetic

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER PRE-GAME 9/30/2020: 30 MILES FROM NOWHERE/CONFESSIONAL (2019)

Spoiler alert. Or whatever. It’s not going to matter, you don’t care.

So, I've been away for a minute. Just about any reason to be away from Tumblr is probably a good reason, but I have an especially good one. I'm finally working on a "real" writing project, which demands, and deserves, all of my attention. My social media abstinence isn't just a matter of time management, though. Once I had a long term obligation on my plate, I became very aware of how the short term satisfaction I get from posting mindless rants was eating away at the fuel I have available for sustained efforts. When I wind myself up with a 500-1000 word blog post, it generates a lot of electricity, but I blow it all as soon as I experience the catharsis of posting it, and I'm further pacified by ego-stroking likes and reblogs. Not to sound like a sanctimonious luddite--I mean, I'm still here, after all!--but it turns out that the staying focused on the long haul has been surprisingly revivifying. In fact, I haven't been talking about my big fancy project for the same reason; I don't want to lose any of the juice I've been storing up by wasting it on the shallow pleasure of describing it. Also such things should probably be somewhat confidential until they're approaching the publishing stage, but I digress! There is an actual reason I'm saying all this, that has more to do with this blog.

(Don’t get all excited, I’m not doing EVIL ED right now, I just need a relatable image.)

As I got deeper into my experience of "real" film writing, I started to reflect on the meaning of my personal writing. Like, the point of it. I tend to write in a sweaty, compulsive, sadomasochistic haze, in which I'm sometimes hyperbolically generous, and sometimes--perhaps more often, unfortunately--as nasty as humanly possible. Sometimes the movies deserve it, when they're lazy, pretentious, or otherwise demonstrate an open contempt for the audience aka ME. Often, though, I'm just creating an opportunity to vent my generalized rage and frustration. That can be very entertaining for myself and (hopefully) my teensy-but-devoted readership, but lately I've asked myself whether there isn't some negative tradeoff for all this amusement. In this phase of my life, it's reasonable to assume I'll make more and more friends and acquaintances who create things I don't always care for, but I don't necessarily think they deserve to be abused for it. As much as I have a right to say whatever I want, technically, I'd be embarrassed if I were caught just jacking myself off by making fun of their work in public. And more to the point, I don't necessarily want to contribute to the growing atmosphere in which people feel more afraid to try and fail, because the public so commonly misidentifies sarcasm and mean-spiritedness as intelligence and superiority, and that form of petty darkness spreads across the internet a lot faster than a movie can reach a wider audience. After all, I'm in the process of potentially turning myself into one of those well-meaning failures right now. I could stand to be a little more deliberate about how I speak, and about what, in general.

My father is an art critic, and once in an extra petulant moment, teenage-me asked him in an accusative tone what he thought the point of his profession was. He replied calmly that he wouldn't publish any comment that he didn't think the artist could make use of somehow. I don't know if he always stuck to that policy, but the thought sure stuck with me.

So anyway, over the last few months I've been giving myself a bit of an attitude adjustment, through a combination of personal reflection, and hard work on something meaningful/not for the internet. I've been feeling all proud of myself and shit, but today reminded me that any path to enlightenment is always marked by setbacks, doubt, and temptation. For today, in complete innocence (or at least a melange of innocence and ignorance, as I very much invite this type of problem), I managed to watch TWO (2) movies about an academic film-cum-psychology project, focused on a gang of college buddies who inevitably reveal what bad people they are under the unique conditions of the project, and then the project turns out to be run NOT by its presumed-dead originator, but by the originator's even-crazier lover. It's amazing how particular something can be, and still be utterly obvious and cliche. In my defense, I really tried to turn the second movie off, because it was...just instantly terrible, but the seed of suspicion had taken root--is this randomly selected movie ACTUALLY EXACTLY THE SAME AS THE PREVIOUS MOVIE?--and I just had to find out if this could be true. I suffered, deliberately, for another hour and a half, to confirm my awful hunch. I don't know how I would have felt if I had turned out to be wrong (better? worse?), but I don't have to worry about that now. Now I just have to worry about my overpowering impulse to be as ugly as possible about what I have personally subjected myself to.

(The completely deceptive poster for our not at all witchy or eerie opening feature.) 

In need of a passable time-waster this afternoon, I put on 30 MILES FROM NOWHERE. Released in March of 2019, Caitlin Koller's claustrophobic black comedy feels oddly like a product of 2020. A group of estranged, middle-aged college pals of the BIG CHILL ilk--which one of the characters calls out, out loud, just so ya know--come together for a fallen comrade's funeral, only to find themselves trapped in his widow's increasingly creepy cabin in the woods. Said comrade was driven to suicide by the failure of a psychological experiment he conducted that plunged its subject into madness, and if you don't realize right away that the obnoxious and unstable cast are the new subjects of their not-quite-dead friend's renewed project, then you're firing a lot slower than 24 frames per second. The dialog is often decent, aiding a handful of funny, natural performances...but it's hard to forget that you're just waiting for the conspicuously crazy widow to reveal that the "unexplained events" in and around the cabin are part of a controlled attempt to get the guests to devolve into their worst selves, which isn't such a difficult task considering the undesirable state they all arrive in.

It just made me ask myself, what was the point of this? Why do people make movies that are entirely predicated on the shock of the twist, knowing that if the twist isn't so shocking--or is baldly obvious from the start--then the whole experience just falls apart? Why not hedge your bets with a little more depth, or purpose, or style, or really anything more reliable than a smug attempt to prove that your script is smarter than your audience? Even if you do manage to pull off this dubious accomplishment, it reduces your movie to something like the experience of having somebody jump out of a closet and scream in your ear to "get" you. I've always felt concerned that if somebody ever tries to "get" me like that, I might just automatically punch them in the face. But anyway, whatever shred of good will this movie could have accrued with its plucky performances is blown away by the final insult, when the cops arrive to clean up the inevitable bloody mess. The responding officers are hilariously unimpressed and unsurprised by the byzantine scheme that has resulted in a shocking act of violence, because the cabin's "guest book", which our heroes all filled out, was actually the signatory page of a complicated waiver form granting full permission to the hosts to, like, do whatever the hell they want to everybody. Presumably this shit just goes on all the time, leading the local law to shrug off anything that happens to or because of the dumbassed lab rats who frequent the cabin? I dunno. I mean, what can I say? ACAB, I guess!

At the time, I managed to resist the urge to take to the internet and decry the crimes of this lame-o party joke. I really don't like the sensation that a movie is just trying to trick me into thinking something that isn't true. But, this isn't, like, an affront to cinema. People make annoying, below average movies all the time, and maybe you kinda have to, if you eventually want to make better movies. I imagine myself in the shoes of the people who actually put some elbow grease into this production, having to wade through the rantings of internet ghouls like myself while they're trying to see how their efforts are paying off. Making a movie is probably a lot harder than I think it is.

But that's part of the point I'm heading toward. I'm always amazed by people's willingness to pour huge amounts of energy and capital into something to which there is ultimately very little point. I mean, I have bad, unoriginal, boring ideas every single day of my life. But I almost never DO any of them. I have a hard enough time convincing myself to just get out of bed in the morning, let alone devote blood, sweat, and money to deliver unto the world material evidence of my personal mediocrity. I can't imagine thinking it would be worth it, for myself or the unfortunate people who are subjected to my project, to actually execute on my bad ideas. I'm being judgmental, but honestly, I don't even know if my attitude makes me better or worse than someone who accomplishes the task of completing and selling a movie that's mainly a waste of time. Movies are so complicated, and realizing them requires the consensus of so many people, that it's sort of incredible that there are people capable of making one that doesn't have a powerfully compelling motivation behind it. People who are able to do such a thing obviously have something that I don't, and it isn't just "consideration for the audience."

So, I could probably stand to be more forgiving--or just, less eager to absolutely flay someone alive on my dumb little blog because they so opened themselves up to my arsenal of elaborate insults. But like...not all the time. Sometimes, a movie really fucking asks for it, and in revealing itself to me, it has effectively signed a waiver giving me patent freedom to do whatever I want to it. CONFESSIONAL is the latest movie to give me such a gift. After the final credit rolled in 30 MILES FROM NOWHERE, I looked for a little palate cleanser. As little as I like movies that put their single egg in the motheaten basket of a "shocking twist", I also have a problem with what I identify as canned theater. Not that I think all movies have to be lavish productions, but I think they should try to do something that is natively cinematic. It's very rare that I'm impressed by anything that is literally all talk. So, I went in search of some more familiar form of trash to help me recallibrate, and trash is definitely what I got.

(Me crying over my own bad decisions.)

To be fair, I kind of should have known that I was in for a challenging experience. The 2019 found footage thriller CONFESSIONAL is more or less based on the "confessional" part of sleazy reality TV shows, isolating each cast member in a soundproof stall so they can spill the rotten contents of their guts. Unfortunately, I spotted a review suggesting that the movie succeeded, against all odds, at remaining visually dynamic despite the unchanging scenery, and I was intrigued. The reviewer was correct, impressively; the monotony of the coffin-like environment with its dark foam walls was the least of my concerns. Other problems superseded that threat, immediately. The plot concerns a group of college pals who come together to remember a recently deceased friend--a filmmaker who expired mysteriously while completing a psychology-tinged project in which she recorded all of her friends' most shameful personal secrets. Now, somebody else has taken over the project...someone who "has never been identified", according to an early title card in this movie-within-a-movie (EVEN THOUGH THIS PERSON WILL BE EXPLICITLY IDENTIFIED AT THE END OF THE MOVIE SO LIKE WHY), but who seems likely to be the decedent's ex-lover...who continues to expose their subjects' most shameful secrets on film. I mean, what the fuck? Did I somehow manage to pick a second movie with almost the exact same plot??? I couldn't believe it. I didn't know if I could take it. My prospects only got worse when the cast showed up and started talking. I tried to turn the movie off. I backed out and walked away from it, twice. But I couldn't leave it alone. I had to know if it was really the same movie.

CONFESSIONAL concerns characters who are contemporaneously in college, which actually goes a long way to making everything worse. Each of these walking cliches is connected in some way to Amelia, a film student whose mysterious death has created a campus scandal, leaving shattered hearts and lives in its wake. The living have each received a blackmail-flavored invitation to speak about the deceased in a tiny "confessional booth" somewhere on campus, where, predictably, they find themselves locked in until they confess whatever they know about Amelia, and their classmates. I don't know why practically every single movie about young people has to be so miserable, but this is one of those. I assume that it has something to do with the fact that youth is simultaneously so desired and so ignored. People in their teens and early 20s are so sexually coveted, yet so easily dismissed as individuals, that we wind up with all this media that panders to them relentlessly (or at least, panders to the legions of ticket-buying perverts who enjoy watching them prance around), without almost any consideration of how they actually think and act, and look. Movies like FAT GIRL and  WELCOME TO THE DOLL HOUSE may be accused of their own form of pandering, a venal form of voyeuristic schadenfreude, but at least they reflect something of the awkwardness, isolation, and incompleteness of adolescence; something more than the dissociated, pornographic fantasies of adults who have long since forgotten what it was like to be powerless and ignored, or desired by people who don't even like you.

Not that CONFESSIONAL is supposed to be a work of grim realism, but it is most definitely rooted in a fantasy about college life that makes its contrived, message-y plot a lot harder to take. With almost the sole exception of "the nerdy one", every single character looks like a Bratz doll, oozing an exaggerated indecency that belies the movie's pretentious insistence on addressing the sex & gender Issues of the Day. What you get is a really good example of what happens when millennial characters are modeled, not on any actual millennials, but on other forms of marketing that are aimed at millennials, which are themselves just based on other preexisting youth-targeted commercials, et al ad nauseam. Even setting aside the deliriously slutty wardrobe choices, makeup appears to have been laid on with a trowel, coating each actor in a thick creamy layer of spackle that only makes any scars, pits, or other evidence of individuality look utterly bizarre. Accordingly, everybody preens, pouts, and generally behaves as if they're about to take off their clothes, which might be a huge relief given the profusion of chafing, cheapo mesh and straps they're laboring under.

So, ok, not every movie can have a great costume department, but the dialog here is a perfect match for the disastrous aesthetic decisions. Actually, this is the real reason I almost walked out on CONFESSIONAL. If I may ramble briefly, without substantiating any of my broad-ranging claims: Sometime in the late 90s/early 00s, horror cinema seemed to suffer a degenerative slide away from genuine thrills and chills, and into a version of the genre that is best characterized as the Slutty Halloween Costume approach. Any sense of existential dread, revulsion, or bodily vulnerability was widely replaced by a cutesy, Hot Topic-y preference for fast fashion and sex appeal, in which bloodshed more facilitated an informal wet teeshirt contest than any real fear induction. Horror's new mall goth look came with an equally shallow, boring verbal affectation: a sullen, sleazy, tooth-sucking sarcasm, that ushered in a new era in which, instead of making fun of the scummy coked-out dialog in porno movies, we now expect everybody to just talk like that, because it's hot. There's probably a line to be drawn between this unfortunate development, and the boneheaded real-world trend of identifying "sarcasm" as an important personal selling point on dating sites, but I won't try to prove that here. For now, I will just say that as soon as I heard the CONFESSIONAL characters start to speak, with their sneering, insinuating tones, with the vocal fry, with the head wagging, the jutting jaws, the smoldering gazes, the juvenile dragging-out of horny grownup words like de-bauch-er-y...I almost lost my nerve. Listening to these little creeps hissing and spitting for 84 minutes is a lot like being hit on by some barfly who continues to bludgeon you with his hot breath and corny lines without ever noticing that you've thrown up into your pint.

Uh, anyway. So what actually happens in the movie. Why would anyone ever allow someone to record video of them revealing the ugliest, most embarrassing parts of themselves? Especially a kid, for whom popularity and reputation are often a matter of life or death--literally and specifically, in the case of this story. The flimsy reason is that the late filmmaker, Amelia, was the most awesomest girl ever. Everybody loved her, because she was so sweet, and so smart, and so cool, and so nice, and so deep, and so original, and so talented, and so sexy, and just like, the bestest most perfectest girl in the whole wide world. N.B. "The greatest of all time" is, perhaps counter-intuitively, a really bad quality that makes for really shitty, boring characters. For better or worse, Amelia is rarely on screen (and when she is, she's no Laura Palmer, frankly), so it's up to the viewer to just sort of imagine a type of person who could make you act against your best interests on account of you just like them so much. After all, so many of the characters were obsessed with her in some way, that it's like they're here to help you clap your hands and believe in this seductive, compelling part of the movie, that just isn't actually there on the screen. The anonymous antihero behind the confessional booth scheme slowly extracts from each character the selfish, destructive behavior that in some way contributed to the tragic loss of the most amazing person of all time--and part of the result is, if not a very interesting excuse for Amelia's death, then a story so wacky that I really wish they had centered the movie on it, instead of on the tawdry soap opera we're locked into. Even if that imaginary movie had been really bad, and it probably would have been, at it would at least have been entertaining.

Part of what leads up to the death of Amelia is the existence of a secret school fight club, led by a stereotypically sleazy gender studies major, named Major, who is out to prove men's inherent superiority. The club is called CFB, or Cock Fights Back, which is somehow a garbled pun relating to cock fights, and Trump's famous line of "locker room talk": "grab'em by the pussy" > "pussy grabs back" > "cock fights back". CFB is different from your ordinary fight club in that the fights are always between girls and boys, and the boys are always blindfolded, in order to prove that a fully-abled female is no match for even a handicapped male. To complicate things, a new designer amphetamine is gaining popularity on campus, called "odds-on", meaning that it makes you the odds-on favorite in your CFB fight. As awkward as that is, it also seems that men are never the guaranteed winners of these fights, which makes you wonder why Major insists on continuing to host them. As much as I would have preferred to watch a stupid movie about this stupid idea, I'm stuck instead with a movie in which Major is such an aggressive MRA because he's secretly gay, and he thinks that hating women is a great way to hide that...as if that isn't what we all openly suspect about aggro MRAs. Secret gayness is a big part of this movie, involving multiple characters, although it amounts to very little other than the perpetuation of some stale, harmful cliches about how unfulfilled homosexual urges lead to suicide, sexual abuse, and murder. CONFESSIONAL is just as reliant on this grim vision of gay life, as it is on its weirdly obtuse discussion of drug addiction, for the suffocating sense of self-importance that it uses to try to elevate itself above its porn-y trappings. None of the movie's hot button issues are given any real thought, but are only dragged through the mud to create the illusion that there's a point to all this, thus relieving the film of any sense of innocence that could have made its condescending sleaziness forgivable.

Admittedly, I can't really remember all the details of the film's tortured intrigue anymore, even though I basically just saw it. A lot of its meandering revelations just left me thinking, "Why did I need to know that? Why should I care?" I do know that about half way through this ordeal, I became really anxious about whether it would turn out that CONFESSIONAL did NOT have exactly the same plot as 30 MILES FROM NOWHERE after all, and I put myself through all this for nothing. But no, I was right to begin with. The wonderful Amelia's ethically dubious film project has been picked up by the unhinged lesbian character who loved her so much she wanted to become her, and killing Amelia and usurping her confessional project was apparently the best way of doing that. I guess exposing all the dark, violent secrets of all these tangentially involved characters was just an added bonus, or whatever. Ultimately, this ugly, ignorant PSA about something-or-other only deals itself further damage by relying so heavily on the potential of its clumsy twist to blow your mind, which it does not at all.

So that was it, that's how I burned a whole afternoon allowing my mind to implode-not-explode under the ponderous force of TWO (2) movies about exactly the same exhausted cliche that is still being peddled by certain pretentious assholes as fresh and exciting, and beyond the capacity of the audience to anticipate. There's probably a whole slew of other movies that employ this overly familiar "surprise", but I don't have it in me to dig them out of my long-suffering brain. Feel free to contribute in the comments. For now, I must prepare myself for the ordeal of Blogtober, during which I will *hopefully* choose my screening selections and words more thoughtfully than I have in previous years, when this blog was motivated by just as much abject misanthropy as these movies, which do nothing but willfully insult the audience's intelligence. Maybe today's detour into degradation will help me go forth toward more additive experiences, having purged several lungfuls of meaningless venom from my system, and this season will bring with it more interesting, provocative posts than the last. Or maybe not! In any case, I promise to keep trying my hardest to make it funny.

PS I actually love both FAT GIRL and WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE. I’m “just saying”. 

[hoodie-lover]

Conspiring

Nightmare’s tentacles were curled up. He was looking down at his brother, Dream was bruised and beaten, his bones broken and cracked. Killer, Horror, and Dust were behind their master, glaring daggers and brandishing their weapons. Dream was chained up by the wrists.

“Look what we have here~. The guardian of all positivity, writhing in pain at my feet.” Nightmare mocked, raising Dream’s chin to have their eyes meet.

“B-burn in h-hell...” Dream muttered, jerking his head away, flinching in pain.

“Tsk tsk tsk, why must you be difficult Dreamy?” Nightmare said as his boys left the room, his mind control working wonders.

“Because you insist we keep this charade up even when they literally can’t do a thing about it.” Dream said as the chains fell off his wrists.

“Well, I think it completes the charade.” Nightmare said as he helped his brother up.

“You just like being in charge of a band of villains as you defeat your enemy.” Dream said as Nightmare healed his wounds, as if they were never there.

“How long should I stay here? Last time it was a month, you got so much negativity from my friends I was a little scared.” Dream chuckled as he remembered the tears of joy they had shed when he was found, such a surge of power, he loved it.

“Maybe 2 weeks. We can rough you up a lot more though, maybe even send a ransom note.” Nightmare entertained and Dream’s eyes glowed.

“Yes! Maybe a video of my poor and broken soul begging for help and mercy will get their souls crying. Then they can rescue me and we’ll all be happy.” Dream said already drooling at the thought.

“Yeah. But what would we even ask for?” Nightmare thought and Dream had an idea.

“An AU! One where you can out everyone through endless misery over and over and over again! A timeline where Flowey reigns supreme with no escape. His sadistic joy would be wonderful and the misery of everyone else would be more than enough for you.” Dream suggested and Nightmare gave him an evil grin.

“Sometimes I wonder why the villagers thought I was the evil twin.” Nightmare said and Dream cackled.

“They were blind idiots that were concerned only for themselves.” Dream said as he gave his brother a light punch in the arm.

“Assault of your captor?! How dare you!” Nightmare said as he grabbed Dream by his arm and broke it.

“Oh no! Ink will rescue me I’m sure of it you pure evil bastard!” Dream said, trying his best not to laugh.

“It seems I need to, once again, teach you how things work here.” Nightmare said, breaking both of Dream’s legs in one move.

“Mercy please!” Dream begged, not even flinching at the pain.

“Never you happy piece of filth.” Nightmare said, chaining up Dream again, ripping his clothes and taking his crown.

“Maybe I should crack your skull. That would be scary for Ink.” Nightmare entertained and Dream nodded.

“Alright, then I’ll get Dust in here for the video.” Nightmare said as he drilled a hole into Dream’s head with a tentacle. Golden blood spilled from the wound as Dream shifted in slight discomfort.

Dust entered the room, he was mumbling things to the phantom Papyrus he saw. “Yes Pap, yes Pap, yes Pap, yes Pap, yes Pap, yes Pap...” over and over again, his fingers twitching with every word.

“You like the crazy ones don’t you brother?” Dream said as he began to cry fake tears when Dust put a knife to his throat.

“Shut up.” Nightmare said as he opened a two way viewing portal in front of himself.

“Hello Inky boy! How are you? Well, Dream is doing just wonderful!” Nightmare said catching the creator off guard.

“What did you do to him?” Ink demanded, his eyes turning red as he armed his brush.

“Nothing much. Just had a little fun that’s all.” He said as he turned the portal toward Dream, who was sobbing with all his heart.

“HELP! PLEASE INK HELP ME! PLEASE-” He said but a swift slice across his face, all too close to his eye, he shut up. Dust cackled as he licked the golden blood from the wound.

“Dust.” Nightmare boomed and the insane skeleton stopped moving.

“What do you want Nightmare?” Ink asked, seething.

“A universe. Where I can make others as miserable as I want, with no consequences. A universe where Flowey reigns supreme, unchallenged and undefeated forever, where I can influence his actions and choices.” Nightmare asked, and Ink gasped.

“NO!” Ink screamed.

“I’ll give you two weeks to decide.” Nightmare said as the portal faded.

Nightmare fell to the floor laughing as Dust left the room. Dream soon followed, their laughs cold and cruel, like nails on a chalkboard.

“You were perfect!” Nightmare said as he healed and freed his twin.

“So were you. Did you make Dust lick my cut, or is he crazier than I thought?” Dream asked, and Nightmare gasped in fake shock.

“I have standards. Of course I made him.” Nightmare said as he grabbed Dream’s hand and lead him out of the dungeon.

Nightmare’s goons were sitting on the couch staring off into space, lost in their own personal hells. Dream was always creeped out by their blank faces, how he could feel the negativity radiating off of them, he longed to see them smile, but he knew that Nightmare needed them.

“I’ll let you use them while you’re here. Two weeks ain’t gonna do much and if I get that AU, well, then I can set them free from my spell.” Nightmare said and Dream jumped for joy.

“Thank you!” Dream cried out as he unleashed a yellow aura, in response, the three skeletons fell to their knees and gasped for breath.

“W-what happened?” Killer asked and backed away from Dream when he saw him.

“Where are you going?” Dream asked, Horror and Dust realizing who was there and backing away from his as well.

“What’s wrong guys? Don’t you want to be happy?” Dream asked, smiling wide as he pushed his aura harder on the trembling skeletons.

They screamed as their heads felt like exploding, empty laughs escaping their mouths as they writhed in pain.

“Stop resisting. You’ve been sad for so long, why don’t you want to be happy?” Dream asked.

Eventually, after a few minutes of torture, the three of them were limp on the ground. Dream had propped them up against each other’s backs. Killer, Horror, and Dust’s eyes were yellow, one of them laughing every now and then. Dream was incredibly happy, with a snap of his fingers, the three of them stood up.

“Hi.” They all said in unison, smiles plastered on their faces.

Nightmare was always intrigued by Dream’s aura, he knew it was painful, and the effects were something he was creeped out by. Though he loved seeing his twin use every ounce of his power on people, it was so interesting to see the beloved Dream, just as crazy as he was.

Dream, for the rest of the day, pushed more and more of his aura into them, gaining more power than he lost. When he had to turn in, the three skeletons were practically foaming at the mouth and clinging to Dream with all their strength. Dream cut the effect instantly, and they collapsed.

“You monster-” Killer shouted by he had no chance to charge at the guardian as Nightmare wrapped the three of them in his tentacles and put them to sleep.

“I think I might do that with a few random outcodes.” Dream said and Nightmare looked at his twin as if he was suggested the earth was flat.

“Why are you surprised?” Dream asked, genuinely curious as to why his brother would be surprised at his thought.

~~Time Skip~~

Ink had given in and made Nightmare’s AU. It hurt his nonexistent soul to do something that Dream would hate, but even more negativity would spread if he didn’t. When he saw Dream again, the slightly taller skeleton look near death, breaks and bruises all over his bones. Tears were running down his face as they hugged and Nightmare walked away, cocky as ever.

“I-Ink...” Dream huffed, but Ink kept him quiet.

“Wait until we get to the Doodle Sphere.” Ink said, picking up the now sobbing skeleton bridal style.

When Ink arrived with Dream, everyone was so happy. Dream was sobbing with relief and Ink had to drag him to his bed so he could rest.

“Nightmare really did a number on him huh.” Blue said, looking at the door.

“I hate that bastard. How can Dream still think he’s redeemable?” Red, Underfell!Sans grumbled.

“Stockholm syndrome and the love of brothers. Dream’s also told me he feels responsible for what Nightmare went through and became, so that’s also a big factor.” Ink responded, and Geno who was also in the room nodded his head.

“I just hope he’ll be alright, he’s gone through so much, it’s a wonder he can stay so happy and hopeful all the time.” That got everyone agreeing, unaware of what Dream was actually doing in his room.

He was looking through the list of outcodes, looking at who had the worst lives, and how he could make them as happy as possible. He had to suppress an evil laugh as he heard his friends talk of Stockholm syndrome. They were so stupid.

[tessatechaitea]

The Invisibles #1

If I had to pretend to know anything about art, I'd say this cover represents how pop culture can kill. Or will blow your mind. Or feels dangerous but it's actually pretty safe because the pin is still in the grenade.

What the fuck do I know about art and why the fuck am I assuming this comic book is going to be about art anyway?! Just because Grant Morrison wrote it and I happen to think Grant Morrison has written some pretty smart comic books? Well, I'm pretty sure he's written some huge fucking turds too! It's just that I haven't read any of them that I remember. Apparently I've read a few issues of this but I don't really remember it. I don't like to tell people that I don't remember it when they talk about how great it was because that's admitting that 22 year old me wasn't a discerning critic of his entertainment. At least I also can't remember the truly garbage comic books I was reading in 1994 as well! So it's possible I read this and thought, "I'm so smart because I understand what's happening!" Now I'm terrified to read it because I'm absolutely certain I'll think, "What the hell is going on in this comic book? I'm such a stupid asshole!" Oh boy. This comic book is forty pages long. Get ready for a review that explicates the first fifteen pages thoroughly while also digressing twelve separate times before quickly summarizing the last twenty-five pages so I can go play some Apex.

I can't say for certain this is a shot at Ann Nocenti but, thankfully, I can say it's definitely not a shot at me!

This guy is Elfayed. He's retrieved a mummified scarab from the desert believing it might be a sign for the mysterious bald man with too many face piercings and the endeavor he's currently on. Which is a mystery because Grant Morrison isn't going to let the reader understand the comic book on the first page! Sheesh! The second page doesn't help explain things but it does place the word "synchronicity" burning in my brain like a buzzing, blinking neon sign.

Get it? Mummified beetle. Dead Beatles. Boy throwing a Molotov cocktail. Pop culture and violence. I think I intuitively understand this comic book so 70% of the rest of what I say will be dick jokes.

The kid throwing the explosive is one of three members of a gang called the Croxteth Posse. Every youth in Britain joins a gang no matter how stupid and lame they are. It just proves how hard they are even if they never throw one Molotov cocktail or ever even get their genitals touched. The gang members run off into the night, past some "King Mob" graffiti which will be important later, yelling, "We are the boys! We are the boys!" Is that a thing lame youth gangs in London did in the 80s and 90s? Because I remember Lister and his posse saying that shit about being the boys of the Dwarf when they thought they were acting hard on some adventure that probably involved Lister fucking a future version of himself. The Croxteth gang are from Liverpool because Croxteth is a suburb of Liverpool. It shows how imaginative these youths are. I bet there are at least fifty different Croxteth Posses bumbling about at night destroying things. The bald guys name is Gideon (and possibly King Mob. Unless the antagonist is King Mob. I should probably keep reading to find out) and he's both young and old at the same time. He's probably some kind of spirit of the zeitgeist or something, Grant Morrison's Jenny Sparks. He's looking for a new recruit for his own gang since something happened to John-A-Dreams. He might have just died of old age because Gideon's other acquaintance, Edith, is now 95 years old and sulking in her mortality. He wants her to contact somebody named Tom to let him know he thinks he found their new recruit. I think it's probably the anarchist kid because I know how stories work. I'm starting to think maybe The Invisibles are a bit like the Upright Citizens Brigade. Their only enemy is the status quo. Their only friend is chaos. Except there will be less skits with people wearing giant papier-mâché cat heads and more ultra-violence. The arsonist kid's name is McGowan and he's smarter than he acts, according to his teacher who gives him the old "you're not fulfilling your potential and your friends are just dragging you down" speech. But what kind of an anarchist would McGowan be if he gave a shit about what his teacher thinks of him? Oh, that's right! He'd be a good anarchist if he really gave a shit and a bad anarchist if he didn't give a shit but he let the teacher's words affect him anyway. That's how anarchy works, right? The problem with anarchy is that it needs a few rules to make it work well but you can't enforce any rules or else you're not living an anarchic lifestyle. Here's my definition of anarchy from Places & Predators, my roller playing game: a philosophy where anybody can do anything they want without worrying about some stupid guard putting an axe in their head. But they have to worry about everyone else putting an axe in their head all the time because there are no guards. I should probably read The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin instead of all these stupid Han Solo and Lando Calrissian adventure books.

Oh, well McGowan's mother withholds love and affection and blames him for all the ills in her life. I suppose I can now forgive him for torching the school library, right?

McGowan heads out to sit in the cold and watch John Lennon have a conversation with Stuart Sutcliffe. They joke about being dead and it's funny because they are dead. Stuart even says he wants to die young which is doubly funny because he does. Ha ha! McGowan doesn't laugh because maybe he doesn't find gallows humor funny. But some weird creature that speaks some German does laugh. He's all, "Ha ha! They're going to die young! Oh ho ho! Such jolly fun! Now join with me, you dumb kid." He also says some German stuff that I can't make sense of because I don't speak German and I don't want to ask the Non-Certified Spouse what it means. I could use Google but I'm being extra lazy right now. McGowan tells the weird German tourist to fuck off because he doesn't care about anything. But you know what kind of people actually care a lot about everything? The kind who need to tell everybody that they don't care about anything. Only people whose feelings are super hurt say stuff like that. And maybe serial killers. Later McGowan decides to prove he doesn't care by suggesting he and his friends blow up the school. Not because he cares how they think they know everything and they want him to be just like them and all adults lack affection and sincerity. No, he just wants to blow it up because he doesn't give a shit about nothing, man. The scene switches to the bald guy who might be King Mob on an LSD trip. It's nothing like taking LSD but I'll pretend it's all metaphor and analogy and spiritual nonsense. In his trip, he sees a gigantic head of John Lennon. Mostly because the whole trip was to summon this head. It's a double page spread of psychedelic images and nonsense mixed with Beatles lyrics and album titles. Strange that Morrison fails to translate an acid trip involving The Beatles when The Beatles themselves have a song that I think most feels like and describes an acid trip. No, it's not "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"; it's "Strawberry Fields." If I had to state what my favorite Beatles song was right now, I'd say "Strawberry Fields" even though Magical Mystery Tour might be my least favorite (later) album (although now that I type it, I remember it contained "Penny Lane" and "The Fool on the Hill" and "All You Need is Love" and I guess I was wrong about Magical Mystery Tour being my least favorite album). I added the later because their early pop shit doesn't really resonate with me. I don't think I appreciate their music until after they've met Doctor Robert. Just listened to "Strawberry Fields" and now I'm crying. Fucking great song. While trying to burn down the school, McGowan is caught be his teacher. He gives his teacher a brutal beating and then answers a question he refused to answer in class, just to show he's both smart and violent.

McGowan's arrested and Hugh Laurie sentences him to hard juvenile labor.

I was speaking of acid earlier and I'd like to recommend the documentary on Netflix called Have a Good Trip, especially to people who have never done acid. It's enlightening. You might think that my favorite part was one of the crazier bits about hallucinations or one of the stories about how something odd always happens when on acid (it totally does) but I think my favorite bit is when the musician from Bikini Kill, Kathleen Hanna, tells the story about how acid made her realize that you didn't have to cross the street along the legs of the two triangles comprising the square intersection but can just cross along the hypotenuse. It's not that the idea is mind blowing or even close to an "A-ha!" shower thought; it's just that's the kind of mundane thought that seems like a fucking magic revelation when you're on acid. It's the epitome of the acid experience. LSD makes the mundane profound which is way more exciting than you might think. If you've never done acid, you might have fucked off to the comment section just now to point out that the universe is a wonderful and magical and profound place even without acid. And I fucking agree. But LSD makes everything profound. Every single thing you see or think combines with the fabric of the universe and it all becomes staring at the stars and wondering how it all fucking fits together. But you don't need space or infinity or philosophy; you just need LSD, a stapler, a bottle of water, and a Jack Kirby comic book from the early 70s. Dane McGowan is sentenced to ten weeks in a juvenile facility called Harmony House. It's where violent teenage boys aren't taught to stop being violent; it's where they're taught to use their violence to benefit the government! At least that's my guess. I like to pretend I know what's happening in the comic book as I write the review and then later I delete the wrong assumptions I made and replace them with lies to make me look like a Grandmaster Comic Book Reviewer! Actually, that last sentence was a lie. Normally if I get something wrong, I just write "Oops!" later and then tell readers to forget the terrible mistake I made.

This is the plot to every young adult dystopian book ever written: "Society says conformity is good. But one young spunky individual with weird hair won't submit and will save the world!"

Sometimes I feel the only people touched by stories about the individual refusing to be a sheep of the status quo are people who tend to be sheep of the status quo. To rely identify with the hero in one of these stories, the reader needs to have though of themselves as part of the status quo and felt the need to participate in some activity that would prove that they weren't. Instead of, you know, just being themselves and never actually giving their place in society a second thought. I find odd people who are inspired by a story that tells the reader to be themselves. How is that inspiring unless you never really knew that was an option? And how could you fucking not know it?! But then again, Heathers is one of my all-time favorite movies and I suppose that's got a similar message about being oneself. But it also has murder and some seriously great lines of dialogue and Christian Slater blowing himself to bits.

Oh, remember where I mentioned this comic book was basically screaming "synchronicity" at me and that I understood it on an instinctual level after page two? Grandmaster Comic Book Reader!

The leader of The Invisibles (man, I wish the comic book would just tell me that the bald guy with piercings is actually King Mob already) decides to infiltrate Harmony House to make sure their soon-to-be new recruit, McGowan, is doing okay. I'm sure he'll find he's fine because he's not buying into the whole "be a soldier of the status quo" bullshit being fed to the young boys at the institution. It's easy to be against a Headmaster who thinks arguments like "Liberals love freedom but do they want people to be so free that they can steal their VCRs." But will he be able to stand up against the techno-brainwashing and the influence of the mystical creature running things from behind the scenes?! Probably but only with help from the Upright Citizens Brigade. I mean The Invisibles.

It's surreal that this is the way we thought of controlling the populace in the 90s: turn them into content sheep without any anger or frustration. And yet the exact opposite of that is true: control them by making them angry and frustrated at as many lies and half-truths as you can.

The big twist reveal isn't that the boys' brains are cut up and messed with; it's that the boys genitals are removed as well. Yeesh! Now I'm angry and frustrated! I'm totally against this Harmony House bullshit. Is this actually happening red states?! Horrific! King Mob (yes, they finally reveal that's the bald guy's name) rescues Dane from Harmony House while shooting a bunch of people (including the Headmaster) and blowing the building to bits. It's a good thing we learned the real antagonist was some dick-eating creature called the King of Chains. Dane McGowan isn't ready to join The Invisibles which King Mob was ready for. He had a tarot reading earlier that said the kid was going to have to be put through the wringer first. So he leaves the kid in London and disappears, just so we all know why they're called The Invisibles. I guess Batman is a member? The Invisibles #1 Rating: B+. This issue was forty pages long and it felt like it used every page to move the story along. It's insane that that's one of the greatest compliments I can give a comic book. Way too many writers just fill their scripts with nonsense because they don't have a real plan for their story. I know everybody espouses the idea that a good comic book story should teach the reader something new about the character. But unless learning that Superman can punch something harder than he previously thought he could, or Batman is super resilient and can take a ton of punishment for five issues before rising to the occasion through pure force of will, most comic book writers really don't put a lot of thought into themes. Sure, sure. This sort of feels like the mystic super hero version of Catcher in the Rye which might be why I stopped purchasing it after six issues. Although it's just as likely that I stopped purchasing it at six issues because my infrequent visits to the comic book store made me miss Issue #7 and I just gave up on it. It's not bad and it's put together well and as a young 48 year old who thinks the man can go fuck himself, I'm totally into it's message about being a unique individual! Anarchy rules!

[admiralty-xfd]

love: the universal invariant

(Author’s note: this was my gift fic for ScullyGoLightly in the 2018 Secret Santa fic exchange as a nod to her fab series of Pilot Sex works. I tend to stay canon-compliant in my fic so I found a little loophole, here ;)

What happened to Scully and Mulder in those lost nine minutes?

9:03

The rain was pounding heavily against the windshield as Scully watched Mulder’s hands grip the steering wheel. It hadn’t been raining when they got in the car a minute ago and now the torrential downpour was threatening to run them off the road.

How quickly things change, she thought.

It was true; just a couple days ago she’d been dreaming of some fascinating, rewarding assignment where she’d get an opportunity to distinguish herself at the FBI. Instead she was stuck in near-obscurity with Fox “Spooky” Mulder, who was making every passing minute harder because the crazier he seemed, the more attractive she found him, and the more attractive she found him, the more inclined she was to entertain his bizarre theories.

Funny how that worked.

The night sky felt ominous and unfamiliar, just like everything else had been since she started this new endeavor. But already she was beginning to suspect this job might in fact hold some fascination and rewards of its own. This case was indeed strange and intriguing, in spite of her preconceived notions.

Nothing, however, was quite as intriguing as her new partner. She carefully studied his tousled hair, inquisitive eyes, lips always slightly parted as if constantly at the ready to deliver some outrageous new theory. She couldn’t help but feel an attraction to him, but she tried hard to ignore that, to push it aside, dismiss it as a possibility. It was stupid and inappropriate to entertain that kind of thinking.

She watched him as he looked out the windows in every direction, distracted by the spinning compass in his hand, phantoms all around him, aliens and UFOs and everything else that lived in that beautiful brain of his. She wanted to get inside that brain and pick it apart.

“You okay, Mulder?”

He looked around again. She wished he’d keep his eyes on the road. “Yeah, I'm just, er…”

“What are you looking for?”

The question rattled in her mind, a question she did not yet know she would find herself asking him over and over years into their future.

What are you looking for, Mulder?

She remembered asking him the question but as a bright white light appeared and engulfed the car, it was the last thing she would remember.

9:04

He’s still in the car but it feels familiar, cozy, as if he’s been inside a car like this with her a thousand times. She is sitting next to him in the passenger seat, bathed in ethereal white light. The damp ends of her hair wave softly at him, and it feels as if everything were moving in slow motion but there is nothing slow about this, nothing at all. Right now there is only her, only him, only this bright white light, and a resounding clarity that overcomes them both in an instant as her eyes pierce his in some kind of shared understanding. Suddenly they are upon each other, as if nothing else could possibly have come of this moment. It’s pure magnetism.

He holds her forearms, pulling her in, the console between them. Her lips cover his and she tastes like the rain. These lips are undiscovered country, forbidden fruit, something he shouldn’t have; but right here and right now she is his. He’s overwhelmed and feels such a sense of confounding relief, tears welling in his eyes, as if this has taken forever to happen, so, so long, and not that they only just met a couple days ago.

He inhales sharply as she moves to straddle his lap, her chest pressed against his, and he can’t be sure if it’s the steering wheel forcing this closeness or if their hearts are simply searching for each other, seeking the proximity of the other, and finding a truth in this moment that will take them years to find again.

Nothing about this feels strange, though, and as her tongue touches his, creating shockwaves throughout his entire body, the un-strangeness of what is happening is the one thing he clings to.

9:05

She kisses him hard, urgently, as if she knows time is running out. This moment has a shelf life. If she believed in fate, she’d understand this is meant to be, but she is Dana Scully: young, inexperienced, skeptical. She doesn’t know her own potential yet, or that of this man next to her, or theirs together. She doesn’t know what to believe, not yet. But she does feel like this is the most natural turn of events in the world. Everything feels so clear, so true.

She’s not typically a person lacking control in most matters but right now all she can think is they have too many clothes on, too many layers for her to get to him fast enough. Her desire to be one with him is overpowering, irrational even, yet pure and genuine.

His lips travel along her neck and chills run down her spine. His breath is ragged, and it’s all she can hear in this white void surrounding them. Soundless, sightless. Nothing here but him and her. His hands grope blindly underneath her rain jacket, but there is no time for that, not enough time. This rift, this stasis, whatever it is, will not last forever.

Her lips never leaving his, she unbuckles his seat belt, rising up onto her knees.

9:06

He knows where this is headed, he knew the moment she looked at him. She’s in such a desperate hurry to remove their clothing it makes him hard, eager, full of longing for her. He fumbles with her zipper and they pull her pants off together, limbs sticking out every which way, no room for any of this but they press on, relentless.

Her hands grasp the back of his neck and he can feel the grainy residue on her hands from the unidentifiable soot she discovered in the forest earlier. Her physical evidence, her link to him, the place where their minds can and will meet time and time again.

Past, present and future are intermingled in his mind and although he cannot see any details he can feel it with certainty: this heavy, byzantine life the two of them will share with each other. The weight of it threatens to pull him under.

Finding her eyes with his own their gazes lock, intense. A tractor beam. He unbuckles his belt and pulls everything down just far enough and before he knows what is happening she is sinking down, exhaling, and when she is as far as she can go, as close to him as she could ever be, their eyes close together.

One.

9:07

“M-Mulder,” is all she can say, the thickness of him surprising and oh so wonderful. She never even saw what he looked like before he entered her.

“Scully,” he responds, her name the only word his larynx is capable of forming. They know little else about each other at the moment. But the names echo against each other perfectly, two halves of one whole. Partners.

Her cheek is pressed against his and his voice sends a signal to her brain; a shiver, a response that elicits a moan. His voice will have such an effect on her forever, and she will never quite know where and how that began, exactly.

Her brain tells her to slow down, how quickly this is all happening, how good it feels, so good, too good to be true. But in her heart there is an overwhelming sense that this is so very right, shattering to pieces any stray notion that it might be wrong.

His hands are around her waist and they dip up, underneath her coat, touching her bare skin. They are warm and soft, so soft against her lower back, and she sighs. The dueling sensations of this soft touch on the small of her back and his hardness filling her so completely is electric and she falls into him, too stunned to move, forehead against forehead.

“Scully…?” he gets out.

“Yeah…?”

Their eyes are closed, their voices hushed in the silence around them.

“What the hell is happening?”

He sounds frightened, but not out of fear; out of awe. And she understands him in this moment utterly.

“I don’t know,” she whispers honestly, because this thing, whatever it is, isn’t something she can explain, categorize, or easily reference. It just is.

He pulls her lips to his again and she touches his face tenderly, as if she’s done this for years, the familiarity of such an action breathtaking.

She moves against him, gently at first, testing the waters. His hands hold her hips and his thumbs trace circles over her skin, savoring this closeness, this absolute trust. She wants to stay like this forever but in her head there is a clock, a ticking clock telling her it cannot remain, it will not sustain, and soon they are flailing wildly, mouths wet against each other, unpracticed hands everywhere, confusion and certainty somehow coexisting.

He moves his fingertips to her face and she pulls back to look at him, brushing a lock of hair out of his eyes. His face is so young, handsome; everything she could ever dream to have. She thinks “he is your partner, your work partner, how can you do this? How can he be inside you on your very first assignment?”

She doesn’t do this, sex with strangers. It’s not something she’s ever done. But as the thought enters her mind and her eyes search his, feeling him within her, she knows, somehow: the truth.

This man is no stranger. This man is hers, forever.

9:08

They say the eyes are the window to the soul and as he looks into hers he feels like he knows her intimately. He feels confidence, he feels trust. And he feels love.

He will not remember this happened but there are things he will indeed remember, things that will come to him in flashes for years to come: a touch, a voice, a look.

These things will keep him up at night.

They will be yet another thing he cannot explain, will not be able to explain to himself or to her until he is ready. Until they are both ready.

9:09

Somehow in the back of her mind she knows she won’t remember any of this so she grips him again by his neck as they move together, holding her forehead against his. She breathes him in, listening, trying to remember his sounds, his smell, everything. Anything.

“Mulder,” she says again, panting. She can’t think of any other words to say. Nothing else matters right now but him.

He pulls her lips to his once more and they savor this moment that they will never get back.

9:10

As he pulls away from the kiss he looks her hard in the eyes, meeting her every thrust. He can feel it deep in his bones: this is real, and right. This is love.

He wasn’t even looking for it.

And just as quickly as this all began they are both crashing into each other hard, and to him it feels like heaven, this must be heaven, maybe they are dead and this is all there is: white light and this orgasm.

9:11

Her body shudders and she falls against his chest, breathing heavily. They are quiet for several moments until he speaks, softly.

“Why do I feel like I’ve known you my entire life, Scully? It’s impossible,” he says, his hand stroking her hair.

“It’s strange, Mulder, but... I feel it too.”

“I don’t want to forget this,” he says. “I’m afraid... to lose it.”

It’s been unspoken until now, this knowledge they share somehow that this will all be over soon. That it was special and fleeting and rare. The white void starts to fade away and she hears rain again, tapping all around them, time passing, a ticking clock. Counting down, back to the beginning.

“What if we can’t find it again?” she asks quietly, his heart pounding against her ear.

“We’ll keep looking, Scully,” he says in reply.

9:12

Thunder rumbled loudly as the light faded and the car came slowly to a stop. Still in the passenger seat, fully clothed, Scully turned to him.

“What happened?” she asked.

Mulder’s eyes darted around the dashboard, turning the keys in the ignition, stepping on the brakes. Nothing.

“We lost power, brakes, steering, everything,” he said, as if it were something he expected. She watched his confusion rapidly morph into his own kind of clarity, seeing it click in his brain as he swept up his sleeve, looking at his watch.

“We lost nine minutes!” he cried delightedly, opening the car door, noting the spray painted X he’d made on the asphalt earlier that day. She watched him dancing around in the rain, holding his hands skyward, espousing his theory. Something felt oddly familiar about this but she couldn’t figure out why. It unsettled her.

“Time can’t just disappear, it’s a universal invariant,” she pointed out in response. It was the only scientific truth she could see, something tangible to hold onto in this moment of disorientation.

“Not in this zip code,” he grinned. He ran back to the car and she followed, ducking inside, where it was dry, where things became quiet again.

They drove silently for some minutes and he stared ahead, a grin on his face, an understanding she hadn’t quite come to. His delight was contagious and she smiled in spite of herself.

“You’re something else, you know that, Mulder?” she said.

He glanced over at her. “Something else… good?”

She turned to face forward, the smile remaining plastered to her face. It was all the answer he needed and she knew it.

For some reason she thought of what she’d asked him earlier, the moment before everything stopped, then the light, then nothing. The last thing she remembered.

What are you looking for?

It seemed important but she didn’t know why. He didn’t have an answer, and neither did she. Not to that question, anyway.

They drove in silence as the rain pounded against the windshield and she wondered. She hoped that whatever that answer was, no matter how long it took them, they would find it together someday.

Thanks for reading! You can check out my other works here.

[itsestherrrr]

My own Sims 4 challenge: TWISTED DESTINY

💛 Hi y’all! I felt super inspired to create my own challenge. After working so freakin hard, here I am with the ten generation legacy challenge “TWISTED DESTINY“! I’d literally be so happy if you decided to try it out. A big focus for me & this challenge, is different lifestyles and personalities. It’s a crazy challenge, & it definitely changes things up!! OH & ALSO, I PLAY THIS CHALLENGE ON MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL, AGGIES, find it here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCORM3KlnW0Hon1tb2WE6T-w

OVERALL RULES:

This is a ten generation legacy challenge, all objectives/goals for every generation must be completed!

Always start out with one heir, gender doesn’t matter

The point of the challenge is for your heirs to have completely different lifestyles + personalities, therefore they should move to a different world that suits the lifestyle they’re supposed to have

No cheats that has to do with skills, relationships, work tasks... no cheats that will be for your advantage if that makes sense hehe!

Keep aging on NORMAL

Go crazy!! Make sure your sims personalities stand out and make use of the rules, to help you set up their lives. We want this to be entertaining and unique, something new!!

Generation one: THE BAD REPUTATION  💔

Okay, you might not have had the best grades. You might have gotten into a lot of trouble & you might seem crazy. But oh boy, your past has really shaped you. Your parents never wanted a kid, didn’t care to raise you, never gave you any “real” love. You didn’t let it get to you, you were happy to be free and made so many friends only from telling your background story. In the later days, you’ve started to realize what you’ve become. What you let your past do to you. The thought pops up in your head: “What if I prove them all wrong? What if I don’t have to be that one everyone knows about. What if I can be a better parent than my parents ever were?”

You’re outgoing, self assured & such a fun friend. These things will never change. Whay will change, is the fact that you all of a sudden want a family. You want something more, and you want to do something new and different. Will this be the right path to go? I mean, for the crazy “rule breaker” to start a family? Only time will tell!

OBJECTIVES/GOALS:

(optional) Show how crazy you are! Have a crazy hair color for example. It adds some character!

Your heir must have the traits self assured, goofball and dance machine

Must master the friend of the world aspiration.

Don’t have a career (at least until you are a adult)!! You want to do something fun and crazy for a living. Pick two of these hobbies and work on them in your free time + master them: dancing, singing, playing an instrument, mischievous skill, dj skill, or the video gaming skill.

Play around a bit! Your heir has to date 2 sims, both of the relationships doesn’t end too well and you end up having a kid with the last one, which leads to them leaving you. After that you finally find your soulmate who really changes you for the better, and you have one + kid/s with them.

Meet at least two new sims everyday during your young adult life.

Make friends! Have a smaller/bigger friend group, meet up & have fun sometimes.

Generation two: THE FORGOTTEN KID  💛 🐑

”I guess I’ll have to start new, I  guess I’ll go my own way, I mean what else is there to do?”

You’re not sure why, but you never felt included. Sure, your parents were crazy, they gave you lots of love & care, although your sibling/s seemed to be their faves. Maybe you need that special connection, that only a pet could give you? Eh, you’ve always felt like a creative person who loves colors, and who wants to work with something that feels personal, you want to express yourself & be able to share your story with others. You decide to move to the city, and even though this isn’t where you plan on staying forever, it definitely feels like the right move. I mean, your parents wouldn’t care, you suppose? But what if there’s something they’re hiding, what if it’s a misunderstanding?

You’re a super kind human being full of love and passion. You love bright colors & always felt the need to help others, possibly since your parents def didn’t really do so. You want something big in life though, something special. Hmm, what would that be? Only time will tell!

OBJECTIVES/GOALS:

Must have the traits clumsy, creative + loves the outdoors (thought they were colorful & cute tehe)

Must master the “soulmate” aspiration

Get to level ten in the writer career

Must live in a apartment for at least half your heirs young adulthood

Your heir must get themselves a pet right when they move out, you have a kind soul and this lil poor one you actually rescued!! (Yes I know owning a pet in a apartment is a whole challenge itself whoops)

You don’t want to be like your parent! Therefore, you want to marry the right person, your soulmate, before you have a baby/babies with them.

You’re supposed to not feel like your parent ever cared for you. But after some time you realize it might’ve been a misunderstanding, and you decide to let them into your life. Fun part is YOU get to decide what the whole thing was about.

Generation three: THE TRAVELER  🌵 ️ 📸

You had the BEST CHILDHOOD EVER. But why does this make you feel so, empty. Like, as if how everything was so perfect for you, made you feel like life never was a challenge. You made so many friends & your teenage years were fun and easy. It’s just not quite it, and you definitely need something more in your life, you need to find something you’re truly good at, & you need to push yourself for a crazier life!

You’re a real adventurer, you want to travel and see the world + work towards being multi skilled and, you know, a little off the grid. After some research you’ve heard the phone isn’t the way to a happy family. You love your family with all your heart, and you’ll do anything to have them see the world with a new perspective.

OBJECTIVES/GOALS:

Have triplets (you may obviously cheat for this), this will be your only babies.

Master handiness, cooking AND gourmet cooking.

Master the “super parent” aspiration.

During your sims lifetime, you’re going to be moving quite a lot, you want to make the most of life and see all kinds of nature! You must therefore at the end of the generation have lived in all these three surroundings: near a beach (doesn’t have to be a beach in Sulani, there’s a “beach” in Brindleton, Windenburg...), in a city & in a desert.

You may have a career, a tip to make this even more interesting is to keep your career for a little while, until you feel like you’re ready to try something new!

Finish at least one collection

KEEP IN MIND! NeXT generation will start when the sim you choose to be the next heir is a TEEN.

Generation four: THE TEEN PARENT ❣️ 🍼

(Yes, through the MC COMMAND CENTER mod + the MC WOOHOO mod teens can get pregnant, even guys can haha, might not be realistic but I mean YOLO!!)

You travelled the world as a child, you saw everything. With that being said, you always felt you were different. You may not be like your parents, you actually want to settle down. Since you never really spent time on your phone back in the days, you were able to learn so much more. Maybe, that’s the reason you want to start your own family, basically do everything you ever dreamed of, but as a teenager? When you think about it, it sounds crazy. But after hearing all stories about your grandparents parents and whatever there is, who’s not crazy in this fam?

You’re not like anyone else in your family. But still, you love them with all your heart & definitely want to meet them often. But still you always felt the need to deal with your own ish. You need to spend time alone, and still you want to start a family. I guess you’re a bit of a loner, but there’s so much more to the story...

OBJECTIVES/GOALS:

Must have the traits loner and geek, you can only have two traits as a teen, when you age up you can pick the last one yourself.

Meet someone at the age of a teenager, & end up pregnant (it’s really easy through MC COMMANT CENTER like I said). This may not be what your partner planned on doing the rest of their lives, so um, they leave you.

Move out on your own as a pregnant teenager (you’re afraid of what your family will think). You can live in a small house of apartment.

Don’t worry! Soon enough you’ll find someone, your SOULMATE. They support you through everything and actually also always wanted a family even though they’re young.

When you turn into a young adult, get yourself a job! Work as a astronaut & master the career.

Have a big family!! At least four kids (obviously no need to have them all as a teen).

Generation five: THE (NOT SO) SWEETHEART 🤚🏽 💕

Well, let’s put it like this: your childhood was a mess. But a mess in a good way. You felt like you had a lot of fun, you had a bunch of siblings to hang with, you felt included. It was that one time, way back, when you heard your parent sing, you knew it was for you. Maybe you should try pick up a guitar one day? Oh boy, all these stories about your crazy family, you never heard anything about music or instruments. “I just got an idea”, you thought.

You’re a overly sweet and adorable person, that one everyone in your town knows about. That one who wears cute clothes & never makes one mistake. The person who melts anyone’s heart with their smile. What they don’t know, is the fact that you want to be something more. You want to be crazy and rebellious, but seems like no matter how hard you try it doesn’t work. You love singing and playing instruments. Deep inside you want to be like that one person from way back, who you’ve heard started this whole family tree. What was their name, again?

OBJECTIVES/GOALS:

Must have the traits friendly, music lover + one optional!

Must master 2 instruments + the singing skill.

Work as a criminal, and master the career! Something you keep from even your closet friends, but you can obviously tell your partner.

Have only one child.

The person you have the kid with, is supposed to be your “soulmate”. That one person who you can always trust, who you can be yourself with & share anything with.

You love sneaking out at night. You usually head to places where people don’t hang out. You bring your closest friends, but sometimes you just want to be alone.

Have a garden, and do some flower arranging aside.

Generation six: THE UNEXPECTED PARENT 🥵

Things really got crazy for you as a kid. You were an only child, you knew your parents better than they thought. They really thought they could hide things from you? Welp, things really got messy. As an only child you feel the need to take responsibility. You always loved playing around and being active as a kid, you were focused on your grades and want to be successful!!

You’re ambitious, active, determined, yet fun & gorgeous. You want to be the one to follow one path, follow your heart, and have a life where you’re constantly in movement, constantly feeling healthy. You were always so focused on yourself, and BOOM, all of a sudden you were a parent.

OBJECTIVES/GOALS:

Must have the traits active, ambitious & cat/dog lover.

Master the “bodybuilder“ aspiration

Enter the athlete career, reach max level.

Master fitness and dancing.

Get a pet early on! You never wanted kids, so this was your companion, it was only gonna be the two of you.

Even though you didn’t plan for it to happen, you end up meeting someone, you know, things go down, either one of you end up pregnant.

Your partner definitely didn’t want children, therefore you’re left as a single parent.

Suddenly everything feels different. You build this connection to your kid, & you start loving parenthood. This is when you either decide to actually meet someone and expand your family, or just stick to being a single parent and never have more kids.

Generation seven: THE NATURE OBSESSED 🥭 🌱

You were unexpected. Weird to think, you wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for... anyways. You spent your days gaping up out in the nature. Out in the free, obsessing over the birds & the sunlight. You always felt when you were outside, nothing could get to you. You wanna go new places, and make tons of friends! You want to see what’s out there, the thought of living in a giant city cramped in a tiny apartment, ugh you could never.

You’re a little crazy, obviously, but also just want to live somewhere gorgeous & hangout with friends who really understands you. You always two things motivated you more than anything: painting & spending time outside. This will shape you, but there’s a lot of space to fill in still!

OBJECTIVES/GOALS:

Must have the traits loves the outdoors, creative, & gloomy

Master painting, parenting and photography

Max out the painter career

Live somewhere beautiful, with a lot of gorgeous and interesting nature! Have a beautiful house (doesn’t have to be big), with breathtaking landscaping, & even include the “nature” sort of theme in your house (you may cheat with money to be able to get the house of your dreams)!

You’re lucky, you find the one to marry and have kids with! That one person who makes you feel so amazing and bubbly inside!!

Meet at least one new sim EVERY SINGLE DAY of your sims life (until you move on to the next gen)!!

When you go places with your friends, you want them to be unique. Drinking or partying isn’t your ish, you want to go to parks, pools, & whatever else there may be.

Generation eight: THE “NOT LIKE EVERYONE ELSE”  🤕

You love you family with all your heart. They make you feel amazing at all times, you love spending time with them. But you’re a super anxious person, you want to find someone but you’re so scared they’ll leave you. Therefore, you don’t feel like settling down right away. You’re gonna get out there, prove to the world how strong you are, & you’re gonna make sure you stick with the right one. With that, a couple broken hearts may pay the prize, but you just don’t want to get hurt.

You’re a super shy person, you have such talent but you’re afraid to show it. Don’t worry, your time will come. You also want to experiment with who to end up with, which is surprising, consider how anti social you are. But I mean, it’s your life, if this is what you want, go for it! Oh, in your free time you absolutely love to cook.

OBJECTIVES/GOALS:

Have the traits loner, foodie & perfectionist

Have + master the serial romantic aspiration

Master cooking & charisma

Have quite some failed “relationships” (doesn’t have to be actually together), have kids with 3 of your failed relationships.

Have at least one kid with your successful relationship.

Get married as an elder to the person you really love.

Choose what career to go into, but when you turn into an adult, you realize cooking was always the one for you, so you enter that career.

Generation nine: THE ONE WHO FIGHTS  🤛🏽 💓

You always wanted the best for people. Your family was sweet, although you where surrounded by so many half siblings, who didn’t completely make you feel special. You want to be special, cause currently you’re really not. Right? You want to be strong and fight the people who ever did the world anything bad. You want to save the planet, whilst still being able to do other stuff.

You’re friendly and hardworking, although you’re quite hot headed and will make sure to fight the ones who do something wrong. You’re obsessed with the color orange for some reason. To you, the color shows strength.

OBJECTIVES/GOALS:

Must have the traits friendly & hot headed, you pick the last one!!

Pick any aspiration you think suits, you keep in mind you must master it!!

Be a secret agent and get to level 10!

You absolutely love the color orange Show this off in your sim and their house (fun little tough)!

Fight people! Your sim must fight at least one person every other day, these sims have clearly done something bad (oops I feel bad but...)

You stand up for what you want! Go out to the city and demonstrate twice week (you can choose what cause).

You have a kind soul. Every other day you donate some money to charity. Delete 100 semoleons from your household every other day.

Generation ten: THE GOOD REPUTATION ️ ❤️

You always heard stories about your family. Could it really have been THAT bad? Anyways, you’re taking inspiration from way back, from that sim *insert name of the sim from gen 1*, and you want to turn it around. Do everything the right way, be productive & have a fun life. Do everything everyone used to do in your family, but still not be too bad. Eh, why don’t you go back to where it all started, and see what you can do.

You’re a happy and gorgeous person, whenever you walk past someone they shine. Literally. Although, people are a little nervous about you going back to the world where it all started, so many rumors have been going around. You just want to see what it was all about, and if it gets crazy, let it be. This fam is crazy!

OBJECTIVES/GOALS:

Must have the traits good, childish & vegetarian.

Must master the “friend of the world” aspiration (just like first gen!!”

Complete one collection

Master video gaming and choose the second skill to master!

Go back to where it all started, find your roots! Move to the world that was home for generation one.

Live in a small house, that is beautifully decorated though!

When it comes to your love life, you actually WANT to be a single parent. Come up with a story as to why, and adopt at least one child.

AND THAT IS IT. I’d absolutely love if you tried playing this challenge, I’ve spent MONTHS working on it. Please check out me playing it over on “Aggies” on YouTube. Love ya!

[hellyeahheroes]

Best Ongoing Team Books of 2018 - In text because I cannot make it in video

Okay, so my mic is broken, I have barely time to make it work with how many ever hours I’m working recently, so screw it. Last part of my promised list is long overdue anyway, so I’ll just drop it as a text. Apologies for this but yeah, sometimes stuff just piles up. I hope you’ll still enjoy my picks and check the 3 parts that made it to the video

Welcome to Best Books of 2018, the long-awaited final part. I’m terribly sorry it took me so, so terribly long but I had been forced to take many over hours at my day job and it just ate in my time. The rules are as before. The book must still be ongoing in 2018, even if only for a single issue. It also must have more than two issues published in two thousand eighteen. However, if a book got relaunched as effectively the same title, they count as one. This time we’re doing team books. So if you can, go check those titles out at your local store.

Number Ten: Super Sons and its continuation, Adventures of the Super Sons. Work of writers Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason with artwork by Carlo Barberi with issue twelve of the first series draw by Tyler Kirkham. Super Sons continue to be an absolute joy. The greatest asset of this story is that Jon and Damian are written as a pair of actual kids, with behavior we would find too childish with other people but appropriate with them. Which only adds charm to an already book that captures joys of being a kid and going on adventures and that embraces silver age weirdness with all kinds of strange stuff, from a bunch of alien kids idealizing Earth supervillains and modeling themselves after them to an alien versions of Cain and Abel and their House of Secret Mysteries. It is a book that you can just pick up, relax and enjoy, lose yourself in fluffy fun. Its time is limited as Adventures is just a mini but I think if there is one title on this list that is just pure escapism, bar themes touched in an issue where our heroes meet their future selves, it is this one.

Number Nine: House of Whispers by writer Nalo Hopkins and artist Domonike Stanton. One of my favorite out of the new Sandman Universe books, it tells a story of a spell gone wrong that results in the tied fate of goddess Erzulie from Vodou religion and girl named Latoya. The former ends up trapped in the Dreaming, cut from her worshippers and desperately needing to come back before she starves without worship. The latter loses her soul in the same accident and now is affected by Cotard’s delusion, a mental disorder that makes a living person believe they’re dead and worse, she can spread it like an infection. While absolutely fantastic with the weaved narrative I will say that at the time it might be even too heavy as the parts that deal with people affected by the delusion, especially Latoya and her girlfriend Maggie, often feel so outright depressing I had to put the book down and take a break. It is not a bad thing, not every comic book has to just make you feel entertained, especially not one aiming at evoking different emotions. But I need to recommend this one with a warning it is not for everyone as people who already feel down might only feel worse. Still, if you are looking for a book either heavily using themes from religion by far underexplored by literature and pop culture in a respectful way or for a book that might leave you shaken and made think, appreciate your life even, this is a book for you.

Number Eight is a tie: Justice League Dark by writer James Tynion the Fourth and artists Alvaro Martinez and Daniel Sampere as well as Justice League Odyssey by writer Joshua Williamson and artists Stjepan Sejic and Philipe Briones. Two of the new Justice League titles have their problems, I’ll admit it. The main villain in Justice League Dark comes off as invincible for the sake of it and the establishment of the Sisterhood of the Sleight hand only to destroy it rubs me the wrong way and Odyssey feels to have missed its impact moment due to delays and artist change. However, both books are still excellent in what they set to do, opening this new age in Justice League books and bringing them back to the flagship role. Be it dark atmosphere of JLD that isn’t mitigated by inclusion of either Detective Chimp or Wonder Woman, in fact it is a stroke of genius to have her confront the darker side of magic, or the outlandish space opera of Odyssey, with super likable cast playing game of cat and mouse with Darkseid himself, the books do bring new to the table and truly make the Justice League currently one of the strongest if not the strongest lines in the big two.

Number Seven: Rogue & Gambit and its continuation Mr & Mrs. X by writer Kelly Thompson and artist Pere Perez on the former and Oscar Balduza and David Lopez. I’m counting it as one book even if an important part, the wedding, took place in a different title and was fairly controversial. But Kelly Thompson has really shown that she feels the two and their relationship and uses as much of their history as possible to build on and inform said relationship. It is in how natural it comes off as, how strong their bond is but also how unafraid of testing it through their adventures Kelly Thompson is that really makes this book so unique. With the cancellation of X-Men: Red and Exiles and with how Uncanny X-Men and Age of X-Man seem in a contest who can drop more balls, this book is now the best ongoing in the X-Line and you will be doing yourself a disservice if you won’t check it out.

Number Six: Justice League by writers Scott Snyder and James Tynion the Fourth and artists Jim Cheung, Jorge Jimenez, Doug Mankhe, Mike Janin, Francis Manapul, Fazer Irving and Guillem March. This book decided to bring the Justice League back to its greatness and to my great surprise, it succeeded. Scott Snyder’s over the top imagination is a perfect fit for this title and in just a few issues he proved he is not afraid of breaking established boundaries and showing us that cosmology of DC Universe is much greater and more amazing than we might have thought, that everything we thought we know hides more secrets and there is always a new adventure right behind the corner. It asks important questions that, while not intended to be political, by Snyder’s own admission, I feel are still questions about life, a current state of the world and our expectations and ourselves. Upon seeing how flawed the world is, how flawed other people are, how flawed, in the end, we ourselves are, what is a correct course of action? Deny it and try to grind yourself into the idea of perfection you want to be even if it is impossible? Embrace your worst and care only about yourself? Or accept you have flaws, that you feel pain and trauma and realize you can still be a good person regardless? That is the theme of Justice League that makes me enjoy this book so much.

Also, they have hired Ferdinand the Minotaur to work at their cafeteria, that’s awesome.

Number Five: The Dreaming by writer Simon Spurrier and artist Bilquis Evely. The Dreaming is in peril. Dream of Endless has left his dominion, there is a hole in it through which strange things come, citizens find themselves in state of unrest and all beloved characters, from Lucien and Matthew to Merv Pumpkinhead and Eve to Cain and Abel are set on a course that will challenge them and will change them in unexpected ways, all while old faces like Glob and Brute come back and new ones like mysterious Dora and merciless Judge Gallows leave their mark on the place. The Dreaming plays with obvious political undertones but on a meta sense, it is another case of what Simon Spurrier is driven to do, to deconstruct the darker corners of comics and try to explore questions of responsibility and morality through it like he did with Legion and X-Force. This new, heavier, darker take on the Dreaming sucked me in instantly and I really hope the ride Spurrier has prepared for us is a long one.

Number Four: Exiles by writer Saladin Ahmed and artists Javier Rodrigues, Rod Reis and Joe Quinones. Exiles had another short-living comeback and it saddens me to see that it has already been cancelled, though not before qualifying on this list. I love Exiles as a series and a concept and the return with all-new cast and Blink was a welcome one. With adventures that are in equal parts fun and serious and characters with such amazing charm as a cartoon kid Wolverine or Valkyrie. What’s more is that the book had such amazing creative artwork, with Rodriguez especially giving it his all and creating some amazing visuals that truly matched increasingly crazier visions that Ahmed has weaved in front of him through the script. This was a top-notch creative team that I sure hope we’ll see them team-up once again on another project in the future. Meanwhile, while brief it it was still a pleasure to come back to this team of weirdos and outcasts hopping between dimensions, one crazier than the other.

Number Three: Wild Storm by writer Warren Ellis and artist John Davis Hunt. Now here is a book that benefits from its stated twenty four issues run. Wild Storm is a slow burn. But it is by far one of the most glorious slow burns in the history of comics. Ellis continues to create a gritty narrative that combines aliens, conspiracies, secret agencies, technological inventions and movie-like decompressed storytelling into a chilling, dark story that absolutely dominates with the atmosphere. The vision of Wildstorm Universe Ellis and Hunt created for us is absolutely captivating and the feel of the world at the verge of total war between two agencies that long time ago stopped caring for common folk, while Jacob Marlowe, Jenny Sparks, and John Lynch, each in their own way, race to stop them or deal with problems they unleash, is unlike any other. There is plain and simply no other book like this on the shelves right now and it is very unlikely there will be such a book soon after it ends.

Number Two: The Terrifics by writer Jeff Lemire and artists Ivan Reis, Evan Doc Sharner, Joe Bennett, Dale Eaglesham. Out of all New Age of Heroes Books this is undeniably the best one. A loving tribute to the original Fantastic Four stories that finds a new quality through use of characters that may fill similar archetypes but are different enough that each brings their own thing to the table, creating new dynamics that liven up known narratives while at the same time the artists manage to get creative, especially the issue that divides each page into a sort of camera following each of the four protagonists one panel per person and uniting them and dividing as they join together or split up, pushing the very boundaries of graphic storytelling as we know it. It is also a book full of warmth and joy and optimism we often do not see in books like that. It is truly a title that has a heart and imagination on its side and it is using them to their full potential.

Honorable Mentions: West Coast Avengers, Champions, Teen Titans

And our Number One is Runaways by writer Rainbow Rowell and artists Kris Anka and David Lafuente. It couldn’t be anything else. Runaways this year was plain and simply the best book on the shelves. Kris Anka’s beautiful art brings to life Rainbow Rowell amazing heart for these characters as she lets them face new challenges in their lives, creating story if teenagers at the verge of adulthood as they try to wrestle less with supervillains and more with their own fears and insecurities and this feeling of childhood and innocence lost for superhero life they never wanted, all as they try to rebuild and maintain their family. It is a story where greatest victories are not supervillain battles, which they seem to win by a fluke most of the time anyway, but to take a step forward, overcome your fear and doubt and admit to yourself that yes, you are worthy of happiness and you will be happy. In that Runaways is without a doubt the book that speaks to me the most and one I wait for every month. I cannot recommend this book enough.

So here are my final picks. I’m exhausted. I will say that recently all stuff in my life made working on the videos harder, especially now that i’m trying, against any better reason to record myself  and I might not be able to do it as regularly. I might think of reinventing the format and maybe relegate the channel to a different role in relation to my blog, which I think is by now much more popular. I still have learned a lot in that time of doing these videos and I wish to continue, maybe with a more focused vision. Thank you all for being so long with me and putting up with my nosense and rest assured, I shall return.

- Admin

[teppencheatjewels-blog]

TEPPEN Guide

TEPPEN Guide was recently released. There is no point in having more than three copies of the same card, and the Cards screen allows you to reap any extra card you can't use. You can reap any card that isn't part of the Basic set, so if you don't expect to be playing some cards in the near future, feel free to reap them if you really need the Souls to craft a card you need to finish a deck. You earn additional Basic cards by leveling up with each specific hero, so make sure to play all of them! This comes in handy when you don't want your Action card to be countered, as your opponent will have expended his Mana Points on something else, and won't have enough left to counter your play. For example, when playing against a Red deck, they could play Path of the Warrior to deal 3 damage to your defending creature, kill it before it could defend from an attack, and kill you. But you can then answer this play by playing a card like Secure Supply Route, whose effect will resolve before Path of the Warrior's and save your creature, saving you the game. The motivation behind why there is no unbiased cards, is on the grounds that every group or shading has unmistakable fight techniques and players can blend them to make fascinating and complex mix deck, subsequently not by any means requiring nonpartisan cards. Blending the red group's unnecessary animosity in buffs and direct assaults with green's protecting and wellbeing buffs is only one case of how mixes can end up obliterating. There is a stunning expense for blending hues, a player's absolute MP is chopped down and a player might most likely play certain cost cards. Not awful. The card fights occur continuously, bringing a fresh out of the box new component to the conventional card put together interactivity that we see with respect to cell phones. What's more, guess what? TEPPEN is extremely lovely darn great, genuinely. I know, I know. I didn't hope to state that either, yet Capcom and Gung Ho Online Entertainment truly thumped it out of the recreation center with this one. In this guide, you will discover truly all that you could wish to think about TEPPEN. One of the significant draws of the game is that players will get the chance to see battles, for example, Street Fighter's Ryu versus Occupant Evil's Leon Kennedy, and Monster Hunter's Rathalos versus Darkstalkers' Morrigan. Different characters from the beginning program of eight are Street Fighter's Chun-Li, Monster Hunter's Nergigante, Mega Man's X, and Resident Evil's Albert Wesker. What sets TEPPEN separated from most computerized card diversions is that the activity occurs continuously, which may change into a turn-based arrangement through the Active Response framework. GurenFrog has made a Morrigan deck in TEPPEN that has a 85% success rate. Nonetheless, before players can assemble the deck, they should do some legwork. Initially, they should open Morrigan in TEPPEN. To do that, essentially play through the three parts of her story mode, which incorporates battles against Ryu, Nergigante, and Dante. When they've been finished Morrigan's story mode, players will probably make their very own Morrigan decks. Be that as it may, to get the Darkness Illusion Hero Art that GurenFrog suggests, players should get the opportunity to level 3 with Morrigan. Cards additionally have a class, they can be Normal, Golden, or Secret. This grouping is only for corrective reasons: Golden cards gleam, and Secret cards have a similar sparkle as Golden cards, while additionally being enlivened. They look extremely pleasant, however you can't create them, so it's up to possibility whether you discover any in your packs. Creating is extraordinary and all, however you will require Souls to specialty cards, and Souls are earned by pulverizing the cards you as of now have in abundance. Every saint is extraordinary, and the best decision of Hero Art relies upon your deck organization. You can check what these do by making another deck and choosing a pioneer, the three expressions will be there in a jiffy. You open new Hero Arts at level 3, and 10. Units can have different characteristics, a few, similar to Flight or MP lift are constantly dynamic, some actuate when the cards are played, others enact when the unit slaughters an adversary unit, and finally, there are capacities like Resonate or Revenge that initiate separately when you play an Action card and when the unit passes on. TEPPEN hangs out in various ways however. To start with, we should discuss the game's set up. Every legend has 30 wellbeing and there are three spaces in which players can set flunkies/animals. A player's hand size is five with two included spaces utilized in different ways. The game looks and feels progressively like a functioning battleground in light of the arrangement and the more restricted field of play Second, TEPPEN utilizes a functioning fight framework. Consistently that goes in the match gives you one MP, your MP is utilized to gather animals or characters or use activity cards, so utilize your time/MP shrewdly. You can manufacture decks that contain different hues, however there are confinements in doing as such. A deck with cards of two distinct hues can just have cards that cost up to 5 MP in them. You can get considerably crazier and play cards from 3 unique hues, yet then the confinement will happen to 3 MP. Furthermore, you don't really need to play cards of a similar shade of the pioneer, yet this likewise gives you a similar punishment as though you were playing two distinct hues. Capcom will add more Heroes and cards to TEPPEN after some time, which should given aficionados of its establishments more things to anticipate in the game. Pose an inquiry about working or talking at TEPPEN Corporation. Our people group is prepared to reply. Nobody anticipated this game. No one requested it, yet here it is. Truly it isn't too pitiful either. TEPPEN is a card game with a turn from Capcom and GungHo Online Entertainment. This game takes card fighting to a better place taking into account wacky game play and more activity and speed; In the Land of Illusion, numerous incredible creatures from various pockets of reality merge to fight. Activity cards resemble Instants in Magic: The Gathering, you can play them at whatever point you need. The game obtains another idea from Magic: The Gathering: impacts from Action cards settle dependent on when they were played: the last Action card played purposes first. When you play an Action card the game clock stops, and your adversary has a few seconds to choose whether or not they need to answer your play with their very own Action cards. You can likewise play Action cards that don't straightforwardly impact the result of the present line. This pushes players to buy new card packs from the in-game store, frequently through microtransactions that cost genuine cash. Highlights characters from Resident Evil, Mega Man, Street Fighter, and other well known game establishments. Guardians need to realize that TEPPEN is an allowed to-play collectible card game accessible for download on iOS and Android cell phones. Players manufacture decks of virtual cards and fight in story-based missions just as player versus player matches. Matches are introduced to players as battles, but there's almost no onscreen savagery really appeared. That is a completely included versatile card game, and keeping in mind that it's not the best one I've at any point played, it offers a pretty darn great resistance to the huge young men available. Contingent upon your preferences, it may even drag you away from Hearthstone. Besides, the cast of Capcom characters is truly alluring. Ryu, Morrigan, Albert Wesker, Nergigante, and a bundle more are incorporated. The quantity of arrangement that are included right presently is quite little thinking about Capcom's broad library, yet I'm certain we can anticipate that more cards should be included what's to come.

[wasteland-tyrant-imagines]

Could you do pre-romance but hella in love with FSS companions (since we choose four could you do Nicky V, Hancock, Deacon, and Danse) react to watching sole get transported to the institute for the first time with the molecular relay and being so worried and anxious that they won’t return or be okay and then how they react when sole comes back?

( *I accidentally did neutral SS, so I hope that’s okay!   I haven’t done an imagine in a while, but I somehow got 23 new followers in three days??  I don’t know how 300+ of you guys have found my Fallout blog, but hello!  I’m glad you’re here!   This one got long, so it’s mostly under a cut.)

Nick Valentine:

“I’ve gotta tell you, I don’t like this plan one bit,” the detective admitted, anxiously fidgeting his mechanical hand along his pockets in search of a smoke.  Did he smoke the last one while they were building the damned contraption?  Chain smoking while stressed just happened to be one of the personality quirks he could thank ol’ Nicky for, and now, it was making him jittery.  

Or maybe he just didn’t want to admit how stressed he was over the idea of this plan going awry.  

“If you get vaporized right here, then all of this was for nothing,” he pressed, before realizing his voice had taken on a hard edge when their shoulders straightened.  He amended it by adding, “There’s gotta be some other way – something we didn’t think about yet.”

They shook their head, staring straight ahead at the platform.  “We both know this is the only way, Nick,” they replied, patient and even.  Nick tried to keep his hand still.  

“Even if it does work, I can’t go with you.  No one can.  And you’ve only seen a fraction of what the Institute’s capable of.”  The words tumbled out of him before he could sensor himself.  They turned then, looked right at him, and smiled.  It was a shadow of the reassuring grin he’d seen directed at him and countless others along the way; they were just as scared about this as he was.

“They have Shaun,” the survivor murmured, barely above a whisper.   “This is our only shot at getting him back.”

Nick fell silent for a moment, before sucking in a deep breath. He needed to be the reassuring one; instantly, he regretted ever voicing his doubts.   They weren’t anything that they weren’t already thinking, and yet, they were prepared to go anyway.  “I know.  And if there’s anyone that can pull this off, it’s you.  I’d wager that every time, partner.”

Their smile regained some of its luster, and they reached into one of their pockets and then pressed something into his metallic hand.  “I’ll be right back, and I’ll have answers,” they vowed, and then they stepped onto the platform, and he watched as they disappeared from sight like something from a sci-fi comic.  

He unfurled his fingers; they’d placed a cigarette in his hand.  With something between a laugh and a scoff, he lit it up, stuck it between his lips, and muttered, “I’ll hold you to that.”

Days passed with growing anxiety among the others and the Sanctuary settlement.    Everyone tried to keep busy, to not think that their leader had just been vaporized before their eyes or was being held captive by the wasteland boogeymen.  Nick kept busy, but vigilant; he didn’t need sleep, so he stayed close to the platform, waiting for them to keep their word.

When they finally did, it was the dead of the night, and he was nearly done chain-smoking another pack.  They weren’t standing on the platform, but in the middle of the street, their head down.  He stood and made his way to them, relief coursing through him.  

“Hey, you made it back in one piece, after all!” he called out, his tone light.  However, when they turned to him, he saw the weight on their shoulders, the solemn look on their face.  And it’s then that he realized they didn’t have Shaun.

“I don’t know what to do,” they mumbled.

Nick reached out, hesitantly setting a hand on their shoulder.  He moved closer, fearing the worst.  “Was your son…?”  

They shook their head immediately.  “He’s there.  He’s safe.  It’s just…”  Their throat got tight and they trailed off, shaking their head in lieu of words.

Nick squeezed their shoulder and started urging them toward the house.  “C’mon.  Let’s get inside.  We’ll figure it out together.”

(rest under a cut)

Hancock

“You know… I’ve done some crazy things, but this is crazy even by my standpoint.”  

Hancock watched as they approached the platform, his hands planted on his hips.  In truth, he was worried about them, but he also wanted to be going in beside them.  Getting literally beamed into the Institute?  Going in, shotgun blazing, to take down as many of those bastards that replaced his friends with machines as possible?  Yeah, it sounded like a hell of an adventure – and a rush.  

They turned their head toward him and grinned.  There was a tinge of nervousness in that expression, but he could tell they were still determined.  “C’mon.  This isn’t crazier than taking a hit from an experimental radiation drug, and you just did that for fun,” they pointed out, teasing.

“And it made me into the handsome devil I am today.  You sure you won’t end up a ghoul after this?”

“You make it look good.  I’ll find myself a pirate hat or something and we can be stylish ghouls together,” they chuckled, trying to ease their nerves with humor.  Hancock laughed, his arms dropping to his sides.  He’d be lying if he didn’t admit that he hadn’t entertained a fantasy or two about the survivor turning ghoul and being able to stick around with him even longer.  

“That don’t sound half-bad, actually.  But you’ll have to do better than a pirate costume.”  They flipped him off good-naturedly, and he grinned.  “Just try to come back in one piece, all right?  A little hard to make good on some fantasies if you’re a pile of ash.”

“Hard, but not impossible, right?”

The ghoul laughed, shaking his head slightly.  “You’ve been hanging around me too long.  Go on.  Get outta here.”  He waved an arm toward the platform.  “Just… be careful, you dig?”

They hesitated only a moment before they gave him a thumbs up and a reassuring grin.  “Stay out of trouble while I’m gone.”

And then they were gone.  

The days passed with Hancock being restless and high in Sanctuary.  He wasn’t sure how long they were going to be gone.  He’d thought about heading back to Goodneighbor, but it seemed pointless.  So, he helped out with the settlement and shot the shit with Nick most of the time.  

When they finally came back, he thought he was having some sort of drug hallucination.  It was the middle of the night, and he’d been sprawled on the couch while he tripped on Mentats.  They came into the house he’d claimed as his own, and when he sat up, they crossed the living room toward him.  

“Glad to see you didn’t get evaporated.  And hey, your skin is still smooth.  Did it take you to the right place?”  One word came after another, and when they spoke, their voice was hoarse, throat constricted.

“Yeah.”

The one-word reply had him quickly sobering.  “Did you find your boy?”

“I did.”

“Then…”  Hancock leaned in, trying to get a better look at their face in the dim light.  His mouth felt dry.  “Why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost?”

All at once, they collapsed onto the couch, right beside Hancock.  “I’ve gotta figure out what to do,” they muttered, barely audible.  Hancock didn’t understand what had happened, but he knew it was terrible to rattle the survivor like this.  But right now, it was late, and he was just so fucking relieved that they were alive and back, right by his side.  

“That’s a question for tomorrow.  Right now, you look like you could use this.”

Casually, he reached over them and picked up a Jet inhaler from the floor.  

His arm stayed around them regardless of whether or not they took it from him.

Deacon

“Hey, boss, don’t get vaporized.”

Deacon grinned, and the survivor rolled their eyes, standing in front of the platform while Tinker Tom booted it up.

“It’s probably a 50-50 toss-up that I might, huh?” they joked, wryly.  Deacon shrugged.

“Probably more like 80-20, with the odds on becoming dust.”  As they muttered a gee thanks beneath their breath, Deacon stepped forward and placed a hand on their shoulder.  “I wish I could come with you on this one, but hey.  Even if the odds are stacked, I’d still put my caps on you pulling through and kicking Institute ass.”

“I hope so.  I just want to find Shaun,” they admitted, some of the mirth draining from their tone.  Deacon’s fingers flexed, squeezing their shoulder.  

“If this works, I know you will.  And if not, we’ll figure something else out.  You’ve been doing the impossible all over the Commonwealth, you know?”  He grinned again, his eyes hidden beneath his sunglasses.  “And if this contraption doesn’t work out… Hell, we’ll harness this power and make some sort of vaporizing death ray.  You won’t go out in vain, boss.”

They elbowed him in the side without any real heat, chuckling.  “Well as long as there’s a death ray, I feel much better about being the test subject.”

“I thought you would.”

Tinker Tom finished up, and it was time.  The survivor quipped, “Be back in a flash” right before they disappeared.  

Days passed, and Deacon kept busy with the Railroad, though always kept close to Sanctuary.  He was beginning to grow nervous right around the time that they materialized in a flash of light in the middle of the night.  He didn’t sleep much these days, so he’d been on watch when it happened, and he went running toward them.  

“Aw, guess there won’t be a death gun,” he jokingly called out, relief flooding over him.  Thank everything that they were okay.  They were still in one piece, and the Institute hadn’t killed them or kept them captive.  

But they were also alone, he noted.  No little boy.

Slowly, they turned toward him.  

“How’d the mission go, bos–?”

They cut him off by suddenly hugging him, shaking their head when he tried to speak again.  “He’s alive,” they managed.  “But everything’s… complicated now.”

Deacon was caught off-guard, but he slowly pat their back and tried to keep his voice light.  “Things are always complicated these days; it’s par for the course.  We’ll just have to sort them out.”

The survivor hummed in the back of their throat, and neither one let go just yet.

…. Later, the survivor would discover that Deacon left a report with the Railroad about how they had to fight to piece their body together across the time-space-continuum after using the device.

Danse

“Are you scared, soldier?”

The survivor sucked in a deep breath.  “Honestly?  Yeah.”

“The device has been constructed using a state-of-the-art facility with leading technological–”

“No,” they cut in, “I’m not scared of getting zapped into nothingness.  Okay, maybe I am, but I’m more scared of what happens next.”

Danse’s brow furrowed.  “You’re worried you won’t be a match for the Institute single-handed?  I assure you that they may outnumber you, but they’re just machines.  If you use your tactical knowledge and limit this mission to a covert one, you should be all right.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about, either,” they admitted.  “I’m worried about Shaun.  About what’s happened to him there…”  They turned to him, stricken.  “All I want to do is find him.  I’ll do anything.”

He knew they would; he knew that was why they were doing this in the first place, despite the risks.  It was a great opportunity for the Brotherhood, of course, but it was much more than orders or a mission to the survivor.  

It was everything.  

“I’m sure you will.  Just don’t be reckless, soldier.”

Danse couldn’t explain why he had such an unsettling feeling in his stomach as they smiled, murmured their thanks, and then gave a flippant salute before disappearing.  There was a part of him that wondered if they had been vaporized, or if they had been captured by the Institute.  What if they came back injured?  Or if their rescue mission was unsuccessful?

Or the unthinkable – what if they came back as a synth?  

He dwelled on it as the days passed.  He kept up with his work for the BoS, but his mind was elsewhere.  He was too busy thinking about how he would rescue them and ways for him to use the relay himself to provide back-up.  There had to be something he could do.  

Just as he was strung as tight as could be with concern, they finally came back.  They walked right into his quarters one night, and the second he looked at them, he knew that they hadn’t been replaced with a synth.  They wore a haunted look on their face – one that could only come from loss, from a mission gone awry.

“Good to see that you’ve returned from your mission unharmed,” he began, though he could tell that things hadn’t gone as planned.  The boy wasn’t with them.  “I knew you wouldn’t let those machines get the best of you.  Would you care to debrief me now or should I read your report in the morning?”

They moved to sit down in a chair and shook their head.  “I just want to rest for a moment, okay?  It’s been a long week.  I’m trying to figure some things out.”

Danse hesitated for a moment and then finally crossed the floor to kneel beside their chair.  “Is something amiss, soldier?” he asked, even though it was obvious.  He was just so relieved that they were okay – and not replaced by a synth!  “What about your son?”

“He was there, but…”  They trailed, shaking their head.  “I’ll tell you tomorrow.”  They reached out and touched his arm.  Being near him made them feel safe, even though they knew that they would have to make an important decision down the line.  “I don’t want to think tonight, okay?”

Slowly, he covered their hand with his, his voice dropping low.  He was at a loss, but he could do this much for them.

“Affirmative.”   

[solivar]

First Lessons

Originally posted June 19, 2006

Title: First Lessons Fandom: Kingdom Hearts Warnings: Rated PG14 for the vague implication of prior kinks. Particularly if you're allergic to the mere concept of Axel/Larxene. Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts and all characters related thereto are the product of SquareEnixDisneyBuenaPixar. If you think I'm making money off this, you need your med levels checked. Author's Notes: Third in a series of ficlets about firsts.

Roxas possessed a perfectly sane and rational distrust of the Organization and the freaks that populated it. Axel couldn’t blame him and, in fact, shared the Key of Destiny’s general attitude toward the majority of their colleagues. He’d had longer to know them, after all. Unfortunately, Roxas tended to lump him into the not-to-be-trusted pile except under very specific circumstances. In a fight, he was trustworthy. Roxas, once he learned that lesson, never questioned it again. The Key of Destiny gave him his back without hesitation when violence needed to be done, when destruction needed to be wrought, when a small army or two of Heartless seemed too big a bite to take on his own. Otherwise? Not so much. No, Axel couldn’t really blame him. But he also discovered, inside himself, the need, the persistent, damnable need, to not be looked at that way. To be trusted completely and to be worthy of that trust. It was the damnedest thing he’d ever experienced to that hour, an itch he couldn’t scratch, a form of…not satisfaction, exactly, but something very like it, that depended entirely on someone else’s acceptance, something he couldn’t control only effect. And it was making him crazy. Crazier, even. Roxas legitimately didn’t have a lot of free time on his hands. The Superior kept him busy, running here, killing that, as though he were afraid the Key of Destiny might suddenly evaporate and take his irreplaceable talents with him. (Or at least Axel assumed them to be largely irreplaceable. Keyblade-wielding teenagers weren’t exactly crawling out of the faintly luminous paneling, after all.) On the rare occasions that he wasn’t feeding the Heart, Roxas tended to haunt the halls of Castle Oblivion, particularly wherever the library happened to be at any given time. He seemed to navigate Oblivion’s constantly shifting internal landscape with greater ease than most, or at least better than anyone who didn’t enjoy Marluxia’s particular favor. Unless it was to receive orders or possibly to rest, he didn’t usually loiter in the World That Never Was, which made attempting to ambush him someplace he returned to regularly a pain in the ass. Axel didn’t enjoy Marluxia’s favor in any way, shape, or form and occasionally went out of his way to avoid obtaining it. Consequently, the halls of Castle Oblivion rendered him no assistance whatsoever and frequently went out of their way to thwart him in his self-assigned mission. If Marluxia hadn’t already been on Axel’s ‘kill sometime in the nearish future’ list, that little fact would have landed him there, if for no other reason than the fact that it forced him to swallow his pride and go to Larxene for help. “Oh, dear.” Larxene smiled, the expression Axel imagined gracing an immediately post-coital female praying mantis. “You’re so going to pay for this, you realize?” He’d actually caught her outside Castle Oblivion, coming from the Castle That Never Was, and executed a flawless pounce and grab at the entrance to a suitably dark alley. She put up a token struggle that involved a lot of indignant squeaking and two painful but nonlethal stab wounds. “What, I haven’t paid enough already?” “Consider that money down.” She licked her knives clean and flicked them away, extracting the object of his request from her sleeve as she did so. “I really shouldn’t give this to you, you know. It’d be so much more entertaining to make you go crawling to Marluxia…” Axel stripped off his gloves and ran his fingertips through the blood she’d drawn; her eyes followed their progress. “You know that would never happen, no matter how desperate I am.” He curled his fingers in, painted his palm in his own blood, watched a little shiver run through her. “Do you really want me to beg, my maiden of pain?” She wet her lips with a tongue still stained faintly crimson. “I’ll settle for asking nicely.” He pressed her against the alley wall and the last of the space from between their bodies, bent and murmured against her ear, “May I please have my library card back?” Larxene flushed from somewhere below the neck of her robe to the roots of her fine blonde hair and handed it over; he made sure to trace his fingers over hers as she did so. “One day, you’ll have to tell me what he did to make you hate him so much.” “I don’t hate him, Larxene.” He stepped back, opened a Door. “I couldn’t if wanted to. I just don’t care if he lives or dies.” Not entirely true, but close enough to satisfy Larxene. Axel took to haunting the library when he wasn’t otherwise engaged and, eventually, his patience was rewarded. “Dare I ask what you’re looking for?” Roxas didn’t even have the common decency to look surprised when Axel manifested out of thin air at his side, though he did get a sidelong Glare of Death for his troubles. After a moment, he also got a grudging answer. “Something familiar.” “You won’t find that here.” That earned a full-on Icy Look of Extremely Imminent Pain. “Trust me on this one.” “You don’t ask for much, do you.” Even when the Key of Destiny was asking a question, he sounded as though he were delivering a statement, almost as though he didn’t recall the manifold uses of tone and inflection. He might not. “In this case? No.” Axel dug around for a moment inside his robe, and came up with what he was looking for. “Catch.” Roxas’ swordsman reflexes snatched the object out of mid-air and he examined it with an actual expression. Confusion. It was a bottle, blue glass full of air bubbles, half-full of sand and tiny pebbles and bits of seashell, sealed with a cork. He opened it, and a salty tang filled the air between them. He looked up, blue-blue eyes full of questions. “You won’t find what you’re looking for here,” Axel informed him quietly, “because this place, in its own way, is even less real than we are. Books, walls, corridors, furniture – everything here – might be physical, might feel and look and smell real enough, but that’s because Marluxia lets you feel it. His will permits you to find what you’re expecting to find, or what you might happen to be looking for or not, as he sees fit. And if he doesn’t see fit, all you’ll find are lies.” Those eyes narrowed as the implications stole over him. “I suppose I should thank you.” Axel shrugged, and found the unpleasantly cold and sharp edge of that dark Keyblade resting against his neck, flat against his should, before he finished the gesture. Faster than he could blink. A smile curled the corners of his mouth. “Why?” A real question, at last. “Why are you telling me this? Why do you even – “ He stopped, a flicker of something crossed his face, and held what he’d been about to say. An honest question deserved an honest answer, or at least the facsimile of one. “At first? I was ordered to find you, the unspoken implication being that I should keep you out of trouble. Now?” He let the smile stretch into a real grin, one that reached up into his eyes. “It’s more fun getting into trouble with you than trying to get in your way.” The normally rock-steady hand holding that blade wavered, just enough to trace a razor-thin line across the skin it rested on. “Trust you, hm?” “You have to trust a body, even a Nobody, some time.” He let the grin slide away, rested the back of one gloved hand against the flat of the Keyblade, pushed once, gently. “Roxas. If you won’t trust me, at least pretend to believe me a little.” A sigh. The Key of Destiny’s hand fell back to his side, empty, and Axel took the opportunity to work some warmth back into his cold-numbed shoulder. “I…” Roxas began. Stopped. Began again, more quietly, so Axel had to step closer to hear him. “It…doesn’t feel right. To be alone.” He looked up, a quick searching glance, and then back at the bottle in his hand. “I don’t know why.” “’Why’ we can work on.” Axel replied, in the same low tone. “If you want.” “I think I’d…like that.” A smile came and went, so fast Axel almost thought he’d imagined it, until Roxas looked up with the brilliance of it still lingering in his eyes. “What’s this for?” Axel caught his breath and covered it with a flash-grin of his own. “Something to remember our first real time together. A memento.” “Oh, like I’d forget that.” The bottle disappeared inside his robe, nonetheless. “Ten thousand Heartless and you.” “You might be surprised. Come on – any minute now I’ll overstay my welcome, Marluxia will yank my library card again, and we’ll spend the rest of the night on a scenic tour of Castle Oblivion’s many fine broom closets. Middens. Abattoirs. I’m sure he’s got an oubliette in here, somewhere, that’s just the sort of thing he’d go for.” He rested a hand in the small of Roxas’ back and steered him in the direction of the nearest Door. Roxas glanced over his shoulder as the Door, not leading to a broom closet, blossomed around them. “One day, you’ll have to tell my why you hate him so much.” “One day, I might.”

[travelcenter-uk]

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Read More:-  Cheap Flights to Los Angeles? We’ve got you!

This Article, Information & Images Source (copyright):- Travel Center UK Blog

[rainbowserenity]

It started out as a little friendly competition.

Really, Lightning could get behind that. After all, how often had she done the exact same thing during training with her fellow Corps members? Challenging someone to a race around the track wasn't an unheard of phenomenon.

But at least with that, it didn't grow into something crazier.

Honestly, she should've figured something like this was inevitable when she and Hope moved into a little house right across the street from Serah and Snow. Having her sister living so close was like something out of a bad sitcom, but Lightning wouldn't have it any other way.

Except during the holidays.

“Ha! Suck it, Estheim!” Snow shouted at the top of his lungs, probably waking up the whole neighborhood in the meantime. He gestured wildly to the display of lights on his house. There were twinkling icicle lights and lines of colors running along the edge of the roof. He even had one of those lit-up wire statues that looked like reindeer. “Ours is the best on the block!”

“I don't think so!” Hope's hands were on his hips as he stood proudly in the driveway. Lightning rolled her eyes. Their own light display on the house was similar, but she had to admit, Hope's was arranged a little better. Not that she'd admit that out loud.

Serah was taking pictures of both houses, a huge grin on her face. “We'll have to get an impartial third party. Maybe Noel?”

“Good idea, baby!” Snow laughed and scooped Serah up in his arms, much to her delight. Lightning rolled her eyes again, especially when Hope glanced at her.

“Do that and you die.”

“Yes ma'am.”

Not that she didn't show her appreciation in other ways...

Noel had declared Hope's light display the winner. Snow demanded a recount before realizing it didn't quite work that way, but he promised that he'd get two more people to vote next year.

“We're not doing this next year,” Lightning argued.

“Sure we are! Me and Serah are gonna have the brightest house on the block, just you wait!”

This she did not doubt.

After the holidays were over and all the lights plummeted to ridiculously cheap prices, Hope and Snow scooped up as many as possible. Serah just seemed amused by the whole thing. “Maybe the winner should get a prize next year.”

“They're not going to do this next year.” Lightning frowned. “They're going to forget about it and put up the lights like normal people, so when families drive down the block, they'll be in awe and not wondering who the two grown men shouting at each other from across the street are.”

“Don't dampen their dreams, Sis.”

Despite her protests, Hope put even more lights on their house the next year. He refused to get one of those wire reindeer sculptures, though. “They're tacky.”

“You just don't like them because Snow had one first.”

Hope huffed out a laugh, a sure sign she was right. “No...!”

Lightning just smirked, holding onto the ladder as he tacked a string of lights up, then frowned and moved them down half an inch. No comment. “Did you find two more judges besides Noel?”

“Yes. Fang and Sazh said they'd come, but we have to feed them afterward.”

“We're going to get eaten out of house and home.” She pretended to mind. They hadn't yet made use of the two empty bedrooms in the house, so it was nice to have it full of people for a bit. “Why not Fang and Vanille?”

“Snow thought that she wouldn't be impartial, since she's one of my best friends.”

“You and Noel are close, though, and he was the first one you called. You don't call that impartial?”

“Yeah, but he's also close to Serah.”

“True.” Lightning held on a bit tighter when Hope slowly climbed down the ladder, only letting go when he was safely on the ground. When they were face-to-face, he wrapped his arms around her waist with a smile, pulling her close for a kiss. Or twelve.

“Hey,” he murmured once they'd finally managed to pull away. She wanted to close the space between them again. “You really don't mind this, right? Me putting up all these lights?”

“I think it's our electric bill you should be asking.”

Hope chuckled, reconnecting their lips. “Good point.”

That year, Sazh and Noel voted two-to-one in favor of the HopeLight display. The Snerah one wasn't nearly as exciting, they claimed, but Fang had been endlessly amused by those wire reindeer decorations. They all moseyed into Hope and Lightning's home afterward, demanding to be compensated. Snow bought all the beer since his display had lost.

That had been the best thing. Maybe she could get used to this.

And the thing was, as the years passed by, she actually did. It came as absolutely no surprise to her when she saw Snow and Serah's kids helping out with the lights when they were old enough. Rosa was actually quite skilled at knotting the wires together and making her dad go out to buy more lights. Lightning had no idea who'd taught her that, but considering Uncle Hope was Rosa's favorite relative, she had her suspicions. Josh was the smart kid who stayed out of it.

The first two years after she and Hope had their daughter, Seven, Hope's winning streak was broken since he was too busy helping his wife raise a kid. Lightning couldn't say she minded this a bit, but when Hope was feeling more confident and made a dazzling light show when Seven was a toddler, it was pretty great to see their daughter's eyes all wide and amazed.

And speaking of amazing...

“Hope.” Lightning glanced up, where her husband was puttering around the roof. Seven was stumbling around, looking like a marshmallow in her winter clothes. It'd already snowed this year, and the rest of the season was promising to be cold...if it didn't all melt from the heat from all these lights. “Is this really necessary?”

“Yes!” Hope had to shout to be heard from up on the roof. He was assembling some kind of insane contraption that had a Santa with his eight reindeer. There'd been another set with a Rudolph, but Hope refused to get it because Rudolph was so commercialized. He didn't seem to find any irony in this. “You saw Snow's last year, Light! His Santa waves and talks!”

“And is a complete nuisance.” That, admittedly, wasn't entirely true, since they all turned off the lights at a reasonable hour. Plus, there were those electric bills to think about. She signed, smiling a bit as Seven plopped down and looked around. “If you get anything that talks, I'm moving in with Fang and Vanille.”

“Like they wouldn't be just as noisy?”

“...Point taken.” Those two had no shame.

That year, Hope won a unanimous vote because none of them thought the constant 'ho-ho-ho!' coming from Snow's yard was all that endearing. The nonstop talking Santa was in the curbside trash by the new year.

As their kids all started growing up and got to help their dads out, the whole thing became something of a tradition for the whole block. Once the displays were all up and working, almost all of their neighbors would come and look at them. Hope and Snow had taken advantage of this and now put out collection boxes, where every donation went to a needy cause in the neighborhood. The simple loser-buys-beer get-togethers that they'd had was now a big block party – all of Seven's friends would team up and have snowmen (“No, Mommy, it's snowpeople,” Seven had explained in exasperation at one point) building contests with Rosa and Josh's friends. The adults would get tipsy and all bring a dish so they could have an 'impromptu' potluck, though Lightning knew for a fact that some of them made their dishes days in advance.

Not that she minded a bit.

“You're going to be able to see the house from space at this rate,” Lightning said a few years later, as Hope lined the roof with alternating colors.

“Not scientifically possible, Mom,” Seven replied. “The watts on these aren't bright enough.”

“Atta girl,” Hope said with a huge grin. Lightning rolled her eyes, though she couldn't hide her little smile. She knew just how to handle the conversation. After all, she'd been a teenage girl once, too.

“So, Seven.” She raised an eyebrow. “Any chance we'll see Sice come over to see the judging this year?”

Seven immediately blushed and sputtered out something unintelligible before mentioning homework and rushing inside. Hope chuckled.

“Oh c'mon, Light. That was unfair.”

“Maybe a little.” She held onto the ladder as he climbed down, like always. “But it means when we won't get any commentary when I do this.”

“Do wha - ”

His words were cut off with her lips. Somehow, the lights turned on as they kissed, bathing them in a twinkling glow. She ignored the wolf-whistle from across the street, knowing that Serah would shut Snow up the same way soon enough.

Even after so many years of holidays with him and this ridiculous tradition, it never failed to feel like something new every time. Funny how Hope had always had that effect on her without realizing it – every day felt new when they were together. Maybe it was because he was always by her side as they'd built this life.

A sappy thought, she mused as they continued to kiss, but she'd cut herself a break. It was the holidays, after all.

And eventually she'd pry herself away from his lips –  he did have an eleven-year winning streak to uphold.

“Estheim's the winner!” Sazh declared with a flourish several weeks later.

Make that twelve.

(Unless I get a windfall of random inspiration, this might be my last fic of the year. If I've entertained you all, please consider buying me a coffee ❤)

[destressjournal]

DCOM Rankings #59: The Proud Family Movie

So I mostly remember the second half of the movie and not the first. Well specific parts of the first half I remember.

Either way, this was a wacky movie....like really wacky....still cute though!

The proud family is a great show and it was really cool to have growing up. The movie is honestly a whole different animal though, and while I liked it a lot as a kid, I’m mostly just weirded out and confused now, mostly because of the story and the ending.

So the main premise is completely fine! It’s actually very entertaining even if it does seem familiar with the even Stevens movie, at least at the beginning. But it’s the little plot points and decision making along the way that was hard for me to wrap my head around, mostly toward the end of the movie.

So...uhhh the clone of Carver wants to take over the world with humanoid peanuts...okay then. I get that George Washington Carver invented the multitudes of uses for the peanut, but I feel like using humanoid peanutsfor evil is just straight up crazy. But hey, it’s a DCOM. Then the decision to put the secret formula in penny’s locket was also a weird decision. Why would you put work-related stuff into your daughter’s jewelry? I know it was meant to highten the stakes but it just seem like that decision needed to be justified more. Then they randomly pull out a peanut butter-ifier at the end that automatically fixes everything at the end of the movie. And then the end where penny sings and then the song is at the top of the charts for 4 straight weeks...? Idk haha many parts of the movie just seem far fetched. But even so, the humanoid peanuts are so adorable!!! Such great designs!! And the movie is just hilarious!

I like the conflict between penny and Oscar. It’s a classic father-daughter relationship dynamic but it works so well for these chatacters. And it’s what gives the movie it’s heart. It’s also kind of a “be careful what you wish for” kind of movie, where penny wants a new family and she ends up being switched with her clone. At first Oscar and penny love the new arrangement but as the movie went on and things got crazier, they both realized they miss each other and want them back to normal. It’s so sweet.

Similar to the Kim possible movie, you all know these characters already so there’s no need to re-introduce anybody. Also, this movie was a full 90 minutes instead of the 68 minutes that the Kim possible movie had. I would argue that the movie could actually be a bit shorter. In fact, I guess the main movie was a bit short, because they added an entire random sequence at the end of the movie. I think I remember this part but it took me a second. That sequence was cool though because you can tell it was animated much more smoothly than the rest of the film. I think someone from the outside at the Disney company animated it. It was so refreshing because the rest of the movie was animated pretty bare bones, similar to the show. You would think for a higher budget film you could animate a teeny bit better but i guess it’s fine. The animation doesn’t affect the score tooo too much. The end sequence is also funny as hell. It’s a great little short!

Overall though, the movie was entertaining and I found myself watching most of it in one go (usually I take breaks). And it definitely was not predictable, not in the slightest! This movie was so crazy and went out of left field a bunch of times but it also worked just enough that I was still enjoying it. And I think that’s due to the amazing characters. I don’t think there’s a character in this movie I don’t like. They all have a place and a role in the story, even the new peanut characters.

That being said, I would not put this at an A+. Honestly I’m not sure where to put this one...I might leave it at a plain A for now. I mean the flaws of this film are there but most of them are overtaken by the amazing characters and their dynamics. I could watch these guys interact all day. So yeah...plain A sounds good.

Another Halloween movie coming up next! I’m a litte nervous about revisiting this one because I loved it as a kid...we’ll see how it goes!!

[andistillgetbutterflies]

to grief:

I haven’t written here in a while and I think it’s because I’ve felt less sad about life in general. Yea, there are still days where I feel like I’ll never find happiness, but those days don’t out number the ones where I truly feel content. That is until this week. 

I’ve loved watching glee since the beginning. The characters are the same age as me so as I went through high school, it felt like I really knew these characters and are going through it with them. At first, I really loved glee for the songs and the humour and even the teen drama that seemed so relatable yet far fetched to me. My high school had musical theatre, which I was very much involved in, and my friends and I weren’t bullied for it. In fact, we were praised. We were the cool kids and even got away with avoiding school work because the drama teacher loved us so much and would call our other teachers for us. 

Just like the glee characters, there were a lot of “incest” hookups and drama caused by who was dating who and who liked who and who kissed who. But it was a nice way to bond with people who are seniors and get invited to cool parties. 

During the time I watched glee, I realized more and more how much I enjoyed watching Santana’s character. She was witty, sarcastic, and had a no fucks given attitude that always kept her 100% real. I pride myself in trying to be as real as possible so she was definitely a character I drew towards. Throughout the years, even during the horrible season 5 and 6, I still kept up watching the show, mostly watching for Santana. I’d like to say she carried the show, but reality is I saw a lot of myself in her. The more I watched, the more I became interested in the actors. I’ve always wanted to be famous - I mean I did audition for Disney once. So I’ve found myself drawn to the actors, especially Naya Rivera who played Santana on the show. I’ve imagined ways I’d bump into the cast and how that’ll easily transition into a friendship. So I guess my imagination really brought us closer than we were. 

During COVID-19 and quarantine, I decided to rewatch glee again. The convenience of Netflix and me being laid off gave me insomnia and glee was the perfect fix. I get to sing along and relive my high school years and remember why I loved this show so much. I once again started imagining what it would be like if I moved to LA and how I’d be able to befriend them, even after all these years. My obsession came back as if no years has passed between high school and now. So when the news of Naya Rivera’s passing broke, that hit me hard. 

I’ve never understood why people mourned celebrities they’ve never met. I know people cried when Michael Jackson died or when Whitney Houston died. But I never understood it. How can you feel for someone so deeply if you’ve never met them and you don’t even know who they really are? I guess now I know how it feels.

During the days she went missing, I constantly refreshed every social media page I had and the other cast members to see if I would receive any updated news. I constantly had the gut wrenching feeling in the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t shake it off no matter how hard I tried. 

When the press conference finally announced they found a body in the lake and it was her, I lost sense of reality. It was like time stopped and I didn’t want to believe this was real. I constantly felt sad, and every time I refreshed my social media, someone was mourning her which made me more sad. I couldn’t control the tears that were falling down my face and I couldn't, still can’t, grasp exactly why it hit me so hard. She will always be a part of my growing up and I will forever thank her for the excitement she brought me through her character. But that’s not the only reason why I’m sad. 

I’ve always been terrified of death. When I went to church as a kid, a youth pastor pulled each of us aside and explained the concept of heaven. I broke down crying and couldn’t understand what that meant and how that was guaranteed. “Will I see my mom and dad again?”, I asked. I couldn’t fathom that this life ends and that everything I know or have will disappear and I won’t even know or feel it. So to me, everything that means ANYTHING to me at all, I try not to think about it ending. Almost like everything related to me can escape death. So when I found out about Naya, my reaction was, what do you mean she’s gone? How can she be alive yesterday and gone today? I literally just saw her Instagram story and her tweeting. I didn’t, and still don’t, quite understand it. 

As you can probably tell, I haven’t lost a lot of people in my life, or at least people I remember losing. The closest to my memory would be my aunt who was battling cancer, but I was very young and the only grief I remember having is seeing my mother in the back seat of the car bawling her eyes out after hearing a certain song on our way to go fishing. I’d never forget that look. 

And as I continued my grief, silently of course, because my Asian parents would never understand, I thought I’d reach out to my best friend. He’s very special to me and someone that I really fell in love with. The last person I ever loved til this day. We always played phone tag and would check in on each other every now and then. We would always try to be happy for each other on whatever we’re up to and try to encourage each other to chase our dreams. We’re both Gemini’s so we’re ambitious like that. To my surprise, he responded “who is this”. This never happens, because he usually says its him and he knows my number since I haven’t changed it since 2012. That’s when I get a call from him. 

I was hesitant to answer at first because I was nervous. I always got nervous around him, even after all these years. But when I picked up, a woman answered. To be honest, I thought it was his girlfriend and she didn't want me messaging him. He always had a lot of girlfriends, some were crazier than others so I wasn’t too surprised. But, it wasn’t. I wish it was a crazy girlfriend. Instead, it was his mom. 

His mom remembered my name, I even met her once. I was happy to hear that he talked about me to her because it shows that I meant something to him. But I cannot believe what she said next.

“Carter passed away on July 3, we actually had a funeral last Thursday.”

What. The. Fuck. 

As I continue to stutter and apologize for having to put his mom in this situation, I can’t help but wonder what happened. So as I tiptoed around the subject I finally asked, “was it sudden?”

“He killed himself. I try to be honest about it. I don’t know if he told you about his mental health problems, but he’s been sad for a long time.”

I knew about his depression and mental health struggles. I knew that he had a rough childhood and he resented his dad for leaving him. He fought with his mom all the time, and she kicked him out on multiple occasions. But he found love from his grandparents, which are who he stayed with most of the time. I knew all this, but I didn't realize how bad it had gotten. I wish I had. 

Ever since we were kids, I’ve always tried to be a good influence to him. I even tried to convince him to come to summer school with me, which let’s be honest, he barely showed up for school during the year and that was mandatory so why would he ever go to summer school. But he entertained the idea for me, like he always did with everything I suggested. I guess he didn’t want to disappoint me. And as we grew up and grew apart, mostly because he moved and changed schools a million times and I went off to University in a different province, we still kept in touch. He has always struggled with finding a passion and what he wanted to do with his life. First he wanted to make music, which he did for a while, then he turned to art. I thought this would be his biggest break through, his art was amazing. I suggested he should be a tattoo artist since he loved tattoos and is clearly good at drawing. So when we chatted back in March of 2019, he had let me know he is restructuring himself and even went to an open house at OCAD and centennial to enrol if he doesn’t hear back from a tattoo apprenticeship. Then December 2019 came around and he let me know he was in a transitional phase with his art and might want to go into animation so he could work from home. He even suggested he’d come visit me in Montreal. I know he never would, but just the fact that he suggested made me so happy. We even tried to make plans to meet up, I really wish I had pressed him for these plans because maybe he needed to see me for a reason. 

Nothing until now had been a red flag for me. I tried to always be positive and whatever dream he was chasing after next, I tried to be supportive and reaffirm that he did have talent and he will figure it out. But in February, his art on Instagram had taken a darker turn. I didn’t notice at first because he posted sporadically and also the Instagram algorithm only gives you a piece a time so if you didn’t go on his profile you wouldn't see the full picture. But his Instagram story caught my eye. It was a post along the lines of if he died, no one would even care. I immediately messaged him letting him know I would. He said thank you and quickly changed the topic to visiting me again in Montreal. I should’ve said something more. I should've called him because he clearly wasn’t being honest. 

When I moved back home this summer thanks to COVID, something inside of me kept telling me to text him. If only I had texted him a couple of weeks earlier. If only I had reached out to him then. Maybe, this would’ve changed everything.

I always thought we would’ve found our way back into each others lives. I’ve played over a million scenarios in my head of how we’d be as close as we were back in high school. I even imagined the day I had the guts to tell him how much I’ve loved him and how long I loved him for. But now I’ll never get the chance. 

I wish he saw how much he meant to me. How I’d smile when I see his name come up on my blackberry messenger with an incoming text. Or when he’d call me babe even though we weren’t dating. A friend who read over my shoulder used to laugh at me because the way we texted sounded cheesier and more in a relationship than my friend and her actual boyfriend. He always thought he was a ball of darkness, but he never knew how much light he brought into my life. To me, he’ll always be that kid we spent hours in Toys R Us sitting in children couches, hiding from the staff and talking about life. The goofy guy who photobombed a family at the CNE, and when the family saw, they just laughed because that’s just how charming he was. The guy who my parents picked up from his house to drive us to the movies and they even caught us, you behind me with your arms around me while we waited to be picked up (my mother immediately decided to have the birds and the bees talk with me the next day at a Swiss Chalet, thanks for that). And as we got older, we promised to marry each other if we were still single by 30, it was one of those promises we made to each other prompted by a silly rom com. But he didn’t even hesitate. He even agreed to have a skydiving wedding with me and say “I Do” in the air. He was the first person I told about this crazy sky diving onto an island wedding idea and like always, supported me even when I’m out of my mind. To me, he was perfect. 

Right from the beginning he said to me “don’t fall in love with me”, at the time he had a few unfaithful relationships and a few toxic ones. He thought he wasn’t worth me loving him because he would ruin everything. 

Well Carter Avery Benitez, from the day I stalked your Facebook after only meeting you for an evening at your ex girlfriends house and messaged you, desperately wanting to get to know you, there was no way I wouldn’t fall in love with you. You’ll always have a special place in my heart. June 13, 1994 - July 3, 2020, rest in paradise my love. 

[junker-town]

24 great books for quarantined sports fans

From ‘Ball Four’ to ‘Out of Sight’, here are a few books you can come back to over and over again

I love my books. They have traveled with me across the country and back again, prominently displayed in cheap bookcases throughout dozens of apartments around the Northeast. Currently, they are stretched out behind me in my home office where they will stay until the time comes to move off the grid. They will follow me there, as well.

I have read all of them at least once and several of them dozens of times. During periods of my life when I was without human companionship they were literally my only friends. That’s not said for sympathy. The life of a newspaper sportswriter in the 90s and early 2000s involved shitty hours and weekends, which pretty much negated any hopes of having a social life.

Through it all, my books were there for me. They demanded nothing but my time and gave me hours of entertainment.

I’m not particularly proud of my collection. There is very little literature to be found and only a handful of what one might refer to as great works. It mainly comprises sports books, rock star biographies, and a nearly complete set of Elmore Leonard novels.

Most of them are several decades old because I had to stop buying books at some point when I began to run out of room. I’m not linking to them because you can hopefully find an independent bookstore near you that would be thrilled for the business. Do them and humanity a favor.

Here are some of my favorites.

BASKETBALL

The Breaks of the Game: David Halberstam

This is the monster of all sports books, the one against which every basketball book is competing with in one way or another. If you know nothing of the NBA pre-LeBron James, this is where you should start. It’s a window into what feels like another universe, when pro basketball was a cult sport struggling for survival.

Loose Balls: Terry Pluto

I wrote about this one at length and won’t belabor the points I made back before the world came to a screeching halt. If you can’t get into the stories contained within these pages, I frankly don’t want to know you.

The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac: The FreeDarko collective

It’s an exaggeration to say every person who heard the first Velvet Underground album went out and formed a band, just as it is to suggest that every writer who consumed FreeDarko wound up writing about basketball on the internet. But almost everyone who did was influenced by them.

The Miracle of St. Anthony: Adrian Wojnarowski

Long before he was the great and powerful Woj, the author spent an entire season with Bob Hurley’s St. Anthony Friars. It’s a masterful bit of storytelling that for my money is the absolute best of the surprisingly robust sub-genre of books about high school basketball.

Other contenders include The Last Shot by Darcy Frey, Fall River Dreams by Bill Reynolds and In These Girls, Hope is a Muscle by Madeleine Blais.

The Jordan Rules: Sam Smith

Judging from the early reactions to the gigantic Bulls documentary, it’s quite clear a lot of you should get familiar with the source material. Smith’s book was shocking upon its release because it dared show Michael Jordan as he really was, without the buffed out Nike shine. It holds up, clearly.

Halbertsam’s Playing for Keeps picks up the story in 1998 and provided much of the narrative structure of the first two episodes.

Heaven is a Playground: Rick Telander

An all-time classic set on the courts of mid-1970s Harlem during a long, hot summer. There are a lot of books that tried to get at the soul of basketball, but this is the standard bearer. I’d really like to know whatever became of Sgt. Rock.

Others in this vein include The City Game by Pete Axthelm, Pacific Rims by Rafe Bartholomew and Big Game, Small World by Alexander Wolff.

Second Wind: Bill Russell

The best athlete autobiography of all time.

BASEBALL

Lords of the Realm: John Heylar

The inside story of how baseball owners conspired for almost a century to suppress salaries while refusing to integrate. It’s shocking how buffoonish management acted during the glory days of the national pastime. Required reading.

Marvin Miller’s A Whole New Ballgame is a worthy companion piece, as is Bill Veeck’s delightful, Veeck as in Wreck.

Ball Four: Jim Bouton

Scandalous upon its release in 1970, Ball Four contains the best line ever written in any sport book: “You see, you spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.”

I read Ball Four for the first time in fifth grade and immediately taught my classmates the words to “Proud to be an Astro”:

Now, Harry Walker is the one who manages this crew

He doesn’t like it when we drink and fight and smoke and screw

But when we win our game each day,

Then what the fuck can Harry say?

It makes a fellow proud to be an Astro

Seasons in Hell: Mike Shropshire

There is nothing more soul-crushing than spending an entire season with a bad team. Shropshire covers three hilariously inept campaigns with the Texas Rangers, who as then-manager Whitey Herzog noted: “Defensively, these guys are really sub-standard, but with our pitching it really doesn’t matter.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning: Jonathan Mahler

An underrated late addition to the pantheon that tells the story of the 1977 Yankees amid the backdrop of a city gone to hell.

You will notice there are few books in my collection about modern baseball. There’s a reason for that. The vast majority of them are peans to the wonders of middle management and therefore boring as hell.

FOOTBALL

Playing For Keeps: Chris Mortsensen

The incredibly bizarre — and largely forgotten — story of how the mob tried to gain influence in pro football via a pair of shady agents named Norby Walters and Lloyd Bloom. Good luck finding it.

Bringing the Heat: Mark Bowden

You may recognize Bowden from such masterworks as Black Hawk Down and Killing Pablo. You probably don’t remember that he spent a year with the Eagles after the death of Jerome Brown. As honest and unflinching a look at pro football as you will ever find.

North Dallas Forty: Peter Gent

The only piece of sports fiction on my list is not so fictional at all. Gent’s thinly-veiled account of his own life as a receiver for Tom Landry’s Cowboys is shocking and brutal and sad and poignant. I make time to read it every year.

I used to have more football books, back when I cared about the sport.

MEDIA

Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail: Hunter S. Thompson

The Vegas one is more popular and Hell’s Angels is a stronger work of reportage, but for a dose of pure Gonzo insanity, this is the book I come back to more often than not.

The Boys on the Bus: Timothy Crouse

The companion piece to Thompson’s lurid account, Crouse plays it straight and lays bare the bullshit facade of campaign reporting. Almost 50 years later, we have still learned nothing.

The Franchise: Michael McCambridge

Details the glory days of Sports Illustrated, reading it now feels like an obituary. It was fun once, this business of writing about sports.

MUSIC

Heads, a Biography of Psychedelic America: Jesse Jarnow

My favorite book of the last few years, Jarnow takes us on a bizarre trip through the byzantine world of psychedelic drug networks connecting it through the career of the Grateful Dead and into modern-day Silicon Valley. I’m waiting for the followup on Dealer McDope.

Not music, but as a companion piece, Nicholas Schou’s Orange Sunshine tells the even-crazier tale of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, who took over the LSD trade and invented hash smuggling by stuffing surfboards with primo Afghani hash and shipping them back to California.

The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones: Stanley Booth

Reported while on tour with the Stones at the height of their powers circa Let it Bleed, Booth took 15 years to write the damn thing. By then the Stones were already an anachronism. It’s all there, though. Sex, drugs, more drugs, and unbelievable access to the biggest rock ‘n roll band in the world.

This Wheel’s on Fire: Levon Helm with Stephen Davis

In which Brother Levon disembowels Robbie Robertson and exposes the lie at the heart of The Band. Robbie took the songwriting credit and all the money.

Satan is Real: Charlie Louvin

Astonishingly good read that is best consumed with Charlie and his brother Ira playing low in the background.

Mainlines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader

Lester is an acquired taste and not all of his ramblings hold up. I will always love him for despising Jim Morrison and completely nailing what made Black Sabbath important. Spoiler: They were moralists like William S. Burroughs.

Please Kill Me: Legs McNeil and Gillian Welch

The definitive oral history of punk rock, an essential document of a scene that launched a thousand mediocre bands and the Ramones, who ruled.

Shakey: Jimmy McDonough

A tour-de-force biography of Neil Young that loses steam toward the end when McDonough makes himself the subject. The stuff about Neil’s bizarre 80s period and his relationship with his son is heartbreaking.

Our Band Could Be Your Life: Michael Azerrad

Pretty much everything you need to know about bands like Mudhoney, Black Flag and Mission of Burma who wove together the musical underground through a patchwork collection of local scenes back when something like that was still possible.

ELMORE LEONARD

You can’t go wrong with anything Leonard writes, but Out of Sight is as good a place to start as any.

[airoasis]

The nightmare videos of childrens' YouTube ? and what's wrong with the internet today | James Bridle

New Post has been published on https://hititem.kr/the-nightmare-videos-of-childrens-youtube-and-whats-wrong-with-the-internet-today-james-bridle-4/

The nightmare videos of childrens' YouTube ? and what's wrong with the internet today | James Bridle

I’m James. I’m a author and artist, and i make work about technology. I do things like draw life-dimension outlines of navy drones in city streets all over the world, so that individuals can start to feel and get their heads round these fairly really hard-to-see and difficult-to-believe-about technologies. I make matters like neural networks that predict the outcome of elections centered on climate reports, on the grounds that i am intrigued about what the precise prospects of those bizarre new applied sciences are.Last 12 months, I built my possess self-using auto. But for the reason that i don’t really trust technological know-how, I also designed a entice for it. (Laughter) and that i do these matters almost always when you consider that I to find them entirely fascinating, but also for the reason that I feel once we speak about science, we’re mostly speakme about ourselves and the best way that we have an understanding of the arena. So this is a narrative about science. This is a "shock egg" video. It can be sincerely a video of any individual opening up lots of chocolate eggs and displaying the toys inside to the viewer. That’s it. That’s all it does for seven long minutes. And i need you to realize two things about this. To start with, this video has 30 million views. (Laughter) And the other thing is, it comes from a channel that has 6.Three million subscribers, that has a complete of eight billion views, and it can be all just more movies like this — 30 million folks looking at a guy opening up these eggs.It sounds lovely bizarre, however if you happen to seek for "shock eggs" on YouTube, it should let you know there is 10 million of those movies, and that i consider that’s an undercount. I believe there is manner, far more of these. In the event you keep searching, they are endless. There’s thousands and hundreds of thousands of these movies in more and more baroque mixtures of manufacturers and substances, and there is increasingly of them being uploaded day by day. Like, it is a strange world. Right? But the thing is, it is no longer adults who are watching these movies. It is youngsters, babies. These videos are like crack for little kids. There is anything in regards to the repetition, the steady little dopamine hit of the expose, that entirely hooks them in. And little kids watch these videos over and over and over again, they usually do it for hours and hours and hours. And in case you try and take the display far from them, they are going to scream and scream and scream. In case you do not think me — and i’ve already obvious folks in the viewers nodding — when you don’t suppose me, find any person with young children and ask them, and they will be aware of in regards to the surprise egg movies. So this is where we start.It can be 2018, and anyone, or lots of individuals, are utilising the same mechanism that, like, facebook and Instagram are making use of to get you to keep checking that app, and they’re utilizing it on YouTube to hack the brains of very young children in return for advertising income. At the least, i am hoping that’s what they’re doing. I hope that is what they’re doing it for, because there’s less complicated ways of making ad earnings on YouTube. That you would be able to just make stuff up or steal stuff. So if you happen to seek for rather popular children’ cartoons like "Peppa Pig" or "Paw Patrol," you’ll be able to in finding there is hundreds of thousands and thousands of these online as good. Of direction, most of them don’t seem to be posted by the usual content creators. They arrive from loads and loads of extraordinary random debts, and it can be not possible to understand who’s posting them or what their reasons probably.Does that sound type of acquainted? For the reason that it can be exactly the identical mechanism that is taking place throughout most of our digital services, where it’s unattainable to know where this know-how is coming from. It’s in actual fact fake news for youngsters, and we’re training them from delivery to click on the very first link that comes along, regardless of what the supply is. That is does not appear like a very just right idea. Here is one more factor that is fairly huge on children’ YouTube. That is called the "Finger loved ones song." I simply heard anybody groan within the viewers. This is the "Finger loved ones tune." that is the very first one I might in finding.It can be from 2007, and it only has 200,000 views, which is, like, nothing on this recreation. However it has this insanely earwormy tune, which i’m not going to play to you, due to the fact it will sear itself into your mind within the equal way that it seared itself into mine, and i am now not going to try this to you. However like the surprise eggs, it is got inside of kids’ heads and addicted them to it. So inside a number of years, these finger loved ones movies begin showing far and wide, and also you get versions in distinctive languages with trendy youngsters’ cartoons utilising food or, frankly, utilizing some thing variety of animation factors you appear to have lying around. And once once more, there are thousands and hundreds of thousands and hundreds of thousands of those videos on hand on-line in all of those variety of insane combinations. And the extra time you start to spend with them, the crazier and crazier you to think that you just possibly. And that is where I form of launched into this, that feeling of deep strangeness and deep lack of information of how this thing used to be built that seems to be awarded around me.In view that it’s impossible to understand where these matters are coming from. Like, who is making them? A few of them appear to be made of groups of legit animators. A few of them are just randomly assembled via software. Some of them are quite wholesome-looking younger youngsters’ entertainers. And a few of them are from folks who particularly naturally shouldn’t be round kids in any respect. (Laughter) And once once more, this impossibility of finding out who’s making this stuff — like, it is a bot? Is this a character? Is that this a troll? What does it imply that we cannot tell the change between these things anymore? And once more, would not that uncertainty think form of familiar right now? So the principal approach humans get views on their videos — and consider, views mean money — is that they stuff the titles of these videos with these popular terms.So you are taking, like, "surprise eggs" and then you add "Paw Patrol," "Easter egg," or whatever these things are, all of these phrases from other popular movies into your title, until you become with this kind of meaningless mash of language that doesn’t make experience to humans in any respect. Considering the fact that of course it is simplest quite tiny children who are gazing your video, and what the hell do they recognize? Your actual audience for these things is application. It’s the algorithms. It is the application that YouTube makes use of to decide upon which videos are like different movies, to make them fashionable, to make them encouraged.And that’s why you emerge as with this form of fully meaningless mash, both of title and of content material. However the thing is, you must remember, there really are still individuals within this algorithmically optimized system, men and women who’re kind of more and more forced to behave out these increasingly bizarre combos of words, like a desperate improvisation artist responding to the combined screams of 1,000,000 children at once. There are actual individuals trapped within these methods, and that is the opposite deeply unusual factor about this algorithmically pushed culture, on account that despite the fact that you’re human, you have got to turn out to be behaving like a computing device simply to outlive. And also, on the opposite part of the reveal, there nonetheless are these sons and daughters gazing these items, stuck, their full awareness grabbed with the aid of these weird mechanisms.And most of these kids are too small to even use a website. They may be simply type of hammering on the screen with their little arms. And so there’s autoplay, where it simply keeps enjoying these videos over and over and over in a loop, without end for hours and hours at a time. And there is a lot weirdness within the process now that autoplay takes you to some pretty strange locations. That is how, within a dozen steps, that you could go from a lovely video of a counting educate to masturbating Mickey Mouse. Yeah. I’m sorry about that. This does worsen. This is what happens when all of these extraordinary keywords, all these different pieces of awareness, this determined new release of content material, all comes together into a single position. This is where all those deeply weird keyword phrases come house to roost. You cross-breed the finger household video with some reside-motion superhero stuff, you add in some weird, trollish in-jokes or whatever, and all of a sudden, you come to an awfully bizarre position certainly. The stuff that tends to upset mum and dad is the stuff that has variety of violent or sexual content material, correct? Kid’s cartoons getting assaulted, getting killed, bizarre pranks that sincerely clearly terrify kids.What you’ve gotten is program pulling in all of those unique influences to routinely generate youngsters’ worst nightmares. And this stuff particularly, rather does affect small children. Mothers and fathers report their kids being traumatized, fitting afraid of the darkish, becoming frightened of their favorite cool animated film characters. If you take one factor far from this, it can be that when you’ve got young children, preserve them the hell away from YouTube. (Applause) but the other thing, the object that particularly will get to me about this, is that i’m now not definite we even really understand how we received to this point.We now have taken all of this impact, all of those things, and munged them together in a way that nobody quite intended. And yet, this is also the way that we’re building the whole world. We’re taking all of this information, quite a lot of it unhealthy data, plenty of old data filled with prejudice, filled with all of our worst impulses of history, and we’re constructing that into colossal information units and then we’re automating it. And we’re munging it together into things like credit reports, into coverage premiums, into things like predictive policing techniques, into sentencing recommendations. This is the way in which we’re sincerely establishing the sector today out of this information. And that i have no idea what’s worse, that we developed a system that seems to be fully optimized for absolutely the worst features of human conduct, or that we appear to have achieved it by chance, without even realizing that we have been doing it, on the grounds that we didn’t particularly fully grasp the programs that we had been building, and we did not fairly realise find out how to do something otherwise with it.There’s a couple of matters I think that relatively appear to be riding this most entirely on YouTube, and the first of these is advertising, which is the monetization of attention without any actual other variables at work, any deal with the individuals who’re simply establishing this content material, the centralization of the power, the separation of these things. And that i suppose nevertheless you feel about the use of advertising to kind of aid stuff, the sight of grown guys in diapers rolling around in the sand in the hope that an algorithm that they don’t really realise will provide them cash for it means that this mainly isn’t the article that we must be basing our society and tradition upon, and the way where we will have to be funding it. And the opposite thing that is sort of the important driver of this is automation, which is the deployment of all of this science as quickly because it arrives, without any sort of oversight, after which as soon as it can be available in the market, type of throwing up our palms and going, "hello, it is now not us, it is the technology." Like, "We’re now not worried in it." that’s no longer fairly excellent sufficient, on the grounds that this stuff is not only algorithmically ruled, it’s also algorithmically policed.When YouTube first started to pay attention to this, the very first thing they said they’d do about it was that they’d set up better computing device studying algorithms to average the content material. Well, desktop studying, as any knowledgeable in it’s going to inform you, is basically what now we have started to name software that we don’t rather understand how it works. And that i believe we now have enough of that already. We is just not leaving these things up to AI to decide what’s appropriate or not, considering the fact that we know what happens. It should begin censoring other matters. It would begin censoring queer content material. It should censoring legit public speech. What’s allowed in these discourses, it is just not anything that is left as much as unaccountable techniques. It is a part of a discussion all and sundry must be having. But i’d depart a reminder that the substitute isn’t very high-quality, both. YouTube additionally introduced just lately that they’re going to release a version of their kids’ app that will be entirely moderated by using people.Fb — Zuckerberg stated a lot the identical factor at Congress, when pressed about how they have been going to average their stuff. He stated they’d have people doing it. And what that really approach is, as an alternative of having little toddlers being the first man or woman to peer these things, you are going to have underpaid, precarious contract staff with out proper mental wellbeing help being broken by means of it as well. (Laughter) and that i feel we can all do relatively much better than that. (Applause) The inspiration, I feel, that brings those two things collectively, fairly, for me, is company. It is like, how so much can we really recognize — with the aid of company, I mean: how we know how to behave in our possess satisfactory pursuits. Which — it is virtually impossible to do in these programs that we don’t rather thoroughly appreciate.Inequality of power continuously leads to violence. And we can see inside of these systems that inequality of understanding does the equal factor. If there is one thing that we are able to do to to strengthen these systems, it can be to make them more legible to the folks who use them, so that every one of us have a long-established working out of what’s clearly happening right here. The article, although, I feel most about these systems is that this isn’t, as i hope I’ve defined, quite about YouTube. It’s about the whole lot. These disorders of accountability and company, of opacity and complexity, of the violence and exploitation that inherently results from the concentration of power in a couple of palms — these are so much, so much larger disorders. And they’re problems no longer just of YouTube and no longer simply of technology in most cases, they usually’re now not even new. They’ve been with us for a while. However we finally constructed this approach, this global method, the internet, that is truely showing them to us on this exclusive method, making them undeniable. Technological know-how has this individual capability to both instantiate and proceed all of our most amazing, most commonly hidden wants and biases and encoding them into the sector, nevertheless it additionally writes them down in order that we are able to see them, so that we are not able to pretend they don’t exist anymore.We have to stop desirous about technological know-how as a solution to all of our issues, however think of it as a guide to what these problems virtually are, so that they can begin enthusiastic about them thoroughly and to address them. Thanks very much. (Applause) thank you. (Applause) Helen Walters: James, thank you for coming and giving us that talk. So it’s exciting: while you feel in regards to the movies the place the robotic overlords take over, it is all somewhat more glamorous than what you’re describing. However i’m wondering — in these movies, you’ve gotten the resistance mounting. Is there a resistance mounting in the direction of these things? Do you see any constructive signs, inexperienced shoots of resistance? James Bridle: I do not know about direct resistance, considering I think this stuff is tremendous long-time period. I suppose it is baked into culture in rather deep ways. A friend of mine, Eleanor Saitta, always says that any technological problems of sufficient scale and scope are political issues to begin with. So all of those matters we’re working to deal with within this aren’t going to be addressed just with the aid of building the technological know-how better, however surely with the aid of changing the society that is producing these technologies.So no, correct now, I feel we now have received a hell of a long solution to go. However as I mentioned, I suppose with the aid of unpacking them, with the aid of explaining them, by speakme about them super actually, we will truly start to at the least begin that system. HW: And so when you talk about legibility and digital literacy, I to find it tricky to imagine that we ought to place the burden of digital literacy on customers themselves. But whose accountability is education on this new world? JB: again, I feel this responsibility is variety of up to each person, that the whole thing we do, the whole lot we construct, the whole lot we make, needs to be made in a consensual dialogue with every body who’s warding off it; that we’re now not constructing programs meant to trick and surprise persons into doing the proper thing, but that they are absolutely concerned in each step in instructing them, given that every of those programs is academic.That is what i’m hopeful about, about even this fairly grim stuff, that if you can take it and look at it adequately, it can be genuinely in itself a section of schooling that allows for you to start seeing how problematic programs come together and work and perhaps be capable to use that skills elsewhere in the world. HW: James, it’s such an main discussion, and i know many humans listed below are really open and prepared to have it, so thanks for establishing off our morning. JB: Thanks very a lot. Cheers. (Applause) .