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stablersolivia · 5 months ago

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Mariska Hargitay and Melissa McBride's Six Degrees of Separation

I'm going insane how similar, yet so different their career trajectories have been.... I wish they knew each other in real life! If you are fans of both too, then tell me if you realized all of this?!

They could have some interesting conversations!

I've been thinking about this a lot because I love both actresses and I love researching careers when I really get into a show. What else does one do once they're done bingeing said show(s)?

I'm going to try my hardest to remember everything and highlight the similarities I've seen since finishing TWD back in November. I'd like to think I'm pretty proficient in MH/SVU history, but I'm super new to MMB so I'll be trying my hardest to stay on point during this because I'm super excited by what I've learned in such a short time.

With that being said, let's get into this.

Let's just begin by saying ... Mariska is a nepo baby... Let's get that out of the way. MH was born into Hollywood: her late mother was 50s bombshell Jayne Mansfield, her father, Hungarian body builder, Mickey Hargitay. Plus, she's been a Cali/NYC girl her whole life. She's had advantages and disadvantages, but it doesn't take away from the good she's done with her platform over the years and the awards she's won for being a talented actress and humanitarian. Lord knows she's not perfect though — she's human and we respect it.

From what I've learned about MMB in such a short amount of time, her story until this point has been almost the complete opposite. She was born in Kentucky, her parents pretty normal (aside from the fact her mother studied as an actor as well at the Pasadena playhouse --- Cali similarity lol) and has lived most of her life in Georgia while working mainly out of Atlanta with a few exceptions over the years. Oh, and she's considered an actress who is way better than the genre she's known for (back-to-back Saturn Award winner and the most nominated actress ever??) --- and apparently an even better person ---with an even lower profile. We respect it.

Presently, the most obvious similarity they have.... is that they are both currently beloved actresses who have been on long running shows for 15 years, and 25+ years. They're both around the same age (MH-1964, MMB- 1965). MMB is currently on a spinoff, and MH stars on the first Law and Order spinoff. Both with executive producer titles. We love to see it.

But they both had to start somewhere. While MH started her career a little earlier (early to mid 1980s), MMB started hers in the early 90s in some of the same shows as MH — and worked with many of the same actors.

First, growing up, I watched a lot of the "In the Heat of the Night" (because it was one of my parent's favorite shows while it was on, and still even now in reruns) and I was shocked, in a good way, when I saw a young Mariska appear in a 1988 episode during a rerun one random day. And guess what? Who appeared in the same show approximately 6 years later in 1994? Yes, that's right— Melissa McBride.

Again, this happens with similar characters they've played. Around 97-98, they played characters in the medical field. Melissa played a doctor who was caring for a young Haley Joel Osment on "Walker Texas Ranger" for a couple of episodes. In another medical universe, Mariska had a stint as a medical receptionist on ER! Cynthia Hooper anyone?? (I believe the story is that this arc on ER, was what got her on Dick Wolf's radar, — more on this later.)

Mariska played in a television series called "Cracker" in which Sarah Paulson also appeared. Melissa also appeared in a show called "American Gothic" in 1995 that also starred... you guessed it, Sarah Paulson ("Somebody's at the door, somebody's at the door," lol). Oh, and Sarah later appeared on an SVU episode in like 2010, as well.

Melissa also played Gary Cole's mistress in her "American Gothic" appearance and Gary Cole has been on at least a couple of SVU episodes over the years, including that scrapped SVU political episode from 2016ish. You do the math.

They both did a lot of low-key roles in Lifetime Movies, or made for television movies in the 1990s. Mariska did The Advocate's Devil and Night Sins, while Melissa did Close to Danger and Her Deadly rival and then some.

But one television film Melissa McBride did was "Pirates of Silicon Valley" where she played a super small part as... Noah Wyle's girlfriend when he was still also was a main character on ER. This came out about a year after Mariska's stint on ER. Small world. Hee hee.

Also, Melissa was a part of a television miniseries on CBS called "A Season in Purgatory," around 1996 with actors Brian Dennehy, Patrick Dempsey and Sherilyn Fenn who Mariska has also worked with (Brian Dennehy on a Season 7 or 8 ep of SVU, Sherilynn was also on SVU, and Patrick on a movie called Bank Robber a few years prior, in 1993).

Again, it's not uncommon for actors to work with the same actors. But it's just interesting how there are a lot of common denominators. And we haven't even gotten to THE main common denominator yet— Norman.

He was on a Season 7 episode of SVU as a rock star who was telling his fans to not take their meds or something. All I remember is him on the stand in the courtroom while Benson and Stabler were presumably sitting way too close as spectators. It's been a while since I've seen the episode. But that was back in 2006, about 4 years before The Walking Dead.

Lauren Cohan and Emily Kinney were on SVU in the 2.0 era as well while TWD flagship was still on.

While we're talking about law and order, let's talk about the fact that while Melissa took a minor break from acting --- she was still taking small parts in films/television and short films in the 2000s while working as a casting director. She was in the movie "The Dangerous Lives of the Altar Boys" which starred Jodie Foster, whom Mariska is very good friends with (Jodie even attended MH's wedding in 2004— two years after that movie came out).

Melissa was all about the law where she also played a detective/cop with a similar hairdo as Season 2 Benson in a short film called "Nailed!".

So, going back to Mariska drawing DW's attention because of her performance in ER, I have to give props to Melissa for her minor role in The Mist in 2007. The director on that movie (and apparently everyone on set) was so impressed by her few minutes in that movie that they invited her back to film extra scenes and — put her on the radar of the powers that be on a little show called The Walking Dead. Frank Darabont — I believe — remembered her and offered her a role in the show and the rest is history. Pure. Talent.

OH, and now that we're on The Mist.... um, so Melissa shared a pretty important scene with the late Andre Braugher.... who may or may not have had a little love triangle with Mariska's Olivia Benson on SVU during Season 13/14 as Bayard Ellis. Who else was in that movie? Marcia Gay Harden-- aka Star, aka, Dana Lewis who appeared in multiple SVU episodes. Bring her back!

Not to mention that Laurie Holden and Jeffrey Demunn were also in The Mist and later starred in The Walking Dead along with Melissa. Yes, Demunn was in Night Sins and Law and Order SVU, too. LOL. He was also on ER and Cracker, but at different times.

I'm trying to find a stopping point for this, but the coincidences keep coming. This one is less about a career similarity but about a video where Melissa discusses the dialogue about her "strong right foot". Melissa mentioned having surgery on her foot a few years prior in a video from about 2020, maybe?. But, who else just had surgery on her foot/ankle because she fell in the street after a screening about 3/4 years ago? lol... yep.

Oh... can we talk about how Mariska has kept saying Elliot and Olivia's relationship is "earned" because of their history and the bond between her and Chris and their "trust" in each other? She's said this exponential times since Chris came back 4 years ago. Well.... now Norman Reedus is saying the same about Caryl and Daryl's relationship and how it is "earned" with their history and deep bond on and off screen. I can't make this stuff up.

I've gotten the vibe that MH/NR and MMB/CM have the same vibes when talking and describing things show/related. It's pretty fascinating to watch and listen to and read.

But anyway, I think I'm about done. There is probably more. I have kept thinking to myself, "Man, this seems familiar" when reading interviews and whatnot.

And we can definitely include these two having the cutest besties who take the best selfies with them.

Please read image descriptions :)

Chriska.EO.McReedus.Caryl. Whatever. Whenever. I need more.

It's super fixation season, so let's wrap this up.

If any other EO/Carylers out there can think of anything else, please comment! It's been fun summarizing all of this.

I want an "Actors on Actors" ep with Melissa and Mariska... or Chris and Norman ...or Chriska and McReedus all together. I just want them to know each other and talk about stuff. Not picky.

~~~Bonus~~~

They can't get away from their partners in crime. lol

~~Additional Info~~

It has also come to my attention that there is also another actor they've both worked with. Harry Connick Jr. (Who hasn't he worked with lol). But Melissa acted in the 2008 LMN film "Living Proof" with HCJ and a few years later, he played Mariska's love interest, David Haden, for 4 eps on S13 of SVU.

Angie Harmon (who was in the original L&O and the temp SVU ada), Swoosie Kurtz, Tammy Blanchard, Bernadette Peters, and Amy Madigan are also in that movie and have all been on SVU.

Guess it's time to have Melissa on SVU or Organized Crime. Let's.Make.This.Happen.

👏👏👏

More additional info:

Xander Berkeley.... Chris Meloni and Mariska are good friends with him ( Mariska going back to the 1990's ) and Xander was on The Walking Dead at Hilltop.

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cupcakewebkinz · 3 months ago

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IM EATING THESE HEADCANONS UPPPPP 🔥🔥🔥 oml i can't describe my excitement they are so incredibly cute im just sitting here gigglin at 3am reading all that fluffy content-

PLEASEEE share as much as that silly brain of yours creates they honestly make my day (and i bet a lot of other people's days) so much better 😔🙏

Anywyas so do you think Vee and Shelly had to hide their relationship while they were still working at Gardenview? (y'know since it was the late 80's and anything queer was very taboo)

I just imagine them having to accept themselves first before either one could make a move to the other (Their handlers absolutely helped with that)

I'M SO HAPPY TO HEAR THAT OH MY GOOOOOOOOD!!!! THANK YOU!!!! I AM SO HAPPY I MAKE SO MANY PEOPLE SO HAPPY FHGHGHFHG (Seriously though I genuinely love seeing people smile so I greatly love and appreciate all of the love and support I've been getting lately, I'm absolutely grateful I can make so many of y'all smile and squeal and be happy ♡)

And uh, yeah absolutely, they would probably hide it from most of Gardenview staff and ALL of the guests but I feel like Veronica and Shanon (their handlers) would absolutely know about it from day 1 and do their best to help them hide it (and make time for them to bond together) and yk, help the two get through everything. I see them also lying about Vee's gender sometimes to avoid getting them in trouble (especially since Vee tends to wear suits instead of dresses) if they're gay on accident in front of people. I feel like the times when they do get to hold each other are when the whole center is shut down, which is when Vee gets her dose of scritches and dinosaur rambles to keep her sane through the week. Shelly thrives off the little secret notes Vee leaves for her so they mostly focus on making sure Vee stays sane when they're hiding. After Gardenview closes for good tho, they're pretty open about it, because let's be honest those toons are anything BUT straight XD

It would absolutely be weird for them while it's running though, but they'll figure it out, even if they do have to lie a bit here and there to keep each other out of trouble. I don't think they'd have much more of a struggle coming to terms with them being different than Vee did when realizing she had feelings for Shelly in the first place - that was a struggle and a half. Their handlers could always tell that Vee had a great interest in knowing Shelly but Vee refused to accept her own feelings for a long while (the whole "robots can't feel emotions" speech really got to her) while Shelly just kinda was like "oh... I'm just different, okay! That's cool!" and never thought about it since as that silly fossil has 0 mean bones in her body and probably would've thought queer people were cool regardless of the time period.

Now if you were wondering why they're openly lesbians in my au - that's because it takes place in the mid-late 2010s, the time era when lgbtq was more accepted than rejected. I felt like it would be a good not-too-modern-yet-modern-enough time frame ya know? Especially since the last time it was open was in 2004, so I figured roughly 10 years later would be a great point. God that made me feel old... I was so little in 2004...

ANYWHO. I hope you continue to be able to enjoy my content non! Much love and snugs for you!!! /platonic

#kai rambles #kai answers #a lot of rambles #anon ask #please send more I love replying to people!!#I didn't even really think about that until it was brought up either ngl #I honestly forgot it wasn't a very modern time era (I blame Vee for that) XD #honestly good to think about though #anywho I should get back to editing thank you non!!#y'all can ask stuff off anon too I don't bite #I'm a friendly lil blob I promise!#shellevision #shellvision #dandys world

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germesthegenie · 4 months ago

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Been seeing a lot of worm oc posts on the dash lately and that reminded me of a post idea I’ve had on the backburner for a while, so might as well test the waters.

House: The Worm OC I Made Before Reading Worm*

Part 0 of “The Campaign That Got Me Into Worm” (if I make this a series)

*Well, more like “made after 3 chapters into Worm that I read like a month prior to session 0”

Gonna write out more or less her backstory up to before Session 1 of the campaign, which was made through the Weaverdice-inspired method of “random trigger, everyone but the player picks the power, player fleshes it out”. Also gonna put “post-Worm/Mid-Ward” commentary in colored text like this.

2007 - Trigger Event

Gamantha Sparkson (yes I know kinda campy name but didn’t know the tone yet) was born to a middle class family who suddenly came into a lot of money after winning a lottery. Life was good for a time after that, but it didn’t last. Her dad got into gambling, spending more than most of the family knew. When the issues started to come to light and the rest of the family realized some of the debt being accumulated, they decided to hide it from Gamantha, “not trouble the youngest” while they thought they could fix things.

They could not. And to Gamantha, everything collapsed almost instantly. Her parents were arguing, she and her sister were dropping out of school, stuff was being sold to try and pay off loans, and now there was talks of an eviction-

It was too much, and in the midst of everything, 14 year old Gamantha packed what little she had and ran away from home. It was, in her mind, the only way to hold onto anything of her own.

Gammie triggered with both a Tinker and a Thinker power. The former was geared towards Surveillance, specializing in making things like camera drones or X-ray goggles. The latter, a more minor power, helped in assessing risk. She could roughly identify the level of risk in her performing certain actions, sometimes able to identify risks from unknown factors but getting more accurate with more information. She’s no Dinah Alcott, but with her Tinker power it is decently potent for strategizing. If I recall, the overall rating the GM gave was Tinker/Thinker 5.

Yeah the Tinker aspect at least is basically Kenzie’s power, probably because both the party and the GM (who only read Worm) were unaware she existed. There are some differences in how they worked, since while Gamantha can’t make stuff like Kenzie’s time camera, she was able to make more from less materials, not needing large boxes and being able to build drones from stuff like disposable cameras.

2008 - The Wards

Gammie eventually found herself in Boston, where she came up with the brilliant idea of robbing one bank and using the money to her life back in order. I mean, it’s not a good plan, but she was 15 and kinda desperate at that point. She staked it out for months, learned how to get through the back entrance, and had cameras in place to help her get past security. The plan was decently working, until a group of villains attacked up front, drawing heroes to the scene who spotted her and arrested her, assuming she was an accomplice.

This led to Gammie being recruited as a probationary member into the Boston Wards, under the cape name Circumspect. She grew close to one of the other Wards there, Harpy, and also befriended some others like Weld and Flechette, who transferred to Boston in this timeline for whatever reason (The GM forgot she was a New York Ward while helping build the backstory).

Life as a hero was good, for a time, but it didn’t last.

2010 - The Breaking Point

Circumspect had managed to sneak a drone into Blasto’s hideout, and was keeping tabs on it. When he and Rotten Apple went out for a date night, Harpy thought it’d be a good opportunity to get some intel on the villains. So they went on an unsanctioned mission, Circumspect keeping an eye on things with the cameras while Harpy took some data off Blasto’s computer.

What they didn’t account for was Blasto had left a guard, one of his creations that was particularly good at hiding, ambushing prey to capture. And what Blasto didn’t account for was a slight deviation in the creature’s mind that changed ‘capture’ to ‘kill’. It got the drop on the girl, and from where she was stationed all Gammie could do was watch her best friend (perhaps a bit more) get killed, utterly helpless to do anything.

The GM actually gave me a list of the major villains in Boston to be the killers in this incident. And while the Butcher and Accord do make more sense in hindsight, it does work in a way that it’s Blastgerm. Getting killed by the former two is “yeah what’d you expect”, but the latter, especially with the setup, makes it a bit more unexpected even on the villain’s part. Also giving a reason for Gammie to not like biotinkers works better for interactions with a certain someone in the campaign.

After that, things were a bit of a blur. The Boston PRT and Protectorate responded, but Blasto managed to evade capture. Circumspect turned 18, and the higher ups decided to let her take some time to process things, before she would choose whether or not to join the Protectorate.

But at that point, Gammie was done. She wanted out of the cape life. The incident with Harpy had shown how deadly it was, how she or the people she cared about could die at any moment. And her mind and her power told her the safest option would be to go back to her original plan: Get a lot of money and disappear.

2011 - Brockton Bay

Gammie moved to Brockton Bay, mostly because the rent was cheap, and she started up her operations. Drones hidden away in different parts of the city, keeping track of a decent amount of the patrols and gang activity, getting a lay of the land. She’d pick out a target, make a clean heist, and get away from it all. A clean slate.

At least, that was the plan. Until one day, she found a letter in her pocket. Whoever wrote it knew a lot about her, and her history. Inside was 500 dollars and a promise of more if they met at a certain warehouse at a certain time and date.

She checked back on her cameras, and at no point could she see where or when someone could’ve slipped the letter into her pocket. So, in all likelihood, a Stranger power, one that could fool her cameras. An unknown variable, something she can’t just ignore.

Taking a risk, she decided to go to the meeting, using the codename “House”. From a meta standpoint, a jokey reference to her eviction-based trigger event. But also a play on the phrase “the house always wins”. Little did I know at the time how true but also wrong that would end up being…

…And that’s what everything leading up to Session 1! Most of this was stuff fleshed out as the campaign went along, hence why it does seem a bit dense for a player character backstory. I really enjoyed writing and playing House, like enough that I actually have a 20k word doc of essentially Interludes of her perspective during or between sessions. Is she the best Worm OC? No, I could probably come up with something better now, more fitting to Parahumans at least. But that’s kinda just by the nature of how we did the campaign.

Everyone but the GM hadn’t read Worm before the campaign, and while we could read as it went along we were restricted to sections at a time depending on how things played out in the campaign (which was essentially an alt timeline of canon). So House’s story played out at the same pace I was reading Worm, and being able to compare and contrast how events played out was part of the fun of the early parts of Worm for me. A lot of early side/background characters stood out to me because they played a bigger role in the campaign, and as you can see from my account that has definitely played a role in the types of characters I like posting about. So kinda want to start sharing about this big part of how I got into the fandom.

#wormblr #worm oc #worm ttrpg #the campaign that got me into worm #does this qualify as wormfic? maybe the rest of it will #we interrupt your regularly scheduled chicago wards post with massive text wall jumpscare

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popculturebuffet · 9 days ago

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Pride Month 2025 Finale: Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles: The Fights that Need Fighting

Hello all you happy people and welcome to my grand finale for pride month this year. I haven't covered as much as I wanted to but i'm proud of what i've covered: DC's First Trans superhero Coagula, the excellent and revlatory I Saw the TV Glow and as my final act, we're looking at a concept that's insane, creative and should not have worked, let alone easily been the best comic of it's line.

Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles was part of DC Comics Hanna Barbera Beyond line, a late 2010's line using the fabled animtion studio's characters in new exciting radical ways. Scooby and the rest of mystery inc became adults dealing with the end of the world.. an end Velma had a hand in without realizing what her brothers were planning, the Jetsons became a climate change parable, and the Fred.. well i'll let him tell it

These comics easily could've fell into

Territory, the kind of edgy bullshit that takes an innocent property and tries to make it dark and bloody for the sake of money. This did happen in the line with Wacky Raceland, which somehow wasted the dope surefire concept of "Wacky Races but it's mad max" by taking itself way too fucking seriously. The recent attempt by dynamite is also not great. Just let it be nonsense guys, come on. You can add mythology and depth but remember what your working with.

Instead these themes were handled well: Scooby Apocalypse didn't forget the camp, while still focusing on powerful men making decisions for the little people without their consent and having intresting takes on the cast. Future Quest was an okay attempt to create a shared superhero universe. Jetsons had some really wild swings that paid off.

The best of these by far were the works by Mark Russel, who wrote today's comic and the Flintstones, easily the biggest breakout of the bunch and the one that still holds up the most. Out of context and in lazier hands, Fred and Barney participating in the genocide would be edgelord nonsense. Instead it takes the idea of society itself, the empowering of the rich and everything and uses it for clever satire, as the society in this version of the flintstones is still forming. We see some ideas sink in, how our heroes are adapting from hunting gathering to the horrifying captalist hellscape we live in. It's changes are purposeful: the genocide makes a point about how some wars, ESPECAILLY a lot of the US's military intervention, are done for money or to make a quick enemy for the more powerful, the stress vetrans go through, and gives bam bam a powerful and heartrending origin. They also took the Great Gazoo from weird punchline of a character to a space game warden who looks out for us. They also took the "animals as objects" thing and made it a heartbreaking subplot. Russel took a huge gamble, something that could easily have been a punchline and ot many out of context was.. and made it a masterpiece.

So it's weird and wonderful he pulled it off TWICE. For his encore, and sadly last gasp with the Hannah Barbera characters as HB Beyond would end soon after. (Though DC was smart enough to keep him around), he went with an evern bigger ask. Flintstones but as a dramedy.. was a reach, but one that was bold and within the specs of the adult tone of the earlier franchise. What he had in mind next... was truly bonkers in the conkers and I love it.

So Exit Stage Left is an exploration of the red scare, timely in 2018 mid trump and even more timely once again mid trump as he actively hunts queer people for sport and plans a war for the reasons you'd expect

It does so.. using Snagglepuss as a thinly closeted playwright , Huckleberry hound as his miserable closeted novelist best friend, Peter Potumus as his director, and many more we'll get to in supporting roles, as he deals with HUAC's attempts to destroy him. And while there are some jokes here and there, it's primarily a tragedy. With a hopeful ending, but still a very sad, soulful work. And.. it works. Similar to bojack horseman it uses the animals alongside humans and as actors trope masterfully. IT dosen't have as much time for worldbuilding, but it still manages to be engaging, flesh out it's cast and be moving, relevant and heartbreaking all in 6 issues. It's a work that's high concept in a way I hope gets done more and I hope Dynamite considers. While I do love their comics for Space Ghost and Captain Planet, both taking the idea and modernizing it without going too edgelord, I wouldn't mind more weird, wonderful experiments like this and i'll show you why under the cut. Featuring Sasquatch Detective:

I Wasn't Kidding About Sasquatch Detective

So before we adresss the main feature when the comic ran it had a delightful backup feature, you can guess the name. Sasquatch Detective is a fun breezy backup about Tonya, the titular detective, her surly but supportive partner, and her hyjinks. It got a reprint as a 64 page special complete with a feature story I won't cover for now but seems to have just vanished into the either after. Creator Brandee Stillwell advertises it on her socials, as she should, having written and drawn it all but it seems DC just didn't want more than this. It seemed like they were gearing up for a full mini with the special and leaving the backups out of the snagglepuss trade, but it just didn't happen. There's a lot of reasons why this might be: Stillwell might of just left the company, COVID might of meant DC simply didn't have the budget for it, or the George Floyd protests made the idea of a polcie procedural with a light breezy tone impossible. It's shame as the work was just before the big quirky detective boom we've had with Poker Face, Elsbeth and High Potetial, all bangers and all telling me James Gunn should seriously consider adding Tanya to the DCU as soon as possible. The man loves weird obscure characters, let him know she exists.

The backups have Tonya, perky as ever and her more dour very tired partner Berzek solve arious mysteries, with Tonya opening the series getting added to the force then a year later disgusing herself in her best pretty woman. Tonya is a wide eyed kind sasquatch who works hard, is an ace at what she does and is simply at worst awkward in a world of human stuff that isn't sized for a sasquatch. Brotoman's faviorite installment, and mine has a lady they came to interview calling animal control.. forcing Tanya to deal with Gary

And you may be thinking my asking for the DCU is weird. I mean this is the kind of goofy premise that would've been perfect for an actual Hannah Barbera cartoon..and still would be. Well ate the end of the gary debacle, after he's tased and arrested for shooting Tanya with a tranq for his incel racisim.. this happens

So while this work could easily be standalone if James Gunn dosen't want it to be, it could at the very least be a fun cartoon and a nice side piece to canon dealing with the weirder corners of the DCU. I also want to see her in the main dc universe again. I mean the justice league just took on an EVERYONE IS HERE mentality, give Tanya a card. Let her team up with the creeper in a buddy comedy. WE need more creeper two dammit. Though props to dan slott for possibly giving us more.

I highly recommend checking these out if you can find the special online or want to snag a copy or something. Or your a singles person. Either way check these out. It was a fun concept that REALLY needs a comeback.

So onto our main event. I COULD have covered each backup as they came up. While I adore Sasquatch Cop.. it just dosen't fit tonaly. It's good stuff... but why they put it in the back of a mildly serious reboot I don't know.

And now our feature presentation, entering stage left

We begin our story not in the mini series itself but in a teaser that's part of the trade, a little prelude published in Suicide Squad/Banana Splits

It follows Snagglepuss as he goes in front of Huac, the kind of sentence that makes me thrilled that this is something I got paid to write. He runs circles around them, responding to their every attempt to paint his plays as garbage or him as subversive with sarcasm and a witty one liner. They look. .bad and this will be important for the mini series.

For now Snag talks with a young writer who idolizes him and wants to change the world like he does, Auggie Doggie, I assume senior given what we'll see at the end.

So filling in these characters as we go along, Snagglepuss was one of Hanna Barbera's first breakouts, having a succesful small role on the Quick Draw McGraw show before getting his own shorts as part of Yogi Bear's show> He was known for his camp nature, snappy patter, many catchphrases and when hannah barbera became a collection of characters doing stuff with yogi bear rather than their own things in the 70's and 80's, he became a part of the gang. He later made it to Jellystone played by Dana Snyder> He's not used a ton but is still a valuable part of things and like a huge chunk of the cast is very gay.

Auggie Doggie was part of a double act with his proud father Doggie Daddy..

I haven't seen much of them but they were added to the touring company all the same. He'd become a large part of Jellystone and one of it's best alongside a gender flipped Auggie, apparently having lived out every disney movie to get a daughter and being hilaroiusly clingy.

So Snag relates a story: he was doing summer stock directed by Peter Potomus, who had his own show where he drove around in an arc with a chimp sidekick making movies makin songs and fightin round the world. Here he's a director and was doing some light follies when the theater caught fire. When Snag told peter this.. he didn't exactly take it well.

So Snag tried to warn the audience, dressed as a clown.. only for them to laugh, taking it as all part of the shows and leading to one of the worst disaster in Kentucky Theater History till the Ghostly Rampage of Col Sanders in 83.

Snag uses this to illustrate an important, all too resonant message

It .. it hit like a truck. Because it's the truth: We may not win, it's a long game and being a queer person in a country that hates and fears you has been historically a long hard road to getting a shrug of acceptance at best. But you fight anyway because every inch you gain, every ground you get or get back, is worth it.

Proving Snag's point... while I liked the work at the time.. I didn't see the deeper meanings or let them sink in. I saw it as thought provoking.. then let the thoughts it provoked scatter. I didn't see that just because you win one fight and get rid of one tyrant dosne't mean he can't come back.

So we open the series possible with two people late to see the show... and you can just tell it's not the show we're about to see. More on them later. For now we see the arrival of the man of the hour, the vip who gets the first slice of the p-i-e. Snagglepuss in this unvierse is an award winning playwright, married to actress Lila Lion, Snag's love intrest from the cartoons now his beard as he attends the last performance of one of his plays, Heart is a Kennel of Theives. Snag admits his inspriations are the Algonquin Round Table, a group of actors, writers and others whose jokes, japes and witty banter were world wide legend and to a small boy in misssipi with not much else, it was everything.

We see the play best summed up as

Though a nice touch I like is that the actors all wear dog ears, both the humans and the pink puma playing the lead role.

The finale's a smash and Snagglepuss bids his wife adew.. and goes to see his boyfriend at the Stonewall. The Stonewall is a historic gay bar, a safe haven for queer folk. Sadly it would not last forever, being destroyed thanks to a three day riot after Police did a homophobic raid and many queer people rejected owned by the mob, but is thankfully back, having reopened in the 90's and being rightfully declared a historic landmark.

At the Stonewall, Snagglepuss and his boyfriend Pablo watch a hearing from Huac on the tv for novelist and playwright Lillian Hellman, who refuses to sell out anyone she knew while in the Communist party to huac. SHe's a friend of Snag's but he dosen't take HUAC seriously assuming SURELY it couldn't happen here. Pablo.. is quick to correct his dumbassery, pointing out he once dealt with a politican who was a buffon too: Batista, the dictator of cuba and the reason why he's here. They assumed he was a clown, a has been who had no real power.. and his crackdown on meetings of queer people and killing one of his friends who stood up to them proved otherwise. Pablo fled.. but feels horrified by it. And when snag tries to brush it off

This line is not only brilliant.. but gutting as .. it's what we're dealing with now. We thought Trump couldn't come back. Even I, utterly nerverwracked about the apocalypse that would happen if he won again thought surely the nation couldn't do this. Surely we wouldn't surrender to this monster again.

I was wrong. Many were. From people like me who simply wanted to reassure themselves he can't win to the dumbasses who helped him: the throngs of people who could care less about the trans people or immigrnats trump would harm as long as he helped them, something he's completely and utterly failed to do and was never gonna do but he sure has harmed immigrants, trans people and anyone who dares speak against him. The democratic party who treated this like a normal transition of power and not a fight for the future till the other shoe dropped and who could care less about the people getting hurt due to their waffling. The lefter than thous who refused to vote for anybody, refused to compromise, and now STILL blame Biden as much as trump does for their own shortcomings when we have bigger problems to deal with. And of course the rabid assholes who always existed but we assumed were the minority. All of this lead to the shit sandwitch we're all stuck in now. We all have a tendency to belivie the worst can't happen and then it does. And while things have held.. we can't be complacent. I wish I knew what to do but I badly want to find it, a way to fight back against this. But for now I was warned the house was on fire... and didn't grab a bucket till it was already nearly gone.

Snagg has lunch with legendary writer and his hero dorthy parker, who warns him both that his idols have faded.. and that it'll happen to you.

That night an old friend of Snag's stops by, Hanna Barbera star, cartoon legend and thanks to the simpsons, this work and Jellystone gay icon Huckleberry hound. They party.. but it's clear Lillian isn't in a great place after everything.

We finally see where that couple was going.. an execution

It works as unsubtle as it is, the simple idea that america loves a spectacle.. that their just as entertained with thought provoking life changing material.. as they are watching death and treating it like a late show.

We end the issue on our main antagonist, Gigi Allen, whose joind the hearings and plans to target Snagglepuss, claming a nation becomes what it enjoys.. which isn't wrong but in her mind means SNagg must go. The comitte is hesitant given he beat their asses last time.. but she has an ace in the hole.. a picture of him going into the Stonewall.

We open issue two with Gigi saying a whole not of nothing loudly. before Snagglepuss gets through his day: dealing with an actor criss as the actor, Marion aka John Wayne himself, can't find his motivation, visits a man in hospice whose son also went into theater and has a noose next to his bed because he used to be a judge.

He ends the evening introducing the future king of assholes to Huck, who delightfully is enjoying a tv dinner. Snagglepuss has been a good friend not asking questions till now but to be a true friend you have to ask your buddy sometims why they suddenly showed up out of the blue after not talking to you for months.

The short and less heartrending version?

The long soul punching version, Huck was a closeted novelist. His wife was suspscious and sent detectives after him.. who caught him with a man and for some reason rather than just you know.. blackmail him or.. maybe don't, they agreed not to get him arrested if he left town and never came back, forced to abandon his son. It's a contrast to snagglepuss who does the same things.. but tells his wife about it. Still it's hard not to feel for Huck: He couldn't exactly be out, he had few choices and unlike Snagglepuss didn't leave home where it's easier to find someone willing to be your beard. He didn't want to leave his son like his father left him. Still Huck is shown to have some poor choices, trying to hit up a guy.. and getting punched in the face by what turns out to be a bigot with it easily going much worse for many other queer people. It's why for so long I repressed by attraction to men more.... part of me told me I could take my time which I could.. but i've realized this month that part of it was just being afraid of being myself, that I know my family will accept me.. but I can't say the world will. I haven't hid it.. but I also haven't explored it for fear of being beaten up or catfished.

Snag offers to take Huck to the Stonewall some night. For now he fist runs into his friend from earlier.. whose leaving the US. She received 5 rejection letters... all in the same print so she's going to Paris.. and warns Snagglepuss that the first comittee meeting is simply to see if they'll bend the knee. The second is to destroy them for their insolence.

It's proven too as Gigi invites Snaagglepuss to dinner.. and to try and get him to play ball. It goes as well as you'd expect

It's brutal as it is honest and it's really what any culture war is about: It's not about OH WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN, it's not about real moral honesty.. you just want to control what people think. Trump didn't bomb iran because it was the right thing to do he did it because right now he's the enemy and he wants to give the people who voted for him who aren't drinking the kool aid anymore something to boo and hiss about while he dismantles the country from the inside out. It was the same then it's the same now: they go after people they other because their easy targets and "hollywood" because it's creators are often fucking honest and do everything they can to get past censors. Even now we get shit like Disney censoring queer content, firing a queer creator and trying to say nothing while brave men , women and everything inbetween and beyond fight to actually say their stories.

So we end the issue with war being delcared: HUAC sends a letter calling Snag back

We begin issue 3 with a jumpscare

So we open with Snagglepuss being interviewed on a tv show, bringing Huck with him to try and help revitalize Huck's career. When asked about his low opinons of tv, Snagglepuss gives us the diffrence between an actor and a star, a stage actor and a tv actor. A star is who we want to be, an actor is who we are.

Snagglepuss wakes up from his afternoon nap by the pool to deal with two problems: The first is that one of the actors in his current play is bad and should feel bad. Snag decides to deal with it.. but has to deal with something else: Playwright arthur miller, the man who made the crucible among many other thought provoking plays.. and also had a longstanding relationship with screen idol Marilyn MOnroe... and her current boyfriend and soon to be first husband Joe Dimaggio is coming to murder the second before it gets that far. Snag is brought in because well.. yeah. It's really that obvious so being seen with him is a smokescreen. He reluctantly agreres and we get WHY Joe adores her so much: as a son of immigrants who had their livelyhood taken away just for being immigrants, she's his american dream, the kind of acceptance he craves... yet he can't see he's objectifying, her a means to deal with his pain instead of actually dealing with it himself. Snag defuses things.. but tellingly for the first time all comic we see him PISSED when he calls arthur afterword

Artist Mike Feehan who does the full mini series does a fantastic job making the characters look realistic. The humans can sometimes look a bit dead eyed, but it helps the animals pop more. And this might be my faviorite panel, showing Snag feral and pissed.. and for good reason. Arthur abused their friendship to use Snag's sexuality as a prop to get him out of a problem he got himself into.

He lets it slide off though shifting back into his charming usual self efortlessly and introducing Huck to the stonewall... his reaction is beautiful.

As unrest grows in Cuba snag is glad Pablo is here.. but Pablo isn't, pissed and lashing out that Snag would rather he be a kept man than fighting for somethign he belivies in. It's telling Snag just.. can't understand that Pablo wants to fight and wants to be there with his people trying to make something better instead of hoping to ignore the rising tides till they wash him over.

Next day, Snagglepuss visits his friend in the hosptial, bringing LIla along this time, with said friend resenting his son for leaving his mother.. and seemingly killing her with grief. More importantly Snag's going to another party and until sitting down to write the review I never realized that there's one in every issue. Huck takes Quickdraw Mcgraw as his date, having been el kaboining him. Quickdraw has been seen a few times at the stonewall, a closeted police officer who collects the bribes. Huck is.. happy for the first time since he got here, not wallowing having found someone and thanking snagglepuss for it.. and knowing what's coming... it fucking hurts. You'll see why shortly but if you've read this comic you know and you can see why it took me this long to go back.

Snag runs into Marilyn who apologizes for the whole mess. She explains what she sees in Joe.. that he's a person, not some dumb brute but someone with complexity and pain we saw earlier. The problem is .. Joe dosen't see hers: like most men he sees Marlin as either a sexual prize to be won.. or a dumb bimbo to be torn down instead of a person... which is what Arthur sees. Snag not only makes it clear he's not going to tell joe but thanks Marilyn for being this vunerable for him, for showing the part of her that few get to see. It's a tender moment and one of the best in the comic.

This whole subplot could be cut... but it makes a point about people , especailly in snag and huck's case as queer people in the 1950's, have to cut part of ourselves off, segment ourselves, and how being seen.. is seeing all of a person. Unlike some of the celebrity cameos like John Wayne or as we find out Clint Eastwood as the actor Snag realized wasn't good for stage (but does hook him up with a western as he sees his talent as a star and for talking to empty chairs), it feels necessary, not only hooking snag to the world but into things. There's a LOT of cameos here and i'm not skilled enough at the 50's to spot them all and i'm only googling the ones that impact the plot. As the interview ends we get a truly magificent line i'll let speak for itself

We end issue 3 with everything going pretty well even with the hearing. Now's the part where it all goes to shit.

We open issue 4 with Gigi again and another scene that's more tone setting than actually plot relevant. She's in Nevada after assuring the comittee she'll have leverage on snagglepuss. For now after another jingoistic classroom lecture she talks with a tecncian at a test sight who makes it clear why their buliding so many fallout shelters: it's not because the goverment ever thought they'd work.. but it gives the ILLUSION of victory, that america really would be stupid enough to start nuclear war and MIGHT survive it. It's letting your oponent THINK you'll pull the trigger when neither of you can, and letting people think their safe when really... no. Their dead and their fate isn't in their hands.

So let's stop a second and talk about Mark Russel's writing style: Mark likes to take breaks like this to set the tone and to say stuff about society to really go off about a topic. Sometimes it works, sometimes it dosen't, but he's good at intercutting it with panels and showing the insane underpinnings of our society. It mostly works here, with everything tying in thematically: the cold war their using to do this prosecution bullshit.. is just smoke and mirrors. Theirs no war just two countries darring each other to "end the world pussy!"

At the play we find out it's about Snag and Huckleberry, complete with masks.. and it makes Snag reflect on his past. he and Huck knew each other as kids. Were best friends.. but Snag had to go. As he poignantly puts it

So Snag left.. and deals with it.. and into present day as while he's mostly cast the mask off privately... he still wears one. Lila had zero idea till this play he and huck were lifelong friends, with Snagglepuss barely letting her in. She was completely aware she was his beard going into the marriage, she's fine with that. .but she wants to at least be let in emotionally... which is a fair ask and Snag knows it as he dodges the questions. He knows he's not being fair but it's very clear across the story Snagglepuss.. has trouble opening up. His viacious personality is part who he is.. but part another mask. A way to put a wall up so he never has to deal with his emotions or issues. He geniuinely if platonically loves lila.. but he can't be vunerable with her or Pablo, he can barely be vunerable with himself. He talked about parts of yourself you hdie from everyone.. but he hides his pain in his work and in himself.

And this extends to Pablo whose tired of hiding, tired of the masks and wants to be himself... or at least something more than meeting one place every day. And Snagg..s naps for the second time this series, and in a way that's heartbreaking as it is telling

It's a line I honestly didn't notice on my initial read for this review, a line that proves what i've been saying: that Snag WANTS to be free but is constraind by a society that would destroy him for being queer. He's a caged lion unable to be who he deserves to be.. but he's boxing in others to do it.

Snag.. does end up doing the right thing in a truly heartwarming moment that in other works may be a turning point for his life: Instead of the stonewall.. he realizes Pablo was right and that he's hurting the people he loves.. so he introduces Lila and Pablo. He may be closeted.. but he can live and have the loves of his life, his best friend and his boyfriend, his family.. be family.

Sadly... this is intercut with a tragedy. While Snagglepuss embraces who he is as much as he can... Huck alraedy has. His relatoinship with Quickdraw is going great, everything seems fine... then Gigi lowers the hammer. See she intended to go after snagglepuss with the stonewall, pressuring the cops into a raid knowoing their taking bribes, but his change of heart saved him.. but dosen't save Huck.. who has his heart broken

McGraw chooses his career over Huck and instead of warning him and moving on with his life.. destroys him. Huck is arrested and humiliated , forcibly outed by a horrifying world.. and by Gigi who ruined his life just to get at his friend.. and is closeted herself. It's a damming statment.. that it's one thing to struggle with not being out, the world can be hard and as seen with Snag sometims you do the best you can and find a way around till the world will let you be who you are. But as McGraw and Gigi show... sometimes.. you sell out your own just to get ahead. McGraw is broken by what he's done while Gigi..s leeps peacefully entirley okay with having destroyed a man and preparing to destroy him further for her own goals.

Huck is understandably not doing great, the cop discharging him to Snag, who leaves practice at once to go bail his friend out, making homophobic remarks. But he at least admits.. he's out. That a man can't hide forever.. but he also admits that you can change the world or be destroyed by it.. and god help him Huck can't decide which.

Kruchev has a general arrested for daring ot speak up against him.. the moral is important to this: dance to the beat the goverment once.. or else.. and how the us despite claming ot fight communisim.. is using the exact same tactics.

Back to the main event. The Comittee is a bit pissed as Gigi misssed her target. They want to call the hearing off.. but it's too late and Gigi makes a valid point: The goal was leverage and while they dont' have our hero directly.. they have one of the few people he'd die for in the crosshairs.

So the two enemies meet again. And while she TRIES the "we're sorry we didn't mean to" card... Snag shuts that shit down on sight

Gigi offers to make it all go away for huck if he bends the knee.. and it becomes clear her right wing bullshit about "the culture war determining if we win the cold war".. isn't bullshit for her. Some part of her GENUINELY seems to belivie this is a battle for america's soul and if they all dont' bend the knee and obey, we loose. The sad truth is the real powers controlling the right like hers, then and now don't want any moral victory. These crusades are so they can other people to create enemies. They go after queer people because we do not fit into the mold that's easy to control. We do not bend the knee as easily. As this work and real life has proven some do. But it's a lot harder to control and control is the whole game. A war, culture or real isn't the goal.. its blind obidence. It always has been. She's deluding herself thinking this is about anything else.

The worst part though.. is it's actually working. Snagglepuss is considering bending because she has his best friend held to the fire. Lila is concerned he might while Pablo is just furious at the notion. Yet whlie he's right that the monsters will never stop begging for a pound of flesh and want more and more.. Snag has a point. It's easy to call someone a monster when they sell out for their own comfort like Quickdraw or because they've deluded themselves into thinking it's the right thing like Gigi. But Snagglepuss wonders if his work is at all worth the life of his best friend. It'd be very easy to condem him but the story and the world has backed him into a corner he cannot get out of.

Huck is likewise stuck. It's been clear all story Huck has depression: his stories are all about how miserable he is, he can't stop about it, but there's just not a lot of language to help him. He was almost doing better.. but loosing his lover, his ablility to write, it's destroyed him. He points out he's a goldfish in a glass bowl.. even with Snag's offer for him to move in.. it's just moving the bowl. And while Snag admits he could make it go away, Huck has doubts. Huck.. is a complex character: he's naive, depressed.. but always had a current of hope. A tv dinner is a modern marvel, love is something he needs and yearns for and embraces when he gets it. That hope is gone.

The final breaking point is that HUAC reveals to snag their suppoening Huck. He calls LIla , planning to fully sell out.. but as she tries to tell him before having to shout it

It's the reason this review has been so damn hard to write, not helped by being a person with depression whose had suicidal ideation. Huck hung himself, not able to deal with this anymore.. and HUAC might as well have handed him the noose. They knew he was vunerable and they pushed simply to win a political fight. A man died... because they broke him all to get at someone else.

Snag is devistated, the art doing a perfect job capturing his shock.. before he decides to go down fighting. They nearly had him and they pushed too hard.. and now he's going to break them back. But he also makes it clear he's going to push LIla away, something she's devistated by and worried about.. but he has no choice. Anyone attached to him will be destroyed and it's a truly devistating sacrifice, giving up his friend.. for her saftey.

He also has to give up opening night, with Peter talking him up: after the fire incident his rep was understandably done, justifably so.. but Snag gave him another chance. So while he'll have to pretend like they never knew each other.. for tonight... this is for Snag.

Snag's demeanour is diffrent. It's a change I hadn't noticed before but hits like a truck once you do: he's colder, angry. He does make a joke or two, i'd be impossible for him not to.. but the jokes are less pithy and light. He's thrown away the mask, the playwright, the jokester, the man with the iron wit.. and is speaking plainly, bluntly and nobly. The him before wasn't bad and is a good way to deal with facists.. but it's not the snagglepuss their getting. They thought that snagglepuss would be their downfall... instead their getting him with his teeth bared ready to tear them apart and when asked about his arts subersivness..

It's a beautiful statement. It's the truth. All these idiots saying ART SHOULDN'T BE POLITICAL are really just saying "I don't like this art's politics". The best they can muster is stuff like Mr Berchum which isn't art but someone screaming their opinon at you. The whole point of art is to crack open your world view, to help you see beyond it. The reason the widening perspectives we're getting is so great.. is that we see beyond ourselves. To use a recent example i'll be covering for next year's Juneteenth, Sinners tells an entertaining action story and has wonderful memorable characters... by framing it through the black experince, through the south and through the commodification of black art and people. The rich history embeded in the film makes the work what it is. I"m sure some jaggoffs are claming "OH WELL IT'S WOKE OR DO THEY HAVE TO TALK ABOUT THIS". which.. yes they do. When we stop thinking just in what we know and open our world, the world is better for it. There's so much queer content and queer coded content these days.. because our stories matter. They deserve to be told. And the harsh truth of what the powers in this coutnry, the very white powers that run it have done NEEDS to be laid bare so we can fucking change it.

Gigi is pissed , trying to frame the thing as "obdeicne or oblivion..a nd snagglepuss obleterates her. He explains WHY entertainment is so important and I wish I could use more panels here but the final scene o fthe issue is several pages of back and forth I simply can't properly put on screen. It's well worth reading. But he points out pop culture puts people's fanaticism somewhere somewhat healthy. And otherwise.. it turns to goverment, the state, to tolataranisim.. and that isn't healthy. he can't say there isn't an exestital threat, the cold war was and the threat of nuclear Armageddon still is.

So Gigi brings up huck.. and it HORRIBLY backfires as she had no idea he committed suicide and then says "If he just kept it private". Snag explodes... pointing out that keeping it private destroys people. having to hide who we are is a cage, a mask we can never take off that eventually becomes part of us and consumes us

As snag ends his speech Pablo leaves, his divorce papers are sent.. and he decides to live with himself rather than hide in shame. Issue 5 is an explosive climax to the story, the big final confrontation between two powers.. and while Snagglepuss wins the moral victory and easily smokes his opponents.. he ultimately dosen't win. It was good to have this, full of iconic lines and fantastic moments.. but it also shows how easy it is to win.. and still loose.

We begin the next chapter years later. Nixon is talking with kruschev and Kruschev makes a valid point: while america props up our culture.. we also abuse it, comodifying stars of color or who are queer than treating them as lesser

This is of course hypocritical given the soviets werne't exactly friendly to quee rpeople.. but it dosen't make it not true.

Issue 6 is more of an epilogue: it's valuable and important to the story and good it didn't end here, but it ends sometime later and deals with the aftermath, the rubble left and the good and bad of Snag's brave stand.

The bad is evident early on: a bunch of gawking idiots rescognize him as "from being on the communism show". They missed the point entirely and Snag is understandably bitter. He meets with Augie Doggie, now a succesful novelist having written a book about snag and disgusted he got blacklisted, and giving him a copy. He may be lightly comodifying his friend.. but it's clear he did so for the art.

Snag once again says something profound: when Auggie reflects that maybe writers strive for happy endings because the unvierse is cruel and uncaring and we don't want to admit that. he offers something diffrent

Snagglepuss returns to his lonely apartment, consigned to the same frozen dinner Huck once had, and suprised to find Lila has remarried... happy for her too. She finally got the ending she deserved.

Someone who dosen't get what they deserve in that moment is McGraw who shows up at the door and is VERY lucky he dosen't get a punch to the face. He's here to make amends.. though Snag isn't in the mood. While McGraw feels guilty... Snag points out the why: Quickdraw was caught a few years later so what he did to huck amounted to nothing, and he feels bad in part because of that.. rather than because he choose the badge over his boyfriend.

Still he at least offers what he has: a cartoon show. He's gotten a role somehow, and offers snag one. I'ts a brilliant twist I didn't see coming reading this first run: that the hanna barbera cartoons snag would star in.. are canon to this universe. As in universe productions, sure, but given how cheap they were I can buy they were shot in live action with genuine furries. Snagglepuss objects this as nonsense.. but it's only if he wants it to be. For now he reads Huck's suicide note: that we should forgive ourselves.. and find forgiveness.

He then gets a call: his friend that he's been visting all story, the cranky old mah has passed.. and turns out.. it was his father. It's heavily hinted and I can't belivie I missed it on my read throughs but it's another thing lost in a painful life... the two having reached SOME kind of peace but never having the courage to tell his dad who he was. Maybe he knew.. maybe he didn't.

Snag in his depression goes back ot the stonewall, where a bear witha n eyepatch serves cocktails. Snagg feels his fight.. was for nothing. He proved nothing, the world is still cold.. what did he exactly win. And the stonewall bartender reveals exactly what; More bars. It used to be the only place.. but more and more sprung up while the stonewall istself persisted. The bust didn't kill it.. it showed these places exist and mroe people found and created them. You can't kill an idea.

And he figures they'll win> Why, because w'ere not going anywhere. Snagg spots pablo on tv, having participated in the revolution against batista and won. Also there's a farmer telling nixon to stay out of his corn. I refuse to give you any context.

So Snagglepuss realizes he can't just.. lay over and die and that maybe just getting back out their, existing in spite of the blacklist is enough.. and he takes the job.

So we end on Quickdraw bringing SNag in. Since they need all the stars they can get to crank out stories they don't care but just as a precaution we get a fantastic mythology gag: they paint him gold and call him snaggletooth, what snagglepuss was called in his first apperance and how he looked. It's a stupid trick.. but one that should work, it gives them deniablity and if no one cares, then he can perform under his name and color again.

Snag has one non negotiable... another star he wants brought on. Huck's son Huckleberry Hound Junior... who takes huck's name as a stage name in his honor. So we end as the duo visit huck's grave

It's a beautiful ending an da postscript tells us the show was a success, both would get their own cartoons.. and they'd have a long happy career. It's as close to a happy ending as I need.

Exit Stage Left is a masterpiece. A beautiful work that takes a batshit concept that should not work... an dmakes it work swimingly. It feels like it'd make an excellent companion piece to bojack horseman, the same use of animals who are a bit jarringly real in places as actors to deal with our own fucked up world and an ending tha'ts not exactly happy.. but still better than we thought following a flawed, if not as fucked up character. It's a fantastic piece of art that proves wild swings do work you just have to know where your aiming. It's well worth a read if you can find it, and should be held up as one of THE comics of the 2010s and reprinted as soon as possible. I doubt warner will but hey, stranger things have happened. If nothing else they could do a dc by mark russel omnibus and include this, prez, and his other works like flintstones. It's painfully timely, beautiful, and biting and i'm honored to have covered it. Thanks for reading

#exit stage left the snagglepuss chronciles #snagglepuss #huckleberry hound #quickdraw mcgraw #dc comics #mark russell #hanna barbera #comics #queer #lbgtq+#gay #HUAC #red scare #politics

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pkg4mumtown · 4 months ago

Text

Special Weapons and Tactics (Ch. 5)

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Original Male Character (OMC)

Rating: Mature

Summary: Another body surfacing doesn't help the already hopeless situation for León. Thankfully, he has someone willing to jump in and pull some strings.

Content Warnings: strong language, first person POV, canon-typical violence, mostly fluff, descriptions of murder, casefic

A/N: (March 8, 2025: The fic has been officially transitioned to Hotch/OMC. The fic sort of got away from me and I realized I've been putting more detail than I should be for a reader insert as I've been writing future chapters. I apologize ahead of time for anyone who enjoyed it as a reader insert, but I wanted to rectify this in the hopes that future chapters wouldn't feel so forced/odd/specific as I write them.) Thanks for sticking it out with me! Hope you enjoy!

Spotify Playlist songs for Chapter 5: Lately, Paralyzer, Rock Your Body, In the Shadows, My Type, Just Like Heaven

Also available on AO3 - I do use a workskin on AO3 for text messaging, so I uploaded screenshots of the texts here. I know this isn’t what iOS looked like in 2010 but I didn’t feel like learning a new workskin lol.

tags: @l-a-u-r-aaa (let me know if you want to be removed since it's not quite what you signed up for anymore)

July 2010

I crouched over the new victim, Gregory Thompson. He fit the victimology of the other victims including the one found on Friday, Jackson. I ran through everything I theorized last night—this morning—two hours ago—whatever. My mind was hazy and sleep deprived, causing me to scrub my face rapidly in an effort to wake up.

“Everything matches, from the castration to the rage but why is he doing this?” I sighed heavily.

“Homophobia?” O’Malley offered. It wasn’t a bad guess but it was too general, too wide.

“Nah,” I absentmindedly scratch at the scruff on my chin that I hadn’t had a chance to address. “This is personal. If it was just homophobia, any random homosexual man would do but he targets these older men specifically. I think they remind him of someone.”

I stood and walked with O’Malley away from the scene, letting forensics do their thing. Her brow was drawn tight when she finally spoke up, “Like a partner?”

“That’s what I’m thinking.” I grunted as I climbed into her car. “How old do you think he looked in that footage?”

“Not much older than mid-thirties maybe, it was hard to tell.”

“And he’s been described as young. So, I’m thinking around the ages of the partners of the victims?”

“You think someone fitting the victimology wronged him and that’s why he’s doing this?” she questioned, starting the vehicle and pulling away from the scene.

“It makes sense,” I sighed, staring out at the shops as we drove back to the station. “There’s just no way to track down couples if they can’t be legally married.” I threw my head back against the headrest of the seat, “What bugs me is the hopping around states, it’s like he just picked a state at random. We had six murders in Missouri but only four in Oregon, why?”

“Cops got too close?”

“Mm,” I thought for a moment and dialed Fielding. “Hey, did all of the suspects in Oregon check out?”

“One second,” I heard her rapidly type. “Yea, all three suspects checked out. All had air-tight alibis.”

Fuck.

I’m not a profiler, but I’m smart.

Come on.

“Ketamine is a controlled substance, schedule three?”

“Yea…,” she answered slowly.

“Check out males in their late twenties to mid-thirties with professions where they could get a script for it. Cross reference with records in Missouri, Colorado, and Maryland.”

“There’s less than legal means, too” Fielding suggested.

“Yea, but the way this guy’s moving, I don’t think he could afford to be buying this constantly,” I chewed on my bottom lip anxiously.

“Alright, I’ll get back to you.”

As we drove back to the station, I got another call.

Hotch.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“We’re wrapping up tomorrow, how’s yours going?” He murmured over the phone, clearly trying not to draw attention to himself.

“Not great. I’m real envious of how fast a whole team gets shit done,” I grumbled. “I found a history starting in Missouri, to Oregon, and now in Maryland. Victimology all matches, they were drugged with ketamine, they’re being castrated, the unsub seems to fit the age of the victim’s partners.

“You think it’s personal?”

“I do,” I hummed. “It’s just a lot to juggle with just me and my analyst.”

“Send it to me.”

“No, Hotch. You guys are in the middle of a case, I’m not going to drag you from one to another with no breather.”

“We should be leaving tomorrow. Let me at least get a profile started for you. How long do you have between murders?”

“Two days, he’s going hunting again tomorrow.”

When I got back to the station, I was diving deep into the case files again. Noon came and went, and I had yet to hear from Fielding. The search must have been far too wide for anything helpful.

I fought to end the jaw cracking yawn that split open my face as my phone rang. It was Hotch again.

“Hey, you’re on speaker. We’re flying your way now. We wrapped up in record time,” Hotch informed me.

“Come on, I told you it wasn’t necessary.”

“The case was comically easy, I need more mental stimulation than that,” I heard Reid in the background.

“There’s nothing comical about murder, Spencer,” I heard Rossi speak up.

“I just mea—,” he was cut off when Hotch started speaking again.

“I already spoke to your chief, we’re coming. Garcia, are you there?”

“Here, sir!”

“Do you mind if I loop in my analyst, too? She’s gotten me this far.”

After getting Fielding on the call, the BAU started assessing the unsub once I sent Hotch all of the information Fielding and I gathered.

“Do you want to start us off?” Hotch directed the question to me. “It’s your case.”

“Sure, thanks,” I cleared my throat and gathered my thoughts. “We have two homicides in the Mount Vernon area of Baltimore, so far. They’re both mid to late forties, homosexual, and have partners a decade younger than them. They were drugged, abducted from local gay clubs, viciously beat, and then castrated while still alive.”

I heard a soft “oh my God,” which I made out to be from Garcia.

“The castration looked clean like they didn’t hesitate, so I assumed they’d done it before. I had Fielding look into murders that fit the victimology, and she found ten other cases like it that have fallen through the cracks. The states seem random from Missouri to Oregon and now Maryland.”

“Look at the ones in Missouri,” I heard Derek speak up. “These were definitely his first ones. The castration is jagged like he hesitated.”

“Or like they struggled. Maybe he didn’t have the dosage right yet,” Rossi jumped in.

“This seems extremely personal. Cutting off genitalia while they’re still alive? He wanted them to suffer,” Reid chimed in.

“He could be jealous of the couples? Maybe he had something like that in the past.” Morgan offered.

“Using ketamine to get them to cooperate suggests he’s calculated in his methods,” Hotch added.

“It suggests a level of planning and desire to minimize risk. He’s not impulsive. He’s choosing them for a specific reason,” Reid agreed.

“There doesn’t seem to be any racial motivation either,” Prentiss said.

“So, he’s using the clubs to find victims who fit his profile. He’d have to be charming, gain their trust. He talked to them for a while before they followed him out, right?” JJ asked.

“Yea, and only as soon as they weren’t around their partners. I thought maybe the age difference might be a trigger. Maybe some relation to the partners of the victims since he seems to be of similar age. Like someone fitting the victimology wronged him and made him snap?” I chimed in.

The group was silent for a beat.

“What if he was cheated on by his older partner? The castration might be a message?” Rossi questioned.

“Maybe he’s trying to send the ex-partner a message,” Reid breathed, like a light bulb just went off in his head. “You said the states seemed random but what if he’s following his ex? When he approached the victims, he could have charmed them into cheating on their partner, therefore fulfilling the profile.”

“And leaving a trail of blood following the ex,” Hotch murmured. “Garcia, look up middle aged men who’ve made the move from Missouri to Oregon to Maryland within the time frames of the murders.

“I have Fielding looking at men in those states who could get access to ketamine, we can see where that overlaps.”

“Good work, we’ll be there soon.”

I hung up the call and breathed a little easier.

“That was pretty remarkable,” I heard O’Malley from the doorway.

“Yea, no kidding,” I scrubbed my face with my hands. “We’ve got a team on the way and some searches running. They think he’s following the partner around the country so we’re trying to look for someone who’d fit the victimology hopping around those states. They’re coming in from Indiana but should be here in an hour or two. We want to try and get ahead of him and based on the past murders, he should be out hunting tomorrow night.”

“Take a breather, kid. Go get some food. You’re doing good work,” the woman smiled and rubbed her temples as she walked away.

Inhaling wasn’t strong enough of a word for what I was doing to the sandwich I managed to find at a nearby shop. Though, not eating for over twenty-four hours would do that. With my mouth full and my forehead resting sleepily in my hand, I nearly missed the soft knock on the door frame.

“Hey,” I heard, making my head shoot up, cheeks bulging.

“Oh, shit,” I stood, wiping my hands on my pants as I struggled to finish what was in my mouth.

“You look like hell,” Hotch murmured.

“Just what every hot girl wants to hear, thanks Hotchner,” I shook his hand for looks as I saw the team watching us from the corner of my eye. It was honestly just an excuse to hold his hand.

“Garcia and Fielding have a hit. You ready?”

I saw the team waiting for permission, “Yea bring ‘em in.”

Hotch waved them in, and they got started immediately.

“Garcia found a match on the unsub’s stressor. His name is Richard Anderson, forty-eight years old,” Hotch started.

“We got him to get us a list of his previous partners and cross referenced with the list from Fielding. We got a match.” Derek finished.

“Parker Foley, thirty-five-year-old pharmacist. Richard admitted to cheating on him two years ago. We got an address here in Maryland,” Rossi watched my eyes widen.

“Let’s go?” I reached down, immediately grabbing my vest, not even waiting for them to start moving as I felt my feet start carrying me through the threshold.

Hotch reached out and grabbed my wrist before I could step out of reach, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“The faster we get this done, the faster I get some sleep,” I gave Hotch a pointed look, daring him to stop me. “I need to finish this, Hotch.”

Seeing the determination and emotion swirling in my eyes, he knew I meant business and relented. I strapped on a green, tactical FBI vest not unlike the one I wore on SWAT missions, preferring the customization to the standard blue vests everyone wore.

Hotch and I climbed into the car first, waiting for the others as we planned on taking two SUVs. We sat in a brief silence as we waited for the rest of the team. Hotch looking over with worried eyes as I picked at the material of my vest.

“León,” he murmured softly. “I know I keep pestering you and I’m sorry. I just—I know this must hit hard for you and I was worried.”

“It’s fine,” I murmured, and immediately felt bad that he felt like he had to apologize for checking up on me. “I’m just frustrated at how easily cases like this fall through the cracks because no one gives enough of a shit about us.”

“I know. That’s why I wanted to come,” he placed a comforting hand on my arm and gave me an understanding squeeze before the moment was ripped away as Prentiss and Reid got in the car with us.

“JJ and Morgan are going with Rossi,” Reid announced.

With that we sped off to the address Garcia sent us. Eventually, the SUVs skidded to a halt outside of a seven-story apartment building.

“We’re looking for apartment 5B,” Hotch announced as we exit. “Rossi, JJ, Morgan go for the west entrance. We’ll take the east.”

Everyone nodded and split off toward the two different stairwells. Our guns were drawn as we cautiously made our way up the five flights of stairs while keeping an eye out for Parker. Without running into any other tenants, we approached his apartment door and hugged the wall to prepare for entry. I placed myself on point, reaching for the knob to gently twist it.

Locked.

I stepped away from the wall and readied myself to kick the door in. Morgan reached over, banging on the door to announce our presence and then nodding to me. I forcefully kicked the door open, ignoring the splintered wood in its path. I cleared the initial corners and waved some of them off to the left while the rest of the team followed me to the right and began checking rooms. I approached a closed door, breathing sharply before throwing it open and clearing it quickly. It was a ransacked office with paper everywhere and items knocked over.

“Clear,” I announced to the group.

There was a resounding confirmation that the rest of the apartment was clear, too.

“Hotch,” I called over. “Look at this, it’s a mess.”

“Like someone tore it apart,” he confirmed as he entered, eyes jumping around the room for anything that stood out in the mess.

Pulling a glove from my pocket, I wrapped my finger in it and opened up Parker’s laptop. As the screen blinked on without a lock screen, a Facebook post on Richard’s profile appeared. The caption read, “Love of my life,” with a picture of Richard and a young man who wasn’t Parker.

“Posted thirty minutes ago,” I noticed.

The rest of the team entered the small room, murmuring to each other about the state of it. Rossi read the post, too.

“If this post caused him to lash out like this, he might have moved his timetable up.”

“Look at this,” Hotch found a few sticky notes of clubs nearby littering the desk.

“Those two clubs were from the first two murders,” I commented, recognizing the names immediately.

“He must be going here next,” Hotch held up the last club.

“We can’t go in guns blazing,” Rossi commented as the team discussed tactics. “There will be too many people, he’ll slip away and probably hurt someone in the process. We’ll lose him.”

“Reid and I can go in undercover and get him to approach?” Morgan suggested.

“No, you don't fit the victimology, he won’t care about you,” I pursed my lips. “Reid might fit but you look too young, Derek.”

“I fit,” Hotch stepped forward.

Everyone’s eyes bounced between Reid and Hotch, analyzing if they could make it work. I had no doubt about their abilities but having two of the most socially awkward of the team go in together seemed like a bad idea. That combined with Reid maybe having the most knowledge about the gay community between the two did not bode well.

“I’ll go with you,” I spoke up. “I’m around Parker’s age, it might trigger him more. Hotch and I fit the other victims and partners pretty spot on. I also have experience in the community.”

“Thank you,” Reid sighed gratefully. “No offense,” he rushed to say, realizing he had said it out loud.

“None taken,” Hotch gave Reid’s shoulder a pat. “Let’s get ready.”

The team cleared out of the office so I could change, having an old outfit from another undercover operation in my go-bag. It was also my only other option besides the collared button down and hybrid tactical pants I currently wore. They weren’t exactly party material.

I pulled a pair of tight black jeans out of my bag along with nicer looking boots. Tugging them on was a chore, especially in a rush and I had to adjust myself several times to feel somewhat comfortable in the front. I located a leather belt in the depths of the bag to round off the outfit. Shrugging off my button down, I searched around for the top I thought I pulled out and sighed, kneeling back down to dig in the bag for it.

A soft knock sounded at the door, “Come in,” I answered, finally finding it.

“Hey, is this—uh,” Hotch started and stopped as soon as he located me in the room.

“Come in,” I urged him, shaking out the high-neck tank top and watching his eyes lose focus and drift down my exposed chest.

“Is this, um, okay?” He tried looking everywhere else as he presented his outfit to me.

I tugged the top over my head, leaving my shoulders and arms exposed nearly up to my traps. The bottom hem was cropped and ended about two inches above my belt. I smirked seeing Hotch’s eyes drawn to the trail of hair there.

He had changed his pants to dark jeans and lost the tie, leaving his white dress shirt unbuttoned at the top, “Lose the jacket, too. Might get warm inside.”

He shrugged out of it, pulling his dress shirt tight to his chest, “Good?”

“Mmm,” I hummed and stepped in closer, aiming my hand for his chest. My fingertips barely skimmed the skin where his top button was undone, “Undo this one, too.” I undid the second button before he could move, “More to look at.” I patted his chest and stepped around him, leaving the office and him standing here to collect himself.

“God damn,” someone mumbled under their breath as I found the team.

“He dress like that the times you ran into him?” Morgan murmured to Reid, who was in a trance.

“No comment,” he answered, quickly shutting his mouth. “Yes.”

“Damn,” Morgan muttered, watching Emily volunteer to help me with my wire.

“Mhm, imagine my disappointment,” Reid sighed.

I did one final spin to make sure the wires wouldn’t come loose, non-verbally gauging the opinion of the team.

“Hot, Doc,” Derek spoke up first, looking over my outfit for my gun, “Are you packing?”

I gave him a smirk, implying something far dirtier.

“Get the hell out of here,” he shook his head and shoved me away.

I laughed as I retreated and spun around, meeting Hotch, who had already been wired.

“Ready?” I asked, ruffling my closely cropped hair into something less federal agent-like, hopefully.

“Sunset’s barely started, we should get going,” he murmured with his brow tight in concentration.

“We’ll be tapping into the cameras inside. Let us know when you see him,” Rossi gave us one last instruction.

We borrowed a car from the station and headed over, making it quickly since the station was only about ten minutes away. The rest of the team would be nearby in vans monitoring the operation and ready to act as soon as we caught Parker.

Hotch seemed tense in the driver’s seat, tapping the steering wheel to silence since he’d immediately turned the radio off when the car started. I couldn’t tell if he was being his usual stoic self or if he was nervous about what we had to do and was too professional to say anything. It would be his first kiss with a man after all, I realized.

“Relax, hermoso, you’ll do fine,” handsome, I teased, hoping to ease his nerves. I fished lip balm out of my pocket, quickly putting some on and offering it to Hotch, “I don’t like dry lips on either party.”

Hotch huffed, cracking a glimpse of a smile, and took it from me, applying it quickly before handing it back to me.

After parking the car, we made the short walk to the club. I easily fell into step with Hotch, slipping an arm around his waist and hooking my fingers into his belt loop. I felt his arm lay heavily over my shoulders and pull me close, tucking me into his side. I was a few inches shorter than him, making the action easy, but most definitely outweighed him. His body began relaxing the closer we got, made known by the kiss he dropped on my touseled hair.

The transition from the fairly quiet outside to the loud, thumping inside the club was a stark change. I felt bad for the team’s ears as the sudden sound traveled through the mics to their headphones. We found a single chair open at the bar and made a beeline for it in the crowded area.

“This is going to be more difficult than we thought,” I heard him murmur close to my head.

“It’s Sunday night, what did you expect?”

Hotch pulled the chair out and waved me to sit. What a gentleman.

“You sit, honey. I wanna dance,” I pouted, separating myself from him.

Hotch sat on the bar stool with his knees wide and pulled me closer by my hands to stand between his legs. His head tilted up at me endearingly, searching my face for how I was going to respond to the position, “Have a drink with me first.”

“Fine,” I leaned forward, snaking my arms around his shoulders. Without missing a beat, I pressed my lips against his to get the first one out of the way. Immediately, his hands clung to my waist and wrapped around my body to hold me close. I pulled back much sooner than I would have liked, smiling at the way his eyes hadn’t quite caught up and remained half closed. “I’ll have what you’re having,” I smiled and dropped another quick kiss to his dazed smile.

Fuck. Me.

We’re working, we're working…

I leaned up against the bar while hanging off Hotch’s shoulder, mindful of the patron to my other side. I didn’t want to accidentally bump into the patron as I took up the space between his stool and Hotch’s. My hand moved to Hotch's hair at the base of his neck, then ventured around to rest on his opposite shoulder. His hand found my lower back, trailing it up, down, and then much lower to imply ownership. I had to bite back several moans as his hand grew a mind of it’s own as he got into character, squeezing the muscles of my ass every so often.

Hotch took charge of the drinks, flagging down the bartender and ordering two glasses of scotch.

We toasted our glasses and took long sips to shake off any lingering nerves. We scoped out the crowd discretely, only stopping to whisper anything we noticed to other for the team to hear, creatively designed to look like a variety of kisses. The more playful we came across, the better.

Not too long in, both of our glasses were half empty when I felt one of Hotch's hands grab me by the hip. I stumbled a bit, not expecting it since I was swaying to the music with my drink. I played along, following the direction his hand tugged me until I was seated on his thigh.

“This seat taken?” I cooed as I sat, catching myself in his lap. He didn’t respond, just tugged me even closer with his hand bringing my torso closer to his roughly, “Fuck, papi,” I let out a whine, making a show of nearly spilling my drink.

Hotch's face moved closer to mine, an uncharacteristically wide smile on his face, “Sorry, sweetheart.” His lips brushed mine quickly, “Twelve o’clock.”

I gave him room to look, moving my lips to his chin.

“Eleven,” he murmured against my cheek.

I pressed another kiss to his jaw. I felt his fingers dipping under my shirt, making me squirm, and I barely resisted biting the skin of his jaw in retaliation.

“Ten. He stopped. He’s looking,” Hotch murmured against the shell of my ear and I felt an involuntary shudder run through my body.

I finally pulled away with a scandalous gasp, “You're filthy.”

“Just getting warmed up,” he grinned back, running a hand high up my thigh.

I was going to have to readjust after that.

I knocked the rest of my drink back and stood up off his thigh, “’Kay, all done.” I wobbled on my feet for show. “Time for dancing,” I grabbed his hands, trying to pull him to his feet.

“Go ahead, baby. I want to finish my drink,” he said loud enough that hopefully Parker overheard.

“No, fun,” I pouted. I leaned down for one more kiss, the alcohol in my veins making me braver.

It was purely selfish.

My tongue slid along the seam of his lips, his mouth barely beginning to open when I pulled away. I turned around to saunter away when I felt a sting on my ass. I turned to throw him a look over my shoulder, finding him smirking back.

“Did he really just fucking do that?” I muttered as I made my way over to the dance floor. I could only hope the team’s reaction to the exchange was as hilarious as I imagined.

Now, I just had to wait for the buzz of an incoming text from the team telling me when they moved. I tried to stay near the outskirts of the dance floor but didn’t want to be noticed either. My view of Hotch was severely limited as a result. I finally saw a foreign head appear next to Hotch’s after a few minutes. Parker had clearly waited for me to leave first before moving closer to Hotch.

“Is anyone sitting here?” an unfamiliar voice sounded next to Hotch. Parker stood next to the newly vacated seat next to Hotch. The patron had left at some point while we were drinking.

Hotch feigned being surprised well considering he had been subtly tracking Parker's movements since I left.

“Uh, no, please,” Hotch smiled pushing my empty glass away.

“Thanks,” Parker smiled pleasantly, turning to hold his bag in his lap as he sat.

A few moments passed with Hotch spinning his glass on the bar top. He took a quick sip and looked Parker's way again, who was doing a good job of looking diligently at the menu.

“Can I buy you a drink?” Hotch finally spoke up.

“Oh, that’s okay…”

“Please? I insist,” Hotch leaned toward him, letting his eyes drift down Parker's body.

“Okay,” he tucked a stray brown hair behind his ear shyly, giving Hotch his best doe eyes. He reached a hand out to Hotch, “Parker.”

“Adam,” Hotch, responded.

I glanced over every now and then, trusting the team to let me know when something happened, but being overcautious at the same time. Hotch scooted incrementally closer until there would have been no room to stand where I had been standing between those two seats.

Progress, good.

I didn’t linger watching them just in case Parker decided to look out at the dance floor. I found an all too willing dance partner and focused on the feeling of the phone in my pocket to combat the effect of the scotch as a result of my poor eating habits today.

“So, your—uh—boyfriend? Is he coming back?”

Hotch cocked his head to the side ever so slightly.

“Oh, come on. I saw him walk away when I got here,” Parker took a sip of the drink Hotch bought him to mask whatever bitter emotion was crossing his features. “He’s cute.”

“Sure, but between you and me...” Hotch leaned forward into Parker’s space, “...he thinks he’s a lot more important than he is.”

Parker was silent but nodded for Hotch to continue.

“I have a stressful job and, well, he just makes it worse with his constant bitching,” Hotch shrugged. “He’s only really good for one thing,” Hotch let his eyes flick down to Parker’s pants.

“Mm, he sounds awful,” Parker responded, pretending not to notice. He suddenly leaned into Hotch, making Hotch almost recoil at how fast he moved. Parker placed a steadying hand on Hotch’s thigh, sliding it upward, “Do you mind handing me one of those napkins.” He tilted his chin toward the stack of napkins over Hotch’s shoulder.

Hotch was all too aware of the vulnerability of this and made a mental note to not touch his drink after. He turned back to Parker seeing him rifling through his bag only to bring his hand out empty.

“Thanks, I thought I brought my eye drops. I think someone around here has a cat or something,” Parker dabbed at his eyes.

Hotch knew exactly what Parker was doing while his back was turned but played along, “Oh, how awful. Are you okay?”

“Yea, yea,” Parker moved to stand up. “I’m gonna get some air, maybe a smoke will do me some good.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yea,” Parker smiled sweetly, grabbing onto Hotch’s forearm. “You can join me if you want.”

“I could use a...smoke,” Hotch stood. He placed a coaster over the glass and moved to walk with Parker outside.

“You’re just gonna leave that?” Parker asks innocently, pointing at Hotch’s glass.

“Oh, yea. I don’t want him to come looking for me if the bartender takes it,” Hotch lied smoothly.

“O—okay.”

My thigh buzzed, making me look up instantly. I saw Hotch’s taller frame first, his head bobbing through the crowd with Parker in front of him. I traced their path and saw that Parker was taking him to the back exit. I didn’t move until their backs were entirely toward me and Parker’s hand was on the back door. I slowly started moving, breaking out into a run as soon as the door closed behind them. Leaning against the wall just next to the door, I ripped open the Velcro holding the inner ankle seam of my pants together. I had learned my lesson after trying to tug my pants up on a different undercover operation. I drew my gun and reached for the handle.

Once Hotch let the door close behind him, Parker was taking his hand and tugging Hotch toward him.

“Come here,” Parker bit his bottom lip, letting himself be backed up against the brick by the taller man.

“Thought you needed some air,” Hotch—Adam—smirked.

“I lied,” Parker grinned, using one of his hands to bring Hotch down by his neck.

The kiss was rough and aggressive. It’s nothing like the kisses Hotch shared with León earlier and he decided immediately that he hated it. He broke the kiss, instead running his mouth along Parker’s jaw and down his neck while keeping track of his hands for any sudden movements. He lost one hand, and the thought made his heart rate pick up.

What contingencies did this guy have?

Hotch didn't have to wait long before the door they just came out of squeaked open. My voice boomed from next to them, “FBI, put your hands up!”

Hotch let go of Parker, slowly putting his hands up and taking a step back. Once Parker realized that Hotch didn’t look nervous about the situation, he realized he’d been made. Parker’s furious eyes glared into Hotch as I ordered him to put his hands up again. A glint of metal caught my eye as Parker’s hand twitched, “Needle!”

Parker’s hand flew up, but Hotch was quick to catch his wrist and pin it to the wall, not caring about the brick biting into his knuckles. Parker struggled against Hotch but he pressed a forearm against the murderer’s throat to prevent him from squirming. I could see the team running into the alley with guns drawn, making me sigh in relief. I approached cautiously, fishing a glove from my pocket and prying the syringe from his fingers carefully. With the drugs secured, Hotch roughly turned him around, pressing him up against the wall face first. Morgan took over and slapped cuffs on Parker and directed him away.

As they took him away, I found the discarded cap to the needle and carefully recapped it without incident. I passed it off to one of the attending officers who, thankfully, had a plastic bag on him.

“Good work,” Rossi gave Hotch a slap on the shoulder and turned toward me. “You, too, kid.”

Everyone exited the alley except for Hotch and me. He looked positively disheveled but in a cute way, with his shirt rumbled, hair a mess, and kiss-swollen lips. The adrenaline was beginning to die down in my veins, causing my shoulders to droop. My energy, both physically and mentally, had been more than expended over the last two days. I finally let myself feel the emotions I’d felt since I learned about the case. My eyes stung and I pressed the heel of my palms against them to mitigate the feeling, deciding too late to turn away from Hotch. A sob barely escaped my lips before I felt Hotch’s arms engulf me and cradle me against his chest.

“Shhh, you did a great job,” he murmured against my forehead. “We got him. He can’t hurt anyone else.”

With one last shuddering breath, I pulled back and wiped my face, “Thanks, sorry.

“No need to be sorry.”

Hotch’s eyes were watery, but the dam didn’t break.

I really want to kiss him again.

By the looks of it, so did he. His face got closer but stopped short as he resigned to just press his forehead against mine. I kept a firm hand on his chest to let him know it wasn’t the best of ideas.

“I know,” he murmured. “Would it be okay if it did happen again, though? Some time?”

I nearly snorted with how absolutely ridiculous the question was, “Yes, Hotch, it can happen again.”

Though, despite my feelings on the matter, I didn’t expect that it would be as natural as he might hope. Our emotions all ran high during this operation and I was sure once that wore off, we’d be back to dancing around it.

“Good.”

“You know they’re making bets on you, right?” I stepped out of his comforting embrace.

“I don’t doubt it. Who told you?”

“Derek. But, oh, how I love sabotaging office bets,” I smirked.

Chapter 6

#criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds fanfic #aaron hotchner fanfiction #Fic: Special Weapons and Tactics #criminal minds x original male character #aaron hotchner x original male character #hotch x omc #hotch x oc #hotchner x omc #hotchner x oc #aaron hotchner x oc #aaron hotchner x omc #Spotify

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seaofreverie · 9 months ago

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Sparkstember Day 24: FFS (Things I Won't Get)

I have something terrible to confess, which is that at first I was not much of an FFS fan, at all. I actually actively DISLIKED most of what I've know from them at that point, which was what the Spotify algorithm seemed very content to throw at me whenever possible until it eventually forgot about it. Well, nothing wrong with that I guess, but I also want to think that most of my initial aversion to this project came from how I was still pretty, uh, close-minded in a sense when it comes to music at the time (and I'm saying all this as though FFS is even THAT much of a departure from Sparks, which it's really not? But maybe I just I saw it differently back then, which I guess is also fair).

But yeah anyway, I had a huge change of heart a couple months later, decided that all these songs are incredibly cool actually and I'm a huge fan now. This is a very solid collaboration and album and I'm so glad this happened. Like, it really is among my very favourite things from Sparks that I barely ever think about in such terms for some reason. Because I've noticed that I treat FFS more like a compliation than an album maybe? Cause yeah I'm pretty sure this is the only album where I have 30-40+ plays on several songs and only around 5 or so on a couple others. And I'm not super attached to the order of the tracklist either, and I'm mostly saying this because I've been a 100% albums over playlists type of person for the longest time. I will listen to the whole album start to end even if I don't like everything on it. It's like, well, if I like the whole thing enough to revisit it, then too bad, I'm sitting through it all until I can enjoy everything on it to at least some extent.

Overall, to me this album embodies that mid-2010s electro pop / indie rock energy that I love very deeply, in the sense that it feels appropriate to think, had I known about it back in the day, I feel like I would have LOVED it and it would have been my personal soundtrack of those early middle-school years of my life (or even earlier, I have this one note of me saying that "FFS is so primary school-core it hurts", so. While it didn't exist in the world yet at that time it still FEELS like that time, and I absolutely love it when music reminds me of a period in my life from around its release even if I was absolutely not aware of it yet at that point. It's like this source of free nostalgia that you didn't know would be attainable from this particular place.)

Also I will just say that it's ENTIRELY because of FFS that I eventually decided to give FF a go as well, and now I'd consider them one of my favourite bands, so, well, heck yeah to that!!

Favourite songs (and other highlights):

Johnny Delusional: oh yeah, I think it's important to note that it was especially THIS song that I found annoying as heck in the beginning. I thought it got very schematic and predictable at points (the long pause after the bridge especially I found to be so.... ahhhh come on, I could see this coming from a mile away!!) All of, which... well, maybe that was still a valid point in a way, but who cares since I love this song now, absolutely and completely and it's just soooo replayable. Every day is a good day to listen to Johnny Delusional a dozen of times

Call Girl: huge huge fan of the intro on this one and that whole wobbly synth sound it has

Dictator's Son: I really like that little guitar riff moment during the bridge

Police Encounters: notably the only FFS song among those early ones for me that I really liked from the start. And it's the ultimate jam, it's incredible how instantly happy and energized this song always makes me feel even after so many listens

Save Me From Myself

So Desu Ne: maybe the biggest offender (positively) when it comes to that "primary school-core" sound. Those cutesy synths are so important to me personally

The Man Without A Tan: realized quite regrettably late how much of a banger this is

Things I Won't Get: you know how it is with me and Russell's falsetto

So Many Bridges

#hell yeah ffs time!!!!!!!! so so awesome i love this album sm. so many of my most replayed songs are from it #for real so weird to think about how i was so ffs-averse at first. what was my problem honestly #i envy people who have been enjoying this album since its release. this could have been me in a better timeline #meanwhile i was too busy fixating on what was charting on top radio hits lists and such. not my best period #but maybe it was necessary and without it many later developments wouldn't occur. who knows #but also ok time to be vain now because i'm soooo happy with this drawing and the next one #(and the one after that too)#they're the best ones i've made so far for sure and i actually tried to put those two right next to the first two i made for this month #and the difference is actually so huge. i never thought i'd be able to get to this point and in just about a month too #i never thought i'd be able to finish so many drawings in such a short time either #so yay for progress. this is huge. to me at least #sparkstember 2024 #my art #goose monologues

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ix-c-999 · 3 months ago

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I found a bunch of posts from mid-late 2010s Tumblr earlier about DPD, and while some of it was good and helpful, some of it I'm realizing I have criticisms of.

While I never saw a post that outright said this in these words, I very much got the sense that most of the writers of those posts would agree with the statement "People who know people with DPD should do absolutely as much as they can to be accommodating of the disorder."

That used to be how I felt about mental health, but after some experiences, I've realized I would actually phrase it more as "While people who know people with DPD should be mindful of the disorder and be aware of common triggers for it, it is ultimately the responsibility of the people with DPD to manage their own condition and keep their symptoms from negatively impacting others".

For example, a common piece of advice in those posts was that dependeds should avoid how much they talk about their other friends around people with DPD who are dependent on them.

While I understand that hearing about your depended's other friends CAN be a trigger for fears of abandonment (I'm not immune to this), I don't think that means dependeds shouldn't talk about their other friends. I think that means people with DPD should learn how to handle hearing their dependeds talk about their other friends.

If the person with DPD is genuinely frequently triggered by their depended mentioning their other friends, then the person with DPD should initiate a conversation about it, and maybe it would end with an agreement that the depended should give more reassurance to the person with DPD, but concluding that the depended shouldn't talk about their other friends at all, or talk about them only very occasionally, just doesn't seem fair.

The problem has gotten somewhat better in that I see it less often these days (unsure if that just means I'm following better blogs now), but in the 2010s, Tumblr had a real problem with mentally ill and traumatized people expecting everybody to accommodate them 100% without them doing any work whatsoever.

I understand therapy isn't accessible to everybody, and I honestly have more criticisms of therapy than I have praise for it. But I also don't believe seeing a therapist is the only way to recover, and I also believe that, as uncomfortable, triggering, or distressing as it can be, people with mental illnesses and trauma need to learn how to do things that make them uncomfortable. They need to learn how to power through certain things and do things they don't want to do. This isn't true 100% of the time - for example, someone who's sex repulsed due to trauma doesn't need to just learn to get through sex even though it triggers them - but where it comes to things that relate to being able to function in social situations or that have the potential to negatively impact others, you do very much have to do things you don't want to do.

Unfortunately, a lot of people don't like being told "you have to learn how to suffer intense discomfort very frequently" and prefer hearing "it's not your fault that you're this way, so other people need to be okay with everything you do". It's comforting to think that, and I used to be surrounded by people who thought that, but I've realized that it's not true.

#.txt #[klaus]#personalposting

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oceansabove · 3 months ago

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2025 book bingo update #2 - book bingo I made!! Progress: 40%. If you are interested I have this on Storygraph - dm me for the link :) So far in 2025 I have read 12 books, but two of them didn't check off any of these boxes. See my last update here.

Book I've wanted to read for over 5 years: Night Sky With Exit Wounds, by Ocean Vuong. 4.25 stars. I’ve wanted to read this since I got entranced by the title on mid-2010’s-tumblr, and, though I appreciate all of Ocean Vuong’s work, I think I would have enjoyed this collection more in the mid 2010s, and I think his other books are better.

Book that changed my worldview: Illness as Metaphor, by Susan Sontag. 5 stars. I’ve been thinking about the opening quote to this book for a long time, and I’m glad I finally got around to reading it. It pairs very well with The Emperor of All Maladies, which I read last summer. As someone who researches the psychology of disease, I found it fascinating, especially to look at a disease that once was shrouded in mystery but is now much better understood and connect that to my own current work on long COVID. Fr mysterious causality is a blank canvas upon which we project our own anxieties and “our shallow attitude toward death.” But ymmv if this isn’t a topic you find interesting. I will be continuing to think about the allure of mysterious causality in the construction of metaphor. And disease as consumption. Anyway.

Unbearably pretentious lit fic (affectionate): The Plague, by Albert Camus. 4.5 stars. Another heavy hitting disease psychology read. Unfortunately I don’t think I’m the target audience for this book because it’s apparently an allegory for the Nazi invasion of France, and I am more interested in applying it to other disease outbreaks. But Camus really hit the nail on the head with the ending, and I’ve been thinking so much lately about the appropriate response to disasters that are almost entirely out of our hands. I also found the mid-20th-century setting interesting - though Camus had some medical historical inaccuracies, that’s an era I don’t often see represented in disease fiction. I appreciate the juxtaposition of the emergence of some modern antibiotics with the realization that in the end modern technology may fail - very prescient with antibiotic resistance on the rise.

Hopeful post-apocalyptic book: The City in Glass, by Nghi Vo. 4.5 stars. You gotta go into this book and just have the mindset that you’re along for the ride. It was a great ride. Very fantastical. Nghi Vo is a storyteller I trust. I’ll forever be in awe at her ability to create an entire world that feels like it’s on the level of a 300k word series in about 100 pages. And yeah, this book is about rebuilding something you love from literally nothing even though it takes everything you have.

Short story collection: Exhalation, by Ted Chiang. 4.5 stars. I think sometimes short stories, especially spec fic, work best when they ask the question “wouldn’t it be fucked up if” and Ted Chiang does that well and also throws in some existential questions. Very creative, really making the most of the genre.

Previous prompt fills: Book that takes place over 100+ years: The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years, by Shubnum Khan; Translated work: Please Look After Mom, by Kyung-sook Shin; Debut book: The Skin and Its Girl, by Sarah Cypher; Book that takes place mostly underwater: Our Wives Under the Sea, by Julia Armfield; Book with a metamorphosis: Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer

#bookblr #sarah's 2025 book bingo

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imnottheonlyone · 1 year ago

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what happened to high school?

When I was young, I thought high school students were so cool and grown up. I watched as they started driving, dating, having sex, and going to parties and I couldn't wait to be that fun age. Now that I am in high school, where has the fun gone?

As people have realized, generations are starting to look younger and younger. When you imagine a senior in high school, you often don't imagine the people that I go to school with. Their baby faces haven't gone away and the growth spurts have not hit yet. Part of the appeal of high school is the feeling of adulthood and maturity, not only in the classes you take or your social endeavors, but in the way you look. I don't know if it's because there isn't as much of an age gap between myself and a senior in high school now, but when I was little, they just looked so old. I don't see that anymore.

Also, technology is nowhere near new and exciting. It's a part of our everyday lives and I will resent that for the rest of my life. While it comes in handy for teaching and grading, and Google is a major plus, it shouldn't be our only source of school these days. I rarely get assignments on paper and honestly, I wish they were. I want physical copies and mementos from my high school days. Not to mention, I don't even have a real school identification card. It's in an app.

When social media and technology was new and exciting, it acted as a third space for teenagers. Like malls and roller rinks in the eighties and nineties, Tik Tok, Instagram and Tumblr are the "hang-out spots" for teenagers in the late 2010s and 2020s. In the early to mid-2010s, teenagers still went to malls and roller rinks to hang with friends while also adjusting to the new online world. It was a place for teenagers to communicate their ideas and express themselves. Now it has become a part of everything. I almost never have conversations where someone doesn't whip out their phone mid sentence

Also, we have no defining trends for our generation. Social media has brought forth something called the microtrend. A song, make-up look or body type will be a trend for two weeks before out short-attention spanned peers decide it's not interesting or cool anymore and move on to something else. While the nineties had grunge and glamor and the eighties had acid wash denim and big hair, the 20s has....leggings? And Utah curls? What I mean is, when you think of the 1990s, a specific image comes to mind. Grunge music and dark eye make-up. When you think of the eighties you picture big curly hair and neon spandex. When you think of the 2020s, nothing in specific comes to mind because we can't decide on one thing. Nothing is interesting or cool enough anymore. We live in such a capitalist, consumerist society that once we engage in something too much, it becomes boring and we have to find something else. Social media and influencers only amplify that. I don't know if it's Gen-Z's push-back on being categorized or defined by anything, or if nothing is good enough anymore.

And don't even get me started on the music. In the 20th-century, different music trends came and went. In the 70s hair metal and power ballads became huge. In the 80s glam metal, synth, and pop started to materialize and in the 90s alternative rock, grunge, nu metal, and boy-bands made their breakthrough. This overbearing control of the music industry made music a novelty and allowed teenagers to be a part of a subculture. When punk came about in the 70s and goth in the 70s and 80s, it allowed teenagers to interact with another and create relationships because of the subculture they identified with. This made high school the stereotypical version we see in 90s and early-2000s movies. The goths sit over here and the popular kids sit over there. Even in the 90s with grunge and the 2000s with emo. Though to come it seemed “clique-y”, it made making friends and self-expression more cohesive and less stand-out. Even into the early 2010s, those who liked pop punk, didn’t hangout with the kids who like mainstream pop or trap beats.

With the rise of the influencer and easy access to higher paying or earning jobs, anybody can make music, even if they’re horrible at it. Content creators online put out singles or albums that sample the same beats as everybody else and have the same dense and shallow lyrics, where it is obvious they’re trying to sound deep and meaningful but they’re fully missing the mark. It’s hard to want to claim a genre or use a specific sound or style of music to identify your generation or simply the people you hangout with. New music doesn’t have that power anymore. New major music genres have not been pioneered since the 90s with grunge and nu metal. People that are making music aren’t creative and the creatives aren’t making music.

The things people listen to and the way that they dress says a lot about them. For teenagers, it has said everything about them. However in the last ten years, social media and technology has ripped those ideals away from us. Nobody wants to be perceived as one thing. They want to be everything and nothing is good enough to define anybody anymore. Tik Tok has ruined the essence and the glowing aura that once was the teenager.

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commanderbabygirl · 7 months ago

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11 & 17 for the book ask (*^^*)

11: What was your favorite book that has been out for a while, but you just now read?

time is very relative and i can’t pick favorites so top three!!

i listened to: The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean by Susan Casey - published 2010 - a nonfiction book about rogue waves it’s soooooooo interesting it talks a lot about big wave surfing but also how we track freak waves and the history of wave science - it’s literally so good go read it the narrator did a really good job if you like audiobooks

i read: Solitudes Crowded with Loneliness by Bob Kaufman - published 1965 - a poetry collection that’s reallllyyyyy good bob kaufman was a jazz artist and poet throught the mid 19th century and a lot of his work was only ever preformed orally - my favourite of his poems are grandfather was queer too followed by jail poems

i read: Dear America: Hear My Sorrow: The Diary of Angela Denoto, a Shirtwaist Worker, New York City 1909 by Deborah Hopkinson - published 2004 - a middle grade historical fiction about the shirtwaist workers strikes in the late 1900s and early 1910s - the triangle shirtwaist factory fire is a plot point - hadn’t read it since i was little very good held up for the most part younger me was Obsessed with the dear canada and dear america books - 100% what radicalized me at like 8 - just realized this doesn’t really count cus it was a reread shhhhhhh i have negative reading comprehension it’s okay

17: Did any books surprise you with how good they were?

i listened to How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler and was surprised by how much i liked it!!! i’ve been branching out a lot this year with reading more nonfiction and it was the first collection of essays i’ve read and it was super fascinating the author does suchhhhhh a good job marrying the ocean and their life it was sooooo so good like go read it - the author narrated the audiobook which also added another layer of!!!!

i listened to Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger and was surprised by how much the world building sucked me in!!! i had read another of her books a snake falls to earth and was expecting something like that and while it had the same world building aspects it was more of a murder mystery which normally is not my cup of tea but i reallllttttyyyyy enjoyed it - both books are set in the present day in an alternate universe where the legends of indigenous mythology (the author is specifically lipan apache) are very much real and recognized and are a big part of the world and plots

i read The Troubled Girls of Dragomir Academy by Anne Ursu it’s a middle grade fantasy and i wasn’t expecting to enjoy it as much as i did it had a really cool magic and world building and the intrapersonal relationships genuinely made me cry - no book needs to have a teachable lesson but this one definitely encouraged practicing media literacy and not trusting everything your told just because it comes from an authority figure and did it in a good not heavy handed way which i really enjoyed

thank you for the ask hehehehe

#this is so fun #commandersposts #commandersasks #books and reading

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tangerinebonfire · 1 year ago

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LiveJournal and Lapsed Friendships

I've had "back up livejournal" on my to-do list for about ten years at this point. I finally decided to do it today. After I pulled down all my posts, I clicked onto the friends tab to see who was still around. The most recent post from anyone was 2020, and most of them were closer to the mid-2010s. A few people fully scrubbed their blog.

It feels weird to see the last snapshot posts from people I used to be close with. It's weird to realize that those people are gone. Like, even if I sent one of them a message today, I would get someone else -- whoever they are now 10 years later. They'd be confused to hear from me.

I've been having this unsettling feeling lately (like, past 5 years tbh) like I am living my life in the space after the credits have rolled. Everything used to feel urgent and real and immediate, and it just mostly doesn't anymore? I'm not sure if this is just how life is after your 20s are over or if it's because I live in the suburbs.

#my posts #livejournal #maudlin

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adamwatchesmovies · 10 months ago

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The Crazies (2010)

Shortly after the turn of the millennium, we got a deluge of horror remakes and few - very few - of them worked. When you realize that The Crazies is actually suspenseful and well-made, it’s a shocker. It doesn't quite reach the full potential of its premise but you’re likely watching this movie at home for the price of a rental/as part of a subscription. This remake is worth a watch.

In Ogden Marsh, Iowa, a baseball game is interrupted when a local walks onto the field with a shotgun. Sheriff David Dutton is forced to gun Rory down. Curiously, the coroner discovers no traces of alcohol or other substances that might have explained his erratic behavior. Soon after, more residents of Ogden Marsh begin acting strangely - and violently. Before the Sheriff, his deputy, (Joe Anderson as Russell) and the town doctor (also David’s wife), Judy (Radha Mitchell), can determine what’s going on, the military swoops in and puts the entire town on lockdown.

The idea of the people closest to us suddenly becoming murderous has been done many times, most notably in George A. Romero’s zombie films (he also directed the original The Crazies) but this is not quite the same. The infected in this movie don’t want to chow down on your flesh. There’s something uniquely sinister about what they’re doing. Rory walks into the outfield with a gun. After he’s taken down, people just assume he was drunk. "Why else would anyone take a weapon to a public place?" The best scenes in this film by Breck Eisner follow normal people who have no idea someone close to them has gone mad. You don’t realize how many potentially dangerous things you find around the home until you see a movie like The Crazies. This movie’s monsters look like us (at least initially). It can take a while for someone to expose themselves as infected, which makes them uniquely scary. When they finally turn, they’ll tie you down and set you on fire. They’re something particularly sinister about the fact that many of the crazies parody their usual behavior, such as a group of hunters that move from hunting birds to hunting people.

In many films like this, where the military serves as the secondary antagonist, they only come in late into the film - as a twist. Not here. Sheriff David sees early on that someone is watching Ogden Marsh. Once we understand what's happening, the soldiers appear to violently triage and quarantine everyone. Will this all get covered up? You bet. If you get away from the military, you have to deal with stray crazies. It’s a good way to keep things fresh and it’s hard to tell which are the bigger threats. When we meet more people, you're never sure if they're infected or not, not until we get up close. Even when someone acts a bit strangely, you're not sure. Is it just the stress of the situation?

What prevents The Crazies from earning a higher rating is that while the military and "wolf among us" stuff is well done, scary and nerve-wracking, we’ve seen it elsewhere - often in zombie or zombie-like movies. Unfortunately, the scenes where family members whisper things like “Dad is acting weird and he has a knife” while hiding in a closet disappear almost entirely once the town gets taken over by the soldiers. I kept thinking of the scene in which Deadra Farnum (Christie Lynn Smith) walks into her barn while the harvester is running and how it was so much scarier than everything else this film had to offer. There’s also a scene with an infected pathologist that’s unsettling and tense… but it ends with a victim just left behind by the sheriff! Woops!

Criticisms aside, The Crazies is a mid-budget horror film done right. It’s unsettling and creepy but also fun in that “we’re all getting scared together” way. There’s plenty of gore, but it doesn’t feel excessive, many scenes will have you sweating and it offers some memorable kills too. I say see it. I’d encourage you to stick around for the end credits, where there’s a link to a web page that invites you to discover the “truth about what happened” (not that this film is pretending to be based on facts; it’s that "the government is trying to cover up the disaster") but the link is no longer active, so there’s no need for that. (April 25, 2024)

#The Crazies #movies #films #movie reviews #film reviews #Breck Eisner #Scott Kosar #Ray Wright #Timothy Oliphant #Radha Mitchell #Joe Anderson #Danielle Panabaker #2010 movies #2010 films #horror movies #horror films

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fuckyeahgoodomens · 4 years ago

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Good Omens Season 2 - The Nice and Accurate Summary of everything we know so far

All of the official info we got about Good Omens season 2 in one place (for the unofficial stuff, like photos of the shooting I’ve got the gos2unofficial tag).

How long has S2 been in the making, plans, and the possibility of S3:

Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman started planning sequel to the book in 1989 - even before it has been published and came up with the story in Seattle in 1990. But because their careers took off and they had an ocean in the between them, it was never realized it in the 90s. In 2005 they made another plans to write in a year or so but in 2007 Terry was diagnosed with Alzheimer so again the plans did not come into fruition.

In 2010 Terry and Neil agreed to let people go forward with making Good Omens as a TV show, they talked about the shape of the show as a whole and where it would go.

Neil wrote the first season with the future seasons, second and third, in mind.

The purpose of the second season is to finish the story which Neil and Terry planned.

The sequel planned in 1989 is a hypothetical Season 3. Season 2 is how we get from the end of Season 1 to the place where we could start Season 3. Neil also said: Things from the sequel went into Season 1 and Season 2, but mostly to get things into position for Season 3 which would use the plot for the sequel as its template. or also: Season 3 is the story that Terry and I came up with in Seattle in 1990. Season 2 is what needs to happen in order to get us to the point of starting that episode, so I felt very unconstrained building it. I’d already started putting pieces in place in Season 1.

Three seasons is the plan - as Neil said ‘if Amazon and the BBC are up for the third’.

Neil stared plotting the second season in 2018, a year before the first season came out.

In August 2019 he told Amazon and BBC at fancy breakfast, This is the plot., and they said, Oh, we like that plot.

In December he and John Finnemore got together, at Alfie’s Roof Garden Cafe overlooking the Regents Canal, and Neil told him the plot and he said, That is a good plot, but how does it end?, Neil said that he doesn’t have ends until he gets there but John needed one so Neil said, How about this? and told him the end and John said, That’s a good end. And that is the end we’ve got.

The first scene of season two was written in pencil in a notebook on Skye in Summer 2020, the writing was finished in late summer 2021 (with small rewrites during the shooting). The season was greenlit, Neil: Basically on the 16th of September 2020. Although they didn’t actually get us an okay to start writing until mid December 2020. I had started writing already, and so had John Finnemore, and some key scenes from episode 1 had already been written, but we didn’t start properly writing until we knew it was a go.

Neil also said about S2: Season 2 is kind of quiet and gentle and romantic as opposed to season 1. And if we ever get to hypothetical season 3 it will probably not be quiet and gentle and romantic either but this is the soft, gentle, romance in the filling of the sandwich.

Cast and crew:

The casting begun in March 2020 with Suzanne Smith as the casting director.

Writing: Neil Gaiman and co-writer John Finnemore, with also Cat Clarke, Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman writing minisodes.

Director: Douglas Mackinnon

Showrunners: Neil Gaiman and Douglas Mackinnon (who directed and executive produced the first season) are going to co-showrun.

Executive producers: Neil Gaiman, Douglas Mackinnon, Rob Wilkins, John Finnemore and Josh Cole (BBC Studios Productions’ Head of Comedy).

Music: David G. Arnold, S1 music composer is returning and there will be new end credit theme song variations

Script Supervisor: Jemima Thomas is returning.

Director of photography: Gavin Finney is returning.

Production designer and head of the art department: Michael Ralph is returning.

Production: BBC Studios Productions, Amazon Studios, Narrativia and The Blank Corporation

The opening titles: are again being made by the Peter Anderson Studio, there will be new ones, even madder.

Storyboarding: Mike Collins is returning.

Cast:

Returning:

David Tennant as Crowley

Michael Sheen as Aziraphale

Jon Hamm as Gabriel

Doon Mackichan as Michael

Gloria Obianyo as Uriel

Derek Jacobi as Metatron

Elizabeth Berrington as Dagon.

Paul Adeyefa as Eric the Disposable Demon.

Maggie Service (Sister Theresa Garrulous in S1) plays a new character Maggie who runs a record shop which is beside Aziraphale’s bookshop in Soho, Mr. Fell is her landlord, shop passed through the generations. Her shop looks across shop where Nina works. She wears on her neck her great grandmother’s wedding ring, a heart pendant with an eye and a toucan pendant.

Nina Sosanya (Sister Mary Loquacious in S1) playes a new character Nina who works in the independent coffeeshop Give Me Coffe or Give Me Death, she is good with dealing with people in Soho who come in, not afraid of dealing with them. Wears great cardigans. Her character is quite grumpy.

Miranda Richardson (Madame Tracy in S1) plays a new character Shax, a demon that was sent on Earth as the replacement of sacked Crowley.

Mark Gatiss (Harmony in S1), Steve Pemberton (Glozier in S1), Reece Shearsmith (Shakespeare in S1) in roles ‘that span Heaven, Hell and Earth’ and Niamh Walsh (Greta Kleinschmidt in S1)

New:

Quelin Sepulveda as angel Muriel: a curious, gullible, well-meaning and chatty angel that spent 6000 filing in the same office in Heaven hoping that somebody would come in and the day would get more interesting and it doesn’t. She’s a 37th order scrivener, bottom of the pily, it’s her first time to Earth.

Liz Carr as Saraqael, an angel you don’t want to mess with, a very sarcastic angel.

Shelley Conn as Beelzebub (previously played by Anna Maxwell Martin who couldn’t make it), she requested a lot more flies. The difference in appearance is addressed in the show.

Donna Preston plays Mrs. Sandwich, and We’we never quite sure about Mrs. Sandwich’s profession but she’s definitely in Soho.

Tim Downie plays Mr Brown, chairman of the Whickber Street Traders and Shopkeepers' Association.

Peter Davison (David Tennant’s father-in-law :)) plays Alastair.

Ty Tennant plays Ennon.

Andi Osho plays Sitis.

Abigail Lawrie plays Elspeth - a grave digger living on the streets in Victorian Edinburgh who digs up bodies for a local doctor to earn extra money.

Siân Phillips

Pete Firman (who is a magician in rl :))

Alex Norton

Beth Rylance

Andrew O’Neill they play a they/them person on the show

Not returning

Paul Chahidi (Sandalphon in S1) because he was unfortunately shooting something something else in the time they’d need him. Neil said: Fingers crossed for Season 3.

Jack Whitehall and Adria Arjona (Newt and Anathema in S1), Neil said: That doesn't mean they won't be back for the hypothetical Season 3 though.

Lourdes Faberes (Pollution in S1).

Ned Dennehy and Ariyon Bakare (Hastur and Ligur in S1). Neil said: Who isn’t to say they aren’t coming back in the hypothetical Season 3.

Anna Maxwell Martin (Beelzebub in S1) couldn’t make the filming (was in two shows and a stage play when they needed her).

Michael McKean (Shadwell in S1) was actually cast in S2 as a new character and was on the big script-reading Zoom call, but then world covid related issues meant that he wasn’t able to travel when they would have needed him, and they had to recast. Neil promised him that if ever we make a season 3 he’ll be in it.

When and where does the filming takes place:

The filming started on the 18th October 2021, at it was suppose to last for eighteen weeks with three weeks hiatus over Christmas, until the 11th March 2022. On the 20th February Neil said, ‘We’re in the last day of shooting.’ On the 1st March 2022 Douglas posted That’s a wrap. Then the post-production started and the series was handed in March 18 2023.

The entire second season was shot in Scotland - it’s based in Bathgate and the Central Belt of Scotland.

A big set was built in the studio in Bathgate to include for example Aziraphale’s Soho.

Outside the studio they were also filming in the Edinburgh Inverleith Park, Stirling and Old Stirling Town Cemetary, Hopetown House, Dumbarton, Edinburgh Stockbridge , Edinburgh Circus Lane, Edinburgh West Preston Street, Edinburgh Victoria Street and Bo’ness cinema Hippodrome .

How many episodes will S2 have

Six episodes. Each about 45 minutes.

When will it come out:

July 28, 2023. The six-episode season will be released exclusively on Prime Video on July 28 in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide. It was also announced in the Hillywood Parody and there is Neil, Daniel Mays and Maggie service,

The plot and more:

From Neil’s blog: There are so many questions people have asked about what happened next (and also, what happened before) to our favourite Angel and Demon. Here are, perhaps, some of the answers you've been hoping for. As Good Omens continues, we will be back in Soho, and all through time and space, solving a mystery which starts with one of the angels wandering through a Soho street market with no memory of who they might be, on their way to Aziraphale's bookshop. (Although our story actually begins about five minutes before anyone had got around to saying “Let there be Light”.)

From Neil’s instagram: Game on! There are mysteries, histories, secrets revealed and Something Too Terrible To Be Revealed on the way. Also a cardboard box.

From the BBC website: The new season will explore storylines that go beyond the original source material to illuminate the uncanny friendship between Aziraphale, a fussy angel and rare book dealer, and the fast-living demon Crowley. Having been on Earth since The Beginning and with the Apocalypse thwarted, Aziraphale and Crowley are getting back to easy living amongst mortals in London’s Soho when an unexpected messenger presents a surprising mystery.

Neil said that ‘It will be set all over the world. Or at least, it leaves Soho occasionally. Sort of.’

When Neil was asked for some out of the context spoilers he answered: Wouldn’t you rather just go in ready to be surprised, impressed, upset, delighted, confused and amazed? - 6 adjectives, 6 episodes... perhaps they fit together?

We will learn more about Aziraphale’s Soho, more about the bookshop (like the upstairs) and how the books are filed and more about the Bentley’s music. We’ll see inside the coffee shop across the street. Tea will be drunk in the bookshop, and so will cocoa.

There will be a duck-feeding scene.

Neil said: In this season we get to have new adventures with old friends, to solve some extremely mysterious mysteries, and we encounter some entirely new humans (living, dead, and otherwise), angels, and demons.

Neil implied that the building opposite the bookshop is a pub.

Neil shared this small piece of the script saying: Aziraphale: … of the…ave you... / Crowley: Not one. / Aziraphale: Oh good. / Crowley: …

Neil about S2: It’s set in 2023. And there have definitely been lockdowns. There are a lot of tourists and people in Soho, some of whom wear face-masks and most of whom don’t. It’s set in late summer, very early Autumn, mostly.

There will be more on why Aziraphale has problem with French.

There will be “minisodes” – stories that begin and end within a larger episode, ones that dive into history: a solo-story set in biblical times (by John Finnimore), in Victorian times in Edinburgh 1827 - our favourite angel and demon get into a wee bit of a pickle there (by Cat Clarke), there’s little stint of body snatching in the era, and a story in London during the blitz (by Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman called it ‘very naughty’) which takes up much of Episode 4.

To the question if S2 and S3 are directly inspired aby any other works (the same as S1 was by The Omen) Neil answered: Not really. The Bible a bit. And possibly Jane Austen. then he said that we will learn a lot about Jane Austin we didn’t know before.

We will see a bit what was Crowley up to during WW2 in S1.

From S2 the episode 5 and 6 are Neil’s favourite episodes. Neil’s favourite scene from the S2 is in episode 6. The script editor said while reading the script episode that she was laughing while crying.

There are no rabbits in S2.

What’s something that’s Neil excited for us to see: The Whickber Street Traders and Shopkeepers Association monthly meeting.

There are some love stories in it.

There is a lot more Heaven, a lot more Hell.

About the improvisation in S2, Neil: There’s one improv line in GO2. It’s what Crowley orders from the barman when he enters the pub. I hadn’t written a line for him. Other than that it’s all from the scripts.

Neil shared some pixelated pixels of what looks like Crowley in Hell and of Victorian Crowley and Aziraphale.

Over the time Neil shared several words from the script: white, if, a, road, Mr, Bentley, Something, the, Sandwich, Erdnase.

There are Eccles cakes.

Neil was asked which episode does have the best outfit and said: Probably episode 5. There are some particularly excellent clothes in episode 5, and one particular outfit that’s amazing. There are some wonderful clothes all the way through, though, so this one is going to be up to personal taste. Still…

Entry of Aziraphale’s diary in 1820 here :).

About the CGI, Neil: I’d say there are about 1,500 CGI shots in Season 2, as compared to Season 1’s 1000 shots. But I think a lot of them are going to be harder to see as CGI.

There will be Terry Pratchett easter eggs ❤ .

Michael Sheen said that Jon Hamm (Gabriel) will be drinking from the angel mug.

David Tennant about Jon Hamm: Jon Hamm is back and plays very central role, actually, in series two, Jon was with us a lot, so that was great fun to have him around. And he is very very funny in series two, he gets to do some very excellent work. You’ll very much enjoy Jon Hamm.

Neil about Jon Hamm: There are things that I have done to Jon Hamm or had other people do or that have happened to Jon Hamm in the Second Season of Good Omens that while I am not at liberty to actually reveal what they are I will say that I’m in many ways glad he’s not sitting opposite me getting his own back.

There is some character who isn’t dating another character but wants to (neither of which is A or C).

There will be Queen songs.

Something that will only makes sense after watching the S2, Neil: The 1964 Doctor Who Annual.

Neil said that there are two passages of dialogue in the GO book that didn’t get used in Season 1 but fitted exactly in Season 2.

International Express Delivery Man won’t make an appearance.

There is around 400 000 frames in S2.

Douglas Mackinnon has a cameo there, Rob Wilkins had as well but unfortunetely it ended up on the cutting room floor.

So far no plans to make a S2 Script Book.

Whether Anna Lundberg and Georgia Tennant are in it, Neil: I’m afraid not. Anna was pregnant while we were shooting and being wisely away from people during Covid times, Georgia was offered a part but didn’t take it for reasons that reflect incredibly well on her. (She did some research into history as she would have been playing a historical person, and told us that the part should go to an actress much older than herself. And we did the same research she did and realised that she was right.) If there is a season 3 then I would love to cast both of them.

David about Crowley’s hair: My hair is still red and I do have a variety of different hairstyles. Throughout the episodes my hair will transform in several different directions.

David about his favourite moment from S2: It's a line said by a small child,and it's in Episode 2 about halfway through, and it's in a scene with my son.

Summary of what we know about the epiodes here.

The fennec foxes:

In August 2021 Neil said to an ask: In Season 1 of Good Omens, the part of a demon named Crowley was played by actor David Tennant. Budget cuts in Season 2 mean that the part of Crowley in Season 2 will be shared between a glove puppet, a dear friend of the production manager’s named, I believe, Raoul, and five trained fennec foxes wearing an overcoat. Why fennec foxes? We figured nobody would notice the difference.

This joke keeps growing since then - We will make the fennec foxes ginger by special effects. Or perhaps just put the gingerest one on the top. - with wonderful fan art, comparisons and we learned from Neil that David will actually be there as a stuntman and will be set on fire to protect the foxes: For actual death-defying stunts we’ll have the actual David Tennant come in for the day and risk life and limb for us. I can promise that there will be no pyrotechnics anywhere near the fennec foxes. Apart from anything else, there are rules about that sort of thing on set. Whenever you see Crowley burning, it will be a lovely Scottish actor named David Tennant who will be in for the day in order to be set on fire, struck by lightning, immolated, or otherwise hurled into the blazing heart of an inferno. He seems to quite enjoy it.

You can check my five fennec foxes tag :).

Jaunty little hats:

Ask: VERY IMPORTANT good omens question that im sure you will break your no spoilers policy for, does anyone, including background characters, wear a jaunty little hat

Neil: Oh God you wormed it out of me. Yes. Yes. A jaunty little hat will be worn.

Comment: Careful, if jaunty little hat is not worn in the next season, you could get sued for false advertising.

Neil: We’re good. I just did a “jaunty little hat” watch to make sure, and there’s a jaunty little maroon hat in episode 1, a jaunty little brown hat in episode 3, a whole slew of jaunty little hats of all kinds and colours in episode 4, and one solitary fez-wearing moment early in episode 5 (it is a fairly jaunty fez, though) followed by the appearance of an extremely fancy little black number tipped with what looks like pink ostrich feathers about half-way through episode 5.Episode 6 is, I am relieved to say, entirely jaunty-little hat free. (x)

Merchandise:

So far we know of two:

Good Omens Tarot Deck and Guidebook - more info here

and

Good Omens Card Game - more info here

it seems that there will be more, but not announced yet :).

Trailers:

Nothing so far though at NYCC 2022 panel was shown a clip with a scene Nina, Maggie and Mrs Sandwich and then a scene with Muriel playing a constable in Aziraphale’s bookshop, Aziraphale not buying it and then Crowley coming with a box of plants. It is at the beginning of Episode 3.

Promos:

Poster:

(about details in the last poster here) Selection of promo and bts photos:

#good omens #neil gaiman #terry pratchett #david tennant #michael sheen #john finnemore #douglas mackinnon #david g arnold #what we know so far #season 2 #bts #season 2 masterpost #long post #last update: 23.05.2022 #masterposts

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