#cosmo toilet bowl

[essco-bathware]

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Explore Cosmo's range of sanitary ware brands with elegant styles. Essco by Jaquar Group offers toilets, toilet bowls, and washbasins with a cylindrical and curvy design.

[fountainpenguin]

"Cosmo Con" is such a fantastic episode, you've got:

~ Binky inadvertently kicking off the Black Plague

~ Fairies cheering for pain and torment while Jorgen blows kisses to the crowd

~ Cute medieval Fairy World sign

~ Chester and AJ freaking out over Timmy getting an A+ on a test

~ Crocker creating the most insane answer key of all time

~ Crocker putting his foot on Timmy's face

~ Mom just like "Oh yeah, fish go missing from their bowl sometimes, this is totally normal"

~ Mom attributing Timmy's success in school to Crocker instead of to Timmy which y'know is just a casual thing they throw in there that I think says a lot

~ Jorgen's disappointed face when Binky lands on Cosmo's name, he has no faith in this man

~ Prepping the house for guests includes sending Timmy off for the chore of changing a toilet seat, who does that?

~ Crocker has a weather vane on the Unsuspecting Van

~ I always go gaga over little satyr hooves

~ Who is that weirdo standing on the display case with their arms in the air and a grin like they just climbed a mountain, why are they there

~ "How thoughtful! Dead and beeping! :D" Flowers. She's talking about flowers. She wears one on her head for several minutes.

~ Wanda totally unnecessarily turning Cosmo into a megaphone and his face the second time he happens suggests he really doesn't like it but. this is just what Fairies do, they become objects, he does it anyway because there's definitely no other solution

~ Britney Britney freshening up for dinner so she puts soap directly in her eyes

~ Gigantic dead fish on the table, not even sliced just straight-up there with X eyes and its tongue sticking out.

~ Everyone's plates are full of toast and somehow Timmy's Dad got his hands on a single spaghetti noodle.

~ "My muscles are still laughing" /cue close-up of muscles laughing

~ Timmy's Dad spends half this episode carrying a lobster

~ Crazed look in Dad's eyes when he finally gets to punch Crocker

~ A+ continuity in later seasons that refers back to this episode, like in Season 4 Timmy's Dad is still threatened by Crocker and claims he's attractive and a threat to his marriage, and in Season 10 you get to see a ton of the convention tents in the background of "Fairy Con" again, I love this episode

[passivenovember]

Another stupid Harringrove HC bc I'm full of them! Billy being the kind of obnoxious ass who will be pouring you a drink all 'tell me when to stop' and everytime Steve gets distracted or looks away he just keeps pouring until the drink is overflowing and spilling out of the cup and all over the table and he'll still keep going until Steve says 'Stop!', meaning, 'what the fuck, Billy!?' and 'WOAH' and 'knock it off!' are not accepted.

I'm so sorry this took so long!!

When you sent me this I was over the moon because this?? Is Billy's humor exactly. I thought for so long about the perfect universe to build for you, but instead put it in one of my WIPs.

This is a snippet from chapter seven of If Snow Loves the Trees and Fields. I hope you enjoy it.

--

"How many bottles of this shit do you keep on hand?"

"Cosmo says we should drink a glass of wine a night, so." Billy counts on his fingers. "Four? Seven? I dunno." He giggles. "Is there something in there you like?"

Steve hiccups, moving to cover his mouth with one hand but giggling when the hiccup beats him to it. He looks at Billy with wide, playful eyes. "How many bottles have we had, then, is anyone keeping count?"

His cheeks are so pink.

Billy's never even seen a shade of pink that vibrant, that lovely, and he feels like it could be a fluke because he works in a kindergarten classroom, for Christ sake. Some of his kids have the big pack of Crayola with everything from bubblegum to magenta wasted on cheap construction paper, but Steve.

He has them all beat, the way his tongue pokes out to put a glaze on his lips.

Pink pink pink.

Billy pours them each another glass, leaning heavily on the coffee table to keep from tipping over. "Where did the other bottles go?" He whispers.

Steve looks around wildly, shifting on his haunches to look under the coffee table. When he pops back up he nearly knocks the glass over and that sends them rolling down the hill. Clutching their sides in laughter.

"I love wine." Billy says, finishing his glass. "I love spilling stuff, too. Creating puddles to jump around in."

"I didn't mean to spill."

"You didn't, but you could." Billy slaps a thick, heavy hand on the hardwood below him. "Just dump the whole fuckin' bottle out, if you want to. These babies are indestructible."

Steve gasps, leaning all the way across the coffee table until Billy thinks maybe his head has filled with helium. "My friend just had a baby."

Billy wants to throw up. "Congratulations."

"Babies really are indestructible," Steve says with a voice full of glittering wonder. "The baby will crawl the fuck around sometimes, and I'm always worried his little arms will break when Robin swaddles him because it looks uncomfortable--"

"I like being swaddled." Billy says. Matter of fact.

But Steve isn't listening. He makes a bowl shape with his hands, like, "And his little noggin' just finished growing, like. Yesterday." He folds his arms, frowning. "I'm surprised Robin and her nanny haven't dropped him yet."

Billy leans back on his palms. "What about her husband, does he have a hand in all this?"

"She's raising the baby on her self."

"Like, on her tit? Breastfeeding?" Billy whispers, nearly dying when Steve's wine comes out through his nose.

They spend the next five minutes cleaning up peach scented snot with a paper towel, joining each other on the floor in front of the couch. Almost touching but not quite, as Billy gets the last of it, his fingers gentle on Steve's chin to hold him still.

Billy likes touching Steve.

Billy wants them to be like this forever, and for always. Drinking wine on his living room floor in damp, distant candle light. Steve's eyes have gone heavy lidded, like he's bare-knuckle boxing to stay awake. Billy runs his thumb over Steve's mouth, pretending to dab away the last bit of boogers.

Steve leans into the touch.

Billy keeps touching him. "Maybe you should lay down," He says. "Does your head hurt?"

"My nose burns. It feels like sizzling bacon." Steve wines, and.

It's adorable. Billy pulls Steve to his chest on impulse and Steve doesn't think twice about it, laying down with his head in Billy's lap once he manages to slide from collarbone to hip. His nose is red.

Pink and red, like valentines day.

Billy plays with Steve's hair, winding strands around his fingers and tugging until Steve bats at him, lazy and slow. "Don't pull my hair out of my head, Bill."

"I won't."

"I need it."

Billy grins. "For what?"

"For love. And Sex. And engagement photos, when he finally puts two and two together."

"When who puts two and three--"

"Two."

"Can we stop talking about math?" Billy whines, tugging on Steve's hair again. "Jesus, I feel like I've done more math today than I have in fucking years."

Steve giggles, high and light like a baby. "God help the youth of Hawkins."

"Gee, thanks."

"You're cute." Steve pouts, turning until his nose is buried in Billy's stomach. When he speaks again the words are all muffled. "I should help you find a wife."

And.

Billy doesn't even want to get into that. The impossibility of it all.

"Oh sure, maybe I'll date your friend with the baby," Billy teases, smirking when Steve bites him. "I'm not so good with babies but once the kid can shit in a toilet we'll be best pals."

Steve sits like the ground is on fire, getting right up in Billy's face. "You can't marry her." Steve says triumphantly.

Billy tucks the hair behind Steve's ears. "Why not?"

"Because she's a lesbian." Harrington pokes Billy's nose with his finger, and then with his own nose, like, "Ha-ha, you little cherub asshole, I foiled your plan!"

Steve giggles.

And rocks them back and forth.

And keeps staring at Billy with those eyes. All soft, so.

Billy moves away. "You getting sleepy?"

Steve cranes his neck to stare at the half empty bottle of Boone's on the floor next to them. He raises his eyebrows once, twice, three times, until Billy shakes his head.

"You need water, Harrington."

"I want wine."

"You're gonna hate yourself in the morning."

Steve gets on his haunches, finally pulling away from Billy to grab their empty glasses. He holds them over his head, like, "I'd never hate waking up here." And the glasses make little lady bug antenna's on Steve's head, so.

Who is Billy to argue.

He grabs the bottle and sets up shop, telling Steve to put the glasses on the coffee table so they won't spill.

Steve's lips form a pout. "You promised me a puddle to jump around in."

"I didn't--"

"You mentioned puddles to a drunk bisexual, Billy." Steve says, the picture of resolve. "What else is a gay to do? Forget about it? Move on?"

Billy shakes his head, putting the spout of the bottle over Steve's wine glass. "Tell me when to stop, pretty boy."

Steve nods with his whole body as the glass turns orange in the candle light.

Billy glances at Steve, watching him watch the bottle drain. "Um, Steve?"

"Yeah?" Steve says dreamily.

The glass starts to overflow.

Harrington jolts into action, like, "What are you doing?"

"I'm getting you some wine."

"It's spilling all over the place--"

"I thought you wanted a puddle, Steve."

"I was joking."

"Well you have to tell me when you stop." Billy says, almost bored. Like this is something he does everyday.

"Okay," Steve says, as if gathering his thoughts.

Billy keeps going.

Steve swats him, like, "I said okay, what the fuck--"

"Yeah, but you didn't say stop."

"Well fucking STOP, Billy." Steve laughs, loud and bright. "You're crazy, you know that? Like an apple falling from the tree or whatever it is they say?"

And that's not at all what they say, but.

Steve's fingers make little splashes in the puddle Billy creates for them, anyway, until the room seems to disappear.

[dorotheajanegilmore]

Harley Quinn x OC!Fem

Full story available on Wattpad: “Omen | Harley Quinn”

https://my.w.tt/mfe6TphAX3

Chapter one: Omen

Warning: Birds of Prey spoilers!!!

"Roman?" The strawberry blonde wondered into the boobytrap, an funfair attraction on Amusement mile.

The place was a blood bath. All of Roman's men, which he owned and protected, were out cold on the floor. Many battered and bruised, some had arrows in their skulls and some with knife wounds.

Lilith stopped and leaned on one of the mirrors. As her palm connected with the cold glass she felt herself become weak and her vision blurred. She saw it. The battle.

Harley Quinn, the Joker's ex girl. Renee Montoya, the cop building a case against Roman. Dinah Lance, the singer at Roman's club. Helena Bertinelli, the heiress who's right is to claim the Bertinelli fortune. And Cassandra Cain, the pickpocket kid who stole the diamond Roman wanted, the diamond that housed the codes to the Bertinelli fortune.

The woman fought all of these men and Roman to protect the kid and save themselves. and they woman. They're on the Founders Pier. The kid planted one of Harley's bombs on Roman and he blew to pieces into the ocean.

Lilith came out of her vision dazed and confused. She heard a rustling noise and then a groan. She looked over at the dimly tunnel and saw one of the men pulling himself to his feet. She could see a lump on his forehead and rolled her eyes. Clearly Harley Quinn hadn't hit him hard enough.

"You okay, Sir?" Lilith asked, her tone emotionless.

"You skank!" He yelled angrily as he saw her. Obviously thinking she was one of the women that beat the shit out of him.

Lilith rolled her eyes and focused on a shard of glass on the floor. She imagined the shard rising in the air and flying into his jugular. And that's exactly what happened.

The man clutched his neck as the blood uncontrollably  poured out. He quickly fell the the ground.

Lilith imagined herself arriving on the pier, and then that happened. She was quickly knocked off of her feet as she came face to face with Harley Quinn. The blonde screamed as she collided into the strawberry blonde.

Lilith pulled herself up and saw all five women holding a fighting stance. "Relax, chicas. I come in piece."

The cop stepped forward and pointed at Lilith with her gun. "Lilith Clay?"

"That's me." She nodded. "What's it to you?"

The cop lowered her gun. "Everyone's been looking for you. We assumed you were dead."

"We?" Harley asked, her eyes trained on Lilith.

"Gotham PD. Ladies, this is Omen. Roman Sionis' personal crystal ball. She is the reason he knew where the diamond was." Renee explained to her crew.

Lilith rolled her eyes. "Yeah well he's dead now. I'm officially free! Thanks to you broads." Her thick accent matched Harley's, making the blonde smirk.

"So why did you come here?" Cassandra asked, being the nosey little kid that she is.

Lilith shrugged. "I actually don't know. I escaped from Roman's basement and headed to the boobytrap. I had a vision of you guys kicking ass and when I got there I saw it. That's my power. I don't know why I came to you."

"Oh, I do." Harley clapped excitedly. "You've lost your master and you need a knew one. You grew attached to being with him and having people command and instruct you, so now you're looking to us to tell you what to do next. Textbook Stockholm syndrome meets emotional attachment issues with a sprinkle of a fear of loneliness due to childhood abandonment."

Everyone starred at Harley as she quickly and expertly diagnosed the young stranger.

"Spot on." Lilith shrugged, accepting the truth.

Harley shrugged, clearly feeling very proud of herself. "I'm very smarts."

"So what next?" Helena asked, holding her crossbow over her shoulder.

"The kid's gotta shit." Harley said as a matter of fact. "Cosmos?"

—————

The six woman ended up at Harley's favourite Mexican restaurant in Gotham. The sun had risen and it was now time for breakfast.

Harley gave the kid a spicy burrito in hopes of a bowel movement. Cassandra stupidly swallowed the diamond after she was arrested for stealing.

So while Cassandra was busy straining in the toilet, Lilith sat beside Renee and Helena, opposite from Dinah and Harley, and answered all of their questions.

“So, how did he capture you?” Harley asked, fascinated by the new girl.

“He didn’t.” Lilith shrugged, before sipping her bright green Cosmo. “I was left at orphanage when I was a baby. When my powers started to present, they sold me to him. They tried to sell me to your ex guy, Harley. But he didn’t wanna pay. So Joker gunned down the nuns and snatched me. I was with him until I turned turned twelve. One of my visions wasn’t what he wanted to here. So he dumped me off of the pier. Of course Roman likes second hand goods, as soon as word spread I was up for grabs, he sent one of his men to fish me out.”

“Huh...” Harley smirked to herself. “So that makes too of us. That’s classic Mistah J. To dump you when he’s got no other use for you.”

“But now I’m free.” Lilith frowned. Harley was right earlier, she had no idea what to do without being instructed. “I feel like I’m supposed to be happy about that.”

Harley heard Cass cry out in relief and laughed. “Here.” She picked up a colander and handed it to Lilith. “As your new master my trainee Harlequin, my first role for you is to take this retrieve Huntress’ diamond.”

Lilith reluctantly took the colander and headed to the bathroom. She knocked on the only occupied stall and slid the colander under the door. “Here you go kid.”

Harley opened the door and pulled a face. “No more burrito’s for you.” She waved her hand in front of her nose to waft away Cassandra’s stench.

Cassandra slid the now full colander under the stall and Harley use a tissue to pick up the metal bowl. She took it to the sink and began rinsing it with water.

Lilith held her nose to stop from gagging. Harley began clapping excitedly and then turned off the tap. “Look at this rock!” She exclaimed, holding up a diamond.

Cassandra came out of the stall and Harley headed to the small bathroom window. “Let’s bounce, Ladies.”

Harley grabbed Lilith’s wrist and helped her out of the window onto a wooden box. They were face to face, admiring each other as time began to slow down.

Harley was hooked on her green eyes, they were so beautiful to her. Her train of throughly was interrupted by a distressed Cassandra.

“Uh guys. Help me.”

[aidalro]

blooming | kim doyoung

pairing: doyoung x gender neutral!reader

genre: angst; hanahaki!au

warnings: blood, vomit, death

word count: 1.2k

summary: In which Doyoung is your only chance at living, but he just can’t bring himself to love you.

January 27, 2019. 

The first time you tell yourself you’re not in love with him, its lavender, and you’re in the bathroom at some stupid party Mark had dragged you to. 

The anxiety of showing up in the first place was enough to make you sick, but seeing Kim Doyoung mid-laughter while the strobe lights pulsed around him like some sort of halo was what had sent you running to the bathroom, holding back vomit.

Instead, you’re throwing up lavender and blood into the toilet, the stem scraping along the insides of your throat. It hurt like hell, but the implication of it overshadowed the pain by miles. You don’t know how long you sat there, head hanging into the toilet bowl, staring at the flower like it was a death sentence. You were almost certain it was. 

February 13, 2019. 

Its been a month and you could already fill a garden with the marigolds. They’re sickening - petals covered in bile and blood. Who knew love could be so painful? Your fist tightens around the love note in your hand. You would finally give it to him today. No holding back. 

You watch as Doyoung kisses her from across the cafeteria.

You hold back. 

March 2, 2019. 

In history class, you’re paired with Doyoung for a project on Korea’s greatest heroes. Your wide eyes meet his and your chest begins to heave. Maybe this time it really would be vomit, you’re hoping it is, you’d rather that than let everybody know your secret... 

A rose petal falls from your lips. He stares. Everyone does.

April 30, 2019. 

Doyoung’s hands are on your chest as his lips clash with yours. It’s toothy and rough and there’s way too much tongue for it to be comfortable. He tries to ignore it. He can’t.

He pulls away. Kim Doyoung was kissing you and he felt absolutely nothing, but the blush coating your cheeks was enough to tell him that you did. His heart sinks. 

He was going to kill you. 

May 16, 2019.

“I’m sorry,” Doyoung breathes. His voice trembles like a leaf in the wind. “I don’t love you. I don’t think I can.” 

You swallow. Hide the flowers behind your back. Choke them down. “It’s okay,” You whisper. It’s quiet for a few moments. Doyoung stares at you like you’re a modern painting and he just doesn’t understand you. You’re not sure if you do either. 

“I should go.” 

You turn, and blood begins to trickle from your mouth.

June 3, 2019. 

The boy you’ve known since kindergarten is sitting by your hospital bed. His eyes are red from crying and his hands are shaking in yours. There’s a silent apology on his lips when you make eye contact with him. You almost want to cry too. 

They call this the Garden Ward. Its name is a sharp contrast to the patients it holds - people with thorns jutting out of their throats, vines twisting around their arms until the skin is black and blue, the scent of vomit suffocating anyone who walks in. You were admitted a week ago when your mom had found you passed out on your bedroom floor, surrounded by a myriad of bleeding flowers. Doyoung hasn’t left your side for days. You weren’t quite sure why he was staying, because you didn’t matter to him that much and you don’t think you ever have, but you’re grateful for his presence. It makes you feel less afraid. You muster up what little energy you have left to squeeze his hand. “It’s not your fault,” You wheeze. Tears slip from his eyes as he squeezes your hand back. 

“I’m sorry.” 

July 21, 2019.

“Remember when we both climbed onto the roof and fell off?” Doyoung asks softly. “Yeah,” You chuckle. “You broke your arm and I was so scared I think I cried more than you did.” He laughs, his arm around your shoulders. His head is resting in the crook of your neck and you can feel his breath dance along your throat when he speaks. It almost felt like you were more than friends. Like you two weren’t in a tiny hospital bed, but on his sofa watching bad romcoms and cuddling. You had fantasized about it so many times that it was almost tangible. Almost. Doyoung had been your childhood best friend, but had found better people to be with once middle school started. You didn’t hold it against him though. You would have chosen other people over yourself too. You find yourself wondering just how long you’ve been in love with him. Maybe you had loved him long before the idea of you even existed; maybe you had loved him since the very first flowers on earth had fluttered in the very first breeze, like bright angel wings in the soil. You imagine that the sun was bright on that day, warming up even the most delicate and tiny petals, like a lover kissing every little crevice on their partner’s face. The entire world quiet as your love for a boy with bunny eyes and a gummy smile echoes throughout it like a message from the cosmos itself. The air conditioner shutters for a moment, then continues. You can feel Doyoung let out a shaky breath next to you, and you’ve returned to a gloomy hospital room with the boy who will never love you back.

August 19, 2019. 

Your limbs felt like wood, and with every breath a root burrowed itself further and further into your heart. You didn’t have much time left.

“Doyoung,” Your voice was hoarse and tense. You felt like your vocal chords might snap. “You’ve been here... too long. Go... home.” 

I can’t let you watch me die. It suddenly feels like you’re in some romance movie. Doyoung looks up at you like he’s trying to memorize every inch of your face; like he wants to engrave the image of you into his brain so he can go home and paint a mural of it on his wall.

But this isn’t a romance movie, because Doyoung doesn’t love you, and your life is about to end. 

“Okay,” He whispers. “I’ll be right back.”

His hand slides from yours as he grabs his coat. At the door, he turns around. Takes one last look at you and smiles in that friendly and comforting way of his. He looks so tired. 

You force your cracked lips into a soft smile. He waves goodbye and gently shuts the door. Your smile drops the second it closes. Tears begin to stream down your cheeks. 

He’s five years old and giving you his crayon. He’s seven and laughing about having lost a tooth; he’s twelve and the only time you see him is during lunch; he’s seventeen and he’s been assigned to do a history project with you; he’s eighteen and shutting the door to your hospital room; he’s eighteen and saying goodbye. The last time you tell yourself you’re in love with Kim Doyoung, it’s honeysuckle, and you’re lying in a hospital bed as your heart stops beating.

[horseyfuture]

Lockdown Horrorscopes

Welcome, horrendous mortal, to your mind-rending Lockdown Horrorscopes. It has been some time since you last graced my tent with your questioning buttocks. No, do not cross my palm with silver, we use contactless now. Just press it on that bit of the window there. Excellent. Your payment has been accepted. Let us discover what the universe needs you to hear...

---

Aries: After many weeks of lockdown, you are beginning to have conversations with inanimate objects around the house. In the middle of a one-sided argument with the toaster, a small, flint-hard piece of green-tinged pitta bread joins the debate, taking the toaster’s side and calling you a “scruffy tossbag”. You may be hallucinating, though also, that pitta bread has been there QUITE A WHILE. The pitta is chewy, but stops talking after a while. A little time later the room becomes a little sloshy, like gravy in a bowl. The fruit bowl pipes up as you walk past. It calls you a wanker.

Taurus: To fend off the tedium, you decide to play a joyful round of “how many chairs can you put on a chair”, to which the answer turns out to be “six, before getting a face full of chair”. While bleeding gently onto a chair, you consider that future sources of entertainment might be more wisely centred around (say) pillows, or kittens, or candyfloss. You do not own any of these things, sadly, as you sold what you did have to get more chairs, very much failing to anticipate the sorts of items commonly found to be of use in a lockdown. Oh well. You sigh resignedly and begin to put a chair precariously on top of some other chairs.

Gemini: Having had more Skype calls with family than anybody can healthily defend, you decide to take a long, relaxing bath. Unfortunately, you are running low on soap. Also, you forgot to stock up on bubblebath last time you went to the shop. And water. Additionally, you do not own any towels. Or a bath. Or the room for a bath. A bathroom, if you will. Still, not to be held back by trifling inconveniences, you diligently strip off and scrub yourself vigorously all over, while sat naked on the kitchen floor. Eventually, the people who own the house return and a Series of Exciting Conversations follow.

Cancer: Because you are so wildly creative and unique, you decide that among your already proven range of wondrous skills, such as writing crap poetry, making crap fan art for mawkish period dramas and attaching small pieces of technical lego to a crap hat, you will blow the minds of your friends by becoming... a baker! Yes. This will mark you out as a trend setter. You carefully go to the shop, observing social distancing except when you aren’t which is always and buy ALLLLL the ingredients for bread making. Literally all of them. So nobody else can make bread. Returning home, you valiantly point your wild intellect at the problem and, with a little help from a BBC recipe guide: YOU MAKE BREAD. It is crap.

Leo: You receive an unexpected parcel. The parcel contains mostly lizards. As well as the lizards, there is a bright red jewel which sparkles enticingly. You discover that the jewel allows you to control the lizards. And also, to see through their eyes. You, furthermore, hear their lizardy thoughts, although to be fair, their minds are fairly quiet and their thoughts are mostly “Woohaar! I’m a lizard!” With your newfound powers, you decide you will finally be freed from your virus-laden lockdown. No longer will you be caged by a mere four walls. You send your lizard army forth to bring you new sights, sounds and experiences. Unfortunately, almost everything is shut and the outside world is pretty dull. After a bit, one of the lizards politely asks if they might have their minds back, to which you accede. They agree to pop round on Thursdays. They’re good lizards.

Virgo: The Gods smile upon you today. The Gods wink at you, also. The Gods send you a direct message asking you how you’re doing today and mention that you’re looking great in that recent profile photo. The Gods say they’re doing alright, you know, but feeling kinda lonely since Karen left, so hey, did you ever get back together with Steve? No? That’s a real shame, you were a sweet couple. The Gods ask if that means you’re still single, then? You are? Oh, baby, there ain’t no justice. What you need’s a real man. You sure do. You deserve one. Or maybe even better. The Gods wonder if you’ve ever made it with a deity. The Gods wonder how come you went so quiet. The Gods say aw, come on, don’t be like that. The Gods themselves go quiet for a while. The Gods send you unsolicited photographs of their genitalia. You block the Gods.

Libra: As you open your kitchen cupboard, a wizard appears before you and tells you that of the two remaining cans of soup, one of them contains not just soup but truly endless riches: the meaning of the universe and an infinite lifespan granted to the opener, with which to explore and enjoy the myriad beauties to be found in a boundless cosmos. In the other can: SUFFERING. Problematically, though, one of the cans is tomato soup from a fairly reputable brand and the other is leek and celeriac, which your weird aunt sent you about four years ago and seems to have been manufactured by ancient Welsh hippies. You go to open the tomato and the wizard winces and whistles through his teeth. You reach toward the leek and celeriac. The wizard smiles and waggles his eyebrows. Bugger this, you open the tomato, the wizard disappears and your arse immediately falls off. You have no regrets and the soup’s pretty good.

Scorpio: You are the twat that took all the toilet roll. Helpful. Aren’t you a good little pandemic pixie? Getting up at shithead o’clock in the morning and nicking all the stuff that your neighbours might have wanted. They suspect you. They saw you carrying your many, many bags past their windows and into your flat. But what they don’t know is that you’re not using it the way they imagine. You haven’t done a poo in over five weeks now. Not since you superglued your bum together. They’d think you were crazy, but you had to. To save the toilet roll for Greater Things. The pains come again, as your tummy heaves and you try to poop through a blocked up bum, but you breathe deeply and in time this passes. Now you are free to return to your great work. Your 20ft high pornographic sculpture of the Queen, made entirely from papier mache. Your Majesty looks down on you in erotic approval.

Sagittarius: Carnival tiiiiime! It’s carnival time! CARNIVAL TIME! Oh boy, oh boy, you can’t wait! You LOVE carnival time! You’ve been waiting so long, and they said you weren’t going to have carnival time because of the virus, but you weren’t gonna miss out! CARNIVAL TIIIME! There’s a strange knocking sound. That’s not usually part of carnival time. You follow the sound to the door, which you open gingerly. Who? Ah. OK. Right you are. I see. Yup. Yup. I will. No, you’re right. I’ll do that. I will. I’ll put it back. I thought you wouldn’t mind. It’s not a real one, it’s just a, no, OK, I’ll get rid of it. And the fish. I got it online. I’ll look after. OK, no, I understand. I know. I will. I’ll wipe it off. Yep. I will. Right away. Sorry. OK. Bye mom. So. Uhhh. Yep. Yeeeep yep. It is definitely not carnival time.

Capricorn: You begin to suspect that there is something going on with your neighbours next door. There are animal sounds late at night and you’re certain they have no pets. Sometimes you hear a tapping, it seems rhythmical. Almost like Morse code. How you wish you’d remembered the symbols they taught you for that when you were at school. One morning, you wake up and sit bolt upright as the sounds of a plaintive, strangled scream are quickly drowned out by a guttural groan of ecstasy, as if something huge and ancient had been satisfied in a way that only demons would commend. Sullen red illumination fades from the windows and all becomes silent once more. You resolve to ask the vicar if he’d consider wearing headphones on his Zoom calls in future.

Aquarius: You decide that you will spend the week not wearing a bra. Why not? Why shouldn’t you at least enjoy some of the more free and easy aspects of long term self-isolation. After the week, though, you sort of miss the bra, so you start wearing it again for a few days. Yeah, actually, this is kind of better. And if this is better, how good would two bras be? You try it out. Feels amazing. Why didn’t you try this before? How could you not have realised that the problem wasn’t tight bras or ill-fitting bras, or always having to wear a bra, the problem was: Not ENOUGH bras. You immediately add a third bra. Holy crap, this is the life. Five or six bras in, you’re starting to slow down a bit, not least because of the underwiring, but you feel incredible, and the SUPPORT is off the chart! The door bell rings. You clatter to answer it, now a somewhat difficult proposition given all the bras. Delivery guy leaves a large parcel on the floor to maintain social distancing, which makes picking it up a little tricky. Again. All the bras. You hobble inside and manage to pop open the parcel. Ah yes. More bras. Perfect.

Pisces: Day 37. You miss your partner. It’s been weeks now and while the occasional saucy video call has kept some semblance of intimacy together, you have needs and an itch you cannot truly scratch. Your hamster runs noisily in its catch, the wheel squeaking. The hamster gets more exercise than you these days. If only you hadn’t sold that treadmill. You feel a kinship to the hamster, tinged with guilt. Now you yourself are confined in your house, you feel bad for locking up little Hammy. In fact, you decide to let Hammy out. You share a strange kinship with Hammy now, fellow prisoners in life’s lonely cage. So lonely. Just you and Hammy. All alone. Nobody else around. Poor little Hammy. All alone, just like you. Day 38. You look at Hammy. Hammy looks at you. Tired, but loving, Hammy’s eyes seem to say a lot of things to you and you feel a different kind of guilt now, looking into them, albeit mixed with gratitude. You put an extra helping of food in the cage, fill up the water bottle and think about where you find yourself in these strange times. You glance back up at the cage and think. “They’re going to make me marry that hamster”.

---

YES! The vision is complete. The skies briefly whirl, the oceans dance then subside and the stars cease their jagged oscillations abruptly and settle down with some snacks to watch Netflix. You have heard the universe’s dark narrative and your brain structures are indelibly marked with what must come. Now go. And tell nobody you visited me today. The police regretfully do not consider this to be classed as an essential journey.

[timespanner]

The Dan in the High Castle

A transcript of the second episode of Time Spanner, The Dan in the High Castle

Script by Simon Kane (@slepkane)

Transcript by @lothiriel84 and @my-sun-my-baelish​

Laika: (voice-over) Earth. They called it that, because they were standing on it. I left because – well, I suppose there are a number of reasons I left, but I was never told them, because I’m a dog. That’s right, Laika here. They call me that because I like things. (laughter) Only joking. It’s Russian for ‘barker’. Yes, I’m Russian. And female, actually. And dead, although I still don’t know why. But, you know how you’re not supposed to leave a dog in a car with closed windows? Well, I was put in a rocket and shot into space. But why choose me to tell the story of a man who two years ago was tasked with saving the world? Is it because it didn’t go very well? Or, because Martin Gay, a man who on the third of November 2016 was sent through an alchemist’s mirror into a sort of magic space Heaven, a man who there met a fiery angel who ordered him to steal a spanner from a giant robot that would grant him the power to jaunt the length, breadth, and when-th of all of time and space, a man who was then returned to reality from this realm of angels and robots with a specific mission to save his world using innovations he must steal from the future, a plan whose exact logic had yet to be tested – is it because he, like me, is propelled by a technology of higher beings that could be used for both good, and bad things? Or, am I simply telling this story because it will turn out to be a love story, and I am a dog who can never go home? Let’s find out!

Time Spanner, by Simon Kane

The Dan in the High Castle

Laika: (voice-over) It is the year 2018 (SFX: clap of thunder, followed by the sound of hail falling) and through the foot-thick window of a hail-lashed chrome cylinder the one time reality star of Judo TV’s Cash of the Titans surveys his city.

Voice over the intercom: Lord Kraken?

Lord Kraken: Speak.

Voice over the intercom: We’ve picked up their signal, Sir.

Lord Kraken: Excellent work, my Yellowcoats. Bring them to me. Use force if you have to.

Voice over the intercom: Thank you, Lord.

Lord Kraken: At last. Robot, bring me my cape.

Laika: (voice-over) That, as I said, is 2018. On the third of November 2016, Daniel Kraken had none of this. (SFX: sirens) But he did have a branch of Kraken Self-Storage in Brixton, and a loyal receptionist called Martin Gay. And an alchemist’s mirror.

Gabbie: You’re a time traveller!

Laika: (voice-over) That’s Gabbie Hayes, a twenty year old charity mugger.

Martin: Yes. But I’m not weird.

Laika: (voice-over) And that’s Martin Gay, who might be weird. For example, he’s not wearing any shoes. Only this morning, on his fortieth birthday, his boss forced him at gunpoint to pass through an alchemist’s mirror to learn the secrets of the cosmos, so he had to take them off.

Martin: So, are we on? Gabbie?

Angel: This is a terrible idea.

Laika: (voice-over) That’s the fiery angel Martin met on the other side of the mirror, a voice in his head only he can now hear.

Gabbie: On for what?

Martin: Oh, you asked if I wanted a companion, to travel through time and space.

Gabbie: Yeah, as a joke.

Martin: Oh. Okay, I can’t tell when you’re joking.

Gabbie: And that does make you fun. But –

Laika: (voice-over) Martin only met Gabbie this morning, but he’s already decided she – is the light bulb in his lampshade, the food in his fridge.

Martin: But it was a joke.

Gabbie: Yeah, but I thought you were joking. So –

Martin: So...?

Laika: (voice-over) And the universe falls silent as it waits for an answer.

Gabbie: Let’s talk

Laika: (voice-over) Yay!

Martin: Yes!

Gabbie: Cool, but this isn’t a yes.

Martin: Oh, no.

Gabbie: Are you off work at six?

Martin: Ah, great. Do you know the Cat in the Bag?

Laika: (voice-over) Uh, cat!

Gabbie: Pub?

Martin: Yeah.

Gabbie: Cool. Get shoes though. I’m not meeting if you’re not wearing shoes.

Martin: Yes.

Gabbie: And not dinner lady ones you had on last time.

Martin: Yeah, no, brilliant. See you at six. (to himself) Oh, fab!

Angel: You fool!

Martin: What?

Angel: This is not why I gave you the Time Spanner.

Martin: You shoved it up my nose, you mean.

Angel: Which is how I’m now communicating to your brain from Heaven, yes? Which hole would you rather I’d use?

Martin: You said I could have a companion.

Angel: And I gave you a companion, remember? Mr Mergatroid?

Martin: I thought Gabbie would be better.

Angel: Better for your nerves than a devoted little flying robot who emits cake?

Martin: I’m not nervous. I’m just happy and excited, my body’s not used to it. Come on, Gabbie will be amazing, travelling together around the – the planet. Not the planet. The sun? Not the sun, too hot. But, uh, you know, other planets, if we can breathe. Can we breathe?

Angel: No.

Martin: Well, not them then. But, to the past, seeing the – I don’t know, the plague! Okay, not the plague. But Gabbie is good at ideas – come on, it’ll be an adventure.

Angel: Adventure is just bad planning. That spanner was very sensitively positioned to allow you to operate it with just a finger up the nose because you are on a mission. To travel to the future and return with technology that will save your world.

Martin: Okay, it will be a cool mission. Oh, what are we bringing back?

Angel: Hm?

Martin: This technology, is it something energy? To do with food?

Angel: Uh, it’s a bit of both.

Martin: Oh, cool.

Angel: It’s qualmian needle beam.

Martin: Qualmian needle beam?

Angel: It’s basically a flesh eating death laser.

Martin: What?

Angel: Which is to be used only for good.

Martin: It’s a weapon?

Angel: Don’t be nervous.

Martin: I am not nervous! I’m just not sure I want to be remembered as the inventor of the flesh eating death laser.

Angel: Well, perhaps I should have entrusted this mission then to your master, Daniel Kraken.

Martin: Uh, well, he does work in security.

Angel: Okay, so that’s supposed to be reverse psychology.

Martin: Oh, yeah. No, that doesn’t really work on me.

Angel: Fine! Fine! Let’s get that thing out of your nose, and you can go and tell Gabbie you –

Martin: Oh, no, yeah, that works. Gabbie. Yeah, okay, I’ll do the mission it if I can do it with Gabbie.

Angel: I still have significant concerns about her effect on your nerves.

Martin: I’m not nervous, Gabbie’s great for my nerves. Uh, right, I don’t really know what to do with myself until six. Although, actually – I am a time traveller, so I could just –

Angel: No, whatever it is –

Martin: Fast forward to six o’clock now!

Angel: Do not put your fingers up your nose. (SFX: gong sound as the Time Spanner is activated) Oh, you utter –

Martin: Oh, Cat in the Bag. Uh, it’s dark.

Angel: Of course. This is what I mean by bad planning.

Martin: What?

Angel: You’re running before you’ve learnt to walk.

Martin: That’s a good thing, isn’t it? I’ve never understood that. (SFX: phone pings) Uh.

Angel: Flip phone?

Martin: Yeah. It’s futuristic. Ah.

Angel: What?

Martin: A hundred and thirty-four missed calls.

Angel: Any messages?

Martin: Yeah. Don’t really want to with that now, though, so –

Angel: Listen to the messages.

Martin: No.

Angel: You have jumped eight hours of your life. You need to listen –

Martin: Just stop telling me what to do, please!

Angel: You are nervous.

Martin: I’m not – (SFX: sound of phone being smashed) Well, I’ve broken it now, anyway, so we can’t – You’re bad for my nerves, not Gab – I needed a new phone anyway. Let’s going.

Angel: Fine. If anyone notices a shoeless man muttering to himself and smashing a phone against a bin. Although, actually, so far –

Martin: Yeah, no, Brixton’s great.

(SFX: pub atmos)

Laika: (voice-over) 2016. The Cat in the Bag. Peeling leather seating banks, random tassels, you know, a bowl of markers in the toilet. Martin loved this pub, and had drunk here at least twice.

Gabbie: Martin Gay!

Martin: Gabbie, you’re – here.

Gabbie: Hello.

Martin: Hello, hello, pion and –

Angel: No.

Martin: – tube. Uh.

Angel: No.

Gabbie: Shake hands.

Martin: Shake hands.

Gabbie: Hello, sitting down. (SFX: sound of chairs scraping against the floor)

Martin: Sitting down. Hello.

Gabbie: So, you’re not dead then.

Martin: What?

Gabbie: Is this what I have to get used to? No offense, Martin Gay, but –

Angel: What is she talking about?

Gabbie: Did you blow it up?

Martin: What?

Gabbie: Where you work.

Martin: Kraken Self-Storage? Blew up?

Gabbie: Yeah.

Angel: Alright, stay calm.

Martin: Wait, who’s dying?

Gabbie: No one! Well, you, but turns out you’re fine. But answer your phone.

Angel: Okay. House meeting. Where can we talk?

Martin: What? Okay, sorry, Gabbie, I just need to – oh, sorry, I haven’t asked what you want to drink.

Gabbie: Just coke and ice.

Martin: Okay I’m going to the toilet for –

Gabbie: Okay. No stroll, though ‘cos they’ve got up turtles.

(SFX: sound of the toilet door opening/closing)

Martin: My workplace blew up.

Angel: Yes, right. So, I’m going to take a break from communicating to you from Heaven to make some enquires my end about the explosion. Do not use the spanner until you hear from me again.

Martin: Oh, you’re going? Okay, cool.

Angel: What?

Martin: No, you’re just doing what you think you should be doing, that’s cool.

Angel: No, Martin.

Martin: Having your voice in my head is not unweird.

Angel: I’m a guardian angel.

Martin: I’m an atheist.

Angel: Excuse me, you’re an atheist? You’ve been to Heaven.

Martin: It had robots.

Angel: Think of me then as your muse.

Martin: Okay.

Angel: Me, not Gabbie.

Martin: What?

Angel: She’s half your age, I mean, she’s twenty. Seriously, next to her, Martin, you look like a bald bear.

Martin: No, it’s not –

Angel: It’s not good. À bientôt. (SFX: sound of fire as the angel disappears)

Martin: Alright.

(SFX: pub music)

Martin: Oh, there we go. Sorry. Sorted everything out now.

Gabbie: Er, shoes?

Martin: Ah. Yeah, I didn’t get them. Sorry. Or your drink, actually. And I haven’t a wallet, it’s in the explosion. Sorry.

Gabbie: What are you doing Martin Gay?

Martin: Hm?

Gabbie: Is it all a bit moment to moment in your life right now?

Martin: Yeah.

Gabbie: Yeah, look. Before we go any further – bit embarrassing, but, um, can we just clarify something? You know, get out of the way?

Martin: Um, sure?

Gabbie: Pay.

Martin: Oh, yes.

Gabbie: Cos you said my job’s on pay, but does that mean you’re not getting paid because you have this ‘amazing’ power?

Martin: Yes, I know, I’m sorry.

Angel: We need to talk, now.

Martin: Oh, guys! Sorry.

Gabbie: It’s alright. I’m just saying, one of my jobs could be working out how we get paid. You know –

Angel: (talking over Gabbie) Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Stop talking to her!

Martin: Sure. Sorry, and I think that’s my phone.

Gabbie: What?

Angel: Thank you!

Martin: I just better take this, in the toilet. Um –

(SFX: sound of the toilet door opening/closing)

Martin: What?

Angel: The Metatron.

Martin: What?!

Angel: The giant robot we stole the spanner from? He blew up your boss’ magic mirror from the Heaven end.

Martin: That was the explosion? Yikes!

Angel: Yes, ‘yikes’. And there are now factions in Heaven veeery angry I gave you this mission.

Martin: To steal a flesh eating death laser.

Angel: Hm.

Martin: What factions?

Angel: The Usual.

Martin: The Usual?

Angel: That’s what they call themselves, yes, ‘The Usual’. Even now, they may be tracing my signal to the spanner in your head to locate you.

Martin: There’s people after me?

Angel: Not yet.

Martin: Okay.

Angel: And not people.

Martin: Hhhhh.

Angel: We need another means of communication between my plane and the physical, something they can’t trace. (pause) Do you have a mirror?

Martin: Uh, I mean, well, there’s –

Angel: Oh, is that a mirror? Over the sink?

Martin: What did you think it was?

Angel: I thought it was just some guy making fun of you.

Martin: Wh –

Angel: Reality is hard. Now, in addition to granting you the power to travel through all time and space – it is just time and space you have, isn’t it?

Martin: Uh, yeah.

Angel: The Time Spanner also lets us communicate through any mirror. But you need to make a sigil. So, do you have a pen?

Martin: Here.

Angel: There’s a bowl of pens in the toilet?

Martin: Uh, yeah.

Angel: Hmm. Okay, draw a line on the mirror, right to left.

Martin: Oh, you’re teaching me magic? Right.

Angel: Stop. Now, down. And left.

Martin: Right.

Angel: Okay, new line. Above where you just left off, draw down.

Martin: Wait, I–

Angel: Quickly!

Martin: Okay.

Angel: Now, left to right. Hurry!

Martin: Are you making me draw a swastika?

Angel: It’s a perfectly innocent symbol.

Martin: Oh my god, it is not!

Angel: You need to mark the mirror with a sigil.

Martin: Give me another.

Angel: (sighs) Well, there’s a circle, of course.

Martin: Great. Why did we start with –

Angel: Quickly. (SFX: sounds of Martin drawing on the mirror) What is that? A circle is one line, draw one line.

Martin: Okay, it’s just harder, standing up, you’re right. Okay. (SFX: sounds of Martin drawing on the mirror) Hang on. I mean, it should have met up by now, but you get the idea.

Angel: Draw a swastika.

Martin: No!

Angel: Hitler didn’t even get it the right way round.

Martin: What?!

Angel: Not that I gave the spanner to him.

Martin: Okay, I’m giving it to my boss.

Angel: The pen?

Martin: No, the Time Spanner. I’m sorry, but this is no fun, I don’t want it anymore. Mr Kraken actually knows about magic and weapons – (SFX: sound of fire)

Angel: Noooo!

Martin: So I quit. Hello? Oh. Have you gone? Well, okay. Over and out?

(SFX: pub atmos)

Martin: So that was – oh, boy. Anyway. Phew.

Gabbie: We don’t have to talk about pay, Martin Gay.

Martin: Sorry, yes, I’m hopeless.

Gabbie: Don’t be sorry. Everyone gets hopeless.

Martin: Not you.

Gabbie: Mate, this year?

Martin: Oh, 2016?

Gabbie: Can all the heroes stop dying, please? Can’t wait to see the back of it.

Martin: Yeah.

Gabbie: You don’t have to, though. You’re a time traveller. Let’s go to 2017 now, get you some future shoes.

Martin: Uh, ah, no. Actually –

Gabbie: Ah. Is it off?

Martin: How do you read people so well?

Gabbie: I thought we were going on an adventure, Martin Gay!

Martin: Adventure is just bad planning.

Gabbie: Oh, then we already have.

Martin: No, no, it’s just – that was my boss, then, on the phone.

Gabbie: Daniel Kraken?

Martin: Yeah. And he wants the time thing for himself now, so –

Gabbie: So?

Martin: What?

Gabbie: You don’t have to do what he says. You’re holding all the cards, Martin Gay.

Martin: Does that mean I’m winning? I’ve never understood that.

Gabbie: Yeah.

Martin: What card game are you winning if you’re holding all the cards?

Gabbie: Top Trumps!

Martin: It’s a Top Trumps reference?

Gabbie: Yeah. You’ve got the time thing, not Kraken. What do you want to do?

Martin: Oh, I’m terrible at this question. What do you want to do, Gabbie?

Gabbie: I want to see what you want to do.

Martin: I – I do want to want to do something. I mean, I have all this, and you, so I should be –

Gabbie: (interrupting) Taking care of yourself.

Martin: No.

Gabbie: No, you should be taking care of yourself.

Martin: But if it means giving this up, you’re right, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. Won’t I?

Gabbie: Don’t know. If only there was some way to find out.

Martin: Yeah. What? (realising) Oh! I’m a time traveller! Gabbie, do you want to come to the future with me and see if I regret –  

Gabbie: Yes, please!

Martin: Right. 2017.

Gabbie: Or further!

Martin: Twenty – eighteen? Okay, so, how it works is that anything I touch travels with me.

Gabbie: You want to touch me?

Martin: No!

Gabbie: Where do you want to touch me, Martin Gay? Joking. Take my hand.

Martin: Thanks. Okay. Now it’s gonna look like I’m picking my nose, but –

(SFX: gong sound as the Time Spanner is activated)

Martin: Oh, what is that in my face?

Laika: (voice-over) Here we are, in 2018.

Gabbie: Hail!

Martin: The Cat’s all boarded up.

Laika: (voice-over) And across the closed pub, a bill sticker reads  –

Martin: Property of the Kraken Empire?

Man’s voice: Hey, you! Stop there. (SFX: gunshots being fired)

Martin: Oh, guys!

Laika: (voice-over) Armed and masked figures in high visibility tabards.

Man’s voice: Over it, now.

Martin: On whose authority? (SFX: sound of Martin being punched) Ouch – guys! Right on the nose.

Gabbie: Hey!

Man’s voice: We’ve located the target, Sir.

Lord Kraken: What’s he look like?

Man’s voice: He looks rubbish.

Lord Kraken: That’s him.

Man’s voice: And a girl.

Lord Kraken: Bring them both.

Man’s voice: Yes, Lord Kraken.

Martin: Daniel Kraken?

Gabbie: Seen enough.

Martin: Now what, Gabbie, can we –

Gabbie: Go meet your boss?

Man’s voice: Into the truck!

Martin: Yeah, I’m just –

Gabbie: Curious? Yeah, totally.

Martin: Coming.

Gabbie: So, we can just hold hands and escape whenever we want, right?

Martin: Yeah.

Gabbie: How’s your nose?

Martin: Yeah, beginning to hurt.

Man’s voice: Get in!

Laika: (voice-over) Hail pounded the truck carrying Martin and Gabbie as it ground north past pictureless hoardings, abandoned cranes, barbed wire and wet grit, until finally, in the highest room of a mistopped chrome cylinder, on the brown banks of a froffing river –

Man’s voice: Kneel before Lord Kraken.

Martin: Ouch.

Lord Kraken: Forgive my Yellowcoats, they can be a little – overzealous. Leave us.

Yellowcoat: Yes, Lord Kraken.

Lord Kraken: Two long years I’ve waited for this. Marty – Marty, Marty, Marty, Marty, Marty.

Gabbie: Mar-tin.

Lord Kraken: And the friend who finally led us to you, Miss –

Gabbie: Hayes, thank you.

Lord Kraken: Allow me to introduce myself.

Gabbie: You’re Dan! Now, escape.

Martin: ‘Led us to you’?

Lord Kraken: Tried tracking your phone, Marty, no luck. Pulled the last number you called, tracked that instead.

Gabbie: What do you want with us, Dan? You’ve got the cold dead eyes of a cold dead guy.

Lord Kraken: Oh, there is a fire here, Miss Hayes.

Gabbie: In the flat?

Lord Kraken: You misunderstand me.

Gabbie: Yet I don’t understand what you’re saying.

Lord Kraken: I mean I have a drive. (pause) No.

Gabbie: You’ve got a drive? You live in a flat.

Lord Kraken: Okay. Okay, firstly, this is not a flat.

Gabbie: It’s not a house.

Martin: I live in a house, well, house share.

Gabbie: See, Dan, he lives in a house.

Lord Kraken: Enough!

Gabbie: Issues.

Martin: You’re right. Come on Gabbie, I’ve had enough.

Gabbie: Sure.

Lord Kraken: Holding hands, how touching.

Gabbie: Bye, Dan.

Martin: Bye.

Lord Kraken: And now picking your nose. Less touching.

Gabbie: Bye.

Martin: Ouch. Bye. Ouch.

Gabbie: Bye. (pause) Nothing’s happening!

Martin: Ouch. Oh, god!

Lord Kraken: What are you doing?

Martin: Gabbie, I can’t reach it.

Gabbie: What?

Lord Kraken: Reach what?

Martin: When that guard hit me in the face, I think it must have driven it too far into my – ouch.

Gabbie: You must be able to reach it! Otherwise, how do you go back and give it to Dan?

Martin: Well, I’m hardly going to now.

Lord Kraken: Give what?

Gabbie: Wait, wait, wait. If you don’t give it to him –

Martin: Then how –

Lord Kraken: How what?

Martin: How have you done all this?

Gabbie: Yeah!

Lord Kraken: All what?

Gabbie: Taken over the world?

Lord Kraken: What are you talking about?

Martin: You’ve got an army!

Lord Kraken: Oh, the Yellowcoats! Not strictly speaking mine. Private security force, subcontracted to the Home Office.

Martin: But, ‘kneel before Lord Kraken’?

Lord Kraken: Yeah, a bit overzealous, I said that. But good lads.

Gabbie: Lord Kraken?

Lord Kraken: I was made a Lord, yes. About bloody time. I don’t know where you’ve been, Marty, but I’ve had a good couple of years. Property portfolio’s booming, won that security contract, Cash of the Titans got syndicated to Russia – they love me there. I’ve hardly taken over the world though, I’m in a flat in Vauxhall.

Martin: You’re wearing a cape!

Lord Kraken: It’s a free country.

Mr Mergatroid: Suits you, Master.

Martin: Mr Mergatroid!

Mr Mergatroid: It's the man!

Lord Kraken: Ah, yes, the robot you abandoned.

Gabbie: Wait, what?

Lord Kraken: I did hope he might help the business, actually. I mean, artificial intelligence, anti gravity – but nope, useless.

Mr Mergatroid: Boody cake, Master? Fresh from m’boody.

Lord Kraken: Apart from the cake.

Martin: So, magic had nothing to do with it.

Gabbie: I’ve got questions.

Martin: Yeah, me too. If you didn’t take over the world, then why is everything now so rubbish?

Lord Kraken: What? Oh, thanks a bunch.

Martin: The Cat in the Bag all boarded up.

Lord Kraken: The new Kraken site, yeah. Pubs close down, Marty.

Martin: The deserted streets?

Lord Kraken: It’s hailing.

Martin: But – the drive here, the rubble, the barbed wire, the terrifying giant building works. Okay, that – okay that’s just –

Lord Kraken: That’s Vauxhall.

Martin: Yeah.

Gabbie: Yeah, yeah.

Lord Kraken: Look, Marty, spare me your midlife wobble. 2018 is not rubbish, it’s brilliant! I’ve got a robot, and a cape.

Martin: ‘Midlife wobble’?

Lord Kraken: Your pub closed down, so you think the Nazis took over. You couldn’t be more middle-aged.

Martin: You led us here at gunpoint!

Lord Kraken: Because that’s the only way to get you to do anything. Marty, you had to be forced at gunpoint into Heaven.

Gabbie: Heaven?

Lord Kraken: What did you find on the other side of that scrying glass? Tell me, and I’ll make you a partner in everything we build.

Martin: I don’t want any part of any of this.

Lord Kraken: Of what?

Martin: Of – (mumbles)

Lord Kraken: You’re indicating with your arms literally your entire surroundings.

Martin: Yes!

Lord Kraken: Fine. I’ll use force. Everyone thinks you’re dead already, Marty, and I’m fine with force. Robot!

Mr Mergatroid: Yeah?

Lord Kraken: Take these two down to the interrogation unit.

Mr Mergatroid: The – hospitality popup?

Lord Kraken: The – where we do the focus group.

Mr Mergatroid: Into the lift please. Nyam.

(SFX: ping of the lift)

Martin: Gabbie, I’m sorry.

Mr Mergatroid: I’m sorry too, Marty.

Martin: What?

Mr Mergatroid: What are we sorry about?

Martin: Sorry, can Gabbie and I just –

Mr Mergatroid: Who’s Gabbie?

Martin: Oh, sorry. Gabbie, this is Mr Mergatroid.

Gabbie: Hi.

Mr Mergatroid: Not interested.

Gabbie: Cool. How’s Kraken got a robot?

Mr Mergatroid: Oh. I’m on your side, really.

Martin: Hm? Oh, yes – thanks for not telling him about the Time Spanner.

Mr Mergatroid: I’ve – missed you, buddy.

Martin: Oh, right, I mean – we didn’t really know each other.

Mr Mergatroid: No, but the moment I was made your companion I recalibrated my emotions.

Gabbie: Companion?

Mr Mergatroid: And now, I love you.

Martin: Oh.

Gabbie: Can you let us go, then, please, Mr – Mergatroid?

Mr Mergatroid: No. But I do have something that may help. (SFX: sound of something being taken out) Found them in the explosion.

Martin: You’ve had my shoes inside you for two years?

Mr Mergatroid: I missed you!

Martin: Okay. Maybe, recalibrate your emotions back again – just, you know, just for your own sake.

Mr Mergatroid: But I don’t want to, Marty!

Gabbie: I’m replacing a robot?

Martin: Right, is this the –

Mr Mergatroid: I don’t want to. (pause) Bye!

Laika: (voice-over) Where they do the focus groups.

Gabbie: Right, I spent the last five minutes in my head trying mainly to invent time travel from scratch, and it’s not going great. How are you getting on?

Martin: Well, I got my shoes back. Wait. That massive two-way mirror on the wall behind you. Gabbie, do you have something to write with?

Gabbie: Lipstick?

Martin: Oh, thank you! Now, um – (SFX: sound of drawing on the mirror) There.

Gabbie: You’ve drawn a swastika?! (SFX: sound of Martin being punched)

Martin: Ouch! My nose!

Gabbie: I’m sorry, Martin, but what the hell?

(SFX: sound of fire)

Angel: I attend.

Martin: It worked!

Laika: (voice-over) There in the mirror, and only in the mirror, the blazing angel –

Angel: What happened to you?

Laika: (voice-over) – wreathed in fire.

Martin: You’re the one who left, what happened to you?

Angel: The Usual – I don’t want to talk about it.

Laika: (voice-over) Visible to all.

Gabbie: Hello!

Angel: Hello.

Martin: Oh, Gabbie, sorry, this in the mirror is – I don’t know what to call you.

Angel: I have been called many names.

Gabbie: You look like a Bridget.

Angel: Thank you.

Martin: Bridget? Nah.

Gabbie: Bridget’s a hot name, Martin.

Lord Kraken: (over the intercom) What are you doing? There are cameras.

Gabbie: Nothing, Dan.

Martin: Oh, sorry, yes, Gabbie, this is –

Lord Kraken: (over the intercom) Are you scrying?

Gabbie: Scrying?

Martin: Oh, it means to communicate with angels through a reflective surface.

Gabbie: This is an angel?

Martin: Well, more –

Angel: His genie.

Martin: Yes!

Angel: He keeps me as a slave.

Martin: No!

Angel: Forgive me, Master!

Gabbie: Martin Gay!

Angel: Yes, he is horrible, you don’t want to work with him.

Martin: Stop that!

Gabbie: We need to talk about that, actually, Martin – you know, the whole ‘job’ thing.

Laika: (voice-over) Uh-oh. (whines) This doesn’t sound good.

Lord Kraken: (over the intercom) Right. You are definitely doing magic. Yellowcoats, get down there!

Martin: Okay, quickly.

Gabbie: Hey, be nice to Bridget! Can you get us back to 2016, please?

Angel: Ah, date?

Gabbie: Uh, November the third.

Angel: 6.30 pm?

Martin: Oh, sure.

Angel: Location?

Gabbie: Cat in the Bag?

Angel: Voilà!

(SFX: sound of portal being opened)

Laika: (voice-over) And there, in the mirror, a shortcut through Heaven back to 2016, looking more inviting than it ever had before.

Martin: I didn’t know you could do that.

Angel: I know.

Gabbie: So we just step through the mirror?

Angel: Correct.

Martin: And then, once we’re through, you disappear?

Angel: No.

Martin: What?

Angel: Once summoned, I remain in the mirror until the sigil is erased. So just wipe it off once you’re through – Master.

Martin: Through what?

Gabbie: How?

Angel: Oh.

Martin: Wipe it off, so one of us –

Gabbie: – has to stay behind.

Angel: Ah.

Martin: That’s fine. Gabbie, you go.

Gabbie: Really?

Martin: I’ve got loads of pass, I’ll get back somehow.

Gabbie: Sure?

Martin: Yeah, sure.

Gabbie: Okay, before I do – (sighs) this whole companion thing, Martin Gay...

Martin: Oh. Yeah?

Gabbie: Sorry.

Laika: (voice-over) (whines) No!

Martin: Ah. Right.

Gabbie: Don’t look hopeless. You’ll get a robot companion, they’re the best. And, you’ve got my number in your phone, yeah?

Martin: Er, yeah.

Gabbie: Stay in touch, yeah?

Martin: Actually, no. Haven’t got a phone.

Gabbie: Oh, have mine.

Martin: Oh, really?

Gabbie: Yeah. Catch!

Martin: Cheers.

Gabbie: Okay. Be well, yeah. Thank you for having meeeee.

Laika: (voice-over) And Gabbie Hayes was gone.

Angel: Oh, she was very sweet.

Martin: You’re happy she’s gone.

Angel: Maybe.

Martin: What did you have against her?

Angel: Her? Nothing, Martin. She quit. Take a hint. Now, shall we get on with saving the world?

Martin: Ouch.

Angel: What?

Martin: I’m – I’m trying to reach the – ouch. I can’t – so, a guard hit me in the face, and it’s driven the thing too far into my brain.

Lord Kraken: (over the intercom) There’s something in your brain?

Angel: Oh, not again.

(SFX: banging at the door)

Yellowcoat: How’re we getting in?

Lord Kraken: (over the intercom) It’s a shutter, you lift it.

Angel: I have bad news.

Martin: What?

Angel: It might be broken.

Martin: The spanner?

Angel: I’m sorry, I keep forgetting to factor into my choice of saviour how often they might get punched in the face.

Martin: But – it summoned you.

Angel: Yes, and then, Gabbie punched you in the face. You’d better just follow her through.

Martin: But, no – then you’ll be stuck here, and Kraken will have another magic mirror.

Angel: Well, better he gets his hands on me than on what’s in your head.

Lord Kraken: (over the intercom) Yellowcoats, get in there. (SFX: banging at the door) No, you lift it. There, good lads.

Martin: He’s not getting another magic mirror. Goodbye.

Angel: No! Really?

Martin: I’m wiping it out.

Angel: Well, goodbye. (SFX: sound of fire as the angel disappears)

Laika: (voice-over) And Martin Gay was alone. (SFX: sound of the shutter being lifted, guards rushing in) And then, he wasn’t.

Martin: Hi.

Woman’s voice: Ah, got here in time. Prisoner with me. Holly, secure the unit, make sure he can’t get back in.

Martin: What?

Woman’s voice: I don’t make the rules. This way, you big – nonsense.

Martin: Gabbie?

Gabbie: Shh. Yeah! Joined the Yellowcoats three months ago.

Martin: Joined them? Why?

Gabbie: To rescue you.

Yellowcoat: Oi, go away.

Gabbie: Into the car park. Run!

(SFX: sirens getting closer)

Martin: Three months ago?!

Gabbie: This way!

(SFX: gunshots being fired)

Martin: Ah! Guys! More of them!

Voice over a megaphone: Drop your weapons.

Gabbie: Nah. Police. They’re not here for you, they’re here for Dan.

Martin: What?

Police officer: Mr Gay?

Gabbie: Here he is.

Police officer: You’re safe now.

Gabbie: Yeah. I made some calls. Turns out, you didn’t die in the explosion two years ago, you were kidnapped.

Police officer: Right, I’m going in. Let’s find Kraken.

(SFX: gunshots being fired)

Martin: Wait, you know that’s not what actually happened.

Gabbie: Oh, yeah, I’m following this. Why didn’t you come back though?

Martin: It – broke.

Gabbie: You missed nothing. I’m not joking, Martin Gay – the last two years have been crazy. I mean, not interesting crazy, crazy like a crazy person. Which I can say, because I worked in mental health for a year, and can I just say, I had to reapply for my own job four times. My own job! Then the place closes down, and it isn’t even what I want to be doing, though I’m twenty-two, I mean, what can I do with my life – sorry, how are you?

Martin: I’m –

Mr Kraken: Hold your fire, lads. Marty, I’m innocent! Tell them!

Police officer: Mr Kraken, I’m arresting you for the illegal detainment of a Mr Martin Gay –

Gabbie: So, that’s me out of a job again.

Laika: (voice-over) Hurray!

Gabbie: You still need someone to help you save the world? There’s bugger a lot to do.

Martin: But Gabbie, the Time Spanner’s broken.

Gabbie: Everything’s broken. Fix it! Oh, sorry, am I sounding old and grumpy?

Martin: Everyone gets hopeless.

Gabbie: Ha! Who said that? Was it someone amazing?

Laika: (voice-over) Imagine having the power of a god. Imagine being able to let the universe go on exactly as it would have done if you’d never existed. Human beings, alas, do not have such a power. Their actions have consequences. Which is why, now and then, one may be entrusted to bear – the Time Spanner.

Martin: Actually, Gabbie – do you want it?

Time Spanner was written by Simon Kane, and starred Simon Kane, John Finnemore, London Hughes, Jeremy Limb, David Mitchell, and Sally Phillips. The producer was Gareth Edwards, and it was a BBC Studios production.

[dalmatienne]

i'm going to cheat and say two fics for the ask meme because... i feel like it and you can't stop me ONLY DO ONE IF U WANT THO but: i hear them whisper (you won’t believe it) AND friday never hesitate 👀

twist my arm why doncha

*

i hear them whisper

It’s a great party, one that Gabe probably planned from his sickbed, except.

Except.

“Erik! Erik, you have to listen to me, you’re going about this all wrong!”

Except fucking Landesnerd had gone and rented a petting zoo pony. Erik knows that Gabe didn’t personally interview and pick out the pony, but it feels like he did because the pony is fucking obnoxious and clearly out to get him. It’s shaggy and pinto and gorgeous in the way all well cared for horses are, and it won’t stop following Erik around.

“You aren’t being mean enough. How will he know that you really like him if you don’t rough him up a little?”

No one has ever accused Erik of not being mean enough, so clearly the thing’s full of shit.

*

Erik has survived so much in his life. He survived being a dumbass twenty year old and the subsequent trade. He’s survived seasons of heartbreak, of injury, of Patrick Roy. He’s survived years of being in the same locker room as a naked Nathan MacKinnon. Hell, he’s survived almost a decade of Matt fucking Duchene.

Erik is a strong motherfucker. A goddamn warrior.

That said, if he has to endure another ten minutes of this goddamn pony’s Cosmo Sex Tips for Horses and EJ spiel, Erik will go postal.

*

friday never hesitate

They get to the bathroom just in time and Sammy spends the next ten minutes holding Gravy’s hair back and listening to him talk about astrological shit between sticking his face in the toilet bowl.

“You’re such a Taurus,” he says at one point, his dark eyes wide and unfocused. He’s still pale, but there are spots of pink high on his cheekbones. “Reliable, and practical, and… And…” Gravy turns back to the toilet. Sammy grimaces and rubs at his back. The hard linoleum under him is getting to his knees and Sammy needs Gravy to rally so he can get back out to babysitting the three beer pong idiots before they defile the couch any more. Gravy makes another sad sound and warbles into the porcelain, “I should have listened to my horoscope this morning.”

“There, there,” Sammy says and checks his phone.

[babydoll1947]

Let’s Talk: Mental/Emotional Abuse, from a Survivor

If you read my recent post, you have seen that I am a true crime lover, and have been watching the ID channel as if it may disappear when I’m not looking (kind of like this post did the first time I wrote it, but we’ll get to that). However, I have found that my obsession sometimes comes at a cost to my mental health. You see, when I watch these shows and hear about these horrible people with horrible traits... well, sometimes it triggers recall of some of the equally horrible traits of the man who once abused me. Now, do I think one day he will escalate all the way to murdering someone? No, I think there is a fairly slim chance of that, just given the lack of physical violence I have seen him exhibit. But, I could be wrong, and I sincerely hope everyone he encounters stays on their guard with him. Do I, however, believe this man is a sadistic psychopath who derives pure please from controlling and harming other people (especially women)? Yes, yes I do, with every fiber of my being. No matter the type, abuse is a topic people cringe at the thought of having to talk about. Trust me, the first time I wrote this before tumblr threw it off into the cosmos somewhere, it turned out to be one of the most difficult and painful things I’ve ever had to write. And, I do not relish the thought of having to write this all over again. But, even though we don’t want to talk about this, I believe that we NEED to talk about this. And yes, I said “we”, because it takes small actions from a whole lot of people to make a change in the world around us, not to mention the fact that I think everyone can gain something from the takeaways of abuse survivors. So, here I am, about to write about one of the worst years of my life, hoping to help others gain more understanding. WARNING: I am about to share graphic, detailed accounts of abuse. If you do not feel you can emotionally cope, that’s okay, please just skip to the end of the post for the recap. If at any time you feel you need support, please send me a message and I will be happy to direct you to some amazing resources! I met Chris... and I am choosing to use his real first name, as I do not feel he deserves any anonymity at all... when I was 17 and a senior in high school. When I said earlier that this man is a psychopath, I do not use that term lightly. Like, “Oh, that girl is psycho, like, totally cray cray!” I mean it in the full sense and scope of the disorder. I met him through a close friend who was seeing him, and our first real encounter should have sent off warning bells in my head. To protect the privacy and dignity of myself and my friend, I am not going into details of that particular encounter here, but I will say that it was sexual in nature. False promises were made to my friend to convince her to do this, and it was not an overall a good experience. Even with that, though, there was something so charming and alluring about him that you just felt pulled in. Right away I started seeing him on my own. At first, it was almost like a secretly agreed “sister wives” situation... each of us knew about the other, and knew we were both seeing him, but also both adored him so much that we didn’t seem to care. Over time, as we both started to want more with him, he would lie or manipulate the situation to keep us placated. Often, he would tell me he was not dating her, but tell her that he was. He loved to lie. Like, genuinely loved it. He once told me that half the time he would lie even when he didn’t need to, just to see what he could get away with and how many people he could fool. Another red flag I missed, since that is one of the hallmark traits of a psychopath. He could also fake any emotion necessary to obtain his end goal, even though I doubt he really felt much of anything. Before long, I was practically living with Chris and his roommate in their apartment. Despite this closeness, and his supposed care for me, we never “officially” dated. This is where things started to go haywire. He frequently would list off things he desired in a potential girlfriend, and I would jump through hoops to make them happen. I grew my hair out because he preferred long hair (even though I hated maintaining long hair), got French manicures because he didn’t like bright colored nails (even though I did), changed my mannerisms and reactions to be the “cool girl”, literally anything I had to do to please him. Sadly, I never realized that nothing I did would ever please him or be good enough for him... he just wanted to see how far he could push me. Over that year I morphed into a person I didn’t even recognize in the mirror. Then came the “reminders”, as I like to call them. He would not only talk about girls he liked from work or school, but bring them home with him when he knew I was there, parading them in front of me to remind me that I still wasn’t good enough. Next were the subtle put downs. Then the more serious put downs. Then came the tough love. So tough, in fact, the he held me by my arm while I was sobbing and trying to go home, holding me there until he was done telling me everything that was wrong with me. That was the closest he ever came to physical abuse, his hand wrapped around my forearm, but hell... sometimes I wished he would just hit me, thinking it would hurt less than his words piercing my heart and self-esteem. Still, I fell in love with him. Still, I stayed. Things continued to spiral, and with that spiral came the sexual abuse. That was undoubtedly the worst. His idea of sexual fun was to make me give him oral sex until he was almost ready to orgasm, then push me onto my stomach so he could fuck me for a few seconds until he came on my body. It was no longer about my pleasure or desires, only his. He convinced me that I would like being submissive, that I enjoyed it. He made me call him master, and bend to his will. On more than one occasion he would put me on my knees to give him oral sex, then hold me by my hair and half-drag/half-make-me-crawl over to him like a disobedient dog. Like an animal. I didn’t like it, but I just figured as long as it pleased him it was okay. I had only one hard boundary which I had communicated to him several times: I would not do anal sex. So, to get around this boundary, he decided to just rape me instead... One night as he was fucking me from behind, he pulled out of my vagina and ruthlessly thrust himself into my anus. I buried my face in the mattress and screamed, the pain being indescribable. He did not stop when I screamed. He kept thrusting until he finished inside me, and gave the final demeaning blow as I followed him into the bathroom: “This is why I don’t do anal, it makes your dick smell bad.” I sat on the toilet for several minutes in disbelief, dripping blood and cum into the bowl. I had never felt more humiliated in my entire life, and I don’t know if I ever will. But, he apologized (though he did not mean it), I forgave him (as I always did) and life moved on. Any time I tried to pull away from him, he made sure that didn’t happen. He would talk bad of people I liked, talk bad of me to the people I liked, and sabotage any attempt to let him go. The final few months of hell came with his drug abuse. He became addicted to Xanax and Percocet, and I became his caregiver and guardian, ensuring that he ate, finished tasks, etc., and watching over him on many sleepless nights, making sure he didn’t start to overdose in his sleep. He never once thanked me for helping him, or saving his life until he finally went into rehab. The only good thing that ever came of our relationship happened during one of his attempts to be sober: he began going to church, so I went with him and ultimately rekindled/strengthened my relationship with God. That relationship is what lead me to eventually leave Chris behind. As more time passed we slowly parted ways, him going into rehab and then halfway homes, and me leaving home permanently. Still, it took a very long time to remove him from my life completely. He was like a cancer that I had to extract from my soul one piece at a time, and it took me a lot of time, distance, and perspective to come to the realizations I have about who he really is. Here are the reasons why I am telling you all of this (if you didn’t want to read the details, come back now). First of all, something that still haunts me to this day is how nobody did anything to help me. I mentioned that he lived with a roommate, and they regularly had another friend at the apartment with them, but neither of them tried to intervene on my behalf. I know how hard it can be to confront a friend for doing shitty things, believe me I do, but we MUST do this. Please. If you are friends with someone who shows signs of being a perpetrator, please talk to them, or help the person they are with. The next thing is, please be understanding and patient with people who have survived or are currently experiencing abuse. I already know that a lot of you were thinking while reading my story “Why didn’t she just leave?” The answer is a simple one: I really believed that I loved him. I couldn’t process what was happening to me while I was still wearing the rose-colored glasses, and it can be extremely difficult to discern how bad a situation is in while you are still in it. Give your loved ones time to process what is happening, but still support and protect them as much as you can. Nothing is as black-and-white as it seems. Also understand that just because the abuse isn’t physical, it doesn’t make it any less damaging. I still struggle with the trauma to this day, seven years later. The last few days I found myself dealing with flashbacks and bouts of intense anger. It happens sometimes, and will likely continue to happen here and there for the rest of my life. And lastly, I leave you with this: If you have experienced abuse of any kind, or if you still are, I promise you that you will be okay. You are strong, a fighter, and a survivor. You are a WARRIOR. Time may not heal all wounds (I still have plenty of scars) but it truly does make it easier and less painful. There will come a day when the pain is not a constant ache, and when you can breathe freely again. Never, ever, EVER give up! I love you all, and I am always here for you! Thanks for going on this journey with me. 

[rosyredlipstick]

going soft and selling out (1/1)

a/n: god i love steven universe. 

Vidalia is in the guest bathroom at the Fish Stew Pizzeria when she finds out she is pregnant. It’s a Thursday. She’s nineteen, wearing her favorite shirt, and ignoring her mother’s calls.

She is only nineteen.

Vidalia is in the guest bathroom at the Fish Stew Pizzeria when she finds out she is pregnant. It’s a Thursday. She’s nineteen, wearing her favorite shirt, and ignoring her mother’s calls.

She is only nineteen.

When she was in elementary school, their shitty school library received a donation of used books from the local bookstore going out of business.

In it, was a book of names. Her classmates and she had poured over the book for hours, each looking up their own names, their parents names, their siblings names, and every name they could think of.

Vidalia’s name was Latin, apparently, and it was deprived from the word for life.

Her mother frowned when she had told her, instead questioning why Vidalia hadn’t been studying during library time, but her father had only laughed, throwing his head back, and told her that that made sense. You see, he explained in that secret way he did, where he lowered his voice, bended his back, and acted like he was telling her the most important thing in the world. You see, when your mom was pregnant with you, you never stopped moving. Always jumping and kicking and running. He smiled at her, ruffling her hair, you’ve always had a lot of life in you, doll.

That was before Joe Miller had one too many midnight beers and took his rusted Chevy out for a too fast joy ride. Before the funeral, and the move from the only place she’d ever called home.

Before she was left alone with her mother.

It was names that was running through her head, as she stared down at the double lines on the white stick. She was folded down on the dirty tile of the bathroom, but she couldn’t find it herself to mind. She just been staring at the white stick, already knowing, for the past two minutes. She hadn’t even wash her hands yet.

She gives herself ten minutes. Ten minutes to stare at the wall, not cry into her hands, to sit on that dirty ass floor. And then she stands.

She stands, washes her hands, wraps the test in toilet paper and throws it away, and returns to her table at the Pizzeria. Her paper drug store bag is still there, with the receipt a wrinkled mess half hanging out.

She takes a breath, pulls the free ice water closer to herself, and tries to find the cheapest thing on the menu to calm her turning stomach.

Breadsticks, without sauce, it turns out. And when she glances up, Nanefua is standing there, quietly looking down at her. Vidalia has no idea how long she’s been standing her.

Nanefua continued to stand at her table, a slice of pizza on the tray balanced in her capable hands. She observed Vidalia for a long moment.

“I didn’t order…” Vidalia trailed off. She cleared her throat, “I didn’t order anything.”

Nanefua placed the paper plate in front of her, giving her a considering look. Vidalia had to swallow against the bile in her throat. Pizza - good pepperoni pizza, her favorite food pizza - had never disgusted her more. She swallowed her gag.

“Your mother know?”

Vidalia froze, her hands clenching at the plastic covered table. The other woman was considering, neutral, her head only slightly cocked.

Vidalia didn’t try to play dumb. She began ripping up the paper napkins into a confetti mess, her hands needing something to do. “Not yet.”

Nanefua nodded like she was expecting this answer. “Tell her. A mother will always figure it out.”

Vidalia bit her tongue. It wouldn’t do good for her sarcasm to make another enemy of her in this town, especially not of the Pizza family. She said nothing and, after a long moment, Nanefua dipped back behind the counter.

Nanefua shuffled around the back area for another few moments before emerging yet again, holding out a fat, large pink bottle.

“Afia is having twins,” she explained, like she and the entirety of Beach City hadn’t already heard when Kofi broke out into tears, celebrating with a two-for-one pizza slice special. Afia, Vidalia had noticed, had just been entirely too still and quiet that night, as half the town crowded into the restaurant for cheap food and loud toasts. Nanefua shook the bottle impatiently, bringing her back to attention.

Vidalia blinked down at the brightly colored bottle, “Won’t she…” Vidalia trailed off, her eyes looking up to the other woman. “Won’t she need them?”

Nanefua only shrugged. “I am getting older. I misplace things. Kofi can pick up more.” She pushed the bottle into Vidalia’s hands, standing to her full height, which wasn’t much. “You come by, you hear? Always pizza for you.” She gave Vidalia a stern look, even as her hands went white knuckled around the bottle.

Vidalia could only nod in face of that look, the prenatal vitamins - the nice ones, the ones they kept lined up behind a locked glass case in the drug store on the bad part of town - were now pressing marks into her soft palms.

Two weeks later, after rushing out of dinner when her mother’s sauerkraut made her gag into her bowl, she finally tells her mother. She tells her about Marty, his job, those hours spent with him two and a half months ago. She cries, and sobs, and eventually does throw up into the kitchen sink.

Her mom kicks her out with a dag of a cigarette and twenty minutes to pack her things.

She leaves her paint supplies. It all wouldn’t fit in her only backpack leftover from her ten minutes at the local high school, and it seems she won’t have much time for art come a few months.

But she packs some clothes, her favorite wrinkled blanket, a hairbrush and whatever else will fit in the side pockets. She steals her mother’s rolled up bundle of dollar bills, the one she’s always kept in the bottle right drawer of her jewelry box, and high tails out of there before she realizes.

She walks for nearly twenty minutes until she realizes she has absolutely no where to go.

No family. Not much money. No friends.

She cut herself off short as she came into the beach parking lot, not even realizing that’s where she was heading. Music, loud but good music, was drifting out. Greg Universe’s van was parked there, not even attempting to stay within the yellow lines.

She swallowed and clenched at her bag.

Universe himself was half out of the open back doors of his van, his legs draped out as he leaned back and sang along to some stupid song.

He was cute, in a sweet way. Not her type at all. She took a few steps forward.

“Vidalia!” Universe was always a bit too perky for her tastes. Not Rock Star style at all. “It’s good to see you! What can I do for ya?”

“‘Sup Universe,” She stared at the expand of sand just beyond his shoulder, her voice bored. “Mind if I crash here for a bit?”

“In the van?” He jumped up, boyishly excited. “Sure, Vid! Oh, you gotta see my sweet setup, I’ve figured out how to hook up a TV and VHS player in here.” He puffed out his chest in pride, “And I’ve got the latest season of Baby Butler.”

She tried not to visibly wrinkle in relief. But she lingered by the open back door for another moment, shifting her weight. “Will your space goddess care?”

She didn’t really care in regards to their relationship, mostly just to know if she had to keep on an eye on her own back. A warning was rare, but nice.

“Rose?” He seemed to beam and laugh with just the pronunciation of her name, “Oh, definitely not. She’s not like that.”

That was probably a lie. Or maybe that’s what he actually thought. But Vidalia had never met someone who wasn’t just a little bit ‘like that’. Not even his dream girl from the cosmos could be above jealousy.

But she only nodded, a single crisp dipping of her chin, before throwing her bag down. It was kind of a sweet set up for a van. “You still got that Quentin Tarantino box set?”

He wrinkled his nose, but reached for his stack of tapes, “God, do you have to like violence so much?”

She crawled in the back, settling on the small twin, and kept her gaze forwards, towards the small television, as he set it up.

She had gotten pregnant in this backseat. Marty hadn’t wanted to spare the bills for a hour rent at the nearby motel, and she had been too horny and dumb to really care. Universe had been crowing away at his microphone while they’d done it, singing to no one on the beach.

She was dumb for believing he’d ‘handle it’ like he promised as he slid his hand down her pants, too stupid to listen out for the tear of foil and the handling of rubber.

He finally got the movie going, already going on about hidden easter eggs, and she let her mind drift into his mindless rambling like being wrapped up in a soft blanket.

Greg had never turned her away from that shitty van, not once. He’d let her sleep on the single thin mattress and patted her back when she threw up on the curb, went and got her french fries when her feet were too swollen to stuff into her sneakers. He’d always grin just slightly, wave her off, and say always for you, Vid.

Months later, when the things to her name aren’t just a backpack and empty bank account, when it’s better and she has a heater she can turn on whenever she wants, and food in her fridge, she very quietly asks Greg if he wants a place to crash.

And, in typical Greg fashion, he only responds in a slightly confused voice, “I’ve already got a place, Vid.”

He never saw it - what he did for her - as a big deal, not really, but Vidalia could never see it as anything but. That’s why when he knocks on her door, that sheepish smile in place, she never turn him away, even if he teases on her going soft. She bitches about him eating her favorite cereal, or leaving the toilet up, or putting the milk back empty, but she always lets him in. She washes his shirt, lets him take too much time in the shower while using up the good soap, and buys those gross chips of his at the gas station.

She doesn’t know how to say thank you, not really, but maybe she could do this.

Marty was right; Greg wasn’t cut out to be a super star. He was too kind for that.

He was the third person she told, and also the only one to grin when she did so.

“I’m pregnant,” she mostly explained as she gagged around the greasy burgers he had brought back from the boardwalk. He was still riding on Marty’s last your check and had insisted. “Four months.”

“Oh,” he blinked once, twice, before grinning widely. “Wow, Vid! A baby! Congrats!”

He was also the only person to congratulate her.

“It’s Marty’s,” she’d tell him a bit blankly later that night, a bottle of orange juice split between them. Greg was taking his with a shot, giggling happily under his breath, and Vidalia was more amused by it then she would have thought.

There was a beat of silence after that and, for once, Greg didn’t automatically grin or laugh or beam with positivity. “Oh,” he grimaced, “that’s...too bad.”

“Yeah,” she gave him a nonchalant shrug. She had a reputation to uphold, after all. “Too bad.”

There was a long stretch of silence, Greg taking another shot, and Vidalia kept her gaze trained out the rolled down window, the waves splashing against the sand.

“I can…” Greg trailed off, sitting up a bit to ruffle through his things. After a moment of plastic CD cases clashing together, paper trash thrown around, he turned back to her. “I have his business card with, um, his number. If you want.”

Vidalia stared down at the small white rectangle. It was plain, just a star logo and information neatly printed across. She swallowed, her voice going soft. “Yeah, okay.”

She’d already called three times, using all the quarters piled up in Greg’s cup holder, and he hadn’t answered once.

The line was still in use, the first time she’d called the voicemail box was full and the next, it was ready for her message. Someone was checking it, clearing out the messages, ignoring or missing her.

She left a simple, short message that could honestly only mean one thing when a quick hookup from months ago calls. It’s Vidalia from Beach City. It’s important.

She was leaving the third call - straight to voicemail this time, not even ringing for a second - when she paused. Listened. Went home.

Afia Pizza gave birth to twin girls last month, or so the old gossiping women on the boardwalk had said. And last week, she’d gotten on the lone bus to Empire City with only a backpack and purse and no one had see. The babies were wrinkled, red, screaming their little heads off, and attached to the hip from day one. Afia, it seemed, shared no such attachment.

Vidalia was five months into her pregnancy and spent most of her time in Greg’s van working her way through his VHS tape collection, but that didn’t stop her from donning her sandals, her flip-flops being the only shoes that would fit her balloon feet nowadays, and making her away across town after only a few hours of contemplation.

The Pizzeria was dark, and the front door locked, but that had never been much of a problem with Vidalia and her bobby pins. The Pizza family lived above the shop after all, everyone knew that.

It only took barely a minute bend over the small lock - honestly, they should probably invest in better security - before the metal was popping open, the bell above the door ringing. She glanced around - still empty, dark, and deserted. She had gotten a bit more familiar with the place since that Thursday all those months ago. Nanefua was always glad to serve her a slice, pushing more of those vitamins into her hands as Videlia swelled up. The staircase to the apartment above was just beyond the backroom, near the guest bathroom.

There was sound coming from the staircase, a voice, and she headed up that way, only cursing stairs a bit along the way. She had never been up here before.

A small living room, with a hallway that broke off to the side. An even smaller kitchen, and a room that was either a closet or the most pathetic attempt at another bedroom.

Kofi was there, babies held to his chest, looking at her. There was no question or confusion, no anger or concern in his gaze. A blank gaze, as he stared at her.  

“Where’s Nanefua?” She hadn’t been expecting him to be alone. She had honestly been expecting to show up, and almost immediately start being ordered around by the older woman.

Kofi only stared at her blankly for a long moment before swallowing. “She went to the store. During the pregnancy, Afia said she didn’t want to use formula so we didn’t stock up on any, but now…” His stare was still unnervingly blank, “We don’t have anything to give to the girls.”

His eyes were red, his cheeks the same. When he spoke, it was with a scratchy voice. He blinked at her a few times, as if acknowledging, remembering, she was there. He cleared his throat and shook his head. “The shop is not open today.”

“Clearly,” she could barely resist the urge to roll her eyes, only holding out her hands. Nanefua wasn’t here, so it looked like she had to go off book for this. “Hand ‘em over, Pizza.”

He stared empty at her, only coming back to Earth when the baby in his right arm begin fussing. He turned to her, bouncing his arm, and making soft, pleading noises.

He had baby vomit down the back of his shirt, along with probably a thousand different stains. He had, obviously, been crying. He and the babies had been sharing in activities, then.

She threw her shoulders back, ignoring the tightening of fabric as she did so - it wasn’t like she could afford any good clothes from the maternity shop the next town over, alright? - and stepped forward, taking the babies without much hesitation.

They cooed and fussed for a quick moment after being jostled, making her hold her breath in anticipated. But, after shifting closer to her warmth and softness, they quieted down, their soft flower petal eyes staying close.

Kofi was staring at her a bit more clearly now, like he was waking up. She gave him an unimpressed look.

“Go,” she tilted her chin towards the stairs. “Catch some Zs. Your mom’s been slipping me more than enough free pizza to hold you over for like, two months worth of babysitting.”

It should be noted how out of it Kofi must have been to only numbly accept the help, completely ignoring everything else as he stumbled up the stairs, not even bothering to strip his baby vomit shirt.

She wasn’t much help on her feet these days, but she could do this - rock a baby or two, try not to wince at their screams, avoid imaging herself in Kofi’s exact position four months from now.

Kiki and Jenny, with their matching yellow rabbit onesies, stared up at her with wide baby brown eyes. Kiki had a dark birthmark across her shoulder and, with them so young, this is the only way to set them apart. That was kind of cute. She vaguely wondered if they’d always stay so the same.

The shop would open back up three days later, exactly a week after Afia had packed up her toothbrush and a change of clothes and used the tip money jar to buy herself a single bus ticket.

Vidalia, true to her word, would spent most of the months leading up to her sixteen hour labor in the Pizzeria backroom, two drooling girls on her lap, or in the occasional waitress apron when Nanefua was looking a bit too worn.

The Pizzeria. The beach. That fucking van.

Vidalia still gets free pizza from the shop, and hangs out in the back while she does so, even if it makes that vein in Kofi’s forehead poke out when she puts her boots on the counter. Years later, he tells her that she’s where Jenny inherited too much of her personality from, and the Vidalia doesn’t even attempt to not look pleased by that.

After a month and a half calling that number, and just as Greg was beginning to complain about the lack of change in his cup holder that prevented him from mastering the drop claw at Fun Land, Marty finally answered.

He actually let her explain it all without interrupting, which honestly surprised her the most about the whole ordeal. After their brief few day fling all those months ago, the only thing she could probably say certain about the other man was that he loved to listen to himself talk. Even during the sex, he was blabbering away about himself and her and their bodies together.

But he listened, he waited, and then he hung up without another word.

She walked back to Greg’s van, grateful he was off with his magic girlfriend so she could get a few pregnancy tears in peace without him fretting around in concern.

But it was only a week later, she and Greg still curled up in sleep despite the noon hour, when there was a quick, crisp knock on the van door, and they were sleepingly blinking at each other in question.

She doesn’t know how the guy found her, if he had to ask around or if he was just planning on dropping the manilla envelope off with Greg - Marty’s only contact within the city - and hoping for the best. But he only handed off the bundle, not bothering to answer any of their questions, before speeding back away on his motorcycle.

Greg peered over her shoulder for a quick moment before deciding they needed some breakfast, probably just to give her some alone time to look through it all, and hopped out the van, shirtless from sleep and only in a pair of ratty gym shorts. He was good like that.

It was a check. A large check, with a pretty colored note explaining that this was a one time thing, no repeats so don’t try, all you have to do is sign this paperwork and you can have it.

Paperwork that directly released him from any further parental duties.

But, the note promised her, if she didn’t, if Vidalia went after him or his money or his fame, she’d be in court for the rest of her pregnancy, and weren’t those legal fees just the worse? So expensive, especially if the other party decided to drag it out.

She is six months pregnant and given a choice.

A choice that she doesn’t have to think much of.

She would take the check. It wasn’t enough for forever, not from a guy like Marty, but it was enough for her to grab her shit and put down a first payment for a tiny two bedroom on an okay street, with a bit of yard and neighbors who didn’t automatically wrinkle their noses at her.

Vidalia was smart with money. From a town like hers, you had to be. She bought generic, stayed home most nights, and saved everything she could. It wasn’t enough for forever, but it was enough for now. It was enough to get a roof over her head, to grab a fuck ton of diapers, to load up her cart with those tiny glass jars of the good stuff - the stuff that made babies brains grow or whatever - and it was just enough for more of those pink bottled vitamins. She would have to get a job soon after the kid was born, but not right after. She could save enough for those few months at the beginning for when a babysitter from across the street would couldn’t cut it, and she could do it. Taking the money, the leave-me-alone-forever check, wasn’t much of a thought. Her pride was worth nothing in the long run. Her pride couldn’t feed her kid or mortgage a house or pay bills. This, the line of numbers that read back to her from her bank statement, this could. She could do this for her kid. Her son, because she knew it was a boy, she knew it in her stone cold heart that was just beginning to flare up every now and again when he kicked.

Marty would be back to chasing shorter skirts in no time, if he ever really stopped. He’d be hopping towns like they hopped themselves up on those good drugs he bought from the city. Maybe he’d get rich. Maybe he would actually discover the next big star like he told her, maybe this and that and whatever next girl he was swinging his arm around and smearing her lipstick.

And he could have all that.

Vidalia, as she smoothed her hands over her barely round stomach, only wanted this. Him. The best she could give him.  

“I’m just saying Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks have like, the best onscreen chemistry in all of showbusiness right now.”

Vidalia only rolled her eyes, “You’re just saying that because you’re a sucker for rom-coms, Universe. If we’re talking about actual talent, sure, Tom Hanks could make the list - I mean, did you see Saving Private Ryan? Shit, - but your romance for Meg Ryan doesn’t automatically put her -” She paused, shifting in place.

Greg gave her a concerned look, “You good?”

She took a breath, nodding. “Yeah, it’s just still weird as fuck when he kicks.”

Greg grinned at that, like he did at every mention of the baby. “Can I -?”

She was already nodding. At least he asked - she nearly right hooked a random tourist when they began fawning over her, their hands automatically going to touch her.  

“He’s a chill little fella,” Greg was smiling, his hand over her swollen stomach. “Hardly kicks at all.”

“My dad said I was crazy, in the womb.” Vidalia didn’t know why she was telling him this. “Never stopped moving.”

“Well, yeah.” Greg only gave her a fond look, leaning back to reach for his guitar. He absentmindedly begin strumming at it, a mostly unannoying habit of his.

Vidalia crossed her arms. Her back was against the other side of the van, leaving them across from each other. This was one of her last nights here, before she could move into that normal house on Seashell Dr. She was feeling more nostalgic then she could ever let on - Greg would never let her live it down. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean,” Greg gestured uselessly, “You’re Vidalia. You’re not just gonna sit still, or take anything without a fight. You’ve got more life in you then anyone. And I’ve met aliens.”

That was probably the nicest thing anyone has ever said about her.

She sniffed, her hands a wrinkled mess in her lap at she clenched at herself. Fuck pregnancy hormones.

“Aliens, huh?” She took a sip of her drink. “You’ll have to bring me around some time, let me get a good look.”

Greg only brightened at that, perking up in his slouch. “That’s a great idea! Oh, you’re gonna love Amethyst, seriously -”

She leaned away on to the door, her back aching. Maybe he was right - maybe she would like these friends of his. If they were anything like Greg himself - practically a golden retriever in kindness and positivity - they couldn’t be too bad.

It was be cool to see where all his crazy song ideas came from, anyways. Maybe she’ll stop by.

It’s in the middle of babysitting on a Monday when Kiki first rolls from her stomach to her back.

Vidalia immediately jumps up - well, as immediate as an eight months pregnant woman can do, and starts calling for Kofi and Nanefua, not caring the lunch rush was just beginning to start up.

They both burst through the door, wide eyes like expecting a catastrophe, and only blink a few times in relief as she explains.

They then they start nearly screaming in excitement.

They laugh and beam and hold Kiki up as they gush over her little fat baby body. Jenny gets passed around and teased and kissed on both cheeks, and both babies are smiling and giggling despite having no idea about anything but the love in which they’ve being smashed with.

Kofi, always a bit sad at milestones like these, manages a few laugh and grins and pokes at his own baby girls before the customers are yelling up the staircase and he’s rolling his eyes.

Nanefua leaves them all with lipstick kisses on their cheeks, Vidalia being the only one who cares enough to wipe off the color with a teasing look as she leaves.

Alone with the babies again, Vidalia only turns on them with a wide smile, and realizes that this - the swollen feet, the stretch marks across her hips and stomach, the aches and sickness and everything worse - it was kind of worth it.

She goes into labor on a Thursday, and in this way it feels almost as a full circle. But it also feels like the worst 16 hours of her life as she’s split apart and alone and crying and screaming with stranger’s hands on her. Her mother does not show up, even as she asks the nurses to call just one more time.

She’s alone for most of it, for more than half of it, but not all of it. Nanefua must have figured it out when she didn’t show up for babysitting, or maybe Greg when she didn’t answer his persistent knocking, but halfway through in the middle of a particularly horrible splitting of her body, she looks up and finds Nanefua pushing her way into the delivery room, strength ablazen in her eyes that Vidalia wasn’t even aware that she needed to borrow.

Nanefua lets Vidalia clench her hand in a bone crushing grip for nearly six hours, calm faced and composed as Vidalia screams and cries and sweats her way through three hospital gowns.

He is born on a Friday.

Friday, her favorite day of the week, because of what is yet to come.

He is born on a Friday.

Greg is in the waiting room, she later learns, where he paced and stood and brought tea to Kofi and the twins when they visited. He is the third person she chooses to let hold him - her kid, who’s quiet and sleepy and who’s feet the doctor’s have to slap to get him to cry out. It was her, then Nanefua, and then Greg, with his wild hair and beaming, watery eyes.

“He’s beautiful, Vid.” Greg told her, Nanefua going to relieve Kofi from twin duty. They were alone in the room. The nurses kept calling Greg the father when they came in, and despite Vidalia rolling her eyes and correcting them, Greg didn’t bother to once.

The weekend is ahead, and she’s already heard from Nanefua that Kofi is arranging a small surprise welcome home party in her two bedroom. He bought the twins new dresses for the occasion, and Greg is scheduled to play a few songs. Nanefua is making her signature accra banana peanut cake, and has already scheduled herself for two weeks of babysitting duty.

Her mother doesn’t show up, and her father is dead. She has no siblings or close cousins. But still, in this tiny beach town on the edge of sand and water, she finds herself a family.

Notes:

give me a slightly interesting minor female character and ill obsess over them and write an angsty found family backstory in a single night. god, i fucking love steven universe. it's finals week but tbh i needed this. Sorry if it's a bit choppy but if I don't post it now as is i'm going to keep working on it AND I HAVE TO STUDY OR I MIGHT DIE 8 AM ON TUESDAY. thanks for reading!

[kathleenseiber]

Why you should close the toilet lid

Physics has been surprisingly prominent in the flurry of scientific activity to understand COVID-19 and its real and potential impacts.

Researchers have, for example, used computational fluid dynamics simulations to study how far droplets fly when we cough, and mathematical models to investigate how long these droplets take to dry in different situations and even different cities.

Now a Chinese team has used a computer simulation to provide the best encouragement yet to put the toilet lid down.

It shows how a flushing toilet can create a cloud of virus-containing aerosol droplets that is large, widespread and long-lasting enough for the droplets to reach and be breathed in by others.

Writing in the journal Physics of Fluids, Yangzhou University’s Ji-Xiang Wang and colleagues describe using a standard set of fluid dynamic equations known as the Navier-Stokes equations to simulate flushing in two types of toilet – one with a single inlet for flushing water, and another with two inlets to create a rotating flow.

Left: Vortex caused by common annular flushing. Right: Large-scale spread of virus particles after flushing. Credit: J-X Wang

They also used a discrete phase model – similar to that used for studies of how far droplets fly – to simulate movement of the numerous tiny droplets likely to be ejected from the toilet bowl into the air. The results were sobering.

As water pours into the toilet bowl from one side, it strikes the opposite side, creating vortices. These vortices continue upward into the air above the bowl, carrying droplets to a height of nearly a metre, where they might be inhaled or settle onto surfaces.

These droplets are so small, the researchers say, that they float in the air for over a minute. A toilet with two inlet ports for water generates an even greater velocity of upward flowing aerosol particles.

“One can foresee that the velocity will be even higher when a toilet is used frequently, such as in the case of a family toilet during a busy time or a public toilet serving a densely populated area,” says Wang.

The simulations show that nearly 60% of the ejected particles rise high above the seat for a toilet with two inlet ports.

The findings are general but relevant to the current times, the researcher add, because studies showing the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 can survive in the human digestive tract and show up in faeces.

The post Why you should close the toilet lid appeared first on Cosmos Magazine.

Why you should close the toilet lid published first on https://triviaqaweb.weebly.com/

[zibizuba]

43 Bathroom Signs That Will Really Make You Think… and LOL

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As each nice small enterprise proprietor is aware of, it’s usually the little issues that may make a spot distinctive. Even though the lavatory door could be the final place you’d anticipate finding a contact of creativity, these humorous rest room indicators will make you suppose once more. Right here we’ve collected among the cleverest, most artistic, and even a bit of bizarre rest room door indicators from around the globe.

  Even Women Must Admit This Is Hilarious

This Superior Signal We In some way Suspect Was Designed by a Girl

These Loos Guarantee You the Seat Is Proper The place You Like It

This Intelligent Signal Could Clarify Why Males Love Beer and Ladies Love Cosmos

These Intelligent Indicators for Pet Retailers or Canine Groomers

Hehehe

Doesn’t Get Extra Clear Than That

When Avid gamers Construct a Place to Go

Bear in mind in Science Class When You Requested When You’d Ever Use This?

These Hysterical Doorways That Get It Proper

These Confidence Boosting Superhero Indicators

Option to Save on the Further Letters!

By no means Hurts to Suppose Forward, Proper?

This Signal That Ain’t Too Anxious About It

The All Shapes and Sizes Inclusive Ladies’s Room

What We Kinda Hope Loos Look Like at Marvel

Greatest. Ladie’s Room. Signal. Ever.

These Cool Life Sized Indicators

Cute Toilet Indicators for a Farm

These Intelligent Indicators at a Prepare Station

These Prankster Indicators That’ll Make You Learn the High quality Print Without end After

These Indicators Show Structure Is In all places

The Prettiest Actually Gross Indicators Ever

What Loos Should Look Like in Lego Cities

These Indicators Know Not Everybody Was Born Their Gender

These Inventive Bowling Alley Indicators

What Loos Most likely Look Like at Motorola

Willint to Guess There’s a Toilet at Comedian-Con That was Born for These

These Hilarious Pizza Parlor Indicators

These Indicators That Are a Little Too Sincere About What’s Happening Inside

No Extra Ready for Them to Pull These Tiny Pants Again On!

If Bar Toilet Indicators Have been Sincere

Properly, There Goes the Multi-Lingual Drawback

These Dangerous Boys Could Take a Minute…

These Hilarious Bar Indicators That Even the Drunkest Drunk Can Perceive

These Overly Graphic Indicators That Make You a Little Nervous to Enter Both

These Holy and Blessed Indicators

We Get the Granny Pants, Not Positive What the Males’s Room Capris Are About

This Rio 2016 Olympics Toilet Signal, As a result of You By no means Know

Stick Determine Doodler’s Unite

The Toilet at SpongeBob Squarepants’s Native Dive

These Puzzle Piece Impressed Stick Figures

Toilet Indicators for Folks Who Actually Like to Spoon?

  Associated

Artykuł 43 Bathroom Signs That Will Really Make You Think… and LOL pochodzi z serwisu PENSE LOL.

source https://pense.lol/43-bathroom-signs-that-will-really-make-you-think-and-lol/

[suicidalwitchboy]

New Moon Curse

Hi! This was my first real curse and i wanted to share it with you guys because i couln’t find any good curses on Tumblr. I used an online book of the shadows for some past of the curse but other than that, it is all mine.

First you need:

- Fireproof Bowl

- Salt

- Sage

- A piece of paper

- Lighter

- Black or red candles

- Rubber Band

- Red pen

- Lemon or vinegar

- Lemon salt

- Red pepper

- Something belongs to them

- Crystals for each element

- Razorblade

- Blood

- Your right shoe

- Sigils for your wish

Blue ones are optional but blood makes a curse stronger.

First:

Cast a circle with salt and stand facing east, in the center of the circle. Relax and breathe until you feel calm, centered, and present. Envision the wind whipping around you and get really in tune with the element of air. Simply say, “Spirits of Air, I call on you.” Place an air crystal.

Turn to the south. Envision crackling flames and the noonday sun. Get in tune with fire and say, “Spirits of Fire, I call on you.” Place a fire crystal.

Turn to the west. Envision flowing water in waves and waterfalls and streams, possibly moving around your body. When you feel attuned with water, say, “Spirits of Water, I call on you.” Place a water crystal.

Turn to the north. Conjure up the scent of the earth after it rains. Imagine the silence and darkness of a cave and the rooted feeling of being barefoot on the earth. When you feel attuned, say, “Spirits of Earth, I call on you.” Place an earth crystal.

Still facing north, become aware of your feet and send a column or roots of light deep into the core of the Earth. Bring golden white light up from the center of the earth and into your body. Say, “Mother Earth, I call on you.”

Next, send branches or a column of light up from the crown of your head, out of the earth’s atmosphere and into the Infinite Cosmos. Bring golden white light down from the Cosmos and down into your body. Say, “Father Sky, I call on you.”

Feel protected and contained on all sides, as well as from above and below. Feel gratitude for this Divine support and say, “Thank you, thank you, thank you. The circle is cast. Blessed be.”

Now sit inside the circle and place a candle for each side.

Take a piece of paper and write the name of the person that is to be bound on the paper, using a red ink pen.

While you do this visualize the face of the person on your mind. Cut your middle finger with a razor (it doesn’t have to be your middle finger but i used my middle finger as a fuck you to them). You can also use red pen if you don’t want to use blood. When you have written the name cross it with an inverted pentacle (5 pointed star within a circle).

Fold the paper twice and take a rubber band and tie the paper with it. Raise it to your temple and chant three times the following...

"To be protected from you,

This magic charm i will do,

With this words i bind thee,

For you to let me be,

To be protected from your harm,

I now seal this charm".

Now place the paper on your right shoe and slam your foot on the ground nine times (doesn't have to be so loud that everyone hears it) As you slam it the ninth time say...

"So mote it be!"

Take off your shoe and put away this paper.

Then:

Meditate inside the circle a little bit. Then squeeze a lemon inside a fireproof bowl. Pour some lemon salt and red pepper for bring their life sour and bitterness. If your finger still bleeds take the personal item (for my curse it was a note that he wrote one year ago) and draw a sigil with your blood. You can also use red pen too. Think about the things they did to you and feel the anger, pain, and hate. Wish them to suffer. End your prayer with ”so mote it be” and crush it with the first paper. Let the anger and hate fill you then burn them. Put the burning item in the bowl, make sure that it all burn down and mixed with the lemon juice/red pepper mixture.

Now face west. Bring Water fondly into your consciousness and simply say, “Water, you were here, and I thank you.” Blow the candle.

Face south. Bring Fire fondly into your consciousness and say, “Fire, you were here, and I thank you.” Blow the candle.

Face east. Bring Air fondly into your consciousness and say, “Air, you were here, and I thank you.” Blow the candle.

Face north. Bring Earth fondly into your consciousness and say, “Earth, you were here, and I thank you.” Blow the candle.

Still facing north, consider Mother Earth below you and say, “Mother Earth, you were here, and I thank you.”

Consider Father Sky above you and say, “Father Sky, you were here, and I thank you.”

Say, “Thank you, thank you, thank you. Blessed be. And so it is.”

Burn the sage for cleanse the room and let it burn for a while. Meditate and try to relax your mind. Think about having your revenge on them and try to be happy.

And after a moment, when the sage burns all the way down, say, “The circle is open, but never broken. The love of the Goddess is forever in my heart. Merry meet, and merry part, and merry meet again.”

Then make sure that will work. Believe it!

Lastly pour the ashes into the garbage can or toilet.

Dont forget to tell me the results! I also will be updating about the results!

[devereauxsdisease]

Space Invader Time Stamp 1

Ok, so I thought it was time to write a Space Invader time stamp. This is for a reader who wanted a bit more of the Bev/Darko relationship. It’s set about a year before the epilogue. 

Thanks go out to @wrathofthestag​ who tolerates all my craziness as I write and even looks my nonsense over so I don’t share anything too terrible. 

You Going to Piss on the Stick, or What?

         “Beverly? Are you vomiting?” Adam tapped at the bathroom door again. “If you’re vomiting, I should probably leave, I don’t like being sick.”      

         Beverly wretched into the toilet again. She was never, ever eating gas station sushi again, no matter how far afield her cases took her. Everything had been just fine until Nigel and Adam had come over to watch the game, when one sniff of Nigel’s beer had sent her scrabbling for a toilet. Just the thought of that stale wheat smell had Bev lurching into the bowl again.

         “Beverly? Nigel went to the store, he said he knew what to do.” She could hear Adam drumming his fingers nervously on the floor. “Would you like me to slide you a magazine under the door? I can do that without contaminating myself.”

         “It’s OK, Adam,” Her voice was raspy and her tongue tasted sour in her mouth. “I’m pretty sure it’s food poisoning.”

         “OK, but don’t open the door, just in case it’s the flu.” Adam sounded unconvinced. “I have an exam next week and I don’t want to be sick.”

         Bev rolled her eyes. That was as close to sympathy as she was probably going to get from Adam. Part of her wanted to call Darko, ask him to come home, so she could spend the night being cuddled and pampered. She dismissed the idea, she hated the idea of admitting she needed anyone, even now. She didn’t need her husband to feel better. She just needed to stop fucking puking.

         A knock rattled the door.

         “You’ve got your clothes on, yeah?”

         “Yes, Nigel.”

         The door opened.

         “I sent Adam home, he’s not great with this shit. He hopes you feel better and you don’t fucking infect him.” Nigel tromped into the bathroom, pausing to lay a plastic bag on the sink and grab a washcloth. He ran the cloth under the tap, wringing it out before he laid the cool cloth across the back of Bev’s neck. He flopped to the floor beside her. “You look fucking rough, Katz.”

         “I feel fucking rough, dick.”

         “OK, well I’ve got some stuff for you.” He grabbed the bag and handed it to her. She dug out a bottle of Pepto, two Powerades, and a pregnancy test. She blinked at it and looked at Nigel with wide eyes. “What? You’ve been trying for nearly a year, haven’t you?”

         Bev could feel her mouth falling open, she only hoped she wouldn’t puke again. Nigel shrugged.

         “Darko was fucking worried he was shooting blanks, I fucking told him with his aim, he’d be lucky if any of his fucking spunk found your eggs.”

         “He told you we were having trouble?” Something began roiling in her stomach again. Phil hadn’t told her he was worried. Did he not think he could tell her?

         “He told me he was afraid you married a sterile old man. I told him I didn’t want to hear about his fucking come anymore and he should just thank his lucky fucking stars you let him fuck you at all.” Nigel rolled his neck and motioned to the box. “You going to piss on the stick or what, gorgeous?”

         Bev looked at the box in her hands. Fuck, she had done shots last weekend at McKensie’s bachelorette party. She caught Nigel’s eye. “I don’t think I can pee right now.”

         Nigel rolled his eyes. “What the fuck do you think the Powerade is for? Chug, woman.”

         Bev laughed, grabbing the blue bottle and making a toasting motion.

                                                  -XXX-

         Nigel sat outside the bathroom door, letting his head fall back onto the wood. He texted Adam, letting a smile curve his mouth.

         4:37pm         Be home soon, gorgeous.

         4:38pm         Good! I have washed my clothes and bathed. Is Bev ok? Do you feel sick? Should I get protective masks?

         4:39pm         Bev’s fine. I’m fine. You’re not going to spray me with fucking Lysol when I get home, are you?

         4:41pm         No. But I would appreciate it if you stripped immediately and took a shower.

         4:44pm         Only if you get in the shower with me, make sure I’m clean. 😉

         4:46pm         I told you I already had a shower, Nigel.

         4:47pm         I wanna fuck, Cosmo.

         4:48pm         Oh! Sure! After you shower.         And brush your teeth.

         Nigel started to laugh when the door opened. He held up a finger, asking Bev for a minute.

         4:50pm         I fucking love you, Cosmo. I’ll call you when I’m on my way.

         Nigel pocketed his phone and turned. Bev’s hand was trembling and her eyes were wide.

         “Up the duff, then?”

         She nodded, holding out the positive test.

         “I don’t want your fucking piss stick, Bev. I believe you.”

         Bev shook her head and sat the stick on the sink. She wandered into the living room and flopped on the couch. Nigel followed, throwing an arm around her and drawing her close.

         “What’s wrong?”

         Bev shook her head. “I…I started to think it wasn’t going to happen. I stopped mentioning it to Phil. I didn’t even fucking check this month.” She looked at Nigel, eyes watering. “Fuck, Nigel, I had so much fucking vodka last weekend.”

         “I wouldn’t worry, Bev. My mother was drunk and turning tricks most of her pregnancy and look how fucking great I turned out!” Bev rolled her eyes and smacked him. “Look, we all know you and Adam are going to get together and start fucking planning and it’ll be nine fucking months of organic mac and cheese and fucking juice for all of us. Fuck it, you’ll probably even get Darko and I to do prenatal yoga or whatever the fuck guarantees your baby is a genius now. You’re going to be a great fucking mom, Bev.”

         Bev bit her lip, then smiled. Gently, she took Nigel’s hand and placed it on her stomach. “You’re going to be a great fucking uncle, Nigel.”

         Nigel shook his head, but his hand stayed, softly stroking over her middle.

         “You will. I’ll always know the kid is safe with you. You protect family over everything.” Nigel scrunched his brow, his vision blurring a little as his eyes pricked with tears. Bev winked. “I’ll also know why the kid’s first word is cunt, but what the hell? Might as well learn from the fucking best.”

         Nigel laughed, wiping at his eyes with his free hand. He opened his mouth to speak when the door banged open.

         “Bev? Adam called me. You OK, baby? I stopped by the deli to get that matzah soup you lik-” Darko froze when he saw Nigel and Bev cuddled on the couch. His eyes darted from their teary eyes to the large hand still on Bev’s stomach. Darko sighed. “Please tell me you’re not leaving me for him. I don’t think I can handle Adam on my own.” 

         Nigel rolled his eyes and pulled Bev into a hug. He flipped Darko off as he kissed the side of Bev’s head.

         “I’m fucking sorry, Bev. The baby’s going to be at least 50% asshole,” Nigel whispered into her hair.

         Bev laughed, shoving Nigel as he moved to get up. “Alright, get out. Phil and I have to discuss which room is going to be the nursery.”

         “We’ve already talked about that! The back room with the good sunlight. We had that settl-” Darko choked on his own words, eyes going wide. The bag of soup slipped from his hands, Nigel managed to grab it before it hit the floor.

         “Congratulations, you fuck,” Nigel smiled, sitting the soup on the coffee table and playfully nudging his statue of a friend as he walked out the door.

         Darko just stared for a long moment, his mouth forming words his brain wouldn’t release. Finally, he managed one. 

         “Bev?”

         She smiled and nodded, just once. Darko rushed forward, grabbing her head in his hands and pressing kisses all over her face. He started laughing, pulling her into his arms as tears spilled down his cheeks. She shifted, moving to sit in his lap and gently brushing his tears away with her fingertips.

         “I should go to the doctor’s to be sure. It’s just one test.”

         “But do you think you’re pregnant?”

         “Yeah, I do.”

         Darko let out a shaking breath, his smile bright. He buried his face in Bev’s neck.

                                                  -XXX-

         Bev threaded her fingers through Darko’s hair, smiling at the man curled around her stomach, whispering little secrets to her bellybutton. “Why didn’t you tell me you were worried?”

         Darko looked up, frown on his face. “What?”

         “Nigel said you were worried it took us so long. You never said anything about it to me.”

         Darko stroked her stomach one more time. “Excuse me, Junior. I’ve got to talk to mama.”

         Bev rolled her eyes, but laughed anyway. Darko army crawled up her body, elbows framing her as he shimmied. He stopped briefly to press a kiss to the silver microscope that hung around her neck before moving up to her face.

         “You wanted to see me?”

         Bev fought very hard to keep the grin off her face. “Why didn’t you talk to me? I have to be easier to talk to than Nigel.”

         Darko sighed, he seemed very interested in the pillowcase by her head all of a sudden. “It was just one more thing, wasn’t it? One more reason for you to go.”

         Bev frowned, it felt like he’d struck her. “What?”

         “I know why you turned down those people.”

         “What people?”

         “The ones who took us to dinner, asked if you’d be interested in running for county commissioner.” Bev reached up to touch Darko’s face, but he caught her wrist, eyes sad. “Hard to get elected if your husband’s a former drug dealer.”

         “Stop.”

         “What if someone finds out when the kid’s in school?”

         “Phil, stop.” She pulled her hand back, he wouldn’t look at her.

         “Is that why you’re taking the job at Cal Tech? So no one at the Sheriff’s Department goes digging?”

         “They know.”

         Darko gaped at her, eyes wide.

         “I told Jim when I knew you were it.” Bev used Darko’s shock to her advantage, twisting her arms around his neck and pulling him closer. She pecked a few kisses across his chin. “He was very understanding. His kid caught a charge for possession a few years back. I wanted to make sure no one ever tried to use you against me.”

         “But-”

         “I took the job because the money is better, the healthcare is good, and I can still consult on cases. Plus, my hours are flexible, so I can do things like go to school plays or science fairs.” She paused, twisting her mouth into a grin. “Maybe surprise my husband at the office for a quickie.” 

         Darko’s eyes began to water. “I…I just thought-”

         “You’re part of the plan, idiot. You’ve been part of the plan since I saw you huffing after me in those ridiculous spandex tights.” Bev ran a hand through his hair. “You’re not holding me back, Dorko. No one has ever held me back.”

         “I worry sometimes.”

         “You worry all the fucking time.” Bev bopped him on the nose. “I’m not Nigel, I can take care of myself. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to know when you’re worried. You tell me before you tell Nigel, you understand?”

         Darko nodded, his face solemn. “If we have trouble with the next one, I promise I’ll talk to you before I tell fuckface.”

         “THE NEXT ONE?” Bev spluttered. “How many Dalca brats am I looking at here, Phil?”

         Darko frowned, tapping his finger to his chin in thought. “How many do we need to start an American football team?”

         Bev laughed, shoving him off her. “Let’s get through this one, first. Then we can discuss franchising.”

         He settled his hand back on her stomach, tapping lightly. “You hear that, Junior? Be good so mama won’t mind expanding the team.”

         Bev thumped him in the shoulder. “Stop with the Junior bullshit. We don’t even know it’s a boy.”

         Darko laughed, face incredulous. “Boy? It’s not a fucking boy. It’s a girl, Beverly Hettienne Katz Junior!”

         Beverly raised an eyebrow, Darko frowned.

         “What? Beverly Katz II sounds dumb.” His fingers began stroking her stomach again. “She’s going to be so fucking smart, Bev. She’ll know all about dead bodies and space... Nigel and I can teach her how to spot skunk weed.”

         Bev smacked him. Darko shrugged.

         “We can also teach her how to beat the shit out of someone or avoid security cameras? What do you think?”

         “I think you’re fucking ridiculous.” Bev whispered, but she could already picture a little girl in Darko’s arms, someone that would love him as much as she did. “And I think we’re both lucky your ours.”

         “I’ve been yours since the day we met.” Darko pulled her close, hand slipping under her pajama bottoms. “Want me to prove it?”

         Bev smiled, leaning into the familiar warmth of his touch.

         “Always.”

[entergamingxp]

Wattam review – a Takahashi joint through and through • Eurogamer.net

Keita Takahashi remains singularly unconcerned with concepts such as target audiences and player retention. When asked what he’s aiming at with his games, the answer is, simply, “fun”. Subsequent questions are likely to be met with a shrug. In light of this, the story of Takahashi’s hit Katamari Damacy feels like a happy accident, precisely because he embodies the spirit of an independent creator unbothered by commercial constraints. Takahashi designs small experiments, brightly coloured toys limited in function, but fun in the moment. Easy to pick up and put away. It’s a mindset he shares with Funomena, who collaborated with him on Wattam and who make games such as Luna and Wooorld with the same colourful, inclusive appeal.

Wattam review

Developer: Funomena

Publisher: Annapurna Interactive

Platform: PS4

Availability Out December 17th on PS4 and PC

Wattam feels like a collection of the things Takahashi found fun in the moment, several simple elements loosely connected by a theme. It begins with you taking control of the mayor, a green cube with a face wearing a bowler hat. The mayor is all alone on a floating island, until suddenly he claps eyes on a new friend – a stone! “Welcome back, stone!!” it says, and in this vein it continues. Your task is basically to repopulate a number of islands, each representing a different season, with any odd thing people usually associate with each.

Make sure to pay attention to the visual clues, otherwise ‘Lighthouse?’ may not make much sense.

“Repopulate” might be a generous word, as it implies you know what you’re doing, when really you just do what Wattam tells you to, following its special brand of Keita Takahashi logic. Here, each usually inanimate object takes a life of its own, and you play with all of them. Each has their own music, which is a nice idea on paper, but relatively chaotic in practice as you switch between characters. Some have a use and some don’t – the mouth for example spends its time chasing its food friends only to gobble them up and then poop them out from a thankfully unexplained orifice. Congratulations, you have just reintroduced one type of poop into the world! (There are several.) You can then take control of the toilet, which gleefully flushes the poop, turning it shiny and golden. If you take control of a tree, it will suck up another character Kirby-style and bring it back as fruit. Or maybe you want to go ‘go kaboom’ – then the mayor lifts his hat to reveal a bomb underneath that will explode into bright smoke and propel him and everyone nearby into the air. Why? Just because you can.

Each seasonal island has a rough gameplay theme. Upon arrival, there is a tree to plant and a few tasks to finish. Each quest, whether that’s reuniting a sushi um with her fish roe children or rescuing a book assaulted by adoring stationary, is completed with only the small set of actions at your disposal – look at something and watch what happens, interact with another character, climb something, take someone by the hand. Wattam uses words sparingly, mostly showing you where to go, rather than telling you. Since gameplay rarely involves more than pressing a button in a specific location, everything is easy to follow, which generally makes it a great game for young kids.

I say generally because currently the physics engine and camera controls fight you every step of the way. Wattam uses shoulder button camera controls for camera turns and zoom on the PS4, the dinosaur of camera controls straight from the PS2 era. Sometimes the camera will move without your doing, and it always makes matters worse. With all the sentient beachballs and bottle caps milling about on each platform, the framerate can drop to a stutter, there’s often something blocking your view, and selecting the character you want to control is imprecise and downright fiddly at times.

Climbing may or may not work, not only because the camera can randomly swerve away from what you’re doing, but also because a character may simply not find a hold or refuse to move despite already being attached to a surface. On the flipside you may accidentally climb everything and everyone whether you want to or not. Characters lay down on the ground on more than one occasion, helplessly spasming with happy smiles frozen on their faces, until I restarted the game, or launched themselves into the air or below the earth, never to return, which is particularly annoying if it happens to a quest-giver. To top it all off, Wattam crashed several times, going so far as to crash my entire console at one point.

Everything you do is underlined by the bright laughter of children.

Calling it a spiritual successor to Katamari isn’t that far off, because it’s game that deals with household items and the micro-cosmos they represent. A seashell isn’t just a seashell, it’s something kids bring back from a fun day at the beach. The bowling pin is perhaps reminiscent of an afternoon at the bowling alley with the family, and as the nose you can enjoy the different smells of the season. In his own voice, Takahashi said that he’s always trying to make a game that shows how ordinary life is great. Wattam shows an appreciation for the small things we take for granted, and it has you piece together a whole universe of them. It imagines the panic a balloon might feel at being released into the sky with the same gentleness Toy Story has for toys fearing abandonment, and all you really do is help others and do fun things like dance around in a circle. There is a story that explains why everyone got separated in the first place, but again the overall feeling of kindness and appreciation, of restoring a universe, is what really matters. It’s warm, downright soft at times, definitely homey.

Wattam uses a combination of light gameplay and love-it-or-leave-it humour I associate with Keita Takahashi and like, but it’s more of a Noby Noby Boy 2.0, a game so simple and nonsensical it sometimes makes you wonder what the point is. If his previous games weren’t for you, this one, perhaps a humorous experiment more than anything, certainty isn’t going to change your mind. While this and the technical issues prevent from unreservedly loving it, I still enjoyed Wattam, simply for delivering emotionally, if not on a technical level.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2019/12/wattam-review-a-takahashi-joint-through-and-through-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wattam-review-a-takahashi-joint-through-and-through-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

[mapajonimo-posts]

  Artistfacts: Subodh Gupta

Banyan Tree

This week’s post is inspired by a fabulous retrospective show of  Subodh Gupta’s work  at La Monnaie de Paris last spring. It is a shame that it will not be coming to the US.

Subodh Gupta is a contemporary Indian artist, born in 1964, who lives and works in Delhi. He is best known for his monumental sculptures made from every day metal objects, objects often tied to the making or storage of food, objects that are ubiquitous throughout India, such as the steel tiffin boxes, Haandi (serving bowls), thalis (plates), dabbas (containers)  and water jugs.  The sculptural massing of these objects, their presentation out of the context of a kitchen transforms them from banal to poetic and  their meaning from utilitarian to symbolic. This removal from context was all the more vivid in the 17th century Mansart Petit Hotel de Conti that is part of the Louis XV Monnaie de Paris building. Although he is using objects ubiquitous in India, their shapes and uses are easily translated into all cultures.

The water is in the pot, and the pot is in the water

Subodh Gupta is looking at the cultural and economic changes not only in India but worldwide that result from globalization and industrialization. Issues of modernization and loss of cultural differences, issues of migration and belonging, issues of consumerism and waste, issues of need and want, subsistence and gluttony.

Very Hungry God (2006) made up of stainless steel pots and pans

Cooking and eating, food in general is a universal need.  All cultures have rituals in the preparation and eating of food, with the kitchen the center or soul of most homes. Through his work, by his play on scale, his massing of objects and the mixing of media or layering in of technology, Subodh Gupta transforms the domestic to the spiritual, the intimate to the cosmic. There is the dichotomy of excess, gluttony, consumerism and starvation, of the haves and the have nots, of unity versus individuality.

  Line of Control– a giant mushroom cloud shaped sculpture made of steel utensils. Although it refers to the line between Pakistan and India, both nuclear armed countries, it clearly reminds the viewer of the devastation that war causes to civilians and the risk of war and nuclear armament.

  When he looks at a pot or an utensil,  he sees and is showing us not only the pot, but the stories of the people who used the pot. Their lives, their fears and their joys. The utensil is a stand-in, a metaphor for a human life. The burnt out bottom a reflection of the cosmos.

  His works also address and confront issues of climate change, the environment, what is wasted, what is reused, consumerism and the unexpected consequences of human actions.

Everything is Inside consists of a ubiquitous in India Ambassador taxi, cast metal luggage on its carrier with the bottom half cut off so it looked like it was overwhelmed by water or sunk into the ground, being swept away by the monsoon, a person’s life and possessions lost.

  Unstruck consists of a cube or house made of bricks formed from pressed and fused kitchen utensils and strips of brightly colored cloth, behind the cloth and within the chinks an eye looking at the viewer.

The titles are often humorous Two Cows (2003) pictured below consists of two cast in bronze bicycles with milk churns ready to be delivered. The bronzing of a utilitarian object ennobling it and elevating it.

In the same way he bronzed a toilet and set it next to its more commonplace twin, still far more luxurious than what is often available in India

He alternates between pieces made of found objects, ready-mades and pieces profoundly marked by the artisan’s hand, playing with issues of organic versus industrial.  The addition of technology, the contrast between the shiny and the used add tension  and visual interest to his works.

Casts of the luggage typically carried by workers returning from the Gulf placed on trolleys, luggage and trolleys are cast in bronze. The titles of such pieces are both humorous and poignant  “Dubai to Mumbai” or “Vehicle for Seven Seas”. Cloth bundles elaborately tied with string  now bronzed become the precious objects they are in reality to their owners, forcing the viewer to consider the intense poverty and difficulty of these migrant workers seeking to survive.

Vehicle for Seven Seas and Fire

There are several artists that use everyday objects in creating large sculptures and for each of these artists the material they choose and the messages they seek to convey are markedly different. To review a few:

Tara Donovan uses everyday materials such as styrofoam cups or drinking straws to create large scale sculptures with organic forms thus metamorphosing them from the very banal into constructs often site specific that are organic and amorphic and poetic.

  Song Dong in Waste Not, made an installation showcasing more than 10,000 objects accumulated by his late mother—everything from pots to shoes to toothpaste tubes, focuses on details of a human life and ideas of memory.

    Damien Hirst, in particular in the series, ‘Medicine Cabinets’ or ” Pharmacy” has used ubiquitous household items  but with a darker Pop Art aesthetic to address his preoccupations of mortality.  His work, For the Love of God, as with Gupta’s Very Hungry God incorporate the skull but Hirst uses diamonds instead of stainless steel to create his .

      Sculptor and installation artist Robert Gober has used the art of trompe l’oeil, meticulously handcrafting common household items, human body parts and Sudobh Gupta has also used this method. However the meanings and references are very different with Gober focusing more on exploring themes of family, religion, sexuality, alienation.

  While Gupta has Atta, a loaf of bread made of bronze but covered with flour.

    Ai Wei Wei has also produced some large conceptual installations traditional Chinese modes of thought and production.  In particular, bicycles have been used extensively, as symbols of the freedom to move as well as a strong symbol of the changes occurring in China.

      Jeff Koons with The New placed vacuum cleaners manufactured by iconic American companies such as Hoover in illuminated perspex boxes, the vacuum cleaners carefully presented alone or in small curated groupings, symbolising wealth, elite consumerism,  of  more implicitly sexual pop culture.

Leonardo Drew’s sculptures often look like they were made from an accumulation of found objects but in fact are made of materials (wood, cotton, paper) that he has “aged” or spoiled, weathered, oxidized, burnt.

    El Anatsui transforms found materials, in particular liquor bottle caps into carpet wall sculptures of color commentating among other things on issues of globalization and trade.

      The last two artists I will relate Gupta’s work to are:

Andy Warhol in particular with the Brillo Boxes where he replicated a common household item

Duchamp and the use of the Ready made into an art object. Sudobh Gupta makes that influence quite clear himself in a piece included in the show at La Monnaie de Paris, where a urinal found at a flea market is filled with what look like real but are actually cast mangoes.

Wash before eating

He is married to a fellow artist Bharti Kher and in an article by Girish Shahane from January 2007 he claims that she said to him “Subodh what you’re creating is no good” and he realized that “he was not doing himself justice”  and moved away from painting to installation art and new media art. He set himself apart through a use of materials intrinsic to Indian culture.

Unfortunately, Subodh Gupta was accused of repeated sexual misconduct as of December 2018 and he has stepped down from his role of co-curator of the Serendipity Arts Festival in Goa. The artist has denied the charges. If true it is unfortunate that such a brilliant artist will be tainted by such actions.

Artistfacts: Subodh Gupta Artistfacts: Subodh Gupta Banyan Tree This week's post is inspired by a fabulous retrospective show of  Subodh Gupta's work  at La Monnaie de Paris last spring.