#dante is part of the frat in this one

[champagneandparacosm-archive]

𝐇𝐚𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐂𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐧 // @outofairinmylungs When Luke asked to borrow the cabin for their haunted house, there was no hesitation for Joanna to agree. She barely used it after summer. Someone might as well get some use out of it. Mark, Orrie, Tanner, Luke, Milo, Dante and his girlfriend Katana and of course the host Joanna began carrying bag after bag of Halloween decorations into the cabin. The foyer still held onto the fading scent of sage from the last time Joanna had been up here. She cleansed it without fail before leaving the cabin to its own devices. She took great care of the place being in the family for generations. The mascot of the fraternity, Carter, weaved in and out of their legs, running in and out of the cabin through all the excitement. The trained service dog needed no leash, sticking close to his master.

Stuck in the midst of a conversation, Luke chided Joanna for falling for some asshat named ‘Chad’. “Seriously, what did you expect from a ‘chad’.” He meant no ill will, and yet he scoffed softly as he pulled out yet another tote of decorations from his car. Four of the guys brought their cars as well, all stuffed full of things they’d need. Even then, it hadn’t even scratched the surface of what they had at the house they’d bring over later. Today was just the cabin, the trail they planned in the woods needing to be set up the night before their extravaganza. “I didn’t fall for him, Luke,” She protested, eyes rolling. She trailed behind him, sighing with a sober agitation. “I said he got a girlfriend which fucked my plans. We have a good thing going: fucking no strings attached. I knew damn well he had no emotional attachment to me. It was why we worked so well… But then he fell for some bitch named Stacy or Trixie or whatever… And now I’m out a fuck buddy.”  And since Luke had gone monogistic, Joanna really had no one to fuck. Nor Maya or Sarah or- She knew Luke’s cycles. He stayed consistent until he felt like it was getting too serious and would ease up and branch back out to his friends with benefits. She had been the first, then Sarah, Maya, on down the line. Now Lydia was his recent infatuation. It was fucking weird why he didn’t just find a girl and allow himself to get close to them. Any of them. Maya was a good match for him, she really was. But he got spooked and backed off. They stayed friends, obviously, it was hard not to love Luke as one. He was a sweet guy. “You always have me, sweetheart,” Orrie chimed in, slowing up as he passed her, smile teasing and childish. She returned such a smile, her eyes rolling once more. Of course she’d always have Orrie. Orrie wasn’t likely to find a girlfriend because all the girls he attracted were cheating sluts. He didn’t roll that way. “Always you, sir.” Came her snarky reply, dropping the bags and surveying the crowded foyer spilling over into the kitchen. “Got some work to do, yeah?” Tanner commented, grabbing the last of it in their vehicles. “Yeah… And there’s a couple bags still with Lydia and Katie.” Luke began sorting. There was no time to waste. He wanted to get a move on, hoping that they’d get done by the early evening so the drive home wouldn’t be as shitty. Joanna already offered to finish whatever they didn’t get done, knowing their college schedules always fucked with her plans to see them. Luke just didn’t want to leave her with the stress. All of them combined should be able to do some damage on the cabin. 

[timecryptid]

Ya know what? I want to talk about my ocs but I can never do that if no one knows anything about them and I have no idea what to talk about. So here is the list of my current stories (using my sometimes fun and sometimes just basic ass titles)

Republicans get fucked (literally): Okay so I got the idea for this one when there was a book that went viral where it's some young liberal woman who falls in love with a conservative man and turns into your classic trad wife. And I've never seen anything with a similar plot but the other way around or queer. So this is a series of stories involving Republicans who bottom for liberals. This is the series that Oscar and Kandi belong to. It's one of my favorites just simply because it's the stories/characters that got me back into writing my own characters. Currently, it's got two main stories. Ivan x Sage and Oscar x Mason. Oscar and Mason's story is more smut than Ivan x Sage. Mason's is about a rich conservative college football player who falls for his rather gross leftist roommate. Then Sage's story has been coined in my mind as incel to femboy because that is what he is.

Ken x Wren (Did I say already that I have basic ass titles?): Superhero x villain but it's the type where the villain is a young college freshman who is living with a famous superhero who is paying for literally his whole life including his father's medical bills. And the only reason said hero (Ken) is paying for all of this is because of the fact that he likes taking advantage of young people who can't say no to him for fear of being kicked out on their asses. Meanwhile, Wren has been working for a shitty capitalist who has been touching him since before he was of age so he's pretty used to this by now.

Yandere brother: The first incest listed here but not at all the last one that I have. This one is about an older brother Dante who has literally no feelings for anyone, romantic or platonic. And this includes his parents. He doesn't really want friends or anything but eventually makes friends to soothe his parents. That is until his younger brother, Eden, is born when he's ten. It's a slow burn and ends with the two fucking after Dante kills all of his brother's friends. It also has a lot of religious talk as I imagine you can guess with Eden's name. This story was supposed to be a short story but then it turned into two novellas/novels, one from each of their perspectives.

Kane x Blake: This is the story that I created the comic off of and have at least two more planned. It's about Kane who creates a gang when he's in middle school and Blake who is his muscle who wants desperately to just be a cute little housewife. Born to be a housewife, forced to be the muscle for a gang leader. Kane is insane but I love him, he's also a literal monster. This one has a lot of religious undertones (something that is present in a lot of my works).

Dani x Anthony: One of my older works that is being changed slightly and also one of only three straight couples I have. And even then both of them are bi. It's a holiday story about Dani who comes home from studying abroad and falls in love with her former academic rival Anthony who is a massively prissy fancy boy. He's a more fancy frat boy where if it were up to him he wouldn't be a part of a frat but it's the only way his rich father will pay for his college. Also while it's straight Dani does not bottom. Pegging all the way.

Youtuber siblings: And my 2 straight couple. Who is actually straight. Leah is the younger sister of a famous rather intense vlogger Noah. I don't actually know too much about their story but it's probably going to involve Leah doing some murder because she's a boss-ass bitch. Also, she's friends with Luca who is a closeted gay boy who crossdresses and pretends to be her girlfriend to make her look good.

Loving Family ;): This is the one that Envy, June, Robin, and Alex belong to. It's going to be two stories, one about Envy and June and the other about Robin and Alex. It was mostly created because I realized that I didn't have a lesbian incest story and I had to complete the trio. Also, Envy and Robin are both trans, Envy being a trans woman who is decently masc and Robin is a trans man who dresses rather femininely. And I went with that 1) because I think masc trans women are hot and 2) they are underrepresented. Also while the main couples are Envy x June and Alex x Robin I have idea for a lot of combinations of the four siblings.

Omegaverse Private School: Look I just wanted to write about a young alpha who got bitched and now has to attend an all omega private school. His name is Riley and he's very buff and pretty. Then you have his alpha who happens to be his teacher Louis. They weren't planning on the bitching happening but they did anyways. Then you have Riley's roommate Al who is an omega who is dating another omega Vivienne and Al is planning on transitioning into an alpha when she graduates and gets away from her shitty parents.

Queer Vent: About a 20-something-year-old girl Maya and her girlfriend Cas who go to Maya's family/s for Christmas. And it's basically just a self-insert about my own relationship with a family that just never acknowledges my queerness. You always hear about families where they are explicitly homophobic but not the quiet kind of homophobia where your family just never talks about it but like you know they're not accepting.

Modern Greek Myth Retellings: It's what it sounds like. I (like so many queer people) have always had a love of Greek mythology and I want to do modern Greek myth retellings. I would love to hear about other people's favorite myths because I don't know enough. I only have one done so far and that is a fun modern Narcissus retelling for a short story contest.

Revelations Inspired Short Stories: I also have a bit of an obsession with religion specifically Christianity and also cults. So currently I have just two planned. One with Jesus who is a queer polyamorous teen who hates his father and the angel Gabriel who follows him around. Then you have my anti christ who doesn't have a name who happens to be a teen girl cheerleader who has no interest in the world ending. Also, she lives with both of her parents including Satan himself and her father. Who you could technically call her mother as he gave birth to her.

Chronos x Gabriel: Chronos is an older disabled veteran who is now a cowboy. Gabriel is a gay teen party boy who is the son of some kind of politician. It's another older story that I am revamping and turning more modern. I don't actually have much of a story for it. Current thought is something about the troubled teen industry.

Wolfman x Dogwomen x Catboy: Look these characters started off as a self insert joke in middle school with two of my at the time best friends. My main character is a cat boy named Kat because it's a shortened version of the joke name that I will not be revealing. He's a grumpy emo cat boy who used to be the pet of a rich family until he was kicked out for kissing their son. Then you have Hannah (the former self-insert) who is a middle 20's dog girl who works part time as a dominatrix. Then Maverick (which may or may not be his final name) who was based on my middle school best friend's edgy wolf self-insert. He's a wolfman who is an office worker because it's one of the few jobs he can get as a hybrid. It starts with Hannah and Maverick who have been dating since middle school and are also in a pretty big poly relationship with a lot of their middle/high school friends and they pick up young Kat off the street. And he falls in love with them.

Alice in Wonderland Twins: I love Alice in Wonderland so of course here is my own take on it. It has twins Alice and Alec who fall into Wonderland. Where Alice falls for the Mad Hatter (my third and last straight couple) where Mad Hatter hates the fact that he's in love with this young girl. And Alec falls for the Chesire Cat and that one has a lot less guilt.

Little Red Riding Hood: Similar to Alice in Wonderland in that I wanted to do my own version of Little Red Riding Hood. This time though it's gay. You have Red who lived with his grandmother when he was a kid and then came back to live with his parents. Only to be sent back to his grandmother's small village. Now this one has two different ways it could go. One is that he falls in love with his childhood crush who broke his heart and is a massive dick who is the huntsman. Or you have him fall for his grandmothers new farm hand who is the big bad wolf.

Used To Be About Zombies :/: I've always loved the zombie apocalypse and I wanted to create my own zombie apocalypse story in middle school. And then I realized I can't really write that kind of thing so now they're not in the apocalypse. I love all these characters but no longer had a story for any of them but then realised they're my own characters. I could just stick them in whatever scenarios I wanted. You have my sad gay whore Nic whose first boyfriend took advantage of him and made him very hypersexual. Think Angel Dust but before I knew of him. Then you have his crush who is older than him Tom who is a massively Christian man who is very repressed and it takes him a long time to realize that he's bi. Also, I just realized they are basically just Huskerdust but this was before I knew of these characters. Then you have Tom's younger sister and Nic's best friend Maddie who is much more liberal. And also not only is she very accepting of her own bisexuality. And dating Valerie, a trans girl who is very shy but also very kind.

[toddlazarski]

“Tulsa King”

The A.V. Club

When the trailer for Tulsa King premiered during the NFL’s week six broadcast of the Buffalo Bills vs. the Kansas City Chiefs, the league’s early season heavyweight title bout, it seemed more than apt — the show promised a punchy, swaggering, sporting choice of violence, featuring the television debut of Sylvester Stallone, and offering the most stout shoulder and jutted jaw this side of the gridiron. Sly’s said goateed jaw protrudes as if chiseled out of mossy stone, his voice tumbling throatily almost through marbles, eyes half shut part in tough guy disinterest and part brawny boxer brain damage, his biceps prominently feature an unnatural highway system of veins. The show poster promises one star at the top, one name needed: “Stallone.”  

As he ships a package the man behind the counter asks, “any flammable liquids or firearms?” and the audience is supposed to feel a collective guffaw, a notion of, “dude, this is Rambo!” We are all in on the joke, in on all of the pedestrian one liners from the trailer: “If I stopped eating every time somebody tried to hurt me I’d be a skeleton.” He is coy and he is rugged, he is out of place but unto himself, he is only a gray hair in a suit, but, in the words of Mickey, he is still very much a “greasy, fast, 200-pound Italian tank."    

For all the noise and bravado though, the Red Bull and fist pumping vibes that seem to frame the energy of hungover Saturday afternoon frat house fare, what is easy to miss, aside from the promise of “From the Creator of Yellowstone,” is that the show was helmed by one of the most original and promising writers in Hollywood. Taylor Sheridan wrote Sicario in 2015, a twisty, criss-crossing, paranoid and depraved look at the war on drugs, at machismo, at shady government dealings, at, well, shady personal dealings, in a picture as confounding and fractured and dark as could be expected of a major release. He was then nominated for Best Original Screenplay for 2016’s Hell or High Water, an impeccably structured bit of neo Western crime noir that would make the Coen Brothers jealous. It’d be almost easy to overlook Wind River, a windswept and chilly and chilling thriller much more hopeless than ‘Hell.’ In just a few years, as a writer, the man originally known as playing David in Sons of Anarchy, seemed to have channeled and repackaged a special modern blend of Cormac McCarthy and Larry McMurtry, with a sprinkling of Sam Peckinpah and the sonoric spirit of early Warren Zevon. His voice is lean and unsentimental, accompanied by a vision full of menace and the darkness just beyond the reaches of a prairie campfire. 

Here Sheridan pulled a different type of trick, penning the original story of ‘Tulsa’ in just three days, supposedly, before handing the project off entirely to Terence Winter, the writer and producer known for work on The Wolf of Wall Street, Boardwalk Empire, and, yes, The Sopranos. Winter acts as surrogate showrunner, and seems grateful for such an entirely new entree for a Mafia story. “Mobster in cowboy country,” is how he describes it, specifying this particular variance of fish out of water, yet we are comfortable miles from Steven Van Zandt repurposing Silvio Dante for Lilyhammer.   

Allen Coulter directs the first two episodes, in an act of full commitment to the Davic Chase antihero oeuvre. (Max Casella shows up too, in a seeming winking nod to Sopranos acolytes). As we open Stallone’s Dwight Manfredi is found leaving prison, scoffing at the new Manhattan of Apple stores and VR headsets, on a path to rectify the sins of his past, build a new life, accrue something of a new crew. “I married this life, I’m gonna see if it married me back.” At his welcome home party he comes in hot though, “don’t stand behind my fucking back” he barks, wasting no time getting down to the ludicrous business, his fists cathartically going thwack and pffff, mixing it up with the beefy boy men at the head of the family (led by Domenick Lombardozzi), those responsible for his 25-year residence in “college,” as they might call it. All of them are near caricature-level quick to the draw on the chest-puff snarls and the finger-pointing and spittle-inducing toughie platitudes, the pissing contests of former football players in business casual residing in tasteless Mcmansions. He eventually accepts his “banishment,” that there is “nothing left for me here,” and provides some mild exposition about an ex-wife and a daughter who “hates me.” “Why not?” he asks, and if you’re hungry for more explanation he might tell you he’s in “the none of your fucking business kind of business.”

Either way he lands in Tulsa with vague assignations dealing with “horse races,” immediately hires a driver (an endearing Jay Will as Tyson), strong arms his way into the medical marijuana business (fronted by a stoned, deadpan Martin Starr), and bounds the realms between mountainous stoicism and semi-comic violence. Yes, Dwight might use a canteen, thrown like a shortstop turning two, no less, to combat a security guard, but he also might deadpan lament prison’s tiramisu. He uses the threat of a foot stomp, but it’s cooked with a base affability, as he explains “we’re partners,” and persuades with a “don’t make me be an asshole about this.” He is the buddy you like going places with, the one who can befriend any bartender (sad boy supreme Garrett Hedlund), who throws 100’s around like he’s paying off penance for a “lifetime of bad choices,” but can also wax on the finitude of “crossing the Rubicon,” or, say, Arthur Miller versus Henry Miller. 

Like Sheridan’s best moments, Tulsa is a story driven by character, a character with baggage. It is a familiar against-the-world trope of redemption and second chances, and also a geriatric take on the blockhead underdog tale we’ve all known and loved Stallone for since those earliest rounds, those charmingly awkward dalliances with Adrian. Still the vibe is of much lower stakes, like a medium burn cruise along with an old friend who’s found new perspective. From the backseat Dwight ponders the brave new world: “GM’s gone electric, Dylan’s gone public, a phone is a camera, coffee is five bucks, the Stones, god bless ‘em, are still on tour.” Such minor key riffage and some stoner hijinks fill the long slow Oklahoma drives — wanna see Mickey Mantle’s childhood home?— that themselves buffer the contemplative scene-setting preparing for a glut of preordained violence. 

But most of the early going is a long way from Winter or Sheridan’s most inspired work, and more like something indeed cooked up in a short amount of time, say, in a stir-crazy pandemic weekend, something less apt to get married to than to pass along to a colleague while you go back to your Kevin Costner project (Yellowstone season five premieres the same day as Tulsa King), or your Jeremy Renner project (Mayor of Kingstown season two premieres in less than two months). It helps if said colleague might overlook the cliched daddy issues that seem borrowed from Rocky 5, or the it’s-a-small-world storyline lent directly by one of the most beloved episodes of Sopranos season one.  

Still ‘Tulsa’ ranks as another sturdy chapter in the volume of prestigious, showy 21st century antiheroism. “Go West, Old Man” is the name of episode one, making thematic motives clear.  Here we are, actor and character repolishing, reawakening in a new background. There is not too far of a line to be drawn to Jeff Bridges’ recent work in The Old Man, another story of a, yes, old man, crafting a new career bookend before our eyes, another leading dog doing it now with gray in the beard, revisiting old tools and tricks while learning some new ones. Stallone, for his part, is actually quite funny, quite often. “If I can change, and you can change…” indeed. It’s a reminder of an American icon so known it’s easy to take him for granted, so one-hue it’s nice to see a flex of different muscles, so undeniably charismatic he’s welcome to take a country ride with.   

[carynnhalen]

Club Olympus was one of Carynn’s favorite spots in Gotham to visit. Usually because security was lax and it was easy to sneak in without paying the cover fee. Maxie Zeus was doing another stint in Arkham, and that meant it would be easy to score free drinks. Carynn weaved her way through the crowd of dancing people and headed for the bar, shoving her way between a couple of frat boys who were trying to work up the courage to ask Deadshot for a photo.

The guy behind the bar sent her a nod in greeting. “Sup, Carynn. You workin’?” his name was Nick. She’d met him a few years ago when he worked in a hole in the wall bar Josie’s that was in Hells Kitchen. He was nice enough. He was one of the only guys Carynn knew that still had a mohawk, but he was nice enough. 

Carynn scrunched her nose, shaking her head. “Taking the night off,” she shouted over the music. “Needed some peace and quiet.” 

Nick laughed, setting two glasses out in front of her. “The usual?” it was a rhetorical question. Nick filled one glass to the brim with whiskey, the top shelf option tonight, and the other filled with a vodka soda. “You stay out of trouble.” he said with a wink, pushing the two glasses towards her. 

“Always do! Later, Nick.” she scooped up her drinks, expertly heading back through the crowd and up to a balcony that usually served to be a little more quiet than the rest of the club. She hadn’t really had much of a plan for her night off. Mostly she just needed to blow off some steam. Between Captain America showing up to her apartment, and her phone ringing almost non stop with calls from Bruce, things were getting a little too mysterious and heavy all at once. 

Carynn plopped down in a booth, her kicking up her booted feet up onto the table. Taking a generous sip of her vodka soda, she pulled her phone out of her jacket and unlocked the screen. More calls from Bruce. A text from Cel. A few notifications from Dante commenting on her Instagram. 

She scrolled through her contacts; Bruce (even though she kept deleting and blocking his number it still seemed to find it’s way back onto her phone), Cel, Dante, Oliver, a few numbers of work contacts...was that it? Carynn sighed, downing the rest of her drink and picking up the glass of whiskey.

“I see you still have no manners.” a voice said in Russian just before Carynn’s feet were shoved off of the table.

Carynn’s frowned, looking up from her phone. “What the fuck do you think you’re-...oh, Christ. It’s you,” she rolled her eyes at the woman that was now sliding into the booth across from her. “Shouldn’t you be off somewhere skinning a puppy or something?”

Isabel Rochev. She was the current owner of Queen Industries and a certified nutjob. She smiled sweetly at Carynn, almost like she was happy to see her. She folded her gloved hands onto the table, leaning towards Carynn with interest. The large rock that had once belonged to Oliver’s mother was almost blinding in the flickering lights above them. 

“I’ve missed you too, Carynn.” she said again in Russian, passing a glance over her shoulder quickly before looking back at the red head. “You are hard to find. Not because you’re in hiding, but because you can’t seem to sit still. I almost thought I’d have to forego my little proposition.” 

“You could tell me Keanu Reeves is downstairs waiting to use me as a chew toy. I’d still tell you to fuck off, Isabel.” Carynn said, kicking her feet back up onto the table. 

Isabel laughed a genuine laugh. Like they were good friends catching up. “Unfortunately, that is not the offer I have for you. My contacts have told me that Oliver is on his way back to Gotham. I was hoping you and I could come to an...agreement. I know you and Oliver are not in the best of places. And I know that for the right price you remove problems.” 

Carynn had to admit, this was a first. She’d never really expected anyone to offer her cash to off Oliver. And maybe, if it had been anyone else sitting across from her, she might have considered the job. “If you want him gone you should do it yourself. Nothing says girl boss like killing your sugar daddy’s son...” she frowned, tilting her head. “Was he your sugar daddy? I’ve never really understood your relationship, at least aside from him definitely being married to someone else the entire time...” 

Isabel pursed her lips. “Do not patronize me, Carynn. You and I are far more alike than you will ever admit. You know this deep down. I am offering you a solution to both of our problems.”

“I’m nothing like you,” Carynn spat. “And Oliver isn’t my problem anymore. I don’t waste time thinking about him. I have bigger shit to worry about.”

“Well, what are these problems? Perhaps I can help you. We could form a partnership. Take what belongs to us. I have come a long way since I last saw you-” Isabel looked to her right, into the crowd below them. She visibly froze, her eyes set on something. 

Carynn leaned forward, trying to follow Isabel’s gaze. She couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. The bar was a little less crowded now. Carynn could spot one of the exit doors nearby. There was someone standing next to it. She couldn’t really make him out. Long, dark hair. A leather jacket. The black mask covering his nose and mouth stood out the most, but in a place like Gotham it was definitely not the craziest thing she’d seen. 

Isabel looked over her shoulder once more, nodding quickly. A tall man, who Carynn assumed had to be Isabel’s security, stepped towards them. He looked down into the crowd, surveying the area before speaking into an earpiece. Isabel turned her attention back to Carynn, her smile more nervous now than genuine. 

“I must go. Something has come up...please, think of my offer,” she set her clutch on the table, fishing through it before pulling out a business card. “This is where you can reach me. The number is safe, don’t worry. I hope to hear from you soon, Carynn.” 

Carynn watched Isabel walk off with her security guard before sinking down further into her seat and groaning. So much for peace and quiet. She picked up the card, rolling her eyes at the idea of taking up Isabel’s offer. Another number to put in my phone, at least, Carynn thought with a sigh. 

She tossed back the rest of her drink, slipping her phone and Isabel’s card back into her pocket before sliding out of the booth. Maybe she’d go to another club, maybe she’d head home, she wasn’t sure yet. 

Carynn headed downstairs, waving at Nick before slipping out of the same exit that Isabel’s mysterious friend had been standing next to just a few moments before. Carynn didn’t really care who he was to Isabel. Maybe he was some pissed off ex boyfriend, maybe he wanted to kill her. Who could really know? Carynn just didn’t want any part of whatever shit storm Isabel was no doubt stirring up. 

The alleyway outside of the club was quiet tonight. Usually there were a few people milling around, someone puking into the dumpster or arguing about what club to hit up next. Maybe it was still too early for that. Or maybe Batman was out patrolling and had spooked them all. 

The closer she got to the mouth of the alley, Carynn realized she could hear another heartbeat. It was slow, very quiet. Maybe someone passed out in the trash? That was definitely nothing she hadn’t seen before. She slowed down a little, pulling her phone out to pretend she was busy as she approached the dumpster. 

The smell wafting from it nearly smacked her across the face. It wasn’t a bad smell. Completely the opposite. Sort of a smoky yet spicy smell that made her mouth water like in the fall when Pauli’s Diner was serving pumpkin pie. Carynn leaned forward to try and get a look at whoever it was hiding by the dumpster. 

Something hit her like freight train. 

Carynn had been completely caught off guard. Her back smacked against the brick wall, pain radiating down her spine. Her attacker’s hand was around her throat, the gloved hand making her gurgle as she struggled to breathe. Her vision blurred in and out, but she could just barely make out the man that Isabel had been watching just minutes ago. 

“How do you know Isabel? What were you discussing?” more Russian, great. This was very, very, very not good. 

His hand was like an iron clamp around her throat. She couldn’t speak even if she wanted to. Carynn reached out, swiping blindly at his face to scratch him. 

Mister tall, dark and creepy let her go with an eye roll. Carynn slouched against the wall, coughing. “Talk.” he spat. 

He had gotten the upper hand on her once, that much she could admit. That wasn’t something that would happen again. “I don’t know anything,” Carynn snapped back in English. “It’s not like we’re friends. She’s a pain in the ass...! Look, I don’t want any trouble, okay? I don’t really have much info-”

She pulled the knife she had clipped to her belt free and lunged forward. Her mystery man moved quickly, but not quickly enough. The blade pierced through his jacket, grazing his skin. 

He grabbed her throat again, slamming Carynn back into the brick wall. She’d been expecting something like that. She grabbed her knife, getting a better grip of it and kicking her feet up against his chest and using all of her weight to shove him away. 

Carynn rushed forward, Dark and Emo blocking her physical blows easily. He moved just as quickly as she did. Now that they were both fully alert, it was difficult for either of them to get a good hit in. Carynn noticed that he didn’t guard his left arm as vigorously as his right, and she saw a window of opportunity. 

She tried to bury her knife into his left bicep. It ripped through his jacket, but the sound that was almost like nails on a chalkboard made Carynn flinch and jump back from him. The blade of her knife had been almost snapped in half. “What the fuck...” she muttered, tossing the dagger aside. 

Her opponent leaned down, pulling a large, tactical knife that was strapped to his boots. He lunged towards her, Carynn throwing her arms up in front of her to block his swing. She kicked down hard at his shin, throwing him slightly off balance as he tossed the knife from one hand to his other, the blade stabbing through her jacket.

Carynn slipped down and around him, jumping onto his back. Her legs wrapped tightly around his wait, she put him into a headlock. Terminator man didn’t seem very panicked, regardless of his airway being cut off. He spun around, slamming Carynn into the wall a few times in an attempt of knocking her off of him. 

Her grip around his throat loosened, instead she decided to try and pull his mask off to get a better look at who was trying to attack her. Unfortunately that distraction left her open, and the man sunk his knife into her thigh. Carynn screamed out in pain, her opponent tossing her off of him easily.

She landed on the ground with a thud. She had to move quickly. He was stomping towards her, his hands clenched at his sides. Carynn ripped the knife from her leg with a grunt. This would definitely slow her down. She couldn’t afford to be slow. 

Carynn tossed the knife. It was better to keep him from it than having it to defend herself. The Masked Douchebag bent forward to grab her ankle. Carynn kicked at him, but he easily smacked her leg away. He lifted her up, slamming her into the wall. Carynn fell face down, groaning loudly. Get up, get up, get up, she told herself. 

The sound of boots stomping towards her made her panic. She reached inside of her bra as the stranger picked her up by her jacket, pulling out the pocket knife she kept there. Before he could throw her again, she plunged the knife into his side. This time it did more damage than ruining his clothes. 

He dropped her, grunting in pain and anger. Carynn used the distraction to push herself up off the ground, rushing away towards the dumpster to put distance between them. Her leg gave out from under her, and she fell into a pile of trash bags. 

Her opponent pulled the knife from his side, once again tossing it aside and heading straight for Carynn. She scrambled backwards, freezing at the sound of a phone ringing. The two went still, looking at each other as the ringing filled the alley way. 

The man reached into his jacket, pulling a flip phone out. “We have spotted the target. Enough of whatever it is you are doing. Get to the bottom of whatever Isabel has planned.” someone said on the other line. 

“Yes sir,” the Masked Asshole said. “Send me the address. I will find her.” he closed his phone, his eyes trained on Carynn. And as quickly as the altercation had started, it was suddenly over. He turned, grabbing his knife from the ground and wiping it clean on his pants. Without looking back at her, he strolled off and out of the alley way as if nothing had happened.

Carynn let out a loud, relieved sigh and sank back into the trash bags. “Holy fuck that hurts,” she hissed out, grabbing at her thigh. Her hands were covered in warm, sticky blood. “These are my favorite pants...I’m gonna find you you goddamn bastard!” she shouted after the stranger. 

She groaned, pulling out her phone. She would heal eventually, but now there was no way she’d be able to make it home on her own. And taxi drivers didn’t like it so much when you bled all over their seats. She opened up a new message, pinging her location and typing the word help to Dante. 

“I fucking hate this city.” she sighed, leaning back to look up at the starry sky above her.

[nomorelonelydays]

I go to a southern school and I'm part of one of the most intense Greek systems lol it really is like everything u see in movies... anyway we have like 30+ frats on campus but in a few of them have boys who are out! One of the higher middle tier frats has an openly gay couple... anyway I'm just saying even tho people might not know much about Greek life none of these AUs are unrealistic!

wooo!!!! im so happy they’re more or less realistic hahah. but holy SHIT 30 frats???? i am sorry but that sounds kind of like Dante’s Inferno

[slushiegun-blog]

pure! AU: Apocalypse Testing

AN: hello! This is the first in a series of a pure AU plot about AP testing as I am looking to get into AP French next year. I don’t even know if they had AP testing in the 80s but I don’t care. Jdronica as usual, AU stolen from @pure-jdronica. Enjoy!

“It is upon us,” he said walking out of German. “The apocalypse has come. Tell me which circle of Dante’s Inferno you’d prefer to be in.”

“Stop being so overdramatic.” I shot him The Look (copyright Veronica Sawyer, 1988) and shifted my book bag from one shoulder to another. “AP testing is not the end of the world. I have not seen even one of the four horsemen appear.”

“Oh look, there comes war and pestilence.”

I can see a flash of red and yellow in my peripheral vision.

“I set myself up for that one, didn’t I?”

“Yes.” He snickers out of the corner of his mouth and turns on his heel, trying to stay away from them. He barely tolerates them. All for my sake.

“RONNIE!” Chandler pushes her way to the front and people in her path part like the Red Sea. “We need a fake ID.”

“I’m hiring someone out to take my APs!” McNamara squeals. “I just need the picture of the kid I hired on my school ID and we’re set!”

“Surely you can do that for us, Veronica.” Heather C. places a soft hand on my shoulder, her red nails impeccable as usual.

“Nope. No can do. First of all, I don’t do fake IDs. Second of all, I am not gonna be an accessory to cheating on AP tests. It screws things up to people who have actually worked hard in the classes.”

McNamara’s lip quivers. Heather Chandler’s eyes are sharp under her mascara-coated eyelashes. “Oh, surely you can make an exception for a friend,” she says.

I’m getting pissed. “What is your damage, Heather? I said no.”

“I’m gonna fail,” sniffles McNamara. “I’m never gonna be a sorority sister. Everyone knows how bad my grades are.”

“Wow. You want me to forge an ID for you so you can meet frat boys?”

“Exactly,” says Chandler into my ear. “She’s been really depressed lately. Thinking of killing herself. I can’t let that happen to the Heathers.”

Whoa.

“Well, I won’t do a fake ID. But I will help you study. This Saturday, Sherwood Library. Bring snacks.”

She looks a little better. Her tears have stopped and she wipes away the mascara smudges under her eyes. “Thanks so much, Ronnie. You’re so good at school.”

“Let’s motor,” says Heather C. They are out of the hallway in two seconds flat. Everyone makes way for them as usual.

We’re at 7-11 when I tell JD of my plan.

“YOU DID WHAT?!”

“Just helping out a friend. Look, I really had no choice. She was gonna kill herself.”

“Why would Chandler say that to you?”

“Um, because it’s true?” I take a massive sip of my slushie.

“Veronica. That was our date. Our study date. You can’t let those assholes interfere with our relationship anymore.”

“They’re my friends!”

“Um, they weren’t when you crawled through my window and banged me.” He smiles at the memory.

“You tried to serve Chandler drano the next morning. If I hadn’t stopped you, you and I would both be in jail.”

“Look, I only put up with them because I love you so much. I’ve got my dad to deal with, and now these APs if I’m ever going to get into Harvard. And you invite some girl who doesn’t know her algebra from her geometry into our much-needed time together.”

“JD. I promise this is a one-time thing.”

“You promised you would break up with the Heathers!”

“Maybe underneath all the makeup they’re good people, JD. They’re just as lost and confused as everyone in this suburban hellhole.”

“I’ll take you at your word. But I’m not afraid to cut the Heathers out of your life if this turns sour.”

“JD. Remember what they said in therapy. Nobody deserves to die. Everyone has potential whether you can see it or not.”

“Oh, I don’t mean kill them. I mean just show you what assholes they really are.”

“JD. Please. It’s one date for a poor girl who’s gonna fail her APs without my help. If you want to bail, fine.”

“I’m not leaving you.” There are tears in his eyes. “I want another slushie.”

“JD, baby, let’s go back home and study. You have German and I have French.”

“Okay,” he sniffles. “Your house. The asshole is home.”

“It’s gonna be okay. Remember, our love is the highest power in the universe.”

“Our love is God,” he agrees.

[daemominus]

Here I go again with another theory regarding Hell Gates and demons on Earth and all those juicy bits.

I’ve always said that Limbo falls apart and out of existence, and recently I’d figured that Hell Gates left open around other parts of the world were the gateways through which demons could cross between realms. Of course I couldn’t leave this well enough alone so I went and came up with something a lot more interesting and potentially more exciting (and for roleplaying that’s a Good Thing 👌).

What I’ve got figured now is that Limbo isn’t eradicated, but in the process of losing its connection to the Hell Gate, and the demon king as consequence, it becomes so unstable that as it tears at the seams, it meshes with the human world, or Earth, or whatever you prefer to call it, allowing demons to appear to humans in the flesh, and more or less bringing at least a part of Hell to Earth. Limbo as a separate reality doesn’t exist anymore, but whatever small thread of it hanging on serves as a link between Hell and Earth. That alone is quite enough to leave the door open, and that’s how demons straight from the belly of Hell cross into the human plane. This is pretty one-sided unless you’re a human who’s really talented at dark magic or knows things you shouldn’t about bending your grounded, Earthbound rules. Vergil might probably be able to do this. Might. Probably. I don’t know yet, and if he did I suspect he would not be keen on it.

When he intended on freeing humanity of any demonic presence, he unwittingly made it worse. There’s no curtain to hide the demons from frail human eyes; and though Vergil had meant to expose the truth to humanity, he hadn’t counted on it becoming something permanent. Demons are free to pour onto Earth on the slightest whim, nothing binds them, and Earth has no barrier to guard against them. It’s a headcanon of mine that Phineas makes it to Earth post-game, and now there’s a means through which that can happen. In fact, he could come and go as he pleases. Actually, having this connection between worlds helps Vergil out a lot in regard to his role as lord among demons. He can better enforce himself this way, and news from down below would reach him faster (if he’s got followers willing to do this).

Of course this totally opens up the possibility for guilt because he’d have fucked up major, causing something he wanted to prevent, and he’d realized that he hadn’t been as meticulous in his planning as he’d always imagined. He’d have made a mistake with chaotic consequences to it. While angst is great and I’m not one to turn it down, I actually don’t want him to feel guilty. I want to keep him falsely blaming others instead of himself, feeling like he’s the victim who did everything right but Life just has it out for him. Technically, he’d always be prone to feeling guilty over the decisions he’s made, but having my canon follow these new concepts would make it very obvious to him that he done fucked up. But, yeah, I can still totally have him deny it. Gosh I already started drifting r.i.p.

But now come the Hell Gates. Because I am really into the idea that there are more spread across the world and that it’s not exclusively a Limbo City thing. With Earth completely open and vulnerable to demons, I imagine a few would crawl out to set up Hell Gates of their own in isolated regions of the world. Naturally, humans wouldn’t know, but it’s something that Vergil would learn of eventually. And I’m talking Big demons. I’m talking about three-hour boss battle demons that don’t give a shit about Vergil and want to do their own thing in a world ripened for terrorizing and ruling. These demons shouldn’t be fucked with but would Vergil fuck with them? It’s likely. After all, he still wants to get rid of these fuckers and protect humanity so duh he’s gonna want to clear the air of their stink. Like jesus put on some deodorant before you just let yourself in uninvited to his home????? I think it’s important to note that these demons would clearly be capable of opening up Hell Gates on their own. So maybe I’d exaggerated a bit, but, my point: a demon capable of opening a Hell Gate is not a demon to be underestimated, even by a nephilim. Such an ability is rare, despite how trivial the subject of Hell Gates might sound. Vergil is lucky to have that power in Yamato.

Uh but anyway I’m not suggesting there are big baddies out there already established in their territories or whatever. Gates might not even be up. However, the possibility is very real, and---I’d honestly need a whole separate post to discuss this in detail but let me just stress right now that this is a concept I would like to have develop.

These changes play a lot better into my vision of the world post-game. I’ve always meant there to be chaos, a daily and consistent fight for survival on the part of humanity while Vergil basically poses as their savior who slays the invaders. If Dante’s doing the same thing, then they’ll butt heads eventually, though I see them staying away from each other---at least, Vergil would actively avoid Dante. But anyway, the situation mostly works out for him. The demons that bend to his rule are naturally going to fulfill his commands. If he wants them out of a specified area, they’ll leave. Or he’ll kill them, whether they listen or rebel. He doesn’t fit in a world changed so much, as if he’s surrounded by a bubble no matter where he goes. Paradise, for instance, or the whole block it belongs to, is devoid of demonic activity. But everywhere else? It’s not safe for mere man. People must take their chances, but as time goes by the demons have learned to hide and calculate and take advantage of opportunities. Also, remember, not every demon that surfaces is a savage beast. In fact, a lot of them would be highly intelligent and perhaps even capable of blending in with humanity. Unless they are masters at masking their essence, Vergil would know the difference between a human and a demon under a human guise. Earth is by no means a war-torn mess; the balance that once existed is thrown out of whack, but life must go on. Humans are resourceful and persistent, thus they survive. A number of the demons on Earth are kept in check, but those that are outside of Vergil’s control can very well do what they please. What you have now are humans and demons living together, basically, though there is no effort made to coexist.

I actually wanted the post-game world to resemble classic DMC in this way (and I’m mainly remembering the anime, which I honestly wasn’t impressed by, for this concept) in which these two realms are so closely linked that people gotta fucking hire mercenaries to clear a parking lot that’s become a hot spot for like the same group of frat boy demons to hang out past midnight. It sounds fake but no this is what the world’s come to. And having the intangible gateway between Hell and Earth as a result of Limbo’s collapse is really the way I see any of this happening. Demons are constantly coming in and I honestly have no idea how Vergil is going to patch up that tear in fabric of space??? Maybe that’s where the other Hell Gates come in---if they’re all shut down, after they’ve been opened by some visiting wise-ass, the ripple effect might be enough to snap that thread serving as the gateway. Or maybe Earth is permanently fucked over and there’s really no way to fix what’s been done. I’m fine with either, but if the latter is the case then boy do I feel the absolute worst for Vergil for having made a terrific mess of things for all parties involved. Fucking wow. Nice. And that wouldn’t even be the reason he has regular nightmares wtf BUT ANYWAY.

Tl;dr: Hell’s on Earth, demons are pouring in, maybe there are other Hell Gates out in the world that need closing, fucking “devil hunters” are becoming a thing, you don’t know if the homeless guy sitting at the park bench is a man or not, and Vergil is sitting pretty amid all of it. Paradise is restored to luxury, he has his legion at his feet, and if someone should catch him tearing a demon to shreds they’re gonna want his fucking phone number on speed dial so he can do them a quick solid when they’re in a pinch. He’s not gonna give it but. You know. Not gonna live with regret and guilt though because he’s already going through too much of his own hell. I think I actually forgot to mention how badly he would be affected by Hollow Vergil’s direct link to Hell now that there’s relatively easy access to it--

[sugarypixel]

answered 100 random questions because i just felt like ranting i guess.

1.  if you could pierce somewhere other than your ears, where would it be? I always thought eyebrow piercings were cool.

2. if you could be in a movie franchise (already made or a book that should be made into a movie), which would it be? Does Pokemon count? Because Pokemon.

3. what are your feelings on bangs? Bro I absolutely adore bangs, they are so cute.

4. what is your favorite blanket material? Anything super plush and soft.

5. who is the last person you were mad at? My parents.

6. if you had to be sent up into space or into the depths of the ocean, where would you choose? Spaaaaaace.

7. if you acquired an island, what would you name it? I already have an island and its name is Sugarpeach.

8. are you afraid of death? why or why not? Of course I am, I don’t want to die because I don’t know what’s waiting on the other side and because there are way too many things I want to do before then.

9. what astrological sign do you think you should be? Uhh I’m pretty sure I’m an accurate Sagittarius. Even the symbol speaks to me.

10. who is the worst person you have ever dated? I’ve never dated anyone because I have a hard time feeling romantic attraction to anyone.

11. if you could remake one movie the way you think it should’ve been made, which movie would you choose? Omg easiest question ever, Avengers Endgame.

12. if you had to be a teletubby, which one would you be? Bro Po all the way.

13. what are your feelings on caillou? Caillou is a good boi.

14. what is a custom/activity/experience/etc from another culture that you wish would be in your culture? Living with your family till you get married and it being seen as normal.

15. if you could choose where you were born, where would you want it to be? I guess anywhere that’s not the US cuz it seriously sucks here.

16. if someone told you they could tell you the truth about god/religion/higher powers/the universe/the meaning of life/what happens after death, would you want to know? YES.

17. what is your favorite part of your nighttime routine? sleep doesn’t count. Snuggling up and getting all cozy and warm.

18. what is your favorite form of exercise? I like swimming. Dancing is fun too.

19. what is one current trend that you hate? Conservatives refusing to wear masks and pretending like the virus is over just because they want it to be.

20. what is a trend that died that you would bring back? Can we please just bring back Vine?

21. what era of fashion do you wish to bring back? Absolutely the medieval era. I want people to wear full armor, capes, long hooded robes, flowing gowns, and the like again.

22. what is one movie or tv show that everyone loves that you hate? Uhhh basically any of those adult swim cartoons that use puppet animation. The humor is often racist/homophobic/sexist/etc. and the animation/art style looks ugly and uninspiring.

23. what is a question you have always wanted to ask but haven’t? why haven’t you asked it? I guess I want to ask my parents why they focus so much on the homosexuals being a “sin” and not all of the other way worse sins. I haven’t asked it because I’m afraid of getting disowned by them if they realized I was gay.

24. did you have a teacher growing up that helped you through a difficult time? who were they? Uhhh not really? But I really loved my 7th grade science teacher, he was fun. I can’t really think of any hard times I’ve had to go through but I think my first math help teacher in high school was really kind and caring.

25. think of a paper you have written sometime in your education. what was the topic? I once wrote about the over-sexualization of women in media in my junior year.

26. do you believe in universal healthcare? discuss. Of course I do, it just seems like a no brainer to want to help other people via taxes/socialism. Idk why some people act like it’s the worst possible thing that could happen. Like, capitalism already exists bro.

27. what is one song that makes you feel like love is real? It’s not a romantic type of love but Song of Hope by Crush 40 was written for Japan after their horrific tsunami. It feels like a very loving song and makes me believe that some people truly do care. Buuut romantic wise, Guide You Home from Spyro DotD sounds pretty romantic to me. And for familial love, I Want to Know from Kill la Kill sounds quite loving and precious.

28. what is one song that makes you feel like you’re dancing in a meadow with the sun shining on your skin? THE HILLS ARE ALIIIIIIIVE WITH THE SOUND OF MUUUUSIIIIIIC~ (literally what other song could you possibly think of when asked this question)

29. what is one song that makes you believe that things will get better? Uhhh first song that came to mind was News 39 by MitchieM (or Hatsune Miku), it basically just talks about happy things in the news as opposed to all the depressing stuff we’ve been seeing lately.

30. have you met any celebrities? if so, who? All the celebs I’ve met have been from cons, there’s quite a lot but the ones most important to me would be: Masakazu Morita (JP voice of Ichigo from Bleach and Barnaby from Tiger&Bunny), basically the most influential VA of my life Johnny Yong Bosh (ENG voice of Ichigo from Bleach), Dante Basco (Zuko from Avatar), Janet Varney (Korra from Avatar), Anthony Mackie (Falcon from Avengers), and my main female celeb crush Lana Parrilla (Regina from OUAT). Also do music artists at their concerts count? Because deadass Mystery Skulls.

31. you’re being forced to move out of your country. you must choose another one to move to, and you may never leave it, even for vacation. what country do you choose? bonus points if you answer the city. Anywhere where there’s a competent leader that’s not a rapist, decent laws (like the freedom to marry regardless of gender, a ban on guns, etc.), free healthcare/college, and maybe doesn’t have a history of genocide? Does a place like this exist? Because I will move there.

32. do you believe in the death penalty? discuss. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmaybe if there’s significant evidence that they purposefully and gladly murdered many innocent people and show no remorse whatsoever??

33. what do you think happens after you die? Bro I got no clue. But I had an interesting thought once that maybe when you die, you actually wake up and continue your life like normal, just not on the same plane of existence as Earth is, but it seems so real that you don’t even notice it.

34. name someone you love. My best friend.

35. name someone you like, but don’t necessarily love. Uhhh my former project coordinator at work?

36. how many soulmates do you think a person has? Probably an infinite amount lol.

37. what would you say was your sexual awakening? Finding hentai on the internet when I was in like 4th grade lol. But if you’re talking about my sexual orientation, I sorta first realized that gay/lesbian couples were a thing in 7th grade. Then in high school I realized I was pan and demi-romantic. That was when it made so much sense that I loved courting all the beautiful ladies in Harvest Moon A Wonderful Life when I was young dhjsskjssjsjsjs.

38. is love always worth it? discuss. This is pretty vague but yeah I’d like to think so. Sometimes people will betray you anyway though so it’s best to be picky about who you open up your heart to.

39. pick up your phone. look at the text you sent closest to an hour ago. what was it? It was “Ehhhhh” to my mom lol. I was feeling sick to my stomach.

40. do you believe in magical beings? discuss. Bro I am agnostic. So yes I believe in the possibility and I believe in there not being a possibility.

41. what time of the day do you feel most at peace with yourself? Well I like it when it’s between afternoon and evening and I take a nap. But I also feel at peace outside in nature on a sunny day. Or just seeing the sunrise.

42. choose one song. now choose someone else to sing it. what’s the song, and who is the new singer of said song? why? I’d be down for Emi Evans singing literally any song because I’m pretty positive she’s actually an angel with that gorgeous voice of hers.

43. have you ever cheated? on a person, on a test, in a game? why or why not? On a test and in a game, yeah. Why on a test? Because I hate the American school system. It’s cruel and evil and as a whole it disgusts me. Why on a game? Uhhh because I can? Lol, why not. Let me get all them rings to buy chao eggs in SA2B. (I’m talking about like single player video games btw, I wouldn’t cheat in anything multiplayer unless I was like 10 stealing money in Monopoly lmao.)

44. what is an impulsive decision you have made that you don’t regret? Mmmm my job at Nintendo? I don’t ever regret confessing my feelings either.

45. if you were given the opportunity to completely start your life over from the beginning with everything prior and up until your birth remaining the same, would you? Nah.

46. how do you feel about greek life in colleges? You mean like frats and stuff? Uhh to be honest I usually only ever hear bad things about them lol.

47. what is an aspect or event in history that you were obsessed with as a child? Never was too obsessed with history growing up I feel like. It all kinda sucked to learn about because America’s history sucks. I don’t mind learning about other countries’/cultures’ history though.

48. what would your wardrobe look like if you weren’t so afraid of being who you want to be? It’d probably be full of capes and full armor and long beautiful gowns and hooded robes and a bunch of hella gay stuff. I also just wanna wear rainbows and holographic stuff and lolita fashion, etc...

49. describe your ideal town to live in. Somewhere surrounded by nature I suppose.

50. what age are you scared to be? alternatively, what age were you most scared to be in the past? Uhhh like 80? Lol.

51. do you have a secret you want to share? be as vague or specific as you want. get it out. if you want. That I WANT to share? Seems unlikely. And the secrets that I want to share have most likely already been shared. A funny one I like to share is that I used to play ACWW under the covers at night when I was supposed to be sleeping. I told my mom that the other day and it was really funny lol.

52. do billionaires work harder than other people? discuss. Hell no.

53. if you had the means to start a charity, what would it be a charity for? Literally anyone anywhere who doesn’t have clean water. EVERYONE should have clean water.

54. what is your favorite hairstyle for yourself? Bangs down, hair long and poofy and wavy, with small pieces of hair on either side of my face pulled back into a tiny ponytail. Bonus points if I have little baby curls popping out from underneath, which I naturally do most of the time. I wish I had the energy to curl my hair more often.

55. what is your favorite memory from being 13 years old? This is when I was in 7th grade. Ironically that was my fave year of school. I was first introduced to anime, vocaloid, cosplay, cons, and really it’s just when I first got into music forreal. Some hilarious memories I have is my friend and I ditching class to go hang out with IT who couldn’t care less that we were there. We drew on their whiteboard and talked to them about nerd things since they were also nerds.

56. what is a movie that shaped who you were as a person at a young age? Omg, Thor lol. Pretty self explanatory if you know me well.

57. which us state would you erase if you could? LOL um... Let’s just go back to the source of the problem and erase D.C.

58. what is a skill you theoretically want to learn but probably never will? Aaaaaa I really want to be fluent in more than one language. I like to think I’ll at least learn how to play the guitar someday >_>

59. what is an obscure language you want to speak? Obscure? Hmm... Latin? Gaelic? And it’s not a real language but I wish I could speak the Chaos language from Nier ehehe.

60. you are put in a dangerous situation where you have to fend for yourself. what is your weapon of choice? why? Uhhh taser? I don’t want to kill anyone but I want to be able to immobilize them for long enough for me to be able to make an escape.

61. what is a place you choose not to go to anymore? why? School in general. I always hated going to school. Pretty much all of the nightmares I have are based in school.

62. do you think you’re living a fake life/putting on a facade/lying to people about who you really are? why or why not? When I’m at home, absolutely. My conservative parents don’t know I’m pan, a democrat, and agnostic. It’s painful to pretend I’m not any of those things.

63. what is the color that defines your life? why? I just wanna say pink because it’s my fave color lol.

64. you have the opportunity to go to an exclusive celebrity event. which one is it? (award shows, premieres, parties, etc) A premiere of one of my fave movie series would be fun (I only ever leave my house to go to movies anyway lmao). Avengers maybe? But Chris Pine wya?

65. you can bring back one person from the dead, but you must choose someone to die in their place. who are the two people you are choosing? I don’t really have any people close to me who have died so (aside from my cat Coonie but idk if that counts), I guess I’d pick Anton Yelchin to come back to life because his life was cut way too short. Donald Trump can BITE THE DUST. Pence can too lol.

66. what is your favorite fun fact that people don’t really know? Zero Escape has the best story ever. Hm? Wym that’s not a fact?

67. pick up the nearest reading material to you (book/magazine/paper/etc). what is the first line of that reading material? “Boys, help your sister to her room and call the medic.” from TLOK RotE Part 3 because I’m predictable.

68. if you had to choose a sport to play professionally, which one would you choose? Dancing is fun.

69. what is the worst way someone has betrayed you? Hah, easy one. Three of my closest friends all decided they didn’t wanna be my friend anymore in the same year and all blocked me without even trying to discuss the reason why with me. It’s fine though because the following year Spyro Reiginited was announced/released :) Spyro>>>>Humans

70. what do you do to unwind/cool down when you’re upset? Listen. To. Music.

71. what is the color scheme of your favorite sunrise or sunset? Various tones of pink~

72. what is a beauty product you swear by? Uhhh I’m not really good with this type of thing, but I always use Almay’s black liquid liner.

73. how do you feel about plastic surgery? discuss. Do it if you want, idc man. But I’m telling you right now your imperfections are what make you beautiful.

74. if you could get plastic surgery, would you? what would you change? Nah. I don’t want to feel unrecognizable by me.

75. cotton balls or cotton rounds? What the hell is a cotton round?

76. what is your favorite animal product? Uhhh milk? Dairy gives us pretty awesome things. I still like fruit better, though. And I’m not really a meat person.

77. what is one job that isn’t really around anymore that you would want to do? Human alarm clock sounds hilarious, I want to walk around waking people up by throwing shit at their houses.

78. if you lived in 1550, what would your life be like? make a character for yourself, but be honest about what it would actually be like. Is this like victorian era? Cuz I’d probably be too lazy to dress up in dresses and wear corsets all the time. I guess I’d draw a lot. Write a lot. Sleep a lot.

79. if you had to attend school in another country, which country would you choose? Mmm maybe Italy. Or Japan.

80. what will be/was the color scheme of your wedding? PINK and white.

81. is there something you have a really strong opinion about for basically no reason? what is it? Honestly just Sonic in general. I have MANY strong opinions. Positive and negative.

82. who is a person you would fight to the death for under any circumstances? My best friend.

83. what would you do if you were in the hunger games? be honest. Uhhh hide up in trees and wait for everyone else to kill each other lol.

84. what time do you think everyone should wake up? I’m personally not productive at all in the mornings, so any time past like 12pm lol.

85. what is your favorite type of nut? if you’re allergic to nuts, sorry. Cashews. Pistachios good too.

86. what is your favorite part of your hometown? The forest in general. I wanna live in a forest, but like without all the wild animals and bugs, thanks.

87. you must get rid of one of your electronic items. you have no choice. which one do you sacrifice? Lol I have plenty I need to get rid of, how about all the old earbuds I have laying around.

88. what is a conspiracy theory that you genuinely believe in? make it interesting please. Omg I love conspiracy theories so much. Zero Escape taught me so many and explained them through science and made them seem totally believable (please play Zero Escape). Morphogenetic field theory is pretty cool. Basically it’s an invisible field where you can transfer thoughts to another person. There have been experiments that prove it (people ask group A what is the picture of that they show them, none of them guess right. The people tell group A it is of a dog. Then they ask group B the same question and they all answer dog. So group A sent their thoughts to group B through the morphogenetic field.) so idk I wouldn’t be surprised if it was real. Also the many-worlds interpretation. Basically it’s about how there are many timelines and parallel worlds that exist. But I guess something basic that I totally believe in is alien life. There is literally no way there isn’t another lifeform out there in the ever expanding universe. Also 9/11 was totally all done by the US to start a war to make money.

89. what is the first memory you have of oppression/discrimination? it doesn’t have to be about yourself. There was a mentally disabled kid in our class in elementary school and people bullied him all the time. I remember one time I got paired up with him in a project and everyone started laughing and I got so pissed I yelled at the whole class for being dicks to him. Also just in general the R word used to be used really often. Luckily my generation grew up being taught to never ever use that word.

90. what is one song from the 80s that still goes so hard? Technically it’s late 70s but September by Earth, Wind, & Fire ROCKS.

91. what is a lyric that you hate? why do you hate it? There’s a song I really like that has a pretty homophobic/sexist line in it that bothers me really bad. But THE SONG SOUNDS SO GOOD AUGHHHH. The line is, “if you can’t be a man suck a fuckin’ dick”. Song is Mature Opinion (ironic I know) by Kenichiro Nishihara (but he just made the background music, the rapper is a different person). It’s so annoying because it’s exactly the type of sound I ADORE...I usually skip the line on purpose anyway.

92. name 3 books you were forced to read in school. The Bean Trees, Catcher in the Rye, and The Great Gatsby.

93. how do you keep track of events/deadlines? calendar? agenda? your brain? My phone’s calendar.

94. what is the first book that made you cry that comes to mind? Probably some LGBT romance manga lol.

95. if you had to give a seminar about something, what would it be about? I am NO expert (I don’t think any artist considers themselves an expert honestly) but I wouldn’t mind helping new artists out. I also always liked critiquing people’s essays/stories in school.

96. how do you feel about your mother? I love my mom and I appreciate that she at least tries to be considerate of my feelings on certain political topics. She is slightly more open than my dad is about that stuff. She used to be a lost worse growing up with her anger issues, but she’s getting better. It worries the HELL out of me that she thinks being bisexual is worse than being gay or lesbian. It makes me not want to ever come out to her about my pansexuality (I’ve resolved years ago that I’d tell my parents if I ever got into a serious relationship with someone who is not a straight cis boy lol). I appreciate that my mom listens and shows interest in some of my hobbies I talk to her about. I wish she’d open up to more genres of music. I love how much she loves and cares for me, I’m pretty sure I’m her best friend. I’ll always be there for my mom when she’s grieving. The way she chews with her mouth open and talks with food in her mouth drives me up the fucking wall. I know my mom worries about me and my mental health and I am grateful for that. I love it when my mom plays the piano music I request her to play. I love it when she actually likes certain songs I listen to. I wish she’d play video games with me lol. I wish she’d care less about swearing and cleavage. I appreciate that despite growing up in an incredibly strict Christian household (literally her dad was the principal of the Christian private school they went to) she gave me a more freeing childhood and went way easier on me than her parents did on her. I wish she’d love animation and action movies more. I love how she’s always willing to help me with making my cosplay. I love doting over our cat together. Idk, I have a lot of feelings about my mom lol.

97. is makeup an art form? discuss. Without question. You’re literally painting on your face, what more is there to say.

98. what kind of videos do you primarily watch on youtube? I love watching Vinesauce play games lol, especially corruptions.

99. what is the scent of your deodorant? “Powder fresh”.

100. at what age do you hope you die? At whatever age has me feeling like dying has more benefits than being alive.

[maxdbrackin]

Week 2 Writing Exercises

1. My moment of realization to be a writer came over my sophomore year of college during spring break. Going to school in Washington State, I could only come home to Colorado during the New Year because of the plane fare, so I found myself all alone in the still, frosty Pullman air to do as I pleased. One afternoon, after working out, going to the sauna and and walking the streets, I decided to go to one of my ‘spots’ around campus where I occasionally escaped to be alone in nature to smoke a joint and watch the sunset. After sitting there for a few minutes, looking at the bright orange sky fade into a half crescent in a sea of gray, I pulled the j out. As I was about to light up, I saw a man smoking down below the ledge by a parking lot for RV’s. Being the only other soul in the vicinity, I decided to ask him if we would like to join me.

I walked down to a tall black man in baggy black jeans and an unzipped hoodie, white T-shirt glaring through. I asked if he had kush, and indeed he did. I invited him to sit up on the ledge with me, but he asked if I could help him move his tent. Huh? And so he repeated: “Can you help me move my tent?” So clearly this guy is homeless, but weed is weed, a fellow stoner is a fellow stoner, the sun is almost down, and I’m trying to get high! So let’s move a tent!

We moved all his belongings off of a rock that would cause the suitor of even the most well-aligned of spines to groan upon waking up in the morning. He had not too much to move, so it made it a lot easier. By the time we finished, the air was frigid and he got gloves at the gas station. We got back to his tent, and by then I would have surely lost a game of hide and seek with the long-gone sun. We FINALLY sat down, blazed up and kicked back. He also had some Henny which was a nice wake up to compliment the slow vibes of good ganja.

I couldn’t tell you how it ended up this way, but he ended up free styling for two hours. I played instrumental beats on my phone, and this man went dummy. Ridiculous bars on every track. He even did impersonations to the likes of MCs Lil Wayne, Drake and Slim Shady. This dude was a menace. He kept talking about his hood and I was cracking up. He tried to get me to spit on some, but I told him (and myself) that I couldn’t. Whenever I tried hopping on, I was booty.

As for his skills, it was the most impressive and awe-inspiring spectacle I’ve ever witnessed. After he and I parted ways, I went home and feeling comatose, slept for a slew of hours. The next day, I got three books: A Dutch slang dictionary, a book on Western European dialect, and How to Rap: The Art and Science of the Hip-Hop MC. The last book I am currently reading for the second time. Since then, I’ve learned to free style, created enough songs to drop a mix tape, and am now starting to collaborate with other musicians to hopefully make it in this game someday soon. All thanks to the homeless man with a j in his hand to inspire the plan for a Jew to go H.A.M.

2a. The author is explaining that the writer is a medium; a translator of languages outside of simply verbal. If one seeks to imagine the depths of hell, they can read Dante’s Inferno and travel through the Styx and explore each level as the suffering worsens in each one. If you want to know what it’s like living in the ghetto for real, listen to Torey Lanez’s “Pieces” featuring 50 Cent and see why his album is called Memories Don’t Die. If one doesn’t believe in themselves, hopefully another would recommend to them the book Illusions by Richard Bach to understand how much is really possible in this world.

b. “That is, I remembered that there’s a line between one thing and another...appreciation and scorn.” It’s a rough rhyme, but reading it from a rap perspective, I paused and said: “That’s a bar.” Honestly, I don’t really understand what the author was getting at, but I think it’s important to be aware of everything mentioned mentioned above. Without the goods, everything is depressing. Without admitting to anything bad, you’re lying to yourself. Both exist, as do frogs and bugs, but maybe that’s why you squash bugs and not frogs.

c. He learns that his writing kinda sucks, but it can become what his competition destroyed him with. He learned that the author has a unique opportunity with their pencil as a wand, magically bringing into existence what was not only a moment ago. People come to an author’s piece to feel or find something that they seek, maybe as a result of suffering, as most are bound to experience sooner or later. The work can be a comforting place to come because the author is no angel, no saint, he is a mortal man who suffers in the same way. The only difference is that he puts his suffering to the page.

d. If you a saint you ain’t shit   Think you the greatest you can quit

The day you die he’ll become even more famous with the shit that you spit

You ignorant ignoramus thinkin’ what I’m sayin’ is a joke

I’mma frog you mosquito, and I don’t croak when I swallow whole

I’ll allot you one goal take the pen to the page

Write ‘til nothing is blank and then give me one more

Let your thoughts pour passively from a pencil pack with .7 pretend lead

Leading you as you let go to a place you can’t go

All of a sudden it’s possible

Stop to cough now it’s gone

Damn, think I took too long

My tea’s no longer hot still 40 minutes on the clock

But look what I got jotted

Wait I spelled this wrong

Can’t even read my handwriting what am I on!

Oh well lemme toss it in the garbage ballin’ shot it Kobe!

Ah missed by an inch   Hit my aunt in the wrist

Now I’m in timeout   Ain’t that just a bitch.

3. I hooked up with a girl here once. Not this one specifically, but being here surrounded by books and empty chairs tempts me to text her again. See how she’s doing. I didn’t treat her the best in the beginning, but we ended up becoming really good friends. I even went with her to celebrate Thanksgiving because I couldn’t go home. Got chicken pocks while there. She claims that I gave it to her cousin, but I’d like to think it was the other way around. Black Friday shopping was a lot of fun; we didn’t stay for too long, I got what I wanted and finished, and she was very decisive with her purchases as well. I got crimson Timbs and a cozy plaid shirt to go with it. Tyra got hair and skin care products for her mom and relatives.

It’s actually weird how we met. I was added into a GroupMe for incoming freshman to Washington State. One day, while bored at my internship with no additional tasks at the moment, I decided to look through the members to see if there were any cute girls. I saw this one girl named Giulianna, and she was gorgeous. We ended up texting a lot, and she said she was coming to see some family in Colorado, and that we should hang out. I met her at a mall and walked the boardwalk with her. She was even more beautiful in person. One thing that I noticed however, we started to run out of things to talk about fairly quickly. But no matter, I couldn’t stop gawking at her caramel skin and luscious curves. That was the only time we ever did anything as more than friends, because she started dating a football player soon after we got to school.

But on the second night since arriving in Washington, she invited me to go with some friends to a house party, and that’s where I met Tyra. She had a choker on, and we started flirting right away. We hung out a lot that week, and at the time I was in Theta Chi. Wow did she love frat parties. I myself am not much of a party man, but when she was with me I felt like I could let loose and dance the night away. We went to a club on campus once, and she was able to get me to take off my shirt and dance on a platform for half an hour while a huge bubble bath covered us to the chest. She was so fun to hang out with. We had falling outs on two separate occasions, but we always found our way back to a friendship, usually from me apologizing for some rude remark I made or something stupid that I did that I didn’t know was stupid. Maybe I’ll see how she’s doing.

[tube-thoughts-blog]

Vol. 12

zero stars - terrible, 1/2 a star - dull, 1 star - folly, 1 1/2 stars - lacking, 2 stars - fair, 2 1/2 stars - decent, 3 stars - terrific

---------- Everything Is Terrible:

*Skittles Commercial 1989: A beach slob is out of luck at a not-so-sexy French beach in an animated skittles ad from France.* 2 stars

*The BAR-B-Q-GURU!: Basic grilling techniques (for example: use a whole bottle of lighter fluid) by a broke ass middle aged black dude.* 1 star

*Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Behind the Music: From scarfing pizza to snorting ants with Ozzy. Not really. More like a pathetic attempt by corporate America to exploit dumb kids and dumb parents.* either zero stars or close to 2 1/2 stars (for proof of said b.s.)

*Cowabunga! can do great things: Say something stupid, and feel good.* 2 1/2 stars

*Call Me Fantasy: Unintentionally awkward hardcore-phone-sex commercial.* 3 stars

------------------------

Cartoon Network Summerfest: (2002)

*Longhair and Doubledome - Good Wheel Hunting: Pre-historic odd couple.* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Utica Cartoon: A bear gets in over his head in a all you can eat without paying (as long as you can eat them) hot dog bargain.* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Yee Haw & Doo Dah - Bronco Breakin Boots: Yosemite Sam-esque cowboy and his talking horse are squatters in Central Park.* 2 stars

--------------

Gerhard Reinke's America: Gerhard Reinke Goes Ballooning *Over the rainbow and into the magical land of unicorns (not uniHorns) and Asian sluts.* close to 3 stars

----- Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs: Barbarella

*Drive In Totals: 14 dead bodies - 1 vicious parakeet attack - 1 Roman orgy - 1 portable brainwave detector - Shag carpeted spaceship - 2 crash landings - 1 giant rubber stingray 1 vicious biting sharp toothed doll attack - demonic children - flower eating - sea through man - flying pod attack with fireballs - 1 burning outer space city - Snowball Fu - Green Laser Fu - and finally the Famous Lovemaking Tube

*TNT NFL Sunday Night Football commercial featuring New England Patriots' then quarterback Drew Bledsoe. Seems like ages ago before Tom Brady dominated the sports news media.

*Joe Bob talks about how the two sci blockbusters of 1968 were Barbarella and 2001. He says that critics wanted to call this one "2002: a Space Idiocy." HA!

*Jane Fonda is a terrible actress. Really terrible.

*Hippie / progressive logic is vomit enducing. "Free love" in this movie is made so confusing and non-fun.

*WCW "Rage in the Cage" FallBrawl commercial featuring Jim "The Anvil" (I believe)

*Joe Bob says this movie is like "Dante's Inferno meets Disney on Ice." Ha

*Hey, 90s business professional lady, don't be afraid of new technology. Get a Nokia cell phone with car lighter adapter for only $9.99. Offer good through 9/30/97

*Joe Bob's advice to the hopeless: talk of lesbos with the very sexy Reno the Mail Girl and Joe Bob helps deliver a viewer's baby (not literally, of course).

*Jane Fonda saves the galaxy by being as silly acting as possible and having softcore, no nudity no action, sex with every humanoid alien she meets.

1 star for the movie (It's more up Joel Schumacher's and Tim Burton's campy alley than mine.) between 1 1/2 and 2 stars for the commercials and 3 stars for Joe Bob's hosting

-----------------

The Greatest American Hero: My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys *Poncho and Lefty.* 3 stars

Manimal: Scrimshaw *I am the walrus (literally).* either 1 star or between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

U.S.S. Alabama (Unaired FX network pilot) *Obviously this was gonna be Reno 911 meets Star Trek, and that's exactly what you get. Poking fun at the genre's tropes and adding the humorous element of inter-galactic govt. red tape getting in the way of space adventuring.* between 2 and 2 1/2 stars (The hit or miss ad-libbing is probably why this series never got picked up.)

----- TV CARNAGE:

*The Unfriendliest Town In America: "Can you help me out, buddy?" BAM! Knee the person asking you that in the groin.* 3 stars

*Stripping Lessons From The Insecure: You need a book about striptease allure from a lady that doesn't even feel sexy herself.* 2 1/2 stars

*Sad Sex Sillys!: Uncomfortable advice and uncomfortable laughter.* 1 star

*No More Free Blow Chobs: RICK, she's not some kind of oral sex machine. Stop coming into her dorm room and getting completely naked, while she's in the other room getting erotic candles for the two of you, you horny frat boy you.* 2 1/2 stars

*You Call This Relaxing: Neo-Nazis crucifying another Neo-Nazi* 2 stars

----------------------------------------

---Commander USA's Groovie Movies: CHUD

*For those not familiar with Commander USA, he's a tv movie host from the 80s. He looks like The Comedian from The Watchmen (he predates him, I believe) but he's more like a street wise version of Mr. Rogers. He likes to paint his right hand up with a smiley face, using ashes from his cigar butt, call it "Lefty"  and talk to it like a sidekick friend. It's weird and almost painfully unfunny at times, but this is an afternoon, if I'm correct, movie show and not something late night like Joe Bob. Though, Svengoolie uses a lot of cheesy humor on his near-late night monster movie show.*

*Carefree bubble gum commercial. "Now with more flavor than ever." Was it sort of bland before? Were they holding back on the flavor? In the ad, a lot of very active and olympic level folk were blowing bubbles while performing. I can't picture people of the 20 Tens fitness culture even chewing any kind of gum. It's probably not gluten free, anyway.*

*An awesome USA network preview commercial for "Night Flight" "Where would your weekend be without it?" 11 pm eastern 10 pm central. Cool music videos and shorts. Generation X laments for MTV's glory days, well these other cable channels' attempts at MTV style programming were just as good, if not better.*

*Christopher Lee and Joan Collins in "Dark Places" TONIGHT 8pm on USA's Saturday Nightmares I'm tearing up thinking about how good old school cable used to be. Now, they'd probably have a four hour block of a reality show or a forensic detective show or a douchebag movie featuring The Rock, and never in a million years program a horror / mystery movie block followed by late night music videos and animated short films and stand up comedy. You sat in your acid washed jeans and watched this with only your remote, a bowl of popcorn, and a Pepsi. You didn't have an iphone, snapchat, twitter, facebook, netflix, redbox new releases only (barf), hulu, game of thrones, orange is the new black, pandora, real housewives of the kardashians, kanye west butchering bohemian rhapsody. We lived in ye good ole days.*

*One of the "Wet Bandits" from Home Alone is here in the 1980s NYC running a soup kitchen for the homeless. What a difference a decade and meeting Goodfella Joe Pesci makes.*

*Kolchak the Nightstalker would be right at home in this movie's environment. In fact, they have a haggard looking, snooping reporter who's almost a version of him.*

*Commander USA is carving meats for his footlong sandwich right after the scene where the photographer / hero goes down into the underground, with his homeless pal, and checks up on the injured homeless guy's chewed up and festering leg. Ewww. Ha.*

*An 80s nerd is playing bomber pilot in the mirror as he treats his zits with Oxy 10. He's so obnoxious, he deserves leprosy. However, I do miss uncool 80s teenagers who weren't afraid to be uncool.*

*Nabisco Brands logo on a BabyRuth commercial featuring two good looking male and female models in BabyRuth logo letter jackets. One: the Nabisco logo of the 80s gave off some kind of hypnotic feel good illuminatti trance vibe. Must love this corporate brand. Two: Why do they always show chocolate being poured in its melty form? The candy bar is gonna be solid and only melted if it's in your ass pocket and you sit on it or leave it on the dash of your car. Hot, melty chocolate is so damn much better it's like crack was in the 80s. More subliminal, chocolatey, illuminatti shit.*

*A 1-800 number ad featuring feel good American craftsmanship, sportsmanship, patriotism... uh ship and other propaganda for joining the National Rifle Association of America. The 80s were conservative as fuck, motherfucker. Have your VISA or MasterCard ready for your $20 NRA member baseball cap and 10,000 dollars worth of "accidental death" insurance with the NRA. Because you will kill yourself or a loved one or a hunting buddy. It's your 2nd amendment right.*

*Commander USA parodies the scene where the little girl is traumatized after her dad gets jerked out of a phone both by a C.H.U.D. Commander USA uses a blow up doll in his own personal phonebooth to re-enact the scene. Kind of black humor on the part of the old Commander. This was a sort of family friendly afternoon movie show with a basic cable edit of the film, and here they still mix in some bleak humor. Gotta love the 80s. They would not even show this kind movie in the afternoon on basic cable anymore. Sure, SYFY shows monster movies on Saturday afternoons, but they don't show 80s monster movies. They show 2000s crapfests and Asylum mock monster horror shitfests.*

*A yuppie couple is playing their morning game of tennis. The husband is sluggish because he didn't have his Kellog's Branflakes, while the wife is running circles around him. Yes, he didn't have his morning dump, and she did. These ads were effectively satirized in the 90s when Saturday Night Live did their "Colon Blow" cereal commercials.*

*AT&T wants to help 80s, pre internet business communications, small businesses become more successful. Sure, a big corporation really just wanted money like they always would. Truth is they'd like to merge with other super corporations and make the six headed corporate dragon of the apocalypse and suck the souls out of every small business, small business owner, and slug citizen of the global economic slavepit like a high speed slurpee.

*Roger Clemens lip-syncs in a non-redneck voice and gets naked behind a towel (for 80s chicks who wanted to see that. Surprised that he was ever considered a hunk. But whatever) in a "Zestfully Clean" ad. Cheesy, and wouldn't have been my brand of soap in the 80s, but nowhere near as obnoxious and off putting as modern Old Spice soap or Axe body wash.*

*Chef Dom Deluise doesn't wanna say goodbye to his Summer vegetables, as he sings a song to them about saying goodbye, in a Ziploc freezer bag commercial. He really needed to spend less time in the kitchen singing to food. R.I.P. Dom Deluise. He's dead, right?*

*Capn Lou Albano has to be dragged off screen in his 1-800 talk wrestling phone ad. Rejects from The Village People bust into his living room and do this, for some reason. There had to be some moron to call this number and listen to Lou ramble incoherently about Luigi and Jimmy Superfly Snuka.*

*"Dream Away" overnight weight loss tablets. I'm guessing these 1980s biggest losers sweated to the oldies with Richard Simmons in their dreams and all those fat cells just  drifted away down into their waterbeds. Every moron in the 80s had a waterbed.*

*In the 80s, it took a magician named "Blackstone" and a series of motivational cassette tapes to get people to stop smoking. No one ever smoked after this and those annoying TRUTH ads featuring dying smoking victims talking out of their neckholes, that you have to hurry and look away as you flip the channel during dinner, never took place. What a wonderful alternate reality we live in.*

*C.H.U.D. and They Live would and probably has made a great double feature. Both have themes of the govt not caring about the people on the bottom level of society.*

*Another reason why this is a great movie is they're taking their sweet time to build up the tension of really getting a good look at the monsters. Sure, we've had glimpses of them. But nothing really lingers on them. It's all quick edits. When they finally show themselves to the people of New York, and the movie viewer, it will be worth the payoff. If this were a SYFY Asylum mock-monster-mock-movie we'd already had seen the shitty CGI croco-cerebus-cheetah in the first five minutes when it devours Caitlyn Jenner.*

*This movie also meets Joe Bob Briggs' rule of any good horror movie which is "Anybody can die at anytime." And they do, there, in the sewers of NYC in C.H.U.D.*

*Get Dianetics at Waldenbooks. The pseudo-psychology pseudo-religion selfhelp zeitgeist of 80s yuppies.*

*One more inspid bit of 80s propaganda by conservative Ronald Reagan America and corporate America: They would have "By Mennen" ads featuring babies and new moms with the 1950s tv mom standing over her shoulder giving her instructions on every "how to" and all the mother know how life advice she'd need. Basically saying, "Don't think for yourself. Make the 80s just like the good ole 50s."*

*"FDS Woman." Yes, ladies of the 80s used a huge aerosol can of feminine deodorant spray to keep their smelly vaginas in check, and that, coupled with their big hair, that needed to also be aerosol sprayed, is the reason that we have a hole in the ozone layer and now everyone has smelly genitals from the swamp crotch caused by a greenhouse gas oven climate that we all endure for most of the year.*

*There's no irony being noticed by anyone, here, that this movie that came out in the 80s and featured a plot about radioactive waste coming back to bite everyone in the ass is being shown on television, in the 80s, sandwiched in between all kinds of products that we have to destroy our bodies with using and our environment in making. Nope, none. Ha.*

*"Go back to sleep America. Your government is in control." -Bill Hicks*

*Nice government citywide coverup of the night of horrors and incident.*

*And a great cameo by John Goodman as a NYC cop in a greasy spoon diner, when the CHUDs show back up for the gotcha horror ending.*

*Commander USA puts on his trench coat and heads out the door after the credits roll.*

*The USA network voice over guy tells us to tune in tomorrow at noon for All American Wrestling featuring the voice talents of Mean Gene Okerlund. Can't get much more 80s than that.*

3 stars for the movie (even being on basic cable and edited) 2 1/2 stars for the Commander and finally either 1 star or close to 3 stars for the cheesy, despicable ads

----------------------------------------

---- Marc Summers' Mystery Magical Tour:

*For some reason Marc Summers is out on a stormy night, on a desolate road, after watching a movie with a group of kids, when his convertible gets a flat tire and he has no spare. One: that's just not responsible adult behavior, but what would you expect from the host of Double Dare. Two: Why is the top down when it's gonna rain? And where is this movie theater out on a winding mountain road right out of a David Lynch movie?

*The Addams Family's John Astin makes a cameo as a disgruntled magician, breaking the 4th wall and airing grievances, before quitting his magician job at a spooky, old dark house in the middle of nowhere.

*Guess who happens to pull in front of the house seeking help. Marc and kids.

*Of course, per requirement for a creepy mansion, no one is there to open the door and it is a case of just letting one's self in.

*It's gonna be Marc's own personal "Hotel California" as a creepy, gloved hand slides Marc's picture into the frame on the Now Appearing Act sign outside the mansion.

*Marc is proving why more game show hosts aren't asked to act. This is a labor of magician love, so he gets to star in his own pet project on Nickelodeon.*

*There's the old googly eyes behind the painting following around Marc and kids. A staple of old dark house horror.*

*Secret passageways and locked doors, spooky setting, ominous David Copperfield esque magician playing an old phonograph record using telepathy, but Are You Afraid of the Dark this ain't.*

*"Connect Four" singing faces commercial from the 1980s. Another awesome board game that caused many a sibling argument.*

*Johnny is the coolest 10 year old. He wears his jean jacket over his shoulders like a matador would wear a cape. Every kid in town has gathered to watch him take on Milton Bradley's Simon electronic guessing slap game.*

*The kids are running around without Marc who got disappeared into a skeleton in a phone booth. Now, the kids are pulling the old 3 Stooges "Knock it off" things happening behind the others backs routine.*

*Now, a maid has shown up to do a Carol Burnett mime routine. Sad and beautiful.*

*Lance Burton starts having a swashbuckling sword duel with the killer ghost character from Wes Craven's Scream.*

*The silky voiced and animated bear from the Golden Crisp commercial. Whatever became of him?*

*A Converse "Conasaur" commercial featuring pre-historic lizards from King Kong's Skull Island and the old black and white Lost World movie. Nice.*

*Tyco Dino-Riders toy commercial. Dinosaurs ruled the earth once again in the late 80s and early 90s and kids back then had awesome toys, cartoons, and movies to show for it.*

close to 2 1/2 stars for Marc, and kids, inside Lance's lunatic magician's mansion. close to 3 stars for the kid friendly retro ads

------------------------------------------

Twitch City: Killed By Cat Food *Art imitating life without merit. Without Hope. So, Curtis finally leaves the apartment  and finds Hope, again.* 3 stars

--- Found Footage Fest:

*Clean Butt: Hands free shitting experience that's very dignified.* 2 1/2 stars

*Disney World, One Kid's Opinion: Although the lines are long, it's worth it.* 1 star or 5 Mickeys according to this kid

*Exercise Awareness Week: "The Wu Tang Clan of exercise shows" featuring an 80 year old govt hating bible thumper.* 2 strange stars

*Inline Skating Is Fun: Wear a helmet or have a sweet ponytail to protect your fragile egg shell of a head.* 2 1/2 stars

*Memorial Day 2000: For the land of the free and the home of the show us your fuckin' tits!* either zero stars or close to 3 stars

---------------------------------------

Spicy City: An Eye For An Eye *Cyberspace better than the shark tank. Tragic song and dance in a chat room lounge.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Robocop the series: What Money Can't Buy *A sick kid needs the "Sultan of Detroit Swat," Robocop, to hit a homerun off of a curveball thrown by an organ snatcher.* either 1 star or between 2 and 2 1/2 stars (This show is at odds with itself. On one hand you have the clever Robocop style adult satire of society, and on the other it's a dumb, mainstream, early 90s, PG-action tv series with all the cliches and flaws of those kinds of series.)

Gerhard Reinke's America: Gerhard Reinke in Roswell, New Mexico *"All Chinese look alike just like all aliens look alike." -Stanton Friedman, UFO expert.* close to 3 stars

Casey and Friends: Episode 10 "1989" *The setting is late in the 2000s decade. Some hipster-nerd teenagers find their dad's old VHS cam-corder and set out to parody 1980s era, "cool Christian" teens television shows that they still show on Saturday afternoons on the religious channels. Unfortunately, the "too kewl for Sunday school" teens come up short on the satire and humor.* either between zero and 1/2 a star or between 1 1/2 and 2 stars

----------- Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs: The Beast Within

*Joe Bob is all for mutant-insect sex with humans as long as it produces monster horror flicks.

*Drive In Totals: 16 dead bodies... 1 dead dog... Neck munching... Embalming needle through the chest... Electrocution... Disembowling... Head rolls.. Hand rolls..

*Joe Bob will be with the viewer all night for "all the insect sex info"

*Monster/murder/rape mystery and returning to a hicksploitation town where it happened

*Joe Bob knows about deep, dark southern mysteries involving can opener / electrical chord murders

*Yep, it's a strange one. Effeminite, elderly newspaper man patting out raw hamburger and flirting with the delivery boy who turns rabid and chomps on the raw flesh of the weirdo old man, killing him. Plus, Designing Women's man's man Meschach Taylor is one of the town's deputees. Ha.

*Joe Bob is making toy grasshoppers hump and questioning the strange, sexual tension of the movie. Like the romantic strolls, with a deranged redneck's daughter, by a swamp full of body parts.

*Joe Bob wants to know why adults can't watch innards, 'cause of censors, even after the midnite hour on Turner basic cable. I agree.

*Joe Bob threatens to go on Jerry Springer and air his complaints, because he loves the violence on that show.

*Being embalmed alive has to rank pretty high on the horror movie kill list hall of fame.

*The town drunk has figured out who the killer is, but the sheriff won't listen and tells him that he looks like "The high noon of a coon dog just leaving the swamp."

*The young lead/monster of this movie looks like John C. Reilly playing a teenage Dewey Cox / Lon Chaney Jr. Wolfman

*Joe Bob exclaims how Monstervision is better than Turner Classic movies, because instead of pointing out facts about Liz Taylor getting hickeys from lovers in 1957, he talks about dead Baptist ghosts in spooky Mississippi hospitals where they film horror flicks

*Joe Bob questions the logic of turning into a cicada monster that's never explained in the movie.*

close to 3 stars for the tv edit of the movie and 3 stars for Joe Bob

------------------------------------------------

---- John Candy in "Summer Rental" on AMC (American Movie Classics)

*National Lampoons Vacation comparisons, but Candy is more endearing than Chevy. His movie family, on the other hand, terrible... so far

*Stuck in a moving station wagon with a farting dog, yet this movie still is charming and nowhere near as bad as a 2000s era awful comedy with someone like Martin Lawrence or Adam Sandler taking their families on vacation.

*AMC is airing this Summer themed movie during the Christmas holidays, and showing a commercial for their upcoming Holiday hit movies. Bill Murray's Scrooged is gonna be ran for 24 hours straight. Who started this shit? I love Scrooged, I used to love a Christmas Story, Home Alone 1 & 2, and Christmas Vacation, but I'll be damn if they did not run these movies into the ground. 24 hours straight of the same movie is insane and enough to make fans start hating their favorite movies. They play Home Alone and Christmas Vacation every other day on cable starting around Thanksgiving up until Dec. 27. ENOUGH!

*Hallmark digital Holiday cards featuring the overused Charlie Brown song and more awful insurance ads guilting family's into life insurance. They're raking in the bucks off of sentimental feelings

*Shaq is sitting by a warm fireplace attempting to read a corporate Christmas story (buy our stuff!) to a bunch of multi-cultural tv commercial kids. How, sweet.... humbug

*Renters versus Owners. A Ronald Reagan type rich yuppie gets Haiwaiin shirt wearing John Candy's table at the fancy restaurant, after Candy waited forever in line, and his lobster dinner. Basically, the rich, who can live in the vacation town all year long, against the 40plus hour a week white collar worker who can only rent a condo for a couple of weeks in the nice vacation area.

*Rip Torn is a pirate in a rundown dive bar / Captain D's

*John Candy is one of those take all kinds of crap dads on a vacation from hell.

*J.G. Wentworth sure likes bad opera singing and people yelling out windows

*Run in with the evil Ron Reagan guy while sailing. After beach hiijinks and moving in to a crappy shack on the beach after getting kicked out of their nice condo by the real owners.

*Wife and kids go to a movie during a rainstorm, while Candy is laid up cripple after a sailing accident, and mom forgot her wallet leading to John Laroquette picking up the tickets for them and hitting on mom.

*John Candy's character should just kill himself now.

*Footloose Kevin Bacon poster on the lobby wall and teen daughter is listening to Wham! on her walkman headphones. Barf on both, but 80s nostalgia nonetheless.

*Flinstones gag where Candy gets locked outside, in the rainstorm, by his dog.

*Candy is nursing a hurt leg in a kids plastic pool while his wife is on a speedboat with a douchebag like Laroquette.

*AH, his luck might have changed for the better? The bikini beach bimbo shows up on his sandy lawn... with pity

*Corporate America has no shortage of insipid holiday commercials. They even try to be clever about being aware of this in some of the commercials. Bill Hicks would note that they're going for the "hating the holidays" dollar.

*There's a nude boob scene that Candy gets to be in (not his boobs, thankfully) and I wonder since this is an 80s flick, even though I'm sure PG13, if there were actual boobs shown. Since it was the 80s, and 80s PG13 was edgier, I'm thinking maybe they did show naked boobs. AMC doesn't, however, 'cause it's the Holidays and we still have Pilgrim and Puritan overlords and Santa watches everything.

*The 80s version of Larry the Cable guy has taken over Candy's bed, and taken up with his dog, while watching the Smurfs, during a beach bum party takeover of Candy's vacation house. It happens when Candy is next door checking out the neighbor's brand new boob job.

*Rip Torn and John Candy have a drunken debate. Who's tougher? Jimmy Cagney or Sylvester Stallone

*Ron Reagan voter is signing business papers on the coffin of Candy's condo's former owner. Uh, oh, 'cause Candy has shown up in beach shorts and a white sports coat at the funeral home. Candy's being evicted. Lesson: don't rub the rich the wrong way.

*Crooked rich guy's boat is called "The Incisor."

*As per requirement for all Summer fun movies, there's a challenge thrown down between the good guys of Candy's / Rip Torn's haggard pirate beach bums and the yuppie rich sailor who happens to be Candy's evil landlord. It's a sail off. Winner takes all.

*Candy's clan wins the battle of waves.

*Whatever happened to the Laroquette and Candy's wife subplot? Who cares....

*This movie just isn't as satisfying as Chevy's Summer vacation, though it had some decent moments. Sick of Chevy's Summer vacation, however, and never need to see it again. Ever. Cable has played it so much it feels like the other 9 months of the year and not a vacation at all.

2 1/2 stars for the movie 1 1/2 stars for the ads

-----------------------------------------

Northern Exposure: Sex, Lies, and Ed's Tape *A high concept man with his head on the bar.* close to 3 stars

Gerhard Reinke's America: Gerhard Reinke in Alaska *Where one's pee turns instantly into a popsicle.* close to 3 stars

Cartoon Network Summerfest: (2002)

*Maktar: A group of kids are playing flashlight tag, on the lawn, one Summer night. The light somehow shoots through the cosmos and is received as an act of war by a planet of oddball as well as kaiju controlling aliens.* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Test Drive: Some white trash teens find a Transformer type robot in a junkyard and rebuild it. A zero suit Samus chick, from the future, arrives to reclaim it, and they aid her in a smackdown to stop aliens from destroying earth.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

----------------------------

USA UP All Night with Rhonda Shear: Beach Fever & Nightmare Sisters (1992)

Host segments for Beach Fever:

*Ritzy, early 90s UP All Night has just as good an opening video as Saturday Night Live, of the same time period, had.

*Rhonda thinks Beach Fever has feminist vibes because it has bikini babes relaxing and enjoying themselves on the beach while also karate kicking dudes in the neck

*Viewer mail: A guy named Ralph wants to exchange footcream in order to see Rhonda wiggle her toes in cheesecake. Rhonda shows off her comedic chops (which would sound surprisingly good to some, and they are) when she impersonates a New Yawk advice columnist, looking like the receptionist of Ghostbusters, complete in red wig. Reading a letter from a lady whose son is wearing her panties. Ha.

*More viewer mail: Rhonda reads a letter, while stretched out in a red miniskirt on a white bed, from the president of the "foot fetish society of America."

*Rhonda writes her wishlist to Santa while the rockabilly classic "Rocking Around the Christmas Tree" plays in the background

*A viewer writes in to tell Rhonda how he and his wife, inspired by Rhonda's succulent cheesecake covered toes, took a chocolate pie to bed. Kinky weirdos, but fun anyway

*More letters rolling in prove the value of old school late night movie hosts. People are not watching for the subpar flicks, they're watching for an entertaining host. If more networks still did this, they'd get more value out of their late night tv library & ads.

*Other viewers write in to USA network wanting them to put that "space mutant" Gilbert Gotfried off of the other late night hosting spot and send him to where he belongs, "SciFi" network, instead. Ha.

Beach Fever:

*Kato Kaelin and not Jackie Chan have beach high jinks against pimps/pushers, muscleheads, and sexual zombies.*

USA UP All Night Late Night Advertisements:

*A yuppie douchebag is tired of being alone at night and having horny air bubble thoughts pop up above his empty head. So, he spends a dollar a minute to call up "Singles Connection Hotline." next thing you know, he's dry humping bimbos on the dancefloor, just like his pal.

*Lonely gals and guys call "Phone Partners" for 99 cents a minute and find friends in the same town or across the country. Social networking difficult back then. More saxophone soothing, but expensive.

*Call the "Mind Maze" for 5 bucks a minute (wow, expensive!) and get X-Files esque phone sex, I guess, with a creepy guy back lit by what I'm guessing is an alien searchlight peeping through your closed blinds. Creepy.

*TeleFriend. For 4.99 a minute, you too can have a female "friend" to talk to.

Host Segments for Nightmare Sisters:

*A viewer is mad that "Macho Man" Randy Savage touched Rhonda, on a previous night's UP All Night, and the viewer crushed his beer can, spilling suds, in a rage. Ha.

"Nightmare Sisters" starring Linnea Quigley (1988):

*Sorority Babes in Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama meets Revenge of the Nerds. This time with succubus and a decapitated genie's head, named Dukey Flyswatter, in a crystal ball.*

3 stars for Rhonda close to 2 1/2 stars the advertisements close to 2 stars for Beach Fever and close to 3 stars for Nightmare Sisters

--------------------------------------

Erwin C. Dietrich's "High Test Girls" (1980) *In a picturesque European village nestled in the mountains, six scandalous Swedish sweeties service a softcore-sex-soaked gas station / grotto. Sex antics with plenty of tongue in cheek humor.* more than 2 1/2 stars

"High Kicks" (1993) *Jean Claude Van Damme meets Tommy Wiseau, without enough awkwardness to warrant a cult following or even viewing. A toothless & bloodless attempt at rape-revenge exploitation. Shot on video at Venice Beach. A mullet hairdo sporting Patrick Swayze type zen martial artist / drifter (private pleasure sailor) helps an aerobics chick learn basic self defense to fend off a haggard gang of goofy stereotypes. One villain sounds/looks like Artie from Howard Stern's Show, another acts all Carlos Mencia, there's even a Fat Albert body double, and the required Asian kung fu gangbanger.* between 1 1/2 and 2 stars

---- Red Letter Media.com presents Best of the Worst:

*Lady Terminator: Skanky Lara Croft has her vagina possessed by a snake goddess and becomes a Lady Terminator. Makes about as much sense as Terminator Genisys.* close to 2 stars

*Lost In Dinosaur World: A kid friendly, and painfully boring, 90s Jurassic Park cash in and half assed attempt at advertising for a theme park full of barely mobile animatronic dinosaurs.* 1/2 a star

*Low Blow: A kung fu Charles Bronson wannabe, who's inept and elderly, versus a could-not-care-any-less cult leader.* 2 stars barely

Red Letter gives a tie for best between Lady T. and Low. B. Lost in Dinosaur World gets melted by a hot iron.

--------------------------------

1201Beyond.com presents Riff You A New One: Raiders of Atlantis *"I downloaded a copy of a mustache." I don't know what that means, but I think it pretty much sums up watching this flick. It's an Italian exploitation mixture of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Miami Vice, A-Team, Road Warrior, Gilligan's Island, and Fulci's Zombie.* 2 1/2 stars with riffing and between 2 and 2 1/2 stars without riffing

"Asylum For Shut Ins: Video Psychotherapy" (2004) *A twisted, beatnik(?) ventriloquist dummy screws with the viewer's head for watching clips of screaming scream queens, acts of depravity, and horror gore. Often repetitive and headache inducing.* running from close to 2 stars down to 1 star down to zero

Gerhard Reinke's America: Gerhard Goes Noodling In Oklahoma *Savoring "gettin' some!"* 2 1/2 stars

Ripley's Believe It Or Not!: Episode 1 (1985) *Jack Palance pisses up a rope.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Obscurus Lupa presents: Gymkata *The Cold War had everyone olympics caliber athletics crazed. Beating Ivan Drago, having a Miracle on Ice, or scoring high in Tetris meant something. So much that Ronald Reagan's Star Wars nuclear program depended on the C.I.A. getting a gymnast into a Soviet neighbor backwoods inbred country's Ninja Warrior obstacles of death challenge in a Eastern European forest. The winner getting one wish. Ronald Reagan used that wish to launch a laser sky cannon and crumbled the Berlin Wall.* 2 stars for the flick and 2 stars for the fun review

Forever Knight: Dying To Know You *A psychic gets a little too close to the fire trying to fly with a vampire. I miss how 70s, 80s, and 90s action dramas would always end with lite humor, despite having a heavy story to the show. In this episode, a police psychic gets killed in the line of duty, after getting personal with our hero. He broods about it during a thunderstorm, and then the episode ends with the four lead cops having a laugh about protein shakes and tofu burgers on their lunch break. Game of Thrones and others should try this. *wink* 3 stars

Hill Street Blues: I Never Promised You A Rose Marvin *This town might be more corrupt than Gotham. There's a bully SWAT team with a tank for a toy. Corrupt politicians try to cover up their crimes using corrupt high ranking police. And kooky doctors think that dangerous mental patients are just misunderstood and shouldn't be behind bars. Lucky for everyone, there are more than a few James Gordon quality cops down at the Hill Street precinct.* 3 stars

Viper: The Face *Suffers from the flaw of many movies and tv shows of the time period. Too much emphasis is placed on the comic relief and it gets in the way of the plot. That being a noble ex-con stuck between a rock and a hard place.* either 1 star or between 2 and 2 1/2 stars

"Samurai Cop" (1989) *Set in a bizarre alternate universe where Tommy Wiseau makes Tony Scott style action movies. Three things that no one would have thought would go together so sweetly: buddy action comedy, softcore porn scenes, and Japanese warrior code.* 3 stars

--- Found Footage Fest:

*Even More Proof - Swords and Blowguns: Tips on how to have unsafe fun with deadly weapons for sale from the same guy giving the tips.* 1 star

*Hair Again: A picture of someone, with hair, is worth a thousand words, but the same picture, with someone wearing a wig, is pretty much worthless.* 3 stars

*How To Be A Real Man: Banditos get loco for HeyZeus.* 3 stars

*Star Search Audition - Nick Gomez: Carlos Mencia would have gotten zero stars on Star Search.*

*Video Guide to Successful Seduction: "Plan something different." "In public." Do it in public...* 3 stars

----------------

Max Headroom: Lessons *They're censoring Sesame Street.* 2 1/2 stars

1201Beyond.com presents Channel 32 Bloopers (1989) *Hijinks from a local t.v. station in the Midwest. It's always the businessman, who's too inept to be his own commercial spokesman, that steals the show. See also: Punch Drunk Love's "Mattress Man" plus the internet legend "Winnebago Man."*  between 2 & 2 1/2 stars

"Broadcast Babes" ---XXX--- (1985) *So, big haired (also boobed) lady, you wanna be be a glamorous news reporter mindlessly reading teleprompter info about family housefire deaths and funning it up with the weather guy? Well, first, you gotta lay it all out, on the casting couch, with Ron Jeremy's wiener cousin.* between 1 1/2 and 2 stars

Future Schlock Vol. 1 *"It literally takes you to Funky Town." "My dad lives in a downtown hotel." "Girls like guys who get high." A mixtape with just the right amount of attention deficit disorder.* 3 stars

Wizards & Warriors: The Caverns of Chaos *Trust sprouts from bitter roots.* 3 stars

Look Around You: Health *"Between you and me, I wish I had never gotten out of bed this morning." That was before meeting MediBot. A 1950s sci fi style robot & mobile surgeon.* 2 1/2 stars

---- Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs: Soylent Green w/commentary from director Fleischer

*Talk about how this was an early environmental film in a dirty decade, the 1970s.

*New York has a population, here in 2020, of 40 million people. There's mass overcrowding and a huge divide between the the have(s) and those who have not.

*Romero would take this timeless, universal notion and apply it during the Bush Jr. years in Land of the Dead.

*Total dystopia happening here.

*When society is hanging on by a thread, women become property. It always happens.

*Joe Bob loves Chuck Heston in this flick. He thinks he's nasty and tough in a harsh setting. Joe Bob hates cutesy sci fi flicks. The ugliness of this one appeals to Joe Bob as he stands in front of kitschy, skull trailer decorations.

*You know it's a heavy film when Edward G. Robinson is crying over vegetables, because he hasn't seen any since his youth due to crop shortages and world starvation.

*A lot of social barriers have had to come down, due to circumstance, in this movie's world, but still armed men have to loom over like Hendrix's song "Watchtower."

*Joe Bob tells his audience to slow down and accept the slow pace of the film.

*Poetic dinner scene where Robinson gets to introduce Heston's character to a meal that he's never had before.

*Planet of the Apes, Omega Man, this flick... Heston was the king of thought provoking mainstream 70s sci fi

*150 bucks a jar strawberry jam on a spoon, from a suspect's kitchen, retrieved by the cop character of Heston. It's part of the plot and another scary, little aspect of the flick that really needs to be noted. In our real life, the prices of certain foods are always fluctuating depending on some issue. Right now eggs have gone up because of a bird epidemic, last year it was pork for similar reasons. This film is all too real.

*Heston's character is our hero, but, as noted by the director, he's lacking some of the more noble qualities of Robinson's older character who saw more earlier brighter days. This is saying that we're preparing a world for future generations, through our ignorance and arrogance and destructive deeds, where they'll have less and less humanity.

*Joe Bob, in character maybe, is getting bored with the film and thinks it needs a lesbo orgy. Maybe he thinks this will be above the heads of most of the drunk, late night TNT crowd.

*Chuck interrupts a lounge full of sexy ladies, and bums a drink and a smoke from one of them noting, "If I had money, I would smoke 2 or 3 of these everyday." In the seventies that would be a joke for different reasons than it is now. Back then, smokes were cheap, but now, he's right, you would be lucky to afford a pack a day, and soon it will probably be the way it is in this movie.

*Noting that the female character is nothing more than sexy dressing to the scenes and the lives of the men. Like sleak 70s furniture. Kind of like the whores in Game of Thrones.

*Joe Bob points out that Chuck is a feminist because he wanted the female lead to show angst about her situation in life, before taking her to bed. Ha. Touche.

*In this next scene, the governor of New York is taking his family to see the one tree in the state in a hothouse. In current, real news, the mayor of Portland, Oregon, took his family on the parade route of the Rose Parade through downtown Portland after a vicious homeless sweep to get the homeless off the streets so they wouldn't be an ugly reminder during the pretty parade.

*The director is commenting that there is no middle class in this movie. Only the very rich and the very poor. Again, it's where we're heading as a society.

*Joe Bob points out how the police, govt, and the rich would love to use bulldozer garbage trucks to scoop protesters off the street. Wouldn't they!

*One of the first movies to tell the truth of corporations being the new evil of society.

*Another scary dilemma of society in this movie, and possibly where we're heading with governments wanting to take internet freedoms and rights to share dissent away, the small group of humanitarian people are gathered in the one remaining library to read what information that they have left and maybe get down to finding out what the Soylent corporation is truly up to. Modern corporations would love to take our ability away and make us not be able to know what they're up to.

*The euthanization sequence with the sterile setting and the pretty music and pictures. I think it says something about 21st century people and our veal calf lives of pleasure.

*A classic gloom & doom tale about global warming and corporate greed.

*And remember, Chef Boyardee is Soylent Green.

*We end with Joe Bob talking about the next flick, on Monstervision, the Legend of Boggy Creek. And how the director was meticulous about detailing the true accounts of Bigfoot in a Texas/Arkansas swamp. This film was made around the same time as Soylent Green. Again, fast forward to modern day, we have real global issues happening in the world, and corporate channels like AnimalPlanet waste time and viewers' attention on shows like "Finding Bigfoot." History will repeat itself until the apocalypse.

3 stars for Soylent (the movie, not the product) close to 3 stars for the director and actress commentary and more than 2 1/2 stars for Joe Bob

---------------------------------------

TV CARNAGE:

*Keep on rocking forever baby boomers!: Roll on with that broken hip. You have medicare.* 2 1/2 stars

*Gullible as shit: Believe anything a trio of Asian gangbanging greasers have to tell you.* close to 2 stars

*Need my medicine: Benji, the dog, and Chuck Norris on a drug bust.* between 2 and 2 1/2

*Mighty Fine Man: You Pay TOO MUCH!* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Pay day: Don't be nervous, 'cause you're gettin' laid.* 1 1/2 stars

---------------------------

Six Feet Under: The Foot *And a heavy hand. I'm once again starting not to like any of these characters (except for the cop; as a person).* close to 2 1/2 stars (biased rating not reflecting quality)

Spicy City: Sex Drive *A Sin City Marv type butts heads with his cop partner. A real crooked dame.* 3 stars

--- Everything Is Terrible:

*Milk is sweet, bro: The cream always rises to the top. So, chew your cud, bud.* 3 stars

*Vitamix - Catch the Vision!: It takes 3 seconds to grind meat and dust mite feces.* 3 stars

*Woman versus computer!: You've pushed the wrong button, bitch!* 3 stars

*BUBBLES!: "They're your friends." If you get high a lot and talk to puppets. It helps.* 2 1/2 stars

*It all ends soon!: Feral agony.* 2 1/2 stars

-------------------

"Blue Ice" ---xxx--- (1985) *Nazi exploitation mixed into a noir San Francisco setting. Spliced together with so much grit that one would believe they're back in the 70s at some 42nd St. New York grindhouse theater watching it.* close to 3 stars

---- Memory Hole:

*The power of the Dark Lord: to create zany mishaps at church.* close to 3 stars

*God bless America: that old soft shoe soul of a nation.* 2 1/2 stars

*Real men meow: it's okay to admit it and to be timid about it.* 2 1/2 stars

-----------------

Rescue 911 w/ William Shatner: EZ-Mart Hostages vs. Woman with Rifle *Shoppers, redneck cops, & even the gun wielding psycho lady are all saved by a vigilante, female impersonator.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Bad Movie Beatdown: Just Go With It *An angry British guy takes a very anal (no Adam Sandler potty humor pun intended) look at another awful Adam Sandler effort. Just go with it. Lazy, uninspired filmmaking. Just go with it. Awful, horrible people celebrated. Just go with it. Rampant product placement inside the film. Just go with it. The very opposite of funny in a comedy. Just go with it. Movie studios and ticket purchasers paying for millions of dollars exotic vacation for Adam Sandler and his friends in place of an actual movie. Just go with it. And they go.* zero stars for the movie & 2 1/2 stars for the review

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Horror of Party Beach *"The day the mudskippers fought back."* 3 stars with riffing & running from close to 2 stars to close to 2 1/2 stars without riffing

A Haunting: A Haunting In Florida *Home ownership is hair-raising anxiety. Especially on sacred swampland once belonging to Native Americans.* between 2 and 2 1/2 stars

--- Beach MTV w/ Antonio Sabato, Jr. & Daisy Fuentes (1995):

*I used to have a teenage crush on Daisy.

*Antonio is wearing overalls and a wife beater. Douchebag attire.

*Before social media, everyone loved giving shout outs, especially from the beach.

*Stupid human tricks... First is a back-hand-spring, which is stupid, according to MTV, even though gymnastics takes a lot of talent, dedication, & training.

*Promo for the 1995 MTV Movie Awards hosted by Courtney Cox & Jon Lovitz (Odd couple there) with guests - A Baldwin (not Alec), Cindy Crawford, still a druggie & not an Iron Man Robert Downey Jr., Ice T & Chris Isaak, still an A-list actor Val Kilmer, and america's sweetheart of the time Alicia Silverstone. Performances by Boyz 2 Men, Blues Traveller, TLC & More...

*MTV is sponsored by Sunkist soda, a soda to drink outside, so they claim. Plus there's Eagle Snacks "What You Feed Your Face." (That sounds like a corporate slogan from the world of Mike Judge's Idiocracy).

*A Gen-X couple are on a jungle safari with Jolly Ranchers juicy candy and end up in a jolly rancher candy controlled temple

*"Drink in the waves! Ay! Drink everyone! huh!" A Sunkist commercial with beach party animals pounding 3 liter soda in the surf and dancing around with cases of Sunkist soda. If it was that popular, why is it so obscure now, and rarely seen on store shelves or on tv ads?

*An awesomely surreal Eagle chips ad where a guy scares off his hot date, because he has a creepy, chip munching face in his kitchen cabinets.

*Nothing says "fun in the sun" like a MTV artsy station logo reminder featuring a skeletal, black bird poking blood out of a still beating x-ray of a heart with white background.

*Next week MTV becomes MJTV as Michael Jackson takes over leading up to the premier of he and Janet's Scream video. Scream sucked, but they're also gonna show Thriller. Young ones don't get how big a deal Thriller was. They only played it on special days. There was no Youtube to go watch it on like any video ever. You could maybe own a VHS copy of it, but if you were just casually interested in seeing it, you had to wait.

*"You think you've heard it all? Listen to this!" Blockbuster is holding a sale for all their cd's for $11.99 or less. Even hot & new band Hootie and the Blowfish

*"What do you want?" "BROWNIES!" Duncan Hines "Hot Stuff" Pot sold separately.

*Visa, it's everywhere you want to be. Including the beautiful Pacific Coast Highway

*Arthouse ad for Nike & supposedly the Boys & Girls Club featuring Penny Hardaway's hoop dreams and struggles.

*A year after Kurt Cobain's suicide. Gen X can't mourn forever. So, here we are in South Beach, Miami. Woooooooooo! No more rainy Seattle

*Couples challenge... where a buff Guido (the type who'd get their own MTV show a decade later) guesses that a timid beach-babe looks up to Madonna (no duh! amirite, my sistaz?!) and they are pronounced "hot" by hooting admirers and get to "hook up."

*99 cent Batman Forever collectible glasses with carved images of Jim Carey's Riddler and other characters from the Summer blockbuster are available at McDonalds

*Bass Bomb 1-3 mix cd's from THUMP Records

*MTV News break... someday MSNBC news lady, Alison Stewart, talks about Eddie Vedder having to cancel a concert. Now she's pimping Hillary instead of Eddie

*Antonio & Daisy name drop how cool Dennis Hopper is for some reason. I agree. Can't imagine modern MTV personalities namedropping a badass actor over 40 much less 50

*It's also strange to look back at the era of MTV video disc jockeys. They've gone the way of the dinosaur. Maybe some other music channels still have them, but they're gone from basic cable music channels (which I still have). If you can call them music channels.

*Now, MTV is reality tv and MTV2 (which was supposed to take over as an all music channel when MTV began running mostly shows)... MTV2 is the Wayans Bros. & Martin Lawrence sitcom marathon station. Why this channel programs like this, and is able to survive, is beyond me

*Odd juxtaposition by MTV creative as we go to break with Ice Cube & Dr. Dre's hit song Natural Born Killers booming over images of beach hotties swimming underwater

*Launch Media interactive CD-Rom ad featuring a rip off of the rambling Aussie roadie from Wayne's World

*McDonald's superhero burger. It's what vigilantes obssessed with their parents' deaths eat while crying in their car after breaking a mugger's arm in three places

*Punk show 95, in Long Beach, featuring Sublime, among others, and a lazer light show. I didn't know punks liked that sort of shit. Thought it was only hippies.

*Six Flags Hurricane Harbor water park. I wonder if guys with fake Jamaican accents ever get tired of promoting the fun of whitebread families in vacation commercials

*Someone must have flipped the channel on this tape, because there's an ad for Dr. Katz. Man, I miss Penn as the voice of Comedy Central.

*TIMM, the interactive multi-media monitor for a computer. It even comes with a remote for dummies. Seems silly, but now there's netflix, hulu, xbox live, Twitch, all these apps we pretty much use on our tv in a similar fashion. TIMM might not have caught on, but the idea eventually would.

*One of the Friends (the one with the monkey) signs up for AT&T long distance savings  and flirts, nervously, with the tele-services lady. Lame.

*John Madden is a wizard ogre who can make jocks' feet catch on fire if they don't use his foot fungus healing potion.

*A male hotbody contest followed by a Bryan Adams music video. MTV, barf inducing.

*MTV News Break talking about the upcoming Michael Jackson & Lisa Marie interview with Diane Sawyer. Strange days, indeed.

 2 1/2 stars for Daisy, 1 1/2 stars for Antonio, 1 star for MTV, zero stars for those beach goers, and close to 3 stars for the goofy commercials

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Deadpit.com presents Retro Wrestling Night: WCW Beach Blast 1993               (a review) *Just two Kentucky guys talking about wrestling, while in a bedroom, just in their socks.* 2 stars or zero stars for the zero production values and shaky camcorder recording

Predator in Mortal Kombat X (2015) *Whoda thunk that a monster/alien from an 80s action movie would endure interest for two decades? While lesser creatures from the likes of Independence Day & Battlefield Earth reside in purgatory, this ugly son of a bitch creeps through the collective horror / sci fi fan subconscious. Collecting trophy skulls from popular video game characters, like Johnny Cage, and having horror fan dream-match battles versus Jason Vorhees.* 3 stars

"The Slayer" (1982) -uncut- *Edvard Munch paints a portrait of Freddy Krueger.* 3 stars

TV Carnage: Ouch Television My Brain Hurts *"3 weeks ago I was running for president. Now I'm on t.v. with a guy in a bug suit."* close to 3 stars

Red Letter Media presents Scientist Man Explains Terminator Genisys *Marky Mark escapes the ape planet and his tardis crashlands on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during President Biff Tanner's 2017 inaugural speech. Meanwhile, in the crowd, Travis Bickle bumps into Morpheus who hands him the remote from Adam Sandler's movie Click. He uses it to pause the actors, on the set of Pineapple Express, in 2007(?),  while they're having an existential high moment. Therefore, Rise of the Planet of the Apes never happens. Or does it? Yet? Or it already has...? maybe in another timeline.* 3 stars

--- Phone Losers:

*Church calls - Fart Demon: It was a fight for survival that broke out in revival.* close to 2 stars

*Disabled Postman: Inconvenienced by the impaired.* 2 1/2 stars

*Church prank calls - sex offenders: I'm required, by law, to tell you that I'll be there, on Sunday, in your house of worship, with my parole officer.* close to 3 stars

*Food Stamp Tacos: "Thank you for not making me any."* 2 1/2 stars

*Google streetview - There goes the neighborhood: concerns of the rich.* 2 stars

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WWF Summerslam pre-show (1989) *"A one way trip to the sun" featuring Hulkster, Tiny Lister, Macho Man, Scary Sherri, Brutus the Barber, Ravishing Rick, Andre the Giant, Ultimate Warrior, Bobby the Brain, and Mean Gene. Okay, Gene looks like he'd be a better barber than Brutus would.* 3 stars

--- Everything Is Terrible:

*God's muscle: Have you payed your protection money to the Lord or are you gonna sleep with the fishes?* close to 3 stars

*Join the military!: "I knew it was awesome, but not this awesome!"* 1 star

*Don't trust adults!: Especially the Zucchini Bros. Band.* 2 1/2 stars

*Let's get flairing!: Entertain drunks by juggling.* zero stars

*Bio-magnetic touch healing sensual rubdown: "When in doubt, just touch" the sensitive areas of naked men. "Aloha."* 3 stars

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"Super Mecha Kucha Happy Fun Monkey Bash DX Part 4" *If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, dip it in wasabi and put it back in skull.* close to 3 stars

"Summer of Tears in American Gladiators" *A sketch comedy group splice themselves into a "classic" & cheesy, reality competition.* 3 stars

"Snog Marry Avoid" season 6 episode 3 *The fashion-nightmare spawn of Boy George meet a fascist, ice-queen robot in a wardrobe.* 2 stars

--- USA Up All Night w/ Rhonda Shear (1992): Summer School Teachers (1974)

*Rhonda is dressed up like a sexy cowgirl at L.A. niteclub Denim & Diamonds

*This is a country/western line dancing bar around the time that "Achy Breaky Heart" (barf) was popular.

*It's nice to see Rhonda twist her hips, though

*Rhonda flirts with some big hunky urban cowboy yuppies

*Rhonda jokingly says that Ross Perot is in Summer School Teachers

*Rhonda recommends football strategy to prevent pregnancy

*Another strong women of the 1970s sex comedy from Corman's New World Pictures.

1 star for the honky tonk 2 1/2 stars for the flick and 3 stars for Rhonda

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"Summer Beach House" (1980) ---xxx--- *The thing that stands out most in this flick is the dingy yellow color scheme. It's on everything from the walls, furniture, floral bed sheet pattern, lamp shades. Nightmarishly probably still in the never redecorated homes of cat ladies, everywhere, on Dead End St. USA. In the malaise of their nicotine stained reclusive lives, they'd pull back their gown to reveal, to a stranger, a frighteningly wiry figurative pussycat. Also, I wanna comment on old school lady massagers. So white and antiseptic. Like a suppository. Now, dildos are mostly medieval looking & hot pink.* between 1 1/2 & 2 stars

--- Joe Bob's Drive-In (1991): Fred Olen Ray's Beverly Hills Vamp (1989)

*Joe Bob pontificates on what it would have been like if Wilfred Brimley & Regis Philbin, among others, had discovered America

*Drive In Totals... 9 dead bodies.. 11 breasts..

*Jerry Lewis wannabe Eddie Deezen is on the menu for fanged vixens. Highlights: dripping with love for kitschy Hollywood. Priest, producer, secretary, and butler steal the show. Deezen sucks. Bauer seduces as usual. Britt Ecklund underused. Some scenes like with the convenience store lady & motel cleaning lady felt more like the joke was our time watching was being wasted instead of the scene being funny, like it was an injoke on the set (don't do that, Fred). Tim Conway Jr., talented somewhat.

2 1/2 stars for Joe Bob (TMC didn't give him enough time to talk) & running from 1 1/2 to between 2 & 2 1/2 stars for the flick

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--- Phone Losers:

Dead Lawn Hippies: "My free speech is no to your free speech. I'm a loose cannon and into being organic." close to 3 stars

Convenience Store Confessions: Fine line between anarchy and being an asshole for no reason.* close to zero stars

FedEx Box of Ticks: "I know no one in New Mexico and I didn't order a box full of ticks." 2 stars

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Gerhard Reinke's America: Gerhard Reinke in Sante Fe, New Mexico and Colorado *Riding the sky snake while with dry sinuses.* 3 stars

[kaywritepieces]

Confessions of a Willowsburg Assassin

Alexander’s childhood had never been what most people in Willowsburg considered normal. His father was a mad scientist who spent the majority of his time creating strange machines that bent reality and stranger genetic monstrosities that crept in the shadows. His mother was a world-renowned assassin who hid razor blades in her long dark hair and never had fewer than four weapons within easy reach. They loved each other very much, and if they sometimes fought whenever she put one of his monsters out of its misery with a swift knife to the throat, they made it up to one another one way or another.

They had met when one of Alexander’s father’s rivals had hired her to kill him and steal the plans to his latest invention. He had defended himself with his previously untested Freeze Ray, which had exploded and left the both of them paralyzed from the neck down and with nothing to do but talk and bond over their mutual love of history. Over the course of the conversation they fell in love, and eleven months later baby Alexander was born.

Both of his parents loved Alexander deeply, and they tried to take the best care of him that they could. For Christmas when he was five, Alexander’s father built him a custom train set with over a thousand tracks and an engine strong enough to pull young Alexander across the lab if he held on too long. On his ninth birthday, his mother took him on a camping trip in the Colorado Rockies and taught him to hunt with a crossbow. For his bedtime story, his mother read him the legends of the constellations and his father told him the histories of the great scholars. He grew up reading Shakespeare, Poe, and Dante. By the time he was twelve he could crack safes, pick pockets, build and disarm bombs, fight in four different styles of martial arts, and prove difficult mathematical theorems.

When he was thirteen, his mother got breast cancer. His father worked night and day trying to find a cure. His mother pulled Alexander aside and told him very seriously, “When I go, you have to take care of your father. He isn’t like you and me; he doesn’t see the world the way that we can. People are going to come for him, and they’re going to try to hurt him, and I need you to stop them if I can’t. You need to keep him safe.” She died after six months.

Eleven years later Alexander still wasn’t sure if he’d fulfilled his mother’s request. His father had become obsessed with curing the disease that had destroyed her and had lost any sense of ethics he had once had. In the course of his quest, he lost contact with the outside world, confining himself to his lab. Alexander couldn’t remember the last time that he’d actually gone outside, let alone interacted with someone who wasn’t either part of one of his experiments, someone trying to stop them, or Alexander himself. Sometimes his experiments put the rest of the city in harm's way, and the media took notice and started to call him “Dr. Death,” as though he were purposefully trying to kill those around him. It only got worse when the man himself heard about it; he started ranting about how cancer was life, out of control and unbridled, and that “if being the arbiter of its destruction placed him on the side of death then he would gladly wield the dread scythe and follow the darkness if that’s what it took to destroy it.”

Thank god he had Ellie. She reveled in disrupting the banal, everydayness of Willowsburg with well-timed instances of out-of-control chaos, but she never did it with the purpose of hurting people. She understood just how painful it could be to be designated by the media as the villain of the story, and she could always be counted on to raise Alexander’s spirits. If nothing else, the two of them could bitch about that goddamned Black Thunder who kept sticking his nose where he wasn’t wanted and ruining their plans while somehow playing himself off as the hero saving the defenseless city.

It had been hilarious when Ellie found out about the girl. “Jane Goody,” she had said. “What dumbass hero could resist her with a name like that?” They’d played at guessing who she was to Black Thunder—a girlfriend, a sister, an alternate dimension version of himself (okay, sometimes they played over a bottle of wine, and Ellie was a weird drunk). It hadn’t really been any hardship to steal her away to his father’s lab a few times and wait for Black Thunder to appear in a shriek of pure sound waves, enraged and unthinking and ready to fight, and even though he always got away with the girl he’d leave enough blood or DNA behind that Alexander’s father could continue on with his experiments.

Of course, it had to come back to bite him. He walks into work at Cher one day (the life of a mad scientist doesn’t pay well, and besides Alexander figures that it’s important to have a life outside of villainy and vengeance) and there she is, talking to his boss about how her last place of employment got destroyed by the Gonnam’s giant robot last week and how she’s got lots of experience in retail. She introduces her self with a smile and a self-deprecating joke about “yes, that really is my last name, I swear I’m not lying,” and he smiles and nods and tells her his name, his real name because he thought that he could at least have this job without the rest of his life bleeding into it.

They work a few of the same shifts, and he tries to avoid her as much as he can without being impolite but he can’t help but learn that she’s got a boyfriend (Brad, because why wouldn’t the superhero who consistently tries to ruin his life sound like a frat boy) and that she was an English major in college and that she genuinely, sincerely believes that the world is inherently good even though he knows for a fact that she gets kidnapped on the regular, and sometimes by people much more vicious than him.

And then one day he’s talking to a customer about handcuffs and he sees her freeze out of the corner of his eye and turn a little green, and then run to the back of the store and he knows that she’s finally recognized him. He goes after her (and he brings her some water because if she’s thrown up then he doesn’t want to smell that on her breath, doesn’t want the customers to smell that on her breath, and doesn’t really think that she deserves the taste in her mouth anyway) and he makes some vague threats about outing her and her boyfriend (and it’s nice to know that he was right about the boyfriend—Brad—being Black Thunder). He goes back to work and she follows him a few minutes later and everything goes back to normal.

And when some customers come in talking about Black Thunder and how hot he is in his costume and how dreamy he must be under the mask (and he won’t lie, built and bossy may not be Alexander’s type but he is a full-blooded bisexual and he’s wondered the same thing once or twice) he hears Jane sigh and shake her head ruefully and then go deal with said customers with a cheery smile, and he remembers that she knows exactly how dreamy he is under the mask.

And when a man comes in looking for ropes he almost dies holding in his laughter because Jane cooks up some story about closeted lesbian girl scouts and a life-changing ski trip, and his life may be a mess but at least he’s never had to lie and pretend that Electriss and Aguagirl were his childhood friends who discovered their forbidden love for each other by tying him to a chair. He’s honestly impressed with the span of her knowledge though, especially since she almost definitely gained most of it under duress. He’s equally, though perhaps less honestly, impressed with her glare when he teases her about it after the customer leaves.

And when Ellie creates an army of giant hamsters (“R.O.U.S’s, Alexander, it’s hilarious!”)  using Gladiator and her own magical charms and he gets trapped in an empty shop with Jane, he learns that apparently supervillains are the world’s worst gossips and that Ellie is severely underappreciated by the community because Jane seems to think that she’s not that good of a villain and that’s just wrong. Somehow the two of them end up debating over who is the most useless supervillain in the city, and Alexander can’t help but champion Macbeth because why would an environmentalist themed villain name themselves after a Shakespeare character, and Jane starts to agree that the man really should have thought better than to name himself after the guy who loses everything and dies. But then she sees a dildo on the counter and picks it up, and she grins at him and just says, “The Plumber,” and he hasn’t laughed this hard in ages.

And when he hears some rumors about the Marion Gang gearing up for some kind big job involving the First National Bank and worrying about Black Thunder, he surprises himself when his first reaction isn’t, “Someone to take the pressure off of me and dad,” but rather is, “They better not try to kidnap Jane.” He tries not to think about it too hard, but he isn’t shocked when he finds himself bringing in a can of mace to work the next day. He promises himself that he’ll just tell Jane that there were some rumors and that she might want to be careful, but when her face turns pale and she starts to cry all of those promises fall crashing to the ground and he holds her tight like his mother used to when he had a nightmare and he tells her that nothing will happen to her, he swears, they won’t touch a hair on her head. Two nights later the cops get an anonymous tip and find the majority of the Marion Gang knocked unconscious and surrounded by drugs, guns, and records of their dirty dealings going back a year.  

And when Black Thunder finally gets him, when Alexander finally falls and has to crawl away, blood in his mouth and body aching, he wonders if this is the end. His father is in police custody and will probably get put away for life unless Alexander somehow manages to break him out (he’s not sure if he wants to break him out). Alexander is beaten, and it will be a long time before he’s in any kind of shape to go back out and fight again. It takes three days before he can even try to walk again, and he knows that he’s probably lost the job at Cher too. Everything’s fallen apart, and he doesn’t know how to get it back.

Except that when he goes back to Cher, praying like he hasn’t for years that he’ll still have a job waiting for him, he finds Jane. She looks pale and frightened, but she gets a chair for him to sit in behind the counter when there aren’t any customers and she gets him water and gives him half of her lunch. She asks if he’s okay to be at work and tells him that she can cover his shifts if he needs her to, really, it’s fine. She asks if he’s gone to a doctor (he hasn’t, technically, but he knows how to treat wounds and he knows his own limits), if he has a place to stay (he can stay will Ellie, but he only tells her that he’s got a friend who will let him crash on her couch, and she doesn’t ask who). She opens her mouth, closes it again, and crosses her arms over her stomach. She looks down and asks the floor, “will you be okay?” and he—doesn’t know (He chokes on a response and she’s there immediately, hands folding around his shoulders and shoulder cradling his head and he sobs into her shirt because he just—he messed up, he should have done better, and he doesn’t know how to live without his father’s pain and obsession to drive him.)