#did not include a SINGLE poop joke

[solarizer0]

on roshambo, the dreamer.

admittedly, i have the memory of a goldfish, and don’t remember things very well, so please note that whatever follows is probably only true of the roshambo that lives in my head (who also refuses to pay rent or get out), and not necessarily true of the ro in canon.

with that out of the way! 

if i had to distil the essence of season 4 roshambo into a single theme, it would be “dreams”, or the lack thereof. there are two versions of ro that exist within my mind, defined by zam’s betrayal of mapicc and ro, the two versions henceforth referred to as pre-betrayal and post-betrayal.

pre-betrayal ro was many things: carefree, playful, perhaps even endearing to his friends. but, above all, he was the epitome of the idealistic dreamer. (well, about as idealistic as one can get on lifesteal.) in addition to his strange, jarring humour, i.e. the constant jokes about bodily fluids and the other gross things that make ro’s streams utterly unwatchable if you happen to be eating at the same time, ro had height and freakishly long limbs that made him clumsy. he’d seem almost like a silly little puppy, bumbling about, tripping over his own two feet every couple of minutes. he might even have been the type to daydream, spacing out during conversations (mapicc probably going “are you even listening, ro? i swear, if you’re thinking up another poop joke, i’m actually going to kill you.” and zam, in between his own laughs, helpfully adding that he would only stop mapicc a little bit). he’d be the type to get  distracted while grinding materials, solely because he thought of something that set off a tangent in his head. 

this is not to say that pre-betrayal ro was all rainbows and sunshine, innocence and optimism. he was dangerous in his own right, and it would have been a costly mistake for anyone to take him for a fool. his active involvement in, perhaps even instigation of the petrification, as well as all of the duping he willingly partook in cannot be ignored. he may have seemed or, generously, really been a goofball, but the nature of lifesteal demands of everyone the willingness to hurt others, and i firmly believe that ro did have a selfish streak (here, including his teammates’ benefit, not just his own), even if he didn’t realise it. 

it is difficult to explain, the way ro is a hopeful dreamer even if the rest of the server might not necessarily see him that way. this is, in my silly little head, how the petrification came to be. “isn’t it a shame?” ro, interrupting mapicc and zam’s conversation to lament the ephemeral nature of spawn, the kind of concern only an idealistic dreamer like him could bother to care, or do anything, about. dismissively, mapicc tells him to get his head out of the clouds, but zam (who i believe to be characterised by control and paranoia) sees how them being the ones to immortalise spawn can only be a win-win. with how spawn is literally the heart of the server, to permanently alter it would be an undeniable show of power, of control, over everyone else, because they probably won’t like it, but what can they do about it? and on the off-chance that everyone else does like it? well, for zam, there’s very little difference between being feared and being loved. and while ro may not have originally intended the immortalisation of spawn to be a display of power, his “darker streak”, so to speak, is more than happy to see it to adopt that more selfish intention. lastly, mapicc’s hands take those loose, floating ideas, seeing exactly how he needs to stitch them together to make them real, so he’s the one who suggests using obsidian. and thus, the petrification was set in motion.

and then, in standard zam fashion: he stabs them in the back, and runs.

mapicc is furious, of course. not because he didn’t see it coming, he did (this is zam he’s talking about), but because he didn’t think zam actually had the guts to do it. guess he didn’t know zam as well as he thought he did.

and ro? well, ro’s the only one who didn’t see it coming. 

unintentionally insensitive, mapicc calls ro “naive”. ro grabs him by the neck, eyes glittering, and demands to know why mapicc kept zam around for so long and gave him so much, if he had always known that zam was going to betray them. mapicc’s silence makes ro cry.

ro cries more during the weeks that follow than he has the entire past year. mapicc knows he’s lucky if he can get ro to stomach anything at all, so he pretends to be asleep when he hears ro moving around in the kitchen at 4am, even though it’s the third time he’s had popcorn for dinner in five days. mapicc also doesn’t comment on how every single item in the base containing a hint of yellow (that mapicc himself hasn’t already smashed to shards) moves repeatedly between ro’s room and the trash can. one day it stops, and mapicc almost thinks they’re gone for good, until he realises that all ro’s done is paint over the yellow parts with red. mapicc averts his eyes when he feels ro staring at him from all the dark parts of their base, ro’s gaze digging into his back, as if trying to pry from him a confession that mapicc was going to be just like zam, and he was going to betray ro someday. 

ro didn’t have a habit of keeping his summoned hands around, and for the most part he still doesn’t, except now mapicc can always see the outline of two hands, one in each of ro’s hoodie pockets. ro’s never actually showed them to mapicc, but some mornings mapicc finds him slumped over the kitchen counter with a bag of stale popcorn clutched tightly in his fist, one disembodied hand tangled in his hair, and the other held gently to his cheek. mapicc tries not to think about how the hands are wearing red and yellow adornments respectively, and mapicc definitely hasn’t ever stood in the doorway listening to ro quietly mumble his name and zam’s over, and over, and over again. (mapicc didn’t stick around the second time it happened.) (if he did, he might have seen the way ro watched mapicc leave with bloodshot eyes, intertwining his fingers with the mapicc-hand’s cold ones in a pitiful attempt at self-consolation.)

the first time ro sees zam since then, zam is tearing up the obsidian at spawn and replacing it with dirt. ro’s eyes can’t help but trail the obsidian blocks as zam tosses them away. can a wound that hasn’t begun to close reopen again? 

there is hatred in zam’s eyes. ro knows, knows that he should have stopped there, should have let himself be fooled by the disguise, should have let that be closure and turn around and leave and do anything but poke further … but ro’s a god damn hopeless dreamer, isn’t he, and asking questions he doesn’t want the answers to is just what he does. 

behind the hatred, zam offers a genuine apology, but there isn’t a sliver of the regret that ro desperately needs. 

in a fit of grief, he kills zam.

the living nightmare that is post-betrayal ro becomes recognisable only by his physical appearance, and even in that respect, he has mutated so much. he no longer trips over his own two feet. every stride casually measured, ro gradating towards the splitting image of some kind of heavenly serpent. the way he carries himself now, every grand movement of his long, elegant limbs persuasively insistent and firmly coaxing, makes being around this version of ro stifling in every sense of the word. the jokes that come out of his mouth should, by all means, be hilarious. they’re the same jokes as before, contain the same words and the same punchlines, but it’s the detached and uninvested way ro delivers them now, as if he were reciting the lines for the sole sake of saying something, that makes it hard for anyone, even mapicc, to genuinely laugh at them anymore. 

i don’t quite remember where i read this, but there was this brilliant idea that between ro and mapicc, even though mapicc seems like the mastermind, in truth, ro is the real puppeteer who’s pulling on the strings. i agree with this completely! despite how much it seems like it’s ro who’s entertaining mapicc’s violent tendencies, i believe it’s the other way round, where mapicc is the one playing along and giving in to ro’s insanity. 

it might be because mapicc’s not confident that he actually has the option to say no to ro’s ideas anymore. zam’s betrayal tore apart everything ro had previously believed to be unshakable truth. (zam’s betrayal was likely glaringly obvious, yet ro was blind to it, perhaps because he’s so focused on looking at the big picture around him that he doesn’t notice the little things happening right next to him. but i also think, that even if he did notice, it’s unlikely that his idealistic nature would have allowed him to internalise the notion of betrayal enough for him to even consider that it could actually happen.) (i think that both zam and this version of ro have elements of paranoia deeply embedded within them, they just have different reactions. zam reacts to paranoia by actively trying to make sense of it, i.e. his signs, which are meant to help him “get out of his head” and work through his problems logically, fighting to take back the control that he lost. on the other hand, i feel that ro reacts to paranoia with fear, with passivity, and is likely to shy away and let it run its course because he doesn’t know how to fix it without making it worse. that is exactly what happens here. in a sense, post-betrayal ro is pre-betrayal ro, if the only thing he could ever feel is paranoia and helplessness, and it is then true that pre-betrayal ro is still somewhere within post-betrayal ro, but that might not matter at all with how irrevocably, deeply suppressed and locked away pre-betrayal ro is.) the only thing mapicc can predict about this foreign ro, is that he’s unpredictable. 

and maybe, even if mapicc could “safely” leave ro, he wouldn’t, because he was there, forced to watch, horrified by what zam leaving did to ro. he’s not sure whether ro’s ever going to be mentally or emotionally capable of handling even the implication that mapicc’s thinking about leaving, and mapicc’s not going to take those chances.

that is, until he has no choice but to put ro down, the same way you set a miserably sick puppy, whose incurable condition eats away at it by the day, into sleep’s gentle hands. because ro’s not zam, doesn’t know how to fight his paranoia, and he’s not mapicc, who keeps his paranoia out by constructing walls of sheer rage. ro is just ro, is helpless against the paranoia that chews up his dreams and spits them out as nightmares, is both living through a nightmare and the living nightmare.

mapicc’s sword in his back cures ro of his paranoia.

the dreamer learns to dream again.

[gearlic-personal]

My Borderlands Movie (2024) review

Right before the movie ended, I thought “is this how the movie ends?” and “no surely not, we’re only like 45 minutes in”, and then the movie ended. So little happened in the movie I couldn’t fathom the fact I absorbed nearly 2 hours of a film. And I say “absorbed” because my attention did not waver for a second, I was so hooked on how awful the writing was I just had to hear it to believe it. I feel the characters were written for a voice acted video game, not live action— it created an awkwardness when the tone of a video game is poorly translated to a performance that is acted out, especially when the actors themselves are notttt feeling the role at all. You know it’s bad when you can hear the actor cringing at their own lines. I’m gonna bring up the Fallout show because I feel they did a fantastic job at translating the quirky humor of the game into the live acted show: going into the show I felt the same hesitation as this movie, and it didn’t help when I noticed how 1-to-1 they make the set look to the game, the same goofy vault posters and outfits (albeit MUCH better designed and fitting for a screen, and not a cheap Amazon cosplay version they attempted in the Borderlands movie). What broke me out of the awkwardness of a goofy-video-game-to-live-action translation was the moment the lead used a Stimpak to heal herself, same as the game (AKA jabbing herself with a needle and instantly healing). It was funny, jarring, and more moments like this helped set the tone of the world WHILE STILL UTILIZING WELL-WRITTEN CHARACTERS AND PLOT to help us attach ourselves to the environment and take silly seriously. The Borderlands movie had no anchoring tone of the film unlike the Fallout show, despite being fairly similar in gamplay and environment in their games. Where the writers may have struggled is just how much of the humor of the Borderlands games…. may not have made it to 2024. The script holds onto a lot of the wrong jokes made in the original games (one’s where I’d suck air into my teeth and wince when returning to these games), and character dynamics that were annoying (such as the joke of a character being the annoying punching bag that everyone hates bc he’s annoying……………. hi claptrap ily). This is also why I believe they fed the BL games scripts to AI and had it poop generalized garbage 2010 gamer-talk for the movie. The application of humor in the Borderlands games WORKED though, even if they are dated they still hold up (except the ableism and fatphobia those did not . like why. hello) because of how unified the world and characters are. UNIFIED! The BL movie writing felt so clunky, and it’s not only because they obviously did not pay attention when dubbing voice lines that don’t make sense in the conversation (Claptrap: “is this your home?” Lilith: “I grew up here.” yes girl thats what a home is. Also I’m so sure Jack Black did another line intended that said “Do you recognize this place” or some shit that makes more sense. Anyway. This happened a lot. Especially Kriegs lines which were just pulled from the games i s2g). The writing felt clunky because not one damn soul working on that movie was 100%. On the list of soulless movies with no one working on it connecting deeply with the source material at all, this is right up there with Wonka. And I’m not saying you gotta be Tiny Tina #1 mega-fan but oh my god it was so hard to watch Ariana Greenblatt act out a character that was only ever explained to her once by a guy who had Tiny Tina explained to him by another guy who read off her fandom wiki page summary. Except thats what every single character in this movie felt like. Everyone but Marcus??? for whatever fucking reason, he read the assignment he took Cornell notes. too bad he had 15 minutes of screen time. I’m actually glad they didn’t include my all-time favorite character Mordecai for fear of how they’d butcher his character too. Sorry Brick and Mordecai the writers could not fathom your gay love for each other the way I would have. Put me in that writing room.

Script-doctoring is a lost cause for this movie. she doesn’t need a facelift she needs a multi-organ transplant. With just how rich the world is why did they not just go the Tell-Tale BL route and put their own OCs on Pandora.. instead they cherry-picked elements from all the games to combine into… a twisted version of the OG plot? Not even a new adventure for these characters, no, they take the existing plot of how they met and decided to butcher Tiny Tina’s story so she can be a main character? The only way they could have fixed this in the writing room was in the very beginning if someone said “no” to this idea (also I’m pretty sure Tiny Tina wasn’t even born yet bc her story is tied to Handsome Jack and Hyperion not Atlas… also RIP to not getting a Handsome Jack plot he wouldve been so fun on screen and probably have been a good unifier for the tone I talked about before… I would never let him in the hands of those writers though).

Oh my god I could also go on and on about how nasty the environments were UGHHHHH so fucking awful, no creativity not an ounce. The patchwork architecture in the games is so meticulous and clever, even if they just payed attention to the silhouettes in the movie they don’t have to go crazy with the designs but at least give us SOMETHING!! Caustic Caverns too…. oh my god. Probably my favorite map in all the games. It’s the most unique map, its got so much breathing room, it looks like it goes on forever but still makes you feel claustrophobic (as intended). The dynamic man-made structures made to look natural with decay as they blend seamlessly into the natural structures.. the unique enemies and dangers of the map. This is the only(?) map mentioned by name in the movie, I was preparing for what I’d see. And they gave me nothing. The characters walk into a sewer cellar with glowing green sewage, walk around it, then fight a bunch of psychos in the… sewer cellar. its. its a sewer cellar. thats it. then they continue walking through the normal sewer cellar. the only comparison is the green acid and the name. Anyway that made me most sad of all, there was so much they could have done.

Ultimately this was gonna be an inevitable flop coming out anytime after BL3 womp womp. Nothing could have saved the franchise after the circumstances surrounding that game (recasting key voice actors to avoid raising wages, almost completely new writing team that was not great, Epic games paying for exclusive platform for like a year?? idk ppl were mad abt that). Great gameplay though.

Rating: 3/10

Giving it 3 stars for thinking of trying something new with the characters..? Also the fight scenes were pretty solid ngl, one thing I like about playing the BL games is how satisfying the fighting is, the sound design adds so much weight that makes it more fun than other FPS games and I think the movie replicated that well.

[james-vi-stan-blog]

How true was it, that James never washed his hands, or was very unhygienic in general? Looking at his fingernails in M&G teaser, it seems like they’re going for the unhygienic look for him. It‘s especially noticeable when he’s smearing blood on George’s face. I know everyone wasn’t super clean in that era, but James was said to be especially dirty by some historians. I can’t remember if he was described as such in the King‘s Assassin, or not though.

IMO, it's possible.

As you said, this is a time period when reckless bathing was regarded as injurious to the health. Which doesn't mean that people didn't bathe, but that hygiene was imagined differently from our time. The question to answer is whether James was more unhygenic than his contemporaries.

AFAIK the only primary source that directly describes James as particularly dirty or never washing is Weldon. Weldon's account (if it was even actually written by Weldon) has a lot of problems with it. (Check out these introductory pages for an idea of what kind of slant is associated with the publication of Weldon's work.) However, the common story that Weldon was dismissed from court and so held a grudge against James when he was writing itself has problems with it. So, Weldon may or may not be accurate; it's got a very pronounced agenda, though.

A single diary entry from Anne Clifford has snowballed through the centuries into an image of James as filthy and lice-infested, but what she actually said was "we were all lowzy by sittinge in Sir Thomas Erskin's chamber", which is a far cry from saying James stunk. Fakehistoryhunter did a deep dive on this. (Though, I do think, based on their closeness, if Thomas Erskine did have lice, James would have, too.)

There's some better evidence than that. George Villiers once signed off a letter to James, "So, craving your blessing, I kiss your dirty hands, Your majesty's most humble slave and dog, Steenie." Does this mean James's hands were especially dirty? It could just be Buckingham's signature saucy writing style to James. He also used a very similar construction once to Charles, "I kiss thy warty hands". So, maybe James was especially dirty, or maybe not.

There's other side contributors I haven't really seen discussed a lot. Like, James had lifelong digestive problems, including bowel problems. This could have contributed to an aura of "grossness" around James. He loved poop and butt jokes (which, idk maybe I'm projecting, but seems very, very normal for someone who has medical issues). James let dogs on the bed. James was always partying at the hunting lodge and drank very heavily, which would heavily feed an air of slovenliness. Etc.

And, you know, we can't forget that historians over the past 400 years have been overwhelmingly homophobic straight men who go "of course James was gross... homosexuality = buttsex = the worst form of uncleanliness there is".

Tudor Times did a long analysis of "dirty James" that's worth reading, too.

So tl;dr my own opinion is "quite probably James was dirty but the popular narrative is exaggerated and we can't trust a lot of these accounts".

[curiousobsession101]

My school had three of these. The "I hate you, you hate me" one had the most variations. (Because there's a bunch of variations even in a single place.) The Joy to the World one was the least popular but was still fairly popular - mainly because it was the only one that included a drawn-out poop joke. (I love the fact that none of those tags in the screenshot describe lyrics exactly like the ones I grew up with.)

But by far the most popular one was the "On Top of Old Smoky" one. There was basically only one consistent version of that song at my school, but you could add as many verses as you wanted to it, since the entire point of the song is Barney coming back from the dead and the singer killing him again. (On a timescale that implies the singer is immortal, of course.)

BUT that's not even the wild part. Of course kids made up song parodies about Barney and taught them to each other. That's what kids do. But there was one adult I know that got in on the fun. There's a particular camp (both a summer camp and a half-week-long camp during the school year) that's entirely dedicated to teaching elementary schoolers environmental science. Lots of nature hikes, everyone there was expected to choose a "nature name", the mascot was a banana slug. The school I went to had fifth graders go on a three-day two-night field trip there every year. (For anyone who doesn't know, fifth grade means ten-year-olds.)

What does this have to do with everyone hating Barney? Well, there's a bunch of science camps just like it, but I suspect the one I went to was unique in one way. One of the camp counselors called himself "Scooby" instead of a nature name and every day at lunch he told "Scooby stories" to anyone who came to sit under the "Scooby tree". It didn't have anything to do with Scooby Doo; it was about the counselor as a four-year-old (he did a little kid voice and everything) escaping from and ultimately defeating Barney the dinosaur - with the help of various characters from other media. (Mostly Morpheus from the Matrix.) All us kids loved it.

kinda dropped the idea after i was like 6 years old but we need to fucking kill Barney guys

[dull-c]

right so, i have had a Super Fun week archiving 40 years worth of actual paper author contracts for work (kill meeee) + sorting last minute biz for little sissas wedding. subsequently I have only squeezed in a few rewatches over the last few days, and am generally existing on caffeine and fumes, so there’s absolutely nothing of substance coming outta this head rn. but! regardless! some incoherent Thoughts on some eps from my one semi-functioning brain cell under the cut

previously on the bad show......... daniel: you look good man! you look hot, sorry i mean sorry you still, sorry- got you got that- you still got that great ass, sorry, i mean you look fucken edible, sorry i mean sorry i wanna kiss you johnny: [takes this personally for some reason] //there is no kissing and everyone is mad about it//

1x04 -“the 15 inch, that’s a nice machine” makes me laugh every time. ahh yes indeed the 15 incher. Yes. That one. Almost as good as the 250 GBer. i know about computers. what are the other staff in this store DOING -kinda home of sexual that billboard thing huh? you working through some stuff jlawz? i love the idea of him not only drawing a 5 meter long paint dick on daniel’s face, but also his karate pamphlets trailing behind him all the way like drunken breadcrumbs -i just need you to know that i laughed at every single dick joke in this episode

-gonna skip right past the poop thing i think -and kyler’s 30 year old HS friend -daniel reacting a normal amount to graffiti on his billboard, nothing to see here. he’s fine he’s fine he’s kicking drinks outta peoples hands he’s ruining livelihoods he’s fine -tom cole definitely voted for trump both times -i cannot tell you how angry i was the first time i watched this and that jlawz big “no do overs” speech was revealed to be directed at carmen and miguel. sir i know you got trauma but try that hard with YOUR ACTUAL SON please -daniel: that’s too bad :D that you broke up with kyler :DDDD really sorry to hear!! [is happiest babygirl alive]

1x05 -do some yoga jlawz, it’ll be good for you!! -oh no robby buying pizza for his ma. he got the one she likes. baby boi :((( -gonna scoot past the lynne stuff but i repeat, i’m glad they pumped the brakes on this shit in later seasons bc this aint it!!! -daniel raising the rent on poor folks and then deliberately going to johnny to rub it and/ or his wealth in his face is objectively some supervillain nonsense, but if they wanted me to not like him in this scene maybe they shouldn’t have made him look so hot. i’m very shallow and dumb and he look sexy when he mean -“i guess sam takes after her dad.” kyler’s a gronk but credit where it’s due, that was a sick burn.

-okay daniel talking to miyagi at his grave > cleaning out the dojo > going back to karate > panflutes > hachimaki etc made me do an embarrassingly big cry. my brain is not in any shape to verbalise this rn but something about him fucking up, realizing it and heading to a cemetery and talking to miyagi all vulnerable like that really did a number on my feelings, especially coming right out of the tkk movies rewatch. he misses him so much ;_;

1x06 -boooo kreese sucks, even in flashbacks and when I can’t see his face. -“my dad hates [daniel larusso’s] guts” ok was jlawz just talking about daniel constantly the full 30+ years?? no wonder robby is mad, if every time he actually saw him he was like “hi dad!” and dad launched into an hour long rant about one guy from high school he interacted with a total of four times and three of those four times was him beating him up -demetri is a big vibe. love my beloved garbage disaster man, but pretty sure if I met him irl i would pretty quickly be like ‘ok buddy, for sure! yeah strike hard totally. anyway…. [already out the door] seeya!!’ -daniel asking everyone to do karate with him including his employees trying to fill that miyagi void is such an understatedly sad part of this episode. my old mens both so sad. ilu please go to therapy -miguel and sam are freaking adorable awkward babies and i would die for them -robby trying to use daniel to get back at his dad and then instantly imprinting on him is so funny. being charmed by daniel larusso is in the genes somehow -(not to be shallow ((is shallow)) but daniel looks so baby in that bit where robby comes to the house) -you know that scene in not another teen movie where they’re like “oh my god she’s wearing glasses! and overalls! and her hair is tied back!!”? the Hawk scene gives that in reverse vibes. like GASP, he gelled his hair!! and put on skinny jeans!!!

1x07 -it’s a montaaaage! -miguel no offense my sweet summer child but do not ask jlawz for advice on romance. his idea of courting is just obsessively brooding about them for 30 years and then when he finally sees them again stomping on their foot and running away -daniel being like “it was a solid business plan!” (re little trees) is so so daniel. i am gonna chew my own arm off i love this bouncy little pretend guy so hard -the UST in the committee meeting is off the charts. please stop looking at each other like that in public (also daniel being like OH GIMMIE A BREAK when jlawz said ‘kreese is dead’ is honestly the funniest thing in all of season 1. maybe the entire series) -i’m getting ahead of myself, but the golf and stuff montage has made me think – it’s kinda weird that they went with ali and jlawz going there in s3, right? idk miguel and sam is a cute little parallel to the movie, but A & J going there seems…. strange to me. although not any stranger than anything else they’ve done re: the original movie ig? hmm.   anyway! weird thought to end things on, but sometimes it do be like that. will resume normal rewatching transmissions on the weekend. might even have an actual coherent thought or two on something after I catch up on some sleep! i have high hopes

[liptonsbabe]

Baby Poop [D.O’B]

Dylan O’Brien x reader

Summary: ‘OMG DID I TASTE MY BABY’S POOP?’

Word count: 558

Warnings: none

You were sitting behind the scenes as you watched Dylan being interviewed for the third time that day. You liked watching the interviews up close because you thought Dylan was so cute goofing around and playing with his cast mates.

You had your little daughter Ellie in your lap as she tried to get down to run to her father. She was pouting and whining just to get Dylan’s attention who at the time was giving a lengthy explanation of why his character was so important to the movie plot.

"No, Ellie," you whispered after the three-year-old jumped off your lap and ran to her father. You closed your eyes as Ellie clung to Dylan's leg.

"Oh, I think we have a little fan here" You heard the interviewer's voice. You blushed as you were supposed to be looking out for her.

"Yes, this is my daughter Ellie" Dylan took the little girl in his arms to the tender looks of his friends "She's a little shy, as you can see" he said, after she hid her little face in Dylan's neck. The interviewer smiled

"She's beautiful."

"That's because she looks like her mother" Kaya said in a teasing tone. Dylan rolled his eyes

"Baby Ellie is so cute sometimes I doubt she's Dylan's daughter" Thomas joked. Dylan gave him a bad look "But then I find out she’s really his when she danced without a diaper at her number two birthday party. Just like her father."

"Oh my god, I only did it once."

"We were on camera."

"I didn't know that!"

Everyone laughed and you felt more relaxed to find that Ellie's presence didn't make them uncomfortable and that the baby was behaving just fine sitting on Dylan's lap and playing with his hands.

The jinterviewer cleared her throat.

"Well, since your adorable little one is here, I'd like you to tell us a story about what it's like for you to be a parent. Something funny, maybe?"

Dexter and Kaya let out a laugh.

"Oh, tell her about when you first fed her by yourself" Kaya suggested. Dylan started to laugh

"Well, there's this one time when I fed her single-handedly. It was summer and was too hot inside the house and Ellie didn't have any clothes on. My wife always fed Ellie and that day I decided to take over."

"And what happened next?"

"Everything was going pretty well until I saw something thick and weird in my pants. At first I thought it was the same mush I had been feeding Ellie and somehow it fell in my pants."

"And was it?"

"Uh... no."

Dexter, Thomas and Kaya laughed hysterically. Dylan blushed.

"It turned out to be poop."

"Wait" The woman swallowed a laugh "Are you trying to say your baby pooped in your pants and you didn't notice?"

"Uh...well yes"

"How did you finally know it was poop?"

"He tasted it!" Thomas laughed "He tasted baby poop."

"Oh my goodness!"

Everyone started laughing including you. Ellie didn't seem to understand what was going on even though her father had shrunk back in his seat in embarrassment. Thomas turned red with laughter.

"I love babies, I really do."

[sparklygoblin]

okay so I've been gone for a minute because I was writing my first fic on ao3 but I'm back with more trash than ever! I really love crack fics and my friend and I thought up this absolutely GREASY premise and I just couldn't help myself. I only included a few of my ideas in this post but let me know if yall like it and maybe I'll do a part 2

Haikyuu!! Frat House AU

Bokubro is obviously a member of the frat, he's also a minor drug dealer with Kuroo, and his room is L I T E R A L L Y DISGUSTANG, like Kuroo actually has a fear of Bokuto's side of their room. People are baffled, BAFFLED when they find out that his boyfriend is non other than Akaashi, president of the most prestigious fraternity on campus. But what can akaashi say? he believes any guy who can drink his weight in vodka, take at least three different unnameable drugs, and still smile at him the morning after, deserves his attention.

Kuroo took one for the team when he rushed, and roomed with Bokuto. Needless to say, his quiet gamer boyfriend, Kenma, refuses to stay over. When they first met at one of the frat's infamous ragers, they'd stumbled into Kuroo's shared room, heading toward a drunk hook up. Then Kenma put his hand in something wet. And very much alive. That was the first and last time. Bokuto and him irritate everyone by constantly referring to themselves as "businessmen", only to be immediately informed by Iwaizumi and Daichi that "selling drugs to high schoolers doesn't make you business men"

Daichi didn't want to be in charge, but duty calls and when you and Iwaizumi are the only sane ones in the house, well a man has to step up. Plus, it totally gains him brownie points with all of the trashy college girls that show up to their notorious parties. because he was totally interested in that, and definetly not in the chaotic silver haired boy from the competing fraternity. no he wanted nothing to do with Sugawara. It's not like he catches himself openly fantasizing about him, and the whole house made it into a running joke.

Iwaizumi is also in charge, to no one's surprise. he and daichi have the cleanest room in the house, not only that but he's the only one who will do dishes. he's exhausted. he's also sleeping with Oikawa Tooru the single most irritating member of the prestigious fraternity suga and akaashi are in. but don't mention it, don't talk about the way he blushes when oikawa throws it back, and DEFINETLY don't bring up the time Oikawa broke his knee sneaking out of Iwaizumi's room, and spent an entire semester harassing iwaizumi on a bright pink motorized scooter.

Ushijima doesn't really care enough to be in charge. Mans is a FARMER if you catch my drift, and he makes fat stacks off of his "business" with Kuroo and Bokuto. once spent the entirety of his rush week in a maid's costume. but hey he's not complaining, it did get him the attention of that really weird dude from his leisure cooking class. he and Tendou are possibly the only couple that have it all figured out so kudos to them, three years strong

the miya twins are living frat legends, and they have been since their first party, at which Osamu got wasted and punched an equally wasted atsumu in the face for "breathing too loud". Atsumu seems like he sleeps around a lot, and maybe he did, but the guy won't stop simping for a very reserved chem major named Sakusa. sakusa gave into atsumu's begging once and woke up on a stained mattress in Vegas for his trouble.

Terushima is also there, making each party a little bit more chaotic and sleeping his way through ever girl on campus, except for kiyoko and yachi, the other guys were oddly protective of them. make no mistake though, terushima was a loveable himbo, who made extra sure that safe, sane , and consensual relations were his top priority. during hell week, he had to poop in a target dumpster, but daichi and iwaizumi didn't keep a good look out for him, he narrowly avoided getting arrested. NARROWLY.

Nishinoya and Tanaka rushed together. it went exactly how you think it did. Daichi and iwaizumi swore up and down that if they weren't desperate for new pledges, they would've never let those two in after they set the toilet on fire. Tanaka got really smacked one night and took a vow to abstain from any hook ups until he and Kiyoko (the hot girl from that one sorority) were engaged. Noya holds him to it and it's actually really wholesome. Noya on the other hand is battling a low grade obsession with the anxious design major from Akaashi's fraternity. everytime Asahi gets inebriated he's instantly the life of the party, and if Noya wasn't already in love, that time drunk Asahi took his clothes off and swam in the city fountain with him really cemented it.

kyoutani hates that little snot from the other fraternity....what was his name? mini oikawa, super prissy and whiny....YaHAbA. Kyoutani won Iwazumi's admiration when he took his rush like a champ, obliterating keg stands and hair removal alike. everyone thinks it's really funny because they're basically the same person down to the snotty, prissy, irritating boyfriends they won't admit they have.

Ennoshita is the mini daichi, and he's a simp for Tanaka. constantly pulling him back from fights, and rubbing his back when he throws up. maybe someday Tanaka might notice....

Lev is possibly the dumbest rush they have ever received and also the most fun. his natural talent for shotgunning and dangerous drunken adventures, makes him a favorite. he ripped his pants in front of the entire student body during his rush, on purpose. like he wanted it to happen. still to this day, no one understands why. he's been simping for yaku as long as he's been in college, so two whole months. to the outside world, it looks like the angry little man wouldn't think twice about the lowly freshman, but lev's been in enough closets with him to know that that's just not true.

kindaichi just adds to the madness, he's an anxious peacemaker with an epic talent as a lightweight, and a massive crush on his apathetic roommate, kunimi. Kunimi regretted joining the frat the first time he watched Bokuto peel string cheese with his toes.

Hinata and Kageyama are rushing at the same time. Tobio Swageyama is made for Greek life, but Hinata can barely do a keg stand. So naturally they are paired together through the rush callenges. This results in the loss of no less than six pairs of pants, a completely bald (no eyebrows) Kageyama, and an upside down lower back tattoo reading "boke", sometimes they get a little too spicy at parties and take the whole "kiss the homies goodnight" thing to a whole other level

[almondmisery]

Well, if you insist! :)

I'll be sticking to the Parisian sewers here, for relevance's sake if nothing else. TLDR at the end because this is long haha.

The period from 476-1800CE has been called in at least one article the "sanitary dark ages", which is quite foreboding. It was during this time that very little progress was made on the management or treatment of wastewater. In Paris, wastewater was not managed until 1530, when every house was required to be connected to a cesspool. Between then and around 1832, the Paris sewers continued to develop from being mainly uncovered to covered. It was Henry Charles Emmery who was credited with improving the sewers by moving the flow of water from the streets to underground in 1832 (as mentioned above. I say credited with because of course I do not think he worked alone, haha. He just led the charge, etc etc.)

Most improvements to the sewers happened starting in 1853 when Napoleon III appointed Georges-Eugene Haussman as prefect of the Seine, and with the assistance of lead engineer Eugene Belgrand, the sewers were cleaned up and improved immensely. Part of the problem with the sewers was that they were not able to handle the volume of water that they needed to. Under Haussman and Belgrand, this was remedied. The sewers were also cleaned using more refined methods than ever had been used before.

Felix Nadar took pictures of the newer cleaner sewers in 1861. This guy was actually a pretty interesting photographer who did other things (such as photograph the Paris catacombs and take photographs from an air balloon), which you can read about here!

Interestingly, Haussman absolutely did not want wastewater to go into his sewers, instead wishing for people to continue to rely on cesspits while the sewers were used for stormwater alone. Part of this was because of the fear that the waste would be of less use as fertilizer if it was mixed with stormwater which might dilute it. Human waste ended up being put into the sewers anyway, which became an issue because the sewers were not designed to carry waste. The sewers, expected to only carry stormwater, emptied right into the Seine at two outlets with zero filtration or treatment, which sucked. It wasn’t until the 1930s that all of Paris was linked into one sewer system.

TL;DR: Most of the big changes were made to the sewers way after the events of Les Mis, but the sewers kinda sucked for a while after that anyway, and the Seine got real gross in some areas because of design flaws (human waste being dumped directly into it! Yikes). Also, consider reading about Nadar (here's another article!)

This is all from "The Paris Sewers and the Rationalization of Urban Space" by Matthew Gandy, which I was able to access on JSTOR through my institution, but I'm not sure how else to gain such access. But if you can find it, it's an interesting read, I think!

Sketching Les Mis Chapter 5.2.4 - Unknown Details

“Are you wearing the-”

“The 1805 thigh-high Bruneseau parisian sewer expedition boots? yes I am.”

[stxvercgersslut]

Promises 1/2

[Gif Not Mine]

Pairing: Dad! Ransom x Daughter! Reader

Description: During your sophomore year your father discovers that you are coming home with more and more bruises everyday. Once he finds out where those bruises are coming from he won’t be accountable from his actions.

Warnings: Mentions of bruises, mentione of scars,

A/n: this is my first series like this that I’ve ever made so I hope that you guys enjoy this. If you do enjoy this and it doesn’t flop then I may start a Mini series with Chris Evans characters and Daughter! Reader in different scenarios. Let me know what you think. Sorry it’s short 🥺

A/n: For this particular part the reader is 16 and in 10th Grade (year 11 in England but this is based in America) and Ransom is 37 meaning that he was 21 when y/n was born. In case anyone cares 😂 (when it’s just speech bold italics means Ransom and normal means you

Tag list: @jtargaryen18 @et-lesailes @evansxxx @stargazingfangirl18 @navybrat817 @chuckbass-love @t-stark35

When someone thinks of the perfect father they most certainly would never let the first person they think of be Hugh Ransom Drysdale. In fact no one would ever picture the trustfund Playboy to be the perfect father in anyway shape or form. Let alone love a child at all or even be a father in the first place. To many, even his family, Ransom was nothing but an arrogant prick who cared little about anyone else and more about himself. Which for the most part unfortunately had been extremely true, especially due to the god awful way that his mother and father had neglected him leaving him to be raised by his grandfather. Although, that unfortunately ended with the trustfund baby growing up to recsent every last one of his family members including his mother and father.

However, all of that changed when you, a new born baby, was left on his doorstep almost 17 years ago today. Of course at first he’d been reluctant to take care of you, thinking you were nothing other then a god awful result to a stupid one night stand that he most certainly didn’t want to look after you. Especially since you were a chubby baby who did nothing but scream, poop and cry whenever you needed something.

You weren’t his, not in his mind. You may have been made from half of him but as far as Ransom has been concerned you were nothing a pest that he wanted to get rid of. Being a father was never something that he wanted, but being a single father was even worse. After less than a week the Male had grown tired of the constant sleepless nights that you brought. Always either needing feeding , changed or plated with and Ransom just couldn’t do it. That wasn’t the life that he wanted but it was the life that he got. And no matter how many times he tried to get rid of you he just couldn’t go through with it. At one point he’d even attempted to call child services after a particular rough night where you had kept him up all night the day before a very important at meal with his family , he’d gotten so close to calling but then...oh then you did the most adorable thing. You just had to go and grab his finger whilst he was feeding you. That in itself was enough to melt the playboys usually hollow heart. From that day forward Ransom had vowed to protect you from all demons. No matter the cost.

Sadly that promise was one that he had failed to keep. For weeks now you’ve been arriving home to your fathers huge house, on the outskirts of New York, with either new bruisee or new scars covering your body and Ransom had just about had enough of seeing his teenage daughter coming home everyday in pain.Seeing you, his daughter, in pain or even just covered in bruises every single time you csme home from school was beginning to anger the Male even more then he had expected. Especially since he could hear you crying yourself to sleep each night, resulting in him practically begging you to open your door to let him. But you never did. Too afraid that he would judge you for crying so much over some stupid teenagers who had taken a joke way too far for way too long. Although Ransom adored you in every single way that one could ever love their child, he could still be quite stern when he needed to. Sometimes he didn’t no that he was being unreasonable to his own flesh and blood, but that was just unfortunately the part of Drysdale’s personality that he couldn’t change no matter how hard he tried. One particular thing Ransom couldn’t handle was tears, even when you were baby he seemed to just shut himself off when you cried. Not knowing how to deal with you. But now you were a 16 year old teenager who was crying every night and coming home covered in battle scars and he just couldn’t take it anymore.

Which was why, currently, Ransom was sitting in his Beamer, parked right outside your extremely expensive private school that Ransom had of course preferred you going to, as he waited not so patiently for you to exit the school. Yeah he hadn’t actually told you that he was coming to pick you up since it was a last minute decision but he wasn’t really expecting you to turn down a quick and easy lift home. Besides, he wasn’t just there to pick you up. No he was really there to get to the bottom of what the hell was happening and why on Earth you kept getting hurt.

Meanwhile, you were currently none the wiser about your father waiting impatiently outside the schools gates in his Beamer whilst you sat in the nurses office for the millionth time this year. Today a couple seniors had cornered you during lunch, teasing you and talking about your father as well as the rest of your family like they were a piece of meat. It wasn’t fair. But unfortunately the comment “Your dads probably disgusted by you! He’ll never be proud of you so you might as well just give up now” made by Darcy, the ‘popular girl’ had been enough to hit a nerve with you. Causing you to, for the first time, punch Darcy square in the face as an attempt to defend yourself. But, like anyone could imagine, that just didn’t end well. In fact, it ended so badly that you were currently sporting a incredibly painful black eye, a split lip and a couple scratch marks from Darcys razor sharp nails. Things like this had been happening for months, even longer then Ransom had ever known. Why was t the school doing anything? Well that was easy. Darcys father was the principle and in his eyes his daughter could do no wrong. Even if she did break your nose several times. “Are you sure you don’t want me to call your father Y/n?” The nurse spoke, pulling you out of your nightmare of a trance as she handed up a clean paper towel to wrap around the ice pack. This was by far the worst incident so far and yet no one was doing anything about it. Clearly the school wasn’t as good as Ransom thought. “N.... no...I don’t want to worry him...thank you though” you stuttered whilst wiping the stray tears from your eyes as you finally stood up on shaky legs as the bell rang, signalling the end of yet another horrific day.

Ransom was stood directly outside the school gates by the time you had finally managed to convince the school nurse that you’d be fine, of course not expected to see him there but also equally delighted that he was. Maybe with Ransom there you’d be able to escape any last minute torture from Darcy right? “Hey d—“ you began before being interrupted by your fathers worried words “Y/n what the hell happened to you? Who did this?” The anger evident in his voice no matter how hard he tried to conceal it. And believe me he really did try to conceal it. This question in itself was enough to startle you. Oh no...this wasn’t good at all. If your father found out about what Darcy and her friends had been doing to you for the last few months then it would 100% end badly. Which would most likely result in you being pulled from the school. Not that you’d mind that. But despite the bullying you did have friends here. Whom of which you did not want to leave. “N..no one I....I just fell” you lied. And not very creatively at that since Ransom seemed to pick up on your attempt to conceal the truth because without another word you were slung over your fathers shoulder and taken into the school kicking and screaming. This time Ransom wasn’t taking no for an answer.

“Y/n don’t lie to me! We have rules for a reason. Come on what’s going on?! Who did this? Who hurt you? The quicker we fix this the quicker whoever did this to you gets punished and the quicker I can get you out of this school for good” Ransom explained as he finally put you down in your normal classroom. God he really did sound like a father now which was enough to make even the 37 year old himself cringe. Never had he ever sounded so weak. But at least he had a good reason.

“Dad I told you No on—“

“I know what you told me y/n but I’m not buying it! So tell me the truth!”

“Why?”

“What do you mean why y/n?!?”

“Why do you want to know so bad?”

Okay now he was starting to lose his patience. Judging by your stubbornness, which you had most certainly inherited from him, this wasn’t going to end anytime soon. In fact if you had it your way you’d most likely be answering him with the same damn response of hours. “Because you’re my daughter? Believe it or not I actually care about you y/n and seeing you come home from school covered in bruises or hearing you crying every single night isn’t nice okay!?? Please just tell me who hurt you? You’re not in trouble right now but if you don’t tell me who hurt you then you will be!” Now he really did sound like a worried father, something that he’d never been shown as a child. No worry was ever emitted from either of his parents so of course he had no idea where all of this was coming from.

You froze, hearing your own father admit that he had heard you crying each night and saw the new bruises that you seemed to come home with seemed to break your heart. Which was of course when you realised just how much Ransom really did care about you. How the he’ll had you not know this all along? Were you just blind? Maybe you were. “You promise I’m not in trouble?” “I promise now who did this to you?”

It took you almost 2 whole hours to finally admit everything to your father about how Darcy had been tormenting you for months on end, even going as far as saying cruel things about him you really anger you just to get a response. You even admitted to why you’d been crying each night. Trying to keep yourself as calm as physically possible since you didn’t want to worry him too much.

But unfortunately the ship had sadly sailed since Ransom was currently seeing red. How had he been so dumb? How on earth had he not thought that you could have been getting bullied? But most importantly why wasn’t Darcy being punished if she had her. Caught several times abusing his daughter? She hose questions continued to swim in his mind as he tried to listen to you. His mind completely filled with range once you’d finally finished speaking. “You’re leaving this school! And I’m calling the police. Clearly school isn’t doing anything about this. So we’re suing!” He spoke unexpectedly. Giving you no other choice but to just go with it. And that’s exactly what he did. Yes it was extremely drastic and most certainly not the right way to go around this situation but if it meant that you would be safe and that Darcy would get fairly punished then Ransom would try anything.

Of course what he really wanted to do was kill that Bitch Darcy, or just brutally injure her for ever even laying a finger on you. But she was only a teenager. If He did that then of course he’d go to prison and you’d have no one, resulting in you either ending up with his parents or in care. Neither of which he wanted for you. So, in order to make sure that he stuck around to make up for his failed promise he just kept his word and sued the school for all it was worth.

[trashyswitch]

The Adorable Slimy Stranger

Chapter 2: Holidays With The Sides (& Pumpkin!)

The sides are nearing Christmas, and are getting ready to celebrate and share the joy with their new companion, Pumpkin!

This fanfic was suggested by an anonymous user! Thank you for the prompt for a sequel!

And this fanfic is also dedicated to Pumpkinpaw! Love you sweety!

Pumpkin had become a regular household companion within the next few weeks. When deciding what pronouns to use, the sides had put down papers that said ‘Boy’, ‘Girl’, and ‘both’, to mean they/them.

“Do you wanna be a girl? As in, a good girl?” Patton asked, pointing to the pink card.

“Or perhaps a boy? A good boy?” Logan offered, pointing to the blue card.

“Or maybe you wanna be both! Maybe ‘buddy’, or ‘good pumpa’?” Roman asked, holding up the purple card.

Patton gasped. “That’s such a cute nickname! Pumpa! I love it!” Patton cheered, hugging Roman.

Pumpkin looked at the three cards curiously for a few seconds. Right as someone was gonna speak up, Pumpkin picked up the pink card, pointed to it and tried to gurgle the word ‘girl’ as best as it could!

Patton and Roman both squealed excitedly, while Logan smiled proudly. “Girl it is. Pumpkin shall now be referred to as a female, until she shows us otherwise.” Logan declared.

“I’m still gonna call her lil’ pumpa tho! It’s perfect!” Patton added, giving Pumpkin a big hug.

“And she has at least 1 new nickname.” Logan muttered proudly with a chuckle.

To make things greater, it was nearing Christmas and EVERYONE was getting into the christmas mood!

Patton has been watching all the Hallmark movies and decorating the house with all the tinsel and lights he could summon. He also took time to hang up the advent calendars and had an elf hat on his head every second of the day!

Logan has been drinking out of christmas mugs, determining the holiday board games they could play together, and has been listening to different christmas music covers to determine the most beautiful and/or most classic versions. Using that knowledge, Logan successfully came up with the most christmassy playlist he could make, which also included songs from classic christmas films! And let’s not forget Bing Crosby and Pentatonix!

Roman has been singing christmas carols himself and wrapping up endless amounts of presents to fill the bottom of the christmas tree. He’s also spent lots of time making ornaments to add to the tree and was even sewing up adorable christmas outfits for Patton and himself! Remus even got an early Christmas outfit, which included a ‘King of Naughty’ original Grinch shirt.

Meanwhile, Virgil has been enjoying the heck outta the christmas sweaters that came out each year. This year? Thomas’s brand new Virgil-themed sweater merchandise Thomas came out with! Well...minus the scarf. Virgil found the scarf to be too much with the sweater. So, he gave it to Patton. Virgil has also been enjoying the holiday slippers! This year, Virgil was sporting a pair of hilarious shark slippers! Sometimes, Virgil would joke that ‘The sharks are hungry for feet!’

Janus has been enjoying watching the christmas baking shows and has been playing lots of christmas flash games that are always around. Super Santa Kicker, Christmas Race, Christmas Shopper Simulator (10/10, Best game of 2014!), Tattletail, Santa’s Rampage, even that crappy christmas wii game called ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’! All of those games were common-place.

Last but not least, Remus has been doing the elf on the shelf this year (with a small list of rules, of course.) and has been surprising people with singing and dancing christmas decorations everywhere! There was the animated singing rudolph, the twerking Santa Claus toy (Yup...Of course…), the singing and jingling christmas hat, that cringey but funny dancing/singing poop toy, an animated dancing tree, the animated singing santa in the bathtub, and everyone’s personal favorite: The Snoopy dancing plush toy that wobbles back and forth!

But everyone found that Pumpkin was ALSO in the christmas mood! The sides enjoyed seeing her reactions to the dancing toys the best, and even danced along with the toys sometimes! She waddled along with snoopy, danced left and right with the dancing tree, and sang to the Rudolph song while Rudolph sang the classic song!

Meanwhile, Patton had sewed up a christmas hat for Pumpkin. The hat had a more burgundy red color, a traditional white bottom and a white pom pom on the top. When Patton first gave it to the orange blob, Pumpkin placed it on her own head and let the pompom flop onto her face. Upon seeing the pompom, it looked as if her eyes could’ve dilated and she started playing with the pompom like a kitty. That was the best reaction they could’ve gotten from her!

One of the days, Pumpkin was sitting in the living room with the sides, watching The Polar Express on TV. This was a holiday classic that the sides loved to watch together. So joining Pumpkin in on the fun was a must! The train had just been saved from falling into the ice, and the train climbed up the spiral to the high road to the north pole. Pumpkin had slid herself over to Roman and Patton, and snuggled under the extra blanket that was beside the boys. Pumpkin was also wearing her santa hat!

Watching the pretty lights in the sky over the sea, Pumpkin watched curiously as the big conductor man talked to them about them and then uttered the following words: “There...is the north POLE!”

Pumpkin ran as quickly as her body could to the TV and reached up to the north pole on the TV. She backed up a little and held her hands on her chin as the train approached the Santa Village and The Polar Express song started playing! The song was so quick and fun, and it didn’t take long for Pumpkin to start bouncing up and down to the song while she watched the camera move under the twisting train road arches.

“Oooooo!” Pumpkin reacted to seeing the Santa city for the first time.

Patton’s heart was all warm and gushing at Pumpkin’s reactions. Roman was visibly excited about the village as well!

The christmas spirit went uphill from there. Pumpkin learned about the big old man in red known as Santa and his big bag of toys, his deers with horns, and about the big man’s magical powers! He especially loved the amount of joy that filled the sides when they talked about the man wearing red. Whoever this red-coated man was, made the sides so happy! Almost as happy as she makes them! And not only that, but the man in the red suit had a hat just like she did! She was bouncing around and clapping about that!

But excitement soon turned into disappointment when she found out she had to wait for the man in the red suit to come. She didn’t want to wait for the happy old man to come! She wanted to see him now! NOW! She whimpered and paced around the house as she struggled to wait for the old man to come. So while they waited, Logan grabbed a paper and some crayons and let Pumpkin draw a picture for Santa. While that happened, Logan wrote a short christmas letter out for her which read:

[Dear Santa Claus;

Hi Santa! My name is Pumpkin! I just found out about you and the elves in the north pole, and really wanted to see you! I’m sad that I have to wait for you to come, but I’ll try to find fun things to do while I wait for you. For Christmas, I would like lots of candy! Candy is so yummy! And skittles are my favorite! I also love Patton’s crunchy gingerbread cookies! That day, I discovered icing! And it made me bounce off the walls! I would also like for everyone to be extra happy this Christmas. I’m making people happy everyday, but now I can let you make everyone happy too.

Love; Pumpkin! ]

Logan put the letter down, and looked at the picture Pumpkin drew. It was a picture of herself tickling Santa Claus’s belly. Logan couldn’t help but giggle at how Santa’s belly in the picture made him look like he was pregnant. He also giggled at the big smile that was all spread out on Santa’s face. Logan praised her on a drawing well done, and decided to add something to the letter:

[P.S: Your belly looks very big and ticklish!]

Logan grabbed the drawing Pumpkin made, photocopied it, and put the copied version of the drawing in the envelope along with the letter. With everything ready, Logan sealed it shut. “There. Off to the North Pole!” Logan declared to Pumpkin!

Logan mailed it off in the post office a day later.

With Christmas on its way and Pumpkin stuck in a bit of an antsy wait for the magic, Pumpkin started to tickle people a little more often than usual. Any other time of the year, Pumpkin would tickle at least 1 person a day. But with Christmas around the corner and Pumpkin growing hyper, Pumpkin had started tickling all the sides at least once a day! So her tickle attacks jumped from 1 or 2, to 6 every single day!

“NAHAHAHAHAHA! PUHUHUMPKIHIHIHIHIN! NAHAHAHAT MYHYHY AHAHARMPIHIHITS! TOHOHOHOO TIHIHIHICKLIHIHIHISH!” Roman laughed hysterically!

Pumpkin tilted her head curiously, and chose to remove her pods from the armpits like he begged. Roman quickly tried to gain back his breath, but Pumpkin still wanted to hear laughter! So, she made her pod super thin like a pencil and dipped it into his belly button.

“aAAAAEEEEEEHEHEHEHEHEHE! *snort* HAHAHAHAHAHA! *snort* NOHOHOHO FAHAHAHAHAHAIR!” Roman yelled through his laughter.

Pumpkin playfully stuck her tongue out at him and started to playfully nibble and ripple her blob-like body all over his belly.

Roman’s snorts grew more frequent and his laughter turned cackle-like. It was so ticklish! He was struggling to properly breath! But it was so fun! Roman had been tickled many, many, MANY times by Patton in the past. But THIS!

Holy cow!

Patton’s tickling was NOTHING compared to this!

Pumpkin decided to give him another ticklish, jiggly raspberry to get him squealing. And squealing, she was rewarded! Roman squealed so loud and so high-pitched, that Pumpkin stopped immediately just to process the strange sound!

Roman was a laughing, snorting mess after the squeal. And Pumpkin was loving every millisecond of it. As much as she was enjoying it however, Pumpkin knew when to give the man a long, giggly break. This would involve cuddling her ticklish victim and gently tickling a much less ticklish spot on their body to keep them giggling, but also let them breathe. For Roman, this was his neck.

“Ohohohohohokahahahahahay. Thahahahank yohohohou Puhuhumpkihin!” Roman told her.

Pumpkin smiled and gave his neck a tickly kiss on the neck. Roman giggled more from that, and calmed down the moment her ‘lips’ moved away from his neck. Pumpkin kept up her giggly tickling for a little bit longer before she went for Janus next.

Now, Pumpkin didn’t quite know Janus nearly as much as she knew the rest of the sides. She had even grown to know Remus quicker, than compared to Janus! The half man half snake in yellow, was more mysterious and...preferred his lonely time. So, she gave him his lonely time for the most part. She did come around to see if he was up for a tickle or two, but often walked away empty-handed, yet gaining some progress.

Finally, after weeks and weeks of trying, Pumpkin finally gained the courage to tickle Janus for the first time. She walked up to Janus’s side very quietly...geeently snuck her pod hand under the snake man’s shirt...and gave it a quick tickle.

“eeEEP! WHAT-” Janus turned around and immediately calmed down. Pumpkin made a surprised yip sound, and backed up a little to give him space. “Hi Pumpkin. Sorry about that. I...totally heard you come in.” Janus told her.

...Oh yeah...and then there was the strange way he talked to her and the other sides. He said things backwards. Like just now: if he actually heard her come in, then why was he so surprised and jumpy?

Things like that didn’t make sense to her. But what did make sense, was his calming face. “You tried to tickle me today. You...finally tried and tickled me. And it worked.” Janus told her.

Pumpkin didn’t really know what to do. She was confused. Was anything he was saying, supposed to be backwards? Or normal? Pumpkin couldn’t tell. But all that thinking went right out the window when Janus held his arms out for her. He wanted a hug from her! There was no saying no to THAT! Pumpkin quickly slid up to him and hugged him tightly.

“Wow! You have a very snug and firm hug for a jello being.” Janus admitted.

Jello? Like that blue jiggly stuff that Logan made once?

Pumpkin let him enjoy the hug for a bit. She wanted him to feel safe in her grasp. And perhaps, she may not get any tickles in today. But the only thing that mattered now, is that Janus could be hugged now.

“...Aren’t you gonna tickle me more?” Janus asked.

Pumpkin widened her black eyes. Wait, REALLY?! HE WAS GONNA LET HER TICKLE HIM?! This was what she was waiting for! 16 days of working up to this! And now, she can tickle him!

Pumpkin happily started skittering her pods all over his sides and ribs almost immediately! “Ohoho bohohoy! Hehehere wehehe gohohohoho!” Janus giggled and let go of her so she could get more access to more exposed ticklish spots. Pumpkin happily took the offer and made more pseudopods so she could tickle more spots at once. This was like a special attack that Pumpkin would pull on someone. “aaAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA! YOHOHOU’RE SURPRIHIHISIHIHINGLY GOHOHOOD AHAHAT THIHIHIHIS!” Janus reacted in surprise.

Pumpkin gurgled happily to Janus and continued to tickle Janus wherever she could reach. The upside to having such a jiggly form, was just how well she could kneed the soft spots on her humans! This included the sides and his belly the most. Janus held his fists against his chest as his giggle fits, squeals and laughter filled his bedroom.

Pumpkin absolutely loved his laugh! It was much more bubbly and higher than she expected! It was such an amazing laugh, that Pumpkin chose to give him jiggly raspberries as well! He seemed like the kind of human that would love them! Pumpkin blew a raspberry on his sensitive belly and let her blobby, jello-like body flubber and jiggle to increase the ticklish sensation.

Janus fell into long fits of cackles! He couldn’t stop cackling! Now that he had reached the cackle-stage, there was just no going back! His laughter somewhat reminded Pumpkin of Patton’s laughter: bubbly, childish, and the musical representation of happiness. Though Janus’s wasn’t exactly like his, it was close enough.

“OHOHOKAHAHAHAY! CAHAHAN IHIHIHI HAHAHAVE AHA BREHEHEHEAK PLEHEHEHEASE?” Janus asked.

Pumpkin nodded her head and stopped tickling him almost immediately. As much as she enjoyed the sound of his laughter, she didn’t wanna overdo it. So Pumpkin snuggled herself into Janus and cooed softly.

Janus giggled at this and wrapped his arms around her. “Growing tired?” He asked.

Pumpkin nodded and snuggled herself even further into him.

“That’s ironic, considering I was the one getting tickled.” He joked.

Pumpkin let out a giggly little gurgle as she slowly succumb to her sleepiness. It didn’t take long for the tiredness to start dripping right off her and onto Janus, effecting him as well. Now Janus was growing more and more tired by the second. Janus decided he minus well cuddle himself in and get himself comfy.

It didn’t take long for Janus to fall into a full and deep slumber. It lasted a long while too. Janus didn’t expect to wake up to the smell of garlic or the sounds of something boiling. The garlic was an obvious thing to put together: garlic bread. But boiling? That could be anything!

This boiling sound would end up revealing itself to be spaghetti noodles in a deep pot. As it turned out, Patton was making spaghetti with garlic bread on the side. For Pumpkin, she was gonna have gummy worms with a new little christmas treat for Pumpkin: a Peppermint Pattie! Patton gave her one to try, and had a few unwrapped in a bowl in case she loved it and wanted more.

Pumpkin picked up the peppermint pattie first. She looked at it curiously, split it into two pieces, and ate one of the halves hesitantly. But the moment she chewed on it and actually tasted the pattie, her eyes widened and a HUGE smile grew onto her face!

Remus giggled as he spun his spaghetti. “Ihi think Pumpkin likes the peppermint pattie!” Remus told him.

Patton looked over and sure enough, Pumpkin was standing below him and eagerly reaching her pods out for more peppermint patties! Patton laughed and happily put more peppermint patties onto her dinner plate. Pumpkin happily bounced in place as she ate the gummy worms and enjoyed the taste of the brand new holiday treat.

[awkwardspiritanimals]

75 Bob’s Burgers quote prompts

This was mostly done as a joke, but also I did kind of want it and also I did do all the work for it, so here are 75 fic prompts based on quotes from Bob’s Burgers, seasons 2-10. Use them as a starting point or include them in your fic itself, totally up to you.

“More subtle. Move off explosives.”

“Your mom’s not being seduced right now, and I shouldn’t have to say that to my kids.”

“I was gonna punch you, but I’m holding wine.”

“No, no, no. No curiosity in the hallways.”

“I haven’t seen her in a while, and I have to say I’ve enjoyed every minute of our time apart.”

“This is not the head I wanted them to find my bones in.”

“I like sexually charged, awkward, confusing things too.”

“Congratulations, you’ve now got stunts inside of you.”

“Hey, daytime whiskey. Wanna meet my CD collection?”

“Don’t look at me like that, turkey baster.”

“My good nipple is bleeding.”

“I happen to have some armpit hair nets with me.”

“I’m not gonna let this birthday win.”

“I thought those boulders looked traumatized.”

“You’re a high-value target in a low-value body.”

“Then we’ll climb up and see how rich squirrels live.”

“Or like that time I petted a dog and found a Cheeto.”

“You make me feel like I can jump over this parking meter.”

“Dad’s butt is very sturdy.”

“Oh god, they’re gonna sacrifice us. I hate this neighborhood!”

“Calm down. No one wants to cook, you weirdo.”

“Love is like a beautiful flower. But it can also be dangerous, like a tiger with a gun.”

“I’m not good at running around things, just stop so we can talk.”

“That’s all I’ve got. I don’t have advice, I’m nine.”

“Maybe he’s never seen a man’s back sweat as much as yours.”

“I’m gonna ride a rollercoaster with you, you disgusting beautiful garbage angel.”

“He’s like a piece of candy with hair.”

“I love you for real, not like these posers.”

“Our boyfriend is coming over any minute and he has a Bowflex.”

“But if we get murdered, don’t tell your father.”

“She loves revenge. Revenge and shrimp.”

“It’s a serious question. How does anyone poop anywhere?”

“Singles’ mixers are not illegal, but if they’re good, they are immoral.”

“I’m just gonna go take some more aspirin. How many can I take, like twenty?”

“God’s done some good work but he screwed up my birthday.”

“I didn’t lose them, I threw them to the moon. It made sense at the time.”

“You give the rest of us hope. Maybe a guy like me could win a gift certificate.”

“Most people would be turned on by a new brine.”

“Shouldn’t we call a doctor, or a tv show?”

“I’m looking at her and I literally cannot breathe.”

“Terrible name. I hate him because of his name.”

“What’s all this cocaine doing at school? Throw it away.”

“Think of it as the gift card of homemade gifts.”

“Alcohol does not solve problems, miss missy. It just makes them go away.”

“No, you signed me up, and now you’re bowing to grownup peer pressure.”

“You probably always had that soccer ball pattern on your forehead.”

“Maybe we’re too old to have fun.”

“Really? I think that jacket’s cute. I’d totally die in that jacket.”

“Look, we all just need to give me a second chance.”

“I’m getting a little weepy just being around all these bikes.”

“You see, this is why we need a net from the ceiling.”

“Work good, smell better. That’s what I say.”

“You have my word as an educator/rapper/healer.”

“No, weird like I feel like I should help you or give money to a charity that helps people like you.”

“I’ll do the sitting and waiting and driving cool.”

“You’re saying numbers, but that’s not necessarily math.”

“Did you buy five children’s coat racks?”

“You’re dumb. I mean, I-I love you too.”

“I always have athletic stuff to do.”

“I’m the good parent, everyone remember that.”

“Well, you walked into your baby shower, we all shouted surprise, and then you started crying tears of genuine emotional sadness.”

“They want to find out if they saw God or if it’s something radioactive.”

“I don’t want to hug you. That’s not ‘scared of long hugs.’”

“That’s an 8. Why would it be a boob?”

“Or what I think is a karate outfit? I don’t really get fashion.”

“When I proposed, I didn’t have a ring. I just gave her a high five. Uh, you know, a romantic one.”

“No, I put no food in my socks.”

“Wait, do you think I’m siding with the squirrel?”

“I have a lot of cousins. He’s the hot one.”

“Do you want me to set up a little bed in here so you can sleep near your friend?”

“Bring back good stuff to burn or don’t come back at all!”

“Firm but fair- unlike your body.”

“I’m sorry but I’ve got to pretend my cell phone’s not working right now.”

“Potatoes. They’re so beautiful.”

“There’s no way they make you wear a bra in heaven.”

[takaraphoenix]

Sex Education: Season 3

I didn’t expect for Adam and Ruby to become my favorites in this season but they really did. Adam’s growth this season, he was so precious and working so hard on himself, that was amazing? I was so proud of him when he came out to his mom and got a special shout out at the dog show. I’m really mad at Eric for cheating and that in the end, it wasn’t even Adam who got to call it quits for that behavior, he was willing to try and work through this but it was Eric who ended things? What in the world was that? At least allow Adam to be the one to put his foot down then if you have his boyfriend cheat on him...

And Ruby, showing her vulnerable side, opening up, it was very unexpected and nice. Both of them deserved better than how their stories unfolded, honestly. And also very disappointed that Ruby basically disappeared from the narrative after her breakup with Otis, I would have liked to see more on her story.

The “”love triangle”” with Maeve, Otis and Isaac was exhausting. I mean, seriously, that the girl with the trust issues really decided to give Isaac a second chance just as he had admitted to really betraying her trust in a serious manner that ruined one of Maeve’s very few friendships, because the Maeve-Otis dynamic would have been at least 50% less awkward had she gotten the voice-mail? And the boys then actively competing for her attention when her little sister is missing? I really wanted to slap them both.

I also loved that they included two enby characters this season and went from sexual orientation toward gender identity too, though personally I found it a bit of a downer that it was mainly used to display what a shitty person Hope was.

Which brings me to my biggest complaint this season, because what I think this show just truly did not need was a villain.

What made the show good and interesting was that it was kind of grounded in teenagers and their problems and them dealing with sexuality, relationships and general teen confusions. Honestly, I found it kind of refreshing with how low-stake it was.

That they added this Hope and then blew her up to ridiculous heights? Her being a strict head mistress was one thing, but when she singled three “”troublemakers”” out to humiliate them in public and isolate them from their peers? The level of harassment was just so over the top.

And the conclusion on that was just mindblowingly stupid. Viv recorded Hope admitting to her shitty treatment. I expected the plan on the gathering to be to blast that and expose her for the bad head teacher she is, maybe some video recordings of how she publicly shamed the other students? Instead, they just doubled down on the immature behavior what did they expect to happen there? The strict head teacher didn’t succeed, 1.) we send someone stricter, 2.) we lose all fundings because no one wants to be associated with this school. I truly thought they would actively use at least one braincell on this and expose Hope in public instead of whatever that display was.

Lastly, holy shit, I could have done with 100% less fart and poop jokes. What... What was with the juvenile tone this season? The fart jokes and Aimee’s “running gag” of her talking about her shits and then the episode with the poop getting thrown out of the bus? That episode nearly made me throw up and I do not appreciate that kind of thing. Unnecessarily gross and immature.

All in all, this was an incredible let-down compared to the prior seasons and I think that’s a real shame, because the show had a lot of potential that it failed to live up to.

[tricktster]

Honestly, I cannot say enough about my german study abroad program, in no small part because the people i met through it were the wildest bunch i have ever met. We had:

Me, a cursed American stumbling through increasingly unlikely and unfortunate situations, including:

getting arrested and hauled off in a cop car for the serious crime of not transcribing the five digit number printed on the back of my bus ticket onto the front of my bus ticket

slipping on dog poop on a crowded street while running late for class (leading a number of tourists to run over and photograph me in my undignified heap on the cobblestones) only to suffer one final indignity when i had to leave my poop shoe out in the hall outside the classroom, and subsequently discovered after class that it had been (correctly) identified as garbage by the custodian, and had been disposed of

spending the entire month of November with essentially no money after a bank error caused me to be cut off from my US checking account, thereby forcing me to figure out how to survive by my wits alone in a series of schemes, cons, and 1€ sausages

burning my thumb so badly on an oven in an attempt to make the world’s worst stuffing for the world’s saddest expat thanksgiving that my friends all had an intervention where they gave me a single black glove to wear because it was grossing them all out.

Enough about me. There were also my closest friends:

L , a horrendously wealthy New Englander who would drop lines in her stories like “so we were all smoking opium in my parents library,” and, “so every time my room gets too dirty, i just move to the next one down until the whole wing is filthy.” In spite of everything I’ve just said, she was also a genuinely good and incredibly fearless person who would throw fists without hesitation if she thought anyone was insulting her friends. She had a weird sexual relationship with her obscenely wealthy family friend in Frankfurt, which the rest of us suspected maybe been part of a business deal that their parents arranged at birth. It was better than Game of Thrones, honestly.

Y, a four foot tall Puerto Rican that I met when we were both walking down the street kind of near each other and some wild impulse called me to say to her, without so much as an introduction, “Yeah, you walk pretty cool, but if you wanna walk REAL cool, you gotta do it like thissssss,” while kinda lunging around. Just as inexplicably, she chose to continue talking to me, and several months later the two of us ended up making a harrowing 2:00 am escape from the private bar of a frat house that we had suddenly noticed had an awful lot of Nazi memorabilia on the walls for a frat located in a country that had criminalized the display of Nazi symbols. “Why are you leaving?” The frat-nazis complained as we bolted. “You will come back tomorrow afternoon for the barbecue, ja?” “Ahahhahaha nein fucking way, motherfucker,” Y muttered under her breath as we smiled and nodded politely all the way out the private garden, through the enormous iron gates, and out into the night. Once we were in the clear, we stared at each other, shaken, until Y broke the silence. “Welp. Those guys were Nazis. That actually just happened. I can’t.... man, I dunno, i’m still processing, let’s just go get some fucking falafel.”

We did.

S, the Australian, who one time invited me over to her apartment, opened the fridge, grabbed a plate of cheese, shoved it under my nose while going “HERE SMELL THIS!” and while i lurched away, gagging, cheerfully added “IT’S REALLY FOUL, RIGHT? ONE OF THE WOST THINGS I’VE EVER SMELLED!!” She was also absolutely obsessed with High School Musical, and was very disappointed every time the Americans shattered one of her illusions about the US public school system.

K, the girl from New Zealand, who had broken up with her serious boyfriend shortly before leaving for Germany, causing her to mourn his loss every time she got drunk by describing his penis with increasingly strange metaphors, such as “like a big wax candle but part of it’s gone,” and “like one leg off a spider.”

So, i had a pretty solid crew of five big weirdos. But there were, naturally, more people than the five of us in our program. For example:

R, from Minnesota, who dressed like she was about 72 and glared at anyone who was laughing too loudly near her because “i just don’t think jokes are funny.” More importantly, she would post facebook videos of herself reciting, entirely sincerely and in a steady monotone, the worst fucking poems that I have ever heard. She posted them under a pen name that was along the same lines as “the lyrical falcon.” She was in a feud with not one but two poetry clubs at her christian college, and while she never admitted this, all evidence suggested that it was because they both kicked her out. She was the Tommy Wisseau of poems. They were so bad they looped back around to good. Also, one time on the train she told me that she liked to think that she was a very good kisser because she played the french horn so she had strong mouth muscles. when i finally recovered from the mortal blow that she just delivered my soul, I asked her if she blew into people when she kissed them, and she got so insulted that she blocked me from her facebook poetry page. let me back in, R. please, if you’re reading this, let me back in.

They’re good poems, R.

Zoolander, from Pennsylvania, who was so, so handsome, but so, so, so dumb. One time he told me about this dream he had, and it was just an entire episode of Dexter’s lab. No changes or anything, he just... dreamed that he was watching that episode, and then the whole thing played in his head until it was done. He said it was the best dream he’d ever had. I once watched him pick up the same coin off the street four times because he couldn’t figure out that his pocket had a hole in it. When he noticed me, he said excitedly “Somebody left money everywhere!”

Juan, who constantly confused all the kids from Spain who went up to talk to him in their native tongue, only to discover that he was a very sarcastic man from Liverpool who didn’t speak a word of Spanish and was sick of everyone trying to bond with him. He only liked the Americans, because that’s where the tv show Family Guy was from, and only the Americans liked him, because we tend to like surly british assholes for basically no reason. At the end of the program while we were all saying our goodbyes, he came up to me, looking really upset. “I can’t believe it,” He said, uncharacteristically serious. “I can’t believe it’s all over and i’ll never...” He looked like he was about to cry.

“Oh, dude, we can keep in touch on facebook or something?” I fumbled. He blinked.

“What? No, no, ugh, it’s just the last day of the program and I’ve LOST MY FOOKIN SCARF!” he roared.

God, I know this is weird, but I still really miss that guy.

The Croatian: There was a dude from Croatia in my apartment building who outright refused to tell me his name, because, “It’s an embarrassing word in English. You’d laugh.” I badgered him for five months, until finally, his defenses down, after many earnest promises that no matter what his name was, I would not laugh, he relented.

“My name is Tin.” He said sheepishly.

His name was fucking Tin.

Beardy, Beardo, Redbeard, and Weirdbeard: four drastically different young men from all across our beautiful planet who had one thing in common: thinking that they’d try out a beard while they were abroad. We always admired them from a distance, and compared their beards’ various unique and bad properties, until one day Beardy (who was australian and had developed a sort of flesh colored goatee) walked up to S, his countryman, in a club. “DO YOU WANT TO DANCE?” he yelled, trying to get her attention, but she was in a dance-off with K, and didn’t notice, so he tapped her shoulder. She whirled around, startled, and upon recognizing him, said without thinking, “OH, HI BEARDY!”

The song faded out.

Beardy stared at S.

“...Did you just call me ‘Beardy?’” he asked quietly. S looked like a deer in the headlights. She glanced towards me, hoping for an out, but I, dear reader, was laughing too hard to be of any use.

“You did,” he went on, “you called me ‘Beardy!’ Why!?”

“Cuz of your beard, probably. That’s a better name for you than Josh.” Zoolander interjected from out of nowhere, strolling out of the club, a beautiful woman on each arm.

“My name isn’t Josh...” Beardy tried to call after him.

“Who’s name isn’t Josh? Oh! Beardy!” A drunk K could be heard deducing from the back of the room.

He shaved it a week later, but the damage was done. He was Beardy for the rest of the semester.

When I look back on that period of my life now, I can’t help but reflect - with the clarity one only gets from experience - that my time in Germany was not as weird as I thought it was at the time. I lacked the perspective to see that it was all, actually, absolutely bonkers batshit nuts. It was some sitcom shit.

All in all, I highly recommend it.

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

Once Bitten, Twice Stupid prt 180

180

Lance cleaned. He cleaned like a vampire possessed. Nothing escaped his cleaning. From the top of the house to the bottom was vacuumed, mopped, scrubbed, washed, packed and organised. He didn’t stop for sleep. The door to the nursery was shut. The room taboo in the household. Every trace of Keith’s scent was washed away. Keith’s things packed up neatly. Some things slightly tear damaged and a photo frame may now be glassless as it’d been hurled out the bedroom window in a fit of anger. Kosmo didn’t escape. He got bathed, groomed, nails clipped, and bedding washed. Blue got extra wet food, plenty of snuggles, and carried around as she protested loudly.

Stripping his bed, he told himself he was being stupid sleeping with so many blankets. He was a grown man, and grown men didn’t act this way. He also didn’t stop limiting his strength. Able to lift most furniture one handed as he vacuumed, then again as he ran the mop over the floor. Frustrated at the lack of speed with human appliances, he’d nearly hurled the washing machine outside in a fit of rage when the rinse cycle took too long. If Keith couldn’t love him any more, he needed to stop relying on him and believing in love like a dumb teen. Show after show was deleted from his watch lists. He’d have deleted the whole section off streaming if he could have. Matt and Rieva were in Platt so Keith could get used to their scents before the moon, leaving him alone, after asking Pidge and Hunk for some space and time to rest up.

Every single particle of his house reminded him of Keith. Every joke they’d shared. Every dumb plan they’d made. The scratches in the floorboards from where Keith tried to kill him. All the good times. By the time he was done, the only scent in the air was the “pine fresh” scent of aerosol disinfectant and cat poop from Blue’s litter tray. When the house was clean, he started baking. In all his cleaning, he’d forgotten Keith’s favourite coffee cup. Seeing it sitting next to the coffee machine, he missed the other half of his soul that didn’t seem to exist any more.

*

Keith... Keith didn’t know what to make of the world anymore. Fangs. Claws. Yellow eyes. A rage inside him that couldn’t be contained. He didn’t know left from right. Everyone was a foe. Everyone including the one person who absolutely hadn’t been. Lance. Lance who smelt like something he wanted to roll in. Lance who’s egos made him all weird and jumpy, and this weird other messed up self mad for no reason that he could understand. He didn’t know it’d be like this. This... this existence. He didn’t know this and he didn’t know himself anymore.

He was scared. He was scared of the world. He was scared of himself. Lance came and said a lot of things to him, and he didn’t get it. Lance was being kind and sweet, but he was just so angry. He hated this. Lance hated him. Then Lance loved him. Then Lance was leaving. Then Lance wanted him at the scan. Then he didn’t. Then he was gone. And he didn’t get it. He didn’t get why he opened his mouth and said the wrong thing. He’d driven Lance away from him. They’d been so happily in love. Every single touch radiated love. He didn’t really remembered mad at Lance. Coran said that was coma related and okay. He just... didn’t... How could he be around Lance when he was this mad?

Starting small, Keith wasn’t allowed out the medical wing. He’d Shiro twice. The third time he couldn’t look at him. His ego saying some not so nice things about his brother. He got Shiro didn’t want him to die and that he’d thought this Keith’s only chance. But Lance didn’t like him like this. He didn’t like him like this. Everything was too much, but it didn’t stop coming and he didn’t know what to do. He was being too blunt. Krolia had tried to have a conversation with him, but then he’d gotten all cranky and before he knew it he’d broken the hospital table in front of him. He couldn’t do anything right. He just... wanted Lance. He wanted Lance to fix things. To fix him. The furthest he’d gone since turning was down the hall and back again, to get him used to sounds. God. He hated sounds. He didn’t see how he’d ever get used to things he’d never noticed before. As he sat waiting patiently, he could see Coran on the phone outside the room. He looked worried and Keith knew he’d taken the call outside so Keith couldn’t hear what he said. They were probably organising his execution order instead of letting him go see Lance.

Letting himself back into the room, Coran looked upset. He smelt funny. If old man had a scent that smelt slightly like mushrooms were growing on him, that’d be the closest thing to Coran’s scent he could come up with. Sitting down, Coran rested his head in his hands. This was Lance related and Keith fucking knew it. His ego disgustingly annoying. How could it be okay with Lance hurting, and hurting for Lance? How Matt, Rieva, and Lance made a family, he didn’t know

“What is it? He doesn’t want me there, does he?”

With a pained groan, Coran raised his head. The man seemed as if he hadn’t been sleeping well. Actually, this had to make the top 20 times he’d seen Coran stressing

“Well. What happened?!”

Keith had noticed he’d turned into Krolia 2.0 with the bluntness. He could see why werewolves were thought of as dicks, because he felt like a bag of ducks deserving a dick punch

“I’m sorry, my boy. I think you may have to stay here. Rieva and Matt returned home today... Lance has had a bit of a breakdown”

What did Lance have to be having a breakdown over?! He wasn’t suddenly a werewolf. There went this stupid poxy new ego of his. He didn’t like it

“What do you mean?”

“He’s cleaned the house and shut himself up in his office”

That didn’t sound that unusual. Lance took pride in his house being neat and organised. Plus Pidge and Hunk would keep him from going too far into his head

“He left two days ago”

Keith wanted to shut up. Why did he have to be so angry? Why did his ego see Lance hitting the end of his mental rope as weak. Lance wasn’t weak at all. He was strong, kind and very beautiful. Why did every emotion have to be anger. Happy, nope, better glare at the world. Confused, whelp, better snap. Actually angry, here came the growls, snarls, and claws. Lance was beautiful. But suffered from low self esteem and anxiety. He knew that... But how did he know that? He wasn’t Keith anymore. He shouldn’t know things about human Keith’s life.

“Yes. It seems he told Hunk and Pidge he came to rest, cleaned the house, and locked himself away, instead of resting. Rieva said he’s stripped and remade his bed”

What was wrong with that? That’s what he normally did

“I must go to him”

“He’s probably just working”

“Keith, you misunderstand. Rieva said he’s... not in a good state”

“Lance loves cleaning”

“His bed only had one blanket on it. He’d denying himself the comfort of a nest, and gone against his instincts to nest. The staff barely managed to bring him out of labour. He doesn’t know how close he truly came to things being too late. I fear he wishes to do something very stupid. He called Curtis, asking if Curtis had ever heard of vampire returning to being a human”

Why would Lance want to be human again? Okay. Lance had always wanted to be human again. But he couldn’t carry the twins if he was human. His ego didn’t like that. It kind of liked the twins. It was a weird feeling. Like pride and confusion. What did Lance gain from being human. He wouldn’t...

“He wants to be human again because of me”

“I fear so. Curtis called Rieva, not knowing she and Matt were returning. They’ve both being commuting for work as it was. Lance feels that you cannot love him because he’s a vampire”

Keith let out a shaky breath. Ego angry. Him... shaken. That didn’t sound safe or sane. Two weeks was a lifetime when their lives were so messed up..

“If you’re going to see him, can I come?”

Coran lifted his head

“I don’t know, my boy. You’re still going through the changes of being turned. Your ego is currently unpredictable...”

“But Lance is hurting!”

With a shaky breath, Coran let his head drop again

“He’s been hurting for a long time. He didn’t wish the turn upon you. He and Shiro haven’t spoken to my knowledge since you woke. He requested we not be mad at Shiro, knowing Shiro was in an impossible situation with me unable to do anything. I tried all I could. But each time I adjusted your quintessence you had a negative effect. Initially when you were comatosed, Lance’s presence kept you stable. You seemed to know he was there, despite that being quite impossible. He made you a nest, gathered things of comfort, trying to make this transition less scary for you. But as strong as he is, he couldn’t help but lose his cool when it came to you. He combatted his depression staying by your side to care for you. He still loves you a great deal. Any actions you perceive were done in pity, were done in with great love and respect. He knew his presence may lead to insanity by overwhelming you with his own ego, that is the sole reason he left. He placed your health and needs above his own... It was agonising to watch”

And what had he done? Lost his cool because he didn’t know why there now felt like were two of him in his body? Told Lance he wanted to die? That he’d rather be dead than with him

“I hurt him”

“I spoke with Allura. Lance understands. He too went through the change, though he was much younger and slept longer before waking. Vampires also don’t rely on the first full moon to stabilise their egos. She said Lance was most distraught over having broken your trust in him”

This was what Keith didn’t get. How Lance could love him when he wasn’t Keith anymore. Lance smelt weird, but maybe it wasn’t a bad kind of a weird. It was kind of a weird that made him want to roll around in it

“Coran. I don’t know. He loved Keith. I’m not Keith anymore”

Coran chuckled, the sound turning deep into a proper laugh. Trying to recompose himself, the fae wiped at his eyes as Keith clenched his hands, angry automatically

“Sorry, lad. If you’re not Keith, then I don’t know who you are. Just because you’re now a werewolf doesn’t mean you’ll forget being human, or have a whole new identity. You’re still Keith, you just Keith with a little extra now. Goodness me, don’t tell me you’ve been fighting with your memories. You’re still you, my boy! Yours and Lance’s quintessence are still very much connected. That may have wavered but it’s still there. Fancy thinking you weren’t Keith. That would be like Matt not being Matt. I will say, once the moon passes you will notice I real change in my our ego”

Keith felt like of how Kosmo looked each time he had to scold him. He didn’t know how this worked. All Lance’s explanations on ego seemed lacking, not that Lance hadn’t tried, he’d thought he got. He didn’t. He was so tired of being angry, but was angry at himself for being angry so it was kind of like being stuck in an infuriating loop

“So I’m still me?”

He didn’t feel like him. He wouldn’t be so angry at Lance if he was him

“You are, my boy. I know it’s very scary right now, but things will be better. You managed not to snarl at Matt the last time he visited. That’s excellent progress for a wolf who wasn’t been touched by the moon”

He hadn’t liked being visited. He felt like a caged animal on display

“Will this anger ever go away?”

“With time. Oh, dear. We really must be going to see Lance. Any later and you’ll transform in the car. I’m most anxious to drive again today. I’ve been practicing”

*

Coran still couldn’t drive. Keith frustrated and feeling quite ill well before leaving city limits. The restlessness he felt seemed to have turned his stomach into a pit of snakes. He could hear the way the car gears screamed in abuse each time Coran tried to change gear. This was not fun. Maybe it’d have been safer for him to stay at VOLTRON for his first full moon. Matt and Rieva always seemed to be particularly horny and energised before it happened, but they weren’t douches to Lance like he’d been. He hadn’t even asked Coran for a phone to talk to Lance, as Lance had suggested he did. The amount of faith a vampire seemed to have in him made his ego go all weird. How was he supposed to be with Lance if he seemed to hate the mere fact his boyfriend existed?

And that was another thing. Were they still boyfriends? Like, boyfriend boyfriends? Or estranged boyfriends? Lance didn’t come see him until Shiro went running to him. His Lance would have flipped the world off and stayed. This Lance wasn’t acting right. Like Lance was mad and he could feel it in the air. He didn’t get it. If this was his Lance, than why did he have to be mean and cruel to feel better? He felt like everyone who’d ever bullied him had taken over his body and now he enjoyed inflicting pain as much he did.

Reaching Lance’s house, things felt stranger than ever. He knew the house. He knew the drive. He knew it, but it was as if he was seeing everything all over again. The sounds of nature made him feel as if he had that chirping arsehole symphony of cicadas playing just for him. He could smell cow shit... something dead... Lance... as well as two werewolves. Lance always said they smelt like wet dog. He supposed there was a definite trace of that. Matt didn’t smell awful, but he did smell like he needed to be on guard around him. Rieva smelt nicer. Like flowers and girly shit... and stuff. Matt was pretty growly too. Apparently sniffing someone’s mate was a no go, even if you’re only trying to tell your ego that they’re not a threat.

Opening the door, Kosmo came bounding out. His precious boy all paws and no grace as he crashed into Keith, knocking him on his arse as he took a paw to his junk

“Kosmo!”

Kosmo yipped as he gave exactly zero fucks, pushing Keith down and laying on top of him. What the hell was this? Kosmo had knocked him down in the past, but wasn’t he supposed to be a powerful werewolf now. And why was he laying on him. Coming out the house, Rieva came jogging over, Keith growling at her sending Kosmo bolting away from him with his tails between his legs

“That’s enough out of you. Coran, thank you for coming. Keith... what are you thinking letting Kosmo climb on you? He’ll never respect you as his owner if you let him boss you around”

Keith spluttered. His ego bruised enough over being taken out Kosmo

“Me? He knocked me down!”

Rieva placed her hands on her hips as she stared down at him

“Because he’s missed his human. He’s been glued to Lance’s side until Lance shut him out the office. Coran, I think it’s best you go see Lance right away. The sun will be setting soon and Keith needs a run down on what to expect”

Coran took the weirdness in his stride. All their friends were so goddamn weird

“Right you are, my girl! Matt not here?”

“He’s around the back trying to stop Lance if he tries to climb out the window. I did tell him Lance was too pregnant to be running off, but you know Matt”

“I’ll make sure to talk some sense into Lance. You two enjoy your run. Please don’t let Keith do anything stupid”

“Coran, you know Keith. He and Lance are very stupid”

Coran winked at the pair of them

“In all the right ways. Rightyo, I’ll see you two later”

Left with Rieva, Keith continued to stare up at her. He’d only come to see Lance, this whole moon thing made little sense

“Stop staring. You’ll be changing soon, and I suggest you not do it in the drive way”

“I’ll be changing?”

“You’ll be meeting your wolf side tonight. The first step is getting naked”

Oh no. Not more nudity. He wasn’t okay with the nudity

“I... uh...”

Rieva thrust her hand out

“You can’t deny it. You feel the energy don’t you? We feel it. Like there’s electricity in your body with no where for it to go”

“How do you know?”

Rieva rolled her eyes at him

“I’ve been a werewolf for years now. I think I know when I meet a newly turned wolf. Though you are rather sane so that does make talking easier”

“I don’t feel very sane”

“You’d be feeling differently if you weren’t. Tearing at your own skin by now. I was not entirely convinced in Coran’s methods, but you have definitely changed”

“What methods? He had someone bite me while I was unconscious”

“He did no such thing. He even chose a different werewolf at the request of Lance, trying to spare you the awkwardness of having one of us sure you. Now, out to the back with you. Unless you want your clothes destroyed when you turn”

Reluctantly Keith took Rieva’s hand. He didn’t feel like he was going to turn into anything. He just felt... cranky. Scowling at Rieva, Rieva ignored his mood, leading him off behind the house.

Matt gave up his window duties when Keith and Rieva came around the corner. Kalternecker letting out a lazy moo, eyeing him with zero interest

“Keith! Oh, man! Look at you. How do you feel?”

“Cranky”

“I remember my first time. Rieva turned me on a moon, so I was lucky there. We’ll have you back to normal soon enough”

“Matt, be nice. He’s still developing his ego. Keith, how do you feel?”

“Like I want to punch myself in the dick”

Rieva giggled at him

“We’ll the moon is in the sky. But you really do need to strip off. It won’t be long now”

“Can I not?”

“And have Lance sew your clothes back together? I think he’s having a hard enough time as it is. The house has never looked cleaner”

“Lance cleans all the time”

“Ah, but this time he cleaned Blue’s litter tray twice, before crying when she messed it up a third time. Now, clothes off!”

Keith hid himself behind Lance’s roses to strip. Matt and Rieva not caring as they stripped off in the backyard. Matt scolded for not picking up his clothes. Keith didn’t get how Matt’s ego could take it... and look happy about it. Whistling as he dropped his pants, Keith glared at Rieva who clapped her hands

“Take it off!”

“Fuck off”

Matt chuckled at him. Keith wanted to thump him

“Oooh, this is going to be so much fun. Have you gone over ground rules?”

Rieva shook her head

“Not yet. But you can, if you’d like?”

“Okay, man! Listen up. Rieva is my mate. She sets where we go and how far we go. If we get horny, you go away. I’m not to blame if you come too close to my mate. That’d be like me watching you and Lance have sex... actually, that wouldn’t be too bad, but it’d be more like me being in the middle of it and I’d prefer to keep my balls. You stay with us. If you get lost, stay where you are. We can sniff you out. You don’t come back to the house until the sunrises again. No chasing humans and no going near town. Pack playing is a thing. We fight and we bite, but it’s not to hurt each other. Oh! Don’t wake Lance up. And don’t try to hump a stray dog... What am I forgetting?”

“The most important thing. You’ll be overwhelmed. You’ll want to run. Let yourself run. It’s good for you. It gets the good feelings going. You’ll only be able to partly control your ego, so you’ll howl and do all sorts of wolf things that you don’t need to be embarrassed about. You’ll probably feel really horny too”

This didn’t sound fun. Rieva and Matt kept staring at him

“What?”

“We’re waiting for you to come out of there”

“I don’t think I want to”

“Dude, get used to the nudity. Babe, can I shift now?”

“If you want to. I can watch Keith”

“As long as that’s all you do”

Rieva wrapped her arms around Matt, the pair sharing a very passionate kiss. He used to kiss Lance like that. He missed Lance. Why couldn’t Lance be a werewolf? Then he’d be able to be with him... Shifting into a wolf, Keith noticed things he hadn’t noticed before when the pair had turned. Like the way Matt’s bones cracked in a way that sounded like agony. Lance looked so cute when he “batted out”. A little ball of anger that fit nicely under Keith’s chest and fed off his fingers with those razor sharp teeth of his.

Nudging at Rieva’s leg, Rieva ruffled the fur between Matt’s ears

“I’ll join you soon. Why don’t you race to the back fence and back, warm up a bit for tonight?”

Matt nudged up into Rieva’s hand, before fixing Keith in the gaze of his yellow eyes. Keith feeling like someone had doused him in cold water. Rieva was Matt’s mate. If he touched her, Matt would tear his throat out. How this was going to be fun, Keith didn’t know.

Uncomfortable being naked, Keith sat on the grass. Blades stabbing into his bare arse as he hugged his knees to his chest and waited for something to happen. His butt felt wet and he didn’t like it. With his keen sense of smell, he knew he wasn’t sitting where Matt had peed. He’d never noticed how much things smelt. From outside he could smell the scent of tea on the air. He’d heard Lance answer the door to Coran. Lance knew he was here, but he hadn’t come out... and Keith didn’t like it

“Stop thinking. Let the feeling build”

Easy for Rieva to say. She wasn’t stuck in this weird arse situation. Looking back at the house, he wanted Lance to appear in the doorway

“He won’t come out. It’s safer for him and your twins to stay inside”

“He doesn’t even want me here”

Rieva smacked his arm

“Don’t be stupid”

“He wanted to know how to be human again. He doesn’t like me like this”

“He adores you”

“That’s why I’m here and he couldn’t care less”

“If you’re going to be like this, I’ll leave you alone for your first turn”

“No one asked you stay! Go on then”

“Damn it. We both know I wouldn’t. Being a werewolf isn’t too terrible”

“Says you”

“Yes. Says me. Both Matt and I enjoy a relative non limiting normal life. It is possible... oh, I’m going to shift... I can feel the changing coming. It’ll hurt for your first time, but as fast as your body is breaking, it is healing. The more you change your form, the less it’ll hurt”

Rieva shifted into her wolf form, howling at Matt who was running around like an idiot. It disturbed Keith that he could see the pair. Running over to his mate, he tackled Rieva down, Rieva nipping at Matt’s ear, before looking at Keith as if to ask him why he hadn’t turned. How should he know? He was sitting. The slimmest line of red had already disappeared. Maybe he was broken wolf? That’d be hilarious. And just about on par with his life. Opening his mouth to the tell pair to fuck off, he felt the bones in his hands start to shift, horrified as his skin slowly rippled and tuffs to fur pushed through. The pain was immense, yet he couldn’t help but scream when that pain hit his chest and he could literally feel his ribs cracking. Rieva was right. The pain was weird, he could feel it, then came this almost rush of release on its heels.

Turning for the first time took time. His body writhing on the grass before the pain finally left and he was left feeling limp. Looking down to his hands, he saw big black paws. With all the grace of Kosmo after taking a thermometer up the butt, Keith rose to his feet, everything seemed so much bigger, clearer... with a growl, he got that Matt wanted him to follow him. Keith trying to work out how to move his legs. He felt like he looked like one of those cats from the videos where the owner puts cardboard rolls on their legs and they walk funny. He didn’t like it. He swayed like he was drunk. He could smell way too much. The dew on the grass. The birds in the trees... and his hearing... He could hear the TV on in the house, but somehow knew Lance wasn’t watching it. Miserably failing at walking, his legs got tangled and he fell.

Matt didn’t laugh at him. Keith confused by the fellow wolf’s actions as he trotted over started pushing into Keith’s side. Oh. Matt was trying to get him back on his feet... his feet that felt weirdly big. They’d said he’d lose control... was he supposed to be thinking in wolf? Was he thinking in wolf and his brain translating to human? Or was he thinking in wolf and just knew what it meant? Raising his moist nose, he sniffed the air. Something smelt really, really good... and he wanted to pee on it. Growling at him, Matt practically shoved him onto his feet. Keith stretching out each step. He knew how to human walk, but four legs... they didn’t move like his arms and legs. His ego was laughing at him. Mocking him. It was so weird. It didn’t have an actual voice yet he understood it so clearly. He was a wolf. He was a werewolf. Top of the chain. His actions were disgracing himself and the werewolf community.

Not moving fast enough, Matt nipped on his ear. Keith letting out a whine so pathetic he wanted to be scooped up like when Kosmo was a puppy and carried around. He could scent Lance way too clearly. His ego like “Who the fuck is this!?”, while his heart longed to see Lance and show him he’d made it through to this stage. Casting his gaze up to the moon, he really could feel something there. An imaginary tug. Almost as if the moon was so much closer to Earth than it should be. He couldn’t see the craters on the moon, yet it shone pretty damn prettily up there in the blue black inkyness of the sky.

Moving back to his side, Rieva nudged his front foot with her equally wet nose. Matt growling at the pair of them as Keith breathed in her scent. Parts of him were tingling, but not for her. What was this? 30 seconds in and he was horny? Is that what it was always like? He could smell Matt wanted Rieva as badly as Rieva wanted Matt. He wanted to bite Matt, but this was all so weird. Nudging his foot again, Keith took a cautious step forward, stretching out his leg then not sure how to make the rest of his body reach his front paw. The grass was squishy... squishy and he could feel the grains of sand against his paws. He didn’t like it. His body wanted to run, but there he was... not even able to walk. Whining sadly, Rieva huffed, knocking into him, and making him fall back over. Why did he have to have four legs?! No one needed four legs! Is this why octopi had 8. Because four sucked?

Rieva and Matt ended up boxing him in. Keith moving his legs to match their steps. He felt huge compared to them. Their paws seemed nicer than his huge black ones. His huge black ones just wanted to trip him over... He must have got the hang of it though, before he knew he’d done it, he’d reached the back fencing with the pair of them. Casting a glance back at Lance’s, he could still pick up traces of Lance. He didn’t want to cross the fence line, but his new pack gave him no choice. Rieva going first to show him how it was done, then when he failed and got his legs tangled up again, Matt grabbed him by the scruff and dragged him over the wooden fencing and off towards the wooded area in the distance.

[revchainsaw]

One Cut of the Dead (2017)

Spoiler Alert. I have never made the claim that this is a spoiler free film blog. I barely consider this a collection of film reviews as much as it is a space for me to have a one sided conversation about movies. I don't want to limit myself to the constraints of spoiler free content, for one because I believe in most cases we don't watch films to be surprised. I read many books, and many of those books have been adapted into films, and never once has knowing what is going to happen ruined my experience of a film. In regards to One Cut of the Dead however, I think you owe it to yourself to stop reading right here and go and see this film for yourself. I'm going to get the letter grade out of the way right now and let you know without any context that One Cut of the Dead get's an A from Reverend Chainsaw and the Cult of Cult. However, if you've already seen the movie and you would like to worship along with the Cult Film Tent Revival, please read on.

The Message

One Cut of the Dead is a two for one punch. First we are told the story of a film director who goes to extreme measures to create his zombie film. These extreme measures include shooting in a former testing facility and using an occult ritual to bring real zombies into the mix. The real zombies terrorize the actors and the crew as the mad director sporadically pops in and out shouting "Action". This almost 40 minute short film is of course done in one outstanding take. Due to all the running and chasing if you are a fan of butts more than faces, you will have a pleasant time. Still, this short film is off, there are strange lags where characters jump up from off screen for one reason or another, points where the camera drops and points at the ground, or where long drawn out conversations occur or the action just suddenly stops for an unexplained reason. What could possibly be happening?

Well, this is why when the credits roll early on in the feature you should stay tuned. You see our One Cut meta film, is actually a film within a film. Every thing that can go wrong will go wrong. Higurashi is a small time director living in Japan who specializes in small projects. One day he is scouted by the Zombie channel that is looking to launch it's premier with a very special project. Impressed with Higurashi's signature style "cheap but average", they propose that he be their man. The Zombie Channel wants to do a LIVE ONE TAKE thirty minute short film. After initially taking a moment to realize this insane idea is no joke, Higurashi agrees.

The filming takes way. The cast is difficult, the crew is barely manageable, and Higurashi and his wife are forced by their strange circumstances to take prominent roles in the chaotic picture. Equipment breaks down, improvisations are required, and there is no time for bathroom breaks. "One Cut of the Dead" proves a bizarre testing ground for our likeable rogues and they somehow manage against all odds to pull it off, explaining every quirk and oddity in the short films run time.

Please, please treat yourself and join me in receiving The Benediction.

Best Aspect: All is Revealed

One Cut of the Dead is so frustrating that it's brilliant, and so brilliant that it is frustrating. I want to know so badly if the film we see in the first half, is actually made up of footage that was being shot by the cast as the second half was being filmed, as opposed to being shot like a traditional movie. If so, It would add yet a third level of beautiful meta narrative to this movie.

What is particularly brilliant is that it does not sell itself as a film about film making, but as a much easier film where "it turns out the monsters are real", spoopy doopy stuff. Once you go in expecting that and you see all this surreal amateur stuff happening it keeps you intrigued. Why is the zombie pausing, why did those legs just appear on screen and walk off? Your left wondering what is happening and then the credits roll and the second part of the movie begins.

The second half is hilarious and it's so fun as you have each little mystery resolved and it's never boring but almost always mundane. This is not a horror movie, well it does contain a horror movie, but this is a love letter to all those happy accidents. I particularly love Evil Dead and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a love that is fueled by the chaotic stories that happened behind the scenes. It may be scripted, but One Cut of the Dead gives me all the satisfaction of watching a low budget horror romp, immediately followed by it's charming creation myth.

Worst Aspect: A Hat wearing a Hat

That said, it's strength is also a weakness. It is hard to write about, it's hard to always keep your head straight. This movie is a movie about making a movie about making a movie, it also is contains the movie about making a movie. Are you lost? No? Maybe I'm just dumb. It helps to not try to hard to explain it. And it only takes a little time to keep it all straight, but then again that's asking way more of the audience than most films do. Personally, it's barely even a problem, but that just speaks to how freaking great One Cut of the Dead is.

Best Character: In on the ACTION!

There is not a single character in One Cut of the Dead that is unlikeable, I almost did not give this movie a best character. However after a little bit of thinking I came down to Higurashi or Nao. Oh how I love you Nao, you crazy wild thing. But when it comes down to just candid hopefulness, and a hero that you root for the whole movie, Higurashi is the man. Every time he solves a problem and smiles it just warms my heart. I keep watching to see Higurashi succeed and anxiously anticipate his failure. The satisfaction the audience feels at the completion of this film hinges entirely on whether you want Higurashi to accomplish his herculean task.

Most WTF Moment: POOP!

I'm not even going to explain this one. Just know that there is a line of dialogue that is simply "poop" and it'll get ya.

Most Memorable Shot: Ritual Site

In lieu of a Best Kill category or another Worst category (which is hard to come up with in regards to One Cut), I'd invented the Most Memorable Shot category. It's not the same as a scene because in my minds eye I'm not thinking of a whole sequence. if I were I'd have to give it to the titular one cut. What I mean is a solid shot that sticks with me when I close my eyes and think about this film. And at the conclusion of the film within a film our lead actress is clutching a knife, facing the camera that is staring down at her, and at her feet is a massive pentagram made of blood. It's a really cool image and if you've seen the movie you know how much Higurashi and the crew worked to get that specific image in your mind. You could say out of all the visuals in this movie the pentagram shot is the top of the pyramid.

Summary

Once Cut of the dead is so enjoyable I've watched it 3 times in 2 days. Every time I rewatch it I catch something else. My initial motivation was to see the first segment again with the thought of the second segment in mind, but I just couldn't stop there. This movie is candy. This movie is cocaine. If you love horror films for the artistry (or lack there of) and not just for the scares, then this movie will hit many sweet spots for you. Don't sleep on this. Get a Shudder subscription and watch One Cut of the Dead, and then watch it again.

Overall Grade: A

[makeste]

BnHA Vigilantes Chapters 59 - 65: Emergency Catch-Up Blog

before I start, please be advised that the following post will contain a potential MAJOR SPOILER FOR CHAPTER 253, which has not yet been released! please don’t be an idiot like me and spoil yourselves, guys. stay safe.

but anyways yes, this is my recap post for Those Chapters of Vigilantes. at long last. hooray! by the way this is barely edited at all, on account of it being a rush job (see re: the “Emergency” bit in the header). just some raw, unfiltered, [CENSORED SPOILER THING] thoughts and feelings! hopefully it’s readable; when I have more time I’ll try and clean it up a bit more.

so now, first off, credit where credit is due because omg

bless you anon, you saved my life

but let me backtrack! looool so guys, I did a dumb thing and peeked at a spoiler, and read the name “Shirakumo”, and was like FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK and noped out, but it was too late lol. so then I was like “HOW DO I CATCH UP ON THE ENTIRETY OF VIGILANTES IN LESS THAN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS”, fully aware that I probably wasn’t going to do shit and would most likely just spend tomorrow apologizing and shrugging my way through the new chapter. and by the way guys, I’ll go ahead and throw in one of those apologies now, because I’ve had at least a dozen anons implore me to pick up Vigilantes, and I’m fully aware that Aizawa’s past has been covered (including one (1) cloudy boi), and that it’s really good. I just haven’t had the energy to do it! because reading and liveblogging are two very different things, and the latter just takes so much more time and energy honestly. so I kept putting it off and off and off, and now here I am

but then this ask came along telling me exactly which chapters to read in order to get the context I need! so seriously anon, you are the MVP of my week, and I appreciate this so, so much. I am now off to read those chapters, and I apologize to everyone again, but while I will liveblog them, it’ll probably be kind of a rush job due to the circumstances. like I won’t get into every single detail here, because it’s six whole chapters. but I’ll do my best

hmm I don’t know what constitutes the second half of chapter 59 lol so here I am reading the whole damn thing

AIZAWA BEING FRIENDS WITH MIDNIGHT, AND MIDNIGHT HAS A CAT OH GOSH

looool

personally, Aizawa hated school. he would never ever dream of becoming a teacher. how ridiculous. irrational af

“we’ll have you teaching at U.A. soon enough” psssh. not this man, sister

he’s hanging up on her now. honestly I am glad I did not skip the first part of this chapter lol

some wolfman is chasing the protag of this series whose name I forgot, as well as a little girl and ANOTHER CAT. this series has so many cats?! apparently!?

Aizawa is saving the cat. the hero we deserve

the protag whose name I am about to look up wants to adopt the cat, which prompts Aizawa to launch into a 2500-word essay on why he should not adopt the cat

okay the kid’s name is Koichi. he’s apparently 19 in the series, but I don’t know how old he is in this particular scene though because I have the vague impression that the series at large takes place in present-day BnHA time, which would mean this is definitely a flashback. so. ??

OHO, NOW IT’S A FLASHBACK WITHIN A FLASHBACK!!? so this is the Aizawa past thing everyone’s been all “!!!!” about. well here you go guys

young Shouta is staring at an abandoned kitty in a box in the rain

he left the cat, but also left his umbrella over it, awww

and he arrived at class all wet. and his teacher says he can go change his clothes, but he’s all “NAH I’M EMO SO I’LL JUST STAY LIKE THIS”, wow

“I’m powerless” jesus christ Shou get a grip

here comes Present Mic to forcibly lift his best bud’s spirits. they’re in second year apparently

Present Mic, and I mean this in the most loving and affectionate way possible, is the most annoying man on the planet

how was he not just constantly punched in the face at all times. like constantly walking around being punched by people

well well well

something horrible is sure going to happen to you, isn’t it? here I thought you were probably dead, but I’m kinda getting the inkling [SPOILERS, FOLKS, I’M SERIOUS] you’re gonna maybe show up in the latest chapter of the main series, so I guess not! congratulations I guess?? OR MAYBE NOT

“dammit Shirakumo” oh so it’s like that

their teacher deserves a raise. never thought we’d see another U.A. faculty member more done with life than Aizawa himself

hey Shirakumo is giving Shouta his umbrella back, but what about the cat?! SHIRAKUMO ARE YOU REALLY A NICE GUY, I’M NOT SURE YET

meanwhile he’s stripping naked in the middle of class. oh yes. I forgot Vigilantes was like this

he’s using his cloud quirk to censor himself where it counts

“and inside this cloud... is this charming little creature” lol we think he’s talking about his penis but then he pulls out the cat! WELL NEVER MIND THEN SHIRAKUMO

so Shouta is sitting around thinking emo thoughts that are gradually giving way to some decidedly un-hetero thoughts about Shirakumo, who’s doing that shounen thing where he smiles with his eyes closed while being silhouetted against the bright sun. maaaaan. Aizawa you are hella gay my dude

okay next chapter and they’re being assigned internships

Shirakumo’s hero costume is... well let’s just say it’s a good thing he’s got such a badass quirk

he’s riding around on that cloud like Goku. like a fucking Lakitu from Super Mario

now the teachers are talking about the three boys and whether they’ll be able to land internships

“Yamada shouldn’t have a problem. his voice quirk has applications in battle, rescue, and entertainment. but the boy’s a bit distractible.” okay first of all how the hell would Mic ever rescue a person with his quirk. fucking scream them to safety or what. and second, by distractible you mean punchable right. again, all the love

oh my god he’s so cute

lmao this is seriously my favorite picture of Aizawa ever. GO GETTEM SLUGGER

so Shouta is getting bullied by some guy with a decidedly Katsuki-ish quirk, except he shoots jets of fire out of his hands. but anyway he says that fighting Shouta is boring. SHUT UP, YOU. YOU’RE BORING

Shouta is so emo. but he really does want to be a good hero, he just doesn’t know how. he seems very frustrated

he’s lecturing Kumo on not giving people-food to the cat. and now he has picked up the cat and is cradling and bottle-feeding it like an infant. bless

this manga really has a gag panel of the cat pissing on Shirakumo afterwards, like. see this is another reason why I haven’t exactly been in a rush to read it sob. my sense of humor doesn’t really seem to align with Furuhashi’s

oH MY GOD

high school Midnight is the coolest person I have ever seen and I want to be just like her when I grow up

aaaaand she is literally not wearing any clothes except that belt and those boob-holsters. which, I mean, it’s not like she really dresses any differently in the main series, but this being Vigilantes, I’m sure we’ll get another half a dozen pages showing extreme close-ups of her costume from various angles. again, another area where this series and I don’t quite see eye to eye, but it’s all right since we’re just passing through here

and one year later they wrote a literal law limiting how much exposed skin a hero costume can show. oh Midnight. meanwhile I forgot how much this series makes me appreciate Horikoshi, flaws and all. I’ll take a thousand Minetas over this shit honestly. at least Mineta always gets his comeuppance. but anyway

they have named the cat “Sushi”

Midnight is straight up taking the cat lmao

Yamada got an internship. one down, two to go

Midnight’s back and showing them a video of the cat pooping. one joke about the cat’s bathroom habits in a single chapter was not enough, we’re going for two. not like we have anything more important to cover, like Aizawa getting an internship and something terrible and tragic happening to his boyfriend. let’s just keep talking about cat poop

okay here we go, Midnight says her boss will take them as interns

“Loud Cloud” lmao. home run hero name. GOAT

so Shouta’s chasing a villain and nearly got crushed by a safe that he threw at him, but he’s being saved by some guy who I’m guessing is his boss

oh my

this is the kind of weirdness that only a manga can get away with. I wonder how this idea came into being and whose idea it was, Horikoshi’s or Furuhashi’s. maybe the two of them hitting each other up back and forth in a text chain. “so I’m doing Aizawa’s flashback now, who do you want to have him to intern under?” “hmm I don’t know but I was thinking literally Prince”

Prince is chewing Shouta out something fierce

I thought I was prepared for these Aizawa flashbacks, but some things you can never be prepared for

lol he asked Shouta how he fucked up, and Shouta started listing all of his tactical errors, and Prince interrupted him and is all “I’M TALKIN’ ‘BOUT THAT GLOOMY FACE” listen son just who do you think your intern is. THAT’S JUST HIS FACE LEAVE HIM ALONE

he says Aizawa wears his stress all over his sleeve and bums people out

he’s telling him to smile! now where have we heard that philosophy before

hello

I’m just reblogging this panel because of reasons

so Shouta is sulking in the locker room, and Shirakumo is showering off and says his MO is to keep smiling even when he screws up

now Midnight is texting Shouta 500 cat pictures

lmao we can’t see Shouta’s face, but Kumo is streaking in and is all “THERE’S THAT SMILE, SUNSHINE!!!!”

OH SHIT NOW IT’S A FEW DAYS LATER AND THE VILLAIN IS BACK BUT THIS TIME SHOUTA DONE GOT HIM SOME GOGGLES!! the path from adorable to sexy begins. the Longbottoming

oh shit the goggles belong to Shirakumo. the gayening. and they were roommates

Shouta’s using his quirk!

and the bad guy is all “I don’t need my quirk to crush you” and straight up demolishing the fucking pavement yikes

and Kumo is leaping at him from above and whomping him on the head

yay they caught him. and Shouta is...

he’s trying. they’ll coax a real smile out of him yet! just show him a Youtube compilation of Logical Ruses

now he and Shirakumo have matching pairs of goggles. I’m just gonna assume this means they are married

the fire hands bully guy from earlier is coming over to start some shit again

he says he also realized the importance of eye protection through his internship. and Mic says he stole the idea from him

now the class is partnering off for two-on-two battle training, and Kumo is partnering with Shouta

they’re going up against Mic and Fire Hands, and for some reason they’re making a wager of it. whoever loses has to stop wearing glasses. this is easily the stupidest thing I have seen in this series yet, not to mention the most accurate

Kumo’s grinning at Shouta and saying the goggles symbolize their friendship and they have to defend them. you know, lovable scamp stuff

now Shirakumo and Shouta are double teaming the Fire Hands guy and taking him out in seconds because OF COURSE THEY DID. lol he never fucking stood a chance

but Shouta’s handing the glasses back and says that two-on-one isn’t fair so he’s calling the wager off

aaaand Fire Hands is snatching them back and stomping on them. and says he doesn’t need them

listen you dingus, yes you do fucking need them. and also he says he didn’t lose! wow this guy really has his head up his ass. I’d say he reminds me of a CERTAIN SOMEONE, but you know what, I’ll give Mr. Certain Someone his fair credit though, because he managed to get his shit together long before his second year. Fire Hands still needs to grow up

the teacher is telling him he missed the point of the exercise, and FH is literally ignoring him and running off wow

apparently Mic also gave up his sunglasses and got himself a pair of goggles. well we know that’s not gonna last. and for that matter, Shouta’s gonna change out his goggles for a different model as well. ohhhhh some tragedy is on the horizon I just know it, this is gonna hurt

Shirakumo says the three of them should start their own agency. ahhh. buddy I’m here reading this from the future, and I gotta tell you, son... shit’s awkward as fuck

and he’s pointing out all the different ways they complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses

Shouta says he can’t do anything on his own, but Kumo says that just means he’s suited to teamwork

Kumo’s inviting Midnight to join them, but she’s declining lol

Shouta’s looking at the sky all dramatically. oh baby this is it isn’t it. things are about to get rough

“one week later”

NOO THEY HURT MY PRECIOUS PRINCE

SOMEONE IS CALLING FOR BACKUP AND THE CAMERA IS ZOOMING IN ON A BUSTED UP PAIR OF GOGGLES, FUCK EVERYTHING

now we’re cutting to Mic and Fire Hands and FH replaced his sunglasses with a pair of goggles. goggles are just the in thing now

Fire Hands talks about Aizawa so much I’m starting to ship the two of them now as well. damn Shouta how many high school boyfriends did you have??

so they’re fighting off some toad monster and it’s absorbing all their attacks

meanwhile Shouta and Kumo are literally helping kindergartners to cross the street

look at this

it’s beyond my comprehension how anyone could possibly mistake this man for anything but a future teacher

even Kumo is commenting on how natural he is at working with kids

oH MY GOD the kids waved goodbye and said “bye Eraserhead” and it prompted a little smile

Kumo says Shouta psychs himself out and convinces himself he can’t do stuff, but really he can do just about anything if he puts his mind to it. aww. and he’s right!!

oh shit here comes the toad

so this toad’s name is Garvey, and he’s literally wanted for murder oh shit. and he has a Fatgum-like quirk that can absorb attacks and store them up to release them

and some idiots hit him with a combined attack that ended up powering him the fuck up. well shit

so Prince is placing a rose in between his teeth and getting ready to fight this toad off. do it I believe in you

now a lot is happening all at once, jesus. Shouta and Kumo were trying to evacuate the kids but then the toad just appeared right there like wtf, and then Prince also showed up out of nowhere and went to hit the thing with a flying jump kick

aaaand he’s getting blasted into a building

oof. and getting even further blasted now. welp

Kumo’s protecting the kiddos with his Nimbus quirk!

OH FUCKING SHIT AND THEN HE GOT CRACKED IN THE HEAD BY A GIANT FALLING ROCK

um

is this bitch fucking dead now. I can’t believe they fucking Obitoed my bro Shirakumo

so now the toad is looming over them, and Shouta realizes he’s the only one left standing, and all his doubts are filtering into his mind as he desperately tries to think of how to stop him

and Shirakumo’s... gourd... thing... is klunking in out of nowhere, and it has a little speaker on it, and it’s all “YOU GOT THIS AIZAWA” and wtf. this is like something out of a weird fever dream

OH SHIT BOYS AIZAWA SHOUTA DONE GOT HIS GAME FACE ON NOW

THE LONGBOTTOMING CONTINUES

so now he’s leaping fifty feet into the air, somehow, and thinking that his Erasure quirk will at least level the playing field. well all right then! you go boy

now it’s raining and of course bolts of lightning are dramatically hitting the ground all around them

Shouta’s kicking off the lil power toad lumps one by one lol

literally just jumping all around and kickin’ stuff

oof he took a bad hit. but he’s sitting back up!

Kumo’s disembodied gourd voice keeps shouting encouragement at him though, idk. so there’s that

he says Shouta’s strong and he won’t lose, and Shouta is all “RAHHHHHHH.” you guys, if 1-A ever found out about this flashback they would never let the man live it down. hell I’m not gonna let him live it down. okay then. Mr. RAHHHHHH

he’s doing some weird stuff with his capture weapon now. I think maybe he grabbed a rock with it and chucked it at the guy

and now the guy is shooting all his toad lumps at Shouta all at once! WELL ALL RIGHT THEN

yooooo Shouta literally grabbed them all with the capture weapon and he’s CHUCKIN’ EM ALL INTO THE DUDE’S MOUTH Y’ALL THIS IS SOME REAL FUCKING SHIT LMAO GET WRECKED

so the guy is blowing up from the inside out. yeah that’s what you get for murdering Shouta’s childhood friend you piece of shit

and Shouta’s collapsing in exhaustion but happily shouting “SHIRAKUMO I DID IT” before he passes out. oh my god don’t tell me Kumo is already dead and Shouta just hallucinated his voice or some shit. THEN WHO WAS GOURD omg

oooooof here we go

[places both hands on Shouta’s shoulders and looks him dead in the eye] son I don’t know how to tell you this, but Shirakumo has been dead for twenty years

wow can someone just fucking tell Shouta already so he stops depressing everyone and making an idiot out of himself. geez how long are you all gonna stand around despondently shooting knowing looks at each other in the rain

so they’re picking up the gourd speaker thing and OF COURSE it’s visibly broken and there’s no possible way Kumo’s voice could have been coming out of it. especially since he has been dead for twenty years. here’s a picture of his grave. oh shit what’s that little grave right next to his?? OH MY GOD IT’S THE CAT. OH MY GOD

oh fuck me

Y’ALL REALLY DID THESE BABIES LIKE THAT. HORIKOSHI!! FURUHASHI!! GET OVER HERE RIGHT NOW I WANT A WORD!!

so now Fire Hands, who is trying his best to be comforting but is just SO BAD AT IT, is all “Aizawa you went toe to toe with this thing and beat it YOURSELF!! ALL ALONE!!!” jesus christ I need a minute

OH DAMN A CALLBACK TO THE RAIN “THIS KINDA FITS OUR VIBE RIGHT NOW” LINE but now it’s saaaaaaaad oh no

I mean. I knew going in that this was going to be Aizawa’s sad childhood flashback about his friend Shirakumo whom something very terrible happened to. it’s not like I’m even surprised. I knew what I was getting myself into here. but damn that still hurts

do you guys think that having a permanent image of his best friend forever immortalized as a cheerful seventeen-year-old, and being forever haunted by the memory of that seventeen-year-old being cut down in the prime of his life, might have given Aizawa Shouta lasting trauma which carried over into his adulthood and makes him do desperately reckless things when children are at risk, such as leaping into battle against an army of villains all alone. dammit now I want to grab every single problem child of 1-A and shake them roughly and scream at them for all the sleepless nights they have doubtless caused this man

so now here he and Mic are both being sad

aww Mic. I’m sorry I keep wanting to punch you in the face. it’s just reflex

and now it’s one year later and the class is gearing up for the sports festival

well look who is almost fully done with his metamorphosis

you will soon be a beautiful butterfly

he is literally going to sleep in the middle of class. well depression makes people tired. sigh

he’s got his familiar goggles now! and he’s kicking FH’s ass and lecturing him on how to fight better. damn his character development is complete

and he’s helping FH to his feet aww. definitely boyfriends. this man gets around

his teachers now say that Shouta has gotten too complacent, if anything, and phones everything in once he knows he’s got a passing grade, and only gets passionate when it comes to practical exercises

and now we’re cutting to the gym and Shouta is indeed training passionately while Mic sits in the corner looking bummed. all these kids have been through far too much in their young lives

Shouta’s handing in his career aspiration form, and he wrote that he wants to start his own agency and focus on “fighting, and nothing else”

his scruffy facial hair is already starting to come in now. it’s true what they say, having a tragic past does indeed make you hotter

anyways but can we get this boy a hug!? anybody?? hello??!?

now they’re graduating and Shouta is disappearing in a poof of smoke and now there’s this big panel with flashbacks to his career up to the current point in Vigilantes!

and we’re back in the ~present~ and he’s telling Koichi to take good care of that cat. aaaand, I guess that’s that. geez. that was a lot

so there you go! the Aizawa flashbacks! they were very sad! all in all I really enjoyed them! so now, if Shirakumo isn’t actually dead (seeing as it’s a shounen manga that pays homage to comic books, so safe to say that People Not Actually Being Dead is a Certified Phenomenon, like it’s definitely a THING THAT CAN SOMETIMES HAPPEN), well then. tomorrow’s chapter is sure going to be interesting to say the least. lulz but maybe I’ve got it all wrong though. guess I’ll find out!