#i know its been 86 years (well. one and a half) since we planned this trip but i really hope that i can make it happen soon

[danielxricciardo]

Prompts

1. "Hi, my ex just walked in. Would you hold my hand please?"

2. "I didn't expect to see you here."

3. "Have you seen this dog?"

4. “That mouth of yours, does it ever stop making noise”

5. “Seven minutes in heaven is for virgin teenagers”

6. “Slam that door one more time and I’ll shove my foot straight up your cute ass”

7. “Jesus! Knock next time would you”

8. “You have money go and get yourself a hoodie that’s not mine”

9. "I hate roses, I thought you knew"

10. "Do you think I am an angel? Ha"

11. "I wanted to sleep but someone decided to die"

12. "I can kill you right now, what are you talking about?"

13. "Hi, I am lost, can you come after me?"

14. "When I first saw you I wanted to date your best friend"

15. "I am so funny and you are just jealous"

16. "If I have to choose... no"

17. "Stop breathing like that!"

18. "I just did my nails"

19. "I'm the best driver în the world"

20. "Will you marry me?" "No"

21. "I think I broke my arm" "So?"

22. "I think I love you" "Thanks"

23. "My arms are lonely, don't you think?"

24. "Apparently we are dating"

25. “Well it’s kind of hard to move when you’re sitting on my lap”

26. "Those things you said yesterday, did you mean them?"

27. "If we elope, you think they'll kill us?"

28. "This is yours"

29. "You can’t just kiss me, laugh and then walk away."

30. "Are you using ass as a pillow?"

31." I find your lack of faith disturbing."

32. "And I took it personally"

33. "In here I am the boss"

34. "Oh, bite me!" "Where?"

35. "What will you do if we break up?"

36. "Where is my T-shit?"

37. "This is no time for sarcastic comments."  "There is always time for sarcastic comments."

38. "I’ll keep quiet, you won’t even know I’m here."

39. "The way you flirt is just awful"

40. "Don’t be fooled. I’m the epitome of mess."

41. " If you are on TV should I congratulate you?"

42. "And this, is why we can’t have nice things."

43. "That's what he said"

44. "I am scared of your boss"

45. "You should know, a lot of girls have a crush on me"

46. "Everyone is afraid of you"

47. "If I'm watching that movie one more time I'll lose my fucking mind!"

48. "I thought being on vacation will be stress free"

49. "My parents don't trust you"

50. "I don't think I should give my last name so easily"

51. “I really wish I could unsee that.”

52. “Who would’ve guessed we’d be sharing a room.”

53. “I feel like you have an unhealthy obsession with me.”

54. “Nah he’s fine, it’s the other one you really got to watch out for.”

55. “I have a suggestion.” “I’m not taking my clothes off so forget it.”

56. “You’re the genius, why don’t you tell me?”

57. “Have I ever told you your accent makes me swoon?” “Really?” “No.” He/she smiles. “ that’s why I’ve never told you.”

58. “I’m alive? How am I still alive?”

59. “You’re crazy! I love it!”

60. “Never have I ever is about to get a lot more interesting.”

61. “What did they do?” “Dude. They did the do.”

62. "You can’t keep pretending it didn’t happen, cause guess what? It did!"

63. "Well this is awkward."

64. "Im too sober for this."

65. "Im pregnant." "Wall done, Virgin Mary!"

66. " I want to protect you."

67. "Kill that spider and maybe I'll forgive you"

68. "I have no one to go to the wedding"

69. "Don’t you dare touch _______!"

70. "I thought you were dead!"

71. "This is, without a doubt, the stupidest plan you’ve ever had. Of course I’m in."

72. "Take care of you, please"

73. "If your best friend single?"

74. "Just remember, if we get caught, you’re deaf and I don’t speak English."

75. "Why does everyone assume we're a couple?"

76. "Im craving something sweet" "Are you pregnant or something?"

77. " What is the magic word?" "I'll kill you în your sleep"

78. "When I see you my knees get weak"

79. "Finally you're single. Can I take you on a date?"

80. " So, I guess you don’t do after hours?"

81. "I know what I'm doing, I've watched two whole seasons of Grey's Anatomy."

82. "I can't believe I'm stuck here with you right now."

83. "Okay, this did not go as I planned it in the shower."

84. "I'm not going to sit around and watch you destroy yourself."

85. "You were my best friend"

86. "You did what?"

87. "Can you just pretend to love me for a second!"

88. "You are enough"

89. "Take the shirt off"

90. "Your nickname is bitch"

91. "What do you want to watch?" "You"

92. "How could you ask me that?"

93. "Your mouth does this thing and I can't resist it"

94. "Are you allowed to drink?"

95. "I said Im done, leave me alone!"

96. "Don’t raise your fucking voice at me”

97. “Yeah, I remember the drill”

98. “Tell me again, slowly this time, why that dog is in my bed.”

99. “Gave you so much, but it wasn’t enough.”

100. “You and me, we were destined to fall apart.”

101. “No, you don’t know who you are until somebody breaks your heart.”

102. “I want to tell you everything. The words I never got to say the first time around.”

103. “It’s better to feel pain, than nothing at all.”

Song lyrics prompts

1. “It’s the little things about us, that I love so much.”

2. “Last night I told you I loved you // woke up blamed it on the vodka”

3. “It’s a better place since you came along”

4. “You make me love the things I hate  “

5. Just a paper sheet and half a cigarette are left in my hand

6. Your faith walks on broken glass

7. "And can you teach me how to dance real slow?"

8. "I'll throw away my faith, babe, just to keep you safe"

9. "One night, you won't forget the rest of your life"

10. "We only said goodbye with words"

11. "I'll try to give you love until the day you drop"

12. "I like the pretty boys with the bow tie"

13. "Lets get drunk forget what we did"

14. Your kisses lift me higher

15. When you're ready we can share the wine

16. "And if you don't love me now you will never love me again"

17. "Why'd you have to go and make things so complicated?"

18. "When there's nothing to lose and there's nothing to prove"

19. She's the kind of girl who only asks you over when its raining, just to make you lie there catching water dripping from the ceiling.

20. Now I understand, you're a human, and you got to lie, you're a man

21. The good and the bad times: we've been through them all.

22. Now I ain't educated but I sure ain't stupid

23. I grew up in the shoes they told me I could fill

24. It's hard to say that I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep

25. A lover would just complicate my plans

26. And in the morning, i’ll be with you, but it will be a different kind

27. My heart is yours, it’s you that i hold on to

28. And with one kiss, you inspired a fire of devotion that lasts for twenty years

29. I let go of my claim on you, it’s a free world

30. I’m in my bed, and you’re not here and there’s no one to blame, but the drink in my wandering hands

31. Cause you gave me peace and i wasted it, I’m here to admit that you were my medicine

32. Oh, dear diary, i met a boy, he made my doll heart light up with joy. Oh, dear diary, we fell apart, welcome to the life of electra heart

33. For you, I would cross the line, I would waste my time, I would lose my mind

34. Is it really me you're missing?

35. Remember that night?

36. How many times can I break till I shatter?

37. As long as I breathe, I’ll call you my home

38. "You wouldn't know love if it crushed your fucking chest."

39. "When we scream our lips don't make a sound."

40. "Please don't let me sink, wrap your arms around me and carry me home."

41. "This hasn't torn us apart so nothing ever will."

42. "A long time ago we believed that we were united."

43. "I miss the person that you were but I don't miss you."

44. "If home is where the heart is, why do I feel so fucking heartless?"

45. "I can't live, I can't breathe with or without you just go away."

46. "I'm not afraid to die, I'm afraid I'll survive and have to watch you suffer."

47. "I wanna hold you high and steal your pain away."

48. "I'm not like you I just fuck up."

49. "All because of you I believe in angels, not the kind with wings, no not the kind with halos. The kind that bring you home when home becomes a strange place."

50. "I just want to go to sleep and never wake up again."

51. “I wish people liked me more.”

52. “How could I ever love someone else?”

53. “I guess you’re getting everything you want.”

54. “She probably gives you butterflies.”

55. “I hope that you’re okay.”

56. “I defended you to all my friends.”

57. “I never cared about what they say, only care about me and you” 

58. “Either way i’m gonna lose, so i’m just gonna keep on loving you”

59. “You know i’m bad at communication, it’s the hardest thing for me to do”

60. “Iwas your lover, i was your friend, now I’m only just someone you call when it’s late enough to forget”

61. “It’s fucked up but it’s true that i love you like i do”

62. “Well we both had nights waking up in strangers beds but i don’t wanna, don't wanna, i don’t wanna give up yet”

63. “Tell me I’ve got it wrong somehow.”

64. “I’m begging for you to take my hand.”

65. “I can’t make it go away by making you the villain.”

66. “He feels like home.”

67. “I’d be breaking all my rules to see you.”

68. “But I know you’re not scared of anything at all.”

69. “When can I come back?”

70. “I’m ready to owe you anything”

71. “I’ll always look best in your head”

72. “I know you know it’s wrong, but I’m ready”

73. “All I ever want is breaking me apart.”

74. “Let's talk sweetly like all our love is false.”

75. “You put a fire in my heart, painted blood on my stars, gave me faith.”

76. “I wanna meet your girlfriend, she sounds nice.”

77. “How is kissing me so wrong?“

78. “Can’t you see that I’m already yours?”

79. “I’ve been losing track of the romantic sh*t I’m tryna say but basically I love you"

80. “I don’t wanna be your friend, I wanna kiss your lips, I wanna kiss you until I lose my breath”

81. “I apologize for all your tears, I wish I could be different but I’m still growing up into the one you can call your love” 

82. “I’m out of my head, of my heart, of my mind cause you can run but you can’t hide, I’m gonna make you mine”

83. "I never loved someone the way that I love you"

84. "It's the way that you know what I thought I knew, it's the beat that my heart skips when I'm with you"

85. "I hope she gettin' better sex, hope she ain't fakin' it like I did, babe"

86. “I know we’re young and people change and we may never feel the same”

87. “I can’t change the world, but maybe I’ll change your mind”

88. "You don't own me. Don't tie me down 'cause I'd never stay."

89. "Leave everything that is worth a single cent and just take me instead."

90. "And then I got you off your knees, put you right back on your feet, just so you can take advantage of me."

91. "Hey, I can't let you go with nobody. Cause I love you, baby."

92. "Tell me that it wasn't my fault and that I was enough for you."

93. "We were good at faking forever, I get it, whatever."

94. "Cause you had your chance and you blew it. Yeah, you ripped it up and you chewed it."

95. "Well, I'm too busy for your business. Go find a girl who wants to listen."

96. "Stop looking at me with those eyes, like I could disappear and you wouldn't care why."

97. "Oh, we could do whatever you want, but boy, don't go falling in love, you can't stay with me, all you'll ever have is one day with me"

98. "I pray the medication slow me down, but that shit doesn't work when you're around"

99. "Told her that I loved her once and now she'd kill for me"

100. "What the tell were we? Tell me we weren't just friends"

Who I write for

Formula 1

Daniel Ricciardo

Lewis Hamilton

Max Verstappen

Charles Leclerc

Esteban Ocon

Carlos Sainz

Lando Norris

Lance Stroll

Sebastian Vettel

Mick Schumacher

Pierre Gasly

George Russel

Football

Erling Haaland

Jadon Sancho

Giovanni Reyna

Jude Bellingham

Julian Brandt

Marco Reus

Roman Bürki

Emre Can

Mats Hummels

Leon Goretzka

Joshua Kimmich

Kai Havertz

Mason Mount

Christian Pulisici

Ben Chilwell

Gerard Pique 

João Félix

Ianis Hagi

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain

Trent Alexander-Arnold

Virgil van Dijk

Jens Petter Hauge

Martin Ødegaard

Alexander Sørloth

[aperrywilliams]

New blurbs-series: 10 days to my birthday!! (Day 4)

(Not my gif)

Author Masterlist - Series Masterlist

My birthday will be in 4 days from now. So I’m going to celebrate myself with 10 Spencer Reid’s blurbs. Enjoy! (This one is longer too)

Day 10 | Day 09 | Day 08 | Day 07 | Day 06 | Day 05 | Day 04 | Day 03 | Day 02 | Day 01

Day 04: Spencer Reid kiss you for the first time.

Tiredness washed over your body after recently finishing a grueling case. Apparently the serial killers were having a feast across the country, and it had the team working overtime for several weeks now.

You accepted the fact job was like this sometimes. The whole team knew and accepted it too. But at this point, all of you just wanted was to get home and sleep until next year.

You were getting on the elevator when you saw Spencer jog to catch up with you.

“(Y/N)! Wait !,” the young doctor told you before the door closed. You managed to stop it and he managed to get on.

“Sorry Spencer, I didn't see you coming,” you apologized.

“Don't worry, I didn't mean to scare you,” he muttered.

“It’s okay. I guess sleepiness has us all drained.” Spencer nodded.

With Spencer things were going well, although it was a strange thing. Until that day you had two ‘pseudo dates’. The term ‘pseudo’ applies because none of the two could reach term as you both had been originally planned.

The first date was dinner at a fancy restaurant that Spencer insisted on taking you. Despite the fancy of the place, you guys managed to relax and have a good time. That, combined with the adoring looks you both exchanged from time to time. Everything was going smoothly until your phones began to ring. A new case forced you guys to finish the lovely evening and rush to the BAU.

The second date was a week and a half after the first. You suggested something more relaxed to Spencer: go see a movie and then eat something at a nearby restaurant. Everything was going well during the movie, you both even held hands at times. As you guys were leaving the theater, Spencer's phone began to ring insistently. It was a call from the sanitarium where his mother was in Vegas, where they required him to contact her as soon as possible. It wasn't anything serious, but it was important, which is why Spencer apologized to you for ending the date early. You understood and tried not to make him feel bad about it.

The elevator reached the floor where the parking lots were. The doors opened and you both got out of the elevator.

“(Y/N)... I was thinking. I know we're both very tired now, but... maybe tonight we could have our third date... and... maybe now we can finish it?”. You smirked at the statement. Clearly Spencer looked as frustrated as you that you both couldn't have had a proper date so far. Although it was strange to think of it that way: what was an appropriate date after all?

“Sure we can. Tonight is okay for me. What do you want to do?”. You asked Spencer. He blushed a little and cleared his throat before speaking.

“Ehm, I thought it might be a surprise?... if that's okay with you”. You could feel your heart race after hearing his words.

“Oh. Ehm, that's fine. If you want it to be a surprise, that's fine with me,” you replied.

“Great! Can I pick you up at 8 pm?”. He asked happily.

“Yeah. Perfect. At 8 pm I'll be ready,” you replied with a big grin.

It was around 2 pm when you arrived at your place. That left you plenty of time for a little nap and getting ready for your date with Spencer. Almost out of inertia you dropped into bed and quickly fell asleep. You woke up around 6 in the afternoon. You took a shower and started getting ready. You didn't know if you should go for very fancy clothes, since you didn't even know where Spencer would take you, so you chose something that could fit different scenarios.

When you were ready, you looked in the mirror and were satisfied with the result. You went to the kitchen for a soda when your phone started ringing. You looked at the time and it was 7:30 pm. You frowned when you saw that the caller was Hotch.

“Hotch?,” you answered.

“(Y/L/N), sorry to call at this time, but we have an urgent case in Tucson, Arizona. See you on the tarmac in 30 minutes”.

More than one expletive came out of your mouth in record time once you finished the call with Hotch. The minute you got a message from Spencer. ‘I guess Hotch already called you. I'm sorry. SR’.

Defeated you went to your room and changed into your work clothes. You took your bag and left the apartment.

You just exchanged a few glances with Spencer on the jet. You didn't even want to sit next to him this time. You knew you were being unfair to him, after all it wasn't his fault. But you didn't know how to channel your frustration, so you preferred to isolate yourself from the rest during the entire flight.

Spencer knew you were upset and didn't know what to do to make amends for the situation. It wasn't his or your fault, but he felt responsible anyway. While studying the case file, Spencer couldn't help but look where you were sitting and see how your gaze was lost in the clouds the jet caressed with its wings.

The case had you all four days in the search for an elusive unsub. But finally, you managed to locate his hiding place and make the arrest with no more victims to regret.

It was around 7 pm when you finished the paperwork at the police station. According to your estimate, that would allow you all to be on the jet at 8 pm and travel at night. You could at least sleep a few hours during the flight. But if things had not turned out the way you wanted for weeks, this was no exception: Hotch approached to the team in the meeting room and announced that the jet had a malfunction, so you would have to stay one more day in Tucson and fly the next day. You couldn't help a weary sigh and grab your things by quickly leaving the room. The whole team stared at you curiously, but you no longer cared. You just wanted to go home and sink into your mattress, cover yourself up to your head and disappear the world for at least a week.

Spencer came out looking for you and found you before you got into one of the SUVs to go to the hotel.

“Wait!”. He said to make you stop. “I'm going with you. And... let me drive, I don't think it's a good idea for you to drive while being so upset”. You thought about it for two seconds and yes, he was right. You handed him the keys and climbed into the passenger seat.

“I'm sorry Spencer, maybe I made a scene in there, but I'm just tired. I just want to get out of here...,” you trailed off.

“I know. And I'm sorry our third date was ruined too”. He tried to apologize. Your eyes softened.

“Don't apologize Spencer, things just haven't worked out, but it's not your fault. Maybe it's a sign?...”. You tried to joke. Spencer frowned.

“Don't say that. I'm not going to stop insisting until it works!”. You both started laughing.

When you saw that Spencer turned right instead of left on one of the avenues on the way to the hotel, you thought he was confused.

“Spencer... the hotel is on the other side, you turned right instead of left...,” you corrected him.

“Oh...,” was all he said, but he made no move to change the route. What's more, you were surprised to see that he took Highway 86 to the west.

“We're not going to the hotel, are we?”. You asked. You could see a small smirk on Spencer's face.

“Nope. Maybe I might have a surprise for you?,” he said making a brief eye contact with you before turning his gaze back to the road.

“Oh”. It was the only thing you said. Your heart began to pound in anticipation. What was going on in Spencer's head at the time? You asked yourself.

After almost an hour of travel, with the sun already disappearing and many curves in the road, you saw a sign that said "Kitt Peak National Observatory". Spencer began to speak.

“Well, I may have had to change some of the original plans I had for our third date, I hope you don't mind,” he said simply, as he parked the SUV.

Once out of the car, Spencer took your hand and led you towards one of the buildings where there was a guard at the entrance.

“Good evening, I’m Dr. Spencer Reid, I spoke with Dr. Hammond this afternoon for a visit...”. The guard looked at his tablet and nodded, smiling, opening the door letting you and Spencer in, and leading them up the stairs to a terrace.

“Dr. Hammond apologizes for not being able to be with you tonight, but is certain that you can have a good evening here. Whatever you need I will be at the entrance.”

You were stunned, the terrace was an open space that allowed you to see the sky in all its splendor. In the center was a small folding table with two chairs, a makeshift tablecloth, two glasses, a jug of fresh water, a small bottle of wine, and two sandwiches. Looking at Spencer he smiled at you.

“I guess this area is not open to the public at night and less with the possibility of an improvised dinner...,” you told him.

“Well, my friend Dr. Hammond may have made a slight exception. But say ‘dinner’, however, I think would be an exaggeration,” Spencer said, pointing to the two sandwiches.

“This is better than what I expected to eat at the hotel, so it does qualify as dinner for me,” you said taking his hand and squeezing it gently. He looked at you with adoring eyes without letting go of your hand.

“I'm sorry that our previous dates were ruined (Y/N), I've wished they were perfect so much and seeing you as frustrated as I am makes me sad”.

“Don't say that. In the end the idea is to spend time together and although our previous dates have not gone as planned, every minute that I can be with you counts for me”. You could see how his eyes shone in the light of the stars that seemed so close. Spencer never stopped looking at you and with his free hand began to caress one of your cheeks.

“I like you so much (Y/N), I don't know how I could go so long without being able to tell you, just like I don't know how I could last so long without doing this...,” he whispered to you.

“'This' what?”. You asked without even wanting to blink.

“This...,” Spencer repeated in a whisper barely audible to you, as he leaned in slowly until his lips brushed yours. You could feel how your whole body was electrified by the sensation. Spencer's soft, warm lips barely parted from yours. He expected to see your reaction, begging you not to reject him or feel uncomfortable. To prove otherwise, you let go of his hand and wrapped your arms around his neck to draw him closer to you. 

That was the invitation Spencer needed to now kiss you properly. You both got lost in that moment you waited for so long. It was perfect. You realized that this kiss could have been anywhere and it would have been just as perfect. The stars above your heads only made it more magical than it already was. But it was not the important thing. The important thing was that Spencer kissed you for the first time and you kissed him back. And that fortunately this time nothing would break the moment because on that terrace, the cell phones signals weren’t working.

——

Permanent Taglist: @dreatine​​ @andiebeaword​​ @paulaern​

[hartsgold]

𝐀𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐨. 𝐕𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐥𝐨. 𝐎𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫.

𝚖𝚢 𝚗𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝚌𝚕𝚊𝚞𝚍𝚎 𝚟𝚘𝚗 𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚐𝚊𝚗. 𝚒 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚔 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚒𝚛𝚘𝚜 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚝𝚞𝚝𝚎, 𝚏𝚘𝚍𝚕𝚊𝚗, 𝚊𝚗 𝚘𝚛𝚐𝚊𝚗𝚒𝚣𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚍𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚊𝚌𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚖𝚒𝚌 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚑 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚎𝚜𝚘𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚌 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚘𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚕. 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚝𝚞𝚝𝚎, 𝚛𝚑𝚎𝚊, 𝚑𝚊𝚜 𝚎𝚖𝚙𝚕𝚘𝚢𝚎𝚍 𝚖𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚛𝚎𝚙𝚕𝚊𝚌𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚑𝚒𝚟𝚒𝚜𝚝, 𝚠𝚑𝚘 𝚑𝚊𝚜 𝚛𝚎𝚌𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚕𝚢 𝚙𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚍 𝚊𝚠𝚊𝚢.

i’ve been working as a researcher at the institute for four years now, and am familiar with most of our significant contracts and projects. most reach dead ends, predictably enough, as incidents of the supernatural, such as they are - and i always emphasize there are very few genuine cases - tend to resist easy conclusions. when an investigation has gone as far as it can, it is transferred to the archives.

now, the institute was founded in 1818, which means that the archive contains almost 200 years of case files at this point. combine that with the fact that most of the institute prefers the ivory tower of pure academia to the complicated work of dealing with statements or recent experiences and you have the recipe for an impeccably organized library and an absolute mess of an archive. this isn’t necessarily a problem - modern filing and indexing systems are a real wonder, and all it would need is a half-decent archivist to keep it in order. my predecessor was apparently not that archivist.

from where I am sitting, i can see thousands of files. many spread loosely around the place, others crushed into unmarked boxes. a few have dates on them or helpful labels such as 86-91 G/H. not only that, but most of these appear to be handwritten or produced on a typewriter with no accompanying digital or audio versions of any sort. in fact, i believe the first computer to ever enter this room is the laptop that i brought in today. more importantly, it seems as though little of the actual investigations have been stored in the archives, so the only thing in most of the files are the statements themselves.

it is going to take me a long, long time to organize this mess. i’ve managed to secure the services of several researchers to assist me. I plan to digitize the files as much as possible and record audio versions, though some will have to be on tape recorder, as my attempts to get them on my laptop have met with… significant audio distortions.

that’s probably enough time spent making my excuses for the state of this place, and i suppose we have to begin somewhere.

𝚊𝚞𝚍𝚒𝚘 𝚛𝚎𝚌𝚘𝚛𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚋𝚢 𝚌𝚕𝚊𝚞𝚍𝚎 𝚟𝚘𝚗 𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚐𝚊𝚗, 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚑𝚒𝚟𝚒𝚜𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚒𝚛𝚘𝚜 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚝𝚞𝚝𝚎, 𝚏𝚘𝚍𝚕𝚊𝚗.

𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙩𝙨: photography / texture art / tma s01e01 blurb & transcription. 

Hello! If you’re reading this, welcome to the hell that is The Seiros Archives. I’m hoping to make this as comprehensive a series translation as possible without integrating too many spoilers/telling the stories of characters that aren’t mine (save Sothis and Rhea, who seemed lore-mandatory additions). For example, I don’t have a character to fulfill [Gertrude/the past Archivist’s] position, simply because I can’t think of one and would prefer not to kill anyone off that might want to use this as an AU base. (Feel free to, btw! Just let me know/tag me in your verse thoughts, I’m so excited to read ‘em!) 

Spoilers below. Additionally: please peruse the Wiki pages with caution. There’s a trigger list for TMA episodes/general content warnings located here. 

Essentially: 

The Seiros Archives is an institution that’s existed for two centuries, currently under the jurisdiction of one Rhea, who claims to have come into control of it within the last decade or so. Obviously, this is not true. Rhea’s been alive since the founding of this institute, as she had it built order to resurrect Sothis/The Beginning/The Beholding, [her mother]. 

Sothis is both a God and not. In TMA, Gods are also known as ‘The Entities’, or The Fears. They are described, on the wiki, as such: 

The Entities are various aspects of an amorphous force of fear that exists next to reality. Their influence upon reality manifests as supernatural happenings - all supernatural phenomena in the world are simply extensions of them. These phenomena can take various forms such as people, animals, monsters, books, objects, or places.These entities do not simply feed off of our fear, rather they are our fears made manifest. “These things... these forces, they are our fear. Deep fears. Primordial. Always looking for ways to grow and spread.” Not all their actions inspire fear, they are simply a part of the process, a means to an end. (cont. This link includes a list of the Fears and should be read with caution, as there is some horror imagery, etc.)

In this verse, I’m going to conflate Sothis with The Eye, or The Ceaseless Watcher. She is an Entity of Fear manifested specifically as “being watched, exposed, followed, of having secrets known, but also the drive to know and understand, even if your discoveries might destroy you. Fear that you’re suffering for the sake of something watching.” I think her relationship with being able to control the flow of time and know results of the past and future translate well here. It’s terrifying to consider someone who Knows what might happen in the far future can directly alter it as well. 

Let’s say that Sothis’ “death” in this verse was a failed “Ritual” of The Eye. Centuries ago, Rhea attempted to bring her mother’s Entity to full power above all the others. 

Rituals are ceremonies held in order to empower The Entities. “Most entities have their own ‘ritual’, a symbolic act that, if completed, will allow the entity to merge with reality, changing the fabric of the world as it exert its will and nature upon reality. These rituals have the potential to bring other closely-tied entities along with it. It requires centuries for each Entity to build up the power needed for its ritual, and if it is stopped, it cannot try again until it rebuilds that power base. No ritual has ever succeeded” (x). 

When Rhea’s Ritual for The Eye was thwarted, the Entity lost a great sum of its garnered power. I imagine she was an Avatar of the fear, and her connection with her mother was severed to an extent. As a result, she began to construct the Seiros Institute as a means of rebuilding power for the sake of The Eye. 

Avatars are essentially vessels for spreading the influence of The Entities. “Some humans can become attached to an Entity and become empowered by it, gaining supernatural abilities related to their patron, but losing some or all of their humanity in the process. Most people fall to the powers through love or fear, though it can happen for other reasons such as debt. Avatars and agents of a power retain their agency but can become physically dependent on it, suffering withdrawal effects, including death, if they go too long without feeding the entity that empowers them” (x). 

People influenced by, or who encounter Avatars are often Marked by them, and other Entities alongside their Avatars can sense this fact.

In building The Seiros Institute, Rhea hopes to give Sothis enough power through a ritual to “merge with reality”/live again/to be able to communicate with her once more. 

The former hired Archivist stopped countless Rituals of The Entities, and was eventually killed as a result of attempting to quell Rhea’s efforts.

There are tunnels underneath the institute in canon, which I’m going to say is the equivalent of the Holy Tomb. 

Characters, once employed by The Institute, are unable to quit/be fired. Literally. This is a canon mechanic, where they can’t even say the words. 

TL;DR: This is set in a modern Fódlan. I imagine it as something of a large city interconnected with several other neighboring states, such as Almyra, Brigid, Dagda, etc. 

Are there tense relations between these places? Of course! Is The Empire probably allied with a different Entity and is aggravated that Rhea is doing what she’s doing? Very likely! Are Those Who Slither In The Dark likely allied with one as well, or are experimenting on people in the attempt to complete a Ritual? Why Not! 

The Entities create very viciously real manifestations of their respective fears, so people have supernatural encounters of all kinds. Vampires––weird lore, but yes. People being replaced by doppelgängers––Oh, Yeah. Circus people who steal voice boxes and dance around with mannequin limbs? Uh huh. Worms? Don’t forget the worms. As weird as you can think of it! 

So this modern Fódlan is rife with the eccentric and the supernatural. At the moment, The Seiros Institute is simply an academic place set on recording and understanding those supernatural occurrences! 

I’m setting Khalid as the current archivist because he seems the appropriate “linchpin” figure that Jon is in the main series, having been marked by several Entities. As the most knowledge and balance-hungry of the Three Lords, he fits the part. Obviously there’s something to be said of Byleth’s potential role as an Archivist, but the Archivist does a lot of talking, much like Khalid. He also interacts with everyone giving statements to the Archive, and I think Khalid’s canonical tendency to disarm others in exchange for secrets and stories is par for this course. 

Nonetheless, if you do want to use this AU as a base for your Byleth or any other character, please don’t feel restricted by anything! 

Whether your characters are employed by the Archive, is an Avatar for a Fear, or is simply terrified by whatever the fuck is going on here, please feel free to get in on this! Write it with me! Ask me any questions you might have and I’ll do my best to spoil myself on this wonderful podcast further so I can answer you to the best of my ability! [I’m about 75 episodes in right now, but am content to spoil myself, truly...] So please hit me up anytime. I’m really excited about this and would love to plot things out with you! 

[she-ra-cat-ra]

I’m honestly just kinda bored and decided to make this for no real reason. I like doing fic recs because I think I have taste but some of these.... kinda aren't good lol it’s more of what stuck with me through the years.   

So yeah List of fics that were important to me and that were on my fanfantion.net fave list and may or may not be good: 

What The Eyes Can't See : The only fic on this list that made it over from my very first fanfic.net account that has now been lost to time. This was the fic that got me into long fics It’s a Bleach fic and made me super disappointed that Tatsuki never got to do anything as cool as she does in this fic, at least when I actually watched/read it.  Also, my mom found my bookmark of it and had to have a talk with me because she ended up reading the smut bits. You can’t even read the whole thing on fanfic.net, parts had to be cut when they did that purge of smut years and years ago

Timely Errors: I love time travel more than like any other trope. Harry Potter goes back in time is pretty common but this fic is pretty rare in that it still pretty good. Plus it’s cute and made me cry. And whats funny is that it’s a small bit at the end that I remember the most, where Ron has no idea that something is wrong until Hermione gives Harry an extra piece of cake then he just Knows has stuck with me for years because it’s so cute and sad and just so.... idk the perfect way I’ve seen their friendship expressed?  

Hourglass For some reason the general outline of this fic has been in my head since 2009 when I first read this 142k beast of a fic. I had just started to really get into fandom and Kingdom Hearts was poping. The idea of an older vision of the nice main character coming backward in time but is really mean and jaded because the future sucks really stuck with me. Also, there is a throwaway line about how Mulan lost her husband in the war but continues to fight anyway and Mickey Mouse has a moment to be sad about it has also stuck with me because what the fuck 

Wait This fic is here more because I kept thinking over the idea more than the actual fic, I mean it’s a little bit of a mess because it’s a songfic and the way it’s written through a couple of lifetimes BUT the idea of someone who is the Avatar's companion and gets reincarnation randomly instead of in order is one that I’ve thought about a LOT because of this fic. You again? is same thing but I like the actual fic more as the idea that the companion isn’t always a lover and they kill each other about half the time is a good one.  

Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend ok look this is not a list of fics that are 100k and have great plots etc etc this is a list of fics that have stuck with me and for some reason, this Icarly fic is one of them. I have no idea why but it is funny and cute and I love the idea that Sam is wanted in France for stealing the Eiffel tower

Lily Potter and the Worst Holiday  I love the idea of two universes clashing together and seeing two that aren't great, as both had a lot of people die including a young Ron and Hermoine because Harry wasn’t there, stuck with me. 

Many Thanks this fic made me cry AT LEAST three times, just thinking of it makes me tear up man. And it keeps going way longer than you think but in a good way? Not only does it have time travel but instead of being in the traveler's point of view, it’s from a bystander. It’s just... ugh the idea of it is great and it just works really well. I just love me some badass Hermione.  

Old Bones just a little fic that made me go, ‘oh shit maybe seeing everything underground after a 100-year war could end up fucking up a 12 ear old’ 

Awkward Once again this is a list of fics that stuck with me and for some reason this one did. No idea why since I didn’t even ship Raven/Starfire but it’s pretty cute 

City of Ghosts such a weird little Xena Fic but it’s weird in a canon kind of way? Like yeah, that could be in a Xena episode. This fix it fic works pretty well at what it’s going for I guess. I so love Gabrielle, or her reincarnation kicking ass and saving Xena

ab igne ignem capere  AU where Azula was born first so she isn’t the favorite. Great idea and I loved the style but it’s unfinished and it’s such a shame too. 

Alone, Together Oh my god this is where my love of weird plots came from. I LOVE this fic and I think about it all the time. The idea of two people having to be alone together for YEARS and they actually fall in love and have to work at it for it to work but they do it!!! Only to have all of that taken away, memories and all??? And now they have to deal with where they were before that all happened and just UGH what a fic man. 

And The Whole World Tilted this fic made me cry and still kinda does and since it’s a iCarly fic that's impressive 

A Secret Relationship Unlike Any Other back at it again with the weird plot. The idea that Rachel Berry loves planning and bossing people so much that she ends up dating Quinn with Finn as a puppet is very funny and is super in character. 

A Million Miles Of Fun this fic is so dumb but every once in a while I think ‘lol remember that fic where Faberry and Brittana kill a ton of people and it was like 100k and kinda good?’  

The Line Between Jealousy and Hate this fic really really got me when I was younger. It��s a KND fic and the idea that 86 hates boys because she’s a lesbian is kinda overplayed in fandom a lot but idk man this fic hit me hard when I wasn’t out yet. 

Just off the Key of Reason is Quinn out of character in this fic? Yes. Is there any plot? No . Have I read this fic and all its sequels like 100 times?  Yes because it’s pure wonderful fluff 

Animals and Prizes .....OK I need you to listen to me. Do I want to remember this fic so much? No not really but can one really forget their first alpha/omega fic? I read this fic way back in 2013, I was in high school!  Honestly, everything considered it’s better than you would think, I mean it has an actual plot 

Those Gilded Chains We Wear this fic got me in two ways. One: I love me some dark ladies with a Past that fall in love with some good-hearted person and grow from it. Two: a kinda weird plot where Hermione and Bellatrix have a magic bond thing because Bella, of her own free will, leaves Voldemort and the magic bond thing is the only way to make sure she isn’t lying. Re-reading it now I don’t enjoy it as much, as Hermione just takes way way too much crap but it’s still enjoyable. The idea that Bellatrix is actually legally insane and should be treated for it is nice and the idea that magic could affect how mental illness shows up in a person is cool. 

Dark Energy Yo not one other fanfic series has made me cry as much as Dark Energy. I usually hate re writes fics but Dark Energy makes it work really really well. The first is pretty plain compared to the others but by the second it just nails it. By far this is my favorite Mass Effect fic and it’s differently effected how I see characters in the game. 

Sight the King once again I got taken in by weird plot. I mean you know how rare season 0 fics are in Yu-Gi-Oh? Super rare and this one is what happens when you realize season 0 is super fucked up, I mean people get set on fire and that's like three times! So yeah seeing Yugi deal with waking up at the scene of four-ish murders with blood on his hands and realizing that no one is going to belive him is just great. A+ for the great tone too, the writing is great and it’s by far the most in-character fic out there for this time period 

[wolfpawn]

I Hate You, I Love You, Chapter 86

Chapter Summary -  Danielle does not feel well, but thankfully figures it out, leading to more time talking and in turn, repairing the relationship.

Previous Chapter

Rating - Mature (some chapters contain smut)

Triggers - references to Tom Hiddleston’s work with the #MeToo Movement. That chapter will be tagged accordingly.

authors Note - I have been working on this for the last 3 years, it is currently 180+ chapters long.  This will be updated daily, so long as I can get time to do so, obviously

tags: @sweetkingdomstarlight-blog​ @jessibelle-nerdy-mum​ @nonsensicalobsessions​ @damalseer​ @hiddlesbitch1​ @winterisakiller​ @fairlightswiftly​ @salempoe​​ @wolfsmom1​​

If you wish to be tagged, please let me know.

Tom looked at Danielle, unsure what to do, she was clearly overstressed with the issue with her aunt and seemed completely out of sorts in general as she insisted she needed to go to bed early.

The auctioneer had confirmed Danielle's suspicion, Bernadette's claim the house and the meagre plot of land with it was worth a hundred and sixty thousand was way off, it was only worth ninety-five. She had gone to the solicitor again with her information and had called her aunt and uncle to inform them before she began to feel incredibly ill. Tom watched as she doubled over, complaining of stomach cramps and a headache.

"Can I get you anything?" He offered pathetically, completely at a loss as to what to do.

"No, I'm fine."

"Elle, you are as sick as a dog."

"I don't know what it is." She whined. "How am I so sick all of a sudden, ever since Christmas?"

"Maybe it's me." Tom joked, earning a groan from her. "What does it feel like?"

"Like what I imagine it would be like if you were to do that scene in Alien where the creature bursts out of your chest, only in my stomach." She explained. Tom winced slightly. "I haven't gotten this in years."

"Wait, you had it before?"

"Yeah, before I got the…wait, I got the bar changed a month ago."

"Right…?"

"I am…shit," She turned around and headed for the door.

"Elle?"

"I need to get to the shop before it closes."

"Elle, are you mad, it's half nine at night and you are sick."

"I'm not sick."

"What?"

"I am not sick, I know what's wrong with me."

"Good, okay, so what is it?"

"I am getting a period."

"What?" "A period, I had to go on the bar because they were so bad, I changed the bar and now I am reacting badly or something because my body is acting like it is not there."

Not wanting to argue, and with two sisters, Tom knew that though he knew something of female anatomy, he was nowhere near qualified to make comment on anything, he grabbed his shoes again. "I am driving." Danielle did not argue.

*

After getting the supplies they needed and Danielle took something to help the pain, she seemed to become more upbeat…somewhat. "God, I cannot wait to go home." She moaned.

"When do you think…?"

"I have no idea. As I knew would happen, Lourda and Michael cannot afford to buy out Bernadette, and according to the solicitor, if she really pushes it, they may fold and sell it in its entirety."

Tom folded his arms and leant back against the counter. He had only been at the house for just over a day and he loved it, knowing that it meant so much more to Danielle, he could only imagine how she was feeling. "What do you think you can do?"

"I am trying to see if I can get the twenty-five thousand to pay her myself."

"What?"

"If no one else can buy her out, I am going to see if I can, by myself."

"Can you raise that much?"

"I had planned to get a new car, but if I keep onto my one, I can get a loan against my house and then yes, I can."

"How long have you been considering this?"

"Since the moment Siobhan told me she could try this stunt. I always planned to try and convince my family to sell me their shares in this place when I was younger, now I may actually get it."

"So you would then own…"

"My share in the house would be half the overall," She confirmed. "I would keep the same arrangement as is currently here, though obviously, Bernie would lose her ability to have any input in the place."

"Obviously." Tom nodded, he looked at her. "You really want this."

"I do, I love it so much, I have so many good memories here."

"Can I ask about your parents' house, why were you not as interested in keeping that?"

"My parents and I moved three times in my life, so none of those houses gave the feeling this has. Nan's was constant, my parents was where was suitable."

"Do you think you can get the loan?"

"Living in England isn't working in my favour, I guess I'll have to wait and see." She shrugged before wincing again. "I want to Google hysterectomies right now, fuck I forgot how much this hurts."

Tom looked at her sympathetically. "What if this is a permanent thing now, you reacting badly?"

"Jesus, don't curse me like that." She warned.

Tom understood her somewhat, she had tossed and turned for the majority of the night, waking him on several occasions before saying she was going to get some painkillers and sneaking down to the couch downstairs to sleep. He realised her plan after ten minutes and herded her back into the bed, telling her that he would sit in the armchair across from her for the night if she decided to stay there. "Was it always…?"

"Not as bad, but when as I grew more and more, it got worse, and now I am enduring it again, fuck I am going to go through my own weight in painkillers at this rate." Tom pulled her close to him, kissing her gently. "I am sorry I ruined things."

"Elle, you said it was done, so it is."

"But we can't have any fun."

Realising that she was not referencing the argument but her inability to be intimate because her body was doing what it is supposed to do, he smiled slightly. "We will again when you are back to normal, but you said you didn't want to do anything here, so at least this makes sure you stay on that. Also, there is more than one way to be intimate, it doesn't have to be sexual." He pulled her to him again, his arms around her. "I am so glad I still have you my darling Elle." He whispered in her ear. "I love you so much."

"I'm sorry I ran off."

"I'm sorry I rubbished your feelings." Tom added, "Though I am not sorry we came here, it is gorgeous."

"How about you get that shower you wanted and we can head out for a while, I can show you more?"

"Perfect. I will be back in a moment."

"The water should be hot enough by now."

Tom nodded and went to fetch a towel. "Shit, I forgot, Luke said he was going to ring," He handed her his phone, "If he does while I'm in the shower, could you tell him Ollie got onto me and could he double check the TV show confirmation with the film company, he'll know what that means."

"You're lucky I love you." Danielle sighed with a smile, causing Tom to grin.

"I am, I truly am." He agreed, kissing her before going and readying himself.

As Danielle threw together some food as a lunch, Tom's phone rang; seeing it was not Luke, she left it go, the second time it rang, it was Luke, so she answered. "Hi Luke, Tom said you might ring."

"Is he there?" Luke sounded somewhat perplexed.

"He's in the shower, he told me to tell you, he was talking to Ollie and to double check the TV stuff." She recited.

"I did and it is confirmed," Luke answered.

"Should I tell him that?"

"Please."

"Okay."

"I am not prying, but Tom told me you were in Ireland at present." Luke inquired.

"I am."

"So then, he is in Ireland too?"

"Yes, we are at my Nan's place. I had an issue that was stressing me out so he came over." Danielle explained.

"Well, better than the jet-setting fiasco of last summer."

"Well, I don't own a jet."

"I am sure he will forgive you for that; if it is any consolation, he doesn't either." There was a hint of a smile in Luke's voice. "While I have you, I was wondering if you were going to the premiere in London?"

Danielle frowned. "I had not even considered it."

"I am aware you would not have gone as Tom's other half, but there are limited tickets for friends and family also. Tom is getting a few since of course, it is in London. Are you interested?"

"I am not sure, I have too much going on here, I am not going to be in Britain for a few weeks at this stage."

"Oh, I see. Can I ask if it is something serious?"

"Family drama."

"Everyone has that." Luke consoled. "I hope it resolves soon."

"Yes, well, my aunt is going all out on hers, so I m unable to plan anything, and thank you, I hope the same."

"I am sure Tom will ask you also, but if you change your mind, all you need do is ask. Tell him I have his ready for whomever he wishes."

"Thank you, Luke." She smiled. "I will tell him what you said and I am sure he will be on to you again soon."

"Thank you, Danielle, have a pleasant day."

Danielle laughed to herself as the call ended, going about getting everything ready for their afternoon. Several minutes later, Tom came downstairs, wrapping his arms around her, ensure to keep away from her tender stomach. "Luke rang, the TV thing has been confirmed, I told him about Ollie, your extra tickets are with him and someone else rang but I didn't know who it was, so I didn't answer."

"Thank you, love," He kissed her neck. "You make a great secretary." He looked at her for a moment. "I had planned to ask you about going to the premiere, but considering what you are doing here, I said I would not make you feel pressurised."

"I would have, but with my aunt." She gave him an apologetic look.

"I know," he reached for his phone. "It's Odette."

"No idea who that is."

"She is the PA for the Skull Island tour."

"But I thought Ollie was your PA."

"Not for this, he can't make it."

"Fair enough, I will let you call her back and I will get us ready to go." She kissed his cheek as Tom smiled and went on the phone again, thinking to herself as he did so.

[mobius-prime]

152. Sonic the Hedgehog #86

Oh god. That cover, though. What the heck is with that terrifying sharp-toothed robot smile? How does a robot even do that? *shudder*

Heart of the Hedgehog (Part 1): Evil's Return

Writer: Danny Fingeroth Pencils: Sam Maxwell Colors: Frank Gagliardo

While Sonic and Tails are on their local reconnaissance, Sonic decides to make it more fun for Tails by continuing his intermittent training of the young fox in matters of speed. Tails does his best to keep up, but when a gust of wind knocks him off course Sonic has to rush over to catch him before he falls out of the air, which puts a damper on his ego.

Hmm, we certainly haven't heard any mention of Sonic's little roboticization accident from StH#39 in a long time. I wonder if its sudden inclusion here as a random example of hardship ties in, in any way, to the plot of this issue? Naaahhh, I'm sure it's a total coincidence! Tails heads out to find some firewood while Sonic gets the fire going, but minutes stretch into an hour, and still there's no sign of him.

Sonic, getting worried, goes against everything Smokey Bear taught him about campfire safety and just leaves the fire going while he rushes away to find his friend. He runs all over, calling Tails' name to no avail, until a very different voice finally responds to his calls - with a plasma blast.

Well now, other-robotic-version-of-Sonic, we haven't seen you in a long time - since aaaall the way back in the Knuckles Chaotix special, in fact! Sonic remembers his robotic double's apparent defeat at the mitts of Knuckles back then, but Metal Sonic arrogantly recounts how as a robot he was able to rebuild himself so he could come back for revenge. That's right, he was the saboteur of the Freedom Fighters' aircraft, and interestingly enough, he hasn't been sent by Eggman, who presumably doesn't even know he's here. Instead, he's purely in it for vengeance against his organic counterpart, having kidnapped Tails to get back at Sonic and planning to go after Knuckles as well once Sonic is dead. Sonic is enraged that Metal Sonic would dare to touch his friend, and tries to attack him while demanding to know where Tails is being kept, but Metal Sonic easily dodges every blow Sonic tries to land while landing some of his own with ease. He's both faster and stronger than Sonic, and basically just toys with him by doing things like wrapping him in a wire shot from his wrist and flinging him around to tire him out. Once Sonic is good and exhausted, Metal Sonic finally grows tired of the game, deciding to actually explain his plan while Sonic realizes just why he's so powerful.

In case you don't remember, Metal Sonic (back when he was still misnamed as Mecha Sonic) merged with the power gem during the Knuckles Chaotix special, and apparently it's helped him come back and become even stronger than before since then. Metal Sonic explains that he plans to give Sonic a fair chance to save Tails by letting him free, telling him that he's currently being kept at the top of the nearby Mt. Mobius, an active volcano which is due to erupt any minute now. Even more worryingly, Metal Sonic is able to make it there and back in an easy five minutes, with a now truly worried Sonic estimating it would take him closer to half an hour to get there on his own two feet. Still, he refuses to give up, racing off as soon as Metal Sonic lets him free to save his friend, with Metal Sonic ominously promising to make things harder on him as he tries to reach Tails in time. How will he make things harder, exactly?

…well, I guess it is indeed harder to save a captive friend when you're unconscious on the ground! Metal Sonic, leaving the woozy Sonic behind for now, flies back to the mouth of the volcano, where Tails, strapped by his wrists to the rock just above a lava pit, insists Sonic will come to save him even as Metal Sonic laughs at his unfaltering confidence…

Against the Haunted Past (Part 1)

Writer/Pencils: Frank Strom Colors: Frank Gagliardo

All right, who's ready for another installment in the life of everyone's favorite character, Monkey Khan? Just in case no one's picked up on it yet, every time Frank Strom gets to be in charge of plot we jump right back to The Many Adventures of Monkey Khan - I guess since he created the character he's quite attached to him, after all. We jump back to ten years ago (well, the text says ten years ago, but considering that we open with Julian Robotnik pleasantly discussing his scientific endeavors with a very much unimprisoned King Max, before he even got his hands on the original roboticizer, it has to be more like twelve). Julian, irritated after Snively accuses him of sucking up too much to the king, decided that he needs some live test subjects for his experiments on cybernetics. Worried about attracting obvious attention if he started kidnapping local citizens, he instead decided to go after a village on the other side of the world, at the very fringes of the kingdom.

Cut to the peaceful village of Leung West, which you might recognize as sharing half its name with Leung Kar from Sonic Super Special #8. This is where some canon details get extremely fuzzy, so I'll try to detangle the mess for you as best I can. The original village from the Super Special was called Lau Kar or Leung Kar interchangeably. Now we have Leung West, which was presided over by the village leader Lau Khan, both names of which seem to suggest a connection to said village. However, later in this same issue it's claimed that Monkey Khan's ancestral village is called Kar Leung, which is literally just Leung Kar with the two halves of the name swapped around. Despite the obvious connection between the two names, Ian Flynn later on apparently stated he considers the two villages to be separate, just having coincidentally similar names. I'm not sure how easily I buy this, considering the circumstances, but eh, whatever, if anything it just comes down to a minor inconsistency in canon that's easily overlooked. Moving on! Lau Khan was Ken Khan's father - yes, that's right, Monkey Khan's given name is actually Ken, and for whatever reason he and his father don't seem to follow the trend of family name first, given name last that the other inhabitants of Not-Asia all have. Lau Khan was disappointed to find Ken roughhousing with the other kids his age, and scolded him for acting like, you know, a normal kid (or teen? It's not made clear what his age is, but he's clearly not a little kid at least), because their village was completely pacifistic.

This is a brilliant time to do the I-told-you-so song, Ken! Julian quickly rounded up everyone in the village and began experimenting on them, with the end result being the death of literally all his test subjects except for Ken the only one whose body was strong enough to survive becoming a cyborg. Julian decided to test his new pet on a group of Overlanders nearby, and Ken easily wiped the floor with them singlehandedly. Julian was of course very pleased, but as he started talking about what he planned to test him out on next Ken turned and vehemently refused, saying he would never work for Julian after he killed all his friends and family, which kind of completely ignores the fact that he was literally just attacking a group of Overlanders on his order two seconds ago. Julian, disappointed, declared his project a failure, zapped Ken unconscious, and sealed him away in a capsule, which, as we know, was found years later by chance by Sally while on a mission of her own.

Oh, well, that's probably good! I know I definitely enjoy waking up strapped to a table in the base of my mortal enemy whom I previously believed to be dead. I find it a little odd that Eggman seems to "remember" Ken, considering he's not even the same entity that originally experimented on him, but it's entirely probably that Eggman does in fact know a version of him, as it's stated that the zone he originally came from was very similar in most respects to Mobius Prime, with the main difference being his eventual self-roboticization. What's perhaps more strange is that Ken recognizes Eggman, since he looks so different from Robotnik, but eh - big stupid mustache, robotic servants, and evil demeanor will give a villain away, I suppose.

[joaquinbumblebee24]

Onslaught 3/11

A week and a half later, June 23, House packed his bag with Wilson’s help. They had been packing all day yesterday; their backpacks were brought to the brim.  Wilson overpacked; he wanted to make House comfortable. He and House had wanted to treat this trip as a vacation. While away for five weeks in the Philippines,  one week they would spend in the city of Clark in the province of Pampanga, two hours drive from the capital Manila. Then after the conference, the plan was to go backpacking across Luzon, one of the three main islands of the country.  

After the incident with his birthday House told Cameron that he was on the spectrum. The woman was on a hissy, half pitying and half freak out. She had almost blurted to a patient's father that Dr. House was autistic. Chase just removed her from the potential disaster on time.  

House was furious, and stress out. He finagled a five-week vacation from Cuddy. He told her about an offer for a research position at UCLA, and he was ready to take it. Wilson was willing to go with him. Cuddy was taken aback; she gave in without any fuss.

They took an Uber to the John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City. As soon as they were there, House’s nerves were shot to hell. He had taken his Luvox, which he only takes when extremely anxious.

“Greg, You okay?” Wilson asked while they walked to their gate. House put a hand on his ears, even though he has his noise-canceling headphones on. The airport was busy;  people were rubbing against him. House was on the brink of a meltdown. “Okay, Greg,” Wilson said dragging him to go to a bathroom.

As soon as the bathroom open House went inside a cubicle. Wilson followed him in; his partner was rocking back and forth. The oncologist slid down next to House and hugged him. The noise overwhelmed him, and too many people. Wilson knew this; He just stayed in the bathroom for thirty minutes. Luckily for them, they were an hour early.

After the meltdown ended, House felt humiliated. Wilson sensed this. “Hey?” Wilson said. “You don’t need to feel embarrassed, Greg. I love you.”

House huffed; he lost his words. As a child, whenever he had a meltdown, his Oma would know how to coax him, hugging him tightly.  “Jimmy, I’m fine,” House said, regaining his barrings.

Wilson blinked and handed House the cane.  He used a cane whenever they would walk far. His legs were easily fatigued due to hypotonia, which was related to the  Autism. They walked hand and hand; Wilson kept House’s guitar bag, it was the Martin LX1.

The next hurdle of this trip was the pat-down search. House past thru a metal detector fine; an agent stopped him. “Mister, where do you think you’re going?” The TSA agent asked.

House; oblivious to the sarcasm said. “To a medical conference in the Philippines, I’m a doctor.”

Wilson frowned. “Sir, please forgive him, he has Autism,” He said. The glare from House didn’t stop him. “He doesn’t understand sarcasm.” The statement was half correct. House could understand sarcasm when he knew the person speaking.

The TSA agent, a man asked. Are you his brother?”

Wilson glowered at him. “He's my husband.”

The TSA agent looked at House with disgust. Wilson sighed. “Where the hell is your supervisor? Because I won’t let you harass us for being gay. Being gay is not a crime.  I don’t know what you saw on him, but you are looking at the wrong person here. As he said, he is a doctor, not a terrorist. “ The agent looked humiliated.  

Wilson led House out to their gates. They sat at a frequent flyer lounge, Wilson and House were both frequent flyers. They flew at least once a month to go visit House’s 86-year-old Oma in Portland. While his parents settled in Eugine.

“Greg? You doing okay?” Wilson asked while they drink coffee.

House looked at him. "What do you think? You called me autistic in front of a bear;  I have no choice but to give a speech." He said, and his voice was bitter.

Wilson knew House. His spouse didn’t like it when people questioned their relationship, saying that because he had autism he didn’t know how to Love, romantically. “I’m sorry, I just need to get him off your back.”

House sighed. “I don’t want you to tell people I’m on the spectrum, James. It’s my business. “ He knew that House was upset when he uses his first name, not his nickname, ninety-nine percent of the time he was Jimmy to House or (Wilson at work.)

He knew not to argue with him; he was right. “Okay, I am sorry again.”

The overhead speakers announced their flight. They both got their backpacks, Wilson took the guitar, while House took his cane. They boarded the flight without any difficulties.

As they sat at first-class, House opened his laptop sleeve and got his MacBook Pro;  and began editing the speech, that Wilson wrote. While Wilson got to sleep.

The fifteen-hour flight was a success.

During the flight,  House played on his phone and iPad. While awake, Wilson researched  LGBT issues in the Philippines. Although there are no laws on the criminalization of homosexuality;  the country has no protection for being a gay man. According to his source, a nurse back in Princeton; "The Philippines is like the US in the ’90s. People in the country were more tolerant and accepting, though."

The plane touched down at Clark-Diosdado Macapagal International Airport. This was Wilson’s first time here in Asia; He and House had vacationed in Europe a bit.  They had avoided Asia and Africa for safety reasons.

“Jimmy, welcome to my home for five years.” Said House as he ordered a (Grab car) an Uber-like service in the country.

The Grab CAr arrived. As soon as they were in the got inside the car, House slumped in a seat. “Mabuhay, Welcome to the Philippines, My name is Carlos.”

Wilson looked at his partner for cultural guidance. “People in the country understands English pretty well, they had been learning it for years since Pre-School,” House told Wilson while slumping next to him in exhaustion.

“Okay, Carlos,” Wilson said. “What are the best places for food?”

The driver smiled. “There is the mall;  you can eat at some of our restaurants. First timer?”

Wilson smiled despite his exhaustion. “Yes, but my partner lived here when he was a teenager.”  

The driver’s smile was never faltered. “Where are you from?”

“We are from New Jersey.”

They arrived at their hotel. “If you want a ride, call me,” Carlos told Wilson in parting, giving him his personal number.  

Wilson booked a suite; at the Clark Marriott hotel. As soon as House saw their bed, he removed his blue Hershel & Co backpack and slumped to sleep. Wilson followed after a quick shower.

GH/JW

Hours later, It was ten in the morning they had arrived at 4AM. House woke up.  They needed to buy OTC medications.  They didn’t usually bring so many things, because he and that conveyor belt don’t mix. “Jimmy? You awake?” House asked, shaking Wilson. “Am hungry.”

Wilson  mumbled, “Greg, what time is it?”

House looked at the alarm clock. “ten-thirty. I‘m hungry.”

Wilson stood up and got his jeans from underneath the bed.

“Can we call for room service instead of going outside?” House asked,  getting his laptop from his bag.

Wilson most defiantly wanted to say no; Let's go outside and mingle in with the locals at the mall, but no, House needed to rest, for lunch, he would urge. “Okay." Wilson got the hotel phone. Then he asked as though forgotten. “What kinds of Filipino food do you eat when you were younger?”

House remembered the taste of one of the handfuls of mushy food he would eat, Kaldereta. Kaldereta was made of goat or sometimes beef with liver paste and tomato sauce. He’d love the beef version. “Kal- De- Re- Ta. Kaldereta.” When Wilson gave him a questioning look. “or Adobo.” He said the words with the correct accent.

“You call them yourself,” Wilson suggested. House looked at Wilson as if Wilson killed his puppy. Right, social anxiety, he thought. House swallowed nervously. “I won’t let you call them, okay?” Wilson was reminded; how House was in many ways a kid.

He dialed the number, “Do you have, Kaldereta or Adobo?” The staff on the other line answered an affirmative, “An order of adobo and kaldereta, please,  Rice?" House gave a big nod, he ordered rice too. “So what are we going to do today?” Wilson asked; when the phone call ended.

“Do some touristy things with you?” House said, peering from playing on his iPad.

They have watched CNN Philippines on the hotel’s flat-screen TV. It was an English channel but was geared towards Filipinos and what was happening in the country. “There is a freaking Typhoon,” House commented as he saw what was on the TV screen.

“Where is it headed?” Wilson asked.

“We don’t know yet,” House said, as he peered towards a half-opened window. Meteorology had been one of his obsessions growing up.

Their food arrived fifteen minutes later. House looked at his food, and the Kaldereta looked and smelled lovely. House tasted it; as soon as he tasted his food. He was brought back almost 30 years ago; in the same town, that was previously a military base.

Wilson was delighted to see him eat; House regularly didn’t eat, he didn’t like the texture, or the smell or its high caloric. His partner was closed to being too thin. “Greg, you really love it here?” He asked as he took a bit off his chicken adobo; it was really good.

House looked at everything, but not at Wilson. He is gearing up for a speech. “When I was eight, I was homeschooled because of autism. I was bullied. I was with Oma Abbigail in California, while mom joined father somewhere in South America. I didn’t come; it's too dangerous. When I got here, in Clark, knowing a few words of Tagalog.  I started in the third grade. They just put me on the fourth grade a month into it, After that school year I was entering the sixth grade.”

“Where I went to school was an international school, but 80 percent are Filipinos. Kids didn’t bully me, unlike that back in the states. They liked me, Here I was a Kano-puti or white American.” House said, touching the keyboard of his laptop repetitively.

Wilson didn’t know what to say. “I am sorry you went through that, babe.”

“Don’t be,” House said, making eye contact for the first time since the question started.

End of Chapter 3

[bandaids-not-groupies]

Get to know me uncomfortably well - tagged by @livewiredroger ❤️ sorry this took so long to post!! 

1. What is your middle name? 

Janie

2. How old are you? 

21, gonna be 22 in a couple months

3. When is your birthday?

December 4th! A day after Ozzy’s

4. What is your zodiac sign? 

Sagittarius

5. What is your favourite colour? 

Light purple and black

6. What’s your lucky number?

I don’t actually know

7. Do you have any pets?

No but I did have a dog!

8. Where are you from? 

Chicago!

9. How tall are you?

5’0 lmao

10. What shoe size are you? 

6

11. How many pairs of shoes do you own? 

Too many to count lol

12. What was your last dream about? 

I don’t remember 😅

13. What talents do you have?

None lol. I’m boring af

14. Are you psychic in any way? 

Nope lol

15. Favourite song? 

I’m a believer by the monkees (I’ve always loved that song)

16. Favourite movie? 

The Godfather

17. Who would be your ideal partner? 

Keanu Reeves. He has my heart and soul

18. Do you want children? 

Yeah but only like 2

19. Do you want a church wedding? 

Yeah but nothing too big

20. Are you religious? 

Kinda but not really. Like I acknowledge that there could be a God. But I don’t practice it that much. So basically I’M SINNING AND I’M WINNING

21. Have you ever been to the hospital? 

Yeah. Twice. Once cause I had a bad ear infection and then another time I had pneumonia

22. Have you ever got in trouble with the law? 

Nope!

23. Have you ever met any celebrities? 

Yes I have! Back in my emo days I meet Christofer Drew from Never Shout Never, which was actually pure luck! NSN was in town for a concert, but I couldn’t go because it was a 18+ venue so I couldn’t get in (I was in 8th grade at the time). So my family and I decided to go out to eat at a restaurant which was coincidentally across from the venue. So we were walking down the street and I see this huge tour bus right outside the restaurant. My heart starts racing and i thought “how cool would it be if I bumped into someone from the group” well lo and behold as we are coming closer to the bus, Christofer Drew turns the corner and walks towards the bus. So I stop in my tracks and just say “Christofer Drew?” And he stops and he says hi! He asked if I was going to the show and I said no and he goes “well you gotta promise you’ll come to the next one!” Of course I made the promise and I didn’t break it! He came back that summer and I got to see him ❤️ I also met two groups called Breathe Carolina and Crown The Empire. I also met Evan Peters and Sebastian Stan at Comic Con a couple years ago. I also met Corey Crawford. The goaltender for the Chicago Blackhawks, my favorite hockey team.

24. Baths or showers?

Showers! I don’t like the idea of bathing in your own filth.

25. What color socks are you wearing? 

I’m not wearing any!

26. Have you ever been famous? 

Nope lmao and I probably never will be

28. What type of music do you like?

I like oldies. Mostly from the 50s-80s. Anything from Dean Martin to Motley Crue. I do like modern music too. I still listen to some of the bands I listened to in middle school lol (like the ones i mentioned before and others like All Time Low, Pierce The Veil, Sleeping With Sirens, Of Mice & Men, Asking Alexandria, and a couple more.) I also like Greta Van Fleet and 5 Seconds of Summer. I also like spanish music. Like Maluma, Bad Bunny, Becky G, etc. 

29. Have you ever been skinny dipping? 

Nope lol 

30. How many pillows do you sleep with? 

It depends. It could be one or none. Sometimes i don’t use a pillow

31. What position do you usually sleep in? 

On my tummy! 

32. How big is your house? 

It’s a two bedroom apartment. I’m not complaining tho, its very cozy. 

33. What do you typically have for breakfast? 

If I wake up early enough lol it’ll usually be eggs (over medium), some coffee, and some bread 

34. Have you ever fired a gun? 

Nope and i don’t plan on it! 

35. Have you ever tried archery? 

Yes! I tried it when I was in Girl Scouts in elementary school 

36. Favourite clean word? 

Groovy 

37. Favorite swear word? 

definitely FUCK

38. What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without sleep? 

like a day? I got like four hours of sleep the night before. Got up at like 6am, went about my day. Then I stayed up until 7am working on a research paper for class (college is a BITCH). 

40. Have you ever had a secret admirer? 

Nah cause your girl is hella ugly lmao

41. Are you a good liar? 

Not at all. People can tell when I’m lying cause my voice gets high lmao 

42. Are you a good judge of character? 

Eh I do my best 

43. Can you do any other accents other than your own? 

I try to do a posh British accent and I try to do a Steve Irwin Aussie accent   

44. Do you have a strong accent? 

People say I have a strong chicagoan accent but i don’t hear it!

45. What is your favourite accent? 

I’m a sucker for aussie accents 

46. What is your personality type? 

just took the test..i got ISFP-T (adventurer) 

47. What is your most expensive piece of clothing? 

hmmmm all I can think of at the moment is my Doc Martens. They aren’t really clothing but it’s all I can think of lol

48. Can you curl your tongue? 

Nope!

49. Are you an innie or an outie? 

outie :(((( i hate it 

50. Left or right-handed?

Right handed! 

51. Are you scared of spiders? 

YES YES YES

52. Favourite food? 

Pasta! I could eat it all day, every day 

53. Favourite foreign food?

Tamales and Pozole. That’s my shitttt

54. Are you a clean or messy person? 

I try and be a clean person and stay organized but it only lasts for a bit then I go back to my messy ways lol 

55. Most used phrase? 

“that���s a mood” and “no mames guey” (Mexican slang)

56. Most used word? 

Dude and Darling

57. How long does it take for you to get ready? 

Depends. If I wear my hair natural, then an hour. But if I gotta style it, then like an hour and a half or two hours( I got a lot of fucking hair, dude). 

58. Do you have much of an ego? 

Hell no lmao. This bitch has a low self-esteem so 🤷🏻‍♀️

59. Do you suck or bite lollipops? 

Suck 🤪

60. Do you talk to yourself? 

All the time lmao 

61. Do you sing to yourself? 

Yeah sometimes 

62. Are you a good singer? 

Nope lmao but I still do it anyways 

63. Biggest Fear? 

A lot of shit. Spiders, Holes (trypophobia), tearing my achilles or getting them cut (ever since I saw Pet Sematary), dolls, bugs crawling under my skin, throwing up...and i can’t think of anymore on the spot 

64. Are you a gossip? 

you bet your ass I am. Soy una chismosa lmao

65. Best dramatic movie you’ve seen? 

Titanic  

66. Do you like long or short hair? 

On girls, long but not too long. Maybe like mid-back. And guys, long, like ear length and longer 

67. Can you name all 50 states of America? 

Yeah but i couldn’t point them out on a map 

68. Favourite school subject? 

Biology/Human Anatomy. I’m a sucker for science 

69. Extrovert or Introvert?

Definitely an introvert. No doubt about that lol 

70. Have you ever been scuba diving? 

Nope!

71. What makes you nervous? 

Meeting new people, class discussions, and presentations

72. Are you scared of the dark? 

If i’ve just seen a scary movie then yes lol  

73. Do you correct people when they make mistakes? 

Sometimes. For instance, if one of my friends from ecuador uses a word wrong in a sentence, then I would tell them the right way to say it to help them learn more english. i never correct someone to seem like i’m smarter or to be rude. It’s simply to help them. 

74. Are you ticklish? 

Yeah! In some places like my feet, neck, and my back, 

75. Have you ever started a rumour? 

No way! That’s terrible 

76. Have you ever been in a position of authority? 

Only when babysitting my little cousins lol 

77. Have you ever drank underage? 

Yeah lmao. When I went away for college

78. Have you ever done drugs? 

Once, when I hungout with a guy at school we smoked some weed

79. Who was your first real crush?

One of my friends from college. I met him Freshman year and I still like him...I’ve liked him for four years but i’ve never had the guts to tell him 

80. How many piercings do you have? 

6! I have four on my left ear and two on my right ear. I have the standard lobe piercings, then the upper lobe on both sides. Then on my left I have one above the upper. And then I have my helix pierced on the left side. (i hope this all made sense lol) 

81. Can you roll your R’s?

Nope

82. How fast can you type? 

Eh I would say pretty average 

83. How fast can you run? 

Not at all. I hate running 

84. What colour is your hair?

Dark brown! 

85. What color is your eyes? 

Dark brown

86. What are you allergic to? 

Some ingredient in the Banana Boat sunscreen. And some type of plant. I don’t exactly know which one cause I went to the botantic garden one time on a field trip and I don’t know which plant caused my allergic reaction but when I got home I had hives all over me. 

87. Do you keep a journal? 

Nope, never did 

88. What do your parents do? 

My mom is an ortho technician and my dad is a delivery man

89. Do you like your age? 

Yeah I guess. I mean I can buy my own alcohol so that’s pretty neat 

90. What makes you angry? 

Everything 

91. Do you like your own name? 

Eh it’s alright. Pretty boring 

92. Have you already thought of baby names, and if so what are they?

I like the name Elena for a girl and Jonathan for a boy 

93. Do you want a boy a girl for a child?

Doesn’t matter to me

94. What are you strengths? 

I’m a ride or die bitch.

95. What are your weaknesses?

I don’t really share my emotions so I keep things bottled up 

96. How did you get your name? 

My cousin picked out my name 

97. Were your ancestors royalty? 

Not that I know of. But what I do know is I have family from Spain. 

98. Do you have any scars?

Yeah, one on my arm from when I burned myself with my straightener. And another at the place where my nose meets my forehead, between my brows. When I was in elementary school, I was running out on the playground and I tripped and I slide across the cement and scraped my nose and my whole forehead. THERE. WAS. BLOOD. EVERYWHERE. 

99. Colour of your bedspread? 

Light pink 

100. Colour of your room? 

White! 

I tag: @tommyleeownsme, @babe-mustaine, @waycooljunior, and @universal-scorpio ❤️

[tisfan]

Normal Everyday Asshole Aliens

86 Tony/Eddie/Venom @journeythroughtherain  & Anonymous “Damn, you’re strong for a little thing.”

The last time Tony had been in San Francisco, he and Eddie had gone on a pub crawl, sampling not beer or whiskey, but onion rings. Tony had been determined to find the best god damned pub rings in the city, and Eddie had laughingly tagged along.

Some five hours later, groaning from too much grease and fried dough, they’d gone back to Eddie’s apartment and made out until they’d fallen asleep in the middle of necking. Tony had woken up with a stomach ache, a horrible crick in his neck from sleeping slumped over on top of Eddie on the couch, the worst morning breath of his entire life, and absolutely no regrets.

He knew why Eddie’d had to leave New York, and he understood, but he kind of wished it hadn’t been necessary. Eddie was fun, challenged Tony’s assumptions about things, and understood completely about the kind of schedule Tony had to keep and the reasons he couldn’t commit to being a boyfriend. What they had was good. It was enough.

It had been more than half a year since Tony’d had an excuse to go to San Francisco, and he was looking forward to meeting up with Eddie. Maybe hooking up, if they could make their schedules match up.

He wasn’t expecting Eddie to meet him at the airport, but there he was, leaning against the wall as Tony’s private jet touched down. Tony wasn’t sure how he’d gotten past TSA or security, but he didn’t ask, either.

“You… uh, you look good, Tony,” Eddie said. “Came on my bike, thought you might want a ride?”

Eddie paused, tipping his head to one side, his eyes glazing a little bit, as if he was listening to a phone conversation, before he shook it off and gave Tony a wide grin. Eddie was nothing like most of Tony’s partners, scruffy and wearing a shlubby hoodie. He had a bike helmet in one hand, but pulled Tony in for a quick embrace with the other.

Tony grinned back and swung his leg over the bike, snuggling up against Eddie’s back suggestively. “Got a bitch helmet for me?”

“This one is for you, I don’t, uh… I don’t wear one anymore,” Eddie said. He handed over the brain bucket to Tony and then kicked the bike to life. The motor roared and the whole thing buzzed like an overgrown vibrator between Tony’s thighs.

(more below the cut)

Tony pulled on the helmet. “Your funeral,” he said, raising his voice a little to be heard over the growl of the bike. “I heard they were cracking down on helmetless riders, though. How are you not swimming in tickets?”

“Gotta get caught to get a ticket,” Eddie said, and with that, he gunned the motor and they peeled out of the airport, leaving a very angry Happy behind waving Tony’s suitcase at them. “Long story, lemme take you-- uh, someplace special. And I’ll… I got some stuff to tell you that you won’t believe.”

Tony laughed. “I was fighting off shapechanging aliens in Chicago last week; what’ve you got to top that?”

“Challenge accepted,” Eddie said. He was pushing the bike well past the original engine’s capabilities, and not at all safe for the hilly roads and narrow pavement of the city, but Eddie never faltered. It was like flying in the armor, only… more. And lower to the ground. It was all but impossible to stifle a whoop of excitement.

Eddie took them out of the city and up through a suburban neighborhood, still topping well over ninety, and then skidded to a sudden stop at the very edge of a cliff that overlooked San Francisco's famous bridge.

“Pretty up here,” Eddie said, casually, slinging himself off the bike.

Tony was still thrumming from the ride as he joined Eddie at the edge of the cliff, the helmet dangling casually from his fingertips. He looked out over the water. “Nice,” he agreed. He cast a sidelong look at Eddie, who was shuffling around a little, which usually heralded a case of nerves. Tony looked back out at the view, willing to wait for it, whatever it was.

“So, you were dealing with shapeshifting aliens, huh?” Eddie asked. “You ever… deal with any that aren’t bad guys? I mean, not benevolent, or nothing, but maybe, just normal everyday asshole aliens?”

“Oh, sure,” Tony said. “I mean, Thor just for starters, and the rest of the Asgardians. And there’s the Guardians of the Galaxy, they’re an okay bunch, most of the time.”

“So, uh, if I mighta had, well, a close encounter, that’s… it’s not a deal-breaker, you know? With us?” Eddie was wringing his knuckles together hard enough that his skin was white. White, and perfect. Hadn’t… hadn’t Eddie had scars on his hands, from where he’d gotten into a fist-fight with a plate glass window and lost?

“I... wouldn’t think so,” Tony said cautiously. “Who did you run into? The Kree?” They had weird healing abilities, Tony thought.

“They call themselves Klyntar,” Eddie said. “They’re… um. A little difficult to describe, and unfortunately -- oh, would you just--” Eddie’s eyes did something weird, and they were suddenly jet black, sclera, iris, pupil and all. We want to say hello.

Tony didn’t hear that so much with his ears as sort of feel it in his skull, loud and aggressive and eager.

“Oh, shit!” Tony took a step back, startled, then paused and leaned in again, looking closely. “That’s... It’s... In you?”

We are together. One of Eddie’s eyes went back to normal, rich sapphire blue. “Will you let me do th’ talking, Vee, come on, man, we had a plan, can we not just stick to the plan?”

He is very small. That black, almost oily color oozed out from Eddie’s eyes until it covered most of his face, and then-- Eddie grew, tall, taller, impossibly… not quite as tall as the Hulk, but certainly huge, with gnarled, massive limbs and… fucking claws, and goddamn teeth--

Tony flicked his hand to the side and a gauntlet formed. He aimed it at the... thing. Klyntar. Vee. Whatever it was called. “What the fuck-- What did you do to Eddie?”

The enormous clawed hand reached for Tony’s gauntlet. What is it? This-- he? It? Whatever. Grabbed Tony’s wrist and pulled the gauntlet (and Tony practically up onto his toes) up to examine it closely. Is this a weapon?

“Buddy, you’re going to find out just how much of a weapon it is if you don’t let Eddie go,” Tony snapped. He wrenched his arm around until he was aiming right into those dagger-like teeth.

“Woah, woah,” and the face, that monstrous thing, fucking unzipped and Eddie pushed his way out. “No shooting, no… Vee, love, come on, let’s all calm down and talk about this--” Eddie’s shoulders came out of the Klyntar and he balled it up until he was cuddling a little fanged oil slick about the size of a cat. “Let’s just all take a few deep breaths and calm down.”

Eddie demonstrated the calming breaths, sounding like some sort of bad victorian heroine who was about to need a fainting couch.

Tony looked at him dubiously. “You’re okay?” He looked at the thing in Eddie’s arms, and then back at Eddie’s face, suppressing the urge to pat him down and check for injuries. “Jesus Christ, I thought it ate you.”

We wouldn’t eat Eddie, the goo confided. Eddie is ours.

“Tony, this is Venom. Venom, Tony,” Eddie said. “I’d say not to worry, that his bark is worse than his bite, but it’s really, really not.”

“You’re... friends,” Tony said. Venom (and there was a name that didn’t inspire trust) oozed up Eddie’s arm and draped around his neck like a scarf with slitted opal eyes at one end.

The whole thing suddenly seemed utterly absurd, and Tony let out a bark of not-quite-hysterical laughter. “Only you, Eddie. Only you.”

“Unfortunately, not only me,” Eddie said, stroking the little alien gently, and it purred/rumbled under Eddie’s caress. “And, uh, they’re not all as, uh--”

Protective. We will protect Eddie. From Carnage. From Riot. From anyone!

The little alien stretched and snapped like a rubber band, lifting up Eddie’s bike with arms that formed out of nothingness, apparently planning to chuck it in the bay to express its anger.

“Not the bike, Vee!”

Venom hesitated, holding the bike aloft over their heads. Sorry. Venom gently lowered the bike back to the ground and then patted it for good measure.

“...Damn, you’re strong for a little thing,” Tony said.

“So, if… uh, you and Venom are good with getting along, I thought we might do another pub crawl? Venom’s quite the connoisseur of tater tots and french fries?”

“Well. I guess any alien that eats fried potatoes can’t be all bad.”

[danielxricciardo]

Song lyrics prompt list

1. “It’s the little things about us, that I love so much.”

2. “Last night I told you I loved you // woke up blamed it on the vodka”

3. “It’s a better place since you came along”

4. “You make me love the things I hate “

5. Just a paper sheet and half a cigarette are left in my hand

6. Your faith walks on broken glass

7. "And can you teach me how to dance real slow?"

8. "I'll throw away my faith, babe, just to keep you safe"

9. "One night, you won't forget the rest of your life"

10. "We only said goodbye with words"

11. "I'll try to give you love until the day you drop"

12. "I like the pretty boys with the bow tie"

13. "Lets get drunk forget what we did"

14. Your kisses lift me higher

15. When you're ready we can share the wine

16. "And if you don't love me now you will never love me again"

17. "Why'd you have to go and make things so complicated?"

18. "When there's nothing to lose and there's nothing to prove"

19. She's the kind of girl who only asks you over when its raining, just to make you lie there catching water dripping from the ceiling.

20. Now I understand, you're a human, and you got to lie, you're a man

21. The good and the bad times: we've been through them all.

22. Now I ain't educated but I sure ain't stupid

23. I grew up in the shoes they told me I could fill

24. It's hard to say that I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep

25. A lover would just complicate my plans

26. And in the morning, i’ll be with you, but it will be a different kind

27. My heart is yours, it’s you that i hold on to

28. And with one kiss, you inspired a fire of devotion that lasts for twenty years

29. I let go of my claim on you, it’s a free world

30. I’m in my bed, and you’re not here and there’s no one to blame, but the drink in my wandering hands

31. Cause you gave me peace and i wasted it, I’m here to admit that you were my medicine

32. Oh, dear diary, i met a boy, he made my doll heart light up with joy. Oh, dear diary, we fell apart, welcome to the life of electra heart

33. For you, I would cross the line, I would waste my time, I would lose my mind

34. Is it really me you're missing?

35. Remember that night?

36. How many times can I break till I shatter?

37. As long as I breathe, I’ll call you my home

38. "You wouldn't know love if it crushed your fucking chest."

39. "When we scream our lips don't make a sound."

40. "Please don't let me sink, wrap your arms around me and carry me home."

41. "This hasn't torn us apart so nothing ever will."

42. "A long time ago we believed that we were united."

43. "I miss the person that you were but I don't miss you."

44. "If home is where the heart is, why do I feel so fucking heartless?"

45. "I can't live, I can't breathe with or without you just go away."

46. "I'm not afraid to die, I'm afraid I'll survive and have to watch you suffer."

47. "I wanna hold you high and steal your pain away."

48. "I'm not like you I just fuck up."

49. "All because of you I believe in angels, not the kind with wings, no not the kind with halos. The kind that bring you home when home becomes a strange place."

50. "I just want to go to sleep and never wake up again."

51. “I wish people liked me more.”

52. “How could I ever love someone else?”

53. “I guess you’re getting everything you want.”

54. “She probably gives you butterflies.”

55. “I hope that you’re okay.”

56. “I defended you to all my friends.”

57. “I never cared about what they say, only care about me and you”

58. “Either way i’m gonna lose, so i’m just gonna keep on loving you”

59. “You know i’m bad at communication, it’s the hardest thing for me to do”

60. “Iwas your lover, i was your friend, now I’m only just someone you call when it’s late enough to forget”

61. “It’s fucked up but it’s true that i love you like i do”

62. “Well we both had nights waking up in strangers beds but i don’t wanna, don't wanna, i don’t wanna give up yet”

63. “Tell me I’ve got it wrong somehow.”

64. “I’m begging for you to take my hand.”

65. “I can’t make it go away by making you the villain.”

66. “He feels like home.”

67. “I’d be breaking all my rules to see you.”

68. “But I know you’re not scared of anything at all.”

69. “When can I come back?”

70. “I’m ready to owe you anything”

71. “I’ll always look best in your head”

72. “I know you know it’s wrong, but I’m ready”

73. “All I ever want is breaking me apart.”

74. “Let's talk sweetly like all our love is false.”

75. “You put a fire in my heart, painted blood on my stars, gave me faith.”

76. “I wanna meet your girlfriend, she sounds nice.”

77. “How is kissing me so wrong?“

78. “Can’t you see that I’m already yours?”

79. “I’ve been losing track of the romantic sh*t I’m tryna say but basically I love you"

80. “I don’t wanna be your friend, I wanna kiss your lips, I wanna kiss you until I lose my breath”

81. “I apologize for all your tears, I wish I could be different but I’m still growing up into the one you can call your love”

82. “I’m out of my head, of my heart, of my mind cause you can run but you can’t hide, I’m gonna make you mine”

83. "I never loved someone the way that I love you"

84. "It's the way that you know what I thought I knew, it's the beat that my heart skips when I'm with you"

85. "I hope she gettin' better sex, hope she ain't fakin' it like I did, babe"

86. “I know we’re young and people change and we may never feel the same”

87. “I can’t change the world, but maybe I’ll change your mind”

88. "You don't own me. Don't tie me down 'cause I'd never stay."

89. "Leave everything that is worth a single cent and just take me instead."

90. "And then I got you off your knees, put you right back on your feet, just so you can take advantage of me."

91. "Hey, I can't let you go with nobody. Cause I love you, baby."

92. "Tell me that it wasn't my fault and that I was enough for you."

93. "We were good at faking forever, I get it, whatever."

94. "Cause you had your chance and you blew it. Yeah, you ripped it up and you chewed it."

95. "Well, I'm too busy for your business. Go find a girl who wants to listen."

96. "Stop looking at me with those eyes, like I could disappear and you wouldn't care why."

97. "Oh, we could do whatever you want, but boy, don't go falling in love, you can't stay with me, all you'll ever have is one day with me"

98. "I pray the medication slow me down, but that shit doesn't work when you're around"

99. "Told her that I loved her once and now she'd kill for me"

100. "What the tell were we? Tell me we weren't just friends"

[ae86adrian-blog]

Saving the 86 - Pt. 1: Rust

Here it is, my 1986 Corolla GT-S Coupe!

It had been in storage for nearly 10 years (purchased in 2009 or 2010), I had intended on using it as a parts car for my Hatch. Fortunately my Hatch did not really need any major parts so this one remained pretty much untouched all those years.  It runs, has an near-mint interior, but like all Corollas, it’s very rusty.

In Nov. 2018 I decided I would give this car a new lease on life. With the prices of these things sky-rocketing every year and more are being scrapped every day, I wanted to “save” this car to the best of my ability.  

Clean interior. Nice. 

Good Ole 16V. Still has factory airbox and tube thingy.  What’s with all the leaves?

Keep in mind I am not a  professional welder, bodyman, or mechanic - just your average weekend warrior/DIYer with some sheet metal and a welder.  

Time to bring it to the shop, tear off those overfenders and check out the rust.  

Not pretty! Thank God for Wolf Steel.

https://www.alfaparts.net/toycor.htm

Time to get cutting and welding.  

I’ll be using my Hobart 135 MIG welder with C25 shielding gas, and 0.023″ wire.  I got this setup used for around $600. Gas is a bit extra, but I highly recommend it.  You’ll need an angle grinder and a bunch of cut-off disks/grinders too. 

NOTE:   I’ve only welded on one or two other projects, and definitely consider myself a beginner. I know full well there are resto shops that do this kind of work with their eyes closed, and probably do it to a much higher standard than I do. But I don’t have tens of thousands of dollars to spend on a professional restoration so I’m doing the best I can within my abilities/resources available. 

If you are just starting out, don’t be intimidated.  There is lots of info and tutorials online.  Spend a week or two doing research, get a cheap welder and some scrap metal and go to town. You will get the hang of it. 

ALSO: There are lots of parts that are not shown (most likely because they’re boring) and not everything was done in the order that’s shown here. I tried to show it in a way that makes sense if you’re reading along. 

The rocker panels are completely rotted, as well as the “inner” rocker section that comes down from the floors which the rockers are spot welded to at the bottom.  Nobody makes that part but I can make this section from sheet metal and luckily it won’t be visible so it doesn't have to be pretty. If you are doing this, just make sure it is spot welded to the frame rails like it is from the factory. 

More cutting of rust

This car has been packed with expanding foam. Yuck. On a side note, I scored these wheel arch cuts for $50. They’ve been “flared” but apparently they are original AE86 Steel. I will strip the paint and try to re-create the stock bevelled edge on the arch. More on this later. 

Making the “inner” rocker from 18ga sheet metal... or 16ga - don’t quite remember.  Treated with POR15 rust paint or weld-thru primer as necessary so the rocker will adhere. 

Test fitting the Wolf Steel rocker panels. That looks a lot better! 

Time to tack in those rocker panels. They have been coated on the inside with POR15 rust paint to prevent future rust. Ignore all the black gunk. That’s just spilled POR15. The yellow-ish gold stuff is weld-thru primer. It allows you to seal the bare metal but still allows you to weld to it.

Now onto welding the seams. The previous owner had trimmed the rear arches so he could install overfenders - likely just to hide the rust. But he forgot to weld the seams! The rear quarter panel is welded to the wheel well for structural integrity so if you’re planning on cutting the arches on your car, you need to weld the seams or else it’s bad news for your car’s rigidity.  Problem solved now! 

Here I am test-fitting the Wolf Steel Bottom Quarter Panel cuts (TC3L  - https://www.alfaparts.net/toycor.htm) as well as arch cuts that I’ve now stripped the paint from and bent closer to the OEM look.  

Thank god for those Wolf Steel pieces - they’d be almost impossible to fabricate on my own without specialized tools (which I don’t have).

‘

Beginning to weld everything in. Keep in mind the arch section is no longer structural since I’ve now welded the seams underneath. Think of it as a steel, weld-on overfender, but it’s made from an actual factory AE86 arch.  Again, that gold stuff is the weld-thru primer. The new arches are also coated with POR15 on the inside. 

Everything is tacked in place - Nice!  It will need some minor filling and sanding to look perfect, but its looking night-and-day from when I started. 

Ah - the famous AE86 “rust-pockets”.  I’ve seen many simply delete the whole thing and forget about it. Here I’ve done a “semi” - delete. I’ll be putting back the bumper so who cares what it looks like. 

My good friend Nic sold me these clean front fenders. I’m super lucky to have good friends like this! These are crazy hard to find in good condition these days. 

Also: Nic and I have a shared instagram account for our 86s. Follow us at https://www.instagram.com/4agduo/

Also: Note the SSR XR-4 Longchamps!  Shout out to Matt for hooking me up: https://www.instagram.com/mattyballz86/

Sprayed with primer for now. I’ll finish up the body work later, but for now I’m happy with it. 

Yes, I know. the car looks hilarious on stock springs. 

The other side of the car needs similar treatment. I’ll let the pics speak for themselves:   

It’s springtime - I can finally open the garage and see the car in natural light.  I’ve primered the new panels so it looks more like a car again. 

Made this lil piece by hand. - not bad

Unfortunately one of the fenders I got had some rust...

So I bent up some sheet metal. Helps if you have a metal brake. You can get one at Princess Auto for $50.  

I wanted to get the exact contour so I cut the piece in half and welded in half at a time. That way the first piece I could align with the original piece. 

Not too bad. The fender isn’t bolted up yet, but once it is, it everything should line up pretty nicely. 

Here we are at last! Looks like a real car again. Still needs lots of minor filling and sanding, but considering there is absolutely zero filler at this point, I’d say its a great starting point.  Ignore the silver gascap - I took the other one out to use as a paint sample and luckily I had a spare laying around. It’s the only piece I have from my first ever Corolla I bought in 2008!

Aug 2019 Update: 

Did applied some filler around the arch areas and around the gascap, spent hours and hours sanding, and sprayed with a rattle can, here’s the result for now. Could use a full respray but looks okay for now. 

Remember what the car used to look like?!

Next step will be addressing the mechanical side of things. Once that’s done I’ll go back and finish up the bodywork and paint. Stay Tuned! 

[spacesave-game]

Version 1.4 News & other boring stuff

Good whichever-time-of-a-day-it-is! Here’s some irregularly scheduled piece of SpaceSave-related news and some things around it, which affect the development of a new version. It’s been nearly 7 months since the upload of the latest version and around 4 months since last post, so I guess it’s a good time to drop some info. Before we go into specifics, let’s delve into the state of my development process this year.  It’s been a long time, so the post is going to be long as well! I’m sorry...

TL DR(I don’t blame you...): SpaceSave version 1.4 is in development and will release later this year. Also – I’m making a new game.

AlSO, A WARNING – TODAY’S SCREENSHOTS CONTAIN DEPICTIONS OF BLOOD. SO, IF YOU DON’T LIKE THICK TOMATO JUICE – BE WARNED.(I made tags, but I’m writing it here, just to be sure)

These last months has been pretty busy for me, in both personal life and game development. I haven’t been working on SpaceSave’s new version at all, right until three weeks ago or so. As I’ve noted in my last post – version 1.3 turned up to be very time consuming for me, so much so that I had to put my new, main project on hold(I still worked on it from time to time, but the progress was minimal) , just so I could finish the update in a timely manner. I eventually did release version 1.3 on time for my self-imposed deadline and the game was upgraded quite considerably, but it left me burned out in the process and with a small feeling of guilt, caused by ignoring my new project. Thus, after uploading the current version, in December, I’ve decided to take a break from SpaceSave and focus on that new project instead(development of which had a pretty major problem of its own, but we’ll talk about it later ). And this is basically what I was doing since last version’s release. Thankfully, that break was pretty rejuvenating – I’ve came back to SpaceSave, ended up enjoying working on it again and are making progress at a nice pace.

Okay, the boring stuff’s over. Below will be an actual info about new version of SpaceSave and... a new project? Well, that turned out unexpected.

SpaceSave v.1.4

As explained in my latest post about the same issue – this update will be much more humble than the last one, focused mostly on bug fixes, since I want to thoroughly test the whole game again. That being said – there will be some snippets of new content. To not reveal too much right now – one new, shorter questline is planned and I’ve already mapped it out, although I still have to create new(well, mostly recycled, but you get the point) assets for that and actually implement it in the game. As for the new stuff that’s already been added(may contain spoilers):

-          New... character?:

-          Also, now there are two types of soldiers, instead of one(there are also more sprite variations for them as well) on Day 4:

  Now, the urban(that’s grey, for normal people) camo is the same type of soldiers that were in the base game with the same skills. The green(I call it “forest”) variant however uses incendiary grenades, which can put your entire party on fire. It’s a small change but should add some variety.

-          New Items:

First, there is a new special item that you can get from hidden vendors(what, you didn’t know there were hidden vendors in the game? Well, now you know)

Heretical Book – (Description from the game)

Written in fake blood for better effect!

Use these dark secrets to fully revive an ally!

Since there is a new type of soldier, there is also a new type of grenade:

Incendiary Grenade– (Description from the game)

A real thing. Less damaging than a normal one,

but can put all enemies on fire.

The regular grenade also received a small boost in damage, since it was a little too weak in the base game, especially when you remember that it was supposed to be... well... a grenade.

There is a number of other things that I’ve already added, fixes and tweaks, but I’m going to skip them for this post and leave ‘em for an actual announcement, which is still quite a way ahead. I’m going to do a proper post about it, with a release date, as always – at least two weeks before uploading a new version. For now, the progress is going pretty alright, but I still focus more attention on my new project. The plan is, that I’m going to work on SpaceSave as much as I can, but when I’ll notice that version 1.4 will start to eat up into my main project - I’ll wrap the update up, finish things that I’ve already started to work on and release it. Another alternative is that I’ll manage to do all the work I’ve planned to do for this update(I keep a handy list for stuff like that) and if I keep my current pace – it’s pretty likely going to happen.

To summarize – I guess you can expect a new version, at best, in the early autumn. At worst – somewhere later, but it will certainly be this year.

New Project(!):

Yeah, I’ve been talking about it for quite a while, even in this post. I’m making a new game! It’s been in development since late December 2017, two weeks or so after the release of the first version of SpaceSave, although I’d say that I seriously started working on it after version 1.3, since I’ve finally got time to do so. Before that, I was mostly making assets for it.

In the February of this year, I’ve finally got enough assets to start working on a prototype, since this is a quite a different game from SpaceSave, more complex gameplay-wise. Naturally, I’ve wanted to test out how these mechanics work and how the whole game feels to play. Good ideas on paper don’t always result in an enjoyable game. There was also another thing I’ve wanted to check – the engine. For this project, I’ve decided to use the latest RPG Maker MV and there were two reasons for that:

-          Bigger sprite sizes and with these – more detailed sprites – which was the main reason

And obviously...

-          I owned it for some time already and wanted to justify the purchase

However, you’re probably pretty well aware about MV’s reputation as an engine that is pretty unstable. By creating a prototype I wanted to see if that’s true, before I started working on it proper.  And, oh boy, MV didn’t waste any time proving all the bad rumours about it right, for me. I may have sucked at working with it, but when I did – the engine was slow, menus were janky, graphical glitches were everywhere, more complicated events broke almost every time(sometimes they actually worked, but broke later after no changes whatsoever) – hell, sometimes, after the software update, the entire game could break and I had to update project’s files manually.

In short, it was a mess.  It was already March at that point in time and while the progress on the prototype itself was going swell, constant problems in the events for crucial parts of the game were infuriating. Finally, I’ve decided that if I want this project to survive – I need to start over and make it again in VX Ace. I have already made a lot of assets at this point(we’re talking around 86 spritesheets here and that’s only for characters and overworld animations, not counting stuff like tilesets here) and while battlers and animations could be reused no problem – all the sprites made by MV’s standards and most pictures made for MV resolution had to be redrawn. It was a hard decision to make, since it would take a very long time, but I’ve decided to go for it. The only possible alternatives were either keep making it on MV and risk creating an inferior game(at best) or to scrap it altogether. I really like this project and want to see it to the very end, like SpaceSave, so I didn’t want it to just die in such an anticlimactic way. So, for the rest of the March and the entirety of April – I’ve managed to painstakingly remake every single graphical asset that needed it, to fit VX Ace’s standards. T he operation was a success and I’ve finally been able to continue my work! But before that, there was still one thing to do.

When I was busy remaking assets, the prototype for MV was obviously put on hold. However, after I’ve finished working on the asset problem, I’ve decided to complete that version. It was already half-done anyway, so sure, why not - I could still use it to test out the game mechanics, even if some of them will probably be borderline broken. I’ve spent the entire May working on it and finally – on the very first day of June – it was sent to a few carefully selected victims individuals.

The prototype in its barely working state, to my relief, turned out pretty fine. All the mechanics are there, giving me a good blueprint to use in an actual version and its fairly enjoyable. The people I’ve sent it to were pretty positive about it as well. So, everything turned out fine in the end! Now... I just need to actually make the darn game, oh boy...

Anyway, as a reward for you for reading this boring wall of text – here are some screenshots from the described prototype! Please keep in mind, that the screenshots you’ll see below are from a version that will, well, never be released and the actual game will look different, although it will be similar in style and gameplay. That being said – it should give you a general idea about what I’m going for with this game, but remember that it’s VERY WiP. It is also not an announcement(we’re, at the very least, one year before that), that’s why I’m not going to give you any dates, descriptions or concrete information. Sorry, you’ll need to wait some more for that!

Anyway, here are the screenshots. Enjoy(I hope)!

Picture of a robot in that particular screenshot was made by my friend Pequod, who helps me out in art-related matters

BTW. That name of this project is not real and a joke made just for these screenshots. Please don’t ask about the meaning - it’s really bad. Seriously.

Okay, that’s all from me! This post’s length is nearly criminal... Thank you very much for keeping up with SpaceSave! See you all next time, when I’ll, probably, announce version 1.4 in a proper way!

If you want to download the latest version of SpaceSave(1.3), then use this link:

DOWNLOAD HERE FROM A MIRROR OF YOUR CHOOSING

[tendaberry]

like a year and a half ago, i legiterally wrote up a plan for a 90+ panel genesis comic....basically they’re lost in north jersey after a show, journeying towards a 7-11 and ending up lost in the middle of nowhere ...here she is LOL

Seton Hall Student Center, New Jersey, 1974…after a gig, 11:30 pm

  Panel 1:

           Peter (busts in dressing room door, tony is reading a book that says MATH on the cover, Mike is fiddling with his bass, Steve is sleeping, Phil is thinking about the Alamo): HEY LETS GO TO 7-ELEVEN

Panel 2: Mike: What’s 7-ELEVEN?

           Peter, arm around Mike: Oh, a magical place my friend, where you can get anything your heart desires…

Panel 3:

           Peter, close-up: We cannot find these stores in Merry Old England!

           Tony, off-panel: NO

Panel 3:

           Tony: I have to call my wife!

Panel 4:

           Genesis Boys just staring at Tony

Panel 5:

           Tony: My wife Margaret!

Panel 6:

           Genesis Boys still staring at Tony, Phil : ok…

Panel 7:

           Steve: Isn’t it like…4:30 in the morning in England…you’re gonna call her now

Panel 8:

           Tony: Margaret is a very prompt woman! I am a very prompt man!

Panel 9:

           Tony; Gen boys can be seen behind him: THAT’S WHY WE ARE SO COMPATIBLE!

Panel 10:

Tony: She wakes up at 4:30 every day and—

           Mike, off panel: C’mon, man

Panel 11:

           Mike, next to Tony: You got to eat something. You haven’t eaten in a while.

Panel 12:

           Mike: This place has food, right, Peter?

Panel 13:

Peter close-up: I believe so!

Outside walking on the side of the road:

Panel 14:

           Tony: Margaret will not be happy with me!

           Phil: Can you just lighten up…for like a second

Panel 15:

           Steve: Hey, why are we walking to 7-ELEVEN, in the dark…on the side of the road

Panel 16:

           Steve, close-up: in…

Panel 17:

           Steve, close up: North Jersey

Panel 18:

           Peter: UK driver’s licenses aren’t valid in the US…so, we can’t take the tour van, old chum

Panel 19:

           Peter: Besides, I’m not comfortable with that “right side of the road” biz

Panel 20:        

Tony: We could have taken a cab…do you even know where this place is, Peter?

           Panel 21:

                       Peter: No J

2 hours later

           Panel 22:

                       Zoom out, cars whizzing past

                       Tony: PETER!

           Panel 23:

                       Tony, grabbing Peter: FOR GOD’S SAKE, WHERE ARE WE??

           Panel 24:

                       Tony: You keep saying, “We’re almost there!” every time I ask you! AND NOW ITS BEEN HOURS SINCE WE LEFT!!

           Panel 25:

                       Peter:

                                   But Tony…

           Panel 26:

                       Peter, close up:

                                   We are almost there…

           Panel 27:

                       Tony, Gen boys around: AGH!

           Panel 28:

Tony, above angle: Margaret probably thinks I’m dead!!

           Panel 29:

                       Phil, Tony stands, mad, arms crossed: Seriously, though, Peter…where is this place, I’m hungry

           Panel 30:

                       Mike: Yeah, man, same here

           Panel 31:

                       Peter: Like I said-- cut off by car beeping on side of road

           Panel 32:

                       Collective Gen boys: turn in confusion

           Panel 33:

                       Frat boy in convertible: HEY! You pussies go to Seton Hall?

           Panel 34:

                       Gen boys, standing, Mike looks down at his Seton Hall shirt: Uh…

           Panel 35:

                       Peter: Where do you guys go?

Panel 36:

           Frat boys look at each other

Panel 37:

           Frat boy: Rutgers, you cum guzzler

Panel 38:

           Tony, jumps in: NO!

Panel 39:

           Tony: WE ARE NOT UNIVERSITY STUDENTS!!

Panel 40:

           Tony: WE ARE NOT MAJORING IN BUSINESS AND WE DO NOT PLAY LACROSSE!

Panel 41:

           Cut to Frat bros, Tony offscreen: WE ARE IN A BAND CALLED GENESIS

Panel 42:

           Frat bro: Genesis? …

Panel 43:

Frat bro 2: You guys play Christian rock or…?

Panel 44:

           Tony: WE ARE A VERY COMPLEX BAND, PULLING FROM CLASSICAL, FOLK, AND BAROQUE TRADITIONS!

Panel 45:

           Tony: WE SING ABOUT GREEK MYTHOLOGY, AMONG OTHER THINGS!

Panel 46:

           Tony, water balloon filled with paint coming towards him, eyes closed, self righteous: How many guys in their 20s go around singing about that???

Panel 47:

           Water balloon hits Tony and breaks

Panel 48:

           Frat bro fires another

Panel 49:

           balloon hurdles towards Peter

Panel 50:

           balloon hits Peter, he’s smiling relaxed

Panel 51:

           Frat bros driving away: SETON HALL CAN SUCK MY NUTS

Panel 52:

           Gen boys, standing, Peter and Tony drenched with paint, Peter smiles, Tony stands angry

Panel 53:

           Tony, angry at Peter: PETER! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!

Panel 54:

           Tony: I mean, look at me! I’m a mess all because you insisted we go to this accursed convenience store!!!!

Panel 55:

           Peter to Tony: Oh, TONY! Come on, it’s right this way! I know it is!

2 more hours later

Panel 56:

           Steve, distressed: Peter…

Panel 57:

Steve, shows shot from above of open field: we’re in the middle of an open field…we’re definitely lost!

Panel 58:

           Phil: I’m so hungry…and cold…and tired…

Panel 59:

           Phil: Davy Crockett once said that if you’re travelling with a big group and completely out of food…

Panel 60:

           Phil: …you must sacrifice one of your own…then use their carcass

Panel 61:

           Phil, close up: for sustenance…

Panel 62:

           Shows Mike, Phil off panel: MIKE! WE WILL SACRIFICE YOU FIRST! YOU’RE THE LARGEST!

Panel 63:

           Mike: Hey! Come on, Phil! Be cool!

Panel 64:

           Shows Phil about to pounce on Mike, Tony speaks: No, no…not Mike

Panel 65:

           Tony is crouched in a corner: Peter is first.

Panel 66:

           Peter, nervous: Wh-what did you say, old chum?

Panel 67:

           Tony: My wife probably thinks I died in a violent accident because I didn’t get to call her on time

Panel 68:

           Tony: My hair is covered in paint!

Panel 69:

           Tony: I just got a blowout too!

Panel 70:

           Tony, shows Mike and Phil: Friends are turning on friends!

Panel 71:

           Tony, shows Peter: AND IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!

Panel 72:

           Tony to Peter: OH! And this isn’t the first time that you crossed the line either!

Panel 73:

           Tony: Ever since boarding school, you’ve been an insufferable presence in my life!

Panel 74:

           Steve, to Phil and Mike, Phil is holding up Mike’s arm from when he was about to eat him: This isn’t uncomfortable or anything…

Panel 75:

           Tony, shows Peter sad: OOH! I wish we never met each other!

Panel 76:

           Tony attacks Peter

Panel 77:

           Peter and Tony tumble down hill

Panel 78:

           Peter and Tony still tumbling, Tony slaps Peter: This is for all your silly antics during every interview!

Panel 79:

           Same: THIS IS FOR SHAVING YOUR HEAD RIGHT DOWN THE MIDDLE!

Panel 80:

           Same: And this is for letting Phil in the band!

Panel 81:

           Phil: What…

Panel 82:

           Peter and Tony land, still fighting

Panel 83:

           Same, Mike off panel: Hey Look!

Panel 84:

           Mike: It’s 7-ELEVEN!

Panel 85:

           Tony and Peter look behind them

Panel 86:

           Peter: I knew it was close by!

Panel 87:

           Tony: close by??

Panel 88:

           Phil: FINALLY !!

Panel 89:

           Phil: tries to open door, won’t budge

Panel 90:

           Phil, to others: Uh, it won’t open

Panel 91:

           Steve to Phil, Mike peers inside: Uh, well…

Panel 92:

           Shot of sign: The sign says, Sorry we’re closed

Panel 93:

           Gen boys disappointed, Peter off panel: Yes, just like I planned

Panel 94:

           Tony: Excuse me?

Panel 95:

           Peter: Yes, I knew it was closed. I thought the best way for us to bond and form a stronger relationship with one another

Panel 96:

           Peter: Was to go out on a long journey. Like they say “It’s more about the journey than the destination!”

Panel 97:

           Tony: WHAT?!

Panel 98:

           Tony: You brought us all the way out into…

Panel 99:

           Tony: into HOOBA HOBBA VILLE to teach us a lesson????

Panel 100:

           Tony: You almost made Phil…eat Mike

Panel 101:

           Tony, cuts to Phil and Mike: Can you imagine how psychologically scarred we would all be if that was in the process of actually happening

Panel 102:

           Tony: And then we got rescued…

Panel 103:

           Tony: Nothing would ever be the same!

Panel 104:

           Tony: AND MARGARET!

Panel 105:

           Tony: UGH! You know what you did there!

Panel 106:

           Tony: AND ANOTHER THING—

           Steve, off panel: Hey

Panel 107:

           Steve: There’s a 24 hour diner across the way.

Panel 108:

           Gen Boys, Mike: Sounds good to me.

Panel 109:

           Peter: All you can eat scrapple on me!

Panel 110:

           Tony, angry, Gen boys in distance:

                       Phil: What’s scrapple?

                       Peter: Oh, it’s a Pennsylvania Dutch delicacy.

The end

[apicturewithasmile]

I am super fucking bored and want to procrastinate going grocery shopping so I decided to answer every fucking ask (that I liked) of that LGBT ladies ask list.

EDIT: I’m halfway through and I gotta say: If you wanna watch me lose my shit as the questions progress into more and more biphobic and misgynistic territory then you came to the right post on tumblr dot com.

1. How do you define your sexuality? ---- bisexual and queer 2. At what age did you first realize that you like girls? ---- pfff... 13? 5? 21? Who knows? 3. At what age did you first come out? ---- 13ish 4. Who was the first person you came out to? How did they take it? ---- I don’t know? Friends? I don’t think they reacted in any particular way because it was just an off-hand comment of mine and I hardly remember anything about it. 5. How out are you? ---- Very out. Could hardly be outer. 6. Has coming out lost you any friends? ---- Not sure about one friend who sorta stopped contacting me after I mentioned I’m bi. But we were growing apart anyway so maybe it’s a coincidence. 7. What is your current relationship status? ---- I have a boyfriend. 8. How many LGBT friends do you have? ---- Too many to count but still not enough. 9. Do you have any LGBT relatives? ---- Not to my knowledge but I don’t know many relatives of mine. 10. Have you ever cut your hair super short? ---- It is super short right now! (just had my pixie recut) 11. How often do you wear flannel? ---- Never. 12. How much do you like cats? ---- A LOT! 13. Do you wear skirts and dresses? If so, how often? ---- In summer I won’t be seen dead in pants! In winter I do wear pants more frequently but I consider dresses and skirts to be my natural form! 14. Do you wear high heels? If so, how often? ---- Rarely. Only for special occasions. 15. Do you have any tattoos? If so, what of and where? ---- Nope. 16. How accurate is your gaydar? ---- I think it’s okay. 17. Have you ever been to a gay bar or a gay club? ---- Yes. 18. How do you feel when platonic female friends refer to each other as girlfriends? ---- Let them do whatever they want. 19. Have you ever had a crush on a straight girl? ---- Unfortunately yes. 20. Ellen or Portia? ---- Neither. 21. Is your nose pierced? ---- No. 22. Would you ever want to get married, if not already? ---- Nopey nope! (unless it’s for financial/bureaucratic reasons) 23. Will you wear a dress for your wedding? 24. Would you ever want to give birth? ---- Meh. I like children and in a different timeline I definitly have some but... not in this one. 25. Have you ever watched The L Word? ---- No and I don’t plan to watch it since I’ve heard nothing but negative stuff (trans- and biphobia) from sources whose judgement I trust. 26. Have you ever dated a guy? ---- I am dating a guy right now. 27. How do you feel when someone uses the word gay to mean stupid, dumb, or boring? ---- it’s annoying and homophobic 28. How many rainbow items do you own? ---- Not that mayn actually but I do have some bi merch. 29. Have you ever been to a pride festival? ---- Yes, in Berlin and Brighton. 30. Have you ever celebrated National Coming Out Day (October 11)? ---- Not really celebrated but acknowledged its existence, I guess. 31. Have you ever participated in the National Day of Silence? ---- I have never heard of that. 32. Have you ever worn a woman’s suit? ---- I.... guess so? I don’t know. 33. Have you ever worn any men’s clothing? ---- Do my boyfriend’s shorts count? 34. Do you eat meat? ---- No. 35. Do you consider yourself a feminist? ---- Yes. 36. Who is your favorite LGBT celebrity? ---- Elton John 37. Are you religious at all? ---- No. 38. How often do you find yourself trying to sneak a peak or staring at a cute female woman? ---- probably more often than I even notice I do. 39. What is your ideal first date? ---- Coffee date! 40. Are you comfortable with terms such as lezzie, lesbo, dyke, or tranny? ---- I use neither of those for myself and also wouldn’t use them for anyone else unless they explicitly told me it was okay. 41. How outdoorsy are you? ---- Little. 42. In general, has being open about your sexuality affected your relationships with other females women (jesus fucking christ stop calling women “females”!!! we’re not cattle)? ---- I don’t know. Maybe it has intensified some friendships just because I started being more authentic. 43. How much makeup do you typically wear? ---- Usually none at all, sometimes lipstick and when I’m feeling very fancy some mascara and eye liner. 44. Have you ever attended a gay or lesbian wedding? ---- No. Well.... I was at a wedding of a bi women and a bi man but I know some fractions of the LGBTQIA+ community wouldn’t say this counts. 45. Are you more feminine or more masculine? ---- I’m... me? I guess others would say I’m more feminine. 46. How long is the longest relationship you’ve been in? Are you still with that person? ---- 1 1/2 years and counting :) 47. Have you and a girlfriend ever been mistaken for sisters? 48. Do you think it is possible for someone to truly be a 50/50 bisexual, or is the percentage always skewed in favor of one gender? ---- I think the person who wrote this question has a very wrong understanding of what bisexuality is; and the way this is phrased makes it really sound like “do you think bisexuality exists or is everyone really just gay or straight?” 49. Have you ever wished you were completely straight? ---- No. 50. Do you watch any LGBT YouTubers? ---- Alayna Fender, Ash Hardell, ContraPoints and Lindsey Ellis 51. Do you wear any combat boots, Doc Martins, or Timberlands? ---- I have a set of boots with floral print. 52. Have you ever been hit on by another female woman (djkbdnkmg)? ---- Yes. 53. How athletic are you? ---- Not at all. 54. What are your views on gender identity and bathroom use? ---- Let people be whatever gender they want to be and fucking let them pee!!! 55. What is your opinion of septum/bull nose piercings? ---- Not for me but looks good on some people. 56. What does equality mean to you? ---- It means equality. 57. If you are not a lesbian, about what percentage of the time do you find yourself attracted to other females women? ---- okay I’m starting to hate this list of questions more and more the further down I get. Has this person ever talked to a bisexual person before??? Has this person ever talked to another WOMAN before??? “If you’re not a 100% lesbian then.... how much percent lesbian are you?” 58. Have you ever shared clothes with a girlfriend? ---- Never had a girlfriend. 59. Have you ever liked or dated a girl with the same name as you? ---- No, but my name is rare in my country. 60. How flirty are you? ---- VERY! “Flirty” is my middle name. 61. Are you a virgin? ---- No but virginity is a shitty concept that should be abolished. 62. Do you listen to any LGBT musicians (i.e. Tegan & Sara, Melissa Ehteridge, Chely Wright, Elton John, Sam Smith, George Michael, Adam Lambert)? ---- ELTON JOHN!!!! Also Sia, David Bowie, Janelle Monáe... 63. Have you ever been told that you are too pretty to be gay? ---- No and I’m not gay anyway. 64. Have you ever been discriminated against because of your sexuality or gender identity? If so, please explain. ---- Not that I can remember but I did have to listen to some biphobic bullshit in my lifetime. 65. Have you ever driven an SUV, Jeep,  or a pickup truck? ---- I can’t drive. 66. Are you or have you ever been a tomboy? ---- No. 67. Agree or disagree: Everyone is at least a little bit gay. ---- Again, I think the person who wrote this is forgetting the existence of bisexuality and pansexuality and any other m-spec variation. And also... straight people exist. 68. What personality trait are you most attracted to? ---- Know that tumlr post that’s like “name a non-sexual act that turns you on” and someone responded “when they reply to your sarcasm with something even more sarcastic” 69. Boobs or butts? ---- Both. 70. Beer or wine? ---- Wine. 71. Do you have a favorite lesbian movie? ---- Don’t really watch “lesbian movies”. 72. From 1-10, how attractive are muscular women? 73. From 1-10, how attractive are women who wear glasses? 74. From 1-10, how attractive are women who are covered with tattoos? 75. From 1-10, how attractive are curvy/plus-size women? 76. From 1-10, how attractive are women with short hair? 77. From 1-10, how attractive are masculine butch women? 78. From 1-10, how attractive are highly intelligent women? 79. From 1-10, how attractive are tall women (i.e. around 6 feet or taller)? ---- If you think I’m gonna rate women on a scale like some misogynistic fuckboy then you are wrong! 80. Have you ever been on your period the same time as a girlfriend? 81. Has a girl ever dumped you for a guy? Have you? ---- “Has a girl ever perpetuated a bisexual stereotype that I want to confirm so I can continue distrusting bisexuals?” 82. Do you carry a purse? ---- Usually I have a little backpack but I also have purses for spexial occassions. 83. Do you wear any hats such as snapbacks or beanies? ---- I wear a bowler hat in fall/winter 84. Have you ever pretended to be completely straight? ---- What is it with that “completely” straight? As if someone can be half straight. Newsflash: Bisexual people aren’t Gay Lite or Straight with a dash of Gay. 85. Would you ever date a trans girl? ---- Yes, of course I would. 86. How well do you think LGBT women are portrayed on television? ---- Usually not that accurately. 87. Have you ever had a crush on a woman who’s much older than you? ---- Hmmm... usually the women I fall for are closer to my age. Men on the other hand... I like them old! 88. Do you have any celebrity crushes? ---- Yep, lots. 89. Do you have any opinions on LGBT people in the military? ---- Potential murderers, just like anyone else in the military. 90. Do you believe in love at first sight? ---- No. But I believe in attraction at first sight. 91. Have you ever been told that you look gay (i.e. like a lesbian)? ---- No. 92. Where do you think is the best place to meet a potential lover? ---- In your friend circle. 93. Is there such a thing as “good” lesbian porn? ---- Yes. 94. Have you ever had a one night stand? ---- Yes. 95. How often do you wear a bra? ---- Most days but in summer I sometimes go without one depending on my outfit and the temperature. 96. Have you ever been part of a softball team? ---- No. 97. If you could live your life all over again, would you still be attracted to other women? ---- Yes. 98. What stereotype about LGBT women do you disagree with the most? ---- I disagree with all stereotypes because the function that stereotypes are supposed to fulfill is to give people permission to single out a group of people and judge them. Some people fit a stereotype - so what? Doesn’t mean all other people from that group do the same. 99. What advice would you give a girl who is struggling to figure out her sexuality? ---- Take your time, be kind to yourself, talk to other queer people. 100. What advice would you give a girl who is struggling to come out?  ---- Put your own safety first. If someone doesn’t accept you then they don’t deserve being a part of your life.

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior 10/8/21 - NO TIME TO DIE, THE RESCUE, MASS, LAMB, NIGHTSTREAM, and More

It's a very special week here at the Weekend Warrior because October 10 will be my 20th (!!) anniversary as a film critic and the 20th anniversary of me doing a weekly movie preview column, mostly about box office but also with reviews and other stuff. Pretty cool, huh? (I’m celebrating this occasion by writing this column to the music of Public Enemy’s Apocalypse 91 which is 30 years old this month.)

Of course, this column wasn't called The Weekend Warrior in the early days, as I was instead doing "Half-Assed Analysis” at a long-gone Hollywood Stock Exchange fan site called HSJ.org. But then, it was a conversation with Mirko P. from ComingSoon.net (R.I.P.) that got me on the track of changing the name to "The Weekend Warrior" even though it would be a year before I would actually bring it to ComingSoon for 12 ½ wonderful years. The column has gone through a number of transformations and evolutions and iterations over the years, sometimes it being called something different just 'cause I didn't want to go through the ordeal of explaining to one of my bosses at a website that "The Weekend Warrior” is my own, and if I leave, it goes with me.

Anyway, I have taken a few weeks off over the years, particularly earlier this year when it just didn't seem a good time to be trying to predict box office, and I was starting to get burnt out on reviews. Now, the column is kind of back to being mostly about box office but with a few reviews, which is how I've always intended it.

Who knows if I'm going to continue this on that much longer, because honestly, there's no money and very little reward, and it does take a lot of time to write this up each week, especially with all the work I have to do for Below the Line. Anyway, for now, I'm going to keep it going, and we'll see how it goes. But Happy 20th Anniversary to me, and I can promise you… there won't be 20 more. NO FUCKING WAY.

Before we get to this week’s theatrical releases, I feel the need to mention the first of a bunch of October horror film festivals, as NIGHTSTREAM will begin on Thursday and run through Oct. 13. This is an amazing streaming horror/genre film festival that was instituted last year by four festivals, the Boston Underground Film Festival, the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival, the North Bend Film Festival, and the Overlook Film Festival when all four were cancelled due to COVID. Some of these are still happening this year as physical in-person festivals but Nighstream continues on. Some of the guests at this year’s Nightstream are The Green Knight director David Lowery; Akela Cooper, who wrote the recent James Wan horror film, Malignant; horror and special make-up FX legend Greg Nicotero, who is also the showrunner on the Creepshow anthology series, and more.

There are so many movies and events going on in the week of Nightstream but some of the highlights include the World Premiere of Jefferson Moneo’s Cosmic Dawn, Scott Friend’s feature debut, To the Moon, and the Virtual Premiere of Scott Barber’s doc, This is Gwar, as well as much more.

You can see the full list of movies here and learn how to get a pass at the official site.

Let’s get to some other movies hitting theaters...

Obviously, the big release of the weekend and maybe the month is the 25th James Bond movie, NO TIME TO DIE (MGM), once again starring Daniel Craig in his final outing as 007, his fifth movie in a run that started with Casino Royale in 2006 and 15 years later, it’s coming to an end.

Obviously, this being Craig’s last stint as Bond is a big draw for the movie, but there are other interesting things to note First, it’s directed by True Detective’s Emmy-winning director Cary Joji Fukunaga, who is making his biggest budget movie to date, having started with smaller films like Sin Nombre and Jane Eyre, and then getting more attention for his festival favorite, Beast of No Nations, starring Idris Elba, who for a while, people seemed to want to play the NEXT Bond.

Much of Bond’s colleagues and friends from past movies are back including Naomi Harris as Moneypenny, Ralph Fiennes as M, Ben Whishaw as Q, but it also brings back Jeffrey Wright, who was introduced as Felix Leitner in Craig’s first film, Casino Royale, and also a few people from the last Bond movie, Spectre, which wasn’t received as well as the previous one, Skyfall. (More on those things in a bit.) Christoph Waltz played Blofeld in Spectre (for better or worse), and he’s back, as is Léa Seydoux, who played Bond's love interest, and actually she continues said role but brings more to the plot.

The new cast is pretty significant, starting with Oscar winner Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody) as the new arch-villain, Safin, and actually, there’s also a new 007 in Lashana Lynch, who replaced Bond after he retired from MI6. There’s another “Bond Girl” (if you don’t mind the outdated trope) in Ana de Armas, who previously starred with Craig in Rian Johnson’s Knives Out, which feels like it was made 500 years ago but actually has a sequel shooting as we speak. In fact, Armas seems to be getting the best notices from everyone who writes about the movie, even though her section probably isn’t more than 15 minutes long.

I’m not going to say more about the plot. You either don’t need to know it in advance cause you’re seeing it anyway or you don’t WANT to know anything, and good for MGM for being able to keep the plot and lots of stuff secret despite the movie being delayed for 18 months due to COVID.

That’s right. No Time to Die was probably one of the first movies delayed due to COVID, and it definitely wasn’t the last, but MGM (and EON Productions) really stuck to their guns, and didn’t allow a streamer to come forward with millions and millions of dollars to put James Bond on streaming. (Granted, Amazon did come forward and ended up buying MGM outright earlier this year, and we’ve yet to see how and when that will come to fruition. As far as I know, Amazon has nothing to do with MGM’s 2021 releases, of which there are a few still to come.)

Actually, the fact that MGM is releasing this one on its own is an interesting point in itself, because it’s been almost 20 years since the studio has done that with Pierce Brosnan’s last Bond film, Die Another Day. In the time since then, MGM has been co-distributing its films with other studios until fairly recently -- the last four Bond movies were released by Sony Pictures. I’m not gonna throw shade at MGM, because they’ve been doing a fantastic job with No Time To Die, essentially marketing the movie once back in early 2020 and then again for its final release spot this Friday. In between, the movie has moved a number of times as COVID just kept ambushing its planned release date. Any weaker studio (like, say Sony) would have just sold the movie off (as Sony has done many times over the past 18 months until finally having a theatrical hit with Venom). Interesting how that works out, huh? MGM took over Bond, and now it’s releasing the new Bond a week after Sony’s biggest 2021 hit, essentially killing its chances at having a decent second weekend.

Others are seeing how well Venom did and are assuming that the box office is back, and that Bond can do even BIGGER numbers, but you need to take a few things into account, including something called REALITY. And it comes from the wonderful box office archive site, The-Numbers.com, which I have been using for those 20 years mentioned above.

Up until Daniel Craig took over the role, the biggest opening for a Bond movie (not accounting for inflation) was Brosnan’s Die Another Day with $47 million. Casino Royale opened with just $40 million in 2006, but it proved to have significant holiday legs as more people discovered it and decided that the new direction of tougher and grittier and more violent action was for them. It made $167 million domestically and $594 million globally. A few years later, Quantum of Solace had a much bigger opening of $67.5 million but made almost the exact same amount domestically -- the reason? People didn’t like it as much as Casino Royale, so it was more frontloaded.

Oscar-winning filmmaker Sam Mendes took over the 50th anniversary Bond movie, Skyfall, four years later, and that was generally as well received as Casino Royale, so that it set a new opening record for the franchise with $88.3 million and OVER A BILLION worldwide. Woo! Three years later, Spectre was going to introduce two classic Bond villains, Blofeld and Jaws (played by David Bautista) but it once again wasn't received that well, and it opened lower with $70 million and “only” made $200 million domestically vs. the $300 million of Skyfall. It still made over $879 million globally, but a final movie for Craig was always going to happen.

Now I’m going to talk about why I don’t think No Time to Die is going to break the opening record set by Skyfall, and believe it or not, it's not because of COVID. This is the thing. Bond clearly peaked with Skyfall and then it dropped down with Spectre, and that movie wasn't that well-received either by critics or fans with 63% from the former on Rotten Tomatoes and 61% from audiences. That is basically Quantum of Solace numbers and down from Skyfall's 92% and 86%. You take that disappointment and then you add six years, which is how long it's been between Bond movies, and you have a lot fewer people interested in shelling out money to see another Daniel Craig movie. There's no way around the fact that people are just burnt out on Craig and maybe Bond himself, and it really would take a huge wave of positive reviews to get them back.

Also, and unlike Venom, Bond is about as white as you can get in terms of a fanbase. I'm sure there's some African-Americans and LatinX movie fans who enjoy the action and stuff, but do you think you would see the entire James Bond collection in their Bluray libraries? I'm sure there are some, but they may be outliers, because Bond is the kind of Baby Boomer anti-woke un-PC franchise that the Millennials have been warning you about for years. It also doesn't have as big a female fanbase as other franchises (like Marvel) so that's another audience that might not rush out to see the movie. Sure, some changes have been made, including additions like Lashana Lynch or as she's better known, "WHO?!?!?", and de Armas, as well, but it's still the same old James Bond. Fukunaga just didn't try hard enough to make the necessary changes, or maybe he wasn't allowed to, because EON's Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. WIlson still hold very tight reins on the Bond films. Whatever has been done may not just be enough and who knows how many will want to see No Time to Die just to give Craig a glorious send-off? There's also the matter of No Time to Die being almost an hour longer than Venom -- longer run time, less screenings, less money per screen. It's simple math.

I already reviewed the movie for Below the Line -- I liked it but had some issues -- and it’s sitting pretty at 83% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, which is a good sign for getting the interest of fans to return to theaters for a movie that won’t be available on streaming on VOD for quite some time, I’d imagine.

I’m feeling generally bullish (or is it bearish?) on No Time To Die, especially with how much better Venom: Let There Be Carnage did last weekend compared to my prediction (OUCH!) but I’m also keeping track of that REALITY I mentioned before. Not just COVID on this one, but also opening the movie earlier overseas where the movie can be easily bootlegged and put on piracy sites for people who just don’t want to chance it at movie theaters yet. (I’m going to be writing more about this soon, but I have seen probably 100 movies or more in theaters since they reopened in NYC, and I get tested regularly. I have not tested positive for COVID once.)

The movie has done very well overseas, scoring $121.3 million in its first weekend, but I still don’t think it will open over $80 million in North America. But I do think it will be close, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it opens somewhere between $75 and 80 million.

Without knowing if any of the movies below might be going wider (but highly doubting it), here’s what the weekend Top 10 might look like. Actually, let’s make that the top 8 cause last week’s #9 and 10 were so odd and I have no idea if anything is expanding wider, as I write this:

1. No Time to Die (MGM) - $76.5 million N/A

2. Venom: Let There Be Carnage (Sony) - $31.5 million -65%

3. The Addams Family II (MGM/UA Releasing) - $9.3 million -45%

4. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (Marvel/Disney) - $ 3.5 million -43%

5. The Many Saints of Newark (New Line/WB) - $2.1 million -55%

6. Free Guy (20th Century/Disney) - $1.3 million -45%

7. Dear Evan Hansen (Universal) - $1.1 million -57%

8. Candyman (Universal) - $700,000 -47%

I think there are just way too many great movies to pick just one "Chosen One,” but since I probably should decide, I'm going with Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi's new documentary THE RESCUE (National Geographic). You may remember Jimmy and Chai from when they won the Oscar for Free Solo, and their latest is just as good. The rescue in the title refers to the 2018 rescue of an 11-kid Thai soccer team called the Wild Boars and their coach when they became trapped in the Tham Luang caves in Northern Thailand, as the annual monsoon season hits early, flooding the caves in which they’re exploring.

To fully understand how they got trapped, you have to have some idea of the structure of this underground cave system, and this film does a great job explaining how the monsoons create flooding in the caves and how much harder it is to get someone out of them when the rain just won’t stop. Two British cave divers, John Volanthen and Richard Standton, are called in to survey the situation and figure out if there’s a way to get the dozen trapped out alive, as time keeps passing until it seems like those kids are trapped without food longer than any human can survive. Seemingly, thousands of locals and foreigners come to the caves in hopes of helping, whether it’s trying to pump out water or dig new tunnels to try to find where the kids are trapped (which is a difficult task in itself).

There’s a good chance you were watching the news and you know the results of this elaborate and daring cave diving rescue, but you definitely don’t know how the plan was developed and pulled off until you actually watch it as it’s taking place. The underwater and cavern footage of the kids and their saviors is absolutely second to none, and it’s hard not to get emotional in the way Chin and Vasarhleyi assemble the footage with the music.

The Rescue is an amazing movie, maybe as good as the duo’s previous one, Free Solo, and it may be the best recapturing/documentation of an important news event that I’ve seen in recent memory.

I was seriously close to having multiple "Chosen Ones” this week, because there are a few other very good movies, including Fran Kranz’s directorial debut MASS (Bleecker Street), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and deservedly received mass praise and stellar reviews. I don't want to say too much about the movie, because its emotional power may lay in not knowing too much about it in advance. The simplest plot is that it involves two couples meeting in the room of a church to have an important face-to-face about a difficult subject, one that needs resolution and absolution from both parties. If you like great writing and amazing performances, than the work of Reed Birney and Anne Dowd (as one couple) and Jason Isaacs and Martha Plympton (as the other) will make this movie a can't miss.

Again, without getting too deep into what the couples discuss, Mass is written and directed similar to one might do a 90-minue one-act play, but it begins with us seeing the people who work at the church trying to set up the room where this eventful tete a tete will take place. It’s surprisingly witty and even elicits a few laughs from Breeda Wool, who is so nervous and awkward about the meeting that’s about to happen.

When the two couples arrives, that’s where we really get into it, but it still starts out slow, a re-aquaintance phase between the two couples, who clearly have a difficult past, try to get through the niceties before getting into the serious conversation at hand. And here is where I’m gonna put a HUGE SPOILER IN HERE FOR THE NEXT PARAGRAPH.

As with so many movies, Mass deals with gun violence and the survivors of the types of school shootings we’ve seen far too many times in the last two decades. Isaacs and Plympton’s son was killed by the other couple’s son, who turned the gun on himself. It creates this dynamic where both couples have lost a son they loved, but Dowd and Birney are put in a spot where they have to try to explain their son’s behavior and if they saw that he was capable of such violence before the shooting took place.

The actors are all terrific, and while you might think a dialogue-heavy movie with four actors sitting at a table might not do much for you… well, first of all, you can go see No Time to Die if that’s more your speed … but Kranz’s direction is more than just getting these emotional performances out of his actors but also capturing it on film and editing it to best effect. There’s even an imperfection to the camera work, sometimes focusing on one actor while another is talking, that makes this long conversation feel even more authentic, as if you’re a fly on the wall in that room.

Again, the writing and performances and direction of Mass makes it one of the most powerful dramatic works this year. I’d love to see any of the four main actors get awards attention, but especially Dowd and Isaacs, who have been so deserving of awards love for a very, very long time.

Icelandic filmmaker Valdimar Jóhansson's LAMB (A24) is a very different movie, this one starring Noomi Rapace and Hilmir Snær Guðnason as Maria and Ingvar, a couple living on a sheep farm (or rather, a lamb farm -- I honestly don't know the difference) who make an incredible discovery when a lamb gives birth to a child they decide to raise as their own. Invar's brother Pétur is not only not impressed but he thinks they’ve gone crazy, but there’s a lot of far more nefarious things going on in and around their remote and isolated farm.

This is a really fascinating film, one that’s fairly subdued but Johansson and his cinematographer (Eli Arenson) beautifully capture the vast landscapes of Iceland and gives us a real idea of how remote and isolated the farm where it mostly takes place is. He also does a great job building on the mystery of this child and the tension that surrounds where it came from, and yet, I’m not sure I’d consider Lamb to be horror, even if A24 is maybe marketing it in that direction. Really, it’s more magical fantasy mixed with character drama, and Rapace is just great as always, really impressing me with her skills delivering baby animals and driving a tractor.

If you dig a bit deeper, you’ll discover that Jóhansson wrote the screenplay with one “Sjón,” an author who has contributed to Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark (one of my favorite musical movies) and also wrote The Northman, Robert Eggers next movie.

This is a terrific debut by Jóhansson -- I have an interview with the director over at Below the Line, too -- and it will be highly interesting to see where he goes from here.

I was hoping to watch and review SOUTH OF HEAVEN (RLJEfilms), the new movie from Aharon Keshales, the co-director of the fantastic Israeli thriller, Big Bad Wolves, which stars Jason Sudeikis, Evangeline Lilly, Mike Colter, and Shea Whigham, but I fell foul of a lousy screener and just didn't have tie to watch it before writing this week's column. Sudeikis plays Jimmy, a convict who has served 12 years for armed robbery who gets early parole, and he swears to give his childhood love Annie (Lilly), who is dying from cancer, the best final year of her life.

I also didn't get a chance to watch Russian filmmaker Evgeny Ruman's comedy GOLDEN VOICES (Music Box Films), which opens in New York and L.A. this weekend. It stars Maria Belkin and Vladimir Friedman as Raya and Victor, the Soviet Union’s popular film dubbers who have been translating film classics into Russian for decades. When the country collapses in 1990, the Jewish couple decides to move to Israel in hopes of finding employment. When she answers a help wanted ad looking for “pleasant voices,” she ends up working as a phone sex operator catering to the Russian community in Israel while he falls in with black market film pirates.

I also just haven't gotten around to JUSTIN BIEBER: OUR WORLD (Amazon), directed by Michael D. Ratner, which seems like the fourth or fifth documentary about the global superstar, this one that goes into the making of his 2020 New Year's Eve concert after a three-year hiatus atop the Beverly Hills Hilton for 240 invited guests and millions via livestream. It will stream on Amazon Prime Video this Friday.

A couple horror movies streaming this week are THERE’S SOMEONE INSIDE YOUR HOUSE (Netflix), the new movie from Patrick Brice (Creep), which hits Netflix and involves a masked assailant targetting a high school graduating class to expose the darkest secret of each victim, forcing a group of misfits to band together to stop the killings.

Shudder gets V/H/S 94 (Shudder), the latest anthology horror movie made up of five installments, directed by Simon Barrett, Chloe Okuno, Ryan Prows, Jennifer Reeder, and Timo Tjahjanto. I haven't watched it yet but that's quite a rogue's gallery of horror/genre filmmakers there.

Streaming on Amazon Prime Video are the next two installments of this year's batch of Welcome to the Blumhouse movies, Axelle Carolyn's The Manor, an eerie tale set in a retirement home and starring the legendary Barbara Hershey, and Ryan Zarazoga’s Madres about a young Mexican-American couple having their first child in ‘70s California where he’s sent to work on a farm where the wife finds a talisman and a box with belongings of the former resident. Both of them debut on Amazon Prime Video this Friday, too. Also, you can read my interview with Ms. Carolyn over at Below the Line.

Other movies that just didn't fit into my schedule this week include:

ASCENSION (MTV Documentary Films) VENGEANCE IS MINE (Vertical) PHARMA BRO (1091) KNOCKING (Yellow Veil Pictures)

Next week’s wide release is David Gordon Green’s horror sequel, HALLOWEEN KILLS!

[eagle-eyez]

Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, will fly to the edge of space today, 20 July, at 5:00 pm IST. This will be the 16th flight for the New Shepherd rocket, but the first flight with a crew.

The entire trip for the billionaire and his motley crew will last for a total of 11 minutes, and they will experience the effects of zero gravity for a total of three minutes. However, the date has some significance, as it has been chosen to coincide with the 52nd anniversary of Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin taking their first steps on the moon.

The rocket will launch from Blue Origin's Launch Site One facility some 32km outside Van Horn, a rural town in Texas. The Karman line is the imaginary boundary between Earth's atmosphere and outer space and is 100 km above sea level. The Blue Origin flight will rise to 106 kilometres above sea level.

#NewShepard is on the pad. The launch team completed vehicle rollout this morning and final preparations are underway. Liftoff is targeted for 8:00 am CDT / 13:00 UTC. Live broadcast begins at T-90 minutes on https://t.co/7Y4TherpLr. #NSFirstHumanFlight pic.twitter.com/oShmtRmA4n

— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) July 20, 2021

This launch comes hot on the heels of another billionaire, Richard Branson, flying to space on his Virgin Galactic spaceplane with a crew of five other senior Galactic employees. Their flight did not touch the Karman Line, as it rose to only 86 km above sea level.

However, if this flight is successful, both billionaires will be able to add 'astronaut' to their list of titles. NASA and the US Air Force choose to define an astronaut as a person who has flown higher than 80 km above sea level, which both Branson, and now Bezos, will achieve.

While travelling to space is not a big deal anymore, these flights are a step in the direction of broadening the horizon of space travel. They are also exhibiting that their crafts are able to conduct safe human flights to space, while increasing the scope of commercial space flights as well as opening up the space tourism industry.

Both Bezos and Branson do not believe they are in competition with each other. This comes as a surprise, as Blue Origins had posted a list of differences between the two space flights and definitely hinted at poking fun.

During an interview with the TODAY show on NBC on Monday, Bezos said, "There's one person who was the first person in space – his name was Yuri Gagarin– and that happened a long time ago."

"This isn't a competition, this is about building a road to space so that future generations can do incredible things in space," he added.

Sir Richard Branson on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert last week said he was not competing to beat Bezos in this billionaire space race. He even advised Bezos saying, "Just absorb the view outside - really take it in. It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

New Shepard Rocket

The New Shepard rocket is Blue Origin's reusable suborbital rocket named after NASA astronaut Alan Shepherd. He was the first American astronaut to go to space and also walk on the moon on one of the Apollo missions. Similar to the Blue Origin mission, he did not orbit the Earth. He flew 186 km high and returned to Earth; his entire trip lasted 15-and-a-half minutes.

The New Shepard rocket is designed to take both people and payloads to the Karman line, and all missions will last 11 minutes.

The rocket has flown 15 test flights and has proved to be safe for transporting human beings.

It is 18 metres tall and has only one stage. It uses liquid hydrogen and a liquid oxygen engine to power the rocket. The only byproduct is water vapour.

The rocket is launched into space at 3,700 kph and then the crew capsule separates from the rest of the rocket at 76 km. The capsule continues to travel upwards and reaches 106 km - the maximum altitude and coasts for some time before it begins its descent. The crew capsule has large windows that allow people inside to really get a 360-degree view of their surroundings. It is also spacious enough to allow everyone to move around and enjoy the outside scenery.

The capsule can carry six astronauts and is a pressurised cabin. According to the website, the vehicle is fully autonomous and there is no need for a pilot.

Seven minutes after launching and then separating from the capsule, the booster lands on the ground, around three km away from the launch pad. The capsule uses three parachutes and a thruster to help it land.

"We learned how to make a vehicle safe enough that we'd be willing to put our own loved ones on it, and send them to space," said Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith during a press briefing.

Female pilot Mary Wallace 'Wally' Funk, who is part of the crew, told NBC that she plans to make the most of the opportunity and is looking forward to floating, turning and rolling in near-zero gravity.

Spacesuits

Something that Blue Origin is doing differently is its spacesuits. It has decided to do a complete 180 and skip this significant and iconic astronaut look. Instead, the crew will have bright blue flight suits that will give the four crew members a uniform look without all the extra bells and whistles.

During the NBC interview, Bezos added they would fly in light "flight suits" only.

He said, "With the cabin pressurised, it's redundant; we don't need to use spacesuits, and we're going to be just like this," as he showed the chest of the flight suit that he was wearing to the camera.

The Virgin Galactic crew wore spacesuits; however, they were non-pressurised as well. Created in partnership with Under Armour, the suits and footwear will be worn by all space tourists that will fly Virgin Galactic. The line was first showcased in 2019 a la catwalk style, but in the air.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk still does spacesuits for his Crew Dragon flights. During SpaceX's first human spaceflight, the black and white spacesuits were revealed for the first time in 2020. They have been specially designed and are customised for each crew member. The suits are also an important factor for the flight, as they are an extension of the spacecraft.

All-civilian crew

The all-civilian crew will include Bezos, accompanied by his brother Mark; a female pilot that NASA rejected for its astronaut program, Mary Wallace 'Wally' Funk and high school graduate Oliver Daemen.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jeff Bezos (@jeffbezos)

Funk, at 82 years old, will become the oldest person to go to space, while Daemen at 18, will be the youngest.

Mark Bezos

Mark is a financier and works at the Bezos Family Foundation. He was also a volunteer firefighter. He founded an advertising agency and is Senior Vice President at a charity organisation named Robin Hood. He is six years younger than Bezos and is most likely a millionaire like his brother, since he was an early investor in Amazon.

Bezos shared the moment when he asked Mark to join him on Blue Origin's first human spaceflight in a video on Instagram. He said, "The greatest adventure, with my best friend."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jeff Bezos (@jeffbezos)

The two brothers are best friends and quite close, making him a logical choice to share this special occasion with.

Wally Funk

Sixty years after training to become an astronaut and being rejected by a sexist NASA program, Funk will finally go to space. In a video posted on Bezos' Instagram, she said, "I like to do things that nobody's ever done." She later went on to become a pilot as she has been training since she was nine-years-old.

Funk was part of a privately-funded, innovative flight program named Mercury 13 in the 1960s. All the members of the program were women and she was the youngest of the group. The program made women undergo the same training and tests as future male astronauts in the official NASA program.

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A post shared by Jeff Bezos (@jeffbezos)

Funk said, "They were testing us to our extremes." And at the end of the program, she was told she "had done the job better and faster than any of the men."

But the program was cancelled after NASA rejected it.

The first woman went into space in 1983 and in 1999, Funk said in an interview, "It was kind of interesting, the fact that we could have done it, and they just wouldn't let us. A dog did it. A monkey did it. A man did it. Women can do it, too."

Oliver Daemen

18-year-old Daemen will be the first paying customer for Blue Origin. He is a recent High School graduate who has taken a break year before he goes to the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands this September. He is expected to study physics and innovation management.

Daemen is replacing the $28 million live auction winner, who had to postpone his trip due to scheduling conflicts. Blue Origin has conducted a live auction to sell one ticket for this flight and the money raised was to go to the Bezos Foundation. The company has not yet revealed the name, age, gender, nationality of the winner. Daemen was the runner up in the live auction.

While they were interested in flying to space, Daemen and his father, Joes Daemen, dropped out of the auction after the bid started to skyrocket. Daemon Sr is the founder of a Dutch investment company named Somerset Capital Partners in the Netherlands, reported The New York Times.

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A post shared by Oliver Daemen (@oliver_daemen)

“He was a participant in the auction and had secured a seat on the second flight,” said Sara Blask, a Blue Origin spokesperson, in an email. “We moved him up when this seat on the first flight became available.”

Blue Origin has not officially revealed a lot of information about Daemen, including the price of his ticket.

Flying on the New Shepard rocket will fulfill a lifelong dream for Daemen. According to a statement, Daemen has been fascinated by space, the moon and rockets since he was four.

“This is a dream come true!” Daemen said in a news release from the family. “I hadn’t counted on this at all, until last week that surprising phone call from Blue Origin came. This is so unbelievably cool! The flight to and into space only takes 10 minutes, but I already know that these will be the most special 10 minutes of my life.”

source https://www.firstpost.com/tech/science/jeff-bezos-and-crew-space-bound-on-first-blue-origin-flight-everything-you-need-to-know-9821121.html