#i say it a lot but my boss Dale is SUCH a good man

[kweenkatsuki-main]

i had to let my boss know about the coming fertility doc appointments that are coming this week and when i sat down to tell him about it yall...

yall he was so happy. he was beaming like a proud father i almost cried.

He was like "That's so exciting! oh my gosh you're gonna be a great mom! I always thought that. You're gonna be a great mom and make a great kid!"

Like yall he was so happy. he was like "If you need anything let me know. I'm so excited for you."

the kid doesnt even exist yet and he goes "You're gonna give us a *insert my company name here* baby" and i brought up a woman who already had a baby like a few months ago at the company and he goes "Ok well i don't like her so her baby is not the company baby. Yours will be"

anyway that is all to say i had to go to the bathroom to cry about it cuz it really made me emotional.

[commenter2]

The Show Must Go On episode review (Hazbin Hotel S1 finale)

The finale of season 1 of Hazbin Hotel. MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW! Also long post warning

Did the title of the episode strangely remind anyone else of the failed videogame “Showdown Bandit”? Anyone?

Charlie wishing her mom was there. Likely foreshadowing her appearing near the end.

Charlie really likes a man in uniform. Maybe take some notes on that Vaggie XD.

Looks like we got a glimpse at how Niffy sees the world, which is apparently similar to Randy Cunningham when as the Ninja.

Again CHARLE=PURITY

I’m not liking how Pentious said that quote about living and dying.

During Al’s speech, you can see Charlie realizing that Pen likes Cherri and being happy for him. Charlie is Pen X Cherri shipper confirmed XD

Could Al be really starting to care about the others?

Angel X Husk and Pen X Cherri fanservice, Charlie liking the last one XD

Oh now Cherri is interested in Pen.

COME ON, KISS YOU TWO! YES!!!

Gross, Adam’s personality is rubbing off on Lute. Even Adam is getting uncomfortable with it and considering its Adam that’s saying something.

The Heaven Bucks things sounds really fake, mostly cause I feel like money doesn’t exist/is necessary for Heaven.

WHAT THE HECK ARE THOSE OUTFITS CHARLIE AND VAGGIE ARE WEARING!?! And why am I getting She-Ra/RWBY vibes from them? Also Charlie is wearing her crown, cute.

I’m intrigued by Charlie’s shield cause I was kind of expecting to see Charlie use her pitchfork along with it, but the shield is still a nice bit of symbolism for how she wants to protect people and not harm anyone…that much. It also shows that she and Vaggie are a great team/couple as Charlie is the defense while Vaggie is the offense.

My fellow DEATH BATTLE fans (which is hopefully a lot of you) get ready to analyze Charlie’s powers, skills, and feats in this fight!

Al’s shield being another feat of how powerful Alastor is, though I wonder if his recent deal with Charlie helped with it?

Aww come one Niffty finally has a chance to go all psycho and all we see is her just stabbing corpses!

While Charlie’s crown is black on the outside, its gold on the inside/other side. Not only do I think this is a Dante’s Inferno reference (it reminds me of the hypocrites’ part but reversed) it also symbolizes how even though she is the daughter of the Devil, Charlie is still a good person.

Alastor’s using shadow jutsu!

OK I DID NOT SEE AL’S VOICE CHANGING after his cane got destroyed. At least this explains how those times I noticed his voiced changed in previous episodes.

Valentino was really saddened when Vox said seeing Alastor about to die was better then sex XD. It’s also funny cause there is a similar line in Netflix’s Castlevania series, which I could definitely see fans making parodies of soon.

Wait WTF is going on now with his voice? Ugh.

That’s our Charlie, even when in a war she is still apologizing. Also her glitter is WAY more effective than Dale Gribble’s pocket sand XD

Also if you slow down the scene enough, you can see that Charlie’s shield damaged and dented the angelic spear, meaning its likely made of something stronger then the angelic steel mentioned by Carmilla in “Hello Rosie”

Charlie shooting fireworks from her fingertips, a nice example of her powers AND a callback to the pilot.

NO NOT THE EGGBOIS! Luckily Angel finally used his secret set of arms to save one of them, we even get to hear his theme song.

And Pen X Cherri fans REJOICED! Also again showing how shallow Cherri can be.

Aww this can’t be goWHAT THE FUCK! I couldn’t even finish writing this sentence because of how fast Pen’s death was! I mean it was implied he was going to die but I thought it be more dramatic than that! Can the Helluva Boss writers at least do this for when they finally kill Striker, or have it happen in my episode idea where Moxxie and his father in law do it?

OOO ITS TIME FOR CHALIE’S DEMON FORM. And in a Sailor Moon kind of way too.

WAIT THAT’S IT? It’s just her regular horns and a tail. The writers really need to amp up these “full demon” forms of the characters as this, Ozzie’s, and Mammon’s forms have been really disappointing to me especially when compared to Stolas and even Helsa’s odd form from the pilot. I hope that this is some kind of semi form or one of many transformations of Charlie’s, and her REAL demon form is something more monstrous but it results in her losing control.

I do like Razzle and Dazzle being dragons, as I did recall them having such a power but this is better than what I was thinking they’d transform into.

DAZZLE NO! At least he died protecting Charlie.

VAGGIE VS. LUTE ROUND 2 (ding ding sound effect from episode)

(Adam slaps Charlie) Again we need fanart of Lucifer and Lilith kicking Adam’s ass.

So a part of me likes that Vaggie spared Lute cause it shows she is better than the so called “angel”, but a part of me knows this is going to bite back later on.

Lute riping her own arm off just proves the previous statement. Still I wonder what a cyborg angel will be like.

You can control fire and shoot fireworks from your fingers, you these things to make Adam let go of you Charlie!

SO Adam is wearing a mask, like I brought up before. I wonder what he looks like under it.

I’m not mad at Lucifer coming in late, cause he likely couldn’t as he probably realized it would just lead to more problems involving Heaven, but again he shows that he is the best dad so far in the series by coming in to save Charlie. Take notes Stolas!

Huh, Adam looks pretty normal looking, even looks a bit like Lute. I was expecting something really ugly under the mask like a pale complexion, sweat, and an unshaven face especially since he has worm that the entire time we have seen him.

OH HO now were getting that Adam ass kicking. Too bad that line from Lucifer kind of ruined it. I mean I can kind of see it being on brand with his goofy personality but still.

Again no one is saying Lilith’s name here. Also I know Lucifer is likely joking about him and Eve being together and just referencing the apple, but I really want to hear Lucifer say he’s only been with Lilith for all his life, then took a break after the divorce.

“NOT THE HOTEL”, is what I would be saying if the trading cards weren’t released early. Still devastating to see.

Like when Adam was choking her, Charlie had the means to save herself there as she is confirmed to have wings. Maybe their waiting for a special occasion to use them.

(Charlie transforms) What was that? At least this confirms that Charlie can transform and confirm that hoove/foot idea I brought up in the last review. I wonder if this is some kind of power from her mother?

Okay Lucifer’s demon form is pretty good. This does make me wonder what that shadow thing of his form the pilot is, if that is still canon. Hopefully it is and it confirms that Charlie can have multiple demon forms.

Holy crap they killed Adam off and Death by Niffy no less! I mean I wanted Adam and Lute to get out of the picture so someone better could take the role of angelic antagonist, but I never thought they would just kill Adam off. At least Vaggie is really happy about this, and I don’t blame her XD. It’s nice to see her smile like this.

Again we see that Lucifer has restraint, which is still interesting.

Lute took his halo. I sense some trouble coming from this. Fingers crossed that it involves how Heaven is okay with Adam being gone, and Lute becoming the thing she hates to destroy Hell AND the “traitors” of Heaven.

I’m still mix on Katie Killjoy being voiced by Brandon. It is making me wonder if Katie was always going to be like this or if they’re altering her to be more like Brandon’s female characters like Bryce. I mean I always though Katie would have a role where she just keeps spreading bad things about Charlie’s hotel, even making things up/ hire others to cause trouble for Charlie so the news can keep reporting on her. Heck she is even thanking them which I never saw pilot Katie never doing through she could be doing it to save face on livestream television. It’s still a funny idea and it has even remined me that there was a time in animation where shows had reoccurring characters whose main thing about them was being obvious references to other fictional or even real characters like Total Drama had characters such as Harold being a Napoleon Dynamite parody and Anne Maria referencing Snooki, Dr. Orpheus from the Venture Bros. was a cheap Dr. Strange knockoff (but still really funny), and there is one character in Atop the 4th Wall that I won’t spoil here cause it’s that crazy, so check it out for yourselves when you can.

Another cameo of Baxter and ARACKNISS!

I also wonder if the Exterminations will be put to a halt here as pointed out in the sliding text on the news channel. It would be interesting to see if Hell really does have an overpopulation problem, and what that would look like.

I’m surprised the V’s aren’t reacting to this more, more so with Vox but it’s likely that he saw the fight with Adam and Alastor and now has a plan on destroying Alastor. That would be cool to see in the next season.

THANK GOD FAT NUGGETS SURIVED! I think VIvzie would have had a riot on her hands if she allowed him to die.

Lucifer said the episode title!

So it looks like Alastor DID care for the others, but now he is dedicated to getting his freedom back from what I still think could be the Lilith imposter who will also be an upcoming deadly force/threat

KeeKee has a Keyblade form!

Yeah Vox and Val are definitely going to use this news for personal gain. The real question is if Velvette will aid them, as her recording them say all this feels like she will try and go out on her own, dragging her allies down in the process. Fitting given her song from “Scrambled Eggs”.

Nice song, great that both Sir Pentious AND Dazzle got memorials, and the new hotel looks amazing as it has a little bit of symbolism from all the others like Husk’s casino vibe and Angel’s career.

PEN IS IN HEAVEN! Emily is loving it while Sera looks confused and scared, BOTH cause she has never saw this happen before or knows that this will kick off some serious consequences like a version of the Armageddon prediction. This is great as now even if the recent fan theory of Emily becoming a fallen angel happens, Charlie now has another ally in Heaven to help spread her redemption plan on that side of things, great for what I can see happening in the next season.

Oh hey everyone its “Lilith”. Yeah I still believe in the “Imposter Lilith” theory that I’ve been talking about lately, and the sunglasses bit adds to it since it is hiding her eyes, like how her face was covered in “Dad Beat Dad”. Plus there have been many times in stories where sunglasses were used to hide something in fiction. Also in the past, we’ve gotten info on her saying how she would like to fight against Heaven, so its odd that she would want sanctuary in it unless she has plans that involve her being there. The biggest clue would have to be that the real Lilith would likely have cheered when she heard Adam was dead. I did talk about how the Imposter could likely want to destroy everything, so for all we know she is pretending to be Lilith who wanted sanctuary in Heaven (if they even know she is there) which is all just a ruse to get info on how to destroy Heaven to fulfill her life’s work and if anything ever happens, the Imposter can rely on her servant Lute and the Exorcist to aid her.

I will admit that it COULD be the real Lilith. I did make a recent post on my Tumblr going over how I think Lilith actually recruited the Imposter to help her take down Heaven a peg a long item ago, but she eventually realized the Imposter had bigger plans that involved destroying everything in existence and Lilith has since been trying to stop the Imposter. At one point things could have gotten so bad to a point that she had to hide in Heaven (again if they even know she is there) until she thought of a plan to stop it like having Lute work for her (again maybe Al works for the Imposter) and similar to what I have in my “Season 1 is a test for Charlie” Lilith knew Adam wasn’t up for the task of defending everyone from the Imposter, so she had to install Lute as leader of the Exorcist so there would be at least a small capable army to fight against the Imposter/upcoming threat if things got bad. However now that Charlie’s redemption plan is getting more support and is proven to be true, Lilith could be scared that the Imposter could go after her and Lucifer next, so I think next season she will try and convince Charlie to stop her goals until they have a plan of stopping the Imposter. Maybe since she made a deal with Lute, she has no choice but to stop Charlie or risk losing the one chance they have at saving everything from the Imposter…until she learns that her daughter was able to make an army to stop the Exorcist which could lead to Lilith changing her mind and maybe think that Heaven and Hell should work together to stop the Imposter/big threat. Even then there could be consequences as we don’t know what exactly happens if a deal with a demon is ever broken. Would said demon die or would the natural of the forces of the universe go crazy until something happens? For any non Percy Jackson fans and those that don’t care about spoilers for it, look up “Trials of Apollo” and “River Styx” to get an understanding of what I mean by broken deals.

That was a GREAT episode AND a great finale for the first season of Hazbin Hotel.

We got tons of action, drama, suspense, fanservice, and mystery just like how I like my shows. The finale was really good cause its on track for what I’ve been saying I would like to see Charlie go through when it comes to the next step of trying to convince the people of Heaven and Hell her redemption plan is a good thing in general for the afterlife.

The only minor problems I have with it is that they didn’t utilize Niffty as much as I thought they would in the battle.

When it comes to the season as a whole it was great, with episode 4 being the worst as we all knew those events were coming but thanks to Helluva Boss it was made less serious to me.

I also agree with other fans that biggest problem the season had was that there should have been more episodes. I mean people know how popular Hazbin Hotel AND Helluva Boss is so it’s a bit odd that they didn’t get more then 8 episodes, especially since they aren’t the usual hour long episodes that are everywhere. Not to mention how half the season came out all at once here on Amazon Prime.

Apparently this is a big problem with Amazon Prime shows in general, BUT luckily given how well received the whole season has been (wordplay pun not intended), I’m hopeful that this will convince the people at A24 and Prime to give Vivzie and the HH cast more funding to make MORE episodes for next season, like maybe 14 this time. Sure this could delay the release of season 2, which is apparently already being made, but I bet I’m not alone when I say I’d be okay with such a delay if it means more Hazbin Hotel.

Hopefully next season though there are less trailers and clips released, another reason why there should be more episodes to help dimmish such things, AND if there is another early release on A24 it should just be like 2 days before the season comes on Amazon Prime and NOT a whole week.

I’m also calling it now that the season 2 episode premiere of Hazbin Hotel will start with a news segment with Katie Killjoy and Tom Trench recapping some of the events of last season and telling us what has happened to both the characters and Hell/Heaven since the finale. I also predict that Lilith, whether the real one or the Imposter posing as her, will appear at the end of said episode starting off that season’s main story.

I definitely want to hear your thoughts on not only this episode, but also on the entire season so don’t be shy. What do you think/hope will happen in season 2? What kind of episodes or stories would you like to see in the next season? What theories do you have?

LET ME HEAR IT!!!

[dalt20]

Tooning in 3. Dev Ross part 3 of 7

DL: so back to winnie the pooh, how much is that rabbit in the window. process for that episode?

DR: That one is easy. For creating for Pooh I would always revisit things from my childhood. There was a song called "How much Is that doggie in the window?" I used that for inspiration.

DL: what was the song about?

DR: It was about a little boy who saw a puppy in a pet store and wanted to buy him so very badly

She starts singing

“How much is the doggy in the window (COMMA), the one with the waggly tail. How much is the doggy in the window, I hope that he is for sale.”

DL: hmm... guessing any kid in the 80s knows that song.

DR: I think it's way older!

DL: the last episode you wrote(but you only wrote the premise)the wishing bear? process on that episode?

DR: That came from my childhood habit of wishing on the first star that appeared in the evening sky

She starts to chant a poem

Starlight,starbright first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.

DL: well that's actually kinda common with  a lot of children.

DR: Exactly

DL: so you are voice actor? As you have 2 voice credits on chip N dale.

DR: No, not really, but sometimes when a voice on a show didn't work, Tad Stones would have me ADR it because I was also a pretty decent actor.

DL: oh how did it feel to be with all the other Voice actors like tress macNeille, corey burton and frank welker?

DR: It was a blast! Loved it!

DL: any stories at the recording booth?

DR: Tons. But I would t feel nice sharing them as some were very "not nice." A few of the established voice actors could be very rude to new voice actors I brought in. It became a pretty big problem as a few tried to sabotage the newcomers. I had to fire an established voice actor because he was so rude and difficult. But most of the time it was so much fun! I also "discovered" Danny Gan who went on to become famous in Los Vegas. Sadly, he passed away a few years ago.

DL: wow! that's tragic to say.

DR: Yes, he was a family man and all around great person.

DL: That’s upsetting. I never even knew the guy.

DR: He was very big in Vegas

DL: I’m not apart of the Vegas lifestyle except for sigfrey and Roy.

DR: gives me a 👍

DL: So moving on, writing for talespin for Disney and syndication?

DR: I did not do much for Tailspin. My boss on it saddled me with a new writer. I was supposed to write with him.

DL: And his name was?

DR: It did NOT work! I only remember his first name. He was my boss's friend, A terrible writer! So I asked to be moved to another show.

DL: Was it Jeremy cushner or chuck tately, the co writers of the episode last horizons?

DR: I'm not going to say.

DL: So was it either of the two writers I mention you had problems with?

DR: I'm not going to dish on anyone.

DL: Understood. So the episode, last horizons. What was the process of that episode and working with two other writers?

DR: I don't work well as a team writer. I do best by myself. I'm good brainstorming and exchanging ideas but after that I'm on my own. I'm asked all the time to be a co-writer but I refuse.

DL: So the episode was 3’s a crowd then?

DR: I guess so!

DL: The episode,a star is torn. Process on the episode?

DR: Don't remember that one

DL: The episode is where Baloo is a stunt pilot for a film.The ONLY non co-written episode you wrote for talespin.

DR: That one was based on my knowing a former big film star. She would tell me how men would get enamored with her.

DL: Wow! can you give out the name of the actress?

DR: Deborah Walley was one, Jane Fonda was the other

DL: Now the one show where you wrote a whole season, Darkwing Duck! Writing for Disney and ABC.

DR: Oh Kay. Yes, loved that show!!! So much fun! Best ever in terms of getting to write.

DL: So you wrote 13 episodes,practically a season!

DR: Yes, I think I clicked the most written on that one.

DL: As 13 episodes is aired on a season for Saturday mornings. By question so I realized jymm magon didn’t wrote for that show. But he work on everything from gummi bears up to quack pack. Why was that?

DR: You would have to ask him. I was not privy to those decisions.

DL: Oh okay the first episode, apes of wrath? Process for that episode?

DR: My love of Coco the Gorilla!

DL: Who is coco the gorilla?

DR: She was famous for learning how to communicate with American Sign Language.

DL: Oh ok, so was dr brute suppose to be based on Jane Goodall? Because she had monkeys?

DR: Probably? No, it was loosely based on her.

DL: Well I see.Well there was a running gag in the episode where gosayln is denied a alcoholic beverage that can make anybody who drinks it go sporadic. How did that got passed by the ABC?

DR: No idea.

DL: Did you came up with the idea? Of a child being denied alcohol or having even shown a spike punch beverage in a children’s program?

DR: Sorry, I do not remember.

DL: Oh ok. Well moving on, water way to go? Process of that episode. Say that 3 times fast!

DR: That came from my love of water! I just got talking about it with Tad and how putting opposites together like water and desert makes for good stories.

DL: So you came up with the Saudi Arabia parody country,oilrabia. Thoughts on that?

DR: Exactly. Just throwing around ideas with Tad.

DL: Oh would find it offensive in today’s culture? The name I mean.

DR: I'm sure!

DL: Well next episode, trading faces? Process for that episode?

DR: I got that idea from all the movies where.. um..kids trade places like what was it the prince and the pauper. And then there was you know twins that trade places and their families and there were just a little about that so that’s how I came up with that idea.

DL: Wait, the prince and the pauper? Disney made that into a short with Mickey Mouse! That’s crazy! Don’t ya think?

DR: yes but it was a story,

Takes a sip of a liquid

Long before that,(period)

Laughs

I made a,a

Stampers on words

Excuse me, I did a lot of research reading a lot of fairytales and short stories for kids. You know,I read a lot of the classics and you can get a lot of ideas from them. Seriously, there’s nothing new under the sun and if you want to be creative, sometimes your derivative, but you have to l, when your derivative, you have put your own spin on things.

DL: Hmm ok. Well writer and Former president of DiC, Robby London said you have to have a catchy name before you write a script.

DR: Yes. Titles are extremely important. Because the catch the viewer's attention and give the promise of the show. Titles must emulate what is coming in the story.

DL: Sometimes, you’ll have to make them not sound too short or too juvenile.

DR: I am sure that could be true but one and two word titles are an almost must for film. Titling episodes is much different. My preschool show titles were often very simple.

[justplainsalty]

@widowkills this particular addition is so interesting to me to note, and you're so right ofc, but what's interesting to me is that s1 is a lot of Helen opening up to Dale in ways that she's never opened up to anyone before. Because he saw her at her most vulnerable, he literally rescued her in the first episode, and she saw that Dale was safe and Dale was good and Dale could be trusted, and wasn't going to hurt her, which literally every other man in her life had done. Her father, her boss, her coworkers, I'd say friends too but the woman doesn't have any. Until he did. And he did it in a way that she never saw coming and couldn't prepare for. And a way that, particulars aside, she couldn't fault him for, and he couldn't change. And so now, even though she loves Dale, she just can't open up like that to him anymore. And it's so painful!! Because it's so real!!! And I think both Dale and the viewers fell in love with her because of that painful beautiful delicate vulnerability, and it hurts that it's gone!!! But she still loves him so what else can she do but suppress and ignore the things that aren't working!!!!

Anyway I don't remember where I was going with this, except that I agree, and that i think there's more to it than that Helen just wouldn't be in a relationship full stop because she's ~not a relationships~ kind of a woman.

Also, to OP's point, it was very telling to me that in Dale's proposal speech, he talked only about why he loved Helen in relation to himself. The things he loved about her were things she did to/with him. He didn't say one word about things he loved in Helen that were just about her alone. And I think Helen picked up on that and felt the walls closing in on this relationship that was no longer about their openness and trust in each other, but about playing houses and fitting roles, and just scooted. Right out the door.

I still ship them to the end though and really hope they figure their shit out/make it work in s3 😭😭😭. Or at least that Helen gets a morsel of genuine lasting happiness, because that's my second damn ship.

why do you think Hellen said no to Dales proposal?

I’m glad I waited before answering your question because I’ve listened to the Emsolation podcast with Michael Lucas (the show writer) in which he answered all kinds of questions about season 2, and that was one of them!

(I’m paraphrasing here, it’s been a few days since I listened to it!)

According to Michael, one of the main reasons why Helen rejected Dale’s proposal is because Helen genuinely can’t see herself having that kind of ‘normal’ life, not just with Dale but in general. The fact that it was Dale proposing made it even ‘worse’ because of how…atypical their couple is. Michael said Anna was pretty set on the concept that if Helen had a choice, she wouldn’t be in any relationship at all, that she was with Dale because she genuinely loved him, but it wasn’t something she felt ‘fit’ her, so Helen basically freaked out at being proposed to.

Because I love spending hours analyzing character’s motivations, fears and limitations, I’ve also thought a lot about this, not just because I’m going to be writing about it 😅 While I absolutely loved hearing Michael’s explanation and obviously believes it to be true since, duh, he literally wrote those characters, I think it’s even more complicated than Helen ‘simply’ not wanting to get married.

To me, from what we’ve seen in season 2, between the hotel scene in 2x01 with Helen’s reaction to learning Gerry had propositioned Dale, and the return of Tim in 2x04 reminding her of what’s happened before, she still had a lot of insecurities regarding Dale’s sexuality. The way I see it, even though I’m sure she believes it when Dale says he loves her and that he’s not just a closeted gay man trying to convince himself he’s INTO WOMEN, I’m sure it’s still one of her fears, that Dale is basically hiding with her, even unconsciously. And that to Dale, proposing to her and making her his wife is another way to PROVE THAT HE’S LIKE EVERY OTHER MAN.

Which is what was actually happening, in my opinion?? Even if I one hundred percent believe Dale is bisexual and that he absolutely loves Helen, he’s clearly not comfortable with that bi side of himself, in great part because he lives in a world that doesn’t accept people like him, and he’s been traumatized as a teen for having feelings for another boy—not to mention how his mum clearly doesn’t support *not being straight*. I highly recommend listening to Sam Reid talking about Dale in the official podcast for ep 2x06, he explains this so much better than me right now haha.

Basically Dale is trying to mold himself into what he believes a REAL MAN should be. So yeah, like he told Garry in 2x03, ‘of course’ he wants to get married (“Doesn’t everyone?”), because if he marries a woman, he’s CLEARLY NOT HAVING GAY THOUGHTS.

What I’m trying to say is that I think Helen is very much aware of that on some level. Of the fact that her sweet bi babygirl Dale is desperate for STRAIGHT VALIDATION, and that she might have been afraid it would just blow up in her face one day when Dale realized he actually did need “more” than what she could give him as a woman.

I’m not even going to delve into Helen’s insecurities about herself as a ‘fucking disaster’, because I could write a 40-pages long essay about her to be honest, but hopefully you get the idea. These characters are complex and very messy, and I think they broke apart because they weren’t communicating properly, which is often why people break apart. Dale never *asked* Helen if she was actually interested in marriage, even after his shitty first proposal. If they had talked about it properly, I think a lot of this would have been avoided.

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

Hello! So, I mean, this might be out of the blue, ambiguous and crazy to answer (but it's something I think about a lot, and you touched upon it in a previous ask and would love your further perspective on!) but let's say, at the end of The Return of The King, Grima lived! What do you personally think his journey and path would look like from there?

Grima asks are never out of the blue - I always want them <3 Thank you so much for asking!!

--

man ok - well Grima at the end of ROTK is in a really dark place. Frodo, Gandalf et al first run into Grima and Saruman on the road near the misty mountains as the make their slow return journey from Gondor. 

As they (Frodo, Merry, Pippin, Gandalf) came out again into the open country at sundown they overtook an old man leaning on a staff, and he was clothed in rags of grey or dirty white, and at his heels went another beggar, slouching and whining. 

[...]

‘Get up you idiot!’ he (Saruman) shouted to the other beggar, who had sat down on the ground; and he struck him with his staff. ‘Turn about! If these fine folk are going our way, then we will take another. Get on, or I’ll give you no crust for your supper!’ 

The beggar turned and slouched past whimpering: ‘Poor old Grima! Poor old Grima! Always beaten and cursed. How I hate him! I wish I could leave him!’ 

‘Then leave him!’ said Gandalf. 

a man who has never been in an abusive situation in his life, clearly. 

‘One thief deserves another,’ said Saruman (to Merry), and turned his back on Merry, and kicked Wormtongue, and went away towards the wood. 

Great guy, Saruman. 

And the famous scouring of the Shire bit that everyone on here misremembers when it comes to Grima’s whole situation: 

But Frodo said: (...) But I will not have him (Saruman) slain. It is useless to meet revenge with revenge: it will heal nothing. Go Saruman, by the speediest way!’ 

‘Worm! Worm!’ Saruman called; and out of a nearby hut came Wormtongue, crawling, almost like a dog. ‘To the road again, Worm!’ Said Saruman. ‘These fine fellows and lordlings are turning us adrift again. Come along!’ 

[Saruman tries to stab Frodo as he leaves and Sam gets ready to shank a bitch. Frodo stops him saying: ‘...He is fallen, and his cure is beyond us; but I would still spare him, in the hope that he may find it.’ ...]

He (Saruman) walked away, and the hobbits made a lane for him to pass; but their knuckles whitened as they gripped on their weapons. Wormtongue hesitated, and then followed his master. 

‘Wormtongue!’ called Frodo. ‘You need not follow him. I know of no evil you have done to me. You can rest and food here a while, until you are stronger and can go your own ways.’ 

Wormtongue halted and looked back at him, half prepared to stay. Saruman turned. ‘No evil?’ he cackled. ‘Oh no! Even when he sneaks out at night it is only to look at the stars. But did I hear someone ask where poor Lotho is hiding? You know, don’t you Worm? Will you tell them?’ 

Wormtongue cowered down and whimpered: ‘No, no!’

‘Then I will,’ said Saruman. ‘Worm killed your chief, poor little fellow, your nice little Boss. Didn’t you, Worm? Stabbed him in his sleep, I believe. Buried him, I hope; though Worm has been very hungry lately. No, Worm is not really nice. You had better leave him to me.’ 

A look of wild hate came into Wormtongue’s red eyes. ‘You told me to; you made me do it,’ he hissed. 

Saruman laughed. ‘You do what Sharkey says, always, don’t you, Worm? Well, now he says: follow!’ He kicked Wormtongue in the face as he grovelled, and turned and made off. But at that something snapped: suddenly Wormtongue rose up, drawing a hidden knife, and then with a snarl like a dog he sprang on Saruman’s back, jerked his head back, cut his throat, and with a yell ran off down the lane. Before Frodo could recover or speak a word, three hobbit-bows twanged and Wormtongue fell dead. 

A sad end to a very sad life. 

-

So that’s the canon ending, obviously. A very neat, pat ending where all the baddies are dead, everyone who is broken will disappear into an asylum and/or die take a boat to the grey havens and life will move on. 

How nice. 

-

Alright, now for the speculation! My favourite thing. 

Assuming Grima lived, god knows what his journey afterwards would look like. He’s mentally (and physically) in a bad way after having been physically (and emotionally) abused and starved by Saruman for the last year/two years. Saruman may have lost his powers, but he’s still terrifying force to be reckoned with. I don’t know how much Grima would be capable of on his own in terms of survival. 

That said, Grima’s made it this far. He’s clearly got something in him that’s keeping him alive. Something in him wants to live. It might not know how to go about doing that, but it’s there, and that’s important. 

So he’s stabbed Saruman, A+ work. The hobbits don’t shoot him. The question is then: does he take up Frodo’s offer or does his fuck off into the wilderness. 

I can see him going either direction, honestly. But I suspect, given that he’s starving and in a bad way physically, I suspect he’d stay for a time. Now, considering what’s happened to him in the general vicinity of Bagend, I’m not sure how long Grima will stay, but I do think he’d rest there for a short while. Get a proper meal or two in him. Take a bath. That sort of thing. 

From there he could go to somewhere like Bree or Dale, take up a new name/new life and try and move on, as much as a person can in a world that has absolutely no support networks for people who have gone through bad shit. 

If he stayed for a longer period with Frodo? I could see Sam putting him to work. 

‘I need someone to help me garden.’ 

‘...I know about horses?’

‘Plants are easier, trust me.’ 

‘....Are they though?’ 

Considering the fact that Grima has been dehumanized (Worm; like a dog; cur) and treated as worthless/unworthy by one of the more powerful beings in Middle Earth - and one who was once Great! Who was once wise and wonderful! I suspect he’s going to have a difficult time accepting kindness? 

Frodo, of course, would be generous and understanding, because it’s Frodo and that’s the measure of man he is. Truly one of the nicest and most forgiving and tender people in the series. 

Aragorn said of Grima that if he walked out of Orthanc alive it would be too good for him. 

(Everyone is a lot meaner in the books. Funnier, yes, but also meaner. Then there’s the weird Faramir moment where he’s all up on that “Numenorian Blood Quantum Is Important” nonsense (tell that to your brother who has no blood of the Westernese in him...) There’s a lot of Oooof moments). 

Frodo, though, Frodo is one of the genuinely kind and loving people who would never think such cruel things about anyone. 

But back to Grima, I think the line Gillian Flynn wrote about how when you’re weaned on poison, it makes kindness seem like a cruelty is very relevant here. The first step to healing is allowing yourself to admit that you deserve to be healed, that you deserve love. That’s a very hard thing to allow, to acknowledge is something you are worthy of having. 

And so it would be difficult, for him, to accept kindness and gentleness from Frodo, or anyone else. But if he was doing something to “earn” it, that might make it more palatable. 

Which is a shame, since if there is anyone who understands the power and allure of the dark lord/Saruman etc. and how that can mess you up and contort you into someone you don’t recognize anymore, it’s Frodo.

-

Would Grima go back to Rohan? I don’t think so. Unless there were some wild, unexpected circumstances that brought him there, I truly don’t see him returning home. He’s torched that bridge pretty successfully - at least, I’m sure that’s how he sees it. 

Now if he did. If something Bat Shit happened - and he went back. It would be wild and very emotional.  

A Rider of Rohan, lost in the shire: I’m looking for a Mr Baggins? I understand he might know where Gandalf is? We sort of need some magic help in Rohan. 

Hobbit: Turn left at the end of the lane, go past Grubby Harold’s llama farm, stop at the intersection with the red sign, take the third exit of the roundabout, turn right, turn left, turn left again, take the second switch back up the hill, at the crest of the hill, take the path that turns left at the big tree that someone carved Fuck Lobelia into and that should get you close. 

Rider: 

Rider: Right. 

Rider eventually shows up, Grima’s out front updating Sam on some shit that Pansy Fielding said to Fardulf Braceblower, an ongoing war that has existed since the Dawn of Time. Sam is like “Please never stop telling me all the gossip, I live for this shit.”

Frodo: How did you hear about this? 

Grima: I might have set up an informant’s network but it’s solely to trawl for entertaining gossip.  

Rider approaches: Oh dear gods. 

Grima: 

Grima: Go get fucked, Gundahar. 

Sam: Friend? 

Grima & Gundahar: No. 

Anyway. The rider tells Frodo that he’s after Gandalf because XYZ is happening in Rohan and Eomer-king is annoyed and “wants it dealt with, preferably yesterday”. Grima knows what’s up because you know, resident Spook Master also he was spending a lot of time around a lore-filled Wizard. Might as well get something for the years of mistreatment. 

Gundahar: He’s not coming back to Rohan. 

Frodo: We’re going on a road trip, Sam. Let’s get packed. 

Sam: I’m so ready for this. 

Grima: But I’m not going back to Rohan. 

Gundahar: He’s not coming back to Rohan. 

Frodo: Too late, he’s coming with us. Neither of us can be left alone for too long or we go weird in the head. 

Merry: Oh we’re going to Rohan? Well, as a member of the royal court I’m coming. 

Gundahar: .... How is this happening? 

Grima: Hobbits, they move in herds. 

Pippin: WAIT FOR ME! 

Gandalf is UPSET that he has to travel with Grima. Grima says it’s mutual. He doesn’t like wizards. Especially wizards in white. He gets weird about hoarding food when Gandalf is around. 

Grima then has to visit Theoden’s grave and have a lot of emotions about everything and it’s a Lot.

I don’t think he’d stay, though. Either he’d go back with Frodo or he might go on to Gondor or out east or something. Travel for a while. 

- 

I’ve gone off on some tangents here. Ahem. 

But in general, I see his journey going in one of two directions: one where he fucks off after murdering Saruman and takes up a life somewhere else like Bree, or wherever, probably drinks too much and is miserable until he dies. 

The other is where he accepts Frodo’s offer and either just chills in the Shire being the resident gossip-monger and mischief maker (Frodo: NO MISCHIEF. Grima: we can make a little mischief .., as a treat?) or he accepts the offer, stays for a while to get back on his feet and shake off some of the darkness, then goes off to travel around. Maybe he settles somewhere, maybe he doesn’t. Regardless if he stays or goes, it is a better ending to his life than he probably hoped for or expected. 

And it shows the power and importance of kindness and love. Healing only happens if there is love and gentleness. And it’s terrifying - of course it is - but it’s so necessary. 

-

Ok I am so sorry for my dissertation on Grima. I love talking about him so much.  

Thank you!! <3 <3 

[kingofthehilltoday]

King of the hill review s1e1 "Pilot"

(I'm gonna start watching koth and typing these out season by season, depending on my work schedule/metnal healt will depend on how often I put them out, with the occasional single episode ones like this one which I've already typed up so much for. A lot of people seemed to like just the Meer idea of this so im gonna finish this one and post it)

We're introduced to the main characters surrounding a truck with the hood up. The first lines of dialogue they have in the series is their iconique "yep" "yep" "yep" "mhm" followed by a short silence (aside from the alcohol consumption).

Bill is the one to break the silence and demonstrates his understanding of automobile engines.

He is followed by Dale who demonstrates himself as an idiot. "Ford stands for: Fix It Again Tony."

Boomhauer, who without subtitles i wouldn't have been able to understand, also demonstrates he understands automobiles.

Hank who does not have the courtesy of subtitles does not understand what Boomhauer says and brushes him off and instead dribbles on about George Bush in Japan? This establishes his conservativeness/dumbness (if there's that much of a difference between the two.)

Hank grabs more beer and Dale breaks off into asking about a new episode of Seinfeld dating the beginning of the show.

Boomhauer immediately starts squaking about it.

This episode of Koth aired January 12 1997, although it doesn't seem to take place in a winter month. Most likely a spring one. I want to say the episode that Boomhauer is talking about is The Wig Master (April 4, 1996) as it is an episode that features Kramer and Kramer is the subject of Boomhauers tangent.

Boomhauer ends his giggling with "Just a show about nothin." And the theme song begins to play. A good introduction into what King of the Hill is about, and so far a great way to start the show off.

Theme song ends and Hank enters Bobby's room, despite Bobby telling him he wouldn't like it Hank decides to listen to Bobby's music to find: he doesn't like it. Admittedly because it isn't music (which Hank claims to like new generation music) but because instead it's just a fart? Bobby for some reason just listens to farts.... I guess this does establish that the boy ain't right....

Hank leaves Bobby's room telling him to get ready for the game, which Bobby is clearly already dressed for?

Luanne shows she hasn't learned how to lock the bathroom door when Hank busts in to a fully toweled Luanne. He still avoids looking at her the entire time after the initial door opening. Luanne gives slight exposition by explaining her parents are currently fighting, giving her a reason to be in the Hill House.

Hank, Bobby, and Peggy pile into a car and head to the game. Peggy tells Bobby to do his best and Hank insists he should give it 110% instead of 100%. They then keep suggest 1% higher until Peggy says 13 is an unlucky number. The driving scene ends with Hank miffed saying "just give it 112%."

At the game Bobby shows his inability to play baseball and Hank shows how overzealous he is about getting Bobby to play. Bobby gets hit with a ball when he's not paying attention giving set up for future events within the episode.

Hank Hill stops at the Mega Lo Mart for WD-40. Its not that important that I mention the WD-40. I just like the way he says Dubya Dee Fordy.

Two gossips see Hank interact with Buckley (who doesn't seem to recognize Hank, let alone where he even is in the store) along with Bobby who has a black eye following close behind him.

As Hank gets more and more frustrated with Buckley, Bobby begins swinging a cardboard tube around like a baseball bat. The gossips see Hank with his temper and wonder if he gave Bobby the black eye (theyre voiced by Nancy and Peggy without changing the voices even a little bit). Bobby swings the bat a little too close to some cans and knocks them over prompting Hank to scream YOU'RE FIRED (???? who gave Hank the authority???) at Buckley when he tells Hank that he'll have to pay for the damages.

The two gossips' words spread around and eventually get to the erroneously named Arlen County Child Protective Services (I suppose Heimlich County hasn't been established yet). And we're introduced to Anthony Page whos proportions make him look like he's in the wrong cartoon.

We cut back to hank and friends and Dale goes on his rant about Glo-Bal warming. He says we'll grow oranges in Alaska. Hank calls him a giblet head and tells Dale he'll hold him personally responsible if Texas gets any hotter in the summer. His anger is further pushed by a thumping noise.

Which we see is Bobby playing ball in the house while watching TV. He accidentally smacks his mother in the face with it when she pauses to lament about a man on TV who had botched surgery.

Bobby is once again throwing the ball in the house, enter the social worker, and Hank fixing his truck. The sound distracts Dale from pointing the flashlight correctly which then causes Hank to screw up and the hood of his car to fall on him and Dale runs off instead.

"Hank is as gentle as a lamb," says Peggy followed by Hank barging in, grabbing the baseball and throwing it screaming, "STOP BOUNCING THAT BALL!" Note: the ball zoomed past Mr. Page and into the street making a glass shattering noise. What glass he could have shattered at that angle I'm not quite sure of.

After Tony insinuates the bruise on Peggy's head was caused by the same ball they told him hit Bobby in the eye, he asks if Bobby is their only child. Peggy manages to tell this random dude about Hank's narrow urethra and Hank gets loud.

Our Italian alien looking friend tells Hank "Loud is not Allowed." This sets Hank off on a rant about how he works for a living as opposed to writing down nonsense. This is the first mention of Hank's job selling Propane and Propane Accessories.

Hank's face turns visibly red as talks about his tax dollars going to fund... CPS? I understand that twig boy is very much not doing any actual investigation and is completely biased but... come on now Hank? Chuld protective services?? Anyways Hank asks for some B.C. Headache Powder and a glass of water. He then proceeds to yell at Anthony again and threatens him to get out before he gives HIM a black eye. Not the best choice of words there Hank. Also both of these rants are set to the National Anthem for some reason.

Our self proclaimed hero of this story then goes on to interview neighbors about Hank. Starting with Dale who is interrupted by Nancy leaving to get a headache treatment from John Redcorn. "You've been going to that healer for 12 years and you still get headaches every night." Imagine getting dicked down roughly 4380 days in a row.

After Nancy leaves it goes back to our city slicker asking if Hank has ever hit his child which Dale explains that Bobby is his pride and joy because of his Narrow Urethra. Very interesting world where Dale knows Hank has a narrow urethra but not that his own wife is cheating on him. Joseph is introduced and the paper white boy does a double take as he's the spitting image of John Redcorn.

Boomhauer has mistaken the defunct social worker as??? Someone whos there to do something about a barking dog? Once again if not for the subtitles I'd be lost on what he's saying but what the hell is he talking about. Our pencil pusher backs away slowly.

Bobby and Joseph are trying to get pebbles into the exhaust of the truck in the next scene, impressively they make a few shots. Joseph asks to reassure that Hank does not in fact hit him and Bobby confirms that Hank is all Bark and proceeds to mock the propane salesman. Joseph proceeds to try and while he's making fake threats in Hank's voice our Valiant Savior overhears and somehow mistakes his voice to actually be Hank's....

Cut to the actual Hank and he's found Luanne's panties. They're very cute pink ones. Peggy calls Luanne in to Hank's protests and she comes in crying and expositions about her mother attempting to stab her father with a fork then being sent to jail. She says her trailer was tipped over but does not elaborate as to how. Although she does say it will be on a TV show! Kind of wish theyd make an episode out of that alone.

Hank assures Luanne as best he can and lets her know she can stay with them until her mom comes home. Hank offers to let her use power tools to style a wig that was also damaged in the process of the trailer being flipped over. This immediately calms Ms. Platter.

A doorbell is heard and the Hills (minus Luanne) answer the door to find Our Holy King making his return to try to get our Poor Abused Child to come outside and go live with a family in North Arlen (not even gonna try to find somewhere in a different town??) Hank tries to offer him Luanne instead. The social worker makes an effort to try to get Bobby to come with him but Bobby clearly doesn't care or want to go. Hank chases him away and even hits his car, Ladybird making her first appearance running with him and barking at Anthony.

Mr. Page is confronted by his boss about not having found any actual abuse but recommending state custody. He called the entire neighborhood redneck city to a man with a strong country accent, bruh. The boss asks him if he talked to the little league coach, WHICH THE BOSS KNOWS BY NAME (Harvey) and our Los Angeles boy is sweatin fierce.

Cut back to Hank and Peggy with their ears covered they come outside to BOBBY WITH A STOP SIGN HE CUT DOWN USING A DRILL THAT HE'S HITTING WITH A HAMMER??? How did he get a Fucking Stop Sign??? Hank immediately yells at Bobby about this and Bobby calmly states back that Hank can't yell at him or the state will take him away. This frustrates Hank but he does his best not to outburst again after Bobby picks up the stop sign and runs away dragging it behind him.

Once inside the house Bobby answers a call from CPS, they inform him the case has been dropped and our boy from L.A. will be heading back home. He chooses not to tell his parents instead opting to tell them it was a wrong number. After this scene the stop sign is never seen again 😔.

Hank apparently makes bacon and mayo sandwiches. Hold the bacon grease. No wait he adds the bacon grease back. Luanne comes into the kitchen and demonstrates that she knows more about cars than any of the guys as she has fixed his truck's problem: a clogged fuel line.

We cut to Hank outside the garage asking Bobby to plug in a power tool in the garage, Robert (with Joseph in tow) agrees and does so but also grabs the opener and starts opening and closing the door on his father. Hank begins to yell again and Bobby reminds him that it isn't proper adult-child conversation. Hank settles down a bit and through gritted teeth asks Bobby to return it to factory setting of down and walks away. Joseph is very pleased by this.

We then see a montage of similar things happening in succession. Bobby knocking a fence down with a bat, dressing ladybird up and taking pics of her on his mower, and finally spraying Hank with a hose. As he does this the Anthony's ex boss comes over and knocks on the door.

We cut over to Bobby in his bed making sound effects. He is informed by Peggy that the man came over and told them the investigation was off. Bobby says he likes his father better this way he can "make him love me even when I screw up" and Peggy asks if he really thinks that.

Peggy is shown going into the bedroom (not really sure if this is their bedroom... there is a picture of cotton on the wall [pre shin loss] and it doesn't look like their bedroom in future episodes) and she insists Hank vocally tell Bobby that he loves him. Hank explains that he can't do that "you know how I was raised" followed by a flashback of a young Hank and a shinless Cotton telling Hank not to cry about his knee scrape.

Hank heads out to the porch to talk to Bobby who is sitting on lawn furniture. And Hank stumbles over words trying to explain to Bobby that he cares for him. Bobby doesn't understand and Hank makes some weird voice cracking sound. "You.... family." Hank then, after little bit more stumbling, manages to blurt out "ILoveYouNoMatterWhatYouDo." And then offers food.

Bobby asks if he's not a disappointment and Hank assures him that he's proud of him and cares for him. He then play fights with Bobby and the city boy sees it and proclaims he was right but is cut off by another passenger and says "never mind." And the episode fades to black. Cue theme song.

The quoted line at the end of the episode is blank. This episode predates that tradition apparently.

Okay so now for some more of my own thoughts

I joked around a lot but I do see where the social worker is coming from on some level. He believed he was investigating a case of abuse. He just wasn't very smart about it. He really should have talked to the coach immediately after hearing about the baseball incident. Or literally anyone that could have been at the game that day. That's all it would have taken and he would have still have had a job. But it's a good thing he doesn't anymore because his own negligence could have separated a family.

I won't claim they're the most functional family. But if the most Hank does (up until this point, not gonna count that awful smoking ep just yet) is simply yell at Bobby then they're a much better family than I had growing up. Does Hank need to work on his anger issues? From this episode alone I'd say a solid Yes. He was a dick to a store employee which is very much not a cool thing to do. There was some justification in being angry at Bobby, I mean the kid tortured him at the end there, but he should have sought a better release than the one he had.

Overall I'd say this is a really good episode to start the series on, it's entertaining and funny and properly builds up the world.

[introvertguide]

Pulp Fiction (1994); AFI #94

The most recent movie for review was the Quentin Tarantino crime thriller comedy (probably more things) Pulp Fiction (1994). It is a very complicated story that is told out of chronological order and focuses on scenes of meaningful character interaction. This confusion meant it lost out to movies with a more straight forward time line at the Oscars, since the move was nominated for seven awards but only took home one. The single win for best screenplay was well deserved and I still believe it is one of the most creatively written films of all time. I want to go over the plot to show what I mean, but let me do my standard due diligence:

SPOILER WARNING!!! I AM ABOUT TO GIVE THE BASIC DETAILS OF ONE OF THE MOST COMPLEX STORY LINES IN MOVIE HISTORY!!! IT WILL NOT LIKELY SPOIL MUCH OF ANYTHING, BUT I AM STICKING THIS WARNING ON JUST IN CASE SOMEBODY FINDS SOMETHING!!!

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

The film begins with what is pretty much a prologue but what turns out to be about the middle of the film chronologically. A couple is at a diner and they are talking about robbing banks. They only refer to each other as Pumpkin (Tim Roth) and Honey Bunny (Amanda Plummer). They discuss the best kind of places to rob and they decide that a diner would be a good change of pace. Impulsively, they pull out guns and hold up the diner and...title card with awesome spaghetti western music!

Two hitmen are talking about Europe as they go to do a job. Vincent Vega (Jon Travolta) talks about his adventures with Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) as they pull up at an Los Angeles apartment complex. The two discuss their boss Marsellus Wallace and how touchy he is about his wife. The boss has apparently sent them to get something from a bunch of guys. Jules and Vincent call on an apartment with 3 college age men and intimidate them into giving over a briefcase with something glowing inside. The case is what they came for, so the hitmen take it and kill two of the men at the apartment...

Flash to a new scene in which Vincent is going to get some drugs from his dealer (Eric Stoltz). Vincent is a heroine user despite cocaine being the popular drug. It turns out Vincent was asked by his boss to take out his wife...the one he is very protective of. He just needs to hang out with her so she is not bored and not get into trouble. To accomplish this, he shoots up some heroine and goes to meet the wife named Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman). They seem to get along and he drives her to a restaurant called Jack Rabbit Slims. The place is fantastic, all the waiters are dressed up like American movie icons and the booths are repurposed cars from the 50s (if this place actually existed, you can be sure I would search it out and go there at least once). The two bond over dinner and then volunteer for a twist dance contest.

Mia and Vincent go back to her house and Vincent goes to the restroom to talk himself out of trying to score with Mia. She is pretty cool, but not worth dying for. While he is away, Mia finds some heroine in the pocket of Vincent’s jacket and thinks it is cocaine. She snorts it and immediately starts to overdose. Vincent panics and decides to drive her to the dealer’s house. The dealer has a nurse kit that comes with a giant needle full of adrenaline which Vincent stabs her with. She wakes up and Vincent takes her back home and is glad that he will live another day...

We jump to a flashback of a young boy who is has lost his father in Vietnam. An officer is visiting that has a gift. Apparently, there is a family watch that belonged to the boys great grandfather and had been passed down through the generations. His father had it when he was captured and gave it to the officer before the father died in the POW camp. The officer escaped and found the boy to give him the watch...

A boxer named Butch (Bruce Willis) wakes up from a dream. He is the boy all grown up. He is about to throw a fight for Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames), the same boss that everyone is afraid of. Butch does not throw the fight and accidently kills the other boxer. It turns out that he bet on himself and now he needs to get out of town before Marsellus Wallace catches him. He goes to a hotel where his rather dumb girlfriend is waiting for him. They go to bed and then are about to leave the next morning when it turns out that she forgot his watch. Butch freaks out and goes back to their old apartment to get the watch (note the very long take following Bruce Willis as he takes a back way to get to the apartment). Vincent is there waiting for him, but Vincent is in the bathroom and Butch is able to get a gun and kill Vincent as he is coming out of the bathroom. Things seem good so Butch drives off...

As Butch drives home, he sees Marsellus crossing the street in front of him so Butch hits the gas and runs down the boss but also hits an oncoming car. Both men are injured but Marsellus gains his senses and chases Butch into a shop where both are captured by a weird redneck with a shotgun. Butch and Marsellus are tied up in the basement of the shop and a man named Zed shows up. The shop owner has a gimp in a box (all leathered up and everything) and other fetish things downstairs. After a quick game to pick who goes first, they take Marcellus into another room to rape him. Butch manages to escape and is running away...but he decides can’t leave somebody to be assaulted like that. He grabs a weapon from the shop and kills the shop owner and frees Marsellus from Zed. Marsellus is not happy and says he will go “medieval” on Zed and allows Butch to leave town. Butch collects his girlfriend and leaves immediately...

Flash back in time (we know this because Vincent is alive) to right after Vincent and Jules shoot the guys with the case. Another guy in the other room jumps out and unloads six rounds at the two and misses every shot. The hitman kill that man, but Jules is shaken and decides to give up the business. They take a fourth gut with them in the car to go back to see Marsellus. On the drive over, Vincent accidently shoots the passenger while going over a pothole. The inside of the car is absolutely covered in blood and brains, so the two have to find a safe house. They go to the home of Jimmie (Quentin Tarantino) who will help them but says they have to get out in a couple of hours before his wife gets home. They call Marsellus, who sends over a cleaner named Wolf (Harvey Keitel). They are able to get everything cleaned up in time and leave with the car and the body. Jules and Vincent have to change out of their bloody clothes and decide to take a cab out to a diner for some food before seeing Wallace.

The two are at a familiar looking diner discussing whether their survival was a miracle and whether Jules should quit. Vincent goes off to the bathroom and, while he is gone, Pumpkin and Honey Bunny from the beginning declare it a robbery and it is evident that we have circled in time back around to the beginning. The couple hold up the diner, but, when they get to Jules, he takes Pumpkin hostage and devises a plan for everybody to leave. Jules allows the couple to leave alive with all the wallets, then the two hitmen follow quickly behind them before any police can show up.

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I put a spoiler warning at the top, but there is so much to this film that there is no way you could spoil everything. I find new things to enjoy about this movie each time that I watch it and the watch count has to be at least two dozen times at this point. This film is so rich with allusion and homage to movies of the past that you might never see everything. Tarantino is truly a lover of old films and he worked every reference he could into this film. This is truly like candy for a cinephile. 

I have, however, had a love hate relationship with this movie: I love this movie and I hate it when people tell me it is too violent. There was a lot of negative response to the films toxic masculinity, romancing crime culture, incredible amount of swearing, drug use, extreme gun violence, and very adult themes. There is a very famous interview between Quentin Tarantino and Jan Wahl in which she accuses him of using excessive violence and he tells her it is because it is a lot of fun to watch. His stylistically gory violence stems from exploitation films of the past and there is an established audience that enjoys it. He makes his movies for himself and this group of people.

Kind of like the comedy of Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, and George Carlin, you have to wade through a sea of swearing to find the comedic banter. The things that Jules and Vincent say to each other are some of the funniest stuff I have ever heard, but you really have to pay attention. Their attempts to express their feelings while maintaining their hard exterior persona is ridiculous. This is probably why many people enjoy the scenes with Vincent and Mia: there is a lot more courtesy which reduces the tirade of cursing.

The violence is very very over the top, but it is no where near the level of gore that Tarantino has become known for over the years. I must admit that he likes his torture scenes and this film is no exception. I would like to note how clever the torture scene with Butch and Marsellus is because they are both tied up and facing camera so only the audience can see the mischief that is being prepared behind them. 

The soundtrack for the film is well worth mentioning as it also pays homage to 50s, 60s, and 70s exploitations films. There is a lot of silence in the film with sudden bursts of fast paced music that help with transitions. Most famous is the intro music after diner prologue, a surf rock classic by Dick Dale and The Del Tones called Misirlou. It is pure speed guitar riff along the lines of Wipeout and transitions the scene perfectly. Take a listen for yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIU0RMV_II8

Maybe the biggest thing about this film and Tarantino in general is the inspiration of the slick gangster dialogue. There had been a push for more melodramatic dialogue or the complete absence of much talking. Tarantino added in this slick, fast moving comedic dialogue that is said over extreme violence and adult situations. Marsellus Wallace talks about having some crack heads torture a man to death immediately after being raped in a basement. The hitmen talk about appropriate manners while cleaning out brains from the back of a car. Jules talks about the meaning of the bible during a robbery. Everything seems out of place in the real world but perfectly acceptable in Tarantino’s world. This is probably why I have no problem with the violence in the film.

So should this film be on the AFI top 100? Absolutely. It is an homage to film history while simultaneously introducing a sub genre that mixes current dialogue and exploitation touches to grindhouse action. It is fascinating and fun. Would I recommend this movie? If you are old enough. I can’t emphasize enough how fun I find this film, but I cannot deny that it is filled with adult situations like drug usage followed by driving, secret dungeon rape, and cold blooded murder with no consequences. If you can differentiate between Tarantino’s world and the real world, then this is great. If you can’t, then maybe try something else with slick dialogue like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

[queen-of-my-goofball-army]

Favorite Voice Actors

For those of you that know me, you know that my number one special interest is cartoons and the people that voice my favorite characters. Studying my heroes and watching them in interviews became a favorite pass time of mine. A lot of my friends thought that it was really weird and they stopped talking to me because of it. For a long time before I got diagnosed as having aspergers I talked forever about it. I think that both bored and confused people. For me, I love voice acting because anybody can be anything. You can watch a show and years later be like I know that voice it’s insert name here if you’re like me. True, certain actors have something that is brought to every character (I can think of one prime example later on down the list) but it is always about the heart that they put into their characters. 

10. Charlie Adler: I’ll admit that I am mostly a fan of him due to the amount of work that he has done and the quantity. This man was the voice of Cow, Chicken and Big Red guy in Cow and Chicken. True, this show was past my time (and if it wasn’t I feel like it would get the Fairly OddParents treatment where my parents would forbid me to watch it.) When I listened to his episode of Talkin’ Toons I found his story’s really interesting and compelling. I can only imagine how much work and effort went into all of his characters in that show. To develop one character is one thing but to be able to switch between them like a deck of cards is a completely different thing. I did however watch a lot of Brandy and Mr. Whiskers when I was younger!! Growing up with that show and hearing him play Mr. Whiskers brought me a lot of joy when I was sick at home and for that I will always be a huge fan of his voice and his work. 

9. Jim Cummings. If I were to say that one voice actor had a ton of versatility it would probably be him. I was a major Tigger fan when I was growing up. Not just that but I loved Raymond when Princess and The Frog came out. He is actually my mom’s favorite voice actor. But I also loved CatDog when I would see that on reruns, I grew to love Darkwing Duck and countless other shows that he leant his voice to. Studying voice acting and the people that do it has led to me finding some things out that I would rather not. Especially when I found that he wasn’t actually the nicest person in real life. But, to me that doesn’t matter when it comes to this list. He is here because so many of his characters made my childhood just a little bit happier. When I was thinking about favorite voice actors I considered two things, personality and character content. This one is here just for character content. 

8. Bob Bergen: I reblogged a post a long time ago with this man at the helm. What he can do every time I see him do it blows my mind. Bob has been the voice of Porky Pig since pretty much Tiny Toons back in the early 90′s. He has stated that there have been some others but when I think Porky this is the name that comes along with it. Watching him do his thing is something that continually blows my mind. Listening to his life story on Rob Paulsen’s podcast Talkin’ Toons is something that inspired me more than anything. It’s this story of persistence and resilience from a young age. He is one of the few voice actors that actually got to talk with Mel Blanc when he was fourteen. I love his genuine heart and the ability that he has to jump into his character full force. Porky was a big portion of my childhood and I grew up laughing at his “silly” stutter. It wasn’t until I got older and learned that the stutter is an actual art form that I learned something entirely different. 

7. Richard Horvitz: Most of you that know me might be surprised at this rather seemingly low placement for somebody that I greatly admire. I mean he was Invader Zim and Billy from Billy and Mandy for crying out loud!! I just bought a print for the man but really when I thought about it, he hasn’t really inspired me as much as my top six have. I love his sense of humor and his love of musical theater but he hasn’t taught me anything life altering. I think that he is hands down the funniest voice actor in Hollywood. I could listen to him make jokes forever and just talk in his voice but at the same time he is so other worldly and knows so much about the craft that it inspired me that way. He is as most of his fans joke “the dad voice actor” complete with dad jokes. I love Invader Zim so much, the show has helped me through a lot of loneliness and emotional moments in my life reminding me to keep laughing at life’s craziness. I also love Moxxie from Helluva Boss. All in all Richard is a fabulous man and actor. He has helped me figure out the kind of person that I wanted to be and I owe him a lot of laughter hours. 

6. Greg Cipes: Can I talk about probably my OG hero for voice acting? When I was six I spent a lot of time in front of the television watching the original Teen Titans. My favorite character was Beast Boy his character that he played. When I say that BB changed the way that I think about my life that is not an exaggeration. He was one of the first characters that made me laugh so hard my stomach hurt. Growing up I had to fight people for his validation. It seemed like nobody loved him as much as I did. Cut to me in middle school I’m a bit more grownup and I start channel flipping. I wind up on Nickelodeon and see the reboot of Ninja Turtles. I figure I’ll watch it and see what all the hype is about. I hear Mikey open his mouth and instantly I get this rush of my childhood coming back. It was one of the first times that I made the connection between voice actor and character. Greg taught me so much vicariously through his character. He taught me about fun and laughter, about the importance of feeling lonely doesn’t mean that you’re alone in the world and even if you’re the goofball that doesn’t mean that’s all you have to be. The fact that he is such a relaxed and genuine person only adds to the admiration of this vegan beach bum. 

5. Corey Burton: This is a very personal hero of mine. It’s one that I hold very close to me because of one thing. As far as I know, there have been very few voice actors on the autism spectrum. Corey is the only one that I have ever found. He’s the man that actually surpassed every expectation and said screw live performing it makes me anxious I’m going to get my experience through something that I know I’m good at radio. So he does radio and becomes really good at that. Then he goes to cartoons. He does Dale in Chip And Dale Rescue Rangers with a certain feminine icon of mine. He gets Ludwig Von Drake and has been that voice actor since the original DuckTales. Then he hits the peak, he was Mole in Atlantis Lost Empire a big budget Disney movie. I am so often inspired by my top six favorite voice actors. They are the ones that took me by the figurative hand and told me hey you can do get through whatever it is that you are struggling with. It just takes a little bit of laughter through the bad times, and an optimistic attitude that things will slowly but surely get better. Corey was the one that actually got himself to the top of the mountain and got to say that he did it. I admire that about him so much because for a while I thought to myself “Hey, he did it so can I”. 

4. J Michael Tatum: In terms of anime voice actors, even though I love a great many, only one has ever remained of legend status. It comes yet again with a rather personal story. I was 17, lost and a little bit confused. I knew that I was ace but I had no idea how to tell my parents. It was around this time when I was getting back into anime due to Yuri On Ice, Space Dandy and Princess Jellyfish. I decide what the hell I’m going to watch some panels of my favorite voice actors for anime haven’t done that since I was thirteen. I had always loved Tatum as Kyoya Ootori in Ouran High School Host Club and France in Hetalia but other than that I didn’t know very much about him. I looked up panels for him and came across one for Florida Anime Con filmed that year. In it, he talked about being gay a lot. It implanted a seed that would inspire me. If he could be out and proud then why was I stoping myself? It might sound silly or stupid to some but to me it changed everything. From that moment on I loved everything Tatum. It led me to discover my love for Rei in Free, Okabe in Stein’s Gate and many other countless roles of his. 

3. Tom Kenny: This man right here, he is the OG voice actor special interest of mine. He is the first name that I remember hearing because he did so much for Nickelodeon showing children how he did his most iconic voice. Who is that iconic voice you may ask yourself? Well it’s Spongebob flipping patties Squarepants. If that alone doesn’t put him at this spot then I don’t know what does. Like so many children in the early 200s I spent a good chunk of my childhood with me and my parents on the couch and this show on the television screen. You want to talk about legacy? This man voiced his way into the hearts of millions of children across the united states. I remember the first time I saw his actual face. I was flipping through channels and I saw this man on Nickelodeon. He had a goofy smile on his face and I figured what the hell I’ll give this a watch even though it’s not a cartoon. Then he started talking he introduced himself as Tom Kenny. Then he starts doing Spongebob. My five year old mind was blown. I never forgot his name ever since. Every time I would watch Teen Titans and Mambo would be on that episode I would be like “Oh that’s Spongebob’s voice actor”. It was that moment that changed everything for me. I have never looked back from my main special interest ever since. He has helped me through so much. Whether he be my favorite exorbitant yellow sponge, or Dog on CatDog, or Lazlo on Camp Lazlo part of me will always be with Tom Kenny. Keep making children happy Tom you’ve been doing a great job so far. 

2. Tress MacNeille: Hoo boy this is a big one for me. For those of you that haven’t ever been around here before and don’t know the name of my character on my icon her name is Dot Warner (the Warner sister) and this is her voice actress. I hope that she changes your life and inspires you as much as she has mine. When I was nine I had an incredible fourth grade teacher. She showed us Yakko’s Nations Of The World for geography class. She also encouraged us to watch the rest of the show because it was full of educational songs and humor. I went home that day with on thought in mind. I wanted to watch the rest of that series. I go home and I make one distinction, hey that Warner sister I can kind of talk like her a little bit if I try hard enough. It was a little bit harder back in those days and I talk a lot more like her now with the reboot out in the world. This is the first and only impression I can do. I can do Dot and that’s it. And to me that was what mattered I didn’t need to be able to do anybody else. There aren’t a whole lot of woman voice actress’s that can keep working. All we have is Tara Strong, Cree Summer and the one and only goddess Tress MacNeille. Tress has helped me out so much in my life. I have never been the most confident person alive but from a young age hearing her absolutely smack down the actors of her brother’s in the show (Rob Paulsen and Jess Harnell) something about that inspired me. It was around this point in my life that I learned I can speak my mind and just not give a hoot if anybody feels the same way that I do. I can make my opinions known to other people. I was sixteen when I made that discovery and Tress was there for me all the way cheering me on in her Dot voice.  I owe a lot to her and I wish that she was more active on social media so that I could have the opportunity to thank her for everything that she has done vicariously for me. 

1. Rob Paulsen: If you were surprised by this, we probably haven’t talked before. At least not extensively because my dog do I love this man!! He has inspired me more than any other and he is not just my favorite voice actor but I consider him my ultimate hero in life. Where do I even start with him? There have been so many moments where I’ve fallen in love with one of his characters. I suppose one should start at the beginning. As I mentioned with Tress, my introduction through Animaniacs was Yakko’s Nations Of The World. This moment it changed everything for me because this was the first time that I could actually remember seeing Rob do a role. Yakko was the first cartoon character to actually make an impact on me. It was the first time that I ever loved a character that deeply. It was also the first time I ever made my own character to pair up with a canon character not even knowing that I was doing it. Ever since then a part of me has known okay that’s what Rob talks like. Now thanks to Tom Kenny I can recognize him in other places. And recognize him I did. From there I found that he was Carl on Jimmy Neutron, Mark Chang my favorite character on Fairly OddParents and countless other roles that we could be here all day for. As I mentioned, I was in middle school when the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were originally airing. When I watched that first episode, Donatello sounded really familiar to me. So I waited to the end credits only to find out that holy hell that was Rob!! The same person that played my favorite fast talking older brother. I found out about his fight with cancer a few years after it happened. This is when he went from favorite voice actor to hero legend status. He fought his way out of hell so that he could continue to sing “United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Heidi, Jamaica, Peru” until the end of his days. Reading his book changed my life forever as it gave me insight to not just the man who made me laugh, cry and cry laughing listening to his podcast but that same man had a whole ass heart and soul that he put into every character that he did. I find it really hard to explain what he means to me. He’s my hero, the one that made me laugh when I was a sad and lonely elementary schooler and the one that continues to bring me back to my childhood every time I see him in a show. I don’t feel the compulsion to give strangers hugs very often but if I ever met Rob I don’t think that I would be able to stop myself from giving a hug and just telling him thank you. Thank you for making my childhood and the childhoods of countless others much better than they would have been without you. 

And that’s it folks!! Whew that’s a lot of me rambling but I feel a bit better now. Finals preparation week has officially started for me and I just wanted to give myself this big ol’ boost of serotonin before I went into it.     

[corpse--diem]

An Offer You Can’t Refuse | Felix & Erin

When: Very shortly before Big Felix Featuring: @streetharmacist Summary: During a drink to celebrate a job well done, Erin and Felix decide they’re not quite finished after all.

It wasn’t a conventional location by any means, but the way Felix saw it, they had left convention behind a few miles back. Dale was dead. Bea was alive. There was plenty of reason to celebrate. And what better way than watching humans embarrass themselves at the Siren’s Serenade? With an Absinthe Hemingway in hand, he sat at one of the tables farthest from the karaoke stage. He didn’t mind a spotlight or two in the slightest but...time and place. It could come later. Roy Chambers. The name Erin had mentioned. It made sense why it lingered in his dome for so long. It was a familiar name. The kind that bears repeating. A few utterances invoked the spirit of old connections and he was nonetheless eager to share. If only to see where the threads all went to. Felix took a sip and eyed the door as he waited. The way things were, it was a matter that certainly demanded to be discussed.

Finding Felix in the Siren’s Serenade crowd didn’t take long. Hard to miss the only guy in the place with sunglasses and Erin made a mental note to sensitively bring that up someday. She took just a moment to ready herself, straighten up, shake the tension from her shoulders. The job had been taken care of - Dale was dead. No cops were breaking down her door. Felix was being paid in full again. Generally speaking, things were that surface-level kind of okay that made meeting up for drinks not nearly as terrifying as it could have been. “Some real beauts in here tonight, huh?” She greeted him with a warm grin. Thank God he’d picked a table far, far away from that mess. The whiskey she ordered when she passed by the bar came as she settled into the spot opposite him, and was quiet otherwise until the plucky server left them alone. “How’s business?” Erin asked over the top of her glass, watching the curve of his lips in lieu of black glass. “Running smoother, I hope? Now that you’ve got that big ol’ bald roadblock out of the way.”

“You really missed out on a winner earlier,” Felix said as he sat up a little straighter as Erin approached the table. “Just when you thought folks got tired of Bohemian Rhapsody, bam, there it is again. Just a pitch higher and a pitcher more drunk too. You gotta love it.” He adjusted in his seat, propped an ankle up on one knee as he settled. At her question, he smiled and took a sip of his absinthe. “Business? Well, it’s business and business is booming. I think it’s the encroaching summertime. Really gets the people in a certain sorta way, y’know?” It wouldn’t do to mention how much he and Blaine had discussed how sad the youth of White Crest could be. It was an off time for most and when that was the case, it was an on time for them. At big ol’ bald roadblock, he gave a loud laugh and set his glass down. “Well heck, I can say that the push and pull is making a lot more sense and that’s always real nice to see in my line of work,” he admitted with a tilt of his head. “And yours? It’s not, ah, going under, is it?” He smiled. “Surely it’s not. Certainly not after a loss like that, huh?”

Erin spared a glance at the travesty on stage and immediately winced. “Does that mean that A Whole New World duet I was looking forward to with you is off the table?” She asked playfully, trying hard not to watch his smallest gestures and movements with too much scrutiny. Something had changed. She wasn’t sure what exactly, and it wasn’t something she’d be quick to call it trust. Maybe she should have been more unsettled by how easy it was to joke with a man who was basically an accomplice to the murder she organized. “Yeah? Glad to hear it. I’ll take it that means all is well.” She shook her head, eyes dropping to watch the ripples slam against glass. Oh boy. She’d need an emptier glass before she asked him to shine a light on any of that. Wouldn’t be good. She looked up again at his question. “Well, losses are my gain, generally speaking,” she shrugged. She sat back, tapping her finger against her glass as she contemplated her next words carefully. “Honestly?  Retirement is starting to look pretty damn good right now and I gotta tell you--the packages available in our line of work? Not great. I know our buddy Dale would agree.” Warmth flooded her cheeks and suddenly she swore she could feel the heat brimming from the crematory chamber that very same man had left this world in. She paused, pushing past it and ease into another smile. “I’m hoping maybe you do too.”

“Oh, I won’t turn down a duet but let’s see how things are a few weeks from now, huh?” Felix said, mouth more in a curved line of knowing than anything close to a smile. “I’m nothing if not in it for a chance at some old-fashioned theatrics.” He loved his shadows without question but put the right spotlight on him and even a guy like him wanted to shine. And on the off chance it was the light of an interrogation room, he could make do. If he were someone else, gifted with the same knowledge, maybe they’d be put off by the way Erin smiled post-murder. Maybe even by how he did. They’d certainly be put off by the way they laughed and clinked glasses. Their stomachs wouldn’t handle it. Some people were just hungrier. A fact of life that his teeth fit around just fine. He could smile around it and he did so. “Oh yeah, very well but things could always be better,” he said with a thoughtful hum. “But ain’t that just how it is? Place like this, with what it has going on, it’s hard to ever really be satisfied since the work is never really done. I mean, you get it, right? All things considered, you got job security for life.” He tipped his glass towards her with a low laugh. As she spoke, he considered what she said carefully. There wasn’t any buzz in his chest other than the absinthe on his tongue. Words were everything to fae. They meant the slimmest difference between being in or getting out of a bind. “Hoping I do too, huh? Sounds to me like you’re looking for a newer, better deal. Very FDR of you, I dig it,” he said as he leaned forward intently. “Since we’re on the subject and all, I’ve got some information you might like to hear. About the ol’ bossman of yours.”

Old-fashioned. Erin had to laugh at that. Seemed to be this guy’s MO. It worked for him. “Why am I not surprised by that?” But he wasn’t wrong, about any of it, and part of her wondered if Dale had done them both a favor. He’d been the catalyst, the wild card that had spurned all of this on. Pissed Felix off enough to darken her doorway that fateful evening, stirring up tempers and trouble for them all. She could admit she’d grown comfortable, almost complacent in her rage, stewing and simmering. Now it was boiling over almost recklessly. It’d brought her here. If there was any hope to be had, it was right in front of her. Felix was quick. More knowledgeable than he let on. And sharp. She could tell that much already. Judging what side of the blade she fell on here was harder to distinguish but she knew she wanted to one the right one. “There’s always a better deal,” she nodded at his words, matching his dry smile. “Just ask any of my vendors though--I’m a hell of a negotiator.” Her eyes jumped from her drink to his sunglasses, momentary uncertainty flickering across her well set poker face at the mention of her boss. So much for that. “Do you? And how much is that gonna cost me?” She asked, shrugging nonchalantly. If she’d learned anything, it was that nothing came free. “If it’s worth anything at all. If you’re about to remind me that he’s a son of a bitch, trust me. I’m well aware.”

“You’re not? Dang, I gotta keep working on my front then.” Felix said with a smile as he unfolded an old matchbook and lit himself a cigarette. He waved the match out, breathed in nicotine, then breathed it out the side of his mouth. The karaoke choice shifted to something poppy that he didn’t recognize. It was bold what he and Erin were doing. Discussing dark things in the dim light of a karaoke bar. That was half of the thrill, really, the likelihood of being seen by the forces they discussed. Even if they were, no one would think anything of it right then. They were just chatting. See them now, but when the knifepoint touched to a neck with a pulse that hammered so hard the knife trembled, they might have wished they looked harder. Death granted a keen hindsight to the dying. One last gift. “Oh, I believe it. Death is an awful expensive business and while dirt naps are cheaper sometimes, can’t fault someone for wanting to rot in mahogany,” he said as he pulled the cigarette from between his lips and tapped it against the ashtray. “But gotta say, it’s good to know that you ain’t satisfied with all this business yet because I ain’t either. I think we can get dealt a better hand here.” He smiled. Erin was sharp. Quick. That was good. He appreciated the kind of company that could cut thin but cut deep. “Not much,” he admitted vaguely. “As for what I know, this guy, Roy Chambers? He ain’t just here. I’ve got some fellas in New York that know the name. He’s got his fingers in a lot of pies. A lot of pies that other people have made. Now that? That doesn’t sit right with me at all. Between you and me, guys like that shouldn’t have so much. It’s unseemly.”

There was something so incredibly appropriate about Felix lighting up that cigarette. Shadowy booths, shady conversations, smoke billowing around them in the dimly lit bar. Theatrics, case-in-point. Erin shook her head slowly, barely suppressing the smirk that lifted the corner of her lips. All they needed now was a black and white filter and a costume change to truly set the mood. “New York?” she echoed, raising her brows. Shit. This guy was a bigger deal than she anticipated with a reach like that. She could practically see the cogs and wheels spinning behind Felix’s glasses. “Of course he did. He probably thinks he’s the Elon Musk of White Crest,” she said, rolling her eyes. Didn’t surprise her though. Greed fueled monsters like Roy Chambers. He was a glutton, and a comfortable one. Constantly hungry, constantly devouring. Already trying to take bites out of her with her mother’s bones still stuck in his teeth. Her jaw set tightly and she glanced up from the napkin corner she was picking apart. “That’s a lot of pie, though. Sounds like you’re thinking about taking a few slices for yourself, yeah?” They were tiptoeing around it but there was no mistaking what Felix was implying. “If you’re offering--I could eat.”

Felix nodded through the smoke. “Yup. Makes sense. White Crest isn’t exactly a hub for this kinda work. Not really,” he said as he raised a hand and spread his fingers out. “He’s got a nice web here, sure, but a guy like this, it’s always bigger.” He smiled to himself then as he shifted forward and lifted himself from the shadow of the wall. He grinned. Erin got it. He had a feeling she would. She was tired of it and when people got tired of bullshit, they got restless. Proactive, even. And they made it known in ways that wouldn’t readily be forgotten. “Precisely, precisely.” His word manufacturing slowed as he got to thinking, his tongue pressed against the top of his mouth. “You see, I’d be fine taking a figure off or two, free up some space,” he admitted with a shrug, his tone easy. “Could do that, sure. It’d make things a little easier, you know, for you and me.” He gestured between the two of them. The grin he wore lessened by the second. “But I don’t think we’d be satisfied. Half-measures don’t sit right with me. Half-measures get you right back where you started.” He shook his head and looked at Erin. There wasn’t any concern or doubt in him. She got it. “Nah,” he said as he stabbed his cigarette into the ash tray. “We take off the whole fucking hand.” He laced his fingers together and sat up. “These debts you inherited? A couple Roy phalanges ought to cover it. With interest.” Money was a motivating factor in plenty but getting a guy back, that went further. It lived longer. “We do this? Really do this? We’re square for life. So yeah, Ms. Nichols, I’m offering.”

There it was--the proposition Felix had been inching toward since Erin had sat down across from him. At some point she knew it was coming. Maybe he needed someone low on Roy’s radar, capable of stomaching the hard jobs with a motivation matched his own. He sure as hell looked at her like he’d found someone to fill that slot. She could do it. He just needed to say the words and make it real. When he finally did, something dangerously close to hope woke with a hard start beneath her ribcage. She hadn’t expected that but she couldn’t pretend that it didn’t feel good. Her mind had been made up long before she finally spoke. 

“Let’s really do this, then. Let’s cut off the hand. I’ll take the whole damn arm if that’s what it takes,” she answered without hesitation. Bit back a big, sharp grin. If they failed, they died. That wasn’t lost on her for a second. She’d been in survival mode for so long now though that it was easy to forget what she was doing now was purely existing. It didn’t sustain or nurture. Just kept her alive enough to trudge through the next day. It was time. She was ready to live again, even if trying was the last thing she ever did, and she met Felix’s hand halfway across the table. “I’m all in.”

[tinygamertris]

@nagiru The reblog problems are getting worse and someone in the ‘wtf is going on’ tags suggested it might be a problem with reblog chains so I’m starting a new post to see what happens. Fingers crossed.

Oh shit, Lyris! She didn’t know how long she’d been unconscious down here but if she was even a little bit late, Lyris would start to fret, and when she fretted she tended to do so with her entire body and sometimes her axe.

It appeals to both the side of me that likes adventure and the side of me that loves using blocks to make stuff but isn’t into Minecraft’s vast and esoteric crafting system. Also I started a new game last night because I got one of the rare drops from a lategame boss and it’s a goddamn engraved sixshooter but mages can’t use it! 

I think it might be an autism thing for me as well. Noises are very hard for me to filter out, which makes it hard to concentrate, but with music or a podcast to listen to it’s easier to block out everything. I do my best work with earbuds in.

Yeah, I fully expect to see a lot of very sad fans when the final episode drops. Laura Kate Dale talked about it on Podquisition a couple weeks ago and she definitely thinks it’s one of the darker things she’s listened to. (Which, considering her taste in games and her participation in a podcast about video game porn, is saying a lot.)

I love the realistic arrow arc mods! I actually did a few years of archery in my teens, before they tightened the rules about what medication you can take when competing and my asthma medication suddenly got banned (BOO), and the natural bow shooting just doesn’t work. It’s okay for the crossbows though, I can handle it for that.

They did such a good job of showing us why the absolute fucker took a power company to pretty much rule the world. The shit he plans and blames on AVALANCHE is evil as fuck. I would be impressed if I wasn’t so disgusted.

Oh god don’t remind me of the Sephiroth fights in Kingdom Hearts, uuuuugh. They were so meeeeean. I get that they were bonus boss fights but some of those moves were evil and the REACH on the Masamune is insane! But the Masamune is such a cool sword. It’s a proper nodachi and he uses it properly, which you almost never see in video games. (I kinda wish there’d been a Nodachi in Ghost of Tsushima, but that game was still brilliant to play.)

Silver is indeed very cute~ Cute and tormented is a really good combination, shan’t lie. I want to give Silver all the hugs, honestly. Even though he’d probably sulk endlessly.

N is a very sweet lad who is full nerd, and one thing I love is that even if you have text speed at maximum his text still comes out significantly faster than anyone else. Lovely little gameplay way of showing that he has the whole ‘I am excited and love talking about all the things I talk about with a new person who isn’t just going to yes-man me because I’m the King of Team Plasma’ thing going on. I love gameplay and story integration <3

Oh man, okay, so I’m gonna spoil a small bit of the Rainbow Rocket plot because it’s so good. Colress has turned up in passing a couple times in the plot, you’ve been going through the taken over Aether Foundation taking out boss rushes of most of the villains of the series to that point... And then Ghetsis, after you beat him, grabs Lillie and threatens to kill her if you don’t leave. Guzma’s been helping you along the way by keeping Rocket Grunts off your back, but he’s not willing to risk hurting Lillie. Ghetsis is gloating and getting really worked up... And in comes Colress, absolutely steaming, he tells Ghetsis he’s always hated him for being such a bastard, and uses his arm computer to zap Ghetsis back to the alternate dimension Giovanni took him from. It’s glorious. 

(Also if you’ve not played Ultra Sun then you have missed Dulse and Zossie, the most adorable dorks ever. I love them so much.)

The Astrals are the Actual Fucking Worst and I would quite like for them to die now please. Of COURSE they’d orchestrate centuries of pain and suffering to solidfy their power base, that’s all they’ve ever done throughout the history we know.

[incorrectstarcoquotes]

What Coulda/Woulda/Should've Been?

Star vs the Forces of Evil is on Disney+ and that’s so awesome. Since Disney+ is the big streaming service that everyone is going crazy over that can only mean that Star vs can get a new audience for people who don’t even know that the show existed. I just hope Doug Walker doesn’t review it for Disneycember. I really don’t need that guy claiming that Star and Marco are rip-offs of Dipper and Mabel (they’re not).

However since the show ended earlier this year, I can’t help thinking about all the interviews and AMAs the crew has done since then. There are several things that we’ve learned from them between what the show was going to be and what the show ended up being. 

Let me preface that saying traditionally kids cartoons don’t last very long on television. Reason being is that TV executives figure that the intended audience for whatever show they made has grown out of watching that show by the time season three comes around. It’s one of the reasons Disney had the 65 episode rule for such a long time. Everyone just assumes that by the time episode 65 airs, you’re too old for the show they made and you’ll move on the something else. The exceptions to the rule are shows that don’t do very well and shows that are mega hits that made the network SO MUCH money (Think Spongebob or My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic). 

The traditional TV plan for cartoons was make them as toyetic as possible, make a certain amount of episodes, then sell the show for syndication so reruns can run on lesser networks or foreign networks. That’s how I was able to watch so man episodes of Chip n’ Dale Rescue Rangers, Inspector Gadget and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles even though all those shows ended production by the time I was born.

Of course in the ass end of 2019, we know things have changed. Millennials and Gen Z’ers love cartoons, and thanks to the internet, it’s easier for someone to keep up if you tell a serialized story. You can watch from the beginning whenever you want; you just need a streaming service. We know that, but a lot of executives are old. Add this knowledge to the fact that it doesn’t look like Daron Nefcy thought her show would last that long at all.

She says here’s my idea for a show. They say we’ll do it but first age up the characters. She does it and makes Star an actual magical princess from another dimension. She thinks of a plot and ending. She figures two seasons is good enough. Disney XD decides to try impress advertisers and greenlight season three. She pushes back the ending and adds another story arc. The show becomes so popular that after Gravity Falls ends it becomes the flagship show for Disney XD and gets a fourth season. She thinks that she’s really pushing her luck and decides that season four is the final season just to be safe. Basically. The show was originally going to end in Battle For Mewni, but the ending kept getting pushed back since the show kept getting new seasons.

From what I can gather, there were parts of the show that were going to be there regardless of when the show ending. 

Star was always going to try to destroy the magic as a way to stop the final boss for good.

The magic that we keep talking about was the magic that the Butterfly Family and Magic High Commission used to stay in power. The Lucitor’s keep their demonic powers, the Pony Heads still float, and monsters maintain their abilities (size shifting, regeneration, etc.) because those are biological, not magical. 

Star and Marco were always going to end up together as a romantic couple in the end. Always. In the end.

The Magic High Commission was going to be taken out of commission (I know, I couldn’t resist. I’m sorry).

So if the show would have ended at Battle For Mewni:

Before or after the showdown with Toffee, Marco would have confessed his love to Star

Instead of reviving the magic with Glossaryk, Star would have destroyed the corrupted magic dimension which held Toffee’s consciousness. 

The Magic High Commission would have remained dead. 

Marco could have ended up stranded on Mewni.

If the show had ended at the season three finale:

Star would have been disillusioned by the corruption and racism of the Butterfly Family and the MHC (if she hadn’t been already).

Destroying the magic would have removed her family and the MHC from power as well as weaken Meteora.

Tom would have chosen to back off to let Star and Marco be together.

Eclipsa would have to deal with an older Meteora.

Marco again could have been stranded on Mewni.

It’s really season four that threw a lot of people off including the svtfoe crew. Nefcy has admitted that they did several things just to see what it would look like, like Marco and Kelly getting together. They also wrote themselves into a corner when it came to Star and Marco’s relationship. Tom was the only reason Star and Marco couldn’t be in a relationship which is unfortunately why TomStar lasted as long as it did. 

This last bit is a personal issue just for me and my brother, but one of the reasons we did like season four was because the Mewmans were jerks. The average Mewman was always depicted as being either stupid, lazy or vindictive. So when we spent more time with regular Mewmans in season four, we started to dislike them more and more. Star wanted to make Mewni better, but we never thought the Mewmans were worth the effort. 

Waiting until the end to make Starco canon always pissed me off too. Nefcy has said that she thought it would be “boring” if Star and Marco just got together without drama and doesn’t like it when stories have the main couple just get it right on the first try. Well I hate stories where the main couple doesn’t get together until the very end of the story. Shows like Kim Possible and Parks and Recreation really spoiled me. The main couple got together but the story still continued. It pisses me off that TV writers and producers don’t think that they could get good stories from being in a relationship or it’s too hard so they don’t want to. Tangled the Series is doing just fine and the main couple is going to stay a couple for the whole show.

Thanks for reading. 

[dragonsofwyrmroost]

Last Mission Part 3

He knew he should be panicking right now, but Dale simply wasn’t awake enough to have emotions. Unconsciousness left him slowly, making it hard to think straight at first. It also made it hard to gauge how much time was passing as he returned to the waking world.

The first distinct thought he had was that his head hurt a lot. He then began to realize that his entire body was sore. That’s when he realized that he was leaning against a cold wall, but luckily his hands and legs weren’t bound.

Eventually he regained enough sense to notice that it wasn’t dark where he was. He was tempted to fake being asleep still, but being unable to hear voices made it clear that he wouldn’t gain anything from it.

Dale opened his eyes, but had to blink for several seconds for his eyes to adjust to the light. He was surprised to find himself in what appeared to be some kind of bunker. The walls and floor were made up of a dark stone. Bright industrial lights hung from the ceiling. Shelves with weapons, books, and other items took up much of the wall space. Two tables spaced a good distance apart occupied the center.

“He’s awake,” a female voice said from out of view.

“The boss said to bring him as soon as we could,” a male voice responded.

“He’ll probably need a few minutes to be fully functional,” the first voice said.

Dale tried to speak, but found his throat too sore to do so. Swallowing whatever saliva he could find, Dale tried again.

“Wher-” he started, but had to take a few moments to clear his throat. “Where am I?”

“The meeting location,” the second voice replied. A short and sturdy man stepped into Dale’s view.

“Meeting location…” Dale struggled to figure out what the man meant. “Oh. For the mission.”

The man rolled his eyes before nodding. “Good job genius. I guess ya weren’t hired for ya brain.” Only now was Dale awake enough to notice his heavy accent, but he still couldn’t quite place where it was from.

“Give him a break.” A new voice piped in. A child walked over to Dale and offered him a hand up.

“Um. Thanks,” Dale said as he grabbed the girl’s hand.

“No problem. I’m Jazia by the way and that jerk over there is Jameson,” she said. Her two yellow braids screamed ten years old, but her eyes looked much older.

“Well at least I’m no freak,” Jameson said pointedly to Jazia.

“You’re just mad because I was chosen to be the leader and you weren’t.”

“Why should an eleven year old be in charge of me? Or anyone on this team?”

Jazia quickly turned to face him. “You will show me the respect I’m due as the designated leader, is that understood?” She walked close to him, and Dale noticed a knife in her hand.

Jameson’s face lost some of its color. “Yes, Jazia. My apologies for my outburst.”

“Good,” Jazia said with a smile. She turned back to Dale. Let’s get the new guy acquainted with the work area and then Kelly and I can take him to see the funder.”

“Whatever ya say, boss,” Jameson said. “I’ll show him around.” The man turned to Dale. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Dale. Jameson right?” Dale responded. He watched as Jazia stepped out of view.

“Yep. I’m the wilderness expert on this venture. Jazia is the leader, as you might have figured out, but she’s also our weapons person,” Jameson explained while leading Dale to the first of the two tables.

“And I’m the girl in charge of medical needs,” a woman said while walking up to the pair. Dale recognized her voice as the first one he had heard when he woke up in the bunker.

She stopped just a couple of feet from Dale. “Call me Kelly,” she said, extending her hand. Dale took her hand and shook it. She smiled, and Dale felt she might be the first person to actually want to be his friend.

“Ahem,” Jameson interrupted. “Are ya done flirting with the new meat yet Kelly?”

She scowled at him. “Just because you don’t know a thing about being nice doesn’t mean I’m not going to make friends with others on the team.” She dropped Dale’s hand. “Dale, we can get to know each other a different time when this brute’s not around to ruin it.”

Dale watched as she haughtily walked in the same direction Jazia had gone.

“Well that was dramatic,” Jameson sighed. “Don’t mind her. She’s Jazia’s niece, and the two share a wicked temper.”

“Wait, she’s Jazia niece?” Dale asked, the confusion obvious in his voice.

“Aye. But that’s Jazia’s tale to tell, ain’t it?” The shorter man gave Dale a friendly pat on the shoulder and then guestered to the table before them. “Now, on to the official tour.”

Dale tried to pay attention to Jameson’s thorough explanation of the room and its contents, but his mind was still caught up in everything that had happened since he found the empty lot. Had it really only been earlier that day that Warren left? He simply couldn’t focus on his new friend’s heavy accent as he rattled on about the bunker, especially with the lingering effects of whatever drug they used to knock him out.

Kelly’s return snapped Dale back into focus. “Haven’t you finished the tour yet Jamie?” she asked, clearly annoyed.

“We’re almost finished. Hold ya horses,” Jameson chided. “And don’t call me Jamie. Ma name is Jameson. Always has been and always will be.”

“Whatever. Jazia is waiting to introduce Dale to Ms. Moneybags. You can finish boring him with your long winded explanations after.”

She motioned to Dale to follow as she turned back around. “Let’s go. We don’t want to keep our boss waiting.”

Dale started towards her, but stopped for a moment. He turned back to Jameson. “Thanks for the tour. It was really, uh, informational.”

“Aye. No need to lay it on so thick, laddie. Just head up with Kelly. Hopefully I’ll see ya after.” The older man shooed him away.

Dale smiled and gave a quick nod, before turning away. He resumed following Kelly as more questions swirled around his head than ever before.

[darryl-jacobson]

And we are back! Even better news, the next chapter is close to 90% done so it won’t be long before the next chapter. 

Chapter 4 of the AU, 3.6 K

When Dale came back to his room a few days later, the cat-now named Onyx- was sound asleep on his bed.

He reached out and stroked her, enjoying the feel of her soft, plush fur beneath his fingers. It was hard to believe that everyone had ever thought she was a mean cat, when she was actually quite sweet. A bit shy and it took her awhile to warm up to people but still sweet.

So far, she had only liked him and Dare but he figured it would take her a few days to warm up to everyone else. She made a chirping noise and turned to look at him.

“Guess what I did today?” He asked, before plunging ahead as she yawned. “Mom taught me how to boil pasta. I’ve never done it before, back at school they made all my meals for me. But here everyone has to know how to cook, so we made spaghetti.”

The teenage boy paused and stroked Onyx as she slunk into his lap and curled up. “Then me and Indigo and Killian and Astrid and Icarus spent the afternoon together. I think Icarus has a crush on Astrid. He keeps blushing and staring at her.”

“But want to know the craziest thing? I... liked it... a lot.”

It was weird to say out loud, as if he was disrespecting his former life and parent. Every moment that he was here, happy, not trying to get back to them, it felt like he had turned his back on them and had spat on everything they had done

As he sat there, Dale realized he would soon have to make a choice. He wasn’t a little kid and was more then old enough to have a say in what happened to him and where he lived and with who. If he wanted to keep his fun and exciting new life or return to the one he had left behind. The new family he had found or the old one he had left behind. There was no chance that it would happen, no way to merge both of them together. 

And how was he supposed to choose?

It was hard, he wished both sides of his life could coexist peacefully. But that was a child’s fantasy, one that could never actually happen. Quite strange, when he had been at the school, he had wanted something more. Now he was debating on whether or not he wanted to return or continuing on this exciting new journey. 

***

Darryl looked busy, but then again, he always looked busy. A lot of the time, Dale wondered what Darryl officially did around here. It seemed like he spent a lot of time trying to boss people around, whether they liked it or not. It wasn’t a life he would want.

It had taken the teenager a long time to find him. Everyone kept saying they had just seen him somewhere but by the time he got there, Darryl was gone again.

“Hey.”

Darryl turned around and smiled. “Hey kid. Your family driving you crazy already?”

He blinked at him. “No.”

“Ah, well, if they do, it’s alright. I understand it happens sometimes,” Darryl continued. “I used to live with them, all of them. Including the other one.”

“Fari,” Dale supplied quietly. “Why did they live with you?”

“Long story, your blue mom was the first roommate, then your other mom and then... them. It wasn’t really planned, it just… happened. And then you came along.” The older human smiled at him. “But then your… parent left. And then they came back and took you with them.” He finished, a more somber note in his voice.

“Because they wanted to become president and later ruler of the earth as The Great Representative.”

Darryl nodded. “Yeah.”

Dale shoved his hands into his pockets. “What was politics like on earth before they came along?”

“Well...” The older man thought for a few moments. “You already knew each country had its own ruler. Some were kings and queens, some were presidents or prime ministers. lt depended on the country. Some rulers were for life and some were only for a few years.“

“Was it better than it is now, or worse?”

He sighed, “it’s hard to say.”

Dale scowled. “It can’t be that hard to say.”

“It’s hard to explain to someone who doesn’t remember what it was like. Maybe having a single ruler is better but humans were ruled by humans and that will always be better. Also for a lot of leaders, they were elected by the people and changed out according to set guidance and standards. Your parent will live for thousands of years and could be The Great Representative for all of that time.”

“And that’s bad?”

“People change, society and countries change. Look back in history to what the world was like at the beginning of the 20th century vs the beginning of the 21st. Massive difference, with changes for women, LGBTQ people, black and minorities. And we’ll continue to change. We should have leaders that grow and are shaped by the times, not held to one particular way of doing things.”

“Besides,” Darryl continued. “Who’s to say they are doing a better job? Them? A ruler might say they’re doing a good job but really, you should be asking the people being governed on how they think it’s going.”

Dale frowned. “I see.” He said and then changed the subject. “What was it like when I was little?”

“Before LE took you?”

“LE?”

“Yeah.” Darryl nodded. “That’s what we called them.” He frowned, lost in thought. “What was it like? It was... normal?”

Dale scowled. “Normal how? What’s normal?”

“Well…” Darryl said. “I had a house in LA and we all lived there. It was, well, you know.. day to day normal life stuff. Paying bills, taking care of you kids, going grocery shopping and such. Normal stuff.”

“I heard someone call them the basement bastard.”

“Yeah, that’s because they lived in the basement.  They’re bedroom was down there and they usually had food and such down there. Sometimes we wouldn’t see them for a day or two.”

The teenager blinked, trying to imagine his parent living a simple life in someone's basement, especially the way this man was describing it. It was difficult. They had always been a force to be reckoned with, larger than life and powerful, not a footnote in someone else’s story. 

“And… bastard, because everyone thinks they’re a bastard.” Dale finished for him.

“Yeah.”

“Who… who took care of me?”

Darryl shrugged. “All of us did, but if you want the truth, Val and Loki did the most. They prepared the meals that you ate and played with you and bathed and read to you and tucked you into bed. Yes, LE did it a little bit, here and there, but they were more concerned with whatever they were doing downstairs. Val and Loki took care of you and loved you and were heartbroken when they kidnapped you. Trust me when I tell you, neither of them forgot you or ever really got over it.”

Dale was silent.

Darryl smiled at him and looked at his watch before grimacing. “I’d love to talk more, kid, but I have to run.”

If the teenager’s ears were capable of perking up, they would have. “Where are you going?”

“A meeting.” Darryl answered before turning to leave. “The Loki who you met earlier, the one who said he was your uncle-grandpa, he’s back.”

“Is my mom back?”

There was a slight back pause, short enough that other people might have never noticed but Dale did, followed by a sigh.

“No.”

He didn’t want to think about them being dead but he was worried. Really worried. Fari had talked about them long enough to know they would kill them. They hated that person with a passion, saying they were a fake out to steal and wreck their reputation and destroy the legacy that they had so carefully built. 

No matter how hard he tried to redirect his thoughts, they always came back to that. Was his mother dead, would Fari have spared them so they could humiliate them on a global scale? They were capable of being that petty, especially to someone they loathed with every fiber of their being?

“Can I come with you?”

That made Darryl stop. “You want to come?”

“Yes…”

“Dale,” the older man said as gently as possible. “You know what this meeting is going to be about right?”

“Finding my mom and stopping my parent?”

“Yeah.”

The teenager took a deep breath. “I still want to come.” He said.

Darryl eyed him a moment before glancing at his watch. “Alright, but we need to hurry or they’re going to start without us.” He said, and took off walking, Dale trailing behind him.

The older man was right, by the time they arrived, it had just started, Darryl pushed his way through the crowd so he was up front, with Dale’s mom, grandpa Loki, and the other female Loki as well. Dale on the other hand, didn’t want to draw attention to the fact he was here and stayed back near the door.

The small room was almost packed, full of people Dale had never met before. Looking around, some were humans, some aliens and some he wasn’t sure about. It amazed him to think all these people came here for one reason, because of his parent. 

Darryl wasted no time. “Where’s Loki?”

Grandpa Loki cleared his throat. “I don’t know,” he said. “Which is a problem. I’m not even sure if they are still alive or if LE had them killed.”

The temperature in the room seemed to drop as everyone took in the news. Val’s jaw tightened and she glared at the wall, as if it could give her spouse back to her.

“Couldn’t you use your magic?”

“That’s the other problem.” Grandpa crossed his arms. “LE has been busy working on something that severely restricts magic, I barely was able to use enough to get back. I would of returned days ago, but that was a problem.”

Darryl frowned. “Is that how they caught them?”

“Maybe,” He considered it briefly. “Or the fact they rushed in again without a backup plan while LE has soldiers, resources and almost a decade to make plans.”

“So what do we do?” Someone asked.

His mom crossed her arms, her voice full of anger and pain. “I don’t care as long as we remove them from power and I get to punch the bitch.”

Darryl glanced up. “Val.”

“If they don’t want to be called a bitch, maybe they shouldn’t be one,” she responded. 

“No, I meant...” He tilted his head toward where Dale was standing. Her eyes followed and she relaxed her stance, as if she had been caught. “Oh, Dale.”

Dale frowned.

She hesitated and then exhaled, running her fingers through her dark hair. “I’m sorry if hearing that upsets you... but I hate them and have good reason for it.”

Grandpa Loki cleared his throat. “I’m sorry you have to hear this kiddo... but, they’re a bitch. Anyway, we have three objectives. Either we need to find Blue or find evidence of what happened to them. Then, disable LE’s magic restricting devices and then take them down before their army shows up.”

“You need me.” The female Loki said, speaking up for the first time

Grandpa turned toward her. “We need you here.”

“You need another magic user there, especially if they have soldiers.” She said.

There was a pause and his mom came across the room to gently touch the female Loki’s other arm. “We’ll need her.”

Grandpa Loki paused and then nodded. “We will, especially against LE.”

“We’re not killing them.” Darryl announced.

Everyone in the room turned toward him. “We’re not?”

“No,” he said, short and simple. “It would be a greater punishment if forced to stay alive and pay for their crimes. Plus that would be humiliating for them and they don’t deserve a quick death.”

“Great, catch them without them being killed, disable their devices and find Blue.” Grandpa created an illusion on the table of his parent’s home, the fortress they had created after they became the sole ruler of the earth. “There was no sign of them back at Dale’s school, so if they are alive, it would probably be here.”

Dale felt his stomach drop as he stared at the illusion. He knew that place better than anyone in the room, because he had not only been there but had lived there. In the northwest corner, was his bedroom for the holidays and breaks when he wasn’t in school. His parent highly desired extra safety for their home, they had teams of armed guards, and the best security system money could buy.

The others stood somewhat of a chance of getting in, but he knew exactly where they should go and what they should do. 

Grandpa Loki was still speaking. “We should break into teams and at least disable their devices first, it will make everything easier. Then, we’ll plant a trap out of the fortress, LE can’t stand the idea of someone breaking rules and would come right out to investigate it. They’re dumb enough to go right for it. Anything else?” 

“I have something.” Dale said quietly, as everyone turned to look at him. “There’s two things everyone needs to know about this. If my ... mum is alive, they’ll be here.” He said and pointed below the illusion. “There’s a huge bunker below it.”

“They still love their basements.” His mom said, an icy tone to her voice.

“Yeah,” Dale said, unsure what else to say to that. “And over here is the command room.” He said, pointing to the south quadrant of the building. “It’s where the entire security system is controlled.”

“Good, that’s good, there’s never been an official release of what the inside looks like. LE has never let anyone film inside.” Darryl said.

Grandpa nodded. “Anything else? No? Great, Meeting adjourned.”

Instantly, everyone started to break off, talking among themselves as they began to trickle out the door. Dale wasn’t among them, as he instead fought against the crowd to go talk to grandpa Loki

“Um… Can I ask you something?”

“You want to come with us.”

Dale nodded, becoming very aware that his mother overheard their conversation and stopped dead in her tracks to turn toward them to listen.

Grandpa smiled sympathetically, the gentleness of his voice taking most of the bite out of his words. “Because you want to see them?” 

“Yeah. Yeah, I do. But also because they’re not stupid, they won’t come outside just because of some trick or whatever. But they would come if I was there.”

He heard a small noise behind him and his mom stepped up so she was next to the two of them, wringing her hands together. “I don’t feel comfortable with you coming or using you as bait. You’re not some prize to be won, you’re our son. And I especially don’t want you around them.”

Dale’s shoulder’s stiffened. “I need to come. Not to go back to them or abandon anyone or anything I just….”

“Need closure.” Loki finished for him.

“Yeah.”

He raised his eyes to look behind Dale. “I think you should talk to your mom about it.”

Dale turned around, to see her frowning, worry drawn across her brow. “I really don’t want you to go. I can’t lose you again.”

The teenage boy closed his eyes, his voice breaking. “I need to do this. I need this closure and you guys need me to catch them.  I promise I’ll stay safe and away from fighting or whatever you want, but I need to come. Please.”

Her face pinched together before she hugged him tight. “You’ll stay with Darryl. And away from any danger.”

“I will.” He promised. 

She released him and sighed. “If you are coming, then I should probably give you something first.” She put her arm around him and lead him out of the room. 

Fifteen minutes later, they were back in the house that was now his home. “What’s this?” He asked. 

His mother led him to her bedroom, and took a box out from under her bed before she sat on the bed, holding the box in her lap. “I was going to give it to you later, but I think you need it now. But first, this isn’t a toy, this is a weapon.”

Dale sat next to her, burning with curiosity. 

She opened the box and removed a long knife, inside a sheaf, which she handed to him. “This belonged to my mother, it’s been in my family for generations. It’s always given to the firstborn. I want you to have it.”

Slowly he took it, feeling the weight in his hand. “Wait, really?”

His mother smiled, showing off her teeth. “Really.”

“But what about Icarus? And Dare?”

“Don’t worry, both of them have gotten other weapons. Besides,  neither of them are my oldest.” She reached over and squeezed his shoulder. “You are.”

Tears started to prickle in his eyes and he leaned over, letting her embrace him in a warm hug. It felt like being wrapped in a warm blanket, there was no doubt of the security and comfort that surrounded him. “Thanks mom...” He mumbled into her shoulder

She stroked his hair a moment. “You’re welcome.” She said and then pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I love you, Dale.”

“I love you too.”

When she let him of him, he began to examine the knife. It was pretty simple, nothing fancy.  The hilt was made of bronze and there were several grooves in the metal as if there used to be decorative items that were now long gone. A twisting ruin had been hand carved in.

Dale traced the rune. “What does this mean?” He asked

“Strength.”

He nodded and gently pushed the ball of his thumb against the point and then yelped as it was a lot sharper than he expected. 

“Be careful,” his mother warned.

He grinned and sucked on wound a moment. “I will.”

***

Three hours later, all of them we’re back on earth.  Even though he had only been in Manhattan for a short time, it was weird to see the blue sky again, hear birds and feel the wind in his hair.

It didn’t take long for them to come to LE’s fortress: a sleek, modern building that doubled as their home and base of operations. Just getting onto the land it sat on was difficult, as they had security on top of security: fences, alarms and guards everywhere.

As promised, Dale stayed back with Darryl outside, hidden among some shrubs, watching as his mother and Lady Loki went off with a small team in search of his other mom and grandpa Loki and his team went another direction, to try and destroy the device his parent had made.  It was after dark, the fall night quiet and still, a chill in that reminded everyone winter was on its way. 

“When was the last time you were here on earth?”

The older man shot him a confused look. “When I came to your school with Loki, to find you.”

“Oh, yeah.” He frowned. “How did you find me?”

“We’ve been looking for you for a long time. Blind searches and following where LE was traveling to. That’s how we finally figured it out. They kept going back to that spot in Canada, too many times for it to be a coincidence. As soon as your moms found out where you were, it was all either of them would talk about. Going to rescue you.”

“Do you always stay outside?”

Darryl didn’t answer for a moment, as he kept scanning , watching for guards or any sign that anyone had been detected. “Yes, because I’m still just human and I’d rather not die.”

Silence.

Then, suddenly a loud alarm started to go off and soldiers started swarming outside.

Everything Dale had been about to say died on his lips and he only stared. A tiny voice whispered that if he wanted to return to his parent, all he had to do was walk away from Darryl and go over to them. At least one would recognize him and return him to the parent he had known his whole life and not just the last few days.

But that would mean leaving behind his new friends.

And siblings

And his cat

And his new mother, who never gave up hope and worked so hard to make him feel comfortable and welcomed and  had saved a priceless family knife to finally give to him.

And the other mother who has traveled so far and literally gave themself so he could safely get away.

But it would be returning to the life he knew and to the path he had been on and to the parent who had cared for and protected and loved him. 

Swallowing hard, his grip tightened around the hilt of the knife and he made his choice.

[douxreviews]

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) Review

"This isn't freedom, this is fear."

I’ve been looking forward to this more than any other Marvel movie. Yes, that includes The Avengers.

The Winter Soldier arc is one of my absolute favourite comic book storylines of all time. After Captain America: The First Avenger came out I hoped and prayed that the producers would be smart and adapt this storyline for the sequel. When it was finally announced that the sequel would indeed take inspiration from Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting’s original story (a Cold War spy thriller masquerading as a superhero adventure) my excitement soon gave way to concern. That story is just so good it would be impossible for this film to live up to my ridiculously high expectations.

I was wrong.

I bloody loved this film. I will even go so far as to say that it is my favourite Marvel movie to date. I enjoyed it more than The Avengers and you all know how much I loved The Avengers. The Winter Soldier has everything you could possibly want from a summer blockbuster - a smart script that actually makes you think (this is the most topical movie Marvel have ever made), strong characters you care about and action scenes that leave you breathless. Admittedly, many of the film's twists and turns aren't that shocking. I’d already guessed most of them after the first trailer came out. It is testament to how good this film is that this isn't really an issue.

Taking a leaf out of James Cameron’s book, this sequel switches genres from WWII adventure flick to conspiracy thriller. While the studio has tried to sell this as a multimillion dollar tribute to conspiracy films from the '70s like The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor, The Winter Soldier feels more like a greatest hits package for the entire espionage genre. The Winter Soldier's story is right out of The Manchurian Candidate. The Washington setting recalls All the President’s Men and any number of Tom Clancy novels. And there is something very Person of Interest about the villain's scheme.

Directors Joe and Anthony Russo proved that they could produce great action scenes with Community’s minuscule budget, so it comes as no surprise that when handed a truck full of cash they knocked it out of the park. The Winter Soldier has some of the best actions scenes yet seen in a Marvel. With the exception of the grand finale (which is still ace), the brothers keep the action grounded, eschewing CGI in favour of good old fashioned practical effects and stunt work. Standouts include Cap’s brutal tussle in a packed elevator and Nick Fury being chased through the streets of Washington in his battered S.H.I.E.L.D. SUV.

Chris Evans continues to impress in the lead role, easily finding the lonely soul within the human flag as he struggles to find his place in the morally murky world of post-Watergate, post-9/11 America. In another’s hands, this character could easily be insufferably corny, but in Evan’s he is like a sad little puppy. You just want to hug him. One of the great things about Steve as a character is that he is a genuine team player. He's not one to hog the limelight. This allows the supporting cast more room to shine, particularly Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson. Emily VanCamp was the only one who felt underused, but I imagine she'll have an expanded role in Captain America 3.

The standout performance, however, comes from Scarlett Johansson. It’s nice to see all the great work done on her character by Joss Whedon isn't going to waste. This film is as much Natasha’s story as it is Steve’s. She is here as his partner and equal, not his sidekick (that role goes to Falcon). And it is a relief that the film doesn't try to force a romance between the two of them (Natasha spends most of the film trying to set Steve up with others). There are one or two tender moments, but they work more to strengthen the growing friendship between these troubled souls, who are just trying to find their place in this world. The film on the whole is surprisingly romance free, a first for a solo Marvel.

The film benefits from a pair of effective antagonists, an area where recent superhero films have struggled. I’ve seen others complain that the Winter Soldier himself lacks personality. That is the whole point. The Winter Soldier is not meant to be scheming mastermind like Lex Luthor, a charming trickster like Loki or a colourful anarchist like the Joker. He is the Terminator, a relentless, unstoppable force to reckoned with. He is someone who has had every trace of their individuality stripped away, leaving behind nothing but a ruthless killing machine. Elsewhere, Robert Redford - who would’ve made for an ideal Steve Rogers in his youth - puts that twinkly eyed charm to sinister use as S.H.I.E.L.D. boss Alexander Pierce.

Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World dealt with the fallout from The Avengers and how the events of that film affect the respective heroes. The Winter Soldier is all about setting the stage for what comes next. Not just Avengers: Age of Ultron, but for the entire Marvel cinematic universe as a whole, including the likes of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the potential Peggy Carter series that is in the pipeline. The events of this film are going to have widespread repercussions for all our heroes.

Stars and Stripes

— One cameo was, to put it in words only a select few will understand, very cool cool cool.

— Steve’s list of things to catch up on changes depending on which country you see the film in. Here’s the American version:

And here is the British one:

— I'm not afraid to admit that Steve's brief reunion with the elderly Peggy Carter had me in tears.

— Done being in every TV show made in the last ten years, Alan Dale has obviously now moved on to showing up in all the film franchises. I expect to see him in the next Star Wars film.

— As with all Marvel movies, you shouldn’t leave once the credits start to roll. The mid-credits scene was directed by Joss Whedon and acts as a mini prequel for Age of Ultron.

— A certain sorcerer supreme was mentioned at one point. Does that mean a solo movie isn't too far off? Can't we have a Black Widow movie first?

Natasha: "You do anything fun Saturday night?" Steve: "Well, all the guys in my barbershop quartet are dead. So no, not really."

Sam: "You're a lot heavier than you look." Steve: "I had a big breakfast."

Natasha: "Hey fellas, either of one of you know where the Smithsonian is? I'm here to pick up a fossil." Steven: "That's hilarious."

Four out of four Vibranium shields.

Mark Greig has been writing for Doux Reviews since 2011

[gamearamamegathons]

Dragon Quest V: Out of Order

Circe here! So, uh, yeah. After the hero and Henry are kidnapped, we flash forward and it turns out we end up toiling away as slaves for ten years. Nnnot much to say about that. Apparently the guy in charge around here is the high priest of the Order of Light, who claims he's going to save the world or something, and to that end he's having all these slaves build a huge temple. It's, you know, not a great scene. Things pretty much go along as normal up until we see the guards whipping a girl, and so we and Henry turn on them to try and protect her. We're launched into a battle in which I have access to all my spells, which raises a lot of questions if we could've just summoned fucking tornadoes on people this entire time. In any case, I win the fight, but we just end up jailed for our efforts. And that would be the end of that, except that it turns out the girl we tried to help was the sister of one of the guards. He heard that after the temple is finished, all the slaves will be killed, so he helps you out of there and asks you to take his sister Maria with you. So we float outta there on a barrel and end up washing up next to a nunnery.

So yeah, that happened I guess? The nuns help us get back on our feet, and Maria stays there, so it's just us and Henry...for now! This game introduces an exciting new mechanic, which is the ability to recruit monsters. And not just a temporary one-off thing like in Dragon Quest IV, monsters we fight in battle can decide to join us afterward, and become full-fledged party members. The roster of monsters here seems surprisingly deep, and we start picking them up right away, but the one I start with and keep in my party is an ordinary slime. It seems like our party size is back down to 3 for this game, so it's just me, Henry, and the slime. New party members can join on, but you need to buy a caravan, similar to how we had one in the previous game. We can find one in the town of...Oracleberry? Okay.

Apparently the big thing about this town is that there's all sorts of gambling and stuff going on at night, but I'm not really interested, so I just stock up on weapons. Henry is hilariously weak, seeing as he's level 1 and wearing rags, so I get some basic equipment on him. We travel further north, and we find a ruined town that looks like...well, it looks like Santa Rosa. Our hero is really not having a great life thus far. Apparently, after Henry was kidnapped, the queen blamed Papas, and destroyed his entire town as punishment. Which seems like kind of a non-sequitur, but we know this is just a coverup anyway, so I guess that's okay. There's an old man in town who tells us that Papas hid something valuable in the cave, and now we can take a little boat down the river into the cave to find another section of the dungeon. Here, we find a surprisingly familiar item -- it's the Zenithian Sword! We also find a note to us from Papas. In it, he says that our mother was taken away by some evil, and the only way it could be defeated is if the legendary hero wielded the Zenithian equipment against it. But, even though he spent his whole life seeking the equipment and the hero, all he ever found was this sword.

I admit, I'm a little confused about the whole thing with our mother. I guess she didn't die in childbirth after all, so either something was communicated poorly, or I just misunderstood...or else, it gave that impression on purpose? I don't know, it's weird. But I guess it doesn't matter that much. From here, I decide to go back to Alcapas to see if I can meet up with Bianca. Alcapas is fine, but it seems that Bianca's family sold the inn and moved away. So that's no good. Instead, let's go east, to Reinhart. Unsurprisingly, it seems that the queen is using King Dale as a puppet, and Reinhart has fallen into tyranny and suffering. Of course, it's not a simple matter to get inside the castle...I'll admit, I got a bit lost here. We can get in the front entrance to the castle, but the way in deeper is blocked by a guard. As we leave, Henry remarks that he remembers a secret path inside. Of course, I remember Henry's secret passage, so I immediately set about trying to get in there. We can't access the area the passage led to, but it is connected to a side door...which is locked. I spent a good while trying to find a way into this area, before I gave up and consulted a guide. It turns out I had it all wrong. You're supposed to notice that when the drawbridge is up at night, it reveals a secret tunnel underneath, which you can reach via a boat. I noticed this passage when I first entered Reinhart, but I immediately forgot. And in my defense, Henry's dialogue seemed to be reminding the player of a secret passage they already saw, so it was actively misleading. Is this because of the translation, or was it also confusing in the original? No way of knowing, I suppose.

Well, I'm grouchy about needing to use a guide for that, but there's nothing for it but to move on. The secret passage leads to a dungeon, naturally, and here we find the queen in prison. Eh? This is a bit confusing at first, but if you recall, we've seen imposter monsters before, so perhaps this isn't too surprising. What *is* surprising is that the plot needed to replace the queen with a monster at all, I mean, she seemed pretty evil from the start. I didn't bat an eye when I heard she was destroying villages and oppressing people. But apparently the real queen regrets her ruthless ambition now. Woulda been nice for you to reach that decision before you kidnapped us into slavery, lady. Well anyway, we make our way to King Dale, and Henry reveals that he's his brother. When Dale hears that his real mother is in prison, we all decide that something has to be done about it, and...I think it's Dale who tells us what to do next? In any case, we find out there's a hidden teleporter that can lead us to a tower where we can find a magic mirror that can reveal the monster's identity. No surprise, the Mirror of Ra is back.

The teleporter actually takes us just a bit south of the nunnery, so we could've walked here if we wanted, but this is a lot more convenient. Makes me wonder if we could've gotten the mirror early. This dungeon is a bit annoying because it ends with an invisible path you have to figure out by trial and error (if there was a trick to it, I didn't find it) but we eventually got to the mirror, and head back to Reinhart. It seems that Dale has tried to resolve the problem himself, and we come to the queen's chambers to see two queens there. Well, we've got the mirror, so we just use it on the queens to find that one of them is a...goblin hula dancer? Okay. This boss fight isn't very hard, so we take care of that, and save the day. After all this, Henry decides to stay by his brother's side, but luckily I've been slowly filling up my caravan with a whole host of non-human companions, so I replace him with a slime knight. Guess I'm rolling with a slime theme, here. Henry tells us that ships should be sailing in a harbor called Vista, so I guess that's where we'll be headed next.

Now that I've gotten into the game a bit, I can talk about localization. I'd hoped I'd have more interesting things to say, but largely it seems fine and pretty unremarkable. For the most part, spell names are following the conventions of the previous Dragon Warrior games, so no surprises there. It seems like a lot of the monster names are fairly literal translations, or just straight up the same name as in Japanese, since a bunch of the original names are actually in English. There are some spelling errors here and there, but nothing too surprising, it being the work of a small fan group instead of a professional localization team. There's also some incongruous swearing here and there, but it's rare. Oh, and as you may have already noticed, Nintendo of America-style censoring is out. House of Healing are called churches, people get drunk at taverns, and our dead party members are coffins instead of ghosts. But all in all, you might barely notice it's a fan translation. Well, it makes playing the game pretty smooth, so I can hardly complain.

I've been playing a lot of Dragon Quest lately, so my next post might be something different. I dunno, I'm still thinking about it. In any case, I'll see you then.

[boshawbearclaw]

Flames In The Ashes Chapter 6

Warning in general, smut for days bruh,

@kittywolfy

9 hours after they crashed into the wonderful world of dreams, Lucas woke up layin' in the middle of Raw dog and Randy, their limbs entangled around Lucas like a safety blanket. Lucas had his arms around each of their shoulders, subconsciously pulling them closer, he leans a little to each side to pepper kisses onto their foreheads.

For once in years, he feels content and happy, but that moment was short lived because his alarm went off, "Goddammit, fuckin' loud piece of shit." He grumbles as he reaches over to his grab his phone with his right hand, bringing it closer to his face, his eyes harshly adjusts to the screen, squinting his eyes he makes out the time, 08:00AM. he shuts that shit down by tapping the on the part of the screen where it says 'cancel'.

Raw dog burries his face into Lucas' neck, grumbling about not having the stamina to run in gym class, Randy woke up at the same time as Lucas so he was just staring at his lovers face while smiling softly and stroking Lucas' little stomach hairs.

Lucas' phone buzzed 20 times during the night but they were out like a light, as he scrolls through the texts the more frustrated he becomes with each word he reads, there is no reason as to why they need to be so damn rude to him.

Lucas huffs and tosses his phone onto a random pile of clothes, "What's wrong, Lucas?" Randy asks softly, making Lucas look at him, he leans forward and rubs his forehead against Randy's at an attempt at affection. Randy smiles then leans in closer to fill in the space between them with a chaste kiss.

"I have to go to work, I'll be back later. I love you both." Lucas states as he gets up, raw dog unwillingly detangles his limbs with soft grumbles, the man scoots closer to Randy and wrapped his arms around him nuzzling his chest. Lucas watched the display with a smirk on his face.

''S good to be back, now to get dressed'' he thinks to himself, he turns back to face his closet and grabs random shit and puts them on, a black def Leppard shirt with a worn flannel and worn jeans with holes in the knees.

Lucas shuffles tiredly into the kitchen to make himself breakfast, a simple sandwhich really, he'll eat anything he can get his hands on, the music playing on the radio in the kitchen droned on as he finished making his sandwich, he ate quickly and when he was done eating he put up his dished then shuffled to the door and put his boots on before leaving.

He jumped down his steps, grunting a little when his booted feet his the ground harder than he intended, he walked over to his truck and got into it, he grabs the keys from the sun visor and stuck them into the ignition, turning the keys to start the car.

Lucas smiled at the sound of the engine roaring to life, he then took off down the dirt road towards the entrance to the trailer park, passing the gate he speeds down the road until he starts passing cars, he then grabs his phone from his pocket that he grabbed and stuffed into there before he left.

Lucas searches his texts for the directions on where the fuck to go, he grunts in annoyance when he reads the part where it says he needs to go to Atlanta for the table reading. Lucas turns on the radio and switches over to the hair bands station and turns up the volume.

As he entered city limits he was met with lots of people and cars everywhere, he was overwhelmed to say the least. Lucas sat at the first stoplight of today, the car next to him had a blonde soccer mom and her little shits in the back of her little mini van, already he was showing signs of his frequent aggressive behavior today.

He stared and rolled his eyes as she was on the phone with some fuck he didnt care about, her pink and purple yoga pants were obnoxious, his mind wandered absently as ge continues to stare. Lucas thought of what itd be like if he ate her flesh.

The rest of his thought was interrupted by the car behind him honking their horn, he retaliates by flipping them off and speeding off towards the offices, when he gets to the parking lot of the building he finds a random spot and parks there, shutting off the truck and plucking out the keys, he gets out and stuffs them in his pocket.

Lucas walks into the building and was met with a security guard and metal detector checkpoint, 'Fuck this shit' he grumbled as he walked over to the line, he stood out in this type of crowd considering everyone else wore professional clothing but he wore something a redneck would wear.

"Sir, empty your pockets and put any items in the tub then step through the metal detector, please." The guard said, Lucas snapped out of his stupor and did what the guard said, emptied his pockets then walked through the detector, beeps were heard as the guards computer monitor highlights Lucas' head, chest and crotch.

"Do you have any jewelry that cant be removed like piercings?" The guard questions, Lucas blushes and nods, "oh, ok you can head on in then." The guard motions twoards the hall just past the metal detector, "mhm." Lucas said simply, grabbing his shit that sat in the tub thing, he then head twoards the room that the table reading is being held.

"234, no, 235,no, ah 236." He knocked on the door with the shave and haircut tune, he waited there a moment before the door opened and the cute bear greeted him with a smile, "Lucas your here! Thats great, come sit down we're just about to start." Kirkman moves outta the way enough for him to get into the room, he shut the door behind Lucas, ushering him to his seat in between two guys, one guy had short curly hair and an angular jaw and the other that straight choppy hair with chin fuzz and sunglasses on.

"Everyone this is Lucas Boshaw, our own piece of Georgia history for the show, hes a little shy so be nice." Kirkman announced as Lucas got seated, they all looked at him with curious stares, the raven haired man shifts uncomfortably under the heavy gazes of the people at the large table.

"Lets get started, so, the episode starts with rick showing up at a gas station walking around, he then encounters a little girl, he calls out to her then she turns around and he finds out that the little girl was a zombie, in a panic he pulls out his Python revolver and pops her in the head, then the intro scene starts."

Everyone looked intrigued, even Lucas as he nodded his head slightly in agreement, "And then it starts as if everything was normal, Rick and his partner Shane sitting off to the side of the road eating lunch when they get a call on their radio about and hit and run turned full on high-speed chase, when they get there there's a shoot out. Then Rick gets shot, it shows him in the hospital getting visited by Shane but unbeknownst to him that a few months go by,-"

Everyone is so focused on what kirkman is explaining that theyre all staring at him like zombies looking at fresh meat, "- The camera starts at the ground following some roughed up boots, Lucas', and music starts playing, preferably something that came out before the 2000s, he continues walking when he stumbles across Rick calling for help. The music then cuts fades out when lucas takes off his head phones." The boss continues to fill everyones head with the script.

In the middle of Jon Bernthol's question about his character a ringtone shouted from someones pocket, "country roads take me home!" Some of giggled at Lucas' ringtone he rushed to answer it, "shit sorry hoss hold on, what do you want? No i havent seen him...well if i do later ill tell Stanley your looking for him,....ok Lamar, bye." Lucas shuts off his phone as he apologized for the disruption.

As the meeting went on they introduced themselves to each other, apparently the british guy on Lucas' right was named Andrew Lincoln who plays Rick Grimes, and to his left was Norman Reedus who plays Daryl Dixon, and the rest of the actors and actresses are Melissa McBride as Carol Pelletier, Chandler Riggs as Carl Grimes, Steven Yeun as Glenn Rhee, Lennie James as Morgan Jones, Laurie Holden as Andrea, Sarah Wayne Callies ad Lori Grimes, IronE Singleton as T-dog, Michael Rooker as Merle Dixon, Jeffrey DeMunn as Dale Horvath.

Apparently kirkman had the whole first season written out and planned already, the actors, actresses and extras and crew already. At the end of the table reading they were told to come in tomorrow to start shooting, when everyone left to go towards the parking lot, Lucas had stopped next to his truck and sat on the hood and pulled out his virgins slims and a lighter.

Norman appeared in his peripheral vision, Lucas jumped slightly, he turned to look at the squinting man. "You're Lucas right? How You uh adjusting to your new life so far?" Norman asked as he leaned against the trucks bumper, "It's going way better than i thought it would, to be honest."

Norman nodded with a smile, scooting closer to Lucas he started whispering, "your friends with Robert kirkman right? If you tell him to not kill off my character in the first season ill let you fuck me." Norman begs, Lucas raised his eyebrows, "Really? You'll let me fuck you if i convince kirkman to not kill off your character? Christ you're bold, Mm alright I'll talk to him." Lucas said softly, Normans face lit up when the other man agreed.

The older man shot forward and hugged Lucas, he gasped softly in surprise, "Thank you so much Lucas, oh god you have no idea how happy it makes me to hear you say that." Norman squeaks into Lucas' stomach, "Do um do you wanna fuck me now? Or later." Norman said quietly as he let go of Lucas, the man nodded and hopped down from the hood.

Norman smiled sweetly at Lucas, "Get in Bubba, we need to make a stop before i go to town on your ass, heh." Lucas said as he rounded the side of his truck and got inside it, Norman got in the passenger seat as Lucas started the truck. They start their destination back twoards the trailer park.

A mile or 2 after they drove past city limits they stopped at a truck stop for some cigarettes and dill pickle flavored sun flower seeds, the heat of the Georgia sun showed as beads of sweat dribbles down the sides of their faces, Lucas parked the truck and got out, Norman following behind him closely.

On their way through the parking lot they spot an expensive looking green mini van, Lucas scoffs and continues on. Once they enter the shop Lucas immediately figured out who that mini van belong to, a rich suburban family wearing matching clothes were in the candy section picking out their selection of sugary snacks.

By the looks of them they're obviously tourists.

The mother with the 'may i speak to your manager' haircut turns to look at who walked in the store, once she spotted them she got uncomfortable as she stared at the tattooed man who stands over 6 feet with a muscular body and handsome but dangerous look about him.

Lucas sticks out his split tongue and flicks it lewdly in her direction, she blushes and looks away which causes Lucas to smirk, he strolled down the same candy isle, staring at the possible goodies Hangin' on the rack.

Norman scampers over to him, huddling close to him, "C'mon sweety lets see what your dad found." The mom said, Lucas glanced behind him and smirked when the mother blinked in his direction. Once they grab what they want they head over to the cash register, little goodies grasped in their hands.

They dropped 'em onto the counter with a clang, the cashier jumps slightly, the young girl behind the register starts checking out their items and puts them in a plastic bag, "Your total is $21.98." She states, Lucas nods and grabs a 20 and a 5 from his wallet that was previously in his back pocket, he waved her goodbye and leaves with the bag of goodies in his hand, Norman follows him back to the truck.

Soon the pair were on the road heading twoards their destination, 5 miles before the trailer park is when Lucas remembered that he has his best friends waiting for him, with that in mind he pulls over to the side of the road and shuts the trucks engine off. "Why are we stopping?" Norman questions, Lucas didn't say anything as he got out of the cab and rounded the side over to the passenger side.

He opened the door and pulled Norman out of the seat, using his large body to press against Normans smaller one, Lucas kisses his lips softly and nibbles on them with care, Lucas' lanky hands grasped at the mans ass. Moans escaped their throats as they hump each other feverishly, Norman undoes his own button and zipper so he could push down his pants and briefs.

Lucas stared hungrily at Norman, an animalistic look in his eyes that frightened the older man but made him even more turned on, Lucas flipped him around and undid his jeans as well, he also grabbed some lube from underneath the passenger seat and squirted some onto his aching cock, he chucks it onto the floor of the truck before he spreads the mans ass apart and slides his cock against the other man's hole.

Norman whines, "Please Lucas, fuck me already, i cant wait any longer.", Lucas smirked before sinking his large pierced cock into his winking pink hole, Norman winces a little but gets used to the fullness moments later, " Aah fuck, you're fucking cock is so big, i feel like im gonna split apart!" Norman reached out behind himself and holds open his cheeks.

Growls are heard as Lucas plunges his cock into Norman, nothing was on their mind besides the feeling of intense pleasure and heat swirling around in the pits of their gut, not even the fact that they might get caught by the highway Patrol or the families coming in or out of Atlanta, "Hnng fuck Norman, you feel so good,,." Lucas moans as he leans over the other man, biting the soft fleshy junction between his neck and shoulder.

Norman starts starts to get wrigley as he nears his climax, Lucas drools on his back as his own mouth hung open while he pounded Norman's ass, minutes of multiplying heated pleasure later, Lucas' thrusts became more erratic as he neared his own climax, "Argh fuck fuck fuck!" Lucas shouted as he came inside Normans hole.

They stayed like that for a minute before Lucas hucked his pants up and knelt down onto the dirt, he spread Norman's sore hole and started to lather the winking pink hole with his split tongue, soothing the slight bruising and miniscule tears while slurping up the cum that leaks out.

Lucas reaches through Norman's legs and grabs his aching dick, jerking him off at an agonizingly slow pace, "Aahh, fuck me, mm im gonna cum!" He yells into his fore arm, Lucas smirked before he began pushing his tongue in and out of Norman's ass.

Moments later the man was pushed over his edge, he came with a shout immediately after, his whole body shivered as cum spurted out of his cock. Lucas was done with licking him up a moment later, he got up off his knees and sucked on his fingers while Norman pulled his pants back up and buttoned them close.

Lucas stopped his finger licking to make a joke about how the mans ass is, "Finger lickin' good!" Norman turned around with a cute smile on his face, Lucas smirked at his face before kissing his lips softly while grabbing his bruised hips gently.

Lucas pulls away first and helps him into the truck before walking around the cab to get into the truck and starts the engine.

"Im gonna drop you off at the office so you can get on your bike and ride home, i don't think youd like my abode, heh." Lucas says before making his way back to Atlanta, the ride was mostly quiet save for the hair band playing on the radio, they made it back before sundown so that gave Norman to go home so he could do everything he needs to do before bed time.

An hour later Lucas was eating dinner with Randy and Raw dog, they later go to bed tangled in each other's limbs

"Sweet dreams, boys."