#i'll put funnier things in the tags in the future

[stirringtheunwatchedpot]

What’s Going On Over Here??

Howdy! If you’re reading this, chances are, you’re among an elite few (classmates, professors, or associates) with special clearance to this highly protected site (you got the link from the forum post/I sent it to you).

If not... stick along for the ride? I guess?? Whatever floats your boat, king, just don’t be a dick.

What is this blog?

I’m using this silly little blog to collect the stuff that inspires me as an artist-- and is helping me write my thesis: The Unwatched Pot. (It’s going to be so embarrassing in two weeks when I change the name to something completely different-- I just wanted you to know why I picked the url.)

By the end of the semester/by the time the thesis is done, it’s supposed to be a manifesto of what I stand for as an artist.

I think what I stand for is what feels good.

Art doesn’t always have to hurt you to be good.

Maybe it does, but maybe it can also tell you that things are going to be okay.

We’ll see where we stand by the end of this lil’ journey we’re all taking. This semester is already insane, so.

What’s the point, fellas?

Everyday, I wake up. And I think about this word that this one dead greek guy talked about this one time.

The word is “Telos.”

A (classics major) friend of mine gave me this functional definition.

“end, purpose or goal. There are telos that are subordinate to other telos, as all activities have their own, respective goals. These subordinate telos can become the means to achieve more fundamental telos.”

As my time in undergrad draws to a close, I’m inundated with two streams of thoughts.

All the shit I have to get done/want to do

What the hell was/is it all for?

By the end of the semester, I’d like to figure that one out a little.

I want to have found my Telos. (For art making at least.)

I have bits and pieces of it, it’d just be nice to be able to articulate it clearly.

I’m a big enjoyer of threads.

Each of these posts is probably going to tie back into one of the threads of my telos, whatever that is-- and when we’re done we’ll have a beautiful tapestry to look at together!

Thanks for coming along for the ride!

[mario-art]

HELLO, you made such an interesting point in the tags of my post:

You know what’s funny? Is that Thrawn is really being turned into a “Machiavellian” type of villain, but what’s even funnier is that Machiavelli himself received this type of treatment. Now idk how much familiar you are with the 16th century author, but just know this: Machiavelli and “Machiavellian”, and whatever people can take from him, is heavily misunderstood (I actually really hate the use of the adjective, but perhaps that’s a story for another type). Now I know that Zahn wrote Thrawn based on a certain extent on the Machiavelli archetype (I remember reading it somewhere, pardon if I have no proofs), but I’m actually laughing hard thinking that as characters they are having the same treatment by popular media. Lemme explain: Machiavelli wrote the Principe not because “oh he cynic!1!🥶He mad!1🤬”. No. Machiavelli wrote what he wrote because he wanted to save Italy dalla Ruina, from its ruin. Machiavelli dreamed of a more compact and unified Italy. He had a vision and just as much as Thrawn, he wished to serve his people, Florence (in Thrawn’s case, the ascendancy) and Italy (which didn’t existed at the time).

And now, with Thrawn being reduced as you said in a villan without complex motifs, I can’t help but think how poetic is to be doomed to the same narrative as the figure who inspired your existence. Maybe this was planned all along, I don’t think so personally, but Thrawn is being oversimplified by Filoni the same way Machiavelli gets reduced as just a “pragmatic person” and “the ends justify the means” by everyone (don’t let me start on how wrong the quote is).

To sum up: Thrawn and Machiavellian are rhyming in the same direction in popular mainstream media.

This was my Ted talk, sorry in advance for possible writing mistakes, I just woke up✌️

Hiii! Thank you so much for the spontaneous Ted talk 😄😄 Your parallel between the Ascendancy and Florence+Italy is sooo on point, it blew my mind for a second. Now I have to delve deeper into it

Actually there was a period of time when I was really invested in this topic, I read his 10 letters, history of Florence +the Prince obviously and almost fell from a chair when they put him into Assassins Creed game, but now there're just small bits that I remember. Maybe it's time to refresh things

I didn't know that Zahn was actually inspired by Machiavelli. I'm new to this part of the fandom, so I haven't read anything about him or his working process, but after you mentioned it I'll take a note for the future. I must confess I learned who Thrawn was only during the Ahsoka show and due to the fandom. Like there were so many memes about him here on Tumblr, there's no way fans will hype some basic dude so much. And then my friend recommended the new trilogy

So yeah, it's such a pity that not 1, but 6 books of new material got completely ignored and the character simplified to what we've already seen so many times literally everywhere. You phrased it beautifully

I haven't read the old trilogy yet, heir to the empire, only know the plot in general, but I'm curious what exactly motivates Thrawn to rebuild the empire. And how the characterization of him differs between these trilogies. Is he mostly the same or did Zahn change the character after so many years like Terry Pratchett's Vetinari evolved from the very first version of the Patrician to his later works (I can't help comparing them after yesterday, though I hadn't done it before idk)

So yeaah... At least I'm happy that there're so many talented fans here and we can happily ignore whatever happens on the screen 🙃

[vaggieslefteye]

Request Guidelines and Rules

Important Things to Note:

This blog is just one of my hobbies that I do for fun in my free time, and I make these gifs for free - of course I am going to prioritize getting requests done in a timely manner, but I might also just chill and take an extra day or three to finish.

Rest assured I'll always communicate if, for whatever reason, life decides that I need to put gifmaking/requests on hold for a few days or longer. Same goes for when I'm back up and running - I will not reopen requests until all previous accepted slots are filled.

Guidelines:

Send gifset requests through the askbox only, please. I won't consider requests made through comments/dms. I'll be more lenient with icon or video requests made through comments, but I'd prefer the ask box in general since I pay most attention to that.

If your request is simple in nature, don't be shy to just send it as it is.

That being said, the more specific, the better! I can get closer to your vision with the more details you can provide, otherwise I'll fill any gaps myself as I see fit.

EXAMPLE: "can i request a set of the scene where niffty stabs adam in episode 8?"

Simple request, but easily doable - in cases like this it would be entirely up to me on certain aspects like how many gifs I'll end up doing, which parts of the entire scene I show, if I add subtitles or not, etc.

Here is an example of a request for the same scene, but with more detail:

EXAMPLE: "request: a set of the scene when niffty is stabbing adam while laughing maniacally (starting from 16:32) and ending when lute shouts "no!" with subtitles? thank you!"

Also just as doable, and now I have clear instruction on what exactly to include. Heck, you can even throw in details like, idk, "including vox's reaction"/"can you take out vox's reaction though?"

If you're asking for a set focused on a certain character and you want it done in what I call a Spotlight style (eg: adam, angel dust), you can specify how many gifs you'd like: The minimal I'll do is 2, with a maximum of 8. Otherwise I'll do 4 by default. If you don't specify that you want this kind of style then I'll just do whatever feels fun for me at the moment :D

My minimum of 2 and maximum of 8 applies to all requests, as of now (though I won't be so tough on this either, if I'm cooking and the set ends up being 10 gifs, it ends up being 10 gifs lol)

Other Kinds of Requests I Will Do (will add more in the future, probably):

Make Me Choose - send me an ask and make me choose between two things related to Hazbin or Helluva, or even both! It can be characters, a particular scene, a character's dynamic with another, anything really. All you gotta do is send an ask that says "[x] or [y]?" no additional details required, but you can totally add some if you'd like. Like instead of just sending "lucifer or stolas?" you could send "who do you think is funnier, lucifer or stolas?" Either way I'll make a gifset dedicated to who or whatever I choose.

Episode Clips - Is there a scene from Hazbin Hotel or Helluva Boss episode that you like? Check out my #episode clips tag, I may have posted it already, but if I haven't, feel free to request a scene! I won't do scenepacks, but I may in the future, who knows.

Screencaps/Icons - I'll also post screencaps or icons of a character, scene, etc, just ask.

Rules:

Repeating this only once more: I will only consider gifset requests made through the askbox.

Keep your request contained in a single ask. I will not fill a request if it is split between two or more asks, so get those details all within the character limit.

For my personal comfort, I'm asking that you don't request gifsets or interact with me directly (ask, dm, @) if you're a minor (also like what are you doing here? lol). As I state in my bio, I'm an adult posting about an adult show that very much has adult themes prevalent in it so like it's not rocket science as to why the idea of talking to a minor about this show is Fucking Weird, right?

That being said I'm not anyone's parent and I'm not gonna spend hours combing through every single blog that sends in a request off anon looking for age confirmation but also like, if I hover over your name and you have your age right there in your bio that is very much under 18, sorry but I'm gonna block you.

I'll try to do every single request I get, but if I can't, I'll always state my reason why. But I'll definitely encourage you to send in another request or link you back here if necessary.

I don't know how to put this eloquently but like, try not to go overboard with requests? I'm still pretty new at this and I don't know how to do a lot of those cool color effects/blending/layering stuff the actual good gifmakers can do lmao. If I feel like I don't have the ability to fulfill the request and/or feel that it would just take too long to complete I'll decline and state my reasons why + encourage that you send another request. I don't exactly see this being a real issue, but hey, just in case.

For personal comfort, I won't do requests that are specifically asking for shipping content - yes, even if I myself do ship it! I figured staying neutral is the easiest way to go about this. Chaggie would be the only exception since they're less of a ship in my eyes and more of just a canon couple whose relationship is an integral part of their own respective stories/the main plot as well.

UPDATE: Since I do Helluva Boss now, I will now include canon relationships from there as exceptions to this rule as well, so Stolitz and Moxillie.

Don't ask for ships, ask for source material instead. What do I mean by this? Instead of asking for content of the characters by their ship name, or by wording the requested interaction in a way that paints it in a romantic light, you can just ask for the scenes as they are.

Example of a request I won't do: "can you do a gifset of huskerdust moments/interactions from the beginning of episode 4 pls?"

I would decline this, but you can still get this exact scene filled if you word it like this instead:

Example of a request I will do: "can you do a set from the beginning of ep 4, when angel is flirting with husk and he tells him he sees right through his act?"

Much better. Yeah, I very much ship huskerdust myself, but I'd only take the request if it's worded in this way.

If you're wondering why the hell this is even a rule, it's for me, mostly. I don't like the idea of constantly declining requests of ship content for ships I'd be uncomfortable doing. Or denying myself making gifs of moments between characters I like in a context outside of shipping. I think this way keeps it fun for everyone.

As for reblogging it and tagging it with a ship name: eh, do whatever. Tag it as you like! Tag it as you will! Not like I can stop you, but also I genuinely don't really care beyond that point AKDKSJFJSJF. Humor me, yeah? I promise this is my only weird rule lmao.

(You may see me talk about a ship I enjoy every now and then, but those will be contained in my own brainrot where the context becomes way more fandom-like and less source material-like. I am just focused on keeping requests neutral this way.)

[bnnuy-wabbit]

HAAIIIIII you can call me Lago, im 21 (i dont know how EITHER), im just some guy*. this is my main blog and where i throw funny things that makes my brain produce juices and also random ass personal poasts.

one of those he/shes they never warned you about (pathogenic variant they have yet to make any vaccines to protect you from)

my art tag is #feral art tag.

there will be adult things in this blog because im an adult. follow at your own risk etc. were horny in here towards men occasionaly.

I'm brazilian. From Brazil. As in born here, living here and stuck here for the foreseeable future. é nois 🤙

Everybody says I'm really nice! I am Unable to hit people up first though, but if you'd like to be friends, send me an ask and I'll give you my discord!!!!

i have many interests (mostly music and nerd shit) and funny things that I'll be putting under the read more lest this post get Unbearably Big. There are flashing blinkies down there by the way.

OK SO INTERESTS. I like MANY things! and i have favorite things! I think it's really cool of me to have favorites. i decided I'm going to wear them on my sleeve. anyways Here's some things i Like.

MUSIC!!! its one of my favorite things ever. I play the guitar and a bit of bass. heres stuff in no particular order of favoriteness. Just stuff i care enough right now to remember.

Linkin Park (meteora, hybrid theory <3)

My Chemical Romance

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Mindless Self Indulgence

scalene

Rammstein

Ft-rj (listen to it or i am going to chase you with a broom)

francisco el hombre (i recommend the rasgacabeza album)

danny bond

2000-10s pop!!! fuck it, lady gaga, britney spears, kesha, katy perry, black eyed peas, that sorta jazz.

Every single Homestuck song there is. i have listened to all of them multiple times. My favorite albums are colours and mayhem and also the beforus fan album.

Dad rock (acdc, queen, talking heads, nirvana, judas priest, Some pink floyd etc)

Industrial and Adjacent. I've been listening to code:redcore a lot and some grammostola actaeon lately. processor also fucks.

OTHER THINGS I ENJOY

Eragon (the books)

Disco elysium.

ADVENTURE TIME. I AM OBSESSED.

How to train your dragon (the books. specifically.)

Animated movies!!! Specially the hand drawn ones.

My horrible little OCs (@honsebeasts just go there but also Beware.)

Worldbuilding. I do aliens and monster speculative biology. Most of my thoughts on it are on the Above mentioned blog though.

Real life physiology and anatomy also

MEN (and like 3 fictional women.)

HORSES!!!!!!!!!!!

stranger things

Pokemen (i do not know a single thing after gen 6 though.)

Dungeons and dragons, sometimes

Traditional art like watercolors and oil pastels

Drawing my blorbos in the same side facing pose or just standing there.

Drawing in General actually! Designing characters is my passion

Fictional fathers

sewing and felting and sculpting and painting and singing and playing

COLORS. i love colors. i love looking at them. i love playing with them. i would like to eat them if i could. i love warm palettes.

Hiveswap (pissing screaming CRYING)

MONSTERS!!!!!! They're really cool and gay and hot.

Portal (the games. all of them. glafos........ kissing her)

Half Life.

y2k and 80s-90s vibes. i think its awesome.

I am afflicted by the human condition and also a few other funnier conditions. my brain and my body dont work right.

If you want to know the brunt of the brain ones: autism adhd avpd. they all impact heavily how i interact with people with people. Sorry in advance if i can't keep conversation going.

I'm some sort of queer thing. If we need to get really specific, id say "bisexual aromantic bigender femme", mostly into men and butches, but Queer will do just fine. I'm a self entitled part time pretty fag and ugly dyke in my free hours. Intersex it turns out.

[her-golden-hair]

I posted 1,037 times in 2022

That's 940 more posts than 2021!

61 posts created (6%)

976 posts reblogged (94%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@martian-martian-martian

@iwtv2022

@babytrappinglouis

@amc-iwtv

I tagged 667 of my posts in 2022

Only 36% of my posts had no tags

#interview with the vampire - 116 posts

#iwtv - 82 posts

#iwtv amc spoilers - 57 posts

#<- prev tag - 14 posts

#amc iwtv spoilers - 14 posts

#vampire chronicles - 12 posts

#the vampire chronicles - 10 posts

#iwtv amc - 9 posts

#vc - 8 posts

#oh my god - 7 posts

Longest Tag: 130 characters

#bites you ​bites you ​bites you ​bites you ​bites you ​bites you ​bites you ​bites you ​bites you ​bites you ​bites you ​bites you

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

"It's funnier when they fight in French. And diary, you'd think a girl whose mama died in childbirth... whose daddy gave her away to a mean old auntie who beat her 'cause no one said she couldn't, who died in a fire but came back by the blood magic of two demons, well, you'd think that girl wouldn't know what funny was. But you'd be wrong, diary. And if I told you, dumb diary, that that same girl was being raised to kill like her demon parents did, to take two souls a day so could stay in the same flat-chested, hairless-crotched 14-year-old baby doll body as her mind and spirit turned 19, 20, 25, 63, 358, you dumb, dumb diary, I bet you'd say to anyone who'd listen, "Fun? Fun? How does she even get up in the morning?" Well, let me tell you something, you stuck-up, flower-covered, three-dollar fancy fucking paper diary, I'm doin' just fine. And how do I know that? 'Cause the first man I killed called me the devil, and the last boy I killed, the last boy I'll ever love in this world, called me an angel. So, that means I'm on the right path. And that means there's so much more fun out there to have. I'm just getting started."

Claudia. Interview With The Vampire S01E04, "... The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood with All a Child's Demanding". Written by Eleanor Burgess.

281 notes - Posted October 16, 2022

#4

Thinking about Daniel wanted to rush the story into how Louis became a vampire and how Louis reprimanded him and told him to slow down and enjoy the story as it unfolds and I’m thinking about how many fans of the series are rushing headlong into speculation about how future books and events will be handled and I’m thinking about how Daniel is a new and upgraded audience insert and I’m thinking about how Louis is not just addressing Daniel but addressing us the viewers and urging us to to just sit back and allow ourselves to fall in love with the story as it happens and not worry about what’ll happen later on

285 notes - Posted October 6, 2022

#3

All the new IWTV fans let me tell you. You’ve just seen the beginning. There are relationships in these books that make Louis and Lestat look like fucking Jim and Pam from The Office

332 notes - Posted October 6, 2022

#2

Okay, everyone who is a new fan of the show and has not read the books or only seen the movie, I am here to tell you something different than what the other readers are saying.

Minor spoilers ahead for the future of Loustat.

Interview With The Vampire is a dark story. It is indeed a tragedy. And from what I've seen of the show so far, I know it's gonna hurt terribly to see everything fall apart.

And fall apart it will. Permanent, irreparable things will happen that will be hard to watch. And it will be completely understandable to feel betrayed by the writers for putting you through so much agony after seeing so much joy. But that is what tragedy is. That is how the story of Interview With The Vampire will always go.

Anne Rice wrote this story shortly after her young daughter had died from leukemia. It was borne out of her immense grief, hopelessness, and godlessness. She gave Louis her own birthday. Anne Rice was Louis de Pointe du Lac in this story. If that is anything to go off of, then it is only natural how painful this story will end up being.

But pain simply cannot last forever.

The story does not end with the first book. It it almost did. But Anne Rice decided to pick up the series again. And she would continue to write for it until her death. And now we have a whole world of stories. Stories that are weird and strange and ugly at times. But stories where things change.

Stories where certain people, after a very long time of not seeing each other, reunite.

Stories where certain people reconcile.

Stories where certain people forgive each other, and put the past behind them, while still holding reverence for the good and bad times there.

Stories where certain people are gentler. Kinder. Happier.

Do not be afraid of what comes at the end of this season. Nor the next season. I promise you. I pinky pinky promise you, that things will not be this way forever.

389 notes - Posted October 6, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

One thing I love about the first episode is how Louis establishes himself as an unreliable narrator, not through lying or exaggerating, but by deliberately keeping some things private. We know that Louis and Lestat went to operas and talked endlessly in Jackson Square, but we never hear any words they say. All we know is that they talked and got to know each other for weeks and possibly months. And we don’t know what they talked about. Louis is an unreliable narrator because Louis confided in Lestat things that he did not wish to confide to us, the viewers.

739 notes - Posted October 1, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[sytokun]

If you could indulge me in this little rewrite of Blake's V4-5 arc? What if after Beacon fell Ironwood sent Cordovin to occupy Menagerie to sus out any in-hidding WF, catalysing his paranoia for later volumes and depicting Cordo as an actual scary person. Ghira wants to keep the peace but Blake becomes restless as tensions between Atlas soldiers and the locals grow, and the arc accumulates with a more courageous Blake taking down Cordovin's mech with Sun and Ilia's help.

Tumblr's editor crashed just as I finished typing this and I am willing myself to write it all again from scratch, lmao. This site needs an auto recovery option.

Well this is an AU. I say AU and not rewrite because by definition, it's not following the same plot or the same rules as RWBY, and doesn't pretend to (which makes it even funnier when people complain about it being something it's not pretending to be). Calling it a rewrite implies a strict adherence to canon, which this doesn't have.

But still, I'll add the rewrite tag to this and other future posts simply because a lot of the kind of thing I'm writing overlaps with rewrites and their general philosophy when handling canon.

When you're writing something like this, you're basically asking a question and answering it. Each question shifts the story's divergence from canon by a degree, and when you start moving, the deviation will be enough that even if it travels in a straight line from there, it will never be the same as canon events.

For example, say I ask the question: "What if Team RWBY spent a longer time in Beacon?"

From this, I know that I have to delay the Fall of Beacon, or change its circumstances entirely. What would change about the Fall if Ruby was in her second, third or even last year at Beacon? Would Pyrrha still die if we spend more time exploring her as a character? Where would Cinder be during all this time?

By asking one simple question about RWBY's world, ten other smaller ones pop up that you need to answer, but then you find out those questions lead to entire character arcs, and creating timelines, and making sure the Kingdoms make sense, and now you're reconstructing an entire universe from scratch and hating yourself. /s

So back to your query. I can't answer this meaningfully because if it were up to me, I'd likely just��� not have Cordovin at all. Or even Ghira for that matter. Let's look into why.

First, Cordovin. I have to ask myself first, "What does Cordovin contribute to RWBY's story?" Like really? We have to go backwards, from "How do I fit this character in" all the way back to "Do I even need this character?" What is Cordovin's actual role in the story? She's a minor villain - a comical, incompetent one at that - whose only purpose is to be a one-off obstacle in Team RWBY's airship-stealing plan. A plan that was already poorly conceived from the start when better, more sound plans existed but were unexplored by the plot.

So that's multiple strikes against Cordovin. Her impact on the story is low; she has no important relationships with any characters; and her existence is tied to a weak plot point which actually detracts from the story. If she adds little, then the story loses little from removing her, too. We know RWBY has a cast bloat problem, and if someone wants to earnestly solve that problem, that means they have to combine characters or even remove them entirely if the benefit they bring to the story far outweighs the effort to put them in.

The same principle applies to Ghira. This is part of a longer post I wish to write about Blake after this, but how important is Ghira, and by extension Kali, to RWBY's story? How much do they add or take away? Now, depending on your story and preferences, they would indeed be very important. But not to my story, at least not as they are now. And it's not exactly an easy decision to make either - it takes a lot of thought and deliberation, weighing multiple pros and cons against each other.

The fact that compared to Cordovin, Ghira and Kali are more well-liked in the fandom should, ideally, not affect your decision or desire to have a clean house to work from. Put yourself in CRWBY's shoes: when they made these characters, they aren't thinking about if fans will like them or not, they just put them in. I would say they were thinking about how these additional characters would benefit the story they're trying to write, but that implies... thought.

As they say, "Kill your darlings". Fans wouldn't be stuck with half the migraines and heartache writing fanfiction and cleaning after someone else's messy house if CRWBY exercised this for their own story.

[willow-salix]

Random bit of fun that popped into my head. Grandma Tracy + Selene + cooking sherry =

Selene checked the recipe again and nodded to Grandma. It couldn't be that hard could it, to be all domesticated and shit? She had many manly men that she had to cook for, not that she went in for all the "a woman's place is in the kitchen" stereotypes,  but she did think it was important that they came home to something better than their Grandmother's cooking attempts after a tough rescue, and this one looked like it would be a nightmare mission. 

She could cook most things, basic and homely she called it, having learnt baking from her Nan, although she did like to challenge herself now and then.

She had decided in her infinite wisdom that if she was capable of making simple dishes like lasagna, chilli's, soups, burgers, pizza's pancakes, breakfasts and the like, coupled with the fact that she was actually good at baking, she could manage to help Grandma in her mission. It shouldn't be that hard to make their boys some lovely fresh donuts, something they all loved.  Yep, that was a plan! 

Grandma Tracy had wandered back and forth while Selene was assembling the ingredients, flour, salt, yeast, eggs, milk and melted butter and insisted on helping, trying to add her own selections to the mix which Selene gently vetoed, hiding them in the microwave. It would be fine, with her overseeing the proceedings Grandma couldn't get into too much trouble, could she? 

Selene directed Grandma as they slowly added the wet ingredients into a big mixing bowl, one at a time until they made a relatively smooth mixture, then Grandma added that little by little to the flour, Selene mixing with her hands until they had a rough dough. 

She dribbled some oil onto the worktop, dumped out the bowl and began to knead the slop, gradually feeling it grow thicker and less gloopy, more springy. Damn this was hard work!

"Let me have a try, you youngsters don't know the meaning of hard work."

Selene stepped aside to let Grandma T take her turn, but within a minute the older lady was huffing as bad as Selene was. 

They tag teamed back and forth for a few minutes but her fingers were cramping and she was sure that she had inhaled so much flour she'd be sneezing bread rolls.  She went to wipe her forehead but her hands were so greasy with the oil she gave in. She didn't want to resort to cheating, but needs must. 

She whispered a little chant under her breath when Grandma made her excuses to go to the bathroom and watched as the dough kneaded itself, plumping up and down and flipping itself over as she washed her hands and settled down with a can of cherry coke. The dough flopped itself back into its bowl after a few more minutes and she covered it over and placed it on the windowsill to rise for an hour.  

And she promptly forgot about it, wandering off with Grandma to catch up on "The bold and the beautiful" a TV show that Grandma watched religiously and that had become Selene's guilty pleasure whenever she was on the island. 

Upon returning to the kitchen after learning that Chico was Marion's secret son and that Charlie's amnesia was fake, they found the bowl overflowing and the dough creeping its way towards the floor.

"Stupid magic kneading!" Selene dived at the dough, nudging Armstrong out for the way just as he tried to bat at it with his paw. "No! Bad cat. Leave it!" 

She cradled it in her arms like it was a baby, a big, messy, yeasty baby that was determined to get the fuck out of dodge. She balanced on one leg as she tried to hold it up with her knee, kneeing it like she was playing keepy uppy with a football. 

"Grandma, get a bowl! A big one!" She gave it a big push upwards as Grandma shoved a huge bowl under it, catching the evil, still growing blob. 

"What's wrong with it?" Grandma asked as she poked at it with her finger, diving back when it looked like it would consume her whole hand. 

"Nothings wrong with it, I'm sure it'll be fine."

Against her better judgement, and Selene wasn't known to be entirely sane at the best of times, she grabbed the biggest saucepan they had and filled it with oil, setting it on the stove to boil. Should only take a few minutes....  

She watched as the oil began to bubble and smoke,  knowing it was about as hot as it would get. Witches didn't like boiling oil, call her silly but that had always been something to avoid in the olden days, which was probably why she had taken the few minutes to kit herself out in a huge apron, Scott's spare bike helmet and a pair of Virgil's thick work gloves. Couldn't be too careful. 

She dug her hands into the dough, hitting it with her elbow when it looked like it might try to be the one to eat her before they cooked it. "No! Down! Bad dough!" 

She was sure it would be fine once it was cooked,  witches made everything a bit more lively, the boys could attest to that.

"Watch out Grandma, don't get too close." 

She scooped out a handful and rolled it into a ball then holding it at arm's length, dropped it in the oil like it was a hand grenade. Boom, the oil jumped up to meet her and she stepped back with a squeak of shock. Not good. Nope nope so much nope. Not doing that again. 

"Oh don't worry, it always does that when I cook too," Grandma shrugged as she crossed to the fridge to get herself a drink. "Keep going, it'll be fine."

After rolling another ball, which she caught before it rolled off the counter and across the floor yelling  'cry freedom', she sourced a pair of BBQ tongs to hold it with and dropped it carefully in the oil. 

"That seemed to work," Grandma encouraged. "Keep doing that."

Ball after ball followed and her roll, grab and drop operation was going so well she completely forgot that the oil was actually cooking the damn things. 

"Uh…little too brown maybe…" she fished them out and dumped them into a bowl lined with kitchen towel. She poked them, were they OK? 

"They'll be fine with some powdered sugar on them," Grandma proclaimed wisely, although Selene wasn't too sure. "Do the rest, that's nowhere near enough to feed my boys."

Grandma supervised as Selene slowly worked her way through the dough mass, which seemed to have lost its determination now she had effectively scooped half of it away, though it was still making a strange wheezing noise as it attempted to grow some more. She'd soon put a stop to that! She quickly rolled and tossed more balls into the oil, having perfected her drop and duck technique.  Paranoid that she'd burn the next lot she got them out earlier...Perhaps a little too early, as they stuck to her tongs as she slapped them into the bowl. 

"Damn it."

"Jelly will fix them, " Grandma nodded sagely, "Jelly fixes everything."

Selene threw the last of the balls, now looking slightly less ball like and more like lumps of dough that she was too fucked off with to fix, and began to search the cupboards for something to insert the jam inside the balls. 

She located a turkey baster that Parker had insisted they needed to cook a decent Christmas dinner, and that Alan had secretly been using to squirt the Gordon with. Selene had filled it with whisky that one time and used it to fire at Scott from opposite ends of the couch in an attempt to reach each others mouths. She grinned at the memory.

As if reading her mind- maybe she was a witch too- Grandma vanished and reappeared with half a bottle of cooking sherry. 

"Would you like a little taste? I find it helps me relax sometimes when I'm cooking, you're too tense."

Well, that might explain a few of Grandma's more adventurous dishes. 

Selene looked at the bottle, she could actually do with a little of that right now. She held out her coke can and Grandma poured a healthy splash into the remains of her coke.

"Don't tell John," Selene warned as she gulped down some of the drink for strength as she faced the fried dough balls she was supposed to fix. 

She grabbed a pot of smooth jam out of the cupboard and sucked some up into the baster -not that easy to do it turned out- and holding one of the cooked balls she stabbed it with the end of the rubber syringe. It went right through.  

"Shit!" 

She tried again, splitting another one. 

"Fuck!" 

"Language, Selene!" 

"Sorry, Grandma."

"Let me try," Sally managed to get the tip in one and squirted a generous amount into the donut. But didn't count on the force of her squeezing making the donut shoot off the end and fly across the room to smack Armie in the eye.

"Fuck!" 

"Grandma!" Selene was shocked, but had the terrible urge to giggle. 

Sorry," Grandma apologised, both to Selene and the cat, trying again.

                                    ***

The bowl was a jammy,  powdered sugar covered, slightly oily mess and Selene was on her third can of sherry and coke and honestly, she no longer really gave a shit. 

Who's stupid idea had this been? It was the thought that counted right? 

Grandma had given up over an hour ago and gone to bed, knowing the boys would be heading home soon and Selene desperately needed a shower. She had jam in her hair, sugar sticking to her hands and she'd lost the will to live. 

She plonked the bowl in the middle of the kitchen counter. 

"Sexy spaceman of mine," she texted, "sorry they look like shit…yeah, can't really explain what happened there…but I'll be naked in bed if that helps." She snapped a picture to go with it and called it good, promising to clean up in the morning. 

And she wound her way on slightly unsteady feet,  up the stairs and into the bathroom to shower off the remains of her one and only attempt to cook something you could buy easier,  promising herself a trip to Krispy Kreme in the very near future, and flopped on the bed wrapped in nothing but a towel. 

                                       ***

"John?" Gordon stared at the text that had popped up on all their comms less than 30 seconds ago. 

"I don't even know."

Their brother's long suffering, defeated tone just made the whole thing even funnier. 

"Think you had better get down here, bro," Virgil chuckled. "We'll be home in five."

"Yeah, that's probably wise," Scott added. 

Even EOS seemed to find the whole situation amusing, which in itself was a little bit worrying, as John rode the elevator down to the island. 

Alan and Gordon were staring at the bowl as if it might explode any minute. John spotted the empty sherry bottle in the sink and sighed. 

"Grandma got the sherry out." 

"That's not good," Scott agreed as he too entered the war zone, formerly known as the kitchen, his eyes taking in the precariously piled bowls, the flour that coated every surface, the oil patch that Alan almost slipped in and the grease splattered stove top, the pan of oil sitting abandoned. His bike helmet was on one of the stools and one of Virgil's gloves peeked out from the bottom bowl of the stack, though it was so covered in dough you could barely tell what it was. 

Virgil brought up the rear, his nose wrinkling at the slightly smokey, oily smell that hung in the air. 

"Dare you to eat one," Gordon nudged Alan. 

"Hell no! John should, it's his girlfriend that made them."

"Fiancée," John automatically corrected, poking gingerly at the contents of the bowl. "And no, I don't think so."

"Scott, you're the brave one, you like to take a risk now and then, you do it."

"Like the rescue wasn't risky enough? No way. Virg, you try, it's like modern art, appreciate it."

"Nope, I like my taste buds where they are, Gordo, you do it, it was your idea."

Gordon paled as he looked into the bowl. "All of us?" he asked hopefully. 

The boys exchanged glances and then one by one they all reached into the bowl, their competitive streak unable to resist, selecting the least offensive looking offerings. 

"On three?" Scott confirmed. "One…two…three!"

As one they all tossed their donuts into their mouths, chewing madly, their faces contorting into identical grimaces of horror and disgust. 

Alan raced to the trash can, opening his mouth to let the offending evil drop out of his mouth. 

"Urghh, it was raw inside," he shuddered. 

Gordon followed suit, spitting his out. "Mines burnt."

Virgil managed to swallow his. "Mine was all sugar which pretty much hid everything."

Scott had a dribble of jelly running down his chin to drip onto his uniform, his mouth hanging open as if he didn't dare close it again. Virgil handed him a paper towel and he grateful spat out the offensive food.

"My God, that was foul."

They all looked at John, who was still chewing his dough ball, now matter how much he worked it, it never got any smaller. In the end he too gave up and spat it into the trash. "It was like trying to eat a rubber ball."

Virgil tossed the remains into the trash to spare Kayo and Brains the same horror. "At least they tried."

Too tired to actually be bothered with real food, Scott handed round some bowls and Virgil grabbed a box of cereal and some milk.

They all ate quickly, eating in companionable silence, standing up, leaning against various cupboards and furniture, knowing if they sat down they would likely never get up again.

"Damn!" John moved suddenly, breaking the silence of the room, dumping his half eaten cereal in the sink.

"What's wrong?" Scott frowned, instantly worried.

"I just remembered the rest of her message," he was already running towards the stairs, "I've got a naked woman waiting for me."

Alan shuddered, gagging on his mouthful of cereal. "I did not need to know that."