#it's what he deserves; to go bonkers; to be a menace

[da-birb-writes-sometimes]

The Song We Are Drawn Towards; Jade Leech

A song rests in the heart, calling out to the one who completes the harmony. Their match pulls at them, as the moon does the tide.

Main Character: Jade Leech

Supporting Roles: Floyd Leech, Mr Leech, Azul Ashengrotto

Content: Soulmate AU (I use the term soul match instead), gender-neutral reader, hurt/comfort, enemies to friends to ???, can be read as familial, platonic, or romantic and that was done on purpose, exploring different parts of Jade so he may seem OOC

Content Warning: self-doubt (Jade), injury & blood (Jade), some swearing, just general tweel things

Word Count: 5K

Author’s Note: Please do not repost my works to other websites or into AI software. I may or may not write parts for other characters; if you want to be tagged for those please let me know. I switch between third and second-person point of view, if that bothers you, sorry. Spell check done by Grammarly. Much like Azul's, this too was written in two or three days.

Azul's Story & Prologue | Floyd's Story

As a young mer, Jade would often listen in to what people had to say about soul matches. He would humour Floyd, and listen to him ramble about what his song and pull was like. For his twin, it felt like someone tugging at his tail playfully, and his song was like that of fireworks and twinkling stars in the night sky. It suited him; playful, full of wonder. And if Jade were to be honest with himself, he would admit that he was jealous of Floyd. That he knew, but didn’t want to admit, since then those jealous feelings would only continue to grow until he snapped out, and he didn’t want that to happen. 

“What about yours, Jade,” Floyd drawled out the question, peeking up from behind the bed. “Ya never share what it feels like for you. I wanna know about the lil siren song stuck in your head!~”

Jade put down the book he was reading and looked at his brother, pursing his lips into a slight frown. “You wouldn’t find it interesting, there isn’t anything to really say about it,” he sighed.

Floyd didn’t like this answer, and tugged at his brother’s tail fin rather harshly, threatening to tear at the caudal fin. “That’s not fair! I told you mine,” he whined. “It’s only fair if you share yours! We could even help each other out and hunt them down together!”

For as much as he enjoyed his company, Floyd could be as persistent about a topic he deemed as interesting as he was flippantly annoying at times. “Well,” he smacked Floyd’s hand away, smoothing over his caudal fin, “if yours is like a starlit sky, then mine would feel like a moonless, and starless one.” Void of any light. Void of any sound. Nothing but a gaping darkness where there should have been light. “Happy?”

“Hmmmm,” Floyd shrugged his shoulders and sank to the floor, busying himself with whatever had caught his eye. “Not really, but you’re being boring. Eh, whatever! When we find ‘em it’ll get twice as interesting.~ OH! Maybe one of them is a surface dweller! I wonder what their reaction would be to us!” He threw the toy he was playing with at his moping brother. “But you don’t need to worry, Jade, I won’t leave the sea!”

Jade sighed. He had only spoken about the lack of any sign that he had a soul match with his father. Not that he didn’t want to tell his mother, but he knew that she would take it harder than his father would. And saying that it was like the darkness of night without any light source was technically accurate, but Floyd didn’t have to know about this quite yet. He would tell him eventually, just… not right now.

. . .

The Leechs’ father could tell when something was off with Jade. He may have been good at hiding it from his brother, and masking from his mother, but the older eel-mer recognized that look well enough.

“Thinking about it again,” he asked, putting down some paperwork that could always wait. “You know, you can always talk to me, Jade.”

The younger eel-mer looked up towards his father, debating whether or not he wanted to reveal everything that has been weighing so heavily on his mind. “Is,” he paused, worrying over his lip with his teeth, “is there something wrong with me?”

Mr Leech got to his son’s level, and put a hand on his shoulder. “Nothing is wrong with you,” his voice was stern, but he knew that what Jade needed was reassurance, a steady anchor in the churning sea lest he be lost in it forever. “Some merfolk don’t have soul matches, and that is perfectly fine and normal.”

Jade opened his mouth and then closed it, eyebrows pinched.

“You have yourself, and you are enough as is. There is nothing wrong with you, even though at times you may feel that there must be.” He looked into his eyes, placing a hand on his cheek. “Also, you are in control of your life, Jade. You will form all kinds of different relationships, and you don’t need a soul match to determine that for you or determine your happiness or success in life.”  

Jade rubbed at his nose and placed his hand over his father’s. “Thank you, dad,” he whispered, as if he was any louder than that, all of those emotions inside would burst.

His dad pulled him in for a gentle hug, “And whenever you have a bad day, just remember that. And that you’ll always have me, your mother, and your brother.”

“I will.”

. . .

. . .

. . .

Jade was busy doing his morning routine. Taming down his hair, fixing up his uniform, and making sure everything was in order; that his courteous and carefully crafted mask was on. Since it was better to keep the less… appealing parts of himself away from the public eye. But the most difficult part of the morning has had yet to pass, waking up and dragging Floyd out of bed. Both of the mers were not morning people, but it was all a part of the experience of living on land and attending one of the best mage schools that Twisted Wonderland had to offer.

He opened up the blinds, letting in the weak sunlight. “Time to get up, Floyd,” he hummed, poking the mass of tangled bedsheets with one of his brother’s shoes that had managed to get on his side of the dorm. 

A golden eye glared out from beneath the sheets before turning back over. “Jus’ five more minutes,” Floyd groaned, pulling the sheets over his head to block out the light and his brother’s smug face. “Too earlyyyyy!”

“Tsk, tsk,” Jade tutted, grabbing the blankets and pulling them off, earning a loud groan and a tired yet irked look from his sleepy twin. “We both know that’s a lie. Now,” he grabbed a wayward lanky leg, yanking him out of bed, “up we get.” When did he get so heavy?

Floyd fell on the ground with an oomph, and shot his twin a venomous look. “Ugh! Fine,” he grumbled, rubbing his backside and making his way to the bathroom to freshen up. “Do ya think there’ll be any interesting guppies?~” He poked his head out, fighting with his uniform since over the break he had a growth spurt. 

Jade quirked a brow, looked over at Floyd and motioned for him to get back in the bathroom and fix his appearance. “The probability is high,” a sharp smirk graced his face, “especially since it means that we should have the chance to… manage those who fail their end of Azul’s little contracts.” He noticed in the reflection of one of his terrariums that his tie was crooked, leaning in, he fixed it. “That should be entertaining enough.”

“Eh heh heh!~ Squirming like a worm on a hook,” Floyd sang. He continued to busy himself with looking at least ‘halfway presentable’ by Azul’s standards, humming his and his soul match’s song under his breath, a dopey smile on his face. 

Jade could feel his mood sour a tad, but reminded himself that he shouldn’t be jealous of Floyd. Besides, he has fared well enough thus far without a soul match. He had his interests, his brother, an Azul to annoy and pester, and an entire world to explore still. New discoveries to be made. Plus, he had recently made a new terrarium and he could see the beginnings of new growth about to burst forth. He was content. Not happy, but content with what things were currently. He gently picked up one of the smaller terrariums, noticing it was looking a bit dry and in need of some extra water. As he was putting it back in its proper spot though, he froze, hand clenching the little glass in a vice grip.

He could hear singing. It was quiet, but it was still singing. And now it felt like the time that a foolish fisherman had gotten one of his lures in his fin, being pulled towards someone. The glass shattered, sending small flecks of blood and glass on his glove and the floor. But he ignored the stinging of his fingers and palm, all he could focus on was the song and the insistent tugging at his heart.

. . .

Jade had made it his personal mission since recovering from the shock of the sudden soul match, to make the singing in their head as loud as possible. To annoy them as much as possible. They had kept him believing for all these years that he was alone, so now they could deal with the consequences of their actions. Was it petty? Extremely, but Jade did it for another reason; if he was loud enough, eventually they would either seek him out to make the internal assault stop, or he would see them wince and he could make their life a personal hell in person. And he knew they were nearby, as the pulling at his soul felt the strongest when he made his way through the halls of the school. He could just follow the tugging, but he didn’t want to chase them down. He wanted them to seek him out.

Something irked him about this whole situation. And it was the fact that even though the singing in his match’s head was intolerable, thanks to him, the song in his head has yet to retaliate, still the pleasant background hum that it was on the first day. He has only heard it go up in volume a handful of times, but never to the volume of his. The tugging during those short outbursts, feeling like he was caught in the strongest gyre of his life, even though he was still on land.  

“Jade, are you paying any attention?” Azul quipped at him, snapping his fingers to bring the plotting eel out of his thoughts.

Jade shook his head, centering his thoughts to the present. “Ah, my apologies, Azul, my mind must have drifted elsewhere. Could you repeat what you just said?” He got caught up thinking about them again, and he bristled. Why should he afford them the luxury of even thinking about him?

Azul sighed and pushed up his glasses. “I said that due to the full moon next week, I won’t be able to look after the Lounge or dorm affairs. And we can’t just go about and hand over these duties to just anyone. So in short, the Lounge will be closed during the day and open all night.”

Ah, so that was what he wanted. “Is that your long winded way of saying that we will all be working midnight shifts,” he looked down at Azul, eyes searing.

“Azul is so meannnn,” Floyd appeared from seemingly nowhere, and tossed his arm onto Jade’s shoulder. “He doesn’t want to even find his cuttlefish! So mean, even to your soul match,” he bemoaned. 

Azul flushed blue at the pet name that Floyd had apparently dubbed his soul match, embarrassed. “I told you not to call them that,” he hissed, quiet enough so that no passerby was able to easily overhear. “Besides, only those who have found there’s or,” he glanced at Jade, “well nevermind the or. Those who still haven’t found their soul match won’t have to work the night. So stop your whining!”

Floyd rolled his eyes and got off of Jade. “Eh, still mean. Maybe finding your cuttlefish will change that?~” He leaned into Jade’s ear, making sure that Azul couldn’t overhear him. “Maybe his soul match will put him in his place.~”

Azul’s eye twitched, “Do you want me to put you on dish duty?” Whatever he was whispering was sure to give him a migraine.

“Do you want to buy new plates,” Floyd’s joking aura turned into something more menacing. He and Azul stared at each other for a few moments before Floyd apparently got bored. “Tch, whatever.” And he was off, as suddenly as he had appeared, slinking into the crowd of students that quickly got out of his way, lest they wanted his sudden mood swing to be directed at them.

Azul pinched the bridge of his nose, “So, technically you will be in charge of the Lounge this week.” Since you don’t have a soul match you have nothing better to do. He didn’t need to say it, but Jade could feel and infer the implication, and his left eye twitched slightly. 

He mentally smoothed himself down, hiding the momentary glimpse of weakness, of the mask slipping off. “Of course,” he voice was clipped, “you can rest assured that the Lounge will be properly kept to your standards.”

Azul gave him a look, but just summed up Jade’s odd behaviour as just a Jade thing. The eel-mer was never the easiest to read, even on the best of days. “Just no funny business, and do not turn the entire menu into mushroom dishes,” he huffed. He didn’t want to hear that revenue had been impacted by Jade’s hyperfixation on fungi.

“Half of the menu,” Jade bargained, sending a mocking polite smile towards Azul. Seeing him send him back a glare, he continued. “Afterall, Azul, you’re leaving me in charge. Part of that position includes overseeing the menu for the week. Besides, it would only be half. That should be a fair enough trade; you get to look for your match, I get a say in the menu.”

Why did the twins insist on giving him a headache at least once a day? “Fine, but only for this week,” he gave in. Jade pulled his weight in both his Lounge and vice-house warden duties, so he would give in to the eel’s demands this once. Besides, he wanted the same as Floyd; to find his soul match this year.

Jade chuckled, “Pleasure doing business with you, Azul. Please do keep me updated with how looking for your… What did Floyd call them? Ah, your cuttlefish, goes.” And he walked off before Azul could give him an earful of whatever it was that he was going to tell him. Perhaps staying at the Lounge should keep him occupied from thinking too much about his match. 

. . .

. . .

Ever since arriving in Twisted Wonderland, a song has played in your head. The first hour wasn’t horrible, just faintly playing in the corners of your mind. Sure it was annoying, but it was tolerable. But the faint humming soon turned into an assault, and you felt like you were standing next to the speaker in a concert. So, needless to say you were willing to do almost anything to make it stop. You’ve had a damn headache for weeks and no amount of this world’s version of Advil, Tylenol, or ibuprofen worked. How you haven’t snapped yet still eludes you, and you wanted answers. Now. 

Ace and Deuce were of little help, just giving you weird (Ace) and concerned (Deuce) looks. So you took it on yourself to get to the bottom of why this infernal song is playing on repeat while on full blast. This, naturally, led you to the library to hunt down some answers. Any students that rounded the corner you were in were quick to walk in the opposite direction, noticing the quickly building mountain of books, and increasingly irritated muttering. 

“AHA!” You shouted, finally finding something that looked halfway promising. A series of hissed hushing came your way but you shrugged it off, happy to finally find some answers.

“Humans may come down with peculiar symptoms should their soul match be of a different clan.” 

Soul match? 

“The most distressing of these symptoms can be found with those whose match belongs to the merfolk clan. As, until they find each other, they will feel like someone is pulling at them when there is in actuality, no one there. Some humans have also complained about the song that plays in their head, as some soul matches will purposely cause their song to be loud, as to remind their soul match that they are still out there. Waiting to meet them. 

A song rests in the heart, calling out to the one who completes the harmony. Their match pulls at them, as the moon does the tide.”

So this song that’s been driving you mad for weeks is due to your soul match? Someone who was picked by the spirit of one of the Seven; someone who makes you happy through a familial, platonic, and/or romantic relationship. Well two can play at that game. They messed with you for weeks, gave you headaches and migraines for weeks. The least you could do was to return the favour in full force. Bring it on, motherfucker.

. . .

Jade woke up, hissing. The faint humming in his head had exploded into loud screaming, but not out of pain or fear. No, it was spite and pettiness. Looks like his soul match finally had enough of the onslaught in their head, or finally figured out that they could control the song in his head. He would have been amused, finally feeling his match break their composure and disturb the harmony, but not in the middle of the night. Not the day before he would be forced back into the water during daylight hours and only being able to come out during the night. 

He glared up at the ceiling, gritting his teeth in annoyance. He really should have seen this coming, after all, he had been doing this to them for weeks, never once letting up on the deafening song. It was no use going back to sleep now, even if he tried. His soul match was too loud and angry to be ignored. Sighing, he pulled himself out of his sheets, spared a look at Floyd to make sure he was asleep, and went to the Octavinelle pools to try and cool off.

Slipping into the water, he shifted into his merform. The song was still loud as ever, but the coolness of the water helped take some of the pain away. He could always apologize through the song in their head, but he wasn’t going to back down from this battle. So he fired back, louder than them. It’s only fair.

The scream of the song halted for a second, and Jade smiled to himself, letting himself sink to the bottom of the pool. But that feeling of victory was short-lived, as the singing returned, this time hitting him like the sonar of a sperm whale, loud enough to make his eardrums rupture. He hissed in pain, letting his singing in their head cease, falling into something not as loud, but still noticeable. And as soon as it had started, the singing in his head changed to match the volume it was for them. What you do to me, I’ll do to you. Is the message he guessed they were sending.

Still in pain, he decided to lessen the volume in his soul match’s head to a pleasant humming, and they soon did the same for him. And so, he sat at the bottom of the pool, looking up into the faint blue filtered light from above, and let his soul sing for him. It conveyed loneliness, jealousy, hurt, confusion. Everything that has plagued his mind, all of the things he kept bottled up, was sung and put out into the open.

The singing in his head changed too, they were also confused, lost, and unsure what any of this meant. Nothing was said, but the emotion carried through. Both of them were like that for a while, humming their emotions and thoughts to each other. This continued until the slivers of sunlight filtered through, and cast their golden beams into the water.

Another set of mismatched eyes peered down from above, noticing that his brother was singing, finally singing for the first time. Floyd memorized the lyrics, and he swam silently to the other side of the pool, letting his brother be, and coming up with a plan.

. . .

. . .

. . .

Someone was knocking insistently at your door. You grumbled, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes. Whoever it was might want to have a good reason to wake you up from the dead of sleep. The song in your head hummed, like it was chuckling at you. You sent a sharp note through their head in return. The knocking persisted, threatening to take the door off its hinges if you didn’t hurry up and open it already.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” you yawned, cracking the door open so you could at least put a face to the intruder before letting them in. “Floyd?”

The person knocking at your door at this ungodly hour was none other than Floyd Leech, looking way too chipper for this time of night. “Heyya, Shrimpy!~” How could he still have all this energy at this hour? “Come on,” he grabbed you by the arm and dragged you behind him without explaining any further in typical Floyd manner.

You dug your heels in, but it didn’t stop him. “Where? It’s night time, I wanna go back to sleep,” you protested, sending him a groggy glare. Either you could walk with him, or he would get tired of pulling you along and throw you over his shoulder.

Floyd decided to actually answer your questions for once. “We’re going to the Lounge, silly Shrimp!~ Silly, silly Shrimpy,” he said, still tugging you along behind him.

“Why? And why couldn’t you let me change into something else,” you pointed down to your sleepwear. “Also, I thought the Lounge wasn’t open this late?”

“Eh, Azul wanted to still ‘make some revenue’ and ‘benefit from matches finding each other and wanting to share some food together’ so the Lounge is open at night this week. Come on, hurry up! I wanna go bug Jadeeee!~” And up you went, there was no use in protesting or fighting him, so you accepted your fate as the eel’s human tote bag.

You sighed, and hummed the little tune of you and your soul match under your breath. The song in your head hummed along, harmonizing the melody. You couldn’t see Floyd’s face, since you were currently getting a great view of the ground passing by, but he wore a large and smug smile on his face as he quickly made his way to the Mostro Lounge.

. . .

The Mostro Lounge was quiet, a few new soul matches occupying some tables and chatting, and the small waitstaff team going around and seeing if they wanted anything from this week’s limited menu; The Moon’s Harmony. Jade stood behind the counter, making sure that everything was going smoothly while Azul was out. And so far it was, although it was the first night, but so far so good. During moments when there were no customers, Jade would test the waters with his match, letting the song go up in volume until they retaliated. He would shake his head and silently chuckle to himself, ears still ringing from the other night from when they had enough with his petty shouting in their head. They had some spunk, he’d give them that. It was quiet tonight in his head too, his match most likely asleep at this hour, so he was surprised to hear the annoyed grumbling in his head.

He decided to get cheeky, since things were pretty boring on his end, and he received a sharp note in return, making him wince. Even when half-awake they could still tell him off. He went into the back and busied himself with cleaning up a few dishes, letting his mind wander about. The pulling at his soul was the strongest this week, and he wanted to follow it, but he still wanted them to find him. For them to make the first move. For them to choose him. Sighing, he put the plate he was working on to soak in the sink.

The line pulling at him went taut. The singing in his head getting louder, but not from his match willing it to. They were close, closer than ever before. He exited the back, and came to stand behind the counter, looking out for any familiar or new faces. Still the same customers as before. Strange, he could have sworn that-

“Jadeeeeee,” a flurry of teal hair burst through the door. “I missed youuuu!~” Floyd sang, but Jade just cocked a brow at his brother’s entrance. “Also,” he tossed you onto a sofa, “I brought Shrimpy with me!”

Jade glanced at you, noticing that you were still in your pyjamas. “Ah, hello, Prefect,” he said in his usual polite and proper way. But his mind was elsewhere, the pulling and singing at the forefront of his mind. “Strange for you to be up at this hour, no?”

You straighten yourself out, and suppress a yawn. “Hi, Jade. Wasn’t really my choice,” you shot a look at Floyd, “I was just dragged along for the ride.” The singing in your head was also getting louder, and you felt like you were being drawn towards a magnet. Where are you?

Floyd’s eyes kept on going between you and Jade, and a frown formed on his face, apparently not happy with the results that he got. “I could’ve been out searching for my match, but Shrimpy is just so much fun when they get mad,” he flung himself across your lap, effectively trapping you there. His eyes shone, and he sent a wink at you. “Say, what’s that song you’ve been humming, huh, Shrimpy?”

“It’s nothing,” you state, knowing that once Floyd found out you had a soul match, a mer no less, that he would make your life a living hell… Well, more so than he already did. And you didn’t want both Floyd and Jade on your case or interfering with you or your match’s lives.

This interested Jade, who was still watching from the counter. The song in his head sounded annoyed, and tired. “Nothing you say,” he stayed where he was, watching your reactions carefully. “Do you know of soul matches, Prefect?”

You kept a neutral expression, “Just some of the basics.” The song in your head was curious, something must have caught their attention.

“But Shrimpy, you have a song in here, don’t cha?~” Floyd pointed to his head, and pointed to your’s. A shit-eating smile took over his face, “You have a soul match!!!~ Shrimpy and a mer, sitting in a tree-”

You pushed Floyd off of your lap unceremoniously, hoping he wouldn’t finish the rest of that lyric. He shot you a look, but rolled his eyes and got up from off the ground. “Well maybe if you leave me alone for a minute I can go find them,” you muttered. “And no,” you spat, “you aren’t invited.”

Jade seemed satisfied with this, and went back to see if anything needed to be looked after. Come find me, he sang in their head.

But what about choosing? You sang back. 

He looked back out, noticing that both you and Floyd were gone. Choosing? That can come later, we haven’t even met yet. Or at least I don’t believe we have.

You were being dragged again by Floyd, this time to the pools. Where can I find you?

Jade sighed, loosening his bowtie. Just follow the song. Follow your soul. Then you will find me.

. . .

. . .

You were floating in the Octavinelle pool, trying to relax. Tring being the main word, as Floyd was hell bent on spending time with you tonight. Not to mention, through the exchange of your song, your soul match has been loud, not to the extent of the first weeks, but still loud enough where they couldn’t be ignored.

Find me.

Floyd splashed you, trying to get your attention, masking the extra ripples from someone else entering the pool, and hiding your form from them. “Shrimpyyyy,” he whined, “come on! Sing your song! I won’t tell anyone! I’ll even sing you mine!” He swam up next to you, “Maybe that will help you find them.”

Find me. “I need to find them on my own, Floyd,” you sigh, knowing it was true. Find me. 

“Eh, you’re boring,” he sighed, and dived down into the depths, disappearing.

You swam over to the side of the pool, feeling like you were being drawn down, your song the loudest it has ever been. Find me. Taking a deep breath, you centred yourself and dived down, following the pull and the song, only coming back up for quick gasps of air.

Meanwhile Jade was stretching out his tail, and humming his song. He felt something tugging at him from above. Looking up he saw a figure breaking the surface. Find me. The pulling was from them. They had actually come looking for him. But he stayed where he was, watching from below.

You took in a few short fast breaths before taking in one last large one before diving down again. Find me. The singing was loud, the pull guiding you to the bottom of the pool. There, you could see a figure. Find me. You feel your lungs start to burn, but you had to reach them. As you continued down you finally saw each other. Two oh-so familiar mismatched eyes glowed from the depths, and Jade’s skin was glowing faintly from his own bioluminescence.

Jade looked back at you, despite being out of your element, and in your pyjamas, he looked at you in wonder. He snapped himself out of his own thoughts though and hauled you up towards the surface, where you promptly gasped for air, and coughed out a bit of water. He waited for you to catch your breath, patting your back gently. Not saying a word, waiting for you to make the first move.

“I found out,” you coughed, looking at him, finally feeling like your soul had found home.

Jade wiped some water from your face, “I’m glad you finally did.”

. . .

Bonus!

Floyd watched from below, “Heh, took them long enough. Welcome to the family, Shrimpy.”

Fin!

Link to Masterlist

[raz-writes-the-thing]

Who's In Danger Now? (Bad Samaritan One-Shot)

Cale Erendreich x GN!Reader

Fic summary: Cale forgot about your birthday and now he's the one in danger

Fic type: crack treated seriously

EVERYTHING: @winchxters

Bad Samaritan: @stevekempscocktails @go-bonkers-go-foolish @peytonpenguin37 @madspads @merrilark @jaziona92 @iguirisu @pansexual-imp @bunnypill (send an ask to be added to a tag list!)

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

You're going to take him apart the next time you see him, you just know it. It's your birthday, and he's forgotten- it's not like there's one a month or anything. Just the one day once a year and he forgot. You're not sure if you should be surprised, in all honesty.

He's always got his head shoved up his computer hard drive's ass, after all.

Anyway, more on to the point- when you woke up to find Cale already gone, you weren't overly surprised. Disappointed, sure, but not surprised. But as time went on through the day you became less and less sure that he'd done something nice for your day. You weren't needing anything elaborate or expensive or anything- you'd have been elated with just a message, to be quite frank.

But no. No muffin on the counter for breakfast, no card on the bedside table, no flowers delivered to work, no dinner for you when you got home.

To be honest, the dark and cold of the house once you stepped back inside after your very long day felt very off-putting. More so than usual.

And where was Cale? Of course, huddled in his office in the dark. The bastard didn't even leave a light on for you to traverse the stairs.

"Good evening, Cale," you said as you passed the door slightly ajar. It was deliberately worded that way, cold and distant. Petty, sure, but he deserved it. Sort of. You disregarded his half-hearted reply and made straight for the shared bedroom, shucking your jacket and plonking down on the stool at the foot of the bed to undo your shoelaces.

There was an almost imperceptible creak as the door opened back up again where you'd pushed it almost closed. You looked up, rubbing at your sore feet. Cale stood in the doorway, hallway light casting the front of him in shadows. He was menacing, leaning in the doorway shrouded in the dark like that.

"The fuck's your problem?" He asked with a sniff. He appeared uncaring, but the way his eyes shone with calculation told you otherwise. He was trying to figure you out. Was it him who had done something now, or someone else from work?

"Nothing," you replied, tone clipped. Cale rolled his eyes- something you did not miss despite the shadows playing across his face.

"Okay- don't fuckin' lie to me. You know how I feel about the lying."

You sighed and stood to face him, crossing your arms defensively.

"I have to wonder if you might have forgotten something important today, Cale," you said, giving him what he wanted. The truth. "Something that only comes around once a year?"

"It's not our anniversary," Cale answered with a sneer. "I'd fuckin' remember." Plus he had an alert, but he wasn't about to tell you that. "What else could it b-oh."

Your brow arched solemnly.

"Yeah. 'Oh' is correct," you frowned irritably. "Now, I know you're very scary and all but I need you to move out of my way so I can go downstairs and make myself some dinner because you didn't leave me any. Scoot, go on. Fuck off."

Cale hesitated for only a moment, gaze tightening before he sighed in resignation.

"Alright, don't get your fucking panties in a twist. Here, lay down. I'll make you some dinner and we can watch a movie, okay?"

He didn't seem that keen on the idea, but you knew by tomorrow or the day after that he'd be doing his best to get into your good books again.

"Okay," you relented, slumping a fraction. "But I'm choosing the movie."

You could hear Cale's grumbling all the way down the stairs.

[frywen-bumbles]

The Way to a Man's Heart Goes Through His... Cat? Ch2

Days 6-7: Jaskier gets some unexpected messages and looks after house plants

AO3

Master of Music.

Jaskier loves the sound of it.

What he doesn't love is the half-empty document staring at him from his laptop screen.

'Historical Facts, Recent Myths, Current Connections: The Witchers in Historical and Contemporary Music'

He has all of his research material on hand. He has read through it. Several times. But writing the actual research down isn't happening.

Gods above how much he wishes he could just compose new songs and throw his brain out of the window. He doesn't even believe in any gods but if praying will help writing to happen he's willing to try.

Roach sits on top of the bookshelf, in one of her favourite places to... stare at him. And judge. Or maybe Jaskier feels like the cat is judging him. She hasn't warmed up to him during the first week at all, all she does is stare at him whatever he does but doesn't let him close enough to touch yet alone to brush.

"You know, Roachie if you won't let me touch you soon your owner will have to shave you naked when he returns."

Roach doesn't answer.

Of course, she won't answer. He must be going bonkers. Maybe a walk will help. He doesn't hold high hopes, everything is going shite anyway, what good could one walk do?

He snaps a quick silly selfie of himself and Roach and sends it to Roach's owner, like every day. It doesn't take long for the mark to turn blue to note the message has been seen. No answer, but at this point, Jaskier is not surprised. There has been no answer in the previous days, why break the tradition now? Some people just aren't made for small talk and Jaskier isn't going to force it. Not that he'd want to see the man. No, that would be ridiculous.

He gets lost in his thoughts, trying to figure out how to put together his thesis in some sort of coherent way as he walks to the nearby park. His phone buzzes in his pocket for a new message. He digs it out, not giving it much thought expecting to see a message from Essi or Pricilla. What he sees makes him almost drop his phone in his shock.

Cat dad answered? And with a photo?

A honk makes him realise he's standing in the middle of the road like an idiot and he crosses to the other side to reach the park. Only it feels like he doesn't need to have a walk anymore, this is more excitement than he's had in the entire week.

He opens the message.

A selfie with a blonde girl and a man stare back at him. He feels like his heart will stop.

"Essi?" Jaskier has to talk to someone. He knows he shouldn't, he promised absolute confidentiality. But he will burst if he doesn't talk about this to someone. He will absolutely without a doubt die.

"What is it, Buttercup?" Essi drawls like she has all the time in the world.

"Cat dad it insanely hot!"

"Whaaat? He texted back?"

"Yes! He's off the wall hot? I can't deal with this! How am I supposed to just sit working on his desk knowing what the man looks like? He will haunt my dreams, Essi!"

"Well, spill the tea! What does he look like?"

"You know I can't tell you, just know he's the hottest dude I have ever seen, okay? I can't deal with this. How am I supposed to write academic bullshite when his picture sits on my phone and I could just... look at it whenever I want to?

"Jaskier, for fucks sake. Your thesis is already a year late. You have been promised a place in the doctoral programme. If you keep sitting on your arse with this, instead of being the brightest student at the Uni, you will fail, understand? Get your shite together and stop falling in love with every person you happen to see."

"But, Essiiii... He's really hot!"

"I know, darling. Just keep it in your pants until you've finished with your thesis. Then I give you my permission to go chase the hot cat daddy."

"Melitele forbid, Essi, you're no fun. I wasn't going to chase him! I don't even know where he is. I just can't get over the hotness, okay?"

"Mm hmm, I know you too well. Get back to work or do I need to remind you why you took up pet sitting?"

"No. I'm sorry. I'll take a small walk and then get right back to writing, I promise."

Jaskier does not get back to writing.

He stares at the picture in his phone trying to figure out how a gorgeous man like that could have such an impersonal home. The man has his hair tied back in a messy bun, revealing an undercut which tells the milky white locks are natural. Jaskier didn't know he had a thing for blonds, but he sure as hell does now.

The girl's young, maybe around ten years old, Jaskier isn't sure. Kids aren't exactly his forte, all of his friends are still firmly stuck in their studies instead of having families of their own.

The picture had been taken by the girl, the grin wide on her face suggesting taking it had been her idea. But the soft smile the man has as he looks at the girl is melting Jaskier's heart.

If only someone would look at him like that he could die happy.

A crash from upstairs startles him enough to put down his phone and look at the time. Jaskier tries and fails not to fall into despair. He has wasted another day, not a single word written and how he wishes he could just throw up all of his ideas into coherent text but it is not happening.

He closes his laptop. It's no use. Going like this he'll never graduate.

Roach stares at him from the door, covered in dust and... definitely more dust.

"I'm a mess, aren't I, Roachie?"

Roach doesn't answer. Instead, she screams and runs downstairs, expecting him to follow like a good servant. His phone buzzes for a new message and Jaskier taps it open.

<Water the plants. Remember to brush the cactus.>

Remember to what the what now? He stares at the message, trying (and failing) to ignore the image above it.

"What the fuck?" he mutters to himself as he makes his way downstairs to stare at the house plants he has given no thought at all up to this point. On the windowsill in the kitchen is a lone cactus, right next to where Roach likes to sit and look to the yard. A cactus completely covered in cat hair and Roach is happy to provide how that particular thing happened. She jumps next to the plant and rubs her head against it, leaving even more hair on the spines.

"Brush the cactus. Okay then..."

<How do I brush a cactus?>

<What the fuck Jask?>

Jaskier snaps a picture of the cactus and sends it to the group chat with Essi and Pricilla.

<How do I get rid of the hair???>

He gets no response. ... appears on the screen several times before crying laughing emojis fill the screen.

<Thanks a bunch -.- >

He goes to dig through the cabinet where he found cat things and discovers a comb.

"That'll have to do," he sighs and gets to combing the cactus, careful not to harm it. In the end, the cactus comes unharmed from the endeavour but unfortunately, Jaskier doesn't. His palm is adorned with spines he spends a good five minutes plucking out with tweezers.

<If i die bc of a cactus related infection I'm blaming you>

<omg what did you do>

<Squeezed a ball of hair in my hand but it was filled with spines from the cactus>

<lmao>

<lmao???? I'm suffering and you're laughing??? Essi, Pris is being horrible>

<it is only what you deserve>

<OMG rude!>

<kissy face emoji>

Jaskier looks up from his phone when he hears water splashing. He doesn't even want to know what toy the cat has decided to drown now but if he doesn't hurry the whole kitchen will be filled with water.

Roach is happily playing with a toy mouse dunking it in her water bowl and tossing it around, spreading water everywhere.

"Roach, please? Could you just... not do that?" Jaskier begs as he fishes the mouse out of the water bowl and puts it to dry in a cabinet. "This may come as a surprise to you but I do not enjoy mopping the floors after you." He complains as he dutifully takes kitchen towels and dries the kitchen. At least it's better than the time Roach tucked the entire kitchen rug in the water bowl while he was out.

"You are a menace," Jaskier tells Roach after he has cleaned up everything. Roach meows.

Jaskier feels like he has barely fallen asleep when he wakes up. At first, he doesn't understand what woke him, but another yowl has him wide awake. What has him jumping out of the bed and run is the sound of pumping, like someone was trying to unclog a toilet.

"Roach you bastard, where are you? Please don't throw up on a carpet!!" Jaskier tries to find the cat based on the noise, stumbling in the dark. To his horror, the noise is coming from the second floor, where he was absolutely forbidden to go.

"Roaaaaach...!" he whines and makes his way up the stairs.

The view that awaits him when he flips the light on is totally unexpected. It is so unexpected Jaskier has to pinch himself to believe he's actually standing in a real room.

It is, and really the only way to describe it is every little girl's dream room. The room spans the entire second floor, ceiling low on the sides showing it was renovated from an attic, pinks, purples and blues adorning the furnishing.

And right on the middle of the white rug is the vomit.

"Fuck."

Jaskier collects the rug and carries it in the bathroom and spends an ungodly amount of time washing it, hoping against all the odds, the stain would leave.

It doesn't.

Come morning and Jaskier is sure it's all been a weird dream. Unfortunately for him, the stained rug awaits him in the bathroom when he goes to brush his teeth and he groans in frustration.

Roach meows at the closed door and scratches it until he lets her in so she can stare at him. Jaskier sighs and snaps a quick selfie, hair mussed and toothbrush still in his mouth and sends it. No need to prolong it, now he can hopefully focus on writing.

He's drinking his third cup of tea when his phone buzzes for a new message.

<Roach's hair is as messy as yours>

Jaskier stares at the message, sent from an unknown number.

<Who is this?>

<Youre looking after daddys cat>

<You're the girl! From the picture!> <I'm Julian but you can call me Jaskier> <Wait you shouldn't text strange men does your dad know you've texted me?>

<You're not strange you just told me your name> <I'm bored daddy went out with grandpa and im left with uncle> <Hes no fun> <I'm Fiona>

<Hello Fiona, it's nice to meet you>

Jaskier doesn't know what else he's supposed to say. How does one talk with children? Just like normal people? Right?

Wait!

Jaskier comes to a sudden realisation; now he has the perfect opportunity to ask cheat codes for Roach to get the cat to, well maybe not like him but to tolerate him.

<How do I brush Roach? She doesn't let me near her>

The screen fills with laughing emojis earning a sigh from Jaskier. No help then.

<Give her cheese> <Shes crazy about it but only gets it after shes brushed>

Of course, why hasn't he thought to give the cat cheese? Maybe because it doesn't make any sense. Who gives cat cheese when there are perfectly good cat treats available?

Nothing else about this makes any sense either and since writing isn't happening nor is Fiona texting anything else he makes his way to the fridge and digs out a block of cheese and cuts a piece.

Roach runs at him screaming. She thrills and screams and rubs herself against the drawer where all of her brushes are.

Roach doesn't purr when he combs through her fur, but feeding her bits of cheese every time she gets too annoyed helps and like a miracle Jaskier manages to brush a cat-sized pile of loose fur to show for his efforts. He gives Roach the last piece when he has finished and tries to pet her, but she sprints away from him with an annoyed meow.

Maybe Roach doesn't hate him as much as he thought after all.

[allthefilmsiveseenforfree]

The Mothman Prophecies

I know nothing about this gem from 2002, but Wes requested I review this, and I am very excited. Here are my initial questions - is it a man that looks like a moth or a moth that looks like a man? Only time will tell, I suppose. This movie is supposedly based on a true story of some weird happenings in West Virginia in the 60s, and the Mothman legend has persisted for decades - they even hold a Mothman festival every year (during non-Covid times of course). So who is this mysterious figure who goes bump in the night? And what exactly is he prophesying? Well...

Let’s just say the movie is playing fast and loose with some kinda sorta weird stuff that maybe possibly happened to a few people one time. Basically, based on some Wikipedia research, this movie is probably about as accurate as a Maury Povich lie detector test. The summary of the movie is that John Klein (Richard Gere) and his wife Mary (Debra Messing) are a normal happy suburban couple when something weird happens to Mary - she sees something strange, gets into a car accident, and subsequently passes away. As John grieves and searches for answers, he finds himself inexplicably in a small town in West Virginia even though he was on his way somewhere completely different - and this town is experiencing the same kind of weird stuff Mary did before she died. John begins investigating, and eventually he starts getting contacted by Mr. Moth, and that’s when things REALLY go off the rails. 

Some thoughts:

First clue that this is an early 2000s relic: Richard Gere is a “star reporter” and he and his wife are looking to buy an enormous new house. Second clue: the credits, which feature out of focus streetlights, a time lapse of a clock ticking down the minutes, and music by a musical arrangement called tomandandy.

Side note - I think “Tom an’ Dandy” would be an excellent name for an old timey vaudeville act.

Ohh get it, the shape on Mary’s CAT scan turns into wings with red eyes. LIKE THE MOTHMAN. 

Incidentally, I’ve been saying “Moth-mun” in my head instead of Moth Man, and that’s really been adding to the experience for me. 

Now they’re trying to make the reflectors at the top of construction barrels seem menacing. We are already stretching the suspension of disbelief that moths can be scary, now construction barrels?  

They’re really pulling out all the stops. When Richard Gere gets bad news, the heavy strings kick in alongside the sound of a beating heart that abruptly stops. Do you see - because Mary’s heart stopped. I know, this is groundbreaking stuff. That’s just a subtle filmmaking tip from me to you - it’s free, I won’t charge you for it or anything.

When a movie character flips through a disturbing journal full of angry sketches or words written over and over again, all I can think of is how much fun the art department had making that journal.

This movie does a great job of portraying what it feels like to be a stranger in a small, broke, busted town. The curious looks, the feeling that you’re just not wanted. 

These transitions are....a choice. I can’t tell if they’re aping The Ring or if director Mark Pennington cut his teeth on music videos for groups like Trapt or Breaking Benjamin, [ETA: I was close - 76 directing credits on IMDB and at least 60 of them are music videos] but he’s throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. We’ve got full red filter obscuring the screen, just a general focus blur, sometimes the transition looks like that shitty Photo Booth filter on old Macbooks that looks like you’re drawn in pencil. It’s distracting as hell and just so....not the atmosphere this story deserved. 

I say that because the story itself is incredibly compelling - I think most horror and thriller films work best when they’re rooted in grief because nothing is more terrifying than the threat of losing that which we love most. And the events are ambiguous enough that you can’t tell how much of it is the trauma John is experiencing, and how much of it is legitimately supernatural. That being said, I wish the scares were more effective? As soon as Mr. Moth starts calling on the phone (under the alias Indrid Cold) things get decidedly weirder but also less...coherent. 

This movie feels particularly relevant as we watch John descend further and further into his obsession. He rejects any and all rational explanations for the events taking place and the “prophecies” he’s receiving. Where his obsession is fueled by grief and the need to understand the un-understandable, I see the same fear in him that I see in the QAnon supporters who are fueled by white supremacist rage and fear at losing their position in the world. The difference is, John’s delusion really only destroys himself. Not so much with QAnon, unfortunately. 

Laura Linney is absolutely wasted as a small town cop who gets drawn into John’s schemes. She has more of an arc in her 8 minutes of screen time in Love Actually than she does in this. #JusticeForLauraLinney

Did I Cry? I teared up once the wheels of the final prophecy started in motion. For all the other bonkers choices in this movie, this sequence is genuinely terrifying and so drawn out that it feels like you’re actually trapped in the middle of a disaster along with everyone else. It’s absolutely horrifying. This is BY FAR the strongest sequence in the film. It reminded me a lot of the later Final Destination films that really draw out the tension during the initial disaster sequence to an absolutely exquisite, agonizing degree.

This is a weird one. There’s no real resolution or catharsis, no explanation for all of the weird things we’ve just seen. Just a lingering sense of unease. It’s not...unsatisfying, but it’s not really satisfying either. Obviously I went to Wikipedia right after this was done, and that kind of dashed my hopes of the enduring mystery of this legend. It sounds pretty uh...not real. Which is a bummer, because I’m very into reading about weird paranormal things, and if things had happened the way the movie said they did, I would be a Mothman Truther 4 Lyfe. As it stands, this is one cryptid whose legend leaves something to be desired. Looks like nothing can replace Nessie as the cryptid of my heart <3. 

If you liked this review, please consider reblogging or subscribing to my Patreon! For as low as $1, you can access bonus content and movie reviews, or even request that I review any movie of your choice.

[knightotoc]

I can't really rank the SW movies, but I can sort of put them in categories. I wrote a bit about each one because I've never seen a list in an order like mine, though if you're asking me to be rational that is something I know I cannot do.

(This is really long)

1. The ones I love the most: 

Attack of the Clones

🍐 favorite characters, favorite planets

🍐 my soul is anchored to early naughts high-key cheesy emo, à la Raimi Spider-Mans

🍐 most Jedi per square inch

🍐 it's pretty and it kicks ass

🍐 the romance is the A-plot for ONCE

🍐 AND it's a "dark middle chapter" that pulls no fucking punches, the whole Tatooine sequence is just hnnnnggrhhh BRUTAL

🍐 the only "dark middle chapter" in which the person explaining the Jedi way (Anakin) doesn't believe in it and the person listening (Padme) doesn't want to join but just cares about him

🍐 morally ambiguous organized religion/monasticism/chivalry are interesting and personally important subjects to me, a Catholic feminist who majored in Medieval Studies

🍐 the hinge between two time periods I love, "Obi Wan trains Anakin" and "the Clone Wars"

🍐 sets up both Clone Wars shows and both KotORs

Return of the Jedi

🐻 SO much fun, SO much imagination

🐻 like RotS, both the silliest and the most tragic in its trilogy (and imo it pulls it off)

🐻 the ending -- Luke tossing his lightsaber, Palpatine killing him, Anakin saving him -- I just -- gahhhh that's what it's all about, dude😭😭😭 It makes me love the Jedi SO MUCH!

🐻 Luke's plan to rescue Han is as bonkers as Dooku's plan to begin the war and I'm obsessed

🐻 Leia's hair down and Luke in black👌

The Last Jedi

🍸 absolute masterpiece of tragedy and hope

🍸 it's so SMART and has this wisdom that brings me so much comfort facing personal failures and societal horrors

🍸 "That's how we win -- not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love" -- Rose the Queen of Themes

🍸 the cave scene in which Luke summarizes the prequels and Rey summarizes the original trilogy is so validating

🍸 "Where's Han?" [cut to Kylo]

🍸 all the transitions but that one ^^^^ especially

🍸 best visions in the movies (Rey's mirrors and Luke's twin suns)

🍸 Yoda is the best ghost and wisest teacher as he deserves😭

🍸 Leia Vader parallels are my biggest weakness

Revenge of the Sith

🔥 I can't handle this one

🔥 it's straight up Camelot and Lancelot is my favorite invention in all of fiction, and here he is as an evil space wizard

🔥 I literally can't listen to this soundtrack and drive because I get too sad

🔥 they hate each other SO MUCH ahhgggg, NO other characters come close to this level of emotion

🔥 the Matthew Stover novelization is even more beautiful

🔥 this meta-level tragedy, the dramatic irony of a guy who has been evil since 1977, a name similar to the Greek goddess of inevitability, the swirling destiny of his "prophecy" and his doom, but still I'm like "DON'T DO IT ANI" as if he ever had a chance

🔥 they play the fucking ANH medals theme at the end of the credits and it blows my mind. Absolutely brilliant

🔥 can you believe that only RotS and TLJ have shirtless scenes in them

2. The ones I also really love:

The Phantom Menace

😈 best soundtrack. All the prequels have the most thoughtful and interesting music in my opinion, but I could go on forever about TPM's.

😈 my favorite musical piece in all of SW is the Baby Anakin theme. It's so terribly sad; it sounds to me like rivers and waterfalls. They use it several times in AotC, too. The end of the melody transitions into the Imperial March😭

😈 Duel of the Fates is the actual star of the movie, of course; the words are a Sanskrit translation of a medieval Welsh poem. Ask me about how the lyrics apply to the fates of Qui-Gon, Maul, and Obi-Wan because I've FIGURED IT OUT

😈 also the cleverest piece in SW is Augie's Municipal Band, the parade theme, which is the Emperor's theme from RotJ in major key and sped up

😈 speaking of Palpatine, this is his best movie and I've basically sold my soul to him so👏👏👏we stan

😈 I've probably thought and written the most about this movie and the time periods around it, the training of Maul and Anakin. If you can believe it😅

Empire Strikes Back

☁️ it's the best one

☁️ the "dark middle chapter" that sets the standard for AotC and TLJ

☁️ "Luminous beings are we"😭

☁️ Bespin Leia is the best look in the movies

☁️ "The evil lord Darth Vader, OBSESSED with finding young Skywalker"😂 Ani has a reason to live again, oh no

A New Hope

🤖 the only one you need

🤖 an actual piece of magic on Earth

🤖 Old Obi-Wan is heartache personified

🤖 bow down to Tarkin

🤖 best droid movie

Solo

🎲 the other kissy movie

🎲 SO much fun; John Powell puts so much energy and excitement in his music

🎲 how does this random movie have the best character designs after AotC

🎲 GIRL DROID!!!

🎲 really different point of view on the central theme of family

🎲 that cameo tho

🎲 where's my sequel

Rogue One

🌠 the most visually beautiful SW movie; it fits into the tradition of beautiful 70s sci-fi movies like 2001 and Star Trek TMP, which focus on the hugeness and wonder of outer space

🌠 can Cassian and Rose please overthrow the government

🌠 I have a real theater poster of this one in my room :D (I also have one of TLJ)

🌠 does so right by Vader

🌠 makes the Rebellion more complicated, just like the prequels did to the Jedi Order

3. The ones I don't like:

The Force Awakens

The Rise of Skywalker

I want to like them, especially TFA, but I find it difficult. I feel like they lack confidence as stories, and they don't take things like death and faith very seriously. Many planets explode, but they are grieved even less than Alderaan is in ANH. And if you just pray hard enough, God will help you out. It bothers me that THAT was the culmination of Rey's spiritual journey, versus the more relatable and dramatic endings for the male Jedi protagonists Luke, Anakin, and Ezra.

I have rewatched TFA a few times and I like parts of it, like the scavenging setting in the beginning and how handsome everyone is. Some of Maz's lines justify the borrowed plot in an interesting way. And I've thought of some headcanons to make TRoS more okay, because they did so wrong by Palpatine but not necessarily by "the Sith" as a Borg-like force of evil that, I guess, consumed him. So despite JJ's best efforts, I'm trying to make this work.

[theonceoverthinker]

SpongeBob SquarePants - The Musical: A Small Memorial

Last night, as often happens, a Broadway show closed. While I wasn’t able to see it’s final performance (Though I was filled in for the details thanks to the incredible @crazy-noonoohead​), I did get to see it once, and it absolutely charmed the entire way through. I’m honestly going to miss it.

That show was SpongeBob SquarePants: The Musical.

I know. The jokes have all been said and done. It’s a Nickelodeon show that got a stage adaptation and it doesn’t offer even the pretense of pretending its not for kids. It’s essentially most of what makes up animated movie trailers today. But beyond the jokes, SpongeBob is one of the most aesthetically pleasing, unique, and fun shows out there and I want to give it the respect and honor it deserves here, because believe it or not, it has quite a few elements worthy of said respect and honor.

Now for reference before we begin, I have seen SpongeBob on Broadway live one time, I’ve listened to the cast recording well over twenty times at this point, and I have engaged in my fair share of bootlegs via YouTube.

SET DESIGN

To start, let’s talk about SpongeBob’s greatest accomplishment: Its set design. The set design is effectively delivered on in three ways, and let’s just say that the Tony it got for Set Design could not have been more deserved. 

First, on either side of the stage of the show were two intricate mechanisms. If you’ve ever played the board game Mouse Trap, then just think about that in orange and you’ve got an idea of what they were like. One of the mechanisms went off during each act, and what it did was provide more than just a regular set piece: It provided a mystery and an adventure. Not only was it so much fun seeing the mechanisms go off, but the anticipation for them had me so excited. They were unique and gave off this feeling of both peril and comedy. 

Second, the set design of the climax of the show (Spoiler alert if you wanted to either read about this somewhere else or hit up a bootleg). Ethan Slater (SpongeBob’s actor) is such a badass. In the climax of the show, he is put in a harness and while singing a powerful song (A character-defining reprise, at that!), needs to basically climb up, through, and around this big and intricate orange spider web. It’s some of the coolest staging I’ve ever seen and while I never saw Spiderman, I also never heard of a single instance of danger with this action so I feel comfortable saying that this is Spiderman done right!

Finally, I want to talk about something pretty simple: The houses. I’m going to lump these things together because the how of what they do here is pretty similar, but incredibly impressive. The houses and establishments like The Krusty Krab here are the only thing done via CGI and the pragmatic effects help to enhance it by never allowing the audience to feel confused about where they are or overcrowded by the larger than life characters. 

If you want to continue and read my thoughts on the costume design, music, story, and cultural impact (However personal), please join me below the cut.

COSTUME DESIGN

There are a LOT of characters to talk about in this adaptation and I think they were all designed fabulously. However, for the purposes of keeping this a little brief, let’s talk about the most impressive one to me: Plankton.

Assuming you’ve watched SpongeBob on TV, you know that Plankton is a really small character, and that presents a problem when adapting the TV show to Broadway. How do you adapt Plankton? His size (Or lack thereof) is such an important quality to his character and to not acknowledge that would dilute who he is. While one could simply make him a puppet, none of the other characters are puppets and to make him one would take away all of his menace, something that he would need, even as a primarily comedy-focused antagonist. Additionally, it would severely limit the capabilities of Plankton to perform in musical numbers, especially in his rap number. But the creators did something really smart. In the opening number of the show, while all of the main characters were scaled against their oceanic counterparts, Plankton had a physical puppet counterpart shown in addition to his human actor, a puppet that was abandoned shortly after his introductory scene. That did the job of showing Plankton’s size in a way that the audience would burn into their memory while also allowing the actor to use his entire range of motion. It’s honestly such a smart move.

MUSIC

SpongeBob on Broadway is a collaborative musical. Most every song is original to the show AND was made a different artist. This list includes The Plain White Tees, Panic! at the Disco, David Bowie, John Legend, They Might Be Giants, and Sara Bareilles (But boy is it longer than just that). And here’s what impresses me so much: It’s so cohesive. That’s not to say there aren’t different genres. There are a couple of ballads, a rap, a few ensemble pieces, a rock and roll number, a sea shanty, and a tap number (With multiple legs thanks to Gavin Lee’s incredible talent!!!!). But it retains a flow to it that carries through the entire show. At no point does the SpongeBob musical feel disjointed and given all of that talent working on it, I can’t help but be surprised, even now. Like, how does that work? The music here has no right being this solid and cohesive! Well, I can only assume that the above talents really talked to one another to make sure that no work felt out of place, and honestly, I can’t help but adore that respect for how seriously this was taken from all of them to make sure that there was consistency throughout each and every one of the pieces in regards to the world of SpongeBob and in terms of a full musical.

My favorite piece is “Bikini Bottom Day.” In addition to being visually great, it has this nice buildup as the pieces of Bikini Bottom come together. It starts off with this very faithful-to-the-source-material ukulele and builds to encompass the orchestra, building up the beauty of Bikini Bottom and all of its people as it relates to SpongeBob itself. Everyone’s characterizations are perfectly on display here and the first beats of the characters’ arcs come into play. The motif which is revisited in the Act 1 finale and the finale of the show itself is just nice and optimistic, inviting everyone to think more like SpongeBob, and damnit, when I hear it, I feel like SpongeBob!

STORY

I think the story here is so important, and more important than most might give it credit for. While not overly serious, it does deliver a story that’s deviously more than it seems and in a way that is palatable by its target demographic: children.

SpongeBob on Broadway is about the SpongeBob characters facing the possibility of the end of the world in the face of an erupting volcano, and their various reactions to that. SpongeBob works on combatting the eruption, many of the townspeople try to run, those less committed to running focus on blaming someone for the issue (Sandy, as Plankton puts the value of being the sole land animal in an underwater town), a subset of fish seek wisdom from Patrick, Pearl and Squidward focus on completing their Bucket Lists, and Mr. Krabs and Plankton focus their efforts on profiting off of the panicking masses (Granted for Plankton, it’s in a much more evil way that involves mass manipulation and attempted murder). And throughout this story, there are various ticking countdowns, the aforementioned mechanisms throwing big balls of magma onto the stage, and even the intermission says that it will be the “last intermission...ever.” And that’s all before talking about the two numbers about the possibility of facing the end: “No Control” and “Best Day Ever,” the former of which is one of the most panicked and hopeless numbers I’ve ever heard.

Now, that’s a pretty really-real baseline story with some harsh elements, and honestly, it could’ve gotten pretty dark. But what I like is that it never really did. While not afraid to handle these storylines and aspects and tackle them fully, the show never lost sight of the fact that it’s a SpongeBob musical and being that requires a consistency of a comedic tone as well as an understanding that it’s a musical for children. There are at least five jokes per scene and the show itself ends with a parade of bubbles, a zany band performance, and strings of party paper that falls from the sky! It’s fucking bonkers! And that tonal balance is what makes it so good -- not all time classic-great, but certainly more than enough to merit its own existence. 

And that brings us to...

CULTURE

Whenever I see someone picking on SpongeBob on Broadway, even from its inception, I’ve always hated it. I get that SpongeBob on Broadways was somewhat of an absurd notion, but then again, so was The Lion King or Avenue Q, an adult-themed show about puppets, and both of those offered something unique visually as well as through elements like staging, storytelling, and costumes. And in terms of animated adaptations, we’ve had again all but two of the Disney Broadway adaptations. So why did SpongeBob get mocked?

And I’m sure some edgelord reading this is groaning about that the fact that SpongeBob on Broadway is a musical for kids and that I’m unapologetically defending its right to be exactly that, but honestly, fuck that noise. Being for kids does not mean that a musical cannot be great or even tough upon hard subject matter. I mean, look at how some of the more recent Disney animated movies have taken upon harsher subject matter if you need proof of that. What it means is that there needs to be an understanding in the delivery of a message so that one can understand it from an early age without needing to sacrifice storytelling to deliver it. It’s not dumbing down theatre, it’s opening up the door for new people to come in. And there’s no reason why that’s a bad thing. Broadway, like every other medium, thrives off of variety. Just like how there are deep movies like “Citizen Kane,” comedies like “Crazy Rich Asians,” silly films like “Despicable Me,” and superhero movies like “The Avengers” (And blendings of the different genres like “The Dark Knight”), so can there be such a tonal diversity among the shows on Broadway. Hamilton and Phantom are great musicals, but they aren’t and shouldn’t be the only types out there and I like that there’s more out there for kids. 

Broadway in its current state, while making changes to foster grander availability, is still a very overpriced and hard to access medium. It’s based on location and even for someone like me who lives in New York, it’s an endeavor that costs at least $50-$60 (That’s assuming I (1) win a digital lottery or have a friend do rush (thanks again @crazy-noonoohead​), (2) don’t take a subway or cab, and (3) don’t eat on the trip, and very rarely do those things all happen simultaneously). To be willing to do that, you need to have some serious love or interest in the show, and because of that high bar that people already have to meet in order to just get in the door, it’s not especially approachable to new people. And that’s where shows like SpongeBob come in. Little kids and families go to see the show and come out with so much more. Shows like SpongeBob open doors for lifelong interests in the mastery of theatre and I hope that in the future, when a non-Disney show like this is announced, we remain more optimistic about its potential rather than turning it into a punchline.

While I can’t say it’s for certain intentional, I can’t help but related the song “Not a Simple Sponge” to the public’s outcry towards the show. The chorus invites Mr. Krabs, Squidward, and (by extension) the audience to give SpongeBob a chance to “give me [him] adventure, be a contender, and more” after earlier calling him “just a simple sponge.” I can’t help but see the similarities between SpongeBob’s doubters and the public itself for dismissing the idea of SpongeBob going on a grand staged adventure, as if to say “No, you can’t tell us this story.” But by the end, through the careful delivery of themes (”Everything gets better if you keep on trying”), SpongeBob proves that indeed his is more than a simple sponge and worthy of his claim to The Great White Way.

LET’S WRAP THIS UP

SpongeBob was something that crept up on me. I figured I’d like it well enough, but that it would be something that would follow me, take up about half of my Spotify history, and be something that moved me to make a fairly long post about it? Well, that caught me as a surprise! Hell, I still have a piece of the tissue paper that fell on me during the end of the show and it’s still something I’m going to try to hold on for my remaining days. I probably would’ve attempted for the finale performance alongside my friend had it not been for a car accident that currently leaves me unable to walk. Even still, I’m grateful for the chance to experience this show.

What I’m saying is, SpongeBob on Broadway is “not a simple sponge” and I sincerely wish that it had run longer (With all due respect, I was bored with the Mean Girls bootleg I found in roughly twenty minutes and I was hoping my big yellow friend would stick it out at least until after that closed). For something that was odds are less than half a risk to Viacom, it tried so much harder than anyone expected to and created a memorable show. While I don’t expect a revival anytime soon, it’s going to join some of my mid-tier favorites that Broadway has to offer, along the lines of Legally Blonde and Young Frankenstein. And maybe one day, it will get the respect and love that it truly deserves.

If you’ve never checked out SpongeBob, and by some miracle you’re able to track down a working bootleg or even if you just rock out to the cast recording and a Wikipedia article on the plot, I suggest downing an hour or two and letting the wonders of a “Bikini Bottom Day” consume you.

[raccoonpatriotism]

260 [Random, Useless Headcanons 📂] from @homeofthevan | Part 2 Explosive Boogaloo

1-100: Here

101: He’s always had an, uh, ‘excellent’ temperament with old women - starting from being forced to help out at Old Folks Homes to get him out of the Orphanage. 

102: He yells to show he cares. 

103: He also yells for the sake of it.

104: You have to constantly say his name if you want him to continue to be part of the conversation.

105: that’s why he so often repeatedly uses names, nicknames, a simple ‘son’ when speaking to people.

106: He assumes everyone’s just like him until proven otherwise.

107: Along with what I said earlier about him not being empathetic; he really isn’t able to visualize himself in someone elses shoes unless he’s been walked through, like, a specific a few times. 

108: He respects Miss Pauling the most out of everyone he knows. 

109: Smissmas and Thanksgiving are tied for his favorite holiday.

110: Jane really likes Halloween though, and isn’t a grump on Valentines day. 

111: <- Jane’s password for anything he owns that requires a password. More 1s if necessary.

112: When he’s thirsty he’ll go to the nearest form of water for hydration - catch him just drinking out of the bathroom sink - leaning up as he wipes his mouth, chirping, “Hello, private.”

113: He guzzles coffee like it’s fuel, but he has a very strict, No Caffeine after lunch protocol.

114: Decaff is for WIMPS.

115: Jane plays the trombone.

116: Subsequently, in most music, he appreciates and hums along with the bass parts.

117: Modern AU-Jane may be a Call of Duty fanboy, but he respects Halo for being another accurate depiction of life on the battlefront. 

118: Speaking of modern Jane, the Military didn’t accept him in the 80s either.

119: His love for the military lead him to believe for sure he’d be accepted he was the Perfect Patriot and his enlistment would be a surefire way to help fund his transition--

120: But of course, as strong as he had become he’d spent his youth very sick and with the possibility of the illness to return along with a terrible psyche eval and 80s typical transphobia that lane was firmly closed.

121: At least he had DOOM to fall back on. And he was physically strong enough to hold down jobs to at least pay for testosterone.

122: And then Call of Duty came out and he became an early era streamer. (Went viral as one of those guys who basically RPs being an actual soldier in the voice chat.)

123: BACK TO CANON JANE because those headcanons just.. plain, aren’t useless. canon jane doesn’t have to deal with transphobia. tch.

124: He’s not the best to have on your football team as menacing as he is. He’ll start tackling everybody. Running the wrong way. Trying to steal the ball from his teammates.

125: If you tell Jane something’s American after he criticizes it, watching him backtrack is really fun.

126: Jane doesn’t get sick often, which is good because he is insufferable. Either goes full isolation straight up outside somewhere. Or is whining to everyone and everyone how it’s not allowed that he can’t be burrowing somewhere outside.

127: His hands are always warm - if they’re cold he’s probably having an Episode of some sort. 

128: Rock and Roll helps his tinnitus, though he’ll still refer to it as Hippy Garbage. Like most music.

129: Jane could probably tapdance if given proper shoes. Mmm no, he’d stomp through the floor. Horse level clomping.

130: He’ll be the hype-man for anyone on his team.

131: Despite not being a fan of mint flavoring, he loves himself a candy-cane.

132: His thumb isn’t double jointed - seeing someone showing off their double jointed-ness would have Jane proclaiming magic was necessary.

133: LT. BITES lightning round!! Lt. Bites sees jane as its “General” 

134: It got the bite taken out of its ear fighting over sour cream - it won.

135: Jane doesn’t give any raccoons a higher rank than Bites.

136: Lt. Bites doesn’t crave human flesh or anything, but it likes the sensation of biting people!

137: Jane has tried to get his raccoon a job at RED.

138: You can tell when Jane is having a really good day on the battlefield because you’ll round the corner and there’s Naked Soldier.

139: He’s waxing poetry about the beauty of the Male Form, take it in you soft quivering maggots. 

140: I can’t get the image of Jane crowd surfing out of my head? That’s, like, his ideal dream for being recognized for his heroics. Medals and a mosh in his Honor.

141: Anytime he sees a Bald Eagle he entirely stops what he’s doing to place his left hand over his heart.

142: Jane loves The Art of War and is still awaiting Sun Tzu’s next book.

143: [ Alcohol ] Jane only sees ghosts when he’s starving, drunk, or suffering from a concussion. And it’s merely a way for such a boar minded guy to internalize what’s going on around him.

144: He can touch his toes keeping his knees straight.

145: Jane has minor ice-skating knowledge, as most growing up in the midwestern united states do. He’s not, good, though, he’s really intent on Taking Steps instead of gliding.

146: Put him in front of a piano and he’s holding out on finger and pressing down on one key at a time like an old man at a desktop keyboard.

147: Jane is ready to beat up your father. 

148: Especially if your dad is shitty, unleash good ol’ Solly on him.

149: While he favors picking his nose with his pinkies, neither of his pinkie pads have any feeling.That makes them a little less dexterous when the time comes.

150: He’s always aching to be active, his brain will take things literally if it means he’ll be doing something.

151: Rum pineapple juice and malibu caribou -- Er. He doesn’t like pineapple flavoring. Isn’t a fan of mixed drinks in general? 

152: He’s capable of staying out of the picture and not picking his nose, often times if things aren’t focused on him he’ll just sorta.. Stand out of the way playing with his hands - rifling through his pouches. Some times he’ll even, *gasp* pay attention. 

153: He really likes to but in with his opinion is the thing.

154: He’s an American and his ideals must be heard.

155: Merasmus out here having doing the most for Soldier, in helping him reintegrate back into society. You think he’s bonkers now?? Psh. You should’a seen him fresh home from Poland.

156: He’s shown up to Civil War reanactments with a real gun.

157: Jane is incapable of yawning silently.

158: Stairs are overrated.

159: Catch Jane with a lukewarm mug of water pouring coffee grinds directly into it and saying “Damn, that’s a fine cup of Joe.”

160: Only. 100 left? Sweet Joseph Wetnurse of Jesus He’s got dirty blond hair leaning toward brunette.

161: Any righteous death deserves a warrior’s burial - That’s why you’ll find Jane, helmet over heart, giving a stirring eulogy about the Toilet from the Men’s Restroom that Got Unearthed and Shattered By... Nobody In Particular. 

162: He will just join in large groups of people  - like protests? He’ll just fall in line and preach his own stuff which sometimes doesn’t exactly align with the group at large.

163: i asked myself, would jane pick someone else’s nose? Yes.

164: His hugs are always really warm.

165: He would notice his wallet being pickpocketed - unless it was replaced by something the same weight. He’s like a temple from Indiana Jones.

166: Mentally? Jane’s fine with being alone, but. That leads to him living in a box or a room straight out of that “Damn, bitch, you live like this?” comic.

167:  Despite deep cold being triggering to him (SEE HC, 67.), he loves snow-forts and hot chocolate because those are great American past-times.

168: next one is this post’s 69 brace yourselves! Jane’s never truly in silence, the constant whistling in his ears will see to that. That’s why sometimes, when it is quiet, you’ll catch Jane looking into space like he’s trying to see where the sound is coming from.

169: Important to note, he ain’t popping a boner any time he’s fighting nude. Or, really, fighting any time. Intent is really important for him. (If he gets all rubbed up on, though, Well,)

170: Jane is under the assumption that everything he comes up with is ingenious and people like Red Spy are holding society back by ignoring such wide plans.

171: He’s secretly soothed by everyone on his team’s voices.

172: First off, himself. He loves to hear himself talk. Mostly fueled by self-important intent, the tenor of his own voice also soothes his eardrums.

173: Pyro’s is muffled yet energetic - and never fails to get Jane pumped up.

174: Scout’s got that accent that is pure and simple, American. Soldier may not listen to half of what he says, but for background buzz and funny colloquialisms 

175: And, Engie's accent garners a whole other sort of American respect out of the Soldier. As far as soothing goes? Engie’s is like butter.

176: Soldier hate’s Heavy’s accent on principle, but below his American Stubbornness is a love for the deep, thoughtful symbols Heavy provides. Plus, y’know, he appreciates a fellow loud guy.

177: Demo’s voice makes Solly a happy man. It used to make him furious, an all Scottish accents did, but more recently it makes him feel nostalgic. 

178: Jane would swear up every mountain he can that there’s nothing positive to be found in Spy’s accent, but zoning out to such poised speech patterns and rounded vowels is a common occurrence. 

179: When Sniper gets that gravelly tone going on, when he takes things really seriously? Jane like that.

180: Jane can’t find it in him to be really put off by anything Medic says during surgery, so his voice only causes a feeling of safety throughout the Soldier. He can’t get enough of hearing Enthusiasm in the Medic’s voice.

181: He doesn’t believe the Police can arrest him because they aren’t the official Government.

182: He looks at a baby and is like “What animal is this?”

183: Big hands.. talented at giving massages.

184: BEWARE HIM BREAKING YOUR SPINE - just specify ‘and don’t kill me’!

185: Jane doesn’t gossip so much as, be around people who are gossiping which makes him want to make up some Hot Goss. Also, he’ll act like every rumor someone else shares is spoken truth.

186: Jane picked up finger guns from Scout. He either uses it constantly or doesn’t use it for weeks at a time.

187: He lifts, broskis.

188: Jane will talk about trucks because the Average American Male is expected to. He knows nothing about cars.

189: He’s an impulsive liar, so caught up in in his web of ‘things he says to impress people’ that he believes everything he says. So are the woes of being an adult with ADHD.

190: He goes between being smell-blind and having the scent skills of a bloodhound. It’s probably a mental thing, because there’s no in between, but Jane doesn’t know anything.

191: i’ve been working on these for 5 days at this point... i hope they’re appreciated JANE prefers..soft food. jane Does Not lov the cronch.

192: Which is what makes cashews his favorite nut. they’re soft-ish. and they have just enough crunch to not gross him out.

193: He loves immediate gratification. 

194: Beyond joining the Military? Jane’s never had a solid plan for his future. Lives too in the moment. 

195: As long as he’s having fun, Jane’s a pretty content guy.

196: Any artistic skills he may have once had go into making Maps for war planning sessions.

197: He’ll fall victim to Sleep Paralysis occasionally and, once able to move, will spend the rest of the day curing ghosts and Merasmus’ magic.

198: He was SUPER into Howdie Doodie Time in his youth, and being put in front of any reruns will have him basically hypnotized into silence.

199: He’s proud of his ass.

200: Jane can keep marching pace for hours at a time. And if he’s not lugging around his rocket launcher he can keep marching for an entire day no pausing. 

201: Jane isn’t shy about telling jokes, because he believes everyone has the same sense of humor as him.

202: He knows karate but refuses to use his knowledge because it is not an American Form. He will stick to brute strength and loud yelling thank you very much.

203: He’s the type to state every time he’s going to use the bathroom. Like, people can be having a serious conversation and hes like, “I am going to take a shit now!”

204: Jane’ll go a week without washing his hair, but he always brushes his teeth two times a day.

205: He gives a damn good kiss.

206: All Human Nudity is safe for work. As it was God’s Intention to make people strongest when not held back by fabric.

207: All he wants is recognition.... for his good deeds...

208: He’ll have staring contests with the Sun. He’s yet to win, but that damn star shouldn’t get too comfortable.

209: Much like his pinkies, his feet have been crushed, blown up, and bruised so many times that he doesn’t have much feeling in them either.

210: He’s never washed his bellybutton.

211: He prefers savory to sweet, but he prefers sweet to sour.

212: Half assing is not in Jane’s vocabulary.

213: His brain will get stuck on simple Math - like, he tries his best to figure it out, it’s just.... Numbers..... they are a construct. And so he’ll end up pondering what 5+7 is for, like, 5 minutes.

214: Jane is constantly torn between wanting to be a Figure of Authority and also being a man born in the trenches following orders.

215: Have I mentioned lately Jane fucks? 

216: Jane’s room is sparsely decorated, but it’s only because he’s not materialistic and doesn’t generally receive gifts.

217: He’s more than willing to strip Right This Moment and fight something.

218: Jane’s not afraid to call other people losers.

219: He crops his own hair once a week. Same day he’ll do his wash.

220: Jane’s stubble grows in really fast, but he can’t deny the feeling of having a freshly shaved jaw is amazing.

221: If a teammate is struggling emotionally..... Jane walks away.

222: If they’re struggling again, /then/ Jane will give them some uncalled for American Advice. Like, meaningfully yelling “GET OVER IT, YOU SLOBBERING FOOL.”

223: He has a very, very high pain threshold. 

224: He accidentally walks into walls all the time.

225: He can’t magically see through his helmet - he just knows everyone’s feet super well.

226: It’s good that Lt. Bites is a wild, self sufficient animal because Jane is terrible at pet care. And child care. And any sort of care.

227: On the very rare occasions Jane gets overwhelmed with depression he’s a shadow of his former self questioning the sanctity of American Ideals and wondering aloud if War really is the answer to his problems.

228: Next day he’ll be fine and forget he was ever upset.

229: He’s never gotten a real back massage before, if he were to get one he’d probably literally melt? Some women he’s slept with liked to say sensually ‘oh what a big tense man you are’ and, like, weakly rub his back. they didn’t get paid to fix this man’s back muscles LMAO

230: Any backwards period-typical beliefs about women went out the window upon meeting Miss Pauling.

231: His love for America is truly as pure as it gets.

232: Jane’s pretty xenophobic, but he can learn better, I’m sure. he’s gotten his ass kicked for being ignorantly racist and he grew to be a better person.

233: He takes really well to learning things through violence, the only issue is.. dealing with Soldier Being Violent.

234: There’s nothing a fist to the face won’t fix.

235: He’s not much of a napper, his brain being far too active to let him rest during daylight hours.

236: He’s constantly moving, even in sleep.

237: Hell, give him a few hours after being knocked unconscious and he’ll start wiggling something around.

238: He doesn’t stop to smell the flowers, because if they wanted to be smelled they’d approach him.

239: He believes in the good of all humans, it’s just buried down past his Fight Everyone radar.

240: He only likes musicals about fighting Hitler.

241: His biggest regret is not punching Hitler.

242: He does not fear death, he does not fear punishment. He lives for his ideals and if he’s taken down believing in himself? Then that’s okay.

243: Jane needs deodorant reminders.

244: He takes personally being betrayed as people betraying the country of America.

245: (oh shit i slacked off it’s been like two days since i wrote something, Who Is Soldier?) CEREAL THEN MILK, MAGGOTS

246: Jane doesn’t know the word migraine so he really can’t describe how he feels.

247: Look, he loves his friends, he loves his guns, but he’s stingy with the word.. Love because that’s what he feels for America and the country will always be number one.....

248: Jane’s not too partial to sarcasm outside of combat, but it’ll find it’s way into his speech. His tone is usually hammed up to signify he’s joking around or being cruel.

249: He’s like a cartoon character, he can only understand sarcasm if it’s Funny to at the moment.

250: Jane likes his hair being pet.

251: He likes his hands being played with as much as he likes playing with other people’s hands. (A lot.)

252: He loves dogs, but is more of a cat person. Dogs and him just echo energy and HYPE feelings back and forth at each other until they pass out and then Jane feels more emotionally exhausted than hanging out with people.

253: The weirdest parts of rom-coms make him cry. 

254: He appreciates a good non-american explosion, but he has his preferences. 

255: You show Jane genuine kindness and interest and he’s like, Yours. Jane vc: Are you the vice-president?

256: If he were to have a reptile for a sidekick instead of a raccoon, he would have a turtle.

257: He can be delicate when he needs to be, but cracking eggs is a different story.

258: While not too partial to sugary beverages - he has a figure to maintain, root beer and ginger ale are his go-tos.

259: He can appreciate a salad! Jane Doe will eat his greens!!!!

260: Soldier has no tattoos, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be open to getting any. Just never crossed his mind.

SWEET SPIRIT OF JOE BIDEN AM I FINISHED?

thank you,... for reading my garbled thoughts.. for respecting The Soldier... and for being a creative individual. But mostly the respecting Soldier thing.

[amesswithapen]

The Black Cat

The house stood small and slouching in the forgotten garden, with time-stricken walls and buckled carpentry against the shiny residential complex and its construction noises. The narrow walkway paved with river stone had been taken over by weeds long ago, and the rusty fence, mended here and there, did a steady job in keeping foes, as well as friends at a distance. A rose bush alone, tended for and in full bloom, confirmed a living soul still haunted the dying house.

An old man, white hair in disarray and sunken eyes, was leaning on the kitchen sink, water making its way through a babel tower of plates and bowls and pots and pans. He reached for a fork and a plate in the sink and, after a quick wash, he turned last night’s leftovers into some kind of lunch. He made his way through the dimly lit house, with only the creaks of the wooden floors as company, stopping for a breath or two in front of a framed photo of a young couple in tones of sepia and happiness. His slender fingers caressed the frame, then wiped away a solitary tear. The plate in his left hand shook with the weight of solitude.

The living room looked deserted under undisturbed layers of dust and the grayed sheets protecting skeletons of muted furniture. Only the couch was still visible, worn-out and cluttered with pillows and a blanket, faded and threadbare. Big enough for eight, the living room table was hidden under a pile of crumbs and only one chair kept it company.

The long screech of the gate made the old man frown, tears and lunch caught in his throat. Soon a skinny silhouette taunted the soft pour of the midday sun through the garden side window.

“Hey, gramps!” the boy greeted, somewhat cautious. He fumbled with a plastic bag, then stepped out of his shoes by the door and into the living room.

“Told you I don’t need anything,” the hoarse voice answered, replacing the tired sound of fork on plate.

“It’s nothing, really, and some dinner. Mom said to tell you it’s Sunday tomorrow, in case you’re tempted to make plans without us.”

“As if you’d let me forget…”

“What was that? Happy to join us, you say?” the kid went on with the banter, scratching himself ungainly behind one knee. “Don’t give me that look, it’s the stupid nettle. And your gate almost killed me, you know, when it finally opened…”

“Yet here you are, yapping away my peace…”

“I take after you, that’s what mom says when I’m driving her bonkers… Twice a day and then at noon…”

“Twice a day and then at noon…” the grandfather mumbled softly, half a breath behind the kid. He was now looking up from under his bushy eyebrows to the spitting image of his younger self, all legs and smug. “Go on, get out of here, let me be already!”

Hands clasped in his lap, eyes watery again, the old man followed the lanky boy through the open window.

“Gramps,” the kid yelled back from the garden, with a grin, “there’s a cat under your rose bush. Looks like it didn’t get the memo.”

“That makes two of you,” he answered, under his breath, getting up with a groan, but looking like a man with a plan. Walking stick in hand, he went straight to the cat, all curled up and lazy in the shade. He was shooing and waving his hands and stomping his good leg to send the uninvited guest away. The cat heeded him not, slumber undisturbed, but for the white flower flies catching in the lush black fur.

“I look like an idiot to you, don’t I? Here you are, barging into my house, into my life, clueless and all entitled. This doesn’t end here, you hear me?” But the cat didn’t hear and didn’t seem to care either.

“I’ll let you to it, then, and we’ll see you tomorrow. Bring candy and your best self,” the kid waved over the fence with a mischievous wink.

 Sunday family lunches used to be the highlight of the week, full of stories and laughter and not one, not two, but three types of dessert. French toast, the old man’s favorite, to be savored with a pinch of salt before or crunchy brown sugar after, always ruled over everything from the white platter with golden dandelions on the rim. The spring past, the six of them turned to five, daughter and husband, the smart-ass teen and his sunny haired younger sister, the widower and an empty chair. And now he had to look his best and put on a smile big enough to thwart any significant questions and to reassure them he was fine, of course, as fine as he could be and no, he didn’t need anything, anything at all. He had  never been a good actor, though, and small talk kept getting smaller and awkward silences longer. From starter to chocolate cake, the passing of heaped plates around was met with a heartbeat skipped whenever he turned first to his right, where she used to sit, all smiles and joy, for the better part of the last five decades. French toast would never taste the same again and that made him even sadder.

And now there was the business of the damned black cat, who bugged him beyond measure, to the obvious amusement of everybody around. Every Sunday, for the last three or four or them, he would show up covered in black long hairs, with the purring machine sound asleep under his arm, oblivious to the uncomfortable position, the welcoming giggles of the little girl or the calling of princess-inspired names, every time a new one. It would walk around for a bit, stretch, indulge in some scratching between the ears, maybe order some food. Then it would curl on the sofa or under the TV table for another well deserved nap. Lunch would end, goodbyes would be exchanged and the cat left behind, only to find it on his door step on Monday, 7 am sharp, sharpening its claws on the old wooden frame or sprawled in the sun, as if it owned the whole garden, hell, the entire world.

He thought that putting a good half an hour walk between him and the monster would be enough, but it looked like he met his match and the creature kept showing up. During the week, he would do his best trying to gift his unwanted housemate to one of the neighbors, praising its spotless fur or its quiet step. It was the most he had spoken in the last year or so, and he started getting tired of all the socializing, so he moved on to guerrilla tactics. He took it to the curb and tried sneaking away, but he found it waiting by the rusty gate when he got back and his limp almost disappeared in utter annoyance. He tried ignoring it, scolding it, shaming it for being ignorant of good visiting manners, so unlike the elegant cat that it was. Nothing worked. The days went by and the cat was still there, entangling itself between the old man’s legs, reaching for a pat, napping on the couch, wagging its tail every time a fork touched a plate. He was adamant to rid himself of the nuisance shedding fur all over the place, but in the meantime a bowl appeared by the foot of the living room table and fresh water filled the plastic cup on the porch every morning, it was the polite thing to do. Pats became more frequent and he would find himself with the cat on his lap, stroking the long fur, like she would have, tears gathering in the corner of his eyes.

Then, one morning, he got up to find the damned cat sleeping, without a care in the world, on her very chair on the porch. Her garden apron was on the floor and the cat was dangling its tail, insensitive and insolent and lazy in the morning sun. She used to love to sit on that chair, in that exact spot, when the sun shone just so, before the buzz of the day started. It was the final straw. Without a second thought, he grabbed the animal and headed out.

He knocked three times, loud and outraged. Before his daughter could greet him in surprise, she found herself holding the cat under a breathless tirade.

“It was fun but no it’s done. Keep the damn cat this time, will you? That’s all I need from you. Not food, not phone calls every morning, noon and evening, not mending my fence or meddling in my business. Just keep the damn cat away from me. How hard can that be, huh?”

“We can’t very well keep it tied, can we?” she managed to babble, but he wasn’t listening.

“I don’t want to see it again, you hear me? Keep it or I’ll do away with it!” By the time these words flew out of his mouth, he caught the look on his granddaughter’s face. Ashamed and silent, he turned around and walked away.

 Days passed, and there was no sign of the black menace around the garden, in the shade of the rose bush, under the couch where the afternoons flowed cooler. The old man paced the length of the walkway, again and again, pulling nettle here and there, to look over the crouched fence, just to go back to the porch and sit on the chair on the left side of the small table, with his gaze lost in immeasurable distance. In a feat of inspiration, he went through the boxes lined up on the porch, from where the little bugger dragged out some scraps of fabric and the old roll of fishing wire, no scratching paw met his hand. Day after day, he kept doing his rounds, from the porch to the gate and back, pulling weeds as a cover, when all he wanted was to look deep into the street and see the damned cat coming back. He wanted to know it was safe, of course.

On Sunday morning, he woke up early, tidied the porch, folded the apron the other way around. He emptied the plastic cup and threw away the dried cat food catching flies. Running his fingers through his unruly hair, eyes filled with regret, he arrived at the family lunch half an hour early. The little girl welcomed him, excited to get a visit from the cat and her weekly supply of candy. The news that the cat wasn’t with them either worried the old man. He wanted it gone, not run over or injured in a ditch somewhere.

The lunch was more despondent than ever, the black cat was yet another matter to tiptoe around. The old man kept sneaking looks at the couch, thinking that nobody would notice, but no sign of the cat. Once dessert was out of the way, he took his doggy bag without a comment and headed home, with long strides and a bit a hope, but in vain.

The garden was silent in the afternoon sun, with the walkway now cleared of weeds leading the way to the tiny porch. The old man was sitting in his chair, hands in his lap, lost in deep thought, when the silence broke. The gate squeaked open and the four-legged patch of fur glided in. It reached the porch in several elegant steps and rubbed against the tired, waiting legs.

“Where have you been, you rascal?” His face lighted up with unashamed joy. “That’s quite an entrance you made there, who taught you to use the gate? Hungry? You look like you could use some food. Here, I’ll give you some of my French toast, it’s good. But we have to go get you some real cat food.”

Grunting with old age, but eyes smiling, the old man poured fresh water in the cup and, with a renewed spring in his step, he headed for the gate. “I have to get this oiled, if you’re all mannered now, you’ll drive me crazy with the squeaking.”

Pleased with the late lunch, the cat circled the table a couple of times, negotiating a nap.

“Not on her chair, you stinker!”, the old man shouted over his shoulder, while the cat made itself comfortable on the chair on the right. “Pfff, pardon me for calling you well-mannered. I guess Rascal it is, and you’d better answer when I call you.”

[anexplanationofunfortunateevents]

Misinformation and Disinformation 101

To illustrate the distinction between misinformation and disinformation, we’ll use the late, great Roger Ebert’s opinion of The Hangover, Part II. In reality, Ebert gave this movie two stars and included the review in A Horrible Experience of Unbearable Length: More Movies That Suck. 

Misinformation: In passing conversation, your friend says, “Roger Ebert loved The Hangover, Part II.” This isn’t correct, so it’s misinformation. This doesn’t tell you anything about intention, though. Your friend could have confused one Ebert review with another, or be repeating something that they heard from what they thought was a reliable source.

Disinformation: Warner Brothers puts this out as a press statement:

Critics loved The Hangover, Part II! Here’s Roger Ebert:

“'The Hangover, Part II' plays like a challenge to the audience's capacity for raunchiness. It gets laughs …..There's a wedding toast that deserves some sort of award for deliberate social embarrassment….I wonder if there will be an unrated director's cut. The sequel repeats the...miracle of the first film...”

This is grossly disingenuous, even if there’s nothing you can point to as an outright “up is down” untruth. Did “critics” love The Hangover, Part II? Well, in the whole universe of critics who may or may not have seen the movie, you could probably find two or more of them who enjoyed it; in any event, you can’t prove a negative. It implies – but does not outright state – that Roger Ebert is representative of those hypothetical critics who loved the movie, even though he did not. And the quotes attributed to him do, in fact, appear in the review. Unlike your friend’s statement, there’s no question about the intent here: cherry-picking lines from the review requires reading the review, and the review is unambiguously critical of the movie. It’s a lie spun out of facts.

But the point of a press release isn’t to persuade you. It’s to communicate with the press. So now imagine that instead of your friend saying “Roger Ebert loved this movie,” it’s a writer in the arts section in your local paper, who saw the Warner Brothers press release but didn’t bother checking the original review. They didn’t consciously mean to deceive, but they were grossly negligent: someone who writes about the arts would be familiar enough with Ebert’s opinions that this claim should’ve smelled off, but they didn’t bother to check it out, despite how easy it is to find the original review. Their intentions wouldn’t matter to the impact they’d have on your decision if you picked this to watch on movie night. Now you’re annoyed and disappointed, because you spent time and money on something that was supposed to be more fun than it was.

Now imagine that Warner Brothers does this with every movie it puts out, and your local paper falls for it every time. Unless you’re a movie buff, you probably don’t care enough about who produces movies to notice a pattern in which reviews are credible. You just go to the movie that sounds best – and a movie that’s dishonestly but enthusiastically sold is going to sound more enticing than a good movie that a studio wanted to advertise accurately without giving away the plot. You’re going to be disappointed with the next few movies you see. You’re not going to bother with movie reviews generally, since the ones you’ve seen didn’t match your experience. You’re going to start thinking, quite unfairly, that Roger Ebert is overrated. You might like movies less overall, because you’re disproportionately seeing crappy ones, or you might just develop a taste for bad ones.

That is a disinformation campaign.

(To be clear: you’d also refer to classic double agent stuff as “disinformation,” and that kind of tactic, while sneaky, isn’t necessarily sinister. I’m going to focus on how a disinformation campaign against the public works because that’s what you need to know. If you’re someone who needs to know about spy-vs-spy disinformation tactics, you’re learning about them from people who are way above my pay grade.)

This is closely related to the phenomenon people were trying to define as “fake news” until the Trumpers did their Orwellian jujitsu and started defining “fake news” as “accurate reporting that makes Trump look especially bad.” Disinformation can include misinformation, but doesn’t necessarily depend on it. The more verifiable facts disinformation includes, the more effective it can be. If you try to fact-check one storyline of a disinformation campaign and parts of it are verified, this might get you to assume that the rest of it is true – or it might make you doubt the credibility of the resources which seem to corroborate some aspects of the overall fishy story. Some specific lies attempt to convince people of something favorable to the perpetrators’ interests, but that’s tactical and sometimes even incidental. The overall strategic objective of a disinformation campaign against the public is to make people give up on trying to know the truth. Basically, it’s mass-produced gaslighting.

A disinformation campaign is insidious for reasons that are obvious, and for reasons that are not. It’s relatively straightforward that someone might read an incorrect article and come away with an incorrect understanding of the facts. More elusive, though, is the way in which it can control the background noise until it distorts the way large groups of people understand the world around them. Background noise matters. Imagine if you went to a yoga class and there are a couple of people in the back row making obnoxious comments and snickering the whole time. You probably wouldn’t hear every judgy thing that they said. But you’d hear enough to know that they were being mean, and even when you don’t know exactly what they’re saying you wouldn’t be able to forget that they’re there.

You don’t have to purchase a copy of the National Enquirer and read it cover-to-cover in order to be affected by their pro-Trump bias. In fact, actually reading it might mess with your perception less in some ways, because it would be hard to miss how bonkers it is. They’re still sitting right in the corner of your eye whenever you’re standing in line at the grocery store, blaring “HILLARY [MISOGYNISTIC TROPE] SHOCKER!!!” headlines that prime your subconscious to absorb a certain narrative.

And that’s just about the paper, which has to be printed, shipped, and stocked. Now think about what can happen on your Facebook feed. The internet didn’t create this problem, but it did allow disinformation tactics to become exponentially more effective.

“Disinformation” is a relatively new word in the English language. It’s a 1980s Anglicization of a Russian word, transliterated as dezinformatsiya, which describes the Big Brother-style head trips perpetrated by the Soviet Union’s intelligence agency (the KGB, now called the FSB). If you see the Russian word, or “deza” for short, used in conversation about current events, it usually means that the person wants to emphasize specifically the Russian intervention into American politics and to contextualize it with the similar ongoing assaults on European democracies.  

That isn’t to say the Russians are the only perpetrators of disinformation campaigns. Climate change denialism is another example of a dangerously successful disinformation campaign.

There are people with a lot more expertise who are thinking about how to deal with this, but my personal approach has been to take another page from the Russians’ book: trust, but verify. It’s as important to think critically about every allegation you see online as it is to retain your ability to believe things that do hold up logically. Prepare yourself to accept things that are shocking, but don’t actually believe them until you see them in a couple of reliable sources. Be skeptical, but not denialist. Easier said than done, of course, but being conscientious enough to make the effort will put you ahead of a lot of pros.

That’s the basic concept, which understandably gets buried in the jumbled and still largely unknown narrative of the hacking of the 2016 election. Understanding the process that’s one of the major through-lines is helpful.

Further Reading

Deeper dive: a couple of articles which were written before 2016, so they’re not shaped by the specific conversation we’re having now.

Russia and the Menace of Unreality

The Kremlin’s Troll Army

Down the rabbit hole: Tons of books about this, but I do want to specifically recommend The Plot to Hack America by Malcolm Nance, which was written in early 2016 and turned out to be uncannily prescient. It’s written by a former spy for the general population, so it walks you through how all this was accomplished and clarifies a lot of the language and shorthand you’ll hear from people who are talking about the issue.

[junker-town]

The Georgia Dome got the farewell it deserved

Monster Jam was the last memorable event in a stadium that begged to be forgotten.

Monster Jam fills up enough of the Georgia Dome — most of the bottom bowl, and a good chunk of the mezzanines and upper deck. There is competition in town — but there also probably isn’t a lot of Sunday night overlap between the monster truck crowd and the people across town at Georgia Tech’s Bobby Dodd Stadium watching Atlanta United lose its first game ever to New York Red Bulls.

There are mostly dads, myself included, towing kids there with the promise of monster trucks and multiple concession stand runs.

One of these runs: for a $20 Monster Jam official Grave Digger sno-cone with commemorative Grave Digger cup with molded grinning skeleton face and flashing lights triggered via a button in its plastic forehead. I bought it; one $15 commemorative non-truck-specific Monster Jam sno-cone; a $15 pair of headphones/ear protectors, with rubber tires mounted around the ear cups for one child; a $20 pair of less-elaborate ear protection for the other kid, who could not be persuaded to get the cheaper ones because, “I need different daddy”; at least $30 worth of bribes in the form of food and drink to keep them in the stands for half the show; $0 in alcohol, somehow, because two children at a monster truck show keep you so busy and running that you cannot find the time to get drunk enough to deal with the children.

While waiting, a towheaded 3-year-old behind us pointed to the beer man selling $12 oil cans of Busch Light.

“Daddy, you could get a beer.”

“You know Daddy only drinks crown.”

The Omni

The first thing I can remember about going to a live sports event involves DeBarge, and the memory is wrong. Wrong may not be the right word, actually. Better put, I misremembered because I was probably 6 years old, and 6-year-olds can’t be counted on to provide accurate testimony in a court of law or in a recollection involving the Atlanta Hawks and Philadelphia 76ers.

My dad took me to a Hawks game at the Omni. The Omni was the least-lovable building ever constructed, a black cube with tented pyramids of black sheet metal jutting from the roof, weird angular corner windows, and the street presence of a giant, menacing blast furnace. I thought it looked cool because it reminded me of the doomed spaceship in Disney’s The Black Hole. Kids have bad memories and deplorable taste in architecture.

The Omni was built to rust, to be an uncherished memory before it ever happened.

The first claim there is literal. By rusting, the steel elements of the building would become even more fused to each other. In its later years, it started to look like an overturned running shoe or waffle iron left outside to the elements. The designers reportedly did not factor in Atlanta’s subtropical climate, and the Omni kept rusting and rusting until the entire building had an incurable form of architectural arthritis. Holes appeared in the building’s frame, holes big enough for people to pass through without tickets or permission. Rather than fix the gaping holes in the building designed to rust in one of the United States’ most humid places, management instead put up chain-link fences along them.

The second claim, that the Omni was designed to be an uncherished memory, is a guess. The Hawks played there either way. My dad drove me down into the city with the radio on — never the rock station, but always the R&B station with Switch, Brick, Earth, Wind & Fire, The Gap Band, Roger and Zapp, or Kool and the Gang on. I knew the Hawks had a player named “Tree Rollins.” This was enough all by itself, but I would also get to go to Burger King for a kids meal, which, for a kid who was avowedly not into sports, was a low, low bribe bar to clear.

Tree Rollins totally looked like someone named Tree. I remember the Omni very much looking like the inside of a doomed spaceship, and that everyone was very excited that someone called Dr. J was there, even though he was evidently some off-brand version of Dr. J not equal to a previous version. There were men there with giant Jheri curls and Magnum, P.I. sunglasses and mustaches indicating that they were serious, wealthy, and just dangerous enough to wear a mustache. I remember the hair across all races and genders being massive and more carefully constructed than the arena they were standing in; I remember being one of the few kids in the building, and thinking that maybe, sometimes, my dad might just be taking me to stuff he liked in order to get out of the house and have a few too many beers by himself.

Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

On the way home, I remember passing the few super-distinct pieces of the Atlanta skyline: the Peachtree Westin that Dar Robinson jumped out of for a Burt Reynolds stunt, the UFO-shaped alien cake of Fulton County Stadium where the Braves played and where my dad would later take us to sit in empty seats and pick up fiendish sunburns, the Georgia Capital that always seemed completely out of place in all that retro-futurism and brutalist forestry around it. That’s the kind of place Atlanta was and still is — a place where the past is what seems unnecessary, not the future.

The music had changed. My dad drove in silence and smoked Vantage cigarettes with the window cracked even though it was winter, I think, and cold enough to have the heat cranking. It was Quiet Storm time on the radio, and that meant Jeffrey Osborne, Marvin Gaye, Rita Coolidge, and Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder, Teddy Pendergrass. DeBarge’s “All This Love” came on and the nylon string guitar solo played and I looked up and thought how the streetlights were on but still looked so dark against the streets and the houses of what I now know was a decimated Techwood.

I’m pretty sure since that song came out in 1982 that we’d already moved to Tennessee by then, but at a certain point emotional memories are immune to fact-checking. The fadeout and ride in the song is endless over the background singers going say you really love me baby/ say you really love me darling/for I really love you baby/sure enough love you darlin’

At the Georgia Dome, there is some of exactly what you think should be at a Monster Jam show in the South.

There was, for example, a terrifying man in the sleeveless Confederate flag shirt eight rows below our seats. I asked him if he knew where I could get ear protection before the race. He looked at me for about five seconds before responding because he:

comes from someplace where there is a daily quota on words for interpersonal communication

thought I was a godless bearded urbanite hitting on him

or was very drunk and hearing me talking on a built-in beer-induced tape delay.

I hope he was drunk, and also that he thought I was hitting on him.

The trucks have names ranging from the super-uninspiring and corporate — the FS1 Cleatus Truck! the Team Hot Wheels Firestorm! — to the classic and menacing (Bounty Hunter and El Toro Loco). There is a truck called Obsession and its unimaginatively named partner, Obsessed. One is called Ice Cream Man, easily the least-intimidating monster truck of all time because it comes out to tinkly ice cream van chimes, or the most unsettling because it plays a song synonymous with the sketchiest non-related regular cast member of most people’s childhoods — the neighborhood ice cream man who might have lived in the van he worked in.

There is a Monster Energy truck with green neon lights built into the undercarriage. I am here to report against my will that it looks absolutely and positively sick. It is called “the Monster Energy Truck” because there are two good monster truck names in the universe, and both are taken. (Grave Digger and Bigfoot, to be specific.)

The anthem is sung while a bald eagle flaps in slow motion on the end-zone video boards.

The Georgia Dome was built in 1992, and it will be imploded in the summer of 2017. It will never see its 30th birthday, and it will not be missed because it, too, was built to be forgotten. The last event in the dome will be Monster Jam. If you are from outside of the state, you will think it is appropriate because LOL REDNECKS; if you are from here, you will probably also think it is appropriate because LOL REDNECKS, but will get mad when anyone else says it.

For the record, the Dome didn’t even try to be interesting on the level of the Omni or Fulton County Stadium. It was fine but unmemorable as something you drove past, sat in, or saw in shots of the city skyline. Take a hotel bathtub, preferably one of the cheap ones, too shallow to do anything in but sit unhappily for five minutes before giving up and draining the water. Cover it with a large golf umbrella blown inside out by the wind. Solder the two together. Paint it first teal and maroon, because someone in 1991 thought putting the bedroom color scheme from a Florida vacation rental on the outside of a stadium in Atlanta was a good idea.

When you remember the Atlanta Falcons play football there, paint it in a new scheme with red and black in it to remind everyone of their existence. Don’t do this until 16 years after you open the stadium, and only nine years before its eventual demolition.

Photo by Doug Benc/Getty Images

Monster Jam is the last event here. Other things happened before that. The Atlanta Falcons played mostly forgettable football here, unless you take out the Vick years, which you might want to given how they ended. If there were some way to keep the part where all the mostly African-American fans in the upper deck went bonkers the minute they started playing “Bring ’Em Out” for those teams, you should do that. That may be the most excited single concentration of minutes you could salvage from the team’s history at the Georgia Dome: Before the team played, but after they remembered they were going to watch the fastest player in the NFL touch the ball on every play. This is a happy memory. There aren’t a lot of those there.

It hosted a lot of college football, including the annual SEC Championship game. Tim Tebow cried on the sideline there after Alabama clipped Florida’s undefeated streak short in 2009; Les Miles in 2007 used his backup quarterback to win an SEC title there, and then a national title LSU somehow got with two losses later in New Orleans. Before that game he hustled every reporter in reach to a press conference where he denied Kirk Herbstreit’s report that he was going to take the Michigan job, and then with his chest at full inflation demanded that the room “have a great day.” I was there for that and, yes, it was just as confusing in person as it was on television.

Photo by A. Messerschmidt/Getty Images

LSU coach Les Miles after defeating the University of Miami, 40-3, in the 2005 Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl.

There was Wrestlemania in 2011, when the Rock returned and I nearly flipped my laptop off a table when the glass broke and Stone Cold Steve Austin ripped down the entry ramp on an ATV like the Pope of All Shitkicking Rednecks. In 1994, Deion Sanders and Andre Rison punched each other while wearing helmets in fight during a football game, an event that easily clears the hurdle to being one of the top 25 most memorable moments in Atlanta history, and was also incredibly dumb. Those two circles overlap a lot here.

There were two Super Bowls in the Dome. The first was a forgettable one in 1994 where the Cowboys beat the Bills. This beating was different from the seven other Bills/Cowboys Super Bowls in the 1990s because the pregame show featured Kriss Kross, Charlie Daniels, the Georgia Satellites, and the Morehouse Marching Band doing a tribute to “Georgia Music Makers.” Charlie Daniels is from North Carolina but did a song about an unenforceable contract between the Devil and a mentally ill violin player, so by any standard he counted.

The second is best remembered for an unseasonably brutal ice storm and Ray Lewis picking up two murder charges from the Fulton County District Attorney after a very bad night out on the town with his friends. The Tennessee Titans came up a yard short in Atlanta, but most Nashville things measured in Atlanta terms fail by much, much more than that. Feel better thinking about it in those terms, Nashville.

There was also the time the tornado struck the Georgia Dome while I was inside it during the 2008 SEC basketball tournament, rippling the ceiling like water and throwing the scoreboard around like a weight on a fishing lure. That happened, too.

Other than all that, there’s not much else. Monster Jam will close out the building’s life, if you like to anthropomorphize a stadium no one ever thought to give a personality or memory. The seats will be auctioned off or sold to high schools for repurposing. The innards will be sold in stages, right down to a yard sale of whatever’s left in the building getting gutted and gaveled out right on the sidewalk outside the Dome on Northside Drive.

Sometime during the summer it will be imploded and become a parking lot for the new stadium. It’s a corporate-sponsored metallic oculus someone will probably remember as looking like a very old future. The Falcons and Atlanta United will call it home, and the Georgia Dome will be gone and not mourned. That’s fine, and I don’t want you to think for a second it isn’t. Some things are built to be forgotten, and the Georgia Dome is one of them.

Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images

The trucks spend the first half of the show racing by pairs in heats. They can sort of drift a corner — sort of, as much as a 10,000-pound truck can slide on dirt. The drivers don’t hammer the gas so much as they get up to speed, and then feather the throttle to keep the trucks moving with careful blasts of the engine. It’s like watching extremely short rallycross races run by farting whales in track shoes.

Finishing fast is interesting. Finishing sideways doing something reckless and badass is better, but finishing first and flying sideways across the finish line is best. This is particularly true if you can roll the truck over, hit the throttle, catch one enormous tire in the dirt on the end of the roll, and flip the entire vehicle back onto all four tires for a save, a round of WOOOOS and applause, and a pass to the next round of racing.

This happens twice in the racing segment of the show, which is two more times than anyone should be able to pull that off in the aforementioned 10,000-pound trucks. Grave Digger sacrificed itself for the crowd’s pleasure early — it hit a massive jump while trying to speed across the finish line, bouncing sideways, blowing out one enormous tire and a mess of important-looking metal stuff in the chassis on impact, and then rolling to stop on its ceiling while soaking up the applause. Grave Digger left the arena with three good wheels, one completely destroyed tire, and the limp of a champion who’d given their all. If I had been drinking, I might have teared up a little.

The second half is the freestyle, the more entertaining part where Monster Jam ditches the entire concept of racing, and just lets drivers try to tear apart their cars for the crowd. The drivers have two minutes to run through their routine. The most popular runs don’t even make it that long, though. They end abruptly and satisfactorily when the driver rolls their truck onto its roof off an ill-advised but spectacular jump, breaks an axle or blows out a tire, or cripples the thing trying to land a backflip.

The Monster Energy truck — the one with the absolutely sick neon — whipped itself around during the freestyle event with such force that its flimsy body panels sheared off in every direction. One truck just did donuts for the last 20 seconds of their routine. If a monster truck rips donuts on dirt, there is an involuntary response from the body. “WOOOOOOOO” leaps from the diaphragm. You can’t fight it, and wouldn’t want to if you could.

The MCs yell out this or something like it repeatedly.

“DOIN’ IT ONE LAST TIME FOR THE GEORGIA DOME.”

It doesn’t have much effect, not even when a local DJ yells it out during a bike race between three audience members racing on children’s bikes. But then, the Georgia Dome is used to quiet echoing off its cavernous walls, or having fan noise piped in to ricochet between its empty seats. There is nothing more to give from this afternoon’s audience, for one: Being at Monster Jam is getting blasted in the face for three hours with engine noise, and then coated with a gentle drizzle of dirt floating down between runs. Maximum audience participation is clapping and yelling just loudly enough to be heard over engines that burn a gallon of fuel a minute. There is no 11, or giving it up any harder than one is already giving it up.

Very few people seemed to realize this was the end, or at least attached any significance to it, or cared whether anyone would begin gutting the building the instant the last earth-mover carried out the dirt.

We had to leave three trucks into the freestyle when both of their attention spans wore out, and were unrecoverable. We left before the Georgia Dome paid one last tribute to itself: A grease fire broke out in a concession stand, which was quickly put out only after filling a concourse with smoke and scaring the hell out of a few patrons. Remember that on the way out: that the building tried to save everyone the trouble of demolition by burning itself down.

Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images

A tear in the ceiling of the Georgia Dome is visible after severe weather passed over the building during the SEC Men's Basketball Tournament on March 14, 2008.

Walking out with my kids, they were about the same age I was when I left the Omni with my dad at the Omni in 1982, or 1983, or whenever it was in fuzzy kid-time. They saw the new stadium next door and thought it looked pretty much like a spaceship, or like someplace where Skylanders would live.

That is exactly what the Omni and Fulton County Stadium looked like to me as a kid —so much so that later, when my dad and another dad would awkwardly hang out for the benefit of their sons’ juvenile need to socialize with other dudes, my friend Jim and I would sit in the backseat as they drove and point out the buildings we would own in the future. He’d take the Westin, and keep all his Legos there. I’d take Fulton County Stadium, and reserve it exclusively for my collection of helicopters. A city was a place to be had, a thing to be purchased for your convenience.

Kids, weirdly enough, understand that a city is just something to be bought and sold.

Later, weirder, less-tenable ideas creep into your head: That it could be home, that the buildings you can name mean something beyond the names, that there might be some kind of resonant harmony between you and this random system of properties and spaces. Sometime someone might superimpose a sports team into that imaginary relationship, making this city not just a place, but a place for you, and people like you, and that all of you can thrive here. It is special. You are special, and the team, its players, and all the spaces they pass through and live in are special and remarkable and unlike anything else in the world.

There is a magic you can believe about a place as an adult that children do not even begin to believe or accept. A 7-year-old would laugh you out of the room, probably while telling you that the new place was much better, both because it looked like a place where Skylanders would live, and also because it was new. New things are better, and you should always take the new thing.

Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

That shouldn’t be hard to accept. Take the new thing, even if the nagging, haunting feeling of living somewhere boils down to a problem with you, with that thing where you’re looking for something in tangible space to consider a landmark, a guidepost. To consider something significant, if only so that you, in relation to it, can have a bit of that significance. The city I live in makes that hard to do, though there’s an honesty in that constant self-digestion and auto-demolition. Do not get attached. It, and everything in it, will eventually move, just like the teams and the people who call it home.

That’s the rational, reasonable thing to think, yet even with an intentionally blank, mostly unmemorable empty space like the Georgia Dome I want something to be there, to definitively have happened there. There should be a definite something there, thinks some deeply schizophrenic part of my brain that doesn’t want so much as a garden shed to collapse around me without some memory attached to it. Otherwise it’s just a thing — and by extension, so is the city, and the very personally important me I’ve attached to it.

I have a definite thing to attach myself to here. After all, I thought for a few seconds on March 14, 2008 that I was going to die on the floor of the Georgia Dome on press row at the SEC men’s basketball tournament.

I thought Kentucky fans were stomping their feet in unison on the bleachers at first, but the noise swelled, and swelled more, and grew so loud and limitless all at once. It felt limitless in the sense of being infinitely powerful with no range or end to the noise, so loud and yet so obviously just getting started on the way to a theoretical full volume. What do you think a tornado at pace is? It’s actually just clearing its throat and warming up, volume-wise. It’s whispering, holding back. You just hear it as a roar.

There wasn’t even a shudder from impact. There was just the sensation that the entire building was next to an immense floor buffer, spinning and vibrating at thousands of RPM. When that vibration turned into waves the roof flapped like a subwoofer, the air vents started spitting out pieces of insulating foam, and for one second I weighed the options of dying standing up and being crushed by the falling roof and lighting, or taking my chances ducking under a table, only to be crushed by all that plus one flimsy plywood table. The lights swayed 10 to 15 feet in either direction. The waves got stronger, and the entire overturned bathtub of the stadium was now being thumped by a very pissed off janitor pushing that giant floor buffer into the side of the Georgia Dome.

I was sitting next to Verne Lundquist and Bill Raftery. That would have been memorable for me, at least, getting crushed next to a legendary announcer, in the few seconds I had to have a last memory. If I’d heard Verne say “oh my” as it collapsed, it would have been my last tweet, and the RTs and favs would be infinite.

Instead of bearing down at full speed and colliding with the Dome, though, the tornado drunkenly staggered into the Georgia Congress Center next door, then down Marietta Street and into Cabbagetown before dissipating into the night. Not knowing what else to do, I walked out and took pictures of holes in the walls of the Congress Center, and thought about how great I felt about not dying in the Georgia Dome that night.

Leaving the last event at a building that was designed to be forgotten, I didn’t even really think about the one thing I should remember and attach to the spot.

Instead I thought about the only song I think about when I think about the irrational need for a place to give me something only a human can — especially this place, the first place I did so many things, like leaning my head against the window listening to DeBarge after a Hawks game. That need will never make sense, no matter how many games you watch there, or how many moments you spend there. It won’t make sense, not even after years of silently asking a place to just talk back to you once after you spend years monologuing to it. To look at a place that eats its own every day, and buries its stadiums and buildings and places under like daisies beneath a plow, and ask it, as if you were some exception to the rule, to sing the outro to you:

say you really love me baby

say you really love me darling

for I really love you baby

sure enough love you darlin’