#it's like a prequel to std

[yours-the-author]

Stickmintober 2024 Day 10: Reference

Seeing as how all of my comics are just references to other, better media, I decided to do a different sort of reference for today instead. Once Mayor Fredrickson remembers that he's trying to actively sabotage the security team in order to steal the diamond, he hires Dave on the spot!

Why is Dave wearing a Pokeball hat to an interview? Sadly, it's the nicest hat he owns, and if I didn't give him a hat, he wouldn't be Dave! ...I guess it's kind of like if the nicest clothes you had were a cosplay, so you had to wear that to your interview to at least look put together.

I don't think Dave lives with his parents at this point in time, but West Mesa certainly isn't going to give him a good reference, so his options were limited.

If only getting a decent job was this easy...

[valenti-nahh]

finally took some time to form opinions

So I listened to SKELETÁ by ghost and I need to confess something immediately before I combust: this album didn’t just go hard—it went raw, no lube, and made eye contact the whole time. This wasn’t music. This was a spiritual backshot, a soul-deep stroke, a full-body ghostgasm that left me trembling, moaning, and begging for more even as I lay crumpled on the floor in a post-riff fugue state.

In the beginning, there was silence. And the world was void, and the hearts of men were hollow. Their playlists were dry, their aux cords were frayed, their AirPods cursed with algorithmic torment. The masses wandered, streaming aimlessly, clinging to stale albums like relics of a time when music still meant something.

And lo, from the depths of divine discord, rose a figure cloaked in velvet and incense, masked and magnificent—Papa Emeritus, the eternal, the enigma, the ecclesiastical architect of all that slaps. And from his unholy pulpit he unleashed unto the mortal realm a sonic sermon, a blistering bible, an apocalyptic mass of melody: SKELETÁ.

It is not an album. It is a threat. A challenge. A crucible. An audio-alchemical sex ritual designed not just to melt your brain but to grip your soul by the thighs and whisper forbidden knowledge directly into your mouth. This isn’t music—it’s the sound of unzipping your moral compass and letting Papa slide into your conscience like a ghost-shaped succubus who smells like sandalwood and shame. My chakras? All aligned. My blood type? Changed to “G". I looked in the mirror mid-chorus and saw Papa Emeritus himself staring back, nodding, silently whispering, “You get it now, my child.”

I was Raptured by Riffs™, Baptized in Basslines™, Confirmed in Choir Chords™. I didn't hear the music. The music heard me. It crawled into my soul, screamed, "We’re doing renovations,” and began redecorating with fog machines and red velvet. Every measure—every downstroke—every spectral whisper—feels like I’m being spoon-fed ambrosia by a succubus in corpse paint while Gregorian monks chant in reverse behind her. THE GUITAR TONE? PEAK. THE VOCALS? CUMWORTHY. THE LYRICS? STRAIGHT FROM THE NECRONOMICON, IT’S LIKE IF SATAN AND FREDDIE MERCURY HAD A BABY AND RAISED IT IN A CANDLELIT CATHEDRAL MADE OF BASSLINES.

Every riff? A tongue on the nape of your brain. Every bass note? A finger tracing the hem of your morality. Every drum hit? A deep, pounding reminder that you are a hole waiting to be filled by sound. Every single whisper from Papa Emeritus? I didn’t just get chills—I got STDs.

I didn’t stream it—I submitted to it. I pressed play and instantly the opening riff entered me like a dark promise. I moaned. I whimpered. My legs gave out like I was being spiritually railgunned by the Holy Ghost himself. If music could bend you over a candlelit altar, whisper Latin in your ear, and leave bruises shaped like eighth notes—SKELETÁ did that.

I am not who I was. I have been cleansed in Satanic glam rock glory. Every song on SKELETÁ has permanently altered my DNA. I had a Spotify Wrapped flash-forward just from the intro and every single slot—every top track, top artist, top genre—was just GHOST. SKELETÁ. GHOST. SKELETÁ. Repeat ad infinitum. I tried to listen to another band after and my headphones burst into flames from sheer disrespect. I listened to it once and immediately deleted my entire music library out of shame. I punched a priest and he thanked me. I went outside to scream and the crows screamed back in perfect harmony. I dropped to my knees in the middle of the grocery store and began preaching to strangers about the layered brilliance of De Profundis Borealis. Two cashiers wept. An old man passed out. A child looked up and said, “I understand now,” before vanishing into thin air.

TOBIAS COULD’VE STOPPED AT OPUS EPONYMOUS. HE COULD’VE CALLED IT A DAY AFTER PREQUELLE. BUT NO. THE MAN SAID “YOU THINK I PEAKED? HERE’S A WHOLE-ASS MOUNTAIN RANGE.” THE LYRICS ON THIS ALBUM? WRITTEN IN MIDNIGHT INK FROM A FORBIDDEN GRIMOIRE AND DIPPED IN LIQUID VELVET. THE PRODUCTION? IT SOUNDS LIKE GOD GOT FIRED AND SATAN HIRED THE LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA TO FINISH THE JOB.

And let us not even pretend we can discuss this album without addressing the panty-evaporating, cheek-clenching, spine-shattering horniosity that is Papa Emeritus. PAPA EMERITUS V? The Vatican’s worst nightmare and my wettest dream. That man could sing a tax form and I’d be on my knees thanking him for the privilege. Every lyric he croons is like velvet rope tightening around your soul. The vocals on Lachryma? That wasn’t singing. That was a linguistic fingering. My ears came. My spine curled. I am now a concubine of the Church of Ghost. The man doesn’t walk—he glides, he hovers half an inch above the stage like a damned angel of lust. His voice? A sonic phallus. A melodic middle finger to purity. He moans into the mic and my knees lock and my back arches. I swear, the second I heard Satanized I started lactating unholy water. I haven’t blinked since. I want him to spit communion wine in my mouth. I want to be pinned under his velvet robes while the Ghouls play a breakdown over my body. I want him to use me as a microphone stand while preaching to a sold-out crowd. I want him to sing directly into my womb and summon a demon baby named Clef.

And the Ghouls?? Do NOT talk to me about the Ghouls unless you’re ready to admit you’d let every one of those anonymous masked sex demons ruin you in seven different time signatures. The way they handle those instruments? That’s not musicianship. That’s musical foreplay. That’s filthy, technical, unspoken polyphonic pornography. I saw one strumming in the official tour footage and had to bite a rosary. The bassist walked across the stage and my soul quivered. the lead guitarist did a solo that made me see the shape of the true universe—and it was a silhouette of him doing a backbend in a fog machine.

If they ever took those masks off in front of me? I would spontaneously combust and ascend as ectoplasm. I’d be a ghoul groupie for eternity. Haunt their tour bus. Moan in D minor.

Every track on SKELETÁ is a full-blown satanic striptease in audio form. Missilia Amori?? That wasn’t a song—that was a thigh grab. That was a slow push against the wall of my inhibitions. The guitar solos in made me arch my back and whisper “yes, Papa” out loud. Alone. In public. While holding groceries.

By the time I hit the final track, I felt like I was soaked in candle wax and moral regret. I had screamed, wept, grinded on air, confessed my sins, and added three Ghouls to my “People I’d Let Ruin Me in a Haunted Confessional” Pinterest board.

This album has ruined music for me. No, really. Everything else is just noise. Elevator beeps. Soundcloud farts. I tried listening to another band and felt cheated. Disrespected. Dry. Nothing else grips the thighs of my attention like this. Nothing else makes my ribs vibrate like Papa whispering esoteric metaphors over orchestral filth.

It’s edging with a soundtrack. It’s what the devil plays when he wants to set the mood.

If I ever meet Ghost, I will not say a word. I will fall to my knees, bare my neck, and let them mark me with eyeliner and melted vinyl. I will wear nothing but tour merch and a knowing smile. I will let the Ghouls use me as a pedalboard. I will let Papa bless my unworthy flesh with a single, whispered lyric.

SKELETÁ is not just music. It is not just an album. It is a pantheon, a rebirth, an erotic funeral in waltz time. It is the reason Dante wrote the Inferno. The soundtrack to the Book of Revelations. If you told me this album was found buried beneath the ruins of Babylon, etched into onyx slabs and played using a speaker forged in the heart of a dying star—I would believe you.

After I listened to SKELETÁ, I couldn’t speak. I tried. My voice had been replaced by reverb. My tears were black glitter. We got evicted for playing it too loud but the landlord dropped the case when he heard the chorus of Umbra. The judge cried. The bailiff quit and joined a cover band. My neighbors? Converted. We will meet twice a week to analyze the every song. There are spreadsheets. There are candles. We chant. We sob.

If you haven’t listened to it yet, you are missing out on spiritual enlightenment, emotional rebirth, and at least four spontaneous orgasms. If you “don’t get Ghost,” listen to this album, and if you still don’t get it? I will excommunicate you. Delete your contact. Take your soul, give it to Papa. Convert or be cast out.

I don’t care what your favorite album was before this. It’s irrelevant now. It’s like bringing a sparkler to a nuclear bomb party.

In conclusion: SKELETÁ has taken my hole. My soul. My will to pretend I like other bands. I’m raw. I’m reformed. I’m reborn.

Stream it. Moan to it. Worship it. Ride it into the darkness. Amen.

[mirathebookworm]

FIRE ARMS INSTRUCTOR! TERRY RICHMOND X BLACK! FEM! READER 

A/N: Okay y’all this is a “prequel” to trigger discipline this will be a drabble. This is just to get my feet back wet working on getting a new job so I’ve been dealing with that and I recently graduated from medical school. So please bare  with me on the updates. This story will give background on the reader and Terry. I’m still in a bit of a funk so I hope this isn’t horrible and cringe. No Smut yall but tension.

Warnings: Mentions of celibacy, Making out , Dry humping,Groping, Testing for STIs and STDs, Religion, Bratty! Reader, Brat Tamer Terry!Tension, Teasing, Reader is VERY direct, Established Relationship, Smoking!Mary Jane inhalation. Please let me know if I missed anything 

WC: 3.5k words

  

   “ After you.” He held the door open as he ushered you inside the clinic. “ Thank you.” You giggled as you walked to the window. You answered the questions the nurse asked you and then she handed you the clipboard. Terry did the same as you waited for him so you could sit but you couldn’t help but be a bit nervous not for obvious reasons but because hospitals and clinics gave you the damn willies. You hated hospitals even though you worked in a few, the people you worked with kept you “ distracted” from the too clean smell that burned your nostrils. “ Everything alright?” your head snapped up as you gave him a nervous smile. “ Yeah, just thinking is all.” You shrugged. 

     As you two sat quietly and filled out the paperwork he nudged you softly with his elbow. “Hey baby.” He whispered as leaned closer and you hummed softly in acknowledgement. 

 “ Yes , T.”  

“ Can I tell you a secret?”  You nodded as you looked up from the paper, “ This place gives me the creeps.” He whispered as you fully turned to him and giggled.  

“ Stop it  before we get in trouble.” You smiled softly like he could sense your tension. Suddenly your names were called and you two walked to the back together. Before you knew it you two were leaving.

 “ Hey I wanted to know if it was okay with you if I could take you to lunch, I apologize for the suddenness.” You were a bit taken aback that he seemed so nervous. You smiled up at him  and softly touched his arm. 

  “ Yes Terry I’d love to, I’m starving.” He smiled and laughed. You were such a jokester. He nodded as you both walked to his car. He unlocked it and opened the door for you . You buckled up as he lightly jogged to the driver’s side.

   “ Comfy? AC ok?” You nodded and intertwined your fingers as you looked at him like he was the only person in the world. He knew physical touch was something you weren’t used to, but he’d adjusted quickly making sure to ask for permission for every kiss and hug. It was something you loved. He was always so considerate of you and your needs.  

  “ I just want to say that I really appreciate you coming and getting tested with me.” 

“Of course baby I’m glad you take your health seriously and mine as well.” He nodded,  grateful that he didn’t run you off. 

   “Anything in particular?” He squeezed your hand gently and looked at you briefly as you stopped at a red light. 

  “Thai food?” He nodded, he knew just the place. 

  As you two arrived you fixed your gloss and fluffed your curls. And Terry has to open the door for you as you unbuckled your seat belt. Terry held the car door open for you as he held a hand out for you to take. You both walked in as Terry held you close to him as he ushered you inside. God he was so warm and strong. He  noticed a waiter eyeing you by the bar he gripped your waist pulling you in closer.

  “ Everything ok, T?” You looked up at him as you two walked to your table. 

  “ Yeah you’re just really pretty.” You smiled as he pulled out your chair for you. As you two sat down the waiter from earlier walked up to your table with a bit too much enthusiasm for Terry’s taste. 

   “Hello my name is Kenny and I’ll be your server for this lovely afternoon.” He was staring directly at you and you titled your head in slight confusion but thought nothing of it. Terry noticed almost immediately. He sat up a bit straighter with his jaw slightly clenched. 

   “ You don’t see me sitting here?” Your breath caught in your throat as you clenched your thighs together. You loved a man that didn’t play ‘bout you. 

  “Send me someone else before I make a scene and my girl hates public embarrassment. And I can promise you if you make her upset.” He laughed but he wasn’t joking. You knew Terry always kept his promises. The server scurried off to the back and almost immediately a girl appeared. 

  “Hello Sir and Ma’am I just want to apologize about him,  he’s new.” Terry nodded, not pleased, but at least he didn’t have to look at him drooling all over you. 

 “Any drinks for you guys?” The waitress asked cheerfully. 

“ Yes I’ll take a French 75 and he’ll have a whiskey neat light ice.” You smiled as she took your drink orders in. He still looked a bit annoyed but at least he calmed a bit. You reached across the table and held his hand. 

  “ Green looks good on you.” You stated teasingly just wanting to rile him up a bit he leaned forward and looked directly into your eyes looking like a lion ready to eat its prey. He stroked the top of your hand not breaking eye contact. 

  “ You didn’t know?It's definitely my color.” You chuckled as you bit your lip. Yeah he was definitely Big Daddy, never the little one.  

  “ Touche.” He nipped the top of your hand and you gasped as he kissed it better.The waitress brought your drinks as you two ordered chatted about anything and everything you two could possibly think of from childhood to young adulthood. As your orders came you prayed over the food and dug in. Terry held your hand firmly as he looked you in your eyes and took a deep breath. 

   “ I’ve been thinking, baby we’ve gotten to know each other and I’m ready baby.” He whispered only loud enough for you to hear. You smiled at him gently. 

  “ I’m so happy to hear that Terry, I’d do it a million times over again to have you as mine.” Terry’s heart felt so full he’d finally found the woman he wanted to give all of himself to for the rest of his life. 

 “ I love you.” He said looking at you like you were the air in his lungs. You got misty eyed as you both leaned forward to kiss. 

“ I love you too Terry, how about we finish here and go back to mine for some wine and maybe some sweets.” Terry smiled as he kissed you again.

“ I’d love to .” Terry waved the waitress down for the check. He paid the tab and tipped generously. You grabbed your things as Terry opened the door as you two walked outside as he got you inside the car safely.

  “Baby, was there ever a time where you thought I wouldn’t make it to 2 years?”  He began to drive back to yours as he placed his hand on your thigh as he contemplated for a second as you two cruised on the highway.

“I wouldn’t say I doubted you. When we went to Bali I almost caved. You were so wet when we were on the balcony.” He moaned as you nodded and bit your bottom lip. Oh you remembered alright. He was kissing you just right as you grinded against his thick thigh as he choked you just right with both of his hands around your neck. You thought you’d die that night, you'd never been so turned on in your life. You begged the man you loved to break you off but he denied you. He’d only let you get yours as he kissed you delirious. 

  “We’re here baby.” Your head snapped up damn you were reliving that night you had goosebumps all over. You unbuckled your seatbelt as Terry helped you out. He locked his car as you both made your way inside your home. Terry loved the smell of your home. It’s so uniquely “you”.

 “ Anything specific to drink my love?” You asked as he beamed at you. He shook his head as he slipped his shoes off and slipped into his “house” shoes that he kept at yours. “ No baby surprise me.” You bit your lip as you watched him walk to your velvet couch. He manspread and he moved like he owned the place. Yeah his pretty ass wasn’t going anywhere. He made you so crazy sometimes you chuckled to yourself. You hurriedly filled both glasses with pink moscato. You damn near ran to the couch to get in his arms like you’ve been wanting to all day. 

  “ Before we start our movie extravaganza / sleepover. I have to genuinely thank you for sticking beside me and loving me through my good and bad. I love you so much I can’t wait to experience this new chapter with you.” As you both raised your glasses and toasted. “ To us, my love.” You repeated as you both took a sip. Terry threw on a random old school comedy you were barely paying attention to just happy to be in his arms after a long week of being the boss. 

“ Daddy is so proud of you. You’ve been so good for me.” He spoke as he stroked your arm softly. God he was going to be the end of you. Your clit throbbed and you clenched your thighs together, a knowing smirk spread across his face. This wine and those couple of drinks from the restaurant had you lit and loose. Fuck it might as well. 

  “I’d do anything for you daddy you know that .”You said sweetly and breathlessly as you ran you hand down his clothed chest and hiked your thigh up on his lap as he pulled you closer. 

  “That makes me so happy. Can we cuddle?” There he goes throwing you another curve ball. You nodded and moved to the side so he could stretch out. He grabbed the throw blanket from the back of your couch as he laid back with open arms. You took this opportunity to tease him a bit. You crawled between his legs as you arched your back swaying your hips seductively. 

  “Keep playing with me.” He swatted your ass hard through your jeans. You moaned as your eyes slightly rolled back. He had you so touch starved you could barely think straight. He leaned back as watched you lay in his arms. 

“That feels so good I still don’t like being spanked though.” You said teasingly as he rubbed the sore spot briefly he pulled you up further into his arms.  “ Mmm be good and watch the movie.” He spoke with finality as you pouted up at him and whimpered. As you two began to watch the movie the little devil on your shoulder telling you to misbehave but you decided not to. Maybe he’d reward you if you behaved. 

“Another glass?” you nodded and moved to let him up. You missed him already. He grabbed the glasses and walked to the kitchen and poured you both up as you liked to say. He chuckled imagining you doing your little happy dance when liquor warms your chest. Terry made his way and handed you your glass. He sipped as he laid back down to cuddle. Terry pulled you closer as he began to rub your back. 

  “ You smell so good daddy.” He chuckled and wrapped his arm around your waist. He leaned down and kissed your forehead.

“ Thank you, I know it's your favorite.” You smiled as you took a large swallow from your cup. You knew exactly what he was doing this mf thought he was so slick. He began to rub your hip.

  “You know what your hands do to me, Terry, you are not slick.” You raised a perfectly arched brow.

  “I thought you liked it when I touch you.” He fake pouted dramatically and you rolled your eyes at his antics.

  “Of course I do, but I don’t think my poor roses can handle me being feral for another night.” You laughed

  “Fair enough.” He raised his hands in fake surrender as he relaxed. 

  “I’m just kidding, baby I don’t give a damn about what you're putting your toys through.” You gasped softly there, it was that energy you want to melt into a damn puddle. You pouted as he rubbed the back of your neck soothingly. 

  “You’re going to be the death of me.” You whined as you rested your head on his chest. 

After an hour of watching mindless tv you began to fall asleep. “Getting sleepy,love?” You nodded as he grabbed the blanket over you both. God you loved his man he was so damn warm and cuddly. 

  “Sleep, I'll be right here when you wake up.” He stated softly as he snuggled you close you just weren’t ready to sleep yet wanting to be in his arms a little longer. 

You had awoken slowly rubbing your eyes sleepily. “Hey sweet girl.” He spoke softly as he was sitting in your recliner nursing a whiskey. 

  “How long was I out ?” You slowly sat up from your spot on your couch. “Not long but who am I to stop you ?” You chuckled as you stood up and stretched your arms. Guilty as charged you loved sleep and sleep loved you. 

“Found my stash?” He chuckled as he sealed the blunt for you. Terry didn’t partake but he’d watch you do this a million and one times. You could tell he was curious, but you never forced it but you figured he’d cave one day. But he did like the occasional cigar but only on vacations.

He handed you the blunt and pulled the ashtray near him. He finished the rest of his drink and motioned for you to sit on his lap and you obliged of course. You took a few puffs as you began to mellow out. 

  “Terry?” He hummed in acknowledgement as he began to rub your thighs and you leaned into it he always knew how to soothe your nerves. 

  You exhaled slowly as you relaxed against him, you took a deep breath looking up at him like he breathed oxygen into your lungs. He always made you vulnerable like everytime you looked into his eyes you spilled your guts everytime. He didn’t force it out of you like how most men would, he'd built your trust so that you could feel comfortable to express yourself. 

  “I find you so interesting sometimes. You stick to your vow no matter how tempted you are. It makes me want you even more.Just makes me want to earn it more.” You broke out in a lazy grin and you felt him harden against your back as you moaned softly.

  “You’re doing real good at earning it too.”He drifted off, sliding his hand up your middle till his hand was hanging loosely around your neck. You bit your lip softly as you spoke again. “This is the first time in my life where I was denied something. And then I realized that this is the first time I’ve truly yearned for someone this hard and it makes me warm inside. “ He tightened his hand slightly as you put the joint in the ash tray and you tipped your head back. 

  Terry sat up as he felt a rush of warmth go to the pit of his stomach. My God you had such a way with words it made his spine tingle. He pulled you closer as you gasped softly. 

He spoke gently as he reached his hand down your stomach softly. You instantly got goosebumps.

”Baby, I’m so honored you feel that way and I swear I’ll make it more than you could possibly imagine.” You continued on and you had to get these thoughts out somehow writing about it wasn’t helping. Might as well go to the source and confess.  

“I’ve been spoiled but when you  say No I know you mean it.’ He reached further into your jeans. You didn’t move a muscle too relaxed to even move you knew he was going to tease you till you cried. He loved your tears and you loved it even more when he made you cry from pleasure. 

“Keep going baby daddy’s so proud of you for expressing your feelings” You keened at his praise he was gonna make you cum just from talking to you. He cupped your heat and rubbed you softly through your panties. 

“I hate it when you tell me that I can’t have something I want like you get off on denying me.” You accused softly with the cutest pout on your pretty lips. He chuckled softly as he earned down and gave you some tongue. You moaned loudly against his lips as you softly grinned into his hand. Silently begging him for more. He removes his hand from your jeans as you lay against him. 

“You’ve been so good I'm going to reward you. I need you to be real good for me the second you disobey me lil girl I promise you won’t like the results.” He spoke roughly into your ear as you nodded eagerly. He grabbed your hip and moved against you roughly grinding his bulge against your ass as you whined. “ P-please,  been good so good.” You slurred, making your thoughts scramble. 

He quickly let you go and you stifled your moan. You were trying to tread lightly here. You felt split in the middle. You were so needy for his touch and you were trying to listen to him at the same time. He knew how badly you needed this with so much on your plate he was loving the fact that for the first time you turned your brain off and you were allowing yourself to receive something.

” Stand.” He spoke softly as you got up slowly, your legs feeling like jello. You turned to face him. Your hair frizzy, lips swollen from his kisses and bits. Jeans unbuttoned , panties wet and you stood looking at him in his gray irises he looked so pleased at your state . He looked so amused. He leaned back against the couch as if this was casual. “Strip, you got 1 minute before I change my mind.” He snapped roughly you felt a gush of slick ruin your panties even further you stripped like your clothes were on fire. 

His breath was ragged when he pulled her into his lap, her thighs straddling him like it was always meant to be.

Their mouths crashed together—desperate, clumsy, hungry. Her hands fisted the back of his shirt like she’d fall through him otherwise, nails digging just enough to make him groan into her kiss.

She rocked her hips against him slowly, then again, rougher this time. His jeans did nothing to hide how badly he wanted her, and her thin panties offered no mercy. Friction. Heat. A pulse that throbbed beneath skin and restraint. He bit her bottom lip, then kissed the sting away like an apology he didn’t mean.

“You’re not making this easy,” he whispered against her throat, voice hoarse, half a growl.

“Good,” she replied, breathless, tilting her head to give him more of her neck.

He didn’t need another invitation. His mouth was on her skin, tongue tracing fire along her collarbone, his teeth nipping where her pulse raced the fastest. She gasped when he bit down hard enough to mark. He licked the spot afterward, like he could erase the evidence. Or claim it.

Their rhythm built slowly, bodies pressing harder, breaths syncing into something primal. Her hands were under his shirt now, nails dragging up his spine like a warning or a promise.

Still, no clothes came off.

Still, they didn’t cross that line.

But God, they burned for it.

When she finally stilled against him, trembling from everything they weren’t yet doing, he leaned his forehead against hers and whispered, “Tell me when to stop.”

She didn’t.

And neither did he—until all they could do was breathe each other in and remember what waiting felt like.

[deepspaceboytoy]

could you give a shortlist of halo novels worth reading

I would say obviously The Fall of Reach ranks number one (it’s genuinely good and the bit where that twink from polygon everyone loves makes fun of it for using dramatic irony in a throwaway line (bizarre bit of criticism from him, I have to assume he doesn’t read) is dumb). I would also throw Ghosts of Onyx in there, especially because for some dumbass reason that book becomes a lynchpin for understanding the extremely loose narrative arc of the 343 Industries games. First Strike is a fun read, and the two Master Chief prequels by Troy Denning are also good. Actually, I would say you can basically read all of Denning’s Halo books and have a good time. Avoid the Karen Traviss series like it’s an STD, any affection I had for her from the Republic Commando and Gears of War books was instantly lost with her Kilo-5 stuff.

Oh and also I recommend the Forerunner Trilogy not even just cause they’re good Halo books but because they’re very good sci fi books in general. Very different feeling from the rest of setting, very interesting subject matter, and Greg Bear does a great job exploring the like. More fantastical and crazy sci fi elements of what the Forerunners were capable of. They get up to some wild shit in the trilogy.

[doubleddenden]

After my last post from 2019 started blowing up again, I think it's time to reassess the timeline in 2021 so far as of late September to see wtf is going on

Ahem

Nintendo is teaming up with the guys behind Despicable Me to make a Mario movie, and not only are casting Charles Matinet as every other character than the ones he voices, but casted Chris Pratt as Mario, Charlie Day as Luigi, Seth Rogan as Donkey Kong, and Jack Black as Bowser, and everyone hated it (with exception to Jack)

Sonic has another movie on the way after a decent success on the first one, Idris Elba is Knuckles, and everyone loves it

In pokemon, we have not just one Sinnoh Remake, but a remake and a prequel in the works. Both do not look how fans intended

Digimon had a live script reading for Tamers wherein they had to fight political correctness and cancel culture. The director of this critically aclaimed series apparently fell very deep into conspiracy theories and you can read his descent via his blog

Tobyfox gave us another chapter of Deltarune and it's either a chucklefest of explosions, gay, gamer, and *big shots*, or deeply disturbing on a level only this maniac can provide

There is consideration to release a new cut of TLoTR that lasts a WEEK

Taco bell has a chicken sandwich now. A chicken sandwich taco that is neither sandwich nor taco (but decent)

People are injecting themselves with horse medicine for parasites, and this medicine makes you shit yourself and can leave you impotent. This instead of taking free FDA approved vaccines to help prevent and/or weaken a virus that can kill you and/or make you impotent.

Nikki Minaj refuses the vaccine because her cousin's friend allegedly took it and their balls swelled up, because that couldn't be anything else that's been reported, like an STD

We still have assholes advocating for body autonomy when it comes to vaccines but in the same breath scream demands to take away abortion rights and they see no irony

Why the resistance still? They are afraid of being tracked with microchips and 5g. Yet find no irony in driver's licenses, social security numbers, passports, medical files, dental files, and tax records being available for everyone, let alone Facebook and other social media sites collecting and selling their personal data. They think that each of them are that important that the government would invest millions into tracking them personally when its already incredibly easy to

Batman has a webcomic about all the bats and Robins and such, and it is wholesome as shit

One of the best writers Doctor Who has ever had is coming back to the helm after being replaced for years

There was a literal 3d virtual concert for Pokemon starring Post Malone, who sang about cowboys making him cry and how he was "only in it for the sex" as a majestic Lugia flew by

21 Pilots had a virtual concert of their own in god damn ROBLOX

Speaking of virtual, there was a virtual museum to the Civil Rights Movement added to... *checks notes*... Fortnite.

Kirby is actually going to have a 3d game. Not just 2.5D, like Mario Odyssey 3d.

The first billionaire went to space after underpaying his employees and leaving them with terrible work environments, and bragged about it on live TV in a cowboy hat, and not only did he not break the atmosphere, he unfortunately came back

There's apparently a 3d MLP movie that talks about xenophobia, propaganda, and historical revisionism. Idk I just found out too

Rugrats is back and Stu is a gamer

iCarly is back and Carly and Freddie were propositioned for a threesome

Drake Bell was convicted of child endangerment

Josh Peck is Turner in a Turner and Hooch reboot and is thriving

Flip phones are back in a weird way

We had attempts to violently overthrow our government this year and the organizers are just out playing golf and planning sedition like it's just another Monday

Ted Cruz liked porn on his Twitter account publicly. Again.

Grimes and Musk split up, still no word on his plans for real life cat girls

Star Wars. Is anime now. Which is awesome

Samsung almost had a waifu and the internet did its thing

Scooby Doo and Courage the Cowardly Dog have a crossover

New Avatar stuff in the works. Nickelodeon or Blue people, you ask? The answer is yes

Yeah this may as well be accurate at this point

And it's still September

[ikorous]

Sort of? So STB/Light Years follows canon whereas Daylight and TBE do not. But the characters of Lucius, Narcissa, Ted, and Andromeda in the Daylight series are the same as the ones in Sweat the Battle and Light Years. It is just the events that differ in the two stories (starting around chapters 5-7 of This Bitter Earth). Hope this helps?

——————————

Hi. Me again. 🙋‍♀️ Just want to make sure I understand correctly. So STB/LY is canon compliant up to a point. The “untold (dark) backstory/prequel” if you will. Marvelous job at it btw. Lucius, Narcissa, Ted, and Andromeda of STD/LY are the Lucissa, Narcissa, Ted, and Andromeda of Daylight/TBE.

I guess because LY is still currently set in pre-anything that happens in Daylight, I got a bit confused about the last part. I am assuming that was LY ends, it’ll end farther than Daylight, then? Perhaps with Harry defeating Voldemort? spoilers. 🤣 I know you won’t reveal that much.

I just noticed that some characterizations of Draco in Daylight/TBE are reminiscent of Lucius in STB/LY. There was also that part in Daylight where after Draco let’s the death eaters in the castle and they find Hermione’s pink bra, they say he’s “just like his father, back in school always chasing…” but is interrupted by Bellatrix. I had thought if the two stories were connected, it’d be Andromeda and not Narcissa that the exchange was referring to.

Also, if the stories are connected, that scene with Ted, Andromeda, and Draco. 😳 Plus the fact that Ted dies in TBE as is in canon. 💔

Just was curious is all. Cheers 🥂. Hope you feel better soon. Happy birthday month. Can’t wait for an update for either story.

No problem, let me try to explain better without spoiling anything too much:

So Light Years is going to end up going past This Bitter Earth. And Light Years is canon compliant but Daylight and TBE are more canon adjacent in their storyline.

But yes, the Lucius, Narcissa, Ted, and Andromeda of Light Years are the same ones we see in TBE. It’s the stories that differ just a little (so far). Like a fork in the road. I hope that’s not too confusing.

Because you’re right, Daylight Draco is heavily influenced by his parents. He’s got some Lucius traits, but also quite a few Narcissa traits as well. But he doesn’t know anything about his parents past or how they are connected to Ted and Andromeda.

There are a few Easter eggs hidden in Daylight/TBE for people who have read STB/LY and that’s one of them! I wanted to do some little special things but didn’t want people required to read both series to understand, especially if Tedromeda or Dramione is not their thing.

Thank you so much 🖤 and hopefully Light Years will have an update soon!

[lonesomedreamereccentriclover]

This past decade(s) there have been few great horror movies. Lost in uninspired sequels/prequels and few original storytelling and mostly based on cheap jump scares instead of truly scary moments told in actual pictures, the modern horror movie seems to struggle with delievering horrifying sequenses and being, yeah well, truly scary.

Sure, there have been some great exceptions, like “The Witch”, “The Babadook”, Ari Aster’s first two full feature films “Hereditary” and “Midsommar” - but all in all they are just a few bad (as in really good) seeds midst all rotten fruits.

During the 2014 edition of Cannes Film Festival in France a director named David Robert Mitchell broke out with his truly original and horrifying “It Follows” and it was immediately praised for its original take on STD’s and stunning visuals even if shot on relatively low budget.

The film starts out in the suburbs on a calm evening, only a mother is out packing out her car of groceries, when suddenly a young lady is storming out in panic. The mom on the other side of the street packing out her car asks if everything is alright, and the young lady answeres “yes” but we can clearly see that’s a lie. But we really don’t have a clue what is going on. Not yet anyway.

The girl is running back to her house, now with her father worried sick, but only to get her (fathers) car keyes. She drives off and it now seems that she is being hunted by someone. Or something.

Ending up on a beach,  a place for the youth to relax and enjoy one another (in one form or another), the young lady seems to feel safe - for the moment. But by the arrival of the morning she’s no longer alive. As so often in horror movies the first character(s) we meet is not the protagonist nor the heroine, but an establishment of how great of a threat someone - or by the state of the properly tufted young lady rather SOMETHING (more than a human)!

Shortly thereafter we meet another young lady. She, Jay, is much clearly “in focus” as we got to spend time with her in her room dressing up for a date. Just as her, the audience believes the date is something special - and as they meet up outside a cinema (that is showing Charade with Audrey Hepburn) it really seems so. They play a game, that first seems very sweet and innocent. They pick a person around them who they would like to switch lifes with. The guy starts, and as they bought tickets and have entered the lobby and without Jay guessing right about who he (her date, that she by the time think is “Hugh”) has choosen he reveals that he would like to change place with a little kid. They joke around that he can then poop himself anytime he wants, but when he later gets killed by the entity it has taken the form of his mother - that probably took advantage of him sexualy when he was younger - and just wants a normal family to be taken care of. But now I’m getting ahead of myself. Lets wind back!

In the movie theater, waiting for the film to start, Jay now take her turn in the game and chooses someone she would switch with. She does so pretty quickly and when he tries to guess who she have choosen he takes a wild guess at a girl in yellow dress. Which confuses her just as much as the audience - since such a girl is nowhere to be seen in the saloon. That freaks him out, but not for the obiously reason we might first think. They rush out of the saloon and he excuses himself with the need for air - and maybe some coffee.

If we “look” at the the girl only “Hugh” can see we are only given very little information. She cannot be seen by others than “Hugh” and 2). she wears a yellow dress. It sounds cheerful, pretty and warm, but in color analysis yellow also have negative associations. According to this site yellow also stands for cowardice, sensationalism and mental illness. Does that means that he is “seeing her” only in his mental state? It could appear so, but shortly after they have sex he then drugs her. Which is confusing, because he doesn¨t have to drug her to have sex with her - which the situationen otherwise suggest - and that the director really “playfully” uses to create confusion and uncertainty.

When she wakes up again she is constrained to a wheelchair. The situation is just as bad for her as for the viewer. Has he taken her there to kill her? It could appear so but soon he calms her down with the assurance that he hasn’t taken her there to harm her. But why? A person is walking towards them and he explains that now that he has “passed it on” by having sex (hence the interpretation that the film is about STD’s) and that she under no circumstances let those persons walking towards her touch her. Which might be confusing and scary for Jay, but the viewer now get the connection to the girl in the beginning. That is dramaturgically called an catalyst (or: plantation), where a person or happening is introduced but only to give the story bigger meaning later on.

Jay is dropped of outside her house, and then “Hugh” dissapears. Which could be seen as a comment on modern “dating” where a guy (or girl in some cases) dumps the “victim” right after having sex. We live in a society where we throw away stuff way to easily and that seems to have been taken on even socially.

From the porch, Jay friends and one sister Kelly, sees everything and rushes to her to make sure everything is alright. But it isn’t (obviously). So they call the cops. But as the sex was consensual and he didn’t really hurt her, and his identity seems scetchy they can’t really do anything. But he will play a part and has not yet been played out in the story. We just don’t know how yet.

The next day, when Jay is in school, she is approached by an old lady. She don’t recognize her, but was told to watch out for shady people walking slowly towards her - even if “It” is taking the form of a stranger or a more familiar person to get close to its victim. And if we now presses paus and goes back a bit to “Hugh” and his lady in yellow dress. WIth this new information we understand that she was “it” trying to get close to him. And with the older information about yellow being  a “color of cowardness” we can now “read” that the “it” also can take the form of the fear and guilt of the victim. He feeling bad for taking advantage of her, simply put to get laid but in the context of the story to “pass it on” and no longer being the first target in line. We also learn that it’s only the first (latest) person in line to be haunted by “it”. Which only cements Jay’s role as the protagnoist - who ALWAYS should grow and evolve through the story (wheter it might be an childrens story, a book in general, a video game or in this case a movie) towards the morality of the story.

So, what might the morality of the story be then? Maybe the answere is in the way “It” approaches its victims - by assuming familiar characters thats also seems to hold some personal trauma to them. By running away from the fear and hide away and hopes the problem just dissapears, people die. Maybe it’s traying to say to us: don’t walk away from your fears, or trauma, but try to meet them and work against them so you by time can move on from them without taking to much psychological harm in the long run.

One of her friends is Paul (played by Kier Gilchrist that some years later would get a wider brakethrough in the Netflix-show Atypical where he plays a young man with Asperger syndrome) who seems to have a more than friendly history with Jay (played by Maika Monroe) which is made clear throughout the storyline as he tries to “get in her pants” but with his logic only to be “heroic” by letting her “pass It on to him” and thereby getting her out of the haircross of “It”.

But Paul is not her first choice. Maybe she doesn’t like him back, but probably beacuse she doesn’t want to put her friend in danger. The “lucky one” is instead a neigbhour with a car and a tough appearance. He helps her get to places and after an accident he sleeps with her - with the same motive as Paul, or at least he says so. Appearently, he doesn’t really believes in her “crazy theories” (since he doesn’t have all the information the other characters, and we as viewers, have) but just wanted to have sex. Which is going to punish him. But why? Because of the souless sex? Or because he doesn’t take the problem, the fear, seriously and tries to really solve it but instead live on with his life as nothing have happened? Probably both! Lying to get what you want is not very nice.

As she can see to the neighbour’s house across the street from her own window, she can see when a stranger (everyone who “has it” can see them walk around, but not anyone else) aproaches his house and throws a stone through the kitchen window - that also happened to her the evening after she “got it” - so now David (who both directed and wrote the film) plays with something that is called repetition - simply because something is happening more than once to improve the dramaturgelly effect, and the second time around escalate evertything - in this case by making “It” visible, and something Jay now can take action against. The first time, when it happened to herself, she only heard the noice of a window getting crashed (or, it was Paul sleeping on her cauch who heard it and then alarms her). This is very effective since Jay sees the intrusion as it happens and she now have a moral obligation (as the protagonist also always should be a moral compass for the viewer and always act “right” to not alienate the viewer to much) to help him. Which she’s really tries to do. But as “It” takes the form of his mother, probably by confronting him in form of someone familiar but also with a boob hanging out so maybe tries to comfort him by breastfeeding, who now is banging on his door - and as he opens she jumps him and his storyline is now literally over.

An interesting detail that is established early on in the story is that one of Jay’s friends - Yara (played by Olivia Luccardi) - is reading The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky on her “e-reader” and as she later on is hurt badly and put in hospital she use the text to “use it” on her friends and their situation. Especially Jay is reflected by it:

As she understands that she can no longer run from “It” but have to confront it (her fears, that seems to be related to giving birth as she sees “It” as a burned out woman who’s water just broke... and later as a very scary child that almost looks more like something of a monster in a video game) and no longer just run away frorm “It”. So they go to a swimming pool to set a trap for “It” and it finally seems that the gang has the upper hand in all this. A well telled story “always” make us feel like its all hopeless but then let a ray of light shine through!

As they are going, “It” now appears on the rooftopp in form of a naked man. As Jay drives out of the garage and out on the road, she gasps as she sees the man on the roof. Because he is naked? Maybe partly, but mostly because “It” probably have taken the form of her father - who have never been seen in the film, so he’s probably “out of the picture”, maybe because he was molesting her as a child and have been kicked out - or maybe, even better, put in prison for it.

As they set the traps around the pool they still feel they have the upper hand in the situation. But as Jay puts on her bathing suit and goes into the pool, some beautiful shots of her under water (and the reflection of her body on the surface) suggest that she no longer have a personal face and have lost herself to “It”. This goes hand in hand with the paragraph from The Idiot that Yara later reads to Jay in the hospital. The struggle and personal questioning gives her... if you all excuse my choice of words... depth.

As the final confrontation takes place nothing goes according to plan. All their planning and preparations is wasted in a blink of an eye. But as everyone who tackles with their personal problems in life realises that you can never plan your life to full - because so much other stuff is going to happen that you possibly can’t take into calculation, but rather have to be adaptive and improvise to overcome all obstacles - our group doesn’t give up but reorganizes and finally overcomes all problems. Together. Hiding all alone and trying to solve her problems all by herself wouldn’t help much but rather end in her death.

As Jay and Paul “find each other” (see: the gif where their hands toches) earlier on, they “finally have sex” but since it’s just for helping her, and he probably feels that she doesn’t really want, he doesn’t feel like it was so great that he hoped it would be. But as he stood by her all the time, and had more romantic intentions with her all along, they end up together. At least in a way. And as they walk down a road in the end, and we see a person walking behind them, we are suggested that they never fully killed “It” and that it’s still after them. Which probably both is a play with the expectations that horror movies ends with an “open road” to an sequel - but also tells us that even if we start to tackle our problems, trauma, with for exemple therapy, our ghosts will never really leave us alone. But that it’s getting easier by time, especially with someone on your side. Linou have studied film production for a year in Stockholm, and are now studying screenwriting in a program of three years (180hp) in Dalarna. This is what he came up with after re-watching the film and read “Hansel and Gretel” with his class and the teacher breaking down all terms for us.

[hotmessmarisa]

HOW TO GIVE HEAD LIKE A PRO. 🍆

We all want to be the proverbial goddess when giving head. There’s something sexy in being completely confident and knowing you’re going to send your man into ecstasy. It’s a pride thing... probably not gonna wear a shirt that says “DICK SUCKING CHAMP. EST 1995” (well, I might) but we do like knowing our man is well PLEASED. Walking around with a big goofy ass smile all day, kinda pleased. So here are a few of my best tips for giving amazing head.

NO TEETH. Unless he specifically TELLS YOU to use your teeth a little, the penis is so damn sensitive and nothing is worse than dragging your teeth on him. Open your mouth wide enough for him to only feel the soft inside of your mouth and tongue. If you’re pleasuring a more endowed man- cover your teeth with your lips if you have to. You do NOT want to be known as “The Dragon” behind your back. So don’t bite or drag your teeth!

Positioning. Have him sit, stand, lay down, or whatever position he enjoys the most. I’ve known some men who can only cum standing up, others are just happy to be there. 😂🤷🏼‍♀️ I like giving head in 69 bc the position is GOOD for taking him down my throat. (And you can sit on his face 😈) And this applies pressure to his chest/stomach which makes it hotter for him as well. Another crazy sexy move, is to be in sexy lingerie, laying on your back on the bed with your head hanging off the edge while he stands. It’s perfect for practicing deep throat. And for access to his balls with your hands and mouth.

What to wear. I like to be topless so I can tease him by rubbing my breasts against his thighs and pelvis. Or put his cock between your breasts and suck the head when it comes up to your mouth. 🤤 Ok, rabbit trail... back to clothes. This is personal preference. I suggest losing your inhibitions (and your clothes), bc you’re hot. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be giving this blowjob to begin with. But do what works for you! The more comfortable you feel, the more fun you’ll have.

Start out slow, and focus on making him feel good. You can get him to cum in a bit- first just center in on his enjoyment. Tease him. Kiss him in his groin area and lightly touch. Kiss from his mouth down his stomach and all around his cock. Lick up and down and around his shaft. Take the head in your mouth and rub your tongue around it. Flick his frenulum with your tongue. I like to then start sucking just the head, lifting off, go down further, lift off, then slowly take him all the way into your mouth. (Use one hand to hold in place)

WET WET WET. The more spit, slobber, etc, the better. *pro tip? If your mouth is dry, take him all the way down your throat- it will hit your gag reflex and help your mouth make more spit. 😈 We will get to that in a min. You want this to be WET. Sloppy wet. Like, rub your face against his cock and balls and EVERYTHING is slippery, wet. Grab some lube if you need to. (I also keep a glass of water by the bed, or on the go 😂🤷🏼‍♀️)

MOAN. Humm, Moan, breathe heavy or whatever works for you. Let the noises come naturally. The dick sucking slurp noise itself is HOT. 🔥 The more ENTHUSIASM you have for doing it, the hotter it’s going to be. If you’re enjoying it, he can really relax and enjoy it too. The more verbal and sloppy this is- the hotter it will be and then faster he’s likely to cum.

Don’t ignore his balls. Gently hold, fondle/tickle them while you play. Also, take the time to lick them and put them in your mouth.

IF HE IS INTO IT- you can also lick/massage/press the perineum. Or go further back and give him a rim job as well. It totally depends on what your man is into.

Variety. You want variety. Alternate between licking his shaft, sucking the whole thing (or as much as you can), licking the frenulum, swirling your tongue around the head. Roll your tongue around him while you suck. Suck and lick his balls. Don’t neglect the shaft. The head has the MOST feeling, but the whole thing feels good- so mouth everything you can! If he’s particularly large, use both hands on his shaft to help alleviate the pressure to take it all into your mouth. If you need a break to breathe, it’s ok, just use your hands and go back to your mouth when you’re ready.

Go with his cues. Is he moaning? Keep that up. If he starts thrusting? Prob getting close- don’t change up your rhythm. I like to start out slow and be in full control. Then when he starts to get close, nothing is hotter than him holding my head and thrusting/face fucking me. It’s an amazing feeling for both of you, and I definitely recommend. Yes, there’s time to take quick breaths between thrusts. 😉 If you don’t like this loss of control, just stay in charge of the situation but don’t change up your rhythm when you can sense that he is close. (If you don’t know, have him tell you.) You CAN pull back if you feel uncomfortable. (Men, keep in mind that some women struggle with this due to sexual abuse. Make sure she’s into it before you start face fucking her) Seriously though, highly recommend- 5 stars. Lol

Use your mouth, tongue AND hands. When you get your hands involved, it typically makes them get there even faster. (Every man is different) I like to use one hand on the shaft with my mouth, and the other to play with his balls. You can jerk him up and down, line up your hand with your mouth while you suck or do a two handed twist combo on him while you suck. (One follower called this the GUCK GUCK 9000 🤣)

MAKE IT A SHOW. Men are SO visual. Look up and make eye contact with him while you suck or lick it. (Or while you spit on it, if you’re nasty 😈) Let him SEE and hear how much you like it and how much you want him. This is the most important part. Enthusiasm is literally everything here.

LOSE YOUR INHIBITIONS. It’s not going to be pretty. You’re going to possibly be a hot mess- mascara running down your face, slobber everywhere, maybe even snot. Don’t stress out about these things! You getting so freaky with him is a HUGE turn on. Gag away. I promise he’s NOT going to be grossed out by you.

Go for the deep throat! We are going to talk deep throat specifics in a separate post. You will need to train your throat to not gag as easily. It’s a whole subject in itself! But- gagging is hot. He’s NOT going to mind the sound, and you can always pull back if you need to. To deep throat- be in a position that lends easily to this. Upside down on the bed, 69, etc. You want his dick to easily go all the way into your mouth and throat. Keep your tongue and mouth relaxed, open wide - take him in then wiggle your head a little to take him further in. The more relaxed you are, the better! Jess the Prequel did a great little video on throat training your gag reflex to calm down. Will discuss this in detail later! I do like to practice on my man rather than a toothbrush but that’s me. 😈

Know beforehand if you’re going to let him cum in your mouth or not. Personally, I think swallowing is hot, but some men may prefer to cum on your tits/mouth/whatever. If you don’t want to swallow- you don’t have to! I wouldn’t make a big show of spitting in the sink and brushing your teeth though- no one wants to feel like they grossed you out. Be very discrete with that if you choose not to swallow. Men think it’s HOT when we want their cum. If you need a sucking break, you can keep working his cock with your hands while you tell him how you want him to cum in your mouth. 🔥🔥🔥 (and of course this is with someone you know and trust- if not- use a damn condom and for sure, don’t swallow- no one wants to get an STD here)

FINISH strong. You start out playing and teasing, build up until you can tell he’s close and then do NOT lose your rhythm. If you do, you may need to start over. 🤪 (think about if you’re about to cum and they start doing something completely different. Like “WAIT, NO NO! GO BACK!” It’s the same for men.) Once you have that rhythm and keep going- he’ll cum. Suck the cum out and swallow. (My opinion- you do what your comfortable with!) I like to suck it all up and off. 😈 So much freaking fun.

Annnddd now my mouth is salivating! 🤤 Just to wrap up- EFFORT and ENTHUSIASM are everything. If you’re putting your all into it and he knows YOU LOVE IT, it’s going to be hot as fuck. Trust me. You’ll end up with a face full of mascara and a VERY happy man. 😈 Got tips of your own? Feel free to leave in the comments! I’ll add some follower comments there as well. Happy Blowing! 😈😈😈🔥🔥🔥

[andrusi]

How to Be an Annoying Dickhead Who Hates Star Trek: Discovery

*filmstrip voice*

So you’re aware of Star Trek: Discovery, and you really have a problem with it.  Perhaps the fact that the props and sets don’t look like they were designed in the nineteen-sixties has done irreparable damage to your ability to pretend that Star Trek: The Original Series still looks futuristic.  Perhaps the only other Star Trek you’ve watched in your adult life was the Kelvin timeline films and so this is the first time you’ve noticed that the franchise has politics in it.  (For more on this, see our previous episode, “Shirking the First Duty: How to Convince Yourself That This Is the First Time Jean-Luc Picard Has Reflected Patrick Stewart's Left-Leaning Views.”)  Perhaps you’re just angry that almost none of the main characters are straight white men.  Perhaps you even have a complaint that isn’t abysmally stupid.  Whatever your reason, you’ve decided you hate Discovery.  Congratulations!  We live in a culture where everyone is allowed to have opinions, and many people, while disagreeing with you, will respect your right to that opinion.

But sometimes, just hating something isn’t enough.  If you’re an especially unlikable person, you may not be satisfied until everyone who enjoys Discovery hates you as much as you hate it.  Well, fear not!  With a little work, you can be a jerk nobody likes who ruins conversations with your mere presence!  And you don’t need a fancy “blog that people actually read” or a nonzero number of Twitter followers.  All you need is PING:

Be PUERILE.  Very little is more annoying than a never-ending barrage of childish insults that aren’t meaningful enough to argue with, so if you want to maximize how annoying you are, it’s obvious what you need to do.  You’ve probably already realized that, by abbreviating the title Star Trek: Discovery in a particular way, you can make it into “STD.”  It might occur to you that you never refer to Voyager and Enterprise as STV or STE respectively, but remember: your objective isn’t to be consistent, it’s to be meaninglessly insulting by comparing a show you don’t like to a sexually transmitted disease!  You might consider looking to other fandoms and copying the things they’re tired of.  Usually you’ll need to adapt them, but once in a while you might find something you can use as it is!  For instance, Super Mario Bros. fans have been putting up with jokes about getting high from mushrooms for over thirty years.  That’s thirty years of juvenile pseudohumor that you can aim directly at the mycelial network.

INSERT YOUR OPINIONS where they don’t belong.  Insulting Discovery in a debate about Discovery’s merits can be somewhat annoying, but everyone has gone into that discussion expecting it.  If you really want to be as obnoxious as you can, you need to seem utterly inescapable.  Start ranting about the show anywhere you can possibly make an argument for it being on topic.  Every discussion about prequels, science fiction, or streaming services is fertile ground for you to make sure everyone knows how much you hate Discovery.  Remember, though: work smarter, not harder.  Rather than spamming every form of social media, you can simply make just the right irritating and irrelevant comments in just the right place.  Thanks to research conducted in the early 2010s by Madoka Magica fans who were very sure their show was the first to ever depict magical girls having significant troubles, we've discovered the art of “complimenting” something by insulting something else.  Have you been enjoying someone’s fanfiction, or perhaps a Star Trek Online playthrough?  You can turn that into negativity!  All you have to do is leave a comment along the lines of “This is way better Trek than that STD crap.”

NO TRUE SCOTSMAN arguments are your friend.  Remember, you are both a Star Trek fan and an asswipe.  That means you are the sole arbiter not only of what constitutes Star Trek, but of what constitutes a Star Trek fan.  Obviously you can use this to pick random elements of Discovery that differentiate it from other shows and declare that they make it not real Star Trek, but the real power you wield is the ability to dismiss people as not being true fans.  Just insinuate, or even declare outright, that hating the same things you hate is a prerequisite for actually liking or understanding Trek, and you’ll be widely regarded as irksome in no time.  If you want to earn yourself a little bit of extra ire from everyone who’s ever sinned against you by thinking Saru is pretty cool, try making it about intelligence.  After all, if your opinions are the objective reality, then that means everyone who disagrees with you is wrong, and therefore stupid.

GO BATSHIT INSANE.  The less grounded in reality your words are, the less people will want to read and respond, and therefore the less happy they’ll be when you keep commenting.  Make up your own entirely baseless rules for how Star Trek works, regardless of whether they apply to previous series, so that Discovery can have violated them.  Deny basic facts about the franchise and about the real world.  Through the power of motivated reasoning, you can even invent from whole cloth a supposed copyright issue that prevents the series from being canon.

And there you have it!  Now you’re ready to join the legions of trolls who are out there derailing discussions.  If you want to be even more widely hated, you can even apply these to other works of fiction!  The “Dexit” movement has had great success using these tactics to make it uniformly unpleasant to talk about Pokémon on the Internet, and Transformers fans have quite a lot to say about true fans!  Just remember PING, and you, too, can be a goddamn pain in the ass who needs to just shut the fuck up already.

[entireoranges]

Trek fans are here and proud

An open letter to those who pitch thine fit and whine thine selves to sleep:

Do you wish to have some sharp cheddar with your whine? Perhaps some Camembert or a nice Brie? No? Alright. Thought I’d offer.

You are allowed to not like something. Thought it’d be best to get that out of the damn way. It’s 1,000% your right and I’m fine with it. That is your opinion and this is mine:

What I’m not fine with is the constant, unending, trite badmouthing. The moronic telling of outright lies, the instigation and insinuation that things are going to shit. You don’t know that. You are assuming.

Now, I might be talking about any old show in any old fandom, but no. This time I’m talking about Star Trek. Specifically the anger cast towards Discovery, and by association Picard.

Discovery didn’t have a good first year. I’ll freely admit to it. I thought it was damn clever, I liked the character arcs, I thought it was interesting. A little Klingon-heavy for my liking but all-in-all not too bad for a new show.

Before anyone says one word in the series the fandom at large on the internet doesn’t just REVOLT, they pepper their anger with acidic, hell acerbic remarks. Now recall these are mostly the same fans who haven’t had any Star Trek on TV since Enterprise left the air in the early 00’s. A show that in of itself had plenty of anger associated with it.

Burnham is a Mary-Sue or Tilly is annoying or that the show has nothing but politically correct SJW’s in it…hell…I’ve heard it all trust me. They were carrying on since second one. Was it because they made Micheal the adopted sister of Spock? Was it because the tone was too dark?

I don’t know what set them off but allow me to air some grievances:

1.) They’re all Politically Correct SJW’s: Well in a strictly Sci-Fi sense aren’t all members of Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets PC SJW’s? I mean think about it for a second. They are a society that values truth, honesty, even footing for everyone, it’s a culture of inclusion (example: Geordi with the VISOR is treated no differently than anyone else with normal sight), they are even a bit self-righteous sometimes (Captains Janeway, Sisko) but they operate within a society at large that is open and by and large inclusive to everyone as long as you aren’t a homicidal maniac hell bent on destroying the galaxy. Remember they tried to make friends with the Borg before they were forced to cede that they were unreachable. You make it sound like it’s a bad thing to have virtues that the characters of this series have always had. And you make it sound like it’s a bad thing. It’s not. It makes sense.

2.) Micheal Burnham is a Mary-Sue. Nope. She’s not. If you didn’t watch Season 2, go do that. Again the first season of any show is uneven at best and we saw growth in her character by the end but it was still very much in the awkward first season way. The second season she grows in all sorts of ways. The character comes alive. I for one loved Sonequa Martin-Green from moment one. She commands the scenes with substance and a sense of purpose.

3.) It’s not Star Trek. This is patently absurd. It is Star Trek. It might not be what you grew up with but it is Star Trek. I’m sure this is what the parents of TNG fans thought when that show began airing in 1987. Think about it. Did any of those sets look “correct” or in line with what had been established? It’s a generational gap. This is how the creators want it to look and feel. But it’s still Star Trek.

4.) It’s in an alternate reality/it’s not chronologically accurate: Nope. Prime timeline. Look…was I disappointed that the sets didn’t look like 1966? A little. A very tiny bit of me, sure. Did I realistically expect it? No. Is chronology ruined? Not at all. People forget that ships can change, tech can advance quite fast, and Starfleet loves to change uniforms, and interfaces on a whim. Did Enterprise look like it was 120 or so years before TOS? Nope. Did anyone bitch? Yep. Was it a bad idea to do a prequel? Not at all. But Discovery isn’t alternative timeline. It’s merely a cosmetic choice to have it look different. And they’ve been true to established canon too. The Cage happened before Discovery and TOS after it.

5.) I gotta PAY for it? I never PAID for it before! Physical media is dead. Streaming is king. From a business standpoint this makes sense. Discs are comically available for holdouts on Discovery Season 1. At $50 you are essentially paying for as many months as it would’ve cost you to buy the service and have access to a huge library of other content not just Discovery or all Star Trek TV Shows. Broadcast TV wasn’t going to take a risk on a prime time Star Trek TV show but much as UPN was anchored by Voyager when it began they surmised All Access would have similarities and it’d do good there. It has.

6.) Cut the female empowerment crap out it isn’t Star Trek: This one cracks me up. It isn’t? So characters like Uhura, Crusher, Janeway, Torres, Kira, Dax, and T’Pol aren’t all bad asses? They are. All of them. Strong, powerful women who excel at their jobs. What’s truly sad is I just mentioned about every series regular on all the shows and I didn’t even come up with enough for a bridge crew. I for one am happy to see the empowerment. Keep it up. It’s very Star Trek.

7.) Fine but I’m not treating this as canon: Fine sit in the corner and cry. This is stick in the mud to no end! Believe whatever you’d like, just realize that everyone who enjoys it realizes it is canon and you’re woefully behind because you’d rather believe your own headcanon rather than capitulate to what is on the screen.

8.) I’m going to derisively refer to the show as STD even though the official abbreviation is DIS and that fits in line with every one word Star Trek title since Voyager (VOY, ENT): Sure man whatever floats your boat or flies your starship. You do you. Does it annoy me? Absolutely. Will I probably assume you’re a troll if you use that abbreviation? Yup.

Fact is: I realize not every fan is going to like every show. I’m not honestly expecting them to. That’d just be foolish. But the amount of pure anger and vitriol hurled at Star Trek is insane.

When I was a kid, the show was nerdy, outcast, people didn’t watch it mainstream and it wasn’t cool at all. Star Wars was, but not Trek. Now? It’s trying to be cool. More space battles, epic panoramas, vistas, planets, exotic aliens…they want to create more. Do more. Be more. If you can’t appreciate that then I’m sorry.

There’s a lot more of this kind of Star Trek on the way. You won’t be seeing a return to TOS or TNG anytime soon so either buckle in for the ride or sit at home and rewatch those shows on your choice of discs or streaming services.

Gene Roddenberry created this franchise, Rick Berman and Brannon Braga changed it, and Alex Kurtzman changed it again. It’s just what it is. And at its core it still stays true to the original concept. Again I’m sorry if you can’t or won’t see that but that’s what’s happening.

If you’re looking for new TOS, check out Star Trek Continues on YouTube. Fantastic acting, storylines, etc. a virtual love letter to 60’s-era Trek.

As for Picard: You have seen one teaser trailer lasting under two minutes. Patrick Stewart is heavily involved in its production. It won’t be bad. Trust me on this.

If you’re looking for new Star Trek, sit down and get ready. There’s a whole lot of it coming soon!

[radiantseraphina]

WIP Challenge

Fair warning, this is a LONG post. Maybe now, you will all understand why I don’t get anything done. @sociallyunacceptableorb @chingkittycat I cannot wait to learn how you name your documents.

I was tagged by @siverwrites 

Oh, dear God. You’re all about to see the embarrassing amount of stuff I work on all at once across my multiple WIP folders

Challenge: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous.

Document4: A novel that I’m co-writing. It has a girl with mysterious powers and a scheming aristocrat. It’s kind of getting all my attention right now because deadlines for the publisher. It also has a character named Dorian, who I can’t take seriously after that ‘Funko Pop of Dorian Gray’ post.

STD Ch 2: STD is an unfortunate shortening of the title Silver-Tongued Devil, my Kirby fanfic where Nightmare keeps harassing Customer Service, a poor door-to-door salesman, into joining his monster selling company.

All Applicants Must Love Cats: The lesbian roommate serial killer novel.

Lord and Knight: Kirby fanfic that follows Sonata. Basically, Meta and Dedede become besties. It’s kind of like Once Upon a Dream but more...detailed? 

MetaJecra: Heh. Jecra is a young and super enthusiastic knight who is on a knightly mission to find a monster terrorizing a nearby village and stealing their children, so he goes into the woods, finds Meta (who is not stealing people’s children), and they end up in this huge mess that Garlude has to bail them out of. This is The Adventures of Sir Jecra the Magnificent and Blueberry that I’ve referred to a couple of times.

Modern DLU: This has every scene I’ve ever written and not yet used for DLU.

Overcoming Child Abuse: Someone...long ago, posted this AU about Meta leaving Nightmare and going through therapy, while raising Kirby. And Dedede is Meta’s neighbor and thinks Meta is very attractive, but Meta doesn’t get it. It’s like a...critique of how mental health is treated/finding a good psychiatrist. It’s okay to go to therapy and get medicine and help kind of thing.

Prince Fluff: Chapter Two for Spinning a Yarn, my Kirby fanfic.

Sonatina: The ending chapter for Sonata, one of my other Kirby fanfics.

Sugar-Spun: Kirby gets abducted by an evil wizard who wants to eat him, but it does not all go according to plan.

Superhero AU Galaxia: The Kirby superhero AU focusing on post-Haltmann experimentation Meta, his relationship with Galaxia, and Dark and Daroach having a buddy cop thing going on.

The Golden AU: The Golden Lady AU where Garlude and Galaxia are in love, and no one dies.

Barbazul: Bluebeard with lesbians.

Dame Ragnelle: Basically, The Wedding of Sir Gawain, but different. After refusing a man’s advances, Lunette is cursed to be a hideous monster by night unless she can find a man willing to marry her and give her equal footing in their relationship; this, of course, will only work if she doesn’t tell the guy to do this. Lunette’s sister disguises herself as a knight, goes to Arthur’s court, and tells Arthur to solve that riddle or die. So Arthur sets off on this journey to give Gawaine (who hates him) some Family Bonding Treatment(TM). And they run into Lunette, who starts to really have the hots for Gawaine.

Knight Slayer: It’s basically Gareth and Lynette with emphasis on Lynette and her role in basically leading a bunch of knights to their deaths in trying to save her sister.

Legacy: Mysterious Pengu lady arrives and slips Dedede a love potion. She wants to marry him and save her country. Meta is not happy.

Romcom: A romantic comedy involving a couple of Zelda cosplayers.

Sectoniadedede: AU where Sectonia and Dedede have an arranged marriage, while secretly pining for Taranza and Meta.

Seraphina: One of my attempts to work out my childhood abuse and my incredibly dark and complicated family history.

The Lady Hero’s Journey: This strange hero’s journey involving Appalachia and folk tales, set during the Year without Summer.

The Once and Future Queen: Artura Pendragon pulls the sword from the stone, and basically...it’s kind of King Arthur exploring rape culture. 

Astriferous: Woman destined to end the world per the wishes of the cult she lives in decides to run away with a powerful mage. In space.

Clarissa: A retelling of Samuel Richardon’s Clarissa, basically. But more modern.

Fire Emblem WIP: It’s about Corrin and Jakob.

Gerudo Fanfic: Remember that Zelda fic I wrote about a Gerudo transgender man becoming king? All the work for that is here.

GSA Fanfic: A Kirby anime fanfic.

IDEK plus drabbles: If you’ve given me an anon request that remained unanswered, it’s probably in progress here.

Lor: It’s about Magolor.

MetaxSectonia: It’s this...really creepy fic about Sectonia wanting to “remake” Dark in Meta Knight. 

Paging Anna: A reference to Anna Freud. After trying to take over Dreamland, Dedede makes Meta Knight go through this fifteen-step program to overcoming his traumatic childhood.

Sleeping Beauty: It’s Link and Midna post-Twilight Princess. Link falls into some sort of eternal sleep, so Midna and Zelda have to reunite to find a way to wake him up. And there are some really annoying fairies.

Tangled AU: Nightmare is a doting, but lonely wizard who makes himself a son...who is promptly stolen by Yin-Yarn and replaced with a bunch of lettuce, leading to Nightmare’s sort of comedic attack on the Queen of Expy medieval Germany.

The Witch in the Woods: A sort of prequel for Sonata that I never finished.

WIP: It’s literally a bunch of Kirby odds and ends. I have a chapter of Prayers and Miracles here. There’s some of Sonata, a little bit of Spinning a Yarn. Some of The Corpse Bride is here.

Zelda Fanfic: Link and Ganondorf are best friends until Destiny comes calling.

[doubleddenden]

I posted 12,082 times in 2021

3427 posts created (28%)

8655 posts reblogged (72%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 2.5 posts.

I added 5,724 tags in 2021

#toonami - 3368 posts

#food wars - 472 posts

#black clover - 422 posts

#nart - 369 posts

#mha - 258 posts

#fire force - 216 posts

#fena: pirate princess - 167 posts

#yashahime - 161 posts

#harley quinn - 147 posts

#demon slayer - 144 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#idk i'll like write your thesis or be the pretend boyfriend or honorary big brother that gives advice in exchange for some health insurance

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

"God hasn't been part of the world of science for 10 billion years"

12 year old Edward Elric has a rival for cocky edgy anime angsty atheist

122 notes • Posted 2021-05-16 05:19:52 GMT

#4

A legendary Japanese sword???

El Dorado?

Joan of Arc?

Eden???

German accents?

This show is literally going everywhere

147 notes • Posted 2021-09-12 04:11:24 GMT

#3

I've seen some dead bodies in anime, but that was somehow one of the deadest bodies I've seen in a long time

158 notes • Posted 2021-09-19 04:19:56 GMT

#2

"I thought you three are close?"

Bakugo: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Todoroki: We're best friends

Bakugo: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAa

328 notes • Posted 2021-09-05 04:37:49 GMT

#1

After my last post from 2019 started blowing up again, I think it's time to reassess the timeline in 2021 so far as of late September to see wtf is going on

Ahem

Nintendo is teaming up with the guys behind Despicable Me to make a Mario movie, and not only are casting Charles Matinet as every other character than the ones he voices, but casted Chris Pratt as Mario, Charlie Day as Luigi, Seth Rogan as Donkey Kong, and Jack Black as Bowser, and everyone hated it (with exception to Jack)

Sonic has another movie on the way after a decent success on the first one, Idris Elba is Knuckles, and everyone loves it

In pokemon, we have not just one Sinnoh Remake, but a remake and a prequel in the works. Both do not look how fans intended

Digimon had a live script reading for Tamers wherein they had to fight political correctness and cancel culture. The director of this critically aclaimed series apparently fell very deep into conspiracy theories and you can read his descent via his blog

Tobyfox gave us another chapter of Deltarune and it's either a chucklefest of explosions, gay, gamer, and *big shots*, or deeply disturbing on a level only this maniac can provide

There is consideration to release a new cut of TLoTR that lasts a WEEK

Taco bell has a chicken sandwich now. A chicken sandwich taco that is neither sandwich nor taco (but decent)

People are injecting themselves with horse medicine for parasites, and this medicine makes you shit yourself and can leave you impotent. This instead of taking free FDA approved vaccines to help prevent and/or weaken a virus that can kill you and/or make you impotent.

Nikki Minaj refuses the vaccine because her cousin's friend allegedly took it and their balls swelled up, because that couldn't be anything else that's been reported, like an STD

We still have assholes advocating for body autonomy when it comes to vaccines but in the same breath scream demands to take away abortion rights and they see no irony

Why the resistance still? They are afraid of being tracked with microchips and 5g. Yet find no irony in driver's licenses, social security numbers, passports, medical files, dental files, and tax records being available for everyone, let alone Facebook and other social media sites collecting and selling their personal data. They think that each of them are that important that the government would invest millions into tracking them personally when its already incredibly easy to

Batman has a webcomic about all the bats and Robins and such, and it is wholesome as shit

One of the best writers Doctor Who has ever had is coming back to the helm after being replaced for years

There was a literal 3d virtual concert for Pokemon starring Post Malone, who sang about cowboys making him cry and how he was "only in it for the sex" as a majestic Lugia flew by

21 Pilots had a virtual concert of their own in god damn ROBLOX

Speaking of virtual, there was a virtual museum to the Civil Rights Movement added to... *checks notes*... Fortnite.

Kirby is actually going to have a 3d game. Not just 2.5D, like Mario Odyssey 3d.

The first billionaire went to space after underpaying his employees and leaving them with terrible work environments, and bragged about it on live TV in a cowboy hat, and not only did he not break the atmosphere, he unfortunately came back

There's apparently a 3d MLP movie that talks about xenophobia, propaganda, and historical revisionism. Idk I just found out too

Rugrats is back and Stu is a gamer

iCarly is back and Carly and Freddie were propositioned for a threesome

Drake Bell was convicted of child endangerment

Josh Peck is Turner in a Turner and Hooch reboot and is thriving

Flip phones are back in a weird way

We had attempts to violently overthrow our government this year and the organizers are just out playing golf and planning sedition like it's just another Monday

Ted Cruz liked porn on his Twitter account publicly. Again.

Grimes and Musk split up, still no word on his plans for real life cat girls

Star Wars. Is anime now. Which is awesome

See the full post

496 notes • Posted 2021-09-27 22:53:39 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[professorpalmarosa]

Commander Charon (Frugal Ferryman)

Charon’s one of those characters you either really love or really loathe. I personally love him and was way too excited when I found his journal in the Silph Co. building in HGSS! Honestly, he may be my favorite in the entire franchise...

He’s also the only Team Galactic Commander who (for the most part) is relatively consistent with his personality. His anime version had that delightful laugh and mildly sarcastic attitude I enjoyed in the game. His Special/Adventures and DPA counterparts just cranked that snark up to 11 and went over the top with it. He was a melodramatic ham, yes, but a recognizable melodramatic ham.

He makes me smile. He makes me laugh. He makes me feel a little less weird about my steadily increasing Rotom collection. And, naturally, I have to have him play a major role in my Platinum prequel fan-fiction Pokemon Dawn & Dusk!

Going into this, I knew there were two things I wanted to do when creating Charon’s blend (Frugal Ferryman):

It needed to smell like old people (but in a good way)

It needed to use at least one of the most ridiculously expensive oils in my collection (because Charon thinks he’s worth it).

And yet somehow, the main oil in this synergy ended up being neither of those things. It ended up being my December Oil of the Month from Plant Therapy: something so obscure and rare that I can only order it from them over the phone!

It’s Cubeb Essential Oil: a mildly peppery scent that promotes pain relief, respiratory health, and digestive health. By itself, it kind of smells like soy sauce. I was stumped on how I could use it, but then I did some research to see what it paired with…

…bingo!

To get that “old person” smell, I added CO2 Supercritical Bulgarian Lavender (which made the blend smell just like these half-fossilized bath cubes my grandmother’s hoarded in her bathroom since the late 1980s) and Ylang Ylang III.

To give you some idea, Ylang Ylang is known as “king of the flowers” and has the obnoxiously high price tag to match. It’s great for hair care, is lauded as a powerful aphrodisiac, but typically only succeeds in making me sleepy due to its strong sedative properties.

Earlier, I made note that one of these bath bombs knocked me out in the tub and I woke up a couple of hours later. It was this one. This bomb means business and isn’t for the faint (or weak) of heart.

Together, the blend starts out with an “old lady’s powder room” type of floral…but then the peppery notes of the Cubeb come back to give it a more masculine bite. I really like the way this one smells…but the way it looks is even more dramatic. There’s so much purple in this one that you can’t even see your body in the water!

Now it’s time to talk about the pros and cons of these oils from a safety perspective…

Aromatherapy isn’t just about pretty smells and scented bath water. Essential oils are in such a high concentration that even absorbing them through your skin can leave you with the therapeutic (and potentially toxic) benefits.

If you are allergic to a plant, you are 100% without question going to be super allergic to the essential oil.

There’s also such a thing as contraindications: where some oils may affect you in weird ways if you have a certain medical condition or take certain medications.

The information below is for your safety if you want to attempt to make this blend at home (as a bath bomb, a body spray, or even scented bath salts). And do be sure to wear gloves. Some of these oils have recommended dilution rates as small as 0.4%. You don’t want that to slide on bare skin!

Cubeb

The Javanese Cubeb plant (Piper cubeba) is known by many names, but is cultivated mostly for its fruit and essential oil. The smell is very aromatic (kind of peppery, really pungent, slightly bitter, and it lingers). The aromatherapists say it smells like a cross between Allspice and Black Pepper (both of which you can get as essential oils), but I’m calling bullshit.

It smells like soy sauce. It pairs well with clove, rosemary, and most wood oils.

I’d never heard of this oil until I got it as Plant Therapy’s December Oil of the Month, nor did I have any idea how to use it. A quick Google search told me this is one of the oldest essential oils used by mankind, dating as far back as the 4th Century BC!

Cubeb was used by ancient Greek pharmakons, along with medieval alchemists. Even some modern witchcraft rituals use this fantastic plant--and I’d never freaking heard of it.

Pros

:

It’s an aphrodisiac! There’s nothing quite like a superconcentrated dried pepper to put you in the mood, I guess. People used to use this thing to treat infertility, impotence, ED, gonorrhea, and other STDs. And apparently, the two things I mixed with the Cubeb for Charon’s blend also have this aphrodisiac property. Ladies~

Feeling bloated? Cubeb’s here to help! Sometimes you really have to fart and it won’t come out. So you bloat, feeling all that painful air trap inside you with no way out. Cubeb Essential Oil has a carminative (gas-relieving) property to help you break wind discretely and safely. However, if chronic flatulence becomes a regular thing for you, contact your healthcare provider.

Feeling a little blocked up? Can’t breathe well? Cubeb’s fantastic for breaking up phlegm, calming down asthma, relieving congestion, and helping you ward off that nasty cough once and for all! For even faster results, pair it with Cajeput Essential Oil, Eucalyptus Globulus Essential Oil, or Camphor Essential Oil.

Flush out toxins! Cubeb has diuretic properties. It stimulates your kidneys to excrete more liquid, which in turn flushes out any toxins in your body. This can include stuff like uric acid, salt, cholesterol, and fat.

Tired joints? Maybe Cubeb can be of assistance! Some Ayurvedic medicine practitioners use Cubeb Essential Oil to alleviate aches and pains from joint and bone problems.

Cons

:

By itself, it smells like freaking soy sauce. I cannot reiterate that enough. If you diffuse this at work (true story), people are going to assume you have something delicious at your cubicle and won’t stop hounding you for it. That’s really frustrating when you’re trying to run a QA test!

Due to its high sequiterpene content, this is not a cat-safe oil.

Cubeb Essential Oil (when overused) runs the risk of increasing the sensitivity of your stomach and intestines. Don’t use this oil if you’re taking antacids, have acid reflux disease, or take medications to decrease stomach acid.

Some people have reported irritated skin after prolonged use of Cubeb.

Avoid using this oil if you are pregnant, plan to become pregnant, or are nursing.

This is not a child-safe oil. Avoid this essential oil (and bath bomb) for any children under the age of 12.

Never apply this oil neat (undiluted) on your skin or ingest.

Due to Cubeb’s strong diuretic properties, avoid usage if you are suffering from kidney disease.

Lavender

Pros: Lavender is one of your best friends when it comes to restlessness, insomnia, anxiety, and depression. It’s also great for loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, gas, and a fussy stomach. It’s also remarkable for pain relief in cases where you’re troubled by migraines, toothaches, sprains, nerve pain, and joint pain.

Some folks even apply Lavender Essential Oil to the skin for hair loss and pain. It’s also safe to apply this one neat (on your skin) for most people.

Cons:

Lavender has also been shown to slow down the central nervous system when used on the regular. If you plan to go under for surgery or anything else with anesthesia, please avoid using Lavender Essential Oil two weeks ahead of the scheduled procedure.

Lavender should not be used by prepubescent and pubescent boys, as it can warp certain hormonal reactions and greatly increase risk for gynecomastia (male breast growth).

If you are taking a sedative, adding Lavender Essential Oil to the mix may create too much drowsiness. Exercise caution!

Ylang Ylang III

Pros:

Fight insomnia! Ylang Ylang is a natural sleep aid and very effective. However, its sedative properties are so strong that you might want to avoid using Ylang Ylang in the morning or if you intend to drive or operate heavy machinery. Pull this oil out right before bed or at least once you’re in for the night. It’s worked for me!

Repel head lice! Ylang Ylang can be used in a combination spray to repel and even kill head lice. Developing evidence suggests that a homeopathic blend of coconut oil, anise oil, and ylang ylang oil had a 92% effectiveness rate on killing those unwanted creepy crawlies in children’s hair.

Lower high blood pressure!

Increase your sex drive! Ylang Ylang is a natural aphrodisiac and has been used for millennia for that exact purpose. There’s a reason this flower is also known as the King of the Flowers.

Cons:

Ylang Ylang Essential Oil is considered to be universally safe for general use. However, it is not safe to diffuse around a cat.

When I said this thing is a sedative, I freaking meant it. I am a relatively healthy 28-year-old woman and this bath bomb knocked me out in 20 minutes. I stayed asleep for a solid 2 hours. If you plan to use Charon’s bath bomb, make sure you have absolutely no other plans for the rest of the day and leave the bathroom door unlocked. There’s a good chance you’ll pass out in the tub.

[deanstits]

AU Fic Rec, Part 4

Modern AU

Buckle the fuck in children, this is going to be long and uhhhhhhhhh long.

Modern AU - Anything set in current day, but not in the SPN universe. A lot of the BDSM/sex worker fics fit into this category but obviously??? They belong on the ever important BDSM list. Duh.

Let’s get fuckin ready.

Part One - BDSM

Part Two - Sci-FI/Fantasy

Part Three - Historical Setting

____

1. The Last Great Race - Kicking it off with a bang. Cas is a reporter, he goes to Alaska to cover the Iditarod - the dog sled race. Dean is participating and so is Sam and there are so many huskies and also romance. It has a prequel time stamp. It is lovely and I love it and read this right now.

2.  Pies and Prejudice - This is on my Top 8, but it’s a Pride and Prejudice Great British Bake Off Modern AU Fusion. Dean is Liz and Cas is Darcy. Please read this it’s wonderful and also cake is involved.

3. Between The Lines - Fam, Okay, I thought this was going to be Garbage but it’s not. Environmentalist Cas gets in a twitter feud(!!!!) with Western Actor Dean and they make a bet to live in off the land for a week and it’s. Amazing. Enemies 2 frends 2 luvrs. Trust me.

4. And Then You Destroy Yourself - The only Non-BDSM College AU worth reading. Cas is a freshman, he joins the College Newspaper, there is drama and mystery and intrigue. And Gay. The underage drinking is bit cringe but it’s very in character for college students, so what r u gonna do.

5. Love In The Wild - This is a hilaaaaarious Reality Show AU. Dean goes on a dating show and does challenges and meets the luv of his life, u kno? What more do you need. There is sex.

6. Through Basin And Range - Yeee buddy, Road Trip Fic!!!!! Dean and Cas are there but have broken up and it’s rough, and Sam is there also but he is sexting Kevin for some reason. Cas is spending the summer working on a thesis for his Geology Masters (master of rocks), and Sam n Dean tag along. This story really is lovey. It’s only on LJ though, so. :/

7. Unintended - Lawyer Cas bids for Fire Fighter Dean in a date auction and honestly. The sex in this is so good, like I lost this fic for three years but still remembered The Scene (You’ll know the one, that shit is hardly ever seen outside of PWP). This fic is so slept on. You need to read it. I think they live in Washinton or something. Maybe NYC. I forget, I’m busy thinking about The Scene.

8. Your Heart Makes - Ok so there are Three Disney Land AUs in this fandom that I know of. One of them is garbage, one of them is pretty good, and the last is incredible and it’s ur lucky day because the incredible one is this one. Castiel suffers from pretty bad depression, and is just trying to get through life, day by day. Insert Dean w/ a heart condition. There’s love, there’s slow build, there’s disney ride hand jobs. It’s a good time.

9. Any Little Heartbreak - I just reread this one recently! Heart Surgeon Dean! Surgery Nurse Cas! Enemies to FWB to Lovers! It’s like Scrubs meets... some sort of medical drama. Whatever, it’s a trip, and Meg is so fun.

10. Bearing Point - This fic is lovely and fun and it’s construction Dean + restoration expert Cas. I have beef with this fic, in that the author made Dean gay, instead of bi or pan and for me, a huge bisexual with strong emotional ties to Dean’s bisexuality, it kind of grated on me a bit and ruined the immersion. But, if you’re not a big baby like me, this fic is lovely and wonderful and they literally build homes together and also get nasty.

11. For All You Young Hockey Players Out There, Pay Attention - SPORTS AU. I don’t like sports but SPORTS AU. Dean is a hockey person. Something something NHL. Dean plays the sports with his brother. They get a new player from russia, but Dean is >:( bc they traded out his bff so Cas is The Enemy. Enemies to grudging friends to lovers. Coming out. Homophobic confusion. This fic is wonderful and lovely and sports. If you love destiel and you love Check Please, then this is the AU for U.

12.  Fourth Time’s the Charm - Ooooooooh, age gap fic. Cas is a comic book artist, Dean is a fan who goes to conventions. He’s also a virgin. :) Here is a direct quote from the summary: ‘Dean shyly fumbles his way through his first real relationship.’ Literally what more do you need? Literally?

13. If At First You Don’t Succeed (Destroy All Evidence That You Ever Tried) - lmao this fic is ridiculous. Inspired by the HIMYM episode, the three days rule, Dean replaces his number in Castiel’s phone to test he’s not being too eager when he meets girls. sexting ensues and Dean is !!!!! Gay Panicked. I love it, read it now, it’s sexy.

14.  Prosopagnosia -  This one is Teen and Up, I know, I am shocked that I’ve included it too. But it’s such a sweet story. Castiel works in a Gas n’ Sip and he has a cognitive disorder that means he’s face blind. He can’t recognize anyone, which makes his blossoming relationship with Dean a bit complicated. But they work around it. The Impala plays an important role.

15. Run Boy Run - FAM OK FAM PLS. Blind! Dean wants to compete in the Boston Marathon, but he needs a guide people to help him navigate obstacles and the other contestants. Castiel’s brother signs him up and he’s reluctant, but then he meets Dean and uhhhhhhh it all works out. It’s so sweet. Read it. Teen and Up again??? I’m srry, but it’s really good.

16. Yellow - Here’s another I haven’t read yet, but. It’s Elizabeth1985 and also it’s Cas in Witness protection and the excerpt I read places it firmly on my favourites list. Ex-mobster Cas, They are bartenders, there is falling in love, there is also fucking yeaaaa buddy, back on the sexy bandwagon.

17. Rough Seas - Dean is a Lieutenant Commander who moves home with a toddler and he’s involved with the Coast Guard, and he used to know Cas but there was gay panic and so things are tense and angsty and wonderful and this fic is amazing. SLOW BUILD. LOVERS TO ENEMIES TO FRIENDS TO LOVERS. Literally the best. There is a sequel which is almost as long. This fic is so lovely.

18. Asunder - This fic my guys, this fic. Please send help. Social Worker Dean. Recovering Heroin addicts Sam and Ruby who are getting married. They go to Bobby’s for the wedding. I forget how Cas fits in but he’s there and it’s lovely and so well written and wonderful and honestly? A Classic. If you read anything from this list, read this fic.

19. Satin and Sawdust - Lmao u guys u know me. Dean in panties love story. It’s on my Top 8. There’s capentry, there’s gay panic Cas, there’s satin and lace and soft cotton and also Dean has two cats. Read this right now.

20. Living In Agony - THIS FIC MY GUYS. I had three people read it from my Top 8 and they all died and met me in heaven bc i also died when I read it bc it is so. Lovely. Angst, mental illness, teachers Cas and Dean, Gabriel and Charlie are there also, Jess is a delight, Sam is in love with green smoothies, the sex is ridiculous (there is one line that helped shape me as a person and you will know which it is and you can blame this fic for all of the absolute filth that comes out of my brain. Read this right now.

21. Inevitable Homoeroticism in Spanish Romantic Heroes - :) Okay so Dean is a Grad student and Cas is a professor and it’s academic and sexy and not really a college au and I read it like four years ago and I still think about it. I suggest it very highly!!!

22. Get Some - Dean is in college and needs a place to live. He goes to live with Castiel, at the stoner house. Gay Panic happens and there are drugs and loads of casual sex and it’s honestly a good time. A bit angsty but mostly thumbs up muy bueno.

23.  That Summer - Short and sweet, lost love, this fic is so lovely and wonderful. It does feature an age gap with underage Dean so, if that’s not your bag... He is 17 at the time. Farmer Cas! Love and exploring sexuality!

24. Rvr Ro11435 - Destiel works at Nasa!!! Neither are astronauts but they are smart cookies who help send people to space. It’s tagged as an office romance. It’s cute.

25. The Way to a Man’s Heart is Through Chlamydia - One night stand. Dean gets an STD. Has to find his boo and tell ‘em about the STD. There’s fun sex and love and one of them is a baker and the love is so sweet and I love this fic. And I’m psure Cas gets a cat.

26.  Say a Prayer and Light a Candle - College AU where Cas struggles with dating agnostic Dean bc he is very Jewish, and it’s important to him and his family. This fic is special, and really culturally rich. I love it. Little bit of Angst, mostly love and sweetness.

27. Painted Angels - Fuck u this one is hurt of my heart. The Angst is Unreal. Dean is an artist. Or, he was an Artist. Lost Love, which gets found again. Cas returning to town a decade later. All the good shit.

28. Small Town Charmer - SMALL TOWNS! DEAN AND CAS! THEY RUN BUSINESSES AND FALL IN LOVE! Errrrrrr OTHER STUFF HAPPENS! This fic is lovely and great and if you don’t read it then u a dum dum.

29. Summer Holds a Song (We Might Sing Forever) - :) Age difference. Body worship. Dean Winchester described as a Greek God. The fucking is so hot. The love is so sweet. It’s short, but you gotta read this.

30. The Great Escapist - This fic is so sweet. College roommates Dean and Cas spend the summer together and fall in love. I don’t remember if there is Gay panic but like... I’m pretty sure.

Okay! 30 seems like enough. Maybe in the future I will do a part five. We’ll see. :)

____

Top 8 Personal Favs

[muthur9000]

Prometheus (2012)

1. Jon Spaihts was originally brought on when the film was simply the “untitled Alien prequel.” After a general meeting, where he riffed for about 45 minutes about what could happen in the film. When faced with a studio saying they wanted to go back to the Alienuniverse but wasn’t sure how to do it, Spaihts said, “The only way to do it was to go back in time.”

2. After his first meeting, it took only ten days before Spaihts had a meeting with Ridley Scott and the 20th Century Fox executives. He wrote his first draft in only 3 ½ weeks.

3. Although Scott has said that the location for the opening sequence is not necessarily Earth, Damon Lindelof describes it as a “sort of nascent, pastoral, lifeless Earth” and later identifies it as “the dawn of life on Earth.” However, several minutes later, Lindelof says it’s up for debate whether this was Earth.

4. The opening sequence included dialogue between the Engineers, and this was shot and included in the deleted scenes. However, the dialogue was removed because it was felt the Engineers speaking robbed them of their mystery. Lindelof, who recorded his commentary before the film was released, suspected he would be criticized for not saying exactly what happened.

5. Lindelof says that he and Scott had “a long and involved conversation” on what to call the film. “Ridley would constantly bust my balls about calling it Prometheus because he thought it was pretentious and hard to pronounce,” he says. “I said I agree it is both, but as I am a very pretentious person, I was able to sort of bludgeon him into it, and I think Fox thought it was cool.”

6. The name of the ship in Spaihts’ original script was the Magellan, and the name Prometheus was added by Lindelof. Continuing to admit he’s a pretentious writer, Lindelof says he chose the allusion to Greek mythology because Weyland (Guy Pearce) is trying to get immortality from his creators as Prometheus stole fire from the gods.

7. Even though the dig where we meet Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) was in Spaihts’ original script, Scott didn’t shoot it initially, choosing to start the action in space. This scene was added during reshoots. Other versions of the archeology scene includes one in which Shaw and Holloway make their discovery in a submarine, but it was cut for budgetary reasons. Another version had them finding archeology on Mars, but Spaihts felt that was too much of an easy sell to convince someone that aliens seeded Earth.

8. In regards to Prometheus being labeled a horror movie, Lindelof states, “I think Prometheus certainly has defined horror elements… They just can’t stay out of the attic even if they know that it’s dangerous.”

9. Spaihts identifies what he believes is the biggest shift between his script and Lindelof’s revisions: the amount of alien creatures in the film. Spaihts’ script had traditional facehuggers, chestbursters and xenomorphs. Lindelof removed many of those elements in order to avoid telling a standard Alien story.

10. Spaihts also felt a big difference in the script versions was there was “a pretty long drum roll at the top” in his script. Initially there were extended sequences of Shaw and Holloway making their case to find alien ancestors, using puzzle pieces of language, genealogy and pre-history. “By the time we got onto a ship, we’d been running really the ghost story of human past, the mystery story, for a solid twenty minutes of screen time in the scripts I wrote.” In Lindelof’s script, this exposition is put in during the crew briefing. Lindelof says he did this to be more dynamic by presenting the information to the crew members at the same time it’s presented to the audience.

11. Lindelof compares this exposition scene to the crew to his work on Lost. The scripted scene was 8 or 9 pages, and it throws a lot of exposition at the audience. He said when he worked on Lost, he avoided expository scenes “at all costs.” As a result, he says, “people hate me because the show was very confusing.”

12. Lindelof points out that David (Michael Fassbender) is perfectly happy to be a robot. He doesn’t’ have a Pinocchio complex. “Robots are like iPods,” he says. “You can put your own case on them or put your own apps on them.” This is why he emulates Peter O’Toole from Lawrence of Arabia, to personalize himself rather than to emulate humanity.

13.After she wakes up from cryosleep, Meredith asks David if everyone is still alive. She is specifically asking whether Peter Weyland survived. If he were dead, she would have turned the ship around and gone home.

14. Both Spaihts and Lindelof express disappointment in the casting of a younger, extremely fit actor like Guy Pearce as Peter Weyland. Originally, there were scenes in which David talks to Weyland in his dream, and he appears as a young, fit man. However, Scott dropped those scenes because he didn’t think they were needed. This led Spaihts to refer to Weyland as “a strapping old man” and Lindelof to point out the inherent silliness of not just casting an old man rather than using old-age make-up.

15. Spaihts addresses a common complaint about the Prometheus being so much more advanced than the Nostromo, even though this film takes place many years before the events of Alien. He points out that the Nostromo was “a tugboat,” and it’s possible that cruder ship had been around for 150 years. “I don’t trip too much over the anachronism of the technology.”

16. Lindelof compares Weyland’s quest for more life (rather than more money) to Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) in Scott’s Blade Runner. However, instead of an artificial being seeking more life from humanity, this film features a human going to his creator and asking for more life. He says, “For me, Prometheus was all about making an Alien-Blade Runner mash-up, using the best themes from both movies and dropping them all into the same world… I just assumed they were sequels of each other.”

17. Spaihts wrote five drafts of the film, generally adhering more to the original Alien and including more of the derelict spacecraft (which is later referred to as a “juggernaut”).

18. In Spaihts’ original draft, the pups used to map the caves rolled and crawled along the ground instead of flying. He admits that they look cooler in the air.

19. Both Spaihts and Lindelof address the often criticized helmet removal by the crew. Lindelof calls it a “leap of faith” for the characters and compares Holloway’s helmet removal to the scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind in which Richard Dreyfussremoves his gas mask to prove there’s no danger. Spaihts calls the issue an inevitable tug-of-war. “Logic demands the helmet stay on almost always for head protection, for atmosphere, pressure could blow, infection could set in,” he said. “The director and actors will always want their helmets off for performance’s sake. And there will always be pressure to give the actors a good excuse to take their hats off.”

20. Spaihts originally conceived that the Engineers saw a greater spectrum than humans did. However, so did David, and he could see signs and symbols in the corridors that the humans didn’t.

21. Lindelof says Holloway gave Shaw “probably the worst STD you can possibly get, an alien in the belly.” What emerges is progenitor of the facehugger, and he says, “Shaw and Holloway are kind of that facehugger’s mommy and daddy.” Spaihts also independently calls the alien embryo a sexually transmitted disease, adding, “A chestburster was actually conceived by the love of a man and a woman.”

22. Lindelof further discusses the motivation of the Engineers: “That’s kind of the point of the movie, I think. The idea that our creators really don’t have a particular sense of great ambition or meaning behind what they’re doing as Holloway described it in an earlier draft… The idea that Earth was just these people’s Petri dish. But perhaps there is more to why they created us in the first place, which is sort of the spirit in which the movie ends. Again if you’re listening to my commentary it’s probably because you’re interested in what I have to say or you hate me. In either case, one of the things that I love to do in my writing is not answer questions definitively. As frustrating as this is I rely much more on the human imagination and your ability to sort of theorize as to what you think may have happened. And although that’s why its’ frustrating, people talk about movies after they’re over.”

23. Lindelof anticipates fans taking issue with the explanation and human connection to the space jockey, as he did initially when he read Spaihts’ script. He says, “It’s a controversial idea because anything in a prequel that essentially recasts your understanding of the original movie has the opportunity to lessen that movie and therefore, it’s a risk.”

24. On how the film actually ties in directly with Alien and its sequels, Lindelof is continually vague: “We still don’t know what happened on LV-426. Maybe we’ll never know. This movie goes off in its own direction. But again we sort of wanted to have the sense that if Prometheus had never occurred, maybe Alien still would’ve happened. But we’re seeing a similar chain of events going in an entirely different way.”

25. Lindelof explains that David is hesitant to spike Holloway’s drink with the alien mutagen possibly because of his ethics programming. However, because Weyland has instructed him to do whatever is necessary to bring a solution, but more importantly because Holloway admits that he’d do anything to get his own answers, that allows David to override that part of his programming.

26. Spaihts originally conceived Janek (Idris Elba) as a Captain Nemo type. While Elba doesn’t physically resemble the bearded type Spaihts had envisioned, he did fit the part extremely well. In fact, Lindelof makes several mentions throughout his commentary that he would do anything to add more Janek moments.

27. The sex scene between Holloway and Shaw was originally more antagonistic, in which Holloway was upset because he wanted to disprove the existence of God. Lindelof rewrote the scene for a reshoot to make it more congenial. This allows the audience to feel sympathy for Holloway when he is eventually killed by Vickers (Charlize Theron).

28. In Spaihts’ original script, Holloway was impregnated by a facehugger in the tunnels of the pyramid, after being startled by the holograms and falling down on an egg. The chestburster then emerged while he was making love to Shaw. Spaihts specifically chose this moment to tie together sex and violence, as is often done in the Alien universe.

29. Lindelof added the element of Fifield (Sean Harris) getting stoned in his suit to match the pattern of a horror movie, in which characters that have sex or get stoned often die.

30. After Holloway and Shaw’s sex scene and the attack on Millburn (Rafe Spall) and Fifield, Spaihts elaborates: “It’s interesting to see the Alien franchise’s built-in sexualization of menace play out in different fronts here. And it’s something that I think Damon did well, you know, obliged to part company with facehuggers and chestbursters which are very rapey and sexual phenomena. Pregnancy. And you, know, oral rape and impregnation as the way of being done in a by a monster, really ghastly. It’s why there is an Alienfranchise and not one scary Alien movie… The blasphemy of it, the fact that it is so vile and it’s so transgressive in the way it victimizes a human being I think is what makes it resonate, what makes it so dark.”

31. In Spaihts’ script, David finds a huge cargo hold of eggs, which was meant to undo the experiment on Earth. David captures and restrains Shaw when she confronts him in there. She is impregnated by a facehugger, and because she witnessed Holloway’s death, she knows what it will do to her. This is what causes her to escape and use the Med-Pod to extract it. Spaihts says that this deliberate exposure of Shaw to the aliens is what he misses most about his screenplay.

32. Spaihts says his idea of the C-section alien removal is what got him the writing job because no one had ever survived that before in an Alien film. “The real trauma is the exit wound,” he says, “so if you get it out clean, you might live.” In his script, once the creature was removed, it was ejected from the Med-Pod, and Shaw stayed in there for hours to heal, all the while watching it grow and eventually kill people. “Either way, she ends up running away, bloody and half-naked,” he admits.

33. The imagery around David accessing the Engineers’ stellar cartography hologram was inspired by a painting from Joseph Wright called “The Orrery.”

34. When Holloway is torched by Vickers, Spaihts points out the challenges in Lindelof’s script: “This is a difficult moment. And I can see Damon here looking for answers. You know, deprived of the facehuggers and aliens that otherwise killed these characters, how do you do away with them and how do you provide a moment for the evil for your villains to play out?”

35. Lindelof identifies what he considers to be the fundamental difference between his and Spaihts’ scripts, which influenced the name and direction of the film: “Weyland was not a character in Jon’s draft other than at the opening. He’s not on the ship. He was driven by the idea that finding the Engineers would result in breakthroughs in terraforming technology and thus could make the company a lot of money. In this version, Weyland is not driven by money at all. He’s driven by the one thing his money can’t buy him, which is some iteration of eternal life.”

36. When the surviving Engineer awakens, Lindelof points out that there are no answers to what exactly the Engineers were doing. David gives a theory, but there are no answers, though Lindelof hints at some ideas that could be developed in further films. Spaihts offers a more concrete reason why there’s no explanation: “If you’re gonna wake up God, you’re gonna have Him talk to you, what on Earth could he say? What speech can he give you that will satisfy you that will be good enough, cool enough, deep enough? Here’s the alien super-race that made us what we are. What do they have to say to us?”

37. The Engineer originally did speak to David, which is included in the deleted scenes, but Lindelof said it was removed from the film because “it robbed him of any coolness or mystery.”

38. At the end of Spaihts’ script, after the juggernaut crashes, Shaw has to fight a xenomorph which emerged from the Engineer pilot. Lindelof decided to change it to the Engineer fighting her because he felt it was a movie about a creation confronting its creator, rather than a woman fighting an alien.

39. Spaihts chose the name “David” for the android because the first three androids were Ash, Bishop and Call, in that order. Alphabetically, David was the next logical choice. David was also a reference to Michaelangeo’s famous sculpture, which was a physical model for the Engineers. He’s also the first android to be referred to by a first name instead of his surname, and he was the first in chronology.

40. As he wraps up his commentary, Lindelof goes back to the question of whether this is an actual prequel to Alien or not. His final argument is: “This movie doesn’t end with a bunch of eggs on LV-426, and that’s partly what makes it not fit as a direct prequel.”

Best in Commentary

Lindelof: “That was my attempt to get Charlize Theron naked, but cooler heads prevailed.” (Regarding Meredith Vickers doing push-ups in her underwear after waking from cryosleep)

Lindelof: “How far away is that from LV 426?” About 185 LVs, whatever that means. Yes, I’m not as nerdy as I should be.” (Regarding the location of LV-223)

Lindelof: “David is not really the guy you want as your OB-GYN.”

Lindelof: “A spoiler alert here. If a man and a woman have sex, you can make a baby. And if that man has just been infected by a crazy android with weird black goop, that baby is going to be strange and upsetting.”

Spaihts: “Both of the women in this movie are in insane shape. It’s terrifying how muscular and powerful they are. Either one could kick my ass.”

Lindelof: “If you hated the movie, again, I apologize. And hopefully this made you hate me even more. And if you liked it, I’m really grateful that you did. And hopefully we’ll get to spend some more time in this universe because it’s one of my favorites.”

[idestroyhumanity]

The new old ENTERPRISE isn’t a bad looking bird...but she shouldn’t need to exist because DISCOVERY should never have been a prequel. It would have worked so much better, and would have been much more widely accepted, had it been set in a post-TNG timeframe free from cannon-stomping and needless changes to what has gone before. I am honestly intrigued by the prospect DISCOVERY season three for this very reason. And what looks like a dying Federation has definite overtones of #BryanSinger’s STAR TREK: FEDERATION pitch. Here’s hoping that fact doesn’t spur a lawsuit. #disco #tng #startrek #std #ncc1701 #enterprise #discovery https://www.instagram.com/p/B4LMt1ijQD5/?igshid=1qpqiheuj5dc4