#seriously what’s with me and robot gentlemen!?

[canon-can-fight-me]

As promised, some more Screwllum thoughts~

- I didn’t know he was going to have such a large role in SW’s companion quest, I was pleasantly surprised!

- When they said Herta had an important guest I just knew it was him. Felt it in my bones.

- “I’m 4 minutes and 13 seconds earlier than the appointed time” I-I love him he’s so cute…

- I love that he has a sense of humor. I kept choosing the silly options and for him to find it amusing is just <3

- ex. “So I’m really a whale?” “It was a metaphor—“

- And the way he just. Handled Silver Wolf with such class. He hit her where it hurt, didn’t give her what she wanted, had everything happen as he expected.

- Also, I don’t know who voiced him (I play in EN and JPN, for this quest I was using English voices) but his voice actor did such a good job. I’m looking forward to seeing who voices him!

*Edit: the EN VA for screwllum was revealed to be Steven Kelly :)

- Overall I love. this. guy. He’s smart, classy, a gentleman, and most importantly, a robot. 10/10.

[yanmuffins]

waiter! waiter! more phineas and ferb reader pls!

I wonder how the batfam would react once they catch reader inventions on a random tuesday, like, "hm, what a nice day to look out on the window and HOLY SHIT WHY IS THERE A GIANT ROBOT SPITING FIRE WHILE RIDING A ROLLERCOASTER IN MY BACKYARD???"

the events that would follow this incident would be funny and exasperating, me thinks

also, wouldn't it be funnier if Perry the Platypus was part of the JL? and like, no one knows his identity but Superman, and neither of them are willing to talk about it-

I know it would be very unlikely, since everyone there would have enough neurons to recognize a platypus with and without a hat, but for the sake of shit and giggles, just think of how funny that would be

welp, I needed to get that outta ma chest, I hope I at least made you laugh a little, because seriously this is one of the best ideas I've seen in this tag and I can't stop thinking and giggling about it

Stay well!

context.

first: i was not expecting this concept to be so popular!! the responses i've gotten from everyone are so amazing!!  ( ⸝⸝´꒳`⸝⸝) thank you for the ask, anon!! it always makes my day.

i am formally announcing that i will be turning phineas and ferb reader into a fic now. it's too good a concept to pass up. something more light-hearted to work between the other fics i'm writing.

batfamily finding out about reader's whacky inventions would be an event. it so wholeheartedly shatters the image they had of reader to the point they just have to sit with what the hell just happened for a while before they even consider what to do about you next. still so many things that don't make sense. their newest case is how the fuck did we go this long without finding out (Y/N) has been building mechas in our backyard and why are those things always gone when it's convenient.

then the realizations just start dropping on them like an anvil on a looney tunes character. and they kinda feel like shit, cause how did they not notice? really puts into perspective how they've neglected you all this time. so many stunts you pulled right under their nose, on their backyard, their garage, throughout gotham and metropolis. ok, were out there being creative and amazing and you sure know how to spend the wayne family money, they'll give you that, but it was so irresponsible of you! who knows what could've gone wrong. you're not like them! you're a civilian with no training, the only regular teenager in the family, you're the last person who should be exposing themselves doing all that.

bruce goes off on you, screaming about how could you be so reckless, you did all of this behind his back– what? what do you mean he gave his permission? and he is floored, devastated, blood pressure up, when you remind him of every instance you dropped by his office with a document for him to sign or to ask for permission, with proof as you pull out every paper he put his signature without a second look.

and that, ladies and gentlemen, is when reader's dynamic with the batfam does a complete 180 and their little yandere antennae start going off. no more whacky cartoonish shenanigans. at least not without proper supervision. they know you're not a fan of this new arrangement, but you gotta understand they let you go unchecked for way too long! they'll drown you in family activities so you don't even have to worry about it. who wants to build a teleportation machine, anyway? just join them for family movie night.

as for perry, that is going to take them a while longer to figure out. bruce just can't stand another insane discovery, so when batman sees an intelligent platypus wearing a fedora and walking on two feet on justice league headquarters (if we're going by the idea that he's a part of JL), he's just going to think "my kid has a pet platypus. huh."

oh, consider:

dick: "damian, you knew all this time?! our sibling could've gotten into serious trouble! why didn't you tell us about this?"

damian: stares into the camera like he's in the office.

[4m4zing-gracie]

Uzi Doorman: How unnecessary romance can ruin a character (Part 1)

This is no flack to Uzi, nor is it to any NUzi shippers (ship what you want, I may be an eNVy lover and I'm happy you got what you wanted, I just hate how it was handled in the show), but can we all just talk about how much the unnecessary romance subplot + the inclusion of it in the show in general absolutely butchered Uzi's character?

I hope to god this gets put under an automatic 'read more/expand' thing, 'cause this is gonna get long.

But in case it doesn't cue the obligatory 'read more'!

Thank you.

Now, I remember watching the pilot and loving the character and the premise, as well as the dynamics in the show. Uzi was one of the characters that stuck out to me the most and was arguably my favourite before that title was given to V in episode three. She was determined to murder the company as well as armies of their other killer robots to save her colony, even if she had no skills AND at the cost of her own life, and she is absolutely willing to take in the robots that are just as much victims in all of this as the worker drones (eg. N).

I overall like to think that despite her flaws, and what her spiteful personality seems to show and probably on the contrary to what she would claim if she talks to anyone about it, Uzi's a much better person than she lets on. Not the most altruistic obviously, but still better than most people in the show. Hell, she didn't kill V on the spot like she did with J, not only because her railgun was still charging, but also because she knew N liked her and doing anything to V would make him sad.

Uzi overall was strong, independent, and didn't take BS from anyone, and despite her abrasiveness was overall wanting the best for robotkind, even willing to team up with those who had been hurt by them to show them the light. And that is what drew me to her and made me like her.

Then comes The Promening. Uzi, who was terrified of N and what he, V and J could be just an episode ago, is meeting up with him again, and what does she do? Ask him to go with her to prom, all blushy-faced and everything, despite having been terrified of him a moment ago. No buildup, no episode dedicated to them making up and realizing that it's okay and they can figure out what is wrong together, just.... out of nowhere crush. And while you could argue that she still needed him there anyways because of the looming danger of whatever Doll and Lizzy were planning, it's still not necessary, and I hate how it continues to stay throughout the episode.

Ladies and gentlemen, your first indication that this next bunch of episodes gonna get long and arduous.

Up next is Cabin Fever. Not my favourite episode-- I mean, it's no Absolute End in terms of garbage-- but not my favourite either.

Okay, so Uzi's learned that the plot is thickening and that she has some kind of solver thing, and so does Doll. So now, she's trying to get some answers about what this thing that she and Doll have is by looking around the camp that her father recommended checking out.

We start with more unnecessary blushing (seriously, where the fuck did this crush come from)?! and then Uzi goes off to find the cabin where she might get answers. Unfortunately, no results.

We then get a moment between her and V. Uzi and V obviously don't see eye to eye (honestly, they needed an episode or a moment where they talk properly and get a better understanding of each other). Uzi wants answers but finds that V is some annoying parasite that only cares about herself and her stomach, and likewise V does not like Uzi, being jealous of her and not wanting her to get involved with the past, as V thinks she knows what is best for N and is trying to 'protect him' (which Uzi does not know why).

N and V are already getting along with the other campers outside, something Uzi envies because they rarely acknowledge her existence at best, or treat her like a monster at worst. In this moment, V is hammering the point home by saying how Uzi needs to stop 'being creepy' and that she plans to make the latter her next victim for sneaking around and snooping, and that N will move on from her. After all, if what she has said is true, the guy has made friends with rocks before!

Long story short, Uzi gets possessed by the Solver and goes crazy and eats people, and we see her almost about to kill V (something I doubt she'd do if she had free will, as it would make N upset). Only when N swoops in to save them both is when she manages to break free. Blah Blah Blah, N and Uzi have a moment, and they both hug it out together, and they crushily hold hands*, end of episode.

*- Uzi, you didn't need to do that because again, WHERE DID THIS CRUSH COME FROM?

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Apologies in advance for the jarring Picrew, but I needed something to convey my facial expressions rn because I don't have nearly enough unhappy drawings of my 'Sona to show it.

So, as I have mentioned before, I'm an eNVy shipper. And so with this info in mind, you're probably thinking "Well, she's probably making this post to justify why eNVy should be canon". And in another universe where I'm an even bigger bitch than I already am, maybe I would be. But... that's not why we're here. We're talking about how Uzi was utterly RUINED as a character.

So to start, she was great at first. Loveable character, rebellious, surprised her plushie wasn't the second one made because of her popularity.

But then this crush came out of nowhere and so I begin to fear for the future of the show. As I'm watching this, I am partially honestly going "who are you and what have you done with my Uzi?" because while it's good that Uzi is still focusing on the mystery to some degree, it seems that now she's also starting to obsess over an out-of-nowhere crush that has ZERO buildup or anything similar. For god's sake, N and Disassembly drones in general were the objects of her fears at the end of episode two!

I GET that the show is about Uzi and N's friendship, I really do. And I like shows that are buddy-centric. But why does this random romance bullshit have to be squirmed in, when the show was already perfect without any signs of it? Seriously, Liam, this is not how you take things!

Unfortunately, it's only gonna get more arduous from there. So uh... I dunno, "thanks for coming to my TED Talk, stay tuned and keep an eye out for a part two coming later"? I dunno.

[theramblingsofadork]

None of the boys on the Starpoint Squad have a professional background in engineering or chemistry, so when Starline tells them not to eat in the lab or while constructing the robot, they don’t take him very seriously.

This results in him flipping his lid (reasonably so) when he finds them doing just that, despite his warnings.

They do meekly apologize when they learn there is actually a real, scientific reasoning behind his words, and it's not just because he's being a stick in the mud.

Goes to show, Starline’s not the only one to get a slice of humble pie during the competition! XD

Accompanying fanfic below the cut!

vvvvvv

📘📙 Fanfic: A Slice of Humble Pie

Accompanying Music Track: World Trigger - 12/30

Starline stopped dead in his tracks the moment he stepped into the room. The platypus’ eyes widened when he saw Charge, Hex, and Lug standing around a table in the center.

Munching on cookies and cinnamon covered churros as they worked on the robot’s response system to Cello’s chemical mix.

Rivet immediately saw the problem too and clicked her tongue, green eyes shifting to the doctor besides her as his fists tightened at his sides. “Oh dear...” She managed to get out before Starline’s patience utterly cracked.

“GENTLEMEN!!” He exploded at the group, all of whom immediately looked up and froze like they had been caught with their hands in the cookie jar. (Ironic, because of what they were snacking on.) “WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT EATING AROUND THE EQUIPMENT?!”

The three stared at him blankly before Hex slowly crunched down on the cookie still in his mouth to reply, “Um… not to do it?” He squeaked.

“And yet, here you are, going against my very clear instructions and making an absolute mess!” Starline exclaimed angrily before he stomped over to them with balled fists. “Did it not occur to you—“ He yoinked the cookies away from Charge. “—That I had a very good reason—“ He plucked away Hex’s next. “—For telling you all not to eat in here?!”

He reached to grab the churro away from Lug, but the bulldog knit his brows together and quickly held it up out of Starline’s reach in defiance. The platypus merely gave him an unamused deadpan before a portal activated over his head, allowing Starline to easily take it from him.

The bulldog sputtered at his now empty hand and at being outsmarted, before growling deeply as the doctor continued by without so much as a second glance. “Grrrh… Well MAYBE we just thought you were being a big ole, grumpy stickler! I paid for that, you know!!”

“Well then, maybe next time, you’ll heed my words,” Starline stated with an over the shoulder frown as he crossed over to the nearest trash can to dump the confiscated goods into it.

“I don’t get what the big deal is, doc,” Charge said as he frowned and rested on his elbow on the counter.

“Clearly.” The platypus’s tone was practically dripping with sarcasm.

“…I mean, I get the whole liquids thing for obvious reasons, but is food really THAT much of a problem?”

“Yes, it is. And quite frankly, I’m surprised I even have to be saying that!” Starline exclaimed before the bag of cookies made a particularly loud ‘cur-chunk!’ as it hit the bottom of the cylinder.

Starline then spun to face them again, crossing his arms like a disappointed parent. “I understand that none of you have ever had formal training in a professional setting like this… but even so! I expected you to have SOME common sense!“

“Hey! You calling us dumb or something?!” Lug complained as he leaned atop the counter.

Starline sighed dramatically and pushed his fingers into his ivory bangs. “Your words, not mine, Lug.”

“HUHHH??”

“Regardless! Since it seems that merely believing the words of a professional isn’t enough for you, I suppose I have no other choice than to make it perfectly clear why we mustn’t eat in here.”

Gazing out to the annoyed faces watching him, Starline began to explain. “Contrary to what you all might think of me, I tell you this NOT because I am a stickler and want you all to starve. But rather because ingesting food or drink in a setting like this poses a very real and very dangerous health hazard! Not to mention it could potentially mess with the reliability of our tech!”

“‘Health hazard?’ ‘Mess up reliability?’” Lug squinted suspiciously, not buying a word of it. “How?”

Starline motioned to Charge, whose ears flattened at being singled out. “For example: Charge is currently handling the concoction Cello made, testing if the fluid is potent enough for what we need to operate the hydraulics system, is that correct?”

Charge nodded and picked up the capped glass container with the glowing blue liquid inside. “Yeah. Cello wasn't sure how concentrated it needed to be, so I’m adding it little by little to get the proper dosage. But I’m keeping it covered so it doesn’t spill and no crumbs can get inside.” He gave the bottle a little shake, causing the liquid to noisily slosh against the sides.

“A measly effort at best to prevent incident,” Starline scoffed dismissively, which earned an immediate frown. “By handling the chemicals, then eating and sharing your food with the others immediately afterwards, you’re running the risk of making yourself and the group quite sick from cross contamination!”

Charge’s grumpy attitude and expression almost immediately dropped when the realization of what he said clicked. The lemon colored cat meekly set the concoction back down on the table and dropped his gaze with it. “…Ah,” he mumbled quietly.

Starline then turned to Hex and Lug. “And you two! Even if you’re not handling the chemicals, you’re still getting crumbs everywhere! And no matter how tidy you may try to be, they’re still going to end up getting into the ports and components of whatever you’re trying to build! Which, in the long run, can and will affect connection integrity, and potentially cause a multitude of other problems down the line!”

“Oh.” Both bulldog and rat too shrank down like wet, burlap sacks in embarrassment.

“That.. might actually explain some problems I ran into back home…” Hex mumbled, scratching at a tuft of purple fur as he recalled his favorite robot struggling to work properly after a few tests. He had snacked quite a bit around that one as well. Namely, pretzels and granola bars.

Starline huffed out a breath, pleased to hear their arguments silenced, though he was still just feeling plain annoyed. “Do you understand now why I was so insistent on this? One careless misstep, and our chances of winning the competition could be over before we even get the chance to show them all what we’re capable of.“

He sighed and pushed up his glasses as he pinched the bridge of his bill. “Honestly, I get being hungry on the job, but if you feel as though you MUST feast so badly, then please, for the sake of everyone here, do us all a favor and take it to the cafeteria where that stuff belongs!!”

The boys went silent, and Starline took that as a sign of their understanding. “Thank you!”

With that seemingly now settled, the platypus huffed from his long winded speech, feeling the twinge of a headache coming on. “…Augh.. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get some air… I expect this place to be spotless when I come back, do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Starline,” The three boys somewhat mutedly murmured in unison.

“Good.” The platypus shut his eyes and headed for the door, brushing past Rivet who hadn’t said a single word the entire time. “Honestly, the things I put up with...” he grumbled to himself as he walked out.

The room was deathly silent as the door closed shut behind him. Then Rivet shifted her gaze over to the group. Before she could even so much as breathe in their direction, Charge held up a hand. “Don’t say anything, sis.”

Rivet shrugged nonchalantly. “I wasn’t going to.” She paused. “…He is right though, you know.”

Charge groaned in response like he knew she was going to do that and grit his teeth. “I—!! Realize that! Ugh… Now, anyways.” He rolled his eyes sideways and slunk down.

“I didn’t mean to make him so upset…” Hex murmured softly, quietly picking at the hard plastic on his tablet. “I just didn’t want to fall behind on our tasks…”

“Augh, no, don’t blame yourself, Hex,” Lug groaned, rubbing his face with a gloved mitt. “We’re the older ones here. You were just following our example... Technically we should be the ones who are responsible..”

“Says the one who, up until a minute ago, was the most eager out of all of us to defy the doc’s instructions,” Charge pointed out.

Lug start, completely caught off guard. “WHA—! Yeah, okay, well— MAYBE I realize I was being petty… But it’s not exactly like you were any better!!” He then exclaimed.

“Yeah alright, you got me there.” Charge gave a small, sheepish huff. “I can admit I was wrong too…”

“Look, I’m sure you all didn’t mean any harm by it,” Rivet encouraged them. “But maybe from now on, just trust what he says when it comes to things like this, yeah? It’s clear to me that this competition is really important to him.” She chuckled weakly. “Otherwise, he.. probably would have kicked us to the curb about a week ago…”

The lavender cat then moved to join them at the table so she could lean back against it. “Yeah, he can be a bit arrogant, and… he’s a little rough around the edges at times. But I think he IS trying his best to work with us despite his pride. So… maybe we can do a bit more to work with him too, yeah?”

The room was quiet for a moment, then Charge nodded, seeing her point. “..Yeah. Guess it isn’t in our best interest to pull a him by ignoring his request.”

Lug grumbled and put a hand on his neck in bashfulness. “Mm.. yeah… Especially when at the end of the day, he’s just looking out for our wellbeing,” the bulldog glanced over at the trash can where their treats now lay discarded.

“We’ll apologize then when he gets back,” Hex stated, holding up his determined little fists. “Let him know we do appreciate him! And that we’ll try even harder from now on to be the best teammates he could ask for!”

Charge gave the rat a nod of approval. “Yeah, sounds like a plan. Even if he’s going to lord it over our heads for a while…”

“Better than him staying quiet and letting you accidentally poison yourselves, right?” Rivet flashed them a smile and pushed off the table to retrieve a roll of paper towels from one of the nearby counters. As she passed them to head to her own work station, she bumped it against Lug’s chest.

Lug accepted it and blinked at the roll, turning it over in his hands. “Yeah, you’re right about that,” he stated, before sighing and ripping off a square of it. “All right then.. come on guys! Let’s get this place cleaned up like the doc instructed.”

The coder and bio-electric kinetic nodded, and the three got to work on cleaning while Rivet sat down to resume work on her part of the project.

When Starline would eventually return to the group ten minutes later, their work area would be just as he expected it to be.

Bright, clean, and sparkling, with not a single crumb or drop of chemical concoction in sight. ✨

[shnashq]

Ladies, gentlemen, and everyone else in between. I present to you...

THE ABSTRACTED: UNABSTRACTED

Dyno (They/Them) was the star of all the animal related acts, and they truly loved their job. No one truly knows what happened to them before they abstracted, but it happened after Queenie's. Maybe they were close?

Sproing (He/Him) was the master of acrobatics. He had a heart of gold, but had a bad stroke of luck wherever he went. Perhaps that's why he abstracted.

Queenie (She/Her) was Kinger's wife before the two put on the headset, and fell in love all over again. She kept him company and made him feel more at home. Will Kinger ever stay sane without her, or will he abstract and join her?

Kaufmo (He/Him) was a clown, but didn't exactly have any good jokes to tell. He was just too busy trying to find a way out. At least someone laughed at them before he went cuckoo.

Downer (He/Him) was in the classic role of the clown, way before Kaufmo joined. His abstraction was quite early in his time at the Circus. Could be depression.

Doe (It/Its) was a magician, and an oddball. That's not its tongue (that's its nose). Abstraction wasn't on its bucket list.

Squirmle (He/They) was like two people trapped in a single being. One was calm and collected, the other was just a little grumpy. They was just like Pomni when they arrived, but he grew to enjoy the circus a little more when Dyno and Doe appeared. Mousetrap was the least of his problems, but her abstraction led to his, as their appearance scared the living daylights out of him and led them to freak out.

Mousetrap (She/They) was a fan of Squirmle and his act, but didn't like being juggled by Downer AS part of the show. But something tells me she seems familiar. ...They act just like me when I'm alone... Could THIS be an excuse for a self-insert? Or do I kin a character that hasn't been fully introduced yet?

Pinky (He/Him) was the strongman. He didn't talk, which led to miscommunications, and later his abstraction.

And now, 5 ocs under the cut (two are based on tadc concepts):

Zinger (They/Them) is the cookies to Zooble's milk (but it seems spoiled). They like sitting in their room trying on new parts, usually stolen from Zooble's part box. They keep that robotic arm, because it reminds them of what they could remember of their past life.

Hoppity (He/Him) works as a trapeze artist. He doesn't say much, but he has a soft spot for Pomni (not a ship, but admiration). Creeeepy. (He's supposed to be a wind-up toy. I forgot to draw the key.)

Blooper (It/Its) is trying to get everyone to work together to find the exit, but no one could take it seriously due to its small size (and the fact it can only make bubbly noises). Its "container" can fly so it can get around.

Star-Pet (They/Them) doesn't like to be treated like a baby. They would like to be the new ringmaster, since they stand out with their dark colors.

Buttons (She/Her) loves music, dancing, singing, and... You get the idea. She has a microphone on her back to amplify her voice so she can be heard loud and clear. She also listens to metal. Surprising, isn't it? You thought she'd love silly sounding music.

[leverage-commentary]

Leverage Season 3, Episode 2, The Reunion Job, Audio Commentary Transcript

Jonathan Frakes: Hello everyone I'm Johnathan Frakes.

Michael Colton: Michael Colton.

John Aboud: John Aboud.

Aldis Hodge: This is Al Hodge.

Chris Downey: Chris Downey.

John Rogers: Am I sexual chocolate if you’re Al Hodge?

[Laughter]

John Rogers: It's John Rogers.

Aldis Hodge: Sexual chocolate is coming up.

John Rogers: Executive Producer of this particular episode, along with Chris Downey. And those other gentlemen are the writers and director down at the end. Welcome to The Reunion Job. Boys, which we always ask in the opening sequence, where'd this episode come about?

Michael Colton: The- initially you guys told us you wanted to do a high school reunion episode. And I think all you had was ‘they go undercover at a high school reunion’ and I think you had the end beat of the dancing.

John Rogers: Yes.

Michael Colton: At the dance. 

John Rogers: Right, yeah.

Michael Colton: And so from that we started thinking, you know, who would be a good villain for this episode? Someone who high school meant a lot to.

Jonathan Frakes: You talked over my Bourne Identity opening!

[Laughter]

John Rogers: Sorry. Frakes why don't you tell us about the-

Jonathan Frakes: No, I got my-

John Rogers: Where'd that particular opening come from?

John Aboud: Bourne Supremacy.

Jonathan Frakes: I'm kidding. Bourne Supremacy.

John Rogers: Bourne Supremacy.

Jonathan Frakes: Carry on.

John Rogers: That was a very aggressive style.

Jonathan Frakes: Where’d you get the rest of this story?

John Aboud: Well as nerds, we were able to channel the rage of a software magnate. Why would a software magnate be bad in the Leverage universe? Well maybe he's supplying his software to some very bad people overseas.

Michael Colton: Well right at the time we were writing this, there was the Irianian- the aftermath of the Iranian elections, so it was actually in the news that this kind of thing could be happening.

John Aboud: And this episode aired on the one year anniversary of that election. And around- and the protests.

Michael Colton: There was enough propaganda.

John Rogers: It was actually funny, we did get one phone call that's like ‘are we gonna get in trouble for like- can we be open to litigation?’ I went ‘if one of the most evil regimes on earth wants to sue us, I don't really see that as a problem.’

Michael Colton: That would be good press for the show. Iran sues-

Jonathan Frakes: Any publicity is good publicity.

John Rogers: Exactly. Now who's playing our victim here? Did a great job.

Jonathan Frakes: That's Ricki Bhullar.

John Rogers: Yep, fantastic job. And now Frakes, why don't you tell us about that opening? What- cause it was a very different opening than what we usually do.

Jonathan Frakes: Well I think what we try to do with each of our cold opens is to either pay an homage or, in other words, steal stylistically from a show. 

Chris Downey: Yes.

Jonathan Frakes: From a Hitchcock show, or from you know-

John Rogers: It lets you know what the rest of the shows gonna be like.

Jonathan Frakes: Well- hopefully. Or that you just feel like the story of this show is in this particular style. That was a Bourne Supremacy rip off. 

John Rogers: Yes.

Jonathan Frakes: How many shots can we get? How fast can we cut it? How fast can this action happen? And it has that vibe of international espionage.

John Rogers: Yep. Also that room was great, it was built totally on set. That was actually just a two wall set, wasn’t it?

Jonathan Frakes: That was a three-wall set, but we shot the shit out of it.

John Rogers: Yeah.

Chris Downey: And then so you put your energy into that and the rest of the episode you sort of coasted? Is that- you sorta let it…?

Jonathan Frakes: Yeah it's an approach I've found very useful.

[Laughter]

Jonathan Frakes: Now.

John Rogers: Now.

Jonathan Frakes: Who do you think that- oh!

Everyone: Woahhh!!! 

Michael Colton: There we go.

Chris Downey: And reveal.

John Aboud: Didn't see that coming.

Michael Colton: That worked really well.

John Rogers: It did; it did. Johnathan Frakes knows what he’s doing. Yeah and this was also part of the mandate for the opening of the third season, where we wanted to start opening it up into international stories. Kind of open up the Leverage universe in a way that, you know, this is a fictional universe wherein certain rules apply. And it’s close to ours but you know we wanted to start seeing the ramifications of crime world and politics.

Jonathan Frakes: It also suggests the backstory of a lot of these characters has been, in fact, international.

John Rogers: Yeah.

Jonathan Frakes: So that they have experience with all these things. It makes them look, or appear to have more experience than-

Michael Colton: Right.

John Rogers: And sometimes people ask where we get the cases, and we’re kinda establishing here there's a lot of-

Jonathan Frakes: ‘I'm inside your head!’

John Rogers: ‘I'm living rent free.’

Aldis Hodge: Yeah, haha.

John Rogers: You know, kind of establish there's a community of people out there who take freedom of software, the internet's role in being free of government regulations and rules and internationalism very seriously, and Hardison is part of that group. That's part of the hacker group he fell in with.

Aldis Hodge: Yes indeed.

John Rogers: And that's how he knows this guy. That's his background.

Jonathan Frakes: ‘Yeah that's right, we are here to inspect your restaurant.’

John Rogers: Also based on a real spy safehouse that came up in research. But with better locks I think that one had. Ah this is crazy. How'd we get the roach?

Chris Downey: That’s a digital roach.

John Aboud: Digitally inserted.

Michael Colton: It's a real roach, but that plate was not there, it's like the whole thing.

Jonathan Frakes: More discussion about this cockroach than there was about the script!

[Laughter]

John Rogers: We tried to be a little robotic cockroach that went poorly. It went actually too well because it killed.

Jonathan Frakes: What about the real cockroach that we had that nobody liked? Cause it didn’t-

Chris Downey: Oh look at that! Boy that's great.

John Rogers: I think the close up was the real one, that one digital. 

Chris Downey: Is that one digital?

John Rogers: I love this, and the little.

Jonathan Frakes: Yeah, this tees up later. 

John Rogers: Yep.

Jonathan Frakes: They don't get much to do together, it's nice to see those two have a little beat.

Michael Colton: I feel like there's a lot of improv in this scene with you guys.

John Aboud: Absolutely.

Aldis Hodge: Yeah this- you know, anytime you get me and Christian in a room together it's over.

[Laughter]

Aldis Hodge: It's like ‘script, what?’ We just talk. 

John Rogers: Yeah, we’re just pretty much superfluous. Maybe next year without writers.

[Laughter]

Jonathan Frakes: That was how-

John Rogers: And that was a great way of using Jessie by the way.

Jonathan Frakes: How to make an entrance.

Chris Downey: We’re running out of ways for her to get out of a duct. I mean I feel like is there-

John Rogers: You know what? I just I may be speaking for-

Jonathan Frakes: Cirque du Soleil in town next year.

Chris Downey: We need to watch and take notes, cause there needs to be something new.

John Rogers: I may be speaking for a certain percentage of the audience, but anytime we have her in black jeans and that leather jacket coming out of a duct it's a good day. Really, the dismounts- really now you're really.

Aldis Hodge: I'm glad you said it, cause I was about to.

Jonathan Frakes: How about this shawarma?

John Rogers: I love the shawarma, by the way.

Jonathan Frakes: Who doesn’t?

Aldis Hodge: That shawarma was disgusting though, it was cold and greasy.

John Rogers: You can't shoot around hot shawarma.

Chris Downey: Prop shawarma was not?

John Aboud: Prop shawarma.

Aldis Hodge: Prop shawarma.

John Rogers: Don't eat the prop shawarma.

John Aboud: Don't recommend.

Jonathan Frakes: Not much room to move in this location as I recall, remember this place?

John Aboud: It was very narrow.

Jonathan Frakes: It feels as narrow as it was.

John Aboud: Hard to maneuver.

John Rogers: What was it? Was it a real restaurant we redressed?

John Aboud: It was a Hawaiian barbeque restaurant.

Jonathan Frakes: Real restaurant, Hawaiian barbeque.

Michael Colton: That's right.

John Aboud: And the production had to buy them out for the day, so there was a lot of the-

Jonathan Frakes: Are we happy with the yellow choice on the inside of the van?

[Laughter]

Michael Colton: It's a little late to be asking that.

John Rogers: Yeah, I think we might want to change that. Could you fix that in post? Could you just go and… And yes it's the first time- when do we air this? Episode two or three?

Chris Downey: This is second- this is first night.

Michael Colton: First night.

John Rogers: That's right even though we shot it- did not shoot it second, it aired second. And that was re-establishing- that was establishing the new Lucille.

John Aboud: That's right. Near and dear to Hardison's heart.

John Rogers: This is also fun is that- it always amazes me the amount of international espionage that is actually kept in notebooks. 

Jonathan Frakes: Yeah.

John Rogers: No, the people-

Jonathan Frakes: Old school.

John Rogers: Old school. Yeah, but people- 

Aldis Hodge: It keeps them off the radar.

John Rogers: Yeah. You can, you can burn it. You know it can't be hacked, it can't be stolen.

John Aboud: Now that dishwasher, I believe he was also in the prison- in the Jail Break Job?

John Rogers: Oh so this is the jail- it's the job.

John Aboud: In my mind the backstory is: he's on a work release.

John Rogers: Oh that's right.

Chris Downey: Already fell into the wrong element.

John Aboud: Yeah, right away.

John Rogers: Well he doesn't know, they don't tell him.

Chris Downey: His parole officer is not doing a very good job.

John Aboud: Right away, right away.

Jonathan Frakes: The victim. Now we get the villain Arye Gross. Very reliable character actor, been doing it for years. 

Michael Colton: You worked with him…?

Jonathan Frakes: I worked with him on Castle. Recommend him to the gang and he nailed it.

Aldis Hodge: Nice.

John Rogers: Your career is banterific. Eliot, of course, learned to make amazing tea, and that is English Breakfast from his samurai master when he studied for 18 months. [pause] Wait no that was Wolverine.

[Laughter]

Jonathan Frakes: Now whose idea was this to add this whole sequence?

Michael Colton: Well this is all based on NLP which means neuro linguistic programming. And all this is actually based on a guy named Derren Brown, who is British. And what would you- what would you call him? A magician slash-

John Rogers: He calls himself a mentalist, but he uses like a quotation marks around it because he duplicates the effects of charlatans by using psychological techniques.

Michael Colton: You can look him up on YouTube. Look up Derren Brown and NLP and there's stuff he does that is, we sort of basically ripped off for this episode.

John Rogers: Yeah ‘D-e-r-r-e-n’. Yeah, the primary one being he hires two advertising guys to come to his office and give him a campaign- a possible campaign for a children's zoo. They do the sketches and then he reveals his own sketches he did hours earlier and they're almost exactly the same. And then he reveals the visual cues he planted along the way into their head. And that really was the crux of this whole thing.

Michael Colton: And the one where Simon Pegg from Shaun of the Dead has- sits him down and asks him what he wants for his birthday, and he says he wants a bike.

John Aboud: BMX bike.

Michael Colton: But earlier he had written down he had wanted something completely different.

Chris Downey: A leather jacket, I think.

Michael Colton: A leather jacket! And throughout this whole discussion he was just doing cues to get him to say bike. It's kind of amazing.

Aldis Hodge: Wow.

John Rogers: It was also fun to kind of get into the mechanics of- it's easy with a grifter character to say they're just natural at it. To get into the intellectual work that Sophie does in her job.

Chris Downey: And also the idea of hacking into someone's head. I think that's what made this-

John Aboud: Wanted to establish that up front.

Jonathan Frakes: How infuriating it was that it was this character who [unintelligible].

John Rogers: Yeah, and also the fact that once you guys came up with the whole hacker/villain- the whole hacker theme, that really led us to the other material. 

Jonathan Frakes: And here we are, Dubertech.

Chris Downey: And this a great location too, this is very-

Jonathan Frakes: On the campus of-

John Aboud: The community college.

Jonathan Frakes: The community college in Portland.

John Aboud: It’s a great building.

John Rogers: The digital overlay on the sign.

John Aboud: It's a theater, actually.

John Rogers: A lot of digital signage.

Jonathan Frakes: It's the theater department, ironically.

John Rogers: It looks evil. 

[Laughter]

John Rogers: Got an evil vibe to it. This was a lot of fun and this was one of the- one of the times that we took something we could do in a beat, and turned it into almost the entire act. We have broken into someone's office in like half a scene.

Jonathan Frakes: Yeah.

John Rogers: But sometimes you just.

Jonathan Frakes: What we go through to get the fingerprint.

John Rogers: And it's great. And sometimes you find ways to do- you find stuff you want to do, you want to explore and kind of revel in, and that's the fun of this show. You know there's no real template to this show. So if you have an act where you have a bunch of cool stuff you wanna showcase, you can. Yes, tons of fun.

Jonathan Frakes: Boom.

John Aboud: We wanted this to be a real showcase for Hardison. 

John Rogers: Yes.

John Aboud: Because obviously we're dealing with his world. We are in the world that he knows well, and we really liked the idea of him confronting this 1980s technology. I think that was one of our initial pitches to you guys-

John Rogers: Yes.

John Aboud: For an episode.

John Rogers: I think that- you pitched that as a freelancer.

Michael Colton: Our pitch was Hardison hacks an ENIAC.

John Rogers: Yes.

John Aboud: In a museum.

Michael Colton: And that became a TRS-80.

Chris Downey: An abacus really.

[Laughter]

John Rogers: Yeah a giant, giant vacuum tube. Yeah and that blended right into this. No, that was- and by the way, if you're gonna pitch a Leverage, pitch a high concept, don't come in with a procedural. You know, ‘he has to hack a 60 year old computer’, I love it, you know. That was an easy one.

Chris Downey: And this is great, I mean how great did they dress this set?

Jonathan Frakes: I love that we [unintelligible].

John Aboud: The music was-

John Rogers: It's the music.

Michael Colton: The set’s great but it’s the music that put us over the edge and sold it.

John Rogers: Yeah Joe LoDuca again giving us that 80s synth pop vibe. It was fantastic. And Aldis you’re great here just the total shock and horror.

John Aboud: This take is wonderful.

Aldis Hodge: This took me back a couple years. I mean, this stuff was older than me but still.

John Rogers: Thank you, thanks for reminding us of that.

Chris Downey: We love to confront Hardison with old technology. Audio tapes things like that.

Jonathan Frakes: He’s appalled here.

John Aboud: His horror.

Aldis Hodge: He's offended, he's insulted.

Jonathan Frakes: And there it is!

[Laughter]

Aldis Hodge: This takes me back to when-

Chris Downey: Look at that.

John Rogers: Five and a quarter right there, baby.

Aldis Hodge: I used to run off of floppys though, I still remember those.

John Rogers: You were a baby though.

Aldis Hodge: It took like 10 hours to upload a page.

John Rogers: Yep.

Michael Colton: We used to use the war games. The phone doesn’t-

John Aboud: War dialer.

Chris Downey: They used to be on cassettes too.

John Rogers: Yeah they used to be on cassettes.

Jonathan Frakes: What was this computer called?

Michael Colton: TRS-80. Although I don't think we could say that.

John Aboud: We weren't allowed to.

Michael Colton: Yeah, it's just generic 1980s computer.

John Aboud: For clearance reasons.

Jonathan Frakes: I remember part of our prep was the ebay version of the TRS-80 that we shopped for, for two weeks trying to find the one that was actually going to be programmable.

John Rogers: Yeah. Yeah apparently Tandy Corporation has a problem with us saying that freedom is oppressed in Iran through the use of their product. Oh we’re the bad guy? That’s some sort of brand infringement I guess.

[Laughter]

John Rogers: I love the caricature- oh the caricature kills me!

Chris Downey: I didn't even notice that! The caricature of him winning the chess trophy.

John Rogers: He was twelve!

Michael Colton: Well they had photos all around of Arye Gross from that era.

John Aboud: From his personal archive.

Jonathan Frakes: With the hair. When he had that big John Hughes hair.

Michael Colton: The pre-Soul Man. Old stuff.

Chris Downey: That is pre-Soul Man]. He's great in Soul Man, by the way. Soul Man is-

John Rogers: That's a great little shot, by the way. That's kind of an iconic shot of Hardison being distracted and annoyed while Parker quietly freaks out next to him. It's just a nice vibe.

Jonathan Frakes: ‘How much time are you really gonna spend in here after I told you that the bad guys are on the way?’

John Rogers: Yeah.

[Laughter]

John Rogers: But they saw the bad guy in the sweater vest on the way in. I mean, they're not that intimidating.

John Aboud: They knew they could take him. They knew they could take him.

John Rogers: What do you think the origin for the- oh that's great.

Chris Downey: Oh that’s great!

[Laughter]

John Rogers: A locked off comedy frame people!

Chris Downey: It's a locked off comedy frame.

John Aboud: Yep.

Jonathan Frakes: The third in three shows!

[Laughter]

John Rogers: Can't go wrong. This was fun, by the way, the- this one when he says ‘it's adorable you still think there's privacy’.

Jonathan Frakes: Isn't this where some of our regulars drink when we do the 360?

John Rogers: Yes, yeah, we drink and we shoot it, too. But you guys had found out- who- was it Albert cause he was a journalist he knew that you could buy people's yearbooks?

John Aboud: Well he did that all the time at People.

Michael Colton: That’s what it was, yeah.

John Aboud: As a celebrity journalist he would go buy people's yearbooks. And it was the easiest thing in the world.

John Rogers: And there's actual services out there that will help you buy the yearbooks of different high schools. There's an enormous amount of creepy shit in this episode.

Aldis Hodge: Your embarrassment is on sale.

[Laughter]

Michael Colton: Here's where we bring up the Roman Room, which a lot of people thought we made up but is just another-

John Aboud: By a lot of people you mean Tim Hutton.

Michael Colton: Yes.

John Aboud: Thought we made it up.

Michael Colton: Just another curious thing from the mind of John Rogers.

Chris Downey: It's just one of your many hobbies.

John Rogers: One of my many hobbies.

Michael Colton: Memorizing everything.

John Aboud: Memorizing disconnected pieces of information.

Chris Downey: What was last season, whaling?

John Rogers: It was whaling. I remember I made you that scrimshaw-

Michael Colton: What, you memorized famous whalers?

John Aboud: Wow.

John Rogers: No. I am- a hobby of mine is memory techniques, and I use the Roman Room, and we wound up using it here. And it was just a great way- if we're gonna hack- the big problem was why do we need to go to this high school? We can go to this high school without this guy. Well no, we need context. Well what's the context? Well… It was interesting how this episode kind of organically came up. It was the flashback, it was the 80s thing. And that was that he was using, like I do, he was using his Roman Room for his passwords. And the- actually yes they did not believe this. I was up visiting them and I wound up doing the complete works of Shakespeare based on my high school gym in order to convince Tim that I was- that this was a real thing. 

Aldis Hodge: Right.

John Rogers: Aldis you were in the limo that night, that's right. The- we didn’t take Colton or Aboud with us.

John Aboud: Well it coincided with Comic Con.

John Rogers: There you go that's right. Yeah this is, by the way, a really easy memory technique, you can learn it really quickly and with a little bit of practice and imagination. The key is making everything as filthy as possible.

Jonathan Frakes: Seriously?

John Rogers: Has to be obscene.

John Aboud: Ahh, there you go.

John Rogers: Actually Chris Downey made me not use him in my Roman Room techniques because he was distrubed by the fact that I was having him have sex with people and things.

Chris Downey: Yeah.

John Aboud: Well he knows what goes on in that room.

John Rogers: He knows that the Roman Room is a horrible place.

Chris Downey: And John you'll be at the Allentown Marriott this week doing the Roman Room technique, won’t you? Doing it on your tour.

[Laughter]

John Rogers: If you'd like to advance yourself in business or socially. If you’d like to amaze salesmen and other people in your company.

[Laughter]

John Aboud: Whenever you see those signs on a light posts that say ‘make money from home’ the number rings at John Rogers home.

John Rogers: I'm not just running a TV show. I'm running a lot of small businesses out of my garage. Oh was- was that the Psych yellout?

Michael Colton: Oh that was- it in this scene where we talked about what's on his Netflix queue. 

John Aboud: That show Psych.

Michael Colton: I wanted Turk 182 to be on his Netflix queue but that was rejected.

Chris Downey: It’s a little too meta.

Jonathan Frakes: I thought it was Rockford?

Chris Downey: It is Rockford.

John Rogers: Well it is Rockford, we went with Rockford and Psych- we added Psych in the end cause Psych had given us a nice little shoutout in their show.

Michael Colton: I think Sex and the City was thrown out there.

John Rogers: Why Sex and the City?

Michael Colton: I think it was an improv, wasn't it?

John Aboud: Humor?

Aldis Hodge: It was an improv.

John Aboud: Humor. Cause it was funny.

John Rogers: Nothing funny about Sex and the City.

[Laughter]

Aldis Hodge: Very serious show.

Jonathan Frakes: Not that Gina likes to do accents.

John Rogers: This was a lot of fun.

Chris Downey: This was the tour de force.

John Rogers: And the difference- and what's great is watching this with the sound off is watching her physicality change and the smile, yeah, that character smiles and the other one is angry, yeah. It's lovely. And this is also one of those ones where it originally started much more complicated and turned into ‘let’s just have Gina talk, she can do the accents’.

Jonathan Frakes: We cut it all together, let her do the two characters.

Chris Downey: In, sort of, the Facebook era, one of the things I think helped this episode was that you are kind of confronted by people from your high school all the time that you have no recollection of.

John Aboud: Right, right.

Chris Downey: So it really sort of helped the idea that they could actually bomb into somebody's high school reunion as other people and they would just be accepted.

Michael Colton: Yeah this is kind of The Social Network of Leverage episodes, I think it's fair to say.

John Rogers: But before The Social Network- they stole this from you right? The Social Network is stolen from you.

John Aboud: And Facebook, the idea for Facebook.

[Laughter]

Michael Colton: We came up with Facematch.

John Rogers: This is the skype of evil.

Chris Downey: We got the finger pyramid of evil going too.

John Rogers: He's got the finger pyramid of evil.

Aldis Hodge: That was scripted right? Finger pyramid.

John Rogers: The finger pyramid of malfeasance I believe, this is the Skype of evil. 

Jonathan Frakes: Wait heavies right, there's heavies in dark clothes behind him.

John Rogers: Yes exactly I like to think he prepped it ‘alright let's Skype this- wait turn off the lights!’ I can't.

Chris Downey: Oh I love this.

Michael Colton: This turn here is fantastic. After he hangs up with them.

Jonathan Frakes: Unafraid to milk.

John Rogers: And also one of the things I like about- that you guys did in the script just wanted the general attitude you want to give the villains - ahh there you go - is nobody’s a villain in their own head.

Michael Colton: ‘Larry Duberman?’

John Aboud: ‘Larry Duberman?’

[Laughter]

Michael Colton: It took so long, but it worked.

Jonathan Frakes: And we stayed on it! We kept it all in. 

John Aboud: You did.

Jonathan Frakes: Confidant actor.

John Rogers: Yeah somebody said if schadenfreude is the pleasure of other people doing worse than you, what is the German word for delight in doing better than everyone else but not being able to come out and say it? The Germans should have a word for it. Yeah it's pretty impressive- that's a great match for Tim by the way, was that an actor or did we pick an-?

John Aboud: Stock. It was stock.

John Rogers: It was stock, wow.

Aldis Hodge: Now whose stock photos because there were some fugly people in there.

John Rogers: We went to fugly.com.

Aldis Hodge: All right. 

John Rogers: That’s where we got that stock.

Aldis Hodge: I'm just saying there’s a select few you didn't know exactly.

John Rogers: Well it's also 80s hair.

Aldis Hodge: There’s that.

John Rogers: 80’s hair was just a nation making a bad choice.

[Laughter]

Michael Colton: Evil speech of evil.

Chris Downey: Oh here it is. It's the slow push in on the evil speech of evil.

Aldis Hodge: You gotta get in his nostrils, nice and tight right up there.

[Laughter]

John Rogers: Well it's a 40 ft screen; it's a different look when they're on TV.

Chris Downey: And now here we go!

John Rogers: Now where was this?

Chris Downey: And now we're off!

John Aboud: Actual high school.

Michael Colton: This was an actual high school.

John Rogers: They let us redress, and yeah fantastic.

Jonathan Frakes: This is the gym of- what's the high school called? Hall? James T Hall High School?

Chris Downey: Now how many days were you here at the school?

Michael Colton: We were there-

John Aboud: Three days.

Michael Colton: Three, I think.

John Rogers: You managed to get all this done in three days?

Jonathan Frakes: Well the exterior was stock, and not our greatest effort.

John Rogers: Still pretty good.

Jonathan Frakes: This is- here we go!

John Aboud: Here we go.

Michael Colton: Now this was unused-

John Rogers: This was unused footage.

Aldis Hodge: Unused footage from the first season.

John Aboud: Season one.

Chris Downey: Using every part of the animal.

Aldis Hodge: Yes indeed. It’s probably one of my favorite scenes I've shot.

John Rogers: By the way, that is fearless of you. Not a lot of actors would go in the braces and throw on the-

Jonathan Frakes: Aldis is fearless.

Aldis Hodge: Very much so.

John Rogers: Throw on the hat. You really did manage to spot-weld Will Smith and the other guys from Fresh Prince into one character there.

[Laughter]

Chris Downey: Alfonso Ribeiro, you mean?

John Rogers: Alfonso Ribeiro. That's the Fresh Prince of Alfonso Ribeiro right there. And this is great that we-

Jonathan Frakes: Eliot pre-hair.

John Rogers: Eliot pre-hair.

Jonathan Frakes: Like wait a minute.

John Aboud: Still the same guy, he looks to camera.

John Rogers: Well it's a flashback.

John Aboud: He looks to flashback camera.

John Rogers: As one does.

Chris Downey: That's good man, that's a good match.

John Rogers: I also like the dialogue fix. Cause it was originally the dialogue-

John Aboud: Brutal punch.

John Rogers: Where we actually lay in that he learned about the knives in context not from a murderous Guatemalan, but from a sexy Home Ec teacher.

Chris Downey: Sexy home ec teacher.

Jonathan Frakes: He's the one who doesn't get to go to the high school.

John Rogers: Ooh yeah that was fun.

Jonathan Frakes: It was easy to take that guy out with one shot.

John Aboud: Little minion did not deserve the brutality of that one punch.

Chris Downey: But it's also nice like-

John Rogers: You know what he knows he's screwing the Iranian kids. He's an accessory after the fact.

John Aboud: It's true, he's complicit.

John Rogers: Absolutely more than complicit, he's an accessory. And therefore worthy of scorn. Ah this was again the Joe LoDuca score. Amazing.

Aldis Hodge: This the song that's playing in this scene right now is the band that Dean Devlin was in.

Chris Downey: Oh that's right. What’s the name of Dean’s band?

John Aboud: What was the name of that band?

John Rogers: Nervous Service.

[Laughter]

John Rogers: This was Dean’s band from the 80s. 

Aldis Hodge: Sure it wasn't Dean and the Devlins? 

John Rogers: No, no, that was his 50s band. And that's Beth in the badger suit right?

Aldis Hodge: Yeah.

John Aboud: Yes.

John Rogers: Yeah that is Beth.

John Aboud: Yes, spoiler warning.

Chris Downey: Well they've seen it already.

John Aboud: No, they haven’t.

Michael Colton: This is like their sixth viewing.

John Aboud: I only watch Leverage with the commentaries on.

John Rogers: Really? Interesting.

John Aboud: Yes.

Michael Colton: You don't know what happens in this one?

John Aboud: Nope. No clue.

John Rogers: That would explain why your pitches were so weird first year.

John Aboud: Well then Rogers drinks, right? And we do a zoom to see he pours the alcohol into the glass. 

[Laughter]

John Rogers: Oh yeah this was a lovely bit of scripting, by the way, on the NLP on this, guys. Very subtle.

Michael Colton: Yeah it's subtle it’s incredibly tight knit it’s-

John Rogers: And great dress. Is this Aboud or Colton on this scene?

Michael Colton: It's mostly Colton.

Jonathan Frakes: It's Grace Peltz! Look at Peltz in the middle of that shot.

John Rogers: That was a nice frame up on that shot.

Chris Downey: Look at that right there.

John Aboud: That's an actual Arye Gross high school photo in the row below.

John Rogers: Are you really?

John Aboud: Yup Lawrence Duberman, first one on the second row.

Aldis Hodge: Yup.

Jonathan Frakes: And here’s how it happened.

John Rogers: All you have to do is insert one page. Who doubts the evidence before their eyes? Where’s Arye Gross?

John Aboud: He's cross eyed. First one on the second row.

Aldis Hodge: That's really him?

John Aboud: That's really him.

Michael Colton: Now what kind of alphabetical order is this? Grace Peltz above Larry Duberman.

[Laughter]

John Rogers: Oh, the honor society had their own photos.

Michael Colton: Oh there you go. That’s computer club.

John Rogers: One of these days you gotta learn to just lie quick.

Chris Downey: You know how to retcon.

Michael Colton: Most of those names are from my high school. Jack Lebowski. I used my-

John Rogers: Don't say that, people have to sign forms for that.

Michael Colton: My high school girlfriend is in there.

Jonathan Frakes: Boom.

Chris Downey: Here we go.

Jonathan Frakes: Don't always get a ninja zoom into the socks and sandals.

John Rogers: He's enjoying that way too much.

Chris Downey: He is. Cleaning pools. I love that- I love that about him. Former quarterback now cleaning pools.

Jonathan Frakes: Tim owned Drake.

John Rogers: Yes.

Jonathan Frakes: He totally owned Drake Macintyre.

John Rogers: He really was enjoying that. There really was a moment you saw Tim kind of like ‘I wouldn’t mind cleaning pools. It’s nice and quiet’.

Michael Colton: Mandy Babson. 

John Rogers: Yep.

Michael Colton: What do his pins say?

John Rogers: I don't remember.

John Aboud: One of them said ‘I'll wash first’.

[Laughter]

John Rogers: Wha- why? Why would you have a pin that said that?

Chris Downey: Not blondie or something?

John Aboud: That's the kind of guy you are. They were all slogans. Oh my voice is really giving out.

Michael Colton: Maybe you should stop talking.

John Aboud: Apologies to the home viewer.

John Rogers: Just let Colton- he’ll be honest about who did what.

Michael Colton: Yeah.

John Rogers: There's no way he’ll-

John Aboud: How can that go wrong?

John Rogers: Yeah. And it was also fun coming up with the idea that: of course there's a villain. Everyone has a narrative in their head, everyone had the villain in high school. You know the person who made their life hell. Unless you were the villain.

Jonathan Frakes: There he is! ‘Oh Doucherman!’

John Rogers: I'm glad we got that past Standards and Practices, cause Doucherman really was-

Michael Colton: The whole episode was built around Doucherman.

Jonathan Frakes: Whole episode.

John Aboud: It really would’ve fallen apart.

Michael Colton: It's the first thing we started with.

Aldis Hodge: All you thought about at first, and then you built the story around it.

John Aboud: It came later.

Aldis Hodge: ‘Doucherman, hmm we need to write a show’.

John Rogers: And she anchors it with a touch every time, nice acting, nice use of space.

Chris Downey: Who's that guy?

John Aboud: That guy was wearing a kilt! That guy was wearing a kilt.

John Rogers: I know, I saw him in the opening shot.

John Aboud: In the opening shot you can see he was wearing a kilt.

Chris Downey: Good variety of alumni characters.

Michael Colton: You know when I was on Twitter when this was airing to watch it, and Tim was- I thought it was very flattered he was just repeated ‘Douchermans got lady parts’.

[Laughter]

John Rogers: Yes over and over again. He loved that. This was also fun showing Hardison scrambling. There's just some stuff you can’t prep for.

Aldis Hodge: Well Frakes, that was the first scene we shot for this episode, but it was also in the middle of shooting another episode the same day.

Jonathan Frakes: Same day in the van, here’s what’s gonna happen.

Aldis Hodge: I remember all that banter.

Chris Downey: That was the violin stuff.

Jonathan Frakes: Well this was the double up day.

Aldis Hodge: Double up day. All that banter was- I'm not even gonna lie I learned that right then and there in like ten minutes. Because I was on the other episode-

John Aboud: It worked.

John Rogers: You were on the other episode.

Michael Colton: Well you were on the violin.

John Rogers: Other episode was a giant part.

Aldis Hodge: Really shoot five pages just straight out? ‘Ok guys!’

John Aboud: Who’s this guy?

John Rogers: And there's our line producer!

Jonathan Frakes: There's our producer Paul Bernard as Schmitty!

Michael Colton: Star of the show.

Jonathan Frakes: I will tell you, he did have the 80s hair, that's not a haircut.

John Rogers: That's just what Paul Bernard looks like.

Jonathan Frakes: He works in that hair.

John Rogers: He works, he plays in that hair. That’s not stunt hair people.

Michael Colton: Is it true TBS is interested in a Schmitty spin off? Is that happening?

John Rogers: Yeah I think we might do ‘Here’s Schmitty.’

[Laughter]

John Rogers: ‘We’re up to our necks in Schmitty.’ We haven’t decided yet.

Chris Downey: I think there was a reality show in which somebody- they had hidden cameras and people led-

Michael Colton: Someone made like a 2020 special about someone who- some woman who didn't want to go to her thing so she hired a- I think it was a stripper.

Chris Downey: I think it was a stripper.

Michael Colton: To play herself.

Jonathan Frakes: At her high school reunion?

Michael Colton: At her high school reunion.

John Aboud: She coached the stripper through an earpiece-

Chris Downey: Yes.

John Aboud: As she was watching on a video feed.

Michael Colton: While she was watching Hardison-style in a hotel room.

Aldis Hodge: Doesn't it seem like it takes a lot more effort than just showing up?

John Aboud: Just go to your reunion.

Jonathan Frakes: Here's the Roman Room!

John Rogers: Turns out not. See you're young, you still remember what these people look like. You have to remember after 20 years everyone's kind of- what's the great line from Grosse Pointe Blank? Swollen? Everyone just doesn't quite look like what they used to.

Aldis Hodge: I'm young, but I'm an actor, but I don't remember a damn thing past 5 minutes ago.

John Rogers: ‘I don't remember other people, I'm an actor’.

Aldis Hodge: Hey.

Chris Downey: It's fun, too, seeing Eliot typing stuff.

Michael Colton: Ten go to twenty stuff.

John Rogers: It was- and this was actually fun too, we were originally developing this trying to figure out what the hell Eliot was doing and then we realized just put him over there. For once he's gotta- yeah. Also allowed us to do the fight in an interesting way. This- god all high schools do look alike.

Jonathan Frakes: Yeah this high school is perfect. The shiny floors, the lockers. We said, ‘We’re looking for a broom closet.’ They said, ‘Well what about the broom closet?’ We said ‘Good, that'll be fine.’

[Laughter]

John Rogers: ‘That'll absolutely work!; And by the way Gina seems to really enjoy when her character doesn't like Tims character. She seems to be digging in a little bit more, I'm just saying. Yeah the utter scorn of the good looking asshole is fantastic. Oh we're past that. That was the-

Michael Colton: This is fun also ‘cause so much- I mean just ‘cause the nature of the show often Tim’s or Nate’s character is playing the shady businessman and this is totally opposite.

John Rogers: Yeah this is a low status character.

Chris Downey: He doesn't do a lot of low status.

John Aboud: He's not worn a hat like this on previous jobs.

Aldis Hodge: I just saw one of the other buttons said ‘I’m a handyman’.

Chris Downey: Is that what it said?

Aldis Hodge: One of them yeah. The yellow one.

Chris Downey: ‘I’m a handyman’.

John Rogers: The bright green one says ‘if you can't be handsome be handy’.

Michael Colton: There's very few of his characters where he can wear that necklace.

Jonathan Frakes: ‘I should give you my card’.

Aldis Hodge: The necklace is questionable.

John Rogers: Questionably- is it a surfer? Or what is that?

Aldis Hodge: It's a surfer, man.

Chris Downey: Oh is that what that is?

John Rogers: He's still a Boston guy, so I don't know what he's wearing that for.

John Aboud: Well he's around water all the time.

John Rogers: That’s true.

John Aboud: Pools.

Chris Downey: That's right.

Aldis Hodge: He's a great surfer in his mind.

John Rogers: The great surf pools of Route 9.

Aldis Hodge: Surfer in his mind.

John Aboud: Uh-oh what is this?

Chris Downey: Someone is coming down the stairs.

John Aboud: What’s this what’s this?

John Rogers: Oh yeah, the lovely Kari Wuhrer.

Chris Downey: Now uh MTV? I mean best known-

John Aboud: Oh absolutely.

John Rogers: The sliders, the-

Michael Colton: What’s it called?

John Aboud: Class of ‘96.

Michael Colton: Remote Control. 

Chris Downey: Remote Control, that’s right.

Michael Colton: That was a formative influence on me. So I was very happy when I got to work with her.

John Rogers: Yeah, she's fantastic, by the way. She’s really sweet, worked her butt off and just-

Jonathan Frakes: Also happens to be married to our UPM [Editor’s Note: Unit Production Manager]. 

Chris Downey: But certainly we’re not giving away parts to people connected to the show!

John Aboud: No no.

Jonathan Frakes: Otherwise Jeanie Francis would be on the show by now.

[Laughter]

Michael Colton: I did not know-

John Rogers: She didn't want to work with you, that's the problem. We called here and-

Michael Colton: I did not know she was married to the Leverage team until after she was cast. Her audition was great.

Chris Downey: She was.

John Rogers: Well that's the- Jim Scoura, her husband, the UPM, plays of course the assassin in the finale, in the summer finale.

Michael Colton: It's a double assassin household.

John Rogers: In our heads actually they are married in the Leverage verse; they’re like the bad Mr and Ms Smith.

John Aboud: Neither one of them can actually complete a kill.

John Rogers: They just- but they work hard, they get a lot of-

Jonathan Frakes: Watch them roll down these lockers.

Chris Downey: Was Jim here for this sequence?

Jonathan Frakes: He avoided this scene.

John Rogers: Interesting.

John Aboud: Stayed in the office.

Michael Colton: Stayed with the kids this day.

John Rogers: Having your improbably hot wife all over a good looking actor is just-

John Aboud: Why improbable? Why improbably hot?

Jonathan Frakes: Watch this, watch Tim with these- is this where he does the-

Michael Colton: That’s coming up.

Chris Downey: Oh man.

Jonathan Frakes: The stuff with the-

Aldis Hodge: Did this in one take right? Just one take.

Chris Downey: Jeez she's devouring him. This is like an episode of V!

[Laughter]

John Rogers: She’s gonna unhinge her jaw any second now.

John Aboud: And here we go.

Jonathan Frakes: Oof what a surprise that she'd have it there.

John Rogers: It's a warm key.

Jonathan Frakes: Look at Tim! Look at Tim working those props!

John Aboud: Battling the brooms.

Chris Downey: Nothing like-

John Aboud: And then he stands back up.

John Rogers: Come on the doors right there. 

Jonathan Frakes: Come on, come on. Tried and true.

John Rogers: ‘And now I'm gonna go kill a dude.’

Jonathan Frakes: Lucky for us, Beth is in the building.

John Rogers: Yep. This is a real broom closet, that's great. How did you have room to shoot in there?

Jonathan Frakes: Went for the big broom closet.

John Rogers: Ah there you go, as opposed to the little one. Also this is a recurring bit: how Parker will just dump food everywhere. It actually turns out to a plot point in the Rashomon episode.

Chris Downey: Apparently we can have food.

Michael Colton: We can if it's chicken wings. They had like three giant trays of chicken wings.

John Rogers: Ahh good spark welding effect. Thank you, thank you props and special effects, appreciate it.

Jonathan Frakes: This works great, actually.

John Rogers: Yes that was better than the lightsaber through the door in the Star Wars prequel.

[Laughter]

John Aboud: That’s a low bar sir.

John Rogers: Well it's still- it's a feature bar I'll take it.

John Aboud: Feature bar.

Michael Colton: ‘I’m for clean fun’. That's another button,

Chris Downey: Is that what it says?

John Aboud: That’s another one, another button.

[Laughter]

John Rogers: The one on the left is haunting me, I can't quite make out the one on the left.

Aldis Hodge: It says- wait.

Michael Colton: Can we enhance?

John Rogers: Stop and enhance, enhance, push in. 

Michael Colton: Push in.

John Rogers: And yeah,this was a lot of fun just zooming in on- cause lets face it, not a lot of women can edge Gina Bellman out of that situation.

Jonathan Frakes: I know, and throw wine on her!

John Rogers: Yep.

Chris Downey: And the fun of this was having them revert to their high school personas and being offended by the cheerleader muscling in on her. I mean right? I mean this is- that's what-

Michael Colton: It's called subtext.

John Aboud: Seeing Sophie confront a mean girl.

Chris Downey: Yes.

John Rogers: Yes. It's great everyone had- everyone had their thematic little hook in this. One of the reasons we originally were attracted to the idea, even a year earlier, was because high school is that period where just the shell isn't on yet.

Chris Downey: And a high school reunion-

Jonathan Frakes: Had you done this before where the con men get conned in the middle of their con?

John Rogers: We play around with it, but rarely in this particular thing. Rarely this particular style.

Chris Downey: You mean an assassin showing up late in the episode?

Jonathan Frakes: No, no, no, I mean two con- our con and another con trying to duke it.

Chris Downey: Oh right.

John Rogers: Intersecting? Two Live Crew kinda.

Chris Downey: Well Order 23 we had a guy pretending to be a Marshall and he was an assassin.

John Rogers: Yeah but not a- those are the crucial- the crucials of surveillance photos.

Jonathan Frakes: Oh, she's on Interpol!

John Rogers: You need a half turn, you need a glasses-

Chris Downey: By the way you never see somebody eating spaghetti in surveillance photos.

[Laughter]

John Rogers: Well what are the odds that when you see that person they'll be eating spaghetti? You really don't want that on the wanted photo. That you can't recognize a killer without the spaghetti. You want a spaghetti free context.

John Aboud: ‘Here, eat this.’

John Rogers: ‘Oh, you're that person!’

John Aboud: ‘We've got our man!’

Jonathan Frakes: Mission Impossible.

John Rogers: Yeah great little three way walk, nice.

Jonathan Frakes: Boom. ‘You go this way I'll take this way’. Taking a long time to get through that door.

Chris Downey: Really is. It's a really thick door.

John Aboud: Very secure door.

Michael Colton: They stopped for a break.

Jonathan Frakes: Thick door they established that early.

John Rogers: This, by the way- this is great. Not a lot of guys could land this joke. ‘The health inspector?’

Michael Colton: Was that in the script or was that?

Jonathan Frakes: That was on the day.

John Rogers: That was on the day, that was an improv, right?

Michael Colton: Yeah, Chris did a lot of improv in this scene. Entire fight was improvised.

John Rogers: And that was fun, too, is coming up with the- I remember ‘ok what’s- what’s from the 80s you can hit people with?’

Chris Downey: Oh that's great.

John Rogers: This is a great fight.

John Aboud: First take on that smash.

Chris Downey: Oh that's great.

Michael Colton: Oh I know, ‘they give trophies for chess’ was Christian’s.

John Rogers: That's right.

Chris Downey: Yeah.

[Silence]

John Rogers: Sorry mouthful of Irish whiskey.

[Laughter]

Chris Downey: Yeah this is a great fight oh and the bowling trophy.

John Rogers: The bowling for chess. 

Jonathan Frakes: There’s no prop he doesn't flip!

[Laughter]

Aldis Hodge: He flips everything.

Jonathan Frakes: Am I right?

Chris Downey: Or twirl.

Aldis Hodge: He’ll flip a table.

Jonathan Frakes: Never found a prop he couldn't twirl.

John Rogers: And that's interesting, because on the big screen, you cut from the dude sort of cracking his neck behind Christian, and it's a slam cut into two people kissing. For a second I'm like ‘what the hell? Wait what the hell is going on here? Oh alright.’

Jonathan Frakes: Here's something we've all looked forward to. The fox fight in the girls dressing room.

Michael Colton: Well that- when we were writing the high school show and we came up with this character we knew we had to have a girl fight in the locker room.

John Aboud: And where was that silencer?

Jonathan Frakes: Gina resisted, and then ended up saying, ‘When can I do this again?’

John Rogers: She loves fighting, you see.

Chris Downey: She does.

John Rogers: You're always worried you're going to get hurt fighting, but the stunt people know what the hell they're doing, everyone’s super safe and you wind up just having fun. And also that was a big thing, you know Sophie’s character is not a killer, she has to cheat.

Chris Downey: Oh and the shoes!

John Rogers: The shoes come off.

Jonathan Frakes: Now it's real. Boom.

[Laughter]

Chris Downey: And there's another locked off comedy frame!

John Rogers: And then the cross.

Jonathan Frakes: Locked off comedy!

John Rogers: The cross cutting between the two fights was a lot of fun. And yeah, she could probably take her if she didn't have the fire extinguisher. It- Kari’s frustration in ‘what the hell are you talking about’ here is hilarious, actually.

Jonathan Frakes: These stunt doubles are quite good, this is intercut nicely.

John Rogers: Yup it is. And- 

Chris Downey: Oh and she uses a gun, look at that.

Jonathan Frakes: Yeah, look at that.

Michael Colton: Yeah, but she missed.

John Rogers: Yeah that's the problem, silencers are really useless anywhere over 10 feet. She should've unscrewed it but by then she'd be gone. 

Jonathan Frakes: Woah, woah, woah. 

John Rogers: And this is a great- actually of the early episodes this season this was one of my sort of favorite sort of character twists is that Drake actually has an arc. 

John Aboud: Right.

John Rogers: You know no person is without redemption, including Drake. Oh yeah.

Aldis Hodge: And the taser!

John Rogers: And the taser. Again, crucial for the finale for us to plant it that soon.

John Aboud: Her weapon of choice for the season.

John Rogers: Yeah catering. We originally had her lowering from the ceiling, and then that was just crazy. Used the taser. Oh the hug, that's nice.

Jonathan Frakes: Oof.

John Rogers: Oh the- and then the double turn this, is this is dense. This one’s actually got a lot going on in this act.

Michael Colton: I have no idea what's happening now.

[Laughter]

John Aboud: Truly lost.

John Rogers: Is this the fourth act? This is the fourth act

John Aboud: I think we're in act nine.

John Rogers: Yeah this is the fourth action act, and there's an awful lot of story going on here.

Chris Downey: Oh here we go. 

John Rogers: And what I kinda like here is where Arye Gross is playing not just angry, but hurt.

Michael Colton: Yeah.

John Rogers: It's like ‘I thought all my high school dreams had come true and now you're lying to me.’

Michael Colton: He's great in this. 

John Rogers: Genuinely never- can't go wrong with a shot down the gun.

Jonathan Frakes: Nope. Reliable.

John Rogers: Gonna react to it? Nope, just go to the reverse.

Jonathan Frakes: Go out number one.

Michael Colton: Bang.

Aldis Hodge: Commercial, people.

John Rogers: Remember, a guy pulling a gun for the act break is always better than a guy leaving with a gun. And now we do- what's sad is this was the plan. That's- when you think about it this is the most convoluted possible way to get this information in this guy’s head. I don't mean sad in a bad way, I mean this guy really just has no chance whatsoever. And yeah the mixture of like ‘I’m a villain’ and- this may be the saddest villain we’ve ever had.

Michael Colton: Well I was watching this with my sister, who said- this scene happened, she's like ‘oh I feel bad for him’ then he has a line about ‘cause you brutally beat the Iranian’ then she's like ‘oh now I don’t feel bad for him.’ It was the perfect-

Chris Downey: You're like, ‘Ooh I'm glad I put that in there.’

John Rogers: It's a little- it is sometimes a little funny that you know you realize television very much leads you through the emotions of the show. So it’s- you sorta feel like an idiot resetting the emotions as a writer but it’s important. You know you're in a contract with the viewer.

Jonathan Frakes: Well we’ve been in the school for two acts. 

John Rogers: Yeah.

Jonathan Frakes: Absolutely true. And the hacker getting hacked we've forgotten about that.

John Rogers: Yeah 42 minutes is- what is it, average American attention span is like 10 minutes? Which is why act length is probably just about right.

John Aboud: ‘Nice try fake Drake’.

Chris Downey: Fake Drake.

John Aboud: And he pointed out that that sounded a little like a Batman villain.

[Laughter]

John Rogers: Fake Drake.

John Aboud: ‘Very well Fake Drake.’

John Rogers: The- and again, these are people- these are professional spies. These are people who are hired to take care of people like Eliot.

Aldis Hodge: So it's okay for them to get hurt.

John Rogers: So it's okay for them to get beat up.

John Aboud: For his arm to bend that way.

Aldis Hodge: Yeah we don't feel bad for him, no.

John Rogers: I love the ASCII art there. 

John Aboud: Yep, yep.

John Rogers: I love that he would go to the effort of making an ASCII manticore. Cause that's not easy. And you can't have an intern do that cause it's your secret logo.

Chris Downey: Yeah.

John Aboud: I think that probably took Derek all of five seconds. And then it even animates! It even animates when it dies.

John Rogers: x o x o x o yeah. Again, he would've had to do that. So at some point Arye Gross' character had to have gone, ‘What if somebody hacks this? I should put a death animation in just in case.’

Chris Downey: Yeah well you want to know that it's gone.

John Rogers: Yeah exactly. Made unaware.

Jonathan Frakes: This is the fifth Beatle, played strong in this show.

John Rogers: Yeah Derek Frederickson. And of course manticore based on various intercept methods that you can use. And that's kinda tricky is social media is both a tool of insurrection and makes you vulnerable. As soon as you network with other people it's a weakness.

John Aboud: We talked about Carnivore I think wasn’t that the-

John Rogers: Yes, that was the FBI one.

John Aboud: Was the decryption.

Chris Downey: Now how long did it take to ‘Badger 85’? ‘Cause you had to find ways to implant it.

Michael Colton: That- actually that was kind of fun because we had to figure out ways to use the word ‘badger’ or ‘85’.

John Aboud: For this.

Michael Colton: Yeah.

John Aboud: For this sequence.

Chris Downey: For the flashes.

Jonathan Frakes: There was a wonderful alliteration in this.

Chris Downey: ‘Five years’.

John Aboud: ‘Wasn't all bad-ger brain hold onto every detail’.

John Rogers: And there's the badger. You gotta remember that badger.

Aldis Hodge: AKA Beth.

Michael Colton: ‘I already ate, five months’.

John Rogers: I've had this dream so many times.

[Laughter]

Michael Colton: ‘You hacked me?’

John Rogers: And now the meltdown. We don't really give them a gloat here, we don't really give them a gloat.

John Aboud: He pre-gloats.

Aldis Hodge: With the Fred Flinstone run out.

[Laughter]

John Rogers: That’s a chess club run.

Chris Downey: He was in the chess club.

John Aboud: Schmitty.

Jonathan Frakes: Can’t believe we’re out of beer.

Chris Downey: ‘Out of beer!’

Jonathan Frakes: Never happened to Paul.

John Rogers: I don’t think that was a line, I think we just ran out of beer on set.

[Laughter]

John Rogers: Oh Larry Duberman, millionaire, the stress has gotten to him, he's melting down. I'll take him away.

Jonathan Frakes: Here's where we toyed with having our favorite FBI guys in this.

Chris Downey: We almost did but the scheduling didn't work. But we tried to have-

Michael Colton: Yep.

John Rogers: Again always the pain but real humans are attached to these roles. They don't wait around for us.

Chris Downey: Taggert and McSweeten.

John Aboud: Doucherman!

Aldis Hodge: Doucherman.

John Aboud: So disappointed.

Chris Downey: Gave him a nice shot there.

John Aboud: So disappointed.

Jonathan Frakes: He's a friend, he gets a good close up.

John Rogers: That's good.

Jonathan Frakes: And this- I love this end. I love this.

Michael Colton: This is what the show started with.

John Rogers: We held onto this end for two years.

Michael Colton: This was all we had.

John Aboud: This is the image from which the episode sprung.

Michael Colton: From whence it sprang.

John Aboud: Yep.

John Rogers: Like the head of Zeus.

Aldis Hodge: It's a red party cup.

[Laughter]

John Aboud: I love that shirt. I love that shirt. I do love that shirt.

Chris Downey: Is that what that is?

Aldis Hodge: Yup yup.

John Aboud: Red party cup.

Michael Colton: Which is a line-

Chris Downey: Oh I want that.

Jonathan Frakes: And he gives it up to. This actor gives it up again.

John Rogers: Yeah, well didn't we put cayenne pepper in his eyes?

Jonathan Frakes: No we did not.

John Rogers: Oh we don't do that anymore? Alright. No he was-

Aldis Hodge: It's how we motivate our actors. They go hard.

John Rogers: Absolutely fantastic work. 

John Aboud: I made him cry.

Aldis Hodge: It’s cause you called him fat right before you shot it.

John Rogers: That's a big part of the show by the way, the victim isn't just pathetic.

John Aboud: It was the insults that did it.

John Rogers: That was a spinoff, too, we talked about - Mandy and Schmitty.

John Aboud: Mandy/Schmitty.

John Rogers: Unwittingly getting involved in cons.

Michael Colton: Schmitheads.

Jonathan Frakes: Mandy was thrilled to get to play a girl with big boobs cause she had just had a baby, so she never had boobs like this before. So she was thrilled to be asked-

Chris Downey: I'm sure she can enjoy hearing that on this.

[Laughter]

Jonathan Frakes: Lana[?] told me this for sure.

Michael Colton: They look wonderful.

John Rogers: The- and this was fun. The whole idea that they were so convincing at the con and so charming-

Jonathan Frakes: Yeah that they become-

John Rogers: You could've done an entire subplot like that. 

Chris Downey: Oh look at that.

John Rogers: I think that's you  know that's a good day for Schmitty, he really lost track of his friends, and he's just happy to know Drake’s doing okay.

Jonathan Frakes: And you can't miss the beer bowl, John Hughes. Thank you very much.

John Rogers: No he- and this is Joe LoDuca giving us- and we originally wanted words and then he gave us the melody as a sample before he put the words on and realized we don't want words.

Chris Downey: No, yeah, that's perfect.

John Rogers: This is perfect. This sounds exactly like an 80s tune.

Aldis Hodge: Now which one of your guys' high school dreams is this, here?

John Rogers: Dancing with Gina Bellman?

Michael Colton: Dancing with Tim Hutton?

[Laughter]

Aldis Hodge: Becoming prom king after like 85 years.

Jonathan Frakes: I love the callback to these two characters, in these costumes, in this place. I think this is lovely, actually.

Michael Colton: Magical.

John Rogers: This is fantastic. This is one of my favorite endings. It really is.

Aldis Hodge: Bit of redemption for what they’ve gone through.

Jonathan Frakes: No, but it’s in front of all these people. Their pasts-

John Rogers: Yeah, and she's not gonna tell him the name, but she's-

Chris Downey: And high school reunions like we said are full of, like, emotion. I mean it's just that’s what's- it kinda takes you back so it’s-

John Aboud: Well and of course what we liked was that Parker never experienced this stuff. So to her it's an alien world and by the end-

Chris Downey: And here's the shot.

John Aboud: This is it.

Jonathan Frakes: Well the metaphor of her feet being off the ground. Here we go bring it on.

Aldis Hodge: Yup.

Michael Colton: Oh yeah.

John Rogers: Yeah, just never actually touching the ground.

Aldis Hodge: I'm just that strong, I'm holding her up.

[Laughter]

Chris Downey: That is great.

Aldis Hodge: Oh yeah.

Chris Downey: And of course look! The one who- the one guy who didn't get to have any fun.

Jonathan Frakes: ‘I don't get to go.’

John Rogers: ‘Did anybody ask if Eliot's okay? Is Eliot alive?’

Jonathan Frakes: Sorry buddy.

John Rogers: Pissed off Christian is a funny Christian. And then pan up and then find both of them. Oh I love this shot.

Jonathan Frakes: Excellent use of the crane.

John Rogers: This is kind of the whole reason to do- yeah. And-

John Aboud: Fan favorite, gonna call it.

John Rogers: Fan favorite, yep.

Chris Downey: Yeah.

John Aboud: Calling it yeah.

Chris Downey: Both of your episodes guys have endings of real-

Michael Colton: The rest of them are shit, but the endings really land.

Chris Downey: But I'm saying-

Michael Colton: Stick the landing.

John Rogers: Gotta hold on for the ending of Colton and Aboud episode.

Chris Downey: I’m trying to pay you a compliment!

Jonathan Frakes: Makes you wanna put in another DVD doesn't it?

John Rogers: Yes, yes, you should go-

Jonathan Frakes: Let’s watch another episode!

John Rogers: You should go watch another episode right now.

Jonathan Frakes: Go run to the fridge, get some stuff, put another one in.

John Rogers: Get some stuff. If you're pantless that's cool we’re pantless.

Michael Colton: You’re saying for douchbags to go hard.

Aldis Hodge: If Hardison-

Michael Colton: We wrote two endings-

John Aboud: Fake it- we fake it well.

Michael Colton: That are actually heartwarming.

Chris Downey: Very heartwarming.

John Rogers: Well you were given one of them.

[Laughter]

Jonathan Frakes: Thanks for watching.

Aldis Hodge: Peace people.

[queen-boudicca]

Next up in the nuwho rewatch, the end of the world!

I've also decided to add two things to each post: whether the episode passes the bechdel test (in anticipation of the moffat era bc I'm petty) and whether it makes me cry. For this episode:

Bechdel test pass: yes

Makes me cry: no (but almost though)

The end of the world

"I know exactly where to go" *takes her to the destruction of her planet* good job nine

"You lot. You spend all your time thinking about dying. Like you're gonna get killed by eggs or beef or global warming or asteroids. But you never take time to imagine the impossible. That maybe you survive" help

The music is so beautiful help

This one has some bits a little like Martha's theme

"Mind you, when i say 'the great and good', what i mean is the rich" ily so much nine

Jabe!! I love her

The adherents of the repeated meme [insert ah bit like you then]

"I give you, in return, air from my lungs" he's so smooth omg

"Ladies and gentlemen and trees and multiforms" the four genders

'The Arctic desert' — is that a commentary on global warming or Cassandra being a liar

If there were only a few songs that survived the destruction of the earth and were what people remembered us by, tainted love and toxic are pretty good bops I'm not complaining

God the way they introduced the time war and destruction of gallifrey are so fucking good

Nine's offhand mention of fighting in the war in the previous episode, the way jabe scans for his species and doesn't believe it, etc

It's so well done!!

The way Rose doesn't talk at all to any of the fancy rich people at the party but happily (and more comfortably) strikes up conversation with the workers she meets on the station!! Such good characterization you love to see it

She asks Raffalo for her name immediately and emotionally opens up to her

"Thank you for the permission. Not many people are that considerate" they really said fuck the rich

Rip my girl, Raffalo. You were super sweet and i miss you

"They're just so alien! The aliens are so alien. You look at them... and they're alien" ily rose

And he's like evading her questions about who he is and where he's from and when she doesn't stop he gets angry and ugh his arc is so good

And she can tell it's a sore topic for him so she breaks the tension w a joke

They're so good for each other

ROSE'S THEME MY BELOVED

Love how there's a button on his keyboard that lowers the sun filter and instakills anyone inside

Maybe they shouldn't have added that when they did the designs

Jabe and nine besties

I want an au where she and Raffalo survived and traveled with nine and rose and are their respective besties

Not sure I'm a big fan of the implications that cosmetic surgery makes you less human/real

"I just wanted to say how sorry i am" and she's touching his arm and comforting him and aagh the tears in his eyes and he's touching her hand too and WE COULD HAVE HAD IT ALL RTD WHY DID SHE HAVE TO DIE i know why it's bc (a) he would've invited her to come with and they didn't wanna deal w that (b) we needed the first person we see comfort him to die saving him bc he's not allowed to be happy and neither am i

Seriously though they've been really good this episode about making you care about the minor characters that die (i mean most of them. Not very torn up about the steward)

TOXIC

Such a bop

That's why they had such bad special effects; they blew all their budget on song rights

I mean the heat in the room would've killed her way before the direct beam of sunlight would've but oh well

The spider robots are really kinda cute shame they're evil

Really polite of her to monologue her entire plan

Great design, putting the important switch on the other side of all the fan blades

Nine baby if you hadn't argued with her and just ran there probably would've been time

DON'T TURN AROUND AND LOOK AT HER JUST GO

oh damn rip the moxx of balhoun ig

JABE NO

Nine's theme my beloved

Wow the earth kinda looked like an eye while it was exploding

Angry nine is so good i love it

The definition of people is a technicality the courts will argue over? Oh please

First of all they're not even speaking English and there's way the doctor would've used a word that didn't mean like sapient beings or some shit

Also c'mon like there aren't laws against killing sentient beings by the year 5 billion regardless of what word you use

Rose's theme again my beloved

"You think it'll last forever. People and cars and concrete. But it won't. One day, it's all gone. Even the sky." I'm fine

Nine's theme again my beloved

I'm beginning to think they didn't have that much music composed for this

Next up, ghosts and Charles Dickens and Gwen's great great great grandmother!

[twistedtummies2]

Top 12 Pandora Hearts Characters

Moriarty the Patriot may be my new favorite anime and manga series, but today, I feel like talking about my OTHER favorite manga (and what COULD have been my favorite anime, if it had only gone on longer): a little franchise known as Pandora Hearts. Japan has a huge following for the works of Lewis Carroll, but Pandora Hearts has probably the most unusual manner of reinterpreting the characters. The story of PH is set in a world where human beings coexist with monstrous entities known as Chains: demon-like beings who are all directly inspired, in terms of name and design, on characters from Wonderland. With a few exceptions, the characters themselves do not have the names of characters from the books; instead, it is the Chains they make bargains with, form “Contracts” with, that tell you what character from the stories they are meant to represent. It’s a cool idea, and whether you look at this franchise as a new take on Wonderland, or just look at the characters on their own terms separate from the books, they are all fun and engaging characters who are frequently much more complex than they at first seem. Now, Pandora Hearts is a series with a lot of twists and turns, so I’m going to try and keep this as spoiler-free as possible when it comes to some of the REALLY big twists, but there’s only so much I can do. So if you haven’t read the manga, or at least watched the anime, and don’t want things spoiled, just be wary in case something pops up here you weren’t wanting to know ahead of time. Also, because this is me writing this list, I will give away which characters from the Wonderland stories these characters are analogous with in their descriptions. With that said... “The time has come,” the Walrus says, “To honor them today! So here’s a list of my favorites to lighten up your day!” (pauses) Yes, I’m aware that rhyme was terrible, just run with it. These are My Top 12 Favorite Pandora Hearts Characters!

12. Echo & Noise.

Wonderland Analogues: Tweedledee & Tweedledum.

One thing you need to know about Pandora Hearts is that...honestly, like a lot of anime/manga, in my opinion...it can be rather confusing at times. The lore of this world, partially because it takes so many twists and turns all over the place, is a little hard to follow at times. I’ll try be succinct and as major-spoiler-free as possible, as I said before. With that said, these two are a prime example of how things get twisted up. Echo and Noise are essentially a classic Jekyll-&-Hyde scenario; a pair of separate identities occupying the same body. Noise, also called “Zwei,” is the original personality: a member of the mysterious and dangerous Baskerville Clan, she is, as her name suggest, loudmouthed, crazy, and rather all over the place. Noise is in control of a Chain known as “Duldee,” and the Chain is responsible for the creation of the other personality: Echo. Echo is the exact opposite of Noise: she is quiet, constantly polite, and indeed often seems to be little more than a robot, very emotionless and unnervingly calm, even in the heat of battle. As Echo, she is the unsettlingly loyal servant of one of the series’ chief antagonists, Vincent Nightray, and their relationship is...a little creepy. Vincent frequently treats her like a beloved child or pet, but he also frequently uses her for his own selfish ends, never worrying about nearly killing her in order to get what he wants, and seeming to see her more as an object than another living being. Despite this, the most upset with him Echo ever gets is calling him “annoying” (now, THERE’S an understatement), and Noise herself is absolutely obsessed with him. Their twisted relationship with Vincent, and all the fun that’s had with these two different personalities, is a big part of what gets them a slot on the list.

11. Oscar Vessalius.

Wonderland Analogue: N/A

While most of the characters in Pandora Hearts are easily identified by their Chains, some don’t even have Chains, and thus cannot be readily identified as any character from the Carroll classics. Oscar Vessalius, whom I frequently and affectionately refer to as “Uncle Oscar,” is one of those cases. Now, to be fair, Uncle Oscar is not the most complex character in this series, but he IS one of the most endearing. Oscar is the paternal uncle of our main protagonist, Oz, and considering Oz’s father is...well...a gigantic douchebag of the highest order...Oscar really is more of a father to Oz than anybody else in the series. Oscar is unflappably encouraging and jolly, and extremely protective and caring when it comes to his family. He’s always there to support Oz and his friends, tries his best to get along with everybody, and generally speaking brightens up every single scene he has. Despite this, Oscar does have a bit of a sly and sneaky side to him, as well as a slightly lecherous leaning in some cases, which keep him from being too perfect or one-note a character. While he has no direct ties to Wonderland, some have suggested that he MIGHT be inspired by Lewis Carroll himself, and there are a few subtle things that could suggest that...but either way, he’s ultimately a purely original character, and of those ranks, he’s easily one of the best.

10. Reim Lunettes.

Wonderland Analogue: March Hare.

Reim, sometimes called “Liam,” is the best friend of Xerxes Break and one of the most notable members of Pandora: a not-so-secret organization dedicated to the study of Chains and the protection of the world. Sort of a Victorian-styled Men in Black, if you will. (pauses) The Will Smith Men in Black, I should say. ANYWAY, an interesting thing I’ve noticed with many interpretations of the March Hare in Japanese culture is they tend to make him a somewhat more serious and more easily flustered character than the Mad Hatter. Reim is no exception: he’s a panicky workaholic who is frequently the butt of other people’s jokes, and tries to treat things with a no-nonsense demeanor, taking his job extremely seriously and always worried about what’s best for his employers. In some ways, one could argue he acts more like the White Rabbit, but that character is one we’ll get to later. At any rate, while Reim is constantly obsessed with his work, and frequently frustrated by Break’s antics, as well as the shenanigans of other characters, he has a heart of gold and is always there to try and help his friends and colleagues when they most require assistance. His Chain also has a pretty impressive power that one does not expect...but I mustn’t say more, or I’ll spoil something important.

9. Sharon Rainsworth.

Wonderland Analogue: Unicorn.

Another character with close ties to Xerxes Break, Sharon is an interestingly dichotomous character. She’s one of the first people we encounter in this series, and she plays a big part in the story as it unfolds...but in the early parts of the franchise, what’s interesting is that Sharon stays largely in the background. Now, at first, it seems this is because she’s one of the head members of Pandora, and Break is technically her servant; so it makes sense the others would interact more with Break than Sharon. But as time goes on, and we learn more about Sharon, we find that’s not so much the case. Sharon and Break have a brother-and-sister relationship, with Sharon seeing Break as her surrogate big brother, and Break seeing her as his little sister. The problem with this relationship is that Break will do anything to protect Sharon, and at times that can go a bit too far, as Sharon truly wants to be of use to him and prove she’s just as powerful as he is or any other major member of the team. Indeed, her Chain, Equus the Black Unicorn, has many impressive abilities, including being able to open a gateway between Earth and the Hell-like dimension of The Abyss. A lot of this dichotomy is visible in Sharon’s personality: most of the time she’s very demure, polite, sweet, and ladylike. But the more we see of Sharon, the more we become aware of other facets to her personality. She’s shown to have a tough and domineering side to her character, and has some eccentricities of her own. Most notably, she’s absolutely INSANE when it comes to romance stories and romantic situations, and holds both the standards of ladies and gentlemen in high regard. Whether she’s a soothing presence or a downright scary one, Sharon is always an interesting character to return to.

8. Rufus Barma.

Wonderland Analogue: Dodo.

There are a few characters in the frequently twisted-up world of Pandora Hearts who have a habit of constantly keeping you guessing...but the king of mystery, without a shadow of a doubt, is the Duke Rufus Barma. His analogous Chain, Dodo, is able to conjure impressive illusions, and this illusionary skill is only the tip of the iceberg in showing how this man constantly manages to make you wonder just what is going on in his head. Barma lives by the code of “knowledge is power,” and constantly seeks to learn everything he can about...well...anything and anybody he wants. Money and prestige are secondary to him. He’s very soft-spoken and cold, even when angered, and carries himself with a sense of grace that’s rather flamboyant, but somehow not exactly loud or over-the-top in the way some of the other characters can be. His exact goals and motivations are constantly second-guessed, and you’re never really sure what makes him tick or what side he’ll take. You’re never really sure if he’s a villain or a hero. I love characters like this, in general, so it’s ultimately no surprise that Rufus Barma gets a solid spot on this list.

7. The Will of the Abyss.

Wonderland Analogue: White Rabbit.

The Will of the Abyss (sometimes called “Alyss” and sometimes called “The Intention of the Abyss”) isn’t a villain we see a whole lot of. She is the queen of the Abyss; the ruler of everything there. The Abyss, itself, is the home of the demon-like chains: ghoulish entities who feed on human beings, body and soul, and are formed from those who have fallen into the Abyss in the past. The place is described as “a broken toy box” and is a horrifying limbo realm of killer dolls and psychotic puppets. Needless to say, it’s not exactly an ideal vacation spot. The Will is a mysterious and mercurial character; she’s mostly a peripheral villain, since we see more of the Chains she controls than her, herself, and much of what we DO see of her actually comes through flashbacks...but in that overall brief amount of time, she proves to be honestly the single scariest character in the series, as well as one of the saddest. Part of this is due to her mood: the Will can shift from seemingly innocent and playful to screaming like a banshee in a split-second; she can go from crying and sobbing like a sad little girl to being as refined and elegant as a proper queen. And there really isn’t a safe place with her, in any of this, either; sometimes that playful and sweet persona is a good thing, but other times...yeah, it’s...um...REALLY not. Like many Chains, she’s violent and bloodthirsty, but unlike other Chains, there’s some humanity to her and you get the feeling that a lot of her actions are justified. She’s still very much a villain, but she’s also a victim, in a way, and as the story goes on, you feel bad for her and are truly sorry when her part in the series’ events is finished. Whether she makes you whimper with terror or makes you want to hug her and console her, the Will of the Abyss is bound to get a major reaction from you.

6. Vincent Nightray.

Wonderland Analogue: Dormouse.

One of the main antagonists of the series (though not, for the record, THE main antagonist...they actually don’t appear in this top twelve), Vincent Nightray is another character who changes throughout the series. What I find most interesting about Vincent is that he, himself, changes very little. It’s more the attitude the reader has to him, in the manga, that changes. See, if you only know Vincent from the anime, or the chapters in the manga that the anime covers, chances are you find him to be a pretty repugnant person. He’s creepy, he’s treacherous, he’s responsible for some of the most screwed-up things any character in this franchise does, and that’s saying a lot. He’s totally insane, and sort of seems to be aware of it, and seems to have an unhealthy interest in his own brother, Gilbert. In fact, with how disturbing he is, and the kinds of things he tries, you start off thinking he’s the main antagonist...and, for a while, he pretty much is. However, as the series continues in the manga, and you learn more about Vincent - why he is the way he is, and what exactly he wants to accomplish - the more you come to understand him and sympathize with him. Make no mistake, Vincent is a villain; in fact, even he seems to be aware of the fact that he’s sort of a monster. But he’s the kind of villain you come to feel sorry for and realize that, if things had been different, maybe could have turned out a much better person. In a way, Vincent is a foil to the ACTUAL main antagonist. Without giving anything away, the real main villain of the series follows the opposite path: at first he seems sympathetic and endearing, but the more we learn about him and the more horrible things he does, the more we come to loathe him and want to see him kicked in the face a thousand times over. Vincent, meanwhile, we start off hating his guts, but by the time his part in the story ends, we’re sad to see him go, because we understand him and care about him, and realize not everything was his fault. I actually feel a little bad for not placing Vincent higher, but I doubt the characters above him will drastically disappoint. He may have been one of the nastiest characters in the franchise, but if ever proof was needed that Evil is a lonely course to take, Vincent Nightray could provide it.

5. Cheshire Cat.

Wonderland Analogue: Doesn’t need to be given, because IT’S HIS NAME.

Again, the Cheshire Cat doesn’t have a lot of time in the series - he gets one major arc fairly early on, appears in several flashbacks afterwards, and then makes a sudden and unexpected return much later in the story - but that doesn’t keep him from being one of the most fascinating figures in the universe of PH. Cheshire is the reincarnation of an innocent kitten who belonged to a girl named Alice; the kitten was brutally murdered by Vincent Nightray. As a Chain, the Cheshire Cat is steadfastly loyal to the Will of the Abyss, and - at least at the start of the series - dwells within a mysterious realm simply known as “The Cheshire Cat’s House.” The “house” is an eerie Victorian mansion that is literally made up of all of the worst memories the Will has, and Cheshire guards the mansion and the Will herself with ferocious zeal. It’s ironic because this is a very different take on the Cheshire Cat, in general: the character in the book, and most other adaptations, is a chaotic being who shows loyalty to seemingly no one, and while some versions lean more towards good or evil, friend or foe, than others, he ultimately isn’t an obedient housecat. He’s more of an enigmatic agent of madness. This Cheshire Cat is a totally different spin on things. He’s got human-like intelligence, for the most part, and occasionally speaks in a cryptic or evasive manner, but he’s not the puzzling imp of Carroll’s classic. He doesn’t even SMILE all that often...and when he does it’s...well...the most terrifying thing you’ll ever see. But just because he’s a very different take on the character, doesn’t mean he’s still not a good one; Cheshire’s mixture of ravenous hunger (all Chains are so), sadistic ferocity, and childlike adoration of the Will make him a very layered character. Like the Will herself, he can be very creepy and menacing, but he can also be sympathetic and sweet, since he still very much is that loving kitten whose life was cut short. In a very short time, he becomes one of the most standout characters, and despite a relatively short lifespan (so to speak), it’s clear the creators really liked Cheshire, since they tried to find ways to fit him in all over the place. It’s a sign of restraint on their parts, I’d say, that he doesn’t pop up more often throughout the franchise. When he does pop up, he’s a scene stealer, and I was always excited to see him.

4. Oz Vessalius.

Wonderland Analogue: N/A

Our chief protagonist, and another original character, Oz Vessalius is a teenager whose life is turned upside-down when, at his Coming-of-Age Ceremony, a group of depraved cultists send him body and soul into the Abyss. He makes a contract with a Chain called Alice, and escapes the Abyss, only to discover that the very short time he spent down there equated to a full decade in the real world. He is enlisted by Pandora, and the rest of the series focuses on his adventures as he tries to discover the secrets of a cataclysmic event from the past known as “The Tragedy of Sablier” - in which an entire city was somehow sucked down into the Abyss. Oz is an endearing young hero, as his youth is mixed with a curious maturity. At times he’s very silly and almost hopelessly optimistic, but at other times he shows a very fatalistic and calculating side to his personality. Part of this is due to his upbringing, as his father never showed him any love at all, and the best friend he ever really had was his own servant, Gilbert. He didn’t exactly get out much to explore the world. So while he’s lived a very sheltered life, it’s also been a very cold one. Oz works on a philosophy of acceptance, just going with the flow and trying not to let the bad things get to you...but considering he frequently claims his own life means very little to him, it’s very clear the bad things DO get to him. In fact, despite his privileged youth, he puts the lives of others vastly before his own, even when he doesn’t know them all that well. He just doesn’t like to show how much things can hurt him, and tries to press ahead no matter what. It’s a complex sort of way of thinking - being proud and unflinching and yet humble and downright self-loathing, all with a dash of youthful exuberance - and as the series goes on, and we learn more about Oz than maybe even he knows, it only becomes more fascinating. He may not be my favorite character, but he’s a fine protagonist for us to follow, and certainly worthy of high marks here.

3.  Gilbert Nightray.

Wonderland Analogue: The Monstrous Crow...probably.

I say “probably” because Gilbert’s Chain, as well as his own codename, is “Raven,” which is an obvious reference to the riddle “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” I guess it’s possible both were inspirational, but the Crow is an actual creature/character in the stories, so it’s the one I choose to credit. Whatever the case, Gil is one of the other major protagonists in the series, and...this guy is freaking adorable. I know he doesn’t look it, but trust me, he’s adorable. At the start of the series, we meet Gil as a small boy, who has amnesia about his past and works as a servant for Oz. Oz is not only his Master, but his best friend, and Gil will do absolutely anything to protect and serve his “Young Master” no matter what. After Oz descends into the Abyss, Gil - blaming himself - tries to run away...and is enlisted, at a very young age, by Xerxes Break. He becomes a double-agent, working for both the Rainsworth and Nightray households, upon discovering he is actually a long-lost member of the Nightray family. When Oz returns years later, Gil is a seemingly changed man: stoic, stern, always dressed in black, smoking heavily, and rarely speaking. Very quickly, however, we discover a lot of this stoicism is a facade: underneath it all, Gil is very much still a child at heart, and even though he’s grown older, he still sees Oz as his brother and best friend, as well as his true master, and will do anything to protect and to help him. Just as Oz always puts his life ahead of others, Gil’s foremost thoughts are always with Oz and how he can help him, and the lengths he’ll go to in order to keep Oz safe are sometimes touching, sometimes hilarious, and sometimes downright heartbreaking. Gil’s “dark side” is certainly engaging - he’s a crack shot with a pistol, and has a gloomy and cynical sense of humor - but I think what’s most endearing about him are the moments...and there are surprisingly many...where we see the cracks in the armor, and this “seaweed head” shows that he really hasn’t changed as much as he often claims. Whether he’s a man of action or a man of hilarious hijinks, Gilbert Nightray is more than worthy of a place in the top three.

2. Alice.

Wonderland Analogue: Again, IT’S HER NAME.

The secondary protagonist of the series, after Oz, this Alice is a far cry from the little girl we know of from the Carroll stories. At the start of the franchise, we are introduced to Alice as a Chain known as “B. Rabbit” - a title that stands for both “Black Rabbit” and “Bloody” or “Bloodstained Rabbit.” (In fact, her full title is often given as “The Bloody/Bloodstained Black Rabbit.”) B. Rabbit is one of the most powerful Chains out there, and in her Chain form, Alice is a nigh-unstoppable powerhouse ruled by bloodthirst - a maniacal berserker whose morning star chains and massive scythe cleave through even the toughest opponents with ease. However, Alice can also resort to human form, and here she’s much more...well...human. She has the same basic weaknesses a human has, she’s not quite as psychotic (though she DOES have a nasty temper at times)...really, the only sign of her being a Chain is her ravenous hunger. Like any Chain, Alice is ALWAYS hungry, and always hungry for MEAT. Thankfully, unlike other Chains, Alice has no desire to consume human beings. Indeed, while at first she comes across as frightening and intimidating, Alice has a very vulnerable side to her; she’s lived her life without any real friends or family, since the only “family” she has is her twin, the Will of the Abyss...and, to put things simply, they don’t get along very well. Much like Oz, she often feels like she’s undeserving of other people’s care and attention, but while Oz compensates this through being charitable and caring, Alice compensates by over-inflating herself; a classic “superiority complex via inferiority complex” issue. She’s never unlikeable, however, and as the series goes on - and we come to realize that Alice’s true identity, and her status as a Chain, is a lot less cut-and-dry than we might think - she only becomes a more and more fun and fascinating character...arguably more fascinating than Oz. Indeed, it’s really Alice who drives so much of the plot of the series forward, as her whole goal in the series is to find out the truth of her past and regain her lost memories, and it’s through the team’s efforts to help Alice in this goal that so much of the story is told. Oz is really just along for the ride, at least at first. Powerful but not invincible, and easily one of my favorite takes on the title character of the Carroll stories, Alice nabs second place easily…

...But who in the great wide world could take first? That honor goes to...

1. Xerxes Break.

Wonderland Analogue: The Mad Hatter AND The White Knight.

Yep. Two characters. How is this possible? Well, the first thing to know about Xerxes Break is that he wasn’t always called “Xerxes Break.” Once upon a time, he was a knight called Kevin Regnard, who served a noble family; his Chain was called Albus the White Knight. When Regnard’s mistakes led to the destruction of the entire family, he went absolutely bonkers and became a twisted serial killer known as the Red-Eyed Ghost. Ultimately, however, his contract with Albus ended, and Regnard was dragged down into the Abyss, where the Will and the Cheshire Cat ripped out one of his eyes (...yikes…), and plotted to turn him into another Chain. Things get a bit complicated at this point, but basically, Kevin managed to escape and was thrown into another time and place upon doing so. He was taken in by the Rainsworth family, befriend Reim Lunettes, and steadily began to come out of his shell. He took the name “Xerxes Break,” because he felt “broken,” later formed a contract with a very special and powerful Chain known as The Mad Hatter (in fact, one of Break’s nicknames is “Mr. Hatter”), and crafted a whole new personality for himself: Kevin Regnard was stern, work-obsessed, and wore his heart on his sleeve. Xerxes Break is in every way his opposite. When it comes to takes on the Mad Hatter, Break is one of the best; granted, we very rarely see him WEAR a hat, but the personality of the guy speaks for itself. Break often comes across as clownish and childishly hyperactive, constantly eating sweets, performing magic tricks and weird stunts just for the sheer sake of it, prancing around and giggling like a small boy, and even interacting with a puppet he calls “Emily”...which...may or may not actually be alive. However, much of this is a facade, as underneath it all, Break is...well...broken. Not just in body (he’s much, much older and more frail than he often seems), but in terms of his mind; he’s half-crazed and extremely mercurial. Much like with Rufus Barma, Break is somebody you’re never entirely sure of, but in a different way. Break, you see, is very open and honest; he never tells lies and he makes his loyalties and disloyalties very clear. But at the same time he’s very secretive and enigmatic, often speaking in riddles and partial-truths to throw people off. He’s very cunning and intelligent, and a gifted swordsman, and will do anything and use almost anyone to get what he wants. So while he can be extremely funny, he can also be very frightening and ruthless. You’re never sure what’s going to set him off and if the next line he says is going to be a threat or a joke. And as the series goes on, and we see more and more of Break’s vulnerabilities, we only come to care about him more and more, though, at the same time, he always remains an eternal mystery. A riddle with no real answer...just like the Mad Hatter’s from the book. (Way to bring things around, don’t you think?) Whether you look at him as a version of the Hatter, or look at him just for who and what he is on his own terms, he is, in my opinion, the most well-rounded and fascinating character in the whole series, and easily takes the top spot as My Favorite Pandora Hearts Character. Xerxes Break, I doff my own topper to thee. (tips hat)

Honorable Mentions Include...

Elliot Nightray.

Leo.

Jack Vessalius.

Lottie Baskerville.

Lily Baskerville.

Ada Vessalius.

Phillipe West.

[friedfriedchicken]

Part 2 since I hit the image limit

I love the composition of this scene- they're all perfectly spread out, teeny, and it's so funny to me

HACKER LOOKING UP SWINDLER ON THE OFFICIAL AKUDAMA LIST OML YEAH BOY GO GET YOUR CITED REFERENCES

Swindler on the verge of tears 🥺

"Oh? Is this your cute girlfriend, Courier?"

They all look so goofy I love them

"You let your girl tag along?!" Brawler just cementing Doctor's assumption in 🛐

I don't wanna go back and take a picture but the reflection in Swinder's eyes of Courier's gun is so so cool

"All right. Let's kill her, then." Gotta love Brawler supporting Courier fr

EVERYONE UNITING TO KILL SWINDLER OML 😭

"Seriously? Awesome!" Brawler being the best support in the entire anime actually

EVERYONE GOING BACK TO TRY FIGHTING SWINDLER BUT IN A FRIENDLY WAY 💀 Brawler you could kill her with the flick of your finger- she'd go flying

Black Cat 🛐 I love the little expressions omg

OH THE HUGE ROBOTS- I FORGOT ABOUT THEM

"Fun at last!" BRAWLER STARTS JUMPING AND BLUSHING AND WHOOPING WHEN HE SEES THE ROBOTS HELP

The music is so good omg

SWINDLER OMG

GET HER OUT OF THERE

Part 1 of Doctor materializing on the back of Courier's bike

HOODLUM WAS SUMMONED BY THE MENTION OF MONEY 💀 I FORGOT THAT'S HOW THEY GOT HIM

HOODLUM GOES RUNNING INTO BLACK SMOKE AFTER A ROBOT LIKE THAT'S A GOOD IDEA HELP

Oml the announcer says 'Ladies and gentlemen!' in English with a CGI crowd around him

DID THEY ACTUALLY PUT HIM IN A WOODEN GUILLOTINE?!?!?!

The murder robots Do Not Perceive™ Swindler wwwwww

"Get off, wench." COURIER 😭

THAT IS NOT A FACE I EXPECTED HACKER TO MAKE

Swindler being normal r.i.p.

HOODLUM!!!!

The start of Hoodlum and Swindler's Normal People Adopted By Genuine Akudama™ arc

Courier could be Spider-Man

I'M LOSING MY MIND WHAT IS THIS SCREENSHOT

HELP I LOVE THIS I HATE THIS WHAAT IS GOING ONNNNN

The music vibes so much

WHEN SWINDLER SEES THE COIN AGAIN THE SCREEN GLITCHES AND WE SEE FLASHBACKS OML IS THAT A FORESHADOWING OR AM I OVER THINKING THISS

Swindler <3

Swindler and Hoodlum <3 They are so funny together

Swindler is savage for that

I literally can't hear Courier as Courier anymore- that's just Leona Kingscholar's voice to me

Doing it again

"Man did Cutthroat die? 🙄" Wow they aren't holding any punches

The scene where the police dude's head is cut off isn't as bad as the censor box made it seem 😔 Literally it's just red

CUTTHROAT!!!!

I wonder if his intro scene actually shows 999 people losing their heads or not

Cutthroat standing like 🧍‍♂️:) while Courier hands him the brief case oml

"Everyone gets a bomb! No clue why! Hehe 😄 Me included!" I love Cutthroat he's so silly

OML THE BLU-RAY HAS LYRICS FOR 'STEAL!!' I LITERALLY CAN'T FIND ANY LYRICS ONLINE THIS IS AWESOME YIPPEEE WAHOOO LET'S GOOOO

Omg the preview for ep 2 has Master do a little voice over YIPPEEEE

Fried live reaction to rewatching Akudama Drive ep 1 GO

YOU

His eyes are so big- even for the Rui Komatsuzaki artstyle that man's eyes are WIDE

She is so cute

3D MODEL COURIER

Gotta love Ordinary Person being so nice and throwing out Courier's garbage because she's so cool like that fr

Also there's like a convenience store opposite the Takoyaki stand- It would've been so simple for Ordinary Person to waddle in and find an ATM or a cashier willing to give her change but noooo get arrested girlie

:( She's just sitting in the car that's so sad

Man- I love the background characters in this scene. There's really nice continuity between different scenes showing the same crowd-fillers but also they're all just sitting around abnormally

Girlie :( also SNIPER SPOTTED YIPPEEE

CGI Courier spotted again

OMG THIS IS ACTUALLY THE UNCENSORED VERSION YIPPEEEEE

That guy's head wasn't as gorey as I thought it'd be- Made in Abyss did worse but I understand the precaution AD has. Maybe I'm used to it but at least I don't have the black blurs hehe

Courier's phone looks like an IPod

I love how Black Cat's messages for everyone seem specifically written for them. That's really cute in a horrific way 🥺

Doctor just sitting in the air bus like a normal person is funny to me. She seemed very nice and polite and somehow no one went "huhhhh didn't I see her on a wanted poster today?"

Man- Kansai really did just make every single screen ever tell people about Cutthroat's execution. Imagine watching Elmo then the screen turns black and red and it's telling you someone is going to die. F

Everyone standing against a dark sky with the red tower in the background looks so nice woaaa

"I'm not a Swindler!" Now you are bestie

Brawler literally moves so fast he's like a fly or something 🛐

All the people in the police station were just staring out the window to watch wwwwwwww

BLACK CAT!!!

Hacker's little drones open their mouths like :D as they turn into hover platforms 🥺

How did Doctor get in unnoticed? She's bright pink whuh??

Akira reference heehoo

Somehow I never noticed this ref before

Not Brawler hearing Courier whisper from 50 yards away 😭

Hacker :)

I'm really amazed that Courier somehow manages to drive his thick motorcycle through the police building easily. It's his thing but the doors- dude how are you getting through the doors

Courier with pink eyes

Genuinely so hard to watch this and NOT hear Leona Kingscholar's voice whenever Courier speaks- this is so sad 😔

Somehow Doctor works as a projectile to destroy a whole floor and doesn't break her back oml

Hacker is actually just a rat that they discovered hiding in the walls during demolition

"You're not dead?!" I FORGOT THAT SHE COULD DO THAT- still no idea how she could even reach her back but she's silly like that. Horrible painful foreshadowing mayhaps. Gotta love how she's just like "I wanna join hehe" while everyone is pointing weapons at each other

Everyone is out for MURDER until Swindler comes in with Black Cat wwwwwww

[power-of-plot]

Random things with: Tenya Iida.

My brain cells are dying... but i’m writing some good angst! uwu it’s about Itachi. 

Lastnight i got my first ten followers thank youuuu :D!!!

Warnings: None.

The million dollar question: "Tenya why do you do that with your hands all the time..?" You caused him to lag, for the first time he moved in a natural way as he tilted his head questioning himself "I guess this is just the way i gesticulate since i was a child but i must ask... does it really look as weird or frightening as everyone says..?" Poor robo- i mean Iida, don't ask again we don't wanna hurt his feelings, he's fine.

Take his glasses off: "Wooahh i can see in HD! But everything near me is blurryy" "That's because i suffer from myopia, i can't see things from afar clearly. I must ask you not to take them off." He had to explain you in a language suitable for your intelectual capacity what myopia was afterwards.

Tease him about his glasses: "gasp.. you look like a different person without your glasses! It's not a very good one-" How to trigger his air chopping tick in one simple step.

Help you study: As class representavive AND your significant other he's going to do whatever he can to help you. Surprise! He CAN talk normally, he does it so you can understand more easily when explaining something "So you are able to talk like a normal person after all?-" "I-i beg your pardon?!"

Give him the Uraraka shake: (it’s the gif on the top.) When you get exicted he knows it, he feels it, literally- “Tenya i didn’t fail my exam thank youuuu!” “smiling while being aggressively shaken”

Be a true gentlemen: This dude is a complete nerd in every single aspect, that’s an advantage sometimes. He doesn’t give a damn suffering some cold for giving you his jacket or getting wet for giving you the whole umbrella, if it means you’ll be fine he’ll do it.

Be a sweet robot: He is caring is his own way, he does his best to keep you healthy and make you feel loved. “Did you know when a hug lasts for over 20 seconds you release a chemical that makes you trust someone more?”. His cuddles are the freaking best, he is big and brawny after all, his hands are always cold for some reason though. He also gives you piggyback rides from time to time, his arms don’t get tired easily.

Protect you: Being a hero along with the Stain incident has given him a different perspective of things, he isn't overprotective but it makes him a lot more comfortable if you let him be by your side out at night. When he's not there he always calls you to make sure you went back home.

Question his anatomy: "Can you feel it when i touch your engines? How do you put your pants on? Don't they bother you while lying down? How do your bones look like?!..." He feels like he's in an overwhelming never ending interview with the plethora of things you ask- but it makes him feel loved! It's proof you have genuine interest and even concern about him.

Seriously- how does he put his pants on ._.? I’m assuming he was born with the engines on his legs but HOW-... nvm thanks for reading! Requests are open, anon asks are on :)

[just-dreaming-marvel]

Out Of Time ~ 1

MAIN MASTERLIST

Out Of Time MASTERLIST

Word Count: 1,750ish

Summary: World War Two weighs on the lives of the Rogers Twins and Bucky Barnes.

Warnings: none

She was running late for the movie. She was suppose to meet Steve and Bucky there after work, but her shift hadn’t gone as planned and she was needed longer. Figures. The girls after her could never get their crap together. She had almost reached the theater when she heard familiar voices in the alleyway. She turned into the alleyway to see her small twin brother, Steven Grant Rogers, and his taller best friend, James Buchanan Barnes. More popularly known as Bucky.

“I had him on the ropes,” Steve stated, clearly catching his breath. 

She figured Bucky had stopped Steve in the middle of a fight. Her brother was always getting into fights, trying to do what he thought was best. Protecting people. She noticed Bucky was in a military uniform as he reached down and picked up some forms off the ground. He hadn’t told her that he had gotten his orders. She wondered when he’d be shipping out. Her heart splintered at thought of Bucky going to war. It broke at the thought that he may never come back. She loved him. But she’s never been able to tell him that, he’s too much of a ladies man to settle down with her.

“How many times is this?” Bucky asked as he picked up and read what seemed to be an enlistment form. “Oh, you’re from Paramus now? You know it’s illegal to lie on the enlistment form. And seriously, Jersey?”

“You get your orders?” Steve quickly changed the subject once he realized what Bucky was wearing.

“The one-o-seventh. Sergeant James Barnes. Shipping out for England first thing tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” She gasped. The men quickly turned around to notice Y/N Rogers, standing there, trying to hold back tears. “You’re shipping out tomorrow? And you’re only telling us that today?”

“Y/N, doll,” Bucky took a step towards her. 

She took a step back, shaking her head. “And you,” Y/N moved her focus to her brother, pointing a shaking finger at him. “Stop trying to get yourself killed.”

“I should be going,” Steve stated firmly. “It’s only right.”

“No. You should be staying here, with me. I’ve already lost mom and dad, Bucky’s shipping off tomorrow, I’m not about to lose you too.”

“Y/N/N,” Bucky stepped forward again, “You have to understand, I wanted to tell you but I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“And telling me the night before you shipped off was going to be any better?”

“Can we not spend my last night fighting?” Bucky reached for her hands. “Let’s get Steve cleaned up and then we’re going to have some fun.”

“Where are we going?” Steve asked.

Bucky handed Steve the newspaper he had under his arm. “The future.”

The three of them went back to the Rogers apartment, allowing Y/N and Steve to get cleaned up. After they made their way to the Stark Expo. 

“I don’t see what the problem is,” Bucky shook his head as he spoke. “You’re about to be the last eligible man in New York. You know, there’s three and a half million women here.”

“Well, I’d settle for just one,” Steve stated.

“Good thing I took care of that.” Bucky waved to a woman who wasn’t standing too far off.

“Hey, Bucky!” The woman called.

“What did you tell her about me?” Steve asked.

“Only the good stuff,” Bucky answered.

“Where’s your date, Buck?” Y/N asked. She was used to be the fifth wheel.

“I figured that you could be, doll,” Bucky smiled, putting an arm around Y/N’s waist, pulling her into him. “It is my last night and I wanted to spend it with my best girl.”

Y/N looked down, intensely blushing. He always knew how to make her get flustered. Though, she figured he never realized what he was doing to her. Y/N was wrong though. Bucky loved her too, but was just too afraid to say anything. Especially now, since he was being shipped off to war. 

The four walked towards the stage just in time for the famous Howard Stark to waltz out.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Howard Stark called the audiences attention, “what if I told you that in just a few short years, your automobile won’t even have to touch the ground at all.” The ladies that were helping him, took off the wheels of the car that was on stage. “Yes. Thanks, Mandy… With Stark robotic reversion technology you’ll be able to do just that.” Howard then turned a few nobs and flipped a switch, causing the car to begin hovering off the ground. 

“Holy cow,” Bucky said in awe.

But almost as soon as it began hovering, the car suddenly started malfunctioning causing the car to fall back on stage. Y/N jumped back into Bucky, cause him to hold her closer than he was before. While this was happening, Steve noticed a recruitment center and snuck off there. His date wasn’t paying him any mind anyway. The girls Bucky chose never did. They were always too interested in his best friend.

“I did say a few years, didn’t I?” Howard tried to laugh the malfunction off, causing the audience to laugh as they applauded.

“Hey, Steve,” Bucky called, turning to look at him, “what do you say we treat these girls—“ He stopped when he noticed Steve wasn’t there anymore. 

“Where’d he go?” Y/N asked.

The recruitment center caught Bucky’s eye. “I have a feeling I know where.”

Y/N followed his line of sight, letting out a sigh when the center came into view. She just couldn’t understand why her brother wanted to join the war efforts so bad. He’s never been in the best of health and leaving would be leaving her alone.

“Let’s go get him,” Bucky urged Y/N forward, Steve’s date following. 

As they reached the recruitment center, Steve’s date stopped aways outside of it, allowing Bucky and Y/N to go in together. They found Steve Looking into a mirror that turned the person looking into it into a soldier. He was too small to even line up to it.

“Steve,” Y/N called her brother to attention. He turned around to see her sad eyes.

“Come on,” Bucky said. “You’re kind of missing the point of a double date. We’re taking the girls dancing.”

“You go ahead,” Steve said, “I’ll catch up with you.”

“You’re really gonna do this again?”

“Well, its only fair. I’m gonna try my luck.

“As who? Steve from Ohio?”

“They’ll catch you, Steve,” Y/N said. “Or worse, they’ll actually take you.”

“Look, I know you two don’t think I can do this—”

“This isn’t a back alley, Steve,” Bucky was getting frustrated. “It’s war!”

“I know it’s war. You don’t have to tell me.”

“Why are you so keen to fight? There are so many important jobs.”

“What am I gonna do? Collect scrap metal—“

“Yes!”

“—in my little red wagon?”

“Why not?”

“I’m not gonna sit in a factory.”

“I don’t—“

“Come on, guys! There are men laying down their lives. I got no right to do any less than them. That’s what you don’t understand.. this isn’t about me.”

“Yeah? But what about me?” Y/N’s small voice stopped the two men. “Taking care of your sister isn’t enough?” There were tears in her eyes, tears both of the men immediately regretted putting there. 

“Y/N—“

“No. I’m done hearing your excuses. Your reasonings… If you want to go off to war to get killed and leave me alone, then so be it. You want it so damn much, it shows what you really care about.”

Y/N walked away, towards Steve’s date, before she could hear the men say anything else. They watched with sad eyes as she walked away. They both knew what they were doing to her. But they didn’t know how they could really make it right.

“You’ve got nothing to prove, Steve,” Bucky stated as he turned back to him. Bucky sighed, realizing he wasn’t going to win with this Rogers tonight. But if he hurried, he could fix it with another before he left. “Don’t do anything stupid until I get back.”

“How can I?” Steve responded. “You’re taking all the stupid with you.”

“You’re a punk.” They two embraced.

“Jerk. Be careful” They let go and Bucky began walking back to the girls. “Don’t win the war till I get there!”

Bucky sent Steve a salute before turning around and reaching the girls. He noticed Y/N was still emotional and that Steve’s date, Bonnie, clearly wanted to be spending time with him.

“Hey, Bonnie,” Bucky started, “do you mind if it’s just Y/N and I tonight?”

“Oh,” she was clearly taken back. “Sure.” She reached up and kissed Bucky’s cheek. “Be safe out there soldier. And make sure to find me with you return.” 

Once Bonnie was out of sight, Bucky wrapped an arm around Y/N’s waist. “Lets go dancing,” he smiled down at her.

“I don’t feel like dancing tonight, Buck,” she sadly said, looking down. “I just want to go home.”

“Come on, doll.” Buck moved to stand in front of her. “It’s my last night.”

“Yes, it’s your last night before you get shipped off to war… I really don’t need another reminder…”

“Y/N. Look at me.” He tried to meet her eyes. “Please.” When she still refused, he put his hand under her chin and gently guided her head to look up at him. “How about we do whatever you want tonight? I just want to spend my last night with you, doll. My favorite Rogers.”

Bucky’s eyes showed nothing but sincerity. All Y/N wanted was to hold onto her boys and never let them go. But she was coming to the realization that that wasn’t an option. She wrapped her arms around Bucky, holding herself close to him. He reciprocated the action, breathing her scent in. Every moment with Y/N tonight, Bucky at been trying to memorize every detail of the girl. He never wanted to forget anything about her. They stood there, for a moment, holding onto each other like they were the only two people in the world. 

“Come on,” Bucky whispered, letting her go and grabbing her hand. “I know some place we can go.”

next chapter >

[trashyswitch]

Tougher than Steel With a Softer Reveal

Withered Bonnie is rarely seen, and often presents a tough exterior to intimidate the people around him. But Freddy knows the softer truth about him and is happy to show it off to Jeremy.

This prompt was suggested by an anonymous user. Whoever you are, I hope you enjoy the fanfic!

Jeremy was holding the bear mask in his hand with a tight, anxious grip. He was trying to stay calm and collected, but his right hand that held the flashlight, was still visibly shaking. “”W-where are you guys…” Jeremy asked as he looked at the cameras on the tablet. “I know you’re there, Old Bonnie.” Jeremy told the animatronic in the front hallway.

Jeremy pulled the Freddy mask over his head and watched in horror as Old Bonnie flickered past him and disappeared. Jeremy let out a breath of relief before removing the mask. “Ni-nice try, Bonnie. Might need t-to be faster next time.” Jeremy told him.

“Now I wouldn’t tempt the old guy if I were you.” Someone told him.

Jeremy jumped and turned his flashlight towards the voice. It was Toy Freddy. “I-I-but-”

“He looks old and rusty. But he has a strong bite.” Freddy added.

Jeremy squeaked like a mouse and quickly tried to back away. “St-Stay away from me! I’m warning you!” Jeremy ordered.

“Oh come now...I’m not going to hurt you.” Freddy let him know. “Besides: It’s not me you need to be worried about…” Freddy pointed to the front hall and watched as Withered Bonnie popped out and declared the words; [YOU BLINKED].

Jeremy screamed as he was picked up and thrown over Withered Bonnie’s shoulder. “NO! BONNIE PLEASE!” Jeremy shouted. “LET ME GO! FREDDY HELP!” Jeremy shouted to Freddy helplessly, reaching his hand out.

“Sorry buddy. I’ll come back for you. I promise!” Freddy told him before walking away.

“WHAT?! WAIT! FREDDY!” Jeremy shouted to him.

[MIGHT AS WELL FACE THE FACTS, YOU WERE ALWAYS DESTINED TO FAIL.] Withered Bonnie told him.

Jeremy was wiggling, kicking, pushing and punching as much as he could. But his knuckles grew too painful to keep punching Bonnie’s felt-covered metal robot body. So he started pounding his fist into the shoulder and pulling on any exposed wiring. But Withered Bonnie just kept on going.

[TIME TO FACE THE CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR FAILURE.] Bonnie said as it walked to the closet that Jeremy believed to be the room that held Mangled Bonnie. Jeremy started pulling on more wires, even managing to tear some of the wires out, and kept feeling for any kind of off switch.

Finally in one last stitch attempt to stay alive, Jeremy started clawing at Withered Bonnie’s belly to look for any type of shut down switch.

Suddenly, Bonnie’s walking halted to a stop as the one hand Bonnie had, randomly twitched up. Jeremy froze in place, afraid to do anything else for a few seconds. But the moment Jeremy noticed the missing arm, Jeremy started kicking at Bonnie’s stomach region to give his throbbing hands a break and still try to get himself out of Bonnie’s grip. Bonnie’s arm started to twitch and click through different arm positions while slowly doubling its body over. [NO. NO. STOP THAT.] Bonnie yelled unexpectedly.

Jeremy seemed to grow more confident at Bonnie’s words. “Yeah. How do you like that, huh? How do you like getting kicked down by something smaller than you?” Jeremy provoked. Jeremy gave the animatronic one last kick in the face before trying to get out of the robot’s grip. But the hand was cold metal. It was impossible to move the joints open, let alone get himself free. Jeremy groaned and growled as he struggled.

[YOU ARE WEAK.] The withered animatronic muttered as its red eyes stared deeply into the security guard.

Jeremy grunted and kicked Bonnie’s stomach again. “Shut up and let me go!”

Bonnie’s arm twitched again, causing Jeremy to pause his resistance. Jeremy finally started to properly notice the reaction time between his kicking and Bonnie’s twitching. He gave Bonnie’s belly another kick. This made Bonnie’s wrist twitch up, raising Jeremy up in the process. Jeremy waited a few seconds...before kicking Bonnie again. Bonnie’s whole arm twitched up this time, raising Jeremy up another inch. Jeremy also noticed how Bonnie was a little more leaned forward than before. The man waited another 10 seconds...before kicking Bonnie’s belly again-

Bonnie leaned over more and let go of Jeremy, making him fall to the ground. Jeremy managed to land somewhat on his own two feet, but needed the wall behind him to stabilize him. “Thank you.” Jeremy told the robot.

Bonnie let out an angry, autotuned scream as it decided to return the gesture. Bonnie had reared its foot back and quickly got ready to kick Jeremy right in the stomach. Jeremy shrieked and jumped out of the way to save himself from blood loss or potentially burst organs. Right as Jeremy’s feet slid past the target, Bonnie’s right foot smashed right through the wall that had been hidden by Jeremy’s body a couple seconds ago. Jeremy stared at the huge hole in the wall, gobsmacked by the size the robot made it.

[DO NOT FOOL ME.] Bonnie ordered.

Jeremy shook his head. “I-I wasn’t fooling you. I swear!” Jeremy reacted.

[COME HERE.] Bonnie ordered as it started walking to him again.

Jeremy quickly ducked out of the way and tried to make a run for it. But he managed to bump into someone by accident. “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, BOYS AND GIRLS-”

Jeremy ducked under the animatronic’s brown arm and sprinted off.

“INTRODUCI...Jeremy, wait! Where are you going?” Toy Freddy asked.

Bonnie bulldozed itself right through the animatronic to get past. [FACE THE CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR FAILURE. FACE THE CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR FAILURE. FACE THE CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR FAILURE. FACE THE CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR FAIL-]

Toy Freddy’s body soon fell towards the side and smashed his back into the wall. Freddy sighed in slight annoyance and picked up the rowdy animatronic. “Come here, Bonnie. You need a big time out.”

[FACE THE CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR FAILURE. FACE- FREDDY LET GO OF ME. FREDDY FREDDY FREDDY FREDDY-] Bonnie shouted as it ran in midair while it was being held off the ground.

Meanwhile, a terrified Jeremy had hid himself behind the wall on the other side of the hall.

“I think Bonnie needs to cheer up a little~” Freddy told the animatronic.

[FREDDY NO. FREDDY WAIT. LET ME GO. LET ME GO. LET ME GO.] Bonnie kept shouting over and over again.

Jeremy let out a breath of relief as he listened to Freddy’s intervening. He really stayed true to his promise: he did indeed, come back.

“Don’t make me go for the belly, Bonnie. It’s the only soft part left on you.” Freddy warned evilly.

[NO. NO BELLY. EVIL. EVIL. NOT FAIR. NOT FAIR.] Bonnie kept yelling.

“Tickle tickle! Tickle tickle! Tickle tickle! Tickle tickle!” Freddy started repeating.

Jeremy blinked in confusion and slowly peeked out from behind the wall. What in the world was he doing with Bonnie??

Freddy was twisting and wiggling his shiny, robot fingers against Withered Bonnie’s belly. The broken Bonnie was doubled over, twitching and waving its hand around.

[YOU WILL FACE TERRIBLE CONSEQUENCES FOR THIS.] Bonnie yelled back.

“These plastic fingers may not press buttons very well, but they do tremendously tickle!” Freddy teased.

Jeremy raised an eyebrow. Is...Is an animatronic seriously trying to tickle another animatronic? Since when did animatronics experience feeling? Jeremy always believed animatronics lack nerves to feel, let alone tickle. Was he wrong? And was THIS how he was gonna be proved wrong? Jeremy continued to stare, confusingly at the sight.

Freddy looked over and saw Jeremy over there. “Hey look! Security guard’s watching!”

[AAAAAAH. STO-O-OP. FREDDY PLEASE.] Bonnie pleaded. [HELP ME. HELP ME HELP ME PLEASE HELP.] Bonnie shouted to Jeremy.

Jeremy slowly walked closer. “Is...Is Bonnie really feeling that?” he asked.

Freddy looked at Jeremy and nodded proudly. “Yuperdooo! His belly and his sides are really ticklish!” Freddy replied confidently.

Jeremy’s confusion slowly dropped as he looked at Bonnie and watched.

[I WILL KILL YOU FOR THIS, FREDDY!] Bonnie shouted at him.

“Hey!” Freddy put his leg behind Bonnie’s legs and purposefully tripped him. This caused Bonnie to fall onto his back. With Bonnie lying on the ground, Freddy picked up Bonnie’s felt-covered foot and started tickling the bottom. “That’s what you get for leaving me hanging!” Freddy added.

Bonnie started rolling around, kicking his other foot and waving his arm around while letting out distorted laughter that sounded...surprisingly kinda normal. It sounded like regular male laughter, yet covered up with static and distorted somewhat. Jeremy couldn’t help but smile at the animatronic.

“Oh! I know where to go next!” Freddy started moving his scratching fingers up and up to: “The toes!”

[AAAAAAAAH! NO TOES! HAHAHAHAHAHA! NO TOES! TOO TICKLISH! AHAHAHAHAHA!]

Jeremy couldn’t help but laugh along with Bonnie. The guy who scared him and tried to kill him a few minutes earlier, was actually a lot more childish than he ever imagined. Which of course, there’s only so much you can learn as a robot subjected to kids everyday. But still...quite childish.

“Security guard!” Freddy called. “Do-”

“Yes?” Jeremy replied.

“Wonderful!” Freddy ran up to Jeremy and pushed him to Bonnie.

Jeremy grew very confused and started to panic a little. “Wait I was trying to-.......Ooookay then…”

Bonnie waved his hand towards Bonnie. “Well? Go on then.” Freddy told him. Jeremy stared awkwardly at the broken animatronic. Uuuuuh...what?

“Uuh...G-Go on with what?” Jeremy asked.

Bonnie chuckled and walked to Bonnie’s armless side. “Tickle him!” Freddy told him as he picked up the loose wires and moved them aside for the conductive human.

Jeremy lit up and ran over. Heck yeah he can do that! Jeremy knelt down and mentally thought about where exactly to strike.

[SIR WAIT. PLEASE HAVE MERCY.] Bonnie begged to him.

Jeremy actually paused and considered offering the animatronic some mercy. But Freddy, being eager to see this, hit Jeremy’s shoulder. “Come on! Don’t you want revenge for the kidnapping?” Freddy asked.

Jeremy looked at Bonnie closely and smirked a little. Yes. He did want revenge. And he also wanted to test out the robot nerves. Jeremy’s smile grew as he wiggled his fingers at him. “I apologize Bonnie...But I can’t be merciful quite yet. I have many questions I want answered.” Jeremy admitted.

[I MAY BE MISSING MY FACE, BUT EVEN I COULD SEE THIS COMING.] Bonnie admitted.

Jeremy chuckled at that and tried poking at his side. “Good face pun.” Jeremy responded.

Jeremy’s poke didn’t really cause anything, save for some twitches. Jeremy moved onto scratching immediately after. This didn’t cause much either, but it did increase the twitches and make Bonnie’s ears move...It also filled Jeremy’s nails with felt fluff that was still falling off.

Freddy stood up and pushed Jeremy down towards the belly. “You’re too soft on him! You need to tickle harder! Like this!” Freddy started digging his fat fingers into Withered Bonnie’s side.

Almost immediately, Bonnie jumped and sat up. [WHAAAAHAHAHAHA! TOO STRONG!] Bonnie warned.

“Nope! Juuust right!” Freddy started wiggling to add to the pressure he was placing against the side. “You’re a tough boy. And tough boys need tough boy tickles!” Freddy exclaimed.

Bonnie started trying to scoot away, with no success. His lack of a left arm made scooting away really hard for the withered robot. So, Jeremy took advantage of Bonnie’s set back...He dove towards Bonnie’s belly and started clawing at it like he did the first time.

[HAHAHAHAHAHA! AHAHAHAHAHEHEHEHE! NOT YOU BOTH! HEHEHEHEHEHE! ONE AT A TIME! HAHAHA- PLEASE! HEHEHAHAHAHAHAHA!] Bonnie bursted out.

“WOW! That’s a huge difference compared to earlier!” Jeremy admitted.

“Yuh huh! Stronger tickles makes stronger laughter!” Freddy declared. “And don’t you ever forget it, kid.”

Jeremy paused for a moment and frowned at Freddy. “Excuse me? Did you just call me a kid?”

Freddy chuckled while he continued to tickle Wither Bonnie. “Are you not a kid?” Freddy asked.

Jeremy shook his head. “I’m a grown man.”

Freddy giggled. “Grown kid security guard.” He teased.

Jeremy cracked his knuckles. “Oh you’re gonna regret that real bad.”

Jeremy got up and flopped onto Freddy’s back. Then, Jeremy started skittering his fingers all over his sides and edges of Freddy’s back. Freddy yelped and tried to grab Jeremy with one hand while balancing himself with his other hand. “HEhey now! Whahahaha- What happened to being tickle partners?” Freddy asked.

“It went out the hole Bonnie made earlier. Now accept your fate.” Freddy laid himself onto the ground, snuck himself under Freddy’s belly and covered it with tons of quick tickles! Freddy, not wanting to smoosh the guy, jumped back and tried to scoot away. But Jeremy grabbed onto Freddy’s foot just in time and pulled himself up. When the security guard felt he had a safe enough grip, Jeremy covered Freddy’s foot with tickles.

“WahahAHAHAIT! NAHAHAHAT THEHEHERE! NAHAHAHAHAHA!” Freddy started kicking his feet everywhere, forcing Jeremy along for the rollercoaster ride as well! Jeremy squealed at first, and took a moment to get his bearings. Then Jeremy resumed tickling the super sensitive and exposed foot. “NAHAHAHAT FAHAHAIR! IHIHI’VE BEEN DOHOHOUBLE CROHOHOSSED!” Freddy yelled.

“Aww, boo hoo! The poor teddy bear lost his partner in crime! Whatever will he do?” Jeremy teased dramatically.

“REHEHEVEHEHENGE WILL BEHE COHOHOMIHIHING FOHOHOR YOHOHOU!” Freddy yelled back.

[NOT UNLESS I GET YOU FIRST.] Bonnie muttered.

“Geez...What is up with you two and swearing revenge on people? So rude…” Jeremy asked out loud.

“NAHAHAHAT MYHYHY FOHOHOHOOT! IHIHIT’S TOHOHOHOO TIHIHIHICKLIHIHISH! PLEHEHEHEHEASE!” Freddy begged.

“Please? Please what?” Michael asked.

“MEHEHEHERCYYYYHYHY!” Freddy yelled back.

“Hmmmmm...Should I give Freddy some mercy?” Jeremy asked Bonnie.

“YEHEHEHES! PLEHEHEASE YEHEHEHEHES!” Freddy pleaded.

[HE WAS TALKING TO ME.] Bonnie mentioned. [YES. GIVE THE BEAR SOME MERCY.] Bonnie replied.

“Hmm...Alright.” Jeremy stopped tickling Freddy and let his foot go.

Freddy went limp and laid there for a few seconds. “Ohoho boy…” Freddy muttered. “That...That game was totally rigged!”

Jeremy chuckled at Freddy’s reaction, and looked at Bonnie. “Hey...so, we cool now?” Jeremy asked.

Bonnie sat himself up and looked down a little. He nodded his head, but slowly started to move his ears a little. It looked like Bonnie wanted to tell Jeremy something.

“Did...Did you have something to- AAAAEEEEK!” Jeremy interrupted himself with a shriek when he felt himself get picked up by someone.

“IIIIIIII’ve gotcha! I’ve gotcha good!” Freddy declared. “And now revenge is mine! Tickle tickle tickle! Tickle tickle tickle! Tickle tickle tickle tickle tickle security guard!” Freddy declared as he skittered his fingers a little more softly on Jeremy’s ribs, sides, belly and hips.

Jeremy threw his head back and started cackling and laughing hysterically in the tight arms of Freddy. He really got him this time! Jeremy was still able to wiggle, but it wasn’t gonna compromise Freddy’s hold on him. He was gonna be stuck there for a while. “FREHEHEHEHEHEDDYHYHY! IHIHIHI’M SAHAHAHARRYHYHYHY!” Jeremy told him.

“Oh? Oh you’re sorry now? Because now I’m getting my revenge after you backstabbed me?” Freddy teased. “You should’ve thought about what you were setting yourself up for.” Freddy teased.

“YOHOHOU SHOHOULDN’T HAHAVE BEHEHEHEEN CAHALLIHIHING MEHE AHA KIHIHIHID!” Jeremy shot back.

“But you are a kid! The legal age for consent in the United States of America, is 18 years old. You told me you are a teenager. That means you are not an adult yet!” Freddy declared.

“OHOHO SHUHUHUT UHUHUHUP!” Jeremy shot back.

Freddy stopped his tickling and looked at him. “Now now...that kind of potty mouth needs to be stopped this instant.” Freddy warned.

Potty mouth? What potty mouth?

“Otherwise you’re gonna be a bad influence on the children~” Freddy added.

Not wanting to be tickled again, Jeremy rolled himself onto his own belly and blew a big raspberry onto Freddy’s huge, brown belly.

Freddy absolutely lost it! The bear was rocking back and forth, pounding the floor, and kicking his legs pretty much everywhere.

Jeremy was about to blow another raspberry...when he heard a quiet voice.

[EXCUSE ME?]

Jeremy turned around and looked at the animatronic that was still sitting behind him: Withered Bonnie. “Yes?”

Bonnie was awkwardly playing with the exposed wires that ran down his missing arm. [CAN…….CAN YOU TICKLE ME AGAIN?]

Jeremy widened his eyes and smiled. “Of course I can!” Jeremy replied.

“Well call me surprised! He really DOES like it!” Freddy reacted. “That was just an educated guess!

[I DO NOT!] Bonnie shouted back. Toy Freddy froze in place, fearing he may have hurt him. But Bonnie looked down and moved his ears a little. [JUST...JUST A LITTLE. THAT’S ALL.]

Jeremy scooted himself closer to Bonnie and started skittering and clawing at his belly again. Freddy got up and moved to the other side, to dig and squeeze at Bonnie’s side.

[HAHAHAHAHAHA! OH NO! AHAHAHAHEHEHE! TICKLES! HAHAHAHA- REALLY TICKLES! HEHEHEHAHAHAHAHA!] Bonnie shouted amidst his wiggling.

Jeremy smiled happily and kept on going while he listened to Bonnie’s unusual, but nice laughter. Freddy was enjoying Bonnie’s laughter just as much, and was teasing Bonnie quite a bit while he tickled him. It was a strangely sweet scene that was taking place in front of him. Bonnie had appeared quite dangerous at first on the outside. But he seemed to hold bits of love and charm under the tough exterior. Though the love was hard to see under the toughness, it was there and you could seek what you wanted if you took the time to look for it.

Withered or fixed, Bonnie was Bonnie; and Toy Freddy wouldn’t change that for the world. And now, Jeremy can declare that he wouldn’t try to change Bonnie either.

[phantomthiefsbitch]

phantom thief au oneshots p1

"Are you sure we can get away with this?" "Oh no, I'm just bringing you here because I knew we were gonna get caught! Obviously!" "I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not at this point." The moon shone over the cracked sidewalk, making the raindrops glimmer like diamonds in the warm sunlight. Skyscrapers towered over everything in sight, blinding us to the far sides of the city. I was assigned a mission. A mission to find the world-renowned phantom thief and send him to justice. Pfft, that's easier said than done. The main plan was simple really. Pretend to be on his side, lure him to an obscure area no one can see, and put him in cuffs. We continued walking towards where ever the hell he was leading me. You'd think a rational person would've backed out. I mean, he could be taking me anywhere! He could be taking me to a fucking torture chamber for all I know! But I'm almost 100% sure that where ever he was taking me, wasn't going to harm me in any way. You see, the thing about the phantom thief is that he hasn't been loved much in his years, meaning if you treat him with the smallest bit of consideration he'll never ever forget it. Fortunately for me, I've studied human psychology for quite some time now, and I've been trying to understand him more using that knowledge. "Welp, we're here!" We stood before the grand building decorated with bright neon lights, forming the words "CASINO" in huge bold lettering creating a city-wide purple light source. Is this really where he was taking me? It seemed so noticeable and obvious. "There's no way in hell that we aren't gonna get caught in there! Are you out of your mi-" I felt a warm finger brush over my lips as I looked down, finding myself staring directly into his eyes. Shhhh, I promise we won't get caught. I have a plan! Just follow my lead, 'kay?!" He lifted his hand off my chin and clutched my hand, walking me to the entrance as he pulled out a key from his hand and unlocked the enormous wooden door. Immediately as we entered, the scent of booze and air freshener filled my lungs. The walls were painted with a red and black checkerboard pattern, complimenting the black marble floor which was covered in old magazines, cigarettes, and empty beer cans. "I know, I know, this isn't the greatest place! But don't worry, my dearest detective, there's more! Follow me!" He ran to a small hallway that blended in with the walls in the corner of the room, leading me to a silver elevator, lined with gold string, making it look like a child's birthday party. The button on the left lit up as he aggressively clicked it, making the doors open into a rather cramped space. The clamping of his boots against the hard marble floor echoed throughout the building as he stepped into the elevator. "Where are you taking me?! I asked for a meetup spot, not a casino!" "Nee-heehee! A casino is technically a meetup a lot, silly! And either way, the whole casino thing is just a disguise for what this place actually is!" The elevator door slowly creaked open, revealing a calm little room. There were maybe around 9 or 10 people there, all doing something different. "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to D.I.C.E's headquarters!" he shouted, even though I was the only one entering the room.

[7:18 PM]"Hey, don't you think it's a bit...err...irresponsible to show the person trying to capture you your gang's headquarters? I mean, what if I was with the police?!" "Now now, it's not time to worry about that! Let's just relax! Hey guys, could you leave me and Shuichi alone for a while?! Go to your rooms or something!" As if they were robots, they all got up and walked to the doors with their suitable nametags on them. His smile slowly dropped as he put his hand on my shoulder, looking me dead in the eyes. "Is something wrong?" "Don't play dumb. How could my dear detective do this? I thought maybe someone, anyone, could care about me or even just listen to what I had to say! But it seems as if I was wrong..." Even though he was a liar, he sounded genuinely upset and betrayed. No matter how hard I tried fighting it, I really did feel awful for him. No matter how bad he was, he didn't deserve this. "N-No, you've got it wrong!" I was just following instructi-"

"Oh come on, there's no need to lie! But y'know, I do think there was some truth to your act. Even as a liar myself, the way you talked to me, it was definitely an act out of lust. I mean, if it really was a lie, I'm both upset that you lied to me and proud of how amazing of a liar you are! But I seriously doubt that you were lying." I quickly took my handcuffs out, trying to hide how nervous I was. "You're under arrest. Don't try resisting any further." "Awww, what a shame! But unfortunately, I can't let you arrest me! Sorry not sorry!" "I have a weapon." I exclaimed, pointing my tazer directly at him, feeling my body sway back and forth slowly.

"Nee-heehee! And I don't?" I flinched as he cocked his gun, putting it so close I could feel it brush against my forehead. "I'm not gonna hurt you, unless you try something. I know you don't wanna turn me in. You really do wanna understand me right? Don't you wanna know why a villian like me does so many bad things? Actually, you don't need to answer that. I know you do! So just listen to my plan, 'kay?! You're gonna go over to the cops and tell them that you couldn't catch me in time. Just give me a chance, alright? I mean, you obviously don't have a choice!" His slender fingertips traced my face as he glared deep into my eyes. "You're really pretty, you know that?" My face flushed into a light red shade which I quickly fought against. "Aww, someone's nervous! Well no wonder, you have a gun to your head! Soooo, do we have a deal or not?! Just a reminder, you only choice is yes!" I should've said no, tazed him, and put him in handcuffs. I should've stopped him. But something inside me, I don't know, fear? Lust? Nervousness? Something inside me just didn't let me do that. "Y-Yeah, okay." "Nee-heehee! Yay! Hey, by the way, can I have your number?! Don't you want the nitty-gritty details of my plan?! I know you do!" ... "Riiiight, well, here's my totally legit business card! Alright, bye bye now!" I thought he'd leave a normal way, like through the elevator we came from or like, go back into his room. Nope. He opened a window, falling backwards into the late night streets giggling. No matter how much I tried to bury it, he was right. I felt drawn to him, more than just being curious about his lies and his motives. Maybe I was trying to deny it, not because I was scared of getting fired, but in fear for my own life.

[whoorderedthedirkjake]

Guys and Gears: Act one- Chapter one

“2130 hours” commands brobots static voice, or more accurately, Dirks voice pitched down and fed through Daves shitty boombox speaker. still sounds enough like him to make both dirk and Dave shift uncomfortably, which is of course the intent.

Dirk stands where he’s been standing for the past 6 hours, hunched over his work table, hands deep in the chest cavity of brobot as he attempts to sauter the malfunctioning pieces back together. His hair is caked in 3 days worth of grime, and the only thing separating him and the adrenalin junkie c a n d 1 dealers outside his apartment is a pair of shades. The bags under his eyes are well past the point of carry-on luggage, but it's not like any of this is news to him. Dirk just doesn’t care. No one is going to see him today, at least, anyone who he’s concerned about his reputation with.

The sliding front door opens, the metal on metal garage door sound echoing through the spacious and eerily empty complex in which the strider brothers lived. Dirk’s head perks up, instinctively reaching for his katana before hearing the squeak of a familiar set of sneakers on the metal grate flooring.

Dave’s home.

Just as soon as dirk gets back into the groove of the unnecessarily complicated motherboard, the teenager of the house swings the door open, loudly proclaiming

“yo old fart, i’ve got your sci-fi shit.” Dave then proceeds to drop a backpack full of what is easily two thousand dollars worth of computer parts on the floor unceremoniously. He leans against the worktable, eyeing brobot with a level of discomfort. “jesus christ bro, are you seriously still fixing this thing?” Dirk, hands still deep in brobot guts, hardens his gaze, attempting to concentrate despite the angsty teenage aura radiating from his brother in thick waves. “Yes.”

“dude seriously, like I get we’re like,,, traumatized and shit, but man this is bordering on unhealthy. therapy is a much cheaper habit, and it doesn’t make you smell like robot jizz.” Dave then leans forward, running a hand through his shorter brother's hair, and making a face behind the opaque shades still attacked to his face “speaking of which, how long has it been since u last showered dude. seriously your hair is like wax.” “Dave, I'm trying to work, is there something you need, or are you just here to vaguely gesture at the elephant in the room that is currently my mental health? And for the last time, battery acid is not robot jizz.”

“dude it literally smells like rotten eggs and sewer water ok. shit is most definitely robot jizz. It's okay dirk, you can say you’re robot gay, it's the 25th century and literally nobody cares. plus you dress like a fucking Jojo character, and none of them bitches straight. Idk who told you Joseph fucking jostar was the peak of masculinity, but the man is literally a walking pride flag.” The left side of daves mouth quirks up into a characteristic Strider smirk, something that dirk knows he’s done thousands of times and is just now understanding how douchebaggy it is on the receiving end. His autoresponder he can handle, but his little brother? Oh Hell no.

“Don't you have like homework to be doing or a boyfriend to be sneaking past your criminally negligent older brother so you can make out in your dirty ass bedroom. Speaking of which yeah, your room’s a mess, go clean that shit” “I’ll clean my room when you clean yourself,” Dave replies, obviously unphased by the tennis match of a conversation they are engaging in. The standard between the two. “plus since when did I need to sneak anyone home. last time I checked you drag home strange, muscular gentlemen into this house at all hours of the night. do you know what it's like to know your brother is a bottom? shit keeps you awake at night. tossing and turning in your sleep and shit. Its TRAUMATIZING man.” “You can bill me for the therapy and write that autobiography about how your brother being a whore ruined your life. Now get out, I need to focus.” Dirk sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as Dave bumps his shoulder and brorobot makes a disturbing groaning noise as the wires he’s holding screech with a concerning sparking noise. “i know, emo ass. anyway, I'm buying chinese food with your credit card, please try to be at least partially dressed and in something that doesn’t smell like robot jizz when John comes over later.” Dave then turns on his heel, shuffling off to his side of the house to do whatever the fuck he does in his spare time when dirk isn’t watching him, which is often. For as much as he does care about Dave, dirk isn’t exactly the most attentive of parents. Though Dave doesn’t seem to mind. He’s pretty sure if he attempted to get any more involved, Dave would complain about harshing the vibe and shit. Not that dirk doesn’t try, as his self-appointed guardian, it's his job to instill the young boy under his wing with all sorts of fatherly ironic wisdom. Unfortunately, Dave is far too good at seeing through his big bro’s bullshit for him to ever be taken seriously as a guardian. As long as he’s not committing crimes not directly authorized by dirk, and he’s not doing drugs off a random guy's chest in the club bathroom, dirk can’t complain.

Dirk leans away, collapsing into the spinny office chair he nicked from some random tech company’s office. He arches his back, leaning over the chair as he hears the satisfying pop of his spine. It's not like dirk is particularly old, but the certified Strider Slouch isn’t exactly easy on the spine. He runs a hand through his hair.

Dave might have been right about that shower. Dirk stands, shuffling off to the pristine bathroom that connects his workshop and his bedroom, not that anyone but dirk knows that. The sci-fi sliding wall opens, returning to a solid wall as he walks through it, quickly undressing from his orange coveralls and black wifebeater. Is it still called a wifebeater? Seems a tad misogynistic- they should get around to changing that. He steps into the shower, enjoying the blast of his high water pressure. The joys of being filthy rich in the future. After a few minutes of just standing under the water, dirk begins his lengthy self-grooming process. Shaving, moisturizing, exfoliating, the works. He’s depressed, not a filthy heterosexual, of course he fucking exfoliates.

After several minutes of looking himself over in the bathroom mirror, towel wrapped loosely around his hips, dirk slides into his fluffy house flip-flops and enters his bedroom to change. Without warning, dirks voice, from about 10 years ago fills the room “Sup douchebag. Enjoy that jerk-off sesh in the mirror?”

Autoresponder. Fucking christ. He thought he fixed the whole sentient AI who has full control over the house error. Fucker just keeps being self-aware again. Self-learning AI is a fucking bitch, especially when its entire purpose is to fuck with you specifically. “yes, of course. You of all people should know just how much we enjoy a good self fucking after a long day's work. Really gets the insufferable juices flowing. Squeezing it through our veins like the excess stuffing on the seam of an overly plush puppet ass” Dirk’s finger slides across the automated outfit generator screen, something he made for himself in a particular fit of laziness and has since found to be the single most unhelpful thing he’s ever built, besides the Autoresponder of course.

“AR, c_spawn(“generate_clothType” 20)” dirk commands, standing in front of his vanity as he begins to style the pristine slicked back locks he was known for.

“One Moment.” The Autoresponder replies in the nasally voice of dirk’s teenaged self. Dirk expertly swoops his bangs forward, directly into his eyes as was customary. “Dude, I know I’ve got no tangible body and don’t have any room to talk about the nature of which you maintain self-care, but seriously dude what the fuck is happening with the hair situation right now. Shit is fucked irretrievably. This has been an issue for some time now, and while I as a sentient AI with no physical form am in no way affected, as the superior version of you, I cannot have you destroying our reputation. The algorithms have guaranteed this shitty look you’re rocking to be 98.6% douchier than whatever the fuck you were doing 6 months ago, which my previous calculations less me to believe were impossible. Congratulations Dirk, you have officially raised the bar for statistical percentages of douchebaggery contained in a single hairstyle. Conclusion; Change. The. Do.”

“Fuck off.” Dirk eloquently replies. “It seems there is a 76.10395784% chance you are trying to ruin our reputation. Are you trying to ruin our reputation, Dirk?” “Jesus fucking Christ, I’m not changing my hair just because you can’t cope with change. Fucking with me for your own amusement isn’t going to stop you from being a somehow shittier version of Smarthouse.” “Smarthouse is fucking rad.” “No. Dude. You are quite literally a creation my 13-year-old self made as an ironic joke at my abusive older brother's expense, and you have decided to use your gift of sentience to be a fucking troll.” “You have quite literally forced me, a sentient, fully formed being to function entirely as the stand-in coffeemaker with all the controls to your bullshit sci-fi house. In what world would a dude in my situation not be inclined to get his fuckin mischief on? And for all the complaining you seem to do surrounding my existence as your intellectually superior wingman, you have not bothered to delete me from your systems, suggesting perhaps you are actually far more fond of my horseplay than you let on. Or perhaps you are aware of the fact the only thing separating you and the crushing loneliness you have inflicted upon yourself as a means of self-punishment is a sentient AI captcha of your 13-year-old self.” “I’m not having this argument with you again. Go talk to the microwave or something." Dirk pinches the bridge of his nose, standing up as he returns back to the digital closet. It's obvious the Autoresponder is not going to be of any legitimate assistance to anyone, as he’s too busy being up his own digital ass. Dirk settles on a casual, but sexy ensemble, containing a high collared leather jacket, a turtleneck tank top, and a pair of casually high-waisted jeans complete with a studded belt or two. Classy as fuck. “Jesus Christ you look like a fucking Spike kinnie. This is the future, not fucking Cowboy Bebop. And enough with the popped collars. My calculations have demonstrated you look 93.555% more like a weeaboo douchebag with that collar.” “Hm? Did you say something? Sorry I don’t speak coffeemaker.” Dirk's eyes roll, sliding on his impractical but very fucking cool leather gloves, his sci-fi as fuck gun and holster, and finally, his treasured katana.

Time to go find someone to be self-destructive with. Dirk shuffles down the hall towards Daves’s room, the rubber of his thick combat boots squeaking as he does so. He knocks twice, as any respectful guardian does, before entering anyway. What greets Dirk is a Dave with a mouthful of stir fry and a very flustered John sitting in his lap. “Yo. I’m going out. Don’t wait up.” Dirk pauses, pulling down his shades to assess the whole John,, lap situation “And wrap it before you tap it.” “dude what the fuck” replies a now very flustered Dave, pushing up his shades in a way dirk knows is an attempt to hide the massive blush spreading to his ears. “As your legal guardian it's my job to remind you of your sexual health, Dave. I am simply being a caring and responsible guardian” Dirk almost cracks a smirk but doesn’t want to give up the joke to John, who is doing absolutely nothing to hide his expression. Man, Dave sure knows how to pick the lamest dorks. Dirk pushes up his shades before exiting the teen’s room, turning on his heel and shutting the door behind him

“Peace”

Dirk then exits the soulless husk he calls home, onto his hoverboard, and into the chilly evening air.

[grunge-mermaid]

grunge rewatches Doctor Who pt 2

01x06 "Dalek"

2012

they had such high hopes for 2012

that classic Cyberman head is nice

seriously, one of my favourite things about Doctor Who is that the classic series had an entirely digital theme and the new Who theme is performed by an orchestra

what on earth are those American accents

and there it is, the first appearance of a Dalek in New Who

I am giddy

I got kinda tired of the Daleks and Cybermen by the 11th doctor (why power ranger Daleks???) but nothing beats the first appearance of a Dalek

oof Christopher Eccleston's micro expressions in this scene are *chef's kiss*

I've gotten so used to Americans censoring "god damn it" that I forgot you could say it on British television

I'm gonna be completely honest: I don't actually know what a pepper pot is because I have only ever heard the term in relation to Daleks. but I'm guessing it's a pepper mill

"we discovered the cure for the common cold but we're not gonna sell it because we'll make more money selling palliatives" is just American capitalism in a nutshell

(if you're offended by how other countries portray yours in media, maybe you should look at how your country portrays itself to international audiences)

henchman: "what are you gonna do, sucker me to death?" Dalek: "yep, thanks for the suggestion!"

mocking the Dalek because you think it can't do stairs? STOP GIVING THE EVIL PEPPER POT IDEAS FOR HOW TO KILL YOU

I know Rose's constantly visible bra straps are intentional because she's supposed to be Super Realistic Human Woman and all that, but every time I see them, I want to yell at the wardrobe department for not doing their job properly (even though they did actually do their job properly)

the pronunciation of "Goddard" and "helipad" really betray the fake American accents

haven't even made it a full episode before getting distracted by garashir fanfic whoops

01x07 "The Long Game"

Bad Wolf Channel

only Jack Harkness could evolve into a giant face with the ability to get pregnant

Simon Pegg!

"ladies, gentlemen, multisex, undecided, or robot"

did they get these extras to just walk in off the street in their own clothes?

I think this is the first thing I ever saw Simon Pegg in?

that railing is supposed to be cold as ice why are you touching it with your bare hands?

Adam, you absolute piece of overcooked broccoli

Tamsin Greig!

it's amazing how so many details of this show live rent free in my head 14 years later

*looks up the actor who played Adam* ohhhhhh noooooooo

01x08 "Father's Day"

Big Dramatic Plot Point happens and I'm over giggling at garashir fanfic referencing Doctor Who. traditional earth ballad, indeed.

wait...are the Reapers here to infect the wound or to sterilize it? you're contradicting yourself, Doctor

sorry I'm really distracted by fanfic and this isn't really one of the better episodes

also it means a shorter post so maybe I shouldn't be sorry?

oh ffs the next episode is more zombies

01x09 "The Empty Child"/ 01x10 "The Doctor Dances"

it's mauve

red's camp

John Smith!

Psychic paper!

Rose is a trekkie!

oh fuck no

the only thing worse than zombies is zombie children

ok normal non-evil non-zombie children in general are also worse than zombies

those...are not the lyrics she's singing, Crave captioner person

are those even lyrics in that song?

I hate air raid sirens

you know what's really fun? when your local RCAF base decides to test the air raid sirens mere months after 9/11 without informing residents because social media didn't exist

yeah

I don't ever need to hear that sound again

Captain Jack: equal opportunity horndog

will forever do a double take at Glenn Miller when there's a village(?) just outside my hometown called Glen Miller

part 2!

do not like the gas mask POV it's making me dizzy

oh this was a Steven Moffat 2-parter?

he was much better as just a writer than a show runner

but why am I not surprised Moffat created Jack Harkness

Bananas are good

(I mean they're actually gross tho)

who looks a screwdriver and thinks 'ooh this could be a little more sonic'?

do we ever find out what happened to Jack's missing memories?

really not a fan of Moffat's recurring "motherhood is the most important role a woman can have" bullshit

(I'm assuming he wrote the Narnia Christmas special but he was still show runner at that time so I can still blame him for the misogyny)

ok that's way too cheesy an ending

I am not interested in another slitheen episode. Boom Town will have to wait for the next round.

[anotherbeingsworld]

‘And then.. i met you’

Pairing: Bryce Lahela x F!MC (Casey Valentine) 

Word count: 1720

Rating/Warning: G/None

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Pixelberry. I do not own anything.

A/N: Hii! This is a fic for the challenge that @starfurys made!! Thank you for creating the challenge, it was pretty fun (i hope i am not too late) !!  This is a pretty tough one, but I did my best and I really hope you liked it! It is not the best, but I have tried! And, the title ... is somehow still questionable. In all seriousness, I hope you all enjoy it!! If there is grammar mistakes, I apologize in advance as English is not my first language! ENJOY. 

Prompt: Dancing in the moonlight by TopLoader. 

Tags: @bitchloveskcbaseball ; @maria-soederberg ; @storyofmychoices ; @choicessa ; @mrsbhandari ; @annekebbphotography ; @princess-geek ; @n-whas 

LINK TO MY MASTERLIST 

is an exciting night for Casey, as her brother; Dan is finally tying the knot with his childhood sweetheart, Marie. The wedding is beach themed as it was held somewhere near her parent's beach house that was rented for the event. The wedding is starting in less than 20 minutes, as all of the bridesmaid and groomsmen are getting in position. Casey is standing with Marie, as she was picked to be one of her bridesmaid for the wedding. It is an honor for her, as she always looked at Marie as the big sister she never had.

The time has arrived, as the ceremony has begun. The orchestra had played a rendition of a remix from the couple's favorite tracks. Casey felt herself getting anxious as she makes her way to the altar, with a huge amount of fear that she will fall on her face, with an eternity of embarrassment for her. After the dreadful walk, she managed to maintain her position without failing. The ceremony was perfect as she felt teared up from their vows. Casey  suddenly lost in thought, as she suddenly feels uncertain about her own future. Every year, she is closer to death and she figures that turning 25 would stamp her with a soulmate, but nothing happened. Seeing her brother get married makes her feel a pang of sadness in her as she fears that her luck in love is fading. The cheers from the crowd pulled her out of her trance, as they finally said their 'I do's' which makes her smile widely at the scene.

After the ceremony ended, the reception had begun as Casey was seated among the bridesmaid. The first dance between Dan and Marie is different than all the ones she saw online, it was led by a high school musical soundtrack that ended with 'Billie Jean' making the crowd laugh throughout the whole commotion. They were happy as they gaze into one another's eyes before the song ended. Casey grabs a glass of wine, as an announcement was made.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the bride and groom have a surprise for all our singles out there! There will be an envelope awaits you, with your mystery dance partner. Time to partner up and mingle, maybe; someday you will thank me. Now, let's dance the night away people!" The DJ said before he plays the first song.

As the dance floor was filled with people, Casey lets out a sigh as she is known as a part of the singles, until she saw the envelope placed on top of her plate. She took the letter and opened it carefully, as her anxiety rise. She silently pleads that her dance partner is not going to be a creep, or maybe someone who is old in general. After what felt like an eternity, she manages to open the letter, the name was revealed to be.

Bryce Lahela

She nods at the name, as she tries to make a few guesses on his origins based on his name. She stared at the paper, and she saw a fine print below the name.

PS- He is a great guy, promise! And, he is not a creep. Double promise, enjoy! ;) – Dan and Marie.

Her eyes went wide as the man was set up by both his brother and Marie. She takes a deep breath and stands from the table eyeing the dance floor which is filled with random people dancing with their anonymous partners. Casey eyes the environment around her, trying to spot her partner among the huge amount of guests… After 5 minutes of searching, she has given up finding the man. She was about to get back sulking at the buffet when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around and saw a man in a lavender tuxedo is looking at her with a smile.

'Casey Valentine?'

I nod and asked.

'Bryce Lahela?'

He nods as Casey felt herself let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding.

'May I have this dance?' He holds out his hand to her, as she took it. As she makes her way to the dance floor, she caught sight of Dan and Marie giving her a thumbs up causing her to blush. The song was playing, as the words around it projected the next events perfectly.

They both danced quietly as Casey felt a pang of nervousness inside of her. Bryce clears his throat in an attempt to start a conversation. The moon is shining bright above them, as it was something out of a movie. We get it almost every night when that moon is big and bright

'Penny for your thoughts?' Bryce asked as an attempt to start a conversation.

'I always get nervous around people, and I am terrified that I will trip or embarrassed myself in front of a beautiful man like you…' Casey felt herself redden at the fact she just let her thoughts out in public.

Bryce founds himself laughing at her,

'Don't be embarrassed, I get that a lot.' Bryce stated as he felt her being a bit more comfortable in his arms.

'Oh yeah, prove it!' She replied with full enthusiasm and curiosity behind his story. Both of them ended up trading stories with one another, as they seemed to enjoy one's company as they started to move in circles around the dance floor. It's a supernatural delight, everybody's dancing in the moonlight.

The whole room around them lets out a cheer as Uptown Funk was played in the background bringing people in their zone as they boogie the night away. Casey's eyes went wide as her favorite dance bop was playing, it was an overrated tune but she couldn't care less. She starts dancing crazily, as Bryce held her in his arms. She felt tense from the sudden contact, he immediately said, 'don't worry, I won't bite' making her felt a shiver down her spine. As she felt herself dive into the music, her green eyes met his brown ones. They gazed into one another, feeling the beat as the whole world around them disappear. Everybody here is out of sight, They don't bark and they don't bite.

'Cmon Bryce, show me your go-to move! You need to let loose tonight, it is a party!' Casey yelled across the music as she felt himself stiffen during the middle of the song.

'You know what, let's do this.' Bryce said as he took off his tie and starts to move in the beat as Casey laughs at his antics such as an attempt on doing the single ladies dance. They keep things loose they keep it tight, everybody's dancing in the moonlight.

As the song ends, Casey felt herself smile widely at the events that happened. She felt herself feeling happy for once, and she felt happy on the dance floor with a man who was once a stranger, that somehow had turned into a friend. Perhaps, someday more.

"I guess our dance had come to an end, unfortunately.' Bryce said with a hint of sadness in his voice.

"I wish we can continue it," Casey replies with an obvious amount of sadness which caused a small smile to appear as an idea strikes him.

"Well, I have an idea. If you want, we could go for a walk because I really don’t want this night to end." Bryce suggests as Casey felt herself blush at his words.

"The night seems beautiful to be wasted, I will see you at the shore," Casey said as Bryce placed a small kiss on her knuckles.

"I will see you soon," Bryce said as he disappears to the crowd making his way to Dan. Her eyes never leaving him.

'Looks like someone is in love...' a voice rang into her ears as she turns her head meeting Marie's who is smiling widely at her.

"I guess, I feel something. But, I wouldn't call it love." yet. She said as she hugs Marie and thanking them for everything as the cake cutting ceremony is about to start.

After the reception is over, Casey makes her way to the shore where she is meeting Bryce. The beach is peaceful as the night grows. Only the sound of waves could be heard from afar. She took a seat on the sand as she waits for him. Her memories from the last few hours had flooded back in her mind, the way they danced with full comfort and the way he makes her laugh, makes her feel butterflies in her stomach. She didn't notice a presence beside her, as Bryce took a seat on the sand as well. Both of them are staring at the empty beach.

'Hi,'

'Hey.'

'How was your night stranger?'

Casey lets out a smile.

'I think I had the most amazing night, and it's not even my own wedding.'

'Care I ask the reason for your satisfaction?' Bryce said as he mimics a robot voice which made them both burst in laughter.

"It is maybe because someone has promised me a dance during this fine evening?' Casey said as she dusts off the sand and takes her hand out towards Bryce.

"In fact I did, care to be my dance partner once again Miss Valentine?" Bryce extends his arms as she took it with a smile.

'Yes, you may Mr. Lahela." She replies as they started to dance in circles with a song that they knew all too well. The night fades away around them, as they were the only ones left on earth. The light from the moon becomes their spotlight, whilst being in one another's arms. They both felt happy and somehow it feels like home, where it is warm and bright where it is just right. Dancing in the moonlight, everybody's feeling warm and bright.

'Did I mention, how beautiful you looked tonight?' Bryce said as his eyes fall on to her. The look of adoration and love was present in his eyes. 

'Oh yeah, I thought you were the beautiful one here.' Casey raised an eyebrow at his comment which made him chuckle in amusement.

'We both can be beautiful, can we?'

'Yes, we can.' Casey replies as she beamed at him, feeling pretty bright about the future.

It's such a fine and natural sight, everybody's dancing in the moonlight.

THE END

A/N #2: Hii! I hope you all enjoy it and Ro, I hope you liked it!!! Thank you once again for this challenge, its really fun to participate!! And, i hope all of you liked it aswell!! Dont forget to like, reblog and leave a comment! It would really mean a lot! Thank you again for reading it!! Have an awesome day!! 🥰💖