#this guy is very joel coded... wonder why that is :)

[yamchala]

the guy from that skeleton gang... or something

also... please watch monkey wrench PLEASE watch monkey wrench PLEASE PLEASE PLEEAASSSEE WATCH MONKEY WRENCH!!!! episode 4 coming soon but theres 3 out on yt ALREADY and you!! yes you!! should watch it!!!

[girlboybug]

Crush

"he looks like he works with his hands, and smells like marlboro reds."

what's playing 🎧: crush by ethel cain

pairing : bfd!joel x reader (no outbreak au)

word count : 14k (oops)

*unedited*

CONTENT WARNINGS : SMUT, age gap, heavy petting, grinding, fingering, handjobs, references to m!masturbation, unprotected sex, creampies, light dirty talk, riding, soft dom!joel, but also switch coded joel if u squint, slight angst kinda sorta

TRIGGER WARNINGS : lowkey dubcon just bc of the power imbalance that comes with the age gap but everything is consensual as always. joel knew the reader when they were 4, 16 years have passed so now they're 20! brief mentions of messy home life and brief descriptions of verbal sexual harassment

A/N : i've been dying to write bfd!joel, and when i heard crush i knew what i had to do lolol. so sorry this took ages, it wasn't supposed to be this long but here we are lol. i hope you guys enjoy <3 comments really motivate me, so if you liked it plz lmk in the comments :3

your eyes continually drift over to the time glowing in the corner of the screen on your register, wondering when joel was supposed to swing by. you pray that he hasn’t forgotten his promise to your dad of checking out your air conditioner to see what needs to be repaired.

the tiny fan that sits beside your half drinken water bottle does little to nothing, and it only adds insult to injury. 

you think back to last night at dinner, in your air conditioned home, about the ‘exciting’ news your dad had to share. he rattled on about how he ran into an old college buddy and family friend, joel miller down at the pro bass shop—and of course it was at the pro bass shop. 

after a few jogs of your slightly depleting memory, you finally, somewhat, remembered a face to the name. you vaguely joined in with your parents’ reminiscing of how he used to come over with his little girl sarah for play dates, and occasionally babysitting you when your parents went out on their date nights. 

they also were quick to tease you about your little crush on him, one you swear you can’t remember, which in your defense, you really don’t, and desperate to change the subject, you asked about his wife, which only worsened the allegations of your crush on him. 

“goin through a divorce, it’s actually why he moved back here, but i’m sure you’re happy to hear that,” your dad snickered with a little nudge, and you wanted to bury your face in the steaming mashed potatoes on your plate. 

once you managed to wrangle them out of the conversation of your alleged feelings towards the man you barely remembered, it was briefly mentioned that he’d be coming by today to check out your broken down air conditioner at the store your parents owned and operated. 

you’re the cashier there, unwillingly of course, but it helps pay for your very expensive books you need for your classes, so it’s not a total issue. however, as you blanky look around the empty sweltering convenience store, you honestly consider closing up early and ubering home to soak in a nice, cold shower. 

the bell that hangs from the door rings at the front entrance, but you’re too tired and worn down by the heat to say your usual greeting, instead deciding to just remain slumped in your small wooden stool, aimlessly trying to angle your mini fan at the most optimal point of your face. 

your peripheral view catches a navy blue hued shirt, and your head lifts upwards to get a better look in case it’s a customer. 

your eyes fall onto an older man smiling down at you, crossed arms bulging from behind his short sleeves. something bubbles in the very pit of your stomach. “mr. miller?” you ask, slightly unsure, but he nods, chuckling when his arms drop to his sides. “heya hun, it’s been awhile, how are you?” he leans in for a hug, and you suddenly don’t feel the sweat that’s been stuck to your skin for the past three hours as you rise to your feet and off the stool to meet his arms that come around your waist. you manage to stutter a response of, “i’m good, and you?” 

“doin’ alright,” he says through a grin– oh god, his grin is so pretty, you think you almost see a cartoonish sparkle glint in his teeth from the fluorescent lighting.

your stomach bubbles up the more you take him in, and oh no. the worst possible thing just came to fruition.

your parents were actually right. 

he pulls back, hands still on the backs of your arms as he takes a moment to really look at you. “you’re so grown up now honey, i remember when you were just this big,” he holds a hand just below his hip and you join in his light laughter, feeling those fluttery feelings you felt all those years ago rush to your chest and tummy like a dormant volcano erupting. 

he hasn’t aged a bit, maybe a few more wrinkles here and there, and the crows feet beside his eyes deepen more now when he smiles, along with the grays that take the place of where some strands of brown used to be. but he’s just as beautiful as your fuzzy memories, if not more. 

“y-you look exactly the same,” you chuckle nervously, trying to not give in to the magnetic pull tempting your eyes in the direction of his chest and abdomen. he grows a little bashful, glancing away for a moment before he replies, a little pinker in the cheeks than before. “i definitely don’t weigh the same, sweetheart,” he sighs playfully, patting his stomach. 

you hear the traces of slight disappointment in his words and it saddens you. you shake your head, feeling even warmer under the heavy feeling from his eyes blanketing over you while you frown ever so slightly. “i think you look great.” you say truthfully, feeling nervous as soon as the words part from you, worried he might think you’re too forward, but instead he smiles again, looking down at his boots. 

“you’re too kind.” he grins, looking back up at you, his fingers running along the side of his beard. you feel flushed, glancing away from his smiles. 

“goddamn, it is hot in here,” he pinches at his shirt, pulling it back and forth to get a slight breeze. you nod vigorously, plopping back into your stool, fanning yourself once more. “i can show you were the ac’s at,” you offer, and he agrees. 

you guide him to the useless machine, eyeing it down with an irritated look, as if it were alive, and purposefully broken down to spite you. 

he walks over to it, bending down to its level and you balance on your heels awkwardly, overthinking on if it’s the correct social etiquette to say anything right now. 

“hmm, lemme get my belt from the truck, i’ll be back hun,” he nods at you, sending you a smile before he disappears out the store and back to his truck. 

when you’re sure he’s out of view, you curl in on yourself, holding your face and opening your mouth to let out a silent scream. 

all it took was seeing him for two seconds, for a crush you didn’t even remember existed until last night to come back immediately. 

when he returns, he sends you a smile before he goes right to work, setting up shop beside the air conditioner, toolbelt wrapped around the alluring circumference of his waist. 

you imagine what it’d be like if it were your hands instead of the worn down leather that envelops him, how his skin would feel in your palms and jesus, you are being so creepy right now. 

he talks while he works, listing about all the things wrong with the ac, jokingly calling your dad a cheapskate for not being willing enough to upgrade to a functioning one that wasn’t manufactured before you were born. and of course, you laugh, leaning against a counter, hoping he just so happens to turn to the side to spare you a glance and notice that you look effortlessly sexy. 

he mainly keeps his focus on the task at hand but, you keep hoping he turns to look over at you at some point. 

no customers have come in yet, and for once you are eternally grateful for a slow day. 

your eyes trail from his biceps, down to his strong forearms, they look safe, secure, like they could hold you and keep you locked in, and his hands…god his hands. 

they’re long, and big. his wide palms that splay across the side of the ac make the machine somehow look small in comparison. his fingers are so skillful, prodding and working at the screws and confusing bits you didn’t even know were a part of the contraption — but honestly the mechanisms of the ac are not what you care about right now. 

you care about how it would feel if it were your sides, your hips, being touched and caressed instead of the machine, and how his big strong hands could hold onto them, grip them, squeeze them tight like a real man would. 

you notice the way he swipes his forearm across his forehead, clearing away the sweat that beads over the skin, feeling bad that he’s doing so much manual labor in such terrible conditions. 

you depart from your shared space for a moment, padding towards the refrigerators stocked full of drinks. 

you return to him, tapping his shoulder and smiling brightly when he looks at you, eyes darting down to the cold root beer in your hands. “for you. least i can offer while you work,” you beam and he chuckles, switching some weight onto his left foot, his hand resting on his hip when he graciously takes the bottle from you. 

“well thank you hun,” he tips his head at you, unscrewing the cap and taking a swig. 

you watch the way his lips curl around the rim, how his hand just about swallows the entire bottle and the way his adam’s apple bobs while he drinks. you have to fight back the urge to squeeze your thighs together to alleviate the tingly feeling spreading inside you. 

“how’d you remember i like root beer?” he asks, eyes peering at you with a warm surprise, his fingers twisting the screwdriver into the side of the ac. 

you hop up onto the counter beside him, swinging your legs while you shrug. “just randomly came to mind i guess,” he turns to look at you, taking note of the way his eyes land on your bare legs first before they flicker back up to your eyes. you feel a little cocky about that. 

“always were a helpful girl,” he says, and you just about glow at his little compliment, folding a leg over the other while you rest on your palms, trying to hide how big your smile grows. 

“thank you,” you say quieter, shyer than you mean to. 

you two converse a bit longer, and you decide to sneakily flip the open sign to closed in the window while you listen to his responses. 

the topic of college is brought up, and you respond to his questions about how it’s going, what you’re majoring in, and you answer, creative writing, feeling flushed when he pauses his work to smile at you. 

“an’ you know what, you always were a storyteller when you were young, i bet you’ve only gotten better since,” he says wistfully, fondly imagining you typing away and creating stories he’d happily read all about. 

he’s not a big reader, but for you? he could be. 

when he finishes up, he calls you over, turning the knob on high and watching as the ac releases what sounds like a guttural groan before a gust of icy air greets your bare arms. 

you gasp and squeal in delight over no longer being slowly cooked to death in your parent’s mini mart.

“thank you mr. miller you’re literally the best,” you gush and he waves you off, gathering his tools as he nears the register. 

“ahh don’t worry ‘bout it. i’m happy to do it. ‘specially if ya had anyone else do it for you, i know you’d get charged damn near an arm and a leg,” he rests his hands on the counter and your eyes trace over his long fingers while you make your way beside him. you feel giddy when you notice the tan line on his ring finger. 

a reminder of the fact that he’s single now. 

you just nod, holding back from saying something along the lines of how you’d be more than happy to pay him for this service with a…different kind of service of your own in return. 

“so how much was the root beer hun?” he asks, flicking through the bills in his wallet. you immediately shake your head, ignoring his protests of accepting a free drink. 

“no that was on the house mr. miller, i will not take your money,” you say stubbornly and he squints at you, huffing in defeat. “you sure? don’t want you gettin’ in trouble with your folks if they find out you’re out here givin things away for free now,” his hands settle on his hips and he gives you a playfully testing look, still managing to cause a flurry of emotions to ripple inside your lower tummy. 

“who’s gonna tell them?” you counter, voice lowering just a little, eyes following in suit as you stare up at him. 

his soft chuckle fades between his parted lips at the shift in your demeanor. his jaw comes down for a second before his lips curl to the side. “alright, thank you sweetpea,” he concedes just an octave above a murmur. 

“is there anything else you wanted to get? because in all seriousness, they’d probably get more upset at me for actually charging you instead of just letting you have it for free.” you say truthfully, feeling positive that your dad wouldn’t mind joel taking a few things home free of charge. 

he holds out that big hand of his, chuckling when his gaze shifts to the ground before it rests back over on you. “nah s’alright hun, root beer was already mighty gracious of you,” but you’re not buying it, you head behind the register, arms extending along the expanse of the wall of products, pretending to sell the items like you’re showcasing the prizes on a game show. 

“you suuure? anything you want, completely free,” you offer temptingly and his lips collect themselves to the side of his mouth, chuckling mutedly, a little shake of his head as he watches you. 

“alright,” he leans forward, and you feel your throat get a little tight at his ministrations, suddenly noticing the slight glimmer of a chain hidden beneath his shirt. 

“can you get me that pack of marlboro reds behind you hun?” he points at the carton of cigarettes, and for some reason his request makes your stomach get tight. 

you think back to how not even a day ago you rambled about your visceral dislike for boys, discarding them as a waste of time — but joel isn’t a boy. he’s a man, and may the version of yourself who existed moments before he came in, forgive you for being a melted pile of hypocritical mush he’s managed to turn you into in the span of less than two hours. 

you can hear your mother’s scoff in your head as you find yourself feeling giggly at his choice of a freebie. it’s just so. manly. 

he’s so manly. 

you hand him the carton and he pockets it, not before taking a cigarette out, deciding to indulge early. “thank you sweetpea,” he smiles, cigarette already being placed between his lips. 

“no problem,” you nod with a grin. he eyes the closed sign before he looks at you once more with a knowing smirk. “closing early i see,” he pointedly nods at the sign and you shrug with a sheepish little smile, neither confirming nor denying the notion. 

“lemme guess—folks won’t mind? and would actually be more upset if you didn’t close up early?” he teases, and it almost feels like flirting. you decide to tell yourself it is. so you play along, rolling your eyes and waving your hand dismissively with an equally teasing ha. ha. ha laugh. 

“it’s been a slow day, so no, they actually won’t mind, for your information,” you fold your arms, wriggling your face blithely. he chuckles, lighting his cigarette, taking a drag before he continues. “d’you need a ride home then hun?” he asks, genuinely offering and you have to forcibly give yourself a moment to pause before immediately yelling an overly enthusiastic YES PLEASE. 

“are you sure? you’ve already done a lot for me today,” you act a little bashful, mostly because you are, but you also are attempting to hide the excitement bubbling inside you at the thought of being alone with him in his truck. 

he shakes his head, exhaling the smoke from his lips silently, unknowingly entrancing you. “ts’ not a problem at all, cmon,” he motions his head towards the door and you trail along like a lost puppy.  

you lock up the door behind you before you’re greeted by the sight of joel holding the passenger seat open for you. 

your face gets hotter than it was before he fixed the ac at the sight of his chivalry, pretending to curtsy with your invisible dress before you climb into his truck, mumbling a shy thank you, as he safely closes the door behind you. 

he hops in, and you read your address out for him as he turns the keys in the ignition. 

it’s a little silent for awhile, but it’s okay, you’re content stealing glances at him, hiding behind the fist that supports the weight of your tilted head, hoping he doesn’t notice the way your eyes cast over him adoringly. 

he’s so beautiful. you definitely had taste as a kid. 

he even looks strong, and not in an annoying machismo way, but in a natural, humble way. a kind way. 

you want to touch his broad shoulders, kiss your way down his biceps to his forearms and down to each and every finger of his. you want to kiss away all the callouses and take care of him the way he deserves. 

you can’t believe you’re daydreaming about him in such a way right in front of him, especially since it’s the first time you’ve seen him in about 16 years and this is how you react. 

oh well. 

the contrast of grey in his soft looking brown hair is so complementary, you hope he hasn’t turned into one of those guys that put dye over it, because frankly you think the natural look suits him quite well. 

you drift your stares down to his strong hooked nose, admiring how charming it is. you want to trace your finger tip down the slope of it, and uh oh he’s looking at you. 

you can’t be too obvious in your actions, despite the fact that you already are, so you just smile instead of whipping your head around in the opposite direction like you wish you could. “can i try?” you ask, motioning towards his cigarette, trying to play off the situation as to not expose the real reason why you were staring. 

he just chuckles under his breath, his smile lingering when he turns to look back at the road. “that’s ahh, not really a good habit you wanna get yourself into sweetpea.” he says with a small shake of his head. 

you almost give up right there, but you decide to push just a little further. “it won’t be a habit, i just wanna see the appeal is all,” you turn in the seat to fully face him, smile growing when he leans his head towards you in a jokingly exasperated tilt. he says your name warningly, and you deflate for a moment, worried he may actually be annoyed with you. 

you don’t say anything else and he notices, feeling bad at your silence. he sighs with guilt, wanting to remedy the incorrect thoughts you have of him being upset at you as he hands you the cigarette. you instantly perk, taking it into your own fingers. “careful now. you might choke, waters right there in the cup holder if it burns. don’t inhale it too long,” he instructs, watching you from the corner of his eyes to make sure you don’t hurt yourself. 

you wave away his worries, placing the stick between your lips, feeling warm all over when you get a thought that says it’s kind of like we just kissed through the cigarette. 

you inhale, hold it in for a few passing seconds before you’re proving his warnings correct, coughing loudly and not flatteringly whatsoever. 

you try to face away from him, your eyes beginning to water and your throat burning worse than when you smoked from a very suspicious wax pen. the last thing you wanted was for him to see you like this. 

he brings a hand behind your back, rubbing it soothingly as he sighs to himself, feeling a tinge of guilt for letting you smoke. 

“easy honey easy, drink some water,” he hands you the bottle of water and you down it, blinking away your tears as you hand him back his cigarette. “that was so embarrassing i’m so sorry,” you groan, burying your face in your hands. 

“s’alright honey, least now i bet you really won’t wanna make this a habit now right?” he asks, hoping you confirm your aversion to cigarettes. you instead choose to tease him a little, humming a contradictory response to his question. he squints at you and you giggle. “i dunno, might have to try again so i can really make sure.” 

he taps the ashes out the window, laughing at your reply. “you’re gonna get me in trouble with your dad there hun f’he finds out i turned his daughter into a little chain smoker,” 

you slide your hands under your thighs, watching him for a moment before you speak. “i won’t tell if you don’t,” you repeat yourself from earlier, alluding to something else, hoping he reads your mind and understands your allusions. 

he purses his lips in a slight upward furl, looking at you once he’s reached a red light. “someone’s gotten a whole lot sneakier since the last time i saw her,” you laugh, leaning into the headrest while you look at him. “a lots changed since,” you say, voice falling quietly and he holds your stare, his eyes betraying him by clearly darting down to your lips. the red light switches back to green, forcing him to look away from you. 

your chest bloomed at the way he looked at you in that moment, unsure if you’re delusional in even considering the possibility he maybe could reciprocate the attraction you’re feeling. but a little delusion never hurt anyone anyways. 

“it sure has,” he agrees, the corner of his eyes taking in your figure once more. 

but he shakes the thought from his head, almost rebuking it and instead deciding to change the subject. “can’t fault you too much though. sarah’s the same way sometimes,” he says through a chuckle that sounds nervous — did you make him nervous? 

again, you tell yourself you did. 

you sit up straight at the mention of sarah, visibly growing excited. “oh my god sarah, how is she? it’s been so long, i’m sure she doesn’t remember me,” blurred memories of playing with plastic makeup sets, and real makeup you two ‘borrowed’ from her mom, replay in your mind at the mention of her. 

he shakes his head, disagreeing at your slightly saddened thought of being forgotten by sarah. “she’s good, she’s in school just like yourself, and she does remember you hun! matter a fact, she’s home right now, if you’d like, you can come over for dinner and catch up with her,” you clap your hands together excitedly, nodding happily at his suggestion. 

“yes! that sounds amazing, i would love to!” you accept and he smiles at the thought of his two girls sitting together talking at the dinner table. 

“i’m sure she’s gonna lose her mind when she sees you,” he squeezes your knee and you go still, frozen in place when you feel the heat from his palm radiate into your skin. 

his touch is gone too soon, you want to hold his wrist and keep him there, but you pretend his fleeting touch doesn’t affect you as strongly as it actually does. 

the heat from his skin has become yours and you cradle it, pretending you’re not beaming in his passenger seat from it while he talks. 

“i’m kinda nervous, it’s been so long,” you say, pressing the backs of your fingers to your cheeks and feeling the warmth of nervousness flush to the surface of your face. 

“don’t be sweetpea, nothin to be nervous about, i promise,” he comforts your nerves with a soft voice, and you allow it to cushion you. 

—

joel was right about two things. 

you really did have nothing to worry about, you and sarah clicked right away as if no time had passed. she squealed when she saw you, racing towards you and enveloping you in a tight hug, rambling about how she’s missed you so much. it felt good to know you were never forgotten in her mind. 

he was also right about sarah being sneaky. 

or rather ‘persuasive’ and ‘just so happens to forget to mention certain things’ as she would put it. 

she managed to convince both joel (which didn’t take much convincing to begin with) and your dad to let you sleep over, which you were ecstatic about for obvious reasons but also because she saved you from having to scramble for a reason as to why you closed up the shop early. 

you’re in her bed now, sitting behind her while you help gather her hair into her baby pink bonnet, talking about anything and everything there is to talk about. while also getting ready to sleep off the high from the wax pen she has hidden under her pillow. 

“i can’t believe you’re really here with me right now,” she grins as you move back in front of her, leaning into her opening arms. 

“i know, me too, it’s been so long,” you hum, rubbing her shoulders. “i’m kidnapping you by the way, this was all just an elaborate scheme to lure you in.” she mentions casually and you laugh, falling back into her bed with her while you rest your head on her shoulder. 

“fine by me,” you say, and you mean it, but you don’t add that in.

“i’m happy you’re here,” she whispers, her nose scrunching up against yours. you smile, holding your forehead to hers. “i am too.” 

“are you busy tomorrow?” she asks, pulling the blankets over your bodies. you shake your head, curling under the covers. “nah, we’re closed tomorrow at the store and i don’t have school that day,” you say, feeling pure adoration as you watch sarah’s smile grow the more she listens to you talk. 

“why don’t we spend the day together then! my dad’s gonna be at work so we’ll have the house to ourselves,” she whispers as all the excitement from the day starts to add weight into your bones, easing you both into rest. 

you nod and smile sleepily, leaning into her arm that drapes over your side. “okay, i’ll call my dad tomorrow,” you yawn and she closes her eyes at that, content by your answer. 

— 

it’s 3am. you should not be awake. but you are, and you’re looking over at sarah, wishing you were fast asleep like she is. you carefully peel yourself out of her arms, gently covering her with the blankets before you pad out of her room and down into the kitchen for some water. 

you tiptoe down the stairs, your heart sinking nervously right into a tight spot inside your stomach when you see the fridge door agape, with a broad back sticking out of it, also in search of something to drink. 

joel rises and turns to see your stilled figure standing awkwardly, staring forward like you’ve just gotten caught stealing. 

he chuckles, scratching a few lazy fingers down his stubble when he shuts the fridge. “what’re you doin up sweetpea?” he asks, and oh god his voice is nice and gravely, a rasp from the depths of sleep that he evades every night careens around your ears and you nearly fold at the knees. 

“just uh, randomly woke up and i couldn’t go back to bed. was just gonna get some water, sorry,” you sound meek and joel shakes his head, and walks closer. you panic a little. it’s a good panic. 

“nuthin’ to be sorry about hun, i’ll getchu some water,” he holds your arm, smiling softly down at you, nodding at you for confirmation. once again his touch abandons the skin of your upper arm when he leaves to fetch a cup for your water. 

your hand graces the skin he touched as you watch him pour you water. he hands it to you, and you thank him quietly, taking a sip from the old plastic disney princess cup he picked out for you. 

“so what woke you up? you feelin’ alright?” he murmurs, coming in close again to press the back of his hand to your forehead. you weren’t overheating until he decided to do that. 

you swallow hard, shaking your head beneath his hand. “n-no no—well i mean yes, yes i’m-i’m okay, i just wake up randomly at odd hours of the night for some reason sometimes,” you say hushedly, afraid to disturb the peaceful silence the night brings. 

he nods understandingly, withdrawing his hand from your face and you want to tell him he can keep it there, but you mentally digress. 

“happens to me too,” he sighs, visibly tired with a hand lazily running down his stubble. “sorry you’re goin’ through it too then hun,” his thumb runs a small circle over your shoulder comfortingly and your body molds around the curve of his fingers. 

“it’s okay,” you mumble shyly and he smiles softly, his touch stalling on yours before it drops back to his side. the air that fills the quiet kitchen turns into something warm and calming when it floats between your tired bodies, and it feels nice. feels domestic. soft smiles mirror each other on your faces and you look away, unable to handle the weight of his stare. 

“so, do you um…do anything that helps you fall asleep?” you ask curiously, mostly just trying to make conversation to keep him tethered to you, even for just a moment longer. 

he scratches his scruffy beard and sighs, nodding like he’s somewhat ashamed to admit. you grow curiouser, deciding to test the waters and inch in just the tiniest bit closer. “and what do you do?” you question through a whisper. 

“i smoke,” he responds just as hushed and you chuckle. “sounds like you’ve got a bad habit.” you prod, lightly teasing and he takes the playful jab, chuckling along with you. 

“well, we’ve all got our vices,” he smiles at you in a way that's playfully guilty, and you roll your eyes with the same playfulness before speaking again. “was i stopping you from taking a smoke?” you ask, and he shakes his head, denying the notion. “no no, and if you were it’d probably be for the best,” he shrugs and you grin. an idea occurs in your mind. 

“can i smoke with you again?” you ask bravely and the volume in his laugh rises before he’s silencing himself so as to not wake sarah. 

“ain’t happenin’, shouldn’t have even happened the first time,” he immediately shoots down your request but you have a sneaking suspicion you’ll wear him down. 

“but you said it helps you go to sleep,” you counter with a pout and he sighs with faux exasperation. 

“hun,” he says warningly again, eyeing you in a way that pins you where you stand. “first time seein’ you in what? 15 to 16 years and i’m already becomin’ a bad influence on you.” he says amusedly, his fingers dipping into the pocket of his plaid pajama bottoms, tracing over the curve of the loose cigarettes that await him. 

“it’s not like you’re giving me hard drugs mr. miller,” you say, tilting a shoulder at him persuasively. his eyes trace over your face for a few passing seconds, taking in the way you look back at him before he decides what to do next.

“last time, understand? just to help you sleep.” he says, but it sounds like he’s more so reminding himself than he is you. 

“okay,” you smile, following him to the loveseat that faces the window, and you assume this is where he usually smokes. 

he cracks open the window, and sits down into the plump cushion, leaning against the very texan quilt that drapes over the seat. you sit down on the arm of the seat, stretching your legs above his knees, the closeness in proximity feels so personal, and you want to live the rest of your life in this quiet and intimate hour with joel. 

he hands you a cigarette, watching you put it between your lips, his available hand straying off to the side to grab the lighter that’s on the tray beside the loveseat. 

he flicks the lighter on and your faces become illuminated by the small flickering flame. he looks beautiful as he carefully lights the end of it, his eyes on the bud of it while your’s memorize each and every wrinkle that crinkles around his eyes. 

“inhale, careful now,” his words of concern blanket over you and pave a smooth passageway for the smoke to enter into your lungs, successfully preventing you from breaking out into another coughing fit. 

you inhale, and keep it before you fan it out the window. he smiles and pats your ankle that rests beside his lap. “there ya go,” he nods the crown of his head at you proudly. you bow humbly, handing him the cigarette. 

“feels nice. makes me feel warm,” you mumble tiredly, watching the way he takes a drag effortlessly. “don’t get too used to it now,” he chides, words shadowed amidst the mist of his smoke. 

“i won’t,” you reply with a knowing smile as he goes to hands it back to you. he pulls his hand that holds the cigarette back, eyeing you. he says your name in that tone and you wave him off, taking the cigarette from his fingers. “kidding,” you remedy his worries of your possible nicotine addiction in the nearby future, inhaling another drag.

you two go back and forth like this for awhile, until the cigarette becomes an unrecognizable little stub,

“feel sleepy yet?” he exhales through a fanning breath, and you nod, watching him flatten the bud into the ashtray beside his side of the armrest. 

“good,” he yawns, lazily running a hand across the side of his beard. “got a long day tomorrow — or today technically, an’ so do you little miss, try an’ get some rest.” he drawls softly, sleepily, and you nod your tired head at his words, free falling into them. 

“goodnight sweetpea,” he says with a gentle finality, leaning in to hold you by the back of your head, pressing a chaste kiss to your forehead. you crumble into his touch, shutting your eyes as if to fossilize yourself in the moment. 

“goodnight,” you whisper, feeling cold when he pulls away. you wish you had thought of something more to say, anything at all that would’ve kept him in your presence for just a little longer, but now you’re stuck sitting alone in the living room, watching his broad back ascend up the stairs, wishing you were trailing behind him, with your hand in his. 

you finish the rest of your water before you’re trudging back up the stairs, the weight of exhaustion lowering its heft onto your shoulders with each step upwards. 

and as you crawl back into bed with sarah, despite the attempts to push the thoughts away, all you can think about are the ways in which her father could tire you out until you fell asleep.

___ 

after that day, the miller household practically became your second home. more often than not showing up to their house rather than your own after school and work. 

at first you were worried that maybe you were beginning to overstay your welcome, that maybe they just didn’t know how to tell you to stop coming over so often. but they quickly put those insecurities to rest when sarah called you wondering why you hadn’t shown up after work, saying how joel set a plate for you at the table and it was getting cold. 

they were just as attached to you as you were to them. 

they really loved having you over, loved getting to make up for all those years you all went without each other, taking the time to relearn everything there is to know about the other. 

for instance, joel learned you have an affinity for tight tank tops that ride a little too low on your chest and rise a little too high whenever you bend down. 

his fingers have a tendency to straighten out your spaghetti straps, and he always murmurs something along the lines of, showin a lotta skin today huh hun? 

you’d grow warm under his touch, hiding behind a pretty grin and an excuse of oh, heat’s just gettin’ to me lately, or his personal favorite,  damn dryer shrunk my clothes again. 

he doesn’t mind whatever your excuse is, he’d just hand you his flannel, telling you to at least wrap it around your waist whenever guys were around, because i know how men think, he’d explain and you wouldn’t argue, you’d happily accept his flannel and listen to his heeding. 

you wonder if he was having the same thoughts he was trying to prevent other men from having about you. 

you like to tell yourself he was. 

but there is one thing you don’t have to convince yourself of. joel really, truly, and utterly cares for you. 

joel is nothing if not protective, he just wants to look out for you, make sure you’re safe, that you’re okay, and so when you called him at work, voice trembling and meekly asking if he can pick you up, naturally, he abandoned his meeting at work to race over to you. 

creating blueprints for a new apartment building suddenly became unimportant the second he heard your voice crack over the phone.  

he could hear the way your breath paused for a moment, only to come out shakily through tears when he asked if you were alright. your audible sadness casted immediate worry and concern over him, instilling itself in his chest. 

he sees you now, rushing to walk out of the store, locking it on your way out, and he hops out of his truck, wanting to be the first thing you’re greeted by as soon as you raise your head. 

relief rinses through you the moment you see joel standing in front of his truck, your eyes betraying the attempt at strength you were fighting so hard to have the second he pulls you into his arms. 

his hands feel warm and heavy behind your back, rubbing all the quiet sobs out from you with each gentle circular movement. 

“oh babygirl,” he murmurs under his breath, feeling his heart break with each little gasp you make through your tears. “what happened?” he asks, unintentionally causing the tears to fall harder, making you fist at his button up. 

“today has been so bad,” you finally say, your head resting on his strong chest, shaking fingers tracing over the seams of his button up in an attempt at self soothing. 

“wanna get inside an’ talk about it?” he asks just above a whisper, keeping his voice soft for you. you nod, twisting the knife in his chest when you sniffle. 

he helps you into his truck, shutting the door behind you, meeting back with you soon once he’s in the driver’s seat. 

“now what happened honey?” he asks, and you take in a deep breath through the tears, waving your hands at your eyes to try and stop the stinging sensation at your waterline. 

“today has just been one bad thing after the other,” you wipe away the stray tears with annoyed fists, wishing they would cease their incessant presence. “first, i got into a fight with my dad, he called me selfish and inconsiderate for not canceling class to come down to the shop earlier and that there’s no point in attending class because i’m just gonna get overwhelmed and quit anyway,” you barely manage to say tearfully, further etching a frown into joel’s features, his chest aching at the way you’re visibly hurting. 

he says your name tenderly, matching the way his hand reaches out for you to hold. you squeeze his hand, holding onto it when it rises upwards to cup your cheek, his thumb wiping a stray tear across your cheekbone. 

you lean into his palm, shutting your eyes at his touch. “and i’m scared he’s right, today in class i was so stressed all i wanted to do was walk out,” you whimper ashamedly, and joel shushes you, bringing his free hand to fully hold your face, turning your gaze back up to meet his. his hold on you is delicate, like you’re a dandelion amidst a strong breeze, and all he wants to do is keep you with him, safe and sound. 

your cheeks are cradled by his hands, his calluses turning into a thing of comfort against your cheeks, along with his thumbs that swipe away the tears that refuse to concede from your lash line. 

he holds you like this for a while, wordlessly guiding your breathing with his, evening out your sporadic hiccups induced by your crying, settling your nerves down to a more manageable level. 

your eyes flutter shut at the safety he drapes over you, your smaller hands holding onto his wrists, mindlessly running your thumb along his knuckles. “wish you were with me at work today,” you mumble, imagining the way he would’ve protected you from the creepy customers you had to deal with. 

“what else happened?” he lightly coaxes it out of you, wanting you to get everything out so you don’t have to carry the burden of the day’s stress on your shoulders. 

“these guys came in, and they were just so weird,” your hands tighten around his wrists, recounting the uncomfortable interaction you were subjected to. 

“kept…kept making weird jokes about everything…i said if they needed anything to let me know and i heard one of them tell their friend i better be careful saying things like that, and they like—ugh,” you take a moment to catch your breath, refocusing on the way joel’s gently running his fingers across your temples, something he’d do for you in the middle of the night whenever you’d get a headache. 

“they kept making jokes about me taking off my clothes because it’s summer and it’s hot or whatever i dunno it was stupid but they kept ‘suggesting’ i should lose the tank top because walking around in a bra is the same as wearing s bikini at the beach,” you grimace at the fresh memory, and joel wants to take it away from you, wants to wash you clean of all the pain you felt today. 

when you look up at joel his jaw is clenched, lower jaw jutting out in anger, his hands falling from your face down to your hands, holding them in his, while he shakes his head. “fuckin’ disgusting,” he mutters to himself. “probably good i wan’t there, woulda fuckin’ killed them,” he utters under his breath, and more so to himself, his hands migrating down to your hands, squeezing them hard. his eyes that hold an image of what he’d do to the men who harassed you dissipate as soon as they shift back up to you. “i’m sorry hun,” he sighs, cupping your cheek, cradling you into his palm, speaking gentler this time, “an’ as for your dad well…he’s an asshole. but i know you already know that,” he pauses to smile at your little giggle. 

“he couldn’t be more wrong about you. you are so smart hun, an’ you can and will accomplish everything you set your mind to.” the soft gravel of his voice tides around you like an embrace, enveloping you in it as an attempt to wash you clean of your distress. 

your eyes well and your heart soars up high inside your chest at his kindness. 

“thank you mr. miller, you are so nice to me, it—it means so much coming from you, and i can’t even begin to explain how grateful i am that you even came here at all,” he left work for you. you groan with guilt at the remembrance. “and—god i’m so sorry that i just like, randomly called you at work i’m so sorry you were probably super busy, i just didn’t know who else to go to,” you ramble with guilt, but joel’s already shaking his head as you rattle off with apologies, his hands coming back up to your cheeks, stilling the words on your tongue. 

“hey hey hey,” he shushes you softly. “no apologies, okay?” his thumb runs under your lash line, clearing away your tears. “i’m glad you called me, rather you call me than have to hear what happened from someone else.” he pacifies your guilt for calling him, and he does it successfully, watching the upset furrow between your brows disappear. 

your lip trembles and you suck it in between your teeth, closing your eyes and leaning forward into his chest. he takes you in with no hesitation, his arms forever acting as a sanctity for you to hide in whenever you need. 

he hesitantly pulls away from you for a moment, mumbling a soft, give me a sec sweetie. he shifts around to the pull at the bottom of the driver seat, extending it backwards and giving him more space between him and the steering wheel. 

“cmere,” he says above a whisper, opening his arms for you once more. you’re being guided into his lap, gently wrangled in until you’re wrapped up in the thick protection of his strong biceps. he rubs your back, head resting safely on top of your’s, keeping you down to earth, keeping you in his arms. 

he takes in all your tears, takes in every racking sob from your chest into his, his lips every so often pressing their silent reminders of his presence into your temple. he rocks you back and forth, his soft shushes folding over the sound of your fading cries, lulling you into a calmness you didn’t know you could feel. 

“you’re okay, you’re okay,” he promises, and you believe him. you finally raise your head from his chest, the scent of him still lingering around you, his presence feels pliable, the way he’s looking at you, eyes downturned and scanning all over your face lovingly feels like a sign you know isn’t real. he says nothing, just clears away your stray tears, and that’s when you act. 

you lean in, holding his wrist and intertwining your fingers as your lips do the same. you sigh into his mouth, ascending in his arms when you feel him kiss you back just as rushedly, almost like if he’s too slow you’ll vanish from him. 

but it’s him who vanishes first. he pulls apart from you with a gasp, shifting you further away from him in his lap, your heart immediately cracking straight down the middle. “what’re you…what are you doing?” his questioning comes out breathless, he feels like he’s asking himself rather than he is you, and he prays you say the right thing, he prays that you call him disgusting and that you climb right out of his lap, removing the temptation and opportune to lean back in. 

but you don’t. “i’m sorry,” you whimper, embarrassment flushing through your whole body, he shuts his eyes, exhaling slowly through his nose. “i’m too old for you, you know that right?,” his knuckles drag across your cheekbone, and you nod solemnly, swallowing hard. “i’m not a kid though, joel,” you say shakenly, nerves rattling your bones when you say his name for the first time, unhidden by the lieu of mr. miller. 

“compared to me, you are,” he sighs, his hands gripping his own thighs, weighing them down to prevent them from gravitating to your’s. “i’m too old for you,” he repeats to himself, closing his eyes and leaning into the headrest, the sight and feeling of you looking up at him in his lap is too much for him to combat. “i’d be takin advantage of you,” he mutters, shaking his head, guilt starting to settle into the base of his chest. 

you’re quiet for awhile, and he takes it as his answer. that he’s right, this is wrong. 

but you contradict his thoughts. reaching up to pull his gaze back onto you. “you’re not taking advantage of me, i know that i want this.” you promise hushedly, and he wants to believe you. your eyes connect once more, a quiet tug of air being shared between the two of you, and you’re willing to let him have it, to let him have all the air you can offer and more. he leans in and you stay still, watching when he inches backward when he gets too close, like you’re a flame whose flicker burns too bright the closer he gets. and when you inch in, you can’t get yourself to break the seal and press yourself into him, a weight of nerves keeping you stagnant before him. 

his stare rises and falls down from your eyes to your lips, and you feel it in your bones that your body needs to have him more than it needs anything else. your gaze rests on him while your body acts for you, your hand finding his and holding it, squeezing it. “please,” you whisper, your words leaving you before you can process them. he swallows down everything holding him back, lurching forward to take your lips into his. his hand slides from yours, and up your arm, squeezing it as a test to see if you’re real. his hand moves from your cheek to the back of your head, kissing you hard and keeping you still, greedily wanting to keep you all for himself, wanting to memorize the taste of cherry coke on your tongue and raspberry lip balm on your lips.

it smears across his own lips, your taste immersing with his own, his mustache and beard tickling your skin just like you imagined it would, and you moan in his mouth at the feeling, flicking your tongue desperately over his, mindlessly bucking your hips against his. he groans deeply into you, grasping your hips and rocking himself into you, not a single thought in his head, just a carnal need to feel your cunt satiate the ache traveling down his cock. 

you pull apart for a breath, lips still pushed together, foreheads melded in close, hips crashing into each other with need. “feels so good,” you whimper into his mouth, the pleasure from the friction making you blatantly honest. 

he nods in agreement, never having heard truer words. his fingers indent the shape of themselves into your flesh, his hips acting on their own, desperate to push up into you while his mouth catches yours once more. 

he groans, his cock twitching when he feels you slip your tongue into his mouth, a little moan of your own floating out when you taste a hint of root beer from his kiss. 

your movements grow rushed, hands finding the heft of his flannel and fisting it to steady the heavy rocking of your hips crashing and tiding over his cock. 

desperation flows in your veins where your blood once was, replacing all sense of anything except for the physical need to rut your cunt against his bulge. he can’t keep up, all he can do is let his head fall in your shoulder, his big hands coming around to find purchase on your welcoming hips. his thighs clench underneath yours, tensing when he feels you dampen him through his pants. 

“baby,” he finally lets out shakily, thumbs running circles over your hips. “can’t—shit,” a beat passes with an involuntary grunt falling from his lips. “cant, can’t do this here,” he breathes, eyes hanging low upon you, his hips betraying his words with each thrust that meets your pelvis. 

you slow your movements, catching your breath quietly, nodding in a silent agreement. “i don’t wanna stop,” you admit truthfully, no longer feeling bashful about the fact.  

his cock aches at your honesty and he exhales through his nose, his hands tightening around you. “don’t have to,” he swallows, eyes drifting down to your hardened nipples. “just not here.” 

his answer satiates you, which almost leaves him regretful when you climb off his lap and leave him cold and void of your warm cunt pressed up against him. 

he starts the truck and all you can do is stare at the concentrated look on his face and his hands gripping the steering wheel. 

you wonder if he’ll hold you by your throat the same way. your thighs squeeze together tightly, causing the hem of your jean shorts to rub against your clit just enough to soothe the ache inadvertently caused by joel. 

he notices, eyeing you up and down, lips parted just a breadth at the sight. his hand itches to alleviate some of the pressure you’re carrying deep inside you, but instead he alleviates some of his own first. his right hand falls from the steering wheel for a moment, just to squeeze his cock when he watches the way you squirm and stare up at him from his passenger seat. 

he turns away, knowing he’ll crash if he keeps staring at you, bringing his wandering hand back to the wheel. 

“can i touch you?” you ask, seemingly innocent and his eyes shut for a passing second, a curt  shake of his head joining the action. “not a good idea—“ he really wants you to though “gonna make me crash,” he exhales, though his hips say otherwise, inching towards your side with need. 

your hand trails from his thigh down to his crotch, palming over him gently, and he grips the steering wheel, jaw vibrating with low groans. 

a 10 minute drive has never felt so far until now. 

your fingers curl over his bulge, straining against the seatbelt trying to lean in as close as it’ll let you until you decide to rid yourself of it all together. 

“seatbelt,” he says warningly, and with concern, but you wash it away the second your lips meet the side of his neck, with your hand pawing over him to ensure his submission. and joel just about crumbles far too easily at the touches. 

you’re impatient, he definitely sees that now, and you’re making it way harder than it needs to be for him to maintain his self control. 

“i thought about this a lot,” you hum in his ear, leaving kisses in the wake of your warm words. his throat gets tight just like his lower belly, excitement strumming through him when he halts at a red light. 

he turns towards you now, his hand dipping between your thighs, a little upward curl of his lips teasing the side of your cheek, his scruff leaving kisses of their own on your skin. 

you stifle a whimper, holding onto his wrist when you grind down on his fingers. “thought about touching me like how i’m touchin’ you?” he murmurs, pressing chaste kisses to your jaw. you nod, your chest pounding at the wave of realization of what’s happening. it excites you. 

“thought about it too,” he pulls away from you when the light turns green, and you stay frozen, your body suddenly unsure of how to function with a lack of his touch and proximity. 

“didn’t wanna admit it to myself, but i thought about doin…a lot more than that whenever you’d come around,” he pays you a once over, his eyes lingering over the plushness of your thighs that fill his passenger seat. 

“your skirts and shorts kept gettin’ so damn short, i felt guilty for wondering if it was on purpose,” a smugness takes over his face when he glances at you. “an’ now i know it was.” 

you flutter at his confessions, a sense of pride swelling in you at the confirmation that your little tactics seemed to have paid off. “i just wanted your attention,” you say softly, words falling like pillows and he catches them with open arms. 

his glance shifts from his crotch, up to your eyes knowingly, and he smiles faintly. “i can tell you that you had it even before you started wearin all that,” he rests his hand on your thigh, guiding the wheel with his left hand now. “but i can’t say i minded the change in outfits.” he brings his fingers over your clit, putting pressure over it and you whine quietly, bucking your hips into his touch. 

“if you ever want me to stop you need to tell me okay?” he tells you, and he’s serious, his fingers pull away for emphasis and you nod profusely, holding onto his wrist desperately. “i promise, joel i don’t wanna stop,” you plead with him, and as a simple man that he is, he doesn’t seem to need much more convincing. the pads of his fingers run circles over your clothed clit, and you grind down into it, hungry for more. 

“i want you,” you pant and he chuckles, drumming his thumb against the steering wheel. 

“you’ve got me.” 

“but i want more.” 

— 

it’s quiet when you arrive back at his house, the driveway is thankfully void of sarah’s little yellow volkswagen and relief blankets across your shoulders knowing she isn’t home. 

he ushers you inside, his broad, strong chest pressed up against your back with his hands guiding you by your hips. 

he closes the door with his back, leaning against it, watching you turn around to face him. it’s quiet for a few ticking seconds, and he watches as you lean in closer towards him. he doesn’t stop you but he doesn’t lean in to meet you halfway either. he says your name like he’s unsure if he’s even allowed to utter it, purposefully avoiding eye contact. you hum a soft little “yes?” and he sighs, his eyes falling shut for a moment. 

“this ain’t right,” he reminds himself, and his hands begin to loosen on your hips. you clamp a hand over one of his, the other coming up to lure him back into you, a gentle palm of yours cupping his scruffy jaw, thumb running across the crows feet that gather at the corner of his eye. “says who?” you counter gingerly and he chuckles breathlessly, shaking his head in your hold, feeling all restraint trickle straight off him the second his eyes catch yours. 

you move your hand away from his when his grip grows tight again, letting your now free hand hold both sides of his face when you go up on your tippy toes to meet him for a kiss. 

he catches you off guard and pulls you deeper into him, your crotches pressed flush together when he slips his tongue into your mouth, hooking and reeling you in. 

you moan into his mouth and it eggs him on, sending his hand into a downward motion towards your ass. he feels smug when you whimper in his mouth, pushing harder against his cock when he squeezes your ass. 

he rubs over your ass posessively, squeezing it hard, almost in disbelief that he gets to have you like this. kiss “need you to tell me if and when you wanna stop,” kiss. you don’t reply, you just fall into him whenever he presses his lips back to yours. your lack of a response leaves him discontent and he pulls apart an inch, eyeing you down expectantly. you huff impatiently, hooking your arms around his neck. “promise. i will.” which is good enough for him as he melds into you once more. 

his hands roam all over you, caressing, holding, squeezing all the places that only his eyes have traveled. 

it feels good, it feels all encompassing, to feel the trails of fire his hands leave all across your skin, and you can’t get enough. “can we,” a kiss to your throat, “go to your room?” you ask, somewhat breathless and he pauses for a second, eyes tracing the outline of your bitten lips before he nods. he holds your hand, leading you into his bedroom. 

the second you’re inside you’re guiding him into his own bed after having shut the door. he gazes at you amusedly, handing you the reins for a moment, keeping his hands on the edge of them while you take charge. he thinks it’s cute. 

you sit him at the edge of his bed, straddling him while you push at his chest until his back meets the mattress. you’re leaning back down, holding his face in your hands, your lips hastily meeting his once more. he welcomes you, his hands holding you down on top of him by your hips. 

you grind down on him, panting in his mouth at how good it feels to have him pressed right against your cunt. but it’s not enough. you need more. 

your hands travel down his strong chest, fixing towards unbuttoning his flannel. he lets you, busying himself with unbuttoning your little denim shorts, but he wants to unwrap you slowly. he wants to make a show of it. 

he flips you on your back and you gasp, feeling hot under his stare and stature above you. his knees rest on either side of you, indenting the bed while he maintains eye contact. his fingers take their time unzipping your shorts, and you whine quietly, bucking your hips towards him. 

he pushes you back down and shushes you. “patience.” he murmurs, rubbing his thumbs over your upper thighs. he doesn’t rush taking your shorts off, wanting to savor the feeling of getting to do this for as long as he can. the vision of you in his bed, wet, and impatient, laying before him in your little pink panties is about to make him burst. 

he’s still fully clothed above you and it casts a warm feeling throughout your bare body. you bring your knees close to your tummy, shutting your legs at your sudden shyness. he moves in closer, shaking his head with his palms on your knees. 

he pushes them back down, slipping a hand between your thighs. you gasp, arching your back into him and exhaling with relief when his fingers trace over your clothed clit. “i wanna see you honey,” he careens you gently, coaxing your shyness away. your legs part for him, and he takes full advantage, running the pads of his fingers up and down slowly, feeling the slickness start to bleed through your panties. 

he pushes them to the side, swirling over your clit and feeling proud when you moan into his shoulder. he dips into your little soaked hole, exhaling into your neck at how wet you are. “barely e’n touched you and you’ve already made a mess,” he tsks you lovingly, hints of teasing in his words, and it only excites you more. your stomach and chest get tight at his touches and the way he talks to you, it’s so unreal, and you could honestly cry in this moment from how bad you want to fuck him. 

“i always get like this for you—oh,” you cry out into his shoulder when he pushes his thick middle finger inside you, his digit so long that it easily hits the little spongy spot inside you that you usually struggle to reach. 

“aw sweetpea,” he coos, kissing your forehead while his finger curls inside you. “got you walkin’ around all hot and bothered with no release, i’m sorry,” he kisses your temple, his gentleness contradicting the way he’s fucking you with his finger, grunting under his breath at how tight the fit is when he works in his ring finger. 

you choke on a gasp at the stretch, starting to wonder if his cock will fit if his fingers are already making you feel like this. 

“you gonna make it up to me?” you whimper, still maintaining an air of playfulness in your response. he chuckles, pulling apart ever so slightly to look at you, to watch the way you struggle to stare up at him with his fingers in your cunt. 

“i’ll make it up to you, and then some,” he says, his voice falling low on a raspy curve. you believe him, his response feeling like a promise he intends to keep. 

he’s on you again and you invite it wholly, legs coming around on either side of him go trap him into you. his fingers fuck into that sweet little spot inside you, every single flick of his wrist has your lower back bucking up into his touch. 

his palm hits your clit with every movement, it’s almost cruel, giving you just an inch when you need a mile. you’re running your hands all over him, kissing him messily even when there’s a mix of your saliva dribbling on your chin and air is depleting from your lungs. none of it matters, all that does is consuming as much of joel as humanly possible. 

your fingers struggle to unbutton his flannel once more, shaking and trembling too much to do it as ladylike as you wish you could but he doesn’t mind, it makes his cock twitch knowing he’s the reason why you can’t stay still. 

“feels so good joel,” you whimper, fucking yourself onto his fingers when you finally undo all the pesky buttons on his flannel. he kisses your cheek, his beard tickling your skin while you slide your hands underneath his wife beater. 

“good honey, s’all i wanna do,” he curls his finger right there, drinking in your cries with his lips clamped over yours. your nails drag down his chest and he winces above you, your lips still brushing together. “sh-shit m’so so sorry joel,” you remedy the scratches with gentle caresses but he shakes his head, kissing your chin. “no no s’alright baby—kinda liked it,” he chuckles, thumbing over your clit, precum starting to leak through his boxers at the way you keen into him at the little action. you giggle at his response, raking your nails softly down his chest, fingers suddenly halting only to begin trembling when he picks up the pace inside you. 

“want more joel, i—fuck,” you’re panting, arching up into him, the saturation of the room is getting dimmer and glittery, it’s hard to keep your eyes open and the pounding in your chest and cunt is nearly blinding you. “need more of you, please? please god i’ll do anything,” your desperation is loud and clear and you couldn’t care less. he can feel it, can feel you gripping his fingers, squeezing him so good and he certainly hears how ready you are for him; he revels in the slick clicking sound eliciting from between your legs because of, again, him. 

he swipes the tears gathering at the corner of your eyes and he shushes you, kissing you wherever your tears appeared, rubbing that little spot inside of you soothingly. 

you hum in pleasure, hands traveling up to his shoulders. “don’t need to cry honey, i’ll give i��to you,” his promises fan out over your lips, slipping his fingers out of you. 

the loss of his fingers inside you feels cruel, you feel clingy, all you want is joel near you, around you, on you, and in you. 

the sound of his hands undoing his belt hangs in the air, quiet and low breaths of desperation flicker from out your lips while you watch him pull himself out of his jeans. his cock, fat and heavy, and twitching, falls with heft on your lower tummy, resting with impatience on your skin. 

you whimper, hand nervously wrapping around it, your fingers barely able to cover the thick circumference of it. “you’re huge,” you choke, unintentionally adding fuel into his ego and he chuckles, shaking his head when he kisses you. 

“you’re flatterin’ me,” he murmurs against your lips, wrapping a hand around himself, guiding his tip to circle around your clit. you gasp, curling upwards into him, your forehead resting on his broad shoulder. you kiss his bare skin, the comfort of his skin to yours soothes you while he slides his cock up and down your folds. 

“oh—ooh,” you suck in a big breath, hands flying to his forearms to hold onto when he starts to push in, his tip inching into you feels just as big as it looks. “shit,” you whimper at the burn that follows along with the stretch that he pushes into you and he pauses with concern. he hovers above you like a gracious adonis and it almost makes you forget the twinge of pain between your thighs. 

“you need me to stop?” he asks, his words of gentleness cradling you and you shake your head, running your palms down his chest. “no, please keep going, i can take it,” you nod as further emphasis, pushing your hips up, aching to feel more of him. 

he brings his lips to your’s again, sighing when he feels your little moan escape into his mouth. his cock rocks into you at a steady pace, unintentionally pushing you further up into his bed, and he holds onto you tighter, not wanting you to move an inch away from him. 

“haven’t felt like—shit,” he shudders something like a whimper against your lips, and you have to hold back a moan at the sound. “ha-haven’t felt like this in so long honey,” he swallows hard, caressing the side of your face. “haven’t thought about someone like this in years’,” he groans, pushing his cock in deeper. 

your clit pulses at the way he speaks to you, the way he fucks you. “had to fuckin’ jerk off like i was a teenager again after you’d leave—y’have no idea what the hell you’ve been doin’ to me honey,” he messily kisses you between each word, his thrusts growing heavy and rough inside you, the fat head of his cock prodding perfectly into the spongy little spot inside of you. 

“should’ve told me sooner joel,” you whine, bucking your hips to feel more of his cock. “touched myself every night thinking of you,” you whimper out, eyes falling shut when you feel his lower half brush against your clit. he pushed in especially deep at your confession, and you gasp, holding onto him tighter. 

“joel—fuck, sl-slow down, it’s so much,” you cry, barely able to hold onto him while he starts to pound into you, like he’s lost the reins and his body is in control now, an energy and stamina he hasn’t had since he was in his 20’s was back in full force and it all went into fucking you stupid. 

“m’sorry honey—you just, ohfuck, feel so good an the things you’re sayin’ i just—fuck i can’t help it,” he breathes out, pressing a chaste kiss to your bitten lips. “just take it for me baby,” he groans, his hands squeezing your tits before traveling down to your hips. 

his head hangs low while he splits you open on his cock, struggling to keep his eyes from shutting, but he forces them open to watch the way his cock stretches you wide. “you’re so big,” you whine, teeth coming down to sink into the heft of his shoulder. he groans in your neck, sending you a particularly hard thrust. 

the scent of cigarettes wafts around you the more he buries his face in the crook of your neck, his lips nip at your skin and you whimper into his shoulder at the thought of you going home smelling like him. 

his calloused hands mold to the shape of your body no matter where they travel, forming perfectly around you to hold onto you as tight as he can. 

silence falls between you two, the only communication occurring is the shared grunts and groans that slip into each other’s open mouths. his forehead rests on yours, occasionally moving to your collarbone or ducking down to graze his teeth across your breasts, tongue darting out to wetten your nipples. 

the sound of your soaked cunt getting fucked is near obnoxious—it’s loud, and you pray that the windows in his bedroom are shut, because there’s no doubt that if they aren’t, his neighbors will hear everything. 

your legs shakily hang off his lower back, pushing him in deeper and deeper. 

his thrusts start to slow in pace, and each drag of his cock inside you feels hypnotic, feels amazing, and he groans the same sentiments in your ear, kissing the skin behind it. “m’sorry,” his hips pause to a halt and you panic for a second, wondering if you somehow did something wrong. “everything okay?” you ask softly, clearing the hair away from his eyes. he nods, avoiding eye contact embarrassedly. “my back—startin to cramp up on me,” he mutters, pulling out of you and you hold back a sound of disappointment from the lack of weight on top of you. 

he sits up, back facing away from you, head in his hands. “i’m sorry honey,” he apologizes, still not looking at you. you frown, shuffling on your knees towards him. you hold him from behind, kissing the side of his neck. 

“don’t be.” you murmur, moving around in front of him now. you push at his chest gently, clambering on top of him. his eyes widen, a grin slowly spreading across his lips while his hands rest on your thighs. “what’re you doin?” he asks under a raspy breath, his cock twitching underneath you with excitement. 

you hold his shaft, realigning him with your eager hole, leaning down to press a kiss before you speak. “i’m taking over.” is all you say as you sink down on his cock, wincing at the intrusion. 

his eyes roll back and his head falls into the pillow, his hands starting to grip your hips. “baby,” he moans to himself, his cheeks growing hot. you have to inch him in at a cautious pace but he doesn’t mind, your tight warmth is something he welcomed wholeheartedly. 

you start to grind your hips experimentally, hoping it feels good for him. you honestly have no idea what you’re doing. you’ve only had sex once but you don’t know if it even really counts. 

if a guy putting it in then pulling out because he came too fast counted then, sure you’ve had sex. 

however all of this; it’s different with joel, that was a boy, and now you’ve got a man’s cock buried in your pussy. and you want to make him feel like one, you don’t want him to feel ashamed about his age or anything like that. you’ll make him forget about everything. 

you shudder a breathy moan at the new position, resting your hands on his broad chest, admiring the beautiful man that rests under you. “tell me what makes you feel good joel,” you murmur, head falling towards him, making direct eye contact with him. he swallows hard, his cock aching at how fucking hot you are. 

“shit baby, just use me how you want, use my cock honey.” he groans, licking his fingers and bringing it to your clit. you whine, almost toppling over on top of him at the contact, but you hold yourself up, determined to make both yourself and joel feel good. 

you grab his hands, unclamping them from the grip that rested around your hips and instead dragging them up your sides and onto your breasts, silently telling him to squeeze as much as he pleases. 

and that he does. 

he squeezes them, bucking his hips upwards into yours as he watches the way your flesh fills the gaps between his fingers. you rise and fall onto his cock, bouncing on it with a rhythm that hits every sensitive spot inside of you. 

you look down to where you meet, sucking in your bottom lip at the sight of him disappearing inside of you each time you lower yourself onto him. you rock back and forth, whimpering at how deep he can reach in you. you watch the way he swirls his fingers over your clit, touching you better than you could ever do on your own time. 

“c’mere honey,” he groans for you, and you obey, bending down to rest on his chest. he stops you before you can fully lay on top of him, holding you just under your ribs. he pulls you into his mouth, sucking over the soft flesh of your chest, tongue licking messily and hungrily all over your breasts. you gasp, arching your back into his mouth. “j-joel,” you moan, struggling to maintain the rhythm you built. 

his teeth tease your nipples and you shiver, your nails digging into his shoulders at the sensation. you bounce on his cock, mind going numb and fuzzy while your senses take over, each thrust feeling like electric in your veins. 

after he’s done sucking bruises into your soft flesh, your hands reconnect once more, and you pin them down beside his head, hovering above him while you ride his cock. 

i love you, almost slips from your lips while you stare at each other, chests rising and falling heavily, mouths parted, tongues darting out to wet your lips with hunger. the words hang in the air without sound, you’re sure of it. 

you grind down onto him as far as you can take him, feeling him nudge your cervix, and you whimper at just how deep he can go inside of you. he takes your moment of weakness as an opportunity to flip you right back to where you all started; underneath him. 

you gape at him, unable to process his quick movements. you’re laying at the foot of the bed now, and he’s grabbing your calves, tugging you closer towards him. he pushes back in and wastes no time in pounding you like nothing happened. he grabs your leg, pushing it up further towards your chest, angling himself in even deeper, pure desire fueling him. “shit baby,” 

he mutters, his hair falling in his eyes as he kisses your jaw. 

he rubs your clit with his thick fingers and you cry out, starting to tremble uncontrollably beneath him. “think m’gonna cum joel, m’so so so close,” you whine, your eyes falling heavy with your impending orgasm. 

“let me have it honey, cmon,” he kisses his encouragement into your cheek, fucking you with determination to make you cum, hard. his fingers never relent on your clit, and you can’t stop the panting that leaves your lips, all you can do is writhe beneath him while he fucks you through your dizzying climax. you moan his name in breathy chants, spasming as your body tries it’s best to ride out the stimulation that joel bombards you with. 

his hips grow messy and sporadic, he’s catching your lips in a hot kiss, tongues clashing and saliva falling to the corners of your mouth. barely taking any time to break apart for air. “m’almost there—where can i…” he trails off breathlessly, unsure of how to ask in a way that a gentleman would ask but you don’t care, you don’t need him to sound like one, not when he’s fucking you as if he’s never heard the word before. 

“inside, y-you can do it inside, please,” you beg with need, curling your legs around his hips and pushing down on his lower back. he shudders, and has a millisecond to want to ask you if you’re sure, but he can’t stop pushing himself inside you, it feels too good, and he’s glad you’re trapping him between your legs, because he never wants to stop. 

“sh-shit, i’m cummin’ honey,” he shakily moans in your mouth, struggling to keep his kiss coherent but the way your spent cunt tightens around him makes him lose all sense. you whimper against his lips, feeling hyper sensitive to each and every touch, but the feeling of him cumming inside you is unlike anything you’ve ever felt. 

he slowly pulls out of you, peppering your face with kisses when you make a sound of discomfort. you two lie in a comfortable silence, trying to catch your breaths. you turn to look at each other, and he smiles at you, leaning over to cup your face in his palm. “you okay?” he murmurs softly, running his thumb across your cheekbone. you nod into his touch, holding the back of his hand with yours. “yeah,” you grin. “you?” 

he chuckles heartily, and nods as well. “yeah. i’m alright,” he sends a playful wink and you can’t believe that it still manages to make your tummy flutter with butterflies. you suppose he’ll always have that effect on you. 

you stare at him for a little longer, testing the waters to see if he’ll stop you as you lift up his arm and scoot closer to him. and when he doesn’t, you smile to yourself while he only pulls you in closer, tightening his arms around you. you can feel his heartbeat against your back, and you’ve never felt more soothed before. 

you trace the veins on his strong arm that cradles you into him, your head resting on his other bicep. you don’t want to disrupt the peacefulness that’s settled upon you both, but you have questions that just might do that. 

“joel?” you ask and he hums a response. “would you ever want to do this again? or not even this but just…like…hangout?” you unknowingly grip onto his arm with nervousness, and hope that he says yes. 

he takes in a breath and you shut your eyes at the impending rejection. “honey,” he starts, and your eyes glisten with tears already. “i don’t know if this is something we should’ve done to begin with—not that i regret it—lord,” he shakes his head, chuckling dryly to himself. “lord knows i don’t regret it. but i don’t know if this is something we could sustain. i want to though, sweetpea trust me that i do,” he tilts your chin towards him, feeling his heart break when he sees your watery eyes looking back at him. 

“oh honey,” he sighs sadly, shifting you around so you can look up at him properly. his arms encase you, his warm hand running up and down your back while he pressed gentle kisses to your forehead. “why?” is all you manage to ask and he shuts his eyes, resting his chin on top of your head. “your dad’ll shoot me down and hang my body in front’of the whole neighborhood if he knew. and sarah? i don’t think she’d take kindly to me datin’ her best friend.” you hate that he makes perfect sense and you hate that you sound childish, that you didn’t even take either of those things into consideration. 

“we don’t have to tell them—at least not now? and we don’t have to be anything serious, i just…i like being around you.” you softly murmur, feeling pathetic as tears line your lashes once again. he thumbs across them, ridding your eyes of their wetness. “i like being around you too,” he returns your sentiments, leaning down to peck you. it feels gentle, domestic, and you can’t imagine going without more of them. 

“i’ll still pick you up after you have class, i still want you to come over for dinner like you usually do, nothin’ has to change and,” he closes his eyes for a beat. “—despite everything i said, i…i don’ know if i could handle not havin’ you around honey, feels like somethin’s missin’ when you’re not around.” he admits, and to himself as well, for the first time. 

you bloom with happiness at his words, surging forward to kiss him. he holds you by the back of your neck, tracing circles into your jaw. you hold his face in your hands, pressing kisses along his cheeks, feeling warm all over and when he laughs. it’s filled with a comforting airiness. 

he holds your wrist, turning to kiss your palm. he plucks your index finger, bringing it to his lips to kiss gently. “got me wrapped around this little thing,” he says just above a whisper, and your heart aches, overflowing with adoration. 

the door suddenly opens downstairs and you both share a look of horror. 

“dad? i’m home!”

[phosphorus-noodles]

u there. get questioned. 4, 5, 10, 14, 16, 17, 18, 40, 41, 46, 53, 56 (that's a lot so feel free to leave some out but tell me all about ur boys !!!)

AERIE ILY SM FOREVER !!! /P

*cracks knuckles* okok so-

4. What’s a hobby they used to have that they miss?

Hmm… Joel likes to do art, and I bet he used to make his own paint too from berries and whatnot. He probably stopped when he found out those plants were coming from his kingdom’s Worst Enemy Ever (this was before he knew Oli) and now he doesn’t remember how to do it right, otherwise he’d absolutely get back into it.

Oli's goofy with hobbies bc he's ADHD-coded /lh, so if he finds a new one he'll just disappear for days and forget society exists for a little while. He likes to play music and used to perform for his parents all the time when he was little, but as he got older and they got more busy he played less because he *needs* that audience to really enjoy it... he'd love to play more for Joel, but he's a little shy about it 👉👈

5. Can they cry on command? If so, what do they think about to make it happen?

Well Joel is always on the verge of tears anyway (/hj), so like... maybe not on command, but he can be set over the edge fairly easily (he's just good at hiding it around most people)

Oli absolutely can cry on command, he's a theatre kid smh. He'll tell people he thinks about dropping a cake facedown on the ground or dead puppies or something, but he's really thinking about losing his best friend, especially after his parents are gone :(

10. What fact do they excitedly tell everyone about at every opportunity?

Oh Joel will 100% tell you everything he knows about sniffers in a heartbeat 😭 he got that animal kid autism y'know /aff

Oli isn't as "fact-oriented," but if he's with Joel and also someone else then he'll put Joel on blast, who just blasts him back like--

"Hey! Did you know Joel sneezes if you poke him in the ribs?" -> ">:0 well, did you know Oli makes a funny sound if you scratch behind his ears?!" -> "Hah! Did you know Joel is afraid of heights?!" -> "Did you know you can put Oli to sleep by rubbing his nose like a baby?! >:("

14. How do they put out a candle?

Oli's the kinda guy to do the pinching thing tbh. He's gotta do it with flare~ ✨

Joel just blows it out, but Oli always teases him like "why don't you just flap your wings to put it out lol??" Joel says it's because it's inconvenient to turn around to do it, and his wings are too big for that, but he's also scared of burning them- his wings are delicate :(

16. What kinds of people do they have arguments with in their head?

Joel fights with his parents,, they were very good at reminding him that the only reason he existed was to be an heir for the kingdom and they didn't care about him enough to spend any time with him and he was nothing but disobedient after making his 'little friend' an- a lot of things. And even though Oli reminds him that he does have worth and their opinions shouldn't matter and Joel trusts that, it doesn't stop the echoes in his head </3

Oli probably fights with himself the most. He acts all confident and bold, etc. but he's an anxious mess on the inside. He also fights with the "voice of reason" too -- very "silencio bruno"-esque /lh

17. What do they notice first in the mirror versus what most people first notice looking at them?

The first thing Joel notices is uhh probably his green bangs? They're pretty vibrant and in front, draws your attention /lh, but other people usually notice his colorful freckles. Oli says they're like a rainbow leading to Joel's wonderful eyes <3

Oli probably notices his hair too? Y'know the like, hand comb thing cc!oli does where he combs his fingers through where his hair is parted? He does that a lot. But he's also got the softest brown eyes full of so much joy and,, ough they're pretty

18. Who do they love truly, 100% unconditionally (if anyone)?

Each other :(

They didn't always, they hadda get through a lot of "I'm supposed to hate you yk" before they really got close, and now they love each other a lot. Doesn't matter if the love is platonic or romantic what matters is that it was there and it overcame everything else, etc. etc.

Oli also loved his parents, and Ren + Martyn who are essentially his parents too, they get along very well <3

40. How do they respond to a loose handshake? What goes through their head?

Joel: “Oh moss, did I do that wrong?? Why didn't they shake back? Did I offend them?! Oh Devs, I’m so sorry, they probably hate me, or think I'm weird for shaking so tight, or--"

Oli: *shakes out hand with a grimace* “Wow, that was weird. Do they know how to shake hands?? LOL”

41. What phrases, pronunciations, or mannerisms did they pick up from someone / somewhere else?

Hmm... Joel's got a northern Mezalean accent, and will say things like "I fink / I havva / fank you / ohh blumin'-" etc. when he's tired or stressed or upset or otherwise high/low energy. (Y'know how cc!Joel shouts "EEFO!" and also cc!Stress' tweets? Yeah.) Oli won't necessarily talk like that all the time, but he will mimic and tease him about it hehe ^^

Joel picked up giggling from Oli, he used to rarely laugh at all but Oli's laugh (you know the one) is just so contagious <3

(And also from personal experience (/hj), they both say ourple/ouppy/kibby cat/etc. to be funny, but I dunno who started it)

46. Are they a listener or a talker? If they’re a listener, what makes them talk? If they’re a talker, what makes them listen?

Joel's a listener (because he'd rather just sit and do what he's told and not cause a stir, but if he really cares about it then he'll also Really listen), and he'll talk when he's invited to and/or trusts the person. Like if someone "wanted his opinion" on something but he thought they didn't really care he wouldn't really say anything, but if Oli wanted his opinion? Absolutely, here is it. (It's also dangerous for him, because if he starts talking sometimes he just doesn't stop-)

Oli's definitely a talker ahsjfs, extrovert boy- he usually can't stand silence and will just keep talking to fill the emptiness because if he doesn't he'll explode, but you better believe he'll start listening like a loyal dog the second Joel opens his mouth.

53. Who would / do they believe without question?

I… feel like Joel would believe anything Oli said no questions asked, but Oli’s too much of a prankster and Joel's too gullible for that to end well 😭 maybe I'll say each other but only if there's like the Code Enacted that means What I'm Saying Is 100% Slash Serious, you know?

56. If they’re scared, who do they want comfort from? Does this answer change depending on the type of fear?

They'll usually go to each other for most things because y'know they're very close and trust each other and it's just easy to, but it does depend on what it is too.

Like if Oli's worried about Joel, he's not gonna go to Joel, he's gonna go to Ren or Martyn because he trusts them a lot too, but also they're "ew old parents smh" so if it's a "kid problem" it's bestie time.

Same with Joel, he'll go to Oli for most things (more so than the reverse, because Joel has less support people to begin with), but there are some things he just... can't. And it's times like those where he'll go to his mom for it -- not the queen, his real mom, the Mother Tree. She doesn't talk back in words, but even just curling up in her branches or under her roots is enough to comfort him :')

---

WOUGH that's a lot,, I had to put off answering this bc I was studying and knew it would take an hour to answer (and it did lol) but <33 auhgjfg,,, I love answering all these kinds of things :D

edit: BRUH THAT'S 1.4K WORDS 😭

(Ask game! Send me asks pspsp)

[moon-ursidae]

it’s time for session #2!

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS FOR BOTH OF THE LAST OF US GAMES UNDER THE CUT!!!!

these notes are so scattered if you read them without context and i am SO SORRY lmao. i’m typing them so fast trying to keep up with my brain that’s going 700 mph and the game. ANYWAY, we’re getting a very late start tonight bc i was helping my friend learn guitar for a few hours haha

total play time: about 2 hrs and 40 min (there’s not much story progression here just exploring seattle!)

okay so we last left off with ellie and dina in the woods on horseback post joel’s house. i have not gotten farther than the woods bc i was super ultra mega tired. so let us continue!

okay sooooo this section is called the gate cool cool cool

this is fucking gorgeouuusssssss

omg dina listing off all the people that joel crossed

i’m sure there’s more before that bro

oh my god the LIGHTINGGGGG in the woods so so good

we’re so close to seattle i’m scared

so much happens here man

map acquired✅

CARD BABYYYYYY

jesus christ i L O V E the aesthetic of nature reclaiming land and man made structures. it’s sooooooo pretty

oh shit QZ!

i’m looking through ur journal ellie hope you don’t mind haha

dina seems to be sick? well. i know why but ellie doesn’t yet so shhhhhh

it’s so sad to me that every drawing of joel so far that ellie’s done, she hasn’t been able to draw his eyes. that was the last thing she saw of him while he was alive. like she wants to get them just right but everytime she draws it that means she has to look him in the eye again. and maybe she’s feeling too guilty to do that rn. ugh idk i know neil always does shit like that but maybe i’m reading too much into it haha. ANYWAY that is one of the most heartbreaking parts about her journal dude. UUUUGGHHHHH 😭

“i really love her.” 😭😭😭😭 ELLIE TELL HER PLEASE

we just got a letter, wonder who it’s from🕺🏻

kieran?? kieran duffy??????

haha wrong game

also lemme just say, i fucking love dina

she’s so sweet and empathetic, but will cut the fuck out of a bitch when needed

I HAVE TO PARKOUR?? UP HIGH?? IN THE LAST OF US?? OVER A GATE??

this is some nathan drake shit bro where’s nolan north

FUUUUUCK I THOUGHT SHE WAS GONNA FALL BRO OH MY GOD

hoooooollllyyyyyy fuuuuuuck this is a big city jesus christ

LMAO her wobble before she fell down to the platform below

this game is so gorgeous. holy fuckin shit i’m gonna say that a lot huh?

THE SOUND DESIGN??? WHEN GOING DOWN THE LOOKOUT TOWER AT THE GATE OF THE QZ??? WHEN SHE FALLS AND IT ECHOES?? THAT SHIT WAS CRAZYYYY

guys i’m gonna be honest. i’m team brick.

i LOVE being able to break windows this is so fun

oh god i have a horrible memory plz don’t make me memorize these gate codes

side note: i love ellie’s hair here. i’m gonna have to try a lil half up half down situation

i saw someone on twitter point out that it looks a lot like tess’s hair🥺

“well, we believe in you” shimmer and dina? or baby and dina? hmmm things to consider

totally unrelated, but i can’t not hear ashley johnson going “babyyyyyyyyy” with an s.o. since the mighty nein reunion lmao

ellie seeing dina and going “babyyyyyyyy” like yasha LMAO

ANYWAY

fuck i hope i can pull out that page of codes dude

THANK GOD

oh shit another hotel

i’m traumatized after the last on dude you can’t make me go back

H O L Y. S H I T.

THIS IS SO OPEN I’M GONNA SPEND SOOOOOOOO MUCH TIME HERE

FUCK DUDE

this is fucking crazy

there’s so much small shit everywhere oh my fucking G O D

omg joel was definitely reading that space book for ellie she just talked about an early moon mission at this tank

DINA’S JOKE “she’s sounding a bit hoarse” they’re literally made for each other

OH MY GOD I JUST FOUND THE DR. UCKMANN CARD NO FUCKING SHOT

damn is this his way of addressing the crunch work hours at naughty dog?

“once a well respected researcher… questionable experiments in the realm of pushing human limits saw him ostracized from the scientific community… Laurent Foucault of SPARK Laboratories found his work dubious…”

the music is hauntingly beautiful in this area oh my god

OH MY GOD THE SCANNERS THAT DETECT THE VIRUS FROM THE BOSTON QZ IN THE FIRST GAME

i miss the first game LMAO even though i JUST finished that

THERE’S A FUCKING PEARL JAM POSTER IN THE MUSIC SHOP😭

IF I EVER WERE TO LOSE YOU, I’D SURELY LOSE MYSELF😭

i feel like this is supposed to be hank williams which would be fucking sick bc “alone and forsaken” and all that jazz haha

“guitars starting at $49.99” BRO SINCE WHEN I FUCKING WIIISH DUDE😭

as a drummer, i can confirm dina is a fucking natural

“i love you?” A H H H H H

ANUTHA CARD WOOO

Das Wort is my favorite card so far. he just like me fr

WAIT THIS IS THE TAKE ON ME SCENE

i will cry

SHE’S PLAYING FUTURE DAYS😭😭😭😭

BARRE CHORDS??? ellie i could literally never wtf

the chords are all accurate too holy fuck naughty dog

ashley has such a nice voice oh my god

i’m gonna fucking cry bc they put this in the hbo trailer

AAAAHHHHHHH😭😭

this is why i fucking love music dude. it transcends everything and always will. it’s the one thing that connects everyone. and it’s connecting people in this game too and i UGGHHH i love music holy fuck

the way dina looks at her🥹

and also knowing that joel was the one that showed her all of these songs and artists bc ellie wasn’t even alive to hear take on me and future days, and literally everything else. GOOOOODDDDDDDD😭😭

“you should have kissed me then.” “i wanted to.”

god i love dina and ellie they sound like an old married couple already

first dawn of the wolf poster i’ve seen!!! WOOOOO

i’m gonna come back to the nutrition distribution center bc i feel like that shit is gonna be bad news bears

“wasn’t joel all about coffee?” as he should. i’d be all about coffee too if i didn’t have it for years

ANUTHA CAAAARD

i really like the Big Blue card too

THAT FUCKING INFECTED IN THE BATHROOM SCARED THE FUCKING SHIT OUT OF ME MY SOUL LEFT MY BODY OH MY GOD

so many fucking side quests oml what do you mean “barko’s”

oh my god there are so many fucking alleyways to go down

THERE’S SO MUCH TO DO I AM SO BUSY FINDING SECRETS AND STUFFS

BARKO’S LOCATED

it’s too dark in here i don’t like it

“they think we’re sheep! BARE YOUR FANGS.” what in the fuckin trump train “sHeEpLe” is goin on in here

i feel like i’m gonna get fucking jumped by infected again in here

THIGH HOLSTER ACQUIRED

omg plz “we can get a little creature to take care of” AND THEN THEY HAVE A FARM AT THE END😭😭😭

STUN BOMB ACQUIRED

i have already spent 2 hours in this fucking QZ holy shit

i just wanna explore rn i don’t wanna progress story atm

i am secret hunting

ANUTHA CARD BABYYY WEST GATE 2

it doesn’t even look like i’ve done that much😭

i also have a bad feeling about this bank

oh fuck this shit. it goes underground

they are ALWAYS underground bro

dina this is not cool, this is scary

i don’t fucking trust this shit

HOW DID I FUCKING KNOW

infected or whateva🙄

SHOTGUN ACQUIRED

FUCK this bank dude i’m GONE

dina said she’d get a farmhouse with the money😭😭

okay i think i’m gonna stop here bc it is literally 5am and i am sleepy haha. no story! but got some goodies and secrets out of the way! i will continue maybe tomorrow? not sure bc i am quite busy but we’ll see!

having a really good time so far and i love watching ellie and dina’s dynamic! still lots of buildings and secrets to loot! i’m excited >:)

[the-firebird69]

Trump to build office in Jupiter amid New York fraud, bond fight (palmbeachpost.com)

Some reason these guys feel like they can hide as women. and they've done tons of crimes, but the women get killed for what they've done. And it's not safe at all because they don't want you to have armies, and they make armies. And you're trying to go after them for their bodies, and they're going to kill you themselves. And it does happen. All it happens every day here. Another thing that's going to happen is people going to see this code. that the **** is trying to build a new office at its golf course. That's part of it. But it has gross meaning that he's trying to take over my body for some reason.. So he wants to be going for my guest in serving to slave That's what a lot of people think. That's quite a freaking lateral move. No, shut up. You more, huh? It says you'll survive with your act. It's a way to be a loser. OK. Joel Watts.. But this is about the renovation, and it's coming up. And regardless of his threats on me and attempts because there's a lot of people who have a plan to do that, they build a lot of buildings in cities that have my name and streets and all over the world is probably 5000 of them in Florida. right now. And they all have these gentle analogies. It's weird to get rid of you idiots. Tell the truth It is a way. It's a vehicle. It's gross, but effective and needs to be deployed The other side of it, because that's why I'm doing it is to just get rid of them So my guys are seeing it. It's not some kind of motif thing. It's just to put them in the ground. They're sick and they don't do anything. They don't know how to counter any of the next stuff. They don't know what it is. And so on. And they admit it and want us to do the job. We're doing the job and we're taking care of you and we're taking your territory and stuff because you admit you don't know **** And it turns out to be true. And you want to abuse the **** out of me and go along in my plan as me. And it's really what the Max are doing. It's it's horrendously stupid. But it does get rid of you idiots. And that's a fine job at it too. You're threatening society. You're threatening humanity. You're threatening factories in production and basic necessities And now you're threatening the. head honchos. Long range plan. and saying they're doing it. They'll do it partially. Then you say you're doing it and you're just a nut case. They're going to get rid of it. So are we.. But the point is, it's a renovations are planned. and they applied for permitting. That's what I know to play..

Dickless wonder. Here, a dime a dozen, he says. And that's my husband, Zeus And I'd say this. That's very gross. And he's under duress and he understands it. And we're going to handle it And it's coming up pretty soon. You lose these fleets, and they're freed up. And Brian will no longer use you as a distraction. Pushover And they're going to come for you. Trump, finally, And it's gonna be all over. And I hear that some ships are heating up. Change.

Hera

They make problems with everything these idiots. And we're gonna make problems with everything for them. Coming up shortly. Now, there is a renovation plan, and it is for Mar a lago, and that is the castle of and I'm vlad the impaler. It's not that particular castle is not true. It's the same castle. And Tommy F wants the castle and is gonna. fight Trump and Mac Daddy too. That's why it's not really happy about being there. And We might actually change it. even though our son had something to do with building it, it's still Dave and Carol. And we could actually do that. by beating up the Max and it's a goal It'll be his. Now I like the plan better. and we will have the other castle somewhere so they can look at it. What they do to their leaders and helpful people. But this renovation is starting and they're all fighting over this castle. And yeah, he can't go into the old one. It says allergies.. And they're willing to kill each other, thinking that's the plan. And they're idiots That is a stupid thing. But it's starting up this coming month. And they're all getting excited about it. And he says go out there and get rid of yourself. We don't accept that kind of behavior We'll just get rid of you here. And I don't really know how dumb they are. No one in that stupid would. This fence in their zombies and putting in gear our plan. there. And we have to and it's going to be more challenging that. we can't hide our heads like these people. They get very beat by doing it. They got very beat by doing it. So that is in September. They will begin. around the 20th will. start renovating and what they're doing is moving houses out. to install new condominiums and houses and apartments including Mar a Lago, which is very illegal.. And the other day, our son said to Trump, you're trying to be a dead man. because his brother's dead for the most part, unless someone revives him. But he's saying, I guess you're right. And he thought about and said, boy, that's gross.. We have a lot of stuff to do, but that is coming up this month..

---= Along with that. Trump is prepping his three encircled fleets in space. They have a plan, part of them, about a third would go to Venus and 3/4 tried to get to Earth. And they'll use each other as something. And they're trying to get ready to heat up. heat up and they are preparing to do so. And then they're saying to wait till it heats up and it already is. The fleets are trying to get here and. the pseudo empire is Embroiled. in space, they are fighting the Mack Morlock and some. others the clone fleets. and also some minority Morlock. Believe it or not, in some miscellaneous and they're fighting to get here. and they're getting beat up very badly and the pseudo empire are taking ships. promising to pay them back for their little battle. and they will And really, trump is annoying our son right now. And our son says, I can't wait till you die. And for you to think anything else is absurd. You're such a huge ****. Those two things are very positive. No, they're going to happen. And the second. one is positive because we'll get rid of the fleets. and Hera likes it.

---= There's a couple other things The cloud from. the Charlotte Park. is forming It'll be up here probably at 5AMA little early. The wind is blowing northwards at this time. And the cloud is in the tip of Florida is building up now too. And the winds change this hour. And it will be about 1.9 rad here for about 45 minutes.. Most of you cannot stand. one rad for more than 20 minutes. And you begin to get sick. This is gonna make you sick. and it will print. our son a little. permeate and it will help. And it's an increase. and it will decrease the elder layer. from 85% to 80%.. And it's good. It's got to work so. Freya. Olympus. Thor.

[agentnico]

The Suicide Squad (2021) Review

This may be the better of the two, but the first Suicide Squad film will always hold the crown for managing to win an Oscar... somehow.

Plot: The government sends the most dangerous supervillains in the world -- Bloodsport, Peacemaker, King Shark, Harley Quinn and others -- to the remote, enemy-infused island of Corto Maltese. Armed with high-tech weapons, they trek through the dangerous jungle on a search-and-destroy mission, with only Col. Rick Flag on the ground to make them behave.

“So that’s it, huh? We’re some kind of suicide squad?” says Will Smith in the original first film, with the line in itself being a poor attempt at a fourth wall break, yet, that movie never reached that promise of being a true Suicide Squad film. Because hardly anyone died, and as a whole David Ayer’s film was a generic mess, regardless of studio interference or not. In comes James Gunn from Marvel, who seems to have cracked the code for how to bring this comic book series to live action in proper gratuitous form, with even the ‘The’ in the title symbolizing that this is the one!

I remember going to see the first Guardians of the Galaxy film at the cinema, and back then I was still only just getting acquainted with watching western media, and that included superhero films. Heck my first ever Marvel movie was Thor: The Dark World! I know, what a banger to start with.......NAAAWT!! Anyway, I went to see Guardians and it was one of the first superhero films I came out of feeling like I truly witnessed something special. It had action, comedy and a good heart to it, and wouldn’t you know, my good old pal James Gunn was behind that flick. I don’t know why I called him my good old pal, I don’t even know the fella. Except in my dreams, but we don’t talk about that. So, flashforward to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, which I absolutely hated, and for that movie I’m pretty sure Marvel gave Mr Gunn mostly full reigns of creative freedom, as long as he kept it family friendly, and the result was a mess. Hence naturally now I was really sceptical when James Gunn ended up at Warner Bros. following the controversial moment when cancel culture decided to aim it’s slimy fingers at him, as he was given directing and writing duties for this new The Suicide Squad film, and also it was heavily insinuated that Warner Bros. basically told him he could do with the movie whatever the f*** he wanted, excuse my French. And we remember how it panned out last time when James Gunn was given a lot of creative freedom. 

Flashforward to present day; here I am wondering and scratching my head thinking what in the heavens has happened, as by golly I am happy to report that The Suicide Squad is a total winner and a blast with a capital B - Blast! Gosh goodness golly goblin, this movie is so much fun from beginning to end. Right from the opening sequence you know that this film isn’t holding back any punches. It’s going at a 447.19 km/h speed of a Koenigsegg Agera RS crashing through any barriers like it’s nothing. Speaking of the opening sequence, it establishes why the movie is called what it’s called from the get-go. You straight away are proven how not a single character is safe, minus the obvious one that we know who it is, as there ain’t no way Warner Bros. would have allowed James Gunn to kill off that one character. But besides that person, everyone else feels like they could die at any given moment. That’s really a big charm of it, as it is frustrating how in many superhero films, let alone any blockbuster action flicks, so many characters always feel so safe and unstoppable, no matter how many times they get shot or how many buildings crash down upon them. And yes, this movie features a certain CGI character that constantly gets that treatment and survives, although it’s very self aware in that regard and is purposefully humoristic. But overall the entire set of characters feel easily disposable, and so so many of them die in such gruesome fashion, so indeed don’t get attached, as they don’t. 

Speaking of which, this movie is hardcore gory! You see limbs and intestines flying round left and right, a guy gets ripped in half by a humanoid shark, another’s face gets teared off by a shotgun bullet and so on forth in all kinds of gruesome fashion. Visually this is one for the big screen, as here’s the thing: you’re either a mummy’s boy or you grow some cojones and go see a man’s heart get stabbed with a piece of debris glass in 4K high rate definition! Your choice! Oh, and it’s not just the violence, also the cinematography and the practical set pieces all look incredible. This is easily James Gunn’s best looking movie. The entire think LOOKS incredible!

We also have to talk about the cast, as they are all great! There literally isn’t a single weakling among them. Each one, no matter how big or small their role is, brings something to the table. I can’t talk about all of them, as we’d be here all day, so I’m simply going to mention a few of the stand-outs. Idris Elba comes in to replace Will Smith as a character called Bloodsport, who is in some ways a different character but evidently is a replacement of Smith’s. But that’s no bad thing, as with any ensemble movie you still need a main character to latch onto and have an emotional hook towards, and he is that character. In fact, I’d say he’s arguably better than Will Smith in the last movie, or at least he seems to be having more fun here. He works as a solid leading man, however what works even more is his banterous competitive genital-size-measuring back and forth with John Cena’s Peacemaker, who by the way is awesome as that character. He is not a good character, in fact he is as bad as a bad guy can get, especially cause he’s someone who believes that what he is doing is right, making him much more of a dangerous wild card. This is easily John Cena’s best role, with him adding to the comedy one-liners, but also delivering such an interesting character who I’m looking forward to seeing more of in his standalone spin-off show confirmed for next year. Oh, and he wears a toilet helmet on his head which he defines as “a beacon of freedom” which says it all. We also have returning characters from the last film Joel Kinnaman and Viola Davis as Rick Flag and Amanda Waller respectively, and both are given much more room to stretch their talents and spread their beautiful acting wings like the Hollywood angels that they are. Kinnaman’s Rick Flag is the moral compass of the group, as even though Elba is our main guy, he’s nonetheless a villain still, whilst Flag is a genuinely good guy and what is defined as a true American hero, to which Kinnaman fits the part well. And Viola Davis as Amanda Waller is on an absolutely different level. You can tell she’s an Academy Award winner through and through, as she plays such a serious character in an otherwise goofy movie, and so her presence is felt and it is felt BAD! She’s such a despicable yet intimidating personality and she gravitates all of the screen presence to herself. Margot Robbie returns as Harley Quinn, and she gets even more chance to develop this character that she’s played in multiple DCEU films now, and as per usual the Harley Quinn shtick works well for her, though I do kind of wish she didn’t always get all the attention. Look, I think she’s a fun character and Robbie plays her well, however she’s constantly used to overshadow others in these films which I don’t think is too fair, and its evident as ever in this film too. Anyway, the remainder of the cast including Jay Courtney as Captain Boomerang, David Dastmalchian as Polka-Dot Man, Michael Rooker as Savant, Nathan Fillion as TDK, Daniela Melchior as Ratcatcher 2 (who gave me strong A Plague Tale: Innocence vibes) and many more all play villains, but villains that don’t have particularly great superpowers. This is where the tragedy of Task Force X as a team plays a part, as many of these villains aren’t even good at being villains. They are useless, and the movie is really self aware of this and so treats all characters as they should be. Dare I also not forget to mention the CGI characters in this film, with both Weasel and King Shark being absolute scene stealers! 

The Suicide Squad is the type of wham-bam-thank-you-mam batshit crazy entertainment which exists for the pure reasons of fun. It doesn’t set out to be the best superhero film ever, nor does it need to be. It’s an exhilarating, shocking, funny and amusing ride from beginning to end, with the energy never stopping, and is easily the best time I’ve had with a comic-book film in a long while, and I’m even talking about before COVID! Do yourself a favour and watch this one as soon as you can, as I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - The Suicide Squad is a BLAST!!

Overall score: 9/10

[slutsofren]

Danger Days Chapter 2: Kill All Your Friends

missed chapter 1? read here!

summary: things get thrown for a bit a loop at the dam when two strangers appear, revealing to be Joel, Tommy's younger brother and a young girl. their presence makes things a little tense but soon gets heated as danger follows them to thr power plant.

word count: 3,352

read on ao3 here

warnings: slight cursing, guns and well, canon-typical murder, hunter attack

notes: does anybody else look at joel and just wanna,,,, punch him in the face with kisses? just because he deserves it? no? only me? 

Humid. It was always fucking humid. The lot of you have been out at the dam for nearly a week with little to be shown as progress. Things in Jackson were doing fine, wonderful even, and then the power went out. Turns out one of the turbines busted, it’s taken you and the whole group working day and night to repair it.

You leaned against the wall, taking in the greenery that was slowly encompassing the whole hydroelectric dam. It was rather beautiful. You glanced over to David, one of the few engineers from the old world, was hunched over the table mumbling softly to himself looking over a rather poorly drawn map of the turbines, trying to figure out what was going wrong. Then glanced to the far side of the courtyard where Tommy and Maria were, both engrossed in some tense conversation. 

Whatever they were whisper-arguing about wasn’t going to be any of your business… until Maria finds you later on to vent at least. A little push off the wall and you grabbed your rifle before swinging it onto your back, groaning that your little break was probably over by now. Today you had guard duty. How fun.

You approached the duo, hoping to simmer down whatever was going on between them, likely both were stressed beyond hell for the turbine to come back on. Maria saw you first and put her hand on her face, rubbing away some tension. She said your name and pulled you into a half hug and you didn’t miss the small thanks she whispered in your ear for interrupting.

“Goin’ back on duty, want me to keep near the front gate?”

Maria nodded, “Sounds good. I’ll follow you in a minute.”

Tommy looked at you and gave you a friendly smile. Although you were casual friends with the man long before you met Maria, he knows where your loyalties lie but also knows you have his back on the field. When you first arrived at Jackson, bloodied and bruised, Maria didn’t trust you as far as she could have tossed you, but as things go, you both wormed into the others hearts through sheer sarcasm and your ‘take no shit’ attitude.

That’s when Tommy knew he was fucked being the only person between the two of you.  

You left and went to go to your post, fanning out the jean jacket you were wearing to help relieve the humidity on your skin. The entrance to the hydroelectric dam was hellbent on attracting unwanted attention. For the near week you’ve been out here you had two bandit attacks, not to mention the ones back at Jackson, causing you to feel even stickier.

You found a spot up top the entrance to keep an eye out through the scope of your rifle, not noticing anything for another couple of hours, Maria not even coming by to her post. Just as you were going to call your shift, you noticed some slight movement across the concrete jungle of the remains of the power plant.

And some more movement.

Then more.

You grabbed your radio and phoned in, “Activity to the east. Two spotted.” The radio clicked and produced static until another click sounded.

Maria called back, “Eyes.”

“Noted. Out.”

With that, you knew exactly what to do. Everybody did. When it came down to it, nobody really did want a gunfight. When the code ‘eyes’ is spoken, it means shut up and watch. If the people pass, they go on their merry way. If they don’t, well, they typically don’t leave alive if they so much as hint at being a threat.

It’s unfortunate this is the way life is now but who are you to fight the changing tides.

You peek through your scope again, watching a dark haired man and a smaller woman work their way through the maze, figuring out how to cross the water. You took your eyes off the scope and began to watch them without the tool until they both began pushing at the gate. You grumble, “Contact made.”

Maria pops in behind you on your left and together you two and two more of the on duty guards on the other end of the gate point your rifles at the duo, revealing yourselves. The man doesn’t take notice until the girl points a gun at your companions then you and he backs off the entrance.

“Don’t even think about drawing your weapon! Tell the girl to drop hers. Now,” Maria shouts besides you.

The man backs up a couple steps, sticking his hand out to the girl, “Ellie, so as the lady says.”

She looks at him and puts her arms up in surrender, “Okay.”

Maria, still holding her rifle at the two strangers, says to the man, “Please tell me you're lost.”

“We didn’t know the place was occupied, we’re just trying to make our way through,” he points through the gate.

“Through to where?”

Then a deep voice picks up, “They're alright.”

You and Maria look away from the two down to the voice, seeing Tommy approaching the gate. “What, you know these people,” Maria asks him.

“I know him,” Tommy grumbles as he opens the gate, “He’s my goddamn brother.”

Oh.

You’d heard stories of the man before, of Joel Miller. From what Tommy has said before you recalled that the man was a bit of a brute, shut off from everybody after losing his daughter. He was a hunter and did some goddamned awful things in this world but quite frankly, who hasn’t? You know you have in the past to ensure your survival. It was something Tommy hated that his brother participated in but you couldn’t blame him, not after the shit you’ve seen and done.

Joel looked at his brother and his shoulders slumped, “Tommy.”

“Holy shit,” he said and moved past the safety of the gates and went straight to Joel, wrapping his arms around him.

“How you doin’, baby brother?”

Maria shot you a look that clearly stated she didn’t trust the man, despite being her brother-in-law, she heard the same stories you did. The man was a hunter, a murderer, even a smuggler. The very kind of people that don’t bode well with Jackson. With a sigh, you both put down your rifles and headed down to the gate to meet Joel and the girl, Ellie. She walked right up to the two men and you could faintly hear Tommy say, “You got fuckin’ old.”

“Easy - it’s gonna happen to you too,” Joel quipped.

Tommy took a step back, you watched how he shuffled on his feet and introduced Maria. “Be nice to her, she sorta runs things around here.”

“Ma’am.” Joel nods his head towards her. “Thanks for not blowing my head off.”

You roll your eyes at this from where you’re watching this all unfold, internally gagging at Joel’s whole ‘southern charm’ bit. Although he should be more grateful to you for not shooting him. Maria looks at Tommy beside her, “Would’ve been embarrassing, considering you’re my brother-in-law.”

An amused smile immediately hits your lips as you watch Joel try to absorb that information. He looks between the couple a few times before Tommy says, “We all gotta get wrangled up at some point.”

Maria turns to you and you lose the smile as she extends a hand for you to approach. “And this here is my second in command,” introducing you to Joel by giving him your first name and he nods his head, both of you deciding to not say a word to each other, silently sizing the other up. His eyes don’t leave yours but for a brief moment you swear his eyes flash down your body and back up as he lets out a low huff.

Oh, it’s on old man, you think.

Maria chuckles, noticing whatever the hell is happening between you two, and she turns towards the girl. “Ellie, right? What brings you through here?”

Ellie looks towards Joel for guidance, “Uh… it’s kind of a long story.”

Tommy immediately notices all the other eyes and ears watching this interaction unfold and puts his hand on Maria’s back, picking up the clear signal for some privacy. “Why don’t we bring ‘em inside?”

“Yeah, you hungry,” she asks Ellie.

“Starving,” the girl groans. You smile a bit, feeling pretty amused at this whole thing. From the stories you’ve been told about Joel it seemed very unlikely he’d be traveling with a companion, much less a child.

Tommy steps aside as you walk back through the gate first, Maria and Ellie behind you. “False alarm. They're friendlies,” you shout, walking further in the power plant leading the group. You take a quick glance around at the other scouts on shift, watching them watch the newcomers. Everybody was on edge, everybody was wary. The fact Tommy and Maria were letting some strangers in, in the midst of repairing an essential component to Jackson functioning properly, was not going past anybody.

You can hear Maria as she explains the stares and the heavily armed posts to Joel somewhere behind you, “We’ve been dealing with raids. Lots of bandits in this area.”

“It’s been quiet for a few days,” Tommy adds on, explaining why they answered at the gate so aggressively, as if it was any consolation of almost killing his brother and the girl.

“What the hell are you doing here? I thought I’d find you in Jackson.”

“Been trying to bring the plant back to life,” Tommy explains.

This time you chime in, “We had it working before, but one of the turbines went south about a week ago. Been tryin’ to fix it up.”

Tommy adjusts his rifle on his shoulder. “We have electricity Joel… had. We’ll get it running again.”

Ellie runs past you, approaching a few of the horses. “No way! You guys have horses.”

“We got a whole lot of ‘em,” Tommy tells her. You watch as she puts her hand on the brown and white one, petting it softly.

Beside the horse is Cherry, one of the few horse wranglers in Jackson, she was kind and sweet, pretty young too all things considered. She was tall and bulky from years of shoving heavy loads of hay, sometimes you’d wonder what it’d be like to get tossed around by her. She’s kind of notorious for winning hand-to-hand combat scenarios in the training hall. Not that you ever went.

Cherry tells Ellie about the horse and they get to talking about the animal. You also hear Charlie over your shoulder asking Tommy for help with one of the iron shoes on another horse. You take a few steps back then marching towards the warehouse, settling against the wall next to Earl and he gives you a brief nod acknowledging you. He’s sweet, you think, you’ve never spoken to him much but you recall he’s one of the maintenance men around Jackson. Thankfully he’s the silent type and you don’t have to try and make polite small talk with him.

As you both lean against the wall quietly, you begin watching both Ellie and Joel and how they’re assessing the environment. Ellie seems very excited petting the horse and talking to Cherry but Joel looks on edge, mirroring everyone else. He catches you staring and looks away slowly, now watching Ellie talk to Cherry about going riding later on.

Maria and Tommy make their way towards you and you push off, walking up the stairs and opening the door, you faintly hear Maria talk to Earl about heading back to Jackson. The door creaks open and you let Tommy, Joel, Ellie, then Maria into the warehouse until both your and Maria’s radios crackle. “Maria, we’re in the control room. Steve’s about to start it back up. Do you wanna come check it out?”

Maria sighs and mumbles back to you, “I’d rather eat with Ellie.”

You stifle a bit of a laugh at her candor in front of the others and Tommy interjects, “It’s my turn anyway. I’ll go.”

Joel then volunteers to go with his brother, telling Ellie to go with you and Maria but not before flashing you a look that says something akin to ‘try something and I’ll hunt you’.

Before Ellie could protest, Maria pulls her along. “C’mon, Ellie. Let’s give the boys some space.”

The three of you are relatively quiet leading back to the office room where the food was. Ellie kept looking over her shoulder, likely for Joel. You started wondering how he came across her, doubting any possibility she was his daughter. Tommy would have known if that were the case.

You gave a look over at Ellie, now seeing her a little closer. She looks slightly gaunt, likely hasn’t eaten in a few days you suspect which worries you a bit. No kid should have to go without.

“When was the last time you ate,” you ask her.

She ponders for a moment, “Before we got here I was pretty sure that the next squirrel I saw I was gonna eat.”

You and Maria raised your eyebrows at her admission before gently laughing as you reached the room. Maria pulls out some jars of fruit and a container of jerky from underneath and hands it to her, “Here, eat some of this. We have better options back in Jackson but while we don’t have a full service kitchen out here, this is the best we got.”

“That’s okay! I’ll eat almost anything at this point,” she openly admits. You take notice in how expressive she is, likely warming up to you and Maria now.

The three of you get to talking, making idle chatter over a few opened mason jars and a hefty supply of jerky. The more you talk with Ellie, the more you grow to like her. She’s got a mouth of a sailor and sarcasm that’d turn any old man running. 

Wonder if she’s annoyed the hell out of Joel, you muse. Now you sit, chewing on fruit and imagining how easy it’d be to get under his skin. You’re torn out of your thoughts when the lights suddenly turn on, “Thank the damned stars! I’m ready to get out of here. Everybody is driving me up the wall.”

Maria throws a loose grape at you, “Thanks a lot, asshole.”

“Anytime,” you wink.

“How long have you two known each other,” Ellie asks you both. 

You pop a piece of fruit in your mouth, “Just two years. She was already married to Tommy when I arrived.”

“Can’t believe you’re married to his brother,” Ellie groans. “Joel is such a grump, can’t imagine how the other one is.”

Maria nods and smiles, still eating some of the peaches. “Oh, trust me. Some days I want to strangle him. Didn’t expect to ever meet Joel, if I’m bein’ honest.”

“I couldn’t recognize him, not even by that photo,” you say mindlessly, reaching for your canteen and drinking water.

Ellie picks her head up a little more, “Photo? What photo?”

Maria gets up from her seat and walks to one of the duffle bags in the other room, she searches around before she pulls out a photo and when she returns, hands it to Ellie. She gestures to you, “Her and Tommy went down to Texas about a year ago, he wanted to see what was left of his and Joel’s old life and scavenge what they could.”

“We didn’t find much,” you continue, “Tommy didn’t think he’d ever see his brother again, it was like his way of saying goodbye so he took this photo of him and a couple others.”

“Who’s the girl,” Ellie asks looking at the picture.

“Sarah.” You shift in your seat, not feeling entirely comfortable with this conversation anymore. 

Maria finishes your sentence, “She was his daughter. She didn’t survive very long after the outbreak.”

Before you could try to steer the conversation in another direction, a loud siren echoed through the hall as shouts filled the warehouse.

“Bandits,” someone shouted as gunshots rang out.

You stand up and push Ellie behind you, looking for your rifle. It was too far away, tucked under one of the abandoned desks. “Fuck,” you shout as you see a handful of hunters enter the room.

Drawing the two handguns strapped to your thighs, you begin to take shots at them, not exactly hitting them where it was vital but enough to make them stumble and drop. Maria grabs you by the shoulder, “Let’s go!”

You retreat backwards into the closed off manager-type office and from the corner of your eye you see a man rise from the other side of a broken window and take aim at Ellie behind you. You whipped around and shoved against her with an ‘oof’ just as you hear something whizz past you and hit the wall above the two of you.

Hovering above Ellie, you keep her head down with your right hand, abandoning the gun beside her as you and Maria take alternating shots at the invaders. “Move, Ellie,” you tell her, lifting yourself up to give her room to maneuver into the office while shielding her.

Maria shuffles into the room after you and the girl, “There’s more coming in. We can’t take all of them.”

“Shit, okay,” you look around frantically. You were running low on bullets now, the rest of your spare ammunition was left in your backpack. In an entirely different area. Your eyes searched around the small room and you got Maria’s attention, together you pulled a nearby table into the office, barricading yourselves. 

“Under the table, now,” she yells at Ellie then looks at you.“Guess we’ll have to wait for the men to save us,” she says a little bitterly.

Together, the three of you hid. Waiting for the echo of bullets to cease after what feels like a lifetime.

Faintly, you could hear the familiar voice of Tommy yelling and a gruff one responding, likely his brother. You released the breath you had been holding onto as the last gunshot rang out. Between you and Maria, Ellie had her hands over her ears and she slowly lowered them until jumping up and shouting “They’re all dead!”

Maria rose to her feet as Tommy and her called out for each other, “The kid’s with us!” She jumps out the shattered window and runs to her husband as they check over each other.

You help Ellie out the office room the same way and Joel looks over her the same way as she recalls the attack.  “Joel, oh, man…,” Ellie begins talking so fast that she’s out of breath. “They were coming in from every direction and they were both like ‘we gotta run’ and so we dove over these tables and this huge guy blasts in with a shotgun-”

“Slow down, slow down. Listen-,” Joel cuts her off. He puts his hands on her shoulders and looks her in the eye, “Hey, hey, are you hurt?”

“No!” She looks at you, “She protected me!”

Joel follows her gaze and you look him in the eye, cocking an eyebrow at him. 

You’re not really competitive, you don’t really like attention either, but there was something about Joel fuckin’ Miller that really got to you. Maybe it was the way he seemed to be mindful of everything, maybe it was the way his eyes roamed over your body, maybe it was the fact he was unfortunately making you squirm where you stood as his hardened glare seemed to see right through you, asking you to try him.

Whatever it was, his hardened stare made you quiver ever so slightly. You took a few very mindful steps away from the man, walking towards Maria and Tommy when you caught the tail end of whatever he was saying to your best friend, “- to talk.”

It seemed like that was not what Maria wanted to hear as her already pale face grew paler and her signature scowl etched back across her face.

[scottymcgeesterwrites]

10 Underrated Movies of the 2010s

1. John Carter (2012)

Before Snow White and the Seven Dwarves was even produced in 1937, Disney was considering producing an adaptation of Edgar Rice Burrough’s A Princess of Mars as Disney’s first animated film. During its pre-production stage, producers weren’t quite receptive to the concept. The story was about a man being transported to Mars, where its gravity gave him super powers, and he fought with four-armed green-skinned aliens. Back then, space ideas were the last things on people’s minds in the ‘30’s. They wanted something uplifting from The Great Depression. Disney didn’t quite scrap the story; they shelved it for later and decided to go with Snow White and the Seven Dwarves as Disney’s (and the world’s) first feature-length animated movie. John Carter holds the award for the movie with the longest time spent in “development hell”. For the next 75 years, different directors and producers would try to bring back the classic tale of daring-do on the planet Mars. Growing up reading Edgar Rice Burrough’s novels, I was enthralled to hear that they finally produced a live-action film to be released on 2012 – and it was even near my birthday! March of 2012 marked 100 years since Edgar Rice Burroughs published A Princess of Mars. It was like all the stars were truly aligned for something great. The movie finally came out and it . . . didn’t do well at all. It’s also notable for being one of the most expensive movies ever made – and it was all for nothing. What happened? Most of you reading this may even be unaware of the hero John Carter or A Princess of Mars. I find that the main issue was the problem of John Carter being largely unknown because it has been long overshadowed by Flash Gordon, Superman, Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, and literally everything else that owes its inspiration to John Carter. Superman got its concept of gravity-granting superpowers from John Carter. Flash Gordon got its human-on-another-planet heroics from John Carter. Star Wars derived nearly everything from Flash Gordon. The domino effect goes on. The further you go, the more people forget the original inspiration, and we live in a world now where people don’t really care about who did it first, but who did it best.

There’s a particular scene in the movie John Carter where the titular hero has to fight monsters in an arena. Many critics were bored of the scene, claiming they saw it already in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones; which is ironic being that the arena scene was written almost a full century before Attack of the Clones. Scantily clad Carrie Fisher in Return of the Jedi? That’s a Deja Thoris reference from A Princess of Mars.

It can be difficult to judge a movie or story by itself aside from other derivative works. When that source material is some obscure adventure tale that is literally older than World War I, you should realize that probably not a lot of people have heard about it nowadays.

The film suffers from two other major points: the runtime and the combination of books one and two of Burrough’s original trilogy. A Princess of Mars is a rather simple tale of a man saving a princess on Mars. Its sequel, The Gods of Mars, goes into more complex matters as the evil Therns are revealed as a group of mysterious aliens controlling all culture and life on Mars for their benefit. The movie John Carter tries to combine the two, and I see why. Modern audiences are uninterested in seeing another adventure tale about a guy saving a princess. Ironically, that would have worked much better in the 1930’s, but the Disney board at the time was like, “Space? What’s that? Mars? What’s this newfangled spaceship business?” John Carter ultimately had the unfortunate and unique experiences of being both too ahead and too dated for its time.

I still highly recommend it because the production value is amazing and it’s still highly entertaining. The score is fantastic (Michael Giacchino), and the performances are great, albeit with some cheesy dialogue. The screenwriters added more depth to the character of John Carter that really pulls some heartstrings, especially during one particular scene where he’s bashing hundreds of aliens to a pulp.Unfortunately, the poor performance of John Carter prevented its sequel and the planned trilogy from ever being produced. At the end of the day, I’m still content with seeing the world’s very first space adventure that ultimately inspired Star Wars finally put on screen. 2. Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

I was frankly surprised when nobody else cared about a Solo movie coming out. Having read A.C. Crispin’s Han Solo Trilogy when I was a kid and having overall grown up loving the character, I thought ANY Star Wars fan would be pumped. That was the issue right away before the movie even hit theaters – Nobody. Fucking. Cared. The previous year’s Last Jedi left a sour, divisive taste in the Star Wars fandom. Toxic fans threw their hands in uproar and an entire debacle unseen since the prequel trilogy exploded. Like with Jake Lloyd in The Phantom Menace, fans had continually harassed and bullied Kelly Marie Tran for playing Rose to the point where she quit Instagram. YouTube videos nearly 30 minutes long were dedicated to bashing the film and “SJW culture” and “virtue signaling”. The entire debacle was a nightmare that makes me shudder to even think about. It was like everyone was tired of Star Wars by the next year. Some people like to say that “Star Wars fatigue” wasn’t the thing because nobody was tired of Marvel movies. I disagree. First of all, I witnessed immediate responses to people’s reactions at the trailer. They said “I don’t care” and “Why do we need that?”. Second, Star Wars and Marvel are two completely different universes. Marvel has a nearly infinite range of various stories with various atmospheres and moods and characters. One Marvel fan can “specialize” in Doctor Strange while another mostly loves Thor. Star Wars follows the same group of characters over the same damn story that we’ve already known for the past 42 years. Like John Carter, Solo had the same problem by being too confident and throwing too much money into its production. Solo also happens to be on the list of the most expensive movies ever made. Its poor performance and inability to make a return on the total costs scrapped the possibility of any more future standalone Star Wars films. Further dissections of why it didn’t work out vary. Some people hate the droid L3-37 and claim unnecessary SJW content. I disagree with that too. In my rulebook, something in a story is not unnecessary unless it proves crucial to the plot; L3-37 is the reason why the Kessel Run worked. Were it not for her fanatic desire of starting a droid revolution, Han wouldn’t have survived. The idea of revolution is also crucial and foreshadows the coming Rebel Alliance. I wonder if people would have had the same reaction to L3-37 if the movie had been released years before the current political situation; if we would have just seen her as a cool, kooky and rebellious droid instead. Solo: A Star Wars Story reveals that Han has always been around instances of rebellion, which he has tried to ignore. It isn’t until A New Hope that he finally gives in for good. I honestly don’t see why some people say it doesn’t fit with A New Hope when it clearly does. One of my favorite parts is when Q’ira tells Han, “I know who you really are.” From the trailer, you would expect her to say “A scoundrel.” But in the film, she says, “The good guy.” The film cements the idea that Han has always tried to look and act cool but deep down he gives in to doing the right thing, which separates him from the other scoundrels at the cantina. It’s because of this adventure that he ends up helping to blow up the Death Star later on. Also, like John Carter, the score is absolutely fantastic. I could go on about it but that would derail the topic for another time. 3. The Gift (2015)

I ended up seeing this movie on a whim by myself after someone bailed on me at the last minute to hang out. I had nothing to do but wanted to do something and checked what was playing in theaters at the time at my local theater. The synopsis hadn’t told me enough about what was really going on while at the same time enticing me. Jason Bateman though really surprised me in this role.I really don’t want to give anything away other than what you can find on the basic synopsis. Jason Bateman is married to Rebecca Hall and the two share a completely content life, until an old school friend of Jason’s starts visiting them. Joel Edgerton plays the school friend, and it’s quite amazing that he both wrote and directed this film too. 4. Prisoners (2013)

This movie was great – and absolutely nobody talks about it. I recall wanting to see a movie with my mom around fall of that year. We realized there was really nothing interesting in theaters. It was a lull where there was nothing really interesting playing. No blockbusters and no Oscar buzz. We chose Prisoners solely based on the fact that we like Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal, and I guess we also gathered the general sense that it was a mystery.I became glued to the screen during the entire movie. The story revolves around Hugh Jackman’s daughter supposedly abducted by Paul Dano, who plays a mentally ill suspect. Jake Gyllenhaal plays the detective tasked with finding the daughter. With Paul Dano being unable to articulate his thoughts, everyone is left distraught on how to solve this case. Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal take drastically different routes in trying to find the girl.Out of everything on my list of underrated films here, this was the most nail-biting. Highly recommend. That ending. Whoo. 5. Source Code (2011)

This movie is a real mindbender. It might be so much of a mindbender that it’s the reason why people didn’t talk about it more. They probably just thought, “Huh?” and wanted to rewatch the previous year’s Inception again instead.Jake Gyllenhaal is on a mission to find a bomber on a train in a computer simulation. That’s how it starts at least. . .   Another movie I probably shouldn’t explain too much, but it explored themes about a post 9/11 world and the nature of self. 6. The Big Short (2015)

This movie was a hit and then everybody forgot about it. Heck, I know a bunch of you didn’t even see it. I find this really concerning. Brought to you by the director of none other than Anchorman, Adam McKay directed a very entertaining but distressing take on the Great Recession. It has an ensemble cast of Brad Pitt, Steve Carrell, Ryan Gosling, and Christian Bale. The movie manages to translate complicated, bullshit concepts in Wall Street into layman’s terms. Every performance delivers, yes, but it was also staggeringly prophetic in what would come a year later in the 2016 election – “I have a feeling, in a few years people are going to be doing what they always do when the economy tanks. They will be blaming immigrants and poor people.” This movie should have seriously started a riot. But it didn’t. Watch it. 7. Spectre (2015)

Many Bond fans hated Spectre, and it’s often compared to the supposed high-and-mighty Skyfall. I beg to differ. Spectre brought back the fun in Bond without also resorting to the really obnoxious misogyny. The Daniel Craig era of Bond films went back to Ian Fleming’s original intention of Bond being more of a “blunt instrument” than the tongue-in-cheek action hero he came to be known in the film series. And that’s okay. But you can’t help but be bored once and a while by the recent trend of “making things gritty in the new millennium”. Spectre brought back the evil Blofeld, Bond’s nemesis. Fans hated it because this movie implies that every other Daniel Craig movie has been tied to Spectre, ruining the standalone nature of Skyfall and feeling like Spectre was a shoe-in.

This situation requires a lot of explaining, but I’ll be brief.

The creative entities of Spectre and Blofeld were tied up in a copyright battle for almost half a century. Back when Ian Fleming was still alive, he was working on a script for Thunderball with a screenwriter named Kevin McClory. Long story short, there was a dispute on who created Spectre and Blofeld – Fleming or McClory. McClory won the dispute and MGM (the producers of the Bond films) were prohibited from using the names and characters of Spectre and Blofeld.

The last time we officially saw the character in name was in 1971’s Diamonds are Forever. Blofeld made a cameo in 1981’s For Your Eyes Only but was never mentioned by name, but you knew it was Blofeld because he was always the man with the white cat. McClory did eventually make his own version of Thunderball in 1983’s Never Say Never Again, which was an unofficial Bond movie yet it still starred Sean Connery (crazy, I know).

Fast-forward to when the Daniel Craig era started in 2006 with Casino Royale. Spectre and Blofeld were still under copyright protection of McClory. Instead of using the name Spectre, the writers had to come up with another Specter-inspired evil corporation. So they came up with “Quantum”, the evil company behind the plots of Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace.

BUT THEN, the McClory estate officially settled the matter with MGM in 2013, and Spectre and Blofeld could now be used. The writers jumped on it and that’s why to some Spectre feels like it was a shoehorned at the last minute.In my opinion, Skyfall had more issues being a standalone film. The villain Silva was supposed to be working alone and yet somehow create all these elaborate, time-sensitive plots that was just too much for one man with maybe a few henchmen to pull off. In Spectre, it’s implied that Silva used Spectre’s resources to help him plan his revenge. This would realistically make more sense. After all, it’s in the name: SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion. One would go to Spectre in order to enact revenge on someone if one didn’t have the means or resources.

And the whole Quantum being a part of Spectre thing – so what? Quantum was meant to be the same thing anyway. Lastly, there is some dispute on to the nature of Blofeld’s relationship with Bond. Bond suddenly has an evil foster brother now? Some complained about it. I thought it was fine. It gives a reason for Blofeld to go out of his way to torture Bond rather than just shoot him, which is a point always parodied in Bond spoofs. So again, it actually makes sense. I thoroughly enjoyed Spectre. It was virtually not misogynist out of the new Bond films. It treated the main girl, Madeline, very well, as well as the “other” girl Lucia. Yeah, some of the action is dumb and more out of spectacle than realism. It’s still done with the same wit and style of the old Bond films. 8. Shazam! (2019)

Yeah. I get it. Everyone’s tired of the god-awful, insipid DC Cinematic Universe (except for Wonder Woman), which pales in comparison to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But Shazam! was finally a very fresh, funny, and lively DC movie. What makes it stand out to me was how it ended up revolving around the main character’s friends standing together with him, rather than just simply being an origin story of one superhero. Nothing felt like it fell flat. The humor was spot on. The action was good. You had a really pained, terrible villain. Some of the plot may be simple but it had a satisfying ending. Shazam! has the same kind of energy as Spider-man: Homecoming, but by doing its own thing and having its own theme of what a family really means. It revels in the genre by literally putting you in the shoes of a child’s wish fulfillment. 9. Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

I saw this movie on a whim on Netflix. Nobody has made any fuss about it. I think it was fantastic. It’s a quirky sci-fi comedy with Aubrey Plaza playing a newspaper reporter investigating an ad someone put in the classifieds asking for a time travel companion. She goes along with two other co-workers, played by Jake Johnson and Karan Soni (who later becomes the taxi guy in Deadpool). I have to be honest – I don’t find Jake Johnson that funny. In most things I’ve seen him in, I feel like his reactions are forced. But his deadpan deliveries in this movie are on the spot. Mark Duplass was still relatively unknown at this time, and played the oddball guy who placed the ad and firmly believes he made a time machine. The entire movie only costed $750,000! Movies today need to spend over $10 million in order to try and make something as compelling as this. This movie alone influenced the modern indie film industry by combining forces with Netflix. Maybe Netflix and chill wouldn’t have been a thing if it weren’t for this movie. 10. The Nice Guys (2016)

I saved my personal favorite for last. The Nice Guys is my favorite underrated movie that I have seen this past decade. It has everything I love in a buddy film; wit and style. Written and directed by Shane Black, this movie has some real zingers and hilarious deliveries. Ryan Gosling plays a jittery private detective, who unwillingly teams up with Russel Crowe, who beats up people for a living. The story revolves around a missing girl who is a key witness to a grander conspiracy involving the automobile industry. This is one of those movies that never fails to make me laugh. I can rewatch the same scenes over and over and still crack up with laughter. My only gripe is that the final confrontation can be a bit unrealistic at times, which can be close to breaking that border of “Okay, is this witty satire like Coen Brothers or just outright comedy sketch like The Naked Gun?” So to me it felt a little imbalanced in the last quarter. Still, the rest of the movie really hits the right marks.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

OK, I'LL TELL YOU YOU ABOUT SHOW

And being rapacious not only doesn't help you do that, but probably hurts. It seemed the essence of cool, as any writing should, by what it says, not who wrote it. And present union leaders are any less courageous. They can work on projects with an intensity in both senses that few insiders can match. Show features in an order driven by some kind of preamble. For example, correcting someone's grammar, or harping on minor mistakes in names or numbers. When you negotiate terms with a startup, it's easier for competitors too. If there's one piece of advice I would give about writing essays, it would be a mistake to talk to corp dev unless a you want to do is write checks. Not all rich people got that way from startups, of course, have to change and keep changing their whole infrastructure, because otherwise the headers would look as bad to the Bayesian filters as ever, no matter what your lifespan was.1 I say languages have to be able to filter out most present-day spam, because spam evolves.2 Someone responsible for three of the best writers would be excluded for having offended one side or the other.

He's a senator. It may work, but it feels young because it's full of rich people, it has to be better if the people with more knowledge have more power. One thing we'll need is support for the new is exactly what you want than it would take to write it yourself, then all that code is doing nothing but make your manual thick. This is now starting to happen, not to make the medicine go down. In effect, this structure gives the investor a free option on the next round, when customers compare your actual products. As I've written before, one byproduct of technical progress is that things we like tend to become more addictive. But I don't see how we could replace founders. If new ideas arise like doodles, this would explain why you have to join a syndicate, though. VCs feel they need the power that comes with board membership to ensure their money isn't wasted. Well, I suppose we'd consider it, for the average engineer, more options just means more rope to hang yourself. But the way this problem ultimately gets solved may not be an absolute rule, but it is not entirely a coincidence that the word Republic occurs in Nigerian scam emails, and also occurs once or twice in spams referring to Korea and South Africa.

I would give about writing essays, it would not. Imagine, for example. That's what you're looking for. At sixteen I was about as observant as a lump of rock. The first time I met Jerry Yang, we thought we were meeting so he could check us out in person before buying us. And the only thing you can least afford. I end up with two large hash tables, one for each corpus, mapping tokens to number of occurrences. Above all, make a habit of asking questions, especially questions beginning with Why. Microsoft, actually.3 But for obvious reasons no one wanted to give that answer. Its fifteen most interesting words are as follows: let g 2 or gethash word good 0 b or gethash word bad 0 unless g b 5 max. They're not very common, but the word madam never occurs in my legitimate email, and whatever was found on the site could be included in calculating the probability of the email being a spam, whereas sexy indicates.

But I don't think many people realize there is a significant correlation. The nature of the business means that you want to write essays at all. But their tastes can't be quite mainstream either, because they pick later, when I had time to reread them more closely. Designing systems of great mathematical elegance sounds a lot more appealing to most of us than pandering to human weaknesses. Most investors know this m. Empirically that seems to work. We often tell startups to release a minimal version one quickly, then let your mind wander is like doodling with ideas. What makes a good founder? I sat down to write them. The 20th best player, causing him not to worry about money. But they were expensive compared to what corp dev does and know they don't want to; you could just show a randomly truncated slice of life, and that would be a good painter, and b means they can supply advice and connections as well as teach.

But a competitor that managed to avoid facing it. But at most valuation caps: caps on what the effective valuation will be when the debt converts to stock at the next sufficiently big funding round. You look at spams and you think, the gall of these guys to try sending me mail that begins Dear Friend or has a subject line that's all uppercase and ends in eight exclamation points. MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, and Carnegie-Mellon? I'm talking to companies we fund? Don't be evil. It must be something you can learn. Which caused yet more revenue growth for Yahoo, and further convinced investors the Internet was worth investing in. At Rehearsal Day, one of the founders is an expert in some specific technical field, it can be good for writing server-based software, surprisingly, is continuations. But it does seem as if Google was a collaboration.4 Another big factor was the fear of Microsoft.

VCs, whose current business model requires them to invest large amounts, and a human who doesn't is doing a bad job of being human—is no better than an animal. Startup School. This kind of focus is very valuable, actually. I stopped wondering about it. A probability can of course be mistaken, but because the space of possibilities is so large. If you have any kind of data structure, like window systems, simulations, and cad programs. You can afford to be passive. What is our purpose? The author is a self-sustaining.5

Notes

A knowledge of human nature, might come from. Different kinds of content. 39 says that a their applicants come from all over, not economic inequality. Few technologies have one clear inventor.

Unless of course, but you should probably pack investor meetings with So, can I count you in a signal. If there's an Indian grocery store near you, what you have the determination myself. The closest we got to Yahoo, we should be working on such an interview, I'd open our own startup Viaweb, Java applets were supposed to be something you can describe each strategy in terms of the magazine they'd accepted it for you by accidents of age and geography, rather than risk their community's disapproval.

Companies often wonder what to outsource and what the valuation at the end of the founders realized.

Most people let them mix pretty promiscuously. Instead of the biggest successes there is one of them.

To talk to a partner, which would be possible to make a conscious effort to be evidence of a safe will be inversely proportional to the next legitimate email was a kid most apples were a handful of lame investors first, and on the other seed firms always find is that the site.

Thanks to David Sloo, Dan Friedman, Joel Lehrer, and Paul Buchheit for inviting me to speak.

[miericksongo]

i hate u, i love u (pt. 2)

under renovation

©2019-2021 Miericksongo

[elizas-writing]

We’re about 3 months away until the long anticipated release of the one, the only, the extraordinary, Kingdom Hearts III! Almost 14 years of waiting with about a dozen side games and HD re-releases are finally building up to this grand moment for video game fans. And like most other fans out there, I needed a serious catch up to remember all the convoluted lore and relive all the good times and bad with our favorite Keyblade wielders and Disney team members.

Since I don’t have all of the games on hand, much less the time to play the ones I own, I went to the wonderful world of YouTube and over the course of two months binged through about 30 hours of content, right from the very beginning! It was so much fun to relive all the series highlights, finally watch the newer content in the HD re-releases, and pick up on the little details I missed the first time around. And I thought I’d share some of the wonderful thoughts going on in my head during my binge.

Without further ado, here are Eliza’s silly but honest taglines, asides, observations, and comments of the Kingdom Hearts series!

Kingdom Hearts

The OG most ambitious crossover

I’ve been in this world for three hours and CAN’T FIND THE NEXT CHECKPOINT.

I know we jab at Chain of Memories for its awful gameplay, but I legit-erally didn’t finish the Atlantica world cause I had no idea where the fuck to go next. Even for a 2002 game, the mechanics were a nightmare sometimes.

Sometimes having every other world set up like a labyrinth is too much work than it’s worth.

Seriously, you have to talk to Aerith a million times to get Curaga. How the fuck were you supposed to know that without the Internet or a strategy guide??

Came for the bizarre mix of Disney and Final Fantasy– stayed for the characters and mildly convoluted story.

Just gonna add this in with the other “the power of friendship” crap I love.

  Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories

Worst. Fucking. Fighting. System. EVER.

You ever wonder how the board meeting went for this game?

“So it’s, like, 50% the same game again, but shitty.”

I’m here to button mash, not strategize like Magic the fucking Gathering

This is the one where all the hot villains show up, right?

Just don’t let Axel’s bad boy facade fool you. He’s a finger guns bisexual with bad dad jokes.

10/10 will steal your girlfriend, boyfriend and nonbinary significant other

Every time someone says “memory,” take a shot.

Also, are we never gonna talk about where Pluto went with that letter? Are we supposed to accept he just comes and goes however he pleases?

  Kingdom Hearts II

The best one. You can’t change my mind.

One man’s convoluted revenge scheme at the cost of, like, 5 teenagers’ mental well-beings.

I’ve only known Roxas for 6 days, but if anything happens to him, I’ll kill everyone in this room and then myself.

So Ansem wasn’t really Ansem. You see, he was this scientist’s apprentice who– aaaaaand I’m lost.

If your fandom experience at this point didn’t include calling Xemnas “Mansex” or listening to Dr. Bombay’s “My Sitar” to cope with Demyx’s 2nd boss battle, you did it all wrong.

We all made fun of Demyx for needing a notecard for his mission, but my work desk is a cluster of reminders and sticky notes, so I can’t judge anymore.

The beginning of the longest, most painful wait for a sequel.

I’m sure Haley Joel Osment is a chill dude, but who the fuck allowed him to sing?

  Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days

Area Man Tries to Balance Life Between Work, Broken Marriage, and Two Adopted Kids in Existential Crises

Spoiler Alert: It ends horribly for everyone involved

When the realization set in that he became a father

Saix being a bitch

Family drama

Seriously, Saix, the last time I saw a man this pissy about his friend spending time with someone else was The Road to El Dorado. And Tulio and Miguel were supposed to be a gay couple.

Well, that was a depressing ass backstory on why Roxas has two Keyblades

“Who am I?!”

Anyone out there still calling Xion a Mary Sue better apologize to my daughter in the next five seconds.

The Organization’s HR complaint box probably looks like a tornado blew through it…

At least they seem to have good enough health insurance since their youngest members tend to fall into month long comas.

  Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep

Remember when Xehanort was a scientist’s apprentice who went AWOL? Think again, bitch!

The point where you realize this is all just a long, cruel, brutal DnD campaign

It’s best if you just don’t get emotionally invested in any of the characters. No one has a happy ending.

How one man’s total lack of self-awareness and critical thought dooms the universe

No, seriously, I’m sorry, Terra is a massive idiot. Master Xehanort doesn’t even have to try hard to manipulate Terra; he’s just that goddamn dense and does a lot of stupid shit on his own. These are facts.

I can’t even handle the secondhand embarrassment of his Neverland visit where he thinks Peter Pan is after the light when he was guarding a literal treasure chest, like, that’s just too dumb.

I still love him and wish him a wonderful redemption, and he definitely didn’t deserve losing his friends, family and his free will, but there were so many avoidable stupid disasters if he didn’t just blindly trust the wrong people.

Terra is the physical embodiment of “I am not a clever man.”

Forget the darkness in his heart– I’m more concerned about how many worms are eating his brain.

Terra, this bitch just asked you to cut out the heart of a 14-year-old girl, and you just went “chill.” Did you already forget your last oopsie with Aurora?

Loving mother left to clean up her husband and son’s messes…. all of them…

She’s about a couple steps away from becoming a wine mom to get through this shit.

As you can see, the main difference between Ventus and Roxas is that one is a literal ray of sunshine who did nothing wrong, and the other is a mass of anxiety who says “fuck” more often than he’s allowed to.

  Kingdom Hearts: Coded

The one everyone forgets existed.

Guys, I just wanted to know what Mickey’s letter said. I didn’t ask for another whirlwind adventure.

The most outrageous excuse for a midquel, but dammit that last bit in Castle Oblivion… I’m gonna need a moment to recollect myself.

Yeah, if this bit didn’t get you emotional, get out of my house.

What do you fucking mean Xehanort isn’t fucking dead??

  Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance

Wait a minute, all Terra and Aqua had to do for their Mark of Mastery was hit some balls and spar each other. Why do Sora and Riku need to go through coma nightmares and fever dreams??

Just… just give up questioning the lore…

So Ansem the Wise made a copy of his computer, and that’s a sleeping world where Jeff Bridges exists, I– I’m done.

And if this didn’t break your heart just a little bit, we can’t be friends.

Had the potential to just be Kingdom Hearts III if Nomura wasn’t too deep in perfecting those renders

We’re gathered here today in the bonds of just a couple of guys being dudes.

But seriously, there is zero heterosexual explanation behind Sora and Riku’s Sound Ideas coming together to make “Dearly Beloved.”

So is Ienzo really gonna gloss over the fact Lea stood by while a clone sucked out his life force? … Okay…

I’m still bothered by the fact Young Xehanort and Haida from Aggretsuko have the same English voice actor, because they’re total opposite energies.

  Kingdom Hearts X [chi] Back Cover

“Traitor!”– Ben Solo-Organa, Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens

I’m surprised no one took a step back and said “Guys, maybe the Master was fucking insane and trying to dupe us all with this Book of Prophecies shit.”

I’m sorry, I can’t trust anything the guy says or does. He put his FUCKING EYEBALL IN A KEYBLADE FOR SHITS AND GIGGLES.

Not to mention, he purposefully made them keep their roles a secret from each other which made misunderstandings pile on top of each other, like, dude!

I’m sticking to the theory that there was never a traitor, and he just pulled this out of his ass for the drama of it all.

Does no one in these games sit down and talk through their problems like normal people do? Again, worms in the brains…

Friendly reminder that cute Keyblade wielder avatar you made likely died in the Keyblade War.

I have nowhere near enough time to wade through like 900 quests worth of content in an ongoing game, and I don’t know how much I’ll need for Kingdom Hearts III…

Like, apparently Ven time traveled?? The fuck??

“What’s in the box?!”

  Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep A Fragmentary Passage

If you thought that title was a mouthful, wait for the onslaught of feelings!

“The things I do for love.”– Courage, Courage the Cowardly Dog

The most beautiful and emotional game demo in the universe

I wanna eat all the rocks

I just want my wife to come home and be able to rest.

“Please, God, just let me have one good day?”

“Oh my God, you again?? Give it a rest buddy!”

Kingdom Hearts III is RIGHT there! I can see it, I can taste it, I can smell it, it’s so goddamn close that I can hear the angelic choir singing Kumbaya. I haven’t been teased this bad since BBC Sherlock series 3.

  Kingdom Hearts III (based on all current information from trailers and conventions)

You get Norted, and YOU get Norted! Everyone gets Norted!!

Impractical zippers and belts are so 2005. Now everything is about plaid and excess buttons.

“I want to see my little boy (Here he comes) I want to see my little boy!”

What is he doing? His best. Also, get a load of the detail work on his hands.

Xion and Naminé are on the box art, so they have to be in the game, BUT WHY AREN’T THEY IN THE TRAILERS YET? WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY DAUGHTERS?

“The ending is going to be difficult for fans to handle.” I’m sorry, Nomura, but I forgot how to read for a moment there and will be in a horrible state of denial for the next three months.

If you’re calling that Heartless doll your waifu, congratulations, you’d be the first to die in a horror movie.

For fuck’s sake, it’s emitting black smoke and has the penetrating eyes of death. It must be burned.

And there you have it, folks! Most every silly thought that went through my wonderful brain through my Kingdom Hearts binge! It was worth putting off many of my other shows to refresh my memory on the lore— as contrived as it is multiple times—, see all my favorite characters, relive the greatest moments, and get pumped for what’ll come next in Kingdom Hearts III. I can already tell it’s going to be a great one, and I can’t wait to start playing!

Funny Observations of the #KingdomHearts Series We're about 3 months away until the long anticipated release of the one, the only, the extraordinary, Kingdom Hearts III!

[sugarblood7]

Chapter One: VampFed is Cancelled

Sugar Pine 7 Vampire AU

Author: @oncemorewithvodka

Editor: @sugarpinecrews

            “Hey everybody raise your hand if you still have a job!” Mike asked the room. No one raised their hands. Not even the ghosts who haunt the halls and would still be here after we left.

           VampFed is Cancelled. There are four nights left.

           All the sets were being dismantled. All the stuff we used to relate to the humans in boxes. Even though VampFed was ending it was nice to know everything was staying the same. Even our human prisoner James was thinking of staying behind.

           “Steven, I’ve been trapped here all weekend. Please help me get down,” James let me know as he worked on taking down our lights. I closed the door and let him get back to work as he begged for me save him. But that’s what he gets for being a gross human who can’t fly. For some of our untalented employees, it was interesting to see what they had planned for the future. I did end up asking James what his plans were to which he responded, “I dunno what I’m going to do now.” Yikes. Kind of a bummer for that guy! Probably staying with the ghost unless he can learn how to deal with heights.

           One of our studio techs, Zach Taylor on the other hand, was taking initiative.

           “Uh. My name is Zack Taylor. I am for hire. This is my resume. Um it looks good.” Actually, it was just okay. It failed to include exactly how much blood he drinks in a single day which is good for any company to be aware of, especially if you’re company that hires vampires.

           I decided to go around the office testing everyone’s ability to find a new job. The test involved employees stating three things they’re good at in a matter of twenty seconds.

           “You have fifteen seconds to say three things you’re good at, otherwise you’re fired,” I told fellow vampire host Candace who responded with just staring into the distance. Though, Sam Bashor was able to answer with talking, swimming and running. Pretty good dude. That was good.

           I asked some of the others who were around their three things

“Design, editing, typography!” Hired!

           “Drawing, illustration, graphic design.”

           With Chris’s consistently snarky attitude, I was really hoping he wasn’t going to be able to answer in time.

           “Camera work, lighting, audio.” Fine.

           Making my way around the office I was given more answers.

           “Uh, not having a job, getting fired, and uh being a new unemployed wereboy” Fired.

           I even asked James who had somehow either gotten help from a witch or overcame his fear of heights.

           “Everything, nothing, and most things,” Fired.

           “I don’t know” Candace finally answered.

           I went to ask Zack who responded he same answer as Chris’s. When I told him he couldn’t double dip he explained he was like Chris but an inch taller. This was the wrong answer because Zack is a vampire and Chris is an elemental. Unbelievably James came in to the save the day.

           “Licking, he’s good at licking” Zack agreed with this. Hired! It’s important for a vampire to lick their victim though it worries me that James knows the difference between a vampire’s bad licking and good licking.

           “Cooking, eating, sleeping. Goodbye” were Matt Lieberman’s answers. Fired on the grounds that vampires don’t need to know how to cook. But he heard my response which put me in danger.

           “You take my firing back, Steven Suptic. You’re just a chicken vamp with a camera. I’m a vamp with a practice sword!” My unlife was at risk as the sword was made from wood.

           “You’re dangerous, you’re hired, you’re hired!” I yelled as he backed me into a supply closet.

           “Cool, thanks. What’s my salary?”

           “Fourt,” I responded and then chased him away. He was a little boy and I chased him. I was once again, safe.  

           You know, one question that I think really deserves an answer and I don’t think anybody knows, is how did this office keep spreading diseases so easily? Maybe it comes from the licking that is important in any vampire or werewolf society. For those of you who think vampires cannot get sick let me tell you we have our own illnesses and we can spread to them to other beings including humans. How do you think the common cold happened?

           I know what you’re thinking. Are people really okay with you filming them during such an emotionally draining process?

           “Okay, I get that you’re trying to document what’s happening here for personal gain. But…I want some too.” You could have put it up on your own vlog channel Liberman.

           “I hope you make a good bit of money off of filming all these people who just lost their jobs. I hope you make a nice bit so you can pay off the government for your fuckup,” Zack told me.

           Clearly, some people were very jealous of my enormous wealth. While others took things more seriously. Rickey Mizuno for example pretended to shoot himself with a gun, which we all know doesn’t kill vampires but then he farted thinking it would be funny. Unfortunately, that was a lot more dangerous of fart than he thought it was gonna be. Vampire farts are the worst.

           “And that was the last we saw of Rickey Mizuno” Zack mentioned.  

           Joel Rubin, one of the oldest vampires of all time came into the room. He may be old and powerful but very much a drifter as he goes from one supernatural brainwashing company to the next.

           “Guys, we need to have our Oddity meeting for the next three months of Oddity,” Joel told the room.

           “And that was the last we saw of Joel,” Zack told me, but I highly doubt it.

           I went over to Audrey, who stayed covered in her hoodie as to not expose us to the danger of her unknown power. I wanted to check in on how she was dealing with the end of VampFed but she did not look up from her editing.

           “And that was the last we saw of Audrey,” Zack was setting a theme was these announcements. Maybe it was from his extra power to see the future.

           I went to go check on Sofia, a very dangerous witch when Zack assured me:

           “We would, however, see Sofia again,” and knowing that I left the room to go bother one of the werewolves Eric.

           “Are you working on VampFed stuff?” I asked him.

           “No, no. I’m uh messaging everyone I know asking for a job.”

           Eric’s comment about reaching out to friends made me realize, I have a lot of connections in the YouTube industry. I decided to reach out to a pervious VampFed employee for help, Ian Dokie, Ruler of the channel Zombi Noggin.

           “Hey Steven.”

           “Hey Ian.”

           “What’s up?”

           “You hear the news?” I asked kind of nervously but I heard him take a deep breath.

           “That VampFed’s cancelled?” I wondered if he knew why I was calling already.

           “Yeah. So I just figured I’d just call you and see how, um, Zommbi Noggin’s doing.

           “Good. It’s doing good,” he sounded skeptical. He knew why I was calling.

           “Yeah, I’m not really the kind of guy to beg on my feet, but um, do you have, do you have a- Please give me a job,” I blurted out

           “Uh huh?”

           “I’ll get back- You’ll get back- I’ll get it. Alright I got the job, thank you, thank you,” I was in, I wouldn’t be stuck roaming the streets.

           “Someone will reach out-” I hung up when I saw Joel, and worked up the courage to confront him.

           “You got me fired, you son of bitch,” I told him.

           “Well, maybe you should have done a better…work.” Hmm! Maybe I should have done better work!

           That’s when I found a telephoto lens lying around and after all these months I was finally able to spy on Luis. He was an editor but I knew he was secretly a vampire hunter. I was able to get footage of Sofia destroying her paper trail. Zack was right, we did see her again. Though I didn’t feel like I was done talking to Joel about exactly why VampFed was being shut down.

            “I mean, it does suck, because we were doing really well. I mean, we had the most brainwashing, like the most sustained, over five months of brainwashing for the first time since 2013 on the channel? I’m looking at the human subscriber analytics right now and we haven’t had this good of subscriber numbers,” he turned the screen so I could see a guinea pig eating carrots, the code for brainwashed humans, “in I don’t even remember how long. I mean at least since, maybe July?” That was hard to hear.

            What else was hard was seeing everyone else working knowing it would coming to end soon. Filip wrote a 17-page script that I’m sure everybody was very excited to film during their last week. I suddenly then got a vision of what Matt was up to, he was writing a letter.

            “Dear guinea pigs, I’m Matt Lieberman,” he was writing. What business he had with the brainwashed humans?

            That’s when I saw the unthinkable. Look at this little punk-ass werewolf wearing the same shirt as me, making my day fuckin’ worse. I figured I would get my mind off it by playing Star a song.

            “Alright, so are there any requests? Any song in particular?” I asked sitting ready at my keyboard.

            “Shooting stars.”

            “Shooting stars, who’s that by?” Of course I knew.

            “I don’t know,” Star failed my test but I’m a gentleman.

            “Ah, I know that one! Here we go!” I began to play the song thought the keyboard did it in the voice of a banshee. I jammed more out as the keyboard contained drum beats and horrifying animal noises that I think added to the song.

            So right here. This is about the point I stopped having fun for the day, and started recognizing that everything was going to end.

            I went with my camera to one of the last meals we would all have together before the company ends. We even let James have a regular human beer instead of being the meal like he normally is. That obviously seems very abrasive. Filming people while they’re eating- it was, but everybody was a good sport about it and after this week I dunno when I’ll be able to see these guys again.

            I’m sure most of us are going our separate ways. But at the end of the day, you can’t count on a company, or another monster. You just have yourself. But when you’re feeling lonely out there, and you miss your old co-worker Steve it’ll be easy to look back on these videos and remember working for a channel called VampFed. And maybe a couple years later, you’ll shoot me a text, and we’ll get a human to feed on, and talk about the old times. Or maybe our chapter’s done. Whatever the case, it was a pleasure working with all of you. When I was alive I was an only child, and I don’t know if this is what having brothers and sisters is like, but it’ll do.

            Together everyone watched the video where we told the humans and other beings who watched the channels that VampFed, VampFed Nerd, and Vampires Be Like were canceled. We filmed our last VampFed podcast where we talked about the good memories and many nights we had spent together like a family. Because that’s what VampFed had become, a family.

[mst3kproject]

Killers from Space

Oh, look. Peter Graves, Frank Gerstle (Dr. Frank from The Atomic Brain), stock footage of atomic tests, and some stupid-looking aliens.  Let’s do this!

A deep-voiced 50's narrator (old friend!  We've missed you!) tells us about an upcoming bomb test, and it's a good thing he uses the phrase 'tension mounts' or we wouldn't be able to tell.  After the test, scientist Dr. Doug Martin circles in closer to get readings – but then his pilot suddenly loses control of the plane!  Somehow Martin survives the crash, reappearing out of the desert a few days later without a mark on him except a weirdly right-angled scar on his chest.  At first he seems all right, but then he begins acting very oddly, which culminates in him stealing data from his lab and delivering it to a drop point in the desert, then crashing his car as he tries to flee.  Under the influence of truth serum, Martin reveals that he was kidnapped and experimented on by aliens, who are using the radiation of the atomic tests to create an army of monsters with which they will conquer the Earth!

This one hits a lot of notes: alien abductions, hypnotic regression, and superimposed footage of small creatures made to look big – including a giant gila monster! Considering the cast, the themes, the use of stock footage, and the fact that it appeared on The Film Crew, I'm honestly shocked that Killers from Space never made it to MST3K proper.  Our old pals New Petitions Against Tax and Building Code Under Fire even make appearances!  If Joel hadn't already promised us us widescreen-only, I'd fully expect to see it in the new season somewhere.

Killers from Space is a remarkably ambitious movie, actually.  It's got an interesting premise and tries to show us a lot of things – it fails rather spectacularly but damn, it tries.  For starters, consider Dr. Martin's curious dual role.  In the first half of the film, before we find out what happened to him while he was missing, he comes across as a possible villain.  His colleagues don't want him returning to work because he's a security risk, and their fears turn out to be well-founded as he steals data and turns it over to the aliens.  Then he remembers what happened during his abduction, and turns into the movie's hero as he desperately tries to undo the damage he helped to cause.

The idea of Martin becoming an agent for the aliens against his own will is a truly creepy one.  It is even implied that they intended he should die once he was no longer useful to them – having delivered the information they wanted, he quickly crashes his car.  I think we're supposed to believe it was pure luck that he survived with their hold on him now broken, rather than expiring in the wreck (although this would have been a lot clearer if he'd been at all injured in the accident).  There's an undertone here similar to that of It Conquered the World, with its fear that seditious elements could be anyone, anywhere – indeed, you may be a traitor and not even know it!

I also gotta say, I don't remember the last time I saw a movie that gave such a good, clear reason for why the ending is a chase scene in a power plant.  A lot of movies seem to randomly end up at power plants somehow.  This one goes there on purpose and the plant itself plays an important role in the climax.

Besides a paranoid spy thriller, the other thing Killers from Space really wants to be is a special effects extravaganza.  I mean, we've got planes flying perilously close to atomic explosions.  We've got aliens doing weird medical procedures using unimaginable technologies.  We've got cockroaches the size of rhinos, for crying out loud.  It is to the movie's credit that it does make an effort to show us all these things.  We actually see the aliens and their cities, we see Martin's heart being worked on outside of his body, we see the plane spiral out of control.  Unfortuantely, the movie's budget was in no way equal to its ambitions, and all of these things look stupid.

Martin's heart operation is seen only for a moment with the organ itself in silhouette.  That much is pretty good: it tells us just enough that we can imagine the rest, and doesn't over-reach itself.  Then we get a wider shot of a room full of random electronics and guys dressed as aliens, and the creepy factor simply implodes in a shower of giggles. We're in a cave. There's oscilloscopes and ham radios.  A set of calculations are presented to us that turn out to be high school algebra written on tinfoil.  And most memorable of all – indeed, probably the only thing anybody really remembers about this movie – the 'aliens' have ping-pong balls for eyes.

What, you thought I was exaggerating?  Look at that.  They literally took ping-pong balls, cut them in half, and drew eyes on them, and the actors had to talk while keeping their faces scrunched up to wedge the balls between their cheeks and eyebrows.  It looks ridiculous and the poor bastards can't move around much or interact with anything because all they can see are the insides of the ping-pong balls.  The guy playing the alien leader also has tremendous furry eyebrows.  He looks like a comedy interpretation of one of those Japanese demon masks.

The rest of the effects suck, too – not so vastly as the aliens, true, but they're still bad.  The plane circling the nuclear explosion is superimposed and transparent, which is at least amusing.  So are the flying saucers and alien cities, which are cartoons, and not even particularly well-animated ones.  The giant bugs and reptiles Martin encounters in the cavern are back-projected and never look remotely like they're in the same space as he is.  Some interesting things are done with the sound here in an attempt to make the creatures feel big and sometimes it kinda works, but mostly it just gives us Bert I. Gordon flashbacks.  The animals never look like they're aware of Martin's presence, and the scene just goes on and on and ON.  I got bored, went to the bathroom, came back, and it was still happening.

See if you can count how many times Martin rounds the same damn corner in this sequence.  Also, I think they actually set a cockroach on fire for the bit where the aliens zap it with gamma rays.  Cockroaches don't figure very highly in anybody's sympathy lists but come on, that was just unnecessary.  For one final failure before the credits roll, the nuclear explosion visible out the window at the end suggests that the power plant is several thousand feet in the air and at a sixty-degree angle.  Nope.  Sorry.  Doesn't work.  Looks dumb.  Goodnight.

I could end the review here, but instead I'm gonna start talking about flying saucers again.  Like This Island Earth, Killers from Space also has a bit to say about the UFO mythology – and much of it is astonishingly prescient.  Martin loses consciousness and awakens on a table, where humanoid beings with large, frightening eyes are performing medical procedures on him.  Afterwards, however, he remembers nothing.  Time has passed that he cannot account for, and he keeps having inexplicable nightmares, but the reason why remains a mystery until an artificial way of getting at the truth is imposed on him.  Then the story comes out, only for anyone who hears it to dismiss him as a madman.

The first proper 'alien abduction' is considered to be that of Betty and Barney Hill.  They arrived home from a trip and realized it had taken longer than it should have.  After having nightmares, they went and saw a psychologist who hypnotized them both, and got from them a story about how they'd been taken away by large-eyed humanoids who'd experimented on them.  The hypnotist himself never believed this was anything but an account of their nightmares, but other people have been more credulous and alien abductions went on to become a big thing.  My junior high school library had a copy of Whitley Strieber's Communion in one of those spinning wire stands... I hated going in there because I'd try to browse for books and there was that nasty little alien staring at me from the cover.

One would be tempted to conclude that Killers from Space took elements of its narrative from this story, the way I speculated This Island Earth borrowed from the death of Thomas Mantell and Not of This Earth drew on the stories of Men in Black.  To do so would be wrong, however, because the Hills' experience didn't happen until 1961!  Self-proclaimed 'UFOlogists' have argued that there is nothing in the popular culture of the time to have given people the idea for 'alien abductions', and so this must be something that actually happens.  Killers from Space proves that this is simply not true, and I would bet my socks the Hills had seen this movie.

(You may be wondering why the hell I keep talking about the UFO mythology. Or you may not, because if you've been following this blog for a while, you will have realized I have a crippling addiction to trash television.  I know way too much about bigfoot, the ancient astronaut theory, and how to dispose of a body, among other things.  You have probably also got some inkling of my complicated love-hate relationship with the movie Avatar, but that's less relevant to this review.)

So that's Killers from Space. It's got some interesting stuff in it, but fails at almost everything it tries to do.  I do gotta give it one more thing, though.  The title Killers from Space sounds like it's probably ridiculous hyperbole, if it has anything to do with the film at all – but no, the bad guys definitely are from space, and they kill at least one person (Martin's pilot)!  So while no, It didn't Conquer the World, the Monster wasn't particularly Mad, and The Thing that Couldn't,Died... this movie really was about Killers from Space.

[the-firebird69]

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/10/19/politics/eastman-house-trump-documents/index.html

And here you see the Trump doesn't admitted that he knew there was voter fraud on his part. He's screwed he doesn't know it and he's stupid so we have to get away from him I want to do that now and I do need help with it

Thor Freya

I've got it too what is done is illegal and is sticking to everyone's face he's still getting away with it so you still have to have power and he has to have threats and we need to remove them one of them was our son pointed out is around Saturn and we just can't have that at all and all those equipments ruined it doesn't communicate from this idiot and he has more stuff and has rigged a lot of things and Max are finding finally finding out he rigged stuff around here and her son can't go anywhere and he can't get anything cuz the a****** rigged all the stuff and he's stupid as hell he's like a loaded Mrs ladish. So the answer is grandson what he did he said he's got devices everywhere you can't even talk about him or we are doomed. They began questioning Trump. And huge answers came out these Max rafters we need to and our son doesn't really disagree but he can't have this place rigged.

And Tommy f is a willing participant and they're both indicted now but they're on federal charges and local charges as well for terrorism and he gets really pissed off and takes over Cuba and the American side and arrests them.

But this indicates is a major scaffold he sent them a damn letter and he should have been arrested and hauled in and they tried to do it kind of half-assily but they did try and it should have worked but didn't and they're getting angry and they can't see what it is and where the threat is and television said you better not be trying to have us believe it and that's what I said was laughing at oh you want them to believe that there is writing or something what are you stupid.

Seriously we do need to remove a lot of devices and we move down here to do so and prevent our son from being kidnapped. It's issuing terrorist threats and we are now removing tons of devices huge teams have moved in Duke Nukem Blockbuster was heading it up heard you plea for your safety and ours and he started moving it and hired sons and we're on it and it's a global effort there's no way you should be able to do that it's just saying oh well but really he's going to regret sending that letter and it's not the letter in the song it's what Dave wrote and it's saying it's a joel and it means this (I haven't got time to explain to you so I'm going to Say it in code and then I love you because you are so stupid and you have so many stupid people) and Dave is not dead his computers doing the work and our son gets it is taking your kids and turning them to warriors just like our race is known for doing for Mac usually and mac horrified and this is what I say the letter says and our son says from talking to him that's what it is. Everybody's horrified they need the answers they need them now welcome to the soft parade our son says.

They're getting on this because we can't afford the bombs and we can't afford the devices and we already de rigging everything in Florida. Huge numbers a day and it's very grateful and she is straightening him out and saying say thank you as soon as you probably need a little bit more help globally on this bomb stuff and we need ours to sign up and they are and we need a lot of troops so that was those two and it is going on we are taking the devices apart and she was wonderful in her speech and her approach and she said she missed you and wants you by her side and she got a lot of support especially for that it says of course im the man... Well that's not why but okay it's part of it. And this Trump guy is a huge pain ter he is such a jerk and tons and tons of chargers pulled in tons of devices removed a lot of firemen got hurt by what they read and they're real devices and a lot of police were called and a lot of them were arrested right after the storm and during the storm they were raiding and they were arrested and it was gross their pigs and they need to leave so there's tons of cops after them we came in here with cops we need him we have to because he's here everyone hates these people as suicidal they want to destroy everyone they have no place to go it's cuz of Tommy f, he's a retardant believes that he can go somewhere. Please trains and automobiles finishes up today and they come out they have Thanksgiving dinner early. And it is a message from a lot of people and yeah it's because of John Candy so freaking a****** in the wrong country for that attitude these piece of fat s***.

There are other aspects of the story I'd like to bring up firstly he's in the wrong secondly he's admitting it so people treat him with less vehements I'm saying is he's sitting there scoffing and mocking you and what you should do so the book at it because it makes us very angry and you see us angry and you treat him even less harshly when he's making fun of you more than us a lot more he's joking about Max he killed is putting it up there he says he killed our clan our friends clan or father and mother's clan and they are entombed and the computer is using his as slaves to kill his own people and he doesn't even know it.

He's spitting right in their eye is telling them off now that he's ignores the subject and tries to change it against worse and can't figure it out but really that's what he's doing and he's saying it all over town and he's recorded it and people witnessed him saying "I told him it's what a fraud and I recognized it when it was happening and I tried to stop it, not. But that's what I told them and that's what I was doing and that's what happened" recording when all over the world and said you people can't hear what you think it's in English and they're trying to arrest him now before I stated it and trying to kidnap our son using it and they're kind of idiots before.

The second huge glaring aspect of this case is it the nature of the crime is extremely serious and people are saying it's not and ignoring and is advertising that everybody is rigging elections and he wants to rig the next one and say well everybody does it it's true people do it but they're bringing ringers and they bring in tons of people and sometimes foreigners but this is really really really gross behavior okay anyone to get in and violate the law all over the place so they can get away with it it was simply not going to let it happen I'm trying to ignore him ignore what he's doing what he's saying cuz you want to use him for that kind of thing but he is a massive nuisance it is a huge huge a****** and he's incredibly annoying and he's doing it on purpose cuz he and he's saying you're not going to use me and all this s*** and he does not stop talking and he's talking smack and they hit him back with it verbally and say you're so small we're going to do it we want and he starts screaming and shrinking I've read tons of stuff and it's saying it all over the world I put bombs in here and everyone's like where and they're taking them out and they're saying you won't be in control cuz we're going to remove all your devices so he tries to put them back and he gets killed pretty soon maybe like one guy okay you're having that guy do it so and it's working out to be that way pretty soon it's a two huge aspects of this case I got it but boy he says it's a lot different when you're when you put some details and describe particular aspect is very potent and it is and this guy's going down he is a huge sycophant and what a weird weird relationship and it turns out and our son says that these people losing Guantanamo will figure it out they're going around threatening their relatives and Friends for certain reactions and it's psychological too and they're under extreme duress by him and he is an enemy combatant he's Australian as is John gallier and Tommy Allen and others they are not American and when Tommy Allen goes Friday and they ripped apart a bunch of trumpsters they are all arrested and they're through jail and half of them died during the process and your questions and they say we're not really from here they want us to go to hell and since you're banished from this country you try and come here and have you shot in the head and I can do that it's my country you're all trespassing and I'm calling on Thor and I haven't for ages in this fashion to call on his demon to destroy you if you try to get here and he does it because we care that he does he just had enough of this s*** from this little pipsqueaks too and he couldn't believe it is hearing I said what are you deaf as well as being a retard I'm sitting here screaming at your face get out of my face I'm going to punch your face in your head I haven't done for like 200,000 of you in front of you practically and you won't shut your f****** cake hole now you're going to you open your mouth one more time Dynamite is going in there

We hear you shut his mouth and he left yelling and screaming stuff so he ran over him with the car

Bitol and Goddess Wife

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5 Superhero Movies That Are Only Worth It For One Scene

Bad superhero films are a treasure. Not only does one make you disappointed with Hollywood for creating a bad movie, but it also makes you doubly frustrated because they’re messing up something that you know is good in comic book form. However, we shouldn’t write off a bad superhero movie immediately. Upon closer examination, these terrible films can contain little glimpses of promise — little glimpses that make you say “This might be a secret masterpiece.” Or at least, “This doesn’t suck every poop.”

5

Batman & Robin — The Criminal Property Locker

In the annals of bad superhero films, Batman & Robin stands alone. It isn’t a “Well, maybe it’s not THAT bad” film like Superman Returns or Spider-Man 3. It isn’t a “I’ll forget the plot of this before I even leave the theater” film like X-Men: The Last Stand or Daredevil. It isn’t a “That’s a damn shame” film like Superman IV: The Quest For Peace or Robocop 2. And it isn’t a “If there is a God, they wouldn’t let this happen” film like Catwoman or Spawn. Instead, it’s a film that somehow gets both more amazingly terrible and more inexplicably enjoyable with time. I hate it and I love it in equal measure, and years after I’m dead, researchers will discover my skeleton clinging to a VHS copy of it, like Quasimodo and Esmeralda at the end of Hunchback Of Notre Dame.

But the movie does have one extremely cool split second. Now, there is a well-known Easter egg in Batman & Robin: When Bane and Poison Ivy are breaking Mr. Freeze out of Arkham Asylum, you get a glimpse of the “Criminal Property Locker.” And in the locker are the costumes of the Riddler and Two-Face from Batman Forever. That’s kind of neat — though since Two-Face died by falling into a spiky underwater pit, it does imply that some poor Arkham intern had to dry-clean and sew his fucking suit back together.

Warner Bros.

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5 Things You Can't Help But Wonder When Watching Movies

But the rest of the stuff in the room implies that when the Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher Batman wasn’t eviscerating clowns or neon terrorists, he was still pretty busy. Beside the Riddler’s suit is a doll, so at some point, was Val Kilmer punching the shit out of B-list villain Toyman? Or is that the work of the Dollmaker, a guy who made dolls out of his victims’ skin? Is that dude still in Arkham? It’s unlikely, considering that Michael Keaton’s Batman was one part hero and nine parts sadist, and probably attached a bomb to Dollmaker and peed on him a little bit before even learning his name. But still, the scene adds history to a series that seemed to be mostly about Batman sitting around in his office, waiting for crime to happen.

And then, on the right side, we see a pair of boxing gloves. So good luck, guy who was using those. I’m sure your career as Two-Punch Man was really hitting its peak just before Michael Keaton ripped your intestines out through your eye holes.

But the most interesting part is the big mechanical suit that we see, and on first glance, you’d probably assume that it’s Mr. Freeze’s suit, since that’s what Poison Ivy broke into the locker to get. But Mr. Freeze’s suit looks nothing like that. So either Mr. Freeze has been fighting Batman and Robin for so long that he’s had to upgrade his technology in order to keep his chilly ass un-kicked, or it belongs to another mech-suited villain. The pyromaniac Firefly, maybe? That would be so awesome, and now I’m so pissed that I never got to see Val Kilmer stare expressionless around a bug man with a flamethrower. What were you even good for if you couldn’t give us that, the ’90s?

4

Judge Dredd — The Angel Gang

Judge Dredd came out in 1995, when we were still trying to figure out whether superhero movies were going to be a thing. Sure, Superman and Batman had been pretty successful, but was there hope for anyone else? The answer to that was “Not yet,” as proven by the lackluster Judge Dredd, which featured Sylvester Stallone. I know that we’re all currently pretty high on Stallone after Creed, but between Rocky IV and Rocky Balboa, he was having a rough time being in any movie that someone could honestly call good. At his best, he was in films like Demolition Man — or as my dad would call it, Daniel, we need to talk.

Judge Dredd has sweet set design, but other than that, it’s a lot of Stallone and Armand Assante shouting at side characters who are too useless to be given their own shouting dialogue. The only time it really perks up is when Stallone and his little buddy Rob Schneider get captured in the wastelands by the Angel Gang. The Angel Gang are cannibals, and their role in the movie almost feels like Judge Dredd DLC. But during the gang’s brief vacation in your eyeballs, Judge Dredd ceases to be a humdrum exploration into the beauty of shoulder pads, and starts feeling special.

There are plenty of movies wherein superheroes fight random gangs. There are just as many superhero movies where the hero is forced to fight a guy who could’ve been a hero, but instead went evil. But there are very few superhero films in which the hero has to tangle with the cast of The Hills Have Eyes. The Angel Gang is a bunch of wild cards. They don’t want to build a city-sinking torpedo or open up a portal to release an ancient evil whatever; they just want to snack on you a little bit. They won’t say any clever lines or reveal any master plans. At most, they’ll maybe give you a recipe for you, medium-rare.

Sadly, their stay is brief, because Stallone soon escapes and jams an electrical wire into the head of most monosyllabic among them. Of course, the mutant does get to say, “You killed my Pa,” so it’s not a total waste.

3

Blade: Trinity — The Human Farm

Throughout the Blade series, characters are constantly mentioning the fact that the vampire universe is bigger than you know. Sure, you think we live in a world of humans and puppy dogs and hit singles from Evanescence, but underneath it all, there’s a society of vampires. And when that society decides to rule the world, Blade will … take them out pretty easily, actually. For a race that’s apparently thiiiiis close to dominating the world, they sure seem to be divided into easily spin-kicked pockets.

Blade: Trinity is the worst Blade film. The best thing about Blade and Blade 2 is that they feel inventive and fresh. You’re getting things from them that you wouldn’t get from a Spider-Man or X-Men film — namely, Wesley Snipes cursing and reducing screeching henchmen to ashes. It’s why they’re two of my favorite superhero films. On the other hand, Blade: Trinity features boring-ass Dracula and his something or another quest to vaguely rule the world. After years of tackling rave mutants and goth Nosferatus, Blade’s final fight is with a bad Witcher cosplayer.

Luckily, we do get one scene that feels like it came out of the earlier films. Blade finds a human farm, where a bunch of comatose people are vacuum-sealed into big Ziploc bags and used as a constant source of vampire food. It’s super creepy, and when Blade gets told that they’re all brain-dead, he shuts the whole thing down with barely a second thought or a quietly growled “motherfucker.”

New Line Cinema

It also gives the movie (and the series) a sense of grand scale that it had been lacking. Oh, THIS is what the vampires were hyping up when they were jabbering on about their big vampire plans. Well, I apologize for not paying more attention, emo ghouls. My bad. My bad.

2

X-Men: Apocalypse — Wolverine’s Introduction

Before Logan, we only got tastes of Wolverine’s full potential as a fighter. One taste was in X2, when he has to defend Xavier’s School for Kool Kidz and Cyclops from William Stryker’s men. But the best pre-Logan scene of Wolverine grinding his way through bad guys in order to level up for the final boss was in X-Men: Apocalypse. Wolverine appears for only a few minutes in this movie, and he looks like an absolute monster.

Imagine you’re a security guard for some mutant research project. You don’t really worry about those mutants escaping, because why would you? They’re usually sedated and subdued, and if they did start waking up, there’s a whole room full of guys with heavy firearms who would blow them away. Then one day, you’re eatin’ a microwavable chicken pot pie and thinking about your novel when you hear “Weapon X is loose.” You know, the most dangerous experiment in a whole building full of dangerous experiments. Will the gun they’ve given you work against someone with adamantium claws and, if the rumors you heard are true, healing powers? Maybe.

That’s the feeling you get during the scene in which Wolverine escapes: pure, pee-your-pants, “Oh my god, I was not properly trained for this” terror. Sure, Logan has a lot of scenes where he cuts his way through dudes, but that movie frames it as action, while this turns Wolverine into a slasher villain. It doesn’t hurt that the scene ends with a splash of blood coming from offscreen, which is slasher movie code for “Daaaammmnnn.”

The rest of the movie is pretty subpar. The X-Men’s most powerful villain, Apocalypse, is handled so poorly that you just wish Magneto could be the main bad guy for the fourth time. But I guess it’s to be expected that the best part of an X-Men film would include Hugh Jackman. Oh, Hugh. Was it something I said? Please come back.

1

Batman v. Superman — The Warehouse Fight

Batman v. Superman didn’t give us a lot of what I would call “iconic” Batman moments. At one point, he does ask Superman, “Do you bleed?” and that’s pretty cool. But then Superman flies off because he has more important things to do than to lightly argue with some billionaire manchild, leaving Batman just standing there. So what does Batman do? He says, “You will,” and TOTALLY WINS THAT CONVERSATION. You sure got him, dude helplessly standing in the wreckage of his super car. I’m sure the shower argument that you had by yourself later was full of similar zingers. “DO YOU BLEED? WELL, I BET YOU DO. AND THEN I’D FUCKING PUNCH HIM LIKE THIS, AND SUPERMAN WOULD BE ALL LIKE, ‘NO, PLEASE, STOP, BATMAN. I BET YOUR PENIS DOESN’T EVEN SLIGHTLY CURVE TO THE LEFT.’ AND I’D BE ALL LIKE BAM. POW. SHUT UP.”

On a more positive note, Batman v. Superman does have one awesome scene: the warehouse fight. Now, before I get into why this part is so great, I do have to say that a lot of it has to do with the critically acclaimed Batman: Arkham games, which make every other Batman fight scene in every other medium look like a slap fight among friends. In the Arkham games, you can sneak up behind a dude, choke him out, zip up to a gargoyle, fly over and drop-kick a man’s torso off his body, zip back up to another gargoyle, tie a guy up to said gargoyle, throw a smoke pellet, hit a thug with an electric shock gun, choke out another dude, and then run up to the last dude as he fills you with bullets and hope that your body armor holds up for long enough so that Batman can someday wear the man’s skull as a shoe.

That’s the kind of thing that we got in the Batman v. Superman warehouse scene, during which Batman goes back and forth, rearranging an entire gang’s internal organs using everything in his disposal. Here are a few highlights:

– A guy comes into the room brandishing a grenade, so Batman kicks a guy he already has hanging from the ceiling into the grenade man.

– Batman Rock Bottoms a dude into the floor — a technique most assuredly taught to him by Ra’s al Ghul when Batman trained with all of those ninjas. “You must learn to conquer your fear, Bruce,” I remember Ra’s saying in Batman Begins. “CONQUER IT WITH THE PEOPLE’S ELBOW.”

– Batman uses his grappling hook gun thing to sling a box into a guy, and the guy gets hit so hard that he flies into a wall and the back of his goddamn head apparently comes off.

There are a lot of people who have a problem with Batman committing murder, but since my favorite superhero film is Batman Returns, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. At the very least, it gave us a chance to experience an Arkham City level on the big screen, narrated entirely by Ben Affleck’s grunts.

Daniel has a Twitter. Go to it. Enjoy yourself. Kick your boots off and stay for a while.

Live long enough to see yourself become the villain with your own Batman Utility Belt!

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'Air Bud' is good

20 years later, a fresh look at the classic film.

I’ve never seen Air Bud. Think about how weird that is: The movie came out in 1997. I was eight, the perfect age to see a movie about a dog that plays basketball. Everybody saw Air Bud. Everybody loved Air Bud. The Air Bud franchise was to children in the ’90s as the 50 Shades of Gray franchise is to suburban moms now, just with more sports and no sex stuff.

And yet, I missed it. I blame this on the fact that I’m an only child whose parents are more into Proust than they are Disney movies (they’re very smart and wonderful people). But because I didn’t have cable or siblings to tell me what was cool, I grew up watching PBS and not knowing the lyrics to the Spice Girls’ songs. My 1990s cultural blindspots still haunt me. Case in point: Kel Mitchell went to Super Bowl media night as his Good Burger character, and I got mercilessly roasted when I asked my colleagues who the guy in the fast food uniform was.

I’m telling you this to explain why I’m sitting at my desk watching Air Bud in the SB Nation offices at 4:25 pm on a Thursday. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the film’s release, the NBA trade deadline is over, the Oscars are this weekend. I felt like only way I could create content of dubious quality honoring all three momentous occasions at once was to finally watch Air Bud and blog my experience.

I also want to see if you guys have been right this whole time. Is Air Bud as good as everyone’s been saying it is for the past 20 years? Let’s find out.

HERE WE GO!

The movie opens on an idyllic country road, and, oh my god, what is happening? A giant wooden clown head is cresting over a hill. It’s perched on top of a pickup truck driven by a guy dressed as a clown.

I’m confused. Is this a horror film or a movie for children? Is Air Bud actually the prequel to Saw? Has everyone has been lying to me about this movie a part of some sick, elaborate prank?

Things start to make more sense when I see a dog in the back of the pickup truck. I’m pretty sure it’s Air Bud himself, dressed up as a clown.

It turns out that Bad Clown Dude performs at kid’s birthday parties, and Air Bud is his sidekick who does tricks with balls. Bad Clown Dude is a real dick. He beats Air Bud and decides to take the dog to the pound after things go awry at the party. I hate this man with my entire being.

Fortunately, the gate of the pickup truck is down, so Air Bud’s crate — with Air bud locked in it — falls out the back. Trucks are screaming by as he’s trapped in the middle of the road, and then he gets hit by a car.

I mean, not, like, badly, but hard enough so that his crate topples over and he pops out. I know I’m not supposed to laugh right now, but a dog in a clown suit is pretty funny. The mom driving the SUV that hit him is like, “Huh, hit a dog, whoops,” and then keeps driving.

What kind of monster hits a dog and doesn’t stop to save it?

We can tell that her son Josh — who’s sitting up front because no one gave a damn about air bags in the 1990s and we all turned out okay, okay? — is the main character by the way the camera lingers on his face. He longingly watches Air Bud trot down the road behind the car.

Josh and his family have just moved to Fernville, Washington to be near his mom’s relatives after his dad passed away. A shot of Josh in his empty room holding a box of stuff shows us how lonely and sad he is. In the kitchen, Josh’s mom is on the phone having conversation that clearly isn’t relevant to the plot but intrigues me, because I hear her say, “I understand that Bolivia didn’t get the napkins, and Venezuela did?”

“Napkins” is definitely code for “cocaine.” Josh’s mom is an international drug lord.

Drug Dealer Mom hangs up on whatever cartel runner she was talking to and asks Josh how school was. Josh says his first line of the whole movie: “It sucks.”

School does, indeed, suck; Josh tries to sign up for the basketball team, but the asshole coach makes him be the manager instead. I feel bad for the kid, but things start looking up when he finds a magical basketball court behind his house. It’s on the edge of a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains, and it’s a good thing Drug Dealer Mom is a kingpin, because otherwise this family wouldn’t be able to afford such prime real estate.

There are bits and pieces of a clown suit strewn about the court. We hear barking from the bushes. And then ****SPOILER ALERT**** Air Bud shows up! He eats a pudding cup that must’ve fallen out of Josh’s backpack. Pudding can’t be good for dogs, but Air Bud is dirty and hungry, so we aren’t supposed to care.

Josh picks up a basketball and tosses it to Air Bud. Because he’s a trained clown dog, Air Bud can balls out, and the two pals have the time of their lives playing together. I start laughing because it’s so delightful, but I’m also tearing up, because it’s very moving to see Josh finally make a friend.

I’m starting to understand why everyone loves this movie so much.

Josh brings Air Bud home. Air Bud eats Spaghetti-Os in the bathroom, and I will honestly be shocked if this dog is alive in ten minutes given all the crap this boy has fed it. There are five open cans of Spaghetti-Os on the ground. The poor animal is going to have to get his stomach pumped.

Josh is wearing a suit of old time-y rain gear. He gives Air Bud a bath and brushes his teeth.

Drug Dealer Mom comes home from dealing drugs and gets pissed when Air Bud spills paint all over the house. But she lets Josh keep the dog, because if she didn’t, the movie would be over.

Now we’re at the school gym, where Josh meets a kind, older man who works as a janitor there, because what would a ’90s movie be without a non-threatening black man whose backstory is developed just enough — but not more — to serve the narrative needs of the white protagonist? It turns out that this guy was a great basketball player for the Knicks, and I’m like, “Uh, why would a former NBA player now be working as a janitor at a middle school in Washington state as opposed to sipping margaritas in Tulum or hosting a show on ESPN?”

But I let it go, because I start wondering what happened to Josh in real life. What if Josh is hot now?

He is. I just Googled him. Check out how hot Josh is.

He’s over-groomed, but the man looks good. This is not a Haley Joel Osment situation.

Things are getting better for Josh. Buddy (that’s what Josh calls Air Bud) performs basketball tricks during halftime after Josh makes the team. Josh even has a friend, this kid with an aggressive bowl cut who carries around an orange peel that Scotty Pippen once threw away, as well as a piece of chewed-up gum that Dennis Rodman once spit out. I don’t know where he’s getting all this famous trash. The boys put it in their socks for good luck.

The asshole coach ends up getting fired when the principal catches him pelting Trash Kid with basketballs in a dark gym. This feels a little heavy for a children’s movie, but it works as a plot device, because it means that the basketball-great-turned-janitor can take over the team as Good Coach and preach the beauty of teamwork.

The inevitable Scary Moment Where Everything Could Fall Apart comes when Bad Clown Dude shows up to reclaim Air Bud. Josh steals Air Bud back, but worries that he’s just going to get taken again. So he hops a ferry with the dog and goes to an island.

“Go on Buddy, you’re free now,” Josh says, crying, as he makes Buddy leave him. I feel this sharp pain in my chest. Buddy hops into the water, whining as he watches Josh get carried away.

I’m softly crying. I’m glad I didn’t watch this movie when I was little because I don’t know that I could’ve handled heartbreak at such an early age.

Josh is back at school playing basketball. I’m still broken up over the fact that he left his goddamn dog on a goddamn island. But then we hear barking and — could it be?! — BUDDY RETURNS! Thank god I only had to suffer like that for seven minutes.

Josh’s team only has four players on the court because one just got hurt. There’s no rule that dogs can’t play basketball, so Buddy, wearing little doggie basketball shoes and an adorable doggie jersey, checks in. I’m laughing and crying again as I watch Josh and Buddy win the game.

It’s 6 p.m. now, and the office is emptying out.

I breathe a sigh of relief knowing there are only 15 minutes left and more truly bad shit can’t happen. But there’s going to be some slightly bad shit, because Bad Clown Dude shows up again.

Drug Dealer Mom says something along the lines of, “Hell no, you’re not taking my dog!” Bad Clown Dude goes, “I’LL SEE YOU IN COURT!” Donald Trump plagiarized Air Bud.

I guess legal fees don’t matter when you’re Drug Dealer Mom and want to be sure your kid doesn’t lose his dog, because here we are, in court. Thankfully, Good Coach shows up and saves the day; it turns out that he used to be the old, curmudgeonly judge’s favorite player.

Good Coach proposes that Buddy choose who he wants to belong to. After a few suspenseful pump-fakes, Air Bud obviously chooses Josh, jumping up to give him a hug. The movie ends with a huge crowd cheering outside the courthouse.

Hulu asks me if I want to watch Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco. Yes, Hulu, that’s literally all I want, but it would be weird to stay in the office until 9 p.m. watching another kid’s movie about dogs, and I’m emotionally exhausted, so I go home.

THE VERDICT:

Air Bud is good. I love Air Bud. I think I probably would’ve questioned less — why is Josh wearing foul weather gear to take a bath with his dog? Why are bullies in ’90s movies always chewing gum? Why do the feds never show up to investigate Drug Dealer Mom? — if I’d seen this as a kid.

But I’m glad I didn’t. Watching it now reminded me what it felt like to be a child. It brought me back to the days when all I worried about was if my crush would pick me to be on his soccer team at recess and if there was a new episode of Wishbone that night. When a new set of baseball cards could bring infinite happiness.

Air Bud stands the test of time. It’s a cinematic masterpiece that gave me a respite from being an adult almost two hours. What could be better than that?