#yes i do question the decision to make the big bad such an obscure classic who reference when you're trying to pull new viewers in

[aerithisms]

watching the way different types of doctor who fan have reacted to this season is so interesting bc i have seen recent fans really upset with it because of the lack of character drama between 15 and ruby, i have seen classic who fans absolutely loving it bc their love of classic who is more about individual stories than character drama anyway, and then there's people like me, nuwho fans who've been with it since 2005 who know it isn't as good as s1-10 but can't bring ourselves to be that upset because it's still leagues better than the 5 years of chibnall era we just went through

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Absolute Carnage #1 Thoughts

Absolute Carnage is an Absolute Triumph!

Do not get it twisted. I will not be covering older or future issues of Cates’ Venom run. Nor will I be covering every tie in issue for this event. In fact I was not planning on covering the main book in the first place.

But after reading it I now will be and have put it on my pull list.

Cates’ Venom work has been tremendous despite the detractors.

There have been some writing issues with older Venom continuity, but those issues are the by product of Cates desperately loving this character and the symbiote franchise and wanting to make Eddie Brock and his version of Venom a viable anti-hero protagonist character going forward.

To be clear I still fundamentally oppose that direction for the character, but if it must happen (and sales practically demand it happen) then yes we should have good writing accordingly. Cates has thus reinvented Brock and Venom (without a total overhaul) and rendered them fascinating, sympathetic, but still with plenty of edge and moral ambiguity.

He has not done the same for Carnage. He has simply taken Carnage and made him true to what he always was. A force of nature, a force of chaos and death with a Freddy Krueger wisecracking personality.

However what Cates has done for Carnage is reframe him in this story.

Whereas before Carnage was a spikey, sharp obstacle heroes needed to band together to bring down, now he’s beyond that. As he says, he is a God now, or at least almost Godlike. A Red Grim Reaper that even a monster like Venom is rightly afraid of.

Heroes might be able to stall him for awhile, but never stop him.

Much like Freddy Krueger, or Jason Voorhees or any of the classical slasher villains then, Carnage has been reframed as a horror monster. But imagine Jason, Freddy or Michael Myers with the almost Lovecraftian raw power behind them.

Scary right? And that’s what Absolute Carnage is. It’s a superhero horror story.*

It gets scarier when you consider Carnage isn’t even himself the real horroer, he’s the harbinger of it. Knull, the literal GOD OF THE SYMBIOTES is the ends through which Kasady is the bloody red means. Knull has recently appeared in Cates’ Silver Surfer run and it only just struck me writing this that in a sense Carnage is to Knrull what the Surfer was to Galactus.

Carnage is the Herald of Knull.

Kasady has all the over the top immense abilities he had before as Carnage, only now they’ve been cranked up to 11. Which considering the whole point of Carnage was that he was cranked up to 11 makes Absolute Carnage 22? He’s less vulnerable to sonics and fire and injury in general. His anatomy is contorted to the point where when bonded with the symbiote his waist is as thin as his spine and he’s HUGE. He can generate other symbiotes and bond them to others making them his footsoldiers.

He’s seemingly Absolutely unstoppable.

In this sense Absolute Carnage is a true blue sequel to Maximum Carnage. Like so many sequels of the time it is BIGGER. Whereas in Maximum Carnage the question was how far should the heroes go to stop Carnage, in Absolute Carnage the question is rather how on Earth CAN they stop him?

It’s Carnage taken to his absolute logical conclusion and I love it.

Now in fairness all that is contingent upon you liking Carnage in the first place. I’d still recommend regular ASM readers skim the issue as events from it will be relevant, but if you don’t like Carnage in general maybe don’t buy this.

However the issue holds other merits.

Cates is a unique beast amidst symbiote writers because he actually seems to unrepentantly LIKE them.

In the history of all the symbiote comics writers have either approached the characters as enjoying Venom and/or Carnage or parts of their lore but being very selective. Flash Thompson’s run on Venom for instance carried an undercurrent of, if not contempt, then elitism towards Eddie Brock and all the other symbiotes hence Remender (or was it Bunn?) sought to clean the slate of them. Bendis infamously didn’t even want to do Venom in Ultimate Spider-Man, rarely used him after he did and totally reframed the symbiotes in Guardians of the Galaxy to be glorified gooey Green Lanterns.

And I will be the first to admit I fall into the cadre of people who are extremely selective when it comes to symbiote lore. My love for them is through the lens of how they fit in and enrich Spider-Man’s  mythology, not appreciating them on the basis of their own mythology.

Cates is entirely different. He is first and foremost a Venom/symbiote fan. He is someone, and there are interviews corroborating this, who as a kid had one of his formative comic book lover experiences with anti-hero 90s Venom and stories like that.

This is why so many of the Web of Venom comic books that have been setting up this event have directly or indirectly referenced those 90s Venom books, even if it’s just in the name of the comics. Unleashed. Funeral Pyre. Cult of Carnage. Carnage Born. I mean he’s the first comic book creator to have ever expressed adoration for Carnage Mind Bomb, the first ever true blue Carnage horror story that is his equivalent to the Killing Joke. It’s obscure, macabre, twists and gruesome. But it lays out for you everything about who Carnage is. He hasn’t got layers. And that is the point.

Cates’ love for those stories, for the symbiote lore oozes (pun intended) in his Venom work and this comic. He WANTS to use every corner of that lore that he can and add to it. He wants to tell the greatest symbiote epic of our time. He wants to do the ultimate Carnage story, the ultimate Venom story.

Hell he WANTS to do a Maximum Carnage tribute because he unapologetically loves that piece of hot trash.

And he wants you to love that stuff too. I don’t agree with the decision to do stories like this because I feel Venom and Carnage should be just about the only symbiotes around and be nothing more than Spidey villains at that. And yet...I feel his enthusiasm pulsing from the pages of this comic.

His love and excitement for using these characters and doing something this big is as palpable as it is infectious. And so he’s won me over. I don’t agree with doing this story but I’m so onboard for enjoying the ride.

It helps that it’s honestly very well written.

He’s done his homework (and symbiote canon is a fucking mess let me tell you so that is impressive), he throws out deep cut references to stuff like Marvel Knights or the Life Foundation. More than that when you look at this issue and his Venom run up to this point you can see how meticulous he planned it. it could go way off the rails of course, but right now he’s firing on all cylinders. Carnage was appropriately foreshadowed and built up, his escapades were well documented in various issues preceding this event. The Knull mythology was clearly established, the stakes were appropriately set up.

And just in case you disagree he spells it all out for you concisely in the first few pages of this oversized issue. I’ve been reading the run and even I appreciated the refresher course.

He doesn’t just give us a larger than life doomsday scenario though, or even a ‘a bad guy is doing bad things we need to stop him’ plot. By making everyone to have bonded to a symbiote a target it means characters we are emotionally invested in, even if they are villains we love to hate, are in jeopardy.

And at the beating heart of it all is the story of a father and a son.

Eddie Brock and his son, unbeknownst to the boy of course. On a thematic level this is relevant because Dylan and Kasady/Carnage are both the products of Brock and the Venom symbiote. But the fact that this is all about Knull, the ‘father’ if you will of all symbiotes makes this a metaphorical family drama.

And Peter Parker to my surprise and delight is a part of it. I didn’t expect him to show up or to seemingly have the starring role he will have, and yet here he is. That’s what got this onto my pull list.

If there are any criticisms to be had it relates to Spider-Man continuity.

Peter is nonchalant over Brock knowing who he is.

Spider-Man in costume refers to Normie as his Godson multiple times in front both Normie and Dylan.

Norman Osborn may or may not still have the Carnage symbiote (the art makes this a bit unclear).

Spidey is very chill with Brock.

These do bother me, they are objectively writing issues I will not deny that, even though my thrill at the rest of the comic means on a pure enjoyment level I can’t bring myself down by sweating them.

My only defences would be that Peter upon learning Brock is once more aware of who he is would probably not react that badly to the information for a few reasons. First of all he was already living with the distinct possibility that Brock already knew the truth about him. The symbiote had known for a long time and had been bonded to Brock for awhile now so it was always a possibility. Second of all the Brock/Venom of the 80s and 90s is not the Brock of the current run. That is to my personal chagrin, but nevertheless Peter knows Brock and the symbiote are nicer more moralistic folks now and if they still held a grudge they’d have come after him, with or without knowing who he was.

My other defence is that this is not a Spider-Man story. It is a Venom story. It is in essence Spider-Man/Peter Parker filtered through the lens of Venom and the needs and requirements of serving Venom’s character and narrative. Whilst a major problem in Maximum Carnage was serving Carnage and Venom at Peter’s expense, that was a Spidey story in his titles, this is Venom’s story so giving him the spotlight, short-changing Peter’s continuity for the sake of propelling the plot along, that’s fair game. I don’t like it but it’s fair game.

Similarly Peter becomes Brock’s supporting character in this story and an effective one at that.

Brock recognizes Spider-Man is his best ally to resolve this situation even though he hates him. We learn more about Brock as a person through his feelings towards Spider-Man. Where once irrational hatred flowed now there is surprisingly...jealously. Spidey often gets a bum rap in the press and yet Venom is envious of that because in and out of the costume it’s much better than his lot in life.

There is also two wonderfully poignant moments between the two. The first is where Peter learns Dylan is Brock’s son and that Dylan doesn’t know this. We see the hurt Peter feels when he relates how terrible it is to not know who your father is. The second poignant moment is when Brock is distraught that Carnage must have desecrated the body of his deceased ex-wife and Dylan’s mother. For a character like Eddie Brock who’s so often (unfairly frankly) been dismissed as lacking depth this is a shocking moment of sadness, compounded by the fact that Dylan doesn’t know who Ann was. In this same moment Spider-Man looks remorseful too, which is a subtle piece of continuity porn done right by Cates. Ann was first introduced in ASM #375 (the issue setting up Brock’s solo series actually) and later died in ASM vol 2 #19.

What follows is another Spidey/Venom team up but arguably the best, or at least one of the best ever, as they encounter the Maker a.k.a. Ultimate Reed Richards which is a historic moment as Spider-Man finally gets to meet the counterpart to his old friend. There is plenty of other connections between hem too. The Ultimate Universe is innately associated with Spider-Man more than anyone else, the Maker like him was a young genius and they were both among the Secret Wars 2015 survivors. We get Normie Osborn returning for the first time since Fresh Start, a welcome return at that as I always love seeing his relationship with Spider-Man acknowledged. Then we get a nightmarish sequence set in Ravencroft with yet more well done continuity porn. John Jameson, veteran of Carnage Mind Bomb, Carnage: It’s a Wonderful Life, Conway’s Carnage run and 90s Ravencroft stories shows up to pay off his appearance in Cult of Carnage earlier this year. Norman Osborn returns in what will hopefully fix the asinine Red Goblin story arc. Spidey and Venom have their backs up against the wall (literally) and facing down Carnage, an army of Carnage infected psychos and Norman Osborn with the Carnage symbiote.

It’s been a very long time since I’ve ended a comic thinking ‘How WILL they get out of this?’

To tie aaaaaaaall this together is Ryan Stegman’s stellar art.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again, Stegman is the best new Spidey artist of the 2010s. He’s Bagley, JRJR, Frenz levels of awesome. He’s also the perfect fit for symbiotes as his art seems to be somewhat influenced by McFarlane co-creator of Venom despite what fucking fools (like RDMacQ) might think. His style here is dynamic, detailed, funny when it needs to be, scary when it needs to be, awe inspiring when it needs to be.

His double page spreads are eye candy and the one depicting the pit of bodies feels straight out of a late night drama. It’s just brilliant.

Never before has there been a Carnage or a symbiote story that’s felt this epic, this ambitious, this sheer mad and audacious in scale.

I can’t wait to read future installments.

Cates in this issue, and his run in general, has somehow managed to recapture the allure of the symbiotes that I think 80s and 90s fans felt when they first fell in love with them.

If you don’t like Carnage or symbiotes inherently I strongly recommend you skip this. If you even vaguely like them though I cannot recommend this enough. 

*Carnage has been making the transition into a horror character for awhile now. Carnage U.S.A., which is recommended reading for this event, felt very similar to a Dark Horse horror comic only with Marvel superheroes. Gerry Conway was explicit about how his Carnage ongoing series was effectively his take on Tomb of Dracula.

[adamwatchesmovies]

The Worst of 2019 (So Far)

And now we get to the opposite of yesterday’s post: the worst of what we’ve seen so far. Time to give them a proper thrashing before they (hopefully) fade into obscurity. Disappointingly, there's a general lack of films that were bad but in an interesting way. Mostly, it’s either been the same sorta dreck we usually get with a couple of unusually offensive stories and a couple of soul-crushingly bad superhero flicks. Curious? Read on.

10. Serenity

I like to save my #10 spot on the “Worst of” list for a movie that has a chance of becoming a favorite among those who love bad movies. Serenity is competently enough made that it does not belong in the same category as The Identical or Runaway. It’s another kind of bad movie, the kind that baffles anyone who sees it and who will have film historians scratching their heads in the future. It’s not quite on the same level as 2017’s “The Book of Henry” but close. Top-notch actors at the top of their career in a story so poorly conceived it would’ve been brilliant if it weren’t awful and utterly absurd.

The revelation that everything we've been seeing is actually part of a video game programmed by an angry teen who hates his abusive father, and that his actions are tied to those of Matthew McConaughey's character is the kind of nutty decision someone at some point should've questioned. My advice? Surprise some unsuspecting friends with it. Periodically pause the movie so they can write down how they think it'll all fit together and then watch their faces as they're proved wrong.

9. After

I’m not going to remember After down the line so this is my opportunity to give it another flogging. I can’t believe fan-fictions of real people is a real thing and that one of them was deemed legitimate and popular enough to be turned into a movie. It plays out like the clone of a clone of a clone of Twilight. At least that movie had danger in the form of vampires and werewolves. This has nothing to offer except embarrassing drama and a prepubescent’s idea of what romance and love look like. I saw it in the theater with a friend and thank goodness she was there; it made what would've been a chore... slightly more bearable.

8. Dumbo

I’ve already gone on about how I feel about Disney’s string of live-action remakes. For the most part, they fail to validate their own existences; they’re just copies of the original but with “real” actors dancing around animated backgrounds, objects and locations instead of everything being traditionally animated. Dumbo isn’t like Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast. It does try new things. It diverges from the source material significantly in the worst way. The titular character winds up playing second banana to a bunch of circus performers no one cares about and in the end didn’t contain an inkling of the emotion the 1941 version did.

7. Dark Phoenix

This one’s a triple-whammy. Not only was it a deeply disappointing way for Fox’s X-Men series to end, it retreaded old material in a way that was worse than X-Men 3: The Last Stand AND it was a box office bomb. By the time the story finally comes alive… it’s just about over. The whole thing feels like a mistake, bringing in aliens and asking us to invest in characters we just haven’t had enough time to fall in love with. Makes me wonder what the future of the characters is going to be like. Yes there are a number of heroes and heroines we haven’t yet seen, but are people going to care, even when the brand gets a new coat of paint from Marvel Studios?

6. Men in Black: International

Was anyone asking for the Men in Black series to return? Maybe if they'd had a dynamite story this could’ve overcome the public’s general disinterest, but this was an extremely generic plot you could figure out easily minutes in and lost touch with what endeared us to the first. Even with the combined forces of Tessa Thompson and Chris Hemsworth failed, it to generate many laughs. Worse, to make sure I got any references or Easter egg it might drop, I re-watched all of the previous Men in Black movies, including the horrific Men in Black 2.

5. Replicas

This movie goes about itself in such a convoluted way. First, Keanu Reeves plays a scientist working for a company that wants to transplant the mind of dead soldiers into androids. Then, his family is killed in a car crash, prompting him to use the mind transfer tech to put their memories into new clone bodies of themselves. Problem is, he only has the means to clone three out of four family members. This means he has to erase all memories of his youngest daughter from the others’ brains. Following me so far? Good because it keeps going from there. Actually, that’s just the start of it. It’s a classic case of TMSGO - too much sh*t goin’ on. Even with all that, it STILLL managed to have gaping plot holes. No surprise it came and went as quietly as possible.

4. Hellboy

This one hurt. I wanted to see a superhero horror film badly. The early interviews I read about them wanting to adapt Mike Mignola’s books more closely than the Del Toro films got me excited. I was a little apprehensive when the trailers showed some goofy stuff but I figured these were included to draw people in. I should've listened to that sinking feeling. The actual film is awful, one giant mistake after another. Without a doubt, this featured the year’s worst special effects and even this I could've forgiven but the would-be humorous tone was badly misjudged and the story bloated with way too many elements that might've worked... if we weren't also trying to tell the character's origin at the same time. Hellboy ends with a teaser promising more and there’s no way we would’ve seen a sequel even if this had made money at the box office. Cool demons though, for what it’s worth.

3. Shaft

Looking back, I’m struggling to think of anything worth seeing in Shaft. I hated the film’s approach at comedy, particularly when it reverted Samuel L. Jackson’s John Shaft into the kind of man who proudly doesn’t understand modern sensibilities and spews out one homophobic joke after another. The plot was uninspired and uninteresting - not to mention generic - and none of it felt like it belonged on the big screen. On the upside, it prompted me to view the original trilogy with Richard Roundtree and those were enjoyable.

2. Simmba

Simmba is unlikely to be on the “Worst of 2019” list next January. It probably won’t be at the #2 spot. The film mixes two wildly different tones but not well. It begins as a romantic crime comedy, a dated one, sure. Simmba staging a phoney crime in order for the woman he’s attracted to to call him for help and then use the call as an excuse to stay with her through the night is creepy but I guess it might’ve passed like 20 years ago in North America. What makes this a bad film is the way it then introduces a character’s gang rape and murder as a way to prompt the anti-hero onto a righteous path. From there, it turns into this vigilante revenge film that has disturbing implications. You probably haven’t heard of it before now, much less seen it. I don’t recommend you check it out.

Runner Ups:

Aladdin

A controversial choice, as many casual filmgoers seem to have fallen madly in love with it (similar to the way they ate up 2017’s Beauty and the Beast) but honestly, what does this film do better than 1992’s Aladdin? Add an unmemorable song for Princess Jasmine to sing? Reduce the number of talking animals in order to give us more… nothing? Pile on the CGI to the point you wonder why it was made with live-actors in the first place? Like the innumerable direct-to-video sequels of classic films who've been all but forgotten, I tell you this Arabbian adventure won't endure.

Tolkien

So much potential squandered on a boring story. It didn’t take an astute viewer to recognize the film was crippled by the studio failing to obtain the rights to Tolkien’s actual work. I get the feeling we'll see another shot at a biography of J.R.R. Tolkien in a couple of years and this will be the Christopher Robin to the much superior Goodbye Christopher Robin.

The Hustle

It’s an unfunny comedy, what more is there to say? Rebel Wilson makes yet another bad career choice playing the same character she always plays. I only realized it was a remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels while writing my review, which is unfortunate. Hopefully I can expunge this film from my memory soon enough and forget anything it might’ve spoiled about the original Bedtime Story or the 1988 remake.

1. Unplanned

The numerous instances of technical incompetence - mostly coming from the performers who are given lackluster material - would be enough to condemn Unplanned to this list. What made me hate the film is the way it blatantly lies and attempts to manipulate the audience into further entrenching themselves in a certain point of view through cheap, manipulative means. I can respect that genuine passion was poured into the project but the way it goes about it is shameful. Do not go see it, even if you're curious.

Yuck. That last one really left a bad taste in my mouth so I'm going to talk about a movie I did enjoy and am enthusiastic to direct you towards Alita: Battle Angel. Rosa Salazar as the titular Alita impressed me and I really dug the action scenes. I'll also right a wrong from last year by reminding you to find and watch Paddington and Paddington 2, both movies I should've put on my "Best of" lists the years they came out. I don't know what I was thinking but I keep coming back to these in my head. They're excellent for kids and adults.

And with that said, the list is over. Back to our regularly-scheduled film reviews until something big comes up. Thoughts or comments on the list are welcome and I hope you enjoyed reading.

[popatochisssp]

Fur a Good Time, Call... 12/15

Series: Undertale, Horrortale Relationship(s): HT!Sans/Reader, HT!Papyrus & Reader, HT!Sans & HT!Papyrus, ensemble Chapter Warnings: none

You work at an animal shelter. You love all your fuzzy buddies and can’t imagine a better job for yourself than looking after cats and dogs all day, even when the work is hard and often gross. What can you say? You’ve got a lot of love to give!

You’re just not quite sure yet how you feel about the new monster who’s been helping out these days, and this riddle wrapped up in an enigma is something you just can’t resist investigating…

AO3 Link

Comeback

“I Can’t Believe You Talked Me Into This,” Papyrus mutters, shrugging his coat back on.

You’re fussing with your shoes, but you smile a little at his exasperated tone. “By ‘talked you into,’ you mean…Sans asking if you wanted to come and you agreeing?”

“Yes! Wily Snakes, The Both Of You!”

That gets you snickering.

“Hey now,” you protest, “I’m no snake, I’m just along for the ride!”

It’d been decided that you would read the directions off your phone while Papyrus drove since it had worked so well last time, and since Sans didn’t actually know where the new Grillby’s was.

Sans himself was upstairs getting dressed and (hopefully) putting his pillow back where it belonged at his brother’s insistence. It was probably for the best, no matter how wonderfully squishy the pillow made Sans’ midsection, or how appealing his broad and sturdy bone structure was without his shirt in the way.

……Am I becoming the type of person that’s attracted to bone structure?

Was that going to be the first thing you thought of now when checking people out? How nicely formed their spines and rib-cages were?!

You might be a little more concerned about that…if you actually had any plans to check out somebody who wasn’t a skeleton anytime soon.

You haven’t been dating all that long, but you’d been best friends before becoming datemates and this thing with Sans…

It feels serious. You think there’s a real future for you here, somewhere down the line, and that’s…

That’s pretty damn cool.

“Well, Fine, If I Can’t Blame You, I’ll Blame Sans!” Papyrus proclaims. “That Makes More Sense, Anyway!”

Yes, exactly: a long and wonderful future of blaming Sans for things Just Because.

It sounded fantastic already.

“Yeah, I’m on board with that,” you agree, finally getting your own coat on.

“I Don’t Even Like Grease,” Papyrus continues to grumble. “I Already Ate, Am I Just Going So I Can Look Pretty While I Third-Wheel Your Date?!”

“Well, you’re good at the first part,” you chuckle, “but you’re no third wheel. Or if you are, it’s ‘cause we’re a tricycle—we love you, and you already know what date-disasters Sans and I are, it’s not like you’re cutting in on anything formal. This’ll be fun!”

Papyrus… isn’t quite looking at you.

He’s putting his gloves on—or maybe he started to, but now he just seems to be wringing his hands distractedly, his posture unusually hunched.

“Isn’t This A Bad Idea?” he asks. If it’s a question, it sounds almost rhetorical with how flatly he says it. “It’s Not Like There’s Anyone There I Was Even Friends With. Maybe…Maybe I Should Just Drive You And Sans Over And Go Home…”

“Papy…”

Your startled, disheartened tone seems to break through to him somehow.

Papyrus suddenly straightens, standing tall and scowling.

With a stamp of his foot, he snaps, “Ugh, Stars Above, You’re Right, That Is Not A Helpful Thought Right Now! This Is A Great Idea! I’m Great! This Is Just The Nervousness Talking, I Am Going To Grillby’s And It’s Going To Be Fine!”

You’re impressed: the only thing you can see in Papyrus right now is steely determination, a light-speed u-turn from where it seemed his thoughts had been heading.

“Are you sure?” you ask, just in case. You feel pretty comfortable speaking for Sans, too, when you say, “We’d never want to take you somewhere you weren’t comfortable…”

“I’m Positive!” Papyrus puts his hand on your shoulder, gratefully gentle. “It Really Will Be Good To See Everybody Again, Whoever Happens To Be There Tonight, And…And Maybe It’s Not As Bad As It Used To Be!”

Man…Papyrus is so cool.

Your insanely awesome friend grabs his car keys with a jaunty little flourish that makes you laugh and you follow him out to the car.

You trust Sans will catch up whenever he finally gets his coccyx in gear.

The wall of cold air that hits your face as soon as you step outside is unpleasant but you power through it. You know that Papyrus’ convertible has some fancy heated seats you’ve been dying to try out and all you have to do is get to them.

“So, what’s Grillby’s even like?” you ask, making a bee-line for the car. “Or…what was it like, I guess? Sans never mentioned it until recently…”

“Underground? It Was A Total Grease-Trap With No Redeeming Features Whatsoever!” Papyrus unlocks the car and you gratefully duck right into the passenger seat while he joins you on the driver’s side. “Naturally, Sans Was There Pretty Much Constantly!”

You laugh and Papyrus laughs with you before admitting, “Perhaps I’m Not Being Very Charitable. It’s A Perfectly Legitimate Eatery If You Like Oil And Salt—” you do, “—And It Was A Very Popular Meeting Place In Snowdin. Sans Had Lots Of Pals There So I Only Complained A Little When He Skipped Out On My Terrible Spaghetti To Go Eat Grease By The Fistful Instead.”

Yeah, sounds like Sans.

“Was…Grillby one of those pals?”

“Oh Yes, Of Course!” Papyrus switches on the heat for you, the absolute angel. “Nyeh-Heh-Heh, Actually…It Started When Poor Grillby Made The Horrific Mistake Of Letting Sans Open A Tab.”

“…Oh stars, that was never paid off, I guess.”

“Definitely Not,” Pap agrees, shaking his head in, you assume, shame that he’s related to such a freeloading cheapskate. “But! Sans Liked It So Much That He Talked The Place Up All The Time, Even In The Middle Of His Hotland Shows.”

It takes you a second to remember Sans telling you he took a crack at professional comedy for awhile. Then, you’re grinning at the mental image of him stopping in the middle of a set or interrupting one of his own jokes to gush about a really, really good burger he had the other day.

Classic Sans…

“Free advertising for Grillby, though,” you note.

“Exactly!” Papyrus taps the ridge on his face where a nose would be and you guess the gesture means you got his point. “He Got Enough Business Through Sans That He Decided Enabling His Shameful Freegan Lifestyle Was Acceptable And That Was That! Their Weird Symbiotic Relationship Was Born, Like…Like A Crab And The Gross, Slimy Algae That Grows On Them For Camouflage!”

He leans over to you like he’s telling you a secret and stage-whispers, “Obviously, The Gross, Slimy Algae In This Analogy Is Sans.”

“aw, bro, you’re analogizin’ about me again? your heart’s as cold as the wind outside tonight.”

You whirl around and sure enough, Sans is there in the backseat. He’s fully dressed so you can’t tell if he ditched the pillow or not, but he smiles when he sees you looking and gives you a little wink that makes you feel warm inside.

“It’s About Time!” Papyrus says, already starting to drive. “I’m Going To Let That Insult Go, Just This Once, Since It Was Actually Almost Clever!”

“was it? my bad. your mom.”

“We Don’t Have One Of Those?”

“right. your butt, then.”

“Nyeeeh, We Don’t Have Those Either, Sans! Human, Please Give Me The Directions Before I Have To Pull Over And Give My Brother A Serious Thrashing!”

“whoa, Pap, don’t go makin’ any thrash decisions.”

Papyrus reaches back to swat at Sans, Sans dodges with ease, and you pull up the directions and do your best to be intelligible through your giggles.

It’s gonna be a good night.

-

Eventually you arrive in front of a small brick building. The sign on top labels it as your destination, ‘GRILLBY’S’ in big, shiny bronze lettering.

Both of the brothers go quiet when they see it, stopping mid-bicker just to stare at the unassuming little place you’ve pulled up to.

Papyrus recovers first, shooing you and Sans out of the car so he can go find somewhere to park. You can’t help noticing the nervous tapping of his spindly fingers against the steering wheel, but when you go to say something, Sans’ hand settles on your shoulder.

“sure thing, Pap,” he says. “ketchup soon, yeah?”

“Oh, Don’t Start!” Papyrus replies, grinning despite himself. “Those Tired Puns Of Yours Are…An Assalt On The Entire Art-Form! Nyeh-Heh-Heh-Heh-Heh!”

With that, he drives off and you give Sans a questioning look.

“he’s comin’ back,” he promises you, reading your concerns with ease. “he’s just gotta talk himself up to it first. don’t worry too much.”

It’s asking a lot, but…well, you trust Sans, and you trust Papyrus. If they need you to worry about them, you think that by now, they’d let you know.

“If you say so.”

You take another look at the fabled Grillby’s.

There’s a big front window with tinted glass and a big ceramic planter by the door. You can’t tell what sort of plant is in it, though, because there’s a pretty thick dusting of powder from the last snowfall obscuring it, making it droop over heavily. There’s snow up on the awning, too, but it’s faring better than the plant and not even bending beneath the weight.

It looks like a cute place, somewhere you’d definitely have stopped in for a try if you’d ever gone past it before.

“fuck me, it even looks the same,” Sans breathes.

You look up at him. You can’t quite read his expression, but it’s not blank, and it doesn’t seem bad. The closest label you can give it is ‘bittersweet nostalgia’ which…well, you can certainly understand that.

Still.

“You still want to do this, right?” You reach over and grab his hand—you’re getting pretty good at it, even with the size difference you once found awkward to manage—and gently assure him, “We don’t have to go if you’re not ready.”

“……heheheh…never thought i’d see the day i’d have to be talked into grillby’s.” Sans smiles at you, squeezing your hand. “nah, i’m alright. it…it’s been long enough. gotta do it sometime, might as well be now, when i got the cutest cheerleader ever backin’ me up.”

Your heart thumps a little harder. “Aww, Sans…”

“yeah…so soon as Pap gets back, i’ll be good to go.”

“…Sans!” You tug your hand back and give him a whack on the arm. “And here I thought you were being cute!”

“what, brotherly love ain’t cute enough for ya’?” he wonders slyly.

“Pfffffft.”

“aw, heheh, i’m kiddin’, babe, i’m kiddin’, c’mere…” He pulls you up against him, bending down to nuzzle your cheek.

You…elect to allow it.

“for real,” he murmurs at your ear, “i dunno how long i woulda taken to get here without you. you’re a real star too, okay?”

Oh, damn it.

How the hell were you supposed to feign annoyance when Sans was such a sweetheart?

“You’re the worst,” you mutter with a smile you can’t restrain, pressing a kiss to his cheekbone. “I regret dating you.”

Sans just chuckles. “that’s the spirit. let’s go before ya’ freeze your nose off or somethin’, huh?”

“I’d prefer to keep my nose, yeah.”

Well, then…once more into the breach, right?

You pull open the heavy door and walk in, Sans right behind you.

The inside of Grillby’s reminds you of nothing so much as a log cabin. The floor and furniture are all wooden, well-lacquered mahogany that seems like it’s seen some wear over the years but was treated kindly enough to last anyway. The flickering sconces all over accent the atmosphere nicely, as does the dark shade on the walls that puts you in mind of a big mug of hot cocoa.

It’s warm and quaint, almost homey, and you feel comfortable in this calm and quiet little pub almost instantly.

It doesn’t stay calm and quiet for very long.

Mere seconds after walking through the door, the scattered monster patrons turn from their food and drinks to see who’d come in.

The lone little human doesn’t seem to merit much reaction, but you spot at least three separate double-takes for the skeleton at your heels and soon the excited whispers and murmurs around you coalesce into one joyful exclamation.

“SAAAAANS…!”

Sans goes blue, ducking his head with a shy little chuckle that would make you want to pinch his cheeks if they were squishier.

You take a step back as several monsters scurry forward to swarm your date and just observe.

There’s a lizard-man with brown and yellow scales clapping his claws on Sans’ shoulder and a whole pack of bipedal dogs pushing and shoving and barking as they fight over who gets to ‘pet him first.’

A tiny blushing…volcano? sneaks in between everyone’s feet to wriggle against Sans’ tibia cooing, “Ah, so lovey…!” and you have to look away before you burst out laughing.

There’s some more monsters watching the scene like you were— some sort of eel monster trying to start a cheer, but not noticing he’s the only one doing it because he’s already pretty sloshed. Someone who looks more mouth than monster is smacking their vines together in an unusual attempt at applause, and when you look away from Little Shop of Horrors you spot Burr waving a paw at you over a cute pink and blue milkshake.

You wave back with a smile and start heading over to say hi until you’re caught by a familiarly bony pair of hands on your arms and whirled right around.

“heheh, hey, has, uh, has everybody met my date?” Sans says, holding you in front of him like the most ineffective shield ever.

He hurriedly introduces you, calling you his coolest, most favorite human in the world in front of all these new monsters and suddenly, you don’t think it’s the cozy atmosphere in here that’s making your cheeks warm.

Two hand-holding…or, paw-holding dogs start sniffing at you.

“So this is the one…”

“…that Burr talked about?”

Oh jeez, they finish each other’s sentences?

That was cute! And proof that you and Sans weren’t that bad!

“Smells pretty nice for a human!”

“We’ve smelt weirder! I’m Dogaressa and this is my hot-dog hubby!”

“She means me!” the other dog says proudly. “I’m Dogamy!”

“Nice to meet you both,” you greet them. “You guys make a really cute couple!”

Their ears perk and their tails start wagging. “Don’t we?” they coo in unison, and oh boy, they’re nuzzling each other now.

They’re obviously pros at it so your feelings aren’t terribly hurt when they seem to forget all about you. It’s hard to have hurt feelings anyway when there’s two other dogs scrambling for your attention.

One is the smallest, foofiest white pup you’ve ever seen, sproinging around your feet, and the other has sandy yellow fur and is just a pinch taller than you.

Now this is your comfort zone: you’re good at dogs!

They don’t seem to be dogs of the talking variety like the other two, and they’re so alluringly soft that you can’t imagine being able to resist petting them anyway, so you just go for it.

The little white puffball wiggles his entire body when you scratch his head and Sans helpfully tells you, “that’s greater dog.”

“Greater Dog?” you echo. “Well, I can see why, he looks like a pretty great dog!”

His poofy tail swishes back and forth happily and he opens his little mouth to bark at you and—whoa.

That sound was downright booming, you think you may have actually heard some glassware rattling clean across the room from that bark!

“heheheh, nah, that’s why he’s greater dog. his pal over here’s lesser.”

Lesser Dog, apparently, was whining beside you, back paws tap-tap-tapping on the hardwood like he couldn’t wait for you to acknowledge him, too.

“Aw, there’s nothing ‘lesser’ about this guy, he’s adorable!” You pet his head and he yaps excitedly, pushing up into your hand.

Oh…oh, very up into your hand. The dog’s neck is actually extending, physically getting longer the more you pet him.

You’re so fascinated that you just keep petting him until you can’t reach his head anymore. Luckily, with the relative sizes of human-to-monster it doesn’t go too far up, but you have to wonder just how far this elastic pooch could stretch under the right circumstances.

“I’d pet you more,” you call up to him, apologetic, “but I can’t really reach. Sorry!”

Lesser Dog barks, slightly distantly, and Sans snickers.

“he appreciates the attempt.”

The lizard guy approaches you next and grasps your hand very carefully in his clawed fingers, giving it a shake.

“The name’s Dino!” he says amiably, and you’d never expected yourself to be in a situation where a yellow reptile man seemed like the most normal, down-to-earth guy in the room, but here you were. “Burr told us all about you! You must be something real special—I thought I’d be a grandpa before this guy started seeing anybody!”

You’re definitely blushing now, more than a little embarrassed, but by the way Sans laughs behind you as he agrees with Dino, you can tell that your boyfriend is loosening up a little; getting back into his element for the first time in who knows how long.

That makes you a little more comfortable with all this attention, you think, and it’s certainly…flattering!

“Ha ha, thanks! I, uh…”

Your first instinct is to self-deprecate, make it a joke that everyone can laugh about, but…you feel like it would be in bad taste, somehow.

If Sans and Papyrus can try so hard to work on their things, maybe…maybe you can try to work on your things, too.

“I didn’t think he’d say yes when I asked him out, but I must’ve undersold myself a little!” You smile up at Sans, who looks pleasantly surprised that you’re accepting a compliment, and your confidence grows. “I guess I’ve got something he likes!”

“y’wanna know what it was?” Sans asks. This question you know is rhetorical because he’s grinning widely, bursting at the seams to tell you. “i just knew you’d be a good datemate. felt it in my bones.”

It makes you chuckle—you and everybody else in the bar laughing in genuine amusement at the most obvious joke Sans could’ve possibly made.

These were his people, you realized. The ones he’d isolated himself from for two years, maybe longer, and they were finally getting to hear a lazy skeleton joke again straight from the skeleton’s mandible.

This was…this was a really, really good thing.

And you think you can help.

“Don’t lie,” you say, elbowing Sans in the ribs. “You just wanted to date me so you could come back here again!”

It’s obvious that Sans is confused, tilting his head at you. “what’re ya’ talking about?”

That’s perfect. It just makes it even better when you explain, utterly deadpan, “Well, without me, you’d have no body to go with.”

By the look on Sans’ face, you’d have thought you’d just told the funniest joke in the world.

He breaks into ugly guffaws that spread through the place like a contagion and you just beam, even as he hugs you tightly against him.

“this…” he wheezes happily, “this is why…!”

“Oh, they’re funny, too!”

“Nice going, Sansy!”

“We might have some Nose Nuzzling competition this year…”

“No, dear, we’re still the champs! Skeletons don’t have noses!”

“Phew, I was almost worried there!”

Pfft, what a funny bunch of monsters… You hope Sans brings you back here sometime, you already kind of love everyone!

-

When the clamor eventually calms down, Sans introduces you to the rest of the crew: the animated little volcano scampering around here and there is Vulkin, the drunk eel at the bar is Franco…

“ya’ already met burr—”

“hiya,” the bunny waves at you again with a little wink of her swirly eyes.

“—an’ big mouth over there, she’s audrey.”

……of course she is!

Before you can even say it’s nice to meet her, Audrey (II) grins almost unsettlingly wide with her gigantic, sharp teeth.

“Come on, now, Sans,” she says, “don’t you think you’re getting off too easy?”

Sans frowns a little. “…no?”

Audrey grins wider. “Your date hasn’t met everybody yet…”

That seems to make the penny drop for Sans, his red pupil shrinking. “uh…well, no, but, uh…”

Oh wow, Sans looks nervous. There’s actual sweat beading on his skull, and everything.

Audrey just cackles at him, sadistically amused. “You’re lucky I was nice enough to warn you, Sansy!”

One of her vines reaches across the bar, to the door to the back-room, rapping hard against the wood.

“Hey, Grillbz!” she calls with her impressively loud voice. “Get off the phone, already! You’ll never guess who finally dragged his fuzzy slippers in!”

Oh, that’s right: Grillby himself.

You hear a distant sound, a rapidly surging whoosh until the door nearly explodes off its hinges with a loud bang.

The noise makes you flinch, but it’s the flaming monster who pours out of the doorway like a deadly back-draft that makes you actually kind of scared.

Grillby has all the presence of a walking bonfire.

He’s a massive humanoid blur of fire, a fire elemental you suddenly remember Burr telling you, and he’s flickering white-hot as he stalks toward you and Sans with purpose.

Not even his charmingly dapper black bowtie or the square-rim glasses on his face could disguise the fact that Grillby was furious right now and ready to unleash hell, possibly literally.

You normally pride yourself on your ability to take charge of situations, especially when it’s to save Sans from something or other, but this time…

Yikes, babe, sorry, you’re on your own!

At least Sans seems to be on the same page as you. He steps forward, angling himself in front of you so that by the time Grillby storms up, crackling mad, he’s most of the way between you.

Even with your bony boyfriend as a shield, though, the heat is intense and you start to sweat almost as much as Sans.

“uh…h-heya, grillbz,” Sans says weakly. “long, uh…long time, no see?”

Grillby’s oddly featureless face splits right where you’d expect a mouth to be, pouring smoke and flickering spouts of fire that look almost like fangs.

“No. Shit,” he snarls and Sans winces.

“i…yeah, i…i know, that’s…that’s my bad, i was…i was sortin’ myself out, for awhile. it…it hasn’t been too easy,” he laughs tightly, awkwardly.

Grillby doesn’t seem moved.

“i needed a little…space, i guess,” Sans says, ducking his head a little in chagrin. He blindly reaches back toward you, a silent question that you’re happy to answer by grabbing his hand and letting him squeeze it. “needed a little…motivation, too, heheh…but i’m…i’m back now and…grillbz, ya’ still look pissed, whatta’ya want me to tell ya?”

“I want,” Grillby snaps, surprisingly cold for a fire elemental, “an apology.”

“…an apology?”

“For making me worry about you, you bonehead…”

“eheheheheh…”

You want to tell Sans that it’s maybe not the most appropriate time to laugh and that he should probably give his friend the apology he wants to hear.

But that’s not your business. This is Sans’ business and he has to handle it whatever way he decides to handle it.

You stay quiet and let these two sort it out.

“i just wanna say…in my defense, i thought you were dead.”

…damn, Sans was bad at this.

“We thought the same about you, Sans!” Grillby counters. “You disappear on the surface, who the blazes knows where—the least you could’ve done was let someone know you were alright!”

“………i…wasn’t,” Sans says slowly. “i wasn’t alright.”

Grillby’s flames shrink a little, going back down to shades of red and orange, but Sans keeps talking.

“i am sorry, i didn’t…i didn’t mean to make anybody worry about me… wasn’t, uh…wasn’t sure anybody would…but that’s. that ain’t an excuse. m’doin’ better now, tryin’ to anyway…”

You reach up and give his spine a reassuring little stroke through the padding of his hoodie. You feel him relax at your touch and smile, pleased to be able to help.

Or you are, until you find yourself picked up and set down right in front of the living inferno of a bartender, Sans hands on your shoulders holding you in place.

“h-hey, that reminds me, have ya’ met my human yet?”

Sans, you bitch…

A little awkwardly, doing your best to cover your nervousness, you introduce yourself and add, “I’m, uh… I’m the unfortunate sucker Sans has conned into putting up with him for the foreseeable future.”

“‘unfortunate’? ouch, what happened to bein’ your favorite funnybones?”

You give him a near-lethal side-eye, quietly snapping, “Says the guy using me as a distraction to avoid talking about feelings with his friend?”

“…damn, yeah, guess ya’ got me there.”

You hear a weird hissing sound and turn back to face Grillby. The elemental still doesn’t have much of a face to go off of, and the mirror-shine of his glasses isn’t any help, but by the bouncing of his shoulders…

You think he’s laughing.

“You poor, poor human,” he says after a moment. “You must be the reason Sans finally decided to bother coming out to see us. It’s a pleasure.”

Grillby holds out his hand to you, incandescent and flickering. You hesitate only a second before taking it.

The sensation is…weird.

You can’t really describe it: it’s like you’re holding something that doesn’t exist, heat beneath your palm but nothing painful or scorching, and far less solid than anything you can physically hold should be.

You decide not to question it.

“Likewise,” you say to Grillby with a winning smile and he nods in what you hope is approval.

“Bring him here if you ever need a break,” Grillby says, coolly retreating to his place behind the bar. “We’ll keep him out of your hair for a bit.”

“hey, don’t gang up on me.”

“Don’t make people want to gang up on you,” you shoot back teasingly.

“you tryin’ to hold me accountable for my actions or somethin’?” Sans asks, sounding affronted. “rude. uncool. thought you really cared about me.”

Either he’s joking or fishing, but you don’t think it matters which. You turn around and get up on your tip-toes, tugging him down to your level so you can plant a big, affectionate kiss in the middle of his teeth.

“I do really care about you,” you tell him. “Thanks for bringing me tonight. It means a lot to me.”

The absolute best way to win a sass-off with your bonefriend: fluster him with genuine sincerity.

It works like a charm the way it always does and as soon as Sans realizes what you’ve said, he’s blushing blue again, stuttering as he tries and fails to come up with a smooth response.

He’s saved from looking like too much of an idiot when the front door opens and Papyrus makes his way inside at long last.

“Sans! Human!” he exclaims, shaking off some snow and heading straight for the two of you. “You Would Not Believe How Nonsensically Hard It Is To Find Parking Around He—”

“PAPYRUUUUUUUS…!”

Papyrus freezes mid-step, eye-sockets wide behind his glasses as he’s suddenly swarmed by Grillby’s patrons almost as quickly as they’d swarmed Sans.

“Hey there, big guy!” Dogamy greets him, Dogaressa hot on his paws with a, “We missed you! Do you have any bones for us?”

Lesser and Greater Dog both bark excitedly at the b-word and Papyrus just looks at them for a second, baffled.

“Oh, I…I Suppose I Could…Spare A Bone Attack Or Two, If—”

“Nonsense, don’t make the poor guy work, he just got here!” Dino slings an arm around Papyrus, the epitome of friendly. “If you want bones off ‘im, you should win ‘em fair and square! Papyrus, we were just about to get a poker game going, like the old days—you want in? The chips are bones on account of all these mutts, so the buy-in oughta be easy for you!”

It’s pretty obvious, even from where you’re standing, that Papyrus wasn’t expecting this kind of reaction at all.

It’s also obvious that he’s kind of elated by it, being the center of attention in a room with so many people in it.

“Oh! Well, That Sounds! Like A Lot Of Fun!” Papyrus admits, his grin wide and only slightly uncertain. “I-I’m Pretty Good At Poker…At Least, Against Sans, I’ve Never Played With…”

He doesn’t finish the sentence, but Dino doesn’t seem concerned, waving him off. “Aw, forget Sans, we banned him from poker, he’s a cheat.”

“hey,” Sans calls over, “if ya’ didn’t want me to take your kid’s college money, ya’ shoulda said!”

Dino makes a rude gesture at him that makes you snicker a little. Sans just shrugs it off.

“C’mon, Pap, play a game or two! If I win, you can autograph something for me, the kid’s been dying for your autograph since we got up here, it’ll make me Number One Dad if I come home with something signed by The Great Papyrus.”

Papyrus lets himself be tugged over to one of the tables, but not before whipping his skull around to you and Sans, excitedly mouthing, ‘autograph?!’

It may have been a trick of the light off his glasses, but his eye-sockets look positively shiny, like something out of an anime.

“Well,” he says boldly with a quick clearing of the throat he didn’t have, “I’m Sure You’re Delighted To Hear It, But I’m…Feeling Pretty Generous This Evening! I Think I Could Be Persuaded To Sign A Few Things, Whether You Win Or Not! Most Likely Not, Nyeh-Heh-Heh!”

“Man,” Dino laughs, “Papyrus, you’re the best! You’re his hero, y’know? That’ll really make his day.”

“Of Course It Will!” Papyrus squeaks the last word and hastily covers it with an imperious, “Order My Usual, Sans!”

Sans gives him a thumbs up and takes a seat at the bar. You join him shortly, having to hop a little just to get up on the monster-sized stools.

“So much for not having any friends at Grillby’s,” you muse quietly, unable to stop your smile.

“If he thought that, he’s just as hard-headed as his brother,” Burr laughs beside you.

“hey,” says Sans, but you ignore him.

“How’s that?” you ask Burr.

“Sansy may have been the Big Damn Hero getting all the souls,” and you can already see the blue glow of Sans’ face in your peripheral vision, “but good ol’ Papy was the one going around to everybody all the time, making sure we were all as fed as we could be in that hell-hole. That really meant something, to a lot of people.”

You can imagine.

The sort of kindness and decency you’ve seen in Papyrus was the sort that deserved to be rewarded. For keeping that warm heart of his, even when his whole world fell apart around him…

Papyrus is the toughest, coolest, best friend you think you’ve ever had. These accolades are long overdue and it makes you so happy to see him finally receiving them.

“heheheh…yeah. my bro’s the coolest.”

You laugh, grabbing Sans’ arm. “I keep telling you, babe, it runs in the family.”

“mmm, shuddap.” He flags down Grillby to avoid looking directly at you and running the risk of flustering himself even more. “hey grillbz, the usual for me an’ Pap an’ a menu for my adorable, cutesy-wutesy wittle human here?”

…Well, now, you’re blushing again.

Damn, this is a dangerous game.

“I hate you,” you grumble as Grillby passes you a menu.

“lies. lies an’ slander. see anythin’ good?”

So much.

There is so much good on this laminated sheet that you feel utterly spoiled for choice: burgers, fries, sandwiches, mac n’ cheese, and tons more, plus a whole list of monster magic drinks and cocktails that fascinate the hell out of you.

You agonize over wanting to order half of the menu, but ultimately stick with some of your favorites and pass the sheet back to Grillby, excited to see what he can do in the kitchen.

You and Sans have pretty similar tastes: if he was here all the time back in the day, and if Papyrus hated it, you know you’ve got something goodcoming to you.

Papyrus’ usual comes out first since it’s apparently just a glass of milk—“Full Of Strong Bones!” he assures you—and you watch Audrey pass it over to the poker table with one of her very long, very dexterous vines.

From here, it looks like Papyrus is mopping the floor with the other monsters, and you’re more proud of him than you can say.

You turn to Sans next, sitting beside you with an expression on his skull that you haven’t seen in awhile. It’s one of your favorites, where his smile is relaxed and real, with the cute little crinkles at the edges of his eye-sockets that make him look just like a cat.

Your giant, happy skeleton cat…

“Is it the same on the inside, too?”

“hm?” His big, red eye stares at you a second while he comes out of whatever daydream he was in the middle of. “oh…grillby’s, ya’ mean?”

“No, the moon.”

He snorts. “don’t joke, i know you humans’ve been there.” He takes another moment to consider your question, scratching idly at his cheek. “mmm…s’a little different, i guess. a lot the same… the people, y’know. still good. i, uh…i think i missed it a little more’n i thought,” he admits sheepishly.

“Well, I like it so far,” you tell him. “If the food’s as good as you say, I’m happy to come back whenever, so just let me know, okay?”

Sans smiles at you and you get a cheek-nuzzle for the sentiment. “will do, babe. i’ll hold ya’ to that.”

“Jeez, Foo-Foo, you weren’t kidding, these two are schmaltzy.”

Burr giggles at Audrey’s dry observation of you. “Right? I almost don’t want my milkshake anymore, it’s too sweet!”

“hhhhey, y’know what else is new?” Sans hurriedly points out. “never had a tv in here before, when, uh…when’d that happen?”

It’s a terrible distraction tactic, but for once, you’re with Sans on it.

You turn to look at the TV mounted up in the far corner and quickly realize it’s on the same channel Papyrus had turned on back at home before you left.

Only this time, Napstablook’s concert looks to be in full swing.

You imagine the colorful lights and smoke effects look infinitely cooler in person, but whoever’s working the camera is still doing a pretty good job capturing the magic. The ghost behind the turntables looks endearingly shy, like they always seem to be in front of a crowd, but they don’t let it affect their music.

Their techno-tunes are really impressive, complemented nicely by the melodic, feminine voice you’re hearing over them.

Huh, talk about ‘new,’ you’ve never seen her before.

“Shyreeeeeeen…!” you hear from down the bar.

It’s Franco, the eel guy, who you definitely thought had passed out awhile ago. He’s awake now and wriggling excitedly at the screen.

“Turn it up!” he slurs, “Turn it up, tha’s my giiiiiirl! I gott’er that gig, she’s doing amaaaaazing, I’m so proud…!”

Audrey sighs, like she’d be rolling her eyes if she had any, but she dutifully turns up the TV’s volume so that the cute angler fish-looking girl’s singing can be heard loud and clear by everyone.

“I gotta do everything around here,” Audrey mumbles. “If Shyen weren’t a total sweetheart, I swear, I…”

You don’t really hear what she says next because Grillby is setting a couple of plates in front of you, piled high with fantastic-looking food.

You’re not at all surprised to see an unreasonably large burger and fries in front of Sans, nor are you surprised when he proceeds to drown all of it in ketchup.

You don’t let it put you off your own food and happily dig in.

It is……probably the very best thing you have eaten, in your life.

You spare a mental apology to Papyrus’ delightful spaghetti and keep chowing down, savoring every delicious, wonderful bite as much as you physically can.

“heheheheheheheh, good stuff, right?”

“I could eat here for the rest of my life and be totally fine with it,” you say flatly.

Sans laughs, but suddenly Grillby’s leaning across the bar, inscrutable.

“Would you like to?” he asks.

Your eyebrows shoot up. “Uh…”

Before you can figure out if he’s joking and what to say back, the fiery restauranteur says, “You can. For free. An unlimited lifetime tab.”

Sans chokes a little on the swig of ketchup he was taking. “whoa, grillbz, you serious? i thought what we had was special.”

“It was,” Grillby says. You get the impression that if he had any facial features you were used to, he’d be giving Sans a savagely sassy look. “I’m revoking it from you and giving it to your human instead. I’d rather not waste my excellent service on an ungrateful no-show.”

“aw, man, that’s cold, grillby…”

When Grillby doesn’t react to Sans’ terrible pun, he frowns. It looks like a pout, and there goes your urge to pinch his cheeks again.

“wait, you’re not seriously cuttin’ me off, are ya’? i said i was sorry!”

The elemental is utterly unconcerned. “If you want to freeload,” he says, “ask your date to cover you. At least that way, I can expect to see you in here, sometimes.”

Sans blusters a little longer to the stoic and indifferent Grillby before turning his attention to you.

“well, hey, you’ll cover me, right?” He gives you his best attempt at puppy-dog eye(-socket)s, which quite frankly would probably terrify anybody who didn’t know what a goober he was.

Against you, they’re stupidly effective.

You sigh. “I guess…”

He brightens and damn it all, that look is just as cute.

“no prob, then,” he says, nuzzling at you again. You nuzzle back because you have no self-control. “i’ll just have to stick with you as long as i can. take full advantage of my sugar-human’s privileges.”

You laugh and shove him a little because you’re never going to live that down, but also because it’s easier to do that than acknowledge the weird little somersault your heart just did.

He may have been joking, but Sans basically just said you were a keeper; that he wanted the same thing you wanted out of this, and that was…

Wow.

-

At some point, you’re shanghaied by the poker table—apparently, Papyrus is an even worse scourge on their bone-chips than Sans was and they want to call upon his dark powers of shameless cheating to overthrow the new tyrant.

Sans protests a bit at first, citing his compromised memory, but they take it as a perk that’ll keep him from counting cards.

That’s about when you volunteer yourself as his partner: if the Dogi can be a team, Sans should be allowed to have a team, too, and you’re not exactly a card sharp so it shouldn’t be too uneven.

The table agrees and gives you a quick rundown of the rules they’re playing by and you and Sans are welcomed into the game.

It’s unbearably hard to keep your poker-face when Sans pulls you into his lap under the pretense of being better able to see your joint cards and you feel a very suspicious cushiness against your back.

“You left the pillow,” you hiss at him, trying desperately not to burst out laughing. “I cannot believe you, you left the pillow…!”

You bounce a little when he chuckles at your reaction. “what can i say?” he says in a low murmur. “maybe i was hopin’ to get you on top of me again an’ wanted you to be comfy.”

“Ugh, You Two Are Disgusting!” Papyrus groans at the flushing of your face. “Quit Your Incessant Canoodling And Ante Up, Already! I Have A Game To Win!”

Surprise of surprises, he does…but you and Sans give him a run for his money (bones?) and make him really work for that victory.

Still, you’re out with your best friend and your boyfriend, having a great time and chatting with, the monsters willing, a whole host of new friends that you hope to see again very soon here at your new favorite eatery.

You don’t really mind it too much that you lose a few games.

A/N: In case it’s not clear, Franco is Shyren's agent, Audrey is Big Mouth, and good ol' Dino is Monster Kid's dad!

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[pinkipie100]

Lance and the 25 Days Chapter III: Mall

It’s Ficcember Chapter III! Ha ha, nice job posting as late as possible again, requiring another morning reblog, Pinki, absolutely typical! Many apologies, but this weekend was ENTIRELY busy. I was barely home and had to do all my writing in the late afternoon, and in classic Pinki fashion, as I continue to write, I tend to ramble on and on and draw my plots out in a more complex manner than is necessary. BUT F*CK IT, IT’S THE HOLIDAY SEASON!!!

Team Voltron has arrived at their belovéd Space Mall, and it’s time to do some holiday shopping in a place that is guaranteed to have absolutely nothing that they are looking for!

Words: 2576

Category: Gen

Contains: Lance in a hat, thirsty hungry Shiro, Luki, DreamTeam™ Hidge/Punk, Excited Alteans, belief in Santa Clause, Distressed Christmas Mom™ Lance

Trigger Warning: peppermint bark deprivation

Takes place after Chapter II’s wormhole jump, when the team has arrived at the Space Mall.

P. S. Extra credit to anyone who can identify the probably-obscure reference I’m making with the ‘I made it’ line.

The Castle of Lions was parked near the Space Mall, and all of the paladins and Coran had arrived in the mall. Lance, Santa hat atop his head, lead them to the main plaza, then turned around, stepping up on a bench to brief the team.

“Okay, everyone, let’s go over it one more time,” he began. “Shiro, what are you in charge of?” Shiro answered that he was responsible for looking for decorations. “Great. Hunk, Pidge, what are you guys doing?” The pair confirmed that they would be on the lookout for items to make their holiday dinners with. “Exactly. Coran, Allura?” The boy drawled the latter’s name with an extremely friendly smirk, and both Alteans energetically announced that they were going with Lance to search for a tree and learn more about Christmas gift-giving traditions on the way. “Awesome! So, we all know what we’re doing. Everyone will do their assigned shopping first, and after a varga, we can all split off how we want to buy presents for the other team members.” Shiro coughed, making meaningful eye contact with Lance. “Also, don’t forget to buy Keith a gift,” Lance recalled firmly. When the other team members expressed confusion, Lance elaborated, “I’m going to make sure Keith,” Lance made sure to practically spit the other teen’s name, “is going to join us for the holidays. So… everyone has to get him a Chri- um… Shiro, he does celebrate Christmas, right?”

Shiro hesitated for a moment, then responded, “Uh, yes. Yes, he does.” Shiro looked rather unsure when he said this, and Lance asked if Shiro knew whether or not Keith was Jewish, to which he responded, “No, I know he isn’t Jewish.” Pidge appeared to sink just slightly.

“In any case, we’re going to all buy a present for Keith. So just get, like, a knife or something,” Lance instructed. The corner of his lip upturned just so after the jibes at his rival he so fondly missed making. The red paladin then called for the team to fan out, and he jumped down from his pedestal to join Coran and Allura.

Shiro casually window-shopped  through the wings of the Space Mall, seeing very little that could be considered ‘festive’ for either Hanukkah or Christmas. Shiro was beginning to think Lance had given him the hardest job… Did the red paladin think Shiro could handle this just because he was an adult? Coran should have been handling this job; he had way more knowhow of this mall that Shiro, who was here for the first time, did!

The black paladin peered at a small kiosk a little ways away, and his pupils promptly contracted whilst he gasped dramatically. It was an alien sweets stand- with something eerily similar in appearance to peppermint bark. The man gulped, tried to recollect himself, then swaggered over to the kiosk, trying his best to look nonchalant- and overdoing considerably. When he arrived, he pretended to be apathetically browsing the treats, until he came across the peppermint bark.

Shiro leaned on the kiosk surface, pointing to the delectable snack, then questioning, whilst simultaneously resisting the urge to drool, “How much is this, if I may ask?” The unilu manning the kiosk flippantly replied that it was one hundred twenty thousand GAC each, and Shiro tensed up. “Uhhh…” Shiro stuttered. “Wh-why so expensive?”

The unilu stopped filing her nails only momentarily before she continued to file away and sighed, “Look, I don’t know, man; I just work here. It’s probably, like, really hard to procure or… like, rare, or whatever.”

Can’t argue with that… Shiro agreed. The black paladin felt his guts tearing themselves asunder as he struggled to determine whether or not it was worth it. For just one, one single taste of home, Shiro might kill a man. But at the same time, he only had so much money to do shopping for, and he still had to buy the presents along with the décor. Lance would be so disappointed if Shiro came back empty-handed, and it was the least Shiro owed the red paladin in light of Lance promising to have Keith come over for their celebrations. At the unilu’s impatient prodding for Shiro to hurry up and buy something, Shiro made a strained decision.

Forgive me, Voltron, for I have sinned… the black paladin thought as he paid the kiosk worker and picked out a piece of peppermint bark. He then swiftly turned away, gazed lovingly at the alluring, candy cane crumble-topped sweet, and, with a tear in his eye, he took a bite of the… rock? Shiro’s teeth clacked against solid, tasteless stone, and the alleged peppermint pieces punctured the roof of his mouth. He yelped and flinched his hand away from his mouth, taking a closer look at the holiday treat.

“Dude, like, why are you eating that gemstone?” the unilu called from behind Shiro. At the paladin’s flabbergasted, ‘what?’ the worker reiterated, “The Anbytorian Gemstone that you just bought! Why the heck did you just try to eat it?!”

Shiro, trying and failing to keep his face neutral, whined in a wobbly voice, “This is… a rock?” The unilu nodded boredly, and Shiro’s eyes welled up. “No… no reason…” he uttered, and he walked away shamefully and with a broken heart.

“Weirdo,” the unilu working at the jewelry kiosk rolled her eyes.

Seriously, I think finding a tree or some holiday foods would be one thousand times easier than finding decorations, only to be tricked into buying some expensive-as-quiznack peppermint bark that isn’t even edible, Shiro thought tragically, staring down at the gemstone in his hands. Suddenly, he got an idea, and immediately brightened up. He rushed back to the kiosk, and slammed his palms on the table surface, enthusiastically asking, “Excuse me, but where can I find an Anbytorian-themed shop?”

“This smells just like cherries!” Pidge called to Hunk, holding up a basket of yellow, spring-shaped fruits.

“I found something that works just like oil,” Hunk called back, “only it works even faster!”

“Powdered sugar equivalent!” Pidge declared, purchasing a few bags of light green edible powder.

“Eggs for the sufganiyah dough!” Hunk mentioned, displaying a bag of strange, transparent-cyan embryos in a clear fluid.

“This restaurant had something almost exactly like corn syrup that we could use for making candy canes!” Pidge pointed out.

“This kitchen has a giant apple that tastes exactly like roast beef!” Hunk showed off.

“Whoo, we’re on a roll!” Pidge cheered, hauling an applesauce substitute into her bag. Hunk high-fived her in agreement, smirking at her.

“You know, I was thinking. Maybe we could do more than just cook meals for ourselves,” Hunk mused to his shorter friend. When Pidge expressed curiosity, the yellow paladin stated further, “Since there are so many displaced refugees on Olkarion, I figure it might be a nice gesture for Team Voltron to cook a feast for them. You know, maybe just for a night.”

“Hm, that sounds like a great idea… The… most selfless idea I’ve ever heard… but, who would cook it?” the green paladin inquired. Hunk blankly stared at Pidge, then proclaimed that he would, of course. “Hunk for all of those people? That’s a tall order, even for you!”

Hunk agreed that it would be quite the feat, so he may need some assistant cooks. He could enlist the help of a few Olkari if they were willing, plus Lance knew how to cook somewhat well.

“When would we host it?” Pidge finally wondered.

After some deliberation, Hunk proposed, “What about the night before Christmas? That way we could unwind on after a big Voltron event, and we would already have the Christmas dinner cooked. It won’t conflict with Hanukkah, either, and we could spend the days between the two doing some cooking ahead.”

Pidge nodded in approval and suggested, “This may just be my Jewish side wanting to put my two cents in, but what do you say I… I don’t know, light some candles and hang some lanterns in the trees around the forest, and that’s where we could host the feast?” Hunk complied with her idea spiritedly, and the two shared an immensely warm smile, then high-fived again. Afterwards, Pidge pointed to another food court up ahead, and the friends hurried along.

Hunk clenched up, however, stopping Pidge in her tracks. “Not this food court,” Hunk wheezed out, shielding the side of his face with his hand and marching right past the food court that held Vrepit Sal’s in it, and Pidge followed suit.

“Santa does all of that in one night?” Coran gasped in disbelief.

Lance reaffirmed Santa Claus’s capabilities, claiming how he just makes sure to stay on track with each time zone while he made his rounds through each chimney. He also reminded the Alteans that Santa was also magic, so if he was running behind schedule, he just slowed time down by a little bit.

“You say that Santa Claus is immortal?” Allura pondered, and Lance nodded to this, saying that the guy had just been old for a very long while. “Shiro also said that he breaks into your house. Isn’t that a bad thing?”

“No, no, Allura! Shiro doesn’t know what he’s talking about- Santa doesn’t need to break into your house because of magic! Plus, he goes down the chimney- burglars break your door open. It’s different,” Lance waved off, flipping his head and causing the fluffy white ball of his had to bob.

Coran observed this and commented, “Where did you get that?”

“I made it,” Lance voiced, smiling in Coran’s direction.

Allura requested that Lance describe the process of gift-giving further as the Cuban boy browsed some statuettes at a kiosk. Lance turned his nose up and revealed that finding gifts was the most complicated aspect of Christmas shopping or Hanukkah shopping. He held a statuette up to Allura’s eyes and asked her, “Do you think Coran would like this?” When Allura looked Coran’s way, Lance quickly corrected himself, “Don’t tell her, Coran! Allura has to figure this out by herself.” Allura, suddenly sweating, reluctantly drawled out an unsure ‘yes.’ “Coran?” Lance signaled for confirmation, and the older Altean smiled brightly and nodded in Allura’s direction. Allura jumped up in celebration, and Lance applauded her. “In a normal situation, you probably wouldn’t have Coran around to confirm whether or not he wanted this, but your intuition proved to be correct. So, you buy this and give it to him as a present. Now, another way to decide whether or not to buy something as a gift is to pay close attention to the recipient’s needs and/or wants. Coran, what’s something that Allura might have wanted in the past that she probably still wants?”

Coran thought hard, taking a moment to consider the recent past for anything Allura was particularly longing for, beside the defeat of the Galra Empire, and Allura smirked at him with narrowed eyes. Suddenly, he snapped and said, “Oh! Something… shiny,” which earned him a gasp and an ‘aw, Coran!’ from Allura.

“Excellent, Coran!” Lance gave a thumbs-up to the Altean, and then he added, “One last thing- You absolutely cannot tell the recipient of the gift what they got. That surprise has to wait until they actually open the present, okay?” His friends nodded in understanding, and Lance finished, “Okay, you’re ready. But first, we still need to find a tree…”

Lance greeted a store worker, politely inquiring about where the trio could acquire a tree of any sort. The worker, giving Lance the most bewildered look, answered him, “Why would you need to buy a tree?” Lance’s shoulders dropped, and he tried again, this time settling for any shops selling bushes, shrubs, or small plants, and the Galra reiterated, “Again, what in the name of Zarkon do you need some plant for? Sorry, kid, but we don’t have any plant life merchants… I mean, if that’s what you’d call ’em.” 

“Um, this is for something very important to my culture,” Lance declared with what was dangerously close to a snarl. “It’s for a sacred holiday- Surely you won’t refuse me service if you understood that?” The worker shrugged, unsure what Lance meant by ‘holiday,’ and left the group, leaving a very vexed Lance fuming.

The red paladin’s arms flew up into the air as he furiously ranted, “NO plant merchants?! What, has space evolved beyond the hobby of gardening?! And just walking away like that too, like a cultural holiday is trivial! This is unbelievable, it can’t be-” Lance rushed over to the nearest map and scrolled through the directories of both levels with frightening comprehension speed, then growled when he found no stores for plant purchasing. “ARE YOU SERIOUS?!” he squealed, the Santa hat’s ball bouncing every which way. “WE CAN’T HAVE CHRISTMAS WITHOUT A TREE! IT’S, LIKE, CENTRAL TO THE WHOLE IDEA OF CHRISTMAS!!! HOW IS SANTA GOING TO FIND US WITHOUT A TREE TO SIGNAL TO HIM? HE WON’T BE ABLE TO FIND US!”

Both Alteans put their hands on Lance’s shoulders, attempting to calm him, but he refused to stop making a scene. Allura did her best to put on a soothing voice to possibly seduce Lance into a less frustrated state, but even that was ineffective. Coran turned around to tell those staring that there was nothing to see here, but the passersby did not cease their gawking, muttering about the pointlessness of buying a tree.

“LANCE!” Allura hissed, gripping Lance’s arms painfully tight, forcing him to submit. “We will find a tree, I promise you that, just not here. There are certainly planets that we could find the tree that you’re looking for- or, rather that Santa Claus is looking for. Lance, you have to understand… The Galra don’t have much of a regard for nature anymore. In a Galra-owned mall, there’s probably little enthusiasm about gardening.”

Lance huffed, crossed his arms and tossed his head away. “That’s their dumb mistake. First thing when the Galra Empire falls completely, I’m instating a Galra-Tree Reconciliation Initiative.”

Allura giggled and patted his shoulders in apology and endearment, then suggested they just commence their gift-shopping. She claimed that the team would search elsewhere for a Christmas tree, and it would be the best one Lance had ever seen- certainly better than any Galra-provided one. Lance softened his countenance and loosened his posture, complying to the princess’s proposal.

Allura nodded in Coran’s direction, and they strolled toward one another, meeting halfway. “I’ve calmed him down, and since it’s already been roughly a varga, we’re going to split up so we can start looking for gifts to buy right now,” she explained. The princess glanced back at Lance, whom pointed the direction he was going to head out, and she and Coran waved him off. She instantly swung back to Coran, uttering to him, “Keep a close eye on him; I don’t trust him not to get worked up if he doesn’t find the gifts he’s looking for.”

“Shouldn’t you have more faith in him, Princess?” the Altean suggested.

“Under any other circumstances, I would, but…” Allura began.

“He seems a bit of a… perfectionist in this matter?” Coran finished. Allura nodded fearfully, and the older Altean affirmed, “I’ll keep him in my sights while I shop; but just to be clear, I won’t spy on him to find out what gift he’s getting you!”

“Aww!” Allura pouted.

[xamethyst-reignx]

Super Bored-O

Nothing odd here, just some normal asks.

1. Where did you hide the body? Under the rock pile in my basement

2. Favorite rock? Smooth flat blue/grey river rocks

3. Worst dream you ever had? My sleep paralysis demon was holding me sweetly

4. Answer this with a lyric from the first song that comes to your mind BABY YOU'RE LIKE LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE

5. Does blood make you uncomfortable? No

6. Even numbers or Odd numbers? Even numbers always, except for 9

7. Something you hate that you love? Sitting at hospitals for hours

8. The first initial of someone you hate? R(ooney Mara)

9. Make up an Acrostic for the word “Exsanguinate” E-mptied X-XX S-nuff A-bsolute N-ecrosis G-uillotine U-pset I-ndifferent N-ever more A-ppetite T-ongue tied   E-uthanasia

10. Do you enjoy corndogs? Sometimes, the sausage biscuit type are better

11. Favorite movie from the year 2005? The Island (shout out; Harry Potter GoF, Narina & Walk the Line)

12. Least favorite music genre? Classic Rock & Roll

13. Have any terrible restaurant experiences? Our local Wimpys went way down hill & my friend got violent food poisoning from stinky lettuce

14. Three things that you would never want to come near you? Tapir, Spider, Cotton Candy Randy from GGM

15. What is the worst way for you to die? (In your opinion) Paralyzed or going through a stroke

16. Any unsual habits? I compulsively use an outrageous amount of paper towel daily

17. One emoji that you probably have never used? The emoji of socks, although its cute af so maybe I should

18. Write a three sentence horror story about a gatorade bottle. Hot summer day, you left a half drank bottle of Glacier Freeze in the car, as usual. Toxic chemicals oozed from the cheap swelling plastic, you don’t mind the taste. Ten years later, breast cancer and you wish you had listened to those Sheryl Crow rumours.

19. Do you know what old bay is? I didn’t but I just googled it~

20. Can you dance? Can’t everyone dance? But am I good... No

21. What first comes to mind when you see rope? Cowboys, obvi

22. Make an obscure reference Sex Machine’s penis gun

23. What is your favorite color for a balloon? Classic Red

24. If you were ever to got court, would you most likely be innocent or guilty? Guilty

25. Are you hungry? Heck yes... pickle chips aren’t satisfying my big ape tit

26. Do you have an unlucky number? Nah... I do avoid 13, sometimes

27. What does “JMD” stand for? Joker (is) My Daddy

28. Random Inside joke? Tom Payne looks like a strawberry

29. What sends chills up your spine? Lick the back of my neck

30. How many messages are currently in your inbox? Zero

31. Someone (real) who scares you? Marina Joyce

32. Run or Hide? Hide - who are you kidding, I can’t run

33. Who is the last person who made you angry? Someone endangering a child

34. What’s going on in your head? Dancing with Arthur Fleck to random tunes in his grubby apartment. Also I’m hungry, bored, lonely, cold, worried, stressed, content, gotta pee...

35. One little thing that makes you smile? Lil chicken wings

36. Are you a decisive person? I think I am, depends on the topic, I donno

37. Would people describe you as a paranoid person? Extremely

38. What store would you be the least likely to be found in? Clothes stores for rich ladies 39. Do you like hats? If so, what’s your favorite type? Fluffy trapper hats

40. Bowties or Ties? Bowties forever

41. Who? You

42. What? Remind me of the babe

43. Where? In a goblin castle

44. When? Late 80s

45. Why? You got the power

46. How? Cuz you’re the babe yo

47. Do you collect anything? Dolls, Funko Pops, bad memories, regrets

48. What time is it? 6:07pm

49. Favorite mode of transportation? Trains

50. Would you ever kill someone to save someone else? Depending on who, but I could in a heart beat

51. Make a joke What time is it when you have to go to the dentist? Tooth hurty ~

52. .eserver ni gnihtemos etirW gnos bmob yllaer a si aniloraK eniacoK

53. Would your social media be considered NSFW? Sometimes, not usually anymore

54. Do you like to cuddle? I could die without cuddles

55. What makes you angry? Being reminded that I don’t belong, that I’m the outcast

56. How many voices are in your head? More than I even know

57. Do you consider yourself mentally stable? Never have, probably never will

58. Are you easily offended? Yes very

59. What’s wrong with taking the backstreets? Backstreet Boys might get you

60. Any questions you want people to ask you? I want people to ask me things they truly want to know, without the pesky confines of social etiquette

[fansplaining]

Hi guys! I recently marathoned Black Sails and i loved it! the only thing I'm sad about is that i didn't watch it in real time... I don't care if my ship is cannon, but I found that seeing it all at once means i know what happened to everyone, and I'm having a hard time shutting it off. I want to be into it, bc there are so many characters and ships i like in BS, but i don't know how to make the story feel open for exploration. any ideas or thoughts on how to incept myself into BS fandom?

Hello! Of course Elizabeth is answering this. This is a GREAT ASK, thank you, and not just because the entry point to this question is Black Sails ⚓⚓⚓. 

(I’ll have you know this is one of, like, three gifs of Flint smiling in the entire series. I also googled “Black Sails happy” and…no one looked happy.)

OK so it seems like there are a few things going on here. Apologies for taking what’s ostensibly about one show and turning it into something broader, but I think it gets at fundamental questions of fannish engagement, so I’M GOING IN.

1) Watching/reading a series all at once 

Flourish and I talk about this one a lot, because we (and many others) have observed that younger/newer Harry Potter fans approach characters and plot elements VERY differently than we do, and we chalk a lot of this up to reading the books as a complete text versus reading it with miserable long gaps in which to turn over every freakin detail only to have 75% of it jossed when the next book came out. In 2002 I legit read this one page of Dumbledore dialogue in GoF 100 times thinking there was a clue that was just…under…the surface.

I think that with some texts and with some fans, the serialized nature of TV and book series are the way in—we climb into those gaps and lingering there, waiting and obsessively turning things over and imagining all the branching possibilities, all the future reveals, all the resolutions, is part of the pleasure. I sure as hell wouldn’t have fallen for Sherlock if I hadn’t shown up to poke at the gaping emotional wound between s2 and s3. (Frankly if you showed me all four seasons at once I’m not sure I’d even like the show—my lingering emotional loyalty was the only thing that kept me saying anything nice about s4.) 

If I had not watched Black Sails all in one go it would have been LITERAL TORTURE FOR ME. I had to pause for a week while traveling and I started to read fic that actually spoiled parts of the fourth season WHOOPS. :-/// But I can also understand how watching it all in one go wouldn’t give you enough space. But then, we watched the same way and I am deep in it, plotting out fic and everything. So maybe… 

2) A complete text can stay with you but might not give you a way in

This happens to me with books *all the time*. I’ll read something that shakes me—I’ve often used the metaphor “knocks your world off its axis” when describing a really great book, like it can be the subtlest tilt and you’ll feel like everything’s changed. I think it’s pretty normal for texts to stay with you? If they’re good or if they touch you in some specific way? Especially if you’re fannish and really feel the media you’re consuming.

But one thing I often find about books is they’re more…complete. Even when television shows end properly, rather than being cancelled, they might stretch for longer than what was initially planned, for example, so it doesn’t feel like the arc of the plot was as carefully constructed—often it can’t be, especially with long-running American shows (and of course with classic episodic television, say, a monster-of-the-week show, it’s not even structurally designed to have the same sort of ~ABCDE structure as a novel might). 

Black Sails is not one of those shows—they knew they were bringing the story to a close, and the entire show rests on carefully-plotted narrative arcs. (Not to mention there was an actual ~canonical endpoint for all the Treasure Island characters, ie where the book begins (like, sort of). I mean, there were also canonical endpoints for Jack, Anne, Vane, Blackbeard, Hornigold, and every other historical figure, but…)

Over the years I’ve joined fandoms for WIPs as well as finished products, and often for me fandom’s been a way of trying to mend the wounds of a media property I found incomplete, either narratively (with bad writing) or literally (like, when a show ends abruptly). I think for some fans, this is a crucial piece—they say that when they find something too complete, there’s nothing to mend. 

3) Different modes of fannish engagement

So here’s another thing I’ve observed—different friends have different definitions of “fandom.” So people are like, “Oh yeah, I’m in the fandom, I love that show!” And I find out that means they enjoy the show and livetweet it and look at some gifs and that’s that. Which is totally fandom! And then there’s me, nodding nervously as I debate mentioning that, “Oh yeah, I’m in the fandom, I love that show!” for me means “THIS IS THE ONLY THING I WANT TO THINK ABOUT, HELP ME, I AM DROWNING.” It’s funny, sometimes I think about archetypal nerdboy fandom and its dick-measuring fact recitation, and then I think about all the times I tried to read the room to see if it was safe to let another person know how much I thought about something I loved, how much I felt about it. Even in totally fannish spaces, I still hesitate. :-/

There have been some things in the past few years that I’ve really enjoyed and toyed with checking out fandoms for, but what I’ve come to realize over the years is for me, it needs to be like falling in love. I think for some people, interest and obsession grows, and for others, you fall in head-first. And for others still, it depends on the thing. 

I understand this ask might have been specifically looking for resources or suggestions and while I’d just say if you’re not feeling it in this way, that’s cool, there are lots of different ways to fan, and you can keep thinking about something even if you aren’t drawn to, say, create transformative works about it? But maybe I should say something about Black Sails in particular…

4) Black Sails-specific: unreliable narrators and transformative works

If anyone hasn’t finished Black Sails, stop reading here, I’ll keep it vague but there’s only so much I can do. This is one thing that’s especially interesting to me about this ask: while I’m going on about how final and precisely plotted it all was, it’s not…that final. Because the entire point of the show is about narrative, right? Who gets to write them, who gets to own them, how they can be manipulated, how they shape “civilization.” Characters constantly talk—and constantly show—how both Flint and Silver (and, like, most of the characters, from Max to Thomas to Vane to Woodes Rogers) are these masterful shapers of narrative. Flint is the victim of clashing narratives: what’s actually happened to him, what he tells the world he’s doing, what he’s actually doing (note that explosive scene when Miranda calls him on this, ahhh I love Miranda). But the show’s choice to shift to Silver’s narration to wrap up events is a really fascinating one: the man who works so hard to obscure his past, laying out the narratives of the future. Should we believe him? 

I recommend this interview with creators Johnathan Steinberg and Robert Levine—the Flint section at the start is really delightful if you’re into artists being super into open-interpretation of their work. “Do we have a sense of what we imagine is happening?” Steinberg says when asked if we should believe Silver’s speech to Madi. “Yes, but if I was someone else, I wouldn’t want to watch it with my interpretation coloring it.” They talk about how this is essentially a transformative work (they don’t use that term)—a certain decision “made sense as a way to both acknowledge the book and spin it.”

So this is like the literal opposite of, say, JK Rowling, who seems intent on letting us know every freakin detail of canon and post-canon and seems genuinely unhappy at the idea that people will interpret things in ways that “aren’t true.” (At least in interviews I’ve seen/read of hers in the past few years.) Steinberg and Levine seem to be the ultimate “open to interpretation” guys, which really is like this big blank slate for fandom building on and playing with this world they’ve created. That being said, if oppositional fandom is your cup of tea—if you love fic and fandom as a corrective, as a way of wrestling a creator over the text—then the, “Go for it, interpret however you want” thing is probably not super appealing. 

This is the first time in my entire fandom life, going on two decades now, that I have simultaneously been really satisfied with a show’s ending and still wanted to write and read fic. And that seems…weird to me? So I don’t think it’s that weird that it wouldn’t work for someone. TL;DR: I’d just say if it happens, it happens. But it’s OK to love something and not find a way into the fandom. But if that changes for you, I’ll be there. :-)

[douchebagbrainwaves]

MADE IN 13 SENTENCES

If you do well, you will probably raise a series A, there's obviously an exception if you end up raising more than they originally intended. The Lisp that McCarthy described in 1960, would anyone have wanted to use them, rather than having brilliant flashes of strategic insight. None of them are run by product visionaries, and empirically you can't seem to get how different it is till they do it. The reason is that he likes the way source code looks. More can be stolen by things that are a little more closely related, like games. But after the talking is done, the decision about what to do has to rest with one person. The classic yuppie worked for a small organization.1

The press may be writing about them as if they'd been about to. If you pitch your idea to a random person, 95% of the time, fretting over the finances and cleaning up shit. My relationship with my cofounder went from just being friends to seeing each other all the time and we got better at deciding what was a real problem, my friend would have known about this cyst her whole life and known it was harmless, just as, for me at least, eating a steak requires a conscious effort to insulate the other founder s from the details of the process. You're all smart and working on promising ideas. I think so. It's like we're married, but we're not fucking. But wait till that point. Let me mention some things not to do is expand it. If you're so fortunate as to have to declare variables before using them, for example, we'll need libraries for communicating with aliens. If your valuation has already been set.

When someone did, unexpectedly, take this paper and translate it into a working Lisp interpreter, numbers certainly weren't represented as lists; they were represented in binary, but this would be an optimization, not part of the economy will balloon in the usual fractal way. A painting is never finished, you just stop working on it can't be preceded by but. You can see the general-purpose language underneath. I'm not including domain-specific little languages. Not the length in characters, of course, but the probability that an investor will say yes, but the overall experience is much better than the nightmare UI we had to deal with employees, who often have different motivations: I knew the founder equation and had been focused on it since I knew I wanted to start a startup as a giant experiment. Not only does a society get the best investors as partners. Within a generation of its birth in England, the Industrial Revolution happened. That's what these ideas say to us.

But it would be if they did. C, Lisp, and Smalltalk the fact that the founders of Octopart, they seemed very smart, but not like it used to. Usually phase 3 fundraising has to be good. What made oil paint so exciting, when it first became popular in the fifteenth century, was that you got practically all the users. Think about where credentialism first appeared: in selecting candidates for large organizations. Here's the thing: If you pitch your idea to a random person, 95% of the time, intended to be implemented at all. Parents will die for their kids. With a startup, then if the startup fails, you can tell when you get an acceptable offer, take it.

You can use the cram schools to show you where most of the difficulty of fundraising, that should be: and the reason I say this is optimism: it seems that, if you want to apply to multiple incubators, you should get people to pay you significant amounts, the company starts to feel real. Making a new search engine means competing with Google, and Google was in the search business. And since the danger of raising money at too high a valuation is that you look smug. You can't afford the time it takes to talk to all potential investors in parallel and push back on exploding offers with excessively short deadlines, that will usually be enough to set things rolling. The same is true in the arts, but I don't think universities will disappear. One is that it will be that bad is that my model of work is a job. But it didn't spread everywhere. Why do people take too long on it or raise too much money. Startups are still very rare. While you shouldn't chase high valuations, you also don't want your valuation to be set artificially low because the first investor who commits. When I see a more exaggerated version of the change I'm seeing. Over-engineering is poison.

This could lose you some that might have made an offer if they had more time. It's a far more intense relationship than you usually see between coworkers—partly because their motivations are obscure, but partly because they want you to sell them more of your software will be reusable. A lot of what we try to do in the application process is to weed out the people who just make exactly what the customers tell them to. But in the US, of ambitious people who grew the ladder under them instead of climbing it. When you start fundraising, everything else grinds to a halt when they switched to raising money, that becomes the problem you think about as you fall asleep at night and when you expand, expand westward. The results so far are messy, but encouraging. There are almost two distinct modes of fundraising: one in which founders who don't need money take some to grow faster than they are now. There are only a few things we can say with certainty. A search engine whose users consisted of the top 10,000 hackers, the route is at least the one about which individual startups' paths oscillate.2

When you spend time having fun, you know you're being self-indulgent.3 Are there zero users who really love you, and startups run on morale.4 It's hard to beat this limitation? If you can just build something that you and your friends genuinely prefer to Google, you're already about 10% of the way to use these languages as because, if we're lucky, we'll use languages on the path from this point to that. You can use the cram schools to show you where most of the time. That problem is irreducible; it should be hard. Angels are a bit better than VCs, because they know that as you run out of money or a critical founder bailing. But they were competing against opponents who couldn't change the rules on the fly by discovering new technology. Semantically, strings are more or less a subset of lists in which the elements are characters. I didn't understand or rather, remember precisely why raising money was so distracting till earlier this year. Feel free to make it to ramen profitability in a few months ago we replaced it with an iMac bolted to the wall.

Which almost always means hiring too many people. It might seem that instead of accepting offers greedily, your goal should be to get the money you raise in phase 2. The future is pretty long. But it would be an interesting result. Tomorrow a big competitor could appear, or you could get to the point where everything could be done by collaborators and design can't? Be nice. And now that I've written this, everyone else can blame me if they want. Intel can no longer give us faster CPUs, just more of them.

Notes

Ditto for case: I should probably fix.

The philistines have now missed the video boat entirely. He, like movie stars' birthdays, or the distinction between them so founders can get done before that. There are situations in which many people mistakenly think it was raise after Demo Day, there would be easy to write legislation that distinguishes them, if you repair a machine that's broken because a there was nothing to grab onto. It would have.

If they were going back to 1970 it would have disapproved if executives got too much to seem big that they are public and persist indefinitely, comments on really bad sites I can establish that good paintings must have been a waste of time, is that they've focused on different components of it. On Bullshit, Princeton University Press, 1965. Viaweb at first, but at least on me; how can I make the hiring point more strongly.

In any case. It is a variant of the tube. You have to rely on cold calls and introductions. And what people mean when they buy some startups and not end up making something for a patent troll, either as truth or heresy.

Thanks to Geoff Ralston, David Hornik, Ben Horowitz, Eric Raymond, Dan Bricklin, Trevor Blackwell, Patrick Collison, and students whose questions began it for the lulz.

[amtushinfosolutionspage]

DGB Grab Bag: Kid Rock, Cronin the Barbarian, and Whatever the Avs Are Doing

Three Stars of Comedy

The third star: Zack Kassian – I have no idea what’s going on here considering he doesn’t even play for the Golden Knights, but whatever it is, it’s creepy.

The second star: Lawson Crouse – The Coyotes prospect has had a slow start to his pro career. But on Twitter, you apparently can’t get anything past him.

The first star: The Colorado Avalanche – What happens if you make elite athletes wear a weird mouth guard and then ask them to blow a paper ball across a line? Um… this, I guess.

Not sure what the big deal is, I make those same noises every time I walk up a flight of stairs.

Outrage of the Week

The issue: The NHL announced that the musical headliner for next weekend’s All-Star Game will be Kid Rock.

The outrage: While Jeremy Roenick appears to be on board, the choice is getting decidedly mixed reviews.

Is it justified: The NHL making terrible decisions when it comes to musical guests for its marquee events has been a running theme for years. Call it the Chaka Khan effect. The genre probably peaked a decade ago when they went with Def Leppard and watched them immediately defile the Stanley Cup, but the choices are almost always laughably bad. (Last year was a rare exception.) You can even kind of understand why—the NHL is very much a niche league these days, so it’s not like they get the first pick when it’s time to draft up celebrity cameos. When you’ve dropped behind soccer in the American popularity rankings, you hire whoever will take your calls.

So sure, Kid Rock hasn’t really been a mainstream star in years, and it’s been almost two decades since you bought a Devil Without a Cause CD and then hid it in your room so your parents wouldn’t find it. But at least he’s a name that most of us have heard of. For the NHL, that’s something.

But of course, that’s not the real problem here. Most of Kid Rock’s recent headlines have come from the political world, where he’s teased a run for office and been one of the few celebrities to publicly support Donald Trump. He’s also been known to display the confederate flag during performances, attacked Colin Kaepernick’s peaceful protest, and, not surprisingly given those last two examples, he’s had to defend himself against accusations of racism.

For a league that’s constantly telling us that they don’t want politics in the game, this sure seems like an awfully political choice, especially on the heels of the controversy over the Penguins’ handling of their trip to the White House. Of course, these days that also means that the other side of the aisle has to act like they think this is a great idea—pretending to like rap-rock to own the libs and all that. Meanwhile, you wonder how many of those complaining about Kid Rock would be just fine with the NHL bringing in an openly anti-Trump act like Eminem. Maybe we’ll find out in 20 years.

In the end, Kid Rock’s performance will probably be fine—he’s a hockey fan, at least, so he’ll probably know which end of the Stanley Cup goes where. He’ll come out wearing a Red Wings jersey and do “Cowboy” and “Bawitdaba” and some country song off the new album, and that will be it. The moment will pass, and most of the hockey world will immediately forget all about it. Some will wonder what all the fuss was about.

But some small segment of hockey fans will be left feeling, once again, like this league just doesn’t get it. They’ll wonder if that whole “Declaration of Principles” thing about strengthening communities and creating inclusive environments was just somebody in the PR department’s idea of a joke. And maybe a few of them even throw up their hands say enough’s enough, figuring that if they’re really not welcome in the NHL’s world then they’ll find somewhere else to spend their time and money.

And all for… what? A ten-minute performance by a throwback music act whose popularity peaked years ago? It’s a strange tradeoff to make, but apparently the NHL feels like it’s worth it. The question is whether they really bothered to put much thought into it at all.

Obscure Former Player of the Week

Last week, we featured an obscure player from the classic-era Winnipeg Jets. This week, we’re doing it again. We might do it for the rest of the season, to be honest, because the 1980s Jets were crawling with obscure player candidates. But for now, let’s talk about Shawn Cronin.

Cronin was a bruising blueliner who spent four years at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Not surprisingly, his work for that prestigious program didn’t lead to him being drafted, but he did earn a free agent offer from the Whalers. He spent two years in the AHL, where he developed a reputation as a fighter. That earned him another free agent deal, this time with the Capitals, and he finally made his NHL debut in October 1988 against the Rangers. He didn’t record any stats that night, and it marked his only game as a Cap. By the 1989 offseason he was about to turn 26, had one NHL game under his belt, and no clear path back to the big leagues.

That’s when the Jets showed up. Cronin was traded to Winnipeg in a blockbuster deal for future considerations that were later cancelled. But he finally got his shot at regular NHL work, and he made the most of it. He topped the 60-game mark in three straight seasons, racking up 703 PIM in the process and earning a cult following in Winnipeg while fighting everyone from Bob Probert to Dave Brown to The Grim Reaper.

Speaking of enforcer nicknames, Cronin had a great one: Cronin The Barbarian. That was fantastic, right up there with the Reaper and The Missing Link.

The Jets traded Cronin to Quebec during the 1992 offseason, but the Nordiques quickly lost him to the Flyers in the waiver draft. He spent one season in Philadelphia, during which he tripled his all-time goal total by scoring twice. He then finished his career with two years in San Jose and two more in the IHL.

In all, Cronin played 292 regular season NHL games, had three goals and 877 PIM. He also managed one more goal in the playoffs, and it was a historic one: On April 18, 1994, Cronin scored the first playoff goal in San Jose Sharks history.

Debating the Issues

This week’s debate: Wednesday marked the 60th anniversary of Willie O’Ree making his NHL debut, breaking the league’s color barrier in the process. While his NHL career lasted only 45 games, some have argued that he should be in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Should he be voted in?

In favor: Yes. While O’Ree’s career was short, his influence on the league and the sport is being felt to this day. It’s the hockey hall of fame, not just the NHL, and O’Ree’s impact on hockey is undeniable and continues to this day.

Opposed: That may be true, but there’s no need to induct O’Ree into the Hall of Fame.

In favor: Why, because he played so few games? Fine, then don’t induct him as a player. He would fit just as well in the Builder category.

Opposed: There’s no need to induct him as a builder, player, or any other category.

In favor: You have to understand what O’Ree’s story meant. He broke the barrier in 1958, and played his final game in 1961. It took thirteen years for the league to have a second black player. That was Mike Marson of the Capitals, and part of the reason he was playing hockey in the first place was because he’d seen O’Ree on television as a kid.

Opposed: All very heartwarming, but there’s still no need to induct O’Ree into the Hall of Fame.

In favor: And can we mention that he was a damn good player? He won two scoring titles in the Western Hockey League, and played in the minors until he was 43.

Opposed: Great. There’s still no need to induct him into the Hall of Fame.

In favor: You keep saying that. Why? Why is there no need?

Opposed: Because he’s already in.

In favor: Um, what?

Opposed: I mean, he has to be. Hockey was the last of the major North American leagues to welcome a black player. In the first 57 seasons, there was one and only one black player to appear in an NHL game. Of course he’s already in. There’s no way he isn’t.

In favor: Did you… did you do any research for this?

Opposed: To be honest, no. But I didn’t need to. I mean, fine, I don’t know the exact year he was inducted. I’m hoping it was right away in the 1960s, but maybe he had to wait until society was a bit more enlightened. So like, the 70s?

In favor: Dude… no.

Opposed: Wow. They made him wait until the 1980s.

In favor: Not so much.

Opposed: The 90s?

In favor: I don’t know how to break this to you.

Opposed: Wait, really? You were serious about all of this? The Hockey Hall of Fame really hasn’t inducted Willie O’Ree after all these years? Not even into the Builder’s category, which is specifically for this sort of contribution and has such high standards that they’ve already inducted Harold Freaking Ballard?

In favor: Really. He’s not in.

Opposed: I always kind of assumed he was.

In favor: That seems to be the case for a lot of fans. But no, he’s not.

Opposed: Man.

In favor: I know.

Opposed: There is definitely a need to induct O’Ree into the Hall of Fame.

The final verdict: O’Ree belongs in the Hall of Fame. He’s also 82 years old, has been a tireless ambassador for the sport for years, and has been waiting far too long for an honor he earned six decades ago. Let’s make this happen now, while he can still be a part of the moment.

Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown

This week saw yet another terrible offside review, coming on the heels of several questionable calls earlier in the month. Many of hockey’s most respected voices have had enough.

Others are proposing a more radical solution: just get rid of replay reviews altogether. Between the NHL’s offside drama, the NFL’s never-ending debate over what makes a catch, and MLB’s problems with pop-up slides, maybe replay is causing more problems than its actually solving.

Well, maybe. But first, let’s travel back to the days before replay and ask Chico Resch what he thinks.

It’s January 6, 1985, and Resch and the Devils are facing the Rangers at MSG. New Jersey has just scored to take a 4-3 lead in the third period. Now all they have to do to secure the win is keep the puck out of their net for the rest of the period. Well, in theory at least.

We join the action as Rangers’ forward Robbie Ftorek cuts into the zone and unleashes a backhand. Resch gets a piece of it, deflecting it up into the crossbar. The puck rings off the iron and drops straight down, where Resch grabs it. Pretty standard stuff, actually. Oh look, here comes referee Bryan Lewis, I wonder what he was to say.

Based on Resch’s reaction, I’m going to say it wasn’t “nice save.”

It quickly becomes apparent that Lewis is calling a goal. Needless to say, Resch disagrees, and goes into full-fledged meltdown mode. He hops up and down, smashes his goal stick, and at one point chases after the linesman and starts in with the classic hands-on-hips yelling like he’s an exasperated housewife from a 1950s sitcom.

Mel Bridgman is shouting at the goal judge through the glass, even though the red light never went on. Bridgman, of course, would go on to a front office career that included serving as the first GM of the expansion Senators. He also scored the first goal in this game. The second goal was scored by… George McPhee, who’d go on to a front office career that included serving as the first GM of the expansion Golden Knights. The NHL is weird sometimes.

At the 0:50 mark we cut to a shot of Devils’ coach Doug Carpenter. You’re probably thinking he looks like he’s about to murder someone. But I remember him coaching the Leafs for a few years in the early 90s, and I can assure you that he looked like that all the time.

We finally get our first replay about a minute in, and it’s pretty clear that the puck’s not in. But take a look at Ftorek after he gets the shot off. Devils’ defenseman Joe Cirella kind of hooks his stick, and it ends up going up in the air in pretty much the same way it would if Ftorek was celebrating a goal. I honestly think that’s what threw Lewis off. The lesson for you kids out there: Celebrate every shot like it went in, because you never know.

Meanwhile, Resch is now working the other linesman. Resch was the best. Here’s an old clip of him mic’d up for a game, which is mainly him unsuccessfully trying to talk Kerry Fraser into letting him go to the bench because he desperately needs a drink of water.

Our announcers start talking about the board of governors considering the use of instant replay. You may remember that from a Grab Bag a few months back, when the league was launching its pilot project in time for the following season. That clip featured a similar play, in which the Rangers once again got credit for a goal that hadn’t gone in. When it comes to controversial calls, the mid-80s Rangers were basically the modern day New England Patriots, except for hockey and also bad.

Resch is now yelling at the guys on his own bench, who are clearly trying not to make eye contact with the crazy man. Also, I have no idea where Resch’s blocker has got to during all of this. Probably embedded in a goal judge’s head would be my guess.

We get a few shots of Lewis, who’s making that “I’m pretty sure I screwed up but it’s too late to change my mind” face. Resch is now pointing at his crossbar and screaming at his defenseman, who is making the same stare-into-the-distance face you make when your friend is 45 minutes into telling you about a bad day at work and you’re trying to will yourself into the future.

Lewis tries to organize a faceoff to get things going again, but now Carpenter is standing ominously by an open bench door like he’s seriously considering charging on the ice and upper-cutting everyone who gets near him. (Spoiler alert: He probably was.)

Of course, there’s some irony here—the guy who scored the phantom goal here, Robbie Ftorek, would go on to become the Devils coach a decade later, and is probably best remembered for once getting so mad he threw a bench onto the ice. Carpenter probably wishes he’d thought of that.

And with that, the puck is dropped and our clip ends. The Rangers went on to win in overtime, and the Devils were rightfully furious afterwards. So maybe back off on that “ditch the replay” talk. The NHL’s review process may be tedious and occasionally annoying, but at least you won’t have to suffer through watching your team lose a game based on a blown call, right Devils fans?

Huh. OK, bad example.

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you’d like to see included in this column? Email Sean at nhlgrabbag@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @DownGoesBrown.

DGB Grab Bag: Kid Rock, Cronin the Barbarian, and Whatever the Avs Are Doing syndicated from https://australiahoverboards.wordpress.com