#you’d be one of his first consistent watchers/‘fans’

[ghost-proofbaby]

every day i wake up thinking about streamer eddie

[amphtaminedreams]

Farewell to Spooky Season, AHS Style: Lookbook no.12

Hi to anyone reading,

Happy belated Halloween!

I capitalise it because if I'm gonna recognise any day as sacred, it’s the spookiest one of the year! Halloween 2020 obviously hasn’t been as exciting as usual, parties and club nights being banned has meant there’s been far less opportunities to dress up, but I still managed to get out for the night before they announced the upcoming second lockdown and do a couple of spooky movie nights (and carve a pumpkin!)!

I originally intended for this lookbook to be last minute halloween costume inspo but I was lazy and didn’t manage to get it out on time-a lot of these looks minus the makeup and maybe an accessory or two could work on any day or night out so I thought I’d go ahead and post it now anyway. Celebrating the fashion moments of American Horror Story is something I’ve wanted to do for a while; it’s probably not the first show you’d think of for sartorial inspiration but Mr. Ryan Murphy has fucking fantastic taste in stylists and the first five seasons of AHS in particular, which I’ll be focussing on in this post, have given us SO many amazing looks. The man may be guilty of many things-subjecting us to the character of Will Schuester, trying to turn Richard Ramirez into a thirst trap, embarrassing everyone who raved about how good Scream Queens was when he wrote season 2-but costume related laziness is not one of them. We see more consistency in a Ryan Murphy character’s wardrobe than we do in their story arcs and I respect that because honestly, as much as I love joining in when it comes to ripping into his ability to cohesively bring an AHS season to a close when it airs, I’d probably be the same; if you put Lady Gaga in front of me and told me to write her lines I’d probably end up getting overly invested in what her character was going to be wearing in the scene too. 

So! Enough Ryan Murphy bashing from me! I’ll get on with it! Starting with 3 season 1 inspired looks:

Murder House: Elizabeth Short, Tate Langdon and Violet Harmon

-striped jumper from caitlinlark on Depop, kick flare jeans from ellagray-

When it comes to reflecting on season 1 of American Horror Story, all I can say do is thank the internet overlords that Tumblr has moved on from the romanticising school shooters and wearing normal people scare me tops phase to instead collectively taking the piss out of the “GO AWAY, TATE!”, “YOU’RE ALL THAT I WANTTT! YOU’RE ALL THAT I HAVEEE!” exchange. 

In terms of fashion *moments*, whilst season 1 doesn’t stand out as much as the seasons that come after, Violet and Tate’s wardrobes did give birth to a bit of a 90s grunge renaissance with their oversized knits and faded jeans and layering of textures. It did also give us good costumes in the form of Alexandra Breckenridge’s Moira O’Hara and Mena Suvari’s portrayal of the Black Dahlia, Elizabeth Short; unfortunately, I didn’t have a slutty maid costume lying around so I did the best I could at giving the outfit Elizabeth wears when she makes that fateful visit to the Murder House a modern, more party appropriate update.

In terms of season rankings, Murder House isn’t my favourite. It starts off really great but lulls a bit towards the end and I could never get behind Violet and Tate as a couple because you know, one of them is a school shooter who sexually assaults the other’s mum, and that’s a hurdle that I think most couples might struggle to get over irl. That being said, it was the season that started it all and showcased some of the most innovative writing and directing on TV, and it opened up a spot for horror on primetime television which as far as I know was kind of unheard of before then. Back when I first watched it, I had no idea what to expect not only because I’d never seen horror in a serial format but also because it seemed to be able to get away with the kind of storylines you’d expect network executives to fire people over. It introduced us to Jessica Lange and Sarah Paulson and Evan Peters and Denis O’Hare who would go on to make the show what it is today and more importantly, through Jessica’s glorious portrayal of Constance Langdon, provide us with an endlessly versatile meme format for this trying time.

Asylum: ‘60s Lana Winters, ‘70s Lana Winters, and Sister Mary Eunice McKee

-afghan coat from louisemarcella on Depop, red AA skater dress from julietramage, pink gingham co-ord from zshamim-

I think we can all agree: Asylum would’ve been a perfect series of television if it wasn’t for the completely unnecessary alien storyline. Like, I get that they fit in with the whole good vs. evil theme as a kind of non-biblical alternative to the idea of a higher, all-powerful being but there was already so much going on that it just wasn’t needed. Aside from that, I think the general consensus amongst watchers of the show is that Asylum has the best writing of any season and I think I’d tend to agree. It’s not my favourite because it’s too depressing to rewatch but if we’re talking the first time round, this is the series that had me hooked. Lana Winters?

Iconic. 

Sister Mary Eunice? Iconic. The Name Game? Iconic. Remember when you couldn’t go a day on Facebook without seeing that one photo of Naomi Grossman as Pepper used as the go to “what I really look like” photo in one of those “expectation vs. reality” style posts on your newsfeed? Those were simpler times.

Because this season was mostly situated within the hospital, we didn’t get that many proper outfits but when we did, they were stunning; if I had to state my absolute favourite AHS character of the entire show I’d probably go with Lana Winters and the part her wardrobe played in her characterisation would 100% play a part in that. The late 60s/early 70s was such a wonderful period for fashion and through her character we get to see both of those explored a little. Of course there’s also *that* Sister Mary Eunice scene with the red slip dress and suspenders too which yes, could be a perfect halloween costume, but I also strongly believe should be a perfectly acceptable outfit for any day of the year. 

Coven: Misty Day, Madison Montgomery, and Zoe Benson

-chiffon dress from rags_to_riches on Depop, pinstripe corset from hanpiercey, and tennis skirt from mollie_morton-

I hate to be a basic bitch but I have to say it: Coven is my favourite season of American Horror Story. Once you get over the complete waste of Evan Peters’ acting capabilities that resulted from the *choice* to have him play Kyle, the unnecessary rehash of the Evan/Taissa pairing from season 1 in what I can only assume was an attempt to capitalise on the popularity of the questionable Tate/Violet relationship, and the subsequent sacrifice of any interesting character arc we could’ve foreseen for Zoe Benson beyond her obsessing over a resurrected, non-verbal frat boy, it’s a perfect season. A supreme (heh) balance of horror, humour, and character drama, as well as the stunning aesthetics and forever quotable dialogue, make it my go-to season if I’m ever considering a rewatch. And if you disagree, let me jog your memory with the most mainstream (not to get all “normal people scare me” and suggest AHS is not a mainstream show, I literally just mean in the sense that even those who have never watched the show will have seen this)  reaction GIF set any FX show has even spawned:

Buzzfeed employees had a field day, Emma Roberts enthusiasts (I mean me) finally saw her cemented as the pop culture icon Scream Queens has since showed us she deserves to be (because not enough people have seen Unfabulous, Nancy Drew or Scream 4) and the gays everywhere rejoiced at the year’s worth of meme fodder they’d been provided with. It was Madison Montgomery’s world and we were truly just living in it.

And the fashion! I mean, Stevie Nicks meets 21st century teenage witches! Come on! 

Freakshow: Dandy Mott, Maggie Esmerelda and Elsa Mars

-olive green satin skirt from morganogle on Depop, headscarf from tonijordan, platform sandals from elliefewt, PVC skirt from bethpin_, corset top from sadieflinter, beret from house_of_erotique, flame detail platform boots from mad_rags_vintage-

When people talk about the declining quality of AHS, they usually point to Freakshow as the beginning of the end, but I have to completely disagree. I wasn’t a fan the first time round but on rewatch it’s probably the most emotional season of them all; no, there aren’t as many “horrifying” moments as in other seasons and Elsa is probably Jessica’s worst performance (which is still an incredible one by anybody else’s standards), however it makes up for it with the most sympathetic bunch of characters yet, and on the flip side, also one of the most amusingly depraved with Finn Wittrock’s Dandy Mott. Fans usually argue that the season went downhill once *SPOILER* Twisty the Clown was killed off but for me, he really primarily served as the catalyst for the far more interesting devolution of Dandy, who, imo, is the show’s strongest villain to date, rivalled only by Bloody Face. Then there was the episode Orphans too which made me cry buckets, the sole AHS episode to do so. 

We got a lot of great fashion content in this season too: the theatrical opulence of Elsa Mars’ wardrobe, “Maggie”’s nomadic fortune teller costumes, and all those twee suits we saw Finn Wittrock in. Highly underrated if you ask me. It seems an odd choice for me to use Elsa’s Dominatrix look as an inspiration for one of my looks here when we have that Life on Mars performance outfit and all the extravagant robes Jessica got to waltz around in for reference buuuut I didn’t really have anything to do the vibrancy of either of those justice so I went with the black leather option which is much more me. Am I saying I moonlight as a dominatrix? Maybe. Lol, no. I wish. It’s not for lack of trying. WHERE ARE ALL THE GENUINE TWITTER PAYPIGS AT!? Your girl wants to insult creepy men and get some new clothes out of it xoxo

Hotel: Hypodermic Sally, Liz Taylor, and The Countess

-silk white bralet from xlibby_maix on Depop-

Hotel is another season that I liked a lottttt more upon rewatch, once I knew I was okay to tune out the (completely predictable and utterly nonsensical) Ten Commandments Killer storyline that so much of the season initially seems to hinge on. I love Chloë Sevigny but the fact that her and Wes Bentley’s wooden John and Alex Lowe are positioned as the protagonists at the expense of the far more interesting Liz Taylor, James March and Hypodermic Sally really does a disservice to what is an otherwise great season upon initial viewing.

The visuals this season are magnificent and I think if I had to pick one character’s wardrobe to steal from the entire cast of AHS characters, it would be The Countess (a toss up between her and Misty Day tbh, so I kinda just settle for low-key channelling both). No fucking idea where I'd wear any of her clothes to but I’d make it work. Liz Taylor and Hypodermic Sally have some amazing looks too-there’s just honestly so much to choose from; that being said, this post wouldn’t be complete without a specific ode to the vampire goddess Elizabeth Bathory, who is everything I want to be in life minus the murderous qualities:

Everything. EVER-Y-THING. LOOK AT HER!

Lady Gaga is really a fucking goddess isn’t she. And people were claiming before they’d even seen it that she couldn’t act? A patriarchal society doesn’t like women that can do it all. Just saying. 

Anyways!

That’s it for now! I hope you enjoyed the post if you did read til the end! Sorry I couldn’t get this out before Halloween, I was typing and Picmonkey-ing madly from 2 in the afternoon on the 31st but I taking fucking forever to get ready and had to abandon all hope of getting it out on the day by 4PM. I’ve got so much content planned and it sucks because a couple of them are lookbooks which now feel completely redundant given we’re heading into a second lockdown, but maybe I should just do it anyway? The grunge inspired moodboard I just did seemed to get a good reception too so I’ve got some more of them planned. 

As always, hope everyone is keeping well, and feel free to inbox me with any suggestions, queries or even just to say hi if you need someone to talk to! I check here quite a lot so I should see it. Lots of love to everyone in this time!

Lauren x

[somevirtualnolife]

How To Date a Boy, 101 (Part 1)

1331 words

Also on Ao3

Rating: G

Series: Tokimeki Memorial: Girls Side 2nd Kiss

Pairing: Daisy (OC) x Saeki Teru

Summary: Mizuki has caught feelings for Saeki Teru. But how can she tell if he feels the same way? Guess there's only one way to find out: by taking the advice of your best friend and reading the best lifestyle magazine in Habataki.

Author’s Note: Yes... I have come back from the dead to write some TMGS fics! With GS4 coming out and replaying GS2, the creative juices have been a-flowing. Other than the many cute boys in the game, I have a soft spot for female friendships and always wished you could talk about your crush and do silly friend things in GS2 (I'm glad that it feels more like that in GS3), so I figured it was a great way to open the story. I wanted to capture how Mizuki is really just an insecure teenage girl, with very little experience in love. So while there isn't any Saeki in this chapter, I hope you can still appreciate the build-up!

I hope you look forward to the next chapter!

------------------------

Chapter 1: Love Mode

“You know if you studied consistently rather than the day before the exam, your grades would be much higher. Just because we’re second years doesn’t mean you should be slacking! You’ll gain bad habits.” Chiyomi chided as Mizuki took a small box of Pocky off the shelves of the convenience store and placed it in their basket. A perfect snack for all-night study sessions.

“Ugh, I know. It’s just between work and cheerleading, it doesn’t give me a whole lot of time to hit the books on my own,” Mizuki then put on her sweetest, most pleading smile. “Besides, it’s way more fun to study with an amazing friend like you, Chiyo-chan. Your notes are so concise and perfect, unlike mine.”

Chiyomi pursed her lips and looked. It would take a lot more than that to stop the lilac-haired girl from scolding Mizuki.

“Well, studying should be the most important thing in your life right now! As our teachers say, as it is our job as students is to get good grades. You shouldn’t let other things get in the way.”

Mizuki let out a sigh as they both continued down the aisles. She shouldn’t have expected anything less from the school council member.

“You should maybe consider cutting hours at your job? You said you work at a café, correct?”

Ba-bump. Mizuki could feel her cheeks flush as he picked up a hot can of coffee and stared at it with an unusual amount of intention. A great way to stay awake, but her palette for it has changed since working at Sangosho. Having properly brewed coffee by someone who was passionate about it…

“I’d… rather not.” She let out a sigh before putting it back.

She wasn’t sure if it was the pink in her cheeks or her cryptic answer that gave it away (not as though she was doing a job at hiding either), but Chiyomi suddenly started to stutter.

“Mizuki-chan!” Chiyomi finally blurted out, leaning in closely to Mizuki’s face, as though she needed to confirm what she had just seen. “You like someone, don’t you!?”

“No! I mean… not exactly!” Her eyes darted around as though she were looking for the answer inside the convenience store. Maybe it was the bluntness of the statement that threw the brunette off.

“... It’s complicated!”

“…It’s not Hikami-kun, is it?” Chiyomi stared at her intently, her eyes looking both suspicious, but also worried when she posed the question.

“What? No, of course not. I wouldn’t do that to you.” If Mizuki was bad at hiding her thoughts about boys, Chiyomi was ten times more obvious about her own. She was well aware of why her friend always invited her out all those times to the amusement park, and it wasn’t for the view from the top of the Ferris Wheel. In all honesty, Mizuki thought Chiyomi and Hikami looked cute together. They clearly shared similar interests and got along swimmingly. She couldn’t say the same for herself and her crush.

Chiyomi seemed relieved by that answer, yet still not entirely satisfied it seemed as she still stared intently. Mizuki wasn’t entirely sure how she could answer… for if the entire truth came out, it could cause quite the scandal at school. Saeki Teru going out with a girl that wasn’t one of his fans…

Ugh! What was she even saying!?

Did she like Saeki?

Sure, she had to admit, ever since that time at the fireworks festival, she did feel… different about him. The coffee prince was still a pain in her side, but she also wanted to be around him a lot more. She used to ask him to hang out without a second thought, but that’s because they were friends, like Chiyomi, Shouta, or Tatsuko. Now, anytime she called him to go out, she could feel her heartbeat a million times a second, terrified he might say no. Yes, she and Saeki were friends.

But would it be so bad if they could be something more? He was handsome and charismatic… even kind in his own way. Sure, he teased her, but she could also count dozens of times that he’s helped her out, whether it was teaching her about the different types of coffee beans, or protecting her from random men when they went out together. She could see why he had his own fan club. And when he smiled…

Oh boy. She did like him, didn’t she?

“It’s a guy that I work with at the café,” Mizuki finally answered. Not a lie, but just omitting a few key points. Who knew if there was one of Saeki’s groupies in here. “But I don’t even really know if he really feels the same way! He’s kind of hard to read at times and I’d hate to ruin what we have.” Though she liked to believe that he was fairly honest and upfront with her, it wasn’t unlike him to put on a façade in front of others.

“Hmmm… I do understand this issue,” Chiyomi crossed her arms and nodded, showing concern.

If Mizuki just had a way to figure out if Saeki in a way that didn’t make these weird between them, then maybe it wouldn’t be so scary.

The two girls then found themselves upon the magazine stands. Among the various manga and gravure magazines were of course several lifestyle magazines aimed at young women. Well, when in doubt, consult the experts, right?

Mizuki picked up one with a pure white cover, featuring very professional and very beautiful working women on the front cover. Real Woman Magazine: Two Sure Fire Ways to Find Out If Someone Likes You Pg. 36!

She quickly flipped to the page and scanned the page with her dark-brown eyes.

Tip 1: Ask them if they like you.

Tip 2: Tell them how you feel about them.

Being direct and honest is the most important thing in establishing a good relationship and-

“What kind of garbage advice is this?” Mizuki huffed, tossing it back on the rack. Honest? Direct?

No. Absolutely not. She would rather choose a life of solitude than be the first one to admit her feelings. What if he said no? What if he laughed in her face? No! Mizuki didn’t admit her romantic feelings, she did like any good teenager would: buried them underneath a mountain of snide, sarcastic comments, and hoped that the other person was smart enough to pick up on that! Was that really so hard to understand? Stupid lifestyle magazines.

“Oh, here’s one!” Chiyomi motioned for the brunette to come closer to her. “Look at this special love edition of Habataki Watcher! What to wear and 9 other ways to get your crush to notice and confess to you on page 22!”

Mizuki gasped. Unfortunately, the magazine was bound, meaning they couldn’t open it up in the store, but it wasn’t that much more expensive. She had to know. Habataki Watcher had yet to steer her wrong yet. Himeko’s columns were always spot on. Like they were written specifically for her, but maybe that was just a coincidence.

“Ah, but… this is totally not studying material! Sorry to sidetrack us,”

“Mizuki-chan.” Chiyomi placed the magazine in their basket and then clasped her hands around Mizuki’s. “This is studying. Studying for love!”

“Chiyo-chan…!!!” she could feel her eyes start to tear up. That was truly the cheesiest thing she had ever heard in her life, but seeing Chiyomi was supporting her, how could she not feel touched?

The two then raced to the cashier and quickly paid for their things. Mizuki suddenly felt a boost of confidence. She had the perfect magazine and the support of her friend. Maybe this was all that she needed to help her after all this time. A smirk appeared on her face as the doors of the convenience store automatically opened.

Saeki Teru, you’d better watch out, because Mizuki Shirogawa is about to capture your heart!

[andrewmoocow]

Steven Universe: The Fantastic Mutants chapter 4: The Deadpool and Peridot Show (originally posted on August 29, 2020)

AN: Welcome back to The Fantastic Mutants everyone. This is a very special chapter because here I have a co-writer, whether I like it or not.

Surprise everyone, it's me Deadpool! Since this kid refuses to get his writing done quickly, I've taken it upon myself to "help" him out since no one can understand me better than me. Now then, back to my cohost here.

Yes, Deadpool of all people has decided to help me. Though I'd rather do all of this myself without any distractions.

Kinda like how this author's note is distracting us from the actual main event! Now let's just get this rolling already!

--

We begin on a talk show set in a blank white space, inhabited solely by a drop-dead handsome mercenary dressed in a beautiful shade of red with hints of black that was currently tearing it apart for no good reason. You know him, you love him, it's the sexiest anti-hero to have ever graced this dying industry, Deadpool.

"Thank you, thank you all!" yours truly bowed for an unseen audience as he finished tearing the set apart. "Now if all y'all have been lying under a rock since like, I don't know, '91, I am known as Wade Winston Wilson. I was created by Rob Liefeld and Fabian Niecieza for The New Mutants #98 in February 199-"

"Wade, I believe everyone knows who you are already." My white thinky-box, represented by a bold underline, cut me off. "You're already an Internet legend and of course, there's Ryan Reynolds."

"Can we just can the prologue already?" my yellow thinky-box, also represented by underlining but this time it was in italics. "There's gotta be people coming here solely for us who don't know what's going on."

"Okay wiseguys, you asked for it." the man who looked like a cross between Ryan Reynolds and a Shar-Pei underneath that creepily adorable mask replied. "So in case you guys are just joining us, this is a crossover with the modern classic with some of the most psycho fans in the Internet, Steven Universe." I explained. "Last chapter, our smol sunshine baby of a protagonist was kidnapped by the Master of Magnetism Magneto for some most likely evil science experiment by our favorite evil dictator with a superiority complex to compliment his tiny dick, Doctor Doom. In response, the Crystal Gems have decided that they need more hands on deck, and more characters than this story already needs."

"What does he want this to be, the DC Extended Universe?"

"I'd watch that mouth if I were you buddy." I called the dialogue box out. "Our author here has had experiences with those fans. If that Englishman can think he's free to call MCU fans Marvel Zombies, than he's free to have his own opinion. But someone that fanatical deserves to be called something similar, like a DCheep! Get it, because he's a sheep!"

"Can we please move on? This recap has already taken up two pages and I got real-life things to do." The author begged Wade.

"Okay, okay! Let's get this started already, keep your pants on!" the masked macho-man declared, marching off stage in an alluring fashion. "Cue scenery!"

--

Not too far from Westchester County, there was a shitty apartment where dwelled the hideously scarred human mutate, Wade Wilson. He was out like a light after the badass battle to the death he totally had last night, no joke. Not even a chimichanga could wake him up, and he didn't care that much for them. Yeah, no joke.

"Come on you sack 'a crap, wake up!" his blind, black, elderly roommate Blind Al groaned while fishing Wade out of bed with a snow shovel. "How much off-screen carnage puts you this much to sleep?"

"Enough for readers to get a glimpse of what I do in my spare time." Deadpool declared as he woke up, looking like he had a fantastic night's sleep. "Morning Al, off to do a crossover, see ya later!" he hurriedly greeted the old woman before leaving his room.

"Should I tell him he's not wearing pants?" Al muttered to herself. "Naw, he'll figure it out himself."

--

And figure it out he did. Immediately after that scene, Deadpool was wandering around the street fully clothed and ready to get this chapter over with.

"So, can we have our co-stars please show themselves?"

The author complied by dropping Connie, Peridot, Lapis Lazuli, Bismuth and Nephrite into the scene. "Wait, how did we get here?" Peridot wondered aloud. "And who are you?"

"Ooh, I get to hang with everyone's favorite character!" Deadpool cheered. "I've been writing up jokes about the fans I've been wanting to say for quite a while." He added to the readers while searching his hammerspace for cue cards. "Let me see, Molotov cocktail, big-ass cartoon bomb, reminder to sue Marvel & Capcom for leaving me out of Infinite, God knows how many machine guns."

"Uh, while you're looking for whatever it is you want, let me introduce myself." Connie introduced herself. "My name is Connie, pleased to meet you."

"Hey, can you put your cue-card search on hold and say hi to the kid?"

"Ah, here they are!" Deadpool declared as he fished a series of flashcards from seemingly his butt. "Been wanting to do this for ages." He said before clearing his throat, and he began to read off of them.

"Here are some complaints I have heard about Steven Universe. Complaint #1: literally no one can stay on-model because storyboarding is the devil. Complaint #2: Rebecca Sugar is a total butchphobic abuse supporter because she treats Jasper like crap and lets Lapis off the hook despite the fact that she's even worse."

"Please note that these are clearly not the opinions of the author. He's just been around Tumblr a lot and knows just how these so-called 'fans' think."

"Who said that?" Bismuth wondered aloud. "Oh hey, Bismuth!" Wade exclaimed as he just took notice of her. "That reminds me, Complaint #3: Making Bismuth an antagonist in any way, shape or form is racist because all minorities are pretty little angels than must be defended at all costs despite the facts that we're all human beings who have the potential to be complete balls to the wall sociopathic!"

"Okay, now you're just being used as a mouthpiece for the author. Hey buddy, can you stop him by introducing your version of the X-Force?!"

As a way to shut him up, the writer dropped the X-Force into the current scene on top of Deadpool. Their members, aside from Wilson, consisted of big names like Cable, Domino, Bob & Psylocke, to those who are only familiar to movie-watchers like Copycat, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Yukio, Bedlam & Shatterstar, and even Outlaw & Fantomex!

"How did we get here?" Cable asked the other black-ops mutants as he got up. "Oh hey Natey, knew you'd come along sooner or later!" Wade greeted his cybernetic compadre. "I was just getting myself introduced to these characters that we'll be paired up with for this crossover."

"Hi, I'm Bob, Wade's best friend!" the HYDRA agent Bob cheerfully introduced himself. "Name's Domino." Neena Thurman responded.

"A pleasure to meet you, dearest jeune fille bleue." Fantomex greeted Lapis in a gentlemanly fashion. "You may call me Fantomex. "

"Charmed." Lapis replied.

"Wow, everyone wants Lapis! First Fandral, and now Fanto."

"Can you blame her? She's the writer's fave and top SU waifu! Favoritism much?"

"Name's Negasonic Teenage Warhead." Ellie Phimster introduced herself. "This here is Yukio." She added gesturing to a Japanese girl with pink hair and a big smile. "Hi there!"

"I'm Wade's girlfriend Vanessa, though a lot of people call me Copycat since that's my power." Vanessa stated. "Yeah, totally original."

"Call me Bedlam." Bedlam stated. "And this here is Shatterstar. Unlike the rest of us, he's an alien from the Mojoverse."

"And finally, these are Outlaw and Psylocke." Shatterstar gestured to the cowgirl and the ninja in the one piece. "Nice to meet ya." Inez Temple greeted. "Indeed." Betsy Braddock added.

"So, what brings you to my neck of the woods?" Deadpool asked Connie. "Don't give too much away, cause I already got a basic knowledge of what happened last chapter."

"Chapter?" Connie tilted her head in confusion. "Steven was kidnapped only an hour ago! What do you think this is, some kind of story?"

"You'd be surprised Girl-Who-Wasn't-Actually-Dressed-As-Gohan-In-That-One-Episode." The Merc with a Mouth grinned underneath his mask. Before anyone could move on however, a stereotypical overweight nerd who looks like he doesn't get out much wheeled in on an automated scooter with a plate of brownies in front of him. "And you are?"

"I am simply an SU Critical that wants to congratulate you for making my voice heard." The nerd congratulated Deadpool. "As a way of saying thanks, have some brownies."

"I get it! Deadpool won some brownie points!"

"Don't explain the joke dumbass. The punchline should be coming up now."

As Wade snacked on the brownies, he came to realize something was wrong with them. "Hey wait a second. Yo, stereotype! Why do these brownies taste like literal dogshit?!"

"That's my secret ingredient!" the nerd revealed, much to Wade's disgust and he angrily tossed the brownies on the ground. "It's to symbolize how I believe Steven Universe has gone bad ever since the barn arc ended since absolutely nothing can compare to the amazing character development Peridot got!"

"Oh, it's so nice to see someone notice my splendidness!" Peridot blushed as she felt humbled by the nerd. "Of course, then they had to devolve her into a mindless comic relief who only-"

"WHO ARE YOU CALLING MINDLESS COMIC RELIEF YOU CLOD?!" the small Gem shrieked furiously before she pounced on the basement dweller and began choking him. "I'll teach you to talk back to me immediately after giving my praises you hypocrite!"

As Peridot continued assaulting the nerd, everyone else watched in either shock, bemusement or in Deadpool's case, pride. "I think I want to be her new bestest friend already."

"But I thought we were friends!" Bob weeped sadly while Bedlam gave him a comforting pat on the head.

--

"And now it's time for a cutaway gag!"

"Cutaway gags? You gotta be kidding me, we're not Family Guy!"

"Just let the writer do his thing man, it's his imagination!"

--

"Come on Willy, I know you can do it!" a child version of Deadpool called to a whale in a scene that is clearly a reference to a certain all-time classic "Boy and his non-human friend" story. However just as Willy finally leaped over the rock Wade was standing on, he was immediately harpooned in midair and dragged towards a pirate ship manned by Captain Ahab. "Hey, wrong whale story Habbo Hotel!"

"After so many years of searching, that accursed whale is now mine to profit off!" Ahab and his crew celebrated their capture. "I'm talking sequels and an animated series to start, but the sky's the limit!"

"This ain't the last you'll see of me Old Thunder!" Wade cursed the sea captain as he made off with his prize. "I'll bring that whale home, just you wait!"

--

"Okay, that's a pretty unique idea for a gag. But seriously, back to the show."

--

"So, we're here because Magneto has kidnapped Steven with a bunch of Sentinels." Connie recapped to Deadpool while they were out and about in the city. "Now that you know what we're doing, can you tell us what you do?"

"I'm glad you asked Connie." Deadpool declared. "Allow me to explain the only way you Steven Universe characters probably know how. IN SONG!"

"Wait, a musical number, in a fanfiction?! Seriously?!"

"Hey shut it, this is gonna be good!"

"Lights please." Wade announced, shutting off the lights with a snap of his fingers, and turning them back on with another snap. He was now dressed as an Elvis impersonator with Cable, Domino, Bob and Copycat as his band. "What song do you plan on playing?" Vanessa asked her boyfriend.

"Just watch and listen." Wade responded, and began playing a parody of a classic movie song. "Here I go!" he started singing while Cable provided backup on the drums. "Woo! Ah-ha, ah-ha, let me show you what I work with!"

"Well Gambit was in league with a bunch of thieves, Cyclops has almost two thousand tales!" For his first act of insanity, the Regenerating Degenerate made about fifty longboxes filled with comics appear for Peridot & Lapis to rifle through. As soon as they discovered one with Wade fighting a vampire bat creature on the cover titled "Deadpool: The Gauntlet," the Deadpool on the cover continued the song.

"Well my friends, you're in luck cause up your sleeves, you got a kind of guy that never fails!" After Deadpool emerged from the issue Peridot was holding, he shot down various villains emerging from the other comics while singing.

"You got a real badass in your corner now, a real Wolverine type in your camp!" he then demonstrated by transforming his face into that of Logan's and then back again before letting bullets rain from above. "He can shoot, kablam! Bullets galore, all you gotta do is say my name!" Wade crooned. "And I'll say: 'Miss Peridot and Lapis Lazuli, what will your pleasure be?'"

As he sat the Gems down on a beach blanket, Deadpool then assumed pirate attire and set a heavy treasure chest on the ground. "Just give me a guy and I'll shoot him down, you ain't had a mercenary like me!"

Peridot began to excitedly open the chest while Lapis rolled her eyes. "Life's like a treasure chest," Wade's disembodied voice continued. When the treasure box was opened, the mercenary exploded out of it and made gold fly everywhere. "AND I'M GONNA BE YOUR KEY!"

Unlike her smaller partner, Lapis was still not amused. "C'mon, whisper to me what you want," Wade kept crooning, followed by splitting himself into four smaller Deadpools. "You ain't had a mercenary like me!"

"Contractors pride ourselves on service." One of the mini-Wades stated, and then they merged into the prime Wilson while spawning a lavish couch for his two guests. "You girls the hoss, the queens, the Shah! No matter what you wish, I'll be your bitch! How 'bout a few chimichangas?"

"Have some of Sample A, try all of Sample B!" Following the chimichanga rain, Peridot and Lapis were handed free samples at a supermarket before they found themselves on a velvet pillow held by Wade. "Anytime, any day, I'll help you babes. You ain't had a mercenary like me!"

A brief dance number then ensued between Deadpool and his hands. His left hand vocalized and the degenerate replied with an "Oh my!" When the right hand started singing, it was responded with "No no!" Both hands harmonized and they got a "Ha ha ha!" They sandwiched Deadpool between them as he peaced out with a "Zip-a-dee doo-dah!"

When Deadpool returned, he pointed straight at Peridot. "Give me a good badda-yadda-yadda!"

"Badda-yadda-yadda!" Peridot excitedly repeated. "Good, scotty-wop!" Wade then pointed to Lapis. Her reply was more unsure. "Uh, scotty-wop?"

"Everybody now!" Deadpool compelled the readers. "Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo!"

"Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo!" the readers answered excitedly.

"Yeah, y'all got it!" Wade congratulated before proceeding to demonstrate his healing factor. "Can your friends do this?" he asked, casually dislocating his arms. "Can your friends do that?" he added, ripping out his spinal cord to bounce on it like a certain stuffed tiger. "Can your friends pull this?" With that, Wade tore his skeleton out of his body and started dancing the Charleston with it. "Out a little hat?!"

Suddenly, Wade's skeleton started filling itself with dynamite sticks on the verge of exploding. "CAN YOUR FRIENDS GO-" The human mutate was interrupted as the TNT exploded, and the clouds gave way to him beatboxing while doing a silly dance.

"Call me the Merc with a Mouth, I am always there. North, West, East and South! So don't sit there slackjawed, all buggy-eyed! I'm here to answer all ya evening prayers!" he continued. "You got me bona-fide certified! A hired gun for your charge affair!"

"I got a powerful urge to help you out! So who's gonna die? I really need to know!" Deadpool said as the song began to reach its climax while pulling a long strip of paper from Peridot's mouth and began rubbing his bottom with it. "You got a list that's three miles long no doubt. So all you gotta do is pay-wayho!"

For the final setpiece, Peridot and Lapis now stood atop a mountain of dead Marvel characters that are so obscure, not even the most hardcore fans knew a thing about them. "Miss Peridot and Lapis Lazuli, what will your pleasure be?" Wade asked tunefully. Peridot then picked up one body, and its head suddenly turned into Deadpool's. "Anytime anyplace, I'll help you babes."

A few bodies rose from the dead, only for Deadpool to shoot them all down. "You ain't had a mercenary, never had a mercenary." He concluded. "You ain't had a mercenary, never had a mercenary."

Bullets once again began raining, along with all sorts of violent weapons as the song finally ended. "YOU AIN'T, HAD A, MERCE-NARY LIIIII-IIIIIKE MEEEEE!"

With the X-Force performing a kickline to finish things off, Deadpool pulled on a string dangling from above. "You ain't had a mercenary like me!" A flickering neon applause sign dropped down, capping off the rather pointless number.

--

"Well, that was a waste of time that'll never be spoken of again."

"Sincerest apologies to Alan Menken, Howard Ashman and especially Robin Williams. He would've been 69 this year. NICE!"

--

"Okay you generic-looking monster, time to discover who you truly are!" Connie declared to a captured Sasquatch while she, Peridot, Deadpool, Lapis and Cable were dressed as a certain band of meddling kids and their voracious canine pal. Connie ripped off the Sasquatch's head to reveal that it was a mask worn by an evil parrot with a scar across his face.

"Zoinks! Like, it's a parrot!" Deadpool declared in a beatnik voice. "Wait, a parrot? Is that all?"

"Far from it mein friends!" the parrot answered in a German accent. Suddenly, large robots kicked the walls around them down. "Behold, my Nazi robots!"

"N-Nazi robots?" Lapis stuttered. "Jeepers, this is just getting too weird."

Deadpool then glanced expectantly at Cable, who groaned while pushing up his glasses. "C'mon Cabey, say the line!" he exhorted the cyborg. With a heavy groan, Cable quietly said "Jinkies, run."

"He's right, let's split up gang!" Connie commanded, and the crew were off to the races. After passing by the same flowerpot approximately five times because there wasn't that much in the budget, the five came across a hallway littered with doors.

When Deadpool and Peridot burst into one door, they came out of another not too faraway, same with the others. However at the end of a door, they came across a blue digital ghost with yellow eyes & teeth and a grainy laugh.

"Ruh roh, rit's Rames Rarles the Rindly Rohnny!" Peridot exclaimed, making every word she spoke begin with R before she coughed. "How does anyone speak like this?" she asked Wade. "Because speech impediments are funny!" the mercenary replied. "Now let's move!"

"Seriously, why can't I be Fred?!" Cable complained while emerging from another door with Deadpool by his side instead of Lapis. "Connie gets the cool ascot, and all I'm left with is this bulky sweater and a short skirt!"

"Well for one, that skirt actually looks pretty cute on you." Wade answered with a stupidly cheeky grin on his face. Before anyone else could charge through more doors, zombie cats and dinosaurs that could move without thinking came charging in. "Wow, Scooby-Doo became a lot weirder than when I was a youngin."

--

Returning to the real world, the Crystal Temps and the X-Force have just plowed through an entire armed squadron inhabiting a conveniently abandoned office building and now had their leader tied up in a chair. "We ain't gonna let all those hallway fights amount to nothing!" Wade declared holding the squadron leader at gunpoint. "We've tried every torture technique in the book: eating your own food, threatening your family, doing a silly dance to some awesome music and yet still you won't talk!" he exclaimed. "So let me ask this again! What does the guy who gave Magneto & Doctor Doom those Sentinels look like?"

"What?" the gunman asked nervously, causing Wade to smash another wall. "WHAT COUNTRY ARE YOU FROM?!" the mercenary shrieked. "What?" the captive continued squeaking. "WHAT AIN'T NO COUNTRY I EVER HEARD OF!" Deadpool yelled. "THEY SPEAK ENGLISH IN WHAT?!"

"What?" the man said a third time. "ENGLISH MOTHER-" Deadpool began, but then he noticed the T-rating and groaned. "ENGLISH YOU BASTARD, DO YOU SPEAK IT?!" he reiterated. "YES!" the gunman finally said something other than what. "THEN YOU MUST KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!" Deadpool kept yelling. "WHAT DOES YOUR MASTER LOOK LIKE?!"

"We could just beat the info outta him and be done with it." Bedlam advised. "No need for all this Pulp Fiction parody crap."

"Was I talking to you?" Wade asked his teammate tersely before going back to his captive. "Now where was I? Oh yeah! Does he look like a bitch?"

"Now you're just skipping lines!" the gunman squealed in defiance. "What else do you wanna do with me?!"

"Okay, I got another question for you." Wade stated. "Have you had your prostate exam lately?"

"What?" the gunman muttered, fearing what could come next. "In fact, I got just the girl to help me." Wade declared. "Hey Connie, your MILF of a mom is a doctor right? Surely you must know what I'm talking about!"

"Yeah, pretty much!" Connie answered. "Here, lend me your sword. We might need to operate." Deadpool said as he menacingly snapped on a pair of rubber gloves. "Hey author, why don't we cut to another scene before this gets too violent?"

--

"Now then, what are we working with he-There it is!"

"AUGH!"

--

Elsewhere, a stereotypical shadowy figure watched from a large video screen as the X-Force tore through his mercenaries. "That masked maniac is onto us!" he growled quietly while pounding his fist on an armrest and turned his chair to face Ruckus, Gorgeous George, Hairbag, Ramrod & Slab, the Nasty Boyz. "You five track him & those rainbow women down and kill them all!"

"Yes sir." The Nasty Boyz complied and set off for the Merc with a Mouth. "Now where do you suppose the merc could be now?" Hairbag asked his fellow Boyz. "My best guess, he's probably at that Hellhouse run by Patch." the Southern-accented Slab theorized. "Hopefully they have room for his head as a trophy."

--

"Well here we are at Saint Margaret's School for Wayward Children." Deadpool decreed as he suddenly parked a limo that he totally always had in front of the mercenary dispatch center he loved frequenting. "I suggest you try not to look at some of its inhabitants funny, some of them can get a little ballistic."

Entering the bar, the two teams had all eyes on them by all the other mercs at the establishment. "Uh, hello there." Connie nervously greeted one of them. "I don't think you're old enough to be here little girl." The mercenary replied ominously. "Don't worry Jessica, they're with me." Deadpool told the larger man. "So, where's Weasel?"

"Right here old buddy!" the bespectacled bartender called for Wade. "Hey, Weasel!" Wade exclaimed to his old friend while sitting down at the bar and exchanging a fistbump. "I see you're doing well Poolboy." Weasel said to his friend. "And who's the green midget with you?"

"This is Peridot, a member of the Crystal Gems." Shatterstar introduced Peridot. "Oh, you mean those rock ladies that creamed those Chitauri only to get creamed by Thanos?" Weasel asked, making Peridot pretty mad. "Hey, we creamed Thanos right back!"

"We're looking for information sir." Connie said to Weasel. "A friend of mine has been captured by Magneto & Doctor Doom using those Sentinel robots, and we want to know where they've come from."

"You want confidential info little girl?" the barkeep stated. "Go see Multiple Man over there at that poker table, he's usually the guy to talk to since he's a detective."

"Yet one mystery he can't solve is the mystery of why he can never get his own movie."

"ZING!"

At a nearby poker table, Jamie Madrox and some of his duplicates were playing cards with the albino mutant Caliban, and the four Jamies clearly had the upper hand. "All in!" one of the clones declared shoving his chips into the pot. "I know you are cheating Madrox." Caliban informed his opponent. "I mean, there are literally four of you!"

Just then, Deadpool abruptly shot one of the clones dead and sat down where he once was. "Deal me in." he simply declared as if nothing happened. "Caliban welcomes you Mr. Pool." Caliban nervously greeted the regenerating degenerate. "And who is your little friend?"

"You may call me Peridot, the suave, attractive and positively adorable leader of the Crystal Gems!" Peridot introduced herself arrogantly. "So, you more members of the X-Men? Haven't seen you around the mansion."

"Actually, we're members of a different team of mutants." Madrox replied, while his surviving doubles sadly carried their dead comrade away. "There are actually quite a lot of them you see. X-Factor; the one we're a part of, X-Statix, Excalibur, Generation X, the Morlocks and most famously Alpha Flight."

"Half of them sound so late 20th to early 21st century." Peridot commented. "I mean, X-Statix? Talk about totally cool dudes!"

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. "Is this Saint Margaret's? We'd like to have a word with the owner." A voice came from the other side, catching all the patrons and employees off-guard. All was quiet, but then the Nasty Boyz came crashing through the wall instead of the door. "LET'S GET NASTY!" they all cried out, springing into action.

"Alright, what the shit is going on here?!" Bob "Patch" Stirrat, the elderly owner of Saint Margaret's growled, emerging from another room while stroking his big bushy mustache. "Oh god, it's the Nasty Boyz."

"The Nasty Boyz?" Peridot and Lapis repeated in unison before they laughed at the evil mutant team's name. Suddenly, the wood tables of the bar came to life and changed their form thanks to Ramrod, who used them to restrain everyone aside from Deadpool. "Okay boys, frisk him."

On Ramrod's orders, Gorgeous George used his shapeshifting powers to grab Wade by the ankles and dangle him above the ground. "Let's see what he's got here." Ruckus muttered, fishing through the belongings dropped as Wade was shaken up and down. "Various pistols, swords, nunchucks, staves, forks, a bazooka."

"Most of those were from a Ninja Turtles convention I went to last year." Wade revealed. "Don't know where the bazooka came from."

"Rubber chicken, five month old bag of pizza pockets; that are still warm," Slab continued for his teammate. "Ryan Reynolds's phone number, large collection of nude selfies from Thumbelin-WHAT?!"

To Slab's absolute shock and fury, he found an overfilled file of lewd pictures taken by his sister Kristina Anderson with her phone number on it, along with a message saying "I bet you want more, my raging sex machine!" Crushing the file in his hand, Slab furiously glared at Deadpool. "Wilson, you son of a bitch!"

"Geez Chris, I thought you had a sense of humor." Wade grinned cheekily. "After all, SHE'S YOUR SISTER!" Then like Thor returning Mjolnir to his hand, the mercenary wiggled his fingers to call one of his katana blades back and free himself from Gorgeous George before rescuing his friends. "SSSSSSmokin'!" he hissed before spin-dashing out of the bar.

"After that degenerate!" Hairbag exclaimed while Slab frothed in wordless rage and the Boyz gave chase, leaving the bar in tatters. "Hey, which of you assholes is gonna clean this up?!" Patch exclaimed, but then he answered his own question by handing Weasel a broom.

--

"Everyone, to the Deadpoolmobile!" Deadpool exclaimed as the X-Force and Crystal Temps piled into the limousine from earlier. "Where did you ever get this car anyways?" Bismuth asked him, and he replied. "Don't think about it!"

Far across the city, Robert Kelly was left facepalming and a colleague of his scratching his head when they discovered that one of Kelly's limos was missing, its place taken by a graffiti message saying "I O U".

"I hate that Deadpool." Senator Kelly groaned.

--

"You get back here this instant you red-masked c-" Slab called for Deadpool as the Nasty Boyz chased them in a stolen taxi, but his cursing was cut off by Deadpool popping out the sunroof of the limousine to open fire on them.

"Wait, if Deadpool is up there, then who is driving?" Connie asked the group, and that's when Yukio made a shocking realization. "Oh my god, Demon Bear is driving!" she exclaimed pointing to a demonic bear that was taking the wheel. "How can that be?!"

--

"That's right folks, Lawrence Abrams is here to report that the insanely infamous insane mercenary Deadpool has started an intense car chase where he's hijacked a limo belonging to Senator Robert Kelly and is being chased by a group of other mutants called the Nasty Boyz." Lawrence Abrams said on the television at the Baxter Building, where Garnet, Pearl, Colossus and Wolverine had now caught wind of the event. "And there's also some kinda bear driving the limo for some reason. Why's there a bear?! Who gives a damn! And now onto Sally Floyd with politics!"

"Deadpool." Colossus glowered in embarrassment. "Come my friends, we must go and handle this crisis ourselves." He declared while preparing to leave the building. "But you let Connie go on that mission for her optimism." Pearl stated to the metal mutant while setting Reed and Sue's young son Franklin Richards on the floor.

"We know Pearl, but that maniac is a whole 'nother level of unpredictable." Wolverine grumbled. "And there's a high chance Connie's life is at risk here! Right Garnet?"

"Logan is correct. I can see multiple paths where things go horribly wrong." Garnet agreed with Logan. "Oh, you're leaving already?" Franklin's older sister Valeria asked them. "Mom and Dad were just about to introduce you to H.E.R.B.I.E."

"It's alright Valeria, they still have friends to help." Susan assured her daughter. "Go on Gems, we'll catch up with you back at the mansion."

"It's been a pleasure to be shown around the Baxter Building and meeting the kids Sue." Pearl said gratefully and shook the Invisible Woman's hand. "I especially like how Franklin reminds me of Steven."

"Bye Ms. Pearl!" Franklin said goodbye by hugging the tall Gem's leg. "Oh, goodbye to you too Frank." Pearl replied. "Hey, what about me?!" the Four's AI H.E.R.B.I.E exclaimed irritably. "Don't I get anything to say?!"

--

"Oy Cain, you gotta check this out!" Black Tom called to Juggernaut while he was watching TV. The Brotherhood of Mutants had stopped to refuel their ship and Black Tom had run off on his own when he discovered a TV shop playing the same news report of Deadpool's car chase. "What say we give Deadpool an old one-two before Mags finishes up?"

"You son of a bitch, I'm in!" Juggernaut exclaimed eagerly, giving his teammate a fist-bump that knocked Tom to the ground. "You okay there?"

--

"We have your limousine surrounded! Come out of the vehicle with your hands in the air!" a police officer barked into a bullhorn as they had Deadpool and pals backed into a corner. "I would make a police brutality joke, but even I know that would be too soon." Wade said to the readers as he screeched the limo to a stop, making donuts on the street and damaging numerous police cars in the process.

"Okay, now you're just either showing off or defying us." The cop with the megaphone japed. Just then, a mighty thud briefly shook the ground. And another. And another. And another. And-

"Quit stalling writer, we know who it is! It's the goddamn Juggernaut!" Deadpool interrupted the third-person omniscient narrator. "Literally everyone and their goddamn long lost relatives know who he is!" The mighty Juggernaut continued inching closer to the fanboying mercenary while the police scattered out of fear of him and Peridot poked her head out the sunroof to see what was up.

"Uh, Wade?" the petite Gem squeaked nervously. "You know who that is right?"

"Didn't I just say that it's ol' Juggernaut?!" Wade exclaimed to his new best friend. "Oh, the things I could say about how much of a badass he is! This guy has beaten the shit outta Cyttorak, the Thing, Colossus, Blob & Thor and even called banging She-Hulk a stalemate! Maybe, that last one was actually a cl-"

Before Deadpool could finish the sentence, Juggernaut grabbed him by the neck with just two fingers and brought him very close to his helmeted face. "Hello Wade." He beamed callously. "Hey Cainy, is that new toothpaste I smell?" Deadpool greeted him nervously. "What flavor is it this time, Feeling Bad About Your Shitty Mutant Powers So You Get New Ones from Cyttorak?"

"Goddamn he went there." Black Tom muttered, only to receive a glare from his partner.

"Deadpool!" Garnet called for the Merc with a Mouth as she, Pearl, Colossus and Wolverine entered the scene. "Oh, hey guys." Peridot nervously waved to her fellow Crystal Gems. "What brings you here?"

"We came here to take control of this current situation." Pearl explained. "No matter how much you want to swear and kill and all sorts of other crass activities, we still need your help in saving a friend of ours."

"I appreciate you want me to be more involved in this story Mordecai," Wade said to Pearl. "but can this wait a bit? I'm currently in the middle of worshipping the Juggernaut, bit-"

However within seconds, Deadpool was mashed into the ground by Juggernaut, leaving only a few scattered body parts lying in a puddle of blood. "Oh, so rude!" his disembodied head declared indignantly. "And to think we were buddies at one time Marky-Mark." He then turned to face the audience one last time before the degenerate would meet his not very possible untimely end. "But since I'm literally nothing but blood, my head, a few fingers, an upper arm and my dick right now, let's lighten the mood a little with some more gags, shall we?"

"As if we didn't waste enough time already."

--

"I love the smell of 372,844 pancakes in the morning." Deadpool declared as he flipped his last pancake and added it to the growing mountain of pancakes. "Smells like victory!"

"Why on Earth would you need this many pancakes?" Bismuth asked while Deadpool turned on the ceiling sprinklers to pour maple syrup all over each and every one of them at once. "Well, that's pretty clever I'll admit."

--

"Okay Peridot, ace this test and you're on the team!" Wade, now a coach for the girls' swim team comprised of Lapis, Bismuth, Domino, Warhead, Yukio, Outlaw, Copycat, Psylocke & Nephrite, announced to their soon to be newest member Peridot while she prepared to dive.

"This is it Peri, get this right and you'll make everyone proud!" Peridot muttered to herself while adjusting her cap and gazing at Lapis. As soon as Coach Wade blew the whistle, Peridot leaped into the water…and soon began struggling to keep herself afloat in a very exaggerated manner. "AAAAAGH, SOMEONE HELP! LIFEGUARD, COACH, SOS! THIS WAS A HORRIBLE IDEA!" she shrieked for help before the chlorinated water won out and she sank to the bottom.

"I'll save you!" Cable roared while assuming the role of a lifeguard, preparing to jump in the water after her when Wade stopped him. "No no, wait for the punchline."

When Peridot finally breached the surface, she dramatically gasped for air and then frantically paddled towards the end of the pool, grabbing the ledge with a serious expression on her face. "So, how do you like my swimming?" she asked, acting like nothing had happened. However, no one else was there to answer except for Deadpool. "Hey, where did everyone go?!"

"They jumped ship an hour ago because they were tired of waiting." Wade answered. "But you still get on the team cause you really made me laugh."

--

"Gotta say Lapis, we got quite a team here." Deadpool remarked proudly to his fellow baseball player Lapis. "Uh, yeah, they're great." Lapis nervously replied while failing to get the joke. "So, who's on first?"

"Yeah, and what's on second." Wade responded eagerly. "No, I want to know who's on first." Lapis continued asking. "Exactly! We already established that who's on first, what's on second and I don't know is third."

"Wait, do you not know their names or are those seriously what they're called?" the ocean Gem asked, causing great irritation for her team captain. "Dammit Lapis, you spoiled the punchline!" he reprimanded her. "In fact, this whole Abbott and Costello tribute was just an excuse to see you dress up as Bob again! I mean, can you blame me with those shorts?"

"Abbott and who now?" Lapis remarked with a raised eyebrow.

"You really need to get out more." Wade deadpanned, lowering his eyelids in response.

--

"Welcome back one and all to Celebrity Jeopardy." Pearl announced, now dressed as Alex Trebek. "Now before we proceed, I'd like to apologize on the behalf of our contestants to all viewers with rather unusual lifestyles. We here at the studio refuse to judge anyone based on how they live, and sincerely hope you accept our apologies. Now then, let's proceed with our contestants."

Deadpool was in the podium closest to Pearl, now dressed as Sean Connery. "Mr. Connery is in first place with only -1 dollar." Pearl began recapping for the viewers at home. "About as many points as your mother gave you!" Wade cackled.

"Classy." Pearl responded crossly before shining the spotlight on Lewis Black, aka Peridot. "Mr. Black now has a score of, shockingly enough, -6,000 dollars." She explained, prompting the small Gem turned abrasive comedian to climb up on top of her podium in the middle. "Is that enough to buy my own bus?"

"And finally, Josh Brolin, now having raised 35 dollars." Pearl concluded while Juggernaut assumed the role of the aforementioned actor many may know as a certain Mad Titan. "I don't feel so good." Cain muttered. "Damn, walked right into that one!"

"Very well then. With introductions out of the way, let's move onto the board." Pearl stated, moving her eyes from the podiums to the categories. "Tonight our categories are Annals of History, Potent Potables, What Bulls Hit, Jokes, Popular Foreign Television, Places with Names Ending in 'Nia' and Video Games." Deadpool then pressed his buzzer. "Mr. Connery, you have the board."

"I'll take What Bullshit for $500 Al." Wade announced with a stupid grin on his face, clearly misreading the category he had chosen. "And I can tell you plenty of things that are bullshit."

"No, it clearly says What Bulls-" Pearl began to correct the masked contestant before she came to a realization. "Whoa! Okay, walked right into that one. Anyways, the question is: "It is commonly believed bulls are enraged by this color". Mr. Connery?"

"I'll tell you something I've hit recently." Deadpool chortled. "Hit up a few bars over the past week while hanging with your mom. She and I had a wonderful time, if you get what I mean! Wink wink, nudge nudge."

"I don't even have a mother!" Pearl ranted hotly. "And can we please return to what was happening earlier?! These pop culture references are nothing but a waste of time!"

"Thank you!"

"Boldface, you ignorant slut."

--

"Oh no, Wade!" Peridot yelled for Deadpool as she dashed out the limo to check on the puddle of blood and body parts that was once her new friend. "Please speak to us you clod, you can't die like this!"

"That's because I can't!" Deadpool proudly declared and in a beautiful Disney-like spectacle, slowly reassembled himself until he was the full-bodied lovable manic once again. "Healing factor baby! Got it when some asshole tried to cure my cancer, along with looking like a walking tumor."

"Uh hey, remember us?" the Nasty Boyz cried out in unison, catching the merc's attention. "Oh right, you guys. Gotta wrap up the chapter somehow." As a result, Wade opened fire on the evil mutants, shooting them in the arms, kneecaps and especially their dicks. "Oh and Bismuth, Peridot? You guys got Black Tom & Juggies. I'll take Garnet and Pearl!"

"You got it, I guess." Bismuth complied before she and her little friend squared off with Cassidy & Cain, leaving Wade alone against the senior Crystal Gems.

"Hey, what about us?" Lapis asked the writer, who responded by typing, "Didn't think that far ahead. You guys can just do crowd control."

"Okay Q-Bert and Drinking Bird," Deadpool exclaimed. "you two may have thousands of years of battle experience on your show but in terms of franchise ages, I've been doing this for far longer! There was even a graphic novel trilogy where an actually insane version of me killed the rest of Marvel, tons of classic literature characters and even other versions of me!"

"Do you have any idea what he's saying anymore?" Pearl asked Garnet. "I'm not sure. I fear he may be too unpredictable for us to comprehend!" Garnet answered fearfully. "You can try if you want." Deadpool beckoned them with a silly dance. "But I can assure you that hilarity will ensue!"

Pearl leaped at the Merc with a Mouth, but she was quickly denied a hit when Wade did a pirouette and kicked her in the back, sending her flying into a lamppost. "See, what did I tells ya?!"

Garnet tried her hand at attacking by enlarging her gauntlets & launching them at her foe, but they proved to be useless against him. Deadpool then rapidly fired his gun at Garnet, but she blocked all the bullets with her gauntlets and then finally moved so fast, not even Deadpool could catch her and was punched in the face.

"Wow okay, you got the guts!" Wade yelled while readjusting his head from the hit. "Seems like I really am a bit outmatched by you Garnet. Or maybe a certain someone just wants to make things fair!"

"Come on you maniac, what else can you throw at us?!" Pearl asked pointing her spear. "Oh what else can I throw?" Deadpool replied, letting out a sinister giggle while wearing a pair of shiny glasses and clasping his fingers together. "Let me show you!"

Whipping out his katana blades, Deadpool laughed maniacally while using them to tear the background apart, leaving nothing but a blank white space behind. "WELCOME CRYSTAL GEMS TO MY TURF! I PRESENT TO YOU THE FOURTH WALL, WHERE LOGIC IS JUST AS ILLEGAL AS JAYWALKING!"

"This is starting to remind me of that Uncle person." Pearl muttered in awe. "I thought we promised to never speak of that man again." Garnet instructed the former servant. "Well if he wants to make jokes and talk to the audience, then so can we."

When the two Gems joined hand, there was a bright shimmer as the pair merged into the returning glamorous Sardonyx. "Ladies, gentlemen and everyone in-between, the Gem Hostess with the Mostest has finally returned!" the fusion of Garnet and Pearl announced. "And it seems we have a very special guest star today."

"Sardonyx, huh?" Deadpool muttered while scrolling through the Steven Universe wiki for statistics. "Oh I see, she's here because we can both break the fourth wall!"

"A worthy opponent for you I must say!" Sardonyx chortled before smashing Deadpool in with her hammer. "Of course you realize this means war!" Wade roared, proceeding to whip out numerous cartoon guns, launching them all at once. "RATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATA-RATA!" he screamed while launching lead at his fusion foe, following up with a declaration of "Omae wa mou shindeiru."

"N-NANI?!" Sardonyx cried out in shock before she spontaneously combusted with a cry of "HIDEBU!" However, the explosion cleared up and she was perfectly fine. "Psyche! Hammer time!"

Before Sardonyx could hit Deadpool with the hammer again, he disappeared into a cartoon hole like it were a solid object and reappeared out another. "Ha, that Spot douche should take notes from-OH GOD!"

"Anyone up for Whack-A-Mole?!" Sardonyx exclaimed, proceeding to whack her opponent multiple times with her hammer before he vanished and popped out another hole. And another, and another, and another, and another, until the hiding began to tire him out. "Jesus she's good." Wade panted, and then he began to make a plan. "I swore that I would never use this the moment I stole it from those schmoes, but I'm left with no choice!"

Sticking a hand up his red-clad butt, Deadpool pulled it out while holding a small black jewel that seemed similar to the Infinity Stones. "Ough, I also swore to never use it again because looking for it is a literal pain in my ass!"

"That Infinity Stone isn't canon!" Sardonyx objected while sounding like a stereotypical nerd. "Oh it may not be canon my dear, but we're in the Fourth Wall where anything could happen." Deadpool explained deviously. "With this Continuity Stone, I could warp all reality to my whims! I could use it to go back in time and erase One More Day by preventing Civil War from happening, or maybe beat the shit outta that Judas Traveller prick and his butt-buddies! But what I plan on doing now is using this stone to erase you from this reality once and for all!"

"Oh no, I don't feel so good!" Sardonyx dramatically announced as she felt herself fading away. "I'm melting! Melting! Oh what a world, what a world!" With that, the fusion finally vanished and presumably Garnet & Pearl as well. As Deadpool let out a heavy sigh, he suddenly realized that the Continuity Stone was now missing. "What the?! Where did it go!?"

"Looking for something Ninja Spidey?" a familiar voice rang out. Sardonyx was now back to normal and smugly held the Stone in her hand, setting it down like a golfball and swinging it at Deadpool's eye, causing his body to explode.

"Can I at least get one F-bomb in Mr. Author Man? Please?" Wade begged the author by putting on his best puppy dog eyes until his disembodied head landed in one of Sardonyx's hands. "To be or not to be," she began quoting Shakespeare. "That is the question."

"I got a question." The mercenary's head growled angrily. "On a scale from one to ten, how much do you think I FUCKING hate you?"

"Watch the mouth sonny, children could be reading this!" Sardonyx chortled. "Now then, let's finish this chapter!"

--

One bypass of the chapter break later, Sardonyx and the defeated Deadpool were now out of the Fourth Wall and back in the real world where the Nasty Boyz, Juggernaut & Black Tom were now nowhere to be seen.

"Okay, I give up!" Deadpool complained while his body began to regenerate. "I'll go with your stupid plan! Didn't really need to treat me like how Pearl killed that one Irishman during the Easter Rising."

"It was an accident!" Pearl exclaimed as she and Garnet defused. "And how did you possibly know?"

"But before we move onto the next chapter, can we make a quick stop first?" Deadpool asked. "There's a joke I think needs resolving."

--

"You'll never take the whale from me Wilson!" Captain Ahab exclaimed as he engaged in a swordfight with the dread pirate Straw Hat Deadpool and his motley crew. "I'll surrender when I get eaten alive!"

"Funny you should mention that Habbo." First Mate Peridot sneered before she whistled loudly for Willy to breach the surface, breaking most of Ahab's ship and swallowing him whole. "I'll get you for this Wade!" Ahab shrieked vengefully. "You haven't seen the last of me!"

When Ahab was finally swallowed, Willy gave the pirates his farewells and dove back into the water, free again at last.

"What did parodying both Free Willy and Moby Dick have to do with anything?" Pearl asked Straw Hat Deadpool. "You know what? After what I've experienced, I don't think I want to know."

--

At long last, the chapter is done! Good thing too, because my partner has just started college as we write this and all that education is gonna cut into his freetime!

Yes indeed, the next chapter will take a bit longer to come out because of college. But I still get a few months off soon, so there you go.

Well, that should settle it. You get some free writing done and I won't take your ANDY ONLY stuff. Hasta luego amigo! And be sure to give my regards to your mom!

[tfwhynoy]

Can we get MTMTE Megatron soul mate au? Where they only know who their soulmate is when they touch for the first time they get a mark there

This is the first time I’ve actually thought of what a liaison’s job would entail.

You had always wondered if you even had a soulmate. Sure there was plenty of time left to find whoever they were but getting sent into space to watch over a warlord wasn’t exactly going to help when everyone around you seemed to have already found their special someone.

A month in and you figured that finding a soulmate wasn’t the biggest concern. Hell, watching to make sure Megatron wouldn’t go back to his old self wasn’t much of a concern outside of your job. It was surviving the nearly weekly wild adventure that you needed to focus on. Whether it be Brainstorm and Perceptor having an experiment go awry, some space pirate attack, or just Whirl in general you never seemed to have a moment to breathe.

Even your work was full of tension when literally nothing happened most days. All you had to do was hang around Megatron most of the day and make a daily report of anything notable and compile it all for a monthly report. Nine times out of ten your reports at the end of the day consisted of the same things and the tenth was only going through the events of the catastrophes that happened and how he responded.

You had a feeling he wasn’t a fan of you anyway. Understandable in its own right, you wouldn’t be happy if someone was sent to watch over you for eight hours of every day either. You just couldn’t tell why he acted in such strange ways around you. You had made notes the first couple days but making a note every day of “he avoided making eye contact and avoided speaking with me” would be redundant. You had just said you’d make a note when that stopped but three months in and he still seemed like he was constantly pretending you weren’t there. Did he have issues being watched in general or did he still hold his hatred for organics?

One day you saw him from the corner of your eye just staring at you for a moment. You had almost frozen at the time but did your best to pretend to continue making a list of things needed for the next resupply run for yourself.

When he turned away a moment later you took the risk of looking up at him and was slightly taken aback. Even turned to the side and focused on going through Magnus’s reports he looked almost pained and on the verge of tears. His servos gripped the datapad harder than needed and you could tell he wasn’t actually reading, even without pupils you could still see movement in a cybertronian’s large eyes but his weren’t moving. You weren’t a mind reader but it was obvious he was thinking really hard about something that hurt; something that had to do with you.

Maybe it’s guilt? Is that why he avoids your existence so much?

You weren’t sure but you knew that seeing Megatron like this wasn’t good in any sense. You’d definitely prefer the days that were boring with seemingly no end than watching what looked to be Megatron hold back tears. It just made something deep within you hurt, like watching an old dog limp around on weak legs.

Your report outlined his odd behavior but didn’t go into detail. It just felt wrong to write about something like that. It isn’t like your superiors would know you left out a few details since no one else was even there.

A week later and he offered to take carry you for a speech Rodimus was doing. It wasn't special, mostly to boost morale while also saying that they still had a way to find the knights without the matrix but that wasn’t what interested you. The whole time Megatron had never carried you. It had always been Magnus or Rodimus who took you to and fro. It’s not that Megatron refused, just that he had never offered and you never asked.

You accepted and sat yourself down on the center of his palm. You held onto the seams of his hand for stability even though he held his hand out the steadiest of any bot you were carried by before. He never looked down and you should have expected this but it just felt like something else should be happening. You pulled your hands from his seams and into your lap since it wasn’t needed to see that the metal had been stained a much deeper grey where your hands were.

Your furrowed your brow in confusion and touched the metal near your leg for a moment but there was no change. Why would his metal change like that?

He was your soul mate.

The thought hit you like a truck and you quickly looked up to see if he had noticed. He hadn’t even looked down once and you were thankful that he ignored you half the time. Would you draw his attention to this?

You looked at your hands to see they were stained too, you hadn’t noticed it before because apparently they were still changing but now they were a much deeper color where the metal had touched. The sharp borderline across each palm and your fingers made it obvious it wasn’t some strange birthmark since it was far too straight and clean.

You swallowed your breath to calm your racing mind. Even if Megatron didn’t notice someone would and start asking questions about who your soulmate was. You didn’t even know cybertronians could have soulmates with humans but of course, the first instance of this had to be with the warlord and his watcher.

You silently cursed the universe for the irony of this and shifted to cover the markings on his palm. You kept your own hands in your pockets.

You’d talk with him about this one on one, not in the middle of Rodimus’s speech with the whole crew watching you.

[commandertheory]

M20 Commander Set Review

For each new set, I write an article discussing the new legendary creatures and the nonlegendary cards that I think will be relevant in Commander. 

The Commanders of Core Set 2020

There are a lot of cheap multicolor creatures that generate value (Harmonic Sliver, Knight of Autumn, Qasali Pridemage, Renegade Rallier) in these colors, as well as a ton of strong sac outlets like Evolutionary Leap, Birthing Pod, and Greater Good. Basically, you’ve got everything you need to make a sweet recursion engine, plus you can use all the sac outlets you’re already running to enable sac fodder combos like Karmic Guide/Reveillark, Karmic Guide/Saffi, Reveillark/Saffi, Sun Titan/Saffi, Sun Titan/Gift of Immortality, Boonweaver Giant/Gift of Immortality, Renegade Rallier/Saffi, etc etc etc.

Sample list: Rienne, Angel of Rebirth

I’m really not a fan of ETB commanders since they all run the same cards (blink engines, sacrifice+reanimation engines) and if you don’t draw your engines they don’t do anything. Say what you will about the original Kaalia, but at least she fixed the weaknesses of her tribe; this Kaalia just gives you a handful of cards you can’t cast.

She is, however, quite good in the maindeck of a Kaalia 1.0 deck.

Self-mill is super important in this deck. The more you mill, the more likely it is you’ll have some fodder to exile, so I’d run Mesmeric Orb, Hermit Druid, Deadbridge Chant, Life from the Loam, Undercity Informer, and Altar of Dementia, for sure. 

Legendary lands are great in this deck, and there are a ton of cheap legends in these colors that interact with the graveyard, like Storrev, Teshar, and Meren. There are also some great sac outlets on legendary creatures, like Yawgmoth, Krav, the Unredeemed, Sidisi, Undead Vizier, God-Eternal Bontu, and Izoni, Thousand-Eyed. Finally, there are just a ton of value commanders in these colors like Azusa, Captain Sisay, Reki, Tymna, The Gitrog Monster, as well as a ton of powerful planeswalkers like Elspeth 3.0, Ugin 1.0, Liliana Dreadhorde General, etc.

Sample list: Kethis, the Hidden Hand

Cheap red cantrips and looting spells are very good here, since they’re card neutral and usually mana-neutral. Other cards that trigger when you cast noncreatures, like Monastery Mentor, Saheeli Sublime Artificer, and Young Pyromancer are also solid. I really like Bident of Thassa, Coastal Piracy, and Kindred Discovery in a deck with so many evasive tokens, and Cathars’ Crusade, Coat of Arms, and Shared Animosity will help you kill people really quickly.

There are a couple of Spirit token generators that are worth running because they’re so efficient that they are either mana neutral or mana negative, like Midnight Haunting and Promise of Bunrei. Tectonic Reformation is good for dumping excess lands and helping you find more gas.

Jeskai Ascendancy does literally everything.

Sample list: Kykar, Wind’s Fury

These rewards are not good enough to incentivize committing to Elementals. Shooting something once and a Retreat to Kazandu will not make you feel smart for forsaking the other 300 creature types in Magic.

It doesn’t help that the most powerful part of the card has nothing to do with Elementals, as the smart way to build this guy seems to be Tatyova + Red. It’s also a little weird that the best reason for adding Red to this deck’s color identity is Omnath, Locus of Rage; if you really want to make 5/5s, why not run that Omnath as your commander?

I think this is a combo commander masquerading as a value commander. You can spin your wheels for a while by controlling the board with Reclamation Sage and Shriekmaw, but eventually you’re going to draw some combination of Peregrine Drake/Great Whale/Aluren/Cloud of Faeries and Shrieking Drake/Cavern Harpy/Dream Stalker/Cloudstone Curio/Deadeye Navigator and get infinite mana and bounces for your other ETB creatures. Or you can just draw Palinchron.

Sample list: Yarok, the Desecrated

There are some solid flying token generators in monowhite (although probably not as many as you’d expect), as well as hate bear flyers like Hushwing Gryff, Linvala 1.0, Aven Mindcensor, Remorseful Cleric, Selfless Spirit, flyers that generate value like Pilgrim’s Eye, Bygone Bishop, Skyscanner, and anthem flyers like Archangel of Thune, Celestial Crusader, and Angel of Jubilation.

Because Sephara has 7 power, you also have the option to try to go for a Voltron win using haste granters and cards that grant double strike.

The 6 CMC, 5 toughness, 4 power, 3-cost activation, draw 2, discard 1 is super cute. I think this deck is mostly counterspells, cheap cantrips to sculpt your hand, mana acceleration, and ways to grant him haste, and I don’t think it’s that hard to fix the list so that the proportions of different mana costs make it easy to find Exodia without gumming up your development.

Black has 15 ways to pay life without restriction (i.e., without requiring you to pay mana, tap the card, or do anything else), most of which you could justify playing in this deck.

You don’t even have to worry about protecting this guy, as once he resolves and turned your life outlet into a Yawgmoth’s Bargain, he’s done his job and you will probably win that turn.

Sample list: Vilis, Broker of Blood

Like Sephara, the 7 power pushes me towards a Voltron strategy, and Red has waaay more haste granters than White does. The free board control is a nice way to help your deck interact with your opponents even as you devote most of your resources to the Voltron plan.

The combination of 17 life per swing and the ability to kill anything with Drakuseth’s flame breath makes Basilisk Collar an attractive addition to this deck, but I’m not sure I’d run equipment that only granted deathtouch or only granted lifelink.

Most Green hydras become playable when they cost four less, so it’s not hard to fill out the tribal theme. The rest of the deck is ramp to help you get Gargos down early and effects that target your creatures to enable Gargos’s trigger. Effects that grant Gargos hexproof or indestructible are great because they protect him from spot removal while also getting you a fight trigger, and cards like Hunter’s Insight, Hunter’s Prowess, and Soul’s Majesty, while normally great when you have an 8-power commander, get even better when they also let you eat an opponent’s creature.

Sample list: Gargos, Vicious Watcher

This guy is useful if there’s a specific land you want access to every game. Imo, the best lands to build a deck around are Volrath’s Stronghold, Academy Ruins, and Hall of Heliod’s Generosity, but the one people seem to be most interested in is Maze’s End. 

In addition to helping you get to the End every game, Golos can help you hit 10 gates pretty quickly if you run a bunch of blink effects (in this case, I think I would run the instant-speed ones, rather than build around repeatable blink engines). Note that although there is a danger of hitting multiple Gates if you activate his ability, potentially preventing you from winning with Maze’s End, you do get to be unlucky once, thanks to the 11th Gate, Gateway Plaza. You can also reduce the danger by running additional land drop effects or by waiting to activate him until you’ve blinked him, activated the Maze, or otherwise thinned your deck of Gates to reduce your odds of a bad flop.

I’m not sure what the rest of the deck will look like once you fill out the blink spells and extra land drop effects. Bog standard 5C control with a little bit of land recursion?

The Maindeck Cards of Core Set 2020

In this set review, I’ll be using two five-point rating scales to evaluate the nonlegendary cards, one that measures how many decks a card is playable in (we’ll call that “spread”), and one that measures how powerful it is in those decks (”power”). Here’s a brief rundown of what each rank on the two scales means:

Spread

1: This card is effective in one or two decks, but no more (ex: The Gitrog Monster).

2: This card is effective in one deck archetype (ex: self-mill decks).

3: A lot of decks will be able to use this card effectively (ex: decks with graveyard interactions).

4: This card is effective in most decks in this color.

5: Every deck in this color is able to use this card effectively.

Power

1: This card is always going to be on the chopping block.

2: This card is unlikely to consistently perform well.

3: This card provides good utility but is not a powerhouse.

4: This card is good enough to push you ahead of your opponents.

5: This card has a huge impact on the game.

Spread: 2

Power: 3

The 0 ability will not be that hard to pull off in Karlov or Kambal or Oloro, but even in those decks, it’s not that much better than a Tragic Arrogance or an Hour of Revelation, and those cards will always work.

Spread: 1

Power: 2

At first, I was ready to dismiss this guy, but then I realized that he’s joining the ranks of a very strange sort of combo enabler. Most things that produce tokens when things die say “nontoken”, but Bishop is one of a handful of cards that specify a creature type (the others being Rotlung Reanimator, Xathrid Necromancer, and Requiem Angel). This means that if you can overwrite the type of the token (via Conspiracy, Xenograft, Arcane Adaptation, or by editing the token maker’s text with Artificial Evolution), you get infinite sac fodder (note that xenograft and arcane adaptation don’t work with Requiem Angel). It’s also worth noting that Divine Visitation serves as an additional overwrite effect for both Bishop of Wings and Requiem Angel, although it doesn’t combo with the Reanimator or Necromancer.

Unfortunately, we don’t currently have a critical mass of this type of creature converter, nor do we have a critical mass of the creature overwriters, but both categories are worth paying attention to because they bring this creature sacrifice combo deck closer to viability. 

Spread: 2

Power: 3

This isn’t worth it if you are just holding up two white to save some guys in case someone wraths, but it could be good if your deck has easy access to a sac outlet. G/W decks can combine it with Eternal Witness for a recursive loop, while W/U decks can use Archaeomancer.

Spread: 4

Power: 3

Love seeing White getting ways to remove things that aren’t just more O Ring variants. I’ll happily play this for the ETB trigger in many White decks, but it’s especially good if you have a way to blink or reanimate it; it’s especially good in B/W with Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead, and Necromancy. When Cavalier dies, get back your reanimate enchantment from graveyard, use that to bring this guy back, get his ETB trigger again, rinse and repeat. With a sac outlet, it’s 1B: Beast Within.

In monowhite, it also works pretty well with Gift of Immortality and a sac outlet, since you can keep sacrificing it and returning it with the Gift to Beast Within a ton of permanents and recur a bunch of artifacts/enchantments. Then if your opponents ever kill it for real before the Gift returns itself, you can get back the Gift to use on another creature.

Spread: 1

Power: 1

Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis have huge asses relative to their mana cost, and might be interested in trying for big butt voltron. They’re also on color for Assault Formation, High Alert, uncommon Huatli, Treefolk Umbra, and Arcades, the Strategist.

Spread: 4

Power: 2

If you’re running enough steal effects to reliably get the end step trigger, you can go ahead and run this guy (Thada Adel seems especially good, since stealing Sol Rings helps you cover this guy’s huge mana cost). He also works really well with blink/reanimation engines. However, if you’re not running any engines and he’s one of your only steal effects, then I dislike him because he compares so poorly to Gilded Drake.

Spread: 4

Power: 2

The fact that Blue has other cards that do the same thing without preventing sac outlet recursion makes me low on this card. Also, unlike the other Cavaliers, abusing its ETB trigger doesn’t do much unless you also have access to some shuffle effects, since you’re going to be seeing a lot of the same cards over and over. 

However, this is decent in Yennett, since it can set up the top of your library and is itself an odd card.

Spread: 2

Power: 1

I’d probably run this in Naban, might run it in Azami, wouldn’t run it in Inalla.

Spread: 4

Power: 3

This card seems pretty sweet. Getting to drop the first card after a board wipe is a huge upside, and although it’s no Cyclonic Rift, it seems like a decent way to reset the board while putting you a little ahead of everyone else.

Spread: 2

Power: 2

The first option is terrible, but the second could be useful. March of the Machines is a liability on your opponents’ turns because it opens them up to board wipes, but this card offers a one-shot March by turning all your mana rocks and crappy tokens into copies of your biggest artifact creature. Also, if your Urza deck is having trouble winning the game, you could use this to make all your 0-mana artifacts into Karnstructs and kill everyone.

Spread: 2

Power: 2

Crystal Shard/Erratic Portal redundancy for bounce combos (e.g., Archaeomancer variant and Time Warp variant).

Spread: 2

Power: 1

The main purpose of running an Archaeomancer variant is so you can combo off with Time Warp effects; adding extra value and P/T for extra mana does not make the card better; it makes it significantly worse because the cost of operating a bounce engine loop goes up significantly.

However, this can itself be the engine if you have a cheap blink spell like Essence Flux. Rasputin Dreamweaver and Lavinia of the Tenth sometimes run these types of cards and it’s not a huge burden to run extra turn effect, so there may be a pretty low-cost way to set this combo up.

Spread: 1

Power: 2

A cheap, evasive Pirate works well in both Edric and Beckett Brass.

Spread: 2

Power: 2

Although this can always hit commanders, I still think this is a bit too situational to be worth running in most decks. However, if your commander needs Stifle effects really badly (Lord of Tresserhorn, for example), it’s nice that there’s extra utility stapled to this one.

Spread: 2

Power: 2

It’s not a very interesting card, but the rate is good; I’d run this if I had a cheap blue commander with flying.

Spread: 4

Power: 3

So the base case is really good, as there is lots of sac fodder (and ETB floaters) in black, as well as some powerful creatures with CMC 3 or less (such as Fleshbag/Merciless Executioner/Plaguecrafter).

If you’re in Blue/Black, there’s also combo potential with Phantasmal Image or Mirror Image, since these creatures can enter the battlefield as the Cavalier, get sacrificed to a sac outlet, then bring themselves back with their own death trigger. Repeat for infinite of whatever your sac outlet generates (as well as infinite free Bone Splinters).

Spread: 2

Power: 3

If this were just swampfall - draw a card it would be quite playable, but the ability to control the board really pushes this over the top. I would happily run this in any monoblack deck.

Spread: 1

Power: 1

I’ve considered running Necromancer’s Assistant in Hogaak as a way to get delve fodder while providing a body for convoke; this is a solid upgrade for that role.

Spread: 1

Power: 4

Sorcery speed all but guarantees your opponent is going to draw the card they tutored for before you get the thing you wanted, which is a nightmare scenario.

Fortunately, reader stormcrowlegend pointed out that this card is awesome in my Circu Citadel Combo list, since top-of-library tutors are actually better than tutors that put cards into your hand if you’re in the middle of comboing off with Bolas’s Citadel. Plus, you can use Circu to mill your opponent’s top card once they stack it with Scheming Symmetry.

Spread: 1

Power: 2

I’m a little skeptical that this is going to be good in Edgar because that deck favors a low curve and this is one of the most expensive Vampire lords, but it could push out a worse 4-drop.

Spread: 1

Power: 2

I don’t like this in Horde of Notions or Omnath, Locus of Rage, since they have better options for ramp and their elementals are big enough that they don’t care that much about the anthem. Marath is better at going wide with elementals, but I’m still skeptical that you would play this card when your deck has access to all the great anthems in Naya colors.

However, I think this card could make sense in Valduk, since he doesn’t have access to green, and he ideally makes a bunch of elementals each turn, so the buff could go pretty wide.

Spread: 1

Power: 2

There aren’t that many elemental token generators out there, and this card is cheap, makes elementals every turn, and kills them off. I think Omnath, Locus of Rage might play her just for the double Bolt action, and the -2 won’t be totally dead in a deck that favors land ramp spells over permanent-based ramp.

Spread: 1

Power: 2

Six mana is a lot, and although the -3 is nice, the -X is not very relevant and the emblems are more annoying than powerful in a 40-life format. I think she’ll create a lot of ill will among your opponents without being strong enough to adequately protect you from them.

Spread: 3

Power: 3

This card rips. It sculpts your hand on the way in so you can avoid flood and dump reanimation targets, grants itself and the rest of your team haste if you’ve got extra mana lying around, casually hoses planeswalkers, and burns the heck out of your opponents. This card is going to be best in decks that can abuse both the ETB and dies trigger (Feldon of the Third Path being the deck it is most suited to), but I think I’d happily run this card for the ETB and activated ability in most monored and Red/White lists.

Spread: 3

Power: 2

Only discarding mountains and red cards means that I would only be comfortable running this in monored decks, but I’d probably run it in every monored deck. It prevents you from flooding out, it’s a discard outlet for decks that care about it (such as Feldon of the Third Path), and it gets rid of worse rummaging effects that you’re probably running, like Tormenting Voice and its ilk or Throes of Chaos.

Spread: 3

Power: 2

This card seems generally good in monored lists, and specifically good in Neheb 3.0, where you can farm the discard trigger pretty easily. I’d also run this in both Beckett Brass and Neheb 1.0, since he’s one of the best Pirates and one of the best Minotaurs.

Spread: 1

Power: 2

It might be solid in Omnath 2.0 since it represents 3 lightning bolts in addition to the 1/1s. It could also be good in Zada, Purphoros, and other Red decks that just need a lot of bodies.

Spread: 1

Power: 2

There are only 10 guys that are really worth getting back in Horde of Notions, but Omnath 3.0 can easily grow this guy big enough that he can get back practically anything.

Spread: 4

Power: 2

A five-mana ramp spell is pretty far below the curve for Green, and I still don’t understand why it exiles itself for its Reclaim effect when the White and Black members of the cycle are way more combo-riffic but aren’t similarly nerfed. The self-mill is nice, but it’s not enough to bridge the gap between this card and the many more powerful Green value creatures at a similar price point.

Spread: 3

Power: 3

It’s no Weathered Wayfarer, but this card still kicks ass. If your deck has any lands that are important to its functioning (e.g., Gaea’s Cradle, Volrath’s Stronghold), this card is a must-have. It’s especially good in decks like Gitrog and Lord Windgrace that can recur lands from the graveyard or get value when they go there.

Spread: 1

Power: 2

I think I like this guy in Sidisi 1.0 and Tana, since he can help you get them down on turn three and then, conditions permitting, taps for two on turn four.

Spread: 1

Power: 2

Until Wizards atones for Ulrich, the only deck that will want this is Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves.

Spread: 2

Power: 2

Most token decks and elfball decks ought to be able to make use of the first ability. As for the second, Anthousa and Gargos explicitly reward you for targeting your creatures with spells, and Rhonas the Indomitable decks tend to run lots of fight/punch spells to make use of his deathtouch and indestructbility.

Spread: 2

Power: 3

This card is really useful for assembling combos, but the rate is not great. If you’re just trying to toolbox, I’d run one of the many more efficient green creature tutors instead.

Spread: 3

Power: 2

This may be a good option for monogreen decks that can’t easily deal with creatures, and of course you’ll run it in Gargos.

Spread: 1

Power: 2

Bird tribal is terrible and Spirit tribal doesn’t exist, so there’s not much room for this card. If we ever get an apology commander for Kangee, this card will probably make the cut.

Spread: 2

Power: 2

The format has gravitated away from 5-mana do-nothing enchantments over the years, but there are certainly a lot of BG decks that can farm its trigger.

Spread: 1

Power: 3

I think it may be good enough for the Everything Tribal deck I cooked up recently. It generates value by itself and the deck has a ton of other Elementals in the form of changelings.

Spread: 2

Power: 2

This could be sick nasty in commanders that can easily discard a ton of cards, like Neheb 3.0, Varina, Malfegor, Borborygmos 2.0, and Kozilek 2.0.

Spread: 2

Power: 2

Nahiri the Lithomancer, Balan, and Nazahn will probably run this because they can cheat it onto something. Sram might want this because it’s a cheap equipment, and he draws so many cards that eventually you’ll find your Puresteel Paladin or Sigarda’s Aid to cheat the equip cost.

Spread: 3

Power: 3

I’ve enjoyed using Voltaic Key as an additional mana rock in decks with lots of rocks that tap for two or more mana; this provides some redundancy and the second ability may be useful in decks built around the Kozileks and Ulamogs.

Spread: 2

Power: 3

Amazing in mono-brown lists, and rad in mono-white/red lists trying to fill in the gaps with artifacts. It also seems very good in Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain, since it drops your chance of whiffing down to almost zero.

Spread: 1

Power: 2

Combos with Teshar, a sacrifice outlet, and a 0-CMC artifact creature.

Spread: 4

Power: 3

I would find room for this in any monocolor deck and in select other decks that care about lands (such as the Gitrog Monster or Lord Windgrace).

Spread: 1

Power: 2

Monocolor decks are running too many basics to get 7 lands with different names, and the heavy multicolor decks that have lots of different lands are going to be unwilling to give up a land slot for something that only produces colorless. Monobrown decks, which run almost 100% utility lands and don’t care about colored mana, are in the best position to use this.

Spread: 2

Power: 3

Lotus Vale sees play in a surprising number of decks, including Titania; Hokori; Gitrog; Teferi, Temporal Archmage; Lord Windgrace; Muldrotha; and Derevi. Estrid the Masked can also get extra value out of her untap ability if she’s masked a land that taps for a bunch of mana,

This card is mostly an upgrade, so I imagine it’ll replace or complement Vale in those decks.

Wrapping Up

Please let me know if you think I missed any relevant cards or if you disagree with any of my ratings. Thanks for reading!

[miyoron]

Miyo’s Anime of Various Notes 2017 Edition

This year was a good year for anime. I liked a lot of shows this year and I thought I would write up another one of these! Again, they're in no order really!

Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Dragon Maid

Dragon Maid as a series has definite problems. There's some kind of gross fan service and some really unhealthy feeling fetish stuff, especially from what I've heard and seen from manga snippets. However, despite all that, Kyoani was able to polish this show up into a nice little story about a dragon and her love for the woman who saved her life..and drank with her a lot out in the boonies one night. It's a really nice story though of a lonely person slowly getting a new lease on life with new friends who happen to be dragons. There's lots of good little character moments and it's nice that all of the characters grow as time go on really, even when one just plays MMOs all day and writes curse doujinshi. Also I can't listen to the opening theme without getting butterflies in my stomach from cute lovey doveyness.

Girls' Last Tour Girls' Last Tour takes place in the shell of a world that is on its last legs. There are crumbling buildings, technology long since in use and even the occasional grave site. Really, the world itself is kind of bleak, but the story of Chito and Yuuri is not an overtly sad one. It's the story of how as long as you have each other, you've got all you need in life. Seriously though, there are some good heart warming moments in here. The girl's have weirdly cute wide Hidamari Sketch style heads against the bleak background but it works really well. It has some really nice music too:  the rain drops song in patricular is super duper chill and is just a joy to listen to.

Recovery of an MMO Junkie It's nice to see an anime about people my age, that might be why this one interested me at first. On top of that though, it's a show where one can find a lot of familiar stories, especially if you've touched an MMO at any point in time. First and foremost though, Recovery of an MMO Junkie is a story about relationships though and how helpful they can be. These don't pertain to just romantic ones of course. Friends are super helpful when you're having a bad time, and as the show goes on, you can see just how much the friends Moriko is making along the way mean to her. It's a cute little story with some very cute moments and character designs. Morimori-chan is one of my favorite characters this year and I support her in every way. Sakurai is also a very good boy of course.

Love Live Sunshine Season 2 Last year I had season 1 on my list and the trend continued this year. The girls in Aqours just seem so much more realistic in their struggles than Muse ever did in the original show. They don't always get what they want; life does not just throw out miracles like Chika wants it to. But they don't let it stop them, and the girls keep going because, to quote the opening "we got dream." Seriously though, I am consistently pleased with this show and it helps that my favorite girl got her own episode early on. Also the studio has FINALLY figured out how to make the CGI look good compared to the previous series' attempts. Good music, good girls, good show. It still has 2 more eps but I'm confident with placing it here in my shows of the year of note.

Little Witch Academia Little Witch Academia has been bouncing around through various OVAs for the past couple years, so it was nice to finally get to see this show...be an actual show. It has a few ups and downs, which mainly are wishing a few characters got more screen time, and one specifically LESS screen time, but it's a very nice show. It's got a fun doofy protagonist who is doing her best even though she is terrible at magic. It has a haughty rival, even though only Akko sees her as on the same level, a cute nerd pal who reads anime Twilight and a mushroom obsessed creepo who got vored by a slime monster. I really do not know what else you need me to say. It's by Trigger so it's beautiful to watch? It has a Moomin reference? You can see the dumb guy from Pawn Stars but anime? It's a really good show. Real good.

Restaurant to Another World This show is a guilty pleasure honestly. It's fun to see the weird fantasy creatures ordering, mostly Japanese, cuisine in an interplanetary restaurant, yes. The main draw though is seeing the wonderfully animated and drawn food though. Every week watching this just made me hungry and it was hard not to drool a lot of the time. The characters are all really fun, even if they're essentially all interspersed between episodes. Almost all of them get their own little spotlight episodes in conjunction with their favorite particular dish. Most of all, I'll never forget Restaurant to Another World for giving me so many furry vore retweets from a random image I got from an episode. It's a fun show you can watch in the background and just admire the tastiness. Just, you know, maybe eat dinner first.

Interviews with Monster Girls Interviews with Monster Girls is not Monster Musume, that's the thing I can stress the most about this. It's about a world where there are just...monster girls! Join our way-too-into-them sensei as he...tries to honestly just learn about the differences between the folklore surrounding various monsters and how it ties into how they actually live in society. Also root on for a succubus as she tries to just let her mature woman side fly. It's very rough being a succubus in a super packed society did you know? Seriously though, it's a nice little show that oddly has more continuity than you'd think since it's not just an episodic 4koma style show. It's also got a dumb vampire with a shirt that has a cape design on the back, it's great.

Kira Kira Precure a la Mode This was the first Precure I've watched as it was on-going so it's been a fun ride. It has a bunch of magical girls who are also animals but ALSO are desserts. It also has some of most fun looking CGI I've seen in anime before, but that seems to be what Precures are good at so it's not that surprising for series veteran watchers I'm sure. Either way, it's a good story about friends and fairies and sweets. It's made me want to bake dumb anime cookies for an upcoming con and fill them with kira*kiraru. It has a really fun ending theme too...well both of them really. I'll look forward to see what the Precures are up to next in the coming series, but I'll never forget these girls.

Umaruchan R I liked the original Umaru season well enough, but the second season has really been going all in on the fun. On top of that, a lot of the characters have gotten more screen time and more character development even. We learn more about Sylphin, Kirie and Ebina, and  Umaru and Taihei's sibling relationship is shown to be a lot nicer too. It's not like before where she was always just a terrible brat trash girl, now she's just that SOME of the time. You can tell they really love each other though, and not in a gross way that other anime like to do with siblings. Also it's shown just how being friends has helped the other girls, and even Umaru herself really. It's a good show and I'm glad that it managed to get better on its second at bat.

Big Gold Star Show

Kemono Friends Kemono Friends is...well It's not really a good show. It has a hilariously low budget and even worse CGI. It's a lot like a picture drawn by your 5 year old where it's not fine tuned yet but it makes you feel kind of good anyway. It has some really cute character designs of this bunch of doofy animals that are just living their lives. Whether it's going to battle every day against their long time rival, wandering ruins looking for coins or just singing to their hearts content, there is something about the Friends that just makes you root for them. It's not a show you need to watch, but you might just like it if you do. Sugoooooi~

Old Anime of the Year

These are shows that I watched that didn't necessarily come out this year but that's when I watched them. It's pretty simple!

Osomatsu-san Sheeeh! I watched this one on the recommendation of a buddy. A remake of a series from the 1960's about sextuplet brothers modernized into terrible dirtbag NEETs. This show is full of weird, often gross, things, but there's something about its manic humor that just speaks to me. The brothers are terrible terrible terrrrrible boys but you can find good points about them too. I've been watching season 2 as well this season so this will probably carry over into next year as an old anime of the year. Sooo...let's just say Osomatsu-san is an Old Anime of the Year 2016-2018. Ok? Cool!

Yuri on Ice I had this on last year's list of shows to look into and I'm very glad I continued it. It tells a really good story about gaining confidence and learning to feel good about yourself. Yuuri's journey along the way is wonderful. Because of that, this is another series I'm looking forward to the second season of to see where it goes. My only complaint was that it was a little repetitive but that's probably how sports anime go huh? I liked watching the routines and listening to the songs. It also has a great cast of side characters like Chris with the great butt, the weird vampire guy and Phichit, your best friend. There's also J.J. who is full of himself, sure, but there's just something fun about him still. Here's to more ice boys!

Konosuba Konosuba is a series full of lovable dummies. Like...execeptionally dumb. Like..super..SUPER dumb. But that's really what's so fun about them. I had some Ah! My Goddess vibes with the series' set up except Aqua is a much much much more flawed goddess than Belldandy ever was. Seriously though, this series takes the isekai/reborn in another world from our world genre and takes it in a direction that's actually fun instead of retreading the same old stories. It's got explosion mages, it's got really awkward paladins and it has a very put on dullahan who just wants to have his evil schemes go the way he planned. I need to watch season 2 still, and if it's more of the same, I'm in for sure.

Heart Catch Precure This show was actually my first Precure several years ago, but my buddy and I didn't finish it before. Since we had been watching the new show, we decided to double up and watch both of them at the same time. Heart Catch is honestly a delight and has some of the things I like most in a magical girl show. It has fun heroes, it has really doofy villains and it has a whole lot of heart. It's episodic sure, but it has a really great art style that just makes it even more endearing to me. Also, episodic magical girls with dumb monsters is why I loved the original Sailor Moon anime. I also enjoy that the Precures just punch and dropkick things as their first course of action. You just can't step to a magical girl that's gonna just pop you in the jaw.

Ugh show?

Gabriel Drop Out I don't know whether to call this show an UGH show or just an ultimately lame one. I know it definitely is a 1 or 1.5 character show though. The best character is sweet dumb demon Satania who the show seems completely content to just dump on whenever it has the chance. I do not appreciate that anime. I don't at all. Please do not bully this sweet evil girl because she does not deserve it. This show was not as heinous as last year's Kuma Miko, but one of the characters is for sure a bad bad ugh one.

Anime to Check Out

I have a few shows I've had on my list to look at, mostly on my Crunchy Roll queue that I haven't gotten on due to a crazy good Fall season/laziness. Here they are!

Alice to Zoroku I watched the first episode of this back in the summer and I didn't take the time to finish it up. I plan to fix that in the coming year since I like the premise and I really liked the old man especially. I look forward to learning more about them in the future!

The Ancient Magus' Bride This one I've mostly seen interesting looking pics of so I'm curious. I like cool skeleton wizard looking things and anime. This seems reasonable enough to me.

One Punch Man This is still happening right? Yea, definitely gonna watch that.

[norton-addiction]

About the play “Bug”, review of the Russian spectator

Original language of the text is Russian. Translation to English made by fan community “Norton-addiction”.

In this article you can read about the play “Bug” starring James Norton which took place in a tiny event hall Found111. 

James Norton and Kate Fleetwood, Bug performance

London, April 22, evening

Complete lack of sense of direction and total absence of the Internet (sure, addiction to it becomes critical) made me exit on Charing Cross station of any reason. The theater (pretty tiny studio) was located on Charing Cross street, abut the street is extremely expanded. When I realized how short time I had and how long would be my way no matter how – on foot or by the underground – I caught a cab, again. And I was in time (in 20 minutes before start) even though I hardly raced past an unnoticeable door at full steam.

I've never been in such a little theater in London. First, you should do a long climb upstairs to a theater bar. When you finally say to yourself “huh, now I can lead forward to the main hall” (there was an encouraging poster on the wall, something like “Nearly here!” on it) but you find out that you should walk up another couple of stairwells. And only after all of that stairs you get into the “Hall”. In quotes because it is a itty-bitty room with a low ceiling and tightly set mismatching chairs and benches round about the “platform”. It's very suitable for fans but not for those who want to get a perfect vision of a performance, so you'd better take your place as far as possible from the platform.

However suddenly I found myself too close to the platform. I stumbled into the bar and ordered a glass of wine at once, then found a place for myself near the broken grand piano and put a rose on it (yes, as you could remember, I wandered around the town with the rose all the time). The whole picture could be seen in a rather off-hand way but I didn't care a curse and set down to get dry. Faster than a flash in the pan a huge crowd of Norton's fans got into and made a thick checkout line in the enter of the hall. Those fans were pleasant but unshakeable english lineups always scare me: it is a perfect monumental formation which leaves no chance to anybody to bore way through the crowd.

For some unfathomable reason I found myself in the hall on the second row - smack up against the bedside table with plates and dishes, bottles and radio on it. This extemporary bar and space near it as it turned out was recruited into the performance. So I, with my rose, felt out of place there. Someone from the crowd catched sight of the rose even joked on me during the intermission: “Oh, lady did fundamental preparation!” I must have dumped Norton with NOT presenting him the rose. Sorry, James, the rose left for Moscow with me, after travel to Stratford and back. And no, I did not wait for James, who, by hearsay, simply hanging around the bar. Sorry, no photos of the prince's autograph there.

The performance

Do you know the feeling when you need some time to grow into the book, movie or show, but it seems a little bit strange and tough in the beginning? This little hall intensified such emotions in me. I even needed to make an effort to overcome the conventionality and get lost in the story. It gets on you nerves when actors over and over again runs up to your bedside table (every item in the 5 cm distance is automatically included in my private space) and then they do something with it. It would be a different matter when it was women (Kate Fleetwood was awesome!) but when beautiful, bare-chested James Norton runs up again and again too close to you... God bless me I'm not a real fan of him))

It is a very strong play established under all principles of good thriller with creepy, growing in pressure suspense and increasing degree of absurd which seems in common with McDonagh's plays (or maybe even Shakespeare's). In the tensest moments comic relief happens to be, and spectators nervously giggle and can't stand laughing in contradiction to puzzleheaded mess in front of them. And could it be that all good plays (plots, books, pictures and movies, and whatever) should have such a mad combination of humor and horror, as... as it appears in the real life?

Similar to McDonagh, it's difficult to review this performance without spoilers. In fact, even trying to translate ambiguous title will be a spoiler (so, our local content “Glitches” fits more or less). So if you haven't read the play or watched the American movie (pretty trashy, IMHO) yet, please, read the following text at your own risk.

With all James Norton's strong points and the key-role of his character, there is a woman in the center of the story. It's great because of the deep dipping into atmosphere of contemplation of the vulnerable paranoiac mind. All this vulnerability due to the desperate lust for love, and it makes all things more dreadful.

Entirely young woman, with marks of the stormy past and everydayness on her face, lives on borrowed time in abandoned motel. The bed, the “bar” (that same old bedside table closer to me), the kitchen, the radio and strategic reserves of all-type relaxants – that's all she needs. In the parlance of medicine, the girl is in state of chronic depression, but, of course, she doesn't know about it. She has unlucky marriage with domestic violence and lost son in her past, and now and there she has only a bottle, a cigarette, a bong, a line of cocaine, a single randy female friend, loneliness and fear.

All the facts which I've shoot out in the previous sentences, brings to the audience slowly and ropy like sticky flypaper. The ceiling will be all covered with such papers in the end of the narration. And for now... now the phone is ringing. Nobody answers on the other end of the line whatever and no matter how frightened Agnes shout into the phone handset. She thoughts she talks with her ex-husband. Speaking of, we won't know who was calling all that times.

And here, in all that very... unfortunately, common little world, Peter (Norton) appears. He is absurdly nice, prudish duffer. Many funny situations based on his clumsiness. He is literally disarmingly plainspoken guy: it's hard to resist such words as “I like you” told in the face (and lately “I could make love with you” - oh, who can resist it). So Agnes can not. And there they already crawls together on the flour in search for the invisible bugs (the first alarm signal was when “the bug” turned out to be a broken fire-safe). So there the mysterious stranger modestly stays overnight on the flour, which causes wave of adoration in the audience. And then, in the morning, he disappears. Instead of Peter Agnes meets her husband Jerry in the bathroom. The dreadful plot starts to spin around in thick and fast tempo.

Jerry. It was a hilariously funny scene of his second entrance which ends pretty scary as every scene in the play.

Peter lures Agnes into the mounting paranoia which begins from very innocent and funny searching for invisible bugs (“bug” as in the main title) in the bed after sex-scene, and then materializes into complete terrifying conspiracy theory in the end. The point is that by this time all that schizoid but consistent delirium is said by Agnes not Peter. Spiritual affinity and human warmth with at least someone near her are more important then real world for Agnes (“I'd better talk to you about bugs than stay silence alone by myself”).

It's painful to watch towards the end of the performance (and that's the difference between this play and McDonagh's ones) because the consistent delirium takes place in full of your view. It is unavoidable and unstoppable like a upcoming trucker. There is nothing left to help characters. McDonagh always leaves some penetrative tiny flash of hope, humanistic points in his works always sounds in high tone upon the most frightening low pitch. On the contrary, Tracy Letts drops to an all-time low of loathsome naturalism. Every more or less empathic person literally wants to close his eyes when after several attempts Peter in highly authentic manner takes out a tooth with pliers by himself (cause the capsule with bugs is hidden in it).

Norton in the dressing room. There are more and more "bites" of non-existing bugs toward the end until the whole body comes to an open wound.

One more difference from McDonagh's – Tracy hasn't such virtuosity ability to write when important sense appears ABOVE text absurd. He makes a request on global topics: Peter is not only unblest paranoid, he is a veteran of Gulf War. Reasonably it should add more tragic in the story, should make watchers thought over (and in one moment you are really think: “For God's sake, maybe he is right with all of his microscopes and rage assurance what he sees things that other people can't”. But Tracy fails in clearing this height as distinct from McDonagh and his The Pillowman and Hangmen.

Speaking through thoughts face to face – that's not how good text works (“There was a time when people though the safety exists, but not now. Today nobody can feel safe”).

Nevertheless the actors were brilliant and took everything they could from the play. They perfectly hold out a hysterical rising pitch with the help of great light and sound work. And once again... God damn, why have I set on the second row! I could see Norton's play only when he was in the other side of the platform; just he appeared near the bedside table, there was only his... waist in my eyesight))) Or I was in need to crane my neck but in this case it looked like I was starring at him face to face, and that was... spooky.

The murder happens in all-сovered in foil paper room. The expected end takes place – main heroes suicide with “I love you” phrase on their lips. But there is no catharsis, only relief that you can finally run out from this self-absorbed world of despair, loneliness and – bugs.

 * * *

... And the more beautiful contrast was on the curtain call when stage staff put bathrobes on half-naked and wet head-to-toe Kate and James, and they “came” on bend (they didn't went away in fact). I swear I've never seen such look of pleasure on the actor's face during the bend, never! Norton truly beaming, he squinted, and even my cheeks tired from toothy smile. It seems if he had a tail that tail would fawn upon in the fullness of his happiness. Kate was smiling too, but it was a sheepish smile, while James... oh, he has such a great charisma I know what his fans feels like!

 This photo provides guidance on what they look like during curtain calls.

And one for the road: lunch break on the roof of Found111 — so cute))

For finding photos thanks goes to blog: norton-addiction.tumblr.com

The End.

Original text in Russian: http://www.dtbooks.net/2016/04/shakespearlives_28.html

[gabriellakirtonblog]

Gain More Clients with This Personal Training Referral Program

How important are referrals to your success as a personal trainer?

People referred to you by a current or former client are more likely to become clients, to stay with you longer, and to have a higher lifetime value. They’re less likely to shop around than someone who came to you as a cold lead. And they’re also more likely to refer others, since that’s how they found you.

So you’d think trainers would make a priority of asking for referrals, with a routine or system that works for them and they use consistently. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Too many only ask for referrals when they’re feeling brave (i.e., never). Others have a system but a bad one: vague, hard to follow, or poorly incentivized.

Systematic referral generation is a hallmark of highly wealthy fit pros. But it’s rare. To boost your business, you need both a referral program and a marketing strategy to promote it. It should be easy to understand and easy to follow, and include an incentive that makes sense for your brand and motivates your clients.

What’s a personal training referral program?

A referral program is a deliberate, organized way to get clients to make referrals. There are many kinds, and you’ll want to find the one that works for you.

Key feature: A referral program should benefit all parties—the business owner (you), the current client, and the prospect the client has referred to you. That means rewarding clients for recommending you, and incentivizing new prospects to try out your service.

During my years as a personal trainer, I had a lot of success with the approach I’m about to describe. I call it the token system for an obvious reason: By issuing tokens, you systematically reinforce the behavior you want (making referrals) with the promise of a larger reward.

The system has applications beyond referrals. Because it’s based on behavior modification (a useful tool for fitness pros in general), you can also use it to improve client results.

Will it work for your clients? I don’t know. It’s fun and different, and it worked because it motivated my clients to help me. Maybe something else will work better for your customer base.

Whatever it is, you owe it to yourself to find it, and to use it consistently to boost your personal training business.

READ ALSO: How to Get More Personal Training Clients

How to set up your own personal training referral program

The token system has two parts: the token and the reward. The token has no inherent worth, but it can be exchanged for a more valuable reward. (For B.F. Skinner fans, this should sound familiar.)

It came to me after two clients used Weight Watchers to lose stubborn weight. At first I was jealous. I mean, when-Betty-sees-Veronica-with-Archie jealous. Then I decided to dig deeper.

I noticed that WW rewarded customers for hitting milestones—a ribbon for losing 10 pounds, for example. The company has since doubled down on this approach, launching WellnessWins in 2018, in which members accumulate “wins” and then exchange them for tiered rewards.

This is nothing new, of course. We’ve known for a long time that celebrating small achievements helps people reach long-term goals. Fitness professionals use this approach all the time to encourage healthier habits.

Here’s how you can use it to encourage referrals:

Create a certificate and customize it for each client

Give your certificate an epic title (“The Road to Total Consciousness” may be too epic, unless you’re sure your clients will get the joke), and include your name and contact info in small type at the bottom. That’s your basic template.

Now fill the certificate with a list of clear, explicit tasks that are both specific and meaningful to the individual. Include a few that are simple and easy along with some the client will regard as genuine accomplishments.

A few examples:

A new PR or max lift

Five consecutive days of home-cooked meals

Tagging you in a Facebook post about a workout

A direct referral for personal training, or sharing a coupon or credit for your services

Leave plenty of room for stickers.

Ask your client to display the certificate in a visible spot in her home, like the fridge. (Pro tip: Go the extra mile and stick a magnet on the back.) You want visitors to see and ask about it.

Stock up on stickers

I like dinosaur stickers, but you might prefer Marvel superheroes, or your company logo, or local sports teams, or puppies and kittens. What matters is the perceived value you give the stickers.

Pass out stickers whenever the client earns them.

Not into stickers? Consider points, badges, even Monopoly money. Or if you and your clients prefer an online system, try a shared Google calendar with different tasks for each week or day.

Make the rewards meaningful to your clients

Clients can exchange a completed certificate for a prize as soon as they complete it. But to encourage them to delay gratification, you want to offer more valuable prizes for multiple certificates.

Maybe one completed certificate earns a prize worth $20, two gets the client a $50 prize, and with three the prize is worth $100.

Some ideas: fitness gear, tickets to see a local sports team (if the client is a fan), or gift cards for a local restaurant or spa. To defray your costs, you can barter with local businesses—an hour of training for a $100 gift certificate, for example—or simply ask if they’ll donate some gifts in exchange for you promoting their business.

Have fun with it. Get creative. The more you personalize both the challenges and rewards to each client, the more enthusiastic and compliant they’ll be.

Why you shouldn’t just ask directly for referrals

There’s nothing wrong with directly asking for referrals, and I’ve given plenty of advice on the right way to do it.

But for maximum effectiveness, it should be about your client’s success as much as it is about yours. The best referral programs are mutually beneficial: They help you (obviously), they help the client (more on that in a moment), and they also help the person being referred to you, who’s usually a friend, colleague, or family member.

That said, your clients aren’t stupid. They know you have a lot more to gain from a new client than they do from a gift certificate for something they could easily afford. There’s no need to pretend otherwise.

How the token system improves results

Here’s the best part: The same positive reinforcement that gets clients to make referrals can also improve adherence, yielding better results. Better results mean an even happier client. And a happy client is more likely to refer.

Which brings me to one last critical point about referrals. Providing exceptional training is a must. No customer is going to recommend you for rewards alone. You need to make every client feel important, and make the referral process easy and natural.

If the token system helps you do that, great. If not, find something that does.

READ ALSO: How Much to Charge for Personal Training

READ ALSO: Free Personal Trainer Website Bio Template

READ ALSO: Five Sales Questions to Get New Clients

   If you want to be a wealthy fitness pro, this free course is for you!

Since 2011, Jonathan Goodman has helped hundreds of thousands of trainers do better jobs, run better businesses, and have better lives. In his free minicourse, available below, he’ll teach you how to:

Rest easy with the 3 (super obvious) time management strategies that burned-out fit pros wish they knew

Maximize your profit with the perfect pricing model

Avoid crippling (and embarrassing) mistakes when asking for referrals

Enter your email below to get this free minicourse today:

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Gain More Clients with This Personal Training Referral Program published first on https://onezeroonesarms.tumblr.com/

[ivegotsomethingtosay]

Game of Thrones - Season Seven (TV Review)

(BEWARE: Spoilers ahead)

Why do we still watch Game of Thrones? No, seriously. We’ve all asked ourselves at one point or another, even the most devoted fans. I think it was around the end of season 5, after Cersei’s disgustingly pornographic walk of shame, when I really started to wonder why I continually subject myself to the tedious torment that can be watching this show.

But our relationship with TV is often a sado-masochistic one. Most “good” shows are on long enough to have more than a few rough patches, as any true fan of Lost can attest to. When you have something that is producing as much consistent content as an ongoing television program, there are bound to be things that you don’t like, episodes you’d rather forget, creative decisions that went nowhere. But so long as the reward outweighs the cost, we stick around.

Here’s the thing: Game of Thrones is objectively good. Solid, engaging, and well mounted television that features interesting characters, high stakes conflict, and (usually) exemplary writing. But if we watched things because they were “good,” Hannibal would still be on air. No, there’s something else about Game of Thrones, which has grown over its seven seasons into a cultural phenomena big enough to rival Harry Potter. That “something” varies from person to person. For some, it’s worth drudging through all the political nonsense for one of those kick-ass dragon scenes. For others (like me) the show is all about the politics, the nuisance, the tightly wound tension built up over years and years.

But regardless of which side of the wall you stand on, season seven was a huge turning point, either the moment when the show finally started to figure out what it was meant to be, or the moment when it lost sight of what made it so great. It is, if anything, pure evidence of television’s flexibility as an art form, its ability to mean different things to different people at different times.

The primary focus of season seven is the budding relationship between two of the “Game’s” biggest players; northern king and resident beef-cake Jon Snow, fresh off his deeply satisfying win against Ramsey Bolton at the Battle of the Bastards, and dragon den mama Daenerys Targaryen, who’s finally on Westerosi soil after wandering around in character development land for six seasons. Elsewhere in the world, Arya has finally returned home to Winterfel, only to find her estranged sister Sansa sitting on the throne. Cersei is still a megalomaniacal monster, Tyrion is still sassy as all hell, and Ed Sheeran is a Lannister soldier… apparently…

If you weren’t able to gauge from that description, season seven is all about reunions. It’s about putting characters who you haven’t seen speak to each other in years (and some who haven’t spoken at all) into the same room and seeing what happens. There’s enough pop in getting to see the Hound fight side by side with Jorah Mormont against a horde of White Walkers to carry us through a truncated season (only seven episodes), but the “everyone’s finally coming together” plot device carries with it some interesting problems that the show has never encountered before.

One of these problems is the dialogue. Game of Thrones always had good dialogue. But because so much of season seven is comprised of characters catching each other up on events and backstories watchers of the show are well versed in, many of the scenes fall flat. Interactions that should be ripe with tension come across as placeholders for the bigger actions scenes, which punctuate almost every episode in the season.

Another problem is time. You’ve probably already read about how fast that raven must have been flying to get to Daenerys in time before Jon and co. froze to death out on that lake, but I’m talking more about general pacing. There was more than enough material baked into season seven to warrant a full ten episodes, but show runners’ David Benioff and D. B. Weiss’ decision to condense what was already going to be a break-neck season speaks to a kind of urgency that is new to a show which is widely known for taking its sweet time. While I can’t fault people who complained about the meandering nature of some of the later seasons, I also wish some of the developments in this new season were given just a bit more time to actually... you know, develop. Danny and Jon’s relationship, authentic as it may be (Kit Harrington and Emilia Clarke have some astonishing chemistry) feels rushed, and could have benefited from just a couple more episodes worth of interactions. Tyrion re-connecting with Jamie after killing their father should have felt like a journey, not like a cut scene in a video game.

I’m tempted to give season seven a free pass solely for its finale, 80 minutes of pure TV euphoria peppered with some of the best performances I’ve seen on the show period. Cersei’s face at seeing a White Walker for the first time, Littlefinger trying to conjure up fake tears as he pleads with Sansa for his life. And that ice dragon. Ho. Ly. Shit. Perhaps the reward does still outweigh the cost. For me, at least. And only for now. I can assure you that I will be eagerly awaiting the final season next year. But a season finale is one thing, a series finale is another. A series finale takes tact, patience, and restraint to pull off.

Game of Thrones season seven was a lot of things: fun, exciting, fast. But patient it wasn’t, and I’d be lying if I said that didn’t make me a little worried going into season eight. Not too worried, but worried none the less.

OVERALL RATING: 7 / 10 SEE IT OR SKIP IT: See it.

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Nisemonogatari: Fake Tale, Vol. 1

By NISIOISIN. Released in Japan by Kodansha. Released in North America by Vertical, Inc. Translated by James Balzer.

The afterword of this volume of the Monogatari series says that Nisioisin never intended for it to be published, but just wrote it for his own amusement. I hate to call an author a liar, but just reading the text of this first volume of Nisemonogatari makes me think he’s full of it. The book is filled with efforts to make this short series into a much longer one, adding onto running gags and deconstructing them, taking existing characterization and flipping it on its head or making it more ominous, setting the stage for new plot points to be carried over to future books, and the endless references to the fact that the books recently had an anime greenlit, right after the first set of books kept joking about the idea of the characters being in an anime. Nisemonogatari’s metatext is thick. Fortunately, its text is also good, showing off Araragi’s sisters, and how they’re far more like him than he’s comfortable with.

Fitting given that he has two sisters, the Nisemonogatari series is split into two books, and this is the first one, Karen Bee. Karen is his “older younger sister”, and is almost the definition of ‘dumb muscle’, a karate black belt devoted to justice and righting wrongs who seems to forget that she’s just in middle school and that actual villains can run rings around her. She’s a nice kid, but you can see why Nisioisin spent so much time re-introducing the rest of Bakemonogatari’s cast; there’s just not enough in her to justify the 300 pages or so that this book consists of. We also get a better glimpse at Tsukihi, the “younger younger sister”, who Nisio is clearly far more fond of writing, mostly as she’s able to go toe-to-toe with her older brother in the only battle that really counts in any works by this author: wordplay. Tsukihi’s mood swings and temper tantrums will be looked at in more depth in the following book.

As for the rest of the cast, again, they’re shifting from “this is a series of short stories, each about a different girl” to “this is a long-running series that will have several books after this. That doesn’t change the fact that Araragi and Senjogahara are still a couple – indeed, some of the best scenes in the book feature the two of them. But we see that Hanekawa and Senjogahara have clearly had “a chat” in between books, and that – despite Sensjogahara’s attempts to exaggerate it in order to make us dismiss it – there is clearly major tension between them. Possibly because, as Kanbaru states midway through the book, Araragi and Hanekawa are the more obvious couple. Hanekawa herself has cut her hair and gotten contacts in order to show she’s moving on from Araragi, but I’m not sure how much I buy it – she’s willing to say she loves him to his face, but it’s not a confession per se.

Oh yes, can’t forget Shinobu, who has finally decided to stop sulking and become the extremely talkative haughty vampire we met in Kizumonogatari, and she’s not going to let looking like an eight-year-old stop her. She gives Araragi a way to discuss oddities now that Oshino has left town – she gives advice on the supernatural, while Mayoi, who is a wandering ghost, ironically gives advice on more down to earth things like love. And Nadeko is here as well, and her fumbling, overly obvious attempts at seducing Araragi (obvious, that is, to everyone except him) show us that she’s not just a shy, blushing girl in love with him. More on that much later. And then there’s Kaiki, one of the most popular characters in the entire series judging by Western fandom. He’s very good at playing the evil villain, and does like to drone on endlessly (as every character in Monogatari does), but there’s a hint that there’s far more to him than that, and I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of him.

You’ll notice that this volume has a new translator (yes, I’ll mention it). Vertical apparently decided, given the aggressive release schedule, to divide the series up into chunks, so James Balzer is doing the Nise series and Ko Ransom will be back with Nekomonogatari Black and White. For the most part, the change is not all that noticeable. The series is well translated (hang on, getting to it), keeping most of the culture references – I was very pleased to see Araragi’s Read or Die comment left in – and adapting the wordplay and Japanese puns so they are mostly not noticeable. And Shinobu sounds like her old-world vampire self – which may come as a surprise to anime watchers, as most subbers decided not to bother translating her into “old school” speech. Two things, though. First, the book keeps the scene where Hanekawa mocks Araragi for using the -chan honorific to refer to his sisters, which seems odd in a series so otherwise aggressively devoted to avoiding honorifics (My Senior, etc.).

The second thing is a bit more egregious. In the original Japanese, Tsukihi says (in English) that she is “Platinum Mad”, which is a take off of puchi and purachina/platinum. She uses the phrase a few times in the series, and the anime turned it into her OP theme song, “Platinum Disco”. It would not be exaggerating to say that when you think of Tsukihi, you think of “Platinum Mad”. The translator, however, decided that since it’s weird Japanese wordplay it had to be changed to weird English wordplay – as he has done throughout the book. So “a bit” becomes “dagnabbit”. There are several issues here. First off, dagnabbit sounds to a Western ear like something Yosemite Sam would say. Secondly, almost no one noticed the wordplay itself, and just saw that “Platinum” had been changed to “Dagnabbit” for no reason (remember, Platinum is IN ENGLISH in the original). Most importantly, though, it seems to show that the people in charge of translating the series for Vertical are translating the books without paying attention to the other media – anime, singles, or the fandom. I get that – these were books first, and you want to make sure that they can also sell to casual readers. But try not to drive the hardcore fans off. Platinum Mad is a meme, fer chrissakes. Dagnabbit Mad just makes Tsukihi sound stupid. Which she very clearly isn’t – intellectually, she’s her brother’s equal.

OK, rant over. Aside from that, I felt the translation was excellent, and I didn’t really notice a major change between Ko and James. More importantly, for anime fans, there’s still a lot of new stuff here – you’d think given that it got adapted into 7 episodes that they didn’t leave much out, but there’s still many extra and lengthened scenes in here that got adapted out. Fans of Araragi and company will want to pick this up, as it’s excellent. Though be prepared to write “platinum” in your copy with ballpoint.

By: Sean Gaffney