#I also just completely bullshitted the flamethrower

[dinokiwii]

not sure if I’ll ever finish this doodle so. payday flamethrower benry be upon ye

[sezez]

I have a confession to make, may I have mercy for what I'm bout to say but uh...

I honestly hate how FMA:B handles Mustang and Hawkeye's relationship. Yes, you heard me right. I hate it.

But this is a personal thing, I'm not saying the show did a bad job at showing it or anything! However, I shall allow you to get your flamethrowers out.

It's just... I'm a big FMA 03 fan, and I just prefer how Mustang is portrayed as this mysterious boss who seems to care about himself and will do what it takes to get to the top. And Hawkeye being his right-hand woman, keeping an eye on him and making sure he isn't making a fool of himself.

And I honesty just dislike how Hawkeye looks in Brotherhood, I- I just don't like how her eyes look because she is meant to be this serious and intimidating character since she is entitled to be "The Hawk's Eye"

But in Brotherhood, her eyes look far too innocent for that to match with her title. And I prefer how her eyes look in 03, having a sharper edge and her eyes being a amber brown then a chocolate brown.

I'm sorry Brotherhood!Hawkeye, I just don't like how less intimidating you are compare to 03!Hawkeye. You can shoot me more times than you did to Lust.

Anyway, onto my problems with the relationship...

I just don't like how much it's presented in the show, like the viewer can see there's something going on between them. Like it's so obvious, it's frustrating to look at and how other characters don't see it too.

While in 03, it's much more quiet and it feels the relationship they have is natural and hidden from everyone, including the viewers with only little hints to them having a deeper connection than we thought.

And the biggest issue I have with this is during the moment when Hawkeye shot Lust multiple times because she thought her boss was dead.

Yeah, I hate how she had a mental breakdown immediately after a Homunculi who's very likely to lie and manipulate her.

I just- I just expected her to handle the situation better, like girl- you know this man for years and there will be times where he might die given his status, position, and power. I know you're whole job is to protect him and follow where he goes, but- just... There WILL be a time where, he just dies.

And just, I expected her to not take Lust's words seriously so soon despite not seeing Mustang's dead ass. And I dislike how fast it was for her to react that way, like there's no slow moment or proof that he's dead to her.

So why did she just... Fired her gun at Lust like a little child throwing a tantrum because she couldn't find her favorite toy?

So, now that I have most likely have tons of people pointing their guns at me, I'll just say one more thing about what I liked in 03 more than in Brotherhood.

The parallel between in 03 where Hawkeye cries over a presume dead Mustang after he got his eye shot and in Brotherhood where Mustang holds a injured Hawkeye.

In Brotherhood, I was really annoyed with Mustang. Cause, dude, your wife is bleeding out and your just being held by some of mindless men that are just HOLDING YOU BY THE ARMS AND YOUR HANDS ARE COMPLETELY FREE for you to snap your fingers and burn them all. And the way he held her after she got saved is cute, but annoying that he didn't do shit and he was REALLY useless in that moment.

And honestly I wished Mustang stayed blind, hell, maybe his eyes could have been taken out all together like how Ed lost his leg or Izumi having her guts ripped out. Also the moment doesn't feel sad or worrying to me, it's just frustration because he can do SOMETHING in that moment.

Now what I liked in 03, I really enjoy that throughout the series, Hawkeye is some distant person who just seems done with her job and the colonel's bullshit. But the moment when she was running up to the Fuhrer's mansion, and seeing him on the ground with a puddle of blood, she goes to him and calls his name out.

And she cries when she didn't get a response, and that's what I liked more. She doesn't immediately cries, she checks to make sure he's with her. That moment felt more emotional and powerful to me than in FMA:B.

And I want to thank you all coming to my personal opinion on a lovely ship, I will gladly take any hits from you all and have a good day, afternoon, and night.

[sburbian-sage]

so i was gonna send this in last night but i decided to wait so i could proof read it and what not and now here i am basically re writing it

so first things first im gonna need you to have an open mind please, everything im about to say is gonna sound like bullshit, utter complete fucking bullshit and even if you dont believe me its still true because sburbs bullshittery seemingly knows no fucking bounds

there is currently a fucking massive void vessel above the session, like it vanishes into the ring on both sides and im sure it keeps going, brilliant white with leaf green highlights

was gathering some grist and it just fucking teleported it or some shit cause one second it wasn't there and then it was and it scared the fuck out of me

i spoke with the plant chick last night and while i learned some things it clearly wasn't enough because what the fuck is this?!

im hiding out of derse now and its just empty, there's no more of the little Carapacians, the 5 of our lands are also gone and i can see smaller ships going around frantically scanning local space so i assume they know i happened to get off land before it was taken (how do you take an entire land?!?!)

but before i get murderharvested or some shit here's what i was able to figure out

i managed to nab one of her computers and found that their language is seemingly similar to old alternian standard but it doesn't match to English at all and is more flowy? than jagged, as well as the letters seemingly having 2-5 characters stacked on one another, far beyond my translation capabilities

when i asked the difference between sessions she just said that there was less bees (what???)

didn't have enough time to see any structural changes from normal, other than more plants and things being kinda taller

when i asked culture questions she just laughed, called me a "curious cutie" (not sure i like how i feel about that) and said id learn soon which like FUCK ME was that a red flag apparently

not sure what to do anymore, im a rogue of void for fucks sake and even turning into nothing isn't enough to shake them, they find me within an hour and i have to flee, managed to pull off that teleportation trick that the other poster talked about but even that doesn't shake them, sending this out and then ill start moving again

ill keep in touch if i stay alive

I WAS JOKING. I WAS MAKING A JOKE WHEN I SUGGESTED SHE WAS TRYING TO CONTACT HOME BASE TO BOMB YOU GUYS TO OBLIVION AND DO GIGA-SPACE-COLONIALISM. I WASN'T MAKING A PREDICTION. FUCK.

And you are right, this does kinda sound like bullshit. There's mild precedent here, in that it is technically theoretically possible that before Entry happens and SBURB fucks an entire planet in half, that some of said homeworld's inhabitants might have boarded a ship, went into space, and managed to enter the Furthest Ring. I mean, that would require incredible foresight, highly advanced technology, surviving long enough despite the fact that the game is literally designed to kill non-players in the most ass-pull deus ex machina fashion possible, and that it is virtually impossible to enter the Furthest Ring without a Bargain. So it's a bit like sending Frosty the Snowman to the Sahara Desert to win a gladiator competition, and once he wins he has to do round two against a flamethrower squadron. Which is to say, I'll eat my own legs before I believe that you're being invaded by The Imperium of Man meets the fucking Vegandon from Johnny Test. Among the thousands of other severe questions this raises.

But on the off-chance that this isn't just a prank, here's my equally low-effort advice.

Running may not be able to solve your problems. You are a Rogue of Void who can teleport. This makes you THE most qualified person to break into their ship and sabotage the engines so shit explodes.

Running may be able to solve your problems. If you survive long enough, SBURB might suddenly remember that it's supposed to kill non-SBURB non-player entities, and so the flowery ground troopers might start tripping and shooting themselves in the fall, or the ship explodes anyway.

Threaten to Scratch the Session to get them to back off. It's basically the mother of all "I'm taking you all with me" threats, considering it will rewrite reality.

Actually, they might not know enough about the Scratch for that to intimidate them. Scratch anyway. Fuck these guys, they'll never suspect it and an alt-universe version of you gets the last laugh.

If they corner you, start coughing on them. If you win re-enacting the ending of War of the Worlds, that would be incredibly funny.

[curiosity-killed]

oh your tags are so intruging so.. landlords? ☕️

LMFAO this timing is perfect as my landlord literally just left

Okay so first, unpopular tumblr opinion: I don’t think everyone renting out a space is irredeemable scum of the earth. I think, however counterintuitive it seems, there can be ethical renting. My last apartment was the basement of a family home and my rent paid for their kids’ daycare (presumably with a little extra but honestly probably not much).

But mostly I want to close them in a refrigerator box, attach it to a bungee cord, and dribble them in and out of a vat of Gatorade until they are thoroughly miserable and sticky and have wet cardboard stuck all over them.

I think renting should be like most businesses where you want to price at a point that covers overhead and provides a little padding both for unexpected shocks and for reinvestment/profit. Where I think it gets evil is both the implication (and somewhat societally-adopted view) that a landlord is somehow giving you something and you are beholden to them and the use of that to coerce people into giving up huge chunks of their income for a basic human right.

To my mind, the duty on a tenant is exactly what it says in your lease and absolutely no more. Pay your rent* and don’t be a super destructive/harmful asshole and that’s…basically it**. But there gets to be this pervasive feeling that a tenant is subservient to a landlord and consequently owes them not only the legal obligations set forth in their lease but also unending patience, flexibility, and other material or service provisions. That’s bullshit.

A lease is a contract that imposes duties on both parties and in all US states (except I think Alabama??) that includes provisions like maintaining the space in good repair, prompt and appropriate maintenance, and, at least in some cases, a quiet and respectful environment. Your landlord agrees and is legally bound to uphold those rights or face financial and legal penalties.

Ironically, to me, the law is for once often on the side of tenants but most people are disempowered to act on that through both lack of information and widespread, malignant social coercion.

If you think about it terms of employment, you get paid for services rendered/goods delivered. Your landlord gets paid for maintaining the unit, dealing with maintenance and repairs, and other services as detailed in your lease (& your local bill of rights and/or housing code). If an employee fails to complete the responsibilities outlined in their job description, they get fired. Why should your landlord get any greater consideration?

Now, if we want to talk about Property Management Companies, I may need a longer post, a bottle of wine, and either a flamethrower or many cans of spray paint.

*evictions are actually just evil. Like it might be slightly more nuanced than that but not really. Fuck evictions

**obviously nothing you see here constitutes legal advice and pls read your leases closely (& have someone else read thru it if possible)

send me a ☕️ and a topic and i’ll talk about how i feel about it

[chipped-chimera]

I have to say as someone who is now completely out and 120% concrete about being a Lesbian, coming into it all after being on 'the outside' as a Bisexual has put some things about the wlw community in a really, really frustrating light.

Like I absolutely understand the importance of having a shared wlw space, inclusive of our trans sisters and bisexuals and enbies. They are healthy spaces to have! But as someone who now IDs as just Lesbian, it's frustrating how hard it is to find any kind of community with my exclusively shared, cisfemale experience - and I solidly believe TERFs fucking RUINED that.

If you attempt to curate a cis-lesbian only (HOLD THE FLAMETHROWERS UNTIL I FUCKING FINISH) space, you're accused of being a bigot. Simply because you wanted to be able to network with those who have a shared experience easier. But you don't see this happening on other spaces. You don't see Lesbians complaining why they aren't allowed into the exclusively Bisexual's space. I can't speak for gay men, but I get the sense this isn't commonplace either. Also notably you don't have people coming for t4t or trans exclusive spaces for wanting to have a community where it's easy for them to connect with each other and those who deeply understand their experience. I have only seen this, exclusively, in the Lesbian space. I'm seeing this happening with the erosion of even the contemporary DEFINITION of the word Lesbian being fractured into micro-identities that demand admission, at the cost of Lesbian being our exclusive label. What do we have after that? Homosexual woman? Is that what I have to say now?

And I STILL blame TERFs. Why? Because now it is almost physically impossible to curate a ciswomen only, Lesbian exclusive space WITHOUT attracting that cesspit of humanity to your group. They go on and on about those they don't feel fit their restrictive definition of 'woman' invading our spaces - YOU DID THIS. YOU BROUGHT THIS ON US. YOU HAVE MADE IT, COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE NOW TO HAVE ANY KIND OF CIS-LESBIAN ONLY SPACE BECAUSE YOU POISONED THE WATER.

I love my bisexuals, my women-aligned enbies, my transwomen. I really, really fucking do. But it is so beyond frustrating to feel like your sexuality is the only one subject to this bullshit. That I can't go to a forum and try to read about shared experiences - to easily get help and perspectives about my experiences, about what I'm going through. They either have to be open to all or you become the bigot. You become the target. Because TERFs turned the idea of having boundaries, genital attraction preferences, gender attraction preferences, any KIND of exclusive preferences in your attraction, any reasonable boundaries into hallmarkers of bigotry.

You poisoned the fucking water, an I hate you for it. TERFs can go rot in hell.

[deedeli-liveblog]

 RWBY ReWatch notes, part 3: i guess I’m doing one of these for every volume 

I’m supposed to be making minor notes / commentary, cause this is just a rewatch I decided to do on a whim. But I guess I’m way too used to how I normally liveblog these days, since I actually have to stop myself from commenting like, every minute on bullshit things afkdjhkadkla

Anyway, Volume 3! My personal favorite, and the Volume where Everything Goes Wrong.

I love the creativity in the weapons in RWBY. There’s a lot of swords and guns and classic weaponry. But then there’s things like Oobleck’s thermos being a flamethrower, Coco’s purse being a blunt weapon and a minigun, and then Reese’s (from ABRN) hoverboard being a weapon in and of itself, that transforms into mini pistols.

Arlsan only had that one episode, but she was so cool in it.

I like that team RWBY’s strategy half the time is to just launch Yang at the enemy.

BIMBO!?!?! D:<

It’s pretty neat seeing the animation budget go up in every volume of early RWBY.

The whole time Nolan’s listening to the explanation about Nora’s semblance he’s still charging her up, alkfkjdashkjsf

Actually, can a person’s aura protect them from dying from an electrical shock, since that’s mostly internal??? Ren got poked for a few seconds and stiffened up and dropped. If Nora wasn’t immune that probably would have killed her.

Wait, are all of those cups in the bar Qrow’s?? Jesus, man.

Team SSSN needs to work on their... everything. That was a hot fucking mess, lmao.

Oh right, I forgot Winter and Qrow had a best nemesis thing going on. Wonder if that’ll come up in volume 8

“How appropriately... underwhelming.” Oh my god, Winter was such a bitch in her intro, I fucking forgot salkfhdkljal. 

The Ice Queen title has been passed down through the Schnee family for generations!

the subtitles specifically state that’s a crow cawing, but I prefer to think that that’s Raven, come to watch her daughter’s fight.

I can’t remember where, I think it was in my review for RWBY that I said the Qrow v Winter fight kind of sucked. I don’t think I elaborated on that, but rewatching it now? It’s not... bad. But this is a big battle between two incredibly skilled combatants but it just felt incredibly stiff. In a way that previous fights were not.

That being said, the soundtrack during that fight kicked ass.

hehe, get fucked Ironwood

Emerald and Mercury creepily stepping back into the tall grass behind them is actually really funny.

Mercury as a character has never really done much for me. I neither liked or disliked him too strongly. But god, is he an entertaining fighter. The fact that he mostly only uses his legs makes his movements seem so wild and all over the place, but he’s incredibly skilled too. 

Also, Yatsuhashi and Coco seems like a kind of unbalanced fighting team. They’re both heavy hitters, so they’re slower at times. Maybe it would’ve matched better to have Coco and Velvet or Yatsuhashi and Fox.

I was gonna say it’s cute that Qrow just carries that picture of his team with him, but then I noticed that he uses his thumb to cover Raven’s face when Yang starts staring at her.

Oh yeah, I don’t think we ever found out what Penny’s plan was that would allow her to stay at Beacon. I figure by now it was just a red herring so you wouldn’t think that she’d die this volume.

Oh my god, Team FNKI!! >:D

The battle with FNKI is one of my favorites because it introduces two really fun and unique characters and the soundtrack during it is kickass, with having jazz renditions of the opening and Yang’s theme in it.

Also, Flynt’s semblance is the third one that we’ve seen where’s it’s someone making a clone of themself (Blake and Sun’s being the other two), and it’s cool to see the variance in a similar ability. Blake can only do one and it (initially) cannot move, only sit there and take a hit for her. Sun’s are completely mobile, but he can only make two at a time (it seems) and they disappear after a single hit. Flynn’s are mobile, but it looks like they can only copy his own movements, at a slight delay. So attacking one moves all of them.

“The Tale of the Two Brothers” is clearly about the Brothers, the two gods that created Humanity and the Grimm, “The Girl in the Tower” is very likely about Salem before her fall (if I’m remembering that correctly), but I’m not sure what “The Shallow Sea” could be about. I suppose we haven’t gotten that far yet.

“Sorry we’re late” he says, after such convenient timing.

alkdshkahkf i bet Ruby was regretting that “Break a leg!” after the match.

Emerald’s pistols are different in the past. Maybe Cinder taught her to fight better and got her better weapons? I had always wondered why Emerald would be so devoted to Cinder. I know Cinder helped pull her out of poverty, but it didn’t look like Emerald was struggling too much when Cinder found her that she’d devote herself fully to Cinder. I suppose she could just be in love with Cinder, but I’m even more confused if that’s the case, lmao.

it’s weird to offer a little girl who fell off her bike an apple, afkdhfkaf. i don’t think she’s hungry, i think she’s in pain

Love Qrow giving the advice that “sometimes bad things just happen” as if that isn’t his whole life

Yikes, I forgot about the scene where Pyrrha accidently attacks Jaune. 

Ruby has some serious binocular vision if she was able to spot Emerald clear across the stadium like that.

So if Penny had never participated in the tournament, or if Cinder never found out she was a robot, what was Cinder’s plan to create the uproar that lures the Grimm?  Like, was the plan always to have one student accidentally kill another? And Pyrrha and Penny just so happened to make it easy?

if ruby is molecules when she’s using her semblance, how is mercury able to kick her

rip penny (but not for long!)

I’ve got such a love-hate thing going on for Ironwood. Like, obviously his actions suck most of the time, but his motivations and character are so well developed and consistent. I hate what he does, but I understand why he does it. He falls into the same category as Raven does for me.

also, he’s just really bad ass when he fights, lmao. tearing up the ground with his hand, slamming the beowulf one handed, and shooting it in the head with it draped over his back? *chefs kiss*

uggghhh i forgot rewatching rwby from the beginning means i have to subject myself to adam again. my face twisted in disgust at his “hello, my darling” GROSS

I LOVE the scene with Velvet using her weapon, it’s such a great moment. But it’s actually really funny when you think about it cause they had multiple people with different weapons and they all couldn’t take down one Atlesian knight. But a single girl with multiple weapons could, lol. They just needed someone to kick in the cool music so they could win.

rip clownie

Damn, I forgot that Ironwood’s robot half is for that entire half of his body. What in the hell did that to him and how the hell did he survive.

rip amber

rip yang’s arm

My only solace is the knowledge that adam does in fact die in the future. Clinging onto that thought like a prayer everytime he opens his mouth.

You know it’s bad when Sun calls someone else an idiot.

RIP Pyrrha. It’s so hard to watch the fight between her and Cinder knowing what her fate is.

rip cinder’s left side, i guess, i still don’t know what actually happens here

So I’m gonna take a guess and assume Tai never explained to Ruby about her silver eye powers because he didn’t want her to use it and end up becoming a target like, I assume, Summer was.

The dirty look Tai gives Qrow is kind of funny and I don’t know why.

Hey, Qrow’s picked up a bit of Oz’s manipulative spirit.

The scene of Tai happily walking into Ruby’s empty room only to drop her food and run out is soooo sad, please just let this man rest.

"The ability to derive strength from hope is undoubtedly mankind’s greatest attribute. I will focus all of my power... to snuff it out.” The emotional whiplash here is just beautiful. The whole reveal of Salem as not just the narrator from the beginning, but THE villain of the series is fantastic.

The end of Volume 3 certainly feels like the end of a chapter, and I suppose it truly is. From here on out, RWBY feels like an entirely different show, for better or worse. We no longer have the fun, low stakes, almost slice-of-life style episodes. The show becomes far more plot heavy and focused. While there’s a lot I like about the later volumes of RWBY, I will say that I do severely miss what RWBY was before.

Anyway, onward to Volume 4

[racheld93]

I posted 836 times in 2022

That's 96 more posts than 2021!

40 posts created (5%)

796 posts reblogged (95%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@lamberts

@saganarojanaolt

@nixie-deangel

@memes-saved-me

I tagged 836 of my posts in 2022

#fuck - 288 posts

#stranger things - 284 posts

#harringrove - 251 posts

#billy hargrove - 238 posts

#yes - 183 posts

#well this is gorgeous - 171 posts

#steve harrington - 167 posts

#the witcher - 151 posts

#geraskier - 149 posts

#jaskier - 137 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#then id imagine illya is so incensed that he angrily cuddles napoleon to where its hard for him to breathe and says he loves him constantly

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Headcanon that childhood friends Billy and Argyle exchanged friendship necklaces.

Billy never takes his medallion off and Argyle rarely forgets to pull his owl pendant on every morning.

And when they see each other again, for the first time after Billy moving away, they both are still wearing them as they hug with tears in their eyes outside Max's hospital room.

Because Argyle has been mourning his best friend for eight months and Billy's been trapped in hell and believing he'd ever see another soul again.

Only it turns out Billy wasn't dead, not completely, and he wasn't in hell, just some hellscape dimension called the Upside Down. And when he heard the sound of heavy metal like a siren's call, he ventured out of his barricaded basement in Loch Nora and found some idiots trying to save the world without the proper equipment like his homemade flamethrower.

Their first words to each other after their long tight embrace are:

"Righteous beard and flowing hair my dude. You're like, pulling a white Jesus, with the whole resurrection and saving everyone."

"It's ten in the morning, you should not be this high without supervision."

Argyle grins and hugs Billy again, so tight the blond tries not to flinch from is ever aching and still recovering body.

"I missed you so much, Billiam."

Billy huffs and hugs back, eyes welling up again.

"Missed you too, Argie."

209 notes - Posted September 17, 2022

#4

Want to know what really grosses me out in general and also about Stranger Things because I was born and raised in Indiana?

The age of consent is 16.

Yes you read that correctly.

Thats why in season one it 'wasn't made a big deal' that Jonathan took pictures of Nancy and Steve having sex.

And in season two it 'wasn't made a big deal' for Karen, a grown ass married woman, to flirt back with Billy, a kid thats the same age as her eldest child.

And in season three it 'wasn't made a big deal' when the Karen and Billy shit happened again no matter if he was freshly 18 or not, it still would have been legal as long as he was 16 or older. And I'm so glad they didn't put that shit on screen. Hate that Billy got flayed, hate that so much you have no idea. But I would have hated it even more if things had gone as they'd planned and Karen really did show up to have sex with a kid her daughter's age.

What I'm saying is, it was cool that a nostalgic show took place in my home state not too unlike a town I grew up in. But with choices the duffers made over the seasons, also including the subtle not so subtle implied rasicm and obvious homophobia and ignorant satanic paranoia and blatant child abuse (that all very much still happens today), it makes me think that the only reason they chose a conservative Midwestern state was so they could get away with writing all that bullshit.

And if it wasn't for some of the actors pushing for better dialog and situations and basically twisting their arms for different scenes and refusing to do others, this show wouldn't have lasted this long. Because we'd have been watching the same overused and small-minded stereotypes and tropes from decades ago and have stopped watching.

So, does learning the age of consent in Indiana make you even more aware of how many scenes in Stranger Things gives me the heebie jeebies?

Thought so.

220 notes - Posted August 17, 2022

#3

Inspired by my other Dad Murray post... This is what I got so far. But I’m sure some of y’all can do better... and I take forever to write shit anyway so here is a taste...

What if... Post S3 Fix-It wherein Billy survived and everyone visits him in the hospital a lot and it is a lot. A few because they want to, some of them out of guilt or obligation at first but then they look forward to it. And while others go because they wish they could have helped Billy more while he was flayed, some not having known he was even possessed and others told about it too late.

Anyway, Murray is a common visitor, mostly crossing paths with Steve and Max and Robin, and that pot dealer and cheerleader that are Billy's friends but not 'in the know'. Billy has no fucking idea who he is at first until Murray starts talking and then never stops, his first words are:

"Hey kid, I'm Murray Bauman, investigative journalist and in the know about this whole shitshow. Really admire how you fought that gross as shit monster with your bare fucking hands. Anyway, I hear you have the highest GPA in Hawkins High history, tell me what you think about Ronald Reagan."

Billy blinks and then his face purses meanly, "Wish that fucker had aimed higher and got him in the face in '81. But then the bitch would have been revered a martyr and the fucking Republicans would be even worse. And since I survived, I still got a chance to piss on his grave one day."

Murray beams at him and pulls out contraband chocolate bars from his coat.

"Kid, you and I are gonna get along just fine." He breaks the Hershey bar into pieces and sits close so he can pop one in Billy's mouth after he nods. "Just let these melt, gotta get that hospital mush taste out of your mouth. Now, you wanna hear about what stupid shit Reagan has said recently? Or do you like crosswords?"

Billy sucks on the chocolate, the taste a marvelous change from everything previously. "I'm a sudoku guy, but I make crosswords my bitch."

"Excellent."

*Murray finds out about the abuse, beats the shit out of Neil and 'runs him out of town'. Then he takes all of Billy's stuff to his new place that is closer to Hawkins and tells Billy he's his kid now, so sign this and he'll take over Billy's insurance and help him with his school work until he can get back to classes. Billy cries and Murray hugs him and Billy cries some more.

Aug 9 '22

394 notes - Posted August 12, 2022

#2

See the full post

1,416 notes - Posted September 3, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I've seen a lot of fics fixing Billy's home life and I've loved them all... Susan bettering herself and Neil getting arrested, Joyce taking Billy in as one of her own and being the mama bear he has always needed, Hopper adopting another child of abuse and protecting them both so fiercely that they help him grow from his own trauma too, I've even read rarer fics where Mrs Henderson or the Harringtons take him under their wing and help him be independent.

But where are the fics with Murray, crazy eccentric incredible karate fighting Murray, seeing the aftermath of this young boy fighting a monster with his bare fucking hands and surviving only to despair about the thought of finally being able to leave the hospital and go home? Where are the fics with Neil getting his ass handed to him and screamed at and frightened by a guy with crazy eyes and spit flying from his mouth with righteous fury? Where are the fics with Billy being seen and heard and protected and loved by a wonderful freak of a man that doesn't think twice about showing compassion and understanding and forgiveness and acceptance?

What I'm saying is, Murray Bauman may not be the first person you think of as parent material, but he'd certainly be a great one.

And he'd have no compunction about getting rid of the bastard before him. No one would ever find the fucking body.

2,248 notes - Posted August 9, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[judasjurgen-blog]

So I had a dream last night

I’ve been playing Warhammer 40k Darktide before bed for like two weeks and it seems to be getting to my subconscious. So in this dream, me & 3 other blokes are using lasguns to kill our way through hordes of zombies in abandoned government buildings and that’s where the similarities end.

We’re in post-apocalypse real life, clearing out the riff-raff and stragglers and strange shit that’s set up shop in the ruins of civilisation. We’re in what I’d call “normal” clothes - jackets, shirts, pants, boots etc. - except for one guy who’s in a singlet, boardshorts and thongs, full bogan dress.

Anyway, we kill our way through a building chock-full of cultists, zombies, weirdos, ne’er-do-wells, all sorts of videogame bullshit as can be expected, and one of my teammates separates from the group and activates a boss room. Not, like, “summons the boss to the room”, the room *is* the boss. The walls and roof spout flamethrowers and spinning blades and such. I also hear quotes from Sir Robert Gordon Menzies, except that I’ve never heard a recording of him in my life, so it’s actually just a bunch of mid-century-sounding, radio-filtered lorem ipsum that my subconscious swears is him, bro, honest.

I’d like to think my subconscious took inspiration from HROT for that one.

While we try to regroup and help our mate out, a horde of zombies appears and this time I’m the one getting separated from the party. I spend a good few minutes running around panicking, killing as many zombies as I can while my team fights even harder, trapped between a horde and a boss.

I reach my team, and we pull through.

After the dust settles, I finally get a good look at the inside of the destroyed boss room, and sure enough, there’s a low wall with a rubber, Spitting Image-style caricature of Sir Robert Gordon Menzies’s head sticking up out of it, inert.

We move on, and in the building’s last unexplored area, there are a bunch of middle-aged men standing in the dust of another room, accompanied by a bunch of kids I assume to be their children, all 8-10 years old by my reckoning. We get close, trying to see what they’re doing, if anything, and they turn around and start slowly coming toward us when we’re nearly on top of them.

I’m outside the room, on the wrong side of a ruined wall, so I can’t see anyone inside above the waist, but I hear firing lasguns and screaming, confused children, calling at their fathers to stop, so I move to assist and notice something behind me.

It’s one of the men, who’s snuck right up on me.

His face is a cartoon face, with cartoon linework, and its rendering is overdone, like an advertisement for a cartoon so over-rendered it breaks the artstyle of the cartoon it’s advertising, but the rest of him, including that cartoon face’s texturing, is completely realistic. That face’s expression is basically Bill Clinton’s smile, like in a photo of the man, and is just as still and unchanging as said photo. It’s basically my subconscious fishing in the Uncanny Valley for nightmare ideas.

Anyway, the man with the cartoon face spreads his arms and moves in for an unsolicited hug, I freak the fuck out and gut-shot him twice. Like all good horrors, he’s immune to small-arms, and keeps going like nothing happened with a great steaming hole in his belly. He reaches me while I scream with terror into his face, and I wake up.

I wake up and I don’t wanna go back to sleep.

[homiciderat420]

haha ok im back on tumblr because im banned/locked/restricted on fb, twitter, and lex

hahaha

anyway so i realized my brain injury from a few years ago is really fucking goddamn serious like hahaha i have barey any memories of anything anyone i barely know anyone i know. like, i just have constant repetition memory and emotional memories and that's all. i have no inside verbal thoughts only out loud thoughts written and spoken. i can't stand to not be writing or talking; i can't stand to be alone. this is how i think. i am seriously impaired because of deliberately bashing myself in the head for a month in 2018 (iirc the year).

i can accept this. the only thing that lasts is the Cause, Purpose. hahaha. satisfy my base drives find someone as fucked up as me to fuck like rabbits and kill together. become terrorists together; who fucking cares. let us have fun; let us survive. perhaps we won't kill anyone (sad) but we will absolutely drive the cause forward. we will make a dent in human history.

by the way, also, i died twice. imagine, my two corpses. quantum immortality, the idea that you come back to life over and over again in new worlds in the multiverse, a bunch of completely baseless bullshit, is apparently true. haha. in a flash of light, a new body, a new world. everything the same, but not really. for one thing, i don't have asthma anymore. i can run, in the winter. hahaha. after four years of smoking, im still fine. no fucking asthma like before. it's funny. dying twice in a row. i didn' t even realize i died.

first, burning in what must surely have been a nuclear fireball, a few miles from the epicenter probably. i was in a hospital room, and the flames rushed in as if someone was pointing a flamethrower through the door. my skin blackened, crispy cracked and bleeding in half a second. in a flash of light i woke up screaming, never having felt something so painful. ill never feel something so painful again. but i was fine. a bit later i could have sworn i felt a fan in my chest, as if i had one of those artificial hearts. perhaps in that body i did.

a few days later, in another hospital, i felt and heard a loud crack in my neck as i tried to heal my neck with "vibrational healing," a thing you do with your muscles. a flash of light later, the walls were different colors; the floors were different colors; the TV had a wooden entertainment center around it that hadn't been there before. i was fine.

haha. im immortal. you all probably are too. and the soul exists; i nearly had a panic attack realizing that last night thinking through this whole dying thing. something of my self and my memories persisted between bodies and worlds. the soul. and i don't have fucking asthma anymore.

[aviculor]

My internet was out for most of the day. In the time I had before going into work, I went shiny hunting again, caught a shiny Skrelp, ev trained it, and did all the other stuff to get it “perfect”. I also used my one (1) Ability Patch to give it Adaptability. I might have slightly overestimated my ability to spot the difference between regular and shiny Skrelp in the overworld, but it was submerged in the water at the time. I was sitting there pointing my Eelektross at it like “The lid. The lid. The. Lid.” before I finally squinted at the thing. I thought your pokemon was supposed to shake its head when ordered at a shiny, but Drain Gang just floated there ignoring me. I could have easily just kept swimming, so maybe on some level I knew I had to check that one. I’ve christened the newest member of my party...Sea Weed.

I had plenty of time left with my poison sandwich, so I turned my attention to a Revavroom outbreak only to have my pokemon unable to move on the jagged cliffs. Instead, I went to the wasteland in East Province. Despite a very robust turnout of Varoom, since they’re the only poison types that spawn there, there were no shinies to be found. I guess that’s my next objective, so I can have a complete shiny version of my playthrough team. I’m keeping Big Worm in the party, but for bragging purposes I could tag him out for Hatsune Miku whenever I wanted. They're Orthworms, if you haven't been keeping track of my lore here.

I didn’t notice until now, but I think they nerfed Dragalge’s movepool. Not only is Sludge Wave gone, but I could have sworn it had access to fire moves. “Heat Wave and Overheat are one thing, but surely it gets Fire Blast and Flamethrower.” Nope. And I wasn’t only trying to further the 420 joke, I actually wanted the coverage. I’m opening up Sword, and it still didn’t learn them back then? There’s something funny going on here. This is some Mandela Effect bullshit.

[susiephone]

i think we need to completely overhaul the way debate is taught in schools tbh. like yes it’s important to learn how to structure and research an argument, but it should also be used to emphasize that even beliefs that are utter bullshit, often objectively so, can still sound legit if the person espousing those beliefs is good at debate -- being right and being good at debate are two very different things!

we need to start teaching things like “this isn’t really an argument, it’s a tactic of making your opponent shut up” and “these are common ways people manipulate data to make it serve their argument, so be careful” and “these oft-cited statistics and studies are just straight-up not true and were debunked ages ago”

on that note, we need to stop having students practice debate with topics like “is climate change real” or “do women deserve access to safe abortions” or “are gay and trans people human beings.” mostly because it’s super shitty to act like “no” is an acceptable answer to any of those questions, but also because, inevitably, you will force some students to defend a bigoted position they don’t agree with -- and it puts marginalized students who are actually effected by those issues directly in the line of fire. it also inadvertently teaches students to engage in bad faith debate tactics; it doesn’t matter if what you’re saying is actually true or not, just so long as you shout down the other person. (plus, unless you plan to become a lawyer or something, you probably won’t ever be in a position where you feel the need to defend a position you don’t actually agree with.)

also, those debates are just no fun.

so i suggest we have students either debate a) totally arbitrary and pointless shit, like whether or not pineapple goes on pizza, or b) completely buckwild and ridiculous things that practically no one would actually have an opinion about prior to this class.

for instance:

velociraptors were known to have incredible intelligence. in a world where dinosaurs were still alive alongside humans, should we give raptors the right to vote?

who should become our new vice principal: bigfoot or mothman?

in a world without money as we know it, what would be a better form of currency: chocolate or puppies?

should the president pardon redd animal crossing for his crimes against humanity?

what would make a better weapon against an army of angry ostriches: flamethrowers or nunchucks?

[cc-9784]

I hate Omega.

So I’ve been watching Bad Batch with my dads and we’ve been liking it (To a point) but nothing gets us to put aside any problems we might be having at the time quite like our hatred for Omega, the walking, talking cash-grab of a token character.

And to clarify what I mean by token character, I mean the annoying child sidekick who’s inexplicably amazing at everything they do on their first try and is always forgiven for fucking things up for everyone else.

Is it too much to ask of Disney to keep a consistent tone with their show? Like, one episode shows us Crosshairs being forced (I say forced because he's being completely controlled by the inhibitor chip) to commit horrid crimes against defenseless civilians but the next episode flings itself to the other end of the spectrum with some goofy Omega shit that I'd expect from a kids' show like Rebels (which had more than it's fair share of tone consistency problems) and watching them back to back is enough to give you tonal whiplash.

If they had just cut her character entirely but left everything else about the show the same, it would be a million times better. Another example is in one of the more recent episodes where the squad's trying to make a serious plan but it gets interrupted by Omega fucking around with her comlink, completely derailing the scene and tanking the tone of the moment. And shit, with the amount of time they're sinking into her, they might as well make it "The Omega Show (Also featuring the Bad Batch)" as long as they don't keep jumping back to darker themes because they can't decide who they want this show to be for. 

Like, I get it, they're using her character to draw in a younger audience but again, they're also showing things that a younger audience shouldn't be seeing. Like I don't know, flamethrowers being used on innocent civilians, a totalitarian government that uses an army of slaves to enforce its will and god knows what else will show up in coming episodes.

Also, I don’t care what Disney says, she’s not a Jango clone. That’s not how cloning works, especially when the the clone in question is supposedly a perfect DNA replica of the donor. A perfect, 1:1 clone of Jango Fett would be what Boba is. If you switch the gender, it is no longer a 1:1 match between the donor and the clone. They just wanted an excuse to have a cutesy-bullshit little kid in a show that had so much potential as a dark and gritty look at the rise of the Empire.

Honestly, the whole show feels like when you're planning a D&D campaign and keep flip-flopping back and forth between two very different themes that you want to implement so you just say fuck it and put them both in despite how much of a glaring contrast there is and how little sense they make when combined.

[punz4lyfe]

Wasted Plotential: Journeys Episode 68 (Part 2)

Part 2: Gary and the Moltres Battle

Picking off where the last part ended up on, the episode begins with Ash and Goh searching around the woods for Infernape. As the two call out his name, Staraptor soars through and Buizel uses the rivers to search at areas far off from his trainer. As they search, Goh remarks how impossible it’s gonna be to find Infernape in such a dense forest without any signs, but Ash reassures him that they can do it. He also admits he isn’t too surprised of Infernape continuing to train by himself, stating how much battling means to the Pokemon while flashbacking to some of Infernape’s most proudest battles, such as Candice’s Abomasnow and Volkner’s Luxray.

After recalling those moments, Ash meets up with Staraptor and Buizel who both confirm their lack of signs for their former comrade. Thanking them for their efforts, Ash returns them into their Pokeballs so they could rest up and that’s when Goh notices a nearby Pidgeotto. Just like in the original episode, Goh fails to capture it, as well as the Onix encountered afterwards, leading to two to get saved by Gary and his Blastoise.

Gary’s interactions with Ash and Goh in the og episode were honestly REALLY good, and so for the sake of padding out runtime, events of the episode will play out as they did in the original while expanding a bit more on the dialogue. For example, perhaps Gary could point out Goh’s flaw of recklessly throwing Pokeballs at Pokemon without weakening them first. While Goh would state that his approach has been successful most of the time, Gary would rebuttal that maybe he’s just been lucky this whole time. Or when talking about Project Mew, Gary could mention some of his past missions to fill up Goh’s own interest more. Maybe, as a reference to Goh’s Suicune, Gary could have had encounters with Entei, Raikou, and a different Suicune, stating he had to retrieve samples of Entei’s fire, Raikou’s electricity (it’s pokemon dont question it), and Suicune’s water in order to pass. Additionally, prior to this mission, he’s also succeeded in gaining feathers from an Articuno and Zapdos. Of course, as he explains what he’s done so far, Ash will be impressed and state how proud and happy he is for Gary for being able to take part in such experiences, sparking up Goh’s jealousy even further.

As the three make their way to the mountain where Moltres and Infernape are up, Goh, due to his lackluster physique compared to Ash and Gary, accidentally winds falling in a river and risking him and Grookey falling down a waterfall. Ash prepares to send out Buizel to rescue them, but Gary insists to leave it to Blastoise due to his stronger and bulkier body. As Blastoise makes his way towards Gary and Grookey, the two end up falling over, but Blastoise leaps off and catches them in time before he starts to swim UP the waterfall to get them all back to safety. The rescue is a success and the plot moves on.

Again, things play out the same way at the peak, but when Ash and Infernape reunite, we get a more wholesome-ish hug with Ash happily spinning Infernape around, just as they hugged after their fight against Volkner. Ash also formally introduces Infernape to Goh and Grookey, with the latter having a huge admiration for the taller, stronger, more experienced primate as Infernape pets his head in a friendly manner.

And that, my friends, is when Moltres appears. Instead of everyone taking turns for no good reason, the encounter is instantly declared a Raid Battle (just as Ash, Goh, and Team Rocket did with Zapdos), with Ash using Infernape, Goh sending out Cinderace, and Gary sending out Blastoise. At the beginning, all three of them rely on ranged attacks to keep a safe distance, but Moltres’ speed proves near-impossible to land a good hit as it moves in closer to the three mons, forcing them to rely on physical moves. As a demonstration of Infernape’s greater power compared Cinderace’s, when Cinderace tries to attack Moltres with a Blaze Kick, it gets effortlessly blocked, but then Infernape goes in for a Mach Punch and actually does some damage to it, which slightly annoys Cinderace. Additionally, Cinderace attempts to block an incoming Air Slash with Pyro Ball, but that fails and causes him to get badly hurt. Moltres then tries another Air Slash to finish Cinderace off, but Infernape quickly steps in between the attack and Cinderace to intercept it with Flamethrower, this time completely cancelling it.

Despite this, Cinderace finds himself too exhausted to get up, forcing Goh to. withdraw from the Raid Battle as he brings Cinderace out of the battlefield for his safety. After performing more or less the same way he did in the original episode, Blastoise attempts to take down Moltres with Hydro Cannon (because why the fuck would nerf that down to Water Pulse while Infernape’s Sinnoh moveset remained the same?!), but Moltres avoids the attack and, because of Blastoise needing to recharge and already being in a fatigued state from rescuing Goh and Grookey, takes down the Water-type with Air Slash, making Blastoise’s defeat a little less contrived and a little less bullshit. Gary recalls Blastoise and, desperate to succeed in his mission, prepares to send out Electivire while offering Goh to borrow his Umbreon, but Ash requests for them not to, knowing how much this battle means to Infernape and that he believes they will finish the job for Gary’s sake. Understanding Ash’s reasoning, Gary withdraws, as well as Goh after he retrieves a supportive look from Grookey, who also wants to see his new idol win by himself.

So now it’s just Infernape against Moltres. While careful to avoid any Air Slashes, Ash and Infernape deliberately rush in to take potshots while occasionally managing to deal in good hits with Flare Blitz, Flamethrower, and Mach Punch. They also use Dig to either avoid powerful blows or use the debris to eliminate a Fire Spin. However, Gary and Goh are confused why Ash and Infernape are now behaving more recklessly, but then Gary soon realizes what the two are trying to do. Just after Goh asks him on what he means by that, his attention is instantly taken back to Infernape when they see him get hit by a powerful Burn Up attack, taking away Moltres’ Fire-typing.

However, Infernape is not done yet. This is exactly where he and Ash wanted to land at. His body glows red. He gets back to his feet. And with a roar of pride and power, Infernape’s head flame ignites to severe proportions. Just as Gary notes; Infernape’s Blaze has been activated, shocking Goh and Cinderace as Grookey cheers loudly for Infernape, as does Pikachu nearby Ash. Ash smirks confidently before he asks Infernape if he’s ready to end this. Infernape replies with another roar and Ash tells him to use Flamethrower. Moltres attempts to cancel it with Fire Spin, but Infernape’s flame only eats up Moltres’ before landing its mark. Moltres quickly flies back up and uses Fire Spin again, this time working as Infernape slowly takes damage from the surrounding flames. With its opponent trapped, Moltres uses Air Slash to finish up, but on Ash’s command, Infernape simply uses a rapid series of Mach Punch to block every single air... wave... slash... thing.

And now it’s time to end things. Ash tells Infernape to use Flare Blitz and Infernape uses his heightened head flame to absorb Moltres’ Fire Spin, adding it to his own power, and takes off towards the legendary bird as a humongous fire ball of rage. The attacks hit down on, causing a huge explosion that heavily damages Moltres and causes it to drop a feather, which Gary notices. Now realizing it stands no chance against Infernape, Moltres uses Burn Up again to briefly light the area and disorientate everyone else on the mountain before taking off. But despite Moltres’ retreat, Infernape feels completely satisfied from the fight, as it shows with a victorious Flamethrower to the air. Blaze then deactivates, but Ash catches Infernape before he could collapse, telling him how proud he is and that he practically won due to Moltres’ retreating. Grookey then quickly approaches Infernape with sparkly eyes full of admiration with Goh and Cinderace joining them as the former supports Ash’s statement on Infernape’s technical victory. Gary retrieves the Moltres feather, passes his mission, and they all return to the lab.

Once again, events and dialogue play out the same only with Tracey involved as well. Gary leaves, Goh decides to join Project Mew, and now, Ash tells his current team that it’s time to go back to Cerise’s, so they all say goodbye to their new friends. Dragonite tearfully hugs Charizard, who returns the gesture while lightly patting his back with a sympathetic expression. Gengar shares one last laugh with Glalie. Lucario shakes hands with Sceptile. Dracovish happily gets hugged by Totodile and Gible. And Sirfetch’d... ends up getting attacked by Bayleef’s Vine Whip and Oshawott’s Razor Shell as revenge for preventing from hugging Ash earlier.

The episode ends with Goh using his Rotom Phone to take an updated version of Best Wishes final group photo, with Ash and Pikachu sitting at the middle while surrounded by all of his Pokemon at Oak’s lab and his current team. Special notices go to Infernape sitting next to Ash, one arm wrapped around shoulder and giving a thumbs up with the other hand, Lucario and Sceptile standing back-to-back against each other with crossed arms and confident smirks, and Totodile and Gible both posing on top of the ever-so-jolly Dracovish. This photo is also the final frame as well because it would make sense for one of the hype points of the episode to be the focal point of how things end off instead of Goh and Grookey for no reason.

And yeah, that’s how’ll I would rewrite Episode 68. Events still play out more or less the same, only with more time focused on certain points to expand interaction and dynamics. Thanks for reading and, since this is basically my first real rewrite project, feel free to tell me your thoughts on it!

[shuttershocky]

@friendliest-human Oh boy get ready

Apologies in advance for the long post there's no Read More on mobile. I'll edit it later i promise.

So like, Team Fortress 2 is a Spy-Fi set in the 60's, where two businessmen, brothers Redmond and Blutarch Mann, wage war over the right to be the sole owners of their inheritance, which their father explicitly left for them to share.

Thing is, this war had been going on since the 1800's. The Brothers Mann had invested in both the cutting edge of technology and the greatest mercenaries on Earth in order to both extend their lifespans and kill the other.

While doing so, both men hired a woman, The Administrator, to direct their forces. Playing both sides, The Administrator locked them into a stalemate to last several generations of assassins, manipulating the brother's fortunes and amusing herself with the unending bloodsport.

Now the thing is, the world of Team Fortress isn't quite the same as ours. Australia is the single most technologically advanced country, due to it being the only source of Australium in the world. A mineral that looks exactly like a bar of gold with a man punching a kangaroo on it, exposure to Australium turned even the biggest moron into an engineering genius with massive muscles, a big mustache, and bushy chest hair in the shape of Australia. It turned, in The Administrator's words, "a nation of idiots" into the most powerful force on the planet, and she used the Mann's fortunes in order to study it and used it to create their life-extending technology.

Speaking of idiots, the current crop of mercenaries are the most unstable and ridiculous batch yet. Nine of the dumbest, deadliest men in their history, all gathered to fight over what is by the 1960's a completely worthless plot of land.

Scout is a young American (specifically Boston) guy who can barely read, loves baseball enough to go to war with a bat, and was created by God to have sex with every woman on Earth. He's not very succesful in that regard. He has a crush on the Administrator's assistant, Miss Pauling. The middle child in a large family, he learned that the only way for him to ever get attention was to arrive first and be as loud and annoying as possible. He also has the amazing ability to defy physics and double jump.

Soldier is a rocket launcher using American soldier, who is heavily brain damaged due to drinking water filled with lead. He's paranoid, violent, and very stupid, but an incredible combatant and a master of rocket jumping, or the act of shooting your feet with a rocket and riding the blast upward. His roommate was the dark wizard Merasmus, who his team must battle every Halloween. He once fought a bear naked and covered in honey, and won. He also once put the whole team in mortal danger by creating a massive bread monster.

Pyro is a mask wearing pyromaniac who terrifies everyone else. Nobody knows who they are, what they're saying, or knows what they look like under the mask. Their teammates believe they are a monster and the most cruel being on Earth. Secretly, Pyro is literally unable to comprehend violence and sees the world through rainbow lens. Their axe is a big lollipop and their enemies are baby angels, and their flamethrower is a bubble blower, and they're playing around and making friends with everyone.

Heavy is a big Russian man with a bigger minigun. He's the most normal and well-adjusted of the mercs, being a fan of Russian literature, teddy bears, and good food. He is however, prone to temper tantrums and he enjoys danger a little too much. His best friend and constant partner is the Medic. His English is slightly broken, but nobody dares make fun of it in fear of their bones getting very broken. Later on the comics introduce his little sister, who's also a gigantic woman with an even greater dangerlust than he does. She gets engaged to the Soldier after they kill a few dozen men together with their bare hands. Heavy is not pleased.

Demoman is a black, Scottish explosives expert with only one eye. Despite being a raging alcoholic, he is shown to be the most succesful of the mercs, being extremely rich and housing his mother in a giant castle. He is however, a great shame to his family, who pride themselves on losing both their eyes in battle. Despite Demoman trying his best, he's simply too good a fighter to lose his other eye in combat, and his mother berates him for this daily. He's also very skilled with a sword and shield, and can build to be a melee fighter. He lost his missing eye after discovering the Bombnomicon, Merasmus' cursed spellbook, and enchanting his eye into a bomb spewing monster. His team does battle with his haunted eye every Halloween. He and Soldier used to be best friends, but suffered a bad breakup through The Administrator's manipulation.

Engineer is the grandson of the first man the Administrator dosed with Australium. A mechanical genius from Texas, his sentry guns, teleporters, dispensers, and occasional cyborg arm are often the biggest nuisances in the game. Like the Heavy, he's quite normal and well-adjusted, although maybe TOO well-adjusted to all the bullshit.

Medic is a quack doctor from Germany whose lack of morales is only matched by the sheer insanity of whatever the fuck he's up to. Having lost his medical license ages ago, he implanted his teammates with megababoon hearts in order for them to survive the steroids his medigun hits them with (which he calls ubercharge). He once sold his soul to the devil for a pen, and then scammed him in order to revive from death. He has a pet pigeon called Archimedes that he sometimes leaves inside his teammates' bodies. He keeps the severed heads of his enemies alive and inside his fridge, where they can talk to him and beg for death. He's very close with the Heavy.

Sniper is the one Australian who doesn't sport a giant mustache and a giant chest. An extremely professional assassin, he seems alright at first... Until you realize he makes bombs out of his pee. He's very focused on his job and may be a little paranoid; one of his personal rules is to have a plan to kill absolutely every single person he ever meets. He's also skilled with a bow, and likes to fight with kukri knives.

Spy is a Frenchman with the amazing ability to shapeshift and perfectly imitate anyone's appearance, voice and mannerisms. Able to kill with a single backstab, his disguises and invisibility cloak allow him to infiltrate the enemy base and take them out from the inside. He likes to think of himself as above his teammates's bullshit, but really he's one of them in every single way. He once taught Scout how to romance a woman, after Scout begged him for help since his only pickup line was "Hey we both got buckets of chicken, wanna do it?" but it went disastrously. His relationship with Scout in general is weird since he once fucked Scout's mother. He later realizes that he may in fact be Scout's father. Knowing that Scout would both never accept him and that he had no right to call himself that, he also disguised himself as Scout's idol Tom Jones in order to comfort Scout as the younger man lay dying, while telling Scout about how he had dropped a Sex Bomb on his mother. When Scout went to heaven, the angels helped preserve the lie by snapping the real Tom Jones' neck just as Scout was about to meet him. In heaven. Since the real Tom Jones was dead. To Spy's chagrin, God raised Scout back from the dead.

There's a lot more - I haven't even touched on the third Mann Brother or Saxton Hale or Miss Pauling yet - but this should be the general gist of TF2.

[saintbrown]

Alright, round two of the Magnus Archives Thoughts Sharing segment, title might change. Surprisingly, this set was a doozy, lots of firsts happened. 11-20 LET’S GO:

11) Dreamer - This one was actually hard to pay attention to, listened to it twice and I’m still not entirely sure on the specifics of the dream. Knowing how close someone is to dying without being unable to do anything about it has got to be one of the worst terrible super powers, although it could be helpful for making tantines. I have to admit that I was kind of worried for John at the end, until I realized the guy was talking about his predecessor. The Magnus Institute has been around for a long time apparently, almost 200 years when this came out. I still love how John continues to be so skeptical about these statements, he clearly believes in the supernatural, if Page Turner is any indication, but he still continues to take everything he can’t completely prove is real with a grain of salt.

12) First Aid - Now this is one I really liked, the type of stories where an average Joe (Joan?) has a run in with what is clearly a main character. We don’t get a lot of statements from other supernatural professionals, except for our main man, the Vampire Killer, which makes sense, why would they turn to their competition, but it’s still good to know that there are other like TMI. I would even say that if the Magnus Institute were SHIELD, then Eye Guy would be Doctor Strange.

13) Alone - HOLY CRAP, it’s someone else’s voice!!! I guess this must be John’s first new statement since he started recording them, so why not cut the middle man. It’s interesting to hear that no one takes TMI seriously, but if John’s attitude is any indicative, in this episode’s end especially, I would say it’s because the institute is more focused in proving the supernatural and only taking action when they do. Not much to say about the story in itself, I thought that the guy’s family was going to be the SN occurrence, but in the end I would say that she almost died of grief but then pulled herself back. Maybe the family will come back at some point.

14) Piecemeal - And here’s another one that I really like. Just the idea of a curse that eats away body parts until there is nothing left was enough to get my attention, but then the other guy gets the curse because of his own impatienceness, now that’s just catharsis at its finest. Creepy but wise old women are also a plus, and when you realize the morbidity of the tittle after she says “some hungers are too strong to be denied” is just *chef’s kiss*.

15) Lost John’s Cave - I’m not particularly claustrophobic, in fact I prefer closed spaces, but this one actually got to me, though that’s probably because of the darkness. So did the earth swallow her or was it mole people? Because I really couldn’t tell.

16) Arachnophobia - So, remember when I said on episode 6 that bugs crawling under my skin really freaked me out? Well, a shower of spiders isn’t much better. While an improvised flamethrower using a lighter and a can of spray would have been more effective, smashing your mug against it and spartaing it against your tv are also acceptable ways to kill a spider. While the idea of a ghost spider reminds me of the Adventure Time episode where they are hawnted by a fly, all in all, this just sounds like the typical day of an Athena kid from the Percy Jackson series.

17) The Bone Turner’s Tale - I bet that John was reading this statement like “bullshit, more bullshit, sounds like utter bullshi- wait Jurgerlicht? Ah, son of a whore, we have another one!” It’s good to know that this author has a diverse writing style, from leather bound, Latin books that drive you insane, to paperbacks English prose that turn you into an Eldridge abomination, his library has it all! But that’s not even the craziest part of this episode, during the recording, (who I’m assuming to be) John’s boss comes in and says the grumpy faced family from episode 13 are patrons of the institute, what. Does. That. Mean?!? That line at the end about “record and study, not interfere or contain” confirm my suspicions that the Magnus Institute is very passive in its approach of the supernatural, if the Vampire Killer and Eye Guy are jocks, then the MI are the nerds of the supernatural community.

18) The Man Upstairs - Oddly similar to a Doctor Who episode, next!

19) Confession I - Wow, we’ve got our first two parter and crossover! For the most part this seems like a pretty normal story, by this show’s standards I mean. An exorcist ends up being possessed by the very demon he was trying to exorcise, but then Annie the nurse, from episode 8, shows up and I realize this is the same exorcist as back then, and now we get the same event but from a different perspective. I wonder what the ghost meant about “being marked”, probably something I’ll understand later on.

20) Desecrated Host II - Second verse, same as the first. It continued to be a pretty standard possession story, until John mentions Breekon and Hope Deliveries, a callback from episode 2. While we’ve seen groups and people that act against the supernatural, it’s my bet that BAHD operates in its favor, sending hungry monsters to people who have “agreed” to become potential food, or cursed artifacts that strengthen the hold of a demon in its host.

And that’s all for now, and I’m scared that, if my second round was this even heavy, the next ten episodes will be even more mind blowing. Two more things, 1) if there were any other callbacks in these episodes that I didn’t mention, please let me know in the notes, and 2) if there any animatics, or anything like that, of episodes 1-20, please link them to me, I would like to see these stories animated, but I’m scared of being spoiled for future episodes.

[tessatechaitea]

Justice League Task Force #1 (1993)

Martian Manhunter looks like he's doing the most painful Boob/Butt Showcase ever attempted.

I know J'onn J'onzz's entire body is supposed to be facing forward on this cover but it really looks like he's turning all the way around at the waist. If there's any character that could successfully do that, it's Elongated Man. And also Martian Manhunter. So I'm less worried about J'onn's stance than I am about Gypsy's torso. Unless it's her ass that's the problem. Maybe the entire problem with this cover is simply Sal Velluto. This seems to be the only issue of this series that I own. That's good because the cover art by Sal is not promising. Also, I don't recognize any of the names in the creative team. Was this one of those "Let's give some new talent a project nobody at DC really cares about" kind of deals? It would seem that way judging by the roster. Even though Martain Manhunter was the backbone of the Justice League for many years, he's still kind of a nobody, nothing, bottom-of-the-barrel hero. And Gypsy?! You can't even say her name anymore without somebody canceling your shit. I don't have any complaints about The Flash because I have to save them for the members of the team on the back cover.

Ugh. Aquaman and Nightwing! The worst! Even worse than those two in the corner, Amanda Waller's younger sister and Alfred Hitchcock in a toupee.

Some of you younger jerks might not remember a time when Nightwing sucked. He fucking suuuuuuuucked. The absolute worst. He was like when you're wearing boxers and the tip of your dick pops out of the pee gateway and starts rubbing on the inside of your Levi's. He was like when you take a shit and you feel the loss of the turd's momentum right at the end and you just know you're going to have a huge hanger and probably a good inch or two of shit still up in your asshole which you'll be dealing with for the rest of the day. He was like when you're a guy and having a really good sex dream and suddenly you realize it's a dream and if you complete the act, you're going to have a huge mess to clean up and then you wake up because your brain is all "I don't want to clean up the mess!" but you're all, "You stupid brain! I was getting laid!" Man, he was just awful. And Aquaman was worse! This issue is called "The Tyranny Gun" and I'm pretending I understand that. I'm just nodding my head and enthusiastically saying out loud, "Yeah! Yeah! A gun! That shoots tyranny! Get fucked, motherfuckers!"

I get that J'onn J'onzz is probably an approximation of his real Martian name but I wouldn't call it "convenient." John Jones is his convenient name!

Martian Manhunter has been tracking down French separatist terrorists who want Quebec to secede from Canada. Yeah, okay, 1993. What an innocent time! This plot sounds like the plot of a slapstick comedy. The French version of Stripes. Why the fuck would a bunch of French people want Quebec to secede from Canada?! As if it's not already practically France anyway! I'm sure they're angry that some people fuse English words with French words, sullying their perfect fucking language. I'd be more apt to believe the Dungeon & Dragons Club in my junior high school had been running dog fights after school. You might be thinking, "That's not that ludicrous!" But then you didn't see the absolute nerds in my Dungeons and Dragons club.

I don't know why that one kid's face was blacked out by the Year Book Staff. Maybe he was so handsome he made the other guys feel bad. Or maybe...maybe he was the lead guy running the dog fights?!

As Martian Manhunter is roughing up the Quebecois terrorists, he thinks, "'Politically correct' murder." What does that even mean?! Is he suggesting French Canadians think it's okay to murder as long as you murder somebody who isn't French? Does he think Canadians murdering is politically correct? Trying to parse that statement is reminding my brain what it was like to read an Ann Nocenti script. Martian Manhunter pats himself on the back (which he can do because he has every super power in the book including Plastic Man arms) for stopping the French terrorists. He's proud that in a world with little justice, he can provide some of his own. I mean, sure! It's easy to create justice when you're the only one you have to consult in the justicing of things. Technically, I think that's called authoritarianism. But I suppose if enough people can agree that what you did without any input from anybody else at all was a decent thing, you can get away with doing it over and over again. Like Superman and sort of like Batman. I say "sort of like Batman" because I think a lot of people hate the way Batman acts and Batman just doesn't give a fuck. Meanwhile, some government types in Washington need a new Suicide Squad. But different! One composed of heroes that don't ask too many questions instead of dangerous criminals who do ask lots of questions but also know that they can have their heads blown off at any second. They need these heroes to help keep a leader of an allied nation in power. The leader has a habit of murdering political rivals so the United States doesn't want to be seen helping him. So they need a covert team of super heroes to defend the bastard. I guess those heroes will be Martian Manhunter (because he doesn't really understand Earth's ways and if you point out he's creating justice, he'll jump at the chance), Aquaman (because he needs the money), Nightwing (because he needs to prove he can make it on his own without Batman), The Flash (because he's kind of dumb, especially when it comes to politics), and Gypsy (because she can hide well, I guess).

The comic includes a Justice League Task Force membership card which I never filled out and removed.

You can tell I didn't buy into this whole government Justice League bullshit because I didn't fill out the card and stick it in my wallet for years. And I didn't not do it because I was 21 at the time! I carried around my Elfquest Fan Club card and my Wizardry Baltec's Trading Post charge card from Wizardry IV until the day I stopped carrying a wallet that closes with Velcro (that was probably in my late mid-twenties!). Hannibal, the Alfred Hitchock in a toupee looking guy from the back cover, is the man chosen to lead the Justice League Task Force. He approaches Martian Manhunter by walking into his apartment uninvited. Martian Manhunter, knowing that every cop is just looking for an excuse to shoot him with a flamethrower, acts like it's no big deal that this guy intruded on his privacy. Hannibal tells Martian Manhunter that the government needs a strike force that could save millions of lives and Martian Manhunter blurts out, "Justice!" Then he composes himself and he's all, "I'm probably in. But tell me about it first. And don't lie! I'll know if you're lying! I have all the super powers, remember!" Meanwhile in London, Justice League Europe are fighting a sewer dinosaur.

I've eaten enough sandwiches in a dark room to know Dr. Light is wrong.

Sometimes I'll read a comic book like Watchmen or The Sandman and proudly think, "This is why I read comic books!" And other times, I scan a panel of Dr. Light bending over so that you can see her lady package and I shamefully think, "This is why I read comic books!" Dr. Light is upset that Justice League Europe eventually has to kill the sewer dinosaur. But Flash is all, "It killed a bunch of people! No one ever said being a hero was full-time fun." (The second sentence of that quote is exact. I know I used quotes so you would think the entire thing was exact. But I like to embellish sometimes.) So according to The Flash, killing people for justice isn't fun. He should get that message across to American gun owners. They're all salivating looking for an excuse to murder somebody.

It's canon! Aquaman smells like shit!

Hannibal calls up Justice League Europe and he's all, "Martian Manhunter needs Aquaman and The Flash for a UN sanctioned mission!" But The Flash, who I thought would be the easiest pushover, is all, "I don't like being told what to do and just going to do it! What are we, a bunch of trained monkeys?" (Again, the second sentence is an actual quote!) But Aquaman is all, "You said it yourself! This isn't always fun. If we're needed for a vague mission where we're doing the work of the United States Government to protect the interests of shadowy men and multi-billion dollar corporations, who are we to refuse?" And The Flash is all, "You're right! Well argued! I am a trained monkey! Let's go!" Martian Manhunter recruits Gypsy in the middle of a shopping spree that's totally not a racist stereotype at all. I don't think. Maybe it is. It was 1993! Nobody knew gypsy was a slur even though if you somebody said "gypsy," everybody in the room would immediately picture the exact stereotype. You'd think we would have realized how that's like the epitome of being racist. It really made it tough on young lazy girls to put together a quick Halloween costume when everybody realized how terrible we all were. At least as a guy, we were able to get away with being hobos and tramps a little bit longer! Gypsy agrees to work on the Task Force because she needs money and a place to stay and maybe a new moniker. The team decides they're ready to go because they can't get Batman. But that's when Nightwing comes in through the balcony window and says, "Will I do?!" And everybody goes, "Aww. Batman would have dropped through the skylight!" Nobody wants to work with Nightwing because he's not in the Justice League. But Hannibal is all, "Oh, you're working with him! And that's not the only thing you're not going to like to hear! Because your job is to protect a despot and a tyrant! You need to make sure a bunch of people on some shitty island keep their terrible living conditions!" Gypsy, Martian Manhunter, The Flash, and Aquaman all make sour faces and do face palms. But Nightwing is all, "Yes! Let's do this! Suck it, Batman!" Justice League Task Force #1 Rating: C. It's as average as a comic book about a super hero group doing the terrible work of the government. I suppose that isn't always average since Suicide Squad was really good. But then they weren't heroes and they were forced to go on terrible missions. So that's why that worked. I don't see how forcing Justice League members to do terrible things in the name of the United States government is a good idea for a book. That's probably why I never purchased Issue #2!