#and it's supposed to be really really nice out like. high of 70 clear skies kind of vibes

[sollucets]

i'm going to pride today :')

[timetrickster]

Living W/ Immortality: Episode 1: I Have No Fucking Clue.

FADE IN:

EXT. STREET. DAY

NARRATOR (V.O)

Once upon a time, well fuck it this isn’t your average story. This story is every bit of complicated. The author has no clue whatsoever on how he puts this story together. I’ll just sit back and let the story tell itself and jump in whenever I feel like it. We start this story off… with a dog, a girl, and a two-faced immortal teen.

It’s a normal day, the sun is shining and the skies are clear. A boy with his backpack in hand leaves school and begins his walk home. Everything was going fine until a girl’s pet dog runs away from her.

RANDOM GIRL

Sparky! Get back here!

The girl gives chase over her dog. Managing to run faster than her owner. The dog passes FINN, which makes FINN stops in his track. He watches in silence and concern as the dog runs away. The girl rushes by FINN as well and shouts.

RANDOM GIRL

Sparky! Stop!

The girl runs after her dog again. FINN begins to feel increasingly concerned. He turns around and begins to talk to himself. FINN sighs. Another voice speaks and echoes to him.

MYSTERIOUS VOICE (ERIN)(V.O)

Its someone’s dog dude. She’ll be devastated if it died.

FINN

I’m tired. School was a drag.

MYSTERIOUS VOICE (ERIN)(V.O)

You know we can’t let a poor, innocent dog die. You both know we love dogs.

FINN turns around to and sees the dog still running from his owner. He sighs and puts his headphones on.

FINN

I hate it when you’re right.

MYSTERIOUS VOICE (ERIN)(V.O)

That. And the fact that we know each other too well.

FINN drops his bag on the sidewalk and pulls out his headphones from his bag then his phone from his pocket.

FINN

Erin?

ERIN (V.O)

Yo?

FINN

Music preference? 50s? 60s? 70s? 80s? Or 90s?

ERIN (V.O)

70s.

FINN

1973?

ERIN (V.O)

Yup.

FINN

Elton John?

ERIN (V.O)

Crocodile Rock.

FINN smiles.

FINN

Nice choice.

FINN puts on his headphones and presses the play button on his phone. The song “Crocodile Rock” by Elton John. He begins to slowly walk then begins to speed walk. He starts to run faster and faster.

He manages to pass the girl who was out of breath after chasing her dog for so long. Close near the dog, FINN still on the sidewalk jumps over a parked car. He attempts to grab the dog but slips on a rock and fails to grab him in time. He slides on the road for a few seconds.

FINN

Ow.

He gets up wiping away the dirt of the road off his clothes and wipes the right side of his cheek.

(Camera shows a huge spot of blood on his right hand he then clutches his hand to cover the blood.)

(Camera shows a huge scrape on his cheek, it heals instantly heals.)

FINN

Quick little bastard.

FINN smiles and starts running again. In the distance, an incoming car drives in. Which the mysterious voice notices.

ERIN (V.O)

Finn! There’s a car coming!

FINN

Shit!

(He stops all of sudden.)

FINN blinks and his eyes see a clear view of the driver. The driver is distracted because he’s on his phone.

FINN

He’s on his phone so he won’t notice anything.

FINN starts to run again. The dog eventually runs into the street and without warning an oncoming car approaches.

FINN

Dammit!

The girl had finally regained some breath and sees Finn running after her dog. She then noticed the car. Making her shocked and worried he wouldn’t be able to make it in time.

FINN

He’s too close. I have to take the hit for the dog.

ERIN (V.O)

Dude… I think the girl saw you, we have to use our powers without drawing their attention.

FINN

Fuck! We keep going!

The car is close by, the driver doesn’t notice the dog until the very last minute. He steps on the brake as soon as he instantly sees the dog. The driver had closed his eyes to save himself from the horror. The girl calls out her dog’s name one last time.

RANDOM GIRL

Sparky!

She closes her eyes as well. FINN had finally reached the dog and picks him up. Mere seconds from being hit by the car. He says one last remark.

FINN

Fuck.

He turns around quickly to shield the dog from the impact. The car hits FINN sending him a few feet away. On the ground, he landed face first. “Crocodile Rock” stops playing.

(Camera shows more scraps on his face but it heals instantly as he wakes up suddenly)

He turns on his back groaning in pain. He looks at the dog with this annoyed and who is safe in his arms.

FINN

You are so lucky I chose to save you.

The dog licks his face as a form of thank you.

FINN

You’re welcome.

(FINN smiles while his face is licked.)

The girl and the driver had closed their eyes from what they would soon see would be a dog splattered everywhere. Once hearing the thud, they opened their eyes only to find a FINN holding the dog safe and sound. Without a word, he stands up and gives an awkward smile. Both the girl and the driver rush toward FINN.

ERIN (V.O)

Remember to fake your injuries.

FINN nods and gets up while pretending to be hurt. Standing up with somewhat of a limp and cracking his neck.

FINN

Ow. Ow. Ow.

(He says repeatedly as he gets up)

The driver gets out of his car to check on FINN as well as the girl.

DRIVER

Oh my god! Are you okay?

FINN nods “yes” in response.

RANDOM GIRL

You saved my dog from getting hit. Thank you! But are you okay?!

DRIVER

Yeah, kid, you took a pretty hard hit from my car. Something’s got to be broken, bruised, or scratched.

FINN

It’s fine, I heal pretty fast…  Don’t worry, about it.

RANDOM GIRL

You should at least go to the hospital.

FINN

It’s alright. My mom’s a nurse, she knows what to do.

FINN hands the dog back to the girl. Leaving them confused. He walks away with his fake limping and gets back to his backpack. (The camera facing FINN from the front) He hides behind a car and unzips his jacket revealing a bloodstained shirt.

FINN

Oh yeah. Something broke. Crap. My favorite shirt.

ERIN

Quit your whining dumbass. It’s just a shirt. Let’s go home now.

FINN

I hate you. You know that right?

ERIN

Heard it over a hundred times.

He looks at it for a bit and ignores it. He zips his jacket back up and grabs his bag. He continues to go on his way. FINN groans in annoyance.

NARRATOR (V.O)

Note to self, “Add music in this story.”

FINN (V.O)

When you have supernatural powers, the impossible becomes possible.  My name is Finn Evers and I have immortal superpowers. Seventeen years ago, an ordinary couple gave birth to a not so ordinary baby boy.

(Camera shows FINN as he walks home)

NARRATOR (V.O)

Wait… how the fuck?! Who gave this kid narrating powers?!

Shows flashback showing a baby FINN in a crib with his parents looking from above.

FLASHBACKS TO FINN’S CHILDHOOD.

FINN (V.O)

My intelligence had increased quickly when I was 15 days old. Also, I began to talk.

Baby FINN begins to say words to his parents.

FINN (Baby)

Mom! Dad! I’m hungry!

MOM & DAD look at their child as he spoke his first sentence at 15 days old.

NARRATOR (V.O)

This is my job! I’m supposed to be telling the story!

FINN (V.O)

Soon afterward, I started walking at 1 month old.

Baby FINN starts walking on his own.

FINN (V.O)

And at 1 year old, I punched my dad in the face for the first time.

Baby FINN clenching a fist while his DAD is knocked out on the ground. DAD groaning in pain.

NARRATOR (V.O)

THE FUCKIN AUTHOR! Really?! You write me one job to do and you replace me with the main character?!

FINN (V.O)

Eventually, when I reached elementary I used my power recklessly. The playground was the throne of every kindergarten class. I fought my way to the top with my powers. I eventually got the spotlight on me and it took a while for things to die down.

Shows flashback of toddler FINN with a paper crown on his head. Standing at the top of the playground like a king.

CUTS TO:

BACK TO FINN STILL WALKING.

FINN (V.O)

After a year of all that, my parents thought I was just a super strong and smart boy. My parents are pretty weird themselves so they accepted my powers without worry. That was until the day of the accident. I don’t really like talking about it… but it’s how I learned I was immortal. It was enough trauma to create Erin, the alternate personality who exists in my head.  

FINN (V.O) (CONT’D)

So time rolled on, I became the person you see now, a high school student. As you saw with the dog, I still have my powers. I can heal fast like any immortal, and my body is supernaturally conditioned. My life is a dream come true. That is what you’re thinking right?

FINN (V.O) (CONT’D)

Well, let me tell you the truth. Healing fast only gets my clothes stained by blood and being immensely strong just breaks anything around me. He’s the happiest boy alive, that boy has everything! Well, you’re dead wrong! I’m the un-happiest boy alive! A boy who has nothing!

FINN (V.O) (CONT’D)

Regenerative Healing, Immunity, Enhanced Senses and Condition, Accelerated Probability, Semi-telepathy, etcetera etcetera. I can do all those things, but having powers like that takes away something away. Like when a parent spoils their child and fails to be a fully functioning adult.

Shows different scenes of him using his different abilities.

FINN (V.O) (CONT’D)

In this way, my immortality has taken away certain things for me. My sense of being normal, the sensation of feeling pain. Me caring about my own life, hard work. It’s all so foreign to me. It’s true that I never get angry or sad about it’s just that I don’t feel any happiness or thrill in my life. But to look on the bright side, less drama will mean things will be peaceful for me.

FINN (V.O) (CONT’D)

Although with the existence of Erin in my head. we’re constantly at odds. He’s like my brother but he’s always there in the back of my head to annoy me.

FINN (V.O) (CONT’D)

For me, these powers took away my sense of being normal. Being a god in a sense is everything I don’t want to be. At the end living forever just means I get to see everyone I love die. I’m the unhappiest boy alive because I do get to live forever.

ERIN takes over the voice over.

ERIN (V.O)

Since Finn did his introduction, it’s my turn I guess.

NARRATOR (V.O) Really? They gave narrating powers to the asshole in his head?!

ERIN (V.O)

My name is Erin Nitty and I have immortal superpowers too. One day a kid had got into an accident and thus I was born. Surprisingly when I was created, his immortal powers affected me too. I was born as a 5-year-old and I grew with him.

ERIN (V.O) (CONT’D)

Eventually, as our powers grew, we managed to figure out some things I was capable of doing. I was able to physically take over his body.

ERIN (V.O) (CONT’D)

We’re in our teen years now and I got to say. We hate each other’s guts, just like every other sibling. I get so annoyed by this idiot every time we’re in a situation. We’re alike but he doesn’t listen to shit when I’m helping him out.

ERIN (V.O) (CONT’D)

But one of the few things we agree on are these powers. Living forever, being a god and all that. It’s not really the happy life, ya know? Like what the moron said, I’m unhappy because I do get to live forever.

FINN/ERIN finally returns home after that ordeal with the dog.  

FINN

Mom! We’re home!

He goes to his room and sets his backpack down. He takes off his shirt and looks at the blood stain. He looks over to a pile of shirts also stained with blood.

ERIN (V.O)

Mom’s gonna kill you. You know she hates having to wash your blood stained shirts right?

FINN sighs.

FINN

I know she does. Frankly, I hate it when she does have to wash them. You know she’s scared whenever she sees them.

ERIN (V.O)

What’s she scared about?

FINN

That one day, we might die and never come home.

Silence fills the room as both ERIN and FINN contemplate the thought.

ERIN

That’s never going to happen.

FINN

I hope it never does.

FINN crushes the shirt and grabbed the pile of other stained shirts and brings them to the washing machine. He returns to his room and takes a nap until it reaches night time. It’s now dinner time and both FINN’S parents are home.

NARRATOR (V.O)

Oh boy, the parents. There an odd couple… like a couple from a Japanese anime… but somehow and for some reason, they were chosen to raise a reincarnated immortal.

MOM

Finn! Time for dinner!

He wakes up tired and groggy, he puts on a shirt and comes downstairs to the dinner table.

FINN

Hi momma.

MOM

Hi sweetie.

Dinner is all set, hot and ready then DAD comes home and joins them.

FINN

Hi dad.

DAD

Hey son. Honey…

DAD sits down on the dinner table. MOM doesn’t say a word, only showing a scowling face toward DAD. FINN looked at both his parents knowing there’s a fight going to ensue.

FINN (V.O)

These are our parents. Dad is a hard worker but he tends to get on my nerves. Mom is a loving and caring soul.

MOM & DAD start a fight and it escalates to yelling. FINN sits down unphased and seemingly just annoyed with the fighting.

FINN (V.O)

They used to be so passionate about each other. I wonder what happened to set them both off.

DAD

I hate you so much!

MOM

My hate for you is bigger than the ocean!

MOM & DAD fighting in the background, while FINN is eating on his own.

FINN (V.O)

They’re still passionate… just in a different way.

They’ve been going at each other like this for half a year now.

DAD

Hey, son. Can you please use your powers to help daddy?

MOM holds FINN’S hand and looks at him with a loving face.

MOM

Finn, remember what I said, Never use your powers for evil. Only help those in need.

FINN (V.O)

Mom’s loving and a caring soul is the reason that I don’t recklessly use my powers or use them for evil.

MOM

But please feel free to hurt your daddy for mommy right now.

FINN (V.O)

Also, she has a dark side herself, which scares me a lot…

MOM & DAD return to their fight and it escalates to throwing things around and being more physical.

FINN (V.O)

Don’t be fooled by this, their fights are pointless. Why, do I say it’s pointless? This is why.

FINN’S pupils glow a blue tinge.

MOM

I hate you!

MOM (V.O)

That’s not true! I love you very much!

MOM’S thought echoes in the back of her head.

DAD

I don’t want anything to do with you!

DAD (V.O)

That’s a lie, I love you too much to say that!

DAD’S thought echoes in the back of his head. FINN finally intervenes due to annoyance. MOM recklessly decided to throw a knife, which FINN catches the knife stabs into his hand. Both MOM & DAD are shocked by what just happened. FINN is unphased due to his abilities.

FINN

(sighs)

FINN pulls out the knife and his wound instantly heals. He puts the knife on the table and looks at both his parents with an angry face. His eyes glow the blue tinge.

MOM & DAD (V.O)

I love you.

Both MOM & DAD’S faces become shocked by what they heard.

DAD

Did you say you love me?

MOM

No, you said it.

(V.O)

Did he hear me say I love him?

DAD (V.O)

Did she really hear me say I love her?

FINN (V.O)

If you’re wondering what’s happening, I linked their minds together. It’s an application of my power called Immortal Cloning. I could transport my mind into a clone of myself or in an object or someone lacking a soul. It also gave me a form of telepathy.

NARRATOR(V.O)

Not gonna lie, this scene is pretty funny.

Both realizing FINN had something to do with it. They turn toward him.

MOM & DAD

Finn!

Still sitting at the dinner table, FINN turns his head to his parents and smiles like he’s innocent.

FINN

Yes?

DAD

Why do I hear your mom’s thoughts?

FINN

I used telepathy to link both your minds…

DAD’S face lit up in shock.

DAD

When did you develop telepathy?!

FINN

Growing up led to new abilities… and telepathy happened since… uh, age 10?

MOM

TURN IT OFF RIGHT NOW! I DON’T WANT YOUR FATHER TO KNOW I STILL LOVE HIM!

(She shouts)

DAD

You still love me?

MOM

Do you love me?

They instantly hug and make up from their fight.

ERIN (V.O)

Good grief, it took them that long to settle things? Jesus Christ.

FINN(V.O)

I know, our parents are weird.

NARRATOR (V.O)

Very weird indeed.

FINN (V.O)

Did you say something?

ERIN (V.O)

No, why?

FINN (V.O)

I swear I heard another voice… Just forget it.

FINN smiles at the sight that his parent’s made up.

FINN

Finally. I can go back to dinner in peace.

MOM

Let’s celebrate with some ice cream!

FINN was about to dig in his dessert being it was his favorite flavor of ice cream, Cookies, and Rocky Road Cream. MOM grabs the ice cream from his grip and two spoons.

FINN (V.O)

MY ICE CREAM?!

FINN smiles like a crazy person. Then looks at both his parents eating his ice cream.

ERIN (V.O)

Oh shit.

FINN’S eyes burn with fire red.

CUT TO:

NEXT DAY. - DAY.

FINN walks into his school and goes to his first class of the day. He enters his classroom and sits at his desk, waiting for class to begin.

FINN (V.O)

Welcome to my high school, Campbell High. It’s not much but in my class over a 1,000 students are in attendance that roams the grounds of the school.

Two classmates sit next to FINN.  

CLASSMATE 1

Hey Finn!

FINN is silent and simply replies with a nod.

CLASSMATE 2

Hey buddies!

FINN (V.O)

These are my friends Athena and Taven, or at least they consider me as their friend. I try my best to distance myself from having any friends. But somehow it’s like they’re attracted to me somehow.

TAVEN

What did you guys do over the weekend?

FINN

Played a new game… some guy named Crank killed me with a sword.

ATHENA

I just listened to music all day and went to the beach.

FINN

I got hit by a car when I was going home on Friday.

FINN (V.O)

To be perfectly honest, they’re actually great friends. They’re just difficult to be around because… they have interesting personalities.

TAVEN & ATHENA

Are you okay?! What happened?!

FINN

I’m fine. I’m fine don’t worry. I saved a dog too from being hit by the car.

TAVEN

Damn, dude. Hope you feel better.

KEN looks toward FINN but he is missing from his seat.

TAVEN

Finn? Where’d he go?

CUT TO:

BOYS BATHROOM.

FINN (V.O)

As much as I have tolerance for the two of them. I was tired of talking about it.

FINN (V.O)(cont’d)

It’s not that I hate Taven it’s just he always tends to get me into situations that I don’t want to be in. There was that one time he could got me into a competition for arm wrestling and I hated every second of it. But I am competitive and immensely strong so I won that competition. He also gives me anxiety and stress.

FINN (V.O) (cont’d)

Athena’s actually pretty fine… but she does ask me for snacks constantly and usually doesn’t pay me back. She’s a good friend but I’ve lost a lot of money over simple snacks.

ERIN (V.O)

(sighs)

It’s gonna be a long day again isn’t it?

FINN

Yup.

FINN walks out of the bathroom. A montage of going through classes begin. Looking tired and falling asleep. The day goes by fast and FINN manages to make it through the school.

FINN walks out of his last class of the day. He looks tired and like something died inside.

FINN

Fuck I’m tired… I want to die so bad.

ERIN (V.O)

Well, unfortunately, we can’t.

FINN

God that teacher just talks forever and ever.

ERIN (V.O)

She keeps picking me to answer a fuckin question I don’t even know! PICK SOMEONE ELSE GODDAMMIT! She also keeps talking like she’s saying a code or a riddle. Some shit like that.

FINN

Don’t get me started on Taven! We had to do the jeopardy competition and he kept rushing me to find the answers!

FINN holds his face with both hands and rubs away the tiredness. He begins to walk toward the stairs but there are a bunch of students blocking the entrance.

FINN

Fuck there’s too many people walking down the stairs.

ERIN (V.O)

Jump off the second floor then.

FINN

You’re right!

ERIN (V.O)

What?

FINN

I’m gonna jump off the second floor.

ERIN (V.O)

I was kidding. Please don’t.

FINN looks around the corner of the hallway and runs then jumps off the second floor of the building. He lands on his feet.  

FINN

(Breaths in and out)

Suckers.

He blinks for a second as he starts his walk but then bumps into a girl. Instantly embarrassed by this, he apologizes immediately.

FINN

I am so sorry, are you okay?

GIRL

Yeah, I’m fine, thank you.

The GIRL turns around to see FINN and he recognizes her.

FINN

No… friggin way. Serena?!

SERENA

Finn?!

Unable to say another word, FINN hugs her instantly. SERENA accepts the hug without worry. FINN is seemingly different when seeing SERENA. He’s not annoyed by her presence.

NARRATOR (V.O)

Interesting, a love story…  

FINN

I haven’t seen you in so long! Where’ve you been?! It’s been like friggin years, dude!

SERENA

You know dude, moved around here and there but my family decided to move back to Hawaii. It’s home ya know? Anyways how’ve you been?! I haven’t seen my best friend in years!

FINN

I’ve been good… if that’s the word to describe it. Nothing much interesting happened in my life so far.

ERIN (V.O)

I missed her too.

SERENA

That’s good to hear, but you haven’t done anything interesting?

FINN

Ever since you’ve been gone, I just kinda stopped doing anything.

SERENA

Aw, that’s cute, you waited for me.

FINN’S face blushed for a bit and he smiles.

FINN

I guess I did wait for you to come back. Yeah.

(Laughs a little)

SERENA laughs at the remark and smiles too.

SERENA

Well, since I’m home, we can hang out again. So that way you can start doing things again.

FINN laughs and nods,

FINN

Agreed. Pinky promise?

He holds out his pinky and she smiles and makes the pinky promise official.

SERENA

Pinky promise.

(She smiles)

SERENA (cont’d)

You haven’t changed at all, have you?

FINN

Never.

(He smiles)

Want to walk home together?

SERENA

I’d love that. Let’s go.

FINN & SERENA are walking down the street from the school. They begin to talk about recent events.

SERENA

You saved a dog?!

(She is shocked)

FINN

Yup.

SERENA

And you got hit by the car that was about to hit the dog? How are you even alive?

FINN

I… uh… I heal very fast.

(He laughs)

NARRATOR (V.O)

Ugh, boring… hm, let’s add some flair to this act. AND… Snap!

Suddenly a gang of punk boys shows up around the corner. They looked straight out of the movie Grease for some reason. But they looked like a bunch of a-holes.

FINN (V.O)

Anything happens to you on the while you’re on the mainland?

SERENA

I met a Flat Earther… dude was friggin weird. Went to a concert for Punchbowl Punk… you know that band right? There from Hawaii.

FINN

I don’t think I ever heard of them before but I will definitely look them up. Thanks for that, I love looking up new music to listen too.

SERENA

Uh, what else… I met a girl who apparently has a talking cat.

PUNK LEADER

Howzit!

FINN & SERENA had noticed them, FINN waves hello and they keep walking.

FINN

Oh, speaking of music. Ya got earphones?

SERENA pulls out earphones from her pocket. FINN plugs in the audio jack and gives one earphone to SERENA. The song “Just The Two Of Us” by Grover Washington Jr. begins to play in the earphones.

FINN smiles and bobs his head along to the musical intro. SERENA smiles too at FINN. He starts to sing along.

FINN

I see the crystal raindrops fall and the beauty of it all. Is when the sun comes shining through. To make those rainbows in my mind. When I think of you some time. I wanna spend some time with you.

SERENA

You’re adorable.

The statement makes FINN blushes a bit. But starts to dance to the song. Which SERENA proceeds to dance along.

NARRATOR (V.O)

As much as I hate to interrupt a good song and people having a good time. It’s time I ruined this and start the problem.

Song still plays in the background and FINN & SERENA are still dancing along.

NARRATOR (V.O) (cont’d)

Psst. White guy!

PUNK LEADER

God?

LUCIAN/NARRATOR (V.O)

Sorry, not him. Different guy. My name’s Lucian by the way. I need you to throw a rock at that kid’s head. The one that just passed by you.

PUNK LEADER

That’s not cool, Luci dude. Plus I don’t take orders from a disembodied voice… unless his name is God.

LUCIAN/NARRATOR (V.O)

He said your jacket looks stupid.

PUNK LEADER

I WILL ANNIHILATE HIM!

The PUNK LEADER picks up a small rock and throws it at the back of FINN’S head. Instantly hitting him, he feels the hit and holds where the pain is. The song stops at the end of the 2nd Refrain. ERIN boils in anger and takes over FINN’S body. ERIN turns around toward the punks.

His eyes change from green to purple and a streak of jet black hair appears which SERENA doesn’t notice.

LUCIAN/NARRATOR (V.O)

Three. Two. One.

ERIN

WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM?!

The song stops playing

PUNK LEADER

You called my jacket stupid!

ERIN

What!?

PUNK LEADER

No one calls my jacket stupid!

ERIN

So you thought to throw a rock at me?! I wasn’t thinking that before, but now that I’m looking at it. It’s being worn by a jackass.

PUNK LEADER

No one insults me and gets away with it.

LUCIAN/NARRATOR (V.O)

Now add some music… hm, what song though? Got it! Snap!

ERIN looks at his phone and takes out the earphones. He put the phone to max volume and presses the play button. He sets it down on a nearby wall. The song “Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry plays. Easily tempered, ERIN snaps and starts the fight.

He rushes toward the PUNK LEADER grabbing him by his shirt and shoves him against a wall. The other punks decide to jump in and help out their PUNK LEADER. SERENA watches as the fight ensues, worried that her friend might get hurt. She attempts to call the police.

NARRATOR (V.O)

God, I love a good fight.

One of the punks goes after her, which FINN notices and it angers both him and ERIN. He shakes off the four punks trying to pull him off their leader. He rushes toward the punk that goes after SERENA. She manages to hold her own and gets a few punches in.

ERIN

Dope.

ERIN smiles at the fact but is attacked again by the punks. He starts up another fight. ERIN & FINN work together to beat each one.

FINN (V.O)

Okay, five jackasses. This should be easy for you.

ERIN (V.O)

Yup.

ERIN rushes at them all at once, managing to shove another PUNK 1 into a wall. PUNK 2 having a garrote wire chokes him to pulls him back. While being choked he jump kicks PUNK 1 knocking him out. Falling to the ground, he gets kicked repeatedly by PUNK 2. Grabbing his foot, he punches his leg repeatedly until a bone had broke.

PUNK 2 falls to the ground in pain. PUNK 3 had a baseball bat in hand all of sudden.

ERIN

Okay… where the hell did you get that?

PUNK 3 doesn’t answer and immediately swings it. Which ERIN grabs before being hit in the face. ERIN grabs the bat and hits his stomach with the knob. ERIN looks at PUNK 4. Afraid, he holds his hands up.

PUNK 4

I don’t know why I hang around with them. Their idiots. I’ll… I’ll just go home, think about my life, reevaluate my goals.

ERIN

Go!

PUNK 4

Yes, sir.

While PUNK 4 leaves, ERIN doesn’t notice the PUNK LEADER with a knife in hand. The song ends at the end of the 3rd Verse. They switch places, ERIN’S purple eyes revert to FINN’S green eyes. The streak of jet black hair reverted back to its brown color. SERENA had rushed toward him, suddenly a feeling of pain surges through his body.

FINN screams in pain loudly while holding his arm where the knife is buried. He’s kneeling on the ground.

SERENA

(Worried tone)

Finn! Are you okay?!

(She notices the knife buried in his shoulder)

Oh my god!

FINN

I’ll be fine. I promise.

(He reassures her while laughing.)

SERENA

You’re laughing?!

FINN

It’s how I deal with pain…

ERIN (V.O)

What’s happening?!

He pulls out the knife but suddenly feels the sensation of pain. Both FINN & ERIN make a low sounding grunt in silence, due to the shock of this feeling. He secretly cuts his hand and clenches his fist… holding in his roar of pain.

FINN (V.O)

Our healing factor… it’s gone. I can feel this…

SERENA

We have to get you home!

She picks him up and carries him over his arm. They grab their belongings and immediately rush to FINN’S house. They rush in and SERENA calls out to MOM & DAD.

SERENA

Uncle! Auntie!

FINN

MOM! DAD!

They rush to find out what’s wrong and see FINN bleeding and wounded.

MOM

Serena?!

SERENA

Auntie! We got jumped by some guys and Finn fought them and one of them pulled a knife on him. And…

She gets hysterical and doesn’t know what to do. FINN’S DAD calms her down.

DAD

Sweetie. It’s okay. I’m gonna take you home now okay?

SERENA

Will Finn be okay?!

DAD

He will be sweetie. Your auntie’s a nurse. She’ll patch him quickly and he’ll be fine. I’m gonna take you home now.

DAD & SERENA leave the house and MOM looks at FINN’S wound. He explains what happened and is for the first time scared for his life. MOM became worried after hearing his explanation. His wounds instantly heal once again after a couple minutes had gone by.

FINN

Erin? What the hell just happened?

(Finn looks at his hand cut as it healed)

ERIN (V.O)

I have no fucking clue.

(He sounded worried)

End Of Episode 1

[green-eyeddragonfanfiction]

Bah, HumBuck! Plans C and D

Summary: You’re the newest Avenger. Realizing that Bucky plans to spend Christmas alone, you enlist the help of Wanda, your best friend, and Steve, Bucky’s best friend and your mentor. You’re determined to make his Christmas amazing. Plan A Plan B Time for plans C and D! Pairing: Bucky x Female!Powered!Reader Word Count: ~2,618 Warnings: language, fluff A/N: This is for Sam’s Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree Writing Challenge. My prompt was #16, “’This was a terrible plan.’ ‘This was your plan.’” @lovelynemesis Flame on? Flame on. Was giving Reader the same powers of human torch intentional? Yes. Did I do it because Chris Evans was the human torch? No, but I still love that coincidence. *gifs not mine*

Masterlist // Plan B // Plan E

Fifteen minutes later you were walking out of the med ward, the gash just a faint pink scar on your palm.

“Damn, Doctor Cho really is amazing,” you said as you held your hand in front of your face and studied it closely. Your brain was working in overdrive while you walked; Plan A and B failed, so plan C was next.

Steve let out a long sigh. “You’re just lucky it was a pretty easy fix and that she’s already calibrated her tech for your DNA,” he said, running a hand over his face. “You also need to thank Vision; he’s the only one of us who knew how to work Cho’s machine.”

“Thanks, Viz!” you said, holding your newly-healed hand up for a high five. He looked from your face to your hand in confusion for a moment before he seemed to remember what he was supposed to do. He returned your high five perfectly with a loud smack... and it hurt. You smiled, but as soon as he’d turned away you shook your hand out, wincing at how badly it stung.

Steve let out a sigh. “Now, I think that’s enough excit-”

“We should go sledding!” you said, cutting across Steve with a smile he easily recognized as the “I’m going to do it anyway so you may as well join me” look. He groaned and rubbed his temples.

“Fine,” he said tiredly.

“Do we even have sleds?” Wanda asked, eyebrows raised in question.

“There are sleds purchased specially by Mr. Stark for these occasions,” FRIDAY informed you.

“Awesome! FRIDAY, make sure those make it to the entrance of the building in the next fifteen minutes, please!” you said as you turned to the others. “West Entrance to the compound. Twenty minutes! Bundle up!” you ordered cheerfully as you ran down the hallway. You had a couple things to do and not a whole lot of time to do them.

Nineteen and a half minutes later you were at the base’s West Entrance, bundled up in layers of jackets and panting from running around nonstop. You’d even found your old pair of ski pants, which was nice. Wet pants ruined snowy day fun faster than you could say “hypothermia.” Sure, you could dry them off with your powers, but it was just so much work (and came with risk of setting your pants on fire). You shuffled your backpack around on your back until it was sitting more comfortably and glanced around the foyer for everyone else.

Bucky was sitting quietly on one of the uncomfortable-looking blocky black couches, gazing out the floor-to-ceiling window. Snow was still falling outside, blanketing the entire compound with a layer of cold white fluff.

You were about to go up and talk to him when the elevator dinged open, revealing Wanda, Vision, and Steve.

“I still do not understand why sledding is so appealing when one can fly, but I will make an attempt,” Vision was saying, drawing both your and Bucky’s attention towards him.

“That’s all I’m asking, Viz,” Wanda said kindly, taking his hand in hers as she smiled up at him.

“Are we all ready to go?” you asked all of them, barely contained excitement showing on your face.

“What’s in the backpack?” Steve asked suspiciously, giving it and you the stink eye.

“A surprise! Now, are you ready to go?” you said evasively.

“As we’ll ever be,” Steve said grimly, glancing at the frigid paradise outside.

“Awesome! The sleds are outside; one for each of us!” you informed them, practically skipping for the door. You may have missed the way Bucky was smiling at you, but Steve and Wanda didn’t. They gave each other knowing looks that you, Vision, and Bucky all missed.

You wrenched the door open and the wave of cold air hit you. It wasn’t as though it bothered you much; you didn’t really think you could get cold.

Wanda and Steve were a little more apprehensive. You couldn’t blame Steve; he’d spent 70 years as a popsicle after all. Vision didn’t mind the cold, though, and easily coaxed Wanda outside, Steve following shortly thereafter.

What surprised you, though, was that Bucky seemed hesitant. The Winter Soldier? Afraid of a little snow? Nah. Impossible.

“C’mon, Buck! We’re burning...” you glanced up at the sky and frowned “-cloud light,” you finished lamely.

He snorted at that, small smile on his lips, and your heart soared. He didn’t smile very often so you enjoyed it every time you saw it. He picked up one of the sleds beside the door and fell into step beside you.

The group made their way towards the east side of the compound. There were a few steep hills there. Wanda, Steve, and Vision were chatting animatedly ahead of you and Bucky about something you couldn’t quite hear. After a few minutes of walking in silence with Bucky, he spoke up. “What is in the bag?” he asked curiously, eyes sparkling with mischief.

“Hey! I said it was a surprise! You’ll find out eventually!” you said, paranoid, turning your torso so that the backpack was hidden behind you.

He laughed at that. Actually laughed. As in eye-crinkling, teeth-showing, chest-rumbling laugh.

Your heart tried to kill you when you heard it, it was beating so fast. He had a wonderful laugh. You were used to feeling warm, but the way his laugh made you feel-

Light? Safe? Happy? Maybe... that he might actually enjoy your company?

“Alright, alright. I won’t pry. Promise,” he said, smile still etched into his face.

You tried to memorize it but apparently were being too obvious, because it slid from his face once he realized you were staring.

“Is... is there something on my face?” he asked, suddenly looking a bit alarmed.

Oh no. He noticed me staring. “No! It’s just- I uh-” Think. Come up with an excuse. Any excuse. “I just like your laugh,” you sputtered. Your eyes widened in horror a half second later at your words, but you couldn’t look away from his gaze.

He looked almost as shocked by your words as you did, his pace faltering for a beat. He looked away from you, gaze forward, and didn’t say anything, his face hidden by his hair.

Great. Really great fucking job, (Y/N). You made him uncomfortable, you chastised yourself mentally.

You hung your head and trudged onward, gaze straight ahead, not noticing the shy, pleased smile and blush on Bucky’s face.

Your fun sledding activity quickly devolved into a competition of who could do the coolest tricks. You’d been upset at first, but after Steve pulled off a particularly impressive triple-back-flip-turned-handstand and challenged you to try and one up him, all bets were off.

“Go (Y/N)!” Wanda cheered from the bottom of the hill. She’d wiped out a while ago and decided to stay put until the snow numbed her butt. Vision was sitting with her, discussing the finer points of sledding.

You placed your sled about ten feet back from the point where the hill began to drop and walked even farther back.

Steve and Bucky watched you with interest.

“Watch and learn, boys,” you said, winking salaciously at them.

Steve suddenly look worried and Bucky turned a deep crimson but you’d already looked away.

You took a running start at your sled, gathering your powers in your hands. The moment your feet hit the sled you threw your arms behind you and turned your powers on full blast, giant jets of flame shooting from your palms. You rocketed forward, still going slow enough at first for gravity to pull you down instead of sending you flying off the edge of the hill.

The jump the boys had built, though, was a completely different story. You flew off it, sled leaving your feet as you used your powers to flip yourself midair once, twice, three times, before you plummeted back to earth, landing skillfully on top of your sled, riding it like a snowboard. You let your momentum carry you for a while before you hopped off of the sled...

And immediately fell face-first into the snow. You hadn’t realized how fast you’d been going and weren’t expecting the force of acceleration to be as strong as it was. Your feet hadn’t been able to keep up with how fast the rest of you was moving... and now you had a face full of snow.

You heard the others laughing merrily at your misfortune and your face literally burned with embarrassment, melting the snow under it.

“You alright?” Steve yelled down from the top of the hill, smile obvious in his voice.

You didn’t get up, simply giving him a depressed thumbs up in response, which sent everyone into a fresh fit of laughter.

Yup. You could just die here. That would be preferable to facing the life of teasing this was sure to earn you.

The telltale sound of a sled approaching followed by the crunch of snow beneath feet finally made you look up.

You immediately buried your face back into the snow, not wanting to face him.

“You can’t lay there forever, Doll,” Bucky said kindly, smile clear in his voice.

“I think I can, actually,” you muttered bitterly.

“What was that?” he asked playfully, though he’d clearly heard you.

“I’m going to die. Right here. In this snow bank. Just leave me. Tell my family I love them. Also, tell Tony he’s an asshole,” you said melodramatically.

He laughed at that last bit. “Sorry, that’s not allowed. If you decide to die a slow death out here it means I’d have to spend more time out here in the snow,” he said stubbornly, but you could still hear the smile in his voice.

“What’s wrong with the snow?” you asked curiously, finally turning your head to peek up at him.

He suddenly looked awkward, as though he’d said something he hadn’t meant to. He fidgeted where he stood and picked up his sled. “C’mon, Doll. We can’t let you end on a note like that,” he said, extending his hand down to you.

“Do you not like the snow?” you asked perceptively without taking his hand. You looked at him properly, scrutinizing every movement closely.

He swallowed hard, looking well and truly guilty now. “It’s, uh, not my favorite, no. It reminds me of Siberia and-”

You were up in a flash, throwing your arms around his waist. He dropped his sled in surprise, looking down at you in shock. “I’m sorry! I had no idea! I would never have forced you out here if I’d known!” you said quickly, trying to figure out how to make up for- “Wait here!” you said, letting him go abruptly to run a few feet away before you focused your powers in your hands and feet and quite literally flew back to the top of the hill, leaving a trail of flame in your wake. You landed heavily, staggering a couple steps before you grabbed your backpack.

Steve was staring at you, alarmed. “(Y/N)? What’s going on? Why did you-”

You snatched Steve’s sled from his hands and threw it on the ground in one fluid motion. “Borrowingthisnoweverything’sfinethanksSteve,” you said in the span of a second and a half before you sat down on top of it and pushed yourself off of the edge, this time letting gravity- and not your powers- take you to the bottom.

You got off as soon as the sled started going too slowly for your liking, running the rest of the way to Bucky, pack bouncing against your back.

To his credit, he’d stayed exactly where you’d told him to, though he was looking at you warily.

“Am I about to find out what’s in that bag?” he asked apprehensively.

You made it the last few steps to him, panting softly from the exertion of flying up to the top of the hill and running through snow.

“Yup!” you said merrily, throwing the pack down in front of you. You kneeled down, unzipped it, and pulled out-

“Thermoses?” Bucky asked, looking absolutely confounded as he sat down next to you.

“Yeah! I made some hot cocoa before we left and put it in these. There’s one for each of us!” you said chipperly, handing him a silver and red thermos that reminded you of his arm. You pulled out the cheesy flames-and-black one that you’d decided was yours and looked at him sheepishly.

“I know it’s a bit silly, but... I wanted to give you a good memory. Of snow,” you said, gesturing to the area around the two of you. “God, it sounds so selfish when I put it like that. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-”

You were cut off by him opening the thermos. You looked at him, surprised. The smell of hot chocolate hit you immediately, laced with-

“Oh, I forgot to mention! I also spiked it,” you said, winking mischievously.

“You know I can’t get drunk, right?” he asked, smile playing on his lips as he poured some into the cap cup.

You froze in the middle of opening your own thermos, smile sliding right off of your face.

Fuck. There went plans... wait, what plans were you on again? You thought about it for a second and concluded spiked hot cocoa and sledding were plans D and E, but you weren’t one hundred percent sure. No. C and D. They were plans C and D.

“I totally forgot,” you said, feeling like a complete idiot. You laid back in the snow, thermos forgotten next to your backpack, and wallowed in your own failure.

“Mm, tasty,” Bucky said casually, causing you to look up in surprise. “Baileys?” he asked, taking another sip.

You nodded, sitting up slowly. Maybe it wasn’t a total loss, but you still felt like an insensitive ass. First the snow, then forgetting about how he can’t get drunk or even tipsy.

“Good choice,” he said, smiling at you over his cup of cocoa.

“Did you really make cocoa and not give me some?” asked Wanda from behind you.

You turned to her, startled by her sudden appearance, but you smiled and shook your head.

“Of course not,” you said, snorting dismissively as you pulled out the pure red thermos you’d designated as hers. “It’s generously spiked, so take is slow,” you warned as she took it from you.

“You’re the best!” Wanda said happily as she took a seat next to you, opening her flask excitedly.

“Excuse me, I hate to impose, but-”

“Yeah, I made some for you, too, Viz,” you said, grinning widely at him as you pulled out a thermos that was patterned with tiny red, blue, green, and yellow ones and zeros.

“Thank you, (Y/N),” he said as he took it from you as sat down next to Wanda.

That just left-

“So first you steal my sled and then you don’t tell me about the hot chocolate?” Steve asked, pretend anger in his voice.

“Do you want the hot chocolate or not?” you asked playfully, waving the last untouched thermos in front of him tantalizingly. It was, of course, bespangled.

“Yes please,” he said quickly, sitting down on the other side of Bucky. You tossed him his thermos, grinning, and he caught it easily.

You chatted in the snow, sipping hot chocolate for a while. At some point you conjured a fire in the center of the group and, although the boys might not admit it, you knew they all appreciated it.

Two hours later the five of you trudged back into the residential building (well, Vision was floating gracefully, but he was always graceful). You were talking to Bucky as you walked. Your plan hadn’t been a complete failure, but it still wasn’t good enough.

Time for Plan E.

This is fine! I can do this! Plan E!

This series is finished, but if you want to be tagged in my other fics, check out this post! Sorry, but responses to this post asking to be tagged will be ignored, so send me an ask or like one of the taglist posts!

☕ Buy Me a Coffee! ☕

[hellofanimagination]

Blue Bubbles (Part 2)

Prompt: Requested by Anonymous “ skkdks I just re read blue bubbles and I was just wondering if you'd ever maybe do another one for it?? It's rly cute and I love Patrick”

Word Count: 1,959

Pairing: Patrick x Reader

A/N: Part 1

S/N=sisters name

--

It’s been a month since the nonsense on your blog with Patrick and his friends, been a month since you and Patrick started dating, been a month since your inbox flooded with asks about you and patrick and your “endless love”. A month.

“A month?” You sister asks, looking like a mix of disappointed and annoyed. She learned that look from your mother, she hates when you point that out though. “You’ve been “dating” for a month?” she didn’t mime air quotes but you can hear them, you hear it a lot when people learn that you’ve never met your boyfriend.

“Ya?” You don’t know what she wants you to say, pulling your legs up on the couch and looking at her like a little sister would, big eyes and just begging her to be on your side before mom comes home. Only mom isn’t coming home, it’s just you two now, and she isn’t mom.

She sighs, heavy, “That isn’t a real relationship, Y/N,” you shrink away from her, feeling like a 14 year old in a 22 year olds body. You want to prove to her that it is, that you know his name and his age and his height, you know his friends and his job and his school and his passions, you know his favorite everythings and and...you know him. It’s real.

“Where does he live?” She asks, and you can see the look that all parents get about online friends. ‘He is a 40 year old creep from bumfuck nowhere asking for nudes’ is what she wants to hear, but it's wrong.

“Chicago.” He has an apartment with Pete, they play music and Patrick works at a bookstore and Pete does odd jobs and they are happy and Patrick keeps teasing you to move in with them. They have a dog and the landlord hates them, but not seriously.

You sister sighs again and you don’t know what she wants.

“He could be anyone…” She tries and you roll your eyes.

“I’m 22, S/N, not 12. I’m not just going into this blind with trust, I know him.”

“Ok, ok.” She’s trying, in her own worried way. The way she’s had for the last 6 years of your life now, the ‘oops I'm a mom’ way that she does things, too much or not enough, the way a sister with a whole new life thrown at her would be.

“I’m going to get a week off from work next month, fly out to see him. “She wants to interrupt but you keep going, “And I want you to come with me.”

She’s taken aback, unexpected.

“I know it’s not safe to just fly to another state by myself and meet people, who although I trust, I have never met before. I know you won’t let me either, so come with me.”

She smiles, small, and takes your hand. “I know I did something right with you.”

--

The airport is big, bigger than the small one near your home town, and packed. Your sister keeps close, following you and the signs looking for baggage claim and then the place Pete said he would pick you up at. You weave through people, families and luggage and little kids darting around the slick floors. It’s loud but it comforts you, loud and big and Patrick’s home! Patrick is here!

Outside is nice, high 70s and clear skies, you turn your face to the sun and smile. It feels like the world is trying to make the perfect path between you and Patrick, smooth sailing and destiny and blue skies. Your sister is bugging you about what car Pete drives and you just smile, floating, heart so full, and you ignore her. She always stresses during trips.

Pete must have parked rather then pull up to the curb like planned because suddenly he’s running up to you, scooping you into his arms and spinning you around. You scream and laugh and Pete is laughing too, loud and full and his face is lit up so bright you can’t help how warm you feel. Pete lowers you to the ground and holds you, just hugging each other for a moment and when you pull away you laugh, you don’t think you’ve ever felt so ecstatic before.

Before you glance behind Pete and see Patrick.

Time slows down, heart thumping too loud to hear, head spinning, you both just glow. Pete steps away and you’re moving towards Patrick before you notice. You crash into each other, wrapped tight and happy and safe, the rest of the world just falls away, like the sky broke open and you got blasted into space.

You pull back only far enough to see his face, fingers clinging to clothes, his eyes are so blue and green and bright. His smile is blinding and his cheeks are pink, he’s wearing a baseball hat that’s a dark purple with a wave on it and you just hurt from smiling. You can’t let go, won’t, needing to be as close to him as you can. You mean to speak but you kiss him instead, lips moving together in desperation, every dream and text and skype date crashing right here between you two.

Patrick is panting slightly, his face pink, when you break apart and you giggle and grin and he does to and it’s perfect and real and wonderful. He’s here, in your arms, exactly where he always should be, exactly where you’ve been dreaming of him being.

--

Their apartment is on the small side, and obviously being lived in by two boys in a band. Pete has instruments and dog toys all over the living room, a sleeping bulldog on the couch snoring. There are cereal boxes on the kitchen counter and mail and paper, a notebook with purple ink smudges along the pages and you know that notebook, you’ve seen pictures from it that Patrick sent you, lyrics and poems and nonsense that he and Pete make.

Pete sets your sister up in the guest room, which was originally a tiny studio that had the guitars in it but Pete prefers the livingroom now. Patrick can’t stop staring at you, soft eyes and pink lips and, oh he is beautiful. You squeeze his hand, you haven’t let go since the airport and you sister won’t say anything as long as you both have that love sick look in your eyes, plastered all over your faces actually.

“Um,” Patrick starts and you smile softly, you love his voice. He blushes. “I was thinking that you could stay in my room,” He is bright red, blushing down his neck and up his ears and you just smile brighter. “I-I’m not implying anything will happen! I just mean, I want to be near you and and-” he rambles and you cut him off, kissing him softly.

“I want to be near you too, I’d love to stay in your room.” He’s still blushing and your heart still feels so fucking full.

Patrick takes your bag and your hand and leads you further into the house, passing your sister’s room and a bathroom, two doors at the end and one must be Pete’s. Patrick pushes open a door and lets you into his room. The bed is a good size, blue sheets and a grey blanket that looks comfy, a window that looks over to another building and the street below. He has stacks of music and books everywhere, a guitar in the corner and clothes and hats and shoes falling from his closet. It smells like him and you feel it engulf you in the best way.

You smile over at Patrick and wrap yourself around him, kissing him soundly, feeling his hands settle on your waist. Kissing Patrick just comes naturally, like you’ve been doing it for years, lifetimes, like it was always supposed to be like this. You smile, breaking the kiss, and hear Pete shouting for you.

“FUCKING ALREADY? COME ON!” Patrick turns bright red and you laugh, leading him back out of the room.

Your sister starts off with 900 questions for the boys, really proving what a mom she is, making sure they are safe. And then Pete announces that they are going out to eat in celebration of love and fucking and you, the announcement doesn’t amuse your sister on the outside but you know her better.

You go to pizza, of course, and you get a booth. You press yourself against Patrick, needing contact, and he doesn’t mind. The pizza is good, deep dish and greasy, and Pete eats too many pieces to count. You laugh and talk and for being in a different country with people you’ve never met, you feel right at home.

You don’t stay out too late, your sister is jetlagged and you and Patrick wouldn’t complain at being alone. You walk back to the apartment and your sister heads to bed, dragging herself to her room. Pete stays up, getting his guitar and sitting with his dog, who is now awake and uninterested in anyone but Pete.

Patrick’s room is warm, the two of you cuddled under the covers, listening to the wind outside and each other’s breathing. You’d think it would be awkward, your first time together, but it’s not, it’s soft and comforting and just being in his arms is more than perfect. There is something about Patrick that is comforting, warm and welcoming, safe. You snuggle in close, wrapped around each other, legs intertwined. You fall asleep, secure and close and exactly where you need to be.

--

Patrick takes you to all his favorite places, museums and restaurants and coffee shops, he shows you the tourist sights and the little places only people who live there know. He gets you wrapped up in the city and in him, hand in hand, heart in throat. Every day is an adventure, Pete and your sister smiling as they follow you and Patrick some days, seemingly oblivious to everything but each other. Like love birds, stitched together, sharing veins and a heartbeat.

Your last day is hard, Patrick takes you to get breakfast together, just the two of you, and you try not to let the heartbreak show. You go on a walk, the world getting a little less bright the more time pushes on. He kisses you in the park, under a tree, holding you close and licking into your mouth. You bite his lip and he lets out a little gasp, pulling you even closer. Hands on your hips, sliding up your back, can’t let go, won’t. You don’t know how long you stand under that tree, pouring feelings between lips and refusing to say goodbye.

You spend the entire day together, away from the others, doing nothing and everything and just existing together. The day almost feels unreal, or maybe too real, colorless but over saturated with emotion, and love. Oh you think you’re falling for him, quick and hard and you don’t feel stupid or naive, it feels just right. Perfect. Meant to be.

He cries at the airport, so does Pete, and he doesn’t let you go until the last second. Won’t let go, can’t let go.

“I’m gonna be counting down the days till I see you again,” He says, softly, only between you two.

“I love you, Patrick, I won’t make you count for too long.”

“I love you too,”

Your sister holds you when you cry on the plane and when you land back home it doesn’t feel like home anymore. You lay down on your cold bed and close your eyes, knowing, that there’s a light on in Chicago and you should be home.

[artyrogue]

Blind Date Gaming: Choplifter III

I know there's some adage where ladies like a man in uniform. Typically, this is said about some member of the military, as their dress uniforms or whatever somehow increase their level of attractiveness I guess? Regardless of how ladies perceive crew cuts and camo, G.I. Joe set the de facto standard of soldiers for kid's media, of which Game Boy games fall into. So, let's take a wonder trip down the rough and rugged world of Choplifter III!

So you can basically tell what you're in for with the realistic helicopter that chops upward to our title. YEAH! Warzones! Brothers in arms! Bulletholes, helmets, and those sandbag barriers that look like a royal pain to move around! This feeling gets reinforced with the level splash screens, which are more pixelated photo war-type scenes that don't actually reflect the kind of hell that real wars are. Forget corpses and destroyed livelihoods; we're heroes here! With helicopters!

Guy looks like he's waiting for his takeout to arrive

So in this game, you're a helicopter pilot who must fly into warzones and rescue hostages. Hostages can easily be seen meandering around on the ground, waving their arms and stuff. Not sure what the strategy is for my adversaries, giving hostages free roaming rights. Whatever, I’ll take it! Luckily your weapons don't phase them at all or I would probably have murdered an entire platoon by accident.

Hey guys! Catch!

The enemy forces will stop at nothing to shoot you down, using turrets, planes, submarines, and more to pump your little copter fulla lead. Luckily, things aren't as realistic as in real life and you have a health bar to allow you to sustain more than one hit, though most hardware thrown at you will do like 70% of your HP. You can lose HP by running into walls and stuff too. There are health powerups, though, so it's pretty fair.

Good thing that bomb apparently has the explosion range of about how far a toddler can kick a ball

You have many tools at your disposal to fight these forces. You start with a missile-like 'G' weapon. You can unlock other alphabet letters to give you more options, but really, I never used most of them. Part of this was because I had no idea what most did since they were all just a single letter. Like, you have a 16-pixel sprite to work with, just draw a picture of what the weapon might be or something! A couple were essential to use, though. One was a flamethrower that apparently has unlimited ammo until you hit a tree with it. While it makes for a neat progression gate on a level, I can only imagine the canonical reason why this happens. Maybe the tree somehow tosses some sap up in the flame nozzle during the inferno, gunking it up to the point of uselessness? You're probably not supposed to think too hard about that, though. Sort of like real soldiers getting orders!

The war between Veteran’s Day and Arbor Day ends in a dramatic fashion here

Anyway, the default weapon is surprisingly versatile and a lot of fun to control. By default, it has a very slight downward arc, but you can make it fire a bit higher and lower by firing while moving; backwards raises the front of the helicopter, making it fire upwards and forwards lowers the front, doing the opposite. This helps a lot when attempting to annihilate the local fauna.

THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE RULER OF THE SKIES, AVIAN DIRTBAG!

You can also turn sideways, allowing you to drop shots straight down or at a downward arc while moving left or right. The enemy placement is actually very well done, requiring switching up between all of these maneuvers. It takes a bit to get used to the trajectories, but you’ll reach a point where it’s all second nature. Good job, programmers!

Take that! I'm bombing your WiFi next, you war-mongering jerkwads!

Anyway, you fly around 5 different-themed areas, including a naval battle, jungle, and typical warzones. The variety is nice and the enemies vary from area to area, so it stirs thing up. You even get tiny little guerilla guys throwing junk into the air at you! The weirdest sight is the final area, which is some odd attempt at making an isometric city. It kind of doesn't make sense visually, as you'll see tanks and cars in what seems like it should be air. Am I actually in the air? Yeah? Then why does every building that looks far away still hurt me when I fly into it? It's just confusin'.

Ugh, I hate fighting in M.C. Escher World

Anyway, after beating 15 levels and rescuing all of your indestructible squadmates, you beat the game! I mean, I guess the war ended or something? I dunno, maybe you just need to do these last jobs before you can retire and collect that sweet military pension. The ending screen certainly makes your pilot look like he needs a break. Maybe just some meds to stop the demons wreaking havoc in his chopper-filled noggin.

Good job, USA! Now please stop backing the military industrial complex and let this guy get some rest!

In the end, you get to put your name into a high-score list for whatever reason. I love when games with clear completion goals still have scores, like you're playing the game only for points or something. Plus, I'm sure this is like Tetris where the game pak doesn't even save the scores. By the way, note the replacement of all vowels on the name input screen with numbers. This is not something I've seen elsewhere and I have no idea why it was done. The default names on the high score list all have vowels, so like...why?

B1d d2c3s34ns w2r2 m1d2.

That about wraps this game up. I got through the whole thing, so I really don't need a second date, but man, I would go on another date later anyway. It was just a joy to play! Maybe there's truth to that attraction of a man in uniform after all. I'd love to see how Choplifters I and II pan out! Although all of these titles might want to be a little more subtle, as I've seen in multiple places that Choplifters get prosecuted to the full extent of the law. No way I want to get tangled up in that jazz. I only like empty extents of the law. You could probably insert some political dig here on rich vs. poor folks, but instead I'm gonna subtly slide this Sprite of Passage to you both as a distraction and as a final token of getting through this date with me. Enjoy it heartily and throw it in a shadowbox with your other war medals and stuff!

Not sure if this guy is happy to be rescued or if he was immediately thrown into PT to do some jumpin' jacks

[transcripted-podcasts]

Zombie Fishbowl - Episode 1

Haunted Battlefields

In our first episode, we talk about the phenomenon of ‘haunted battlefields’ after we introduce ourselves and explain WTF ‘Zombie Fishbowl’ actually means!

Listen to the episode here!

---

[Intro music]

Melanie: Hello!

Danielle: Hello!

Melanie: Welcome to Zombie Fishbowl, a podcast about random shit!

Danielle: Zombie Fishbowl? What does that even mean?

Melanie: Not a damn thing.

Danielle: And everything at the same time! Wow!

Melanie: All right, so let's start by introducing ourselves. 

Danielle: Hello! I'm Danielle, I live in Northwest England, in a very damp, seaside town. But I did live in California for about 13 years, hence the weird accent. I'm studying for a master's degree in archaeology after deciding that I wanted to change my career after being a support worker for 10 years. So, I fucking love history and logic, and am, as you will get to know, very skeptical of the paranormal world (which we will probably do a lot of talking about because it's the most fun). And, even though I roll my eyes at ghost hunters and psychics and spooky YouTube videos, I still fucking love it! I love a ghost story. I love a weird happening. My mum and I share this enthusiasm. She kinda passed it on to me. 

But although I am absolutely intrigued by the unknown, I also like to have a look and see what reason there might be behind something. So, I'll be bringing the scientific papers and whatever reliable publications I can find to try to explore humanity's obsession and consistent claim that there is something, some other world that we cannot see or test or measure.

Melanie: And I'm Melanie and I live in California, USA. Daughter of a horror novelist and a porn star, I'm an enthusiast for the bizarre, taboo, and fun. I am pagan, a recovering medium, a horror and fantasy fanatic, and mythology nerd so, needless to say, whatever she doesn't believe in? I just might. Or, at least, will enjoy the telling.

So, backstory. Danielle and I were best friends growing up in southern California. We were nerds with a punk/goth twist that were never quite cool enough for the punks or the goths or even the nerds. But we partied together, grew together, and basically been through hell and high water. We grew up and I stayed in California...

Danielle: And I moved back to England to be with my loverboy.

Melanie: So here we are, in our 30s, continents apart. But whenever we get a chance to chat, it's always insane, fun, and full of information. So we thought we'd share our love of the random, macabre, fun facts and turn it into a podcast.

Danielle: Also, in regards to the name of our podcast, I suppose you do need some kind of explanation. Well, we tried being clever, intellectual, and punny, but nothing was quite working until Melanie, randomly, in an exasperated moment threw out Zombie Fishbowl which was the name of the band we almost-tried-to-but-didn't-quite-ever-have in high school, although I did attempt to learn how to play the bass, and I can still play the intro to Crazy Train like a total badass. 

Melanie: And I can sing, so that was something. [laughs] It doesn't mean anything but it could mean so much.

Danielle: So throw it all in a zombie fishbowl and eat it up!

Melanie: So here's the plan. We have a list of wide-ranging topics from magic to UFOs, and every week we throw them into a randomizer and then research the shit out of it. Hopefully, as this podcast grows, we'd love to hear from you. All of our social media information will be holla-ed at you at the end of the podcast.

Danielle: But we're going to steer clear of current affairs, politicky stuff, because it is so so so so divisive and polarizing and just plain frustrating. We will no doubt get political, it is in our very nature, but not as a topic, and we'll try not to be overtly preachy.

Melanie: Also, sports because we do not sport.

Danielle: Nope, I can't sport and neither can Melanie, so no sport. Anyway, one more thing before we get into the topic this week: we have The Purge.

Melanie: Dun dun dun! So this is where we, mostly Danielle, will have a moan for a couple minutes to clear the air before starting. So what do you want to vent about this week, Danielle?

Danielle: Wet rain.

Melanie: [laugh]

Danielle: Not normal rain that just comes down and you can, you know, put your umbrella up and you're quite happy walking across the street looking all emo and [unintelligible], but the kind of rain that just makes everything on your body damp and no matter what you do, everything is just wet and miserable and it just...it makes everything difficult. Uh! I just fucking hate wet rain. It's that stuff that comes from the ground as well as the skies, comes from the left and it comes from the right, and there's nothing you can do about it, and you're just damp all the time and--

Melanie: It's like a soggy miserable rain.

Danielle: Yeah, which is pretty much 90% of the weather in this bloody town. It's really, really grim out there right now. It's been grim for a couple days, but then there's like an hour of beautiful sunshine and everyone runs out in their shorts just--just 'please give me the vitamin D! Please give me the vitamin D!' and then everybody runs back inside as soon as it starts to rain again. It's June! It's supposed to be lovely outside but it's like looking at a November...ugh, so miserable. That's--that's what I wanted to get off my chest. I got wet earlier today and I haven't got over it yet.

Melanie: [laughs] I'm sorry for your soggy life over there.

Danielle: Well, you know, it's what I signed up for, I guess. You gotta have the bad damp horrible weather in order to appreciate and really take advantage of lovely sunshine which I can see you're having right now, ya bitch.

Melanie: Oh yes, the sunniest of sunshines. And it's not quite yet at like 90 degrees. I think we're at a nice medium 65 heading toward 70.

Danielle: That sounds perfect! 

Melanie: Yeah, yeah that's that's the sweet spot, but give us about two hours and it's gonna probably be like 85.

Danielle: Yeah, it kind of goes OTT after a while. I don't know why I said OTT! I don't say that in my daily life. I'm gonna say it fully: over the top.

Melanie: [laughs] Okay, good because I'm old, and when you said OTT, I have no idea what that meant.

Danielle: I read a lot of Reddit. [laughs] I learned the lingo of the youths.

Melanie: Yeah I'm not, I'm not hip with the kids today with their their letters instead of words.

Danielle: I have to admit, every so often I have to Google an acronym, but...

Melanie: I have to Google an acronym almost every day. It's awful.

Danielle: [laughs] fantastic. Right, okay. Do you have anything you want to purge? 

Melanie: Oh I suppose we'll go with cats. No, I love cats. I have two cats. I--I love my cats, but they can be such fucking cats. Like Phineas, my big fat old one. He's fine. He's too lazy and slow to really do anything much as far as the bothersome cat behavior. He just has that Siamese cat meow which makes you want to kill something, but other than that? But my kitten is such a kitten and I can't stand it! She, I have a cup of water above my bed every night, and every night I get clunked in the head with a glass full of water. And you'd think I'd learn.

Danielle: Yeah. [laughs]

Melanie: But I don't because I keep forgetting that she's such a cat. Like not just...the little things, you know, knocking things off the things, the technical term. Why?! Why! It's so cute until it actually is in your life and then you're like 'why the fuck are you catting so hard!'

Danielle: [laughs]

Melanie: So that's--that's my purge because I keep getting knocked in the head with water at like 2:00 in the morning.

Danielle: Patrick started...it's his summers sick ritual which is, you know, when the summer comes around, cuz he's a long-haired cat, and every other day he'll be hacking up a hairball. But he just doesn't do it over the--the wood floor, it's all over the carpet and it's all over multiple carpets because he moves three feet between each regurge.

[Laughter]

Danielle: So, you know, swings 'em roundabouts, really. They're awesome, they're awesome. I love my cats, they're my little dudes, but yeah. They don't knock water into my face but they certainly make for a Russian Roulette when you're walking around the house barefoot. Yeah, all right, I feel better, do you? 

Melanie: I think I do. A little bit.

Danielle: All right. Let's take a deep breath and we'll start this week's factotastic Zombie Fishbowl podcast.

Melanie: Ready?

Danielle: Ready.

[Sounds of exaggerated deep breaths and laughter]

Danielle: That's never gonna get old.

[Laughter]

Melanie: All right. So, this week's topic randomly picked from our random topic picker is:

[In unison]: Haunted battlefields!

Danielle: Wow, that was shit, fantastic. You go.

Melanie: I felt good about it, I don't know about you.

Danielle: [laughs] 

Melanie:  I really did.

Danielle: Fantastic.

Melanie: Okay, so I suppose I'll start. Being in America, we have had a bloody civil war, which we all know, but really getting a grasp on the numbers of it was was phenomenal. So, out of all of the soldiers that have ever fallen in a war, every single American soldier, if you add them all up from the beginning of American soldiers being a thing to present day, if you add all those casualties up, half of them took place in the Civil War. But brother against brother so, no matter who fell, it was an American falling and it was just so, so much and that's not even including all of the battles against the Native Americans and--and the Mexicans and--and just--just the slaughter that took place here all over the place. There are many ways I could have gone, and I kind of got stuck in the Civil War, mainly because I have never in my life had any interest in it. So I thought, this thing that I--I know enough about to pass like, what, third grade, but it never really hit me as anything super interesting, so I researched into it.

Danielle: I feel you on that. I'm not a big warfare history buff. I like my history and stuff like that but, you know, battlefields and war and battles, it's never really been...because it's--it's a little bit repulsive.

Melanie: Yeah! Yeah! And it's funny because, instinctively, I think we're just kind of like 'oh yeah, no, this happened' but if you actually just take a second to really try and grasp what happened, it's heartbreaking and hideous and then just horrifying.

Danielle: Yep. 

Melanie: So, um, I started by researching the top ten bloodiest battles of the Civil War.

Danielle: Oh, god.

Melanie:  Which is so fucking significant like, oh my god. And poor Virginia, man. Well not so much poor Virginia but, Jesus, the amount of people who died there for this--this war is staggering. It's like at least 15,000 just in a couple of these battles? It's just absurd. Anyway, so we'll start with the--the biggest, which is the Battle of Gettysburg.

Danielle: The most famous, I think, in American history.

Melanie: It is the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. It lasted for three days in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Grand total casualties including wounded was almost 50,000 people in three days. 5,425 people just went missing. Which I think is interesting, and looking at all of these battles, you don't see a number so much for people just missing. But with the Battle of Gettysburg, almost 5,500 people just, poof!, disappeared. So, Battle of Gettysburg. With so many dead, dying, injured, and just missing, it's--it's one of the most haunted sites in America.

Danielle: Mm-hmm.

Melanie: All right, the battle took place across this one field, but it also took place over mountains; it even went into the city itself. It was so bad that in some of the houses that were healing the--the injured, people were like ankle deep in blood.

Danielle: That sounds like an exaggeration.

Melanie: It's an exaggeration, but--but the--the walls? Covered. The floor? Covered. Like completely covered. Ankle deep, yeah, is a bit of an exaggeration, but to say that they were at least heel deep in blood I don't think is an exaggeration.

Danielle: They were slipping in the stuff.

Melanie: Yeah.

Danielle: Yeah.

Melanie: But one of the things, with all the battlefields that I researched, I found that most recurring...thing was when...hold on, I got the word...residual hauntings.

Danielle: Mm-hmm 

Melanie: The residual hauntings are really just a replay of the events.

[Overlapping talk]

Danielle: I have heard that. Yeah, sorry, you, go ahead, you say it.

Melanie: [laughs, then with a lisp] So from a psychic pagan perspective…

Danielle: [laughs] Yes.

Melanie: All right, with residual hauntings, I believe that...when you have that much death and that much rage and fear and--and just--just really amped up energy, it sort of leaves an imprint. I mean, you go into a room where somebody's been, you know, beaten their whole lives, even if you don't have any context of what happened there before, that room feels dark and oppressing and not great. So when you go to a battlefield or go to a place where, you know, the soldiers were taken to be treated and eventually probably die or have their legs amputated with no anesthesia, there's a lot of emotion there and so with residual hauntings, a lot of it is just, you see these people replaying these moments, whether it's somebody's specifically getting up and walking across the room or [clears throat] a lot of the times they'll see people standing on (or sitting on) horses just sort of standing there in the field, just--just chillin'.

Danielle: So my--my knowledge of this means that they're not intelligent, they can't interact with them, and they don't interact with you. In fact, they probably don't even see you. It is an imprint of emotion left, so this kind of definition within the metaphysical world implies that it's not actually the human soul; it's not actually a person who is dead, it is actually more like a film being replayed.

Melanie: Yes exactly. Exactly. And so, you know, when it comes to those kinds of hauntings I don't find them particularly---

[Children's screams]

Danielle: Ahh!

Melanie: Holy Jesus! I'm gonna close that window!

[both laugh]

Melanie: Lord have mercy!

Danielle: Hopefully people with earphones didn't suddenly think some child was screaming in their ears.

Melanie: It's my own ghost child...so when it comes to residual hauntings, I don't find them particularly spooky because, again they're, yeah, they're unintelligent, they don't have a motive or instinct or reason; they just are replaying.

Danielle: Mm-hmm. I think and also, by its own definition, it's not proof of an afterlife.

Melanie: Absolutely! Absolutely! Yeah, they're--they're not so much ghosts to me as like, yeah, holograms, imprints.

Danielle: Yeah. 

Melanie: But one thing I thought was really interesting at Gettysburg is people getting wafts of phantom scents of mint or vanilla. And they'll come out of nowhere.

Danielle: Vanilla?

Melanie: Vanilla because, back then, back in the day, after the war, you know, the streets are piled up with bodies, just--just piled up in the middle of Pennsylvania's summer which, I gotta tell ya, it's hot. Not only is it hot, it's humid. So bodies were swelling to twice their size and they were just sitting in the streets. But it still had to function as a city, so people would have to walk through these streets, and they would douse their handkerchiefs with peppermint oil or vanilla oil to try and mask the smell.

Danielle: Oh, I'd definitely be a peppermint, because, if I was smelling the rotting corpses of the dead and vanilla, it'd be like that sickly sweet...oh no, mint for me, definitely mint.

Melanie: It would put you off [unintelligible] forever

Danielle: Yeah, seriously.

Melanie: But yeah, I think--I think that's interesting, especially because, you know, it's not that mint isn't native to it, but when you get just a waft from out of nowhere, and it's gone within a second, I mean, that's--that's a little bit more telling than sort of been like 'well, no, there's probably people just growing mint all over the place' no, it's a strong, concentrated smell.

Danielle: And people in Gettysburg still get whiffs of that?

Melanie: Oh yeah. Oh yeah, it--it's just, to them, it's just sort of what it's like there now. But people who go to visit, they'll be walking and they'll smell, like, you know, just regular street, they'll smell flowers, they'll smell the baker, and all of a sudden just a bomb of menthol in your nostrils.

Danielle: It's interesting that it's that and not the smell of rotting corpses.

Melanie: That's what I thought, too! Why not the smell of corpses? I mean, you'd think that would be more predominant, but I think because the intention, there's that very strong intention of, you know, masking this smell or--or even, because mint was also believed to help prevent disease and decay, it was sort of like also as a medicinal buffer from the dead? I think the fear from--from...while inhaling such a scent is what left its imprint rather than the whiff of the dead bodies.

Danielle: Okay, okay. Plus, if you smelled what you thought was dead bodies, you possibly just misinterpret it as the drains? [laughs] Who knows?

Melanie: There's that, too.

Danielle: I don't know. Anyway, carry on.

[Both laugh]

Danielle: I find smells very hard to believe because, like you said leading up to it, it can just easily be coming from someone who's growing some mint in their back garden or, you know, the smell of some concentrated vanilla isn't that unusual in the 21st Century with cupcake shops and doughnuts and stuff. So, you know, if it was something like, you know, really unique, like the smell of a very particular cigar or something like that, maybe I'd be a little bit more intrigued, but mint and vanilla, to me, I could write straight off. Poof! Those are common smells.

Melanie: And--and, I was willing to write it off too until I was reading the accounts of people. It's like, no, it's not just a subtle mint smell, it's like, it's like being chloroformed with mint, just...

Danielle: All right.

Melanie: You know, really strong, strong whiff. [with a lisp] So that's what I got for Gettysburg. [back to normal speech] There's--there's so many. God, the amount of people that died is just insane. Next one I wrote out was Little Bighorn. Do you know much about that?

Danielle: Native American battle...was that...I'm going to sound really ignorant...west coast?

Melanie: So Little Bighorn...shit, I don't think I even wrote down where it fucking was.

[Both laugh]

Danielle: The Matterhorn is in California? And that, maybe that's what I'm mixing it up with.

Melanie: So the battle of Little Bighorn took place somewhere very important...

[both laugh]

Danielle: Over there.

Melanie: Over there. And there was a whole bunch of tribes involved, and that was basically one of Custer's last battles. It was his last battle. There we have the Sioux nations, Hunkpapa Lakota, Sans Arc, Blackfoot tribes, whole bunch fought against Custer's 7th Cavalry. On January 25th, 1876, most of the native warriors survived, but almost every single one of the troops that went into battle died. There was a rumor or a legend or a myth that the only soldier to come out of there alive was the horse named Comanche.

Danielle: On the American side?

Melanie: On the American side. Well, I guess they're all Americans. So Custer went over there with 600 troops. Only 300 entered the battle. Sitting Bull gathered his warriors and ensured the safety of women and children, while Crazy Horse left with a large force to attack. Custer was quickly defeated. Including Custer, over 260 troops of the 300 died. The hauntings again seem to be residual, but they do seem to be a little bit more intense. And I think a lot of that comes from either the Native Americans' connection to the land itself, I think it just has a deeper significance to them. But most of  them, again, it's residual. Warriors on horses just surveying the field. Occasionally believed to see some of the federal soldiers looking for their limbs.

Danielle: Nice. 

Melanie: Which I found this interesting.

Danielle: How do we know they're looking for their limbs?

Melanie: Probably just that lost look and that one arm reaching...'it's gotta be here somewhere.'

Danielle: Someone hopping along and saying 'has anyone seen my foot?'

[Both laugh]

Danielle: 'My country for a foot!'

Melanie: [laughs] And then from there I have cryptids. So I want to hear what you've got before I go into cryptids.

Danielle: Cryptids on battlefields.

Melanie: Mhmm.

Danielle: Melanie told me that she was going to cover the continent of the USA, Northern America. Or, did you go into South America? Because you did just say continent. 

Melanie: I did not. I'm a big fibber. I was pretty strictly on my end...

Danielle: Right, that's fine, that's fine because, I did--I did a couple. You can tell me whether you want to hear both of them at the same time or one at a time. But the first one I did was one called the Battle at Culloden Moor. Or [repeats name slightly differently] I don't want to sound like I'm doing the Scottish accent, but it's in Scotland. And it's up in the Highlands. It was during the Jacobite rebellions. So, for those over the pond that don't know, the Scottish really don't like the English, and at every opportunity have fought tooth and nail to not be part of English sovereignty, if you will. You'll still hear about that today. They really don't like it. The Jacobites were basically these, sort of, people of the Highlands of Scotland who did not want to be a part of the English Kingdom, but the king was pretty adamant that they should better bend the knee kind of thing. So it's up in the Highlands, near Inverness, so if you wanted to take a look for it, it's in a lovely little place which is on the crook[?] of the Moray Firth which is a part of the North Sea that goes into Scotland. Lovely part of the country. Never been. On me list. It took place in 1746. It's the last battle of the Jacobite rebellion. They've been fighting for 31 years, so this was a long time coming.

Melanie: Good grief.

Danielle: It was horrific, it was bloody; you can imagine, we're still using swords and, you know, stabby things at this point.

Melanie: Pointy sticks.

Danielle: Pointy sticks, throwing shit, stones, all that horrible stuff. And, unfortunately, it's the infamous death of Bonnie Prince Charlie, and loads of his followers. I'm not going to get into why he was called Bonnie Prince Charlie, I will let you imagine why the Scots call him Bonnie Prince. I'm sure it won't take you very long to work it out. It also lasted less than an hour. I mean, they were annihilated, and it was the end of the Jacobite rebellion, and the king was victorious in the end. So not only were they horrendously defeated, apparently their suffering didn't end at the end of the battle because they still haunt the battlefield to this day, so people say, anyway. Every year on April 16, which is the anniversary of the battle, people see, I guess, a residual haunting of a reenactment of this battle. So...I'll get more into that bit in a bit but, um, people have apparently seen this reenactment, but it gets funny. But I'll tell you about this afterwards because I want to tell you this--this story about these two old ladies because this is the cutest ghost story I've ever heard.

Melanie: Nice. 

Danielle: So, right, I like it because it works backwards, and to me, that is more logical than when somebody's told something's haunted and then sees a ghost.

Melanie: Mm-hmm. 

Danielle: Other way around. So, I will show you this. These two old dears show up at a National Trust for Scotland site. National Trust for Scotland, basically, we put up an office in a nice little Museum next to historical buildings and places of historical interest and charge people to get into it to keep and maintain it because we love that shit. On a bank holiday weekend, we'll go to a castle, go through the cafe, go sit down in the castle, have a look around, come out, go through the gift shop and have another brew. That is a bank holiday weekend to the tee.

Melanie: Nice

Danielle: Literally tea. Anyway, so these two old dears go to this National Trust of Scotland site, and they asked if they could see a map which would show the route for this infamous Jacobite retreat. Now, the bit that I didn't talk about before was that, prior to the actual battle, there had been a failed surprise attack by the Jacobites. So, they had split into two and decided to ambush the Duke of Cumberland, which was the son of the king at the time (and nicknamed The Butcher) who they were going to be battling at some point or another, but they split into two to decide to go and surprise attack them. One of the armies, one side of the army, decided that it was just not workable, we're going home...well back to the camp, and went back. And that was about 2:00 a.m. in the morning. Well, the other half didn't get the message until nearly daybreak, when they were literally on top of Cumberland's camp, was, like, literally about to attack as far as I understand it, and then someone was like 'no! call it off!' so they all had to run. So this lady knew about this retreat, but she wanted to see the route of it, so she and her friend were looking at this map, and the--the helpful people in the gift shop at the National Trust were showing them the route that the--the retreats took (because we did take very good notes, I guess; someone took the time to write it down). So they're looking at this, and then the woman goes 'ah! there's my house!' So she sees on the route of the retreat that it runs right through her back garden. And she turns to her--her best friend, or old lady friend over there, and goes 'see! see! I told you! I told you!' Apparently, about five times over the last ten years, she'd been woken up in the early hours of the morning to the sounds of, very distinctly, soldiers running through her garden. Now, I don't know what soldiers running through a garden sounds like, but I imagine it probably gives off a little bit at a different aura, difference aural sound... 

Melanie: Yeah. 

Danielle: Transmission or whatever than your average running man? But she says that it sounds like soldiers. So she--she'd run up to the window to see, what the heck, who's running through her garden. And then she wouldn't see anything, but she'd still be able to hear them. And she was like 'I've always heard soldiers running through my garden.' and--and so this kind of gave her a little bit of validity in that the route of the retreat most likely went through her garden. So she is pretty convinced that she's heard the residual sounds of the Jacobites in retreat, which is quite interesting. Because it works backwards, I'm more likely to believe an old lady trying to prove herself right (because I know how that is) than somebody that goes somewhere that is known to be haunted and saying 'oh I saw a specter.' Well, you were expecting to see it so you're gonna see something. That's the other way around, it's a little bit more believable.

Melanie: Exactly.

Danielle: And the actual battlefield itself...I forgot what it's called already...Culloden, Culloden Moor, the actual battlefield itself has your typical array of ghosty apparitions. Mostly sounds: war cries, clashing swords, screaming in agony, those sorts of things. Especially around the anniversary of the event itself. So this is what I'm gonna get a little bit cynical because, interestingly enough, the author of the Outlander novels, name's Diana Gabaldon, have you heard of Outlander? 

Melanie: Yes.

Danielle: Yeah. So the writer of these novels, right when she was releasing a book which happens to be talking about star-crossed lovers who were separated by this very specific battle, came out to say that she's been to the battlefield, and she was brought to tears by the feeling of dread and sadness of the--of the souls that were on the battlefield. So it was pretty highly, not highly but, you know, it was put in all the press and all the tabloids and everything about how she feels it was so much...she's just...knows it's haunted. She just knew, Melanie, when she went; she knew it may be haunted by all these souls. ‘Buy my book! It's so haunted, it's so, you know, it's such a horrible thing. Buy my book.’ So that happened.

Melanie: [laughs]

Danielle: Some other stuff that's happened: locals and tourists say that they are visions of unearthly specters over the graves of the Jacobites. Basically, the Jacobites were buried in mass graves right in the battlefield.

Melanie: Mass graves are the worst.

Danielle: Yeah there's loads of the burial mounds, there's loads of things like that around the battleground, they're just chucked in. One person claimed  to have seen a tartan-clad man lay maimed and bloodied on the ground on the moor. So I wanted to look at see if the Jacobites would have actually worn tartan, but then I forgot and didn't. There's this whole thing about how tartan is associated with the Scots...Scottish. Ooh, they don't like, sorry with the Scots, Scottish...Scots.

Melanie: Stop offending people. 

Danielle: I know, I just, you don't say Scotch, you say Scots. There's a whole thing about how the certain tartans weren't actually around until hundreds of years later and things like that, so I meant to go and have a look if it was even likely that someone in this battle would have been wearing tartan, but I didn't. I'm sorry...

Melanie: We'll never know!

Danielle: But that's the one thing I'm like, right, okay so if you're going to say that something so specific that they're wearing tartan, I'm gonna go find out if it was even likely that a Jacobite was wearing tartan, but I'll get into that another time. But the thing that the actual site themselves claim is that birds do not go near it. That is something that can be verified. So apparently birds don't go near the battlefield, and they certainly don't sing. So if they are passing by, or hopping along, they won't sing while they're at the battlefield. Now that is something the site itself, like, the sort of touristy bit of the site claims - there's no birdsong so that's definitely something that I'd like to explore further. that is, literally, you just have to go there and stand there, and if you don't hear any birds, you go 'huh, no birds. That is weird.' But if I hear a bird, then I'm gonna be like 'well that's obviously BS.' So... 

Melanie: Bullshit!

Danielle: Yeah. So with this sort of battlefield ghosts, I mean, it was--it was horrendous and it was devastating for Highlanders. It's really gotta sting; this was their defeat. So I feel like these legends just ensure that the story of the battle continues. And that people don't forget how shit and nasty the English can be. So I don't blame them; ghost stories are a perfect way to do this. But I can't take away from peoples’...I can't take away peoples’, like, personal experiences. So I'm not pooh-poohing anyone that feels like they have actually seen something or heard something on any scale because I wouldn't be so bold as to say that I'm right and they're wrong. But it just seems too perfect for me that a place where the Scottish would want people to remember a battle that they want people to be pissed off about, you know, the best way to do that is to build a legend around it. So the legend around it is that it's incredibly haunted

Melanie: Yeah.

Danielle: So it's a really good way to transmit a cautionary tale, you know, about how shit the English are. You'd think we'd learn but, you know...and that was Culloden Moor, anyway. Do you want me to do my other one?

Melanie: Yeah, do it!

Danielle: The second one that I thought I'd do...I knew you'd have to do Civil War, if you were doing the US; that's the only war you fought on your own soil. Unless you did Pearl Harbor, which I don't really know if counts as a battlefield, really.

Melanie: Right?

Danielle: It's a location of war, but it's, you know, like warfare but not necessarily battlefield. It was a bit one-sided.

Melanie: Yeah, a battlefield is where two forces are clashing.

Danielle: So I thought that I would sort of educate, in a way, your side of the pond in that we also had a civil war. So we have, you know, we have had a civil war was between the Parliamentarians and the Royalists, because there was a time in our history where the kings and queens of the Royals were not looked upon favorably by a certain sector of the population. They were taking the piss and so Parliamentarians, people that wanted to have a more democratic - I'm gonna say that with a pinch of salt because it was…it was a religious revolution more than it was a political one. And one of the greatest battles of the Civil War took place in 1642 in Warwickshire. It was called the Battle of Edgehill. It was, as you can imagine, pretty horrendous; thousands died and it ended up being strategically moot because both sides lost about the same amount of people. It added no strategic advantage to one side or the other, and the war continued, and it didn't seem to really have much of an effect other than the fact that they all had less people. But they ALL had less people so, you know, it didn't leave anyone with any advantage, so it was kind of a bit, you know, shittily planned battle.

Melanie: Yeah, pointless.

Danielle: Yeah. The funny thing about this particular haunting is that it happens almost immediately. So, you know, you've usually got a little bit of time between when a tragedy occurs and you start seeing ghosts.

Melanie: Yeah.

Danielle: Well, this literally happens less than two months later. So it happens in about November, that was (I’m trying to remember now) October, at the end of October, in 1642, and just before Christmas, a shepherd reported seeing a reenactment of the battle. But not just, you know, on the ground, like your typical reenactment. Up in the sky! Above the battlefield. Right, so you could hear the clashes of armor, cries of the dying, screams, voices, even horses up in the sky. So he runs and he tells his priest like ‘I just saw this great battle in the sky over the battlefield at Edgehill.’ And what does the priest say, do you think?

Melanie: That he's drunk.

Danielle: No. ‘I saw it, too!’

Melanie: Oh, shit.

Danielle: The priest tells him ‘I saw it too! I thought I was going mad!’ Now, I don't think if he said that bit but he said ‘I saw it, too’. And over the next few days, apparently, more and more locals reported to seeing the phantom battle in the sky. So much so that they produced a pamphlet in 1643 (so this is the next year) called A Great Wonder in Heaven. And it detailed all the different peoples’ accounts of this battle.

Melanie: Yeah.

Danielle: Right. So this little, you know, town who's made this pamphlet about this haunted battlefield, and the king finds out, and he's very intrigued. So he sends his, he sends his bros down to see what the fuck is going on, right? So it's in Warwickshire, so it's not that far. He sends him up from London. And, lo and behold, his cronies see the phantoms at the battlefield, too! Not only did they see this phantom battle going on in the sky, but they could recognize people who were in it. This only happened two months previous. Their comrades up there, and I can actually see, apparently, their friends and their, you know, their confidants up in the sky.

Melanie: Oh no, it’s Jeff, he's getting stabbed! Run, Jeff!

Danielle: Exactly. There's one particularly interesting one which was the king’s standard bearer. And for those of you don't know what a standard bearer is, it's the person that is tasked with holding the flag that has the standard of the king on it. So they don't actually fight, they're not soldiers, but they're usually highly…they were soldiers, and usually are very highly decorated, but their role on the battlefield is not to take part in the battle but to hold the standard. And if the standard falls into the hands of the other side, it's kind of like they win the battle. It's kind of like capture the flag.

Melanie: Wow…

Danielle: [laughs] So I don't think that people would just, like, surrender if the other side had the flag, I think people would keep fighting, but it's kind of like symbolic? If the other side has your standard, then it's like ‘oh shit, we're losing!’ So, you know, it could either serve as motivation to fight a little harder or it could make you feel despair that you're losing. It depends on your predisposition

Melanie: I would imagine they kept those guys at the back, right? They had to work their way through?

Danielle: I mean, it would usually be quite close to the king, so the king will be pretty heavily protected. Or, you know, like the commander of the particular rank…you know, the most highly ranked person there because you'd have to have a standard bearer there to sort of decree so everybody knew whose side was who, I guess. I'm not an expert on these things, but there's always somebody holding a standard. I think that it shows up in Game of Thrones at some point, so if you guys wanted…that really did happen, people did really hold flags. But this guy, Sir Edmund Verney, was the standard bearer for this battle and had gallantly refused to let go of the standard when it was being, like, yanked from him by the other side. So they chopped off his hand and his arm to get at the standard and then got it. So, apparently, these guys who had come down or up from London to have a look, saw their friend Sir Edmund Verney getting his hand lobbed off and the standard taken. PSI…is it PSI? Side note: the Royalists do get the standard back, and, apparently, they get it back and his hand was still clasping onto the pole. What a guy! Still, you know, and the Parliamentarians hadn't, you know, tried to rip it off. It was time-consuming, I guess. So apparently when they got the standard back, his hand was still attached. So this guy was pretty well thought of. There's this sort of…he's almost martyred, if you will. The standard bearer of the King, ‘til his dying breath, held the standard and had to have his arm cut off before he would be able to have it pried from his hands, right? So, can you say propaganda with me?

Melanie: Yeah.

Danielle: So these people that have come up from the king just happen to see the hero of the battle, if you will, Sir Edmund Verney, getting his hand lobbed off and the--the standard being yoinked. So I'm not saying the story’s bullshit or anything, but [laughs].

Melanie: I don't know, watching the whole battle in the sky sounds pretty realistic to me.

Danielle: I just mean that their--their particular account of their friend Sir Eddie there. So yeah, but it certainly makes for interesting telling to the king when they get back, which they do, more on that later. So the villagers and, I imagine the priest, who in no way makes any money from this, wink wink, decide to give all the corpses a proper Christian burial. So they get the proper rite, it's the Christian rites, as they're being…because obviously they've just been kind of dumped in this field. It was only two months ago; some of them were probably still sticking out of the ground. And apparently, for the time being, the great ghost battle in the sky stopped. So apparently burying them in Christian graves by the priest and getting all of their last rites, apparently settled their souls for a time. 

Melanie: That's usually the way to do it.

Danielle: Yeah, well, it seems to be pretty consistent in these kind of stories that they need some kind of resolution, unfinished business, if you will. 

Melanie: Yeah.

Danielle: Contradictory to this, people still report to hear shit to this day. So, at the time, they were quite happy with settling, you know, settling it and saying, ‘Listen we gave them all Christian burials and everything went away.’ Well that's very good Christian propaganda, end of story, right? Well, as time has gone on, people have latched on to the ghost story a little bit more. And the whole thing about God Almighty letting them all settle at the end, you know, as long as they've got their rites? That's finished, we don't believe that anymore, do we? So people still report to hear shit like screams, cannon fire, hooves galloping, and battle cries on the site, especially around the anniversary. Like a week or so before a fair or a carnival or something that doesn’t need press or publicity or anything. Suddenly people will start hearing shit and it gets into the local paper and at the bottom of it might seem like ‘oh we're having a carnival!’ I'm not cynical or anything…

[Both laugh]

Danielle: But it's infamously haunted, this place, Edgehill. Interestingly, and this is my last little fact on this, because this is--this is the most fun fact for me because of all the…both these stories I can easily dismiss as…the first one was Scottish making up legends to try to, you know, demonstrate how shit the English are, and then this one clearly a religious one because the Civil War was a religious war. But this, this is funny because this is the historical impact that this ghost story's had on our country. Because the king sent this official committee, if you will, to go and investigate this? Their account is held in the public records office.

Melanie: Nice.

Danielle: So it is the only officially recognized phantom battlefield in Britain. In fact, any ghosts whatsoever. It is an officially recognized haunted location according to the public records office because the king sent an official group of people to go and get an account. They wrote it all down, it went into the public records, eventually into the archives. So, legally, it’s haunted.

Melanie: Yeah, totally real. That’s awesome.

[both laugh]

Danielle: I don’t know if there’s any other legally, you know, officially recognized haunted places. I think things that are of historical interest, the haunting will be included in that. But in this particular case, the haunting is the record.

Melanie: Wow, that’s awesome.

Danielle: I thought that was pretty cool. I actually tried to find the official document within the public records, but it's not that easy to track down because it's not really called like the public records office anymore, it's like the National Archives. And they haven't digitized everything yet. So it's there, but I’d have to actually go to London and go through the National Archives and find it.

Melanie: If you ever do that, you could put that in the notes on our sites.

Danielle: I wanted to quote it. I wanted to quote it, I wanted to read it and be able to tell you what these dudes actually said. Like, ‘Lo, before me ‘twas the face of Sir Edmund, my friend.’ [laughs] I wanted to hear what he actually had to say. Anyway, so those are my battlefields.

Melanie: All right. Well then, in our last few minutes, let me just get in a cryptid and a yokai.

Danielle: All right.

Melanie: So the one cryptid that I did want to bring up is [says ominously] Old Green Eyes.

Danielle: Okay.

Melanie: So Old Green Eyes, he appeared...it's believed that he appeared before the battle but he really became popular around the time of the Battle of Chickamauga. And I have some details on that. It's the second bloodiest battle of the Civil War, second only to the Battle of Gettysburg. A shit ton of people died…where is me notes? Ope, there it is. Sorry.

Danielle: Organized as ever!

Melanie: Yeah, right? So the Battle of Chickamauga took care took place in Catoosa City in Georgia. It was a two day long battle. 3,969 people died. And right after that, even during the battle, it was said that the--the smell of blood, the screaming, the devastation…so much blood was spilled that a creature of great malice was drawn to the devastation. Most people believe it's a ghoul. It's not so much a ghost as a creature that stands about six to seven feet tall, humanlike. Some people say it's got long black hair and bright green, glowing eyes. They kind of, they have that--that green that almost turns orange; that shift of, like, night vision, like in a wolf.

Danielle: Like 1990s, you know, Fresh Prince hats.

Melanie: [laughs] Yes. But he has a huge deformed jaw and terrifying fangs (some people say fangs and some people say tusks) protruding. And he came to eat the dead. I wanted to, I didn't have enough time, but I wanted to see if there was any sort of, you know, native lore on a creature like that that might have been around that area. I'm still going to research that and, if I can come up with some facts, then I'm gonna throw that on one of our pages because I thought it was really interesting.

Danielle: Was it in Virginia again? 

Melanie: Georgia, I believe. [Sound of notes shuffling] Yes, Georgia. And he's been seen over and over and over again. There was this one telling that there was this guy who was like a park ranger, and he'd seen it a good couple times. I meant to write down his name. I think it was Tidds or Timmons or Tiddly. [Laughs]

Danielle: TT, my friend!

Melanie: The park where this battle took place, it's kind of like Lovers Lane. It's a good makeout spot for a lot of people, and there have been numerous people that felt, like, while they were making out, all of a sudden this hot breath on the back of their neck.

Danielle: That’s very romantic.

Melanie: Then they turn around and they'll just see these big, bright green eyes. Then, of course, [clap sound] they fucking book. Sorry about my loud clapping. And then they fucking book. And this one park ranger had seen him a good few times. And it's interesting that, as the years progressed, the ghoul progressed. So whereas before he was a mostly naked kind of ghoul, but some people will see him now and they see him with a top hat or like a long black coat. And back in the 60s or…60s? I want to say 60s or 70s. No. Yes. One of them have this really racist viewing of it. They saw this tall…with gold green eyes and had the six feet tall and a big white head as if it was hair was wrapped up in something. And the person who walked upon it seeing it, seeing this giant, like, not hairy but human-like thing but so dark in the shadows but this big white thing on their head, they hear a baby crying, and they go to go approach them and, you know, say ‘what--what was going on? Can--can we help?’ and they described it as looking like an African American with their head wrapped up in a towel and then said in a big burly deep voice [speaks in growly voice] ‘just leave me alone’.

Danielle: Sounds like a Voodoo demon. I'm trying to remember. There's lots of fun folklore about particular, um, I think he's the sort of Voodoo version of death or, you know, like the Grim Reaper type of thing. Sounds a bit like him. I'm trying to remember what he's called.

Melanie: Oh, I know it.

Danielle: He’s sort of like half zombie half, you know, beast humanoid with the green theme is running through that one as well, but he's got white face paint on. He's definitely a black man with the top hat.

Melanie: I know his name. I have it in my flipping head.

Danielle: I know, it’s so bugging me.

Melanie: It’s like Big Daddy Saminy...Samily? Sam…something. Shit.

Danielle: We’ll remember like ten seconds after we finish this.

Melanie: Yeah.

Danielle: But Big Green sounds a lot like that legend.

Melanie: Old Green Eyes evolved and I think probably, I think initially it was just something that somebody was seeing when they were really, really terrified though. All of this monstrosity is going on, a monster in the mix really doesn't seem that out of place right now. But…

Danielle: So people on the battlefield themselves reported to seeing this thing before they went into battle?

Melanie: Yeah or during, in the middle of battle.

Danielle: Ooooh.

Melanie: Yeah. That was interesting. So some people had seen it or had been talking about it before the battle. But none of the soldiers who were there knew anything about it at all. They all of a sudden just see this--this tall huge creature with this massively deformed jaw just, like, slinking out from the woods to grab a corpse and pull it back in to eat it.

Danielle: Could it not possibly be an animal, but it's all fucked up and mangy looking because there's a war going on?

Melanie: Absolutely, especially because of the--the green eyes. And some people say that the green eyes turned from green to orange so it had that nighttime reflective much like a wolf, I think like that. But I did think that was neat with the whole, like, the tusks and the deformed jaw, I think it's really terrifying. Some of the images I found were downright spooky. And I love a good monster so I--I'm all about Old Green Eyes. But, over time, I think that it was interesting that he sort of evolved to just sort of be this like racist creature. 

Danielle: Yeah, it’s a bit odd, that’s very telling.

Melanie: Yes, and that's how humans are, you know? We latch onto a story, and we sort of evolve it with--with us. And then my last thing I want to mention is my yokai because, with any topic, there's a yokai for that. My yokai is…I went with the Kosenjōbi which is a demon fire. It's made from the blood of warriors and animals that died in battle. The blood soaks into the earth and then the Kosenjōbi rises from the--the blood-soaked earth into the air at night, creating fiery shapes or orbs. They occasionally take the form of fallen warriors or animals, but mostly it just sees just balls of flame. And that's really predominant a lot of Japanese, like, mythology. Same thing with Chinese mythology, too. They do the big flaming balls of hate, fear, children, all kinds of things. But these ones are specific to battlefields. It’s said they, once again, they wander around the fields looking for their missing body parts. They're harmless but spooky.

Danielle: See, to me, oh you know the whole thing, everything that we've both researched, that all of it is not happy, right? And it’s never going to be happy when you're researching the ghosts of fallen soldiers. But these particular stories have a very clear message. All of them have a clear message: that war and battles and death like this is just bullshit. It's just...shit, it's shit; it creates horrible monsters, it creates balls of flame that could possibly represent like anger and hatred. You know the great sort of battles that are being reenacted with our friends dying over and over and over again, all of it has a very...although you can sort of twist it and mold it to your own narrative as much as you want. Overwhelmingly the, you know, without any doubt, going into it and coming out of it, this topic was going to come out. The moral of the story is: war is bad, m’kay?

Melanie: War sucks.

Danielle: War sucks. So yeah, any story that comes out of a battlefield, anything like that, I'm going to be a little, I suppose, I'm very skeptical and cynical of it, obviously. But I am NOT cynical of the message that is being…so if in Japanese culture they believe in this fiery, you know, beast if…sorry in this fiery yokai. If in Georgia they believe in this, you know, cannibalistic man-pig thing that comes and devours these bodies of the dead and--and--and mine as well, it just, you know, it's sad. It's sad that we don't listen to these things and…or at least that we manipulated the actual stories of the event to fit this kind of weird spooky side story and not actually tell the true stories or what actually…I'm sorry, I'm getting a little preachy, but I don't really like war.

[Both laugh]

Melanie: War, not so much fun.

Danielle: No, it's a little bit depressing. Because, after all of this, like, we've had a laugh and we've added this or we’ve added that, but these people really did actually exist at one point and they were killed horrendously. So just thought I'd end our little topic there, just like, sorry guys, you know...shit, no, sorry guys, sorry.

Melanie: I wanted to go into the stories of what generals took what where and--and all those details but there's so much and war, it's such a huge, huge topic that I unfortunately went the lame route of just, like, there was a battle and people died there. It was, you know, they had names they--they had families and the amount of places that General E Lee apparently haunts is hysterical. 

Danielle: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I imagine. I think I've seen a few documentaries because allegedly the spirit of, you know, you’re going ‘yeah well isn't he meant to be haunting that other place?’ Like, he gets around.

Melanie: You know he seriously haunts, like, 60 different places.

Danielle: If you could, would you multi-haunt? Like, if you were a ghost and you could go on holiday and haunt loads of different places, wouldn't you? 

Melanie: Probably.

Danielle: Yeah! You wouldn’t want to be in the same spot all the time.

Melanie: You’re, like, stuck here, you might as well…I'm gonna haunt Disneyland. Was never there, but I’m gonna do it.

Danielle: I'm gonna latch on to this guy because this accent does not sound familiar, and I want to know where it goes.

Melanie: Hey, where does he come from?

Danielle: [in slight southern accent] Oh Spain! I’ve never been here before!

Melanie: [in southern accent] This is neat!

Danielle: That was my really bad southern accent, but I tried not to do it over the top. [laughs] Okay, so, well, that was a lot of shit there for the Zombie Fishbowl. 

Melanie: Indeed it was. I think we did some stuff. 

Danielle: Stuff definitely happened.

Melanie: Definitely.

[Both laugh]

Danielle: And if, after all that stuff, you enjoyed it and want to listen to us again for some reason, please, please, please subscribe. And, if you could, rate and review us, that would be awesome.

Melanie: And tell your friends. 

Danielle: Yes please! You can also follow us on Twitter and Instagram and join our Facebook page all under Zombie Fishbowl Podcast. It's dead easy.

Melanie: And if you want to contact us to tell us where we're wrong about something, which I'm sure there's plenty of that, and want to request a topic to be added to the random topic picker, you can email us at Zombie…hold on, my brain, zombiefishbowlpodcast@gmail.com. 

Danielle: No hate mail, though.

Melanie: Speak for yourself. [evil laugh]

Danielle: All right. Thank you so much for listening to our little podcast. If we, sorry, we really want to do well, so any feedback would be received with much, much love and humility. Also, if you want my list of sources or Melanie’s list of sources at any point, give us a shout and we'll give you the details. I'll keep track of any scientific journals and stuff whenever I mention them, which I didn't this episode. It was a bit tricky to shoehorn in, but I'll try harder next time

Melanie: Well that just leaves us to say goodbye and thank you.

Danielle: And I will leave you with a quote by one of the greatest minds of the 20th century: ‘In critical moments, men see exactly what they wish to see.’

Melanie: Danielle, is that a Spock quote?

Danielle: Yes.

Melanie: For fuck's sake. 

[Laughter] 

Danielle: Bye!

Melanie: Wait! We need to pick a topic!

Danielle: Oh shit! I forgot!

[Laughter]

Danielle: Right, okay. I'll pick a topic right now. I'm going to the random topic picker. [Singing] Random topic picker, random topic picker, pick a random topic, I’m a topic random picker.

[Laughter]

Melanie: That was solid!

Danielle: You want to know our next topic?

Melanie: Yes.

Danielle: Mummies!

Melanie: Oh, that's exciting! 

Danielle: Yes. 

Melanie: And on that note, bye!

Danielle: Bye!

[Laughter]

[Outro music]

[flowerforaheart]

i got tagged to answer these 92 questions by @ciaoloueh, @soulmatesandfate, @teamnouis, @justlookatthehearteyes, @pinkislouder and @istealifly. thank you friends mqldskfj <3

Rules: Once you are tagged you are supposed to write 92 truths about yourself. At the end, choose 25 people to tag!

THE LAST 1. Drink: coffee

2. Phone call: my mum. i don’t remember when that was, i don’t call a lot

3. Text message: saying goodnight to Leonie

4. Song you listened to: Formation by Beyoncé. i’ve been really into lemonade again lately

5. Time you cried: last night at the end of the fellowship of the ring

HAVE YOU EVER... 6. Dated someone twice: the question could be ‘dated someone once’ and the answer would still be no rip

7. Been cheated on: no

8. Kissed someone and regretted it: also no

9. Lost someone special: yes

10. Been depressed: i don’t think so

11. Gotten drunk and thrown up: lol yeah but that was more bc my stomach was too full or bc it can’t handle booze mixed with greasy things

LIST 3 FAVORITE COLOURS 12. old pink

13. the blue of the sky on a clear day

14. the inside of a dark cherry

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU 15. Made new friends: i have

16. Fallen out of love: nope

17. Laughed until you cried: qmldjf yes

18. Found out someone was talking about you: yes, but not necessarily in a bad way

19. Met someone who changed you: more like.... influenced me in a positive way

20. Found out who your true friends were: i feel like i kinda knew that already, but it’s nice to realise that some people are really actually going to stick around

21. Kissed someone on your Facebook list: no

22. How many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: the majority of them, i guess

23. Do you have any pets: well we STILL have like four fish who refuse to die. if anyone wants any fish, you know where to find me

24. Do you want to change your name: hell no

25. What did you do for your last birthday: i took the ferry to Zanzibar. yeah. we also went out for indian

26. What time did you wake up: like 8:45 and then again at 10:30

27. What were you doing at midnight last night: watching the fellowship of the ring

28. Name something you cannot wait for: for my results to go online later today so i finally know how i did and also for seeing leonie. tomorrow. wtf

29. When was the last time you saw your mother: before she went out for dinner last night

30. What is one thing you wish you could change about your life: i’d like to have a group of close friends i could go to festivals with and go skiing with. *shrugs*

31. What are you listening to right now: the rain 

32. Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: yup

33. Something that is getting on your nerves: rn? the fact that my results only go online at 5:30 in the afternoon. just give them to me already

34. Most visited website: tumblr

35. Elementary: well....

36. High school: i always had one or two close friends so it was ok

37. College/university: no matter how much i whine about the workload, going to uni has changed me for the better

38. Hair colour: blonde with like a few natural highlights mqsdfj

39. Long or short hair: mine’s long-ish

40. Do you have a crush on someone: i might

41. What do you like about yourself: that i’m hardworking when it comes to school

42. Piercings: i’ve only gotten my ears pierced

43. Blood type: it’s A but i can literally never remember if it’s + or -. pretty sure it’s + but don’t take my word for it

44. Nickname: make any variation of my name and there’s probably someone who calls me that

45. Relationship status: single

46. Zodiac sign: libra

47. Pronouns: she/her

48. Favourite TV show: home and away even though the amount of drama passed the level of realistic approximately twenty years ago, Orphan Black, Spartacus, Sense8

49. Tattoos: none yet

50. Right or left hand: LEFT

FIRST 51. Surgery: when i broke my wrist by falling of a bouncy castle and they had to put a metal pin in it to make it right. my second surgery was when they had to take it out haha

52. Piercing: my ears

53. (why is there no 53)

54. Sport: gymnastics for preschoolers

55. Vacation: probably spain when i was ten months, unless my parents took me somewhere before that and i don’t know about it

56. Pair of trainers: i don’t know but i bet they were very fashionable

57. Eating: nothing

58. Drinking: nothing, but i’ve got some water here

59. I’m about to: have lunch when this is done and then try to write some more

60. Listening to: still the rain

61. Waiting for: idk, this to end so i can go make some lunch? mqlsdkf 92 questions is a lot ok

62. Want: good results

63. Get married: that’d be nice

64. Career: if i could actually make a career in linguistics that’d be really cool but i’m not holding my breath. i have a tendency of sabotaging myself somehow

YOUR TYPE... 65. Hugs or kisses: well i’ve got way more experience with hugs so let me say hugs for now

66. Lips or eyes: i’m someone who looks at lips before looking at eyes. that doesn’t mean i prefer them, but yeah

67. Shorter or taller: taller please

68. Older or younger: doesn’t really matter i think

69. (again, why is there no 69)

70. Nice arms or nice stomach: nice stomach?

71. Sensitive or loud: loud is nice, we need to be able to be crazy together. but some sensitivity too please

72. Hook up or relationship: relationship

73. Troublemaker or hesitant: a good mix of both? ....if that’s possible idk

HAVE YOU EVER... 74. Kissed a stranger: no

75. Drank hard liquor: yes

76. Lost glasses/contact lenses: only sunglasses

77. Turned someone down: yes

78. Sex on first date: no

79. Broken someone’s heart: not that i know of

80. Had your heart broken: nope

81. Been arrested: no

82. Cried when someone died: yes

83. Fallen for a friend: not legitimately fallen in love, but i liked him yes. in the end i’m glad nothing came of it though

DO YOU BELIEVE IN... 84. Yourself: in some ways

85. Miracles: i’d like to

86. Love at first sight: no, but i do believe you can immediately click with someone

87. Santa Claus: he isn’t really a big thing around here

88. Kiss on the first date: yeah, why not

89. Angels: i can’t make myself actually believe they exist

OTHER... 90. Current best friend’s name: Flore. for anyone who didn’t know this yet, no i’m not talking about myself

91. Eye colour: who even knows tbh. i feel like they’re a greenish grey most of the time, but in some light they also look bluer so idk

92. Favorite movie: sorry to disappoint but i don’t really have one

ok so i’m tagging some people i haven’t seen this from yet. if you have, i apologise. @parseltonguekinq, @bropalboyfriends, @reinventlou, @iamnotbeingsarcastic, @ot4andchill, @fuckinghatekissingyou and @wereamanbandnow <3

[kansascityhappenings]

Joe’s Weather Blog: Yes colder…but remember it’s December after all (SAT-12/2)

Good afternoon…the month of December is starting the way November ended…mild again and we’ve got a couple of more days of mild weather coming before we start to see changes…but it’s important to note that the changes are going to occur in a step down fashion…no it won’t be near 70° on Tuesday but it will still be in the 40s…which really is where it;’s supposed to be for this time of the year.

Forecast:

Tonight: Clear skies this evening with some clouds moving in towards daybreak…lows 40-45°

Sunday: Mostly cloudy, windy and warm with highs into the 60s. winds may gust to about 30 MPH

Monday: Warm in the morning with cooler air filtering in during the afternoon.. There may be some showers with the transition but I’m not expecting much in terms of rain totals…under 1/4″ if lucky. Highs will be in the 60s with clearing skies in the afternoon and temperatures dropping into the 50s later in the day…overall breezy conditions will persist.

Tuesday: Fair skies and more seasonable with highs in the 40s

Discussion:

It’s really amazing how things can flip around in the world of weather…it’s a rare month that stays cold from start to finish in the Plains…the weather changes too much around these parts and November showed that nicely. From the 1st through the 13th we were below average everyday…a carry over from October. Starting on the 14th though there were only 4 days below average for the rest of the month. Interestingly considering that cold start…and the milder finish…we still ended up more than a degree above average for the month overall.

One thing though didn’t change…the dryness. From the 1st of November through today, this is the 15th driest 11/1-12/2 in KC weather history going back to the 1880s. Sort of interesting…but then again Novembers around here can be dry. The thing is there are no significant storms with appreciable moisture coming our way for the next 10+ days or so, so aside from some minor rains and maybe even some minor (but perhaps impactful) lighter snows…not much overall moisture is likely.

Meanwhile until the colder air gets here…we’re going to stay mild>warm through Monday. Temperatures today are already well into the 50s…and for the next 2 days…60s are likely. The issue for the next two days though will be a return of some gulf moisture streaming northwards. As the air cools down tonight…the clouds will form to our south…and that cloud cover will come northwards Sunday. It may thin out at times…but a pretty gray day is likely. Looking at the surface map at noon…with temperatures shown in RED…it’s pretty mild to the south of here…lots of 60s and 70s down there (impressive for a noon map too).

If you look carefully…there is even a surface low pressure area…can you find it? Here’s a hint…look towards the Red Revier and look for the counter clockwise wind turning…the winds are denoted by the black lines. For example here in the KC area the winds are from the north right now…the opposite barbs show the winds from the south…for example down towards the Dallas, TX area.

So the mild weather stays with us through Monday at lunch or so…then the cold front comes into the area.

As we transition from mild to cooler air…there may be some rain out there…again it hopefully will knock down the dust a bit…a 1/4″ though would be welcome at this point for many areas although those may be high side totals…we’ll probably average less than that.

Now onto the colder weather…yes colder…but really let’s call it seasonable. Seasonable for December are highs in the 45° area and lows in the mid 20s. Tuesday’s highs should be in the mid 40s…so typical for December. Wednesday again will be in the mid 40s…again seasonable. So this is the step-down process that I referred to in the last blog although to be truthful I thought the step down process would take us lower.

The next step down comes on THU>FRI…highs likely to be in the 30s…again not really that unusual for this time of the year but about 10-15° below average. We may be somewhat chillier on Saturday too before perhaps moderating a bit afterwards.

I think what may be happening is that we never get the full blast of the coldest air coming down from Canada…that seems to be more shunted towards the wast of the KC region. Also there continues to be a rather large void of snowcover to the north of here as well. A lack of snow cover allows the colder air coming southwards to modify somewhat and lose it’s “edge” somewhat…so it takes the worst “bite” out of the cold.

One of the “tricks” to the forecast though might be the overnight lows. These will be contingent on clouds moving through and the direction of the wind. Since will be vulnerable to clippers coming down in the north or NW flow aloft…any time we’re ahead of a clipper we’ll see more of a westerly or SWesterly wind flow…this will keep temperatures from tanking. Absent of those two scenarios…we will see lows down to near 10° later in the week.

As far as the snow scenarios go…still not much to write home about. There may be a few flakes here or there later in the week with whatever passes on through the region but anything more than a dusting at this point is tough to come by with such limited moisture around the region.

The bottom line is that we’ll be vulnerable to these shots of colder air masses through the middle of the month. Odds are there will be some above average days the following week (the week of the 11th though so it’s not as if we’re locking into the cold air for a prolonged period of time.

For snow lovers though…the pattern is no good…and it won’t be for more than 10 days at least. Then when the pattern relaxes and we’re subject to disturbances coming to us from the west..we’ll probably be losing the colder air needed. That is speculation but the next 10+ days don’t look favorable for snow of significance. We’ll have to watch these clippers though coming southwards.

IF you want snow…the Great Lakes will see significant lake effect snows crank up…odds are they’ll be measuring the snow by the yard stick in some of the more favored areas.

So the bottom line to the next 5-10 days…a return back to more typical winter temperatures and really not a whole lot more…

Last night the city of Olathe turned on their Christmas lights…I was there and snapped this picture afterwards…have a great rest of the weekend!

Joe

    from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports http://fox4kc.com/2017/12/02/joes-weather-blog-yes-colder-but-remember-its-december-after-all-sat-12-2/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2017/12/02/joes-weather-blog-yes-colderbut-remember-its-december-after-all-sat-12-2/