#and ultimately the deciding factor in turning evil is mostly if they are able to find support and a purpose with people who care about them

[an-eldritch-peredhel]

#dang it do i have a new oc now

Sounds like!! I'd love to hear more if you've got it!

(referring to my tags on this post)

You will meet a stranger, sometimes, if you make a habit to frequent taverns, inns, halls for game, or even the one tree where the young Bracegirdle cousins sneak off to play marbles. Well, you will like as not meet many strangers, except in the last case, but this one will be different. Or perhaps you get lucky, and don't frequent such places, but find yourself in one unexpectedly, and meet them regardless.

Everyone in Gondor knows someone who knows someone who met Lady Luck, no one has met her themself. If you do, starry-eyed romantics say, you'll be blessed with good fortune for all your days. The pragmatists tell you you'll be blessed with the good sense to discern a scam.

He may smirk at you after winning a bet, some dark-haired man, using his earnings to buy a round for the bar. It's always a different man, but it always goes to Alwed's tab. It keeps the crowd from getting too rowdy, even if the more superstitious get on edge.

No one remembers meeting them the first time, but dwarves with common sense avoid Audr's shell games and silver-toothed smile- you always win, but it's never worth it.

A woman with greying-gold hair and stiff fingers might call herself Eadrun, and challenge you to a game of dice. Few decline, and far fewer win.

For as few elves remain in Middle Earth, the one who calls himself Herendil and laughs as though his name is a joke should be recognizable. He seems young and lighthearted in a way most have lost, but he will play you cards, win just as much as he loses, and disappear, never recognized.

A hobbit-lass may giggle, red curls gleaming in the sun, and introduce herself as Peony Sandheaver, her family is visiting from Bree, and she wants to see how Shire-hobbits play Jacks.

Sometimes an orc prays over a set of knucklebones, knowing that at least one god will hear one prayer. Orcs have little luck in battle, but uncanny luck with dice.

There are countless stories, just as many true as not. Countless names, far more unnamed figures, always just out of place enough wherever they are to be interesting and promise new tales, never enough to provoke suspicion, not at first.

Even those in the Blessed Realm may find this dark-eyed stranger. Always dark-eyed, like bottles of dark glass. They stop by Aulë's workshop on occasion, to learn and suggest and play new games. They never win the first round, but most have the sense not to bet anything they aren't willing to lose on the second.

Oromë's people call them Umbarnica with a laugh and a toast in welcome. They thrive in the drunken revels after a successful hunt, sharp as ever as they dance from game to game, cackling at ill-advised propositions offered as collateral for or against a bet. Usually this means them winning to avoid it, a frequent enough occurrence as-is, but every now and then they'll decide to let someone get lucky. The bragging rights are the real reward.

And there are no guarantees with this stranger. No way to ensure their favor, though many ways to get their attention, few good. They like irony, take pleasure in hubris reaching its fall. They love superstition, even if they don't always honor it, and they love stories. There are gods that can be mistaken for kind, they are not one of them, created to serve the king the Dark Lord could have been. Their favorites are fickle, their grudges subtle but long-held. They love cheaters, unless they're at the end of the attempt. They will always catch you, and you will always regret it. They slink through candle-shadows and pipe-smoke, grinning, dance in town squares turned to faire grounds, curl up on comfy chairs indoors on rainy days.

But sometimes, in these days, you won't meet a stranger at all. Sometimes your storyteller will get a bright-dark glint in their eyes, and some dice will roll strangely high and some dice will roll strangely low and either way the story will be better for it. And if the next time the group meets you need to take a moment to remind the storyteller exactly what happened last session, well. That's why you take notes.

So pray to the dice-god, card-master, quick-sighted. It might do you no good, but they love superstition, and they love stories. And when you play a dark-eyed stranger, don't cheat at cards.

[millakatariina64]

Happy Saiou Day!! 💙💜

So if anyone remembers last summer I said I'd post the complete portraits of my talentswap designs and a climactic scene from the AU with a full summary when they're finished? Well, I didn't forget!

So, below are my headcanons for Ultimate Supreme Leader Shuichi and Ultimate Detective Kokichi~!

(I'm really passionate about this AU, I hope you read it ':3)

(Tho no climactic scene unfortunately)

Ultimate Supreme Leader Shuichi

So first of all Shuichi's parents are still celebrities, move overseas and leave him with his uncle. However in this AU Shuichi's uncle is a politician who actually has a really good reputation. Problem is, his uncle is incredibly busy and is almost never home because of that. Still, he wants to be like his uncle (though the wish is fueled more with wanting to be good enough and accepted). Shuichi's personality is basically the same.

So then one day I Alligator girl's (Gonna call her Wani) alligator gets stolen by some group who're going to sell it and they threatened Wani to not call the police or tell anyone. So she asks Shuichi to help. Somehow they manage to retrieve the alligator together secretly (idk) and right afterwards one of Wani's friends is in trouble with some shady local business. So Wani suggests they make a group to stop these sorts of people and that Shuichi would be the leader. He agrees, he still wants to do something to make this world a better place like his uncle.

After that Wani starts asking her most trusted friends at school if they'd like to join (Shuichi would never have the social courage to ask someone that). When they get to 10 members (all girls) they stop growing for some time and decide to get themselves uniforms. When they're finally considering getting more people into the team since Shuichi doesn't really know these people, he decides to start wearing a mask to be safe. He also starts using the code name "Crow". The other 10 members go by flower names.

The group then grows a lot. And by the time Shuichi's officially scouted to be an Ultimate, it has around 1500 members. And it's making him very worried as Shuichi's not even sure anymore if he's skilled enough to lead it. The group started out stopping or changing corrupt businessmen, unethical businesses and other evil groups. And although that still is what they do, he's realized that the way they go about things is pretty illegal. (When he first realized this, he started wearing a hat.) Obviously he forbids violence, but they still use blackmail and steal information. Also they need money for the group to function at this point so they've had to get it through illegal means that Shuichi's not sure of anymore. So Shuichi is immensely scared of being revealed as the organization's leader because it would completely destroy his organization and it would also annihilate his uncle's as well as his parents' careers on the spot. Basically everything would get ruined and it would be a nation-wide scandal. Perhaps even an international scandal.

He gets even more worried when the police finally start realizing there's some sort of group that's blackmailing big businesses and start investigating.

When he gets scouted to Hope's Peak, the letter comes to his base and even HPA doesn't know his identity, just that he's a high school student. He doesn't think like he deserves the title at all since it's really his organization that does the hard stuff and Wani's the one that's made it grow and he shouldn't be panicking like this if he really was a "great leader". But he still decides to go due to "If you manage to graduate from Hope's Peak, you will be set for life!". But as his family can't know of him being scouted there as the Ultimate Supreme Leader, he forges a letter claiming he's the Ultimate Lucky Student which he shows to them. And at HPA he requests he be referred to by that title.

Problem is, now his year group has 2 Ultimate Lucky Students and a certain Ultimate Detective gets suspicious.

Miscellaneous: Shuichi really wants to use make-up but he's really afraid to at home since he feels his uncle would think it's really weird. So at the organization's base Wani heard about it and got him some makeup and now Shuichi wears makeup when on missions and at the base. Also the organization has a helicopter. (It's a central part of that climactic scene I talk so much about.) Shuichi thinks about becoming a detective perhaps, but he's not sure how he'd be able to leave his group anymore so...

Ultimate Detective Kokichi

For Kokichi I still have my pretty elaborate origin story. His early years are great until at some point his real father finds out that Kokichi's mother had actually had the Kokichi and his older twin brother with him and not her husband leaving him alone. And thus he murders Kokichi's mother out of spite. Kokichi and Tamotsu (my headcanon name for his twin) see the murder take place and flee. However, they were never actually able to make out who the murderer was and they knew even less of why their mother was murdered.

The murder never gets solved and this mystery stays in Kokichi's mind. Who ruined his life, who killed his mother?

(I feel they'd have like an uncle and their mother's husband lived with them obviously. There'd also be other factors like disposed evidence and the suspects vanishing making the murder so much harder to figure out afterwards.)

So Kokichi and Tamotsu end up at an orphanage, one related to the one Maki's at. It's kind of a terrible place, but it's where Kokichi meets (most of) Dice. They become inseparable friends (tho don't form a group with the name Dice. I'll still call them that here for clarity's sake though). However Tamotsu who had always been supporting Kokichi and being there for him at his side starts becoming bitter (jealous?) against Kokichi due to dice and starts turning against them. This is the time when Kokichi starts developing his lying to protect himself from Tamotsu as well as the borderline abusive authority at the orphanage. He's also started to figure out the dark secret of the orphanage training children to become assassins.

I feel like during this time a detective was investigating the orphanage. So when things get too dire and Kokichi and Dice escape the orphanage the detective ends up taking them in after finding them on the streets afterwards since he can't just send them to an orphanage at that point. So Kokichi and Dice end up staying with the detective and start helping him out. Kokichi's especially interested in the orphanage now and he and the detective with the help of the other Dice members figure out a lot of stuff. (This is also the time the rest of the Dice members "join".) Until one day the detective gets assassinated by someone from the orphanage sending them a message to stop the investigation.

So Kokichi takes over the Detective's office and to get by he starts working on all kinds of small cases with the help of Dice. And that's what they mostly do. Among those small cases are often cases that have something to do with saving children. However Kokichi occasionally also takes on homicides and investigates organizations. He wants to be prepared for when he finally investigates his mother's murder as well as the organization behind the orphanage. He wants those people locked up in jail forever.

Personality wise Kokichi's pretty much the same. He still loves pranks, lies all the time and would have elaborate stories (lies) about like for example how he was the one who managed to put the previous Queen of Novoselic's assassin behind bars. (The previous Queen was not even assassinated). He'd also jokingly blackmail people by claiming he knows something about them or could figure out something incriminating about them. He never really means it, though he would like try to find out harmless embarrassing secrets to mess with people.

Around the time he gets scouted to Hope's Peak he's specifically requested to assist in the investigation of a mysterious organization that steals information and sends blackmail and other such things. It's a huge flashy case, so of course he picks it up.

At Hope's Peak he then meets an (surprisingly mysterious?) Ultimate lucky student who seems really interested about his Ultimate detective talent and his lying.

Bonus

The original portraits from summer 2020. My laptop just broke when I finished the lineart and then I couldn't really edit them on my new tablet anymore and they were getting really old so I just decided to completely redo them. Also lmk if you want the sketch of the climactic scene since I'm not sure if I'll finish it even though I really like it. It looks pretty okay even if it's unfinished.

Also hope this is coherent and that I haven't forgotten anything aah. And damn if you actually made it this far gezus. This took like 4+ hours?? oops.

[crusherthedoctor]

Why Jim Carrey’s Robotnik is The Fuckin’ Man™

Yep, the movie is still on my mind, and I'd say I love it even more with each passing day. Partly because it came as much relief during a time when IDW Sonic is continuing to aggravate me with nearly everything it does with its story and characters, but mostly because I just really enjoy it on its own merits (and unlike some people, I don't need to add “it's no masterpiece...” to every sentence as if I'm secretly ashamed about liking a Sonic the Hedgehog film). While the movie's portrayal of our old mate Robotnik is far from the only reason for why I love the film, he's obviously a huge factor all the same, so I felt like listing a few reasons for why - already - he's one of my favourite incarnations of the doctor yet.

A lot of it can be boiled down to how accurate he is to Eggman's character despite the face value differences, but to elaborate that little bit more:

- He's every bit as physical as Eggman is in the games. It would have been easy for Robotnik to be reduced to a Non-Action Big Bad in a live action role, given how often that tends to happen with similar villains in similar live action installments of similar franchises... But instead, Robotnik actually lives up to his character's habits and takes a very active role in his pursuits, culminating with him facing the hedgehog personally, and putting up a good fight in the process. Compare this to the supposedly more threatening SatAM Robotnik, who spent most of his time twiddling his thumbs and letting Snively do all the work.

- Also like game Eggman, he's stronger than he looks, and he's equally capable of handling himself in a fight. A much larger guy who Sonic had notable trouble with is thrown out a window like it's nothing by Robotnik, and despite getting caught off guard by Tom's attack from behind, he was quick to turn the tables enough for their brief fistfight to be considered a stalemate. And let's not get into whatever it was he apparently did to that school bully...

- While he's every bit the glorious ham you'd expect him to be, his witty remarks can be downright morbid at times. The first thing he does when he sees Sonic's seemingly dead body? Make a crack about PETA animal testing. Absolute legend.

- Not only is he funny and menacing in equal measures, but both sides of his personality seem to be working at the same time in a lot of his scenes, going from one to the other then back again in a matter of seconds. This makes him come off as unpredictable, which definitely adds to the tension involving him.

- The government is clearly terrified of him, treating the mere idea of hiring his services for the blackout investigation as though he's a Horseman of the Apocalypse, and being incredibly quick to give his existence the '06 retcon treatment when it looks like he's gone for good (spoiler: he won't be forgotten for long). But at the same time, they bring him in specifically because they know that he's the only one with the genius to handle the apparent threat that Sonic poses, and their own talk of him having helped out with numerous foreign coups in the past - probably single-handedly at that - is yet more proof that his credentials are no joke. If G.U.N. exists in this universe, they're basically admitting that they ain't shit compared to this one man.

- Despite technically acting on the government's behalf during the events of this film, Robotnik treats the affair in the same way that Blofeld treats his affiliation with Red China: Namely, it's a very transparent means to an end that will ultimately benefit himself more than them, and it's clear at all times that not only is he the one holding the reins, but that they're perfectly aware of this and are simply unable to do anything about it. Considering this is, again, the government we're talking about, that makes it abundantly clear before we even meet him in person that this guy isn't your typical basement dwelling mad scientist whose ambitions far outweigh their capabilities.

- In a Sonic the Hedgehog movie production starring Ivo Robotnik, played to perfection by Jim Carrey, the meme potential is too vast to quantify.

- His drones are essentially Matryoshka dolls of destruction, and they have the tricks and the persistence you'd expect to be saddled with that implication. They highlight the doctor's own determination in catching the hedgehog, and they also confirm his surprisingly keen sense of foresight in dealing with opposition. If only he leant some of that foresight to IDW Eggman...

- His big black truck is actually really badass for an “evil lair”, as the man himself labels it. It's equipped with the aforementioned super persistent drones, it comes with a hangar bay for his sizable hovercraft (which, by the way, just so happens to have an Egg Mobile colour scheme), he can experiment in his lab while he's on the move, and he even has wacky virtual simulators to play around with on the side... and the means to make a latte apparently. It may not have the scale of a Death Egg space station or an Eggmanland theme park, but considering this is an up-and-coming Eggman of sorts, it's a very interesting and impressive choice for the doctor's first humble abode, as it shows that even when he's just starting off, he's already thinking in a different (and cooler) wavelength than most.

- It didn't take him long at all to successfully harness the power of Sonic's quill in a manageable form, meaning he understood how Sonic's speed worked and was able to use it against the hedgehog himself in a relatively small amount of time. If Metal Sonic is ever introduced, he's likely going to be a juggernaut on par with his OVA portrayal.

- Yet another trait he shares with game Eggman: he does not cower. Sure, he might get startled by seeing Sonic for the first time, or accidentally getting creeped up on by Agent Stone, but in terms of legitimate fear, he has none to show for it. Sonic, who he thought was banished to the Shadow Realm killed, suddenly revives himself and takes back his quill by force, all the while throwing one hell of a death glare his way as he becomes supercharged with electricity. How does Robotnik react to this? By putting on his own game face (and his goggles) and staring him down for a final standoff. The idea of running away or pleading for mercy doesn't even appear to register in the doctor's mind.

- Even after going mad upon being stranded on the Mushroom Planet, he remains as determined as ever to reach his goals, and while he may have nothing else on him for the time being other than Sonic's quill, we know for a fact that his return is inevitable, and he'll be hitting twice as hard no matter what he decides to use. His final transformation into a more recognizable Eggman may be born out of isolation and insanity, but despite the circumstance, it's more strangely triumphant rather than tragic or pathetic. He even notes that lesser men would be hopeless in his predicament, and presumably that includes lesser villains as well.

- This face.

I want that face on a T-shirt.

Overall, despite the expected and at times necessary differences for a live action portrayal, Robotnik hasn't actually been watered down in terms of character OR threat level. He's already dangerous enough to risk the safety of the entire planet, and if the stinger is any indication, he's only getting started.

And you know what else? While it's obviously delightful that his resemblance shifts to being more Eggman-like by the end of the film (and the full moustache actually doesn't look too bad on Carrey's face), I don't think I would have minded that much if his appearance remained the same in a sequel, because the core of his portrayal was so perfect and quintessentially Eggman that the differences didn't even click after a while, even as I kept looking at them point blank.

That's how you know the guy did well. Although it probably also helps that his non-Eggman look is considerably more dignified and cool than SatAM Robotnik falling into a vat of concentrated 90's.

[j-crawley]

1OO IMPORTANT CHARACTER QUESTIONS

PART 1: THE BASICS

What is your full name? James Crawley

Where and when were you born? London, England in 1875

Who are/were your parents? (Know their names, occupations, personalities, etc.) James’ sire’s name is Isabelle. He also recognises her as his mother because his birth parents were killed before he could remember. Isabelle is an ancient vampire who is over four thousand years old and is one of the few who kept herself out of the supernatural wars when they were waged across the earth. 

Do you have any siblings? What are/were they like? The only ‘siblings’ he has are the other vampires Isabelle has sired throughout her life, of which there are four others. He has only met two of this four. 

Where do you live now, and with whom? Describe the place and the person/people. Krovs Town and with his cats. 

What is your occupation? Police officer

Write a full physical description of yourself. You might want to consider factors such as: height, weight, race, hair and eye color, style of dress, and any tattoos, scars, or distinguishing marks. Blonde hair, blue eyes. 6″1, 165lbs, Caucasian. Dresses smart most of the time. He enjoys fashion and being stylish and tends to keep it tasteful and less over-the-top. No tattoos or scars.

To which social class do you belong? James was born to a family in the middle class and Isabelle brought him up to the age of thirteen accordingly. Isabelle herself is amongst the upper class and she introduced him to that life after he was turned. 

Do you have any allergies, diseases, or other physical weaknesses? Being a dhampir (half-vampire, half-human), James is the weakest of the vampire hybrids and is susceptible to the weakness of his species. Other than that, he has no allergies or diseases.

Are you right- or left-handed? Left handed.

What does your voice sound like? (link)

What words and/or phrases do you use very frequently? “Oh dear.”

What do you have in your pockets? Notebook, pen, vials of feline blood.

Do you have any quirks, strange mannerisms, annoying habits, or other defining characteristics? James is a clean freak and is very particular about the cleanliness of his own space.

PART 2: GROWING UP

How would you describe your childhood in general? James had a pleasant childhood with Isabelle until she disappeared when he was about thirteen years old. The trauma of losing his parental figure had him becoming obsessed with finding her ‘killer’.

What is your earliest memory? Reading a children’s book with Isabelle.

How much schooling have you had? He studied hard enough and went through the proper education system to become a constable in Scotland Yarad and eventually a detective.

Did you enjoy school? Of course. James enjoys learning and he considers his university days some of the best of his life, even if it happened quite a long time ago for him.

Where did you learn most of your skills and other abilities? He leaned a lot about life from John, his mentor who took him in after Isabelle’s disappearance. His deductive skills were picked up through a mix of John’s training, school and his various stints as a police officer/detective in various towns. His skills as a vampire were mostly learned from Isabelle.

While growing up, did you have any role models? If so, describe them. Isabelle and John.

While growing up, how did you get along with the other members of your family? James gets along very well with those he considers his family.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? James wanted to become a police officer since the age of thirteen.

As a child, what were your favorite activities? Reading, collecting insects. The latter of which is something he grew out of.

As a child, what kinds of personality traits did you display? Curiosity, dutiful, cheerful, generous, polite, extraversion.

As a child, were you popular? Who were your friends, and what were they like? James was quite focused on his studies when he was a child and his only friend was John until he went to university. He started making more friends at university where he found himself amongst those who were in the high society and made a lot of connections that way. 

When and with whom was your first kiss? He got drunk with his university friends on a night out at a men’s social club and kissed a man named Thomas in secret. They started an affair before he met his eventual wife, Elizabeth, and he decided that he needed to settle down with her as society deemed a man should.

Are you a virgin? If not, when and with whom did you lose your virginity? No. He lost it to the same man in the previous answer.

If you are a supernatural being (i.e. mage, werewolf, vampire), tell the story of how you became what you are or first learned of your own abilities.  Read all about it here.

PART 3: PAST INFLUENCES

What do you consider the most important event of your life so far? Being turned into a dhampir.

Who has had the most influence on you? Isabelle.

What do you consider your greatest achievement? Finding Isabelle again.

What is your greatest regret? He sometimes wonders what his human life would’ve been like had he not been turned. 

What is the most evil thing you have ever done? After becoming a dhampir, James has taken the law into his own hands and killed a number of times when the authorities would not do what he believed they needed to. As a law-abiding person, these actions went against his moral code and he considers them ‘evil’ in a way.

Do you have a criminal record of any kind? No. He lived in a time when being gay was illegal, but he was never caught for having an affair with a man.

When was the time you were the most frightened? When he almost killed his wife and son when he lost control. It was what spurred him to leave them.

What is the most embarrassing thing ever to happen to you? Elizabeth catching him with Thomas about a year into their marriage. James was still in love with Thomas but had to ultimately end things with him for his family. It was both embarrassing and heartbreaking.

If you could change one thing from your past, what would it be, and why? He wishes that he had gone to visit his wife before she died, but he had been too afraid of how she would react and so he stayed away. He considers himself a coward because of this.

What is your best memory? The birth of his son - Johnathan.

What is your worst memory? Visiting his elderly son on his deathbed and having Johnathan recognise him and hate him for leaving. This was James’ first experience of losing someone mortal and it served as a harsh reminder of his very immortal life.

PART 4: BELIEFS & OPINIONS

Are you basically optimistic or pessimistic? Mostly an optimist.

What is your greatest fear? Losing control and killing an innocent.

What are your religious views? James would consider himself spiritualist and his faith is very personal to him.

What are your political views? James is heavily influenced by Isabelle’s stance on not siding with the current ruling power - the Vampires - even if he is one himself. 

What are your views on sex? Over the years, he has learned to loosen up when it comes to sex. Having grown up in a time that was more puritanical, it took a long while, despite Isabelle’s more liberal views on sex and sexuality, before James was able to view the act as something fun to engage in -- especially gay sex.

Are you able to kill? Under what circumstances do you find killing to be acceptable or unacceptable? Yes. Being half-vampire, the desire to kill is always there but James keeps that urge on a tight leash. He has killed in the past (see answer in P3) when he felt that he had no choice.

In your opinion, what is the most evil thing any human being could do? Harming children in any way.

Do you believe in the existence of soul mates and/or true love? Leaning undecided to no.

What do you believe makes a successful life? Happiness and sense of purpose.

How honest are you about your thoughts and feelings (i.e. do you hide your true self from others, and in what way)? This actually depends on who James is speaking to. He’s usually more guarded and would put on a mask when he is with other vampires, but who’s to know if that mask is actually a part of him too?

Do you have any biases or prejudices? He would like to think not.

Is there anything you absolutely refuse to do under any circumstances? Why do you refuse to do it? James refuses to drink the blood of humans and other supernatural creatures because it turns him into something he does not like. It is why he only drinks animal blood.

Who or what, if anything, would you die for (or otherwise go to extremes for)? He hasn’t thought about this...

PART 5: RELATIONSHIPS W/OTHERS

In general, how do you treat others (politely, rudely, by keeping them at a distance, etc.)? Does your treatment of them change depending on how well you know them, and if so, how? In general, James is very polite and friendly to everyone he meets.

Who is the most important person in your life, and why? At the moment, it’s his cats.

Who is the person you respect the most, and why? Isabelle. She taught him a lot about the world and he is forever grateful for that.

Who are your friends? Do you have a best friend? Describe these people. James has many friends in all the places he has lived in, but due to having to move around often, there are not many that he would consider best friends.

Do you have a spouse or significant other? If so, describe this person. His wife passed away in the early-1900s and he has not married again ever since. While James has had a few lovers after that, there are not many that he could consider particularly significant.

Have you ever been in love? If so, describe what happened. Yes. James met and fell in love with his university friend, Thomas, and started an affair with him. This was highly illegal at the time, but they continued the affair until after James got married. It ended when James’ wife found out about them. James was more in love with Thomas than he was with Elizabeth and she knew this.

What do you look for in a potential lover? Someone he can be at ease and be himself with.

How close are you to your family? He is still very close to Isabelle, the only family he has left.

Have you started your own family? If so, describe them. If not, do you want to? Why or why not? James had a wife and son, both of whom have passed on in present day. He has not settled down again since.

Who would you turn to if you were in desperate need of help? Isabelle.

Do you trust anyone to protect you? Who, and why? Isabelle. While he lives his life separate from her, she still keeps tabs on him and James trusts her to look out for him if it ever came down to it.

If you died or went missing, who would miss you? Isabelle.

Who is the person you despise the most, and why? The closest is probably Izaak because the man killed his birth parents. But James rationalises that he never knew his birth parents and Izaak is like a brother to Isabelle, and so he has somewhat forgiven him.

Do you tend to argue with people, or avoid conflict? James tends to avoid conflict and will only argue if absolutely necessary.

Do you tend to take on leadership roles in social situations? Only if there is no one else to do so. James prefers to follow.

Do you like interacting with large groups of people? Why or why not? James enjoys socialising because people intrigue him, even if he keeps them at arms length. 

Do you care what others think of you? Yes, he actually does because of the time period he grew up in. He has loosened up a lot more over the last few decades but it’s not something he can easily put out of his mind.

PART 6: LIKES & DISLIKES

What is/are your favorite hobbies and pastimes? Reading. Cleaning. Spending time with his cats.

What is your most treasured possession? His first edition copy of A Study in Scarlet that Isabelle gifted to him when he was a child. Crime novels were all the rage during the Victorian Era and these books were also what spurred him to become a police officer.

What is your favorite color? Light green.

What is your favorite food? Before becoming a dhampir, one of James’ favourite bakes was the Spotted Dick.

What, if anything, do you like to read? Crime fiction.

What is your idea of good entertainment (consider music, movies, art, etc.)? A good book. (Are you sensing a pattern here yet?) He enjoys films from time to time but strongly prefers the written word.

Do you smoke, drink, or use drugs? If so, why? Do you want to quit? He smokes occasionally because he finds the act of it enjoyable. As an immortal there is little point in quitting.

How do you spend a typical Saturday night? He alternates between going to a bar to meet new people and staying at home on Saturday nights. This is something that he has yet to do in Krovs Town.

What makes you laugh? His cats.

What, if anything, shocks or offends you? Rude and disrespectful people.

What would you do if you had insomnia and had to find something to do to amuse yourself? James is usually very good at finding something to occupy his mind with. If he were burdened with insomnia, he would use the time to 

How do you deal with stress? James stress cleans.

Are you spontaneous, or do you always need to have a plan? He can be spontaneous on occasion but takes comfort in knowing that he usually has a plan.

What are your pet peeves? Being micromanaged.

PART 7: SELF IMAGES & OTHER

Describe the routine of a normal day for you. How do you feel when this routine is disrupted? Wakes up, feeds his cats, showers, gets dressed while having his breakfast, heading to work. Comes home, feeds his cats, eats, extracts blood from one of his cats, showers again, gets ready for bed. He does not like his morning routine being messed with but he will roll with the punches anyway.

What is your greatest strength as a person? Being able to anticipate another’s needs.

What is your greatest weakness? His fear of not being able to be in control of his vampiric half.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? To be less conflict-averse. He feels like he could achieve a lot more but he really does not like being pushed into conflict.

Are you generally introverted or extroverted? He can swing between both, whereby he is generally extroverted but still values his alone time.

Are you generally organized or messy? Organized.

Name three things you consider yourself to be very good at, and three things you consider yourself to be very bad at. Good: Small talk, powers of deduction, reading people. Bad: Cooking, singing, dancing. ((ooc: LOL what even!))

Do you like yourself? Most of the time.

What are your reasons for being an adventurer (or doing the strange and heroic things that RPG characters do)? Are your real reasons for doing this different than the ones you tell people in public? (If so, detail both sets of reasons…) James takes his role as a police officer and servant to the people very seriously. He is someone who tends to wear his heart on his sleeve when it comes to this subject as well, so what he usually says what he means when asked about his profession.

What goal do you most want to accomplish in your lifetime? James does not have a far-reaching goal. He is mostly focused on his job and doing it well for whatever community he is serving.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years? Hopefully still living in Krovs Town.

If you could choose, how would you want to die? Peacefully.

If you knew you were going to die in 24 hours, name three things you would do in the time you had left. Make sure his cats are taken care of. Other than that, James is actually happy to spend his last moments with himself.

What is the one thing for which you would most like to be remembered after your death? James wants to be remembered by how he made others feel.

What three words best describe your personality? Kind, generous, helpful.

What three words would others probably use to describe you? Nice, pushover, slow-on-the-uptake.

If you could, what advice would you, the player, give to your character? (You might even want to speak as if he or she were sitting right here in front of you, and use proper tone so he or she might heed your advice…) He needs to be a bit selfish and figure out what he wants in life for himself. James is mostly living his life in servitude of others at the moment.

[pokeverse-amethyst]

Sooooo… this is gonna be a long one, strap in. What follows is a metric ton of HCs about every single evil team and how they have worked themselves into every aspect of daily life, as to make them way more difficult to get rid off than just with a couple of arrests. Timeline wonkiness when trying to explain what likely happened first is to be expected, I’m playing fast and loose with all of this stuff. I might be way off topic in some regards but HECK HERE GOES. ~~~

TEAM ROCKET: This is pretty much of a no-brainer. What we have here is a classical mafia structure, and you just need to look at countries with extensive mafia presence to know that they are baked into every single fucking thing. Giovanni has worked years upon years to cement himself straight into Kanto and Johto, consequently making it impossible for any of the other teams to even THINK about gaining a foothold there. No further explanations necessary. ~~~ TEAM AQUA / TEAM MAGMA: This one is a bit of a more difficult one. But then again, let’s presume that most of the teams recruit a mixture of people who fully believe in the team’s message, who misunderstand the team’s message, and who see themselves in the team, but not necessarily in the message (so just looking for somewhere to belong and to gain some kind of direction). Oh, and monetary gain. Can’t forget that. So in the case of both Aqua and Magma? I like to believe it started out with Maxie and Archie working together on a plan to give nature back to Pokémon. Like, with trying to get more protected zones established, kinda like Fiore has them? But they were hitting resistance too often. Now I’m not saying that they were on the wrong track from the start or developed into what is basically eco-terrorists, but… they probably saw way too much bad shit happening to Pokémon around them. Maybe they heard what Team Rocket was doing to Pokémon in Johto and Kanto. Maybe they heard rumors about what Cyrus nearly accomplished, what Lysandre almost triggered, what Ghetsis managed to fuck up with his whole power play madness (TWICE, too!), what the Aether foundation might have had triggered if not for the intervention of a Legendary, what Rose made possible in the GALAR REGION of all places… Suffice to say, they probably felt like they needed to seriously up their game… to make sure that the other teams didn’t fuck up the world beyond repair before THEY could make the world a better place. The only thing that finally broke Archie and Maxie up though, was an inability to settle on what would be better. More landmass, more sea? What would be the gentler way of resetting humanity? Suffice to say, their vision might have attracted way too many who nudged them along. So TLDR: Archie and Maxie mostly reacted to what the other Team Bosses were doing and were helped along by Grunts/Admins that were way too into the whole “we will be the only humans deserving this new, shiny world”. They were numerous enough and determined enough to turn into a slightly terroristic group, but until the ultimate use of Kyogre/Groudon, they never really registered that much on Interpol’s radar. And when Interpol learned of them stealing a whole ass sub? It was already too late stopping them in their tracks in time. After all, Interpol had all the other regions to monitor as well… ~~~ TEAM GALACTIC: So. Charon doesn’t need much of a head canon fuckery. He just did it for the money, that much he stated openly. And Jupiter, Mars and Saturn? They all admitted openly to being along for the ride because they believed in Cyrus and the world being fucked up beyond repair, thus needing a good ol’ divine intervention from the whole-ass creation trio. But I don’t think any single one of them fully understood what Cyrus’s goal was. The commanders (that are not Charon) squarely fall into the category of “misunderstanding the ultimate purpose of the team”, as do all the Grunts. And as mentioned above with Team Aqua and Magma, Galactic probably saw some of the stuff that was happening around them and ultimately decided (and this is mostly for the Grunts and the Commanders) that Cyrus probably wasn’t so far off with the human spirit being incomplete. But they made one crucial mistake (pretty much the whole team, even Charon). They thought that Cyrus’s assertion over the incomplete nature of the human spirit was a reason for the man to believe in a world that should be made whole, not in wiping the whole fucking slate clean and going Tabula Rasa on the whole of creation. Much to the annoyance of everyone involved (and with that I mean the Creation Trio and the big boss of them), he actually went far enough to step on everything just to gain the power to control the legendaries. Also, time to unearth an already yoinked HC of mine that Giratina mostly retreated into the Distortion World to get some good alone time in, only to be disrupted by Cyrus bursting in. On that point also: time not really working all that clearly in the Distortion World. Kinda like Narnia rules, in as there is no fixed constant for time moving forward in either one or the other extreme. Sometimes, time will move forward extremely fast, other times, you spend years and years in the Distortion World and only a few seconds passed. After all, everything gets a bit… wobbly in there. But around the time Cyrus entered, Distortion World time became… more orderly. And that was what prompted Giratina to go VERY UNAMUSED ON HIS ASS. Think of it as time being influenced by what is thrown into the Distortion World. BACK to the Team, though. Galactic honest to Arceus believed that what they were doing would give the world a much needed boost… and were unpleasantly surprised when they were later on all shown that Cyrus wanted to go destruction and rebirth on the world. But that is not to say everyone was unhappy about this revelation. ~~~ TEAM PLASMA & NEO PLASMA: What easier time to convince disparate beliefs than with the apparent reason that they were just helping Pokémon that would have been unhappy in the care of their trainers? Wether the Grunts believed that the Pokémon should then consequently be released back into the wild or that they THEMSELVES deserved the Pokémon way more than others? What easier way to convince them of Plasma’s ideals? And there was no real discussion amongst the Grunts over this dichotomy. Sure, a few were disputing the one or the other stance, but most were still agreeing that the trainers they took the Pokémon from did NOT deserve them. No matter how pure their reasoning was. No matter how reality really looked like. Sure, they were removing Pokémon from some really nasty trainers? But on the greater scale of things, they mostly took Pokémon from trainers who they loved being with. And Ghetsis had his thumb on this a lot. See, Ghetsis didn’t want N to sway too much, before he finally met the protagonist. So Ghetsis made sure that only obviously abused Pokémon removed from trainers were brought to N. …why, no, this doesn’t mean at all that they were usually just from the outside. Ya think Ghetsis only had his main team? Dream on. ~~~ TEAM FLARE: What is there to say about Team Flare? They are basically a mix of the worst of the self-viewed elite of the region. There is entitlement to being viewed as the best of the best (and you can’t tell ‘em otherwise), there is doomsday fans who would do the whole shit with bunkering down and then fighting in an apocalyptic wasteland and fancying themselves new leaders in that changed world, there’s the ones who just think they will be able to surpass even Lysandre… What about the Admins of Flare? They half share Lysandre’s views of beauty. But mostly, they are in too deep to quit, and also half about relishing the fact that they get to work on something truly unique and devastating. They want this whole power thing to work out for them because some time in their lives, they might have felt like they were owed power and didn’t receive it. They were owed recognition and didn’t receive it. They want to be the new top of Kalos without working TOO hard for it. Without anything laying rocks in their path. Without any obstacles telling them that, no. They fucked up. ~~~ AETHER FOUNDATION: The moment Lusamine found out about the Ultra Dimension, she ostensibly was lost to her goal of getting her hands on the power to change the face of the world. And to preserve beauty. In many ways, her goal was similar to Lysandre… to a degree. The Aether Foundation is half staffed by people who truly believe that conservation work is the most important factor in the Pokémon World, to preserve some of the more endangered species around the world, and half staffed by people who truly believe that the Ultra Dimension holds answers to problems humanity might not even have recognized as such. This latter half was unpleasantly surprised when they started to learn the truth from the Ultra Dimension researchers. Finding out that Necrozma had destroyed the natural light of that world and was now the only source of more light for the city? That was a shock. But that didn’t necessarily mean that the Aether Foundation would have been broken up by that. Because honestly? The part of the conservation enthusiasts who were not deterred by the Ultra Dimension incident made the Foundation bloom beyond what it was possible to become. So in short: this foundation survived its leader far better than many others, and actually managed to get accepted. ~~~ MACRO COSMOS: This is the team that shocked their region with just how far their influence had gone. And that is to say that they existed at all, right under the noses of the region. Rose’s whole deal is a big part why Leon would later be plunged into a crisis of conscience, despite everyone assuring him that he had no way of knowing just how far Rose was willing to go to show the region how wrong it was to not immediately acquiesce to all that he envisioned for the future. The mere fact Rose was UNWILLING to wait what would at most have been half a day for Leon, to celebrate with the others after another big Champion Tournament? That was what sat so ill with many in the region. It wasn’t so much the message that Rose felt everyone had missed (that was actually just his version of events - most of the Macro Cosmos Grunts were attached to him solely for the reason of having privileges that none other had, and when they saw how he was acting, only the most dedicated few could ignore what was going on). So we are dealing with another team that was shocked how far the leader would go, but even more so than the Aether Foundation, the members scattered when Rose enacted the Darkest Day right out of nowhere. There is still worries that remains of Macro Cosmos could be out there, trying to bust Oleana and Rose out of prison and actually finding another way with which to scare Galar into complicity. How well that would even go is a whole different question… because the new champ is even stronger than Leon, and THAT is real fucking bad news for anyone who would want to establish themselves.

[leilawhittaker]

What’s Lei’s comic history? And how do the movie adaptations differ from her comic character?

Okay but I love this question this is like...one of my fave questions I’ve gotten about her thank u!!! Bear in mind my comics history knowledge is a little rusty but I think this tracks.

SILVER AGE

-X-MEN

Leila first appears in the early 60s as an early X-Men villain. The Trust operates sort of like it does in the movies, an organized crime syndicate run entirely by mutants. (I like to think that they took the fairy tale thing a little too far and like, every Trust member has a fairy tale name. This gets retconned later.) In the comics, Leila isn’t the leader of the Trust, just a member. This, too, gets retconned later. 

Leila and the Trust appear sporadically before Leila redeems herself and leaves. She might’ve joined the X-Men for an issue or two, before deciding it wasn’t a good fit and dipping. 

-CAP’S KOOKY QUARTET

Look, the name still fits if you consider Cap the leader and Leila/Clint/Wanda/Pietro his quartet. Leila joins the second ever roster of Avengers, and fits right in with the team made up largely of former villains. 

This is where we get into Leila’s backstory for the first time. It’s very similar to her movie backstory, but toned down a bit because of the comics code authority. We maybe see like, one panel of her mom hitting her, but the extent of the abuse she suffered is largely told through implications, and she’s not confirmed as a sexual assault survivor until the 2000s when we get more flashbacks. Her backstory centers less on religious trauma and more on being surrounded by anti-mutant sentiment. 

Because that’s the other big difference, is that Leila’s ability to alter her appearance isn’t a big secret like it is in the movies. In the movies, David forces her to repress them and she doesn’t realize she can do it until she’s an adult. In the comics, her main power is changing her appearance, not an extension of her power-copying ability, and she’s been aware of it since she was a child. 

(I think the DNA mirroring and power copying concepts don’t get introduced until later, probably in the early Bronze age; in her first appearances Leila is just your garden variety shapeshifter.)

Anyways. The CKQ era is where snowcap starts, but it’s also where the animosity between Leila and Wanda starts. Wanda canonically had feelings for Steve at this point, and this being the sixties, of course they would be written as romantic rivals. 

Eventually this tension is what makes Leila leave the team, possibly breaking up with Steve in the process, mostly because the writers didn’t want to write Cap as having a girlfriend that’s just never around. 

INTERMISSION: MCU LEGAL ISSUES

I imagine that Leila, like Pietro and Wanda, is a character that Disney was hesitant to use because of her connection to the X-Men. Ultimately throughout her history she’s been more involved with the Avengers than X-Men, but still. 

The first two chapters of Leila MM would be told through a comic series that takes place before the Avengers, but is released shortly afterwards as a sort of mini-prequel, since she was the only Avenger to not be introduced before the movie, because while they were making the pre-Avengers movies they hadn’t decided to bring her in yet. 

Like Quicksilver, Leila likely has an XMCU counterpart. I’ll have to watch the movies and get back to you. 

BRONZE AGE/EARLY MODERN AGE

Leila remained underutilized for a lot of the next few decades. She popped into different books, never really settling in one plotline for long. She and Steve were on-again off-again; their relationship was strained by Leila’s heel-turn revolving door. Comics, god bless them, are straight-up ass at lasting character development (*coughs* Quicksilver: No Surrender *coughs*) and you never quite knew when Leila would spontaneously decide to go be a villain again. Still, her villainous periods tended to be mild, focusing more on theft and minor crimes than huge murders, and she and Steve continued to have soft spots for each other even while on opposite sides. 

TURN OF THE CENTURY

This is where things start to look up. Marvel has all but abandoned the CCA, and they’re now welcome to expand on Leila’s backstory. 

Leila rejoins the X-Men briefly, and goes up against the Trust. Here we get more of her backstory with how she took control of the Trust, as well as more backstory on David. Prior to this David had been portrayed as a very minor player in her backstory, the leader of the cult who had no particular relationship to her. Here we learn the extent of the abuse he subjected her to. A lot of it is told through implications; Marvel might not have been following the CCA, but they weren’t about to get too dark, either. It’s a source of debate whether David is Leila’s biological father or not. 

(Possibly in Ultimates it goes even further and gets into the nitty gritty, but Ultimates isn’t 616 canon, so there’s still debate about some details. It’s clear, though, that in both continuities, David was a major abusive figure in Leila’s life and their relationship was formative for her. Leila’s backstory is notoriously dark for a comics character.)

After her plotline with the Trust, Leila rejoins the Avengers, and is basically solidified as an anti-hero from that point on. 

-M DAY

I haven’t read much about this plotline but Leila is one of the few remaining mutants after M Day. 

-CIVIL WAR

Leila takes the anti-reg stance, and she and Steve get back together. However, they get into a fight, as Steve confronts her about her motives. He says that Leila is only anti-reg for her own purposes; she doesn’t want to be in any database because she wants to be able to run if she needs to. And he’s honestly like...50% right, but Leila doesn’t bother explaining the other side of the story. They break up, and she ditches the conflict before things get as ugly as they do. 

-SOLO SERIES

Leila, like Hawkeye, becomes a popular household name after the Avengers, and finally gets a solo series, entitled Codename: Snow White. Inspired loosely by the movies, this is where we see Leila join SHIELD as an agent. There’s a plotline where she goes undercover and has to pretend to be evil, and runs into Steve, who sees right through it--proving that he does trust her integrity. 

They share a kiss, but don’t get back together, just because they’re both busy with SHIELD/Avengers stuff. But it’s sort of a promise that they’ll try to work things out when they have time. 

-ALL-NEW X-FACTOR

I just really like the idea of Leila on this team. Maybe she’s investigating Serval Industries for Fury? But like her vibing with Lorna, snarking back and forth with Pietro, flirting with Remy, complaining about how ugly the costumes are, we love to see it. It eventually leads to her joining the Uncanny Avengers when Pietro goes back. 

-UNCANNY AVENGERS

I think? That by the time ANXF was done Steve had left the team but pretend he didn’t and pretend he’s still there. This is where he and Leila get back together finally, a writing choice that is informed by the popularity of the relationship in the movies. After the series ends, when their next appearance is, they show up still together. 

DIFFERENCES

I think in the comics Leila is a slightly lighter character. A little less tortured. She hasn’t done as many bad things as she has in the movies, so she has less to feel guilty for, and her backstory is like, marginally less traumatic. She never burned down the compound, and Violet Elwood doesn’t exist. So she’s a little more well-adjusted. 

I think also the fact that she keeps finding her way back to villainy is a big difference. In the movies, once Leila truly becomes a hero she never goes back. I think comics!Leila has a similar complex where she thinks she’ll never be a real hero, but copes with it by not trying, whereas mcu!Leila is willing to suffer through it. 

I think another reason for that discrepancy is that comics!Leila’s villainy is, again, more mild than mcu!Leila. In the comics, all of her villainy after her original turning good is just like, stealing shit. Leila in the movies is literally a spree killer. 

OTHER NOTES

Self indulgently, I think she probably had a brief thing with Pietro at some point. The relationship was widely regarded as a bad writing choice (because most of the time they hate each other) and is mostly ignored except for like ten people who ship it. I’m one of them.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Liev Schreiber Birthday Special - Sabretooth, Kingpin, and The Storm King

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Liev Schreiber is quite an actor, one that I think it is sadly easy to overlook despite his talent at portraying villains or other morally dubious characters. From his integral role in the Scream movies to his later numerous villainous roles, he manages to show himself as a rather skilled and versatile actor, particularly in regards to the latter; Schreiber is easily able to slip into playing a villain and deliver a fantastic performance… most of the time anyway.

The date I’m posting this on (October 4, 2019) is his birthday, so we’re going to take a look at three of his biggest villain roles to date: 

Sabretooth from X-Men Origins 

The Storm King from My Little Pony: The Movie

Kingpin from Into the Spider-Verse 

The first is a great villain trapped in an awful movie; the second is an awful villain inside a fun and enjoyable movie; and the third is a great villain in an outstanding movie.

Motivation/Goals: Sabretooth is, in short, a psychopath. The guy lives for the thrill of battle, and is never satisfied unless he has someone to kill. He’s a predator, using the numerous wars he and his half-brother Logan fought in throughout history to sate his appetite, but it was never enough. Vietnam is when he really lost it, and soon after that his relationship with Logan became tarnished, leading to their numerous conflicts throughout the film. It’s rather simple, yet it’s effective. This is what we want from Sabretooth after all, a bloodthirsty, murderous psychopath who crosses every line imaginable and who just really wants to make Logan as miserable as possible.

The Storm King is kind of approaching dominating Equestria as if it were a business venture, complete with merchandise. Beyond that, he’s a bit of a one-note evil overlord, with none of the complex motivations and characterizations of the other antagonist of the film, Tempest Shadow. He’s just here for some quick laughs and to be the final boss in the third act.

Kingpin has my favorite motivation out of the entire lot: once when he was battling with Spider-Man, his wife and child walked in, and in fear and horror they fled, driving off only to be struck by a truck and killed. Kingpin then shoveled as much money as he could and hired the likes of Doc Ock and Green Goblin to help create a giant dimensional portal all so he could be reunited with his family. It’s such a tragic motive that adds layers of depth to Kingpin, and ultimately makes him an interesting foil for Miles, who decides to continue fighting so he can live up to those he loses (Peter and his uncle) while Kingpin cannot accept his loss or his responsibility and so decides to damn everyone else in his desperate struggle to undo the damage he himself caused.

Personality: Sabretooth is easily the most simple of the villains, in that he is just a completely unrepentant monster who revels in the fact he is a vicious, remorseless killer. Normally a villain like that would be boring and generic… but this is Sabretooth. This is what we want out of him. Add in his brotherly banter with Wolverine and his single-minded desire to ruin Logan’s life at every turn, and he just ends up being a really fun and engaging take on the character, with Schreiber injecting just the right amount of soft-spoken sadism and menace to make Victor Creed pants-crappingly terrifying.

Kingpin is a sleazy, scummy mob boss. He’s another seemingly simple character, but his design really helps show what kind of guy he is without telling us. This iteration of Wilson Fisk really plays up him being a mountain of a man, with him being a hulking behemoth with a very bulky design. Despite being a normal human, he looks like the kind of guy who could kill a superhuman with his bare hands. Despite all this, he does have sympathetic  (but, and this can’t be stressed enough, not redeeming) qualities, such as his love for his family and his single-minded desire to be reunited with them. Of course, this desire is what leads to most of the troubles in the film, so he does show the dangers of that sort of careless and reckless pursuit of a goal is a bad thing, no matter how noble it seems.

Final Fate: The Storm King is the only character out of these three with a clear-cut fate, and it goes a long way to redeeming how bland the character is due to how out-of-place and dark it seems in the world of Friendship is Magic. In short, he is turned to stone, and his statue is allowed to drop to the ground, where he shatters into pieces. By all accounts, he is dead, a fate that seems to befall all terrible Friendship is Magic villains (cough Sombra cough).

Kingpin is the most open-ended, as after Miles stops him and in true Spider-Man fashion strings him up for the police. This does open up the door for Kingpin to appear again, which is a plus. The final showdown beforehand is a lot more interesting. The beatdown he gets from Miles, where Miles gets up from the pummeling that killed Peter and delivering a confident “Hey” like his uncle taught him right on Kingpin’s shoulder, sending him flying back to shut down his dimensional portal really is an  awesome moment for the film and Miles in general.

Sabretooth… it really is impossible to say. He apparently makes it out of this film alive, but Schreiber’s Sabretooth is so disconnected from the one who appears later in the timeline (mostly on the token that Schreiber’s take is actually good and memorable) that it’s impossible what to say happened to him. Further muddying the waters is the numerous canon retcons to the timeline as shown in films like Days of Future Past, which altered the timeline in baffling ways such as causing people to be born earlier than they would have been, and then there’s the deleted idea for his cameo in Logan… Really, there’s no telling what exactly Happened to Victor Creed, as the X-Men series is such an utter mess.

Best Scene: Sabretooth has a few, such as the awesome opening montage where he and his brother fight through multiple wars, but perhaps the best part is when he and Wolverine team up to kill that awful thing pretending to be Deadpool. The real Deadpool would beat them to the punch much later in Deadpool 2, but hey, at least he knew what had to be done when he had the chance.

Kingpin’s is almost definitely the scene where he kills Peter, which shows him going through a shocking amount of emotion, but there’s also the flashback to his family’s demise or even that moment on the train where he becomes a lifetime achiever in the Pontoffel Pock Awards by screwing up in every conceivable reality imaginable and disturbing an entire multiverse worth of his family in his quest to murder Miles. Few people screw up on that epic of a scale.

The Storm King… I don’t know. He’s kinda scary in his final battle? Maybe when he plays with the sun and the moon? Nothing really stands out for him super well, because quite frankly he is massively overshadowed by Tempest Shadow, who has the honor of getting the villain song of the movie. And let me be completely frank: if you are a villain in a musical, and you don’t get a song, you suck. Period.

Best Quote: For Sabretooth, it has to be this quote that really sums up who he is: “I'm not your friend. I'm an animal, who dreamed he was a man. But the dream is over. And the beast is awake. And I will come for you without mercy, because it's my nature.”

Kingpin is a little trickier, because Wilson Fisk is a man of actions, rather than words; I feel like he doesn’t have too many great quips, but he has a plethora of awesome actions. However, I DO enjoy his intro, where Schreiber just kills it with the delivery and establishes Fisk right off the bat as one hell of a crime boss: “Doo-be do. Doo-be do. Yub-yub, doo-bee do, doo-bee-do. Watch out! Here comes the Spider-Man! You like my new toy? Cost me a fortune, but hey, can't take it with you, right? You came all this way. Watch the test. It's a hell of a frickin' light show, you're gonna love this.”

For Storm King… well, this is kind of a funny line: “Here's the deal. I'm in the middle of a big rebrand here. "The Storm King" is tracking, well, as "intensely intimidating", but you know what? I need to back it up. You know what I need to back it up with? A STORM! THAT WOULD BE GREAT! You promised me magic that could control the elements, and right now, I'm holding a what? A branch. A twig. Bleh!” Kind of a reach, but I think he does have some decent comedic moments here and there, and his initial, er, phone call with Tempest is charming enough.

Final Thoughts & Score: These guys are really all over the place, but I think they really showcase Schreiber’s talents very well, as well as how to use him effectively.

Sabretooth is easily the best villain out of this bunch. While X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a terrible, bloated mess of a film, Sabretooth is one of the few redeeming factors, with Schreiber turning in a wonderfully terrifying performance as Logan’s arch-enemy. It’s frankly insulting they never had him come back to the franchise, because he was certainly far more deserving of a comeback than someone like Jennifer Lawrence. At least with Schreiber it was clear he cared about the character, which is more than can be said for whoever played the original Sabretooth (a character who is not even worth a Psycho Analysis; there’s just nothing to talk about there).

Really, the only major issues with Sabretooth are the fact that he’s in the bottom of the barrel when it comes to the X-Men franchise and the writing doesn’t do him many favors, but Schreiber is just acting his butt off to the point where it doesn’t matter, he’s selling it, he’s giving us the Sabretooth even the “better” first X-Men movie couldn’t deliver, and he seriously earns that 9/10. It should come as no shock that his take on Victor Creed is the one thing besides Ryan Reynolds fans truly love about the film.

Contrast the Storm King, who is just a depressing waste of potential. The prequel comics set him up to be something far more fascinating than what we get in the movie; he goes from a silly yet cunning overlord to a comical goober who barely gets any screentime, accomplishes half of his evil actions offscreen, and just leaves very little impression on the audience. Not helping is that he is by and large one of the biggest idiots ever seen in the Friendship is Magic franchise, backstabbing his own loyal followers for no good reason and basically playing with his hand revealed. It’s pretty telling that his henchwoman Tempest Shadow is the one who gets the villain song of the film (which, as I’ve pointed out, is a sign that he really, really sucks as a villain) and who is far more memorable, enjoyable, and interesting.

All that being said, I do appreciate the sentiment of the character, and I do like that Schreiber did it so his kids could watch something with him in it that wouldn’t make them scared out of their minds, and I don’t necessarily think Storm King is one of the most horrible villains ever or anything – he’s just boring and a waste of potential. I’d say he just barely makes it to a 3/10, and that’s mostly because he does have some amusing moments and how bad he is is offset by Tempest Shadow being such a fantastic antagonist; if she wasn’t in the movie, he’d easily be a low 2 and a lot less forgivable. That does seem kind of weird, but I think with a villain like Storm King where he’s just a simple goofball being played by a talented actor isn’t so bad as long as there’s an actual, serious antagonist. It doesn’t exactly make him any better but it keeps him from sinking to the rating of soomeone like Jared Leto’s Joker.

Kingpin is, quite simply, fantastic. I love his design, I love his motivation, I love how he just commands the scene when he walks into the room. This guy is just peak villain design, story-wise and design-wise. Some have taken umbrage with the fact that Kingpin is the one who got to kill Peter rather than a more personal foe like Norman Osborn, but frankly I like that they took a unique approach and decided to utilize a more unexpected foe of Spidey’s.

I think what’s best about Kingpin is just how they manage to make him a rather tragic and pitiable figure despite all the evil he does. Normally it would be a tall order to make the man who murders Peter Parker a tragic figure, but somehow the film manages, showing him to be a bitter, broken man desperately clinging to the tiny hope he could ever see his family again by destroying the dimensional barriers, no matter the cost. And if someone tries to tell him otherwise? Kill ‘em. Obviously this doesn’t excuse his actions, and the movie thankfully never pretends to, but I like that they made this Kingpin such a rich character in his own right, continuing the trend of Kingpin always being given a fantastic performance. Much like Sabretooth, Schreiber really earns the 9/10 with this fantastic vocal performance and just how impactful and even proactive Kingpin is in the story. He gets two major deaths to his name after all.

Liev Schreiber is such a fascinating actor, one who I think is so often overlooked and ignored. While he certainly is typecast as villains fairly often, I think it’s safe to say he excels at those kinds of roles, and he always manages to inject something unique into his roles. You wouldn’t confuse any of these three villains for each other after all.

[saizoswifey]

you don’t have to answer this if you’re too busy, but i’d love to know what your best boys (saizo, johan, kyle, kiro, etc.) have in common and what you love about them 👀💗

Okay I know I already told you but I love this ask sooo much lol. Thank you!!!!! It really made me think a ton. Which I LOVE. 

To start off, I’m going to have to begin with BEST BAE JOHAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MY LOVE MY HUSBAND!!!!!!! LOVE OF MY LIFE!! Because he is quite frankly the most complex. 

_________________________________

“And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads; and on its horns were ten diadems, and on its heads were blasphemous names… And the dragon gave it his power and his throne and great authority… They worshipped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, saying ‘who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?' “

There are so many layers to Naoki Urasawa’s Monster and Johan as a character that I honestly would need to go off on it entirely on its own, and I would STILL have a tough time touching on everything I love. 

Johan Liebert is a typical type of character I go for. He is probably THE top favorite character I have ever come across in media when it comes to Evil and Complexity. And he actually has a bit in common with Saizo. 

What I love about Johan is the tragedy of what he became. You can truly look back on his past and see all of the factors that led him to become the way he is; a man with extreme intellect, cunning, the incredible ability to charm everyone he meets. A true genius. But also, someone who can manipulate people, even children, even ORPHANS to suicide or murder. Someone who murders and doesn’t think twice. What could he have been had the path lay different for him? Or, perhaps, was he always destined to live with this Monster inside of him, considering he was born out of a Eugenics experiment, to begin with? That’s what I love so much about him and this series.

 It’s so focused on a few key things. Among those are our choices in life and how they can easily stack up to eventually become the mountain of solitude we stand on, the struggle with identity, mainly: NAMES. 

Lastly, another important aspect to the series is the playful way it dips in and out of reality. 

What I mean by that is, Johan really has this fictional quality to him. That’s another reason I love him SO MUCH. We often hear even Inspector Lunge question whether or not Johan is an actual person. Johan is like a character in a fairytale, which fits well with the fairytale we have in the actual story. Even Johan’s name seems like an illusion of the mind. 

Tenma: Stop it, Johan! I know you! I was your doctor nine years ago. Don’t add any more crimes to your list!

Johan: Heh… heh heh heh… 'Johan’… There was a time when I went by that name. But it’s not my real name.

You honestly come to doubt at a point whether or not Johan is a real person, and that’s EXACTLY what he wants. Johan, in a sense, is nothingness. So fictional at times that some characters even said he was a real-life vampire. 

I think I have something in me that draws me to suicidal characters or characters with no sense of self-preservation but Johan is no exception. Feeling abandoned by his mother and alone, 

and being used and abused and brainwashed, being groomed into the next Hitler and then moving from place to place, he emulated The Monster in the picture book. He moved from family to family trying to take on their names and become what they wanted but in the end, he killed them. The monster inside of him broke free. 

Johan captivates me because he is so enigmatic, seemingly everywhere and nowhere at once. He never had a sense of self, and that’s what makes him so horrifying, enough that he makes even average serial killers look less terrifying. Because at least they have methods to their madness, yet Johan kills pretty coldly and without any motivation. He tried to orchestrate what would be his “perfect suicide” after murdering the Liebert’s but when Nina failed to kill him and Tenma saved him he turned to, like, plan B. Just like how he, as a child, manipulated the weak points in the orphans and staff, orchestrating what would have them all turn and kill each other, he would try to do the same in the world. He doesn’t work with a set of principals aside from chaos. 

All of his life it had been hammered into him that life was about being on top, the best. You either succeed and come out on top or lose. His sister being chosen over him, and the experiments at 511 kinderheim. How many children did they go through and toss aside like garbage before Johan? Even the eugenics experiment that was a series of chosen “perfect specimens” to create the next world leader, bringing about his birth. It’s always survival of the fittest to Johan. He had to come out on top. So in his loneliness and strife for being left the only one standing, fulfilling what he was born to do, he decided to throw the world into chaos and let them all devour each other to show his superiority and also to get revenge for bringing him into this world yet leaving him alone and with nothing, not even a name. 

When he stumbled upon the book in the library it triggered him and changed his thought process a bit, though. He was reminded of his childhood again, and the perfect suicide. I think around here is when he began to play with the idea of letting Tenma kill him once he got rid of everyone who knew who he was. He could then disappear like he never existed. So he could evaporate into his complete loneliness like the monster in the book. And I love how expertly manipulative he is, using the people from his childhood and everyone he can in order to help him achieve this goal. They think they’re going to be immortalized or help rule the world next to Johan. They think they’re the power players but never come to see they’re simply pawns until Johan eventually kills them. 

I love extremely intelligent and charming characters. I love evil characters. And I mostly love characters who are evil for chaos’ sake. Characters who do terrible shit with no rhyme or reason why. Bonus points if they have that ONE PERSON who they are attached to and would never harm. Johan hits all of these for me and I instantly fell in love. 

I like the parallels between 511 Kinderheim and Iga. Both Saizo and Johan are lonely, both ending up in a place where they are brainwashed and abused and taught to rid themselves of all emotion and human attachment in order to become the ultimate weapon/specimen. I also see a lot of parallels between Johan/Nina and Saizo/Hotaru. 

Both Saizo and Johan are tragic characters, both suicidal but for different reasons. Both of them grapple with their own duality and their sense of self. They really don’t know who they are at the core, and both feel as if they’re just tools living in the shadows and one day they’ll disappear into nothing and no one will care. 

They are also both incredibly charming and good looking, able to get away with so much and slip into any circle due to their high level of intelligence and cunning. They’re both characters that have done some lifechanging GOOD for people, but have also done terrible things on the other end of the spectrum. The dynamic in both is vast, and that’s something I love. Because humans are not ornately ‘good’ or ‘evil’ but a mix of both. It makes them great characters. 

Genya also has a lot of these same points in common with Johan. And even more so because he has a twin just like Johan. A twin who was weaker than him that he felt the need to protect, a twin that he felt was his other half. Just like Johan. 

Almost all of the characters in my top boys have either high intelligence or a tragic/traumatic past. Sometimes both. Mugen, Levi, Johan, Saizo, etc. they all have this in common. I also love characters with self-destructive tendencies. Bonus if it’s a coping mechanism lol. 

I like characters that have pain in their past and could either go dark or light because of their trauma. I tend to go for the characters who end up going down the dark path like Johan but I also don’t mind the ones that end up going on the light path like Saizo, Levi, Mugen, Kyle, and Genya. Kyle has intense trauma and could have easily turned to anger and hatred but he chose to forgive and live and save people. He’s still a dumpster fire sometimes with his drinking to cope with his pain and memory but he’s a good man. 

I think Kiro has more in common with Kyle than anyone else in my favorites. They both have trauma in their pasts and they mask it with smiles. Both are kind of brick-headed when it comes to love and err on the side of taking things slow and supporting each other without looking for much in return and I like that about them. I like that they both offer tons of support to MC and encourage her to be the best she can be, and they enjoy just being around her without needing anything else. They are good friends first, and the rest develops really naturally. 

Overall, if a character is: 

cocky as fuck

shady as fuck

evil

murdery

chaotic

pained by the ghosts of their past lol 

god mode at sOMETHING 

GENIUS 

hate everyone but that One Special Dumbass they will protect at all costs

stoic

at war with whether to be evil or good

take things extremely slow with their MC/SO and come at them from a level playing field of respect

chances are I’m in love with them hahaha. 

Thank you for this!!! Sorry its Johan loving hours here 24/7 so most of this was just me yelling about him but whvedhjwv I hope this did an okay job answering you!!!!!!!!! 

[lostsummerdayz]

Death Note One-Shot Chapter Review

“AH! SHINIGAMI!” But in 2020!

By: Nay Holland

Death Note started off as a manga and anime series that joined others in its ilk during the 2000s renaissance. This was the time period that brought us many herald classics such as Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Inuyasha, Full Metal Alchemist, and Gurren Lagann. I can spend the entire time naming at least ten other series that would either go on to have devoted fans over a decade later or continue in some form. Of course Naruto lives on through Boruto, rumors of a Bleach revival are on the way, and One Piece is, well, never ending at this point.

However, among the “Roaring 00s” of anime, Death Note always stood out to me. While I was invested in Naruto since middle school, I hadn’t touched Death Note until my high school years. During this time, the series was still popular, yet it always seemed overshadowed by the other bigger names. Despite this, it remains a huge hit in Japan with several live action movies, a prequel light novel, several dramas, and a TV series.

Of course, there was also the Netflix Original film which was an attempt to “Americanize” the series, for whatever reason. Back in 2017 it was a talking point, mostly how it didn’t live up to the source material presented. Nowadays, no one really talks about it and it is probably for the best.

While Death Note is considered a cult classic in both the East and the West, it is no surprise that content is still being created to this day. The surprise factor stems from the unexpectant delivery of said content. On February 3rd 2020, the creators behind Death Note, author Tsugumi Ohba and artist Takeshi Obata, revisited the world that Kira left behind in a one-shot published by Viz Media.

While you don’t need to read the original manga to read the one-shot, the one-shot will assume you know the original source as many existing characters, themes, and events from the original manga are all featured within the chapter. That said, it will greatly enhance the experience if you know the source material. Past this point there will be spoilers on the original manga and the one-shot chapter as I’ll be referring to both.

This isn’t the first “one-shot” within the Death Note universe. The first official one-shot dates as far back as 2008, two years after the original series was completed. Set three years after Kira’s death, this one-shot focused on a new “Kira.” This “Kira” has access to the Death Note via a shinigami (who wasn’t Ryuk) and used it to murder those who had a low life expectancy. However, the new “L,” formerly known as Near, quickly shuts his antics down. The new “Kira” then uses the Death Note to kill himself and the shinigami retrieve the book.

Before we can discuss the latest one-shot, we first have to discuss Takeshi Obata’s art exhibit that was held in the Summer of 2019; Never Complete. 

Never Complete was an art exhibit celebrating Obata’s thirty-years as a manga artist. Within the exhibit, many of his previous works from Hikaru no Go, Bakuman, Death Note, and the latest ongoing series, Platinum End were all on display.

Bonus content which included first drafts of illustrations, were also featured. Among the bonus content, the most peculiar one was a storyboard draft of the 87-page one-shot. The storyboard draft can be seen and read in almost its entirety on the official Shonen Jump Plus website. Six months later, we have an official release in both Japanese and English. The official English translation can be viewed here.

Our story begins right where the previous one-shot left off. The shinigami who wasn’t Ryuk, gives Ryuk back the Death Note, claiming he was unsuccessful while also giving him an apple as an offering. Being bored of the shinigami world as well as a craving for more apples, Ryuk sets off to see who could be the successor of the Death Note. If it entails free apples, Ryuk ain’t complaining.

We then get to meet a young Minoru Tanaka, a middle schooler who is known for having the highest test grades in the region. When Ryuk introduces himself to Tanaka, the only thing Ryuk knows is that Tanaka is smart in school, comparing Minoru Tanaka to Light Yagami’s aptitude in school.

However, his actual grades are mediocre at best. This already contrasts Light who was a certified genius both in tests as well as grades. As Tanaka explains that his ability to score high on tests are dependent on his knowledge of IQ tests and quizzes, he bemoans that adults who see grades yet fail to see the bigger picture are no better.

As Tanaka holds the Death Note in his hand, all he knows is that it was once Kira’s. It is during this scene that we learn the state of Tokyo after Kira’s death, ten years later. Yagami’s legacy lives on as he is taught in schools around Tokyo. Tanaka exclaims that he was taught about him in Ethics class and in World History class, both of whom consider him to be an evil mass-murdering sociopath that placed Tokyo on the brink of destruction. 

There’s just one problem with holding the single most powerful and dangerous weapon in the world. What good is a Death Note if you can’t even read its instructions?

While this wasn’t a problem for Light as he was a genius who understood fluent English and Japanese, here was a middle schooler who struggled with English. He asks Ryuk to translate the English into Japanese, just so that he can understand how to use it.

However, while not as academically bright as Light, Minoru is more logical with his approach. He understands how the Death Note was used in the past. The major difference between the past and the present are the increase in security measures to ensure a repeat of what happened doesn’t transpire again. When Ryuk asks if Minoru can use the Death Note the same way that Kira did, Minoru hesitates.

Knowing the state of Tokyo right now as well as knowing the history of Kira and the Death Note, he has no interest or intentions of using the Death Note for similar deeds. Here lies a normal child who excels at critical thinking who has the opportunity of a lifetime.

Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. He also can’t risk the book falling into the hands of someone else who would use the book for the same reasons Kira did, or worse. So he does the one thing that he could do in this situation. He buys himself two years of time. He tells Ryuk to come back to him in two years, while asking him two critical questions.

The first question he asks is if it was possible for those who touched the notebook to still see Ryuk. This would involve the former Investigation Team and Near, who brought Kira to justice. 

The second question was how far can Ryuk move around without being close to Minoru. This comes into play two years later when Minoru decides to ultimately sell the Death Note.

That’s right. He sells the Death Note.

But not just to anyone, especially not via Craigslist either.

Conveniently, the TV broadcast station is close by Tanaka’s house. With a pen and paper he tells Ryuk to write a message that will incur interest without actually having to directly contact Tanaka himself. Since the net and all of its usage can be easily tracked, using the TV to broadcast the message provides a safe approach for Tanaka to cover his trail. Rather, you can’t cover a trail you never create.

Conversely, those who had seen Ryuk from ten years ago, were able to see Ryuk on television. This introduces several key characters from the original series into the one-shot. The first is Matsuda, who is every bit as hot headed and foolishly passionate in the present as he was in the past.

The second, is L.

Not the L we know, but, the current L. Near.

Fragments of the iconic “L vs Kira” fight start to show over the next few pages as the bids for the Death Note reaches into the trillions and L continuously wondering how things are playing out. He understands that the “Auction Kira” or “A-Kira” is playing a very cautious game, but fails to see the endgame.

As the bid for the Death Note reaches record highs, it is revealed that the two nations bidding for the Death Note are none other than…

...The United States of America…

...And China….

Despite two of the largest world leaders in the hot seat bidding on the Death Note, Minoru is unphased. In the end, the USA wins the auction. At this point, Near awaits to figure out just how “A-Kira” is going to attain the money. Thinking this through, Minoru demands payment in such a way that it is almost impossible to be tracked down.

Within this time period, it is enough for Tanaka to relinquish ownership of the Death Note, forget he had it, and live a peaceful life along with millions of others in Japan. Given the circumstances and how millions will have access to such money, as well as the owner of the Death Note forgetting he had the Death Note, Near backs off, admitting defeat.

There is one fatal flaw to Tanaka’s entire plan and it was a flaw that would lead to his death.

Turns out Tanaka was so smart that not only did he outsmart the smartest human alive, but he also outsmarted the Shinigami King himself. Shortly before the Death Note was relinquished, the King ordered Ryuk to write a new rule within the Death Note. The rule being this.

With even the Shinigami King being upset that the Death Note was allowed to be sold to another, this new rule ensured that Tanaka was going to die a month from now. The president, however, chose to relinquish ownership, but declares that he has the power of Kira to herald his power over everyone else.

So, as stated in the new ruling of the Death Note, Tanaka’s name was written in Ryuk’s Death Note as soon as he received the money and the chapter ends on that note.

The first thing I want to mention is that Tanaka was too smart for his own good. Kira’s downfall was that his God complex forced him to become disillusioned. Tanaka’s downfall was the complete opposite. He felt his plan was entirely foolproof without taking into the variable of the shinigami lowballing him.

This reminded me of the time when Rem declared that she would kill Light if he ever caused the death or harm of Misa. At this point this was Light’s first interaction with another shinigami. Knowing who Rem was and the type of person she was, he was able to manipulate her to his livelihood by sacrificing herself. Tanaka never got to see the Shinigami King himself, and the King made sure of it.

Tanaka not only never met another shinigami so he could understand how they would behave, but he also never met Near---I mean L. I gotta stop calling him Near.

He never got to meet L, he never got to meet the investigation team. All of Tanaka’s actions were met through the safety of his room. This was beneficial as he was able to cover his tracks, but it proved his downfall as he followed a plan from start to finish without thinking of the variables.

The moment Tanaka relinquished ownership, his fate was sealed. Tanaka wouldn’t have known about the rule change and it wouldn’t be up to Ryuk to remind him. Ryuk is many things, but Ryuk is a shinigami of his words.

It’s because of Ryuk being a shinigami of his word that proved to be fatal to Light as well. From the beginning of Light’s reign into Kira, Ryuk promised that if Light were to ever put himself in a situation where Light would die, Ryuk would write his name in the Death Note.

Ryuk never had the chance to warn Tanaka about the rule change as he was told never to show his face again. Thus, Tanaka died oblivious to anything that he had done, unlike Light who died knowing all of the things he’d done.

The final thing I want to reflect upon is the concept of legacy. Throughout the chapter we’re told about the lasting impression Kira had on not just Japan, but the entire world. It was this legacy that spurred the interest of ownership of the Death Note to begin with. Even if the Death Note was never used, the fact that it could be used to incite fear and dominance among one’s nation and the world is enough for anyone in a position of power.

The caveat of covering your path is that no one knows your name. This was the entire point of Tanaka’s ownership of the Death Note. He wanted to get rid of it while also making a profit off of it. If all of Japan would reap the benefits of the Death Note, then it was just a bonus.

His mother wouldn’t struggle, his family wouldn’t struggle, everyone would be set for life. This one child single-handedly caused an entire economic bubble and yet his legacy would be left behind with no one knowing who he was.

If you’re a fan of the series, I highly recommend giving this a read. In fact it makes me want to revisit the series one more time. It was nice seeing how my old favorites were doing ten years later, both literally and within universe. It was also a good read that, much like the original Death Note, left a lot to think about as far as current events.

The timing of the release of this chapter, the realistic physical details of the world leaders for USA and China, and the themes shared within the chapter are non-coincidental I believe. While a Death Note is obviously fantasy, it reads itself like a parody of modern-day politics. A caricature of the lengths those in power would go to obtain a destructive instrument used for intimidation purposes. 

Unfortunately, even if you do everything in your power to just live a peaceful life, in the words of Ryuk…

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Spider-Man: Life Story #3 Thoughts

Since I was most anticipating this issue when I read it in the solicits, I read it in the store as soon as I got it. But I always meant to take a more careful look at it when I got the chance and try to break it down a bit more.

The tl:dr version of my thoughts are: This is possible the weakest issue so far.

Massive rant under the cut.

 As discussed before the perennial problem with this series is it’s muddled concept.

Is it a What If story and if so what exactly is the zag effect to where the canon zigged? Is it that Spidey ages in real time? Or that things happen more ‘realistically’ so you have a Watchmen scenario wherein real life social issues get addressed within a superhero context?

Is it an Elseworlds wherein the idea of a more ‘realistic’ worldview is the overlayed concept a top of the familiar canon?

Is it like what the Ultimate Universe was supposed to be according to some people wherin it’s a canon-free reimagining of the original stories free to take whatever liberties it desires for the new audience?

Well Life Story thus far has tried to be all of those things and winds up being none of them. This is quite aside from how it was originally marketed as a straight What If story, what if Spider-Man aged in real time.

But really this series is best described via the convoluted descriptor of:

“It’s a story where people who love and are familiar with the canon Spider-Man’s life can see how it would’ve been different if it happened in real time.

But also how it would’ve been different if the Marvel universe was more realistically wrapped up in social political issues of the different time period.

But also if it only really cared about the international military conflicts of those time periods and mostly uses all other social political issues as window dressing.

But also that realism mentioned above only goes as far as the writers decide it should go so the actual real life ramifications of superheroes involved in international military conflicts just don’t happen because Zdarsky says so.

And also those military conflicts only impact upon Spider-Man’s life directly whenever the story decides it should so half the time things are different because of the more ‘realistic’ warfare stuff and the other half of the time it’s different because it just is...not even because he’s aging in real time.

So yeah actually it’s also a what if Spider-Man’s life included all that stuff above but also things are randomly different from the canon for the sake of it, but the reader is still supposed to be surprised because they are familiar with the canon anyway.

Oh and what if also there are massive status quo changes between issues that randomly adhere and deviate from the canon on a whim and go unexplained”

 THAT apparently...is Spider-Man Life Story.

It’s a fucking mess at this point, I cannot understand the people who are praising it.

Let me get my ONE positive comment out of the way first.

Mark Bagley is just slaughtering the art on this story.

This is the best his art on Spider-Man has looked this decade and it’s up there with some of the best of his Spider-Man career.

I think it comes from him benefitting from modern inking and colouring like in Ultimate Spider-Man but he’s drawing something that isn’t as reimagined from the canon as USM. So consequently Spider-Man’s physique is more traditional (because Spider-Man wasn’t 15 when he began his career), Venom and the villains don’t have their Ultimate designs etc.

But the story...oh fuck the story.

The ONLY way any of this adds up in terms of story decisions is if you take it as Zdarsky’s fanfiction.

I respect fanfiction, but this is amateurish in it’s decisions and it says too much about Zdarsky’s view of Spider-Man or Spider-Man aging.

The story is so cynical about how Spider-Man aging would ruin him. the story is cynical about Spider-Man’s idealization of Mary Jane or the alleged toxicity of the Peter/MJ marriage.

Like I’ve said before he has an agenda when it comes to MJ and I think this is further proof.

Peter being Spider-Man fucks up her life big time, she suffers big time, it destroys their relationship and she lives in the shadow of Gwen.

When you consider this is supposed to on some level be a representation of the spirit of 1980s Spider-Man, or at least the stories it’s choosing to remix, it becomes utterly insulting.

This is a story remixing Kraven’s Last Hunt, a love letter to the Spider-Marriage if there ever was one, and it’s used in part to destroy their relationship.

Shit Gwen’s ghost is brought up as a bone of contention between them when it was in an 1980s story (drawn by Bagley no less) that it was clearly spelled out that Peter loves his WIFE Mary Jane more than his DEAD GIRLFRIEND Gwen Stacy.

Now I know the situation here is different because Peter was with Gwen for longer than in canon and longer even than his relationship with MJ in this universe. But the fact that it’s beating that same old drum speaks very much towards the idea that this is Zdarsky’s actual assessment of that love triangle. This is like something of the bygone days of BND and Slott’s era FFS.

The bullshit doesn’t stop there though because wouldn’t you believe it Peter and MJ have twins. Okay cool. And one is called Ben and the other is called...Claire...Claire? Who the fuck is Claire? We have 2 major AU Spider-Man stories where Peter and MJ name their first daughter after Aunt May and their second after Aunt Anna! Who the Hell is Claire?

That’s just the tip of the iceberg though.

There is so much stuff in this that as a what if or an elseworld’s story utterly fails and even stuff that simply doesn’t add up within the context of this story on it’s own terms.

·         So I guess...Vietnam ended...um...how? We already established that nonsensically Vietnam lasted longer than in the real world even though it should have ended earlier by rights. But now it’s just...over. How? How did that happen? I’m not saying it’s impossible but the story NEVER ADDRESSES this?

 ·         Captain America is clearly participating in Secret Wars in 1984, taking on Doom himself no less. We see little of his face but from what we do see he’s in uniform and also seems to still be in his prime. Huh? Captain America went rogue and fought against the United States for over 10 years in Vietnam! How does he still hold the rank of Captain America and how could he possibly still be seemingly in his prime by 1984 if he’s aging in real time? Think about it, he’s older than Spider-Man physically (forget that he’s from the 1940s). And Spider-Man is saying he’s getting slower in his old age in this story. So how the Hell is Cap (who’s powers don’t slow his aging and don’t give him Spidey’s power levels) still in his prime when he’s definitely in his 40s! It doesn’t make sense! It could all be explained a million ways because it’s the Marvel universe. The Beyonder could’ve addressed all of this but the problem is the story doesn’t. It just presents it as Steve Rogers betrayed America in 1967 and fought against them into 1977 then between then and 1984...went back to being the Captain America you knew and loved in the canon Secret Wars story

 ·         Doctor Octopus...is evil again. It was nonsensical enough that he was a good guy in issue #2 but now, with no explanation, he’s back to being evil. He doesn’t even seem to give a fuck that Aunt May is dying of dementia. That even highlights the stupidity of hookig them up in issue #2, Otto never actually romantically liked May, the age gap was massive!

  ·         The story has Peter test his new costume to determine it’s a living organism and he decides to keep it because he’s getting older and wants to remain strong and relevant. Then MJ claims he’s addicted to it because he wears it a lot and then when he is buried alive by Kraven it goes to him and turns him into...Venom? There is a lot to unpack with this I need multiple points. But let’s just start with this. First of all technically the symbiote shouldn’t give you synthetic muscles as it does to Peter when it turns him into Venom. Venom had a lot of muscle because Eddie Brock was a body builder. But I won’t hold that against the story because that’s been a problem with Venom for decades now. Similarly I hate it, but I can forgive the symbiote turning Peter into a toothy Venom monster.

 ·         More significantly the implication of this story is that the costume is corruptive of Peter, making him addictive and then feeds off his anger, threatening to permantly turn him into a monster after he’s buried alive. Er....That’s not how that works. The symbiote wasn’t originally like that outside of cartoons and films. The symbiote didn’t even corrupt Eddie Brock, Brock was already sick and twisted. It’s status as a metaphor for substance abuse also didn’t come in until later and it wasn’t a factor for Peter’s personal relationship with it at all so what gives why is that in this story? Does Zdarsky think Spider-Man 1994 is canon or something?

 ·         Peter is using the symbiote sparingly and even puts it aside when he goes off web swinging before Kraven confronts him. yet we’re told he’s becoming addictive. There is little evidence of this, it could just as easily be Reed and MJ were being overly concerned. At best it’s a case of Zdarsky telling yet not showing. If Peter was truly addicted he’d have taken the suit with him.

 ·         Is the implication the suit is going to take him over when he became Venom? How does that add up? If he’s not been wearing it to avoid that how does it rescuing him from the grave = now it’s in danger of taking him over?

 ·         What is this nonsense about Peter needing the suit to remain relevant? The costume didn’t enhance his powers originally. The story isn’t even very clear on if it does that in this universe or not. They didn’t even bring up how the costume makes the wearer more durable, able to surviving being shot, which would’ve been pertinent in this tale

 ·         Why is Peter even getting weaker? He’s 37, that’s a little older than he is now in the comics

 ·         Moving on, there is this weird inconsistency where Reed asks Peter has figured out if an alien machine can nano-weld, implying Peter’s new costume is nano-tech. This would add up because he has Parker Industries in this universe and he had a nano-tech armour during that time period. Yet his outfit is still torn like cloth. How? In fact if he has nanotech armour why would he even need the symbiote?

 ·         This story confirms for us that because Reed felt responsible for Dr. Doom he pushed away his friends and family and this is a warning to Peter of what he might become, and indeed does by the end of the issue...what? How the hell does that add up. Why does Reed feel more responsible for Doom and how does this result in him pushing away his family? Because he’s aging in real time? Because of...Vietnam??????? it makes no sense

 ·         Why is Peter concerned about staying relevant to the point where he keeps a dangerous suit? In canon Tony Stark replicated the abilities of a symbiote with non-living Extremis Armour so Peter with his resources could probably make a symbiote suit that isn’t dangerous. More importantly if he has all these resources at his disposal couldn’t he either just in general make tech to help him out and compensate for his old age (Bruce Wayne has done this in different continuities) or just use his companies resources to help people out without being Spider-Man anyway?

 ·         In canon and RYV and the MC2 universe it’s made repeatedly clear that when Peter became a parent being Spider-Man would take a backseat. Yet in this universe he’s being Spider-Man MORE at the detriment of his wife, mother and children who’ve been devoid of his presence for an extended period of time. MJ is upset to the point of swearing when the issue opens. The story is so devoid of the love and affection between the pair that’s important to the mythos.

 ·         WTF is Peter’s problem about putting May in an old folks home? He did THAT in canon too IIRC in the Marv Wolfman run. Even if he had a problem with that he’s the head of a big company just HIRE people to look after her. He’s got the money for a high tech lab and nano-tech suits why is a carer for the elderly out of his price range. And isn’t MJ really rich after Harry and her split up? Why is this an issue?

 ·         How did Peter wind up with Parker Industries? In canon it was because Doc Ock founded it then manipulated things behind the scenes after Peter regained his body to make the place a success. In this story without explanation Peter just has it. But Peter is a bad businessman, having money from MJ wouldn’t mean he’d be able to successfully run a company he hasn’t the aptitude for that!

 ·         The nuclear strike is just....putting aside how cynical it is, how achingly it wants to be like Watchmen or DKR...are you honestly trying to tell me Russia’s access to superhumans never resulted in anything game changing in the world before now? There is a superhuman arms race happening but we didn’t bring it up until nearly 20 years after the first issue began and only in 1984 does anything bad happen?

 ·         The implication is actually that Russia having superheroes of their own is a recent innovation. This makes no sense as there were Russian super powered people in the 1960s, including Red Ghost who is the perpetrator of the nuclear strike in the issue

 ·         Wait, wait, wait. Russia launches nuclear missiles at the United States because there are less super humans there and this results in a town getting destroyed and...that’s it. That’s all that happens. Oh and Vision is sad and intangible.

 Are you fucking kidding me?

How does aging in real time or the existence of super humans = The stalemate of Mutually Assured Destruction isn’t a thing in this universe.

 I’m sorry to bust out the most rudimentary of 20th century history here but if America or Russia launched a nuclear strike at one another then it’d set of a chain reaction wherein everyone would launch their nukes and the most of life would be wiped out.

Zdarsky in this story displays a blisteringly ignorance of real life history to the point where it’s honestly insulting.

It’s insulting to people’s intelligence but also to the real life people who lived through the Cold War, frightened the world would end any day.

 ·         Oh boy. Now we come to Kraven. I actually re-read this the same day I finished off Hunted so I saw a really good homage to KLH back-to-back with a really bad one.

What is Kraven’s plan here?

I will grant Kraven’s plan in KLH technically speaking made no sense but we were presented his twisted perspective and it was from that perspective we were able to deduce he was viewing Spider-Man (and the world) with blinders on. And from that limited viewpoint his plan added up.

Seemingly kill Spidey. Bury him alive. Imitate him. Be a better Spider-Man than him. when he wakes up tell him he could’ve killed him and show him you are a better Spider-Man than him. Die in glorious victory, honour restored.

It’s crazy, but it makes sense from Kraven’s POV, so much so that when he killed himself real life readers took it to be glorifying suicide.

Here we don’t get Kraven’s perspective. Which wouldn’t be a problem as much if his plan and motives were the same.

But it they aren’t because in Life Story Kraven the Hunter imitates Spider-Man, drugs him and then buries him alive...because America is at war with Russia...and he has cancer...and he needs Spider-Man to be ‘beautiful’ which seemingly means...violent and probably prone to killing.

????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

I’m just....what?

The worst case scenario for this is that Zdarsky should never be allowed to write Kraven the Hunter ever because this so aggressively doesn’t seem to understand his character, his relationship with Spider-Man or Kraven’s Last Hunt.

The best case scenario, Zdarsky is a terrible writer and in his head is justifying Kraven’s actions via ‘he’s crazy so it doesn’t have to make sense so I can have the character do anything.’

Let’s unpack this.

So Kraven is imitating Spider-Man (poorly because he uses a rifle) before he buries Spider-Man alive because...um...I don’t know.

Because as with so much in this story, it’s never explained.

You’d think it’d be to draw out Spider-Man but no, that’s not it because Kraven just happens to apparently know where Spider-Man is and sneaks up on him (where the Hell was the Spider Sense?)

The he shoots at Spider-Man at very close range but Spider-Man dodges. That’d be the Spider-Man who’s so old now at age 37 he maybe needs a symbiote suit to compensate. Yeah that guy can still dodge a rifle at close range just fine...without the symbiote.

Oh but then his old age catches up with him because Kraven stabs him.

Let me repeat that.

The old man, with no super powers (as he wants to remind us) who is also dying of cancer is able to stab the much younger super fast and agile guy with a precognitive danger sense.

What.

The.

Fuck.

Do you see?

Do you see how bad this series is?

This would be inexcusable writing even if we weren’t comparing it to canon!

But we aren’t done. Because remember how I said Kraven is old and has no powers? Yeah...why is Kraven old and hasn’t got any powers?

Kraven’s powers 100% grant him super human strength, speed, agility, the usual package of super powers.

It’s nowhere close to Spider-Man’s power level no, but it is beyond human nevertheless.

And KLH itself established that Kraven’s jungle herbs and potions make retard his aging immensely. In fact as real life time elapses their abilities to do this grow greater since he was a not yet an adult at the time of the 1917 Russian Revolution but looked to be in his 30s circa 1987 when KLH was originally published. As time goes by KLH didn’t happen in 1987 but much later so Kraven seriously doesn’t age! It’s to the point where he was part of a 1950s Avengers team in canon.

I get that Zdarsky in his alternate universe can take the characters in different directions but you aren’t even getting the super powers of the super heroes and villains right here!

But it gets worse.

So Kraven is doing this because after so many years in America he regards it as his home?

Fuck...Off.

Kraven the Hunter would never  think that way. Kraven finds America’s ways decadent. He hates them because they lack the kind of jungle and animalistic honour he holds so dear. This is spelled out in the goddam story Zdarsky is homaging.

What? Is the implication Kraven’s cancer is affecting his brain thus making him a totally different person?

If pressed Kraven might choose America over Russia but only because ‘Mother Russia’ destroyed his family in the Russian Revolution. But I’m not convinced Kraven would take a side in general, so much as he’d regard it beneath him or just the law of the jungle playing out on a bigger scale.

But. It. Gets. Worse.

Kraven’s motivation in trying to make Spider-Man ‘beautiful’ again, into a warrior again is akin to Zdarsky gluing in a character from a story we’ve not been reading into this one.

When the Hell in this mini-series was it ever implied Spider-Man was a warrior, a killer, someone violent the way Kraven wants him to be?

It’s even stupider when you consider Kraven says America hasn’t got a real hero, i.e. a real warrior who is willing to kill and be violent because...Wolverine literally appears in this comic.

Hulk appears in this comic.

Captain America appears in this comics.

Iron Man appears in this comic

THOR appears in this comic. Thor, the Viking WARRIOR God!

What is he talking about!??????????

BUT. IT. GETS. WORSE!

Because Kraven after burying Spider-Man proceeds to go around continuing to impersonate Spider-Man (for some reason without his gun now).

Why?

In KLH it made sense.

But WTF is Kraven’s motive in pretending to be Spider-Man in this story at all?

Why was he doing it before and what is his motive in doing it after burying Spider-Man?

He isn’t trying to make himself superior to Spider-Man now.

Peter isn’t even mad ABOUT Kraven impersonating him (which he was in KLH) so Kraven wasn’t doing it to rile him up.

WHY?????????????

BUT IT GETS WORSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spider-Man only survives being buried alive because of the symbiote.

But Kraven couldn’t have known about that so his plan was either to

a)      Genuinely send Spider-Man out the way of a warrior...by drugging him and burying him alive to slowly suffocate...how noble...Or

b)      Burying him alive with the expectation he’d get out and be so angry he’d become a murderer and this would magically mean becoming old and weak wouldn’t be a problem any more.

*smashes head against desk*

·         Not to mention, a Venom empowered angry Spider-Man shoves the old, non-superpowered, dying of cancer Kraven’s head into a brick wall and...he’s fine. He’s not even dazed or bleeding.

 ·         What was the point of giving Kraven cancer? Like how does it make the story better? How does it at all play into anything? All I can think is that Zdarsky is weirdly planning on using it as a substitute for Eddie Brock’s cancer because he’s going to make Kraven Venom instead of Brock. Speaking of which

 ·         Apparently if Spider-Man ages in real time this would mean that Kraven the Hunter would become Venom instead of Eddie Brock one of Spider-Man’s most iconic villains ever. What?

 ·         Just to be clear this is a retelling of Spider-Man’s history where Eddie Brock isn’t Venom and where Kraven doesn’t kill himself. Way to ruin 2 iconic characters at once there Zdarsky

 ·         It’s implied a major part of what motivates MJ and Peter to break up (because again there is clearly  no agenda here at all) is that MJ had to risk possibly killing him with the sonic weapon when the symbiote sent him out of control.

 Okay, first of all Reed Richard had sonic weapons that could be rid of the symbiote without killing the host. The only way that could happen is if they were permanently bonded which Peter clearly wasn’t. So how comes with all his tech Peter invented a potentially lethal solution?

Second of all, he entrusts this to his...wife...and the mother of his children....um...Why not entrust it to an employee? Or Reed? Or Johnny?

Johnny is his best friend in the superhero community and his natural super powers give him an advantage against the symbiote. Reed already knows the risks and surely if Reed knows who he is then Johnny does too.

Or maybe Spider-Man ‘aging in real time’ results in Spider-Man and Johnny not being friends because...er...reasons. Seriously Peter is closer to Reed than Johnny in this continuity what the fuck.

Regardless, he’s entrusting a normal human woman with no combat skills to take down an out of control super powered being. And he’s entrusting she could bring herself to potentially kill  him as well.

Reed and Johnny might be friendly with him up to a point, but surely they’d find the prospect of killing him easier than Peter’s wife!

 My final point is this.

Maybe there is something coming to address this problem but we’re three issues in and I have to ask...what is the point of all the war stuff?

Spider-Man is a street level, personal story right? It’s about a normal guy, not a soldier. It’s about regular crime and social group tensions and romance and rent and smaller scale things like that.

So why is there such a focus in this story upon Vietnam, superheroes in Vietnam and the nuclear arms race with Russia?

Even Spider-man vs. Wolverine played things more low key than this.

This is a Spider-Man  story where a bona fide massive plot point is Russia nuking a town.

Just like...what is the point of this?

Why are we using a Spider-Man story about his life in real time to explore (badly) the horrors of war?

If you want to do that then actually finish the Spider-Nam mini-series!

Fuck this story!

P.S. Why were MJ and Peter casual about mentioning Spider-Man in front of Aunt May? Learning a bombshell like that could harm her health and in her state she could let something slip.

[thesimpsonsbracket]

Round 1, Match 15

Duffless (Season 4, Episode 16)

This ended up being an unexpectedly wholesome episode about overcoming alcoholism with a fun science fair B plot with Lisa and Bart. Beer being such a large part of Homer's core character, it makes sense that we'd see this episode sooner or later and I think on the whole a good job was done here.

We see Homer give up beer for 30 days at the behest of his wife and he's surprisingly agreeable to the idea. This comes on the tail of a DUI he received after a tour of the Duff beer factory with Barney that shared the intro sequence with Bart's fantastic dream about the science fair.

It's nice to see Homer being open to going dry and the 30 days gives us a few cute vignettes of Homer going about his daily life sans beer. I also really loved how this episode focused so heavily on advertisements as a major factor in Homer's struggle to stay dry. I'm not entirely sure if this was meant to be a comment on the advertisement industry as a whole but it was interesting nonetheless.

As a brief aside: I wasn't able to dig up too much info on the topic, but I have the feeling that something happened during the 90s that limited how much alcohol was able to be advertised. Maybe TV ads took over physical ones like the blimp spot we see in the show or maybe I'm just making this all up. Regardless, this episode feels thoroughly 90s because of how many different mediums we see Homer experiencing ads.

Meanwhile, in the B plot, Lisa has grown a prize-winning tomato that she hopes will be the cure to world hunger and make her a household name among tomato loving families in the third world. In an incident what, let's be honest, was 100% Lisa's fault, Bart uses the tomato to 'prank' Skinner, resulting in the tomato being destroyed.

Devastated, Lisa vows revenge and as there's a science fair coming up that she suddenly doesn't have an entry for, she gets to work. I really enjoyed the whole "Is My Brother Smarter Than A Hamster" arc and while this definitely felt like a B plot, the few short scenes were all fun. Especially when Bart catches onto Lisa's plot and attempts to foil her, only to be almost immediately rumbled himself.

The only thing I didn't love about this episode was the conclusion to the B plot where we see Bart turn up to the science fair with a hamster in an airplane and steal first prize. I couldn't tell if this was Lisa's hamster or not but I guess it doesn't matter? Anyway, this felt like a weak ending to this plot and didn't really have the payoff I was hoping for. Life continues to be hard for little Lisa Simpson.

And back in the A plot, we see Homer shakily crossing of day number 30 on the calendar. Lucky this happened during a month with exactly 30 days and also started on the 1st, huh? He wants to celebrate by rushing off to Moe's to make up for his month-long dry spell but is temporarily deterred by Marge who is hesitant to let him start drinking again. Homer mostly ignores this and runs off to Moe's, only to have his sober eyes opened by the sights he sees there.

We see the episode ending on a cute shot of Homer riding his tiny bike with Marge on the basket, singing and generally being cute as they ride of into the sunset.

--- versus ---

El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer (The Mysterious Voyage of Homer) (Season 8, Episode 9)

What an absolute roller coaster of an episode. We start out with Marge in an unusually suspicious mood that we quickly discover is due to the big annual chili cook-off being today.

Chili seems to be Homer's favorite thing in the universe (apart from beer) and this cook-off is something he looks forward too each year, even though he apparently can't remember when it's supposed to happen. Unrealistic plot setup aside, this is a fantastic episode.

Eventually Homer catches on and is upset at Marge for trying to hide this from him. Marge explains that she tried to keep Homer from the event due to his habit of getting completely wasted and making a fool of himself and so, as he's donning his chili boots, he promises Marge to not have any beer at the cook-off.

And with that, we're away to Chili Town. As the family enters the cook-off, we get to see how everyone opts to spend their time. Each of their responses is funny but I especially like Marge's bit with the spice rack. We move to focus on Homer, Sheriff of Chili Town, as he makes his way up and down the rows of chili vendors in a clearly western inspired style that’s evocative of Clint Eastwood films, among many, many others.

After humiliating Flanders' pathetic 2 alarm chili, he approaches his chili nemesis, Chief Wiggum, who has something special in store for Homer this year. The Guatemalan Insanity Pepper makes quick work of Homer's tongue, leading to an unfortunate incident where Marge catches him trying to sooth his volcano-like mouth with the closest liquid which just so happens to be beer.

Over the course of this episode we start to see the stability of Homer and Marge’s relationship begin to crumble away and while this is a completely reasonable coincidence, it nonetheless is a big blow. It’s clear from the onset of this episode that Marge has zero faith in Homer which I honestly have to say feels unearned and is one of my biggest issues with this episode.

Dejected at his humiliation, Homer is gulping down water and nearly tries to drink a candle before being stopped by Ralph. He then proceeds to drink the candle in an attempt to heat-proof his mouth because that’s how that works. As a quick side note: this specific scene is one of the very few that I remember seeing in my youth. Most of the rest of this episode is a vague blur but Homer chugging the candle sticks out so clearly in my mind that it was weird to have a bit of a nostalgic flashback when watching this.

Homer returns to Wiggum, mouth thoroughly coated in wax, and demands another pepper. He gulps down not one, but four insanity peppers before walking away, his heart swelling with pride and his stomach full of molten evil. About a minute later we see the peppers start to go to work and we transition into an absolutely incredible series of scenes.

First up, we see Homer's sanity slowly fraying away. His vision gets highly artistic and he starts to hallucinate as we see familiar characters like Flanders, Mrs. Krabappel, and Nelson horrifically distorted. This scare causes Homer to wander blindly away, out into the desert conveniently located just outside the cook-off venue.

Once in the desert, things really get weird and I can't overstate how much I love this scene. We see a ton of weird art styles and techniques clash together to visually recreate the feeling of every atom in your body being simultaneously transformed into pain.

Eventually the massive hallucinations wear off and Homer finds himself lost in the desert with only the regular, minor hallucinations to hang out with like his spirit guide, a hungry coyote voiced by Johnny Cash for some reason. When asked to find his soulmate, Homer responds that it's obviously Marge and with a simple "Is it?", Johnny disappears, leaving Homer to contemplate this bombshell.

We see Homer wake up on a golf course later and are treated to a few back to back jokes that really hit me hard. Homer's in the sand trap which he quickly works out was the desert he was dreaming of. Leaving the golf course, he remarks that the crazy pyramid that he climbed must have been the Pro Shop. We then cut out to a very wide shot of a pyramid some fifty stairs high with a Pro Shop nestled at the top. Homer then further remarks that the talking coyote must have just been the talking dog who reminds Homer to find his soulmate before being turned back into a normal non-talking dog upon remembering that talking dogs don't exist.

Marge explodes at Homer upon his eventual return home and again we see Marge simply ready to be mad at Homer and completely unwilling to hear him out and having zero faith in him to keep his word. After a brief argument, Homer decides to follow his heart and leave home, convinced that Marge truly isn't his soulmate. This takes us on yet another spirit quest that wraps up the last third or so of the episode.

There are some good goofs during this montage but ultimately Homer, desperate for any kind of human interaction, makes his way to a lighthouse, intent on befriending a lonely lighthouse keeper, only to find that there's a computer running the place.

Through a series of nonsensical plot devices, Homer and Marge are eventually reunited and Homer realizes that Marge truly is his soulmate and he's immediately ready to accept her back. This is where I get a little frustrated because I feel like Marge gets away pretty clean in this episode despite behaving in a frankly awful manner. Homer didn't have a single drop of beer at the cook-off and refused to hear Homer out when he showed up the next day. She also never apologized for how she acted.

She was selfish when she tried to hide the cook-off from Homer in the first place instead of just trying to talk to him like an adult and her childish behavior led to Homer running away. I'd like to see more episodes focusing on Marge's character flaws because I think she's probably the most interesting person in the whole family and yet so often it seems that she's only used as a foil and we never get anything more than surface deep.

Even in a recently covered Marge episode Fear of Flying we get teased with bits and pieces about Marge’s backstory and her seemingly tortuous upbringing by her mother but there’s never any meaningful payoff and it’s only played up for laughs.

Not to end on a downer, but for some reason this injustice stuck with me and left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth after an otherwise stellar episode.

--- verdict ---

Watching the first episode, I was sure that the feel-good family story was going to win out but Homer's insanity pepper fueled vision quest ended up being such a strong episode that I won't be surprised in the slightest if it ends up in my top ten. Small gripes about Marge's overall character and behavior in this episode aside, it's incredibly funny and manages to still have some feel-good family stuff thrown in for good measure.

On a personal note, while these two episode write-ups both went much, much longer than I had anticipated, I though that the Duffless review in particular was a great template to follow as far as balancing a straight-up review with my personal thoughts as well as balancing and pacing the A and B plots. The second episode didn't really have a B plot to speak of so it ran on even longer but I'm hoping to take this as a starting point and refine the technique a little more so we start to see more concise reviews.

[feynites]

Can you do a top 10 assholes of Dragon age and give us the reasons why their on the list and why some are worse then others?

Hmm.

Okay. I thought about this, and I realized that it would be very hard to quantify a lot of this stuff, because most characters in this series are assholes in at least some way. And how anyone would rate their asshole tendencies is bound to vary a lot based on personal values and perspective. For example, someone might find Aveline’s tendency to kinkshame Isabela much more asshole-y than Oghren’s inappropriate sexual overtures. And someone else might just be like ‘okay but Sten killed an entire family for no good reason’. Which would then lead us straight to A List villains, basically, because if we’re getting into the really ugly stuff, that’s who we’ve got.

So, I’ve decided to try and rate this list by two major deciding factors.

One is consequence - i.e. how many people did they get killed, how much stuff was destroyed, how much suffering was created.

The other is remorse/motivation - i.e. why did they do things that led to pain and suffering, what (if any) regrets do they have, and do they go about attempting to atone for it?

On that note, the list is below the cut. To disclaim - obviously this is going to contain some character criticism. If you see a character on this list and don’t want to read about it, feel free to skip their entry. Or skip the whole list altogether. This is by no means an attempt to shame anybody for liking certain characters or anything along those lines.

10. There are too many assholes who could fill this bottom slot, honestly. Petty, individually horrific people whose only saving grace is that they were ultimately not that important. Vaughan Kendells, Quentin, Magister Erimond, Bartrand Tethras, Bhelen Aeducan, the Viddasala, etc. So this is actually just going to be a reserve slot to acknowledge that there are a lot of assholes in Thedas. You’re all Number Ten in my heart.

9. Loghain Mac Tyr

Turning away from a questionable battle situation is a debatable tactic. Not wanting to permit Orlesian forces across Ferelden borders? Also worthy of discussion. Selling alienage elves into slavery and framing and putting out a bounty on the only people who are capable of dealing with the darkspawn threat at your doorstep, on the other hand, are pretty hard actions to bounce back from. Especially when you are a man who is absolute shit at going ‘whoops, my bad’. Nearly causing the destruction of Ferelden gets Loghain to Number Nine, but no higher.

8. Rendon Howe

I mean… if someone were to distil ‘essence of asshole’ into its purest form and inject it into a mosquito, I’m pretty sure the end result would be something like Rendon Howe. Spiritually, he should be top of this list. Fortunately for the rest of Thedas, though, he ultimately lacked the power he’d need to get there.

7. Magister Danarius

Slave owning rapist who is entirely sane and acting of his own volition and cruelty? Why isn’t he higher on this list? Well, mostly because of scale. But scale’s also part of the reason why I wanted him on here. Danarius may not have had the opportunity or means that some people on this list have had to inflict his dickishness on vast swaths of people, but he embodies a certain irrefutable, personal kind of evil that is inextricably tied to such things. And, y’know, he did his best to be the worst kind of human he could be with the tools he had. Honestly, he is probably far worse, as a person, than a lot of people higher on this list. He would have been Corypheus if given half a chance. But he wasn’t given that chance. I knew he definitely needed to be on here, though.

6. Solas

Solas gets to a middle point on this list, and he is mostly here for his actions regarding Corypheus, Felassan, and Briala’s eluvian network, and the far-reaching scope of basically everything he does. His future actions are still up in the air, and his confirmed up-to-date actions contain a balance of significant good and bad, and he shows a lot of remorse (though it’s not always clear what for, precisely). Because of his mystery, it’s hard to rank the full consequences or asshole-ness of his character, yet. He’s the guy who put up the Veil in what was probably an act of desperation, he may have saved the world (possibly more than once), and he has also threatened to destroy it. So, he’s at Number Six for now, because man is this a steep competition.

5. Grand Cleric Elthina & Meredith Stannard

Posts five and four on this list are going to double-up, if only because a lot of the crimes, consequences, and attendant assholery were group efforts. Together, Elthina and Meredith both sought to seize control over Kirkwall, with Elthina’s eye likely towards being named Divine in the long run, and Meredith’s interest mostly veering more towards being able to kill and torment any and all mages as she pleased. Not only did an entire city suffer under their combined hubris and cruelty, but Meredith’s use of red lyrium and the subsequent social conflicts ignited by their actions have had negative ripple effects throughout Thedas, with neither of them showing the least bit of genuine repentance or remorse. 

4. Empress Celene & Gaspard de Chalons

There is something especially asshole-ish about people who will throw countless other lives to the winds for the sake of being the winner of a game, and Celene and Gaspard are pretty much this concept distilled and flavoured in ‘diplomacy’ and ‘military’ forms. Still, they only just beat out Elthina and Meredith, and in part because the both of them had much more power and influence to leverage in their actions, with an entire empire at their fingertips, rather than a city. The corruption of Orlais persists, and the plight of the elven people has worsened, thanks to these genocidal reprobates.

3. Mythal

Now, this is Mythal I am talking about - the ancient elven ‘goddess’, not Flemeth. Flemeth is surely an asshole, but the jury is largely still out on how much of an asshole. To some extent there are still a lot of questions about Mythal, too, so this entry is really more of a joint effort between Mythal and the other ancient elven gods of her crew. But she gets to hold the name slot until we know more about them, as well, because all evidence points to Mythal having established the ancient slave empire of the elves. And while she seems to have eventually come to regret it, the fact that she probably got the ball rolling on everything from slavery to darkspawn to magical corruption, puts her here for now.

2. Corypheus

Corypheus is an asshole in so many senses that, as a character, he’s almost dull. The dude has zero remorse, his actions have quite probably directly resulted in the current Blight situation in Thedas (though it’s doubtful he’s actually responsible for the taint), he’s a prick who owned slaves and murders people left and right, and even the other assholes in this list would probably think he was worth killing. The only reason he’s not number one is because, as much chaos and suffering as Corypheus has caused, there’s one other individual who has managed to have a worse impact on the world - though the jury’s still out on what his personality was actually like.

1. Emperor Kordillus Drakon I

One of the biggest fucking assholes in Thedosian history is the guy who founded the Orlesian Empire and the Chantry, and cemented nearly every reprehensible tendency of the current power structures of the world. Drakon is not technically even a minor character - he only exists in the lore - but I hate him. I hate him so much. In a post-Andraste world where slavery was out of fashion in most of Thedas and various faiths and tribes were making their way, Drakon rose up, and like most conquerors, immediately began murdering the shit out of people who couldn’t fight back, and creating institutions of slavery that used more tactful turns of phrase to disguise what they were. The consequences of Drakon’s rise to power, and how he went about it, are defining conflicts throughout Thedas even so long after his death. Thedas is, in no small part, a violent, war-torn nation thanks to the institutions which Drakon put in place, and he had no reason for doing any of it except that he really liked the idea of being God King of Everything.

[junker-town]

4 things we learned from Gerrit Cole’s $324M contract with the Yankees

Noah K. Murray-USA TODAY Sports

Another day, another record contract at the winter meetings.

In the last few years the winter meetings would bore us. This year at the winter meetings, Boras.

On Monday at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in downtown San Diego, super agent Scott Boras was on the dais with the announcement of Stephen Strasburg returning to the Nationals on a record contract. Late Tuesday night, news dropped that another Boras client, Gerrit Cole, agreed to terms with the Yankees on an even larger record contract.

The terms are staggering for Cole: nine years, $324 million. How did this happen? What are the ramifications? There are several factors, and noteworthy items stemming from Cole’s record contract.

1. Boras played this beautifully

We knew Cole and Strasburg were going to cash in big time. Both were excellent pitchers entering free agency, and were in the unique situation of also being the top two pitchers during this year’s postseason. Both were Boras clients.

For Strasburg, the former No. 1 overall pick of the Nationals who was the 2019 World Series MVP, staying in Washington was a goal, made easier by the Nationals ponying up $245 million over seven years.

“For Stephen, for him to establish a legacy, and wear the curly W for his career was something that was very important for him,” Boras said.

By definition, players employ their agents (not the other way around) and ultimately can decide when and with whom to sign. But there’s a reason Boras holds court with throngs of reporters at every major offseason baseball gathering, including at this year’s winter meetings behind a backdrop of his own agency’s logo.

Boras is excellent at what he does, and by Strasburg signing first, that left only one truly elite starting pitcher left on the market. Teams that missed out on Strasburg would only have Cole left to bid on if they wanted a true difference-making ace.

It seemed a foregone conclusion when the offseason began that Cole would sign a record pitching contract this winter. But once Strasburg got a record of his own with seven years and $245 million, that pushed Cole into the stratosphere.

I should also note that Boras also represents third baseman Anthony Rendon, the best player remaining on the free agent market and another elite talent. He also negotiated $64 million over four years for Mike Moustakas, the poster boy of the last two stagnant winters with his one-year deals. This has been a fruitful offseason for Boras.

2. Financial titans decided to participate

The price always goes up when the behemoths want to spend. That wasn’t the case the last two offseasons, at least in the big ticket aisles. The Dodgers led the world in luxury tax for the first five full years of their new ownership group, but stayed under the threshold the last two seasons. The Yankees traded for Giancarlo Stanton’s massive contract after 2017, but otherwise steered clear of the mega free agents. New York avoided the competitive balance tax in 2018, and were just over in 2019.

This year both the Yankees and Dodgers were in the running for Cole, as were the also cash-rich Angels looking to add in manager Joe Maddon’s first year. That drove up the price for Cole, and, from what it sounds like, the length of the contract as well.

Yankees Hal Steinbrenner spoke directly to Scott Boras as the two sides went through the Gerrit Cole negotiation, and the turning point seemed to be when Steinbrenner added a ninth year to the Yankees' offer.

— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) December 11, 2019

This pushes the Yankees well over the CBT threshold for 2020 — Cot’s Contracts estimates New York at $245 million once all is said and done, without any other additions — which is a departure from the last couple of years, and a return to the Yankees embracing their “Evil Empire” reputation.

Nine years is ridiculously long for a pitching contract, mostly because pitchers tend to break at some point. The only deal longer for a pitcher was signed by Wayne Garland, a 10-year, $2.3 million (not per season, that was the total) contract with the Indians in the infancy of full-scale free agency.

That you probably haven’t heard of Garland tells you pretty much how that deal turned out. He pitched only five more ineffective years in the majors before succumbing to injuries. His contract was such a surprise to even Garland himself, as he recalled a conversation with his agent to the Los Angeles Times:

“He said, ‘Wayne, I didn’t get you a million dollars,”’ Garland recalled recently. “I said, ‘Jerry, I’m sure you did the best you could.’ He said, ‘You got a 10-year contract for over $2 million.’ I said, ‘Jerry, I’m not worth it.’ He said, ‘Well, obviously someone thinks you are.”

Mike Hampton signed an eight-year contract with the Rockies in 2001 that became more known for his praising of the Denver school system (instead of simply saying he chose the best offer) than his performance on the mound. The other eight-year deal recently was Kenta Maeda with the Dodgers, a contract so incentive-laden that its total guarantee over the life of the eight years was $25 million, not even 70 percent of what Cole will earn in every season of his new deal.

So yeah, nine years is a big deal, almost unprecedented in MLB history, which adds to its largesse.

3. Holy crap, the Yankees are great

The Yankees won 103 games last year, and have averaged 98 wins the last three seasons, and just added arguably the best pitcher in baseball to their team.

New York already had a strong pitching staff overall — their 4.31 team ERA ranked just 14th in MLB, but adjusted for park and league their 94 ERA- ranked ninth — but didn’t have a true ace until adding Cole. The Yankees’ strength was their bullpen and they used it aggressively, such that New York’s starters pitched the fifth-fewest innings in the majors, averaging just 4.80 per start. Cole can help give that bullpen extra rest every fifth day.

Cole averaged 6.43 per start for the Astros in 2019 — ranking fourth in baseball — and he lasted seven or more innings in 15 starts. That matched the Yankees team total for the season.

The Yankees also get Luis Severino back, after he was limited to just three regular-season starts with rotator cuff and lat injuries in 2019. Severino started New York’s first game of the playoffs in both 2017 and 2018, and averaged 6.10 innings per start over those two years. The Yankees will be able to get more length out of the starters in 2020, which should help the bullpen with more rest leading to increased effectiveness.

New York was going to win a lot of games next season anyway. Now that they landed Cole, anything under triple-digits in the win column would be a surprise.

4. The fleeting nature of record contracts

Strasburg’s contract on Monday broke two pitching records: David Price’s $217 million with the Red Sox in December 2015, and Zack Greinke’s $34.42 million average annual value signed with the Diamondbacks that same month.

That Strasburg only had the record for two days isn’t all that surprising, nor rare. Everyone knew Cole — two years younger than Strasburg — was the big fish in this market, so it was just a matter of timing when he would sign.

Greinke’s deal in 2015 came just four days after Price, who also had the record for average annual value in his contract ($31 million) before Greinke broke it.

Thirty-one years ago, in February 1989, Roger Clemens cashed in with a three-year, $7.5 million contract with the Red Sox that not only made him the highest-paid pitcher in baseball, but the richest overall player, too. That took the title away from Dwight Gooden, who only one week earlier signed a three-year, $6.7 million deal with the Mets. Just one day after Clemens, Orel Hershiser surpassed him with a $7.9 million contract over three years with the Dodgers.

Maybe years from now, some pitcher will surpass Cole’s record contract, too. I only wonder if they can hold that mark for more than a few days.

[stubbornattempt]

I'm going to start this segment at my dads moms place when he lived in a midwestern state. In the aftermath of the John explosion, you and I had met online and bonded, and you eventually had said I could come stay with you. Then some unfortunate miscommunication occurred and you rescinded your offer and I was so distraught that I ran away to my dads. I wrote you a very erotic message on my phone while I was on the train and it turns out that you were able to see the message and I guess everyone could see the message. This was the first time I realized that my phone was hacked. Anyway, when I arrived in that state I took a taxi out to my dads place. When I got there I took a nap. I then checked online to see what you were saying and it seemed like you were saying that your wife left and that you were proposing to me. Maybe I didn't respond in a way that related my true feelings, but what I meant to say was FUCKING YES! Now history shows that I missed some important factors. We'll discuss that in time. I was exhausted beyond my ability to express from all those online interactions, and I felt that I had attained the ultimate prize so I stopped going online to check on you and everybody. I went back to my hometown feeling great. I bought a new trac phone and ditched my computer because I didn't trust them anymore. I was psychologically unable to return to that house where I'd been living with my sister and her boyfriend because of what happened with John there. It didn't feel safe and I didn't know if there were still cameras in there. I'd told my housemates that I was pretty sure there were cameras but they didn't believe me. I'd even hired a private investigator to check and he didn't find anything. But I was still sure that there had been cameras there. I was going to stay at the Salvation Army but April insisted that I stay with her. I told her that I'd found another place to live and that my sister had rented out my room and then my other place fell through. I'd told her about what happened with John and the cameras and the death threats but I don't think she ever believed me. Anyway, we were sharing an attic and I was sleeping on the couch up there. It was fun and cozy. April and I always had a blast together being idiots. I expected you to come for me. I still seemed to get messages even though I didn't have a computer. Sometimes I would use April's laptop or go to the library to use the computers there and one time I was on Facebook and then all the advertisements on the side started flashing and so I began to think those were messages for me. I thought I needed to fix the security problems I'd exposed my friends to so I bought a new phone for Cal and for April because I thought they'd both been hacked. I also bought a new laptop for my sisters boyfriend. I tried to get April to let me replace her phone and explained that I was sure it was hacked but she refused and got angry with me and wouldn't let me talk about it to her. So I put her phone in water and she flipped out on me and kicked me out. I went to a hotel and it seemed like from the commercials that there were cameras in the hotel room. In my mind people were still watching me but I thought maybe it was the press and that the media was going to do a story on what happened to me. I imagined my story being told on a national scale. I thought John would be sued and put in jail and that I'd have a million dollars. After a week in the hotel and a few weeks of couch surfing I found a place to live with this guy Tzvi. I think he was ripping me off on the rent but I didn't care that much. I still didn't have a computer and at some point I got rid of my phone too. But I did have an Apple TV and so I'd look for messages there. I thought the Pandora at my house and at the Tea House was hacked by whoever was watching me and I'd get my information there. I started to think there were again cameras in my place with Tzvi but I could never find any. I thought there might be cameras in the Tea House but for many months I continued to think it was a special media task force watching so they could write the story. As spring rolled around I was starting to get impatient because all I really wanted was to finally be with you. I found 2 cute little snake rings and I wore them both on my ring finger. I was planning to give one of them to you when we finally met. During this time I was dealing with a lot of trauma from the John incident and would have terrifying dreams about the zombie apocalypse every other night. I had 5 or 6 incidences of sleep paralysis as well. If you've never experience that, its the most terrifying thing ever. You feel this overwhelming evil presence and you can't move or make any noise. Then one day I was walking to work and this red car slowed down by me and this cute guy in a baseball cap waved at me. The light turned green and the car drove off. I realized that it had been you! I lingered on the sidewalk for a minute hoping you would come back but you didn't so I walked to the Tea House. When I got home I made a Dishwalla Pandora station because of the song Counting Blue Cars and the song that came up was called I'm Colorful and it had a picture of a red car on the cover. I was trying to protect my modesty by not masturbating in my room since I thought there were cameras there so I started going hiking so I could rub one out. I sat underneath this tree and had a glorious orgasm and I think I was saying some pretty sexy things. Well at work Pandora was playing a bunch of songs that had stuff about trees and it led me to believe that I'd been followed and watched. And you drove by me again and looked at me very intently. Then I got messages on Facebook that seemed like you weren't allowed to be seen with me. I didn't see you again after that for many years. I was becoming increasingly stressed with my situation and not understanding what was taking so long. One night the Pandora messages made me think that it was still all the same people watching me and it scared the shit out of me. I didn't know why you'd do that to me and I had a panic attack. I didn't know if John was still able to watch me and I didn't like the thought of that at all. I don't remember how long I continued to live like that. I was trying to find answers about what was going on in Pandora and it seemed like people were telling me that I was going to be in trouble. I'd been thinking that the Pandora messages were from you mostly but now it seemed like it was always lots of people and some of them liked to fuck with me and scare me. Some of them were telling me that you and I would both go to jail. The messages at one point were telling me to get help for my situation and seemed to suggest reaching out to the Guys. So I wrote a letter to one of them and included my phone number. I wrote the letter outside so that no one could read it because I was worried about the danger to you. I received a call back but they did not leave a message. I called them back and left them a message but they never responded. I began to crack under the pressure of always feeling like I was being monitored and I searched desperately for the cameras. I even felt angry about what I was going through and I rarely feel that particular emotion. I felt trapped and contemplated trying to run away and find you. Eventually I became so scared of the messages telling me that I was going to go to jail that I decided to gather evidence of what happened to me and go to the police. To this day I regret this decision and it was not an easy one for me to make. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do but I thought you'd done wrong by me and I didn't think I could trust you. So I went to the pawn shop and bought a laptop and started gathering the evidence. I also saw from one of your blogs that you were still with your wife and that stabbed me in the heart. I'm sorry. I'm sure you didn't understand why I was turning against you and you must have been scared. I perceived some death threats from you but I really don't think those were real looking back. It was because of the death threats from John and company that my mind went there. After I turned in the evidence to the police I broke inside and had a melt down. I called your cell phone, which I'd never done before. You didn't pick up so I called again and you said "Hello?" and I was crying and I said, "It's *****" and you said, "I think you have the wrong number!" and I hung up. Hearing your voice calmed me though. I was so upset over what I'd done that I called up the suicide hotline crying. The woman kept me on the phone until the police arrived at my door and they took me to the hospital. While I was there I thought my roommate was an avatar sent by the theater guys. This was my first experience with an avatar. She was in a wheelchair, and that reminded me of Avatar which we'd established on Tumblr. She said a bunch of stuff that related to my circumstances and I felt that she was being used to try to show me that you were bad and that I should leave my relationship with you. I also thought I got some messages from other sources about planning an escape with you. I was torn for a minute but my love for you overpowered reason.The doctors decided that I was wildly schizophrenic and tried to get a TDO on me but I convinced this other guy not to agree to it so I was able to leave after a few days. Based on some commercials I thought there was a plan to extract me when I left the hospital, so when I left I left my shoes in the bathroom and walked back into town barefoot. I went to the store and bought a new pair of shoes but I was disappointed that I wasn't collected. I guess by turning you into the police I had severed our relationship. My heart still wanted to be with you though, in spite of what you'd done. Eventually, maybe even years later, I realized what had really happened between us when I went back over your old blogs and in my mind that absolved you of guilt. Sure, I think you could have done better by me but based on what you thought was going on I don't blame you for your decisions. After I'd lived with Tzvi for a year I moved in with April at another place in town. It was sort of a crappy little place but it was ok for the time. I stopped feeling like I was being watched and I didn't feel like I was being watched at work either. Maybe it's all a mindset. I was emotionally blank and probably very traumatized in reality. I took comfort in reading The Walking Dead but I started drinking a lot of beer. I'd take several beers home from work every night and I started gaining some weight. After a few months of living there April found a better place and left. I decided to move in with my brother because his girlfriend had just left him and he needed some help with the rent. He lived about 20 minutes outside of town though so I decided it was time to get my license back and my mom gave me a car. Unfortunately I had to have the interlock in my car and this coincided with my developing a severe drinking problem. I set the thing off 3 different times and the guy at the interlock place said the court was going to throw me in jail if I kept doing it. After a few months of living with my brother outside of town we got a place together in town so I didn't have to drive all the time as I could walk to work. I started crushing a six-pack every morning before work and then drinking the entire time I was working. Its amazing that I didn't get fired. I'd always loved that job but I started drinking around the clock the entire time I was awake and didn't really care about work. I hadn't seen my mom for months and when she came over for my birthday I had gained so much weight that she asked if I was pregnant. My clothes stopped fitting. I didn't go out with friends very often and mostly stayed in my room. I watched The Perks of Being a Wallflower a lot. I neglected my lizard too. I started thinking about what happened to me and how unfair it was. I was angry that John had gotten away with it and I fantasized about anonymously mailing a bullet to him to scare him. I felt pangs in my heart when I thought about you though. One Saturday I’d gone with my sister, her boyfriend and the kids to visit the aquarium. On the drive home it started to blizzard really badly. The snow was really coming down and we slid off the road into a snowbank. The car right behind us did the exact same thing. The guy who was driving that car looked almost exactly like you and I fell in love with him as soon as I saw him. That night I dreamed that you and I were in this skiing group together. You were driving and I wanted to sit in the front next to you just to be near you. When I woke up I felt happy for the first time in over a year. I realized that I missed you and still loved you. I remember sending you some message on Facebook saying that I was glad that you didn't get in trouble. I also listened to one of your podcasts and it made me ache for you terribly. My brother and I both had some problems adulting and we both drank a lot. Bills didn't get paid and utilities got shut off. I think we stayed there for the full year but after that we both moved back in with my mom. My brother eventually got his shit together though and moved out. He's a master electrician now and makes really big money. One of the stipulations of moving in with my mom was that we were not allowed to drink, so I experienced sobriety for the first time in a long time. With my newfound mental clarity I embarked on the mission to tell my story and I worked on that graphic novel feverishly. I knocked it out in a week or two I think. I was so proud to have documented at least the beginning of my experience. In my mind I wanted to tell the whole thing but since it became exceedingly complicated I doubted that I would ever be able to tell it. Working on that story made me remember falling in love with John and it brought some warm feelings back. I decided to send him the story so I put it on a flash drive and mailed it to him at the theater. He left a cipher for me on his Facebook page that was nice I guess but it was underwhelming after everything I'd gone through and I felt I deserved more. Then he also posted something that made me think he was threatening to sue me if I tried to publish that story. In the graphic novel there is a frame from the Simpsons where there is a note that says "Die Bart Die!" and a graphic novel of the Simpsons showed up on the counter in the Tea House so I became concerned that he was threatening to kill me again. I told my mom that I thought we might need to get extra security on the house and that I would pay for it. I decided to send the story to you also. Your response made me much happier. We rekindled the old flame and it felt great. Again you suggested that I could come stay with you and that's exactly what I wanted. You were in my computer again and I welcomed the companionship. I felt secure again. We had some ups and downs as we always do and as they always do they destabilized me emotionally and made me desperate. You were mean to me on your blog one time and I thought you were rejecting me so I did that thing I sometimes do where I sort of black out mentally and decide that it's time to end it. I went to the pawn shop and bought a gun. I think you could hear me and were trying to stop me. The screen saver on my computer started showing images that related to us, like a cabin in the mountains with a starry sky. I think you got mad at me for being suicidal and maybe you thought I was hamming it up for attention. I tried to pick up if there were any messages on Pandora at work and I got back into thinking that there were. I never thought there were cameras in my moms house but I did think my computer was being accessed by a bunch of people again. I was so turned on by you though that I didn't care if other people heard me masturbating to you. In fact the whole world should know how crazy I am for you! Again, the thing dragged on for months and I couldn't tolerate being in that situation again. I tried to fend off the wi-fi invasions both at home and at work but I could never secure it. Eventually I decided to come to you. I put in my 3 week notice at the Tea House and started making plans. Leaving the Tea House was the end of an era for me. It had been the one constant thing in my life for 5 years and I really loved it. But it was time for the next chapter of my life to begin. I told everyone that I was moving to Portland. I decided that I would drive out there and visit my friend Austin from high school, and then go to you. I was nervous about the journey but once I set out I felt amazing. I took the battery out of my phone so I couldn't be tracked. I bought another trac phone and also kept the battery out of it but it was for emergencies. I had all my stuff in the back of the SUV to one side, and my sleeping bag on the other. I would sleep in McDonalds parking lots. I had a very fun time. I only felt unsafe once or twice. Once in Nebraska I was sleeping in my car and I woke up and some guys were looking in my window. So I took my gun out so they could see it and they dissipated very quickly. I brought a bunch of CDs and listened to tunes and talked to myself. I tasted absolute freedom. I was very militant about checking my oil and coolant. I'd taken out most of my money in cash so that I couldn't be tracked by my card. By the time I got to Idaho I went to a library and used a computer to book a few nights in a hostel in Portland. I forget which state I was in but there was a city that was named your name, and I got a clever idea to pop on the radar there. So I went to a hotel and booked a room using my card. I sent an email to someone from my family from the computer there. I hoped you would notice the homage. In retrospect I wondered if that was a bad idea because maybe it gave the baddies an opportunity to put a tracker on my vehicle. But they could have done that at Austin's also I guess. I want to point out that I did all my driving without GPS. I had an old fashioned map and I wrote down directions from the internet. I only got lost twice the entire time and I'm pretty proud of that! I arrived in Portland 2 nights before I was supposed to check into my hostel so I found a 24 hour parking garage and slept in my car there. I had one of the best orgasms of my life in that garage thinking about you. Once I was comfortably settled into my hostel I set out to check out the city. In the morning I went to the main library and emailed Austin telling him that I was in town and we made plans to meet up in a few days. I enjoyed the first couple of days roaming around by myself. I wined and dined and hit up the dispensaries. I stayed with Austin for several nights and we had a nice time together. I knew that I was on the radar again and everything was likely being listened to. I noticed the screensaver on Austin's computer was a giant insect. I didn't want to overstay my welcome so I left after a couple of nights but I stayed in Portland for a few more days because I liked being able to buy weed. It got to the point where I wasn't really getting high anymore and I was wasting my precious money so I decided it was time to move on to my final destination. On my birthday I bought some gin and tonic and drank it in my car at night. I was in Wyoming I believe. Anyway, like a fucking idiot I drank too much and set off the interlock in my car the next morning. I felt super depressed about that. So I had to find an interlock place to deal with it. I was also running low on cash so I pawned my gun. I continued on and made a point of spending a night in the state where you are from. Then I arrived in the state where you live. I found a community center with computer access and made the rest of my plans. It was easy to find the place where you used to work. I wanted to get cleaned up for meeting you so I wanted to get a hotel room but I didn't want to be tracked. So I told them that I was hiding from my abusive husband and that we shared a checking account so I couldn't use my card and they let me pay cash. I went to the restaurant next door to get some food and while I was eating I heard this car alarm going off in the parking lot and my stomach dropped. I thought maybe they were somehow able to look in the hotel's computers and had found my name. But maybe it was just a coincidence and everything was going to be fine. It made me uneasy though. In the morning I cleaned up and dressed. I had been exercising since I moved back in with my mom and had lost a lot of weight but I still wasn't as thin as I'd like to be. I set off across the street and went into the mall that had the store where you used to work. I went into the store. Then I went to a computer kiosk in the mall and I think I went to the Sunglass Hut webpage. I think your team found me online and manipulated the webpages I was on to give me messages and it seemed like you were calling it off. I went back to the car and I'm sure I had locked it before but when I got inside the frame on my sunglasses were broken. I didn't know exactly what that meant but I didn't think it could be good. I started freaking out and crying and I threw the sunglasses into the parking lot and I threw my phone into the parking lot and I had my most epic melt down of all time. I became delirious and cried and cried so that the whole car was shaking. That I should kill myself became glaringly apparent and I went back into the mall. I went to the computers again looking for a sign from you but I didn't find any. I went into a home improvement type of store and looked at the garden hoses. I went back to my car and cried some more. At some point I turned on my emergency phone and started talking to you. I'd only used that phone twice before. I used it to text both my half-sister and Little John, so I thought it was possible that the phone was compromised and that you were able to hear me. I went to a restaurant and got stuff to eat and drink. I got a little drunk and the booze made me even more of a mess. I hit my pipe for resin and got a little high as well. I talked to you for hours about god knows what. I remember talking about Malfoy and the Walking Dead. I ended up putting on some music and laying down in the back. The music calmed me down. It was very difficult to sleep though because it was so fucking cold. In the morning there was this piece of foam that looked like piping wrapped around the front of my car. I thought maybe you were saying to protect you and not kill myself because of you. I went back into the mall to use the bathroom. I stayed in my car throughout the day and noticed lots of red trucks. I wondered if that had anything to do with my story about being in high school where my teacher had a white truck. The red trucks were parking around me and when I woke up that morning there was a red truck that was parked with its tires right on the line. I thought maybe that meant that you were on the fence about staying with me and that I needed to behave more appropriately. So I embarked on the journey back to my moms place. I felt unimaginably unhappy with the culmination of all my efforts. I was too embarrassed to let anyone know I'd returned home after I told them all I was moving to Portland so I didn't get in touch with anyone. I never told my mom I was moving, obviously, she just thought I was going to visit Austin. When I got back home I realized I needed to make a resume and get a job. I wanted to drive back to where you live and try again but I didn't have any money left. I went to visit my ex for a few days. We ended up having sex once and it was actually a little bit nice to have some physical intimacy. When I got back to my moms I watched a lot of TV and tried really hard to figure out how to secure my computer against hackers. I took some free online classes about computer security but nothing I did convinced me that I'd succeeded. I eventually got a job in the deli at Food Lion and that was ok. It was easy and mindless work. I had nothing in common with my co-workers or the customers and kept to myself. Then I got a job offer from CVS to work in the pharmacy and become a pharmacy tech and that sounded like a step up from working in the deli so I took that job instead. It was the most unpleasant job I've ever worked. A huge family crisis broke out right when I started the new job and it affected my work performance. My sister, her boyfriend and the kids were living with my dad and things were not going so well. Both of my parents hate my sisters boyfriend so much that it compelled them to start speaking to each other. Accusations spiraled out of control and they ended up going to CPS. Then my sister tried to have my dad kicked out of the house and it was a whole bunch of bullshit I don't feel like rehashing. The aftermath of it was that my sister and her family moved out and I moved in. I didn't forget about you and hoped that you still planned to get to me. I stayed with my dad for many months before I got that job at Kroger. I don't think we had internet during that time so I was in the dark about you. I just felt certain that you hadn't given up on me. I felt that maybe now you finally realized how important you are to me. 

[airoasis]

SIDEMEN EXTREME DESERT RACE *EXPLOSION* | THE SIDEMEN SHOW

New Post has been published on https://hititem.kr/sidemen-extreme-desert-race-explosion-the-sidemen-show/

SIDEMEN EXTREME DESERT RACE *EXPLOSION* | THE SIDEMEN SHOW

Oh shit! This season on the sidemen exhibit… – Aargh! – Oh! Aargh! I have been kidnapped by my evil twin sister. We’re gonna be doing a race. Is your title truely undergo? Oh my god! That you can run, however you can’t disguise, Sidemen! – Oh my god! – help! We have to get out of right here now! – Yeah, dudes. – Oh my god, it’s Steve-O! I’ve been followin’ you on YouTube and i am impressed with what you could have comprehensive. However now it’s time for you to step off the sidelines and kick some serious ass. I need you to join me right here in Morocco for a crash course in fitting a absolutely dominating motion hero.Hop on that jet, boys. I’ll see you in three hours. – Yeah! – Let’s go, then! Let’s get to the jet! – Josh, decide on up my passport. – Get your own passport! I received my shirt. Why do I must get the passports for? I’ll close the door as well, shall I? Yep, certain, satisfactory. – No, what are you doing? – Get in! Jesus, how lengthy does it take? When you consider that the dawn of time, there have always been sidemen, simply as there have consistently been plankton in the oceans, worms in the earth, gnats in the sky. Through the years, kings, queens, pharaohs and presidents have all challenged sidemen to get up, to be all they can be, to go away the shelter and step to the entrance. That forward jump has in no way transpired. Except now. We deliver you seven unique sidemen of our possess time, who are guys of motion, destiny and braveness. Men who dare to step into the sunshine. They will raced, chased, blown up, battered and bedraggled, through deserts and oceans, over mountains and cities with one purpose: to move to the entrance, to take middle-stage.This is The Sidemen show. Go on, boys! Oh my god, Harry, why? Harry, why? He’s actually correct on the high of the stairs. It’s Steve-O. Whats up. Come on, boys, let’s transfer. – Come on, Ethan. – I’ve acquired quick legs! Gentlemen, welcome to Morocco. I’m, of course, Steve-O, known for breaking bones and shoving things up my butt. So who higher to aid you guys become real motion heroes? – The Rock, mostly. – o.K., fair play! But you’re on a quest to grow to be motion heroes, and i am gonna make you appear badass doing it. I’ve devised three distinct challenges to support you experiment your motion hero talents. All action heroes are stealthy as . So for project one, you guys are gonna have to be trained learn how to combination in, to vanish.So, head on into the market and to find yourselves some disguises. I will be giving you instructions the whole time even as I watch from up right here. I will also comply with you. – Like a pedo. – You wager. Watch out! This is some cash, 500 dirhams. Now, get outta right here, guys. – No, Harry, Harry! – Jesus! ! Not that approach, you idiot. It is a short cut! I can land on my feet. I’m an motion hero, trust me. Merci, merci beaucoup. Talking French, you already know. You practice it, observe it. Splitting up, i like that. – that is not charmed, is it? – Snake… – The cobra was… – It used to be dancing. I do not really understand what i am looking for proper here. What would you put on to cover your self? I say we just duvet you in meat. How’s that gonna help any one? That’s gonna make extra people look at me. Nah. You’ll combination in. You’ll be able to appear like a cow. Now that is what i’m talkin’ about. This would be like an invisibility cloak.- Oh my goodness. – Now that works. Do you see how informal that was? You would pass as an ancient girl now. Excuse me. How a lot for this? One hundred dirhams. What, I do like it very much, so… There we go, that is for you. Recall, boys, to be an action hero you gotta have a catchphrase. You gotta be attractive… And a bunch of alternative stuff. – Wanna hear my catchphrase? – o.K., hit me. I do not feel I do. Disguise your spouse, I’ve got a knife! Okay, uh… – Come on, boys. – Let’s not go along with that. I suppose I’ve acquired something. All right, one down, two to move. – you did good. – What do we get? I have no idea, just something that helps you blend. Simply embrace the tradition. I’m now not gonna lie, I noticed a Burberry scarf again there and i used to be tempted. Oh boys, these are me. Appear at these. No way. High-quality shop. All i’m sayin’, Harry… Oh jeez, sure. That’s it, yeah. What is mean that? That one, we imply, like that, it can be comfortable. Oh, it can be just like the pubes! The left facet is irritated. I suppose it makes communicating a lot simpler. Are you joyful? Am i able to get the slippers down, please? Merci beaucoup. – that is goatskin. – Goatskin? They do not seem that comfortable. It’s like stepping on a goat! Yeah, i like ’em. How much for the goat creps? – they may be like 300 dirhams. – Whoa! – What about this? – That one, give me one hundred fifty.Oi, oi, oi, you’re no longer gonna consider this. – What? – found a girlfriend? Oh! Oi, is that knock-off Sidemen? So how a lot in total for both of these and the goat creps? – 500 for all. – 500? 70… – more, more. – more? – Yeah. – supply him that and we’ll take that back. – Ah… Yeah, yeah. – How about that? Now we have just outdone ourselves. We’ve received the whole thing. I think we have quite accomplished well. I am happy, look. Oi, J.J., are trying the catchphrase. Whats up, show me your penis! – No, let’s go. – okay, let’s go. We’re in a nasty position. We don’t appear like motion heroes in any respect. – I do. – i don’t feel actually you do. You look like a funds action hero.Oh wait, the place have I long past? I love it, Vik, you’re the ultimate chameleon. Just blending proper in. Now you see me, now you don’t. – exceptional work! – Steve-O, i’m nailing it, okay? Harry, the goat loafers are hot, but you need more. J.J., take this to an extra level. I suppose we ought to buy a carpet. That’s a carpet right there. Oh wow… How handy! – can i try it on? – Oh my god. The place did Harry go? No, we will see you. – I find it irresistible, let’s take it. – Yeah, we’ll take it. – I offer you 20 matters. – it can be not gonna work. Yeah? High-quality! Excellent! – Wow. – o.K., pleased days. – Let’s go. – Oh my god. Simon, why am i able to smell your mum? Oh, cos there may be a number of fish.All right, guys, watching just right. Guys! Guys, guys, guys… Oh that? Oh Jesus. What the hell is that? I am a farmer now. Are you able to simply provide an explanation for where you received it? It is too lengthy a story. Did you pay for it? Too long a narrative, Vik! – Ethan! – rapid, run! Go, go, run, run! Ethan, what have you accomplished? Why are we running? Cos there’s a loopy man chasing us! Nice work, boys. The Rock does not have shit on you. Guys, to make this a success, i want you to run in sluggish motion and make it appear cool. And consider to break a bunch of crap. Run, like a average human! Run! You understand how we have been pronouncing we have got to combination in? I’m going to let you know how we can blend in. – How? – i’m going to turn out to be carpet man! Just stop. A carpet? Fairly, a carpet? What do you mean? This can be a quality cover. – What’s this? – i’m carpet man. – Donkey? – Man just called you a donkey, fam! He does look like just a little of an ass.Go, go, go, go, go! Ethan, fool! Did you pay for that goat? It is a long story! Supply him again his bloody goat! – Guys, i am hungry. – relatively? – Let’s examine this situation out. – critically? Stinks of shit over there, dude. Well, it is meals. Ah… Snails. Simon, determine these out. Oh! Jesus! – Simon, you cretin! – Oh my…! The snails! Guys, I said the inspiration is to combination in, dudes. – What are you doing? – He threw snails at me. – Run, Run ! Boys, gotta go! See you at the essential market. Okay, Sidemen, you gave it your nice. Now meet me out there in your subsequent project. Steve-O stated go, get to the market. Go, go, go! What did you guys do? Sidemen, before we get began right here, who got here up with "show me your penis"? Quality work! That’s an motion hero catchphrase if I ever did hear one. Now for challenge two, fitting an action hero requires enjoying video games of threat and talent in colorful surroundings. So, gentlemen, welcome to slipper tagine. – is that this really a factor? – Yeah.It can be tagine, now not vagine, you hounds! O.K., this is the way you play. Yeah, you stand at the back of here, flick the slipper towards the tagines. Like this. Ah! Hopefully you can do higher than I did. O.K.. Land in the tagines and you’re safe. Pass over, you are royally screwed. Whoever wins is gonna get a ailing set of wheels. The two of you who don’t win will not. It can be gonna be a nasty day for the loser. Watch Vik be excellent at it. It’s in his blood. I do put on slippers at all times. – He does, virtually. – Whoa! Oh Jesus! Can i exploit these or do I have got to use these? – they may be too significant! – No! No! It can be obtained a better floor subject. No looker. That was once dog shit, Harry. No longer lookin’ good for you. – i am scared! – Let’s go, Ethan, you obtained this.You obtained just a little of a step, mate. He can not get it off his sock. Why’s he so far again? Oh no! – What used to be that? – terrible! My heart is racing, what the hell? Go on, Tobi. It up. – he’s gonna get it now. – Oh my god, sure. Oh the wind. – Yeah he obtained it within the wind. – Oh my god. – Oh my god. Oh! Now not bad. That is difficult. I’ve no longer performed this earlier than. Just get it to land in the tagines. Oh! Everyone but Harry and Ethan are on goal. O.K., J.J., should you land within the tagines, these two guys get screwed. When you do not land within the tagines, it can be a unexpected demise for who goes out. Let’s go. Oh my god, that is the most intense slipper throw of a lifetime.Guys, stop stressing me! – that is not in! – it is not in. That’s no longer in. – sure! Yes! – total fail. Which means unexpected loss of life. Subsequent circular, final round, each and every of you will flick one slipper. The closest to the center wins. Come on, Harry. Ooh. Ooh… He is out, he is out. J.J., you’re gonna must perform beautiful badly to no longer win. Oh no. I don’t wanna be with Ethan! Oh… Yes! Absolutely, without doubt… Oh hold on. It can be in. He’s the decide. Let him decide. Steve-O, i really like "Jackass". I don’t wanna be with Ethan. I watch all of your films. That one’s in! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my Jesus… No! All right, Sidemen, for the final task, action heroes ought to be capable to drive any variety of vehicle.So we’re goin’ into the desolate tract. Winners, you can be drivin’ range Rovers with air con. Let’s go! You two lamentably will don’t have any air-con using a junk truck. It goes very slow. Now, let’s hit the barren region! Our subsequent challenge is at Camel Ridge. I am so joyful we’re all together. – it’s over for them. – goodbye, guys. – discontinue celebrating. – Hate my lifestyles.- Oh my… Fam! – What? There is like nothing in here! What do you imply, there may be nothing in right here? Shut up and get in the car, man. All jokes apart, this hurts. Does the window even open? Everything comes aside. What the hell is occurring? I’ve an inspiration that the window just would not open. Oh no. Oh no. Oh my god, no! No! There we go. The handbrake’s down. What is this? – Why is this in our auto? – – Ah… – Hee-hee! Ha-ha-ha! You simply gotta smile. – What are you watching at? – Sorry! I’m sorry! Provide me your bicycle! Supply me your bicycle! That is truely like one of the vital worst matters ever. – that’s no longer healthful, is it? – – , man! – this is so bad! God’s sake! I sure hope those boys are making do in that junk truck. I suppose they may be having the worst time, cos we’re sitting right here, air conditioned.Oh I forgot in regards to the air con! They will be sweatin’ their tits off. And they’re gonna be much more aggie. When they get there, it is gonna be a fireball of simply anger. What’s funny is that there’s a lot of room for them in here. Fam no, wait, wait… You’re gonna kill me, fam, huh? Come on, man. No, drive, pressure, power! Don’t park. Go! Oh my god, this guy on the bike continues following me. – what’s going on? – Yo fam, i would as an alternative be on a camel. It is a bit hot, you already know. Put that air conditioning on, cos we livin’ in luxurious, boys! The item is, you place Ethan and J.J. In a truck together. In literally a heated environment, rather literally. That is, yeah! There is no danger of them not arguing. We’re in Marrakesh, Marrakesh We’re in Marrakesh… Ha-ha! You are not able to simply try this. At least put the dangers on! Cannot be assed! – i am not… No… – We’re in Marrakesh… – stop! – We’re in Marrakesh! La, la, la, la, la… We’re in Marrakesh, Marrakesh, we’re in Marra… I am no longer wearing that factor at the same time you are singing that silly tune. That is the worst day of my existence. What’s probably the most action hero factor you have got ever completed? One time I jumped out of an aircraft without a parachute into the ocean. – That was lovely action hero. – that is some thing, i guess. Yeah. One more motion hero trait I possess is i am additionally equipped to staple my bollocks to just about anything.- and that is strong. – Yeah… Right through the historical ball bag. And what matters have your balls been stapled to over time? Probably just different elements of my body. – What? – Yeah. , man. I used to be surely simply thinking, this is form of annoying. You fully grasp we now have on no account met Steve-O before, and he is leading us right into a desolate tract. I kinda want I used to be J.J. Or Ethan now. Do you? Transfer! – The locals hate you. – move that vehicle! You simply up his day. Appear at my day, fam. Look at my day! That does not mean you ought to smash every body else’s. I am not gonna lie, I’ve got a fart so…- No, i beg, please. – Oh it already smells! Ha-ha! Fam, no, no. No, no! No, fam, are you severe? Oh i’m gonna be unwell. No, it can be long past. It’s gone. Fam, it is gone. Oh fam, it can be still there! It’s lingering! I hate you. I know, I want a poo. Ha-ha! I want a poo particularly desperately. Motion heroes pressure like maniacs, so perhaps perform a little erratic driving. Ah! Ok, all right, waaah! Oh hell! We close to took out a local! Wait, it’s coming the other way! Stop tryin’ to kill humans, Harry! You are an action hero, that does not imply you will have a license to kill, Harry! Oh my god. Harry close to ran any one over.Whoever’s riding almost ran anyone over. Bloody hell. See, you will have bought riding like an asshole flawlessly beneath manage, so i’m gonna go ahead and get out. What? I’m not that dangerous. And your assignment is, motion heroes love a just right vehicle chase, so head off the road to only be a reckless son of a bitch, and race the opposite boys in the range Rover. – am i able to no longer get out with you? – No. I failed to feel my driving was that bad. It was o.K.. It’s not that just right. Ha-ha! Alright, i am gonna examine on the opposite guys. – i’m going to see you at Camel Ridge. – See you, Steve. You, my riding’s satisfactory! Harry, honk if you’re attractive. – – – i’m an attractive driver. – That was once too rapid. So, Steve-O obtained out of our vehicle and he told us that he wishes us to do a kick-ass driving sequence. Ok, so what you thinking, a race? Something actual easy like we just go three kilometers, whoever will get to the tip of three kilometers first wins. I assume. I imply we’re profitable already, so… Three, two, one, go! Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’re successful! – Slower! – What do you imply…Aargh! You are breaking the wheel. – My horn does not work. – – Oh we’re back, we’re back. – i am now formally a Moroccan again. Wait, dangle on, i’m doing a left. – Over the hill. – No, no, no. What do you imply, no, no, no? It is excellent. It’s a brief reduce. Oh my god! Why are they going up there? Oh my god. Oh my god! – gradual down, gradual down! – No it is nice, it is best… Oh Jesus. We can most likely make it. If we head down. How are you very likely gonna go down there? Appear, they’re going. What? Good enough, you recognize what, i’m riding any further. I am driving. I am gonna take the typical route. Peace out, boys! Whoo! You trash action hero pieces of shit! Hold comin’, keep it comin’. – hold it comin’. – Are you certain? – keep it comin’. – dangle on… Boys, we are the best motion heroes, good achieved. I consider we’re just right now to move down. We’re good? Well, get in then. – Come on. – Let’s go. Power, pressure, you filthy boy! Go, go! We’re on the street, on the road… I simply farted. Ha-ha! – Oh fam! – Yeah, utterly smells. – wholly smells. – No! Oh my god! We are the winners, da, da, da, da, da… Surely, you understand how optimistic i am we have now gained? I suppose that, despite the fact that Vik was once driving correct now, we have won. You’re a madman, you are a madman. – No, let’s scan it. – What, pull up here? I do these variety of roads. That is my average habitat. Exhibit me what you received. Get in, get in. It can be still a bit of of a race. Get my seat put. Are you guys ready for somewhat of Moroccan roll? Vik, simply go. We’re still racing, Vik! We go right. I feel it can be a short reduce.My spidey senses are tingling. – Likin’ the % you are goin’. – where are they? You see ’em? No, I can’t see shit. Oh they may be there! Go, go, go! Vik, they’re there! – Eyes on the avenue ! O.K., now we’re in a real race. There is not any easy. There may be most effective rough! Oh my days! I’m absolutely shitting myself. – Go! – i am tryin’! I suppose we might have this. I do not want Steve-O shovin’ something up my ass! – Vik, there is a dip, gradual! – there may be a river.They’ve put a river in my street. Go, go, go! Them! You! Yes! Sure! Go watch it, they may be overtaking! – Why are you watching? – How have you made us lose? Sure! Oh my god. – I informed you I might do that. – Josh, i really like you! Come again, come again! Boys, come back right here, boys! – that is Vik’s fault. – all right, bitches? You lost! We took the brief reduce! Now you’re gonna get stuffed up your ass through Steve-O.Ha! Riding time’s up, Sidemen. Meet met at Camel Ridge in 1/2 an hour. If that you may make it in one piece. There is one thing we have not performed and it is title my goat. What’s a name for a goat? – I have no idea. Prick? – No, that is horrible. Seeing as we’re in Morocco, how about Abdullah? – i don’t care anymore. – it works! Is that a petrol station? It’s in the center of nowhere. Pull in, pull in, pull in. – Oh, right. – well… Seeing as you have got driven, i will do the courtesy of filling up. – thanks very a lot. – i’m stuck. Just chill out, chill out, loosen up. – door. – Come on. There we go. Ailing. Thank you. Right, you get snacks or some thing. – o.K.. – Abdullah, sit down tight.Do you communicate English? The article’s gonna fall aside. There are designated matters every motion hero desires to do. So it’s time for these boys to run in sluggish motion from an explosion. Can i have food… Free of charge? Well, my man’s given me free meals. – quite? – nontoxic, bro. We more commonly will have to pay for the petrol, though. Sweets? Me sweets. Alright, what’s fallacious with this dude? He does not.. Are you on medicines? My brothers, let’s see the way you manage this. Oh, yeah. Oh, my god. I must save Abdullah. No. No! J.J., it’s gonna blow! Oh my god, run! Oh, shit! Best, sluggish-mo run. Yeah, dudes. Ah, can this day get any worse? How we gonna get to Camel Ridge now? I acquired no clue. I blame Abdullah. – this is all Abdullah’s fault. – You can’t blame Abdullah now. Guys! Guys! I simply got a message from Steve-O. We gotta meet him at Camel Ridge, which is ten minutes down this avenue.Get your assholes spread, cheeks broad, and bring out the lube. Harry is the worst man or woman to lose to. He fairly is. Does putting stuff up your butt harm? No longer when you use sufficient lube… I do not suppose. That’s why I requested him. – Please stop, stop. – Please. Discontinue for us, stop for us. – yes. – discontinue for us. – will we… Can we’ve got a carry? – do we get in? – Take us to Camel Ridge? – we are able to go in? Hiya, this is Abdullah. – What’s up, guys? – i’m no longer used to this. – well, this is a factor. – Oh, goodness. I don’t know what’s worse, the goat or you. – is this it? – this is Camel Ridge. No signal of J.J. And Ethan, although. Oh, best of your mum to show up, Simon. You guys are like 100% getting stuff up your bum. – No, Vik is. – Yeah, we mentioned Vik’s gonna be the one.. We determined it’s his fault, so he’s gonna take three times it. That is now not cool. Hiya. Erm, why is he on the roof? Congratulations on the win, boys, however don’t worry about any punishment for the losers. Talking of losers. Good day, the boys! So there is handiest two losers today. Do not speak to me. Guys, it is time for me to get completely rad, and i wanna show that i am the perfect action hero.You see, what number of mild bulbs has The Rock broken together with his testicles? I’m about to jump off of this roof sideways and spread-eagled… …At expectantly the superb trajectory to match a row of 36 gentle bulbs with my balls. – Why 36? – Yeah! Considering the fact that. And with that, wish me and my balls a number of luck. Oh, no. Oh, no. – excellent good fortune! – He hasn’t got to do it, it’s exceptional. Harry made him jealous of The Rock. Harry, you’ve gotten completely scarred a man. One. Two.Three. Oh, my god! Oh, my god! – Oh, my balls. – Bro, you o.K.? You already know what? I do not want whatever to do with this. I am leavin’ boys, i am leavin’. Let’s jump. It wasn’t us, it used to be you! To the autos! Yo, dudes! I feel i’m just right. Gettin’ in. Seatbelts on! Bro this guy needs to get out of the way. Let’s go. That was once sweet, proper? Dudes? Oh, my goodness! You guys obtained fortunate with these, did not you? Wow! Man, how am I presupposed to get house? Sidemen, a real motion hero certainly not leaves a person in the field. Back to the shadows you go. Sidemen, I venture you to become a member of me within the mountains in a sequence of events towards me and my elite group of alpine gurus.Oh no, it can be us in opposition to them? This is utterly unfair. Yeah! Oh, Jesus! Oh! That was once a nasty notion! Aargh! I’m literally shitting bricks! Aargh! I am snowboarding! Who crashed? .

[batterymonster2021]

SIDEMEN EXTREME DESERT RACE *EXPLOSION* | THE SIDEMEN SHOW

New Post has been published on https://hititem.kr/sidemen-extreme-desert-race-explosion-the-sidemen-show/

SIDEMEN EXTREME DESERT RACE *EXPLOSION* | THE SIDEMEN SHOW

Oh shit! This season on the sidemen exhibit… – Aargh! – Oh! Aargh! I have been kidnapped by my evil twin sister. We’re gonna be doing a race. Is your title truely undergo? Oh my god! That you can run, however you can’t disguise, Sidemen! – Oh my god! – help! We have to get out of right here now! – Yeah, dudes. – Oh my god, it’s Steve-O! I’ve been followin’ you on YouTube and i am impressed with what you could have comprehensive. However now it’s time for you to step off the sidelines and kick some serious ass. I need you to join me right here in Morocco for a crash course in fitting a absolutely dominating motion hero.Hop on that jet, boys. I’ll see you in three hours. – Yeah! – Let’s go, then! Let’s get to the jet! – Josh, decide on up my passport. – Get your own passport! I received my shirt. Why do I must get the passports for? I’ll close the door as well, shall I? Yep, certain, satisfactory. – No, what are you doing? – Get in! Jesus, how lengthy does it take? When you consider that the dawn of time, there have always been sidemen, simply as there have consistently been plankton in the oceans, worms in the earth, gnats in the sky. Through the years, kings, queens, pharaohs and presidents have all challenged sidemen to get up, to be all they can be, to go away the shelter and step to the entrance. That forward jump has in no way transpired. Except now. We deliver you seven unique sidemen of our possess time, who are guys of motion, destiny and braveness. Men who dare to step into the sunshine. They will raced, chased, blown up, battered and bedraggled, through deserts and oceans, over mountains and cities with one purpose: to move to the entrance, to take middle-stage.This is The Sidemen show. Go on, boys! Oh my god, Harry, why? Harry, why? He’s actually correct on the high of the stairs. It’s Steve-O. Whats up. Come on, boys, let’s transfer. – Come on, Ethan. – I’ve acquired quick legs! Gentlemen, welcome to Morocco. I’m, of course, Steve-O, known for breaking bones and shoving things up my butt. So who higher to aid you guys become real motion heroes? – The Rock, mostly. – o.K., fair play! But you’re on a quest to grow to be motion heroes, and i am gonna make you appear badass doing it. I’ve devised three distinct challenges to support you experiment your motion hero talents. All action heroes are stealthy as . So for project one, you guys are gonna have to be trained learn how to combination in, to vanish.So, head on into the market and to find yourselves some disguises. I will be giving you instructions the whole time even as I watch from up right here. I will also comply with you. – Like a pedo. – You wager. Watch out! This is some cash, 500 dirhams. Now, get outta right here, guys. – No, Harry, Harry! – Jesus! ! Not that approach, you idiot. It is a short cut! I can land on my feet. I’m an motion hero, trust me. Merci, merci beaucoup. Talking French, you already know. You practice it, observe it. Splitting up, i like that. – that is not charmed, is it? – Snake… – The cobra was… – It used to be dancing. I do not really understand what i am looking for proper here. What would you put on to cover your self? I say we just duvet you in meat. How’s that gonna help any one? That’s gonna make extra people look at me. Nah. You’ll combination in. You’ll be able to appear like a cow. Now that is what i’m talkin’ about. This would be like an invisibility cloak.- Oh my goodness. – Now that works. Do you see how informal that was? You would pass as an ancient girl now. Excuse me. How a lot for this? One hundred dirhams. What, I do like it very much, so… There we go, that is for you. Recall, boys, to be an action hero you gotta have a catchphrase. You gotta be attractive… And a bunch of alternative stuff. – Wanna hear my catchphrase? – o.K., hit me. I do not feel I do. Disguise your spouse, I’ve got a knife! Okay, uh… – Come on, boys. – Let’s not go along with that. I suppose I’ve acquired something. All right, one down, two to move. – you did good. – What do we get? I have no idea, just something that helps you blend. Simply embrace the tradition. I’m now not gonna lie, I noticed a Burberry scarf again there and i used to be tempted. Oh boys, these are me. Appear at these. No way. High-quality shop. All i’m sayin’, Harry… Oh jeez, sure. That’s it, yeah. What is mean that? That one, we imply, like that, it can be comfortable. Oh, it can be just like the pubes! The left facet is irritated. I suppose it makes communicating a lot simpler. Are you joyful? Am i able to get the slippers down, please? Merci beaucoup. – that is goatskin. – Goatskin? They do not seem that comfortable. It’s like stepping on a goat! Yeah, i like ’em. How much for the goat creps? – they may be like 300 dirhams. – Whoa! – What about this? – That one, give me one hundred fifty.Oi, oi, oi, you’re no longer gonna consider this. – What? – found a girlfriend? Oh! Oi, is that knock-off Sidemen? So how a lot in total for both of these and the goat creps? – 500 for all. – 500? 70… – more, more. – more? – Yeah. – supply him that and we’ll take that back. – Ah… Yeah, yeah. – How about that? Now we have just outdone ourselves. We’ve received the whole thing. I think we have quite accomplished well. I am happy, look. Oi, J.J., are trying the catchphrase. Whats up, show me your penis! – No, let’s go. – okay, let’s go. We’re in a nasty position. We don’t appear like motion heroes in any respect. – I do. – i don’t feel actually you do. You look like a funds action hero.Oh wait, the place have I long past? I love it, Vik, you’re the ultimate chameleon. Just blending proper in. Now you see me, now you don’t. – exceptional work! – Steve-O, i’m nailing it, okay? Harry, the goat loafers are hot, but you need more. J.J., take this to an extra level. I suppose we ought to buy a carpet. That’s a carpet right there. Oh wow… How handy! – can i try it on? – Oh my god. The place did Harry go? No, we will see you. – I find it irresistible, let’s take it. – Yeah, we’ll take it. – I offer you 20 matters. – it can be not gonna work. Yeah? High-quality! Excellent! – Wow. – o.K., pleased days. – Let’s go. – Oh my god. Simon, why am i able to smell your mum? Oh, cos there may be a number of fish.All right, guys, watching just right. Guys! Guys, guys, guys… Oh that? Oh Jesus. What the hell is that? I am a farmer now. Are you able to simply provide an explanation for where you received it? It is too lengthy a story. Did you pay for it? Too long a narrative, Vik! – Ethan! – rapid, run! Go, go, run, run! Ethan, what have you accomplished? Why are we running? Cos there’s a loopy man chasing us! Nice work, boys. The Rock does not have shit on you. Guys, to make this a success, i want you to run in sluggish motion and make it appear cool. And consider to break a bunch of crap. Run, like a average human! Run! You understand how we have been pronouncing we have got to combination in? I’m going to let you know how we can blend in. – How? – i’m going to turn out to be carpet man! Just stop. A carpet? Fairly, a carpet? What do you mean? This can be a quality cover. – What’s this? – i’m carpet man. – Donkey? – Man just called you a donkey, fam! He does look like just a little of an ass.Go, go, go, go, go! Ethan, fool! Did you pay for that goat? It is a long story! Supply him again his bloody goat! – Guys, i am hungry. – relatively? – Let’s examine this situation out. – critically? Stinks of shit over there, dude. Well, it is meals. Ah… Snails. Simon, determine these out. Oh! Jesus! – Simon, you cretin! – Oh my…! The snails! Guys, I said the inspiration is to combination in, dudes. – What are you doing? – He threw snails at me. – Run, Run ! Boys, gotta go! See you at the essential market. Okay, Sidemen, you gave it your nice. Now meet me out there in your subsequent project. Steve-O stated go, get to the market. Go, go, go! What did you guys do? Sidemen, before we get began right here, who got here up with "show me your penis"? Quality work! That’s an motion hero catchphrase if I ever did hear one. Now for challenge two, fitting an action hero requires enjoying video games of threat and talent in colorful surroundings. So, gentlemen, welcome to slipper tagine. – is that this really a factor? – Yeah.It can be tagine, now not vagine, you hounds! O.K., this is the way you play. Yeah, you stand at the back of here, flick the slipper towards the tagines. Like this. Ah! Hopefully you can do higher than I did. O.K.. Land in the tagines and you’re safe. Pass over, you are royally screwed. Whoever wins is gonna get a ailing set of wheels. The two of you who don’t win will not. It can be gonna be a nasty day for the loser. Watch Vik be excellent at it. It’s in his blood. I do put on slippers at all times. – He does, virtually. – Whoa! Oh Jesus! Can i exploit these or do I have got to use these? – they may be too significant! – No! No! It can be obtained a better floor subject. No looker. That was once dog shit, Harry. No longer lookin’ good for you. – i am scared! – Let’s go, Ethan, you obtained this.You obtained just a little of a step, mate. He can not get it off his sock. Why’s he so far again? Oh no! – What used to be that? – terrible! My heart is racing, what the hell? Go on, Tobi. It up. – he’s gonna get it now. – Oh my god, sure. Oh the wind. – Yeah he obtained it within the wind. – Oh my god. – Oh my god. Oh! Now not bad. That is difficult. I’ve no longer performed this earlier than. Just get it to land in the tagines. Oh! Everyone but Harry and Ethan are on goal. O.K., J.J., should you land within the tagines, these two guys get screwed. When you do not land within the tagines, it can be a unexpected demise for who goes out. Let’s go. Oh my god, that is the most intense slipper throw of a lifetime.Guys, stop stressing me! – that is not in! – it is not in. That’s no longer in. – sure! Yes! – total fail. Which means unexpected loss of life. Subsequent circular, final round, each and every of you will flick one slipper. The closest to the center wins. Come on, Harry. Ooh. Ooh… He is out, he is out. J.J., you’re gonna must perform beautiful badly to no longer win. Oh no. I don’t wanna be with Ethan! Oh… Yes! Absolutely, without doubt… Oh hold on. It can be in. He’s the decide. Let him decide. Steve-O, i really like "Jackass". I don’t wanna be with Ethan. I watch all of your films. That one’s in! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my Jesus… No! All right, Sidemen, for the final task, action heroes ought to be capable to drive any variety of vehicle.So we’re goin’ into the desolate tract. Winners, you can be drivin’ range Rovers with air con. Let’s go! You two lamentably will don’t have any air-con using a junk truck. It goes very slow. Now, let’s hit the barren region! Our subsequent challenge is at Camel Ridge. I am so joyful we’re all together. – it’s over for them. – goodbye, guys. – discontinue celebrating. – Hate my lifestyles.- Oh my… Fam! – What? There is like nothing in here! What do you imply, there may be nothing in right here? Shut up and get in the car, man. All jokes apart, this hurts. Does the window even open? Everything comes aside. What the hell is occurring? I’ve an inspiration that the window just would not open. Oh no. Oh no. Oh my god, no! No! There we go. The handbrake’s down. What is this? – Why is this in our auto? – – Ah… – Hee-hee! Ha-ha-ha! You simply gotta smile. – What are you watching at? – Sorry! I’m sorry! Provide me your bicycle! Supply me your bicycle! That is truely like one of the vital worst matters ever. – that’s no longer healthful, is it? – – , man! – this is so bad! God’s sake! I sure hope those boys are making do in that junk truck. I suppose they may be having the worst time, cos we’re sitting right here, air conditioned.Oh I forgot in regards to the air con! They will be sweatin’ their tits off. And they’re gonna be much more aggie. When they get there, it is gonna be a fireball of simply anger. What’s funny is that there’s a lot of room for them in here. Fam no, wait, wait… You’re gonna kill me, fam, huh? Come on, man. No, drive, pressure, power! Don’t park. Go! Oh my god, this guy on the bike continues following me. – what’s going on? – Yo fam, i would as an alternative be on a camel. It is a bit hot, you already know. Put that air conditioning on, cos we livin’ in luxurious, boys! The item is, you place Ethan and J.J. In a truck together. In literally a heated environment, rather literally. That is, yeah! There is no danger of them not arguing. We’re in Marrakesh, Marrakesh We’re in Marrakesh… Ha-ha! You are not able to simply try this. At least put the dangers on! Cannot be assed! – i am not… No… – We’re in Marrakesh… – stop! – We’re in Marrakesh! La, la, la, la, la… We’re in Marrakesh, Marrakesh, we’re in Marra… I am no longer wearing that factor at the same time you are singing that silly tune. That is the worst day of my existence. What’s probably the most action hero factor you have got ever completed? One time I jumped out of an aircraft without a parachute into the ocean. – That was lovely action hero. – that is some thing, i guess. Yeah. One more motion hero trait I possess is i am additionally equipped to staple my bollocks to just about anything.- and that is strong. – Yeah… Right through the historical ball bag. And what matters have your balls been stapled to over time? Probably just different elements of my body. – What? – Yeah. , man. I used to be surely simply thinking, this is form of annoying. You fully grasp we now have on no account met Steve-O before, and he is leading us right into a desolate tract. I kinda want I used to be J.J. Or Ethan now. Do you? Transfer! – The locals hate you. – move that vehicle! You simply up his day. Appear at my day, fam. Look at my day! That does not mean you ought to smash every body else’s. I am not gonna lie, I’ve got a fart so…- No, i beg, please. – Oh it already smells! Ha-ha! Fam, no, no. No, no! No, fam, are you severe? Oh i’m gonna be unwell. No, it can be long past. It’s gone. Fam, it is gone. Oh fam, it can be still there! It’s lingering! I hate you. I know, I want a poo. Ha-ha! I want a poo particularly desperately. Motion heroes pressure like maniacs, so perhaps perform a little erratic driving. Ah! Ok, all right, waaah! Oh hell! We close to took out a local! Wait, it’s coming the other way! Stop tryin’ to kill humans, Harry! You are an action hero, that does not imply you will have a license to kill, Harry! Oh my god. Harry close to ran any one over.Whoever’s riding almost ran anyone over. Bloody hell. See, you will have bought riding like an asshole flawlessly beneath manage, so i’m gonna go ahead and get out. What? I’m not that dangerous. And your assignment is, motion heroes love a just right vehicle chase, so head off the road to only be a reckless son of a bitch, and race the opposite boys in the range Rover. – am i able to no longer get out with you? – No. I failed to feel my driving was that bad. It was o.K.. It’s not that just right. Ha-ha! Alright, i am gonna examine on the opposite guys. – i’m going to see you at Camel Ridge. – See you, Steve. You, my riding’s satisfactory! Harry, honk if you’re attractive. – – – i’m an attractive driver. – That was once too rapid. So, Steve-O obtained out of our vehicle and he told us that he wishes us to do a kick-ass driving sequence. Ok, so what you thinking, a race? Something actual easy like we just go three kilometers, whoever will get to the tip of three kilometers first wins. I assume. I imply we’re profitable already, so… Three, two, one, go! Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’re successful! – Slower! – What do you imply…Aargh! You are breaking the wheel. – My horn does not work. – – Oh we’re back, we’re back. – i am now formally a Moroccan again. Wait, dangle on, i’m doing a left. – Over the hill. – No, no, no. What do you imply, no, no, no? It is excellent. It’s a brief reduce. Oh my god! Why are they going up there? Oh my god. Oh my god! – gradual down, gradual down! – No it is nice, it is best… Oh Jesus. We can most likely make it. If we head down. How are you very likely gonna go down there? Appear, they’re going. What? Good enough, you recognize what, i’m riding any further. I am driving. I am gonna take the typical route. Peace out, boys! Whoo! You trash action hero pieces of shit! Hold comin’, keep it comin’. – hold it comin’. – Are you certain? – keep it comin’. – dangle on… Boys, we are the best motion heroes, good achieved. I consider we’re just right now to move down. We’re good? Well, get in then. – Come on. – Let’s go. Power, pressure, you filthy boy! Go, go! We’re on the street, on the road… I simply farted. Ha-ha! – Oh fam! – Yeah, utterly smells. – wholly smells. – No! Oh my god! We are the winners, da, da, da, da, da… Surely, you understand how optimistic i am we have now gained? I suppose that, despite the fact that Vik was once driving correct now, we have won. You’re a madman, you are a madman. – No, let’s scan it. – What, pull up here? I do these variety of roads. That is my average habitat. Exhibit me what you received. Get in, get in. It can be still a bit of of a race. Get my seat put. Are you guys ready for somewhat of Moroccan roll? Vik, simply go. We’re still racing, Vik! We go right. I feel it can be a short reduce.My spidey senses are tingling. – Likin’ the % you are goin’. – where are they? You see ’em? No, I can’t see shit. Oh they may be there! Go, go, go! Vik, they’re there! – Eyes on the avenue ! O.K., now we’re in a real race. There is not any easy. There may be most effective rough! Oh my days! I’m absolutely shitting myself. – Go! – i am tryin’! I suppose we might have this. I do not want Steve-O shovin’ something up my ass! – Vik, there is a dip, gradual! – there may be a river.They’ve put a river in my street. Go, go, go! Them! You! Yes! Sure! Go watch it, they may be overtaking! – Why are you watching? – How have you made us lose? Sure! Oh my god. – I informed you I might do that. – Josh, i really like you! Come again, come again! Boys, come back right here, boys! – that is Vik’s fault. – all right, bitches? You lost! We took the brief reduce! Now you’re gonna get stuffed up your ass through Steve-O.Ha! Riding time’s up, Sidemen. Meet met at Camel Ridge in 1/2 an hour. If that you may make it in one piece. There is one thing we have not performed and it is title my goat. What’s a name for a goat? – I have no idea. Prick? – No, that is horrible. Seeing as we’re in Morocco, how about Abdullah? – i don’t care anymore. – it works! Is that a petrol station? It’s in the center of nowhere. Pull in, pull in, pull in. – Oh, right. – well… Seeing as you have got driven, i will do the courtesy of filling up. – thanks very a lot. – i’m stuck. Just chill out, chill out, loosen up. – door. – Come on. There we go. Ailing. Thank you. Right, you get snacks or some thing. – o.K.. – Abdullah, sit down tight.Do you communicate English? The article’s gonna fall aside. There are designated matters every motion hero desires to do. So it’s time for these boys to run in sluggish motion from an explosion. Can i have food… Free of charge? Well, my man’s given me free meals. – quite? – nontoxic, bro. We more commonly will have to pay for the petrol, though. Sweets? Me sweets. Alright, what’s fallacious with this dude? He does not.. Are you on medicines? My brothers, let’s see the way you manage this. Oh, yeah. Oh, my god. I must save Abdullah. No. No! J.J., it’s gonna blow! Oh my god, run! Oh, shit! Best, sluggish-mo run. Yeah, dudes. Ah, can this day get any worse? How we gonna get to Camel Ridge now? I acquired no clue. I blame Abdullah. – this is all Abdullah’s fault. – You can’t blame Abdullah now. Guys! Guys! I simply got a message from Steve-O. We gotta meet him at Camel Ridge, which is ten minutes down this avenue.Get your assholes spread, cheeks broad, and bring out the lube. Harry is the worst man or woman to lose to. He fairly is. Does putting stuff up your butt harm? No longer when you use sufficient lube… I do not suppose. That’s why I requested him. – Please stop, stop. – Please. Discontinue for us, stop for us. – yes. – discontinue for us. – will we… Can we’ve got a carry? – do we get in? – Take us to Camel Ridge? – we are able to go in? Hiya, this is Abdullah. – What’s up, guys? – i’m no longer used to this. – well, this is a factor. – Oh, goodness. I don’t know what’s worse, the goat or you. – is this it? – this is Camel Ridge. No signal of J.J. And Ethan, although. Oh, best of your mum to show up, Simon. You guys are like 100% getting stuff up your bum. – No, Vik is. – Yeah, we mentioned Vik’s gonna be the one.. We determined it’s his fault, so he’s gonna take three times it. That is now not cool. Hiya. Erm, why is he on the roof? Congratulations on the win, boys, however don’t worry about any punishment for the losers. Talking of losers. Good day, the boys! So there is handiest two losers today. Do not speak to me. Guys, it is time for me to get completely rad, and i wanna show that i am the perfect action hero.You see, what number of mild bulbs has The Rock broken together with his testicles? I’m about to jump off of this roof sideways and spread-eagled… …At expectantly the superb trajectory to match a row of 36 gentle bulbs with my balls. – Why 36? – Yeah! Considering the fact that. And with that, wish me and my balls a number of luck. Oh, no. Oh, no. – excellent good fortune! – He hasn’t got to do it, it’s exceptional. Harry made him jealous of The Rock. Harry, you’ve gotten completely scarred a man. One. Two.Three. Oh, my god! Oh, my god! – Oh, my balls. – Bro, you o.K.? You already know what? I do not want whatever to do with this. I am leavin’ boys, i am leavin’. Let’s jump. It wasn’t us, it used to be you! To the autos! Yo, dudes! I feel i’m just right. Gettin’ in. Seatbelts on! Bro this guy needs to get out of the way. Let’s go. That was once sweet, proper? Dudes? Oh, my goodness! You guys obtained fortunate with these, did not you? Wow! Man, how am I presupposed to get house? Sidemen, a real motion hero certainly not leaves a person in the field. Back to the shadows you go. Sidemen, I venture you to become a member of me within the mountains in a sequence of events towards me and my elite group of alpine gurus.Oh no, it can be us in opposition to them? This is utterly unfair. Yeah! Oh, Jesus! Oh! That was once a nasty notion! Aargh! I’m literally shitting bricks! Aargh! I am snowboarding! Who crashed? .