#but by GOD it's still a goal. i can put in some motherfucking references here and there when i talk about The Lore

[talentforlying]

one of these days i'm going to write up all that i've changed from azzarello's bullshit era and the one (1) piece i've kept from milligan (and also changed) and the only thing currently stopping me is that it is going to be so, so inside-baseball incomprehensible. and i almost never want to go reading/screencapping azzarello and milligan to add references but i Want to add references.

canon is goop, just know that we continue to ride the bus down "hellblazer ended at #250 and looks like swiss cheese before that" street.

[dreamii-yume]

New Episode Update Let’s GOO!!!

Warning : This is just Yume having a mental breakdown, seriously. This episode update was WHACK.

~ MAJOR SPOILERS FOR 68-75 ~

I know we ain’t participating and all but the game reminding you that there’s 10 minutes left to prepare is seriously bad for my heart.

Aah, shiet. Vil is still hurt.

He still has small wounds and scratches that he hid make up. Daddy, I’m worried.

Apparently, yeah, I’m not the only one cause my homeboy, Epel just asked to switch the center role with Vil. THE CONFIDENCE.

Aw, he’s worried about him falling over during stage (And make the performance look bad) Come on, Epel just be honest-

...He finally became the ideal poisoned apple that Vil wanted, huh?

Vil being proud a mom.

But the queen inside him is STRONG.

He’ll embrace the villain in him, OUR QUEEN CAN STILL GO. INJURED, WHO?

...AAND he proceeds to roast Epel again lol Typical Vil.

I love how Epel just accepted a nickname like “Doku Ringo-chan” lol It’s so cute, senior-junior relationship goals right there.

HERE WE GO.

Everyone is actually really confident hahaha

I really wish Deuce’s mom, Ace’s brother, Jamil’s sister, and Vil’s dad were here in person to watch.

HECK I WANT KALIM’S WHOLE FAMILY HERE WHY NOT

T-THEY’RE REALLY LETTING US HEAR THE FULL SONG. 

IS THAT JAMIL RAPPING.

Look at Jamil’s solo SD dancing. LOOK AT IT.

I really fucking love Vil’s singing voice aaa

HIS VOICE IS SO GOOD.

Album when disney.

Is Vil okay.

...aight im hearing some high quality panting here

...dont mind me listening to it a bit too much...

...they’re going to be great reference for some spicy- leave me alone

Vil panting is making me feel SOMETHING.

ANYWAY. THE CROWD IS A MOOD.

IS VIL OKAY.

Unmei no megami is giving me idia ptsd here.

Heartslabyul Senpais are watching their kids, looking all proud *sniff

Oh god, after playing Obey Me, it just occurred to me how similar Cater and Asmodeus’ voices are...

Watch these Senpai dorks act like Ace and Deuce’s second family. Trey being the dad, Riddle being the mom, and Cater being the supportive big bro. It’s so beautiful.

Riddle’s voice is a lot more softer now, I just realized...It’s so soothing...

God i miss u too octavinelle never change

Yeah, why tf did Floyd not audition for this

Bro, can you imagine Nobuhiko Okamoto in the squad as well??? IMAGINE-

Of course, he wasn’t in the mood back then. Of course. Why did i even ask.

IMAGINE FLOYD BEING IN VDC NEXT YEAR.

Omg i miss u too octavinelle never change

Azul’s gonna overblot again with Floyd’s marketing skills lol

Jade coming in like welp i guess thats that. Too bad, huh Azul?

GOD i miss u too octavinelle never change

SAVANA BITCHES HI

I wonder if these mfs knew that Vil just overblotted and malmal was the one who fixed the stage lol

oooh Leona’s sus about something he a sharp boi

Speak up my guy—

still so weird leona taking his job seriously

Malleus looking happier seeing this performance rather than Lilia’s lol

I miss the simpery in Sebek

Silver’s not in the verge of falling into a coma for once wow

Chenya’s so cute.

AND WE’RE BACK TO CUTE HEIGH HO TEAM

fcking shotacons man...im not one to talk

Aw, they didn’t show Neige performance...

The simping in the crowd is a MASSIVE mood.

WHO WINS TELL ME

These night raven fuckers better vote for us and not pull a “oh shie my hand slipped lololol” i swear to god- im gonna throw hands

*me holding my phone and pretending to vote as well

Suspense music intensifies be like-

HAAA

BOIS, ITS ONE VOTE DIFFERENCE WHO IS IT AAAA

WHAT.

HOW DARE- HOW!? HOW DID WE LOSE!?

WE LOST BY ONE VOTE!?

EVERYONE’S SO SHOCKED LOL

vil pls dont overblot again-

Noooo grim’s tuna cans-

WE REALLY LOST TO A LEGIT KIDS SONG.

These children do not have the right to be this cute. I wanna take Timmy, Toby, and Shelpie home.

I swear to god one of these dwarves sounds like Cheka lol Is it Toby?

EPEEELLLL DONT CRRYYYY

KALIMMMM DONT CRRYYYY

KALIM HAVING THE AUDACITY TO SOUNDING LIKE A BIG BROTHER AND THEN CRYING HIS OWN RIGHT AFTER LOLOLOL

I HATE THIS EPISODE YALL MADE MY TWO BOIS CRY IM FIGHTING THIS EPISODE. BURN THIS.

This background music too though im deeeeddd

KALIM IM SO SORRY FOR MAKING A SINFIC ABOUT YOU PLS DONT CRY-

Jamil impressed about Vil being “calm” and Vil just going “h e h. you dont even know.”

....ha...

Monsieur Rook. WHAT did you say.

ROOK VOTED FOR ROYAL SWORD. Are you kidding me. You snek how could you- i loved you

WHAT DID I SAY- Ya’ll night raven fuckers shall not slip by their fingers when voting rook.

Vil is in the brink of passing out aaaaa

I have never heard Ace this pissed before whoa- lol he sounds like Deuce in his delinquent mode

Aw...Rook felt that Neige’s performance carries a stronger bond than theirs :’( it’s hard to put the blame on him when he’s saying all these stuff

It’s just like what they said in the past episodes that it’s really hard voting for your own team when you know the opposing team is better.

Aww...He just wanted Vil to believe in himself more...Rook is such a best man. Im crying-

Oh noooo is Vil gonna cry too nooo- daddy turned to baby really quick SOMEONE GIVE HIM AN EMERGENCY HUG

Well- at least...at least the 100 year record of not being able to win is still going, yeah? Um...bad joke? Sorry, i’ll see myself out-

NEIGE NOT NOW AND YOUR VII-KUN BULLSHIT- we’re having a moment here

Neige is such sweetheart but aaaahh— This makes it worse, we can’t even hate him aaa—

OMG JUST WHEN I THOUGHT THINGS COULDN’T- AAAAA

MONSIEUR ROOK. YOU’RE A FAN OF NEIGE!?

MOTHERFUCKER just got exposed by Neige himself lol

Going to Neige’s shake hand events, sending him letters, buying all his merch and shie- HE’S A FULL BLOWN NEIGE STAN

WTF YOU SNEK GET OUT OF THIS SCHOOL-

OOOOHHH THAT FUCKING ALBUM- HIS “LIFE’S WORK” or whatever bullshit IS FULL OF NEIGE

...actually- my japanese is lacking- im not sure lol what is a ブロマイド??? Lol I feel like a clown.

Rook is sweating profusely LOL

...what do you have to say for yourself, monsieur rook.

Wait- huh is that-

IS HE GONNA CRY-

WHY IS EVERYONE CRYING!??!?!?!

HE’S SILENTLY CRYING AS HE INTRODUCED HIMSELF TO NEIGE WHAT. THE. FUCK IS THIS EPISODE.

Neige fanclub??? Eternal Snow??? What kind of creepy-ass- OH, HE EVEN HAS A MEMBERSHIP NUMBER TOO-

Props to Neige with his :) expression unfaltering.

I’m- I’m speechless.

Vil is just looking down at Rook in disappointment like- “you’re more pathetic than I am”

Queen just went “I think you need this handkerchief more than I do now” THAT’S RIGHT. REPENT MOTHERFUCKER.

Rook crying is cursed.

But damn, I’m kinda liking this new relationship this bitchy relationship they have

Neige just dragged everyone’s ass back on stage and his snow white energy just said “LETS ALL BE FRIENDS AND SING”

NEIGE IS FUCKING GREAT- HE REALLY DID GOT THESE BITCHES TO SING HEIGH HO LOL

ACE’S RELUCTANT SINGING AND DEUCE LOOKING LIKE HE’S HAVING FUN

KALIM IS SUCH A MOOD, SINGING EVEN WITHOUT KNOWING THE LYRICS AND JAMIL JUST HAVING THAT “i want to die” ENERGY

AIGHT. ROOK IS HAVING WAY TOO MUCH FUN AND EPEL IS TRYING HIS BEST. HE’S SO CUTE-

OMG NEIGE AND VIL HAVING SUCH GOOD HARMONY—

YAHOO Y A H O O TANOSHIINDA~~ 

YA’LL SURE ABOUT GIVING ME THIS BLESSED MOMENT??

What a somewhat happy ending, even though Rook just backstabbed us I’m crying Beauté 100 points!!!

LOL Vil realizing he’s having fun singing with Neige- “SOMEONE JUST END ME RIGHT NOW-“ The desperation in his voice-

I love how Neige’s yahoo yahoo is messing with everyone’s head, even Vil wants to pass out lol

haha Crowley is so depressed lol

WHA- WHO-

HEADMASTER OF ROYAL SWORD!?

He looks like your typical grandpa- and his outfit looks like that one mickey mouse wizard outfit but blue—

Old man just went “we won lol” just to piss Crowley off I like this guy’s energy already-

Crowley being most likely as old as this guy—

ooohh this man just sensed something in this stage- Leona did too, didn’t he???

* Damn. Crowley talking so fast sounds like he’s making a load of bullshit lol

Anyway, I’m just glad that it’s not mickey mouse who’s the headmaster— I would’ve lost my shit.

We’re back in our dorms and I forgot that the squad doesn’t live with us anymore. It’s suddenly so lonely now...

Grim is getting the yahoo yahoo ptsd too lol it’s too goddamn catchy

oooohh shiet- mickey is calling us again

YES we finally got a good picture of this motherfucker

It seems like nothing is disrupting our communication this time, so MC thought to call Grim but—

Grim is not here.

Uuhhh...Grim? Where you’ve gone??? We’re getting flashbacks of the first parts of the game.

We went out to find Grim and HE’S CHOMPING ON ANOTHER BLACK STONE ON THE STAGE-

GRIM SPIT THAT OUT YOU LOOK TERRIFYING

AAAAAHH GRIM HAS GONE FERAL— He’s attacking US

Is this because we didn’t win his tuna canss nooo

NoOO SWEET BABY COME BACK.

Legit I’m sad, please baby don’t overblot like this...

He learned a new move though- SCRATCH

Ooh— We’re seeing some Ignihyde scenes here~

P U H I H I

Idia getting a lot of emails from bigshot companies whoa—

THAT OLYMPUS—?! EXCUSE ME??? Ortho what- Are we finally getting that Hercules episode—

Damn getting a hot chance in olympus only to put them down the recycling bin oof— Idia why edit : Yume was informed that olympus is kind of a company that sponsored VDC sorry she was mind-fucked at this moment and the ability to understand proper Japanese just went whoosh lol Thanks to @starshiningsirius for pointing it out for Yume~ ♥︎ HONESTLY YUME’S JUST GONNA WAIT FOR ACTUAL PROFESSIONAL TRANSLATORS AT THIS POINT LOL Don’t trust me for important situation too much lol

Aaaahh...We’re getting this shut-in out of his room in the next episode, are we?

And that concludes the whole Pomefiore Episode! JESUS CHRIST 75 CHAPTERS ALL IN ALL!? How long is the Ignihyde chapter going to be, huh!?

This was a really, really fun episode lol I’d consider this a fan service episode actually cause of all the things we get to experience— The singing, dancing, and the new songs, THE DRAMA. (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

But then, the plot thickens, no? What’s going to happen to Grim? In the Ignihyde episode? And those reoccurring memories of us? And our relationship with Tsunotarou lol ALSO WE NEVER REALLY DID FIND OUT WHAT ROOK’S UNIQUE MAGIC IS. DISNEY EXPLAIN—

Thanks for reading this shitpost of Yume losing her shiet lol See you all in the Ignihyde Episode~ ❤

[hotdamnhunnam]

Will Miller: Sex in Publix

A/N: FINALLY writing for Will Fucking “Ironhead” Miller from Triple Frontier!!! So excited, my dears!! Here’s some smut about you helping Will recover from his violent cereal aisle incident at Publix... which results in you two having shameless public sex.

Pairing: Will “Ironhead” Miller x F!Reader Warnings: smut, swearing, dirty talk, reference to traumatic experience, sex in public (obvs) Inspiration: WILL’S SPEECH from the opening scene of the movie. Serious big dick energy 🥵

Word Count: ~2.5k

** THE SPEECH **

Quoted from Triple Frontier’s opening scene

Parts that are referenced in this fic are in bold below. (You seriously need to watch it, though...)

About five years ago, when I was on leave... I found myself standing in the middle of the cereal aisle at the Publix... with my arm around some guy's throat. I was squeezing so hard he pissed himself.  My fiancée at the time had to climb on my back just so I didn’t actually kill the guy.  Do you know why I was doing this? Because he hadn’t moved his cart when I asked.  I was the best of the best, able to shut down, control, manipulate... all basic human instincts towards one goal: the completion of my mission. But the effects of committing extreme violence on other human beings are biological and physiological. That’s the price of being a warrior.

Fic begins after ‘Keep reading’ ...

***************

A/N: Why yes, I just inserted the same gif again, so that you have the image right above, for purposes of the description of this mouthwatering motherfucker doing his GODDAMN CHEWING GUM LOWER LIP TONGUE THING in the third paragraph 😛

“We shouldn’t even be here...”

“Will, you say that every time,” you remind your fiancé as he strolls your cart through the aisles at Publix, slowly approaching Aisle 6. You can feel him tense up now as you’re drawing near. “It’s like I told you, babe—the best way to work through your shit is to come and revisit the scene of the crime.”

“Crime?” he rolls his tongue around the piece of gum he’s chewing, lets it slide along the inside of his full pink lower lip. He knows just what he’s doing: making it bulge in a way that looks fucking delicious. That action in itself is a crime calling for arrest. “You know the guy didn’t press charges.”

“That’s because you threatened to kill him if he did. Besides, the poor bastard had just pissed all over the floor; I’m pretty sure he wasn’t going wild to include that kind of detail if he filed a police report.”

He shrugs that off with a half-laugh. Tries to ignore how he had choked a total stranger with such brutal force... simply because he hadn’t moved his cart when Will had asked. “The fact stands that I’m criminally innocent.”

“Of course. The perfect model citizen,” you can’t help but indulge him in a playful little compliment. “With model good looks, too.”

Will rolls his eyes, those eyes you constantly effuse are the most gorgeous shade of blue. He never seems to think it’s true. “Butter me up, why don’t you.”

“Like I always do.”

He cracks a smile, which quickly vanishes as you reach Aisle 6. “Speaking of which, didn’t we just finish the butter in the fridge? I’ll go and grab some; maybe you can get the cereal, then meet me in the dairy aisle...”

“Nice try, big guy—not happening. Come on,” you urge, taking a soft yet firm hold of his muscular upper arm. “What, are you scared of Cap’n Crunch or something? Man up, Captain. Don’t be a pussy ass bitch.”

“Cap’n Crunch is creepy as shit. Freaked me out as a kid,” he says with an exaggerated cringe. “But seriously, babe—you know that going back there makes me... twitch.”

“And I’ll be there to hold your hand, and talk you through it, like I always am,” you reassure him. “Will, it’s gotten better every time we visit. We’ve made real progress; it’s a process, and to be honest, I think it’s almost finished.”

He bites that luscious lip of his. “What if it isn’t.”

“Then we’ll keep trying till it is, okay? You have to trust me. Either way, we’ll hurry home, soon as we’re done... so you can fuck me.”

His eyes light up at that, just as you knew they would, and he pushes the cart straight ahead. Not afraid to admit he’s been played. “Damn does my girl know how to control and manipulate...”

“I learned from the best of the best, as they say. My big strong ironhead fiancé.”

As it turns out today, the sex will happen long before you leave the store. Neither of you will be able to wait.

***************

“So. How you feeling?” you ask him, standing by his side in the spot where it happened. As he stands still and stares, you reach up to comb your fingers through the soft golden spikes of his hair, hoping that the tender loving touch will help his healing.

Will chews his gum a little harder, with a firm clench of his jaw. Blue eyes a little darker. And good God—you shouldn’t be having these thoughts, but fuck, the smoldering look on his face right now is just about the hottest thing you ever saw...

You can see the scenes replay inside his mind. Not just the incident itself, choking a random guy in Publix half to death, squeezing so hard the bastard lost his breath and pissed himself—but more importantly, the underlying cause. Years of trauma, molding Will into a man that he himself feared and despised. So many years spent searching for the kind of peace he always craved but thought he’d never find. 

He tells you often how he found it in your arms; though you’re a sucker for his charms, you always brush the line aside. That shit’s just corny. And besides, he only says it when he’s horny... which is all the fucking time.

One of the many things that you two have in common. Ever since Will Miller claimed you as his woman, the two of you have been getting it on so fucking often that it’s probably a crime.

You try to stop your mind from wandering in that direction. Will needs to process heavy shit right now and you’re supposed to help him. Shouldn’t get distracted by your own lady erection, as you silently admire him in all his alpha male perfection... mind burning with questions—like, but how the hell can it even be possible to be so fucking beautiful...?

His hands aren’t twitching in the way that often happens when he’s here, but still, he’s awfully tense and quieter than usual. Maybe it’s time to head out of the cereal aisle; return some other time, after a little while. You hold him close to whisper in his ear, stroking his arm with a warmhearted smile. “Listen, babe—if you don’t want to talk... then let’s go home and crack open some beer, or a bottle of wine... I’ll suck your cock, and everything will be just fine. I’m proud of you for coming here today. Now let’s get out of here so you can come someplace better, okay?”

Now at that, Will at last has a few words to say. He snaps out of his self-hating haze and attacks you just with the sheer power of his deep blue gaze. “Mmm, you mean like deep inside my filthy little whore of a fiancée?”

You feign offense, reacting with a gasp, dealing his upper arm a playful little slap. “Captain Miller! What gives you the right to talk to me like that—in public, no less? Show some damn respect.”

He answers with a flirty, dirty laugh. “Respect my ass.”

“I do, and you know that. It’s perfect,” you remind him as you reach around to grab it through his pants, loving the way the sculpted muscle tenses up beneath your hands. “And I respect it even better when it’s naked, so let’s get—”

“Gimme a minute,” he interrupts you with a kiss on the top of your head. “You know, before you started talking all that frisky business... I was just about to tell you that I think we’re finally finished. Babe, you did it.”

You pause, dropping your jaw—does he mean what you think he does? Now that the tone is back to serious, you free his fine ass from the grasp of your horny claws. “...did it?”

Will smiles and nods. “I know my stubborn ass kept resisting these visits. But you were right, babe. Like always. I think I’ve finally gotten past this shit. I mean—not all my shit; that’s a serious beast. But the whole Publix incident, at least. I just... today I finally felt released. At peace with it.”

There are no words to capture how giddy you feel. You wrap your arms around his neck with an excited squeal, heartbeat happily racing. “Babe, that’s amazing! We did it. I may be the one with all the brilliant ideas, but you were smart enough to listen.”

He lets out a soft giggle, hugging you so hard it tickles. “I still say you get all the credit. Manipulating me with all those promises of sex the way you did. Straight up forcing me into submission.”

“Oh, don’t put it that way. Now let’s not forget who’s the dom in the bedroom. Promise you’ll always play Captain, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he chuckles. “Whatever you say.”

The one thing on your mind as you snuggle into his embrace is this man smells like actual heaven... hot damn. You pull back from the hug, desperate to get home and get fucked. But there’s still one more thing to get out of the way.

You make some effort to compose yourself before what’s coming next. “Oh, and before we go—there’s something else I wanted you to know. Now that your issue’s been addressed... well, I also have something to confess.”

After those words, you pause for longer than you should. Which isn’t good.

“Go on?” Will holds your hand and gives you an encouraging, heartwarming nod.

Ugh, he’s so cute when he’s all soft and full of love. Despite being so big and tough. All at once a sugar baby muffin and a savage fucking sex god.

You clear your throat, collecting your slightly embarrassing thoughts. “So, when the whole... incident happened, in the moments just before I climbed onto your back, to pull you off of that poor man, I was just—watching you attack... and... well, at first I didn’t even know how to react, because... uhhh...”

Those blue eyes of his blink, and you can barely even think. Apparently you have a goddamn golden eyelash kink?

Will tries to urge you to continue; though it’s clear he’s quite sincere, he’s also more than just a little bit amused. He always loves to see you bumbling like a fool and acting totally uncool. He says it’s super cute. “Because what?”

You re-clear your throat, though it’s all clear already. Try to stay somewhat calm and steady. Keep your hormones in control. You are in public after all; people can see you even if they’re out of earshot. “I don’t know, it’s just—watching you do that was... I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was fucked up, and yes I knew it had to stop—but it was also... you know... super fucking hot?”

He blinks again, brows arching up a bit. “You’re kidding.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Y/N, I... I was out of my damn mind. Completely out of line. Like, deadly dangerous.”

“Oh, you think I didn’t notice?”

“No, I know you did...”

Fucking hell. You pull your hand from his and turn toward the shelves, grabbing a random box of cereal to occupy yourself. “Now you’re kink-shaming me. Never done that before, but now the truth comes out that I’m a sick and twisted whore—”

“What? Y/N, come on,” he groans, wrapping his arms around you from behind, the kind of big bear hug that always feels like home. “You know that isn’t how I meant it...”

“No, forget it. Just forget I ever said it.”

“Can’t really do that, to be honest. Babe, I’m into all your kinks, I promise. I just need a sec to process this.”

“Seriously—Will, this whole cereal aisle shouldn’t be about me. Even just mentioning it like I did was selfish. So forget it.”

“I’m not gonna just...”

“Hey, I have an idea,” you interrupt, eager to change the subject, as you now notice that you’d just happened to pick a box of Cap’n Crunch. With the creepy cartoon captain’s face emblazoned on the front. “What if you need a final outlet? Just to let off any steam that might be lingering, to make sure that you’ve really gotten over the whole cereal aisle incident?”

Will purrs as he leans closer into your shoulder. You stupidly assume he’s also looking at the cereal box you’re holding, but he isn’t. “Hmmm, you thinking what I’m thinking...?”

As it happens, you’re totally oblivious to what he just implied, since you’re still trying to recover from embarrassment. You step off to the side, pulling away from his embrace so that you’re standing face to face. And hold the box in front of you like it’s a martial arts board made for him to break. “Here, if you need something to punch... why don’t you let it out on Cap’n Crunch.”

He blinks, again, apparently a little stunned. You’re too oblivious to even notice that he has a hard on.

You gesture toward the crunchy cap’n. “Go on. Clock him one.”

Will shifts uncomfortably in an attempt to hide the stiffness of his cock. “Punch a cereal box? Babe, this is fucking ridiculous...”

“This creepy bastard haunted you throughout your childhood,” you remind him. “Come on, do it, Will. Show him who’s captain. You know it’ll feel good.”

He tosses a quick glance behind him to make sure that no one’s around to witness. “Can’t believe I’m gonna do this, but if you insist...”

Balling his right hand up into a fist, he fucking launches it at the cartoon son of a bitch. You know he didn’t go full force—the blow would’ve thrust you and Cap’n both across the room, of course—but he went hard enough to cause the cardboard box serious damage.

Will looks down at the damage he caused to his childhood nemesis, more pleased with it than he’d like to admit. “Well, shit.”

You flash him a triumphant grin, glad for the win. “Felt great, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, it did,” he laughs at himself with a shake of his head. “But the box is all busted.”

“Well, we are model citizens, so we’re obviously going to take responsibility and pay for this,” you tell him. “And William—don’t even think about bitching that Cap’n Crunch isn’t a worthwhile purchase. The catharsis that he just provided was worth it.”

Your fiancé is fully in agreement with that sentiment. “Sounds perfect.”

Moving toward your shopping cart, you pause before throwing the box in, stopping to salute the captain with one hand over your heart. “We thank you, Cap’n, for your service.”

Will lets out one of his loud, loving laughs and hugs you from the back again. “My God, you’re such a fucking dork...”

You shrug, melting into the hug. “Well, my dorky ass just singlehandedly took care of your entire healing process. So don’t knock it if it worked.”

“Oh, I wasn’t gonna knock it,” Will replies, suddenly spinning you around with your back up against the shelves, so you can see and feel the feral fire in his eyes. You practically just wet yourself. Even more so upon the words he utters next. “I was just thinking that I really wanna fuck it.”

Holy hell. This man is living breathing sex. Your words come out all jumbled up and shit. “What—how... you mean right now? In public?”

Will grinds his hips into your crotch so you can finally feel the stiffness of his dick. God, it’s so big. His every word and action never fail to make your pussy twitch. “Hmm, what is that I’m hearing... judgment? Are you kink-shaming me, bitch?”

Hot damn, you love how playfully sadistic your fiancé is. “No, I wouldn’t fucking dream of it. I love it,” you respond, succumbing to the force of his cock and the heat of your cunt. For good measure before you both give yourselves over to such guilty pleasure, to everything both of you want, you glance nervously up and down Aisle 6. 

All is clear at the moment. And if that unexpectedly changes... you know there’s a risk, the constant threat of danger of onlooking strangers... well, fuck it. You and Will won’t let that stop you from indulging in some shameless sex in Publix.

***************

... Continued in Part 2!

Masterlist

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[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

what draws you in about prometheus as a story? what made you enjoy the movie so much?

Huh, you know, this is actually a little difficult for me to answer.

I guess I’ll just ramble and see where it goes.

Firstly, I think a lot of people went in Prometheus wanting it to be one thing or another. They wanted it to be more like Alien and went “What is this philosophical and religious bullshit!” or else they were sort of on board for the weird religious aspect but then went “Oh, we’re back to the face eating aliens, I see.” I think that threw a lot of people for a loop, and I actually rather liked both aspects, so I wasn’t one of those.

I also, at the time, happened to overhear people gushing about how hot the android and how they went to see the movie purely because of that, but then were dismayed everyone kept dying in increasingly graphic manners throughout the movie. One should never see an Alien film based on the hotness of the actors if you cannot handle your gore.

Second, I think a lot of people love to be disdainful of horror films (especially those from the Alien franchise). So many times I hear people rag on Ripley (from Alien) for saving the cat. “How stupid” they say “If I was on a space ship with a man eating alien I would leave the cat and everyone else to die. In fact, if I was there no one would die at all because I am so much smarter than every character in this film, nyuk nyuk nyuk”. Nevermind that, in Alien, tensions were running very high and Ripley had reached a point where She Was Saving the Motherfucking Cat. Brilliance or stupidity had nothing to do with it, that was sheer iron will and being beyond done. Prometheus gets this treatment times ten.

“If I was on this expedition then no one would have died because I would never enter the scary pyramid and what would Ridley Scott do then, huh, victory for me!” Remember that this isn’t a normal expedition. This is funded by Peter Weyland himself, is what all in the scientific community (everyone on the ship even except Elizabeth herself) considers a giant joke and a waste of time. Elizabeth is extraordinarily lucky that the expedition is happening at all, is not in charge of operations (and indeed has no experience in space and only archelogical sites on Earth), and is on the bankroll of a man who very much has that agenda.

While they should have first sent in robots (probably David alone really) to survey the pyramid and judge whether it was safe and its true purpose, Weyland wants that pyramid explored now by all hands on deck. True, he has David go in as well and do his own surveying, but David is doing solely what Weyland wants here. If David went in alone, he’d be reporting into the scientific team on the ship presumably for days, on tasks Weyland doesn’t care about, while Weyland is in cryostasis slowly dying. This just won’t do.

And so, the ship filled with many of Weyland’s agents, insist they all go into the pyramid as soon as they land. I give Elizabeth a pass as she’s a) not in charge b) has no experience in space c) after years of badgering the scientific community has finally reached her goal. She immediately changes her mind by the time they go in for that second visit (and, indeed, they all go in again because they’re still on Weyland’s bankroll).

As for not suspecting David, remember that Charlie represents most people in the Alien world especially at this point in time. Weyland is still just Weyland and not Weyland Yutani, androids are shinier and newer but regarded as useful if creepy tools that can be seen more or less often in society. David’s role is to keep the ship running, the crew mates alive in hyperstasis, and be sort of a glorified assistant. The idea that David could knowingly endanger human life (remember, he doesn’t know what that shit will do to Charlie either, though I do think he was quite pleased when Charlie died a horrific death) is unthinkable, androids don’t do that. Even in Prometheus, David isn’t quite at the level of murder of his own volition, as he does this more or less on Peter Weyland’s orders. So, in this case, this means realizing the extent of dirt baggery that exists in Peter Weyland who is fully willing to murder this entire crew to get what he wants, Charlie and Elizabeth still think he’s a generous and curious benefactor who wants to explore the possibility of alien life. Right, point being, it actually really annoys me when people go “The characters were so stupid, I would never have been caught in this situation.” Even had they not entered the pyramid, David would still have poisoned your tea because Weyland told him to “try harder”. Congratulations, you have now been burned alive by Meredith Vickers.

Right, so why do I like it?

Well, clearly, I am a huge fan of Alien and Blade Runner. I don’t love all of Ridley Scott’s movies, like every director he has some ones that are real duds, but I certainly enjoy those two. So right off the bat we a lot of things I love in this movie, a focus on an android character, a lot of philosophy about the meaning of life and sentience, Alien, Lawrence of Arabia references done very well, and a very strong female lead (Elizabeth is very similar to Ripley in this respect despite their very different personalities).

I love the strength of Elizabeth’s character. She’s one of those so unbelievably charismatic people that she never buckles or wavers despite how much she’s ridiculed. She, in fact, convinces them of things that sound utterly impossible and makes this entire expedition happen. Then, when it all goes to hell in the most horrific manner, she keeps going. She drags David’s god knows how many pound body and head to an alien ship, this is after having given herself a C-section an hour ago by telling the machine to cut open her abdomen, puts him together herself, and determines that she will meet her maker and ask them why.

I love her marriage with Charlie. The pair are very fond of each other, love each other, but they don’t really understand each other. Charlie comes off as humoring Elizabeth for this quest, that he’s in it at this point for the prestige and the money and not so much Ellie’s God. Elizabeth in turn doesn’t seem to realize Charlie doesn’t want the things she wants or see the world the way she sees it. They have huge relationship problems that never get a chance to flourish and ends in despair and death.

And of course I love David, who is trying to judge himself, mankind, and his own maker in the midst of this clusterfuck. And with him, of course, Meredith Vickers and Peter Weyland who are just ever so delightful.

So, yeah, I guess what I’m saying is that I really enjoy the characters in this movie as well as the plot, the ending, and pretty much everything along the way.

I realize that no one, or at least very few, agree with me on this opinion and that I’ll probably be laughed at on the internet for the next five years because I made this post. However, I’ve written fanfiction for years, if there’s any shame to be had I lost it ages ago.

[that-spider-witch]

Gods I hope we get to see in “Onyx Equinox”

There’s something a lot of people not familiar with Aztec Mythology (Myself included until not that long ago) don’t know about: The Mexica had lots and lots of gods. Seriously, their lists of deities is so long I still don’t even know half of them, so here’s a few of them that I would be interested in seeing as characters in this series (Or... In any other media using the mythos, really).

1. Huitzilopochtli

A.K.A the Blue Tezcatlipoca. AKA the “Handed Hummingbird”. AKA the god that gets infamously remembered today because his sacrifices required human hearts. You know how the Aztecs get despicted in modern media as sacrificing people by bloodily pulling out their hearts? Yep, that was just this god’s sacrifices.

This dude was the younger little brother of Quetzalcoatl and he was freaking badass. And he was a fucking HUMMINGBIRD. Quetzalcoatl out here as this giant, fabulous feathered serpent. Edgy Tezcatlipoca over there being this big, badass jaguar because of course he was. And then you have this tiny little hummingbird who’s the freaking personification of WAR and can and will fuck you over.

I can’t stress this enough: He was the God of War and human sacrifice, and most of his surviving lore describes him as a blue hummingbird of all things. He was the very first “Looks like a cinnamon roll, can actually kill you”.  

Give me my heart-eating, bloodsoaked hummingbird warrior, Crunchyroll. I want to see my hummingbird boy.

2. Huehuecóyotl

...Okay, how do I describe this trickster bastard without comparing him to Loki in any way? Huh...

Ok, I think I know: Have any of you watched Durarara!!? Well, take freaking Izaya “I love humans” Orihara, ascend him to actual godhood, then make him a damn good artist and dancer, like, the best dancer this whole universe has ever known, the one guy you have to invite to your party even if he backstabbed you the night before that, because a party is just not a party unless he’s been invited. 

And then turn him into a coyote.

This dude right here was a bastard, and a good-looking bastard when in human form at that. If we get an anime version of him on this series, I expect everyone to lose their collective shit over him. Seriously, if written well, this absolute motherfucker could be the very next ‘rat’ boy that gets everyone to simp for him while also simultaneously hating his guts. Crunchyroll would have to be complete idiots to let this opportunity pass. Just imagine the potential. Just... Imagine.

He was also apparently really fucking horny? Like, on a “Horny on main” mood  24/7. So... There’s that too, I guess.

3. Chalchiuhtlicue

So apparently this water goddess ruled over the other gods for a while before both Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl got jealous and joined forces to overthrew her? But doing that caused the Mexica equivalent of the Great Flood (and also turned everyone into fish for a good while)?

...Man, Mesoamerican mythology was weird.

She also apparently fucked Tlaloc, the one who’s almost always described as being some kind of Leviathan-like creature or something along those lines? As in, they were even married? Monsterfucking goals right there, if I say so myself.

I think she’s already been confirmed to be in the series already (She could even be one of the ladies shown in the trailer), but I still put her here because she seems really fucking cool. You go, girl.

4. Ehecalt

Ok people, this is where things get really, really weird.

Ehecalt is described as the God of the wind and the cardinal directions, with some small but important parts of the lore being credited to him or mentioning him by name. He also happens to have an important role on the tale of the Fifth Sun, where the gods reformed the Sun and the world (and humanity alongside with it) for the fifth time. 

Oh yeah, I should get this out of the way before going any further: According to Aztec Mythology, the world actually ended at least five times already, with the gods having to fix the mess and rebuilt the world back to normal each time it happened, which would always leave them really tired, and also kinda hungry. Hence the whole sacrifice thing.

It was kinda comedic in a really dark way, really, as nearly all of these supposed apocalypses the gods had to fix were also their own damn fault in one way or another nearly every. single. time. The reason behind the literal destruction of the world involved more often than not one or two of the gods having a cosmic tantrum. Seriously. 

Anyways...

Anyone who have seen the trailer knows that the series is apparently taking place during/after the Fouth Sun (”We have remade humanity four times before”), so this part of the mythos could be extremely important to the lore of the series. 

And if this series turns out to be some anime-like retelling of the Fifth Sun, like I saw a few people in the spanish-speaking community theorizing already, then get ready because things are going to get really fucking tragic.

Long story short (Except, not short at all...): The sun they made was not moving like it should, so the Gods had to make the hard choice to give their own blood to the sun to get it working. And because just some bloodletting from each one of them wasn’t going to cut it, they all had to be sacrificed to the sun, and Ehecalt was the one who had to do the deed.

But there was a god that wasn’t very keen on the idea of having to be killed for the greater good: Xolotl. This god basically went “Fuck this shit, I’m out!” and went into hiding because he was absolutely terrified of dying. Very understandable... until you discover that Xolotl was like, the Grim Reaper of the Aztec mythos, making his fear of dying ironic and more than a little hypocritical.

Being a Shapeshifting god, Xolotl disguised himself as a bunch of different things while trying to escape Ehecalt, the most iconic of which being an axololt, a form which he took before hiding under water. A form of his which could have been shown to us already as being in the series.

If the Fifth Sun is in anyway relevant to the story, which very likely seems to be, then Ehecalt is bound to appear, right?

Well, here’s the thing: Apparently he and Quetzalcoatl are one and the same. More specifically, Ehecalt is one of many aspects of Quetzalcoatl, so he’s also referred to with the name Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl.

The question here is, if Onyx Equinox turns out to really be a retelling of the Fifth Sun story and the cute, series mascot-looking axolotl shown briefly in the trailer really turns out to be Xolotl in disguise, how are they going to adapt Ehecalt? Are they just going to give the role to Quetzalcoalt and not mention the name entirely, as it would probably just needlessly complicate things? Will be another name given to that god, as it kinda is? Will they actually make him a separate character entirely?

I don’t know, but I kinda want to find out.

That’s all for now, mainly because as I stated at the beginning I’m not as knowledgeable on this subject as I would like to be. If you happen to know more about this, please feel free to point out how I got absolutely everything wrong.

Now to wait for more info on this series, and hope it’s as good as the initial trailer made it look like to be. Crunchyroll has shown they actually have what it takes to produce a good adaptation (Tower of God, anyone?), now let’s see if they can manage the same quality with an original one.

[greatfay]

controversial opinions?

Cold pizza actually not good. Tastes like angry bacteria.

There’s a completely separate class of gay men who are in a different, rainbow-tinted plane of reality from the rest of us and I don’t like them. They push for “acceptance” via commercialization of the Pride movement, assimilation through over-exposure, and focus on sexualizing the movement to be “provocative” and writing annoying articles that reek of class privilege instead of something actually important like lgbtqa youth homelessness, job discrimination, and mental health awareness.

Coleslaw is good. You guys just suck in the kitchen.

Generational divides ARE real: a 16-year-old and a 60-year-old right now in 2021 could agree on every hot button sociopolitical topic and yet not even realize it because they communicate in entirely different ways.

Sam Wilson is a power bottom. No I will not elaborate.

Allison’s makeover in The Breakfast Club good, not bad. She kept literally and metaphorically dumping her trash out onto the table and it’s clearly a cry for help. Having the attention and affection of a smart, pretty girl doing her makeup for her was sweet and helped her open up to new experiences. Not every loner wants to BE a loner (see: Bender, who is fine being a lone wolf).

Movie/show recommendations that start with a detailed “representation” list read like status-effecting gear in an RPG and it’s actually a turn-off for me. I have to force myself to give something a try in spite of it.

Yelling at people to just “learn a new language” because clearly everyone who isn’t you and your immediate vicinity of friends must be a lazy ignorant white American is so fucking stupid, like I get it, you’re mad someone doesn’t immediately know how to pronounce your name or what something means. But I know 2 languages and am struggling with a 3rd when I can between 2 jobs and quite frankly, I don’t have the time to just absorb the entire kanji system into my brain to learn Japanese by tomorrow night, or suddenly learn Arabic or Welsh. There are 6500 recorded languages in the world, what’s the chance that one of 3 I’ve learn(ed?) is the one you’re yelling at me about. Yes this is referring to that post yelling at people for not knowing how to pronounce obscure Irish names and words. Sometimes just explaining something instead of admonishing people for not knowing something inherently in the belief that everyone must be lazy entitled privileged people is uh... better?

Stop fucking yelling at people. I despise feeling like someone is yelling at me or scolding me, it triggers my Violence Mode, you don’t run me, you are not God, fuck off. Worst fucking way to "educate” people, it just feels good in the moment to say or write and doesn’t help. Yes I’ve done it before.

Violence is good actually.

Characters doing bad things ≠ an endorsement of bad things. Characters doing bad things that are unquestioned by the entire rest of the cast = endorsement of bad things, or at the least, a power fantasy by the creator. See: Glee, in which Sue’s awfulness is constantly called out, while Mr. Shue’s awfulness rarely is because he’s “the hero.” See also: the Lightbringer series, in which the protagonist is a violent manipulator who is praised as clever, charming, diplomatic, and genius by every supporting character (enemies included), despite the text never demonstrating such.

Euphoria is good, actually. It falls into this niche of the past decade of “dark gritty teen shows” but actually has substance behind it, but the general vibe I get from passive-aggressive tumblr posts from casual viewers is that this show is The Devil, and the criticism of its racier content screams pearl-clutching “what about the children??” to me.

Describing all diagnosed psychopaths as violent criminals is a damaging slippery slope, sure. But I won’t be mad at anyone for inherently distrusting another human who does not have the ability to feel guilt and remorse, empathy, is a pathological liar, or proves to be cunning and manipulative.

It’s actually not easy to unconditionally support and love everyone everywhere when you’ve actually experienced the World. Your perspective and values will be challenged as you encounter difficult people, experience hardship, are torn between conflicting ideas and commitments, and fail. My vow to never ever call the cops on another black person was challenged when an employee’s boyfriend marched into the kitchen OF AN ESTABLISHMENT to scream at her, in a BUSINESS I MANAGED, and threaten to BEAT the SHIT out of her. Turns out I can hate cops and hate that motherfucker equally, I am more than capable of both.

Defending makeup culture bad, actually. Enjoy it, experiment, master it, but don’t paint it as something other than upholding exactly what they want from you. Even using makeup to “defy the heteropatriarchal oppressors!” is still putting cash in their pockets, no matter how camp...

Not every villain needs to be redeemed, some of you just never outgrew projecting yourself onto monsters and killers.

Writing teams and networks queerbaiting is not the same as individuals queerbaiting. Nick Jonas performing exclusively at gay clubs to generate an audience really isn’t criminal; if they paid to go see him, that’s on them, he didn’t promise anyone anything other than music and a show. Do not paint this as similar to wealthy, bigoted executives and writing teams trying to snatch up the LGBTQA demographic with vague ass marketing and manipulative screenplays, only to cop out so as not to alienate their conservative audiences. And ESPECIALLY when the artists/actors/creators accused of queerbaiting or lezploitation then come out as queer in some form later on.

Queer is not a bad word, and I’ve no clue how that remains one of few words hurled at LGBTQA people that can’t be reclaimed. It’s so archaic and underused at this point that I don’t get the reaction to it compared to others.

People who defend grown-woman Lorelai Gilmore’s childish actions and in the same breath heavily criticize teenage religious abuse victim Lane Kim’s actions are not to be trusted. Also Lane deserved better.

Keep your realism out of my media, or at least make it tonally consistent. Tired of shows and movies and books where some gritty, dark shit comes out of nowhere when the narrative was relatively Romantic beforehand.

Actually people should be writing characters different from themselves, this new wave in the past year of “If you aren’t [X] you shouldn’t be writing [X]” is a complete leap backward from the 2010s media diversity movement. And if [X] has to do with an invisible minority status (not immediately visible disabilities, or diverse sexual orientations and gender identities, persecuted religious affiliations, mental illness) it’s actually quite fucked up to assume the creator can’t be whatever [X] is or to demand receipts or details of someone’s personal life to then grant them “permission” to create something. I know, we’re upset an actual gay actor wasn’t casted to play this gay character, so let’s give them shit about it: and not lose a wink of sleep when 2 years later, this very actor comes out and gives a detailed account of the pressure to stay closeted if they wanted success in Hollywood.

Projecting an actor’s personal romantic life and gender identity onto the characters they play is actually many levels of fucked up, and not cute or funny. See: reinterpreting every character Elliot Page has played through a sapphic lens, and insulting his ability to play straight characters while straight actors play actual caricatures of us (See also: Jared Leto. Fuck him).

I’m fucking sick of DaBaby, he sucks. “I shot somebody, she suck my peepee” that’s 90% of whatever he raps about.

“Political Correctness” is not new. It was, at one point, unacceptable to walk into a fine establishment and inform the proprietor that you love a nice firm pair of tits in your face. 60 years ago, such a statement would get you throw out and possibly arrested under suspicion of public intoxication. But then something happened and I blame Woodstock and Nixon. And now I have to explain to a man 40 years my senior that no, you can’t casually mention to the staff here, many of whom are children, how you haven’t had a good fuck in a while. And then rant about the “Chinese who gave us the virus.” Can’t be that upset with them if you then refused to wear your mask for 20 minutes.

Triggering content should not have a blanket ban; trigger warnings are enough, and those who campaign otherwise need to understand the difference between helping people and taking away their agency. 13 Reasons Why inspired this one. Absolutely shitty show, sure, but it’s a choice to watch it knowing exactly what it contains.

Sasuke’s not a fucking INTJ, he’s an ISFP whose every decision is based off in-the-moment feelings and proves incapable of detailed and logical planning to accomplish his larger goals.

MCU critique manages to be both spot-on and pointless. Amazing stories have been told with these characters over the course of decades; but most of it is toilet paper. Expecting a Marvel movie to be a deeply detailed examination of American nationalism and imperialism painted with a colorful gauze of avant-garde film technique is like expecting filet mignon from McDonalds. Scarf down your quarter pounder or gtfo.

Disparagingly comparing the popularity and (marginal) success of BLM to another movement is anti-black. It is not only possible but also easy to ask for people’s support without throwing in “you all supported BLM for black people but won’t show support for [insert group]” how about you keep our name out your mouth? Black people owe the rest of the world nothing tbh until yall root out the anti-blackness in your own communities.

It is the personal demon/tragic flaw of every cis gay/bi/pan man to externalize and exorcize Shame: I’m talking about the innate compulsion to Shame, especially in the name of Pride and Progress. Shame for socioeconomic “success,” shame for status of outness, shame for fitness and health, shame for looks, shame for style and dress, shame for how one fits into the gender binary, shame for sexual positions and intimacy preferences, shame for fucking music tastes. Put down the weapon that They used to beat you. Becoming the Beater is not growth, it’s the worst-case scenario.

Works by minorities do not have to be focused on their marginalized identities. Some ladies want to ride dragons AND other ladies. The pressure on minorities to create the Next Great Minority Character Study that will inevitably get snuffed at the Oscars/Peabody Awards is some bullshit when straight white dudes walk around shitting out mediocre screenplays and books.

Canadians can stfu about how the US is handling COVID-19 actually. Love most of yall, but the number of Canadian snowbirds on vacation (VACATION??? VA.CAT.ION.) in the supposed “hotbed” of my region that I’ve had to inform our mask policies and social distancing to is ASTOUNDING. Incroyable! I guess your country has a sizable population of entitled, privileged, inconsiderate, wealthy, and ignorant people making things difficult for everyone, just like mine :)

No trick to eliminate glasses fog while wearing my mask has worked, not a single one, it actually has affected my job and work speed and is incredibly frustrating, and I have to deal with it and pretend it’s not a problem while still encouraging others to follow the rules for everyone’s safety and the cognitive dissonance is driving me insane.

It’s really really really not anti-Japanese... to be uncomfortable with the rampant pedophilia in manga and anime, and voice this. I really can’t compare western animation’s sneakier bullshit with pantyshots of a 12-year-old girl.

Most of the people in the cottagecore aesthetic/tag have zero interest in all the hard work that comes with maintaining an isolated property in the countryside, milking cows and tending crops before sunrise, etc. And that’s okay? They just like flowers and pretty pottery and homemade pastries. Idk where discourse about this came from.

You think mint chip ice-cream tastes like toothpaste because you’re missing a receptor that can distinguish the flavors, and that sucks for you. It’s a sort of “taste-blindness” that can make gum spicy to some while others can eat a ghost pepper without crying.

Being a spectacle for the oppressive class doesn’t make them respect us, it makes them unafraid of us. This means they continue to devour us, but without fear of our retaliation.

Only like 4 people on tumblr dot com are actually prepared for the full ramifications of an actual revolution. The rest of you just really imprinted onto Katniss, or grew up in the suburbs.

Straight crushes are normal. They’re people first, sexual orientation second. Can’t always know.

The road to body positivity is not easy, especially if what you desire is what you aren’t.

You’re actually personally responsible for not voluntarily bringing yourself into an environment that you know is not fit for you unless you have the resolve to manage it. Can’t break a glass ceiling without getting a few cuts. This one’s a shoutout to my homophobic temp coworkers who decided working a venue with a drag show would be a good idea. This is also is a shoutout to people who want to make waves but are surprised when the boat tips. And also a shoutout to people who—wait that’s it’s own controversial opinion hold up.

Straight people can and should stay the fuck out of gay bars and queer spaces. “yoUrE bEInG diVisiVe” go fuck yourself.

[hegglespeggles]

How to write an essay you could not care less about in 10 steps

Hello. I have an essay to write.

I am also, (unfortunately) the kind of lazy, apathetic burnout who will only do my FUCKING work if I get really worked up. Usually that ends up meaning all of my papers are spite-fuelled tirades but my profs seem to like them so fine. I hope you find this particular raging tirade useful.

Today, I would like to educate the 4 of you that will actually see this on a fine art I have perfected over the years. Writing a paper, about which, you do not give a single, solitary, crumb of a fuck about. This is (you may have guessed) and excellent way for me to procrastinate doing a paper that *I* do not give a single solitary crumb of a fuck about. For best results, I recommend doing this NIGHT-BEFORE-PANIC like, a week in advance so you can fix all the NONSENSE that your more reasonable brain will undoubtedly find. But if it’s the night before and you are shit outta luck, this will get ‘er done. And with practice, you can even pull good grades outta these bitches.

 Dissociating? I gotchu. Woke up the day of the deadline to feel like absolute utter garbage? Search no more friends.  

  FAILING GRADES ARE BETTER THAN ZEROS JUST FUCKIN DOOOOOO ITTTT

1.    Go get the prompt.

I fucking mean it. Even if you are like 1000% sure you know what the prompt is asking, go to the FUCKING assignment, and copy that shit into your word document. Got the assignment on paper? TYPE THAT SHIT UP MOTHERFUCKER.

(Do you see what I fucking have to deal with)

Boom?

BOOM.

Congratulations, you now have a document, and whats more, there are WORDS in it!! You aren’t starting from scratch anymore kiddo. Fringe benefit, you always know EXACTLY what the assignment wants because its fucking Staring You Down. Not saying you have to do exactly as it says, mama didn’t raise no BITCH and I aint scared of fuckin CALLING PROFS OUT but if you wanna break the rules you gotta know what they are first

(Disclaimer: I have also been kicked out of class on numerous occasions for fighting with the prof and had full classes where the lecture WAS me arguing so maybe take my opinions of conformity with a grain of salt.)

2.    Math THE FIRST

I know, this is an essay and not a fucking calculus test. But some of this shit is USEFUL OKAY

Take the paper in question. How long does it have to be? Mine is 5 pages. A page is generally accepted to be 250 words (double spaced because we FUCKING LOVE OURSELVES) so 5 x 250 = 1250 wds. That’s the goal. That’s the pinnacle. That’s your new holy grail.

Time to split this bitch up

  3.    Yarrrrrr, CONTENT

And finally, we get to the part that is the reason why you are being an absolute bitch baby about this essay (maybe. I might be projecting. Your life is your life and im sure youre doing your best.) I Hate this part, but now with our magic number we don’t need to pull 5 pages out of the ether.

This part really requires you to know your vibe. Is this something that you have a lot of little opinions (read: evidence) about or like, only 2 or 3 big bois? Look deep into your soul and figure out which is the easiest for you to shit out, a rant or a list. a  great way to do this is to WRITE ANYTHING YOU GOT OUT

Here you can see I’ve put all of the thoughts I have about the question into a list, slapped some standard “opening” and “closing” shit around it so I can FUCKING FIND IT AGAIN and given it a good hard look. Whats the common thread in all of my opinions? That the prompt is fucking stupid and makes no sense is asking 2 different questions. Congratulations: you found your thesis. This essay, like many of my essays, bears the thesis “this is a weird question to be asking” (which falls under my broader category of “bitches aint shit” essays.)

Congratulations you have the bare bones of your skeleton.

  4.    MATH THE SECOND

 The magic number returns. All hail our glorious leader. 1250 right?

So heres how I break this down. Break off a small chunk at the beginning. For this essay im gonna split off the 250. Split that baby in half. Congratulations, now you have a word count on your opening and closing. Personally, I know I like a lil extra space at the end to get all ranty, so Imma split this puppy up 100 for my opening and 150 for the closing. WARNING: You will think that you will be able to write enough in your opening and closing to take up lots of space. You will feel the urge to give them both the same amount of words that you give your points. This is misguided and foolish. Not only will you 1) not be able to do it but 2) even if you did, that’s like getting a sandwich which is all bread. No one wants that. Don’t be that dude. Fight the urge.

 RIGHT SO. We’re still left on the other 1000 words.

If you have an idea that like, is bigger than the others, go ahead and give that puppy more of the word count than the others, fractions are your friend here and you wanna think about how much of your final product each of these babies will be. If you, like me, are an utter buffoon with no clue what youre doing, open your calculator up. Divide the remaining word count by the number of points you have. Congratulations. Youre doing the essaying.

If this is enough to get you started, GREAT! See you at step seven. BEFORE YOU GO I would like to give you this tip

5.    CITE YOUR INFORMATION AS YOU ADD IT IN.

It doesn’t need to be a full citation, just literally a footnote with something that will help you remember where its from and for the love of god WHAT PAGE IT IS ON. The you of 3 hours from now will thank you.

  6.    Filling in the skeleton

 I don’t know about you, but I cant exactly riff off of a single sentence. Like, I know what the VIBE of my point is, but like, I cant pull it out of a hat. The name of the game here is whittling down your arguments into thinner and thinner chunks that are easier and easier to bullshit. This is how you avoid that “burning building found in flames during Brooklyn fire” bullshit that memes. You don’t wanna meme. You wanna pass. So, figure out what the things you are gonna say and in each bit, keep track of how many words you are gonna write. EITHER

a)      You put how many words you think you can write on any point beside the point as you go and just keep developing points and shuffling word counts around until it matches the total for that section

or

b)     You evenly breakup the word count between all the points and keep breaking them down until you look at a subject and a word count and go “yeah that’s doable. I can do that.”

I prefer the second so LEGGO.

Ta-Da!

7.    Write ‘er up

Ahhh glad to see we’re all back together again. Try-hards who can ACTUALLY bullshit papers, glad to see you’ve rejoined us! This is the part where you take all that shit you’ve broken up into nice little chunks and you turn it into something worth reading. You can do it. I believe in you. Try and keep your citations in place.

I like to do this as a question answer thingy, like an exam, so halfway through writing mine is gonna look like this

 The handy part about the numbers is that it gives you a frame of reference for how your bullshit is going. Realized you had a lot more to say here than you thought? Dope! Less bullshit somewhere else, take it out of a weaker point. This point didn’t give as much as you thought it would? Split the difference elsewhere! This way you have checkpoints and you can see how your essay is going

And then you can go ahead and delete your skeleton work. Its time. Its served you well. For extra drama, whisper menacing nothings to it as you send it into the darkness. Personal favourites include “no one will mourn you,” “your fate belongs to me,” and “so this is what you have come to”

  8.    Citations

Theres like a million ways out there to find out how to do your citations and its gonna depend on what kind of a paper you are writing. I use Chicago most of the time, including here. My advice? Use a site like, bib.me or something to do your bibliography, and then plaster that in the bottom of your document. Use that as the building blocks to do your footnotes. Let Purdue Owl be your guide. Purdue Owl Style Guide Is A Mighty Friend Indeed.

 Also your welcome for that, “putting the page numbers in as you put the info in” shit. That took me alarmingly long to figure out. It’s a wonder theyre giving me a degree.

  9.    Proofread that shit, ya bougie bitch.

If you wanna be time effective, getting a friend to proofread while you do your citations is a great way to go. If you have a few days, put your paper away and come back to it. If you are out of friends and time then https://www.paperrater.com/ is your last hope.

  10.       Slap a title page on that shit and GET IT SUBMITTED

 No joke, I have been using the same template for a coverpage all through highschool and my undergrad. There is only one title page and every time I write an essay I take the title page from the last paper I wrote. There is no beginning. Only title page. Title? Topic of paper: point of paper. For example, If I had to title this screed I’d call it Essay Writing: An exploration of mediocrity. slap the date and your name and the course and instructor on there and BAM. YA DONE.

 Anyway submit that shit an go to bed youre done goodnight

EPILOGUE

I’ve gotten this essay back, and when I wrote it, I was barely a human being. Barely capable of human speech let alone a coherent argument. I would forget the end of the sentence by the time I typed out the beginning. But I still for a 70%! is it the best mark I’ve ever gotten? no! but it is a hell of a lot better than the 0% I would have gotten if i hadnt done this. I get it. And i hope this helps. 

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 232: Giant Bitchslap Arm

Previously on BnHA: Gigantomachia woke up and started ninja-running toward Aichi prefecture. Then all of a sudden we cut to Hawks just chilling on an Osaka rooftop with a bag. Everyone was like, “whoa, Hawks, what are you doing in this arc?” Hawks was all “well I’ll show you” and then he had a flashback where he fucking murdered Best Jeanist, probably, and everyone was like “um, hey, what the actual fuck” and Hawks was like “well you asked” and we were all filled with regret for having done so. Back in the Ol’ Villain City, Twice caught up with Tomura and Spinner and they were very happy to see him, and Tomura was like “so anyway we’re almost at Re-Destro’s tower and I can’t wait to fucking kill that guy” and the others agreed but they also worried that Tomura was too exhausted to keep this up much longer, and so Twice went on ahead to try and finish off RD on his own. The chapter ended up with Twice #241762-D arriving at the top of the tower to confront RD and rescue my boyfriend Giran.

Today on BnHA: Twice creates some clones of Tomura and the gang to help him out. Re-Destro then insta-kills one of the clones and tells Twice that he’ll kill Giran if Twice uses his quirk any more. He then makes his arm go all big and he just fuckin’... [gestures wildly] WHIPASH!! and just smacks them all to death, and then he goes over to where Giran is and gets ready to kill him while he and Twice are having a moment. Thankfully the not-quite-dead-yet Tomura clone intervenes, and as he fights him, Re-Destro launches into a big villain monologue about the Mother of Quirks, a.k.a. the mother of the first superpowered child to ever be born. Long story short, that baby grew up to be Destro, and his mom was all “please be kind to him and let him live in peace!” and so they fucking killed her because people are terrible. As RD is wrapping up his story and about to kill the clone Tomura, the real one reaches the tower and is all, “TOUCH!!!” This is the single most badass thing anyone has ever done, and the chapter ends with a wobbly Tomura confusedly interrogating an enraged Re-Destro while “We Will Rock You” by Queen plays in the background omfg.

(All comments are my unspoiled reactions from my initial readthrough of the chapter. I did a quick edit for grammar and clarity immediately afterward, and added one or two ETAs in the process, but aside from that there are no changes.)

so this happened again

listen here my anonymous friend, thank you for not spoiling me, but I do have to say that if your goal was to have me once again approach this chapter in stark terror, mission accomplished lol

here’s how it’s gonna go. I’ve got a mirror, and we’re gonna use it to cautiously peek around corners before clicking to the next page, and from what I understand that should protect us from being instantly killed by Horikoshi’s murderous basilisk glare. the characters, on the other hand, well...

what kind of sound effect is this

glomp glomp? are these Horikoshi sound effects? does he know his little Twice clones are making enthusiastic hugging sounds?? and yet this is oddly in character though

also it looks like he’s cloning at least one Tomura and Dabi! so that should be fun. we get to see RD presumably murder them all on this little test run, and then they’ll hopefully have a better idea of how to approach this on their second go-around

RD says he had a lot of guards down below, and he’s praising Twice’s quirk. well, his “superpower”, anyway

that was the title of this chapter, incidentally; “quirks and superpowers.” I do vaguely wonder why they’re so insistent on using different terminology for it, and I wonder if there’s an actual reason for that

anyway so now Jin is yelling at the clones that they’re clones. so it’s okay if they die and stuff. lol. I’m sure that makes them feel a whole lot better

you guys this is fucking amazing though

I wonder if this Tomura is less sleep-deprived? also, Twice duplicated the hands as well! that’s something that was pointed out to me a little while ago, back when they were fighting Gigantomachia. this actually seems a bit iffy to me now that we’ve been reminded that he needs to understand the details of something in and out before he can copy it. like, he couldn’t copy the quirk-be-gone bullets because he didn’t know how they worked. but somehow he knows how these hands work though??

or maybe he doesn’t, and these hands don’t actually work like the Real Deal hands. that’s probably the case actually. so anyways I wonder if this Tomura will act a little different. I’m probably overthinking this to the extreme lol

and Twice and Dabi are making the exact same joke I made three paragraphs earlier about “that should make them feel a whole lot better.” get your own material you assclowns

last but not least, lol at him having to reiterate his tale of bravely overcoming past trauma yet again to Compress because he missed the whole story. poor Compress, all confused and out of the loop. I wonder if Twice duplicated his robot arm. it’s hard to tell in the picture whether it’s missing or he’s still just in the process of creating it

oh shit

heh. it’s possible Jin has not thought through the potential long-term consequences of this little undertaking at all sob. but that’s a problem for future Twice! right now current Twice has more important things to deal with, like kicking Re-Destro’s ass

yeah, you see, he’s all “don’t worry about that right now” and presumably tucking that whole notion away someplace in the back of his mind to be properly fucked up by later on. as anyone with ADHD can tell you that’s clearly the best way to deal with all of your problems

-- oh shit and it looks like this particular Twice doesn’t really need to worry about that anymore in any case

what is it with people in this manga being decapitated lately. who hurt you Horikoshi

uh, so. hey

are they?? they fucking outnumber you by a ton. though as you’ve just ably demonstrated, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything

fuck. okay let’s pause this for a sec to get our bearings here. so a bunch of clone Twices have RD cornered with a clone Dabi, Tomura, and Compress, all of whom have their own quirks, but presumably weaker versions of them. they’re also each basically one hit point away from a swift death, which is definitely something to consider

meanwhile RD has just the one of him, but possesses an unknown quirk, and does not seem to be at all fazed by the current situation which is a bit unnerving. oh yeah, and he does still have a hostage, though, if the others insist on taking their sweet time to go and untie my boy Giran. yeah. so that part’s also not good. dammit Twice untie him already

SHIT

MOTHERFUCKING -- OKAY JIN, LISTEN UP, NORMALLY I’D TELL YOU TO CALL HIS BLUFF, BUT A LITTLE MOUSE (ETA: referring to poor dead Miyashita, not the anon from earlier! I only just realized how that could possibly be read as being weirdly passive aggressive or something and that’s not the case! sorry anon!) INFORMED ME THAT THIS GUY DOESN’T ACTUALLY FUCKING PLAY AROUND, THOUGH. I HAVE A FEELING HE CAN AND WILL DO EXACTLY WHAT HE’S PROMISING, SO PLEASE TAKE HIM SERIOUSLY OMG I DON’T WANT YOU TO HAVE ANOTHER FRIEND’S DEATH ON YOUR CONSCIENCE AFTER WHAT HAPPENED WITH MAGNE

sob. where’s that mirror omg

okay... and we’re cautiously clicking forward... and good, Jin looks appropriately shook

maybe a little too shook. look I didn’t mean for you to just immediately freeze and surrender though, guy

aww but Tomura’s reassuring him

yes but as I already explained, you’re all technically one love tap away from the sweet embrace of death here while he’s at full power. it’s iffy dude. idk. I really like that you immediately spoke up to comfort your bro though! the League of Gentle Hearts continues to warm my soul

oh my god but seriously look at them

even Dabi is getting in on the friendship action. even if I’m not quite sure how he intends to not burn Giran to death along with RD lol. but at least his heart’s in the right place

-- oh shit

THEY LOOK SO WORRIED OMG AND LOOK WHERE RE-DESTRO IS STANDING

A COLD FUCKING CHILL JUST WENT DOWN MY SPINE OH GOD NO I’M NOT READY FOR THIS. I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU TOUCH A HAIR ON HIS SEXY GRAY HEAD I WILL WREAK VENGEANCE ON YOU SUCH AS THE WORLD HAS NEVER SEEN, AS SOON AS I’M DONE SOBBING MY FUCKING EYES OUT

SOB I DON’T WANT TO TURN THE PAGE. THE MIRROR ISN’T WORKING. HORIKOSHI IS A SADISTIC FUCK WHO HAS NO QUALMS ABOUT KILLING OFF EVERYONE I LOVE. BEST JEANIST, GIRAN, THE DOG. EVERYONE!!

SOBBB NOOO --

WHAT THE CHRISTING FUCK

OH MY GOD NO PUT IT AWAY!! HORIKOSHI KOUHEI I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU DON’T STOP RIGHT NOW!! I MEAN IT YOUNG MAN!!

SOB HE’S DRAWING IT OUT FOR ALL IT’S WORTHHHHHH I CAN’T I’M NOT PLEASE WHY

FUCK YOU AND YOUR COMEDIC INSERTION OF FOUR ADDITIONAL TWICE REACTION PANELS YOU PITILESS BASTARD!!

NOOOOOOOOOOO

THE BASILISK APPROACHES, GIRAN IN ITS SIGHTS!!

OH SHIT

holy -- fucking -- I don’t even

wow

well that all went down fucking spectacularly

looooool. okay, time to move on to plan B guys. bring on the indestructible mountain man. let Tomura have his “I have an army!” / “we have a Hulk” moment

so is Giran even still alive, or did he get caught up in all of that. lol I’m just fooling. of course he’s still alive, Horikoshi is going to drag out my torture for this entire arc and make it really slow and excruciating

yeah whatever. they have a hulk. just you wait

and some of the dying Twices are glomping over to Giran to make sure he’s okay, naturally. because my feels were briefly spared for a single fucking panel and we can’t have that, no ma’am!

HAHAHA WHY

THESE FEELS, MY GOD. WHATEVER!! JUST LEAVE ME HERE TO DIE THEN!!

JESUS CHRIST, HERE I WAS SHIPPING TOGAWICE LIKE ANYTHING, AND THEN HORIKOSHI COMES ALONG ALL “BUT ARE YOU SURE YOU WEREN’T ACTUALLY SHIPPING GIRANTWICE THIS WHOLE TIME” AND FUCK ME, HE’S FUCKING RIGHT

GIRAN IS SMILING SO SOFTLY MOMENTS BEFORE HIS LIKELY DEATH, AND I’M ABOUT TO PERISH IN A TYPHOON OF EMOTION. GIRAN IF I COULD LEAP IN THERE AND TAKE THE BLOW FOR YOU I WOULD

YOU GUYS HERE IT COMES. IT’S BEEN NICE KNOWING YOU ALL. LET’S ALL HOLD HANDS AND WAIT IN HELPLESS TERROR LIKE IN TOY STORY 3

and Twice makes sure Giran’s not alone at the end though. god I’m about to lose it for real though, shit

-- !!!!!!!!!!

(ETA: lmao I love that it’s making a “TCH” sound. like that hand is so done with his bullshit.)

what THE FUCK TOMURA ARE YOU SERIOUS?!! I WAS ALL SET TO GO ALL “OH HAPPY DAGGER” HERE AND THEN YOU TURN UP TO SAVE THE DAY WHAT IS HAPPENING

WHAT IS THIS CRAZY ADRENALINE RUSH AHAHA. DON’T BE FOOLED, THAT IS RALPH WIGGUM “I’M IN DANGER!” LAUGHTER THOUGH

but wow, so yeah. feels postponed. fucking deferred, motherfucker. FIRST WE GET OUR FIGHT ON

oh hey! funny you should mention! cuz it’s just that he’s been trying to prove said worth for the last six weeks! so if you could provide some convenient way for him to actually do that, that would actually be great. Machia is a harder sell than Simon fucking Cowell, so

oh, he’s still talking

actually this is super interesting to me omg. also that’s really fucked up. poor Damien! he didn’t do anything! all he did was glow a bit, what is wrong with people

(ETA: I have been informed by many kind people that Destro is not in fact the glowy baby Damien from China lol. I got kinda mixed up there lol.)

probably cuz they killed her

yep

yeah that seemed to be where that was leading. society is predictably fucked up, etc. that poor lady

this has nothing to do with anything, but I just want to throw it out there that I would kill to read an AU with the 1-A kids set in this time period roughly 200 years earlier where they have to hide their quirks for fear of being killed over them, and they’re all just doing their best and growing up scared and traumatized and some of them are bitter at the world and others are hopeful of one day making it a better place. oh my god. “makeste, that’s just an X-Men AU” you point out and oh my god you’re right. that means it probably already exists oh shit. I need to go on another fic binge

anyway

Tomura is all “yeah I know history too” and making me feel bad. some of us didn’t grow up in this universe, Tomura

Tomura just let the man talk, I need more worldbuilding stuff for my AU headcanons

you’d think that the Army would be embracing the word “quirks”, then? this woman seems like the type of martyr figure they ought to be all over. I guess there’s more to the story and I should take my own advice and shut up and let him finish

oh

I see, so they associate the government’s use of the word “quirk” with their oppression. idk, I feel like they ought to be trying to reclaim it then. but whatever

so he’s wrapping up now

oh!!

his mother?!

DESTRO WAS THE SON OF THE MOTHER OF QUIRKS? DESTRO WAS DAMIEN?!  holy shit!!

so that means RD is descended from the original quirk bloodline! yooooo I did not see that coming at all. no wonder the rest of the Army reveres him

anyway but now the interesting part is over and he’s moving on to crazed ranting

whatever you say buddy. how did you wind up with Giant Bitchslap Arm powers if your great-great-granddad was just some dumb glowing kid though

oh now he’s getting all pompous

I’m sorry I didn’t realize having a long and tragic family history was a prerequisite for kicking ass. though if it is. may I interest you in the horrific saga of the Shimura family, though. this so-called street punk has quite his own tale of woe actually

oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit

(⚆_⚆) [sits up straighter]

AHHHH THEY’RE SAVING HIM!!

YOU GO LEAGUE!! YOU GOT THIS!!

AHHHHHHH

!!!!! THEN TELL HIM TO SUIT UP

oh shit wait I think he might be talking about Actual Tomura and not Gigantomachia! even better!!

OH HEY THAT’S A NICE TOWER YOU HAVE THERE. IT SURE WOULD BE A SHAME IF SOMEONE... PATTED IT GENTLY

LOOOOOOOOOOL YESSSSSSSSSSSS

(❛ӧ❛三❛ӧ❛)

YESSSSSSSSS!!!!!

LMAO HE’S ACTUALLY BARELY KEEPING IT TOGETHER THOUGH AND IT’S THE BEST. “WAIT... YOU’RE THE GUY... BUT SHOULDN’T YOU BE... BUT WAIT WEREN’T YOU IN...?”

SO NOW IT’S ON BOTH EYES, EH? GOING FULL RORSCHACH UP IN THIS BITCH. WELL WHATEVER. I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW I’M HIGH ON THE ADRENALINE OF HAVING HAD THE FEAR OF GOD PUT INTO ME AND BEING RESIGNED TO ANOTHER CHAPTER OF HEADS BEING REMOVED FROM WHERE THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO BE, ONLY FOR HORIKOSHI TO BE ALL “PSYCH!! I STILL LOVE YOU!” AND HAVE MR. RIGHTFUL HEIR COME UP AND FUCK UP RD’S SHIT OMG. AND I STILL SHIP GIRANTWICE!! AND GIRAN’S STILL ALIVE SOMEHOW AGAINST ALL ODDS OH MY GOODNESS

ohhhhh man. well, time to place your bets then people. who would win:

one megalomaniacal balding CEO with a giant arm who talks too much but has like an army and shit

One Sleepy Boi

hahaha. well, Tomura? time to get that worth fucking measured, then, kid

[photochoco]

Two Sides of the Same Coin

Chapter 4 Revision Touko edits a paper, jinxes herself, and meets two old guys.

--- -- ---

It had been a week since the rally, and Touko hadn’t seen N since then. To say it was frustrating was an understatement. She wanted nothing more than to go looking for him herself, but she had no idea where he could be, and it probably wasn’t the best idea for a low-ranking Grunt like her to be asking where the King was. As much as she didn’t want it to be the case, she’d just have to be patient for now. Her music was blasting through her headphones was more in an attempt to drown out any nagging thoughts. God, being patient in this was nothing like being patient during Pokemon training…

A noise from outside her music made her take her headphones off. Andrea was sitting on the adjacent bed, a guitar in her lap. She was strumming through the chords, her tongue between her teeth in concentration.

“Whatcha doin?”

Andrea looked up. “Eh, not much. Just tryin’ out this song I wrote, seein’ how it sounds aloud. I’m kinda new to playing the guitar and stuff.”

“I can play the electric guitar. I use to play the violin, but it wasn’t really for me. I can help you tweak the song if you’d like,” Touko offered.

Andrea gave an approving nod as she continued to strung out the chords. Touko watched her for a while, then decided to try her luck.

“Hey Andrea...I was a bit curious. I don’t see N around her often, what does he usually do?” she asked in a tone she hoped sounded casual.

“Oh, he doesn’t hang around the castle that often. He spends a lot more time around the region. Most of the time, he’s seeing the sights and looking for the Light Stone so he can bond with Reshiram.”

“You mentioned that earlier. I remember reading the legend where it says both Zekrom and Reshiram were sealed within stones until a hero sought them out.”

“Mmhm. N needs to find the Light Stone to make that happen.”

Touko rolled over onto her stomach, a thought came to her. “Why Reshiram? Why not Zekrom?”

Andrea stopped playing. Touko seemed to have asked her a difficult question.

“You know, I’m not really sure. Lord N is pursuing the truth, but why the truth instead of ideals isn’t something we really know about. In that same vein, we haven’t concerned ourselves with the possibility of a Hero of Ideals appearing to oppose him. In fact, it’s uncertain if there even is one. Our biggest concern is finding that Light Stone, and that itself has proven to be like finding a needle in a haystack.” She flopped onto her back, guitar forgotten for the moment.

Our goal right now is to assist Lord N in securing the stone as soon as possible, so that he may begin to prepare to awaken Reshiram.”

Touko opened her mouth to reply when Brandon swept in, papers in his hand. Andrea sat up to greet him when he gasped, affronted.

“Andrea! Good god, what on Earth do you think you’re doing, wearing that! What if Lord N comes in here?!”

Andrea looked down at her oppai shirt then back up at Brandon and rolled her eyes.

“Oh please, it’s our day off, we can wear whatever we want. Besides, you know Lord N hardly ever comes down here.” A sly grin takes over. “What, are you feelin’ sad cuz you can’t see my real oppai?”

Brandon flushed red. “Oh, as if!!”

Andrea hopped off her bed, snatched the papers out of the man’s hands, and spun him around to shove him playfully out the door. “Get outta here, ya massive dork.”

As Brandon left, Andrea called out to him. “Did you remember to take your T today?”

“Yeeeaaahhhhh.”

“So dorky, yet so easy to rile up, that goof. Do you have someone, Lysandra?”

“Eh, not currently. I had a crush on this girl, then a boy, but neither of them worked out,” Touko said.

“Awww. That’s a bummer. But hey, maybe you’ll meet someone here!”

“Maybe!” As if I would date anyone from TEAM PLASMA.

Andrea continued, her expression again turning mischievous.

“There’s bound to be someone who likes you here, if you’re already such a catch with Lord N--”

As if summoned by a bell, N himself poked his head into the room.

“Hello? Is Lysandra here?”

“N!” “Lord N!”

The entire room jumped to attention and bowed, with the exception of Touko. N waved them all down awkwardly as he walked up to her.

“I finished the next speech. I was wondering if perhaps you could… ...if you’d be willing to look it over for me?” he spoke very quickly, as usual.

Touko blinked in surprise. “Er...sure! I mean! I-If you’d like me to, I’d be honored.” She heard whispers of disbelief behind her.

N must have noticed, because he began to fidget, suddenly gripping the papers too tightly.

“Um...When you’re done looking it over...you can... Yes. Come find me. Uh, thanks.”

Now that he was here, Touko couldn’t let him get away without asking her questions.

“Hey, about your search for Resh--”

She was cut off as N hastily shoved the papers into her hands and exited the room swiftly, leaving Touko standing there. She is only shaken out of her daze by Andrea poking her head over Touko’s shoulder.

“What strings did you have to pull to get Lord N to ask you to review his speech??”

Touko turned around and almost immediately wished she hadn’t. The eyes of every Grunt in the room was affixed on her. Expression varied from surprise to awe to jealousy.

“I...uh...I didn’t...I didn’t really...do anything?” she stuttered. Some eyebrows were raised at that. I swear! All I did was compliment the speech from the last rally, that’s it.”

A Grunt scoffed. “Even so! It was very rude of you to not refer to Lord N with any formalities. You may be new here, but you ought to show some more respect for your King!”

Touko’s short temper flared at that. “N himself told me not to refer to him with any formalities, he was quite insistent.” She turned back towards the door sharply.

As she walked out the threshold towards to the study room, she heard someone else mutter under their breath.

“Lord N never said anything like that to any of us.”

---

The essay needed little critique, but still Touko sat in front of it, pen tapping furiously. She knew what would better sway skeptics, but did she want to suggest that and inadvertently help Plasma? Should she leave it as is? She didn’t want N to think she wasn’t impressed with it, especially not when she seemed to have gotten so much closer to gaining his trust. And on top of that, it was pretty clear some Grunts were growing envious of her already. And her short answer was out of character for the facade she’d created for herself. She couldn’t afford to get careless, or complacent. Not yet. Especially when her biggest test yet still lay ahead. After several more rereads and scribbles here and there, Touko stacked the papers and stood up. She couldn’t let herself slip.

After all, she had yet to run into--

“Ack--!”

Touko nearly ran into two older men dressed in traditional looking robes. One of them towered above the other, the two wide eyes on his clothes making him all the more intimidating. He stared down at Touko with his one visible red eye.

Her stomach dropped.

Ghetsis.

Thinking fast, she snapped to attention and jumped out of their way to bow low.

“Oh my god! I-I’m so sorr-- Please forgive me for not seeing you come in. I apologize,” she squeaked.

“Ohoho, it’s quite alright young lady. Please, relax,” the gentlemen next to Ghetsis chuckled.

Ghetsis did not join in the chuckling, but rather looked Touko up and down, lingering on her face. Her eyes. Touko, feigning nervousness, fidgeted and looked away. Once again, the feelings came easy, with her flushing face and pounding heart.

“Are you a new member?” he asked.

“I-I am.”

His eye flickered down to the speech in Touko’s hands. He squinted.

“Is that one of our king’s speeches? Why do you have that?”

Touko gripped the speech tighter. “I-I...He um...he asked me to look it over,” she mumbled.

It’s a wonderful speech!” she added quickly. “I was at the rally in Striaton, your delivery of it was especially spurring, Lord Ghetsis. Your ways of speaking can grip people’s hearts.”

A bitter tastes rose in the back of her throat. God, she was sucking up to motherfucking Ghetsis. Disgusting. Luckily for her, he seemed to like the compliment, because he smiled.

“I have always prided myself on my ability to speak in public. Very well. If our Lord N has put his trust in your revision abilities, then I see no reason for you to not take on this duty. I hope you are up to this task.”

“T-Thank you,” Touko squeaked. Goooood she wanted this to be over before the old fucks looked too hard.

“What is your name and rank, young lady?” the other man asked.

“Lysandra, and...I’m afraid I’m still the lowest rank, sirs. I’ve only been here a few weeks.

Now both men’s eyebrows jumped up in surprise.

“And yet our Lord N sees something in you, how intriguing! Well, Lysandra, I will be expecting great things from you within Team Plasma. Our king has yet to be wrong.”

Ghetsis nodded thoughtfully. “Indeed, Zinzolin. You may be a mere grunt, Miss Lysandra, but I will be hoping you do your utmost for our cause.”

“Of course, sirs. I will do my best! If you’ll please excuse me…” Touko bowed herself out, sliding out the door to take a deep breath. Holy fuck. Holy shit. Holy fuckshit. She’d fucking done it. She’d fooled N, and Ghetsis. The two sages were still talking.

“Lovely young lady, that one. Rather shy though. Nothing like that Trainer. Oh, what was her name?” Zinzolin mused.

Ghetsis sniffed disdainfully. “Touko. Believe me, I only know her name because N will not stop talking about her. He mentioned he hasn’t seen her as of late.” He sighed. “I do not know where she could have disappeared to, but if you ask me, I hope she stays gone. I was getting a little bit tired of N talking about her.”

Touko’s face burned. N really talked about her that much? Ew. She hurried away.

It was only after she had walked for several minutes that she realized N had not told her where to find him once she was finished critiquing the speech.

Oh goddammit. She better just head back to the barracks. He could find her there. Touko walked down a hall, rounded a corner. Another corner, turn there…

She heard voices. They were right around the corner. She curiously peeked around the wall. Two Grunts were with N, talking to him quietly. Touko couldn’t see their faces, but she could see N’s. He looked uncomfortable, and they were backing him against the wall.

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[mynameisdreartblog]

Teachers

Aries: Football (unamerican) coach. I feel as though Betty Crocker's employees have been studying my movements in anticipation for something. Everyone I meet I assume is working for her, and that's not my paranoia acting up. Recently, factory locations have been springing up all over this country, and here I was thinking the hag would just stay in America where she belonged, but no. I was struck terrifyingly curious about this, so I looked on her website <excusing the modem's start-up process>, and look! It says here that she, herself, has ninety-plus different reasons as to why we still love chicken breasts. God, there's no way a human could write that much about chicken breasts; I'm terrified of each and every one of them if I'm quaint. This is a disturbing sight, but I'll abstain from doing something now until it really starts to become a problem… I fear I'm falling into old pits though. […] I hopped on the 'net today and I saw something only describable as vile. Fuck Betty Crocker and her offensive Kiss Me, I'm Irish cookies. Crocker, you liar and probably not even human; you are neither Irish nor worthy of a kiss. She's done it now, she's cross the line and struck me straight in the soul with everything she has: This witch wanted to infest my land with her polluted factories, steal my press with her spam articles, and now steal my culture too! [,,,] I know what I must do now; can anyone drive me to their headquarters? The new one they just built here, the one that's already polluting our water supply with chicken broth. God, I'm so furious, so vengeful, and so willing to vanquish this evil that I! That I… that. Wait, what do you mean we can't use Betty Crocker for this one? Some other epic internet-based literature uses this as a canonical joke? For fuck's sake, just use the Quaker Oats dude instead; we'll take the words we had already and change them to be about Quaker Oats and his offense towards Irish people. <Redmond starts to drive 'til their ride runs out of gas halfway through> For fuck's sake! GIVE ME THE QUAKER OATS MAN, I'M BEING PAID BY THE HOUR HERE!

Gemini: Sociology teacher. I can feel James Rolfe writing a letter that details all the offense that I caused him right now, and I'll be sure to refute his every claim like he refuted all my feedback. Just for reiteration: I will not apologize to him for those honest criticisms I made of his newer video-reviews, specifically of the 2006 Sonic the Hedgehog game and Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing. If he's been going at his online profession for ten-plus years now, then he can handle a fair bit of digital criticism. [,,,] I told him that I'd prefer if he'd respect my position more after a paragraph-long explanation as to what my position was. Frankly, I thought Rolfe would be a more understanding and self-aware person to recognize that my life as a national mailperson whose work spans across the entire Indonesian archipelago. Clearly, my goal was that he'd attempt to sympathize with my working-class struggles as he'd do with any American mailman whom he is familiar with, but I didn't get any of the respect I was expecting. Not even I was spared for the decency of verbal abuse, because I was given something worse: The unrelenting silence of zero responses towards my effortful comment. That told me that Rolfe is a man who doesn't care about the issues of working-class folks like me. I'm hesitant to state, and possibly slander Rolfe, for the likelihood that he has a strong prejudice against Indonesian and Papuan peoples by refusing to acknowledge my criticism and my simultaneous first and third-world perspective. […] I just don't know what his issue with me is; after all, I've read every one of his love letters to me and I managed to enjoy them despite how sloppy his nerdy, rage-filled writing was. I think I made out his name the best of all and the thanks he granted me for sending him all of the games nobody else here wanted. «Truce, thanks for supporting my quest to protect the world from shitty-ass games. From: The fucking nerd.»

Scorpio: Public skills teacher. "Mexican-South Korean relations, from Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Mexico-South Korea relations refers to the bilateral relations between Mexico and South Korea. There are an estimated 15,000 Koreans and Mexicans of Korean descent living in Mexico. Both nations are members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, G-20 major economies, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the United Nations." [,,,] Yeah, so I pulled out a random book from the library for my book report assignment (I'm still surprised they gave me the freedom to do this), and I got a book about Mexican-Korean relations. I'm also surprised by how they can create such a thick book on a topic with little-to-no history, so I naturally assumed it was some sorta fictionalized history. As you could tell, I opened up the first page to find out that the first quarter of the book was a copy-paste job from the Wikipedia article with most of the citational numbers removed. The font was also in a very large size, presumably to fill space and not be readable for readers with impaired vision. [,,,] I tried opening the pages beyond to the rest of the book's contents, but they seemed glued shut, and the more I attempted to pull them open was I expected them to rip, but they just stayed firm to the bookcase. A closer inspection revealed that it was actually a container welded to the bookcase, and that it there was something inside of it. It wasn't alive, but it could jingle alright. [,,,] I decided to pry that sucker open and I found a mysterious note, but I was scared 'cause it addressed me directly! All it told me was that I should be in bed by 9 pm; I was so scared, but I knew the note told what's best for me, and I obeyed it. The moral of this story is that you should do your homework and follow your bedtime schedule! […] «Dear Dad, stop writing in my diaries, thanks.»

Capricorn: History teacher. You can tell the people who go to this place are from the '70s. After hauling an artificial Christmas tree into a lady's car, she gave me two quarters and said, "it's not much, but get yourself a cold drink." I felt so vintage at that moment: I felt like I was consumed with vintage appeal. My worker overalls were put onto me in that moment and I was ready to work the rest of my life in a windowless retail store. But it was before they sold all of the cool shit they have now like E-cigarettes, so they just sold regular cigarettes to teenagers who had predominant facial hair. […] Right then, wouldn’t anyone be compelled to by the working-class American luxury that is a cold soda: Preferably, whatever they sold at Becker’s? Yeah right, I used to do the same thing everyone else did except I looked aged enough to not even rely on facial hair to get one of those… cold sodas. Isn’t it so vintage that we live in a polity completely built around the idea of infinite room for exploitation resulting from the false belief that there’ll always be new lands to exploit? Isn’t it so vintage that the complete destruction of two entire continents was all done in the name of securing the existing powers in Europe at the height of the 15th century when they were beginning to crumble due to their unsustainability? Isn’t it so vintage that countless cultures, peoples, and languages were… Heh, let’s not let the blade in our mouths become too sharp and let’s get back to that vintage ‘70s lifestyle. Let’s gather me and the boys to stop by Becker’s and get some nice, cold sodas… and be called a savage by the racist clerk who made sure to call the police on me if I ever walked into that place again. Motherfucker should know his goddamn place telling me that I can’t be in the store that he built on land that isn’t his. I was a 27-year-old man and that’s how I was treated… back in sunny Halifax! Ha, I still have the fake pine on all over my hands: My bloody, beaten hands.

[margridarnauds]

Director's Cut: Paradise Lost?

Thanks! I know I mentioned it before, but I’m really excited to talk about this one!

Paradise Lost

My newest child, whom I love even though I have no idea how I’m going to feel about it in a couple of months. 

The full backstory to it is that me and @janetcarter were talking Terra Nova, as we are wont to do, since we have our own batshit insane version of that show that only really makes sense to us. (It involves bondage dinosaurs, authoritarian regimes, oppressed Americans, spray bottles, 1789, and about 867% more gay than the original show could have possibly conceived of.) And they’ve been rewatching it, so they’ve been kind of liveblogging it to me, and we were discussing Taylor being an authoritarian bag of dicks again. (This is an ongoing conversation; it’s great.) 

And they made the mistake of saying this: 

And it eventually led to me doing a half-mad rant that would form the skeleton of Paradise Lost. In the annotations, see the original text in italics VS the final text.

  “YEP.

 “DIRTY WORK.”

“THERE’S NO OTHER WAY I CAN INTERPRET THAT ONE” “MAYBE SHE DOESN’T KNOW THE FULL DETAILS ABOUT PHILBRICK BUT YOU CAN BET YOUR ASS SHE KNOWS *SOMETHING*” 

And, from there on, it was all Paradise Lost. I ended up copying and pasting those messages in a GDocs file, edited it, added some description and a few plot points, and within a day I had a one-shot. 

So, I accidentally wrote a one-shot out in a Tumblr pm and I was just like, “You know what? Fuck it. I need to write a one-shot out of this. My productivity’s been low recently, anyway. Merry Christmas, Avery, hohoho. Have some angst.” 

It was actually really exciting, in a sense, because this is a totally different setting than I’ve been working with for the last year and it was a chance to expand my horizons, even though, as has been HELPFULLY pointed out to me, it’s still set in the past. Just…millions of years ago as opposed to just hundreds. I played myself there.  

(Annotations under cut)

Taylor’s kid talks when he’s drunk.

Pretty much the first new sentence that I knew I was going to include. I really like the idea of Mira addressing Lucas mainly as “Taylor’s kid,” like, despite him being a pretentious little prick who thinks he’s a genius, she still views him as a whiny kid.  

It’s something they put up with for the sake of the mission, he comes in, gives them their marching orders, and takes a bottle or two of moonshine, the pink-purple liquid spilling across his lips along with the stories.

The fruit they come from is called “Frut” and it’s an ongoing joke between me, Avery, and @elluka, so it only made sense for me to include it here as an in-joke. Lucas loves that sweet frut juice. 

Also: It is 100% canon that they make alcohol from it. I ended up having to look up what dragonfruit juice looks like to make sure this would be as authentic as possible. 

 Not that she cares enough to make sense of the stuff, to Mira they’re all the same as those calculations he draws out on the rocks in bold white chalk, rambling on and on.

Most of the others, they’re smart enough to avoid him, they’ve been out here long enough to know a Slasher in the woods when they see one. So, that means Mira’s the one to keep him company, giving him another when his stock runs out, praying that there’s enough left over to keep up morale, because that’s always a problem in a hellpit like this.

People get lonely, start thinking about the past, wanting things that they can’t have. The alcohol, even if it’s weak compared to the real stuff, helps them drown it out for a little while, though she doesn’t take it. 

Sadly enough, we get so little Sixer development that we don’t really know what morale’s like in-camp, the show’s too busy telling us that these are Bad People because they oppose God Emperor Taylor, but I would suspect that, given that unlike the colony, they only ever intended to be here temporarily, it would have to be pretty miserable. How long were they told it would be? A couple of months, a year? After all the years it would be, I can only imagine the homesickness from some or the resignation from others. 

Tl;dr: Yeah, I suspect they would be bargaining with Boylan for some of that frut juice or they have a still in-camp, though it probably has to take a backburner to more important things like medicine and food. 

Instead, she keeps Sienna’s face in her head at all times, wrapping herself around it, thinking of her bright smile as she’d walk through the door, dropping the raggedy toy that Mira’d got her after a mission as she ran to greet her. (She tries to think of whether it was a T-Rex with the faded red fabric and the drooping limbs with the stuffing worn out of them or a spinosaurus, and when she can’t, she feels the need to get out of this place and back into the real world like a jolt in her brain.)

The reference to Sienna’s toy came in fairly late, but I actually really liked it, because (1) It adds that worldbuilding as far as Mira’s economic situation and (2) It reminds me of a bit from the original script where Terra Nova was HUGE, so of course dinosaurs would be a big thing now, and there’s a certain irony to Mira being sent to destroy something that her daughter loves so much in order to give them a better life. Also, I’d just seen a review for various spinosaurus plushies, so I might have been inspired.

It’s also really important that she refers to 2149 as “the real world,” as her way of distancing herself from whatever she does in Terra Nova, as well as distancing herself from Wash and her feelings for her. “This isn’t real, this is a job, it’s not the real world, it’s an alternative timeline.” 

This time, there wouldn’t be another time. She’d get the job done, get home, and give Sienna the life that she deserved. And she doesn’t give a damn about what she has to do to get it. That’s what she tells herself, and it’s what she’ll believe.  

One of the things that I really admire about Mira is how FOCUSED she is. That’s something that can be both a major pro, since it means that she’s very driven to get her goals, but it also means that she can be harsh when she feels like other people are falling behind and not focusing, even, say, to a young child like Leah Marcos. 

Until then, she’d keep giving Lucas Taylor the moonshine, quietly hoping he’d choke on it, until he wound up drooling on the floor before going off to brood in a cave for the next six months.

In case no one can tell the level of respect I have for Lucas Taylor, Boy Genius.

Alright, but judging from Mira’s interactions with him, she is clearly deeply unnerved, and even though his calculations are necessary for getting her back home…well, if he chokes, it’s not really HER fault. It’s this terrible situation where she’s stuck with him even as she’s clearly scared by him and would probably want him dead under any other circumstances.   

“You know what? Those people-I-I feel sorry for them! They’ll never know the truth about the Great Nathaniel Taylor,” he raises his arm suddenly, as if he was trying to give a clumsy toast, spilling moonshine everywhere.

“Seriously, WHY THE HELL wouldn’t Lucas at least tell the Sixers? He knows that to the colony, it’s The Great Nathaniel Taylor, but the Sixers don’t have any stake there”

Uh huh. Daddy Issues story #326 - Been there, done that, she thinks as she wipes some of the sticky liquid off of her cheek. 

This was honestly one of my favorite lines to write. One of the things that I mentioned to Avery while I was live-blogging writing this is how much I honestly LOVE Mira’s POV, given how incredibly snarky she is. It’s like she’s aware of what show she’s a part of and she’s dedicated herself to ripping it apart. 

I’m so used to working with viewpoint characters who were born centuries ago it was honestly a bit refreshing, as much as I love Lazare “Javert was busy so they booked me instead” de Peyrol and Solène “Women’s motherfucking March on Versailles” Mazurier. Mira is just so fundamentally DIFFERENT, being very blunt and no-nonsense as well as the aforementioned snarkiness, that she was really a treat to work with. 

The way the kid talks, you’d almost think that this kind of thing was unusual . They were all soldier’s kids, these days. They’d all had to do what they had to to survive, and not all of them had mommy and daddy propping them up through the early years, either. Going from home to home, place to place, hoping that a bomb wouldn’t explode over their heads, holding a gun in their hand from the first time they could salvage one.

“Lucas was there, and in between crying about his daddy issues…why wouldn’t he expose Taylor to the world?”

It’s always been a pity to me that we really didn’t get all that much backstory development for 2149, except for that it’s a Very Bad Place, pollution, wars, etc., so it was a bit of fun trying to imagine what Mira’s past might have looked like given she’s obviously not as privileged as the Shannons or the Taylors, the former of whom are definitely INSANELY privileged. I have to think of when Taylor’s doing his whole “I survived 118 days in the wilderness” thing and Mira snaps back, “Yeah, we’re going on 1000.” There’s this…edge to her, and it takes a lot to impress her, and I have to think it’s because she’s survived so much that there’s really little that can surprise her. 

She makes a non-committal sound in response.  

“You don’t believe me, do you? Nobody else does, but you see -” Lucas laughs as he leans forward, and Mira wonders if he’s really lost it this time and what to tell Phoenix Group if their golden boy’s finally cracked under the pressure. “I was there. When my father killed him. And now-Now he wants. To kill me. I know everything, about how General Philbrick tried to get my father to step down, and my father killed him as if he was some carno that’d gotten lose. He buried him under Pilgrim’s Tree, he buried him there and let it rot, but-” Lucas smiles, sharp and predatory, and it hits Mira in the gut that he believes this “He couldn’t kill me. I know the truth.”

She eyes him as he is, trying to run it through her brain. Taylor’s a son of a bitch, but not a murderer. As if he doesn’t notice, he goes on, slamming down his bottle with a dramatic flourish as he spreads his arms out wide, “The great Taylor family tragedy-The mad king, the exiled prince, and, as always, no one listens to the oracle. But it’s all here,” he taps his head, “It’s all right in here. Don’t believe me?” He says, with the smug self-confidence that makes Mira want to punch his teeth out, even smugger with the alcohol. “See for yourself. Remember the name: Richard Philbrick.”

“'Don’t believe me? See for yourself.’ Lucas would say, with that smug self confidence that makes Mira want to punch his teeth out, settling instead for ignoring it. 

I really, really hate writing Lucas, because it feels like no one would ever say this, but then I remember that he described his relationship with his father as “A Shakespearian drama that borders on Greek tragedy.” Like a pretentious douche who strings together important-sounding words. But, I do kind of like the idea of him treating himself and his father as just…players in a larger game. 

Mira finds herself thinking of it long after he’s back to drooling on the floor, with a hell of a hangover coming in the morning. The kid’s been loose in the wild for too long, everyone knows it. It’s like playing with a tiger to get anything out of him, and most of the time, he speaks in equations, not words, as he holds his brilliance over everyone else’s head. God knows what goes on in his mind.

“And at first Mira wouldn’t believe it, because Lucas is demonstrably unstable + would make up ANYTHING to discredit his father, but as time goes on it makes more sense. And, after all, Philbrick has dropped off the grid”

The line about equations, not words is exactly how I feel whenever he appears on screen and the rest of the characters have to pretend that the words he’s piecing together actually make sense. 

And he hates his father. Not that you need to be a genius to know that one. He’d say anything about him, so long as it’d rain on Taylor’s little “big bright beautiful tomorrow” parade. Taylor’s an optimist, always going on about that bright new future for everyone. Peace, love, the American way, all that bullshit. Murdering someone-It’s not his MO. There’s nothing in the three inches-tall dossier they handed off to her the week before she went through Hope Plaza that’d say that. 

I had to get “There’s a Big, Bright, Beautiful Tomorrow” stuck in my head for this. 

She turns in her hammock, watching the tops of the trees sway gently in the wind through the little netted opening that’s as close as she’s got to a window, as a pteranodon flies across the moon. There are times she could almost get to like this place. She thinks of Sienna and frowns. Almost.

You will never know how pissed I am that we never got to see “Mira’s Lair” as Taylor calls it. I think that they would have to have some form of netting to keep out the mosquitoes and any other creepy crawlies, but yet again, the worldbuilding was shit there and I’m sad. 

(She remembers the first time she’d seen the moon, without the pollution there to cover it up or a million lights to dim it, white and gleaming and so big, Wash’s arm, strong and warm, around her as they’d made their way to the colony.) 

The kid’s lying, she tells herself, there’s no point in taking the bait.

In the morning, he’s back to scrawling more equations on rocks, and she’s back to taking care of her colony. That should be it.

It isn’t.

It sits there in the back of her mind, buzzing like a little mosquito that she can’t quite swat. She hates that about the kid, how he can get under her skin, make her think.

Taylor as a murderer? It doesn’t fit with that squeaky-clean, messiah complex image he’s tried to work up. Not that he’d be the first. Everyone has their demons, and God knows what’s underneath that benevolent dictator image. But if he was, then… 

If he was, then Wash is involved, too. But of course she can’t say that, because that would be admitting it to herself. 

I have to think that given the amount of corruption in 2149, Taylor being a bitch wouldn’t be a surprise, and that’s something I tried to show, but that it doesn’t fit HIM (and, more importantly, Mira’s still trying to protect Wash in her mind.) 

She ignores it, and ignores it, but it’s still there, in the back of her mind, and finally, she gives in.

“She ignores it, and ignores it, but it’s still there, in the back of her mind”

Is Taylor really capable of that?

“Is Taylor capable of that?”

So she checks. Still being in contact with 2149 has its perks, and she doesn’t have to run that kind of thing by Taylor (convenient, the voice whispers in her ear, that he controls the access to the outside world. She’d always thought it was so no one decided to get stuck on something dangerous like “democracy” or “basic human rights,” but it’d be useful as Hell if he was keeping something a secret.)

“And keep in mind: The Sixers can CONTACT THE OUTSIDE WORLD AND GET THAT INFO”

Philbrick’s missing they say, but there are holes in the record. Missing in South America? It’s the new “went on a long vacation and never came back.” And even if she’s not out there writing equations on rocks, she’s not stupid. Stupid gets you killed, where Mira’s from. Her employers play the evasion game, remind her what she has to lose if she presses, and she folds. Officially. But she knows one thing: Richard Philbrick’s dead, and wherever he is, it’s not South America.

So she checks. Philbrick’s missing they say, but there are all those little holes.”

Honestly, I hate writing any kind of detective work, because it all feels like a reach, so this was a hard section to write. But also absolutely necessary. 

Boylan seems to know everything that goes on in the colony, for the right price, and she corners him one day after they’ve just gotten ahold of some medical supplies.

Thank God for Boylan providing the plot-convenient information. Or not providing it, as the case may be. He actually wasn’t planned, but when I was writing it, it felt like I needed more between the web search and Mira making her realization, so Boylan got to make an appearance. Yay, Boylan.  

He just shakes his head, “Isn’t enough money in the world to make me tell you that.”

You know it’s bad when Boylan’s not willing to haggle for information. You know, it’s sad when you think of it: Boylan guarded Taylor’s secret faithfully for years, and only gave it away by accident…because he was tortured by the man he’d once considered a friend. Taylor deserved all the fallback from that one. 

“You and he used to be old war buddies, now you can’t stand each other. So what happened?” She tilts her head as she stares him down, the way she knows makes her people stand down when they’re being stubborn. 

He just shakes his head head again, walking away, and that’s all the confirmation she needs that something’s up.

Philbrick’s disappearance.

Taylor turning on his own kid.

Taylor turning on Boylan.                      

It all starts to make sense.

But there’s one thing left, one thing she needs: Proof.

The next time Lucas shows up, she glares at him, “The body. Where is it?”

He smirks in response and takes her to Pilgrim’s Tree.

I really debated including this section, because it seems to go against canon, but I couldn’t imagine anything LESS than that convincing Mira, when she knows that the body’s there. 

That’s the thing with secrets: They never stay buried, especially if you leave someone alive to tell the tale. 

“The thing with secrets is that they NEVER stay secret long” - Literally the first line of the rant that kicked this off. 

And the body of a man, missing a limb in just the right place, well, that tells a story all on its own. There’s no point doing anything with it, when all they have’s the word of Taylor’s unstable son and a corpse against a legend. Better to put him back in the ground and wait for when it can be useful. As they cover the body again, spreading dead leaves across the upturned soil so it looks undisturbed, Mira feels her gut twist.

This was my haphazard attempt at keeping things consistent with canon, as much as it could be. 

It’s never been personal between her and Taylor. It’s just a job, just like it always was (she tells herself as she thinks of trusting dark eyes sparked by the firelight as Wash sat opposite her, stretching a black hairband absently between her fingers, her black hair loose around her shoulders. That night, she’d forgotten her mission for a moment. Just a moment, but it was enough.)

“And slowly, but surely, things make sense. And honestly, Mira’s horrified, because it was never PERSONAL between her and Taylor. It was a job (she tells herself as she thinks of trusting dark eyes by the firelight).”

It doesn’t really make sense for MIra to have that undercurrent of bitterness that she has towards Taylor in canon; my girl’s a mercenary at nature, I can’t see her taking it personally. But this? Was honestly the first time Mira’s character clicked for me. 

Also Wash + her hairband is one of my favorite things, in no part because of the 1789 crossover meaning that she and Laz get to bond over their ponytails. As is Wash sans hairband, because I’m gay. And imagining Wash’s younger, idealistic self honestly hurts, because Mira’s betrayal took so much of that from her. 

She knows why she didn’t want to believe it: For Taylor to be capable of it, that means that everything Wash told her, all that bullshit about a better future, is a lie. Wash is always there by Taylor’s side, saying “How high?” even before he says “Jump.” (He doesn’t deserve it, she thinks; if she was with them, she’d be raking in a solid 2 or 3 figures more as a medic alone.) There’s no way she doesn’t know.

“And maybe she doesn’t want to believe it because for Taylor to be capable of it, that means that EVERYTHING Wash told her, about a better future, is a lie. Wash is as complicit as Taylor, she’s always there by his side, there’s no way she doesn’t know. 

Also, props to Mira for STILL thinking about how much Taylor doesn’t deserve Wash even as she’s realizing that Wash is complicit in human rights violations. 

She’s never been one for the new, better future that Taylor goes on about, about second chances and fresh starts, she has to spend her time on solid ground with what they have now rather than chasing after rainbows and unicorns. But when Wash talked about it, hope in her eyes, Mira’d almost…

And as it all comes together Mira feels a little bit of her heart (which is already mostly hardened, after years of war, years of eat or be eaten only a few inches of red pulsing muscle remain, and it’s for her daughter and Wash) calcify.

And as it all comes together Mira feels a little bit of her heart (which is already mostly calcified, years of war, years of eat or be eaten hardening it, only a few inches of red pulsing muscle remain, and it’s for her daughter and Wash) calcify.  

This is one of the bits that remained virtually unchanged from concept to final product, mainly because I really, really liked it, and it’s probably the reason I ultimately ended up writing it down in the first place. 

“Still doing Taylor’s dirty work?” She’ll ask, several years later, as Wash looks up at her in-Hatred? Anger? Surprise? Mira blames the smudged black eyeliner for hiding her eyes.

‘Still doing Taylor’s dirty work?’ I know the truth now, is what she’s really saying, I’m not naive anymore.”

Not that it matters. Not anymore.

She’s trying to say that it doesn’t matter what Wash thinks and that she’s over it, but she isn’t. She was still hoping, on some level, for Wash to say something. But then she doesn’t, and so Mira uses her as leverage for what she wants, telling herself that it doesn’t matter because it’s all for the mission, anyway. 

I know the truth now, is what she’s really saying, I’m not naive anymore.

I know.

And somehow, it doesn’t feel as good as she thought it would. 

This line was the only thing I could think of to end it on, even as I didn’t like it overly much, but I wanted it to be a very bittersweet at best ending from Mira’s perspective. She’s broken free of the lies Taylor told, at least she thinks so, she’s brought Wash down a peg or two, but it can’t be a victory because she really didn’t get what she really wanted, which was for Wash to renounce Taylor and jump in her arms. 

My other alternate title was “Prometheus” [which I discarded because (1) It was Lucas levels of pretentious and (2) it centered Lucas rather than Mira], and I feel like both of the titles kind of encapsulates the idea there: You get the knowledge you want, but at what cost? 

[unpretty]

i lack self-control and there’s other shit i should be doing so it’s time for the first installment of

Let’s Read: Kraven the Hunter

Kraven the Hunter's first appearance is The Amazing Spider-Man #15 from August 1964, written by Stan The Man himself, which is how you know it's gonna be batshit. Every comic writer has strengths and weaknesses, and in many cases you kind of have to overlook those weaknesses to really enjoy the strengths.

Stan's strength is also his weakness, which is that none of his plots ever make any goddamn sense and all his characters come off as weird assholes, and whenever you finish a comic you are left with a vague sense that literally everything that happened in that issue could have been avoided if they'd just stopped being weird assholes for five seconds.

Some writers attempt to remedy this later. Those writers are wrong.

Stan Lee still writes the newspaper comic strip version of Spider-Man, as far as I know, and for years I thought those strips were just nutso because Stan Lee was old and out of fucks to give. Then I read some old-ass comics and realized that Stan Lee is just Like That, and always has been.

He also writes credits like these.

If there is a space where a man can reasonably fit more words, Stan Lee will find more words to put there.

Early Spider-Man comics feature a lot of weird old-timey bank-robbing gangsters? Like, straight-up Dillinger Gang motherfuckers. So anyway the issue starts with some old-timey gangsters, bla bla bla, the Chameleon bla, curse you Spider-Man, etc. We don't care about that part. What we care about is that the Chameleon (who is also, to be clear, kind of an old-timey gangster) decides he's gonna call in Kraven the Hunter to solve his Spider-Man problem.

Here are the first things we learn about Kraven, in order:

He's been in Africa, where he defeats terrorbeasts single-handed and with his bare hands.

He's a fucking hunk.

"You know what the ladies love? Rectangles. I’m gonna build a man entirely out of rectangles. For the ladies." - Ditko, presumably.

I know that what the creators were thinking was, 'let's give him an outfit like a circus strongman or something, to emphasize that he's tough', but what this implies is that Kraven the Hunter thinks this outfit is a good idea. He deliberately chose to dress like he got his wardrobe at the circus. Maybe he did! We don't know. Anyway never trust anyone who tries to take away Kraven's ballet flats and leggings because they are just as Iconic™ as his lion vest and I will not hear otherwise.

Okay but anyway the second thing that happens, after we learn all about what a fine cut of beefcake Kraven is, is that all of the animals Kraven has brought with him to New York have escaped.

This is not the only time this happens, presumably because Kraven has no interest in catching animals that aren't wily enough to try to escape en masse.

Since Peter Parker is on location to snap some sweet pics of Kraven's pecs, he makes an attempt to save the day, only to get beaten to the punch by Kraven before he can get his fucking pants on.

Just casually flinging some fucking cobras into a bucket, nbd. Hey, you know that weird fucking belt Kraven always wears?

Belt tusks. He wears fucking tusks full of drugs on his belt, in a constant outward stabbing position. Anyone who tries to remove Kraven's belt without Kraven's consent is getting knocked the fuck out. I mean he also has some Vulcan nerve punch shit going on, but more importantly, belt tusks.

Peter... please. You are a child. You are in high school. Control yourself.

I'd like to note that this was in no way part of any kind of 'fucking with Spider-Man' plan. There is no indication that Kraven even thought Spider-Man would be watching. This is just How He Do. However, Spider-Man was watching, and then had to leave to change into different pants again, meaning he failed to do either his hero job or his day job.

Peter. You should have had your camera out to take pictures of Spider-Man anyway.

Peter.

Did it seriously not occur to you to snap a single fucking picture while you were watching Kraven do sweet ape tricks.

Anyway here is where things really start to go sideways.

Now, personally, if I saw a dude save a bunch of people from rampaging gorillas, then refer to me as 'more beast than human' and 'the most dangerous game', I might consider taking him aside and letting him know that I am actually an orphaned teenager whose only family is an old woman with heart problems and also I get picked on in school. I mean, not to give too much credit to a guy who says 'man is the most dangerous game' without irony, but I'm pretty sure his stated goal of Kicking Ass is not furthered by beating up nerdy children. You don't even have to tell him your secret identity! Just show him your chin and explain how long you've been trying to grow a beard! This whole fight could be avoided and Kraven would go back to the Chameleon to laugh at him about how he got his ass kicked by a baby.

But this is Peter Parker, so instead of that he just regrets getting out of bed and considers building a nest in his bedroom and never leaving.

Incidentally, the b-plot of this comic is that everyone thinks Flash’s girlfriend Liz wants to bang Peter. His crush Betty is mad, Flash is mad, Peter does a lot of moping about how life is uniquely difficult for him and only him. His boss is mad at him, just because he didn't do his one and only job! A hot girl he likes is jealous of the other hot girl who likes him! It's hard and no one understands. I don't know if Stan Lee intended for this to be aspirational, or relatable content, but I'm kind of into it.

Either way, 'teenage boy would rather mope and then fight a grown man to the death than admit he's not worth fighting' is a pretty realistic beginning to a blood feud.

IT'S THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF A BULL ELEPHANT and also Kraven mentioning his total willingness to just drink weird shit in the jungle if he thinks it will help him punch better. Based on existing Marvel canon, I think it's totally possible that he drank something made from some kind of weird super soldier plant that exists in their universe. But also, if he had not specified Africa, I would probably assume it was coca. He seems like a guy who'd do a lot of coke and punch an elephant.

Also I'm pretty sure the Chameleon just gave him a bunch of articles from the Daily Bugle as research. SPIDER-MAN TERRORIZES CITY, SOMEONE PLEASE SAVE US FROM THIS MENACE, read headlines. "Yeah okay," says Kraven. FAMOUS HUNTER GOES NUTS AND TRIES TO KILL SPIDER-MAN FOR SOME REASON read headlines later this week. "What the fuck," Kraven will say.

Oh my god the best fucking part of this fight is that Kraven does one of his nerve punches and disables Spider-Man's arm, causing him to have to flail his limp arm around like a dipshit.

GOD I know this isn't what's happening here but I just really want Kraven to be trying to have a serious fucking fight with what he assumes is a grown man with the unholy powers of a spider, only to have a teenager furiously windmill his limp arms at him. Where is the Spider-Man comic we deserve about this.

Now, plenty of comic book villains are hypocrites, but rarely do you meet one as good at self-justification as Kraven. Bare hands! Mano-a-mano! Except, Spider-Man has spider powers, and that's cheating. Not like Kraven, with his drug powers. He got those fairly. But Spider-Man is cheating by having super strength, and the only way to level the playing field... is more drugs.

I love how consistently they use the word 'potion'.

"Look, this is totally fair. I, too, am on drugs." - Kraven, probably.

Incidentally, Kraven has from day one had this problem of being really weirdly sexually menacing. Bisexually menacing, even. Like, later comics writers absolutely used Kraven as a vehicle for their weird fetishes, but this has been a problem with Kraven from the start.

Kraven please listen to yourself.

GUYS THIS IS ALSO THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF KRAVEN'S NOT-BONG

YEAH THAT'S DEFINITELY A CARAFE, FOR THE TEA HE'S DRINKING. ABSOLUTELY IN NO WAY GIVING OFF MAJOR HIGH-VIBES. SITTING ON A DESK. Why is he sitting on a desk? Why is his leg like that? Why is he holding his cup like that? Is that bong on another, different table? Who arranged the furniture in this evil lair and why didn’t they put in more chairs?

Meanwhile Aunt May is trying to hook Peter up with her neighbor Mrs. Watson's niece. THIS IS THE FIRST MENTION OF THE ELUSIVE MISS WATSON. Right after Kraven's not-bong. Mary Jane is not named in this comic, she’s just the niece. Peter's lady problems with pretty girls being thrown at him continue apace, and he is as annoyed about it as ever. You know what else is annoying?

KRAVEN IN JJ'S OFFICE PROMISING TO KICK SPIDEY'S ASS

From Kraven's perspective this has to be just, the weirdest shit. OUR CITY IS BEING MENACED BY A MONSTER MAN, read headlines, while JJ's like "okay but don't break the law while freeing us from this reign of terror".

Kraven's clever plan is to let Chameleon pretend to be him, so that he can suckerpunch Spider-Man while Spider-Man tries to suckerpunch him. It's flawless.

"God, I'm awesome." - Kraven, literally just now in that panel.

Thanks, Stan. Every single word in these panels is very necessary. Thank you.

EVERY TIME I SEE THIS FUCKING PANEL I LAUGH MYSELF TO TEARS. KRAVEN LITERALLY MADE CHAMELEON PLAY THE FUCKING BONGOS TO DISORIENT THE ENEMY. THE ENEMY IS SPIDER-MAN SO IT FUCKING WORKED. PETER HAS NEVER BEEN SO DISORIENTED AS HE IS NOW, HEARING THESE SICK BEATS. WHY IS HE RUNNING LIKE A CONFUSED DOG THAT GOT OUT OF THE YARD. EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS FUCKING PANEL IS GOLD AND I WANT IT FRAMED.

I have turned off my caps-lock for readability but please know that there is a caps-lock on in my heart. My heart, which also knows that this is fetish gear. Kraven just put Spider-Man in magnetic manacles with bells in them.

I'm like 99% sure that at some point Kraven figures out that Spider-Man is Peter Parker, and when he does, I wonder if he ever does the math and figures out he put a high schooler in weird bell manacles.

GOD.

Anyway Spider-Man eventually figures out that HE CAN WEB UP THE BELLS. IT TAKES HIM LIKE THREE PAGES. HE'S JUST JINGLE JANGLING ALL OVER THE FUCKING PARK FOR, IDK, TWENTY MINUTES PROBABLY BEFORE HE REMEMBERS HE'S GOT WEBS. FUCK. That's when Kraven retreats because discretion is the better part of valor and you gotta know when to fold 'em.

What the fuck are spider beams.

God. What the fuck, Peter. Kraven's springs forth from the shadows with an action-packed punch and Spidey's just like HEY. CUT THAT OUT. EXCUSE YOU.

Why are you reinforcing the idea that you are an inhuman monster you fool.

He could have said... literally anything else. Anything. I mean, he's Spider-Man, so insulting his villains is kind of his whole deal, but like?? YOU ALREADY WON. YOU WATCHED THIS MAN SAVE A WHOLE BUNCH OF PEOPLE, INCLUDING YOUR BOSS AND LOVE INTERESTS. HIS ONLY CRIME IS TRYING TO KICK YOUR ASS, A CRIME OF WHICH THE ENTIRE POLICE DEPARTMENT AND FOOTBALL TEAM ARE ALSO GUILTY.

... also conspiring with the Chameleon. But like? Chameleon is implied to be a terrifying crime boss. You didn't even ask why he was conspiring with the Chameleon. You just assumed.

There's kind of this thing, which starts basically in this panel but which continues onward forever, where Kraven and Spider-Man seem to bring out the worst in each other? And part of it is that Kraven thinks Spider-Man is the Most Dangerous Game for some reason (possibly arachnophobia), but I'm pretty sure it's also that instead of just besting him in honorable combat like men, Peter insists on completely humiliating and mocking Kraven every single goddamn time. Starting with this one. Kraven kind of has a huge ego?? Being tough is his whole deal??? Peter said the exact wrong thing if he didn't want Kraven to come back for vengeance??????

But also Peter Parker is a teenage boy and Kraven is a grown-ass man who wants to hunt him for sport, and that's pretty goddamn terrifying. Covering fear with mockery is pretty par for the course. It just happens to be the worst possible thing to do to a man with a massive ego built around kicking ass who assumes you are a grown man who isn't human. Is all. It's a comedy of fucking errors, is what it is.

Anyway JJ rewards Peter for his pictures of the eventual arrest with a chocolate bar (WHICH HE KEEPS IN A FUCKING SAFE), and Betty apologizes for being so mean about assuming that Peter would want to go out with another girl, and proceeds to ask him out. Which he turns down, because he has a secret date with Mary Jane. But Betty foolishly assumes he has a secret date with Liz! Which is totally different from his actual secret date, which he is only going on to please his Aunt May. Life is hard.

Meanwhile KRAVEN IS BEING DEPORTED

to... South America? Apparently they just asked where they wanted to go, and then sent them there. Instead of actually sending them back to Russia. Which is a neat thing I guess the cops do sometimes instead of arresting people.

Hey, here's a question: WHY IS PETER RELAXING BY GOING TO THE FUCKING DOCKS IN COSTUME

So anyway, that's Kraven's first appearance. He shows up in New York to deliver some animals, saves everyone at the docks from gorillas armed with cobras, tries to rid the city of the webbed menace, and ultimately gets deported. It's a weird week for Kraven.

(Next Time, or, The Mess So Far)

[comicbookgeek13]

How to Properly Adapt Death Note in 105 Minutes

           Alright, motherfuckers, I, like every other Death Note fan, watched one of my favorite franchises get shat all over for the sake of making a lame black comedy whose only goal seemed to be shitting on the source material because Adam Wingard comes off to me as thinking it’s stupid.  A lot of people have been saying that “they only had 105 minutes” and “it’s an adaption so it couldn’t have been something that pleased fans”.  I’ve written an outline for how to do a Death Note movie in 105 minutes that is accessible to American audiences while pleasing fans. It sets up for a sequel, yeah, but I think Death Note’s record of success when done right means that’s not much of a risk.  The goal here is to prove that even when not allowed the thirteen-hour-long episode season of a Netflix series it deserves that the material can still be dynamically entertaining because it’s just that strong.  I also set out to prove that if a 21-year-old hick with no professional experience in writing can write something that functions well enough to appease both the fans I know and have shared this with and people who don’t know the material (like my middle-aged father!) then there is no reason that professionals hired by Netflix couldn’t do the same.  Read my outline below the cut.

Setting:

New York City makes the most sense as a parallel to Tokyo since it is just as heavily associated with its native country outside of said country. It also allows for a rich backdrop for the movie to pull from both in terms of casting and in terms of scenery. Characters:

Light Yagami- As the surname implies, Light and his family are all Japanese-Americans played by Japanese-American actors.  Light is one of the top students in the country, and the top law student at his university. He is charismatic and suave.  He dresses sharp, and keeps a room that is neat but not obsessively so.  He is conniving and cocky.  He is obsessed with purifying the world, and will do anything it takes to accomplish this goal.  He explains his complex plans to Ryuk so we, the audience, can keep up.

Sorichiro Yagami- Hardworking and dedicated, Sorichiro is one of the finest among New York’s finest.  He is a believer in the justice system despite its faults.  A great police captain, he is an even better father and husband.  He’s the reason for Light’s being a law-student and his sense of justice.  

Ryuk- The only character not in need of recasting or redesigning from the Wingard film, most of Ryuk’s alterations are characterization-based. Ryuk has an easy-come-easy-go attitude towards the events of the film.  He has no investment in either Light’s success or failure as would be expected from the sort that drops a Death Note for just any human to find. Snarky, creepy, and adorable in a bulldog sort of way, Ryuk is Light’s companion for most of the film.

Misa Amane- Barely factoring into the film, Misa is a musician with a goth-lolita aesthetic who rocketed to success after starting out on YouTube as MisaMisa.  Her only appearance in the film is a scene where Ryuk is watching a talk-show.  She is also to be played by an Japanese-American actor.

L- The world’s greatest detective and the Holmes to Light’s Moriarty, L needs to be as interesting to the audience as Kira himself.  L’s sense of justice is the cause his insomnia because it drives him to always be working cases under one alias or another.  A believer in the human capacity for change, L is disturbed by Kira and his popularity, but he is also excited to encounter an opponent that’s his intellectual equal.  A person with Asperger’s, L has a preference for looser clothing, hatred of socks and any similarly rough fabrics, and particular ways of sitting and holding things.  He has a great fondness for any and all sweets.  L’s actor needs to be an unknown with the ability to be unconventionally attractive similar to the likes of Johnny Depp or Jared Leto.  His actor should be British, and should be shown some of Juliani and Stanfield’s performances in order to get a handle on the character’s way of speaking.  I would like for his actor to be white since L’s design from the manga and anime is one of my favorite in fiction, but I’d have no problem casting someone of another ethnicity if their performance during an audition felt like the right fit for the role to me.

Watari- An old inventor and ex-British military sniper, Watari, like Alfred Pennyworth, is an English gentlemen’s gentlemen.  His being L’s financial support and public representative makes sense seeing as he’s the one responsible for raising the eccentric detective.  This doesn’t need to be explicitly stated in the film, but instead shown through small, tender moments like Watari fetching L a blanket or sweet he didn’t ask for.  His real name is Quillish Wammy, though that wouldn’t be revealed in this film, and race is unimportant in the casting of his character.

The Kira Investigation Task Force- The men who stuck around following the deaths of the 50 F.B.I. agents, the Task Force are all brave souls dedicated to the arrest of Kira.  Mostly serving as an everyman’s way into L’s methods and an excuse for L to explain his plans to the audience, the characterization here doesn’t have to be too strong save for Matsuda and Aizawa.   *Matsuda is a rookie detective whose age allows for him to have the most open mind when it comes to Kira.  He still wants Kira caught, but he sees why so many support the killer.

*Aizawa is the most skeptical about working with L.  He feels the detective has a way of using people that comes from a mindset too similar to Kira’s for his liking.

The Task Force should be casted as multiracial to take advantage of NYC’s melting-pot population and give representation.  They receive their original names from the manga as aliases from L upon meeting him in person as a safety precaution.

Raye Penber- The F.B.I. agent charged with pursuing Light Yagami and fiancé to Naomi Misora, Raye is a man who opposes Kira as deeply as he loves his bride-to-be.  He needs to have a good chemistry with Naomi so that the audience feels his death’s impact after only a scene or two with them together.  He needs to be attractive in a James Bond sort of way.  His actor should be Japanese-American, and someone who is unopposed to returning for a possible prequel adapting events of Death Note: Another Note: The Los Angeles B.B. Murder Cases.

Naomi Misora- Equal parts loving fiancé and cunning ex-F.B.I. agent, Naomi Misora is Light’s greatest threat after L.  Having resigned from the F.B.I. in hopes of pursuing a career in writing and as wife and mother, Naomi is devastated by the loss of her husband. Her pursuit of Light Yagami is fueled by her hatred for Kira’s ideology and revenge for Raye, and is ultimately what gets her killed.  Her death should subtly upset L to hint at one-sided feelings for the doomed woman picked up during the briefly alluded to L.A. B.B. Murder Cases.  She should be played by a Japanese-American actor who isn’t opposed to possibly returning for a prequel adapting those events down the line.

Plot:

The skeleton for the plot here is the first Japanese live-action film.

The film opens with Light Yagami , a second-year law student who feels aimless in his path to become a part of a system he sees flaws in, bored in his seat-by-the-window during one of his classes.  These feelings would usually either lead to a career of cynicism or of bucking said system, but things take an unusual turn when Light sees a notebook drop out of the sky during one of his classes.  After class, he picks up the notebook, called “Death Note”, and finds a list of rules written inside of the front cover.  

1.      The Human Whose Name is Written in This Notebook Shall Die.  

2.      If a Cause of Death is Not Written Within 40 Seconds of Writing a Name, The Human Will Simply Die of a Heart Attack.

3.        After Writing the Cause of Death, Six Minutes are Allotted to Provide Details for Circumstances Surrounding The Death.

He assumes the notebook to be a morbid prank.

The next scene has Light discover the authenticity of its powers after writing down the name of a man holding a gas station hostage after seeing live news coverage of the event on the TV in his room.  Initially horrified, Light decides to use the Death Note to clean up the world after a court case that gave a rapist a three-year prison sentence is discussed in one of his classes the next day.  

The next scene is set a few days after this with Light returning home to his room to find what is apparently a demon waiting for him.  The demon explains it is actually a bored god of death, or Shinigami, named Ryuk who dropped the Death Note, what is used by Shinigami to fulfill their job of killing humans, in the human world so “something interesting” would happen.  He spends the rest of the film eating apples and cracking wise.  Light learns only people who have touched the Death Note can see Ryuk after his sister comes in his room wanting help with her math homework.

Through a montage, we see that Light’s killing of criminals, initially only local and then international, soon garners him a following on the internet in places like Facebook, Tumblr, Reddit, and 4Chan.  The name Kira, based on saying “Killer” with a Japanese accent, catches on as the way his supporters refer to him online.  The media calls the killings “ a strange series of heart attacks”.

The next scene shows NYPD Captain Sorichiro being called to the Commissioner’s office, and finding a well-dressed old, British man called “Watari” waiting for him alongside the commissioner.  Watari explains that he represents “L”, the world’s greatest detective. The police commissioner explains that Watari is the public’s only direct line to L.  Watari then pulls a laptop from his briefcase, and opens it to reveal a white screen with a black Old English style “L” in the center.  A voice put through several digital filters greets the men in the room, and declares itself to be L.  L tells the men of Interpol’s debate over the cause of so many criminal deaths, and that he suspects the deaths to be murders.  His reasoning is that criminals being so specifically targeted makes a disease unlikely.  He suspects these murders to be perpetrated by a single killer somehow since the range of the killings would take a number of people working together that would make success as unlikely as a disease.  He accompanies his reasoning with charts displaying information backing him up displayed on the laptop screen.  L says that he would like to work with the NYPD to assemble a 50-man task force with Sorichiro at its head because he suspects Kira may be operating out of New York City since that’s where the initial killings were located.

Next up is a scene of Light’s family greeting Light’s father, who is revealed to be Sorichiro, after he’s gotten home from work.  He mentions the NYPD doing something about Kira after Light’s sister mentions her classmates talking about the killer at school. Ryuk laughs over Light’s Dad unknowingly being after him.  

We then get a scene of the Task Force’s HQ being set up.  L speaks to the men, again through a laptop Watari brings, commenting on their bravery and how he will be releasing a public statement against Kira.  

We cut to Light watching TV in his room only for the broadcast to be interrupted by what is called a worldwide broadcast.  A man named Lind L. Taylor appears on screen, and declares himself to be L.  He speaks out against Kira, calling him evil and childish, and claiming he will single handedly apprehend the criminal.  Light, feeling insulted by this, writes Taylor’s name in the Death Note.  After Taylor dies of a heart attack, Light gloats to Ryuk, but is interrupted when the broadcast cuts to the “L screen” previously seen on the Watari’s laptop.  L’s synthesized voice expresses astonishment at how well his plan worked. He addresses Kira directly as he explains that the man named Lind L. Taylor was an inmate on death row set to be executed that night who had agreed to pretend to be L in exchange for being pardoned in the event that Kira didn’t kill him during his TV appearance.  L adds that the broadcast wasn’t actually a worldwide broadcast but limited to New York City.  Had Taylor lived, the plan would have been implemented in different areas using different inmates.  L knows Kira’s location, and that a name and face are needed for him to kill.  He dares Kira to kill him without having either on the detective.  Ryuk thinks this all hilarious, and Light is furious.  L declares that he is justice, and the broadcast ends.  

A montage of television programs discussing L’s TV appearance plays, ending with singer Misa Amane expressing her support for Kira.  It’s shown that it’s Ryuk that’s been looking at these TV shows, and he turns to tell Light how badly he’s been shown up. Light tells Ryuk he’s already going to get back at L.  Using his father’s username and password, Light looks at inmates convicted in cases involving rape, murder, or child molestation, and uses the Death Note to make them all write suicide notes on the walls of their cells using their own blood before committing suicide in differently specific ways that test the limitations of the Death Note.

We next have a scene of the Task Force discussing the deaths, and realizing that there is a message to L hidden in the first letter of each sentence in the notes that can only be seen when they are examined together.  The message is, “L, did you know that gods of death love apples?” L says that the message isn’t the real point of these deaths, but it was to show that Kira can control people’s actions before they die.  

The next scene is of Light and Ryuk walking through a park. Light’s wearing a Bluetooth headset so that he doesn’t look like a crazy person while talking to Ryuk.  Ryuk tells Light that someone is following him, and is only telling him because it makes the Shinigami feel like he’s the one being watched.  Ryuk says it’s been three days since this began when Light asks him.  

Next is L telling the Task Force that he has F.B.I. agents tailing members of each of their families.  When they express outrage, L explains that Kira has to have a connection not only to law enforcement in general but specifically the Task Force to know to access the database the NYPD keeps on inmates in relatively local prisons since no one outside of L, Watari, the commissioner, and actual members of the Task Force know that L is working with the NYPD.  This quiets the discontent some, and it is totally killed when Captain Yagami expresses his support of L’s plan.  

Next we have Light in his room writing names in the Death Note when Ryuk tells him that there is a simple way to figure out the name of his stalker. He explains all Shinigami have eyes capable of seeing the names and lifespans of all humans they see in order to do their job of writing names in their Death Notes, and that Light can be given this sight with no change in the appearance of his eyes in exchange for half of his remaining years of life.  Light declines this offer, and tells Ryuk he already has a plan.

 We then have a scene of the man tailing Light returning home to his fiancé, a woman named Naomi Misora.  She’s working on a novel about a young man searching for his missing friend from college. He says he’ll be able to focus on their wedding again soon as he’ll be done with tailing the families he’s been assigned to follow Friday.  Naomi asks if he thinks that any of them could be Kira, and he tells her no.  He adds that she would be the better out of the two of them to ask since she was good enough to work with L when she was in the F.B.I.  She dismisses him by saying she’d rather focus on writing and loving him than Kira.

Next we have Light getting on a bus to the zoo with his stalker close behind.  Light spends the first few seconds of the ride with his headphones in and watching a video on his phone.  This is all interrupted, though, when a man with a gun takes the bus hostage.  He uses the driver’s radio to demand $10,000 from the zoo.  Light looks to the seats behind him to see his stalker sitting in the seat directly behind his.  Light asks him if he wants to do something about the hijacker, and the man agrees. Before they do anything, though, Light wants proof that the man isn’t working with the hijacker.  After a moment’s hesitation, the man shows an F.B.I. badge revealing his name to be “Raye Penber”.  Satisfied, Light says he’ll pass him a note since the hijacker’s about to turn his attention back to the passengers.  Light drops the paper as he’s passing it, and the hijacker notices.  After reading the paper, he points his gun at Light’s face, and asks him if he’s “Some kind of hero?!”.  Before he can kill Light, though, he notices Ryuk standing in the aisle of the bus.  Ryuk expresses surprise and laughs when he realizes that the paper must’ve been torn from a page in the Death Note.  Panicking, the hijacker shoots at Ryuk, the bullets just passing through to break the rear window, and demands the driver stop the bus.  He runs out of the bus only to be hit by a car.  After the police let Light leave the scene, Ryuk asks him if the hijacker was a criminal Light wrote would do all of that in the Death Note to which Light answers yes.  He adds that the incident would have always ended in his favor since he would have at least seemed “too noble” to be Kira had Penber provided some other means of proving he wasn’t working with the hijacker, but the name will allow for Light to send a message.  

Next is a scene of Raye telling Naomi over breakfast that he won’t be able to go with her to meet with the priest like they’d planned .  Naomi, confused, asks Raye why, but he tells her he can’t say.  

Next is Raye going down to a subway to catch a 1:00 PM train heading to some arbitrary location.  He is approached from behind from a disguised, hoodie-wearing-Light, who tells him that he is Kira, and that he will kill everyone around them unless he complies to his demands.  Light speaks in harsh whisper to mask his voice somewhat.  Raye complies, and takes the seat next to the door of the train at Light’s instruction.  He takes a manila envelope containing a cheap cellphone, sheet of paper, and a pen from the luggage rack also at Light instruction.  The phone rings, and Light is on the other end of the line.  He tells Penber to write the names of his fellow F.B.I. agents current tailing anyone in relation to the Kira Investigation. Raye says he doesn’t know the names. He asks for Raye’s superior that is heading the team of agents, and Penber gives it to him.  A few moments later, Raye receives a phone call from his superior, and is told the names of his fellow agents.  Light again tells him to write down the names, and Raye does so this time.  Raye is told to put the cellphone, pen, and paper back in the envelope before placing it back on the luggage rack, and that he is to get off at the train’s next stop. As all of this occurs, a narration from Light begins.  “Raye Penber. Heart attack.  He cancels any and all plans he has, and tells no one why. He heads to the subway for the 1:00 PM train heading for ((Insert Arbitrary Location Here)).  There, he encounters the man known as Kira, and complies with the man’s demands.  He gets off at the stop that comes after his compliance, and dies.”  Towards the end of the narration, Raye gets off the train, turns to find a smiling-and-envelope-holding Light standing behind the now closed train doors, and die, shocked, reaching towards his killer as the train departs.

Next is Light and Ryuk exiting the subway, and entering a dirty alleyway.  Light pulls out a bottle of some flammable liquid from his hoodie pocket, pours the liquid all over the envelope, and drops a match.  He adds the bottle into the resulting fire, and smiles knowingly at Ryuk.  

We cut to Captain Yagami informing the Task Force that all 50 of the F.B.I. agents tailing their families and the man supervising the agents have died of heart attacks.  He says that, in light of this, any who wish to exit the investigation are free to do so without consequence.  All but six men take this offer.  Captain Yagami tells L that there are only seven of them left.  L expresses disappointment while complimenting the bravery of the seven.  One of the men (Aizawa) rebukes this compliment by insulting L for hiding himself from the world and keeping them at an arm’s length.  L takes this to heart, and tells the men to meet him at a specific hotel in two days.  The same man who rebuked L’s compliment asks why they have to do this, and Watari tells him that they are going to be meeting L.  

Our next scene is of Raye Penber’s funeral with a vengeful Naomi watching her fiancé’s casket be lowered into the ground.  

We then cut to the Task Force arriving in the lobby of the designated hotel to find Watari waiting for them.  The old man leads them to the room where L is staying.  After they enter, a man about Light’s age with pale skin, messy black hair, a white long-sleeve shirt, and baggy blue jeans comes out, and reveals himself to be L after greeting them.  Each member of the Task Force gives their name in return, and L tells them that they would all be dead if he were Kira.  He gives each member their corresponding manga name as an alias, and asks for them to refer to him as “Ryuzaki” from now on.  He gives them a pep talk that assures them that justice will prevail in the end.  

Next we cut to Naomi talking to the driver of the hijacked bus during his lunchbreak.  She asks him if he saw Raye talking to anyone after showing him a picture of her fiancé. He says he saw him talking to a young guy who didn’t even flinch when the hijacker pointed a gun in his face.  

We cut to Watari placing a blanket on L, who has fallen asleep in his crouching/sitting position only for the detective to be awoken by the ringing of his personal cellphone.  Naomi is the one calling him, and he expresses quiet surprise after finding this out.  She tells him she suspects that Light is Kira because of Raye’s death after revealing his name to him, and that she’ll be proven right if she’s found dead soon.  L says he won’t be able to use her claims as proof in a court case since his personal cellphone is the only one he has that isn’t bugged.  She says she knows this, but that she also knows he’ll find something that can be used in court now that he has this information.  Naomi ends the phone call with a “goodbye”.  

The next scene begins with L telling the Task Force he wants to bug Captain Yagami and the Commissioner’s houses.  They’re understandably upset, but L explains by showing footage of Raye Penber’s death as captured by security cameras.  He says his shock before dying means he recognized a person on the train, and his reaching even as he dies suggests that person was Kira.  Raye was tailing members of the two families so Kira must have been among them, and killed Raye for getting too close with the deaths of the other agents being a means of covering themselves and an intimidation tactic.  Sorichiro agrees to the bugging of his house under the condition that he and L be the ones to watch the feed with the others watching the commissioner’s. L accepts this condition, and says the observation will only last for two weeks.

 We next have Light returning home to his room.  Ryuk suggests that they play video games now that the human has come home, but Light acts as if the Shinigami isn’t there.  We see L and Sorichiro watching all this and everything else in the house on various screens.  After putting his school things away, Light leaves the house.  He now tells Ryuk that he suspects his room has been bugged, and can’t speak to him in his house until they’re gone.  When asked how he could know such a thing, Light says he’s been putting a pencil lead above the top hinge of his bedroom door as a means of preserving his privacy while away from home since he was a teenager because the lead always breaks when the door is opened.  Ryuk is distressed by his apple supply being cut off, and Light is frustrated over not knowing how L could even suspect him.  Ryuk asks Light just what it is he’s going to do about it, and Light smiles after a moment’s consideration.  

We cut to L and a clearly haggard Captain Yagami watching the Captain’s family eat dinner.  L expresses admiration for Sorichiro’s dedication to his family.  Sorichiro asks why Light’s room has the most cameras, and L says Light’s intellect makes him the most likely to be Kira.  On the camera feed, Light says he’s going to his room to do homework.  He grabs a previously opened bag of chips, and heads for his room.  He starts doing his homework, eating chips every few minutes. Downstairs, the local news reports on the apprehension of a man who’d robbed a grocery store, killing three people in the process.  The man suddenly dies of a heart attack.  Light’s shown no change in behavior that would allow for him to see this report. Throughout all of this it should cut between the feed and L and Sorichiro watching it.  The Task Force celebrates Light and the rest of Sorichiro’s family being relieved of suspicion, and L is frustrated.  

We cut to reveal Light had a piece of the Death Note, another pen, and a smartphone hidden in the bag of chips.  

The next scene is Light leaving school, and none other than Naomi Misora meeting him on the way to his car.  She answers his confusion by telling him her name, and that she knows he is Kira.  Light calls her crazy, trying to get past her, but Misora won’t let him pass.  She tells him that Raye Penber was her fiancé, and that she’ll see him exposed to avenge Raye.  Light pushes past her, and drives off.  

We cut to Light getting home to his room.  Ryuk excitedly tells him all the cameras are gone, and Light tosses him an apple he’d been keeping in his desk drawer.  

Our next scene has the Task Force arriving to L’s hotel room.  L asks Captain Yagami if he’s enjoyed going home to which the Captain says yes.  L begins to tell them what he thinks their next plan of action should be, but he is interrupted by his cellphone ringing.  He answers to find Naomi once again waiting for him on the other end.  She tells him she’s sending him a link to a video feed so that he can watch Kira confess to his crimes.  L asks her just what she’s planning to do, and she tells him she’s already done what she planned to do before ending the call.  L tells Watari to go to the linked feed.  The feed shows Light tied to a chair, and alone in a dark room.  He seems confused and scared, calling for someone to explain what’s going on.  Sorichiro is horrified, and asks L what’s going on in an accusatory tone.  L tells Watari to begin tracing the feed, and gives the Task Force a summation of what’s going on.  They all watch as Naomi enters the dark room, apparently a warehouse given the door type.  She says she knows Light is Kira, and he’s going to have to either confess or kill her like he killed Raye before she can kill him if he wants to live.  Light denies her accusation, and begs to be let go. This deeply disturbs the Task Force. Naomi begins to torture Light in an attempt to get a confession.  Tension builds as we wait for Watari to find the location.  He finds that the feed is coming from a warehouse called “The Yellow Box” which was used as a location for mob negotiations in decades past. Sorichiro and the Task Force immediately head out.  

We cut between their racing towards The Yellow Box and Naomi’s torturing Light.

Naomi pulls out a gun, aiming it at the bleeding and crying Light, saying that she is going to kill him in ten seconds if doesn’t confess or kill her first. Before she can shoot him, though, Sorichiro and the Task Force arrive, telling Naomi to drop her weapon and put her hands above her head.  Naomi, apparently realizing she’s gone too far, asks Raye to forgive her and shoots herself in the head.  Sorichiro unties Light, embracing him and crying over his relief for his son’s safety. He and the other Task Force members walk him out of the warehouse so that he can receive proper medical attention. Over this tender scene, Light narrates,“ Naomi Misora.  Suicide. After abducting the person responsible for her fiancé’s death, she contacts those responsible for the Kira Investigation, and provides them with a way of watching as she tortures her captive in order to get him to confess to being the killer known as Kira.  She threatens to kill her captive, but, upon the intervention of the police, realizes how far she’s taken her search for answers, and ends her life with a gunshot to the head.”  

Our final scene starts with Light in his room, now bandaged in the areas where he was most severely injured during his interrogation.  The doorbell rings, and he goes to the door to answer it.  He opens the door to find L on his doorstep.  The detective reveals his identity to Light, and asks to speak with Light inside.  L explains to him that he wants Light to join the Task Force.  He adds that he suspects Light to be Kira.  He talks of how Naomi had called him before Light’s abduction, and how she’d said Light must be Kira if she were to die soon.  He adds how uncharacteristically irrational she was in her final actions, and how they know Kira has the ability to control the actions of his victims before their deaths.  Light counters this by saying that her fiancé’s death must have sent her over the edge, and that he would’ve just killed Naomi while she was torturing if he actually were Kira since he knew her name and face.  Light then asks why L would want him on the Task Force if he suspects that Light is Kira.  L lies that Light’s odds of being Kira are only 5%, and, that if he is wrong about Light being Kira, Light’s track record of successfully assisting the police in previous cases would make him a great asset in finding and arresting the real Kira. Light fakes consideration, and accepts L’s offer by shaking the detective’s hand.  The film closes with Ryuk laughing and saying, “Humans are so interesting!”  

[welcometohellfilm]

(please bear with me) Okay, so, I'm a 15 year old freshman in highschool, and I've wanting to create some sort of series, whether it be a comic, or something else for a few years. I haven't too serious about it, but after one my of my friends showed me your video, for some reason, i was especially inspired. Now, I already have one character... but that's all i got. How did you come up with the things in your film? And did you ever experience "writer's block"? and if so, how did you deal with it?

No worries dude!  So okay, I’m gonna’ be honest, when I read this, I was hit with such a weird mix of, like, “god this is literally impossible to answer”, and “man I remember feeling that way when I was 15″.  So I guess the best thing I could do is elaborate.

I 100% absolutely know the feeling of “I want to create some sort of series.” Cause that’s the thing right? You don’t always know what you want it to be about, or what format you want (comic, animation, etc), you just know that you want to be known as an artist who is creating an on-going series.  But maybe you have some vague ideas about scenes that you want to happen.  Maybe you have an idea of the kind of relationships you want to portray.  Maybe you have some lines of dialogue or a couple jokes.  In this case, you even have a character!  Which is great!  Now you’re really eager to get started!

I had a bunch of vague ideas like that.  I had characters I wanted to use for a story, but didn’t know what their story was.  Sometimes I’d try and start a comic; I’d start to try and tell their story… but I would get a few pages in and give up, because I realized that I didn’t actually know where it was going, and so the characters would get kind of goofy and I’d try and pass it off as a lazy meta joke.  There’d be some Ambiguous Shadowy Figures™ running the Evil Science Laboratory™ that my Main Character Bishounen Boy With Wings For Some Reason™ had escaped from.  I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, I was just really excited to draw a pretty anime boy with angel wings.  

I jumped right in to making comics like this maybe… 4 or 5 times?  And every time went roughly the same.  Looking back now, I couldn’t tell you the characters’ names, or what half of them looked like.  I wasn’t even being facetious about the winged anime boy; that was a literal, actual comic I tried to draw in 6th grade, and I had completely forgotten about it until just now as I’m typing this.  You’re probably going to have a lot of ideas like that.  You might see characters come and go who never really get a story.  That’s going to be part of your journey as a storyteller.  Maybe your series won’t fizzle out after a few pages of bullshit like mine did (in fact I can already tell you’re more cautious than I ever was, because you’re aware of your situation and asking for advice… that’s another reason I’m so compelled to answer this ask; when I was your age the internet was different; social networking platforms weren’t a thing and I didn’t have a way to contact artists I looked up to and ask for advice, so the least I can do is try and fill that role now.  This is a whole ‘nother topic, but TO GET BACK TO IT) I’m here to tell you that, IF IT DOES, don’t sweat it.  You will get better at writing, you will get better at creating characters, and, god-willing, you will surely have better ideas than Pretty Anime Boy With Wings™.

Now, to move on to the part that’s (hopefully) actually helpful.

You used two phrases that I find interesting.  I already mentioned the first one, “some sort of series”, but the other one I’m zoning in on is “How did you come up with the things in your film?”  I want you to know that I’m by no means trying to talk down to you here, because this is actually a very straightforward way of asking something you might not have all of the right vocabulary for yet, but I take it what you’re asking is “how do you tell a story?”.  If the first few paragraphs I wrote correspond with “man I remember feeling that way when I was 15”, then these next ones are gonna’ be the “god this is literally impossible to answer” part, and I’m just gonna’ go ahead and apologize for that right up front, man!  Haha.

See, because that’s SUCH a huge question… that’s the part that I still struggle with.  That’s the part I said you’ll get better and better at over time—and you will—but I think it’s something you’ll always be learning to get better at.  I went to visit my family for the holidays and I borrowed a book to read on the plane: Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee.  I only got a couple chapters in before I remembered that I get motion-sick like a motherfucker and had to stop, but even in a few chapters I learned some new things.  You will constantly be learning and growing and bettering your skills, so don’t forget that!

There are lots of ways to tell stories, because there’s lots of different kinds of stories to tell.  Some methods work better than others.  I would suggest finding some things you like and making note of how they function… really dig in to them.  Maybe when you were a kid you took a clicky pen apart to see how it worked and then put it back together.  Try doing the same with the media you consume.  Not to turn into a cynic or anything, just out of curiosity to learn what makes it tick.  Think of it as STUDYING the comics and shows and movies you like.  

Since you’re asking me, I’ll use Welcome to Hell as an example to try and give you some things to think about.  I consider W2H to be character-driven; the character’s actions are what moves the story forward, the characters aren’t being forced to act because of the story.  There’s nothing wrong with either method, of course, it just depends on what you’d like to do.  Maybe since you already have a character, you can find a way for them to drive the story.  What do they want?  How will they get it?  What’s stopping them?  Is their conflict internal or external?  I think Sock has two wants: he wants to kill stuff, and he wants to be Jonathan’s friend.  What’s stopping him is that his two wants conflict with each other (an internal conflict), and also that his boss is the devil and there may be repercussions if he slips up (an external conflict).  Characters don’t have to have an internal and external conflict, and they don’t have to have two wants—in fact that’s actually a little convoluted—but I’m just using it as an example.  

Another useful thing to think about when telling a story is the structure.  From Wikipedia: “Narrative structure is about STORY and PLOT: the content of a story and the form used to tell the story. STORY refers to the dramatic action as it might be described in chronological order. PLOT refers to how the story is told. STORY is about trying to determine the key conflicts, main characters, setting and events. PLOT is about how, and at what stages, the key conflicts are set up and resolved”  

There are also different categories of narrative structure.  W2H is basically a linear narrative, for example.  It does technically start at the end and then explain how we got there, but the majority of the story is told in chronological order.  The reason it starts at the end is because I wanted to establish Sock and Jonathan’s relationship and the tone of the story right off the bat.  I thought it might be too confusing to start the story with Sock murdering his parents and then have it turn into a buddy-comedy half way through.  So I started it on a scene where they already know each other and have an established dynamic.  I also think starting it there creates a bit of intrigue:  “why is this kid phasing through a fridge?  What the fuck is happening?  What is his job?  What the FUCK is his job???  SHHH!!—The unreliable narrator is about to explain it!”.  

There are literally TONSSSSS of aspects to think about when writing a story, and it’d be impossible for me to go through all of them, but hopefully this will be helpful for you to get started.  If I were you, in addition to studying the stories you like, I would do some research and reading online.  You can always google terms like “storytelling 101”, “narrative structure”, “writing characters”, etc.  One of my favorite resources to read through was always (and still is) TVTROPES.  It’s like a wiki for the tips and tricks of telling stories… I used to spend HOURS just getting lost in that site, clicking on different articles and finally learning that there were TERMS for the kind of things I constantly think about.  Very invaluable resource.

And now, for the last part of your question, unfortunately, “writer’s block” is something that will never go away, haha.  There are ways to get through it, for sure.  Sometimes I’ll read TVtropes a bit if I’m really hellbent on figuring something out.  Other times I’ll just take a break to draw a little bit because I think my thoughts form more coherently and naturally when I’m drawing.  You might find different things that work for you!

IN CONCLUSION:  If you want to create some sort of series and tell some kind of story, just work towards getting good at it.  If you try to start a couple comics and they don’t pan out, it’s no big deal, because even making something unsuccessful is an act of learning how to get better at it.  You said you haven’t been too serious about it until recently, and that’s fine too, because being serious about it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to go out and create a successful series right this moment, it can mean just striving for that goal and bettering your craft.  You have plenty of time to grow into an amazing artist and make all kinds of kick-ass stories, so always hang on to your drive to keep creating things!  

Oh!  And just a fun fact:  I think I first started having the vague ideas that would develop into W2H when I was, what, 17-18?  ish?  I tried making it into a comic when I was maybe 21… and I made the film when I was, I don’t know, 24?  I’m 28 right now.  So that’s something to keep in mind: good shit takes time!  You’ll probably have a lot of ideas come and go, but if something sticks with you for 10 years, there’s a good chance it’s worth bringing to fruition.  There’s definitely no rush to develop something you really care about.  

BONUS:

Here is a previous ask i’ve answered about storytelling tips!And here is another one!

You can also search my blog for “art advice”, “story”, “writing”, “character”, “animation”, etc., + “ask” to see if I might’ve answered anything else that would be helpful.  I don’t have specific tags, but I do try to tag everything.  You can also try “resources” or “important film stuff” to see things I’ve reblogged that aren’t my own advice.  

Hope you found some of this helpful!  Best of luck!

[everysuperherofighting]

Best Albums of 2016

I think we all know how we feel about 2016, though I will say that on a personal level it was actually pretty good, and involved a lot of positive personal development, though also a fair amount of death, and I’m not talking about all the celebrities right now. My aunt, grandfather, and former band instructor all passed away this year.

As far as music, my tastes feel like they fall on the same continuum they always do, though there seem to be a few more old guy rockers than usual, which I guess means I am no longer aiming for “Noisey” but rather “Rolling Stone.” This is probably also personal: I am not an old guy yet, but I am getting closer and I am also becoming aware that I will probably not accomplish all of my artistic goals within the next 5 to 10 years, and so am becoming increasingly open to artists staying relevant into their middle age and beyond.

RIP all the folks, RIP all the artists and celebrities, RIP all the people in Syria and Yemen and the Philippines, and all the people killed in terrorist attacks in Europe and Africa and the Middle East, and killed in shootings (police, mass, and otherwise) in the United States,  and RIP the short term possibility of having a federal government that is at least potentially responsive to the needs of marginalized people. Here are the best albums of 2016, according to me:

Image via the Hold Up music video

1. Beyonce - Lemonade.

This album was cathartic when it was released at the beginning of the year, but now that we’re at the end we probably need it even more.

Though largely about infidelities within an interpersonal relationship (dammit Jay), with a heavy smattering of race commentary (particularly in the videos) and empowerment feminism, the frustrations and self-empowerment in the face of all adversaries expressed in these songs transcend the specifics. Especially in a year determined to put us in our place, to make us feel worthless or powerless.. Whether a cheating lover, an orange race-baiting huckster masquerading as politician (and ascending to the highest office in the land), the goddamn fucking forces of white supremacy/the patriarchy/global capitalism or our own private struggles with self-doubts and mental illness, this album had something to offer, if nothing else than a reminder to hold our heads up and say “fuck ya’ll.”

I didn’t like every song on this album but look: When I saw a room full of women, middle fingers raised, jamming out to “I’m Not Sorry” like a giant “fuck you” to whatever it was that was fucking their day up, telling them they weren’t valuable or whatever, I realized that it didn’t necessarily need to be for me.

Rubbery dancehall, Nahleans jazz,  futuristic (though I guess present now) R+B, diva voice: Beyonce does that thing where she overdubs like 20 different vocal tracks over one another, but her voice is already so powerful it sounds like a chorus of Amazonians or gods. And of course there’s the image of Beyonce walking around smashing car windows with a baseball bat in the “Hold Up” video, which now seems to be remarkably prescient.

The biggest pop star in the world right now has our back. We could do worse.

Watch “Hold Up”

2. Anderson .Paak - Malibu

Deceptively breezy soul and funk that inherently understands the political power of a block party. Like so many artists before, Anderson .Paak understands that sometimes just getting by is a revolutionary act, and thus this album often seems like a celebration of the awe one feels at their own continued existence. Some pretty good jams for fucking also.

Watch “Come Down”

3. Schoolboy Q - Blank Face

A gangsta rap album that absolutely nails the paranoia and sense of menace that must accompany the lifestyle. The vibe alternates between blazed out soul samples and claustrophobic, almost manic moments of paranoia. Sometimes you’re smoking the Kush and then sometimes there’s a black SUV in your rearview. Schoolboy Q rides over all this with straight-faced hood talk and almost gleeful depictions of acts of depravity, like so many others grasping power in whatever avenue is available to him. Kanye West has a show stealing feature and Vince Staples continues to shine, but I’m all about those Jadakiss and E40 bars.

Watch “John Muir”

4. Danny Brown - Atrocity Exhibition

Beats that sound like they were compiled from the intro to old VHS tapes and people banging on trashcans.  Little oft-kilter touches mirror the descriptions of substance abuse, the pitch-heightened background voice in “White Lines,” B-Real’s blitzed nursery rhyme delivery of the hook on “Get Hi.” Not that much music can probably still scare your cool boomer parents, but I’d nominate this one.

Watch “When It Rain”

Image via the Nobody’s Baby video

5. Sheer Mag - III

Sheer Mag sounds like the best basement band in the world, grimy rock n roll made by people who got punk but also grew up on Thin Lizzy and Jackson Five. Guitar solos that sound liberating instead of masturbatory and powerhouse vocals from Tina Halladay about love and heartbreak, like someone’s memory of what 70s rock n roll was like, inevitably better than it actually was.

Watch “Nobody’s Baby”

6. The Falcon - Gather Up The Chaps

Technically this is a punk rock supergroup, with members of the Loved Ones and Alkaline Trio, but it feels very much like Brendan Kelly’s vision, a chance to get a little grittier than the Lawrence Arms and indulge in his ever present artistic interest in the guy puking in the alley, then asking you if you know where to score some coke. There’s a song named after the video of David Hasselhoff drunkenly eating a cheeseburger, and though in a different band this may be a gimmicky (and like, really really out of date) reference to internet culture, here it comes across as a recognition - a dark moment is a dark moment no matter how meme worthy it becomes.

Watch “Sergio’s Here”

7. Jeff Rosenstock - Worry

Massive sing alongs, noisy genre hopping (or combining), and huge power-pop hooks that always seem to be just on the verge of descending into chaos. Jeff Rosenstock has often managed to make whatever he’s going through personally seem to speak to larger scale generational woes (I’m pretty sure there were at least two albums about not wanting to get a job, which came out at the same time that I and most of the people I know also didn’t want to get jobs). A reoccurring theme here seems to be the gentrification of places that you love, which is connected to the experience of getting older and feeling like you’re missing out. Jeff has definitely crafted his own “sound” at this point, so when he switches styles to the straight genre homage in the three-song punch of “Bang On the Door,” “Rainbow” and “Planet Luxury” (garage punk, third-wave ska and hardcore) in 3 blistering minutes, it’s a perfect reminder of all the music we (well, me) grew up loving.

Watch “Wave Goodnight To Me”

8. Kamaiyah - A Good Night In the Ghetto

Remember when people used to call beats “slappers?” Probably only if you were into Bay Area hip-hop circa 2007. Anyway, this shit slaps.

Watch “Out the Bottle”

9. YG - Still Brazy

Similar to how A Good Night in The Ghetto feels like an amalgamation of several decades of Bay Area hip hop, this is puuuuuure fucking LA fat bass, eerie keyboard sampling G-funk. Gangsta rap has always been political. Have I written that before? It’s worth saying more than once. Those last three songs though. FDT will obviously have a lot of shelf life, but “Blacks and Browns” and “Police Get Away Wit Murder” are sharp contributions to the tradition of “fuck this shit” also.

Watch “FDT”

10. Run the Jewels - RTJ3

A rush of weird beats, shit talk, and surreal imagery, hip-hop dispatches from a dystopian future, but one that feels weeks rather than years away. El-P and Killer Mike are honestly not that similar stylistically, (El-P is more from the highly conceptual east coast underground school, Killer Mike is more the southern testifying and telling straight truths school) but their mutual love of the game has always made this work and they are both world class shit talkers.

Watch “Talk To Me”

Image via the Chili Town video

11. Hinds - Leave Me Alone

Garage… pop I guess? that feels close to the vein, emotionally. I don’t mean heartbreak, though that’s here too, but also friendship, drinking wine in the sun, with surfy guitar melodies. There’s something that sometimes happens with some lady bands, where people kind of get into some sort of perceived naiveté or innocence or something, so I’m going to assume these women can fuck you up.

Watch “Warts”

12. Pup - The Dream Is Over

The frustration of reaching your mid-20s, realizing that you have not accomplished any of your goals and that you don’t have any prospects. In song form. It would sound like a kiss-off if the singer wasn’t desperately grasping for change.

Watch “DVP”

13. A Tribe Called Quest - We got it from Here… Thank You 4 Your service

Classic Tribe components still here - the swing in the rhythm, the walking bass lines, motherfucking Busta Rhymes(!), but with a foot firmly planted in the present. Did they used to swear this much? I don’t remember. Extended music breaks. Guitar flourishes. Q-Tip is clearly the ringleader, wearing the role more comfortably than ever, but with a kind of quiet humility that comes from age. Yeah, we still here, shit still sucks, but sometimes you find those little moments, you know?

Watch “We The People”

14. Leonard Cohen - You Want It Darker

Is there hope for salvation before death? Or just further disappointment and failure? An album to drink wine to in a dark room, alone but for ghosts.

Watch “You Want It Darker”

15. Drive-By Truckers - American Band

Pretty sure the Truckers have always been angry and political, it’s just never lined up with current events quite this overtly - but there’s always been a real siding with the have-nots, the people screwed over by bad economics, and the (not just white) working classes, though sometimes this manifests as concept albums about Lynard Skynard. Still, with a band that clearly flirts with a Red State target audience, at least sonically, and judging from the youtube comments on some of their videos, hanging their hat so clearly on the “blue side” is a risky move and one that should be commended. Here we get stories about the founder of the NRA murdering a Mexican teenager in the 20s, the shooting at Umpqua community college, hypocritical religious folks, and Black Lives fucking Mattering.

Watch “Surrender Under Protest”

16. David Bowie - Blackstar

To be honest, I thought this sounded a little bit too much like Pink Floyd the first time I heard it (plus a sax player) but the sultriness of cuts like “Lazerus,” the keyboard line in “’Tis a Pity She Was a Whore” that sounds like it came out of an 80s fantasy movie, and the weird vocal flourishes and marching rhythm of “Girl Loves Me” won me over. Bowie has left this mortal coil, and either ascended to a tinsel covered 70s movie set or an 80s computer game about going to the moon, but it’s definitely some kind of heaven.

Watch “Lazerus”

17. Death Grips - Bottomless Pit

A soundtrack for glitchy meme art, ordering 2CI off the Silk Road, and those computer generated DeepDream images, while MC Ride bellows avant-garde street poetry. I’ve never been sure if Death Grips are railing against or with the shitposting internet culture that’s embraced them. Some of these tracks are just fucking metal though.

Watch “Eh”

18. clipping - Splendor and Misery

Breakneck raps over the sound of an airshaft opening on a spaceship. This is supposedly a concept album about a slave revolt in outer space. Musically this equates to old spirituals and malfunctioning computers.

Watch “Air Em Out”

19. The Coathangers - Nosebleed Weekend

In the music video for “Nosebleed Weekend” the women in the band crash a party of hipsters to punch everyone in the face, but then the video ends with them probably trying to keep a straight face while they get covered with buckets of fake blood. Tough sounding surf punk, much about heartbreak.

Watch “Nosebleed Weekend”

Image via the Victim of Me video

20. Descendents - Hypercaffium Spazzinate

There’s a lot of older musicians on this list for whatever reason (all the dead guys I guess,) but a few lyrics about dietary changes aside, this band could have stepped wholesale out of their 1994 variation. Fast, hooky, with the most underrated bass lines in punk.

Watch “Victim of Me”

21. Paul Simon - Stranger to Stranger

Alright, this one’s a little NPR but I will say that I think Paul Simon sounds a little more of-kilter, a little moodier than he sometimes does. There are dark things around the edges in this one, whether it’s the ghostly guitars on the title track, or the way his funny song about getting stuck outside a club you’re supposed to play suddenly starts alluding to class uprising, a buildup that feels both surprising and also strangely inevitable.

Watch “Wristband”

22. Mikey Erg - Tentative Decisions

A lot of emotionally earnest music (dare we bring up emo?) gets slammed, essentially for being melodramatic. It’s a difficult balancing act, but I’ve always felt like the Ergs managed to avoid this, and here Mikey Erg continues that streak on his first solo album, with tastefully poppy tunes full of yearning melodies and (more) broken hearts, ala Big Star or an early Beatles album. When I saw this guy live a few years ago, it made my friend get back together with his ex-girlfriend.

Watch “Faulty Metaphor”

23. NOFX - First Ditch Effort

There is no way I’m not putting an album that has a song where Fat Mike sings about being a fetishistic crossdresser in my top 25.

Watch “Six Years On Dope”

24. Ramshackle Glory - One Last Big Job

It’s amazing how many people’s favorite band this is with virtually no mainstream recognition. Like, even Bomb the Music Industry put out stuff with Asian Man, who’ve put out Alkaline Trio records and stuff. And yet this (and Patrick Schneeweis’s other projects) is like Bob Dylan to thousands of kids across the country. I knew something was up when all the kids at the Rainbow Gathering I went to (2011) were playing Johnny Hobo covers. Anyway, this is their last album, and as such is a somewhat slow, contemplative affair. Pat’s always been excellent at espousing anarchist ideals while also representing that problems and hypocrisies that accompany radical lifestyles. Swan song for a true alternative.

Listen to “Face the Void”

25. AJJ - The Bible 2

Very much continuing ideas first developed on Christmas Island, a collection of noisy rock/pop tunes with upbeat melodies and lyrics about losing your shit, dirty middle schoolers who hang out by themselves in construction sites, and the Herculean task of feeling kind of ok with yourself.

Watch “Goodbye, Oh Goodbye”

[dinoalexander]

The Semi Quotable 2017 Part 5

“applebee’s is literally begging to give away their food.” – Christine Teigen

“In the car w/husband, I offered $20 and a blowjob immediately if he could guess the official title. He did not win.” – @SteelyDanRather on the title announcement for Solo: A Star Wars Story

“280 tweets look like serial killer manifestos” – Scott Aukerman

“Dick Versace had two goals in 1989: guide the Pacers to the playoffs and beat Ricky Steamboat as many times as possible.” – Super 70’s Sports

“It’s D-Day and (Robert) Mueller secured the beaches before noon. Run Nazis.” – Mark Frost on the indictment of Michael Flynn

“The Rebellion is reborn today. The war is just beginning. And I will not be the last Jedi.” – Luke Skywalker

"The answer is either ass, boobs, or dick." -Jordan

"For the sake of salvaging whats left of the positions dignity for President of the United States...can someone in his staff please for the love of God delete Trumps twitter account? Its now gone from one of the most prestigious positions to "worlds most cringe worthy Twitter handle" in less than 6 months." -Steve

"Plague!!!!!!" -Block

"Donald Trump deals in bullshit the way a bovine fertilizer salesman deals in...well, bullshit." -C

"Sometimes you're the Galactic Empire, sometimes you're the Rebel Alliance." -Heather

"Leave it to us to make 'The Little Mermaid' SUPER awkward." -Q

"Ted Cruz...trippin'?" -Molly B

""Live your life in such a way that Donald Trump tweets mean things about you" -David K

"I remember reading so many posts immediately after the election from people who were absolutely terrified of what was going to happen once Trump was sworn in and Republicans controlled both houses of Congress. As evidenced by the fiasco that's unfolding with the health care bill, it should be clear that you folks had nothing to worry about. Even if they had some sort of nefarious purpose they were trying to carry out in their agenda, it seems as though these guys couldn't find their ass with both hands and a GPS." -Tim

“Well then get your shit together, get it all together and put it in a back pack, all your shit, so it's together. And if you gotta take it some where, take it somewhere, you know, take it to the shit store and sell it, or put it in the shit museum. I don't care what you do, you just gotta get it together. Get. Your shit. Together.” -Morty Smith (Justin Roiland)

"Alright, I'm now willing to admit there is a downside to everyone wearing yoga pants in public: I can't tell which of the adults milling about at the gym are here for adult gymnastics and which are just waiting to pick up their kids." -Pam

“Byron Allen’s got me all confused.” -me whenever “Happy” plays on the radio.

"A teacher in the school is selling Girl Scout cookies. The teacher got my order. In related news, someone's daughter is going to Camp Sugarbush this summer. Also in related news, after I eat these cookies, my nickname will be Sugarbush." -Klauss

“Like THAT’s safe!” -Michael, on Quisla’s... erm, safe.

"I used to eat a lot of natural foods until I learned that people die of natural causes." -Rammson

"Donald Trump doesn't understand climate change because he lives in perpetual shade." -Laura

"A close friend referred to this before and after as Exponential Degredation. He said it and he's not taking it back." -The Perfesser

"This would be the equivalent of opening up a Cracker Jack box looking for the prize and seeing it in the bottom ox a box filled with sludge. There's some cool things but do you really want to go through the sludge?" -Gordon, on "Hip Hop Squares"

"You're not minimalist. You're broke." -some guy

"Okay, so we have watermelons.... why aren't there earthmelons or airmelons or firemelons? What happened to the rest of the elemelons?" -Emily Ann

“Thanks for making me confused about my sexuality, Adam Driver. You talented douche.” -Laura

"Unicorn Frappuccinos are what happens when you try and make too much of a good thing for profit. Its the answer to a question nobody asked. It's a Bar Rescue gone horribly wrong." -C

"(As Craig Ferguson) Now he used to be a wrestler and now he's going into politics. Now the two are highly different of course. One involves people with larger than life personalities who make grandiose claims and attack their opponents constantly and the other involves spandex tights." -Brian

"Dang it, PWC! Where were you in November? We could have had Emma Stone as President!" -Clint

“Feelings are real, but they are not reality.” -Dan Harmon

"It's like you've inherited a baby alligator. He was cute for awhile and now he's a big alligator who's threatening to destroy everything but still hangs around you and calls you daddy." -Gordon

"If one of those interchangeable Kardashian chicks dressed as a stewardess interrupted Sean Spicer's press conference by handing him a Pepsi, we as a nation could begin the healing process." -Kevin

"Opened Emma's recital costume and IT WAS COVERED IN GLITTER AND NOW I AM COVERED IN GLITTER AND EVERYTHING I OWN IS COVERED IN GLITTER OMG WHYYYYYYYYYYYY" -Molly B

"It's not terrible, but you can see terrible from where we're standing." -Q

"WHERE ARE MY PANTS!!!" -Michael

"Ladies and gentlemen, my sister, the one-woman Greek chorus." -C

"I have designated February 14 as 'Catch Pokémon, Not Feelings Day'." -J-Ho Boy-Type

"Because that's what ABC thought. This party needs more Lucy Hale." -C

"If I were Samsung I would make my keynote address one sentence. "Samsung galaxy S8… This one won't light itself on fire"." -Brian

"We are not going to let another demon monster take hold and grown and run wild. We are going to nip this problem in the bud. WE ARE GOING TO KILL HITLER AS A BABY!" -Q

"To quote the great Panamanian philosopher Roberto Durán, 'No más'." -C

"I broke my banana." -Q, re: an actual banana.

"Los Angeles has two football teams, two baseball teams, two basketball teams, and two hockey teams, but no curling teams?" -Kevin

"I have to wait for the Luther breakdown to finish!" -C

“Ugh. I really wish I had something cool to say.” -Johnny Yong Bosch

"Less Donald Trump! More techno music!" -bus random to a Bop It!

"Someone told me that being verified on Twitter “really doesn’t do anything” but that person is 1) wrong and 2) head of a social media dept." -Cory

"How did you know Carolina was going to beat Duke?" -Q

"Quisla... its U.N. motherfucking C. They handle shit. Consider this shit handled." -C

"my most-recent counseling appointment had me reaching the following conclusion: i fully acknowledge that i am a jackass, and my attempts at keeping myself from being a jackass has stifled what people like in me as a consequence of not wanting others to think badly of me. so what am i to do? just be a jackass and shoulder the consequences no matter when and where it happens? not entirely -- if i am to have my moments of jackassery, i will make better efforts to steer those spells towards being a jackass for the right reasons. sometimes it takes a jackass christian speaking up when someone claims to be a christian but whose words and actions are far from the basic command of 'love one another.' sometimes fighting for the weak and powerless means being a jackass towards the mighty and powerful. sometimes only an absolute jackass would punch a nazi in the face. i'm josh eldridge. i am a jackass. i hope this admission doesn't effect our friendship." -Josh

“Kylo Ren is like a sullen, resentful jungle gym.” -Laura

"I'm going to make a screwdriver because it's cold as shit outside." -Shelly

“I’m Regis Philbin! Welcome to night 24 of Who Wants To Get Impregnated?” -Jordan

"I just can't girl right." -Shannon

"Our long national pasttime is over." -Jessica, on overlong baseball games

"You may have a problem if the Target cashier recognizes you, knows you by name, and asks if everything was good because you didn't come in on your 'normal' day. Yay! I'm a regular!" -Aryn

"I read my bed all the time! It's a Serta!" -Kitty Carrion

"Does Baby Jojo need a binky?" -C

"I sense a great migraine in the Force...as if millions of white people were trying to get woke at the same time." -Laura

"Well the inauguration is over, finally after two years we can all get back to normal and... *boots up facebook* ...and I'm going to stay off Facebook until January of 2021, cheers 🙂" -Brian

"What fruit is the state of Georgia famous for? ... Todd Chrisley." -C, at quiz night

"So, apparently as an instructor, referring to the start of a new semester as "hazing" is frowned upon." -Heather

“2017 in a nutshell: You see “Mario Batalli :(“ as a Facebook status and you say to yourself, “Dead or pervert?”” -Adam

"Fun fact: staying sane is hard." -Jordan

"If I performed my job with the same razor-sharp precision with which meteorologists perform theirs:

Boss: Is this the data you promised me three weeks ago? Because it looks like completely wrong information.

Me: Yeah, but, as you can see, I've color-coded it in lovely hues of blue, purple and pink where I thought it would make it look nice.

Boss: Yep. Looks great! Keep up the good work.

I am clearly in the wrong profession." -Molly B

"😂😂😂 if I was meant to behave, I wouldn't have been born so good at misbehaving 😛" -Emily Ann

"Seen on a group page tonight:

Everything Kirk Cameron touches turns to patriarchy." -Shrub

"In other news, 30 oz of ribeye can be converted to 0 if you just believe in yourself." -Justin S

"Bacteria gets me so hard." -Jordan

"Oh REALLY..." -Q, reaching for Jordan's pants

"Who here loves animals but hates that Sarah Maclachlan commercial?" -Sweet Tea Shakespeare guy

“Hey... I run them miles. I’m slow as fuck, but I run them miles.” -C

"Trying to stay positive in a world full of assholes is like trying to shovel hot jello from a wheel barrow using a pitch fork with only one prong!" -Sheila

"If there's one thing I learned in college, it's: never underestimate the power of an icy, cold shower beer. Thanks guys!" -Dahlia

"No, no, no. I can't have penises all over my car tonight. Tomorrow night, maybe, but no penises tonight." -Nicole W

"Maybe for Lent Trump should just give up." -George Takei

"She wanted someone to take the pickle, so I did." -C

"Too... many... JOKES!" -Brian

"Saw the Barca result. Ah, so that is why folks riot." -Steve P

“I can’t have weird Chico. I live with him.” -Q

"Yay sports! Spoooooooorts!" -Milana Vayntrub

"You're at a bar. Playing bar trivia. Against an IQA ranked quizzer and his sister who would also be IQA ranked if she made the trip to Raleigh with me that morning. We are naturally expressive people within our family. That comes from being the children of Carlos and Olivia Alexander. We laugh together, we love together, we cook, fight, and emote together. And when we win, we emote like hell. If you don't like it when we win, next time bring smarter friends. Until then, get the fuck over it." -the son of Carlos & Olivia Alexander.

"This is my face when I find out some epically old karma has been served." -Shannon

Okay, one more oughta do it.