#but yeah absolutely NIMH

[someoneimsure]

I saw that you like red wall(I've only watched the animated series), and I was wondering if you've also seen the secret of nimh?

Hell yeah I have! It's one of my favorite Don Bluth films, right next to the original Land Before Time.

Did you know the book and movie are two vastly different experiences?

The Book:

The Movie:

It helps that the book has no magical elements at all and is just showing the lives of rats with human intelligence--and of course Mrs Frisby and her sick son, Timothy.

Did you know that the original book was actually written and published in response to real life treatment of rats? Specifically, an experiment by John Calhoun from a real life research facility called National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)? The experiment is on overpopulation and how it affects the health and mentality of animals, with rats and mice natural being a general stand-in for humans. The results are actually horrific.

TL;DR: When space and available mates become scarce, animals stop reproducing and become depressed because they can't travel to find new mates and fulfill their purpose in life. No brainer, right?

Though... The research might be more applicable to studying potential problems from colonizing other planets that require us to create spaces for our species to survive. Humans tend to be one of the most adaptable species on the planet, even more adaptable than rodents since they have to evolve to fit the environments and humans just make machines that supplant evolution entirely, so the research might not be as helpful as we might like. Just another reason to can it entirely.

I have a question for you! <3 Have you ever heard of this book series?

If you really like the Secret of Nimh movie, I highly recommend checking this out. And if you really like Redwall and want something more grown-up and sci-fi, check out the book: Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh.

I can happily report that the Redwall series and the books are extremely similar, though Brian tends to add paragraphs of food descriptions. Where are they getting the milk, Brian?? Who are they milking!? Why are they baking things that need eggs, Brian?? Birds are people, too!

In the Redwall book, there's a lot of continuity weirdness. Scourge shows up in a giant horse-drawn carriage containing thousands of rats when later books have no horses and also the carriages are more badger-sized. It's an awesome image, though, so I can't complain. It's a real shame they didn't make a dark movie about it.

I caution you about some of the things Brian writes. He rarely has good "verminbeast" characters (and those usually are simpletons) and even characters that should be considered good are treated by the narrative as evil (Outcast of Redwall is a whiplash of emotions, let me tell you, and Triss and Taggerung are both basically Mary/Gary-stus respectively.) And some tropes are extremely repetitive. A lot of the villains are cartoonishly evil to an almost hilarious degree--even as a kid I was laughing at Gabool the Wild and his absolutely insane obsession with a bell.

I would recommend Martin the Warrior and the sequel Mossflower, Mariel of Redwall and the sequel Bellmaker, Marlfox (for the chaotic fox family), Pearls of Lutra (for the nuance in the cats), The Long Patrol (for the bunnies and actual nuance), and of course Redwall and the sequel Mattimeo for the best Basil Stag Hare moments. Outcast of Redwall is my personal fav, but my boy Veil was done dirty at the end there.

And if you like to read a story and universe similar to Redwall but is more linear and focused on one small cast, there's the Mistmantle Chronicles.

I am missing one book in the series so I can't say if it's all good. I find the lack of descriptors boring. These books are hard to find so I would just start looking for pdfs. Who knows? You might like the series better than I did.

[sketching-shark]

Sorry about being vague. Don Bluth has made a career on making animated movies were he put the characters thru absolute misery(you probably seen The Secret of Nimh or Land before Time) but theirs always a happy ending. I felt that LMK will probably have a Don Bluth style happy ending were the Tang Monk and Sun Wukong meet each other again and go off to the Western paradise leaving MK to protect the mortal world with the new pilgrims or something along thoughts lines

Ohhhhhhhh okay now I get what you mean. And yeah that sounds plausible. I mean as it is it's kind of wild what a miserable much-hated absolute failure lego show Sun Wukong is so I could see everyone getting something along the lines of a happy ending if SWK sacrifices himself for everyone and that's what makes him the Buddha Victorious in Strife but it means he has to truly leave the mortal plane, while Qi Xiaotian gets to be the hero on Earth with all of his friends (+ all the antagonists who don't have any reason to hate him any more because he's no longer associated with the Monkey King lmao).

[pastelpaperplanes]

Big Ol Ask Post Pt. 3 I think

I haven’t drawn anything other than cursed or plain technical stuff w him 😔😔 have these for now but expect more soon!

anon a way back asked what he’d look like next to Overlord being already so big compared to Megs, that’s why you see Lordie if you’re wondering why he’s thrown in that line up!

by the way I have a voice claim for the big purple simp— Jenner from NIMH, he’s so awful but that suave baritone oh it fits too well >:] it’s the ‘humble servant’ line that got to me

Yep! Pharma is absolutely in this AU—as well as the CFau and Crack one too—and in all, he’s still an estranged medic long since booted from any legal work back on Cybertron.

He lost his credibility and more all those years ago when he found himself willing to do his fair share of cutting corners and hastily concealed malpractice to expedite his dream of getting his name down in the medical books—ultimately impressing his dear Mentor Ratchet, finally, in perfecting long-since banned risky experiments and surgeries—not to mention cruel and unusual temperament with the (supposedly) taboo practice of non-medicinal mnemosurgery.

His ambitions and aggression always got the bet of him, this hasn’t changed since he found himself working in freelance outposts. Light years away from Cybertron, he’s made a name for himself as a Good Doctor—but to his under-the-table black market part-dealing clients, he’s just about as bad as a Crooked Medic can get.

Bounty hunters and Arms Dealers like him for his business, a certain DJD member likes him for the occasional berth company and seemingly never ending supply of fresh T-Cogs—but no one actually likes him for his nasty temperamental personality, save for a young and naive Ratchet once upon a time.

Pharma is a roamer, as of recent he’s been a hard to reach mech—seems as if he’s found a little project to keep himself pretty occupied in the last few decades—something about a breakthrough for aiding the Decepticon Energon Crisis :] him and a small, horrifyingly cheerful surgeon are well on their way to completing their first trial batches, it’s safe to say that their little synthetic mixture will have it’s users sated and compliant.

they’ve got that amazing ‘new car smell’ those first few weeks, and instead of chittering like an Insecticons or vibrating their wings like a seeker—they beep and squeak, sometimes even honk a horn depending on the baseline altmode coding, to get their Creators’ attention before their vocalizer truly starts to kick online

It’s cute, but loud

Much like a seeker sparkling, they have to reach a certain ‘age’ (upgrade) to be able to transform completely, in between then they’re still able to rev those engines as a warning should they need it, as well as spin their wheels should they need a getaway HEELIES IF THEYRE LUCKY WOOHOOOOO—for seekers they can hover on their thrusters!

Crusade is actually pretty formal with Megatron. But yeah as a kid, Megs was always known as Carrier, but as Sadie got older and more aware of their surroundings—they definitely came to learn the true weight of that title and the fact that they were the progeny of the faction leader, a fact they should have really held onto with more pride. Not wanting to draw more attention to the already blatant favoritism (and nepotism) Crusade made a switch to addressing Megatron as Sir, My Lord, Lord Megatron, —ect. to better fit in with their fellow troops.

It bothers Megatron more than than he lets on. Crusade shouldn’t have to hide their high ranking as his child, the heir to the faction. Megs is their Carrier and can only order them around for so long, as their Leader however—pulling rank may just allow for their infuriatingly stubborn sparkling to listen to them should a day come where even a Carrier’s plea is dismissed.

Crusade does slip up every now and then and a ‘Carrier’ will slip—often hushed and annoyed though as Megs does like to tease every now and then, gotta remind them that they’re still his baby every once in a while :’)

Optimus however—whenever him and Crusade should truly reunite, will never be called Sire by Crusade, which they so heatedly established early on—Crusade never needed one and they don’t need one now, better to not let the title trigger those long-suppressed emotions. Sure enough though Optimus will get his moment.

actually no lmfao so you’re good! Eh, I haven’t mentioned much plot w them outside of them and Megs, plus bits of potential interactions with Optimus—so the rest of Team Prime is free game :D

For what I (hopefully will have) planned, their interactions with team Prime will be eh,,,interesting to each their own to say the least. Some more stressful than others BUT let’s not get into that until I’ve worked it out—for now I’ll just mention what they’re dynamics would be like when the drama of Oh Shit Boss Bot You’ve Been Hiding a Kid For HOW LONG has died down.

A usually touch-wary Crusade actually is the one to initiate a hug with Bulkhead, he’s the biggest and warmest and somehow is always happy to see them. Plus he tells cool recaps of Earth films and gifts them strange blobish paintings every now and then, all of which Crusade doesn’t exactly understand, but at least the colors are pretty.

Bee is annoying,,,which is what Crusade would say if confronted if they actually liked all the shenanigans Bee suggest they pull together, prank wars to the max, sparring for fun, video games?, DOUGHNUTS and RACES in the fortress halls??? Ahem. they are a super serious soldier, not a hooligan. But honestly, Bee is the one they seek out the most should they need an adventure, they missed out on a lot of this ‘fun’ growing up on the Nemesis—Bee seems to know how to balance a day of soldiering and dumbassery. sometimes.

Ratchet reminds them a bit too much of their Carrier than they’d care to admit. The medic is an old soul to his very core, perpetually tired but quick to snap into work mode, and sweet if you reallllllly squint. Sadie has been taught from day one to always respect medics, Ratchet obviously takes the cake on I’ve Seen Some Shit and for that alone Crusade both fears and admires Ratchet. Again, growing up on the Nemesis they didn’t have too many bots willing to talk much with them—but Ratchet (after he’s gone through his own lot of therapy, him AND Arcee. good lord) has a never ending pile of stories to share with them. Ratchet may throw in a few more colorful curses than necessary—which is SURPRISING bc Crusade thought they’d heard them all back home, but he’s entertaining and tells Crusade how it is, no sugarcoating. For that Crusade is grateful, there’s been too many half-truths thrown about to them in their recent years :’)

Ghost Prowl freaks them out—why does he deliberately have to be so sneaky?? Crusade has only met Prowl a fleeting handful of times (visits from the Allspark come with meaning, you know) and each time Crusade has been given nothing but odd riddles and poetic nonsense. Kidding. Prowl does like his wordplay’s but his given advice is always well meaning—the most firm and direct message Crusade has been passed though was probably most definitely “ Get those two cowards for mecha you call your Creator’s to stop fooling around with each other and SPEAK—at this rate it’s physically paining me that they haven’t begun Ritus and they’re not getting any younger”

Team Prime adores Sadie, they ask Megatron to see their sparkling photos every chance they catch him. And Crusade. hates it.

:) have

We’ve been here before, haven’t we?

[wendibird]

10 Favorite Female Characters

Tagged by @writinginthesecrettrees  to list 10 favorite female characters from 10 different fandoms. (Thanks for the tag!) So, here we go, in no particular order.

1. Sailor Mercury/Mizuno Ami from “Sailor Moon” She’s my favorite of the Senshi (though Sailors Jupiter and Saturn come in pretty close after) and I always admired her intellect and compassion as well as how perceptive she was, especially regarding her friends. 

2. Elisa Maza from “Gargoyles” She was competent, a loyal friend, but also spoke her mind. Which can be hard to do sometimes to your friends, especially if it’s something they don’t want to hear. But she was always looking out for their best interests, and she would own up to her mistakes when she made them. (I also shipped her hard with Goliath, but I honestly loved how slow and organically their relationship developed.) 

3. Jane Foster from MCU (Thor movies specifically) Okay, I’m an absolute sucker for the Thor movies, and I loved Natalie Portman as Jane. (And I’m still bitter about how offhandedly she was written-off, but that’s neither here nor there.) She’s very, VERY smart, she’s willing to fight for what she believes in, but she’s also willing to still learn. 

4. Jadzia Dax from “Star Trek” (DS9 specifically)  Okay, so I might have a bit of a theme. *LOL* She’s smart. But she also knows how to let lose and enjoy herself. Her symbiote gives her a unique perspective on life but she doesn’t come across as “all-knowing” despite her many, many “past lives”. She’s also very caring and I was sad to see her go from the series. 

5. Samantha Carter from “Stargate: SG1″ Okay, yeah, definitely a theme here. *LOL* Again, she’s smart, but she’s also compassionate and has a strong moral center. And she’s a freaking badass. 

6. Hetty (Henrietta Lang) from “NCIS: LA” I can’t help it, Hetty is awesome, and I’ve loved Linda Hunt ever since seeing her in the old “Dune” movie. (And several other movies.) And she’s SO good at playing tough-as-nails ladies you really don’t want to cross. And Hetty is no exception. And despite having the front of everything being about business, it’s clear she cares deeply about her team, even though she often has to send them out into danger. 

 7. Seras Victoria from “Hellsing: Ultimate”  She started out as the character “new to all the weirdness” and gradually became a badass in her own right. But most of all I love her heart, which she never completely lost despite being turned into a vampire and fighting in a very VERY bloody conflict. (And I thought her and Captain Bernadotte were the absolute CUTEST together, and what ended up happening with them was both tragic but also kind of beautiful.) 

8. Ariel from “The Little Mermaid” (Disney fandom) This is still my favorite Disney movie of all time (though “Tangled” comes in a close second with “Mulan” not far behind) and I still love Ariel! I love her curiosity, her determination, her heart, and just her overall personality. 

9. Mrs. Brisby from “The Secret of NIMH” (Don Bluth fandom I guess *LOL*) Okay, I’ve been watching THIS movie since I was about 3 years old, and I still love it. And Mrs. Brisby always struck me as such an interesting heroine, because she doesn’t go out trying to save the world or even trying to fight. She just wants to protect her family. And most of the time she isn’t too sure if she can do it. But in the end she finds the strength within her to do the impossible and save them and her new friends. 

10. Jody Mills from “Supernatural” (Though I have to admit, it was hard to pick between her and Rowena.) Jody is such an interesting character. She gets introduced to the world of the supernatural in possibly one of the worst ways possible. And she easily could have let it make her bitter, but despite some of her rough edges, she’s still a very deeply caring person. She gives love where she sees it’s needed, whether to two brothers in need of a friend or an old drunk/hunter in occasional need of being bailed-out (sometimes literally) or a pack of wayward girls. She’s like the epitome of the “Mom-friend” and I especially love the bond that seemed to develop between her and Sam (though she clearly cared for Dean too.) 

(Honorable Mention! No fancy gif because it’s from a book series, but Karigan G'ladheon from the “Green Rider” fantasy series by Kristen Britain is possibly one of my favorite literary female characters of all time! She’s not perfect. In fact, she makes mistakes a lot. And sometimes she can be a bit petty and stubborn. But she’ll also give everything she has and more for what she believes in, or just to save some people. She doesn’t think of herself as brave, but she faces down challenges that would leave most people shuddering in terror. And she’s constantly trying to learn to do better. Seriously, it’s an awesome series of (so far) 6 books with at least 2 more on the way, and is definitely worth checking out.)

Tagging: @midnightsilver @monkeysatemylastrolo @rodiniaorzetalthepenquin @ladylilithprime @ladyoreo06 and whoever else wants to do this!

[shannendoherty-fans]

People, November 9, 1992

Nobody's Pussycat

By Tom Gliatto. Photos by Neal Preston.

Ever Outspoken, Shannen Doherty Defends Family Values, Her Turf on Beverly Hills, 90210—and Her Rowdy Reputation in Hollywood.

THERE ARE TWO ISSUES TO BE CLEARED UP HERE. Both of them are dear to the heart of Shannen Doherty, 21-year-old star of Fox's Beverly Hills, 90210, the Aaron Spelling high school hit that is now in its third season, one in which Doherty's character, Brenda Walsh—who might be described as Gidget with attitude—will break up with that lean-hipped rebel, Dylan (Luke Perry). First issue: Why has Doherty—alone among 90210 costars and teen idols Perry, Jason Priestley, Jennie Garth, Tori Spelling, Ian Ziering, Gabrielle Carteris and Brian Austin Green—come to be regarded as "difficult"? Like, is she, in contrast to the feisty but fairly civilized Brenda, one of those women who rhyme with rich? Is she, as the tabloids have gleefully reported, impossible on the set? Is she a prima donna? Also: After hours, does she party too much? And where was she being driven, in those recent tabloid photos, by rapper Marky Mark?

Second issue: What has become of the youngest of her dogs, a rottweiler named Jake? Doherty has arrived home, at her three-bedroom house in Beverly Hills, expecting to find golden retriever Sally gone (her dad was going to slop by to take her to the vet's), but now only black Lab Penelope is here to greet her. And why is there blood around the hack patio? Unnerved, Doherty phones her parents. No luck. She calls the vet. Gets the machine. Perhaps this is not the ideal moment for Doherty to sit down with a visitor and size up that delicate first issue. She chooses an armless chair in the living room and takes out a cigarette. She smiles, but it is not a happy smile, and her fingers shake as the match reaches the cigarette. "Yeah," she says, exhaling smoke with her sigh, "you've really caught me on a good day."

"People think I'm a bitch," she says with a shrug. "There was a group of four girls at Torrance High, when; we film the show, and they walked by and said, 'Oh, what a bitch!' You can walk away from that, but you really want to turn around and say, 'Why?' " She can give you a couple of whys, actually. "The tabloids make up stuff," she says. "Somebody will call [the tabs] up and say, They're yelling at each other on the [90210] set,' and they will turn around and make it 10 times worse," Doherty says. And maybe, she reasons, the tabloids pick on her. specifically, because "I'm a strong woman. There are still some people out there who can't deal with that."

Aaron Spelling, whose company produces 90210, describes her as "the best young actress I've seen in a long time," and has no problem with Doherty or her manner. "She is a very honest person who wears her emotions on her sleeve," he says. "If you ask her a direct question, she'll give you a direct answer." For instance, Doherty isn't afraid to tell friend, costar and daughter-of-the-boss Tori Spelling if she's wearing the wrong blouse. "Of all my friends, Shannen is the really honest one," says Tori, one of the few 90210ers who talked about her. Doherty's comments are "all meant in the best way," she adds. "But I can see [her reputation] hurts her feelings a bit." If so, Doherty is not about to expose her wounded heart in public. And why should she? Her image hasn't hurt her endorsement power (she does ads for Gitano jeans). "I'm not saying I don't have my moments of bitchiness," Doherty says, not defensively at all, "because everybody has them. But it's never for no reason. I think that life is short, you should live it and be happy. I've always been a ballsy kid," she adds. "I know it pisses some people off, but isn't the end result much better?"

In fact, Doherty, who won her first series role when she was 11 (she played Jenny Wilder on Little House: A New Beginning), thinks her "bitch" reputation started with 1989's cull black-comedy movie Heathers (in which she was one of the three nasty title teens). Doherty says she let a behind-the-cameras player on that film know, in no uncertain terms, that she didn't approve of an extramarital affair he was conducting with an extra. "It was the first time I actually saw somebody take advantage of the extras," she says. "He knew I disliked him, and he was the first person to call me a bitch." In the past year, though, she also earned the enmity of prince of sarcasm Dennis Miller when she appeared on his short-lived talk show and embarrassed him by teasing him for not being at ease. (Her photo, tacked up backstage, was subsequently defaced with a devil's horn and goatee.) And would Peter Duchow, who produced her recent TV movie Obsessed, like to work with Doherty again? "How much are you going to pay me?" he asks. He notes that she was late to the set several times ("Professionals," he says, "make an absolute effort to be on time") but then clarifies: "Like a lot of talented people, she has mood swings. Hers are perhaps a lot more exaggerated than others. And any 21-year-old is difficult to work with. She has to learn some lessons that everybody has to learn." Then there was the headline-grabbing flap at this year's Emmys show. The day before the ceremony, Doherty dropped out of presenting an award with John Stamos of Full House and 90210 costar Jennie Garth. "She was a colossal pain in the ass," says Walter Miller, who produced and directed the program. There have been numerous explanations of that pain. Initially a spokesperson said that she was suffering from bronchitis. Miller, who refers to Doherty as "a barracuda," thinks she was unhappy that Garth was given the opening line of Emmy dialogue—even though Doherty would have announced the winning name. But Doherty says she was upset that the entire 90210 cast was not given tickets to the ceremonies. "I just said, "This is ridiculous, our cast can't go,' " she explains. " 'I just don't understand that.' " Doherty's manager, Mike Gursey, says he yanked her from the telecast because "tiny" promises about her role, including what category she would present in, went unfulfilled.

Having offended the gods of Hollywood, though, the young "barracuda" arrived in tears al a luncheon the day of the Emmys, reports Aaron Spelling, "afraid even one would be mad at her." If so, it was a rare display of public insecurity from a young woman who, says her father, Tom, 48, "has always been self-assured." Shannen was born in Memphis, the younger of two children (her brother, Sean, 25, is a USC law student) and, on her mother Rosa's side, the latest in a long line of Southern Baptists. Shannen's conservative upbringing may have something to do with her public displeasure over 90210's Brenda's losing her virginity last year ("We have a whole cast that is sexually active," she complained in one interview); her disgust with that unnamed. womanizing Heathers crew member; and her August appearance at that feast of family values, the Republican National Convention, at which she led the Pledge of Allegiance. ("I don't think Clinton would be any different than Bush," says Doherty, a Jack Kemp supporter, "except maybe he'd do a hell of a lot worse.") Growing up in the male-dominated South, though, had its drawbacks. "I saw how women were treated," she says, "and I wasn't going to be treated like that." In fact, she seems to have a Scarlett O'Hara, I'll-never-go-hungry-again tenacity, developed after her family moved to the comfortable Palos Verdes neighborhood of Los Angeles when she was 6. Her father had bought a trucking firm, but within a few years the business collapsed. "Shannen has seen both sides of the coin," says her dad, now a mortgage consultant. "We lived in a prestigious area, with an ocean view. Then we had the rug pulled out from under us. There was a time when the doorbell would ring and it might be the utility man there to cut off the power." The experience seared Doherty. "People think, 'She's sitting up there in a nice house and has money,' " Shannen says of herself, suddenly irritated. "Somebody said that to me last night, and I got really pissed off. My parents went from having money to having nothing, to eating rice every single day."

As Tom Doherty's company was sinking, his daughter was getting into another business—acting. Initially, Shannen tagged along when Sean tried out for a church production. In short order, she went on to play Sneezy the dwarf in Snow White, also at church ("I hammed it up"), and by age 10 she was doing commercials for Pepsi. Her big break came in 1982, when she did a voice for the animated feature The Secret of NIMH. Then Michael Landon hired her for Little House. "That show changed my life," says Doherty. "Michael Landon was the one who said to me, 'Always slick up for yourself. Never let anybody walk all over you. Be a strong woman.' " The principal of the Baptist school she attended after her stint on Little House paid the price for Landon's advice. "I hated that school," says Doherty, her voice turning sharp again. "It was very repressed. They thought that dancing was evil, and I disagreed. I organized a big dance, and the principal called me in. He wasn't pleased. He had his Bible out there on his desk and told me how God would punish me. I flipped through his Bible and found references to people dancing and rejoicing. I said to him, 'It clearly shows they danced and rejoiced. Just what the f—is wrong with you?' " Her father had reservations about Shannen and show business, but he supported her in her fight at the school, which she left alter a year. She finished her studies at the Lycée Français, a private school in L.A. (by then, the family was back on its feet financially). "Shannen believed in something," says her dad, who didn't know beforehand about the prohibition on happy feet. "She did nothing wrong." The family was less approving when she left home at 18 and moved in with a 31-year-old boyfriend (who had told her he was 28). "I wanted so much to be on my own," she says now. "I wanted to prove I could do things myself". But the boy friend turned out to be involved with drugs. "And I tried drugs and drinking," says Doherty softly. "I was drinking up a storm. Cocaine was something that I tried and didn't really like. It was more the lifestyle I was into. Every single night I was out clubbing and drinking. It was a bad scene." This went on, she estimates, for six months and ended—with a shock—the night her boy-friend struck her. "I just remember one slap across the lace." she says, "and I was out of there." She went across the street to a convenience store, phoned her parents and went home. She has since bought and moved into her own place, but remains close lo her parents. She was there for her father in 1983 and again in 1990 when he suffered strokes (his right side is now slightly paralyzed). "She has done the single most important thing lo help my recovery," he says. "She makes me laugh." It was in 1986. while playing Kris Witherspoon on her second NBC series, Our House, that Doherty first caught the attention of an influential member of the viewing audience named Tori Spelling. Tori also liked Doherty in Heathers and recommended her to her father. Doherty got the 90210 job on a Wednesday, started work on a Monday, and now she's so famous she needs a dog to protect her when she goes jogging.

(The dogs! What about those dogs? Every time the phone rings, Doherty hops up and runs off to answer, only to return with a look of dejection—no news.) Doherty doesn't deny that she may have earned her reputation for being tough in the early days of 90210. "I always stood up for the right causes, but I don't think I was always diplomatic," she says. "But recently I have learned lo be diplomatic." That hasn't prevented the occasional on-set misunderstanding—like the time recently when the day's shoot ran past midnight and Doherty announced (with the producers' permission, she says) that it was time to go home. She suspects Jennie Garth may have resented that show of authority. "I don't think Jennie was very happy," she says. At any rate, she adds, their friendship has suffered—and the Emmy business didn't help. "There's some weird tension there," she says. "We haven't really talked about what happened. But Jennie is a great girl, and this is something that can be worked on." There are no complaints from Jason Priestley, who plays Doherty's brother, Brandon. "All of the stories about Shannen are so blown out of proportion," he says. "She's a very intelligent young woman who isn't afraid to speak her mind. I really enjoy working with her. We have a good relationship on-and offscreen."

For the past year, Doherty's primary offscreen relationship has been with Chris Foufas, 25, a Chicago-based real estate manager. They met through a friend of Foufas's (in fact, she was dating the friend at the time). They announced their engagement earlier this year, but now it has been called off. "He is a wonderful man whom I love very much," says Doherty, "but I'm 21, and it's not exactly the right time to gel married. Friendship has taken over the romance.' " Marriage hasn't been completely ruled out, she says. And "if he goes out with another girl, it's [only] because he's bored." Now as to the famous night on the town with Marky Mark. Doherty maintains that they were not on a date—it was just a friendly foursome that included 90210 costars Green and Spelling. Someday, Doherty may have her own rock-and-roll groupies to distract her. A big fan of U2, Guns N' Roses and Pearl Jam (she would love to meet lead singer Eddie Vedder), she enjoys toying with the idea of having her own band. The basic career plan, of course, is to land some movie roles alter 90210, but Doherty says, "I gel into these modes of sitting in my house writing poetry that could be converted into songs."

She pauses to light another cigarette and inhales, turning her head toward the sound of a car door slamming and the scuttle of approaching paws. Sally comes bounding in, and Tom Doherty enters carrying Jake, the dog's back paws wrapped in bandages. Shannen's father explains that when he arrived to take Sally to the vet, he found Jake in the pool. The pup had fallen in and was frantically clawing the pool trying to get out. "He looks so funny," Shannen says. "I'm so relieved!" She pats him on the head, and he regards her contentedly. You will never hear a bad word from Jake about Shannen Doherty.

*** 💜♀️International Women's Day♀️💜

[writing-gifts]

A/N: totally not canon interaction but i wanted to practice some before i try to write anything serious for nimh... also i misremembered how they originally met when i started writing this so i double downed lol

reader is gender neutral

----

The weather was nice today so you had been out and about to prevent yourself from hiding in your home for the rest of the week.

Ever since yesterday, you were stressed for multiple reasons and you were hoping this walk would help take your mind off things. You were currently spending your lunch outside at a restaurant. Unfortunately, you doubt you could eat at a time like this with one of your stressors in plain sight.

You stare at another table a distance away, hiding partly behind a menu to avoid bringing attention to yourself.

What had you on such high alert was the occupant at said table: A rabbit, trying to hold a fork between their paws. But without thumbs it looked to be a very difficult task. The fork falls from their grip once again and they sigh. It looks as if they've given up.

That had to be one of the boys you accidentally cursed at the zoo! You're sure that's the blonde bunny who asked for a refund too. Before you could give it to him though, one of the predators among all the scattering animals got a little too close and he hightailed it. You sigh a bit to yourself. It still seems unreal but that's what really occurred.

So much happened that day including you getting fired. Damn your boss--like it was your fault that you got distracted and passed out the wrong water to the visitors! What type of zoo even needs a magically-cursed water supply anyways!?

You shake your head and put down the menu. This wasn't the time to get even more worked up so you take a deep breath. You hadn't really rehearsed what to say when you found the guys--animals… manimals. How do you even bring up that you accidentally cursed someone, but you could change them back with the power of love?

You get up. You'll just have to tear it off like a bandage. Even if this felt more like a wax strip situation...

Making your way over to the rabbit who was now eating his salad with his paws--which was very cute by the way--you steel yourself.

You give your friendliest smile when you're close enough to show that you don't mean harm. He still tenses up like....well, a rabbit and looks like he wants to bolt. Poor thing, he probably can't control it. Fortunately for you, he doesn't actually run.

"Uh hello, I'm sorry to interrupt your meal. I don't mean to be rude or anything, but I noticed that you're an...animal."

"O-Oh that's quite okay." A kind sounding voice comes from the rabbit, which was pretty well fitting actually. "You don't usually see rabbits trying to use utensils so I can see why you'd find this strange. You don't ever see them doing that actually, as far as I know."

You wave off the idea. "Trust me, I don't find it strange at all."

"Really? I'm still trying to get used to it myself. You see I'm not usually like--" he motions to his furry body "--this."

"Actually, that's why I'm here. I think I can help you with your predicament! Do you remember the day you changed at the zoo? I was the worker there passing out water at the entrance. You asked me for a refund."

He tilts his head and his nose twitches. Again, cute but this wasn't the time for that. You hold your hands behind your back so you don't accidentally try to reach out and pet him.

"Right! I remember you just before the...panther."

You grimace. That must have been extremely frightening for him so you can't help feeling guilty. You would definitely make sure to fix this and you had words for that panther. Once you found him.

"Well you see…I might have been the cause. The water I gave was apparently magically-cursed water and-and now all these guys are animals! Somehow, I have to change them back with the power of friendship--wait no--love! I'm not even sure how that works though, but this little creature told me to...so yeah."

You stop yourself from rambling any further.

The rabbit stares at you wide eyed and his little laugh sounds very unsure. "...Umm I don't know what to say to that, but I suppose that's not so far fetched considering that magic is apparently real."

"Wait, so you believe me?"

"I guess I don't not believe you. Er sorry for the double negative. I'm not exactly jumping for joy at being a rabbit. And better hearing is definitely not worth the trade-off of opposable thumbs. So I would like to try out your plan at least."

"Oh wow...Okay, cool!"

With that out of the way you calm down a considerable amount. You hadn't expected him to accept the idea so quickly. Maybe this whole magical animal quest would be a piece of cake!

"Let's go on a date then. That would be a good way to start to get you to fall for me!"

You need to find a new job stat.

He looks kind of bashful but nods. "That sounds like a good first step."

"Oh wait, I totally forgot about names. I'm ____. What's yours?"

"Nimh."

"Well nice to meet you Nimh. I'm sorry I turned you into an animal. And even though this has definitely caused you much trouble, you do make a very cute bunny."

You'd never seen a rabbit blush but here you were. And it was absolutely adorable.

Oh powers that be, give me strength.

"Well gosh. Thank you ____...I think?"

"You're very welcome." You sit down at his table. "This can be our pre-date."

Nimh chuckles a bit at your lame attempt at a joke and you think you already like him.

"By the way..."

You immediately put all your attention on the rabbit. Scratch the 'think'. You definitely like him (if your urgency to please him said anything).

"Why would a zoo have magically-cursed water for?" he asks.

"Oh my god, that's what I've been wondering!"

[nautilusopus]

do you have any favorite books?

Coraline by Neil Gaiman is the obvious answer lol. Still my favourite book to this day, obviously hugely influential in my own bullshit. Seriously check it out if you can find a copy, it’s pretty short and absolutely worth your time.

The Devil’s Storybook by Natalie Babbitt and its sequel (The Devil’s Other Storybook) are more of an anthology of short stories starring the Devil, who occupies every role from vague background presence to put-upon protagonist that are funny and thought-provoking and genuinely clever and that pissed enough people off that it was a banned book for a while. “The Imp in the Basket” is the kind of short story I wish more people knew about and wanted to sincerely discuss what actually happened at the end.

ugh i haven’t read a book i actually enjoyed in over ten years at this point uhhhhhh

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. I think potentially the only classic I had to read in school that I genuinely liked and actually finished in one sitting on my own time. And I think the first time any themes a book had for me actually clicked and I was able to do any kind of meta analysis of it completely unprompted. Baby’s first literary comprehension. Slaughterhouse-Five is a semi-autobiographical piece set during the bombing of Dresden in WWII, and also some period in the “future” (the 80s lol), and ALSO on an alien planet as the protagonist is abducted and taken to a human zoo. The story is told achronologically, and I feel is hugely influential to my own shit where it skips around, building a narrative almost entirely by juxtaposing specific moments in time against one another. It's surreal and thought-provoking, and if you only ever make yourself read one classic, it should be this one. *

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien. Bear in mind this thing has fuck-all to do with the movie, and while in retrospect I now am able to enjoy the Don Bluth movie as its own thing, I remember being fucking furious when they busted out a goddamn magical amulet. It’s a different kind of story, but is more magic realism than outright fantasy, and the titular rats get a lot more backstory, as does the late Mr. Frisby iirc.

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo. God that book fucked me up. It is about a snotty porcelain toy rabbit that gets dropped overboard a ship into the ocean one day, and the various owners he has over the years as he changes hands, and the impacts they have on him, and it makes me fucking cry every time and is to date the only book to ever do so so fairly warned be ye. Fucking shit I wish I could dish out gut-punches half as good as that book could.

The His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman, which in and of itself is an angry rebuttal against everything the Chronicles of Narnia has to say, as well as Christianity in general. You’ve probably seen shit floating around about the HBO series, which I have not watched. Lyra is a horrible gremlin child running wild around a parallel universe Oxford until she accidentally stumbles onto a conspiracy that goes all the way to the Church which unofficially runs the government and eventually starts an interdimensional war against God. The first two books I think are better than the last one, which really drags in spots (and in a twist of irony had Lyra’s sexual awakening censored from the North American release which like... come on man). Absolutely worth checking out though, especially if you’re an angry pedant like I am.

Tales from the House of Bunnicula, by James Howe. Honestly the entire "Bunnicula Expanded Universe"(???) is great, but in particular I'm mentioning this sub-series because I think it actually kind of taught me to write. The framing device used is that they're being written by Howe's pet dog and sent in to him to publish by proxy. On top of having just a lot of good storytelling tips for beginners (how to create a plot! how to create character motivations! how to write female characters like actual people!), they're also fun little satire pieces of various kinds of genre fiction. Like, the third book is a riff on Harry Potter and making fun of all of JKR's worst writing tendencies, like her compulsion to phonetically write out everyone's fucking accent.

these days i'm just too picky to enjoy books anymore idfk. you have no idea how fucking disheartening it was growing up with actual taste (snooty snooty snoot) and watching everyone go nuts over stuff like divergent and eragon and maximum ride and fuckmothering twilight and shit. like, yeah misogyny absolutely played into why people shat on it because teenage girls aren't allowed to like anything, but lest we forget they were still shitty books guys. that never stopped being true or anything. and you were a social pariah if you didn't like them and that sucked. and then a couple ostensibly good series, like harry potter and artemis fowl and hunger games just dropped the fucking ball for one reason or another as they went on and never picked it back up. i think the mid 2000s almost singlehandedly just killed any real enthusiasm i had for reading altogether (this is not even getting into the fact a lot of really fucking bad "grown-up" novels came out around that period too. whole era was a baaaad time for books). so here i am writing, i guess, because i've decided you fuckers can't be trusted to make anything good yourselves. if you want something done right...

(*I like to think if Cloud wrote a book he’d write something like Slaughterhouse-Five. I think at one point I was even working on a fic along those lines -- a fictional story vaguely based off the burning of Nibelheim and the fall of Shinra that was written, in-universe, by Cloud several years later. Abandoned it just because of how fucking complicated it would be to do. Might come back to it one day.)

[bnha-ramblings]

BNHA CHARACTERS ACCORDING TO MY FAMILY 41: Rat God

(A completely unoriginal idea)

Sister

Professor Mouse?

A boy

What type of animal is he? He looks like a mouse, rat, or weasel except he’s not long enough to be a weasel

The tail is confusing me

Hero

37 So he’s the equivalent of a 37 year old human? Yeah

Hero name is Professor Mouse but his actual name is Frederick Worthington! That’s a nice name

He can control his fellow mice to do his bidding if he wants

King of the mice

He was bullied cause he’s a mice A mouse- No, wait, he’s multiple mice in a trench coat

Frederick Worthingthon the Third like Charles Winchester the Third

Very nice

Very rich and he was a rich kid too

He plays the violin

Mother

Female

90 Is that human years equivalent? Yeah... Can I say ageless?

She’s a gerbil?

She’s a colar bear A what? A polar bear cat

Villain

Jill... Actually Reggie Is that short for anything? Maybe

She’s like a Pied Piper who lures kids

Villain name? Pippa

Very bubbly

Uses her innocent look to her advantage

I’d be creeped out around this person cause she reminds me of those characters Which? Like the ones that are at amusement parks

She’s definitely human sized, maybe around 6 feet

Likes puzzles and reading So intellectual hobbies? Yeah

Deceptive but sweet

Reminds me of that Pokémon creature that’s cute but can like trap you ...That’s actually a good deal of them Well, just that type as a whole then

REACT: His quirk is basically intelligence beyond most humans So Secret of Nimh? Yes? ...Actually, yeah!

He’s the principal of the school You’re joking I’m really not

Father

Wow! It’s that a bear- No...

Very friendly... This is almost like Sanrio Hello Kitty stuff here

Like a Pokémon

Gender? Has to be on the hero’s side Gender? Uh... We have a process, Father. Stick to the process

Uh... I can’t tell so genderfluid So nonbinary, no gend- No, wait, genderfluid is different... Ignore me, my brain’s dead We can do male You can do genderfluid, Father. Show some representation where the anime is too afraid to *8 minute debate about gender* Fine, let’s just go with genderfluid... It’s hard for me to sex a teddy bear Oh my god...

Let’s go 24?

I’m still not sure on gender Well, I’m confused I mean, I’m sure they know, but I don’t

6’5”?

Araki Yuko

First name? I’m trying to think of something that’s cute, but not too cute

Harold

Hero

The school counselor

A big hug from them would help if you need comforting

Looks cuddly and friendly

If they’re a villain, that’s really messed up cause you’d feel so betrayed by the cuteness

There’s just nothing threatening about this character Not even the scar over their eye? Nah, that’s just like “Oh, poor thing”

I mean, the scar on their face means they obviously have an animal costume ...I’m sorry, what??? Animal costume? Or that may be their body Wait, wait, wait, you think this is a human in an animal costume??? That is the body!

They can mentally get into someone’s head and completely control them

Hero name? Thumper

They come from a family of heroes, but they have like a grandfather that was a villain Do they fight? It hasn’t been revealed yet in the anime

Got a banker vibe from the outfit

Very caring and approachable

If you get on their bad side, they whack you with their tail like nuns with rulers

They absolutely hate elevators

Likes to practice taekwondo and they’re also REALLY into parkour

Addicted to cat nip Cat nip?! Yeah, and coffee You sure? Yeah, like if they don’t have it, they might kill...

REACT: He’s 2’9” *laughs* For some reason, both you and Mom insisted he’s human sized Well, that just makes him even more adorable

So he’s actually an animal? Yes!

I almost guessed that he smoked marijuana

Really, really likes tea He must have to go bathroom a lot... Tea is a diuretic

He’s apparently also skilled at driving wrecking balls A skill that everyone needs

So what do ya think? Well, he’s still cute

Masterlist

[seren-pen]

My Top 9 Films!

Tagged by @bitchwhoyoukiddin Here are my top 9 favorite films. These are the movies that I will pretty much just watch anytime, anywhere. These are not necessarily GOOD films, so...just saying.

1. The Mummy. - Please. You’re reading this post on Tumblr. YOU KNOW WHY.

2. Predators (2010). - Look. This is not a GOOD film. But it is short, snappy, and oddly compelling. And Alice Braga is AWESOME.

3. Death on the Nile (1978) - Okay. There are absolutely moments that are not good, but it’s my “I gotta clean my apartment, Poirot is going to be on in the background” Sunday afternoon movie.

4. Dark City - Film noir, sci-fi with Rufus Sewell and Jennifer Connelly? Yes, please! All the good aspects of the Crow (which almost made this list!) with a touch of the Big Sleep (which ALSO almost made this list!).

5. Jaws - Look, it was either this or Raiders of the Lost Ark and considering I’ve watched Jaws several times last year, we’re going with Jaws.

6. Out of Sight - I’m a sucker for snappy dialogue and scenes where you can tell the actors are LOVING IT. Plus, J Lo before she was really J Lo.

7. Gross Pointe Blank - Again with the snappy banter and the BEST soundtrack.

8. Soapdish - “HE DOESN’T HAVE A HEAD! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO WRITE FOR A GUY WHO DOESN’T HAVE A HEAD?”

9. The Secret of Nimh - *happy sigh* This movie just...yeah. All the good things. I want to be Mrs. Brisby when I grow up.

Tagging @rob-anybody. @hiddencait, @sindirimba, @river-soul, @valoscope, and ANYONE!

[oncexinxmyxdreams]

OC Profile

Lydia Venkman (The Real Ghostbusters.)

Bio

Name: Lydia Molly (O’Connor) Venkman 

Age: 22 when Peter was born and passed away at 32. 

Ethnicity: Caucasian with her both sides of her family having descended from Irish Immigrants back in the 1840s. 

Species: Human.

Height: 5'5 

Weight: 120 pounds. 

Hair color: Dark brown. 

Hair style: Used to be very long, almost to her waist until she cut it short into a flipped bob during the 1960s. She grew it back out before she passed.

Eye color: Green. 

Birthday: September 23rd, 1936. 

Gender: Female.

Sexual Orientation: Straight.

Powers (if any): No. 

Distinguishing features (if any): Lower lip was fuller than top and had an oval shaped face. Jim said she looked like the actress Natalie Wood. 

Blood Type: A- 

Clothing

Day to day outfit: Simple dresses with flared skirts and a sash. Think 1950s-early 1960s style. Wore simple flats with them. On weekends, she wore simple trousers and tucked in blouses. 

Pajamas/What they wear to bed: Plain white nightgowns.

Formal Clothes: Most formal that Lydia owned was her wedding dress: a lacy A-line gown with matching jacket.

Work/School uniform: Being a teacher, just simple nice dresses and pumps.  

Other (glasses, jewelry, etc): Liked wearing ribbons for headbands. Single solitaire wedding ring. A Claddagh ring which was the only family keepsake she took when she married Jim. He gave her necklaces and bracelets, but Lydia sold them to make ends meet. 

Health

Physical Illnesses: Weakened Immune System where she usually gets sick easily and for long. Suffers from a severe case of pneumonia.

Mental Illnesses or disorders: Depression.

Medications?: Antidepressant and usual medicines when she became sick, ex. cough syrup, Tylenol etc.   

Addictions (Drugs, alcohol?): No. With her weakened immune system she’s careful about addictions.  

General Health: Its decent enough, but in her early 30s she becomes more sick from living in bad conditions, her weakened immune system  and her lungs not being strong enough. Body shape is rectangular: 32-26-34 and around size 8.   

Life/Preferences:

Likes: Teaching, fantasy books, tea, cooking, and spending time with her son.

Dislikes: Dishonesty, depression, getting sick and Jim’s bad ideas. 

Career: Elementary teacher.

Hobbies/Talents: Reading was her main hobby. Used to ride horses back in Montana, but eventually grew a new hobby of collecting teacups as she moved around. Talented in piano.  

Habits (good or bad): Chewed bottom lip when stressed and twirled hair when writing.

Family: Parents were Joseph and Naomi O’Connor. Lydia had 8 brothers. She was closest to older four: Phillip, Benjamin, Andrew and Daniel. All a year apart. Four younger brothers, are sets of twins: Jacob and Jeremiah came along when she was 3. Then Simon and Silas arrived when she was 4. Had an aunt named Molly that passed shortly before her birth and that's how she got her middle name.

Friends: Not many. Had some nice neighbors at times. She considered her big brothers as her closest friends.

Romantic/Love Interest(s): Mainly Jim Venkman, but its caused her problems.

Pets: Her childhood cat named Copper: He was a European Shorthair breed with deep brown fur. Her family had horses, but her favorite was Valor: An American Quarter Horse with a blue roan coat.

Social Status: Lower class.

Favorite Food: Colcannon Irish potatoes. 

Favorite Color: Forest green. 

Favorite genre of music: Folk music.

Favorite movie genre: She didn’t see too many movies having only theaters at the time. Cinderella, Lady and the Tramp, An American in Paris and 20,000 Leagues under the Sea were her favorite movies in theaters. 

Favorite Animal: Elk. She loved seeing them in Montana. Interestingly, elk are considered as a symbol of protection.

Degree of Education: High school graduate and earned a teacher’s certificate. 

What language(s) can they speak?: English and a decent amount of Irish. 

Can they cook?: Absolutely. 

Personality

Positive Traits: Warm, devoted, thoughtful, altruistic and creative. 

Negative Traits: Self-critical, self-conscious and sometimes closed off from others.

Archetype: The Mother Figure like Perdita in 101 Dalmatians or Mrs. Brisby from The Secret of Nimh.

Way they interact with others: Very reserved when first meeting. It takes a good while to get to know her.

Way of speaking: Voice inspiration for her is the late actress Elizabeth Hartman. (Yeah, Mrs. Brisby's voice actor because she has a certain blend of vulnerability and strength which I think fits Lydia well.)

Introvert or Extrovert?: Introvert. Not sure where she'd fall for MBTI, but my thought is INFP.

Backstory 

 Lydia was born in Williston, North Dakota and was the first daughter for her family. Lydia had a weakened immune system and got sick easily throughout her life. When Lydia was 9 months old, her family moved to Libby, Montana to be near her mother's aging parents. It was intended for the family to move back to Williston, but they all fell in love with Montana and never left. Living on farmland, Lydia spent free time with her brothers: they rode horses, went fishing, climbed trees and camped in the summer. Being outside helped her stay healthy. Lydia went to a small school and only enjoyed storybooks. All other subjects were hard and the teachers were cold hearted which made Lydia feel inferior. As she grew, she visited the library more often and her learning skills improved. Her favorite books were Ivanhoe, The Iliad, The Odyssey and The Hobbit. (She loved The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia when they were first published.) After graduating high school, she earned a teacher's certificate with the goal to help children learn in better ways than she did. However, she also desired to have adventures one day even if she wasn’t sure how it’d go. That started changing when she met Jim Venkman. 

 Jim was a couple years older than Lydia and resided in Montana to hideout from his recent problems. It was love at first sight for him and Lydia grew to love him after several outings. Jim promised Lydia "all her dreams." Her parents, didn't approve Jim because they found him sleazy and doubted it was really love. Her brothers, all younger and older, weren’t sure about Jim and always felt genuine protection for their only sister. Lydia constantly argued with her mother in particular and finally, her parents threatened to disown her. Young, wanting adventure, and thinking she knew best, Lydia left with Jim. She did teach and found creative ways to help her students learn. However, Lydia missed her family and months in the marriage, found herself miserable. Jim was going back and forth with "jobs" and while inadvertent, seemed to take her for granted. Lydia became severely depressed: she felt trapped, dissatisfied and worst of all, lonely. Not introverted/like the quiet, solitude loneliness. It was an abandoned loneliness. That ended after a doctor's appointment where she discovered she was expecting. She gave birth in a quick labor and was with happy tears to have her son. Since Jim wasn't there and difficult to contact, Lydia spent five days with just her baby. Instead of going with Jim's desires to name a son James Jr., she chose Peter. Despite the sudden moving back and forth, financial issues, working overtime to make ends meet and frustration with her husband, Lydia loved Peter more than anything. She did all she could to give him a good childhood. That all came to a crushing end, when she became terribly sick with pneumonia and passed away. She was 32 and Peter was only 10.

Life Goals

Lydia desired to have adventures in her life even if she was fragile. She wanted to believe the best in people and planned to teach for her career. When she became a mother, Lydia's goals all went to her son and that became the adventure of her life; one she wouldn’t change despite the hardships. When Lydia was told her pneumonia was getting worse and survival was decreasing, she imagined what would happen for Peter: Would he go to college? What would be his career? Would he find love? Have his own kids? For her it was unknown, but in all, she hoped he would be surrounded with stable, caring, enjoyable friendships/family members. She'd been happy to know that did come true.

[sothischickshe]

films: the secrets of nimh, trainspotting, mad max fury road

the secrets of nimh

never seen | want to see | the worst | bad | whatever | not my thing | good | great | favourite | masterpiece

is this about the rats? i read the books, but i’m pretty sure ive never seen a film version? im generally not really one for straight-up adaptations of books ive read tbh. if the setting or something is changed (or it’s a really interesting director) then i’m more interested, but if it’s just... here’s the book but on screen im unlikely to bite.

however, robert c o’brien also wrote this kids’ book called the silver crown which is fucked up and weird and fascinating and i highly rec!!!

  trainspotting

never seen | want to see | the worst | bad | whatever | not my thing | good | great | favourite | masterpiece

im a fake fan cos ive never read the book (though i have seen welsh reading some of it out), but i just think it’s super well-directed and visually engaging. probs my fave boyle film although i do also realllly like 28 days later (which i watched under duress due to my fear of horror films, but absolutely love). i’m also typically v fussy abt british media which i often find overly cheesy so bonus points go to it. also! the soundtrack bangs.

mad max fury road

never seen | want to see | the worst | bad | whatever | not my thing | good | great | favourite | masterpiece

i havent seen it! i am intending to, but i havent seen any of the original mad max films. and i know ppl will say oh you don’t have to, but guess what! i don’t care! i’m a Completist, and i like to understand the References! so i think i’ll probs watch the first one at least, and if it heavily sucks skip the sequels?

send me a film and there’s, yeah, that sounds right, a one in three chance i’ll have seen it

[friendlywriterboynamedniko]

In Your Dreams

Fandom- Blush Blush

Genre- Angsty

Pairing- Seth X Male Protag/Marshmallow

Words- 930

Note- I meant to write smut but OOPS!!! All Angst.  If your wondering why my writing is weirder than usaul, I wrote it in ‘Blush Blush’ style....cuz that’s the only way I can explain ‘Horny warm’.

Also yes I gave the Protag the name ‘Marshmallow’ instead of ‘Y/N’ Still technically a reader insert.

Marshmallow gave a tired yawn as they stared up at the ceiling. The week had been tiring, all their jobs, hobbies, and boyfriends were starting to become to much work for him, don’t get him wrong, he still absolutely loved all his boyfriends...he just didn’t have much time by himself anymore. Lucky for him he only had one animal boy left, then maybe he could go back to working one job and actually get proper nights of sleep.

He glanced at the clock on his bedside table…4 AM, he sighed, he had to get up for his barista job at 6 AM. He only had 2 hours to get some sleep, it was better than none. His eyes slid closed as he let today’s sleepiness engulf him. 

---

His dreams were usually filled with thoughts of the manamals, usually nightmares. These nightmares stemmed from him fearing he won’t find all the manamals. Sometimes he dreamed that he had never saved the others, that he had failed them, that he had ruined their lives. Nimh being a rabbit significantly shortening his already short life span, Volks living forever alone in the woods...which he probably didn’t mind, Kelby not being able to play basketball due having hocks instead of hands, Eli not being able to fit into his favorite pair of pants- Ugh he didn’t even want to think of those dreams.

Those dreams made him toss and turn to the point that when he woke up he felt as if he hadn’t slept at all. Tonight though… felt different, his body was engulfed in some type of warmness...not the comforting type of warm...the horny type of warm.

Is this…? Is this...uh….what did they call it in school? OH! Is this a wet dream? He had never had one of these before! He wondered who the subject will be? Not like he cared that much, anything was better than those horrid nightmares. ...Nightmares...despite the warmness he felt himself getting sad again.

Finally, an arm wrapped around his torso, the other wrapping around the near his butt area. The arms pulled him forward into a nice...warm body. Like really warm, like the horny warm. His face landing in the arm’s owner’s chest, smearing tears into the cloth of their jacket. ...Jacket...he knew many people who wore jackets...but combined with this overwhelming warmness…”Seth?” Marshmallow questioned as he opened his eyes, tears still falling down his cheeks, Seth was smiling down at him...well until he spotted the tears on the other boy's face.

Seth angled his head up, “Hm, what’s wrong?” He asked, his smile disappearing as he noticed the tears sliding down the other’s face. Those two words broke Marshmallow, maybe it was the year of held back emotions, or maybe it because no one had ever asked him those words. More and more tears streamed down his face as he buried his face into Seth’s shoulder.

But what was wrong, “I-I’m so tired,” He cried, “I’m scared,” he gasped, “I-I’m so scared.”

Seth just looked confusingly down at the boy, “Scared of what?”

Marshmallow shedded more tears, “I’m scared I’m going to fail. I know I’m going to fail. I’m going to fail them!” He sobbed.

Seth was quiet as Marshmallow spoke.

“I’m such an idiot! I ruined so many lives over such a stupid mistake!” 

…

“I’m such a failure!”

…

“I’m not going to find him! And even If I do I’m not going to be able to make him fall for me!” He cried.

…Seth sighed, “You’re wrong.”

Marshmallow looked up from Seth’s shoulder, “Huh?”

“You’re not a failure, you’re going to find that guy, and you’ll get him to fall for you,” Seth stated as he smiled down at the boy and patted his back.

Marshmallow continued to cry, “How do you know?”

…

…

“You got a demon to fall for you, I’m sure you can get any human being to fall for you,” He said matter of factly.

....

...

“Oh...yeah,” Marshmallow spoke awkwardly, feeling embarrassed that he had completely forgotten that point.

...

They stood in awkward silence for a couple of moments as Marshmallow tried to calm himself, then Marshmallow got a sudden thought “Um...how did you even get here?” He asked.

Seth just shrugged, “Just made some deals with Belphegor, you know the usual.”

Did he make a deal with a demon prince just to see Marshmallow? “...Why?”

“I wanted to ravish you, but as you can see I ended up having to comfort you,” Seth sighed.

Marshmallow giggled awkwardly into Seth’s shoulder through his tears, “S-sorry.”

Seth shook his head, “No need for apologies, I’ll get you one day.”

Marshmallow wiped his tears and looked up to Seth, smiling, “Doubt it.”

Seth rolled his eyes, “We’ll see.” He then leaned down and pressed his lips against Marshmallow’s. He smiled against the other boy’s lips and said, “I will get that soul of yours.”

Marshmallow’s eyes snapped open...was that a dream?

He ran his fingers over his lips, they still felt warm, as if they had just been pushed against another’s. He looked over at the clock, 6 AM, he felt so rested despite the 2 short hours. Then he noticed his phone screen lit up, a notification had just popped onto the screen, a text message...from Seth. He grabbed the phone thinking it was a strange coincidence that Seth had texted him after he had just dreamed about him. He picked up the phone and unlocked it.

He looked surprised down at his phone as he read the text: “I’ll get you tonight.”

[cromulentbookreview]

It Came Out of the Sky!

Oh, it came out of the sky, landed just a little south of Moline / 

Jody fell out of his tractor, couldn't believe what he seen / 

Laid on the ground and shook, fearin' for his life / 

Then he ran all the way to town screamin' it came out of the sky / 

Well, a crowd gathered 'round and a scientist said it was marsh gas...

Uhm.. And by that Creedence Clearwater Revival reference I mean: The Other Side of the Sky by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner!

Nimh lives on the surface of a flooded world full of ruins of an ancient, long dead civilization. Long ago, all but one of the gods fled the surface in favor of the sky. The living god who remained behind is fated to save the people of the surface...eventually. 

Eventually.

Nimh - full name Nimhara - is the 42nd incarnation of the Divine One, aka the living god. She’s basically the Dalai Lama, if the Dalai Lama was allowed to be reincarnated in any gender. But being worshiped by the people as a living goddess has it’s downsides: Nimh is forbidden from touching anyone, ever. Seriously, ever.

The who “no touching anyone, ever” thing is pretty intense. She even has to provide herself with her own medical care! God forbid she ever need to remove her own appendix. Or: what happens if she falls, cracks her skull and renders herself unconscious? How can she give herself medical care if she’s out of it? Magic? I mean, maybe. Nimh’s world definitely has magic. Nimh, being Divine, should have manifested some magical aspect soon after becoming the goddess - her predecessor, the 41st incarnation, had a talent for healing magic. Unfortunately, it’s been 10 years since Nimh was called to be the Divine One, and she’s shown no sign of manifesting her aspect. And people are beginning to talk: there’s a whole group, known as the Graycloaks for their chosen color, who believe that Nimh isn’t even the Divine One and have made it their mission to remove her from power. So she’s got enemies on one side, and the massive weight of people’s expectations on the other - if she’s an incarnation of the divine, then surely she must be able to do something to help her people? Perhaps something to stop the roving clouds of rogue magic called mist that go around wreaking havoc? 

Nimh wants to prove herself. She wants to help people. But mostly she’s lonely as hell and just wants a hug. Which she can’t have because of the whole “no touching the divine” thing. Just to reiterate: 

The only other living being Nimh can touch is the bindle cat - a giant orange floof whom she rescued as a kitten. The bindle cat doesn’t have a name - he’s just the bindle cat because, according to Nimh “You do not name a cat. He is a cat; he keeps his name to himself.”  True story.

The bindle cat, an approximation.

Anyway, the bindle cat is Nimh’s best friend, constant companion and literally everyone’s favorite character in the whole book. 

Anyway! When we first meet Nimh, she’s sneaking out under the nose of the high priest Daoman to go on a secret pilgrimage that she hopes will help manifest her aspect. Only just as she’s about to leave, she sees a light falling from the sky and chases after it...

North is a prince of Alciel, a technologically advanced kingdom in the sky. His ancestors fled the world below ages ago, and now, the people in the clouds are convinced the surface is dead, incapable of supporting life. The people of Alciel live in a world with all sorts of fun tech, like Apple watches - uhm, I mean, chronos - fancy trains, airplanes, DNA locks on doors...honestly, Alciel seems pretty great. Only there’s one problem: the archipelago of sky islands that comprise Alciel seem to be sinking. It’s been so long since the people of Alciel have fled to the sky that people don’t really remember or understand what exactly makes their sky islands stay, well, in the sky. While the adults around him engage in sinking denialism, North is convinced the only way to save themselves is to put together an expedition to the surface. After all, they came from the surface thousands of years ago - maybe the answer to keeping themselves afloat is down there? Everyone dismisses North’s idea - the surface is uninhabitable, there’s no way to get down there and back again, blah blah blah. But North has a solution - he and his friends built their own plane. 

Sounds legit.

This, of course, doesn’t impress the adults, especially North’s moms who are both like “absolutely not” because seriously, no way are they letting their son, the kingdom’s sole heir, fly around in something he built and possibly get himself killed. They tell him to destroy the plane and forget about the whole thing. 

And North, being a good son, obeyed his mothers’ demand, decommissioned his plane and lived happily ever after. The end.

Pfft, no. North, being a teenager, decides that he will prove to everyone that it’s possible to fly to and from the surface by flying his experimental plane around. Because a teenager flying around a plane he and his friends built sounds super safe and will definitely end well.

It does not end well. But not because North isn’t good at plane building - he’s actually great at it, but as he’s flying, his plane catches fire, which is never a good sign. North had only intended to fly around Alciel, just to show off that he could, but now he’s heading toward the surface much faster than he’d planned.

Meanwhile, on the surface, Nimh sees a star falling from the sky and, thinking its the sign she’s been waiting for, decides to chase it. It lands in a salt flat rendered reflective by a couple of inches of water (think Salar de Uyuni - this whole segment has some fantastic, Ghibli-esque imagery). Only, it’s not a falling star - it’s a person. 

North emerges, somewhat unscathed, from the wreckage of his plane and realizes what happened - someone has deliberately cut through his supply lines. Someone wanted him to crash. Now he’s stuck on the surface and his Apple watch has no signal. He has no way to get home or any way to let his family and friends know that he’s still alive. 

But, lucky for him, after fighting off some wild boars, he meets a strange girl called Nimh, who offers to help him by taking him back to her temple in the city. North’s mind is pretty much blown: not only are there people on the surface, they have cities. They have religion. It’s the opposite of everything he’s ever been taught. Nimh’s a bit odd, but as she’s nice enough, North follows her anyway...

Nimh, meanwhile, is ecstatic:  she thinks North may be part of a larger prophecy that will help save the world. He came from the sky, after all, where the gods live. And - bonus! - he has no idea who she is. He looks at her and doesn’t see a goddess who can never, ever, ever, ever be touched, he just sees another person, something Nimh has never experienced. 

Only once Nimh and North get back to Nimh’s camp, they find that all her friends have been murdered. North is like “what the -?” and Nimh is all “uh, yeah we should probably run for it” and thus begins the whole adventure that makes up The Other Side of the Sky and holy crap, I absolutely love it. I love everything about it - the Ghibli-esque imagery, the romance, the adventure, the kitty sidekick. Oh God the kitty sidekick! Apparently, North’s kingdom in the sky doesn’t have cats. He’s never seen a cat before. HE DOESN’T KNOW WHAT A CAT IS, PEOPLE, THIS IS NOT A DRILL. 

He should watch The Cat Returns. 

Anyway, The Other Side of the Sky is gorgeous, impossible to stop reading, romantic, exciting and addictive as hell. Like a Ghibli movie, this book was exactly the sort of thing I needed to forget the outside world for a little while. It’s easy to picture the whole story as an anime. Just picture North and Nimh as Pazu and Sheeta from Castle in the Sky! It works, I swear. 

Sometimes we need the beautiful pastels of a Ghibli movie to warm our hearts when everything is terrible. The Other Side of the Sky is the book equivalent of one of those movies. The only downside is that it’s the first book in a series, and it ends on a cliffhanger that can and will make it feel as though your heart has been removed from your body. Or that you’ve been turned into a cat and are now being forced by a crazed Tim Curry-voiced cat king to marry the cat prince. Something like that. Either way, I will be waiting as patiently as I possibly can for the sequel. 

Is it ready yet? Is it ready yet? Meow. Meow. Meeeowwwwww. Pay attention to meeeee.

RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone in need of the book-equivalent of a Hayao Miyazaki movie that’s also the first book in a series; anyone fond of an exciting, action-packed YA romance.

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: People who have something against fun, joy, or cats; anyone who doesn’t like YA (seriously, why read YA if you don’t like it?) anyone who thinks Studio Ghibli movies are just for children (watch Grave of the Fireflies, and tell me with a straight face that it’s a kids movie. Children should NOT watch that movie!)

RATING: 5/5

TOTALLY UNBIASED FANGIRL RATING: 500,000,000 / 5

ANTICIPATION LEVEL FOR SEQUEL: Olympus Mons

RELEASE DATE: Not soon enough September 8, 2020.

GHIBLI RATING:

CAT RATING:

[fenrislorsrai]

Crowley’s Army of Rats

I love me some crossover crack and the army of very clever rats from the scriptbook  gives you so many opportunities for very weird fic because Rats Are Fun. Also for messing about with either subverting the rules OR get real serious about how rules apply. Animals probably don’t count for collecting souls for Heaven/Hell so can you actually tempt animals?  do talking animals HAVE souls that count for this?  When does it go from Crack to Crack Treated Seriously?

ANYWAY, Rats are Fun And There Should be More Rats, so some fun ideas for crossover weirdness.

Amazing Maurice & His Educated Rodents- natural fit. On brand. Just plain fun. I’ve seen several fics cross gomens with discworld, for obvious reasons. 

Ratatouille- This is basically just a fun date night. They would absolutely go to the rat restaurant.  They might take the army of rats with them. Good job guys (and lady), dinner’s on me!  Yes, we have a reservation for two “humans” and as many rats as comfortably fit in the Bentley. It almost might be funnier to focus on the rat side. Oh yeah, we came from London. We got the giant snake to drive us. He’s downstairs with the humans.

Rescue Rangers- NOT TECHNICALLY RATS. generally silly, but even better option... just the cartoon exists in Gomens. Why not let the rats watch TV? (just picture Crowley watching cartoons with a pile of retired rats.) All well and good.... but the cult that worships Gadget also exists. Belief can do strange things. And yes, in case you missed it, here’s an article about the Russian Gadget cult

Redwall - why DO they have an abbey? Probably works better as a port of Good Omens into Redwall. Its been awhile since I read these, put quick wiki trip indicates Redwall has some references to Hell for some reason. Weird.  But pretty easy set up there with woodlanders vs vermin (the rats obviously aren’t nice here. boo, hiss, rat slander!)

The Rescuers- again, not technically rats but actually very On Brand for both of them. (also have a bunch of other animals, so rats fit)  You go save children? Hello yes, my rats have told me about this, I’m in.  The books they’re based on actually was inspiring political prisoners to not lose hope, so that actually works pretty well too.  

Secret of NIMH/Mrs. Frisby and the Secret of NIMH- port NIMH into Good Omens.(more the book than movie) shit gets WEIRD but potentially most serious of the lot since you have issue of the rats having been fundamentally changed by humanity’s meddling and made much more like humans. Which then very much gets into the playing god aspect and what’s the line for creature vs person.

Feel free to add on more rat focused things and if you write any of these, DO send me a link!

[conversationswithmybipolarchild]

#2: WHAT IS BIPOLAR DISORDER?

FELICITY: Bipolar disorder is a mental illness. Key word one: “illness,” meaning you are afflicted with it. Key word two: “mental,” it being a part of the brain. 

F: Mental health is as important as physical health. They are both very important, they go hand in hand. Bipolar disorder is a chemical imbalance in the brain. Whether or not it comes upon you after a traumatic event, or when puberty hits, or if it- if you show signs when you’re born, it doesn’t matter. it is all a chemical imbalance. 

F: You are born with it, no matter what. You can go...twenty five years without seeing any symptoms, simply because you never had anything to jumpstart your bipolar disorder. But, if you have bipolar disorder, were properly diagnosed with it...you were already born with it. It was already in your brain. 

F: Bipolar disorder is categorized by highs and lows in your mood. That’s why it’s called a mood disorder [edit: it can also be called a psychotic disorder]. Not just simple, everyday highs and lows like everybody has, it’s not just “oh, I feel sad today, it’s not just, “oh, I have a lot of energy.” It’s extreme. 

ANJA: That’s why they’re called poles. That’s why it’s bipolar disorder

F: Yes, it’s the two poles, the high and the low. 

A: The mania and the depression.

F: So mania, is when you...[trails off]...

A: It’s the high. 

F: It’s the high. Mania is the high, that means you have a lot of energy, you are very impulsive, can have a lot of aggression, rage, risky thoughts, risky behaviors.

A: Racing thoughts. 

F: Racing thoughts, absolutely. Nightmares, hallucinations, hypersexuality, violence, paranoia...

A: Also, I don’t think this is an official symptom, but coming from myself and a lot of other bipolar people, you get this feeling where you’re like, crawling in your own skin. 

F: Yeah. Definitely. I hear that one a lot. 

F: So, symptoms of a depressive episode is that you...well, you are depressed. Not just kinda sad, you feel really, really, down. When I’m depressed, and I have major depressive disorder, when I’m depressed I don’t want to get out of bed. I don’t want to take a shower. I don’t want to get dressed, I don’t want to do anything, I don’t want to be anything. 

A: There’s no motivation whatsoever. 

F: No motivation whatsoever. 

A: I don’t get depressive episodes very often because I have bipolar I, and I get manic more than I do depressed. I don’t really- I don’t have to worry about depression, unless I like, unless I have no stimulation in my everyday life. 

F: You have to stay busy in order to not get depressed. I’m the same way. If I don’t want to sit in that pit, I have to stay busy all the time. That’s why I’m constantly going, and going, and going, and doing, because if I just sit for more than a couple days, I’m in that pit and I don’t feel good. 

F: So, another symptom, another result, of bipolar disorder, is uh, suicide. There is a hefty suicide rate among bipolar people. That is- that is the worst part. And as a parent of a bipolar child, knowing the statistics around bipolar disorder and suicide, it’s enough to kickstart me into a depression. It is- it worries me. 

A: The, um, I’m not gonna say the only reason, but it is one of the biggest reasons why I didn’t try to kill myself when I was younger, was because I’m so afraid of death. Maybe not death, but what happens after it. 

F: To tell you the truth, me too. It absolutely terrifies me. 

F: So, some statistics from the NIMH, claim that 2.9% of thirteen to eighteen year olds have bipolar disorder, and eighty one percent of those kids have it severe. It’s bad enough to be hospitalized, and make their life really difficult. 

F: So I was reading earlier...about bipolar disorder, and someone asked the question, “can someone with bipolar disorder live a normal life?” And it says here, “people with bipolar disorder usually go ten years before being accurately diagnosed. Treatment can make a huge difference. It is a chronic health condition that needs lifetime management. Plenty of people with this condition do well, they have families and jobs and live normal lives.” So that ought to give you a little hope for the future. 

F: That’s...that’s the other thing. Meds...they are- in my opinion, they are a must. It’s beyond me how people aren’t medicated. 

A: I think it’s really funny how, um, how after I was diagnosed bipolar, the last thing you wanted me to do was be on meds. Now, we depend on it. We have to. There’s no choice. 

F: As you were growing up and you were being misdiagnosed all over the place, meds were the last thing on my mind. We tried every single thing else. We tried discipline, rewards, I tried diet changes, we tried all sorts of therapy, I tried changing the way that I parent! And none of it worked. 

A: Because you can’t just change those chemicals. Without medication. 

F: You can’t! Exactly. You can’t change those chemicals. Absolutely. I’m the same way with mine, my MDD. It doesn’t fix itself. I need medication to give me the right chemicals. To balance those chemicals in my brain. That is a must. 

F: So, we’ve talked about what bipolar is, now let’s talk about what it is not. It’s not learned. It’s not a discipline problem. It’s not something that you can beat out of a child, teach out of a child, train out of a child, It’s not something that’s going to go away. And it’s not something that’s just going to one day change. It’s an ever evolving illness...

A: But it’s always there. 

F: But it’s always there. And unless you’re treating it with therapy and medication, you’re fighting a losing battle. 

A: Chronic is the key word. 

F: Chronic is the key word. Bipolar disorder is a chronic illness. 

A: Which, that really scares me. Because I’ll have to live with this for the rest of my life. 

F: Let me tell you something. I’ve described severe depression as rain. Imagine you have to go out in the rain. And you have to change the tires on your car, you have to check your mail, you have to walk your dog, you have to go to work. You have to hoe your garden, mow your lawn. Daily things, but you have to do them in the rain. That’s what my brain is like every single day. I will always live doing everything in the rain. And that’s a daunting thing to think about. 

F: I can still do all those daily activities, but you know how when you go in the rain, everything’s just harder? And you’re just slightly more miserable doing them? That’s what it’s like with MDD, I’m constantly having to force myself to do things. And when I do them, I’m miserable. It’s harder for me. It’s harder for me to go take a shower than it is for other people. It’s harder for me to do things because it’s like when you’re out in the rain, everything’s just that much harder.

A: It’s like- I’ve said it before- but it’s like when you do anything, it would be much easier for a neurotypical person.   

F: It is much easier for a neurotypical person. They’re not fighting chemicals in their brain. 

A: They’re not fighting their own mind on a daily basis. 

F: Yeah! And I know that’s exhausting. I know your brain is tired. I know you’re tired. I know you are. But you can’t really think about it that way, because then you’ll get overwhelmed. I can’t think about how I will never not be in the rain. I can’t think about it...because that’s just gonna throw me back in that pit. And I can’t live my life, raise my kids, and take care of everything I need to take care of..if I’m in that pit. 

A: And it’s okay to be miserable. It’s okay to rest. 

F: As long as you don’t give up. I like Kevin Hines’s hashtag, #beheretomorrow. Today might not have been the best day, but as long as you’re here tomorrow, that’s what matters. 

F: Let’s touch on what bipolar disorder means for you- for us. What does bipolar disorder mean for you? 

A: I really hate to say this but...bipolar disorder is a part of me. And I can’t change that. I mean, sometimes I really wish I didn’t have bipolar disorder, but I don’t know what I would be without it. 

F: Absolutely. I completely agree with you. I feel the same way about myself. I don’t know who I would be. I don’t know who my father would have been, who my grandmother would have been, without mental illness. 

F: While I understand your sentiment, I think that because you’re medicated, and nobody else was, you are more you.

A: And less bipolar disorder. 

F: Yes! Exactly. When you were eight years old and running away and acting out, being violent and raging, I didn’t know who you were! I couldn’t buy you gifts, I didn’t know what you liked. I didn’t know your personality...all I knew was this child I couldn’t connect with. All I knew was this child that absolutely hated me. 

A: I was mostly bipolar disorder. 

F: One of the more prominent symptoms that you had was lack of motivation. Smartest kid ever, bad grades. It’s not that you didn’t know the work, you just didn’t turn stuff in. Soon as we got you on medication, that mostly changed. 

F: Super energy. 

A: Aggressive. Frustrated. 

F: Violent. Raging. Yeah, those were scary times. 

A: I had anger issues.

F: A lot. Yeah. You couldn’t focus on anything. I know a lot of that are symptoms of ADHD. 

A: Which is why I got misdiagnosed.

F: But its the hallucinations and the nightmares that sealed the deal. That turned things around. When we brought those up, it turned things around. That’s when the term “bipolar” came into play, and it fit. It fit you. 

F: I know that some of the symptoms in my family, that are or were mentally ill, were definitely instability. Never being able to stay put. Not being consistent. Inconsistency was huge.

A: Even me, now, medicated, I can’t stay on the same routine or the same surroundings for more than a month. I have to change something about my life, whether it be my room, or, hell, my Tumblr blog. There has to be something that changes. 

F: I agree. I’m the same way. I get very bored very easily.

F: Money! Money was a huge problem when I was growing up. You know, nobody could save. They would spend wildly. 

A: Money? You mean lack of!

F: Yeah. It was impulsive spending. That’s one of the bigger symptoms of bipolar disorder in adults. Impulsive spending. That was a huge one when I was growing up. 

F: My family was never very affectionate. They were always very distant. 

A: I don’t know what I would do if you weren’t affectionate.

F: Well, that’s the whole reason I am affectionate, is because I was starved as a child. I needed affection and I never got it. So, it was super important to me that I be an affectionate parent. I don’t know what I would do if I wasn’t affectionate either, because I thrive on being close to you guys. And I don’t want to raise you in the same situation. In an angry, distant, impulsive, unstable situation. I don’t want to raise you that way. 

F: So, what did we learn today?

F: That it’s a little scary.

A: It’s scary.

F: But it can be managed.

A: It can be managed.

F: And you’re doing a fantastic job. And I’m doing a fantastic job, and your team is doing a fantastic job. 

F: Do you remember the time we were standing outside Old Navy and you told me you wanted to buy a gun?

[blank stare]

[necromatador]

Couriers: Hydra Fight

I’m gonna split this in two for ease of reading lol:

We left off with Nimh being dragged underwater by the hydra, leaving one of its severed heads flopping around on the deck.  As the crew and deck-bound party-members ran to the side of the ship to call after them, we noticed that we were right up against the whirlpool, which was strengthening.  Deep in the funnel of water, we started to be able to see sword-sized teeth poking through the edges.

Keyleth analyzed the hydra head using his years of monster hunter training and ranger experience, discovering it was cold and necrotic damage that would stop its heads regrowing, not fire as with a basic hydra.  Walker, Maisy, and Sunny rushed onto the deck, Maisy and Sunny starting to load cannons on the side of the ship facing the whirlpool.  Walker tied himself to a rope, called Keyleth out on not diving in after Nimh (which pissed Keyleth the hell off because he was gonna dammit he just wanted to analyze the hydra head first).  Walker handed off his rope to Keyleth and then dove in after Nimh.  Keyleth tied Walker to one of the cannons and then tied another rope to himself, asking Maisy to tie him off to the ship so he could dive in.  She did, and he dove in afterwards.

Meanwhile Aeron, useless and frustrated up in the crow’s nest, blasted the hydra head still flopping around on deck, and a few teeth out of the whirlpool.  Kaicis finished the hydra head off with some Ray of Frost.

Below the water, things weren’t going well.  The hydra had 5 heads now and Nimh was drowning in its claws.  Walker managed to pry the claw open and allow Nimh out, but the hydra was still biting and Nimh ran out of air and passed out just as Keyleth got under.  Keyleth managed to grab Nimh and began dragging them to the surface as the hydra bursts back up next to the ship, flinging Walker in the air as he was hanging from his spiked chain weapon hooked into one of its mouths.

Finally above the water again, Kaicis and Aeron focus fire.  Kaicis freezes one of the hydra heads solid, and Aeron (with some fancy swashbucklery to get to the deck from the crow’s nest) blasts one of its heads off with Thaumaturgy-charged Shatters (we ruled that if he spent a turn setting up the Thaumaturgy effect to magnify his voice 3x louder than normal, then any Shatter spells cast afterwards would do an extra dice of damage).  As Walker lands on the deck again, he begins to haul up Keyleth and Nimh.  The hydra tries an attack on Aeron, now standing directly in front of it, and it misses.  It does nail Kaicis with another glob of acid spit though.  Aeron Shatters it one more time, yelling “DIE!!!” and taking another head off, at which point all the cannons go off, one going right through the hydra and the rest crashing down into the whirlpool maw.  Horrifically injured, the hydra retreats (but not before giving us a major evil stink-eye with one of its remaining heads).  The whirlpool lets out a gurgling shriek and slows, allowing us to escape its pull with some help from Xel-Bal who conjures some wind to fill our sails.

Meanwhile everyone was rushed down to the med room and Aeron paced frantically outside as Doc worked.  Nimh first, as they had several broken ribs and puncture wounds from the hydra’s horrible lobster claws.  Doc managed to patch them up and stabilize them, setting them in the single cot.  Next up was Keyleth, whose legs had been pretty well shredded by some bite attacks from the hydra.  They were cleaned, bandaged, and he was set up on a stool to rest.  Then was Kaicis, whose acid burns were cleaned and bandaged as well.  Finally Walker, who had a nice big hydra tooth drag wound across a shoulder.  At dinner, Walker wove a tale of epic battle and certain victory about the fight that put Aeron and Keyleth on edge because it’s such a damn lie.  Aeron and Keyleth returned to the deck, sifting through the remains of the one hydra head for teeth as trophies.  Aeron kept aside a fang for Nimh, gave Keyleth 2 teeth, and kept 8 teeth for himself.  Walker came up on deck, looking exhausted, and admitted that he was only telling the story like that to give hope and keep morale up for the rest of the crew.  Aeron and Keyleth admitted that it still hurt to hear since they very nearly lost Nimh, and told Walker that it was only 3 or so months since they’d all met fighting a giant pumpkin king, but they were close.  Walker remained incredulous.  That night, Aeron snuck in to check up on Nimh and fell asleep on a stool next to their bed after assuring them that everything was okay.

The next day everyone who can, returns to basic work as we clear the rest of the Hydra’s Grin.  Keyleth was given the okay to walk, with crutches, and told NO CLIMBING by Doc so instead he takes up Candle’s usual duties of swabby.  Walker goes in to check on Nimh, and Nimh admits that they are attracted to him (to Walker’s absolute delight of course) and tells him a slightly edited version of the story that.  That night, Keyleth sneaks up on deck to talk to Candle.  He discovers that Candle could see ghosts since his 2nd “death” and was “trained in some things” by the slavers that held him captive, which was also linked to his ability to use magic.  He wasn’t scared of his magical ability, it was just something that he wanted to leave behind.  Keyleth revealed that he was able to see ghosts due in some part to an attack from something.  Then the two spent the night with Keyleth regaling Candle with the story of Chewy, the maw demon we accidentally adopted a while back and had to take to some witches in the desert to send home without killing it.

Oh yeah also Candle’s missing arm was now a ghost arm that he could interact with ghosts with.