#delicious dinosaur descendants

[precognitiveignition]

i feel like roast turkey legs are actually capable of restoring hp

i have never had a good turkey leg that did not make me feel better for having it

[ironychan]

Things we can assume about dinosaurs, based on their modern descendants:

They were warm-blooded and had feathers.

They liked to roll in the dirt.

They could not hiccup.

They danced to impress girls.

The girls they were trying to impress needn't be the correct species.

Not even vaguely. I once saw a peacock trying to woo a pond full of deeply unimpressed flamingos.

They looked very silly when they ran.

They would seize any opportunity to be a gratuitous asshole, particularly when food was involved.

They woke up very early in the morning and started the day by screaming.

They were capable of being very stupid, then shockingly intelligent, then dumb as a bucket of mud again within ten seconds.

They tasted delicious on a bun with spicy mayo.

[amymaleneart]

Glamrocks in the Harpy Au pt. 1

I've been trying to draw up what the Glamrocks looks like in the Sundrop and Moondrop Harpy Au. But every time I tried, it just looks terrible and I just get frustrated. So I'm just going to write about it instead. Maybe someday I will get something made.

So, my thoughts in this Au is that all four Glamrocks are not were-creatures, because that's just too easy. They are all human of the Native American heritage that is deeply entwine with shamanism and having packs with animal spirits. They can also be known as skin-walkers, changelings, shapeshifters, etc. They don't have to be shamans, but it's considered family tradition that they connect with their animal spirit to be their guides in their adult life and often times animal characteristics manifests in the physical forms. Now how much manifests depends on the person's emotions, personality and trainings. So let's say if you have complete control of yourself, you can easily transform into full animal without losing yourself.

So intros:

Freddy Fazbear-Tsinajinnie is the head ranger of the Fazbearstone National Park and Wildlife Refuge, founded and owned by his family. He is a very well mannered person that has the patience of a saint. And out of the four Glamrocks, he is an actual trained shaman, so he does have complete control over his animal spirit, the grizzly bear. His appearance is that of a well tanned, buff dad bod with golden hair. Often he has his bear ears and tail out cause he finds them comforting and he's proud of his heritage. He can easily put them away when he is in uniform, mainly because that the ranger hats are not ear-friendly. He's good friends with Y/N and tries to help zir whenever he cans. And being a ranger, Freddy has some veterinary training and experience with harpies and is the chicks primary doctor. Thought the chicks don't always like him the same way most pets don't like the vets. But Freddie does bring them treats so maybe he's not that bad?

Chiara "Chica" Chatto is the local grocer that sells farm grown produce and goods. She goes around the local farms to sell their products on their behalf. She meet Y/N during one of the local Farmer's Markets she organize weekly and they became fast friends. Once the farm was up and running, Chica drops by regularly to collect zir eggs to sell at her establishments. Sundrop likes her and see's her as an auntie. Moondrop is okay with her, but she can be just too loud for him sometimes. Chica has a very pale complexion and white (literally) feathery hair, due to her animal spirit being a white chicken. She was sad at first when he met her spirit animal and was made fun of for awhile. Until she learned that the chickens are descended from dinosaurs and realized that she is stronger than she appears to be. Chica did have some training and can easily control her appearance. She really only loose her composure when it comes to tasty food. In which case, she can really end up fluff out in feathers from her head all the way down to her toes, depending on how delicious the food was. Some chefs goes to her just to test their new recipes and judges based how how much of her feathers comes out.

Edit: Decided to have zir meet Chica at her health food store "Chick-A-Dee's" instead due to the timing of the story, taking place in early spring. Chica does still organize farmer markets, but realistically it wouldn't start happening until mid-summer when there are crops to sell. The reader needed to get some food for the baby chicks when they were old enough to eat semi-solid food. Human baby food does work, but zir second thought on buying process food unless it's an emergency, opting out for fresh organic food instead.

Continue to Part 2

[bunjywunjy]

There’s a line in an early episode of Star Trek where Spock says “my ancestors spawned in a different ocean than yours did.” I have tried to look up the timeline of when the progenitors of humans were originally in oceans and then figuratively crawled ashore but I don’t know how to ask the right questions. Can you give me a rundown of when and how this happened? Where did we go after we came out of the ocean? To trees?

it's actually easier than you think, because all land vertebrates are descended from ONE common ancestor! we are all considered a single group called Tetrapods, meaning "four-foots", for this reason.

so to give you a very condensed timeline, what happened was that roughly 400 million years ago, lobe-finned fish started making forays onto the beaches in search of delicious insects and plants! (who had no land predators at the time and were just wandering around with their delicious parts hanging out in a totally shameless fashion)

then as the fish KEPT DOING THIS and wriggled further and further up the beaches for longer and longer periods, roughly 40 million years later, the first amphibians started to evolve!

and 45 million years after THAT, as amphibians kept pushing further into the continental interior, reptiles started to emerge, with brand new water-saving adaptations like impermeable scales and tough-shelled eggs! (we're sitting pretty at 315 million years ago at this point, if you're keeping track)

and right alongside them, the very earliest of the group that would become the mammals!

THAT'S RIGHT, MAMMALS ARE ACTUALLY RIGHT UP THERE WITH REPTILES IN TERMS OF OVERALL AGE. SUCK IT, LIZARDS.

(though true mammals with the boobs and everything wouldn't show up until prooobably about a hundred million years later.)

and last of all the major groups of life to evolve on land, birds! they developed from the reptile group via the dinosaurs and came crashing onto the scene roughly 165 million years ago! yeah, birds lived alongside dinosaurs and pterosaurs for about 100 million years, it was nuts.

so basically there a LOT of different land animals in the world now, but they all share a common origin in the shape of a fish... that just REALLY wanted to eat some bugs.

and that's tetrapod evolution in a nutshell!

[smallgodseries]

No matter which big dinosaur descendant you might have been expecting, please know how thankful we are for you - for your kind words, questions, and sharing. While we usually only post MWF, we’ll have delicious leftovers for you tomorrow, and - we hope - a very important Small God for Black Friday.

He is only one of a surprisingly large clutch.

Gods of life and gods of death, those are easy.  Everyone understands what it is to be a god of life or death.  But not many people understand what it means to walk in the company of a god of endlings or a god of relicts, and those who spend even an hour in the company of Ultimus, god of the last are never the same again.  And then there is Ono.  He was there from the beginning, and still weeps for the day when he was first called upon to do his duty and walk alongside the gods of death and the god of the last to see the final spark of a species extinguished.

His only joy is that he is not the god of the extinct.  He follows the moment, not the ones who fall.  Katie, small god of the extinct, gathers her faithful close after his duty is done, and carries them home where no comet can strike them, no fungus stop their breath, no human settler devour them or treat them as easy prey.  He never has to face the consequences of his duty.  It is a small, cruel comfort, but he finds it better than nothing.

Megafauna, bacteria, species too wide-spread and successful to fail, he comes for them all in time, comic and slow on his little legs, easy to evade with even a moment’s thought or effort.  But one day, all the Earth will be his.  Ultimus will stalk the land, and Katie will weep for her crowded cloisters, and Ono Dodo will reign supreme over all.

He’d like to put that day off as long as possible, if no one minds.

But a surprising number of people seem to think his company is a prize to chase, and he’s direly afraid he’ll see another planet’s-worth of worshippers sooner than anyone believes.

……………………………

Artist Lee Moyer (13th Age, Cursed Court) and author Seanan McGuire (Middlegame, Every Heart a Doorway) have joined forces to bring you icons and stories of the small deities who manage our modern world, from the God of Social Distancing to the God of Finding a Parking Space.

Join in each week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for a guide to the many tiny divinities:

Tumblr: https://smallgodseries.tumblr.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/smallgodseries

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smallgodseries/

Homepage: http://www.smallgodseries.com/

[sweeethinny]

Skin

Harry wanted to be able to show Ginny, through his eyes, how beautiful she is, and how all this insecurity with her body after giving birth to James is not necessary.

Since he cannot do this, he tries in other ways.

this fic is part of The Harry and Ginuary Extravanganza :) I'm sorry for any mistake

* all of this was written while I was listening to Mac Miller album The Divine Feminine, if anyone wants to get in the mood :)

read bellow the cut or in AO3 :)

Harry had been away from home for almost a month, which seemed more like a painful and torturous eternity than anything else. He missed Ginny and little James, it was much worse than the whole situation that he, Ron, and Theo got into, camping close to a pack of werewolves, and chasing a killer who seemed almost as good at hiding which even made them doubt their abilities as Aurors.

Harry was tired, with some bruises, hungry, missing his son who had not even turned a year yet and probably had grown a lot, and his wife. Harry wanted more than ever to hug Ginny and feel her against him.

He also really wanted to take a decent shower and lie on a bed that wasn’t a camp mattress, because Harry was no longer so young to be able to sleep in a bed like that.

It was worth it, he told himself when he could finally apparate to his home, in peace that he could be with his family again, Robards is looking to retire, he will end up choosing me . Harry didn't quite believe it, but Ginny repeated it a lot every time he complained about the boss; 'One day you will be the boss and you will not need to work like that.'

It was what he expected.

Since he had been a father, Harry was always trying to escape these suicide missions, but he was not always able, and he just hoped that when he was promoted, he would be able to spend more time at home. He never wanted so much to work with the Auror bureaucracy and leave the field.

He still enjoyed the excitement, the chase, the adrenaline, but he was no longer willing to risk his life so much.

In addition to Ginny, there was now someone else who encouraged him, even more, to return home alive.

When Harry opened the door, the smell of home entered his nostrils, a smell he never really stopped to notice, but after a month away, he managed to recognize it.

The hallway light on the second floor was on, probably for James to wake up. Harry took off his boots, cloak, and most of his clothes, and walked around the house, smiling for the first time in a month, seeing James's toys on the living room floor, and some scattered around the dining room, and a divine smell from the room that looked like a turkey, came from the kitchen. Hoping that Ginny was already asleep, as well as James since it was past one in the morning, Harry stopped for a snack.

He didn't even bother to heat the food, eating as if he hadn't seen food for more than days, devouring the deliciously seasoned turkey leg, and alternating with the remaining farofa and baked potatoes. It was a little rude and disgusting, he knew, but Harry felt his stomach echo with hunger, forcing him to forget the etiquette.

After less than ten minutes, he was fed, tiptoeing up to the second floor, James's bedroom door was open, as usual, and Harry couldn't help wanting to see his son and entered the room, taking be careful not to wake him up, seeing him resting deeply in bed, wearing adorable dinosaur pajamas, which put him on completely and prevented him from being cold at night. He looked bigger, Harry noticed, and with more hair, he wanted to hold his son in his arms, hug him but was content to just kiss his slightly sweaty forehead. Harry checked that the window was locked, closed the curtains tightly, covered his son, and left the room.

A part of him was satisfied, James was safe, well, and tomorrow would probably jump on Harry as soon as he realized his father was back. James always went to their bed in the morning, just asked to sleep with them and slept for a few more hours, but whenever Harry spent a few days outside, the next morning when the little one realized that his father was back, it was as if sleep disappeared.

After a month away from James' warm hugs during the mornings when they slept together, Harry was not complaining.

But he was not yet complete, not when he had not yet seen Ginny.

She was probably asleep, he thought, it was late and the days must have been tiring now that she was back to training, and without him at home to help with James, things should have been going smoothly. But the light in their room was on, which Harry found strange.

Still trying not to make any noise, because maybe she just fell asleep without even realizing it, Harry approached, opening the door a little more and sticking his head into their room, looking around.

Harry had already seen Ginny in many ways, they had a son together, however, he was not prepared for that.

She was standing in front of her dressing table, evaluating herself in front of the mirror on the wall, taking small turns to try to see her back, and then turning and facing the mirror. Ginny did not seem to feel the cold that Harry was feeling, since she wore one of the smallest lingerie he had ever seen, still seeming to assess whether the piece was beautiful or not.

The light blue lace made her look even more beautiful, contrasting with the freckles that spread over her skin and the light tan she was getting now that she was back in training. The bra barely hid her nipples, temptingly drawing her breasts, and not having the same common cut as the others she wore, and instead, this one had a few more buttons and went down to the beginning of her ribs, already in translucent fabric. The lace itself was only on the straps and the front of the breasts, descending in a V to the middle of the other fabric, something that made it look even more beautiful.

Ginny kept her hands in front of her belly, the same way she did a month ago when they were going to have sex, or she ended up undressing next to him, and automatically hid her belly. Harry would always comment that she didn't need to hide from him, but Ginny insisted that she still didn't feel safe with her body.

‘Pregnancy changed me,’ She always said. 'You don't know what it's like to see your body change dramatically in a matter of months... Now I have stretch marks where I never thought I would.'

Harry thought it was silly, Ginny was beautiful anyway, and he was still a fool in love, with or without stretch marks.

The panties also had that translucent fabric with a light blue background, it was one of those that had a high waistband and that he knew Ginny preferred to wear recently, but this one he could still see her belly, and the lace only appeared again from the front, covering only what was necessary, while at the back, it was just a small piece of the other fabric, not making much of a point of hiding anything from it, which made Harry salivate.

His imagination would never live up to the perfection that she was, how beautiful her ass made him a little too obsessed, or how her breasts had also changed after pregnancy, and all of James's breastfeeding.

'Hmmm… maybe?' He heard her murmur to the reflection, again turning around in a way that she could still look at her back, running her hands behind her thighs as if she wanted to lift her ass a little further. What Harry thought was unnecessary.

'I thought it was more than perfect.' He finally manifested himself, leaning on the doorframe and feeling his erection grow and cause that pressure against his pants.

Ginny jumped up and pulled her robe in front of her, startled and looking at him with wide eyes, pink cheeks and looking like she had managed to hold back the scream in time. ‘Harry!’

'Yea, it's me.’ He smiled.

'Harry .' Ginny finally seemed to realize it was him there, after a month, and dropped the robe back, running towards him and throwing herself at him in much the same way as the sunny days of 1996, but this time, he picked her up and kissed her with much more hunger and passion than he did at the age of 16, carefully closing the door behind them and taking her to bed, numb with longing and lust.

It was so good to kiss her again, to get lost in the warmth and softness of her lips, her small, slightly callused hands touching him as if to make sure it was him there, going from hair to shoulders, to cheeks, chest. It was as if she also checked that he was okay, whole, without any damage.

'I missed you so much,' he murmured between her kiss, falling on the bed with Ginny on top of him, his hands roaming everywhere he reached, feeling entirely at peace.

'I thought it would take you longer.' She cried, holding his face in her hands and parting their lips so they could look at each other. The brown eyes that Harry thought about daily were staring at him as if they hadn't seen him in years, shining on the sides as if Ginny tried to hold on to her emotions, struggling to hold herself in front of him.

Harry recognized the effort, but he didn't think it was necessary. It was just the two of them there, Ginny didn't have to hide.

He ran his thumb over her cheek, wiping away the one tear that ran. 'I was so scared,' she whispered, like a secret she had been keeping for days.

'Me too,' Harry admitted, failing to divert his attention from her caramel eyes. 'I just wanted to go back to home and be with you.'

'James missed you, he wasn't so happy and today was the first day he agreed to sleep in his bed.' Ginny smiled and lifted her shoulders, her cheeks turning slightly pink. 'Maybe he knew that Daddy would be back.'

'I'm glad he predicted that I would come back,' Harry let his eyes roam over her body, and now more closely he was able to see how the bra fabric barely made an effort to cover her skin. It was too much of a temptation to bear, and Harry barely contained himself before touching them, feeling heaviness in his hands and the heat radiating through the lace, making his stomach drop and his mouth water. Harry had missed it so much.

'You liked it? I went out with the girls after a workout, and Genevieve made me buy it, but I still don't know if it looked good.' Ginny said, her voice a little shaky as if she were that 11-year-old girl who couldn't look at him without blushing, which made him look up from those breasts he was in love with, and look at her. Ginny was really blushing, the red that covered her cheeks was also running down her neck and bust. ‘The bra doesn’t have much support and I don’t know if it looked so beautiful, I mean, it’s a beautiful piece, but I don’t think it looked beautiful on me .’

'Ginny,' Harry interrupted, holding her chin, forcing her to look at him, the other hand coming down her side and holding her in place, already sensing that she was trying to extricate herself from him. ‘You look hot,’ he said. ‘I’m feeling like a teenager, about to come in my pants.’

She laughed, that laugh he loved to hear. 'I would be really upset if even after all this time it was still happening.'

'I have learned to hold on,' He smiled, still caressing her cheek, smiling lovingly at Ginny. 'You and beautiful. In all moments.'

'Even when I was all sweaty, giving birth to James?' Ginny asked, laughing sheepishly as she laced her fingers through his, her auburn hair falling like lava on either side of her face.

'Of course.' Harry didn't take his eyes off hers, wanting her to understand that he was being more than real there. He wanted her to be seen through his eyes, and then she would understand how beautiful she is. 'I think I came to love you even more, if that is possible, that day.'

'Awn Harry, don't be so dramatic, you spend only a month away and when you come back you are declaring yourself as a passionate poet.' She laughed, but he did not fail to notice how Ginny's cheeks got even more flushed and she turned her attention to the wall behind the headboard, as if she tried not to let him realize that it affected her.

'I really missed you, that's why.' Harry shrugged, caressing her cheek and bringing her amber eyes back down to his, laying her head against his hand. 'I hate to be away from you for a long time... my romantic mind comes up and I have a lot of time to think about how to declare myself to you.'

'I hate it too when you stay away,' Ginny smiled, allowing him to see her without all those walls she put up for protection.

'Did something happen while I was gone?' He stared at her, noticing how her shoulders tensed and then relaxed when Ginny sighed and lay on his chest, hugging him as she could, as she usually liked to do during the cold nights.

'Nothing too urgent...'

'Ginny…' Harry whispered, running his hands down her back, feeling the skin prickle.

'Rita made a very pertinent comment about me.' Harry felt her tense under his arms again, and kept silent waiting for Ginny to continue talking. Somehow they got a picture of me training only in a crop top, and apparently I should wear t-shirts like the other girls... something to do with my belly and stretch marks.. ' She sighed.

Harry wanted to go to the Prophet and shout some truths that had been stuck for years, in Rita's face. But he just preferred to tighten his grip around Ginny, and kiss the top of her head.

'You look beautiful in any outfit.' He said, trying to be as clear as possible. 'Rita and everyone else are just assholes who are too self-centered to look at their navel for a minute... You are the hottest woman, Ginny, and I don't say that just because we are married.'

'My body has changed a lot in the last year.' She lifted her face, resting her chin on his chest and looking at him, her brown eyes flashed. 'I don't think I'll ever have that body again and-'

'-And you are still beautiful.' The two faced each other. 'You gave birth to a child, Gin, this is incredible. Your body being able to do that is incredible. I will never get tired of saying that. ’Harry smiled. 'I wanted you to see yourself through my eyes, and see how beautiful you are, even with all those things that you insist on saying are defects and that you hate them.'

'Don't make me cry,' She sat on his lap again, fanning her eyes and looking up at the ceiling, her cheeks flushed and a lovely smile on her face, Harry couldn't help but laugh too, feeling incredibly lighter than hours ago, as if now all that tension had been reduced to dust and there was only peace left in his chest.

'About this lingerie... do you have any plans, or are you just experimenting...?' He went back to browsing Ginny's sculptural body, almost drooling over how her breasts looked in that piece, and the transparency of her panties, which ended up exactly where it started getting more interesting. Harry groaned when she moved and stood on top of his cock, closing his eyes with the sensation of the gods it caused.

'I would surprise you when you came back, I thought it would take another week, then I would buy some candles, and cut my hair... But you ruined my plans.' Ginny smiled, biting her bottom lip as if she knew it was driving him crazy. ‘I believe you want to take a shower?’

'I might want some company,' Harry said, holding Ginny firmly in his lap, getting up from the bed and listening to her scream in fright as he walked to the bathroom in their suite, no longer feeling the fatigue from before. 'You know how needy I am after returning from missions.’

'It's a valid request.' Ginny hugged his neck, hands clinging to his hair, as if he were the life jacket that prevented her from sinking. He felt that way about her too. 'I missed having someone in the bath with me… Someone who doesn't want to mess up the bathroom with water and foam.' Harry laughed, placing her sitting on the white marble countertop, watching her body shiver as she made contact with the cold stone, waving with the wand for the hot water to start filling the bathtub.

'I might want to make a bit of a mess,' he said, approaching and feeling her warm breath against his face, before Harry narrowed the distance and kissed her, hungry but still keeping control, leaving his hands on her thighs, keeping them far enough away for him to stay in the middle.

'I like this mess,' Ginny whispered, her eyes closed and her forehead against his, breathing hard, the sound of water being the only one to fill the room. 'I am happy that you came back. I missed you a lot.’

Harry nodded, closing his eyes to make sure it wasn't just a dream, opening them again then just to see Ginny there. 'I felt it too. I am miserable without you.’

[...]

Harry woke up much later with small hands pulling the blanket off them, and the unfortunate murmurs of a child who tried his best to climb up on the bed. He sighed, feeling happy to get back to that routine, but he didn't move, wanting James to find out for himself that Harry had come back. It was a good time.

One more sigh from a boy who seemed very irritated by his young age, and then he finally succeeded, almost removing all the cover from Ginny, crawling up a little sleepily, still holding that light yellow cloth he always carried, and scratching his eyes.

The sun hadn't even risen, leaving the room in that gloom of the few hours before finally dawn, but Harry could see when James opened his brown eyes and threw himself on top of him.

‘Daddy!’ James shouted, hugging his father as he managed, cold hands making the man shiver.

'Hi my love,' Harry murmured, happy, tired, and a little too sentimental, feeling his eyes prickle. 'Speak low, it is still very early and mummy is sleeping.' He put James under the covers, stroking his son's slightly sweaty head, kissing the boy's forehead. 'We are going to sleep some more, okay? The sun hasn't even appeared yet.’

'Daddy…' James murmured, and Harry waited to see what meaningless phrase his son would try to murmur now, but the boy just kept his icy hands touching his father's face, as if to make sure he was really there.

He could not wait to be able to do fewer and fewer missions that required him to stay away from home for a long time.

'Sleep honey, daddy is here,' Harry assured him, snuggling the boy into his embrace, feeling finally complete, watching Ginny turn towards them, sleeping soundly, and then James, who was preparing for it, little hands clutched the shirt that Harry was wearing, as if it were his cloth.

Harry felt like the happiest man in the world.

[avengerscompound]

It’s You and Me - Chapter 3

It’s You and Me: A Hawkeye Fanfic

Series Masterlist PREVIOUS //

Buy me a ☕ Character Pairing:  Clint Barton x  F!Reader

Word Count:  1770

Rating:  E

Warnings:  Injuries, blood, smut (MF, vaginal sex)

Synopsis: You and Clint Barton go way back.  Since you joined the circus as a child, he took it upon himself to keep you away from the people who really wanted to hurt you.  For years the two of you danced a line between dark and light.

When he chooses light the two of you go your separate ways.

Fifteen years later he tracks you down.  Those feelings the two of you shared never went away, but now he is not only an Avengers but a single father.  Can the two of you make it work after all this time when your lives have gone in such different directions?

A series told in flashbacks and current day.

Chapter 3: Now

You sat on the vanity with your shirt off while Clint patched up your arm.  It was no surprise he was so deft at dealing with puncture wounds.  Clint was extremely talented with the bow, but also a bit of a klutz.  He always had been, so getting stabbed by his own arrows wasn’t that uncommon.  As a result, he knew this particular wound and had done a good job patching you up.  The wound had been cleaned and treated.  The blood flow eased and he was just finishing up the dressings.

He tore the last piece of tape from the dressing and patted it in place.  “That should do it.  Thankfully it looked clean,” he said.

“I’m sure it will be fine.  It's not the first time one of her snakes has bitten me,” you said, with a shrug.

Clint chuckled.  “Well, same.”

You both laughed and he patted your thigh.  “Thanks for helping me,” he said.  “I know that really put you out on a line.  You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yeah, well,” you said with a shrug.  “What can I say, when it comes to you, I’m a soft touch.”

Clint chuckled.  “That's not how I remember it.”

You laughed gently and reached forward, hooking your fingers through the belt loops of his pants and drew him closer to you.  He seemed to move too slow and you began to think he might not actually want this.  That he might not want you.

He tilted his head, leaned in, hesitated for a moment, then cradled your jaw and kissed you.  You kissed back passionately, wrapping your legs around his waist and drawing him closer to you.  He started to grind against you, holding you against him as he pushed you back against the mirror.  You moaned into his lips and bunched your hands into his hair.  You had missed this so much.  The desperate need and passion, along with the way he tried to keep you on the right path while he danced on and off his own.

His fingers deftly unfastened your bra and you tossed it aside as he kissed down your neck to your breasts.  You let your head fall back against the glass and closed your eyes as you just enjoyed the feel of his mouth on you.  His cock hardened in his pants as he ground against you and it added to that delicious friction against your cunt.  Your traced your fingers down his back, those familiar muscles only hardened and developed with time.

Clint’s mouth returned to yours and he guided you down off the sink and pushed your pants down.  You stepped out of the fabric and let him guide you using the hunger of your kiss into the bedroom.  You were backed against the wall and you wrapped a leg around his waist grinding against his cock.  “Fuck, Clint,” you gasped, as you hastily unbuckled his pants.

He chuckled and pushed them down looking over at his bed where his one-eyed golden retriever sat.  “Lucky, get down,” he said.

The dog wagged his tail and for a moment you didn’t think he was going to move but he jumped down and moved to the dog bed in the corner.  You pushed Clint back onto the bed.  Clint groaned and pulled you down on top of him.  You rolled your hips, your cunt dripping and soaking through your panties.  Clint rutted up against you, the only thing separating his sex from yours was the thing cotton of his boxer shorts and the lace of your panties.

He rolled you over and pushed down his boxers as you wriggled out of your panties.  A lightheaded, breathless feeling was setting in, yet you still would not break the kiss.  The heat of his skin against yours and the tingling in your lips was addictive, and you didn’t want to break it for anything.

Clint reached over to his bedside table and fumbled for a condom.  As he grabbed hold of a strip and pulled it over, knocking a book, and several electronic devices to the floor including his phone, you rolled him onto his back again and straddled his waist. 

“God, I missed you,” he hummed as he watched you first tear one packet from the strip, and then tear the packet open.

“You’re the one who had to go and join SHIELD,” you teased as you rolled the rubber down over his shaft.

He groaned and rolled you again lining himself up and thrusting hard into you.  You cried out and bucked up under him and Clint quickly covered your mouth and looked down into your eyes.  “Shh…” he whispered, as he began to thrust hard into your cunt.  “Gotta be quiet.” 

You weren’t sure what prompted this need for silence.  Perhaps he had thin walls and a neighbor who liked to complain.  Maybe there was a roommate you weren’t aware of.  Whatever it was, it was nothing except sexy, adding to that desperate frantic nature of what was happening.  Like it was somehow illicit and forbidden.  It reminded you of when you first started dating and living in old hostels with thin walls or roommates.  Every moment together feeling slightly stolen.  Perhaps that’s why he did it.  The words ‘you gotta be quiet’ were common between you back before SHIELD.

You opened your mouth and he pushed two of his fingers inside.  You sucked on them as he slowly moved them in and out of your mouth slowly countering the frantic thrusting of his hips.  You mewled around his digits, the sound muffled by his hand.  He looked down at you, his blue eyes completely blown out with lust as he fucked you hard.

You moved with him, rolling your hips and clenching your walls.  He moaned and brought his hand between the two of you, rubbing your clit furiously as he pounded into your cunt.

You gasped and arched you back.  Clint took his hand away and kissed you hard, smothering your cry as your orgasm hit.  He groaned and his hips began to stutter and just as the last of your orgasm shuddered through you, he came, groaning into your lips.

You sighed and relaxed back on his mattress, settling into the soft, sleepy, high feeling you had.  Today had been eventful and that was a good way to end it.  Clint sat up and took off the condom, tying it off and throwing it in the trash.  He rubbed your hip as he removed his hearing aids and lay down beside you spooning you from behind.

It had been such a long time since you and Clint had shared a bed.  As you drifted off to sleep you couldn’t help but think about how nice it was to be wrapped in his arms again.

The sun was coming through the cracks in the blind when you woke and it took a moment for you to realize you weren’t in your bed.  Your body ached and not just in the spot the snake had bitten you.  You had that pleasant throb in your cunt and the strain from muscles you hadn’t used for a while getting an intense workout before you’d gone to sleep  You sat up and stretched.

The space beside you was empty and you sat up and looked around.  It wasn’t like Clint to get up before you, but then, it had been a long time since you’d last seen him.

Stranger than him not being there, was that your clothes were gone.  There was a neatly folded pile of clothes on the chair by the door, that included a towel and a note.  You got up and approached them cautiously.  This was so unlike the Clint you knew that it was borderline worrying.  It was like he was trying to send you a message that something bad had gone down and you half expected the note to be a ransom note from Zelda.

You picked up the note and furrowed your brow as you read.

Hey babe,

Take your time getting ready.  Your clothes were kinda bloody so I took them to the laundry.  They’ll be done this morning but in the meantime, I borrowed some clothes from a neighbor who looked about your size.  Feel free to use the shower, but don’t come down naked.

-Clint.

You read the note over twice.  Despite the fact that sending body armor off to be laundered was very strange, there didn’t seem to be any secret message involved and for the first time, you realized that maybe joining SHIELD had given Clint the change he needed.  Maybe the angry boy you had known back in the day was gone and he had been replaced with a content and together man.

You decided that whatever the case, you might as well be clean before you went down to see what was up.  You took a shower and changed the dressing on your bite wound before changing into the clothes Clint had left for you.  They were the clothes of an old lady.  The kind you might buy at Sears or Costco.  The top was a floral loose-fitting blouse in a cheap polyester and there was a pair of tan slacks that sat almost at your rib cage when you did the buttons up.  You laughed as you looked yourself over in the mirror and headed down to find Clint.

The stairs from the hall led straight down into the kitchen.  The sound of bugs bunny cartoons playing on TV reached you as you descended the steps to find Clint making pancakes in the kitchen.  The kitchen was a chaotic mess with dishes in the sink and batter and flower mixing together on the countertops to make a sticky mess.  You smiled, slightly reassured that he didn’t have his shit completely together.

You crept up behind him and wrapped your arms around his waist, pressing a kiss to his shoulder.

He hummed and ran his fingers over your knuckles.  “Good morning.”

“Morning,” you whispered and looked down into the pan.  There were two pancakes frying in butter.  Both were a little messy, but there was a definite shape to them.  The one on the left vaguely resembled a T-Rex.  While the one on the right had a much clearer stegosaurus.

“Dinosaur pancakes?”  You giggled, not really sure what to make of it.

He chuckled.  “For Nate.”

“Nate?”  You asked, puzzled.

He pointed out into the living room and you blanched.  Sitting on the couch with his one-eyed dog, were three kids.  “Yeah,” he said.  “Nate.  My son.”

// NEXT

[takoyakitenchou]

You and I, a takumegu story

joy is meant to be fleeting. and yet.

Morning

“Takumi-kun,” Megumi yawned as she approached him bearing onigiri and a stainless steel HydroFlask filled to the brim with piping hot jujube tea.

The Italian greeted her with a steaming mug of coffee from his espresso machine in his kitchenette. “I wish I could say good morning, but I’m rather averse to the notion at this point.”

Megumi laughed. It was nearing 5 AM in Tokyo, and they’d been in Takumi’s office at Legislation with a veritable cityscape of the first and second seats’ paperwork organized by importance for the last ten hours. It was tragic that they had agreed to finish all their work a night early so they could enjoy each other’s presence, but this quality time had been relegated to the stupid office. 

“Shall we continue?” Megumi asked, her words lacking any and all traces of conviction.

Takumi heaved a sigh. “I’ve signed so many documents today I can’t tell if I’m writing in Japanese or Italian.”

“To be honest, I’ve probably not even been signing my own name,” she mused. Then she blanched. “O-oh no! W-what if I sent t-the—”

“Relax, Tadokoro-san,” Takumi said, sensing an impending panic attack. “I’m sure Arato-san reviewed the documents before we sent them to New York.”

“I was the one reviewing them!”

Takumi put his hand over hers and gave it a reassuring squeeze. His eyes widened slightly as he realized what he was doing, but he brushed the feeling aside. “It’ll be alright, Tadokoro-san. It won’t matter too much.”

It looked for a second as if she were about to implode, but then she sighed, “I don’t have enough energy to hyperventilate.”

“I understood that on so many different levels.” Takumi took one of the onigiri and felt rejuvenated with the first bite, reveling in the warmth of the honey dressed pork. “This is a masterpiece,” he told her. “I feel better than I’ve been the rest of the month collectively.”

She smiled, a faint blush rising to her cheeks. “I’m glad you think so.”

Takumi’s eyebrows drew together. “Tadokoro-san, now that we’re both functional, do you want to visit the noodle festival in Dotonbori?”

She dropped her onigiri. “T-that’s in Osaka, Takumi-kun.”

“Well, Nakiri Alice told me we’re free to take the jet whenever we want as long as it’s not in use.” Takumi lifted his hand. Dangling from his fingers was a lanyard with a small gold key. “Shall we?”

“It’s five in the morning…” But they both knew she was already more than convinced.

When they landed in Osaka, the festival was already underway. 

The sun was slipping past the horizon by the time they realized they’d been gone the entire day and probably caused pandemonium at Legislation — tragic, how they were the sole pillar keeping the Elite Ten from falling to pieces — but neither seemed to mind.

They were sitting on a bench, watching the passersby, content with all the noodles they’d consumed.

Takumi furrowed his brows. “Tadokoro-san?”

“Yes, Takumi-kun.”

“How would you feel if we called this a date?”

Megumi’s eyes widened. “E-ehh?”

Takumi’s face turned red as he attempted to contrive a respectable excuse, but his panic was cut short when Megumi took hold of his hand with an uncharacteristically calm air.

“I would love that, Takumi-kun,” she smiled, and with one look, Takumi figured that not even the urban atmosphere around them could compare to the cosmopolitan vibrancy in her gold eyes.

Sunset

There has always been some vague concept of balance. Everything comes with a counterpart; there is no exception to this, and there never will be. It is a universal truth, as constant as the laws of motion, as flexible as time. Balance is often unseen, and yet it is there. Joy is countered with anguish, laughter with tears; neither can exist without the other.

And yet, every time Takumi Aldini’s electric blue eyes fell upon that sweet cinnamon roll of a girl — one hell of a chef when she was provoked, though — he realized that no law was absolute, because he had never experienced anything but exhilaration when he was with her.

Love was fleeting; that was another supposed aphorism he’d learned from the wise.

But loving Tadokoro Megumi was something he could do once, twice, twice eternity.

“It says in Nakiri-san’s memo that we’re supposed to be providing a lunch service for the jury of the Bocuse d’Or,” Megumi frowned, reading the post-it note stuck on the inside cover of the manila folder Alice had provided for this particular task.

Takumi finished off his espresso. They were watching the sunset in Vienna, drinking Melange and sharing a slice of Sachertorte with the sun descending beyond the Wiener Musikverein in the gentle Saturday backdrop. “For a second there I was going to ask you which Nakiri you’re talking about. Isn’t the Bocuse d’Or in France?”

“Lyon,” Megumi confirmed. “I’m betting Nakiri-san sent us here on purpose. Bocuse d’Or won’t even happen this year. Ah, look. She left us a note on the back of the post-it.” Megumi cleared her throat before reading, “Happy one year, lovebirds. You have twelve hours before Erina goes berserk and calls NATO to send troops to find you guys, so enjoy them. Call me when you want the jet to come pick you up from VIE.”

“Well, Tadokoro-san, I guess we can relax for the rest of the task period. Happy one year, by the way.”

Megumi gave him a bright smile and replied, “Happy one year, Takumi-kun.” 

The sky was soft, an endless canvas streaked with muted shades of orange and pink, everything blending into a gorgeous view highlighted by the spectacular architecture — and yet Takumi couldn’t seem to register anything other than the remarkable girl blushing nervously across from him.

To think it had been a whole year. It was too good to be true. This was the type of love most men searched for their entire lives without once catching a glimpse of; this was the type of love in fantasy, romance novels — everything an illusion. And yet this was real, as real as the warmth of her heart beating against his when she pressed her nose to his neck.

Takumi knew even he, with all his virtues, didn’t deserve her. But maybe she’d be willing to take him along for the ride; wherever Tadokoro Megumi went, he would follow.

It was just then that Takumi’s phone rang, snapping both out of their shared reverie.

The Italian sighed as he read the caller ID: Nakiri Erina.

“Do I pick this up?” he mused aloud, but he already had his answer.

“Y-you have to, Takumi-kun! She’s the first seat!”

“What do you say we don’t go back to school?” Takumi said, turning his phone on silent and flipping it face down. 

Megumi gave him a horrified look. “You just ghosted Nakiri Erina!”

“I mean, she’s probably too busy dealing with Yukihira’s chaos to care, right?” 

“Chaos is a severe understatement,” Megumi admitted. “B-but what if she kicks us off the council?”

Takumi grinned. “It’ll be alright, Tadokoro-san. We have a whole week to ourselves.”

With a sigh, Megumi relented. “So… we’re in Vienna.”

“Right.”

“There’s this restaurant I really want to try… but there’s another place down the street that Ryo-kun said had really good rainbow trout. And while we’re in Europe… have you been to Budapest?”

Takumi clapped his hands together. “Say less. We’re taking a sabbatical for the rest of the month.”

Megumi gave a nervous chuckle. “For research purposes, right? Otherwise Nakiri-san is going to kick us over the Pacific Ocean when we get back.”

At this, Takumi burst out laughing. He managed to choke out, “You are truly one in a million, Tadokoro-san.”

And he meant it.

Dawn

To say Takumi Aldini was known for his elegant calisthenics would be a stretch, but when that chaotically graceful blessing was around him, swinging up onto the rooftop of the trattoria with a picnic basket perched precariously on his fingertips was most definitely not a problem. 

Megumi was waiting for him with a fleece blanket around her shoulders and a gentle smile that warmed her gold eyes brighter than the Italian sunrise. “Hi, honey,” she said sweetly, as if she hadn’t prodded him awake ten minutes ago and told him to bring breakfast up to the roof in five. He’d never be able to catch up to her hopping hare speed, but he figured he’d gotten the basics of Tadokoro Time down. To be early was to be on time and to be on time was to be late. Considering he was five minutes past the downbeat, his girlfriend had probably been waiting for him since before the dinosaurs.

“Good morning, amore,” he replied as he sat beside her and opened the basket. Takumi produced a loaf of brioche and began cutting with expert precision, trying to keep his pulse steady as he felt her eyes on him. The small velvet box in his pocket was doing nothing to help this endeavor.

Megumi regarded the two identical 1.8-centimeter slices in awe before thanking him and lifting the first bite to her lips. 

“This is delicious,” she said once the tranquil hum of the autumn pond had faded to the back of her mind. “The rosemary completes the ensemble really well.” He was truly amazing; they’d been cooking love confessions for each other for the last seven years and he could still make her heart skip beats. His love was unconditional, more pastel than anything.

“Grazie, amore,” he said. “It means the world coming from you.”

“I’m only telling you the truth,” she blushed. “If I have to, I’ll say it every day to make sure you know that.”

It was now or never.

“Listen, Megumi. There’s something you need to know.”

She gazed up at him curiously over her brioche.

Takumi took a deep breath. To hell with the speech he’d parsed out in his head last night — that kind of thing never worked anyhow.

Loving Tadokoro Megumi was about elements and worlds that weren’t in their dimension or maybe even in their universe; it was something beyond time and space that his mind couldn’t process, much less put into words, but maybe this dawn would help transmit this, somehow.

But it was highly probable that Takumi had been ready for this simple statement since the moment he first laid eyes on her. A night’s worth of drafting could not possibly hope to serve justice to everything he needed to say. It was the pinnacle of all his emotions that would do more than enough, right here, right now.

“If I said I knew exactly when I fell in love with you, I’d be lying, but if anyone asks I’ll tell them I love you now, and that is all that matters. Tadokoro Megumi, you are the most insanely talented, beautiful girl I have ever known, and I am the luckiest man in the world to stand by your side, so thank you for that. I know I’m far from perfect; I have my flaws, and you have yours, but you need to know that every little part of you is absolutely everything to me, and nothing in this universe could ever change that. With your hand in mine we will turn this wasteland into paradise. You and I, no… us. I promise that I will always be with you. Forever is finite. But my love for you is beyond that.”

At this point, Megumi closely resembled something similar to a red train — Takumi swore he could see the smoke venting from her ears — but he’d waded too far in to step back out. 

“I have one question for you.” Takumi got down on one knee, reached into his pocket, and pulled out the Verragio box. The ring was elegant to the point where it possessed an ethereal quality. Diamonds seamlessly fused with rose gold on a platinum band; it was definitely flashier than anything either had ever dreamt of before, much less purchased, and yet it was heartfelt and deliberate. And, perhaps most importantly, it spoke volumes — more words and confessions captured within the metal than Takumi could ever express. 

It was a promise of the unbridled love he had for her, the promise of a sterling future he wanted to build with her.

“It is a privilege and an honor to love you. Will you make me not only the luckiest, but also the happiest man in the world and marry me?”

She nodded, doing her utmost to fight back the tears. And as dawn broke in the sky above them, the girl that brought onigiri to his office at five in the morning, the girl that laughed at him over hiyamugi and squeaked whenever he wrapped his arms around her, the beautiful girl that always made him wonder what he had done to deserve her, said two words, and that was enough.

“I will.”

-

soooo um hi @taku-megu i was your secret santa this year! writing a takumegu fic is something i haven’t done before, so i’m really glad i was given the opportunity to write for you. i hope you have a safe and wonderful holiday with your loved ones! 

and of course, thanks to @shokugeki-secretsanta for organizing this event :)

- reina

[tyrantisterrorart]

Godzilla Gang Revised: Atomic Era Titans

Today’s installment of the Godzilla Gang: Revised focuses on kaiju whose species originated in the (fictional) atomic era of earth’s prehistory - relics from a forgotten age of radiation eating monsters!

Anguirus: an armored reptile that is perhaps one of the most durable kaiju on record, and the most loyal ally of Godzilla II.  Though he isn’t the most deadly kaiju around, Anguirus is noted for surviving a great deal more punishment than almost any other monster, withstanding blows that would kill a weaker creature (including one particularly brutal instnace where the reptile’s lower jaw was almost completely torn off), and fighting well past the point that most other monsters would retreat.

Gorosaurus: a large atomic reptile that superficially resembles a theropod dinosaur.  One of the most laid-back kaiju on record, Gorosaurus is an agreeable sort who rarely picks fights with other monsters, though when pushed into a brawl he proves to be a capable combatant.  He’s on good terms with most of the kaiju in the Monsterland archipelago, though his closest friends are Anguirus and, oddly, Mothra.

Jikanryu: an ancestor of Gorosaurus and ally to Dagojira, Jikanryu is a celebrated figure among the Hotua people, for he figures in one of their creation myths.  Legend says that long before humanity walked the earth, a shining dragon fell from the sky and threatened to destroy the world.  The goddess Inagos rose to fight it, but the dragon’s strength was too much for her to face alone.  So the great earth beasts came to her aid: Dagojira, Jikanryu, and Mesuzala.  Together the four monsters destroyed their three-headed foe, though Jikanryu and Inagos were both lethally wounded in the fray.  Inagos reincarnated as her three daughters - Mothra, Battra, and Leopirax - but Jikanryu was lost forever.  The Hotua vowed to never let his sacrifice be forgotten, and were ecstatic to see that Mothra had rediscovered one of his kin - perhaps Gorosaurus is the Time Dragon reborn?  (Based on both the Time Dragon from The Godzilla Power Hour and Devil Dinosaur from Marvel Comics.)

Mesuzala: a closely related species to Anguirus, Mesuzala holds the record for being the longest-lived kaiju on record that doesn’t cheat by reincarnating.  He isn’t merely a descendant of the creatures from the Atomic Era - he’s a survivor of it, having fought side by side with Dagojira against the alien dragon Tricephalon.  Though far from spry, there’s plenty of fight in the old monster yet, and he has come to view Godzilla II as a worthy heir to his old battle brother.  (Based on Methuselah from the Monsterverse.)

The Rodan Family: Consister of Rodan, Soran, and Firadon, these three volcano-dwelling flying reptiles are wild cards with self serving attitudes.  Consisting of a mating pair and their hatchling, they are led by Rodan, the female, who is by far the most aggressive of the lot.  Soran, her mate, is a bit more chill when left to his own devices, and does the bulk of nurturing their offspring, Firadon.  Rodan is part ally, part rival to Godzilla II, fighting with him almost as much as she fights alongside him.  Like godzillasaurs, Rodans are capable of weaponizing some of their excess radiation in a fiery beam spat from their mouths, though theirs is not as strong as a godzillasaur’s nuclear breath.  (Soran’s name comes from the Rodan expy from Dark Horse’s Godzilla comics, while Firadon’s is just a mangling of “Fire Rodan.”)

Quetzotyl: a distant relative of the Rodans, Quetzotyl is partially covered in scales and partially in strange proto-feathers.  These aren’t for flight, however, but rather to resist flame, as they have a chemical structure incredibly similar to asbestos.  Quetzotyl can even shed these feathers as an offensive weapon, inducing coughing fits on any kaiju that opposes her.  Like her Rodan relatives, Quetzotyl can spire atomic fire, though hers is even weaker than her more armored cousins.  (Inspired by Q from Godzilla: The Series as the unseen Quetzalcoatl titan from the Monsterverse.)

Varan: an even more distant relative of Quetzotyl and the Rodans, Varan is incapable of true flight, but CAN glide for great distances.  A haughty and proud monster, Varan was worshiped and feared as a vicious living god by the Ainu people, who called him Baradagi.  This suited him well, but his skirmish with humanity quickly proved he was far from divine, and Varan was eventually coralled onto Monsterland.

Baragon: a subterranean monster and distant relative of the godzillasaurs, Baragon may be small for a kaiju, but makes up for it with pluck and a creative application of her skill set.  The burrowing monster can dig trenches and other traps for its larger enemies, using their own size against them before finishing them off with her atomic fire breath.  Though she can be a deadly enemy, Baragon is a sweet-tempered creature that is more playful than ferocious.

Terravor: notable for having one of the strangest digestive systems of all earth kaiju, the Terravor doesn’t simply absorb radiation, but actively feeds on and digests minerals themselves, breaking them down on the atomic level in its bizarre guts.  This proved a problem when it woke up in the modern day, as it turns out the refined metal humans use to make their cities, vehicles, and other inventions is INCREDIBLY delicious to the monster.  (Based on the Earth Eater from The Godzilla Power Hour.)

Burtannus: a colossal armored kaiju, Burtannus is a juggernaut on land, albeit a slow one.  She is more vulnerable at sea, where her armored bulk and natural clumsiness puts her at a vast disadvantage.  Thankfully for both her and the world, Burtannus is a “live and let live” sort of monster, content to care for her offspring in the distant regions of the world.

Mokembe: also known as Mokele Mbembe, Mokele, and M&M, Mokembe is a vast sauropod-like kaiju found in the jungles of Africa.  This ancient reptile sports gills like many of the amphibious kaiju of the Atomic Era, making it a capable combatant both above and below water.  (Based on the Mokele Mbembe kaiju described in the novelization of Godzilla: King of the Monsters 2019.)

Chitanosaurus: another distant relative of the godzillasaurus species, Chitanosaurus is even more specialized in an aquatic lifestyle, to the point where it’s incredibly uncomfortable moving on land.  Far more timid than its fire-spitting godzillasaur cousins, Chitanosaurus is comfortable living in the sea and feeding off of schools of fish, far from the prying eyes of the modern world.  (Yes, I chose one of the alternate/incorrect romanizations of “Titanosaurus” solely to differentiate it from the real life dinosaur.  Yes, that’s a little pretentious.)

Cryptodus: a distant relative of Chitanosaurus, the Cryptodus is specialized for life in the deepest parts of the ocean, completely removed from sunlight.  Though fearsome in apperance, these fish-eating kaiju are not particularly aggressive on their own, though if one was to force them to fight they would be fearsome enemies indeed.  (Based on the Cryptocleidus from Godzilla the Series.)

Levianess and Nessie: the kaiju in the heart of Loch Ness, Levianess is a massive sea reptile that has laid dormant in the lake for centuries if not millenia.  Nessie, her offspring, is a bit more lively than her mother, and responsible for all the “monster sightings” that have occurred over the years.  No one was aware of Levianess until Nessie was caught by an unscrupulous scientist, at which point the ancient leviathan finally revealed herself to the world in a violent rampage to reclaim her lost child.  She has since proved a fairly benevolent creature, defending humanity from more vicious monsters on a few occasions, and even accepting her relocation to the Monsterland Archipelago without much fuss.  (Based on Nessie from Godzilla the Series and the unseen kaiju Leviathan from the Monsterverse, whose den is located in Loch Ness according to its blink and you’ll miss it mention in Godzilla: King of the Monsters 2019.)

Maguma: a reptile who coincidentally resembles a walrus, Maguma is a strange creature, capable of living on land, in the water, and most bizarrely, inside magma.  This reptile is incredibly heat-resistant, though it ironically suffers greatly when exposed to cold (the resemblance to a walrus is really very superficial).

NEXT TIME: PARASITES AND SCAVENGERS OF THE ATOMIC ERA

[precognitiveignition]

man i’d apologize to dinosaurs for the fact that we keep roasting their turkey descendants

but then i realise they probably ate a bunch of our ancient ancestors so it balances out

plus turkeys are really friggin delicious so oh well

[nowisthewinter]

I bet the T-Rex was delicious. Think about it, the descendents of dinosaurs are birds like duck, chicken, turkey, quail, pheasant, goose, guineafowl, pigeon, partridge, emu, ostrich, right? These are all birds that humans eat. We like the taste of these birds. 

So, the T-Rex had to taste similar. 

I bet Tyrannosaurus legs would be amazing smothered in BBQ sauce and roasted with some Ranch dressing on the side. 

A real life Jurassic Park outbreak to the mainland would be completely different from what we’ve seen in the movies. Because you know good ol’ boys would be out there hunting down raptors just to see if they could smoke them. Dinosaurs eating us? No, we would be eating them. 

[dweemeister]

Movie Odyssey Retrospective

Alice in Wonderland (1951)

There is an abandoned building at 1127 E 31st St. in Kansas City, Missouri. That 1922 building, made up of red brick and mortar, would have met the wrecking ball long ago, if not for its historical value. For one year, it housed the Laugh-O-Gram Studio, founded by Walt Disney and the first job in animated film for several people who would become instrumental in shaping the American animation industry. Alongside Disney, the Laugh-O-Gram staff included:

Ubbe “Ub” Iwerks, who co-created Mickey Mouse and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit with Walt. Ub stayed with the Disney studios as an animator or special effects specialist through Mary Poppins (1964);

Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising, who founded Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies with Warner Bros. in the 1930s under producer Leon Schlesinger, later moving to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM);

and Friz Freleng, who joined Harman and Ising and Warner Bros and MGM as principally a director, while introducing or developing most of the central Looney Tunes characters.

All of these figures would shape the environment for animated talkies into the midcentury. But Laugh-O-Gram could not survive the financial obstacles that led to the studio’s closure after only a year. Go back and watch the Laugh-O-Gram shorts and you will find imaginative, rowdy stories paired with movements as fluid as animators not named Winsor McCay (1914’s Gertie the Dinosaur, 1918’s The Sinking of the Lusitania) could draw in the early 1920s. Laugh-O-Gram’s last film, Alice’s Wonderland (1923), was never released commercially to the public and – considering its hybrid of animation and live-action footage – demonstrates the influence McCay had over Disney and his fellow animators.

Later in 1923, Walt submitted Alice’s Wonderland to Margaret Winkler, whose Winkler Productions was the leading animated short film distributor of the time. Winkler had just fallen out professionally with Pat Sullivan, the co-creator of Felix the Cat. Needing a quick replacement and charmed by the animated frenzy surrounding the hybrid animation/live-action Alice, Winkler signed Walt Disney and his Laugh-O-Gram team (including child actress Virginia Davis) to produce the Alice Comedies short film series (1923-1927, including 1923’s Alice’s Wonderland) in Hollywood. These films, Disney’s first taste of commercial triumph, shared little resemblance to Lewis Carroll’s novels Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, except for the curiosity of the title character and the fantastical situations she might find herself in. After the end of the Alice Comedies series and the formation of Walt Disney Productions (now Walt Disney Animation Studios), Walt wished to adapt Carroll’s books – which he had been familiar with since his childhood in Missouri – into a feature film. Outside forces delayed the project, including the box office failure of Paramount’s live-action Alice in Wonderland (1933) and the creative and fiscal burdens that his studio had to bear during World War II.

During this time, Walt resigned himself to the fact that any animated adaptation of Carroll’s novels, more interested in illogic and wordplay than any sensible storytelling, would not reach the artistic heights of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). His long wait to adapt Alice in Wonderland as a feature film would end in 1951, with the film co-directed by Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, and Hamilton Luske. A stellar voice cast, mixture of storybook and unusual animation, and an acceptance of its own absurdity make Alice in Wonderland one of the best non-Golden Age Disney animated features.

Alice (voiced by Kathryn Beaumont) is a child, probably ten years of age give or take. She is one of the youngest protagonists in Disney’s animated canon and a rare human female lead without monarchical ties or aspirations. Her story is simply a fantastical dream of her subconscious’ creation. Thus, freed from the limitations and expectations of the “real world”, Alice in Wonderland – and the novels it was adapted from – is an episodic series of nonsensical encounters of the various characters that inhabit Alice’s Wonderland. This posed a dilemma for the Disney animators and the army of writers on the film. How does one make Alice, whose only notable characteristics include her naïveté and incurable curiosity, a more interesting character than what Lewis Carroll wrote? With the animators and writers finding no answer, Disney’s Alice is just as reactive (as opposed to proactive) as Carroll’s characterization for her. Inane things happen to and around her, infrequently because of her own initiative; anyone expecting the studio’s first female lead to write down names, possess a sharp wit, and kick ass might need to recalibrate said expectations given the source material.

This discourse wades into questions about literary fidelity in cinema – no standard formula exists for how literature should be adapted to a film. To adapt Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass as faithfully as possible would be to invite structural and tonal chaos. Carroll’s numerous poetic asides, extremely abrupt (and, to me, exhausting) tonal shifts, and his near-complete dedication to exposition whenever nonsense is not present does not make for a digestible film. The Alice in Wonderland that audiences have enjoyed since 1951 presents its developments far out of any Carroll’s narrative order. The tone and individual moments remain Carroll-esque, but, upon release, British critics savaged the film for degrading Carroll’s best-known works (more on this later). Yet by my judgment and familiarity with Carroll’s books (which, to reiterate, are not concerned about character development) Disney’s animated version is the best cinematic adaptation in line with the Carroll’s artistic intentions.

Alice in Wonderland is best seen as a quasi-Disney package film filled with one-upmanship in its animation. A distracted Walt was barely aware of day-by-day developments during production, and thus did not rein in some of the animated excess Alice in Wonderland is now justly acclaimed for. For the second consecutive entry in the Disney animated canon, Mary Blair’s concept art (1950’s Cinderella, 1953’s Peter Pan) is principally responsible for what the background animators would adopt. In the bookend scenes outside Wonderland, the lush, foliage-filled backgrounds recall her work during Disney’s package era, and are easily the most “realistic” backgrounds since the inimitable Bambi (1942). Once the film descends into Wonderland, the background animators, attempting to convert her concept art into cel animation, attempt (but fail to) replicate the characteristic flatness of her concept art.

But for everything else integral to Blair’s artwork – the lack of straight lines, highly stylized architectural and natural features, and detonation of colors – the background animators (who would be assigned specific scenes) faithfully render her style as closely as they can without completely making Alice in Wonderland a modernist phantasmagoria. The film is an overload of colorful experimentation. Just choose from any one of the scenes involving the White Rabbit’s house, the Caterpillar’s toadstool hideaway, the tea party, or the Queen of Hearts’ domain and one is subject to a visual cacophony of inspired production design and artistic audacity. It can be overwhelming, but Wonderland’s locales represent some of the greatest examples of settings-as-character in almost all of animated cinema.

Alice’s Wonderland, however, is nothing without the characters that dwell within. Some of the most impressive character designs of Disney’s mid-century animated films appear in this film, thanks mostly to two of the “Nine Old Men” – Ward Kimball (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 1971’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks) and Frank Thomas (1940’s Pinocchio, 1977’s The Rescuers) – and Norm Ferguson (“Dance of the Hours” in 1940’s Fantasia, 1953’s Peter Pan). Because of the sheer number of characters that Thomas and Kimball designed and directed on this film (and this is not even mentioning several other fellow directing animators), I will focus on two specific characters of theirs.

For Norm Ferguson, he is the sole directing animator of the Walrus and the Carpenter, the characters from the eponymous segment imparted to Alice by Tweedledee and Tweedledum (itself an adaptation of Carroll’s “The Walrus and the Carpenter” poem within Through the Looking-Glass). As a study of differences, the designs of both characters give their personalities away even if one were to mute the audio or view a still image. The Carpenter – scrawny, scruffy, and short – telegraphs his dimwittedness and gullibility from his opening moments on-screen. Adding to that visual characterization is that he shares a voice actor, J. Pat O'Malley, and a squeaky, honky timbre with Tweedledee and Tweedledum. O’Malley also voices the Walrus, but adjusts his delivery to a throaty bass, interspersed with the coughing one expects from a chain-smoker, let alone a chain-smoking walrus. The Walrus – appropriately rotund (as walruses should be) with a kitschy suit – is a charming fellow, but beneath that charm are his occasional all-knowing smirks that belie selfish intentions. Ferguson’s clashing character animation for both, in addition to the morbid comedy of “The Walrus and the Carpenter”, are a brilliant complement the abridged poem used in the scene. Alice in Wonderland would be Norman Ferguson’s penultimate film with the studio before his retirement due to complications with diabetes.

With Alice in Wonderland, Frank Thomas is the directing animator for the movie’s antagonist for the second straight Disney animated feature. The techniques and artistry used for Cinderella’s Lady Tremaine and the Queen of Hearts – voiced deliciously (and boisterously) by Disney regular Verna Felton (Dumbo’s Mrs. Jumbo and the Elephant Matriarch, Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother) – could not be any more different. Where Lady Tremaine was heavily rotoscoped in her movements and facial expressions, there is nothing realistic about the Queen of Hearts’ physicality. As a buxom bundle of waving limbs, she has arguably the most fleshy and expressive face in a 1950s Disney animated feature. In that face, in Felton’s iconic voice acting, we find a crazed monarch who desperately needs to see a therapist to contain her volcanic temper. Thomas’ character design sells the Queen of Hearts’ mood swings – perfunctory courteousness, egomania, pettiness, and bloodlust (“Off with his head!”). Thus, she becomes Disney’s closest analogue to the uptight and pretentious narcissists that the likes of Bugs Bunny or, to a lesser extent, Daffy Duck might have brought down to size in a Looney Tunes short film. How fortunate that the Queen of Hearts only appears in Alice in Wonderland’s concluding stages; an entire film dedicated to her (please do not pass this hypothetical along to a Walt Disney Company executive) would be a wearisome indulgence.

The last masterstroke of character design is thanks to Ward Kimball. Kimball, shortly about to revert his focus from feature animation to television and the Disney theme parks, was the principal designer of the Cheshire Cat. The wide-grinning Cheshire Cat, voiced by Sterling Holloway (Kaa in 1967’s The Jungle Book, the original voice of Winnie the Pooh), is a distinctive swirl of purple and pink stripes, his yellow eyes giving off a blazing glare. As opposed to the Queen of Hearts, the Cheshire Cat – no more or less peculiar than any other inhabitant of Wonderland – rarely stands on his hind legs. Instead, he prefers to perch himself, stomach-first, and limit his non-facial physical movements. With Holloway’s mellifluous voice acting, the physics-bending Cheshire Cat is not the sort to be vengeful or unleash verbal fire and brimstone. But with his capabilities of troublemaking for his own personal entertainment, he is the least predictable and perhaps most dangerous character of all. Depending on the viewer, the Cheshire Cat can be seen as a darkly comic figure and/or the film’s greatest source of malevolence, however restrained.

After watching Alice in Wonderland more than most Disney animated films over the course of my lifetime, I still struggle over how to categorize Kimball’s magical cat. Certainly, Cheshire Cat is an antagonist, but do his actions place him in the pantheon of Disney villains? Reading Carroll’s books and noting – however circuitously – Cheshire Cat helps Alice become “unlost”, perhaps being considered a trickster will suffice.

The soundtrack to Alice in Wonderland contains the greatest number of songs (sixteen from a potential thirty) in the entire Disney animated feature canon. That is partly due to the length of these compositions – clocking in, in several instances, at just under or over one minute – and that more than a handful of these songs are adaptations (partial or complete) of a Lewis Carroll poem. Disney hired a battalion of Tin Pan Alley composers and lyricists to pen/adapt songs around Carroll’s poems, but just over half of the songs were composed by Sammy Fain (“Secret Love” in 1953’s Calamity Jane, “Love is a Many-Splendored Thing” from the 1955 film of the same name) set to Bob Hilliard’s (“Civilization”, also known as “Bongo, Bongo, Bongo (I Don’t Want to Leave the Congo)”) lyrics. Among their mostly original compositions, Fain and Hilliard are responsible for the title song, “In a World of My Own”, and “Painting the Roses Red”, among several other earworms utilizing Carroll’s poetry.

Debatably Alice in Wonderland’s ultimate earworm is the original song “A Very Merry Un-birthday” by Mack David, Al Hoffman, and Jerry Livingston (the trio also composed “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo in 1950’s Cinderella). Because of this song’s affiliation with a certain ride at the Disney theme parks, you, the reader, might already be very familiar with the song’s melody without ever watching Alice in Wonderland. Sung raucously by the Mad Hatter and March Hare (incredible voice acting by Ed Wynn and Jerry Colonna, respectively) alongside Alice, the “unbirthday song” is even more jaunty, celebratory, and devilishly catchy than “Happy Birthday” itself. With this lengthy soundtrack, Alice in Wonderland’s songs completely overshadow and are referenced across Oliver Wallace’s (the notorious title song and score to 1942’s Der Fuehrer’s Face, 1963’s The Incredible Journey) score. For such a riotous and absurd movie, the film contains an equally riotous and absurd soundtrack to empower all of its nonsense.

The qualities that have made Alice in Wonderland treasured by many (including yours truly) today are the exact same ones that British literary and film critics took issue with in 1951. This Alice eviscerates Lewis Carroll’s literary vision and it is too “American”, these critics wrote. Walt Disney, years removed from his namesake studio’s Golden Age animated features (an era where he might have considered the words of academic and critics), now could not care less.

Walt’s distaste for academic and critics in the second half of his career began after musical and film critics pilloried Fantasia (1940). But his disdain for such individuals was fully realized after their response to the innovative and controversial Song of the South (1946) – which Walt intended as a hurrah for the American folklore that colored his childhood. Even upon Song of the South’s release, protesters and picketers decried the film for sentimentalizing the lives of black people in the immediate postbellum American South. “The master-and-slave relation is so lovingly regarded in your yarn,” New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther wrote, “… that one might almost imagine that you figure Abe Lincoln made a mistake. Put down that mint julep, Mr. Disney.” Disney took this wave of criticism over Song of the South personally, and convinced himself that supposedly communist enemies from rival studios and hostile sociopolitical circles were inflaming these attacks against his films and his studio. How dare these people, Walt must have thought, tell the inventor of Mickey Mouse and the man who gave Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising, and Friz Freleng their first jobs in animated cinema what he could or could not do artistically. Walt Disney could justly say he laid the foundation for American animated cinema in Kansas City – before Burbank, before the overcrowded studio in Hyperion – all those years ago, which must have fueled his pride and dismissal of his naysayers.

In an earlier decade, Walt – especially when noting that Carroll’s work was integral to his start in animated film in the 1920s – might have publicly lashed out to the polarized response that met Alice in Wonderland. Now, Walt had compartmentalized his feelings. And as Alice in Wonderland made its way through theaters, a long-gestating animated feature featuring a canine romance was finally moving forward. Another film, made possible due to the windfalls from Cinderella, had just been greenlit, and would not see completion until decade’s end.

Although not successful in its theatrical run, Alice in Wonderland became the first Disney film to rejuvenate its reputation in the popular mindset through television. TV became widespread in the United States and Britain after the Second World War and, with it, Walt Disney would use the medium to broadcast his older films, to alter popular perceptions of his own persona and personal history, and to employ idealized images and storytelling in telling the story of his namesake studio. Removed from the cultural discourse dominating airwaves and headlines in the early 1950s, viewers in the decades following Alice in Wonderland’s release can now appreciate the film’s role in the Disney animated canon. Alice in Wonderland is a demented classic that, because of its narrative-unfriendly content, has influenced few films following it. The film adjusts Lewis Carroll’s books in ways that pay homage to his writing, but also to chart a colorful course for viewers and Disney fans as cinematically as possible.

My rating: 9/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

This is the twenty-first Movie Odyssey Retrospective. Movie Odyssey Retrospectives are reviews on films I had seen in their entirety before this blog’s creation or films I failed to give a full-length write-up to following the blog’s creation. Previous Retrospectives include The Kid (1921), Cinderella (1950), and The Sound of Music (1965).

[rightonwoman]

I bet dinosaurs thought they had it all figured out. Those poor little proto-mammals were shaking in their trees. But whose descendants deep fry whose delicious descendants now, dinosaurs?

[lawfulpride]

Hey mun, it's ya girl with the Descendants OC. Assuming the Auradon government reviews the case that got Davos stuck on the Isle, then allows him to live in Auradon (& I do assume this), what do you imagine his home would be like? What kind of place might he be comfortable living in?

Ahhh this got totally buried, gomens!!!

So again, I know zilch about Descendants, but I can give you a notion of what Davos’s homestead in any verse would look like. It would be extremely consistent regardless of verse or crossover! 

Davos’s homestead would be SIMPLE, CLEAN, and SPARSE. It would be open-concept in keeping with many of K’un-Lun’s interior spaces, and many traditional Asian home and temple designs (such as Shoin in Japan). It would convey an aura of self-control, and calm.   All rooms would flow into each other without doors, save the bathroom.    The lighting exists in the form of traditional Asian lanterns hung from the ceiling and wired with electricity. It’s low, ambient, warm, pensive. 

The walls would be bare, made of stone, humble, with no indication of his high social status within K’un-Lun society, and only one plain wood-framed photograph of his home’s highest-rising temple as viewed from the Pass.  

At dead center, on a modest shrine, out from which all the other open-space rooms radiate in rectangles from square modules, there would be a statue of the bodhisattva Guanyin (the manifestation of Buddha, before obtaining Enlightenment, who emblematizes Compassion).  

Surrounding this would be two plain, air-purifying house plants, of equal size.

In the corner opposite the bathroom would be a kitchenette with all stainless steel appliances.  Spotless, of course.  Next to the stove, a beautiful hand-made ceramic tea set and several jars of rare, medicinal-grade looseleaf teas (particularly whites, yunnan blacks, oolongs, and matcha greens). Above the stove, square wooden compartments containing other eating utensils, and all-vegan dry foodstuffs. The modest refrigerator would contain vegan perishables. For any children (since this ask is about his daughter!), there would be a couple boxes of sweet and tasty organic mochis and basmati rices with veggie tots in the shape of dinosaurs ( :’) ).  

He also has a bottle of the most delicious homemade soy sauce in all creation, and he will never ever tell you the recipe. His mother Priya invented it. It was one of the only warm, conventionally domestic things she ever taught him.

His bedroom is adjacent to the kitchen, between the two extreme spots of kitchen and bathroom.  In it there is one mat on the floor, with absolutely no modern amenities or comforts, except a single blanket. For children, there is a far cozier sleeping bag stored in the closet, whatever is the child’s favorite color.  There is also a tall water fountain with three tiers, austere and decorated only with very beautiful natural rocks.  On a bedstand near it, there is a small traditional Tibetan’s child toy, a knitted red dragon, a gift from Priya when Davos was very young, and over that, carefully mounted on the wall, a worn red kite from his childhood, gifted to him by his father Lei Kung.  The mark of Shou-Lao is printed at its center, to remind him that after a short while, play should cease and training resume. Davos was never allowed to escape the fate for which he was born, to become the Iron Fist. :(  Not even when he was a young kid.

Across from his bedroom there is a training room. Making the home long enough for a small gym-sized training space is what accounts for all the other rooms being so open and spaced out. This room has a sliding door (also Shoin inspired, but way stronger than traditional rice paper) and extra lighting. It has a hanging punching bag, weights, stretching tools, running and workout gear, and mats.  It has no decorations. It’s locked when any youngsters are around and Davos can’t give them his full focus.  

bathroom, adjacent to bedroom and across from kitchen, has a clean functional toilet, a clean plain gray slate sink,  a very small mirror (Davos never likes to look at his own reflection), and a modern stall shower with a glass door and with a silver showerhead and tile matching the sink.  

There’s a landline phone but only people associated with his work (as a shifu) have the number.  There is no television.  There is wireless internet for his cell phone.  It’s like, triple quadruple encrypted, lol. 

[just-shower-thoughts]

With birds being descendants of dinosaurs, it is possible that a T- Rex tasted like a giant delicious chicken

[ree-duh]

The fact birds are descended from dinosaurs becomes funny when you realizes humans and other animals took one look at them (mostly chickens and turkeys) and decided they were delicious

It was a sexy decision on our part I’ve gotta say