#did he spraytan? maybe so..

[iminaworldofpureimagination]

maybe its cause im in my 30s but peoples reactions to that ian ousley kid .. Kinda.. Creep me out tbh..

[kalypsichor]

and they were quARANTINED [a beatles fic] - ch 1

summary: George takes a shit. Ringo braves a trip to the tescos and loses a bit of his soul. John harrasses the general public and Paul’s just trying to get them home before they kill each other. All while a virus tears the world apart.

warnings: CRACK (not cocaine), geo’s bad potty habits, ringo’s copious use of emojis

so, this is different... but i’ve always been a crack fic writer at heart. this is the result of being quarantined myself due to COVID-19. i’ve been seeing so much fear and frustration and hatred that i just wanted to write about it kinda cathartically. enjoy!

Unfortunately, George doesn’t realize that they’re out of toilet paper until after he’s taken a shit.

“Fuck,” he mutters. “Ringo?”

No answer.

“Ringooooooooo. RINGO!!!”

George’s legs are starting to lose feeling. He bounces them up and down a bit and the motion almost makes him drop his phone in the toilet.

“RICHARD FUCKING STARKEY!”

There’s the sound of footsteps and then a pause before Ringo answers.

“What’s up?”

“What took you so long?”

“Had my headphones in. Sorry I couldn’t be at your beck and call, O Lord of the Loo.”

“SHUT up. Look, do we have any more loo roll?”

A pause. “Why, are we out?”

George rolls his eyes so hard he sees stars. “No, I’m askin’ for the banter.”

“I’ll go check. Don’t move!”

George can almost see the shit-eating (heh) grin on his mate’s face as he walks away. With a sigh and some choice curse words that would make Louise cry, George pulls out his phone again. Opens Twitter. Sees yet another tweet from that spraytanned clown across the pond. Closes Twitter and contemplates deleting it. After about three rounds of this, Ringo comes back and knocks on the door.

“We’re all out. Got you some tissues, though.”

Krishna help me. George tips his head back against the wall and thumps it a few times for good measure.

“Thanks,” he says flatly. “Could you- ?”

The door opens just a smidge before he can finish talking there’s a flying blur of Kleenex box, a blinding pain in the side of his head, and a sickening crACK—

***

“I’m really sorry,” Ringo says for the millionth time, hovering over George as he examines the spiderweb of cracks on his phone screen. George huffs. He wants to be mad, he really does, but Ringo’s face is doing that stupid thing where his eyes are very, very blue and droopy and his teeth are worrying his bottom lip and it’s obvious that he’s genuinely remorseful and—fuck, he’s got it bad.

“It’s fine,” George insists, even though he can hear his bank account having a fit. “Piece of shit phone, anyway. And look, it still works!” Very shittily, his brain adds, but that’s what you get with a five year old phone.

The older boy’s eyes still have an unconvinced, sad look about them and George wishes he could kiss it away. No homo, though.

“How can I make it up to you?” George’s brain does a slutdrop into the gutter. “I’ll… I’ll get the groceries! How ‘bout that?”

“NO!” Scrambling off the couch, George just barely misses smacking noses with Ringo. “What about the… the virus?”

“I’ll wear a mask and all. Wash hands for twenty seconds, stay six feet away from people… am I missing anything?”

“Yeah, the quarantine bit.”

Ringo snorts and puts a hand on George’s arm. “Quit your worrying, Geo. I’ll be fine. Haven’t John and Paul been out all day?”

***

John and Paul want to go the fuck home. They’d walked all the way to a new art gallery opening only to find out it was cancelled (“Why didn’t you check Google?” “Why didn’t you?”). And now, both being tired as hell from their long trek, they couldn’t even flag down a single cab to take them home.

“This is the worst thing ever,” John cries, flopping his entire body down on a park bench. Paul rolls his eyes and lifts up John’s stupidly long legs so he can sit down as well.

“People are dying, John.”

“I feel like I’m dying.”

“John.”

“Okay, fine, maybe I’m being dramatic. But this stupid… thing… is fucking up all our plans!”

“It’s not fucking Voldemort, you can say the name.”

“Alright, fine. Coronavirus. CORONAVIRUS. You happy, Paul?”

A woman hurrying by shoots them a wide-eyed, nervous look and crosses the street, tugging a little boy by the hand.

“... bitch.”

“Jesus, John.” Paul pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’d do that too if some rando was shouting in the streets.”

“Yeah, but she didn’t hafta shoot that nasty look at us… did you see that? Paul?”

“Hold on, hold on.” His phone is vibrating in his pocket and he fumbles to pull it out. “Your stupid legs are in the way.”

John huffs and makes a show of wiggling said legs, almost kicking Paul in the face. Still, he tucks them to his chest (flexible, Paul thinks and then instantly regrets) so that Paul can take out the buzzing rectangle.

--

bongo: do u or john want anything? 🤔🤔

bongo: like groceries

bongo: going to tescos

Shouldnt you be quarantining?

bongo: ur literally at an art museum 😂

It’s a gallery

And it got cancelled :/

bongo: oop sorry m8 thats tough

bongo: srsly tho whaddaya want

We need more vegetables. Carrots, etc

--

“Tell him to get cornflakes,” John says, peering over Paul’s shoulder. He’s sat up and practically draped over Paul’s lap. Paul sighs and shoves his legs off, ignoring the indignant squawk the other boy makes when he almost falls off the bench.

--

Also that cornflake cereal stuff

bongo: k

bongo: tell john i said hi

Heyyyyyy rich wots up

Paulie’s being a bitch he pushed me :((((

Why is his auto caps on lsdnfol

--

“Give it back!”

“Ow! Ow stop hitting me Jesus fuckin-”

--

Sorry that was john

bongo: yeah i could tell lmao

bongo: where are u guys??

Stuck at some park. Can’t get any cabs home

bongo: well duh coronavirus 😷😷😷

bongo: bad time to be a cabbie man 😔

Yeah yikes

Pick up some rice for george too

And hand sanitizer

bongo: ill try but twitter says handsan itizer is going fast

bongo: what the fuc why did it space like that

Lol

bongo: oh also

bongo: geos being a mother hen and making me wear a face mask

bongo: u know where they are?

Second drawer down in the bathroom, behind the rubber gloves

bongo: … how did u reply SO fast

Uh i know where things are in our flat? Like a normal person?

bongo: thats sus but ok

bongo: wow theyre actually here

bongo: okay imma head out before it gets dark

What’s after dark? Zombies?

bongo: u never no

bongo: *no

bongo: FUCKING *KNOW

Nice

Okay stay safe ritch

bongo: 😘🙃👍🏼✌🏼✌🏼🌈🌟🥦🥦🥦☮️

***

Ringo has never seen this many people at Tesco in his entire life. Two grown men are having a full on argument in the pastries. A harried-looking dad almost knocks Ringo into a rack of Twinkies, pulling along two screaming kids with one slung on his hip. And… is that person actually wearing a Hazmat suit??

“This is insane,” Ringo mutters to himself, slightly muffled due to the face mask. He just needs to find the loo roll and then he’s going to yeet outta here ASAP.

Okay, hygiene aisle… here we g—what the—

The entire aisle is empty.

It’s like a goddamn Old Western. Just add a cow skull… cue the tumbleweed… and it would be perfect.

Not for the first time that day, Ringo sends a prayer to whoever is listening above. There’s got to be something left. He walks down to the end of the aisle. Walks back. Jumps a couple times to check if there’s anything on the top shelf. Sincerely hopes no one just saw him do that. Finally, shoved at the very back behind a couple of Always boxes, Ringo digs out a dusty as shit six-pack of toilet paper.

Well. It’ll have to do.

As he’s walking to the check out lines, a woman drops her bottle of hand sanitizer. It rolls across the floor in a perfect arc and Ringo scoops it up before it can get too far.

“Oops, you dropped this!” He says cheerily, handing it to her. Well, trying to. The woman makes a strangled noise in the back of her throat, physically flinches away from his outstretched hand, and almost drops the rest of her groceries. Before Ringo can react, she’s disappeared behind the produce aisle.

Ringo’s arm falls to his side. He stares at the space where she was just a second ago and holds in a scream.

“More for us, I guess.”

***

By the time Ringo reaches the flat, he’s ready to never see another person again. He trudges right past George in the kitchen, dropping the groceries on the table with a thwack. John hums a greeting to him in the living room and offers him a biscuit.

“No thanks,” Ringo says. He faceplants into the couch.

Something clinks onto the coffee table. Well, coffee table is one way to put it; it’s more of a hunk of stone from back when Paul thought he was going to be the next Michelangelo and get really into classical sculpture. It now sits in the living room and primarily holds George’s textbooks, plus takeout for whenever they don’t feel like cooking (which is all the time), so you can see how that panned out for Paul.

“Tea for you,” George says. He plops onto the floor between the couch and the table and runs a friendly, comforting hand through Ringo’s hair. Ringo practically purrs, leaning into the touch, and George feels his heart melt and trickle through his ribs. “You okay?”

“I’ve lost all faith in humanity,” Ringo mumbles into the cushion. John reaches over and pats him on the back.

“Don’t worry, Ringo. There won’t be any humans to have faith in soon.”

George throws a packet of sugar at John who dodges it, snickering. Ringo groans and tries to sink even deeper into the couch.

And that’s when they hear Paul scream.

[petervintonjr]

The satire isn’t helping

Yes, I saw the ridiculous photograph and have read all the hairline jokes and the hilarious spraytan captions.

Just one thing, folks: the humour isn't working.

We knew this a**hole was an Eighties punchline. (We've known it since his brain was transplanted into the body of Bill The Cat.) But he was kinda supposed to stay that way. We have been making fun of him for decades for his cluelessness, his failed businesses, his limitless vanity and his so-easily-bruised ego, his womanizing, his proudly-on-display ignorance and racism. His inherently pathetic nature kept him on the covers of many a sleazy tabloid over the decades (notice how THAT little practice has dried up lately?), and he has rightly been made the target of tens of thousands of derisive jokes.

And it hasn't helped. All that comedic gold, and yet look where we are now, what we are on the verge of becoming.

At this point I am reminded of Kabarett, the German-adapted form of cabaret entertainment in the 1920's/30's that leaned heavily into sneering political satire. It relentlessly made fun of the German power structure and all its key players right on up until the late 1930's when it suddenly didn't. Every politician and government official came in for well-deserved ribbing and merciless teasing --it was comedy for the urban intellectuals, Saturday Night Live for the educated hipsters. It was Colbert and Bee and Oliver and Minhaj and Maher. And as the legendary satirist Tom Lehrer pointed out: the popularity of the Berlin Kabaretts just did soooo much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the Second World War.

I dunno, maybe it's time we stopped focusing quite so much of our energies on merely making fun of this guy? I get that it's cathartic in the face of mounting helplessness, and I am in no way suggesting that the memes and the jokes end, but... surely there's something else we can also be doing?

[alpha-egbert-blog]

Not sure of the original maker but fuck this is amazing

Not sure who made this originally, but i love this Regret Ted Cruz/Donald Trump fanfic, M/M, Yaoi, Don’t like don’t read. WARNING: Major Character Death Ted Cruz stood at his lover’s grave, and watched the red, white and blue cheeto-covered casket lower into the ground. Around him, only a scarce amount of people stood, mostly rednecks and racist hillbillies. President Sanders had declined the invitation to come to his old rival’s grave, and scorned almost-President Clinton had ripped the invitation to shreds, still bitter after her crushing defeat. Marco Rubio had also declined, as he was busy on his honeymoon with his new husband, former presidential candidate Jeb Bush. So Ted Cruz stood alone at the gravesite, tears threatening to pour from his wrinkled, dead eyes. He could still feel his lover’s embrace- hear Trump’s racist words tickle his earlobe, smell the scent of spraytans and mouldy cheetos. Oh, what would Cruz give to turn back the time. And he knew, deep in his heart, that he was to blame. If only his ambition had halted for one second, his deep, heart-crushing drive to murder had let up for only an instant- maybe then he could still have his lover, his beloved Trump, by his side today. They could be building the wall right now. Together. But no, no, Cruz just had to win the nomination. He couldn’t help it- every instinct in him was screaming to take someone’s life, to see their blood splatter all over him, to taste their fear. That was why he had killed his lover. That was why he had killed Donald Trump. And boy, did he regret it. Regret was unknown to Cruz- years of slaughter had numbed him to his own conscience- he didn’t even know his shrivelled little heart could even feel such an emotion. He was the Zodiac Killer, goddamnit, he wasn’t meant to regret his murders. But he did. He had never felt anything so strongly- well, besides his love for the now deceased presidential candidate/rotten yam. If only he could touch Trump’s crusty face once again, run his hands through the almost-godlike toupee, press kisses across trump’s dog-anus mouth. But no, he had blown his only shot, and now the world’s best grandpa had won the election. He could have ruled together with trump- a combined presidency- but now he had nothing. And so, with a bitter heart stinging with regret, Cruz examined his gun. He only had until tomorrow to keep his firearms- before the new legislation to ban all guns passed, courtesy of president sanders. He had to work fast. A single bullet was all that it would take- Cruz knew how to kill efficiently. But tonight, the Zodiac Killer’s final victim… Would be himself.