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xmagicxshopx · 5 years

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Girl Meets Evil - Chapter 1

Genre: Action Adventure, Romance, Comedy, Angst Rating: PG-13 - M Warnings: violence, immoral and unethical behavior, smut (eventually), mild language Pairing: Jungkook x reader, Jimin x oc, Taehyung x oc Notes: mafia!bts / gang!bts au. Not idol!bts. Same goes for VIXX. Single quote marks ‘ ‘ are for thoughts and double “ “ are for talking. Additional Notes: The outfit Jungkook wears to the club is from the Love Yourself Tear O version jacket shooting. Taehyung is wearing the Airplane Pt 2 MV outfit. Jimin is wearing the white denim outfit from Fake Love MV and Jhope is wearing the outfit from the Fake Love MV Teaser.

Tagging: @justbangtanandjams @jiminnies-baby @och-ako @lizardsocial @katebacks

Summary: How could something so bad taste so sweet? All you wanted was an iced white chocolate mocha no whip extra ice on a hot summer’s day.

SERIES MASTERLIST

After a night out with your coworkers Sunshine and Raven, some liquid courage, and a mental pep talk, you were finally sitting outside the winery in the fresh air and dialing Jungkook’s number. You stood there in the cool night air asking yourself were you really about to call a tech geek and flirt with him? Here you were, coming up with some lame excuse to go see him.

“Hello?”

“Hello, is this Jeon Jungkook?”

“...........Who wants to know?”

His response being a question to your own question threw you for a loop. Definitely not the response you were expecting. Blushing and starting to panic, the wine was making it hard for you to focus as you tried to stutter out in explanation,

“O--Oh. This is the girl from the cafe just earlier today. Cafe Fantasia? We bumped into each other? Y--You gave me your card.”

And it was like the difference between night and day. Suddenly his tone was much lighter and he even chuckled a bit from what you could hear on the other end. Feeling relief wash over you, the sounds of rustling could be heard before he said happily,

“Aaahhh. Yes yes. The cutie pie from the cafe. Yes, I remember now. What can I do for you?”

The way he asked had you blushing. It wasn’t helping that the wine was already making you warm under the collar. Shamelessly fanning your face with your free hand and grateful that he couldn’t see you through the phone, you replied with the lines you had rehearsed in your head about a dozen times since the night began,

“Well----It’s my laptop. I think it might have a virus. But I don’t know for sure. It’s just kind of acting funny. I was wondering if you could take a look at it.”

“Sure thing, cutie. Wanna set up an appointment? I could get you in on Saturday.”

You looked down at his business card because you were pretty sure he didn’t include Saturdays as part of his working hours. Frowning with eyebrows knitted in confusion, you spoke up slowly,

“But you don’t work on Saturdays.”

“I know. But for a lovely lady like you, I’m willing to make an exception to the rule.”

Okay......This was totally not how you saw this conversation going. You were supposed to be the one to flirt with him but it was like he had totally turned the tables on you. Was he openly flirting with you??? It was almost impossible to believe. It was only when you heard his smooth, deep voice on the other end of the line that you finally snapped out of it.

“Babe? You still there?”

“Uh---- Ye-Yeah. I’m here. Um.....Wa--What time on Saturday?”

You could hear him chuckling and your face only felt warmer still. He was laughing at your stuttering, wasn’t he? Aish. The jerk. He probably had a super smug smile on that stupid handsome face of his too. Trying to control your heart and prevent yourself from passing out on the spot, you finally heard him reply casually,

“Eh, any time after lunch will work. I’m going to be home all day so no need for a specific time.”

“Okay. I’ll.....I’ll see you Saturday, then. Thank you so much, Jungkook.”

“Anytime, babe. Have a good night.”

“Y--You too.”

The rest of the week went extremely slow. It was hard to focus on your work as you jumped back and forth between feeling guilty for lying and nervous because you were going to be in extremely close proximity to a really handsome young man. You just didn’t know how to read him. His appearance screamed bad boy but his manners.....Well.....you were pretty sure he was trying to flirt with you that night.

Finally, Saturday was here and you spent your entire morning trying to figure out what to wear. Did you want to dress to impress or just keep it casual? This wasn’t a date. This was literally you lying so you could spend a couple minutes with him. Because if he really was a tech geek, it wasn’t going to take him very long to realize you had lied or that you’re just really dumb.

“Should I do something with my hair or leave it alone? Gah. This is stupid! How old am I, anyway?”

Finally steeling yourself up and settling for a dressy casual look, you decided to just blow dry your hair and let it fall however it wanted. This wasn’t a date. This wasn’t a date. Those were the words you chanted to yourself as you stared back in the full length mirror. You’re just there to spend enough time with him to see if maybe he’s someone you’re interested in pursuing.

You weren’t getting any younger and to be completely honest, you were lonely. You were bored and lonely. Sunshine and Raven could only help cure that boredom for so long when they had lives of their own to live. You had moved away from family so they were miles and miles away.

What did that leave you? With no one. Not even a pet dog or cat. So now it was time to start looking for that special someone before they were all picked over. Or at least that’s what you were telling yourself.

After walking to your car in the apartment complex’s parking garage, you had talked yourself out of doing this at least five times. To boot, when you finally climbed into your car, you realized you had completely forgotten the laptop. That would have made you look real good, wouldn’t it?

Dear god this was a horrible idea. How were you going to function when you saw him? If you couldn’t even get this far, how were you going to handle facing him and even more so......being in the same room as him???

Then it hit you. Finally having grabbed your laptop and plopping it in the passenger seat, you sat there with both hands on the steering wheel as a dreadful thought entered your mind. What if he just expected you to drop off your laptop and pick it up several days later? What if you were getting all dolled up for nothing?

You were on the verge of crying in frustration as the tears threatened to well up in your eyes. You felt pitiful. Downright pitiful. Was this really your life right now? Sniffling and trying to pull yourself together, you decided to follow through with your plan and hope for the best. At least you could say you tried.

After punching in the address printed on his business card, it didn’t take you long to realize that, one, his office was located fairly close to where you lived and, two, his office appeared to be.....an apartment building? Perhaps his apartment was also his office? Blinking in utter confusion and curiosity, you decided to drive a bit further to find a parking spot on the street and just walk from there. It was a nice day after all.

With your laptop clutched to your chest, you managed to find Jungkook’s room number and tried your best to knock without revealing how nervous you were. Dear lord this was happening. You couldn’t remember the last time you tried to flirt with a guy. To say you were rusty would be the understatement of the year. Heart pounding in your throat, you watched the door open only to reveal.....well....Not quite what you were expecting.

“Ah! Cutie pie! So glad you were able to find me. Come on in.”

“J-Jungkook. You’re still eating. I didn’t mean to bother you.”

There he stood with a smile on his face despite mid chewing on what you could only assume was his late lunch. You should have known you would come at a bad time. Why? Because that was just the way your luck ran. As usual, he was dressed in all black but a lot more casual this time around. Plain black t-shirt with black basketball shorts. Shaking his head, he swallowed and quickly waved for you to come in.

“Ani ani. Don’t be silly. I was just finishing up, actually. Come on in and let’s take a look at that laptop.”

So much for looking all cool, calm, and collected. Suddenly feeling extremely warm, you did your best to step forward and through the doorway. You were happy you could take a minute to distract yourself and bow your head as you timidly slipped your shoes off. During this time, you heard him close the door behind you and asked casually,

“Can I offer you something to drink? I have bottled water, orange juice, Coke. Or I could brew up some coffee.”

“Um.....I’ll take a bottle of water, thanks.”

The last thing you needed right now was caffeine. You were already jumpy and jittery enough as it was thanks to your fried and frazzled nerves. Taking a timid seat on the couch, you sat there trying not to bounce your leg while your laptop was still clutched to your chest like a teddy bear. Looking around, you took a moment to soak up your surroundings.

A soft R&B tune came from the fancy sound system he had surrounding his huge screen TV. It was more than obvious that he loved his technology. No wonder he was a tech geek who worked on computers and stuff. The apartment was decorated in a nice, clean minimalist look and it screamed Jungkook. Shades of black, white, and gray. Looking over to your right, you could see a diffuser releasing scented steam and surprisingly, the smell didn’t give you a headache.

You had no idea Jungkook was such a........sensual guy? Was sensual the word you were looking for? The soft music combined with the aromatherapy......it all just seemed really sensual to you. Not behavior you’d expect from a guy who dressed the way Jungkook did. But then again......they always did say never to judge a book by it’s cover and that was exactly what you were doing.

“Here’s your water. I sort of turned it into ice water. Hope that was okay.”

“Oh---Of course! That’s totally fine. Thank you, Jungkook ssi.”

You blushed when you heard him softly snort in amusement while taking a seat next to you. You were grateful that he kept a safe distance so that your thighs or feet weren’t touching. Taking a couple sips of your water, you were actually quite pleased with the fact that it contained plenty of ice. It would help keep you cool as much as possible. Carefully setting your glass down on the coaster located on the coffee table, you timidly handed over your laptop.

“Ah, yes. The laptop that’s acting funny. Let’s take a look here and see what we got.”

Gosh what if he realized you were fibbing? That this was all just some lame excuse to come see him? You were once again trying to keep your leg from bouncing like a jackhammer as you watched him flip open your laptop and turn it on. Thankfully, you had been smart enough to make sure it was fully charged before bringing it over.

While he worked, which you had no idea what he was doing, you couldn’t help but notice how focused he was. In fact......It was pretty hot. Sexy even. Especially when his eyebrows would furrow together in concentration. His doe eyes quickly flicked all over your laptop screen while he worked.

Unbeknownst to you, he was simply running a few different scans; looking for viruses. This wasn’t the first time one of his clients swore up and down they had a virus when really they just had a bunch of junk on their hard drive that was slowing their computer down. While waiting for a disk defragment to finish up, he leaned back into the couch and asked casually,

“Enjoying your weekend so far?”

You decided it would be best to take a drink of your chilled water before answering. This was the first time since he started working that you’d have to speak. Holding your glass in your lap as if it would keep you grounded, you smiled a bit timidly and nodded.

“Yeah. I am. How about you?”

“Eh. It’s just another day. I don’t usually do a whole lot on the weekends.”

“Oh? Gosh. I seem to be busiest on the weekends. That’s usually when I get to run all my errands and clean my apartment.”

Realizing he never asked to know such information, you immediately blushed and quickly ducked your head to stare at your glass, suddenly finding it quite interesting. Knowing you weren’t looking, Jungkook allowed himself to sport a wide bunny smile of amusement. You were just too cute.

“Well, I must admit, my apartment didn’t look this clean when I first woke up this morning.”

He chuckled softly while he started using the touch mouse pad once again on your laptop. Suddenly looking up from your glass, you watched him with amazement as he just continued to smile in casualness. Did that mean he cleaned up the place especially for you or was cleaning just a part of his Saturday morning routine? You tried not to think too much into it.

“Okay, I think your laptop is safe. I couldn’t find any viruses but I did clean up your drive a good bit. So if anything, it should run a lot faster and smoother now.”

Just like that, it was time to say goodbye. It all ended so soon. You were almost finished with your water so you couldn’t even use that as an excuse to stay just a little bit longer. Smiling and setting down the glass, you carefully took your laptop from him and couldn’t help but notice how his fingers brushed up against your own. Dear god your face felt so warm. So embarrassing. Clearing your throat, you carefully set your laptop to the side and started to dig around in your purse.

“Thank you so much, Jungkook ssi. How much do I owe you?”

You were surprised to hear him chuckling so softly and looked up to see him sporting a smile that you couldn’t quite translate. His eyes crinkled in the corners and his nose scrunched up a bit. He looked absolutely adorable, honestly. It was hard to believe he was the same man you bumped into at the cafe; looking all bad boyish and stuff. There appeared to be nothing bad about Jungkook at all. He seemed like a really nice guy.

“First of all, you really don’t have to be so formal. Jungkook is just fine. And secondly, I’ve been thinking about that and I was wondering.......”

Now it was his turn to be shy and timid. You watched him fiddle with the hem of his over sized t-shirt as he bit his bottom lip in thought; choosing his words as wisely as he could. Finally making eye contact with you, he said a bit sheepishly,

“I was wondering if you’d accompany me tonight. There’s this club I haven’t been to in awhile. Club Hope World. It’s a really cool place. It’s clean and strictly forbids underage drinking and they have a lot of fun dance battles. It’s a really great time but I didn’t want to go alone. I know you said you’re busy on the weekends but I----”

“I want to go.”

It was completely silent in the apartment as the two of you stared at each other. Jungkook stared on in shock and surprise while you sat there staring like a deer in the headlights. What did you just say? Did you actually say you’d go? To a club??? You hadn’t been to a club since your college days. Granted that wasn’t too long ago but still. Smiling sheepishly and trying not to fan your heated face, you repeated a little more confidently,

“I want to go with you.”

That seemed to snap the poor boy back to reality as he blinked his doe eyes and cleared his throat. Adjusting himself in his spot next to you, he soon sported a bright smile and replied with eagerness,

“Great! I’ll pick you up later tonight. Here----Let me put my number in your phone and you can put yours in mine. Then you can just text me your address and I can let you know when I’ll be picking you up.”

The whole thing felt like a dream as you both handed over your cell phones and started adding each other into your contacts. Was this really happening? Were you adding your number to a guy’s phone? And was that very same and very handsome guy putting his number in your phone??? Yes. Yes he was. Wow! Talk about a score! By the time you had your own phone back in your hands, you were smiling like an idiot.

“Cool! Now all I need is your address.”

Duh. Of course that’s what he was waiting on. Trying to pull yourself together and get your head out of the clouds, you focused once more on looking him up only to find he wasn’t there. That’s odd. You scrolled up and down through the J section of your contact list and eventually looked up to say softly in confusion,

“You’re not in here. Did you just not hit save?”

“Oh I’m definitely in there. Scroll down to your S’s.”

With knitted eyebrows and your expression one of confusion and curiosity, you did as he said and scrolled down to the S section of your contacts. Instantly you were able to point him out. Without being able to control yourself, you snorted softly and immediately covered your mouth before saying in amusement,

“Super Hot Tech Guy? Really, Jungkook? Aigoo.”

You were shaking your head while he just smiled and that bunny-like nose of his scrunched up; clearly pleased with himself. Not that you were about to tell him, but you actually liked the title. It fit him perfectly. He was super hot and he was a tech guy. Smiling like an idiot once more, you started to send him a text that would contain your address. After hitting the send button, you looked up at him and announced happily,

“Should be pinging your phone any second now.”

“Hmm......Yep! Got it!”

Due to......reasons, Jungkook immediately recognized two things about your address. One, you didn’t live that far away from him. Not quite walking distance but it was a very short driving distance all at the same time. Two, you lived in the shadier part of this particular area. Good thing he didn’t live far away, then. Part of him wondered why you would live in such an area. Perhaps it was all you could afford.

“Cool. I’ll pick you up later tonight. It’ll be well after dinner hours since that’s when all the fun starts. But don’t worry, I’ll text you before I leave here.”

“Sounds like a plan, Jungkook.”

There wasn’t a doubt in your mind that you’d need every second of precious time you could get between now and then to help prepare yourself for what was to come. You’d have to pick an outfit, do your hair, and maybe even look into putting some makeup on. Good lord you didn’t know which was more nerve wracking. Getting ready to meet him today or getting ready to go clubbing for the first time in like three years.

“Thanks again, Jungkook. I really appreciate you taking the time out of your weekend to look at it. I hope I didn’t disrupt your day.”

He softly snorted once more while watching you clutch your laptop right back to your chest like you had done earlier. Your cheeks burned as he flashed you that charming bunny-like smile. Shaking his head in amusement, he said casually,

“You did no such thing. If anything, I should be thanking you for practically dragging you along with me to a club just because I’m lonely.”

‘But I’m lonely too, Kook.......I’m lonely too.....’

“Ani ani. I’m happy to go. Since my friends both have stuff to do this weekend, I’m pretty much lonely too.”

“Oh? Well then......that just means I have you all to myself then, doesn’t it?”

Dear god you were gonna pass out from overheating if he didn’t shut the hell up. With a soft laugh and clutching the laptop even closer to your chest like some kind of security blanket, you briefly bit your bottom lip before saying a little too quickly and an octave too high,

“Well I should go. Thanks again for everything.”

“Not a problem, cutie. I’ll see you later tonight.”

You didn’t risk saying anything else as you practically power walked to the door where your shoes were. All you wanted to do was stuff your face in a freezer to help yourself cool off. How on Earth were you going to survive tonight? Then again, you had asked yourself several times this morning how were you going to survive being in the same room as him and here you are barely surviving that.

While your back was turned as you slipped your shoes on and gathered your things up, Jungkook could only smile and silently laugh as he watched you. You really were the cutest thing he had ever seen. It would be fun playing with you. That’s for sure. So easy to fluster. After waving you off, he smirked to himself but a sense of fondness and endearment was there settling somewhere in his chest. Perhaps you were playing with him.

“I just did that.........I really just did that......”

You sat there in your car still parked on the side of the street as you took a few minutes to process what the hell just happened. A super hot tech guy just asked you out. His number was in your phone and......Your mind was just blown by all of this. Here you had been panicking all morning long that you weren’t even going to get two minutes with him and now you were going to a club with him. Life really did work in strange ways.

Indeed, you spent the whole afternoon trying to prepare for this one night. Clothing. That was going to be the hardest part. Ever since you graduated from college, all you did was work. Work, work, work. All work and very little play. Your job was wonderful but honestly you were being extremely underpaid if you were to be true with yourself.

So your biggest task for the day was to pick an outfit that didn’t make you look like you were heading for a business conference. That was proving to be harder than you anticipated. Clothes were scattered everywhere to the point where it looked like someone had ransack the place. You would try something on but then immediately take it off and this process repeated for quite some time. Just when you were sitting on your bed and about to make an emergency run to the department store, something caught your eye.

It was a cardigan. An old cardigan you had saved from your college days. It was too pretty and too expensive for you to just give away or to drop off at the local charity store so you kept it; hidden deep within the confines of your closet. It didn’t exactly scream club night but it also didn’t scream business conference either. Not to mention you really didn’t want to spend money on clothing if you didn’t have to. You could make this work after all.

Finding a black, sleeveless dress shirt to where the fabric cascaded down your chest, you put a crap ton of deodorant on before slipping your arms through the sleeves of your cardigan. It was a deep maroon color that accented your complexion perfectly. Now for some pants. Pants, pants, pants......Most of your bottoms consisted of pencil skirts or dress pants. Crap. You were so close to completing this outfit. You couldn’t fail now.

“A-ha!”

Just a little further down the row of clothing, you found an old pair of skinny jeans. They were black and ripped in the knees a bit because that’s the style you were in to back in the day. But could you even still fit into them? Why were they still hanging up in the back of your closet? Perhaps it was a sign that you were meant to wear them tonight? Either way, you held your breath as you slipped them on and thank the good lord above they still fit you.

There. The hardest part of the mission was over. Or so you thought.

Your hair. What should you do with your hair? This was starting to look and sound like this morning all over again. When all you had to do was work your life away, appearance was pretty cut and dry. You figured it would be pretty hot inside with all the bodies dancing around and such, so perhaps your typical bun would work? Maybe you could spruce it up with some curls hanging in your face? Yeah. That could work. Let’s do that! You got this! It’s all under control now.

After some bobby pins and tons of hairspray, you had your hair perfectly in place just like every other morning when getting ready for work. The curls that framed your bare face seemed out of place but you were trying your best to seem.....casual? You stared back at yourself in the mirror and that’s when the second guessing started up again. The self-doubt and wondering if this was such a good idea.

“No! I’m doing this. I got this far. He asked me. That’s got to count for something. I can do this and I will.”

After the small pep talk, you then decided to try and eat something before applying any makeup. No sense in putting lipstick on if food was just going to wipe it all off. Not to mention make said food taste like lipstick. Gross.

After downing a bowl of ramyeon, you brushed your teeth and used a ton of mouth wash before finally getting around to putting on some makeup. Deciding there was no need to go all out since it’d probably be dark in the club, you kept it pretty simple. Just your usual routine for when you got ready for work. Once finished, you stood there in the mirror in your bathroom and took a deep sigh of relief.

“I’m ready.”

Just like he had said, Jungkook arrived super late and you wondered if you were even going to make it the whole night through. Being someone who worked themselves to death, you weren’t exactly night owl material. Thank goodness tomorrow was Sunday. At least you could sleep in if needed. You had received his text and a little less than 10 minutes later, he was parked out front waiting on you.

‘Wow. He looks amazing!’

‘Oh god. She’s too cute.’

There Jungkook stood, leaning against the passenger side door and ready to be a gentleman and help you into his car. His attire for the night was pretty simple yet literally flashy all at the same time. He wore a v-neck white t-shirt and black jeans that hugged his thighs in all the right ways. Over the t-shirt he wore a deep red jacket that sparkled under the night lights. He looked like the pride and glory of Satan himself standing there all dark and confident. You couldn’t help but notice his hair was styled and he himself wore a bit of makeup. Dang.

You were too cute in his eyes. Clearly you didn’t get out much. What with your cute cardigan and your hair all up in a tight, neat bun. In fact, you wore your hair just like that the day he not-so-accidentally bumped into you at the cafe. Although he noticed you tried to mix it up a bit by letting some hair fall into your face which appeared to already be driving you nuts as you tried to tuck the soft locks behind your ear.

“Well don’t you look adorable.”

“Th---Thanks. You look really nice too.”

Curse you and your stupid stuttering. You gripped your clutch purse with white knuckles as you flashed him a bashful smile. This was going to be a long night that was probably going to leak into early morning when your butt would normally be in bed sleeping. Oh boy. You blinked when he suddenly leaned off the car, which was actually super nice by the way, and lifted his hand to reach out to you. Your heart pounding as you tried to figure out what he was doing.

“Just one thing I noticed here......”

The next thing you knew, your hair was falling and cascading all around you as he took out every bobby pin and the hair tie that was holding your perfect hair bun in place. Your mouth hanging open as he came back around to smile at you while holding all the hair accessories in his hands. Wow his hands were even pretty.....

“Jungkook!! I worked hard on that! Why’d you do that!?!?”

“You need to lighten up and let loose a little, cutie. You’re too uptight.”

Squaring your shoulders and folding your arms across you chest, you sported a loud pout before saying stubbornly,

“I am not uptight. This is just my unique style, okay?”

“Props for loving yourself but you’re too pretty to be dressing like your grandma. Come on. I know someone who can help us.”

You didn’t know whether you wanted to blush and giggle like a schoolgirl or punch him in the throat. He had just complimented you and insulted you all in one sentence. However, as he stood there smirking and opening the passenger door for you, you grumbled and muttered while climbing in,

“I don’t dress like my grandmother.”

Having no clue where he was taking you, you decided to focus on his appearance once again. Upon closer inspection, you noticed that he was actually wearing color. Not to mention that makeup. Dang. You wondered if someone had done it for him. Having nothing else better to do, you decided to try and get back at him by saying with a bit of attitude,

“I can’t believe you own something other than black.”

Your initial response was a soft snort of amusement. Sneaking a glance, you noticed his nose was scrunched up in that adorable bunny-like fashion and it made your heart leap. How could one man look so devilishly handsome and adorably cute all at the same time?? How?!

“If you can believe this, yellow is my favorite color.”

It was like staring at the biggest, loudest oxymoron you had ever laid eyes on. Jungkook, a man who was dark and mysterious, loved the color yellow? Yellow, one of the brightest colors imaginable. It just didn’t make any sense. Trying not to grin too much, you asked as casually as you could,

“Do you ever wear yellow?”

“Nah. I don’t think it looks right on me. I prefer sticking to dark colors.”

Now long over Jungkook’s little stunt of undoing all your hard work on your hair, you watched as he drove you both through a part of town you were unfamiliar with. Eventually, he parked along the side of the street and turned the engine off. With a wide smile and mischievous glint in his dark doe eyes, he announced happily,

“We’re here.”

Deciding it’d do no good to ask questions, you simply rolled your eyes while unbuckling yourself and climbing out. Once he had locked the car, he motioned for you to follow him up to a small and quaint looking storefront. It appeared to be a beauty boutique of some kind. Oh boy. You knew where this was going. So much for all your efforts to look nice. You totally didn’t dress like a grandma.......Did you???

Walking in, you listened to the bells chime against the door and took a moment to soak the place in. Yep. It was definitely a beauty boutique. There were two salon stations to the right and a couple mani pedi stations to the left. The decor was very......unique. You could only imagine who the store owner was and what they looked like. You jumped a bit when your date called out casually,

“Taehyung-ah! Get out here!”

“You brat! How dare you address me without honor......Ohh.”

Oh dear lord.

The man standing before you was......different. You didn’t know how else to say it without sounding rude. His attire screamed Arabian Nights with how baggy they were. Granted he pulled the look off really well. Glasses were perched on his nose but you had the distinct feeling those were just for looks as well. His eyes were sharp as they took you in; feeling like he was staring into your very soul.

“Tae, I need your help.”

“Yes I can see that.”

“I’m taking her to Hope World so.....work your magic, will you?”

“Ooohhh. Hobi hyung’s dance club, huh? You got it. I’ll fix her right up.”

“Yah! Will you two stop talking about me like I’m not literally standing right here?!”

With the two of them chuckling, you pouted and watched the male named Taehyung reach out for you and gently took both of your hands in his. Lifting one up to place a gentle kiss to your knuckles, he said with a charming smile,

“Don’t worry, love. You’re in good hands now. Come. Follow me to the back.”

Before following him, you looked over your shoulder to see a very smug looking Jungkook as he winked before turning away to lounge in one of the salon chairs. Jerk.

While you watched Taehyung flip through racks and racks of clothing, occasionally pulling an article out to inspect it only to put it right back, you noticed that he definitely had a natural talent for stuff like this. You could understand why Jungkook brought you here. Speaking of, it was Taehyung’s question that brought you out of your little daydream.

“So how do you know Jungkookie?”

“Oh um----We bumped into each other at a cafe and he gave me his business card. I had him check out my laptop earlier today because it’s been acting funny.”

“Hmm. What a fortunate coincidence for you, eh?”

You pouted when you realized he had just called you out on your lame and pathetic attempt to spend time with the boy. Had you really been that obvious? What if Jungkook realized it too? What if he knew all along your laptop was fine but was just playing along to......Ugh. You felt like such a loser. Your self-esteem now successfully shot all to hell, you suddenly turned on your heel and started to make your way out.

“Hey whoa whoa whoa. Don’t be like that. I was just teasing. Get back here. I have a job to do.”

You wanted to fight back. To rip your wrist out of his hold. But upon looking into the male’s eyes, you could spot sincerity and so you stayed. Silence followed as you watched Taehyung pick out piece after piece and you wondered how he could tell your sizes. Perhaps he was just that good. As he finally picked out a leather jacket, he said casually,

“Okay I think we’re ready. Be a doll and take these and try them on. The dressing room is just on the other side of this curtain here.”

Nodding in understanding, you carried the somewhat heavy pile of clothing and stepped through the curtain. Dang. There was a full length mirror on all three walls. Taking a deep breath, you placed the pile on the bench in front of you and started to shed your own clothing. Not gonna lie, you were a little hurt because you had put so much effort into your ensemble. In the same token, you knew darn well these weren’t clubbing clothes. So you couldn’t be too upset. But still, your pride was wounded.

“How do I look?”

“Like you were made for my little Jungkookie. He better have tissues ready because his nose is gonna bleed all over my damn floors.”

That wasn’t exactly the response you were expecting. Heat crawled up your neck and burned your cheeks to the tips of your ears. In all honesty, you had stared at yourself in the mirrors for quite a good few minutes before stepping out. It was like......playing dress up. Or putting on a Halloween costume. You looked so different but you knew it was you staring back.

“Thanks, Taehyung ssi.”

“Pffft. Please. You don’t need to use honorifics. It’s the punk outside who needs to use them. Come on. Let’s blow his mind.”

Feeling a smile spreading on your face, you nodded and allowed his hand to rest on your lower back as he guided you down the hall and back out into the open room. Your boots made soft thuds as you finally stood at the end of the hallway where the lighting of the store could wash over you.

Jungkook could have sported a boner right then and there. Had he not known how good Taehyung was at his job.

“Shit.”

There you stood looking absolutely perfect. Black boots that came up just over your knees and tied up the back. Legs clothed with super thin black stockings. Cute charcoal gray mini skirt that ruffled and came to your mid thighs. Black halter top that hugged your cleavage in all the right places but still kept things conservative. But his favorite piece of the whole thing was that jacket. Black and leather with belt straps and studs in all the right places.

Dear god he was in Heaven. It was like you were his dark angel here to take him to a sinful kind of paradise. Yet the shy smile and blush brought him back to reality. You were still that adorably shy girl who worked way too much and didn’t play enough. Hopefully tonight he’d change all of that. It was then that you shyly turned to the other male and asked timidly,

“What do I owe you, Taehyung ssi?”

“Oh my god. Get her out of here before I keep her all to myself. And take some pointers from her while you’re at it. She has way more manners than you do.”

“Will do. Thanks, Taehyung-ah.”

“Why you little bast---”

You were stunned as everything happened so fast. One second you were standing there watching the two boys interact and the next you were being dragged out of the boutique listening to the muffled cursing of one Kim Taehyung. You watched Jungkook snicker while he unlocked the car and once again held the passenger door open for you.

“If I had to take a guess, I’d say you enjoy messing with him.”

“Oh absolutely. And I can get away with it because I’m the baby and he loves me.”

“The baby?”

You watched him climb into the driver’s seat and start the car up once more. While he buckled himself in, he grinned and nodded while saying casually,

“Yeah. In our group of friends, I’m the youngest so that makes me the baby. Actually, the club we’re going to is owned by one of them. Hobi is a nice guy. If we’re lucky, he’ll be there and you’ll get to meet him.”

Nodding, you watched him put the car into gear and you were once again on the road. Seeing as how you didn’t get out much, you hadn’t really heard of this Club Hope World. You could only pray that Jungkook was right in saying that it was clean and strict on the rules. You were a good person with morals and you didn’t want to associate with things like underage drinking.

“Oh, and I meant to tell you, I’ll be the DD for tonight so try whatever you want. Hobi has some really nice cocktails. I don’t know if you like that kind of stuff or not but just throwing that out there.”

“Gosh I can’t remember the last time I’ve had a cocktail.”

“Well then tonight’s the night. Have whatever your heart desires, cutie. I’ll make sure you get home safe.”

You looked over just in time to see Jungkook flashing a wink in your direction and you immediately turned your head to look out the window; blush burning your skin. Getting drunk definitely wasn’t on your list for tonight. It was hard to tell what you’d do or say when you’re sober around him, let alone drunk.

It seemed like in no time at all, he was parking the car once more and helping you out like a real gentleman. You noticed his eyes looking you up and down once more and couldn’t help but smile. It was a mixture of pride and bashfulness as you liked his staring but it was also making you shy. It had definitely been awhile since you were out on the dating scene. But then again.......was this a date?

When it came time to enter, you were shocked how Jungkook jumped ahead of everyone else while tugging you along with him. You could hear the scoffs and snide remarks from people as your broad shouldered companion pushed through the crowd towards the entrance. Your one hand immediately going to your purse for your ID, you watched in astonishment as Jungkook merely exchanged nods with one of the bouncers and was let through and you along with him.

“Pays to be besties with the owner. So what do you wanna do first? Want to dance or maybe try a drink?”

You looked around in awe. It was plain to see why the place was called Hope World. Unlike most clubs, this place was bright and full of color. Colors that made your heart happy and filled you with.....well.....hope. It was like walking into some kind of spin off of Candy Land. Perhaps this wasn’t such a bad idea after all. You were glad you decided to see this through.

“Um.....how about----”

“Hey! Jungkookie! Over here!”

You look over to your left and despite all the people, you could make out someone, actually two someones, waving their arms up in the air in an almost desperate and embarrassing attempt to get the male’s attention. Looking back at your.....date? You notice him smirking in amusement before turning to look down at you.

“Come on. Meet more of my friends.”

It was amazing how.....comfortable....you were with having Jungkook’s large and warm hand on your back. It felt almost natural, really. Walking through the crowds of people, you notice how the two boys kept flickering their gazes back and forth between Jungkook and yourself. There was something about their smiles that seemed......mischievous.

“Cutie, this is Jimin hyung and Hoseok hyung. Hoseok is the one I call Hobi.”

“Hello. It’s nice to meet you both.”

“Oh god, Kook. She’s adorable. Where’d you find her?”

Hoseok, who you remembered Jungkook mentioning being the owner of the club, walked up to you and you were shocked at how okay you were with him gently squishing your cheeks together. It was an act of endearment for sure but it still took you a bit by surprise. Seems like this guy was quite the comfortable and social butterfly who could easily approach people. Strangers and acquaintances alike.

“At a cafe. We bumped into each other. Just so happens she needed my services. So she’s paying me by being my date tonight.”

Did he have to be so bloody honest????

Thank goodness for the different colored lights that hung from above. At least they could help you hide your raging blush. Looking over at the male named Jimin, you noticed him smiling a warm and knowing smile. It was almost like he was staring at you in fondness. Smiling back rather timidly, you listened to him speak up.

“Our Jungkookie is quite talented with technology, isn’t he?”

You nodded bashfully and subconsciously leaned further into the male who apparently was indeed your date. So did that mean Jungkook considered this a date? Gah. You were probably thinking too much into it. That is.....till you felt his hand leave the small of your back only to wrap around your waist in a protective manner. It was then that Hobi dramatically placed a hand over his heart and looked away while practically shouting,

“Oh my lord! They’re too cute! My eyes are burning!”

While you were a blushing mess and only wanted to hide in Jungkook’s chest, said male and Jimin exchanged matching looks with eye rolls and everything. Chuckling, Jimin nodded his head backwards towards the colorful floors of the club and asked Jungkook casually,

“Wanna battle? It’s been awhile.”

Looking up at the youngest male, you watched a smirk spread across his face and dang that was hot. You felt you were going to overheat as arousal stirred in your lower tummy. And then he was looking down at you and out of reflex, you gulped; suddenly very thirsty......in more ways than one.

“Want to watch me wipe the floor with this hyung?”

“Pffft. Please. Better have an ambulance on standby because I’m gonna break this delinquent.”

You were actually giggling behind your hand but the sounds died in your throat when you felt Jungkook give your waist a small and gentle squeeze. Looking back up at him in curiosity, you noticed his eyes and his expression took on a slightly more serious shade.

“Stay with Hobi hyung, okay? Don’t wander off alone.”

Well that was odd. Blinking up at him in curiosity and now confusion, you nodded all the same and you watched him visibly relax. With him flashing you a brighter smile, he leaned in and surprised you with a kiss to your forehead. Dang. You were gonna pass out for sure if he kept this up. Seeing your flustered state, he simply winked and started to follow his hyung over to the dance floor where the dance battles were held.

Immediately the crowd was going crazy as they recognized what was about to happen. You felt an arm snake around your waist and instantly tensed up. Looking over to your right, you quickly relaxed when you realized it was just Hoseok. His smile calmed your heart and you just knew his intentions were pure. He stared at you as if he were staring at a younger sister.

“You’ll love this. These two keep me in business. If you know what I mean.”

Curiosity and confusion filled you once more as you turned from the smiling club owner, to the two males standing a few feet apart from each other. Why was your heart racing? Was this what an adrenaline rush felt like? That very same heart skipped a beat when you noticed Jungkook flashing you another wink; almost laughing when some of the girls in front of you thought it was for them and they freaking swooned.

And then the music started. It was like watching an angel and a devil, yin and yang. Jimin was dressed in some kind of graffiti styled, off white denim ensemble while Jungkook was dressed in his signature dark colors. His jacket made him sparkle like the rarest jewel. You had eyes only for him as you watched him take his turn; seeing as how Jimin had won the coin toss to go first.

His body was so.....fluid. The moves he made. If you had tried to pull any of those moves off, you would have broken every bone in your body. But not Jungkook. And not Jimin either. You had to admit, Jimin was pretty dang good. But your eyes kept flickering back to your date. Even when all he was doing was standing there and grinning like a fool at his friend and opponent.

Jimin’s moves were more exact and precise while still being fluid. You could tell he had went to school for dancing. It was so obvious from the way his body moved and his hands caressed his own physique. You noticed that he was using his smaller body build to his advantage. Sometimes it paid off to be small. You would know. While you may have been extremely biased, you could appreciate Jimin’s style of dance.

Meanwhile, Jungkook’s moves were more......strong? It was like he was fluid but his moves were rough around the edges. He was going at it harder than ever as it was his turn once again. It was a wonder neither one of the two didn’t pop a socket. You didn’t even know the human body could move like that without breaking something.

At one point in time, you heard Hoseok excusing himself to take a call. Granted you weren’t worried, but Jungkook’s words from earlier swirled in your head. He didn’t want you wandering off alone. But why? Maybe he just didn’t want to lose sight of you in the crowd? Hmm. Weird. Shrugging to yourself, you continued to watch but quickly became aware that you were in dire need of something to drink.

Taking a quick trip to the bar by yourself wouldn’t hurt. You’d be back before the dance battle was even over. Solidifying your decision, you made your way for the bar where all kinds of glass bottles were on display in the background. Hmm. Jungkook said you should try a cocktail. And he did say that he’d be your DD for the night. Smiling as you felt yourself slowly loosening up, you nodded at the bartender who you noticed sported cute dimples when he smiled back.

“What’ll it be, beautiful?”

Trying to ignore the flirty mannerisms of the bartender, you smiled up at the board instead. Gosh it had been so long since you had a drink. You wouldn’t even know what to pick. Quickly looking back down at the male, you smiled sheepishly and replied over the sound of the music,

“Something fruity. Surprise me.”

“One fruity surprise, coming up!”

It all happened so fast and you were completely unsuspecting; having been wrapped back up in watching the two boys still battling it out to see who would surrender first. You could see sweat pouring down both their faces as neither one refused to bow out. They both wanted to be the victor but someone was going to have to lose eventually.

“Here you go, babe. Enjoy!”

But you were still watching. No worries. The glass of fruity, alcoholic goodness would still be there. The bartender had moved on to another customer and you were still watching your date like a lovesick puppy. It was just the right amount of time for something to go wrong. Terribly wrong.

Deciding you had deprived your body of liquid long enough, you turned around and grabbed your glass before walking back to the crowd. Sipping the drink, you realized the guy behind the bar knew what he was doing. Wow! This tasted amazing!

When you returned to your spot in the thicket of bodies, you noticed Hoseok looking from panicked to relieved the second he saw you. Smiling apologetically, you allowed him to reel you in once more and from the way his arm was hung protectively around you, you weren’t going anywhere any time soon. No more wandering off for you tonight.

“I let you win.”

“Pffft!! You’re a terrible liar, Kookie. I won that fight fair and square. Didn��t I, cutie?”

As you continued to sip on your drink, you simply shrugged and smiled around the small straw. You could hear Jungkook hissing a yes in victory; saying something about his girl staying by his side no matter what. It made you giggle and you leaned happily against Hoseok. Wow. This drink was really really good. You could have three more glasses and be happy as a clam.

Eventually Jungkook took you off the boy’s hands and you were happily leaning against him; tipsy as you grind your body against his own. You really weren’t much of a dancer but the alcohol in this drink was now rushing through your veins and controlling you. Granted perhaps you were a lightweight, but Jungkook knew even just one drink couldn’t make someone this......intoxicated.

“How about we go sit down for a minute, hmm?”

“Nnnnooooooouuuuuuu. I don wanna!”

Gosh you were too cute. If he thought you were adorable sober, you were twice as much while drunk. Smiling at your pout, he gently shook his head and started to penguin waddle the two of you over to a table that was thankfully empty. The cute walk had you giggling with your head thrown back; nearly knocking him in the chin.

“Jungkookieeeee. I don’t feel good. I----”

And the last thing you remember was the drink slipping out of your hands and a pair of strong arms holding you up before you could fall. You were pretty sure it was Jungkook’s voice calling out your name but it was like your mouth was full of cotton as was your brain.

Then your whole world went black.

#mafia!bts #mafia!jungkook #mafia!kook #gang!bts #jungkook x reader #jungkook bts #bts #jungkook fanfiction #jungkook fanfic #s;girlmeetsevil #bts fanfiction #bts fanfic #bts scenarios #bts scenario #kpop fanfic #kpop fanfiction #taehyung x oc #jimin x oc

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tessatechaitea · 5 years

Text

Wonder Twins #5

Jayna just punched straight through her brother's butthole.

If you're a being who turns into water, your dick and butthole don't just disappear, right? They just become part of the water! So I'm almost certainly correct in my comment on the cover. Hopefully Mark Russell will explore this topic in a future issue. Until then, I'll be certain to tell everybody I know that Jayna basically fisted Zan. Luckily for the Wonder Twins, I don't know many people and also they are fictional characters. This issue is called "Magic and Games." I think. It will probably take me less time to read this entire comic book than it took me to puzzle out the word "Games" in the font used for the title.

Sure, you can see it now that I already told you what it was! But it was difficult before I worked it out! Although I still wouldn't be surprised to learn the title is "Magic and Galljes" or "Magic and "Gaines" and that the second word is somebody's name.

Usually I don't comment on Mark Russell comic books because to comment on a Mark Russell comic book, you should probably be smart and serious. Sure, he's having fun and writing an entertaining book that I can easily use to make jokes about fisting incest! But he also writes sensitive stories about social justice and systemic bias and ethical dilemmas in changing times and, well, other stuff that I'm too dumb to even discuss in the most general terms! He's a smart guy which is why I hate him with a burning passion! But it's a good hate! It's the kind of envious hate that pushes me to my own Emerald Twilight! I probably won't wind up destroying an entire town and ruining my reputation and becoming the most vilified hero in our universe but I almost certainly will eventually become the avenging spirit of God judging everybody around me! Wait, I think I already am that! Whatever my point is, it's that Mark Russell writes good and I'm too weak to not despise him for it. Polly Math has just won first prize at the science fair because her last name is Math. I guess Sandra Science didn't compete this year so Polly was the obvious next choice. Jayna wins second place because her project on fucking hot guys while being a nerd in high school fell apart when the guy she attempted to science fair fuck turned out to be a villain. It's also possible I'm confusing story lines but you have to expect that kind of thing! I'm not spring chicken! Remembering details between chapters that come out a full month apart has been nearly impossible for the last twenty years! I shouldn't make fun of Polly Math's name because I have a name that people always try to make jokes about too. It's not Grunion Guy! You can probably find it if you do even the smallest amount of Internet research! I'm not going to help you though because I don't want to get called a Deaf Chef anymore! Polly is upset that her father is working with Lex Luthor and the League of Annoyance. But Jayna has a plan to fix things! I bet her plan is to turn into a giant tortoise while Zan turns into an ice dildo and...wait a second! Why am I giving out good ideas that Mark Russell will just steal in a few issues?! Better to not speculate on things! Also, I mean, the cover shows Jayna going with the shark plan.

Okay fine! I'm finally interested in Fox News!

The most disturbing thing about people who watch Fox News is that they ignore five hundred other channels that are showing entertaining things on their television at the same time! Who chooses that shit over Comedy Central or the Game Show Network?! I haven't had cable for nearly twenty years and whenever I'm staying somewhere with cable, it's locked on the Game Show Network 24/7! Who the fuck chooses to watch state propaganda over old game shows?! Fucking psychopaths, that's who!

Polly Math's father wound up working with Lex Industries because only Lex Luthor hired African Americans, I guess? Hadn't he heard of STAR Labs?! Maybe Silas Stone and Sarah Charles fulfilled their quota?

I might be misreading this scene but I don't think I am because the white guys with white guys playing golf pictures behind them seem interested in Filo Math if he's Norwegian (so, you know, totally white!) and then when they meet him, they don't want to hire him. It could be that they really are concerned with his specialty! What could that be?! I mean, it can't be any worse than Silas Stone's specialty of turning his son into a cybernetic example of the castration of the black male in America! That's a really terrible specialty! Although Sarah Charles seemed to be pretty into it. See?! This is why I can't review a Mark Russell book! He's making a great point about the systemic bias inherent in corporate hiring practices and I'm not taking it seriously! I mean, he isn't either, really? He's being light-hearted while still making a good point. Which is what I've done, I think, in my comment about Cyborg's lack of a penis! The Scrambler wants to play a trick on society. He's a magician that believes people are frightened of magic and only like the part where everything is normal again. Magician: "Is this your card?" Audience Member: "Why yes! Thank God you picked my card! I was worried I was going to have to live in a world where my card wasn't picked!" Maybe I'm not comprehending his point. Anyway, The Scrambler wants to do a trick where things don't ever go back to normal! He's a monster! Imagine picking the Three of Clubs and nobody ever showing you the Three of Clubs ever again! Ugh, I'm feeling faint. To save Polly's Dad from definite prison time (or possibly, if Superman shows up, an eternity in the Phantom Zone. As if Superman can be bothered with Earth's judicial system! Pshaw!), Jan has challenged the League of Annoyance to a duel at the zoo. I guess if she wants to stress out all of the animals there with a big battle, who am I to judge? I mean other than being the real life version of Hal Jordan's Spectre, of course! At the zoo, Jayna recruits a bunch of Australian animals to help fight which goes as spectacularly as you can imagine it would. And what I mean by that is that a koala is blown to bits. But I guess that's worth it in the grand scheme of getting Polly Math's father to stop working with the League of Annoyance. It's like that philosophical conundrum about an ant that sacrifices its life for even the tiniest amount to better the world. It's just an ant! It practically owes it to the universe to die for nearly nothing! What does this koala bear expect? It should get to live in luxurious confinement at the zoo and not die for a trivial reason? Stupid koala bear. Go fuck yourself, you selfish bastard. The Wonder Twins defeat two out of three of the League of Annoyance members at the expense of just one koala's life and the bruised jaw of an innocent kangaroo. The third member, some woman with a Kryptonian cell phone whose name maybe I should remember, gets away to go regroup. Sylvia is a racist that joined the League because she didn't like the demographics of her small town changing. She's startled by Filo entering the League's headquarters to pack up his stuff and winds up zapping him like she zapped the koala. Okay, I guess the koala isn't as dead as I first thought. I should have realize a Kryptonian phone is probably sending everything to the Phantom Zone. So once again, I, the Grandmaster Comic Book Reader, was correct when I speculated that the worst that could happen to Filo was prison or the Phantom Zone! I'm the smarterest! Sylvia is caught on camera zapping Filo Math and then messes up in an interview when she kind of admits to having maybe zapped more than one black person with her phone off-camera? It's a real public relations nightmare!

But Lex can fix it! His greatest strength is turning public relations nightmares into public relations wet dreams!

Lex News turns Cell Phone Sylvia into a national hero. Because anything is excusable if you just say how scared you were! I mean, as long as you're white! It's scary being white! Sometimes you have to kill people with your legal gun while standing your own ground after confronting somebody for the most inconsequential reasons! It's just the way the world works! At least in America! Happy 4th of July! Just in case some readers weren't smart enough to get that everybody blasted by Sylvia's phone went to the Phantom Zone, Mark Russell supplies us with an image of Filo and the koala and a bunch of Sylvia's other victims (hmm, all black! But that's probably just a coincidence!) in the Phantom Zone. Polly, at the end of her rope with doing the right thing in an unjust world, decides to contact The Scrambler. I can't wait for her big magic trick to fix the world! The Scrambler's big trick to fix the world is to threaten to scramble everybody's identity. Everybody's minds will switch around so that they're now in different bodies. That means the powerful might wind up being the poorest people in the worst poverty. And the only way he won't do it is if the powerful fix the world in thirty days. Seems like a good plan! Except I'm curious to see how they fix it. Most people's ideas of fixing the world rely on the current world still existing somehow. So the fix is handicapped from the beginning by needing to be built on the ruins of the old system. To truly make a new system that works, the old system must be completely razed to the ground. But nobody has the stomach for that. So we make exceptions and compromises, building the new structure on top of a rotting foundation. It's why DC's Universe fixes always fail. They rely on making things new and better but need to remain rooted in the past. Crisis on Infinite Earths was built on a world that still contained members of Infinity Inc. who suddenly didn't fit in the world anymore. So DC then had to do Zero Hour which told new origin stories but still refused to throw out everything that came before to simply start again. Even The New 52, which people hated because they felt it did exactly what I suggested (razing the shit to the ground), didn't work because, I believe, it didn't go far enough! It still accepted Superman had died. It still accepted all of Green Lantern's past. It still contained a Batgirl who was shot by Joker and became Oracle. It was still the DC Universe but with arbitrary and subtle changes that made no real difference except the jettisoning of a ton of history. So it didn't work for anybody! Um, anyway, my initial point was that real life political structures and social dynamics and economic systems can never really be restructured in a meaningful way because they have to kowtow to older ways of thinking and doing things. The comic book stuff was just easier to write about! I'm sure Mark Russell will figure it out! Or he'll just have The Scrambler and Polly Math arrested and nothing will work out like it should and it will just be the punctuation on the idea that everything fucking sucks. Yay! Wonder Twins #5 Rating: A+. Come on! Everything Mark Russell writes gets an A+! It shows how smart I am!

#Wonder Twins #Mark Russell #DC Comics #Comic Book Reviews

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thewadapan · 5 years

Photo

It's Friday night.

You've locked yourself out.

The streets are empty.

> RETRACE STEPS

(I finished an MS Paint fan adventure.)

Creator’s Commentary

Normally, when I post stories on this blog, I throw the whole thing beneath the spoiler break - but that’s not really possible this time around. Click the link above if you haven’t read it yet - it only takes about ten minutes - then come back here if you want.

All done? Still with me? Okay, cool, because we’re going to be heading into spoiler territory here pretty quickly.

“RETRACE STEPS”

OPEN ON BLACK:

INT. – LATE AFTERNOON

A door opens on the right, spilling light into the threshold. The ceiling light automatically flickers on. Alice enters frame and heads to her door.

She tries the handle, but the door doesn’t budge. As her hand depresses the handle, the title briefly becomes visible.

We return to the original angle. Alice reaches into her left pocket, and finds nothing. She turns to lean against the door, facing the camera, and checks her right pocket, then the pockets of her hoodie. She tries the handle again, but the door is definitely locked. She leans, for a second, motionless.

ALICE Fuck.

She stalks out of the threshold, and the door closes behind her.

I. Making friends is harder than I thought.

When you’re a kid, people sorta make friends for you. Maybe your parents’ friends have kids, so suddenly those kids are your friends. Maybe you go to nursery or school, and then your classmates are kinda your friends too. At least some of those people will probably never stop being your friends. As you move through the education system, that cohort diffuses through the local schools - but chances are a few of your friends will stick with you all the way.

When you arrive at university, chances are you’re completely alone.

You’re thrown through the gauntlet of fresher’s week, forced to put yourself out there as you identify new friends and foes. One of the main attractions of university-managed accommodation - particularly catered accommodation - is that it places you with a huge amount of new people. Heck, part of the idea behind having a roommate is that they’re your “designated friend”.

(I didn’t have a roommate, and ended up going to university with two of my school friends, so these are less experiences and more observations - but that’s not to say I didn’t go out of my way to make new friends in those first weeks.)

After a month or so of the dreaded “three questions” (”What’s your name? Where are you from? What are you studying?”), the cliques have mostly solidified. The college relationships have crumbled, after one or both parties realised they were mostly in it for the sex. The cool people have long since stopped showing up to lectures. You haven’t gone back to any of the sports clubs and societies you signed up for. Maybe, just maybe, you’re occasionally glancing at your phone and wondering if you should finally give your parents a call to let them know you haven’t died.

If you’re lucky, you’ve met your new best friends. If you’re unlucky, then you’re very, very alone.

But of course, it’s not all down to luck.

She stalks out of the threshold, and the door closes behind her. Outside the threshold, there is a shot from the banister above of Alice walking down the stairs, facing away from the camera and typing on her phone.

Outside, Alice sits on the wall and stares at her phone. There is a brief montage of her slowly pacing up and down the path, leaning out into the road to check if anyone’s coming, checking her phone, peering into the downstairs window, kicking loose stones back into the gravel, and back to her sitting on the wall. After a few seconds, she puts her phone away and trudges out of frame across the stones.

II. Coming up with stories is harder than I thought.

I can’t exactly remember what I put my name down for during freshers’ week, but one way or another I ended up dragging a new friend to a writing workshop for my university’s filmmaking society. A bunch of strangers from all years were crammed around some tables that had been pushed together in our Student Union’s bar.

This guy, the head of the- president of the society? Sure, the President, let’s go with that. The President stands up and sorta fumbles his way through an introduction, before telling us to turn to the person next to us. I turn to my friend, because I don’t like talking to strangers. Then the President tells us (I might be misremembering here) that we’ve got one minute to come up with a story.

There’s a moment of awkward silence, because nobody wants to be the first person to start talking about the first dumb idea that’s popped into their head at those words.

Then the conversations start.

I went into that first minute expecting to come up with absolutely nothing. To be honest, I’m pretty sure we came up with nothing. I think there might’ve been some implication that they’d go around the table once time was up asking for quick summaries - this terrified me not just at the prospect of having to bluff my way through a pitch, but at the prospect of having to listen to everyone else do the same. Honestly, the moment that’s stuck in my mind most since was when I talked to the guy sitting on the other side of me, and he started trying to tell me about Lord of the Rings, which... okay, I don’t like Lord of the Rings, sue me, whatever. Someone else talked about the Batman movies at one point, and - actually, that might’ve been the same guy. Y’know what, I’ve gotten off track.

The point is that at some point during that meeting, Retrace Steps was born. I don’t remember when exactly, or how I came up with it - I suspect I’d locked myself out of accommodation at some point, or knew a friend who had, and thought it’d be funny to do a story where someone does that and can’t for the life of them get back in. In order to add complications, I decided that their roommate wouldn’t answer their texts, and that the residence office would be out of hours - and that was when the idea that everyone had disappeared came into my head.

INT. MAIN BUILDING – LATE AFTERNOON

Over-the-shoulder shot of Alice entering a corridor in the main building. The camera focuses on the sign saying ‘ON DUTY’, then pans across to the door to the general office. It focuses on another sign saying ‘The office is now closed...’, then across to another sign by the door with a phone number on it.

Foreground with Alice comes back into focus. She takes out her phone and dials.

ALICE Hello? I’ve locked myself out, do you have a spare...

She trails off, and puts the phone away. Clearly, someone’s answered but has hung up. Cut across for a close-up of her face, trying to figure out her next move.

SERIES OF BRIEF SHOTS:

Alice looks for her keys in:

A) a computer lab B) a library C) a laundry room D) a games room E) a bathroom

There are no keys, and no people. Alice goes to the kitchen and gets a mini-doughnut out from a box in a cupboard. She eats it thoughtfully. Once she’s finished, she reaches out to grab another, hesitates, and decides against it.

III. Making movies is harder than I thought.

A lot of the ideas being thrown around the table were for some pretty high-concept stuff, and I remember thinking - hang on, aren’t you supposed to actually be filming that? I’d approached the challenge from the angle of “what do I have, and what can I make with it”, not “what do I want to make, and how can I make it”. In an unfortunate twist of fate, my film - of all those that were conceived that day - would end up being far and away the worst. But I’ll get to that.

For a student film, the "everybody disappears and you’re locked out” concept made perfect sense - you could film it at your accommodation, you’d only need a single actor, and it’s a story that your audience will probably (if not immediately, then at least after another month or two) be able to relate to.

(Side note: I obviously hadn’t come up with this concept whole-cloth. Michael Grant’s Gone series of YA novels - which I’d finished reading midway through secondary school - is a superhero story about a bunch of kids on an island where all the adults have suddenly disappeared. More pertinently, Starscribe’s The Last Pony on Earth is the diary of someone who wakes up completely alone in their city, only in the body of a cartoon horse. Yes, Retrace Steps has its roots in My Little Pony fanfiction, and I’m very sorry about that.)

My friend wasn’t interested in sticking with the society - he mostly did it to back me up - but I guess I was. Knowing that most people would be angling for directorial roles, I signed up as a writer and threw together a script. An email came back the following day; apparently from el Presidente himself:

Thank you for sending the script Retrace Steps. As you have said in your original email, the script is quite short. But I do think it is a very intriguing concept nonetheless, one that is probably helped more so than hampered by its brevity. After all, the nature of your script would to a degree require an empty street, as well as a quiet hall, both of which are rare commodities indeed, especially during the weekends.

Anyways, since the script is well formatted, I will just offer a suggestion, one which I hope may help your final edit before the deadline, should you wish to do so.

Your script portrays excellently Sam's anxiety over the course of the narrative, from his inability to find his keys, then his inability to find anyone at all. I do however believe that you could make the final scene perhaps have more impact. How this is done depends on the overarching theme of the story you are telling, as what you would emphasize at the films' conclusion would depend on it.

Is it an allegory to the anxieties of the average student (Sam), who finds himself socially isolated by a sense of exile or ignorance of the larger community? Or is it perhaps more of an absurdist comedy, or even horror? Though I could wrong, I was under the impression that it was more likely to be the former than the latter. If so, could the story end with it emphasizing Sam's exclusion from society, such as a close up shot to the door and keyhole?

As with all feedback, you are under no obligation to take them to heart, and the things I pointed out are but small things to consider on an otherwise great piece of work. Thank you for making this piece available to the rest of the society.

It seemed that I’d successfully communicated the theme of isolation - less so the theme of entitlement. Bringing that theme to the fore would be my biggest challenge throughout subsequent drafts of the script (where I failed miserably) and the development of the fanventure (on which the jury’s still out).

(Those subsequent drafts would also see the characters “Sam” and “Chris” - those being the names of two friends I’d pegged as backup actors for the roles - get renamed as a more generic “Alice” and “Bob”.)

The Retrace Steps team consisted of a director, a producer, a cameraman/editor, and me. I met with the director only a couple of times - she seemed pretty competent, but decided that she couldn’t commit the time to the project and stepped down. Our producer was all too happy to take over the role.

Auditions started shortly after the teams were assigned - although I’d used male pronouns in the script, I’d anticipated that there’d be a greater demand for male actors (because most of the writers/directors would be male and most of the actors would be female) and planned to go into the auditions with no preference one way or another.

In truth, however, I think the gender of the story’s lead does have a noticeable impact on how it comes across - at least in film, where there’s no good means of narration. Speaking very broadly, when dealing with themes of isolation, I think the key question that comes to an audience’s mind is “why is this person isolated?” - and if the character is male, I feel like they’re more likely to assume the answer is a personal failure of some sort; there must surely be something wrong with him. If you’re reading this, chances are you’re in pretty deep on the internet, where I think these issues of perception are less pronounced - so if your instinct is to buck against those assumptions, well, I’m glad.

(The fanventure would end up using second-person narration, they/them pronouns and androgynous character designs to sidestep these issues entirely, while drawing the reader directly into the conflict.)

Our producer/director wasn’t able to make the callbacks (which felt like another red flag), so it was down to me to relay back to her what I thought of everyone. It was kind of a challenging process, because - as I’ve said - I don’t like talking to strangers and I certainly don’t like telling them what to do. Still, I was able to more-or-less settle into it, and eventually the director and I settled on a girl who seemed to know what she was doing. I feel a little bad for effectively putting her through the project, but the joke’s on us: within a year she’d been elected el Presidente of the entire students’ association. I can only assume that none of her opponents knew about the movie; it might’ve made for a pretty good smear campaign. Or not, nobody really cares about student politics anyway.

(The director couldn’t make it to the meeting where the society allocated the actors either. Basically, the President went through the actors one by one, and the teams would negotiate for each of them in turn. I’m fairly sure only one or two of the other teams were after the same actress as we were - I basically just said “we only need one cast member and we thought she’d do best,” and that was all it took; once that was settled I simply left and pretty much didn’t interact with any other members of the society in person until the screening. The other roles she could’ve got were minor anyway - although, in retrospect, she might’ve been better off.)

I think I’m not going to bother explaining exactly why the Retrace Steps short film turned out to be such a disaster. I’m pretty willing to pin the blame at the director’s feet - she’d arrange shoots at strange times with little notice, only to show up half an hour late herself. When she and I disagreed on part of the story, our cinematographer generally sided with her; she had the strongest personality of any of us, while I didn’t want to cause trouble. Our other team members - the actress and a lights guy who the society’d lumped with us (the lights ended up being a collaborative effort) - stayed out of it.

As the end of the semester approached, we were missing crucial swathes of footage. Our director pulled an ending out of her ass - a brief confrontation between myself-as-Bob and the actress, that... somehow involved custard creams? The script called for doughnuts, but we weren’t organised enough to have bought those in advance, and the biscuits were all we had at hand. I can’t actually remember exactly how it went, because it didn’t make any sense, but I remember enough to know that it actually ended up indirectly inspiring the execution of the revised ending present in the fanventure.

The end of the semester arrived. The society had hired out the small hall in the students’ union to screen all the movies. The screening started, and there was no sign of our director or cinematographer - they’d apparently been editing all afternoon. Eventually they arrived and sat down near myself and our actress.

I’m not gonna lie. What followed wasn’t the most embarrassing experience of my life. It probably wasn’t even in the top ten. But it was pretty embarrassing. All the movies were pretty awful in their own ways, but ours was uniquely terrible. To our director’s credit, she’d managed to cut the footage together into something we could maybe pass off as an absurdist comedy (which, to my own credit, had been kinda what I’d pictured in the first place - I’d just pictured something with a little more in the way of actual narrative). Even so, despite the awkward laughs - or perhaps because of them - it was atrocious.

I’ve only seen the movie once, at that screening, and I cringed the whole way through. Some time later, the director messaged me asking if I had a copy - apparently it hadn’t occurred to her to save one for herself, and our ex-cinematographer had gone AWOL - but I didn’t. Stupidly, I’d decided not to chase after one either, because in the moment I couldn’t imagine wanting to put myself through the experience of seeing it again. Almost half a year later, when I was almost done with the fanventure, I got back in touch with both the director and the society: I wanted to have the movie on hand so I could write about it in this commentary, but I didn’t say that, because I didn’t want to let on that I’d remade it as a frikkin’ webcomic. The person from the society said she knew someone who had a copy, and that she’d ask, but she never got back to me and by the time I remembered to chase her up it felt like it was too late to actually do so. It’s likely that the movie will never resurface - which I guess is good in a way, in that there’s no way in hell I’m gonna show it to any of you.

I was bitter. I wanted nothing to do with student societies. I wanted nothing to do with filmmaking, and haven’t made a film since - not unless you count Are You Happy, which I pretty much only made because I could do so entirely on my own. I’m much more leery about the prospect of collaborating with strangers, although I suspect that if an opportunity came my way I’d probably take it.

(Side note: last October, in an interaction which wound up being pretty excruciating in its own right, I contributed a satirical listicle to another society. This was a nightmare for a variety of reasons, but - suffice to say - it’s not particularly pleasant to discover that somebody’s made a bunch of edits to your work without telling you, especially if the changes are for the worse. I wish I had more positive things to say about collaboration, really, I do. Actually, I will say that my experiences working with others in the Transformers fandom have been pretty darn good - you can find details of that stuff over on the list of things I made.)

For a good while, I suspected that Retrace Steps would never see the light of day. I entertained the idea of rounding up a few of my friends and bashing the thing out myself over the course of a few weekends, but I ended up being pretty busy with other stuff. Besides, the society had the nice lights and cameras, and I didn’t want to go through the hassle of borrowing from them. Most of all, there was the tiny voice telling me that my script probably hadn’t ever been much good in the first place, and that I should switch back to pure prose - a medium with a much faster turnaround.

(That voice was right, as I’m sure you’re seeing for yourself. Look, it was a student film, there’s probably no such thing as a good student film - I’m just banking on fanventure-adaptation-of-a-bad-student-film still being fair game.)

EXT. STREET

Wide shot of Alice walking through the street, shouting. It is raining.

ALICE Hello? Is anybody there?

Overhead shot as she looks up and squints at the sky, then reaches back and lifts her hood.

Everything slows down. Cut to a side-on shot of Alice lifting her hood. A muted sound slowly turns into the jangle of keys as things speed up again. Cut across to medium shot face-on, as Alice looks confused. She reaches up with her other hand into her raised hood, and pulls out the keys. She holds them between two fingers, and the camera focuses on them.

ALICE Oh, for fuck’s sake.

IV. Talking about Retrace Steps without talking a little bit about Homestuck is harder than I thought.

Homestuck was this big multimedia webcomic that ran from 2009 to 2016. Homestuck was very good, and its unique “MS Paint Adventures” format inspired thousands of “MS Paint Fan Adventures” - some of which take Homestuck’s premise, but many of which are otherwise entirely original stories.

The oldest writing on this blog, in fact - presuming I haven’t hidden it out of mortification - is a rudimentary (and really god-awful) fanventure called You’ve Just Been FiRED. Don’t read it, it’s very, very bad, and I abandoned it after about thirty pages - some of which remain unpublished as of writing.

My second attempt at a fanventure, which - no joke - I wrote in the pages of my school planner during one exam season, is called SP00KY M4N0R; unlike traditional fanventures, which use the aesthetic of interactive fiction but none of the non-linear storytelling, this one was a fully-fledged choose-your-own-adventure story. In the following year’s planner, I started writing a spiritual successor called W1LT1NG (the setting of this one is slightly less self-evident: it took place inside an Egyptian pyramid). Neither of these stories have seen the light of day outside of a couple of my friends (and teachers) - but they might, so I’ll discuss them no further.

At some point in high school, I tried adapting SP00KY M4N0R for the web - first in MS Paint, then later in Photoshop CS2 - but put the project on the back burner and never really picked it back up again.

It wasn’t until after I joined the Homestuck Discord server that my interest in fanventures was rekindled. I became its 9615th member on the 6th of January, 2018 - in other words, a good while after we’d wrapped on Retrace Steps - but very quickly realised that its rate of activity was far to high for me to keep up with anything, duly muted it, and pretty much just forgot about it entirely.

Months later, something - presumably in either the Worth the Candle server or the Worm server - drew me back, and I found myself lurking there infrequently. On the 2nd of November, I briefly waded in - to ask some questions about Cordyceps - and after that, I think I lurked on-and-off for pretty much a whole month while I finished the remaining works on Makin’s List of Shills (if you’re wondering what all of these names in italics are, you might want to click that link). After that, I was pretty much there to stay.

A small but notable number of the server’s regulars ran fanventures of their own, and so I found myself becoming much more aware of the format than I ever had been while working on SP00KY M4N0R. Eventually, I decided I wanted to make something of my own - this was shortly after I’d finished working on Another Son, which had ended up being something of a mixed bag in a lot of ways - and hit upon the idea of adapting Retrace Steps as a fanventure.

You see, the thing about fanventures is that many of them begin with the same premise - “you are mysteriously alone”, and then things escalate as you learn more about the world the second-person protagonist has found themselves in. Retrace Steps has that same premise, with a very simple twist - the reason you are mysteriously alone is simply that nobody likes you.

SERIES OF SHOTS:

A) Alice re-enters the building B) She heads up the stairs, C) reaches the door to the threshold D) (a brief return to the original angle from the very beginning of the film) and enters the threshold. E) Extreme close-up of the key entering the lock. F) Over-the-shoulder shot as the door is unlocked and starts to open. G) (180-degree cut) She stares, dumbfounded at what she finds within. F) (Her POV) Her room is full of people, all holding red plastic cups and staring at her.

V. Drawing is harder than I thought.

Before I get into the meat of the work, I should probably give a broad overview of the process I used for creating the images - which, for the most part, was identical to the process I’d used for SP00KY M4N0R. The panels in Homestuck are 650px by 450px; in order to create a rougher (read: more forgiving) look, I halved these dimensions to 325px by 225px. I’d originally planned to scale the images back up to full size during publication, but ended up deciding that the negative space around the smaller frames helped create an atmosphere of isolation. Besides, I wasn’t sure if it’d be possible to scale the images back up without any anti-aliasing.

If you don’t know what anti-aliasing is, I’ll briefly explain - it’s when pixels at the edge of shapes in digital images get changed to a slightly different colour, to create smoother outlines. This works well at high resolutions, but at lower resolutions muddies detail and makes the image appear somewhat blurred - the effect is particularly pronounced if the images are entirely black and white. Homestuck avoids anti-aliasing pretty consistently, and doing so is a hallmark of the MSPA style.

Thankfully, Photoshop CS2 allows you to turn off antialiasing on pretty much every individual tool. I drew all the graphics using a 4px brush, but thanks to a beat-up old variable-pressure graphics tablet I could reduce this to 2px as needed. The 2px brush size was employed pretty heavily for detail in some of the busier environments, and at times I found myself using the selection tool to nudge stuff around at a pixel-by-pixel level.

Although Retrace Steps is adapted from a script, I’m pretty sure none of the dialogue from that script ended up making the jump into the second-person narration of the story. In fact, very few of the script’s locations remain either. The words and the artwork developed in tandem - I was rarely more than a few panels ahead in the script, and would generally let the physical on-panel action inform what was being written.

I occasionally looked up bits of reference - most notably to get some architectural details for the Tesco store - but otherwise winged it. Occasionally, in the more complicated images, I’d start out by drawing some perspective lines. For a couple of the images in the credits (specifically the cup and the Poké Ball) I went so far as to use autoshapes as guides, because I was struggling to draw passable circles freehand.

(No, those shapes on the right aren’t my attempts at circles, they’re the guide I used while drawing the doughnut.)

I’ll give more specific thoughts later, but broadly speaking I think my drawings suited the story I was trying to tell about as well as they could. I’m not an artist, and in the future I’m going to stray away from visual projects like this; the part I value most is the writing process, and I’d say that only a tiny fraction of the time I devoted to this project was actually spent writing. The flip side of that, of course, is that people generally much prefer stories with a visual aspect - it’s hard to convince them to read a webcomic, much less a prose story.

ALICE What the actual fuck are you all doing in my room? BOB (somewhat passively) Uhhh… didn’t you get my email? ALICE What email? Everyone in the room stares at her. Then, as one, they move to push her out of the room and shut the door. She protests, until-

ALICE This is my room!

BOB (poking his head back into shot with mucho sass) Yeah, but it’s not though, is it? He slams the door the rest of the way shut, and the lock clicks back into place.

Back to very first angle.

ALICE (quietly, to herself) What the actual fuck.

She knocks on the door loudly.

ALICE (shouting, her face inches from the door) This is my room!

Silence. She tilts her head forward, hitting the door with a sad thud. Then she turns and sits down, back to the door, and the camera cuts to join her at this new level.

She sits for a few seconds, thinking, then gets up again and leaves frame.

VI. Writing this commentary is harder than I thought.

Anyway, I figure the best way to get down into the details is to just start at the beginning and work my way through.

The first twenty panels take place in something of a liminal space - the corridor on which the reader’s room lies. I made sure never to show any of the other doors in the corridor; so far as the reader is concerned, they may as well not exist. The door is numbered “41″ - this being a truncation of “413″, the most ubiquitous of Homestuck’s so-called “meme numbers”. I kinda envisioned the room as being the first on the fourth floor of the building.

(If I’m feeling cheeky, I’ll say that the other doors are the ones up in the site’s navigation bar - they literally exist outside the scope of the panels.)

I probably didn’t spend as much time as I should’ve perfecting this environment - the door’s very wobbly. My first attempt placed it at the end of the corridor, but I didn’t like the way that looked at all.

Just in terms of the site itself, there’s a couple of things to take note of. The first is the solo cup sitting at the top of page, next to the advertisement, which is also the story’s icon on the site - and its only splash of colour (well, except in the ads, which I don’t have any control over). The second is that the link to the next panel is “->” - a slight variation on the command used by Homestuck, which was “==>”. The significance of this should be obvious to Homestuck readers, but I’ll comment no further on either of these details until later.

(Fun fact: I didn’t find out that those big red American plastic party cups had an actual proper name, and that that name was frikkin’ solo cup, until well into the fanventure’s development, if not after I’d finished it entirely. One of my friends used the term in passing conversation - I can’t remember what about, because I was too busy freaking out internally. It’s like pottery; it rhymes.)

On panel 3 - once they’ve walked into the corridor - the lights have turned on, and the entire colour scheme for the comic flips. The idea of having automatic lights was present in the original script, but it wasn’t until pretty late in the fanventure’s development that I decided to make them plot-relevant!

Out of all the images, it’s the close-up of the door on panels 5-7 that comes closest to matching a shot description in the script. The original idea was that the door being locked was the inciting incident that would lead the protagonist to go look for their keys - so the title/command “RETRACE STEPS” would literally appear as they pressed the handle. In the first draft of that panel, this was in fact the case - but my prereaders didn’t think it looked that great, and I was inclined to agree; besides, the title also appeared prominently on the title page and during the credits.

It’s not until panel 7 that we get any words at all - a simple “huh”. In the original script, I made relatively heavy use of profanity in Alice’s dialogue - this was supposed to signify hostility. I wasn’t happy with how this came across, and completely backpedalled in the fanventure - the second-person narration is entirely devoid of swears. I wanted to portray your inability to curse to as a deficiency: you’re unable to fully express yourself. Like most aspects of your character, this isn’t something you’re supposed to consciously notice or understand until after the story’s twist is revealed.

Panel 8 includes a command: “Try door again.” Generally speaking, the commands used in Retrace Steps are much more perfunctory than those in Homestuck - they’re almost entirely devoid of snark, with many being only a single word.

This entire sequence has a lot of legwork to do in terms of laying out the situation in a believable manner without giving too much away. On panel 14, the narration lists your inventory: a phone, a packet of tissues, and a wallet. The phone and the wallet both play direct roles in the narrative, but I consciously chose to include the tissues because I think the word itself has connotations with illness, sadness, and loneliness.

It’s worth noting that these items are those that I personally carry about in real life. Other than the abstract geography of the corridor, this is perhaps the clearest example of me drawing directly from my own day-to-day experiences. The word “self-insert” is kind of a dirty word in a lot of ways, but the truth is that I wanted the protagonist of Retrace Steps to serve as both a self-insert and an audience surrogate. This is why I felt like the MSPA format would serve the story well.

(None of that is to say that you should draw conclusions about me as a person based on the behaviour of the character in the story. Superficially, they share a lot of my tics, but their actual thought processes and motivations are different in many ways.)

Panels 17-19 are just repeated images of the empty corridor; the lights turn off on panel 20, and the site’s colours briefly flip again. Heading into this project, I had the rough idea that I wanted to tell the story in a “nice” number of pages - maybe a hundred, maybe less, maybe more. I decided that, if I repeated the door image, I’d have a buffer to use to shorten or lengthen the final page count as needed - but that turned out not to be necessary. This little span establishes that the lights in the corridor are on a timer, a fact which turns out to be relevant down the line.

The first scene change occurs on panel 21, which shows a stairwell. My original version of this sequence confused basically everyone who saw it - I’d envisioned the camera as being at the bottom, looking up, but everyone presumed I’d done it from the top down. The current approach makes much more sense, as all of the lines of action in the image point towards its centre.

As you descend the stairs and thinks about your roommate, the narration rambles much more. In this story, I decided that use of the internet would be a signifier for loneliness in some way - the roommate has an old-fashioned phone and communicates only by text. I wanted to give the impression that they’re bad at checking their messages; preferring instead just to talk to people face-to-face. That’s not the whole story, though - to a certain extent, they actively ghost you.

Once more, I’m drawing pretty heavily from my own life experiences for this sequence. For a long time in high school, I used to have a terrible flip phone - my parents didn’t want me to have anything better. I eventually upgraded to a terrible smartphone, which I mostly used to play Hill Climb Racing and Glow Hockey. Late in high school, I wound up using a bulky Kindle Fire as a portable computer, with my brother’s old terrible smartphone in case I needed to call anyone; the phone was pretty much always out of battery. It was only within the last six months - halfway through my second year of university - that I got an actual honest-to-god good smartphone. This stuff becomes relevant again later, during the Pokémon GO sequences.

(As I said earlier, I didn’t have a roommate, but my neighbour did - his roommate kept strange hours, and I’m pretty sure most nights he didn’t come back to accommodation to sleep. They got along, but there was an arrangement in place there.)

The image of seeing someone at meals but never speaking to them struck me as a fairly strong one - in student accommodation, you’re forced to interact with people because you use the same amenities, but the extent to which you actually communicate with those people is a matter of personal choice. The narration uses the word “sit”, which I think implies a lack of understanding of that element of choice - you don’t sit together, therefore you cannot speak. The idea that you totally could sit together just doesn’t occur to you.

Anyway, panels 25-33 take place immediately outside the building. With public buildings like this, people who smoke are unlikely to stray far from the door - and the smell lingers for a while after they’re finished. Public smoking has always been one of my pet hates - I’m asthmatic - but I consider the extent to which it bothers me to be something of a character flaw. The protagonist of Retrace Steps is kinda built of flaws like this: things which sound reasonable but are rooted in their lack of empathy.

The narration uses the word “ramble” to describe the text sent to your roommate - later on, we learn that the word “rant” might’ve been more accurate.

This is the point where the story itself notes that it’s a Friday night - a fact which was previously stated in the very first line of its description. The idea of not doing anything on a Friday night is a pretty common symbol for loneliness; it’s the night when most people go out with friends, at the conclusion of the workweek. Tropes are tools - if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The other symbol for loneliness in this sequence is slightly less obvious, I think - it’s when the reader kicks a single stone out onto the path. The narration notes that they “don’t know” why they did that; this was intended to mirror the story’s central mystery. In the original version, they kicked the stone from the path back in amongst the rest - the idea being that they’d kinda fallen by the wayside, and wanted not to be alone. I kinda go back and forth on which version I prefer, but they get the same thing across.

Panels 34-35 are each “unique” images, in that they only recur in the credits. It felt like a waste to spend a long time drawing complicated images like this without reusing them in any capacity, but I’m glad I did.

The first of these unique images was supposed to convey the city’s emptiness in a clear way. It’s probably one of my favourites, even if it’s pretty rough in places. The forced perspective is more strongly felt in this image than in any other in the fanventure, and it led me to mess up the scale of the protagonist - this was something that I only fixed after the comic was otherwise pretty much done.

I was on the fence as to whether or not to include the billboard. A lot of the imagery in the fanventure is very on-the-nose, but the billboard is easily the most blatant in this respect - the protagonist completely ignores the concept of self-improvement so they can play Pokémon GO. I ended up showing the panel to an uncredited friend, and they convinced me it was a good idea to keep it in.

The Pokémon GO stuff is pretty much when the fanventure jumps the shark, to be honest. You can tell, because the command - “Pokemon GO on your phone” - is a reference to a dumb thing Hillary Clinton said during the 2016 American presidential election.

See, the thing is, the vast majority of the game’s mechanics are designed to encourage going outside and interacting with others - you can ignore or circumvent this, but it’ll cost you one way or another. Which is fascinating to me! The game is easiest if you go out of your way to make friends with other people who play the game. This is a common theme throughout much of Nintendo’s output - and it somehow usually feels less cynical than the kinds of forced interaction you find in many other mobile games.

The bit that’s really fascinating, however, is the lengths people go to avoid these inconveniences. They’ll buy both versions of each new Pokémon game, rather than trading with someone who has the version they didn’t buy! They’ll buy a second Nintendo DS, just so they can get the Pokémon from one game to another! I can’t begrudge them, because I’ve certainly done similar things myself in the past, but I think you can certainly frame it in a way where it looks like all these gamers treat social interaction as an obstacle to overcome. Who’d’ve thought?

The narration on panel 37 ended up going through several revisions, thanks to feedback from Gitaxian. Back when I was new to the Homestuck Discord, Gitaxian was one of the people who made me feel welcome - we both really like this one obscure essay about the live-action Transformers movies (and totally recommend that you should read it). He responded pretty positively to Everything Is Red Now, a Spider-Man comic I made over a year ago, and was my first choice for a prereader on Retrace Steps.

Gitaxian found the sequence in its original form to be a little over-detailed, and suggested that I change its tone from “explaining the game” to “complaining about the game”. He also noted that making it “rantier” would be a way of concretely validating the roommate’s perspective. I followed his advice, and I’m much happier with where the story ended up as a result.

Knowing I’d be revisiting these panels later in the story, I ended up taking the time to polish them up a little: I added details of a fence and path in the background, and tweaked the hand in the foreground. By this point, I was starting to get pretty tired of drawing; of the project in general. I’d put aside other things I was working on, and had academic assignments to deal with as well.

Panel 40 is one of a couple of panels that I feel would benefit from similar polishing. The idea was that it’d be a top-down view of the street, with two streetlamps providing light. The round shadows would give the impression of a pair of eyes or binoculars, with the lampposts themselves being pupils - tying into the paranoia described in the narration.

I thought that, by zooming out and letting the darkness creep into frame, I’d be able to force something of a tonal shift - and I think I was reasonably successful in this regard, particularly as the colours of the site itself flip once more. The prose also shifts slightly in tone, as the tail-end of the rant leads into the realisation that something’s wrong.

In its original form, people were confused by the image - the shading wasn’t nearly heavy enough, and the composition was unusual. This is where the art style works against me; I only have two colours to work with, and it can be hard to distinguish between detail and shadow at such a low resolution.

(There’s an animated music video for SIAMÉS’ “The Wolf” which uses a similar monochrome-plus-red palette to Retrace Steps - I saw it long before development on the story started and forgot about it until just now, so I don’t think it was an influence on the fanventure, but it’s definitely worth a watch!)

In the very first draft of the script, the protagonist found the key to their room in their hood. Seriously. Like, it’d start raining, they’d put their hood up and there’d be the key. I couldn’t think of a good ending, so I just came up with something daft and called it a day. The “doughnut offering” aspect of the story didn’t appear until I redrafted the script, a little ways into the film’s development (probably before we shot anything), but I can’t remember exactly how it came about. Originally, the script simply ended with the door getting slammed shut - the last line being a “what the actual fuck” from Sam/Alice.

(At the time when I was writing the story, I didn’t make a habit of buying mini doughnuts. I still don’t, except for on some occasions when I’m eating at a friend’s house and want to bring something low-commitment - even then, it’s usually cookies or muffins or full-sized doughnuts. Presumably, it was Retrace Steps which influenced that particular habit.)

On at least a literal level, the story’s message is “buy people doughnuts if you want them to be friends with you”. But naturally the actual message - and, I think, the reality - is that it’s not so transactional; really it’s just about assuming the best of people and being nice to them. Of course, there’s plenty of pitfalls in that approach - I’d be tempted to write a whole ‘nother story about them, if I didn’t think it’d end up being a little too dark and deconstructive. Be nice! That’s all I’m saying.

At least when I was writing the script, I’d actually planned for the protagonist to buy doughnuts from the local Sainsbury’s store. We have a Tesco store as well, plus a bunch of bigger supermarkets, but the Sainsbury’s is usually the quietest - it’s expensive and poorly-stocked. Plus, I just felt like it’d look better on-camera.

(If you’re not from the UK, all you need to know is that Tesco and Sainsbury’s are the two biggest supermarket chains. Well, apparently Asda overtook Sainsbury’s last month, but we’ll see how long that lasts. I’d say they’re generally pretty-much-indistinguishable, but at least in my mind I associate Sainsbury’s more closely with the middle classes - Tesco, meanwhile, is ubiquitous.)

When it came to adapting the script, I realised I could use any supermarket I wanted, and I picked Tesco. Specifically an “Express” store, which is a smaller shop found in town centres and the like. It fitted the story better - and besides, I’ve always liked the colloquialism “Tescos”. As in “aight mum I’m poppin off Tescos, our Jack says they’ve got a bogof on Lucozade, works out a quid for two litres so I’m buzzin, you after anythin or nah”.

(As part of let’s-call-it-research for the story, I found an eight-page thread on Mumsnet where a mum asks “am I being unreasonable to get really annoyed with people who call Tesco ‘Tescos’?” - this was immensely funny to me, and pretty much cemented my decision to use a real supermarket in the story as opposed to a made-up one.)

So yeah, panels 41-44 take place outside this Tescos. It was my brother - credited as “patipon” - who noted that I needed to use more solid black in the image. Most of what we discussed about the story took place in voice calls, which is a shame; historically, it’s been uncommon for me to solicit him for feedback on projects like this one. I consulted him on several of this story’s panels - he devotes much more time to graphics and artwork than I do - and his suggestions were always useful.

The prose on panel 43 is probably one of the bits I’m most proud of. It’s an awkward mix of metaphors coming from a character who isn’t used to being able to think when they’re at this particular place. I like the phrase “fumbled passes in the aisles” a lot.

(Gospar, one of my IRL friends and another prereader on Retrace Steps, occasionally graces us with the saying “ah, another day, another butchered social interaction”. Meanwhile, I went through a short-but-embarassing phase of butchering the trivial social interaction of “how are you?” by replying “I’m here” - something which I can’t excuse, but which I sure can immortalise in a webcomic.)

(All of this talk of Tescos reminds me of a draft I’ve had sitting around on my hard drive forever - the beginning of a first chapter which I wrote early in secondary school. It’s set in a post-apocalyptic snow-covered Britain where people travel around in sailboats on skis, and opens with some guy going into a buried Tescos for supplies. There, he runs into some orphan, who persuades the guy to let him hitch a ride on the snow-boat - snoat? Sure, whatever, snoat. The twist was going to be that the guy was planning to nuke some settlement, for reasons which I never wrote down and have since forgotten, and the kid would work this out and have to kill the guy to stop him. I note this simply to say that, while my stories may have gotten slightly less dumb and bad since I started writing, it seems that Tescos will be an enduring feature.)

(Wintry post-apocalyptic settings will also be an enduring feature, come to think of it: around the time I was writing Retrace Steps, I was also running a Dungeons & Dragons campaign for some friends which was basically standard fantasy - only it was set on an infinite-in-every-direction ski slope. I’m not a very good Dungeon Master, so I let the campaign die after a handful of sessions over the course of the year - which is a shame, because I’d planned a KILLER TWIST for that story too. Anyway, enough nonsense - back to Pokémon GO.)

I suppose at this point I should note that the two Pokémon you run into are Dugtrio and Magneton. These two are the evolved forms of Diglett and Magnemite, and are kinda-unique in that they’re literally just three of their previous stage grouped together. Hopefully, the symbolism of someone trying to obtain these Pokémon - and only succeeding after offering them a berry - should be clear enough.

(Note that the narration on panel 46 says you’re “not sure why this thing wants the berry” - at this point in the story, the protagonist doesn’t understand the significance of gestures like this.)

(I’ve yet to obtain either of these Pokémon in-game myself; Diglett and Magnemite are surprisingly hard to come by.)

The second half of the fanventure - from panel 51 all the way to panel 100 - takes place back inside the corridor. There’s a lot in the way of repeated panels with very little narration here - I was going for a more introspective tone, and this seemed like a good way to achieve that.

On panel 52, the narration notes that you plan to message your internet friends, then call your parents. It’s a little beat, but I felt like there was something kinda sad about the idea of having a closer connection with people you’ve never met than with your own parents. This is a pretty irrational way of looking at it - in my experience, most people on the internet who talk about their parents have pretty frayed relationships with them. Besides, there are plenty of cases where random peers will be better-equipped to help with specific problems - it’s just a case of balancing that against the fact that your own parents will probably care about you far more than any of those people.

I wanted to convey the image of someone who has the vast majority of their social interactions online. This theme is crucial to Homestuck itself, but while Homestuck demonstrates it by communicating its story pretty much entirely in chatlogs, in Retrace Steps I try to communicate it by showing everything except the chatlogs. Homestuck kills off everyone except a bunch of internet friends and their guardians; Retrace Steps just quietly omits everyone except a bunch of strangers standing in a room ha ha ha whoops spoilers.

Anyway, on panel 53, we start to see an environmental change caused by these strangers. For the first time, it seems like you’re not completely alone in this world.

The light's motion-activated - it turns on when you open the door, and then turns off again after around ten minutes. You've been gone much longer than that... meaning somebody else must have triggered it since then.

While working on this commentary, I decided that the original text of panel 55 - present in the story since its original release on 04/04/2019 and preserved in the above quote - was kinda overwrought and clumsy. Usually I’m pretty loathe to make edits to a story after it’s out on the internet, but this one felt acceptable - “Why was the light on when you arrived?” is much more succinct way of communicating what’s going on.

This panel’s artwork is also pretty clumsy - in case you’re having trouble parsing it, that’s supposed to be your head at the bottom. I tried to put a bit of light shading on it, but I’m not really happy with the result. Like I say, at this point I was getting pretty tired of drawing. Nah, I’m not changing it.

On panel 58, there’s a rare bit of onomatopoeia as you finally think to knock on the door. The negative space encroaches in from the right... but what does it hide?

Oh hey, it’s your roommate!

I think to a certain extent, this is another confusing image - Gitaxian observed that it didn’t really make much sense spatially. It’s kinda supposed to be a side-on cutaway, but that doesn’t really come across - I briefly tried adding a wood grain, to communicate that it’s the open door, but that didn’t make much sense at this scale and only confused matters further. In the end, I tweaked the boundary between the door and the corridor to give the impression of a couple of hinges and called it a day.

Panel 61 is, I guess, the big twist. You wanted to know where everyone is? Surprise! They’re in your room! Having a party! And you weren’t invited!

I wanted the reader to have a second to contemplate this, so the next couple of panels swap back-and-forth between you and the doorway. To underscore the silliness of the twist, one of the people in the back takes a big long sluuuurp from their solo cup - this breaks the spell, and you point for them all to leave.

It’s panel 67 that breaks the narration for the first time in the story. I wanted to present the roommate’s dialogue as a sharp contrast to the inner voice of the protagonist - it’s full of abbreviations, completely devoid of punctuation, and written entirely in solo-cup-red. The roommate simply sighs that you “never change”, and slams the door on you (with yet another cheeky bit of onomatopoeia appearing on-panel).

The idea that being around other people somehow supplants your inner thoughts is a very deliberate one - the commands cease entirely, the narration goes away. In these moments, we see you how everyone else sees you - as someone who’s pretty much entirely silent. On panels 69-70 there’s simply some ellipses, which kinda lengthen into a brief return of narration as you’re left on your own once more.

The reason this party’s taking place in “YOUR room” - as noted in the narration on panel 71 - is simply to show a feeling of entitlement. On the surface, you’re mad that you can’t get into your room - but you're also just feeling like people should invite you to parties.

Hopefully, the questions on panel 72 and panel 74 should be answering themselves by this point. You don’t know it at the time, but these will prove to be the last pieces of narration in the story.

After you’ve had some time to sit in the corridor and feel sorry for yourself, your roommate starts feeling bad and comes out to offer a sincere-but-backhanded apology. We’re into the last quarter of the comic now - starting with panel 76, there’s no text outside of what is spoken by your roommate.

The command used to advance to the next page has changed from “->” to “-->”. The story isn’t about just one person any more.

(This device is lifted directly from Homestuck, which switched from the command “==>” - used when the comic had four main characters - to “======>” when it swapped to a cast of twelve. Many fanventures - such as Oceanfalls - riff on this concept further, and mine is no exception.)

Out of all the text in the story, I’m probably happiest with the monologue on panel 79 and panel 80. I think it speaks for itself.

(As I always find myself saying, these commentaries kinda show that I don’t trust my stories to speak for themselves. I did hold off on writing this one for a couple of months, but there was lots of behind-the-scenes stuff I wanted to get on the record and I ultimately couldn’t help myself. The truth is that pretty much nobody reads these things - the commentaries, or the stories they’re for - and so the whole thing’s pretty much for my own benefit. I get to declare what I was going for, you get to decide whether or not I got it.)

Panels 81-95 are pretty much a frame-by-frame animation of you offering your roommate the doughnuts, and them leading you into the party. It’s basically two actions, but I try my best to draw them out as long as possible - by this point, the story’s said pretty much everything it needs to, and now it’s all just... emotional payoff? I feel like I’ve never been much good with character arcs, but I’m proud of how this turned out.

As promised, panels 96-99 are a straight repeat of panels 17-19 - the automatic lights turn off and the site’s colours flip for the last time, neatly mirroring the story’s first two panels in its last two.

Back in the kitchen, she opens the cupboard again and grabs the box of mini doughnuts.

She returns to her door and knocks again.

ALICE I bought doughnuts?

There is a long pause. The door suddenly opens and Bob pokes his head around, reaches out to grab like three doughnuts from the box, and then darts back inside. The door slams shut again.

ALICE Hey!

VII. Animation is harder than I thought.

This story is titled Retrace Steps because, in its original script form, it mostly focused on somebody retracing their steps in the hopes that they’d find their keys. The fanventure, however, drops this aspect of the plot entirely - leaving it with something of an artifact title. Maybe I should’ve come up with an alternate title, but I didn’t. On some level, it now simply refers to the trip to Tescos - on another, I think it implies that something’s been lost. I think it was the nagging feeling that the title no longer held enough significance that led me to create the story’s final flash.

If you haven’t read Homestuck, all you need to know is that pages with commands that are prefixed with an “[S]” are usually longer animations set to music, used for particularly important moments in the plot (or, just as often, for random chicanery). Having a flash of this sort is a point of prestige for fanventures - especially if it approaches any real length of complexity. I’d vaguely liked the idea of letting music play a fairly prominent role in the short film, and it felt right to return to those roots.

There wasn’t really any question as to which song I’d pick, either. See, back in college, I ran this terrible meme page called Summer Meme Sundae. It was absolute garbage. Please don’t click that link. Basically, its deal was that - for the latter half of its run - I tried to introduce something of a plot across the “memes”, wherein the page’s mascot got castaway and wound up in Australia. It was very silly and absolutely incomprehensible. Like I say, don’t look at it. This isn’t reverse psychology, it’s legitimately unfunny and bad. Anyway, the last post I made was something of a rudimentary flash in its own right - set to “Pizza for Breakfast” from The Meme Friends’ Last Week’s Pizza EP. I know basically nothing about The Meme Friends, but I thiiink they were some randos on 4chan’s /mu/ board.

It’s fair to say that the aesthetic of Last Week’s Pizza, which includes such tracks as “Cold Pizza”, “Everyone I Ever Loved is Now Dead”, and “Executive Pizza Party (Business)”, kinda appeals to me. If you’re reading Retrace Steps, the chances that you’ve heard the track before are next to nil - it comes with zero baggage. Moreover, it’s from a freely-distributed independent project created by a collective that hasn’t put out anything in years - it’s extremely unlikely that anybody’s going to come and tell me off for using it.

I specifically picked “No Forks, No Knives, It’s Pizza Time” because I felt like its tone was closest to that of the story, and because it has a relatively short runtime of just over two minutes - which still ended up being a little too long, but I don’t think it turned out too bad.

The flash opens on the image of the door in the corridor from the previous panel, which is gradually cut into smaller and smaller pieces by black lines until it disappears altogether. Cue title. One of the reasons I like the flash format - aside from the lack of antialiasing - is that you really have no way of telling how long the video’s going to be or what happens except by watching it. There’s none of YouTube’s functionality for skipping around - you’re forced to sit and watch the entire thing start-to-finish without stopping.

(I think Retrace Steps is definitely best read in a single sitting, and the final flash is a big part of that. My fourth prereader, Multivac of the Homestuck Discord server, was unable to watch the flash at first - I forget why - and found the story unclear. After watching the flash, he seemed to backpedal on this sentiment. Time will tell whether his initial assessment was correct; I picked Multivac because he’d previously responded positively to Everything Is Red Now, and because I’d usually consider his reaction to something to be a pretty decent rough baseline for the general reaction of the Homestuck Discord server.)

When stuff starts happening, it starts happening fast - you see the protagonist’s descent down the stairs again, but this time you see all three panels at once, as if there’s more than one person on the stairs. The minute you get outside, you start seeing entirely new people - many with red accents of some kind. Someone smoking, someone who’s been shopping, someone with a rucksack...

The people outside Tescos had a little more in the way of thought put into them. On the left, there’s a homeless person, and someone walking by with headphones on. Over on the far right, there’s someone holding their phone out in front of them - they’re wearing a hat famously worn by Ash Ketchum in the Pokémon anime, just in case there’s any doubt as to what game they’re playing. Someone sorta tired-looking crosses away from the rest. Everyone in the frame’s kinda collectively ignoring the two people holding hands.

(Textually, Retrace Steps is a story about... platonic fulfillment? If that’s a phrase that makes sense? My personal take is that the protagonist of this story struggles to create and maintain friendships. However, I tried to leave room for interpretation - particularly in terms of this section of the flash - and I think a reading definitely exists that brings in more romantic subtext.)

(Actually, I already kinda explored this last year - much less effectively - in Another Son. Like in that story, I wanted the audience to understand why the characters are lonely - but I used a much more sympathetic approach this time around, which crucially makes you actually want the story’s protagonist to stop being lonely. Something which bothers me about certain stories - and this is a really common failing of music videos, which lack the introspection of prose - is when the narrative takes its protagonist and frames things in a way which says “you should feel sorry for this person” while they proceed to do really unsympathetic things. If you’re going to give them a victory, the audience should feel like they actually deserve it!)

After a brief segment where you finally catch that Dugtrio, the flash cycles back through the various locations until we arrive back in the corridor. This sequence was added mostly to pad for time, but also serves to bring things full circle for the flash’s final shots. On the final beats of each bar - which fall on a higher note - the colours flip; this was purely an aesthetic choice.

The next section of the flash is just credits, which I kinda wanted to use to lull the audience into a false sense of security. See, the original plan was for the final image of the comic to just be you, standing completely alone, holding a solo cup - an ending which I think is much more ambiguous.

I still think this original ending provokes a much stronger emotional reaction - and indeed, it did at the time. As Gospar said, “also you sure you wanna keep the sad end / I think the fade out on others and the static / sort of implied they hadn’t changed?” Gitaxian agreed - “I think having the crowd fade to just the two of them, and then ending there, would be the best ending”. I’d already considered doing that, but had decided against it for reasons I’ve forgotten.

See, by this point in the story, you’ve made this connection with your roommate - but everyone else remains a stranger. I like this ending for its optimism: instead of saying “you're still alone”, it says “this is a good start”.

Oh, and remember the solo cup that’s been sitting up next to the ad? Yeah, that’s gone now.

She protests and knocks on the door again. Just before she kicks it, it suddenly opens again. Bob has like three doughnuts in his mouth.

BOB These are pretty good actually.

He grabs the whole box and opens the door fully, lightly beckoning for Alice to enter. She does so. The door closes.

We cut to inside the room. Everyone is standing in cramped, uncomfortable silence. Somebody hands Alice a red plastic cup.

CUT TO BLACK.

THE END

VIII. Knowing when to shut up is harder than I thought.

I just went to Tescos and bought a box of mini doughnuts.

(I didn’t set out to do that, but they were selling a single box for next to nothing and I felt like it was too serendipitous to ignore.)

It’s the end of the year. Classes finished over a month ago. I always end up staying for a good while after, because doing so gives me more time to work on projects like this, but most of my friends end up leaving before me - in other words, I don’t have anyone to share the doughnuts with.

(They have strawberry-flavoured icing and multicoloured sprinkles, and they taste frikkin’ great, so I can’t say I’m too beat up about that.)

I’ve played very little Pokémon GO since I started working on this fanventure. I... think I kinda ruined it for myself?

When I finished Retrace Steps, I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to do the fanventure format for a while. That lasted all of about four days, after which I started Huskyquest. It seems silly to give away this new fanventure’s plot here, so all I’ll say is this: it’s got dogs in it, it’s got more than three colours, and you should definitely drop it a like because I’ll hopefully be picking it back up again pretty soon.

In the meantime, feel free to peruse all the other things I made on this blog! There should be another project coming out here very soon, so if you wanna be informed when that happens, drop me a follow either here or on twitter. And of course, if you have any questions, my ask box is always open. Thanks for reading!

...You’re still here?

It’s over.

Pokémon GO home.

> Go.

#MSPA #MS Paint Adventures #MSPFA #MS Paint Fan Adventures #Homestuck #fanventure #Retrace Steps #The Wadapan #04/04/2019 #31/05/2019

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justtextmeoppa · 7 years

Text

❝ Are you ready, Omega? ❞ Part 4

Plot: Heechul ABO universe (Alpha, Beta, Omega)

Pairing: Heechul x Reader

Words count: 2,1k+

Genre: Drama, Angst, Comedy, Smut

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

For zhao-jie-shanghai, I hope you like it and now for an anon ^^

kyu.

Gif isn’t mine, credits to the owner!

Heechul now stood with his back pressed flush again the cool tiled wall of the shower and panting. His head beating with indecency as he pressed his head back, mouth open and breathing heavily. By now he had released his member from his hand and was now just looking up at the ceiling as the sensual pleasure ran rampant through his system. Closing his mouth, he gulped hard before realizing what he had just done. He knew that this ‘heat’ was a hectic problem, but now this was just ridiculous to him.

‘Oh fuck…’ He cursed, switching the water off.

He stepped out the shower and looked at himself in the mirror. His hair was flattened against his forehead before running a hand through it and styling it horribly. In a fit of rage he grabbed the hairbrush that was on the sink and threw it at the mirror. It shattered into thousands of pieces and he did nothing but go and change into some boxers and head to sleep. He didn't want to think about what happened but his dreams plagued him and played tricks. Tricks that were things he deeply wanted and others that were just torture to him.

‘Zhoumi!’ Heechul barked

‘Yes Chul?’ The Chinaman poked his head into the office, ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Do you know a good guy to fix mirrors?’

‘I know of a builder called Kangin, apparently he is the best. Why?’

‘I have a broken mirror in my apartment and I need it fixed.’ The boss explained.

Zhoumi walked into the office and quickly examined his boss’s hands, ‘Are you okay? Do we need to take you to the hospital?!’

‘Get off me!’ Heechul pushed him away, dusting himself off, ‘There was just a little accident in the bathroom. Get this Kangin person to fix my mirror and leave!’

‘Yes Heechul.’ Zhoumi bowed as Leeteuk walked into the office.

‘Barking at people, no shocker there.’ The elder made himself comfortable.

‘What do you want, Jungsu?’ Heechul began massaging his temples.

‘Well I stopped by your apartment because I had left a pair of shoes there and what more do I see then your bathroom mirror shattered,’ Leeteuk said with a raised brow, ‘What happened?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Chullie…’

‘I SAID IT WAS FUCKING NOTHING!’

Leeteuk looked at his best friend with wide eyes before shaking his head with a chuckle, ‘And so it starts. Did you break the mirror out of frustration?’

‘Partly.’ Heechul said.

‘Partly?’ Leeteuk repeated.

‘I may have moaned out Y/N’s name while mastrabating.’ Heechul said nonchalantly.

‘Vulgar much!’ Teuk looked at his friend.

‘You asked and I gave you the answer.’ Heechul dismissed, ‘Now leave, I have work to do!’

Leeteuk tried everything in his power to remain in the office, but Heechul had none of that. He personally escorted his best friend out of the office and got Donghae to kick him out the building, which didn't work out for the most part. It was Donghae at the end of the day. Heechul sat at his desk, running his hands through is hair repeatedly. Leeteuk had said his irritation would pick up during this period but he didn't expect it to mess him up so badly. Grabbing a pen, he tired to do some paperwork while ordering for yet another truckload of coffee which got Zhoumi another life threatening stapler to the head.

‘One Mocha.’ You called to the barista on the machine.

‘One Mocha.' Amber handed you the cup to which you gave the customer, ‘You wanna come out tonight? Henry has some friends who work at this new club.’

‘Shawol?’ You asked.

‘Yeah, Key is the promoter for the joint.’ She explained, ‘Apparently its off the charts!’

‘As much as I would like to join you and your boyfriend as this fancy shindig, I will have to decline.’ You smiled, before turning and getting another order, ‘One Latte.’

Amber walked back to the machine, ‘Come on Y/N, you haven't been out in weeks and I miss spending time with you!’

‘We work together, Amber.’ You laughed, handing the cup to the person, ‘Thank you and come again.’

‘That isn't the same,’ She pouted, ‘Like you don't even want to get a drink or something. Like are you pregnant? Because that would be th-’

‘Well…’

‘No. Fucking. Way!’

Meanwhile, Heechul downed the third cup of coffee and was on edge beyond understanding. He was snarling and shouting at everyone and everything. It wasn't helping either with the raging feeling of wanting to plow into something. But Heechul was going to prove to that duck of a best friend that he was wrong, that Heechul could pleasure himself and it would be perfectly fine. Telling Zhoumi to hold all his calls, he locked the office before going to his ensuite bathroom. He closed that door and pulled his member out. Resting a hand against the wall for leverage, he began pumping. As soon as he touched himself, it was all in vain because nothing was working. No visuals could come to mind, not even you. After countless tries, he let out a groan in frustration before a chuckle came from the bathroom door.

‘You just don’t listen, do you?’ The person teased.

‘What the fuck, Jungsu!?’ Heechul said in a fit of rage, zipping himself up and shoving his best friend out the way, ‘How the fuck did you get it?’

‘I have the spare key, remember?’ He swirled the item around his finger.

‘Give me those!’ Heechul launched for him, but was greeted with the floor of his office.

‘Gotta be faster then that, Chul.’ Leeteuk knelt down, before tucking the keys into his pocket, ‘We need to get you laid.’

‘I need no such thing.’ Heechul stubbornly stood up, buttoning his blazer.

‘Says the man who couldn't jack off.’ Leeteuk stood up, chuckling.

‘Just get out,’ Heechul barked, ‘I don’t need you and your shitty advice. LEAVE!’

Leeteuk held his hands up in defense, ‘Okay chill. I just came to tell you that Kangin had come to fix your mirror and I let him in because Zhoumi said you were busy.’

‘Oh…thank you then.’ The younger said.

‘He is a cute guy if I must say so, his manly look was… well refreshing.’ Leeteuk said with a smile on his face.

Heechul face palmed, ‘Please tell me you didn't sleep with him, you are married!’

‘Calm down, there is no law against me looking at other guys.’ Leeteuk explained, ‘And I didn’t sleep with him.’

‘Good. I may know you have a history with men but I am sure Sora wouldn't appreciate it, considering you are ten years happily married.’

‘Married, but happy, may have to think that again.’

‘Oh please, you love your wife more then anything in this world. You would kill for her!’ Heechul exclaimed.

‘Fine you are right, I love Sora but Kangin is a close second.’ Leeteuk winked, ‘Get laid before you kill someone in the office. Bye!’

With that, he left and left Heechul rubbing his face vigorously. He was going off his head, and this was apparently only the beginning. He wanted a release, but not with a random. The business man would like to think he had some sort of class. Pulling his phone out, he looked through his contacts. Scrolling through the list, which wasn't as long as one would think, he finally found the person he wanted. Sighing, he pressed call and waited for the person to pick up. It had taken a few rings before the person picked up and Heechul could breath again.

‘Hello?’ They asked, ‘Is something wrong, Heechul?’

‘Ah Omega, no nothing is wrong,’ He assured you, ‘Are you free tonight?’

‘I am. I finish work at 5.’ You explained, ‘What’s up?’

‘I have a proposition for you. I will pick you up from work.’ With that, the call ended and you looked at your phone in confusion.

Time between now and then seemed to drag. Were you in trouble for something? That wouldn't really be the case considering he said he had a ‘proposition’ for you. Not letting it bother you, you just went back to work. Amber had been hounding you the entire day, begging you to tell her what the fuck was going on. You said it was nothing and she shouldn't be worried, also that you knew the father. That seemed to keep her at bay before you both got busy with work. The day soon ended and it was time to clock off. You walked to the back room and went to change out of your work clothing. At the end of the day, the clean clothing always seemed to become dirty so quickly and you didn't even understand how. Changing, you slipped out the back and was greeted by a black sleek BMW. Looking around, you checked if someone was waiting for their lift until the passenger window opened and a person called your name.

‘Get in Y/N.’ Heechul called.

‘Heechul?’ You questioned.

‘Who else would it be?’ He asked with a raised brow, ‘Hurry and get in.’

You did as you were told, and he drove off. Everything about this seemed to scream kidnapping but you knew Heechul was a well known man and Amber would now have tabs on you in every way possible. The car was quiet as you looked to see Heechul in the drivers seat. He wore his traditional suit, but his hair seemed to be all disheveled and messy. You would be lying if you said you hated the look on him. He looked fucking hot. Driving through Seoul, he came to a red light and stopped.

‘You hungry?’ He asked.

‘Some food wouldn't hurt.’ You said softly, ‘Heechul what is this all about?’

‘Have you been eating in general? You have a baby to think about as well.’ Heechul gave you a quick side glance before hitting on the gas.

‘I have been eating, don’t worry.’ You rolled your eyes.

‘I hope so.’ His reply short, parking outside a building that was all to familiar to him, ‘This place is run by a good friend of mine. The food is great.’

With that he stepped out the car and you followed. The restaurant was clearly high class and you felt completely out of place. Not only were you not dressed for the venue, but you were pretty sure the food here was worth more then your rent. You walked through he restaurant, Heechul ahead of you. Not paying attention, you walked straight into his back without noticing that he had stopped walking . You head him groan and probably roll his eyes with your clumsy action. He sighed before talking to someone.

‘Table for two in a private room, please Hannie.’ He asked.

‘Who’s this Chul?’ Hangeng asked.

‘She is the one having the baby.’ Heechul said bluntly, ‘I did tell you that the other night.’

‘Ah,’ The foreigner looked you up and down, ‘She is very pretty.’

‘Pleasure meeting you, I am Y/N.’ You introduced yourself, extending a hand.

Hangeng took your hand and placed a kiss on it, ‘The pleasure is all mine. I do hope Heechul is treating you well.’

‘Ah-’

‘Will you stop flirting and take me to my table, I am hungry!’

Hangeng laughed before grabbing some menus, ‘Impatient as ever. Follow me please.’

You and Heechul followed Hangeng to the room that would serve as the place were dinner would be served. The waiter Tao had arrived and taken drink orders before returning with those and then taking the main dish. You awkwardly tapped your foot and you looked around. This was all so different to you. Thank god the food had eventually arrived as you could have something in your mouth rather then gapping around. Grabbing your chopsticks, you began to devour your food with speed.

‘And you said you ate?’ Heechul asked with a raised brow.

‘Well by eating I mean a fruit, it is better then nothing.’ You countered.

‘That isn't the point. You should be eating proper meals regardless. Do I have to send meals to your apartment because I can’t be having to take you to dinner every night to make sure you are eating, Y/N!’ You looked at him in shock, ‘What?’

‘You used my name.’ You shrugged your shoulders.

‘Well yeah, why wouldn't I?’ He questioned.

‘Because I have always been Omega, nothing more and nothing less.’ You explained.

He rolled his eyes with a deep sigh, ‘Well I have a soul, well for the most of it. Now back to my proposition.’

‘Which is?’

‘I need to have sex with you…’

210 notes · View notes

tube-thoughts-blog · 6 years

Text

Vol. 15

zero stars - terrible, 1/2 a star - dull, 1 star - folly, 1 1/2 stars - lacking, 2 stars - fair, 2 1/2 stars - decent, 3 stars - terrific

The Haunted: Stalked By A Vampire *Bumps in the night & an invisible sucker of energy, Animal Planet? Okay, the family had a dog & 2 cats, animal enough for ya? A mom of 5, w/ a husband away at work all the time, projects her somber moods over certain recent life events, like her admitted miscarriages, onto her family. Instead of time spent really trying in the care of mental health experts, paranormal "experts" are called in. The spook investigators sound like they're making a metaphor about this "energy Vampire" continuing to follow this woman around as if they really meant to be saying her mental health problems. Sadly, they're serious only about the supernatural & not this woman or family's mental well being.* 1 star

Jerry Springer: "I'm Happy I Cut Off My Own Legs!" *A middle aged man turned trans-gender woman achieves another lifelong goal when "she," after many hilariously described failed attempts (homemade guillotine), discovers that a power saw is the right tool for the job. On a side note, Caitlyn Jenner is still a former male Olympics track star w/ both "her" legs.* 1 star

The Comfort Zone w/ Ray Comfort: Ken Ham "Aliens Go To Hell" (Live Interview) *The creator of the Creation Museum claims to be saying that he doesn't believe that NASA is complete nonsense, but he suggests that it's a waste of time & money. From the smarmy & unfunny remarks of Ken, Ray, & the other co-hosts/tools it's obvious that they're attempting, & failing, in trying to tie the secular scientific community in w/ hardcore UFO believers.* 1 star

Penn & Teller Bullshit!: Twelve Stepping & Hypnosis *Have a disease? Then get on your knees. Close your eyes, count backwards, & you're cured.* 3 stars

--- Everything Is Terrible:

*M... Kay...: God first, money second, cosmetics third, individuality somewhere after family & a career w/ Mary Kay.* 2 1/2 stars

*Pre-Marital Sex Who Do You Listen To: Listen to the dorky 80s rock band PETRA, some supposed experts in the emerging HIV-AIDS crisis who have an obvious religious bias, & your local Republican congressman & or minister... heck could have been dad's country club golf buddy / spiritual guru of the green. Keep your privates holy & clean.* Decent

*Sheep: "Have you ever had a mountain top experience, girls?" We know that if you listen to this Peggy Hill look-&-act-a-like w/ her own baaaa talk show, you haven't had a female orgasm, because that's not righteous of a lady, baaaaa!* either 1 or 3 stars

*Evolution Is, As Evolution Does: "A dog, a wolf, a coyote, & a banana. Which is not like the others?" I give up. I need further religious instruction to answer this question or parable. Oh, it's not a parable? It's just an attempt to disprove evolution... banana!* Folly! me banana. Daylight come & me still don't know if earth 6 thousand or 6 billion old!

*2 Minute - The Second Coming: End times & a non-believer can't even get a cheeseburger & a medium coke w/out the mark of the beast or ending up like an unfortunate soul in a story by Edgar Allan Poe.* either 1 or 3 stars

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GoodBadFlicks.com : Dead Heat *Treat Williams looks so much like Bill Pullman. Treat Williams makes a great zombie.Treat Williams & Joe Piscopo make a great buddy cop duo. The 80s were probaby the only decade that a great zombie cop buddy action comedy could be made.* 3 stars for the review

--- Siskel & Ebert: The Worst Films of 1984 (aka The Stinkers of 84)

*Always loved the intros for Siskel & Ebert. I'm more familiar w/ the one from my childhood where they meet out in front of the theater looking grumpy while buying newspapers & paying the cabbie. This one is from close to a decade earlier & they're much more cheery fellows as they go about a quirky routine of getting their movie concession snacks.

*Sheena, Queen of the Jungle: Roger thinks that Sheena isn't even a good bad movie w/ inappropriate music for the action scenes "sounds like it belongs in a honeymoon video" & Tanya Roberts not being sexy enough. I like that Roger is thinking like Joe Bob. Yeah, doesn't look great to me. Yep, 80s & before were about the only time a blonde white chick could be seriously considered a jungle queen.* looks like folly

*Rhinestone: Siskel isn't fond of hearing Sylvester Stallone sing bad country music in a popular, at the time, urban cowboy genre disaster. I wouldn't either. Dolly Parton is his co-star & it looks like they had zero chemistry. Could have been the awful dialogue. More weird is that Stallone seemed to be trying a southern accent... ugh...* 1 star

*Bolero: Roger & Gene like Bo Derek better in Tarzan & 10. This is one of those infamous movies that true film fans always hear about & torture themselves with. No thanks. Looks awkward & one of those arthouse flicks that make sex dull.* 1/2 a crushed matador's penis

*Cannonball Run 2: Gene can't appreciate a country wide car race movie that only has a small animated car race at the end. I remember liking these Cannonball Run movies as a kid. Not sure if they still hold up. Probably couldn't stomach so much of Burt's physicalcomedy. Dom Deluise makes me slightly chuckle though.* close to 2 stars

*City Heat: Roger thinks that bad action & bad comedy equals a bad movie. Siskel thinks that the actors slept walked through the making of it. One would think that an Eastwood & Reynolds 1920s or 30s gangster buddy film would have some entertaining value, but it looks like it was played way too tongue in cheek.* 1 star

*Dune: Siskel & Ebert think Dune was squandered potential. Turning out to be dusty in its ugly presentation & confusingly boring. As poorly made as "an old serial like Captain Video." Dune is another divisive infamous movie. I'm not qualified enough to comment on it as I've never gotten around to seeing it. Only David Lynch movie that I haven't.*

*Siskel & Ebert's honorable mentions of 84:

*Friday the 13th, The Final Chapter: "Bad news it won't be the last one." Respectfully, I say, screw you, Gene. Lucky for us 80s kids, he was right.*

More than decent.

*Windy City: "Tearjerker about a guy mostly in love with himself." A forgettable romantic comedy looks like. Every generation of movie goers has hundreds of 'em.* Dull.

*The Woman in Red: "Kelly LeBrock was not on screen enough." - Siskel. Also starring Gene Wilder lusting over her. Can't blame either Gene.* could be fair.

*Where The Boys Are: "Sex & surf replaced by inflatable dolls & sun tan lotion." - Ebert. Sounds like Roger is bitter about being too old & chubby to go to the beach where they were filming 80s sex comedies. Was it a sex comedy?* another could be fair.

*Best Defense: "A stupid military espionage story." starring Dudley Moore & Eddie Murphy .Murphy was already teaming up w/ other actors to make bad comedy movies in 84? I thought Eddie was on fire until some time in the 90s when he started screwing up.* early folly

*Harry & Son: "Painfully contrived" father son movie featuring Paul Newman.* skip, 1/2 star

*Silent Night, Deadly Night: "Crude, mean spirited slasher movie" & not a Holiday classic? What did Gene expect? It's A Wonderful Life? Thank Santa for mean spirited 80s holiday themed slasher movies. Again, this time I'll have to respectfully disagree w/ a generation of movie reviewers my parents' age who just didn't get a certain genre's finer points.* more than decent

Gene promises a feature on Hollywood's hottest new comic. Coming, next week, "The Secret of Bill Murray." Ha. Awesome time period.

Siskel & Ebert are sponsored by: Diet Shasta (generic soda for generic people like Gene & Roger), Pan Am airlines for those who wanna be spread across the Pacific ocean like so much untraceable no rescue debris... Raisinets & Goobers... Glade Smoke Away fordingy smokers who stink & wear dingy colored clothes like Gene & Roger & every other adult in the early 80s...

Roger & Gene separate at the entrance to leaving the theater. Trying to pretend that they don't secretly go to a motel together after the movies.

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Occult Demon Cassette presents "Rock, It's Your Decision" 1982 (Christian Anti-Rock VHS) *It's your decision to surrender to your parents' & youth minister's opinion on devil music. That is unless you, being a dumb teenager wasting precious brain cells on rock & bible school lessons, can find, via religiously biased "research" materials backed up by scripture, a damn good reason to damn your soul to hell with rock music. Bwahahaha! That laugh might have sounded evil. But it came from a wholesome, square & uptight, while at the same time trying to be understanding to teens, youth minister.* folly

Uncharted Zone: I Only Set the Stage - Paul Gormley *Dad rock in dad jean shorts. She devil in red. The pit of hell & horrible green screen amateur music video fx. Also that ole aging rocker cosplay Satan himself.* close to 2 stars

--- Night Flight (1990):

*A jean ensemble wearing 80s teen breaks into the carnival to blast his rock cassette ove rthe audio system & to ride the rollercoaster all by himself. Sony "Take It For A Spin" 2 1/2 stars

*West Michigan's "Kids Film Festival" featuring "Problem Child 1"... "The Jetsons Movie"... Bill Cosby's "Ghost Dad"... "The Jungle Book".. "Back to the Future 3"...* 2 1/2 stars

*"Give 'Em A Brake!" road worker safety ad sponsored by the "Detroit Pistons" & the Michigan Department of Transportation. I don't want to sound like Bill O'Reilly, here, but looking at the short shorts on the early 90s NBA players makes me miss pre-HIP HOP fashions & attitudes NBA. Not a lot of disgusting tattoos either. They actually look like basketball players not "thugs" in baggy pajamas.* more than 2 stars

*Toon Theater - Goodnight Norma... Goodnight Milton: A miserable couple show their very grotesque secret sides when they get home from a night out with "friends" that they despise behind closed doors.* 3 stars

*Night Flight bumper featuring Bela Lugosi & Boris Karlof playing a game of chess.* 3 stars

*"They're young, they're beautiful, & we have their private phone numbers." Call 1 900... Yeah, I seriously doubt beautiful women want their private phone numbers given out to perverts.* more than 2 1/2 stars

*A bald middle aged man is positively thrilled w/ his game show experience on Grand Rapids tv's "The Jokers Wild."* 2 1/2 stars

*A kid sits on his carpet floor playing w/ his firetruck dreaming about one day becoming a fireman. On the 13 inch t.v. starts playing a cheesy jingle "America needs you... America needs me... America the beautiful, we're gonna save the free... So, I'm gonna be the best that I can be because America needs me!" The kid is magically transported onto the back of a firetruck on a fire & rescue mission. He's zapped back to his living room floor w/ a new "America Needs Me!" t-shirt. He gives a thumbs up & says "Drug Free"... Central Michigan Substance Abuse Center... Huh? What the hell did the fireman fantasy have to do with drugs? I'm so confused.* close to 3 stars or 1 star

*Extreme closeups of mouths as they give confessions to the camera "I couldn't help myself" along with pulsating drum & synth music as the off camera industrial fan blows the hotmodel's hair as she holds an ominous red telephone not connected to anything. It's not a wireless phone, it's one of the old school curved chorded phones, so that's why it looks odd to me & I've decided to comment on it & waste words doing so.* 3 stars

*A grandma sits down in the rocking chair, in her shack, to tell a bedtime story to a young child... for some reason, it appears that the tape cuts out & shoots to somethingelse.. not sure if this is part of the story... doesn't seem so... maybe I'm wrong

*"From Outerspace They Came" logo for a 50s sci fi style flick

*Now claymation monsters in a claymation city... looks great

*Guitar solo & the beginning of "Would you take me to Funky Town" cool

*50s sci fi space explorers sit back & prepare to be blasted off into space... I'm ready

*Logo for "Space Monster" where an astronaut encounters a creepy looking humanoid alien who won't stop flicking his tongue.* Weird, thumbs up

*Grandma's back to tell another story... So, I guess beginning w/ the first time we saw her that was the first Night Flight video essay.* 3 stars for that one

*Here begins another Night Flight Video Essay

*1940s looking cartoon screen card for "The Pincussion Man" as Bowie & Queen's "Under Pressure" begins to play.

*It's a happy cartoon planet of balloon animal creatures & explosions

*interspiced into that is a 50s era show or movie featuring a guy being hypnotized to walk funny & then being levetated onto a table.* goes together well.* 3 stars for that essay, unless this is gonna be one big long essay. I'm unclear, so I'm breaking it up.

*Grandma's back for her bit & to start another song w/ selected animation / skits for it

*Witchy cat woman Diana Ross leads a hunk, in a white suit, by the hand through a dreamlike black & white world.* She's into horror makeup like her protege Michael Jackson, I guess

*She's a panther woman but she "don't wanna be eaten alive" even though she's planning on sucking the meat from this guy's bones. Eat me, Diana, Mistress of the Motown Night!

*It sounds like Michael Jackson is singing backup vocals on this song. Sounds good & 80s funky.* More than 2 1/2 stars for that one.

*Grandmas back, once again, & once upon a time... But the Nightflight bumper & announcer lady means that entire series of video essays is over, I'm assuming.*

*Not even 20 minutes into this episode of Night Flight & there's already been more entertainment content value than most modern cable channels, much less their lineup of awful shows, feature all fucking day & night long.* Viva Night Flight

*Spooky as shit ad for a psychic hotline. Most psychic hotlines usually feature white & black trash idiots talking about how it helped their relationships or fortunes. This one is complete X-Files nightmare inducing photoshop of Egyptian images, ghost children, zooming cosmos, skulls, phantom robed creatures, & other ancient religious iconography.* 3 stars

*Promo for the tabloid news journal show "Inside Edition" featuring a story on a cop undercover as a teenager. He gets executed by students. Maybe his very adult mustache was a giveaway. His grieving mom is nothing to laugh at, but Inside Edition is the one doing the exploiting, I'm sure. Probably pretending it's some kind of youth crime epidemic & not some random & odd circumstance act. Ah, there's host Bill O'Reilly. Ha.* 1 star

*Ad for a dirtbike arena racing "Thrills & Chills" home video.* I'll pass. 2 stars

*special preview for "Frankenhooker" coming to vhs home video.* 3 stars

*Comedy Cuts - Mario Joyner: Jokes about how black folks don't try to get a fade by frost bite in the Winter like white folk do w/ their sun tan in the Summer.* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Comedy Cuts - Norman Gunston - Roving Reporter: A neurotic Brit raves about some bloodbank conspiracy & then startles random real people on the Hollywood Walk of Fame while asking them for free blood donations. Ha.* close to 3 stars

*Inside Edition promo about Judy Garland's failed comeback tv show. No surprise that this shameless show picks easy targets like dead celebrities. Then, an even more ironic story featuring Bill Cosby talking with teens about sex... Oh, boy....* 1 star

*A morbid "This little piggy" ends in a toe tag for an abused child. In a Child Welfare League of America ad. A grim time period involving child abuse.*

2 stars

*Feature on the resurgence of 70s shock rocker Alice Cooper.* 2 1/2 stars

*Night Flight makes use of their vault of movie & cartoon clips for some horse riding, cowboy, wild indian, kung fu, arabian knight horseback tricks action in a faux ad for "Billy Jo Bob's Riding Academy" "2 Miles Past Bucky's Gunshop"* cool close to 3 stars

*Tuxedo wearing James Stacy holds up a Dirty Harry sized handgun & then says that drunk drivers do more damage. "It could cost you an arm & a leg." He then reveals to be missing both his arm & leg. Heavy, but I'm not sure which statistic is higher for U.S. deaths.* close to 2 1/2 stars. They really don't know how to do effective, startling public service announcements, like this one, anymore.

*Bela Lugosi in "The Phantom Creeps": "Mad Genius Running Wild" the papers say as Bela creates things like a giant killer robot, super villain invisibility, & bombs that can be tossed like firecrackers.* 2 1/2 stars

*Painter Paul Collins shows off his artwork from time spent on a Native American Indian reservation & he calls them an "endangered species" in an ad for the Michigan Indian Child Welfare Agency.* 2 1/2 stars

*The silhoutte of an 80s chick & the breathy words "fantasy phone" must have been enough to get phone sex horny losers to "finish" after the chick tells them "I'll start & yo ufinish." 5 dollars for the first minute. They want their 5 bucks first because they know that you'll finish in under a minute if you're desperate enough to call one of these numbers. Just a "hot" girl speaking to you at all is enough to reach climax.* 2 stars

*Rocky Horror Picture Show - Timewarp: Might have seemed lazy to toss this classic into the late night variety, but it hadn't been done to death by this point or ruined by the awful people involved with the musical show "Glee."*

2 1/2 stars

*The Fleshtones - I Was a Teenage Zombie: Would make a great B-side to "Surfin' Dead" plus the movie clips look decent as well.* close to 3 stars

*Yazoo - Don't Go: Don't remember the video for this being so horror inspired.* Decent

*Sheena Easton - Telephone: All the classic Universal monsters plus a disembodied hand are after Sheena. Can't say that I blame them after she tempted all w/ her "Sugar Walls"* 2 1/2 stars

*Comedy Cuts - Colin Quinn: He pokes fun at growing up Irish-Catholic dealing w/ cop relatives & touchy priests.* close to 3 stars

*Louis Armstrong's "Wonderful World" set to video of kung fu cinematic action.* 3 stars

*Rudy Vallee in The Musical Doctor: A singing emergency room where a "Step & fetch it" black stereotype is seeking treatment. The doc prescribes him the smooth sounds of inter-spliced clips of Sting from The Police (huh? ha!). He's black, so he'll also need a dose of interspliced Chaka Khan's "I Feel For You."* either 1 or 3 stars

*Old old Hollywood clips of beautiful ladies doing some synchronized swimming dances while the Night Flight voice over lady pokes fun at Dr. Vallee's techniques.* 3 stars

*Dr. Vallee has another crazy patient. This one has hammer toe "Stop Hammertime" w/ the MC himself spliced in. No kidding.* 2 1/2 stars

*Another patient is suffering from lack of music, so he gets some Dionne Warwick "That's What Friends Are For" followed by Biz Markie's "Just a Friend" R & B from "Babyface"... blues from some of the masters... more MC Hammer "Can't Touch This"... my my my my.... "Bel Biv Devoe" for dessert...* 2 1/2 stars early Obamacare

*Cultural tv game show featuring everything from President Ike to President Reagan from James Dean to Disco. Hot pants to the VCR. "Tic Tac Dough."* close to 3 stars

*Not ready for tv women in an ad for the Displaced Homemaker Program. This is exactly why women need not to be homemakers or second class citizens. I'm no liberal or femi-nazi controlled thinker, but seeing these poor women's lives ruined after divorce or becoming a widow is just sad & a product of our failure as a society.* 2 stars

*Pretentious Bono in a cowboy hat during one of U2's concert tours from the 80s. One where they're filming it in black & white. He's trying to get art street cred by having blues legend B.B. King join U2 on stage.* 2 stars

*B.B. King - I Need Some Help: performed on what looks like Austin City Limits. This time w/out Bono to ruin the performance.* 2 1/2 stars

*B.B. King - Lucille: Steve Martin, Dan Akroyd, the lovely Michelle Pfeiffer, & Eddie Murphy join B.B. for a quirky video.* close to 3 stars

*Robert Cray - Right Next Door: Rather subdued, sitting alone in an artsy room w/ flowing curtain window w/ bare minimum light shining through it, guitar solo video.* 2 1/2 stars

*Robert Cray - Nothing But a Woman: This video has Cray singing & 80s cartoon graphic sinterspliced w/ Cray & the band video fx. 80s MTV & Monty Python esque* 2 1/2 stars

*Albert Collins - The Trouble W/ Money: This looks like a 70s era performance on something like The Midnight Special. Collins is a haggard looking old school black dude who plays his guitar like he's making love to a woman.*

close to 3 stars

*Renee Taylor's "2" (1967 short comedy film): Parody of pretentious Eye-Talian cinema & modern people's pretentious self loathing in love affairs.*

close to 3 stars

*"Big Cheese & the Food Groupies" California Raisins style animated wholesome snack PSA w/ the characters singing in the fridge for some happy kids.* 2 1/2 weird stars

*Night Flight's Sci Fi Monsters video essay:

*Oingo Boingo - Weird Science: Interspliced w/ old clips of early 20th century films like "A Voyage to the Moon" or whatever it's called.* more than decent

*"We Have the Technology" interspliced w/ the electrocution scene from the 50s classic "Thing from Another World."* close to terrific

*The theme from Doctor Who interspliced w/ Doctor Who style robots & a stadium rock anthem by TimeLords.* 3 stars

*Kate Bush is a spooky banshee in "Experiment 4".* 3 stars

*"Ladies & gentleman, Elvis 1990" a Billy Idol look-a-like spliced w/ scenes of cyberpunk dystopias & Godzilla.* close to 3 stars

*Now a true Elvis look-a-like in outerspace singing "Video Babe" while flying saucers destroy Washington monuments.* 3 stars

*Herbie Hancock's 80s synthesizer classic spliced w/ scenes of early 20th century movie magic explorers encountering dangerous tribe people of the moon.* 2 1/2 stars

*Fishbone? in a weird sci video that ends in a nuclear explosion.*

could be terrific

*Night Flight's Never Coming Attractions:

*GI's go rocket riding in "Invasion of the Star Creatures": Super tall & sexy vixens from the stars encounter some dopey & short in stature army privates who they seduce & unleash kooky monsters upon.*

3 stars, I'd watch it, looks cheesy good.

*"Space Monster": 50s sci fi space adventure where the spaceships & planets are held up by string & the stars are holes pocked in a black canvas w/ light shining through. The alien monster is a humanoid w/ a large head, big ears, & a flickering tongue.* 2 1/2 stars

*Della's Diner, a West Michigan theater presentation of a kitschy diner complete w/ big haired waitresses & eccentric patrons. All presented by the local Grand Rapids tv station.* 2 1/2 stars

*Another "America Needs Me Drug Free" PSA featuring this time a black kid who wants to grow up to be like his black hero fighter pilot. He only got a t-shirt, no ride on the jet like the boy on the firetruck. I guess the Air Force said no. Darn. Do drugs!* 2 stars

*Night Flight's toon theater:

*Mouseferatu: Very well animated & sort of risque. When Mousey finds his intended victim, she's a very sexy pussycat sleeping in the nude. & despite all his rage, he's still just a rat in a cage when daylight comes to turn him to bones.* 3 stars

*Retro black & white clip of some ranch cows & a bull singing a country & western diddy.* 3 stars

*Promo for "Ghoulies 2" on Grand Rapids TV 8.* 3 stars

Following Night Flight on TV 8 is the syndicated cult classic "Dynaman" mock dubbed in English & parodying the already super-weird Japanese Power Rangers pre-cursor.

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"Dog Police" *A nerd rock 80s weirdo band's lead singer takes his werewolf date to the night club where the trench coat "Untouchables" look-a-like "Dog Police" bust her for bestiality?* 3 stars

James Randi Debates Two Mediums & Psychiatrist Brian Weiss *Gay mustache & spirit aficionado James Van Praagh along w/ 20 questions for 20,000 gullible people champion John Edward bring a hack psychiatrist & author of a book about past lives to a debate w/ admitted cynic Randi. Which leads to Randi face palming & taking the whole thing about as serious as one would imagine. CNBC's half zombie half talk show host Charles Grodin seems to be hopeful about the psychic claims.* 1 star

Penn & Teller Bullshit!: Feng Shui & Bottled Water *A refreshing arrangement sold at a bullshit price.* 3 stars

--- DinosaurDracula.com presents Creepy Commercials Countdown:

*ABC TGIF Monster Bash Weekend (1993): The Olsen twins host the Halloween edition of TGIF. When you're 11, you're definitely uncool enough to watch ABC on a Friday night. I still am uncool enough. Family Matters was the Breaking Bad of its era. Boy Meets World never appealed to me. Step By Step was okay. I remember most about it having the guy from the Kickboxer sequel. Hangin' With Mr. Cooper is lame when you think back on it, but it worked for the time. A "cool" middle school or junior high teacher who was down w/ the kids & played basketball. However, nothing about this particular promo is spooky or creepy enough. The 80s would have tried harder w/ the scary theme than the 90s seemed to.* 2 stars

*Real Ghostbusters Super Weapons (1990): Some kids take their awesome Nerf officially licensed Real Ghostbusters toy weapons of minor destruction & chase the poor dog around their spooky dark house. That's what I call fun animal abuse. *wink* 3 stars

*Predator 2 (1990) Movie Promo: I love the narrator's voice describing all of Predator's high tech weapons. Similar sounding voices noted all the high tech features of new cars at the time. It slipped my mind that Bill Paxton is in this movie. Of course everyone who has seen it will remember Danny Glover's manic, awesome performance, or Gary Busey being in it before he went completely off the deep end of eccentricity. But Bill Paxton was in both the Alien & the Predator sequels. That's cool.* 3 stars

*Coca-Cola Classic 'Dracula' (1992): A Bela Lugosi impersonator, in a striking visually black & white castle setting, scares a blonde victim from her sleep. Instead of putting up a cross, in defense, it's a juicy red Coca-Cola can. I guess Dracula's blood sugar was low, because he goes from pale to plump tan in seconds. He bites into the can sideways & slurps the syrupy soda. What coke addict hasn't imagined something similar? The ad end sbadly, however, as it approaches Twilight sparkly "vampire" territory when the spooky couple walk out the door into an animated Disney daytime cartoon scene complete w/ chirping love birds.* either 1 or 3 stars

*Highland Superstores 'Phantom of the Opera' (1989): The organ music from "The Phantom" is still unsettling after around a 100 years of it being in our nightmares. Dinosaur Dracula mentioned this, in his article, & it's true, "appliance stores are dreadfully dull." In the 80s, during the era of dull parents & dingy colors on everything including off white & putrid yellow fridges, microwaves, washers & dryers, & dishwashers. Some were even the same green color of The Creature from the Black Lagoon's bowel movements. If I were "The Phantom" I wouldn't dwell at Highland Superstores. If I were a disgruntled former manager of an appliance store, I wouldn't. Hell would seem happier.* 2 1/2 stars

----------------------------------------

Beavis & Butthead: Plasmatics - The Damned *"Explosions... half naked chicks. This video has something for everyone."*

3 plus stars w/ riffing 3 stars w/out

--- TV Carnage:

*Straight Body Builder Bio #1: "When in Rome do as the Romans do." The Romans did gay stuff in Rome. In Southern California, this feminine Rick James, on roids, can make delicious ancient Chinese herbal tea, draw comics of other buff fantasy masculine heroic figures, strum his string instrument, & play w/ his pooch on the beach.* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Tell Me About It: The reporting from the red carpet premier of Legally Blonde is as dumb & inspid as imagined.* zero stars

*The Hump Day Return of Aids!: "Real men don't talk to their women about sex." Laughs. Huh. Huh. Starts humping potentially aids infected partner.*

2 1/2 stars

*Tom Arnold Stars In Long Lost Porn: Didn't know Tom was so patient & considerate to the half naked chicks he lets ride on the back of his Harley Davidson.* 2 1/2 stars

--------------------------------

"The Last Dragon" (1985) *A midnight movie happening inside another midnight movie featuring kids from Soul Train. Also feels like Motown is making fun of MTV's Cindy Lauper & Madonna.* 3 stars

"Shotgun" (1989) *A buddy cop Lethal Weapon wannabe that's almost as awkward as Samurai Cop. There's a plot about a sicko torturing & killing hookers that's similar to Wings Hauser's "Vice Squad. "Then a finale that's a revenge gunfight south of the border that recalls 70s grindhouse classic "Rolling Thunder" but is more over the top like a Rambo sequel.* between 2 & 2 1/2

Cannon Films "Hospital Massacre" (1981) *Creepy fact: if you ever walk into a room & see someone crawling out a window, looking back w/ a devious smile on their face, know something horrible has happened in the room. Our scream queen, the gorgeous Barbi Benton, doesn't even realize she's being stalked by a slasher for over an hour of the movie. She thinks she's just being inconvenience by hospital procedure red tape & a screwed up test result. However, the kills are bloody good, the atmosphere is spooky, & there's even some black comedy.*

more than 2 1/2 stars or plus

"Video Wasteland Combilation" *Twinkle Twat, feminine deoderant spray. Baby upchuck doll. Punk singer w/ dry heaves. Way USA starring Tesco Vee. Aeon Flux. Tim Allen as Docu-Comic. Dawn of the Night of the Dead - The Musical. John Waters & Divine. West Germany Air Show Disaster. Vincent Price on the 64,000 Dollar Question. LSD-25. This Is Elvis's Birthday '92.* 2 1/2 stars

SCTV Monster Chiller Horror Theatre w/ Count Floyd: The House of Cats *Bored housecats "jumping" at the screen in 3D. Well, at least Count Floyd promises so. John Candy drugs women & turns them into his personal pussycats until they rebel or at least he has to act like they're clawing him, when they couldn't be bothered to even paw.* close to 2 1/2 stars

Brass Eye: Sex *Bad aids vs. good aids, the mucking about homosexual scandal of her majesty's royal navy ,the debasement of an American politician, an asexual man up a pole watching pornography, beating off assailants, Peter Stringfellow, & a giant whore on the loose.* 3 stars

=== Geraldo Rivera: Hate Mongers (1988)

*Skinhead smackdown smashes Geraldo in the schnoz.* 1 infamous star (not of David)

[Note: Geraldo has always loved pouring fuel onto a fire. Not for justly reasons, either. Here it would appear so, to the people of the time period, but fast forward to today & Geraldo is standing among "Black Lives Matter" protestors & telling them that racism no longer exists in America.

Geraldo: race baiter, troublemaker, & obvious fraudulent media manipulator of any era he's in.]

(edit, years later:

I still think Geraldo is a douche, but I've woken up how much of an idiot I was for kind of casually being apathetic to & half way supporting groups like "Black Lives Matter."

I think most everyone has if they don't have "tribal" interests or are a "race blind" moron who'll be dragged into the streets while trying to high five a "friend" of color during a riot or "peaceful" protest someday & be treated to a beating similar to the one Reginald Denny received on CNN in LA in 92 after the Rodney King verdict?)

================================================================================

Mysteries From Beyond the Other Dominion w/ Franklin Ruehl *Eerie coincidences between the Kennedy & Lincoln assassinations. I like the true nerdiness of this early Sci-Fi Channel show. If it were a part of a nerd culture channel or website, today, it would have faux nerd hipsters ironically doing it & not the earnest weirdness of Ruehl & company.* 3 stars

--- Found Footage Fest:

*Special Delivery: "The bitch, the bitch, the bitch," the female dog is having puppies.* 2 1/2 stars

*Something Big: "The first nude pop video" might "offend" as it warns, but the mostly tasteful nude images of big breasted women aren't as obscene as the Euro-sleaze leadsinger's crooning & 70s porno mustache.* 2 1/2 stars

*The Appointment... With Death: You'll never see Hawaii, if you keep smartin' off to the monotone voiced angel of death premonitions.* either 1 or 3 stars

*I'm A Spoon: Women of all body types used to search for that perfect fit, but eventually gave up to the potato sack look of sweatpants w/ sassy slogans on the ass.* 2 stars

*I Gotta Go!: When you get that feeling way down below. A sanitized version of the uh oh diarrhea song from Steve Martin's Parent Trap. There's no Barney the Dinosaur to help the toddlers & kids sing along & poop, but there's a chimp taking a shit (for giggles).* 3turds

----------------------------------

Grandpa Munster's SuperScarySaturday on TBS Superstation: King Kong vs. Godzilla the Debate *Since neither monster can talk, pro wrestling personalities, of the 80s, are doing the cheerleading. Motormouth evangelist look-a-like, w/ a tennis racket, Jim Cornette, preaches for Godzilla, says that his monster is younger than the "dying of old age" King Kong, and he can breathe fire. Lynyrd Skynyrd roadie wannabe Michael P.S. Hayes, standing up for his hairy hero, boasts that Kong can swat planes while still holding onto a babe. I call it a tie. So, would any other fan of both monsters.* 3 stars

--- Occult Demon Cassette Presents: "Exposing the Satanic Web" 1990 (Satanic Panic VHS)

*Yesterday Satanism, today radical Islam, tomorrow extraterrestrial orgasms?

Who knows what the future holds, but the religious right will most likely be there to spread their brand of disinformation.

People really couldn't tell that the crayon drawings of occult rituals were done by adults w/ agendas?

Motley Crue images pop up constantly in these old scare films.

Motley Crue obviously weren't a threat to America's teenagers. They're now bloated white trash rock has-beens trying to get their near elderly groupies to still flash their saggy tits!

Those women didn't end up sacrifices of the devil. They probably had about five dirty young'uns that never got sacrificed either, 'cause Satanic Panic was just that panic that meant nothing.

Nerdy teens who played Dungeons & Dragons didn't role play murder half the parent population in the U.S. No, they're still harmless adult nerds.

The reformed high-priest of Satanism turned Christian now confessing his former dark powers & deeds.

Is it okay that he claims to have committed horrible acts because he's asked for forgiveness from God?

Shouldn't he be in jail? That's proof that he's full of shit. That all of the scare-mongers of these videos are full of shit, & have taken a simple fantasy game, a rebellious youth music that they don't enjoy or understand, & victimless boredom in juvenile property crime through graffiti & tried to turn it into a scare tactic tool to push people fearfully into the arms of the major cult in America, the Christian religions.

Satan obviously wasn't as savvy as these evangelicals who still have the ear of their cult, after all these years, while Motley Crue & Freddy Krueger are no longer being fed virgins at the altar of willing black magic fiends & disturbed teenagers.*

(edit, years later:

Man listen to me. Full on liberal apathy & cynicism disguised as trying to be clever.

I still slightly chuckle at the hysteria of the 80s Satanic Panic.

but to believe Islam isn't an obvious threat to the west is to be in denial or downright actually evil... no hysteria. but truth.

the type of person I was then would rather ignore the truth, & claim it was islamophobia delusion while looking at hipster blogs like dangerousmindsdotnet for the latestdug up piece of pop culture from a bygone era to be mocked

then getting my "news" from the Daily Show w/ it's highly cut & edited slant leaning the views towards an agenda while claiming bias everywhere else & only everwhere else...

I can't say I ever saw any metal heads hold a Satanic animal sacrifice orgy, but I have seen real life footage of hordes of muslims flooding Europe & the after effects in the news

hard evidence of rapes, terrorist bombings / shootings / stabbings / hackings / huge vehicle homicide of dozens / beheadings / literal fucking jihad...

not scaremongering, you blind hipster dope (me, several years ago) but all out war on the civilization that once provided your shits & giggles & safety shelter to enjoy them in w/out getting gutted for being an infidel)

1 star

=======================================================

People Are Talking w/ Tom Bergeron: James Randi Debunks Faith Healer (youtube) *Tom Bergeron sits looking at clips of extremely funny faith healings. One in particular where a fake had played the role of both a crippled man & a woman w/ bad ovaries. This could be America's Funniest Home videos, but sadly Randi points out that the placebo effect of these dramatically staged acts do harm when the believers don't seek real medical help from actual doctors instead of faith healers.* 3 stars

City Confidential: Rock Springs, Deadly Shootout in the Wild West *"Cowboy Caligula."* more than 2 1/2 stars

Viper: Past Tense *Amnesia love affairs, brainwashed agents of assassination, & chance collisions of the heavens. Plays like something noir that would be in Frank Miller's Sin City.* close to 3

Forever Knight: Cherry Blossoms *Vampire detective versus Chinese mafia seeking to slay a wounded witness. Wrongly accused vampire versus elderly Chinese acupuncturist seeking revenge against the vampire who slayed his mother 60 years before.*

between 2 1/2 & 3 stars

The Greatest American Hero: The Best Desk Scenario *Fumbling the ball near the endzone or too many cooks trying to read the anarchist's cookbook.* 2 1/2 stars

Look Around You: Computers *In Bournesmouth, one can bibble or bobble if they're beardless or bearded, but not if they're brandishing a petticoat (female).* close to 3 stars

The Prisoner: Hammer Into Anvil *Creates an unhinged melody.* 3 stars

Farscape: Bone To Be Wild *The old routine of one "submarine" silently hiding from another's radar. Deepspace Donner Party bone eater massacre. Johnny Appleseed "Frankenstein's Monster" look-a-like or Swamp Thing stranded on an asteroid. Our hero Crichton needs to be sensitive to "plant phobia." The spiritual blue alien lady Zan (Xan?) is actually a sentient plant. Captain Ahab under scrutiny. Babysitting a weaponized junior Leviathan (a Death Star in a diaper).* 3 stars

---- Night Visions w/ Henry Rollins:

The Passenger List: A little twilight zone twist & a lot of 9-11 era zeitgeist of airline tragedy grief.* between 2 1/2 & 3 stars

The Bokor: Bayou medical school morphine junkies, grotesque medical cadaver, & a voodoo curse.* more than 2 1/2 stars

Rollins: Puts on a stale attempt at Rod Serling.* between 1 1/2 & 2 stars

------------------------------------

Uncharted Zone: Fifty Dollar Boots - Johnny Fire *50 dollar budget quality black & white video for a rockabilly crooner & his 50 dollar boot wearing chick guitar player.* close to 2 1/2 stars

Beavis & Butthead: Jennifer Tryin - Happier *Gen X drug store despair, Beavis taking diarrhea medicine & pooping a brick that he keeps in his sock drawer, & Butthead wanting to live in denial that he ever heard Beavis talk about it.* 3 stars w/ riffing close to 2 1/2 stars w/out

Justified: Season 1 Episode 6 *"There's more than smart" & there's more than art. Especially Adolf Hitler's shitty art. It's a nebulous or abstract concept.* close to 3 stars

True Detective: Haunted Houses *Still life. Nearer to silence (unholy ghosts) than God.* 3 stars

Hannibal: Trou Normand *Losing time opening doors, unearthing graves, & making monuments to the desecrated.* 3 stars

Penn & Teller Bullshit!: Talking to the Dead & ESP *Party tricks & charades for suckers & the sad.* 3 stars

James Randi's Fiery Takedown of a Psychic Fraud *An admitted wizard takes a lethal overdose of homeopathic medicine to prove a cruel farce.* more than 2 1/2 stars

Ripley's Believe It Or Not! w/ Jack Palance: Episode 3 (1985) *Giant 1980s supercomputers are used to photoshop the Tibetan god-king out of Shangri La, like an impractical automotive 5th wheel or discarded apple peel (peeled by an Edison style mass industrial invention), & placed, by 2001 Hal's robo-cousin, out into the sun to purify like a baby orangutan or an eskimo mummy. Also pre-CitySlickers Curly's gold* 2 Fair

Fargo: Buridan's Ass *Breach in a white out or bludgeoned like fish out of water.* 3 stars

"XTRO" (1983) *A deeply disturbed British schoolboy's estranged daddy returns from his absentee fatherhood vacation on H.R. Geiger's homeworld after traumatizing the boy w/ his "Fire in the Sky" style abrupt bon voyage goodbye. Often tonally too whimsical to be taken seriously, while at other times being astonishingly creepy.* between 2 & 2 1/2 stars or more

Tales from the Crypt: The Reluctant Vampire *Mr. Longtooth (Malcom McDowell) isn't a glamourous Dracula. He's a cowardly nightwatchman at a failing blood bank. Can he win the heart of his mousey love interest, at the blood bank, w/out biting her neck? Will he find the courage to stand up to his bully of a boss (Cheers' George Wendt) or will he fall prey to a weird looking Van Helsing?* Decent

"Saturday Night Dead" KYW-TV 3 Philadelphia (February 1, 1986) *"The maddening minx of movie-dom" Stella, a redheaded Rhonda Shear look-a-like glamour doll, traipses around her ghoulish horror set kiddingly admitting to bedding, on her monster talking bed, the Philadelphia Eagles football team. She is in dire need of a butler & wants him to be as hunky as Sylvester Stallone's Rambo. Looks like Philly had a pretty decent version of Elvira or Rhonda. Not bad.* 2 1/2 stars

--- Monstervision w/ Joe Bob Briggs: Waxwork

*Drive-In Totals: 43 dead bodies.... 0 nekkid breasts (sorry).. 1 Live severed hand.. .African Voodoo Face Painting.. French S & M.. Fang Sprouting.. Bat Shooting.. Raw Meat Gobbling.. Sword Fighting.. Strangling.. Stabbing.. Head Butting.. Ax to the Back... Death by Fire.. Gratuitous Dialogue w/ Loud Music.. Werewolf Fu.. Vampire Fu.. Mummy Fu.. Zombie Fu.. Senior Citizen Fu..

*Joe Bob says this isn't a haunted house movie, it's a "nasty" house movie, like his grandma would always say, "That's nasty!"

*Burt Reynolds for Liz Taylor perfume (Ladies, don't wear anything that gives Burt a smell boner).

*Songs 4 Life Christian mix CD (90s, the era that bland white people safe religious music w/out any gospel soul or passion reared its dorky head).

*CNN has Bill Clinton's sworn testimony in the shadow of impeachment (ah, the Lewinsky era, we survived that.).

*Rent Matthew MuhConUhHey! & Skeet Ulrich, tonight! (not male escorts. a shitty VhS tape of the movie "Newton Boys").

*Pure Reggae mix cd 1-800 ad (A island jam collection featuring the theme to Cops "Bad Boys" plus Apache Indian's "Boom Shakalak"... pass the herb & turn it up, mon!).

*Joe Bob's Jailbreak w/ Reno the Mail Girl: Talk of Joe Bob's jealousy because Reno might have dated / made love to a midget instead of Joe Bob & also Reno gets a love poem from a jailbird in a Mojave prison unit in Arizona.*

*Carpenters Love Songs mix cd ad. Being a kid in the 80s & 90s, & not an adult in the 70s, I only had vague knowledge of who Karen Carpenter was & that she had died tragically young. Anytime, I would see these ads w/ their hazy cloud aesthetics along w/ faded quality videos of Karen singing her mostly melancholy songs, I would get the creeps.*

*Waxwork: Remember 2011's "Cabin in the Woods"?... Well, Joss Whedon's "genius" turning of a monster/slasher movie conventions on its head script wasn't that original. In the 80s, somebody else did it first. This monster mayhem flick, featuring almost every creature & horror character known, is set in a wax museum instead of a cabin in the woods. Starring the teenage boys from Gremlins & Twin Peaks plus Return of the Living Dead 2 along with their 80s valley girl girlfriends. The main villain is legendary not so good movie & tv show actor David Warner (the movies/shows not being so good. Warner is always great).*

between 2 & 2 1/2 stars for Waxwork, more than 2 1/2 for Joe Bob, & close to 2 for the ads

----------------------------------------------------

TNT 100% Weird: The Twonky *"Whenever I think of women, I think of French fried potatoes." A very nervous man's wife leaves town, gifting him his first television set to keep him company. This is when tv's were brand new & confusing to man. It didn't help that this particular tv was unlike any other in that it could work the magic of a genie or a futuristic robot.* close to 3 stars

Wizards & Warriors: The Dungeon of Death *"Badgers, we don't need no stinkin' badgers." What we got is a ragtag rescue squad of a Renaissance fair Clint Eastwood type, a carnival strong man, a high wire walking hottie, & one of the munchkins from the Wizard of Oz. Trouble is there's a mole.* close to 3 stars

--- Sci Fi Channel (1993) Feature Film: The Clone Master

*A pair of alien hands find a time capsule buried in the sand. The date says 1993. Inside is a bottle of head & shoulders. Our great legacy, dandruff shampoo...

*95 cents a minute hotline to find out what's coming up on the Sci Fi channel's schedule? Wow, wouldn't a 99 cent, one time purchase, TV Guide not suffice? That's phone sex level of horny to know when the next episode of the original Star Trek is airing.

*Sci Fi had great station bumpers. I'll try to describe this one... it has a picturesque set lakehouse w/ the phone off the receiver "hello, are you there?" & geese flying against a newly alien earth skyline featuring a ring planet between earth & the moon.

*Extremely nerdy voice over "Emmy Award winning Battlestar Galactica, weeknights."

*Beatles Live 1964 in London for the first time on VHS or BETA

*Curly haired cute model "All those holes. All that protection." Science strikes again. Always Maxi Pads w/ new technology. New as in holes. I have a hole in my soul from all the sanitary napkin girly confessional commercials that I've had to endure all my life.

*A generic couple enjoy a generic romantic evening over generic pasta & generic white wine while listening to "Easy 70's" a generic mix cd of 70s soft rock like Crystal Gale & Kenny Loggins among others. He leaves w/out sex. Because this type of music makes one sterile.

*Vintage ad for Craftmatic adjustable beds. The old couple is giddy to talk to their over the phone Craftmatic salesperson. I'm giddy too for my memories of these ads. though the actual beds were usually in the homes of some sick acquaintance of my parents&grandparents

*"Never miss another favorite program." VCR Voice, the voice operated vcr remote control. Pssss... VCR Voice... record Skinemax & those early morning workout shows w/ the ladies in spandex....

*Smokey the Bear is talked about by a kid who makes him seem almost mythical. Maybe in 3,000 years, when our culture is long forgotten & misunderstood, they'll find something about Smokey the Bear & wonder what the fuck was up w/ us having a cartoon bear to warn humans about forest fire safety & natural resource preservation responsibility.

*"Can dinosaur cloning really happen? The truth behind the fiction." A Sci Fi special on Jurassic Park. It can & did, but tune in to Alex Jones InFoWars or Jesse Ventura's new show on Glen Beck's Blaze channel to find out.

*"Dark Shadows" weekdays on Sci Fi. Now, that's a weekday soap opera that I would sink my teeth in to. Someone get me my Bon Bons & my Moo Moo...

*1 800 ad for Sci Fi Classic home video's "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy."

*Back on earth, Frankie Valli & the 4 Seasons on every music listening format known to man. That's as advanced as we are....

*Speaking of identical twins & cloning... Elvis, in his 68 Comeback Special, decked out in his black leather spacesuit... Get a collector's copy. Copy... wink wink. Elvis, often imitated, never duplicated except in utero or however it go...

*Classic kitchen knife displays of incredible feats by the World Class Ginsu knife. Showoff All the other dull culinary utensils got Ginsu off & murdered him & buried his stainless steel body under the goal post in Food Network's Iron Chef Kitchen Stadium.

*Walter Koenig for a huge collection of Star Trek (Original & Next Generation) themes,sound fx, & a 6 minute bridge sequence. Sound fx, okay... maybe... a 6 minute bridge sequence... alright, I can sort of see that... still, it's nerdom bordering insanity.

*K-Tel Conway Twitty videos. Not the right station. Not as much as Sci Fi isn't a rhinestone sequened audience as it's not an audience where they can relate to a hillbilly heart-throb's songs about sleeping w/ a horde of women. Live long & amorously prosperous.

*"The majesty & might of Marvel leaps off of the page & onto the screen" shows clips of 70s Hulk tv show & one of the 70s Spider Man tv movies. Modern Marvel fanboys would scoff at the words majesty & might being used for these classics. "They don't even have after credits sequences or universe building." They do have Stan Lee hosting the Mighty Marvel Marathon on Sci Fi 1993. Sixteen years before Iron Man....

*Clone Master: It's a good clone movie when the existential grief of being a clone does not fully get in the way of the clone capers, clone antics, & clone based comedy. Also, Cold War era conpirators could get away w/ a lot thanks to government secrecy not allowing anyone to share information to know what the hell was going on in different sections of all their hush hush top secret work like cloning.*

3 stars for Sci Fi's bumpers, close to 3 for the ads, & 2 1/2 stars for Clone Master

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The She Creature *Kooky age regression hypnotism to spook squares & Eve-era mer-monster to slaughter them.* 3 stars w/ riffing 2 1/2 stars w/out

Nathan On Your Side: Talking to the Animals *non-confrontational dialogue w/ bed wetting cat.* more than 2 stars

The Cinema Snob: Woodchipper Massacre *No Fargo woodchipper action. No massacre. More terrible like Poland invaded by Hitler, only w/out any of that massacre. Just the terrible.* 2 1/2 for Snob

Conan O'Brien - In the Year 2000: Taco Bell 2000 *A "chilling" glimpse into the prophecy of Charmin toilet paper's involvement w/ the bowel dooming food chain.* 3 stars

A & E presents An Evening at the Improv: Norm MacDonald (1991) *Homeless dog owners & backseat blues.* close to 3 stars

HBO Not Necessarily the News: The Spork Episode (1983) *Mr. T. imporium. Panda pest control. Des Moines pudding disaster. Light beer for fat drunks. Rich Hall's weekly sniglet words: scrit is anything that has sat in the same spot for 50 years... yinkel is anybody that combs their hair over their bald spot thinking that nobody will notice... spork the combination spoon fork device (did he invent that term? wow, cool, if so)... furbling is the act of walking through a maze of ropes at the airport or bank even though you're the only one in line (haaa)... porkus non grata is the squashed piece of bacon at the bottom of the package.. lactomangulation is having to open a milkcarton from the opposite side because of one side's malfunction.. carperpetuation is the act of running over a piece of string w/ a vacuum 4 or 5 times before picking it up & inspecting it & then putting it back down for one last attempt.*

decent though dated

"Best of the Worst Star Search Auditions" (youtube) *"Let me do my thang to ya!" You'd never see a bearded lady singing Patsy Cline on America's Got Talent.* 3 stars

Insomniac w/ Dave Attell: San Francisco *If you come to this frontier town, eventually you're gonna ask yourself "am I a fog rider, a pickle pilot, or a proud baby mudfoot?"* 3 stars

--- Memory Hole:

*Cranial Deformity Dance Dad: I'm tired of spaghetti. But you always like sketti.* 3 stars

*Clinton Torture: Bill's bubbles is just tryna give you kisses.* 2 1/2 stars

*I'm On The T.V.: Been waitin' for you to turn me on.* more than 2 1/2 stars

*Rap 4 Ca$h: A school teacher, of 25 years, will do anything for a raise.* 1 star

*Island Of Original Ideas Mirror Effect: an idiot's idea of an interesting illusion.* folly

======================================================

Penn & Teller Bullshit!: Creationism & The Bible, Fact or Fiction *Pissing on one's own feet while the ground crumbles beneath forming a crater of disbelief. Leaving one in critical need & clinging to the causal or a creed.* Folly?

James Randi Debunks An Astrologer *"Everybody believes that they have a sense of humor." - Stephen Fry who doesn't believe that the astrologer accurately judged his friend Hugh Laurie.* close to decent

Forbidden Transmission: World Bizarre *freewheeling babel.* more than 2 1/2 stars

Weird TV: Burning Man - Early Years *Survival issues, sexuality, porta potty use, & potato gun fun.*

between 2 & 2 1/2 stars

"Dawn of the Mummy" *Classic Universal horror theme grave robbed by Euro-sleaze exploitation schlock vandals.* 2 1/2 stars

PBS presents American Experience: The Lobotomist *"Ambition makes you look pretty ugly." -Paranoid Android- A look at the doctor who tried to turn a grotesque medical procedure into a McDonald's style franchise value menu item forthe severe to the even the slightly mentally ill.* either zero or 3 stars

Alien Sex Fiend - "Now, I'm Feeling Zombiefied" *Face is caked white, you see a dead rat & you take a bite...* 2 1/2 stars

"You Spin Me Round" (Literal video version) *Freaky pirate all tied up (in himself).* close to 3 for the literal 3 for the actual

Uncharted Zone: "Hurry, There's A Hurricane" - Ken Manning *Hold on to your hats & to each other.* close to 3 stars

--- Reel Wild Cinema w/ Sandra Bernhard: Lunatics on the Loose:

*Sandra wants to go to third base w/ Antonio Banderas, her Aztec fantasy...

*Curse of the Aztec Mummy: Beehive hairdo damsels in distress, rubber bat attack, crotch crawling spider, & hideous ghoul doing the rigor-mortis-arms trance step dance*

*Sandra promises a movie with bad dubbing, coming up, "So don't go away." For the bad dubbing, I'll definitely stay.

*America's Most Wanted & Top Cops on USA network. A one two punch of justice & dullness.

*A soccer ball toting toddler wakes his middle aged dad up & his dad needs a small pouch sized doze of Folgers coffee. I bet this man can't even take a morning shit in peace.

*A disembodied red lipsticked mouth for Rembrandt whitening toothpaste. "2 shades whiter" promised. All the varying shades of teeth color from white to off white to yellow to grey to diseased orangish brown to black... Amusing memory of Mitch Hedberg's tartar sauce joke

*The Psychic Solution w/ a very self aware ad where they parody "bad psychic" hotline call centers complete w/ dart board for predictions & vanity mirror distractions during calls.

*Sandra now promises stock Civil War footage w/ clips from a nudist colony. Robert E. Lee is rolling over in his grave in his slave mistress's underwear that he demanded to be buried in.

*The Monster of Camp Sunshine: Thank that "scientist in the sky" for water pollution & sexual deviancy.*

*Quirky-reggae-whitebread-feelin' Long John Silver fast food joint on the beach commercial where there are tropical birds inside the establishment (sure the health inspector likes that notion) & couples relax in the waves drinking supersized sodas in foam cups (I bet those don't get put in the proper trash bin & instead float about the waves onto the beach)

*Crocodile Dundee vs. Ogre of Revenge of the Nerds & Bloodsport in a station wagon chase....

*Kenny Kingston "legendary psychic" & sleazy old school Hollywood showman look-a-like w/ love advice for lonely yuppies who go through everyday being horny & instead of acting on it & taking chances they wait for over the phone voodoo advice...

*Dweezil Zappa is Sandra's guest: Not sure if it's his rainbow colored girly liquor drink talking but Dweezil let it slip that he might believe that Aztec civlization dates back at least a million years....

*Sandra wants t.v. trying to scare people instead of always endearing itself to them.

*Bloody Pit of Horror: More tortured by the swingers he performs medieval cruelty upon, the Crimson Executioner gets caught up in his own scarlet devices.*

*A crystal ball gazing clairvoyant, w/ pink hair, predicts that Snoop Doggy Dog, Bush, & Dennis Miller will be at the 1996 MTV Video Awards. Pumpkins will also be smashed.

*USA capitalizes on the Unabomber headlines w/ their own original movie version...

*Sandra would have no sympathy for a girlfriend caught in a devious bondage trap...

*Oath of Green Blood: Audience participation required in taking a vial of verdant liquid that might make one vile or vivacious.

*Star Trek's original resident black boundaries breaker is sadly selling her soul as a spokesperson for a psychic hotline. This one even makes the claim that's often been used as a joke against psychics "Lottery winner predicted." Yep, "it happened."

*Coming attractions: Scream of the Demon Lover... Giant from the Unknown (awakened after hundreds of years & wearing conquistador armor. so, it's the Spanish to blame)... The Crawling Thing from Planet 13 promises to attack audience members (nice gimmick ploy)...

3 for Sandra, 3 for the shorts, & close to 2 for the ads

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"Sting of Death" -1965- *The Hunchback of the Everglades suffers a squelching at the hands of Florida Gator co-ed swingers & marine scientists. He goes all man-o-war on their jiggly jellyfish jive asses.* 2 stars

Baywatch Nights: Pursuit *Stinks of 90s sleaze/cheese. Says "Nights" but can't help in filming over half the show on the pretty beaches during the day. Featuring a couple of my boyhood tv crushes, Carol Alt & Angie Harmon.* between 1 1/2 & 2 stars

Beavis & Butthead: Varga - "Greed" *Beavis has the great idea that someone should invent something to watch music videos on (a television). Butthead's great idea is Beavis should shut up.* 3 w/riffing 2 1/2 w/out

Troma presents "Blondes Have More Guns" *Basic Instinct parodies haven't aged well, but Troma satire silliness is timeless.* between 2 & 2 1/2 stars

Penn & Teller Bullshit!: The Business of Love, Yoga, Tantric Sex, Etc. & Sex, Sex, Sex *Follow made up rules, follow hokey signs, follow shady email-spam links, & fuck if any of it happens to work.* 3 stars

--- Found Footage Fest:

*Video Dating: Looking for a goddess. A goddess is a woman, any woman, all women. No fatties!* 3 stars

*Sexual Harassment Comedy: Don't say anything, ever, because you're an obvious dickhead.* 1 star or close to 3

*Courtship vs. Dating: Don't get hung up on sweaty beefcakes. Acquire the fire to be a hard to get Christian cock-tease.* 2 1/2 stars

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David Hasselhoff - "Hooked On A Feeling" (Literal Video Version) *Hoff w/ "wiener" out & high on believing. "Please throw a fish at me!"* more than decent w/riffing or close to decent w/out

Nathan On Your Side: Sex In Advertising & Penis Extension *What turns you on? Please tell Santa so that we can market correctly.*

2 1/2 stars

Occult Demon Cassette presents "How To Be Cool At Parties" w/ Malcom Jamal Warner (1986) *Anybody can act like a jackass.* 2 1/2 stars

Pee Wee's Playhouse - Adult Humor & Innuendo (youtube) *Being a Spring chicken, I wasn't spry enough to see just how subliminal Saturday mornings really were.* 3 stars

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Pod People *Smuckers presents movies

A) Redneck poachers run into 'The Thing From Another World' B) Lil' Opie & his new pet Alf... or C) Ace of Base's tragic vacation in the Catskill Mtns. Joel says "It stinks! *okay hand gesture*"*

3 stars w/riffing between 1 1/2 & 2 w/out

Herman's Head (Pilot Episode) *Clever premise pulled off effectively. Made even better by the voice of Lisa Simpson & another Simpsons' legend Hank Azaria's charm.* close to 3 stars

Comics Only: Employee of the Week - Hank Gallo (1990) *Talent scout who searches the gay leather bar scene.* 2 1/2 stars

--- Rachel Sweet - The Sweet Life (The Comedy Channel circa the early 1990s):

*Lou Diamond Phillips makes fun of greasy haired Johnny Depp

*Jon Stewart impersonates a pretentious French director

*Rachel Sweet is a quirky raven-haired petite cutey poking fun at the Cosmo magazine's version of a girly girl

*Naked centerfold spread of David Hasselhoff is mocked by Rachel...

*Classic "Cow Cow Boogie" film short, that I just saw on Night Flight, is sang along to karaoke style by Rachel... she's definitely sweet

*Quotes: An unexamined life is not worth living - Plato... Time eases all things -Sophocles Get over it - Rachel Sweet... (cute)

more than 2 stars

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