#like the original pathetic murderer middle aged man way

[driedbloodondeadflies]

hannibal telling his therapist he’s exploring the possibility of a friendship with will and 5 minutes later when will arrives at his office/crime scene he basically lights up with joy, like a teenage girl who’s just been asked out for prom by her crush, seeing him there

[tossawary]

Chapter 19: “Weddings and Funerals” of “pride is not the word I’m looking for” random favorite lines with commentary because I’m doing a re-read. Not a full list or full commentary. 

-

 When Shang Qinghua told Mobei-Jun that he didn’t need Shen Qingqiu assassinated, it wasn’t because he thought everything would somehow work out if he just sat back and didn’t do anything. It definitely wasn’t because he was planning a so-called “perfect murder” and didn’t want the demon lord messing up his plans. The Problem of Shen Qingqiu has always been a lot more  complicated than “just get rid of the guy potentially making my nephew’s life a living hell”. That’s why it’s a real problem! 

- 

AN: Shang Qinghua’s thought process: “Can this problem be solved by: 

A) Waiting for the problem to go away? 

B) Murder? 

C) None of the above? 

If the answer is C... 

Fuck, it’s a real problem.” 

- 

 Shang Qinghua thinks that might actually be possible, though he’d have to do some research and smack his head until his Author God memories hopped into line. He thinks that the youth-restoration procedure would probably do the job, but he also thinks that Shen Qingqiu would probably rather be dead than be physically sixteen again or something (super fucking understandable) and have to start the cultivation process over from scratch (ah, that would be so annoying and embarrassing). 

- 

AN: Given that I actually invented a de-aging potion for this fic (if one that’s difficult to put together), the AU of “Original Shen Qingqiu is physically 16 again” has been rattling around inside my head ever since I wrote these lines. Shen Qingqiu was like, “Wait, let me picture how unbearably overprotective Yue Qingyuan would be... hmm... no, I’ll just stay like this.” 

- 

 Luo Jiahui seems a little anxious about the empty spaces at the table, but she fills the space as best she can by chattering about assorted restaurant business. At least until she abruptly takes a deep breath and says, “Hua-Ge, I have something to tell you.” 

 Shang Qinghua freezes in the middle of taking a drink. His unhelpful brain immediately races to guess the worst possible conversational subjects. His sister-in-law has somehow figured out that he’s a transmigrator?! His sister-in-law has decided that her son is not going to the Demon Realm under any circumstances?! His sister-in-law knows Binghe better than he does and has realized that the young protagonist is being abused after all?! Oh,  fuck, what is it? 

 “I’m getting married!” Luo Jiahui announces, breathlessly. 

 “Oh,” Shang Qinghua says, heart rate going at the speed of sound. “Wait,  what?” 

- 

AN: This chapter is why I didn’t go into the details of LJH/LQG in the last chapter, immediately post-timeskip. I wanted to blindside everyone with an “Oh, it’s THAT serious?!” moment. The last chapter established that “SQH is handling things”, then this chapter establishes that, as the plot goes on, “SQH is only barely handling things”. Which helps prep the following breakdown with the System World Update in chapters 20-22. 

- 

 “You didn’t have any time for yourself,” Shang Qinghua agrees, following this conversation of very obvious things that he already knew so far. He didn’t have any time for himself back then either, between organizing a conference and finding a cure on top of the usual day-in-day-out of the sect. “You did a really good job looking after them all by yourself!” 

 “They don’t always agree with that,” Luo Jiahui says, smiling but self-deprecating. 

 “Aha, well, they’re young.” 

 The disagreements of what was best for the children is why Shang Qinghua really had to get Fanli (who didn’t see herself as a child) out of the house by any means necessary. He was at a bit of a loss at how else to help. She was never part of  Proud Immortal Demon Way! Not even as a fragment of backstory mentioned in passing! Shang Qinghua struggles to compensate for these extra people who were never characters sometimes. 

 “Qingge was very understanding,” Luo Jiahui says. “But… well… then Fanli was gone and I had the restaurant keeping me busy, but that was all my own choice… and what good was waiting really doing us? It didn’t have to be everything or nothing. So… we talked… about what we wanted and what- what we were afraid of… and we decided to go forward slowly.” 

- 

AN: I said in the Author’s Notes on AO3 that I was going to use Jiage to shame Moshang and Qijiu, and I meant it. TALK TO EACH OTHER!!! Shang Qinghua, you need to talk to Mobei-Jun about what you want! Shang Qinghua, you can’t keep putting things on hold because of the plot! 

- 

 No offense to either his sister-in-law or his junior martial brother, but aren’t love stories supposed to be a little more… fiery? 

 “When I was younger, I thought that falling in love was supposed to be all excitement and passion and not being able to live without someone even for a second,” Luo Jiahui admits, a little wistfully. “I thought that it was supposed to be thinking about them all the time, not being able to stay away from each other, and needing to know what they’d been doing every second they were away. It was like becoming a completely different person. I thought that being in love was about one of us getting horribly jealous every time we even talked to someone else, doing things I didn’t really understand and changing myself just to keep him happy, and keeping secrets and sneaking around just to keep things from exploding. Because love is not being able to help yourself like that, right?” 

 Shang Qinghua can’t really manage to speak right now. 

 It’s like someone has cut his fucking throat. 

 Which is fine! 

 “But that ended really badly for me,” Luo Jiahui says, with a nervous huff at her own understatement. “It was very exciting, but looking back, being in that kind of love was also very frightening sometimes… and it was a little lonely too… being in love with someone I couldn’t really talk to or trust.” 

-

AN: This is more specifically vagueing SVSSS Bingqiu than Moshang, but it’s also shaming Moshang too. Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky wrote some extremely messed-up romances and he would have said, “Yes! It’s all super messed-up! That’s kind of the point!” But it also means that the man can’t really conceptualize (at least at first) or articulate the kind of relationship he would actually be happy to have with Mobei-Jun, especially when his relationship with Mobei-Jun had such violent beginnings 

- 

 The first person he tells himself is, weirdly enough, Qi Qingqi. Liu Qingge apparently already told both Liu Mingyan and Luo Fanli before he left, so Shang Qinghua heads over to see how the girls are handling it. (Also, he wants to pump Liu Mingyan for information on her mother’s opinions on weddings and marriage, in a really pathetic attempt to ready himself for the rumble.) He makes her agree to keep the information to herself before telling and she does, like a bro! 

 And then he tells and she laughs in his fucking face! Eventually, she realizes that he’s looking for sympathy, he’s not just here to let her enjoy his suffering, as a form of payment after everything he and Liu Qingge have inflicted on her. Then she laughs at him again, even louder. 

 Sure, he’d laugh too if he was in her shoes! But not to her face! Rude! 

 - 

AN: Qi Qingqi also pointed while laughing, I think. It’s funny because it’s not her dealing with Liu Family shit this time. 

- 

 Shang Qinghua expected, this time last year, to be laser-focused on the plot! His attention was not going to stray even a little bit, he promised himself; he was going to be 110% dedicated to making sure that everyone he tripped into caring about made it through the least shitty version of  Proud Immortal Demon Way  possible. He was going to be a  machine  of a transmigrator! No distractions! All he wanted was for his family to make it through the quickest, least shitty bare bones of a plot! And he was going to  achieve, damn it! 

 Instead, he finds himself planning his sister-in-law’s wedding and it eats up time he didn’t fucking know he had to give. Immortal Alliance Conference, eat your fucking heart out! Cang Qiong Mountain Sect? Did he work there? Nope, he’s never heard of the place! He’s the Peak Lord of wedding planning now! 

- 

AN: This is me telling myself I’m going to get my life 100% together and then getting into a new video game and baking cookies instead. Or ditching my housecleaning plans to hang out with friends at a moment’s notice. 

- 

 At the wedding itself, Fanli tells her sister’s father-in-law that Binghe is also  very into birds and Shang Qinghua’s nephew spends a good chunk of the rest of the celebrations (and his precious time away from Qing Jing Peak) held hostage by his own politeness, listening to his new grandfather earnestly tell him about the various migration habits of demonic birds. 

 Well! Better him than Shang Qinghua, honestly! 

-

AN: Inspired by that time we went on vacation and one of my brothers got mistaken by one of our travelling companions for a budding serious birdwatcher instead of someone who just thinks they’re neat - and also likes to point at them and intentionally call them by the wrong name. 

Also, LQG’s Dad in this fic and SY would probably get along super well. 

LQG and his dad in this universe have gone out on month-long camping trips to in which they pretty much don’t talk the entire time. They stalk monsters through the wilderness and have a great time.

- 

 Shang Qinghua is too busy keeping an eye on Luo Fanli and being  not talked to by Liu Mingyan, who is eighteen-ish years old now he thinks and still deeply embarrassed by the fact that he told her off for her real person fiction. (He doesn’t want to discourage her passion for writing! She’s pretty good for a kid! It’s pretty cute! Everyone needs their escapist hobbies! He just doesn’t want identifying information about his family being spread around freely, even if the characterizations of the couple are… uh… wildly reimagined, and he doesn't want to have to spend his very valuable time keeping a lookout for more illicit fiction.) It’s difficult to read her expression through the ever-present veil, but… yeah, she’s still pissed off at him.

 Ugh, teenagers. 

 Binghe is not allowed to bring several hundred nieces-in-law into Shang Qinghua's life. Just... no. Fuck, no. 

 He doesn’t even get a date to commiserate about this with. 

 It’s a very small wedding, family only (Luo Jiahui’s shitty parents  don’t count  and her older brother was forced to decline the invitation), so that Luo Jiahui and Liu Qingge can keep their privacy. Madam Liu huffed about it - the battles in talking her down were both great and terrible - but her son stood his ground! Sure, people might whine someday about not being invited, but the great thing about Liu Qingge is that they can more or less just say,  “Well, we couldn’t stop him from doing whatever he wanted!”  And people just have to take that unless they want to claim they could take on the Bai Zhan Peak War God! 

- 

AN: Trying to imagine the AU in which SQH brought MBJ as his date to this wedding. SQH would’ve liked to be able to bring MBJ as a date, but alas, they are not dating and the groom would probably try to kill the man. 

- 

 Shang Qinghua is not expecting, soon after returning from his sister-in-law’s happy and long-awaited wedding, to be solemnly informed that Shen Qingqiu’s health has only really deteriorated these past months. Wow, that’s a huge downer. 

 Also, he already knew that? He’s been getting Mu Qingfang all the right supplies to treat their shixiong. He didn’t actually abandon his duties to the sect for a family wedding. He knew that Shen Qingqiu had fallen sufficiently ill to need tending on Qian Cao Peak in the past month and he considered it, well, convenient timing in regards to Binghe’s permission to attend his mother’s wedding not being randomly revoked. Cold-hearted, maybe! But he had lots of other things to worry about at the time, like informing Mobei-Jun that his sister-in-law was getting married and so he’d be regrettably absent to attend the wedding. 

 Then he’s told that Shen Qingqiu is not expected to improve this time. 

  “Oh, shit, they really think he’s dying,” Shang Qinghua realizes. 

 This really wasn’t in  Proud Immortal Demon Way. 

- 

AN: I seriously contemplated cutting this chapter in half because of this mood switch. Like, I went in intending on writing a serious mood switch, but in practice, wow. It felt like a lot more in practice. 

- 

 “Our sect leader asks about the boy and his progress,” Shen Qingqiu rasps, his voice turning more and more accusing. “He’s  so very  concerned about the boy. We can’t have such a beloved child  crying  to his devoted family that he’s been mistreated or neglected, can we? How flattering these assumptions are. It makes a man wonder what exactly people think he’s going to  do to the boy.” 

 Shang Qinghua might have an itemized list somewhere, honestly. 

 “Ah, I can’t speak for anyone else,” Shang Qinghua says finally. “But please don’t take it personally, Shen-Shixiong. I don’t really trust anyone. Anything can happen behind a locked door, you know?” 

 Some honest cynicism can go over well with the man. 

 Shen Qingqiu laughs bitterly now. 

- 

AN: It can be fun in media where Character A is like, “Ahhh, I hope no one discovers my secret!” And Character B is like, “So, about this extremely obvious thing that you’re doing...!” 

Shen Qingqiu is as honest and open as he is throughout this scene because he honestly thinks that he’s dying. He’s determined to be blithe about it. 

- 

Shang Qinghua at least gets to see Mu Qingfang’s face journey as Shen Qingqiu accuses their sect leader of letting him think that he’d left him to die. As Shen Qingqiu yells about being treated like an unwanted ghost, as a potential blackmailer, as an embarrassing disappointment, as a petty troublemaker, as a spoiled child, as a problem to be solved, and as the last blemish on Yue Qingyuan’s reputation - anything but as someone worthy of being trusted with Yue Qingyuan’s problems and of being treated like an equal friend. 

 Yue Qingyuan tries to explain that he didn’t think Shen Qingqiu wanted to hear his excuses, and Shen Qingqiu shoots back that he would rather fucking die than beg the man he’d thought had forgotten about him to explain when exactly he became not worth rescuing as soon as possible. 

 Yue Qingyuan tries to explain that he didn’t want Shen Qingqiu’s pity or to force the man to be grateful that he’d  tried. 

 Shen Qingqiu tells the man to go fuck himself. How could it not hurt for someone he loved to hurt him and then just…  move past the hurt  like the pain wasn’t  who they were? 

 “All the world could revile me… reject me… leave me to die… and I would pay their hatred no heed! What do they truly know of what I am? Of who I am?” Shen Qingqiu demands. “But if  Qi-Ge  could throw me away… decide that I just wasn’t worth the  trouble anymore now that he’d had a taste of a better life… then I really must be wretched beyond all things at the root! If he believed it, then… then it had to be true.” 

- 

AN: Because I just wrote a Qijiu confrontation over this exact thing, like, a few days before, I thought that I could get away with writing out this entire confrontation in full. I think it works better if the audience has to imagine some of it. And because SQH is the POV character, it felt right that he not be in the room and not be a full witness to this scene. He doesn’t get to see everything. 

[wannawritefast]

Whiplash: Ch. 3- Practicing

A/N: Thank you for your kind words, lovelies! I really appreciate you guys engaging with my work.

Pairing: Gwilym Lee! Brian May x Reader

Pt. 2

Warnings: Mild language, alcohol, again... mentions of Stupid Men... fluffy??? kinda???

You and Brian had worked out that you would split the holiday between your families: Christmas with yours and New Year’s with his. Although you had confirmed with your parents and brother that you did, in fact, have a (fake) boyfriend and, yes, you were bringing him for Christmas, that didn’t make you any less nervous. You weren’t entirely certain you could even pull it off.

Brian suggested acting as if the two of you were a couple before you left for holiday. Just so it would be easier to play the part later.

The whole experience gave you metaphorical whiplash. It wasn’t because of any drastic changes in behavior. It was quite the opposite actually.

There wasn’t a massive change in how the two of you interacted. Sure, there was a little more couple-y PDA. But there was no other change in how he addressed you or interacted with you. That was what was most alarming. And, boy, did people buy it…

“Brian, I can’t just buy cereal for dinner.” You tidily placed the box of sugary carbs back on the shelf with a pointed look at the curly-haired man and continued pushing your trolley. Brian followed closely behind but not before plucking the box off of the spot you had placed it on, unbeknownst to you.

Brian underhand tossed the cereal over your head and it landed in the trolley with a clang. You could practically hear the defiance echo through the metal after the brightly colored box cut majestically through the fluorescent lighting. If you weren’t so taken aback, you would have been impressed with the aim.

You halted and immediately looked at your faux boyfriend. There he was, whistling and inspecting another box of cereal with trained attention. You plucked the box out of the trolley and tried to stroll past him but the box slipped out of grasp suddenly.

You whirled around and saw the cereal box in the hand of your favorite curly-haired guitarist. Brian shook it victoriously with a brow raised in challenge and you narrowed your eyes, determined. Oh, if he wanted to play… you could play.

All Brian had to do was hold the box straight in the air while you jumped up desperately trying to reach it. He even taunted you a few times lowering his arm just enough but raising it again when you got close.

“Brian,” you whined exasperatedly. Trying to be angry at him was much too hard when he was chuckling at you with that cocky smile on his face. “Give it back!”

“No way!” He replied. “You’re very cute right now, did you know?”

You rolled your eyes but didn’t relent. And you certainly didn’t let him see the blush spreading on your face. “I see we’re trying to charm our way out of trouble again.”

“Ah, indeed I am,” Brian affirmed with a cheeky smile. You kept hopping up to reach it. You would have to work smarter not harder. “Is it working?”

You huffed a few times, beginning to tire, and blew a strand of hair out of your face and ceased all jumping. He cocked his head in confusion and you pressed a peck to his cheek. Now it was his turn to be stunned. 

Brian’s guard was down and you swiftly pulled the cereal box out of his hand. While he was still in shock you tucked the box into your torso and moved to run back to the spot where you had found it, not unlike a rugby player.

You made it about half way there before long arms locked around yours and stopped you. You squealed in surprise and Brian spun you around dramatically from behind. The cereal remained in your vice-like grip but Brian wasn’t letting go any time soon either. His laugh was right next to your ear and yours joined in.

“You kids are so cute.” A brittle voice sounded from behind you.

You and Brian immediately halted your antics, unraveling yourselves, and stood stiffly next to each other like two kids who had been caught red-handed. Your arm swung the cereal box roughly into Brian’s chest and he grunted. You blurted out an apology.

“No, don’t stop on my account.” An older woman shakily supported herself on her trolley. Her hair was white and her knuckles were knobby and her back was hunched but she smiled sweetly at the two of you.

“I remember when my Harold and I were that young,” she rasped. The woman put her hand on the middle of her chest. You giggled sheepishly to diffuse the awkwardness. “It seems like just yesterday that we-”

“Marianne!” An older man yelled a little too loudly from the end of the aisle.

“I’m right here,” she answered. Harold hobbled over to where she was and put two boxes of chocolate biscuits in the trolley. “Harold, we have biscuits at home, luv.”

“But not the good kind,” he groused.

“We bought them yesterday, darling,” Marianne explained. “They’re blueberry. We only bought them because you said you wanted them. I don't even like blueberry.”

“Well, I changed my mind. I want chocolate biscuits now.”

Marianne rolled her eyes. “You do this every time. It’s wasteful. We’re not getting the biscuits.” She began waddling away still muttering to herself with the trolley after placing the biscuits on the shelf next to her.

Harold watched her with a frown on his face. After making sure that she was no longer paying attention to him, he mischievously put a finger to his lips and shushed you and Brian. You put a hand over your mouth to stifle your laughter. He grabbed the boxes off of the shelf and marched slowly but surely after her.

“My God…” Brian muttered after Harold was out of earshot. “It’s like looking in a mirror.”

You hiccuped on your laughter as you watched Marianne scold Harold from the other end of the aisle. “You think so?” You asked.

He hummed contemplatively. “I’m about 80% certain.”

“Only 80%?”

“Yeah, I figure if you don’t murder me before we reach that age, I’ll actually outlive you.”

“Oh, really,” you laughed. “And why would I commit such a heinous act?”

“Because of this.” Before you had a chance to stop him, Brian took his arm and scooped approximately seven boxes of that godforsaken cereal from earlier into his chest and shot toward the basket. He dumped the boxes haphazardly into the trolley and began pushing it away like a mad man.

He made it to end of the aisle and made sure you saw him drift the cart as he turned into the next aisle.

A child… You were fake dating an actual child.

[{...}]

The following weekend your sister came into the city to visit you. When she had originally planned to visit you, you had been sans fake boyfriend. But since you had made the arrangement with Brian, she was much more excited than she had been initially.

Donna took to temporarily living in your flat with extreme comfort. Your cat certainly enjoyed having another person around to dote on him and you certainly enjoyed having someone else to talk to. Brian was a great friend, er, fake boyfriend but it was nice to have another friendly face around.

Having your sister over meant showing her how you lived and taking her to the places that you usually went and that included seeing Queen play a gig.

With an ale in hand, you headed backstage little sister in tow. The people guarding the doors knew you by name and let you pass. Following intuitively the layout of how most pub stages worked (you had been to plenty of Brian’s gigs before to understand) you navigated your way to where the band was backstage. 

“Hey,” you bumped Brian with your shoulder who was turned around, tuning his red guitar.

Brian immediately smiled upon recognizing you. Instead of greeting you with a side hug, he took the mug out of your hand with a ‘for me?’ and began chugging it.

“Hey!” You scolded. You grabbed at your mug but by the time you got your fingers around it, half of your ale was gone.

“That was really good, thank you!”

You kept a tight grip on your mug in case he was getting any ideas about continuing his antics. “I asked if you wanted one!”

“I changed my mind.” He shrugged. “Plus, it tastes better when it’s yours.”

“So you just decided to drink my mug half-empty?!”

“I prefer to look at it as half-full,” a smile spread across his face. Cocky bastard. You batted your palm toward his shoulder and he laughed gleefully at your reaction. Brian caught your wrist mid-swing and halted your assault. You paused standing as still as Brian was.

“If you wanted me to grab you one, you should have told me,” you spoke gently, suddenly calm for some odd reason. “I offered to get you one.”

He still had his hand on your wrist. It wasn’t tight but the contact was there.

“I might take you up on that after the show,” Brian contemplated. He slid his hand down to hold yours and swung your arm playfully. “Thank you for letting me have some of your drink-”

“I didn’t really have much choice in the matter.” The lights on stage slowly turned on.

Someone cleared their throat next to you and you suddenly remembered that your sister was, in fact, present as well. Brian let go of your hand gently and turned to face her.

“Donna,” she supplied with an extended hand. Brian shook her hand firmly with a smile.

“Brian,” he answered politely, “it’s nice to finally put a face to the great ‘Donna.’”

“Likewise. My sister and I don’t get to meet up often but when we do, she does NOT shut up about you,” she looked at you with a giggle.

Your sister really loved digging you into holes, didn’t she? You gave her a pointed look. The realization of her lack of filter dawned on her suddenly.

“Not that she doesn’t talk about other things! She talks about you a normal amount. Definitely not obsessively or anything like that!” She rushed out her words in a poor attempt to fix what she had said. Donna smiled at you like she had smoothed everything over.

“Please make me sound more creepy, Donna.” You iterated through gritted teeth.

Brian chuckled. “Aw, you couldn’t be creepy if you tried.”

“Thank you, Brian.”

“Maybe a tad pathetic,” he joked with a grin. “A little sad, perhaps.”

“Yeah?” You lightly smacked his arm. He laughed in response. “Keep talking, poodle.”

Roger jogged up to the two of you. “Hey, Y/n,” he greeted with a charming look. The drummer clapped his friend on the shoulder. “We’re about to go on.” Roger suddenly noticed Donna next to you and turned up the charm. “Hello there. I’m Roger.” He extended his hand toward hers.

Donna smiled back at him and grasped his hand as she introduced herself. “You must be the drummer.”

“You’re a smart girl, how’d you know?”

“You’ve got drumsticks sticking out of your pocket.” She explained. “I have good eyes.”

“They’re beautiful, too.”

You rolled your eyes and groaned. But neither your sister nor Roger heard you. Your sister giggled and twirled the end of her hair around her finger.

Not this… anything but this… 

Brian chuckled and put an arm over your shoulders. He rubbed the side of your arm. The body of his guitar lightly rested against your side.

“I’d be more than happy to give you some private drumming lessons after the set.” Roger took the drumsticks out of his pocket and twirled one of them skillfully in his fingers. “How’s that sound?”

Before she could get another word out you interjected, “Yeah, that’s not happening. Turn it around and march it away, Rog.”

Roger faced you with a scoff. “But-”

“Did I stutter? Move it along, casanova.”

“Y/n!” Your sister scolded incredulously.

But you didn’t pull your gaze from Roger. You narrowed your eyes at him as he defiantly pressed his lips together. “Fine.” Roger stalked away.

“Are you kidding me, Y/n?!” you sister asked. “He was cute.”

“He does this with literally every girl, Donna.”

“Whatever.”

Brian turned back to directly face you and pulled his arm from your shoulder. “Anyways, I’ll take you up on that drink offer after the show, darling.”

If trying to repress your blush from his pet name wasn’t enough, he grabbed your open hand suddenly, pressed an exaggerated kiss to the back of it, and let it drop to your side. Brian walked to the huddle, leaving you dumbstruck with a half-finished mug of ale and an irritated younger sister.

It took you a moment to come back to reality and go back into the fray to watch the show.

[{...}]

The set ran unbelievably smooth. But to be fair, they usually played without any noticeable mistakes.

As per routine, you went out with the band to get drinks and you did, in fact, buy Brian a drink. He claimed to have been joking but you still got him a mug of ale.

The two of you together waited for the round that you were covering at the bar.

“How was the set?” Brian asked, leaning sideways against the bar and facing you.

“Horrible,” you sighed exaggeratedly. Brian’s eyebrows shot up. “I’m kidding. It was wonderful as usual.” You patted his cheek affectionately. He gnashed his teeth at your hand as you pulled it away.

He glanced over his shoulder at the table where the rest of the band, Mary, your sister, and a groupie were sitting. Your eyes followed his quick glance.

“And what’d your sister think?” He asked.

“Still a little cross at me for preventing the Roger situation. She’ll get over it by the morning though and-”

Brian cut you off. He turned back to you, looking down and fiddling with his fingers. “No, darling. Not about Roger. What’d she think of the music? Me?”

You smiled at Brian. He was nervous. There was certainly no need to be. “Donna loves you, Brian. And she loves Queen.”

“Really?” He questioned. “You’re not just saying that? I want to make a good first impression.”

“No,” you exclaimed assuredly. You grabbed hold of his hand. “She’s really impressed with you guys.” Brian let out a casual sigh of relief, feigning no big deal, but you knew better. “It’s impossible for people not to like you, Bri. What are you so worried about?”

Brian inhaled like he was going to speak but the bartender set down mugs on the counter for you to take. Only half of the round. You asked Brian to wait for the other half of the order and you walked to the table with the first half only to find your sister and Roger heatedly arguing. Freddie was leaned against Mary in amusement and John was fiddling with his wallet in his hands as if this was a common occurrence.

“Are you joking?!” Roger exclaimed. “Have you seen the way they look at each other?”

“I think I know my sister. Now pull your head out of your ass before I kick something else in that region, prat.”

“I know Brian.” Roger iterated. “I’m not a dimwit like you.”

“Perhaps your drums have affected your hearing so I’ll say it slower and louder,” Donna leaned forward exaggeratedly and Roger rolled his eyes angrily as the groupie sat back with her arms crossed, simultaneously irritated by the lack of attention and overwhelmed by the anger. “BRIAN. AND. MY. SISTER. ARE NOT DATING. Okay. Do I need to write it down for you too?!”

“No!-”

“Good!” She brought her mug of ale to her lips. “Its not like you’d be able to read it anyways.”

Roger weakly mocked her by leaning forward childishly and imitating her voice before retorting. “You don’t see what we see on a regular basis. You’re just visiting.”

“I’m her sister, you wanker! She tells me everything.”

Brian appeared next to you with the mugs in hand. You had been frozen to the spot in shock and amusement of the situation. “What did I miss?” He asked from the corner of his mouth.

“Look! They’re right here,” Donna turned to you and gestured her arm at you. “Why don’t we ask them, hmm? Are you or are you not dating?”

You and Brian looked at each other momentarily before beginning to stammer.

“Well, technically-”

“-it’s for a challenge with-”

“-and we’re staying the holidays with each others’ families-”

Roger halted the two of you assertively. “Wait, so you are?”

“No…” Brian’s voice went high in consideration. “Not technically.”

“How do you mean?”

You handed out the mugs as Brian and you explained what was going on. You both sat down in the booth with you in between him and your sister; Brian rested his arm on the top of the booth behind your shoulders as you leaned comfortably against his side. Roger sat scrutinizing the backstory and the explanation.

“Let me get this straight,” Roger shifted in his seat and gestured to you and the guitarist, “The two of you are fake dating over the holidays because your brother,-” he switched to gesture between you and your sister “-amongst other male members of your family, is a pillock who won’t leave you alone unless you’re dating someone even though you’re more than adequate without a boyfriend. No offense, Bri.”

“None taken,” Brian shrugged and took a drink from his beer.

“Did I get it right?”

You and Donna looked at each other for a moment before nodding at each other. You turned to Roger. “Yep.”

Roger, with his sunglasses on, nodded at you and Brian for a moment and finally put his arm around the groupie. “Yeah, and what‘re the two of you going to do once the holidays are over?”

You were taken aback for a moment. Brian and you suddenly looked at each other, both startled. You stopped leaning on him. Neither of you had considered what would happen after the holidays.

Brian scratched the back of his head and took a swig of his beer before answering, “Well, I suppose we go back to normal. Being friends. All that.” He took another swig of his beer.

You hummed in agreement and took a big gulp of the alcohol in front of you. “Yeah. We’ll go back to how it was before this arrangement or whatever you want to call it.”

Donna scoffed to herself. “Have you met our family? If Brian comes out alive, he certainly won’t come back normal.”

“He’ll be fine. They deal with crazy fans every weekend. It’ll be a walk in the park.” You leaned into his side again. 

“What if it doesn’t work,” Mary inquired sweetly. “I mean, I hope it does for your sake but on the off chance it doesn’t…”

“It just has to.” You answered with a shrug. “I have faith in us.” Brian brought his arm down to rest on your shoulders and he rubbed your arm.

“Well, what if it does work?” The blonde drummer asked. You cocked your head in confusion. 

“How do you mean?”

“What if it works a little too well and they end up really liking him? What are you going to do next year?” Roger asked. 

John spoke up too. “Yeah, what are you going to say if they ask about him again and want him to visit with you?”

You were beginning to panic. There was so much you hadn’t thought about. “I’m just trying to get through this year’s holidays. We’ll worry about the rest later.” You polished off the rest of your drink. You needed to get away from the table suddenly; the urge to vomit was bubbling in your chest. You put on a polite smile. “I need to use the loo. Anyone coming with me? Donna? Mary?”

Brian slid off the bench to let you out and you briskly began walking to the restrooms with Mary and Donna in tow.

You threw the door open and took pacing steps. “What have I gotten myself into?” Donna and Mary stepped into the bathroom, watching your distress. “Roger was right. I didn’t think this through at all. My god, what have I done? What if this doesn’t work? What if James doesn’t believe me? Or Dad? Or Granddad?”

“Hey…” Donna began. But you were too wrapped up in your thoughts. You fiddled with the ends of your hair.

“Oh goodness, what if this does work?! What if they want to keep seeing him? We can’t fake date forever! Brian has a life ahead of him. He doesn’t need to waste time on helping me with my stupid family.” You froze in your tracks as your stomach dropped. “What if Brian and I aren’t friends after this?” 

Out of all of the logistical worries and stresses, there was nothing more terrifying than not having Brian in your life. You couldn't bear it if you ruined the friendship between the two of you.

“You’re worrying over nothing, dear,” Mary urged. She stepped forward and pulled you into a warm hug. “One thing at a time, remember? Just like you said at the table.”

You nodded and took a deep breath. Mary was right.

Your stomach lurched suddenly. You ran to the nearest bathroom stall and emptied your alcohol-filled stomach. You’d had quite a few beers since the evening began, even before Queen’s set. Maybe your nerves had been a result of your drunken state… You were drained all of a sudden.

“I think,” Donna pushed open the stall door behind you, “that’s our cue to leave.”

“God, Donna, I’m sorry.” You clutched your forehead. “I know you don’t want to be dealing with hungover-me when you’re visiting.”

“It’s alright,” your sister grabbed your upper arm and guided you up from the floor. “Let’s go.”

You waddled out of the bathroom with a headache pounding behind your eyes and a dizzying ringing in your ears. The two of you headed to the booth together; the after effects were hitting you hard and fast and you were beginning to wonder if you had a touch of food poisoning. You leaned over the back of the booth with your head hidden in the crook of your arm while Donna grabbed your bags.

“Are you alright,” Brian’s voice asked. Everything was much too loud. The music playing. The people chattering. The drinks clinking. The chairs scraping. Your stomach tossed again but you repressed the reflex with a deep breath. 

You shot a thumbs up to him before quietly saying that you had thrown up. You were feeling seriously under the weather.

You felt a hand on your back, Brian’s. “Let me walk you and Donna home.”

“It’s alright, Brian,” you began. It was worth a shot to not pull Brian away from spending time with the band. Deep down you knew he was going to insist on walking you home; he always did. “I don’t want to stop you from having a good time.”

“I’m not going to take ‘no’ for an answer.” Of course he wasn’t. “You and Donna both have alcohol in your system. No good time is worth your safety on the line,” he spoke gently. You leaned on him as he put his arm under yours to support you upright. “Alright, let’s go.”

“I’ve got our bags,” Donna affirmed gently.

You waved a vague goodbye at the table and there was a hum of ‘goodbyes’ as you left with Brian and Donna.

You arrived clumsily at your flat, to the simultaneous excitement and dismay of your cat. He immediately yelled at you for food after yelling at you in greeting. Brian went to feed him as Donna walked you to your bedroom.

Brian, on many separate occasions, although an animal lover, claimed not to be particularly fond of cats. And just as many times as he had said that he didn’t like them, you had caught him baby talking, petting, and even cradling your cat. Not fond of them, your ass… Brian stood in the doorway with your furry baby draped over his shoulder.

Donna helped you clean your face and tucked you into bed. You apologized to her and Brian once again. They both hummed that it was alright.

“You’re sure?” You asked groggily, already feeling sleep tugging at your consciousness.

“Yes,” Brian answered. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I’ll make it up to you. Both of you, I promise.” You slurred.

“It’s alright.”

“Breakfast tomorrow morning and we’ll call it even,” Donna bargained.

“Deal. To both of you,” you agreed through a yawn. “Okay. I love you both. Good dreams.”

You were so tired that you turned on your side and fell asleep almost immediately. You missed Brian set your cat on the bed. And adjust the blanket over your shoulder. And whisper ‘I love you too’ back.

But Donna didn’t miss it. Not at all.

TAGS:

@phantoms-lynn​ @andtheswordwentsnickersnack​ 

[meatclowntv]

Fallout 4 OC BIO

Desmond

Tw: Mentions Animal violence, a bit of gore, blood, mentions of bulling, mentions of abuse, Mentions of suicide,

Basic Info:

Birth Name: Desmond

Gender: Male

Age(Before the war): 27

Race: Caucasian Human

Sexuality: Pansexual

Religion: N/A

Appearance:

Hair: Originally Pale White due to him being albino, however sometimes(especially when he was younger) dyes his hair black to fit in with a crowd.

Skin Tone: Pale White, this is also due to him being albino...

Eye Color: Red

Scars: Has had a lot of physical scars but most of them have already healed or aren’t than notable but, he does like to stitch his neck for cosmetic reasons to I guess that could count

Height: 5’5

Weight: 119 Ibs

(Current)SPECIAL:

Strength: 4

Perception: 2

Endurance: 9

Charisma: 10

Agility: 6

Luck: 2

Top 5 Favorite Perks:

Cannibal

Big Leagues

Sneak

Intimidation

Bloody Mess

Likes:

His (dead) wife(He doesn’t just like his wife but his wife is one and probably is his favorite person in the whole world and was the only reason he lived for awhile..) Melee Weapons, Meat(sense it’s one of the only things he like to eat), Dogs, The Institute mostly because of his son.

Dislikes:

The BOS, The Railroad, Anything that tastes too sweet, Guns(He just doesn’t like using them in a fight), The Sun due to his skin being sensitive to the sun, Not feeling in control, Showing “unwanted emotions”.

Combat Style:

Style 1:

He Likes to sneak from behind while they aren’t looking and stab them with a knife(preferably the Sacrificial Blade or Pickmans Blade) while they aren’t looking

Style 2:

If Style 1 doesn’t work, he’ll attempt to kill them with absolute brute force and a knife by slicing them or bashing them in the head with a Swatter as much as they can. He doesn’t mind this option though.

Style 3:

If all else fails he’ll basically take a hit of psycho and beat the ever loving life out of the opponent in any way they can, if that means using a Fat Man, so be it. This isn’t his favorite way of fighting, but this will have to do for him.

Strengths:

Creative, Decisive, Determined, Passionate, Slow to Anger, Subtle, Skillful, Sociable

Flaws:

Extremely Private, Perfectionist, Always needs to have a cause, Can burn out easily, Somewhat sensitive, Manipulative, Cryptic, Ruthless, Slightly has a lack of emotions

Backstory:

Сhildhood:

Desmond’s Child hood was absolute hell to be completely honest with you, that’s how he viewed it at least, one overly sensitive and abusive father who always had a gun when he slept, a mother who neglected him every moment unless he was in trouble, his Older brother named Michael, who Desmond viewed as a coward, a pathetic coward that never helped him, and lastly Michael’s dog Rex. He looked so much different from the rest of his family due to him being albino and everyone else being blonde or brunette.. He was bullied somewhat but not a lot. No one really payed any attention to him and viewed him as that one kid who doesn’t like to talk, and that was the case. But he started to grow violent because of the constant neglect and abuse he’d endure when he was at home, this led to taking his violent needs out on small animals like squirrels and insects. One day however, when he was on the swing set of his elementary schools playground, crying, a girl sat next to him and asked him if he was okay. Desmond has never met such a beautiful person before. That’s when their relationship started to flourish. He found out her name was Nora, a blind girl who lived in the rich house down the street. She loved to listen to music. Desmond would alway help her if she needed any help getting around the elementary school or if she needed anything. This would continue onward and even their adult years.

Teen Years:

His Teen years we’re probably his worst yet best years of his life. Unlike his childhood years, his teen years had a lot of good in them to out way the bad parts. When he was in Middle school he was bullied quite more than in elementary school, he was beaten by his peers sometimes and locked in his very own locker, but to everyone’s surprise, he’d still keep that stupid yet creepy smile on his face even when he was bullied at school and harassed at home, this changed when his brother Michael and his “friends” (who are in high school) harassed Nora and pushed her around, but Desmond saw it all, and went to go help her as soon as he could. She told him about how they grab at her and called her horrible names that she didn’t want to say aloud, she stared to weep but Desmond held her tight and told her this wouldn’t happen again. This gave him a sickening plan... In the morning, two days after the incident, Michael woke up to see his dad was off to work as well as his mother, but Rex was no where to be found, he looked everywhere to find no trace of him, until he found his collar on the end of his bed side table, that’s when the stench began to grow from his old play toat that used to be filled toys. He hesitantly opens in, and to his absolute horror, the toat that was once filled with toys, was now filled with the rotting carcass of his beloved dog Rex.. He screamed in frightened horror and shock and that’s when Desmond walked in with that shit eating smile, Michael looked at him and the only thing that could come out of his lips we’re, “did..did you-?”. He pointed at his dog. Desmond responded with a yes and walked away. His parents soon found out and called the cops, but the cops didn’t have any evidence to point it to Desmond, this was because He already got rid of the evidence a long time ago. He got his revenge. This was, however, only one of many of his murders. In high school, Desmond started to dye his hair black to fit in with the others, this is also when Nora and him started getting in to a romantic relationship. This didn’t change the fact he still had his violent tendencies that grew in the passing days, he kept them under wrap sense he didn’t want the only person he truly cared about to leave him. He was liked at school and was some what respected by his peers for not being afraid to tell off a teacher or beat the snot some big jock who didn’t know when to shut up. He was the smartest person in the world and he would get in trouble from time to time, but besides that he was an average student to most of the teachers. In senior year he wanted to celebrate in the biggest way possible, he proposed to Nora when he was signing up to go to the military in which Nora started to cry happily as she nodded in pure excitement. They held each other for awhile. Now for his final step. He planned this for weeks, months and even years! And he finally got it set up, for the grand finale of his fathers life. It was late at night, his mother was out doing something with her gal pals, while her husband was tied to the bed by his most hated son. He successfully drugged his fathers alcohol. His father was stricken in fear, while Desmond started to laugh at him, reminding him in excruciating detail of how much he hurt Desmond, how much he suffered throughout his entire childhood and became “violent” in the process and telling him that this was all his fault he was in this position. His father yelled at him and told Desmond to shut up and to untie him before he’d kill Desmond, in turn, Desmond grabs the pistol from his dads side table in the room and shot him repeatedly in the head until he finally died. He got rid of the evidence, called the police and got the scene all set up. In the end, the police couldn’t blame Desmond for the crime, and blamed it on a drunken suicide attempt the ultimatly succeeded. His mother wept and cried saying it was all Desmond but the cops repeatedly said it couldn’t have been him. Desmond moved out shortly after to live with his future wife Nora in her house while he got ready to go join the military.

Adult Years:

In his adult years Desmond became married to Nora and a soldier in the war, while his wife was doing her job while pregnant with Shaun, his part took awhile to get done with and it got all of the violent feelings out of him, he went back home when he was aloud to and he was ecstatic to find out she was okay and Shaun was to. After Nora gave Birth two days after he felt so over joyed and cried happy tears for the first time in his life. He took really good care of them and did whatever he could to make them happy. He was finally just absolutely happy for the first time in his life with a family he can finally call his own. That all changed when the bombs fell.. He quickly grabbed Nora and Shaun and ran to the vault, not caring about anyone else but them. He couldn’t lose any of them. He just couldn’t. However they made it inside of the vault, he held Nora tightly in his arms like his life depended on it. Nora told him she was okay and told him not to worry, it wasn’t like she was going anywhere anytime soon. They soon grabbed their vault suits and headed to the cryochambers, he gave Shaun and Nora a goodbye hug and hoped that he would be able to see them soon once he was let out of his Cryo Chamber. He did, yes, but not in the way he wanted... As his Cryo Chamber thawed out, he witnessed this strange man start to take his son away, Desmond started banging on the Cryo Chamber he was stuck in, Nora struggled to let Shaun go, but in the end, the man put a bullet in her head. Desmond screamed in agony and started to punch the Cryo Chamber harder, and harder. But then he was frozen again. Once he was let out, not knowing or caring how long it’s been, he rushes to Noras Cryo Chamber and rapidly presses the button, she falls limp onto the floor. He immediately falls to the ground and hold her tightly not wanting to let go, not wanting to believe she was actually dead, the first and only person who gave him happiness who always longed for, gone, dead, he hesitantly let’s go of her, taking the ring off her finger, he kisses her goodbye and promises her he’ll find Shaun, he WILL find Shaun. He clutches the ring growing angry. Not looking back, he walks off to start his rampage across the Commonwealth, and no one will get in his way.

[britishassistant]

Mr. Hale’s Art 301

August— Before Class

7 Months Earlier

Peter needed to remind himself more often that, high schooler or not, Lydia Martin was a force to be reckoned with.

She and the rest of the original Hale-now-McCall pack vowed revenge on him not long after he revived, but all went about it in different ways.

Scott McCall simply punched him in the face and left it at that.

Stiles Stilinski somehow managed to find and break into his apartment and sprinkle crushed wolfsbane into enough garments and towels that Peter was still wary when he was getting ready for the day.

When Allison Argent was alive, she repeatedly left arrows bearing her family sigil in both his home and places he frequented— presumably, like Stiles, to violate his sense of territory and just to show that she could.

Derek just brooded and looked by turns murderous and guilty whenever his uncle was in the room before he left town, though his stint as Alpha could be called punishment enough.

Lydia Martin, however, played the long game.

He still wasn’t quite sure how she’d managed it.

Somehow, despite Peter never sending in his resume or going for an official interview, Lydia Martin had arranged for him to become Beacon Hills Middle School’s new art teacher.

She’d even managed to have a touching, heartfelt story printed on the front page of the Beacon Hills Daily about the miraculously recovered coma patient attempting to give back to the community via imparting his gift to impressionable young minds.

How she’d found out he was capable of art despite all of his portfolios and most of his dissertation research burning in the fire was also a little beyond him, but he digressed.

Scott appeared so moved by the article that any attempts to suggest that Peter wasn’t actually going to take the job resulted in the alpha’s claws and fangs coming out in a way that promised either a maiming or expulsion from the McCall pack entirely.

And Peter had too many irons in too many fires to allow that to happen.

So he’s standing in the front office of Beacon Hills Middle School, contemplating the rictus of existential pain on the face of something he thinks is meant to be a beaver.

It’s one of the better methods that he’s devised so far of blocking out the scent of emerging hormones, social anxiety and too strong body spray belonging to over 300 adolescents that are sleepily beginning to shuffle into the halls of the building.

While waiting to meet the Principal and Assistant Principal of this farce of an educational facility at 6:30 in the fucking morning.

So yes, Lydia Martin needs to have a closer eye kept on her in future.

For the good of man- and werewolf-kind really.

Finally, finally, he’s able to hear a man’s footsteps walking towards where he’s been waiting and politely avoiding the leering gaze of the elderly secretary. For some reason the man’s heartbeat, as choked by cholesterol as it is, sounds vaguely familiar.

“Well, well, well. Long time, no see, Hale.”

A portly man with a large bald spot has swung open the door and stands there with his hands on his hips as though he’s in some kind of soap opera. He has the beginnings of jowls and a shiny badge with the words ‘Assistant Principal’ on it that smells like it’s recently been polished. He’s also got a look of cocksure smugness on his face that seems out of place for some reason—

Peter’s mind supplies an image of a gangly teenager with overlarge glasses, a perpetually resentful expression, one ill-fated month with a fedora, and several pathetic attempts at a beard.

“Tommy!” Peter exclaims, smothering as much delight into his tone as he possibly can. It’s galling that he has to work for this sniveling toad, but he’ll be dammed if he lets the scum of his high school know it. “It’s been ages since we graduated, how have you been? You seem to have done well for yourself.”

Tommy’s face drops into the nostalgic expression of sour resentment that Peter so fondly remembers. “It’s Assistant Principal Thorne to you, Hale.”

He turns sharply on his heel. “You’re late— not a promising start. Follow me.”

‘Because you kept me standing out here for 30 minutes while you primped for your grand entrance, you miserable tapeworm.’ Peter thinks, but does not say, plastering on his widest devil-may-care smile on his face instead.

Memory serves him well despite his brief sojourn into the great beyond, because Thorne’s face twists further in response before he feebly tries to not look like he loathes Peter’s guts.

He is lead into a warren of corridors that end in a door that is marginally nicer than the others, with the plaque ‘Principal Melinda Johnson’ on it.

Thorne knocks on it, and opens it when a pleasant female voice bids they enter.

The Principal is a professional, pleasant woman with cropped hair and prominently displayed family and wedding photos on her desk. She looks him in the eye when shaking his hand and tells him honestly that she is honored to have him on board her staff, without a whiff of arousal to be found in her scent to Peter’s subtle relief.

She is clearly more used to dealing with the administrative affairs of the school as her speech about her school and students makes it evident that she is laboring under the slightly misguided assumption that her successes as a parent have translated to successes as an educator.

Thorne continually shoots his boss dark glances that were overlaid with the warring stink of contempt and arousal.

Peter kept a disgusted snort to himself. The toad really hadn’t changed since high school. He’d been like that around Talia, loathing her for her position as Student Body President and objectifying her in the same breath.

It was one of Peter’s most cherished memories, watching his sister casually verbally tear the covetous little bastard a new one when he tried to suggest that she was somehow unsuitable for her position due to her “womanly concerns”.

It was just a shame she’d shot down his suggestions to tear Thorne’s gaseous black sedan a new one as well.

“And once again, Mr. Hale, may-I-say that your decision to come in so early for your new position shows remarkable promise for your future teaching career.” Principal Johnson enthuses, oblivious to the mutinous glares of her subordinate.

“Early, ma’am?” Peter inquires pleasantly, feeling the prickles of both righteous outrage and not-quite-so righteous homicidal urges at the sight of Thorne’s now sickly grinning face.

“Oh? Well, I thought Mr. Thorne had sent you the package that outlined the time slot for your class this year–1:30, wasn’t it Mr. Thorne?”

“12:30, Principal Johnson, just before A-lunch.” Thorne replies in a tone that does very little to disguise how smug he sounds.

Peter needs to clench his hands slightly to force his claws back in.

Don’t rip his throat out now. It’s too quick. Too painless. Wait until McCall’s pack is suitably weakened, then tear apart this farce of an educational facility while the toad whimpers, and string his guts from the rubble.

Maybe total his car beforehand just to rub salt in the wound.

Peter smiles sheepishly, making sure none of his intentions for the school or certain members of its incompetent staff are visible. “Unfortunately, my apartment’s mail system is a bit byzantine; it wouldn’t surprise me if one of my neighbors ended up with my packet and forgot to return it to me.”

“Oh dear! Well, I’m sure Mr. Thorne can easily print you off another copy, can’t you, Mr. Thorne?”

“Mr. Thorne” curls his lip and then attempts to straighten his expression into a genial smile at the small frown that flits across Principal Johnson’s face.

Peter keeps his look of boyish, charming innocence, and begins to plot exactly how he can have the assistant principal removed from office, and maybe even from the great state of California.

He’s got to amuse himself somehow during this torment, after all.

Peter wishes he’d been able to go home and at least nap for one of the six hours between his meeting with the principal and when he was due to start his class.

But no. Assistant Principal Thorne decided it was imperative for him to meet every member of the faculty that the school building had to offer.

After the third lunch lady and the fourth janitor, the adults began to blur together into an amorphous mass of names, ink and stress-soaked scents, and awful, awful fashion sense.

Really, Peter should be commended on his self-control for not ripping out Thorne’s throat in the boys’ locker rooms then dragging the body outside to claim that it was a random vicious mountain lion attack.

But he digresses.

A couple do stand out.

The gym teacher—Brody or something— who starts out acting like he belongs on McCall’s high school lacrosse team, before breaking down in hysterics over his ex-wife and children. The long-suffering faces of his students suggest that this isn’t an uncommon occurrence.

The mathematics teacher— a Ms. McGrath—who reeks unpleasantly of resentment and poorly concealed fear. She is in the Derek Hale School of trying to control people via shouting and threats, though hers are more geared towards grades than bodily harm.

The english teacher— Mr. Joshua Nord— is a name Peter takes the trouble to remember simply because he appears to be the least afraid of his own students. He could be tolerable company or the one most likely to stand up to Peter if he gets bored and decides to make his own fun.

By the time 12:00 rolls around, Peter already feels exhausted. He hasn’t even had to deal with any of the actual children yet.

He was suddenly very glad for Principal Johnson’s insistence that he only hold one small class this year, as though exposure to too many middle schoolers at once would send him back into a coma.

Still, at least the scents of paints, inks and clay was familiar enough that it loosens something in Peter’s chest a little.

Funny, the things you don’t realize you miss until they’re suddenly returned to you.

He decides to peruse the back rooms, see exactly what he’ll be working with and how much he’ll need to compensate for budget limitations.

It’s mostly cheap paints, crayola color pencils, crayons, markers, a few sharpies, and some watered-down india ink, but at least there’s a decent set of lino blocks, some traditionally “craft” materials, and several air-sealed bags of clay that make him grin in anticipation.

A pair of small footsteps approach his classroom, and the door creaks open.

Peter contemplates emerging, but none of his students should be here yet. The footsteps that creep into the room are cautious, hesitant, ready to turn and run at any moment.

There’s a couple of high-pitched whispers of “It’ll be on the desk!” and “Quickly, quickly!” and Peter shifts so that he’ll be able to spy on the intruders into his territory through the glass window in the back room door.

The brown hair that rests on the child’s shoulders reminds Peter of a beagle’s floppy ears. The bags under her eyes (it’s usually a her with that sort of hairstyle) only furthers the similarities as she looks around wide-eyed on her twitchy, overly-cautious journey to his desk, clutching a brightly colored piece of plastic.

There’s a scent of heavily applied makeup emanating from near the door, combined with high-pitched snickering, suggests that her lookout is most likely a girl as well.

The child finally gets to his desk, and Peter rolls his eyes at the sound of rustling papers.

Really, how does this child ever sneak anything past her parents or older relatives? It’s almost cartoonish how obvious she is— she makes Stilinski at his most discombobulated seem subtle and discrete.

There’s a soft scratching sound, and the scent of graphite. So a basic graffiti prank then. He hopes she at least does something more creative than a simple penis. Though it could make for a good first critique project...

The acrid burst of Sharpie ink gives him pause. Well, either she’s going above and beyond in the call of duty or, as the repetitive sound of the mark making suggests, she’s looking more to conceal something than to add.

Peter’s lips curl into a slow smirk.

The pencil scratches a few more times against the paper before the girl loses her nerve and barrels back towards the door of the classroom, bumping into her lookout, and the two sets of footsteps pound off down the hall, nervous giggles floating in their wake.

Peter lets himself out of the back room, and rearranges the freshly photocopied syllabi and scattered codes of conduct. He pauses to take in the results of the intruder’s meddling.

The smirk widens.

This promises to be interesting.

[kalluun-patangaroa]

Waking up to a new morning...

The Observer, Sunday 15 September 2002

Written by Amy Raphael

After the booze, coke, crack and smack, Suede's Brett Anderson is back in the land of the living with renewed optimism and a new album 

Brett Anderson grew up hanging around car parks, drinking lukewarm cans of Special Brew and taking acid. Occasionally, he caught the train from Hayward's Heath to Brighton, less than half an hour away, but still a world away. He would buy punk records and, perhaps, a Nagasaki Nightmare patch to sew on to his red ski jacket.

His mother, who died in 1989, was an aspiring artist; his father was mostly unemployed and obsessed with classical music. He wanted his son to be a classical pianist, but Brett had other ideas. Lost in suburban adolescence, he was drawn to the Smiths, to Morrissey's melancholic lyrics, his eccentric persona. He wanted to be a pop star; he would be a pop star. He had no doubt.

Anderson moved to London in the late 1980s, living in a small flat in Notting Hill. He studied architecture at the London School of Economics, but only while he got a band together. Here he met Justine Frischmann and, with old school friend Mat Osman, formed Suede in the early Nineties as an antidote to grunge and anodyne pop.

Anderson borrowed Bowie's Seventies glamour and a little of his Anthony Newley-style vocals. He looked to the Walker Brothers's extravagant, string-laden productions and appropriated Mick Jagger's sexual flamboyance for his stage show. Yet Suede were totally original, unlike anything else at the time. Dressed in secondhand suits and with casually held cigarettes as a prop, Anderson wanted to write pop songs with an edge; sleazy, druggy, urban vignettes which would sit uncomfortably in the saccharine-tinged charts.

Like his lyrics, Anderson was brash, cocky, confident. He talked of being 'a bisexual man who's never had a homosexual experience', realising it was an interesting quote, even if he knew he would probably always lose his heart to the prettiest of girls.

When I first met him, in the spring of 1993, Suede were enjoying their second year of press hysteria, of being endlessly hailed as the best new band in Britain. Fiddling with his Bryan Ferry fringe, Anderson asserted: 'I am a ridiculous fan of Suede. I do sit at home and listen to us. I do enjoy our music.'

He talked about performing 'Metal Mickey', the band's second single, on Top of the Pops. 'When I was growing up, Top of the Pops was the greatest thing, after tea on a Thursday night... brilliant! You get a ridiculous sense of history doing it. It was a milestone in my life; it somehow validated my life, which is pathetic really.'

By rights, Suede should have been not only the best band in Britain but also the biggest. Yet it did not happen that way. During the recording of the second album, the brilliant Dog Man Star, guitarist Bernard Butler walked out. It was as though Johnny Marr had left the Smiths before completing Meat Is Murder. The band could have given up, but they did not; they went on to make Coming Up, which went straight to the top of the album charts. Then, three years ago, disaster struck during the recording of Suede's fourth album, Head Music. Anderson was in trouble: the pale adolescent who had swigged Special Brew in desolate car parks was now a pop star addicted to crack.

Brett Anderson sits in a battered leather Sixties chair in the living-room of his four- storey west London home sipping a mug of black coffee. He has lived here for three or four years, moving into the street just as Peter Mandelson was moving out. The living-room is immaculate: books, CDs and records are neatly stacked on shelves, probably in alphabetical order.

Anderson's 6ft frame is as angular as ever but more toned than before, the detail of his muscles showing through a tight black T-shirt. Gone is the jumble-sale chic of the early Nineties; he now pops into Harvey Nichols.

He appears to have lost none of his self-assurance but, a decade on from his bold entrance into the world of pop, Anderson has mellowed, grown-up. By his own admission, he is still highly strung and admits he is probably as skinny as a 17-year-old at almost 35 because of nervous energy. But he no longer refuses to listen to new bands in case they are better than Suede; he praises the Streets, the Vines and the Flaming Lips.

This healthy, relaxed person who enjoys the odd mug of strong black coffee is a recent incarnation. At some point in the late Nineties, Anderson lost himself. He became part of one his songs and ended up a drug addict.

He talks about his new regime: swimming, eating well, hardly touching alcohol. No drugs. Did he give everything up at once? 'It was kind of gradual... giving up drugs is a strange thing, because you can't just do it straight away. You stop for a bit then it bleeds into your life again. It takes great willpower to stop suddenly.'

He sighs and looks into the distance. 'I got sick of it really. I felt as though I'd outgrown it. It wasn't something I kept wanting to put myself through and I was turning into an absolute tit. Incapable of having a relationship, incapable of going out and behaving like a normal human being. Constantly paranoid...'

The drug odyssey started with cocaine, but soon it was not enough. 'Cocaine is child's play. After a while, it didn't give me enough of a buzz, so I got into crack. I was a crack addict for ages, I was a smack addict for ages...'

Another deep sigh. 'It's part of my past, really. I'm not far enough away to be talking about it. It's only recently I've been able to say the word "crack".'

When Head Music was being recorded, he says he wasn't really there. He would turn up but his mind was not focused. The album went to number one but it was not up to Suede's standards; as Anderson acknowledges, it was 'flashy, bombastic; an extreme version of the band'.

He laughs, happier to talk about the good times. 'Last year, when I decided not to destroy myself any more, I kind of disappeared off to the countryside with a huge amount of books, a guitar and a typewriter... and wondered what the outcome would be.'

He spent six months alone. It was a revelation to discover that he could spend time by himself. 'I think a lot of people are shit scared of being on their own. Me too. From the age of 14 to 30, I jumped from bed to bed in fear of being alone. Being in the cottage in the middle in Surrey, I learned that if one day everything fucks up, I could actually go and live on my own. It's a total option.'

For a long time, Anderson had avoided reading books, worried that his lyric writing would be affected by other people's use of language. Last year, he decided it was time to fill his head with some new information. Although he had been told for years that his imagery was reminiscent of J.G. Ballard, he read the author for the first time in the cottage - and was flattered. He read Ian McEwan's back catalogue and challenging books such as Michel Houellebecq's Atomised.

Despite his self-imposed exile, it still took Anderson a long time to perfect Suede's fifth album, the self-consciously celebratory A New Morning. The band tried to make an 'electronic folk' album by working with producer Tony Hoffer, who had impressed with his work on Beck's Midnight Vultures. However, unable to make an understated album, they eventually called in their old friend Stephen Street, the Smiths producer.

Yet more trouble was ahead. Anderson says Suede have faced many 'big dramas' over the past decade - Frischmann left the band early on to form Elastica and soon after ended her relationship with Anderson, moving in with Britpop's golden boy, Damon Albarn; Bernard Butler walked out with little warning; the drugs took control - but still the band were not prepared for keyboard player Neil Codling's exit. He was forced to leave in the middle of recording A New Morning suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome.

Anderson says he was furious when Codling left.'He couldn't help it, I know, but I did feel aggrieved. I felt let down. But more at the universe than at Neil. I tend not to show how I feel about these things in public. It's like when Bernard first left, I was devastated. I felt as though that original line-up was really special. And we will never know what might have been.'

At times, Anderson sounds as though he has had an epiphany in the past year. He smiles. 'Well, you only need to listen to A New Morning to realise that. The title is very much a metaphor. It's a very optimistic record; the first single is called "Positivity", for God's sake. It's a talismanic song for the album. It's a good pop single, but we've haven't gone for a Disney kitsch, happy, clappy, neon thing.'

He looks serious for a moment. 'For me, the album is about the sense that you can only experience real happiness if you've experienced real sadness.'

Has he had therapy? His whole body shakes with a strange, high-pitched laughter. 'No! No! But I am happier now. I feel more comfortable with myself. I feel as though I'm due some happiness. I've just started going out with someone I really like. I've made an album which is intimate and warm. I don't any more have the need to be talked about constantly, that adolescent need for constant pampering...'

A swig of the lukewarm coffee and a wry smile. 'And, best of all, I don't feel like a troubled, paranoid tit any more.'

A New Morning is released on 30 September

[treatian]

The Chronicles of the Dark One:  The Dark Curse

Chapter 16:  The Deal that Never Was

The deed was done far before dawn's earliest light; there wasn't a doubt about that in his mind. The deal was done. Jethero was dead. When his body finally was found, there would be no denying it was not Alexandra who killed him, and by all accounts, he should be well on his way to picking up the rest of his tea set by now. Actually, by the time the sun rose, he acknowledged that he should have picked up his tea set hours ago and be home studying it by now trying to identify it's importance in the future. But there he sat, still up in the trees looking down at the barn, unmoving, just like he had been all night.

He told himself that it was just to be sure, to make absolutely positive that Jethero was dead, but the truth was he didn't need to see the carnage to know and it wasn't what he was waiting for. What he was really waiting for was-

That.

For nearly as soon as the sun rose, he heard a scream emerge from that barn, high pitched and blood-curdling. But he didn't take any satisfaction from it. In fact, he didn't know why it affected him quite the way it did. Granny had turned him down and he'd resorted to doing what he knew he had to in order to make the deal work, but somehow…her scream rang out in his ears, repeating over and over again. His heart was hard these days. He had very few cares in the world and yet this Granny, this…girl-she had found one of those soft spots. And in the night, the idea of walking off and leaving her to this alone had seemed wrong in a way that the murder of Jethero had not.

In the middle of the night, after the screams of Jethero had given way to nothing but the sounds of ripping flesh he'd gone back into the house to send his puppets back to the castle where they belonged and also had grabbed the key Donna had used to lock her away with. Now, though he was two dozen feet up in the air at least, he easily slid off of the branch he sat on and the next minute was safely on the ground. At the door of the barn, he heard no motion, no tugging or pulling on the chain that bound her, only the sound of weeping. Weeping…from this woman...it sounded as silly as saying she was bleating! And yet, when he finally removed the spell he'd placed on the barn door and opened it, he saw that he wasn't wrong. She was a huddled mass against the far wall, her head was in her hands, and her body shook from the sobs that came screaming out of her mouth. At least until the barn door opened and the light flooded in.

Scared and afraid were two words he'd never thought would describe this woman, but they were all he could think to use for the look in her eyes as she finally turned her head to look up at the figure before her. A moment later he knew that she was aware of who he was, and she scrambled to her feet.

"You!" she screamed as she looked around the scene in front of her. And what a scene it was too. Now that he let his eyes roam as her own did he could see the bloody pulp of a mess on the ground that was once a man. There was blood on the walls, bloody paw prints on the ground, scratch marks on the wood. Alexandra had truly gotten her wish…Jethero had suffered. And now Granny…

"You…you tricked me!" she cried as she slowly came to the realization of what had happened. "You tricked me into…oh…what have I done?!" She put her hands to her head and sank down against the back wall again as she cried the chains around her clacking and clanging with her movements.

"You've done exactly as I intended," he explained in a low voice, his natural voice. There was no need to toy with her, no need to put on a show. She desired nothing of him now but answers and there was no reason why she shouldn't have them. "You can rest assured, Dearie, that what you've done is squash a pest, a true insect."

She shook her head as her eyes remained focused on the former body. "No one deserves this…"

"He was a philanderer. A swine. And now, thanks to you, there can be no doubt to the authorities that he was not killed by the wife or children he's tormented with his lies and deceit. They'll have enough money to survive the winter and get back on their feet before the wife remarries."

"And what was in it for you?" she demanded finally looking back up at him. Her eyes were red, her face swollen from the tears she'd shed, but he could still see the anger in her, he could hear the bit of it in her tone. "Why did you care about them? What was worth all of that? All of this?!"

Oh, she was a sympathetic sight, that much was certain, but he wasn't stupid enough to fall for those doe eyes no matter how attractive her fire was. She was too good for him, and the answer that she was after wasn't even really clear to him yet, though he doubted she'd find that and acceptable excuse.

"That's my business. It's nothing that concerns you…at least not yet."

"Not yet…" she choked out a laugh that was somewhere between a snort and a sob. "What does that mean?"

In truth, he hadn't known what it meant, not until she'd asked. Not until he told himself that he should go and leave her be and the monster that lived within his own skin rebelled and reminded him what a wonderful tool a creature with her abilities could be! She might look sad and pathetic now, but she was a strong woman underneath it all. Having her on his side could be helpful, at least until he figured out the images and riddles coming into his mind.

"You think yourself a monster-"

"I am a monster!" she bit back, rising to her feet so quickly the chain still tied around her arm rattled. "You may have set out all the ingredients Rumpelstiltskin, but I'm the one that made the cake! I did this! Me! And that makes me a monster!"

He took a few deep breaths. He didn't particularly care for being yelled at or interrupted but given her state, he could excuse it.

"You think yourself a monster, but you are not. Not really. There are many werewolves in our realm, an entire family has lived right under your nose for decades before you came along and you never knew it because they can control themselves. Your troubles come from a lack of control. You fight the wolf inside of you and so it always wins. Accept what you are, and control becomes yours. You'll be naught but an ordinary wolf once a month, not hunted, not a murderer. I can help you come to accept what you are…if you give me the chance."

So that was what it was. He hadn't realized what he'd found so compelling about the woman until this very moment, until he'd begun his temptation, but now he saw it. She was him. Years ago after receiving the Dark Curse. She was who he'd been then when he'd been unwilling to truly embrace his new nature and the fight against it had cost him everything, including Baelfire! He saw himself in her eyes. Along with her potential.

But what he saw didn't matter. All that mattered was what Granny saw when he offered his hand to her. And as she looked quickly between that hand and the bloody scene over his shoulder, he was fairly certain that she didn't see things the way he did.

"No," she stated stepping away the little she could with the chain still attached to her wrist. "No, I won't do that! I won't be the monster you think I am and I will never be indebted to you in any way! I will never, ever, be this…again!"

He knew a desperate soul when he saw one, which meant that despite what she thought, he also recognized a satisfied soul. She meant every word she'd said, and that meant there was no deal to be made. He'd keep her in his sights, watch her grow into the "Granny" he already thought of her as, but this was the last of their transactions. He felt it just as much as he knew it. And before he left, he felt an odd compulsion to do what he'd never done before as the Dark One, magic at no cost…even if he knew it would rebound and make him worse than he was. He simply thought of it as the fulfillment of the deal that never was.

From beneath his own cloak he pulled out the brilliant red one he'd made and originally intended to give to her. He dropped it at her feet the way she had dropped it at his before all this.

"Keep the cloak, Dearie, blame the destruction on the wolf, and leave this place. The realm may never know we ever met. Use it, tell your family a wizard gave it to you, if they ask, put this behind you and live your life as you intended."

Her eyes…she had suck striking eyes. Firm and observant, but at the same time whoever had once said the eyes were the window to the soul must have known her because they were. She didn't say thank you, but he knew that the tears in her eyes were not only tears of anger as well as sadness and pain, but now mingled with tears of gratitude. She'd never say thank you, she wasn't that type of person, but he knew the cloak made all the difference.

His head turned as he began to hear voices outside. Male voices. They smelled blood. The Lucas family had returned from their own dalliances with the full moon. And so he used his magic to leave her there in the barn, the key to her chain still with him. He'd let that woman discover on her own that he'd dropped her into the barn of a wolves just like her. They had a son about her age, and foresight had proven that future generations would someday come in handy. He trusted that, for what he'd seen had already come to pass. No matter what happened from this point on, whenever they encountered one another in the future, he had no doubt theirs would always be a complicated relationship.

[tube-thoughts-blog]

Vol. 10

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

Killer Couples: Toybox Killings *An interstate prostitute escapes from a Truth or Consequences, New Mexico "rape dungeon" after being held hostage by a near retirement park ranger party animal and his much younger but still nearing middle aged yet still a white trash party girl at heart lover and willing accomplice. Oxygen network thrives on this kind of investigative murder porn, but gives mixed signals when the show's main sponsor is Oxygen's previews for a feel good family sitcom featuring Damon Wayans.* either zero or 2 stars

Breaking Greenville: You Are Now Safe *An orange tanned, obnoxious news anchor goes weird on the air and starts having a midlife crisis while talking inappropriately to the viewers about his pending divorce. The same guy brings together his news crew, in his small apt, to give them facial masks and it gets surreal looking at newspeople being reality tv stars buying for fifteen minutes of fame with these strange painted faces. Then, a nerdy meteorologist gives an awkward report from a tornado bunker, followed by a spunky morning reporter trying her hardest to be serious for a story of a church burning. A news veteran, with a walrus mustache, gives the spunky reporter advice, while inhaling a chocolate covered donut, to cover more stories about happy topics like food.* close to 2 1/2 stars

Crossballs, the debate show: Plastic Surgery, Nip-pocalypse *Put a bag over your head, if you must, but don't put a butterfly tattoo on your ankle.* close to 3 stars

The Ben Stiller Show: Season 1 Episode 12 *"There's nothing like being part of the team. That feeling that you're just an insignificant part of a much larger scheme." All for one and one for all. You can't handle the truth or pull the sword from the stone. "Human flesh is the ultimate fun food."* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Look Around You: Ghosts *They're there in their room.* close to 3 stars

Hippies: Muddy Hippies *Pitching a tent with the socialist state, landing in doo doo, and selling out to the bank.* 2 1/2 stars

The Gong Show with Dave Attell: Season 1 Episode 4 *The original Gong Show had acts more absurd and interesting than 20 something hipster nerd that's kind of good at yo yo or stripper catholic school chick lesbo act that's entertaining only at bachelor and frat parties.* running from 1 to close to 2 stars

=== Ghosts Adventures, Aftershocks with Zak Bagans: Zozo

*D-bag Zak puts on a sports jacket over his muscle shirt to give some former haunted people, from the show, a bit of paranormal therapy, Dr. Phil style.

The poor sap on this episode gets hammered with accusations that his conjuring of a demon via a oujia board (available at toy stores and gag gift shops in malls nationwide) led to his ex-wife having an affair with the nasty spirit and to her current stay in jail.

You can't make this stuff up. Oh, wait... you can, and they did, and it's as laughable to watch as it sounds.

Also, and I'm not making this up, there's some kind of contention, that needed to be explained by host and guest, about said lady's crotch odor actually not being her fault and instead was a sulfur smell from the pits of hell.

No kidding.*

1 star

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

---- 12:01 Beyond --- Episode #5 --- Love Is Sex Misspelled ---------

*RKO cartoon - Cupid Gets His Man: An all out Cherub amorous assault on an old maid and an old bachelor.* 2 stars

*Old school, praise-filled promo for the cult classic Dr. Caligari 1989.* 3 stars

*Mr. Lobo sends one out to the lovers who like to "cop a feel."* 2 1/2 stars

*"Eavesdrop on America's darkest secrets." Intimate Secrets "Adults only. $2.00 per minute. Classic sleazy 900 number phone service.* 3 stars

*Ninja the Mission Force - "N" Is For Ninja: "Keep your money in your shoe." and your heart off your pajama sleeve.* close to 3 stars

*Super retro anti-drug cartoon circa late 60s or early 70s from Hanna Barbera.* 3 stars

*Republic Pictures Serials - The Crimson Ghost in Chapt. 5 'Flaming Death': Collision course on a collision course.* 2 stars

*Ballroom Dance Floor (interesting music video inspired by the Great Gatsby.* 2 1/2 stars

*Grindhouse trailer showing an "Oath of Green Blood."* 2 1/2 stars

*Mr. Lobo romances a potted plant.* between 2 and 2 1/2 stars

*A big costume heart shows up and sings to Mr. Lobo and his potted lady.* 2 1/2 stars

*Tom Sizemore in "Bad Love": Tom is Lenny -a lowlife, jealous, pathetic, controlling, abusive, mostly terrible lover/boyfriend to this short-haired city chick, who could do much better but is too dumb to try, in a saxophone and soft piano filled skid row setting softcore sex in the mid 90s romance flick.* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Videotape advertisement for satellite signal descrambler to have "American eXXXtasy" available to all those using a video cipher 2 for only a few hundred bucks. Get all the porn you want, same as an average schmoe in a trucker hat and a plaid shirt.* 3 stars

*A colorized King Kong goes car shopping for a Volkswagen to haul his captive sweetie around in a 1960s or early 70s car advertisement.* close to 3 stars

*Mr. Lobo can't get any privacy or satisfaction from the invasive Heart mascot, a cloud of poisonous urinal cake gas, or a post-apocalyptic plant lady mishap.* 2 stars

*Classic TNT Monstervision theme song, sung by Joe Bob Briggs, intro video where Joe Bob can't get any love from the hot, white trash bimbo TNT "Mail Girl."* 3 stars

*"Red Nightmare": Jack Webb stands on suburban street corners, staring into windows, abducting family men, who won't get in line and act like a good American, sending them to Soviet society where their freedoms are stripped away. Jack Webb is too ignorant to see the irony of his own thoughts and actions.* 1 star

*Superman in "Jungle Drums": "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!" Superman saves Lois from stereotype African savages who are trying to sacrifice her for not spilling top U.S. Navy ship location secrets to the savages' Nazi overlords." 3 stars

*"Women fear being raped, but it's double the fear if it's in outerspace and by aliens." in this grindhouse quality trailer for "Insemenoid."* 3 stars

*Colorful, quirky, scale model filled XXX outerspace adventure with horny space women, Harry Potter look-a-like with his Hogwarts professor sidekick, and overtly gay alien ship's computer voice. "Spaced Out." a grindhouse style trailer.* 3 stars

*"Flesh Gordon Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders" another retro trailer.* 3 stars

*Mr. Lobo is the last man on earth, left to his own devices -licking telephone receivers.* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Zero stars for the annoying voice over lady who complained during everyone of her intros. Was an enhancement the first few episodes of 1201, but for this episode it was a real detraction. Not sure if it was part of the act, or if it was a legitimate show of feelings. Either way, it sucked. Get rid of it, and her, if necessary.*

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

VH1 sneak preview "Hot Grits" *Another insipid reality mess featuring "good looking" people, this time the cast being overprivileged 20 somethings from the southern United States (A number of other cable networks have similar shows. So, it's already a tired premise.) and VH1 really is daring its idiotic viewers to "hate watch" the awful people and antics on this steaming vomit, served in a bowl, excuse for a tv show.* zero stars

Red Letter Media presents Best of the Worst: Blood Debts, The Tomb, and Undefeatable *Generic Charles Bronson with a tiny cannon and a wife named simply "his wife" in the movie's credits, then a Indiana Jones rip off that has nearly zero action... limited stars' screentime... and phone filled exposition, followed finally by a mom jeans karate lady in a universe where everyone knows karate and an eyeball ripping out serial rapist is on the loose.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

American Horror Story - Asylum: Continuum *Communal state of delusion.* 3 stars

Crossballs, the debate show: Hellphones versus Interthreat *Electronic etiquette.* close to 3 stars

Forensic Files: Bitter Potion *Poisoned by Pie. Scratch that. Poisoned by Coca-Cola. Better yet, poisoned by a member of MENSA. A real 'Walter White type' chemist / former meth cook.* 3 stars

Weird Science: Fatal Lisa *"Getting it on (on the hood of a Dodge Viper, which is true love)" with a genie who won't take no for an answer.* 3 stars

Wizards and Warriors: Night of Terror *For the night is long and filled with spiders.* 3 stars

Swamp Thing: The Prometheus Parabola *John Wayne and Arcane have a tech-war shootout showdown.* either 1 or 3 stars

Viper: Firehawk *"Beware the Bandersnatch" Urban assault and compromising situations of a vehicular nature.* either 1 1/2 stars or close to 3 stars

Spicy City: Manos Hands *Redbeans, bongo musica, and bruja? brewha?* close to 3 stars

X Files: Darkness Falls *Pitch black.* 3 stars

Crossballs, the debate show: Mother Earth Bitch *Throwing a live chicken, wearing a jet pack, into the air is not pollution.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Forensic Files: Fatal Fungus *Mold takes hold in the ghetto.* 2 1/2 stars

Gargoyles: Reawakening *Castle and community.* close to 3 stars

Hill Street Blues: Gatorbait *Passive aggressive "Prelude to oblivion."* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Robocop the series: Trouble In Delta City *Strange side effects. Tame violence and hokey characters are just fine when the satire is funny and biting.* close to 3 stars

The Gong Show with Dave Attell: Season 1 episode 5 *This show is so far removed from the spirit of the original Gong Show that it reminds one of a skanky Hard Rock Cafe amateur talent night. Adam Sandler's production company "Happy Madison" is in charge of the show, so that says something about the quality and the reason why this episode featured two unworthy, obnoxious female friends of his who were also "actresses" in one of his terrible movies (Something something Zohan).* 1 1/2 stars

Everything Is Terrible -----------------

*Family Easter Hell!: "Because he lives, we can face tomorrow. Now, here's an egg." A decorated egg.* 3 stars

*Christ Or Die: Too busy to hear about salvation? Think it's nonsense? Boom, comically horrible death without redemption.* 3 stars

*Jesus Has A Big Dick!: #BOING!# "That's right!" Gitty up, little doggie.* 3 stars

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

VH1 Classic --- Pop Up Video --- Episode 3

*Meredith Brooks - "Bitch": A female dog was the first earth creature to orbit in outerspace.* 3 stars with pop ups 2 1/2 stars without pop ups

*Gin Blossoms - "Allison Road": According the the U.S. Census Bureau, you are watching television right now.* 3 plus stars with pop ups 3 stars without pop ups

*Madonna - "Take A Bow": Madonna wanted to get knocked up by Dennis Rodman. True fact. And true that she is as pretentious as this gorgeous 90s artsy music video.* 3 plus stars with pop ups 3 stars without pop ups

*Milli Vanilli - "Girl You Know It's True": The only thing true about Milli Vanilli was they were both lip syncing.* 3 plus stars with pop ups 3 stars (guilty pleasure) without pop ups

*Bobby McFerrin - "Don't Worry, Be Happy": "Happiness is a psychiatric disorder."* 3 plus stars with pop ups 3 stars without pop ups

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

Look Around You: Sulphur *"9 hundred billion, billion, billion, billion matches."* 3 stars

Twitch City: People Who Fight Too Much *"Alleged spontaneous nature of..." dynamics.* 3 stars

Crossballs, the debate show: Voting, Electile Dysfunction *Don't "Rock the Vote!" More people coupon than vote. Voting should be fun like the lottery or the Pepsi Challenge.* 3 stars

The Ben Stiller Show: season 1 episode 13 *"Doomed souls wander the earth, unfit for either Heaven or Hell." Special guest Howie Mandell, and a Jeffersons reunion.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

"Bad Dudes Versus Dragon Ninja" (A Data East arcade game) *In 2015, Islamic terrorists are beheading innocents, Hillary is once again running for the highest office in the land, and a moron lands a gyrocopter on the lawn of the capitol building. In the 1980s, we had a president named "Ronnie" and he was kidnapped by ninjas.* close to 3 stars

"Shaq Fu" (*Brought to us by PEPSI and ego*) *Shaq wanders into an Oriental antiques shop, the kind that would sell a Mogwai to a stupid Westerner. The little old man sends him to retrieve a golden child from an ancient realm where Shaq ventures across what looks like the map from Super Mario World for the SNES and there he beats up voodoo women, cat women, and stereotype Universal style monsters.* 2 stars

Hippies: Disgusting Hippies *Young punks think Simon Pegg's hippie newsletter editor character is a cunt.* 3 stars

Weird Science: Killer Party *"Did you just turn my parents into teenage party animals!?!"* 3 stars

The Greatest American Hero: Reseda Rose *First off, it's crummy being an 80s kid with a flakey parent who won't spend her weekend with a kid at the zoo, 'cause she's too busy with her acting in commercials career. Then The Greatest American Hero breaks Superman's privacy rule by using his x-ray vision powers to peak through walls at a cocktail waitress hogtied by Russian undercover spies.* close to 3 stars

The Gong Show with Dave Attell: Season 1 Episode 6 *More b list celebrities flirting with Las Vegas "rawker" looking skanks and trying way too hard to be edgy talent/comedy routines.* between 1 1/2 and 2 stars

Bob and Margaret: The Dental Convention *Oral hypnotism. Bob's "matter of fact" attitude charms the masses and puts off his smarmy, new age dental clinic dental school classmate at a dental convention in Frankfurt, Germany.* close to 3 stars

Flinch (Vertigo - DC Comics) ------

*Mostly White: Women lose their small child during the insipid panic surrounding a big department store's Christmas rush. Reminds one of a more bleak Storm of the Century by Stephen King.* close to 3 stars

*The Harvester: Surgery of harvesting a deadbeat's organs goes through, even with the moral dilemma of the supposed braindead deadbeat not being dead.* 2 1/2 stars

*Sitter!: A neurotic slacker gets stuck babysitting his thug friend's wrapped in plastic dead stripper girlfriend's body that he shows up at his apartment with.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

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

--- The Ben Stiller Show: Unaired Sketches

*An absurd and kooky wrestling characters battle royale. Ben dresses up like a deformed Ron Perlman and along with Bob Odenkirk and Andy Dick predicts the sad, pathetic lives of what would become "furries" in a mascot competition.

'Hard Edition,' a Hard Copy tabloid tv show parody keeps catching a horny, teenage Andy Dick whacking off to nudey magazines.

Three's Company era Don Knotts portrayed by Andy Dick joins a spandex wearing and lasso swinging Ben Stiller infomercial workout expert and his dominatrix.

Bob Odenkirk is a creepy, conspiracy theorist sitting on a bench in a park rambling about cancer, Dick Clark, Elvis, adult diaper cartels, tainted peanut butter assassinations.*

(I can see why some of these didn't make the cut, but still funny.)

3 stars

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

Crossballs, the debate show: Sex Battle USA *A flamboyant pansexual Matt Besser character gets bitchy with a conservative reverend who believes the sexes should act their sex. A feminist has to explain the 1964 Civil Rights act allowed for women's rights not to be sexually exploited in the workplace. Ha. A business consultant thinks that the WNBA should dress their ladies like the Lingerie Football League so that they'll stop be unsuccessful in the ratings and attendance. A crazy inventor presents a robot vagina for the workplace.* close to 3 stars

Battletoads in Battlemaniacs (SNES) *So we've got an evil sorceress Latoya Jackson look-a-like, a turkey behind a computer terminal, and a jacked up toad zipping its way through hordes of pig-beasts wearing amateur wrestling singlets and viking helmets, raccoons with magnets, moles on checker board pieces all through fast flying obstacles and platform puzzle levels, like one where the toad has to hang on for a ride on the back of two tropical snakes through the holes of their tunnel nest. A rare gem alongside Donkey Kong Country and Rayman.* close to 3 stars

Death Rattle #18 (Kitchen Sink Comix) -------

*Bulto the Cow Camp, Thirty Years Later....: Historical and allegorical tales of ancient deposits of precious minerals sought by 19th century men of manifest destiny with gold and silver twinkling in their beady eyes.* 3 stars

*The Old Wisconsin That I Knew: Musings of an early 20th century bigot thinking back on when he and the white man could exploit and show unpunished cruelty to the red man out in the frontier of Wisconsin. Thanks to nature's natural ways, a cruel fate meets the old bastard in the most bleak and darkly poetic way possible, spilling his guts before his eyes and leaving his bones to be drenched by pounding rains and dried by the menacing sun.* 3 stars

*Small Acts of Revenge: A loner, whose overbearing parents still haunt him from the grave, tries to escape reality into the grotesque world of Tales from the Crypt style comics. That is when he's not being haunted by the gruesome visages of the victims of his wrongfully applied revenge.* close to 3 stars

*When I Grow Up: Kids playing make believe, on a suburban lawn, see a shooting star. A somber girl makes a wish, and strangely they begin aging and acting out the drama of their teenage through adulthood to middle age and death life sorrows.* close to 3 stars

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The Angry Video Game Nerd: Atari Porn *In the early days of videogames, designers were happy just to be able to pixelate  penises, humping, and ejaculating. It was that immature. Take history's tragic a-hole, General Custer, and have him dodging arrows so that he can poke a naked Indian chick tied to a cactus. Have a guy jerking off on top of a building with willing naked bimbos below to catch his falling semen. How bout a topless witch squirting milk to men with their goobers poking out of their pants? Or even a juvenile fantasy of a poorly pixelated naked chick stalking a neighborhood and breaking into houses to hump men in their sleep?* 1 star for the shitty games 3 stars for Nerd enduring the absurdity of it all

Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City (Electronic Arts for Super Nintendo) *When Michael Jordan was the most exciting athlete in the world, he was careful about how he had his image used. He'd play Larry Bird in a ridiculous game of h-o-r-s-e for a Big Mac or Pepsi, and he'd sell overpriced sneakers in an arthouse commercial co-starring and directed by Spike Lee, but you couldn't live out your dreams of being like Mike in basketball videogames like the awesome arcade dunkfest NBA JAM. No. At the time, you could play this game and bounce a basketball around a haunted, flooded, bat infested house / dungeon to platform hop and rescue Michael Jordan's NBA All Star team-mates.* 1 1/2 stars

Look Around You: Music *Don't play the forbidden notes.* 2 1/2 stars

Obscurus Lupa Presents: Pocket Ninja *If you were an 80s or early 90s kid, you were a martial arts spazz. You watched Ninja Turtles, you watched 3 Ninjas (barf), Surf Ninjas (laughs). and you were a threat to kick another kid or adult in the nuts while stupidly attempting karate. This one, Pocket Ninja, is a relic of its time. It's a cheap and direct to video IMDB bottom 100 "movie" featuring poor editing, awful slapstick in place of entertaining chop sockey, bad acting 90s brats, and a lot of taking itself not serious at all while thinking it's funny when it's not.* 2 1/2 stars for Obscurus Lupa's review and 1 star for the movie clips

=== Dead Rising *2006* (All story cutscenes in movie form)

*I'm not here to discuss the sandbox gameplay.

The cutscenes play like any other zombie outbreak flick, and nicely, with the usual mad science government conspiracy gone wrong.

This time with a theme of Americans' insatiable lust for red blooded meat and the abuse of the third world to get it.

Like with their Resident Evil series, Capcom nails the ambiance of a survival horror story with the crawling up on your shoulder sounds and music cues, and the mall setting is a nice homage to Dawn of the Dead.

Expect over the top acting performances from the CGI created stars and voice actors.

But unfortunately like more recent Capcom survival horror games it strays off the path with too big of a narrative scope and not knowing when to stop and what genre to stay in

(zombie wasps, Oriental stereotype psychopath butchers and grocery store managers gone mad, and an ending involving a military jeep battle with a tank commanded by the type of military a-hole like in Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket).

Other than that it fits in nicely with the zombie revival craze of the 2000s.*

2 1/2 stars

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Xenophage, Alien Bloodsport (Story Mode) *A "faces of meth" David Duchovny look-a-like, in a Canadian tuxedo, along with a Gillian Anderson look-a-like, both get abducted by the United Federation of Planets & Hokey Outer Space Martial Arts Tournaments. Nick (Duchovny) is midly disturbed by this. Think Mortal Kombat meets Celebrity Deathmatch levels of uncanny valley faces on the two humans. Of course, these two everyday Joe and Jane pair can hurl energy blasts from the palms of their hands, as requirement by all fighting games. The lizard / insect alien creature designs are at least visually interesting and deserve to belong in a better mid-90s sci fi PC game.* 1 star

River City Ransom (NES) *This game lives up to its name. You pretty much walk along the streets, by a river, in a nice Japanese (posing for American, I guess?) city, getting hit in the back of the head by "student" thugs, with street gang weapons, as you try to rescue your girlfriend from a high ranking crime lord named Slick. Sounds like the plot for many other 80s beat 'em ups / karate movies, and it is. Charming little title with the bite sized NES and cute little Japanese flare, including a bad side of town called "Generic Guy Territory" or something along those lines. And don't worry about the enemies, because our hero has a superfast kick attack that would make Street Fighter's Chun Li's loins quiver.* 2 1/2 stars

"No Exit" (Amiga) *A 2D fighter that looks like it pre-dates both Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. More like Mortal Kombat, though, and a possible influence (?) on the series. It contains small character sprites but they can perform special moves like turning into killer fish and screaming banshee faces. There's even a hilarious finishing move sequence where the loser walks around headless, with the head floating just there, before they collapse into a  pool of blood and electric sparks. The backgrounds are dark and gothic with demonic statues and menacing trees with faces, again like Mortal Kombat. Also there's an intro screen / possible box art with a regular Joe street fighting man set against a dark and gritty cityscape with the 'Satanic-goat-horned' image of what must be the main villain against the background, and that's just pure exploitation goodness for ya.* 2 1/2 stars

Everything Is Terrible: 2 Minute Super Soul Brother *"Doing it" in the name of science (?), money (?), bulletproof skin, mad science midgets, and big tittied blonde women.* 3 stars

Mortal Kombat: Defenders of Stupidity *Kombat krazy white chick special operative in gymnastics attire, untrustorthy ninjas of all kinds of variety, bumbling super computer wizard Native American stereotypes, and a black dude with bionic arms who calls a Thunder God the unflattering insult name of "girlfriend."* 3 stars

Eternal Champions (Sega Genesis) *A 1920s gangster, who knows kung fu, is teleported to a mystical martial arts tournament after his death. Fight against trident wielding mer-men, prehistoric brutes, neo ninja chicks, and cyborg dudes in a colorful Street Fighter 2 clone.* between 2 and 2 1/2 stars

Red Letter Media presents Best of the Worst ---------

*Ghetto Blaster: An urban warfare expert returns to his home city and finds it full of crime. After the convenience store robbery death of his dad and the brutal burning to death of his old black man friend (and his alley cat), the guy decides to take action. Pulling off mildly harmful clown pranks on the goofy acting gang bullies around town.* either 1 star or 2 stars

*Terror In Beverly Hills: "Terrorists have kidnapped the President's daughter and are holding her hostage in the old bean factory." (PfffHAA!) Cue keyboard cat-lady and Frank (totally not Sylvester) Stallone.* either 1 star or between 2 and 2 1/2 stars

*Killing American Style: Elephant Man look-a-like Robert Zadar and his gang of escaped convicts and sex perverts pull off a violent / half assed home invasion "thriller" at the home of a Rico Suave look-a-like and Steven Segal martial arts expert.* either zero stars (uncomfortable family murder / rape), 1 star, or 2 stars

Red Letter Media agrees that Terror In Beverly Hills is Best of the Worst

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

Natsume and Milton Bradley present "Abadox" *Imagine Metroid for the NES, only with monsters ripped from the minds of H.R. Giger and Clive Barker.* 3 stars

"Guardians of the Hood" (Atari Arcade) 1992 *Some Jersey Shore rejects battle their way through a poorly digitized bad side of town filled with hookers and gangbangers and flashing perverts. Cheered on by a haggard looking gym owner similar to Mickey from Rocky. And unconvincingly menaced by a lipstick wearing model in "guy drag." In a tacky twist ending (to go along with the tacky rest of the game), the "Big Boss" (the model) takes off her old school gangster disguise and has a final fight with our steroid muscled and orange tan heroes while she wears dominatrix attire.* 1star

Everything Is Terrible: 3 Minute Bulletproof *Gary Busey invents and overuses the catchphrase "butthorn." Whatever that means.* 3 stars

"Kakuto Chojin" (X-BOX) *In the early 2000s, industrial techno noise & nu-metal guitar riffs were a grating chorus to America's bleeding eardrums, and the same "xtremez" who enjoyed this were likely to take Fight Club literally. This game represents the kind of turn of Y2K, gritty, urban fist to face revivals supposedly going on in back alleys and parking garages across cities nationwide. Gritty, but pretty in the same way Ninja Gaiden could be on the X-Box hardware. And featuring a nice presentation effect of having the camera do a 360 degree slow motion pan around each KO. The most memorable thing about the game is the controversy around one character's Muslim extremist dialogue in the game. This lead to it being pretty much dead on arrival in the American videogame climate of the early days after 9/11.* between 2 and 2 1/2 stars

"JoJo's Bizarre Adventure" (Dreamcast) *Over the top manga presentation style with characters drawn in the same way mannequins' faces are both appealing and appalling. Each fighter fights alongside a spirit / avatar being / creature. It's like the Monty Python cartoon, but creepier, cousin to all the other highly animated 2D Japanese fighting games of the 90s. Funniest moment, that I witnessed, being when a steam-roller gets dropped on a pug sized dog character and the opponent begins pounding the steam-roller, with his fists, as the dog whimpers beneath.* 2 1/2 stars

"Dark Edge" Sega 1992 (Arcade) *Set in a sprite art pixelated and nifty cyberpunk dystopia. Battle it out as leather clad ninja chicks on hoverboards, mech dudes with missiles and flying torpedo dive attacks, biological monsters, another guy in a monkey-fighting-style inspired mech suit, and a final boss that's a techno ghoul nightmare like out of Frank Miller's Ronin. Fighters can move around each other giving the illusion of early 3D gameplay, and featuring the upbeat style of 90s Japanese video game music and bad "Engrish" phrases like "Wound One" instead of round one.* close to 2 1/2 stars

"Strider" Capcom (Arcade) *"All sons of old gods die!" Pretty dramatic, eh? Well, if Emperor Palpatine made a deal with space pirates, Amazon women, and robotic commies you wouldn't need no Jedi, Wonder Woman, Captain America, or Flash Gordon to save the day. Just take one arcade token and about 15 minutes and let a wall climbing ninja do what the galactic rebels couldn't do in a trilogy of movies.* close to 3 stars

Everything Is Terrible: 3 Minute Netforce *'So dated that it's funny' fearmongering about the dangers of global e-terror during the early days of the internet.* 3 stars

---- Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 (Nintendo 64)

*The world of pro wrestling is a niche part of entertainment culture.

Fans watch it for a variety of reasons:

kids who enjoy the heroic action, adults (who never grew up) for a more nostalgic reason, fandom fans who admire the celebrity surrounding the hunky dudes and buxom babes of the sport (er... sports-entertainment), and the internet wrestling community who dissect the current product and the past eras of the product and consider it an artform with varying degrees of level of quality of product and performance.

Well, you can't get more niche than a Japanese version of pro wrestling and a pro wrestling game that was made in the late 90s.

The popular AKI "No Mercy" wrestling engine featuring a legendary wrestler and anime character "Tiger Mask Number 2" and portrayed by a legendary Japanese wrestler (Misawa) who tragically died while performing his "art."

In this game, it's made weirder by the fact the game features a crowd of cardboard cut out Japanese wrestling fans.

Yeah, pro wrestling is niche, and weird, but it's fun, just like this wrestling game featuring great action and a great game engine that's had a lasting appeal of fun gameplay to play or watch for close to two decades.*

3 stars

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

"Buriki One" (SNK) 1999 *Remember that scene in the movie "Lost In Translation" where Bill Murray couldn't get the tone right for his Japanese whiskey commercial? That's sort of what this game is like and that weird period of time when combat sports mayhem was trying to figure out just how to go about what would eventually become mixed martial arts like the UFC. Different styles of throwdown meet here, on the mat, including everything from karate to pro wrestling to low impact elderly ancient Chinese exercise technique (jk). It's interesting, but it works about as well and is almost as boring as the first time these different styles of sport met when boxing clashed with karate in the infamous Ali versus Inoki fight where one challenger, afraid of the other's fists, chose to lie on the ring floor and kick at the other like a scared rabbit.* either 1/2 a star or close to 2 1/2 stars

"3 Count Bout" (SNK) *Superficial and on the surface is a stigma when it comes to video game graphics. As soon as developers could make 3D and fans could get their hands on it, we entered into a trying time. Blocky and often ugly characters replaced sprite animation because it was the new thing. Dreary attempts at 3D environments were as fun to look at as getting about an inch away from a dirty, grey concrete wall and cracking your skull against it. Things have improved from those early days of 3D graphic experimentation, but at the time, I would have rathered stuck with something like this game. An early 1990s arcade button smasher featuring colorful kabuki ninjas throwing big bad Mad Max movie inspired bruisers around & into electrified deathtraps in a cheesy, and dated, --beat'em up-- 'eye candy' grappler.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

---- "Real Bout Fatal Fury Special" --Level 7 Ultra Hard-- (SNK Arcade)

*Playing as a Jacki Chan inspired Hong Kong super-cop wielding a set of nunchaku through a series of scantly clad karate babes, little old sensei who morphs into huge muscle bound badass, and dance fighting dudes from the Caribbean.

Finally beating the purple haired Euro-dictator-themed final boss, one would think that an arcade battler would be done munching one's quarters.

But think again. During the celebrating credits, the music changes to a wind instrumental samurai movie sounding theme and one is transported through a  series of sliding open doors featuring beautiful classic Japanese artwork of feudal warriors.

It stops at a martial arts badass with his back turned towards the camera and standing amidst huge samurai warrior oni statues in a menacingly eerie flame lit dojo.

It's secret final boss, by the name of Geese Howard, who looks like a handsome American corp executive or presidential candidate and is ripped with muscles and decked out in kung fu threads.

The screen reads the bold words "Nightmare," as he precedes to backfist you in the mush and charge up monster truck tire sized energy blasts to pummel and embarass you with and make you feel like a loser, even though you beat the game.

It's cheap, you feel like a klutz, but it's pure unadulterated martial arts tournament cliche movie/game exploitation goodness to the last clud to the floor in agonizing defeat.*

3 stars

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

"Ninja Master's" (SNK/ADK) 1996 *From an artistic eye viewpoint, feudal Japan was one moody place. In this setting, one might witness a lone swordsman standing in a rainstorm with a flash of lightning to reveal ninja assassins creeping up on him, or a samurai sword clash in front of a desolate and overgrown farm overran by crows, then maybe another bloody encounter on a lone pier watched over by a willow tree above other trees in the newly flooded river with mountains in the distance, an honorable duel to the death might come in a cave filled with bats, and moonlit temples often played host to battles with evil samurai overlords like the dreaded Nobunaga and his sentient, burning blade.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

"Weaponlord" (Namco for the SNES) *Long before Namco mastered weapon based combat games with the Soul Calibur series, they jumped in on the Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat 2D fighter action. What it boils down to is stone aged brutes bashing other stone aged brutes, Viking women, and demonic brutes in the skull with swords, axes, and huge rocks tied to huge clubs with leather. Featuring  an artistic style similar to a Frank Frazetta drawing -thanks to comic arist Simon Bisley who is famous for his dark fantasy artwork in Judge Dredd & Lobo. Eyecandy for fans of 1980s heavy metal album covers, sword and sorcery flicks of the same era, and readers of Conan the Barbarian pulps and comics.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

---"Sexy fights and brutal deaths in" **The Black Heart** (indie) *An indie (Mugen, a form of online fighting game mashup creator and sharing service) 2D fighting game with over the top super moves similar to Marvel vs. Capcom. However, darker than Capcom's own horror based fighter Darkstalkers. Inspired by the more bloody Silent Hill, Hellraiser, and the Japanese ghost genre of The Ring. It does feature a few comical characters like a twig man who smokes pot and wears a green suit like another silly horror villain in Warwick Davis's Leprechaun. Also there's a sexy "fan service" spider-lady who looks like something out of a Tim Burton stop motion movie.* 2 1/2 stars

"Abobo's Big Adventure" (New Grounds & I-Mockery) *The alternate history imagined tale of a random baddie from the arcade and NES classic "Double Dragon." The bald, mean faced, and lovingly dumb, newly protagonist murders his way through tons of classic NES game characters. It's a tribute / parody with a very morbidly entertaining sense of humor.* 3 stars

"Martial Masters" 2001 *Playing like a brightly colored cousin to Capcom or SNK fighters, but featuring a setting and cast from China of old. Gorgeously pastoral with scenes of old men sweeping the floors of temples as cranes pose gently near about, a monkey boy and his actual monkey friends dancing around, and children sitting in a meadow playing with and feeding a panda that's rolling to and fro for their amusement, along with the typical market scenes of the genre. For fans, like myself, of Shaw Brothers kung fu movies and modern fare like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.* close to 3 stars

Everything is Terrible: 3 Minute Unborn 2 *Overly dramatic bad horror movie about a killer baby that's such a horrible looking prop that it's even harder to take seriously than it already would be. Ends with mom having had enough and elbowing monster baby in the face, several hard times, before blowing herself and junior (and even more unbelievably the house) up with the old homemade explosive device in the microwave trick.* either 1 star or 3 stars

Dave's Nostalgia Trip: "Big Bang Pro Wrestling" (SNK) Neo Geo Pocket Color --2000-- *For a handheld wrestling game this has a nice presentation. The crowd is lively, the tunes have a headbobbing gentleness that's not so grating, and the action packs a bang (even if the game is bite sized). Any pro wrestling game where you can pull off a top rope moonsault has an instant fun factor.* close to 3 stars

Weird Science: Sex Ed *"You don't understand the meaning of the words funky cold medina, shoop a doop, zoom uh zoom zoom in the boom boom."* 2 1/2 stars

Manimal: High Stakes *Wild horses couldn't chase as much tail as Manimal.* either 1 star or close to 3 stars

Ed the Happy Clown: Issue 6 of 9 (Drawn & Quarterly Publications) *A micro-dimension has been discovered when the tiny head of another dimension's Earth's president Ronald Reagan appears as the penis head of a loser named Ed. Tiny pygmie savages, of the city, want to worship it as a penis god. And a tv show/government agency of science wants to investigate this other dimension, but they turn against the whole idea, rather violently, when they discover the only way to again contact this other dimension is to put the other dimension's Ron Reagan into a dimensional gateway that also happens to be the anus of a dead man. It's not the necrophillia that they have a problem with, it's the homosexuality.* 3 stars

"Burn: Cycle" (Phillips Compact Disc Interactive) --1994-- *"Sol Cutter has something on his mind... ...in two hours it's going to explode!" You kind of know what to expect from a dated full motion videogame when you hear something like that as a tag line. This one has all the cliches of the cyberpunk 90s genre: cityscape right out of BladeRunner only with poor 90s cgi, flying cars, high tech espionage plot, sinister new-age cult, cyber addiction, hipster nite club with neo-jazz music, and a main character who narrates his broken down in the gutter life like a noir tragic figure. It's like Johnny Mneumonic (sp?) with an "Everybody betray me!" Tommy Wiseau level of bad acting, yet dull.* between 1 1/2 and 2 stars

Super Star Wars --SNES-- (Lucas Arts) *Storywise, it's the even more juvenile imagined parts of Episode 4 turned into a run and gun sidescroller. But in reality, it's set in a galaxy far, far away. A very long time ago before the edited special editions and prequels killed most of the magic of the series. And before Disney dug up the holy corpse to cash in on it. It's Luke blasting first and asking questions never, pulling an Annie Starkiller and wasting countless lives of Jawas, Sandpeople, and Stormtroopers. He hadn't really got a handle on the whole more peaceful side of the force yet. You can get Chewbacca (for a more whimsical approach) or Han (for a more morally ambiguous path). Still, it feels rather repetitive and very Duke Nuke'em instead of Jedi Knight or loveable space rascals.* 2 stars

"Mace: The Dark Age" (N64) *Some would say this 3D brawler wants badly to be either Killer Instinct or Mortal Kombat. Especially with a voice announcer who demands "Execution!" after the final round. But you can't totally dislike a game that puts a dwarf in a steampunk powered war-mech built out of ale barrels and carrying a Thor hammer and spiked mace as weapons.* close to 2 1/2 stars

The Gong Show with Dave Attell: Season 1 Episode 7 *It all feels a little too rehearsed. Everyone of the contestants has an edgy or alt-2000s carnival act. Where are the true weirdos and not these phonies?* 2 stars

Spicy City: Tears of a Clone *One in a million girl with a one in a million genetic code. But not anymore, and hardly worth the trouble. Still, you kind of feel for her.* 3 stars

From Dusk Till Dawn, the series: Self Contained *Owed a soul and a crossing over.* close to 3 stars

Farscape: Family Ties *A cross between the lunar landing and Return of the Jedi, only more bleak.* 3 stars

Attack On Titan: Episode 1 *Taking the tired concept of refuge from a horde of cannibalistic humanoids (zombies) and turning it on its head. This time instead of thousands of zombies clawing outside a wall or a building, it's giant, mindless humanoid cannibals clawing outside a giant wall. The people inside are shaken from their sense of comfort when one is big enough to bring even the huge walls down for the first time in a 100 years or something. Made even more entertaining by the grandiose over the top anime style acting and voice performances. Also, this show reminds me of SouthPark, for some reason (maybe the kids?), and that's definitely a good thing.* 3 stars

Everything Is Terrible: 3 Minute Death Drug *Angel Dust makes Miami Vice's Phil Michael Thomas go crazy and destroy a supermarket.* either 1 star or 3 stars

"Nasty Hero" circa 1980s or officially 1987 via 'The Private Movie Company Inc.' (ooh fancy) *A real Neandertal is released from the slammer after being framed for a crime he didn't commit. Now he's out for ridiculous action movie revenge. He always wears a dirty wife beater or mechanic's shirt (hence the name Nasty Hero, I guess). He'll have to take down the blackmarket sports car ring of obnoxious yuppies out to make his life a living hell. The main douchebag is even after his old flame Yolanda (*snickers*). Set in the "So 80s it hurts!" time period in the thousand flushes blue toilet bowl of America that is known as Florida. And featuring a ton of bad movie cliches and homo-erotic moments. Still, the cheese and action goes down easy.* close to 2 1/2 stars

Heart She Holler: Fear Is Dog Spelled Bassackwards *Perversion of the conversion. Regular folk, n-word, chicken dinner.* 2 1/2 stars

Kung Fu, the series: The Soul is the Warrior *A rose grows beyond the wall.* 3 stars

--- "Daraku Tenshi, The Fallen Angels" (Psikyo) 1998

*Usually fighting games don't have a uniting theme when it comes to stages.

If they can animate it, then they'll fight anywhere from the jungle to outerspace.

Even if it doesn't make any sense.

Here is not the case. The setting being a decade after a major cataclysm leaves a west coast city, with an obvious Asian influence, in the climate of a cesspool and never recovering from the disaster.

It makes sense then that a dirty karate master, who is followed around by flies, would fight in a dingy back alley near the trash dumpsters in which he'd fight cats for his supper.

Or a somber, rainy graveyard which would be filled with victims of the earthquake.

The criminal element, like crazed kung fu dudes in leather jackets and hired gunmen, would go for the little bit of human blood left in encounters in dingy bars that are in disrepair and haven't seen a patron in years.

Fat, mutated freaks would fly into fight in tire filled junkyards with the rubble of the never cleaned away destroyed city as the backdrop skyline.

It really has a beautiful art style.*

3 stars

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

"Mortal Kombat versus DC Universe" (Warner Bros.) --2008-- *Most modern videogames play like movies, but they often find a hard time defining whatever generic protagonist is the lead. The lead usually designed by committee to fit the bland tastes of a mass audience. Fighting games and superhero comics don't have the problem of generic characters. They're usually bold. This game plays like a movie and has an ensemble of really bold characters. But these two "universes" don't mesh together out of a "Gee, what if?" concept put down on paper. I applaud the cinematic effort, which the MK team would improve on somewhat in the sequel/reboot (Mortal Kombat 2011). Still here, it's awkward and filled with unintentionally funny moments and dialogue (a lot of it laughed at by The Joker who almost seems in on how ridiculous it all is). either 1 star or close to 2 1/2 stars

---- "Samurai Showdown" II thru V-Special (SNK)

*In my early teens, during the 90s, I was an Mortal Kombat fan.

I wish I would have had better taste. The gore and juvenile humor and dark fantasy appealed to my angst ridden desires.

At my local arcade, no one crowded around the Street Fighter machine. Even the Marvel versus Capcom series didn't appeal to me, though a few years earlier, I was a big fan of the X-Men cartoon.

Nope, me and the neighborhood kids craved blood, guts, farts, glimpses of titties, gangster rap, Beavis & Butthead, Summer blockbuster movies, alt-rawk.

In my early 20s, I started appreciating Samurai movies on cable, and in my later 20s, I began reading Lone Wolf & Cub samurai manga.

During the 16 bit 2-D fighting game craze, I wish I had been sopisticated enough to have taken notice to this highly artistic, and yet still bloody and fun, take on Samurai and a fighting game.

It does a lot of what made Mortal Kombat appealing to my teen tastes, but with a master stroke that has the lasting effect of standing the test of time as true art and not mindless "junkfood" fun that really has more of a nostalgia appreciation value (like Mortal Kombat).

3 stars

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

--- Jason Vorhees special guest character in "Mortal Kombat X" --2015--

*My generation had a lot of movie boogeyman.

They were so much in our young, collective conscious that they were almost urban legends seemingly lurking in the woods at the end of the street.

Kids, today, could care less. When, the internet "nerd culture" began reporting on this horror icon coming to a fighting videogame, the comments sections below the articles read something like this, "Laaame, LOL, who'z this f@g, no one wants thhis hockey face lozer INOURGAME!!!!"

To that I say, this guy invented "fatalities," kid.

He was figuring out ways to dismember long before there was even a Mortal Kombat or the outrage of a fatality in a videogame.

More than that, you were probably not even alive or were in diapers when Mortal Kombat was originally popular.

Jason even had a videogame that was terrible, but still gave my generation, including me, nightmares.

I remember, to get nostalgic again, the first time I saw it. It was at my weird next door neighbors.

The dad had an artificial leg and beat his kids and made them go to bed before dark.

But for some reason he was nice to any kid not his. Even weirder he had an NES that seemed to be more his than his kids.

He showed me, and another neighbor kid (not his), the Friday the 13th NES game, and seeing a hockey mask wearing purple-boogeyman stalk victims in 8-bit had me eyeing the door to escape not just the creepy one-legged neighbor but this pixelated killer.

Cheers to Jason's return to videogames and to the collective conscious of dumb, videogame playing youth everywhere.

Even if they don't appreciate it.*

2 1/2 stars

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

"Tattoo Assassins" (Data East) 1995 *This "game" strived for infamy, and fell into obscurity, never being released. Out of shame, I'm sure. Surprisingly, Back to the Future screenwriter Bob Gale came up with some ideas for it. It almost shows in a tongue in cheek way. It all seems like a big joke parodying the 90's over the top media in the same way almost that Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers did. Except this is more Looney Tunes than anything with racial stereotypes and absurdity out the wazoo. With characters based off the likes of tabloid trash like Tonya Harding and boasting to have thousands of supermoves like turning an opponent into a famous painting, farting random objects from one's anus, and comic nudity. There's also some nonsense about magical tattoos that thought tattoos wouldn't be tacky enough so they're the cause of the supermoves and are animated like they were created using Microsoft paint by a special needs person. Also, the game's mascot is a sad-faced eastern looking religious figure in an adult diaper.* 1 star (so bad it's almost good)

=== Wrestling Society X (MTV)

*For a brief moment, in the 90s, pro-wrestling was "edgy."

As absurd as that sounds. "The Rock" & "Stone Cold" were household names, much to the disappontment of concerned parents groups and tabloid hysteria news.

Pro-wrestling's punk rock moment all seems ridiculous now in retrospect.

The WWE went back to a family friendly product in order to sell t-shirts and toys.

So, who was to satisfy the wrestling dreams of backyard idiots who were jumping off of grandma's house onto a pillow filled with rocks?

MTV stepped in with its timeless formula of stupidity for the youth.

They aired, again briefly, an "underground" wrestling tv show filled with constant explosions, constant loud music, and constant shouting....

Goth kids, pregnant teens, musclehead niteclub douches, rednecks amped up on Mountain Dew, and wiggers across America, in the mid-2000s, rejoiced...

well, maybe not rejoiced.

More like they barely took notice with all their attention disorders, or skateboard trick injury videos taking place, and myspace photo sessions in the bathroom mirror.*

zero stars

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

"Bad Street Brawler" -NES- (Mattel Inc. & Beam Software) --1989-- *"Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you!" Trouble, I guess, means a metrosexual "badass" with a yellow flat-top hairdo, black sunglasses with the yellow city lights  reflecting in them, a yellow tanktop, wearing only yellow underwear (no pants), and cute knee high yellow boots. Hello Yellow! Most of his attacks look like danceclub moves and he spends a lot of time fondling enemies and dogs.* either 1 star or close to 2 1/2 stars

"Dead Man Calling" --Junji Ito-- (Manga) *The ghoulish projection of a death row inmate haunts the family of his victims. Seeking forgiveness. A nightmarish meditation on grief and revenge.* close to 3 stars

Forensic Files: The Blood Trail *A failing farmer, in the quiet English countryside, stages a bizarre seies of crimes, around his property, including blowing up his wife in a homemade carbombing, putting a severed sheep's head and threatening note on his own fence, and poorly attempting to make it look like his "deranged" neighbor visited one evening and tried to kill him with a boxcutter, forcing him to shoot the neighbor in "self defense" with a shotgun.* 2 1/2 stars

Freddy's Nightmare: Freddy Something ----------------

*A jobless yuppie, with an extreme fear of the dark, goes nuts working in the sewers for the eccentric old guy from Gremlins.* 2 1/2 stars

*A lowlife owner, of a 1980s videostore, gets "Scrooged" by a self-help Billy Ocean wannabe that the lowlife ripped off in his typical jerk fashion.* 2 1/2 stars

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

Forever Knight: Dance by the Light of the Moon *A black-hearted seductress tries to manipulate our reformed from evil detective, much like she does with every other poor male.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

----- Croooow Plays: Way of the Warrior (3DO)

*Video-blogs used to play videogames for a blogger's web audience are called "Let's plays."

Let's get that out of the way.

I personally prefer video reviewers like SpoonyExperiment, AngryVideoGameNerd, ObscurasLupa, and so on.

The reviewers take the time to find something' interesting about the game or movie to actually critique and even write jokes, scenarios, pick out certain clips from what they're reviewing, and put it all into a usually enjoyable package.

"Let's play" bloggers seem to have a level of vanity where they think they can just sit down and roll the camera and do it "on the fly."

It hardly ever works, and is often annoying, frustrating, and dull.

They struggle to play the game and find something interesting to talk about it, other than their ineptitude or frustration, and their random attempts at humor are painfully bad.

One "let's play" celebrity named PewdiePie has hit stardom with his awful brand of yelling unfunny nonsense while playing a game live, unedited garbage and SouthPark took notice satirizing it and him.

It's almost as bad as when during the 90s hack videogame programmers took the cheap digitized graphics craze to its overkill by hiring their handful of what I'm guessing were party friends or the local community theater rejects to be physical "actors" as horribly over the top generic stereotype characters in shitty disc format vidja lames.

Our let's player, Croooow, struggles to "let's play" and also entertain in his "let's play" video.*

zero stars for the game

and 1/2 a star for Croooow

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

Forensic Files: Charred Remains *A male stripper cremates a former playboy playmate over a cocaine sharing night gone wrong.* 2 stars (zero for the exploitation of the cremated remains)

American Horror Story - Coven: Protect the Coven *Fried green blood fetishes.* 3 stars minus 1 star for the Twilight romance feel good ending

[spottedtoad]

Freud, in the only book of his I’ve read, The Interpretation of Dreams, argues that every dream, no matter how unpleasant, represents an unarticulated desire. This has always struck me as more convincing (and useful) as a description of fictions like books and movies than for interpreting my own dreams. Whose unarticulated desire is being represented is a matter for debate of course- the protagonist’s, the author or director or performer’s, the audience’s? Hard to say.  Karl Popper said of Freudianism that it wasn’t science because you couldn’t prove it wrong, but literary criticism isn’t astrophysics and a certain malleability goes a long way.

But accept for the moment that movies represent desires (not always unarticulated: I’ve heard multiple four-year-olds say they want to be Iron Man.) What kind of desire is represented by the new movie Joker, comic book in origins but resolutely art house in style? This question was taken to have some social import even before the film was in wide release. A story in which a man (the appellation “young” often added by critics beforehand, though more about that later) finds actualization through psychopathic violence was warned to be a potential instigation to more real life instances of nihilistic violence, of the mass shooter type we’ve seen with great regularity over the last several years. This fear was not, I thought, entirely groundless: a showing of an earlier Batman-related movie, The Dark Knight Rises,  was the scene of a 2012 mass shooting, and while as it turned out that killer had not intended his dyed hair to mark himself as “the Joker,” the rumor that he had has persisted. The earlier incarnation of this character by Heath Ledger, in the 2010 The Dark Knight, seemed indeed to embody exactly what makes mass shootings a potent source of terror, in spite of their low aggregate frequency and body count relative to other forms of homicide: The Dark Knight‘s Joker was motivated by chaos for its own sake, often contradicting himself in discussing his motivations and “how I got these scars.” Heath Ledger’s death at 28 prior to The Dark Knight‘s release from a cocktail of abused prescription drugs put a seal on an indelible performance, suggesting the darkness of the character (in a movie that, to be honest, I find kind of a slog whenever Ledger’s Joker is not on screen) came at least in part from real life internal torment as well as the actor, director, and screenwriters’ craft.

If this backstory gave some cause for concern, media outlets were eager to magnify it, with dozens of articles warning that the Joker movie could set off copycat (copying off of real or fictional violence unclear) killings, to the point where it became ambiguous whether these articles were intended to forestall violence, use its threat to boost ticket sales, or, for the benefit of an ideological narrative, call it into existence. Fortunately, we have been spared any accompanying violence related to the film; even last night, there were two uniformed local policy prominently standing at the entrance to my local megaplex when my wife and I went to see the 9:45.

The genre which Joker forms a part of is both an unusual one- the art house homage to Taxi Driver and King of Comedy that is also a comic book movie- while it is also immediately adjacent to the preeminent commercial production of our time, the superhero origin story. Almost every superhero franchise and reboot now begins with a portrayal of how the hero gained his or her powers, how he or she became- by magic or mutation or training montage- a god sent to live among men. The origin story is, it would appear, the audience’s entry-point into identification with the superhero; it is not enough that the great ones of the earth have our interest at heart, but that we learn how they were once weak and helpless like us, whether as babies saved from Krypton or as young orphaned billionaire heirs.

More precisely analogous to Joker is 2011’s X-Men: First Class, which sought to portray the origin not of an individual superhero (though it is really antihero Magneto’s film) but of the broader social world of the other X-Men films, of Professor X’s School for mutants as well as Magneto’s competing band of outlaws. What was distinctive about First Class was its temporal setting: casting backwards before the era of the earlier movies of the series, it sets itself in a mythic Kennedy Era of Cold War intrigue (unleashed in the film by mutants rather than ideology) and of mutants’ Civil Rights struggles substituting for black Americans’. While to me one of the most artistically successful of recent superhero movies, First Class is notable in how comfortable its alternative history feels to us; we are used to viewing the era immediately before the 60s counterculture as an ancien regime both glorious and unjust, as Mad Men was fond of showing- we are eager both to revel in the aesthetics and grandiosity of the world of the Baby Boomers’ childhood and deplore its moral failures and unequal civic ethics.

Joker is more unfamiliar and unsettling in its setting. The disintegration of urban America prior to its partial rebirth in the last 30 years is easily remembered, and in the case of New York, where Joker is more-or-less explicitly set, is often if incompletely discussed. But it is an ambiguous and incompletely mythologized portion of our collective narrative. What exactly led to American cities being riddled with garbage, graffiti and crime, near abandoned by middle class families, aesthetically blighted and seemingly spiritually bereft? Why were there over 2,000 murders a year in New York City (when there have been under 300 per year in a larger city in the last few years)? My precinct in my last neighborhood in Brooklyn had 99 rapes in a single year in the early 90s, and only one the year I lived there, 2006. To say that this descent into Tartarus was due to lead poisoning, or white flight, are clearly incomplete; to say this was due to a collapse of civic authority and popular morality begs the question.

Joker is, in its own way, eager to answer this question. The Gotham of Joker is not Tim Burton’s cartoonish 1940s Gothic of his Batman movies, or Christopher Nolan’s Bloombergian circle of shiny glass and steel from the Dark Knight trilogy. It is, instead, an exaggeratedly decayed, almost shattered, version of the 1970s pimps-and-pushers New York of Taxi Driver, with an endless garbage strike reminiscent of several from 1968 to 1977 piling refuse in every exterior shot, over which giant rats crawl, and the filming locations drawn from the sadder and more austere corners of the Outer Boroughs. The movie’s most deliberately iconic image, of Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker dancing on the steps leading to his apartment building, is a real staircase in the Bronx several blocks from the school where I taught and which I described in 13 Ways of Going on a Field Trip.

In fact, in an ill-fated field trip that didn’t make it into the book, I led my students to and from Crotona Park past those exact stairs to dig up and observe grubs and earthworms. (On the way back, a boy was accused of slapping a girl’s butt, leading to hours of recrimination, between me and the students and between the principal and me). I lived at the time next to a similar, if slightly less filmic set of stairs in Washington Heights, and spent a lot of time in apartment buildings identical in design if slightly less poorly maintained to the one where Joaquin’s character Arthur Fleck, lives. The subway stations and trains are similarly familiar to anyone who has lived in New York, even if the names are changed.

All of which is to say that Joker wants itself to be set in a real-seeming, if mythically nightmarish, New York-turned-Gotham, a 1970s megalopolis collapsing under its own refuse and under the burden of hatred and collective ill will. The first image of the film is a faded, deliberately dated version of the Warner Brothers’ logo, flickering and faltering. The human elements of Gotham are, in general, shown through a similarly harsh lens; while many reviewers describe the Arthur Fleck character as an alienated young man, Joaquin Phoenix is shown as anything but; his face, on screen for practically every shot, is made to seem every minute of his 44 years:

His wasted torso, for which the actor lost over 50 pounds, is similarly contorted, abandoned, presumptively worn down by the character’s nonexistent diet, constant chainsmoking, and cocktail of pharmaceutical meds. There’s something interesting about this visual emphasis on the character and actor’s age. Compare, for example, to Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, a youthful 32 playing 26:

De Niro’s Travis Bickle is, implicitly, the “all American kid from New York City,” explaining other characters’ frequent positive affect towards him, and his own social incapacity and descent into violence is, visually at least, the result of the fallen world impinging upon him rather than his own intrinsic corruption. He amiably convinces Cybil Shephard to go out with him on a date, before his incomprehension of the world leads him to take her to an X-rated film.  Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck on the other hand, is not only visibly aged and incapable of ordinary conversation, passing into peals of barking laughter and incoherence, but evidently has an inner life constructed only of darkness and destructive images, as shown by the ink-scribbled journal and alleged joke diary he writes in, into which pornographic images are taped and from which inopportunely fall out.

What exactly is Arthur Fleck- or Joaquin Phoenix- doing in this 1970s world, we might ask? While X Men: First Class substituted youthful James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender in telling the origin of the characters previously inhabited by Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, Joker is about a middle aged man trapped in perpetual boyhood, searching pathetically for father figures, resentful of his mother’s injuries to him, yearning for women with whom he cannot speak. It seems not coincidental that both Phoenix and director/screenwriter Todd Phillips are of an age to have been born roughly at the time of the film’s setting, and that the film’s central axis finds Fleck trying to understand the mystery of his birth, becoming the Joker only when this question is revealed to be unanswerable. In other words, Joker is a Generation X origin story, an attempt to find, in the inscrutable dirt of urban blight, the origin of an inconvenient and extraneous generation like Fleck’s inconvenient and extraneous man.

If the viewer is cast backwards into the past to find their own origins amid 1970s decay, Fleck is equally out of temporal step with his world. A clown is intrinsically a dated persona, even in a 1970s milieu, and much of the film emphasizes that Arthur’s world is itself locked in an inaccessible and unrealized past. Arthur first appears dancing to a ragtime piece, watches Fred Astaire on TV, and the songs referenced up until his transformation into the Joker are either old (“Slap That Bass,” “That’s Life,” Jimmy Durante’s “Smile” ) or deliberately dated despite their 1970s provenance, like “Send in the Clowns.” When Arthur tails Thomas Wayne to the theatre, it is Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 Modern Times that they- and the rest of the city’s fat cats- are watching and laughing to; just as we as viewers are caught off from the mystery and dishonor of our origins amid 1970s decay, Arthur cannot come to understand his origins in the forgotten and unlearnable disgraces of the 30s.

At the same time, Arthur is, like Charlie Chaplin’s tramp, incapable of speech, but expressive in movement.  While Travis Bickle’s social missteps are mitigated by his youth and external amiability and the measured tone of his voiceovers, Arthur Fleck is redeemed only in a few moments of physical performance- in the moments before a gang of kids intercedes to attack him or a gun falls out of his pocket, he is clearly a gifted physical performer when in make-up as a clown. While the film concludes with him becoming the Joker, his acts of violence having merged the darkness of his inner verbal life with the grace and self-possession of his clown performance, self-actualized in psychopathy.  Suddenly, the film’s dissonance between temporal setting and cultural signifiers disappear- the Joker dances to Gary Glitter’s 1973 “Rock and Roll (Part 2)” on the stairs, and as Gotham descends into the fire and chaos that delights the Joker’s heart, that universal cliche of unchained liberation, Cream’s “White Room” plays a few distorted guitar bars of freedom.

A hidden tension in our culture- starting to become less hidden- is that once Baby Boomers took over the culture, historical consciousness became somewhat fixed and recent eras have been mostly exempt from the myth-making and revisionism that dominate our views of the world before Watergate. My guess is that both MeToo and some of the media controversy over Joker are partly driven by this closed book starting to open and people angling to grab control over what can be written in it and what cannot. For now, it seems telling the story of the costs of post-Sixties liberation and urban blight is allowable, as long as these costs are presented as result of empowering the rich, white, male, and straight to indulge temptations, not a broader breakdown of order that encompassed multiple types of culprit and victims. This creation of historical myth is perhaps what distinguishes the prominent generational cohorts from the marginal ones.

The supposed political controversy over Joker is at one level strange; the film takes a basically left-sympathetic view of the horror of Gotham, with canceled social services and rich, sadistic or narcissistic businessmen primarily to blame, and the racial dynamics of Joker are at least at a surface level politically correct. While Arthur is assaulted by a mixed-race group of young hoodlums at the movie’s onset, he explicitly forgives them, in a way he doesn’t the three rich white men who attack him later. The riots by which Gotham is consumed at the film’s end is shown as outsider white men rising up against insider, rich white men. The four main black characters- his social worker, his next door love interest, a clerk at the insane asylum he convinces to share his mother’s file, and a psychiatrist he meets with at the end of the film- are not only sympathetic and kind. They are essentially the only characters, apart from a colleague with dwarfism, to show Arthur attention and concern, and with whom he finds himself eager to express himself in humane terms and show himself to be sane. Not coincidentally, they are filmed in a forgiving and gracious light, at odds with the washed-out and unforgiving appearance of almost all the other (white) characters.

  If there is a racial subtext to Joker– and this is America, how could there not be- it is likely that it is, in fact, the desire to sideline racial conflict from the paroxysms of post-60s urban life, to present black Americans as patient, sane, wisely enduring bystanders to class and civic conflict and crime rather than primary participants and victims.  Arthur’s visible fantasies- or hallucinations- of a love affair with his next door neighbor are exaggeratedly chaste, in spite of the cutout pictures of naked black women in his notebook. While 1970s films themselves often wished to juggle the social role of blacks and whites in collective consciousness (as Rocky did), or to offer white men a role as instruments of reactionary vengeance without explicitly invoking racial revenge (as Taxi Driver  did by making the main target of Travis Bickle’s bloodshed the white pimp played by Harvey Keitel), Joker takes place in a different kind of dream-like world- there is a reason Arthur’s six-shooter revolver shoots nine bullets in his first burst of violence. The dream desire I would guess it seeks is to find an origin story for our own incoherences, inequalities, injustices, that does not make race determinative of whether one is inside or outside the circle of privilege, in the present and in the past. If fictions are defined by pretending to be someone else, perhaps Joker is an attempt by middle aged white guys, to be sure to say that, while they may be- perhaps definitively are- the villain, they can at least choose what kind of villain they wish to be.  This choice amounts, according to many in media, and an increasing segment of our most prominent institutions,  to the Joker dancing on concrete steps following bloody deeds, an ornamentation of psychopathy that does not and cannot change its character, whether we used to think our story a comedy, but now realize it is a tragedy, or the other way around.

The Generation X Origin Story Freud, in the only book of his I've read, The Interpretation of Dreams, argues that every dream, no matter how unpleasant, represents an unarticulated desire.

[anodyne-sunflower]

Love me like you do (Part 6)-Balem series

A/N: I’m struggling to make this a slow burn. Fuuuuuuck me. Balem tap that ass already.

***

“Wait, I-”

But, your words fell upon deaf ears as the young serving boy shut the doors to Balem’s chambers and walked off. He left you there, silent, confused, and above all a bit disappointed. Not so much at anyone in particular, that is, other than yourself. To think you’d sit idly by and allow that man to show off in front of his associates. As if you were some prized cow at an auction, it was a bit pathetic in your mind. Yet…

You touched the dip of your neck, biting your lip in thought as you trailed your fingertips down to your sternum. Right where he kissed you, it was an odd feeling. The way his lips felt pressed into your skin, soft, yet there was a pressure behind it that spoke volumes. Like the kiss itself was a mark of ownership. You could still feel the warmth of his mouth against your chest, and as much as you hated to admit it the sensations were exhilarating. Truth be told, you hadn’t been with anyone like that in a long time, work kept you busy and so did your classes. Maybe it was just your body reacting to the unfamiliar touch. Either way, the blush on your cheeks was enough to make you groan in frustration. You patted at them, trying to rid the flush of red before he came back and saw you in such a state. You already made up your mind, that as soon as he got back you’d beg, yes you planned to resort to that, to go home. All of this was too much, and you hoped that somehow they had technology that wiped memories because you weren’t sure you could cope well back on earth if you knew that above you was an entire world, no universe, of other beings far more advanced than you.

“Ugh.”

You strode over to the windows, pulling back the large black curtains and gazing out at the galaxy. You felt so insignificant then, as if your existence meant nothing anymore because how could earth or any other planet be so important when you had palaces like this, settled on planets that you once thought were just dust and rock. With a sigh, you banged your forehead against the glass watching the stars flicker passed and burn into a haze of different colors. Regardless of your current existential crisis, you had to admire the beauty of it all. This kingdom alone was something gorgeous, with black and gold decorating almost every wall, and lights that floated above. Like colorful flames that couldn’t harm you.

“He doesn’t skimp on decorations…”

The lights above on his ceiling floated along the edges, some gathering in the middle like a glorious chandelier. They sparked blue, green, even colors you didn’t think existed on the spectrum. It was amazing really, and as you watched them dance across the expanse of marble you weren’t even aware that someone was close behind you, watching your every movement carefully.

“There you are, my little bird.”

His husky voice echoed through the room, and you stiffened at the way it vibrated along the chamber walls. The demanding tone never once left his words, and even though you didn’t dare turn around you knew he was inching closer to you. You felt like a trapped animal, awaiting its demise and as you closed your eyes accepting your fate, the only thing that came was the hot air of his breath as he dipped down, lips next to your ear.

“Turn around.”

Your fingers pressed hard into the glass, and you swallowed nervously as he the heat of his body wafted over you. This was not the situation you expected to be in today, however, you were now all too aware of what this man wanted from you. You knew the minute he decided to eye you hungrily when he first saw you in that dress, to the way he kissed your skin, the way he held you in his lap. The serving girl from before was right, he likes new play things, and yet the worse part was…it was working.

His advances were actually creating a turmoil in you that you hadn’t felt for a long time. There was a pull there, like a dangerous game, tempting to play but you didn’t want to risk it. What’s wrong with me, you thought, biting down on your lip so hard it almost bled. You tried to convince yourself it was this entire crazy whirlwind of an adventure, or that you were just excessively needy, anything but the actual fact. Which was that you were hopelessly attracted to this stranger.

“I said, turn around.”

His tone was rising in its demand, the slight annoyance behind it obvious as he gripped your shoulder and flipped you around to face him. His green eyes were dark with emotion, but the rest of his features were stern, like he was already angry with you.

In reflex, you reached up to grip his wrist, trying to tug his hand from your body and push him away. But, his grasp was tight, and even if you managed to pull away and free yourself there wasn’t anywhere to run.

“Please….”

“Shh.” He pressed a finger to your lips, tracing the outline of them as he hotly purred out his intentions.

“Take off your dress.”

That was about as much as you could take. Attraction or not, you couldn’t give in to the natural reaction of your body. This wasn’t earth, this wasn’t home.

With as swift a movement as you could muster, you reached up and smacked him right across his cheek, and instinctively scrambled back into the window as if that would protect you from him wrath.

You watched him warily, your own breathing labored in fear as he stood silent. His face was turned, but you felt your entire body run pale as his eyes drifted over to you. They held you firmly in place, and you could already see the swirls of rage building in them.

Before you could utter an apology he was on you, hand roughly gripping your cheeks as he lifted you towards him, his face was mere inches from your own, but you could tell he was beyond angry with you.

“How dare you?!”

With his fingers holding your chin tightly, you hardly had room to speak, but you muffled between his hand, trying to get your apology out.

He seemed pleased enough with that, though his grip didn’t loosen. He knew exactly what you wanted to say, and all he did was chuckle darkly, smirking down at you.

“I admire your spirit…it’s been ages since anyone dared to lay a finger on me.”

His eyes trailed down to your lips, then across your neck and down to your heaving chest where they stayed put.

“Do you know what happened to them?”

Despite your current situation, you immediately spoke up, mumbling out the words he expected to hear.

“You killed them.”

His smirk grew into a devilish smile, and he walked you back into the window, leaving no distance between your bodies. Even after your rejection, he was still in a predicament of need, and that much was very clear.

“Little bird…so small and naive you are…”

He released his hold on you, striding over to the large dressed near the end of the room. You watched as he unclipped his cape from the high gold collar he wore, and with a grace that betrayed his anger, he tossed it along the lounge chair. He didn’t even seem to care that you were still in the room, and as soon as you saw him remove his black top you turned away, a blush forming on your cheeks.

All you could hear was the ruffling of clothing, and drawers being opened, but you wouldn’t dare to look back. You were still trying to regain your composure from his outburst.

To cut the awkward silence that you felt developing you spoke up, keeping your gaze steady on the wall. “Did you kill him…?”

Balem didn’t see a reason to answer you, he continued dressing in the corner, throwing his rings in a fine glass bowl. The sound of metal clanging around unsettled you, but you raised your tone even higher.

“Did you kill that man?”

“My business is of no concern to you.”

His haughty attitude was starting to wear your patience thin, and though that fear of consequence was still there you pressed forward.

“Did you kill him?!”

Balem looked over his shoulder at you, and said with as little care as possible, “Yes.”

Though that man was hardly worth anyone’s time, you weren’t exactly keen on having him die. You weren’t important enough to kill for, but you couldn’t help but feel like somehow his actions towards you cost him his life.

“Why did-”

You heard him scoff, clearly unamused by your sentiment and as you finally worked up the courage to look at him, you only felt your resolve break all over again. He stood before his wardrobe, shirtless, clad in only lounge pants that were a fine gold. His back was to you, but you could already make out the fine muscles of it. His body was sculpted like a gods, and as much as you wanted to look away you couldn’t.

“What I did for him was a mercy.”

Balem turned on his heel, meeting your gaze and making you shrink back in shame. Even if he had noticed your eyes on him, he didn’t seem to care. He just moved towards his bed, clearly not interested in keeping this current conversation going.

“Killing people isn’t a mercy.”

“I create life!”

You flinched at his yelling, noting that his business dealings was probably another of his restricted topics.

“And I destroy it…”

“Is that what you’re doing to earth?”

Balem eyed you, standing a few feet away, and he seemed displeased with this current chain of events. It was not lost on you that his original intention was to have you share his bed that night, and seeing how he was a man used to getting what he wanted, he wasn’t exactly content right now.

“Your planet is merely a resource waiting to be converted into capitol. And this entire enterprise is just a small part in a vast and beautiful machine defined by evolution, designed to a single purpose: to create profit.”

You couldn’t comprehend his words, not fully. In your eyes what he did was simply murder, and even if the rules on his planet, or universe, were different than earth’s you couldn’t excuse him for that.

“Those people have families.”

You could see his lip curl at the corner in disgust, but he didn’t say much else. He just messed around with a tablet that was by his bed, deep in thought. Every now and then his eyes would scan over to you, watching you with interest. It’s like he wanted you to move, to do something but when you only stood there, fidgeting with your hands he rolled his eyes.

“You earthlings are all the same. So tied up in your sentimentality.”

You looked up at him, nervously chewing your lip as he placed the tablet back down and reached for you. His fingers danced along your arm, until he curled them around your wrist and pulled you to him.

A gasp escaped your mouth, and you placed your hand up, trying to add a barrier against both your chests. But, your fingertips met his smooth skin, and you automatically looked at them, blushing softly when you saw just how defined his muscles were. His lean waist dipped into a hard V, the hem of his pants dangling just a bit off his hipbones. You became flustered quite easily, all your arguments now a muddled mess inside your head. His hold on you was something to be desired, but right now you just needed to get away.

“I can smell your arousal. Why deny yourself the pleasure?”

His low voice hung heavy in the air, and you took a chance, gazing up at him as he smirked. Even after all the arguments, he was clearly hell bent on bedding you. You had to wonder if this was a nightly ritual for him. In fact, you were nearly positive a woman shared his bed every night. Men of power often had a harem of women awaiting them, and you imagined he was no different. Though, thinking back on that serving girl’s words you guessed he picked women of the week and had his way with them until he grew bored and wanted something new.

“Let me go home.”

He seemed amused by your pleas, and just shook his head, bringing his hand up to cup your chin.

“No.”

“Why not…?”

You were afraid to ask, but the desire to be away from all this only grew as your attraction to him did.

Balem looked you dead in the eye, the green of his irises shining against the many colored lights on his ceiling. He studied you, carefully, taking in the way you breathed, to the way you gnawed nervously at your lip. And with as delicate a touch he could manage, he trailed his fingertip down your jaw, admiring the curve of your neck and shoulder. You felt his nails dig softly into your skin, making your heart race wildly in your chest. Your lips parted, a quivery breath escaping you as he dragged the dress down along your side. The cool air hit your flushed skin, goosebumps running along your arms and making you visibly shiver before him.

You closed your eyes tightly, trying to will away the heat pooling in your stomach. But, his touch was maddening, addicting, and no matter what you did to convince yourself otherwise it only made it worse. He was seducing you, and he was doing a damn fine job of it.

The dress fell at your waist, the bottom half still clinging to you and covering your most intimate of areas, but there you stood, before this lord, chest on complete display for his hungry eyes.

You were far too entranced by him, that letting him continue was just something your body allowed. And as he gazed down at you, fingers brushing along your arm you opened your eyes.

The lust was evident in his features, lips parted just a bit, eyes dark, and breathing growing shallow. You wondered if this was the sight all the other women saw before he took them. But, you tried not to dwell on that, the idea of him doing things like that to you only made a blush creep along your cheeks.

“Beautiful…”

His compliment made you fidget uncomfortably, and without warning he snaked an arm around your waist, pulling you tightly to his chest and tossing you in the bed. You bounced softly on the mattress, gasping when he climbed atop you and immediately went for your neck. Your nerves set fire, leaving you speechless as his lips connected with the pulse of your neck. He kissed a hot trail down your throat, tongue dipping out to the soothe the reddening skin.

Your mind screamed at you to stop him, to push him off and run to the nearest corner. But, his lips, his heavy lidded gaze, and that touch of his fingers, it made everything useless to react.

A sigh ran passed your lips, and the Primary took that as a sign to continue, which he eagerly did. He licked over your throat, and before you can even say anything he bites down. The pain radiated down your spine, yet at the same time the pleasure of it pooled between your legs. You moaned out, instinctively bucking your hips up. In that moment you noticed just how turned on he was, and every part of you itched to rub into him, to feel that bulge rough against your inner thighs. But, as he sucked down on the bite mark your mind awoke, and without a second thought you shoved at his chest, his lips releasing your skin.

You glanced up at him, blushing madly at the current situation. His hair fell over his eyes, but even so you can tell he’s completely annoyed and in a very high state of need.

“Little bird…” It comes out like a growl, his green eyes glazed with lust, but he grits his teeth and runs a hand through his hair, slicking it back once more into its usual style. He moved off of you, breathing heavily as he tried to calm his aching arousal. He glanced at you, eyes settling upon your bare chest, and he licked at his lips. You could tell he wanted to reach out and devour you, to take you hard and make you his, but with whatever control he still had he rose from the bed.

He composed himself, and angrily barked back at you. “Draw me a bath.”

He walked away for a moment and you try to collect yourself as you cover your body with your arms. Out of embarrassment, you shakily rise from the bed, and quickly move towards the bathing area. You just wanted him to leave you alone right now, and if giving him what he wanted helped then so be it.

As you kneeled before the large golden faucets, you studied your reflection in the water, gasping when you saw the large purple bruise on your neck. In shame you clasped your hand over it, trying in vain to use your hair as a mask for it.

You heard footsteps behind you, and assuming it was him you rose, keeping your back to him as he neared you.

“Dress yourself.”

You looked over your shoulder, squeaking when he harshly shoved a silk robe into your arms, and you frantically covered yourself with it.

“T-Thank you…”

Balem scoffed, and moved forward towards the bath, and it was then you realized he was completely nude. You should’ve turned away, but being completely flustered will cause strange reactions. Your eyes roamed his chiseled body, widening slightly when you noticed his…more than well endowed…area.

“Do you wish to join me, little dove.”

You watched as the water sloshed around his hips, and he ran his hand along the surface, collecting some of it in his palm. His eyes met yours, and you found yourself at a loss of words.

*****

A/N: Feedback welcomed, hope y'all liked.

[nekhbetkhalid]

→ ❝ state your name. who are you? ❞

full name: nekhbet khalid,

status/occupation: assassin,

nickname(s): the vulture, due to the fact he’ll often follow people around for days if their his target and that he usually poisons them as a method to pick them off. it’s fast and it’s efficient even if it’s not his favorite method of death, if given a choice he likes to find a balance in his work. he also earned that nickname however because during his childhood when he’d get into fights and other children would pretend to be knocked out to get him to stop beating them up he’d just get more giddy over them playing dead so to speak.

age: twenty eight,

date of birth: january twentieth,

gender identity: transgender male,

sexuality: pansexual,

original kingdom: ironhaven,

kingdom allegiance: norden,

spoken language(s): english/common tongue,

views on the balance: neutral,

→ ❝ i’ve never seen you before. ❞

face claim: rami malik,

height: 5′9″,

weight: 154 lbs,

body type: endomorph,

hair color: black,

eye color: green,

accent: {x}

scars: nekbet is riddle with scars from head to toe, mostly smaller ones that are almost completely faded but on closer inspection are noticeable. his biggest scars are one going down along his right side and partially on his right arm; from a sword slicing into him when he wasn’t paying enough attention in his younger years. while his other major scar is under his neck on his collar bone, a near miss to having his throat sliced open.

tattoos: none,

clothing: {x}{x}{x}{x}

→ ❝ where do you come from? ❞

home kingdom: ironhaven, and for the record he hated it there, unless you payed him he wouldn’t go back.

current location: nordan, 

financial status: he’s surely not hurting for money in his field of work, but he spends it as fast as he makes it. still he’s tried to keep better management of it in recent years.

criminal conviction(s): it’s a list longer than a longsword, but most of it’s under various alias, he’s always seemed to get out of trouble one way or another.

→ ❝ what name do you take? ❞

father: ammon ubaid khalid, was the name his mother gave him, he’s said it like a mantra in his head for if he ever met the man, his mother used to take him to a gravesite where she said he was buried, he still goes there occasionally if he’s ever in ironhaven. part of him didn’t believe his mother as things didn’t always add up with her stories. he thinks his father may have left his mother, or perhaps he was just a child born from something more sinister or that of a secret, either way he dwells on it often and too much for a man that’s supposed to be buried in the ground. 

mother: neith osisrah khalid, she was such a hard women, harsh and bitter like the world owed her something and hell maybe it did. but she never got anywhere at the end of the day and even before nekhbet lived on the streets they were still poor, never would his mother ask for handouts and they kept to themselves. he always wondered what his mothers life was like for her to be the way she was, he thinks he understands the older he gets. she died from being stabbed in some ally on her way home late at night. he wondered for years how someone like her could die so pathetically. he wouldn’t ever die like that he told himself, wouldn’t ever die in ironhaven. the first person he ever killed was the man who robbed his mother (only of her life because jokes on that guy they were broke), an assassin doesn’t just murder people for the sake of it but he did years later when he was sure he’d get away with it.

sibling(s): none,

children: none, the very thought is more of a joke than anything else in his life.

→ ❝ how can we trust you? ❞

horoscope: aquarius,

hogwarts house: ravenclaw with very strong slythern tendencies,

7 deadly sins: envy,

theme song: seven nation army - the white stripes,

→ ❝ i’ve heard about you. ❞

tldr; nekhbet is transgender, he never knew his father and his mother died when he was ten, from there he lived on the streets and trained to be an assassin the next year onward, living in ironhaven until he was twenty two, he finally left and traveled around getting into trouble and murdering people for money obvs; eventually ending up in norden under the alias kael, a guy who visits the tavern way too much and works as a freelance bodyguard which causes him to go out of town often. basically really he’s just an asshole who over compensates because he never knew his father and always assumed the man dead, but had some doubts due to his mothers inconsistency, his mother on the other hand dies in a way he feels is pathetic and unlike a strong women such as herself (nekhbet looks up to strong ladies and has things for them rather easily because his mommy issuses tbh) leaving him to question his life during his homeless years and so he throws himself into training as an assassin but he ends up lowkey hating it because it’s part of what makes ironhaven so godawful and maybe if it was a better place his mother would still be alive, but also it’s a double edged sword because maybe if she’d been stronger she would also still be alive, so becoming an assassin and embracing all that ironhaven is sort of became a way to become stronger and never need anyone again. because if he learned anything from his parents is that people die or they leave you, or you just become pathetic.

nekhbet was born as a women, in his mind this was not right, he knew who he was and his body didn’t match that; given the time period however he couldn’t change the body he was given, at least as far as he knew. so nekhbet bottled up his thoughts, kept them to himself, but inside he bubbled and raged every time he heard someone utter ‘ma’am’ or ‘miss’. ‘girl’ had to be the worst though and he couldn’t even stand the sight of himself when he caught his own reflection. he would end up training harder than any of the boys his age, he would show them all that he was just as much of a man as them; just as much of the man that he knew he was. eventually nekhbet garnered a name for himself, the vulture; the kind of name only heard in hushed whispers ‘don’t play dead’ they would all say ‘that’s what the vulture wants’. of course with this sort of power came the notion that nekhbat could be whoever he wanted to be, or rather who he really was. he began to reinvent himself, changing his name and appearance as if his former self had never existed. as far as he was concerned they never did in the first place after all.

the vulture moved to norden for two reasons, he liked the colder climate as he could wear larger more masculine attire without getting too hot. it was both practical and made him a far happier man for it. he also hates ironhaven with a passion, it drudges up bad memories of living on the streets as well as people knowing his past identity there.

he hates sweets and prefers salty or sour foods, spicy foods don’t phase him and bitter foods are middle of the road for him.

nekhbet has gotten around (sexually) in the twenty eight years he’s been around, mostly with women as they’ve never seemed to mind his appearance but also with the occasional man.

nekhbet loves to gamble, card games are his favorite and he loves to cheat.

very often he’ll pretend to be jovially drunk when he isn’t so people don’t seem so intimidated by him, partially so he can get a read on them, he’s got plenty of other tricks in his book though, all of them more deadly than the next.

he’ll work for anyone so long as the coin is right and the risk doesn’t outweigh that. nekhbet also prefers to not shit where he eats so to speak and won’t normally do a job wherever he’s living, that currently being norden.

his weapons vary, poison is the easiest and he uses it the most but he doesn’t find that particularly fun. in a normal fight he has two scimitars under the long coat he wears. if he’s aware he doesn’t mind finding a middle ground and poison tipping his blades.

nekhbet is very fast, it’s his best quality when in a fight, he’s also very limber and tends to parkor around things if needed for a getaway.

both of his parents are dead, or at least he was always told his father was dead by his mother; most likely he abandoned them to live with another family, at least he likes to think this it makes it easier to hate the man, hate was a familiar feeling, love was not. his mother died when he was ten, leaving him homeless.

speaking of his father, if he ever found out the man was alive he would surely kill him, it’s something he always vowed should his mother be proven to lie about it. he doesn’t think she’d lie, but it’s a possibility; everyone lies.

also speaking of him being homeless, often he was looked down upon, beaten and on a number of occasion came close to some situations he’d rather not think about. ironhaven wasn’t a place for children to grow up in, especially not without someone looking out for them, it’s one of the main reasons that nekhbet ended up excelling at his training, he had nothing to lose and only everything to gain. it was his outlet the only thing left and he wouldn’t let anyone take that away from him, so he survived, he persisted.

nekhbet can’t swim, like at all. he sinks straight to the bottom after panicking usually. it’s honestly something he wants to work on but so far nobody’s ever found out.

[spotlightsaga]

Kevin Cage of @spotlightsaga reviews... Rick and Morty (S03E02) Rickmancing The Stone Airdate: July 30, 2017 @adultswim Ratings: 2.859 Million :: 1.48 18-49 Demo Share Score: 8.5/10 @cartoonnetwork @danharmon TVTime/FB/Twitter/Tumblr/Path/Pinterest: @SpotlightSaga *********MINIMAL TO NO SPOILERS********* Change is fucking hard. When something as monumental as divorce goes down during your childhood, whether it be at a very young age to all the way through to your later teen years and even beyond, it's never an easy adjustment. While it's true that i don't have a father, biologically speaking (I do but he literally has NEVER contacted me - lines open, pussy, redemption is just a call away), I was lucky enough to see my mother stand by her husband, a man whose rightfully earned the title of 'Dad' in my life. Don't trip, I'm not getting mushy here, I know my cartoon audience! Parents fuck us up, then they nag, then they don't speak to you, then they smother you (sometimes with a pillow). It's a vicious cycle, really. Seeing my mother stand by a man who literally almost completely destroyed himself and nearly took everyone down the dark and treacherous rabbit hole of addiction with him was extremely confusing. I harbored feelings of anger and resentment at first, but after awhile he made spectacular & unexpected life changes for the better. Suddenly I realized he wasn't some shit sucking asshole, he was just human, something we're all guilty of in one way or another. People make mistakes, and they sometimes self-destruct for no reason at all, and most everyone's first 'Fight or Flight' reaction is to pack up your shit and fucking RUN. I'm so glad that my mother didn't do that, we have our differences, but my Dad is one of the few male role models I have, that actually taught me something real in this world and given things I can really use and apply to real life situations. Sometimes you have to step away from people for awhile, but if you really love them, you never give up. I'm not sure if 'Rick & Morty' is the best place to pull out my existential bucket of ooey-gooey fun, maybe sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't... That's the incredible thing about this series in general! Where a great toon like 'Mike Tyson Mysteries' is frankly all fun & games, 'Rick & Morty' is layered (like a fucking onion, y'all) and far more than just a slapstick cartoon for stoners. People are finding that not only is this series funny beyond all reason, it's also incredibly endearing and real. The series main character, chemical friendly & artist of intellect, Rick Sanchez (Justin Rowland), would never admit it, but underneath all the multi-dimensional murders and lowbrow side effects from his chemical hobbies is a regular, mad scientist type Grandpa with a big ol' heart. Don't get me wrong, Rick has every right to tell Jerry (Chris Parnell) to fuck off... The whole 'tiny planet' fiasco and selling Rick out just wasn't a good look, it was a pathetic disaster, a true low point, and it landed Jerry in a job where he's paid in pill supplements and is basically a cuckold to the invading alien race... Oh, and then there's that god-awful windbreaker. Most straight men have problems dressing themselves after a separation or divorce, but damn... Can't nobody tell Jerry 1992 has long since came and gone, even though I wish it hadn't!?! Beth (Sarah Chalke) and Jerry had already been on the outs for two seasons, so this whole divorce thing was a long time coming. As much as I hate Gary's new post-relationship windbreaker, I am so in love with this new, improved, 'no fucks given' Summer Smith (Spencer Grammer). I feel like the place that Summer is at in her life in this very moment is the exact same place I would be and the exact same something I would do if I had an evil/heartwarming genius Grandfather, like Rick, who could travel back in time & space and alternate dimensions... And spend extended time in another realm ala Turbo Kid (2015), Doomsday (2008), or Escape From New York (1981 - Prepare for more Post-Apocalyptic film references). Not all R&M fans are happy tho, but that's because the show is expanding and going deeper... We're seeing an important evolution of the show and like it or not, it's a road that's necessary for the series to take so that it may spread its wings, giving us something new every time. R&M isn't a show that just pops us often... It's sacred, there's nothing on tv like it. It's literally a revolutionary metamorphosis for the #animatedseries genre. It cannot keep giving you the same ol', same ol' and hitting that one note that caught our attention in the first place and still survive with integrity... There's so many goddamn different and unexpected notes that this show can and will hit, both in the near and distant future, that it's completely unfair to ask it to remain stagnant so that we can have our normal R&M laughs. Shit just doesn't work like that, bruh'. Morty is terrified of this new Summer... But I don't think it's purely 'genuine concern'. Sure, that's a part of it, but already in S3 we are seeing Summer kind of inch him out of his co-anchor or sidekick spot with his Grandad. It's never easy to share the attention and affection of the ones we love, especially when the 'one that's loved' in question can literally make the impossible completely and totally possible. Morty has his own shit he's dealing with though, hell even Rick is feeling the toxic effects of the biggest divorce ever broadcast on animated tv. Weird, but true. In 'Rickmancing The Stone', Morty, Summer, and Rick all head to a 'Mad Max', post apocalyptic, style universe where men wear buckets on their heads, killing is for sport, and ultimately a place where you have to fight for all the things you want, to the death... Basically the literal opposite of what Jerry is doing with Beth. It's all a fantastic juxtaposition of the very life back at their original 'Earth 1' that they are trying to escape from and it's incredible to see this 'Nihilistic Wasteland' through three different sets of eyes, each character gaining something different from the experience. Spotlight Saga's Cartoon Fans are incredibly strict when it comes to spoilers, so I'm not here to spoil the episode (Spoiler Free! Yayy). I know that there are many of you, outside of TVTime, that read these articles for the content and don't necessarily watch the show. I'd love to take you deeper on this one, but I simply can't. We can give you the rundown on the basic plot, but trust me, anything beyond that and Cartoon Purists will legit crucify all of us over here on a broken telephone pole. Besides, when we tell you that 'Rick & Morty' could possibly be the greatest American Animated Television Series of All Time... We fucking mean it. This isn't a show that you want to miss out on, so those that are avid readers (and yeah, we fucking love you for it), know that this is one of the special ones that you need to set your DVR, buy the season on #Vudu or wherever you can access it and give it a thorough once, twice, three or even more times over. I, myself, have personally watched this particular episode 4 times already, and it won't be the last. The series, as a whole, is still holding strong at #7 on #IMDB's user rated list of Top Rated TV Shows (of all time), holding a 9.3/10 with nearly 138,000 votes and counting. That's some seriously heavy shit for an Adult Swim cartoon to find itself smack dab in the middle of a comprehensive list of all the greats w/series like GOT, Breaking Bad, The Wire, and The Sopranos. It's seriously everything that everyone says it is and more. Really. Those that ARE watching and are a little taken aback by the show suddenly taking a new direction and tackling serious issues through brand new avenues, give it a chance. This show has done right by you so far, it's definitely not going to let you down. I rarely put my stamp on a series outside of praising a season, or certain episodes because you never know what kind of hard turn a show is going to take... But let me tell you... I believe in 'Rick & Morty', and wherever this fresh faced S3 is taking us, I want in on the fucked up, Science Fiction laced, blood soaked, LSD inspired shot storm of a road trip fully stocked with McDonald's Mulan Szchuan Sauce... ESPECIALLY since the show is clearly embracing a bit of #existentialism and stirring it up in its big bowl of psychedelic, 'what the fucks', never-ending, unpredictable journeys... All while continuing to turn old tropes into something that feels incredibly new and progressive. Wabba Lubba Dub Dub!

[spiritcc]

The Musgrave Ritual

All the meh reactions that I’ve seen about this episode completely made me forget that it’s actually fucking awesome. 

Screw ye guys and ur weird fixation on kilts, I’m enjoying my atmospheric out of town case that is for once not linked to all these moriarties and other shit, and I’m having a great time.

As always, the Ritual(tm) says to beware the spoilers, even though the case is the only one out of the whole series that is a total standalone. 

Let’s enjoy the holiday just as much as Watson did.

I honestly adore this episode so much. You can accuse it of cheap scares, poor plot and the murderer unreveal, but that’s something I can’t really understand, cuz the episode’s great. 

That crown was on the ceiling all that time since frame one, you can’t see it well in the middle, but it’s there in plain sight.

Somebody fire seven centuries worth of janitors please, or just don’t praise anyone who found the crown past day one of the treasure hunt, yall stupid kilt motherfuckers deserve not having forks. 

Red’s dad is played by Red, genetics in action.

I liked the spoopy opening scene. Well, I liked everything in this episode, but yeah, the spoops were nice, very morbid from the very start, I thought they’d kill the elder kid.   

Originally I wanted to have it as they say it, the black man, but my proofreader was like how about no. So, the man in black. Very spoopy, yes. 

Pleasantly continuing to remind people that Watson is still a doctor and has a job to do. Bonus points for that very polite/ax-crazy dude for thinking he’s exceptional.

Now, Red. Reg, whatever, so far it’s Red and I’m calling him Red till the day I die.  

I loved Red because he is so woke about the entire situation, finally an adequate dude in a horror movie. Traditions my ass, ancient rivalry my balls, let’s just all chill there for a second and maybe fist bump to resolve all the accumulated problems. He’s such a simple guy it’s simply delightful to watch. Of course he’d give Watson permission to write about the story, that wouldn’t be even a permission per se, just something along the lines of “okay!”. He’s great, Holmes chooses cool dudes to hang out with.

When your uni buddy reads too much medieval netflix before sleep and thanks you for a night of wet dreams

Let’s admire an actual castle for once, Russian film companies might still struggle with overseas decorations, but they always have Vyborg and Vyborg always has some great stuff to offer. 

I don’t blame Red for wanting to demolish like all of it for reconstruction, this pile of stone shite needs it. It’s only fun and games until you actually have to live there on a permanent basis. 

Tag urself im watson

This is where Watson starts to have a great time, nothing gets you more pumped up than an excited dude demonstrating how to chop a head off using you as an example.

So, I do think that the spoopy feel of this episode works, firstly because it’s a new case and therefore you really have no idea what to expect and what happens next. Can’t do it with the hound, can you, when every dog on the street knows the plot by heart. And secondly, I think the actual visual part of it looks not only spoopy, but quite charming in its own way.

The old feel to the bagpipes music, the old books telling old tales of war and drama, the fact that everything described in those books actually took place one way or another. You just can’t think about anything else than “yikes, those times”. 

That’s why the spooper element works for me as well, you literally have no idea what to expect.

When your open-minded brother starts sharing ideas at the table

Now, I kinda feel uncomfortable with how this episode played with my own deduction games. Everything was set up around Tom, till the last second pretty much, the dude was as suspicious as ever. Brunton, as the canon perpetrator, looked so obvious you just dismiss him automatically. Then the episode double plays you and finally removes Tom as a decoy, only to reveal that it was indeed Brunton all along. I’m uncomfortable how easy it was and how easily this episode decided to screw with you. Actually, the Brunton reveal kind of disappointed me the first time, I thought it was too weak, now I don’t even notice anything since I know what happens. 

Other than that, Tom was not plotting a murder, Tom was just being very hospitable in the best traditions of Scotland. Culture clash. 

Their sibling relationship with Red is a nice sight though, Red couldn’t care less about Tom’s status and Tom is constantly pissed with Red’s ideas, but keeps most of it to himself. And both of them love each other, that was very nice. 

Yeah yeah, kilts.

It looks like the only thing everyone got from this entire episode, and I swear I still don’t get the hype. And it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that I live in Scotland, but all I’ve seen so far is the kilts and not a single word about the actual episode. 

When your foot is the only thing stopping a fucking armed mystical psycho from breaking into the hall and butchering a man.

Yeah, this is where the black man finally resurfaces again, great spoop content

Their delivery of this is quite great, in my opinion, reading the same books again, but now suddenly noticing this myth you’ve just found out about all over the text. Dun dun duuun, he’s always been there bitch. 

I actually got the spoops from this moment, someone may laugh at me, but I find it kinda nice that I can still get spooped by some dude in a robe in our age of perverted horror innovations.

Oh, Watson is having fun, Watson’s on best holiday ever. 

Watson’s been accidentally hearing and seeing all the right things, but everybody kept dismissing him for various reasons. 

Yarmolnik

If I give up all the remaining decency I have about running this blog, I’d be spamming Yarmolnik till the day I get deleted. He’s been great pals with Panin, has a nice bromance with Boyarsky, but toch-v-toch is the show that ruined my life. I watch it for like 60% just to see him and other judges interact, these guys are unreal. This guy is unreal, I’m totally biased, he;s such a great dude. 

Anyway, Scottish cowboy

You know, since it’s kind of established the hound story didn’t have a real life source behind it in this series, this case here looks like it’s the one that spawned a lot of canon stories about castles and mysteries. Not even talking about the obvious Musgrave story, this case heavily foreshadows the Baskervilles, but for some reason, to me the biggest easter egg was the fucking sir Henry the Canadian cowboy from the Soviet series. Like don’t tell me these guys are not the same person, Red and Soviet sir Henry are like 80% identical. I’ll just believe Watson’s canon hound included Mikhalkov’s version of Henry, thanks to Red, the cowboy in a kilt. 

Stop eating glasses

I like how they actually give some background explanation as to how these dudes got to know each other in the first place, they’re both chemist nerds. 

Holmes went here literally for the lab equipment, and Red slept in the lab during this episode. He even wrote some paper. I just find it very interesting, Holmes actually interacting with someone to the point of them freely inviting him into an ancient castle, and Red, the simple okay guy, being a science nerd.

Watson’s raving 

Even in this episode Holmes managed to get punched in the face, fascinating. 

This Brunton guy sure has no fucking life.

Spend five years working as a fucking servant in your neighbour’s house?? Literally just drop any real responsibilities, abandon your own castle and go fucking carry trays for some dudes and then play it off as something very not loser-y?? No wonder Red is screaming, what the fuck’s all this medieval traditions shit.

ITS THE FUCKING XIX CENTURY LOOK AT THE CALENDAR DINOSAUR SHITE WHO THE FUCK DOES THIS

Of course Scotland does, there’s like, dudes about to kill each other? No? Not planning to help or anything? Bagpipes? Alright. Bagpipes

Bagpipes, hehe. One dude went like, oh wow other dude, I stuck a pipe in a bag and it makes sounds!!! Other dude be like, holy macaroni, first dude, we must think of a name for this pipe in a bag. The first dude be like, bagpipe. The other dude like, what if more pipes. The first dude, bagpipes. They had a jolly time. 

Literally how fucking stupid they were, Charles I was like the biggest and the laziest troll out there, but I’m more outraged by the fact that it worked. 

When some pathetic asshole defeats you in a fight, ties you into a celebration and starts hitting on your daughter.

See, Red is a chill guy, Red doesn’t need any drama in his life, Red wants some progress, pants, and a fork. You really should be questioning your apeass traditions there, buddy. 

So, hound of the Baskervilles. We had the spoops, we had a woman crying in the night, we had a rich heir coming from abroad wanting some sweet renovations, we had a guy hiding under a different identity, we had a temporal decoy, and we had a portrait.

Yep, throw a pup into the equation and there you have it, this Musgrave castle alone was a great source for some great stories in the future.

Why wouldn’t it be great, it has an atmosphere of its own, an entertaining case, a very likable main character, a castle, and a plot in its own little world that gives you a break from all the moriarty drama. Some families do have a quite barbaric history and very unforgiving customs. Treasures, mysteries and family rivalry make for some fascinating stories. And yo, the wild Scotland we all love, amiright.  

This is a blessed image of Watson petting a chicken, share it with your friends and gain +5 nights of man in black resistance and +2 pants

Holmes was plotting shit all this time, and yeah, his logic was always solid. He never considered Tom a threat, Tom would never need this entire shit show if he wanted the money. Holmes went after Stafford since day two, saved a gal in the process, trolled Watson in the meanwhile. He sure took no shit.

If the story was told from his perspective, it would’ve been the most boring case out of the bunch, and that is considering that Holmes was actually wondering the catacombs all by himself. The guy just never took no shit from anybody and had a great time and an easy case. 

Finally, what a scene, man. The times when the show first aired were some pretty dark times, nothing from whatever the promotional material ever explained what the premise of the series was, no elaborating whatsoever. Here’s a new Holmes show, Holmes is kinda pathetic, Adler is kinda the chick, everything is kinda different. See ya at nine on channel Russia One. That’s it, seriously, one of the reasons everybody opposed to it in the first place, nobody fucking knew what the show was about in the first place, just peeps mindlessly butchering canon once again for no fucking reason. The show itself never bothered to explain much. This scene at the end of the fifth episode, more than halfway through the series, was that long-awaited explanation out of nowhere that cleared up ALL the questions, and that scene was damn fucking good.

The reality is too boring or controversial to be told in its original form. The canon as we know it is a big pompous lie created to appeal to a reader. What I’ve been seeing in the show for the past episodes was the actual reality behind it. 

That was legit the first time ever when the premise became as clear as a day, and I couldn’t even care how late it was because the reveal was so fucking great. We are the ones that make them heroes. Or not. That’s the question then, who are the heroes? Them or us? 

Huh, huh, Watson

In my opinion, this is the point that makes this editor guy the accidental ACD of this universe. Watson might’ve modeled the Holmes character and all, but it was this fucking guy that pushed Watson to do all of this. He’s the actual creator. The force behind this entire world. The godly entity. Completely oblivious to the entire fact. He’s fucky, but here’s his credit. 

Could anyone have bought the reality as it was? Indeed, probably not. Would have they bough the Musgrave case in its original form? Totally.

[presidentsclubkrp]

Our crime tale begins with PARK YONGJI, a TWENTY-SEVEN year old member of THE PRESIDENT’S CLUB. SHE works as their FORGER, but she’s better known as the infamous HOLBEIN.  JOIN THE HEIST?

PART ONE; the basics.

Name: park yongji

Alias: n/a

Code name: holbein

Faceclaim: kim seolhyun (aoa)

Gender/Pronouns: she/her

Date of Birth:  1/31/1993

Age: 27

Hometown: incheon, south korea

Occupation: bartender

Canon: the forger

PART TWO; about.

Biography ( tw: death mention, cancer )

the death

i.

she lives in gaps.

ii.

the doctor is optimistic the first time around. he uses big words that fall deaf on eight-year-old ears.

says the cancer hasn’t metastasized. she’ll have to get chemo, she might lose her hair, but she’ll survive. it’s not impossible.

her mother cries but makes her way to the church when her tears have dried.

“god is gracious, yongji. he’s going to save you.”

and her mother is right. he does.

iii.

the second time around the doctor is a woman and her hand is cold when she holds yongji’s.

she uses big words just like the man did last time, but this time she’s fourteen and she understands each and every syllable.

the cancer is back, it’s metastasized to her liver. they’ll have to run a test on her bone marrow too.

it’s a death sentence in too many words. a long, drawn-out, painful demise at fourteen.

iv.

her mother cries the day they shave her head again, murmurs about how they’ll buy her pretty wigs; ones that look real so no one will know the difference.

but yongji sees her face in the mirror and looks at sallow, yellowing skin and sunken cheekbones.

a carcass clinging to life, the futility of everything is nauseating.

“who cares,” she says and her mother cries all the harder, “a wig won’t keep me going, will it?”

v.

god’s mercy is cruel.

she comes to the end to rally back, only to live again.

no one asks what it’s like to cheat death, no one thinks about the scars the cancer mars her with and the one’s her minds meant to cope with when she comes out the other side.

“congratulations,” they say and cheer, yongji can’t bring herself to thank anyone.

the living world

i.

“i see you.”

it reads like a threat the way he says it. something to set her bones a-light and watch her writhe in the flames.

“i see you for what you are yongji.” “what’s that?”

the answer never comes. her body burns all the same.

ii.

there’s an art to running away: it’s all in the way feet hit the pavement, all about never looking back without a second regret. the key to a good escape is the single-minded determination and a lack of remorse.

a conscious is a liability.

yongji’s the best runner she knows.

iii.

“how do you see your future?” “i think i will die tomorrow.”

iv.

her mother creates a language for lamentations.

daughter means disappointment.

all of her unrealized hopes and dreams channeled into a daughter who makes nothing of them.

it’s criminally pathetic, just like yongji.

“one day,” her mother says in her weekly voicemail, “one day you’ll have a daughter and you’ll understand the ways you make me suffer. one day you’ll learn the pain of giving life to someone who wants nothing to do with you.”

yongji deletes the voicemail before her mother’s vitriol cuts deeper.

v.

“what’s the point of you?” she says one day in a voice that feels less of her own and more of someone she can’t place. “you love in a way i can’t understand, so what’s the point of you?” “it’s love yongji, that’s the point of it.” “a love that means nothing.” “so what? are you going to walk away? are you going to run away again?”

she doesn’t look back as the door closes behind her, she’s too busy listening to the way her feet hit the pavement, too busy looking for the next move.

the heavens

i.

somewhere in between the first and second stint of fighting for a chance at life, someone gives her a book on art.

it’s good for her constitution to focus on something other than the inevitable.

ii.

holbein is the best portraitist of the 16th century.

it’s less of an opinion and more of a fact, yongji’s copied enough paintings to know.

the attention borders on something unflattering for the subject, something nearly grotesque.

and yet, she devotes herself for weeks to the perfection of it all. it’s enough to distract her from the lamentable excuse of her so-called existence.

iii.

“do you ever consider doing original work?” “no.” “why not? as talented as you are it’s a shame to not see what you could do on your own.” “i’m not interested in leaving myself exposed on a canvas.” “pity, there's no plays for emulators in art. what a waste of a prodigious talent.”

she only hums in acknowledgment.

iv.

[ kkt ← 내 친구]: a picasso painting sold for 115 million usd today in new york [ kkt ← 내 친구]: that’s what? 150 billion won? [ kkt ← 내 친구]: i wonder what he’d sell for in korea [ kkt ← 내 친구]: shall we find out?

v.

picasso via park yongji sells for 60 million won.

she doesn’t know what’s nicer, the look of her bank account or the rush of getting away with murder.

the answer, she’s sure, is somewhere in the middle.

[3one3]

The Sequel - 833

Hourglass

André Schürrle, Juan Mata, other Chelsea/BVB players, and random awesome OC’s (okay they’re less random now but they’re still pretty awesome)

original epic tale

all chapters of The Sequel

“Ah, here you are. I’ve been looking all over for you two. What are you doing out here?”

“He’s building a fortress or something and I’m watching.”

“Are you watching him, or the horses?”

“Both I suppose.”

“Don’t leave your phone on the couch and disappear. I couldn’t find you and I thought you got abducted, or you were murdered and hidden in the attic.”

“We don’t have an attic.”

“Fair enough. Heyyy, Mausi. How was your day?”

Lukas ran over to greet his dad and get picked up for a hug and kiss, and Christina kept her seat on the grass. She and the little blonde found a nice spot under a tree behind the house, way in the back, to hang out and look at the horses turned out in those new paddocks. Normally those two were for Jelly Bean, Dezzy, and Goose. Jelly Bean was back in France to compete at another show with Stefanie, Dezzy was turned out with Navarra in the paddock next to Kimi and Optimus since the stallions normally in that one were on their way to Madrid, and the two in the next one over were already inside for the day. Kyle put Dirk and Calvin out together back there in the geldings and mares section so that he could try to fix the two fence boards one of them kicked down the day before. Repairing fences wasn’t exactly his stock in trade, but Tom was already on his way to Spain too and he was done with everything until it was time to bring the horses in for their dinner, so he figured he’d give it a go. First he painted the replacement boards. Christina’s fences were all black.

“I think I’m still in Mama’s doghouse,” André told his son, who he thought looked way cool in a miniature cap from Marco’s fashion line. “Can I build the fortress with you? I don’t think she wants me to sit with her.” The player nodded at the interlocking plastic block set his wife lugged out there in a bag, and imagined she was rolling her eyes behind her sunglasses. They didn’t talk a whole lot during the rest of that party, and he dropped her at home before heading to the other restaurant with the guys. She said she wanted to get to bed, and he didn’t make an issue out of it. It wasn’t worth it to have a big fight. He thought she was being petty and spiteful, and Christina all but admitted she was being those things but for a good reason. He also figured he probably could have been a bit more considerate. He did know she had a long and busy day, and that he didn’t give her any notice about going to the party so it wasn’t like she could have planned better. The after-party-dinner was fun, and his girl was sound asleep when he got home, and then already up and at ‘em when he got up for training.

“I don’t have a doghouse,” she chirped. Her plan to ride a bunch of horses, hack out with Kimi, give him a luxurious bubble bath, and take him for grass all worked out well, and was as satisfying as she imagined. She called it a day after that and went over to the house to catch up with Lukas, but the horses called her back. It was too nice to be inside, firstly, and there is something as significant to horse people about watching a beautiful, muscular, sculpted specimen as there is in patting his butt or shoulder and feeling those things. It wasn’t hot enough yet during the day to need to switch them to overnight turnout, and it was too cold at night still anyway. Christina let Tom know she preferred to let the horses enjoy the long days, sun-wise, too. Instead of turning them out at 8 and bringing them in at 3 for grooming and then dinner, or bringing the ones who worked during the day in at 5 to eat, they shifted everything back a little. They went out a little later and got to stay in their paddocks until about 7. That meant even the ones who didn’t come in at some point to work had to be brought in in the middle of the day for their daily grooming and onceover. The guys had to make some extra trips. Their boss thought it was worth it.

Dirk and Calvin were showing some signs of boredom when she went out and sat under the tree near their paddock at 5:45. They darted around for no reason, and tried to get Goose to come over and visit. Goose hated everyone though, and wasn’t inclined. Even he looked great in the evening sun. At 21 years old he was the oldest on the property, and he did the least work. Kyle rode him about every other day, and just for the exercise. He was fat and round and fit but not working-fit. His blood bay coat reflected the sun’s nearly horizontal rays in different golds and bronze, and the gray hairs creeping up his face from his muzzle were almost invisible in the glare. That sun was like a highlighter, and made every imperfection and remnant of injury on his well-used legs stand out. The contrast of old man Goose alternating between sedate snoozing and disinterested nibbling at the grass on the left and two batty stallions looking for trouble on the right made Christina think about time and age.

Dirk and Calvin were four years apart, age-wise, but could be equally immature. A 12-year-old stallion is considered an adult, and should be approaching his prime as a competition horse if you’re talking about a top-level jumper. Calvin never acted his age. He was perpetually 5, despite maturing in the ring in leaps and bounds under Christina’s training and love. Dirk was 16 and most definitely in that prime zone, though he could act 5 too whenever he felt like it. His human was starting to think about when the end would come for him. The drop off after a top horse’s prime comes quickly. Equine performance is not a bell curve, upside down or otherwise. He can be good for many years before becoming great, but once greatness is achieved around the usual age, his body will begin to fail shortly thereafter. Marcus’ great stallion, Plot Blue, competed at 19. That was pretty rare. Nick was already 17, so she was thinking about him too. Sitting out there looking at the three very different horses, she got as far as thinking about which show she might choose for Nick’s retirement ceremony, and if it would come the next year or the one after that. Dirk’s couldn’t be all that far behind, and for a few moments she even considered the possibility of the Olympics being a mic drop moment. If he got his gold medal, she could take him to the Nations Cup Final after that and retire him at the end. But he was frolicking around with his friend, and he looked wonderful, and she knew his mind was still wonderful and that he’d hate to be home forever and not competing anymore, so it would be difficult to know how and when to call time on his career. There was also the option of just scaling back his calendar, and dropping him down a level. Something about that felt a little pathetic and sad.

André’s finding her out there in a fairly remote and unexpected place reminded her that their property wasn’t that enormous, really, and not only was there nowhere to hide, but there was nowhere to turn out more horses. Neither Nick nor Dirk would be leaving after retirement. Neither would ever be sold, and their rider couldn’t really imagine retiring them somewhere she couldn’t still see them every day. They would need to be replaced though. She would need more horses to keep competing the way she was. Rio and Calvin and perhaps Socks might move up and step into their shoes, so to speak, and then leave room below for new horses. Or perhaps Christina would have the opportunity and desire to acquire one of the other most elite jumping horses on the circuit and her retirees’ spots would be filled that way. Either way, there was no room, physically, for more horses. She wasn’t sure if there would be more room in her heart for them either. It was possible that she simply wouldn’t want to keep competing as much, or have enough hunger to need the new best horses in the world. That was a lot of uncertainty about the future, which was her worst enemy. At the very least, it was a big enough mental stumbling block to ensure she couldn’t care less about André’s passive aggressive teasing about her treatment of him.

“You definitely have one,” he told her. “I know it, Mausi knows it, those horses know it. All the people you teach know it. Even Juan knows it.”

I could retire Dirk and Nick to the nonexistent farm at Juanin’s beach house, his wife mused. That’s like a real retirement. The only question is how much time will I be spending at Juanin’s beach house and thus with them?

“What’s the matter? I’m just messing with you,” he tutted when she collapsed abruptly backward, covered her face with her hair, and made some kind of beleaguered exhale/groan combination noise.

“My horses are getting old,” Christina whined through her dirty, second-day waves.

“Dirk is prancing around Calvin like a matador trying to taunt a bull. Why are you thinking about how old he is?” the player snorted. “He behaves exactly like his son the last time we went to see him.”

“I don’t know. Because I’m a glutton for punishment.”

“I think you like to punish me more than yourself.”

“Oh shut up already. I don’t care about last night. It’s not a thing.” His girl shook her head vehemently on the grass and then unfolded her legs to make it easier to sit up again.

“Oh. What have you been doing all day then that you don’t talk to me?” I’m confused, André reiterated. First it was the age of the horses, and then her silence. I texted her like four times. I thought she was ignoring them because none of them were apologies. He put Lukas down to go back to his block fort building, a sat down between the fort and the rider.

“Riding. Teaching. Barn stuff. Munchkin stuff.”

“Did he draw on you or did you sneak a new tattoo?” He squinted and moved his head to follow the inside of her right arm. There was something colorful there by her elbow.

“Lauren came by to get something from Tom’s car. Emily assaulted me with a temporary tattoo. It’s a kitten.” Christina showed him her arm and held the sleeve of her adidas tee out of the way even though it was at least 4 inches from actually being in the way.

“Why did she put it on that spot?”

“How should I know?”

“You’re kind of grumpy today, Prinzessin.”

“I need a hug, I think.” She held both arms out in André’s direction and turned her lower lip over. He leaned over to close her up tight in his much longer arms, and made a loud sucking sound when he kissed her temple with the side of his mouth. I prefer not grumpy but grumpy is okay when it’s not my fault, he decided. He dropped one hand down to rigorously rub her back, pushing her shirt up in the process. His palm slowed when he felt more than heard her sigh and release the tension from her body, and he let it come to rest tucked just inside the top of her black leggings at the small of her back.

“Better?”

“A little.”

“I picked up fish to grill in case you were going to be mad at me and make dinner for you and Mausi and pretend you thought I didn’t want any or something,” André laughed, his cheek on the top of the side of his girl’s head.

“What kind?”

“I think you call it trout.”

“Gross.”

“It’s sooooo good, and so easy. You heat oil with garlic and some herbs and then you pour a little vinegar into it, cover the fish with it, and then just grill it a few minutes. Delicious.” The BVB man let go of his wife to rub his stomach instead. “You should try.”

“Hard pass. I have chicken legs and breasts brining in the fridge. Are you sitting on my sunglasses, by the way?”

“Not that I know of.” He felt around his butt and found her plastic-frame Dior aviators, safe from harm. Then Lukas brought him a fuzzy neon green caterpillar. “That’s cool, Mausi. Where did you find him? Was he on your blocks?”

“That one!” The little boy turned around to point to a red block, and then lifted the little bug to his face on the back of his hand.

“Do not eat that,” his mom warned sternly.

“I hope it’s not one of the poisonous ones. There was an infestation some years back,” André chuckled, examining the creature that was slowly trying to crawl up Lukas’ arm.

“What? Get it off him! Babe!”

“Nooooo, mine!” Lukas protested as he ripped his hand away. “My worm!” He knew about worms from a storybook about bugs. His bug vocabulary was limited to “worm”, “spy-uh”, and “ant”.  

“Can you put him on a stick or something?” Dad offered as a compromise. “You can keep him. Just not on your arm. Find a stick or a big leaf,” he told Christina. She barked at him to just hurry up and get the caterpillar off the child before she was willing to get up and look for an alternative host for the creature. André said he was “pretty sure” it wasn’t one of the poisonous varieties. Lukas didn’t want to give it up though. He tried to make a run for it, ended up falling over his own fortress, losing the caterpillar, and crying. His mom asked him if he was crying because he fell and he shook his head. She asked if he was crying because he lost his “worm”, and he shook his head at that too. Dad asked if it was the ruined construction project that upset him, and that got another headshake. Dad hugs didn’t dam the tears. Mom hugs didn’t dam the tears. Dirk fixed everything. He came over to the fence to find out what all the wailing was about, and Christina carried Lukas over to see if petting the inquisitive black horse might at least distract him from whatever mystery ailment was upsetting him. Dirk blew hot hair on his face and tried to eat his hair, and that made him giggle. Then all he cared about was getting Mommy to hold him closer to Dirk. André said they were all in big trouble if their son was going to be just like her and need the Holsteiner stallion to make everything right for him, and he tried to make an old age joke about it too, about how the horse wouldn’t be around forever. Christina was aghast. She shot daggers at him at first, and then her face simply fell and turned profoundly sad. The good news was that her husband could do a pretty good job of making everything right for her too, and he kiss-assaulted her until she giggled as well.

They made dinner together. The equestrian granted the footballer a small section of the outdoor grill to cook his fish, and used the rest to make her chicken. She char-grilled sliced zucchini, asparagus, and herbed golden potatoes. They let Lukas determine which of the trout or chicken was best. He favored the chicken, primarily because he could hold a drumstick and eat it without a fork. That was the main reason Christina bought chicken legs. Her son loved to eat them, no matter how they were cooked or what she put on them. He also liked to chat during dinner. Sometimes he thought he was participating in his parents’ conversation if he threw out words while they talked. He thought they were responding to him. Sometimes he interrupted to ask simple questions just to keep their attention. André tried to lead him into meaningful conversation. He asked him if he liked his food, what sort of food it was, if he had his napkin and could wipe his mouth on his own, who made the food for him, and what he’d like to do after dinner. Some nights were better than others for getting responses that made sense. It depended on how tired the little boy felt.

Dad talked to him about his birthday while he ate his drumstick that night. He tried to get him to say what gift he might like after he explained the concept of a birthday again. He told him his Mommy’s birthday was coming soon too, and that they needed to get her a gift. Lukas said they should give her grape juice and Nick Fox. “Nick Fox” was how the family referred to the fox character in the movie Zootopia, Nick Wilde. It was the only way to get Lukas to let them know if he meant Nick the Hanoverian stallion or Nick the animated movie character. He really liked Zootopia. It was his current favorite film. He was turning out to be a really big fan of Shakira. Her featured song for the movie made him dance every time. Christina introduced him to other Shakira songs, and André caught her dancing with him too, and trying to be Shakira. She told her little boy she wanted kisses for her birthday, and he looked surprised at first and then offered to give her kisses right away, no special occasion required. The footballer’s heart melted when his son kissed his Mommy on the cheek three times, hugged her neck too, and then asked if she needed more kisses, all from his highchair.

“Are you sure he really has to stay with you this weekend?” Christina questioned dejectedly after putting the affectionate blonde to bed. André was outside on the patio with a burgeoning fire in the stone pit, relaxing in one of the Adirondack chairs that used to live outside the barn. She chose the wicker sofa and curled up at one end with a Corona. Even after the sun went down, it was Corona weather. One look at him out there with the small flame and the deep blue night sky, and she knew she had to grab one and cut some lime.

“Yes. I want to take him to the match!”

“I know, but is it really that big a deal? Wouldn’t you rather he be there for the cup final since you might actually play in it?”

“And who is going to bring him to Berlin? Hmm?”

“Your parents?” She shrugged and took a sip of the icy cold hallmark of summer nights past. Somewhere in one compartment of her mind, she thought about how much she hoped there would be a chance to sit outside and enjoy a nice night with her colleagues in Spain, where it was probably even warmer.

“But I want to experience the game with him. It’s going to be a great atmosphere. We need third-place. Qualifying stages is a disaster for preparation! The fans will be crazy. I want him to be part of it, and feel the energy, and I want to take him out on the pitch with me. He hasn’t done that yet,” the midfielder-on-the-mend explained. He’d negotiated with his wife for Lukas to stay home instead of accompanying her to Madrid. He was going to Hamburg and St. Gallen with her instead.

“Well I hope for your sake that the atmosphere isn’t that crazy, or he’ll cry the whole time and you’ll want to strangle him.” Christina pulled her sweatshirt sleeves down from where they were pushed up her arms. The beer was making her cold from the inside out.

“Did you want to talk about the horses growing old?” André asked after shrugging off her warning. “I didn’t mean to glass over it earlier.”

“It’s “gloss” over it,” his girl smiled. “And no. It’s not a big deal.”

“Are you sure? I can just listen, if you want. I promise not to counter everything you say. I know you hate that.” He wasn’t just handling her with kid gloves in an effort not to make waves that could turn into tempests. That urge was slowly passing, much to his relief. He really didn’t like feeling as if he had to be so aware and so conscious of every little thing he said or did. Dismissing things she brought up, even passively, was something he always tried to be mindful of. The new thing was trying not to refute or push back on every part of her thinking or her argument when she did want to talk about an issue, or a quandary, or decision. Christina often thought he just decided that something was bad, or wouldn’t happen, for example, and then shot down every fact or bit of evidence she presented as a matter of course, without really thinking about what she said or giving it due diligence. He was trying to be better about that, for her and for himself too, so it wasn’t just a relationship-mindful exercise. It was like personal growth.

“It’s really not a thing,” she stressed before diving into the subject anyway. “I’m just feeling very aware that I’ll have to make difficult decisions about Nick and Dirk in the medium-future. I don’t know how I’ll know what’s right for them.”

“Let them tell you. No one reads them better than you. You’ll know when to call it a day, or how to do it, and I’ll be here to make sure you stick with your decision,” André replied with a lazy wink. “They’re both great right now. Don’t miss out on what they have to give you now because you’re in a hurry to think about the future, yeah? You have such an...inability to live in the now, pretty girl.”

“I know.” Christina stared into the fire and took several sips of the beer. The only sound besides that of the wood burning in the pit was the dull cacophony of spring bugs doing whatever it is they do after dark, mixed with the frogs by the pond. Her pensiveness wasn’t a red flag, but it was unwanted for her partner. I know I said I wouldn’t argue her points and I kind of just did, but I don’t think it’s good to keep going with this one, he reasoned. There are other things I want to do with her tonight.

“Are you showering tonight?”

“I dunno yet. I haven’t decided. Can you smell me from all the way over there?”

“No. I want to get in bed soon and you should be naked for that. I need some Naked Prinzessin time. I like it when you get into clean sheets without clothes and like, roll around and...stuff. I also want to put my head on your stomach and play with your boobs. Or your butt. Definitely your butt.” André nodded emphatically as if he’d just made up his mind about which of her features he most wanted to fondle. She stared across the fire at him and thought about how Juan told her pretty much the same thing in terms of just wanting to spend time with her while naked. He said he wanted to be close to her body, and touch it, and that the desire for that was separate from one for sex. “What? Is distant staring your resting face now?” The other player’s brows lifted questioningly, then narrowed, then relaxed as he blinked a bunch of times. For some reason, studying her stoic and immobile expression made his wig out.

“I’m mentally exhausted,” she supplied as an explanation, with a very tiny grin. “I have to turn off the outside in order to power the inside.”

“There is nothing I want more for you than some way to make the inside work part-time, Prinzessin, honestly.”

[thecowboysaint-blog]

Sports Column

Among all crimes committed by man, betrayal may be the most devastating and cruel. There is something inherently evil about treachery; it betrays the spirit and emotion that brought people to live together in the first place. Dante Alighieri placed Marcus Brutus, Cain, and other treacherous souls in the deepest depth of Hell, below the murderous, gluttonous, and greedy. Judas Iscariot is a centerpiece in the deepest layer of hell, while Pontius Pilate is never mentioned in the manuscript. The placement of these people in Hell show how deep of a sin treachery was in the past. Unfortunately, Dante’s middle age hell does not feature the worlds more recent treacherous souls, Benedict Arnold, Richard Nixon, and most importantly, Kevin Durant.

Kevin Durant never knowingly killed anyone, and he surely never went against his nation’s security interest, but his betrayal was just as cruel, pathetic, and inexcusable. Kevin’s arrival to the city was an awakening. For one hundred and one years, the state of Oklahoma had been completely void of professional sports. The lifeblood of Oklahoma sports had always been college football. If a fan was lucky, they may be able to see two or three world-class players in the state during their lifetime, because after graduation, every athlete heads out of state, never to return. Even Oklahoma’s original sportsman, Jim Thorpe, never demonstrated his talent inside state-lines. The arrival of Kevin Durant and the Thunder was a blessing to a state that had never experienced professional level sport.

Kevin automatically became a god in Oklahoma, second only to the Christian one. The entire state became Thunder fans overnight. Durant jerseys could be seen in every restaurant, James Harden “fear the beard” shirts seemed to appear in crowds more often than actual beards. The Ford Center, now Chesapeake Energy Arena, became one of the top selling basketball arenas in the nation. People who never had interest in basketball were now die-hards. Kevin Durant’s arrival on the court was met with cheers warranted for the president or the pope, the crowd swooning as if they were looking at a combination rock star/religious icon.

Durant led his team to hundreds of wins, four conference finals, one NBA final, and won MVP while doing it. His combination of dunks, outside scoring, and his inhuman wing-span made it seem like a NBA Final’s Championship would happen, if not this year than the next. The past few seasons, Durant and Russell Westbrook have been perhaps the most dominant duo in basketball. For most fans, it seemed like if they just waited until they had the right set of background players, a championship would be inevitable.

The end of the 2015-16 season was also the end of Durant’s contract. Thunder fans speculated endlessly on what his decision may be, but most concluded their speculation with some version of “There’s no way he’s leaving here, this is his home!” Some of the more cynical fans would say, “He might leave, he really wants a ring, maybe he’ll find a team with better defense.” Yet no Thunder fan, not even the most negative and cynical bastard could bring themselves to believe the rumor when it hit the media. I still remember when I heard it. I got on the computer and checked CNN, scrolling down the front page I glimpsed at the sports section and cursed aloud to myself. The headline said, “Durant seen talking to Golden State Warriors manager.”

The cowardly little bitch. I was not betrayed because Kevin was leaving, for I had begun to suspect that he might not renew his OKC contract. I was betrayed because he was leaving for the Warriors. This was the same Warriors who had dominated NBA offense over the past few seasons, the same Warriors who were almost guaranteed to go to at least the Western Conference finals every season. And they were also the same Warriors whom Kevin Durant had a three game lead over in the 2015-16 Western Conference finals. He proved that the Thunder could take on the best team in the nation, and now he was going to jump to the best team in the nation just to win a ring? That is basketball equivalent of Aaron Rodgers leaving to be Tom Brady’s backup. Golden State doesn’t need Kevin to win, and Kevin doesn’t need them to win. Yet Kevin decided that winning a ring with no dignity was better than the one of a kind a relationship he had with not only a team, but an entire state.