#literally just take me out back like ol yeller

[hosseinis]

"He has had my back on two occasions. Once was the last day I was in the mine, and the other not so long ago." "My, sounds like a love story."

[queenofbaws]

🌻 Sam!! I love my lil egg <3

TAKE A HIKE!

Rated E

When she’d signed up for the club, she’d thought it was just going to be a fun intramural thing. Hiking? Climbing? The great outdoors? Sign her up! Anything to get out of the midterm slump and into the sunshine! Then, the big spring hike had happened. The big spring hike and climb. The big spring hike and climb where Rachel King was assigned as her designated climbing buddy.

Of all the people to get paired with, why oh why did Sam have to get stuck with her?! They couldn’t be less alike if they tried! Sam's a pacifist and Rachel spends all her weekends at the shooting range. Sam goes with the flow and Rachel took the flow out back and shot it like Ol’ Yeller to make room for more rules. Sam has a sunny disposition and “Queen Bitch” is the nicest nickname people use to describe Rachel.

So when they get separated from the rest of the group and have to rely on each other to get back home safely...holy shit, they’re both gonna need all the help they can get.

...

It was obvious enough what she was doing, Sam just...didn’t want to acknowledge it. At all. If she asked, Rachel would have to answer, and that answer would absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, make her angry. So there was no point.

Only Rachel was being quiet to the point of being spooky, and God help them, being on speaking terms would probably be a necessary part of them working together to get home.

“So, uh...” Sam sniffed slightly, trying to keep her voice friendly. “Whatcha doing over there?”

She continued to be quiet for a time, her fingers working the twine deftly until she lifted the whole thing up to her mouth and cut the end off with her teeth. A little too practiced, that move. She wanted Sam to know she’d done it before, and about a hundred times over, at that. “Making a snare,” she said after a time, tying off one last knot. “It’ll come in handy when we have to catch something to eat.”

Catch something to...oh for the love of...Sam literally faked a sneeze to give herself a reason to reach up and cover her face without drawing Rachel’s attention. For maybe a second longer than needed, she hid there in the darkness of her cupped palms, her eyes rolled up so high they nearly slid back into her skull. “Oh. Huh. Y’know, I...don’t think we’re gonna have to worry about...that.”

“Better to have it and not need it than be unprepared.” Slowly, Rachel’s eyes slid towards hers, catching there for less than a moment before moving back to the snare. “You might change your mind once you get hungry.”

“Well we’ve only been away from the group for an hour and I have at least three granola bars in my pack, so...” She forced her mouth into a shape that could reasonably be described as a smile. “I really do think we’re going to be okay without, um...going after the local rabbit population, actually.”

“I guess we’ll see one way or another, won’t we?”

send me a flower and i'll make up a fic (that doesn't exist [yet {because we all know how bad my self restraint is}])!!!

[colorisbyshe]

Sasunaru fanfics are the mf worst because literally the best one I read are the ones where either one of them or the both of them die

The absolute worst was one where naruto sacrificed himself to save sasuke and then sasuke went insane and forced kabuto to resurrect naruto (and the fic ended like that)

Then ANOTHER one ended with naruto dying for Sasuke because (if I remember correctly) orochimaru wanted to posses sasuke and naruto let orochimaru posses him instead so that sasuke could finally kill itachi, only by doing so naruto knew he would die (and he fucking did)

Another one that absolutely KILLED me was one where sasukes punishment for betraying konoha was erasing his memories, only by that time him and naruto were already in love so erasing those memories would mean erasing the memories of their love as well and the story is about Sasuke slowly forgetting naruto little by little and by the end he barely knows who he is and the fic ends with them going together in a mission (naruto keeps him at super distance because he’s in too much pain) and the fic ends with them being ambushed and Sasuke puts himself before naruto to protect him and he says “my body just moved on his own”

They didn’t die in this one but I probably cried more than with the ones where they did

Idk I get they’re the modern day Romeo and Juliet (just when it comes to the level of tragedy because obviously the love and the bond between sns is much deeper than those other two Italian idiots) but you would think fic writers would actually idk , write something more cheerful ? (Jk I appreciate them a lot thank you fic writers )

See, even when it'snot tagged, I can tell when shit is gonna ned with character death and I dodge that shit better than Kishimoto dodged the "good writing with commentary on imperialism" allegations that were built up with the land of waves arc

I don't do that. That said I'm mostly reading about Kakashi and Iruka because they have less baggage, more adult-cntric writing (most Sasunaru is like "let's focus on shippuuden" and let's not do that!), and then just has like lil snippets about Sasuke and Naruto.

If I trusted the fandom to hve more good content abtou Sasuke/Naruto, I would be reading it (though I WILL be reading the rcs y'all sent me. I just need to focus on finishing... actual books) but I don't.

Cause yeah, people do either lean into the angst thing toooo much for me OR they're just like "let's do crack fic" and crack fic has never been funny to me. If I wanted to watch Sasuke nad Naruto do absolutely stupid shit I would just watch filler.

I need to balance of "Yeah, they're traumatized and sad" with "But things can get better for them." I haven't put up with caring about naruto the series for 15+ years for anything other than a more sweet than bitter ending.

Like... I DO want both of htem dead. very much. In canon. Kishimoto please just ol yeller those sad lil fucks. Take them out back, pLEASE.

But if I'm gonna debase myself and read fanfiction... it's not for that.

But Narutos fandom sucks. In so many ways. I've never seen a group of people so bent on finding evrey single bad way to enjoy already bad content. But maybe it's just because I've had 15+ years to see it all whereas most fandoms get distracted by like... year 5.

[tybalt-you-saucy-boi]

Hello! I was curious to know what some of your favorite Mindcrack moments are in all of their years of existing?

Bro. You are in for a motherfucking LIST.

Off the bat, every single Team Canada Prank. I’ve practically memorized the Sky Shrooms and King of the Ladder episodes. That moment when Guude realized Etho was part of the prank and said “We? Who’s we?” and Etho stuttered and fell backwards off the mushrooms to his death was the first moment in my life that I truly felt alive. #TheOfficeIsAGoodShow #RealMenUseTheirRingFinger

Von Swaying Guude’s house changed my whole outlook on Minecraft. How could someone make something so darn ugly and yet so beautiful? It’s the epitome of doing something for the sole purpose of shit starting creating and having fun rather than aiming for perfect and never finishing. Zisteau is a great addition to any video 10/10 educational content

Just about every moment in Guude/Nebris/Pakratt/Arkas’ TerraFirmaCraft Reloaded series. Had to pause videos multiple times to write down quotes and even then I passed up some good ones! I fully intend on rewatching the series from each perspective. Arkas getting slain by bear, Guude and Arkas secretly growing mushrooms and getting high, Pakratt confusing dolomite and diorite, literally everything Arkas does, THE COWS, that last episode of absolute chaos wtf Pakratt

UHC #ForTheKidsSeven with Single Malt scotch’s skyblock base and rampant cheating from every team except Nebris’. I fucking LOVED that near-kill with the anvil, and all the chaos as the border shrank. Four players stuck in a 1x1 column! The arrow volley between SMS and SkyblockJr. Can this happen every UHC?

Speaking of UHC, Etho and BdoubleO’s epic fight in season 11! He was absolutely on the ball with those potions, I was sure he’d die before he could use them all. And Etho’s fight with Guude right before that was hilarious! Guude high as fuck on percocets and Etho like completely confused at what Guude was doing. The original UHC skybase by Zisteau #I’mALavaExpert and Anderz reaction to the skybase, and then to Guude’s dogs

The whole portal thing in season 3 with Pause, Kurt, and Beef too! That has remained one of my favourite UHC moments since I saw it, there is nothing more classic. Every single season I hope someone will make a portal for no reason and end up in someone else’s base with them. #TheWolfTheWolfAmazing!

Zisteau’s E-Pranker Montage. I legitimately cry every time I watch it, particularly during 0.5 (the fourth prank) when he rebuilds Bdubs’ first house from his Building With BdoubleO series. Bdubs’ moment of realization hits me like a train even though I know it’s coming. Like, if someone built my first Minecraft base to prank me I think I would die on impact, but like in a good way.

And back to UHC! Season 14 episode 5. HOOOOOOLY FUCK! 2spooky4me should have totally been a UHC team! Remember when Zisteau played UHC? It just isn’t UHC without him to be honest. And besides the #BadYouTubers and #ImALavaExpert moments from Super Hostile and Ninja Turtles, Parkas had a great season as well! Shit, everyone was awesome! Parkas listening in on BTC finding a silverfish, Doc listening in on Ole Yeller right before Zisteau-ing himself and swearing, Baj hiding nether wart, every single drunken drink Genny did, Parkas towers “we should smelt some stone to make bricks”, snnnnowballs! :D, HEY JSANO! WHY YOU RUNNING JSANO?, “ooooh, we’re right behind you haha” “BTC, they’re actually here.” Pakratt was slain by generikb, Avidya’s spooky voice echoing around Seth and Anderz “You wouldn’t hurt an old teammate, would you?” “I dunno. It’s been awhile.” Just. God this was a good season.

Season 19 with Vechs and BTC! You’ve heard all the famous quotes, “how did I get stuck with you of all people” “Vechs, Vechs. I don’t hate you anymore” “He’s not dying. He’s just mad right now.” “Did it come from your hand, knocking a teammate off the ledge?” “THAT WAS A MOD!” etc etc. I also like MC’s half heart midnight desert dash, although it took a good 10 years of my life from the stress. Oblivious Pakratt running away from his teammates as they yell after him and then wondering why he hasn’t found anyone yet. Seth’s reaction to MC’s diamonds. Coe’s post commentary, again, you know the quotes: “Left. Chicken. Right. Chicken.” “This bucket has wheels!” “Are you gonna put that dirt in a chest?!” etc. Kurt finding Beef “Sharpness Five diamond sword!” and PiMP turning around. F1 and PiMP in general. SwedishZen and Millbee with the melons.

Obligatory mentions: “NOOO YOUR DOGS KILLING ME!!!!”, 2Germans1Hole, Zisteau crafting a clock and finding every excuse to use it during the game so that those 4 gold didn’t go to waste, Rob’s jukebox battles, Anderz fighting spiders when a creeper wanders into his hole, Bdubs’ “real” season 9 ending, Nebris going God-mode “HIT ME ALL YOU LIKE”, Nebris and Pause double kill, Nebris and Pyro double kill with Bdubs watching and cleaning up at half a heart and then Etho cleaning up again and finding the potions B left and Bdubs interrupting his video to do facecam to explain that he’s a nice guy who shares and leaves gifts for others (basically whenever Bdubs does facecam in UHC. Let’s face it, when Bdubs whips out the cam you know you’re in for a good show), Team Uppercats season 10. All of it.

Trouble in Terrorist Town when Pyro and Coe pull a long con on Pause and Guude in like episode 9 during the last round. I had to pause the video to take it all in, I was just in awe. That series is one of my favourites! I always watch from Pause.

In original DvZ when BTC got warned for breaking a cake. Also Pause’s helmet!

Team Canada CTM uhhh forgot which series, but Pause and Beef getting stuck in a hole, Etho dying, placing TNT over their heads, and singing “Pause and Beef, best of friends” while Beef panics.

Etho calling Pause fat as a joke and Pause taking it serious and then Etho going “wait, are you actually fat?’ lmao.

Pause yelling about vacations on episode 37 of the podcast with BdoubleO “STOP TELLING PEOPLE I’M GOING ON VACATION IT’S NOT A VACATION!!!!!!!” and every time he’s yelled about vacations or muted his mic.

Baj reading a question and mid sentence switching to talking about the curry he had last night, and then there’s a pause and the rest of Nancy Drew fucking loses it.

On the podcast, Kurt’s “Wake me up, boys!” That whole episode was a blast!

The whole “sitting or standing?” debate and the guests’ reactions to it.

Doc accidentally killing Notch on the Mindcrack server, and Dinnerbone confused about him not dropping an apple.

Doc’s zombie death loop from season 4 with Anderz saving the day and then promptly dying.

B-Team mafia in survival of the fittest, Etho killing Genny, and B and Etho teaming up afterwards. Also B and Pungence talking excitedly at the end was adorable, you can really tell they’re brothers lol. And Etho drinking out of the outhouse! Bdubs’ comment on that video killed me lol. And Etho forgetting his push-to-talk and failing to team up with Doc.

The whole got-dang B-Team trial.

End of season 3 tour “On a scale from Baj to Anderz” “Arkas, say something about your build.” Arkas: “Hello.”

The original Death Games, when Etho reveals his secret to Nebris particularly, and all the trash talking. Also Millbee, MC, and Nebris coming to kill him and Kurt logging on in the middle of it.

Prop hunt, and all the wiener and erect jokes. “Am I erect?” “I just saw a can spying on me while I was trying to put my wiener in the toilet!”

Pause and Rob getting girlfriends in Orespawn, and Rob naming his after Pause, and Pause murdering his.

Andrea talking about waking up with spiders in her mouth in an old Triple Eh Mondays episode.

Nebris “sensually” feeding Beef a banana (and practically begging to do it to) on the Mindcrack marathon, and Beef completely ruining the mood lol

Zisteau accidentally launching CaptainSparklez back into a lava tree column and “Dude, it’s okay. You can just kill me” after Jordan’s hit him about 40 times.

#ForTheHorse

MC accidentally killing his one and only teammate JSano during UHC season 22

Sevadus and Seth playing blindfolded lego with Chad’s underwear on Sev’s head, lots of swearing, bugs in the lego, “Are you sure it’s the grey lego?”, “I don’t think I like kids anymore” etc

All the Pyro and Baj burns on Quiplash, ie “What’s something that absolutely does not make you think of a penis in any way?” “Baj”

Coe and Pak playing that stupid horse/giraffe volley ball game with the stretchy legs and neck, and Coe doing the silly accent

Bdubs calling Nebris a psychopath in Nebs’ first FTB episode because he jumped a dangerous ledge for 2 (TWO) pieces of glowstone dust

Nebs coming outta nowhere and jumping in Etho’s car when he was about to test his race track

The first few episode of CrackPack and the battle between Etho and BTC, and Beef and Nebris

The first building game with potatoes on sticks, the second accidentally dirty and racist building game with bloody toilet capsules, the third actually dirty building game with a viking hat with a penis inside

God, I could go on forever, but I’ve already spent over an hour and a half on this.

[traviisano]

I spent something like 12+ hours on my code only to find that HALF of it somehow reverted back to the broke ass version it was 12 hours ago????? what kind of BULLSHIT

it’s not even a fucking version control issue or anything I didn’t pull anything from my repo to override my local, half of my program just up and disappeared I’m literally going to cry it’s 230 am and I have to be awake in 4 hours 🥺

Someone take me out back and ol yeller me already

[cripplinganxietyflix]

I saw It Comes At Night

It Comes At Night has been in theaters, at the time of this writing, for about two days, and already it seems to be the most polarizing film of the year thus far. I’m sure anybody who saw the way it was marketed and then watched the film can understand why. I decidedly only watched the initial teaser trailer for this movie, didn’t read about it on the internet other than that Joel Edgerton would be the lead and Trey Edward Shults would be directing. This is, in part, because I did that recently with The Void, and I’m really thankful for it, and I’m trying to make a bigger effort to continue to go into things blind with few or no expectations. 

If you haven’t seen Joel Edgerton’s other fling with the “horror but not like horror horror” genre, The Gift, I highly recommend you do so now. Another film I saw in theaters without seeing literally any promotional material, The Gift is a sadly overlooked gem from 2015 about a childless couple who move into a new house and run into someone from the husband’s past. The husband conveys to the wife that he doesn’t want this stranger (played by Edgerton) hanging around, and it’s basically up to the wife to find out why. It’s an excellent, very fucked up thriller with a pretty shocking end that I certainly didn’t see coming. Edgerton is great as the creepy, stalking stranger, and he’s also a total surprise as the film’s director. I mean it. I didn’t know he directed it until I Google fu’d it a minute ago. 

Another film I would consider “required viewing” going into this is Trey Edward Shults’ first movie, Krisha, which I included on my list of favorite films I watched in 2016. While it’s categorized as a drama/dark comedy, I put it in my horror list- because for those of us with a little dysfunction in our families, it is mind-numbingly, hand-wringingly horrifying. Krisha stars mostly non-actors, including the director’s aunt (IIRC) in the title role. It details a recovering alcoholic’s return to the family she ghosted on for a Thanksgiving dinner. It doesn’t go well. When I say this is required viewing, I mean it. Krisha is as non-traditional as horror films go, and I feel very similarly about It Comes At Night. 

I suppose, based on the trailer, that I expected some kind of supernatural/walking dead aspect to the film going in. Let me take a second to outright demolish that preconception- this is not a monster movie, it’s not a ghost movie, it’s not got anything fantastical or even out of the realm of possibility in it. In fact, it’s a fairly stripped-down, barebones outbreak film. And, for what it is, it’s great.

The film is about Paul, his wife Sarah, and their teenage son Travis. They live with their dog, and Sarah’s father, in a big boarded-up cabin in the woods. Right away it becomes pretty clear that Grampa’s got a potent superbug, because they have to handle him with gloves and respirators, and quite early on, they’ve got to take him out back and shoot him like Ol’ Yeller. Father Paul is utilitarian, practical, a little controlling, and does what needs to be done to avoid infection and ensure survival. When a looter, Will, breaks in, he’s caught and explains himself to Paul- that he also has a family in need of supplies, that he thought the house was abandoned, that he means no harm, and that he’d be happy to trade food for some water. Paul and Sarah reason that they shouldn’t kill him in case he’s got people waiting out, they shouldn’t send him on his way lest he come back with a posse to kill them, and reason that the best option is for Paul to leave with Will and bring Will’s family back to the cabin so that they can share resources and work together. When Paul and Will come back with Will’s wife and son, Kim and Andrew, the real horror of the film unfolds- not the disease that seems to have decimated society, but the nature of humanity itself. 

It Comes At Night is a horror film, but further down the Antichrist end of the spectrum and not remotely close to the land of The Conjuring or Insidious. It’s a psychological thriller that uses muted, dreamy photography and contemplative scenes (long shots of dead bodies lying in a ditch, mundane conversations between normal people) to build dread and tension. Already there is precariously placed trust between Paul’s family and Will’s, and it seems just a matter of circumstance before these people become desperate and murderous. There are very few jump scares (maybe two or three), and they aren’t ones that I think most horror fans will roll their eyes at. Paul’s son Travis has trouble sleeping and lots of nightmares that make it hard to distinguish how much of the fear and distress is real and how much is imagined. He has dreams of his dead grandfather oozing black blood from his dead face and dreams of becoming infected that seem prophetic. Outside of Travis’s dreams, there is nothing that happens on screen that couldn’t happen in real life during a catastrophic epidemic. All of the horrors are real and fully human- murder, betrayal, mercy killing, etc. The film is exceptionally dark- as in, what an old house looks like at night when the power goes out. If you’re uncomfortable wandering around with no light and a germophobe like me, this movie is going to kick your ass. 

I’m about to get into some critical details of the movie and don’t recommend reading further if you’re planning to watch it. 

One aspect of this movie that people are really up in arms about is the matter of the open door(s). Who the fuck opened the door? Shults leaves this completely and utterly up to the imagination of the viewer. The cabin has a “clean room” that has one exterior door, and one interior door into the house, and Paul claims to have the keys to these doors, and that he always keeps them locked. However, they also have sliding bolt latches. Near the end of the film, Travis wakes from a nightmare, walks through the dark house to find that Andrew, who is probably about four or five, has wandered away from the room Will and Kim are sleeping in, and has fallen asleep in the grandpa’s old bedroom. Travis leads Andrew back to his parents, but as he is returning to bed, he sees that the red door that leads into the makeshift clean room is open. The whole house is alerted, and Paul and Will discover the dog, Stanley, is hemorrhaging blood and dying on the floor within the room. Both doors are now open, and there’s no telling who opened them, how the dog got in, or if Andrew or Travis touched the sick dog. This event is what leads to a bloodlessly violent and dour ending for everyone involved, but the question remains- WHO OPENED THE FUCKING DOOR!?

I think, first of all, that we have to assume Paul (probably unintentionally) left both doors unlocked with just the bolt latches secured, if at all. I think it’s likely that Andrew or Travis opened both doors, although I’m leaning toward Travis. I think that, as established throughout the film, Travis was having a nightmare, heard the dog at the exterior door, and let him in. I think it’s likely this is where he became infected, and he then possibly infected Andrew when he found him misplaced and led him back to his room. The other possibility is that Andrew was just barely tall enough to reach the latches and opened the doors while sleepwalking. I think that it’s also possible that Will opened both doors and let the dog in hoping that Paul’s family would become sickened, and his family would be able to take the house and supplies for themselves. After all, they never show that Will’s son Andrew is sick, and his family is in an incredible rush to leave the house shortly after the dog is found. Perhaps they wanted to leave and hide out in the woods until Paul, Sarah and Travis are dead. Even further, it is possible SOMEONE ELSE ENTIRELY got the dog into the house hoping to sabotage the inhabitants. After all, we never actually see what Stanley the dog went running after in the woods and we never see what Travis thinks that he heard. Any one of these things is a possibility, and I think it was a bold choice on Shults’ part to leave it ambiguous and up to the viewer. I guess that, realistically, it doesn’t really matter WHO actually opened the doors. What matters is what happens after, when no one trusts anyone else, and no one knows who might be infected and who isn’t. We never actually find out if Andrew is infected, however we do find out by the end that Travis was. Therefore, at this point I think Travis is the most likely culprit. I think that Shults tries to lay enough clues to lead to this assumption, and if there is one weakness in the film, it is here- that perhaps a little more could have been done to make any of these inferences a little more likely. After all, why did Paul leave the doors unlocked at all in the first place? If Andrew opened the doors, why didn’t he mention the dog to his parents while Travis is eavesdropping? If Travis opened the doors, how is it that he didn’t react to his dog being in such a tragic state, even if he was sleepwalking? If it was someone else, how might it have happened if the latches were shut? I loved that this was left up in a dizzying, mysterious place, but I would have liked a slightly thicker trail of breadcrumbs for me to get there. 

At any rate, I think the creepiest part of the movie is that Travis essentially predicts his death, by dreaming about all the most impossible of horrors, even though the real threat seems so mundane and unlucky by comparison. It’s not a reanimated corpse that kills him. It’s SOME contact with the plague that we never see, because that’s how plagues work. I like that we never find out if Andrew was truly sick. I love how hopeless and depressing the whole thing is. It seems really fitting for the times we’re living in. 

I can’t recommend this movie enough if you like your horror movies atmospheric, preponderous, suggestive and difficult to digest. If you’re sick of artificial jump scares every eight and a half formulaic minutes, this might be right in line with your needs. If you need exposition and spoon-feeding, I wouldn’t spend a cent to watch it and recommend instead that you spend the evening screening Wonder Woman or Guardians of the Galaxy, which I’m sure are entertaining and likely to give you a good time. It Comes At Night may seem deceptively titled (I don’t think that it is) and deceptively marketed (absolutely). I think the title fits because Travis’s prophetic nightmares are where the horror is. It is still one of the most uncomfortable, effective horror movie experiences I’ve had in a while and would place it a shelf below the likes of The Witch and Get Out. It’s a straightforward movie with an unsettling score, photography that brings to mind the term “brain fog” (I’m a chronic sufferer, if it’s not evident in my scatterbrained reviews) in the best way, and it feels very vividly real. Not a single thing in this movie is outlandish or supernatural. While I appreciated the care taken to let me figure things out on my own, even I would have liked a few more definitives. I also would have liked a longer film; I think it wouldn’t have suffered from an extra 29 minutes, but all things considered it’s a minor complaint. I highly recommend it, if only to those who don’t mind the lion’s share of the detective work placed in their hands and those who are tired of the standard horror narrative. It’s not perfect but it’s pretty close to what this particular asshole likes in a movie. 

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆