#original was that post of two cats that was like My son egg and his brother cheese. if anyone doesnt get it

[sonknuxadow]

[sonicasura]

Kaiju No. 8: Hatching Second Chances

Here's the idea I mentioned in my previous KN8/DQM post. You can thank the egg mechanic introduced in the Dark Prince for this. Also I will be mentioning the original DQ4 story, not the remake. Let's get started.

Psaro the Manslayer was a very tragic soul. Child of a human mother and demon father who truly never had someone to guide him through life. The only people that tried were torn away from the man. He would die as a heavily disfigured monster born out of grief filled rage. Yet what if it truly wasn't the end?

What's left of Psaro soul would be reshaped into an egg and cast out from the world he born in. This being found on one fateful night by a 22 year old worker who spends his days cleaning giant monster corpses. Although the form the prince would take is the very monster he died as, any prior memories were replaced for careful childlike curiosity.

Kafka looked at what many would consider a monstrosity with empathetic pity. He will unknowingly take up a challenge as the man takes the strange creature home. Whether an abomination truly deserves love or not...

Yup! Kafka is gonna have quite the time with this newborn Psaro since he starts out as an Estark type monster due to the SoE's power persisting. The reborn prince has no memories of his past life at the moment so he's a completely blank slate. (Form in question if anyone is wondering.)

Do know Psaro's monster body ages pretty fast. I give about 2 years tops before the cat sized baby becomes the size of a building. Kafka luckily moved to the more mountainous countryside before that happens though. Psaro's mind is still childlike as his subdued human presents itself mentally and spiritually.

How Kafka raises him will affect more than just temperament. Pure love and care shall restore Psaro's human form(his current age equivalent) over time. Although strong enough emotions will make him 'poof' back into his Estark form.

Kafka definitely got spooked the first time it happens. Imagine surprising your 4 year old son (in human form) with the gift he wanted only for the child to poof back into his giant monster form. Luckily they were at home during that time and not in public.

Kafka would do his best to safely raise Psaro. There have been some close shaves as the monster youth tends to be aware and quite protective of his small father. One particular incident had Psaro spotted by the Defense Force. Let's just a say Kaiju jumped a 28 year old Kafka at work and the Estark would try to gently carry his hurt dad back home.

The Defense Force does try to 'rescue' the still visored worker only for the 'kaiju' to swat away their attempts before successfully fleeing. (Kafka told Psaro not to harm humans so the Estark did listen by blowing away rescuers who got too close like they were puffballs or breathing thick mist.) The whole incident still dances around in the Defense Force's mind especially since one officer reported the Cleaner calling the monster Psaro.

A human raising a kaiju was an already insane idea. Yet this 'Psaro' harmlessly kept officers and rescue workers away from the injured man. Almost like a frantic child scared that someone will take their parent away. The fact the only thing it killed was the attacking Kaiju only add fuel to the theory's fire.

Defense Force would do try to find the duo again whether it be Psaro or their parent. Kafka definitely has a bullet to dodge when an old childhood face shows up at his work interviewing his fellow Sweepers. Now whether I make two separate paths at this point is a tossup.

One is manages to avoid being outted as Psaro's human parent and canon KN8 events follow. The second being Kafka's caught in his half truths. Whether he willing goes with Mina or goes on the run for awhile with Psaro is also unclear. Latter option being that his son is still iffy around humans and he's scared harm would come to him.

This is what I have so far. But what do you guys think?

@foolmariofest

[catxsnow]

i was wondering if you can help me figure out the robins 😂 there are so many that it confuses me and i am trying to figure out which one i like

I found when writing each of them that this post helped immensely. 

But, I’ll do a little brief explanation as well! Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any more questions if you so wish! 

p.s. my favourite is Dick 🥰

Dick Grayson

- the original Robin

- Dick was in the circus with his parents as a trapeze group known as ‘The flying graysons’ However, his parents were killed by Anthony Zucco, a mobster, when Dick was eight. He was taken in by Bruce and became the first Robin.

- Dick has been part of several teams, such as the Teen Titans as well as the Young Justice team

- He and Bruce had a falling out which led to him becoming his own person and taking the vigilante persona of Nightwing

- He became a detective in the city of Bludhaven 

- Dick’s around the age of 26-29, has the body and flexibility of an acorbat, and is often characterized with black hair and blue eyes 

-  He doesn’t wish to become Batman, but is forced to take the role with Damian as his Robin

Jason Todd

- the second Robin

- Bruce found Jason stealing the tires of his batmobile. Jason’s mother was a druggie who overdosed and his father was killed by two-face at some point (I can’t exactly remember when)

- Jason was very excited to be Robin, which had gotten him into sticky situations. Jason was very headstrong as Robin, willing to run to bullets and no afraid to go against bad guys bigger and stronger than him

- The Joker beat Jason to death and killed him. He was resurrected by the Lazarus pit and temporarily trained by the League of Assasins and later the Al Caste. 

- When Jason came back he took the persona of Red Hood, which is also an easter egg to the Joker, who once went by the red hood before being thrown into the pit of acid. 

- Jason doesn’t believe in Bruce’s outdated moral code and believes that killing is sometimes necessary. 

- He made a ‘team’ called the Outlaws, mainly consisting of Roy Harper, Starfire, Artemis, and Bizzaro 

- Jason is often characterized with Black hair (sometime having a white steak in it post Lazurus pit), green/blue eyes, muscular body, and the tallest of the robins. aged 22-24

Tim Drake 

- the third Robin

- greatest detective of them all. Tim is very computer smart and has excellent judgment of scenes. He’s incredibly smart and even Bruce believes that he will be a better detective than Batman one day

- Tim became Robin after the death of Jason. He figured out that Bruce Wayne was Batman and claimed that he needed a Robin to keep him from crossing the line that he swore never to. 

- Tim isn’t necessarily as muscular as the others, but he is lean and uses proper timing and well mastered martial arts. Even Ra’s Al Ghul wanted him to be the heir to the League over Bruce. 

- Very intelligent, though he never finished high school. Eventually becomes the CEO of Wayne Enterprises. Can be socially awkward and suffers with anxiety

- Part of the Titans, along side his best friends Kon-el, Cassandra, and Bart. 

- Once again, Black hair, blue eyes, his hair is often longer than the rest of the Robin’s 

- Bruce and Tim had many arguments which led to him quitting his role of Robin. He lives like a regular kid for a while before becoming Red Robin. 

Stephanie Brown

- fourth Robin

-Not Robin for very long. She was previously known as Spoiler. The reason that she took part in the vigilante life was because her father was Clue master (third-rate villian in Gotham) 

- Steph disobeyed Bruce far too many times, enough for him to fire her as Robin. She became the third batgirl. Trained by oracle (Barbra Gordon) for computer hacking skills and martial arts

-She dated Tim

- Steph was actually pregnant at fifteen and gave her child up for adoption 

- Blonde hair, often appears to be very friendly, determined, and patient 

Damian Wayne 

- fifth Robin

-biological son of Bruce, his mother is Talia and his grandfather is Ra’s

- Damian was raised by the league of assassins which leaves his being unfriendly, cut off, arrogant, and belittling. He’s ridiculously smart and is very skilled in swordsmanship, martial arts, and multiple other forms of fighting. 

- Damian never believed in the no - killing rule until he was under Bruce’s custody. Even then he struggled a lot with it. 

- HE”S NOT WHITE OKAY STOP WHITEWASHING. Damian his half Arab and should be treated as so. 

- Damian is very open to giving other’s criticism and is not very willing to let people into his life. He looks up to Bruce, as well as Dick. 

- the youngest, about 12, very short, and since he’s young lacks muscle. Tanned skin, dark hair, green eyes. 

- Friends with Jon Kent aka Superboy, and even though he won’t admit it he’s his best and pretty much only friend. 

- doesn’t believe in mundane things, even things like going to school since he’s already well educated. He’s a very good artist. 

- Damian is vegetarian and owns lots of animals, including a cow, a dog, and a cat. 

[themandylion]

2019 fic round-up

All my fic from 2019

First Initiative - 7k, JayTim. Against his better judgement (well, okay, not really), Jason allows his boyfriend to join the peewee game. Also, relationship stuff—getting to know each other, finding out likes and dislikes, learning about someone's entire secret life... that sort of thing. (Part 2 of Tales from the House of Mau.)

The Stable Master & the Diplomat - 12k, JayTim. In which Jason is the royal stable master and Tim is a draconic ambassador and there are shenanigans.

A Lonely Place for Living - 2k, gen. Batman needs a Robin. Bruce Wayne needs his son. Tim Drake needs... he needs...

Three Birds in Flight - 7k, JayTimKon. Not!fic for the sad soulmate triad Jason/Tim/Kon AOB AU I will never actually write!

Natural 20 - 19k, JayTim. Jason eats the egg, what happens after is positively magical (the sex is pretty good too). Of course, it's not all fun and games—apparently it can be very difficult to shuck off a toxic ex when they know magic. (Part 3 of Tales from the House of Mau.)

Stat Roll - 1k, JayTim. Free Comic Book Day can be a bit of a madhouse at Knight & Page. Luckily, Jason has friends who are more than willing to help him out. (Part 4 of Tales from the House of Mau.)

on vast scales - 400, JayTim. Short SPACE!mer ficlet for MerMay.

Emotional Support Trashfish - 5k, gen. Pokémon AU! When Tim finally took the plunge and brought home a pokémon of his own, none of his family understood. It could be because they didn't see the benefits of such an excellent companion, or it might just be that they lack the insight into the tricky workings of Tim's mind. (Written with the Social Isolation Gang.)

Good Boys - 7k, JayTim. A dog, two aces, and lots of cuddles. (Written with the Social Isolation Gang.)

Mark of the Jinni - 7k, JayTim. Tim frowns, hand cupping Jason's cheek as he appears to study the other boy's face. "Just because there are others doing worse doesn't mean you don't deserve better." (Chapter 2.)

May Light Shine Long and Steady - 8k, JayTim. Tim's life is in a downward spiral and he's barely staying afloat, let alone in his classes. With nothing left to lose, he figures it can't hurt to ask for a little divine help. Instead, he ends up with an overly helpful advisor of sorts.

Duckvine Intervention - 4k, JayTim. After Roy explains the purpose a rubber duck for computer programmers, Jason decides he has to try it out for himself. Granted, he's not a programmer, but he's hardly going to let that stop him, and everyone needs a little troubleshooting in their lives sometimes.

Forever and Always - 17k, JayTim. One must always be careful when it comes to swearing oaths. It is imperative that all the variables are ascertained before any words are spoken, particularly when blood is involved. If not, it could very well blow up in someone's face. Despite the unforeseen consequences, Tim doesn't regret his actions one bit. (Epilogue.)

And We Live in Dangerous Times - 2k, JayTim. Jason Todd is back and he's angry. He breaks into Titans Tower with the intention of messing with the pretender a bit. Things don't quite go as planned and it turns out both Robins II and III are in for a surprise. A dæmon soulmate AU.

Always and Forever - 4k, JayTim. Love between a potter and a painter should be a simple enough thing, but nothing is simple when you come from different worlds and there's a war on the horizon between both your peoples. Sometimes, desperate times call for desperate measures. A prequel to Forever and Always.

Rituals of Sacrifice - 22k, JayTim. All Tim's friends are dead. That's okay—he is too. PLEASE pay attention to the warnings/tags as this story deals with distressing and mature themes.

WWCSD? - 6k, JayTim. There's a mysterious thief on the loose and Stray must ask himself that ever-important question—What Would Carmen Sandiego Do? (Part 4 of Cats, Birds, Bats, and the Occasional Spoiler.)

To Sail 'twixt the Stars and the Sea - 13k, JayTim. When a message arrives saying that the Bat Clan's scout ship has been destroyed behind enemy lines, everyone knows there's no chance its lone passenger has survived. Unfortunately, someone still has to break the bad news to the scout's lover... and the child the rest of the clan didn't know he had. The SPACE!viking AU.

In Midst of Winter - 6k, JayTim. After being separated from his hunting party in the middle of winter, Jason is sure he's screwed—until help comes from an unlikely quarter. Through trial and error, he finds a new friend and possibly something more. More AOB!vikings. (Part 1 of Through All Manner of Seasons.)

Sidequest - 9k, JayTim. It's a busy week for Jason—his boyfriend's skipped town without notice, he's been left with an unlikely (and unnecessary) babysitter, and he's just been informed that that Date Night is still on and he's meeting said missing boyfriend's parents. (Part 5 of Tales from the House of Mau.)

Forth My Mimic Comes - 19k, gen. Robin and Oracle team up to take on a tricky case of identity theft.

Limbo: Next of Kin - 8k, gen. Sometimes it takes dying to learn who your family is. Also, dreams! (A spoooky ghost story for Halloween.) A sequel to Rituals of Sacrifice.

Fic or Treat - 100-word drabbles done for Halloween: - Jason and a dog - Pumpkins in SPACE (SPACE!viking follow-up) - StephTim and ninja (follow-up to Jason and a dog) - Everyone is Batman - Time-travel Tim - Smol!ghost Tim (Rituals of Sacrifice follow-up) - JayTim werecat AU

Edit: HEY! If you're about to reblog this, please consider reblogging this version instead. I forgot a bunch of fics on the original post.

[alarawriting]

All about “A Very April Christmas”

I’ve talked about “April’s Dream House” before, and posted part of the story (which is still not done, but I got 1800 words done today and it’s 3 am so I’m closing down for the night) last year for Inktober, but I want to talk about it.

The problem here is that “April’s Dream House” was created to be an animated show. I was trying to come up with an Adult Swim-style comedy where all the characters are female, because Aqua Teen Hunger Force and some others, all the characters are male. (I pulled my punches at the end and added one male character.) This was back before Robot Chicken; nowadays people would alsmot certainly think this was inspired by Robot Chicken, but it’s actually inspired by Toy Story. Toy Story, you see, is the story of toys owned by a little boy. The people who made the movie are so incapable of imagining the play life of a little girl, they gendered a baby doll who was a little girl’s favorite doll as male. (This pretty much never happens. Male baby dolls are rare to begin with. A little girl who decided her favorite baby doll was a boy is possible, but unlikely.)

Those of you who were little girls and played with dolls probably remember that, rather than the demure tea parties we’re always shown having in media, we were making soap operas, and depending on how much we knew about sex, sometimes they were downright raunchy soap operas. “April’s Dream House”, unlike Toy Story, isn’t about the lives of the toys independent of their owner, and their need to hide that they can move around; it’s more about the lives of the toys as played with by a rather strange little girl, who is occasionally referred to as “God” but never actually appears in the series.

So a lot of the humor is visual. April’s in a traffic jam, but her vehicle is the size of a Barbie minivan, like a foot tall, and she’s stuck behind a line of Hot Wheels cars. April’s younger sister Madison, a teen doll who’s about 10 inches, has a 6 inch Mandalorian action figure for a boyfriend. Cherry Blossom, the G3 My Little Pony ripoff, is trying to romance a realistic horse figurine. You get the picture. Or rather, you don’t, because I’m not an artist and all I can do is prose.

I’m going to post photographs of the toys that the main characters are based on or inspired by.

It’s Barbie. We all know what Barbie looks like. The joke with April is that she is insanely talented and brilliant, because of all the jobs Barbie’s had as a doll -- so she really has been a veterinarian, a rocket scientist, a firefighter, a detective, etc., as well as a model and actress. But April is such a mega-bitch, she can’t keep a job, so she’s had to take in housemates -- and, given her bitchiness, for considerably less money than the property would otherwise be worth for rental.

This is Sasha, a Bratz doll. Sheonte of the Divazz isn’t literally based on her the way April is based on Barbie; I took inspiration from the general style of the Bratz. Sheonte’s arrogant and vain, but she’s in general a better human being than April.

This is a doll from Monster High -- Im guessing a mummy of some sort. Catrina is even less based on this than Sheonte and the Divazz are based on the Bratz. The idea behind the Weargirls is that they are all were-animals. So Catrina is a were-cat, Batrice is a were-bat and also a vampire, etc. Catrina was originally supposed to be Latina of no specific origin, and when pressed for an origin the makers of her product line decided Mexican... which is bizarre because La Catrina is the Mexican symbol of the Day of the Dead, how everyone, rich and poor, dies in the end. That would be a weird thing to name your kid if you were Mexican. This is deliberate on my part because it’s the kind of stupid mistake toy execs make.

As a child I misread the label on my Hello Kitty doll and thought it said Kelly Kitty, so that’s where Kelly gets the name. (Or Kerry. It’s interchangeable, she’ll answer to either.) Unlike Hello Kitty, my vision of Kelly Kitty includes a mouth, and brown “fur” rather than white. Kelly is probably the best person in this household, but admittedly the bar is low.

Though I am an MLP fan, it’s strictly G4 -- I always found the more horse-like ponies from previous gens to be creepy looking. Cherry Blossom is generically based on G3 ponies, but I discovered to my shock today that there really was a G3 pony named Cherry Blossom, so maybe if I ever do get to make this a show, I’ll have to change the name.

Penelope Peapod is the inspiration for Emily Egg. The size differentials here are a source of a lot of the humor. Emily is a 7 inch baby doll. April is an 11 inch fashion doll. So Emily is two thirds of April’s size, but proportioned like an infant.

Lovey is not actually based on any particular toy I or anyone I know has owned. I just wanted an old, somewhat worn out, plush bassett hound who looks sad all the time.

Doktor Zapp, on the other hand, is based on a very specific Playmobil figure, that my albino son was very fond of because he, too, wanted to be a mad scientist, back then. (Now he wants to tell stories through art, which I suspect involves some of the same skills. :-)) He’s a Playmobil figure. In the story, it’s his leg, not his arm, that’s cybernetic.

I’m hoping I can get the story out tomorrow sometime, but tomorrow’s a cleaning day, so no promises.

[official-michael-afton]

ABOUT PAGE FOR MOBILE USERS

UNDER THE CUT

Welcome to my blog! If you’re new here or need some catching up, here’s some of my important info!

Who’s Who!

Michael Afton

23, Demiboy, he/him, homoflexible, polyamorous

Michael is the son of William Afton, twin brothers with Red, and has two younger siblings: Elizabeth and Crying Child. He is the older brother in FNaF 4, Eggs Benedict in Sister Location, and the guard in FFPS. Thanks to Officialverse shenanigans, he was brought back to “life” and now lives in the Officialverse with his family and loved ones.

Red

23, Trans Man, he/him, biromantic, asexual

Fraternal twins with Michael, Scott goes by the nickname “Red” to avoid confusion. He actually came from an AU, and angsts over the fact that he “wasn’t meant to exist”. He’s very overprotective of his brother and really enjoys playing Pokemon. Also has glitch powers, but hardly ever uses them. Red is a Phone Guy, but not to be confused with PG!!!

Ennard

Age Unknown, Genderfluid, he/him they/them or she/her, pansexual

Originally the robot that inhabited Michael, Ennard was recently struck with anon magic that turned her human, and he seems to be permanately this way. Their personally tends to be all over the place due to being made of four different robots, but “mischevious” always seems to describe him well. She’s in a queerplatonic relationship with Michael.

Sasha Catter “Beans” Afton-Cawthon

Michael’s cat! Also lives with Scott, hence the same last name. She was adopted from a shelter.

The Night Shift

My interpretations of the night guards from Michael’s timeline, they’re open for questions but aren’t featured often on this blog.

It would be way too many images to go through, so go through their tag if you’d like artwork!

Phone Guy(PG): 30, Transmale, he/him, homosexual

Jeremy Fitzgerald: 25, Male, he/him, bisexual

Mike Schmidt: 21, Male, he/him, homosexual

Fritz Smith, 35, Male, he/him, pansexual

Li DeLacey, 31, Transfemale, she/her, heterosexual

Brandon Fischer(PD), 28, Nonbinary, they/them, aromantic asexual

Mahsa Smith(Cassette Girl), 34, Female, she/her, pansexual

Jonas(OC), 30, Male, he/him, polysexual

Terrence(OC), 30, Male, he/him, bisexual

Kiki(OC), 29, Female, she/her, lesbian

Scatter A. Patter

20, Transmale/Genderfluid, he/him, homoflexible asexual

The mod of the blog and as such, sometimes appears to mess around with Michael. Doesn’t interfere much, but occasionally goofs off with Michael and Ennard.

Important people in Mike’s life!

Family

William Afton/Springtrap/Scraptrap: Michael’s father and antagonist of the series. There are numerous Williams in the Officialverse, and Michael doesn’t seem to favor any particular one.

Mrs. Afton: Michael’s mother. Jennifer in Michael’s timeline, though he loves any interpretation of Mrs. Afton

Red: Michael’s twin brother, explained above.

Crying Child: Michael’s younger brother. Anthony in Michael’s timeline, though he loves any interpretation of Crying Child and always tries to make up for his mistakes.

Elizabeth/Baby: Michael’s younger sister. He’s forgiven Baby for the events of SL and FFPS and still loves her as a sister.

Henry: Basically adopted Michael since William is a terrible father. There are multiple Henries in the Officialverse and Michael doesn’t seem to favor any particular one.

Jack Kennedy has been adopted as a brother to Mike and Red, and they treat each other like family.

Dave Miller is Jack’s husband, making him Michael’s brother-in-law.

Henry Miller is a stinky piece of shit who adopted Dave Miller and tried to adopt Mike and Red too but he’s just- he’s a stinky!!!

Significant Others

Michael is polyamorous, so he can have multiple partners at once!

Sammy Lawrence: Michael has been dating Sammy for a few months now, and are unafraid to admit their love for each other. Mike wants to propose, but he’s still struggling to even get a ring.

Scott/Animdude: Both Michael and Scott have admitted to loving each other, live together, and certainly act very romantic around each other, though I’m pretty sure they STILL never made it official despite totally being boyfriends.

Phone Guy: Michael and PG have a thing for each other, and have gone on dates before, though this is merely the PG from Michael’s timeline, and does not have an Officialverse counterpart, so their relationship is pretty non-existant on this blog.

Oh, Michael is also extremely gay for Percy.

BFFLS

Ennard: Explained above, Michael and his Ennard are in a Queerplatonic relationship. For other Ennards in the Officialverse, Michael treats them as if they were a sibling.

Charlie Emily: Charlie and Michael grew up together, and have remained best friends this whole time. True wlw mlm solidarity.

Shawn Flynn: … Okay no they’re not friends. Actually Shawn is Michael’s enemy after Ink Stains(see below), and they hate each other… though, Michael is extremely empathetic to Shawn’s suffering.

Events!

These events are either ongoing or have happened in the past and left a lasting impact on Michael

Ink Stains: An event run by Drew Studios in which Shawn Flynn is the antagonist, using ink to corrupt everyone into a hivemind-like state. Michael along with a few others have banded together to reverse the effects and return everyone to normal.

Wandering is a Terrible sin: The aftermath of ink stains, in which Sammy and Michael attempt to find Joey while Shawn plots again.

The Joy of Creation: An au ran with Animdude, following the events of The Joy of Creation: Story Mode. Never finished!(If you just want art and general content!)

Mike and Scott go to Hell: Scott gets killed, goes to lakeside hell, Michael goes after him, feels ensue.

Human!Ennard: Ennard gets turned human for an m!a… turns out that ended up becoming permanent.

Family au: An au where Michael gets a twin brother, a fellow Phone Guy named Scott. … Then I gave Scott the nickname “Red” and now he’s a permanent member of the blog. WHOOPS.

Various Tags!

Art Tag: My art!(also related- my animatic, my edits, my moodboards, my audio, my stimboard)

Mike plays….: When I play various games like DSaF 2, DSaF 3, and FNaF World Redacted!

Fanart: When people draw things for me! My personal favorite tag!

Squad up!: When I draw other characters/officials- typically in a squad!

Batim stuff: Tag for Bendy and the Ink Machine content!

Sness Blunderall: Sans Undertale-themed shitposts

Big Fav: Tag for personal favorite posts

Ship/Relationship tags: Sammy/Lawrafton, Scott/Smike, PG/MichaelPhone

Animation Weekend: I like cartoons. Featuring Drew Studios Saturday and Disney Sunday

Henry Fan Club: Started off as a fun little rp thing, ended up becoming a discord server.

Aesthetic/Musings: For Aesthetical blog fun!

Stimmy Stuff: I’m just really ADHD so I keep all of my stimboards here!!!

Kin-etic energy: Harmless fun for fnaf fictionkin!

Other Blogs!

Main Blog

Art Blog

Sammy Lawrence T-Poses

[myheartbeatskids]

Yes I know, internet stalkers

Now i need to smoke

Jesse STILL didn't know who Robbie was so I went on Facebook to find him to show him.

And so i did and he was all "yeah that's my son"

Idk what even brought him up except the Zozobra, and i sent him like 3 emails about him and he was all but Idk. So i looked on Facebook.

And then, me and MWII were like we should tell Alexis... Idk why... Then Jesse was all, "no that's weird"

And then i was all, "you know, you should send it to Robbie. I never fully explained to him. I just left and said nothing." And Jesse said "post it, that's two people you think can benefit"

Cary: that's because you didn't want to say goodbye. You do the same thing to Matt Hagan, the Original.

Me: it was really fucking shitty... But we never like... I just quit talking to him. It wasnt a long speech or Santa's reasons you're naughty list... But it was really shitty.

Anyway, internet. Yes I know it says he's married. That's his no blood egg sister that will punch him I'm sure when she finds out that he's using her photo cause hes a cat fishing douche bag whom thinks I'm only into married men!!!

So. Yes. That's a FAQ. I know.

Hes an idiot.

Its not like he didn't keep calling till i answered. Cause he didn't.

[nottooldforthisship]

*CHEF fics*

- Learning to Eat by @mbpgku : Celebrity chef Louis Tomlinson has a problem. He’s opening his first restaurant in 9 weeks, and he has yet to hire a pastry chef- apparently people think he’s ‘standoffish’ and ‘rude’ and ‘quick to temper’. Whatever. He ends up saddled with an annoying, happy-go lucky rookie who also happens to be obnoxiously good looking. His tv presenter and pop star best friends only add to the drama, and for fucks sake would everyone please stop quoting Julia Child?! Kitchen AU where Harry helps Louis re-learn how to eat.  (METAPHORICALLY) (38k, M)

- Every Good Boy Deserves Cookies , by @stunning-stylinson​ : “Y-yeah?” Louis asks breathlessly, “And then?“Harry giggles and moves his bum back to meet Louis. “Add the vanilla and crack the eggs, beating it all in with salt,” Harry says.Or where Harry is a chef who teaches a class and Louis swears it’s only Harry’s bossiness that turns him on, not the recipe for cookies and Harry likes being praised. (8.5k, E)

- Feels Like Coming Home , by @phd-mama: The last thing Harry Styles expects when he’s hanging out at the Someday Cafe in Somerville one rainy October day is for his ex, Louis Tomlinson to walk through the door, but that’s exactly what happens. After a spectacularly ugly break-up three years prior, Harry hasn’t heard one word from Louis, and he’s moved on. Gotten over him. But having Louis back in his life, not to mention working at the restaurant where he’s a chef, isn’t easy, and the feelings that Harry thought he’d left turn out to be not so easily forgotten. This is a story about love and the power of forgiveness, and how the hard choices we make define us, and change our lives. (60k, E)

- Before We Evaporate ,  by  crimsontheory  : Louis Tomlinson; executive chef and owner of his own five star restaurant, been voted one of the top chefs in London, and has won several awards for his work in the kitchen. He’s always dreamed of being on Chopped, but never believed it would actually happen. Until it does. Now that he’s officially made it onto the show, there’s one tall, curly haired distraction that might just ruin everything for him.Or the kinda sorta enemies to lovers Chopped AU with far more smut than necessary. (37k, E)  

- Fool's Gold , by @freetheankles : Or the Arnacoeur AU in which Harry is scheduled to be married to Liam in 10 days and Harry’s mother hires Louis and his team to break them up. (55k, E)

- Check Please      by  zedi   :      Louis has a shit date. Harry offers to cover the bill. They maybe fall in love. (2k, NR)

*BAKER fics*

- Relief next to me , by @haydolce : AU. What happens when a baker and a graphic designer meet via a very specific Craigslist post? Fate, friendship, food, and maybe more. (333k, E)

- leave it to the breeze , by @hattalove :  or a great british bake off au in which louis cares about winning and winning only, harry is made of sunshine and rainbow sprinkles, and niall sticks his nose into other people’s business. also featuring liam as louis’s best friend-slash-concerned mother, and zayn as a macaron connoisseur. (81k, E)

- shine by @lourrynavy​ ; Louis is an actor who needs to get away from the real world. He does the only thing that he can and runs away, finding himself in a small town where he happens upon Harry. What Louis doesn’t expect is to somehow fall in love and end up having to face what he was running from all along. (40k, M)

- Tis the Season for…Love?   ,    by @afangirlfantasy:   Prompt: Harry seems to have it all: A successful career as a pastry chef, a Victorian home in London, and a dedicated boyfriend who he's been with for years.   One day he stops by his boyfriend's apartment to surprise him and finds out that he's not so dedicated to Harry after all. Shocked and too depressed to celebrate, he decides to skip Christmas and on a whim leaves on a plane to New York. In New York he meets Louis… Or...Louis might just be what Harry's needed all along. (27k, M)

-  Flour and Chocolate      by   teaandtumblr : Then he approached the display cabinet. And the foreboding slammed into him. Because every product had letters next to it. Letters. GF, DF, V, O, VGN. What. The. Fuck? Lifting his eyes to the chalkboard menu spread across the back wall Louis felt physically ill. ‘Gluten-free’, ‘organic’, ‘vegan’, ‘paleo’, ‘dair-…’ Wait, what the fuck was a paleo? He had entered some hipster-trash establishment and it was more than time to get out.  OR Louis is a single dad and Harry works at the newly opened bakery down the street.(145k, M)

- Float Down Like Autumn Leaves (Stay Now) , by @getmesometacos  : The AU in which Louis has a 6 year old daughter with a costume emergency that puts her school’s annual Halloween party at risk, Halloween decorated cupcakes are hard to find and tall men look absolutely ridiculously cute in giant vegetables costumes. Co-starring Harry, who makes really good food for the kids. Featuring Niall, who works in a bakery but has a part time job as a babysitter. And as much as he doesn’t believe in love at first (or second) sight, Louis is really infatuated and really wouldn’t mind seeing Harry again.(16k, M)

- we’re still going, eight in the morning , by @nooelgallagher​  and @yoursongonmyheart​ : Harry washes his hands quickly before grabbing his phone. His screen lights up to 3 notifications.DJTommo is now following you!@DJTommo mentioned you in a tweet!Direct Message from @DJTommo!Harry yelps, throwing his phone to Niall who just barely catches it.Niall looks down at the phone, seeing first the tweet, then the DM. He tosses the phone back to Harry, who nearly drops it. “What are ya doing, mate! Answer him!”Harry thinks for a moment about what he wants to say. This is his chance to actually talk to Louis Tomlinson. Louis Tomlinson messaged him directly. He can say anything he wants. He begins typing, his fingers shaky.Niall comes over to stand next to Harry and peers down, looking to see what he wrote. When he does, he lets out a groan….Or, the one where Harry owns a bakery, Louis is a radio DJ, and Niall and Liam roll their eyes at their incessant flirting. (31k, E)

- taste on my tongue , by @bethaboolou : Louis Tomlinson, second place winner on TXF four years ago, is looking to reinvent his career. Harry Styles is a baker who is desperate for a bakery of his own.Louis doesn’t bake. Or cook. Or know how to use an oven.Take Louis. Take Harry. Add in a heaping cup of sexual tension. Another cup of delicious (and not so delicious) food. A smidgen of competitive spirit. A dash of hopes and dreams. And you get Kitchen Wars, a TV show that promises to be the must-watch event of the fall. (77k, E)

- come away with me , by @suspendrs: Or, Louis has to pick up the pieces of his and his daughter’s life after his wife dies, and Harry is a beautiful stranger that just wants to help. (80k, NR)

- Whether Clouds or Clear Skies , by @onewasturning :   “You, young Harold, are a baker among curry houses and vintage clothing stores,” Louis says, and it forces a bark of surprised laughter out of Harry.  “I’m a— sorry, what?”  “Harry,” Louis says, “last night I had an experience bordering on profound.”  “You’re making it sound like you did something sexual with my muffin,” Harry says. Or, Louis gets into the habit of stealing baked goods while Harry’s busy keeping tabs on the weather. (25k, E)

- Every Story Ever Told , by @all-these-larrythings : Becoming a best-selling author isn’t as difficult as Louis would have guessed. It seems all you need these days is the perfect blend of alcohol induced philosophy, complete disregard for one’s dignity, a live blog about how fucked love is, and a bored publisher interested enough to offer him a deal. (54k, NR)

- Skin New, Hands True, My Hands All Over You , by PearlyDewdrops   : Harry designs wedding cakes, so of course meeting blissfully happy couples every day is part of his job description. Unfortunately, it’s caused Harry to perpetually hope each new day is the one he’ll find love, too. That is, until Harry realises everything he’s ever wanted is right under his nose in the shape of his best friend, Louis. But predictably, Harry only comes to this epiphany when Louis starts seeing someone else. And this is not a John Hughes movie as far as Harry is aware. Everyone else is pretty sure, though. Featuring a heavy dose of pining, copious amounts of alcohol, drunk dialing that results in a situation reminiscent of Rachel Green’s, a ginger cat that likes to interrupt intimate moments, and a Halloween party that changes everything. (44k, E)

* RESTAURANT OWNER fics*

- all the lights are full of colour, by @infinitelymint : So, fast-forwarding eight years from the day Harry met Louis, he is now a twenty-seven year old owner of one of the most up-and-coming eating establishments on the London restaurant scene, father of two wonderful boys and… separated from his husband. Now, that last part definitely was never a part of the original plan.  Or, Harry and Louis are separated, but for the sake of their two sons, they choose to spend Christmas together. It may just lead to a Christmas miracle. (26k, E)

- You'll Hear Me Calling for You , by  pinky_heaven19  : OR the one where Harry is an Alpha and Louis has a problem with it - until he doesn't. (42k, E)

- Let's Go Get Away , by @letsjustsee : Or, a fluffy AU in which Louis owns a restaurant that's next door to Harry's shop, and Louis is completely unaware how smitten he really is. (7k, NR)

* FOOD BLOGGING fics*

- 'Til I Tasted You  , by @icanhazzalou : Louis is Harry Styles' biggest fan. It doesn't matter that Harry is famous for being a food blogger and Louis can't cook to save his life.At least, until Harry offers to give Louis a cooking lesson. Then it matters just a teensy bit. (14k, E)

[justaramblingromantic]

superheroes need childcare benefits too

Characters/Pairing: Kobayashi Rindou, Tsukasa Eishi, Tsukasa Hi’en (OC)/EiRin

Type: Superhero!Family!AU, Freestyle

Word Count: 3071

A/N: Inspired by this post. 

This drabble has been sitting in my draft pile for a couple of months already, I think? I was fooling around with the random super power generator and decided to write out something with the results I got, just for fun. Was also in the mood to write cute baby things...so there was that, too, lol. 

The thing about being a superhero was that the benefits suck.

There were no such thing as paid leave or annual bonuses and the nature of the work was akin to voluntary military service to the country so it wasn’t exactly very high paying in the first place, either. In fact, it was something like an anonymous, part time obligation to society on top of juggling a ‘normal’ day job and whatever life issues and familial commitments the ‘normal’ population had to deal with…only maybe with a bit more explosions and dangerous, life-threatening events randomly thrown into the mix.

You get to meet all sorts of interesting people with interesting abilities too, and then, depending on their intentions and alignments, you try your hardest to incapacitate, or outright kill, each other. Fun times.

Rindou quite enjoyed it, actually. The thrill of living a secret double life. The excitement and unpredictability that came with every mission. And who would not enjoy being a superhero? Her partner was something amazing too, and they worked together seamlessly. Their abilities complemented each other extremely well, and after all the years of being paired together, their teamwork was one of the best in the country, for their rank and specialty type, even.

That was just as well, since they were partners in every meaning of the word. They had known each other from a young age and had only grown closer over the years, from teammates to best friends to lovers.

Recently, they had also become parents. And with parenthood, came responsibilities that both were suddenly acutely conscious of, towards the tiny young life that they had made together. Being reckless for the sake of having fun was no longer acceptable. They had to be more careful during assignments now, and for the moment at least, they had also agreed that both should not be going on call at the same time – one would remain at home on baby watch while the other was out performing their civic duty.

“Rindou.” Eishi’s calm, smooth voice spoke over the comm earpiece that she was wearing. “Are you heading home soon?”

“Mm,” she replied distractedly, concentrating on focusing her powers and directing them to work as she intended. Her abilities had always been a bit on the wild side and not very easy to control, and she constantly had to work on them so that they would not get the better of her.

It was a simple rescue mission this time. There was a serious collision between two freight vessels off the shores of Tokyo, just sitting on one of the major shipping routes. She had been activated by the agency because her powers were probably the most useful to deal with an incident of this scale involving huge mobile constructs. The crews of both vessels had already been evacuated and airlifted out of the scene so now it was her turn to flex her muscles and get down to business.

“Can you swing by the store for some milk and eggs on the way back? We ran out.”

“’Kay~” Slit gold eyes grew unnaturally bright as she concentrated, willing all her energy into intense mental focus. Visualizing the bright, glowing rope of power in her mind’s eye, she proceeded to grab firmly onto it and give it a mighty heave.

Just like that, the atmospheric pressure dropped, and the energy around her shifted.

Hovering midair over the vast ocean, a mere fifty feet above where the partially submerged cargo ships were rapidly taking in water and about to sink right in the middle of the high sea traffic zone, the redhead watched musingly as a couple hundred thousand tonnage of steel and freight creaked and groaned ominously as the absolute laws of physics were exerted on them…in an entirely unnatural way.

“Is there anything else that you want me to pick up, dear husband?” she asked cheerfully. She was in a good mood today, and for obvious reasons. The sun was shining overhead, the weather was great. All in all, it was a really nice day to be out and about, even if she had to help haul back to the bay two huge ass ships.

There was a pause, and then her significant other remarked. “You’re just really happy to be finally out of the house, aren’t you?”

Before Rindou could respond, a loud, unintelligible squawk transmitted through the earpiece, followed by what sounded like awkward, unsteady flapping. Both parents winced at the ringing, pitched cry.

“Is that En-chan? What’s he doin’? He sounds energetic.”

“Our son is sitting on my shoulder.” Was Eishi’s reply. “I think he’s screaming for you.”

She could not help but grin at the mental imagery of her somewhat ruffled mate having to stay at home wrestling with their quirky and unruly offspring. The baby was barely six months old but the rapid manifestation of his unique abilities meant that his parents never quite knew what to expect next when it came to him. Regardless, Rindou still thought that her son was the best thing since sliced bread. Eishi more or less rolled with the lofty opinion because he largely felt the same way ever since they handed him the squalling newborn straight out of the delivery suite.

“Geeze, he’s probably just hungry again. Feed him well, Tsukasa~!”

The semi-submerged vessels were no longer sinking. If anything, they were expelling water at an incredible, exponential rate, and starting to recover miraculously from their previous, badly listing conditions. Rindou kept a halfhearted eye on the ships, but her attention was caught more by the slight commotion coming from the other end of the line.

Eishi muttered. “He doesn’t want his bottle. I don’t think he’s even interested in milk right now.”

More indignant chirruping and belligerent rustling could be heard from the other end of the line. The older of the two also seemed to be having quite a time of it pacifying the younger one. “En, settle down. I know you hear her voice, but your mother’s not here.”

There was a querying, unhappy cry of what sounded like a young eaglet. By then, Rindou could not contain her curiosity any longer. Her son had been a normal human baby (a super cute, chubby cheeked one) when she had left the house, but apparently that was no longer the case. She would have been more worried as a mother if not for the fact that this peculiar occurrence happened too often for her to be alarmed anymore. In their household, this type of situation was only normal, when one’s offspring possessed the rare ability to randomly shapeshift.

“Eh? What did En-chan become this time? How come all the interesting things happen only when you’re home alone with him? That’s hardly fair at all!”

There was a brief pause as her husband struggled not to share his actual thoughts on the matter, which more or less amounted to how he would rather have preferred not to have anything interesting happen at all when he was left in charge of watching their only child. Because Hi’en was still very, very young and had no control whatsoever over his powers, the infant often randomly shifted into supernatural creatures that had only been heard of and read about in myths and legends. The first time it happened, the boy was only a couple of months old when he abruptly turned into a phoenix chick, and when the panicked parents found the young creature floundering about in their son’s cot, they had initially thought that someone had stolen their precious offspring only to replace it with this strange looking…scraggly, angry baby bird of unidentified origins…and that which could also random burst into fire.

The problem with their child being able to shapeshift into random mythical creatures was that when he was in those forms, feeding and caring for his needs became a unique challenge. Sometimes Hi’en would stay in one creature form for an hour at most before popping back to his sleepy human baby self, other times, he stuck with whatever form he was most comfortable with for days on end and that was when his parents abruptly realized that (mythical) animal husbandry had also became an important prerequisite when it came to parenthood. This time was no different.

Eishi observed his awkwardly flailing son, all wings, talons, feathers…paws, claws and tail. The wings on the back were still small and not yet fully developed, the feathers all fluffy brownish-bronze baby down and not even molting anytime soon. The body was that of a very young lion cub; soft russet gold fur still speckled with camouflaging spots and clumsy, tapering tail fat and stubby from infancy. The front limbs ended in raptorial, razor talons and the back limbs in feline paws and equally sharp pinprick claws. A fuzzy, aquiline face with beady golden eyes and a sharp hooked beak paid rapt attention to his male parent, who was squinting at the youngster just as discerningly.

Hi’en let loose a series of demanding chirrups and clumsily headbutted his father for attention. Eishi plucked the youngling who had insisted on climbing precariously onto his shoulder when he heard his mother’s voice earlier and cradled his cat-sized child against his chest, barely even flinching when the baby dug his tiny claws into his forearms for stability. The white-haired man balanced the cellphone between his ear and shoulder, distractedly replying Rindou even as he padded into the kitchen with the fussing cub in tow.

“I think he turned into a griffin this time.”

“…Huh. What do those eat?”

That was a very good question, and one which the young parents found themselves asking almost every other week these days.

In the background, the massive constructs that were the damaged shipping vessels were now floating lightly on the shimmering ocean surface, delicate as a pair of drifting feathers. Thanks to her abilities to manipulate gravity and air, sending the ships back to the shipyard for repair would be a breeze. Pun intended.

“Think the packet of raw chicken sitting in the freezer will work?” Rindou asked as she started to gather and shape the climate to obey her will. Her gaze turned upwards, watching the gigantic nimbuses roll in and dim the skies overhead. The barometric pressure quickly dropped further, and the ambient wind speed started to pick up. The previously calm, tranquil waters became more restless, choppy, though not turbulent enough to send the ships back down to the bottom of the ocean. Rindou exerted her will and steadily pushed.

The two vessels slowly started to move, the howling gale and reduced inertia enough to set them both limping in the direction of port. Rindou trailed her responsibilities closely, making sure that they would reach their destination with no unforeseen accidents along the way.

Back home, Eishi obligingly popped open the door of the freezer compartment and pulled out the cellophane wrapped tray of chicken. He presented it to Hi’en, who nudged at the Styrofoam curiously with his beak before recoiling from it with disdain.

“No?” he asked the little griffin. His son peered at him briefly with his slit gold eyes before deciding that his father’s shirt buttons were much more interesting. He started to peck at one of them, trying to pry it off.

“I’ll defrost and cut the meat into smaller strips to see if he wants it,” Eishi spoke into the phone, shutting the freezer door and setting the packet of chicken on the counter to thaw. “I think we should find that anthropology professor at the university again and seek his opinion, just in case.”

Rindou grimaced at the thought of meeting the suspicious, twitchy man once more. She was pretty sure that the man was starting to suspect that something weird was going on with the overly insistent couple who kept asking him overly specific questions regarding the diets and behavioral patterns of legendary creatures that should not exist.

“Alright, if you feel that’s gonna help.” An excellent idea struck her. “Maybe En-chan would want fresh seafood instead. I can rustle up a waterspout and bring some catch of the day home!”

“…Please don’t do that.” Eishi was quick to shoot down the idea before his mate could run wild with it. The last time she did something similar in a misguided attempt at domesticity while harboring delusions of a homemade dinner, it rained fish intermittently over the city for an entire day. “The agency frowns upon that sort of power misuse and we don’t have enough fridge space.”

Rindou grumbled. What use were her powers even if she couldn’t apply them for little things like that?

“Come home soon,” Eishi continued. Their child lifted his head from where he had been gnawing at his father’s shirt and chimed in with an accompanying series of inquisitive peeps and chirps. “We’re looking forward to your safe return.”

Despite her disgruntlement, Rindou’s cheeks warmed happily. “Then I shall, since you asked so nicely.”

When two beings with the recessive mutated genome that gave them unique abilities produce an offspring, it is virtually guaranteed that their progeny would inherit the same metamorphosed DNA sequence as well. However, just because that peculiar gene had been passed down from parents to child did not mean that the latter would end up with the same type of ultra-abilities that either parental units had. As such, having children when one possessed superpowers was very much like entering a lucky draw.

There is an implicit understanding that there will be a special prize, but what it is exactly or how useful it will be is something entirely up in the air until the child’s powers finally chooses to establish themselves.

Even before the birth of their son, Eishi and Rindou had already decided on his name out of two reasons.

The first was for bond. Both parents were distinct air types and spent so much of their time in the skies that they might as well have been born birds themselves. They had flown together, fought together, courted, loved. Their mutual joy, their steadfast devotion to each other… Hi’en was the precious culmination of all this happiness.

The second was for blessing. It was the parents’ sincerest wish for their firstborn that he would always be able to fly as far and as freely as he wanted to, just like a brave and lithe swallow, unfazed and unhindered by all the challenges that he would ever meet in life.

When Hi’en’s powers initially manifested in an unexpected way that turned him into a firebird, his parents wondered if they had perhaps named him a bit too aptly. Even though the kanji ‘Hi’ in his name translated to ‘flight,’ it also shared the same pronunciation for the kanji that denoted ‘fire.’  

Regardless of the fact that their child’s abilities bore no similarities whatsoever with theirs, his parents remained endlessly delighted and fascinated with their strange little chick. All of his little milestones and progresses Eishi noted down meticulously and Rindou cheered for with pride and glee. Hi’en was developing physically and mentally faster than the average infant, though in all likelihood it was because he was switching forms so often. However, all that growing was exhausting for the young baby, and so he ate a lot, and then he slept a lot.

When Rindou returned that evening, it was to a quiet apartment with the lights dimmed. There was a flickering glow emanating from the living room, and when she exchanged her shoes for indoor ones at the genkan and went down the hallway, she discovered that the source of light was from the television, the volume muted so that only the images were playing across the screen. Eishi was sprawled out in the middle of the couch strewn all over with toys, his eyes closed, faintly, halfheartedly humming a lulling song. Curled against his chest was a little ball of fur and feathers, and the little thing must have tuckered himself out after running his father ragged all day, for he barely stirred even when his female parent approached and sank onto the adjacent cushions.

Eishi cracked opened one eye, sleepy lavender meeting quietly amused gold.

“…Okaeri,” he greeted his mate softly. He wasn’t exactly his usual neat, immaculate self. It appeared that even possessing the ability of accelerated thought process was no match to counter the sheer unpredictability of a small but determined infant. Eishi’s hair looked like he had run his hands through it several times that evening alone, his shirt was missing some buttons and partially untucked, and there were unidentifiable stains on his jeans and also on his collar. She thought that he looked manly and attractive all the same, exuding responsible daddy vibes, very irresistible.

“Tadaima,” she mouthed back. Her hand came up, fingers brushing over his crown, trying to help arrange the unrulier locks into some semblance of order. “Looks like you had a nice time with En-chan,” she drawled innocuously, trying not to grin at his visibly disheveled expression. She petted his hair affectionately, at the same time leaning in to brush her lips against his jaw. “You’ve worked hard today, papa~”

He silently tilted his head against hers, his arms already occupied cradling their child. Rindou’s gaze lowered onto where Hi’en was quietly sleeping. His fuzzy little face was barely visible, tucked under one downy front limb as he continued to doze, his little torso gently rising and falling with the cadence of his deep, steady breathing. Just looking at her son made her very happy, regardless of what form he chose to take. He was safe and protected, he was perfectly healthy, and he was growing up well. That was all that mattered.

“…Ah. I forgot the milk and eggs.”

Eishi’s eyes had closed again, and he leaned just a little more into her before she could move away.

“Let’s do that tomorrow… Stay.”

…So maybe she wasn’t the only one who felt a bit lonely now that they wouldn’t be able to take missions together, at least not in the immediate future.

She snuggled down beside him, this boy she loved first long before he gave her another to dote on and adore. Their family might be small and there were also times when it felt like they had no idea what they were doing, but to her, this was perfect.

“’Kay.”

Eishi: Accelerated Thought Process, Mid-Air Combat

Rindou: Gravity Manipulation, Primordial Air Manipulation

Hi’en: Mythical Bestiary, Electric-Fire Manipulation

Chouko: Faithifery, Existence Sense

[thenightling]

Cain’s psychosis (An in-depth look at the character)

Today Cain of DC comics turns fifty-years-old so I have decided to focus a few posts on him, especially since the season finale of Lucifer is this Monday and there has been some confusion about the comic book version of the character as opposed to the TV show and to his true nature.  

The Lucifer solo comics version of Cain is very, very different from the verison in the Lucifer TV series.   But no, unlike the versions in New 52 (the 2011-2015 failed DC “Soft” reboot) neither Cain nor Lucifer are truly evil in the comics.   

(Cain from Lucifer Volume 2, issue 4 from 2016-2017)

(Cain AKA Marcus Pierce from the Lucifer TV series Season 3, 2017 to 2018)

Somehow someone here on Tumblr mistakenly thought the New 52 “I... Vampire” comics version of Cain was the one from the Lucifer comics.   I suspect this has to do with the poorly written entry in the Wikipedia page about DC’s Lucifer that neglected to mention that the Cain and Lucifer in that story are not from the continuity where Lucifer quits ruling Hell and were the result of a misguided attempt to reinvent the characters in 2012.

The version of Lucifer that quit ruling Hell and the version of Cain that has interacted with him have since been restored to canon.

This post is going to be discussing and even defending the comic book incarnation of Cain.  For those new to the character, first you need to ignore the New 52 version of Cain. 

 First, iI am sorry to tell some of you that if the version of Cain you have been reading about is this guy... 

“Cain, Sire of all Vampires” 

then you are reading about the wrong character.  

I repeat, the image above, is the wrong version of Cain!

The version of Cain that appears in Lucifer’s solo comics is from The House of Mystery, The Sandman, Lucifer, and all comics labeled “Sandman Universe.” 

The version of Cain in New 52 titles such as “I... Vampire” is NOT the right version of Cain.  

The Cain from the lore where Lucifer quit ruling Hell, is NOT a vampire, nor was he ever “destroyed” by Constantine and dragged to Hell.  In fact, the version of Cain who appears in the Lucifer comics, has only been to Hell once, and that was to relay a message.  

The cain that appears in Lucifer’s solo comics is this one.

Cain is skinny with auburn (or brown) hair parted to resemble horns, a funky and slightly excessive soul patch beard (without a mustache), wire rim or pince-nez spectacles and he has slightly pointed ears.    

 Fifty-years-ago Cain made his first comic book appearance in The House of Mystery issue 175, published for DC in the summer of 1968.

For those who don’t know about the DC / Vertigo version of Cain and Abel they are loosely inspired by the biblical characters.   They may or may not actually be them. They could be Nightmare incarnations of the characters created by Morpheus (the ruler of The Dream Realm).  It’s a bit ambiguous to if they are the original Cain and Abel or if they are dream versions of The Characters. 

One thing is certain though.  Lucifer respect’s Cain’s mark as if he is THE Cain.  

Though acknowledged, Cain’s mark is rarely shown in the comics, but is apparently hidden under his hair over his forehead.  Like in the Lucifer TV series it is an “O” shape but it is not on his forearm.

Even if Cain is only a Nightmare incarnation of the Biblical character the mark is respected and for this reason it was Cain that Morpheus (The Dream Lord) sent to Hell to relay the message that he would be paying Lucifer a visit to rescue a soul he wrongfully left in Hell centuries before. This was in The Sandman comics during the storyline called Season of Mists.

When Cain returned to The Dreaming (The realm of Dreams) to tell Morpheus that Lucifer was awaiting his arrival, poor Cain was scared out of his wits (Lucifer had taken delight in deliberately terrifying him).  Lucifer is the only thing Cain is afraid of.

It was when Morpheus arrived in Hell that he soon found out that Lucifer had quit.  This is the basis for the Lucifer TV series. 

Cain and Abel’s original purpose in DC were as hosts for the horror anthology series House of Mystery and House of Secrets.  Cain was the caretaker of the House of Mystery and Abel was the caretaker of The House of Secrets.  The two often intersected, reading scary stories to an audience (comic book reader) much like The Crypt Keeper, Old Witch, and Vault Keeper of the old EC comics. 

In the late 1980s Neil Gaiman scooped them up and made the duo Nightmare residents of The Dreaming (The realm of Dreams) in the Sandman comics of the late 1980s into the late 1990s.  It was a play on the punny idea that after the murder of Abel, Cain went to The land of Nod (which is another term for Dreamland).

Cain habitually kills Abel fairly regularly with ghoulish Crypt Keeper style puns.  Abel revives and heals within a day and the cycle begins a new as they are both more or less immortal beings.  Sometimes Cain seems remorseful about the murders of his brother and the murdering might be an unavoidable compulsion while other times he seems to take vicious glee in the act.  This could be because they are actually personifications of what people anticipate of the famous Biblical characters. 

The best way to describe Cain is he’s like a cross between The Crypt Keeper, Vincent Price, and Alfred Hitchcock with Abel as his recurring and only victim.  Cain is usually a gracious host to most other people.

Abel is more sweet and timid by nature.   A perpetual victim.    

In the Sandman comics they are loyal to Morpheus, AKA Dream of the Endless, AKA the Sandman.   Morpheus is the very entity that Lucifer left the key to Hell to and the one who helped Lucifer by cutting off his wings for him with Mazikeen’s blade when Lucifer quit Hell.

In the older House of Mystery comics Cain has a pet black cat named Oskar and a pet large green Gargoyle that behaves rather dog-like.  The gargoyle is named Gregory and is still with him in The Sandman comics.  If you’re familiar with Disney’s Gargoyles, Gregory is a bit like Bronx.

Abel has a little baby golden gargoyle named Goldie (Originally he wanted to name him Irving but Cain insisted Gargoyles have G names).  Cain gave Abel the egg that Goldie hatched from as a present.

The name Goldie was ultimately chosen after Abel’s old “imaginary friend” who may or may not have been an actual ghost haunting The house of Secrets, also by the name of Goldie.

The house of secrets (Abel’s House) contains all the secrets one might learn in Dreams.   The house of Mystery (Cain’s House) contains every mystery one might dream up.  Cain is excessively melodramatic and loves a good story.

Abel has a permanent stutter, probably from being murdered so often.  

When they first appear in Sandman, Morpheus (Dream / The Sandman) has returned to his realm but he collapses on his way to the castle.  This is shortly after Morpheus has escaped from nearly a century of captivity at the hands of mortals.  It’s Cain and Abel who nurse him back to health after Cain’s dog-like gargoyle, Gregory is who had found Morpheus barely conscious.

 Despite their dysfunction Cain actually does love Abel and even pleaded with Daniel (Dream’s newest incarnation) to bring him back when “The Kindly Ones” killed him (Abel only comes back from the dead when Cain kills him).  And yes, he does bring Abel back for Cain.

During the Sandman comic storyline Season of Mists, Morpheus sends Cain to Hell to announce he is coming to retrieve a soul.  Morpheus intends to rescue a woman he wrongfully left in Hell centuries before.  He figures Lucifer won’t hurt Cain but Lucifer terrifies the old Nightmare anyway without actually hurting him, and Cain returns trembling and mortified.  Morpheus calms him and rewards him with a pleasant sleep.  

To Morpheus’ surprise, when he arrives in Hell, that is when Lucifer is shutting everything down because he has quit.  (basis for the Fox TV series).

There was a brief attempt to allow “Cain, Sire of all vampires” to co-exist with Cain, The Caretaker, with the claim that the vampire was the “Real” Cain and that the one in The Dreaming was a Nightmare creation, but I believe that has since been dropped and it is best to pretend it had not happened, after, the comic book where “Cain, sire of all vampires” appeared only lasted twelve-issues whereas Cain of The Sandman Universe has existed for fifty-years as of today. 

The House of Mystery / Sandman Universe version of Cain also appeared in the 2016 Halloween episode of the animated series, Justice League Action to narrate the story Trick or Threat.

In The Bible Cain murdered his brother, Abel.   They were the children of Adam and Eve.   Eventually Eve had another son, Seth, but that came later.   Cain murdered Abel out of jealousy because it was implied that God liked his animal sacrifice better than Cain’s sacrifice of a good autumn harvest (I guess the Bible writers don’t appreciate the hard work of agriculture).

When God asks Cain where Abel is he answers “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  When it’s revealed that Abel was murdered by Cain (the very first murder) Cain is cursed with immortality and left to wander. A mark is put upon him by God to protect him so that no one will harm him for his crime lest they suffer seven (or in some versions three) times the harm done to Cain.  

In most versions Cain ends up in The Land of Nod, which Neil Gaiman took to mean the realm of Dreams (playing on the pun since Land of Nod is used to mean dream land in British childrens’ literature).  

It’s unclear if DC’s Cain is THE Cain of The Bible or a version of the character created by the Dream Lord (Morpheus AKA Dream of The Endless).

  But in any event Cain’s compelled to kill his brother every so often.  And both men are now guardians of two houses in The Dreaming.  The House of Secrets (Abel) and The House of Mystery (Cain).   Both houses can and do appear in the human world as if on their own accord and are bigger on the inside.   They are usually together though sometimes The House of Mystery is seen alone.

Now here’s where I will give Cain a little defense.

Lucifer is not listed as evil in the comics. He is listed as neutral.  The same can be said of Cain.  He’s not actually evil either.  Cain does murder his brother fairly regularly but if he is ever lead to think that Abel will not revive he is devastated by the idea.  

In The Sandman comics storyline called The Kindly Ones, the Greek Furies arrived, and one of their acts to get Morpheus’ attention, was to murder Abel.  Cain was heartbroken and could not bear to carry on with his usual ghoulish theatrics.  As soon as the dust settled in the storyline called The Wake, Cain barged into the castle demanding that his king, Dream of The Endless, raise Abel from the dead. 

 When it is not Cain who kills Abel, it requires the ruler of Dreams to bring him back. This adds to the theory that he may not literally be Cain and Abel may not literally be Abel, but that they are both dream entities inspired by the cultural collective idea of the two characters.

  They are even referred to as “Nightmares” in the comic book series called The Dreaming.

(Issue 59 of The Dreaming.  Warning, This particular version of The Dreaming comics is no longer canon as the series is set to be rebooted this summer.)

Cain’s compulsion to kill Abel has been used as everything from an uncomfortable metaphor of an abusive domestic relationship to a dark version of Obsessive Compulsive disorder.  But a few things are clear.  He cannot bear the idea of Abel’s death truly being permanent.  And Cain has (as far as I know) never killed anyone other than Abel.        

In general Cain is actually a relatively harmless and good natured guy.  He’ll invite you in for tea as long as you’re willing to listen to one of his scary stories.  Just think of it as being invited in by Gomez Addams.   He believes in justice and has taunted the villains of his own stories when he feels they deserve it.  He is also surprisingly good with children.

 Cain might be a liternal Nightmare representation of the Biblical character, which accounts for the bulk of his behavior.  LIke a citizen of Halloween Town from Tim Burton’s Nightmare before Christmas his very nature is to scare but not necessarily do harm.  He is most satisfied when he has given an adequately scary story. 

Even if Cain was created by Morpheus he would still have his own personality and autonomy.  Morpheus’ creations are usually self-aware individual entities.  

Unlike the Lucifer TV show version of Cain, the Cain of The Sandman Universe (the lore where Lucifer’s solo comics come from) likes who and what he is.  He’s actually quite content with his existence despite the compulsion to kill his brother (which he sometimes does not seem to like while other times he does).

 And if Cain ever thinks Abel is in danger he can become surprisingly and fiercely protective.  (Only he gets to kill his brother!) 

  Cain will avoid crossing Lucifer if he can help it after his brief visit to Hell (During Sandman Season of Mists) where Lucifer taunted him by holding him by his hair over Hell as he flew before finally setting him down.

Cain, naturally, kept his distance when Lucifer paid a visit to The Dreaming (realm of Dreams)  in 2016.

 Also how can you hate a guy who sounds like Vincent Price?

Honestly, I love this asshole.

He can also be bribed with cookies.

[theliterateape]

Before You Go All-in on Antifa, Try Becoming Antifra First

by Don Hall

The laughter at my expense was not the kind of guffawing that accompanies a sense of genial ribbing but of Biff Tannen cracking up at the awkward geekiness of George McFly.

"What do you think queer means, Don?"

"I always thought queer meant gay."

Laughter. "No. Queer means refusing to accept the binary in sex."

"Isn't that bisexual?"

Cackles. "No. Bisexual is having a sexual attraction to both biological sexes."

"Who the fuck decided that? Was there a memo sent out?"

The evolution of language is, taken as a long tail concept, natural. When the Miriam Webster Dictionary enters finna (contraction. DIALECT•US, verb. finna: going to; intending to. "I'm finna make a scene") one has to grudgingly accept the fact. It is both the codifying of slang as standard and the pushing the envelope of common dialect. It can get confusing but it is as normal as language itself.

The term fragile is very popular in 2021 but I'm not certain the people who use it as a political label have an understanding of what it means. The redefinition seems to be a synonym for defensive but that isn't even close to the original so it doesn't play. Considering how loaded the term has become politically, I'd suggest we take a look at the pre-DiAngelo meaning and embrace it some before we continue forcing the evolution.

Back to that handy tome of mutual agreement of terms, the dictionary has a few definitions of fragile:"easily broken or damaged", "flimsy or insubstantial; easily destroyed.", and "not strong or sturdy; delicate and vulnerable".

A nine year old boy is enticed to have penetrative sex with his fourteen year old babysitter one afternoon while his little sister watches Joe Namath as "C.C. Ryder" on the television a room away. 

This is either molestation or an uncomfortably early rite of passage. The argument can be made that a nine year old cannot give consent but that's not how I remember it. A more fragile person might see this experience as traumatic. He might internalize shame and let the shame fester until he finally explodes like a liter of Diet Coke and a Mento tab. An anti fragile person might see it as no different than playing in the streets when the sewers back up the neighborhood becomes a river in the rain. No stigma, no shame, no harm.

The anti fragile adult is going to have a happier life if not the attention lauded upon a fragile victim of circumstances beyond his control.

I was a latchkey kid.

We lived in an apartment complex on the less than affluent side of town. Mom worked several jobs and the step-dad at the time was a preening, disco-dancing domestic abuser. As such, I found myself out and about without a lot of safety nets in place. I played in a septic ditch just on the outer parameter of the complex. On the other side was an abandoned housing development and I frequently went over there alone to practice my karate (which I thought I was learning from watching David Carradine in Kung Fu, a popular episodic featuring a white man posing as an Asian man who saved people with his peaceful but forceful side kicks). I’d kick holes in the drywall pretending it was comprised of bad guys.

On the north side was, in my mind, a forest but in reality was just a bunch of trees in several abandoned lots. Whenever I ran away from home (a feat that usually lasted until I was tired or hungry) I would go to my forest and “read” the tattered copies of Playboy and Penthouse I had stolen from the aforementioned step-parent.

To the south was a playground for the kids in the complex. A rickety swing set, a teeter-totter, and a broken merry-go-round surrounded by garbage dumpsters. A cursory examination of the dumpsters—a routine activity for a vagabond third grader—revealed a coterie of used hypodermic needles, marijuana roaches, empty liquor bottles and fast food trash.

It’s likely that parents reading this have already crossed themselves or knocked on wood in deference to the fact that their children would never be put in these positions. That their children are safe.

One day, as I had exhausted myself from kicking holes into drywall villains, I headed to the playground. There was no one else around and I decided that I wanted to swing but not on the actual rubber strap. I unhooked the strap from the hefty S-hook it hung from and grabbed it like Tarzan on a vine. I started to swing around in circles holding as tightly as I could to the chain.

Slowly, I began to slide down until the S-hook punctured my white jeans and then into my scrotum. I felt some discomfort and looked down and saw blood on my crotch but I couldn’t disengage. I was hooked, by my ballsack, to the chain. I panicked and did my best to scramble up the chain but the S-hook was firmly in there and the chain just followed me up.

I screamed for help. No help arrived. I struggled and the blood started running down my left pant leg, flowering out like a Rorschach. It seemed I was hanging there for hours but the reality was more likely a few minutes until the hook, now greased with blood, slid out of my nuts and I fell to the dirt. 

Leaping up, I dropped trou on the spot to inspect the damage but there was so much blood that I couldn’t see what was actually a small leaking hole. I cried. I squalled. With my pants around my knees, I ran home.

I smashed into the front door screaming bloody murder that my balls were bleeding. My mother, shocked by the sight of her 9-year-old kid, reddened pants around his knees, crotch covered in blood, and in high hysteria (I mean, who make among us wouldn’t be?), laughed out loud. A giggle turned into a laugh transforming to a barking guffaw.

The more dramatic I was about it, the harder she laughed. Out of shock, out of horror, out of knowing how melodramatic her son was prone to be. She giggled as she washed my junk off and saw the tiny hole. She giggled episodically as she put an ice pack on it and tossed me in the car to go to the emergency room. She stopped laughing by the time we reached the hospital and I received two stitches on the underside of my underside.

A more fragile person might grow up with this experience in desperate need to pay someone to listen to his trauma.

"My mother laughed at my bleeding scrotum!" he'd wail as the therapist did her best to stifle her own laughter. He might write a book much later after his antidepressants and struggle session with his mother commenced entitled "Men and The Mothers Who Giggled at Their Nuts" and an article in The Atlantic "Incels and Their Reasons."

An anti fragile person might see this as pretty fucking funny.

In 1992, I was mugged just outside the Granville Redline stop in Chicago. It was around 2:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning. I had just played a gig on the Southside with a big band known as The Outcasts and, still in my tuxedo, decided to walk the block to an all-night diner for some breakfast when three young black men hit me with a two-by-four and then proceeded to kick the shit out of me on the sidewalk.

They stole $14.00 in cash and a check for $200.00 from the gig.

Bruised but not broken, when I told the police that I was mugged by three young black guys and what were the chances I'd get my money back, they laughed. Not like Biff Tannen but more along the lines of Denzel in Training Day to a naive Ethan.

Later, when I met with Gil, the drummer and band leader, to have him cut me another check, Gil muttered as he canceled the first "N****rs are the fucking worst." It would have been cause for some sort of reckoning except that Gil was black.

A fragile mind might find himself going over and over the incident, blaming himself, blaming black men everywhere, blaming the cops. 

An anti fragile mind understands that shit happens and you can't dwell too much on it because that means you're spending a lot of time thinking about shit.

The more time one spends dwelling on shit, the worse the place smells. It's like living with five cats. At some point, you have no idea that your apartment stinks like cat asshole but your Tinder date sure does.

Commonsense Media has polled some info out and it seems that the kids are wallowing in catshit.

23% of 14- to 17-year-olds say they "often" came across racist comments on social media in 2020 — nearly double the number in 2018 (12%).

"Sadly, but not surprisingly, the teens and young adults who are most likely to be affected by such content are also most likely to encounter it — or recognize and remember it," says the study, which was done in partnership with Hopelab and the California Health Care Foundation.

Black young people are more likely than whites to see racist comments "often" (34% vs 23%). LGBTQ+ youth are more than twice as likely than non-LGBTQ+ youth to encounter homophobic comments (44% vs 18%). Females are more likely to encounter sexist and body shaming posts than males.

On top of all this feline fecal material, it turns out that both actual mental health issues as well as the frequently self-diagnosed PTSD cases are dramatically on the rise. Where, in my formative years, comparisons of how many push-ups one could do was common, today's kids compare anti-depressant cocktails.

Under almost any definition, this is the behavior of fragility. Fragile like a Fabergé Egg in the back of a pickup truck on a dirt road going 75 miles an hour.

Surrounded by catshit, constantly seeing the injury you're looking for and thus finding it everywhere, always feeling aggrieved and victimized. What the fuck can you do except feel like you need to be bathed in Bactine just to survive life's never-ending abrasions?

First, decide what's more important than your feels. 

Most people let their every waking moment be dictated by feelings—both theirs and everyone else's. This is a one-way path to thinner skin, gentler sacks, and a general inability to live in a world outside of an echo chamber that has been hermetically sealed.

Becoming anti fragile is the process of understanding that there are a lot of things more important than your feelings. Romulans are fragile; Vulcans are not. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t have the feels—just don’t let them make your decisions for you. It might feel great to scream at the obnoxious woman at the Walgreen’s counter but it’s smarter to mind your business and buy your condoms and Zagnut bar while shutting the fuck up.

Second, get better at feeling bad and keeping it to yourself.

Just like most people allow their lives to be led by the nose by their feelings, most people think they are somehow important. They aren’t. You aren’t. The way skin thickens up is by taking some hits and learning that there are far worse things than being insulted, micro-aggressed, or shamed publicly. Grow a sack and a sense of proportion.

Finally, as the Stoics go, assume you have something to learn in every interaction rather than you have something to teach. I mean, who the fuck are you? To most people, you aren’t anyone of note so suck on the bitter teat of humility and join the throng, kiddo.

As Jalāl ad-Dīn Mohammad Rūmī once wrote "Yesterday I was clever so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise so I am changing myself."

Be wise because clever people write for McSwenis and those assholes suck.

[aion-rsa]

Marvel’s WandaVision Episode 7: MCU Easter Eggs and Reference Guide

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This article contains WandaVision episode 7 spoilers and potential spoilers for future episodes and the wider MCU.

WandaVision episode 7 is probably the final episode that is going to adhere to the sitcom format. As we’ve seen in recent episodes, the show is spending more and more time in the confines of the “real” MCU, and with its TV homages now brought up to modern day, it can spend its final two episodes bringing more surprises and wrapping up its incredibly ambitious story.

But WandaVision episode 7 is ambitious enough in itself, and like previous episodes, it’s positively full of Marvel Comics Easter eggs and pieces that will likely expand the scope of the MCU as we know it.

Let’s see what we found…

Sitcom Influences

This episode takes WandaVision up to the mockumentary era of television, which featured shows like The Office (U.K. and U.S.), Parks and Recreation, and Modern Family. Characters routinely talk to producers offscreen in confessional-style interviews. The Vision’s microphone is even visible in one instance, clipped to the chest.

The episode draws most of its inspiration and look from Modern Family, probably merely because the premise of Wanda’s “modern family” fits more closely to Westview than an office environment would. The Office does get a major shoutout in the twee opening credits though.

We wrote more about the sitcom influences of this episode here.

Wanda

Wanda wakes up still wearing most of her “Sokovian fortune teller” costume from Halloween, so this episode takes place on Nov. 1st, the morning after the previous episode. Elsewhere in the episode, we learn that just about the entire scope of what we’ve seen (other than flashbacks to Monica’s return from “The Blip”) has taken place over one week.

“Don’t let him make you the villain,” Monica pleads with Wanda. There is some legit commentary here. Assorted “hims” have been making Wanda the villain of her own story since John Byrne did it with a run on West Coast Avengers in the late 1980s. We remain unconvinced that Wanda is actually a malevolent force.

Of course Wanda’s weakness is someone asking her to kill them. That’s where a big chunk of her recent trauma comes from!

The cereal Wanda is fetching in the kitchen at the start of the episode is called Sugar Snaps, though you’d think Wanda would have had quite enough of Snaps. It also had a clown on the box! In the previous episode, Wanda turned a bunch of SWORD agents into clowns. The cereal’s name is also a subtle anachronism, lots of cereals used to prominently have “Sugar” in their names before they were replaced with more innocuous words like “honey” or “corn.”

The Commercial: Nexus

As usual, the fake commercials have a lot going on, and this one for an antidepressant known as Nexus is no different.

The Nexus of All Realities is a magical area in Marvel that acts as a gateway to various other dimensions. In the comics, it’s located in a swamp in New Orleans and is guarded by the mute creature Man-Thing.

Wanda herself is also a Nexus Being. It is incredibly convoluted, but the shortest explanation possible that doesn’t involve telling you about the time John Byrne quit Avengers West Coast mid-storyline for being edited is: Wanda’s probability altering powers make her capable of altering the future, even once it’s set. That allows Wanda to change the paths that would lead to the creation of, for example, the Time Keepers we saw statues of in the Loki trailer.

At Agnes’ house, Billy and Tommy are watching Yo Gabba Gabba on and they’re singing “Jumpy Jump” though “Puppet Master” would have been more on the nose. “Jumpy Jump” might just be a hint that The Hex is a Nexus multiversal jump point. 

There’s another potential Nexus connection, too. NEXUS is where Tony found JARVIS in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

We wrote more about the Marvel significance of “Nexus” here. 

Billy and Tommy

Billy and Tommy, like most kids their age, seem to love video games. Since this episode is modeled after Modern Family (2009), it makes sense that they’re playing games on the Nintendo Wii console, the Japanese publisher’s main platform from 2006 to 2012. 

But the sudden shifts in reality mean that the Wii doesn’t stay a Wii for long. We watch as Billy and Tommy’s Wiimotes transform into GameCube controllers (2001) and then Atari 2600 joystick controllers (1977), both of which seem to fit the eras in which previous episodes of WandaVision are set.

Both of the boys continue to wear their comic book colors. Tommy’s not just wearing green like his “Speed” alter ego, but he’s straight up wearing a tracksuit.

The Darkhold?

It appears that Agatha is keeping the Darkhold in her basement. Well, it WOULD if it weren’t for the fact that this book looks very different from the way that it was represented on Marvel TV shows like Agents of SHIELD or Runaways. 

But if it WERE the Darkhold, this incredibly powerful book would have been written by Chthon, a demon/elder god who has figured prominently in various Wanda and Agatha Harkness stories over the years. It’s said that this book is what created the first vampire (hmmmm…the MCU does have a Blade movie in the works), created werewolves (surely it’s only a matter of time before Werewolf by Night shows up…on the upcoming Moon Knight series, perhaps), and more. If the MCU is going down a more supernatural route for some of its future installments, then the Darkhold would be a key piece of that.

But again, this looks very different than the Darkhold we’ve seen on these other shows.

Reed Richards…you coming or what?

Still no sign of the mysterious “aerospace engineer,” but does the mockumentary/sitcom tone this episode shares with The Office tease John Krasinski’s arrival as Reed Richards?

Monica Rambeau

The official uniform Monica is wearing under her space suit looks very much like some of the outfits she has worn in various superheroic identities in the comics, including when she was Captain Marvel. It’s appropriate since this episode is another big step in her superheroic origin story, and now there’s no more question that she’s gaining powers from her repeated trips through the Hex.

It’s almost certainly Monica’s new powers that allow her to make it through the Hex this time, and when she comes out she can see energy patterns and signatures.

Monica sticks the trademark “Superhero Landing” when she’s confronting Wanda. As Deadpool will attest, it’s really hard on your knees. Totally impractical, but they all do it.

When Agnes is dragging Wanda into her house, Wanda points at Monica and the whole thing is framed like the “two ladies yelling at the white cat” meme. Impossible to unsee. Fun fact: the white cat’s real name is Smudge.

Contact

Monica’s journey through The Hex pays homage to the special effects technique Robert Zemeckis used in the wormhole sequence for 1997’s Contact. During the scene in question, versions of Jodie Foster’s face appear to ghost out from her body, voicing her internal thoughts and memories. By the time Monica emerges from the Hex barrier, she is “ok to go” as a superpowered being. 

Contact’s central character, Ellie Arroway, is a woman who has lost her whole family but suppresses her grief and feels all alone in the universe. Can’t see a WandaVision connection here, no sir!

Is this just a tribute to the cult Zemeckis sci-fi movie or is there more to it? Maybe those wondering if the mysterious aerospace engineer will turn out to be Blue Marvel/Mister Fantastic/Doctor Doom have never considered Contact star Matthew McConaughey as a possibility for one of the latter two roles? We might remind you he’s been desperate for a part in the MCU for years.

Wundagore

Did we see a flash of a Wundagore Everbloom when the plants in Wanda’s house were changing? In Marvel Comics, the Everbloom was a wedding present from Agatha Harkness to Wanda and Vision, and only grows on Wundagore Mountain (where Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were raised). It lets you see the future if you put a dab leaf on your tongue.

The fact that whatever this is seems to have taken over the basement makes us think of the Yo Magic commercial from last week, which implied that someone (or something) is perhaps feeding off Wanda’s powers.

Agatha Harkness

Agnes is finally revealed as Agatha Harkness in this episode, complete with an absolutely perfect theme song. The brilliant “Agatha All Along” tune is absolutely a pastiche of the Munsters theme, only with lyrics.

At the end of the song, “And I killed Sparky too!” is a good take on the infamous Wizard of Oz Wicked Witch line, “I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too!”

This show has been about Wanda finding her own agency through pain and about counterpointing all the misogyny in her history. For it to be Agnes manipulating her would be a betrayal of the point of the show so far. Not only that, in the comics, Agatha Harkness is generally depicted as an ally of Wanda’s. So we’re betting that “It was Agatha all along” is a red herring, and either Agatha is also being manipulated by an outside force, or Wanda is just putting that villainy on her without knowing the whole story.

Read all our speculation about who the REAL WandaVision villain is here.

In the comics, Agatha’s familiar is a cat named Ebony. Her rabbit being named “Senor Scratchy” is enough of a nod to that while also referencing Agatha’s evil son Nicholas Scratch.

While Agnes was able to trick Vision by pretending to be another victim driven insane by being in the Hex, Billy is unknowingly able to see past that by noticing that there isn’t any psychic pain underneath her performance.

Agnes’ brooch is clearly visible in all of the shots of her. That brooch has three sisters on it, but we still don’t know what it means. It feels so prominent that it has to mean something, though. 

The Post Credits Scene

Wanda is pretty certain that the “Uncle Peter” we met in the previous episodes is most certainly not her brother. The Agatha reveal would seem to back this up, as does his kind of menacing presence (“snoopers gonna snoop”) in the post-credits scene. But if he isn’t Pietro Maximoff, then who the heck is he?

We have some theories here.

Random Stuff and Unanswered Questions

When we saw the first flashback to the borders of the Hex expanding, the drums sound a little bit like The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil.” We can’t be sure, though…so we’re not putting this down as a Mephisto clue. THIS TIME.

In the middle of the intro, one of the screens says in cut-up letters, “I know what u are doing Wanda.” Creepy.

As Darcy chats Vision through his past, she tells him she’s been watching WandaVision for the past week. We’ve been watching it a lot longer than that, Miss Lewis, and we’re still not sure what’s really going on.

The calendar in the intro has a heart over the 10th, but the first episode had it over the 23rd. Probably means nothing, but worth thinking about.

Right after Agnes leads Wanda away from the conversation with Monica, we see Dennis the mailman wearing a logo that says “Presto.” Perfect exclamation considering who Agnes is and what she was trying to do in that scene. Also, with Presto being an Amazon knockoff, the logo appears to be a rabbit running.

We’re looking, but so far we’ve been unable to find a Marvel Comics parallel for Major Goodner.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

At the circus, the butterfly lady on the unicycle looks a little bit like the X-Men‘s Dark Phoenix.

Spot anything we missed? Let us know in the comments!

The post Marvel’s WandaVision Episode 7: MCU Easter Eggs and Reference Guide appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[tamisdava-blog]

Ok, guys its good and bad for me that i’ll have to make something soon about SVTFOE, RWBY if they’ll finally make translation of it, Camila Cuevas made new video; “origins... black beast” i didn’t watched it, because my sister threw me off PC. But today we are going to talk about ANIME! Ok, ok i know what you say: that all animes are garbage and same. But i disagree! Now we have some good anime like: My hero academia, i watched only 1th season and it was cool. One punch man that people like but i haven’t watched it and never going to watch it because i am kind of not into anime now... AND RWBY WITH 3D graphic, RWBY is for people that are already tired of anime drawings, so they can watch something special that dont looks like anime, eyes are resting from 2D and getting attached to 3D. 

The first anime that i’ll going to talk about is Soul eater! I watched it when i was 5 years old and i watched it with my old sister that was 9?! of course there is some blood there... But i never paid attention to it as 5 old little girl. Because... THERE WAS A GREAT HUMOR, if you started laughting on the one moment of soul eater you’ll never stop it. THERE WAS GREAT PLOT! And soul eater has a good character development. And of course my fav shipshipshipship and characters. I guess we will start from characters and plot, i’ll try to not spoil everything. Maka and Soul are main characters, Soul can turn into a dam weapon, Maka uses him as weapon, they killing evil people, collecting their souls... Hm, wait what? i said collecting? Nonononono Soul just eats them. Yea, eats. So soul needs to eat 100 souls and 1 witchy soul. In the beginning we can see that Maka and Soul collected 100 souls and they are fighting with witch cat... Yea, witches here have animals theme. They defeat her, Soul eats her soul, But, Always but, but that witchy soul doesn’t count, witch cat is alive and They have to recollect 100 souls. Dont ask me why it happend, last time i rewatched soul eater i was 10 years old, so i cant remember everything. Heck ya i need to rewatch it. So the witch’s name is blair and she is one of my fav characters. So no, Soul isn’t the only one that can turn into weapon, there are two sisters: Elithabeth and patricia that can turn into pistols?.. Also Tsubaki that turns in different weapons. They are too my fav characters. So Black Star uses Tsubaki as weapon. And death kid uses sisters as weapons. No, seriously its his dam name! Death kid is a son of death himself, yea, Black Star is energetic shit that still makes me laught. Maka is a serious girl, Soul is... Soul is just soul. I’ll say nothing about Elithabeth, but patricia acts like a little, cute kiiiiiiiiiid! she is my fav character too. Tsubaki is little bit shy, very patient and gentle. So after we see Maka’s dad, the weapon of death himself? Yea, he also womanizer. The character that is still mystery for me crona,Crona is a boy or girl? I didn’t understood if Crona was male or female and i still cant understand it. And i’ll now jump on the main villain of 1th season, my fav evil character of all times, witch, MEDUSA SNAKE WITCH! Ok, i want to not spol everything so i wont say anything important. i just say that i ship her with Franken Stein. Dam i shipped as 5 old girl when i didn’t know meaning of “ship”. So Medusa wants to free Asura. I dont remember is succeed. But she died :( So i as the 1th season fan didn’t liked 2th season of it. But now, as i remember everything that happend in i think its great continue of 1th season. The main evil withc character is Medusa’s sister Arachne, I as a kid didn’t liked her as a villain, i just liked her eyes. 5 old me: SHE HAS WEBS IN HER EYES SIIIIIISTER! I still like her eyes. Nu, the only thing that i can tell without spoilering that she was great villain. BOOM! Not so ago i heared that there is a continue of Soul Eater, Soul Eater NOT! Of course i haven’t watched it :D And the villain there is Shaula? When i first saw her i thought: OH GOD WTF MEDUSA AND FRANKEN STEiN FINALLY HAVE KID? Nope, it turns out she is her sister -_-

So second anime is Naruto, Of course you watched a little bit of it as a kid right? RIGHT?! Ok i wont blame you if you wont decide to watch it. BECAUSE DAM ITS TOO LONG TO WATCH. Even me and my sister haven’t finished watching it. And we will never watch it fully. So about what is anime? Its about little boy’s life called NARUTOOOOOOOOOOOO! Naruto is shinobi, dont ask me what it means. So he is ninja, everyone in this anime is ninja, we have ninja fights, ninja attacks, and many ninja thiiiiiiings! So he is in team with his friend Sasuke and Sakura. And kakashi sensei teacher. So they are still kids and they are making very dangerous missions, so dangerous thet they can die. But they aren’t dying heck knows why. Maybe because of ninja powers? maybe... So Naruto loves Sakura, Sakura loves Sasuke, Sasuke loves himself. So we have lovely triangle of love. The main villain of this is Orochimaru (Spoiler, he will die in the end). Orochimaru says to Sasuke to join him, and guess what? (spoiler he joins Orochimaru). So they after growed up and turned into a dam teenagers. They met growed Sasuke, He almost kills Sakura (actually my sister was sad that Sakura didn’t died). So TRALALALA. (spoiler Sasuke kills his old brother) (spoiler Orochimaru dies and he is replaced by his assistant kabuto(not the pokemon one). Naruto has a beast with ninetales, from his mother because she had that beast too from her parents, i think. (hm pokemon is everywhere) So he learns how to control him TRALALALA. He finally understands that he doesn’t loves Sakura and marries Hinata. Hinata liked Naruto from childhood but she was too shy to tell him about it *face palm* -_-  So they now have son and daughter. Anime is now about Naruto’s son Boruto. Naruto seriously? You couldn’t give to you kid normal name?! AAAAAAnd i wont watch boruto.

The 3th anime is POKEMOOOOOOOON! GOTTA CATCH THEM ALL! Nu guys you should knew it that its will always be in lists :D I still singing the first opening of pokemon. Other openings are shity sorry people who like other ops :/ I want to talk less about it so lets start... The main character is Ash Ketchum. me and my sister thought that its was ketchup. So he is already 10-11 years old and he needs to take his first poke, it turns out that there is no starters left, only Pikachu. He takes pikachu and gets the first thunderbolt attack on himself. Pikachu acts like a goat, yea, A DAM goat with ash. So they will turn into a dam friends when Ash will save Pikachu’s life. So after he will meet with Misty and Brock and will travel with them around Kanto and Jonhto. After Misty goes back to gym, ash continues traveling around other regions with Brock, then Brock goes back to Kanto, eh my one of fav characters of my childhood. So ash continues traveling Unova TRALALA after to the Kalos TRALALAL and finally he is in alola and looks like kid again. Eh it was fun. Thanks to gen 4 appearing on Jetix i think.

Fairy TAIL! GREAT HUMOR AGAIN! HERE IS NIGHT SO I WILL FINISH AS FAST AS I CAN! SO MAIN CHARACTER NATSU! HE WAS LIVING WITH A DAM DRAGON! BUT AFTER THAT DRAGON DISSAPEARED! HE WAS ACCEPTED IN FAIRY TAIL! THERE HE FOUND EGG THAT CONTAINED HAPPY! HIS FUTURE PARTNER AND FRIEND IN EVERYTHING! A DAM TALKING FLYING CAT WITH WINGS! Also Lucy that no body likes, but i am neutral to her. Elsa that everyone likes, and others. 

I’ll stop here right now, i tried to write that dam post but sometimes my sister doesn’t let me to sit normal or others, i am tired, its night! I AM GOING TO SLEEP SORRY FOR MY DAM ENGLISH!

[johnadamsbignaturals]

an explanation

okay, so a lot of people have been messaging me about the seussical posts i’ve been making, about how i think the cat in the hat is a trickster god and whatnot, but rest assured that i am NOT EXAGGERATING HOW FUCKED UP THIS MUSICAL IS.

for those of you who’ve never heard of Seussical the Musical, it’s basically a mash-up of famous Dr. Seuss stories, which sound harmless enough, right? at least, that’s what i thought when i performed the Jr version a about 5 years ago at my camp. About two months ago, I got some of the songs stuck in my head and decided to look it up, and finally read the original script.

(this has some... well a lot of spoilers, so i guess if you plan on somehow seeing it then you might just want to skip this post)

Let’s just start off with the Whos. Most American children have read Horton Hears a Who at some point, and we’re all familiar with their precarious fate of the Whos’ tiny planet, floating aimlessly on a speck of dust, leaving them vulnerable to crashing, drowning, and any other kind of atrocity that could happen to a minuscule world. However, the Seussical writers decided to add on having the Whos fight the Butter Battle (from the Butter Battle Book, a Cold-War era Seuss story about mutually-assured destruction)

Now, let’s go onto the Cat in the Hat character. HOoooOOOoOOOOo fuckin boy. This guy. This fucker. No words can explain how much I’d like to sock him in the nose.

So, basically, the show starts off with a Boy finding that iconic red and white striped hat on the stage and then thinking Cat into existence. Cat acts as a narrator (as well as inserting himself as certain minor roles), and the Boy had been co-narrating with him until after the Who song, when Cat shoves him into the story, making him Jojo, the mayor’s son.

So now it’s established that the Boy, Cat’s creator, has no power over him, and this is where Cat starts manipulating things. Skip forward a couple scenes, and the planet of Who is in mortal peril. Vlad Vladikoff has just dropped them from mid air and they’re falling to the ground, a hundred miles down. Now, by this point in the show, Jojo and Horton, the main character of the entire show, have met and become friends, so Horton’s is particularly mortified by this. Then, this fucker, this fucking cat jumps on stage, freezes time, and starts singing to a cheerful tune about how lucky the audience is to not be a Who. 

So that happens. Now Horton has to search through thousands upon thousands of clovers to find the Whos, and after a certain amount of time he becomes hopeless. Enter: Mayzie LaBird, who’s sick and tired of having to sit on her egg, and begs Horton to take her place so she can rest for an hour or two. Horton, poor sweet naive Horton, agrees, and Mayzie of course fucks off to Palm Beach, leaving Horton to sit his ass on that egg for nearly a year, through the fall, winter, and spring, and because of this he is unable to continue looking for the Whos.

Suddenly, a group of hunters appear! They surround Horton, and while Gertrude McFuzz (a bird who’s romantically interested in Horton), is nearby, she can’t do anything but watch, because the tail she had grown to impress Horton was now too heavy to fly with. At this terrifying moment, our local trickster cat decides it’s time for a reprise of “How Lucky You Are’, only this time he decides to let the characters themselves sing it, their expressions going from petrified to jolly as they’re unfrozen.

And that’s a wrap for Act 1!

Act two begins with a lovely recount of what’s currently happening in the plot (i.e. everything has gone horribly wrong for everybody)

The hunters capture Horton and ship him overseas where his is auctioned and sold as a circus animal. Horton happens to bump into Mayzie, who refuses to take back the egg. Horton, helpless and heartbroken, reflects on his adventure in the intro to what is honestly the saddest bloody song I’ve ever heard (Solla Sollew).

I mean, just look at these lyrics:

Now it’s time to check back in on Jojo, who had been sent by his parents to military school in hopes to keep his wild Thinks under control. Now that the Whos had lost Horton’s protection, they are without a doubt going to war, and the young cadets at General Genghis Kahn Schmitz’s military academy have been training nonstop for battle. 

.................................

...Jojo blows himself up on a minefield.

Except, wait! He’s not actually dead! He’s just trapped in a horrific seussian nightmare realm filled with creatures called the Hunches. He calls out to Horton, begging for help, to no avail.

And, oh? What’s this? You guessed it- the Cat is the one running the nightmare realm! What a fucking surprise!

I don’t want to get too spoilery (and also I hate typing), so let’s just say that Jojo makes it out of the Nightmare Realm™ by taking control of his Thinks, and finds his way home. Horton is reunited with his clover and the Whos when Gertrude finds him (she had plucked the feathers out of her tail), and everything is wrapping up to be a happy ending when, wouldn’t ya know, THE FUCKING CAT POPS UP GOING “Oh, how touching! but this story’s far from over.” (Jojo also manages to break character for a few seconds be the Boy again and says “Oh, yes it is too! Get me down from this clover!”, which I think is interesting). 

The jungle creatures from the beginning of the play, who had ridiculed Horton for believing that the Whos were real, jump on stage and kidnap Horton, bringing him back to the jungle to be put on trial. 

So, umm???? There was honestly no need for that???? Were they just trying to prove a point or something?????????? I have no idea. 

In any case, let’s skip forward about a scene and a half to the actual ending. Things have wrapped up nicely, with a solution to everyone’s problems. There’s a big dance number, and everything’s a-okay. Then....

[p0tat0-g0ddess]

garsako

I decided to post this here as well bc the original request came from here

takes place in my fic AU, but not much context is needed. They live in the monastery, there’s a cat. Don’t ask.

Moment / Rated K (G) / Romance/Family

Moment

Instead of happy chirps and tweets, a loud, strangled squawk was what woke Sensei Garmadon this morning.

The grey-haired man pried his tired eyes open, blinking in the dim light for a moment before rolling onto his side to look at the clock. 5:49. Too early. Still, it was probably a good idea to find out what made that ungodly noise that woke him up. Slowly, Garmadon sat up, stretching his arms over his head as he swung his legs over the side.  Taking his robe from his nightstand, he eased out of bed, hoping the aging floorboards wouldn’t creak and wake Misako, who was still fast asleep. Fortunately, the floor stayed quiet, and he slipped his robe on as he moved over to the window.

There, on the ground outside, was Indigo’s cat, Knifefoots or something, feasting on the carcass of an unfortunate songbird that had flown too late from the predator’s grasp. Poor creature. Turning back to his bed, the elderly man took a step, wincing as the boards protested loudly under his weight. On the bed, his wife shifted, then opened her eyes, rolling over to face him.

“Garmadon?” She murmured, glancing at the clock. “What are you doing up this early?”

“Good morning, my dear.” He crossed the remaining distance between them before sitting on the edge of the bed. “The cat killed something right outside our window, rather noisily. I went to see what had happened.”

“Mmm.” Misako pushed herself up, leaning forward to look past him at the window. “Well, as long as we’re up, how about we watch the sunrise?”

“Sounds good to me. From here or outside?”

“Outside. As long as we’re doing it, we may as well get the best view.”

“Speaking of view, we’ll be able to see it best from the roof.”

“Are you serious?”

“Why not?”

“Let’s do it.” Misako swung her feet over the side of the bed, pushing the covers back before standing up. “Is it chilly outside?”

“Probably.”

“Let’s bring a blanket, then.” The former archeologist pulled a fleecy blanket off their bed, folding it up before hugging it to her chest. “Come on.”

“Ladies first.” Garmadon stepped over to their bedroom door and opened it, waving her through. His wife snatched her glasses off her bedside table before complying, heading through the doorway before stopping and waiting for him to follow. The couple headed up two flights of stairs, then opened a window at the end of a hall and climbed out onto the slick roof. Misako shivered as a cool breeze blew past them. Her nightgown wasn’t very thick. Sitting down facing the glowing horizon, Garmadon beckoned her down next to him, then wrapped the blanket around both of them. His wife sighed, resting her head on his shoulder.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a sunrise.”

“Same here. I didn’t even see the sky for almost a year.”

“There’s not much to see in the Cursed Realm, is there?”

“Not much at all.” He confirmed. The two were quiet for a few minutes, waltching as the sun crept ever closer towards the faraway horizon.

“Garmadon?” Misako said at last.

“Hmm?”

“I have to talk to you about something.” From the sound of her tone, something serious.

“Can it wait? I don’t want to ruin this moment.”

“No, I’ve been waiting for a moment such as this to say it.” Garmadon was silent, waiting for her to continue. “You remember Wu’s letter – the one you sent to me with your name on it?” Her husband lowered his head slightly in shame.

“Of course. It never stopped haunting me in the fifty years since I did it.”

“You’ll recall that when you tried to explain it to me, I said that the letter was the reason I married you?”

“Yes.” What was she getting at?

“I lied.”

“What?”

“That wasn’t the reason I married you. It certainly helped, but it was so much more than just that silly letter.”

“Like what? I don’t recall having many good qualities back then…”

“Well, there’s your charm, for one.” She wrapped her arm around his back. “You’re a hopeless romantic. And, even back them, you were a gentleman. And you’re the most handsome man I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

“Are you talking about the younger me, or me now?”

“Both.” She kissed his cheek before continuing. “Wu never had the same appeal. He was sweet, but he was always nervous, always tried too hard to gain my approval. You were confident. Easygoing.”

“Ah, so you did fall for my ruse.” When she looked up at him in confusion, he explained. “I wasn’t confident around you, not in the least. I was far more nervous than my brother.” Misako raised an eyebrow.

“Well, this is news to me.”

“Like I said my ruse worked.” He grinned, then kissed her forehead.

“You liar.” She elbowed him playfully.

“Ouch. I surrender.” He tucked the blanket tighter around them. The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon, painting the sky pink and gold. “What a lovely morning.”

“Indeed.” Misako rested her head on his shoulder again. Abruptly, another loud squawk made them both jump, then they watched as an injured bird flew up into view before falling again, flapping its wings frantically as it plummeted to its doom.

“That cat has been busy this morning.” Garmadon remarked.

“So he has. Or is it a she?”

“I think it’s a he.”

“Mmm.”

“Anything else you wanted to say?”

“Like what?”

“Like any more attributes of mine that you find insanely attractive?”

“Well, for one, you’re not very vain.”

“Touché.”

“Though it’s probably not a good idea to feed your ego, I do have a few more.”

“Do tell?”

“First of all, you’re sweet. And loyal. And you’re a wonderful father.”

“Am I?”

“Of course you are. Lloyd adores you. And so do the other ninja, for that matter.”

“Mom? Dad??” A younger voice called from below, and the couple leaned forward to see Lloyd standing in the yard below them.

“Speak of the devil.” Misako remarked.

“Good morning, Lloyd.” Garmadon called down to him.

“Why are you on the roof??” Their son yelled up, putting his hands on his hips.

“We’re watching the sunrise! Want to join us?” Misako asked.

“Nah. I have to find Jay. He stole Kai’s shampoo and ran off, Kai sent me to chase him down.”

“Well, have fun with that, then.” Garmadon leaned back, tucking the blanket around him and his wife tighter again.

“The daffodils are blooming.” Misako pointed to the patch of yellow flowers at the base of one of the trees.

“So they are.” Her husband acknowledged. “You should pick some for the table later.”

“I will.” A pause. “Speaking of the table, we should go find breakfast. I’m hungry.”

“So am I. But let’s watch the sunrise a little longer.” The sun was completely above the horizon now, the morning rays of golden light sparkling on the dew in the grass and flowers. “There really is such a nice view from up here.”

“Indeed there is.” The couple sat on the roof for a few minutes more, leaning on each other with the blanket wrapped around them as they listened to the birds and stared at the sky. Finally, the sound of Misako’s stomach growling loudly broke the relative silence, eliciting an awkward chuckle from both of them.

“Alright, now let’s go inside.” Garmadon stood up, offering his wife a hand and helping her to her feet. Taking the blanket, they climbed back through the window, heading down the hallway towards the stairs that lead back down to the second floor.

“Should we get dressed?” Misako asked as they began to descend said stairs.

“I don’t see why. It’s our house, I don’t think anyone will mind if we come to breakfast in our bedclothes.”

“True.” The couple hurried down to the ground floor before making their way to the kitchen, where they acquired some eggs and toast and made their way to the dining room to eat them. As they ate, Garmadon couldn’t help but let his thoughts wander to his few minutes alone with Misako on the roof, the sun making her silver hair shine like gold. His day-to-day life was so hectic (living with around fifteen other people was never very quiet) that he almost never got to be alone with her like that. This morning, though… he lived for moments like this.

[thesrhughes]

Radio Man I, or: A Man Wakes Up Any Morning

New Post has been published on http://thesrhughes.com/radio-man-man-wakes-morning/

Radio Man I, or: A Man Wakes Up Any Morning

(Originally published as “A Man Wakes Up Any Morning” in Sanitarium Magazine, Issue #38.)

Radio Man I, or: A Man Wakes Up Any Morning

  He woke up, again, to the same alarm as always: static hiss of radio underscoring the accentless newsman as he said, “��he went to the gun locker, opened it, and took out the rifle.”  He slapped the radio off before he heard the rest of the story and pushed himself up out of bed.  Sarah shifted on the mattress next to him, an airy sigh slipping from her lips as she curled up in the covers.  She never heard the newsman, no matter how many times he said the exact same thing.  They’d had a fight about it, once.  She always heard a rock song, from Oceanrest Rock & Blues Radio.  The same song, every time…something by Nine Inch Nails, but he couldn’t remember the title.  He only ever heard the news report, the same news report, over and over again.

“Steve?” Sarah’s voice was sleepy-soft.

“Yeah?” he asked, pretending not to know the question.  Pretending not to have heard it every day for as long as he could remember, going back more days than he had any reason to keep counting.

“Could you make breakfast for the kids?  I had a late night.”

“Sure.”

The form of her was invisible beneath the sheets, but he knew she smiled.  It was a small smile, no teeth showing.  He’d maneuvered a glance at it on one of the hundreds of days that were all exactly alike.  Within minutes, she’d be back in the depths of sleep.

*****

He scrambled eggs in the frying pan.  They spat oil and sputtered as he chopped at them with the spatula.  The dog, Shep, wove between his legs excitedly, as if expecting a helping herself.  He stared at the pan, listening to the sound under the sizzling eggs.  Radio static, in crescendo.  The clock on the stove blinked to 7:35 AM.

The television flickered on in the living room.  The news anchor sounded exactly the same as the Radio Man, sounded exactly the same as his boss, sounded exactly the same as how many other people he’d met living the same day over for months on end.  The anchor leaned toward the camera, “His wife, author Sarah Clarke, was still sleeping when the slaughter began.”

He walked over to the set and turned it off.  He stared at the blank screen until the smell of burning eggs brought him back to the stove.  He swore he saw something move behind the black veil of the dead screen, but he could never make it out.

*****

He didn’t remember buying the gun.  He remembered the code to the safe, the number he punched into the keypad to unlock it, but he didn’t actually remember buying the thing.  It was as if it had always been there, waiting, whispering in his dreams.

The safe was in the closet of their bedroom, on the opposite side of the house from the twins.  He remembered it being there when he brought them all home from the hospital.  Had it been there when they’d moved in?  Had it been there when they bought the house and he carried Sarah over the threshold like a second wedding?

The question hurt his head.  He walked back to the kitchen, closing the door quietly behind him.

*****

Amy was up, first.  She came out of her room so fast she would’ve crashed right into the wall if he hadn’t been there to catch her.  He’d learned that from the first few times the day repeated: same time, every morning, Amy careened out of the room fast as a bullet right into the wall.  Being there to catch her saved him twenty minutes of crying.  It saved her a nasty knot on the side of her head, too.

“Watch it there, kiddo,” he said, smiling down at her.

She was very small and young and knew little about pain.

She pulled herself out of his hands and ran toward the kitchen table.  “You’re coming to the play tomorrow!” – not a question, a statement.  Amy had a role in the school play, and had been increasingly excited about it during the lead up.  She was bubbling over.  Except tomorrow never seemed to come.  All her enthusiasm was trapped in the present, imprisoned in the same endless morning.

“You bet,” he whispered back, knowing she couldn’t hear him.

Charlie came out of the room next, rubbing his eyes.  “I don’t wanna go.”

Steve reached down and ruffled his son’s dirty blond hair.  “Too bad, Chuckie man.”

“It’s a stupid play.”

“It’ll only be one night.  You’ll be fine.”

Charlie grumbled his way into the kitchen and sat down at the table.  He poured too much ketchup on his eggs.

*****

He brought them both a glass of milk and half of an English muffin with peanut butter and jelly.  It was what they had in the house: milk, eggs, English muffins, peanut butter, jelly, and four cans of tuna.  Groceries had been tight.  Everything had been tight since they’d discovered they were having fraternal twins instead of a single child.  It didn’t help that Sarah hadn’t had a successful book in four years.  Or any book at all.  A sales job in telecomm wasn’t enough to feed a family of four.

The debt had worried him until the calendar stopped moving.  Now it seemed like a funny joke.  If a collector called, he would cheerily give them all the appropriate information and hang up the phone, knowing nary a dime would go missing from it.  Another of the fringe benefits of not having a future.

“Never put off till tomorrow,” he muttered to himself, watching his children eat.  It was a joke he’d made, before.  It wasn’t funny and it wasn’t aging well.

“You’ll break,” the dog had the Radio Man’s voice.  Its mouth didn’t move, but Steve could hear it in his head.  “They all break, eventually.  One way or another.  What do you think you have in you?  A couple more months, maybe a year?  How long can you make the same breakfast every morning?”

He glared down at the dog and found it jumping up and down around the kitchen table.  Charlie slipped it a palm-full of egg and ruffled its ears.  The animal glanced back at Steve with mischief in its eyes.  Charlie loved the dog, of course.  Charlie couldn’t hear it whisper in his head.

*****

How many times had he done this?  How long had he fought?  How many ways could he avoid doing it?  How many times could he wake up in the same bed and hear the same news report and decide not to let it happen?

Over.  He just wanted it to be over.

*****

The bus picked the kids up a few minutes late.  8:39 instead of 8:30.  Of course, after the first few times Steve had just started taking them out to the curb at 8:35ish.  He waved them aboard the yellow bus and watched it drive away.

There was one thing he hadn’t tried, yet, but he didn’t want the kids to be home if it worked.

*****

Sarah was still sleeping when he tip-toed back into the bedroom.  He went to the gun locker, opened it, and took out the rifle.  It was a 30.06 and held five bullets.  He loaded it up and listened to the safe sing static in his ears.  It was always static.  Static and the radio voice, out of every pore of the world.  The dog had the voice.  The stray cat had the voice.  The birds had the voice.  The mouse scurrying across the sidewalk had the voice.  He could hear the news report shivering beneath the earth’s skin.

But problems do have solutions.

He left the bedroom with the gun and walked out to the backyard.  It was a quiet neighborhood.  The only sound was the pop and crackle of the thing living inside the air, the rustle of leaves scratching each other like record needles.  He took a deep breath.

His teeth felt strange against the barrel, like biting into a piece of flint.  It was cold and hard and it made his enamel itch.  He closed his eyes and fumbled for the trigger with his thumb, awkwardly hunched over the gun.  He tried to block out the gritty texture and the coppery taste of metal.  He struggled not to gag.  His thumb found the curved edge of the trigger, and he heard himself whimper.

He squeezed.

*****

The radio man said, “He killed his son, first, splattering blood across scrambled eggs like watery ketchup” and Steve reached out and slammed his hand on the alarm clock.  He rolled over and pulled Sarah close to him, feeling her body ease into his.  She helped his lungs expand.  The alarm clock turned back on.  “His daughter tried to run away, screaming for her mother, but he shot her in the back of the throat before—”

He turned away from Sarah, grabbed the alarm clock, and wrenched it from the wall.  He pushed himself out of bed and threw the clock on the floor, watching its plastic pieces break apart to reveal electronic guts.  He picked up the remains and threw them down, again, watching them shatter and spin away from each other.  The floor was covered in debris.

“What the hell are you doing?” Sarah sat up in bed.

Steve swallowed air to drown the fire in his chest.  “I’m sick of it.”

Sarah seemed small in the center of the mattress, caught in the whorl of sheets.  Her voice seemed smaller still.  “My parents said…if we have to…”

He shook his head at her, bull-like, “No.  That’s not—I’m not living in a basement with two kids, the dryer banging around all night, living behind walls we make out of shower curtains.”

Moving would be a waste of time, anyway.

“Just until I finish the book,” she offered.

He took a deep breath and started picking the shattered radio pieces up from the floor.  “It’s fine,” he muttered.  He bit his tongue to stop himself from talking about the news report, the Radio Man, the repeating day.  She never believed him, anyway.  “Keep writing.  I’ll figure it out at work.  We’ll figure it out.”

He hadn’t even gone to work for months.  It seemed pointless, now.

“I’m sorry,” he dropped the radio innards into the bin at the foot of the bed.  “Just…work stress.  The boss.  We haven’t had a cost-of-living raise in years and…nevermind.  I’m just sorry, okay?”

She nodded, not replying.

“I’m so goddamned sorry.”

“Come here,” Sarah reached out with open arms, “let me hold you.”

*****

One day, to kill the monotony, he told the kids to skip school and go to the zoo with him.  He snapped at Amy when she tried to turn on the car radio, smacked her hand harder than he wanted.  She didn’t cry, but she looked up at him with wide, scared eyes.  The tape deck grinned at him, spat out a tape like a tongue.  He grabbed it and threw it out the window, watching it shatter against the road behind them.

The day was muffled and distant inside his head.  The kids jumped around and took photographs on disposable cameras, snapshots of big cats and exotic birds.  Steve tried to keep his eyes on his feet, feeling the gaze of every animal branding his skin.  Monkeys howled at him, teeth bared, “His daughter tried to run away!  His daughter tried to run away!”  Their laughter chattered in his head.  One of them threw crap at him, spattering his slacks with their shitstain.

The kids got tired and grumpy and started to whine, so he took them to lunch at a cheap burger place down the road.  His wallet was out of cash, so he paid on a credit card.  The kids’ faces got gross with condiments, their fingers sticky.  Steve wiped them off with sanitary napkins despite their arguments.  Amy was particularly against it.  “Daddy, stop!” she yelled, drawing the attention of parents at another table.  As if they were any better.  As if their children were so polite.  He wrangled Amy still and wiped her mouth with the moist towelette as she squealed.

The overhead speaker snickered at him in Radio Man static.  “The only way out is through.”

“Come on, let’s go,” Steve muttered, angrier than he wanted to sound.  He grabbed his children by the wrists and ferried them out of the restaurant.  He sat them down in the back of the car and locked them in.  He paced around the parking lot for fifteen minutes before he joined them, begging God or the Universe or anyone for an answer, for a tomorrow, for something to do.

A young woman, maybe fifteen or sixteen, walked around the side of the lot.  Bleach-white hair sat mop-like on her head, the sides shaved clean down to the scalp.  She was fatally thin and smelled of unwashed summer heat.  She scanned the parking lot until her eyes fell on him.  “Sir…?”

The stench of her made him recoil.  He fished a couple crumpled bills from his pocket.

She took the money and ferreted it away in the folds of a tattered, XXL hoodie.  “Thank you.  But that’s not what—”

He was already walking away, unlocking the driver’s side door of the car and sliding into the seat.  She stood outside the burger joint staring at him, something behind her eyes making him think about police detectives or psycho-analysts.  He turned his keys in the ignition and tried to clear her smell out of the back of his throat.

“Daddy?” Charlie asked.  “Who is that?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he mumbled.  It didn’t feel like a lie.

*****

One day, he told Sarah, and she didn’t believe him.  He told his boss, and he didn’t, either.  He told a therapist and she prescribed him drugs.  He told a cop and spent the day in a cell.  He told anyone that would listen and nobody did.  There was no point in keeping it secret, day after same-day.  The Radio Man didn’t seem to care, either.

“Tell everyone!” fifty televisions called out inside a Wal-Mart, “Tell everyone and maybe they’ll start tuning in to the same channel!”

*****

Shep slept on the floor in front of the dead TV screen.  Steve stared into the flat black and drank espresso.  Something moved behind the screen, inside the darkness, he was sure of it.  He just had to see it.  It was part of an answer.  It had to be.  Because there had to be an answer and he had to find it.  He finished his fourth coffee of the morning and heard Sarah open the bedroom door.

“What are you doing out here?”

“Called out for the day,” he answered, his words caffeine-sharp.  “Needed time to think.”

He could feel the words she wanted to say, feel them like static around the hairs of his arms.  You shouldn’t skip work right now, maybe, or: we really need the money.  But she kept the words to herself and set about making her own clone of the kids’ breakfasts.  Eggs, English muffin, milk.  The tuna sat in cold cans uneaten.  He refilled his mug while she ate and sat back down in front of the screen.

“I’ll go back in tomorrow,” he said, feeling her eyes still on him.  “I just needed a day off.”

“You deserve one.  I’m sorry about…” a pause, more words unsaid, “I’ll start freelancing again.”

“We’ll figure it out,” he waited for the screen to pulse, for something to writhe inside it.

Shep roused with the smell of food.  The squeak of dog-yawn made Steve wince.  Radio Man came through Shep’s mouth: “Police won’t comment on what the man said, but one local neighbor said it was ‘disturbing.’”  The dog panted a couple times and trotted to the kitchen.

Steve kept staring at the screen.

Sarah did her writing outside, that day.  In the quiet neighborhood with the nice grass, blissfully unaware of the thing vibrating under the skin of the world.  Steve just sat in front of the television, eyes glued to the blank, endless black.  The kids came home, troubled their mother, and went to bed.  Sarah came back inside, laptop under one arm and children’s toys under the other.

“Nice show.”

“Trying to meditate.”

“Okay, then.”

She vanished into the bedroom, where he could still hear her fingernails clack against keys.  The clock ticked forward.  9:30pm, 10:00pm, 11:43pm…it rolled over to 12:00am, 12:15am, 12:23am.  Steve felt his breath get short.  It was tomorrow.  A smile crept across his face and he started giggling.  1:17am. He jumped up off the couch with a laugh and—

“…but his behavior had been bizarre leading up to the incident…” he turned over in bed and shut off the radio.  A sob wracked through his body, and something hot lashed back at it.  He stood up.

“I’m going to kill him,” he muttered, pulling on a pair of beaten sweatpants and a t-shirt from under the bed.  “I’m going out there and I’m going to kill him.”

It was such a simple solution, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t tried it, already.

*****

He walked out into the front yard and the grass smelled like disinfectant and absence.  He wasn’t sure if Sarah would follow, and it didn’t matter anyway.  In less than 24 hours she would forget anything she’d heard him mutter that morning.  For her, a rock song would play on the radio and she’d curl back up in bed.  He crossed the lawn and reached the sidewalk.

Shep was there, waiting, staring up at him.  A stray cat sat next to her, staring with the exact same eyes.  Their mouths opened at the same time and a rush of static washed through his head.  Radio Man came out of their mouths: “You can’t kill me, here.  You can’t die.  Haven’t you figured it out?  Go to the gun locker, open it, and take out the rifle.  It’s easy when you do it.  Wake up and it will be tomorrow.”

He rushed the animals and they scattered, running along green grass in different directions.  He roared after them.  When he turned back around, he saw the blond homeless girl staring at him from behind a tree.  Her hood was up, but the look and the smell were unmistakable.  “What the hell are you doing?” he snarled, stalking toward her, hands balled into fists.  “Did you follow me?  Did you follow me to my house?”

She retreated as quickly as the animals had.  Something about her didn’t make sense, but he couldn’t place what.

*****

Oceanrest Rock & Blues was in a tiny building on top of a hill northeast of town.  It took him four hours to walk there.  He could’ve taken a car, but he didn’t.  The time gave him space to breathe, to brood, to let the answer solidify in his head.  He had to kill the Radio Man.  That was the only other option.  Then it would finally be over.

He expected to find a reception desk when he threw the door open, but there wasn’t one.  There wasn’t anything.  The place had been torn apart.  A dented air vent hung from the half-collapsed ceiling, exhaling cool, sweet air into the dusty room.  The remains of four destroyed chairs lay scattered across the floor like limbs after a bomb.

His loafers were quiet against the floor as he made his way into the station.  Broken wires like nooses hung from everything.  Ceiling tiles had been pried away to reveal leaking pipes and busted vents.  Something had come through here and destroyed the place.  He found no one waiting in the hallways as he went.  The building was catacombs-empty.

The window that looked in on the recording studio dripped with opaque gray sludge.  Steve reached out and touched it, feeling it cool and mud-like oozing around his fingers.  He wiped the viscous residue on his pants and turned the corner.

The door to the studio hung open.  Static crackled from inside the room.

Steve walked in.

The Radio Man stared at him from the center of the room.  He had microphone heads as eyes and a smile that anyone in America could buy into.  He tilted his head to one side and spoke in the same voice Steve had always heard, “Do you think you’ll wake up and it will be tomorrow?”

Steve charged him and put a fist in his everyman smile.  His skin split around the Radio Man’s teeth.  Radio Man stumbled back and crashed spread-eagle on a small, worn table.  Steve rushed forward and hit him, again, this time in the throat.  Electric feedback warbled from Radio Man’s mouth, loud enough to make Steve grab his ears.

“His wife was out of the room two seconds later with a small pistol from the same safe.  She fired and hit him in the stomach.  He returned fire, spilling all her love out of her chest,” the Radio Man was back on his feet, his voice deafening in Steve’s head.  “He was found strangling his dog on the front lawn, screaming.”

Steve dove at the man and tackled him to the ground.  He was deaf and blind from all the sound, but he didn’t need to see or hear to keep punching.  He lashed out with his fists until his knuckles were broken and all his skin was flayed by splintered bone.  The Radio Man laughed through it all, bursts of static snicker and radio-persona crack-up exploding from his mangled face.  He never fought back.

When the sound died away, Steve stood up.  All the pain shrieking in his hands seemed like a distant, foggy memory.  He staggered back through the empty radio station and walked out the front door, leaving twin trails of blood in his wake, dripping off his fingers.

Outside, a bird peered down at him from the boughs of a tree.

“The only way out is through,” Radio Man’s voice teased from its beak.

*****

Amy’s play never came.  Charlie never wanted to go, anyway.  Steve ran lines with her every morning, a rehearsal for a show that would never go up.  There were always eggs and English muffins and not much else to eat.  The safe whispered static in his dreams.  The world whispered static in his daylight.  The night ate the day and yesterday ate tomorrow.  Amy and Charlie never grew older, never grew up, never complained about dating or learned about unemployment.

They smiled and laughed and sometimes they ran into walls and that was as bad as things got for them.

*****

Static sizzled under the burning eggs.  Steve’s knuckles were bone-white around the spatula handle.  How long had it been, now?  How many times had he cooked the same breakfast?

“He went to the gun locker, opened it, and took out the rifle.”

Was it a threat, or a promise?  Was it the end, or the beginning?

*****

The eggs sputtered on the pan.  Shep wove between his legs.  “Go to the gun locker!” the animal yipped in Radio Man’s voice, “go to the gun locker!”

Steve picked the dog up and threw it against a wall.  It landed with a whimper on the kitchen counter.  “What the hell do you want from me!?” he screamed, grabbing the furry animal in his hands and shaking it.  “What do you want!?”

“His wife, author Sarah Clarke, was still sleeping when the slaughter began.”

He smashed the animal down against the countertop, hearing more bones splinter.  “Why are you doing this to me!?”

“You’ll break,” Radio Man’s voice was quieter, distorted, coming from a broken speaker inside the dog’s body.  “They always break.  The only way out…the only way…”

He lifted Shep’s body in the air and brought it down again, until the Radio Man stopped talking and the animal’s corpse painted his hands red.  Amy and Charlie went to stay with their aunt in Portland, and he spent the rest of the day in one of the police precincts.

*****

The voice got more persistent.  He unplugged the alarm clock and the birds outside would sing the report for hours.  The dog would bark it, the stray cat would mewl it.  The eggs started talking to him, the voice whispering beneath the sputtering oil.  The television would flick on and the Radio Man’s voice would come out of the news anchor, children’s cartoons, Tony Soprano’s mouth.  It was all he heard all the time every day.  It was in his head like a brain worm, eating his mind.

*****

He opened Sarah’s laptop and typed:

He went to the gun locker, opened it, and took out the rifle.  He loaded it with five rounds and leaned it against the fridge as he cooked breakfast for his children.  He walked back to the bedroom and kissed his wife on the forehead.  She smiled faintly and turned over in bed.  The walk back to the kitchen took the longest.  It was time.  There was no way out but through.  He ruffled his children’s hair and opened the fridge to reveal empty shelves.

His wife, author Sarah Clarke, was still asleep when the slaughter began.  He killed his son, first, splattering blood across scrambled eggs like watery ketchup.  His daughter tried to run away, screaming for her mother, but he shot her in the back of the throat before she could make it to the bedroom.

His wife was out of the room two seconds later with a small pistol from the same safe.  She fired and hit him in the stomach.  He returned fire, spilling all her love out of her chest.  He was found strangling his dog on the front lawn, screaming.

Police won’t comment on what the man said, but one local neighbor said it was ‘disturbing.’  His neighbor alleges he was screaming at the dog, sobbing, “Is this enough for you?  Can this all finally be over, now?” when the first cop cars pulled up across the street.

Neighbors say Steven Clarke is a good man, but his behavior had been bizarre leading up to the incident.  He’d written a grim short story on his wife’s laptop depicting a similar scene to what happened that morning, and hadn’t been to work for two or more days.  Was it a psychotic break from reality?  One witness might know the truth: a young homeless girl found on the sidewalk across from his home, crusted white hair cresting her otherwise shaved scalp…

*****

He hit ‘snooze’ and climbed out of bed.  He pulled on a pair of boxers and a dirty t-shirt.  He went to the gun locker, opened it, and took out the rifle.  He loaded it with five rounds and prayed, hands so tight around the barrel he hoped it might break.  Heat burned his cheeks as he begged the universe to intervene.  Maybe someone would remember something: maybe Sarah would find the document he left on her laptop, or his boss would remember him screaming in the office, or the cop would remember locking him up—they’d remember, and they’d stop him.  But he couldn’t keep doing it, anymore.  It had to be over.

He leaned the gun against the fridge as he cooked breakfast for his children.  He wrung his hands in front of the stove and pursed his lips in another prayer.  Shep looked up at him with microphone-head eyes, “After this, everything will be okay,” Radio Man promised.  “It’s easier than you think.  And then you’ll all be free.  All of you.  They’ll be free to dream what dreams may come.  You’ll wake up tomorrow.”

Steve opened the front door and let the dog out into the yard.  He walked back to the bedroom and kissed Sarah on the forehead.  She smiled faintly and turned over in bed.  Amy and Charlie laughed from the kitchen table.  Silverware scraped against plates.  Footsteps crunched the green grass outside, cutting across the front lawn.  Maybe it was a teenager on the way to school.  Maybe it was a cop coming to gun him down.  Maybe it was all in his head, anyway.

The walk back to the kitchen took the longest.

“Daddy,” Amy called, face covered in peanut butter and jelly, “is mom coming to the play?”

“She wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he replied, voice quivering like his guts.

Charlie rolled his eyes when Steve ruffled his hair.  The fridge was nearly empty.  Groceries had been tight for some time.  Everything had been tight for some time.  Sarah’s parents had an unfinished basement they could use for a while, but they’d have to bring their own walls.  Tuna sat uneaten in the pantry.  The sun rose at 6:45 AM and set at 8:20 PM.  Everyone breaks, eventually.

Steve licked his lips and felt a shuddering breath force its way into his lungs.  The children were very small and young and knew little about pain.  At least this way they would never have to find out.  He closed the fridge and picked up the rifle.  The only way out was through.  Maybe, if he was lucky, he would die from the stomach wound and it could all really be over.  Maybe tomorrow could be born without him in it.  Maybe the footsteps crossing the lawn were headed toward the front door.  It sounded like it.

He imagined a young homeless girl, smelling of unwashed summer, swinging the door in.  She would hold a knife in her hand and it would go up into his shoulder, on the inside, finding an artery on the way, and he would bleed out on the floor.  His family would never know why, and eventually they wouldn’t need to know why.  They would just live.

The doorknob turned.

He wrapped his finger around the trigger.