#we had the same thing going with porcupine tree when I was in middle school

[doedipus]

roundabout being the yes pick for best 70s song feels whack. like I know it's because of jojo but I'm still kind of surprised it's not something off the yes album

like okay, my dad's favorite yes album from the era is fragile (I believe his absolute faves are the ones in the trevor rabin era), so from a sample size of two it's understandable to pull from there. it's a good, solid album.

but personally I think the folksier angle a lot of the yes album goes for is probably more accessible and probably a better pull for a "best 70s song" kind of poll. like if you reach for a 70s yes song everyone can agree on you get like, starship trooper or yours is no disgrace

well, and then on the other hand, I really like relayer, man. the gates of delirium is probably like my single favorite yes song, and sound chaser is a close second. but no fuckin way are either of those songs good in the way a "best 70s song" contender would have to be.

[honmyoseagull]

Wanna see why I laughed so hard during lunch break that I CRIED???? 

(Bonus point if you hear in your head the whole text in John Finnemore’s voice.)

source: snopes  (BUT FOR SIMPLICITY’S TAKE, THE WHOLE THING IS UNDER THE CUT TOO.)

Don’t drink anything while you read this. YOU’RE WELCOME.

*** The World According to Student Bloopers ***

Richard Lederer St. Paul’s School

One of the fringe benefits of being an English or History teacher is receiving the occasional jewel of a student blooper in an essay. I have pasted together the following “history” of the world from certifiably genuine student bloopers collected by teachers throughout the United States, from eight grade through college level. Read carefully, and you will learn a lot.

The inhabitants of Egypt were called mummies. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere, so certain areas of the dessert are cultivated by irritation. The Egyptians built the Pyramids in the shape of a huge triangular cube. The Pramids are a range of mountains between France and Spain.

The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book of the Bible, Guinesses, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. One of their children, Cain, asked “Am I my brother’s son?” God asked Abraham to sacrifice Issac on Mount Montezuma. Jacob, son of Issac, stole his brother’s birthmark. Jacob was a partiarch who brought up his twelve sons to be partiarchs, but they did not take to it. One of Jacob’s sons, Joseph, gave refuse to the Israelites.

Pharaoh forced the Hebrew slaves to make bread without straw. Moses led them to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar. He fougth with the Philatelists, a race of people who lived in Biblical times. Solomon, one of David’s sons, had 500 wives and 500 porcupines.

Without the Greeks, we wouldn’t have history. The Greeks invented three kinds of columns – Corinthian, Doric and Ironic. They also had myths. A myth is a female moth. One myth says that the mother of Achilles dipped him in the River Stynx until he became intolerable. Achilles appears in “The Illiad”, by Homer. Homer also wrote the “Oddity”, in which Penelope was the last hardship that Ulysses endured on his journey. Actually, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that

name.

Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock.

In the Olympic Games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits, and threw the java. The reward to the victor was a coral wreath. The government of Athen was democratic because the people took the law into their own hands. There were no wars in Greece, as the mountains were so high that they couldn’t climb over to see what their neighbors were doing. When they fought the Parisians, the Greeks were outnumbered because the Persians had more men.

Eventually, the Ramons conquered the Geeks. History call people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long. At Roman banquets, the guests wore garlic in their hair. Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March killed him because they thought he was going to be made king. Nero was a cruel tyrant who would torture his poor subjects by playing the fiddle to them.

Then came the Middle Ages. King Alfred conquered the Dames, King Arthur lived in the Age of Shivery, King Harlod mustarded his troops before the Battle of Hastings, Joan of Arc was cannonized by George Bernard Shaw, and the victims of the Black Death grew boobs on their necks. Finally, the Magna Carta provided that no free man should be hanged twice for the same offense.

In midevil times most of the people were alliterate. The greatest writer of the time was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verse and also wrote literature. Another tale tells of William Tell, who shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his son’s head.

The Renaissance was an age in which more individuals felt the value of their human being. Martin Luther was nailed to the church door at Wittenberg for selling papal indulgences. He died a horrible death, being excommunicated by a bull. It was the painter Donatello’s interest in the female nude that made him the father of the Renaissance. It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented the Bible.  Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes. Another important invention was the circulation of blood.  Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper.

The government of England was a limited mockery.  Henry VIII found walking difficult because he had an abbess on his knee. Queen Elizabeth was the “Virgin Queen.” As a queen she was a success. When Elizabeth exposed herself before her troops, they all shouted “hurrah.” Then her navy went out and defeated the Spanish Armadillo.

The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespear. Shakespear never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He lived in Windsor with his merry wives, writing tragedies, comedies and errors. In one of Shakespear’s famous plays, Hamlet rations out his situation by relieving himself in a long soliloquy. In another, Lady Macbeth tries to convince Macbeth to kill the King by attacking his manhood. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroic couplet. Writing at the same time as Shakespear was Miquel Cervantes. He wrote “Donkey Hote”. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote “Paradise Lost.” Then his wife dies and he wrote “Paradise Regained.”

During the Renaissance America began. Christopher Columbus was a great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic. His ships were called the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Fe. Later the Pilgrims crossed the Ocean, and the was called the Pilgrim’s Progress. When they landed at Plymouth Rock, they were greeted by Indians, who came down the hill rolling their war hoops before them. The Indian squabs carried porposies on their back. Many of the Indian heroes were killed, along with their cabooses, which proved very fatal to them. The winter of 1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many people died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible for all this.

One of the causes of the Revolutionary Wars was the English put tacks in their tea. Also, the colonists would send their pacels through the post without stamps. During the War, Red Coats and Paul Revere was throwing balls over stone walls. The dogs were barking and the peacocks crowing. Finally, the colonists won the War and no longer had to pay for taxis.

Delegates from the original thirteen states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin had gone to Boston carrying all his clothes in his pocket and a loaf of bread under each arm. He invented electricity by rubbing cats backwards and declared “a horse divided against itself cannot stand.” Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.

George Washington married Matha Curtis and in due time became the Father of Our Country. Them the Constitution of the United States was adopted to secure domestic hostility. Under the Constitution the people enjoyed the right to keep bare arms.

Abraham Lincoln became America’s greatest Precedent. Lincoln’s mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. When Lincoln was President, he wore only a tall silk hat. He said, “In onion there is strength.” Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg address while traveling from Washington to Gettysburg on the back of an envelope. He also signed the Emasculation Proclamation, and the Fourteenth Amendment gave the ex-Negroes citizenship. But the Clue Clux Clan would torcher and lynch the ex-Negroes and other innocent victims. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show. The believed assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a supposedly insane actor. This ruined Booth’s career.

Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltare invented electricity and also wrote a book called “Candy”. Gravity was invented by Issac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the Autumn, when the apples are falling off the trees.

Bach was the most famous composer in the world, and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half Italian and half English. He was very large. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.

France was in a very serious state. The French Revolution was accomplished before it happened. The Marseillaise was the theme song of the French Revolution, and it catapulted into Napoleon. During the Napoleonic Wars, the crowned heads of Europe were trembling in their shoes. Then the Spanish gorrilas came down from the hills and nipped at Napoleon’s flanks. Napoleon became ill with bladder problems and was very tense and unrestrained. He wanted an heir to inheret his power, but since Josephine was a baroness, she couldn’t bear him any children.

The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West. Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years. He reclining years and finally the end of her life were exemplatory of a great personality. Her death was the final event which ended her reign.

The nineteenth century was a time of many great inventions and thoughts. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormick Raper, which did the work of a hundred men. Samuel Morse invented a code for telepathy. Louis Pastuer discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a naturailst who wrote the “Organ of the Species”. Madman Curie discovered radium. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx Brothers.

The First World War, cause by the assignation of the Arch-Duck by a surf, ushered in a new error in the anals of human history.

Origins:   Youngsters are more than capable of mangling what they’ve been taught in school, often in the most hilarious fashion. Mishearings of unusual terms (“pullet surprise” for “Pulitzer Prize,” for example), misspellings (“skilled at playing the liar” rather than “lyre”), and typos (“a horse divided against itself cannot stand”) can turn even the most mundane of descriptions of lessons learned into that which leaves its audience in tears of laughter.

The list of such howlers quoted as our example above has been kicking about on the Internet for dogs’ years — at this point, our earliest sighting of it dates to a rec.humor newsgroup post made in 1991. It was lifted from Richard Lederer’s 1987 compilation of linguistic missteps, Anguished English.

Lederer provides numerous other student bloopers in his subsequent various Anguished English collections. Some of our personal favorites are:

The four gospels were written by John, Paul, George, and that other guy.

The legislature makes the laws, the executive carries them out, and the judiciary interrupts them.

Someone who runs for an office he already holds is called an incompetent.

An Indian woman squatted over a fire in one teepee, and you could smell fresh meat cooking.

As to whether these howlers actually did come from the writings of various students, Lederer says of them: “I am sometimes asked if I invent any of the bloopers that appear in my collections. My answer is an emphatic ‘No way!’ No way would I violate the code of ethics of the bloopthologist — the collector takes what he or she finds and contrives nothing. These uncut gems are self-evidently genuine, authentic, certified, and unpolished; they have not been manufactured by any professional humorist.”

It should be noted, however, that some of the entries Lederer included in his books had been published elsewhere several decades earlier. From among the list quoted as an example at the top of this page, we found the following offerings were also included a 1946 humor book:

Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock.

During the Napoleonic Wars, the crowned heads of Europe were trembling in their shoes.

Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg address while traveling from Washington to Gettysburg on the back of an envelope.

Nero was a cruel tyrant who would torture his poor subjects by playing the fiddle to them.

Many of the Indian heroes were killed, which proved very fatal to them.

Martin Luther died a horrible death. He was excommunicated by a bull.

Henry VIII had an abbess on his knee, which made walking difficult.

Shakespeare wrote tragedies, comedies and errors.

Donatello’s interest in the female nude made him the father of the Renaissance.

Milton wrote “Paradise Lost”; then his wife died and he wrote “Paradise Regained.”

Columbus was a great navigator who cursed about the Atlantic.

    SOURCES

Lederer, Richard.   The Revenge of Anguished English.    New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005.   ISBN 0-312-33493-1   (pp. 24-26).    Lederer, Richard.   Fractured English.    New York: Pocket Books, 1996.   ISBN 0-671-00036-5   (pp. 1, 25-38).    Lederer, Richard.   Anguished English.    New York: Dell Publishing, 1987.   ISBN 0-440-20352-X   (pp. 3, 10-21).    Untermeyer, Louis.   A Treasury of Laughter.    New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946.   (pp. 654-657).

[thisisthehardestthing]

This Is The Hardest Thing - 4

Synopsis: A exchange student from the US in enrolled into UA when her father has to move to help with the increased crime rates in Japan. The final year of high school is a lot to handle, adding on top the class of 3-A and the trouble they get into will make for a wild ride.

Triggers: swearing, i think thats it.

A/N: Not in this one, but it’s about to get spicy real fast. Super short chapter

Tags: @aizawascumslut @whats-her-quirk @pnkcts (you liked my masterlist, so I hope you don’t mind me tagging you?)

Masterlist

CHAPTER 4

You and Bakugou were on a yellow couch in the break room, sitting as far from each other as possible. The smack to your chin had caught you off-guard, making you slip off your seat in the middle of class. The chair that followed your body caused a bang so loud, Present Mic had to look at his quirk support item to make sure it hadn’t activated. He’d quickly intervened once he realised it was, to no one’s surprise, Bakugou and the new girl butting heads. He was just going to reprimand the hot-tempered student, when he saw the thick black lined drawing of male genitals penciled in the notebook, balls and all. You remembered the red of the teachers face against the yellow blonde hair exploding upwards as he kicked you both out of the classroom for some reprimanding. He was more embarrassed than angry.

You sighed and leant an elbow on the armrest, pressing some ice against your face.

Todoroki had given it to you as you passed by his desk. It was wrapped in a tissue in order not to give you freezer burn, and you gladly accepted it as you were shooed out and ordered to wait in the current room. Your other hand picked at the material of the sofa. It wasn’t leather, yet it wasn’t canvas either, and you racked your brain trying to think of what it could be.

You tried to keep yourself distracted in this way, focusing on the cold water dripping down your wrist from time to time. However, you couldn’t help yourself as your eyes wandered over to the blonde porcupine. He was slouched down, hands shoved angrily in his pockets, jaw clenching over and over again. Unfortunately, you knew were definitely in the wrong this time. You should not have teased him with your quirk and so you shifted in your seat to face him.

“What?” He snapped as you opened your mouth. His eyes narrowed as his head whipped around to stare at you. Why the hell is he so infuriating? You took a deep breath, reminding yourself that your father would want you to stay ‘grounded’.

“I’m sorry,” you began, “for drawing a dick in your book.” He frowned, looking away from you and staring at the beige wall behind the matching couch that was opposite you.

“You’re damn right you’re sorry,” He spoke, voice carrying in the silent room. The ego behind his words made your blood throb in your ears. He’d been throwing insults at you since yesterday, and here you were trying to make amends first.

The door slid open as Aizawa walked in. His loose hair tumbled over his shoulders in a mess. He had that kind of sour expression like he’d woken up from a nap that lasted too long, and he was both dehydrated and pissed off.

“You two…” He began as he stood in front of both of you, behind the brown wooden coffee table. He pinched the bridge of his nose as he took in the tense air. He sighed and called your name. You sat upright, turning to face him attentively. While Aizawa may look like a mess, he commanded an authority beyond anything you would’ve expected from a man hidden behind bangs.

“Why did you draw this in Bakugou’s notebook?” He asked, pulling the notebook out from a pocket behind his back, opening it to show you the crude sketch. You wanted to tear the page out.

“He was being one.” You shrugged, giving Bakugou a side-eyed glare. He huffed.

“Was fucking not.”

“You kicked my chair!” 

Aizawa let out a sigh.

“You were on my desk, shit-brain!”

You almost lost it, then, saying what was actually on your mind. You wanted to shout, but it came out soft, in such a small voice that almost wasn’t your own.

“You called me fat.” He froze, his frown of anger instantly disappearing as it was replaced with confusion. Even your teacher hesitated, not knowing whether to interject, before falling onto the couch behind him to lean forward attentively. Realisation flickered over Bakugou’s face as he remembered the early morning fight.

“No, I called you heavy. Not fucking fat.” He was laughing, gums baring to the world as the rumble exploded from his chest and filled the room. “I’m not a liar. You’re heavy as shit, look at you. Muscle is like, 10 times as heavy or something. Eijirou can tell you the exact fact.” You felt a blush begin to creep up on your cheeks. Your palm squished the soggy ice tissue, forgotten during all the commotion and the cold water ran down your wrist, cooling down your rising body temperature. You wanted to throw it at him. You wanted to hear the satisfying noise it would make when coming in contact with his cheek. You didn’t.

“Bakugou, you shouldn’t mention someone’s weight.” Aizawa threw the book onto the table, effectively silencing the laughter. “You also shouldn’t punch someone in the face.” Bakugou huffed in response, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I was aiming for her hair.”

“You’re both suspended from class for the rest of the day, with cleaning duty.” Bakugou’s excuse came at the same time as Aizawa’s punishment. Your mouth fell open. Without leaving room for any rebuttal, your teacher stood up, took a final look at his students and walked out of the room.

You were on your way to the residences. Bakugou was stomping, hands shoved in his baggy pants as he walked a couple steps ahead of you. He didn’t even leave the front door open after he walked in. You blocked it with your toe before it shut, stepping into the empty common area.

A rough hand darted out at you, grabbing your uniform shirt collar and slamming your back against the door. He made you wince as his knuckle pressed into the bruise he left yesterday. He knew it, and dug just a little bit deeper. His red eyes bore down into yours. It made you wonder if he enjoyed the fact that there was a tangible mark under your shirt.

“You really piss me off.” Bakugou stated, voice low and menacing. His free hand planted firmly next to your head, potentially scorching the door with the smoke that had begun to filter out from between his fingers. He smelt like a campfire.

“Yeah, well, bite me,” you pried his fingers open as you kept his intense stare. He moved so that his arms were boxing you in, muscled forearms rippling near your ears. For a second, you thought he would. There was something indiscernible stirred in with his anger. It was the center of a blender, swirling together. It was hypnotising. You slowly placed one of your hands against the door behind you, finger tips spread, palm flat. You almost shivered when you felt the vast amount of energy rolling in waves through your skin, oscillating in your nerves and vibrating your bones. It was all encompassing, making your shoulder jump up with the sheer force of it.

“What’s wrong with you?” His face scrunched up, eyes darting down to see your hand against the door. “Oi, what the fuck are you up to!?” He tsk’d, pushing away fluidly and crossing his arms.

The second his palms left the wood, it’s hum returned to the normal dull pattern that chopped trees would usually give off. It felt empty, stagnant, . As dead as the door itself. Your fingers twitched as they ached to feel such power again. I want to touch him. You bumped the thought out of your head and curled your hands into a fist to subdue the itch. You thought about the ways your father taught you to keep a level head. That’s why wood had such a consistent vibration. Be like the wood.

“You’re the one that keeps picking fights.” You gloss over his quirk comment, straightening your school uniform to make a point. His eyes followed your hands. “I get it, we never established a clear winner in our sparring match, so we should do it now to get it over with.” Bakugou seemed like he was about to explode, but he nodded his head. His eyes darkened as he thought about it, tongue swiping across his teeth and under his lips.

“Fight rules?”

You were almost sorry to pass up the chance to make him land on his back again.

“Rock, paper, scissors.” You deadpanned. A frustrated growl erupted from his throat. His nostrils flared and instead of saying another word, he turned on his heels and stalked his way to the kitchen, slamming open the fridge. You could not help the snicker that escaped your lips. Worth it.

I guess I won this round. You mused, making your way to your room to begin replying to your fathers messages.

You had been talking to your dad for what seemed like hours. You spoke to him laying on your bed, sitting against your closet doors, spinning in your desk chair. Now, while he was finally reaching the conclusion in his speech of disappointment, you were standing on your balcony. You held the phone away from your ear as you lazily took in the details of the building opposite you. Your room was on the side of the dorms, and therefore, was face to face with someone else’s balcony across the grass. There were trees planted that should’ve obscured the view, but there was still a direct line of sight to a sliding door.

His voice rang out loud over the speakers, reprimanding that it was the second day of school, and how he did not raise you to continue unnecessary conflict. You continued to stare in the cool blue reflection of the window opposite you, eyes unfocused as Soil went on and on. Movement on the other side of the glass made you snap back to reality. You squinted to try and see through it, wondering who could be on the other side since it was… lunch time!? Shock coursed through your veins as you realised you’d been on the phone for 2 hours, listening to a one sided conversation.

“Dad,” you interrupted him mid sentence and his voice lulled. “Sorry, I know I—” The sliding door opened and the tall purple haired boy from this morning walked out, cradling something in his hands. Your words of apology forgotten on your tongue.

“Hm, beansprout, can’t hear you.” You brought the phone closer to your face.

“Just, I’m sorry.”

You heard your father let out his heavy sigh that told you the conversation was over. As you said your goodbye’s, Shinsou looked out across from his balcony, catching you with lazy eyes. He held your gaze with a smirk, slowly lifting up one of his fingers to his lips, zipping his mouth shut. Then he lifted up the other hand that was cupped against his chest. You could barely see it, but in his palm was a small black kitten.

***********

Soil tossed the phone back onto his desk with a clatter. Large, calloused hands wrapped around his forehead as he rubbed at his temples before pulling it down his face to scratch at his chin.

What am I going to do with that girl? He thought as he shuffled around the paperwork he was working on, going over what he wrote about the encounter with Giran.

It’s been two years since Shigaraki had disappeared, but the underground network of villains have seemed to surge in number over the last few months, tipping the balance of power ever so slightly. It was enough to bring out the worst in people, have them lose their faith and security they had once felt all over Japan. Soil knew he had to come back home when the influence had started reaching his part of the world, like an incessant hammer until cracks had started to form. He had to stop it at the source.

A knock on the wall of his cubicle interrupted his deep train of thought. One of the many sidekicks at Endeavor’s agency stood there, sheepishly grinning at the visiting hero. His thumbs were twiddling in the thick yellow gloves.

“It’s time for patrol, Soil, sir!” The sidekick snapped to attention. A polite smile graced the Hero’s lips as he pushed his hulking figure away from the desk. Soil nodded as he followed the younger man. The mental image of that hammer would not leave his mind, try as he might. He felt the same nagging feeling that something might happen soon, the same inkling on the night he spotted Giran.

[lovemesomesurveys]

A few basics. Name: Stephanie. Age: 29. Location: California. Birthday: July 28th. Okay. Now let’s get to the randomness….. Have you ever wished you could start life over? Hm. I mean, if I could back before my accident at just 7 months old and make it so it didn’t happen that would obviously be the best thing because a lot of my health problems stem from that. I wouldn’t be dealing with a lot of what I’m dealing with now. My life would be completely different. I just always wonder then what effect that would have on me as a person. What would I be like if that never happened? It’s interesting to think about.

…or at least go back in time? Yeah, I was just thinking as I was answering the previous question that I don’t think I’d want to go through life all over again up until this point. Like through school and everything again. I think I’d rather just go back in time and prevent that accident from happening. I just still wonder what effect that would have on my life because obviously doing that would change everything. When did you last eat pizza? Last weekend, I think. Do you prefer to hear the painful truth or a beautiful lie? I mean... if it’s not beneficial or useful to me in anyway then I’d really rather not know. Like if the lie doesn’t hurt me in any way. Some things I would need to know, whether it’s what I want to hear or not. How many exes do you have? One, technically, but I count what Joseph and I had as well. Whatever that was. Have you ever known a pathological or habitual liar? I don’t believe so. Do you enjoy writing? I used to. If so, do you prefer writing lyrics, poetry, stories or something else? I liked writing short stories when I was younger. Are you angry right now? No. Have you ever punched a wall? I wouldn’t recommend it. I have not. Have you ever lived in a motel/hotel? No, Do you think you would enjoy running your own business? Absolutely not. I can’t handle that kind of responsibility. Sounds really stressful and overwhelming. What’s the average rent for a 1 bedroom apartment in your area? Some are the same, if not more, than what we pay for our 2 bedroom house. Do you think rentals are too expensive where you live? Trying to buy or rent a house right now is really expensive. The prices have gone up. Have you ever changed a car’s alternator? Nope. I know nothing about cars. Do you have Netflix? Yes. What about Hulu Plus? I think my brother does, and I could use his if I wanted to. Do you have an Xbox Live gold membership? Nope. Would you rather master Guitar Hero or a real guitar? A real guitar. Have you ever used an electric drill? Yes. Do you know anyone who’s had brain surgery? No. Do you like playing FPS (First Person Shooter) video games? No. Have you ever heard of, the band, Porcupine Tree? Nope. Would you rather wear boots or sandals? Boots. I don’t wear sandals. Have you ever rescued a lost dog? No. Have you ever adopted a dog from a shelter? Yes. Have you ever cleaned a cat litter box? Nope. Have you ever used a machete? Uh, no. What’s the last gift you gave to someone? Christmas presents. What’s the last gift you received? For Valentine’s Day my mom got me a a giraffe stuffed animal and a dog stuffed animal called a “Squishmallow” which as you may have guessed, is super squishy and soft. When was the last time you rode a bicycle? Never. Do 2 wrongs ever make a right? The saying goes that 2 wrongs don’t make a right. Are you a vengeful person at all? Nah. Do you have a good memory or do you forget things often? I think I have a pretty good memory. Do you know anyone who suffers from chronic fatigue? Yes. Have you ever felt like you “lost yourself”? I’ve felt that way for awhile now. Do you judge people based on their weight? I feel like they do because I’m so thin. Do you know anyone who’s hardworking but still struggles to make ends meet? Yes. What do you think is more harmful? Cigarettes or Marijuana? Cigarettes, definitely. No competition. Is your air conditioner on? No, but my ceiling fan is. Is your heater on? No. Do you enjoy going on walks? No. Do you like having picnics? I’ve never had one. Have you ever had a panic/anxiety attack? I’m quite familiar with them. Have you ever dated a co-worker? Do you still buy CDs or do you just download music? I just use Spotify. Do you like iPod/song shuffle surveys? No. Do you suffer from social anxiety? I do. Are you more introverted or extroverted? Introverted. Do you enjoy organizing things? I don’t know if I’d say I enjoy it, necessarily. Have you ever watched “Mystery Science Theater 3000”? Nope. Do you know anyone who plays Tuba? No. If you had to get a tattoo of someone’s name, who’s name would you choose? I really wouldn’t want to. Have you ever been to Catalina Island? No. Would you rather swim with dolphins or sharks? Neither. Do you know how to change a vacuum belt? Nope. Have you ever given a business a bad online review? “ive never given a business review, period” <<<< Same. Do you know anyone who used to be a stripper (that you know of)? Not personally, but a YouTuber that I’ve watched for years used to be. Do you know anyone who’s a hoarder? Yes. Do you know who Maynard James Keenan is? I do not. Do you take responsibility for your actions or tend to make excuses? I take responsibility. I’m always quick to blame myself. Have you ever used the shower at a gym? No. Have you ever felt trapped in a relationship? I’ve kind of felt that way in a friendship. Do you believe that “love is blind”? Sometimes. What’s the furthest distance you’ve ridden a bicycle? Guesstimate if needed? Never have. Do you rate every survey you fill out, here on bzoink? I don’t use Bzoink. Do you know anyone who gets way too angry when playing video games? Nah. Do YOU get too angry when playing video games? Nope. Do you like to sing karaoke? Only if I’m at home, ha. I would never do it publicly. Do you know what micro-expressions are? Yes. If so, do you have a talent for seeing/reading them? I think I’m generally pretty good at it. Have you ever had insomnia? I do. What’s the longest amount of time you’ve been awake? Like over 30 hours. Have you ever been in denial? Yes. Have you ever been in The Nile? Nope. Have you recently used a nail file? No, but I often use nail clippers. I’m forever picking at whatever little nail their might be, as well as hang nails and my cuticles. :/ Do you know anyone named Kyle? No, but I had a best friend in middle school named Kyle who I also had a huge crush on. Is it annoying that I started rhyming my questions? I didn’t even notice until you mentioned it. Sorry. I couldn’t help myself. I’ve run out of ideas. What time is it now? 12:25PM.

[tinybibmpreg]

Day 83 // ft. Dritan, Haydyn, Azalea, Mateo, Yvonne, Taya, and Moira

#13 / Roses and Thorns

“I’m not going to leave you. You’re never going to have to suffer by yourself again, I promise,” his father told him, as they dug up Moira’s plants and transferred them into pots. Moira didn’t understand what had brought that on, as they’d been completely silent after his father agreed to let him go out and get his plants. “Understand?”

“Yes, sir. I understand. I just…” Moira closed his mouth and sighed, focusing back on digging up a small rose bush that was barely anything more than some sticks. He lifted it up and put it in a medium-sized pot. He bent down to pack in some more dirt, and when he straightened up, he caught his cheek on one of the large thorns. “Ow!”

His father was next to him in an instant, finger brushing over the scratch. There was an icy feeling, and the pain faded. His father wiped the blood away with a handkerchief, and when Moira felt his cheek, the scratch was completely gone. “Thank you…”

“You have such dangerous looking plants, Momo.”

“They’ll look much prettier when they bloom, and this rose bush just hasn’t grown its leaves yet.”

“A rose? Your sisters love roses. They like flowers a lot.” Moira didn’t say anything in response to that. He didn’t want to think about having to interact with his stepsiblings. Destiny had been his only friend, and he didn’t know how to make any others. “Now… what were you going to say before that thorn stopped you?”

“Nothing.”

“Momo…”

Moira looked down at the rose bush. A bit of blood was stuck to the thorn he’d pricked himself on. Carefully, he wiped it off. “It’s just… I don’t get why we have to leave when we’re not suffering. I like living here, and visiting my friend on Earth.”

The smile on his father’s face was patently fake. He pinched Moira’s check and told him, “I don’t want to scare you. It’s a grown-up thing, okay? Your mom and I discussed it, and it’s best if you both come live with me. Your stepsiblings and their mother will be staying in the house with you both.”

“None of us can leave?”

“You can play outside as long as one of the grown-ups is with you, Momo. Now… what’s this plant I’m digging up?”

“That’s a gorse plant. They get very pretty yellow flowers.”

“And what about the rest?”

“We already potted the sticky nightshade and a few blackberry bushes and roses. There’s also a few porcupine tomatoes, some crown of thorns, and a little honey locust tree.”

“They sound lovely, but I don’t believe I know what a crown of thorns is.”

Moira pointed out the small plants. “They’re going to get pink flowers all over them.”

“I see. The prettiest flowers have the sharpest thorns, don’t they?” Moira nodded. “They’ll all be quite beautiful, I’m sure, but for now we’ll have you plant them at the edge of the yard so your brother and sisters don’t step on them when they run around outside.”

“Okay!”

-

Once everything was packed, they waited for a moving truck to come and load all of the boxes. Moira watched as the pots were put onto the truck. He hoped they would all be okay on the drive, that nothing would crush them. He’d put so much hard work into getting them all to grow in his mother’s realm, a realm that had very poor nutrition and sunlight for plants.

As the truck drove away, his father pulled the both of them close and smiled at them. “We’re all ready to go! Are you excited, Momo?”

“Not really…” He had a flowering succulent in a small pot in his hands, and looked down at it, frowning.

“Haydyn?” he asked his mother.

“Eh. Can we stop and get something to eat before we get there? Moira could use a milkshake to calm his nerves, and I wouldn’t mind a very unhealthy but delicious meal before I’m stuck inside all day eating health foods.”

His father didn’t look very thrilled at the idea. “We’ll get it through a drive-through and you can eat in the car.”

Moira held the succulent between his legs during the silent car ride. He glumly accepted a small milkshake and french fries when they were given to him. He slowly ate the fries, and as they drove down a strange highway that Moira had never been on during his visits to other realms, his father finally spoke, slapping the steering wheel, “Oh! Momo, I just realized I haven’t even told you what your brother and sisters’ names are! How silly of me, not to say anything about them.”

“You said my sisters like flowers, especially roses.”

“Yes, they do, very much. We have all sorts of flower paintings and patterns at home. Anyway- Mateo is sixteen, he’s the oldest. He’s relatively quiet, and is in that phase where he thinks he’s too old to play the games his sisters suggest. I think he’ll be very happy to have a brother around.” Moira had a feeling that his stepbrother wouldn’t be too happy about another young kid showing up. “Yvonne is twelve, she’s the middle child, and she’s quiet around adults but when it’s just her and her siblings, she can talk the night away. She’s very sweet, and is excited to meet you. And Taya is just a year younger than you, seven. She’s shy, and likes dolls.”

“I like dolls.”

“Moira has picked up sewing quite fast, maybe he can make new clothes for her dolls to practice.”

“Great! Look at that, you have the same interests as your sisters. You’ll get along wonderfully.”

“What does Mateo like?”

“Oh, music and video games. He’s a bit upset that I’ve pulled him from school and all his friends, so he may not want to play with you today.”

Moira didn’t really want to play with them today. Instead, he wanted to get started on putting his plants back in the ground. While the crown of thorns would do just fine in pots, the tree, tomato, and bushes would do much better in soil they could expand in.

-

The rest of the ride was quiet and he finished his milkshake and fries in peace. Moira’s head spun after they made it to his father’s home realm. It took another twenty minutes before they were pulling into the driveway of a large home. By then, the dizzy feeling had abated. Moira peered out the window as the car slowed to a halt, a frown on his face.

“We’re here! It looks like the movers are bringing everything in. Come on, let’s go meet Azalea and the kids. They’ll be waiting for us inside.”

Moira reluctantly got out of the car and took his mother’s hand, clutching the potted succulent to his chest. They followed his father inside, and the first thing Moira noticed was how open and empty it seemed. His mother’s small house had been cluttered with all the things he’d collected over the years, where his father’s house had paintings on the wall and some furniture, but didn’t feel lived in at all.

It was very bright, and Moira was glad that at least his plants would finally get the sun they needed without him having to set up lights for them.

His father’s family was in the living room. Yvonne and Taya were playing with a few dolls on the floor, while Mateo was talking to his mother on the couch, not looking particularly happy.

“Azzy, kids, I’m back, and I’ve brought Haydyn and Momo!”

“Dad!” The girls looked happy to see him. Mateo looked away, going quiet. Azalea gave them a kind smile that didn’t reach her eyes, and she waved to them. Moira wondered if his father had lied about her being fine with his reveal that he secretly had a demon lover and a half-demon child, with another on the way.

His father walked further into the room so he could give the two girls a hug. “How have you two been? Behaving for your mother?”

“Yeah!” Yvonne answered. “We’ve been good all day!”

“Wonderful!” He let them go and went over to his wife. The sisters stared at Moira and his mother, and Moira felt like wilting. “Hello, my dear. Did anyone stop by today?”

“Just you three and the movers. Haydyn, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Likewise. You’re just as lovely as Dritan says you are. Well, I think I’ll make sure none of my things broke on the truck. Moira, don’t be shy.” He rubbed Moira’s head and headed towards the stairs. Moira watched him go, not wanting to be left with his father and his family by himself. When he turned back, they were all looking at him, except for Mateo.

His father gave him an encouraging smile, and Moira bit the inside of his lip. Looking down at his succulent, he made a decision. Moira walked up to Yvonne and Taya. Nervousness shone in their eyes as he approached them. He held out the succulent to them. “Father said you like flowers. This one's for you.”

They both smiled, and Yvonne took the plant. “It’s really pretty!”

“It’s a succulent.”

“They know what a succulent is,” Mateo said dryly. Moira definitely didn’t think his stepbrother wanted him there.

“What kind is it?” Taya asked quietly, ignoring her older brother.

“It’s a tacitus bellus. I grew it in my room, with a light. It likes sunshine, so you should put it by a window.”

“We can put it in our room, Yvonne! I can move my princess doll so it has a spot.”

“That’s a good idea, Tay. Come on, Momo, we’ll show you our room.” He didn’t really want to, but Yvonne took his arm and pulled him along.

As they left the room, Moira heard his father say to his wife, “They’re already opening up to him, Azzy. I told you there was no need to worry. Momo is a very likable little boy.”

“He bribed them with that plant,” Mateo scoffed. “And if he was so likable, how come you never told us about him until five days ago?”

“Mateo,” Azalea scolded. “We talked about this. Treat your brother nicely.”

-

Taya had a lot of different dolls on her side of the room, and she ran up to their window and pulled a large doll off of the shelf directly under it. Yvonne placed the plant in the space and turned it so the flowers were clearly on display. As they marveled over it, Moira looked around at the dolls. He picked one up that had a white dress and angel wings, a halo over its head attached by a small stick of plastic. The dress was slightly ripped, and stained pink at the bottom.

“Do you like dolls, Momo?” Yvonne asked. “Taya loves them, and our brother won’t play with them anymore.”

“Um… I haven’t played with them much. My mother says I could probably make doll clothes since I like sewing.”

“Could you make that one a new dress later?”

“S-sure… Do you have any fabric I can use?”

“Mommy has lots of fabric! You could ask her for some!”

He didn’t want to. “Why don’t you ask her, so you can pick out a color you like? I don’t want to pick a color you won’t like.”

“What do you like to do, Momo? I like painting!”

“I like gardening.”

“Cool! Mommy has a garden. She grows a lot of fruits and vegetables. What do you grow?”

“Flowers. Father let me bring my plants… I have roses, blackberries, and some other things. They’re all small and don’t really have leaves yet, but they’ll look pretty in a few weeks.”

“Roses are my favorite!” Yvonne grinned at him. “Can I help you garden?”

It would go much faster if he had someone to help him. “I just have to ask Father where I can plant my things…”

“How about with Mommy’s plants?”

“He said my plants are a bit dangerous, so I should plant them out of the way.”

“Dangerous?”

“Roses and blackberries have very sharp thorns. The rest of the plants have thorns as well.”

“Oh, yeah! Mommy said the prettiest flowers have the sharpest thorns.” Very similar to what his father had told him. It seemed he had been echoing his wife. “I’ll be careful, I promise!”

“Me too!” Taya said. “I’ll be really careful!”

-

His father looked surprised to see them come back downstairs so quickly. Mateo was nowhere to be seen, and Azalea asked them, “Is something wrong?”

“Nope!” Yvonne answered, cheery.

“Sir, where can I put my plants?”

“How about by the fence line, over there?” His father pointed out the window. Moira could see a little bit of Azalea’s garden.

“Why not add his things to my garden?”

“His plants are very pointy. Roses and blackberries and a locust tree. I don’t want the girls falling on them when they run through your garden, Azzy.”

“Locust trees grow very big… Plant that halfway through the yard, dears, so it has plenty of room. The rest will look lovely by the fence. Feel free to use any of my tools.”

-

His father came outside with them and helped them by taking care of the tree while they worked on the rest of the garden, and then assisting them. They had to dig up circles of grass, and went back and forth bringing the plants over to the area. Moira decided that he would try to grow the crown of thorns cuttings in pots indoors, since they were so small. Everything else was spread out so they had lots of space to grow. It took them a while, but eventually, everything was planted and watered.

“I can’t wait for the roses to bloom!”

“What are we going to do with all the little ones, Momo?”

“They can stay inside. They’re houseplants, and they’ll be covered in pink flowers when they’re bigger.”

“They’re kind of scary looking now…”

“Is there a spot in the house where I can put them at a window where they won’t bother anybody, sir?”

“The windows on you and your mother’s floor would work well for your plants, Momo,” his father answered. “Now come on inside, kids. We’ll get those pots upstairs and you can tell Mateo about all the hard work you did today. Then, I’ll get you three some snacks.”

“Should I go help Mother unpack, sir? He’s not supposed to be doing a lot of work.” The movers’ truck was gone, so everything had been brought upstairs.

His father reached over to pat his head, but Moira stepped away. “You should get some rest before you do that. Besides, the boxes aren’t like plants, they don’t have to be tended to right away. And I’ll tell him to take it easy, don’t worry.”

[queenofmoons67]

strike the match (let it all burn)

Hi everyone! I'm so happy to be back with another (much longer) addition to my "we are the challengers (plus ultra!)" verse! And by much longer, I mean this baby comes in at 5,677 words with another 3,267 in the omakes. If you would prefer to read it on AO3, you can find it here.

Thank you so much to @bookdancerfics for your help editing, it wouldn’t be what it is now without you.

Summary: Eijun, Furuya, Haruichi, and Raichi find themselves in the middle of a hostage situation.

A few things to know for those who haven't read the verse:

(1) it started as a list of quirks (basically superpowers) for DNA characters. that grew into a second list for Act II characters, as well as two short fics and a drabble. they can all be found under my "we are the challengers (plus ultra!)" tag.

(2) you do not need to have read the rest of the verse to enjoy this fic.

A few things to know for "strike the match (let it all burn)":

(1) quirks: Eijun (lion and house cat), Haruichi and Ryou (rose), Furuya (bonfire), Raichi (smoke and sparks), Kataoka (doberman), Kuramochi (cheetah camo), Miyuki (quirkless), Zono (oak tree), Toujou (rock), Chris (weakness reading), Asada (quirkless)

(2) this is the only fic for this AU so far that remotely qualifies as a crossover with BNHA, though the only two characters (Endeavor and Todoroki Shouto) only do so for a short while, despite being the reason this fic exists. if you aren't familiar with them, don't worry. all you need to know is: Endeavor is the number two hero and Shouto is his son. this fic takes place during a time that Shouto (usually attending a hero school) is doing field work with Endeavor at his hero agency near Tokyo.

I hope you all enjoy!

Raichi hummed under his breath as he bounced along to the restroom. One of the Seido managers had been kind enough to point him the right way, Yakushi was on a long winning streak even before the fall season started, and his dad had promised katsudon if they continued that streak with today's practice game. Life was good and, as he opened the bathroom door to find two of his favorite pitchers, he realized it was about to get even better.

"Furuya!" he exclaimed, eyes lighting up with glee to match the smoke now emanating from his palms in excitement. "And Sawamura! And -" Raichi frowned at the third Seido player. He looked familiar, with his rose petal hair, but he couldn't quite place him.

Rose Petal gave him a short bow, introducing himself with a quiet, "Kominato Haruichi, Todoroki-kun. Seido's second baseman."

Now Raichi remembered him.

"Devil boy!"

Sawamura and Kominato both choked, though for different reasons - the former was definitely holding back a laugh, which made Raichi beam even brighter than before. His cheeks were starting to hurt, but they always did during games. Sanada-senpai said it was because he was using his muscles.

Rose Petal - Kominato - opened his mouth to say something, but the door slamming open behind Raichi cut him off.

"Oi, boss," someone growled. "There are three other runts in here."

Ahead of Raichi, Kominato's eyes went wide and thorns began growing from his arms. Sawamura's tail was stiff, almost hiding behind him, while his ears laid back and his eyes became slits. A half threatening, half frightened rumble sounded from the pitcher's chest. Next to them, Furuya went completely still.

Faced with all of this, Raichi's smile fell, and he didn't want to turn around. He didn't get a choice. Thick fingers - the kind that came from pressing two hundred pounds a day - wrapped around his arm and spun him around.

"Hello, Todoroki brat," a second voice sneered.

Eijun just wanted a bathroom break. That was it. He didn't want yet another run in with an opposing player in the bathroom - honestly, was this a shounen manga or something? And he definitely didn't want three giant men bursting through the door, grabbing said opposing player, and roughly tying him up, all while pointing guns at him and his friends.

He could feel Harruchi's thorns pricking into his skin on one side, and the heat that came before Furuya's flames on the other.

"Calm down," he muttered - to himself or his friends, he wasn't sure. "Calm down, calm down, calm -"

Furuya burst into flames. They roared off him like someone tossed a match onto dry kindle, uncontrollable and frightening. Eijun had seen Furuya out of control before, but never anything like this. With a yelp, he leapt away and dragged Harruchi with him.

The move brought them closer to Raichi, who stared at Furuya with something almost like envy in his eyes. Next to the Yakushi player, two of the men stared between the pitcher and batter in confusion.

"Hey, uh, boss?" the first one said.

Eijun grit his teeth at hearing his shogun's nickname addressed to someone else, but pricked his ears.

"What?"

"You're sure the one only creating smoke is Endeavor's nephew, and not the one currently on fire?"

Eijun gaped and turned to Harruchi to see if he'd caught the name drop.

"Yes," the middle man - 'boss' - grunted. His tiger tail swished restlessly. "The file said he was short, had a scar on his cheek, and went to Yakushi. That's him alright."

"But -" the second man started, skin rolling around his arm in weird waves.

"But nothing! We need to get out of here before anyone else -"

"Sa - wa - mu - ra!" Kanemaru's irate voice called. "Bakamura, does it honestly take this long to use the bathroom? Miyuki-senpai and Kuramochi-senpai are looking for you!"

The door handle started to jiggle, and then it vanished under a coat of - was that skin? Eijun looked to the second henchman. His arm was still pointed at the door, skin settling back in place. What was on the door seemed to have hardened, and Kanemaru cursed.

"Oi, Bakamura! Did you lock it?"

Did the man's skin work like glue?

"Tell him to go away," the first voice hissed.

Eijun felt something prick the tender spot under his chin even as Harruchi whimpered, "Eijun-kun."

He looked down with his eyes, not daring to move his head. The first man's hand rested under his chin, porcupine quills coaxing beads of blood to roll down his throat, hot and burning.

Furuya shook with anger. From the looks of it, he wouldn't be any help, as everything the other pitcher had went to controlling his fire.

On the floor, Raichi lay absolutely still. The only exceptions were the occasional sparks that flew from his fingertips.

Eijun closed his eyes for a moment. With both lion and house cat blood, he had always had exceptional hearing, even for a cat. He could hear Kanemaru's cursing and shouting outside. The crackle of Furuya's fire and the snick as Harruchi produced more thorns. Raichi's heavy breathing. The rumbling growl within the tiger's throat.

What was it he had said? They wanted Raichi because he was related to Endeavor. Endeavor was the number two hero. Hero. Kidnapping. Revenge? Blackmail? Eijun didn't know the motive. What he did know… what he did know was that if he let Raichi leave the bathroom with these thugs, he might never face him in baseball again. The same consequence applied if he didn't obey their captors, here and now.

Opening his eyes, Eijun looked at the porcupine with, he hoped, a bit of fear. The quills backed off enough that he could talk, and Eijun opened his mouth.

"KIDNAPPERS!" Eijun-kun roared at the top of his lungs.

The man with the porcupine quirk lunged forward in an attempt to silence him, but Haruichi pulled Eijun-kun back and put up an entire arm full of thorns. The thug - kidnapper - scrambled to come to a halt before he ran into them. Taking the opportunity, Haruichi snagged Todoroki's jacket in one hand and walked backwards, using his thorns to ward off the kidnappers. Eijun-kun stumbled along behind him.

The man with the tiger quirk stepped forward, apparently deciding to just deal with the thorns. Haruichi glanced at Furuya, and the burning boy stepped forward with a fierce glare. His fire would keep the kidnappers back for now. He may not have enough control to be offensive yet, but defense he could do.

Sure enough, the three kidnappers came to a halt just in time for them to hear Kanemaru running away, yelling for someone to call the police.

"Good job, Eijun-kun," Haruichi murmured. He used his thorns to tear a strip off his jersey and pressed it to his friend's throat. "Now, can you untie Todoroki-kun?"

Satoru felt numb. His body had been continuously producing flames for about fifteen minutes, first because he had no choice and then because they were the main defense. If his flames fell, Todoroki would be kidnapped. He and his friends would likely be killed. They had to stay up, and to further deter the kidnappers, he had to stare them down and pretend he could control them. It meant the only things he knew about his friends came from their words.

Harruchi muttered to himself for now. From the sound of it, he was trying to strategize an escape using his batting strategies.

At the same time, Sawamura and Todoroki plotted loudly, uselessly, and disruptively. Once untied, it hadn't taken long for the opposing player to bounce back when faced with Sawamura's optimism. It left Satoru and Harruchi at wit's end - but thankfully, it also seemed to befuddle the would be kidnappers.

"Then I go -" Todoroki made an explosion noise "- and then you go -" that one was probably supposed to be a lion roar "- and your friends run and we follow!"

Sawamura hollered in excitement. The porcupine guy shook his head as if to clear cobwebs. Harruchi made soothing sounds.

Satoru just grunted. If they made a feasible plan, he was all for it. The problem with feasibility, though, was that it probably required the kidnappers to not know the plan beforehand. And with each plan being more extravagant than the last that seemed less and less likely.

Sawamura suddenly grew silent behind him with a hissed "hush!" to Todoroki, and Satoru jolted. Had they finally come up with a good plan?

"Footsteps," his rival murmured. "Outside. One is… shogun."

Todoroki made a questioning noise, to which Harruchi muttered an answer too low for Satoru to understand. He focused instead on glaring at the kidnappers, who now looked suspicious at the silence.

Or at least, they did until the footsteps Sawamura had heard became loud enough for all of them to hear.

Raichi stared at Sawamura as the pitcher cocked his head, lion ears swivelling this way and that.

Making up plans had been fun. It had distracted him from his stint being tied up, which he thought might have been the goal. He didn't know Sawamura well enough to know if that was true or not, but it seemed likely. Especially seeing how serious he was now…

"Heavy combat boots?" the lion murmured. "Police, probably. Though I don't think they'll be able to open that door, what with the glue quirk and all."

"Our captors are probably counting on it," Kominato replied. "Otherwise they would have given up and left before the police got here. They still think they have a chance at their goal; they just switched from kidnapping to a hostage situation since they can't reach us."

"Why haven't they shot me?" someone asked, and Raichi realized with a start that the monster pitcher had spoken. "If they shot me, they could have reached you all and gotten out before the police arrived."

"But not easily," Kominato pointed out. Raichi figured he'd been thinking about the same question this entire time. "Shoot you, or any of us, and they'll be shown no mercy while also attracting more and better heroes. That's the last thing they need when they already want Endeavor's attention."

Raichi grumbled at the reminder. "We're not even related anymore… he and my dad mutually disowned each other before I was even born. Something about each thinking the other was a -" he spit out a word he didn't know the meaning of. It wasn't Japanese, and his dad only used it when he was really drunk and thinking of his brother. Still, he knew it was bad, and was proven that by Sawamura's confused look and Kominato's wide-eyes.

Kominato recovered first.

"I don't think their bad relationship is gonna stop the kidnappers, because it'll still be effective."

Raichi sighed, but nodded. He knew what the other was getting at.

"No one else will care about the bad relationship. Endeavor can't leave a bunch of kids to be hostages, because the public would tear him apart. He'd fall from being the number two hero in an instant. The fact that it's not just me would make it worse."

The instant Raichi fell silent, Eijun's ears picked up a new sound: the cocking of a gun. He had never heard it outside of television before, but the way it sent shivers down his spine to vibrate through his tail was undeniable.

He stood slowly. He didn't know what he was going to do, just that he had to do something.

Harruchi reached out to grab his jersey, probably to stop him, but Eijun just shook him off and kept moving. A hand grasped his pant leg, and he let it. Right now, it grounded him a bit so he wasn't just running on instinct.

Peering around Furuya's fire brought him face to face with the barrel of a gun. Eijun let out a startled hiss and stepped back, though all it caused was the glue guy - the one holding the gun - to smirk.

"You want the kids?" the leader called, leaning in close to the door. "Tell Endeavor we want one hundred and twenty million yen from his personal accounts for the return of his nephew and friends. Once it's here, leave it at the door. If I open the door to any police, one of the kids gets shot. To show that I'm serious -" he nodded at the glue guy.

There was the sound of scrambling from behind the door, a blurted "Wait!", and the gun went off.

Furuya yelped and rocked back on his heels, but otherwise stood his ground. The hand in Eijun's pant leg twisted tighter, someone else latched on, and Eijun almost fell. Maybe they were trying to pull him down. Maybe they just panicked. But whatever it was, Eijun's tail lashed in an attempt to balance himself again and, instead, intercepted the bullet in mid-air.

Eijun yowled in pain as he felt the two connect. The sound tore at his throat and, as he fell to the ground, he saw Furuya flinch and cover his ears. It was a sound that he hadn't made since he was a kid, falling out of trees and scraping his knees. It was a sound that was supposed to gather his pride. But in this situation, that was impossible. The only pack member there was Harruchi.

And yet, as he hit the ground, he felt hands gathering him into a lap and saw furious pink eyes above him. The only one able to respond had done so, and he would never leave him. That was the promise of a pride.

Haruichi's hands shook as he ran fingers through Eijun-kun's hair. The bangs were wet with sweat, though thankfully not blood, as he'd managed to cushion his friend's fall.

"Knock on the door twice if you understand."

There was a pause, but the two knocks came quickly. Haruichi guessed the police were as shaken by the events as they were. He hadn't thought the would be kidnappers would actually shoot one of them, let alone aim for the only one with a connection to Endeavor. Though, granted, he didn't know exactly where it would have hit since Eijun-kun's tail… For all he knew the bullet was supposed to miss. After all, both the police and the heroes would be even more pissed now.

Haruichi looked down at the tail. Todoroki's fingers shook even more than his own as he tied a torn piece of jersey over the deep groove the bullet had carved. The Yakushi player had reverted back to his shy self with the turn of events - not that Haruichi could blame him. Right now, he wanted nothing more than to curl up in his aniki's arms. But that wasn't possible. He had to stay strong for -

The light in the bathroom flickered. Startled, Haruichi tore his gaze off of Eijun-kun and Todoroki to look up.

It wasn't the lighting that faltered, it was the fire. Even as he watched, Furuya's legs buckled and he fell to his knees, flames only half as strong as they originally were.

"Furuya," Eijun-kun whimpered worriedly.

Haruichi pet him some more to try and calm him, but he felt the same way. It had to have been almost thirty minutes now. The adrenaline rush that had fueled the fire at first was probably long gone, and Furuya had never kept it going for so long after. He had to be nearing exhaustion at this point.

With Eijun-kun down for now - while not a serious injury, it was to one of the most sensitive parts of a cat - and with Todoroki being the main target, they might need Furuya's flames later. While the guns were a big problem, plus the glue on the door they didn't know how to get off, it would be best to have a greater arsenal… right?

Trusting Furuya's flames to hide them, he bent down over Eijun-kun and beckoned for Todoroki to join them as he whispered his plan.

Satoru knelt in a bathroom stall, hands tied behind his back. At Harruchi's word, he had finally allowed his flames to die. The result was that he was slowly gaining back energy, but also that - with the protection of fire gone - the four of them had been separated into their own stalls and tied up. They couldn't see one another, but their captors could clearly see them. On top of that, all the toilets were western style, so they couldn't just sit on the floor and communicate through touch.

They had gained a few things, but in their current situation, they seemed rather small: Once Satoru had enough energy, he'd be able to burn through his ropes with his flames; Harruchi actually wasn't tied up due to his thorns preventing any of their captors from getting close to him; Sawamura was now sitting up instead of lying on a dirty bathroom floor; and lastly, if the police or heroes decided to burst through the door, they all had at least a little bit of protection.

Still, the fact they had to do so made him… he didn't know how to feel. On the one hand, he wasn't powerful enough to protect his friends. On the other, he appreciated that they recognised that and helped him. They didn't hold him accountable, and -

"Hello?" someone called from behind the bathroom door.

Satoru stiffened and tested his flames. He was so on edge right now that they simmered there, easily reachable, just below the surface. Only the fact he was so low on power prevented them from flaming non-stop.

"Hello? Who's in charge?" The longer sentence, though still muffled by the door, made the speaker clear. Satoru relaxed on his seat. It was Kataoka-kantoku. He had completely forgotten that Sawamura had identified his footsteps before, and must have been worried this entire time after the gunshot and cry. He wondered which of the policemen had held their coach back from storming the bathroom. It certainly hadn't been Takashima-sensei, who Sawamura hadn't heard and, though he didn't know her well, probably would have joined Kataoka-kantoku.

"Me," the tiger spoke gruffly.

"My name is Kataoka Tesshin. I was wondering if you needed a first aid kit or a doctor, for the fifteen year old boy in there you shot."

Raichi had listened with wide eyes to the Seido coach, but at those last words, he couldn't stay still and silent. He had retreated into himself after Sawamura was shot, but sitting by himself had done him some good: It had let him stew in his anger, both at their captors and at himself for the gun being fired in the first place. Now, he could finally do something about it.

"Sawamura's fine, coach!" he yelled, and cackled when glue-guy whirled on him.

He didn't have those eyes on him for long, though, because Sawamura himself called from the stall beside him, "Worry more 'bout Furuya, shogun; he's used up all his energy for pitching already!"

There was a choking sound from Kominato's stall, and an outraged cry from Furuya's.

Silence came from outside, before - "We can worry about that the practice game later, Sawamura. For now, I'm just glad you're alright." The voice was soft, and it invoked softness in return. Raichi imagined that if he closed his eyes, he would feel like he was curled up with a dog, running his fingers through its fur. Safe. Protected.

Raichi let out a cackle and pretended he wasn't awkwardly wiping away tears with his shoulder.

Endeavor arrived with a bang. Apparently, even glue created by a quirk wasn't strong enough to resist his fire, and he melted it in no time. One second, even Eijun could only just make out the sound of movement and mumbling, the next, the door was kicked in.

Eijun watched as the leader pulled out some kind of special gun, but he never even had the chance to fire it. Endeavor punched them all unconscious first.

Striding in behind him came a teenager, probably around their age, with red and white hair and wearing a jumpsuit as a hero costume. He looked between the four of them and, ultimately, headed straight for Eijun. It was probably the bandaged tail.

"Are you comfortable on the toilet, or would you prefer to wait for the paramedics on the floor?"

Yeah. It was definitely the bandaged tail.

"No, uh, I can walk to them," Eijun insisted, and stood up to prove it. He swayed a bit on his feet, but ultimately stayed upright and stepped out of the stall, hands still tied and all. All that time on the field where his tail was, essentially, illegal, had paid off in better balance without it. "My teammate Furuya, though, probably needs -"

"Shut up, Eijun-kun," Harruchi said sweetly, appearing out of nowhere to stand at his elbow. "Furuya-kun is exhausted, yes, but you're the one who was shot."

"Let us take care of you," Raichi added hotly, jumping to stand on his other side.

"Mm," Furuya nodded as he stepped up right into Eijun's face. Like Raichi and Eijun, his hands were still tied, but that didn't stop him from being intimidating. The action forced Eijun to either sit back down on the floor or be in someone else's space.

Eijun sat back down.

Things moved pretty quickly after that. Todoroki Shouto, as he introduced himself, was only left to watch over them for as long as it took the police and Endeavor to escort their captors out of the bathroom. Once that was done, Haruichi found himself being wrapped in a shock blanket and a policeman trying to move him and the others away from Eijun-kun.

After everything they had been through, they seriously thought he was just going to leave?

Haruichi let his arms grow thorns even as his legs grew roots and he, quite literally, planted himself to the bathroom floor.

Putting his hands on his hips, he gave them the most menacing glare he'd ever seen from his aniki and said, "I'm part of Eijun-kun's pride, so for as long as he wants me here, I'm not leaving."

The policeman stared at him, then looked to another officer and asked, "Captain?"

Said captain stepped forward with a flick of his lion tail, and Haruichi practically collapsed in relief. Surely the older lion would completely understand, and -

"No."

Haruichi swore he felt a petal die. "No?"

"You're not a lion," the captain pointed out. "You're not even another cat. How could you be part of his pride?"

Haruichi had made it through almost an hour of being held hostage, but it was now that he truly felt the urge to kill someone.

"Excuse me?" he asked, ever so sweetly.

The captain opened his mouth, but then paused. Good. At least he wasn't an idiot.

"We still need to take your statement," he said slowly.

Nevermind, he was a complete idiot and Haruichi was going to -

"Can't you just take his with Sawamura's?" Takashima-sensei asked, appearing out of absolutely nowhere. Addressing Haruichi, she added, "Kataoka has gone with Furuya to stand in as guardian. The elder Todoroki will go with his son, and I'm here to act as guardian for you and Sawamura." Turning back to the captain, she smiled and said, "Does that sound alright with you?"

The captain looked from Takashima-sensei, to Haruichi - still planted to the floor - to Eijun-kun behind them, loudly complaining as the paramedics treated his bullet wound.

Apparently giving up, he sighed. "Fine. You can stay with Sawamura."

Haruichi beamed and promptly turned his back.

"Eijun-kun, here. You can squeeze my hand while they rewrap your tail."

The instant they left the bathroom, Satoru was separated from Todoroki. He watched as a police officer led the Yakushi player away, but turned easily to follow a different officer when Kataoka-kantoku touched his shoulder.

"We'll get you an IV to go along with that blanket once we're seated -" the officer said.

There was more, but Satoru wasn't really interested. If he was being honest with himself, the only thing he wanted was to sleep for a thousand years. He didn't even want to pitch, let alone care about the practice game or giving a statement. Though, if that was required for the sleep, he would do it. Especially if it meant reuniting with Harruchi and Sawamura soon. He'd seen the two of them stay in the bathroom, but when he and Todoroki had tried to do the same, the policewoman kept them moving.

"Furuya," Kataoka-kantoku said, voice low and rough. It sounded like he'd been shouting a lot.

Satoru looked up to find the police officer gesturing them into a classroom. Inside, a paramedic was setting up an IV stand.

'Sleep,' he reminded himself, and walked inside.

Raichi's reunion with his dad was a tearful affair. He followed a police officer into a classroom only to be jumped by his dad and wrapped up in a hug, which promptly set both of them to bawling.

The police officer tried to wrangle them - Raichi thought, but couldn't be sure over the sound of crying - and eventually gave up. By the time the Todoroki's released one another, it was to find the room empty except for the red and white haired hero intern.

"Shouto…" Raichi's dad said slowly. "I haven't seen you since… well. I've actually never seen you in person before, though I cheered for you in the UA sports festival. Second place wasn't bad."

Shouto - ? - nodded. "Thank you. I… you didn't have to cheer for me. My dad never told me he had a brother, so I can't imagine your relationship was that great -"

Raizou let out a laugh. "That's an understatement, kid. We've had fights where looking back, I think we might have been trying to kill the other. But that doesn't mean I won't support my nephew." Looking serious, and hugging Raichi close to his chest, he finished, "I just needed to see you compete in that cavalry game to know you're nothing like your father."

Now Shouto looked close to tears, and Raichi was ConfusedTM.

"Wait a second… so, you're my cousin?"

Shouto nodded.

"And we're the same age?"

Another nod.

"But I've never met you, and neither of us knew the other existed?"

A third nod, though slower than the others.

"And… where did the police officer go?"

His dad startled, looking around as if only just realising the only other adult in the room had completely vanished.

Shouto offered, "He left after the first five minutes of crying and got me. He thought I might have more luck getting you to calm down, seeing how I'm interning under Endeavor and all."

The last part of the sentence had more bitterness in it than his dad's rants, but Raichi elected to shelve it and move on for now. A hostage situation and a newfound cousin were emotionally taxing enough on their own. He'd open his ears to his cousin's rants tomorrow.

Raichi announced this to a startled cousin and a proud looking dad. If others knew of the promise, it would stick better. There would be a tomorrow. He refused to let his cousin disappear on him again.

Eijun's tail didn't even need stitches. By the time they had exited the classroom, statement made, a doctor with a skin growth quirk had arrived. They'd unwrapped the bandage and watched his tail mend - though the furrow in it carved by the bullet would, the doctor confirmed, be there forever. Eijun didn't care. He couldn't use his tail during games anyway, so it wasn't like it would affect his pitching, and it wouldn't affect his balance either.

Now, he just needed to face the rest of his pack.

Takashima-sensei had promised him that both Kuramochi and their aniki had been kept informed of proceedings, as his roommate and Harruchi's brother, but in Eijun's opinion that just meant there was no way of hiding the day's events from them.

"We're dead, Harruchi," he muttered, ears flat to his head as they headed towards his room. "Absolutely dead. Mochi-senpai will strangle me and onii-san will kill you, and if we somehow survive them, Miyuki will surely kill us for missing the game. Our only saving grace is that that means Furuya will die too, so at least we'll all be together in the afterlife. We escaped death only to face it once again… oh, Harruchi, what luckless lives we live…"

Eijun buried his face in his hands. When he looked up again, Takashima-sensei and Harruchi pointedly shared an eye roll.

"We'll be fine, Eijun-kun," Harruchi reassured. "Aniki won't kill us, and I'm sure Kuramochi-senpai will at least hold off on the wrestling moves till tomorrow. And the game has just been pushed till next week, so I'm sure we're safe from Miyuki-senpai as well. Ok?"

They had reached his room's door, so Eijun felt like he had nothing to lose by giving a hesitant nod. Harruchi smiled and opened the door.

Eijun had a moment to take in clearly more than just Mochi and onii-san waiting for them in the room before he was jumped by the former.

"Bakamura!" his roommate scolded into his hair. He could clearly feel the other rubbing his cheek against him, and a churring noise reverberated from Mochi's chest. In return, Eijun let out a purr and pushed his head up into the other's cheek, closing his eyes to slits.

Haruichi was allowed to watch Kuramochi and Eijun-kun's reunion for just a moment. After that, he was distracted by the arm slung around his shoulders and a familiar voice in his ear.

"Furuya told us you kept everyone safe. Good job."

Haruichi debated slipping out from under the arm, but then it squeezed tighter and… well. After almost an hour of crouching in a bathroom, wondering if he or his friends would be killed, this seemed like a good place to be. He relaxed into the hold and smiled.

"Furuya's underestimating his own importance, Aniki. Except for Eijun-kun's tail, we all got out safely thanks to him."

Aniki hummed in understanding as he guided Haruichi to a seat on someone's bed.

Kanemaru yelped, "Wait, what about Sawamura's tail?"

Isashiki demanded, "Furuya?! You didn't say anything about a tail!"

Tetsu said, "He's sleeping, Jun. Don't wake him."

Zono grumbled menacingly and cracked his knuckles.

Miyuki, for once the voice of reason, popped the rising tension balloon with a calm, "Said tail is right there, and I'm sure Kominato and Sawamura can tell us what happened."

All of a sudden, Haruichi found almost everyone's eyes on him. The only exception was Furuya, currently a sleeping blanket bundle in the top bunk.

"It got shot," Eijun-kun piped up, and all of a sudden, everyone's eyes were gone. Haruichi relaxed a bit more into his aniki's hold. He hadn't even realised he'd tensed up again, but trust the southpaw to notice that of all things.

"Are you ok?" Aniki asked, voice low so as to not interrupt Eijun-kun's now enthusiastic retelling of how he'd been shot. "Apparently Furuya left out a lot. Though, granted, he seemed like he only wanted to sleep and was thoroughly done with interrogations for the day."

Haruichi laughed, but nodded. "I'm fine, Aniki. Eijun-kun is the only one who got hurt, unless you count Furuya basically running a marathon with his quirk."

His only response was another hum, but the arm around his shoulders slipped down to rub circles into his back. Haruichi closed his eyes and relaxed into sleep.

Satoru opened his eyes to the dim light of dawn coming through the window. His body was, for once, warm in its blanket nest. Deciding he had enough time to sleep some more before breakfast, he closed his eyes.

"Mmmrgh," someone groaned. There was a soft thump as they rolled over.

Satoru lay still, eyes still closed, but now wide awake. Who…?

"Mmmmm," someone else answered.

Now that Satoru paid attention, he could also make out at least three different people snoring. What had happened after he went to bed last night?

Satoru opened his eyes and rolled over to the edge of the bunk. Peering over, he almost fell out in surprise. The room was packed. It looked like no one had left for their own rooms, but at the same time, there were definitely more people in it than he remembered.

On the bunks across from Satoru, Masuko had claimed the bottom for himself, while Tetsu, Chris, and Isashiki cuddled together on the top.

As for the bottom bunk underneath him, Kuramochi and Sawamura were curled up facing each other, but with the lion's head still tucked under the cheetah's chin. Kominato lay with his back pressed up against Kuramochi's. Harruchi had his own back to Sawamura's.

Impossibly, the floor was even more crowded. Zono and Miyuki rested their backs against the bunk, legs sprawled everywhere. The former was drooling and the latter never removed his glasses.

Across from them, Kanemaru, Toujou, and Sakai had all squeezed in to sleep with their backs to Masuko's bunk, legs either crossed or mixing in with Zono and Miyuki's.

Shirasu had claimed the area in front of the TV. He was curled up with his front to Kawakami, who had his back pressed up against Tanba's. Seki and Asou lay back to back next to them. Ono, Miyauchi, and Yamaguchi had all chosen to sleep in the desk chairs, while Nabe and Higasa had chosen two of the actual desks.

The front of the room had been left to the girls: Fujiwara, Yoshikawa, Umemeto, and Natsukawa actually blocked the doorway. No one was getting in or out any time soon.

Satisfied, Satoru rolled over and went back to sleep.

OMAKES (also known as this entire fic, but from the point of view of those stuck waiting outside) can be found here.

Edit 09/04/2018: Since I have no idea what the issue with the text breaks are (they show up on my laptop) I’ve split the omakes from the main fic (link above). If you continue to have issues, please let me know!

And as always, I would love to know what you think, and if you have any ideas for future additions, I'm open to hearing them!

[mst3kproject]

1102: Cry Wilderness

Cry Wilderness is, in my humble, unprofessional opinion, the worst movie of Season 11.  Every other film on the list had some kind of redeeming quality.  Avalanche had nice scenery.  The Christmas that Almost Wasn't took a look at the weird relationship between generosity and greed during the holiday season.  At the Earth's Core had Peter Cushing filling the caverns of Pellucidar with the fucks he did not give.  The Beast of Hollow Mountain proved that dinosaurs really do make everything better, even boring cowboy movies.  The only serious competition comes from Carnival Magic, but I'm giving the Garbage Crown to Cry Wilderness on the grounds that Carnival Magic was a bit less racist.

Last summer a boy named Paul met Bigfoot, and they became best friends – or at least, Paul became Bigfoot's coke dealer.  In the autumn when Paul has returned to boarding school, he wakes up in the middle of the night to see Bigfoot standing outside his window, telling him to go find his father immediately.  You don't just ignore a message like that, so Paul hitchhikes across the country to the national park where his dad works.  There he learns that the park rangers have been ordered to hunt down a mysterious predator that's decimated the local wildlife.  Could that be Bigfoot?  Paul certainly seems to think so, and he does everything in his power to thwart the hunters' quest.

This movie's Bigfoot looks really, really stupid.  Remember that episode of The Simpsons when Homer got covered in mud and moss and mistaken for Bigfoot?  If you've ever wondered what that would look like in real life, this is the movie for you.

It's tempting to compare Cry Wilderness to Pod People. Both are set in the woods, have weirdly irrelevant titles, and are about a lonely child's sugar-based friendship with a furry humanoid that doesn't talk.  I find, however, that Cry Wilderness reminds me more of Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders, in that it's just uncomfortable to watch.  The movie feels forced, as if the actors are doing all that awkward laughing at gunpoint.  The best metaphor I can think of to describe this is to draw your attention to the skin tones the makeup people used for Red Hawk and Jim – these don't look so much 'Native American' as they do 'nasty sunburn'.  The whole movie is like that. Everything it aims for, it misses its marks in ways that are gross and kind of painful-looking.

Yet for all Cry Wilderness is tremendously, tooth-grindingly terrible in every possible respect, I have to say that it actually does one thing pretty well.  It is better than Boggy Creek 2 at making us wonder about Bigfoot's status within the animal kingdom.

If you'll recall, in Boggy Creek 2 Lockhart spent a lot of time wondering if Bigfoot were man or beast, while events completely failed to back him up.  The Bigfoot of that film stole food, defended its territory and its young, investigated new objects, and feared fire.  The audience got the impression that Bigfoot was probably about as intelligent as a bear, which really isn't bad – any zookeeper will tell you bears are bright, curious animals that learn quickly.  What Boggy Creek's Bigfoot was not was especially human-like, not even in the ridiculous way sometimes presented in killer animal movies, like when the creatures of Bats somehow know that attacking power lines will leave humans unable to see in the dark (more on this when I get around to Phase IV).

Cry Wilderness, on the other hand, sets Bigfoot up as an ambiguous figure right from the opening scene.  When Paul describes his friendship with Bigfoot, he mentions two things the creature really likes: Coca-Cola and a radio.  A lot of animals, from insects on up to great apes, like soft drinks, and for exactly the same reason humans do – namely, soda pop is full of delicious diabetes and since sugars are the easiest source of calories the brain is programmed to seek them out.  One can imagine a monkey or raccoon learning to open a pop-tab can to get at the contents.  That doesn't really require a lot of higher cognitive ability, just dextrous fingers.  The radio, however, tells us that Bigfoot likes music.  A lot of science has been done about how animals react to music, but we still tend to think of it as characteristically human and that is how it is used in Cry Wilderness.  The suggestion is that a Bigfoot who enjoys listening to the chart-topping hits of 1987 can't be all beast.

Having thus established Bigfoot in this netherworld of 'neither man nor beast', the movie then goes to some trouble to keep him there. As the hunters close in, Bigfoot tries to evade them but leaves tracks and traces they can follow and makes no attempt to outsmart them, suggesting that he possesses no more than an animal's cunning. At the climax, however, he turns back to save Paul's father in an act of human-like altruism.  If this movie had Lockhart narrating at us about The Creature being More Man Than Animal, it would... well, Lockhart himself would still be an insufferable jackass, but he would at least seem to have a point.

But you guys have all seen the movie, so you're just waiting for me to get to the part where Bigfoot fucking talks.

There are two scenes in which Cry Wilderness presents Bigfoot as more of a supernatural entity than the mere undiscovered primate that the History Channel has sought so long and so fruitlessly.  The first is early in the movie, when Bigfoot appears outside Paul's window in the middle of the night to deliver his message in spoken, colloquial English.  This is very uncomfortable, as it makes Bigfoot just a little too human.  If he can talk, it becomes incredibly creepy that he's tracked a little boy down to where he sleeps.  The school principal argues that this sequence was nothing but a dream and I want to agree with him.  I feel better about it that way.

The second scene is at the end of the movie, when the formerly strict and skeptical principal gets a complete personality transplant and Bigfoot reappears, surrounded by deer and raccoons, to the delight of all.  I want to say this is a dream, too.  It seems like a piece of wish-fulfillment for Paul – he gets to prove that he's right, and the principal turns out to be not so bad after all. Unlike the previous dream sequence, however, it doesn't begin and end with Paul in bed.  It is presented as something that happened in the movie's real world, as if Bigfoot appears like Bloody Mary when you say his name.

If this is so, we seem to have a third possible identity for Bigfoot, which would make him neither man nor beast, but some kind of forest spirit.  This is actually not at all unprecedented as an interpretation.  Folklore is full of creatures that look like furry humans and act as guardians of the woods – there's the European woodwose, the Russian leszi, and the Chinese yeren, and of course the tales told by many Salish-speaking peoples of the American west coast, which are generally treated as Bigfoot stories.  Even the gorillai of Hanno the Navigator may be a version of this archetype, rather than a reference to what we now call gorillas. Such creatures are often described as tricksters or shapeshifters, and sometimes said to abduct or even eat misbehaving children.

Bigfoot as a sort of tutelary forest spirit, however, would seem to be very much at odds with Cry Wilderness' opening scene.  Here we see a Bigfoot-like humanoid in a museum, labeled as a species of primitive man.  This seems to offer a Bigfoot much more like the type cryptozoologists hunt for, a flesh-and-blood creature that could have its hair analyzed and its genome mapped and be placed firmly on a branch of the primate family tree.  Then again, maybe this, too, is intentionally ambiguous.  Maybe Cry Wilderness is telling us that we are simply not meant to know whether Bigfoot is man or beast, spirit or flesh, legend or reality, or that it can indeed be all of them at the same time.  The fact that we can't tell if Paul's school encounters are dreams or not may tie into this theme.

And that is one hundred percent of what's interesting about Cry Wilderness.  The rest of the movie is a lot of pointless bullshit, animal abuse, forced laughter, and boring Noble Savage stereotypes that will have your eyes rolling so hard you'll be staring yourself in the frontal lobe.  Looking around tumblr, it seems that a number of MSTies with Native American ancestry were very uncomfortable with its inclusion in the new series.  I kind of understand why.  Some things just don't deserve a wider audience, even if that audience is going to make fun of them.  A movie in which a child tells a man he's “just a dumb old Indian” and is never even reprimanded for it is arguably one of those things.

In closing, I would like to say that as a resident of the Rocky Mountain foothills, I do not believe in Bigfoot and I've never met anybody who does.  I've found evidence of bears, bobcats, cougars, and porcupines in my back yard, but nary a sign of Sasquatch.  Besides which, we live in an age when almost everybody has a camera on them constantly, and a near-unlimited capacity for sharing the photographs they take – if Bigfoot existed, we'd be slapping puppy ears on him in snapchat. You know we would.