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#sometimes they're in California

pepperf · 2 years

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People are posting about Robin of Sherwood and it is making me very happy. In that spirit, may I present the outtakes from series one:

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Featuring slippery forest, flimsy props, uncooperative horses, Marion’s complete inability to fire an arrow, and a lot of rain.

It contains mild spoilers of course, so if you are watching it through for the first time, you may wish to avoid it for now - but if you skip straight to 05:46 you can see what happened to poor, unfortunate Robin when fighting Little John in the first ep.

Shamelessly tagging @counterwiddershins and @oldshrewsburyian, idk why there is such a thing as Robin Hood Summer but I’m loving your commentaries! XD

#''It's burning!''#robin of sherwood #robin hood summer #apparently????#I think one of the things I loved most about RoS is that it's a recognisably English forest #unlike pretty much all of the other ones #sometimes they're eastern European #sometimes they're in California #(and feature giant redwoods and Ewok villages)#sometimes they're a soundstage #this is the only one I remember looking like home

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gender-not-found-404-ao3 · 1 year

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Hello, hi, it's 4:40 am and I woke up cause I had a fanfiction idea in my dreams.

California and Texas, but Texas is a trans woman and California isn't attracted to women.

California starts to see the small details of Texas changing and wanting to be different and stuff like that, and he supports and wants Texas to be her best self

But he notices how his attraction to Texas stars waning down and he feels guilty for his feelings with Texas pre-transition not translating to Texas post-transition and he tries to love her but he can't bring himself into because he doesn't swing that way but he's still in love and and and—

Your honour my dreams are fascinating sometimes. y'all can yoink this idea if you want to write it, just link it so I can read it cause I'd like to see it :D

#wttt #wttsh #welcome to the table #welcome to the statehouse #wttt california #wttt texas #in the same dream someone scammed me out of the meat i needed for lunch #and i saw a restaurant being closed and demolished #my dreams are weird but they're cool sometimes #i also dreamt of Tumblr for some reason

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west-brooke · 3 months

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For the Meet the Comics AU… when Draxum mentions Raph’s parent from a pond does he mean they were somebody’s pet? Because not only do Alligator snapping turtles only occur in the South but they don’t live in ponds. They can only be found in rivers. Also, yikes Donnie’s parent suddenly materializing in his hands that close to his face? I guess he doesn’t need a face anymore.

Hey, someone picked up on that! Pretty quickly too lol.

Alligator snapping turtles are NOT native to areas around New York, nor do they normally live in ponds. However, there are tons of different reports of alligator snapping turtles being bought as illegal exotic pets. When the owners realize how much work they are, sometimes they will dump them in nearby places like ponds and rivers. Snapping turtles get really big, and can quickly become an invasive apex predator wherever they're introduced. There's cases of this as far as California or even a whole ocean away from where they are native to in England.

Don't release your pets into the wild, not even goldfish. ESPECIALLY not goldfish. It’s not good for them and the environment. Find them a new home or give them up to a shelter if you can't take care of them.

As for Donnie's dad, you'll learn more about him later lol. But he's smart enough even as a turtle to recognize his son when he sees him.

#westspeaks #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt au #meet the parents au #rottmnt #donnie rottmnt #quick lil psa from an ENVS major lol

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sepublic · 6 months

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I love Jojo's Bizarre Adventure because it goes out of its way to be misleading like it'll introduce you to some weird phenomena like Oh yeah here's the enemy stand user and they're floating in mid-air!!! So the audience naturally assumes the enemy stand allows them to fly, but then it's revealed that their actual power is being able to accelerate any motion, so they accelerated the vibration of the air molecules below them to heat up the air, causing it to rise and lift them up, like how hot air balloons work. Obviously. Or their ability to make your eyeballs explode is because of this hand-crafted poison they brewed which they rely on their stand to deliver to a target, and that’s just one of the ways they can use said stand.

Some scenarios it's the other way around where their ability is established to be one thing but then they suddenly pull off this other unrelated thing and you're wondering how that can be, and then the enemy stand user explains how they applied their stand's power in this incredibly convoluted way that somehow translates into the new thing you see now. And then sometimes the initial phenomena is never even explained like with Black Sabbath or California King Bed.

#jjba #jojo's bizarre adventure

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tanadrin · 9 months

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Imagine that a century or two from now, the eastern half of the United States is conquered by the Canadian Empire, its intelligentsia deported, its land colonized by Canadian immigrants, and its remaining people mostly gradually absorbed into a Neo-Canadian identity. The West reorganizes, developing a new political and cultural center, and comes to regard itself as the "true" United States, with the remnant culture of the East (by now much changed by Canadian rule) as representing an unchanged tradition stretching back to the time of George Washington. The holdout western half is subsequently conquered by the Reformed Mexican Empire, and while most of the population remains in situ, its elite is taken to Mexico City. There, for three or four generations, they do their best to maintain their distinct American identity, focusing on the American "civil religion," the distinctive political ideals and cultural features that mark them out as Americans, and come up with a new way of interpreting their history that allows America to be a perennial idea, something not directly physically tied to the territory of the United States, which no longer exists. They compose a body of historical works based on Washington Irving's rather fabulistic approach to early American history, the half-remembered popular versions of the stories of Columbus and the Pilgrims, the First Thanksgiving, even the Revolutionary War. They don't have access to the original texts anymore--let's say this is all taking place in a post-Collapse North America where long-range travel and communication is difficult and a lot of history has been lost--but they do their best. They append to these books, or include in their text, of history a copy of the Constitution, big chunks of the United States Code, and Robert's Rules of Order.

Subsequently, the Empire of Gran Columbia invades, conquers southern and central Mexico, and its Emperor lets the captive Americans go home. They return north, mostly to California, find that the version of American history and civics that is remembered there isn't the same as the version they have (not that the Californian one is correct--the Mexican Empire has suppressed English-language education and high culture in its Aztlani provinces), and set about reforming and reorganizing the Western States (as they're now called) to be more in line with the forms they brought back from the exile. In the meantime, other bits of important literature start being kept in libraries next to copies of the received histories: some bits of early American literature, like Hawthorne, the Song of Hiawatha, some highly abridged Herman Melville, Thomas Paine--heck, even some John Locke, and quotes or fragments from Shakespeare. Some traditionalists now argue the capital of the United States has always been located in San Francisco, and that Washington, D.C. only because the capital later, under the influence of Eastern heretics.

In the following centuries, the Western States retain their independence for a time, but eventually become a secondary battleground for a lot of other empires--the Mexicans, the Canadians, the Pan-Pacific Federation, and so forth. American culture remains distinctive, insulted in part by its unique traditions, though now everybody speaks Future Spanish, and only learns English to read the old texts. In this period additional material, including later compositions, continues to accrete, forming a distinct body of sacred American scripture, although it does not exist in a single canonical form. Attempts to reconcile distinct sources, like more literal and historically-grounded accounts versus the simplified narratives of figures like Irving, produce hybrid texts that sometimes are full of internal conflicts.

Oh, and through all this, some institutions of American government like the Supreme Court still function, although their rulings only apply to Americans, and there isn't much in the way of a federal bureaucracy.

Finally the Great and Sublime Brazilian Potentate conquers most of the Americas, sets up an American client state that roughly coincides with the heartland of the old Western States (California, Oregon, most of Washington and Nevada), and allows the Americans to elect their own President (subject, of course, to Brazilian approval). During this period, an apocalyptic street preacher from Los Angeles claims to have inherited the authority and power of George Washington, and is executed by the Brazilians; his later followers point to the prophecies of Emperor Norton, and out-of-context bits of a Quebecois translation of Moby-Dick and some Mark Twain stories to say no, really, he was George Washington. Inexplicably, a version of this religion becomes the dominant faith of the Brazilian Empire before it collapses. But long before then the American state in California fails, crushed when it tries to revolt against Brazilian rule; the remnant Easterners likewise dwindle down to only a few hundred souls living in a village in Alexandria, Virginia. Centuries from now, as the descendants of the descendants of the Brazilians colonize Mars, they will point to the sacred Americanist scriptures, the Neo-Americanist narratives of their prophet's life, and the letters written by the early leaders of Neo-Americanism, and say, "all of this was written by the spirit of George Washington, and is free from contradictions." Meanwhile the remnant Americanists, who have been writing about Americanism and how it applies to their everyday lives in the centuries since, and whose commentary has formed around the copies of the last editions of the U.S. Supreme Court Reporter (SCOTUS managed to outlast the final American state by a hundred years or so) plus the thoughts of the remaining Americanist community in Mexico, continue to regard their traditions as the unbroken and unaltered practice of American culture, politics, and ideals as they existed since the Revolutionary War.

This is, as far as I can tell, approximately how the Bible was composed.

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aidaronan · 3 months

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Blood red eyes, point-sharp nails Reptile skin, prehensile tails Come one, cum all... to Monsterfucker May Details beneath the cut.

What is this?

It's pretty much what it says on the tin. Take your blorbo(s), monsterfy them, and put them in (sexy) situations. I'm calling it a Spicy Six challenge, but I did throw an asterisk (technically a dagger bc of its superior aesthetics) out beside that because you can totally also write, like, Selkie Joyce or Mothman Mr. Clarke. Or Jeff CorrodedCoffin getting his shit rocked by Mermaid Heather Holloway. I pretty much wanted to indicate that this particular challenge excludes the younger characters and there's not a great catch-all term for "every legal adult in Hawkins/Chicago/California."

How sexy does my fic/art have to be?

As sexy as you want. This IS a monsterFUCKER challenge, but... Maybe the sex is fade-to-black in your fic. Or maybe your monsters have sex in a very unique way. Maybe your art is just a ring-covered hand white-knuckling fur. Maybe it's fanged faces contorted with bliss. Sometimes anticipation and suggestion are plenty. That said, I also encourage the most unhinged freaknasty shit you can think up, if that's what you wanna do.

What counts a monster?

You tell me, pal. 😏

(Feel free to use the word loosely to include any kind of creature, fantasy/mythological being, or even random sentient concepts e.g. Death or Time.)

So how do I participate?

Write a fic and/or create a work of art that fits the challenge. Fics can be any length, and you can create as few or as many creative works for this challenge as you want. On tumblr and all other sites where hashtags are used, tag with #STMonsterMay and #STMonsterMay24 On AO3, add your work to the collection, searchable as STMonsterMay24 when posting a new work. This will open on May 1 at midnight US EST time. Please only add works posted in May to the collection/tags. (Sequels are okay! So are new works of art for existing fics/universes.)

Is it okay if I write/draw [character/ship/dark concept/etc.]?

I wholeheartedly and passionately do not give a shit. As long as it fits the parameters of the challenge, it's fair game. Just tag and warn appropriately. That said, I will kindly request people are a bit conscious of what they're doing. I'm thinking of things like not using Native/Indigenous monsters if they don't belong to you. Etc.

* Will this be moderated? This challenge will be 95% unmoderated because I expect people to act like the kind and conscientious adults they are. I also have no idea how successful or unsuccessful this will end up being yet and if it would even be possible to keep an eye on Everything.

However, if something really egregious happens re: cultural/racial sensitivity, or a serious lack of tags for a rough topic, people are encouraged to message or inbox me, and I'll look into it and make whatever call seems to fit the situation re: removal from the collection, talking to the creator, requesting additional tags, etc.

For things posted outside of the ao3 collection, there won't be much I can personally do except attempting to have a productive conversation with the creator (if there is a way for me to do that.)

Feel free to reach out if you have any Qs! Otherwise, I'll see you all in May. 😈

#stranger things #STMonsterMay #18+ only #fandom challenge

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steddielations · 7 months

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Flight of Icarus Character List

Lore Part 1 | Part 2

- Eddie Munson: Our boy is 18 years old, lives alone in his dad's house with Wayne checking in on him. By 1984, he's the lead singer and guitarist of Corroded Coffin and the DM for Hellfire. He's known as Freak King at school, and Munson Junior around town, he hates both. His grades are bad, but the only trouble he gets in at school is getting blamed for fights with jocks that he doesn't start or win. He works as a barback at the Hideout where his band plays sometimes. His status as town pariah due to his dad's criminal reputation and being an outcast deeply affects him. He wants nothing more than to escape that image, even if he's trading it for a different image. The story kicks off when he gets a chance to chase a record deal in California and teams up with his dad to get the money to move.

- Al Munson: Eddie’s dad, he comes in and out of Eddie's life. He's been abandoning Eddie alone/with Wayne for long stretches since Eddie was a child. Al's very charismatic and has even made Jim Hopper laugh. He uses that "Munson Magic" to manipulate everyone around him, he's a conman and career criminal. He taught Eddie guitar, but also taught Eddie to jack cars at age 10 and only sees Eddie as his little minion. He comes back to town, claiming he's fresh out of a prison stint in Colorado with a debt he needs to repay, and enlists Eddie into helping him rob a truck carrying drugs from his former boss. He leaves details out of the story that blow up in their faces. In the end, he leaves again when Eddie needs him most.

- Wayne Munson: Eddie’s uncle, factory job guy and the best caregiver as we all predicted. Wayne’s a quiet guy, very emotionally reserved too. Eddie says he’s never even heard Wayne yell, he’s non-confrontational. He doesn’t like Al, says nothing even when Al tries to instigate an argument. He deeply cares for Eddie. Eddie is very stubbornly independent, so used to being on his own because of Al, and Wayne tries to respect his boundaries while also being concerned, as Eddie gets very prickly about it. He tries his best to keep Eddie from getting roped in with Al, but overall he lets Eddie make his own decisions. He seems like he wants to just bundle Eddie in a hug at times, but they're not to that point yet in the book. In the end, Al's scheme gets their house burned down, so Wayne permanently takes Eddie in. He shapes Eddie by telling him he’s not his dad and to stop caring what people think and not to put himself in a box. Some nice tidbits: Wayne has a green thumb, reads Gardener’s Weekly magazine and goes to a bar called the Attic on Fridays.

- Ronnie Ecker: Eddie’s childhood best friend. She lives with her grandma in the trailer park. Her father passed away and her mother is implied mentally unstable. She meets Eddie when they’re 8. She’s described as tall, taller than Eddie since they were kids, always wearing a corduroy hat, and people mistake them for siblings. She’s the first drummer of cc. Ronnie and Eddie formed the band specifically because they had to do the middle school talent show. Then Gareth becomes the drummer when she graduates. She’s also in Hellfire, wants to go to law school and has a full ride scholarship to NYU. She’s sort of implied aro/ace after Eddie tries to kiss her when they’re 13, she says it’s not just Eddie, she doesn’t think she’ll ever have a crush on anyone. Ronnie is perceptive and smart and she teases Eddie a lot but they’re very protective of each other. Eddie gets blackmailed by Principal Higgins into dropping out when he threatens to jeopardize Ronnie's scholarship. Eddie never tells Ronnie this, even when they have a fight about him choosing to end Hellfire because Higgins convinced him his friends would be better off. This causes them to leave off on vague terms when she goes to NYU.

- Dougie Teague: This could possibly be unnamed freak from the show, but there’s an age discrepancy because he’s the same age as Ronnie and Eddie in the books and it says he graduates. So he would have to fail senior year twice along with Eddie to still be in high school in the show as unnamed freak. Dougie is the backup cc guitar player, whereas unnamed freak played bass in the show. Dougie is brash and blurts things out. He lives where Eddie calls the nice side of town and they rehearse in his garage. Dougie’s mom is not fond of Eddie but lets them practice there. Dougie’s dad is an HVAC truck guy.

- Jeff (no last name): Jeff is a sophomore and the bass player for CC, whereas in the show he plays guitar. Jeff comes across as reserved compared to Eddie and Ronnie. He played D&D with his older brothers before joining Hellfire. Eddie says Jeff knows more about bass than him. Jeff is ‘the nice one’ and generally nervous and anxious. He’s reasonable but he looks up to Eddie and buys into what Eddie says about the band getting a deal even if it’s unrealistic. Jeff is awkward around girls, wants to do good in school and he’s afraid of getting in trouble. The owner of the Hideout bar lets the band split a beer and Jeff is nervous the whole time. Also, when Eddie screws up, Jeff is the first to forgive him.

- Gareth (no last name): Gareth takes on the role of Eddie’s first sheep, whereas everyone else are Eddie’s friends, Gareth is like the little kid he’s fond of. Gareth is a freshman, there’s a whole scene of Eddie helping him create a D&D character. He’s hotheaded and a target for bullies. Eddie sticks up for him a couple times, and once, Gareth barrels in shrieking and throwing windmill punches to stop Eddie from getting jumped by Tommy H and crew, which results in Gareth going to the hospital with a fractured wrist.

- Rick Lipton (Reefer Rick): Rick is a very typical laid back stoner character. He's around 35, described as a giant soft guy with big smiling eyes and friendly face, wearing a Smokey the Bear shirt, and not what Eddie expected from a drug dealer. His house is also not what Eddie expected, being pretty clean compared to Eddie's teenage inhabited space. Eddie meets Rick through his dad, who has screwed Rick over in the past and this makes Rick unwilling to be the buyer of what they're going to steal off the drug truck. Eddie however puts on his best "Munson Magic" and convinces Rick. Rick is impressed and calls him Munson Junior, which Eddie hates. He goes back to Rick at the end of the book, needing money and a job. Rick gets him started dealing.

- Elizabeth Munson (maiden name Franklin): Eddie’s mom, he's a certified mama's boy. She doesn't appear in the book, Eddie says she got sick and passed away when he was around 6. She's originally from Memphis, Tennessee, where she met Al and they moved to Hawkins when she was 19, they got married March 12th, 1966. She loved Eddie's dad but Eddie says Al was always leaving her to go off on schemes. She passed her love of music onto Eddie. Her favorite was Chicago blues, Eddie didn't understand why until she passed and he started to feel it in his bones too. Eddie remembers dancing with her to Muddy Waters' "Rollin' Stone" and when the song comes on in the truck while he's doing business with Al, it makes him tear up. He recalls this memory several times, it seems like it’s his happiest memory. He says "When Elizabeth Munson was happy, the whole entire world was happy." His biggest connection to his mom was through her music. Then when Al's scheme goes wrong, the people he screwed over show up and burn down their house in an act of revenge. Eddie almost gets killed trying to save his mom's records, but they burn.

- Paige Warner: Paige is a junior scout at WR Music. She's not described beyond having freckles, chin-length dark hair and dark eyes. She has a younger brother on the Hawkins baseball team. At the Hideout, she sees Eddie's band playing and he chalks up the courage to talk to her. (He's squeaky and blushy, no game) Paige is in town for her grandmother's funeral, she remembers Eddie from the middle school talent show, though she is two years older. She likes his band because they're "real". She returns another night and Eddie (after some bad news that makes him desperate to chase his future) propositions her to get them a record deal. She's insulted, having told Eddie that guys use her for that reason, but they agree to work together. Paige pays for the studio time for cc to record the demo tape. In the meantime, Paige meets Al and Eddie is beside himself the entire time, not wanting her to find out the dirty work they're doing to fund his future. Then, Paige's boss only likes Eddie, and when she delivers this news, Eddie expresses that he doesn't want to ditch his band, but she says this will benefit both of them. So he agrees and it's implied they start hooking up, never making things official. She leaves for California and he's supposed to go later for his audition and stay with her. This doesn't happen, Eddie's heist with Al lands him temporarily in jail, and over a heated phone call, things end between them. It's implied that Paige pays his bail but never speaks to him again.

- Tommy Hayes: It's debatable whether this is supposed to be Tommy H from the show, whether his last name was always Hagan or if that was a fanon thing. Given his proximity to the jocks and being bitter that Steve has changed since dating Nancy, it's supposed to be Tommy H from the show. He's extremely violent in the book, which doesn't track so much with Tommy in the show, who's more of a shit-talker lackey. This Tommy bullies Eddie for being poor, a freak, and the son of a criminal. He bullies the whole Hellfire club and beats Eddie up on two occasions, punches Ronnie (accidentally?) when she tries to protect Gareth, and puts Gareth in the hospital. He faces no repercussions because the Principal is on his side, as Tommy's family is influential and rich.

- Principal Higgins: The principal of Hawkins High. Eddie is justified for wanting to flip him off in the show. Higgins has a ton of favoritism toward the kids from well off influential families, like jocks and preppy students, and always takes their side even when Eddie (and friends) are the ones bruised and beaten. He's a Bible thumper and hates Hellfire and also hates Eddie because he's a Munson, considers him a rotten apple that poisons the bunch. He wants Eddie to drop out to rid the school of the Hellfire club. After the brawl between the jocks and Hellfire, Higgins convinces Eddie that it's his fault his friends are considered freaks and get bullied. He blackmails Eddie into dropping out by threatening to jeopardize Ronnie's scholarship to NYU. Eddie eventually comes to his senses and finds his fire again when everything falls through. He gets re-enrolled in school and turns things around by blackmailing Higgins. At this point, he knows Higgins buys drugs from Reefer Rick, and uses that information to force Higgins to let Hellfire continue and leave him and his friends alone.

- Officer Moore: A Hawkins cop who has it out for Eddie. He's described as having a blond buzz cut, a square jaw, Superman level All-American looks. He has a growing mid-forties beer gut. He pulls Eddie and Ronnie over in Eddie's van, Eddie sasses the shit out of him since apparently he pulls Eddie over a lot trying to find reasons to arrest him, just because he's a Munson. But he has to let them go.

- CJ and Toby: These are two goons that worked with Al under the same boss, Charlie Greene, one of the biggest drug kingpins in Oregon. They are transporting the truck with the drugs that Al enlists Eddie to help him rob. Eddie and Al successfully rob the truck, but CJ and Toby show up to their house days later. While holding Eddie and Al at gunpoint looking for the drugs, It's revealed that Al didn't owe money because he borrowed it, he stole it because he got greedy. Eddie was under the impression that he was saving his dad from enforcers that would come to collect the debt eventually, not helping him steal more from them. Al wasn't in prison like he told Eddie, he was living large as Charlie Greene's right hand man, never sending Eddie a dime. At this point, Eddie and Al have already sold the stolen drugs to Reefer Rick, so Al turns over the 15 grand of money to CJ and Toby. They think it's settled, but CJ decides to set the house on fire too, since Al embarrassed them with the boss. The only reason they don't kill Eddie and Al is because Officer Moore shows up, having been following Eddie. Instead, CJ shoots Officer Moore in the leg and then he and Toby flee. Eddie immediately goes to help the officer (despite hating Moore) while Al is telling Eddie to come on so they can run. Eddie feels like its their fault Moore was shot and won't leave him, Al says he didn't realize Eddie was this much of a fool. Eddie tries to get him to stay because he needs him, but Al leaves him anyway and Eddie is devastated and numb. He's arrested when cops show up.

- Jim Hopper: Hopper brings Eddie a cup of water and talks to him while he's in lockup for the night. He calls Eddie "Junior" but Eddie's too numb at that point to care. He says they know that Eddie tried to help Moore, but he's being held for arson because of the house, until he makes bail. Hopper is really trying to give Eddie a break, knowing he helped Moore, and talks a bit about Eddie's dad. He says something cryptic about knowing Al in school and how every time something went down, Al was usually at the center. Hopper does Eddie a favor and lets him use the phone in his office, where Eddie calls Paige. Hours later, Hopper tells him he made bail and that Wayne is there to get him.

- Chrissy Cunningham: Eddie remembers Chrissy from the talent show. Eddie's dad was supposed to be there, but didn't show up, meanwhile Chrissy is disappointed that her mom did show up. A lot like the show, it's minimal but Chrissy is sweet with troubled undertones. Eddie's surprised she even talks to him, but she's nice and says she'd cheer for him if his dad didn't show. Fast forward to high school, when the jocks are giving Eddie flack, Chrissy tries to get them to stop. Then they try to lie to the principal and say Eddie was bothering Chrissy. Chrissy says it's a lie but Jason quickly silences her.

- Bev: The owner of the Hideout bar. She's a very no nonsense drill sergeant kind of lady. She keeps Eddie humble, calls him Junior despite him asking her not to, always tells him to get a haircut and doesn't like his band at all, though she lets them play there as part of the exchange for Eddie working there. The stage is just some rickety wood that her late husband built. It's implied she had something to do with his death. She's strict and doesn't give anything out for free, only Al is able to charm her out of a free pitcher of beer when he's celebrating Eddie (temporarily) dropping out of school, which stuns Eddie. When Eddie quits the job chasing his California dream, she admits she'll miss their band and that's that.

- Janice: Principal Higgins secretary who equally hates Eddie and favors jocks and preppy students. She wears coke bottle glasses that magnify her eyes and has a fanatical obsession with purple.

- Stan: A junior member of Hellfire who had to sneak around his parents to go to meetings by pretending to be at algebra tutoring, as they consider D&D to be Satanic. When his parents find out, they write a letter to the school, condemning Hellfire club and saying they sent Stan to a church program to cleanse him. Higgins shows Eddie this letter to make him feel guilty and responsible.

-Nicole Summers and Cass Finnigan: These girlies are mentioned in one sentence but I don't know where else to put this info. Eddie implies these are the two other hookups he had before Paige, once in grade ten and once senior year, saying that he could tell they were only doing it for the dare of getting with the freak. Though, he wasn't looking to be anybody's boyfriend. He compares them to Paige, who he feels like genuinely likes him

- Steve Harrington: He doesn't actually appear in the book but his balls get a mention so he's going on the list. The only thing to note is that Steve doesn't approve of any freshman getting beat up, to the point where the jocks do it behind his back and Jason Carver is worried about him finding out. Tommy says Steve doesn't have any balls since dating Nancy Wheeler. Eddie defends Steve's balls, saying Tommy can't talk about someone else having no balls when he gets his kicks beating up freshman.

- Will and Jonathan Byers: At the end of the book, in a record shop, Will and Jonathan walk in. Eddie recognizes Will from his missing posters and recalls the events where Will had a funeral yet somehow was found alive. Jonathan goes to the back for a certain record, and while Will is alone, Eddie watches as a few younger jocks come into the store and start hounding him, calling him zombie boy. Eddie takes up for him, goads the jocks and gets them to take it out on him, takes a baseball to the chest and they leave. Eddie tells Will that Zombie Boy is metal as shit and Jonathan thanks Eddie when he comes back. Eddie offers Jonathan weed and says Jonathan is way too offended by the question for someone with his haircut. This whole interaction solidifies Eddie's new sense of purpose, collecting and protecting sheep.

- Granny Ecker: Ronnie's grandmother. She's not a big part of the story at all but she lives in the trailer park too. She's a wooden spoon wielding grandma character. Eddie calls her Granny too and she worries about Wayne and makes Eddie bring him casseroles and stuff. it's just cute so I'm including it.

#characters and their parts in the story technically #i tried to make this where reading to the end gives you all the plot too #eddie munson #flight of icarus #steddie #< for the one steve mention hehe #steve harrington #stranger things #wayne munson #al munson #will byers #jonathan byers #jim hopper #ronnie ecker #gareth emerson #jeff stranger things #mp

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why-animals-do-the-thing · 8 days

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California zoo accessibility data dump

I just recently got back from a short (and fully covid-cautious) zoo road trip in Oregon and California, and wanted to share my notes re: accessibility at the facilities I visited. I'll get this all integrated into the spreadsheet, too.

Wildlife Safari - Winston, Oregon

This is a large drive-thru safari park with a free walk-about area attached that contains some small exhibits. Guests stay inside their cars the entire drive-thru, although there's at least one place to stop and sit in a gazebo to rest and use the bathroom (porta-potty only). You can pull over to watch animals for longer, and go through multiple times if you missed anything. It's a long drive-thru and there isn't really a good way to truncate the experience if you've got some kind of emergency. The roads are not flat, but they're well maintained and not bumpy.

The walkabout area is very small and contains bathrooms, food options, and other guest services. The paths are mostly concrete and well tended, although you do have to cross the steam train tracks to get to lion/some of the lemur viewing. I believe the Australia walkabout area was also unpaved. There's lots of parking in a big, flat, paved lot.

Sacramento Zoo - Sacramento, CA

This is a very cute, small inner-city facility - a good option if you don't want to try to walk a huge zoo in one day. There's lots of shade from all the plants and a good amount of benches throughout, including picnic tables with shade canopies. The paths are almost entirely flat and paved, with the exception of a boardwalk ramp up to the giraffe feeding and okapi viewing platforms. The cafe has gluten-free and vegetarian listings (maybe vegan?) on their menu. No straws are provided for animal safety, but if you need one, they can give you a reusable curly-straw from the slushies (kinda long and awkward for a normal cup) as an accommodation. They've got both water fountains and water bottle filling stations. Being build in a larger city park and recreation complex, there isn't a dedicated parking lot just for the zoo: the closest is across the street, shared with another attraction, and is kinda small. I've never had issues finding parking when I've gone, but sometimes it does involve a bunch of walking to get to the zoo entrance - if you have mobility or stamina limitations, probably best to get dropped off at the entrance and wait (there are benches).

San Francisco Zoo - San Francisco, CA

The SF Zoo is huge. There's lots of green / garden / swamp space that doesn't have habitats in it, but it means exhibits can be pretty far away, so plan your route accordingly. (Going out to the grizzly bears is the longest loop). Depending on the time of day, there's not always a ton of shade for guests either. There's a decent amount of benches, and quite a few are in decent proximity to animal viewing. After a somewhat long but not steep hill right at the entrance, the paths are all paved and fairly flat. There's a hill going down into/up from the Australia area / kids playground, but it's the only one I really noticed. There's a long elevated boardwalk through the lemur habitats that connects to the top of the new Madagascar construction - if you can't do stairs, as of Spring 2024, that's the only way to get up there to look down on the mandrills or see the top of the fossa habitat. (It's still under construction, so there might be an elevator in the building in the future). Back by the grizzlies, there's an old indoor rainforest building - while there's buttons to automatically open the door going in, I didn't find any on the first inside door going out. It makes sense they don't want both doors to open at once since it's a bird airlock, but not having independent ones on each door meant the day I used an ECV I got stuck in there until a nice staff member noticed.

All three times I've ever been to SF most of the little food kiosks haven't been open, and the vending machines for drinks have been hit and miss - so bring your own, or stock up at the cafe if you need to have supplies with you - but there are water fountains and water bottle filling stations around the zoo. There are interpretive audio boxes through the zoo in English and Spanish, used with a key you get at the entrance(?), but I heard a lot of complaints in passing about some of them not working. There's lots of parking at the zoo in a flat paved lot, and there's a specific dropoff area on one side for rideshares/mobility needs.

Oakland Zoo - Oakland, CA

To be clear up front - Oakland was the hardest facility to visit on this whole trip, with regards to mobility. We went twice, and I used an ECV (electric scooter) one and walked the other. Neither option was easy and both were exhausting. Oakland is a super hilly facility - you basically have to drive up a major hill to get to the zoo. The bottom half of the lower zoo can only be reached by going down pretty steep paths. The hills are also not graded to be "flat", so if you're in a wheelchair or ECV, you're going to have to lean to compensate for the tilt and balance the chair... while controlling it going down a steep hill. It's exhausting and kinda scary. (I don't even let other people carry my camera because $$, but I had to ask for help so I could focus on driving the ECV on those hills). There's also a lot of areas of the pathways that are not in the best repair, or patterned with pressed-in images, and multiple places actually have brass bugs embedded in the pavement so that they stick out above the surface. Lots of tripping hazards and/or things to rattle your teeth out rolling over. A couple places in the upper zoo (the California wilds area) the paths switch from paved to sand and back again, for drainage, maybe? On the upside, there's a lot of benches everywhere, including directly across from prime viewing areas.

Getting up to the upper zoo requires using a gondola - there's no walking option. You can actually take wheelchairs and ECVs on these, but you have to be ready to advocate for yourself. Normally, they don't stop the carriages completely, and expect people to walk on while they're still moving slowly. You can ask them to slow them down for you (I did, because knee issues plus torque is bad), or stop it completely if you need the time/help. When I took an ECV on, they had me disembark and get in one carriage, and they loaded it into the subsequent ones. This is fine because I can walk and stand on concrete for a while without it, but I'm not sure how that practice would work for people who need their mobility aids the whole time. They were very nice about managing the stopping and the loading and didn't make it feel like an imposition, too. If they stop the carriages completely at any point, there will be a loud buzzer/alarm when the ride starts back up. If you're close, it's pretty loud and startling. As they leave the track at the bottom the gondolas tip and dip a little, which can be scary if you're not expecting it - I think it's just the transition of the car from the loading bay onto the track itself. The rest of the ride is very smooth. The track is pretty high up and gives a great view of the bay and the surrounding cities, but face uphill if you don't do well with heights. Once at the upper zoo, the path from bald eagles through jaguar is mostly a boardwalk, but it's not too bumpy.

Oakland's parking is hard if you're not there early in the day, IMO. The overflow parking gets pretty far from the entrance, and starts to go up the hill towards the upper zoo. If the lot looks busy, drop anyone with mobility/stamina issues off at the entrance before parking. Unlike many other zoos I've visited, Oakland's ECVS have added sunshades, which is really nice (and which I should have used).

Monterey Zoo - Salinas, CA

This is a fairly small facility with most habitats on one level, but some big cats and bears are up a pretty big hill. The walkways are paved and flat, and there's an ADA-graded boardwalk ramp that takes you to the top of the hill. The pipes used for the handrails on both the stairs and the ramp get very hot in the sun, however. There's a boardwalk up to the rhino overlook. They indicate that their bathrooms are accessible, but the ones in the main building didn't have bars for transferring - I didn't check the ones up on the hill. At one point in the day speakers along the path started playing really loud pop music (drowned out the birds) and it was very overwhelming. There's lots of handicapped parking spots across from the front entrance, but if you don't have a tag, the rest of the spots are up a bit of a hill and a small walk from the entrance. They do have a note, though, that they can help if you need accessible parking and don't see any, so you could probably call/have someone to go in and ask for an accommodation.

Sequoia Park Zoo - Eureka, CA

This is another nice small facility, very doable for a half-day trip. The paths are paved and flat, and there's benches available. There's a lot of shade, although it can depend on the time of day, and places to fill a water-bottle. The sky-walk through the redwoods is accessible, but might be a little difficult depending on mobility limitations - its' a very sturdy boardwalk through the canopy of the tall trees. (I had more thoughts on this from my last visit, I'll dig out those notes). If you can do even part of it, it's worth it, and there's places to turn around. Because it's in a residential area of the town there's not a huge dedicated parking lot, but lots of street parking and a decent lot directly across the street. I've never had difficulty finding parking, and you can drop people off at the entrance easily.

#accessibility project #zoo accessibility #my notes #zoo accessibility project #disability rights #disability access #ada compliance

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weird-an · 3 months

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Billy isn't gay. He can't be, his dad explained patiently with his fists and slurs and therefore he isn't.

Steve Harrington is just so pretty. Fluffy hair, annoyed purse of his lips that look soft and pink.

Billy can't stay away. It's like Steve is the sun, drawing him closer. Sometimes when he walks past him in the hallway, smelling of Davidoff's Cool Water, Billy hears the waves and feels the sand under his toes, like he's back at his favourite beach in California.

They aren't friends, but they hang out. It's started with a shared cigarette in the parking lot of Starcourt Mall. Harrington wears a stupid sailor's uniform, tells him something about selling ice cream, but Billy doesn't listen, just stares at Harrington's big brown eyes and dimples. It's too much, the feeling inside him, like he swallowed a star and it's all hot and too big.

Maybe there's the sprout of a friendship growing between them, when they start to drink beers on Friday evening and laugh at Cartoons they're too old to watch. (Not that Billy has ever been allowed to watch one, because he has never been a kid, Neil made sure of that.)

They can't be friends, because Billy thinks about kissing Steve every night, wonders what those lips taste like and he's dreaming about swimming in the ocean that is Steve Harrington.

It's another weekend, a half eaten pizza between them and He-Man saving the universe, once again.

Steve's tipsy, cheeks pink and eyes a little glassy. He's close, his heat against Billy's shoulder.

"Do you ever think about kissing… a guy?", he asks, his focus all on Billy. The sunlight tickles his face, even though it's nearly midnight.

Billy isn't gay, because he can't be.

He wants to answer, all his dad's screams in his mind, but it's a lie and he can't lie to Steve.

"Steve," he says, not knowing what to do, because Steve shines so bright and he's burning from the inside.

"Billy," Steve answers, like it's the only answer.

Billy can't, Billy shouldn't, Billy wants.

He tries to breathe because suddenly there's no air.

"I'm not-" faggotloserdisappoinment

"I… thought about it." Steve shudders besides him, big brown eyes wide. "Can… I?"

Billy can't.

He can't be gay, can't say no to the beautiful boy right next to him.

Steve's nose bumps against his. His lips press against Billy's. He tastes like saltwater. It's like Billy 's catching his breath for the first time.

Billy kisses him back. He isn't sure he can ever stop now.

#harringrove #billy x steve #billy hargrove #harringrove ficlet #steve x billy #tw homophobia

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kinard-buckley · 9 days

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Five Tevan head canons?

here are some headcanons!

Tommy is a cat person. The first time Buck spends the night, he wakes up with a tuxedo cat sitting on his chest. (The cat's name is Merlin, he's like 20 years old, very cranky, and Tommy's precious baby.)

Buck absolutely loves being the little spoon but sometimes when he wakes in the middle of the night and sees Tommy is having a nightmare, he'll plaster himself to his back, wrap his arms around Tommy's middle, press his face into the back of his neck and just rock him until he settles.

Buck and Tommy don't wait very long to have sex; sex is one of the few things Buck isn't nervous about re. his blossoming relationship with Tommy. It's the more emotional, serious stuff that gives him nervous butterflies. He's a little shocked at how deep he is after so short a period of time, so he tries desperately hold back a part of himself--because shouldn't Buck be protecting himself after the way his past relationships have gone?--but it gets harder with every passing day. Buck realizes he's in love with Tommy after their sixth date (dinner at a sushi place; they squeeze shoulder-to-shoulder in a booth and Tommy rubs Buck's back as he goes over the menu and Buck thinks I love you but instead says let's get California rolls and split them), and he realizes he wants forever with Tommy after just two months (Buck is brushing his teeth at the sink while Tommy is showering and singing old Sinatra tunes wildly offkey, and Buck thinks I'd like to do this every morning for the rest of my life). Buck manages to keep all the big feelings inside until six months have passed, when he finally confesses to Tommy that he loves him and Tommy's like oh thank God, I fell for you after the coffee date and I've been panicking that it was too fast ever since and they laugh about it together.

Buck takes Jee with him to pick out a ring to propose; a few weeks later, Tommy absconds with Jee to pick out a ring for Buck. Somehow Jee is the only Buckley-Han who can keep a secret, and Buck and Tommy surprise each other with marriage proposals on their anniversary trip.

Buck gets Tommy's callsign and a tiny LAFD helicopter (wih a little Tommy at the controls) tattooed to the inside of his wrist. For Tommy's first tattoos, he gets Who cares?! tattooed on his forearm and a little stylized image of Buck's turnouts with 'BUCKLEY' on the back on his shoulder blade. (When they get married Tommy adds Kinard-Buckley around his ring finger; Buck adds a matching Kinard-Buckley to his ring finger, gets the last lines of Tommy's wedding vows to him on his wrist under Tommy's callsign, and adds a landing pad under the little helicopter with a little figure meant to be Buck waiting for the chopper to land. They're very sentimental.)

#girlwonderofficial #replies #ask box #buck x tommy #bucktommy #headcanon accepted!!!#911 spoilers #text

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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 9 months

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what do you think the snl episode after the yeerks were defeated would be like?

Common flavors of SNL joke, immediately post-Animorphs:

A. Librarian reveals midway through a conversation with a customer that what appears to be one person is actually a yeerk and host swapping control back and forth. Lots of "So Linda—" "Not Linda, this is Ekkris 032" "Oh, okay, Ekkris—" "Actually this is Linda again."

The final punchline would be the customer going "Linda, or Ekkris" and the librarian going "Well now I'm Artrem-Illiack-Ferishth", causing everyone to realize the librarian never actually said they're a controller, and to wonder what the hell just happened.

B. Fake trailer for an alien invasion movie, evoking Independence Day and Contact, but it's shot in a Krispy Kreme and the alien invaders are hordes of andalite tourists.

C. Marco hosts, and in every sketch he plays a character who refuses to believe aliens exist. Sometimes it's meta-humor: he walks into a sketch about a hork-bajir arguing with an arborist long enough to pull the costume off the "hork-bajir" and reveal the human actor. Sometimes it's generational humor: he insists that a thought-speaking dog is just "one of those kids" wearing a "silly fad outfit."

It culminates in a sketch where Marco is dressed as Agent Scully and Gillian Anderson is dressed as the Governor of California delivering her now-famous speech about the yeerk invasion. The governor presents Marco with increasingly obvious evidence, only to have Marco dismiss her, until finally Gillian Anderson goes, "Explain THIS!" and demorphs into Cassie. Marco just rolls his eyes, goes, "Everyone can do THAT" and also morphs Cassie before walking off the set.

and, of course...

D. Aliens Made Me Do It. Overused as a punchline to the point where it kind of, arguably, circles back around to being funny again.

#animorphs #animorphs meta #saturday night live #if other people have ideas i'm all ears

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seat-safety-switch · 5 months

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Nobody likes to shovel snow. That's why we invented cheap, rusty plow trucks. A truck is strong, so it can push a whole bunch of snow at one time, and old trucks are cheap, so nobody cries if they get rusted to bits. Wait, I'll cry about that.

An old truck is like an old, trusted friend: they were with you during the hard moments in your life. Picking up that arcade cabinet you found on the side of the road. Yanking your mom's old azalea bush out of her front yard. Barrelling down a rural road with your loyal dog on the bench seat beside you. Cutting the lights so the revenuers don't see you hiding in those trees, and they pass harmlessly until you can make good your escape, knowing they'll be stuck for hours in that valley maze and you can thermite a few more bulldozers before they figure out where you went. So it's sad whenever a truck is finally disposed of, and becomes condemned to its last useful task: shovelling snow.

Here at Switch Plow Truck Rescue, we don't think it has to be like that. Our team of experienced automotive restorers will immediately drive the truck to California, where it will quintuple in value despite not having been repaired in any real way. The improvement in resale price, however, of being "a California truck" will attract some sucker who is totally willing to spend six times as much money restoring it to stock. The truck survives its ordeal in the salt hell of winterland, we get a stack of money, as-seen-on-teevee custom car paint shops receive important work like "figure out what part of this used to be the floor," and everyone wins.

Sure, there's some risks, like any investment. We are legally required to tell you about them now. A lot of these trucks are so far gone that they blow away in the wind as soon as we get them on the trailer. Sometimes we can't even find them where they're parked: the act of brushing the accumulated snow off the body destroys the truck as well. And we've had to accept as little as triple value when an unusually savvy prospective buyer correctly guesses that a truck that lived in San Diego should still have all of its doors.

There's a lot of flaws in the model, if I'm honest, but would you rather go out there and shovel your driveway by hand, like a caveman, or would you like to commit mild interstate financial fraud through misrepresentation of goods? I thought so.

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livwritesstuff · 3 months

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to whoever sent in the ask about whether or not Steve still had the nail bat – tumblr ate it :(((( but i haven’t stopped thinking about it since you sent it last week so i’m answering it regardless

My gut instinct is to say no, Steve does not have the nail bat anymore.

In my verse there is a not-at-all-flesh-out notion that sometime after the (modified, obv) end of season 4, there is one last battle that ends up ending all the upside down stuff for good. Something tells me that the nail bat reappears in that battle and sees an untimely (or timely, depending on your perspective) end.

Obviously, this means that the girls never see the nail bat in the flesh, but it also means that Eddie, who (in my ‘verse) is comatose for that entire last battle, never sees either.

Until Jonathan visits from California and brings a box full of old photos with him and, lo and behold, presents a photo taken in 1986 of Steve wielding the bat.

“Woah,” Robbie says, eyes wide, “That’s fuckin’ sick, Pop. Can you make me one?”

“Don’t look at me,” Steve immediately told her, “I didn’t make that.”

“Who did?”

“Wasn’t it you, Jon?” He looked at Jonathan.

“No…I think it was Nancy,” Jon replied blankly.

Steve shrugged, because coming up on forty years later it didn’t really matter anymore, and then he looked at Eddie.

Who was stock-still and staring at the photo.

“You alright, Ed?” he asked.

“Fantastic,” Eddie replied, and then he finally tore his eyes away from the picture to look at Jonathan, “Can I keep this one? Do you have the negatives or whatever?”

“Whatever you want, man.”

A couple minutes later, when everyone’s attention had moved onto other photos, Eddie sidled up behind Steve, wrapped one arm around his waist and held up the nail bat photo with the other.

Steve is nineteen in the picture and sitting on the steps of Hop’s old cabin, one of its boarded-up windows half-in-focus in the background. They're about a week away from the battle that ended the Upside Down for good, he's pretty sure, though his memory of all that is a little fuzzy by now. He remembers that he’d taken to keeping the bat with him during that time, and he’s balancing the nail-studded end in the dirt right between his feet, one hand on the handle and the other covering the knob so his chin can balance on it as he looks up at someone behind the camera.

It’s not the worst photo of him, Steve can admit (though it would have been nicer if it weren’t taken during the end of the world).

“We will be having a conversation about this later,” Eddie murmured into Steve’s ear, “A long one.”

#jonathan made the nail bat he just blocked all that shit out as soon as he possibly could #currently mourning the loss of a steve w/nail bat and eddie w/nail shield fighting back-to-back scene #the parallels…the camaraderie #we were robbed #liv’s steddie dads verse #steddie #steddie dads #steve harrington #eddie munson

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