#I have a new found respect for critter artist

[shoppncarticles]

Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise

So, two years after the first Viva Piñata, Rare released Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise. Trouble in Paradise is more of an expansion pack to the original game than a full-fledged sequel, since most of the gameplay and mechanics remain the same, with the major changes being that a handful of new piñatas, plants, and decorations, as well as two mini-gardens which can attract their own sets of piñatas, the Dessert Desert and the Piñarctic. These gardens are all sandy and snowy respectively - two ground types you can add to your own main garden - but are otherwise completely empty and only serve to be places to set traps to catch exclusive piñatas.

Other small changes include updating or changing certain piñatas resident or romance requirements, and cleaning up the overall presentation quite a bit. Like, the original Viva Piñata just used comic sans font, but Trouble in Paradise has its own unique font. Much less distracting, if you ask me.

While Trouble in Paradise is advertised as having over 100 piñata species, it only adds just under 30 new species, in addition to the previous game’s 60. Maybe they’re counting Sour variants as well, or each individual color that the butterfly piñatas come in. Regardless, it just means that I’ll be covering a smaller selection this time, but that doesn’t mean these new piñatas are any less worthwhile than the ones from the first game. Unfortunately, though, most of the new piñatas don’t have clean renders like the ones from the first game, so you’ll have to be a little patient with what I’ve got.

Sweetle

“Ancient Egyptians worshipped the God Khepri, who was associated with the beetle. On Piñata Island, the Sweetle is just another bug, so don't let it convince you to lend it money. Despite what it says, it does not have worshippers who will pay you back next Thursday.”

The Sweetle is one of the first new piñatas you’ll find in Trouble in Paradise, being the introduction to your escapades in the desert. Sweetles are pretty cute, being squeaky little round lumps meant to resemble beetles. Sweetles don’t resemble any particular kind, but with their flat ‘nose’ resemble hercules beetles, kind of. One of the wild card variants comes with a pincer-like horn, though, instead resembling a stag beetle.

That’s a great description too. I’d like to imagine most Sweetles are little con artists to try to swindle you out of money if they get the chance. That’d be an amusing characterization for a little beetle critter.

Geckie

“This little lizard piñata enjoys the bright sunshine and sand between its toes. Of course no-one would find living in a desert much fun unless they had already caught a bit too much sun... and accidentally roasted their brain. I'm sorry, did I say that out loud?“

Geckies are another new addition found in the desert, which resemble bearded dragons more than they do geckos, thanks to their more arid habitat and spiny backside. A little lizard was sorely mistaken among the first game’s roster, so I am happy to see one included in the sequel. They even lick their eyes in some of their idle animations, which is a great little touch.

One of the Geckie’s wild cards actually gives it a large crest around the back of its head, now making it resemble a frilled lizard, which is quite cool as well! Combining two lizards into one is quite efficient if you ask me.

Custacean

“Where you find a beach, you'll find these little Piñatas. They tend to be a bit grumpy, because those claws are not ideal for evenly spreading sun lotion, and they almost always get sunburned.”

I am also very glad to see a crab added to the piñata encyclopedia as well! Look at it, it’s such a cutie. I really like all the patterns on its body, which works pretty well even with how small the crab is in-game. It even walks sideways, as all crabs should. Hilariously, Custaceans require a surfboard to be in the garden in order to become residents. It’s not like they’ll be using it for anything, but anything that reminds them of their home is sure to be a welcome addition.

Cherrapin

“This Piñata is perfectly adapted to its life. It has strong flippers to pull over land and through the water. It has strong jaws for feeding and it has a tough shell for... er. Well, obviously to protect it from... er birds. Yes birds flying overhead, carrying... anvils, and er... pianos.”

Trouble in Paradise seems to have a pension for adding more aquatic piñatas, with the Cherrapin also joining the encyclopedia. Cherrapin is distinctly a sea turtle, as it can only drag itself around with its flippers rather than walking anywhere. It’s definitely more at home in the water, so make sure to have a pond in your garden if you ever plan on keeping one around. Otherwise, not much to comment on, but another cute critter for the collection.

Pengum

“Pengums left the jungles of Piñata Island to avoid a lifetime of servitude. The bigger, meaner Piñatas forced them to work as waiters. When they found the Piñata Island ice fields, they thought they'd found a safe new home. Unfortunately, they were penniless, so they set up a cafe where they could... er, serve the other Piñatas.”

I really don’t know what some of these encyclopedia quotes are supposed to mean. What are you talking about, dude.

Penguins were also added in order to populate the Piñarctic, and are also a welcome addition. They seem to be based more on the rockhopper family of penguins, given the yellow feather patches on the back of their heads. The elongated beaks are a nice touch too. For whatever reason, though, Pengums have an appetite for Newtgats, and will only live in your garden once they’ve eaten one. It’s really best not to get too attached to a lot of the piñatas in these games, they’ll either become prey for bigger piñatas or get smashed by the unexpected Professor Pester visit. I mean, you are raising them to get sent to parties, after all.

Regardless, if you breed Pengums enough and end up getting a wild card, you might get one of these types with a rocking mohawk! All that excessive reproduction is kind of worth it for these more wacky stylings.

S’morepion

“If you have these Piñatas in your garden, make sure you check your boots before starting work. S'morepions love the cozy confines of footwear to nap in, and they will sting you if you threaten to crush them with your feet.”

Adding another arachnid besides the Arocknid, the S’morepions are also residents of the desert which can be caught and brought to your garden. It seems a bit softened up in comparison to the Arocknid, given the more rounded-out pincers and stinger it has, though. The three eyes are kind of cool, though. S’morepions are also finally another piñata with a utility usage, being able to use its sting to stun and ward off any troublemaking Ruffians who wander into your garden. Amusingly, Arocknids and S’morepions also will not get along, and will start fights with each other if inhabiting the same garden.

S’morepions also initially come in Sour Variants, once again sporting a rad red and black color scheme with jagged patterns and curls. The stinger being so oversized and hanging down like a bulbous fruit is a cool visual too, sort of emphasizing how dangerous it is. The three thin green eyes and sharper pincers and stinger look even better on this version. The Sour S’morepion is wicked enough to use its stunning sting on your own piñatas, so you’d better watch out for that.

Limeoceros

“When Piñata Central was built, they needed a way to transport Piñata around the island. Limeoceri love to dance an Irish Jig, so they brought in off-road trucks, equipped with Irish folk music and loudspeakers. As the Limeoceri followed the music, they hammered new roads over Piñata Island.”

The Limeoceros joins the other big, dopey mammals of the African grasslands like the Elephanilla and Chippopotamus (which I admittedly neglected to cover earlier) come Trouble in Paradise, and has a nice, charming design to go with it. Something about the mostly purple and magenta palette with green lines is quite pleasing to the eye, even if it’s far from whatever I would expect a rhinoceros to wear.

The Limeoceros is also maybe the most helpful piñata you can own, since as long as it’s in your garden you can use it against Professor Pester whenever he enters you garden. Normally, if Professor Pester wanders in, he’ll smash your most valuable piñata unless he’s bribed with a hefty sum of cash. Having a Limeoceros around though will cause it to charge into him and send him flying into the horizon like Team Rocket.

Limeoceri first must be cured of their Sour status before protecting your garden, though. Like the other Sours, I dig this thing’s palette quite a bit, as well as how exaggerated and angular it is. Every extension on the Sour Limeoveros’s body ends in a sharp point, which is both funny with its legs and cool with its horn. What isn’t cool is that the Sour Limeoceros will smash buildings in your garden whenever it’s around, but that’s life I guess.

Sarsgorilla

“Here we go again, another video game with a big ape in it. Can someone explain to me why the guys who write games are so fascinated with really big apes?”

Incredible description aside, while the first game has its fair share of Cinnamonkeys and Bonboons, it was lacking in big, great apes, which is where the Sarsgorilla comes in. This hefty piñata is a great combination of bright greens and deep blues, again, not what I would expect of a gorilla but makes for a swell combination.

They really don’t stop when it comes to Donkey Kong references with the Sarsgorilla, either. Not only is its projectile weapon of choice barrels, but it also refuses to breed unless it’s wearing a funky necktie too. That paired with the description makes me concerned if Rare were really missing working with DK while they were under Microsoft’s tenure.

The Sarsgorilla is also infamous for being stupidly difficult to attract and tame, even in comparison to other difficult piñatas. To even enter your garden it requires a baby Bonboon resident to be present. The problem is that baby  piñatas obviously won’t stay babies forever, and that it’s impossible to tell if a Sarsgorilla is anywhere close to spawning outside your garden at any given moment. You might have a baby Bonboon wandering around your garden, and no Sarsgorilla in sight. Or, you may have one with a Sarsgorilla nearby, only for the baby Bonboon to grow up before it can enter, causing it to lose its requirements and wander away. Once the Sarsgorilla does manage to enter your garden, it’ll then need to eat an excessive amount of food, including 4 coconut macaroons, 4 jars of peanut butter (both of which need to be transformed from regular plant-based items) and 6 bananas. Food in Viva Piñata can expire and go rotten if left out too long, by the way, so you better be ready when a Sarsgorilla randomly shows up, lest you be missing one ingredient and ruin the whole encounter.

Really this kind of stuff isn’t too out of the ordinary for some of the other late-game piñatas, I just haven’t mentioned most of them since I didn’t find their designs too interesting to comment on. That hippo piñata I mentioned earlier needs half of your garden to be made of water, and three different plants to be growing in the garden as well, each currently having 10 living instances. You just kind of get used to these insane requirements the longer you play.

Jeli

“At the frozen top of Piñata Island, where icy winds scour the snow, lives the elusive Jeli. It's not the location I'd choose to live in. Still, you never get stuck buying presents - woolly hat, scarf, mittens even... “

Not to be one-upped is the ever-elusive Jeli, an incredibly rare piñata (rather vaguely) based on the yeti. It very rarely shows up in the Piñarctic, where it first must be caught in a trap (which has the chance of failing and scaring off the Jeli, by the way) before it can be put in your garden and tamed proper. Once there, it only needs a few berries and banana splits to become a resident, but good luck finding one in the first place. Like most other piñatas, there’s no guarantee of it showing up at any given moment, so you just have to keep checking in hopes of it appearing. In terms of design, it looks alright, but I don’t know if I’d really call it a yeti. More of some off-the-wall Dr. Seuss character, really. No offense, though. It matches the rest of the game’s wackier offerings.

Jelis are even more enigmatic in the DS version of Viva Piñata, Pocket Paradise. There, the Jeli can randomly spawn like every other piñata, but the specific conditions of it doing so are a total mystery. For years, players wondered how exactly they could get a Jeli to consistently appear... only for one of the original developers to come on Twitter and reveal that Jelis only have a 1/3 to 1/6 chance of spawning per save file. It’s entirely possible to roll the wrong dice and have Jelis be twice as rare in your game as they are in someone else’s - not that a 33% is the best odds anyways.

Choclodocus

“Were there prehistoric Pinatas? I thought Pinatas were discovered in China by Marco Polo who then brought them to Europe. The tradition then transferred to South America by Spanish explorers. All this was a long time after dinosaurs. It's as if someone wanted be cool without thinking it through properly. “

Trouble in Paradise also comes with its own ‘ultimate piñata’ like the first game’s Dragonache, only this time being the dinosaur-themed Choclodocus. Like the Dragonache, the method of finding and making one your resident is rather complex, only this time it comes with a plethora of customizable options. First, you’ll have to obtain an Amber Gem item from donating 9999 coins to a wishing well you can build in your garden after reaching the end credits. Then, you’ll have to buy a Red Bone from the decoration shop, and then hope to find Blue and Green Bones from random Mine usage. After collecting all three bones, you’ll have to get them transformed into skeleton parts, though the order in which you do it has an effect on how the Choclodocus will be built. This chart displays each part.

Once all four items are obtained, they must be put into a storage unit, and then an egg will pop out, which a Cluckles will have to hatch like the Dragonache. However, the Cluckles must be wearing a wig hat that has a bone through it, its prehistoric style being your only clue as to the fact that it might be necessary. Even after hatching the puzzle won’t be over, since the Choclodocus also needs its own set of five items and piñatas to eat in order to mature into adulthood too.

I did praise the Dragonache for having a complex method in order to unlock one, but the Choclodocus might be a bit too complex. Absolutely none of this is explained or clued in to you, especially stuff like what the Choclodocus needs to eat, what the Cluckles needs to be wearing in order to hatch it, or even that all of its pieces need to be put into storage to make an egg. If it was hinted at in some capacity then I’d warm up to it more, but sadly most players will likely feel forced into following a guide rather than figuring it out for themselves. Luckily none of the items needed to make the egg can be sold or destroyed, so you’ll never be softlocked out of it, but still.

REGARDLESS, though, I think the Choclodocus is a nice design for a piñata and does a good job being another final reward like the Dragonache. The customizablility is the real strong suit here, even if the options aren’t exactly all equal in their quality. I would assume most people would feel compelled to give it the Triceratops head, since the other two hardly resemble dinosaurs specficially, and the fan-shaped tail made by the Green Bone doesn’t have as much flair as either of the spike-tipped ones. Still, the Choclodocus is neat for giving you a big dinosaur to care for alongside the more regular animals of your garden, and looks charmingly dopey like a lot of the other paper-mâché fauna. Also, while the Dragonache can scare any Ruffians and Sour Piñatas out of your garden, the Choclodocus can raise any piñata’s happiness to its maximum value, allowing them to sent off to parties much easier. It’s definitely worthwhile to have around even if you aren’t charmed by it yourself.

HONORABLE MENTION: The Platypus

Concept art is included in Trouble in Paradise, and when browsing it you can find this mockup for a platypus piñata that never was. It seems like it would’ve been a hidden piñata produced through crossbreeding two different species, like the Pigxie before it. The platypus, though, is much more lucky in that it ends up as a more natural animal rather than a deformed mutant. Given the Choclodocus’s parallel to the Dragonache, I’m surprised they didn’t include this parallel too, but maybe the developers didn’t think it was worthwhile to include yet another hidden piñata in the game that players had a chance of never finding. Plus, the Pigxie requires a special house to be built for its parents to Romance in, titled the Mystery House. Maybe they had trouble trying to figure out how to include two different Mystery Houses, I dunno.

HONORABLE MENTION: The Shark

Awwww, this one really stinks. You’re telling me there could’ve been a cool, menacing Sour Shark, and a dopey and cute hammerhead shark in these games too?? I love how the normal version of the shark has little rolling waves as the pattern lining its body, that’s great and gives it a wonderful little aquatic theme. And look at that wrecked boat that would’ve been their house, that thing’s great! I would love to have that in my garden, even just as decoration! What gives??

Apparently, the word is that the developers couldn’t find a way to make fully-aquatic piñatas work well within the game, since ponds in gardens are only a foot deep and players can easily cover them up with dirt at any time. They’d get forced out of the water and have nowhere to go, which created a problem. As such, only amphibious piñatas were kept in the game. Sadly the concept was dropped and without a third entry to the series the idea was never explored again. Apparently a goldfish piñata was also planned at some point, since there’s a shopkeeper who has one in a fishbowl, but you can never get it yourself.

Well, that’ll do it for covering Viva Piñata on my blog! I realized a little late into writing there was more I could’ve talked about from the first game, since it is amusing trying to explain how needy some of these piñatas are when it comes to getting them to live in or even visit your garden, but the point of these reviews is moreso supposed to be on how they look and hold up as designs. Though, for how much i like some of them, there’s only so many ways I can say they look cute and have nice colors.

Nevertheless, I find most of the piñatas of these games to be quite charming, and am very impressed by all the work Rare put into making them. I hope I’ve introduced some people to the games’ charm, or reminded old fans of what they’ve been missing. I really hope there could be some new attention given to this series, hell I’d take even a PC Port of Trouble in Paradise over a fully new third game, but given how most of the classic Rare staff don’t work at the comapny anymore, and it’s been several years since the release of Rare Replay, I won’t hold my breath. Still, no harm in talking about the content that is here. Maybe we will see more piñatas some day, who’s to say.

#viva pinata #viva piñata trouble in paradise #creature design #creature feature

[pomrania]

Looking over last year's Smaugust stuff in preparation for this year's Smaugust -- I don't want to have to rediscover all those tricks from scratch -- and damn there's some REALLY good stuff in there. Good job, past me.

Currently working on writing the text for at least the first request post, decent chance it'll get changed up for future posts as I think of things to add or remove. At least this time around, I have a "for more information click here" post I can link, instead of having a wall of text to scroll through before people can see critters and art.

So yeah Smaugust is starting tomorrow, and I'll want to draw some (read: a lot of) cats as dragons. If you have cat pictures, get them handy.

I remember that last year I was really drained by it, so I think this year I'll work on limiting the amount of time I spend on any one picture; ideally this will help me develop some artistic efficiency, but "not feeling tired all of the time" is its own benefit.

DO NOT REFRAIN FROM MAKING REQUESTS BECAUSE YOU DON'T WANT TO OVERWORK ME; TIME AND ENERGY MANAGEMENT IS A PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED ON *MY* END. If I end up needing to close stuff for a bit, I'm perfectly capable of deciding that myself; have some respect for me as an autonomous person. I've already set things up to prevent certain ballooning; "separate posts for each day" means that it can't go too far if it breaches containment, and also that if I end up needing a day off, I can just... not make a post for that day.

(In completely unrelated news, I just found a comb I'd been looking for, for a few days; it was behind the container it's supposed to be in, but I know for a FACT that I'd taken that container out, looked in that area, and hadn't seen it. *shrug* Gremlins.)

Gah, every time I prepare for an art event, I keep coming back to that rant, of people not making requests, WHEN I EXPLICITLY SAY "PLEASE GIVE ME REQUESTS", because they "don't want to be a bother". First of all, that's some nasty scarring on your soul, that you think that way; I know "don't think that way" can't make you heal, but at least it doesn't let the lie continue that you're SUPPOSED to be mentally limping around. Second of all, my own damage resulted in the exact opposite problems; so if I ever hit a lull with this, there's a decent chance I'll be bothering people "hey give me a photo of your cat to draw".

Back to looking at the stuff I'd drawn last year. I'm pretty sure THAT prompt list is better than the one I'll be using, which I'd made in like half an hour, MAYBE an hour; so there's a bunch of cool concepts I won't get from my list, so I'll have to be aware and try to work cool stuff into it anyways.

Huh, I hadn't remembered I'd drawn so many pictures in greyscale. Well not MANY of them, but still more than I'd thought. That's what I did when I didn't have the energy for working with colours, or I simply couldn't think of what colour scheme would be best; and they all looked good regardless. (Okay there's one I don't care too much for, but it was from early on in the event, where I hadn't fully figured out the best way of dragonification, and it doesn't look any worse than pictures done in colour from that same timeframe.) Need to keep in mind an that's an option.

Also, I really like a lot of the pictures I'd done where there isn't really any shading, just lines and colours. Something else to keep in mind, that it's not a NECESSARY step. Might or might not want to try working on that specifically, because when I see a picture (that someone else has done) in that style, done with skill, I personally enjoy it more than one done in a different style with equal skill.

Also seeing a number of pictures where it's EXTREMELY obvious I just had a dumb thought that made me grin and then I ran with it; and you know what, those pictures STILL make me grin.

#no fandom #not a reblog #personal

[helboar]

LFRP – Sulking Boar

The Basics ––– –

Age: Mid-late twenties.

Birthday: 30th Sun of the 4th Umbral Moon.

Race: Hellsguard Roegadyn.

Gender: Male.

Sexuality: Grey-Ace.

Marital Status: Single.

Physical Appearance ––– –

Hair: Brown-black, mid-back-length.

Eyes: Amber.

Height: 7′10″

Build: Fat, round, bulky in a soft way.

Distinguishing Marks: Heavy tattoo coverage across his back, parts of his chest, shoulders, and arms. Weathered blast patterns of scar tissue inside his palms, one worse than the other.

Common Accessories: Tusk and fang veneers. Rings that can serve as extra focii in a pinch.

Personal ––– –

Profession: Taxidermist, Reagent Supplier, Undertaker.

Hobbies: Pampering himself and his cat, studying biology and aetherology, trying new handicrafts, devising increasingly more avant garde taxidermy projects.

Languages: Fluent Eorzean and Amaljiic, passable Hingan.

Residence: Southern Thanalan.

Birthplace: Ul’dah.

Religion: Venerates Hydaelyn first and foremost, but follows the traditions of the Traders.

Patron Deity: Nald’thal.

Fears: Being used or manipulated outside of his knowledge, The Syndicate, dense crowds, chocobos.

Relationships ––– -

Spouse: None.

Children: None.

Parents: His birth mother worked for Eshtaime’s as a lapidary, died young. His foster mother is an esteemed member of the Order of Nald’thal.

Siblings: None.

Other Relatives: None.

Pets: His cat, Iron Maiden, a little black shorthair.

Traits ––– -

* Bold your character’s answer.

Extroverted / In Between / Introverted

Disorganized / In Between / Organized

Close Minded / In Between / Open Minded

Calm / In Between / Anxious

Disagreeable / In Between / Agreeable

Cautious / In Between / Reckless

Patient / In Between /  Impatient

Outspoken / In Between / Reserved

Leader / In Between / Follower

Empathetic / In Between / Apathetic

Optimistic / In Between / Pessimistic

Traditional / In Between / Modern

Hard-working / In Between / Lazy

Cultured / In Between / Uncultured

Loyal / In Between / Disloyal

Faithful / In Between / Unfaithful

Additional information ––– –

Smoking Habit: Very rarely, but occasionally open to a little something to take the edge off. Drugs: Only of the medicinal or above sort. Alcohol: Good with a book or a meal, but not to be mixed too profusely with delicate work.

RP Hooks ––– –

Taxidermy... Half a hobby, half a business. Boar offers commissions. Common critters can be requested or even bought off the rack at any time, but anyone looking for something with more mystique will need to provide their own carcass. Non-traditional rogue works are also on the table. For example, Boar has produced several faux behemoth heads, a number of imaginary creatures frankensteined from multiple specimens, and lastly a variety of “functional” pieces of taxidermy such as elk head chandeliers and chocobo clawed arm chairs.

Reagent & Raw Material Supply... Namely organic ones cut from fauna both exotic and mundane. What isn’t utilized for his more artistic pursuits is carefully excised, packaged, and sold through the proper channels. Bone to jewelers. Meat to larders. Humors, glands, and organs to apothecaries. His provisions are known in Ul’dah for their freshness, owing to a special method of thaumaturgical preservation.

Embalming & Funerary Rites... A practice he's mostly moved on from since taking his leave of the Ossuary, but one he occasionally still provides out of sympathy. He can’t bear the sight of grieving mothers, brothers, and sons thinking their loved ones are bound for the hells just because they can’t afford the Ossuary’s staggering fees. That said, the rites aren’t entirely sentimental, as they do offer some protection from body-snatching voidsent, along with some of the phenomena that give rise to ashkin and soulkin.

Thaumaturgy at more reasonable rates than that wretched Arrzaneth Ossuary... With his other businesses keeping him busy and his life fairly stable, he prefers jobs that can be handled in-house. Appraisal of objects with unknown aetheric properties, purging aether-borne maladies, suppression of unwanted memories, thaumaturgical sleep aides — anything within a disciple of Thal’s regular duties. But, he can be coerced to take on more adventurous work for the right reward or intrigue. He’s a capable enough mage in combat, albeit an extremely cautious one.

When he absolutely must venture into danger, he prefers to have allies, whether they’re freelancers assigned to the same mission or help that he’s brought along himself. He can sometimes be found guarded by two helmeted figures with unusual, rotten aether. Another companion he has also at times been spotted with is a lizard-like beastman. Their smaller stature and truncated crest get them easily mistaken for a Mamool Ja, but to the eyes of someone more experienced with the tribes they are almost certainly an Amalj’aa.

He regards conjurers with a great deal of respect, though anyone with the ability to perceive the voices of the Elementals will also sense that they dislike him quite a bit.

He can sometimes be found in Hingashi enjoying the street fare even when he has no particular business there.

Possible past affiliations... If your character was a member of the Ossuary thirteen or more years ago, has spent time in an Ul’dahn prison, has taken refuge in Little Ala Mhigo, or has ever had reason to hire a young, up-and-coming pair of mercenaries, then it’s possible they’ve had some interaction with Sulking Boar before. This requires some OOC spitballing, but I’m generally pretty open to pre-established relationships! In the same vein, I’m also always looking for returning customers and business partners. If your character wouldn’t be interested in his wares, he has cut deals with hunters/adventurers in the past to provide him fresh game in exchange for a cut of the sales.

Contact Information  ––– –

Timezone is US EST

I’m open to anything from SoL to heavy plot and/or from comedic all the way to grimdark themes. I’ll even do AU stuff if that’s your style.

Normally, I’m down for both in-game meet ups and discord threads, but lately both my schedule and energy levels have been rocky so I’d really prefer breaking the ice over discord for the time being. I’ll edit this line when that changes.

I play on Balmung but will gladly RP with characters from other servers.

Please send a DM if you want my #discord!

#sulking boar #balmung #balmung rp #ffxiv rp #this is legitimately the worst time to post this #but i'm using maint to tackle my to do list somewhat #long post

[monstersdownthepath]

Milestone Monster: Mhar, the World Thunder

CR 26

Chaotic Evil Titanic Aberration

Pathfinder Adventure Path: Return of the Runelords: Rise of New Thassilon, pg. 86~87

IT’S TIIIIIIIME! please ignore the travesty of the ‘editing’ on the banner.

For untold millennia, Mhar has slumbered near the core of Golarion, nestled in the warmth of the planet’s heart. Born from a calamitous intersection of the Elemental Planes of Fire and Earth, Mhar is agonized by the sensation of its molten flesh cooling and hardening to the point it would do anything to escape the pain. Its current magma bath within Golarion is its latest attempt to keep warm, Or, rather, warm enough to remain sane long enough to gather the power it needs to enact its true plan: breaching into the Elemental Plane of Fire to forever bathe in the stone-melting heat.

A soft-hearted person like myself (Just look at its face in the picture! It’s crying!) may hear of Mhar’s plight and wish to aid it. All it wants to do is get into the Plane of Fire, right? Unfortunately, Mhar’s truly tremendous size (that green stuff beneath it? That’s an entire forest and lake) prevents it from traveling through a typical Gate spell, and most tragically of all is very specifically immune to the Plane Shift spell, an immunity no other Great Old One has. Dick move, Paizo, but I can understand why you did it. If a player manages to get past the communication barrier--Mhar speaks Aklo, Terran, and Ignan only, and its telepathy range is so small that you risk death by proximity--solving the encounter immediately by coaxing the critter into failing its save versus Plane Shift does not for a climactic encounter make. Sure, getting to Mhar is difficult, but having such a simple solution to its entire motivation can take the wind out of a battle.

... Or it may decide to crush you anyways. Who’s to say if it’s Chaotic Evil because it’s in incalculable pain, or if it’s alignment is separate from the agony? Whatever the case may be, awakening Mhar is an apocalyptic event as it madly lashes out against a world not meant for it. What does the World Thunder’s attack on a world look like? Lets see...

Though Mhar’s picture reveals creature is mountain-sized, players couldn’t reasonably attack such a thing without needing an entire kitchen floor as a space (artistic interpretation). Instead, combat with Mhar takes place against a cluster of its legs, which take up 50ft of space and have 50ft of reach. Mhar itself is so enormous that it benefits/is punished by the Massive rule, meaning it mercifully cannot make Attacks of Opportunity against creatures who are smaller than Huge size, and such creatures can clamber around on the Great Old One’s body... if they don’t mind the fact that being in physical contact with Mhar counts as being submerged in lava, dealing 20d6 Fire damage per round to whatever idiot thought grappling with/climbing on an active volcano was a good idea.

Side note on the thought of grappling: Mhar’s CMD is 69. Nice.

Though small folk might be safe from Attacks of Opportunity, they still have to contend with Mhar’s normal natural attacks! Another weakness of being so huge is that it can only manage to coordinate four of its legs against small targets, slamming them for 4d12+16 plus 2d6 Fire damage each time, which can be further augmented by Greater Vital Strike. It’s certainly not fun to get hit by all four, but spread out, that damage isn’t too bad... for melee characters,and their 30-ft pile of HP anyway. Squishies might want to stay back, though you don’t really get much of a choice in the matter since Mhar can cast both Wall of Fire and Wall of Stone at will, creating entire labyrinths in a single action that, of course, it can easily step over and even attack around due to its size.

Making melee even worse is that like all other Great Old Ones, Mhar has an Unspeakable Presence, and it’s one of the spookier ones out there at first glance: failing a DC 35 Will save (which must be made every single round) even once means you cannot breathe while you remain within 300ft of Mhar, even if you succeed on your save next round. LITERALLY a presence that prevents speaking! But I say “spooky at first glance” because the big beefy Fighter with his 25 Con can hold his breath for 50 rounds, which ticks down by 1 each round passively, and down by another 1 each time he takes a standard or full-round action. Still no problem for him! But what about the casters or Dex-based characters who dumped Con? For one, don’t dump Con. For another, suffocation instantly knocks your character to unconsciousness and 0 HP regardless of whatever invulnerability you may have in place, and more importantly, if you open your mouth to speak (such as to use verbal components for a spell), your remaining rounds of held breath plummet.

Getting close to Mhar opens the victim to a world of breathless pain, but staying at a range to strike it might be a fruitless endeavor. I know I’ve hammered on about its size for a while, but Mhar is surrounded on all sides by a 30ft thick Cloak of Ash that grants it concealment. Yes, despite being several hundred feet tall, it’s possible to miss Mhar entirely with ranged attacks due to the Cloak of Ash. At least there’s no mechanical downside to hiding out in the cloak yourself, though its enormous Blindsight and Tremorsense range (120ft and 600ft, respective) means it has no trouble finding you.

Though Mhar may not even bother with attacking such small creatures until they prove to be a menace. No, Mhar is angry at the entirety of the cosmos, and it takes this fury out on entire countrysides at a time. Thrice per day, it can rock the world with Earthquake, which is downright devastating when used in tandem with its Volcanic Tempest, a power it can unleash once every 1d6 rounds, blasting a 60ft area around it with choking ash (as Stinking Cloud) and a hail of molten earth that deals 8d6 bludgeoning and 8d6 Fire damage to all in the area. What makes this ability truly dangerous, though, and why it pairs so well with Earthquake, is that Mhar sprays the area of the Volcanic Tempest with lingering molten rock, which deals 20d6 Fire damage to everything standing in it each round if they can’t clamber out of it, which Earthquake can prevent by knocking everyone prone and right into the lava. Though this magma cools to harmless temperatures after 1 minute (or sooner if exposed to Cold magic), Mhar can unleash a new torrent every 1d6 rounds and will do so as early and as often as possible until everything around it becomes a charred hellscape. 

Even dying, Mhar leaves a charred hellscape behind. Immunity to Plane Shift isn’t the only unique quality Mhar has when compared to other Great Old Ones. It also has full on Regeneration instead of Fast Healing like every other GoO, and its Regeneration 20 is only suppressed by Electricity damage, of all things. With Electricity Resistance 30, it’s stupidly hard to hurt Mhar in a way that matters. Thankfully, its Earthen Regeneration only functions if it’s burrowed or otherwise submerged in stone or magma, shutting off if it surfaces… after a minute. Popping Mhar out of its magma bath still means it has 1 full minute of Regeneration that’s only bypassed by a specific elemental type it already has high resistance to, and its 120ft burrow speed means it can reactivate its healing each time it has access to the bare ground.

But lets say you get past that little caveat! When you finally triumph and finally slay Mhar, the entire mountain-beast explodes, spraying everything within 30ft of it with a crushing shower of stone and magma, dealing a jaw-dropping 30d6 bludgeoning and 30d6 Fire damage, making it one of the--if not The--hardest hitting single abilities in the game. And before you go ‘only 30ft? pah,’ remember that battling Mhar is just engaging portion of the thing at a time. It’s quite likely that the entire landscape gets blown to Kingdom Come once the molten mountain falls and the party ‘only’ has to worry about their 30ft patch because tracking that much damage across that big of a distance is a logistical nightmare.

Besides, if Mhar didn’t destroy the country then, it will in a year. Mhar’s Immortality has no real condition to it, as many do; it merely resurrects on the spot of its death one year after it dies as if restored with True Resurrection. According to its lore, Mhar actually comes back because being dead is even more painful than being alive once it passes a certain point, so the thing just wills itself back to life, which is EXACTLY the kind of Great Old One shenanigans I’m here for! I mean... Poor Mhar, but just willing yourself back to life in perfect health is pretty stellar.

Fun fact, Mhar only found out what death was like because someone else decided to use Golarion as a prison for another world-destroying abomination. Once Sarenrae tore open a hole in the planet and flung Rovagug into it, Rovagug accidentally clocked Mhar across the head and destroyed it instantly. It got better, but also got angrier, especially since the whole ‘tearing a hole in the world and throwing a god into it’ thing ruined its hibernation. It could have gotten a whole ‘nother six or seven millennia of peace out of Golarion’s core if that hadn’t happened! Mhar was SO upset by that, in fact, that its scream of anguish caused an entire mountain range to form!

Poor thing :( is it really any wonder it why it’s so cranky once it reaches the surface? At the very least, it knows what it has to do in order to finally achieve true peace: Get to the Plane of Fire. Unfortunately, its chosen path involves flooding Golarion with magma and using the magma as a focus to open a planet-sized portal to the Plane of Fire, which would destabilize the Material Plane and cause the entire thing to fall into the elemental plane, destroying everything as we know it.

But hey, at least Mhar will finally be able to sleep peacefully and without pain. And immunity to fire is pretty easy to get! Maybe living in the Plane of Fire won’t be so bad...

You can read more about him here.

#Milestone Monster #CR 26 and up #Monster Spotlight #Pathfinder #Dungeons and Dragons

[advictoridumb]

Fallout OC Interview

Thanks to @robobrainmurdermysterytheatre​ for making this cool template!

Rules: Choose an OC and answer them as that OC. I tag whoever else wants to do it!

What is your name?

Grey. Before the War, I was originally Eleanor Meraud, then Nora Smith, but if anyone calls me either of those… *hard glare* Wolf was my callsign with Blackriver. But Grey has always been my… nom de guerre (I believe it’s called?) even before the Great War and I prefer that.

How old are you?

Before the war, 29. Now, 240.

What do you look like?

Average height, approximately 160 pounds, black hair, grey eyes, glasses. My facial scars are probably the first thing a person would notice about me which is fine. It tends to discourage conflict.

Where are you from? Where do you live now?

I’m most recently from Boston, but I’ve lived in many countries and cities. I was born in New York. Now, I divide my time between Home Plate, the Castle, and the Prydwen.

What was your childhood like?

It was good enough. My family was well off so I never wanted for anything. My parents were both busy, but so was I. I was never the most attentive student, but there were quite a few extracurricular activities I excelled in. Soccer, archery, shooting sports… Field shooting was my favorite.

What groups are you friendly with? Are you allied with any factions?

It’s my honor to be Sentinel of the Eastern division of the Brotherhood of Steel. I’m also General of the Minutemen. We’re gradually incorporating the Minutemen as an auxiliary to the Brotherhood. That was an initiative I proposed and it’s been going very well.

Tell me about your best friend.

Haylen and I are very close. She’d go to the mat for Danse or any of her brothers or sisters and I really respect that. And she does it all with only a sidearm! As far as civilians, that would be Piper, I suppose. She’s good to have a drink with even if she pries too much for her own good. It never hurts to stay on the right side of the press.

Do you have a family? Tell me about them!

No comment.

What about a partner or partners?

*smiles* Danse is my partner and I wouldn’t have it any other way. He’s got my back and I’ve got his, always. He’s there every time to listen and give advice. He’s always got some interesting historical fact at hand and he’s always reading something new. It’s fascinating. He’s also an artist with power armor mods and laser rifle parts and the way he- Well, um, that’s probably enough about that. *coughs* Next question?

Who are your enemies, and why?

Super mutants, feral ghouls, any abominations of the Wasteland. Anyone who threatens the Brotherhood of Steel or the Minutemen. Raiders, of course.

Have you ever heard of The Brotherhood of Steel? What do you think about them?

*dryly* I’ve heard a few things about them. We’re the best chance the Wasteland has to rebuild any kind of civilization again.

What about The Enclave?

I haven’t heard much about them, but I don’t like what I have heard from my brothers and sisters.

How do you feel about Super Mutants?

They’re disgusting. Their blood bags are some of the worst atrocities I’ve ever seen.

What’s the craziest fight you’ve ever been in?

I’d prefer not to discuss before the War. After the War, it would have to be an assault on West Everett Estates. It was crawling with Super Mutants. Danse and I had engaged them and suddenly a group of raiders stumbled on to us from the southwest. Raiders and Super Mutants were exchanging fire. We were shooting at both of them… Complete chaos. Then suddenly a vertibird passing by dropped off several knights and scribes so it became a real three-way skirmish. The Brotherhood was the last group standing obviously. We didn’t lose a single soldier.

Have you ever fought a Deathclaw?

Several. Those things are the definition of vicious and it’s always an achievement to walk away afterward. I’ve heard some of them are practically invisible, but I haven’t had the bad luck to find one yet.

Do you like fighting?

*thinks for a long moment* That’s an interesting question. As a former mercenary and a soldier, it’s what I’m best at, it’s my profession of choice. Nothing compares to the rush battle gives you so I suppose I do, yes.

What’s your weapon of choice?

I usually prefer ballistic weapons, like a combat rifle or pistol. However, I found a laser rifle, a real beauty, that I’ve modded to the teeth. I think it might have converted me. Danse was insufferably smug about that.

How do you survive? Your wits, your charm, your skills, brute force, some combination? (a.k.a. what’s your S.P.E.C.I.A.L?)

Keen eyes and quick feet. If brute force is required, I have Danse to fall back on *chuckles* but I’ve found that persuasion can frequently work just as well or better.

Have you ever been in a vault? What do you think about them?

I’ve been in several vaults and every single one has been a twisted experiment. They’re vile.

How do you beat all the radiation around here? Has it affected you?

Radaway and Rad-X are helpful, but a suit of power armor is the best solution. No extra heads or arms yet so no, no ill effects.

What’s your favorite wasteland critter?

Dogmeat by far.

What’s your least favorite wasteland critter?

Ugh, there are so many to pick from. Radscorpions are real bastards. The other oversized bugs are deceptively dangerous too.

How do you feel about robots?

They’re useful. Some of them have been programmed with amusing personalities, but don’t tell Danse I said that.

How many caps do you have on you right now?

*cool look* Enough.

Nuka Cola or Sunset Sarsaparilla?

Nuka Cola. Danse prefers Nuka Cherry, but I stick with the original. Sometimes the occasional Quantum.

Do you do chems?

No, I prefer to keep a clear head. I do need the occasional Med-X added to a Stimpack if a fight goes sideways. Nothing wrong with a drink after a successful engagement though.

Do you ever think about the Pre-War world?

I try to focus on the present, but it can be difficult to stop comparing what was to what is.

What’s your deepest regret? What would you do differently?

*thinks deeply* I try to live my life in a way that gives me no cause for regrets. I do wish I’d had more time to “chat” with Kellogg before sending him to hell.

What’s your biggest achievement? Or what do you hope to achieve?

Destroying the Institute has been my most obvious victory. The most satisfying was blasting a shotgun in that bastard Kellogg’s face.

What do you want for the future? For yourself? Your friends? The world?

I do have my eye on the position of Elder, but we’ll see how that progresses. For right now, I’m satisfied. I’ve fulfilled my pre-War obligations. I can do what I love with someone I love and that’s enough for me.

#fallout 4 #sole survivor #brotherhood of steel #this was fun #it was a good writing exercise #Grey isn't as quirky as some people's OCs so I hope it's still interesting

[shazyloren]

The Room: Chapter 15 - Feeling the weight

Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/12710496/chapters/29806425

------

Daenerys head was spinning.

She should be screaming her head off, running far away, leaving everything. She longed to be by herself, for everyone to not exist and for her to just be free of all this torment and torture. She should run away from the fire, except she was running straight into it. She'd suffered so much, her scars of violent assault still marring her skin. Her emotional and mental scars on show for everyone to see. And somehow, through all this, she still found herself trusting him.

She shouldn't trust him, her experiences have told her she would be let down by him too. There will come a point where he gets whatever it is he wants and he will let her down and betray that trust. Yet on the pier, she couldn't help but trust him when she was alone with him. It terrified her. She knew that even though this life she'd been dealt wasn't far, there was a reason, a purpose behind it. But how could she betray herself like this?

How could she so easily let this guy in? Even though she wasn't really. She hadn't said anything to him, hadn't given him any clue of what was going on, and she didn't need to. He'd not asked, even if she thought perhaps he suspected something off. But she couldn't tell him what had happened to her body, to her family. She could hardly figure out herself what was happening, what her mind was thinking. And she wanted respect from him, trust from him, before she tells something like that to him. She hadn't even told Missandei!

And this was another thing, the kiss. She couldn't stand for even Missandei to get too close before she begins to feel crowded and constricted by her. She can't stand to be near any other students before her fleeing instincts take over and she needs space to breathe. She did hex Theon for just touching her when he was trying to get by her in the library.

She couldn't bare it and yet... her warning alarms hadn't gone off when he stood near her and grabbed her chin and kissed her. Instead her body had froze in confusion and shock. It was a reason not to trust him, he had kissed her without asking. How could she trust someone like that.

Trust was a two way street, both parties having to find it in each other. He'd showed no sign that he trusted her to not kick off like she had done, so why had she so easily trusted herself to be alone with him by the pier away from everyone else. Perhaps it was the loneliness in him that she sensed made her do so. Like he'd said, he too was a bit of an outcast within his family and their inner circle. But that couldn't be it, she couldn't just trust this man based on a feeling. She trusted Viserys for years before he violated her every fibre.

Yet she did it, she sat on that pier with him, three feet between them and for nearly an hour as they talked about head duties. Her voice was hoarse and she was tired at the end of it. He had offered to walk her back to the Slytherin dorm if that was where she was going, it was only then that alarm bells rang in her head. She'd been skittish and abruptly left. He must've been confused, but when they patrolled that night, he never said anything.

They didn't speak much on patrol, Daenerys was too busy trying to re-organise and contextualise every thought she'd ever had on Jon. She was weak in that moment on the pier and she'd resolved to never be like that. So even though they patrolled together, she kept her distance and as soon as it was over she just left with a small 'bye' and returned to the dormitory.

She hadn't slept well that night, but instead of the nightmares of Viserys violation of her body, it was replaced by flowing water, feet dangling of a pier edge and feeling the coolness on her toes. There was sunshine, and breezing winds that glided over her arms and raised her goosebumps. She dreamed of a smile on her own face, a feel of contentment.

To be content, that's all she'd had ever wanted. But now, after the passing of her mother, everything had changed. All she wanted now was to completely feel nothing, it was better than the pain, anger and confusion she felt all the time when she was conscious. She hated it all, but she had to try and keep moving throughout all the bullshit that had happened. It was one bad deal after bad deal, but there will come a moment where she gets a good moment. And when she does, she will hold onto it no matter what, hope of a good turn was all she had left.

And now, as she made her way to monitor detention for Deputy Headmaster Varys, she was trying to shove everything into the recesses of her mind. She needed to feel nothing when she got to the detention, it was the only way to function now, to be able to focus on school. So she arrived into the potions classroom where Jon was already there, designating seats to the troublemakers who had detention.

"Hey" She muttered quietly as she placed her bag down by the front desk. Professor Lewin was putting papers away. Jon smiled, it made Daenerys flinch involuntarily. There it was again, the civil Jon Snow she'd never known before, cutting away at her. She didn't reply to him, she just walked over to Professor Lewin's desk. "Thank you for letting us use the potions classroom, Professor Lewin. We'll have the store cupboard and spare cauldrons all organised for you"

"No worries, Miss. Targaryen. I'll be out of your hair in a moment, let me clear my marking away" He huffed a bit, a man of his age should probably not be teaching, he should be retiring in the south of france to stand on grapes or whatever it is normal people do. Daenerys had always love Professor Lewin's teaching however. Potions was her favourite lesson and she always had artistic freedom to try and mix and create what she wanted.

"Thank you" She said politely as she pulled a folder out of her planner. She turned towards the gathering crowd of students who were in detention. There was nine in total and by the time they all arrived to detention, Daenerys was feeling the claustrophobia once again. It was a small classroom at best and lesson were always tough to get through, but potions was her passion so she locked it all away. However, as she looked out at the sea of faces, of which were all male, she couldn't help but feel the panic settling in.

"Flinch, what are you in here for?" Snow asked as he went around the room. A small third year hufflepuff looked frightened as Jon approached him.

"I h-hexed a fifth year for scaring a thestral on purpose in the woods near the owlery" Daenerys blinked, that was certainly one of the weirder excuses for a detention she'd ever heard. The Gamekeeper must've gotten angry at their presence near his cabin. He loved the thestrals, not that Daenerys could see them. "I didn't mean to hurt anyone - it just happened so fast"

"Okay, you can clean the potion vials for me, there's not many but it should take you at least an hour" Jon spoke authoritatively. The next hour the nine students were divided into three teams, one lot were cleaning vials and cauldrons and measuring equipment. The other was organising the live insects and critters, making sure they were fed and in good enough condition for potions. The final group was going through the small store cupboard and reorganising the ingredients by age of being harvested. Professor Lewin had a habit of writing the date of when he collected the ingredient on the jar or bag they're in meaning the new collections went at the back and the older stock was at the front.

Jon and Daenerys oversaw everything. She found herself keeping distance, she did not want the thoughts she'd been feeling and thinking since she was told about her mother to creep into her mind. She was trying hard to keep her school and head duties seperate now. It was becoming increasingly difficult in every moment of her breathe. She found herself looking at Jon a lot, even if she tried to stay away from him. He entranced her at times.

Something had changed within him; he had grown up over the holidays. It was only a good thing, it would've been a pain to deal with childish Jon another year. But here she was, checking on the different groups, and despite alarm bells in her mind about the crowdedness of the room and her proximity to all the other boys she found herself trying to relax. There was nothing worse than the constricted feeling, but she found Jon to be a soothing presence. He was calm, and coolly walking around. Daenerys almost felt a peaceful energy off of him, why.

She didn't understand.

"Miss. Targaryen?" The boy from earlier spoke. She turned her head and flinch at how close the boy was stood next to her. "We've finished cleaning"

"Good, you three can go" She nodded. They didn't say anything except a small thank you, they avoided her eye contact however and grabbed their bags before trudging out of the classroom. The other boys groaned, Daenerys ignored them all"Jon, how is the store cupboard looking?"

"It's almost there, just waiting on the newts from them to put back and I think everything will be done then" Daenerys didn't stand next to him when she spoke, she called from a few feet away and she didn't look at him. She needed to reset her brain, to stop this uneasy trust she found herself giving him. "Daenerys?"

"Yes?" She said, still not looking, therefore surprised and slightly scare when he appeared right in front of her, not even a feet between them. he froze, her brain fet cracked as the space between them was small.

"Are you okay?" He asked, concern lacing his voice as he spoke. Daenerys wanted to say no, she wanted to scream at him for making her trust him, for everything that's happened in her life. She wanted to cry then and there, to push him away and tell him to mind his own business. But she couldn't. Her fried brain, it's tiredness, it craved the attention. The care he was placing on her, the concern. She'd never felt something so pure in her bones.

"I'm fine" She mumbled, stepping away from him, her feet dragging on the floor as she did so. She couldn't look at him, especially since the tears threatened to fall down her face. She once again wondered how on earth she'd managed to keep herself together, but she had, and she was grateful. "Let's just get this over with"

They didn't speak until everything was done and all the students had left to go back to their dormitories. Daenerys just wanted to get to hers and so she picked up her bag and put her folders in there sharpish. Jon kicked the last student out and turned to face her. Their eyes locked a little, but not before Daenerys tore them away and put her bag on her shoulder. "Don't forget patrol tomorrow"

"I won't" She mumbled again. "Goodnight"

"Daenerys-" Jon started. Daenerys turned, her bottom lip was wobbling, her eyes were threatening to spill, but she didn't let it happen. She held on, for whatever reason she held on and kept it together. "'ave I done something wrong?"

She thought about it. No he hadn't done anything wrong in the conscious sense of the word. Since they spoke about being civil towards each other he'd done nothing but be that. But he did not know her inner confliction about him, this trust building inside her which freaked her out. So as she spoke, she tried to forget it all, by smiling and cracking a joke. "Yes, you've been too nice. I prefer it when we argue"

He smiled. "Go, I'll tidy everything else up. You need some rest"

"Yes boss" She said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Jon winked, which just added even more confusion to her brain. She felt the conflict within her building, she needed to get out of the room, but she couldn't breathe. "See you tomorrow"

She hastily left, all the while wondering how everything could be different. Wondering, when she would be dealt the good turn she deserved.

#jon snow #daenerys targaryen #jon x daenerys #jon x dany #jon x dany fanfic #jonerys #jonerys fanfic #au #Hogwarts AU #got #game of thrones

[textales]

“Fight for Your Right.”

“Who the fuck are you?” asked the leader of some band we hired to play that night.

Good lord, how could anyone have the audacity to be so disrespectful and rude?  He had to have known this was the office where the check would come from as he was being escorted by the guy who hired them.  

I stood there with my mouth gaping open, stunned like a deer in the headlights, then just like that he and his entourage moved on before I could scare up an answer. 

My work-study job was more fun than most.  While others were stocking shelves at the bookstore or washing dishes at the food service, I worked for ASUM Programming, the entertainment arm of “The Associated Students of the University of Montana.”  A New Yorker named Erik curated concerts. A grad student picked the lectures.  And there were three red-headed sisters – triplets no less – from a windswept town near some Indian reservation. One ran the performing arts program, one picked the movies, and one was the benevolent boss of all of us. 

Working for the student government was an honor and a responsibility that I took very seriously, and figured it would pay off when I had to get a real job after graduation.  Thirty years later I can say I was right – if not for me, at least for many of my co-workers who went on to become big deals.  One girl got a gig at some software company in Seattle and was so successful she retired in her 30s.  Our student body president became a senator.  And that New Yorker responsible for bringing concerts to our college made a fortune when he sold the newspaper he founded to a big media conglomerate. 

I did the advertising – a position that completely went to my head.  Looking back, I was a pain-in-the-ass prima donna, but my intentions were righteous (or at least I thought so).  Although we were in the sticks, I was insistent that our image be every bit as cool as those of giant schools like UCLA or Harvard.  It was my personal mission to showcase how we were so much better than our redneck peers at MSU in Bozeman who offered washed-up has-beens filling dates between county fairs.  As our community’s un-elected curators of cool, we presented performers on the cutting edge.  Oh sure, occasionally we had a show a little past its prime, but we knew how to position it as the best thing to happen since the advent of electricity, and we’d sell out the biggest venues on campus every time.  

I made ridiculous demands of our graphic artists and printers, maxed out every budget and milked my media partners for every last free commercial. I shamelessly coerced radio stations into selling us commercials for pennies on the dollar. I hired the most expensive television production house in the state and ground them down until they agreed to the pittance I was willing to pay.  On broadcast TV, The Cosby Show was the number one hit in prime time (years before any controversy) and I demanded our commercials on the local NBC affiliate play “first in set” when the most people were watching. At $75 bucks a pop, I got our money’s worth and then some.   I was making my mark, dammit, hell bent on proving this was no hokey small town operation!   

The office was situated in the student union building known as University Center. The glass walls were covered with posters from past performers – everyone from Alabama to Van Halen had been through that town. I was proud of the bands we presented during my tenure there, including 38 Special, Cheap Trick and Corey Hart.  On that cold winter day, a red and shiny silver poster hung on the front door to promote the music group who had just blessed our office with their presence.   

After cooling-off for a minute I conjured a response to that obnoxious “up and comer” who wanted to know my purpose in the overall scheme of things.  Given the chance, I would have shot back with something snarky like “I’m the reason you sold out your show here in the middle of nowhere, you stupid fuck.”  But by that point the ungrateful bastard and his band were halfway across the snow-covered campus.

“I like Dick’s.”

Once a year, our team would make a trek to Portland to go shopping.  We were looking for “the next big thing” and we’d find it at the convention of the National Association for Campus Activities (NACA) where aspiring music artists, comedians and speakers would present themselves for hire by colleges in the region looking for entertainment options for their respective campus constituencies.  The convention was held at the Jantzen Beach Red Lion, a big fancy hotel on the waterfront. Artists would do short performances for the crowd, then interested buyers would have an opportunity to meet with them and their agents at a conference room where deals were cut on the spot. At the conclusion of each three-day trip we’d come home with a pretty good idea of what the next year’s entertainment line-up would be. 

I was fascinated with Portland – it was a “real city” (at least compared to Missoula) and traveling at the expense of someone else was cool shit for this 21-year-old college kid who at that point could count on one hand the number of times I’d stayed in a hotel or eaten at a restaurant with cloth napkins. 

My first taste of fine dining happened on a NACA trip at a restaurant named the Couch Street Fish House.  Knowing it would cost a fortune I was reluctant, but caved to peer-pressure as I was reminded such opportunities for fancy were nonexistent where we came from.  Trying not to look like a total hick from the sticks I gawked at fish tanks in the lobby where you could pick a lobster or sea critter they’d kill and cook right then - ain’t never seen that before!  Dinner was presented in a coordinated reveal as servers lifted silver domes covering the entrees of all patrons at the table, in unison, at the direction of the lead waiter. There were so many different forks and knives I had to ask which to use for what, and I recall being given a hot towel at some point, along with grapefruit sorbet which was to, according to the sharp-looking waiter in a bow tie, “cleanse the palate between courses.”  Hardly an adventurous eater, I had a simple Sirloin Steak (AKA high-grade hamburger), but rest of the crowd went crazy with escargot, scallops and crab.

Split among us, my portion of the bill was $106.  To put things into perspective, I made $290 a month before taxes, so this was absurdly high for this poor college kid, consuming over half of my take-home for the month.  But I don’t regret it, and to this day that dinner over thirty years ago remains one of the fanciest of my life. 

We went night-clubbing on Front Street at The Satyricon.  This place was buzzing with sketch-looking guys with mohawks, tight leather pants, chain necklaces and tattoos.  And there were women in fishnet stockings looking all slutty with black lipstick and winged eyeliner. A few emo kids and some nerds rounded out the crowd, which contained more diversity than anywhere I’d ever been back home. Oh sure, I’d set foot in The Top Hat and AmVets in Missoula, but never a gritty place like this. I recall a wall of black and white TVs showing nothing but snowy static…a wall of TVs just for decoration?  This is nuts.  It was literally on the edge of railroad tracks, complete with an angry punk rock band, a bouncer with bad teeth and bulging biceps, a coat check hosted by a girl who looked remarkably homeless, and there was a ridiculously high cover charge.   The door person asking if my male co-worker and I were a couple.  Before I could answer, Kevin blurted “yes,” knowing we’d get a discount.  Still deep in the closet, I was mortified at the consequences of having my cover blown.

As college kids are known to do, we drank a lot of beer on those trips. In eco-conscious Oregon, with progressive recycling laws decades ahead of the rest of the country, empty bottles and cans could be redeemed for a refund of five cents each.  On the way out of town, we’d stop at Fred Meyer to return the cases of empties.  We were so proud of ourselves, having consumed so much beer over the weekend that the refund money was enough for beef jerky and bottled water for the nine hour drive back to Missoula.  

In Spokane we stopped for burgers and fries at a drive-in.  Without realizing how dumb it would sound, I proudly blurted “I like Dick’s,” as I stood there in acid-washed jeans and a pink polo shirt.

“He is so gay” the New Yorker exclaimed to the red-headed triplets.  And here I thought I had them all fooled.  

“Fight for Your Right”

Erik must have seen something promising when he hired the group of white rappers at the NACA conference that year.  Yes, we wanted to be “cutting edge” and all, but white rappers?  In Montana?!  I didn’t see it…but what did I know? I was a fan of the fluffy pop I played on the radio, like Exposé, Bananarama and Madonna, which Erik considered the musical equivalent of cotton candy.  

As it turned out, he proved to be a programming genius.  When he signed The Beastie Boys months prior in Portland they were nothing more than an unknown opening act for Run-D.M.C., dismissed by industry pros as three obnoxious white kids from New York trying to sound black. Then they blew up…and it was like ASUM Programming hit the jackpot.   The album “Licensed to Ill” was certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on February 2, 1987 – just five days after their appearance in Missoula.  This was an unofficial launch of the “License to Ill” tour, which started three weeks later.

Those Beastie Boys were obnoxious alright. And they were pissed, because just before coming to Missoula they were offered a show in Toronto and tried to cancel ours. Erik held their feet to the fire and threatened to file a lawsuit if they bailed on us, so they conceded and came to Montana in the dead of winter to do a gig for pennies of what they might have otherwise made in a bigger city. 

They were nice to Erik at first, but told him once the show was on they’d have to portray the image of the obnoxious rebels their managers were so carefully crafting.  They delivered on their promise to their management and then some. No wonder the lead guy was such a dick to me at the office. 

We suspected they might be rowdy and cause a ruckus early on. Their contract required multiple cases of beer and bottles of whisky, and they wanted their dressing room stocked with a “rainbow assortment” of condoms.  Such demands are not uncommon, and often ridiculous demands are written into the contracts just to make sure someone is actually paying attention to the small print. I’m not sure if we provided the condoms, but we definitely didn’t supply the beer and whiskey since University policy wouldn’t allow.  So they brought their own, and sprayed two cases of warm Budweiser on the crowd as part of their performance. They encouraged the crowd to rip-up the seating in the first few rows of the venue, and they trashed their dressing room, which I suspect got charged-back to the promoter.  

I recall not wanting to see the show….it was rap, after all, and I liked “the musical equivalent of cotton candy.”  But I was curious about what made this group so popular, so I found my way to the University Theatre for the last few minutes of their show that snowy January eve.

I don’t remember much, other than the crowd went absolutely wild and most were certainly fighting for their right to party.  I also recall fighting for my way to the bathroom, where dozens of drunk fellow college kids were using every available piece of porcelain all at once, including the urinal, toilet, sink, floor drain, and even the garbage can.  It was filthy, but efficient.

The Missouri Lounge is located a few blocks from my home in Berkeley, California. I discovered this place after moving into the neighborhood over a dozen years ago.  Sometimes referred to as “unassuming” or “low key,” truth is it’s a total dive.  The bar and apartments above it were built in 1961 by a serviceman who retired to the area after doing his time in the Navy on The USS Missouri.  I just learned the music video for Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time” was filmed aboard that battleship.  Now I love even more this bar named after the boat.  

On the walls you’ll find pictures from the early days. Not unlike the black & white pictures I’ve seen of my grandmother playing pool at Reed’s Tavern in Great Falls, these framed photos are evidence of innocent local fun…people wearing paper hats and shooting confetti at a New Year’s party when 1962 rolled in… people not interested in going to the big celebrations across the bay in San Francisco…people looking for something comfortable and close to home.

The bar has seen many generations of customers and countless changes of ownership and décor. My first visit was in 2003, just a couple months after the then new owner had repainted in pretty pastels and neutral tones.  Concert posters from famous folk like Janice Joplin, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones adorned the walls.  And they had a brand new 48” flat screen TV hanging smack dab above the middle of the bar, presumably intended to lure sports fans hoping to see their favorite games in a venue more convenient than those in downtown Oakland or Berkeley.

After a few months the newly remodeled bar wasn’t doing so well, so a consultant was hired to “spruce things up” by “dumbing it down.”   As she told me a dozen years ago, the bar was essentially “too nice” for the neighborhood, so she decided to make it look more like a pool room in someone’s basement. Down came the framed posters from historic concerts at the Fillmore and Cow Palace.  Peach and pastels were covered over with battleship gray and brown paint.  A tired old couch was moved in, and so was an old Zenith console TV that for years doubled as the DJ stand.  The flat screen TV was moved into the corner, and they’d start showing classic horror movies with a Pulp Fiction feel.   Whatever magic she did seemed to work, and the place became a goldmine that it is today.  

Regulars at happy hour include Tim the glazier, Ian who works for the county, and Hans who owns a construction company.  Later at night, once the pool table is covered and moved to the corner, a totally different crowd of college kids and younger neighborhood professionals come in to drink and dance.   There’s a professional sound system and a proper DJ Booth, and the back patio which started out with a portable BBQ from someone’s back yard now features a commercial kitchen with permanent built-in stainless-steel sinks and a granite countertop.   But still, honestly, the place is a total dive, with picnic tables and chain link, where a shot and a beer are cheap, and the bathroom walls are covered in graffiti (even if that graffiti was put there on purpose in the first place). 

“I Played That Song When It Was New.”

One of the Disk Jockeys at the Missouri Lounge is a guy named Pat, who is around my age and plays lots of songs from the 80s. Whether it’s Thompson Twins, Prince or YES, he’s often spinning something that I can say I put on the air when I was a Top 40 DJ in Missoula. 

One random Friday night I noticed Pat wearing a hat from some bar in Whitefish, a small town in Montana, which spawned a conversation about my college days. I learned Pat’s wife is from Missoula, and my world continued to grow smaller as he cued-up “(You Gotta) Fight for your Right (to Party).”  

But as much as I was enjoying the conversation, I had to excuse myself (discount dive-bar beer like Olympia has a way of working its way through quite quickly) and headed toward the bathroom where I stood in line as polite millennial men took their turns one-at-a-time in a bathroom that has both a urinal and a toilet.  “Why can’t these kids be efficient like at that Beastie Boys concert where they were using the sink, the toilet, the floor drain and a garbage can?” I wondered without saying a word out loud. Okay, I understand not peeing in the sink or the floor drain or the garbage can, but they can use the urinal and the regular toilet and cut the time in line in half. “Hurry the fuck up. I gotta pee, besides, I have to get back to my conversation with Pat.”

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity in line, I returned to the DJ Booth where Pat told me the wife’s father founded “The Independent,” a newspaper in Missoula, and his business partner was a guy named Erik. 

Yes, THAT Erik, the same guy from New York who brought the Beastie Boys to Montana for their first concert out west. 

It’s a small world when the Missouri and Montana collide with the Beastie Boys.

#Missouri Lounge Beastie Boys Missoula

[themastercylinder]

PLOT When a powerful storm knocks Fly Creek, Georgia’s power lines down onto wet soil, the resulting surge of electricity drives large, bloodthirsty worms to the surface and out of their soil-tilling minds. The townspeople soon discover that their sleepy fishing village is overrun with worms that burrow right into their skin. Inundated by hundreds of thousands of carnivorous creatures, the terrorized locals race to find the cause of the rampage before becoming tilled under themselves.

  Richard Curtis novelization of the screenplay

Richard Curtis novelization of the screenplay

  BACKSTORY

“The script for Squirm was actually based on a true event.” Lieberman continues. “My brother Gary, who is now a noted pediatrician. hooked up an electric train transformer in our backyard to get worms out of the ground to go fishing. And it was amazing-all these worms suddenly came up out of the earth! Being very young, it scared the shit out of me, and those impressions emerged into a story.”

Within six weeks, Lieberman completed a draft of the arthropod epic, which he then gave to producer George Manasse. whose credits include a dramatization of the Fatty Arbuckle scandal called The Wild Party. He saw the potential in Lieberman’s script and passed it on to independent producers Edgar Lansbury and Joseph Beruh, a team who were mainly known for prestigious Broadway theater productions like Godspell and The Subject Was Roses. Fortunately, as Lieberman notes, the pair also had their lowbrow side.

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“The whole thing happened really fast,” he recounts. “Lansbury and Beruh loved Squirm, they thought it was a sure thing when they read the script. and they bought it immediately. They read it in the summer of 75, and we shot in November of that year. Although they had a few investors, Edgar and Joe mostly used their own money ($470,000) to make the picture.”

Squirm’s scenario was originally set in New England, but the weather conditions of the fall season forced the filmmaker to seek an alternative site for his worms to invade. Scouting for a well foliated shoreline location. Lieberinan settled on Port Wentworth. Georgia, a small town just outside of Savannah. “Since those large sandworms weren’t common in the area where we were shooting, we had to get the worms from Maine, refrigerate them and bring them down to Georgia,” Lieberman recalls. “The next spring there were articles in the paper about how Squirm threw off the whole fishing industry in Maine because there weren’t enough worms left after we got through!”

While half of Squirm’s slithering hordes were of the fake rubber variety. the multitude of authentic worms caused several major production dilemmas. “To get the real worms to act the way they did, we electrified them,” Lieberman reveals.

“We ran wires over the floor and juiced them with a rheostat. But we’d only get three good jolts out of ‘em before the room would start to smell like burning hamburger!

“The one setup that stands out in my mind is when we had to fill an entire living room with worms. We built a scaffolding that was about four feet off the ground, and covered it with worm-colored canvas material. We poured thousands of worms over the top of it until it was about six inches deep in them. Then we brought in a local Cub Scout troop, and they got underneath the scaffolding. They were all hunched over, and I directed them to pick their shoulders up and make the whole sea of worms undulate. It was pretty effective.”

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Even more memorable is the now legendary “Worm face” scene, in which a young Rick Baker transformed actor Richard A. Dow into what is perhaps Lieberman’s most striking vision of horror. The hideous sight of a slew of sandworms burrowing through Dow’s prosthetically modified countenance has churned many a young, impressionable stomach over the years.

“I had that scene vividly etched in my mind I knew exactly how it had to be shown.” Lieberman says of the show-stopping effect. “I felt it was the most crucial element in Squirm. to the point where I told the producers that we shouldn’t do the movie unless we could find somebody who could figure out how to create Worm face. If we couldn’t convince the audience that worms are much more horrible than just something gross that you can stomp on, we wouldn’t have a movie. That’s why I thought Bug was the stupidest thing I ever saw, or Frogs for instance: What are they gonna do, gum you to death? There’s no sense in doing these movies if you can’t deliver.”

With these concerns in mind. Lieberman brought Baker to New York during preproduction to cast Dow’s face for the fateful scene. “Rick told me. I’m not sure this is gonna work.” Lieberman recalls. “Prosthetics were brand-new for him. We didn’t have the budget to test it out, and when Rick finally made the facial appliances, he said. “You’ve got two takes. We put these artificial worms on monofilament line, and they were soaked in high speed machine fluid so they’d be lubricated enough to go through the channels under the latex: if the appliances tore, we were out of luck. There was a puppeteer standing just off camera, pulling the lines to make the worms go up through Richard’s skin. We actually got it done in one take, because I didn’t want to spend three hours putting the whole rig back on his face.”

According to Lieberman. the impact of Baker’s artistry was felt instantly on the set. “There was a 340-pound grip on the crew named Mongo, and I saw him walk away because he was so grossed out the director remembers. “I knew right then and there that we had a hit on our hands!

Ironically, while the film’s fragile femme Patricia Pearcy had no problem handling the slimy creatures, lead actor Don Scardino (who later starred in He Knows You’re Alone for the same producers) was reportedly disgusted by his wriggling co-stars. Fortunately, the actor’s aversion to Squirm’s subject matter didn’t dampen his friendship with Lieberman: years later, as producer of the sitcom The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd. Scardino had his old friend brought in to direct the show’s Halloween episode.

One supporting actor found a surefire method of dealing with the film’s unpleasant shooting conditions. “The actor who played Willie Grimes, the old man who is found eaten by worms, was just a local guy who wanted to be in the movie, Lieberman reveals. “He was required to lie there in a hole for eight hours with a fake body that had worms in its gut. He just had us give him Southern Comfort, and as long as we kept him drunk, he was happy as a clam!

“One of the interesting things about Squirm is the actors who aren’t in it.” Lieberman continues. “For instance, we could have had Kim Basinger in the female lead. I personally auditioned her, but like an idiot. I said, “Nah, the audience will never believe that she lives in this hick town.’ I didn’t understand that the horror audience would rather see a beautiful girl with a body like that being covered with worms than anything else.”

The young Basinger wasn’t the only star to be deprived of Squirm’s golden opportunity. “At one point. we had Martin Sheen to play Scardino’s character. Lieberman says. “But he started talking to me about changing the character and making him an actor, so that in the scene where he holds up the skull. he could say, “Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him well… He said it gave him a handle. I told Edgar Lansbury, with all due respect, that if I had to spend time on Sheen, we’d never bring the movie in.”

After five weeks of the most exhausting labor Lieberman had ever experienced. seven days of which was solid worm work. Squirm was in the can. But the filmmaker’s toil didn’t end with the conclusion of principal photography. “I was heavily involved with the post production on Squirm,” he notes. “In fact, I created the sound of the worms. I rubbed two balloons together and recorded them at different speeds. Then, on another track. I recorded big shears snapping open and closed to create the sound of the worms’ teeth. We put these together on a multi track machine and made one loop that would be for a few worms, another for a thousand worms and another for a million worms.

The director also reveals that the endearing “worm scream” sound heard during close-ups of the critters was appropriated from the hog. slaughter scene in Brian De Palma’s Carrie. Trivia buffs may have noticed a Squirm poster hanging in the background of several scenes in De Palma’s Blow Out, which Lieberman claims is not a coincidence. “De Palma was my idol back when I was doing Squirm.” he admits. “I met him years later, and when I asked him about that poster in Blow Out, he said, ‘Only use the best!

The MPAA didn’t take to Squirm as kindly as De Palma. Not surprisingly, they fingered nearly all of Squirm’s scary moments as objectionable to PG-rated sensibilities. “It was so annoying!” Lieberman fumes. “They cut the effects scenes so short that it looked like a mistake in the editing! Even the scene with the worms falling on the girl in the shower, which is all in your head to begin with, had to be cut down! AIP didn’t care about stuff like that, they weren’t exactly artistes, they just wanted to get the film a PG. In the theatrical version, there was just enough of the worm attacks left for them to work; on TV. the cuts are ridiculous!” Squirm eventually went out with an R rating.

Thankfully, the edits didn’t stop Squirm from raking in the long green, Lansbury and Beruh recouped their investment from foreign theatrical advances alone. When Lieberman came up with another horrific screenplay concept, the producers gave him the go-ahead almost instantly. The resulting film, 1977’s Blue Sunshine, is viewed by many fans (and the director himself) as Lieberman’s finest hour in the low-budget arena.

  Jeff Lieberman Interview

Your film Squirm from 1976 is a somewhat offbeat horror film and not quite in the vein of the traditional horror movies from the 70’s. It has more in common with the Creature features of the 50’s. Do you agree or do you see the film as something completely different?

I was heavily influenced by the creature features of the 1950’s, in fact the radiation films inspired my late 70s film Blue Sunshine. But Squirm was directly influenced by The Birds which was from 1963, so it doesn’t fit into that 50’s-70’s decade thing. It’s a big mistake that so many people make, trying to force movies into fitting into trends of certain decades, no matter whether reality enters into it or not. Ninety percent of  the movies made in America during the Vietnam war had nothing to do with the war, yet pretty much all of them are attributed to it.

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How did the project start and what inspired you to write the story?

Well, it was inspired by The Birds but also by an experiment me an my brother did as kids and that can be found in Roger’s monologue about how, in his childhood, he used electricity to get worms out of the ground. I did the exact same thing with my older brother, who read all about it in Boy’s Life magazine.

How long did it take to write the screenplay and did the story change along the way?

It only took me about six weeks to write Squirm, and that was in long hand on yellow legal paper. I couldn’t type at all back then. And no, the story didn’t change.

Why did you decide on using sea worms instead of…well, any other type of worms?

Because, as Gerri says in the movie: “They bite”. Only kind of worms I know of that have those sharp pinchers and scary looking mouths.

Did you already have a studio interested or did you shop the script around? And how did the executives react to your story about killer worms?

I had nothing when I was writing. No studio, no interest, just sat down and wrote it. Then someone I knew got it to some producers and instantly there was a mini bidding war between them and using that leverage, I got to direct my first movie. Material is everything.

Regarding the casting, did you have a regular casting process or did you write the script with any specific actors in mind?

I had nobody in mind at all. It was my first film and I didn’t even know any young actors at that time.

I have read that Kim Basinger auditioned for the female lead. Is this true?

Sadly that is true. She was fresh out of the Ford model agency and incredibly stunning. And from Georgia too. But I decided that nobody would believe she lived next door to a worm farm so I nixed her. What a jerk I was.

Yep haha. So I guess it’s right that Sylvester Stallone and Martin Sheen were interested in being a part of Squirm?

Martin Sheen was first cast in the lead as Mick and Stallone wanted to audition for Roger. Though I have an enormous respect for Sylvester Stallone, and he went on to have a monster career, I still think he was totally wrong for the role of Roger. Martin Sheen would have been fine, except that he saw the movie for something other than what it was and I’m sure it would have been a clash had we proceeded.

Tell me about the production and how the shoot went down.

It was a rag tag, non-union crew, all New Yorkers transplanted to the swamp lands outside of Savannah Georgia, very rural South. We didn’t quite fit in. Burt Reynolds was filming, I think Gator or one of those other red neck movies he did at the same time down there, so our two crews go on great. It took 25 days in all, including all special F/X with worms. Of course there was not only no CGI back then, but no money to do SFX opticals later either, so we had to figure out how to do most of it right there on location in the camera.

The make-up is designed by acclaimed make-up artist Rick Baker. How did he come aboard and how was it working with him?

The producer found him, but I had a great working relationship with him. It was mostly him telling me exactly how it needed to be done and me doing what he said. I didn’t know squat about special F/X make-up back then and on top of that, he was using the very latest technology that he learned from the great Dick Smith. So I got really lucky in that regard because to this day, the signature of the film is still the worm face shot designed by Rick.

Now where does one go to get so many sea worms? And do you have any idea how many you used in the film?

I think we used around a quarter of a million of them, all off the coast of New England.

I have always wondered about what you did with the rest of the worms after the production wrapped. Did you sell them or throw then into the sea or what?

Actually there were none left, they were all dead and many of them from electrocution!

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About the original poster artwork painting (with all the colors and the skull), I have always loved that and I think it’s a shame it hasn’t been used as cover artwork for the DVD release. But who came up with the idea for the poster and did you have anything to do with it?

I had nothing at all to do with that poster, it was all the marketing department at A.I.P. Didn’t have any input on the MGM DVD either. Purely marketing people.

Where do you see Squirm as far as its place in the overall canon of hallowed horror films from the 70s?

 As far as the movie itself, I think Squirm holds up amazingly well. There isn’t a lot to date it; it’s sort of ever green, it’s almost Nancy Drew mystery but with killer worms. It sounds funny, but it keeps on playing around the world on TV and now the hi-def channels and all that, to this day, I believe because of those reasons. There is a timelessness about it. It still makes money, too.

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  Cast Don Scardino as Mick Patricia Pearcy as Geraldine “Geri” Sanders R.A. Dow as Roger Grimes Jean Sullivan as Naomi Sanders Peter MacLean as Sheriff Jim Reston Fran Higgins as Alma Sanders William Newman as Quigley Barbara Quinn as the sheriff’s girl Carl Dagenhart as Willie Grimes Angel Sande as Millie Carol Jean Owens as Lizzie Kim Leon Iocovozzi as Hank Walter Dimmick as Danny Leslie Thorsen as Bonnie Julia Klopp as Mrs. Klopp

Directed by Jeff Lieberman Produced by George Manas Written by Jeff Lieberman

Music by Robert Prince Cinematography Joseph Mangine Edited by Brian Smedley-Aston Distributed by American International Pictures

Squirm (1976) Retrospective PLOT When a powerful storm knocks Fly Creek, Georgia's power lines down onto wet soil, the resulting surge of electricity drives large, bloodthirsty worms to the surface and out of their soil-tilling minds.

[wildlyhardphilosopher-blog]

How to Get Your UNFOCUSED Dog to LISTEN to You RIGHT NOW! ("Leave it"/"Look at Me" Combo), | puppy training classes prices

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How to Get Your UNFOCUSED Dog to LISTEN to You RIGHT NOW! ("Leave it"/"Look at Me" Combo), | puppy training classes prices

Svizzera j SuperZoo 2018 – Searching For The Latest And Greatest Pet Products Starmark Pro-Training Dog Collar, Large Exercise & Play Housetraining ground rule No. 1: Never leave your un-housetrained dog unattended. Not even for a minute. If you aren’t actively engaged with your dog, having her in the same room with you doesn’t count. It’s very important not to give her opportunities to fail at housetraining. If you can’t engage with your dog, which of course isn’t possible every minute of every day, she should be in her crate. Yes, I said crate! Families should reward good behavior and redirect or ignore unwanted behavior. By setting clear boundaries, such as not allowing… read full article Kitten Food Puppy Preschool About Purina open Grain-Free (6) Consistency is key when learning how to potty train a puppy. You can easily set up a routine by feeding, watering, and letting your pup out of his crate at the same times every day. 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Save an extra $5.00 at checkout Humane Investigations Corte Madera Designer Step 2: Decide a Schedule For Exercise, Training And Play I recommend using newspapers with a very young puppy, confined to a single room with an easy to clean floor. Keep your training sessions short, consistent and always have fun. The key to shaping your puppy’s behavior is to start out with very easy commands, continue to build on these successes and apply heaps of repetition. Base your puppy training sessions around trust and mutual respect rather than old school methods based on punishment, avoidance and harsh corrections. In this environment you will find that your puppy loves his training sessions and his confidence will grow with each and every session. Before you ever try to get your pup to step foot in their new crate, or even step near it, place the crate in a room where your dog spends a lot of his or her time. Remove or open the crate door, so your dog feels secure about exploring the ins and outs of their soon-to-be home. If he naturally shy’s away, that’s okay. Don’t force your dog to become familiar, rather try sitting beside the crate, and speaking to your pup in a friendly tone, placing treats around, and then eventually inside the crate until he finally steps in. Placing a familiar blanket or toy inside the crate is also a great way to entice them to enter. Pups should not be allowed to growl over food, especially if there are children in the household. Get our entertainment, dining and things to do newsletter right in your inbox weekly. Local Animal Control Agencies Find a Hospital Dogs for the Visually Impaired Youth Impact Programs Learn more at nomnomnow.com Private Adoption Brooklyn, NY z Obviously, your puppy will feel the need to bark, chew, and eliminate throughout the course of the day, and so she must be left somewhere she can satisfy her needs without causing any damage or annoyance. Your puppy will most probably eliminate as far as possible from her sleeping quarters-in her doggy toilet. By removing all chewable items from the puppy playpen-with the exception of hollow chewtoys stuffed with kibble-you will make chewing chewtoys your puppy’s favorite habit, a good habit! Long-term confinement allows your puppy to teach herself to use an appropriate dog toilet, to want to chew appropriate chewtoys, and to settle down quietly. 38 min read Question of the Day Kids Clubs If you are using the crate for more than two hours at a time, make sure puppy has fresh water, preferably in a dispenser you can attach to the crate. Made Easy Alexa ^ Jump up to: a b c Miller, Pat (July 2004). “Young Dogs Can Learn From Older Well-Behaved Dogs”. The Whole Dog Journal. Retrieved 1 December 2012. There are many techniques available for managing biting because not all dogs or people respond to the same method. If you or other members of your family are in physical danger or fearful of the puppy, seek the help of an experienced Certified Dog Trainer or Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist (a veterinary specialist) immediately.[12]The longer the behavior continues unchecked, the greater the chance of escalation and injury. When you are home but can’t attend to your puppy, follow the same procedures described above. However, the more time you spend with your puppy, the quicker he will be house trained. Your objective is to take your puppy to his toilet area every time he needs to eliminate. This should be about once every 30-45 minutes; just upon waking; just after eating or drinking; and just after a play session. Provide house training taxi service to avoid unnecessary “mistakes”. sign in You Must Clean Deep And Thoroughly To Prevent Repeat ‘Mistakes’ Wellness Exact matches only And if crate training, do not leave them in the crate too long else they may be forced to soil in there. Prevent this at all costs. Kitten Food ; Starting your puppy off right! You and your dog will receive at-home, personalized, one-on-one training from one of our highly skilled trainers. Irish Setter Pet Insurance Rolf Kopfle/Getty Images Phone: [phone] “The Dog Trainer Foundations course is THE best starting point to learn the basics of positive reinforcement training.” Visit Us Do you want a dog or a cat? Ask a Question Tweet When the heat arrives, cats can not only feel hot and bothered – they are at more risk of potentially fatal… Twin Lakes, Boulder, CO Accomplishments July 11, 2018 Critters on canvas: Denver-area artists create long-lasting memories of cherished pets Call Us 508736-3202 Expert Blogs Pet Insurance 101 Pet Telethon When 10 weeks old they may need to toilet every 30 minutes, so they only get 5 to 10 minutes free time. When 12 weeks old, they may need to toilet every hour so they can get 35 to 40 minutes free time. What is the price of the course? Biting people A crate, portable exercise pen, or small room equipped with a baby gate, so you can create an appropriate confinement area for your dog. This will prevent unwanted accidents from occurring. Preventing unwanted accidents ensures our dogs don’t rehearse pottying in inappropriate places and keeps the non-potty places from becoming infused with those potty scents that can trigger a dog into making a mistake. Brought to you by 3. Puppy Crate Training Browse All Services MasterPeace Dog Training Center is a full-service dog training center. Our classes include Puppy Kindergarten, Pet Obedience, Continuing Education, Competition Obedience, Rally Obedience, Pet Agility, Puppy Agility, Competition Agility, Nose Work, and other specialty classes. We are often adding new classes and events – be sure to check out the side bar entitled Upcoming Events! We teach using positive methods of training including clicker training and are committed to teaching you to train your dog in a way that is not only effective, but fun for you and your dog. Successful House Training Requires Supervision I look forward to trump apologists, supposed fiscal conservatives who hate welfare and government spending, twisting into knots trying to explain away this handout. Headline might as well read: Trump screws up markets, pays farmers with your money.Corker is a coward but he’s right, we’re just offering welfare to farmers to solve a problem they [Trump admin] themselves created Busy® Brewer-Patriot Sets Up Shop In Lakewood GET FREE WEEKLY TIPS Staffed 24/7 BOARDING Puppia After you bring home a new puppy, it can feel like you’ve lost all freedom. A crate or ex-pen is the ticket to getting some of that freedom back. Confining your puppy in a safe, happy place when you cannot watch her is a built-in solution to many behavior challenges. It prevents problems (chewed up shoes or furniture, house soiling) before they happen. Laying a solid training foundation will make life with your dog easier and more fun. If you’re not sure where to start, sign up for an in-person obedience class; there’s no better way to train your dog than to practice with an expert IRL. You can also follow any of the helpful links above, and check out our blog archives for additional tips and tricks.

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fbq('track', 'ViewContent', content_ids: 'dogtraining.dknol', ); Puppy Training I Thursday 6:30pm Aug 2 Join the waiting list 2.4k Views · View Upvoters · Not for Reproduction Cops Are Lip Sync Battling; Here Are The Best Compare Keeping the Yard Clean of Dog Waste Dog Training and Puppy Obedience Classes Offered at Our Clinic Treat Heat Stroke in Dogs Grooming Supplies for Your Dog $29.99 3. Give your dog at least six bathroom breaks daily. Taking your pup out after every meal will help to reinforce the idea of where they are supposed to go while minimizing the mess. best way to potty train | train a puppy best way to potty train | puppy training treats best way to potty train | train puppy Legal | Sitemap

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