museum curator, watching steve waltz into the smithsonian, the memory of having the stolen cap america authentic howling commando era uniform returned dirty and ridden with bullet holes still fresh in their mind: hide the VALUABLES
steve, reaching over the rope to poke at something on display: it’s my goddamn stuff???
I’M SAYIN’, every single level of management at the Smithsonian must have had an extensively well-documented migraine after dealing with the colossal shitshow raised by such thrilling items as “sock (woolen)” pulled from the pack of one “Rogers, Steve G., 1918 – 1945 lol whoops he’s back″
like i said in my initial reblog… all the people building stories out of this make me laugh with delight, but smithsonian & dc museum people adding their tags give me LIFE
… also steven grant rogers would be KIND and COURTEOUS to the front-line museum staff and not ask them stupid questions and you will pry that headcanon from my cold dead hands thankyouverymuch
oh steven grant rogers is KIND and POLITE and CONSIDERATE to front-line museum staff, he will politely move himself to the side so he doesn’t cause traffic issues if he gets recognized and a couple kids want pictures, he apologizes to security for causing a scene (he didn’t mean to! he thought his baseball cap disguise would work, bless him). he returns his maps (sweet and so unnecessary but then one of the volunteers can take a map captain america used and will probably sign for them back to their grandkids so that’s nice). the docents LOVE him; he’s both a Nice Young Man and also from Back in Their Day.
the collections and conservation staff however have sworn a blood oath of pure vengeance against him and nothing he ever does will change their minds. the textile conservator (we’ll call her lorraine) who had to restore the old captain america suit spent THREE YEARS OF HER LIFE on that stupid thing and it’s still too unstable to ever exhibit again. lorraine went through FIVE INTERNS, two of whom CRIED ON HER. she had to spend a fourth year making a replica because everyone was writing their representatives that the captain america suit wasn’t on display and they MADE HER DO IT.
like if steve thought any debrief in wwii he ever had sucked lol try lorraine, who has given up trying to catalogue what the fuck happened to that piece of shit suit and finally tracked down his cell phone number after six months of this hell project out of sheer bloody mindness and desperation and tricks him into her office through a series of absolute goddamn lies about idk public programming or some shit that steve might actually care about and then corners him and makes him give her a play by play of what, exactly, the fuck he did to that suit.
cuz, okay, listen. blah blah save the world blah blah, but steven grant rogers* stole a priceless museum artifact, bled on it, set it on fire, dropped it into the potomac, dragged it (WHILE WET) through river mud and god knows how many plants and bugs and microbes, got melting plastic and metal and shrapnel and other people’s body juices and skin and hair embedded in it–the only reason he lives is because he can give the full and accurate account of what the fuck he did to it and answer questions of how the fuck it can be slightly, slightly unfucked. not saved! not made to look like it was! certainly not able to be put on a mannequin and exhibited again! but like she can get some more of the mud and that chunk of charred plastic out maybe. otherwise, lorraine would have murdered that dumb bitch in a fit of justifiable rage, and no amount of charming “sorry ma’am”s would fucking save him.
my professor (lovely man, married to our TA, 5’2", about as intimidating as a muffin) is a dendrologist by trade, so he studies trees. it was about three hours into our social sciences course, last lecture before exams, everyone was frazzled and exhausted, so he told us about his most exciting/in-depth research to date to cheer us up.
(the few of us who actually showed up were like “ok sir im sure its fascinating” but in our minds we were totally like its trees what. is. exciting. about trees. You might be wondering the same thing – the acorns? the leaves? the roots? BUT NO. IMMA FUCKIN TELL YA.)
ANYWAY we settle in, he had a few pictures loaded up from his field work (we were chuckling at this point…. ‘hehehe field work’ i giggled to my frend. its trees.) and began to tell his tale. it’s long, imma warn you, but……. god. just read it.
theres an species of tree called the cucumber tree (Magnolia acuminata, if ya wanna get all Latin-y). its super endangered, in our region there’s only ~280 that are registered by the government, yadda yadda yadda. my prof thought that was tragic (i know) but also strange, because when he was writing his thesis about local trees years ago, he kept coming across cucumber trees in really random places. we’re talking like backyards, independently-owned nurseries, etc. WHICH IS IMPOSSIBLE because, according to tree law (i know) it is very strictly protected by the government, and thus super “illegal to possess, transport, collect, buy or sell any part of a living or dead member of a listed species if it originates from wild sources.” essentially, the govt takes control over growing the trees and anyone who independently raises them is breaking the law (i know)
so he’d ask people “do you have a permit for these trees?” and they were like “uh no, it’s just a tree someone sold me, i think it looks nice, are you gonna arrest me?” so he’d be like “nah nah nah just tell me who sold it to you”
eventually, months/years later, someone did, and turns out it was like this underground sort-of illegal tree dealing club (i know). so my prof went, got a bit of funding from the government, who were getting pissed at independent cucumber tree numbers, and THIS IS WHERE IT GETS INTO THE GOOD SHIT I STG.
he infiltrates the tree trafficking organization. he buys a cucumber tree from an independent nursery, raises it for months, ensures he gets noticed by the traffickers, and then INFILTRATES it and convinces its leader to LET HIM JOIN. he has to pay like a steep entrance fee, which he does (and it blows my mind that the government of my country paid money to illegal tree dealers), but then he is given full access to records and maps because they think he’s one of them, not a SECRET AGENT.
now this part blows my mind because the tree lords don’t even have to try very hard to find cucumber trees because government agents MARK THE TREES AND DISTINCTLY TAG THEM SAYING THIS IS ENDANGERED DO NOT TOUCH. so, ya know…………. it’s a bit obvious. my prof hangs out with the members so much that he figures out their “hit spots”. these are where the trees are relatively secluded and unguarded. (he writes all this shit and numbers down for his research.)
BUT THATS NOT ENOUGH BECAUSE THE GOVT SAYS HES WASTING THEIR FUNDING IF HE DOESNT HAVE PROOF and they are willing to take LEGAL ACTION for misuse of funding (my prof doesn’t have the money nore time nor power to take them to court, which would also blow his cover). so my prof literally STAKES OUT a copse of cucumber trees at a recognized wildlife reserve for. DAYS. he camps there, and watches the trees, is about to give up, he’s going off an unreliable rumor from the traffickers that a harvester would be going there within the next week. finally, this guy comes and takes the cucumber tree seeds from the CLEARLY MARKED trees by the government, and my prof takes pictures (we are shown these pictures, most of us are speechless at this point). dozens of candid shots of a man my grandpa’s age with a grocery store bag, garden shears, and a ladder, clipping away the illegal seeds and then going on his merry fucking way.
so my prof has the proof, he’s been undercover for months now at this point, he writes up his report, gives it to the government who is like…….. “oh shit”, helps them draft up a new LESS COMPLETELY FUCKING OBVIOUS way of marking endangered trees (so that way non-tree-lovers wouldn’t damage them further, etc.), and then never returns to the tree traffickers. he’d given them a fake name, address, everything….. he disappears.
…there was a full minute of stunned silence from us students at this point, during which he grew more and more nervous (again, he’s a muffin) and all of us students are just like……. “whoa.” we asked him what happened to the remaining illegal cucumber trees & if he turned the tree dealers in to the government, and that is when he smiles a little bit and shows us the last few pictures. because here’s the kicker… he never turned the smugglers in. he burned all the data he collected, defied the government pressuring him to turn them in, and the only reason he’s not incarcerated is because his work is so prominent in certain circles now & universities love him, that there would be an uproar if he got arrested. he’s like a fucking anti-hero and then he tells us (i’ll never forget, it’s the most inspirational green-thumb thing in the world) “it may be ‘illegal’, but those who risk their liberty to ~save the world~ should never be reprimanded, no matter what those in power say.”
we are all stunned. some of us are considering dendrology as a field we’d now be interested in pursuing. he clicks his slide one final time, before we leave our last lecture and, since he had an asthma attack (lil muffin) he didn’t attend our exam, so i never see him again…………
and there, on the slides, the last picture? THERE HE IS. in his own backyard. with his equally lovely TA wife. both grinning innocently, standing underneath a……. FUCKING. FULL GROWN. ILLEGAL. CUCUMBER TREE.
Apparently my director went to see a production of West Side Story a few years ago, and the guy playing Chino forgot his gun before coming out for his final scene. Once it got to the big scene where he is supposed to shoot Tony, he screeched “Poison Boots” and kicked the actor playing Tony until he went down. The girl playing Maria then had to jerk the shoe off of Chino’s foot, and had to do the gunshot scene asking “How many kicks Chino? How many kicks, and one kick left for me”.
There should be a blog dedicated to theatrical urban legends. Like that opening weekend of Dracula where Dracula (still hungover) vomited all over the audience during the first stage direction that everyone has a friend of a friend that worked on the show and was there.
or the one where the bridge never came out for Javert’s suicide and so he just pretended to stab himself and then lay there until the lights went out
best story i heard was when a friend of mine saw a show where juliet forgot to bring the dagger out on stage so she just ripped the squib out of her chest and blood squirted everywhere
During a passion play a friend of my brother was supposedly in, one of the roman soldiers who was supposed to stab jesus on the cross and accidentally grabbed the wrong spear- he was supposed to grab one with a fake tip, but instead he grabbed one with an actual metal tip and, well
Jesus screamed “JESUS CHRIST YOU STABBED ME”.
Since that Jesus had to be taken down due to a bad case of stab-itis, the backup Jesus came in, but he weighed significantly less than the original Jesus- which would have been fine, except that at the end the cross was supposed to ascend upwards with Jesus on it, and the weights hadn’t been adjusted.
So Jesus, instead, ROCKETED UP into heaven (or, just, above the stage).
This is wild from start to finish
I was in Peter Pan once and one night at a performance, the adhesive holding our Hook’s mustache on was wearing off. It was near the end with a big fight scene and when he got attacked, he let his mustache fall and went “YOU RIPPED MY MUSTACHE OFF!” in a scandalized tone and it added a new note of hilarity to the whole scene (which was supposed to be funny anyway)
In my seventh grade play, which was a midsummer night’s dream, Thisbe didn’t have a sword so she stabbed herself with a coathanger
My junior year we were doing Romeo and Juliet and after Juliet poisons herself it was supposed to go dark and she’d get off the stage. well the light crew accidentally turned them back on and Juliet who was sitting up slammed back down on the wooden bed with a loud bang. To which my theater teacher says into the com “zombie Juliet” and everyone who heard that had to keep as quiet as possible while our eyes were filling with tears.
i attended my county’s performing arts high school majoring in vocal studies, (mostly geared towards musical theater and opera styles) and once a year we got a field trip to new york (we were in jersey, so it’s not exactly far). we would do one touristy thing, an actor’s workshop with friends of our teachers working in various performing industries in nyc, and then see a show.
my first year doing this, our industry contacts were 1 actor, 1 casting director, and 1 producer to get different aspects of the business, and they all gave us amazing advice and told fantastic stories. the actor in question was Zazu on Broadway’s The Lion King for several years, and told the best story by far.
in The Lion King, there are only two pieces of pre-recorded noise in the whole show. one, when Pumbaa does a MASSIVE fart while fighting the hyenas, and the other being Mufasa saying REMEMBERRRRRR as Simba climbs Pride Rock. the actor told us while struggling not to laugh that, during one night’s performance, someone forgot to flip the tape of these pre-recorded noises.
so, at the end of the show, the great climax where Simba finally accepts his place in the Circle of Life, the heavens parted and-
everyone froze. and then all ran off stage positively HOWLING with laughter.
the lesson: sometimes there are fuck ups you just can’t recover from.
During a high school production of Beauty and the Beast, where I was assistant costumer and assistant prop master, our director decided that we needed to spice up Gaston’s introduction. You know: in the movie, when Lefou runs in trying to catch the duck/goose that Gaston has just shot out of the sky?
Originally, the actors were going to stroll on stage with our Lefou hauling in the really neat (and real!) taxidermied deer head that we had found in a local thrift store. Now, two days before opening night, our director wants Lefou to run in from off stage and catch a stuffed duck that Gaston has just shot. This, of course, requires two things to work properly as a scene: a gunshot noise, and a stuffed duck.
The gunshot noise, we had covered. Blue-collar, redneck school? Guns a plenty to record. The stuffed duck? Harder than you might have thought to obtain.
Three hunting stores, two taxidermists, and one Pet Supply Store ™, I’d finally found a semi-realistic pheasant squeaky toy. What follows is an account of the ways this dog toy managed to be the nightmare prop of the six show run.
Opening Night: The stagehand, who was supposed to drop the bird from the ceiling catwalk, missed his cue and didn’t drop the it. Lefou’s actor rolls with it and does an excellent job of looking around foolishly before getting cuffed upside the head by Gaston. The stagehand then drops the bird squarely on Gaston’s head. Cue laughter.
Saturday Matinee: Different stagehand throws the bird instead of dropping it and beans Lefou directly in the face with the prop. Lefou falls over. Cue laughter.
Saturday Night: Bird is missing during curtain call. Director hauls the deer head down from it’s place on the tavern wall and tells Gaston and Lefou to revert to the old blocking i.e. no gunshot, no bird, just walk in with trophy. During Gaston and Lefou’s conversation, gun shot sound goes off and a stagehand throws the bird onto the stage…from the wrong side of the stage. Lefou and Gaston stare at it in awkward silence for a solid thirty seconds before Lefou makes off-script, subtle joke about Gaston’s gun going off late instead of early. Cue adults in the audience laughing.
Sunday Matinee: Director begs the stagehands to get the cue right at least once. Gunshot and bird prop go off without a hitch. Lefou accidentally catches the prop when it falls from the catwalk. He’s so startled that he caught it that Gaston runs right in to him. They drop both the gun and the bird props, and grab the wrong prop in their scramble. Gaston spends the rest of the scene gesturing dramatically with a stuffed pheasant, instead of a gun.
Sunday Night:
Director is fed up with bird prop, decides that Lefou should just carry bird prop in after gunshot happens off stage. Lefou accidentally squeezes the prop during the intro conversation, startling both actors into silence with the squeaky toy noise – apparently, neither of them realized it was a dog toy.
Monday Elementary School Show: Lefou walks on stage with the bird. Accidentally drops the prop during conversation with Gaston. Gaston doesn’t notice the dropped prop and steps on it. Cue depressingly sad squeaky toy noise. Cue ten years olds laughing.
In a dress rehearsal for Peter Pan, Wendy forgot one of her lines and started singing the star spangled banner and the audience was singing along and people got emotional
Once during the closing night of our high school production of south pacific, we were havin our pre-show pep talk, and our director reminded everyone (mostly seniors) not to go off script to try to be funny. Of course we had one lead who decided to ignore this advice. So during one scene where the sailors were “fishing” at the edge of the stage, he decides to pull up his rubber fish, make a comment about how it wasn’t big enough, and throw it back into the “ocean”, which of course, was the audience.
Now, this probably wouldn’t have been too much of a problem if he had gently tossed it, since it would have landed right behind the pit. But naturalt, he decided that this fish had to break free in the most dramatic way possible, so he winds up and chucks this fucking foot-long rubber fish with all of his strength.
So now imagine the stage crew, all of us huddled together, silently screaming as this limp fish goes sailing over the heads of the audience in what looks like a low-budget reenactment of free willy, only to slap some poor parent across the face.
I swear, you could almost hear the chorus of “mmmm whatcha saaayyy” rising from all those backstage.
From that moment on, all rubber fish were ferociously guarded by yours truly, under the direction of our stage manager.
This post gets better every time it shows up on my dash
My Junior year of high school our drama club put on Peter Pan,which involved the construction of a small boat fashioned out of scrap wood,plaster and an old wagon. A few of the actors who were cast as pirates had to ride the boat-wagon down the aisle to the front of the theatre,which had a concrete floor that sloped. About halfway down the brake they were using to control their speed gave out,and they crashed into the front of the stage at high speed.The entire boat imploded. The actors just sat there in silence for at least a full 10 seconds in the midst of the wreckage before my friend Adena screamed “ABANDON SHIP” and they all jumped out and took off running.
My school once did a parody of Cinderella and I was Cinderellas dog. At one point Cinderella, the Fairy Godmother, and the dog had to flea the ball. I thought going down the stage steps wasn’t dramatic enough for “fleeing” so I launched myself off the stage and landed painfully in the center isle about three rows in accompanied with a very, very loud thump of face on concrete where I laid there like a dead fish for a while. At this point Cinderella and the Fairy Godmother got to me, not knowing what to do they stepped over me and continued running. But Cinderella had forgotten to loose her shoe so half way out of the room she chucked it back where it hit me in the head. I bolted upright and ran shrieking hysterically out of the room. A moment later the Prince came down to where the shoe was picked it up, looked dramatically at where I had exited and said “I hope that dog’s okay.” completely forgetting his line.
This may be my all time favorite post.
I was once in a production of “Hello Dolly!” and the two leads were complete jokers and would prank each other during rehearsals all the time. The rest of the cast never thought they would do that during a show, but they told the chorus (separately) that they each were planning to add some tongue into the final kiss between Dolly and Horace. Of course, we told neither of them about the other’s plan, so during the very last show, we were all waiting in the wings to see what would happen. What happened was we ended the show with the two leads violently frenching each other on stage as the curtain dropped. They started dating two weeks later.
Last year we did “Once Upon a Mattress” and the jester was supposed to do a somersault off of a stack of like 3 mattresses and then the minstrel and Lady Larken would be covered up with a blanket, but during one show the jester knocked down one of the mattresses and we had no time to fix it so we had to throw the mattress on top of them
In my Freshman year of high-school we put on a performance of Les Mis. In said play there’s the scene where Javert and Valjean confront each-other by the bedside of the now dead Fantine. well, Javert Had his prop weapon (I can’t remember if it was a sword or truncheon,) but Valjean didn’t have his. So we the Crew decided during our builds that we’d rig up a chair to break so our Valjean could use one of the broken legs as a club kind of thing. For all of our shows it went off without a hitch, but for the last one we decided to have some fun.
Originally we really just weakened one of the legs so it would break off after our Valjean hurled the chair on the floor, but for the final chair we too saws and cut into everything. All the legs, the back poles, everything. We cut it just enough so that our Valjean would be able to sit in the chair and not break it, but when he tossed it on the ground? Chaos.
And that’s what happened.
All we told him before the show was “When your toss the chair on the ground, give it your all.” And so when the scene came all of the crew gathered behind the legs and assorted hidden places of the stage to watch. When our Valjean hurled the chair to the ground it shattered. Wood and splinters went in practically every direction and I’m sure that I even saw our Fantine flinch as she feigned death. There was no chair leg left for him to use.
So we all got to witness as our Valjean fended off Javert with naught but a splinter.
Fun times.
THERE ARE BETTER STORIES EVERY TIME I LOVE THIS POST SO MUCH
Back in high school our drama department was putting on a comedy, whose name escapes me now, but the intro starts off telling how the hero was born. The two actors playing his parents came out from either side of the stage and joined in the middle and waved at the audience while the narrator spoke the story. At one point he states ’ they had a bouncing baby boy…’ and a toy baby was literally thrown on stage with a ’ AWAAA’ baby sound effect, then was caught by the father and given to the mother.
Now the first show went off without a hitch.
The second show, my friend was the stage hand that threw the baby on stage.
My friend was also the star quarterback for our football team.
Second show comes on, actors meet in the stage and wave, narrator says his line… And from right stage with the sound effect on cue this baby doll was fucking HURLED into the air about 10 fucking feet and dropped like a sack of wet rags down to the actors and the father actually CAUGHT it first try.
I have never in my life seen the 8D face on an actual person until that day.
A classic story among the theatre kids at my school is the chaotic performance of “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe” where Aslan was literally a cardboard box with a shoddy lion face drawn on it, and the girl who operated the back half split her pants during the Saturday matinee
What would a open mic night standup in ML Paris look like? Can you even fathom how hilarious that would be? Just a handful of comics cracking jokes about what traveling abroad is like.
Comedian: “The stereotypes against the french are just out of control now. Everyone expects me to be wearing a beret and eating snails and that’s not fair. But you know, you have to hand it to them, there is a pretty sure fire way to know if someone is french now even from a distance. Because if we see a butterfly we will freaking scream.”
I love the character specific ones, like Nino gets sorta well known in the comedy circuit when he’s a little older and he’s up there, smiling and interrupts his own jokes half the time with laughing, but his timing is impeccable.
Nino: “So, super villains.” *the crowd waits for him to say more, but he shrugs as if the sentence needs nothing else, and laughter picks up. He’s grinning before he ‘sobers up’.* “Bad news, obviously. Probably. But, I can’t be the onlyjaded guy out there right? Like, am I not the only one who hears ‘MONSTER!!!’ and asks without looking up from my phone like, ‘Well, where? Like here?’” *crowds starts laughing and Nino pantomimes texting. “’Cause like, if it’s not on this block man, I was gonna order in probably.’” *laughter continues. Nino waits for a second nodding and smiling. “Have I put a pizzaman through hell by ordering two large pizzas in the middle of a warzone?” *nods* “Yes. Yes i have. Those guys are the real heroes.” *crowd laughs and he chuckles, taking his own queue to get back on topic. He readjusts the mic stand, feigning apprehension.* “So yeah. Super villains, bad news. Some more than others, and like, don’t get me wrong! It’s bad, but, come one. Everyone is a little curious what their super villain is. JUST A LITTLE.” *he calls over the laughter of the crowd, making them laugh even harder. He holds up his free hand that isnt dedicated to the microphone like hes placating them.* “I’m not saying that’s cool! I’m saying that’s the way it is. Paris is a weird freaking place now, gotta take those changes in stride. And for some of us, we already know, right? Got any other akumas in the house? *he waits, listening for the three or four cheers from different parts of the room* “Respect! Alright, so I’ve got something to ask, now that we’ve got that out in the open.” *he pauses, gesturing a little and looking around, building the tension* “Be real with me… But, come on. Was anyone else just alittle disappointed?” *the crowd freaking explodes. Nino waits and tries to start again but he starts laughing too, and eventually has to raise his voice to be heard over the crowd.* “I mean, come on! You’re already striping me of my free will, now I don’t even get to pretend in the back of my head that maybe I looked super cool? I mean listen, we’ve all had our moments but, please appreciate the fact that I now have to live with the fact that my ‘dark’ alter ego is a bubble wielding super clown. Really, Hawkmoth? I don’t even get that much?” *Nino lets the laughter ride out, shaking his head and pacing the stage, chuckling to himself. In a slightly quieter voice he says* “Paris is weird man.” *slight laughter* “It is, it really is. But I grew up here you know, I remember the ‘pre-butterfly douchebag days. How weird is it? For the people who move here? Like when they pack their bags, hop on a train, get all moved in then BOOM” *Nino makes a large explosion with his hands* “Huge explosion! Shakes the earth! Fire down the side streets, evil cackling in the air, and they are seized with terror only to realize” *he pauses, turning full circle on the stage before shrugging* “No one cares. Everyone looks up, sure, they’re checking where it’s at but the people of Paris have got the calm and orderly exit thing down, it’s been years we are used to it. We’re just like ‘Oh, wow thats a rather big one isn’t it? Huh, anyways-’ Yeah no one cares. Unless it’s Mister Pigeon.” *huge laugh, a few foreign looking people look confused and Nino chuckles* “For those of you with an intact survival instinct and dont live here, it’s worth explaining. That this city has, twice, been taken over by a mad, pigeon wielding bad guy. TWICE. This is some real shit. People respect pigeons now, I will pay you to find one native citizen who still has the balls to kick at a pigeon. ONE.”
and so on and so forth, with such famous bits as ‘Cat Noir makes a shitty roommate’ ‘Best Man at a superhero wedding doesnt really make you feel like the best man’ and ‘The Bubbler II: Return of the Super Clown (God Damnit)’
Part Two cause i wanted to write something fun.
*a voice is heard over the speakers addressing a large waiting crowd in a sizeable sold out theater. People look forward as the opening act leaves the stage and the camera cuts to see Nino Lahiffe, about 28 adjusting his loose fitting tie. He turns towards the camera and gives a thumbs up and a grin, stepping in place a little bit and rocking his weight to get hyped as the announcement plays out. As soon as his name is called the crowd erupts into cheers and the lights flare up and he walks out onto stage, raising a hand to greet them and walking to center stage where a solitary mic stand is waiting, a stool with a glass of water off to one side.*
“Hello Paris, hello!” *he waits for a moment, letting the cheers ride out and grins out to them as he subtly adjusts the mic stand* “Wow no pressure huh? Jesus, everybody was able to make it, everybody? Not even one person was like ‘Oh shit a tree!’ and was busy in the ER? Well thats good.” *laughter as Nino shrugs, chuckling a little* “Damn I was pretty set on riding my B game tonight but fine” *he makes an exaggerated hand gesture and sarcastically says* “I’ll try.”
*Nino takes the mic off the stand and holds it in one hand, putting the other in the pocket of his suit jacket*
“I really appreciate you all coming here tonight, it’s been awhile since I’ve done one of these. I’ve gotten engaged since then.” *he is interrupted by the crowd cheering and clapping and he throws out his free hand, smiling excitedly* “I know right! I was also impressed it happened.” *laughter, he steps away from the stand and paces a little* “I’ve got absolutely no idea why shes marrying me but as long as we have the wedding before she realizes I’m a loser then i’ve got her.” *laughter* “Hehe, oh it’s great. She’s amazing, she scares the crap out of me but she fantastic.” *chuckle rolls through the crowd* “Now the literal first thing everyone says to me when i tell them i’m engaged is ‘Whens the wedding!?’ and the answer is ‘I don’t fuckin’ know. Spring? My wife knows, my wife is doing all of that.’ And thats not even me being lazy and not helping her with the wedding, thats her having like a million things she wanted to do and cross referencing venues before I even got off one knee so like, shes got it.” *the crowd chuckles, the camera cuts to a couple in the crowd laughing before cutting back to Nino. He waits for a second and shrugs* “She’s got it handled, i’m not worried about it. I just asked for a few days heads up so I knew where to be, and then i’ll walk out there and get to see what my wedding looks like, cause as it stands i have absolutely no idea.” *he chuckles, still slowly pacing the stage and gesturing as he talks* “So i’m not worried about the wedding, i’m not a cold feet kind of guy, i love her to death so there isnt anything to get nervous about. The only thing about getting married thats freaking me out is the SECOND question everyone asks me which is” *he mimics a high pitched voice* “When are you gonna have a baby!?” *he switches back to his own voice, shouting at the invisible aggressor* “Who the fuck is gonna trust me with a baby!? Get out of my house!!” *the crowd erupts into laughter and Nino looks out at them in exasperation* “Thank you! Thank you for laughing i needed someone else to realize that I should not be left in charge of children, at all. Because everyone else just shrugs it off like” *makes a dismissive hand gesture* “You’ll be fine! It’s not a life changing decision at all that leaves you paralyzed with the responsibility of another life, not in the slightest! I mean, look at how together you are! You can totally raise another human being with your existing experience of fucking up your own life. Here’s a diaper bag!” *the crowd cracks up and Nino throws up his free hand, shaking his head and chuckling a little* “Like, holy shit dude. Everything is way too recorded now I can’t have kids. As soon as my kid figures out what Netflix is he can look up an hour long special of his dad being an asshole for money. And then he can look up from the TV and see his dad being an asshole for no monetary gain at all, he’s just being an asshole.”
*he shakes his head again, his free hand on his hip before gesturing out again* “Like, genuinely? You’d kind of have to be an idiot to leave me with your kid. Or just an asshole, and in some fantastic circumstances both. Which leads me to a funny story.” *the crowd oohs and starts laughing in anticipation, taking in his ‘sheesh’ facial expression as he sets the mic back on the stand* “Yeah, its gonna be one of those.” *they laugh again and Nino pauses for a moment to preface the story* “Real quick. Anybody in here know who Adrien Agreste is?”
*Nino leans back a bit as a significant portion of the audience screams, the sound very high pitched. Nino pretends to wince in pain before laughing as the cheers dies down and he addresses the audience with a raised eyebrow.*
“Did you notice how every single one of those was women? He’s a model, for the straight guys out there who didn’t know. He’s my best friend and I’ve known him for a very long time, the dude is my homie. But that mostly just means that he loves to fuck with me.” *he lets the slight laugh die down* “So, my buddy Adrien got engaged and married about two years ago, and he had his first baby preeeetty soon after wedding, they knew they wanted kids. This story happened not very long after i announced my engagement and the baby question starting coming up left and right, and I was talking to Adrien about it. His own baby is about like, one at this time.”
*Nino then begins to act out a conversation between himself and Adrien, his pantomime of Adrien feeding a baby from a bottle as they talk*
“So we’re talking and I say, ‘Hey man, literally everyone is riding me about having kids, my mom won’t let it go and Alya’s parents are pretty all over it too. Like, if thats what Alya wants i dont want to shoot that down but i’m kinda freaking out over it.’”
“Adrien is listening to me vent about this and asks the obvious question of, ‘Well, do you want kids?’ Which really fucking doesn’t help, obviously.” *the crowd laughs and Nino continues* “But i just shoot back, ‘Hell i don’t know man.’”
*he switches back to Adrien, rocking the baby now* “’What are you afraid of? You’d be a great father, its pretty crazy i’ll admit but you’ll get used to it, its great.’” *Nino shrugs dramatically before saying back as himself* “I can’t be a dad! I don’t know how to be a dad! I have never had a paternal feeling in my life, what if it gets sick?! What if i give it fucking issues?! Any literal bad anything that happens to or with this new human being is my fault, thats fucking stressful dude!’”
“Now at this point Adrien says, rather unhelpfully,” *he shrugs as Adrien, dismissively patting the invisible baby with one hand* “it just kind of kicks in man i was worried about the same thing when we had Emma. But like, as soon as she was born it just kicked on and i knew what to do.”
*Nino pauses before making a huge ‘WHAT THE FUCK’ gesture with his hands, letting the microphone slap against his thigh when he throws his hands down. The crowd explodes into laughter as he starts ranting in exasperation*
“What the fuck kind of advice is that! Just go for it? If you don’t know how to drive a fucking car you don’t just GET IN. Like, your car has the emergency brake on and the engine light going off, somethings on fire and the oil needs to be changed and you’re just like ‘EH,’ *he shrugs dramatically* “I’ll figure it out.”
*theres a huge laugh from the crowd as Nino starts to pace the stage, laughing breathily to himself* “Christ man.”
Part 3 (direct continuation)
“Anyways” *Nino draws up to a stop, still laughing a little as he rubs at his face* “That was ridiculous. So, naturally, when your best friend expresses deep psychological issues with the concept of caring for a tiny human being, the next obvious course of action is to, clearly” *he pauses, raising his voice as he continues in a harsh exasperated tone* “LEAVE YOUR FRIEND WITH YOUR OWN TINY HUMAN. For a WEEK.” *he looks around* “ALONE” *the crowd cracks up and Nino looks around as if searching for support*
“Any parents in here capable of understanding how giving your best friend, REGARDLESS of how much faith you have in them a trial run at parenting by chucking over your own kid at them to have a go with is a really stupid plan? I’m not sure what he was hoping for exactly. He leaves for a week long vacation with his wife and my wife by the way, just takes ‘em both, poof, gone. He takes them both away and just goes and does his own thing, stress free, no baby to be worrying about, and when he comes back not only is his child alive but his best friend also has a deep and honest desire to have his own child. I’m pretty sure in his mind that was the ideal outcome.” *Nino looks around, hands held out* “Are we all on the same page that that is stupid as fuck? Okay good, let’s continue” *good laugh, Nino continues to slowly pace the stage*
“I’m not sure it will come as a surprise to you, but that is not how it went down.” *he lets the crowd react before chastising them quickly* “NO the baby isnt dead, fucks sake. It’s completely alive, its got all its limbs and everything, which honestly is a testament to me, I think. Because not only did i prevent anything else from dismembering the baby, but I didn’t dismember the baby.” *he gets a huge reaction from the crowd, a large laugh rolling through the building as he holds his hands up again in a wide gesture.* “You see the people laughing? Everybody who laughed just then? They laughed because they too have also fantasized at length just- fucking just smothering that loud crying poopy fuckin’ LITTLE-” *he pantomimes smooshing something down, the laugh gets bigger* “You don’t do it! You don’t! But you fucking think about it. You just stand over the crib as it screams” *he positions himself as if he is looking into a crib* “And its covered in its own poop and the pee is on the way, the food it wouldn’t freaking eat is all over its shirt and its stressed out because its hungry and POOP COVERED and you just- you just look at it like” *his voice gets quiet and trance like, looking down at the baby with glassy eyes* “’What if the screaming just stopped?’ *big laugh. the trance like tone continues after a short pause for the laugh. “’What if… what if it just stopped. Doesn’t matter how. But it- it just… shhhhh’” *he pretends to lift a pillow and slowly lower it into the crib, the crowd gasping and laughing* “Shhhhh….”
*he ends that little scene as the laugh rides out and looks back at the crowd* “Now, I don’t think i’m a bad person for that, almost entirely because i still love the hell out of that kid, i do. She’s fantastic, genuinely, and the fact that i can still love her even after cleaning poop out of just- EVERYTHING says a lot about me, i think. However i think it also says a lot about me that pretty quickly my murderous daydreams became entirely focused on Adrien.” *another big laugh* “It was a lot like I was the mother, like a pregnant woman in the hospital bed just screaming, and Adrien is the man and as i’m going through all this horror and suffering i just look at him like” *his tone gets dark and angry as he yells* “YOU. YOU DID THIS TO ME!”
*colossal laugh, Nino carries out the enraged expression for a few moments longer to escalate the joke before returning to his ranting*
“I was somewhat concerned i was going to kill him when I saw him again, however i am also kind of stubborn. I’m not always prideful but the whole situation felt like a challenge to me. I was stuck between my fiance and myself both not having a whole lot of faith in me caring for a baby on my own, and Adrien and his wife’s utter certainty that I had it completely handled. On the one hand I was glad my wife could see my side of things, however,” *he pauses, his free hand dropping to his hip* “I was also kind of pissed! Like, Hey! I know i think i’m incompetent but, fuck.” *a large laugh picks up* “We’re engaged!! At least lie, like, ‘Oh honey you’re worrying over nothing, it’ll be fine.” *he shakes his head* “Nope. Alya was pretty immediately on my side with saying ‘You’re doing what?! What the hell it’ll DIE.’” *the crowd laughs again. the camera cuts away and shows Alya in the crowd, sitting next to Adrien and Marinette. Alya is laughing into her hands and Adrien is laughing pretty hard at the story as a whole. It cuts back to Nino, walking back towards the stand*
“So in a way I was pretty determined to succeed. The first two days were- they were-,” *he pauses, shaking his head and blowing out a huge gush of air. He is super genuine when he says,* “It was bad man, it was pretty bad. I didn’t want to let Adrien in on the fact that I was crazy fucking it up and I ALSO didn’t want to let Alya figure out that things were NOT cool back at dad town. So a handful of my other friends, the internet and a kindly Asian store owner became my main sources of information.” *there is another long laugh. Nino chuckles himself, fitting the mic back on the stand and using both of his hands to gesture* “Now, this part of the story my friend doesn’t actually know. I know he’s in the crowd so, Adrien buddy. It’s cool. I love you.” * the crowd laughs and the camera cuts back to Adrien. Alya is REALLY laughing now and Adrien has a wary grin on his face. You can see him say fearfully ‘Oh jesus’ before it cuts back to Nino*
“So, at the close of the second day things were getting bad, and I had no idea why. The baby was fighting me like it was Armageddon and i had the last source of clean water, it was MAYHEM. She was kicking me and screaming non stop, and I was honestly starting to lose it. It was fed, it was clean, it had a nap I was completely out of ideas for how to get this thing to shut the fuck up.” *the crowd laughs in anticipation and Nino continues* “I finally get the fucking thing to lay down, right? It’s sleeping, sort of, it keeps waking up and yelling and pooping and sleeping again, but about halfway through the night i started getting worried. I was pretty tuned in to this kids screaming patterns, like all the little subtleties. I could tell a ‘feed me now’ scream apart from a ‘i’m tired asshole’ scream pretty easily at this point, but by nearly dawn the scream was sounding really different and it was freaking me out. Because in my non educated not a dad opinion it sort of sounded like it was in pain? But it was fine! I was pretty sure, it wasnt bleeding it didn’t so much as have a freaking rash, i was loosing it. I was like ‘Yup this is it. It’s dying and I don’t know how to fix it, everything is awful and my friend is going to kill me.’ This was pretty much everything I was afraid of. And, honestly, it was kind of interesting.” *he pauses* “Not the, it’s dying part. That was just- that’s not what I meant. I mean that after it was all done and I was looking back on it it was pretty interesting how much i COULDNT deal. As soon as the idea that it was in pain occurred to me I couldn’t stand still, it was as close to the ‘clicking on’ thing as i could get, i think. Because as soon as it was a problem I was literally tuned IN. I bundled that thing the hell up and got out the door because i was responsible for this baby and god be damned if i am going to let it be in pain. I was GONE.” *Nino pantomimes sprinting out the door, returning to the stand to continue*
“I’ve got this thing strapped to me like i’m about to climb a mountain and i get outside, the sun is barely out and im sprinting. I was honestly so rattled and sleep deprived at this point that i was nearly insane, so what is my first and foremost course of action?” *he waits, looking around as if waiting for someone to have an answer before saying* “I run up to the first middle aged woman i can find and hand them the baby.”
*the crowd GASPS and the camera cuts to Adrien again, the model laughing like crazy and Marinette’s mouth wide open*
~to be continued~
Part 4 (direct continuation)
*the crowd is really laughing now, Nino in the middle of pantomiming unwrapping the baby from his chest and holding it out away from him.*
“Listen! I know that sounds nuts but /I/ was nuts. I was going insane with this kid, and in my thought process I am wildly fucking unqualified, so lets find a mom. Right? Isn’t that fair?? I know I sound like a crazy person but I didn’t know what to do, maybe she would! This is how I was introduced to Liu Fong.”
*the crowd is cracking up, it briefly cuts back to Marinette and Adrien, Adrien shaking his head and laughing as Marinette is clearly talking to him in a very quick way. She seems like shes laughing, but she also doesnt seem pleased. The camera cuts back to Nino, the mic off its stand as he begins to act out a scene that starts with him chucking the baby*
“It wasn’t even 6 AM I’d say, so the first interaction this lady has of the day is some crazed barf covered dude with a baby that is white as hell and clearly not his running the fuck up to her” *huge laugh* “and before I even introduce myself I hand her this WAILING child and say ‘HELP ME.’”
*Nino looks to the crowd with a wild expression, causing another round of huge laughter. He sobers a bit to tell the story*
“Now Liu, bless her heart, she really had to deal with some shit. What do you even do when someone hands you a baby like that? I’m guessing that in her reasoning, this guy clearly shouldnt have it, so im going to TAKE IT, so HE doesn’t have it. She snatched up Emma pretty quick, absolutely bewildered and probably a little scared but I knew I had pegged her right. Because as soon as the baby was in her arms and it cried again she zoned in. Suddenly Emma was the only thing that mattered. Fuck the introductions, Liu got to business.”
*he is about to continue before he suddenly pauses, the room silent for a moment before he breaks the scene and turns towards the crowd, his tone different.*
“Alright im just gonna warn you now my impression of a Chinese accent is going to be mildly uncool so-” *he gets interrupted by a laugh and he starts to chuckle, his hand gestures placating as he continues* “ -so lets all just let that be. So- anyways.”
*he resets the scene, pantomiming Liu holding the baby, shrinking in quite a bit to imply how short she is. His immediate first words are in an extraordinarily stereotypical accent*
“’Whose baby is this?? Where did you get the baby???’”
*the crowd explodes as he switches back to himself, back to being desperate and crazed.*
“’I didn’t steal it its my friends and its BROKEN.’”
*he turns away to reference the crowd* “These are real things I said as an adult man caring for a child.” *another laugh. he returns to the scene.*
“Liu is looking down at Emma probably wondering what the hell BROKEN means, and wondering if she should just ditch me and save the baby, but then Emma cried again, and it was like Liu was partial to some secret ass knowledge that I had no part of, because apparently she knew exactly what the fucking problem was.” *he stands up, and has the most DONE expression of all time as he tells the crowd* “She had an ear infection. Do you have ANY idea how fucking PSYCHO babies get when they have an EAR INFECTION. Liu didnt see shit she just knew with her fucking wisdom, the babies ear hadnt swollen at all it was just uncomfortable as fuck, but forget about that who gives a shit-” *the crowd laughs huge as he completely disregards the baby, now entirely focused on himself as he starts to rant* “Heres my problem with that. Its because I was living the timeline, I was in it, i’ve seen movies. I’ve watched cop dramas, I notice when the timing doesnt make sense. There is no way. No. WAY that Adrien didnt know.”
*the crowd gasps and starts to laugh, and the camera cuts back to Adrien, who has a very guilty ‘oh shit’ face as Nino stares directly at him from the stage.*
“So THAT MEANS, That NONE of this was to ‘help me discover how to be a father’. This was ADRIEN vanishing on a vacation with our wives and dumping the baby who he KNEW would be a lunatic on his best friend. HE KNEW, HE DID IT ON PURPOSE.”
*the camera cuts back to adrien who is laughing hysterically now, Marinette and Alya shaking their heads and crying from laughter as Nino points out Adrien directly.* “Look at this guy! Look at this guilty motherfucker! I want everyone to- Can we get the house lights? Get the house lights up!”
*there is a milisecond pause before the lights in the theater come back up, revealing the entire crowd and in particular Adrien. Nino is pacing towards the stage closest to his friend as he points to him still and says* “No lets really get him, lets hit that spot light.”
*on queue a follow spot illuminates Adrien and you see him say ‘Oh SHIT’. He looks to his wife for help but Marinette has her hands up, leaning away and out of the light and leaving him on his own. The focus cuts back to Nino.*
“Thats right asshole, this entire million dollar production was a cover for your roast. This is only minute ten motherfucker get ready for a ride.”
Part 5
(Sorry for the long ass post my guys)
*It’s the middle of
the show, some time has passed and Nino is talking about children still to some
extent, transitioning into the topic of relationships*
“Ladies lets get real for a second, this ones for the girls.
I want all of you to listen very carefully cause it’s very important to know.” *He gestures forward across the crowd,
pointing at individual women* “If you don’t have a man who is ride or die
then he does NOT get to ride, you hear me?”
*All of the women in
the crowd cheer as the men laugh, and Nino is pacing the stage* “Your dick
gotta be this big to ride my man and we all know you were leaning into it, so
you’ve got to have something else to offer. You’ve got yourself a beautiful
woman, a dynamite lady and you think she’s gonna stick around with your ass if the
two of you can’t rob a bank at the drop of a hat? I don’t fucking think so. *The women cheer again and Nino nods his
head approvingly*
“Now I say its for the ladies but lets be honest guys we
want a ride or die girl too, and I would like to clarify that this does NOT
mean she lets you get away with jack shit it does NOT. No way my man, it just
means that shit gets handled in house. No outside parties involved, in my house
there is not the court of law or any outside moral influence, there is only the
internally delivered justice of my wife to be and sometimes me if I’m right,
but I rarely am so mostly Alya”. *This
gets a substantial laugh as he turns to walk the other direction across the
stage* “Nobody else gets a say, not a judge or a jury or any kind of
character witness, however lets set
up a scenario. What if,” *he pauses,
looking around* “The justice system disagrees. What if they think they’ve
got something to say? Well easy. We follow the three step household rule of
action.”
*He holds up three
fingers in succession with complete command of the audience*
“Ride, Die, Alibi.”
*There is a huge
reaction as people laugh in anticipation and Nino launches into a story*
“That’s the kind of rock solid shit I’m looking for.
Here is an event that actually took place in real life but
has since been handled so I’m allowed to legally talk about it. Now, I could
just tell you everything that happened right off the bat but I want you guys to
be exactly where Alya was that morning.”
My girl had absolutely no idea anything was happening at
all,” *He gestures with each statement in
the list* “She didn’t know what I had been up to, she didn’t know where I had
gone, she had no idea I had even gone out the night before, and she had
no idea who I had been with or what I was doing. She woke up and I was still in
bed and she went about her morning getting ready for work, business as usual.” *He paces to the stand and leans on it* “It’s
a quiet Monday morning or whatever, she’s in her PJs, I’m sleeping, shes making
breakfast, theres a knock on the door.” *He
pantomimes a turn, rapping the mic with his knuckle and waiting tensely for a
beat. He turns back to the audience* “Rarely ever good.”
*The crowd laughs and
leans in as he acts out the story*
“Alya crosses to the door, bless her heart, asking aloud ‘Who
is it?’”
*He puts a hand over
the mic, muffling the sound and using a voice* “Police”
*The crowd reacts and
he turns to them again, restating* “Rarely ever good. But Alya opens the
door with absolutely no information at all, and the two police officers present
tell her instantly. ‘We are looking for Nino Lahiffe.’ *He looks to everyone as the crowd gasps and mutters* “And you wanna
know what my fucking girl said?”
“She looked him right in the eye without a seconds
hesitation, and said, ‘I have never heard that name in my life.’”
*Nino whirls around
and pumps his fist in the air triumphantly as the crowd explodes into cheers.
He yells into the mic, pumping his free hand in victory* “NOW THAT’S WHAT
IM FUCKING TALKING ABOUT! That’s the kind of fucking blind ass shit I’m looking
for! Fellas this is what I mean! Get you a girl who will look a cop in the eye
and say shes never seen your ass in her life when your name is on the fucking lease. Get you a girl
who goes that hard, don’t settle for anything less.”
Content Warnings: Religion, food, symbolic cannibalism, symbolic gore, penis mention, Blasphemy, SO MUCH BLASPHEMY, weapons, war mention. Mind the warnings and your health always comes first. Its a HILARIOUS story, I promise.
As always, all the names have been changed to protect people’s identities. This is a long one, so Press J now if you want to skip it.
When my dad was a young man and still a practicing catholic, he participated in a small church communion that nearly got him and six other people excommunicated.
Father Patrick ran a small church outside of California Polytechnical and tended to be… rather more liberal in his interpretations of scripture than most of the church was, which made him something of a hit with the local students and liberally-inclined populace. Pat went to all manner of civil demonstrations, condemned the shit out of the vietnam war and the politics that lead to it and so on. In January of 1969 a series of incidents lead him to start exploring “nontraditional” means of holding Mass as a means of reaching out to his community and exploring his own faith, which ultimately culminated in the 1969 Easter Mass Incident.
For those of you who weren’t raised catholic, Communion is this ritual where you become one with Jesus by eating a really horrible bland wafer cookie and taking a shot of wine (called hosts), which then *literally* become the flesh and blood of jesus in your mouth, allowing him to become one with you. It’s big McFucking deal, and you have the opportunity to take communion at every mass. All this had to be explained to me second-hand because after this and Dad’s 51 days in the army, Dad decided he wouldn’t inflict religion on any children he might have in the future.
*
“Hey dad,” Six-year old me asked the first time he told me this story after my practicing friends were talking about getting wine at church. “Isn’t that cannibalism?”
“We’re getting to that.” He waved.
*
The First Incident in January when, due to a serious cock-up by the church, all the hosts Father Pat received were moldering and spoiled and probably would have killed someone if he’d actually fed anyone them. But it was the first mass of the year, when a peak number of people came in after vowing to got to church more for new year’s. He couldn’t NOT have communion.
“I’ll bake.” offered Maria, the parish secretary and probably the best baker in the county. “So we have hosts. Jesus will understand.”
Father Patrick, not one to pass up the chance at Maria’s cooking, immediately agreed.
A Host is supposed to be composed solely of unleavened wheat flour and water, which is why they taste terrible. It’s a theological point of some importance relating to Exodus or something but Maria had an important theological counterpoint: Jesus both divine and loves all his children, ergo, Jesus would neither be a nasty bland cracker nor want his children to suffer as such and so instead, she made Mexican wedding cookies.
They were a SPECTACULAR hit. Many praises were heaped upon father patrick for the Much Better Wafers and that they’d be sure to show up next week as long as Maria kept making them. Father Patrick figuring that hey, anything that gets people in the doors is good and really, if it was turning into Jesus once inside the parishioner, did it really matter what the wafers were made of? So he continued to let Maria bake the Hosts, and encouraged her to try out new flavors, like nutmeg and cinnamon.
This went on swimmingly for a few weeks until The Bishop showed up for a surprise visit the same week Maria decided to experiment with rainbow sprinkles.
Dad remembers hearing the bishop through the windows roaring “THE HOLY BODY OF CHRIST DOES! NOT! CONTAIN! RAINBOW! SPRINKLES!”
The matter went clean up to The Archbishop, who decided that while Pat was probably right to not feed spoiled hosts to his parish, he should attend some remedial classes to remember what Communion was all about, so that if it happened again, he’s come up with a more suitable substitute.
Father Patrick returned in late March, full of spite and some fascinating new ideas.
*
“Is this where the Cannibalism happens?” Six-year-old me asked, eager to get to the good parts.
*
At his remedial classes, the teacher had stressed the importance of transubstantiation, aka “That bit where the wafer and wine, Actually, Literally, become the flesh of Jesus Christ and we expect you to swallow.” Also on the syllabus was understanding the importance of Christ’s suffering and sacrifice.
“So, I was thinking about Easter Service.” Said father Patrick one afternoon while dad was doing his computer science homework at the church because his dorm was a barely-standing fire hazard and the library was where you went to have sex.
“Well, we do re-enactments for christmas. Why not on easter? Why not re-enact the crucifixion of Christ right here? Make it real for everyone. Trauma’s great for bonding a community together.”
“Who’s playing Jesus?” asked Maria, always one for a good laugh.
“That’s the thing- A Host, it doesn’t look much like flesh, right? Doesn’t look like much of anything, really. Not great for reinforcing one’s belief.
What if, instead, we- and I mean you, Maria, I can’t cook to save my life- make a man-sized loaf of bread, maybe in the shape of a T, and we have some of the boys dress up as romans and whip the bread and we pour the wine on so it’s bleeding and them- then we make a big wooden cross and actually nail the bread to it with, I don’t know, railroad spikes, more wine all over. And we raise the cross, all while telling the story of the crucifixion.”
He paused to take a drink, Maria slowly crumpling onto the floor in horrified laughter and Dad now thoroughly distracted from his homework.
“Then we lower the cross, and invite everyone who wants to take communion up to tear a hunk of Jesus off. Just descend into his corpse like vultures. I think that’d really be a good bonding experience for the church.” he nodded thoughtfully. “The hard, part, I suppose, will be finding enough romans.”
“I WANNA BE LONGINUS.” bellowed my father, barreling into the room.
And so, the plan was hatched. Dad hit up every other guy in the Church and eventually rounded up four more romans, three of them from the Education Department of Cal Poly, and one guy from Chemistry, who just liked to watch things burn.
This, being a play, naturally meant that there was a rehearsal, and test Bread jesus. Maria had decided that if they were going to start being extra-literal, she needed to make the most lifelike Bread jesus possible, and made a distressingly buff and human-proportioned Jesus by Advanced bread-braiding, complete with plaited hair, quail’s-egg-and-raisin eyes, bready muscle groups, and an eight-pack because why not make the lord completely shredded?* She also made the important theological decision that since Jesus loves everyone and was happy to die in spite of all his suffering, he should be smiling, and had a toothy corn-kernel smile. He was Wonderful and Terrifying all at once.
“Maria,” asked Father Patrick after a few minutes of delighted and horrified cooing over Jesus’ toothy grin and abdominals. “Why is he wearing a tea-towel?
“Well, he’s the Son of God. A Man. With all that entails.” She said, pointedly staring at Father Patrick while everyone stared at the suspiciously lumpy tea-towel. “And he might have… burnt, slightly.”
Everyone nodded and agreed that the tea-towel was the best course of action. The rehearsal goes splendidly and everyone agrees that this is the most delicious Jesus they’ve ever had.
*
Easter Sunday arrives and the Church is PACKED, from the more lapsed Catholics showing up for a high holiday, parents visiting for spring break and a whole horde of newcomers who had gotten wind that something was up and they ought to come.
Dad is a lanky as hell 21-year old composed mostly of technical jargon and acne but he is STOKED to be playing Longinus, the roman that speared Jesus on the cross, because he gets to do the BEST technical effect in the whole parade. Since he came in at the end me missed a good portion of the sermon, but did hear the “oooh” from the crowd as the massive cross was dragged in by the other Romans, followed by horrified gasps and high screams and a discernible “What the FUCK” as they brought in Bread Jesus 2.0, whipping him enthusiastically, and hammering him into the cross, the sound of wine splashing onto the floor loud in the terrified silence of that Parishioners.
Finally Father Patrick gets to the part about Longinus, and Dad comes sprinting down the aisle as hard as he can, because in order for Bread Jesus to be seen by everyone, his middle had to be about 10 feet off the ground, so Dad had to run, shrieking latin curses, down the length of the church, with a big honking spear and take a flying leap at Jesus in order to spear him in the gut.
Please take moment to imagine you are some normal god-fearing catholic who has decided to visit little bobby or maybe patricia at college and you’re all going to church together like a nice family and this Fucking madman has decided to go all Silence of the Lambs on mass and now there’s some sort of underfed translucently pale man in ill-fitting Roman armor and cape flying at a horrifying glutinous effigy of your lord and savior, with an actual fucking spear, screaming like a madman. Don’t you feel yourself drawing closer to God already? Defensively, perhaps, like an octopus trying to ooze itself into a crevice against the horrors of the ocean.
However, two things happen that were not planned on
1. Dad misses. In his defense, Bread Jesus is close to but not quite the size of a man- more like the size of a doughy teenager, and his middle is a small target 10 feet up in the air and dad is has a computer science minor, not an athletics scholarship. He misses by about 8 inches and instead very solidly stabs Bread Jesus right through the groin, leaving a big hole in Maria’s tea-towel and the spear jutting out at a decidedly… attentive angle, as Bread Jesus’s Bread Dick drops to the floor with a splat. Nobody notices this, however because
2. In rehearsal, Dad had managed to get the spear right in jesus’s navel but neither Father Patrick nor the other romans could get the wine up there to make his middle appropriately bloodied.
Maria come up with the Genius solution that since wine is made of grapes and Jam is made of grapes, she could make a jelly-filled Jesus for Dad to stab. There was a normal-sized test loaf and when dad stabbed it on the table, it had a nicely gooey dribbling effect.
However, this time the loaf was torso-sized, still hot from the oven and upright, so when dad speared the very end of the loaf, all the steam-pressured jam had collected at the bottom and a spray of lukewarm smuckers exploded out from bread jesus, turning the first three pews into a splash zone of symbolic entrails.
There was a hot, sticky minute of complete silence in the church after that.
Then, Father Patrick indicated it was time for the cross to be lowered, and continued on with the normal preparations of the Host, he himself covered in hot smuckers, as though nothing particularly ordinary was occuring, quietly kicking the bread-dick under the altar. At the end of it all, Father Patrick and invited everyone up with the Last Oration:
“Thou, O God, has kindly allowed us to have a part in this Holy Sacrifice; for this we give Thee thanks. Accept it now to Thy glory and be ever mindful of our weakness. Amen.”
…And everybody came up, shuffling like terrified zombies, pinching off tiny bits at first but then the madness took them and they began tearing apart bread jesus by the handful, weeping as they partook, scattered prayers and begging for forgiveness. The whole congregation was kneeling about the altar, tearful and united in their guilt and their need for God.
*
“IS CHURCH ALWAYS LIKE THAT?” six-year-old me asked, absolutely stoked. I’d convert on the spot if I got a show like that.
“No, it’s normally bland wafers and lots of chanting in latin.”
“Well that’s boring as hell.” I remember muttering and Dad snorting the coffee he was drinking out of his nose.
*
As people filed silently out of the Church to a gloriously sunny California afternoon, faces wan and smeared with wine and jam, Father patrick turned to Maria and asked “You don’t think that was too much, do you?”
“No.” Said Maria with a sarcastic deadpan so intense it was hard to tell from sincerity.
It was the exact same tone she used when the Archbishop and Six other high clergy showed up, clutching a letter someone had written, Livid and almost foaming at the mouth, demanding to know if such blasphemy had transpired.
“No. That’s crazy.” She said, staring down the archbishop like he was an idiot.
“Such imaginations some people have!” Said Father Patrick, much less convincingly.
“And you- you didn’t… Spear an effigy of our lord and savior?” the archbishop demanded of my father.
“Do I look like I can jump that high?” Dad asked, having in the interim been drafted for 51 days then nearly died of pneumonia from it, and therefore no longer afraid of the Church, the Law or God.
Somewhat relieved that he’d only received the extremely detailed ramblings of a doddering parishioner, the Archbishop sat down and complemented Maria on her most excellent Mexican Wedding Cookies, may he please have another plate for his nerves? Perhaps the ones with sprinkles?
Dad went on to help build the internet, Father Patrick converted to Buddhism and Maria became a Nun.
*For those of you wondering, Jesus was made of Challah.
If you got a laugh out of this, please consider donating to my Ko-Fi or Paypal, as telling stories on the internet is my only source of income right now. Thank you very much and I hope you enjoyed it!
Look I would pay real currency to watch a series of Anakin and Obi-Wan’s couples counseling. The angst and the passive-aggressiveness and the “I’m fine it’s fine everything’s fine” “NO IT’S NOT OBI-WAN NOTHING IS FINE”. Or individual Jedi counseling.
Better: I want to watch the documentary/mockumentary made by a GFFA psychologist who embeds themselves with the Jedi Order to better understand how they can all be so chill and collected – What’s their secret? How can we all learn, from their example, to embrace serenity in our own lives? – who eventually, as the documentary wears on, comes to realize that THE JEDI ORDER IS COMPRISED ENTIRELY OF EMOTIONAL TRAINWRECKS.
I am living for this now. As @
devilangel657 said, the idea of a psychologist embedding themselves in the Jedi Order and having to listen to the stories of the stupidity the Jedi have to deal with every goddamned day in their roles as peacekeepers and later freeing worlds, would be amazing.
They’re so serene and calm and put together when you first meet them! Then, like, a month later, “YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE THE SHIT I HAD TO DEAL WITH ON BRENTAL. LET’S JUST SAY IF I HAVE TO SEE ANOTHER FUCKING PIRATE I AM GOING TO SHOVE A LIGHTSABER UP THEIR ASS BEFORE THEY HAVE A CHANCE TO SAY A GODDAMNED WORD.” blares through the Force, even when all the Jedi says is, “It was a difficult mission, but I believe it has been resolved to the best of my abilities.”
Obi-Wan and Anakin’s couple’s therapy is a disaster. Sure, Anakin wants to talk about things! Until the psychologist turns to him and tries to make him talk about what’s eating him and then NOTHING IS WRONG, EVERYTHING’S FINE, he says angrily, crossing his arms and glaring.
Obi-Wan looks at the psychologist, not a single hint of self-awareness on his face, like, See what I have to deal with?
YES. Little by little, all these things come out and eventually it becomes clear that A) the Jedi have to put up with a TON of the universe’s bullshit, B) there are a LOT of secret affairs going on, both within and outside of the Order, and C) there is a WHOLE LOT of trauma being actively repressed.
I feel like Mace Windu would be amazing in this documentary series. The interviewer would be like “It sounds like you have a very difficult role, being responsible for so much in the Order. Would you agree?” and he just keeps staring into space like this:
…before finally taking a deep breath and being like, “It is a noble calling, and one I am honored to take on.”
Yoda cancels on his interview like 45 times, or pretends to be napping or dead when the guy shows up, because He Really Doesn’t Wanna Talk About This Stuff Everyone Knows The Order Is Just Fine Look How Well-Adjusted We All Are.
Quinlan Vos does his interview from a bar, during which he becomes increasingly inebriated. His interview turns into him just bragging about various conquests or awesome parties he’s been to on undercover missions. Viewers love him.
Obi-Wan explains to the horrified interviewer that he really totally wasn’t traumatized by being sent away to be a space farmer when he was 12, or the fact that he once got a rock for his birthday, or that his Space Dad was murdered in front of him. And that things between him and Anakin are FINE.
The two of them don’t realize they’re still mic’d up when they try to “discuss” things in the hallway in between filming after a particularly pointed on-screen argument. The resulting audio includes lecturing (Obi-Wan), dramatic yelling (Anakin), retreading of very old arguments (both), and eventually some mild dirty talk, which they vehemently deny later even though they both have mussed up hair when they return.
Ahsoka’s interview is hilarious, since it is mostly just her telling stories about Anakin or Obi-Wan embarrassing themselves.She manages to come off as one of the most competent people in the entire show despite the fact that she’s like 15. She instantly becomes a favorite of viewer commentators on the Holonet.
Some of the Clones get interviewed about what it’s like to work with the Jedi. This turns into all of them sharing “most insane thing my Jedi has done” stories, and it results in 157 hours of footage. They end up with their own series.
Chancellor Palpatine also does an extended interview as one of the Jedi’s closest colleagues, in which he repeatedly has to take a break from filming because he keeps breaking out into inappropriate giggles as he discusses how insightful the Order is, and what great partners they’ve been for his administration in helping it to achieve its goals.
I am crying at that screencap of Mace, that’s exactly the face he’d make.
“The Jedi aren’t perfect, we have our difficulties, just as anyone else in the galaxy does,” they all say. “But we deal with them internally to the best of our abilities. We’ve agreed to this documentary as a gesture of good will, we hope to reach out to our fellow Republic citizens and show that we are as human as any of you.”
What they don’t say is FUCK OFF WE DEAL WITH OUR PROBLEMS OURSELVES, but you kind of get that impression anyway. And the first half of the documentary is this build-up towards the idea that the Jedi are totally fucked up, they’re all a bunch of lunatics who refuse to admit they actually have problems.
But then the second half of the documentary has, like, 300 hours of footage of the Jedi dealing with two warring clans on some Mid-Rim world, each willing to nuke themselves into orbit just to spite the other side, and the Jedi have to deal with literal tantrums from political leaders at least once a month and they have to see politicians living these ridiculous lives of luxury, they have space caviar flown in specially hand delivered while ¾ths of their world are literally starving in poverty, and still have to smile and make nice with said politician because otherwise they won’t be able to get this trade agreement signed that will help the rest of the world, and all the while they’re not allowed to scream obscenities or anything. And you start to realize, oh, shit, I’d have gone off the deep end, too, if I had to deal with that every day of my life.
The documentary works in a roundabout way, endearing people to them–it shows the Jedi being human, that one time they caught Luminara Unduli making the most amazing bitch face, just for a moment, before she managed to smooth it back over. They caught Obi-Wan Kenobi actually swearing one time! They have at least an hour’s worth of outtakes of Anakin Skywalker flying around on his droid and crashing face-first into a wall or swanning off the top of the Temple and screaming when he misses the speeder Master Kenobi is driving to try to snag him the first time!
“It was a bit of a close call,” Anakin Skywalker says with a grin, “But I had it totally under control.” (Smash cut to Anakin screaming and flailing as story after story of the Temple blurs by him as he falls while Obi-Wan zips the speeder around for a second try.)
There’s a collage of the Greatest Faces Ahsoka Tano Makes When Dealing With Republic Officials. Almost unanimously, the face she makes when Wilhuff Tarkin turns away from her are voted as #1.
There’s also entire sites dedicated to gossiping about the love lives of the Jedi. The HoloNet EXPLODES when Obi-Wan and Anakin are caught on mic making suggestive comments after their fight, because everyone thought FOR SURE Skywalker was involved with Senator Amidala, have you SEEN the way he makes cow eyes at her? There are threads and threads of HA AH VINDICATION!!! from Obikin shippers and NO WAY THIS IS JUST PART OF A THREESOME shippers.
(Everyone, please forgive me this enormous reblog. I think you all understand I have no choice.)
So, basically this is what’s going to foil Palpatine’s plans, isn’t it? He is kicking himself, because he actually urged the Jedi to do the documentary series in the first place, thinking that they’d come off as totally dogmatic, dispassionate weirdos and the Republic would be turned off, making it easier for him to push his “The Jedi Are Evil” spiel later.
Instead, as the series wears on, everyone finds them oddly charming, and is overwhelmed by how hard they work and the good they do. There’s all kinds of forums set up for the inevitable Jedi Order Fandom as people nitpick every detail the show reveals. The gossip is out of control. Ahsoka can’t go anywhere without an interviewer asking her about the state of her “dads”’ relationship. Padme is hounded by the tabloids every time someone thinks they saw her out with Anakin somewhere (and OMG IS THAT A BABY BUMP??! WHAT IS OBI-WAN GONNA THINK?! Wait, is OBI-WAN the father???!). Hondo Ohnaka, of course, uses this as a chance to make some money, and is constantly trying to sell outlandish stories about his “friends” the Jedi to the tabloids.
A couple of systems start petty disputes with each other just to get a Jedi and some clones to visit, and they start placing requests (”Can you guys send Luminara? We LOVE her, OMG. Also is Fives available?”) Even Yoda, who was hesitant to even participate, becomes somewhat beloved in his own right as the series’ grumpy, long-suffering grandpa, once viewers see how much insanity the poor guy’s been living with for hundreds of years.
I am very sorry to everyone that this is making your dash probably a lot to handle today, but you have to understand that this is what I joined Star Wars tumblr for.
Palpatine is so gleeful at first, look how awful the Jedi look, even though he’s pushing that, oh, they work so hard and they’re so talented and amazing! But then the memes start. LET OBI-WAN KENOBI HAVE A NAP. SOMEONE FEED THAT POOR CHILD AHSOKA TANO A REAL SANDWICH. AND GET HER A JACKET SHE LOOKS COLD. There are floating, spinning star crows attached to Anakin Skywalker’s head in holo pictures and vids. There’s a picture of Master Yoda making a face as he trips and it gets plastered all over the internet. Mace Windu strikes a dramatic pose after a battle and it’s caught on holo, people splash motivational wolf-style quotes over the image. The most popular of which is, “WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU. IS GOING TO DIE.” while Master Windu stands there with a >:| face and his lightsaber at the ready.
There starts to be knockoff Jedi merchandise. Toy lightsabers are a huge hit! So many people are much nicer to the Jedi now and are like, “Are you comfortable? Can I get you a blanket? You’ve probably had a hard day, here have a slice of pie, on the house.”
REQUESTING SPECIFIC JEDI. Of course The Team gets the most requests (Anakin is initially pleased by this, but then there are people flirting with Obi-Wan. WHO IS FLIRTING BACK. And knows exactly what he’s doing and keeps glancing at Anakin to see the effect of it because he’s a jerk who likes to rile people up. NOT THAT IT’S WORKING, OBI-WAN.) but Shaak Ti and Luminara Unduli prove surprisingly popular, everyone just falls in love with them. The clones, finally having the perfect audience for this, are MORE THAN HAPPY to tell everyone about the Most Insane Thing Their Jedi Has Done. Rex and Cody are no longer allowed to participate, in order to give everyone else a fair shot.
There are fandom wars over whether the fact that Obi-wan flirts with EVERYONE makes the Obikinmidala three-way MORE or LESS likely. “Hello there” becomes code for “I am flirting with you now” overnight. Clone naming conventions start to become popular with new parents and teens get their hair/ hair equivalent styled like their favorite clone commanders.
On the political side, the average Republic citizen starts getting savvier. Seeing their favorite Jedi deal with these Senate officials and obstinate planetary governors, day in and day out, energizes populations to organize more effectively. The Jedi are unsure how to feel about this at first, but its nice to have the added leverage when dealing with particularly reticent political figures.
Elan Sleazebaggano (of Death Stick fame) is Obi’s biggest fan. After he gets his life rethought, he becomes a community organizer in the fandom, trying to do for others what his favorite Jedi did for him
Okay so there are so many things to love here. Mace Windu’s FACE, Yoda memes, Luminara Unduli’s Jedi composure slipping, Anakin and Obi Wan being actual human messes, Poor Ahsoka, the only sane person in a literal mad house, the clones… Can you imagine how smug Rex and Cody are?
Obi Wan: goes to do something hilariously ExtraTM.
Cody: Arms crossed casually, face completely blank. “Ahem”
Obi Wan: Looks at him… “If I do this, you’re going to tell the entire Republic won’t you?”
Cody: Raises eyebrow. “What do you think?”
Obi Wan: “Ah, well,” looks almost sheepish. “What do you suggest, Commander?”
Cody: Deadpan “You’re learning.”
But we are missing some hilarious potential here… So you guys know how bad Padme and Anakin are at pretending they don’t know intimate details about each other/covering their asses/being remotely subtle? Well, once a film crew is following Anakin around on a semi-regular basis, they get even worse.
For example, Anakin, Padme, Obi Wan, and Ahsoka are sent on a diplomatic mission together, documentary crew accompanying. They all board Anakin’s ship and there’s a lovely lace outer robe lying in a crumpled heap on the copilot seat from when Anakin and Padme made their last Dramatic Escape from a senatorial function (”I thought you said you were in danger?” “I was- a few more minutes and I’d have DIED of boredom.”) Anakin snatches it up and shoves it into his robes.
“SO THAT’S WHERE I LEFT MY FORMAL ROBES. OBI WAN WILL BE SO PLEASED.” and then he turns bright red because he just implied that Obi Wan will be really happy to see him in a undersized, lacy robe, which is true but not the impression he intended to give the viewing public. Padme breaks a rib suppressing her laughter. The psychiatrist and crew just roll their eyes and wonder why they’re even keeping up the pretense of deception.
Or, the crew just keep on finding mugs of half-drunk tea with lipstick marks in Padme’s distinctive signature shade
”They’re Ahsoka’s,” Anakin blurts out.
Ahsoka, who is there and not wearing a single smidge of lipstick looks at the camera, looks at Padme’s lipstick covered lips, looks back at the camera. Everyone turns to Padme. She looks around the ship. Anakin hasn’t cleaned it in months. There is exposed wiring from the last time Anakin started “improving” it and then got distracted. It smells like sweaty man and teenager and curry.
“I really enjoy the ambiance?” She offers. “It’s very… relaxed.” A muffled snort comes from the vicinity of Ahsoka. Anakin, who is standing next to her, steps on her foot. Ahsoka punches Anakin in the shoulder, hard. Obi Wan folds his arms and does his only sane man routine, which the psychiatrist and the documentary team now knows is Made of Lies and Deception.
This lasts until the team catches him sitting with Padme and Anakin in the cockpit, giving Padme a foot massage while Anakin drives.
“It’s a Jedi’s duty to do what is needed.” He explains repressively. “The Senator had a cramp. I did it for democracy.”
Despite all this fun it is a small subgenre of the Jedi fandom who end up having the greatest impact – the conspiracy theorists.
See, in among the “Kenobi is secretly a Space Siren”, “Skywalker is the avatar of entropy” and “the Jedi don’t die but merely change their forms and continue to save the galaxy under a new name” theories there are a smaller subset who are driven by the desperate need to uncover the truth of the war so that the Jedi can go back to spending more time with fans planets in need of their expertise. Everyone thinks they’re nuts. Until they don’t.
It starts as a post on a forum with user k3n0b15w00shyh41r ranting about how the war so obviously benefits the military industrial complex, and why has no one ever investigated Kamino for separatist links? User winduismygod93 points out that’s an excellent question, and wait a moment, why exactly were the clones commissioned in the first place? I mean, it was convenient, but could you really see masters Yoda or Windu authorising the creation of sentient beings for war? User 5tone9arden agrees – could this be a smear campaign? User masspalooza posits that it was a false flag operation by the Sith, and after a bit of digging user 5ith7i9ht uncovers the Sifo Dyas link – a known associate of the traitor Dooku? They’re on to something. User blankdayzii is concerned about sabotage when user xxx_t4N0_xxx points out a strange bit of footage from the latest episode of “Craziest things my Jedi has done!!! – Series 3, of a clone looking suddenly disoriented and shaking his head while muttering. User y0dAts4w3sm obsessively scans footage for more case into a compilation holovid. But it is user shaak_pronounsaresirandgeneral_ti who comes to the final conclusion: mind control. This is urgent! What if the Sith are secretly implanting sleeper agents into republic forces to shift the tides of war!!! It probably wouldn’t have gone any further, except user 0biAn1da7a689 turns out to actually be the Senator for a minor system in the Mid-Rim and raises the issue in open debate…
The Kaminoans rebut the accusations – some clones have occasional reactions to their aggression control chips! Which are perfectly safe from tampering because they put them in prior to deployment are you some kind of CIS sympathiser trying to undermine our brave troops senator?
Some reporter bails up the nearest Jedi for comment and oh, wouldn’t you know it? It’s General Skywalker! Here to see Senator Amidala for midweek nookie on Jedi business! Whose first response is “Chips? WHAT CHIPS?” followed by a litany of curses so vile even the reporter from the Nal Hutta Tribune is impressed. After Anakin’s brain reboots he does what he does best and angrily descends upon Obi-Wan demanding they free the clones immediately!
And that is how Palpatine had a very bad day and the Jedi fandom saved their heroes from a future full of loneliness and sand.😉
(yes there are references to some of you in the forum bit – @forcearama should be obvious but there are at least 3 more 😏)
People, I’m sorry this is a gigantic post now but I just want you guys to see this.
Am I the only one who remembers that time a padawan was whining about how Yoda doesn’t have any feelings and Yoda was like, “Excuse you, I have been burying loved ones for sixty times longer than you have been alive, lecture me about grief do not.”
This is BEAUTIFUL. Pretty improbable – let’s be honest, even though he’d absolutely underestimate how likable segments of the audience would find the Jedi, Palpatine would still 110% make sure that whoever was hired to put the documentary footage together did so in such a way as to make the Jedi look like The Worst Ever™ (think reality TV dialed up to eleven) – but Ilaugh in the face of realism when the crack is this delightful.
Jedi Order fandom!!! Tabloids and conspiracy theory boards!!! Therapy for ALL the Jedi!!!! Palpatine’s Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day(s) being the unintentional product of his own meddling!!
😀
Wait, wait – Asajj Ventress as a closet fan of the series!!! If anyone ever discovered her Deep Dark Secret, she’d claim that she only watches the show to uncover Jedi weaknesses and to make fun of them… and that wouldn’t be entirely untrue – she does love scoffing at Jedi stupidity on her holoscreen – but it’s more than just that.
She gets a real sense of community from the Jedi on the show. Which is pathetic, of course, or so she tells herself. She’s a Sith acolyte, soon-to-be Sith apprentice, and she doesn’t need friends or family like these weak Jedi seem to. (Even though they claim they’re above such things. Obviously another case of Jedi hypocrisy at work.) But the abandoned young girl who lives deep inside her soaks it up vicariously and with poorly-hidden envy.
And a few of these Jedi don’t seem too bad. Plo Koon, for instance, reminds her just a little bit of Ky Narec. And while young Tano has all the irksome enthusiasm and dogmatic certainty of youth, she won’t deny that the girl can be entertaining. Besides, she pities Tano for having to put up with both Kenobi and Skywalker.
And a few other Jedi… well, as long as they don’t open their mouths, they can be quite pleasant to look at. For Jedi, anyway. Not that she would notice that sort of thing, of course.
She eventually joins a few fan forums under the username 2sab3rsar3b3tt3rthan1. For research purposes and to spread the truth about the Jedi, obviously. Not-so-surprisingly, she winds up getting into lots of heated discussions with fellow fans of the show, and a couple of them get her second-guessing some of her decisions over the past few years. (A few users also introduce her to the wonderful world of Jedi memes, but that’s a story for another day.)
Dooku, both because he’s a Sith (and thus rightly paranoid about betrayal) and because he’s a control freak with no sense of boundaries, has always secretly monitored his apprentice’s media consumption and holocommunications. It’s not high on his priorities list, however, so he’s set the system up so that he’s notified if certain flagged key words appear more than X times in a fixed timeframe.
“Jedi” is, of course, one of those key words.
So when he starts getting twelve thousandalert dings to his comm, he’s naturally a little bit worried, a little bit curious, and very irritated.
Things progress from there.
Dooku starts watching the show, and it makes him feel feel nostalgic and ever-so-slightly regretful about having left the Jedi Order. He’s still bitter about all of the problems in the Order, of course, but… part of him misses having a community to fall back on; a group of others to be superior to. He’s still superior to all of the Jedi, of course, but it’s not the same when they aren’t around to appreciate it. Besides, the holodocumentary has made it more clear ever that his lineage desperately needs him. And while this whole Sith thing has been going more or less according to plan, he’s long had his suspicions about Sidious’ true intentions towards him…
But Dooku doesn’t actually do anything until Sidious orders him to dispose of Ventress. It’s not that he’s fond of her – don’t be ridiculous! – but she’s been a faithful apprentice and a useful tool. Killing her would be wasteful. (And she so looks up to him…) Besides, if Sidious is this eager to kill Ventress because he thinks she poses a threat to him, what does that say about his own fate? Dooku is still fairly certain he can outmaneuver Sidious when the time comes, but… why should he wait when there’s an easy answer sitting right in front of him?
Cue Dooku returning to the Order in the dark of night, Ventress in tow.
The ratings on the next episode of the holodocumentary are off the charts.
I honestly can’t believe this post is still getting notes AND additions!
people who complain about dinosaurs “not being scary anymore” because its been discovered they have feathers and are closely related to/ancestors of birds are so bizarre like
its not about how scary they are, they are/were real life animals and what matters is learning more about them, not how well they fit into your science fiction horror film lol
can you imagine a 13 foot chicken running at you with full intent to eat you??? thats fucking terrifying holy shit
peacocks are synonymous with vain, frivolous beauty and they will attack cars. they will attack you while you try to get to your car. they’re like six feet of useless feathers and they will destroy you. imagine if they were carnivorous and had functional spurs.
a t-rex could look like a gay disco ball and i guarantee that you would fucking book it if it had a problem with you
listen
listen
have you ever met a swan
if anything the birdier they get the scarier they are
Australia literally fought a war against giant birds AND FUCKING LOST
“Oh man, I can’t deal with birds ‘cause they’re dinosaurs and sometimes it’s like they get this glint in their eyes and they remember.”
“Have you ever interacted with a goose? ‘Cause those things are dicks.”
If chickens were still the size of a T-Rex we’d all be dead. No question.
Feathered creatures that give some serious lie to the idea that feathered dinosaurs ain’t scary:
This is a bearded vulture, or lammergeier. It’s four feet long and has a nine foot wingspan and it eats bones.
This is a shoebill stork. It dropped the duck without biting down shortly after the picture was taken, but if it had decided not to-
… it could have been the end of the road for that duck.
This is the last thing a fish sees before a macaroni penguin eats it.
This is a secretary bird in the act of demonstrating to Lord Voldemort that he came to the wrong neighborhood, ese.
This is a goose.
This is a vulture.
This is a cassowary on the attack.
Be glad I couldn’t find the actual gif of a pelican swallowing a fish, because it’s freakin’ Lovecraftian in its HEADS SHOULD NOT BEND THAT WAY factor. You’ll have to settle for the idea of a feathered dinosaur suddenly going GLORP and devouring its victims whole just like this lady here.
Steven Spielberg didn’t create these. These are the feet of an emu.
And this is what happens when a swan (this one is named Asboy; his father was Mr. Asbo, the first swan in the UK to get named after an anti-social behavior order in ‘honor’ of his tendency to attack boaters) decides it doesn’t like you. I should probably note that this one attacked a cow.
Respect the feathered dinosaur, yo.
Terrifying. The last two illustrate why you did not fuck around with the Children of Lir.
I suspected that a dinosaur could have been feathered after I heard that a T-Rex is the chickens’ ancestor.
For those who think dinos aren’t cool because they’re feathered…whatever, mutherfuckers. Evolution doesn’t give two shits what you think is cool or not.
You showed a cassowary on the attack, but forgot to show what exactly it’s attacking with. Their feet are nearly identical to the Emu’s, except for one minor, teeny tiny detail: A five-inch claw for killing motherfuckers, raptor-style.
This is like the “fuck birds master post” and I love it because Honestly, Fuck. Birds.
The Stanford prison experiment tapes were so stupid when I watched them in AP psych and so stupid when I watch this film about them. Literally they could’ve all sat and played cards and got $15 a day to tell ghost stories all day and be best friends. But masculinity and whiteness and power created this violent irrationality that positioned young ass men to be met with brutality and trauma and disrespect even when it was obviously taken too far. and it makes no sense. If someone put me in a room with Black girls and said I would get paid $90 a day (that’s the equivalent apparently) to be a prison guard, do you know how fast I’d be sitting with them and learning about them and exchanging Instagrams and like.. sleeping.. like what the fuck was the point of any of that…
My psych teacher introduced us to this study and literally before she showed us was like “don’t ever confuse a study based on one type of person (white men/boys) to be an example of an Everyman situation. There is strong evidence that if this was recreated with diversity, or even just with girls, that the results would have been drastically different. This is an example of bias and sexism in the medical research community.”
“Other, more subtle factors also shaped the experiment. It’s often said that the study participants were ordinary guys—and they were, indeed, determined to be “normal” and healthy by a battery of tests. But they were also a self-selected group who responded to a newspaper advertisement seeking volunteers for “a psychological study of prison life.” In a 2007 study, the psychologists Thomas Carnahan and Sam McFarland asked whether that wording itself may have stacked the odds. They recreated the original ad, and then ran a separate ad omitting the phrase “prison life.” They found that the people who responded to the two ads scored differently on a set of psychological tests. Those who thought that they would be participating in a prison study had significantly higher levels of aggressiveness, authoritarianism, Machiavellianism, narcissism, and social dominance, and they scored lower on measures of empathy and altruism.”
The thing about this study is that whether or not it’s generalizable to the public is debatable at best.
But it’s certainly generalizable to the population of people who tend to be drawn to prison system and law enforcement jobs because that’s exactly the demographics that tend to show up in those positions.
“But it’s certainly generalizable to the population of people who tend to be drawn to prison system and law enforcement jobs because that’s exactly the demographics that tend to show up in those positions.”
face as he trips and it gets plastered all over the internet. Mace Windu strikes a dramatic pose after a battle and it’s caught on holo, people splash motivational wolf-style quotes over the image. The most popular of which is, “WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU. IS GOING TO DIE.” while Master Windu stands there with a >:| face and his lightsaber at the ready.
andtheytoldustotellyouhello 