Rocket Man Is A Better Song Than Space Oddity And I Will Fight You Over This

You drew that whole thing in only 1.5 hours?

1.5 hours of pain in Rennes, France

Gravity Falls doodles!!

As I was driving home through the forest recently, ahead of me I saw an old pickup truck pull over onto the shoulder and put its hazard lights on. A young woman wearing handmade clothing jumped out of the truck and ran 200 feet back up the road. As I passed, I saw her scoop up a newt she'd seen crossing the road, and carry it into the forest, before running back to her truck.

This made me smile, but the redneck behind me was outraged. "Damn hippies! Bleeding heart liberal treehuggers... only on Chauncy's Island... Friggin' oughta be a law... stoppin' for a damn lizard. What about the other cars?"

I looked him in the eyes and said, quietly but firmly, "You're new around here, aren't you?"

"I been here seven whole years, so, no, I'm not new," the redneck said. "What's it to you, anyway?"

I've been here 30 years, but I didn't mention that. I just said to him, "Seven whole years you've been here, and you still act like you're brand new. That's a shame."

And everyone else laughed and clapped as the redneck drove away without saying anything more.

If you already know that the game is rigged, then you have ragequit before you ever started playing.

@is-it-a-man But... if Amaury Guichon makes himself a really, really good pair of wings out of chocolate...

I swear to god one of these days were going to see a video of Amaury Guichon and he's going to be making some wings and they are going to look dope as hell, the detail of each feather will be breathtaking, he'll spray paint them to perfection, but as the video goes on, he's not building any sort of winged creature, just the wings. And then there's a human-sized harness (also made of chocolate, somehow, he can do it). And he's attaching the wings to the harness. And he's putting the harness on and he demonstrates how he can flap the wings. And then he'll be off. Out the window and up and up and up. And we'll be looking at the livestream (it's a livestream now) and we'll scream "No, Amaury, the sun! It's going to melt the wings!". But he knows this already. And he is free.

Smugfolk: (getting off the ferry) "How are you, this morning?"

Ferry terminal agent: "Cold. Wet."

Smugfolk: (who has already stopped listening) "What?"

I call the seagull Frank Abigull, Jr.

He walks around the cruise terminal with one wing folded up crooked, so the wingtip sticks out and nearly drags on the ground. He looks like he has a broken wing.

If I eat on a seagull's patch, I'll share. I'm that used to paying rent for every damn thing. Same for crows.

Anyway, I don't know if his wing was ever really broken or not, but when he needs to, Frank can fly just fine.

It may be that he's learned to drag his wing in order to con the tourists and event-goers.

I repeatedly spend an increasingly unnerved 10 dream-minutes trying to first turn off the clock radio, then unplug it, then trying to figure out where the annoying music is coming from... I don't actually stop dreaming and wake up until I'm fully panicking because I can't shut off the Eldritch Radio From Hell.

woke up this morning, rolled over, and very confidently tried to blow out my alarm clock like a candle. absolutely no precedent for that.

Cracktheories About the Vanessaverse

Last year, @strange-aeons released a YouTube video about what she calls the Vanessaverse: the seemingly half-intentional alternate reality in which Netflix's Vanessa Hudgens Christmas movies are set. It is a deeply hilarious and fascinating video and you should watch it, if for no other reason that this long post will not make much sense otherwise.

Because, you see, I've been crack-theorizing about the Vanessaverse, and what I've come up with feels sound enough to share, at least on Tumblr.

I have two separate cracktheories, so let's establish some terminology and some common elements, first.

The Vanessaverse differs from our own in that much of Eastern Europe is controlled by an incredibly powerful, reality-warping entity that I call the Eldritch Master of Secular Christmas, or EMOSC for short. Who or what this entity is, and what its purpose is, differs between cracktheories. I call EMOSC's domain the Christmas Realm.

The Christmas Realm extends across southeastern Europe and possibly parts of western Asia. Outside this area, EMOSC's power to warp reality is severely limited. This is why Scotland and the US are (relatively) similar to the way they are in the real world. Montenero is a special case, it seems: an independent country on the fringe of EMOSC's influence, highly analogous to real-life Montenegro, and the location of choice for diplomats from the Vatican, or the rest of the world, to interact with EMOSC.

Native subjects of the Christmas Realm, however, and those around them, may be influenced by EMOSC wherever they are. This is one explanation for why seemingly unaffiliated protagonists and other characters wind up experiencing effects and narratives that should only occur within the Christmas Realm (but that commonly occur in highly sentimental straight-to-video movies). It's possible that EMOSC is able to psychically influence people whose ancestors came from the Christmas Realm, and those close to them.

So much for commonality. Let's get into the individual cracktheories about what's actually going on in these narratives.

Cracktheory 1: The characters of the Gaffer and the Crone are both aspects of the Eldritch Master of Secular Christmas, which manipulates its subjects according to strange and inscrutable whims, mostly revolving around matchmaking and the concept of secularized Christmas. Within the Christmas Realm, it is considered taboo to speak of Them or Their powers. Instead, one should pretend that events are entirely ordinary. It's possible that the Gaffer and the Crone are able to alter people's perceptions, so that they don't notice any contradictions. The latter would explain how the Gaffer and the Crone are able to create bizarre secular-Christmas situations ouside the Christmas Realm.

This version of EMOSC is fairly benign, actually, at least as far as we know. It seems to be managing Its own affairs, for the most part, occasionally calling a child of former subjects home, but little more. It seems to just like to mash the action figures together and make everything Christmassy.

In this theory, the self-referential Netflix Christmas movies are "based on a true story" or actually dramatized documentaries of some kind, made for an audience interested in EMOSC, but they respectfully obey the Christmas Realm's taboo and pretend EMOSC doesn't exist.

Cracktheory 2: EMOSC is, in fact, Vanessa Hudgens: a vast polydimensional, chrono-dynamic entity that can manifest a possibly infinite number of avatars of itself into multiple timelines broadly similar to our own. This is a more malevolent EMOSC, obsessed with stage-managing complex, WandaVision-like scenarios for its avatars and whoever catches its attention. It is even able to manifest avatars outside the Christmas Realm, although sometimes they end up looking a little less like EMOSC's chosen appearance as a human. The power and selfishness this implies makes this version of EMOSC seem like an incredibly dangerous entity to cross.

In this theory, the Gaffer and the Crone are avatars of a far older and more benevolent polydimensional entity, that is trying to contain Vanessa Hudgens and limit the damage It can cause to the Multiverse. This entity can't face EMOSC direcly, and has to resort to subterfuge and redirection in order to keep itself safe while still mitigating EMOSC's machinations. It seems to only be able to manifest one avatar at a time, although understanding how these entities interact with linear time is difficult for baseline humans.

Also in this theory, the self-referential Netflix Christmas movies are produced directly by EMOSC Itself, in furtherance of Its goals. They may actually have some sort of esoteric effect on baseline humans, but are also useful in reinforcing core Vanessa Hudgens characteristics on avatars that may be diverging from EMOSC's consciousness. It's also highly likely that they are EMOSC's way of creating an audience for the scenarios It likes to act out.

What are YOUR theories about the Vanessaverse?

shhhhh guys be quiet we need to be quiet or else the bears will hear us. as long as we all keep quiet (everyone liking this post) we will be fine just don't do anything to alert the bears okay?