#I know that’s how some people in the south sound. and I adore Emily so much. but that accent kinda bothers me for some reason

[queen-caramilflinda]

Saw your notes on that post about naddpod and just wanted to pass along that you can totally jump ahead and start with Shadowfell arc and only have a few little things that don't make 100% sense without context but aren't really too confusing or distracting from the arc. Thats actually how i started listening and it made me want to go back to the beginning and hear more about all the little things they mentioned from previous arcs. Its also good just straight from the beginning but if you dont want to wait like 60eps to get to the cool arc people rave about and listen to Brennan getting to finally be a PC you totally don't have to and it absolutely holds up to a re-listen when you go through from the beginning :)

Thank you! I will probably start from the beginning if only for the sake of simplicity and knowing where I am in the story. Honestly the things that have kept me from listening have just been lack of time and a difficulty with starting new pieces of media. I have a long trip next week though so I’m going to download the first few episodes to listen to on the commute!

Also I heard there’s an extended and insanely weird bit in the first episode and I need to find out what that’s about

[james-joyces-right-eyeball]

Absolute Favorite Books I’d Recommend to Anyone

This is a list of my top-tier favorite books that I would recommend/talk about endlessly to pretty much anyone (in no particular order). I know people probably don’t care but I just like talking about books I love so here we are.

Beloved - Toni Morrison

~ Based off the real story of Margaret Garner, a slave woman who escaped slavery and when captured killed her child in order to prevent them from ever being enslaved again, Beloved tells the story of a mother named Sethe, born in slavery who eventually escaped and is haunted by the figurative demons of her trauma and the literal (arguably) ghost of her dead daughter, who she herself killed. It is an excellent exploration of the horrors of slavery and of the haunting legacy of the institution for those who were subjected to it.

Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

~ If you’ve been on Tumblr for a while, you probably know what Lolita is. The story of the predatory Humbert Humbert who lusts after, rapes, and kidnaps the “nymphet” Dolores Haze. An excellent construction of how predators, unreliable narrators in their own right, hide behind fabrications, almost-believable excuses, and pretty words to make their actions seem maybe not so bad. In the words of the book itself, “You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.”

Ulysses - James Joyce

~ Notoriously one of the most difficult books in the English language, Ulysses lifts its structure from Homer’s Odyssey to tell the story of a common man, Leopold Bloom, as he goes about his day. Yes, this book takes place over the course of only one day. We follow Bloom as well as Joyce’s literary counterpart Stephen Daedalus through their thoughts and actions, gathering details of their lives previous throughout. It’s a book that, in my own words, “is life”. It is sad, funny, strange, vulgar, disgusting, beautiful, revelatory, sensual, and nonsensical all at once. Joyce aimed to create a reflection of life through his stream-of-consciousness style which some people might find confusing, but I personally find absolutely beautiful and honest and realistic. The prose is also gorgeous, but that could be applied to everything Joyce wrote. 

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

~ The classic gothic book that tells the tale of Heathcliff and his ultimately destructive love of Catherine Earnshaw, whose eventual marriage to someone else and the general mistreatment of him by her family drives Heathcliff insane and he spends the rest of his life trying to take revenge by abusing and torturing the next Earnshaw and Linton (the family into which Catherine marries) generations. If I’m being honest, I like this book mostly because of how wild and dark it is, but the writing is also genius and beautiful. I think the book also carries an interesting view of the destructive nature of revenge, overzealous love, and othering.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith

~ A coming-of-age story at the turn of the century that tells the story of Francie Nolan, a young bookish girl growing up in a lower class family in New York City. It tells about her father’s struggles with alcoholism as well as her mother’s struggles to deal with that and at the same time raise Francie and her brother. Francie is confronted with a strange, uncertain world as a young girl, but tries to face it with bravery throughout childhood

Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

~ Another coming-of-age story, this time about four young sisters: Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy March. You are probably familiar with this book already; it’s had more movie adaptations then I can possibly remember off the top of my head. It’s the story of four sisters as they try to navigate growing up, love, and loss during the mid to late 1800s.

The Color Purple - Alice Walker

~ A novel that tells the story of Celie, a young black woman who is raped and then married young to a man who will go on to use and abuse her, through her letters to God. Throughout the novel she meets Shug Avery, a woman with whom she eventually falls in love and begins a relationship with. Through this and her eventual freedom from her abusive husband, she is able to gain at last her own sense of self and take back control over her life, a life no longer ruled by the abusive men around her.

The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison

~ The tragic story of young black girl Pecola Breedlove, who wants nothing more than to have blonde hair and blue eyes just like the women she sees in the movies. Both a deconstruction of the whiteness of beauty standards as well as how these standards can utterly destroy vulnerable young girls, it is also an exploration of the people who allow these sorts of things to happen, including Pecola’s mother and father. The Bluest Eye, I think, showcases one of the aspects of Toni Morrison that I like the most, that I aspire to the most: her ability to enter the minds of all people, even people who you might despise at first. Her characters, especially Cholly in The Bluest Eye, are ones you might not entirely sympathize with, but they will always be ones you understand.

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

~ Based off of the author’s own experiences as a young college student, The Bell Jar tells the story of Esther Greenwood, whose depression over her place as a woman in a patriarchal society as well as her inability to choose a life path for herself leads to a suicide attempt and a subsequent stay in a mental hospital. A very nuanced portrayal of mental illness, especially anxiety and depression, The Bell Jar is an extremely moving and relatable story for me and clearly is as well for others. It is a classic for a reason.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou

~ A memoir of Angelou’s childhood, this book tells the story of her experiences living as a black girl in the south with her grandmother and brother as well as her later years living with her mother. It also tells of how she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend when she was around eight or nine, and how she struggled to live with that and find her voice, both literally and figuratively. A wonderful book about overcoming struggles and the power of words and literature in such times.

Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison

~ Ellison’s novel tells the story of a young black man, never getting a name in the text, and his feelings of invisibility and his struggles to find a place in society to belong. His struggles only lead him further into despair, until he decides to “become invisible” as people seem not to see him as a person anyway. Invisible Man is an exploration of American mid-century racism and the isolation it causes to those subjected to it. Not only that, but it is surprisingly relevant to our times now, especially on the subject of police violence. (Personal anecdote: When I first read this book, when I got to the aforementioned police violence part it was right in the middle of the BLM resurgence last summer and I cried for a good twenty minutes while reading that chapter over how nothing had changed and it still hurts me to think about it. Embarrassingly, my dad walked in on me while I was crying, and I had to quickly explain it away.)

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce

~ The title basically says it all lol. This book tells of the coming-of-age of Stephen Daedalus (the same one from the later-written Ulysses). His sensitive childhood, his awkward and lustful adolescence, his feelings of Irish nationality and Catholic guilt, and his struggles to fully realize himself, both as an artist and a human being. It is a very hopeful story, and one that I love mostly because I relate so much to Stephen Daedalus as an artist and as a person.

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

~ A magical-realist intergenerational family drama, Marquez’s book traces the various lives and loves of the Buendia family over the course of (you guessed it!) one hundred years. A beautifully written, at times extremely emotionally moving and chilling masterpiece, Marquez in a way retells the history of Colombia, of its colonization and exploitation.  

Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

~ A classic Russian novel of society and love, Tolstoy tells the story of Anna Karenina, married, wealthy woman with a child she adores. However, she falls in love with another man, Count Vronsky, and comes to a tragic end for her love. The parallel story of the novel is that of Konstantin Levin, a wealthy landowner who also struggles to find fulfillment in his life and understand his place in society.

The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner

~ A novel that features an entire family of unreliable narrators, The Sound and the Fury details the fall of a once-prominent southern Compson family and always-present place of the past. There are four different narratives: Benjy Compson, a mentally disabled man who is unsure of his surroundings and of time and only knows that he misses his older sister Caddy; Quintin Compson, the eldest son and a Harvard man both obsessed with his sister retaining her “purity” and the fact that she failed to do so and had a baby out of wedlock, going as far to claim it is his baby in an attempt to preserve something of the family reputation; Jason Compson, who is the caretaker of Caddy’s daughter and believes her to be going down her mother’s “sinful” path; and Dilsey, the black maid of the Compson’s who unlike the people she cares for is not weighed down by their history. The narratives take place in different time periods and is in a stream-of-consciousness style. It’s a deeply dark and disturbing novel about the haunting nature of the past, a common theme in Faulkner’s work (see Absalom, Absalom! for more of this).

Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison

~ It is the story of Milkman Dead, a young black man growing up in the south and his relationship with his very complicated family. To say anymore would be to spoil the novel, but I will say that it is an excellent book about family, self-fulfillment in a world that tries to deny you that, and, like The Bluest Eye, exhibits Morrison’s excellent character work.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - Tennessee Williams

~ A play which takes place on the patriarch of a family’s birthday in the oppressive heat of the midsummer south, Williams’ play explores lies, secrets, and how repression only results in anger, frustration, and sadness. It’s a tragic but brilliant play that I think was very ahead of its time. If you’ve read it (or do read it) then you know what I mean.

Giovanni’s Room - James Baldwin

~ This book tells the story of a young man and his love of another man named Giovanni while he is in Paris. It is a book about love, queer guilt, and has what I would call an ambiguous ending. There is uncertainty at the end, but there does seem to be some kind of acceptance. It is a bit of a coming-out story, but more than that it is a story of personal acceptance and at the same time a sad, tragic love story.

HERmione - H.D.

~ An underrated modernist masterpiece, HERmione is a somewhat fictionalized account of the author, Hilda Doolittle’s, experience as a young aspiring poet dating another poet (in real life Ezra Pound in this book named George Lowndes) who is a threat to her both physically and emotionally. It explores her own mental state, as she considers herself a failure and falls in love with a woman for the first time (Fayne Rabb in the book, Frances Gregg in real life). 

To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf

~ People think about going to a lighthouse. They do not. A couple years and a war passes then they do. That may seem like a boring plot, and you may be right. However, To the Lighthouse is not much about plot. It is more about the inner lives of its characters, a family and their friends, on two different occasions of their lives: one before WWI and one after WWI. Woolf explores in this novel the trauma that results from such a massive loss of life and security. Not only that, she also explores the nature of art (especially in female artists) in the character of Lily Briscoe and her struggles to complete a painting. It’s a short novel, but it contains so much about life, love, and loss within these few pages.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers

~ A southern gothic novel about isolation and loneliness in a small town. Every character has something to separate them from wider society, and often find solace and companionship in a deaf man, John Singer, who himself experiences a loneliness that they cannot understand. There are various forms of social isolation explored in this novel: by race, disability, age, gender, etc. A wonderful, heart-wrenching book about loneliness and the depths it can potentially drag people to.

The Waste Land - T.S. Eliot

~ A modernist masterpiece of a poem, Eliot describes feeling emptiness and isolation. The brilliance of it can only be shown by an excerpt:

“Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, Looking into the heart of light, the silence.”

“The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed. Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song. The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers, Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed. And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors; Departed, have left no addresses. By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . . Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song, Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long. But at my back in a cold blast I hear The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear. “

(My personal favorite line from this poem is, “I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”)

The Trial - Franz Kafka

~ The protagonist of the novel, Josef K., wakes up one morning to find that he has been placed under arrest for reasons that are kept from him. Kafka creates throughout the novel a scathing satire of bureaucracy, as K. tries to find out more about his case, more about his trial, but only becomes more confused as he digs deeper. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the world he lives in, and the more tries to explain it the further the more that proves to be the case. An excellently constructed novel and a great one to read if you would like to be depressed about the state of the world because, though Kafka’s work is a satire, like a lot of his other work, it manages to strike a strangely real note.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - Tom Stoppard

~ An absurdist play that is a retelling of Shakespeare’s Hamlet from the perspective of minor characters, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who in the broad overview of the original play, do not matter. Throughout the play, they question their existence and the purpose of it and through that Stoppard dissects not only the absurdity of life, but how fiction and theater reflect that absurdity inadvertently.

As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner

~ The novel details the journey the Bundren family makes after the death of the family matriarch, Addie, to bury her. Each chapter offers a different narrative from the family members and those who surround them, revealing some ulterior motives to them “going to town” to bury Addie. The patriarch Anse desires a pair of false teeth, and the daughter Dewey Dell is pregnant and needs an abortion, as there is no way for her or her family to support it. It’s about the powerlessness of people in the impoverished south. The Bundrens are constantly subject to forces beyond their control, struggles which would be easily solved if they had the money to spare for it. There is more to the book, but that is my favorite reading of it, that of class. Faulkner’s ability to create distinct voices for every one of his characters shines through here.

And, last but not least:

The Collected Poems - Sylvia Plath

~ All the poems Plath wrote during her tragically short lifetime. The best way to demonstrate or summarize the book’s brilliance is just to show you. This is her poem “Edge”, which appears in the book:

“The woman is perfected.   Her dead Body wears the smile of accomplishment,   The illusion of a Greek necessity Flows in the scrolls of her toga,   Her bare Feet seem to be saying: We have come so far, it is over. Each dead child coiled, a white serpent,   One at each little Pitcher of milk, now empty.   She has folded Them back into her body as petals   Of a rose close when the garden Stiffens and odors bleed From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower. The moon has nothing to be sad about,   Staring from her hood of bone. She is used to this sort of thing. Her blacks crackle and drag.”

HOPE YOU ENJOYED! HAPPY READING TO ALL!

[smokeybrand]

Smokey brand Movie Reviews: Enjoy the Silence

So i missed out on A Quiet Place part II in theaters because I'm not going to a theater in the middle of a plague. I live in the US so idiots are making this thing last way longer than necessary. If i had loot, I'd have moved to Australia or New Zealand or South Korea by now. Anyway, it was one of the films that i was hoping to check out if we had this sh*t under control. We do not. So i had to wait for it to hit a streaming service to check it out. That is, apparently, eleven days away. So how the f*ck a mi seeing gifs of this thing cut directly from a blu ray print? Because it’s already out there in the wild. I happened across one of these places and took it in at my leisure. Let me say, this thing wold have been brilliant in a theater!

The Great

That f*cking opening! Holy sh*t! Such a brilliant way of starting a film. It grabs you a never lets go. Even after, when we got a lull in intensity, i was still spazzed the f*ck out.

The Good

Seriously, that opening sequence was f*cking incredible! Pure, white knuckle, intensity. I kind of want to see THAT movie now. Like, f*ck, , how did we go from that nightmare to farm life in less than a year?

I have to say, this film is gorgeous! The shots chosen, the way it’s edited, the cinematography, that wonderful camerawork; All of it coalesces into a joy to watch. It’s just as deft as the original but with a much broader scope. Sh*t really showcases what can bee done with a passionate eye and way more money.

As eye-catching as this film is, the strength, outside of some strong performances, definitely lies with the use of sound, and the lack thereof. Seriously, the sound design is definitely the star of this film. There are certain sequences where everything just drops out to give you Regan’s perspective, are easily the best part of this film.

I mentioned how strong the performances are in this thing and i cannot stress that enough. Obviously, Emily Blunt does her thing and the younger brother, Noah Jupe, has come along brilliantly as a performer. The supporting cast is exceptional, i absolutely adored what little we got of Djimon Hounsou and John Krasinski, but this is definitely Millicent Simmonds and Lillian Murphy movie. Those two have the most screen time and a palpable chemistry. Millicent’s Regan definitely has the same energy as her pops and Cillian’s Emmitt has a completely different dynamic.

I genuinely enjoy the progression of this story. Kind of wanted a more inclusive and intimate narrative about the Abbott family, but what we got is still really f*cking good.

The pacing in this thing is incredibly brisk. It’s over before you know it. A great deal of that stems from the fact it never, NEVER, let’s you rest. Like, there are lulls but they never last long and you’re hit with insane panic. Sh*t will leave you exhausted.

The Meh

That increased scope while trying to keep the narrative contained, only allots glimpses of the outside world. We didn’t get to see anything with the horrible people or have enough time on that island to care about any of those meat fodder. Like, Djimon didn’t even have a name. That feels like a missed opportunity or fodder for a ton of sequels. Either way, it was a detriment to this story, specifically.

That ending was a little abrupt for my tastes. Not enough to take you out of the film but enough for me to feel kind of shortchanged.

The Verdict

All in all, A Quiet Place part II is pretty good. I can see why it made so much money in theaters. It’s definitely not as good as the first, i think that one benefited from being basically a character piece, but the expanded scope of this one doesn’t hinder the narrative too much. It does sacrifice a bit of that tightness you had in the first in service to creating a much bigger world. Mileage will vary on that. Still, it’s chock full of outstanding performances, particularly out of Cillian Murphy and Millicent Simmonds. Those to carry this film and it look forward to the very obvious sequel in the works. I am left with a ton of f*cking questions, however. How long did everyone know they can’t swim? Why wasn’t this shouted from the f*cking mountaintops? If the government knew, why didn’t they fly planes overhead, bellowing that information? Why the f*ck didn’t just make all of the noise and lead the f*ckers into the ocean? That’s what i mean by tightness. The first one had a really solid world with really solid rules. This one opens that world up and opens it up to a ton of questions. Still, if yo can turn that part of your brain off, A Quiet Place part II is f*cking exceptional. Arguably the best film released this year so far. When yo can, definitely check it out.

[justkimberley]

HSMTMTS Thoughts Episode 7

Episode 1   Episode 2    Episode 3   Episode 4   Episode 5  Episode 6

This one is also kinda long (~2200 words)

Nini and Ricky doing a fantastic job harmonizing in Start of Something New

the dance routine around them is absolutely crazy and all over the place

So it seems that Seb is just their resident piano player (side note, who ended up getting Kelsey??)

Big Red with the flashlight trying so hard to keep it on the disco ball

EJ interrupting because of the bell. Does anyone really love Thanksgiving that much??

Also I always forget that American Thanksgiving is like a month later than Canadian Thanksgiving and I was hella confused for a second.

Ricky is so surprised that Nini is complimenting him

Ashlyn as Robotics Team captain! (side note Big Red gives her an impressed look after he overhears that she’s the captain)

Also: debate team, baking club, high priestess of the Renaissance Faire

We love a multifaceted lady

Miss Jenn/Mr. Mazzarra trying to have a ‘my horse is bigger than your horse’ banter except neither of them have the horses they claim to have

“With whoever could possibly love you,” lol ok Miss Jenn went for the head

“Late night party” - party starts at 8 that’s adorable

“Small group or…” “PARTY AT ASHLYN’S HOUSE!”

It’s really interesting learning about Nini’s Lola (? I think that’s how it’s spelled, which is what I believe Filipino people call their grandmother’s), and her story

I’m just really proud of Ricky’s Dad. Like he was in such a bad place 2-3 episodes ago and now he’s taking care of himself and Ricky (even if it isn’t a grandiose Thanksgiving) he’s trying and I think he’s doing great

“We roll hard” I just really love this line

“I suppose if you’re lonely, you could always just… randomly text my drama teacher,” “Too soon… RIck,” “... yeah okay”

That was pretty funny. Also, it seems like Ricky’s okay with his dad dating?

Ricky’s mom waiting for him to call

I don’t know how I feel about this to be honest. I feel like maybe she should have tried to call him first and then if he didn’t answer or want to talk to her, that she should wait for him to make the next move then.

EJ’s truth arc is very funny to me

Big Red and Ashlyn

“I promise not to steal your phone if you promise not to throw a basketball at my face,” “No, the only thing I’d ever throw at your face is a brighter spotlight cause, I like the way you sing

Oof they’re so cute, we love little crushes

Also this might be an unpopular opinion but y’all need to calm down about the whole ‘Ashlyn and Big Red are GAY and they only THINK theyy like each other’ thing. #1 It was never confirmed for them to be gay. #2 You can still have wlw and mlm head-cannons for them! Bi, Pan, and other multiple gender attraction oriented people exist, even if you forget about us sometimes.

They are a cute little pairing of people who are always looking out and taking care of other people. It’s okay for them to do things for themselves.

Ricky debating calling his mom, it took a lot of courage and then Todd picks up.

Hangs up immediately, it almost looked like he was going to have a panic attack. That would be so hard, such an extreme shift

I guess the reason he was more okay with his Dad dating was that his Dad was open and honest with him about it. Calling your Mom only to find out that she has a boyfriend that a. She never told you about b. He knows about you and c. is trusted enough to be left alone with her phone while she showers? Is a lot, and probably means that she started dating him before the split was official.

Ricky going to call Nini and then deciding against it. Why doesn’t he feel like he can talk to Big Red about this kind of stuff? Why does he always go to Nini first?

Gina shows up, those are good looking cupcakes

She made him a hat!

She looks so hesitant before she gives it to him!

Gina’s like ‘look dude, I know something’s wrong, spill the beans’

Ignore it and push through - I understand where she’s coming from but you really shouldn’t ignore your problems, it usually just makes them worse

“Do what makes you happy,” “... Give me that hat,”

Adorable, also do what makes you happy is good advice so we’re a little all over the map here

“That’s too big,” “I’ll grow into it,” (adorable)

Miss Jenn and Mr. Mazzarra’s whole interaction is hilarious.

Don’t burn down my shop! - holy shit, foreshadowing buddies

Ashlyn is so cute! She’s so happy when people compliment her

“I highly recommend not telling someone you love them for the first time on instagram” - yup! That’s what I said in the first one of these I did.

Carlos - “The party may begin!” - I totally thought he said “The party made me gay,” the first time I watched it so uhh yeah

Big Red is lactose intolerant

Carlos’ board game is amazing

“High School Musical the Choosical,” - fantastic name

Everyone is so accepting

Ashlyn and Big Red choosing to be on the same team

“South Side Knights -” “It’s the West High Nights,” “the West High Knights”

Ej is like a compulsive truther now. And it’s kind of hilarious

His face when he says “She laughed!” is hilarious and kind of adorable

“I gotta go join the party, and admit some terrible things, you ladies, catch up!” - I wish we got to see what he was admitting to, I find this whole thing quite funny

I’m glad that Emily and Nini got some reconciliation, I know Nini felt guilty even though it wasn’t her fault

That is not a good cockney accent

Why did Ricky enter alone when him and Gina walked together?

And he left her to open the door on her own with all those cupcakes?

“Buddies,” “We,”

Ricky and Gina both laughing about YouTube, cuties

Look, feelings are feelings and you can’t help what you feel, but pushing someone away and insisting to remain only friends means that you shouldn’t be upset when he makes a new friend

Mr. Mazzara and Miss Jenn

The plug socket is in the frame, more foreshadowing

“He won’t.. Not… fall” this show loves it’s double negatives huh? I don’t not love you, he won’t not fall etc.

“Ok but the center of gravity is off,” YES to different kinds of intelligence being helpful in fields other than the main one people associate them with

Carlos thinking people are going to keep judging him and the theater people being as accepting as possible

EJ is a gleek

What I’ve Been Looking For to the rhythm of Get Your Head in the Game is hard! (Catch me on the piano later trying to figure it out lol)

It just turns into a terrible rap

EJ - “That was terrible,” Seb -  “I’m so happy”

EJ vs. Ricky - “without laughing… or killing each other,”

This is a good parallel to the basketball scene, once again they get kind of aggressive, but this time they also joke around and no one gets hurt

Also I would love to see them become friends, I mean they both need to grow a little before that happens, but I have hopes

They missed the ‘neeee howww’ part of it, I really wanted to hear them do the high voices

EJ’s little “mehh” that sounds like a duck kills me everytime

Gina and Nini awkwarddd

“I do have high hopes for a junior year at East High” oof babey :(

“It must be nice sometimes though, right?” - nini does not understand

This actually gives us an insight as to why they don’t understand each other. Nini would love nothing more than to start a new life with no drama and Gina would love nothing more than to have a life that lasts longer than a couple months before being restarted.

Gina/Nini apology very exciting, hopefully they can actually become friends

“It’s all good,” from Nini seemed disingenuous, I don’t know if it’s because of the Wonderstudy thing or the Ricky thing. 

The sleepover thing I was so worried that it would be a mean spirited thing but I’m so glad it wasn’t

Nini sits on Ricky’s lap when she goes back to the game room and I don’t know if it’s intentional or not but it’s kind of like she’s trying to lay her claim back on Ricky.

Gina looks so happy when a. Carlos calls her in and b. the happy dance about the sleepover! (why’d they have to ruin the happiness??)

Mr. Mazarra returning the favour

“It’s beautiful,” “Math often is,” dudde I feel you I fucking love math

“I cannot stress to you enough how uncomfortable that would make me feel,”

“You know what we should do?” “Break off eye contact sometime soon?”

I’m dying

“It’s about a robot!” this is… pretty adorable. She just wants to make a genuine connection with him

Also are they going to do a romance route with these two? Because I can see them setting it up but also imagine if they just become like… best friends? I feel like they’d be unstoppable.

Musical Choosical Handbook of Rulesicals

“I thought you had never actually played this with people-” “Honey not today of all days,”

Carlos and Seb are the only couple with no bad drama and I’m living for it (please let them just stay happy)

Oops! I knew that jersey question… also it’s definitely the answer Big Red would now because he’s only watched the movie with no words (at his allergists office)

“And do people usually talk like that?” “No they do not.” - gold

EJ the compulsive cheater and also compulsive truther makes a comeback (I seriously find this so funny I don’t know why)

“I love to pop and lock and jam and break,” oh GIna

She’s so happy about winning

Not realistic, you know that the second she called her mom at least someone would be like “pass the weed,” (you know because friends are awesome and also terrible)

“Can you take me off speaker”

Some people are like ‘oh no is she in trouble?’

I kind of hate that it looks like Nini looks sort of happy about Gina’s mom asking her to take her off speaker - I really don’t want Nini to turn into a catty person.

Ricky is concerned

Why did her mom tell her this right now? She should have waited until the next morning, like that wouldn’t have hurt anyone and it would have let them form stronger bonds. And Gina would have had her first sleepover and also they might form strong enough bonds to try and stay in contact with her

Ricky is worried for her, he’s like, ‘You made me feel better, so I’ll go make you feel better’

Nini’s looking upset that Ricky’s being emotionally aware for once? Like dude, he’s grown up a lot since BEFORE summer break? That’s like six months ago I think at this point?

Ricky just wants to help Gina feel better because she made him feel better

She doesn’t understand that they can stay friends even if she leaves and I just :(

“Please don’t do that” he’s so overwhelmed

“My mom moved out two weeks ago and she’s already got a new boyfriend, sound familiar?” Oooh low blow Ricky bud.

“Really don’t need advice from a .. buddy right now,”

Ok but then who does Ricky want advice from? I’m so confused. This boy needs to get a better support system and learn how to use it. Romantic relationships should not be your only outlet for your problems.

Red and Ashlyn

“I hope Gina’s gonna be okay,” - Big Red is so sweet!

They’re so cute

“Hey Big Red? Don’t forget your dip,” - oh she was so going to ask him out and then lost the nerve

Write something for yourself.

It’s a hard thing to do, dude. It’s also hard to let yourself feel so vulnerable, even if it’s only you that’s going to hear it

Gina packing, I feel so sad for her, she’s finally made some good friends and now she has to leave again. She kept the badge! :( 

EJ losing followers and being cancelled, at least we know why now

It seems like a lot of EJ’s self worth comes from how others think of him. So losing followers is probably a pretty big hit. I wonder if he’ll keep going with his whole truth thing when it has these consequences or if he’ll just go back to what he was doing before. I hope that he has a positive arc but, will it go downhill from here? I hope not.

Ricky about to apologise to Nini (why did he erase it, he probably should have sent that) - side note: their conversation before was them asking each other if they were going to the party

It’s interesting that Nini had pictures of EJ and Ricky up still

Gina’s crying face is making me cry

“Hey mom, it’s me, I miss you so much,” tears

Nini hanging up pictures of her grandma and the musical. She’s really trying to move forward from boys huh?

Is nini going to apply to the theater school??

Electrical fire???????? WHy??

[criminalmindskink]

Kouver Hotchner

A request from the amazing @fussy-and-a-writer-sometimes thank you so much for this inspiration. 

As always please enjoy. My request remain open. 

Kouver 

Another day another murder has become my motto over the past few years. After coming to work with my adoptive father, Aaron, I’ve come to the conclusion that serial killers never sleep. Honestly, I don’t see how they do it. Has to be a lot of coffee. 

“Good morning gorgeous!” I hear Morgan screams across the pit. He has both of his arms raised with that breathtaking smile on his face. 

I return the smile before running into the hug. “Good morning chocolate thunder” I purr in response with a sly smirk on my face. 

He goes to respond before we see JJ walk between us. The look on her face already saying there’s a case coming. 

We both turned to look at Em, who is counting down on her fingers. 

I place my hands on my hips and look around to my coworkers. “Another day another murder” I mutter our while shaking my head. 

My dad walks out from his office and heads towards the conference room. “Alright everyone, we have a new case” he shouts before walking into the room. 

As we all sit down the faces of the victims are pulled up onto the screen. Penny places the pictures up while making soft comments of discomfort. Hotch goes through the how's and when's, while everyone else gives their inputs. 

Hotch rubs his hands over his face before blowing out a harsh breath. “It’s gonna be a tough one, wheels up in 30” he states before walking out to grab his go bag. 

I look to Spence before bumping shoulders with him. “Hey pretty boy, up for a game of chess on the plane?” I ask him while walking to the break room to grab coffee. 

He smiles at me before responding “Did you know that chess is often cited by psychologists as an effective way to improve memory function. Also allowing the mind to solve complex problems and work through ideas, it is no wonder that chess is recommended in the fight against Alzheimer’s. Some contend that it can increase one’s intelligence, though that is a more complex topic. The effects of chess on young individuals had led to chess being introduced in school districts and various countries. It has been shown to improve children’s grades and other positive effects as well.” He rattles all the information out while throwing his hands around wildly. 

I chuckle before raising my eyebrow at the man. Half of me wants to tell him I already knew that, because I honestly do, but he looks so proud. “It truly is an amazing game. Every title has a story while every game has the ability to heal.” I respond before taking a sip from my coffee. 

I walk out of the room towards my desk when I hear my dad from behind me “Hey ninja, how’s your day going?” He ends with a chuckle due to me almost tackling him in a hug. 

It’s always nice to see the father side of him at work. With all we do, it really helps to have him here. “Hey papa bear! I’m doing pretty peachy. How about you?” I respond while still hugging him tightly with my chin on his chest. 

I let go and we continue to walk with his arm around my shoulder. “I'm alright. This case is gonna be a tough one. Can I say something that’s strictly father to daughter for a second?” He asks before directing me to his office. 

We both remove our badges and place them on the desk. This is what we do every time we have a daughter-father talk. Off the records and heart to heart. “Ofcourse, what’s on ya mind pops?” I ask a bit concerned. 

“When are you gonna tell Spencer how you feel Ninja? You two would be great together. You’re obviously in love with each other” he says in a tone that’s attempting to keep me at bay. 

“We’re not in love with each other. I admire him, that’s all. He’s brilliant and funny and attractive but I’m not in love with him.” I respond to him a bit dejected. My arms are wrapped around each other and my eyes on the floor. The one person I can’t lie to is my father. After everything that’s happened he’s kept my head up. 

Sure, I’m adopted. That one action has saved me in so many ways in my life. He raised me like his own. He wasn’t always there in person. He had given me a necklace when I was younger. Told me he would always be with me in heart. 

“How can the two most brilliant people in this state be the only two oblivious to the fact they’re in love?” He asks with a tone of pure curiosity. 

I grab the necklace before giving him a weak smile. “Papa, we don’t always get what we want in life. We’re coworkers, we’re friends, not lovers. Now, let’s go catch the bad guy. We can have dinner when it’s over” I respond before hugging him again. 

“Alright, we'll talk more at this dinner you hear me?” He demands with his dad time coming out.

“Sounds like a plan” I say before grabbing my badge and placing it on my hip. 

He follows suit in placing his back on before we both walk out and head to the plane. 

Spencer 

“I-I don’t understand, I never lose.” This woman just beat me. This beautiful, brilliant, sly woman just beat me. At chess, my own game. Granted it’s not my game. 

She winks before walking to the back of the plane to sit with Derek. 

“You should have never played the Queen in her own game Dr. Reid.” Hotch says from the seat across from us. He’s wearing the ghost of a smirk before going back to the case file. 

I pack the game back up and return to my seat before JJ and Prentiss sit to the front and side of me. They both have looks on their faces that only scream trouble to me. 

“Alright Reid, when are you gonna make a move?” Emily says while resting her head on her hand. 

Wait am I that obvious? No that’s not possible. I mean I believe that I hide it quite well. I make sure she never catches my looks, I watch her from afar, I assure that our banter is friendly. 

“Reid” JJ sings from beside me “come back to us and spill” she finishes while shaking my shoulder. 

“I-I” I clear my throat before continuing “I assure you I have no intentions of making a move on her. I do not intend on leaving her anywhere actually. Not that we’re together or anything I just respect her. She’s my friend and all. Just like everyone else here. I would not make a move on anyone else in the plane.” I finish before giving a weak smile. 

“You know that’s not what she meant Spence and you know it” JJ says while squinting her eyes at me. These two women should work this hard when cornering an unsub.

The plane starts to descend which causes the two to back off for a small bit. As we leave the plane and head for our cars I can’t stop thinking about what the two said. 

Yes I’m madly in love with the woman. She could never see me in that light. I watched this woman knock a grown man out in one hit for slapping her butt one time. She is strong, smart, and absolutely breathtaking. 

Kouver 

This case has been absolute hell but we almost have him. This sorry piece of work has killed twelve people. The yellow-belly fool has been going for small families. Taking out the husband with a silenced pistol before beating and killing the mother and children. 

We believe we know which neighborhood he’s targeting next. This leaves all of us in watch at different parts of the suburb. 

I can not stand sitting here on this bench while this man is out there. It gives me too much time to think. Think about everything I’ve done wrong and the things I’ll never have. 

Love is one of the things that come to mind. With everything I’ve been through, I’ve come to not believe in it. I thought I would never believe in it. Then there’s Dr. Spencer Reid. The brilliant, stunning, adorable Dr. Reid. 

I swore to never trust anyone. I promised to never let anyone get near me. Hell, the touch of a man pisses me off to no end. Everytime he touches me, talks to me, gives me that smile I don’t feel that hatred. He makes me feel safe and not alone. He makes fighting off my demons worth it. 

The thing is men like that deserve more than a person like me. I’m broken and littered in evidence of why. 

All these thoughts are making my focus slip so I get up and start to patrol the neighborhood. All of the houses look to be safe so far. No fences open and all windows closed. 

I go to turn when I hear some rustling from a backyard. Slowly, I begin to walk around the house. Once I make it to the back I see the unsub slip into a window on the second floor. 

I grab my radio and push the button before whispering  “Unsub, 1236 South Marks Ave. He’s just entered the second floor. No time to wait. I’m going in.” I turn the radio off before kicking in the front door. 

I run up the stairs as quietly as possible before seeing the husband at the top guarding the door to a room. 

“Bertin Kemp, FBI, drop your weapon” I scream out and the attention of both men is now on me. 

Kemp keeps his gun trained on the man while regarding me with a look of disbelief “you put down your gun and maybe I won’t blow this guy to his metaphorical God” He seethes in response. 

“We all get it. You claim that this God everyone respects so well left you. How does killing this man change that? Tell me Bertin, how does killing these people change what happened to you? I’ll place my gun away as soon as you lower yours.” I respond, watching carefully as we both lower our weapons. 

“Why do these people get to live happily, huh? I go through mistake after mistake. I have to be out through pain after pain, why?” He screams at me, tears coming up onto his face. “Why am I always the one to have to be beaten, used, and looked over. I’ve worked hard to get where I’m at and always get hurt in return. Yet these other people have families, houses, spouses. Why am I broken huh?” He screams at me while waving his hands wildly. 

Before I can respond I see him turning back to the husband again. He reaches for his gun again and I realize I don’t have time to unholster mine and save this man's life. I hear the sirens and make a decision I may very well regret. I jump in front of the husband and feel a shooting pain in my back. 

I faintly hear the sound of someone being tackled to the floor before feeling arms wrap around me. 

“Kouver? Kouver please open your eyes” I hear Spencer cry out to me. 

I opened my eyes and gave him a weak smile “I’m alright boy wonder. This isn’t the first time I’ve been shot, and it won’t be the last, I assure you. Go ahead and put another one in me. I’m a stone wall remember?” I choke out while grabbing his hand. My other hand goes to the necklace that never leaves my presence. Please don’t let me go. I’m not ready to leave this team quite yet. 

“I have so much to tell you so you have to be okay. Because Kouver-” is all I hear from him before passing out. 

Beep. Beep. Beep. 

I hear the familiar beeping accompanied by the smell of cleaning supplies. I keep my eyes closed and listen closely to my surroundings. I slowly assure all body parts can move before feeling something grabbing my hand. I squeezed the hand in return and felt the person go rigid. 

“Kouver?” I hear Spencer gasp out before jumping up and grabbing my face. 

I open my eyes to see him with tears in his. I place my hands over the ones on my face and raised an eyebrow at him. “Spencer why are you crying? I’m gonna be fine. I bullet to the chest isn’t always fatal. You should head home with the rest of the team.” I say gently while studying his face.  

“Kouver you know good and well they all wanted to be there I sent them away” I go to interrupt him before he gives me a pleading look, “I just want to get this out. Kouver Hotchner, I love you. I don’t know when. You’re brilliant, funny, beautiful, and the bravest person I’ve ever met. I know I’m meek, at times a coward, and I’m nowhere near as amazing as you but you’ve somehow become my world. The term I would use to describe how I look at you Kouver is worship. To worship something is to show a lot of love and adoration for something. Kouver I love you and adore you and I know it’s not reciprocated. Damn it Kouver stop taking bullets for people. Stop putting others lives over yours. I don’t know what you’ve been through but I assure you your worth is not tainted. Please just be careful, I need you alive.” He ranted out to me. His hands still holding my face in place. 

His tears are running freely and mine match his own. “Spencer I, I love you too. I don’t know how you got into my heart but you did. You’re not weak or a coward. Spencer you’re brilliant. You solve things without a second guess. You rattle off these amazing facts that amaze me every time I speak to you. You’re handsome and sweet and everything I could ever want in a man. I assure you I return the feeling of worship too pretty boy. Just damn it Spencer come here” I end my own rant by grabbing his collar and kissing him with all I’m worth. 

Maybe I can be happy after all. Maybe I can finally have my happily ever after. I don’t know what this man sees in me. Hopefully I can make him as happy as he makes me. It seems someone needs to show my genius what he’s truly worth. 

“Yes!” We both hear a screech at the doorway. I look over to see the entire team watching us. Penny is jumping up and down while Em and JJ are high fiving. The boys of the group all wear knowing smirks of their own. 

I’m one of the luckiest people in the world to have this family. I know Spencer wants me to be more careful, but I’d take a bullet for any one of these people any day. I know how Bertin Kemp felt when he spoke of the pain. The feeling of abandonment and abuse is all too familiar. This group of people are what stopped that vicious cycle for me. Starting with my dad. He’s truly saved my life.

“When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one that has opened for us.” – Alexander Graham Bell

[griffinwriting]

1.The Bank Job

Tobias Clarke wasn’t a bad kid. Of course, it really depended on who you asked and what their standards were. That being said, he wasn’t the worst kid. He certainly knew of kids that were a lot worse than him, but he was no saint.

He was dealing with the cards that were dealt to him, at least that’s what he kept telling himself. He had to admit that he knew jack-shit about card games and would probably lose a lot of them. But he did know if there was a shitty hand to be dealt, it was this one.

Tobias crumpled the paper fast food bag and tossed it in the bin, he found the old tv remote and switched it on, he always needed some background noise to distract him.

His apartment was nothing of the sort, not an actual apartment at all. It was a couple of cosy rooms built out of leftover building materials. It sat on the fifth floor of an old and abandoned New York City building, mid-construction when abandoned. The apartments he visited when he was house-hunting were all amazing but the people asked too many questions and wouldn’t take a seventeen-year-old who looked like he had slept in an alleyway seriously. Although they had a point not to, back then he was sleeping in the subway.

So he found the abandoned building, paid off the old man who owned it and made a few shoddy shacks, it was home.

Tobias ruffled through his drawer and picked out two leather duffel bags. He plopped them on the table and went to find his other belongings, stopping before the wall. The wall was plastered with pictures and posters, newspaper articles and building schematics.

He bit his lip, pondering if he should really go through with it.

Dealing with the shitty hand dealt to me.

Of course, robbing a bank is probably not the best way to deal with your problems. But Tobias had run out of options, and he hadn’t seen Robin in a while.

This was going to be different from normal bank heists though, he placed his car keys in the duffel bags, phone, headphones and extra cash just in case, but no guns. No one was going to be hurt and the bank itself was owned by the city’s own corrupt mayor, the one that had shut down businesses for the promise of another mall. So really no harm done.

Tobias switched between channels until he found the news and went to get changed, the sound carrying over from the living room.

The news anchor looked distraught as she read from the teleprompter.

Another witness of supernatural this morning as one woman claims to have seen an African American youth in the South Bronx at approximately eight AM. The woman claims the teenager disappeared in front of her eyes before reappearing behind her, he appeared to teleport a few more times before finally leaving the witness. This is the sixth report of supernatural abilities in the last seven months, forcing some people to take the streets in panic. The US government has not issued any statement regarding this surge in the supernatural which has angered a lot of people, this just begs the questions. Is the government as clueless as the public? When will the supernaturals start hurting people? Are we safe? 

More on this after the break.

Tobias muttered under his breath as he flicked it off.

Fearmongering media. He rolled his eyes.

He grabbed the duffel bags and left down the elevator. The Brooklyn air was filled with the smells and sounds of the city, mostly just a lot of traffic.

Tobias rounded the corner to see a familiar face.

Emily stood by his rusted 78 Chevy. Her blonde hair curved around her slender face, her lanky figure hugged by the baggy clothes she wore, her favourite hoodie almost three sizes too big for her.

“Tobias.”

Shit.

“How the hell did you find me?” he asked.

“I have a phone Toby, it wasn’t that hard,” she responded.

He chuckled and held her in a tight hug, “I have missed you Em. How’s it been?”

She thrust her hands into her pockets and her face deadened.

“Shit. Jones is furious, been calling cops all over to find you. The kids are scared, keep askin’ bout you.”

Tobias unlocked the Chevy and thrust the duffel bags in, a knot formed in his chest. The kid's faces flashed through his mind and a pang of guilt rushed through him.

“I’m sorry for leaving like that, I uhh… needed to get out.”

They both went silent, Emily’s glassy eyes started to well but she held her composure.

“I got a couple interested,” she said, “Over in Queens, they seem serious about it.”

Tobias’ face lit up. “No way! Well, you always said you would get out.”

He smiled, “You better stay in touch right?”

“Course I will, you can’t get rid of me that easily,” she said, playing with the inhaler in her hands.

She took his phone and punched in her number, “You text me whenever you can okay? I uhh gotta get back, before anyone notices I’m gone.”

Tobias enveloped his friend in another warm hug, hoping to god it wouldn’t be the last. He smiled as she turned and walked away. He opened the car door.

“Toby…”

He turned back to her.

“Please go back. It ain't much but at least it’s a warm bed and food, the kids can’t deal with it alone and you know that. You can’t just run away to live in a construction building?”

Her voice was frail, tears running the mascara down her cheeks.

“I promise I’ll make things right,” he said nodding, he bent down and kissed her cheek. “I just need a little time.”

They said their goodbyes and Tobias climbed in the driver seat, he took a few breaths to calm himself before turning the key. He pulled out and sped down the street, the conversation still ticking at him. Once he stopped at a light he fumbled for his phone and scrolled through his playlists, music was a good distraction.

He scrolled past the Beatles and the Zepplin, and even Nirvana. Stopping at Blue Swede, he pressed and the bubbly, gorilla-like intro of ‘Hooked on a Feeling’ bounced from the speaker system.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see the kids again, or even that the house was that bad. It was just the atmosphere he hated. The disappointing soul-sucking banality that was led at the St Christophes Orphanage. Watching as kids get adopted left and right while the disabled, sick and older children are invisible. Emily and Tobias had been the only ones who looked after The Forgotten as they called themselves. There was Macy, the eleven-year-old mute who had a secret addiction to red vines. Tom the paraplegic fourteen-year-old, who even though it wasn't cool anymore, adored the power rangers. The six-year-old twins, Gabby and Danielle who could beat anyone at chess. When going up against each other the games could last hours. And seven-year-old David, type 1 diabetic but could always manage to put a smile on anyone’s face.

Emily had been there a couple months before Tobias had, her parents killed in an accident and his parents just gave him up. 

No one wanted them so at the orphanage they stayed. And Tobias was sick of it, the emotional rollercoaster that goes through the kids when a family is interested. Everything seems good until they pull the rug out from under you, either the family loses interest or doesn’t have the money. Tobias and Emily had both had their souls broken before they hit puberty.

So once the opportunity presented itself, Tobias ran. He hadn't planned anything, just took what little he had and slept where he could.

But then it happened, the media had called it The Surge. Reports of teenagers gaining powers of extraordinary magnitude, all around the globe and out of the blue. Controlling elements, changing the weather, breathing fire. Just like out of a movie, except the movies never showed the dark side of superpowers, the riots, the beatings. Humans did what was true to their nature, they didn’t understand it so they fear it, they attack it.

Somehow amidst all of this, Tobias became even more invisible. But that was okay for him, now he could do whatever he wanted and no one would bother him. Peace at last.

Tobias pulled into a parking lot, the engine rumbled and spluttered to a stop and he paused the music, putting his feet up and watching.

A few moments passed and he began to wonder if it would ever come. 

Maybe I’m too late? Maybe it’s not coming today?

The familiar bank logo passed on the armoured truck, it pulled into the parking lot and around to the back of the Bank of NYC.

Tobias smiled. Perfect.

He checked the time on his phone, 11:27. He stuffed his phone and headphones into his pockets and grabbed the duffel bags.

He opened the door and was flooded by the sounds of the city, the birds that sung overhead, the cab’s many horn honkings and the chattering of passersby. 

He stopped in front of the bank doors and took a deep breath.

Freeze.

The bird songs stopped, their wings spread out but motionless. The chorus of cab horns went dead. The passersby as still as statues.

Not only had The Surge made him more invisible by focusing on the ones with superpowers, but no one had seen him because he was never there. At least not according to time, he could get in and out without a single second passing.

It was odd at first, he woke up and felt different. A weight that accumulated in his chest, it travelled up his spine and to his head. A tingle and then a burst of power rippled through his body. Then it was just there, a single thought, almost like an instinct.

There had been a few theories about the apocalypse from sweaty men who talked fast on the tv, the ones who could control water would create tsunamis, the ones who could shoot fire from their eyes would turn the world to ash. But Tobias didn't think the ability to stop time would harm anybody, it couldn’t end the world. All it did was make his life a little easier and for once it actually was easy. 

Didn’t get any sleep? Stop time and take a nap.

Late for a train you need to get? Stop time and get to the subway.

Need to rob a bank from a corrupt government official because he’s an asshole and you need money? Stop time and rob that bank.

It was a plus four in the Uno game that was his life.

He smiled, relishing the perfection of stillness. 

Fumbling in his pocket, he took his phone and plugged in the headphones. The music flooding his ears made him chuckle slightly.

The bank was nice and cool, it was busy today.

He went through a series of doors and plucked one of the teller’s security badges, swiping it on the door, the LED flashed green and let him through. The hallway was narrow but it was perfect, the bank worker pushing a cart, paralysed. The vault door, wide open.

Tobias ran past the worker, the cart full of money was enticing but would be too obvious, the vault was where he should be. With it’s round doorway over his head he continued inside, rows of safety deposit boxes lined the walls but they were all locked. Three more carts sat inside, stacks of hundred notes piled on top of them.

Tobias couldn’t help but jump with excitement. 

‘I’m high on believinnn’

His hips swayed, his feet shuffled.

‘That you’re in looooooove with meeeee’

He held his phone like a microphone as he danced across the vault floor.

His grin spread even wider, he started shoving stacks into the duffel bags. 

Five thousand. Hundred thousand. Half a million.

Holy shit.

Soon his duffel bag was full, he reached for the second but stopped.

Don’t be too greedy, there’s still the second bank.

That being said, Tobias wasn’t convinced. He was staring at more money than he’d ever hope to spend. 

Most people would stare at the mountain of cash and think about the Bahamas, private jets or the newest Ferrari. Tobias looked at it, his thoughts weren’t about extravagance. His mind flooded with needs. A lifetime of insulin for David, a better wheelchair for Tom, food for the rest of his life, a house for him and the kids. He turned away from the cart.

Half a million was all he needed, so half a million was all he took.

He ran back out, past the worker and back to the bank teller, placing the security card back in her pocket. The duffel bag was heavy, but he didn’t mind.

His body flowed with adrenaline as he skipped his way outside. He flitted back to his car and shoved the bags in, he sat down and closed the door.

Taking a deep breath he closed his eyes.

Go.

The chorus of cab horns played again and the passersby resumed their walking and chattering. Tobias waited, expecting the worst.

After a moment he grinned again. No sirens.

He started the car again and the engine roared to life, as did the speakers. This time it was Queen’s ‘Another one bites the dust’. The car’s clock ticked from 11:27 to 11:28.

He drummed his fingers on the wheel to the beat, screaming the lyrics at the top of his lungs as the joy almost burst out of him. 

He sped down the road grinning to himself.

A minute later he took a right and pulled into the parking lot of his favourite place in Brooklyn, Ivan’s Ironic Ice cream. Tobias had gone there every week since he ran away and he still hadn’t found out how it’s ironic. 

Freeze.

He grabbed the duffel bag and walked out into the hot sun.

The bell rang above the door as he entered, the ice cream shop was relatively big for Brooklyn. There were a couple people scattered around the tables, frozen mid-bite. Tobias chuckled as he noticed one woman whos dollop had fallen off the spoon, the drop merely suspended in the air, waiting for gravity to carry on with it’s thing. The walls were decorated with posters of ungodly portions of ice cream but he didn’t mind, he wasn’t there for the decorations.

He turned to the counter and placed the duffel bag on a table.

A brunette stood smiling behind the counter, talking to her co-worker. Her slender figure hidden behind the baggy t-shirt with the shop’s logo on it. Her blue eyes glinted in the light and brought out the sharpness of her cheekbones. The pin attached to her T-shirt read Robin.

To Tobias, she looked perfect. He would tell her that if she’d known he had existed. Not in the talked-once-at-school kind of way, but the way in that every time he came in he would stop time so she literally had never met him.

He smiled as he went behind the counter and began a concoction of flavours to die for, a ball of mint choc chip, some banana pecan and maybe a touch of caramel sauce with a sprinkle of chocolate chips.

Tobias had been experimenting with combinations but had found this to be the best, he never actually paid for the ice cream directly. First, he’d have to calculate how much he owed and then he’d have to put it in the register. That just seemed like too much of a fuss for one ice cream. Instead, he placed down his pot and plucked a stack from the duffel bag. He opens up the black box labelled ‘tips’ and shoves in the whole stack. 

Tobias figured it was more than fair for a struggling Brooklyn business and besides, Robin probably needed it for something.

He sat and ate his well earned treat listening to the likes of Elton John and ABBA, although he did get up and dance a few times as well. Once he finished, he turned to leave but noticed something.

A girl sat in the corner, her mascara painted down her cheeks as she stared at the phone that lit her face. Tobias wondered over, curious. 

She wore a face of pain and Tobias couldn’t help but look at the phone. It was a string of texts and the contact had a heart emoji, but the last text stood out to him.

‘It’s not you, it’s me.’

“Ohh what a dick,” said Tobias, shaking his head. “Is he seriously using that bullshit?”

A split second decision led him to search for a pen, he came back with a sharpie and another stack of hundreds in hand.

In his messy handwriting he scribbled.

I’m Sorry Darling, 

you deserve better than him.

XXX

He fumbled around her jacket and stuck it in her inside pocket.

With a new sense of having done the right thing, he nodded everyone goodbye and left.

He climbed back in the car and laughed to himself.

Go.

The long line of traffic behind him began it’s steady shuffle again and he joined the line, with a bag of money and speakers blasting. It had been a rather succesful morning, but that did not deter Tobias from checking out the second bank, no harm in it if no one would know he’d been there.

He made his way through the painfully slow traffic until he found it.

The building was a glass fortress, it’s thick walls an architectual beauty. Once the traffic cleared for him to take the turning, he veered off and into the parking lot. 

Freeze.

He crept the car slowly around the building, and found the back door. The Bank usually kept that locked and it would’ve been, had one of the workers not been holding it open on his smoke break. 

Tobias grinned, it was almost too easy. He grabbed the empty duffel bag and left the car in park, with music blasting in his ears he jumped up the stairs and over tot he worker.

The name tag was a jumble of letters that could have read Jerry, but Tobias had no idea. The cigarette he held to his mouth had a warm glow to it, Tobias flicked it and it soared through the air and landed on the ground below.

“You know Jerry I’m saving you in the long run,” he said patting him on the shoulder and moving on past him.

 The inside of the bank was a series of long corridors that confused Tobias, it looked easier on paper. But eventually he found himself going through a door, the right door.

Then he walked into the truck bay, where no more than ten workers were unloading three armoured cars. Tobias’ face lit up. He rushed to them, plucking up stacks of hundreds here and there. He hopped up to the back of a truck and looked around, half was money and the other half was filled with mountains of white bags. Tobias poked the bags and felt it was soft.

I can do without the cocaine. He thought to himself, turning back to the money. 

With another bag full he hopped out and was filled with joy, his hands almost shaking.

After rearranging a few stacks to make it look like nothing had been tampered with, he stood back and looked at his work.

The next song came through his headphones.

Queen, ‘Don’t stop me now’.

Tobias leapt back through the doorway, prancing his way down the corridor.

His feet skipping on the carpeted floor.

Don’t

Stop

Me

 Dancing with a bag of over half a million dollars strapped to your back is a very difficult feat to achieve yet he did it, his body swaying from the office and into the lobby. Kicking doors open and spinning through them.

“Oh, Oh, Ohhh Explooooode!” he screamed, weaving through the still people.

It felt good to win. It felt like his life was actually going to get better.

He hadn’t just won poker, he’d taken the whole damn casino.

He clicked his fingers, the wire of his headphones flinging along with the sway of his head.

He closed his eyes, even with his singing every word his smile was as strong as ever.

He was high, the power, the music, the money. It was exhilarating.

“HEY!”

He froze. His eyes opened, a girl stood the other side of the room, she was moving.

He yanked out the headphones. 

Did I start time again?

The people around him still paralyzed, motionless.

But this girl walked towards him.

Go.

“Who the hell are you?” she screeched.

Freeze.

“And what the fuck is going on?”

Tobias clicked his fingers along with his powers, turning it off and on again.

His stomach turned, “What?”

“Ww...WHAT?” he shouted.

Freeze.

The girl stared at him in amazement.

He stared back in disbelief. This couldn’t happen, it was impossible.

“Ohh fuck.”

Tobias did the only thing he could think of.

He turned and bolted.

[thegreen1969pontiac]

L’appel Du Vide Chapter 6- Remember How We Said “I Hope”

                                         Eventual Dean x OC

Summary: When Hope’s sister is killed in a less than a normal house fire, and Sam, her sister’s boyfriend, disappears with his brother after her death they’re her number one suspects. When the cops declare the case cold she begins her hunt for the Winchester boys. She follows them in hope for some evidence pointing to the death of her sister, but will she find more than just the cause and the killer? Will she find out more than she wanted to?

Warning: language, filler chapter, Winchester perspective

Word Count: 11652

The boys pull up to a gas station, Dean starts talking,

"All right, I figure we'd hit Tucumcari by lunch, then head South, hit Bisbee by midnight. Sam wears women's underwear." Dean teases, looking down at the cellphone in Sam's hand.

"I'm listening, I'm just busy," Sam says eyes still glued to his phone,

"Busy doing what?" Dean asked,

"Reading emails," Sam said with a monotonous voice. Dean got out of the car so he could begin to fill up Baby's tank. Dean squints his eyebrows together,

"Emails from who?" He asked slamming the door,

"From my friends at Stanford." Sam raises his voice,

"You're kidding, you still keep in touch with your college buddies?" Dean asks reaching for the pump and walking to the back to hook it into Baby.

"Why not?" Sam asks looking at Dean,

"Well," Dean leads on, "What exactly do you tell them you know, about where you've been, what you've been doing?" And Dean walks to where Sam's window was rolled down and leans on the car.

"I tell them I'm on a road trip with my big brother, I tell them that I needed some time off after Jess." Sam looks at Dean from within his seat in the Impala. Dean looks down at his brother smiling,

"Well, so you lie to them?" Dean says with a smirk,

"No," Sam says as his voice raises an octave in disbelief, "I just don't tell them everything." "Yeah, that's called lying," Dean says chuckling, "I mean hey man, I get it. Telling them the truth is much worse." And Dean looks at the numbers rise on the gallons dial.

"So, what am I supposed to do? Just cut everyone out of my life?" Sam asks watching his brother as some of his hair gets in his eyes. Dean shrugs his shoulders and looks down on to Sam with a fond smile.

"You're serious?" Sam asks in disbelief,

"Look it sucks. But a job like this, you can't get close to people." Deans says shaking his head,

"You're kind of antisocial. You know that?" Dean looks back to the rushing numbers,

"Yeah, whatever." He says with faux suave. Sam's eyebrows knit together as he looks back to his phone,

"God," Sam mumbles to himself.

"What?" Dean bends down so he is looking at the phone through the window.

"This email from this girl Rebecca Warren," On the phone it read,

hey sam -

wanted to update you: wasn't sure if you heard the news. Zach was arrested for killing his gf. sounds crazy, i know-but he's charged with murder. cops say they have dna, fingerprints, all kinds of evidence-- he didn't do it!! this all feels so unreal. just thought you'd like to know.

"She says Zach has been charged with murder, he's been arrested for killing his girlfriend," Sam says in shock from the email.

"Rebecca says he didn't do it, but it sounds like the cops have a pretty good case."

 Dean raises his eyebrows now in surprise,

"Dude, what kind of people are you hanging out with?" He asks looking at his shaggy-haired brother. Sam answers,

"No, man. I know Zach. He's no killer." Sam still looking at his phone in surprise,

"Yeah, well, maybe you know Zach as well as he knows you," Dean says teasingly. Sam looks to his brother,

"They're in St. Louis, we're going," Sam says with urgency. Dean chuckles,

"I'm sorry about your buddy, okay? But this does not sound like our kind of problem." Dean says with an ordering tone,

"It is our problem. They're my friends." Sam says, he flashes the puppy dog eyes that he knows that Dean can only resist for so long,

"St. Louis is 400 miles behind us, Sam," Dean says raising his voice and resting his hand on the Impala. And then they were driving back to St. Louis.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Following Sam and Dean tended to become a tedious task, the boys would drive during all hours of the day on only take 5 minute stop around every three hours, this proved to become an issue after only around two hours in which after drinking all the diner coffee had become a large regret of mine.

 I traveled behind the boys leaving enough room as to they couldn't see me wishing I had a more inconspicuous car but knowing I would never drive anything but Theo. As the boys pulled off for gas I pulled off to a convenience store and practically ran to the restroom. As I was washing my hands the restroom became about three degrees colder and I felt as if the already cool water was about to freeze. I look into the mirror and see my face staring back at me, something that after the freak accident in the car the other day proved to be something to celebrate. I saw the glinting though, from my neck, it was my sister's necklace, I found it at the evidence lock-up back before her funeral, it was one of the few things that survived the fire, it wasn't her favorite or anything, but I always liked it, it was a gift from mom and dad to her for getting into Stanford, just a small diamond hanging from a chain, it was simple and I liked it. Jess though never really wore it she was into statement pieces.  I shook my head and headed back to Theo paying for some Diet Coke and a candy bar. Just as I got back outside I see the black impala spinning around heading in the opposite direction they were heading. Are they serious? I groan but hop into Theo, and begin driving behind them again.

Over the past week since Jess died I have let loose a bit more, I turn on the radio now instead of sitting in silence and I have repainted my nails with the same red polish that was already on them, I allowed myself to wash my clothes around twice a week seeing as I had only around four outfits that I brought not including the dressy one. But, I still haven't allowed myself to sleep. 

Sleeping was always something that came quite naturally but in the past year due to my uncle's disappearance and due to my sister's death, I can't seem to sit still for more than an hour, in the car, it's worse. 

We drive for only a little while before we come to a stopping point outside a house that looks to be up on the higher end of the market. Sam and Dean exit their car begin hiking up the steps to the house's front porch. 

Sam knocks and the door swings open and when it does I can feel my eyes rolling into the back of my skull. God dammit. When the door swings open it reveals Becky one of Sam's friends. The one that Brady told me to talk to when he was too busy with his preppy lacrosse practice, she looks at Sam and smiles, She laughs with him and they hug he basically bear-hugs her due to her tiny stature and his giant one. Dean butts in and it seems like he introduces himself, shaking her hand, you could tell which one of the Winchester brothers she had a thing for, seeing as when he does give her the Winchester smile she quickly turns all of her undivided attention back to Sam. She waves them in and the two walk through.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

" I decided to take the semester off. I'm gonna stay until Zach's free." Becky states, walking with Sam, Dean trailing behind.

"Where are your folks?" Sam asked looking at her, as Dean looked around the mansion like house.

"They live in Paris for half the year, but they are flying back for the trial." She said, looking at Sam with adoration,

"Do you guys want a beer or something?" She asks walking towards the fridge. Dean's face lights up and he points at her,

"Hey," Deans says smiling then immediately Sam says,

"No thanks. So tell us what happened." Becky walks closer to Sam leaning in so she was looking directly at him,

"Well, Um, Zach had come home, and he found Emily tied to a chair, and she was beaten up and bloody, and she wasn't breathing. And so he called 911 and the police showed up, and they arrested him." She said her eyes filling with tears that just screamed truth.

"But the thing is, the only way that Zach could have killed Emily is if he was in two places at the same time. The police they have a video, it's from across the street. And it shows Zach at 10:30 coming home. Now Emily was killed just after that. But I swear that he was here with me, having a few beers until at least after midnight." She said her voice breaking and tears filling her eyes.

"You know, maybe we could see the crime scene -- Zach's house." Sam says leaning on the table long arms supporting him.

"We could?" Dean buts in looking in between Sam and Becky. Both look to him and Becky carries on ignoring Dean,

"Why? What could you do?" Becky asked.

"Well, me, not much but Dean, he's a cop," Sam said directing her attention to the shorter Winchester. Dean chuckles looking between the two,

"A detective, actually," Dean says smiling.

"Really? Where?" Becky asks. Dean nods,

"Bisbee, Arizona. But I'm off duty now." Dean says looking at Sam accusingly.

"I don't know. You guys, it's so nice to offer. But I just -- I don't know," Becky said shaking her head,

"Beck, look. I know Zach didn't do this. Now we have to find a way to prove that he's innocent," Sam said slowly. Becky looked from Sam to Dean and then back to Sam and smiled,

"Okay. I'm gonna go get the keys." Becky said turning on her heel. Dean whistles,

"Oh yeah, you're a real straight shooter with your friends," Dean says with his eyebrows raised.

"Look, Zach and Becky need our help," Sam says,

"I just don't think this is our type of problem," Dean said smiling as he said it.

"Two places at once?" Sam said stopping his brother, "We've looked into less," Dean raises his eyebrows and turns away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I haven't been doing much stalking, other than following the boys from town to town I didn't interfere at all, mainly only focusing on them when they are directly involved in something, but in St. Louis it didn't seem like much was going on, the murder happened before the boys got there. I made sure of it. I completed my third hour of research just five minutes ago, I had not only been studying mysterious deaths that all started with fire but also human psychology. 

The diner where I had stationed myself seemed to be nice, the place was cleaner then my motel and the coffee wasn't too bad either. Plus I was able to work without being interrupted by the "fun" my neighbor was having through the thin walls.

The main topic of my research has been the symbolism of fire and its meaning in different religions, fire was important was the main thing I stumbled upon during my research, many Greek philosophers referred to it as one of the four elements to life, representing passion and power. According to ancient myth, fire was so important that Prometheus stole the fire from the heaven's and gave it to the human beings that he had made. 

A Greek philosopher, Heraclitus found that the soul is connected to fire just as it is with water, he was ahead of his time apparently his theory was then later used in Wiccan religion, both related to the theory of unity of opposites that in Wiccan culture was worded, "As above, so below." Many Eastern philosophers although believed that fire was a primal and feral sort of power that it refers to one's drive or compulsion. Fire was often referred to as immortal, and nearly every religion had at least one god that was related to fire. The abundance of deities made figuring out a motive to Sam Winchester's crimes an intimidating task. Traditionally though, fire represents anger, fury, and dominance. In Chinese culture, it is referred to as Yang. I learned that fire is traditionally represented by a sword or dagger which would explain the cut in Jess's stomach.

It was time to get to the bottom of this mystery, if they wanted to play the villain then I sure as hell am ready to play Scooby Doo.

So I headed towards California in Theo.

[bechloeislegit]

What If The World Ended Tomorrow? - Chapter 3

The girls follow Chloe's lead and start running back to the front of the school. Chloe is ahead of them with the bow ready, and an arrow notched. Beca finds herself surprisingly impressed with how Chloe handles the weapon. The redhead comes to a sudden stop when they get to the main hallway. With eyes widened and fear clearly reflected, she raises a hand to stop them from coming around the corner, and then ever so slowly walks backward to rejoin her friends. The alarm is still ringing so she puts up her right hand and flashes five fingers twice in quick succession, trying to convey to the others that there are ten of the Sightless in the hallway ahead.

Beca hugs the wall and eases her head around the corner to see what they are doing. They are all centered in one area, and it looks like they are trying to climb the walls. She looks up and notices that the alarm bell is located just above them near the ceiling. It appears they are trying to get to it to stop the noise.

Beca pulls back and motions for the girls to follow her. She continues to hug the opposite wall from the Sightless and slowly makes her way towards the front door. The other girls are following close behind. They each have one eye on the zombies and the other on their surroundings, just in case. Suddenly they freeze as there's an eerie screech, and then another, and another, until all ten of the Sightless are shrieking at earsplitting levels. They seem to be screeching at the alarm.

All the Bellas have their weapons ready and quietly turn as one to face the threat. They needn't have worried because the Sightless still don't seem to know they are there. Each woman feels her heart begin to beat again and, with careful steps, they all start moving toward the door. Aubrey takes the lead and slowly pushes the door open, ever so slowly, to minimize any potential noise.

From outside a Sightless is running for the door, directly at her. The noise of the alarm seems to spur it on to greater speed. Aubrey freezes, arm down, gun not ready. The creature is only a dozen feet away and will be upon her in a second. Before anyone can react Chloe releases her arrow and it catches the zombie just beneath its left eye; not five feet from Aubrey. The force of the arrow actually lifting the Sightless creature off the ground and back a foot before it crumpled to the ground.

Stacie is instantly at Aubrey's side, hand on the back of the blonde who is trying to regain the ability to breathe. Beca is in awe of Chloe, who is quite smooth in drawing another arrow and readying her bow while scanning the immediate area. CR and Emily secure the door behind them so none of the Sightless can follow.

Then, as a group, they move away from the former sanctuary. As soon as they are in the clear, they check around, knowing the school's alarm is sure to attract more. They see another group of at least twenty of the Sleepless making their way to the school from the opposite direction of the diner. That is all the incentive they need and they scramble to get in the truck. Chloe starts it up as soon as she's behind the wheel and pulls away once she's sure everyone is on board. Driving faster than she usually does, she didn't stop until she had them back at the diner.

"Park around back," Aubrey instructs, and Chloe complies. "If there is someone else out there, we don't want them to know we're here."

They all got out of the truck and hurry into the diner. Beca and Stacie immediately went to the front and took up surveillance duty.

"If those people weren't killed by the zombies," Aubrey said. "That means that living humans did it. We haven't seen anyone besides you guys. How did we miss them?"

"I've only walked beyond the strip mall once or twice," Chloe said. "I never saw anyone else."

"Same for us," Beca tells them. "We may have only gone to town a few times, but we didn't see anyone. It was just pure luck that we were out when Chloe and Cynthia Rose were."

"From the smell, those bodies could have been there for a while," Stacie said. "The place was air conditioned so it could have preserved them a bit. All that could have happened before you guys found this place."

"You may be right, but we shouldn't take any chances," Aubrey said. "From now on, no one goes anywhere alone. No one. We will always go in pairs, even to the farm."

The girls all nod in agreement.

"Maybe we should start having lookouts at night," Chloe suggests. "If there are others out there, and after seeing what we just saw, we need to be more vigilant. Just in case they are out to do more harm than good."

"Oh, shoot," Emily said. "In all the excitement I forgot about this." She pulls some papers out of her pocket. "I found these on the bulletin board just before the alarm went off. It talks about survivor camps on different islands off the East Coast. Maybe we can get to one of them."

"Let me see that, Em," Beca said holding out her hand toward the younger girl. Emily hands over several sheets of paper and Beca looks at them. The other girls look over her shoulder as she reads them. "She's right. These show several places in North Carolina, South Carolina, and even here in Georgia. We're only about what? A 4 or 5-hour drive from Savannah? We could probably get to Tybee Island or one of the others nearby."

"A survivor camp?," Stacie asks excitedly. "Maybe some of our friends or family are there." Stacie had a hopeful look on her face as she looked around at the other girls.

"Maybe," Beca said, giving Stacie a soft smile. She looks back down at the papers on the table. "We should make a plan on trying to get to one of these places."

"I agree," Chloe said, nodding her head. "I love you girls, but it would be nice to be around some other people."

The girls work out a plan to leave in three days. They want to check out more of the town before they go. Curious to see if they can find anyone else around. They also hope to find a trailer or at least another truck to carry some of their food and supplies to help out the camp.

The girls decide to make it an early night so they can get an early start in the morning. Beca and Chloe take the first watch, promising to wake Stacie and Aubrey in three hours.

Beca sits in a booth in the darkest corner so she can see everything to the left of the diner and Chloe sits so she can see everything off to the right. They sit silently for a while until Chloe asks Beca if she wanted her to make coffee.

"That sounds really good, actually," Beca said.

Beca made sure to keep looking both ways while Chloe was up making the coffee. Chloe comes back and sets a mug in front of Beca. "Two sugars and lots of milk."

"I can't believe you remember how I like my coffee," Beca said taking a sip. "And, it's perfect."

"I remember because I thought you'd be one of those badasses who'd take it strong and black," Chloe said with a playful grin. "The stronger, the better."

Beca just smiles and takes another sip of her coffee. They sit and sip their coffee while watching out the window.

"Speaking of badass, when did you become Katniss?," Beca asks Chloe, nodding towards her bow.

Chloe actually blushes and shrugs. "Girl Scouts."

"Why am I not surprised you were a Girl Scout," Beca said with a smirk.

"I really liked it, some of my best summer memories were at camp," the redhead answers a little defensively. "Being a Girl Scout was great."

"I'm sure it was," Beca said with a smirk.

"It was," Chloe grumbles.

"And you learned archery?," Beca asks, deciding not to tease anymore.

"Yeah, I was surprisingly good at it, and I really loved the rush of hitting a target from long distances."

"Tell me about it," Beca said, actually quite curious.

"Most of the girls weren't really interested, but I loved Orlando Bloom in the Lord of the Rings, so I was super excited. I remember the instructor guiding me through the steps and then letting the arrow fly for the first time." She sat up, sounding so proud. "I was the only one to hit the target, so I shot again and hit the inner ring. Then on my third arrow, I nailed a bullseye." Chloe was grinning from ear-to-ear at this point. "I actually won a number of blue ribbons in archery competitions," she said quite proudly.

Beca is truly intrigued. "How have I not heard about this until now?," Beca asks, truly confused by this revelation.

The redhead shrugs in answer. "Not much reason to bring it up. It was fifth through eighth grade. By the time I started High School I was mostly done. I had achieved a number of patches and awards. I got busy with school activities and cheerleading, volleyball, and chorus, of course, so the Girl Scouts faded into the past."

"You missed it though," Beca observes. She can see the wistful look.

"Yeah, there was something about being a part of something that appealed to me, even at an early age. I love the whole ethos of helping others. I learned a whole lot, and it was cool to have the uniform," Chloe answers enthusiastically.

Beca just sits there silently enraptured by the redhead. Chloe notices Beca just watching her, and asks, "What?"

Beca shakes herself out of wherever she had just gone and blushes. "Umm, I was just thinking how badass you turned out to be, and…"

"You're picturing me in my Girl Scout uniform, aren't you?"

Beca's blush covers her face. "Maybe…"

"You're adorable," Chloe said with a wink.

"Probably not as adorable as you are in your uniform," Beca counters.

Chloe shakes her head, causing Beca to raise an eyebrow at her. "Not adorable. Totally hot," Chloe said with a husky voice and another wink.

Beca actually blushes more. "You're going to be the death of me." Chloe laughs, and Beca loves the sound.

Both women lapse into a comfortable silence. Each dealing with the weird incongruity of being able to tease and flirt, even as they are on guard against monsters in the night, both human and zombie.

"So, what happened with Ashley and Jessica?," Beca quietly asks after a while.

"Ashley just totally freaked out," Chloe tells her. "She was the one that drove us away from you guys that day. We tried to get her to stop, but she wouldn't listen. Jessica finally got her to calm down and stop the bus, but by then it was too late. You guys were already gone. We drove around for a while before we made a plan and decided to drive to Jessica's family's house that was about three hours away. Jessica was driving, and there was a group of them in the road. She tried to go around them, but the bus got stuck. We would have been fine, but Ashley ran off the bus screaming. The screams attracted the Sightless, and they came after us. Cyn, Emily, Aubrey, Lily, and I started running and ran into the woods. I looked back, and Ashley was just standing there screaming, and the Sightless attacked her. Jessica tried to, tried-" Chloe let out a small sob and wipes at the tears that had been pouring down her face.

"You can stop," Beca tells her. She moves to sit next to Chloe and takes her in her arms. Chloe clings to Beca and cries. She hadn't really had a chance to mourn because she was trying to stay strong for the others.

"I'm sorry," Chloe said, sniffling. "None of us have really grieved, you know?"

"I get it," Beca said. "Before I had to," Beca stops and swallows. "I cried for about a week after the day it all happened. I cried for Amy. I cried for you, and the rest of the Bellas, thinking you were either dead or one of those things. After that week, I hadn't shed a tear until I had to keep my promise to Jesse."

"I'm so glad we found each other again," Chloe said. "There was a piece of my heart missing, and I didn't think it would ever be whole again, until now." She pulls back and looks at Beca.

Beca takes Chloe's face in her hands and uses the pads of the thumbs to wipe away her tears. She leans in and kisses Chloe. Chloe pulls Beca to her and deepens the kiss. They pull apart, and Chloe let out a small laugh as she put her forehead to Beca's. They sat like that for a minute or two before Beca pulls back.

"We need to keep watch," Beca said and gives Chloe a quick peck on the lips. Chloe nods her head, and Beca moves back over to her original seat. She took Chloe's hand across the table and held it until it was time to wake Aubrey and Stacie for their watch.

*0*0*0*0*

CR and Emily woke the others after preparing breakfast for them all. They ate and got dressed for the day.

"I think we should go into town and see if we can find a trailer or another truck to use," Aubrey suggests. "I also think we might want to make a visit to the army surplus to get a little more firepower."

"Aubrey's right," Beca said. "I'll go."

"Me, too," Chloe volunteers. "How about you CR? Want to go with us? You can drive the new truck if we find one."

"I can do that," Cynthia Rose replies.

"The three of us should go to the farm and get eggs and milk," Emily said, looking a Stacie and Aubrey. "We haven't been in a couple of days, and I think we need to check on the animals."

"Good idea," Aubrey said and looks at her watch. "It's 8:30 now, so let's plan for everyone to be back here by no later than 11:00?"

"That gives us plenty of time," Beca said. "Sounds like a plan. Chloe? CR? You two ready?"

"Let's go," Chloe said gathering her bow and quiver of arrows.

CR grabs her gun as well as a crossbow and some arrows. Beca grabs her rifle, and the three girls do a quick perimeter check as a safety precaution before heading to the truck. Chloe gets behind the wheel and drives to the mall where they found Beca and Stacie. Beca looks out the window at the structure and swallows, remembering her last trip there. She wipes a tear from her eye and Chloe squeezes her leg to comfort her. Chloe pulls up to a different entrance than before, and the three girls get out and look around.

"I think we're clear," CR said.

*0*0*0*0*

Aubrey and Emily lead Stacie to the farm. They stay along the tree line and look all around before heading to the barn where the animals are enclosed. Emily opens the door, and the three girls enter.

"Phew," Stacie said, holding her nose. "Definitely smells like animals."

"You kind of get used to it after a few seconds," Emily tells her. She walks over to the two cows and sets down the two pails she had been carrying. She runs her hand over their sides as she walks between them to get the stool to sit on while milking.

Aubrey takes Stacie's hand and leads her over to the chickens. They are all sitting on their nests lightly clucking. "We have to get them to move so we can get at the eggs," Aubrey said.

"Do we really need to do this?," Stacie asks. "I mean, we are planning to leave in like two days. They won't last."

"We need the eggs for breakfast," Aubrey said. "We still have some milk leftover from our last trip here. We're only going to milk them, so their udders aren't full when we leave."

"The plan is to leave the door open so they can leave on their own," Emily tells her. "We think it might be worse on them if we leave them locked up in here. If they can get out, maybe someone else will find and take care of them." Emily sits on a stool and puts a bucket under the first cow. She reaches under and starts to pull on the teat. Nothing happens. She tries again.

"Shoo!" Aubrey says and gives a slight push to the hen in front of her. The hen flaps her wings and jumps away from Aubrey.

"There's nothing there," Stacie said as she looks in the nest.

"That happens sometimes," Aubrey said as she tries to get the other hens to move.

"Guys," Emily said getting their attention. "I think we should head back to the diner now."

"Why?," Aubrey asks. "What's wrong?"

"Are you finding any eggs?," Emily asks as she stands and walks toward Aubrey.

"Actually, no," Aubrey said and furrows her brow as she checks all the nests. "There aren't any eggs at all."

"The cows have been milked recently," Emily said as she holds her gun at the ready. The other two girls follow suit, and they start moving toward the door.

*0*0*0*0*

Beca stood looking around. She cocks her head to the side. "Do you guys hear that?"

Chloe and CR stop and listen. "Is that the alarm from the school?," CR asks.

"Sounds like it," Chloe said. "We will have to pass the school to get to the car lot. We can check and see how many of those things might still be hanging around."

CR and Beca nod and they continue into the mall. Chloe leads them to the army surplus store, and they start loading up their backpacks with ammunition and handguns. Beca grabs all the grenades she can see and throws them in a separate bag. CR grabs three or four AR-15s and slings them over her shoulder. She finds ammunition for them and loads them into a backpack. Chloe is checking out the hunting knives and takes a few along with sheaths to hold them. She carefully sticks them down inside one of the backpacks.

Beca goes over to one of the racks and pulls off a heavy parka and puts it on. She zips it and decides it fits well. "We should get one of these coats for all of us," she tells the others. "It gets cold at night. We may need them."

CR and Chloe find their sizes and then Chloe pulls out three for Aubrey, Stacie, and Emily.

"Maybe we should get sleeping bags, too," CR suggests. "We don't know where we might have to sleep."

"We could probably get this all to the truck in one trip," Chloe said. "But, we would be vulnerable if we see any of those things."

"Yeah, but if we make too many trips we have a greater risk of running into them," Beca said.

"I say we make one trip," CR suggests. "We just need to be fast and vigilant."

They manage to get everything to the truck without seeing any of the Sightless. They all get in the truck, and Chloe looks at them.

"I saw a car dealership past the High School during one of my walks about a month ago," Chloe said. "There are trucks and vans there so I'm sure we can find something we can use. We can check the school on the way."

"That works," Beca said, and CR nods. They both had two guns at the ready just in case.

Chloe starts the truck and pulls away from the mall and goes onto the street. They can hear the alarm bells get louder as they got closer to the school.

"Holy shit," CR yells out. Chloe sees what CR sees and stops the truck. They are about a hundred yards from the school, and the school is literally surrounded by the Sightless.

"Where the hell did they all come from?," Beca asks somewhat in awe of the number they were seeing.

"Should we keep going?," Chloe asks watching the crowd. "It doesn't seem like anything's changed with them. It looks like they are all still trying to get to the alarms."

"They may have managed to stop a couple of them," Beca said. "It doesn't seem as loud as before."

"We're in the truck," CR said. "We can outrun them if we have to."

"I think CR is right," Beca said. "We really need to find another truck."

"Okay," Chloe said, biting her bottom lip. "Let's do this."

She puts the truck in drive and starts moving. She speeds up a bit and then maintains her speed, so the engine is a continuous hum. She's afraid that going faster may make the engine louder or create some noise that would make them aware of their presence. They manage to get past the school safely, although Beca and CR both shiver as they drive by.

"Did it seem like some of them were following us with their eyes," CR whispers to Beca. Beca swallows and nods her head.

"What? What's wrong?," Chloe asks, sensing a change in their demeanor. "Why are you whispering?"

"It's probably just nerves," CR responds. "But it seemed like some of them were watching us as we rode by."

Chloe quickly checks the rearview mirror. "None of them are following us."

"That's good," Beca said. "Let's just keep going and do what we have to do so we can get back."

*0*0*0*0*

Aubrey gets to the barn door first and slowly opens it. She looks around but doesn't see or hear anyone or anything. She eases the door open a little wider and looks again before she exits the barn.

"Close the door behind us," Aubrey said. "Just in case there are some non-Sightless around, they can use the milk and eggs."

"What if it's the people who killed the folks at the school?," Stacie asks.

"I can't just let them go if someone is already using them for food or drink," Aubrey said. "No matter what they may or may not have done. I just can't."

"I get it, Aubrey," Emily said as she closes the door and makes sure it is secure. "Let's go."

*0*0*0*0*

Chloe drove about ten minutes further down the road and finds the Nissan dealership. She slowly drives around to look for any signs of the Sightless or any other signs of life. They don't see anything, but they do see several cargo vans. Chloe stops near one of them. "That might be good to use. We can carry a bunch of supplies in it."

"Let's check it out," CR said and gets out of the truck. She walks over and tries the driver's side door only to find it locked. "It's locked. I bet we can find some keys inside the dealership."

CR and Beca walk to the door and try it. It opens. Chloe looks around and follows them in. "Check to see if there is an office in the back. That's probably where they keep all the keys."

Beca goes to the back and sees the keys are tagged with the vehicle's license plate number. CR runs out and gets the plate number to the van, and they go back to find the right keys. The hurry outside and CR goes to click the button to unlock the van, but Beca stops her.

"We don't want to attract any of those things," Beca tells her. "It may not be very loud, but this may make the kind of noise they are attracted to."

"Sorry," CR said and walks over to unlock the door with the key. It opens with no trouble. They both check out the interior and are satisfied that it fits their needs. "This is perfect. Let's get out of here."

"Wait," Beca said. "Where's Chloe?"

"Right here," Chloe said from behind her. "I found us a better truck. Come see."

CR and Beca follow Chloe around the corner and see a silver-gray Nissan Titan. "Damn, girl," CR said. "That's one badass looking truck."

"It sure is," Chloe said, her eyes gleaming. "And, I have the keys." She goes over and unlocks the doors. This truck has all the bells and whistles. "It has a backseat, so we don't all have to jam into the front. I think we should trade in the old one for this baby."

Beca can't help but smile at Chloe. There isn't much to be excited about these days, and it's nice to see her like this. "I think you're right, Chlo," she said with a grin. "Let's load our stuff into this truck and get out of here. Why don't you drive it around to the other side."

Chloe doesn't have to be told twice. "Get in you two," she said and drives them to the other vehicles.

They hurry and put all their new stuff into the new truck. CR climbs behind the wheel of the van and starts it up. She pulls out, and Beca tells her to take the lead. CR does, and Chloe follows behind. They are traveling at a pretty good speed, and Chloe is in love with the new truck.

"Oh, my God, Becs," Chloe exclaims, her eyes shining. "This truck is amazing. And listen to that engine purring like a kitten."

Beca can only sit in her seat and smile at the redhead. Beca looks up when she suddenly hears the school's alarm. They are much closer to it than she thought. CR continues to maintain her speed and drives by the school. Chloe does the same, and they seem to be in the clear. Beca keeps an eye on the crowd that is still at the school but doesn't get the feeling of being watched like before. She lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding.

"Let's sing," Chloe said suddenly. "I want to sing."

"You're crazy, you know that?," Beca said, smiling at how happy Chloe is. "What should we sing?"

"You shoot me down, but I won't fall," Chloe starts and bursts into laughter at the look on Beca's face. "You're so easy, Mitchell."

Beca just gives her a glare. She starts to say something when Chloe suddenly sits up straight and is looking in the rearview mirror. Something is moving in the distance and it’s coming toward them.

"What the fuck?," Chloe said. Beca turns to look over her shoulder. She spots the movement easily. It's dark and moving fast, and it seems to be gaining on them.

"What the hell is that?," Beca asks.

"I don't know," Chloe answers, she spares a glance into the rearview mirror. "But it's gaining on us." Her foot instinctively pushes down on the gas pedal, and the truck picks up speed.

Beca takes no comfort as the mass continues to catch up. She knows she needs to act. "Keep driving and don't stop for anything," Beca tells Chlo. "And I mean anything."

Beca climbs into the backseat and opens the window that leads to the bed of the pickup. She starts to shimmy through, and for the first time in a long time, she's really thankful that she's so petite.

"What are you doing?," Chloe screams at her. She does not like this plan one bit. Unconsciously she eases up on the gas pedal.

Beca lands in the bed of the truck and looks back at Chloe. "Don't slow down or stop for anything." Chloe looks at Beca in the mirror, and their eyes lock. "I love you!" Chloe nods and Beca sees her lips mouth 'I love you, too,' and the petite brunette feels the truck's speed pick up again.

Beca turns and gets the bag with the grenades in it. She pulls one out and removes the pin. Looking up she's shocked to see how close the dark mass is. It's a horde; a horde of the Sightless. But even in her surprised state, she notes that there's something different. She shakes herself free of her hesitation and throws the grenade as hard as she can.

The small metal orb hits the pavement and bounds in the air about four feet, and then disappears among the horde, just before it explodes. She watches as what looks like a half-dozen bodies fly through the air, yet there are still more running after the truck.

The sight of so many of these new Sightless is fear-inducing. She realizes she can actually hear their feet slapping on the pavement, most are now barefoot. She also realizes they're screeching high pitched keening sounds that leave her cold. She is frozen by all this for a moment.

Chloe must have noticed in the rearview mirror because she honks the truck's horn. This wakes Beca, and she scrambles to the bag. She removes another grenade, pulling the pin and throwing it immediately. She throws two more before she pulls out her gun and starts firing. Her first shots are rapid, but then she realizes she needs to be more steady. Taking her time she aims at the ones still coming at the truck. Once she shoots what she hopes is the last one, Beca falls onto her back in the bed of the truck. The adrenaline leaving her overwhelmed.

"Beca!," Chloe is yelling. "Beca! Answer me!"

*0*0*0*0*

"What the hell was that?," Aubrey asks as she jumps up and rushes to the window.

"Sounded like some kind of explosion," Stacie said. She is now standing next to Aubrey as they both look out the diner's front window.

"Can we please talk about how someone has milked cows and taken eggs, and we haven't seen them?," Emily said, frustration and fear heavy in her voice.

"Let's just hope those explosions were caused by our girls," Stacie said.

"I'm so ready to get the hell out of here," Emily said and starts gathering her stuff.

*0*0*0*0*

"I'm fine," Beca sits up and yells to Chloe through the open window. "Keep driving. I'm going to stay back here in case any more show up."

Chloe wipes a tear from her face and hurries to get back to the diner. She parks around the back next to the van and jumps out of the truck. Beca jumps out of the bed of the pickup and the two girls grab each other in a bone crushing hug as tears stream down their faces. Beca pulls back and gives Chloe a kiss. Chloe ends the kiss and grabs Beca into another hug. Beca hugs her back, and they stand there for another minute just holding on to each other.

"We should get inside," Beca said putting her arm around Chloe's waist as they walk towards the diner.

The door is thrown open, and CR is standing in front of them. "What the fuck was that?"

They see the rest of the girls over CR's shoulder looking at them anxiously. 

"Let's get inside," Chloe said.

CR looks at them and moves aside to let them enter. She secures the door and follows the others into the dining area. They take seats and CR looks at Beca and Chloe.

"What the fuck was that?," CR asks them again.

"I don't know," Beca said shaking her head. "But they were faster than I don't know what and they were running right at us."

"What the hell happened?," Stacie asks. "We heard what sounded like explosions."

"Grenades," Beca said, suddenly noticing she was shaking. Chloe noticed and took her hand to calm her. "Those things are evolving or something. They looked like those infected zombie sightless things, but they were running like really fast and came right at the truck. Like they knew we were there. Like they could see us or something. They came at us in a horde. It was...scary."

"This isn't good," Aubrey said, anxiety present in her voice. "We always had the element of knowing what made them tick so we could avoid them. If they can hear everything now. . or see."

"We didn't meet up with any of the Sightless," Emily said. "But someone has been to the barn."

"How can you tell?," Beca asks.

"The cows have been milked," Emily responds. "And there wasn't a single egg to be found."

The girls look at each other. They are more afraid now than they've been since this whole thing started.

"We need to leave now," Chloe said. "Get out of here while we can."

"I agree," Beca said. "They die or whatever if you shoot them, and the grenades worked on them, too. But, if they're evolving, we may not stand a chance against them."

"I'm afraid Beca's right," Emily said. "I say we pack the trucks up and get the hell out of here. Try and make it to one of the survivor camps tonight."

They are all in agreement and start making plans to leave. Aubrey pulls out a map and lays it flat on a table. All the women multitask, continuing to gather items to take with them, as they discuss possible destinations. There is a general consensus to head to Tybee Island near Savannah. Aubrey and Beca plot out the best route and both write the directions down so that each vehicle will have a copy to follow.

Once the decision is made on their destination, the girls jump into action and start loading up the cargo van. Emily is insistent they take the mattresses, and the other girls relent to keep from spending too much time arguing about it. With the six of them, it doesn't take long to load up both vehicles. They take everything they can from the diner and load it into the cargo van. The weapons and ammunition are placed in the bed of the pickup along with one of the mattresses; the other two are placed in the van.

CR gets behind the wheel of the van with Emily riding shotgun; literally as she checks to see if her shotgun is loaded. Both vehicles have several loaded guns, and a few grenades close at hand. Chloe takes the wheel of the pickup with Beca riding shotgun. Beca makes sure her guns and grenades are within easy reach. Stacie and Aubrey opt to ride in the bed of the pickup, using the mattress to sit on. They have the rest of the weapons and ammunition at their disposal if needed.

The two vehicles head out, with CR taking the lead. They drive away from the diner, and each girl feels like she is leaving something of herself behind. Beca glances back in the direction of the mall and sends up a silent prayer for Jesse. Stacie takes Aubrey's hand as they continually scan their surroundings for anything that looks out of place.

Chloe is keeping her eyes on the road but is also scanning from side to side as she drives. Beca looks over at Chloe trying to see everywhere at once.

"Why don't you keep your eyes on the road and look to your left," Beca suggests. "I'll keep watch on the right."

"Okay," Chloe agrees, giving Beca a grateful smile.

Beca can sense how tense Chloe is. She reaches across the seat and gives Chloe's shoulder a squeeze. "We're going to be fine." Chloe gives her a thankful smile and puts her left hand on top of Beca's.

They both go back to keeping watch as they follow behind CR and Emily. They had only been on the road for about an hour when Beca hears Chloe exclaim, "Dammit!."

"What?," Beca asks, sitting up straight and looking around. Not seeing anything out of the ordinary, she asks, "What's wrong?"

[atlas-of-a-human-soul]

T&L part 4: New friends and new enemies

Word count: 1950

Word count: 1950

Part five

Friendship is born at the moment when one man says to another “What! You too? I thought that no one but myself. - C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Sam’s POV

When Arya told me about her dream I found it weird that she was dreaming about what’s clearly a silver wolf and at the very end a blood sucker. I felt a strong need to shift into my wolf form and get the pack to scout the area just to make sure we have no unwanted guests like the damn redhead we kept chasing for months now.

At least with the Cullens around again we can catch a break again since they’re hunting her too. As I turned to leave the room she told me I was being a good big brother which gave me a much needed boost of confidence for my newly found sibling skills. Emily followed me down to the kitchen and I swiftly turned around to give her a long passionate kiss.

„I love you Ems, and I love how great you are with her. Thank you for being the best damn imprint in the world.“

„I love you too hun, and as for Arya, I already feel like she’s my sister too. Which is why I am not going to be too clingy and let you go and talk to the pack. I know you’re going to sweep the area for a possible threat because of her dream.“

„I have no idea why she’s dreaming of wolves and the blood suckers when she’s only been here for two nights, but I’m going to make sure she’s safe, that you’re safe. It rattled me a little, and I know I should tell her about the whole wolf thing, I just don’t know how to tell her without scaring her away.“

„I think she won’t be scared so easily, call it a woman’s intuition“, she said with a coy smile, „i just have a feeling she might be a lot more than just your sister, but that’s just my opinion.“

„Oh, God no Ems, imagine one of those idiots imprinting on her, I’d probably lose it.“

„No, you wouldn’t, and they are not idiots, you’re just being overprotective. Did you tell them about her at all?“

„Yeah, couldn’t hide her in the mind link, plus Embry and Paul were on patrol when we were on the beach and they saw us walking, they only saw the back of her head, but they heard us talking for the most part. Hell I think she almost saw them in the trees. They don’t know how she looks but they know about her. I made sure they keep their mouth shut about it all, don’t wanna lose her trust.“

„I think they will like her, after she gets over the initial shock of a pack of half-naked guys running around, I think she’ll like them too.“

„Let’s hope so. Now give me a kiss so I have something to hold onto for a few hours.“

„Gather up everyone. I want to do a general sweep of the woods and our borders. Embry and Quil take the Forks border, Leah and Seth take the south and west, Paul and Jake check for nomads till the Canadian border just to make sure and I’ll handle the beach area.“

„Why do we have to go all the way to Canada?!“ Paul growled.

„What’s with the sweep anyways, we haven’t seen the redhead in weeks?“ Jake and Leah ask simultaneously.

„We are the protectors of our land and people, and just because we didn’t find a vampire on our territory in a few weeks doesn’t mean there isn’t one roaming around. Do your duties and don’t complain. After you’re done come over for breakfast, Arya has some business to do in Forks, so it’s safe, but you can’t stay for long. Jake and Paul, sorry, but by the time you get back it will be too late, so just text me with a report. Now, you have your orders, go.“

„This is so awesome“, Seth exclaims.

„Shut up!“ everyone shouts at the same time while Seth just whines.

„Leave the kid alone everyone, at least someone’s enjoying himself“, Embry defends.

„Less talking, more scouting, be careful“, I remind them.

After the run we all run up to the house.

„We’re starving“ Jared moaned.

„Look at us, just skin and bones“, Embry complained.

„Feed us Emily, take pity on the poor souls that stand before you“, Quil whined.

I walked up to Emily to kiss her before Leah comes in since I don’t want to make things any harder for  her then they already are. I hate that I broke her heart, but I can make sure I don’t make it worse.

And right on cue she walks in with a scowl on her face I used to adore so much.

„Where are Paul and Jake?“ my lovely imprint inquiries.

„Sent them to the Canadian border, it will take them till late afternoon to come back and after that Jake will probably go hang out with Bella while Paul goes to see Rachel.“

„Well, I don’t have anything ready for you guys yet since I didn’t know you were coming today, but I have a batch of muffins in the oven so hold on for just bit, grab an apple or something.“

The guys were all frowning, obviously missing Emily’s cooking and the apple suggestion made them frown even deeper which brought a smile on my face. They’re all still just teenagers refusing to eat fruit and vegetables like they are…..My train of thought was suddenly interrupted by a sound I definitely didn’t expect to hear yet. It was Arya and she was home way too early.

„Keep your mouths shut about what you know, and no wolf jokes!“ I whispered harshly waiting for her to appear at the door.

As she came in, her lips parted as a small gasp escaped her, her face looked like she was a deer caught in the headlights. She was slowly looking at all the guys and Leah in shock, her face becoming more red by the minute.

Embry soon noticed her holding a few pizza’s and a bag full of snacks and walked right up to her with Jared following close behind.

„Hey there gorgeous“, they said at the same time. „I’m Jared“, „and I am Embry“, they both introduced themselves as Embry put an arm around her which caused her to tense up and get an even darker shade of red on her cheeks.

„Don’t worry, I don’t bite….at least not hard“, Embry whispered as she looked to me with wide eyes.

„Okay, new rule, NO FLIRTING WITH MY SISTER.“ I slightly rose my voice making sure they knew she was off limits.

„No problem, but, I get to claim her as my best friend since she came here bearing not one, but two pizza’s while I’m starving, she’s like a freaking fairy godmother or something.“ Embry said.

„Doesn’t that make you a Disney princess?“ Arya finally spoke up with a smirk, shaking his arm off her shoulders and walked all the way inside setting all the food she brought on the table while everyone in the room snickered. „Ooooh buuuuuurn!“ Seth hollered as Embry placed his hand over his heart and put a fake hurt expression on his face and dramatically cried out: “That hurts, hurts deep!“

She laughed and shook her head with amusement. I could tell she already liked them which felt like a huge stone was off my chest.

„Well, dig in boys!“ she said.

„Yeaaaaah“, they all shouted at the same time, all but Leah who was watching her with a grimace.

I decided to officially introduce her to everyone.

„Arya, these are my friends, Jared and Embry you’ve already met, Seth and Leah, sitting on the couch and Quil in the corner. There are two more, but you’ll have to meet them some other time I guess, they’re busy today.“

„Nice to meet you all, I look forward getting to know you, but for now eat up while I go change into something more comfortable.“  She winked and quickly walked away.

Arya’s POV

Oh, God that was so awkward. First of all, why the hell does everyone in this town look like they’ve been chiseled from mountains into unnaturally gorgeous people. As if I didn’t have issues with confidence before…. Second of all, I’m pretty sure Leah already hates me, which is juuuust great (note the sarcasm).

Okay, so what says I’m a cool chick but also I’m super laid back and can have fun?

Ah, screw it, I’ll just wear my Captain America t-shirt and sweatpants with my usual red converse.

Walking out of my room I can hear them all talking loudly and laughing, messing around with each other. As I come in they all turn to me, Embry and Seth’s eyes practically glowing as they both screamed:

„You’re a Marvel fan?!“, Embry continues, „I didn’t know she was this awesome Sam, you hid her away from us for too long, I lost two days with my now double confirmed BEST FRIEND EVER!“

„Hey, what about me and Jake?!“ Quil complained, as Embry answered „ You’ve been replaced. I told you to watch Marvel with me, but nooo, so now you have been replaced by a better, improved HOTTER friend.“ while basically jumping up and down before sprinting to me and pulling me into a side hug while he drags me towards the couch and plops me down between him and Seth.

I realized he said hotter which caused me to blush a deep crimson red.

After about forty minutes of us talking about our favorite heroes, exchanging different theories about what is going to happen in the movies vs. comics, I found out that Embry loves Iron Man, while Seth was a Quicksilver fan.

Suddenly Leah jumps up:

„Just shut up about it already!“

„Leah“, both Seth and Sam say, but Sam’s voice was louder, almost like a warning to her.

„What?! You bring her into our lives with no warnings and just expect us all to go along?! What happened to no talking to those who live normal lives, no civilians in the group, huh?! Just because she’s your sister, doesn’t mean we have to accept her, I won’t accept her!“

She practically screamed at them, but I could tell it was mostly directed at Sam. What was she talking about? It sounded like they were an exclusive club or something that I haven’t passed the initiation for. Now when I looked at them all, I realized they all had that circular tattoo in the upper right arm. Were they a cult or something? I decided not to jump to conclusions, after all Sam said his life was complicated and that he will clue me in when he’s ready, I just have to be patient. He’s my brother, I have to give him the benefit of the doubt.

But Leah’s words hurt me and I couldn’t hide the tears that welled up in my eyes. I really wanted them all to like me, because from what Emily told me they were always around the house. I was kind of glad there was a girl in the group, thinking maybe she’d be easier to get along with. Boy was I wrong.

Soon after her last words were out of her mouth she stormed out, slamming the door.

„Don’t worry, she’ll come around eventually. She’s mean to everyone. Just give her some time.“ Seth pipes up.

„I hope so bud. I hope so.“

[disappointingyet]

This is a list of my favourite films of the year. That sounds like a simple statement, but in some quarters the long-running arguments about what is and isn’t a film got very heated in 2017. Even the year bit of that can get very messy.

But for at least this one last time, I’m keeping things simple: these are the films I enjoyed most out of the ones that were released in UK cinemas in 2017.*

There were plenty of films I didn’t see: some I wanted to but didn’t get round to – Colossal is the one that stands out. Others I just wasn’t drawn to – Detroit, Dunkirk (give money to Christopher Nolan and he’ll only keep making movies) and the critically adored Call Me By Your Name (the super-annoying title probably didn’t help).

There were lots of movies I did see and like, though, and that’s what we’re here to talk about…

*This decision was made simpler because I didn’t love any of the films that Netflix streamed without even giving a token cinema release, which included Noah Baumbach’s The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected) and Sundance favourite I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore. The best of the bunch was The Incredible Jessica James.

1. Manchester By The Sea

Back in October 2016, I wrote: ‘If a better film is released in the UK in 2017, I’ll be very impressed.’ Well, I have been impressed by the excellent movies below on this list, but none of them beat Manchester By The Sea as far as I’m concerned. In outline, it sounds like nothing special: a story of some grim stuff happening to a fairly ordinary family, in particular a bloke who likes to pick fights in bars and his teenage nephew. But writer-director Kenneth Lonergan turns the ingredients for a predictable drama into something very special, not least by lacing this grief-laden story with lots of (appropriately) funny moments.

Full review here

2. The Handmaiden

A lot of the films on this list are fairly light on plot, so if you want a movie with scheming, counter-scheming and deception, not to mention pretty costumes, sex, cherry blossoms, perviness (its 18 certificate is richly earned) plus differing Korean views of their Japanese occupiers, this is the one. It’s directed by Park Chan-wook, best known for Old Boy, and loosely based on Sarah Waters’ Victorian-set melodrama Fingersmith, which turns out to be perfectly suited to Korea in the 1930s.

Full review here

3. Certain Women

Resolutely low-key collection of three slightly overlapping short stories set in wintery Montana. It’s a character piece, with Laura Dern, Michelle Williams and (the excellent, previously little-known) Lily Gladstone leading each segment. Director Kelly Reichardt knows exactly who these women are, and how the place they live shapes them. It seems modest at first, but it stuck in my mind long after flashier films had faded away.

Full review here

4. Moonlight

So much of what I read about Moonlight made it sound so much less interesting than it is. Around awards time, you could have easily formed the impression it was a heart-tugging issue movie, not helped by the campaign to get Naomi Harris an Oscar (‘Look! Pretty woman getting grubby to play junkie skank!’)**

What makes it a remarkable film – and it is a remarkable film – are the extraordinary cinematography and the telling of the story via often fragmentary scenes, and how little is explained, at least until the much more conventional, even theatrical (and thus slightly disappointing) final segment. Great moviemaking is about the how, not the what.

Full review here

**The classic awards-season tendency to grade performances by perceived difficulty points led to people talking about Harris rather than the way better Janelle Monae.

5. The Happiest Day In The Life Of Olli Mäki

Lovely, bittersweet based-on-real-life tale of Mäki, a small man who was Finnish boxing’s big hope in the early 1960s. It’s not really a boxing film, more a story about two decent young people trying to work out what they want. Which probably doesn’t sound like the most gripping core of a film, but it works. My favourite Finnish film of the year, narrowly shading…

Full review here

6. The Other Side Of Hope

Why should social realism be the only way of looking at problems like the refugee crisis? Aki Kaurismäki brings his taste for dramatic lighting, deadpan acting and vintage rock’n’roll to this story of a young Syrian braving bureaucracy and street racism in Helsinki. Less funny than most Kaurismäki films, but I found it very moving.

Full review here

7. Spider-Man: Homecoming

I’ve had enough of super heroes on screen – Marvel’s The Defenders on Netflix was the last straw. I’m voting for a moratorium on them*** and gangsters. So it took a lot to persuade me to see yet another Spider-Man reboot. ‘Don’t think of it as an action movie, think of it as a high-school comedy,’ said my friend Jess, and she was right. It’s nimble and funny and doesn’t take itself too seriously – the best surprise of the year.

Full review here

***I’m totally prepared to believe that Thor: Ragnarok is enjoyable in a bonkers, proggy kind of way, but I’m not risking it. Too many people insisted Captain America: Civil War was good.

8. The Death Of Stalin

After dealing with the (by comparison small) monsters of the Blair era in The Thick Of It, Armando Iannucci turns to the worst – by at least one measure – men in history: Beria, Molotov and Uncle Joe himself. 

I don’t think by portraying the farcical nature of the days after Stalin’s death the film is disrespectful to all those who died. I think humour has always been part of how we confront the horror. 

The Death Of Stalin has the best ensemble cast of the year – Jeffrey Tambor as Malenkov, Steve Buscemi as Khrushchev, Jason Isaacs giving the performance of his career as Marshal Zhukov, and – best of all – Simon Russell Beale as Beria. And, crucially, it’s definitely a film, not a bit of TV that has snuck on to the big screen.

9. Daphne

Essentially, a classic US indie movie transplanted from Brooklyn to Walworth. The title character is a pretentious and self-centred 30-year-old failing to get her life together – she’s just like women I used to meet at parties in south London 10 or 15 years ago. That could make for a dull film, of course, but the writing, the feel for the place and Emily Beecham as Daphne make it funny and involving.

Full review here

10. After The Storm

Once promising writer with a gambling problem becomes low-rent PI and uses his new skills to keep tabs on his ex. If you think you can imagine how this film goes from that description, you’re probably miles from Hirokazu Kore-eda’s typically patient, generous-spirited and occasionally funny family drama.

Full review here

11. A Ghost Story

Or that one with the white-sheet-with-eye-holes phantom. A Ghost Story is definitely a film you either buy into or you don’t, an austere tale about grief and loss. I did, and found it sad and moving and pleasingly different. 

Full review here

12. Neruda

It’s a playful movie about a playful title character – the Chilean poet and dilettante politician during his dramatic time on the run from the authorities –  but Neruda has a melancholy underlying mood that rises to the surface as the film goes on. It’s a smart, complex and entertaining film.

Full review here

13. The Florida Project

A group of small kids living in a low-rent long-stay motel have adventures and misbehave a bit. And that’s mostly it, with a few dips into the struggles of the mother of one of the kids, plus a sense of the endless patience and generosity of spirit of the motel manager (Willem Dafoe, the sole big name in the cast). What’s impressive is the way Sean Baker maintains a tone that manages to dodge both ‘look at what grindingly terrible lives poor folk lead’ and being a whimsical adorable-kids-running-wild picture. It does drag a little about three quarters of the way in, but the ending pulls it back.

14. La La Land

First it was an instant masterpiece that was going to change the game, then it was a deflating bubble as the haters managed to shout louder than the lovers. So which take on this nostalgia-soaked showbiz musical do I agree with? Well, there are problems with the film – mostly to do with director Damien Chazelle’s continuing attempts to foist his rotten ideology of music on the rest of us via his movies – but I think the people who were swooning were closer to the truth than the raspberry blowers.  

Full review here

15. Lady Macbeth

Bracingly bleak and at times hard to watch, this is very much in the anti-heritage industry counter-tradition of British period dramas. It’s about the rebellion of a young woman against a grim arranged marriage in Victorian Yorkshire, a struggle that makes strange and grim turns. Unpleasant, but an impressive and memorable piece of filmmaking.

Full review here

16. Blade Of The Immortal

‘Blood-drenched’ would be an understatement when it comes to this gleefully violent supernatural samurai tale in which an almost unkillable ronin is hired by a young girl to revenge her father’s death. If it doesn’t match up to veteran director Takashi Miike’s kinetic 2010 masterpiece 13 Assassins, Blade Of The Immortal is still full of staggering set pieces. Not for the squeamish.

Full review here

17. I Am Not Your Negro

In a variant on the title of this blog, I’d describe this documentary as kind of unsatisfactory yet powerful. It’s got a curious premise: it’s an ‘adaptation’ of a book that was only vaguely started: James Baldwin’s look at the meaning of the lives and deaths of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. 

The result is a slightly rambling wander through what Baldwin wrote and said about black lives in America. The clips of Baldwin on TV and at the Oxford Union are electrifying. The chunks of his writing are beautifully read by Samuel L Jackson in a warm, wise deep oak-aged voice than sounds precisely nothing like either Samuel L Jackson or James Baldwin. 

Dropped in around the place are news stills from the last couple of years by way of saying, ‘Yes, Obama made it to the presidency, but otherwise things are still fucked.’ That’s a bit clumsy and crude. What makes the film is Baldwin himself – a great writer (I’m still annoyed that someone nicked my copy of The Fire Next Time in 1991) but also a figure who confounds our condescension of past times: here was a black gay man who was an international public intellectual in the 1960s.

Best old films I saw on the big screen

Scarface

Not every rapper’s favourite movie – this is the terrific 1932 original, a ripped-from-the-headlines account of the rise of a ruthless Chicago gangster that’s as electrifyingly urgent as current organised-crime dramas are weary. 

Full review here

Un Flic

Jean-Pierre Melville, whose career stretched from the 1940s to ’70s, made some of my favourite films ever – Bob Le Flambeur, Le Samurai, Army Of The Shadows – and the BFI showed all of them in a splendid full retrospective this autumn. Of the ones I’d never seen before, my favourite was Un Flic, his last film, a bleak, minimalist film in which a laconic, sadistic cop (Alain Delon) slowly gets on the trail of a heist crew. Moody, stylised and very cool.

Full review here

The Cobweb

Over the top, and unashamedly so, Vincente Minnelli’s undervalued mid-’50s melodrama is set in a psychiatric clinic, has a great cast and a plot in which the choice of a set of curtains causes all manner of scheming, bitching and betrayal. 

Full review here

La Vérité

An uncharacteristically meaty role for Brigitte Bardot is at the centre of this courtroom drama from Henri-Georges Clouzot. BB plays a beatnik girl on trial for murder, but what made her do it and can a patriarchal justice system treat her fairly? I suspect this felt dated when it appeared in nouvelle vague-era Paris, but it seems pretty relevant now.

Full review here

Salesman

Extraordinary documentary about a group of travelling salesman doing their damnedest to flog absurdly overpriced Bibles to low income Catholics in a late 1960s US where the Age of Aquarius most definitely isn’t in effect.

Full review here

And DYB’s films of:

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

[corkcrab7-blog]

The Best New Shows and Movies on Netflix This Week -- The Society, Wine Country

Looking for something new to watch on Netflix? Here is a list of all the best new shows and movies released on Netflix the week of May 10-May 16.

This is a very well-rounded week on Netflix. We've got a star-studded comedy movie (Wine Country), a suspenseful teen thriller series (The Society), the final season of a well-liked anthology series (Easy), some anime, some kid stuff, some foreign cinema, and some documentaries, and not too much of any one thing. Sometimes it's like "why do we need three murder documentaries this week," you know? Nothing this week is going to be a big hit, except mayyybe The Society, but nothing is especially bad, which isn't always the case. Steady as she goes, Netflix!

If you're looking for even more hand-picked recommendations, click over to our Watch This Now! page.

(All titles are out Friday, May 10, unless otherwise specified.)

The Biggest Releases

The Society, Season 1 Netflix's latest TV-MA YA offering is its best one yet, an inspired Lord of the Flies riff about the teenagers of a wealthy New England town that gets mysteriously cut off from the world. "No parents, no school, no rules" sounds like fun, right? Think again! Things Chinua Achebe real fast — and that's the kind of reference these kids would make, because they're all hilariously well-read. This is a show where ominous graffiti in Romanized Hebrew appears on a wall and a jock is like, "Oh, that's from the Book of Daniel. It means you've been judged and found wanting." It's a lot of fun.

Wine Country Amy Poehler is making her directorial debut with this feel-good comedy about a group of longtime friends taking a trip to Napa to celebrate a 50th birthday. The cast includes Poehler's own longtime friends and fellow Saturday Night Live alumni Maya Rudolph, Rachel Dratch, Ana Gasteyer, Paula Pell, Emily Spivey, and Tina Fey. In addition to directing, Poehler also stars, executive-produces, and wrote the story with Spivey and Liz Cackowski (who used to write for, you guessed it, Saturday Night Live). (Trailer)

Everything Else

Easy, Season 3 Writer-director Joe Swanberg's low-key anthology series is back for a third and final season of charming little tales of the love, sex, and app lives of a gaggle of Chicagoans. Returning faves include Jake Johnson, Aya Cash, Dave Franco, Zazie Beetz, Marc Maron, and Elizabeth Reaser, along with new faces like Sophia Bush and John Gallagher Jr. Is this the final sigh of mumblecore? Maybe!

Dry Martina I feel like this came out already? Or maybe Netflix puts out so many similar movies that I can't keep track of them all. Anyway, this is a sexy Chilean dramedy about a former teen pop star rediscovering her libido and finding out about who she is in the process. Lots of talk about "concha" in the trailer. (Trailer)

Gente que viene y bah (In Family I Trust) This is a Spanish movie about an architect whose boyfriend cheats on her with a news anchor and everyone finds out so she returns to the small town where she's from and gets her groove back with the help of her family and the local hot dude. You've seen this one before. (Trailer)

Harvey Girls Forever!, Season 2 The animated series formerly known as Harvey Street Kids is back for another season of after-school adventures on the street where every day feels like Saturday. Fun fact: The voices of the boy band the girls adore belong to Joey McIntyre (New Kids on the Block), Nick Lachey (98 Degrees), Joey Fatone (*NSYNC), and Shawn Stockman (Boyz II Men). That's star power! (Trailer)

Jailbirds People sure do love jail documentaries. Here's another one, profiling the women incarcerated in the Sacramento County Jail. It's as close to a real-life Orange Is the New Black as Netflix has gotten. (Trailer)

ReMastered: The Lion's Share The eighth and final installment of this season of monthly music documentary series ReMastered follows South African journalist Rian Malan's quest to redistribute the wealth of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," which has earned millions of dollars for American artists but nothing for the impoverished family of songwriter Solomon Linda, an injustice which Malan sets out to rectify as an act of personal contrition for his own family's role in apartheid. (Trailer)

Shéhérazade This gritty French indie is set in the slums of Marseille, where teenage petty crook Zach falls in love with streetwalker Shéhérazade, which leads to serious consequences. It won three César Awards (the French Oscars), for Best First Film for director Jean-Bernard Marlin and Best New Actor and Actress for its young stars Dylan Richard and Kenza Fortas. (Trailer)

Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, Volume 3 Hasan Minhaj is back for another batch of informative John Oliver-style political comedy. Topics in this volume include censorship in China (which comes after Minhaj was banned in Saudi Arabia), politics in India, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development and its loony leader Ben Carson. (Trailer / Sunday, May 12)

Malibu Rescue The premise of this kids' movie is Baby Baywatch. Some kids including Breanna Yde and Ricardo Hurtado from Nick's School of Rock learn how to be junior lifeguards. If this were a theatrically released movie, it would be rated PG for "mild rude humor." (Trailer / Monday, May 13)

revisions, Season 1 This anime series has a pretty similar premise to The Society in some ways. It follows some teenagers from Shibuya who get time-warped into a future version of their city. But then there's big robots and stuff they have to fight, so it's actually pretty different than The Society. You should just watch The Society. (Trailer / Tuesday, May 14)

Still Laugh-In: The Stars Celebrate This special is a tribute to the classic Nixon-era sketch comedy show Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. Dan Rowan and Dick Martin are both dead, so they won't be there to accept the praises. There doesn't seem to be much of a point to this besides the fact that it launched the career of Lily Tomlin, and Netflix loves Lily Tomlin. It also launched the career of Goldie Hawn, but she's not in this. But it does have Tiffany Haddish crip-walking, which is something we all know and love from the original Laugh-In! (Trailer)

Stop searching, start watching! TV Guide's Watch This Now! page has even more TV recommendations.

The 52 Netflix Originals You Should Be Watching

Tim Robinson, I Think You Should Leave with Tim RobinsonPhoto: Netflix

Source: https://www.tvguide.com/news/the-best-new-shows-and-movies-on-netflix-this-week-the-society-wine-country/?rss=breakingnews

[midnightroseprincess]

RvB

Ahh yeh, of course. Red VS Blue answers below! 

Give me a fandom and I’ll tell you

Favorite Male Character

While objectively I would say Wash is the best male character, and I do like him a lot, my favorite has always been Caboose. He’s a sweetie who just wants to be a good friend and SAME, honestly. (Though Caboose does have more of a dark side than me, for sure. XD)

Favorite Female Character

Carolina. No question. She has such good development that is a joy to watch. She’s fully-integrated into the rainbow of bickering that is the Reds and Blues, and it’s hilarious. Also she is a RED – no one can convince me otherwise. (Aqua/Blue armor is non-issue, she has red hair.)

Least Favorite Character

Wyoming, probably. Not because he’s the worst of the Freelancers but mainly because he’s the most… underdeveloped, I guess. Probably because he was mainly a presence in Blood Gulch (when things were simpler). There’s hints that there’s more to him, but they’re not really explored. 

Even Connie and South, who had less screen time as him, had the advantage of Connie’s dilemma being more engaging and South’s plunge down the moral slippery slope being more shocking.  

Favorite Ship

Yorkalina in terms of a canon ship, even if it never got the chance to properly sail. I’ve always low-keyed shipped Donut and Doc (Docnut), and I’ve recently fallen down the rabbit-hole into Wash/Tucker/Kai (aka Suckington.) 

Which is not to say that I don’t like Chex or some of the other ships. The above three are just my favorites. 

Favorite Friendship

Wash and Caboose, mainly. Their dynamic is a source joy to me in the show. Caboose dragged Wash into a redemption arc before Wash knew what was happening. And while it’s never been stated, I’m pretty sure Caboose sees Wash as Wash 24/7 now, and not a Church replacement like he did at first. And that speaks to how strong their friendship is. 

Funny thing is, I’d already liked it a lot, but it wasn’t my favorite friendship until I read this really amazing fic called “the word” by eggstasy, which is probably the best Caboose fic ever. of all time. 

It had this line: “When Michael tells Agent Washington what Doctor Emily said to him, Agent Washington puts his arm around him very, very awkwardly and calls him ‘buddy’ a lot.  Michael loves Agent Washington so much.  Michael doesn’t think Agent Washington has too much emotional fortitude, but he makes up for it by trying so very, very hard.” 

It got me. It got me good. 

Favorite Quote

It’s… it’s a tie. Not surprising considering how quotable the series is. 

The many instances and echoes of, paraphrasing here, “You just have to try.” It’s a really good motivational phrase for me.  

“But you know, I think the very best thing about friends—well, the thing most people forget about, anyways—is that no matter how many friends you do lose, you can always make more. And… that’s pretty neat.” –Caboose.

Worst Character Death (if any)

Tie between York and Doyle. 

York because rewatching the series with the knowledge of who he is and what he’s been through make it a total gut punch, and Delta’s not helping with his undying loyalty shattering my heart.

Doyle because gosh damn was it handled well. Then the freaking foreshadowing it had on the S13 finale. 

This made me so happy you have no idea Moment

Gosh there’s so many but if I had to limit it, the most I could limit it to is three. 

“I never thought I’d be so happy to see you idiots again.” Carolina returns to the rainbow of bickering and proves that yep, they grew on her too, just as Wash said they would.

“Don’t scare Caboose, Sarge!” This is slightly-spoilery for S15 but I can’t not include it. Tucker and Caboose could not stand each other in Blood Gulch, but I really like how their friendship has developed. They still annoy the heck out of each other, but every time there’s a moment where their friendship gets noted, it makes me smile. 

“(Dr. Emily Grey singing opera while torturing a space pirate).” “Sarge, I’m scared.” “We’re all scared, Simmons… Except for me.” That entire moment was glorious. It was the first scene from RvB that I ever saw (thanks Kim and gosh you were right I adore her). 

Saddest Moment

How on earth would I limit this one? So many feels in this comedy series. The ones that come to mind are….

“Maybe I should shut down… save a little power…” – Sheila. I’m still not over my mom!friend tank. 

“I would’ve told her…that I understand why she did what she did. I just wish she hadn’t…I wish she could’ve learned to let things go. I guess I should too.” – York. Just… how defeated and wistful he sounds gets to me.   

“All I wanna do is stand around and talk to my friend. But he’s gone now and all I have is you!” –Tucker, to Wash. True, it was followed by them reconciling but that was brutal for both of them (Tucker to admit, and Wash to hear).

Favorite Location

Gosh. That’s a hard one. But… I’m gonna go with Valhalla. Part of me wants the Reds and Blues to get back to Blood Gulch, but let’s face it, Blood Gulch is kind of a dump? Not a lot of water, supplies, or things to do (despite their shenanigans). Valhalla on the other hand has two bases, an underground simulation room, plenty of water, and nice scenery. So if they picked up Kai and Junior and all moved to Valhalla, I’d be ecstatic. Also, can you imagine the raves Kai would throw in the simulation room? 

[carasueachterberg]

And that was that. Hard to believe all the puppies are now in their forever homes. Mia has been spayed and is waiting for the right adopter to find her. She’s happy and healthy in her new home. Hard to believe it was 50 days ago that I picked up the little family on a gray, rainy day in Winchester.

I don’t know if I’ll chronicle another rescue, but while this pandemic has gone on, it has provided an excellent distraction for all of us, so you never know. We move to ‘yellow’ at the end of this week, but from where I sit, that doesn’t change much.

We’ve just picked up a new foster dog who is a special guy I met while traveling in Tennessee for Who Will Let the Dogs Out in March. I’m excited to share his story and to get to know him better.

This is the end of this rescue (for me), but you will likely still catch updates from the adopters, plus the adoption of Mia, on the Another Good Dog Facebook group. Thanks for following along! Below are the last entries for the rescue of Mama Mia and the Broadway Babes.

Diary of a Rescue Day 42:

Stuck inside for another cold rainy day…so I hauled out our winter play station we use when it’s too cold to get out. It’s usually set up in a box in the living room, but desperate times call for modifications.

Now they have a tiny bit more space to run and I have another space to clean. Count down is on, though, so it isn’t so bad when I know the end is in sight.

Last night I dewormed them once again for good measure. Tomorrow’s project will be baths and nail clipping in preparation for an important date they have tomorrow night!

#puppyfun is winding down.

Diary of a Rescue Day 43:

The puppies had a big day! It started early with their first baths. They are definitely not Labradors- no one liked the water. In fact, afterward, they piled on the puppy bed and maybe for the first time ever, wanted nothing to do with me. I think water may be their kryptonite.

Everyone now has a shiny new nylon collar. (All are the same color as their whelping collars except Pippin who is now rust and Jane who is now gray.) Next, they had their nails trimmed and everyone got a tiny treat to make the torture bearable. I ran extra clean ups all day and gave them extended time in their new play annex to prepare them for their important photo shoot this evening!

For my high school senior and his girlfriend (who have both spent a lot of time with these puppies) it was prom night. Before dinner and dancing in our living room/ballroom, they wanted to pose for pictures with the puppies.

It was a special night and probably a more memorable prom than most people’s proms. It was fun that the puppies got to be a part of it.

#puppiesmakeeverythingbetter

Diary of a Rescue Day 45:

The pups are absolutely ready to go home! They have outgrown their space and the cold weather is driving that fact home.

Today I found nine de-stuffed toy carcasses from past foster dogs and puppies (and Fanny) and put them in the dog bed so they will get infused with puppy smell. I will send one with each puppy when they leave for their new home. Hopefully, it will bring a bit of comfort if they miss their siblings.

#countdowntoadoption it’s almost #gotchaday

Diary of a Rescue Day 47:

They are all ready to go! Vaccinated and dewormed, bags packed (food and for the transition and smelly toy remnant for comfort, lots of info for adopters), and sleeping soundly after a big, busy day.

Hard to believe it’s time to say goodbye, but the first one takes off in less than 12 hours. I’m sadder than I expected to be. Probably because I’ve spent more time with them than any other litter and because we almost lost them.

These are such lovable, sweet pups. I will miss them. And it still feels weird to launch them without having gotten to know their adopters. I’m trusting the process.

I spent extra time with them outside and took lots of pictures today. Fostering is always bittersweet, but I am glad I can do it.

#fosteringsaveslives

Diary of a Rescue Day 49:

Only One puppy left! Seven took off for forever homes yesterday and one more today. Whoosh! That happened so fast!

So many great adopters- thanks to Kassie, the amazing Adoption Coordinator (and a whole bunch of awesome reference checkers!). They’ve even created their own Facebook group so they can share pictures and news with each other, family, and friends.

Pippin is still here (and mightily lonely despite the efforts of my kids and their friends!). She is staying in the OPH family and being adopted by another foster family on Saturday.

We need a breather before the next bunch. We’re welcoming just one foster dog Friday night, but he’s a special one! The fun really never ends.

#fosteraddict #choosetorescue

Diary of a Rescue Day 50:

They are all launched! After a day of crying whenever anyone wasn’t carrying her, holding her, or playing with her, I took Pippin with me to meet the transport with my new foster dog and met up with her adopter at the same time. Emily is an OPH foster and the transport location was closer to her. Pippin, now Carlee, is headed for her happy life.

Thankfully, I lots of helpers to comfort Pippin for her first 36 hours without siblings – my kids, their friends, plus a couple of my friends too – thanks Kristy Dongas Anelli and Tanis Yoakum for spending a little time keeping her company.

As I was scrubbing out the puppy room yesterday, washing toys and bedding, and packing everything away, I also followed the saga of another OPH foster whose mama dog was giving birth. Much like when I meet young mothers with babies, I thought, “How adorable, but thank God I’m finished with that!”

We are taking a little break and enjoying the company of a single foster dog for a while. He’s a special one. He spent the first portion of his life on a logging chain, so there is much to teach him about living indoors. He’s a fifty-pound beefcake who thinks he’s a lapdog.

You can follow his journey on the Another Good Dog blog.

Thanks for joining me on this rescue. I promise to post one more diary entry when Mama Mia finds her forever.

#fosteringsaveslives #togetherwerescue

If you think you might miss the Broadway Babes – take home a reminder! Or a set of notecards featuring The Broadway Babes and the photography of Nancy Slattery!

Order by emailing me (carasueachterberg@gmail.com) or by including your mailing address in the notes of your paypal payment (paypal.me/caraachterberg1).

Each set of 12 notecards is $25 (and includes shipping). All proceeds go to Who Will Let the Dogs Out, an initiative of OPH that works to raise awareness and resources for shelter dogs. Here is a sneak peek of a few of the photos in the notecard set:

Thanks for reading!

Cara

If you’d like regular updates of all my foster dogs past and present, plus occasional dog care/training tips from OPH training, be sure to join the Facebook group, Another Good Dog.

For information on me, my writing, and books, visit CaraWrites.com. I have a new book, One Hundred Dogs and Counting: One  Woman, Ten Thousand Miles, and a Journey into the Heart of Shelters and Rescues, coming out in July. If it sounds like something you’d like to read, I’d be beyond grateful if you’d consider preordering it. Preorders contribute to the success of the book, not only giving me and my publisher some peace of mind but hopefully attracting media attention.

And if you’d like to know where all these dogs come from and how you can help solve the crisis of too many unwanted dogs in our shelters, visit WhoWillLetTheDogsOut.org.

Our family fosters through the all-breed rescue, Operation Paws for Homes, a network of foster homes in Virginia, Maryland, D.C., and south-central PA.

If you can’t get enough foster dog stories, check out my book: Another Good Dog: One Family and Fifty Foster Dogs . It’s available anywhere books are sold.

I love to hear from readers and dog-hearted people! Email me at carasueachterberg@gmail.com.

Many of the pictures on my blog are taken by photographer Nancy Slattery. If you’d like to connect with Nancy to take gorgeous pictures of your pup (or your family), contact: nancyslat@gmail.com.

Diary of a Rescue Complete! Puppies find forever homes and the rescue journey continues #fosteringsaveslives #adoptdontshop And that was that. Hard to believe all the puppies are now in their forever homes. Mia has been spayed and is waiting for the right adopter to find her.

[the90dayfianceblog-blog]

season 7, episode 1

This season premiere, as is typical, mostly just served to lay some foundation for some drama.  Here’s our cast of characters as of right now:

Mursel and Anna, both 38

Anna is a Nebraskan beekeeper. She met Mursel, a Turkish beekeeper, on a beekeeping Facebook group. She’s obsessed with her bees, which is the most endearing thing about her. “I think bees are cute because they live together,” says Anna. She seems to be working through some of her own issues. She was in a bad relationship with her kids’ dad, she left a couple of years ago, and she decided, based on that experience and some chance online encounters, that all American guys are interested in one thing only, which is not bees. Enter Mursel. They show the two of them having a kindergarten-level conversation on video chat. We immediately see what a brick wall the language barrier is.

She has three boys, who are 15, 14, and 6, and she declares on national television that her accident baby six-year-old, Leo, is her favorite. See you in therapy, kids. This may explain her dynamic with her children and the way they speak to her. Some of that is the fact there are two teenagers, but she seems pretty lax. Anyway, she’s worried about how they’ll all get along. The consensus is that the kids are not sold on Mursel, for valid reasons such as language and religious differences – though her oldest kid, a walking teenager stereotype, “doesn’t care” about any of it. The boys make Muslim jokes about bacon over breakfast and Anna is either unamused or doesn’t get it. The IMPENDING BIG CONFLICT, presumably, is that he’s Muslim, doesn’t drink, and doesn’t want her to drink. She, on the other hand, is “from the Midwest,” which is as good a suggestion as any that she drinks a lot (take it from this Midwesterner). Mursel doesn’t actually know that she drinks, as she admits to a friend later in the episode, and he has expressed that he would like to be around whenever she is drinking.

Mursel shows up at the end of the episode. This is the only airport reunion we see this episode. They’re genuinely happy to see each other, but it quickly devolves into awkwardness due to the language barrier. It is Paul-and-Karine-level bad, down to the unreliable translator app. She hadn’t realized how difficult that would make things. Mursel has so far seemed likable but maybe trying to hard. We want to know about Mursel and his backstory.  

Predicted Outcome:  

Alyssa says they will not get married because of the language and cultural barriers, and it will be strangely heartwrenching.

Laura says they will get married, but will end in a messy divorce, for the aforementioned reasons plus the kids issue. Teenagers are brutal.

Michael, 42 and Juliana, 22

Michael is a “self-employed wine entrepreneur” (let us just shudder at the eye-rolling pretentiousness of this statement) and walking midlife crisis. He’s quick to tell us how rich he is and rattles off all the rich-guy stuff he does ($90k sports cars, travels a lot, vintage guitars). He met Juliana, a Brazilian “model,” on a yacht party in Croatia. She grew up poor, is uneducated, and is currently working as a prostitute was discovered by a modeling agency. He does not explain how she found herself on a Croatian yacht party. She’s funny and thoughtful and smart, he says, and they’re kindred spirits. We don’t see or hear from her this entire episode, so all of this remains to be seen. We think there is a question about his legitimacy as a "rich-guy," and how he *actually* met her. He admits he has spent a lot of money on her, but he won’t say how much. He is incredulous that she can’t get a work visa even with her “legitimate job,” so the K1 was the only option. Wondering if there is a different reason she can't get a visa, which may not be as nefarious as the show is pointing to (like Evelin overstaying her via one time. See how well she and Corey worked?). He divorced his wife Sarah two years ago, but they’re still good friends and co-parents, they live down the road from one another, and he worries how Juliana will feel about all of that. He married Sarah when they were both young, and they grew apart. This feels mostly like a justification of his current relationship. I find myself wondering what Sarah’s side of that story sounds like. And I am wondering why he feels it is a good idea to marry someone incredibly young in comparison when he apparently understands growth occurs.

We see him with his two kids. His son is 8 and his daughter is probably 5 or 6. They are adorable and impossibly articulate. “It’s sort of an unusual circumstance,” says his daughter, about Juliana. Juliana’s visa interview is next week and Michael wants to check in with them. They’re extremely diplomatic about the whole thing, though his son can’t help but point out that “she’s closer in age to me than she is to you.”

We see Michael and Sarah having a heart to heart about the situation, and Sarah acknowledges, as gently as she can, that his money is probably playing a role in her interest in him. She’s also very diplomatic, and it becomes clear how the kids turned out so well. Michael isn’t offended by her suggestion but is confident that Juliana in it for the right reasons, or whatever. Sarah’s worried about the parenting situation and the role Juliana expects she will play in the kids’ lives.

Predicted Outcome:

Alyssa says they will get married, but it won't last because of the age difference and Michael's personality.

Laura says they will get married and she’ll stick around as long as the money’s coming in.

Synjin, 32 and Tania, 29

Tania is a social activist and bartender from Connecticut who “self-identifies as Latina.” We see her generically yelling about change and democracy. She is a self-proclaimed wild woman because she takes natural supplements and plays with sex toys. She’s objectively insufferable. We are open-minded, but there is something about her that feels like she is desperately trying to prove something.

She met a South African guy on a dating app, flew to South Africa soon after, and it didn’t go well, so she left his house in the middle of the night to go to a bar (don’t you know about HUMAN TRAFFICKING, mah boy?) where she met a cute bartender, Syngin, and then went home with him instead. She ended up staying in South Africa with Syngin for two months, because change and democracy can wait. Syngin is apparently a recovering racist and “loves nature and Mother Earth,” she says. She went back to the US, applied for his K1, and then moved into the shed in her mom’s backyard, where she and Syngin both plan to live when he arrives. Her mom, who is delightful, isn’t thrilled and thinks Syngin lacks ambition. Tania wants kids but Syngin is “freaked out” by them, and that always ends well.  We see Tania in a New York hotel spending an inordinate amount of time getting ready to go pick up Syngin at the airport, followed by a similar amount of time prattling on to her two friends about how amazing she looks.  Why she is bringing friends to this event is unclear, because this is not prom with the cute guy in math class  Also would like to know if Syngin is aware she is bringing others to the airport. She starts to panic in the cab because his plane has already landed and she cannot believe she is so late.

Predicted Outcome:

Alyssa says that they won't get married because it will be continuously trying to prove something to each other. Living in Mom Tania's shed is already a bad decision.

Laura says they won’t get married because I don’t know him yet, but she’s terrible and probably incapable of 

Emily, 29 and Sasha, 32

Emily, a reformed party girl from Portland, graduated from college and decided to move to the “wonderland” that is Russia to teach English. She was unpleasantly surprised to find that her wildly uninformed perceptions about Russia were not correct. She had no friends, couldn’t speak Russian, and the city was dirty and cold. Desperate to meet people, she decided to join a gym, where she met personal trainer Sasha, who had never met an American before. “He had good vibes, I guess,” she says, as all great love stories go. She taught him English, she claims. If that’s true, I now believe in her teaching abilities, because his English is legitimately excellent. He proposed in an elevator without a ring. She is also wife #3, and she’s due in four days to have a baby. He’s got two other kids, one with each wife. Not a good look, he realizes, but “I’m a good guy,” which is reminiscent of Paul discussing his arson. Emily is ready with her own arguments. “He happened to marry his mistakes,” she says. As women who have been in relationships and have broken up with people, this seems like a very risky statement to make.  Anyway, she’s having the baby in Russia, so that Sasha can be there. We see Emily talking to her sister, who says a lot of mean things about Emily’s size and her life choices, namely her decision to have the baby in Russia. Emily conveniently gets dizzy and hangs up, while immediately calling Sasha to pick her up. It looks like there may be an interaction with one of Sasha's ex-wives in the next episode, so we may have different opinions on them next week.

Predicted Outcome:

Alyssa says they are obviously going to be connected because of their baby, but probably will not work out either. Sasha living two children behind seems very sad.

Laura agrees. Too much baggage. It’s all going to come to a head somehow.

Anny, 30 and Robert, 41

Robert lives in Florida but is from Brooklyn, and it shows. He’s an Uber driver, and you’d think he was a surgeon, the way he talks about his job. He name-drops all the celebrities who have been in his car. I somehow doubt Shaq is in the habit of getting in random Ubers. He has a hyperactive son, Bryson, who is maybe 2.

He met Anny online. She lives in the Dominican Republic. He booked a cruise that stopped in the DR for one day, he proposed after 8 hours together, and he hasn’t seen her in person since. He's very defensive about his life choices. Anny is moving to Florida this week. He keeps referring to her as “shorty,” which I did not think was a thing anymore. Bryson is acting out during the video chat, and he worries whether she’s ready to be a parent to him. Anny also seems worried about being a parent, too, and there are questions raised.

Money is an issue. It clearly motivates her, but he obviously doesn’t have much. We see them having a very unproductive argument over the phone about money – he sent her some, she wasn’t able to access it, and they both yelled at each other about it. All of this occurs while he is at a store trying to buy her some lingerie. This lingerie-buying outing is set to some derpy music, so you know we’re in for it. The saleslady asks him what her size is. I don’t know, he says, but I know she has a big butt and nice curves. The poor saleslady soldiers on through his lusting, but also doesn’t miss the opportunity to say to the camera, in a masterful use of her allotted 30 seconds, that she likes when men think about what their women will like, not what they themselves like. Also, this seems like something intimate to do when only spending 8 hours with her but this isn't about Caesar and chocolate panties.

Predicted Outcome

Alyssa says they will probably get married but we don't know much about Anny right now.

Laura is withholding judgment until we meet Anny, but is not optimistic about them getting married right now.

FIN. Next week we’ll meet one more couple, and we see the return of Angela, who we’ll hesitate to even write about because she’s so terrible in so many ways. Our eggs are already shaking at thought of her toting anything.

[survivorinternational]

Episode 4 - "We get to form the narrative" - Patrick

I lost my two closest allies I am pissed. Vilma come home (Ginger too I guess). I do NOT trust Clash and Allan those people will backstab at moment's notice I am FUCKED

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So tribe split is 3-2-2. Logically if the 2 other tribes will work together and uh take us out. And uhh I have def been the biggest impression person. And uhh merge is decently soon so maybe they use that as a reason. My predictions have been correct so far but how about not this time? :) 

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Goal is to beat Vilma in the scavenger hunt

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hosts' mean making me doubt my life 

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I really want to make merge so I'll actually get my game on I guess. I'll throw Allan and Clash under the bus if I must. I'll do my best to befriend these people as part of my game because all other friendships are fake as we know. So far I'm trying to get with the aussie gang. Yanks will burn 

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I am slightly less mad about the swap now. But it's for personal reasons. Here are the power rankings of my new tribemates: - SluggyG - Stephen - Pat - Randy. Randy and I don't seem to click sadly.

Just like our tribe predicted there was a tribe swap and i ended up being in a tribe of 7 with 2 people from my previous tribe - Stephen and me. Having Stephen here is honestly great because although we didn't look like we were a pair in the old ala mai, we actually were and made a solid 2 man alliance before tribal council. I also told him about how Jacob and Michael were playing in the middle to gain some trust and so I believe we're tight. Every step from here on out is crucial to our game. We need to take out faatasi, there's two ala mai and two salaotoga (however u spell it), we just need to make sure we are together as a 4. 

I hate swaps, when zwooper did its first 40 person swap survival game, my social and strategic game at the first stage was perfect. I was aligned with everyone. Once the swap came all of my allies disappeared to the other tribe and I flopped BADLY ! 

FINALLY WAS PUT ON A TRIBE WITH VILMA! I HAVE BEEN BLESSED BY THE SURVIVOR GODS! hehe. anyway. for real though, love this new tribe. my analysis of each person: liana: of all my old tribe mates, I wanted to be with her the least. but it's fine I guess. she's nice, I'm just not close with her. if the tribe wants to vote her out I'd do it. vilma: amazing active queen goddess mOM she told me she's heard good things about me and was saying in her host chat that she wanted to be on a tribe with me this whole time and GIRL me too!!!!!!!! I want her to be my closest ally I adore her. she's also a great challenge help! I truly don't think we'll lose this scavenger hunt because we have some hard workers on our tribe like her ginger: very sweet!! I love her. I think we'll align. she mentioned how she liked how many girls were on this tribe and to that I say hell yeah - we love some girl power! she's somewhat of a weird texture but like a lot of emotion gets lost when typing? lots of people sound bland to me? but she's cute and been talking to me a lot today! I appreciate her tyler: I'm like low key scared of him for some reason I remember watching him in a game a while while back and he was like so mean?? so I'm hoping he's not mean anymore? or if he is mean that he isn't mean to ME like pls like me? but also he kinda gives off a I am scared of women and only like men vibe......... uh idk? jacob: okay I love him he's so sweet! interesting that he got the 1 vote from the ala mai tribal - kind of shows he's more or less in the bottom of the ala mai bunch so maybe I can infiltrate that and make him a good ally for me going forward! he said tribal was hard because everyone was pretty active and got along. so it seems he thinks the tribe is all big and happy - maybe he's not in any alliances? who knows michael: barely talked to him tbh. but idk how much I really like him? seemed really good in the w4 c9 challenge so ???? maybe he'll be good challenge help and someone to look out for at merge. I also feel like he and tyler would be good allies together. so yeah. that's just a hunch based off of their personalities overall: I have hope that my tribe won't flop and HOPEFULLY we will win these upcoming challenges!! and I'm going to pull my mother fucking weight so they know I'm good in challenges and that they should keep me if they don't want to go to tribal! I really really really do not think randy will do anything in the scavenger hunt LMAO like no tea no shade I don't think I remember him doing anything in mongolia and he's in four fucking games. also never goes out of his house. so it's like we're a tribe of seven vs a tribe of six? lmao let's hope!! 

God I am really not photogenetic, really don't like how I come off in videos but oh well what can you do. I used to struggle with my looks but honestly I really like how I look nowadays. Issue now is manerisms :/ Slowly but surely. Hope you enjoyed this deep dive into the psyche of Veni 

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I am going out with friends today to go all over town in search of hopefully doing really well in the scavenger hunt. I can do almost everything, the ones that are doubtful are all the DVDs, the book, the airplane and the sandcastle. I might build a sandcastle. I wanna build a sandcastle. 

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Man I really miss Vilma the more days pass. Some people are just a drag to talk to and now I can't share my determination for the challenge with anyone. It is disheartening 

Tribe Swap: Well It was bound to happen, at least I got swapped into a tribe with possibly my 2 closest allies in Tyler and Jacob. Vilma is also on this tribe, I'm thinking we might be able to use her as a target due to how strong she is in challenges and that we wouldn't want to take her to merge. I have spent some time cultivating new relations with Emily and Vilma, Chatted a little with Ginger and now trying to chat with Liana. Need to find out where votes are going. Immunity Challenge: Why are the big challenges like this when Im at work for most of the time. I can get most of these selfies and videos, unfortunately I wont be able to get to a Zoo, Beach or Airport for some of these points :( Flags apparently don't exist in South Australia either... WTF?!?! A bit concerned with amount of black spaces in out hunt, hopefully during the night it will pick up again. Time zones are making it difficult to chat with people, but I will continue to try :D 

So you would be thinking that with a tribe swap you'd have a breath of fresh air meeting new people and having challenges in a new environment, it's actually quite the opposite. In this challenge so far only 3 out of 7 people have pulled their weight which is why we're likely to head to tribal sooner than we think. Having NA people on your tribe is so different because I'm 12 hours ahead of them, I sleep when they wake up, they sleep when I wake up. 

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I must move forward with some sort of plan even though I'm trying to take it round at a time, Stephen and I aren't going anywhere. Originally I wanted Veni gone seeing he's a threat and could go back to OG Faatasi at the merge. But after thinking about it, he's a THREAT. He's the meat shield that I need to get further in this game - if I work with him, even at the merge, the target will be on him and all the heat will be of me (unless he wins immunity). EITHER WAY (dnnyys says that a lot) there are more pros keeping Veni around till merge - doing well in challenges, having someone to talk to, plus veni is also part of the old community Michael, Jacob and I are in so if we all make it to merge something may happen? That's a maybe but the idea is keep Veni and gain his trust and his loyalty. He seems fine taking out anyone who isn't contributing so we'll just do that for the timebeing.

I am really sweating right now hopefully my tribemates actually post points. If not hopefully they don't vote me out as a challenge threat and keep me around. 

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Pat is rising in my power rankigs. Seems like a really chill dude with a heart for trying stuff. 

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Allan and Clash are being kinda bad at talking to me. I want to stick with them but bleh. I don't know.. 

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Pat is my #1 in the power rankings

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Well I can't blame anyone specifically. And I got beat by 1 point by 2 differnet people. This is rather depressing.

This tribe is so much more inactive than Ala Mai... also we’re gonna lose this challenge. Sluggy says he wants to work with the US guys to take out the EU guys, but I’m thinking the opposite, for several reasons. First is the europeans timezone is closer to ours, so we have more time to talk. Another is the europeans are more active and social in general, and better in challenges. Finally.... I just don’t trust Sluggy, hes hard to read, he seems to be hard to work with cause he won’t let go of ideas :/ For now I’m gonna bide my time, see what develops, but if the opportunity to work with the europeans comes up Im definitely gonna consider it.

Um so this vote is gonna be real messy trust me I want to do sluggy but it might be Veni or randy and I honestly don’t know... I just hope whatever is done is done for the best and I stay safe 

Winning the challenge is great, but the lack of communication coming from Ginger and Liana is a little annoying. They seem to be very inactive, whereas Emily and Vilma are amazing. I actually like this tribe more than the original Ala Mai. I feel like Vilma and Emily were a good trade for Stephen and Sluggy. Sluggy and Stephen were great and reliable, but Vilma and Emily are more active and seem to have a much more bubbly personality. 

Things are looking alright this vote. I will have to betray someone either way so that sucks. I am bad @ Randy though for the 6 points. 

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I believe the current plan is, EU and AUS/Sluggy unite against Pat and Randy. In case of idol we split the votes 3-2-2. 3 being on Randy. 

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I wanna make merge I wanna make merge I wanna make merge I wanna make merge I wanna make merge I wanna make merge I wanna make merge I wanna make merge

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So like genuinely I really like Pat Sluggy and Stephen more than the rest of tribe in terms of working together and such but like, the OG tribe lines are really bugging me. If I at some point vote out Allan or Clash then I lose potential trust from Ginger and Vilma maybe and definitely from Allan/Clash depending whoever goes. I want to tell Pat the alleged plan so I really hope it does not backfire. I am uncertain yet. 

So we expectedly lost the challenge and now we have to go to tribal. Stephen and I are in the middle of the OG Faatasi and OG Salotaoga (is that how you spell it?). Anyways my original plan was to go for the europeans because if we get small in numbers the europeans can as a force of 3 pick us off, but now because of what happened in the challenge and Randy's performance people like Stephen and Veni wanna vote Randy off. I've made my case to Stephen and it really comes to a cost benefit analysis for him and I and I'm honestly looking at it from a long term point of view, hope it pays off.

Getting bad vibes from the vote. I mean honestly as long as it's not me go nuts

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I am really struggling with what information to give to people

today i went to counseling then ate a biscuit for lunch. and i want to host a bachelorette org. nothing is happening in the game tho because guess what MY TRIBE WONNNNNNNN THE CHALLLLLLENGGGGEEEEEEEEEE HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA i love this tribe because we can actually win things and people actually talk to me :-) also i shared my idol guesses with vilma & liana and they shared back. either way i think it’s already found. i just wanna find the spot that it’s at ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ just so i know know know for sure

This week has been very interesting. Coming with randy was exactly what I wanted so that I know I could trust my old tribemate and he’ll vote with me no problem. I just hosted a game with clash in it and we clicked instantly and both had the same excited energy when coming into this tribe and seeing each other. Me him and randy have all formed an alliance and then also have another alliance including Allan, whom I enjoy a lot, we’re planning an attack on veni/sluggy tonight because Veni is playing to hard too fast and it’s super obvious. He’s also super close with vilma (who I already perceived as a massive threat) and ginger. So voting out veni prevents Veni from going back to those two and telling them everything that happened. We get to form the narrative 

Okay so I have a lot to talk about and very little time to do so, let's get into it: So at the start of this week (after immunity) Us Europeans decided it would be a good idea to team up with the Australians and get Randy out. However, my first issue came up with Sluggy said he had to "check with Veni and Stephen". That immediately set off alarm bells with me because why would Sluggy have to check with Veni?? Then, Veni brings up some plan to split the votes in case of an idol. Splitting the votes seemed like the dumbest idea I'd heard of and everything started to sound suspicious af so Clash and I got together and decided to work with the Americans to make sure we would be safe. While we're doing all this, Veni makes about 4 alliances (All without me) promising final 2's and stuff. I'm honestly so done with him so we've all (hopefully) decided to vote him out. If I'm wrong then I guess my game is tanked but right now I feel good. 

So the name of this round is “Is Veni a Snakey-Snake?” The answer is yes. Clash tells me he has alliances with everyone, so we’re gonna vote him out. Gonna double check my facts first tho 

Hello this stupid european freak thinks he can outplay the greatest america player in history aka me so im just j chilling in this tribe when we swapped. and like this aussie sluggy rat comes to me and is like "american and aussies work together" and i said ok cool. and then i went on inactive mode because i didnt want to talk to anybody. then we had an immunity challenge and i didnt compete at all for it practically because i hated the challenge! but nobody else did stellar so it didnt matter. so we lost immunity, i get told real quick by pat and clash that the europeans want 3 votes on me while aussies do 2 votes on pat. we wanted to mix that up so originally we were going to vote together as 3 and just take Slugg out. But then we added Allan so we had four votes Then veni decides to heat up  his fucking crack pipe and take 4 hits before messaging me. Telling me things like "pats getting out, fix it" and "hey  i really trust you! hopefully you make merge". like stupid shady shit that doesnt look good so i g o to the alliance and i said vote veni out now we're about to go to tribal and we're going to see if the american brat gets his way. wish me luck

For those who think I wasted an idol I technically did but remember I just woke up to hear my name that Veni, my second closest ally in the tribe wants me gone and is rallying others to vote me off, so if Veni had Pat and Randy and got one more to flip I would have definitely gone home. It was definitely scary and I'm not afraid to admit I was scared and shaking in front of my computer, but I made up my mind about playing it since half an hour before tribal so. I guess now is the real test to see if I can make it further in the game without any sort of extra protection on my back, but Veni was a sneaky guy despite being not fluent in his speaking.

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Veni a huge threat is gone when I wanted to take him to the merge to use as a shield but that didn't work. That goes to show how important it is to make sure you're not playing hard in the first few parts of the game, but timing is really key in this game, and i gotta pick the right timing to strike and when to back off.

Woooohoo! We wonn!! I'm so happy to have a night off. I am loving this tribe switch and have liked everyone I have talked to so far. I think we just got the power tribe both with challenges and socially. Emily actually shared where she has searched for an idol with me so we could cover more ground. It makes me sus of maybe her and someone else working together on Saratoga. (although maybe they were all just social flops) I'm still really happy I found an idol on the first try because I feel like I look semi inactive (always working) so no one would suspect it would be me who has the idol. My plan is to maybe blame Ruthie? Idk i haven't thought it through yet, but she definitely seems like someone who would find an idol first. Anyway my lying has already started because I told Emily how frustrating it is to have so many combinations to make it seem like I don't have it.

Uhhhhh so we swapped. Immediately I was excited to be on a tribe with Emily, because I've heard she's super nice and people were absolutely right she really is!!!! I like everyone on my new tribe to be fair, but I'm kinda spooked because Ginger is the only og Faatasi who swapped with me and I've been performing fairly well in challenges so I'm scared I will be targeted fast if I end up going to tribal with these guys. I'm glad Ginger and I have a good relationship though, plus he is super social (unlike me) so hopefully he can help me in that regard and use his social skills to build new bonds. Obviously I'm trying my best to do that too but I'm not too convinced in my ability to succeed at that. It's just a lot. I'm too introverted all I wanna do is keep to myself and hide in my cave even though I know that's not smart. I've chatted some with everyone though and they all seem nice.... But yeah I could definitely step up my social game some. Emily and I have been sharing our idol guesses and Ginger told me he is becoming close with Tyler and Emily... We'll see how things develop from here. Personally I've enjoyed talking to Emily and Michael the most. Plus Michael seems to be quite a challenge threat as well, I'm hoping he would like to keep me in as his shield. That's what I'm gonna try to pitch for at least, if we ever end up in tribal. We won the scavenger hunt challenge which was neat because I love scavenger hunts. I went all out in the challenge ONCE AGAIN and tbh we need to talk about my threat level in a bit but first let's have a Moment of Silence for my NUMBER ONE ALLY VENI WHO GOT VOTED OUT ON FAATASI AND I'M VERY UPSETTI SPAHGETTI. :'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''( VENI ROBBED HE DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER THAN THAT. I'm so shocked even Clash and Allan turned on him and I NEED SOME EXPLANATIONS. I'm dying to know what happened there. I really wonder if Faatasi threw the challenge to get rid of him, but Sluggy played his idol though, so he must have thought for real there was a chance he was going home tonight?? That's what confuses me. But it's cool to know he had the og Ala Mai idol and it confirmed my suspicions that it had already been claimed thanks to all the reward challenge clues they got. I wonder if it will be rehidden now though... Doesn't hurt to try and search anyway, I guess? But yeah let's talk about the fact how screwed I am if I ever go to tribal with this tribe. Veni going was definitely a reality check for me, and now I feel super uncertain about my own position in the game. For some reason everyone and their mother seems to think I'm a big threat and I guess it's mostly due to me performing well in challenges and that SUCKS. Because music videos and scavenger hunts happen to be my two favorite challenges and I simply don't know how to hold myself back when it comes to them. Dennis asking me the threat question at first tribal plus the judges hyping me up in the music video challenge definitely didn't help my case either ugh ily guys but I'm in TROUBLE. KAJSHDKAHF. But to be fair I've always done middle tier / poorly in flash game challenges, I feel like my challenge threat status isn't completely accurate. Most of the immunity challenges so far have been those kind where those who put in the most effort have been rewarded (Music videos, The 24 hour challenge, Scavenger hunt). I've done well in those because 1. I happen to love 66% of those challenges and 2. I have no life. But if we had skill- or luck-based challenges like flash games or puzzles I don't think I'd perform very well at those at all. Even Ginger told me I need to stop performing so well in challenges and I agree with him. But I'm just scared it might already be too late now. Also challenges are genuinely the part I enjoy the most in orgs, I hate the backstabbing and socializing, so it feels stupid to restrict myself from enjoying the game just to do better at it... Ugh. What an internal struggle. I hope the next challenge will be something I naturally suck at so I don't even have to think about it.

[houstonlocalus-blog]

Dear Rep. Blake Farenthold: I DARE You to Duel a Woman

Photo: Rep. Blake Farenthold (official portrait)

  U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Corpus Christi) is neither the most or least embarrassing Texas Republican in Congress, but saying he has some problems with women is an understatement of massive proportions. Actually, hold on a second…

  *grabs megaphone*

  BLAKE FARENTHOLD HAS SOME PROBLEMS WITH WOMEN!

  *puts down megaphone*

  That’s better. The representative was sued for gender discrimination by a female staffer back in 2014, and he later fired her for complaining (the lawsuit was settled out of court). After the infamous Access Hollywood tape where President Trump told a reporter he liked kissing women and grabbing them by the genitals without prior consent, Farenthold declined to unendorsed him. The representative only walked it back after being asked how he would respond to Trump baldly claiming he liked to rape people, saying he would “have to consider it,” and then finally apologizing under the backlash.

  Oh, and he also took this picture of himself in duckie footie pajamas with women in lingerie…your guess is as good as mine, folks.

  The latest embarrassment the representative has fostered upon our friends down in the Sparkling City by the Sea is his own hot mic moment. It should come to no surprise that Farenthold is a loyal rank-and-file member of the GOP when it comes to repealing the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and replacing it with the Give Rich People More Money So They Can Harvest The Organs of Dead Poor People Act (Trumpcare). Lately, he’s been annoyed by the efforts of some in the Senate opposing the repeal, namely Sens. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. To quote Farenthold on radio host Bob Jones’ show, “Some of the people that are opposed to this, there are female senators from the Northeast… If it was a guy from South Texas, I might ask him to step outside and settle this Aaron Burr-style.”

  I’ve got some things I want to unpack here. The first being, several male senators, even from the GOP, are opposed to at least some version of the bill, including our own Ted Cruz, and I don’t see Farenthold lining up to demand satisfaction. Although, if he does, I hope Cruz shows up in the Zodiac hood and a Stryper outfit because you don’t let that sort of opportunity pass you by.

  Farenthold clearly feels that this was a joke that got out of hand, which is funny because that’s how most of us feel about the Republicans lately. Sure, it’s probably meant as a joke, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t sexist as heck.

  So, I decided I would ask some Houston women if they would like to duel the gentleman from  Texas’s 27th congressional district. The results were fun.

  “I’d punch the motherfucka in his baby maker and claim that I felt threatened by his threat of a possible threat. After all, I am nothing but a fragile lil’ southern belle!” said the appropriately named Lady from the Heights.

  “Well, if he weren’t such a feckless twat, maybe he wouldn’t be too scared to woman up and challenge me, then,” adds Erica. “Also, fuck him and that patronizing patriarchal bullshit horse he rode in on, too.”

  “[I’d] Smack him in the face with a frilly pink hand-knitted glove hiding a chain glove underneath, then drop it at his feet and wait,” Megan told me, reminding me why pissing off knitters is a terrible idea.

  I know these sound like overreactions to Farenthold, but try to remember he did, in jest or not, threaten to attempt to murder three women. Aaron Burr didn’t show off his mad suplex skills and an early version of the Greetings From Asbury Park on Alexander Hamilton. He shot that dude dead as the Whig Party.

  I find women take very unkindly to threats of gun violence. Despite the right’s opinion of the gun as the great equalizer in a confrontation between men and women, women definitely end up dead more often. More than half of the women shot and killed in America met their end at the hands of an intimate, so clearly the gun does not significantly change the power dynamic between the genders.

  But even beyond the vileness of the “joke,” Farenthold is like every other mediocre white man in the world: He thinks that he’s tough, but he’s had the odds stacked in his favor his whole life and he doesn’t even know it. Women in Texas and across the country are quite literally fighting for their lives in the healthcare debate as well as other Republican nonsense. Medicaid and Planned Parenthood saves their lives. Gun control saves their lives. The ability to operate on the same financial wavelength saves their lives.

  Those fights have toughened them up beyond anything wannabe-Jack-Palance-of-Corpus has had to deal with. He and his party are fighting for the comfort of an unfair system, which is why he can talk the talk but will never ever walk the walk. Let’s hear from a few more women.

  “I’d challenge him to a duel as the woman I am,” says Emily. “Fuck this ‘if I were a man’ shit. All sense of ‘chivalry’ went out the window the second he started treating me like a lobotomized two-year-old.”

  “Dude, I don’t fight old men who don’t look like they do more cardio than lifting the fork to his mouth,” adds Patricia. “It obviously wouldn’t be a fair fight.”

  “Texas grows its women stronger than its men, and it’s not fair to expect him to compete where he’d be so certainly outclassed,” says Cassandra.

  And I leave you with one last one from local jazz star Tianna Hall, who I once covered in the Houston Press regarding exactly how hard raising her autistic son was before the ACA, and who should really be in the top five women not to have angry at you.

  “I’m sorry, did those words actually come out of your mouth?” says Hall. “That’s adorable. Because as a woman, not only would I accept, I would obliterate you beyond the depths of your darkest nightmares.”

  Farenthold needs to drop his sword, because he ain’t got what it takes to go from bell-to-bell with the women he thinks he is so intimidating to.

Dear Rep. Blake Farenthold: I DARE You to Duel a Woman this is a repost