#Shane and Philip team up

[caelwynn]

Getting close to the final stretch in Choices: Summer, with only four more weeks to go before it concludes!

This time, in Chapter 20, "Mumbo Jumbo & Bullshit," the search for Jas continues. Normally, I'd give a more detailed summary, but, well, after that cliffhanger last time....

Sneak Peek:

“Sorry, Shane. Nothing new to report. Just keep going along the river,” Emily said to him over the phone. She’d stayed behind to help Marlon coordinate the search teams. “Alright. Thanks. Call back in thirty,” Shane said before hanging up. He, Sterling, and Henry trotted along the northern side of the river, calling out for Jas. Shane wished they could go faster, but between his hangover and his knees and the roots and the mud and the fading light, it simply wasn’t feasible. With every step, he berated himself for drinking instead of spending some fucking time with Jas. If he would act like an actual Yoba-forsaken father instead of drowning in a bottle— “JASMINE!” he yelled. “Still no news?” Henry asked. “Nothing.” “Jaaassss!” Sterling called again before asking, “Has Callie shown up yet? Not many have gone deeper into the forest.” “No one’s heard from her or Philip,” Shane replied. The rational part of him knew that likely meant they were fucking. In his desperation, however, the rest of him hoped that it meant that Callie had already found Jas. Everyone knew that she had a knack for finding what was lost. Callie had found Sterling when he’d disappeared. She claimed to have the gifts of Insight and Clairvoyance. Shane found himself wishing that, just this once, it wasn’t actually mumbo jumbo and bullshit. “JAS!”

[atlanticcanada]

Bedard's seven points against Germany helps Canada get back on track at world juniors

Canada needed a response after a miserable 48 hours.

Connor Bedard — as he's done so often in his young career — delivered with lethal precision.

The 17-year-old phenom had a hat trick and four assists Wednesday as the host county got back on track at the world junior hockey championship with an emphatic 11-2 victory over Germany.

"Unbelievable game," Canadian captain Shane Wright said. "Pretty crazy what he's doing out there. Special night."

It certainly was.

Bedard's seven-point performance tied a single-game Canadian record on an evening the favourites at the men's under-20 showcase needed a response following Monday’s embarrassing 5-2 loss to Czechia.

"It's cool," the presumptive No. 1 pick at the 2023 NHL draft said of joining Dave Andreychuk (1983), Brenden Morrow (1999), Mike Cammalleri (2002) and Gabriel Bourque (2010) on Canada's seven-point list. "But that's not a huge deal for me. It's good to get the win.

"I got a couple of pretty lucky ones. Just one of those nights."

Bedard now has 12 goals all-time at the world juniors, two back of Jordan Eberle's national record.

"I'll text him saying he's got a guy on his heels," Wright said of Eberle, his teammate with the NHL's Seattle Kraken. "Don't think we'll be focused on that a lot, but it's gonna be special if he hits those along the way."

"He was on fire … shot was unreal," Canadian head coach Dennis Williams added of Bedard. "His creativity and his poise … a great night.

"He led the way."

Dylan Guenther also had a hat trick — all off Bedard passes — while Logan Stankoven added a goal and two assists.

Wright, Brandt Clarke and Joshua Roy, with a goal and an assist each, and Zack Ostapchuk also scored.

Olen Zellweger chipped in with three assists as Williams shook up three of his forward lines — including splitting up Bedard and Wright — after a disconnected and disjointed effort against the Czechs.

"We came much more determined," said the coach. "Played tighter as a group."

Thomas Milic made 14 saves in his first world junior start for Canada. Roman Kechter and Philip Sinn had the goals for Germany, which got 30 stops from Simon Wolf before he was replaced by Rihards Babulis for the third period in a mercy pull. Babulis finished with 11 saves.

"We were pretty hungry," Bedard said. "That was a huge way to come back."

Canada, which improved to 16-0 all-time against the Germans, will now quickly pivot to face Austria — outscored 20-0 through its two tournament games — Thursday back at Scotiabank Centre.

Coming off a 1-0 defeat Tuesday to Sweden, Germany is off Thursday before a Friday meeting with Austria.

A talent-rich team loaded with nine first-round NHL draft picks, plus Bedard and fellow high-end prospect Adam Fantilli, Canada was stunned by the Czechs in an uninspired curtain-raiser that left the powerhouse nation searching for answers.

That included players questioning their own readiness and preparation, while Fantilli and Bedard each attempted and failed "The Michigan" lacrosse-style move early — sequences viewed afterwards as symptomatic of the Canadians' loose approach against an underdog opponent.

There would be no repeat.

"We didn't change our game based on what the score was," Guenther said. "I love that … that was awesome."

The Arizona Coyotes forward opened things on a power play in the first period off a Bedard feed before Ketcher snapped a shot through Milic.

Wright was credited with his second goal of the tournament on another man advantage when a German defender swept the puck into his own net.

Bedard, who had four goals in an 11-2 victory over Austria one year ago to the day before that tournament was shelved by COVID-19, made it 3-1 when he took a stretch pass and ripped a shot past Wolf, and got another early in the second on a goaltending miscue.

"We were a lot more focused," Wright said. "We knew we had to respond after last game's effort."

Wright said Bedard could probably put up a couple points a night in the NHL right now.

"Incredible," said the No. 4 pick at the 2022 draft. "Haven't seen many individual performances like that. Pretty special."

Added Guenther: "He's gonna be an impact player there, I assume, right away."

Bedard roofed his hat-trick goal on another power play through a screen before Rayan Bettahar was assessed a match penalty and ejected for an illegal check to the head on Fantilli.

That's when the floodgates really opened.

Guenther scored his second on a slick Bedard feed to make it 6-1 and Clarke blasted a one-timer off a German defender.

Bedard then set up Guenther for his third on the same man advantage and Stankoven added another late in the period for a 9-1 lead through 40 minutes.

Ostapchuk made it 10-1 early in the third before Bedard assisted on Roy's goal for his seventh point of the evening.

Sinn got a late consolation goal on a German power play to close out a night that saw Canada recalibrate after an uncomfortable two days.

"That's how we play hockey,” Wright said. "All three periods — all 60 minutes — that was Team Canada hockey. We were expecting a bounce-back game and that's exactly we got.

"Really proud of our effort."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 28, 2022. 

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/ImivVMH

[ficsforfundota]

Chapters: 6/? Fandom: The Walking Dead (TV), The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Hunger Games (Movies), Hunger Games Series - All Media Types Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Jesus, Daryl Dixon/Negan, Daryl Dixon/Jesus/Negan, Shane Walsh and Philip Blake, Daryl Dixon and Andrea Characters: Daryl Dixon, Andrea (Walking Dead), Jesus (Walking Dead), Merle Dixon, Will Dixon, Deanna Monroe, Yumiko (Walking Dead), Shane Walsh, Philip Blake | The Governor, Cyndie (Walking Dead: Oceanside), Morgan Jones, Rick Grimes, Tyreese Williams, Sasha Williams (Walking Dead), Aaron (Walking Dead), Negan (Walking Dead), Lori Grimes Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Hunger Games-Typical Death/Violence, Alternate Universe - No Zombies, Love Triangle, tags to add, Major character death - Freeform, Blood and Gore, Child Death, Limb loss, Blood and Injury, Survival of the Fittest, Inspired by The Hunger Games, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Tribute Parade, Threats of Violence, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, training practice, Hunger Games, The Walking Dead References, Hunger Games References Summary:

Daryl Dixon is from district ten, their district has never once won a game. When he’s called to be the male tribute he finds himself fighting for his life against children and teens. Not only that but he is caught in a love triangle between his best friend and the son of the capitals president.

Will Daryl survive the games? How will he traverse winning the peoples favor? How will he know what to do when those who love him, or want to, come for his hand?

[drunkkenobi]

Watcher Viewcounts - First Year Round-Up

Welcome, one and all, to the one year anniversary of Watcher’s YouTube launch! It was a year ago this very week that I started recording every episode’s weekly views. It’s been a fun and interesting journey! I am also delighted that so many of you are interested in these updates and I appreciate all of the likes and reblogs so much.

Since it’s the anniversary week, this will be a big update, so let’s go behind a cut.

As of today, January 11, 2021, the top 10 highest viewed videos on Watcher are:

Top Five Fast Food Chains -  2.139 million views / debuted Feb 6, 2020

Puppet History: Stealing the World’s Most Expensive Necklace - 1.98 million views / debuted Feb 27, 2020

Puppet History: The Dancing Plague - 1.971 million views / debuted May 22, 2020

Puppet History: Life During the Black Plague - 1.932 million views / debuted January 10, 2020

Puppet History: History’s Luckiest Woman - 1.695 million views / debuted April 10, 2020

Too Many Spirits season 1, ep 1 - 1.541 million views / debuted October 8, 2020

Tourist Trapped: LA - 1.474 million views / debuted February 21, 2020

Are You Scared? Voice in the Walls - 1.451 million views  / debuted June 19, 2020

Too Many Spirits season 1, ep 2 - 1.311 million views / debuted October 15, 2020

Puppet History - The Donner Party - 1.211 million views / debuted October 2, 2020

Since Watcher likes to do pilot episodes/seasons for their shows, I thought I’d compare the pilot episodes for every show the weekend they debuted vs where they are now.

Puppet History: Life During the Black Plague. 

Opening weekend: 188k views

As of today: 1.932 million

Watcher Weekly 001

Opening Weekend: 148k

As of today: 384k

Spooky Small Talk with Zach Kornfeld

Opening weekend: 157k

As of today: 556k

Weird and/or Wonderful World: Mystic Museum

Opening Weekend: 181k

As of today: 1.186 million

Homemade Dumplings

Opening weekend: 96k

As of today: 488k

Top 5 Beatdown: Fast Food Chains

Opening weekend: 124k

As of today: 2.139 million

Grocery Run: Philip Wang

Opening weekend: 70k

As of today: 171k

Tourist Trapped: LA

Opening weekend: 189k

As of today: 1.474 million

Social Distancing & Dungeons & Dragons Ep 1

Opening weekend: 115k

As of today: 324k

Are You Scared? Voice in the Walls

Opening weekend: 367k

As of today: 1.451 million

Too Many Spirits

Opening weekend: 598k

As of today: 1.541 million

Dish Granted: Mac & Cheese for Shane

Opening weekend/today: 266k 

This is all to say that Dish Granted had a very good opening weekend for one of their pilots and I’m so happy because it’s such a good show! Also fun fact, Dish Granted gave a small boost to all the existing Homemade episodes. Go Steven!

Next, I wanted to do was see the average amount of views for each series. Here they are:

Are You Scared? averaged 1.261 million views over 8 episodes

Grocery Run averaged 107k views over 4 episodes

Homemade averaged 478k views over 4 episodes.

Puppet History averaged 1.27 million views over 13 episodes.

SD&D&D averaged 141k views over 8 episodes

Spooky Small Talk averaged 444k views over 4 episodes (a big gap between most views/least views here)

Too Many Spirits averaged 978k views over 8 episodes

Top 5 Beatdown’s average is 947k views over 4 episodes, but there are almost 2 million more views from it’s most viewed ep from it’s least, so...I don’t think it’s statistically sound. Obviously, the solution here is more episodes!

Watcher Weekly averaged 191k views over 40 episodes

Weird and/or Wonderful World averaged 635k views over 9 episodes

I also looked at video “likes” versus views. I did a quick scan so it possible I missed one, but it looks like the very first Puppet History has the most likes, at 114k thumbs up. The more popular videos tend to have more likes, of course, but Puppet History in general does very well there. (meanwhile, Top 5 Fast Food has 67k likes, about 20k less than the average PH ep)

Overall, Watcher has garnered 60,328,034 views over the past year! That’s an average of 533k per video (of 113 videos). I know their launch year wasn’t what they expected, but I think they made adjustments to their productions very well and were still able to produce high-quality and fun shows. I’ll be interested to see if they stick to one-video-a-week beyond January, or if they have plans for a new Wednesday show. I don’t think Watcher Weekly will return until they can film it safely in person, so I don’t see that coming back for awhile (if it does). And while I’d always love to see more TMS, I can see them maybe not wanting to push too many out at once and save it for the spooky season again. The one thing that we know best about the Watcher team is that they love to surprise us and are pretty good at keeping secrets, so I’m sure there will be a delightful surprise coming sooner or later.

As always, my inbox is open if anyone wants to know anything specific or has any questions/comments! Thank you for reading!

[newagesispage]

OCTOBER                           2021

 THE RIB PAGE

*****

We miss U Charlie Watts!!

*****

The Stones performed at a private party for Patriots owner Robert Kraft of all people. The test run looked like just that. Shark jumped. I am becoming disillusioned.

*****

SNL is back with Owen Wilson as first host of season 47. Kacey Musgraves is the musical guest. Episode 2 will have a ridic choice for host. Halsey will sing. I suppose $ is power with the Kardashians. I could think of about 10 million other people to host but more and more Lorne goes for the shiny object , what he THINKS people want instead of taking risk. Beck Bennett is out.

*****

Is everybody watching the Amber Ruffin Show?? I loved her before but now… I learn so much from her show. Sometimes it takes a comic to get to the real serious shit. For example: Have you heard of drowning towns? Towns like Oscarville, Kowaliga, York hill, Seneca Village, Prentiss and countless other black towns that were drowned out to make lakes for the local whites. Central Park was also made after a black community was erased from history. Development displacement? Alleyway dwelling authority? Even those rabid for history can find out new things everyday. Thanks Amber!!

*****

Bob Woodward and Robert Costa are finally giving us Peril !!!!!!  I’ve been waiting!!** I was in political nerd heaven on Sept. 24 when Yamiche hosted Robert, Bob and Weijia Jang on Washington Week. All of my favorite pundits all together at one table, my dream team!!

*****

Iman looked great at the Met Gala!! Other great looks belonged to AOC, Tessa Thompson, Maluma, Helen Lasichanb and Pharrell Williams. Gigi Hadid, Kiki Layne, Ashton Sanders, Hailee Steinfeld, Kehlani, Zoe Kravitz, Michaela Cole, Lili Reinhart, Kate Hudson and Shai Gilgeous- Alexander were great. Whoopi Goldberg seemed a bit off.

*****

Jason Isbell is back with his latest offering, Georgia Blue.

*****

I see a lot of Title Max type establishment are closing down. Are they a thing of the past? Let’s hope.

*****

Law and Order is coming back to NBC for season 21. Dick Wolf will own 2 entire nights of television. Some of the old cast is reported to be returning.

*****

Britney Spears Father was suspended as her conservator.

*****

Timothy Chalamet, Rowan Atkinson, Sally Hawkins and Olivia Coleman will star in Wonka.

*****

The 2022 Super Bowl halftime show will bring us Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, Dr. Dre and Kendrick Lamar.

*****

People are doing test runs for school board positions to see if their political ideas will play well for the big leagues. If they don’t seem to work, at least they can sometimes change the rules in their own area.

*****

Joe Rogan got Covid.

*****

Lake Michigan beaches were closed down thanks to a US Steel plant chemical leak.

*****

Is this country the master of endless administrative work?  None of us should have been surprised at the red tape that the slowed down the end of the war in Afghanistan.** Uber donated 50k for rides and meals to the Afghans when they arrive.**And why do so many waste taxpayer $ on useless recounts and recalls when people need real help with food and healthcare? They must really hate humanity.

*****

R. Kelly was found guilty of 8 counts of sex trafficking and 1 count of racketeering.

*****

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. – Dwight D. Eisenhower

*****

Texas has put a law into effect to allow most Texans to carry open without permit or training.

*****

Texas has banned abortion at about 6 weeks. Uber and Lyft will pay drivers legal fees if sued under Texas abortion law. Lyft donated $1mil to Planned Parenthood. ** Look for the ruling in the Mississippi law over Roe V. Wade in June 2022.**Hear us roar!** BTW.. Go Jen Psaki!!!!!!!

*****

They seriously banned plastic straws and abortion before assault rifles? – Eden Dranger

*****

Please stop banning abortions, the last thing the world needs is more Americans. –Sarah Beattie

*****

Women don’t inseminate themselves. Vasectomies are reversible. Should every man have one until he’s deemed financially and emotionally fit to be a Father? – Bradley Whitford

*****

90 year old William Shatner will go to space for Blue Origin.

*****

The Q Anon Shaman pled guilty to a felony for obstructing the Electoral College proceedings. I say 20 years and a $250K fine.** 600 others have been indicted.

*****

Days Alert: The Beyond Salem thing was ridic but it was so great to see some old characters.  Days is so great at visiting old family. Who can resist Shane, Austin and Carrie, Billie and the old Kristen? I do wish that Peacock would get their kinks out!! Back to the real Days: Are we smelling an Emmy for Susan Seaforth Hayes and Bill?? ** Good to have Abigail back. It is always fun to wonder which actress and or personality it will be. ** Deidre Hall got her star on the walk of fame.**And just in time for Halloween, the Devil is making a comeback. The end of the year in Salem is always the best!! It is so brave to give the 96 year old man the old switcheroo into the Dark Lord.  It was fun to see the grandkids discover Grandma Marlena’s story. Delicious!! Hail Satan!!** It is past time for Tate and Teresa to come back to town. Brady needs to be put in his place. And thanks for the Philip and Chloe flashbacks!!

*****

The breakdown of the vaccinated: 90% of Atheists, 86% Hispanic Catholic, 84% Agnostic, 79% White Catholic, 73% White mainline protestant, 70% Black mainline protestant, 57% white evangelical. 1 in 500 Americans have died of Covid.

*****

So Mike Lindell and Jim Baker have teamed up to sell children’s Bible pillows.** Piers Morgan has returned to the Murdoch organization by joining Fox. That sounds about right.

*****

Please stop saying the vaccine does not have severe side effects, I took my shots and now I’m alive and have to keep working. –Mohand Eishieky

*****

In theatres Oct. 22: The French Dispatch.** October also brings us a new season of Curb your enthusiasm and Oct. 17 will catch us up on Succession. Whew!!!

*****

So people under conservatorship are not free to marry who they want? What?

*****

46% of Americans believe in ghosts.

*****

Simone Biles, Mckayla Maroney and Aly Rasiman testified at  the Senate judiciary hearing about the FBI’s handling of accusations against Larry Nassar and it was eye opening!

*****

We wanted a no -nonsense Dem who pushes on and does not puss out.  I am a bit surprised to see we have it. There are so many pressing issues that I hope Biden works a bit more on Haiti though.

*****

The National Police Act was passed to celebrate cops. Still no police reform.

*****

John Mulaney and Olivia Munn are going to have a baby.

*****

The Emmy’s were a little different this year with more of a Golden Globe look.  Cedric the Entertainer hosted with Reggie Watts as DJ. Lots of minority noms but barely a win. It was a white people night. Ted Lasso had a great night. Mare of Eastown took home a few with Evan Peters, Julianne Nicholson and Kate Winslet. Now, Kate is great but how did Anya Taylor- Joy not walk away with that? Queens Gambit did win a couple and gave the longest speech with the seemingly arrogant director Scott Frank who opened up 2 page acceptance. Categories were tough but I was routing for Renee Elise Goldberry and Bowen Yang but perhaps next year. The people in England who had their own party for all the statues that the Crown won seemed to be having more fun! Hacks won for writing and directing and Jean Smart!! It was nice to see the Norm Macdonald love which was barely mentioned by Lorne but celebrated by John Oliver. Colbert ‘s election night special won as did JB Smoove. Hamilton won and Debbie Allen got the big one. I do not understand why real singers and or musicians have to be there for the in Memoriam. It takes me out of it a bit and concentrates the focus on them. Do they think that people will pay attention more? Do they want to keep the home audience or live audience from the bathroom?  My best dressed were Anya Taylor-Joy, Michaela Cole who won for I may destroy you, Jean Smart, Josh O’Connor, Kathryn Hahn, Billy Porter, MJ Rodriguez, Keenan Thonpson, Leslie Odom Jr., Catherine O’Hara, Trevor Noah, Eugene Levy, Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys, Bowen Yang,  Anthony Anderson, Leslie Grossman, Amber Ruffin, Allyson Felix, Renee Elise Goldberry, Samira Wiley and Rege- Jean Page. My worst were Sarah Paulson, Gillian Anderson,  Beanie Feldstein, Elizabeth Olsen and Aidy Bryant. To me the best part of the show was the enthusiasm of Conan and the way he injected himself into much of the evening .He was the show.  Go Conan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*****

Next year there must be some Emmys for Sarah Paulson and Cobie Smulders in Impeachment!!!!!

*****

Oh Boy!! The Eyes of Tammy Faye!!

*****

Looking forward to the Electric Life of Louis Wain with Benedict Cumberbatch and Claire Foy.

*****

Abba has a new album!!

*****

Shang Chi is the biggest Labor Day opening with a $71.4 mil opening.

*****

Sen. Amy Klobuchar has announced she has breast cancer.

*****

Is it the 70’s? A streaker ran past the studio of the Today show.

*****

Rascal Flatts Joe Don Rooney was arrested for DUI.** Nicholas Cage was thrown out of a prime rib pace in Vegas after being drunk and disorderly.

*****

Jennifer Eckhart has filed a lawsuit against former Fox news anchor Ed Henry for rape and retaliation after allegedly being handcuffed and beaten.

*****

Scarlett Johansson has settled her Disney lawsuit.

*****

Pete Buttigieg and Chasten had twins they named Penelope Rose and Joseph August.

*****

I noticed a commercial for Dancing with the Stars. Are we onto the E list because I have heard of hardly any of these people. ‘Stars’is really stretching it. And as I post this I see there are some covid issues there as well.

*****

Virgin River was renewed for 2 more seasons.

*****

Trevor Noah is right? Why do they stop giving lollipops to adults at the doctor?

*****

Jon Stewart is back on Apple tv with ‘The problem with Jon Stewart.

*****

Brooklyn 99 had about the best finale (other than Newhart) that I can recall. I had my fingers crossed that Chelsea would be back. Will they honor us like they did in the show and come back for a special about once a year? That would be fucking awesome!!

*****

Don’t expect compliments from an insecure person.- Mr. Pickles

*****

Thousands and thousands of people are in need. Haitian refugees and other immigrants have seen nothing like this what with assassination, a hurricane and earthquake. The Southern border is a mess.** Why does Fox news keep telling refugees the border is open as they sit back and laugh at Biden’s predicament.  Spreading false info to intentionally hurt poor, distressed people has no end for them.

*****

Do companies know how fucked up their employment websites are? It is true that some people do not want to work. It is true that people schedule interviews and don’t show up. It is also true that companies have made it so hard to apply that many can’t. I suppose it is easier for them but the poor who may really want to work have a hard time. Paper applications are almost completely gone. The old fashioned way of walking into low paying job sites and finding a connection with a manager rarely exist. Some places only accept texts or have long ridiculous psych tests that a working Mother may not have time for. A Father working many hours already, may not be able to go to the library to get online if they cannot afford a computer. Many websites tell you that there no positions available in your area while there is a huge sign in front of the establishment. Can’t find people to work.. Gee I wonder why?? And treat people with respect once you find them, how about that?

*****

Keep your head up in failure, and your head down in success. –Jerry Seinfeld

*****

Hey.. There was a van air B’n B biz going that got busted. Hey.. The poor need vaca’s too. It is wrong but If they are willing to sleep in a van, why not. I truly think that many do not understand how much people are struggling.

*****

Free coffee day came and went but only a few places really gave you free coffee without rules to govern the promo. Some places wanted to sell you something else and some made you belong to their club. Starbucks held that customers had to come inside for the free cup of Joe, handicapped or not.

*****

One would think the Republicans would run out of $ for recounts but they have deep pockets. Just think how much good they could do for the huddled masses with that scratch.

*****

Sad to lose Mick Brigden, protégé of Bill Graham who managed The Stones and worked with Frampton, Dylan and Santana.** And the comics were very vocal about the loss of Norm Macdonald. He was one of a kind and he will be missed!

*****

R.I.P. Ruth Marx, Lee Scratch Perry, Willard Scott, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Isadore Bleckman, George Wein, Michael K. William,George Holliday, Anthony Johnson,  Basil Hoffman, Al Harrington,Willie Garson, Mick Brigden, Tommy Kirk and Norm Macdonald.

[alixanonymous]

Things That Got Me Through 2020: A Long List Of Random Recommendations

Hi! 2020 was awful but throughout it I found a lot of amazing things to get me through it. So just in case things get tough some times in 2021, here’s some wonderful distractions, amazing stories, and things that I just loved in general. Hope you enjoy any that you give a try! Also, I always love new suggestions if anyone has any!

BOOKS (Or actually just one book because I did not read nearly as much as I though I did)

- The Martian By Andy Weir (Sounds like it would be really depressing, actually one of the funniest books I’ve ever read! Can’t recommend more.)

WEBCOMICS (What a great year to discover WebToons I tell you)

- Lore Olympus By Rachel Smythe (Worth the hype in my opinion!)

- Let’s Play By Mongie (I enjoyed this much more than I could’ve imagined, my romance loving self squealed when reading certain parts.)

- SubZero By JunePurr (Amazing balance between romance and plot.)

- The Remarried Empress By Alphatart/Sumpul (Reads like a soap-opera, main character is my favorite type of female protagonist, smart, confident, and not ashamed of it, love interest is adorably infatuated and I live for it.)

- In the Bleak Midwinter; By Kat/Ali (I got sucked into this one. The world building is great, the world itself is so interest and I loved the premise.)

ANIMATED SHOWS (20 minute episodes came in clutch this year with my short attention span due to anxiety)

- The Dragon Prince (If you like animated series at all, you’ll like this I think.)

- RWBY (Season 1 is good, Seasons 2-3 are pretty great, 4-5 were not my favorites by any means, 6 is pretty good, Season 7 was sooo good!)

- Ever After High (Thanks @raesofmoonlight for the recommendation! Possibly the best character design I’ve ever seen. Watch it if you can!)

- Avatar: The Last Airbender (Zuko alone is worth watching the show, add in all the others, the world building, the humor, the writing, just watch it already if you haven’t yet.)

- DC Superhero Girls (Sometimes I think about this show’s version of Bruce Wayne and start cracking up.)

LIVE ACTION SHOWS (I’ve been so caught up in animated shows since March I forgot I watched some really good live action ones till right now)

- Galavant (A medieval musical. Pretty short episodes, hilariously silly, my favorite way to lose twenty minutes of my life at a time. If you’re not sold yet, how about this: They started the second season by singing a song about how they didn’t think they’d get a second season.)

- Anne With An E (Gilbert Blythe owns my heart and soul and wow the show is so much better than the typical teen dramas. Love the historical aspect too!)

- Jane The Virgin (I got so attach to this show’s character my goodness. Top tier writing I think.)

- The Umbrella Academy (This show is so freaking addicting. It’s never what I expect it to be and I love that. I love the music, I love the action scenes, I love the characters. Watching the second season now, wow the characters make you feel for them. )

MOVIES (I’ve never watched so many movies as I did this year so here are my favorites, although half are DC animated ones so sorry if that’s not your thing)

- The Martian (One of the best book to movie adaptations I’ve ever seen, Matt Damon was the perfect person to play Mark Watney. )

- The Entire DC Animated Movie Universe (My favorites are Justice League: War, Son of Batman, Batman v.s. Robin, Justice Leagus v.s. Teen Titans, Reign Of The Supermen, Justice League: Dark Apokolips War but I think it’s worth just watching them all in order. The characters are all so great. Most of them have amazing team dynamics.)

- Batman: Under The Red Hood (If you like Batman, you’ll probably like this movie or maybe you’ll hate how emotional it makes you either way.)

- Miss Americana (This is the Taylor Swift documentary. I actually just discovered how much I love her music and I found this to be super fascinating in showcasing how the media portrays female entertainers.)

MUSIC (I have this horrible feat or people judging my musical taste so if you do please do it silently)

- Taylor Swift (This year has really just been non-stop Taylor Swift for me. Her albums Folklore and Evermore in particular helped me come to terms and cope with 2020 as a whole.)

- Hamilton: An American Musical (I’m not even going to bother to sell this one, there’s no need to.)

- The Little Mermaid: The Musical (I like fairy tales okay and Alan Menken is a musical genius and I will fight anyone who’s says otherwise.)

YOUTUBE (This definitely needed it’s own category)

- Philip DeFranco (I got really overwhelmed with all the news this year so most days I decided to just watch his twenty minute show everyday and it really helped. Just a good way to keep up to date without getting overwhelmed.)

- Technoblade (Okay, real talk: MCYT took over my life since I discovered it in August. I could make a whole separate list of all my favorite minecraft youtubers but I decided to just put my favorite, the Blood God himself. You might consider it a sign of the times that my family and I watched The Potato War saga on the television on Thanksgiving. Highly recommend his whole Hypixel Skyblock series or just his Skywars Solos or everything he does actually.)

- BuzzFeed Unsolved (Great way to get a good laugh in and also learn about creepy cold cases and also aliens. The two host, Shane and Ryan are the best. Ghost in general are fun.)

- Tingting ASMR (Shoot! I almost forgot! A large portion of my sleep last year was due to this woman. I’m not really one for ASMR myself, I don’t really love whispering in general but I really love her approach and I find it super calming!)

Okay! I think that’s it. I hope some of these things bring some of you joy or peace. Please give me any suggestions you have. I am always open to recommendations. Happy New Year everyone!

[collectorscorner]

CC Blogger - New Arrivals @ Collectors Corner : Wednesday 12/2/20

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[hopevalley]

I've actually enjoyed watching new episodes of the show for the first time in a LONG time! I thought Lucas being frustrated w/ Elizabeth was contrived and misplaced. Was his mom like "me & your father are separated btw i told elizabeth before you?" The bit felt off. But hey, these past three episodes have been fun & much-better written than anything last season. How much of this season's improvement over recent prior ones do you think is due to the season having a new showrunner?

As to Lucas and Elizabeth, I feel this is an issue with shows in general of this runtime and episode length. I like to compare WCtH with Road to Avonlea because both shows had short seasons and 40ish minute long episodes, were family shows, and featured ensemble casts. Avonlea had a similar issue with pacing in the occasional episode. I know I like to nitpick WCtH a lot about its writing, and I never shy from honest critique, but I really do think the hiccup with Lucas and Elizabeth in Ep3 was just a product of needing a few more minutes of screentime—preferably the start of Helen telling Lucas about the situation with his father, since it did feel like him knowing everything came out of almost nowhere. We knew Helen would have to talk to him, but we never really saw her resolve to do so, and I think we earned the emotional payoff of the truth coming out. (As an aside, Helen should have apologized for telling Lucas that Elizabeth knew as well as putting her in a position where she had to keep a secret from someone she cared about. Elizabeth being put in a bad position was awful enough, but then she went and told Lucas that Elizabeth was aware the whole time? Yiiiikesssss...)

I’m pretty confident that Helen told Lucas something like: “I have to tell you something important... Your father...left me...a few weeks ago. I need to apologize for keeping it from you but I didn’t know how to bring it up...” and then probably responded to something Lucas said with a comment about how she’d talked to Elizabeth about it, or Elizabeth suggested she be honest about the situation because Lucas would find out eventually and it would be better if it came directly from her. I could definitely see Helen accidentally being too honest in a situation where she’s nervous about admitting the truth to her own son. She’s probably extremely embarrassed and ashamed, and the episode doesn’t really go into how Helen feels about it. They just jump into talk about love and how it needs to be nurtured and nobody ever asks Helen if she actually loved/loves her husband, let alone if he was a good man/husband to her. 

Not getting a scene where Helen confesses the truth weakens the entire plotline. I’m hoping they’ll just keep improving on this specific aspect of the show, and consider getting rid of unnecessary scenes or entire unnecessary storylines in favor of stronger, more complete stories.

I know their hesitation is based on the idea that not everyone cares about (for example) Lucas, so focusing really hard on Lucas’s relationship with his mother might feel Bad, but the entire “chair” plotline with Rosemary and Lee was unnecessary, as were the longer Florence and Ned scenes. Don’t get me wrong—I enjoyed them! But if they cut those out, or mostly cut them, then there would have been enough screentime for a full scene showing Helen telling Lucas about the truth.

And Chris McNally is clearly an actor who can handle an emotional scene like that, so it would have turned out well, and been well-received by the fans...even the ones who aren’t rooting for Lucas. Because what people who watch this show want to see is...depth, I think. So many relationships feel tacked on or fake. I’ve seen improvement this season, but they could definitely do more to bolster the “community” feel of the show.

--

As to the quality of the season so far...

@trash-god​ and I were chatting earlier this week about how wild it is that we’re both, like, actively looking forward to the next episode regularly. Sure, it’s still pretty early in the season, but we’re 25% of the way through. If the writing stays this consistently decent I think we’ll have the best season in a long time on our hands!

It’s funny because if you lurk on the WCTH subreddit, you’ll see most of the fans there are bored of this season, but I disagree with them in a bit way; this season is DEFINITELY better-written and smoother. As to where to place the credit, I think it’s worth considering the last few seasons and what the writers/writing teams have struggled with.

Season 4: They knew something was going to happen with their lead man so they tried introducing other things and in many ways had success. There were some REALLY GOOD scenes in S4, but there were also scenes or arcs that had a lot of potential that just fell flat. For example, they had that plot where Frank and Abigail got annoyed with each other over the fact that he’s kind of still living (mentally) as a carefree bachelor, and even though it wasn’t as thorough as it should have been, it was a pretty good and realistic storyline. But then later in the season, they introduced Carson, and Frank is suspicious of him for almost no reason (or at least, no solid reason), and then actively is...like a BAD PERSON for NO REASON. Two completely different plots, one was good and felt natural, and the other was awful and cringey. We also have the AJ plotline in S4. It started out super good because it was one of those plots that was genuinely built up to over the course of several episodes. We find out the accountant that was going to testify has withdrawn their statement, then we find out they’ve disappeared and we have a name. Bill discusses it with Abigail and Frank both, multiple times. He thinks it’s a payoff and he’s determined to prove it so he starts poking around. Eventually he gets a lead and follows it, and it’s revealed that AJ is a woman. Bill is annoying. AJ is a liar. I think conceptually this is one of the more interesting plots they’ve cobbled together, but in execution it was lacking toward the end of the story. Bill spent two episodes fighting AJ’s attitude and in the end he just lets her go with a smile? That isn’t like Bill at all. There’s a scene or two missing to make that reaction make sense. They don’t interact enough to give us the idea that Bill *understands* her, let alone would be okay with her literally breaking out of his jail ON HIS WATCH.

Season 5: They had to write Jack out of the story and had to rush a wedding in to “appease” the fans. They also had to write Shane, Philip, Frank, and Dottie off the show in this season (Dottie because the actress deals with a chronic illness and can no longer do acting work—I want to say she has Lyme’s). So they cobble this like, awkward storyline to write Frank out that doesn’t really make a lot of sense. They put this dramatic story together for Philip (when him just moving away would have been better/more interesting), and they try to bring AJ back for another 2-part episode, which sounded fun until we actually had to watch the episodes. It was at this point that I thought, “The people writing this show...think they’re writing a movie script.” It’s not that I think AJ isn’t pushy or emotionally blunt, but it definitely came across in those episodes that they wrote her that way specifically because the plot wouldn’t work out if she wasn’t. She does unreasonable things. For some reason Bill still has feelings even though she’s done nothing to earn them. (And vice-versa; he’s just so mean to her...why would she be interested?) Everyone was like :O when the AJ episodes weren’t very well-received. But like, I didn’t want AJ to come back for a huge dramatic rattlesnake bite scene. I wanted her back to see her emotional struggle with facing prison. I wanted to really see where they’d go with her seeing Henry Gowen. She says she wants to start over in Hope Valley after prison, but like...WHY? The only people who are nice to her are Dottie and Abigail! And then after this super dramatic poorly written set of scenes that pretty much ensured AJ would never be seen on the show again (because her presence was actively mocked by a lot of fans) they actually kill off Jack and try to have a deeply emotional and thoughtful episode.

The worst part is that...the post-death episode was good. The actors were great. Then you look back at the dramatic rattlesnake stuff and you’re just like, “What went wrong here?”

Season 6: They decided they were going to introduce a love triangle, so they start doing that, but then Abigail’s character AS WELL AS CODY’S CHARACTER has to be cut from the show, so they edit those out. I still think doing this was the right thing—Abigail as a character was literally UNBEARABLE throughout most of S5—but I also can’t deny that it probably brought the cohesiveness and overall quality of the season down by a bit, particularly with Abigail acting as a buffer between Nathan/Lucas and Elizabeth. I have no way of knowing if they edited other characters into those roles (it’s possible Bill became a buffer between Nathan and Elizabeth, for example), but the editing still gave us some scenes that just didn’t...quite work, like the one where Elizabeth comforts Henry, or when Lee becomes Bill’s confidant regarding the position of judge being offered to him.

Season 7: In their attempt to make Lucas seem “mysterious” they accidentally made him come off almost creepy. More than once. They had some good ideas in this season, but the writing felt a bit choppy and isolated from episode to episode. Of course Nathan’s father was innocent. Of course it was resolved in five minutes. You could see they were trying REALLY hard for cohesiveness at certain points (Elizabeth tried talking to Henry about his attitude; Jesse mentioned Frank; Dottie was mentioned), but each episode felt very isolated from the others, almost as if most of them were written completely separately from the rest.

And you’ll notice in S4, 5, and 6, we kind of have a similar problem, where some plots feel like they were written or inserted into the story independent of the other plotlines. Frank breaking into Carson’s room at the saloon to snoop through his stuff was one of the worst things in the season (literally cringey—and not in that “character is doing something in character that is hard to watch” way, but rather, “this character would literally never do that” way). The AJ storyline in S5 felt like the person who wrote it watched AJ & Bill’s interactions in S4 and absorbed ONLY the fact that they bickered a bit (and then didn’t know how to write that dynamic in a pleasing way). Writing Abigail out of the show was for the best, but it forced cracks in the plotlines that weren’t necessarily filled, as well as gave us interactions that didn’t feel quite right.

And I think S7 was trying to get on the right track, but wrote episodes in a very disjointed, haphazard kind of manner. There were good things about it, yes, but there were also some very...bad things. 

And overall the problem almost universally was that it felt like some of the episodes/interactions were written as if they were part of a movie, as part of a one time deal, instead of something that would need to be carried forward. If you go back and look over some plotlines you can start to see where the writers...didn’t know how to write fanfiction. S5 AJ is not the same character as S4 AJ. She doesn’t feel the same. She’s not written with S4 AJ in mind. She’s not a natural version of the character that exists a year later in the storyline...and then she was given a storyline that they had to force the character to fit, instead of tailoring a storyline to match the character. And they continued this trend...over...and over...and over...and over.

And now, finally, it feels that they may actually have a head writer who knows how to write television, who knows that in order to write a successful television series, you have to go back and watch the early episodes. You have to see how the characters have evolved. You have to consider how they’ve gotten to where they are, and where they will LOGICALLY go from here based on things that happen to or around them.

I don’t want to state this as Fact too early, but I definitely think it’s a factor. We’ll see how the rest of the season plays out, but I hope the quality continues to be as good as it is.

[cinemavariety]

Cinema Variety’s Top 25 Favorite Films of the Decade

This past decade has been a monumental ten years for the state of cinema. To think that there were actually still video rental stores all around the country, to almost becoming nonexistent, is statement enough to show how vastly audiences have changed the way they consume media. Through much thought and careful deliberation, the following 25 films are my personal favorites of the decade and are what I think best represent all that indie, international and arthouse cinema had to offer over the past ten years. Honorable Mentions: Shame Green Room A Ghost Story The Lost City of Z Knight of Cups 20th Century Women Jackie Blade Runner 2049 The Lighthouse Ingrid Goes West A Hidden Life

#25 - Suspiria (2018) Dir. Luca Guadagnino

“It’s only hours afterward that Guadagnino’s film will cohere for you and yield its buried treasures: the bonds of secret sorority, the strength of a line of dancers moving like a single organism, the present rippling with the muscle memory of the past. It’s so good, it’s scary.”

#24 - Call Me By Your Name (2017) Dir. Luca Guadagnino

“The final beats of Guadagnino’s adaptation galvanize two hours of simmering uncertainty into a gut-wrenchingly wistful portrait of two people trying to find themselves before it’s too late.”

#23 - American Honey (2016) Dir. Andrea Arnold

“Part dreamy millennial picaresque, part distorted tapestry of Americana and part exquisitely illustrated iTunes musical, “Honey” daringly commits only to the loosest of narratives across its luxurious 162-minute running time. Yet it’s constantly, engrossingly active, spinning and sparking and exploding in cycles like a Fourth of July Catherine wheel.”

#22 - Post Tenebras Lux (2013) Dir. Carlos Reygadas

“Some metaphors score and some miss, but this is leap-of-faith cinema: the rewards entail some risks.”

#21 - The Revenant (2015) Dir. Alejandro G. Iñárritu

“Pushing both brutal realism and extravagant visual poetry to the edges of what one customarily finds in mainstream American filmmaking, director/co-writer Alejandro G. Inarritu, cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and a vast team of visual effects wizards have created a sensationally vivid and visceral portrait of human endurance under very nearly intolerable conditions.”

#20 - Her (2013) Dir. Spike Jonze

“What begins like an arrested adolescent dream soon blossoms into Jonze’s richest and most emotionally mature work to date, burrowing deep into the give and take of relationships, the dawning of middle-aged ennui, and that eternal dilemma shared by both man and machine: the struggle to know one’s own true self.”

#19 - Annihilation (2018) Dir. Alex Garland

“A shimmering example of what Hollywood sci-fi can achieve when the aim is high, Annihilation is a gripping, mystifying adventure and proof that a transportive experience is more rewarding than a story with clean-cut resolutions.”

#18 - The Neon Demon (2016) Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn

“Spectacular, gross and delicious (so unsavory it’s almost sweet), the film is more proof of Refn’s mastery of his trash aesthetic and more fun than anything this indulgent and empty-headed has any right to be.”

#17 - Waves (2019) DIr. Trey Edward Shults

“Propelled by color, energy, electronic music and a quartet of career-making performances, here is that rare sort of cinematic achievement that innovates at every turn, while teaching audiences how to make intuitive sense of the way it pushes the medium.”

#16 - Mother! (2017) Dir. Darren Aronofsky

“Mother! is something truly magnificent, the kind of visceral trash-arthouse experience that comes along very rarely, means as much or as little as you decide it does, and spits you out into the daylight dazzled, queasy, delirious, and knock-kneed as a newborn calf.”

#15 - Melancholia (2011) Dir. Lars Von Trier

“The vision is as hateful as it is hate-filled, but the fusion of form and content is so perfect that it borders on the sublime. Melancholia is a remarkable mood piece with visuals to die for (excuse the pun), and a performance from Dunst that runs the color spectrum of emotions.”

#14 - Song to Song (2017) Dir. Terrence Malick

“Any number of sequences find feelings both externalized and hidden intermingling within the same shot, continuing in a subsequent image that carries the impression, the feeling, without replicating the exact tenor of what has just been seen. They exist simultaneously as certain backstories and what motivations they may inspire delicately unfold. Malick has found a way to translate how a familiar song has the ability to transport you back to a particular time and conjure a specific set of emotions. Whatever he’s been exploring over the past few years pays off here.”

#13 - If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) Dir. Barry Jenkins

“What Jenkins gets most right—what astonishes me the most about this film—is Baldwin’s vast affection for the broad varieties of black life. It’s one of the signature lessons of Baldwin’s work that blackness contains multitudes. In some ways Beale feels less like a movie than a well-staged, meticulously shot play; a period piece that floats beyond its specific time and place and into the realm of allegory.”

#12 - Samsara (2012) Dir. Ron Fricke

“Simply put, Samsara tells the story of our world, but onscreen, it is so much more than that. A darker and more ambitious meditation on impermanence, Samsara relies on blunt force and unforgettable imagery, overcoming the hazy logic of Fricke's editing to earn your awe.”

#11 - It’s Such a Beautiful Day (2012) Dir. Don Hertzfeldt

“A highly original and utterly enthralling film that touches on staggeringly expansive themes - more typically expected in the work of master auteur and persistent award-winner Terrence Malick, than from animations. An existential flipbook and a heartbreaking black joke: stickmen have never looked so alive.”

#10 - Upstream Color (2013) Dir. Shane Carruth

“You may not be able to figure it out, but that's part of the point of this sensually-directed, sensory-laden experiential (and experimental) piece of art that washes over you like a sonorous bath of beguiling visuals, ambient sounds and corporeal textures.”

#9 - Hereditary (2018) Dir. Ari Aster

“It’s a supremely effective gauntlet of supernatural horror that’s also, at blackened heart, a grueling domestic drama about how trauma, resentment, and guilt can seep into the roots of a family tree, rotting it from the inside out.”

#8 - Spring Breakers (2013) Dir. Harmony Korine

“Spring Breakers seems to be holding a funhouse mirror up to the face of youth-driven pop culture, leaving us uncertain whether to laugh, recoil in horror, or marvel at its strange beauty. Full credit to Korine, who sustains this act of creative vandalism right through to the finish. Spring Breakers unfolds as a fever dream of teenage kicks, a high-concept heist movie with mescal in the fuel tank.”

#7 - The Master (2012) Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson

“Two things stand out: the extraordinary command of cinematic technique, which alone is nearly enough to keep a connoisseur on the edge of his seat the entire time, and the tremendous portrayals by Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman of two entirely antithetical men. Written, directed, acted, shot, edited and scored with a bracing vibrancy that restores your faith in film as an art form, The Master is nirvana for movie lovers. Anderson mixes sounds and images into a dark, dazzling music that is all his own.”

#6 - Interstellar (2014) Dir. Christopher Nolan

“It’s a bold, beautiful cosmic adventure story with a touch of the surreal and the dreamlike, and yet it always feels grounded in its own deadly serious reality. An exhilarating slalom through the wormholes of Christopher Nolan’s vast imagination that is at once a science-geek fever dream and a formidable consideration of what makes us human.”

#5 - The Place Beyond the Pines (2013) Dir. Derek Cianfrance

“A brilliant, towering picture, The Place Beyond The Pines is a cinematic accomplishment of extraordinary grace and insight. The movie succeeds both as a high-stakes crime thriller as well as a far quieter and empathetic study of angry, solitary men proves that Cianfrance has a penchant for bold storytelling and an eye for performances to carry it through.”

#4 - Black Swan (2010) Dir. Darren Aronofsky

“A full-bore melodrama, told with passionate intensity, gloriously and darkly absurd. It centers on a performance by Natalie Portman that is nothing short of heroic. This is, no doubt about it, a tour de force, a work that fully lives up to its director's ambitions.”

#3 - Drive (2011) Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn

“From the beginning, it's clear this is not a standard-order action film. It takes its characters as seriously as its chases, shootouts, and fights. Drive dynamically merges a terrific film noir plot with a cool retro look. It's an unapologetically commercial picture that defies all the current trends in mainstream action filmmaking.”

#2 - Blue Valentine (2010) Dir. Derek Cianfrance

“Cianfrance and his actors, Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling, have not made a cold or schematic film. They aim instead for raw emotional experience, one that's full of insight into the ways a relationship can go astray, but mostly feels like a slow-motion punch to the gut.”

#1 - The Tree of Life (2011) Dir. Terrence Malick

"The Tree of Life is a film of vast ambition and deep humility, attempting no less than to encompass all of existence and view it through the prism of a few infinitesimal lives. I wrote earlier about the many ways this film evoked my own memories of such time and place. About wide lawns. About a town that somehow, in memory, is always seen with a wide-angle lens. About houses that are never locked. About mothers looking out windows to check on their children. About the summer heat and ennui of church services, and the unpredictable theater of the dinner table, and the troubling sounds of an argument between parents, half-heard through an open window.”

[hazyheel]

Smackdown Live 5/21/19 Review

The night actually started backstage, where Shane McMahon and Elias talked about Elias’s match at Money in the Bank. Elias said that he felt like he let Shane down, and offered to be in Shane’s corner at Super Showdown. Shane said no, but that he would be in his corner during the rematch tonight. A new way to open the show, so I felt good.

The actual opening segment was from the New Day, when Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston announced that Big E was back in action. He came out with a robe on his head, but when they revealed him it wasn’t Big E. They made fun of whoever this was and then yelled at him to leave. The real Big E then showed up, and he gave the entrance voiceover, and he came out to a big pop. They quickly revealed that Big E couldn’t wrestle yet, and he sniffed his teammates. They addressed Brock Lesnar becoming Mr. Beast in the Bank, and Kofi’s title win on Sunday, but only briefly, as Kevin Owens showed up to spoil the fun, alongside Sami Zayn. Zayn complained that he didn’t get a comeback celebration, and Big E crapped on him and Owens. Owens stormed away as Zayn called the New Day disgusting for encouraging the fans’ toxic nature. Woods began to drown Zayn out with a trombone, and Zayn yelled some more.

Grade: C+. Even the phenomenal mic skills of all of these guys, this still did nothing. It was good from an acting standpoint, but it didn’t serve any purpose. No new information, the definition of filler. 

Backstage, Carmella searched for R-Truth, who was disguised with a wig and his new belt. Carmella said he had a bad disugise with a cheap wig (Truth was offended because it cost $12), and Truth begged her for her help. She agreed, and they ran. I’m gonna wait and grade all of these segments collectively at the end of the night.

Then we had Ali vs. Andrade, hopefully this one won’t end in a DQ. Before the match, they announced that Andrade would have a shot at Balor’s IC championship at the super showdown. This was a classic high flying match, with Ali delivering a reverse rana within the first few minutes. Andrade really wanted to get the win via countout, but he really destroyed Ali to get that. Andrade really destroyed Ali with double knees to the back of the head, but only a near fall. Ali then rolled up Andrade for the win. 

Grade: B-. A stronger B-, because these guys are really good, but it just felt very telegraphed. The spots weren’t very crisp, and this really felt like it’d be a glorified squash match until the rollup. I think this win means that Ali will be added to the match at Super Showdown, and it is looking better with each match that is added. Because that triple threat would be killer. 

Backstage, R-Truth was made into a drag queen by Carmella, complete with a bra, which Truth needed help with because he could never really get them open. Not really feeling this so far, but lets see where it goes.

Then we had Mandy Rose vs. Carmella. Truth came out with Carmella and tried to do her entrance, but could not moonwalk. Commentators pointed out how stupid it was for Truth to still wear the belt, and that he was on TV and everyone knew where he was. Sonya Deville kinda got involved, and Carmella beat her ass in the middle of the ring, which caused a distraction for Rose. However, the entire lowcard ran out to attack Truth, and I think the match ended in a DQ? Or maybe Carmella lost by Countout? I dunno, but imma lump this as a 24/7 segment.

Someone (dunno her name) then interviewed Bayley about her two wins on Sunday. She just said that she was gonna be a great champion and wants people to bring their best.

Carmella and Truth tried to hide in the ladies locker room, but Truth refused and they were chased. 

Sami Zayn vs. Kofi Kingston was next, but Big E was assaulted backstage. Kingston assumed that it was Zayn, and beat the crap out of him early on in the match. They didn’t do many spots that were totally incredible, but Kingston won with a trouble in paradise.

After the match, Heyman showed up and teased a cash in. Kofi was ready to fight off Lesnar, but then Dolph Ziggler returned to kick his ass. Ziggler wasn’t injured, but he was basically hired as a higher card enhancement guy at this point. Ziggler went for Kingston’s neck, assaulting it with a chair. Kofi pulled a stretcher job, which went on for a real long time, but he was actually able to walk out on his own.

Grade: B. Fine, but nothing really more than that. I am definitely into Kingston vs. Ziggler, especially now. I smell a WWE championship match at super showdown. Definitey into that. I bumped this up a grade because of the post match angle. When commentators talked about it, they used their serious voices. So this was a serious attack.

Roman Reigns was in the parking lot walking into the building, but Elias was on the top of a trailer and he played him a song on the guitar, saying he’d take the big dog on a walk. I-I don’t know why anyone would do that, it wasn’t intimidating. I’m just kinda baffled.

Then we had a women’s Tag Team match, Lacey Evans and Charlotte Flair vs. Becky Lynch and Bayley. Before the match, Lynch commented that she wanted her Smackdown Women’s Championship back, and while she said that she was happy Bayley is holding it, she looked Bayley in the eye and said she was coming for her next. Also, on commentary, Graves said that he was able to throw a football a quarter mile in high school (I dunno why) and Saxton said that he was surprised Graves could even through a football. Philips just muttered “that was clever Saxton” and I laughed. I like when they acknowledge that Saxton gets one over on Graves. Bayley was beat down by the heels, Lynch got the hot tag. Lynch had a disarmer locked in at one point, but Evans nailed her with a women’s right. Bayley was able to tag herself in, throwing Evans out of the ring and then rolling up Flair for another win.

Grade: C. Another kinda lame tag match. Of course the champions would win here, but I am glad that Bayley went over. Aside from the ending stretch, this was unspectacular and just heels working the faces. 

In the last 24/7 segment of the night, Truth nearly got beaten by Jinder Mahal, but he kicked out and fought him off. The B-team then ambushed Truth, but they couldn’t decide who would pin him, so he was also able to fight them off and run away with Carmella.

Grade: D+. Yeah, this gimmick really takes a hurtin when all it is chasing people around. Truth was being pretty funny early on, but this was kinda lame because it was all of the low card guys just chasing people. They kinda had something good when a couple guys actually fought Truth, but that was really it. I hope they do more with this, like showing social media videos of title changes. 

Backstage, Ziggler was interviewed about attacking Kingston, but he refused to answer in the interview. Instead he stole the mic and went out for a promo. He said that Kingston didn’t deserve the opportunity at Wrestlemania, Ziggler did. He deserved everything that Kofi got, but he hasn’t gotten it. He sounded like he was about to cry the entire time. He issued the challenge for Super Showdown. 

Grade: B. This was an odd promo, but Ziggler kinda pulled it off. He delivered the emotion, and was kinda sympathetic the entire time. Not the route I would have gone, but this was good enough to get a B from me.

Then we had Roman Reigns vs. Elias, the rematch. The two started off with a slugfest, with Elias being fine with cutting some corners during this match. Shane was interfering quite a bit during the match, often distracting Reigns to aid Elias. At one point, Shane saved Elias by putting his foot on the rope. Reigns was pissed and drilled Shane with a drive by, but that was when Elias just wrecked Roman by throwing him around ringside, and an elbow drop for a near fall. Shane then placed the guitar in the ring and Elias grabbed it, only to be speared by Reigns for the win.

Shane attacked after the match, and went to use the guitar himself, but ate a superman punch. Roman was then gonna use the guitar, but Drew McIntyre ran in out of nowhere and nailed him with a claymore to stand tall. 

Grade: B. I would have been satisfied with this match on a pay per view, so it was a serviceable main event here. That is one last roadblock between Reigns and McMahon. It sucks that McIntyre needs to get his ass beat too, but that’ll probably happen. Match of the night for me, which is kinda impressive considering that Andrade vs. Ali opened the show.

Overall Grade: C+.

Pros: Ziggler return; Ziggler promo; main event

Cons: Women’s tag; 24/7 segment

[inaroplo1970-blog]

Philip DeFranco is still successful. Pewdiepie is still successful. Shane Dawson is still successful. Unlike the DoD deal, censorship in China is required by law. The only alternative to a censored Bing is no Bing and an entirely Baidu controlled market, which is a lot worse. The withdrawal of Google is what led to baidu becoming so big and powerful to begin with. Those parts of management suck. I have never been good at developing people that are not self motivated and I know part of that is on me, I am trying to 진도출장샵 get better at it. 1,356 points submitted 23 hours ago. Remember: Charlize Theron and Mila Kunis don really have that nipped waist and they are theatrical romantics. Drew Barrymore doesn seem to have it, either. She a straight romantic. Really significant thing to note is that it wasn about ongoing or even regular smoking. It was about having ever smoked. This basically correlates testosterone to the likelihood of taking the first step and making the risky decision, which is something we all expect rather than saying the inhalation of smoke has a positive effect on sperm count. I tried to make a report of a driver that hit me with their mirror, I waited around for half an hour, the police said unless I wanted an ambulance they wouldn make a report, and despite having the license number he was out of town and therefor not anything they were 진도출장샵 going to do about it. Just a big waste of everyone time. Oh, and they had no issue telling me about a dozen ways that it was probably my fault.. If she is married, her husband is also automatically considered a parent and you would have to go through court to dispute it. If she is not married, she can not just put a random name on birth certificate because you need dad signature as well. If they both agree to beeing parents, then they both sign the document and that is that. I will echo what another commenter said about her memories with her mom, my kids LOVE veg out days when I just can't do it anymore. We get snacks and cuddle up on the couch and turn on movies haha. Not the most productive, but they happen less and less the more I recover from birth and build up my meds in my body. I agree The Challenge needs to move away from the team setting all the way through 100%. If the winner of Survivor could have their prize money stolen away from them just for the sake of drama, I would never watch it again. Survivor IMO is a better show because you can just be a 1 trick pony all the way through. The fact of the matter is, there are science based practices for treating drug addiction but they get tangled in philosophical discussion such as this. Feelings need to be taken 100% out of the conversation in order to treat this epidemic properly. Look at it this way: I am an addict in long term recovery and I was not upset by your comments involving Social Darwinist methodology. I initially wanted to nail it to the wall or get some kind of hooks but the right side of the branch is quite thin and although it's strong, I was worried about it splitting if I put a nail through it. I couldn't nail it on a thicker part either because the branch is quite curved and the thin part is only part that actually touches the wall on that side. I couldn't find any nice hooks either that would be the right size.

[rpmatchmaker]

Partner search!

Name:Rhys Age:20 Timezone:Central Email:dotiscat@gmail.com Hey there! I'm looking for long term, descriptive roleplay partners. I do m/m, m/f, f/f. I am also very wary of being approached with "I only do this gender" because I am very flexible, and just want many different characters on both of our ends. I do not appreciate stereotypical 'top/bottom' and 'seme/uke' tropes (please don't call it yaoi/yuri and/or give anime-esque face claims) and would like for relationships to remain as realistic as possible, meaning switching. I do smut. (Note: I rdon't roleplay with minors. Please be 18+. If you aren't a legal adult, I will not respond.) Fandoms ----- •Life is Strange (Max/Chloe, Max/literally anyone, Chloe/Rachel, Warren/Nathan) •Game of Thrones (Gendry/Arya, Jon/Ygritte, Robb/Theon, Robb/Talisa, Sansa/Margaery [video game>>] Mira/Sera, Asher/Gwyn, Rodrik/Arthur, Elaena/Gryff) •The Wolf Among Us (Bigby/Snow, Bigby/Woodsman, Bigby/Bloody Mary) •Steven Universe (Ruby/Sapphire, [aged up] Connie/Steven, Pearl/Rose/Greg, Pearl/Amethyst) •The Mortal Instruments (Alec/Magnus, Simon/Raphael, Isabelle/Simon, Isabelle/Lydia, Jace/Clary, Clary/Isabelle, Jace/Simon) •The Walking Dead (Rick/Daryl, Rick/Negan, Negan/Dwight, Daryl/Carol, Rick/Shane, Rick/Michonne, Michonne/Andrea, Glenn/Maggie [video game>>] Luke/Nick, Lee/Carley, Lee/Kenny, Eddie/Wyatt, Nate/Russel) •The Last of Us (Joel/OC, Joel/Tess, Ellie/Riley) •Infamous; Second Son (Eugene/Delsin, Reggie/Delsin, Fetch/Delsin) •Marvel (Tony/Steve, Tony/Bruce, Bucky/Steve, Clint/Pietro, Clint/Phil, Natasha/Wanda, Peter/Wade, Peter/Harry, Peter/Gwen, Peter/Harry/Gwen, Wade/Vanessa, Wade/Peter/Vanessa) •Until Dawn (Chris/Josh, Chris/Mike, Ashley/Sam, Sam/Beth, Emily/Jess/Matt, Ashley/Chris) •Borderlands (Jack/Rhys, Jack/Rhys/Timothy, Fiona/Athena, Athena/Janey, Fiona/Yvette, Rhys/Vaughn, Jack/Nisha, Axton/Rhys, Axton/Maya, Maya/Lilith, Lilith/Roland, Timothy/Wilhem, Jack/Nisha/Rhys) •Underland Chronicles (Gregor/Luxa, [aged up] Gregor/Howard) •Uncharted (Nathan/Sam, Nathan/Harry, Nathan/Elaena, Elaena/Chloe, Sully/Chloe) •Miraculous Ladybug (Adrien/Marinette, Nino/Alya, Marinette/Lila, Marinette/Nathaniel) •Suicide Squad/Batman (Bruce/Dick, Harley/Ivy, platonic Harley & Floyd, limited Harley/Joker [i advise being very careful, as this pairing is extremely toxic and abusive], Floyd/El Diablo) •Brokeback Mountain (Ennis Del Mar/Jack Twist) •Shutter Island (Teddy Daniels;Andrew Laeddis/Chuck Aule) •Hamilton: An American Musical (Alexander Hamilton/John Laurens, Alexander Hamiton/Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton/Elizabeth Schuyler, Alexander Hamilton/Angelica Schuyler, Elizabeth Schuyler/Maria Reynolds, Aaron Burr/Theodosia Prevost, Philip Hamilton/Theodosia Burr, Lafayette/John Laurens, Alexander Hamilton/George Washington, Lafayette/Hercules Mulligan) Eyewitness (US): (Philip/Lucas) --- I don't do canon/oc, but can be convinced for some, I am all for it! If you don't see a certain pairing you're looking for, approach me with it! I may have forgotten or whatnot and could easily be swayed for that pairing! ---- I would love to chat OOC. Being friends is what really makes this work! I want to hear about what's going on in your life. I want to be someone that you can lean on! If I do not reply to an email within the span of a few days, it may be because it got lost in my inbox. Just send it again if this occurs! I write in third person, past/present tense, and in paragraph form. I'm going to be honest, if you show disinterest with one liners and very limited two-paragraphed responses to my six, then I will most likely not respond. I want to be friends, and get along, but if someone doesn't want to put in the effort, I understand. I know life is busy, and you don't always have time, but if it's a constant one-two paragraphs and not at least giving me a heads up that you'll be gone, I'm not going to accept it when I specified that I just want something over three. :( I feel bad for doing this, but it just gets tiring to try awfully hard and get a disinterested response in return. Original plot ideas ------ •Anthropomorphic medieval nobles that have to tame the beasts within themselves in the midst of a war. ((This is an extremely descriptive, multiple character plot that I have pre-planned.)) •Super duo/team coming together to defeat a mass villain/conflict •Pandemic survivor must take an immune survivor across the US in order to extract the cure (credit to The Last of Us) •Future where androids/robots are used as helpers for just about anything, for example: Keeping disabled and elderly people company in their homes, doing odd jobs to assist humanity, etc. among this, most people who don't need them as companions are very prejudice against the AI. It is up to our characters to stop the impending war between AI and human. (Credit to I, Robot. Two of our main characters can be a human and an AI! :V) •Assassin roleplay (can be assassin/target, assassin/assassin. historical or modern) •Explorers looking for a treasure on the coast of a tropical island(credit to the Uncharted series! Can be romantic or platonic) •Time traveller gets stuck in time, and another person has to help them get back to the reality they came from. • Oceanologists go to a secluded island to study the plants and sea life in the water, and on a scuba dive, discover creatures unlike anything they've ever seen. People with tails and scales! (Merpeople! :D Can be romantic, like all the others) •Person goes to live in a very wealthy relatives home after they pass away, and learns how secluded the neighborhood really is, with a small village of less than 30 people, and nothing more. Supernatural occurrences ensue, and characters must stop the thing/creature as it starts taking people in the night. •Detective duo goes to a secluded mental penitentiary together in order to solve the case of a patient that went missing out of nowhere. Throughout their journey, detective 1 is separated from their partner, and is put through a series of trials in order to find their missing patient. What they think is going on isn't what it appears to be. (credit to the movie Shutter Island. Heavily influenced on the plot, and will contain many, many triggers. Such as murder, mental illness, and deception.) ------------ Limits: I cannot do pedophilia, mpreg, beastiality and/or furries, gun/knife kink, bathroom stuff, a/b/o, or gruesomely detailed rape/forced sexual interactions. Other than that, anything is fair game. Please don't contact me with a "hey, wanna rp?" I appreciate you adding things about yourself, and things pertaining to the RP like your limits and what interests you most! :) thank you! I apologize if I seem straight forward or offend anyone over some specifics I want, but I promise I am much, much more friendly and relaxed when we talk OOC.

[gadgetgirl71]

Top Ten Tuesday 30 March 2021

Welcome to this weeks Top Ten Tuesday. Originally created by The Broke & The Bookish, which is now hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week it features a book or literary themed category. This weeks prompt is:

Places In Books I’d Love to Live

Dark Lover (Black Dagger Brotherhood #1) by J R Ward

I’d love to live with the brothers and their wives as they are so cool and so is the mansion they live in.

Synopsis: The only purebred vampire left on the planet and the leader of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, Wrath has a score to settle with the slayers who killed his parents centuries ago.

But when his most trusted fighter is killed — orphaning a half-breed daughter unaware of her heritage or her fate — Wrath must put down his dagger and usher the beautiful female into another world.

Racked by a restlessness in her body that wasn’t there before, Beth Randall is helpless against the dangerously sexy man who comes to her at night with shadows in his eyes. His tales of the Brotherhood and blood frighten her. Yet his touch ignites a dawning new hunger one that threatens to consume them both…

The Dead Girl’s Dance (Morganville Vampires #2) by Rachel Caine

I think Morganville would be an interesting place to live as long as I’m a vampire and I’d love Myrnin to be my best vampire friend.

Synopsis: Claire Danvers has her share of challenges—like being a genius in a school that favors beauty over brains, dealing with the homicidal girls in her dorm, and above all, finding out that her college town is overrun with vampires. On the up side, she has a great roommate (who tends to disappear at sunup) and a new boyfriend named Shane, whose vampire-hunting dad has called in backup: cycle punks who like the idea of killing just about anything.

Now a fraternity is throwing its annual Dead Girls’ Dance and—surprise!—Claire and her equally outcast best friend, Eve, have been invited. When they find out why, all hell is going to break loose. Because this time both the living and the dead are coming out—and everybody’s hungry for blood.

Daisy’s Run (The Clockwork Chimera #1) by Scott Baron

I think to live in outer space and you way back to earth, would literally be an out of this world experience and one I’d hate to miss.

Synopsis: Life in deep space could be a drag sometimes, but Daisy supposed things could have been worse. They were still alive, after all, which was always a plus in her book. Now if only she could figure out who, or what, was endangering her return home, things would be just peachy.

It had been one hell of a way to start the day––being rudely snapped from a deep cryo-sleep, and in the middle of a ship-wide crisis to boot––but Daisy was pleased to note that the ship had not decompressed, the crew hadn’t been blasted into space, and, most importantly, they hadn’t simply blown up. At least not yet. So, they had that going for them, but being stuck on a damaged ship in the inky depths of space as it limped toward Earth was not exactly the relaxing trip home she’d imagined.

With the powerful AI supercomputer guiding the craft beginning to show some disconcerting quirks of its own, and its unsettling cyborg assistant nosing into her affairs, Daisy’s unease was rapidly growing. Add to the mix a crew of mechanically-enhanced humans, any one of whom she suspected might not be what they seemed, and Daisy found herself with a sense of pending dread tickling the periphery of her mind.

Something was very much not right––she could feel it in her bones. The tricky part now was going to be figuring out what the threat was, before it could manifest from a mere sinking feeling in her gut into a potentially deadly reality.

Marked (House of the Night #1) by P C Cast & Kristin Cast

Living as a witch in the House of Night and being a witch with an affinity to earth would be really cool. I say Earth witch as my zodiac sign Virgo is associated with Earth.

Synopsis: After a Vampire Tracker Marks her with a crescent moon on her forehead, 16-year-old Zoey Redbird enters the House of Night and learns that she is no average fledgling. She has been Marked as special by the vampyre Goddess Nyx and has affinities for all five elements: Air, Fire, Water, Earth and Spirit. But she is not the only fledgling at the House of Night with special powers. When she discovers that the leader of the Dark Daughters, the school’s most elite club, is misusing her Goddess-given gifts, Zoey must look deep within herself for the courage to embrace her destiny—with a little help from her new vampyre friends (or Nerd Herd, as Aphrodite calls them).

Northern Lights (His Dark Materials #1) by Philip Pullman

I think living in Lyra’s Oxford and the other worlds that she moves about in would be really interesting. I’d like to visit the different Oxford’s.

Synopsis: When Lyra’s friend Roger disappears, she and her dæmon, Pantalaimon, determine to find him.

The ensuing quest leads them to the bleak splendour of the North, where armoured bears rule the ice and witch-queens fly through the frozen skies – and where a team of scientists is conducting experiments too horrible to be spoken about.

Lyra overcomes these strange terrors, only to find something yet more perilous waiting for her – something with consequences which may even reach beyond the Northern Lights…

These Violent Nights by Rebecca Crunden

I’d like to live in Salfar with the new king Lucien, his family and the humans that became his family as well.

Synopsis: Once upon a time, inhabitants of another world tore a hole through the universe and came to Earth. They called themselves Suriias, and rivalled humans in knowledge and skill with one great exception: they had magic.

War followed. Humanity lost. And three hundred years later, humans are on the brink of extinction.

Orphans Thorn and Thistle live in hiding. They are the last of their families, the last of their friends. They scrape by, stealing to survive and living on the streets or hiding in sheds. But even under the brutal regime of the Suriias, there are places where humans can mingle in secret with magical sympathisers, and one night Thistle gets an unexpected offer of marriage from a Suriia with high standing and friends in all the right places. For Thistle, it’s a chance at safety and comfort; for Thorn, it’s a chance to find the ones who killed her parents.

And so the pair move into the capital city of Courtenz. An urban monstrosity of magic and might, false friends and flying cars, drones and death tolls, the new city promises a fresh start – and new love – for both.

But if there’s one thing Thorn knows for certain, it’s that dreams can swiftly turn into nightmares.

Well I only managed to come up with six fictional places I’d like to live. Even though I’m a Harry Potter fan I wouldn’t like to live in that world as I’m sure it would be very over crowded with it turning up on quite a few TTT list.

Until next week.

[sportsconvergence]

Shane Comes Back

The new head football coach for the Gamecocks will be 43-year old Shane Beamer.

The more I think about this hire, the more I really like it.  I feel much better about this hire than the Muschamp hire five years ago (at that time, I said I was “underwhelmed” by that choice).  Good feelings don’t guarantee more wins, however.  But at least for right now, there are a LOT of things to like about him taking over the program, specifically:

He’s familiar with the program having coached in Columbia under Spurrier, he understands the challenges it faces, and – despite all that – he wants to be in Columbia (he calls this his “dream job”).

He has coached multiple positions on both sides of the ball.  While he hasn’t been a coordinator, that probably is a good thing since coordinators seem to have trouble giving up that responsibility when they become head coaches (see Will Muschamp).  

He wants to emulate the “CEO” model of head coach and he is stressing the importance of building an attractive and winning culture in Columbia (more on that below).

He has worked with some noteworthy head coaches who won, or are in the process of winning, lots of games (George O’Leary at Georgia Tech, Philip Fulmer at Tennessee, Steve Spurrier at South Carolina, Frank Beamer at Virginia Tech, Kirby Smart at Georgia, and Lincoln Riley at Oklahoma).  You have to think he learned things from them.  

He’s a great recruiter – he was a primary architect of some of the classes that produced three consecutive 11-win seasons under Spurrier.  Recruiting in Columbia has not been the same since he left.  

He has overwhelming support from prominent boosters and lettermen, including guys who played for him before who RAVE about him.

There are a few things that give me pause about him, namely:

He’s never been a head coach before.  

Will he make good assistant hires, especially at the coordinator positions?

If I were advising him, I would recommend that he work on the following items immediately:

Relentlessly focus on culture– As Peter Drucker famously said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”  Will Muschamp’s inattention to that important idea allowed a “me first” attitude to take over the locker room.  Additionally, he completely destroyed the “fun” culture of the program built by Steve Spurrier.  This showed up with the way his team played so “tight” in games.  Building and maintaining a unique and fun culture for South Carolina football has got to be his top priority.   

Hire well – Beamer’s assistants need to be very good at developing players, putting them in a position to succeed, and making in-game adjustments.  Oh, and it probably would be a good idea if none of them  have ever been a head coach before. Beamer needs them to be focused on their players, not mentoring him.  Speaking of which…

Get a mentor– Beamer will need someone to help guide him in his transition from assistant to first-time head coach.  Ideally, it should be a former successful head coach, preferably one who built a program from scratch and established a winning culture that lasted for decades.  Hmmm….I think he may know someone like that already.

Win over fans–Another area where Will Muschamp failed miserably.  Everyone says Beamer has an endearing personality.  He needs to take that on the road and win over the Gamecock fan base and build up some goodwill.  He will need it because it may take a while to build the program.

Market the program to transfers– The current recruiting class is bad, but that doesn’t mean he has to enter next season empty handed.  Because of COVID, the NCAA is relaxing transfer rules and players will be eligible immediately in 2021.  There are plenty of guys who can come in and provide quick answers at key positions.  Go get them.

Time will tell if this was the right move.  But from where I’m sitting today, I’d give this hire a solid B.

[dccomicsnews]

DC Comics News has compiled a list of DC Comics titles and collectibles shipping to comic shops for February 7, 2018.

Check back every Friday with the DC Comics News Pull Box to see all the cool new DC Comics titles and collectibles that will be available at your favorite local comic shop! So, what titles or collectibles will you be picking up this Wednesday? You can sound off in the comments section below! Click on Comic shop Locator to find the comic shop nearest to you!

COMICS

BANE CONQUEST #9 (OF 12) $3.99 BATMAN #38 2ND PTG $2.99 BATMAN #40 $2.99 BATMAN WHITE KNIGHT #4 (OF 8) 2ND PTG $3.99 BATMAN WHITE KNIGHT #5 (OF 8) $3.99 BATMAN WHO LAUGHS #1 3RD PTG METAL $3.99 BLACK LIGHTNING COLD DEAD HANDS #4 (OF 6) $3.99 BOMBSHELLS UNITED #11 $2.99 DASTARDLY AND MUTTLEY #6 (OF 6) $3.99 DEATHSTROKE #28 $3.99 EXIT STAGE LEFT THE SNAGGLEPUSS CHRONICLES #2 (OF 6) $3.99 GREEN ARROW #37 $3.99 GREEN LANTERNS #40 $2.99 HARLEY & IVY MEET BETTY & VERONICA #5 (OF 6) $3.99 HARLEY QUINN #37 $2.99 INJUSTICE 2 #19 $2.99 JETSONS #4 (OF 6) $3.99 JUSTICE LEAGUE #38 $2.99 MISTER MIRACLE #1 (OF 12) 4TH PTG $3.99 MISTER MIRACLE #2 (OF 12) 3RD PTG $3.99 MISTER MIRACLE #3 (OF 12) 2ND PTG $3.99 MISTER MIRACLE #4 (OF 12) 2ND PTG $3.99 MOTHER PANIC BATMAN SPECIAL #1 $4.99 NIGHTWING #38 $2.99 SUPERMAN #40 $2.99 SWAMP THING WINTER SPECIAL #1 $7.99 YOUNG MONSTERS IN LOVE #1 $9.99

IDW

SHADOW BATMAN #5 (Brandon Peterson variant) $3.99 SHADOW BATMAN #5 (Philip Tan variant) $3.99 SHADOW BATMAN #5 (Derek Charm variant) $3.99 SHADOW BATMAN #5 (Robert Carey variant) $3.99 SHADOW BATMAN #5 (OF 6) Subscription variant $3.99

DCN Pull Box Triple Spotlight

SWAMP THING WINTER SPECIAL #1 $7.99

Tom King, Len Wein (A) Kelley Jones (A/CA) Jason Fabok

Tom King and Jason Fabok pay tribute to the legendary creators of Swamp Thing, writer Len Wein and artist Bernie Wrightson, as they join forces for an earth-shattering Swamp Thing passion project! In this new, squarebound one-shot, Swamp Thing is out of his element as he shepherds a lost boy through a blinding blizzard and other hazards of a strange, frozen tundra. In this touching and harrowing tale of survival, the pair must navigate countless threats throughout a bewildering terrain-with a bloodthirsty snow monster hot on their heels. But how long can they rely on each other? Separated from the Green and stripped of his powers in this dead world, Swamp Thing struggles to fight for their lives and deliver the boy to safety. Disoriented and decaying, Swamp Thing’s fading understanding of his surroundings forces the duo to confront their desperation and uncover the true identity of the snow monster that hunts them. In addition, this special features the final Swamp Thing story from the monster’s co-creator, Len Wein. Originally intended as the start of a new series, it is presented here both in its original script form and with art by Kelley Jones.

SHADOW BATMAN #5 $3.99

Steve Orlando (A) Giovanni Timpano (CA) Philip Tan

The Silent Seven fight a war on multiple fronts. But if you follow the strings high enough, are Batman, the Shadow, and Robin still just puppets? Robin and the Shadow fight for their lives, while the actions of the Seven leave Batman unsure if he can trust anyone in his life, including himself. Three generations of crimefighting are deserted and alone, but if they can come together to finally confront the Seven where they live, is it their final victory? Or exactly what the Seven has wanted all along?

BATMAN WHITE KNIGHT #5 (OF 8) $3.99

Sean Murphy (A/CA) Sean Murphy

Jack’s mind and body begin to betray him as he prepares for an inevitable showdown with Batman, and Bruce himself struggles to keep his team united. As the game gets tougher, Batman seeks counsel from a shocking source-and after Wayne Manor is infiltrated, a car chase for the ages aims to curb Napier’s supercriminal crew once and for all.

Variant Covers

Note: Variant Prices To Be Determined By Retailer

BATMAN #40 (Olivier Coipel variant) $2.99 BATMAN WHITE KNIGHT #5 (Sean Murphy variant) $3.99 DASTARDLY AND MUTTLEY #6 (Bill Sienkiewicz variant) $3.99 DEATHSTROKE #28 (Shane Davis variant) $3.99 EXIT STAGE LEFT THE SNAGGLEPUSS CHRONICLES #2 (Steve Pugh variant) $3.99 GREEN ARROW #37 (Mike Grell variant) $3.99 GREEN LANTERNS #40 (Brandon Peterson variant) $2.99 HARLEY & IVY MEET BETTY & VERONICA #5 (Bilquis Evely variant) $3.99 HARLEY QUINN #37 (Frank Cho variant) $2.99 JETSONS #4 (Ben Caldwell variant) $3.99 JUSTICE LEAGUE #38 (J.G. Jones variant) $2.99 NIGHTWING #38 (Yasmine Putri variant) $2.99 SUPERMAN #40 (Jonboy Meyers variant) $2.99

GRAPHIC NOVEL

ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN BY AZZARELLO & CHIANG HC VOL 02 $125.00 AQUAMAN BY PETER DAVID TP BOOK 01 $29.99 CAVE CARSON HAS A CYBERNETIC EYE TP VOL 02 $16.99 CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN BY JEPH LOEB & TIM SALE HC $29.99 ELSEWORLDS SUPERMAN TP VOL 01 $34.99 GREEN LANTERN CORPS HC VOL 01 BEWARE THEIR POWER $39.99 HOUSE OF SECRETS THE BRONZE AGE OMNIBUS HC $125.00 SCOOBY APOCALYPSE TP VOL 03 $16.99 TEEN TITANS BY GEOFF JOHNS TP BOOK 02 $29.99 YOUNG MONSTERS IN LOVE #1 $9.99

MERCHANDISE/COLLECTIBLES

DC DARK KNIGHT JOKER PLAYING CARDS $5.99 FUNKO PLUSH LOONEY TUNES 6PC PLUSH DISP $10.99

ACTION FIGURES/STATUES

DC ARKHAM ASYLUM VG ARMORED BATMAN VINIMATE $9.99 DC ARKHAM ASYLUM VG HARLEY VINIMATE $9.99 DC ARKHAM ASYLUM VG JOKER VINIMATE $9.99 DC COMICS PLAY ARTS KAI HARLEY QUINN AF TETSUYA NOMURA $299.99 DC TV THE FLASH REVERSE FLASH ARTFX+ STATUE $69.99 JUSTICE LEAGUE MOVIE CYBORG ARTFX+ STATUE $79.99 JUSTICE LEAGUE MOVIE THE FLASH ARTFX+ STATUE $79.99 POP TEEN TITANS GO ROBIN AS RED X VINYL FIGURE $10.99 POP TEEN TITANS GO STARFIRE AS BATGIRL VINYL FIGURE $10.99 ROCK CANDY DC BOMBSHELLS BATGIRL FIG $10.99 ROCK CANDY DC BOMBSHELLS WONDER WOMAN FIG $10.99 VYNL DC HARLEY QUINN & JOKER VINYL FIGURE 2PK $14.99

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DC Comics Pull Box For 2-7-18 (New Comics and Merchandise) DC Comics News has compiled a list of DC Comics titles and collectibles shipping to comic shops for February 7, 2018.

[ourlady-ofsorrows]

A Shot Across The Bow

(gif credit to the creators)  

Part 9 - All Too Well

Masterlist

Pairing: Daryl Dixon x OFC Word Count: 1,922 Warnings: language, smoking A/N: Finally back into the swing of things with this story and I have a plan for more frequent updating! Title/song is All Too Well by Taylor Swift. I hope you guys enjoy it! If you want to be tagged, let me know. Also, feedback is cool :)

Caroline’s POV

Over the next few months I kept up my relationship with Shane for appearances while continuing my secret relationship with Daryl. Everything was going as good as to be expected with Daryl and I avoiding each other in public but that didn’t stop us from spending days together outside of town where we didn’t know anyone.

As summer ended and autumn began, however, I noticed that Daryl was becoming more and more distant. I had a feeling that it had to do with the fact that I was still with Shane and he was treating me like shit. That night when I left Daryl’s apartment I decided to end things with Shane in hopes that if Daryl and I could finally be together publicly that it would help the situation.

I pulled into the parking lot of the precinct ready to talk to Shane and end things knowing that he couldn’t start a scene at work. I parked my truck and killed the engine, taking a deep breath to prepare myself for the conversation ahead of me. I climbed out of the truck and pulled my jacket tighter around me as I walked toward the building. Once I walked inside I said hello to Sally, the secretary, before walking in to the main floor where Shane’s desk was.

When I reached his desk he wasn’t there so I sat down in the chair next to it to wait for him. I was only waiting for a few minutes when he came out of the break room. He noticed me sitting there and a look of shock crossed his face.

“Linney, what are you doing here?” he asked when he reached me.

“We need to talk,” I said.

“About what?” he asked sitting down.

“Us,” I replied.

He cocked an eyebrow at me and gestured for me to continue. I took a deep breath and steeled myself over for his reaction.

“I can’t do this anymore,” I said, “I can’t be with you.”

“Why?” he asked.

He was being calm and I knew it was because we were in the precinct and I was thankful I’d made the decision to do this here.

“Because it’s not working,” I explained, “and don’t act like you don’t agree with me.”

“This is because of Dixon, isn’t it?” he questioned.

“That doesn’t matter,” I said and I knew my face was giving me away.

“Oh come on, Caroline,” he sighed, “you can’t be serious? We’re great together.”

“No, Shane, we’re not,” I said pinching the bridge of my nose, “I don’t know why you’re pretending otherwise.”

“Because it’s true!” he said raising his voice.

“It’s not,” I said standing up, “I’m sorry, Shane, but we’re through.”

I didn’t wait for him to respond. Instead I just turned and walked out of the building. I half expected him to follow me and was more than happy when I reached my truck and he wasn’t behind me. I drove home and decided I would wait until the next morning to tell Daryl what happened knowing that he had probably gone to bed.

The minute I walked into my room I tossed my jacket on the back of my desk chair before grabbing my notebook and guitar. With Daryl being distant and breaking up with Shane I was feeling more than a little down and overwhelmingly inspired. I spent the better part of the night writing and once I was sure the song was perfect I changed into my pajamas and went to sleep.

The first thing I did the next morning was call Daryl to tell him about Shane but his phone went straight to voicemail. Figuring he was busy at the garage I left him a message asking him to call me before getting out of bed and calling Michonne.

I wanted to tell her about Shane in person but she was busy with classes. We agreed to meet for lunch and I spent the rest of the morning lounging around the house. Around noon I got dressed and made my way over to the restaurant near her campus and got us a table. She arrived shortly after and I explained everything to her once we ordered.

“I’m glad you finally called it quits with him,” he said finishing her salad.

“Yeah, me too,” I replied.

I ate the last few of my French fries and we got the check. Michonne headed back to campus and promised me she would be at the bar that night and I headed back home. I spent a few hours with Lori before getting ready to head to the bar. From the minute I got there I looked around for Daryl but I couldn’t find him. Eventually it was time for me to go on stage and I grabbed my guitar and walked up to the microphone.

Just as I was introducing the song I saw Daryl walk in and I couldn’t help the involuntary smile that spread on my lips. The smile fell, though, when he didn’t even look at me and made a beeline for the bar. I glanced over at Michonne, who I knew noticed what had happened, and she just shrugged.

I walked through the door with you, the air was cold, But something ‘bout it felt like home somehow and I Left my scarf there at your sister’s house, And you still got it in your drawer even now.

I tried to catch his gaze but he was focused on the drink in front of him.

Oh, your sweet disposition and my wide-eyed gaze. We’re singing in the car, getting lost upstate. The Autumn leaves falling down like pieces into place, And I can picture it after all these days.

I wanted him to hear these words and know that everything was going to be fine between us but the fact that he was still ignoring me made it seem like that was impossible.

And I know it’s long gone, And that magic’s not here no more, And I might be okay, But I’m not fine at all.

'Cause there we are again on that little town street. You almost ran the red 'cause you were looking over me. Wind in my hair, I was there, I remember it all too well.

Memories of our time together crossed my mind and I was starting to feel like maybe we were doomed.

Photo album on the counter, your cheeks were turning red. You used to be a little kid with glasses in a twin-size bed And your mother’s telling stories about you on a tee ball team You tell me 'bout your past, thinking your future was me.

What shocked me then was Shane’s face crossing my mind.

And I know it’s long gone And there was nothing else I could do And I forget about you long enough To forget why I needed to

Even though I hated him I was still suddenly starting to feel bad about what I’d done. Not breaking up with him but sneaking around with Daryl behind his back.

'Cause there we are again in the middle of the night. We dance around the kitchen in the refrigerator light Down the stairs, I was there, I remember it all too well, yeah.

Then Daryl finally looked at me, his eyes locking with mine and it felt like nothing else mattered.

Maybe we got lost in translation, maybe I asked for too much, And maybe this thing was a masterpiece 'til you tore it all up. Running scared, I was there, I remember it all too well.

Even in the dim light of the bar and the spotlight shining on me I could see the bruising around his eye.

Hey, you call me up again just to break me like a promise. So casually cruel in the name of being honest. I’m a crumpled up piece of paper lying here 'Cause I remember it all, all, all too well.

As I continued to sing he seemed to focus on me but his face was unreadable.

Time won’t fly, it’s like I’m paralyzed by it I’d like to be my old self again, but I’m still trying to find it After plaid shirt days and nights when you made me your own Now you mail back my things and I walk home alone

Shane walked into the bar then and I was starting to feel like a terrible person the way I’d played with both of them even though I really only had feelings for Daryl.

But you keep my old scarf from that very first week 'Cause it reminds you of innocence and it smells like me You can’t get rid of it, 'cause you remember it all too well, yeah

'Cause there we are again, when I loved you so Back before you lost the one real thing you’ve ever known It was rare, I was there, I remember it all too well

Shane just glanced at me before walking toward the bar and I saw Daryl look from him to me and then back at him.

Wind in my hair, you were there, you remember it all Down the stairs, you were there, you remember it all It was rare, I was there, I remember it all too well

As the last chord rang out Daryl finished his drink and stalked out of the bar. I thanked the crowd and packed up my guitar as quickly as I could before running out of the bar after him.

Daryl’s POV

I couldn’t sit there and listen to Caroline sing anymore, not when I knew Shane was there. It hurt me to be around her knowing what was at stake. I was foolish enough to let it go on for this long but I was selfish and I wanted her close. Now, though, Philip was pressing me for information and I wasn’t giving him any and that just put Caroline in even more danger.

“Hey! What happened to you?” I heard Caroline say as I reached my bike.

“Why don’t you ask your boyfriend,” I spat turning to face her.

“What?” she asked coming closer to me, “he’s not…we’re done. I called you this morning to tell you and – oh my God!”

It was clear that as she got closer she noticed how bad the bruising around my eye really was. Around three that morning Shane had pounded on my door and decked me when I answered. He didn’t say another word and just stormed off. I figured it wasn’t all that bad considering what he’d done to some of my friends.

“It’s nothin’,” I said lighting a cigarette.

“That’s not nothin’, Daryl,” she said walking closer to me.

“I said I’m fine,” I spat backing away from her, “just leave it be.”

“Why are you acting like this?” she asked, “I ended things with Shane so we could be together, so we could stop all this sneaking around.”

“Well ya shouldn’t have done that,” I said.

“Why the hell not?” she asked.

“Cause there ain’t no us,” I said mounting my bike, “never will be.”

I started the engine and lifted the kickstand and the last thing I saw before I pulled out of the parking lot was the tears falling down her face. I wanted to go back there and tell her that everything was going to be fine but I knew I couldn’t, not when The Governor had a target painted on her back because of me.