#so no one knows if men in the senior warren line is actually possible

[vanquishedmelon]

I'm really out here developing a full backstory for the Warren line from the time they claimed the manor for good to the time of Penny's birth...... as if I would ever fully flesh out and write it..... like I've got all these ideas and I just want to ramble on about them but WHY when in a week's time I'll move onto something else and forget about this

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

So let’s say you’re now in charge of creating a Spider-Man TV Series, as many seasons and episodes you want, as long as it remains genuinely faithful to the comics; Peter gets his powers when he’s 17, only Flash and Liz are with him in high school, ect, and ending it all with a Revelations like series finale. You’re allowed to streamline some things now that there’s the benefit of hindsight. You’re also allowed to be as faithful to the comics as possible. What do you create?

Lol I’ve been planning this for like 15 years. Currently I’d do this. 12 seasons 26 episodes each, and 3 movies.

 I’d play it as a biography of Peter’s life from the day he became Spidey to the day he stopped, with a mind of making a version of the MC2 universe the canonical future for this version of Spidey. I’d set it in the 1960s as depicted by Ditko but have the technology and fashions change to broadly speaking reflect the time periods that Peter spent parts of his life in. In other words his high school episodes will be set in what looks like the 1960s, Gwen would die in what would look like the early 1970s and he’d get married in what would look like the late 1980s. But cultural references would be kept to a minimal. Effentivly it’d be set in a world where fashions and technology happened to occur way more quickly thanin the real life, so 1962-1998’s fashions and technologies all happened but across like 12 years.

 Also I’d have Peter’s look change. He’d start out with the Coke bottle glasses and keep them throughout season 1, and he’d have a black and red costume, complete with a big blue spider on his back and web pits. The idea being this is a rookie spidey who’s awkward and not yet become the Spidey we perhaps recognize. He’d sell his glasses in the final episodes and get his costume wrecked in the finale, requiring him to make a new one, the classic Romita Senior outfit minus the web pits. He’d keep that until he got his black suit which would be modelled on Frenz’ take upon it. the cloth Black suit would have more of a McFarlane influence with huge eyes. MJ would make him a new red+blue costume before his first big showdown with Venom which would resemble the McFarlane/Bagley 90s look. Obviously Scarlet Spider’s look would be modelled on Bagley’s design, Spider-Ben on Romita Jr’s and his final outfit would be modelled on Romita Jr’s too. And Sal Buscema’s take would be the outfit worn by Flash when he pretends to be Spider-Man.

 Movie 1: Amazing Fantasy: The Birth of Spider-Man: The origin, MAYBE rounded off with ASM #1’s plot.

 Season 1: Basically everything up to when he graduated with every issue serving as an episode. I’d omit guest appearances like the F4, the Torch, DD, the Circus of Crime. I’d supplant the ASM #5’s plot with one about Jason Macendale armed with tech abducting Flash when he’s dressed as Spidey. He’d be a stand in for the Headman from Untold Tales and the episode would end with his mysterious boss speaking to Spidey remotely through a camera. This would of course be the Goblin who I’d have debut in what was his second appearance hijacking the Spidey fan club. I’d have Doc Ock unmasking Spidey end that episode and have most of it dedicated to Betty Brant’s origin told in flashbacks as she’s abducted. I’d do Spider-Man No More here, combining it with ASM #18’s plot line as it’d redundant to have him quit in big ways twice. So one episode would be ASM #18’s plot with bits of ASM #50 mixed in, ending with him throwing away his suit. Then the next episode would be about his Spidey free life before he triumphantly returns. The Molten man episodie would end with Aunt May collapsing rather than Spidey graduating.

This would lead directly into the MP Trilogy’s main storyline but to spice things up the Master Planner would hire some of Spider-Man’s villains as extra obstacles in his way, thus we’d adapt the original Sinister Six story too. The last episode would end with Peter graduating and then sitting alone to make a new suit. Also Betty would leave town.

 Season 2: It’d kick off with a recovered Peter starting college and someone hiring Kraven to go after Spidey like in ASM #34. The key difference here being that Kraven dons Spider-man’s old costume and when Spidey finally shows up to deal with him he’s sporting his new red and blue Romita Sr threads. Then we’d get the Robot Master stuff, the first Rhino story and a few other stories before around episode 6 or 7 getting to the Goblin unmasking Spider-Man and revealing himself as Norman. I’d have Norman seriously injured to the point where Spider-Man has to save him or else he’d die. He’d sweat about Norman knowing the truth like in Spider-Man: Blue before finding out Norman has amnesia and that most people don’t recover their memories. Seeing how happy Harry is, he decided to let it go and give Norman a chance. The rest of the season is basically adapting the big Romita era stories (sans Spider-Man No More of course), with an emphasis on Kingpin and fewer Doc Ock stories. POSSIBLY I might do Doc Ock’s origin from Unlimited #3 here, I dunno. It’d either be here or next season though. The season would wrap up with George Stacy’s death and with Gwen leaving.

 Also I’d foreshadow a little that Norman has a healing factor via his speedy recovery.

 Also, also, rather than space spores creating Colonel Jupiter, I’d have it be the Moon Gem that actually turned him into man-Wolf. It’d be an artefact he’d bring back from the moon and it’d increase his strength and affect his mind so that he’d desire to have the gem for some unknown reason (we’ll find out later).

 Season 3: This would be half a team up season, introducing characters from the Marvel Universe who’re relevant to Spider-Girls’ stories, so the F4, Daredevil, Ghost Rider, Doctor Strange, Spider Woman, Arana, Julia Carpenter, the Avengers, the X-Men, etc. It’d begin with Peter heading to London to find Gwen and inadvertently winding up in a team up, I’ve not figured out with whom yet (maybe Ice Man and Firestar for funsies, MAYBE Excalibur so we’d get Spider Phoenix????), anyway it’d adapt ASM #95 in any case. Then we’d go to the drug trilogy but I’ve not yet decided how to handle this. On the one hand it’s iconic. On the other it’s questionable by modern standards to have Peter see Norman remember the truth and then just let him go on, hoping he doesn’t remember. Maybe you could play it as him being worried that turning Norman in could trigger his memory, I dunno. I feel you could swap out the action part of the story with something else, provided you kept all the Harry drug stuff the same, and maybe had the story be about Norman STARTING to remember and unravel. When peter goes to him for a job though he’d catch a glimpse of a weird painting, depicting the Scriers and Norman would give a little background on their alleged history.

I’d also have the Six Arm Saga and debut of Morbius happen here, but link it in with some illegal genetic experiments someone within ESU is doing on the side for the mob. These experiments would lead to the creation of Vermin who owns Spidey’s ass until he’s saved by someone at the end of the episode. After Vermin beats a retreat, that someone helps Spidey up and it’s Captain America! Cue an ep of Spidey and Cap on the helicarrier with Chameleon using Artificial Life similicra to infiltrate it. Cap is abducted at the end of this episode and the Avengers show up accusing Spider-Man of it. Cue the next 2 episodes where Spider-Man teams up with the Avengers to take on the Hulk in Canada and Seth, the Serpent God of Death. This would then lead into the final 2 episodes which I’ll get to in a moment.

Also in this season I’d have a two part team up with Spidey and Spider Woman. Madame Web would summon them and reveal she is a member of the Spider Clan. Her granddaughter Anya Corazon, has been abducted by the Tarantula clan and Peter and Jess need to rescue her. This would allow Spidey to meet Madame Web, Jessica Drew and Anya of course and foreshadow the Black Tarantula. The Tarantula Clan’s outfits would resemble Julia Carpenter’s Spider Woman and Arachne outfits. This would lead to a ‘filler’ ep about Spider-Man fixing his suit and daydreaming about other costumes and powers he could have. This would be an excuse to pay homage to the Spider Armour, Captain Universe and a few other classic outfits for Spider-Man. the episode would end with him tossing away a doodle of the black costume inspired by his previous adventure. Later we’d get Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut but the story would end with the X-Men showing up. The episode after that would be a Spidey/X-Men team up but Mastermind would mind control them into fighting, thus we’d get Spider-Man vs. the X-Men like Secret Wars #3

 The final 2 eps would be the Death of Gwen Stacy. I’d keep this pretty much the same but with the exception of having Gwen awake and trying to escape. The moments just before she’s knocked off the bridge Peter would try to earn her trust by starting to unmask.

 Season 4: It’d kick off with the Jackal hiring Punisher to take out Spider-Man. Apart from that it’d be basically ASM #123-149, all about Peter grieving Gwen, falling in love with MJ, etc. I would cut some of the dumber stuff out though and condense some multi-parters into single stories. I’d whack in some team ups for good measure too as MTU was around at this time. One major change I’d make is that I’d have Man-Wolf show up as a result of similar experiments that created Vermin and ditch the moon gem stuff. However, Man-Wolf would eventually go after the Moon gem but it’s energies would in fact revert him to normal. The clprit behind Man-wolf and Vermin would be revealed as Miles Warren.

 One smaller change I’d make would be to omit ASM #150. It’s a great issue but it’s not a great season finale like ASM #149 would be. BUT I’d keep the MJ scene from it by simply moving it to the events of ASM #149. The idea is that when the bomb hits zero, everything fades to white, Peter would wake up amidst debris, when Gwen asks how he knows he’s the real one, he’d respond that ‘he just knows’. Later as he’d be approaching his apartment we’d get a flashback revealing that he was thinking of MJ as the bomb hit zero and so he couldn’t be the clone. Cue him finding MJ in the apartment, end season.

Season 5: Basically the Len Wein run with a dash of Marv Wolfman. It’d wrap up with a combination of 3 Wolfman era stories. MJ proposing to MJ, Spidey vs. the Burglar from ASM #200 and finally Peter graduating. A major change would be that MJ would literally leave town immediately after rejecting Peter, and it’d be a break up not just a rejection. But we the audience would see a private moment with MJ where we can tell she wasn’t nearly as casual about it as she let on.

 Movie 2: Mayhem in Manhattan: Mid way through the season I’d adapt this Spider-Man novel into another animated film.

 Season 6: It’d kick off with Spider-Man meeting Black Cat. The season really would be about Peter dating different people casually and more seriously. Deb Whitman, Cissy Ironwood, etc. He’s work for the Daily Globe and start Grad school. The season finale would be the Owl/Octopus War ending with Felicia seriously injured and Peter ripping out Otto’s arms as a result. The season would end with Spider-Man and Black Cat now an item. But I’d omit the events of Spec #77-79. Also at the Daily Globe Peter would meet and work with Eddie Brock.

 Season 7: It’d start with the debut of the Hobgoblin, cover Felcia’s recovery, gaining new powers (from other people continuing Warren’s experiments with animal DNA), MJ’s return, Peter dropping out of Grad school, MJ’s big reveal and origin, and culminate in Peter and Black Cat breaking up and Kingpin leaving NYC. The Kingpin battle would be taken from Wolfman’s run moreso than Spec #100 because that’s just a better fight.

Of course the Alien Costume Saga would happen. I’d keep the canon stuff but add in the elements of it corrupting him, with the extra spice of Felicia actually preferring this darker Spider-Man.

Peter would get the costume differently though. Instead of Secret Wars, criminals would try and obtain the Moon Gem, which was being hosted as ESU. The fight would culminate in a Kinglsey clothing factory and as a last resort Spidy would smash the gem by throwing it into one of the machines in the factory.

Licking his wounds afterwards he’d be leaning against the conveyer belt when a tiny black ball would emerge from the shards of the Moon Gem, enlarge and when Spidey noticed it we’d recreate Secret Wars #8.

BTW, to give readers clues to the Hobgoblin’s identity I’d have him record a voice journal but with a voice changer so we get his inner thoughts sorta.

Also Jason Macendale would show back up but not as jack O’lantern.

 Season 8: It’d start with ASM #260-261, the Rose/Hobgoblin story where they abduct a pregnant Liz Allan. The season would omit a lot of irrelevant stuff like the golden notebook subplot, the Beyonder, etc. But it’d keep stuff like Crusher Hogan, When Commeth the Commuter, Web #13 and other classic stories. The three central subplots of this season would be the Ned/Flash/Betty love triangle, Peter and MJ’s ‘will they won’t they’ romance and the Hobgoblin mystery. However instead of Lance Bannon, Eddie Brock would be one of the suspects. Brock would be threatened directly by Spider-Man when he starts writing Sin Eater articles and that’s just about the only thing I’d change from the Death of Jean DeWolff storyline. Most of the real important stuff from this era (sans Doc Ocks mental breakdown) I’d keep the same with the exception of not making Jason Macendale the new Hobgoblin. After Peter and Felicia break up I’d have Betty go all Cult of Love from later in the comics before the finale being yet another way later story: Hobgoblin Lives. It’s just more logical to wrap up the Hobgoblin mystery here rather than end it badly and wait years to fix it.

 Season 9: This is kind of the least accurate season but hear me out. Okay so we start off with Peter proposing to MJ, her rejecting him, then her agreeing, just like in the comics. BUT...we don’t have them then get married. Something as huge as your protagonist’s wedding should be the first or final episode of a season, not episode 3 or 4 or even the mid-season finale. So I’d grab a load of post-wedding stories and tweak them to be about Peter and MJ as an engaged couple. The stories would be selected to somehow tie-in with their relationship. The idea is to have the couple gradually develop doubts. So we’d have Jonathan Caesar. We’d have the Drunk Spider-Man issue but with Jason Macendale now the Demogoblin (it’s just a costume no demonic stuff) instead of the Hobgoblin. MAYBE we’d even have a heavily rewritten Jason Jerome subplot. We’d have Felicia turning back up to stir up trouble as she did in the 1990s. You get the picture. Because the finale is the wedding, which is obviously light on action, the episodes before the wedding I’d finally do Venom. Venom is great at generating dynamic action set pieces so he’d kind of compensate for no action in the actual finale. Venom is also an ideal choice because this whole season is about a romantic relationship, and Venom is in a sense an ‘unholy union’ between two entities. We’d draw upon the fact that Brock’s wife left him and ASM #300’s climax happening in a church bell tower is just too perfect for the wedding theme of this season. One element I’d throw in though would be for Spidey to have his ass handed to him by Venom once only to get away. MJ makes Spidey a new red and blue costume. The idea being that in wearing Venom’s colours the colours Felicia preferred him in, the colours that don’t represent his true self, he won’t win against this dark version of himself. But the red+blues are Mj’s preferred suit, MJ’s colours and reflective of who he really is.

The season finale would be the wedding but split over 2 episodes. The first ep would end with Peter going to see Felicia the night before his wedding and MJ going off with Bruce (or maybe Jason Jerome).

The actual final episode would be them vocing their doubts and insecurities to Felicia and Jason/Bruce and through talking with them, and reflecting on the events of the season and their lives in general they realise they’re just getting jitters. If they weren’t going to go through with this they would’ve walked away a long time ago. In fact their hardships this season prove they can handle it and make it work. So they get married but in typical Parker luck fashion their ride gets caught in traffic en route to the honey moon, so they gotta web swing their way there into the sunset.

 Movie 3: Fearful Symmetry: Kraven’s Last Hunt: I briefly considered making this the opening of the next season, the season finale of the last season or the mid-season finale of the last season but it just didn’t work. It’s too iconic to change up like that it HAS to happen shortly after the wedding. Making it a movie would help sell the fact that for the first time ever we’re suddenly hearing Kraven and Vermin’s inner thoughts which would be weird to happen randomly in the middle of a season. A movie though can sort of be it’s own thing.

I wouldn’t change anything beyond adding a kind of prologue chronicling Kraven’s history up until now, who Vermin is, Peter and MJ’s marriage, Ned’s death, just some stuff that’s a small story unto itself and can allow the movie to stand on it’s own a bit more.

 Season 10: Basically this is the Harry Osborn Saga from DeMatteis’ run. I’d cut down on the Vermin stuff. Maybe I’d cut out Peter’s parents from Child Within. I dunno because I would totally do a rewritten Robot Parents story arc in this season because I think that story could be compelling if done properly. I’d just have it happen BEFORE Harry dies, which naturally would be the season finale. Also in this season we’d introduce Carnage, Tombstone, the Joe Robertson/Tombstone subplot and the Return of the Sinister Six. One thing I’d add into the latter story would be the character of Carolyn Trainer who’s quite taken with Doc Ock. Spidey and Ock would have a huge showdown adapting their battle from Spec #79 since that’s probably the best Spidey/Ock fight ever. I might also do an adaptation of Soul of the Hunter and/or Torment, both because it’s a famous Lizard story and because it’d set up Kraven’s death withint he context of the show and thus give Chameleon motivation for the Robot Parents stuff.

 Season 11: A heavily abridged and rewritten version of...the Clone Saga!

I’ve actually plotted this episode by episode. The gist is Aunt May has a stroke, Ben shows up, we introduce Carrion who busts out Carnage in exchange for some of his symbiote. Spidey fights Carnage but when they’re both affected by a poison Carrion tests out, Ben steps in to help. Venom also escapes, leading to Ben becoming Scarlet Spider. Peter is dying of the poison leading into the Web of Death story where Doc Ock cures him and Kaine then kills Otto. Web of Death could’ve been the ultimate end for Doc Ock so in a show that’s finite it makes sense to end him with that.

Anyway, Peter learns MJ is pregnant, he and Ben reunite with the Jackal, Carrion and the Gwen clone. They learn Carrion is a clone of Warren and was in fact the Warren from Shea stadium, he’s got telepathic powers and is using them to keep Gwen’s clone (Joyce Delany) under Warren’s control. Warren sows doubt as to who the real guy is.

Aunt May dies, Peter goes to jail, a third Peter Parker shows up. But instead of being Spidercide I’d make him a human/symbiote hybrid, and he’d be this show’s version of Toxin.

Peter becomes Scarlet Spider to clear his own name, learns who Kaine is, finds out he’s a clone, DOESN’T hit MJ but he does run away distraught, etc.

I’d have Maximum Clonage happen but very, very differently. No army of spider clones, no Punisher, no nonsense like that. Warren is going to unleash his virus but wants to keep MJ safe as her baby could be interesting to study. So he abducts her and gives inoculations to the virus to everyone. MJ refuses so he asks Gwen to do it as she’s MJ’s friend. Gwen’s clone is kind of not all there due to the mind control so when MJ breaks her own dose of the inoculation, Gwen simply administers her dose to MJ. Ben shows up to save MJ and knocks out Carrion. Carrion as it turns out was keeping Toxin under control so he freaks out, grabs MJ and Gwen, asks Ben to choose between them and tosses them both off the roof, but then he pins Ben so he can’t save either. Peter shows up to save MJ, Warren instinctively jumps after Gwen to save her but out of nowhere, a new Green Goblin shows up to save her and Warren dies. The Goblin, Kaine, Ben and Peter fight Toxin who’s gonna be losing until he bonds with Carrion and is now too much for everyone else. Gwen meanwhile would be trying to defuse the device that’d be administering the virus, but starting to degenerate due to the stress.

Her last ditch effort would be to implore Carrion/Toxin to save them all. He’s a clone of Peter and Miles Warren so he loves her and since she’s not inoculated she’s gonna die. Carrion/Toxin smother the virus and absorb the poison into themselves, dying.

Kaine takes Gwen’s clone away as he understands the pain of degeneration and Peter retires, making Ben the new Spider-Man.

The second half of the season is a condensed Spider-Ben era but with Lady Ock, Spider-Carnage, Green Goblin V and Blood Brothers as the central storylines. We’d do some flashbacks to Lost Years and wrap up with Revelations. As a final little change I’d have Peter’s new Spider-Man costume be one created by Ben before he decided to make his own one.

Season 12: Basically the post-Clone Saga era. This final season would be wrapping stuff up, giving a lot of characters their swan songs, but the focus would be on Peter and Norman’s rivalry, Norman owning the Bugle, etc.

We’d introduce Black Tarantula, have a final gang war storyline in which Kaine is hired as a mercenary, Daredevil and Richard Fisk would die, and Kingpin would finally go to jail for good.

I’d also sort of adapt the Revenge of the Green Goblin storyline. I’d have Mysterio on Norman’s orders create a ‘dream’ for Peter Parker where he imagines MJ dies in a plane crash and everything goes wrong, Norman would torment him and try and tempt him into becoming his son and heir. Peter resists and escapes the nightmare.

The season/show would wrap up with Peter reclaiming baby May and a final showdown with the Green Goblin. Norman would be rocking his Marvel Knights armour and be juiced up with Phil Urich’s strength enhancing Goblin mask. Also Phil Urich will have been black mailed into becoming the Goblin on Norman’s behalf so he could clear his own name.

I’ll spare you the details, but essentially Norman’s plan involves murdering billions of people, taking control of the world and potentially endangering the life of baby May. He’s ultimately killed when his identity is revealed to the press, his glider decapitates him and triggers a gagillion explosions. Said explosions would wreck the Bugle leading to Spidey lifting it up like in the Final Chapter. Before he died though, Norman would try to beat Spidey by administering an antidote to his powers that he would’ve tested on Scorpion. He’d not give Peter the full dose though.

When all is said and done, Peter’s got an injured leg (but he’s not lost either of them) and his spider powers are gone, maybe forever, so he retires to be a family man.

This then leads into Spider-Girl where we learn over time he regained some of his old powers but they amount to allowing him to crawl on walls, have a vague reading from his spider sense and render him fit for his age. His leg injury still plays up though. Basically he’s got power but not so much that it’d be reasonable for him to go back to heroism.

[etraytin]

inspired by your josh and dr. bartlet fic. pls do headcanons on their relationship.

Well, I started to do this one but then it got all rambly and out of control, possibly due to the lateness of the hour when I started it, so instead you get pre-and-early seasons headcanons only. Whoops! 

Josh and Abbey got off to a somewhat rocky start in their relationship, mostly due to Zoey's enormous and rather awkward crush on Josh from the moment she laid eyes on him. Now Zoey was only sixteen at the time, so it was understandable that her head was easily turned by the dimples and the adorably curly hair and the excitable political genius of the guy, but he was still 34 years old and Abbey was more than willing to kill him if he tried anything. Luckily for all of them, Josh didn't even seem to notice Zoey's feelings until they petered out on their own (mostly after realizing how truly ridiculous he was most of the time) and they settled into a sort of big brother-little sister relationship. Abbey could accept that; the more people keeping an eye on Zoey on the campaign trail, the better!

The other reason for their rocky start was that when Josh came on board, Abbey started to worry that they might actually win. Before the Josh Lyman era of the campaign, it was mostly a lark with Jed and Leo and a dozen volunteers and that dour bald speechwriter all playing at running for President in a converted storefront in downtown Manchester. But when Josh came in, he came in from the frontrunner campaign, and that brought attention, and questions. What did Bartlet have that Hoynes didn't? What did Josh Lyman know that nobody else did? And Josh brought along Sam Seaborne as well, and then Toby coaxed his friend CJ to join up, and suddenly there was a team of seasoned campaign operatives and a bus and paid campaign workers, and it was all becoming a Real Thing, which Abbey was not comfortable with at all. It wasn't Josh's fault, she understood, but it was hard not to toss him a little of the leftover blame she wasn't busy heaping onto Jed.

Josh, in turn, was rather intimidated by Abbey during the campaign. He was hardly unused to strong women, but Abbey Bartlet was tough as nails, an entirely different breed than her affable-yet-truculent husband. She had a stronger grasp, many times, of political reality, but she seemed every bit as unwilling to put up with it. He was very glad it hadn't been his job to convince her to start going by "Mrs. Bartlet," since half the time he was kind of sure she wanted to kick him in the shins (or worse) already. He was surprised, therefore, when he came down with some kind of hell-virus just after Super Tuesday and she showed up in his room with her doctor bag and Donna in tow with a carafe of hot tea. Dr. Bartlet (and she was definitely all doctor right then) had matter of factly taken his temperature, looked in his ears and down his throat, and prescribed two full days of rest with lots of fluids and no talking. Then she'd patted him on the head, tucked him in, and left. Josh was still entirely intimidated and just a little bit smitten.

Once in the actual White House, the two didn't see each other as often. Abbey didn't like to come to the West Wing much after the first few weeks in office. She'd go to the oval, but she'd take the route that led through the portico and past the Outer Office rather than going through the warren of staff and being announced. It was her way of reminding herself, Jed and everyone around them that this was her house and she ought to enjoy a certain amount of autonomy here despite being constantly watched and babysat. The only times she would actually venture into the West Wing proper would be for occasional visits with CJ, who she'd made friends with on the campaign, or Josh, who was the most fun to heckle and who never took it personally. When there was actual work to do, like consulting the press secretary about the First Lady's media image or speaking with the Deputy Chief of Staff about her agenda of interests, she made them come to the East Wing. It was simpler that way.

On the night Jed got shot, Abbey's first, second and third thoughts were all for her family. Jed was hit and Zoey was afraid, Zoey's adorable motherless boyfriend Charlie was traumatized, and their old family friend Leo had been inches from the line of fire. She had plenty to worry about without trying to take a census of where all the senior staffers had gotten off to, really. That didn't stop the guilt from hitting her like a punch to the gut when she heard about Josh being brought in on a crash cart and realized she'd never even wondered if any of them were all right. Once Jed was out of the woods and sleeping, Abbey took it upon herself to be the medical liaison between the surgeons and the White House staff, translating the often-arcane terminology and answering what questions she could. She also took it upon herself to look after Donna once Mrs. Landingham headed back to the White House. The girl, and she really was just a girl, barely as old as her own Ellie, was holding herself together but only through sheer grit and more than a little desperation. Abbey was the one who arranged for Donna to watch a little of the surgery from outside, hoping it would give her some measure of peace or closure if Josh did not beat the 70-30 odds stacked against him. She watched too, from a few feet away, and wondered if it was worse or better to see it all and know exactly what each instrument did and what every twitch of a finger meant.

Josh had known he was in for a long recovery from the moment he was conscious enough to absorb thee words his doctor said about "bilateral anterior thoracotomy" and "resectioned pulmonary artery," but he hadn't expected it to be quite so long, or nearly so annoying as it turned out to be. It was almost all right for awhile, having people fussing over him while he was drowsy, bringing him things to do and listening as he rambled away on whatever topic had caught his drugged-up interest. Eventually, though, they started throttling back on the pain medication and once that stopped completely sucking, he started getting bored and impatient. It was midterms season and there was so much work to do if they wanted to remake the House in their own image! He needed to be out there shaking trees and striking fear into the hearts of men! The biggest obstacle to that plan was obviously Donna, who literally threw herself in front of the door on more than one occasion to keep him in his apartment, but she wasn't the worst of it. He was a master politician and also Donna's boss, he could've worked around her. No, the worst of it was that Donna had learned everything she knew about political maneuvering from Josh himself, and therefore he had no choice but to be reluctantly proud when the First Lady appeared at his door the night before he was absolutely determined to go back to work. She gave him a swift examination of eyes, gums and posture, then sent him reeling backwards onto his bed with one well-placed gentle poke to the sternum. Object lesson complete, she prescribed two more weeks of home rest, followed by half days. Josh was beaten once again, but Abbey was gracious in her defeat and left him a little bag of maple syrup candies. Even Donna couldn't say no to candy straight from the First Lady.

Eventually Josh did get to go back to work, much later than he would've liked, and for many fewer hours at first. Maybe it was true that he got tired out pretty quickly, but he'd already missed twelve weeks, weeks where other people'd had to cover for him when by all rights they should've put somebody new in the job. He owed it to the President, to Leo, to all his colleagues to start picking up the slack no matter his nagging bodily weakness. He'd rather hoped that Donna would stop nagging once they were back at work and she wasn't ordering him to do physical therapy in his baggy pajamas anymore, but that had been a vain and foolish dream. The intolerable woman had an actual stopwatch on her desk to measure the exact allowable minutes before he needed a break and until he needed to go home. He ignored her, of course, the first time she'd tried to make him take a break and also the first time she'd tried to stop him for lunch. By the  afternoon break, Mrs. Bartlet was standing in his doorway, her arms folded, looking extremely unimpressed with him. Josh went to take his break. At the end of the day, Josh was ready to keep going until he really truly needed to quit, but then the President walked by his office and waved goodnight to him. Josh didn't know if it was Abbey or Donna who'd arranged that, but he knew when he was beat.

[buffster]

The Prom (BTVS 3.20)

This is part of my ongoing Buffy Project, where I write notes/meta for every episode in an attempt to better understand the characters and themes of the show. You can find the full list here. Gifs are not mine.

In the words of Daniel “Oz” Osbourne, once again the hellmouth puts the “special” in special occasion. Hellhounds, oh my!

The Prom was mostly about the break up. Buffy and Angel start the episode waking up from a post-slayage nap that lasted all night. Buffy mentions getting a drawer at his place (I guess her mom has given up on dictating what the Slayer can do–she doesn’t have office hours) and he gets uncomfortable. He later sees that her notebook has “Buffy and Angel Forever” written on it with hearts. The relationship is so strange. Buffy is appropriately young and he’s just…not. 

Joyce decides to confront Angel, and it’s this second speech that finally gets to him. 

Joyce: When it comes to you, Angel, Buffy’s not a slayer. She’s just like any other young woman in love. You’re all she can see of tomorrow. But I think we both know there’s gonna be some hard choices ahead. If she can’t make them, you’re going to have to. I know you care about her. I just hope you care enough.

I get that it was perhaps overstepping boundaries (and seriously uncool) for Joyce to talk to Buffy’s boyfriend. But Buffy is off to college soon and Joyce is, in her way, trying to send her off to the best life possible. And she is a little young to have such a difficult, stressful relationship. 

Angel dreams that he and Buffy get married. He steps into the sunlight, unfazed, but she burns. It symbolizes his feelings about them: it makes his life better but hers worse. 

Angel: I’ve been thinking. About our future. And the more I do, the more I feel like us–you and me being together–is unfair to you. You deserve more. You deserve something outside of demons and darkness. You should have someone who can take you into the light. Someone who can make love to you–

Buffy: I don’t care about that!

Angel: You will. And children–

Buffy: Children? Can you say jumping the gun? I kill my goldfish!

Angel: Today. But you have no idea how fast it foes, Buffy. Before you know it, you’ll want it all–a normal life.

Buffy: I’ll never have a normal life.

Angel: Right. You’ll always be a slayer. But that’s all the more reason why you should have a real relationship instead of this…this freak show.

Buffy tries to run out at this point, which is typical Buffy behavior. He makes good points here, though. Sex isn’t everything but being celibate is kind of a big deal. Not to mention all the things they can’t do because of the sun. And, as Angel says, her life will be complicated enough by slaying. Why complicate it more?

Buffy: I’ll never change. I want my life to be with you.

Angel: I don’t.

This was really sad (although, contrary to Buffy’s interpretation, I think Angel was trying to say I don’t want your life to be with me. Not I don’t want my life to be with you). I know this is supposed to be one of those typical first love lines where she eventually does change, but…does she? I don’t know if Buffy ever stops wanting Angel. But she is aware their relationship is too complicated and admits this to Willow. I thought it was interesting how Willow voiced, for the very first time, that she didn’t really believe Angel and Buffy were a good idea. She’s always been completely supportive prior to Buffy admitting it herself.

Anya approaches Xander for a date. She says she took on the guise of a twelfth grader to reel in Cordelia, so now she has twelfth grade feelings like wanting to go to the dance. Xander agrees to go and is dipping into his road trip fund for a tux. These subtle references to Xander’s lack of parents are kind of depressing.

Xander discovers that Cordelia is now broke (because of her father’s tax fraud) and working to buy a prom dress. He conceals the truth from the Scoobies and eventually pays off the rest of the dress, which was a really decent thing to do (especially coming from someone poor). He never holds it over her head or expects anything either. File this under moments Xander should get credit for. Cordelia dances with Wesley at the prom and Xander dances with Anya. 

I’ll never stop loving the little character quirks that become useful in the fight against evil. This episode: Cordelia’s obsession with fashion. She discovers the hellhounds are trained to attack formal wear. 

Cordelia: Look! Right there. Zoom in on that.

Xander: Zoom in? This is a video tape.

Cordelia: So? They do it on TV all the time.

Xander: Not with a regular VCR they don’t.

The above isn’t important at all. I just wanted to say Nicky’s delivery here always makes me laugh.

Buffy: No. You guys are gonna have a prom. The kind of prom everyone should have. I will give you all a nice, fun, normal evening… if I have to kill every single person on the face of the Earth to do it.

Buffy resolves to give her friends the perfect prom even if she can’t have one, which is one of the reasons I love her. I admire her ability to be constructive with pain (sometimes, anyway). She pretends to be over wanting her perfect high school moment. Giles is very sympathetic and kind to her, but these days I can’t help but notice it’s only Buffy that he plays father to. Major character flaw alert. 

This, by the way, is the episode where Tucker Wells (Andrew’s brother) raises hellhounds because a girl turned him down for prom. Thinking maybe Andrew’s obsession with Warren came from a certain similar brother?

Jonathan: We’re not good friends. Most of us never found the time to get to know you. But that doesn't mean we haven’t noticed you. We don’t talk about it much, but it's no secret Sunnydale High isn’t really like other schools. A lot of weird stuff happens here. But whenever there was a problem or something creepy happened, you seemed to show up and stop it. Most of the people here have been saved by you, or helped by you, at one time or another. We’re proud to say that the class of '99 has the lowest mortality rate of any graduating class in Sunnydale history. And we know at least part of that is because of you. So the senior class offers its thanks, and …gives you, uh, this…It’s from all of us, and it’s got written here, “Buffy Summers. Class Protector.”

Look, I know this was one of those this-would-never-happen moments, but I don’t care. I get teary watching it every time. It’s just such a beautiful moment and so, so deserved after everything Buffy’s done. Angel returns to be her date and they enjoy a last moment of happiness while “Wild Horses” plays.

Character Notes:

Anya Jenkins: She once made a guy’s head explode feet away from his ex. She made a lot of body parts fall off during the plague, which she found boring since it was happening already. One man cannibalized himself, which she found hard to watch. She is obsessed with her work.

Rupert Giles: He went to an all male prep school.

Wesley Wyndam-Pryce: He went to an all male prep school and they would sometimes make the lower-class men get up as girls and–He doesn’t finish.

Jonathan Levinson: He arrives with an actual date to the Prom.

Daniel Osbourne: He says the Prom is strangely affecting and he teared up during “We Are Family”.

Xander Harris: He’s upset about losing Class Clown to a “prop guy”, otherwise known as an attention-getter that’s more flamboyant than funny. I sympathized here because Xander is really funny and I’ve always preferred witty to obnoxious. But to each their own.

Buffy Summers: She finally admits she gets something out of slaying and says “kicking ass is comfort food”. 

[madamlaydebug]

"The new Light will unleash the truth and this will stir chaos in the old paradigm. However, the chaos is good because it will mark the end of the false reality and outdated modalities. It will be the beginning of the New Earth reality in the unified field of consciousness. WE will separate from the third dimension and it will not seem as if reality is quite right. There will be a strange feeling that WE have moved some place and the world will seem brighter. Ultimately, WE will see a complete collapse of the current governmental/political and monetary system. ‘money’ will be rendered obsolete because it will no longer be relevant to the New Earth reality. After this collapse has become obvious is when WE will be plugged in to the greater consciousness and the new photon energy of New Earth will emerge. No ONE will be able to suppress the free use of the photon energy. This will change our entire existence in to complete universal knowledge, including travel and education over night. The inner Earth people will introduce technology that will remove all radiation and impurities from the ocean. There is technology that makes everything clean instantly. WE are almost at the time of the most exciting experience you will ever have. For those of us who are ready, it will be more like a huge miracle appearing before us. It will be the most wonderful of all occasions. All will be redeemed and reformed in miraculous ways. It has begun!" ★ ~ Romeo Baron ٠•● Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ "The new Light will cleanse old patterns, programs, and ideologies that no longer serve the greater good of hUmaNITY. Those who resist this Light will have an extra hard time moving forward. This is a time not to resist these new higher energies, but to allow ourselves to integrate this powerful new Light. WE can trust that this new Light coming to Earth now is leading us to all the joy, peace, prosperity, and fulfillment WE have dreamed of and envisioned." ★ ٠•● Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ The illuminati ★ An evil group of men has always wanted to rule the entire world. In the past conquest has failed to achieve this, due to the resulting outrage and awareness of the enemy. In our present time an evil group are trying a subtle but effective way to rule. This is to gradually infiltrate and delude the masses into accepting their ideas. Such subtle gradualism, along with distraction (such as unnecessary work, study, entertainment and sport) is being used effectively. Few people will therefore be aware of what is going on. The powerful conspirators are made up largely of the international bankers, and the illuminati, which is a super-rich organization, which controls the mainstream media, workforce, education system, companies, banks, energy supplies and governments. The elite that call themselves the illuminati ("the enlightened ones"), contains at the heart 13 incredibly rich, zionist families that are in constant contact with each other. Their names are probably Rothschild, Rockefeller, Warburg, Bruce, Cavendish, De Medici, Hannover, Habsburg, Krupp, Plantagenet, Romanov, Sinclair and Windsor, but this list is kept hidden from the outside world so meticulously that some sources mention a different name in a few places. They are supported by another 300 families, often with well-known names such as Agnelli, Bush, Ford, Kuhn, Loeb, Montgomery, Morgan, Roosevelt and Schiff. Many power-hungry people mix with them as well, such as Henry Kissinger, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Bill Gates, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Warren Buffet, etc. Together they control practically all power and money in the world. They operate countless organizations and orders, such as the Vatican, the United Nations, the World Bank, almost all central banks, the CIA, the NSA, the FDA, the Smithsonian Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations, NASA, Bilderberg, Thule, Skull & Bones and many others. The illuminati have been working on a secret agenda for hundreds of years, which is supposed to slowly but surely take them towards a New World Order. The illuminati have lost all respect for human life and are corrupt to the bone. The blood lines of the 13 families go as far back as the Sumerian era and they keep these lines as pure as possible by continually marrying among themselves. They also form the top of the most powerful organization in the world, the freemasonry. In the order of hierarchy WE find the Jesuits and their leader, the so-called Black Pope, before the illuminati. They have a religious and controlling task, however, while the illuminati, as executive body, hold the real power. The origin of the illuminati is not human, but extraterrestrial. Over 4000 years ago a group of reptilians landed here, planning to take over planet Earth (without being noticed). Because they master the art of shapeshifting, they presented themselves as normal humans, who accumulated more power and money every generation. A reptilian is not bound to one human body. This race can become thousands of years old, so when one human body has become too old, they simply move on to a new one. For the outside world this appears to be a new descendant of the family. The 300 families surrounding the 13 core families nearly always have blood lines which are related to the Aryan main blood lines, because shapeshifting is more difficult with the blood of 'hotchpotches'. They only show their true shape in places where there is no chance of being discovered, such as in the castles of their families, special divisions of underground cities, or during secret, satanic blood rituals and sex parties. Reptilians are the most negative creatures in the universe. Judging by human standards, they are inconceivably evil and immoral. If you study the illuminati's deeds throughout the years, you will get the feeling that whatever is behind it can indeed not be human. From creating world wars and "terrorist" attacks such as 9/11, making the population ill through chemtrails, poisonous medication, cosmetics and harmful food such as that of McDonald's and KFC, organising occult meetings with satanic blood rituals, man-hunts and sex parties filled with child abuse, to murdering well-meaning politicians, inventors and even pop artists. This group can be held responsible for nearly all bad things that have happened in the history of the world. The influence of these extraterrestrials may have been largely reduced by the ascension process that WE're currently in, but the control system they put down on Earth, still stands. It is maintained by millions of employees, from secret services to managers of big corporations. They're doing everything to prevent the truth from getting out. They're terrified that the people will discover what they have to answer for. As George Bush senior once put it: "If the people knew what we had done, they would chase us down the street and lynch us." Their fear of discovery by the people is the sole reason they have not yet taken their final step towards a New World Order. There are simply still too many of 'us', and they can't keep track of us well enough yet to already undertake any action. Therefore, exterminating the population is still highest on the agenda. But because this also has to occur in secret, their operating options are limited. Their plans have already caught a delay of many years. To make matters worse, they are also being confronted with the fact that there are higher powers in the universe, which don't want things to go much further than they already have. In other words, the situation our leaders find themselves in, is a dead end: on the one hand they hold all the power on Earth, on the other hand they can't really do anything with it. However, this does not stop this dark cabal from having blinkers on and happily continuing to make plans. Because even in the process towards the NWO, there are plenty of 'fun' things to do. They regularly meet at orgies and occupy themselves with various secret societies and projects. These secret projects range from building underground cities, ultramodern space stations, flying saucers and bases on the moon and Mars, to time travel, man-hunting and various bizarre experiments, like cloning humans. The most important illuminati spend their summer holidays in the Bohemian Grove in America and the European branch see each other annually at the Bilderberg Conference. Regulars on this guest list are the royal families of the Netherlands, England and Spain, among others. The Ministers of Development Cooperation can also frequently be found here, because most money intended for development aid traditionally ends up right into the illuminati's pockets. After all, all secret operations cost a lot of money, and this is gathered together in various illegal manners. For example, taxes are levied which cannot be found in any law, the CIA controls the worldwide drug trade, and their central banks are pressing money without backing it with anything of real value, like gold. In other words, the money comes from thin air! They enjoy the fact that they keep secrets from the people; this forms a strong tie between them. And for years the people have proved to be apathetic enough for them to execute many sinister plans. Only few members within the illuminati actually know everything, because the pyramid structure of the system has been arranged so that only a handful of people can overlook the entire picture. The rest all work on a basis of "need to know": nothing more is told them than necessary. ٠•● Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Technology grows at an exponential rate. Singularity, the moment when the power of a computer and its artificial intelligence will surpass the capacity of a human brain, is predicted within a decade. It will create a rupture in human society that will see smart machines take over all the tasks necessary for its good functioning and its development including scientific, technological and perhaps even philosophical,. The people will be served by machines much smarter than themselves but designed to be totally devoted to their masters. "The smart machines are leading the revolution" ★ Paradism is the movement that best prepares hUmaNITY to the transformations that are currently giving birth to a society without work. The rest of the political spectrum keeps promising the people more jobs and is only creating friction and a chaos endangering our survival. They give us a bleak vision of the future when actually it will be glorious. Don’t let yourself be deceived. Tomorrow the only jobs WE will create will be for the machines. And that is a very good thing. "Give the jobs to the machines and free the people" ★ When all human needs will be handled by computers and robots and all products are made abundant, there will be no need for money. The money system can only exist in a state of scarcity. The economic agents to survive in the money system try hard to maintain a high level of prices by perpetuating the state of scarcity through limiting production, planned obsolescence, consumerism, protectionism, licensing etc... The problem WE face is not one of creating abundance but one of distributing it. WE will need to invite everyONE to the big table and share. As people lose their source of income along with their jobs, the gain of productivity should give them the same level of quality of life if not a higher one. "There is no reason to fall into poverty considering the level of technology WE have now" ★ Our technologies of production are progressing fast. They carry with them the disappearance of money. Machines that can manufacture any object of any shape are already in existence. Today, these machines could provide everyONE with all the necessities and luxury items in almost no time, at almost no cost. Soon everything from a spanner to a sports car can be made on demand, on location and for free. Paradism will make the development of nanotechnology one of its highest priorities. Nano-replicators or nanobots will be designed to assemble anything atom by atom. Using the materials they extract directly from the ground they will be able to replicate any object including our food and make dishes to the recipes of our choice At our request, food will be synthesised to our desired tastes and textures. It will be an exact or an enhanced copy of its natural equivalent. Farm lands will then return to their natural states or be developed at our own leisure. When money would have disappeared, everything will have to be offered and the true value of things will be measured by the LOVE of the ONE´s who give. Technology is putting an end to our slavery from work and money. A human being cannot be made a slave, a subject or be turned into a sheep. It is a crime against hUmaNITY. ٠•● Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ LOVE, ONE Inner Light & a New Earth to EveryONE ★

[bloodbaptisedarchive-blog]

REALLY  LONG  CHARACTER  SURVEY. RULES. repost ,   don’t  reblog !    tag 10 ! good  luck !       TAGGED. @judgmentcast​, holy SHIT.       TAGGING. literally ANYONE who’s up for a bit of a challenge.

BASICS.  FULL  NAME :  Harmon Mallory James.  NICKNAME :  James, Mr. James, Senior Advisor Harmon James.  AGE : Forty-two.  BIRTHDAY :   October 17th, 1998.  ETHNIC  GROUP : Caucasian.  NATIONALITY :  American.  LANGUAGE / S : English.  SEXUAL  ORIENTATION :   Homosexual.            ROMANTIC  ORIENTATION :  Homoromantic.  RELATIONSHIP  STATUS :  In a secret, long-term relationship with Minister Edwidge Owens.  CLASS : Upper class.  HOME  TOWN / AREA :   He was born in Boston, Massachusetts.  CURRENT  HOME : Washington, DC.  PROFESSION : Senior Advisor to the Leader of the New Founding Fathers.

PHYSICAL.  HAIR : Red. Much lighter when he was younger. Wavy.  EYES : Bright blue, sunken.  NOSE : Long with a slight downward hook.  FACE :  Defined smile lines, and other various lines and freckles.  LIPS :   Thin, small, and chapped.  COMPLEXION :  Pale, sickly, with light freckles peppered along his face.  BLEMISHES :  Nothing noticeable.  SCARS : A few on his face, a couple from various other incidents. Burn scars on his hands.  TATTOOS : None.  HEIGHT : 6'6".  WEIGHT : 185 lbs.  BUILD :    Slender, defined muscles in his arms, chest and legs. Sharp shoulders.  FEATURES :  Wide, sunken eyes. Large, gentle hands, folded at his chest. Painted fingernails. Intimidating stature.  ALLERGIES :  N/A.  USUAL  HAIR  STYLE :  Straightens his waves and slicks the whole thing back, parting it to the left.  USUAL  FACE  LOOK :  Expressionless. Ivory makeup still shows the freckles on his face. Though expressionless, he always tends to look alert, on his guard.   USUAL  CLOTHING : A suit, including a vest, ironed to crispness the day before. Suitable colours are grey, black, or beige. Ties, usually blue or red. A silver cross around his neck. Edwidge's promise ring on his middle left finger. Nails painted usually nude shades. Black or brown shoes shined until you can see your face in them.

PSYCHOLOGY.

 FEAR / S :  Fear of imperfection. A slight fear of disappointment. Fear of being outed.  ASPIRATION / S : To purge and purify: to rid the country of those that depend on them, them being the NFFA, the government, the healthcare system, housing, welfare. To make his superiors see that he can one day be as good as any of them. To lead the New Founding Fathers of America.  POSITIVE  TRAITS : Loyal, peaceful, spiritual, efficent, disciplined, aware, calm, intelligent, self-confident.  NEGATIVE  TRAITS :  Hypocritical, overzealous, judgemental, blindly obidient, sadistic, insensitive, remorseless, blunt, withdrawn.  MBTI : ISTJ, the Logistician.  ZODIAC :  Libra.  TEMPERAMENT :  Melancholic.  SOUL  TYPE / S :  Thinker.  ANIMALS :  A wide-eyed owl, constantly observing.  VICE  HABIT / S :   Vanity, a bit more concern about his appearance than most men his age. Overly critical of those in a lower position than him, even though he was once one of them.    FAITH : What the NFFA deems to be Christian.  GHOSTS ? : Yes.  AFTERLIFE ? : Absolutely. He needs to go home sometime.  REINCARNATION ? :  Possibly.  ALIENS ? : No.  POLITICAL  ALIGNMENT :  Right-wing.  ECONOMIC  PREFERENCE :  He has more than he knows what to do with.  SOCIOPOLITICAL  POSITION : One of the 1%.  EDUCATION  LEVEL : University.

FAMILY.  FATHER :   Richard Allen James, the chief communications officer of ARCON and the first press secretary of the New Founding Fathers. Deceased.  MOTHER :  Caroline Ann James, a talented pianist and violinist, with dreams of playing with a famous orchestra. Still living.  SIBLINGS : Seven. Sarah, Mary, Caleb, Lucas, Joanna, Michael & Hannah. Harmon is sixth.  EXTENDED  FAMILY : Aunts, uncles, several cousins, and a total of twenty-seven nieces & nephews.  NAME  MEANING / S : Harmon, "man of the army." Mallory, "ill fated."  HISTORICAL  CONNECTION ? :   Unknown. There is a place named Harmon mentioned in the Bible, but this place name is debatable. It's been thought of that Harmon James is a pun on "harming James," James being a leader of the early Church.

FAVOURITES.  BOOK :  Other than the Bible, specifically the Old Testament, he enjoys a good true crime novel now and again. Also, political biographies.  MOVIE : Dramas, documentaries and psychological thrillers.  5  SONGS :  (these remind me of him, not his own favourites.) The Sisters of Mercy - Driven Like The Snow. Frank Tovey - New Jerusalem. Cloudeater - Hollow. Fad Gadget - Under The Flag II. Nathan Whitehead - The Sacrifice.  DEITY :  A God who encourages a yearly slaughter of His creation.  HOLIDAY :    That blessed night, the one night the country does their bidding.  MONTH :  March.  SEASON :  Winter.  PLACE :  His home, Our Lady of Sorrows, or the NFFA's headquarters.  WEATHER :  Cloudy, foggy; a brisk morning that beckons snowfall.  SOUND : The echo of footsteps walking across a marble floor. A choir of unintelligeble words. Wind whistling through telephone wires. Silence. The scream of a man, strapped down, a knife plunging into his heart. A siren.  SCENT / S :  The smoke from an extinguished flame. Stale. Eau de cologne. Hair gel.  TASTE / S :  Blood. Luxurious foods. Tea. Ice.    FEEL / S :  A shiver running down your spine. The touch of a hand when no one's around. The feeling someone's watching you when you're alone. Blood on your lips. A cold wind. Emptiness.  ANIMAL / S : An owl seems to be the only thing I think of. Maybe an eagle. Harmon seems like a bird.  NUMBER : Six. He's the sixth in his family, he stands at six feet and six inches tall...  COLOUR : Blue, to show his loyalty to the NFFA. Red, the colour staining his hands. White, for the supposed purity of his soul.

EXTRA.  TALENTS :  His intelligence. His written communication skills. Most of his oral communication skills, his stutter stands in his way. Good with weapons. His knowledge of the human anatomy. He's fairly good at ice skating. Singing.  BAD  AT : Having a social life. Drawing. Being an enjoyable person. Smiling.  TURN  ONS :  Men in positions of power. Voices that draw you in. Strong hands. Blood. Twisting a knife inside of a martyr.  TURN  OFFS :   Anyone lower than his class.  HOBBIES :    Choir. Anything that involves assisting the NFFA.  TROPES :   Badass Long Robe. Dissonant Serenity. Giggling Villain.  AESTHETIC  TAGS :  Blurry images. Graveyards. Blood covering hands, covering the Cross. Knives. Pale, trembling hands. Waves of blue.  GPOY  QUOTES :  "You are never here. You are always almost there."

FC INFO.  MAIN  FC / S :  Christopher James Baker.  ALT  FC / S : Mark Strickson (possibly.)  OLDER  FC / S :   Not sure, but Robert Redford currently is a possibility.  YOUNGER  FC / S : Freddie Fox.  VOICE  CLAIM / S : CJB in "True Detective."  GENDERBENT  FC / S :  Lisa Pelikan.

MUN QUESTIONS.  Q1 :   if  you  could  write  your  character  your  way  in  their  own  movie ,   what  would  it  be  called ,  what  style  would  it  be  filmed  in ,  and  what  would  it  be  about ?            A1 : He has a movie, but he's not the focal point. He has his big moments though! I'd like to see more of Harmon in The Purge 4, since that will be more focused around the NFFA. The story of how a man becomes the way he is today, desensitised to death, wanting destruction, yearning for violence. What made him be this way? What would it be called? No idea.  Q2 :   what  would  their  soundtrack / score  sound  like ?            A2 :  Ambient. Echoes where none of the words can be understood. A soft organ playing in the background. Suddenly, the music becomes a bit more intense...  Q3 :   why  did  you  start  writing  this  character ?            A3 :  I watched The Purge: Election Year, and immediately fell in love with him. I knew I had to do something, and this is what I chose to do.  Q4 :   what  first  attracted  you  to  this  character ?            A4: June 30th, 2016. Around 9:00pm. I'm sitting front and centre watching the newest Purge film, a sequel in a franchise I've loved for three years. Charlie Roan is delivered to Our Lady of Sorrows. All of a sudden, this tall, thin, creepy fucker in a long blue robe makes his debut. Just the kind of character I love. I walked home that night, wrote "Harmon James can own my ass, what the fuck" into my phone, and knew this was the beginning of something beautiful.  Q5 :   describe  the  biggest  thing  you  dislike  about  your  muse.            A5 : He's everything I hate in a person. He dislikes everyone who isn't like him. He's almost every -phobic or -ist in the damn book.  Q6 :   what  do  you  have  in  common  with  your  muse ?            A6 : We have blue eyes, and we laugh similarly. That's it.  Q7 :   how  does  your  muse  feel  about  you ?            A7 : Harmon James would want me sacrificed.  Q8 :   what  characters  does  your  muse  have  interesting  interactions  with ?    A8 :  Edwidge Owens. Thomas Roseland. Caleb Warrens. Harlan Coy. Claude Frollo. Richard Miller. Curtis Stafford. Leo Barnes. Charlie Roan. Ambrosia Reynolds. If I could ever actually get to plotting with other people, them as well.  Q9 :   what  gives  you  inspiration  to  write  your  muse ?          A9 :  Watching Harmon's scenes! Listening to songs that remind me of him, like the Election Year soundtrack. Scrolling through the archive on his aesthetic blog. Being outside in the cold.  Q10 :   how  long  did  this  take  you  to  complete ?            A10 : I forgot about this for a good month. So a long time. Thanks, Ocelot. xo

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Feb 9, 2017

Put Chuck Schumer and Donald Trump in a room together and you can’t miss the connection. They are the leaders of rival parties, sharp opponents on Twitter and in the press, but they live by the same words, as big and bold as the city that made them. “Beautiful!” they will say, though at different times and about different things. “Wonderful!” “Horrible!” “So, so great!” It is the vernacular of outer-borough kids who, in different ways, scraped their way to the big time. They are two local grandees who boast, yarn, insult and rib each other like they are still on the streets of New York City.

It will take a while–like maybe never–for Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan or other GOP pooh-bahs to build up a store of Trump war stories to match Schumer’s. In fact the first time congressional leaders visited the new President at the White House, most of his attention focused on their Democratic foil. At one point that evening, Trump recalled a 2008 fundraiser he held for New York’s senior Senator at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. The two dozen or so top Democratic donors had cocktails and dinner, serenaded by Peter Cetera, formerly of the rock band Chicago. “I raised $2 million,” Trump boasted.

If you ask Chuck Schumer what it means to be from Brooklyn, he will answer with two words: “No bullsh-t.” Plus he’s a numbers guy. “It was $263,000, to be precise,” he shot back at the President.

For all the chaos and plot twists of the coming weeks, the one sure thing to watch is how these two men go at it, now that Trump presides from the Oval Office and Schumer, 66, is the closest thing the Democrats have to an official opposition leader. Though they know each other and share both experience and instincts, they cannot anticipate each other’s every move. On Trump’s side, unpredictability is a point of pride. And on Schumer’s, even his long résumé and ferocious work ethic could not have prepared him for the choices he faces now. In many respects, both the success of the Trump agenda and the power of the Democratic Party–most immediately, its tenuous hold on 48 Senate seats–depend on how well Schumer plays his cards.

Schumer’s hand at the moment is not strong. Certainly many of the featured items on the President’s agenda–to remake Obamacare, reform the tax code, fund new infrastructure projects and pass new trade deals–will require the help of at least some of the Senators in Schumer’s caucus. But as liberal activists fill the streets with signs calling for resistance, Schumer is under enormous pressure from his left flank to man the barricades and stop Trump, just as the Republicans tried to block anything that came out of Barack Obama’s White House.

There are risks in playing the obstruction game. Stop popular parts of Trump’s agenda for too long and too persistently, and the party’s support can plummet. Play ball with Trump, and Schumer risks a rebellion on his left. Making matters worse is a procedural hair ball as arcane as the Senate itself: getting almost anything significant through the Senate takes 60 votes. Republicans have only 52. If Schumer tries to block Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Mitch McConnell could trigger the “nuclear option” and change the rules to allow the nominee to pass with only 51 votes. As could any future court nominees, however far outside the mainstream.

In other words, resistance may be inevitable. But it might also be futile. And it may even prove counterproductive to Democrats’ hopes of winning back a majority anytime soon.

Which brings us back to Schumer himself. If he made his reputation as a partisan fighter, his habit and history suggest he would like to negotiate with Trump when and where a deal can be made, which he believes is possible on trade, taxes and infrastructure spending. So with all the pressures on Schumer–from liberals, from centrists and his own instincts–the real question is whether the Senator from Brooklyn is going to fight or compromise and in what order.

On the November night that Trump won, Schumer flew down from New York City into Washington, where he had expected to arrive as the Senate’s majority leader and a key partner for President Hillary Clinton. But then the people spoke, and Schumer’s instinct was to be humble and conciliatory. “Tonight the American people voted for change,” he said as the returns came in, shocking many of the grieving Democrats at the party’s senatorial campaign headquarters.

In the days that followed, Schumer said, he suffered through a sort of depression. He comforted his distraught adult daughters by teaching them the lyrics to the old Shirelles song: “Mama said there’ll be days like this.” Only then did he find relief in a realization. “If Hillary won and I was majority leader, I’d have more fun, and I’d get more good things done, which is why I’m here,” Schumer explains in a Feb. 2 interview in his Senate office, beside a photo of himself with former President Obama in a Brooklyn park. “But with Trump as President and me as minority leader, that job is far more important.”

And harder. The Democratic Party that emerged from the 2016 election is no monolith: liberal firebrands like Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont were preparing for a more militant approach to Trump and some of the Democrats’ donors on Wall Street. Meanwhile, moderates like West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, a former coal executive, and North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp traveled to Trump Tower in New York City for meetings that signaled they might bolt the party.

Schumer worked the phones to keep both members inside the fold by assuring them they could stake out their own positions when it mattered. “We all think he’s our best friend,” says Manchin. Schumer has since set up regular dinners with five Democrats facing 2018 re-election campaigns in states Trump won, including West Virginia, North Dakota, Indiana, Montana and Missouri. He displays a decidedly unliberal gift from Manchin on his office desk: a donkey and an elephant carved out of coal.

Coming after Harry Reid, who kept more distance from his colleagues, Schumer has worked to strengthen links to other Democrats. During a recent visit to Lake Placid in upstate New York, he stopped by to see fellow New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and played chess and read bedtime stories with her young sons. He ceaselessly calls his members to solicit advice. “Chuck is pretty much tethered to his phone,” says Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon. When President Obama went to Capitol Hill on Jan. 4 to urge the Democratic caucus to fight to keep the Affordable Care Act, Manchin called Schumer, telling him he would skip the meeting. Whatever you need to do, Schumer told him.

Then Schumer set about elevating members on his liberal flank. One of Schumer’s first official acts was to promote Sanders and Manchin to leadership, elevate Warren and add Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow. That helped mollify the troops. “I don’t know how much more thoroughly you can cover the waterfront,” says Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri. (Actually you can: Schumer, who uses a flip phone, has memorized the 47 cell-phone numbers of his caucus. “I like numbers,” he says.)

In December he held a closed meeting with a group of top-ranking Democrats to figure out how to delay Trump’s efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The newly promoted Sanders spoke up. “If we are really going to make a difference, we have to do this outside the Beltway,” Sanders told Schumer, according to a Sanders aide. Schumer helped Sanders organize rallies across the country protesting the repeal of Obama’s signature law. Then Schumer orchestrated an unprecedented holdup of a President’s Cabinet nominations, sending his caucus members to grill them in committee hearings and stalling the votes to confirm them on the Senate floor.

But even as that strategy took shape, an organic rebellion burst into the streets, first with the massive women’s march and then with protests against Trump’s refugee ban at the nation’s airports. It was just a matter of time before the liberal anger turned on Schumer himself, for not doing more to stop the Trump agenda. At a candlelight vigil Schumer organized outside the Supreme Court on Jan. 30 to protest the ban, the crowd turned on Schumer, chanting, “Do your job! Do your job!” “The Democratic leadership is not listening to their base,” said Claudia Gross-Shader, an employee of the city of Seattle, at the vigil. The next day, protesters massed outside Schumer’s Brooklyn apartment. “Grow a spine!” some chanted. Others chanted worse.

So Schumer is trying to juggle, saying he is willing to work with Trump on some issues–but will draw the line where the new President’s proposals conflict with Democratic “values.” “If he says, ‘I want to get rid of the carried-interest loophole,’ which he campaigned on, we’ll support it,” Schumer says. “If he has a real plan to deal with the high cost of prescription drugs,” he continues, “we’ll work with him.”

For Charles Ellis Schumer, the middle of the road is familiar ground. Born to an exterminator and a homemaker in a middle-class neighborhood in Brooklyn, Schumer attended the same high school as Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Bernie Sanders. A side job working the mimeograph machine for Stanley Kaplan’s new test-prep company as a teenager helped him ace the SAT, setting him on a path to Harvard College and Harvard Law during the late 1960s.

His introduction to politics came in 1968, when he worked for Eugene McCarthy in New Hampshire. Even in those years, Schumer was a cautious breed of progressive, skeptical of more-extreme activists on the left, including some from wealthier backgrounds, who sometimes advocated violence. He remembers watching them at protests try and provoke police officers by calling them pigs. “I would say to these kids, ‘I grew up with these police officers,'” Schumer recalls. “‘Don’t take their humanity away.'”

In 1974 he ran for and won a seat in the New York State assembly at the age of 23, representing his parents’ Brooklyn district. He spent five years in Albany before running for Congress, winning in 1980. During his 18 years in the House, he earned a reputation as a sharp-elbowed partisan. He helped guide the 1993 Brady gun-control bill and a controversial 1994 crime bill through Congress and became known as a tough dealmaker. It would pay off: he overcame several other Democrats for the right to challenge Al D’Amato for his Senate seat in 1998, eventually beating the sharp-tongued Long Island incumbent by a double-digit margin.

Schumer’s early years in the Senate were not easy. No sooner had he arrived in the upper chamber than he found himself overshadowed by New York’s junior Senator, Hillary Clinton, who was elected in 2000. The popular former First Lady stole the spotlight wherever the two went, both in their state and elsewhere, even at a favorite Chinese restaurant he took her to on Capitol Hill. But together they helped persuade President George W. Bush to deliver $20 billion to New York after the 9/11 attacks. (Schumer grew to respect Clinton, who he privately would say had learned to “climb the greasy pole” of politics–something Schumer believes he did himself–and which he thinks distinguishes him and his record from Barack Obama, who was a superstar from the beginning.)

By then, of course, Schumer had repeatedly crossed paths with the Trump clan. His maternal grandfather had been a builder in Brooklyn with Trump’s father Fred Trump. As a young man, Schumer remembers seeing Fred tooling around town in his black Cadillac with the license plate “FT.” More often than not, the younger Trump and Schumer found themselves on opposing sides: in 2000, Trump tried to build a casino in Manhattan; Schumer wrote a letter to the Bureau of Indian Affairs to block him. “Casinos do not belong in Manhattan,” Schumer argued. Years later, Schumer fought Trump again when the real estate mogul and a group of investors wanted to sell an affordable-housing development in Brooklyn at a profit, a move that would have imperiled the rent rates of the low-income tenants. Schumer won the fight.

Despite their spats, Trump was a regular donor–he saw it as the cost of doing business in Manhattan. In total, the Trump family has given more than $80,000 to Schumer’s electoral efforts over the years, according to federal records, which is not a huge amount by political standards, but not token either. (The $263,000 Trump brought in at Mar-a-Lago was raised with other donors.) “He never had hard feelings,” Schumer says of Trump. “It was like business for him.” In 2006, Schumer returned the favor and appeared on Trump’s The Apprentice, hosting contestants for a breakfast at a posh Washington hotel. “Even when he was much younger, you knew he was going to go places,” Schumer told the Apprentice contestants.

Schumer can be aggressive in public but is looser in private. He has strong relations with such Republicans as Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Lamar Alexander, who regard him as a partner they can work with. “He’s a tough negotiator, but his word is good,” says McCain. In his first one-on-one meeting with Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin over immigration reform in 2013, they talked for 20 minutes about ice fishing and Asian carp, an invasive species that has threatened to overrun lakes in both their states. He is regarded as perhaps the hardest-working Senator by his peers and is more trusted by Republicans than Reid was. “Even if he’s out to kill you, you know he’s going to keep trying to kill you,” says a top Republican Senate aide. “It’s more predictable, which makes the place run better.”

If there is any reason to be optimistic about the level of partisanship in Washington, it might be that Schumer and Trump don’t think so differently, at least on some issues. “I’m closer to Trump’s views on trade than I am to Obama’s or Bush’s,” says Schumer, who opposed both NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. China, he adds, is a particularly bad actor on trade matters, and Schumer has called on Trump to name China a “currency manipulator” and work harder to guard against theft of intellectual property. Schumer says he was “sort of glad” when Trump caused a mini-diplomatic crisis by accepting a phone call from Taiwan’s President, angering Beijing. “With other nations, free trade may hurt us, but China is rapacious.” Adds Schumer: “I love America. I want America to be No. 1.”

It’s worth remembering, too, that Schumer and Trump were both shaped by the same unforgiving New York media climate. They are both obsessive consumers of news and have a finely tuned instinct for what pops with working-class New York City subway riders. If Trump is obsessed with ratings, Schumer is obsessed with headlines: he regularly reads the New York papers, the national papers and the smaller papers around the country. Like Trump, Schumer is a master at celebrating himself in the press, whether it’s helping to keep the Buffalo Bills in New York State; fighting to lower the price of flights from Rochester, N.Y., to Disney World; or keeping jobs in upstate New York. “He is somebody that tactically understands what Trump has succeeded in doing so far,” says Brian Fallon, a former Schumer aide.

Schumer arranged several telephone calls with Trump late last year in the hopes of steering Trump toward a less combative path. In those private conversations, Schumer says, he warned Trump about the rightward tilt of his Vice President Mike Pence and the most conservative flank of the Republican Party. “You ran as a populist,” Schumer remembers saying on the phone, “but if you let the hard right take you over, you will not succeed as President.” At one point, Schumer says, he told the President that the only infrastructure bill that would really work would need to cost at least $1 trillion, funded by direct government spending (as opposed to tax credits), with labor and environmental protections and no accompanying cuts to entitlements. Schumer says Trump responded with two encouraging words: “I know.” (The White House declined to comment on the calls.)

On the other hand, Trump has not hesitated to blast Schumer for being a drama queen, mocking his tearful denunciation of Trump’s “mean-spirited and un-American” refugee policy. “I noticed Chuck Schumer yesterday with fake tears,” Trump said. “I’m going to ask him who is his acting coach.” Schumer, an easy crier whose middle name honors Ellis Island and whose daughter is named for Emma Lazarus, got a kick out of Trump’s jab.

What follows now is a complex series of calculations for Schumer. He will try to block Republicans from repealing the Affordable Care Act root and branch, but may blink when some of his members want to help Republicans on a replacement. It seems increasingly likely he will try to bring down Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s conservative Supreme Court pick, but it seems just as likely that he will be unable to then prevent McConnell from changing the Senate rules to force Gorsuch through with 51 votes. Schumer’s antics have angered the White House. The country is getting “frustrated,” said a White House official, “with Senator Schumer’s tactics to obstruct the will of the American people.”

Shortly after Barack Obama won the White House, McConnell gave a speech announcing that the top priority for Republicans would be to make Obama a one-term President. Schumer’s offer to Trump is more nuanced. Govern from the middle, Schumer is suggesting, and I will share some votes. Govern from the right, and you’ll give Democrats a chance to reclaim the populist mantle in coming elections. “We’re not going to do what the Republicans did and oppose it just because the name Trump is on it,” Schumer said.

Still, for all the phone conversations, the warnings and the remonstrations between the two New York potentates, Schumer sees the shock and awe of Trump’s first weeks in office as a bad sign. He is waiting for Trump to move to the middle but is increasingly skeptical that the President will ever get there. “You never know if he’s really paying attention,” says Schumer of Trump. It could have been “wonderful,” “beautiful” and “great.” But the rules have changed, and a long fight seems unavoidable. They are in Washington now.

–With reporting by ZEKE J. MILLER/WASHINGTON

Inside Chuck Schumer’s Plan to Take On President Trump Sam Frizell Feb 9, 2017 Put Chuck Schumer and Donald Trump in a room together and you can't miss the connection.