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randomestfandoms-ocs · 2 years ago

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What about- What about talking more of The Band? I want to know everything 🥺

the band!!!!!!!!!!! so the band existing was totally @the-witching-ash's idea, they're sort of like a New Covey (and all of them are related to the Covey in some way)! They're Hollis' best friends and they've been a band since they were pretty young (before Hollis' dad died) — after Lucy's games, the Covey were forced to either assimilate or die, but between Jude's mom, Hollis' dad, and Maude Ivory herself, they still learned all of the old Covey songs, though they weren't told about the Covey just that they were songs from their childhoods!

They play throughout the district when they aren't at work, their instruments having once belonged to the Covey and needing to be fixed up. Hollis' talent after her games is singing, so the band is also involved in a few of her televised performances (5 so far, but I have at least three more songs to plan out that they're involved in)

They all survive the bombing of District 12, Danny is one of the guys from the mines that Gale talks about helping him get people out, so they all make it to District 13 and are not happy about the fact that Hollis isn't there! They spend months stirring shit up making people (especially from 12, but also from 13 when it comes to Heavensbee) not trust Coin or Heavensbee, but both of them see the band as just kind of dumb kids and don't take them seriously — they intentionally craft a very harmless image so that people let their guard down around them which helps them learn information that they shouldn't have and allows them to cause trouble

Danny and Suze get married instead of Finnick and Annie, but like with Annie, the band (and Katniss) go back to 12 to get one of Katniss' dresses for Suze and it's just a super cute scene that's entirely Ash's idea!

also!! So far my inspiration for each of their songs comes from Maiah Wynne's incredible covers of the Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes songs they're all incredible go listen!

(also in the spirit of Covey name theming, all of them are named after folk songs — except Jude but he's still named after a song)

and a little bit of individual information on each of them!

Hollis Clementine Everdeen: we already know Hollis of course but she's the singer and also plays guitar, and the song that she's named after is Clementine (which she also sings in Catching Fire, and is referenced when Camden dies)

Babs Shefford: Babs plays fiddle in the band, she's from a merchant family (specifically dairy merchants), and she and Jude have been dating for about two years! Her song is Barbara Allen

Bo Lockwood: Bo plays cello for the band, he's also from a merchant family (butchers). He had a crush on Hollis when they were younger but has long since moved on, and his song is Mr Bojangles

Danny Colbeck — Danny plays percussion for the band, and he works with Gale in the mines, the two of them and Camden were pretty good friends, and throughout the Quell, Danny is one of the ones really leading the charge with Gale to have people preparing to make a run for it. He and Suze have been together since she was 12 and he was 13 (he's now 19 and she's 18), and he actually proposed to her before the Quell! His song is Danny Boy

Ramona Diggs: Ramona plays the mandolin for the band! She and Angeline are both still in school, they're younger members (Prim's age) who joined a few years after the band formed. Her grandmother was Jessum Diggs' twin sister, and her song is Ramona

Angeline Haynes: Angeline plays harmonica in the band and often takes on a similar role to Maude Ivory in introducing the band (a job she shares with Hollis), getting the audience engaged, and, when people are able, collecting the money that people give them. Her song is Angeline

Jude Abernathy: Jude Abernathy is Haymitch's son, a couple of years older than the others. He plays guitar for the band and works in the Justice Building. His mom (Matilda Jade Everdeen) died when he was young, shot for standing up to a Peacekeeper. He's Haymitch's entire world but their relationship can be tense; Jude will always put himself at risk to protect other people and Haymitch's fear comes out as yelling, so there's definitely no shortage of screaming matches in their house. Haymitch always expected him to get reaped so he's been training Jude since he was pretty young, which comes in handy during the revolution! Jude will also appear in my oc Willow Abernathy's fic (as her older brother, shipped with Madge) as well as in Lysa Undersee's fic (shipped with Lysa and Gale), and his song is Hey Jude

Suze Hatley: Suze plays the flute in the band, and she's a seamstress. She's dating Danny and they've been together for seven years; he proposed shortly before the Quell but knowing that Hollis was either going to be reaped or mentoring, they decided not to have the wedding until she got back (until, not if, they won't consider the possibility of her not coming back), which is how it ends up happening in 13. Her song is Oh Susanna

#the hanging tree #hollis’ band #hollis everdeen #babs shefford #bo lockwood #danny colbeck #ramona diggs #angeline hayes #jude abernathy #suze hatley

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nationmckinleyscorset · 11 months ago

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Does anyone else keep a list in their phone of everything they've ever watched including content warnings? No? Well, here's mine. It's super helpful cos if my friend's ask what I've been watching lately I just send them this. Enjoy the recommendations.

13 reasons why - blood, sexual assault, suicide (graphic in Clay's nightmares), rumours

47 metres down - blood

Alleluja! The Devil's Carnival - blood, religion

All of us are dead - blood

Anastasia

And then there were none - suicide, murder, blood

Annie

Annie 2014

Back to life - blood, murder, abusive man

Bambi - 😭

Beautiful thing the play - homophobia, abusive man

Beetlejuice - blood, implied suicide

Beetlejuice the musical - blood

Birdbox - suicide, blood

Bo Burnham comedy

Brave

Carrie - religion, abuse, blood

Charlie and the chocolate factory (original & Timmy boy's)

Chicago

Cinderella

Cinderella (live action)

Clue - blood

Corpse bride

Cruella

Dark crystal

Detroit become human (game) - blood, abusive man

Do revenge - drugs, cringe

Drag me to hell - afghhhagagha. Vomiting bugs, blood, religion

Dr Who

Dumbo

Dumbo (Tim Burton)

Easy A

Encanto

Endless night - blood, SA, the paradoxical sleep girl's wrists, suicide. GRAPHIC suicide.

Ella Enchanted

Enchanted

Ever after high

Everybody's talking about Jamie

Everybody's talking about Jamie musical

Fall - blood, falling, getting eaten by birds

Fifty shades of grey

Fifty shades darker - flogging

Fifty shades freed

Frasier

Freaky friday

F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

Gavin and Stacey

Ghosts

Girl, interrupted - blood

Great expectations

Greys anatomy - blood

H2O

Heathers

Heathers the musical

Hedda - implied suicide and murder, suicide

Holy grail - blood

Horrible histories - blood, vomit, basically anything disgusting you can think of

Hugo

Hunted

I am mother - blood

Ice age

I'm not ok with this - blood

Into the woods

It follows

Jo Koy comedy

Jumanji

Jumanji welcome to the jungle

Jumanji the next level

Katherine Ryan comedy

K-12 - blood

Keeping Faith - blood, drugs, 2nd season is meh, 3rd season is shit

Knives out - blood, suicide, drugs, vomit

Labyrinth - David Bowie's crotch

Liar liar

Life of Brian - blood, religion, full frontal nudity

Mako mermaids - David's cunt of a brother

Maleficent

Maze runner

Miranda

Miss Peregrin's home for peculiar children

Metamorphosis the play

Moana

Motherland - vomiting child

Moulin Rouge - blood

Mrs Doubtfire

Murder mystery

Nine lives

Oliver!

Orange is the new black - blood, religion

Outlaws - drugs

Oz the great and powerful

Paddington

Paddington 2

Panic

Passengers

Phantom of the opera

Phantom of the paradise - blood, cracked

Pirates of the Caribbean - blood (not much)

Queens of mystery - blue balls from this fucking Raven storyline

Reefer madness - blood, drugs, cannibalism, abusive man

Repo! The genetic opera - blood, dissection

Red Riding hood - blood

Red rose - blood, suicide

Rocky horror 2015

RuPaul's drag race (specifically s12)

Russian Doll - blood, suicide

Sarah Millican comedy

Six

Shock treatment

Shock treatment commentary

Snowpiercer - blood, torture, murder, suicide

Squid game - blood

Squid game challenge - gagging

Tangled

Terminator

The addams family - so. Much. Blood. Lmao

The boy in the striped pajamas

The craft - SA, attempted suicide

The end of the fucking world - blood, SA

The darkest minds

The day after tomorrow - blood, natural disasters

The Devil's Carnival - blood

The golden compass

The greatest showman

The human centipede - blood. DO. NOT. WATCH.

The hunger games

The hunger games ballad of songbirds and snakes - bombs

The hunger games catching fire

The hunger games mockingjay 1

The hunger games mockingjay 2

Thelma & Louise - rape, murder, suicide, blood

The lost boys - blood

The mask

The nightmare before Christmas

The purge TV series - I have no words. SA, blood, cult

The school of good and evil - blood

The sound of music - nazis

The rocky horror picture show - blood

The tourist

TORCHWOOD - slime, cannibalism, paedophilia

Tracy Beaker

Tracy Beaker returns

Traitors

Tuck everlasting

TWD video game - blood

The walking dead - blood

Waitress - whispering, SA

Wednesday - blood

White chicks - blood

#there is more #I'm constantly adding #Movie recommendations #content warnings

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hawkeykirsah · 4 years ago

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Revelations

https://archiveofourown.org/works/31326755

“Satine never said Mandalorians couldn’t wear armor! Where do people get these ridiculous ideas?” Obi-Wan threw up his hands.

“The Duchess,” Jango replied, barely holding back the contempt in his voice, “makes no secret of her disdain for anyone that does.”

“Her not liking it doesn’t equate to people not being allowed to do so!” came the sharp reply.

“The New Mandalorians also won’t allow us our weapons.”

Obi-Wan thumped his head against the pillow with an annoyed groan. “Jango, please. Have you ever listened to what Satine says? I mean truly listened to her words, not what Death Watch twists them to?”

Jango bristled at that. He would never listen to what those dar’manda shabuire said. Obi-Wan continued, undeterred, “Not once has she said that weapons are forbidden. Lethal weapons are prohibited in the city of Sundari unless you have proof of exemption. That does not mean giving up your weapons altogether! Force, she carries a deactivator! Her guards carry energy pikes and armor, in case you haven’t noticed. I carry my lightsaber! She doesn’t want people resorting to violence when there are other options. And she wants Mandalore to be able to define itself by something other than armor and weapons—arts and crafts, for example—but she hasn’t forbidden either.”

“Are you saying armor and weapon smiths aren’t craftsmen?”

“No,” Obi-Wan stated firmly. “But they aren’t the only valid form of craftsmanship. Take glassblowers, cabinetmakers, potters, painters, masons, just to name a few. She is asking that you remember that a people need more than just warriors. Focusing solely on the martial aspects is unsustainable.”

Jango frowned, mulling over the younger man’s words. Now that he thought about it, Obi-Wan was right. But there was another detail niggling him.

“You always call her by her first name.”

“Well, of course I call Satine by her first name unless I’m in a more formal setting,” Obi-Wan scoffed, shooting Jango a disappointed look. Had he missed something? Kriff, he must have. Why else would Obi-Wan level such a look at him?

Obi-Wan rolled to his stomach, resting his chin on his hands, his hair shining reddish-gold in the light, “I thought you had made the connection by now.”

Jango seldom felt out of his depth but in this instance he had no idea what the Jedi was playing at. He blinked, thoroughly confused, and shook his head.

“Do you want me to tell you or would you rather figure it out yourself?”

“Kriffing hells, Obi-Wan,” Jango said, narrowly avoiding rolling his eyes. He was in no mood for guessing games. “Just tell me already.”

“Satine is my sister.”

What? Jango blinked again. He must have misheard. There was no way—but there is, a quiet voice in his head spoke up. It was true, he had noticed the similarity between Obi-Wan and the younger Kryze sister but had always ignored it. For one thing, his name was Kenobi, not Kryze. Then again, perhaps he was adopted. Jango’s own name was Fett after all, and not Mereel.

Obi-Wan said nothing as these thoughts raced through Jango’s mind, his expression one of mild humor.

“Are you adopted as well?” Jango blurted out.

“Yes, by the Jedi,” Obi-Wan replied.

Jango let out an annoyed huff. “That isn’t what I meant and you know it, Kenobi,” he ground out, stressing the name.

A smile twitched on Obi-Wan’s face. The bloody bastard was enjoying himself. Before Jango could feel too put upon, he moved, placing a kiss on Jango’s lips.

“I am the third of four siblings. Considering the animosity between Mandalorians and Jedi, my mother wished my heritage to remain undisclosed,” Obi-Wan began explaining softly, carding his fingers through Jango’s hair. “Kenobi was my mother’s family name. Either way, the name Kenobi is a credit a dozen on Stewjon whereas Kryze was, is, firmly tied to Mandalore and its problems.” He paused. “As you may know, my father always supported Jaster, even if they had minor disagreements. But a Force-sensitive child? He wasn’t sure how that would have been taken by the Haat mando'ade. You must admit, most Mandalorians think of Jedi as sorcerers, and not in a good way. So when my talents became too apparent my mother brought me to the temple during one of our visits to Coruscant.”

Jango winced. He knew too well what Obi-Wan was talking about. If you asked a random Mandalorian about the Jedi, the answer would rarely be favorable. He was also guilty of it, especially after the clusterfuck that had been Galidraan. Looking back, his own actions had exacerbated the situation. And now? Of all the people he could fall in love with it had to be a Jedi and, apparently, a Kryze. The ka’ra were clearly laughing at him.

“I didn’t return to Mandalore until the civil war. My master and I were the envoys that were sent after Satine asked the Republic for aid,” after our parents were assassinated, Obi-Wan doesn’t say but Jango fills it in anyway. “Yes, I grew up on Coruscant but just as our Togruta Jedi speak Shili alongside Basic, and our Twi’lek Jedi speak Ryl, I speak Mando’a.” Obi-Wan sighed. “One can have more than one family, you know? Mine are the Jedi, first and foremost, but also my clan on Kalevala and Stewjon.”

He stopped talking, the small crease between his eyebrows deepening the way it always did when Obi-Wan was thinking. Jango found it far too endearing. The silence stretched between them until Obi-Wan went on quietly, “Satine loves Mandalore just as much as you do. She wants it to thrive and for the violence to end. I’m not asking you to agree with everything Satine says but I am asking you not to twist the words in her mouth. Can you do that for me, Jango Fett?”

Jango swallowed. Could he? For Obi-Wan, yes. If he could accept that Obi-Wan was a Jedi and love him then him being Satine’s brother wouldn’t stop Jango, either.

“I think,” he began carefully, “I can manage to tolerate her.”

He was rewarded with a blinding smile lighting up Obi-Wan’s eyes. “That’s all I ask.”

Jango couldn’t help but smile back. Then, “But what about your other sister?”

Obi-Wan snorted. “Feel free to kick Bo-Katan’s ass when you see her. I know I will. Death Watch, seriously.” He shook his head, his fingers trailing slowly down Jango’s chest, “But right now I really don’t want to think about my sisters anymore.”

Jango’s breath hitched. Yes, there were definitely better ways to spend the morning before they both had to return to their duties.

#obi-wan kenobi #jango fett #satine kryze #bo-katan kryze #jangobi #star wars fanfic #canon divergent au #my writing #hawk writes #Revelations #not beta read

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rosemakh · 3 years ago

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The Bad Game

[Blurb: An innocent game of mini-golf takes a sinister turn when a family friend demands that Naomi make good on her bet. This deep betrayal leads to an impossible choice.]

[Author’s note: I wrote this in 2020. It’s loosely based on true events, as recounted by a friend of mine. This story is a tragic family drama. It deals with emotional abuse, manipulation, substance abuse, and other things that might trigger some readers (like most of my stories!)]

The driving lesson was over, so Naomi parked the old van and turned off the ignition.

"That was good, sweetie," Pastor Rob congratulated her from the passenger's seat, "You'll be able to get your license soon, for sure!"

Naomi shook her head and smiled sheepishly, "Maybe in a month."

They climbed out of the vehicle to stretch their legs and switch seats. Naomi hopped in and fastened her seat belt while Rob slid the driver's seat back. She giggled at some birds squabbling in the grass as he lowered his weighty girth into the van.

"How about some mini-golf?" He said, rather suddenly.

Naomi liked the game but she was tired. She'd been driving all morning and still had a pile of chores to do at home. She was also tired of being under the pastor's leering gaze. Spending the rest of the day with him -- followed by a Sunday of volunteering at his tiny church -- wasn't her idea of fun but he'd been kind enough to give her driving lessons when nobody else would. She was grateful to him, so she agreed to go.

On the way to the mini-golf park, Rob said, "How about a bet, this time?"

They'd played before but never with a wager. It seemed a little strange to Naomi, so she asked, "Like what?"

Rob kept his eyes on the road, "We'll play one round. If you win, I'll do any one thing you want and if I win, you'll do any one thing I want."

Coming from any other man, this kind of proposal would have alarmed her. But this man was like a grandfather to her. They'd known each other for years. He helped her family. He was goofy, humble, and generous. She trusted him.

She looked at him and nodded, "Yeah, okay! You'll probably just force me to go to lunch with you again or somethin', right?"

They both laughed.

They drove the rest of the way in silence with Elvis Presley crooning on the radio.

***

Naomi was usually pretty good at mini-golf but that day, she missed every shot. She almost felt as if an unseen force was affecting her game. Rob, on the other hand, was on a roll, banking his bright blue golf ball around plastic gnomes as if by magic and landing holes-in-one at both the lighthouse and crocodile lake. In dozens of games, she'd never seen him play so well and she'd never played so poorly.

As the game progressed, it became clear that she would lose the bet. A faint foreboding bloomed within her. She pushed it down and continued playing but by the end of the game, she'd lost by a huge margin. While they turned in their rented putters and balls, then made their way back to the van, Rob's face grew progressively pinched and dark.

Naomi sat in the front passenger's seat and fastened her seat belt. The edge seemed unusually sharp, digging into her neck as if trying to cut her. The earlier sense of foreboding bloomed again.

Rob yanked his door open, squeezed behind the wheel, mopped his sweaty forehead with one of his tree-trunk arms, and backed out of the parking space. A few feet ahead, a small gaggle of giggling women were crossing the lane. Rob, mouth gaping and eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets, moved his head to openly gawk at them in their tiny shorts and tank tops. Naomi was used to him doing that but, for some reason, she suddenly felt uncomfortable. She folded her arms across her chest and leaned against the car door. She watched his lecherous behavior out of the corner of her eye. He didn't detach his eyes from the ladies' bodies until they'd all piled into their car.

***

Rob pulled out onto the highway and stopped at a red traffic light. He gripped the steering wheel and stared straight ahead for a moment. A dangerous mood emanated from him.

Without looking at her, he grunted, "If I was the Mafia, you'd be in a lot of trouble right now."

Over the years, she'd seen him behave erratically. Sometimes his sermons would devolve into tales of bloody warfare, domestic abuse, and sexual assault. She knew the man had demons to fight but now it seemed he was about to use one on her. To prevent upsetting him, she didn't speak, but merely pressed herself hard against the door and looked away as the van accelerated.

He took a deep breath as if preparing to make an important announcement.

"Naomi," he said, "God showed me something last night. I was riding my bicycle like I do every night, and I looked up and saw you in the moon."

He sounded awestruck as if he'd witnessed a miracle.

"You were floating in the big full moon, wearing the most beautiful silver dress and slippers. Your hair was blowing all around you. You looked like an angel, just for me. I watched you and you smiled so sweetly, with so much love. And you reached your hands out to me and your dress blew and you were so beautiful. You stayed with me like that until I got back home."

Naomi couldn't think of anything to say. She continued looking out the window and prayed to God for safety.

When Rob parked in his driveway, Naomi had to will herself to move. She peeled herself from the door and opened it carefully. She wanted to run next door and call the police but slowly followed him into the big house, instead.

"Is your wife home?" She managed to ask as he swung the front door open.

"She's at Dorothy's piano recital at the college. They'll be gone for hours."

He led her through the cozy living room, past wholesome family pictures and walls filled with Christian crosses. Finely-crafted angel figurines looked on from shelves and tabletops as they passed. A desk in the corner housed a huge Bible, its pages edged with gold.

Rob positioned one dining chair so that it faced toward the backyard garden, then motioned for her to enter the tiny dining room and sit. She could see his wife's award-winning roses through the sliding glass door. Their yard was carpeted with soft, well-manicured grass. A set of cute lawn furniture sat on one side of the deck, overlooking a small swimming pool.

The dining chair didn't have arms, so Naomi awkwardly placed her hands in her lap. Rob suddenly stood in front of her, looming over her and blocking out the sun like a massive obelisk. To avoid his eyes, she stared at her hands.

His voice sounded above her, "I know you're a woman of God, so you'll honor your vow."

Barely a few inches in front of her, he knelt and pulled a ring box from his pants pocket. She stared at the box, praying it wasn't what she suspected. But it was. With bloated, hairy fingers, he flipped the top open to reveal a simple wedding ring. The gold-colored ring was etched with a diamond pattern to make it look like a normal ring but Naomi understood. Feeling as if she was in imminent danger, Naomi clenched her knees together tightly and thanked God she'd decided to wear jeans instead of a skirt.

He fixed his veiny bug eyes on her, "My sweetie, I've wanted to marry you since we first met when you were 14. These four years have been the happiest of my life. I know you feel the same way. God has shown me that you do."

Naomi tried rationalizing with him, "But you're already married. How will that work?"

He leaned toward her and his big belly pressed against her shins. He looked into her face like a lying boy that desperately wanted to be believed, "I've told you about that. It's basically an arranged marriage. I was 35 and our families put us together. We never loved each other."

"But it's a sin to violate your marriage vows. Besides, I don't feel that way about you, Pastor."

"But I know you do, sweetie," he nodded his head repeatedly, "God told me."

She shook her head furiously, "No!"

"It's okay, sweetie. Don't be afraid."

His fat belly pressed harder against her shins. The fleshy sensation made her feel sick, "You're old enough to be my father. Your daughter's older than me! It wouldn't work, I'm tellin' you!"

He continued, searching for ways to convince her, "And--and I know you don't want children so I got a vasectomy so you don't have to worry about that."

"Oh, God!" Naomi couldn't hold herself together anymore. Terrified, all she could do was tuck her head into her shoulder and sob.

"Sweetie--" He briefly touched her hand.

As if she'd been burned, Naomi drew her hands up to her chest.

He craned his blubbery neck to look into her face, "What's the matter, sweetie? Everything's okay. Haven't I proved that I care about you?"

He put one massive hand on her knee. Instinctively, she gasped and clenched her knees together tighter. She looked at the ceiling, gulping back sobs and biting her lip.

He placed the other hand on her lap, still holding the ring box, "Haven't I helped your family for the past four years. With your mom not working, what would you guys have done without me?"

She managed to choke out, "I appreciate everything you've done for us--" between sobs but couldn't continue.

"Oh, sweetie," His voice was tender as if speaking to a lover, "Don't cry. I know it's a big change," He waited a few moments for her to calm down but she was far too upset, "You're overwhelmed, my love. I'm sorry. I'll take you home now. Let's talk about this tomorrow after church."

Relieved to have a way out of the situation, she nodded shakily, "Tomorrow."

***

She'd managed to pull herself together and look somewhat normal by the time he pulled into her family's driveway. She scrambled out as soon as the van stopped.

Before she closed the door, he said, "I'll pick you up for church tomorrow, sweetie," and blew her a kiss.

She shut the door and willed her shaky legs to carry her up the cracked concrete walkway and into her family's shabby home.

She stepped into the living room in its usual state: Toys and dirty clothes littered the floor; Bowls of half-eaten cereal sat in small collections upon the tables; A sticky spill had congealed under the coffee table, next to the overturned cup that once held it.

She called to her young sisters, "Nancy, Nellie! Come clean up after yourselves, please!"

Nancy, 12, and Nellie, 5, stalked out of their room with mock annoyance. They glared at Naomi, stuck out their tongues, then collapsed into a fit of giggles.

"Cut it out, silly girls," Naomi said as she walked to the kitchen.

Their mother staggered out of the master bedroom and down the hall. She walked past Naomi without a word, opened the cabinet above the sink, and retrieved a large bottle of sleeping pills.

"Hi, Mom," Naomi said gently.

Her mother merely glanced at her, then opened the bottle. She moved almost robotically as if the effort of moving required all of her concentration and energy. She dropped three pills into her hand and swallowed them with a cold cup of coffee that was sitting on the counter.

"Are you okay, mom?" Naomi asked.

Naomi's mother turned to face her, "Never," and looked her up and down, "Look at you. You're so lucky. You don't have three mouths to feed."

Naomi stayed stone-faced and silent. Her mother said this often. The first time it happened, Naomi had made the mistake of talking back. She refused to make that mistake again.

With a surprising amount of force, her mother threw the open pill bottle against the sink's backsplash. Cloud-blue pills erupted from the bottle and fell haphazardly into the dirty dishes in the sink. A few landed in water and fizzed, creating bubbling islands of blue foam.

"I'm goin' to bed," her mother grunted.

Nellie, the youngest, peeked her head around the kitchen wall and held her toy bunny to her chin, "But Momma, you were in bed all day."

Their mother bent down and stroked Nellie's chubby face with a tenderness Naomi had not received from her in years, "Momma's tired, baby. Mommies get tired."

She stood up and snapped at Naomi, "Clean this place up!" then disappeared down the hall.

After their mother closed her door, Nancy strutted in and put a small pile of dirty cereal bowls on the kitchen table, "Where have you been all day, by the way? We've been stuck here with Mom and you've been out havin' fun!"

Naomi placed the bowls in the sink, "Believe me, nobody in this family is havin' fun."

Nancy took hold of her younger sister's hand, "Come on, Nellie, let's watch a movie while we wait for Naomi's crappy dinner."

"I like her crappy dinners," Nellie replied as they climbed onto the sofa.

"Oh, shut up, Nellie."

Overhearing the exchange from the kitchen, Naomi chuckled.

While preparing dinner, Naomi prayed for guidance. The thought of seeing Rob again made her feel sick, so she leaned over the sink for a few moments until the nausea subsided. Her mind raced with possibilities and none of them were good. If they stopped attending his church, she'd have to get a job. But she was just about to enter her last year of high school. If she quit school to work full-time, they'd probably never get out of poverty. On the other hand, if she stayed in high school and worked part-time, her sisters wouldn't have anyone to take care of them. Their mother was in no state to look after anybody and the girls were too young to take care of themselves all the time. She watched the pasta boiling on the stove. It roiled and raged like the thoughts in her head.

By the time dinner was ready, she had decided to turn him down and leave his church. She had no plan beyond that but she continued to pray and search for a solution.

***

Rob pulled into the driveway bright and early on Sunday morning. It was the sisters' responsibility to set up the church room in Rob's rundown beachside inn, so they had to get there before everyone else.

"Howdy-ho, kidderoos!" Rob greeted the girls as they headed towards the van.

Naomi checked to make sure the top button of her high-collar dress was done up and raised her hem slightly to keep it from dragging through the dew-covered grass. She picked up Nellie and strapped her into the front passenger's seat, then climbed into the farthest row of seats in the back.

Rob was watching in the rearview mirror, "You can sit up here with me, Naomi!"

"Nuh-uh! She said I can, Mr. Rob!" Nellie protested.

Beaming, Nancy spread her drawing books and art supplies across the middle row of seats and said proudly, "Oh, Yeah! So roomy! This must be what it's like not havin' any sisters! We should sit this way all the time."

"Well, that settles that," Naomi said as she pulled the van's sliding door shut.

He drove through the neighborhood slowly, glancing at the rearview mirror every few seconds, "Are you sure you don't want to sit up front, Naomi? Sitting next to the driver is great driving practice."

Naomi didn't take her eyes off her book, "No thank you. I promised Nellie she could sit there."

"What if you drive, instead, and I sit next to you?"

Nancy piped up, "No way. I don't wanna die today!"

All four of them burst into laughter.

Rob dropped the subject but repeatedly flicked his eyes to the rearview mirror during the 30-minute trip. Eventually, Naomi placed her backpack in her lap in an attempt to hide her chest from his searing glances.

***

The ramshackle inn was a place of refuge where vagabonds and penny-pinching tourists could enjoy a room on the beach for next-to-nothing. Rob did all the repairs himself but, unlike Jesus, he wasn't much of a carpenter. The floors were lumpy, sagging, and did nothing to muffle the sounds of footsteps. The paint was flaking in various places both inside and outside the building, and the bare, wooden staircases wobbled and creaked. It was a humble place for humble people.

Naomi and her sisters ascended the stairs into the common room and got to work converting the tiny space into a functioning chapel.

***

That Sunday's service was no different from any other. Pastor Rob led with a spirited, yet incoherent, opening message, which seemed to be nothing more than a collection of random Bible quotes from a desktop calendar. After the opening, he jumped straight into an equally spirited sermon about men and women and all the sex passages in the Bible. Although he didn't look at her, Naomi knew who he'd written that sermon for.

He spoke with fire and the attendees responded in kind, yelling "Preach!" and "Amen, brother!" at random intervals.

Two young women came out of an adjoining room and sat together on one side of the small space. They were dressed in tiny jean shorts and string bikini tops. Pastor Rob seemed unable to keep himself from glancing at them every two seconds to ogle their exposed flesh.

After the service, the pastor mingled with the attendees. None of the smiling people shaking Rob's hand were aware of Saturday's events and no one -- maybe not even the man himself -- knew what he was going to do when he got Naomi alone again. The spongy floor shook with each of Rob's massive steps as he traveled through the cheerful crowd. Naomi felt the vibrations in her core, like a war drum signaling impending doom.

***

Just after Noon, he pulled the van up to the girls' house. Nancy and Nellie got out and said their goodbyes.

Naomi made her way to the front passenger seat.

"We're off to do more driving lessons!" Rob explained to the younger girls.

He waited until the sisters were safely inside the house, then drove to a nearby playground. He pulled into an unpaved parking space facing the park, where some families were enjoying the mild weather and fresh air. Naomi was grateful to have other people around.

The pastor turned off the van and gripped the steering wheel so hard his pudgy knuckles turned white. They both stared silently into the park for a while.

Suddenly, without looking at her, he asked, "Are you playing with me?" and continued staring ahead, awaiting her answer.

Naomi gathered her courage and calmly replied, "No."

She looked at him. A sick red color was creeping up his neck. She had to get this over quickly, "I thought about it and I'm sorry but I don't feel that way about you. You're like a grandfather to me."

He growled a reply through clenched teeth, "How could you say that?" And looked at her from the corner of his eye, "You've been flirting with me for years."

Naomi couldn't believe he was the same man who'd been laughing it up on the beach just an hour ago, "What?!"

He unclenched his jaw but the edge in his voice remained, "We've played tag on the beach--"

"Only with my sisters!"

"We kissed in the back seat of this van."

Naomi scoffed, trying to hide her panic, "I got back there with you because you asked. I didn't know you were goin' to kiss me!"

Rob finally looked at her and erupted, "Why else would I ask you to join me in a back seat!"

She had accidentally sent him into a rage, possibly putting herself in physical danger, but she could no longer control her actions. The deep feelings of betrayal, disgust, and fear were too overwhelming.

She yelled in his face, "Why would you think I wanted to kiss you?"

Rob immediately lowered his voice -- a so-called psychological tactic he loved to use when things got heated, "You told me you were saving yourself for marriage."

Naomi yelled again, "I told you that as my pastor!"

He spoke slowly, "You also told me you felt uncomfortable about your strong sexual desires."

"I thought I could confide in you!"

He removed his hands from the steering wheel and turned his body toward her. Looking deep into her eyes, he spoke gently, "I know you're a godly woman. With me, you won't have to worry about anything. I promise I'll never hurt you. You can explore your desires with me safely. No diseases. No pregnancy. And I'll take care of you, your mom, and your sisters."

Naomi couldn't believe what she was hearing, "You're tryin' to bribe me with my family?"

"It'll be a sacred union."

"You're already married, Rob!"

"It's okay," He spoke to her as if talking to an upset child, "We'll keep it a secret. Nobody has to get hurt. God's chosen few have always been misunderstood. We both know nobody will understand our love."

She screamed at the top of her lungs, "We don't have a love! How could you? I trusted you!" She smashed her fist against the dashboard, "You and no one else! And you'd do this to me? Were you doin' this all along?"

Rob maintained a steady, soothing tone, "I didn't do anything. It's God's plan, my love."

"SHUT UP!"

Naomi's hands were shaking so badly, she barely managed to undo her seat belt. She reached for the car door handle.

Rob raised his voice slightly and scolded her, "You promised me! You're not a liar!"

Her anger spent, tears ran down Naomi's cheeks as she looked him straight in his eyes.

Her voice shook as she said, "I think Jesus will forgive me for this one."

She shoved the door open, got out, then slammed it shut with a frustrated roar. Startled people in the park, who'd heard them yelling, stared at her. Avoiding their gazes, she angrily walked away.

She'd traveled several feet before Rob finished hauling his heft out of the vehicle. He called to her, "Did you buy your sisters' school supplies yet?"

She stopped on the spot.

"Or your mom's medicine?"

She lowered her head, tears cascading down her face. Her entire body shook as she clenched and unclenched her fists. A swarm of dark possibilities swirled in her mind.

A child's scream and laughter yanked her back into reality. Instinctively, she looked in the direction of the sound. The squealing toddler was being pushed on a swing by his smiling dad. Mom looked on, laughing loudly.

Naomi stared at the happy family. Memories of carefree days floated up from the depths of her mind. She could feel Rob's eyes on her.

Without looking at him, she walked back to the van, threw herself into the seat, slammed the door, and waited. After a moment, Rob squeezed behind the steering wheel, watching her. Without a glance or a word, she pulled the musty seat belt across her body and fastened it with a heavy click. It pressed against her chest and lap, pinning her to the seat. She folded her hands in her lap in a failed attempt to keep them from shaking.

She stared at the horizon, blinking away hot tears and taking measured breaths. Aware of Rob's gaze, she pressed against the car seat and bit her lip hard. Her body shook with adrenaline and terror.

Rob continued to stare at her as he started the van. He seemed to be savoring the moment as he raked his hungry eyes up and down her body.

***

The pastor sat the last grocery bag on the kitchen table.

He checked to make sure nobody else was around, then pulled Naomi close for a quick kiss on the lips, "See you Saturday, my love."

He headed out the door. She bent over the sink and washed her mouth out with dish soap.

She dried her face as Nancy came around the corner.

"Was that Pastor Rob?"

Naomi nodded.

A mischievous smile crept across Nancy's face, "Gee, I'm sure glad you two didn't die in your drivin' lesson!"

Naomi was too numb to even pretend to laugh but she forced herself to smile as sweetly as she could at her silly little sister, "That was funny, Nancy."

"Duh!"

Naomi pulled an ice cream cake from one of the grocery bags, "Look what I've got."

Nellie appeared in the doorway, curious. Naomi knelt so the kids could get a better look.

Nancy gasped, "Wow! Are we celebratin' somethin'?"

Naomi forced a warm smile for her sisters, "Yes. We're celebratin' how much I love you."

Just out of sight, their mother muttered, "Bring me some o' that to my room, Nancy," then shuffled back down the hall.

"Oh, Momma likes it, too!" Nellie said, "Thanks, Naomi!"

Nancy pulled a plate from the dish rack, "Yeah, I guess you're okay, sometimes."

At that, the three of them stuck their tongues out at each other playfully.

Naomi turned and placed the ice cream cake on the kitchen table. The golden ring on her left middle finger caught Nellie's eye.

Nellie pulled Naomi's hand to her own face so she could get a better look, "That ring's fancy! I like the diamond shapes. Did it cost a lot?"

Naomi briefly flashed a smile, "Yes, it cost me a whole lot."

"I won't tell, but Momma might get mad if she finds out."

Naomi gently pulled her hand free and stroked her precious little sister's hair, "I think you're right, honey. I bet she would."

#short fiction #short story #dark drama #drama story #family drama

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eldritchsurveys · 5 years ago

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680.

Do you or have you ever owned a cup with your name on it? >> Actually, I have two. One time there was this dude in Meijer who was doing a promotion for Guinness, and the promo was apparently... giving out custom-engraved pint glasses???? You told him your name and he had this machine that put it on the glass for you. It was weird, especially since it was free... The font that your name is in is a bit wack, though. The other thing I have is a wine glass painted with a nighttime-y scene with skeletal trees and ravens on it. It has my name painted on the stand part, along with the date of my wedding. Sparrow has one too, with her name on it. I’m not even sure where they came from, tbh, but they’re pretty.

What’s the most expensive crafts tool that you own? >> I don’t think I own any expensive crafts tools. The only things I have are, like, pencils, a sketchbook, knitting needles, and yarn.

Have you ever woven baskets of any kind (wicker, paper, cardboard etc.)? >> Maybe as a child.

How do you like Great Balls of Fire by Jerry Lee Lewis? >> It’s all right.

Speaking of Jerry Lee Lewis, have you seen the biopic about him? >> I don’t think so.

How about the biopic about Tina Turner? >> Yeah, I saw that one.

Do you like the TV-show Frasier? >> I do, it’s actually funnier to me now than when I was younger. Back then I thought it was boring but it kills me now.

What’s something you know by heart? >> A lot of song lyrics? Also, the Litany Against Fear.

What is something you’re greedy about? >> I don’t think I’m particularly greedy about anything.

How valuable does a coin have to be for you to bother to pick it up? >> I’d pick up a quarter, maybe. I’m just no longer in the financial position where picking up coins substantially enhances my available funds.

What would be something you would wait in line to get for free? >> It depends on how long the line is, what kind of mood I’m in, and where I am... not just on what the item is. If I’m in a good mood and the line seems manageable, I’d wait in it even if the item is just some random trinket that I have no real use for. If I’m not in a good mood and the line is insane, I wouldn’t wait in it even if it was for an expensive thing I��ve been wanting for ages.

Has there ever been a leak anywhere in your house? >> No.

Have you ever slipped in the shower? >> Not to the point of falling.

Have you ever made any decorative crafts? If so, are they displayed? >> Not in recent memory.

Is it very humid where you are right now? >> Nah.

What is the most suggestive thing someone has said to you? >> *shrug*

Do you have friends who you playfully flirt with? >> No.

Doesn’t the Z in the Bzoink logo look like an L to you, too? >> I mean, not really, but I see where you’re coming from.

Did you ever take that 5000 question survey that was circulating Tumblr? >> Yeah, I took it a long time ago. Once the novelty wore off, I realised that most of the questions were just terrible IMO, which is bound to happen once you endeavour to write a survey with quite that many questions.

Have you ever had to change a zipper in your favourite article of clothing? >> No.

Do you prefer buttons or zippers in general? >> Zippers.

Did you grandma have a box full of pretty buttons? >> ---

What’s the most exotic spice in your spice rack? >> Hmm... garam masala, maybe? We have a wide variety.

Do buttons tempt you to press them? >> Not usually, but sometimes.

Do you have a favourite television host? >> No.

What’s your opinion on celebrity chefs? >> I think some of them are cool and fun to watch. Alton Brown is probably my fave.

Back when it first started, did you watch ANTM? >> I think I’ve seen a season or two. I knew someone who got on it, too (Isis King).

Did you know, that there was even a Finnish version of ANTM? Miss Jay made an appearance in the first season, too. >> No, I didn’t know that, but it makes sense. There are a bunch of those shows modeled after American Idol, too, for different countries.

Are you accident prone? >> No.

Have you ever broken something really valuable? >> I accidentally broke a laptop screen once, and that was pretty damn valuable to me.

What do you see as timeless? >> ---

What is something that you own, that has sentimental value? >> Most of these plushies.

Have you ever had your own website? >> Yeah, I’ve taken stabs at it.

What’s your favourite board game? >> ---

How about your favourite card game? >> ---

What’s something that you finished recently? >> I finished watching Sparrow play through Death Stranding, lol. I’m glad it was her and not me, because I’m pretty sure that game would have made me ragequit within the first few hours, and that would have been a shame.

What’s the smallest town you recall visiting? >> I have no idea.

What’s the longest distance you’ve had to go to work or school? >> ---

Would you learn a new language, if you didn’t share one with your lover? >> Oh, like in Love Actually? I mean, I can’t imagine myself in that situation, but I thought it was cute.

Do you have friends who are constantly tagging you in challenges on FB? >> No. People who have me on facebook should know I prefer to do my actual fun socialising on here or Discord.

When it comes to chocolate, do you prefer nougat, jelly or caramel filling? >> ---

Are you more concerned about winning than just participating? >> No.

Has somebody you know taken their own life? >> No.

What is a number that has some significance to you? Why is that? >> 9. Well, there’s a lot of synchronicity.

Do you prefer onions, leeks or chives? >> I don’t think I have a preference, I’ll take all three. Onions may be the most versatile, though, so maybe those.

What’s the most adult thing you have to do every day? >> I don’t think I have to do any adult thing every day. Maybe feeding myself is an adult thing? Although teenagers and even kids do that too.

What’s the most immature thing you like to do every day? >> ---

Have you seen the movie, Clue? If so, isn’t it fab? >> No, but I’ve seen some funny gifsets that make me think it’d probably be a good time. I might give it a shot if I run into it on a streaming service one day.

Do your cheeks get flushed easily? Do you blush easily in general? >> No, I’ve never felt that feeling.

Are there any social cues you miss entirely? >> Oh, definitely.

When someone doesn’t smile back at you, what’s your first thought? >> They probably didn’t want to, and that’s okay. I don’t always want to smile at everyone who smiles at me, either, and it shouldn’t be a mark against my character just because I don’t smile at a stranger. But, you know, whatever. Any stranger that takes that much offense at me not smiling at them probably wouldn’t get along with me for very long anyway, so it’s a useful social litmus test in the end.

Is there a person who melts your heart just by looking at you? >> No. Well, maybe Can Calah sometimes.

Have you ever had tom kha kai? It’s a Thai coconut soup, and it’s amazing. We serve it at work. >> No, but I’d definitely try it.

Have you, or anyone you know ever been rude to a server? >> I’ve never had the experience of having to watch someone I’m with be rude to a server and I am so glad for that.

What’s something you’re opinionated and very vocal about? When’s the last time you had to verbally defend your stance? >> I don’t know. I don’t really defend any stance of mine, I just put it out there sometimes if I feel like rambling about it and then leave it alone. Arguing with people about shit that ultimately really don’t matter is a waste of my valuable energy.

Have you ever played BitLife? I sort of got hooked on it, it’s like sims but in text form. >> No. I quite like the graphical form of The Sims, so I’ll stick to that.

What’s something you regularly order online? >> CBD.

When’s the last time you made a penpal? >> I’ve never had one.

Do you often make friends online? >> I make a lot of acquaintances online. Friends are far fewer.

Do people ever try to get something from somebody through you? As in, they ask you to ask the person they should be asking in the first place. If that makes sense. >> No. Which is good, because I wouldn’t do it.

What do you think when you see a couple holding hands? >> Nothing???

Is there anything you’re forced to share with someone else? >> No.

What’s something stripy that you own? >> I have a black-and-royal-blue striped robe with the Ravenclaw logo on the back.

How about something polka dotted? >> Nothing.

What is something you find absolutely appalling? >> Some people’s utterly disrespectful behaviour on this website.

Do you like elevators? >> I mean, they’re fine. I don’t dislike them.

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when I say “midnight madness”? >> Like... premieres? Or book releases? Or something like that. I have a vague association but I can’t remember exactly where it comes from.

What is a country you would never want to visit? >> ---

When you’re angry, does it ever get physical? >> Well, yeah, but not necessarily towards someone else.

What do you do, when you’re immensely happy? >> It depends on how I feel like expressing it at the time? Sometimes I don’t express it much at all, and sometimes I literally jump around the room.

What made you scream out loud the last time you screamed? >> ---

Can you hear your neighbours through the wall? >> Sometimes.

What is something that frustrates you to no end? >> Noise.

Do you wear shoes indoors? >> Absolutely not.

Who is your favourite stand-up comedian? >> Bo Burnham, Dylan Moran, and in general I’m fond of how Tiffany Haddish presents as a person and performer.

What’s the weirdest video youtube has suggested to you? >> It doesn’t usually suggest me anything weird.

What’s the funniest infomercial you’ve seen? >> ---

Is there a drink that just goes right through you? >> I don’t feel that way about any drink, no.

Is there a food item you can’t eat because it doesn’t agree with you? >> Not that I’ve encountered.

Do you playfully compete with someone about something? >> No.

Would you rather swim or run? >> I can’t swim, so my options are a little limited here.

Do you like the smell of tar? >> Sometimes, yeah.

Have you ever been to a sauna? >> No. I couldn’t last two minutes in a sauna.

Does your doorbell ring unexpectedly often? >> Not often, but sometimes people will ring multiple apartments trying to get into the building, which is fucking irritating.

Is your favourite fictional character a human, an animal or something else? >> I am my favourite fictional character. /facetious

Have you ever helped a stranger? If so, what did you do? >> I mean, sure. Just simple stuff, like picking up something they’ve dropped or letting them know they’ve left their key in the apartment door or dropping their mail off when it gets mistakenly put into my box.

Do you share hobbies with any of your friends? What do you do together? >> ---

Do you have any flags on display? If so, what flag(s)? >> I don’t. Sparrow has a rainbow flag with a peace sign in the middle on her wall.

#surveys #survey #random survey

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idontrememberthetitans · 6 years ago

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The Best Films of 2018

Top 10 Films of the Year:

1. ROMA (Netflix)

If I harbored any doubt that Alfonso Cuarón was among the greatest filmmakers/storytellers of this (or last) century, it was forever dispelled with Roma. Cuarón’s hyper-naturalistic memoir reveals the thorny relationships between employers, caregivers, and those who receive care. It possesses a kind of clarity, maturity, and tenderness that only comes with distance and time. As it communicates the innumerable intersections of and parallels between ethnicity, class, and gender, it neither rushes nor exaggerates and romanticize, which is quite commendable considering just how visually rapturous Cuarón’s execution is. Moreover, he does so without pontificating or criticizing. Some of the film’s detractors claim it’s an elitist exaltation of domestic workers; I find that assertion unfair, for it would require a larger conversation about who is able to represent whom. I believe Cuarón respectfully illuminates and savors the mundane for therein lies the clandestine miracles of life. It’s clear he has so much love for the ghosts of long ago. Roma is a paean celebrating and lamenting all the pains and pleasures that usher us through any given year. (Watch the trailer.)

2. COLD WAR (Amazon Studios)

Sexy, sad, and everything in between, Paweł Pawlikowski’s Cold War chronicles a nearly two decade-long love affair between Wiktor - an accomplished music director - and Zula - a rising singer - in a world in threat of extinction. The film examines the violation of cultural identity and the mechanism of war which thwart any attempt to preserve authenticity. Epic and tactfully sparse in equal amounts, the film is comprised of unbearably terse episodes peppered over fifteen years. Thus, we are only privy to fragments of the characters’ tumultuous timeline together. Within the interlude – between each passionate episodes - Pawlikowski brilliantly employs subtext and chilly atmospheric tension to sustains the pair’s longings – and subsequently preserves our infatuation with them. Cold War is a rich love story swathed in bitterness. By the end, we can’t help but envy, pity, and mourn each part of Wiktor and Zula’s hot-blooded romance. (Watch the trailer.)

3. THE TALE (HBO Films)

The Tale is a work in progress. I say this without insult but unrestrained admiration. Documentarian Jennifer Fox’s devastating filmic memoir about childhood sexual assault is personal exercise in understanding deeply entrenched trauma. Much of the film’s approbation notes its nuanced handling of difficult thematic material and Dern’s towering yet understated performance, but Fox’s haunting lyricism – the way she manifests a cinematic conversation between her present self and her younger self from dispersed memories – makes this film a formal and aesthetic triumph just as much as a cultural watershed.

Initially, I questioned how “accurate” the film’s conclusion was. Did the events unfold with the same amount of understated poetic justice? Did Fox have the opportunity for confrontation and vindication as depicted? I realize that asking for explication undercuts the power of Fox’s investigation and exemplary subjectivity. The film itself is an act of introspective healing. As harrowing as The Tale is, it is essential viewing. (Watch the trailer.)

4. THE FAVOURITE (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

I’m still quite ambivalent towards the film’s nauseating photography, but make no mistake; The Favourite is the best writing and acting you’ll witness this year. While Lanthimos other films (Dogtooth, The Lobster, and The Killing of a Sacred Deer) are the superlative statements on the auteur’s résumé – perhaps in part because he also penned them – his dark, stomach-churning talents certainly lend themselves well to this gleefully filthy farce. The deliciously dicey sexual politics between the characters provides a scathing critique of class, decorum, regal period pieces, and the current political climate on a grand scale. The trio’s absurd antics keep the film alive with color and candor, but film’s lasting impact comes with the glimmers of profound sadness laced within Olivia Colman’s performance as the sovereign. Colman, one of the finest living actors, carefully vacillates between her character’s illogical command and her surprising frailty. The Favourite typifies the best kind of satire: deliciously catty as it plays out with a melancholic sting in its aftermath. (Watch the trailer.)

5. HEREDITARY (A24)

Balance is key in life – and because we’ve relished the delectable delights of Mary Poppins Returns and Paddington 2, a hearty dose of uncompromising nihilism is also imperative. Hereditary more than excels in that role. It is a grotesque descent into unimaginable horror led by Toni Collette in a game-changing performance. Following films like Antichrist (2009), Babadook (2014), The VVitch (2015) and this year’s equally terrific and terrifying The Haunting of Hill House series, Hereditary marks an apex in the horror subgenre exploring the connection between loss and dread. It’s aware of the genre’s robust history. Consequently much of its success lies in its perceptive ability to draw from other classics like Rosemary’s Baby, Don’t Look Now, and The Exorcist while continuing to probe the complexities of grief and unconscious shame. (Watch the trailer.)

6. YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE (Amazon Studios)

Had the titles not already been taken, You Were Never Really Here could have easily be called “Making a Murderer,” “Gone Girl,” or “Vengeance Is Mine.” Lynne Ramsay’s follow-up to We Need to Talk About Kevin follows a damaged antihero hired to rescue trafficked girls. Her The story’s presentation is so lean and alienating that it’s difficult to ever form a comprehensive understanding of merciless world the characters inhabit. The violence is graphic, however Ramsey rarely shows the actual acts as they are committed. Instead, she takes us through static terrains in the wake of horrific brutality. Her juxtaposition of overwhelming ambient noises creates a particularly affecting cacophony. Surreal, distressing, yet oddly tender and uplifting, You Were Never Really Here confirms once again that Ramsay is an artist of the highest order. (Watch the trailer.)

7. EIGHTH GRADE (A24)

Bo Burham’s Eighth Grade a wonder to behold – that is, if you can endure an utterly distressing experience to endure. Eighth Grade’s young heroine, Kayla, navigates the frightening contours of adolescence. During my initial viewing of Eighth Grade, it felt like a slideshow of memories from the most repellent stages of childhood. I only allowed myself to recognize it all at a distance – perhaps a self-induced safety mechanism – as if all of it existed in a half-remembered past. Revisiting the film months later, it felt startlingly indicative of not only my eighth grade year but every year of life. If we cut through the handful of distinct aches of puberty, I’m really not so different now than I was at age thirteen – though Kayla is perhaps a bit less polished. What’s more, Kayla’s anxieties, comforts, and hopes function the same way mine do now. Burham’s film brims with compassion, so it’s easy to see - and feel - that eighth grade wasn’t that long ago. (Watch the trailer.)

8. IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK (Annapurna Pictures)

Fear begets fear... until it eats the soul. Barry Jenkins’ adaptation of James Baldwin’s novel is a exquisite study of how fear - internalized and externalized - leads to systematic racism and discrimination. As Baldwin and Jenkins reveal, the only remedy to combat this fear is love – and there’s so much of it in and around Beale Street. (Perhaps Donnie Darko’s Jim Cunningham and his simplistic binary theory were actually prophetic?) It’s difficult to examine Jenkins’ expertise without acknowledging his stylistic and thematic influences – specifically Wong Kar-wai and his intoxicating visual romanticism and Douglas Sirk and his flair for weepy melodrama. Yet even as glimmers of other great works shine through Beale Street, Jenkins contributes his own unique voice to the pantheon of Cinema. Using Baldwin’s poignant prose as a template, he blends the conventions of great American stage plays with docudrama tenets to craft a vast universe of feeling. Furthermore, If Beale Street Could Talk is evidence that Moonlight certainly wasn’t a fluke. (Watch the trailer.)

9. MARY POPPINS RETURNS (Disney)

It feels inappropriate to include such an imperfect movie among intimidating achievements like Roma and Cold War. Even with all its excessive schmaltz, saccharine sentiment and scenery-chewing cameos, Mary Poppins Returns represents a kind of homage I feared was entirely lost. Not so; I learned nothing’s gone forever, only out of place. Sure, the film’s nostalgic structure (or lack thereof), design, quips and songs are all aggressive imitations of a perfect cinematic and cultural touchstone, but the whole ordeal is just so beautifully flattering it’s impossible not to melt in its warmth. It reverently and earnestly reminds us just how lucky we are to have a classic like Mary Poppins to return to. It sends up and throws back to the pinnacle of the expansive (and now unforgivably carnivorous) Disney kingdom. As demonstrated here, indulging nostalgia from time to time can be quite healthy. Unlike most current family movies that pander to the lowest common denominator, Mary Poppins Returns transcends cynicism, pop iconography, and humor ingrained in the present moment. Although much of the film’s success is due to the collaboration of a surplus of talent, the film belongs to Emily Blunt. She, in fact, IS practically perfect as she evades mimicry and adds nuanced wit and benevolence. (Watch the trailer.)

10. MADELINE’S MADELINE (Oscilloscope Laboratories)

Madeline’s Madeline, an experimental coming-of-age thriller, is a film for those who care deeply about grueling and convoluted “artistic process.” It deftly walks a tight rope between satire and an earnest exploration of psychosis and performance – not unlike Bergman’s Persona or Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. Co-Writer/Director Josephine Decker fashions a platform for the fascinating newcomer Helena Howard; she reveals a rare kind of brashness and vulnerability in the title role. Alongside Howard, Molly Parker and the ever-brilliant Miranda July put their trust in Josephine Decker’s peculiar process. As such, they elevate and legitimize Madeline’s nightmare. There is palpable malice woven through the confounding narrative, though it is impossible to discern its primary source. Thematically, the film picks up the baton where Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York left it, but Decker uses a film language loaded with obtuse codes and metaphors. Aesthetically, the film is something else entirely – more dangerous and anomalous than we’re comfortable seeing. And for that reason, it’s quite difficult to shake. (Watch the trailer.)

Another Praiseworthy 10 (in alphabetical order):

BEN IS BACK

BLACK PANTHER

BLACKkKLANSMAN

BURNING

CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?

THE DEATH OF STALIN

LEAVE NO TRACE

SHOPLIFTERS

SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE

A STAR IS BORN

Best Direction:

1. Alfonso Cuarón for ROMA

2. Paweł Pawlikowski for COLD WAR

3. Lynne Ramsay for YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE

4. Barry Jenkins for IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK

5. Yorgos Lanthimos for THE FAVOURITE

Best Adapted Screenplays:

1. IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK

2. BLACKkKLANSMAN

3. BURNING

4. CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?

5. BLACK PANTHER

Best Original Screenplays:

1. THE FAVOURITE

2. SHOPLIFTERS

3. EIGHTH GRADE

4. THE DEATH OF STALIN

5. EIGHTH GRADE

Best Leading Actors:

1. Bradley Cooper in A STAR IS BORN

2. Ethan Hawke in FIRST REFORMED

3. Joaquin Phoenix in YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE

4. John David Washington in BLACKkKLANSMAN

5. Lucas Hedges in BEN IS BACK

Best Leading Actresses:

1. Toni Collette in HEREDITARY

2. Olivia Coleman in THE FAVOURITE

3. Emily Blunt in MARY POPPINS RETURNS

4. Laura Dern in THE TALE

5. Yalitza Aparicio in ROMA

Best Supporting Actors:

1. Timothee Chalamet in BEAUTIFUL BOY

2. Steven Yeun in BURNING

3. Richard E. Grant in CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?

4. Adam Driver in BLACKkKLANSMAN

5. Josh Hamilton in EIGHTH GRADE

Best Supporting Actresses:

1. Natalie Portman in VOX LUX

2. Emma Stone & Rachel Weisz in THE FAVOURITE

3. Regina King in IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK

4. Amy Adams in VICE

5. Emily Blunt in A QUIET PLACE

Best Cinematography:

1. ROMA

2. COLD WAR

3. IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK

4. AT ETERNITY��S GATE

5. SUSPIRIA

Best Film Editing:

1. SUSPIRIA

2. BLACK PANTHER

3. FIRST MAN

4. ASSASSINATION NATION

5. WIDOWS

Best Sound Design:

1. YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE

2. FIRST MAN

3. A QUIET PLACE

4. ROMA

5. SUSPIRIA

Best Production Design:

1. SUSPIRIA

2. MARY POPPINS RETURNS

3. THE FAVOURITE

4. BLACK PANTHER

5. READY PLAYER ONE

Best Costume Design:

1. MARY POPPINS RETURNS

2. SUSPIRIA

3. THE FAVOURITE

4. BLACK PANTHER

5. IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK

Best Original Scores:

1. Marc Shaiman for MARY POPPINS RETURNS

2. Ludwig Göransson for BLACK PANTHER

3. Alexander Desplat for ISLE OF DOGS

4. Justin Hurwitz for FIRST MAN

5. Nicholas Britell for IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK

Best Original Songs:

1. “The Place Where Lost Things Go” from MARY POPPINS RETURNS

2. “Shallow” from A STAR IS BORN

3. “Suspirium” from SUSPIRIA

4. “All the Stars” from BLACK PANTHER

5. “Treasure” from BEAUTIFUL BOY

Best Animated Features:

1. SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE

2. ISLE OF DOGS

3. THE INCREDIBLES 2

4. MIRAI

5. RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET

Best Acting Ensembles:

1. MARY POPPINS RETURNS

2. SHOPLIFTERS

3. BALCKkKLANSMAN

4. THE DEATH OF STALIN

5. A STAR IS BORN

2018′s Most Important Films:

1. THE TALE

2. SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE

3. BLACK PANTHER

4. INSTANT FAMILY

5. CRAZY RICH ASIANS

To commemorate Ingmar Bergman’s 100th Birthday (and a sold-out Criterion Collection boxset of 39 of his films), let’s recall his greatest works:

1. PERSONA

2. THE SEVENTH SEAL

3. CRIES & WHISPERS

4. WILD STRAWBERRIES

5. SHAME

6. FANNY & ALEXANDER

7. AUTUMN SONATA

8. THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY | WINTER LIGHT | THE SILENCE

9. SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE

10. THE VIRGIN SPRING

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eponymous-rose · 7 years ago

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Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E4 (Feb 6, 2018)

Oh no.

Tonight’s guests are Sam Riegel, Liam O’Brien, and Marisha Ray!

New opening sequence by @wendydoodles! In true episode-50 fashion, they play it twice in a row because it’s so much fun.

Ashley accidentally calls Brian during the show, so he picks up and puts her on speakerphone.

Announcements: issue four of Vox Machina: Origins is out, the podcast will be updated with episode 4 on Thursday, tomorrow at 9:30 Pacific is a new G&S show called Weave Society (a team-up of Mines N Crafts and AXYB).

@critrolestats for episode 4!

Nott has stolen 8 items since the campaign began. Liam adds to the list: “The audience’s heart.”

20% of die rolls in this episode were single-digit even after mods. By comparison, episode 3 was only 17%. By further comparison, C1E114 was only 3.9%. Le-vel two! Le-vel two!

Sam and Liam get kicked out while Brian asks Marisha questions about her solo scene last week. The show briefly turns into Marisha and Brian dissing Sam’s clothes.

Marisha had pretty much decided on the Cobalt Soul route ahead of time, since it was part of her backstory: running away from the Cobalt Reserve monks.

There was some temptation to say no to the offer, especially when the speeches got a bit more flowery. Marisha: “Beau was sitting there like *jerk-off motion*.” It took the punch to really get her attention.

Marisha is a little concerned that the group is starting to view Beau as a liability (in a different way than Keyleth was), but she also points out that pretty much the whole group is a liability right now. She thinks it makes sense for Matt to pull in Beau’s backstory first, just to give her a more profound reason to stick around.

Beau is partly just trying to learn new moves, but she’s also motivated by her new mentor being a “hot elf monk”.

Beau’s "fuck-it” attitude is partly related to some deeper backstory stuff, but also motivated in part by rebellion against her rich dad.

Gif of the week: Matt losing it over Nott’s zero-deception roll.

All Sam and Liam know about Beau’s scene was a muffled yell of “I’M GONNA PUNCH YOUR FACE” and two natural twenties. Liam suspects Matt and Marisha were just paying bills. Marisha: “In our new segment sponsored by H&R Block...”

Sam has been rewearing his shirts in order from the first campaign, but he was absent in episode 5, so now he’s not sure what to do. He likes the idea of going topless, but “we want to retain viewers”. Marisha suggests a chroma key green shirt that can be photoshopped at will.

Sam is impressed that so much of the party managed to buy drugs four episodes in when it took Scanlan so long. Liam: “I guess you’re just bad at Dungeons & Dragons.”

Caleb knew he and Nott would be able to fake their way through the bathhouse with confidence. Sam: “Do you have a wealthy past?” Liam: “No, I’m a mermaid werewolf.”

Sam thinks that Jester’s backstory is that there is no backstory. It’s all just on the surface.

Art of the week: a gorgeous boulder-parchment-shears attack for Beau.

The intense focus on bathing was originally to mess with Laura, but now Liam’s coming up with a justification for it. There is absolutely no salt whatsoever over the cast latching onto the stinky thing to the extent they did. Not even a little bit. Nope.

Nott is not especially enthused about water.

Marisha has had fencing, stage combat, Krav Maga, little bit of taekwondo, boxing, tai chi, bo staff, quarterstaff, European fighting stick. She’s interested in different fighting styles and how they came about.

Liam and Sam share their different stories about how Sam picked goblin rogue. Sam: “I feel like we’re in a fight.” Liam: “All I hear is aerators.”

Caleb saved Nott’s life in the prison they escaped from; Sam emphasizes that Nott is extremely concerned about his well-being. “She’s seen him almost die a bunch. He is dainty.”

Liam and Matt have talked about specific spells Caleb’s interested in, including a tiny bit of homebrew. Sam asks if the new spells he learned are a part of what he’s been working towards. Liam, avoiding the question entirely: “Hmm. Interesting.”

Caleb and Nott have been "getting fucked up running shitty little cons for a while now.” Caleb’s been wanting to find people who were level-headed and could help out, and so, failing that, he gravitated towards Fjord as someone who at least seems a bit more rational (”I know he’s an asshole too”). He’s also excited to get a chance to riff off Travis more often in this campaign. The words “actor boner” come up and are inevitably mined for high comedy.

Sam mentions that we’ve seen a bit of Nott’s personality quirks that made her an outcast from her particularly bloodthirsty clan of goblins, but any further details of her backstory will play out in the game.

Sam reveals that Nott has been gifted flowers in the past. Brian: “What was her reaction?” Sam: “She ate them.”

Talks Machina Popcorns Machina on Alpha:

Everything is temporarily derailed when Marisha swats a fly into her drink.

There is already half-werewolf half-mermaid art of Caleb from earlier in the show.

Items from the last campaign they wish they had? Liam wants the Displacement Cloak. Sam wants the Tome of Leadership so Nott can get some charisma (it would put her all the way up to 7). Marisha points out that Keyleth was going to use it after a hundred years, so Liam starts plotting a heist... where they’ll have to wait 80 years after stealing it to use it. Sam: “Oh wait, goblins only live 45 years.” Marisha wants an Immovable Rod. Sam wants a Bag of Holding. Marisha wants the healing potions she didn’t use last time.

Marisha on the women in the party having the highest strength scores: “It’s dope as fuck.”

Bad travel habits: Caleb will want to go to bookstores constantly. Everyone agrees that Jester’s the kind of person who’ll want to stop every time she sees anything remotely interesting.

Sam and Liam are both having a really hard time picking their options for level 3. Marisha’s a little more laid-back: “Combat class!” She already knows what she’s doing.

Things, as they do, get a little out of hand when Sam suggests a key party. Liam gets up and leaves the studio. Sam: “You said we could make a snuff film!” Brian, talking over the Geek and Sundry logo at the end: “PLEASE END IT.” It’s about par for the course, really.

#critical role #critical role spoilers #talks machina #talks machina spoilers #long text post

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feynites · 6 years ago

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I got more Banana Bachelor AU done! ^-^ Tagging @lycheemilkart, Serahlin of course belongs to @scurvgirl

When Magister Danarius turns up dead the day before Vena’s date with Ana, he honestly doesn’t think much about it.

It’s kind of surprising, in that weird way that always seems to happen when a person you saw alive quite recently is suddenly no longer breathing. But Danarius seemed like the kind of guy who a lot of people would wish death on, and the news feed all reports his cause of death as a heart attack. The cumulative result of too much excess and decadence in life, or a little too much questionable blood magic, maybe.

Vena spares a moment to muse that a lot of people’s wishes probably came true, and then moves on. Danarius wasn’t even a client, just a business associate of some of Sylaise’s family. There’s a little gossip about it. Mostly people speculating on who will replace him in the Magisterium or inherit his fortune, since he had no heirs to speak of.

Vena knows the legalities and the social elements well enough to make an educated guess, which is that one of the other houses will claim Danarius’ seat - probably House Carius, they’ve been up-and-coming for a while and their matriarch has good PR - and his wealth will go to his Helvadus cousins. Not because they have the best claim, but because they have the best lawyers.

It’s not really a big deal, though. And most of the gossip around the water coolers is actually focused on the bachelor auction, and the results of everyone’s dates. Who tried to bid on who, and who’s already gone on their dates, and who hasn’t. Tasallir makes some apologies to Serahlin and Vena but they both just counter by thanking him, and waving off his concern. He and Serahling reschedule their intended outing. Vena’s not completely sure, because she tends to play that kind of stuff close to the chest. But when the subject of her smitten jeweler comes up, Serahlin’s cheeks seem to get a little pinker.

Vena just hopes he’s nice. Her last boyfriend was a real piece of work.

Thenvunin goes on his date and regales everyone about it like it was the plot of some kind of romance novel. But not in the ‘oh it was so magical’ kind of a way, more in the ‘ah we’re at the stage where the prospective couple hates one another but can’t shut up about it’ way. A lot of people wonder about the mystery woman who out-bid one of the boss’ brothers for the other. That makes Vena popular because, of course, she bid on him too, and he sat at their table for a significant portion of the evening.

But he doesn’t really have a lot of answers. And most people seem more taken with making pointedly-not-pointed speculations about Falon’Din. Mainly, whether or not they’re going to have to deal with him as a client again soon, because the man is notorious for pitching fits whenever things don’t go his way.

And that usually means property damage. Or assault.

Vena just hopes that whoever ends up having to deal with him remembers to wear a knife-proof vest. He still gets twinges in his left shoulder sometimes.

His own date seems to just inch closer, taking longer than he might have guessed it would. He finds his thoughts drifting towards Ana, ‘Dalish Ana’, and her freckles and red hair. He googles her, because of course he does. But he doesn’t get a lot of results. There’s an etsy shop that sells foraged crafts and bath products and stuff, but he’s not even sure if it’s the same person. There aren’t any photos of her. No instagram or twitter that he can find, either, but then it’s not like he has comprehensive information or anything.

He tries her friend, Selene, but there’s even less stuff to be found there.

In the days leading up their date, Vena considers texting her or calling her. Wondering about the protocols on that. Everything’s set up and they seem to have exchanged all the info they need. But, he’s never really been one for the ‘wait to call’ rule.

He needs an opener, though.

Two days after their first meeting, he just goes for it.

What do you get when you drop a piano down a mine shaft? He texts.

There’s a brief delay.

A flat minor? she sends back, to his absolute delight.

Yes!!! Excellent!

A happy face follows.

I have been trying to think of a better name for your in my contacts, he admits.

Oh? she replies. Are you fishing for my last name?

No, he assures her. I never use last names. I like nicknames.

Some people call me Red, she tells him.

Do you like it?

She sends him a shrug. Hmm. Not a solid positive, then.

Clearly you need something more fun and breezy, he decides. Ana-panda? Mana-fana? Ana-fana-bo-bana?

He peppers his suggestions with a few thoughtful-face emojis. Ana sends him back a skeptical one, but it feels like it has good energy. Fun skeptical, somehow.

Banana? she tosses in.

Vena’s grin widens.

Well if you insist!

He means it as a joke, reflexively. But it’s… kind of cute. As they carry on exchanging quips and texts, it sticks in his head. By the time they manage to say goodbye, he’s successfully found a very cute-looking banana picture. It even has freckles. He changes Ana’s contact details in his phone from ‘Dalish Ana’ to ‘Ana-Banana’, and tosses on the image.

Perfect.

Vena looks up from his phone just in time to walk smack into his own office door.

…Alright, maybe he shouldn’t text her while he’s walking. Thenvunin from Reception lets out a snort of surprised amusement. Through the glass window of his office, Tasallir gives Vena is very best, patented ‘how did this moron graduate from law school’ look. Vena clears his throat, and tries to play it off as he opens his door.

“Are you alright, Vena?” Serahlin asks, as she passes through the hall.

“Fine!” he assures her. “Just distracted. Who closed my door?”

She blinks at him.

“You did.”

Vena fires off a finger gun at her.

“Right,” he replies. “Yup. That was… I remember now. Great, thanks Serahlin. Are you still handling the Howe case?”

“Oh, yes. My client is going to get full custody and one hell of a settlement from her husband. I hope Rendon Howe enjoys sleeping on park benches,” she says, and the deflection works pretty well. Vena had heard as much, and Serahlin always takes a special satisfaction in stringing up adulterers and draining them for every last penny. With another finger gun Vena backs into his office, dignity somewhat salvaged.

“Brilliant, I’m glad to hear hit,” he says.

His phone chimes again, and he lifts it up, grinning. But it’s just his work e-mail alert going off. With a sigh, he pockets his phone again, and gets his head back in the work game.

…Banana, though.

That’s so cute.

When the date finally rolls around, Vena is entirely ready for it.

He wears his favourite tasteful blue swim shorts, underneath a pair of his nicer cargo shorts. A light jacket, just in case the sea winds get cold, and a loose, faded t-shirt with ‘100% Boyfriend Material’ written on it in faded lettering. Tasallir sees him on his way out, and gives him an unimpressed once-over.

“You are an idiot,” he says.

Vena winks.

“Don’t stay up worrying, honey,” he counters, with a pat to his roommate slash coworker slash arch enemy’s arm.

“Take your rape whistle,” Tasallir instructs, sniffing disdainfully at that remark. He reaches up to straighten out his sleeve. Which isn’t even really wrinkled at all, but it probably is by Tasallir Standards.

Vena snorts, and backs his way down the hall.

“Taz, she’s like two feet tall and sweet as a button, I think I’ll be fine.”

“That is the kind of stereotyping that ends with people being murdered on beaches,” Tasallir informs him. “She could have cohorts. Or a weapon. Make sure you keep emergency services on speed dial, it is first date protocol.”

“This is worrying, by the way, this is exactly what I’m telling you not to do,” Vena points out, jogging backwards to the elevator.

“Look where you are going, you idiot,” Tasallir counters.

“Love you bunches!” Vena jokes, before blowing a kiss, and then finally turning around to hit the call button. The elevator doors open straight away, and he happily makes his way down to the lobby. Carefully balancing a bag full of beach supplies, and double-checking his phone and wallet in his pockets. He fishes his favourite pair of sunglasses out of the bag’s pocket, and slides them on as he nods to the doorman and makes his way out to the street and down towards the parking garage.

He’d offered to pick up Ana, but she assured him she had a ride. Probably smart, Vena will concede - joking aside it really is their first date, and if she came with him then she’d have to go back with him, even if she didn’t want to.

Of course, Vena has zero intention of making her not want to. He’s almost forgotten that this date is a result of a weird bachelor auction bidding type situation. They’ve texted one another a few times now. Mainly just corny jokes and puns, but he’s not complaining. Even so, it’s not like Ana knows a lot about him. What if he was a mass murderer or something? That would suck.

So he gets his car alone, and turns up the radio. Listening to one of the local stations as he devotes the first thirty minutes of his commute to just getting out of the city traffic, before finally hitting less cluttered roads, and driving his way out of Arlathan.

It always feels so good to do that.

The beach isn’t exactly quiet, but it’s not being mobbed either. Vena finds a parking spot and then has to walk a fair bit to reach the meeting point. He runs a bit behind, luck of the commute, but when he gets to the little beach side grill he immediately spots his date waiting for him at the front.

Ana’s wearing a red bikini top with a sunflower pin on it, and a loose green jacket that makes her eyes pop. There’s a dark lipstick on her mouth, and a leaf-shaped charm necklace held by soft cord around her neck. Her freckles are all on full display - well, as much as they could be without that nude beach situation they’d tossed around - and her hair nearly looks blonde in the bright sunlight.

At least until she turns her head, and the red hits him when she moves. She beams when she sees him.

“Hey, Bachelor Number Nine,” she quips, bouncing a bit on the balls of her feet.

Vena grins and does a mock stroll down an invisible runway, turning at the end when he gets to her. He feels light and playful, even if his heart is beating decidedly faster. He loves this feeling, he thinks. The cusp of something good and new, maybe even amazing. But still tentative, too. It’s a lot like the feeling he gets when he drives out of the city.

“Hey Ana-bo-bana,” he replies. The pockets of her jacket look full, he notes. Something like a leafy twig seems to be poking out of one of the bottom ones, and she’s got a flower in her hands that she’s fiddling with. As he draws level with her, she grins and reaches up to slip it over one of his ears.

“This grill smells good, and the beach is pretty,” she tells him. “What’s first on the itinerary?”

Vena moves the flower a little more securely behind his ear, and offers her his arm.

“Lunch, if you like?” he suggests.

Ana takes his elbow.

“Oh, good. I was hoping you’d say that,” she agrees. “Work was absolutely killer this morning, and I’m famished.”

She grins. Vena’s not entirely sure he’s caught the joke, but after a moment, he decides it’s not the end of the world.

He grins back.

#banana #bachelor auction au #selene at some point probably: ana pls stop making murder puns it's a security risk #ana: but that was a golden opportunity

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mcneelamusic · 4 years ago

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My Favourite Musical Gift Ideas for Christmas 2020

Now more than ever, the world needs music. Music has been scientifically proven to have a profoundly positive effect on your mental health.

Learning and playing music is also the ultimate brain train game and keeps the brain healthy and active and can even reverse decline.

I started selling bodhráns over 41 years ago. Since then McNeela Music has grown to include concertinas, flutes, whistles, fiddles, banjos, accordions and so much more.

Giving the gift of music is one of the greatest things you can do. So to help you choose the perfect traditional Irish musical gift I’ve compiled my list of top gifts for Christmas 2020.

You’ll find musical stocking fillers and Secret Santa ideas to beautifully crafted Irish instruments and that something extra special for the person who already has it all.

If you don’t see what you’re looking for get in touch and I’ll do my best to help.

– Paraic

Contents

Musical Stocking Fillers

Secret Santa Around €50

Gifts For Children

Irish Music Gifts for Under the Tree

Money No Object

Books & CDs

Under €100 ($)

Under €250 ($$)

Under €500 ($$$)

Under €1,000 ($$$$)

Under €2,000 ($$$$$)

Musical Stocking Fillers

Clarke Celtic Whistle

– The original penny whistle is a perennial favourite. This dark green Celtic whistle is the perfect musical Christmas gift for all ages and abilities, and is very pocket friendly too!

Robot Instrument Stand

– A colourful way to display your instruments and keep them within easy reach. This is a nifty fold away instrument stand and will hold a whole host of string instruments.

Metal Cheating Spoons

– For the percussionist in your life who wants to try out the spoons these cheating spoons make it easy to get started.

Flute Maintenance Kit

– A best-seller, we sell at least one practically every day, being a flute player myself I find that this is an invaluable kit designed to keep your wooden flute in tip-top condition.

Selection of Bodhrán Beaters

Bodhrán players are constantly trying out new beaters and tippers and will always welcome new additions to their collection. Take a look at my selection, all at stocking (!) friendly prices. I recommend the Fiddle Bow Beater and the Brush Beater if you’re stuck for ideas.

Shaskeen Live and kicking Double CD

– I’d recommend this for all lovers of traditional Irish music and the céilí band style and makes a great gift for the Irish music lover in your life

The McNeela Musical T-Shirt

Everyone who wears this comes back raving about the quality of the material and the comfortable fit. It also gets great feedback at sessions. Better still, it has been screen printed using cutting edge water based inks by local Dublin lads. Oh and the answer is on the back!

Drum Diddly Bodhrán Cream

This is my best-selling premium bodhrán conditioning cream, so good you can use it on your own hands, because you’re worth it! It also resurrects the goatskin to a startling degree and really enhances the tone. Sixty 5-star reviews can’t be wrong!

Quick Draw Capo

-My best-selling Capo, slide it on and never take it off. Perfect for nearly all stringed instruments.

Bodhrán Mic – This five-star rated bodhrán mic has astounded bodhrán players thanks to its ability to capture that beautiful bass tone plus the price ain’t bad at all!

The McNeela Violin Shoulder Rest

Designed to fit 3/4 and full size violins this beautifully crafted fully adjustable professional maple wood shoulder rest boasts an excellent fit, high comfort value and a professional finish plus it fits neatly into a Christmas stocking!

The FZONE Chromatic Violin Clip-On Tuner

-I use tuners all the time and this one is a top seller garnering great reviews plus it’s handy. Just attach it to the violin neck and tune up.

Premium Carbon Fibre Violin Bow – my coffee brown violin bow with snakewood frog weighs only 65 grams and gets a gorgeous rich tone from the strings.

Secret Santa Around €50

Gallon Cross Bodhrán Set – This beautiful screen printed 12″ bodhrán not only looks great but comes with a beater and an instruction DVD by yours truly. This is a perfect Celtic music Christmas gift for the percussionist in your life.

Lee Oskar Harmonica – You can’t go wrong with a Lee Oskar Harmonica. Suitable for playing Blues, Rock, Country, Folk and Jazz.

Books & CDs

Feadóg Tin Whistle Set – Tom Maguire’s classic method has inspired and introduced countless players to the joys of the tin whistle and this set contains everything you need in one with a tin whistle and demonstration CD.

The Irish Flute by Fintan Vallely – I still consult my Vallely Irish flute book for everything from practice tips to flute maintenance, very comprehensive and full of interesting information all presented in Vallely’s unique style.

Foinn Seisiún

The Foinn Seisiún Series starts with the Foinn Seisiún 1 book and is a library essential for those of you interested in getting to grips with Irish session tune sets. You can also buy the accompanying CD to play along with, magic.

Feochán CD by Robert Harvey – 7 time All-Ireland champion, Robert Harvey, was in with us recently playing some McNeela flutes and whistles. His playing astounded me. His acclaimed debut album would be a great Christmas gift for whistle and flute lovers or anyone who appreciates great traditional Irish music.

Extreme TGI Banjo Gig Bag – TGI make very smart instrument cases and their Extreme range is a particular favourite. Get it for the tenor banjo player in your life. It also fits a mandola.

Irish Flute Box – Another best-selling item and one of my top selling cases. It’s foam-lined, shock-proof and has a section for whistles. This is a must-have for the flute player in your life.

Gifts For Children

McNeela 14 inch Bodhrán – this bodhrán is a perfect size for ages 7 and up, it has all the features of a professional bodhrán, including the rich & warm McNeela signature bass, but in a child-friendly size

The Wren Concertina – This beginner concertina has been a best-seller of mine for years with good reason; it’s a great child-friendly size, it features large white buttons for easy finger placement, a clean bright sound and it comes with free beginner lessons with Caitlín Nic Gabhann.

Easy String Violin – My Easy String violin range is perfect for young delicate fingers. It takes the pain out of practicing and helps them get their note placement faster and more comfortably. The price cannot be beaten!

Cygnet Rosewood Wooden Flute – the Cygnet is specially designed for beginners both young and older. I’ve made the embouchure easier to fill and the flute itself is lightweight for a wooden flute. Not only that but it produces a beautiful soft tone, enough to get them hooked on the Irish flute style.

Tony Dixon Practice Flute – for the very young player this lightweight polymer practice flute will be a great entry to Irish flute playing and it’s at a nice learner level price too.

Irish Music Gifts for Under the Tree

Under €100 ($)

Premium bodhrán Gig Bag – we designed this bag to be sturdy yet lightweight and with plenty of cushioning for your bodhrán. I also added a handy beater pocket at the front plus rubber floor protectors. It looks fantastic in striking black and carmine and Celtic forest green colourways.

14” Non-Tunable bodhrán

– one of my best sellers, this comes with taped goatskin to get that signature luscious bass sound. A joy to play it’s perfect for young or petite players and a great travel size too.

Susato Penny Whistle

This is a top choice for many an established whistle player in Ireland. No one could believe the tone they could get from a ‘plastic’ whistle! It’s a great Christmas gift for the tin whistle or flute player in your life.

Bodhrán Beater Set 2020 Edition You will never go wrong giving a bodhrán player more beaters! Firstly, we’re always losing them and secondly we love to try out new styles. This set has it all.

Under €250 ($$)

Duo-Head Low D Flute & Whistle (TB022) by Tony Dixon – An excellent low D whistle and flute combo by Tony, you get two great instruments for the price of one with its dual-head accessory. It’s great for learners.

Setanta Low Whistle in D – John O’Brien has made the Setanta Low Whistle even more perfect. I’d even go so far as to say it is unmatched. This is a serious whistle, grab one before they sell out (again!).

The Setanta Low Whistles are also available in a Full Set of E, Eb & D

14″ Tuneable Bodhrán – this perfect travel size bodhrán comes with tuners so you never have to leave your perch at the session! It’s a great Christmas gift for a young beginner or for someone who wants to add to their bodhrán collection.

The Koda Mandolin – if they can play the violin, they can play the mandolin, the fingering’s the same. This vintage style mandolin by well known makers, Koda, will look great under the tree too!

Under €500 ($$$)

Wren 2 Concertina

This magical music machine is my best-selling concertina and just perfect for the beginner concertina player. I upgraded it in 2020 and it is even better than ever. The reviews are consistently excellent and it’s a lovely gift for any aspiring musician, plus you get superb online video beginner lessons absolutely free when you buy.

The Lon Dubh Delrin Irish Flute – it sounds so good, no one will know it’s not wood! I recommend this gorgeous flute for players in very hot, dry or cold climates. It is virtually maintenance free and it will never crack. It’s fast becoming a favourite here at McNeela Music.

Rosewood Performance Deep Rim 15” Tunable Bodhrán

I think the addition of tuners to bodhráns was a major leap forward for this great Irish drum; hand tuners are very convenient for uninterrupted playing all night long.

The deep Rosewood rim adds a beautiful aesthetic, this is one you’ll want to hang on your wall when you’re not obsessively playing it!

Oh, and how can I forget you also receive a comprehensive online introduction and beginner lesson to the bodhrán by yours truly – free with all purchases of McNeela tuneable bodhráns PLUS 8 bonus bodhrán lessons with bodhrán playing legend, Rónán Ó Snodaigh.

The Wave Bodhrán Set – One player has described receiving his Wave bodhrán as ‘a religious experience’! For the bodhrán player that has it all, this will seriously impress them.

The set includes everything an experienced player needs including a selection of advanced beaters, a premium travel bag plus full access to Rónán Ó Snodaigh’s complete Beginner to Master Bodhrán Course.

Under €1,000 ($$$$)

Arie de Keyser Keyless Flute

I currently have a small number of these stunning African Blackwood flutes ready to ship. Arie is famous for crafting beautiful wooden flutes for the traditional Irish market. His African Blackwood Irish flute would be a market leader. Hurry, if you want one as stock is very limited.

McNeela African Blackwood Flute – I’m very proud of this flute as it represents a culmination of many years of playing and research. It’s a powerful instrument thanks to the density of the blackwood, I’ve ensured that the low D is strong, and the sound has just the right amount of chiff for a great Irish trad sound

Swan Premium Beginner Concertina

– this is not just a very good looking concertina. Its looks showcase a superb instrument featuring terrific action, a great sound and sublime ease of play.

Perfect for beginners and improvers who want something a little more premium from their concertina; it’s also a favourite with pros. Plus it comes with free online lessons by Caitlín Nic Gabhann exclusive to McNeela Instruments!

Maestro Violin – this is one of those gems that no one can believe costs less than a €1,000. It produces a heavenly sound and is just made for traditional and folk music the world over. Listen to Liam O’Connor play it if you don’t believe me.

McNeela Keyed Delrin Flute – You won’t find such a superb keyed flute for a lower price anywhere. It’s crafted from low-maintenance hardwearing Delrin yet produces a gorgeous woody tone and is great for playing traditional and folk tunes both solo or in a group.

Under €2,000 ($$$$$)

Phoenix Concertina

– my best selling intermediate concertina is a game changer for the market. Superb sound, fast riveted action, ease of play second to none and the finish is a study in subtle elegance, you may never need another concertina.

Sam Murray Keyless Blackwood Flute – Sam Murray is one of Ireland’s greatest flute makers. I currently have two of these sought after flutes ready to ship now. So beat the queue and get your hands on the Rolls Royce of Irish flutes.

McNeela 3 Voice Premium B/C Accordion – Stun them with a gift of this premium 3 voice concertina featuring Czech made ‘tipo a mano’ reeds for a powerful accordion tone. It sounds as good as it looks and comes with a hard case and sturdy shoulder straps for a limited time only.

Sam Murray Keyed Blackwood Flute – Sam’s list of admirers is endless and includes myself so I’m deeply honoured to be an exclusive stockist of Sam’s work – his keyed African blackwood is a superstar among Irish flutes, there aren’t enough superlatives really.

Money No Object

For the man, woman or child who already has everything, we have some very special antique concertinas. Each one is unique, displaying the ultimate in craftsmanship and musicality and most importantly has been hand selected with superb playability in mind and that inimitable quality of vintage warmth and all the stories the instrument has to tell.

This Wheatstone Linota Concertina is a rare specimen and a really special ‘find’ for the concertina lover in your life. Feel free to call me about this if you wish to discuss shipping etc.

I can’t think of a more special way to wish someone all the joys of the Christmas season. This is truly a gift for life.

Choose from antique Jeffries, Wheatstone & Lachenal concertinas and vintage violins bows.

Please get in touch with me for any extra details you may require and to experience the legendary 5-star McNeela customer service.

Contact: [email protected] or call me on +353 1 8322432

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bowithoutadaemon · 4 months ago

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I built a thing in the End dimension.

This black/purple square is where you spawn each time. Built a solid bridge and staircase to the End island, with some decorative pattern on the floor and lanterns to keep it all nice and bright. Only thing the dragon could break are those lanterns.

If you turn around there is a different way somewhere else.

A much longer bridge/hallway, with bigger/longer window gaps and some Chorus growing on top the walls in some places.

Wrote myself signs with the step by step instructions on how to dupe stuff there, because I will forget. I might have gone slightly overboard with the amount of storage chests though.

#Bo plays the game with mining and crafting #I mostly just built this because I got frustrated with building my base. Something looks weird with the shape but I can't figure it out #at first I procrastinated the roof/building shape by digging a cellar instead but I kept falling into caverns below and dying #and then I went to the Nether and kept dying there too but now with more fire/lava involved #All that dying is honestly some sort of feat because remember I play on peaceful with nothing in the world trying to kill me #So now I am in the End and only dying intentionally by yeeting myself into the void when setting up what items to dupe #And also this is really motivating myself to get ALL the blocks so that eventually I can have a storage room with ALL the things #One shulker with full stacks of ALL the things to be exact xD

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heath64mcwilliams · 5 years ago

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Where In Sweden Was Minecraft Made

Because Sony won't permit Bedrock. There have been nice opinions for this program on the Sony. There may be a method, and one way only. If add this /trading hall doesn't have a librarian, make one by inserting a mattress and a lectern! There are members of the Minecraft participant base that make maps and worlds for others to obtain and take pleasure in, resembling puzzle maps, survival maps and adventures. As long as you know what games they prefer, likelihood is you could find something for them to take pleasure in, be it conquering monsters, growing crops, raising animals or fortifying villages. This one's fairly cool if you don't like desert villages. While Minecraft the game is within the constructing itself, it's probably not making a level, is that more like yours? How a lot space does a minecraft texture pack take up on mac? Show them some videos or some situations in your personal world that may attraction to them, or some mods and texture packs.

The default Minecraft texture pack generally is a bit bland, but you do not have to use it; there are lots of web sites where you possibly can download neater, scarier or fantasy-like textures to make use of as an alternative. You possibly can explore the Minecraft world alone or construct your personal house at the design you want. Stop the Planet, I Want to Get Off! A true early-part indie recreation, Stop the Planet is an adventure RPG which is using Kickstarter to fund the remainder of its development. How do you download minecraft adventure maps on you MacBook Pro? The other modes are self-explanatory, but are outlined intimately at Minecraft Wiki. There are four switchable recreation difficulties in the options - easy, regular, laborious and peaceful. There are minecraft advice of mods that you should utilize to reinforce your gaming experience. The graphics are blocky, for one thing, and the premise of the game isn't attractive to everyone; mining for iron, gold and diamonds isn't on everybody's gaming record.

This is probably my second favourite truthfully, it is a one tree island survival map with just a few mushroom islands nearby for food. The perfect option to be taught to play Minecraft Survival island is by taking part in the tutorial. Hope your staying with me, there's one more Minecraft village seed under this one. While the lack of improvement does imply you won't be seeing too many new options Epic Inventor has all the core options you want for an pleasing experience and one I nonetheless play every so often. In case you'd the world of Minecraft seems to be lacking something, a few mods may be what you want. They use their creativity to change the Minecraft world into one thing they wish to see. Do you wish to unleash your creativity? If you are not concerned with killing zombies and skeletons in any respect, you never have to depart peaceful mode; if you want more of a problem, nonetheless, simple, regular or exhausting difficulty could keep the sport thrilling. Whether it's growing crops, looting zombies or building a city, anybody can take pleasure in Minecraft. Where can you buy the zombies maps pack name of responsibility BO 1? They are based mostly off of the call of Duty MW2 maps.

What is the zombie map after name of the useless? First, you go to a web site to download a map from. Once you spawn into a random world, chances are you'll come across a cave system first, a village first, or just a forest in the middle of nowhere. 256 MB and 512MB of ram on any system. I know from private experience that Minecraft might not appear enjoyable or fashionable compared to the first-person shooter or function-taking part in video games out right now. How do you get minecraft for home windows 7? This particular person will get into your account and download mine craft free. How you Get Free Full Version Of Minecraft? So, I went onto my 360 and opened minecraft to start saving the maps to the cloud. When do customized maps for minecraft come out on xbox? How do you download a adventure map in Minecraft? How do you add an adventure map to your minecraft file? Mods can add extra materials into the sport, like magic wands and an limitless provide of items to build with, to name just a few. Some mods introduce more creatures, gadgets or weapons.

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ericpoptone · 6 years ago

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Last Sunday, the Super Bowl took place. For the 98.7% of the world’s population who didn’t watch this televised spectacle; it featured billionaire Enos Stanley Kroenke‘s Rams in competition with billionaire Robert Kraft’s Patriots; the musical stylings of the Empress of Soul (Gladys Knight), Proactiv’s Maroon 5, Kardashian rapper Travis Scott, and Big Boi; as well as no doubt hilarious advertisements for products sold by Amazon, Anheuser-Busch, CBS, Mars, Microsoft, and Walt Disney.

Despite the fact that most Americans don’t watch the soporific Super Bowl — an estimated 70% of the country did not tune in for any part of the roughly nine-hour long spectacle during which time the ball was actually in play for only about twelve minutes — Super Bowl Sunday has emerged, in recent years, into what some trade publications appetizingly describe it as the “second largest food consumption event of the year” after Thanksgiving. It all seems a bit Ancient Rome to me — and as someone who loves holidays feasts (especially pagan ones), I decided last December to host a Super Bowl party without any Super Bowl — something I call “Thanksgiving II.”

One of the things I love about Thanksgiving [I] is its pronounced autumnal character (autumn is one of my top four favorite seasons). On Thanksgiving, even people who think that “seasonal eating” means Shamrock Shakes in spring and Pumpkin Spice Lattes in fall get closer to the actual spirit. Apples, baked winter squash, beans and rice, Beaujolais Nouveau, boiled onions, Brussels sprouts, cider, collard greens, cornbread, cranberry sauce, fruit cake, grapes, hickory nut cake, lasagna, mashed potatoes and gravy, parsnip fritters, pecan pie, pickles, potato salad, pumpkin pie, sauerkraut, stuffing, and sweet potatoes all make sense to eat at autumn’s conclusion.

Thanksgiving II — which falls on the first Sunday of February, takes place near the end of winter — about halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox and toward the end of winter by meteorological reckoning. It occurs, in other words, around the same time as Imbolc, Candlemas (and thus, Groundhog Day), Setsubun, Lunar New Year, and of course, Lupercalia. It also thus marks the beginning of several vegetables’ “spring seasons.” Carrots are back, as is celery, which is handy because both are commonly eaten at Super Bowl Party’s dipped in Blue cheese dressing. Small, sweet, turnips also appear around this time, and I mixed them with potatoes to make a sort of mashed “neeps and tatties.” Having more potatoes than I could handle, I also roasted some with garlic and rosemary from the garden. I also cooked collard greens — now at the peak of their season — which I would’ve mixed with turnip greens but they’d already been removed by the time they made it to the market.

The roots of Thanksgiving II are in an annual American football competition, first held in 1967. It seems, from pictures, that straw boaters were once typically worn for such events — although I’m not sure why and sadly that practice seems to have faded long ago and the favored headgear of today’s jocks — regardless of sport — is the lowly baseball cap, usually unflatteringly worn backward.

Interestingly, whereas the first Thanksgiving was observed by the Wampanoag and the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony, the first Super Bowl paired the team of Greenbay, Wisconsin‘s Indian Packing Company with the Chiefs team of Kansas City, Missouri — two teams at least nominally connected to Native America. The annual match used to take place in January but was moved to February in 2002, following a postponement of the season on account of the terror attacks of 11 September, which took place the previous year.

This being my first Thanksgiving II, it was a bit of a learning experience…

I had decided that I would bake the pizzas at 3:30, when the actual football game begins. This was another mistake, because due to the large number of guests and the potluck nature of the buffet, there was also a massive quantity of non-pizza foods including salad, seitan jerky, grapes, pies (pecan and pumpkin), pigs-in-a-blanket, veggie chicken, as well as cheese and crackers. The vegan neighbor brought a jug of kombucha as well as a dish made of broccoli and kinwa. Because of the pre-pizza feast, by kick-off, everyone was too full to eat any more and the pizzas were thus never baked. Next year I will serve the traditional pizzas alongside the sides, pass-arounds, and hors d’oeuvres.

After pizza, the second-most traditional food at Super Bowl parties is the Buffalo wing — a food made of a section of a chicken’s wing which is deep-fried and subsequently coated or dipped in a sauce composed of a vinegar-based cayenne pepper sauce and melted butter. It was invented at Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York by Teressa Bellissimo. Although invented in 1964, I don’t remember ever hearing of them until sometime around the early ’00s, perhaps after the 2003-founding of WingStreet and incidentally, around the time cauliflower wings began to appear on the menus of sports bars I occasionally found myself dragged to. Because wings are apparently so important (and I am vegetarian), I had planned to buy mock chicken at Silom in Thai Town by one guest made cauliflower wings from a questionable recipe (it called for breading). I’m still not entirely clear about “dipping sauces,” although a co-worker endeavored to explain them to me. Is a dipping sauce distinct from a condiment? Do people make their own or buy them? Where those sauces developed on Breaking Bad for Pollos Hermanos (e.g. “Kick-ass Cajun, “Franch,” and “Honey mustard”)? Still not sure, I put out bottles of brown sauce, dumpling sauce, gogigui sauce, hoisin sauce, lechon sauce, salsa picante, and sriracha.

Chips, both potato and corn varieties, are traditional fare for Super Bowl parties — as are their associated dips and sauces such guacamole, pico de gallo, and “queso.” I first experienced “queso” a few years ago and at first, wondered why these Anglx friends of mine kept consistently (and I assumed, pretentiously) referring to cheese by its Spanish name. I soon learned that, in the Tex-Mex vernacular, not only does “queso” not refer to cheese — it doesn’t even refer to a dish made with cheese at all. Instead it refers to a corn chip dip made of “pasteurized processed cheese food product” (e.g. cheese-adjacent Velveeta®) and Ro-Tel® brand canned tomato and chili mix. In other words, it’s a bit like the Thanksgiving II equivalent of Campbell’s® green bean casserole — a corporate creation which despite its corporate origins is nevertheless pretty tasty. I put in a request from my friends who introduced me to the concoction but they instead brought a bag of pita bread.

Pretzels, popcorn, and nuts are also popular — the sort of salty snacks typically associated with dive bars and mass-produced and watery lagers. On this day, Americans consume around 424 million liters of beer and 94% of it is a macrobrew produced by either Anheuser-Busch or MillerCoors. As a wine drinker and this being winter, I was leaning toward full-bodied reds like Bordeaux blends, Cabernet Sauvignons, Malbecs, Syrahs, and Zinfandels. Had I gone white, I’d have chosen an oaked Chardonnay. It was pretty chilly out, in fact, and rain was pouring down. I thus entertained the notion of mulling the wine… but I’m glad that I didn’t. After trying to pace myself with red wine for nine hours, I learned just why people drinking for the long-haul favor lager.

So next year, I’ll bake the pizzas at the beginning, make sure queso is accounted for, buy lots of lager, and maybe start a bit later in the afternoon. Oh, and should you celebrate your own Thanksgiving II, the most important thing is to have fun… well that and to not watch the Super Bowl!

Eric Brightwell is an adventurer, writer, rambler, explorer, cartographer, and guerrilla gardener who is always seeking paid writing, speaking, traveling, and art opportunities. He is not interested in generating advertorials, cranking out clickbait, or laboring away in a listicle mill “for exposure.”

Brightwell has written for Angels Walk LA, Amoeblog, Boom: A Journal of California, diaCRITICS, Hidden Los Angeles, and KCET Departures. His art has been featured by the American Institute of Architects, the Architecture & Design Museum, the Craft & Folk Art Museum, Form Follows Function, Los Angeles County Store, the book Sidewalking, Skid Row Housing Trust, and 1650 Gallery. Brightwell has been featured as subject in The Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Magazine, LAist, CurbedLA, Eastsider LA, Boing Boing, Los Angeles, I’m Yours, and on Notebook on Cities and Culture. He has been a guest speaker on KCRW‘s Which Way, LA?, at Emerson College, and the University of Southern California. Art prints of Brightwell’s maps are available from 1650 Gallery.

Brightwell is currently writing a book about Los Angeles and you can follow him on Ameba, Facebook, Goodreads, Instagram, Mubi, and Twitter.

Click here to offer financial support and thank you!

Thanksgiving II; or, a Super Bowl Party for people who hate the Super Bowl Last Sunday, the Super Bowl took place. For the 98.7% of the world's population who didn't watch this televised spectacle; it featured billionaire Enos Stanley Kroenke's Rams in competition with billionaire Robert Kraft's Patriots; the musical stylings of the Empress of Soul (Gladys Knight), Proactiv's Maroon 5, Kardashian rapper Travis Scott, and Big Boi; as well as no doubt hilarious advertisements for products sold by Amazon, Anheuser-Busch, CBS, Mars, Microsoft, and Walt Disney.

#Anti-Super Bowl #Holidays #Stupid Bowl #Super Bowel #Super Bowl for people who hate the Super Bowl #Super Bowl Sunday #Super Bowl Sunday Without Football #Super Dull #Thanksgiving #Thanksgiving 2 #Thanksgiving II

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hamtarominecraft · 8 years ago

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I was tagged by @beastiebros Name: Bo Ancestry: German/English/Scottish/Irish on my mom's side (but mostly German), Irish/English on my dad's side Zodiac: Cancer Where do you live: New York How are you doing today: I’m like ok but my eyes keep involuntarily crying idk why. I'm at my cousins and I think I may be the only one up. My neck hurts and my phones on 2%. So pretty neutral Favorite song right now: All the Pretty Girls or Walking the Dog by fun. Play any instruments: Bb/Eb/bass clarinet, alto sax, I can play like, 2 songs on piano and I'm relearning ocarina Are you craving anything: I really want to get wendys french fries yesterday but it wasn't my cheat day but now it is so aye Signature drink: Either like, sprite or cranberry juice What’s your signature scent: idk I'm always anxious about if I smell bad so I probably either smell like garbage or a little bit too much deodorant/cologne Favorite color: Grey A sound you love: Nate ruess singing or also I don't play mine craft a lot anymore but I loved the. Background music for that game. So nice and calm. Or Also just like. When you are with your friends havin a good time and they have really genuine laughs .... the best A sound you hate: when people bite their forks when they eat I'm hate so much

#tagged for me #personal #ty darren i'm love y

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malcolmpeacock-blog · 8 years ago

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There’s a Referee in my bed

Pray God you can cope. I’ll stand outside.

It’s raining outside. It was raining when my dad died. It was pouring. My dad died in Towson in a hospice center on a Friday night at 5:21 pm. I was supposed to be seeing my friends, Bo and Karli. But I had forgotten to text them. They understood of course and I told them with such ease…guys, my dad’s about to die. When my dad’s mother called my mom earlier that day from the center, I was in the basement. Completely alone with the lights off for two days. I spent most of my time there in silence that winter on the winter break from college. I never really told anyone how sick my father had become. And I was also unaware of what was happening to me. I had already fucked up my sleeping during my first semester of school. And this whole thing of wondering when and if he was going to die was really not helping. It became evident that I wouldn’t be leaving Baltimore to head back to Richmond anytime soon. I began to isolate myself more and would spend hours online googling “hospice”. I was frustrated that I wasn’t being given answers to my fears. It wasn’t until years later that I realized that google could never answer questions that I’ve had all my life. At some point you really do have to figure things out for yourself. Of course, we are all here. And there is empathy. But, in order to feel it and to give it, I think we have to meet ourselves in a mirror.

This woman’s work. This woman’s work. Ooooo it’s hard on a man. Now his part is over. Now starts the craft of the father.

I developed an intense relationship with death at an extremely early age. I think it’s hard for most kids to wrap their heads around. The idea that yes, it ends. Everything, physically, will die. As the artist Juliana Huxtable says, “There are certain facts that cannot be disputed.” Flesh, skin, all that, it ends. Now what extends beyond that is another story. Stories. But death and I met when Aaliyah Haughton died. Cheesy, but Aaliyah is really important in the scope of me understanding why I believe I am here. I could go on about how my family would sit around in the living room with our next door neighbors singing I don’t think you’re ready for this thing, this thing, this thing, I don’t think you’re ready this thiiiiing like many other Black people were doing during that time. And my sister doing the rock the boat dance or trying to at least and I don’t even need to mention that dress at the end when the goddess is immersed in the water (peep FKA Twigs for the tribute) but obviously I’m bringing it up because duh. There will never be another. It was hot that Saturday. I was on the computer strolling the internet, something I just enjoyed doing looking at images of my favorite singers. I heard my mom say, “Baby, Aaliyah died.” I searched Aaliyah immediately and I was confused. Died? How? I thought to myself, how do you die? What does that mean? I asked my mom for an explanation over and over. We watched some videos and sang like always and the reality or the myth rather, had still not settled in for me. I was rattled. My mom explained to me the best she could, that everybody dies one day. We all live and then we die. My dad was a loud man. And he was also soft. He had dark dark brown skin and usually a smirk on his face. He loved Aaliyah. He loved her to death. I think I was so confused because I couldn’t find language for what was happening. For the first time that I can recall, I only had feelings. No words. Raw, gut feelings. My father’s silence weighed down on my chest. He was never silent. My heart pounded viciously through that night as my head ran laps around itself in bed. I laid still thinking…I don’t want to die. I drew a picture of Aaliyah. Because I knew she wouldn’t let me die. And as far as I was concerned, she was alive. And I knew we could live forever.

My parents would take my brothers and I to see our grandparents in Virginia when we were little. One of the rooms in the back of the apartment used to be my great grandmother’s. My grandpa, her son, would say sometimes he could feel a tug, just a soft one, on the sheets at night. He said this was his mom. When my great grandma passed I was in 2nd grade. She was my mom’s grandma. I think I remember it being winter. My mom and her grandma were close but she had Alzheimer’s and it really affected her memory. My mom was on the phone with her best friend one time and she said that it was nice to visit grandma Emily but it’s just not the same anymore and it sucks when someone you love can’t really remember who you are. My mom had sort of already begun a process of letting go of grandma Emily’s body. It’s crazy that people can slip out of their own skin. Before we know it, we’re holding a container. And we’re feeling so much that we hold and squeeze the container, hoping that we’ll get to touch that being’s magic one last time. It’s really hard though because (crying so much right now oh my gosh) if you’ve ever touched a dying person right before they go you know that’s it’s like trying to win a game of tug of war that you know you’re going to lose but you decide to play because you have to and you don’t even think about it and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. We traveled to North Carolina for her funeral. My parents met in a tiny town called Chadbourn in the state when they were 11 and 10. My dad lived there and my mom stayed with her grandma in the summer. She lived down the street from my father. They spent time together on a basketball court. During the morning of the service, I sat at a computer screen in the purple room of my father’s childhood home. I worked for hours on a painting on Microsoft paint (every 90’s art kid’s dream) for my great grandma’s casket. My right hand on the mouse detailing the stems of the flowers and my left hand wiping the snot and tears that wouldn’t stop coming. I cried for days and my mom offered words she had given before ever so gracefully. But I still could not fathom a life underground. I asked her…so everyone else just keeps living and walking around while you lay under the dirt? I buried my face into my hands for days. Eventually, I could move on to different thoughts but some days my mind would wander and tell me: I’m gonna die one day.

While the other kids played during recess, I sat on a bench watching them. I could see my body laying under the wood chips while everyone slid down the slides. I was quickly developing a relationship with death. An obsession that would seep its way into my bones. A fixation with a word that would become my entire being.

I know you gotta little life in you left. I know you got a lot of strength left. I know you gotta little life in you left. I know you got a lot of strength left.

My siblings and I did karate as kids and my dad got us involved. It was a family affair. My younger brother hated it and I fell in love with it. It was fast paced like I love, but it required patience. I’ve always sort of been a sucker for things that happen over time, changes, length, and transformations. We practiced under a man named Arnold Mitchell. And his instructor was a hardass. We met him once and he called every child in the dojo ugly. Mr. Mitchell loved us so much. 13 years ago on the way to the dojo, my dad pulled over on 83. He wasn’t saying much but different symbols and lights were blinking in the car. He kept saying come on, come on. He was confused and kept looking down on his side. It was early January and I had just gone back to school after winter break. The car was warm, a little unusually warm. And he said Mal we need to get out. We were parked and he hopped out of the driver’s side, and ran around to mine. He flung open the door and grabbed me and we began to walk through the cold. Maybe 200 ft away from where we left the caravan. We had a blue caravan. The only car I really knew. I would spend the next 20 minutes having what I believe was my first outer body experience. At the age of 9, I watched my family’s minivan completely set on fire on a Tuesday night. The pickup truck that we sat in had no heat. It belonged to a stranger who picked us up. Watching the car set on fire was kind of like a movie. It was so dark outside that the car began to disappear. The window wasn’t big in the truck so really, it looked like the flames were moving across a screen. Stretching their arms fearlessly, and rolling over and over and over until it tucked my van in for the night and for forever. I remember later my dad being pissed about how the man was talking about the situation. How he was embarrassed, and mad that the man sort of made a joke of it in front of me. How nobody should speak that way in front of a child. I recall the man saying, “That was all she wrote”. And my dad saying nothing back. I remember how tight I was being held. That night when I got home I realized that we could’ve died in our van. I found my baby sister crying in the middle of my room. She looked like me. Have you ever met yourself in someone else’s life? I went to sleep that night like normal somehow. For weeks I thought to myself….how am I going to die? When my older brother would go play in the neighborhood with bigger kids or when he went off to school, I would cry and stare out of our bedroom window. My mom would say it’s okay you’ll be able to go one day Mal. And I’d say, “But I am a big boy!”. I find myself thinking that now. I am a big boy.

I should be crying but I just can’t let it show. I should be hoping but I can’t stop thinking. All the things we should’ve said that I never said. All the things we should’ve done that we never did. All the things we should’ve given but I didn’t. Oh darling. Make it go. Make it go away.

The day that my dad died I was sort of waiting for bad news. When my mom asked me if I wanted to go see him again because the doctor said that they think this may be the last day, I said yea sure. I sort of meant yea why would you ask that? My mom has this way of trying to be as peaceful as she can when she’s really one of the most peaceful people I have ever met. She has had a tough life and I don’t know if I’ll ever know half of the things about it. She asks me for advice on how to navigate certain things sometimes with others but it’s funny because she always has what I believe is the best way of approaching things. When we all got to hospice that day we sat around the room talked and laughed and my mom told us how the nurses said that the day prior my dad had escaped and set off the bed alarm. He had crawled to the elevator and said he was going home. He was about 90 pounds. He was going home. He was going to come home. A Black man crawling home.

My friends were in and out through the night, which was amazing to have the support. Around 5:15 that night when we looked at my dad, my family and I noticed that his breaths were getting shorter and shorter and the gasps for air were not as quick and heavy any more. His head began to tilt more to one side and lay back some. We surrounded the bed and my dad’s mom was next to me as we all held hands awaiting the inevitable end of this journey through hospital visits, broken oxygen tanks, and vending machine snacks. There was one more breath. One last give. His lips would part one last time as my grandfather called for the nurse. She arrived to take his pulse. By this point we are gazing at each other, maybe hoping that this is not it. That somehow he just needed a break. She placed her finger on his neck as she looked down at the foot of his bed and nodded and said, “He’s gone.”

What was just as hard, but maybe harder than watching his life end was being the one to call my older sister to tell her that our dad had died and that I’d see her in a few days. When my friend Sam’s dad died, I called to tell our friend Jon. The sound that fills the space after the word died…is the sound that understands me the most.

The rest of that evening and the days that would follow were so emotional that some parts get lost in translation and lost in the eating of the food gifted to us, lost in the ravens games, lost in the walks with our new puppy, lost in watching the sheets move on the hospital bed while I sat on the loft imagining his body in between them. Moving so slowly and so quietly. With urgency for a new day. My father lived up until the very last second. The death of my dad left me in shambles. The first year after his death was quite possibly the most heart breaking time of my life. One year earlier, a close friend and running partner who I spent the majority of the end of high school with lost his father. After I lost my dad, I started to try to think about what was going to happen with my degree and when I would return to Richmond. I didn’t know my new friends well. And now I felt like an alien in my own home. So I went back a month late and immediately found myself in corners on the 2nd floor of Johnson hall stuck in between two walls, sitting under a public phone. In the back of a large studio room at 2 in the morning with the lights off on Bowe Street. It took me a month of being in school to realize that coming back was the wrong decision. A year passed and within that time a close friend’s father committed suicide back home and when I made the call to tell another friend about it, he answered by saying that his mom was in ICU. She died two months later. I went to three funerals that year and the week after the last one, three of my friends and I were on a road trip to Cary, North Carolina and ended up in a car accident before reaching our destination. We all lived and we looked around and thought to ourselves…how is this real? Us? Everyone in the car had lost his or her father. Three of us within 21 months of each other. One year and 8 months later, my cousin would be killed in a car collision in Carolina. He was my dad’s best friend. The day of his death is the same day as one of my friend’s father’s deaths. Large trucks killed both of them. I couldn’t process or think or do anything that year that mattered to me. After my cousin passed, I was convinced that something was wrong with me. At the start of the next year I sort of looked back. I called my mom to ask her how she was doing on the day of her husband’s death two years after that night. She said she was doing a lot better than the year before. She said grief will eat you up if you let it. Grief will kill you. It’ll take over your whole life but you can’t let it. You know you can’t let it. You have to choose at some point how you’re going to go about the rest of your life. She said you can’t let one moment in time take who you are and crush you. You have to make a choice to live this life. My mom’s words pierced me. Because although there was another loss in the following year, I looked back and realized what happened. There was a day in January of 2014 when I said I needed to make a change. I needed to do something before I did nothing. Before I died. So I did and I started to figure out how I wanted to live.

I had never been out of the country before. I really wanted to go somewhere to see a new place and to sort of have an experience that I had never had. I found round trip flights to Nairobi that I could afford and I asked my little brother if I should get them and he said duh you could die tomorrow. So I got them. And I went. And I had an experience. Sometimes it was awful. And other times it was…just…any words would underscore what happened to me consciousness. I came back to Virginia and realized how much I was missing out. I forgot about myself. I let go of who I was for so long. While I was in Nairobi, I went out. I had so much fun I just…I got to breathe. I wasn’t worried. I wasn’t thinking about dying and when I was going to die or how or who would die next. I was meeting new people every day. I was laughing a lot and crying out of frustration with the racial politics that I was experiencing for the first time. But I wasn’t settled and I wasn’t stuck. I knew Nairobi was short and temporary but I knew I was going back. During the end of my time there I met a boy named Emmanuel. He was deaf and an excellent reader. He is such a beautiful boy. I told him I would be back. Emmanuel was hard headed and I taught him how to count to 300. We had a great time together and I almost extended my flights to be with him for longer. I sort of regret not doing it now. But I’m going back. Emmanuel helped me see a purpose and to have meaning for living each day while I was there. I’m going to go see my friends, I’m going to go out and dance and have so much fun I think. I’m going to go speak and have important, different, conversations that don’t operate on a crazy time system like we do here. I wonder what it’s going to be like. Now that I am living here. Before I went there, I was a zombie here. I attempted a marathon a few months after I returned from Nairobi. I didn’t finish but the bulk of the race that I ran was so well ran. At 18 miles, I had fell off of the pace significantly, but I was still in the top 10 of the Baltimore marathon. I never thought I’d try the marathon. But I had to. After you get so close to death, you sort of realize that time is on your side. And yes, there is no rush, but there is an urgency to see what your capacity is. To see if you can expand your capacity. I wanted to work through things that I was still dealing with after these deaths. So I wanted to run to see if it was possible to run outside of my body. In hopes of reaching another plane of existence. In hopes of connecting with whatever memories I had of those people whose bodies we had lost. I was hoping that their memories would lift me to a different space. Not heaven. But a space where I didn’t have to be afraid of being alive. A place where I could be.

Give me these moments. Give them back to me. Give me that little kiss. Give me your, give me your hand baby. Give me your pretty hands.

The last four years have been so different than I would have ever predicted. I have this piece of paper on a wall in my room. It says what are you doing here and why? I’ve been thinking a lot about why recently. Why am I alive? I’ve spent years now hearing stories of friends and family both far and near. People like me. People that I confide in. Some young, some older, but all of them are living. From my lens, I look at them and I see these beings in the world. Traveling through time, trying to unravel experience in order to understand themselves, each other and the world around them. It’s tragic the amount of young people that I know who have experienced loss on such a grand scale. And it’s been so very beautiful to watch them emerge months and years later as their new selves. People who found their worth. Who chose to make a decision one day to not live in fear of what the rest of their life could possibly be. It isn’t that I admire these people because they have figured something out or because they’re masters of grieving or something else that’s calculated. I fell in love with so many peoples’ stories of death over these last four years because I saw vulnerable people who trusted in themselves. Decided that they wanted to know themselves on a more intimate level. Decided that grief could not possibly be what defined their existence. And instead of hoping that one day they would figure it out, they took a bolder approach and said I will figure this out and until then I am going to be. By being your presence is felt. Your existence, acknowledged. I wish I could thank every person who I know who has lost. And yes, I do realize that I would just be thanking everyone that I’ve ever met. But I think that living is a gift enough. We deserve to live. For ourselves and for each other.

A year ago someone tried to kill me. I was sleeping on my stomach in my room on the second story of my house in Richmond, Virginia. It was January and I was exhausted. I was sick and wasn’t really getting better. I wasn’t able to nurse my body to health and I went to sleep thinking that the small infection I had was probably growing. In the middle of the night I heard my door creek and a shuffle across the floor. I turned over but stayed asleep, pressed to my sheets. Their breath was getting louder on my neck and then their legs straddled my back. I tried to move but didn’t want to out of fear of being killed. I lifted my head and as their hand slipped across my mouth I yelled the loudest scream that could leave my body. Hoping my roommates would hear me and come to find me. I was having a night terror. One where I was dying of an illness just like my father. Why so paranoid, Malcolm? My roommates asked in the morning if anyone heard that scream last night. I couldn’t even remember if it was real. It was. And it was me. Yelling for help. Yelling at myself. Yelling for myself. Yelling for my life.

I knew immediately what happened. It’s more than just being afraid of being sick. It’s having to face the fact that someone you love, in this case, your own flesh and blood, your father, never spoke to you about who you are. It is the realization that your queerness was kept inside of an internalized void. Counting down the minutes, waiting to release itself when it finally had space. It’s facing the queer phobic upbringing placed upon you by the Black man who told you that you were his son. His son. It’s loving the man that changed himself for your brother but still fearing yourself so much that you projected your fears into his body. It’s hoping that you won’t die before you get to explain to him how sad some things were to hear and to see. It’s the longing to speak, to share, and to be whole and one with yourself before you meet him again. It’s knowing that there were so many moments when you felt like you didn’t belong. It’s knowing that this is your life and your life only. And that only you can be responsible for what becomes of it.

Maybe love is just that. Maybe you experience it during the final holding of a dying person's hand and in the months and years after is when you are lost in its wake. But often this wake is described as death. Maybe love is knowing that despite someone's flaws and wrong doings, you are still willing to believe in who they are. And willing to face the reality that people are complex humans. And that our relationships with one another are so very complicated and always will be. And maybe love is accepting the fact that you could potentially be crushed by pain. Maybe love is knowing that the game of tug of war is not a battle but rather, an indescribable experience with yourself where death is the referee and not the opponent. An experience that you must be willing to completely lose yourself in if you ever wish to revel in it. Maybe love is being okay with the fact that you will spend the rest of your life feeling through the different emotions of your relationship with a person whose body you lost. And becoming more confident in knowing that the memories, stories, and thoughts of a person can yield their immortality.

Love is an absolute truth and we are all concerned with it. That is not debatable. Love and death are the roots of everything in and on the earth. At the age of 18, death knew me better than I knew myself. It saw me as a vulnerable child who was confused as to why death always seemed to be in my bedroom. A boy who was searching to find an answer to his only question: Why are we alive if we are going to die?

I recently walked for three hours to my first home. The sun was setting when I arrived. And when I made the right turn onto Streamway Court I looked out and around. The sky was bright orange and the head stones stood tall. Smiling and warm in this fiery glow. I grew up in a house surrounded by a cemetery. And I am just now realizing what my life was supposed to be. That this was the plan all along. In that house was where I found out Aaliyah died. In that house was where I found out my great grandmother died. So when death came back 4 years ago to ask me if I was ready to be completely lost, completely confused, completely depleted, and completely burned in a fire...I deferred. Instead, I slept for a year. And a year later I woke up from a slumber and was finally ready to accept an offer that death had placed on the table between us when I was a boy. An offer to open my arms. To take a deep breath. To take one last swallow of my own being before I would burn. Death held out a match between its fingers and with all my being I told it to set me on fire. I told it to watch my insides burn.

I miss my dad's body more than anything. But it's nice to know that time is no longer an issue. Being alive and living are not the same. We are alive so that we can choose to live. Being alive in the world is difficult. But living is a different experience. If I am going to live, then I'll completely lose myself. I made this choice to set myself on fire. When I dream, I am being smothered in my sleep. Suffocated. No oxygen reaching my brain. No thinking. No planning. Just feeling. My room is getting hotter and everyday, the temperature in here is rising. Come lay with me. I am dying in here. I am burning. And I am so so madly in love. Thank you mom and dad.

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auburnfamilynews · 5 years ago

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A huge opportunity for Auburn and a learning experience for us Tiger fans approaches...

You know, we make it through the abyss every single year.

There’s roughly 220 days without college football from the time that the national championship game is played until this week’s games commence. Most of the time it’s a grind. A slog. It sucks.

Thankfully 2019 has been very good to Auburn fans. Football season ended, and Bruce Pearl’s basketball team took us into April with a run to the Final Four. After that, Butch Thompson and the baseball team pushed the end of the athletic season nearly into July with a College World Series berth. We didn’t have long to wait before it was time for Gus Malzahn to take center stage with a team chock full of possibility.

Not everything was positive, however. The Auburn family lost its voice at the end of May, and the healing process has barely begun. Today’s going to be narrated by a friendly voice, though, and Rod Bramblett wouldn’t have it any other way. Andy Burcham’s going to a fantastic job, and I have a feeling that he’s going to describe some unreal football this year.

Welcome to the 2019 @AuburnFootball season! #WarEagle pic.twitter.com/JgKBAx8LqJ

— Auburn Tigers (@AuburnTigers) August 30, 2019

It starts today with the biggest game of opening weekend.

We last saw Oregon nine seasons ago, when Auburn beat the Ducks for the BCS National Championship. In the time since, they’ve let the sting of defeat fester (Michael Dyer was totally up, and you weren’t stopping us even if he wasn’t), so the Ducks could have been biding their time to wait for the perfect moment to exact revenge.

If it’s going to happen today, they’ll have to get through a few things. First of all, the best defensive front in college football is standing in the way of their prospective first-round pick at quarterback. Rodney Garner’s been crafting a defensive line that includes the right combination of highly-rated studs and wily experience. Derrick Brown, Marlon Davidson, Nick Coe, Tyrone Truesdell, T.D. Moultry, and Big Kat Bryant stand to make things difficult for Oregon’s touted offensive line.

Where Oregon may end up finding a little room (although the coaches are confident that this won’t happen) is in the middle of Auburn’s defense, where the linebacking corps is new from last season. Deshaun Davis, Darrell Williams, and Montavious Atkinson are all gone, but K.J. Britt, Chandler Wooten, Owen Pappoe, and Zakoby McClain have all received really solid reviews and appear to be more mature and seasoned than we may expect.

With the constant pressure from the front four, it may just make the job easier for Auburn’s back end. The Tigers return a ton of experience in the secondary, and should be favored in that particular matchup with the Oregon receivers. While Justin Herbert returns, and while he can make all the throws, he’s got to deal with a group of wideouts that’s been decimated by injury. Oregon’s biggest task on offense was probably going to be finding a way to replace the production of Dillon Mitchell, but the injuries along the skill positions have made that job even more difficult. We’re confident that Auburn’s defense can hold its own, but the most pressing questions will come when the Tigers have the ball.

For the first time in over 70 years, a true freshman is starting his first ever game at Auburn. Bo Nix brings a fully-groomed Auburn legacy to the Plains - DID YOU KNOW HIS DAD IS PATRICK NIX — and steps into a role that he’s prepared for literally his entire football life. Many of us came of age watching Patrick Nix make some of the biggest plays in school hisotry (Nix to Sanders, Pt. I and II), and I’d wager that we’re going to see his son continue that legacy.

There are two schools of thought with Bo Nix getting the starting job. First, you can be a Doom ‘n’ Gloomer, thinking that Joey Gatewood must really suck if he got beat out by Nix. Life must be miserable for you. The correct way to think about it is that Nix came in and was so good that the coaches had no choice but to give the starting job to a true freshman. It’s not quite the kiss of death that it used to be. Clemson destroyed everyone with a true freshman last year, and Alabama’s fortunes turned in the title game two years ago with a freshman. If Nix is the best, he’s the best, but I bet we’ll see Joey Gatewood pretty early in the gameplan.

The other biggest question comes in the form of who’s protecting Nix. Auburn lost its top ten ranking in 2018 largely on the back of an offensive line that couldn’t protect. Injuries and uncertainty in the middle of the line turned production to a low, and protection to a minimum. It’s different this year. There was a turning point at the end of last year with the way the line played. They “gelled” like you hear about, and played some of their best football down the stretch. We all saw exactly what happened, but watching Auburn destroy Purdue sent us into the offseason feeling pretty good.

With seniors across the board, and a full year playing together, if we don’t see improvement, it could be a long season. We should know pretty quickly today how things are going to go. There’s plenty of talent at the skill positions if the protection is there.

...And I mean plenty of talent.

Boobee Whitlow will be the first running back on the field, says Auburn's Gus Malzahn, though six running backs are listed as potential starters. 'There's a chance we could play them all.'

— Auburn Gold Mine (@AUGoldMine) August 27, 2019

Auburn listed SIX running backs on the official depth chart released earlier this week, and while we know that they all won’t see time against Oregon, we may see many of them. Boobee Whitlow will start, but it seemed like every day a different back was earning praise in fall camp. They all ran hard, and they all had their moments. I would be almost positive we’re going to see Shaun Shivers, Kam Miller, and Harold Joiner in addition to Boobee.

Then on the outside, it’s going to be refreshing as hell to see White Lightning and Eli Stove back on the field. Couple that pair with Seth Williams, who’s turning into a bonafide star at receiver, and add in the fastest player in college football (Anthony Schwartz should play, per reports), and the receivers are an unsung group that could make a bunch of noise this year.

Look, I hate feeling positive about things — it’s not the way I learned to experience Auburn football — but sometimes it’s impossible to quash what I feel in my heart. Today’s a celebration of the return of the best time of the year, and I think that the Tigers are throwing a party tonight in Arlington, Texas.

Control the nerves, hit someone early, and show that last year was just a little blip on the radar. It’s time for odd-year Auburn to emerge and take the college football world by storm.

I can’t wait for tonight, y’all. Football’s back, and I couldn’t be more excited. War Eagle.

from College and Magnolia - All Posts https://www.collegeandmagnolia.com/2019/8/31/20840943/game-preview-16-auburn-vs-11-oregon

#IFTTT #Blogger #auburn #auburn fast #wareagle #AuburnFamilyNews #war eagle #sec #football news #aubu

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