#I’ve been seeing a lot of people say that robby will get injured at the sekai taikai and miguel will have to take his spot

[elevenenthusiast]

👀.

[inamindfarfaraway]

The Morality of Mabel and Dipper Pines

Warning: Dipper Levels of Overanalysis Ahead

I’d like to make it clear at the start that I love both of these characters equally and they’re both good people, just in different ways. But I’ve seen a lot of criticism of Mabel’s flaws and less of Dipper’s, so I’d like to contribute to the discussion of their respective characters by exploring a divide between them I haven’t seen talked about much.

Mabel really wants to be a moral person. She places a lot of intrinsic worth in the concepts of ethics, like kindness and fairness and the wellbeing of others. Being a bad person could be considered her worst fear. It’s definitely up there with her other greatest fears of losing her relationship with Dipper and the inevitability of change, and those fears developed later largely in response to Ford and the baggage he brought with him.

Dipper just doesn’t care about that as much. That isn’t to say he’s a bad person! He's compassionate, selfless, brave and unquestionably heroic by the end of the show. They both are. But it sticks out to me how differently they think about ethics. For example, Dipper literally kills Wax Sherlock Holmes, while Mabel is so averse to hurting someone’s feelings that she can’t bear to break out of a false, one-sided relationship with Gideon until Dipper's life is at stake. You see what I’m getting at here? But I have more evidence! Buckle up, this is gonna get long.

Compare how they treat their rivals, Pacifica and Robbie. These are ordinary humans with no real authority over them who, age and class gaps aside, they're basically on even footing with in confrontations, so this is a good metric for how aggressive they are when upset and how much they hold grudges in mundane situations.

In “Irrational Treasure”, Mabel is deeply hurt by Pacifica’s mockery to the point of giving up her silly identity, and sets out to prove her wrong that she can be competent. But at the end, when presented with the opportunity to destroy the Northwest family’s fake prestigious legacy that they use to justify putting others down, she declares, “I’ve got nothing to prove” and lets it go. She’s secure in herself. Her motivation is satisfied. Why bother putting more pain and strife into the world? It’s Dipper, who has been only been hurt by proximity to Mabel, who insists on exposing the truth specifically to spite Pacifica and takes away that “Man, revenge is underrated. That felt awesome!” Revenge is arguably a form of justice, especially in this sense of revealing an unfair lie, but still, he takes great pleasure in bringing an enemy down for the sake of it, not to fix the damage they did.

In “Fight Fighters”, Dipper’s vindictive streak returns. He manipulates the ridiculously powerful Rumble McSkirmish into brutally beating up Robbie on the fraudulent charge of murder, threatening Robbie’s life. He didn’t realize Rumble would try to kill Robbie, but he was fine with him severely injuring him. Rumble is a fighting game character, a superpowered master martial artist. Robbie is a normal fifteen-year-old. This is not a sportsmanlike matchup. By the end Dipper learns his lesson and takes responsibility, but so does Mabel about hurting people to try to have a perfect life and people still complain about that!

In “The Golf War”, Mabel is again the twin with a bone to pick with Pacifica, but Dipper takes her rivalry more seriously than her and is more willing to be mean about it. He encourages her to cheat when she doesn’t want to, justifying it because Pacifica is “cheating at life”. Understandable, but still underhanded. While Mabel bonds and buries the hatchet with her rival by the end, outright declaring their rivalry to be stupid, Dipper holds onto it, refusing to forgive Pacifica at all. He disapproves of Mabel's offer to give her a ride home afterward, despite the pouring rain and her absent parents. He still wholeheartedly considers her “the worst” and tells her so to her face at the beginning of “Northwest Mansion Mystery”, even though he saw her and Mabel help each other in their fight against the Lilliputtians and Pacifica thank Mabel and accept her apology.

In “The Love God”, Mabel’s compassion is on full display. She makes it apparent that she wants everyone she knows to be happy, to the point of making a chart to show her friends’ feelings with stickers, and goes out of her way to help Robbie just because she doesn’t think any human being should be so lonely and sad. Dipper initially has no sympathy for Robbie’s misery and sees the twins and his old friends leaving him to rot as a good thing.

Dipper is more emotionally invested in hating people and willing to play dirty. Mabel prefers to see the best in people, forgive, deescalate conflict and turn enemies into friends whenever possible, and has more respect for honour and sportsmanship.

Compare the insecurities they highlight in "Society of the Blind Eye". These could have been their last words spoken with their memories of the summer, so they are fully candid and vulnerable.

Mabel confesses, “I only love some of my stuffed animals and the guilt is killing me!” She reprimands herself for not having sincere affection for all the people in her life… who are inanimate objects, hence this being a joke about how immature and overly sentimental she is. But she’s telling the truth! Not being honest about your feelings toward someone who loves you (as toys are assumed to love their kids) is wrong. It’s something a bad, or at least flawed, person would do. We also know that it’s something Mabel can do with real consequences - she loves Dipper unconditionally, but her frequent teasing of him instead of letting this on damages his self-esteem more than she intends and often realizes - and when she does realize as in “Little Dipper”, she’s ashamed of herself. Her guilt is that she’s failing morally, that she hurts the people around her despite her good intentions.

Dipper admits, “Sometimes I use big words and don’t actually know what they mean. I mean, I’m supposed to be the smart guy! If I’m not the smart guy, then who am I?” He primarily thinks of his worth in terms of competence. Dipper is generally not that confident, at this point in time. He has an intense drive to prove his worth. He is acutely aware of his physical and social shortcomings. But the one thing he knows that he does well is analytical, deductive and strategic thinking, and so to always have value he’s built his entire identity around being particularly intelligent. He’s the planner, the mastermind, the guy with the specialized knowledge and important big words who people have no choice but to respect and listen to, because a lifetime of loneliness besides Mabel has taught him that given a choice, they probably won’t. Except just like Mabel’s all-loving attitude, there’s an element of performance. He doesn’t know everything; he’s inherently irrational to a degree like everyone else. So he tries to seem smarter than he is. His guilt is that he’s failing intellectually and practically, that he isn’t contributing enough to be worth something.

This is where Dipper diverges. He wants to be ethically good less than he wants to be good AT things, and respected for it. But they both beat themselves up when they don’t live up to their self-assigned archetypes of All-Loving Hero and The Smart Guy, when they aren’t good enough by their own unreasonably high standards.

"The Last Mabelcorn" deconstructs Mabel’s fixation on her moral perfection. Celestabellabethabelle, who I will henceforth call C-Beth for short, manipulates it to keep her out of the unicorns’ way. She makes manifest Mabel’s fear that she isn’t good enough no matter what she does. We see Mabel push herself further and further to try to prove herself, much like Dipper in episodes like “Dipper vs Manliness”, and emotionally unravel until she’s miserable, self-loathing and openly listing her vices in a way never seen before. But this isn’t productive! Wallowing in shame doesn’t motivate her to be better! She needs to learn that although she isn’t perfect, the virtues she has are good enough to work with to both get out and kick C-Beth out of her head. She decides to stop worrying about meeting an impossible ideal of goodness and just focus on doing good, by using efficient (if violent, and therefore immoral under certain paradigms) methods to protect her family. Her plot in this episode has its detractors and I understand the criticisms that the message wasn’t handled as well as it could have been. But I think it does okay. Mabel definitely reevaluates her need to feel like a good person here. She switches from prioritizing what’s important to her, the validation of being "pure of heart", to what’s important to others and in the bigger picture, simply getting the unicorn hair to keep Bill out of the Mystery Shack.

Finally, compare the twins’ disastrous errors in judgement in “Scary-Oke” and “Dipper and Mabel vs the Future”, when they both accidentally unleash terrible forces of evil upon the town and set in motion a local apocalypse.

Dipper recites an incantation from Journal 3 that causes the dead to rise as bloodthirsty zombies, desperate to prove to the government agents before they leave that the supernatural is real and warrants their help investigating, driven by both his desire for knowledge (his tool to feel secure in himself) and more immediately his fear of being dismissed as unworthy. He is emotionally vulnerable, but still creates the dangerous situation on his own initiative. Since he doesn’t need a blacklight to read the spell and the beginning of the episode established that he’s already familiar with all Journal 3’s visible entries, he knows what the spell would do. He doesn’t realize how many zombies will appear or how dangerous they’ll be. But he is aware that there are risks. Plus, the Shack is hosting a party full of innocent civilians and Mabel has explicitly asked him not to interfere with weirdness. The one thing she told him not to do that night was raise the dead! And what does he do? Raise the dead.

Mabel is actively deceived and manipulated into giving who she believes to be Blendin Blandin, an expert in time-altering technology, what she believes to be an item of such technology, with the intention of warping time to extend the summer for the town. This is a selfish choice. But on top of how emotionally compromised she is, sobbing in despair after “the worst day of [her] life”, consider her internal logic: the end of summer is going to mean the trials and tribulations of growing up for both her and Dipper, and they won’t even have each other if he gets his way; Wendy is already going through that and has told her how awful high school is; she overheard at least some of the Stans’ conversation at the end of “A Tale of Two Stans”, meaning she might know that Stan will have to give up his home and business once the summer is over; and she and Dipper both have true friends here who they will miss and be missed by, as opposed to Piedmont where we only see them supporting and comforting each other and never hear of any friends. And it isn’t like she’s the only one having fun! Stan is happier than ever, Ford is back home, Dipper’s come into his own more than she could ever have anticipated. He’ll still get to delve into the mysteries of this town that he loves so much. But she’ll be there too. If you want more Gravity Falls, you can see where she’s coming from. She genuinely thinks that “just a little more summer” would be a positive experience for everyone, with plenty of good reason. Yes, she’s recklessly messing with powerful forces that she doesn’t understand. Yes, she isn’t nearly as suspicious of this sudden miracle solution as she should be. But she has no evidence that this would harm anyone.

Their responses after making their mistake are also noteworthy. They’re both horrified and remorseful. But Dipper expresses no concern for the agents for the rest of the episode when it looks like they’ve been killed due to his actions. He even nonchalantly remarks that he thought they were dead when he sees them again. Mabel, however, reaches to stop Bill and begs him to “wait” before he knocks her unconscious. Then she’s imprisoned in Mabelland, which is designed to make her never want to leave and based on how it only occurs to her after she renounces it that the neon colours and repetitive background music are too much even for her, may additionally have a direct, though subtle, influence on her mind. So she’s a little distracted from her guilt. But by risking her life to fix the repercussions of her actions and save the town, she shows much more responsibility for the townspeople’s lives than Dipper showed for the agents he’d tried so hard to impress. He just happily went about his business for weeks believing he had two people’s deaths on his conscience. Never even looked into whether they survived.

These differences in their personal moral philosophies add another layer to the parallels between the two generations of Pines twins. Typically, Dipper parallels Ford and Mabel parallels Stan. But less so here! Like Mabel, Ford very staunchly believes in abstract moral theory, namely that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. He holds a grudge for weeks against Stan saving him from being lost in the dimensions through the portal, because it endangered the rest of the world by creating the Rift. It was a good deed with good intentions… but it didn’t only make life better for everyone. To Ford, that means it isn’t good enough. Hmm, which younger twin has a problem with judging anything short of ‘pure good’ to not be worthwhile? Also like Mabel, Ford’s self-righteousness is often hypocritical, considering his pride, selfishness and willingness to disregard the possible negative consequences of his actions, e.g. trusting Bill and building the portal in the first place.

Like Dipper, Stan is willing and ready to use underhanded methods to win against his enemies, to lie, cheat, steal and leverage assets he doesn’t really have the right to. He’s more inclined to be aggressive, spiteful and smug. As for holding grudges, even to an unreasonable extent, he personally despised a nine-year-old child even before he knew that the child was a bad person. He would absolutely summon Rumble McSkirmish to attack a rival for him. He prides himself on his cunning, another form of intelligence, and prioritises being good at what he does best over holding the moral high ground. He is shown to have lifelong insecurities about Ford being better than him in other fields (and thus explicitly valued more by their father); so his pragmatism is his way of trying to always be useful to the people he loves, and indeed a key way he shows them his love.

[shrinkthisviolet]

I agree with you. Tory is NOT a sociopath! She cares too much about her family to be one. We all know how proud and distrustful she is thanks to all she’s been through, but yet she still is ready to beg/do whatever it’s takes to get back into school so she can keep her little brother safe (by going to Amanda in S4). You can see (true) family means everything to Tory. If she loves you, she does so with everything she’s got. If you betray her, after she’s let you in, it nearly kills her. A sociopath doesn’t care about anyone or anything other than the joy of inflicting pain and torment to others. I think her actions in 2x10 & 3x10, were a combination of a cry for help and a mental breakdown from everything going on in her life. I think she (even though she’d probably never admit it) just wants people to give a crap about her. For someone to genuinely care about her. Whether it’s in a parental, romantic, or platonic way. Her actions in those finales (some of which are more extreme at times) mirror how Robby acted out in some parts of the previous Seasons. Like him joining LaRusso Auto just to “Piss-Off” his dad, after seeing Johnny hug Miguel was basically — “I want you to notice me any way you can!” And his attempt to lie to Sam about Miguel returning Miyagi’s necklace as well as him being responsible for breaking Miguel’s back a few episodes later, were examples of him having insecurities that led to a temporary mental breakdown during the school fight. He did something WAY WORSE to Miguel than Tory did to Sam (at that moment). In part, because Miguel stops fighting and is about to apologize/help Robby up, before Robby attacks. And the thing is — Tory did regret her actions in 2x10 (she even admits it to Kreese in S3, until he manipulates her), but Robby doesn’t really feel bad about brutally injuring Miguel. He’s ready to freaking fight him in 3x08! Right after Miguel’s finally able to walk and he JUST GOT OUT of juvie! The only reason it’s adverted is because Sam steps in (shoutout to one of my favorite Samguel scenes). And in 4x04, while the stand-off at the Drive-In takes place he immediately brings up (almost with a smirk) about breaking Miguel’s back. Not to mention, he was a THIEF, who stole laptops and who knows what else to sell on the black market repeatedly! Look, I love Robby as a character (he was one of the actual enjoyable parts of S4) and there are moments I feel for him — but he’s done a lot worse than Tory has at times… but people always choose to ignore his actions as misunderstood, while they say Tory is a Sociopath?!! I mean, come on!! This is literally the bias Sam points out about boys and girls in S3 to Daniel. If you can like/root for/defend one troubled character — you should be able to not judge/insult another one (who’s a different gender).

Yeah...S4 Robby frustrates me sometimes. He does a lot of stuff during that season, and trying to say he regrets 2x10 gets hard when in S4, he’s openly mocking Miguel for his injury. However, I have some hope that S5 will resolve all that, and I hold out hope for Robby’s innate goodness to prevail. I know it’s there, I’ve seen it.

Tory needs therapy and someone to catch her when she falls. She’s sixteen and has been in this position for years. She’s had to deal with parental issues when her brain is not even close to fully developed yet!

[demetriandelibinaryboyfriends]

Can you talk about autistic Hawk/Eil

Sure, I’d love to!!!

Credit where credit is due, of course--I got a lot of my Autistic Eli headcanons from @jackonthelongwalk, who’s got a little more authority to speak on the subject since he’s actually autistic and whatnot. I mainly just saw his takes and was like “THOSE ARE GOOD TAKES” and adopted all of them XD Although I DID come up with a few of my own headcanons!!! I’ll just compile everything here.

~Eli tends to be pretty particular about physical touch, and a lot of the time he doesn’t really like it. Over the years, Demetri’s found that one type of touch that Eli’s okay with is shoulder-squeezing, and it kinda becomes their thing. Typically Demetri giving Eli a quick shoulder squeeze helps comfort him and makes him feel safe by basically reassuring him “I’m here for you, I’ve got your back.” You can see Demetri give Eli a shoulder squeeze in 2x09 when he’s comforting him about Moon, and he does the EXACT same one in the school fight in 2x10 just before kicking him into the trophy case. I think it was his way of saying “even though we’re fighting right now, I still care about you” and that kinda helped snap Hawk out of his near-psychopathic rage. In Season 3, he’s still shitty to Demetri, obviously, but it’s more controlled, not as unhinged or feral--even when Hawk breaks his arm, he hesitates a LOT before and regrets it IMMEDIATELY after in a way I’m not sure his UNCHECKED RAEEEGE self would have during the school fight.

~Over the years Demetri develops kind of a sixth sense of when Eli is about to have a meltdown. He’s able to pick up on super minute changes in body language, changes in the way Eli speaks, small alterations in Eli’s general temperament--basically anything that indicates he’s getting overwhelmed. That’s actually how he discovers the shoulder squeeze tactic--Demetri realizes he needs a quick way to comfort and reassure Eli when he can’t go in for a full hug (like they’re in the middle of class or something) so he can calm Eli down a bit and stop him from having a meltdown. Mainly because Demetri knows the bullies will have a field day if Eli cries in front of the other kids, so the shoulder squeeze develops as sort of a way to protect Eli from this.

~At some point after Demetri first started using the shoulder touch/squeeze on Eli, Eli started also using it on Demetri to quickly communicate affection/appreciation. Demetri isn’t nearly as touch-averse or picky with physical touch as Eli, and would’ve been okay with a number of physical touches, but he’s honestly super touched that Eli saw him doing a thing and was like “Oh hey!!! Demetri does this thing to me and it makes me feel safe and loved, so I’m sure it’ll do the same if I do it to him!!!” It kinda becomes their special touch, and becomes somewhat of a silent “I love you” (although obviously these two clueless idiots are led to believe it’s ONLY platonic love for many, many years XD). You can see Eli give a little shoulder pat/squeeze to Demetri at the beach party in 1x09!!

~Eli really does not like being touched around or under the chin, mainly because this is how bullies like Kyler touch him and it’s triggering for him. Demetri basically never touches him here. Even after they get together and start getting intimate, Demetri tends to touch/stroke Eli’s cheeks or the side of his head if he wants to touch his face, but he avoids touching Eli’s chin like the plague because he knows how much Eli dislikes it. This is something Eli really deeply appreciates--even Moon wasn’t able to catch on to the fact that he didn’t like having his chin touched, and he was too obsessed with coming across as “tough” to her to admit that it bothered him. Moon didn’t mean any harm at all, of course, she just wasn’t able to pick up on his more subtle indications that he wasn’t a huge fan of chin touches. Demetri has come to pick these indications up by second nature.

~The whole thing Demetri does at the beginning of the show where he kinda talks “for” Eli (the thing that, ironically, people loooooove to blast him about for being a “terrible friend”) I think is largely done because Eli is autistic. Eli seems to have a lot of social anxiety right from the get-go--he doesn’t even verbally greet Miguel when he first sits with him and Demetri and Demetri introduces Eli. Eli just kinda awkwardly smiles and nods at him. He’s obviously not great with social cues either, which we see later on--he’s so PAINFULLY oblivious to the fact that Piper is super not at all into it when he tries to hit on her in Season 2. I imagine after a number of social blunders in their youth, and seeing just how uncomfortable and anxious social situations made Eli, Demetri took the reigns and did a lot of communicating FOR Eli to take some of the pressure off of him to talk. I’d argue that once Demetri is taken out of the picture, we can see in full force JUST how socially anxious and uncomfortable Eli really is--he seems damn near terrified trying to stand up for himself against Johnny when Demetri’s not there. He’s lowkey stuttering and tripping over his words, his voice is shaking. He nearly leaves the room in tears. He’s used to letting Demetri be his voice, and this seems to be what makes him feel safest and most secure. When this is taken away, he has to find a new way to protect himself--hence, possibly, the entire Hawk persona.

~Eli has a lot of issues with emotional regulation and often feels emotions really, really strongly and gets overwhelmed by them--as an ADHDer, this is a struggle I understand SO MUCH. When Eli gets really overwhelmed with strong emotion, he tends to have meltdowns. These can be either sadness-based meltdowns (like we see in the flashback) or angry meltdowns (like we see when he beats Brucks up). Due to his emotional regulation issues, Eli has a really hard time hiding his emotions or stopping a meltdown once it kinda onsets--this is why he tends to “bawl” at movies. Once he starts crying, he can’t really stop, or reign it in--it just keeps coming. He also can’t really hold it back--his emotions tend to force their way out, whether he wants them to or not. This is also why he goes so HARD when he’s angry--wailing on Brucks, throwing punch after punch at Demetri at the school fight, getting carried away and attacking Robby’s injured shoulder at the tournament. His anger (and other emotions) tends to just kinda explode out, and he has a really hard time reigning them back in and keeping them in check. Demetri, ever the voice of ration and reason, can help with this--and probably has a lot, historically. With Demetri less and less in the picture and their relationship on the rocks, Eli’s emotions just seem to get even more wild and uncontrolled, particularly his anger. Part of the reason I think Demetri and Eli work so well together--Eli tends to get very caught up in his emotions (no shame in that--I’ll admit I do too!), and needs someone to help him keep his feet on the ground and be the pragmatist who helps him keep things in perspective.

~Karate is most definitely a special interest for him. It lowkey takes over his life and he makes it damn near his entire identity--big special interest energy. And Demetri (at first, at least) is lowkey so supportive!!! Like he goes to the all-valley tournament to support and cheer Eli on, despite not having any personal interest in fighting and seeming to think the whole thing is the kind of dumb macho shit that goes against everything his nerd identity stands for XD But he goes to the tournament anyways to clap for his boyfriend best friend’s badassery!!! The real MVP!!! Also special interests in general (not unlike ADHD hyperfixations) tend to be very random, hence why seemingly out of nowhere Eli gets absolutely OBSESSED with karate.

~Just a random little headcanon I have (I think I mentioned it on one of my general headcanon posts), but I like to think after Eli adopts the whole “Hawk” persona, he gets a special interest in birds of prey in general for a little while. Like back before he’s too “tough” for anything even remotely related to “nerd shit,” he watches nature documentaries on raptors and the whole 9 yards and constantly rambles excitedly to Demetri about how badass he thinks they are, and how cool it is that they can “literally hunt mice from the sky and shit” (probably an exact quote from him). Demetri finds this sudden new obsession both amusing and kind of endearing--but as always, he shows an interest in it and accommodates it as best he can. I imagine he’s seen Eli go through a number of special interests over the years, and is a pro by now on how to handle them (my own childhood best friend is a fellow ADHDer, and he was CONSTANTLY getting new hyperfixations--I imagine it was something like that XD).

~The whole “Hawk” persona in general seems pretty autistic, speaking of that--like it’s almost entirely based in mimicry and masking. Like Hawk pretty frequently mimics Johnny’s expressions, body language, and speech patterns, and (at least at first) Miguel’s fighting style. He also starts to mimic a lot of Kreese’s problematic views and general “never accept defeat” attitude in late Season 2 and Season 3, setting his good old Bastardization Arc in full swing. The whole Hawk thing could easily be masking, especially given how exaggerated and overdramatic Eli’s facial expressions, voice, and actions tend to be when he’s trying to be Hawk. When he slips back into “Eli” (or how he was before he adopted the mask), it’s usually around Demetri (i.e. the Doctor Who conversation)--which makes sense, since Demetri “gets” Eli better than most people and Eli doesn’t have to mask or overexaggerate his expressions or statements to communicate effectively with Demetri. They’ve known each other so long and Demetri is so familiar with his body language and mannerisms that Demetri is able to pick up fairly easily on what Eli’s trying to communicate/express without Eli having to work too hard at getting his point across. It’s why Eli’s expressions and body language aren’t nearly as exaggerated around Demetri, even when he’s trying to intimidate him--he knows he doesn’t have to overstate what he’s doing to communicate with Demetri.

~Relating back to the social troubles and social anxiety thing, I think Eli has always had trouble communicating verbally, hence why he’s so quiet at first. And even when he does get more talkative, a lot of it is mimicking other people’s speech patterns and ideas (namely Johnny’s at first)--it doesn’t really feel like him talking. Even alone with Demetri, he tends to prefer to let Demetri do the talking, hence Demetri saying Eli’s a “man of few words.” He often prefers to communicate nonverbally through body language, and when he DOES communicate verbally, he does it somewhat sparingly and chooses his words carefully, not usually bothering to say things he doesn’t mean (if he isn’t masking, anyways). THIS is why Demetri was so ready to accept such a short, concise “I’m sorry for all of it” from Eli instead of a long, drawn-out apology for each individual thing he did wrong. Eli knows he doesn’t have to bother masking to communicate with Demetri, so he’s not going to bother saying something that isn’t genuine. Eli has never been the greatest at articulating his thoughts verbally either, so TRYING to apologize for each individual thing he did to Demetri would be extremely hard for him, and Demetri knows this. This is why he accepts Eli’s apology without question and doesn’t expect him to elaborate on it. He knows Eli’s communicating a lot more than he’s actually saying aloud, if that makes any sense, and he cares more about the entirety of what Eli’s trying to say rather than just the spoken part. And Eli definitely communicates he’s genuinely remorseful through his actions as well--saving Demetri from the Cobras, teaming up with Demetri afterwards to help Deme’s side win the fight, straight up openly  BETRAYING Kreese and Cobra Kai AT GREAT PERSONAL RISK TO HIMSELF (especially if Tory’s threat is anything to go by!!!) in order to go back to Demetri. Honestly, given everything he knows about Eli and how he operates, expresses himself, and communicates, I highly doubt Demetri expects at all for Eli to go on a long, detailed rant about how sorry he is and is honestly just grateful to have Eli back in his life.

~I think at the beginning of the show, Demetri puts a lot of work into helping Eli feel as safe and secure as possible--possibly in part because Eli’s autism makes him feel kinda isolated as a “freak” or “outcast” or what have you. Demetri makes an effort to crack jokes and make Eli laugh when no one else will, possibly to help Eli feel more relaxed and at ease. And Demetri’s reluctance to try out karate could be a kind of misguided overprotectiveness on his part--he’s spent a lot of time building up their own little world for them where he can keep Eli relatively comfortable, and he’s worried anything that interferes with that or shakes up the status quo is going to stress out or overwhelm Eli too much. Demetri wants to keep things as they are, because even if it’s not perfect, and they still get bullied on the regular, at least he KNOWS how best to help Eli and help him feel better (or at least he thinks he does) in their current situation (i.e. “I think we’d rather spend our afternoons playing Crucible Control than getting hit in the face”). If they were put into a drastically different new situation, he WOULDN’T know how he should best assist and support Eli with it, and that scares him a lot--because he’s ALWAYS kind of intuitively known how to help Eli, and the thought of anything changing that makes him terrified that without him, Eli is going to get really hurt somehow.

I think that just about covers everything--might add more stuff if I think of it! Definitely go check out @jackonthelongwalk’s blog for more quality, in-depth autistic Eli content!!!

[sittingoverheredreaming]

I have a lot of thoughts on how Age of Calamity could have worked better for me, but one thought I’ve had since the Demo that only got stronger after completing the game is the idea of putting Impa in Terrako’s role, because I’m just not fond of a robot changing everything instead of a character we know and love.

The game still opens with the original timeline calamity, but after the first shots of the castle the focus moves to Blatchery Plain, where the final battle is taking place. Impa watches from near Kakariko Village, where she and other Sheikah, are stationed to defend their home. She wants to run and help her princess, but is held back. You know this is how it was foretold, you know this is how it has to be, someone, possibly Purah, reminds her. (You cannot take the idea that the Sheikah as a whole had some knowledge that the events of BotW would happen in order for Ganon to be defeated from me). And so she waits, until Zelda’s powers awaken, until Link is taken to the shrine of resurrection and her princess approaches her to ask her to guide him when he wakes, her princess, who has lost so much, tells her that she is going to fight Ganon alone for as long as it takes. And as Zelda walks away, Impa breaks, she can’t let her suffer like this, she opens a time portal and jumps to before it all unravelled.

The first battle of Hyrule Field happens largely the same as in game, except everyone is surprised to see Impa there, rather than at the research lab or in Kakariko. No one more so than Zelda, who comments that it has been years since Impa has visited her. For a split second it’s clear how deeply sad about it they both are, but Impa quickly fakes a smile and says she’s missed her and it seemed like a great time for a visit. Later the King seems mighty unhappy about it, but reluctantly agrees to Zelda’s request to have Impa accompany her to approach the Champions. (Maybe Link doesn’t even get to go with her yet, and there are some parallel missions about him proving himself, and/or he happens to already be there for one or two of the battles, it’s easy to put him in Zora’s Domain with Mipha, but it also makes more sense to leave him out of the Gerudo Town mission).

At the end of the chapter, it’s revealed that the Yiga Clan and Astor have taken the opportunity to capture the original Impa from this timeline, having noticed the time travel using their own ancient technology and figuring out that the presence of the other Impa means no one will notice if the original is missing. Kohga interrogates her for information, but Astor states there may be a better use for her, and then the scene cuts to black. 

That’s all we see of that Impa for a while, the story progresses much the same as it did originally (maybe with a little more adherence to BotW canon and some more character stuff, but that’s not my point here), with Impa inserting herself into every situation she can and trying to steer events away from the original timeline. Unfortunately, part of that is encouraging everyone to drop their use of Sheikah technology, which eventually leads to a fight with Zelda because You sound just like father! Is this why you came back? Just to be his puppet? And she says she doesn’t want Impa coming around her anymore, and she’ll be going to the Spring of Wisdom the next day without her. Impa panics but cannot change her mind, and when she tries to run after her Link blocks her way.

The next cutscene is at night in Zelda’s bedroom, where she tosses and turns unable to sleep. She then hears a noise outside, which turns out to be Impa, sneaking in through her window. She apologises, and says she was wrong, and claims Purah and Robbie have made a discovery that could change everything, Zelda should come see it now before her father can stop them. Zelda agress, relieved to have something other than the pressure of the coming day to focus on and follows behind Impa as she leads her out. Unseen by Zelda, Impa’s eyes flash with Malice-- she is this timeline’s Impa, controlled by Astor.

The next day, Zelda is nowhere to be found. The king is barely keeping composure, Link is being kind of a dumbass in where he looks for her for a little levity (is she behind this curtain? Is she under this table?), the champions, who have come to escort her too, are very uneasy and Impa is all but having a breakdown because she feels this is definitely her fault, and this is when it comes out that she time traveled from the future and the Calamity is going to erupt that very day. Then the search for Zelda gets really frantic, and eventually someone raises the question of wait, if you’re from the future, where’s the Impa that was originally here? They put together that the two disappearances are likely related and decide that the likely most fruitful course of action is to raid the Yiga hideout.

And so they go, and of course it’s a trap, the Calamity erupts while they are all occupied fighting Yiga lackeys (Kohga, Sooga, and Astor are conspicuously absent). Impa urges the Champions not to go to the Divine Beasts, but then the other Impa starts insisting that one is an imposter, that one tricked her and Zelda into being captured, and the Champions begin to falter. Why had she come from the future and only said so now? Was that some tall tale spun to keep them there while Hyrule fell? Why should they abandon the only hope of Hyrule winning this war? They are all in agreement, Link grabs a hold of Zelda and they depart, he and Zelda for the castle, the Champions to their Beasts, all the while Impa yells after them that they can’t win.

And then, once they’re gone, the other Impa begins to fight, Malice coursing through her, strengthened by the Calamity. It’s a playable up to a point, when Impa begs her to remember Zelda, to remember the point of everything, and there’s a quick set of flashbacks to them playing together as children, Impa defending Zelda from Bokoblins, them tinkering with Sheikah tech as young teens, and then just a series of quick flashes of Zelda’s face. The Malice disperses, the timeline’s original Impa quakes in fear of what she might have done, but resolves to change the outcome of the Calamity. Impa says they may not be able to do it alone, and they nod resolutely before the scene cuts.

The new Champions are brought from the future, much the same as before (but they’re enough to defeat the blights on their own without another character). The Impas rush to the castle, where Astor is waiting. Zelda is inside, he says, and soon she’ll die there. It was foretold.

That triggers another flashback. A fortune teller, younger than Astor, dressed suitably for an audience with the king, but unmistakably the same man, whispering to King Rohm those same words. You! screams the time traveling Impa. You caused all this! 

They begin to fight, two against one, and Astor asks Can’t you of all people understand? How much have they asked of us, only to cast us out when we become inconvenient? What has our loyalty ever eared us?

Cut to King Rohm in the past, telling a child Impa that she must protect Zelda with her life. Cut again to him with a young teen Impa that Zelda can’t be distracted with any frivolous studies or games, and Impa is not to see her anymore.

In the present, both Impas appear to falter for a moment. Astor smiles and opens his hands to them. They look to each other, and nod.

And then completely obliterate him.

They make their way to Zelda and Link in the Sanctum, where Ganon’s power has converged for an endless assault on the hero. He’s protected Zelda, but he’s wearing down. For a moment it looks like the Impas are too late, but then the Divine Beasts strike! Maybe here there’s a mission for each of the Beasts complete with some cutscenes of each Champion pair.

Then, as Ganon is weakened, Link strikes again and again. Zelda despairs because even now, her sealing power will not awaken. The time traveling Impa tells her she knows she can do it, she’s seen her.

You have? Zelda asks, hope in her eyes for the first time since the Calamity started.

And then Ganon summons his strength to strike at Impa. She falls, badly injured, and Zelda and the other Impa run to her side while Link batters Ganon further.

Princess, Impa says with faltering breath. Your power has always been in your heart. I wish I had defied fate sooner. 

Her eyes close, and Zelda lets out an anguished scream for her old friend. Her power explodes outward from her, the bow of light materializes and the final fight is played as her, taking Calamity Ganon head on.

She is victorious, but it is, it seems, a bittersweet victory. She emerges from the castle somber, Link trailing her, one Impa carrying the other.

But Age of Calamity is a triumph story, and Mipha has healing powers.

Impa comes too and has an emotional reunion, and then the new Champions agree it’s time for them to return to their own time. Goodbyes are had-- Sidon is particularly lingering, though he won’t say why-- and they all step into a portal Impa makes.

But then it doesn’t close.

Impa realizes that she has to return as well. She argues I fixed it! I belong here! But it is unmoving. She turns heavy hearted to say her goodbyes. The Impa that belongs there promises she’ll be at Zelda’s side from now on. Link nods. The Champions say their bit, and then she finds she doesn’t know what to say to Zelda, and ends up pulling her into a tight hug and then running through the portal without another word. 

She finds herself back in her half-destroyed word, the bright sun of a peaceful Hyrule replaced with the dark clouds of the Calamity. Impa’s shoulders slump.

But then a portal opens up, and a letter flutters down, on stationary clearly marking it as from the Royal Family. Impa catches hold of it and smiles, a little piece of the victory she fought for now in her hands.

[dragonrajafanfiction]

Dragon Dancer III: Beginning of the End

I spent the day doing my hair into an attractive blow out and straight press. I tied it up in a ribbon.

That evening, I put on a beautiful lacy pure white dress and gloves, much like the one I had worn in France what felt like forever ago. I put on my make up, and demure nude lipstick.

The Takamagahara was in a frenzy to get ready for the arrival of the high Patriarch. They ordered the best food and wine, live music, and professional dancers. But this was not supposed to be a party for politicians. It was a family reunion.

“Hey!” The owner of the Takamagahara approached, a stern woman with long flowing blond hair. “I hope you know I wanted you guys to leave.”

“Sorry. I can’t leave. Especially not with an injured colleague and unfinished business.”

“I realize that but still.” She was short, like me. It was rare I got to look someone face to face.

“You didn’t have to pull out all the stops like this.”

“I might as well, given this might be the last day we’re in business.”

“Huh?”

She sighed. “You really are a blank slate.” She shook her head in dismay. “If this fails, they’re going to come in here and burn this place for harboring the Dragon Lord.”

“Oh...” I flinched. “Sorry.”

“It’s a little late but I’ll take it.” She turned to walk away.

“Wait!” I reached out to her and she stopped. “I should take this opportunity to thank you.”

She sneered. “Don’t thank me. This is literally my one job. Nice dress by the way.” She turned and resumed her walk away, yelling at the staff to hurry and unload the hundreds of flower arrangements she’d ordered.

I was left standing a little confused and guilty.  There were a lot of people here. I didn’t like it. I felt someone come behind me. “Human shields?”

“It’s a confusion tactic,” said Johann. I looked up. He was dressed like a bouncer and blended in easily with the crowd. “All these people are dressed as Yakuza. It will be difficult to tell who is Devil and who is with Hydra.”

My mouth formed a sudden “oh” shape. “I see! Any sign of Chisei?” I asked.

“Not yet.”

“Where’s Lu?”

“With Chime. In the dressing room.” He suddenly turned to the entrance. “Fuma’s here. And so is Sakurai.” 

I had trouble seeing over the crowd but the owner was talking to someone. “I guess she’s going to handle it?”

Johann nodded. “I’ll watch over things here. Don’t worry.”

I made my way to the basement dressing room. A show in the Takamagahara was starting on Stage. Hopefully no one noticed me leaving.

I found Lu next to Chime, he turned to look at me. He was different from what I remembered him. Quiet, solemn. But he was still lonely. He’d lost a lot of his friends, most recently, Sakura. He was worried about Erii. But he refused to show any of it. So he stayed quiet most of the time.

“Are you meeting your brother? Or your bride?,” I asked Chime, watching him put on his make up.

“I’ll be going as Ruri Kazama, only Ruri can convince him.”

I sighed. “No... Chime don’t do that. He’s not here to see Ruri.”

He hung his head. “I... I’m disgusting in his eyes. Chime is useless to him. Just a useless shadow.”

I walked up to him. I put my hands on his shoulders. “Sweetheart, he still has your picture.”

Chime turned to me, looking at my hand. 

“Explain to me why he would keep the picture of a useless person? Even if he tries to deny it. If he hated you as much as you think he does. He would cut you out of that picture. I’ve seen it.” My voice grew a little stronger. “When someone truly hates their family, they hate them so much that if there’s a picture of them, they will cut them out. Chisei didn’t do that.”

“But...” I leaned over to look into his eyes, “To be extra sure! I’ll talk to him first. Okay? Then, when I say it’s okay to come, you can come. You can trust me.”

He was so scared. I could feel it.

“Hey... Your brother scares me too. It’s really admirable that you’ll still do this after everything. He tried to kill me. With you, he actually went through with it. Believe me, I.... really admire your strength right now.”

“This is not strength.” He laughed but it was extremely shaky, like he would fall to pieces in a second.

“Yes it is. You’ll realize that someday.” 

I straightened up. “Lu?”

He startled. “Yeah?” 

“Come here.”

I took him outside the dressing room. “I’m going to try to get Chisei to let you see Erii. But first I need to understand something. Are you ... under the control of the King?”

Lu shook his head. “No. It’s just... his Aura is really powerful. When I heard the woodblock sound, I thought I was in a burning corridor, dragging Erii through it. In fact, ever since I arrived here, I’ve had nightmares about Erii... I just have a really bad feeling.”

“So that explains your mood.”

“It’s like a hurricane. The closer it gets, the more detailed the forecast.”

“Do you want me to tell him?” I asked. “I think if his sister was in danger he would want to know.”

“I just don’t know what the danger it is. Sometimes its water, now its fire.” He shrugged, then he laughed.. “So funny... you’re so calm. And I’m scared to death.” He turned away from me. “Anyway, I should go back to Chime. It’s not good for him to be alone.”

“Lu.” He turned back to look at me. “You’re my Senpai. Always will be. If you’re scared, I should be too. I had a vision too about you. You were bleeding... all over... from your eyes... everything.”

“Whatever is going to happen... it’s gonna be bad. We have to stick together. We can’t face any of this stuff alone. And... we can’t be afraid of getting hurt.”

I climbed up the stairs to the room where they would meet and sat down. There was water and wine and small refreshments, also a box of fine cigars. I didn’t practice what I wanted to say. What I said wouldn’t matter.

The door opened and Chisei walked in in plain clothes, like he was a worker. Likely, no one had noticed him come into the Takamagahara.

“Hey.” I smiled.

“I thought we agreed no outsiders.” He said coldly. 

I told myself I wouldn’t speak, but it was really hard. He viewed me as an outsider? If anything, i was an insider. More than he realized.

“Is he even here?”

I nodded. I allowed myself to speak a little, in a soft quiet whisper. “Chisei please sit down.”

He hesitated. If he walked out that door, I would know that he wasn’t really here for his brother, but to kill a criminal. I waited and much to my relief, Chisei walked over and sat in the sofa chair across from me. 

I chewed my tongue in my mouth willing myself to keep quiet. He stared back at me, waiting for me to speak. My heart burned in my chest. 

His eyes shifted away from me. He was deep in thought and I didn’t want to interrupt. A clock in the room softly ticked away the minutes. Down below, the distant sound of shouting and clapping as the play ended. Chisei picked up one of the cigars and looked at it. “How is he?”

I suddenly let out a breath. My hand flew to my mouth and my eyes squeezed shut. Tears fell from my eyes. 

When I looked at him, he had the most shocked expression. I moved my hand to cover my eyes. “Sorry.” I whispered. “I just ... was praying that would be your first question. It means you still care about him.”

I looked up. “I’m here because I wanted to make sure... like me, he’s scared of you. He thinks he’s worthless to you. That whole thing about killing the King? That was only partly because of what King had done to him. He wanted to show you he was a good person. A friend of justice. He called it.”

Chisei’s expression turned unreadable.

“He’s ... not going to come as his true self. But as his stage personality. But he told me that. So I’m relaying it to you, so that you understand why he’s behaving this way. He didn’t kill the King. So... he has nothing else to bargain with. At least, according to him.”

“I’m here because I wanted to act an intermediary between his true self and yours. When you saw him on the tower, I saw the tears in your eyes. So... I told Chime that you loved him. He cried like a baby.”

“Why do you care?” He looked up at me. “What’s in it for you? This isn’t about Cassell.”

I lowered my eyes. “I didn’t ask myself that. But since you did... I have to admit, I’ve been flying by my own radar lately. I keep thinking about Robbie. My old neighborhood.”

I looked him in the eyes again. “Ever since I joined Cassell, I found everything I knew as a child being reframed, deconstructed, twisted. I thought my mother was a beautiful woman in trouble. She was a monster. I thought what mattered most  was what was in your heart. Not your blood. So every day I feel like an alien.”

“But when I look at you guys. You remind me of the old values I used to have. What we used to sing about in church. Love and mercy and ... forgiveness. You guys... take me back.”

I folded my lips between my teeth. “So... Yeah I’m a little bit invested.”

“What do you want?” Chisei asked.

I laughed a little. “After all this? Plus everything that came before it?”

“Yeah.” He wasn’t smiling. Maybe I annoyed him. But at this point I was so tired.

I sat back in the chair and looked at him squarely. “I want my God damn happy ending.”

The sound of an air-raid siren reached my ears. I looked out the window. Chisei stood up and I followed him to look outside. Even though we were inside the message was so loud it was easily understood through the window glass.

“Citizens, please be aware that an unprecedented strong tsunami is about to enter Tokyo Bay. Citizens living in coastal areas are requested to evacuate immediately. The evacuated citizens should take shelter in the upper floors of buildings.”

A sound, like the hoofbeats of a thousand horses, came through the walls. The window began to rattle. The cheering down in the floors below turned to screaming, the music halted. The lights flickered on and off. “Oh my god. Dragon? I thought you killed it!”

The sky had been clear, but rolling clouds covered it in seconds, their movement sparking flashes of lighting and loud peals of thunder. It was like the end of the world. Armageddon. 

Chisei drew his sword and kicked the door open to the private deck. The wind buffeted his trenchcoat as he stared at something in the distance. Trembling, I followed him. 

A terrifying wall of water was sweeping toward us, smashing through buildings and tossing cars in the air. Where it landed bright billboards, headlights, and street lamps turned dark. It was a black wall of death. On the street, people began to run in terror, abandoning their cars in the middle of the road. 

The wind pushed by the wave grew stronger bringing with it shower of rain mixed with seawater.

Then a bright flash burned my eyes. It illuminated the distant cone of Mt. Fuji.

The mountain had erupted.

“GET DOWN!” Chisei threw himself against me and knocked me back inside. He dragged me, pulling me under a large wooden dining table and covering my head.

“Chisei what-”

The bang was so loud that it took my breath away. All the windows in the building shattered. 

It was only then that I began to scream.

[boundlesshubris]

therapy session #4

Hot Robbie tells me I have a “narcissistic injury” but if anyone asks, I’m just gonna say “narcissistic boo-boo” because that’s how narcissistically injured I am. You see, “injury” is like broken bones, or a wide gash across your face that won’t stop bleeding or, like, a bullet hole, or a spinal fracture, and I don’t think it’s really that bad. Of course, I only think that because I’m a narcissist. You see, “injury” needs you to go to the hospital, or a clinic. Call an ambulance. Call 911! It’s not that bad, though. Of course, I’m only saying that because I’m a narcissist.

And I have a boo-boo. It ain’t that bad. I just wanted something I couldn’t name but was also oddly specific when I was young that my mommy never gave me, so, naturally, I threw a fit that never stopped.

Don’t ask me, please. I don’t have a fucking clue what it is either. That’s what I’m trying to get to the bottom of. Understandably, it’s taking a while cause I gotta rip off the band-aid, and take apart the stitches, and swim in the lesions of a 20-year-old boo-boo.

But here’s what I’ve gathered so far:

I have the blueprints for what all feelings should look like, but I don’t have cement, or steel, or glass, or an empty plot of land to begin with, where I could possibly begin their construction. So what I do is I get those Hollywood set pieces that they paint in rich colors and great detail, and I make skyscrapers from plywood. Early 2000s Los Angeles from plywood. A snowy New York City from styrofoam. A pharaoh’s tomb from tin foil. The Louvre from hard plastic. Cleveland from cardboard. I got plywood remorse, plywood concern, styrofoam empathy, plastic charm, cardboard amusement, and more, all wrapped up in a tin foil smile and a big red bow up top. And I got you fooled, or I’m gonna. At some point, I almost had myself fooled. But the thing is, you can sell it for however much people are willing to give you, and you can assure yourself that everything’s subjective anyway and that all of it is a social construct, and you can tell yourself that what people don’t know won’t hurt them, but you know you’re a con artist, and you knowthat the painting’s not real, because you know you made it up. In short, most of my feelings are ingenuine, because, as I’ve told Hot Robbie as my voice started breaking mid-sentence rather pathetically, “I don’t know how to mean it”

Guy named Eric Berne, Hot Robbie told me, found that all human relationships were actually transactional, whether you meant it to be or not. I know I did. When I tailor-fit a Hollywood set piece of a personality to elicit a specific response or feeling from the person I’m talking to, I’d normally be labelled as a manipulator, but this Eric guy gets it. Everyone’s doing their own version my build-a-bear. Eric and I know this because we know that everyone wants something from someone, whether tangible or intangible. At least I’m honest about what I want from other people. I want them to think I’m cool. Smart, sophisticated, but knows how to have fun. Different. Woke. I want to be what Kurt Cobain was, or John Lennon was, or the Sex Pistols were for the world. What do you want from people? What kind of bear are you making and what are you gonna use it for and why? (Please fill in the blanks.) Eric calls this your ulterior motive. Also known as: your gimmick. Do you feel like a manipulator now? Imagine my entire fucking life, being lucid about this whole process from the beginning. And poor Eric’s too. Now, my mother, she’s a special case. I know that there’s something else I want from her, but only because I know that I don’t want what she’s so far been giving me. Again, the problem is, I have to diagnose this, to really name it, you know? When you get poisoned or bitten by a snake, the doctor needs to know exactly what kind of poison is running through your veins, or he’s never gonna be able to take it out in its entirety. That’s why I need to get this exactly right. Cause I need the right kiss to make the boo-boo go away. Also, because if you’re walking around with venom in your system, you’re gonna sweat like crazy, your vision’s gonna blur, your legs are gonna tingle, you’ll eventually start vomiting, and when the venom toxins successfully dissolve some of your more essential membranes, your kidney could fail, or whatever internal organ it could reach (it doesn’t matter what, you’re gonna die anyway) and/or you could lose a limb, or several of them. So you see. This is important to me.

I can only trade with what I have, so because I don’t have any genuine feelings, I can’t send any back. So if someone wants them, I can’t give it to them, only something that resembles them — a conned painting, but never the real thing. So these people, they get mad at me and disappointed in me and think I’m an evil person because they want something I can’t give them, they want something I don’t have. So I have a narcissistic boo-boo.

Another thing Hot Robbie noticed, I’m mirroring things, too. I tell him about how unbearable I find these people, the ones who want genuine feelings from me that I don’t have, I tell him I fucking hate them and I want them to die, and he’s like, well, isn’t that what you say about yourself? Why do you think that is? Oh, I know this sounds like some psych bullshit you see on TV, but he’s right, and I’ve always known about this. I tell him I’ve always noticed that I hate people who are like me, who have ingenuine feelings, who are fake, but I also tell him that regardless, I hate them. I can’t fucking stand them. They remind me of me, maybe. But even with that knowledge, I can’t stop loathing them. And I can’t stop loathing myself. I don’t know which came first, but they’re both here now, and they’re both loud as fuck in my brain. When I first started going to therapy, I started working on this. How Not To Get Angry At People Who Did Nothing To Me. I think I made progress with that by simply going “well, what if they’re not that bad?” like, “what if they can feel genuine feelings?” (like, why do I think that if I can’t do something, all the more, other people can’t do it?) (the answer is because I’m a narcissist) like, “what if I’m misjudging them?” and that helped. A little. Not entirely. I still really hate an alarming number of people for no reason. And I still really hate the ones I really hated. So Hot Robbie and I were like. Maybe this is it. Maybe it’s the boo-boo. Maybe the venom’s seeped through my hate membranes and hijacked it. Maybe that’s why.

That’s a lot, huh. Imagine how much more there is in my brain, dude. It makes me angry sometimes that I have to do all this by myself. I have to take my own brain apart and put it back together again by myself. Like, fuck, man, give me pills! Help me out! Fucking help me, you dick! I don’t wanna be lucid in the middle of all of this! But I keep saying it to other people, might as well take my own advice: the only way out is through. Or I’m gonna fucking kill myself, whichever comes first.

[theonewhonothingknows]

Cobra Kai - Spoiler talk

Kind of... just some thoughts with grammar errors

Cobra Kai is an awesome little show, I think we all agree, however, I did have lots of reservations when the marketing for season 2 started out. The whole Team Myagi-Do vs Team Cobra Kai felt to me like it could very easily turn into something ugly inside their own fanbase, as if takin the clear messages of the show and ignoring them completely for promotion.

Now that I’ve finished season 2, I’m almost seeing that sort of marketing as something of genius.

How is that? Well, first of all, in any tv show, book or movie, it is very easy for us as an audience to take sides, to see a character we like and say, hey that person is totally right and everyone else is an asshole. How easy is that? Very, I’m guilty of that plenty of times, because as an audience, we’re inevitably emotionally invested in something, to a degree we sometimes forget our privilege of seeing everything on the screen with the eyes of a god.

Sometimes we might even forget that as far as they know each other Tory sees Sam as a privileged girl, self-entitled and who plays games with boys for fun, and at same time we might forget that as far as Sam known, Tory is a thief, who made her be expelled from a place in her own date and who, might be taken her best friend and ex-boyfriend away.

We forget that as far as Robby knows, Miguel is just the kid who pull at his injured shoulder when he was offering him his hand, hit Sam, and somehow, deserves more love from his own father than he ever got. The same way, Miguel is so filled with tales about Johnny’s past love life, and insecurity over social status and being poor, that he can only see someone trying to take Sam away, or someone who pressed his current girlfriend against the lockers, and we see all these characters meeting again and again in times and places where they are not well, or emotionally in a good place.

I just saw the whole show, so I might have gotten something wrong, I’m sure people will write whole metas on motives from now on, much better than this one.

The fact is, coincidences, actions, it all comes together in the worst way possible, no matter how much we know that all these characters might’ve been actual friends in other circumstances, and in that, Cobra Kai acts like a greek tragedy.

What if Hawk had taken Demetri’s olive branch, what if Robby had told Sam about the medal, what if Miguel and Sam hadn’t kissed, what if Sam hadn’t gotten drunk, what if Tory had actually met a sensei that brought her out of her violent impulses.

What if Kreese had stayed out of this… (I hate him so much)

We know one small step in another direction might have made everything all right, but alas, it can’t be that way, because that is not the point of the tragedy, instead, the escalation continuous until the outcome finally arrives, like a heavy price to pay.

Funny or not, had this whole story being about normal teenagers, things might not have escalated like this, but with karate involved, Cobra Kai finally showed its fanbase that this isn’t about fun action scenes, but real consequences. This are kids taught to cripple people with their bare hands and it doesn’t really matter much if they’re taught to defend or attack when they’re all fighting one another and adrenaline is high.

So, getting back to Team MD and team CK, well, just like Johnny and Daniel, we as an audience thought we should find our heroes and villains among the characters, only for the end to come and all these characters be broken to pieces and we realize this is not a story about which kid will get the point, just a story where everyone gets hurt, even we, the audience, so eager to pick our favorites and sides.

[edge-hill-university]

“I Want To Be Defined By My Reaction, Not My Disability”

Former marine Andy Grant’s (above left) life changed irrevocably after losing a limb in the line of duty. Budding journalist Amos Wynn (above right), currently studying Sociology with Politics at Edge Hill University, tells his inspiring story. 

Meeting up with Andy Grant in a coffee shop in Liverpool, it’s hard to imagine what things were like for him nearly ten years ago when he was injured whilst serving as a marine in Afghanistan.

At only 20 years of age, just one year older than I am now, he went through the unimaginable when he lost a leg in an explosion in Afghanistan while serving with the marines.

But Grant vowed that he “didn’t want to be defined by being disabled or an ex-soldier; I wanted to be defined by how I reacted to it,” and his determination to be clear for everyone to see.

Now at the age of thirty, Grant has done plenty to ensure exactly that.

He has become the world’s fastest single leg amputee, running 10k in 37 minutes and 17 seconds, 36 seconds faster than the previous record. He won two golds and a bronze at the 2014 Invictus Games, and completed sky dives amongst other tasks, and is now a successful motivational speaker.

Earlier this year Grant released his autobiography, You’ll Never Walk, documenting the big moments in his life, the highs and the lows.

Grant admits it was an “emotional rollercoaster” going through the thirty years of his life with ghost writer, Phil Reade.

“We went through every emotion, from crying our eyes out to laughing out loud, as well as some moments of real suspense.”

Discussing the different events in his life made the ex-marine “relive” a lot of moments and allowed him to think in more depth about the different things he had been through and the things he has achieved in adversity.

“I get a good feeling just talking about breaking the 10k record. I explained the emotions I went through that day and what it felt like when I crossed the line, and that put a huge smile on my face. I think that helped Phil [Reade] to see how happy and how proud I was.”

Putting his story down in words was something Grant had thought about for a long time before he started writing You’ll Never Walk, but “I didn’t want it to be just about being blown up in Afghanistan, I wanted to write a book about what I had achieved.”

After he broke the record and became the fastest single leg amputee he thought, “I’ve done something now, I’ve got something, and then I was approached by Phil.”

The book has received positive feedback, with a variety of people finding it inspiring, and Grant receiving nice messages from strangers, telling him what it meant to them and how it has affected their lives: “that was what we wanted, for people to get that positive message, that they can achieve anything.”

The 30-year old believes there is “nothing better than someone who has been going through a really hard time finding hope from your story, it does give you a little buzz, but it’s also very surreal.”

The fact that people could be sat on holiday around the world reading his book is a “crazy thought” for Grant but makes him really “proud”.

A few years ago, Grant took part in an ITV documentary, and says it hasn’t been an issue allowing people into his life.

“I welcome it really; I’m a people person and very open, so I enjoyed working and sharing my story.”

At the age of 12, Grant’s mother died and this “engraved” him with the mentality he has had throughout his life.

“I always knew life could be unfair. When I lost my mum, I went through the hardest military training but when life did get tough I knew I could pull through.”

Even after being blown up, he never at any point thought about quitting and accepting that the rest of his life would be spent in a wheelchair. “I always knew I had something inside me that could push on and get over this tragedy.”

The death of his mother meant Grant grew up being very close to his dad and two sisters. They are always in his mind with “everything I do in my life affecting them, from joining the marines in the first place, to serving out in Iraq and then Afghanistan, to eventually getting injured.”

A big thing for Andy was the way that his family and other people would see him. “I never wanted them to think their brother was once this big Royal Marine who is now in a wheelchair and doesn’t really do anything.”

“I try to inspire them and to show them I’m still the same Andy; they were proud when I joined the marines and I wanted to keep their view of me the same or even better, if possible.”

After the accident there was a chance for Grant to carry on life with both his legs, but he would have had to remain in a wheelchair. This led to his decision to have the amputation.

“You come into the world with two arms and two legs and you expect to leave with two arms and two legs, so it was sad knowing that keeping the leg wasn’t possible if I wanted to live my life.”

The decision to lose the lower part of his leg may have been “tough”, but Grant was driven on knowing that it could lead to a better life.

“No one likes having things taken off them, whether it’s a kid in school getting sweets taken off him or me losing something I had had for twenty-two years of my life.”

Despite ten years passing since the accident, Andy still finds himself fighting for compensation, with support coming from charities, not government.

“I think they’ve tried to wash their hands as quickly as possible, which is a shame. At times I’ve fought harder for compensation than I did fighting the Taliban.”

The accident had a huge impact on Grant’s outlook on life, making him want to “enjoy myself more and not really stress about things too much because I’ve realised we only get one life.”

“I was very young when I was blown up,” he continues, “and there was a lot of experiences and places in the world I’d never seen, so it gave me this attitude to kick on and try to draw everything from life. It gave me a kick up the backside and I’ve ended up doing more things than I did before.”

Whilst his injury is one of the factors that contributes to his desire to try new things, Grant also points to losing his mother as another of the reasons behind it.

“She was 36 when she passed away and I’m 30 now, so that could be six years of my life left, and that makes me sad. There are so many things I’ve not achieved and that she didn’t in such a short life, so I want to live mine to the full and try new things.”

That, combined with being a person who loves trying new experiences, gives him the strong desire to jump outside his comfort zone and to give things a go, to “stand up to be counted.”

“After all that happened to me, I think I was not put on this Earth to pay bills then die. I want to achieve and go places and live life to the max. I like holidays, spending time with my family and doing fun things.”

The grit and determination that Andy conveys must run through his family, as his dad is also a big inspiration to the record breaker.

“He’s done a good job bringing up three children on his own. Now, as a father, I realise how difficult it is to bring kids up.”

Despite sharing a determination, Grant believes they are also in some ways different.

“I’m more outgoing and I like trying new things, but my dad is shy and more low key and doesn’t make a song and dance about things, but he has his own personal resilience. I’m a bit more adventurous and wear my heart on my sleeve more.”

Grant also takes inspiration from people who doubt him.

“I love it when people say I’m lucky. It’s the biggest compliment if I can lose my mum at 12 and get blown up in Afghanistan but still love such a life and people think I’m lucky.”

This is something he takes as a “driving force” to continue “smashing life and keep on doing well so people have that perception of me.”

As a professional public speaker, Grant tries to get the message across “that life is hard and challenging and you don’t have to be blown up in Afghanistan to realise that it is tough. Whatever life throws at you, you can overcome it; it is about your reaction.”

His talks vary depending on the client. He could discuss communication and life in the marines or the pressures in life; just trying to “deliver the best service possible.”

Grant states he’s sportier now than he was before the accident, “which is funny”.

“I loved football as a kid but when I joined the marines I played with my mates but never played competitively. I was always fit and loved running, but I wouldn’t class myself as a runner, I never did any races or anything.”

He admits “being in the marines you are more active than the average person, but I didn’t have a particular sport. It’s crazy to think it took me losing a leg to do my first triathlon, to sky dive and to join mountaineers and climb some of the highest mountains in the world.”

It took something “dramatic” for Grant to realise all the things he wanted to give a go and believes “the positives outweigh the negatives” of his injury.

Even with one leg, Grant remains fitter than the majority of people with two.

“When I was training for my 10K I was running five times a week and going to the gym five times a week, it was quite intensive. I can’t compare myself to a normal person who might be working 9-5 and happy sitting on their a*se, but I wake up, take my dog for a walk and keep active throughout the day.”

Grant remains fitter than a few of his sporting heroes he had growing up, beating the likes of Jamie Carragher and Robbie Fowler in races.

“That has been one of the cool things that has happened on the way, that I’ve got to the position where heroes of mine are turning round and doing favours for me, like going for a run with them. They don’t ask me because they feel sorry for me; they do it because I’m their mate, it’s not out of pity, it’s out of admiration.”

It is an added bonus for the life-long Liverpool fan that “people whose name you sang and cheered for, turn round and say ‘it’s nice to meet you Andy.’”

The support from people, like Carragher, is an example of the help he has received from the community in Bootle, the area of Merseyside he grew up in.

“It helped keep me grounded. Life has been crazy, but I can go to the local pub and people still talk to me the same and it’s nice to know they’re really proud. The people may not have much, but they always have that sense of pride.”

Grant is defiant and states he wouldn’t change anything about what has happened to him, “the only advice I would give is to enjoy the good times more.”

Despite achieving so much, Grant’s plans haven’t stopped yet. He is going back to the drawing board for something new next year.

For now, his aim is to “make the book and my motivational talks as successful as possible and keep sharing the message.”

[vvlin91]

Stage Patalliro -Stardust Project- Super Long Ass Review Pt.3 (end)

I’m finally getting to the actual play!

Here, with as little spoiler as possible, I'd briefly cover the show in general, the use of props, how they dealt with multiple injuries and what to keep in mind when you watch the online stream/DVD.

Pt.1 What makes Patalliro so special compared to other 2.5D productions?

Pt.2 It’s because of love - oh jealousy♪ - the BanMara perspective

The live audience, if inside the theater early enough, will be able to hear Patalliro, Bancoran and Maraich read out the preshow announcements, telling you to switch off your phones and stuff. They all use their distinct IC voices so it was really fun, and Sanaich would end his part with a soft moan. Just a sexy, sweet "Ahh~❤".

This play is titled "Stardust Porject" but it covers more than just that. It's actually based on the Stardust Project arc, "Fly me to the moon", that chapter where Maraich fake betrayed MI6 but was actually helping Bancoran and a few more tiny things from other chapters. It's actually quite ingenious to put the Stardust arc and Robby's story together because they are both space-themed. And they intertwined the 2 arcs together very elegantly it really doesn't feel in any way uncanon.

One pressing question many people had before the 2nd play was how it'd deal with the Maraich/Bjorn paradox. As we know from the 1st play, Maraich's encounter with Bancoran was completely different from the manga. Instead of having Maraich meet Bancoran in a masquerade, the writer put together stories from several pre-Maraich chapters, basically merging other pretty boy characters into one Maraich (I covered the reasoning behind this change in Pt.2). And that included giving Bjorn's story to Maraich by letting Maraich be the person to make love with Bancoran in the rose garden instead.

So where does Bjorn fall in the 2nd play? The writer simply compressed Bjorn's romance with Bancoran to a brief flashback with as little detail as possible. So Bjorn only showed up on stage when Bancoran was explaining their past to Maraich. There was little specifics to it and therefore does not contradict with what happened in the 1st play. Interestingly, they also paid tribute to Maraich's actual first appearance in the manga by letting Andresen show up to strangle Bancoran in a masquerade. The context is totally different of course but it's just a nice touch for manga fans who knew what they did with the story.

One thing Stage Patalliro is well-known for is its songs. I've seen many 2.5D musicals (at least I think I do lol) but to be absolutely honest, a lot of the songs are just mediocre. Even in a production as spectacular as Kuromyu, there are still songs I sometimes skip on the playlist. But Stage Patalliro's music is so insanely catchy it could easily beat 95% of the 2.5D musicals I have seen and it doesn't even call itself a musical! Also, all the original songs (not the cock robin song or other folk songs) are written by Director Kobayashi Kensaku himself! He has such an incredible grasp of the 70s-80s pop music style that I can well remember my dad asking me why Maraich's solo "That Man" from the 1st play sounded so familiar despite having never heard of it. The songs in the 2nd play are just as catchy if not more so. There are a couple songs that are taken directly from the 1st play, such as the Hana to Yume tribute song and the ending theme. The music is the same but they changed the lyrics to suit the new play. Overall, the music is just superbly awesome, I honestly cannot think of another play that's as karaoke-friendly as Stage Patalliro.

Besides reusing some of the music, they also made the 3 main characters enter the stage in pretty much the exact same fashion as the 1st play. Patalliro entered as he shattered his fake, beautified public image, Bancoran hopped on stage chasing away rascals with his killer eyebeam, and Maraich bursts onto stage with a hurried "Excuse me~!". Same formula, same taste but oh boy how sweet.

(In case anyone is confused this is from 2018)

Another beloved feature of Stage Patalliro is its use of intentionally "cheap" props, such as the famous "Cockroach Run" boards and Bancoran's actual laser pointer representing his eyebeams that were both used since 2016. One of the most outstanding examples in Stardust Project would be the tiny helicopter Andresen held on a long rope (as if he was flying down from it).

Also these plushies, used in a song that recaps what happened in the last play.

The use of such simple, almost idiotic props is both hilarious and such a nice tribute to the manga's retro style.

This year, Stage Patalliro suffered 2 injuries along the way. The first one was from dancer Sato Ginpei before the play even started touring. He surprisingly didn't leave the show, but instead just played "a guy in a wheelchair" throughout. Although they ended up missing one person in a lot of the dance numbers, they also added a few new jokes that were specific to the fact that he was in a wheelchair.

And then there's Yoshimoto Kouki, whose injury was probably too serious for him to even travel from Tokyo to Osaka. He ended up missing the entire Osaka tour. In 100% Patalliro style, they wrote on the official website saying there will be a "replacement" for his role without actually doing so. Kouki's character Tamanegi No.17 was not himself an indispensable character. There aren't any lines that MUST come out of his mouth. So his lines can easily be said by the other 4 Tamanegi boys. But even so, they refused to wipe away the existence of No.17. Even if Kouki cannot be here in person, they will make sure that the audience KNOW that he is supposed to be here with the rest of them.

At the start of every performance in Osaka, Director Kobayashi would come on stage in person to explain Kouki's situation and apologize. He said they made changes to the show that could give the impression that "No.17 is still here". And so what they did was that during the Tamanegi pheromone corner, where all of them have to perform their very own skits, the other 4 boys would just talk to air as if No.17 was present. "Hey, No.17, it's your turn." "No.17, good job!" even adding splashing sound effects to indicate No.17 entering the Jacuzzi. When they leave the stage all sitting inside the Jacuzzi, they will hold up a helmet to caress it while lovingly calling, "Oh, No.17..."

In the ending song, when all the Tamanegi boys would dance in a row arm in arm, Aoki Jin would extend an arm to his left to indicate that's where Kouki would be standing had he been there. During curtain call, they also encouraged the audience to buy Kouki's bromide set "so you know what he looks like". So even though the Osaka audience did not see Kouki there in person, it was impossible to not remember him.

(No.17′s invisible presence in their finale photo)

Lucky for us, they did the recording before Kouki got injured, which means fans can still enjoy his performance in this play by purchasing the DVD and/or online stream!

In a way Stage Patalliro has always felt like a strange family to me. A group of adventurers got together to attempt the implausible, and their crazy experiment ended up a huge success. That’s why they kept even the same ensemble team. Basically everyone who’s already here STAYS, only new people in, but nobody goes away. If you are in a wheelchair, we will let you play a guy in a wheelchair. If you can't even be here on stage, we will STILL make sure that you ARE ON STAGE. It's the kind of creativity and freedom that is uniquely enjoyed by a play like Patalliro.

Lastly, things you will not see in the online stream/DVD version. I write this list to remind you that plays evolve, accidents happen and what you can't see on the screen doesn't mean it never happened:

BanMara kiss: they did not kiss until they started their Osaka tour, the recording was done in Tokyo. Also missing would be Patalliro’s long disgusted scream after he saw them kiss with his own eyes lol

Bancoran's "Maraich" pink happi: he only started wearing it on March 23rd, the recording was done on March 21st.

Maraich's middle finger: at the start of their lovers' quarrel song, Sanaich would always give Tsunecoran the middle finger, but on recording day, he gave a thumbs-down instead.

Maraich's final reminder that he is pregnant: there are 2 definite places during the play where Maraich would exhibit morning sickness, and he would sometimes do it a 3rd time during the ending song. But he didn't do so on recording day.

Bancoran holding Maraich in both arms: in the couple's final showdown with Andresen, Bancoran would use his body to shield Maraich from Andresen's knife. Maraich would always hold on tightly to Bancoran with both arms, and Bancoran would have one arm on Maraich and another on the handrail. On both Tokyo and Osaka finale, Bancoran let go of the handrail and held Maraich against his chest with both arms. Recording day was neither of those days so he still had one hand on the handrail.

There are a couple other instances that might be better explained with gifs so I might as well save them for later posts. But then I also drew this for your reference: 

That's pretty much all I have to say about the play for now. Please remember to pre-order the DVD! I will update on online streams if they become available (hopefully on DMM). If you have other questions, feel free to message me here or on https://curiouscat.me/vvlin91

[bianca-warriorwriter]

Anchor - Luke

so I haven’t done a Luke one in a while so I decided to do one, this will only have 2 parts - 3 at most.

You know what’s interesting the way people move through crowds at parties. How people who have never spoken to each before become the bestest of friends by the end of the night. How people who aren’t supposed to be close with each other are left in compromising situations after one too many drinks. How someone always walks in on a private moment. I can tell you I experienced that last two, just last night.

A banging at my bedroom door caused me to knock my eyeliner pen and caused it to go in my eye temporarily blinding me in my right eye. I curse loudly and move to my door.

“what?” I yell opening the door.

“easy princess, Ashton wants to know where the playlist is” Luke leans in my door way. Ah Luke my brothers best friend since he was 5, Luke who threw me into a pool when I couldn’t swim and had to jump in after me, Luke who has managed to screw over every relationship I’ve had, Luke who know has fucked my eyeliner.

“I don’t fucking know” I said rubbing my right eye, rubbing off any make-up that was left.

“well that’s helpful. What did you do to your eye?” he asked with the casual grace of a feline.

“I got eyeliner on it when you banged on the door” I slammed the door in his face and made a move to redo my make-up when Luke’s voice came through the door.

“don’t blame others for your mistakes” my scream was the only answer he’d receive which sent him chuckling back to the tv room.

 I left my room an hour later, having perfected my simply cat eyeliner, and red lips. I wore my red velvet dress with a rose choker. I matched with a pair of fishnet stockings that worked well with my thigh high boots.  I was late even to a party at my own house – I was late. I walked into the kitchen to greet my brother who took one look at my appearance and attempted to argue but I put my hand up.

“whose birthday, is it?” I arched an eyebrow. “that’s right mine, now shots?” I gave a cheeky smile.

“tequila or vodka?” My brother said on the verge of laughing.

“is that even an option, tequila” I said matching his smile. We both downed 3 shots before we went our own ways.

 It had been about 3 hours since the party started and I was dancing with my closet friends, it was atrocious dancing but we were laughing over it especially since I definitely needed to slow down on my drinks. My eyes caught someone in the crowd who I thought wouldn’t turn up and I stopped moving. I stood still frozen nearly. It didn’t take long for their eyes to meet mine. I quickly adverted them to someone else. Luke’s ocean blue eyes met mine. You okay? He mouthed to me. I didn’t- couldn’t say anything. He made his way to me, slipping around people a little bit like a cat, his eyes held a predatory grace to them. He leaned over and grabbed my arm.

“sorry girls I need to borrow Harper for a minute” he said to the girls who were looking at me weirdly. I let him pull me out of the group quietly, we moved into the kitchen still in looking distance of everyone.

“what’s wrong?” he said leaning against the bench facing me.

I couldn’t, didn’t- want to speak I wanted to hurt someone and I knew how to do it. Knew that this person in front of me that was dressed in black was the reason for a lot of arguments and that this would set something off. I pushed off the bench I had been leaning against, I pushed myself against Luke who went rigid at the touch of it. I grabbed at his chin, my thumb rested on one cheek and my other finger rested on the other.

“what are you doing?” he whispered a little deeply.

“what I want” I whispered back and kissed him. It surprised me when he kissed back. Kissed me back with an intensity I was unaware he was capable of. He placed a hand on my hip and swivelled me around so my back was to the kitchen bench and I was pressed firmly against it with his hands trapping me in on either side. My hand came away from his chin and wrapped my arms around his neck. I opened my mouth for him, it wasn’t a battle for dominance, it was more a battle of how long would this last for. I broke away breathing down some air.

“what was that for?”  he breathed.

“payback” I whispered and shoved away from him.

 “cake time” my brother yelled out of nowhere. “now where’s Harp” he said on top of a chair in the dining room.

“right here” I said laughing as people parted for me to get through. I reached the front of the room and my brother pulled me into a hug.

“right I’d just like to say, Happy birthday. I’m not going to bore everyone with a speech we all know how amazing she is, she’s a kind person” a laughed echoed through the room. “and I’m very grateful that I’m her brother, I hope you have a great birthday and that you find something that makes you the happiest girl in the world” he said wrapping an arm my shoulder.

“nothing could make her happy” a voice called throughout the room. “she’ll never be happy, because she just wants more and more” the crowd all turned to who had said it. Robbie. The one I was avoiding.

“what are you doing here?” Luke growled from where he was leaning against the wall.

“I was invited” Robbie said walking to the front of the room.

“I believe that invitation got taken back 3 weeks ago” I piped in. “now get out before you make yourself anymore of a fool.” I gritted out.

“is that anyway to speak to your boyfriend” he crossed his arms. I laughed at that.

“you ended things, 3 weeks ago moron” I clenched my drink a little harder in my hand.

“no, I didn’t, you walked out 3 weeks ago to go screw some guy” I saw his eyes flick to the boys in the room. “probably one of these guys” he snarled eyeing Luke longer than the rest. I walked up to him slowly and grabbed the cup of the girl closet to him and poured it over his head, along with my drink before he knocked my hand and stepped closer to me, breathing heavily into my face.

“get the fuck out” I seethed.

“I’d listen to her” Luke had come to stand off to the right, and I knew Ashton would be on my left side. They were a scary duo those 2.

“now” I screamed in his face. He shoved me back in which Ashton caught me so I didn’t trip, I knew Ash would catch me but I also knew that it would cause Luke to lash out. I knew he’d protect me, no one touched his best friend’s little sister.

Luke shoved Robbie and got his attention

“don’t touch her and get out. now or I’ll beat you to a bloody pulp” Luke said sizing him up. Robbie shook his head laughing.

“so, this is the latest one. have fun with her” Robbie said snarkily.

Luke punched him quickly in the eye and grabbed him by the back of the collar, he half walked him half dragged him to the door. Luke threw him out the door, Robbie gained his footing and swung around hitting Luke in the cheek, Robbie ring scratching across Luke’s cheek leaving a bloody mark. Luke swung back faster right into Robbie nose, before he took a step back into the door way.

“you’re not welcome here” Luke slammed the door in his face, and when he turned around everyone was staring at blankly. “who wants cake?” he smiled out to the crowd which erupted into cheers. Luke made his way over to Ashton and I. “you okay?” he said in his usual tone.

“yeah, thanks” Ashton said rubbing my arm trying to warm me up, a cold chill had run up my spine and I couldn’t shake it. I pushed away from my brother and made my way to the bathroom and slammed the door shut. I was shaking so bad, my hands just wouldn’t stop shaking, I sat on the bath my head in my hands. The door popped open quickly and closed again. A warm hand was placed on my knee.

“are you okay?” Luke voice was soft, careful.

“you must think the worst of me” I said sad fully.

“not more than normal” I could hear the joke in his voice, when he looked up my vision was blurry.

“you’re bleeding” I stated dumbly, my touched his cheek with my hand

“he got in one good punch” he smiled up at me. I got up quickly and moved to the sink. I grabbed the face washer that was hung up and wetted it with warm water.

“come here” I motioned for him to come here and I jumped up on the bench, he stood in-front of me and I held his face in one hand as I washed his injured cheek, out of the corner of my eye I watched as he watched every movement I made. “stop starring” I said cleaning the cloth.

“sorry” he said smiling “about earlier, did you only kiss me to annoy him or because of something else” he asked a little seriously. “it’s okay whichever it was” he said quickly.

“I needed something to anchor me and you were there. Just like you are now” I whispered, realizing how close I had leaned in.

“and do you need an anchor now?” he whispered noting the distance as well. At the slight move of my head, the confirmation that yes, I did need one. Luke was more than okay to anchor me once again before he slipped a hand to the back of my neck and brought my lips to his. I dropped the cloth back in the sink and let my hands wrap around his neck. I greedily opened my mouth and let him come in. I had never realised how much I had really needed him till now, how much he had always protected me and how he had always unintentionally broken me up with people because he was jealous, I don’t know how I didn’t see it. I didn’t fully hear the door open.

“uh what the fuck is this?” Ashtons voice boomed causing Luke to lean back, and for his eyes to convey the feeling that he knew he was in deep shit with Ash.

let me know what you thought here

[talkstarwars]

Empire Baby! | LEGO Star Wars Photography @StarWarsUK @LEGO_Group 

I enjoy 3 things....Lego, Star Wars and photography. So I decided to combine them all!! The first step is to pick a scene from one of the movies and try to emulate that or to create your own.

In this instance i decided that id like to show Stormtroopers and the Empire.

When thinking about a shot I try to think of what it is I'm trying to say or put across in scene, and how I can reflect that in a photo, as they say a picture paints a thousand words, so its up to me to get as many "words" into it as possible.

In this instance i wanted to show a battlefield, so battles tend to be chaotic violent and fast paced. So I knew I'd need to show lots going on and explosions etc.

I then decided what kind of trooper to display as this would affect the background and base of the scene, i.e snow troopers would obviously require snow then what time of day id like to show, I tend to favour snow for night time shots as I find the dark sky contrasts with light snow and can be quite dramatic.

I decided that as I wanted to show a lot of action and I would require a wide open, well lit area, so I went for a desert. The next step is modelling.

The problem with lego is that the figures are quite simplistic in what poses they can act out, and if you have many figures in a scene the poses can become repetitive very quickly and it all becomes a blur. So it's common practice to breakdown your figure into his components and reposition them in a way to trick the camera by exploiting an angle. This is fine whilst shooting your figure on a flat surface or showing them stationary, 

I however want to get them to a state where they look like they are in motion, blu tack is your greatest ally in achieving this, gardening wire also helps in getting figures off of the ground. In the photos I have shown the troopers from the diorama in the various poses I used in the scene.

Now, when the modelling began I played around a lot and decided that I wanted them all to be unique and to show various stories on that section of battlefield. So I thought about what can be seen typically and decided

*Charging/advancing.- self explanatory, having them all in a trench would be boring!!

*Injured/Medic, i wanted to show another stormtrooper helping his comrade for a couple of reasons 

  1. Its a battle and in its nature, people tend to focus on extremes when showing battles

  2. It shows the stormtroopers as human, not all who serve are monsters and that even in the empire bonds are made and these guys behind the helmets are still brothers in arms.

*Deceased - Grim, but an unescapable fact of war. And I knew I wanted an explosion so i would need some suitable Michael bay troopers.

I then start a "dry fit" i misassemble them in their poses roughly using vast amounts of blue tac just as a proof of concept I base all of my models on coins or a square of card as this increases stability and makes adjustments once everything is in place far easier, nothing more frustrating than your carefully posed kylo ren face planting into baking powder snow,  just to come out looking like something from scarface and then having to be removed cleaned and remodelled!!

Once I have them complete I set up the scene with no substrate or background and use my camera to see what angles work and roughly where everyone will be, and adjust the models accordingly, sometimes limbs are obscured etc,  after I'm happy with all of this I remodel, removing excess blue tac or hiding it in places I now know wont be seen from the angle of the shot.

Then its go time!!

I place my base down which is a 3 sided box to limit mess from the substrate then i add my models in the predetermined areas, then we add the substrate i use a normal table spoon to apply this around the models as pouring is too random and can destroy poses or "weather" the figure too much,

I then use a small paintbrush to spread the substrate around, checking regularly through my cameras viewfinder to make sure none of the bases are on show, or models are obscured etc.

Todays pic EMPIRE BABY!!@TalkStarWars @TumblingSaber @thenerdrm @RogueSquadPod @LEGO_Group @StarWarsUK#LEGO #starwars #Smokingrebels pic.twitter.com/QWg0kyHUmJ

— Robbie Wan Kenobi (@Shakey787) April 28, 2017

Once I'm satisfied its all good I pick a background card, in this instance I wanted a daylit desert so went for light blue

And thats it!! unfortunately I didn’t get and full setup pics for this scene, however I’ve shown another very similar one. 

Now its a case of playing with camera settings to get the right "feel" most lego pictures out there have a cutesy comic feel and palette however I prefer my to be darker and more washed and used like Star Wars itself,  in these scenes.

Additionally I threw handfuls of sand at the models whilst taking the picture to capture it flying through the air to simulate movement and debris.

Post process I use photoshop to remove wire, add explosions and blaster bolts, I wanted to show the "close call" the charging trooper had so i added some glow onto his armour to show just how close the bolt was.

I Also dirtied up his armour with some grit and grime, added a tear in his helmet and some blood splatter, this was to show him as a what he is....a soldier, in battle you cant stop moving and it also reflects the relentless aggressive nature of the empire, 

I added a blaster strike mark to 1 of the troopers helmet to again fully illustrate he has indeed been KIA,

I then added clouds to break up the blue. When this was done i looked at the picture and decided the sky and skyline was very "open" i decided rather than crop i could add to the feel by adding in some ties and and an AT-ST,  which i thought helped add to the scene in my opinion as it added another dimension to the battle and enhanced the chaos. It also helped spread the scene out and not have it look like a "corridor"

For more LEGO Star Wars photography follow me on twitter here.

Thanks for checking out my LEGO Star Wars Photography. 

Rob

[xpwewarchive]

XPWEW Friday Night Pyro (8-31-2018)

Friday Night Pyro August 31st, 2018: Pyro Concord, California

Match card: M1: Golden Bryce vs Milk Man M2: Steve Blackman vs Vinny Testaverde [No lImit Tournament] M3: Slayer vs Champagne Clausen M4: Croyle & Edwards w/ Olaffub vs Taka-Naka M5: Kalalikial'i w/ Romeo vs GG M6: XPWEW Tag Titles - Jake & Jaques vs 1776

Opening segment: Clausen speaks on how he can’t change The Truth Infantry 5 count rule

Troy on Truth Infantry -nothing I can do -i would like to fire all of you but i think that would be too easy -injuring robbie williams was the most disgusting this i have ever seen

Truth Infantry appears

Blackman explains his hatred an thirst for revenge against Awesome I got vent up frustration against you for telling me when you signed me in 2011. Saying don’t worry Steve, we’ll make you a comedy act Troy, I can still go I am Steve black-man the greatest xpwew world champion ever and i will out Jake, Slayer, Jaques anybody

*1776 interrupts “can’t believe we still gotta stay in this liberal shit-hole of California for another month…” “All the fans booing me right now should do what Jason Sensation wanted to do Monday night” ISDA CHEEP HEEET “We are bringing back traditional values to this country, to that wrestling ring! We want the tag team championships and we wanna know where are they

*Slayer and Marc Snow interupts “I made Jake Awesome tap out twice if anything he should be the 32nd contender for the world title!” “I should be world champion, not Jaques Dudley, not your doofus son. ME!”

*Slayer gets up in Troy Clausen’s face

Troy: Well last week I did announce that Jaques was the number one contender and I’m announcing right now that Jake Awesome is the number 2 contender (crowd reacts)

This parlays Troy to reveal Jaques is the number one contender for...The Tag Team titles and so is Jake taking on the #2 contenders 1776

Slayer is relived wow so then I’m the number 1 contender right

Blackman speaks: no I am

Clausen explains that the actual world title belt…isn’t ready yet. Its still in customs

Olaffub calls out clausen for being stupid, careless and a weak contract negotiator. Blackman calls out Clausen for forcing him to do Headcheese and be a comedy act

Clausen says fine Blackman you wanna spill dirty laundry out in public. First off we’ve always been good friends and i didn’t MAKE you do comedy, I made things easy. I respect what you’ve done for this industry and so I gave you a lucrative contract to take things easy and now you go and align yourself with this jackass Olaffub

Croyle calls 1776 clowns - speaks up to Troy why aren’t we in the tag team title picture

Fine - tonight you’ll face Taka Naka - happy

Slayer looking bored patiently sits back “are you done yet?” All i hear is Blackman bitching Croyle bitching Edwards looking like a bitch Olaffubs ponytail is somehow bitching somehow but where oh where is the title Do I have to beat Steve Blackman? is that what is being set-up here

Blackman: smiles at Slayer…this ain’t what you want boy

Slayer: ooooh what are you gonna do Steven, you gonna nunchuck me, you gonna ask me what my favorite type of cheese is. Listen dude my brother was always a better performer than you were and I’m not gonna argue with a failed dog the bounty hunter

Steve Blackman: Slayer, your lucky you aren’t on my list right now…

Slayer (school hall spooky fingers)

*Infantry leaves the ring

Golden Bryce hits the ring cuts a promo on the importance of physical fitness Milk Man interupts and says “don’t forget to drink your milk” Golden Bryce: *cough* excuse me Mr. Man? Actually milk is a terrible choice, it’s actually been proven to be a horrible choice to the human reproductive system. Honestly, you should switch to Almond Milk it’s a great substitute for that mid-evil substance (chuckles) Milk Man attacks Bryce from behind as the bell rings

M1: Golden Bryce def. Milk Man

Backstage: Mick Foley finds Jake Awesome and says listen Jake I wanna have a public human resources session with you in that ring tonight. Jake rolls his eyes not really taking this seriously.

M2: No Limits Tournament First Round Steve Blackman w/ Olaffub def. Vinny Testaverde *Blackman makes quick work of Vinny.

Steve Blackman calls Jake Awesome out. Awesome I will end your career and that is a promise. I will get my revenge on what you did to me and you know what you did. 10 years ago when I was the flagship champion of this company for over a year. It was you who not only took that title away from me. You nearly ended my career throwing me off the stage at Guilty As Charged 2008. I did not forget. I’ve already plotted my revenge, you’ll figure it out soon enough.

*Jake Awesome music!*

*Jake Awesome enters the stage staring down Blackman who is standing in the ring until Mick Foley steps in front of Jake as if to separate them

*Blackman/Awesome star at each other as they both walk up and down the ramp. Olaffub in front of Blackman and Mick Foley in front of Jake. and they slowly walk around

PUBLIC HUMAN RESOURCES SESSION *Ring segment: Mick Foley with Jake Awesome *Mick: Now Jake I understand you might be feeling a lack of confidence Jake: I’m honestly not. I lost to a good competitor, I’m not perfect. Mick to be honest every week you keep approaching me with this lack of confidence, are you ok, Yes i’m ok, Yes - Mick I’m fine Mick: The old Jake Awesome wouldn’t have tapped out Jake: I’m not perfect. Mick, you of all people. Mick half of your career was a loss. Alright - I lost 2 matches. Tonight I’m gonna win the tag team titles. It’s all good I’ll win the tag titles with Jaques I’ll squash that has-been Steve Blackman Mick: Jake do you think you have ring rust Jake: what the hell did you just say to me? (Jake proper offended) Mick: (rushes on) Jake, I have someone back there you need to talk to. Jake: (insulted still about the ring rust comment looks confused) Mick: from your hometown of Terrace Florida Jake this is your mother Delisa Alfonso!!!

Entrance: Delisa Alfonso appears and Jake Awesome’s actual mother is here on Friday Night PYRO

Mick Foley: I looked her up all over the internet and Jake I found your Mom and I think nothing is better than a mother-son bond and she has something she wants to tell you

Jake: Jake greets and hugs his Mom. (kind of unsure, feels like an intervention)

Delisa: You all know him as Jake Awesome but I know him as my son Anthony Alfonso. goes on long diatribe about jake as a child. Delisa: Jake, you’ve had a successful career and you’ve made lots of money and son I think it might be best, if you consider making not doing this wrestling thing anymore

Jake: Mom, I’m fine Delisa: Anthony I think you are going to get hurt and I’ve spoke with Mick Foley and he tells me that he doesn’t think you are competing at the same level that you used to. and son I don’t want you to throw your life and able body away for these fans. I’m sorry (crowd boos) Jake: Mom, I’ve lost 2 matches this is ridiculous. I’m not perfect. I lost. I haven’t lost a step? I’,m still the mammoth and I will be YOUR XPWEW tag team champion tonight Mick: ENOUGH!!!! You know what I see Jake, I see me in you. I see someone who doesn’t know how to quit! I was that person and now I can’t walk without a limp, I can’t run, I can’t jog, I can’t get on the floor and wrestle with my kids. This fdamn industry changed my life….I’ll never forget the horrors I suffered in Japan, I’ll never forget the ear being stripped from my head in Germany, I’ve lost years off of my life because of these ropes. and you with the good looks, a model wife, a 5 year old daughter at home. I don’t want you to throw your life away for this. I wanna see Jake Awesome do movies, I wanna see Jake Awesome become an actor, make millions not hurting yourself Delisa: Anthony, don’t listen to these people, they don’t love you, they don’t want whats best for you Jake: (silence) kisses his mother on the cheek, shakes Mick Foley’s hand and walks out and then up to the ramp puts the mic to his face “and your new XPWEW tag team champion of the world..Jake Awesome” (walks behind curtain)

M3: Slayer w/ Marc Snow def. Champagne Curt Clausen via helm sharpshooter

Interview: Kandi Khaos with Jaques Dudley about how he thought last week when Clausen called him the #1 contender he thought it was for the world title but he’ll become tag team champs with Jake nonetheless. Slayer sweaty after his win over Champagne talks smack to Jaques about who should be world champ, good luck with those 2nd tier belts. Also good luck because if you are teaming with Jake…be prepared to lose on his behalf

M4: Croyle & Edwards w/ Olaffub def. TakaNaka *after many close calls of 4 counts Taka Naka could not get a 5 count over the truth infantry ultimately Croyle would pick up the win over Masato Tanaka

In ring: Tanahashi appears wearing a pink suit looking really dapper is with a woman standing next to him in the ring. She’s dressed in a business dress holding a clipboard and is the official English translator for Tanahashi Feebe Kinoshiba translates the Tanahashi promo and declares Tanahshi wants to give you what you have been wanting. At Anarchy Rulz Hiroshi Tanahashi wants a dream match. Tanahashi wants JOHN CENA!!!! (huge pop) Tanahashi smiles in approval

*Backstage: Troy Clausen knocks on the door of Romeo Roselli’s locker room. A huge Hawaiian man answers the door Troy: Who are you Huge hawaiian man: ……. Troy: How many translators do we need around here Romeo: Oh hi Troy, you look great. Got a tan. Joel you look…fit Troy: Romeo listen last week you brutally attacked GG our lead cameraman and I’m suppose to be here to suspend you for 30 days without pay Romeo: WHATTT Troy: No no listen. I can’t have my talent attacking production staff okay. But no fear GG actually spoke to me and said he wants to drop the charges and he’ll drop them if he received a talent contract. And we got him trained, he’s pretty green but he wants to live his dream of being a professional wrestler Romeo: Oh well if he wants a piece of first he’s gotta get through my poona right cheer. Troy this is my “Protecter” This is Kalaliki’al’i and tell GG to meet him right now Clausen: Well he’s actually standing in the ring (they look over at monitor with GG jumping up and down getting himself hype in the ring) Kalaliki’ali’i *swift kicks monitor off the table*

M5: Kalaliki’ali’i def. GG in about two minutes

(crowd gives GG standing ovation despite big loss. GG exits through the loving crowd and starts an X P Dub chant)

Troy Clausen and Joel Gertner hit the ring and unveil the NEW XPWEW Tag Team Championships White straps, they look nice. Updated belts

*Mick Foley, Steve Blackman and Will Olaffub join Joey Styles and Shane McCoy on commentary

(during commentary Blackman tells Foley, you should convince Jake to end his career now before I end it

M6: XPWEW World Tag Team titles 1776 vs Jaques & Jake Awesome

*1776 cuts off Jake to their corner of the ring

*Jaques is the only bright spot for the team honestly

*However after a double spine buster finisher Leonard and Dennis pin Jake Awesome and after multiple saves Jaques can not save the match and

1776 is the new tag team champions

Clausen and Gertner wrap the new titles around the waist of 1776 as they start emotionally reacting to the win to a sea of boos

Mick Foley walks up to the apron and looks at Jake somberly

Jaques walks up the ramp shaking his head

[robbieinterviews]

Margot Robbie talks her "SHIT" hair, her housemate skills & why Cara Delevingne is a gem, 2016

We have a confession: interviewing celebrities on the telephone can sometimes be really really dull. You can't get the banter going, and having the celebrity's undivided attention is totally out of your control. So it's fair to say that GLAMOUR's Leanne Bayley didn't have huge expectations when she recently dialled Margot Robbie for a phone chat on a Saturday afternoon. Was the Suicide Squad star a disappointment? Hell no. Was she chatty, amazing and totally cool? 100 percent YES.

Hi Margot, first off - I'm very jealous of you because you got to hang out with a lot of male models on the deep euphoria Calvin Klein advertising campaign shoot. Did you have any pre-shoot nerves?

Only a little bit in the sense that photoshoots aren't really my forte, I've never done modelling, I feel at home on a film set. I'm just so familiar with sets and how they work that when we did the video campaign for the deep euphoria shoot I felt much more at home than just the photoshoot aspect of it. Photoshoots kind of make me nervous but the video side of it I didn't feel nervous. We had Francis Lawrence directing it so I knew that we'd be talking in the same way.

I love that the deep euphoria advertising campaign is based on the morning after the night before - what's the wildest night you've ever been on in real life?

Good question. I've had some wild ones. We did talk about that a lot, the nights that keep going until the sun comes up and then still a group of you in a hotel room or like apartment and you're still drinking and you're still chatting. I love that so much, I love those kind of nights that blend into the next morning.We had a pretty big night after the Suicide Squad press. It was Cara's birthday and she had this massive party at Suki's house and it was just an outrageous party. But it was sweet too. Yeah, the party was fun but everyone's favourite bit was when the sun's coming up and you've got your closest friends, the squad there chatting and the sun's coming up and everyone knows they should go home and shower and stuff but no one wants to leave each other because, it's just good times all the time - sitting on a roof top until like midday.

The deep euphoria scent is all about euphoria... what gives you a euphoric feeling in real life?

Sky diving is so fun. That's jumping outside of your comfort zone, but so is diving. I don't know if you dive but to me that's the most euphoric feeling in the world, just being under water and just diving with sharks and things like that and realising that you're a tiny spec in this world and that the ocean is so not your territory. It's crazy under there, but those are the euphoric moments in life.

People are fascinated by your ever-so normal life in Clapham - we love that you have roommates. What makes you a great housemate and what makes you a not so great of a housemate?

Well, I love living with housemates. Everyone's like, 'That's so weird!' and I'm like, 'I'm 26, is it really that weird?' People are starting to move out with boyfriends and stuff but now I'm in that stage in my life when I'm like 'oh yeah, we should move in on our own', but for now, that's what all my friends do so it would be weird to live in like a big mansion on my own. I mean, I have no desire to live like that, so it's good.

What makes me a good housemate? I'm pretty tidy, I like to keep things clean - I do the washing up and all that. What makes me a bad housemate? I should ask my housemates what they hate about me. Do you know what makes me a bad housemate! I always have sixteen suitcases yet to be unpacked just sitting in the hallway and in my room and everyone's like 'can't you just unpack!?' and I'm like 'I can't! I've got to go again.' And I always buy like such useless things - I love when I see something like a crystal growing kit I'm like "oh I have to have that" or like a hammer kit or my tattoo gun and it takes up so much space so everyone's like can we get rid of all this useless shit in our house and I'm like 'no way'.

You and Cara Delevingne were giving us major squad goals recently. Do you think you've made a friend for life?

Totally - she is a rare gem in this world and I've just never met anyone like her. She is the most genuine person you can ever meet and there's nothing calculated about that girl. She's like a little comet just blasting her way through this world.

We think of you as a resident Brit these days, but is there one thing you'll never get?

Black pudding - I keep trying but I can't get my head around it. At my first bite I was like "yum" and then someone said it's dried blood and I was like 'I can't'. Once I knew, I couldn't get past it. I tried but I can't.

We reckon Harley Quinn will be a big trend for Halloween this year - have you thought about you'd dress up as for this Halloween?

I was actually talking about this the other day, I don't know yet because I don't know if I'm going to be able to celebrate. I don't know where I'm going to be, whether I'm flying or I'm going to be at work or whatever it is. I'm not even going to get my hopes up for Halloween because I take dressing up very very seriously. If I'm going to dress up, I go all out so unless I'm going to have an actual night on Halloween, I'm not going to start plotting my costume and get let down.

2017 is going to be exciting for you - and I, Tonya is going to be huge - have you started training as yet?

I can't because I'm actually shooting another film right now so for insurance purposes, you can't do any activities where you could potentially injure yourself. So I can't start the ice skating training until I wrap - literally the day I wrap at the end of October I'm going to start training and I'm going to have to get right into it.

I'm really excited because I'm producing the film as well, for the first time I have all of these other concerns that I normally don't think about when I'm just acting. Whereas now I'm so worried about getting injuries and ruining pushing shoot dates back, that'll cost hundreds of thousands of dollars - it's terrifying. So I'm really excited because I love acquiring a new skill for a role, it's one of the biggest treats of acting, and on the producing side of it - if I get an injury I'm scared I'm going to ruin everything so I'm nervous.

You recently called out the creepy paps on Instagram - do you find the invasion of your privacy the hardest thing about fame?

It's up there. There are a couple of things that I obviously didn't foresee but yeah it's definitely up there.

GLAMOUR readers love your hair - they're obsessed - what products do you like to use on it, and is there anything you'd never do to your hair for a role?

I'd shave it off for sure. Oribe texturizing spray, if you've got fine hair like me, you can't live without that shit. Klorane dry shampoo, again, with blonde hair and regrowth, when you use dry shampoo, not only does it kind of cover the regrowth a bit but it's so good. And I get this stuff, my mum's friend get this stuff from Thailand called Goa hair and I think it's like seaweed extract but it's so good. Every time I wash my hair I use it as a leave-in conditioner afterwards and it's literally the only thing keeping my hair on my head. But readers are being so mislead, I have fine, boring hair - my hair is actually totally shit. Every time I go to an event they have like clip in hair extensions to thicken it up, not necessarily for length but just to thicken it up to make it look fuller than it is. So it's not me, it's a magical hair stylist making it look good. The glam squad!

[justanotherdumpingground]

Chapter Reviews: January 28-February 2, 2019

Desire & Decorum Chapter 7:

The engagement ball was fun. Usurping Duke Richards's position as the center of attention was satisfying and made me feel powerful. Honestly, I felt like a player at social events, and that was thrilling.

Gideon Payne finally shows up, eh? Gotta keep an eye for such instigators of chaos. As the mastermind behind the Bristol Riots, he's sure to stir up trouble once again.

It's about time Dominique realized how much of a monster Duke Richards is and cancel her granddaughter's engagement. I feared that this engagement business will last for the entire book, but at least the story's pacing is better than I though. Now all that matters is to get engaged to Prince Hamid and expose Richards's horrible nature to everyone.

America's Most Eligible Chapter 3:

Well, that was interesting. Turns out Vince is bad behind the scenes after all. Being a pain to others, up to and including misgendering Wrenn, is just downright rude and unacceptable. Even more so when he sabotaged the mechanical bull to injure Adam.

As for the elimination, that was an easy choice. I eliminated Heath because I find his behavior and pranks immature. Not to mention that I quite like Eden for her level-headedness.

Speaking of level-headedness, I've come to respect Slater for calling Ivy out for her rudeness towards the MC. That was much appreciated.

So the twist is that the contestants are paired and eliminations come in pairs? That's a curveball. Even more so when I'm paired with Vince. I still hope to steal time with Adam, Derek, and hopefully Slater while teaming up with Bianca and Mackenzie as well.

It Lives Beneath Chapter 17:

The reunion with the love interests, Elliot, and Robbie is sweet and relaxing. I enjoy seeing everyone doing their best in their endeavors regardless of the events that have happened. I'm so proud of all of them: Tom for continuing his studies, Imogen (bless her) for donating her stuff for reconstruction efforts, Parker maintaining law and order as the new police chief, and Danni getting a job (why does it have to be ClickIt? :( ) that pays well.

As for who I chose to mourn, I picked Vincent and Astrid Wescott. Sure they're horrible people who caused the mess in Pine Springs, but there's no denying that they still have a bit of humanity in them, such as Vincent telling Imogen to run to safety when the monsters attacked at the dam and Astrid getting angry at Josephine for killing Vincent and taking a killing blow meant for Imogen. For Chief Kelley, I feel like I don't know much about him even though he saved Parker from a life of crime and being a murderous cultist at the same time. As for Richard, he's devoid of redeeming qualities, just like Brian Crandall and Tommy Walsh.

Great, Dick the Warlock's alive and just ambushes me just as I was enjoying things. Fortunately, I escaped and killed him. After all, he's devoid of redeeming qualities.

The bonus scene with Connor and ILITW!MC recruiting Jocelyn looks interesting and something I'd do while negotiating with her. I mean, I get that there are people who still hate her for what she did, but I also find it extremely stupid to ignore any dimensionality in her. For example, her ability to set her priorities straight by buying more time to escape from the vine creatures shows that she's not supposed to be fully evil. Not to mention that judging characters by "type" is stupid because doing so ignores the variations in every individual. As for her as a love interest for the third protagonist, it depends. Said protagonist shouldn't be someone she bullied in the past because she still remains her prickly self from what I've seen.

As for Jocelyn as a love interest in the third book, I'm down for that as long as she gets a well-written redemption arc like Violet's and is portrayed as genuinely complex like Becca and Victoria and hopefully nothing like Nick Peralta.

Regarding It Lives Beneath, I enjoy it immensely and think its just as good as It Lives in the Woods. There are some pros (building up nerve from scratch, a deliciously entertaining cult) and cons (not a lot of horror factors, anticlimactic showdown) that balance each other out. Suffice to say I'm glad the diamonds I've spent on this book are a good investment. I hope the third It Lives book will be awesome.

Ride or Die Chapter 3:

Another chapter that reinforces my belief that Logan should've been the protagonist instead of Ellie. Alright, I get that this story succeeds in catering to its target audience, but it's still no excuse to screw creativity. I mean, where's the potential for gray morality from Logan's perspective? He mentioned his disdain for the rich, which would've made the story way better, in my opinion.

Ingrid continues to be cardboard. She's just a popular academic rival, and there's nothing special about her.

I like Ximena. She feels like a breath of fresh air along with Darius and the dad. Here's hoping she and Mona will just ditch Mercy Park Crew as I leave them at the mercy of the cops. Or better yet, pair Logan and Colt together.

[thedeadshotnetwork]

14 Winter 2018 Movies We're Excited To See With winter coming, there is only one thing on all of our minds: Star Wars. We all have tunnel vision until December 15, when The Last Jedi comes out. The winter season of movies, between December and February, tends to be less exciting than the rest of the year. However, there are still a lot of movies we think look pretty fun, including a few really interesting looking horror films and 2018'a first Marvel movie, Black Panther . The real question is, "Could February finally be the release of the Cloverfield Universe movie God Particle ?" Here's a list of upcoming movies to keep on your radar for the next three months, starting with December's releases. Jump ahead to January Jump ahead to February The Disaster Artist One of my favorite bad movies is The Room , and one of my favorite non-fiction books is The Disaster Artist by Greg Sestero. So obviously, the movie based on said book is going to be on this season's list. For the first time, James and Dave Franco appear together on screen as director Tommy Wiseau and line-producer-turned- Room- actor Greg Sestero. The film looks hilarious; see for yourself in this trailer . The Disaster Artist opens on December 1, and you can check out our full review of the film here . The Shape of the Water Guillermo del Toro's newest film is The Shape of the Water . Fans have been waiting since they got to see the magical and horrific trailer back in July. The movie takes place during the early '60s, in Cold War America. A janitor at a government laboratory discovers a bizarre being during work. The Shape of the Water opens on December 8, and y ou can check out the full review of the film here . I, Tonya I, Tonya is a biopic about ice skater Tonya Harding. A true story about an ice skater sounds dull, unless it's Harding because her story is crazy and unbelievable. She was a potential Olympic skater whose husband took her #1 competition, Nancy Kerrigan, by attacking her leg. Margot Robbie stars in this movie as the titular character, and the trailer is what won me over , as it's pretty funny. I, Tonya opens on December 8. Star Wars: The Last Jedi You probably already have your tickets to The Last Jedi , since it's one of the most anticipated movies of the year. The newest teaser for the film has a few extra scenes we haven't seen already, but it doesn't matter. It's Star Wars. Regardless of what we say, you already have your mind set. If for some reason you're on the fence about heading to the theaters, remember Porgs are a thing now. Star Wars: The Last Jedi opens on December 15. Jumanji Jumanji was a movie I loved when I was younger, and while Welcome to the Jungle -- which is a sequel that avoids feeling like a sequel --doesn't seem to have that same sense of wonderment as the original, it does have an air of fun in the trailers . It may be the Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson fanboy inside of me, but I'm pretty pumped for this movie, even though there is little-to-no chance it will stand up to the original. Jumanji opens on Wednesday, December 20. Bright Netflix original movies can be hit or miss. They're either marvelous or mediocre, but Bright looks pretty awesome . Will Smith stars as a police officer who lives in a world where mystical creatures--like orcs--exist alongside humans. With his orc partner, Smith is on the hunt for a weapon that everyone is after. This has the potential to be one of Netflix's bigger original movies, as the service already has some great original series. Bright comes to Netflix on December 22. Downsizing Matt Damon stars in Downsizing , a movie about people who shrink themselves down in order to reduce their impact on the environment. The trailer is quirky and compelling , and it is a really cool concept, especially if you're someone like me who likes Innerspace or any film with Rick Moranis shrinking things. Downsizing comes out on December 22. Insidious: The Last Key If horror is up your alley, the winter has a few promising-looking movies. The first big horror film of the season is the fourth installment in the Insidious franchise. This time, Dr. Rainier must stop a new haunting: one that is happening in her family home. As you can expect, the trailers are creepy . Now, there's a new terrifying ghostly being with keys for fingers hunting people down. The Last Key looks like more of the same, in a good way. Insidious: The Last Key opens on January 5. Maze Runner: The Death Cure The third installment of the Maze Runner series has had a rough go, after star Dylan O'Brien was injured on the set in 2016 and production was pushed to February 2017. However, the latest trailer was released over the summer , and it looks like the movie is setting up an excellent final act to the story. For the third film, Thomas and his friends must break into a large labyrinthine city which is controlled by the WCKD. Maze Runner: The Death Cure opens on January 26. Extinction In the past, we've recommended upcoming films that haven't released a trailer, but with Extinction , there aren't even any movie posters or set photos anywhere, hence the Universal Pictures logo above. The movie stars Michael Pena and Lizzy Caplan, who find that Earth has been invaded and is on the verge of destruction. That may not be a lot to work with, but Extinction does have Arrival writer Eric Heisserer attached, and that should be reason enough to be interested. Extinction opens on January 26. Cloverfield/God Particle Here we go again. One year ago, we put this movie on our list for Winter 2017 movies to watch, and it still hasn't come out. It was supposed to come out this past October but was pushed back yet again. Now, the movie about a group of scientists on a space station, fighting for their life against something horrible will come out in February--we hope. The upcoming Cloverfield universe movie comes out on February 2. Winchester: The House That Ghosts Built I've always been infatuated by the Winchester Mystery House and the story of its origin. Winchester: The House That Ghosts Built is about Sarah Winchester, the air to the Winchester firearms company. She believes the souls of those killed by the Winchester rifles were haunting her, so she built a large house with doors and staircases to nowhere in order to confuse them. Helen Mirren stars in this supernatural horror film, and it is directed by Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig ( Predestination , Jigsaw ). The trailer seems pretty standard for a movie about angry ghosts , but what excites me is the story of the house itself. Winchester: The House That Ghosts Built opens on February 2. Disclosure: Winchester: The House That Ghosts Built is by CBS Films. CBS is GameSpot's parent company. Black Panther Marvel is getting things started early in 2018 with Black Panther . Personally, I'm more excited for this movie than Ant-Man and the Wasp or Avengers: Infinity War . The movie follows T'Challa--the hero known as Black Panther--as he takes his place as king of Wakanda, as his father was killed during the events of Civil War . The latest trailer for the movie shows that the technologically advanced nation is on the verge of a revolution and T'Challa must rise to the occasion. Black Panther opens on February 16. Annihilation Before we head into the spring, there's Annihilation , a movie that should be on everyone's radar. Starring Natalie Portman and written and directed by Alex Garland ( Ex Machina ), the film follows a biologist who goes on an expedition in an environmental disaster zone, where life is a bit strange. The trailer from back in September is mind-blowing . If that hasn't sold you yet, Garland wrote 28 Days Later, Dredd, Sunshine , DmC: Devil May Cry , and Enslaved: Odyssey to the West . Annihilation opens on February 23. November 25, 2017 at 03:46PM