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crystalracing · 3 years ago

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Archive: The ups and downs of Raikkonen's 2007 F1 title triumphBy:

Adam Cooper

Sep 1, 2021, 8:53 PM

With two races to go in the 2007 Formula 1 season, Kimi Raikkonen appeared down and out. His recovery of a 17-point deficit as McLaren's challenge imploded is one of the greatest comebacks in F1's history and, on the occasion of the Finn announcing his retirement, we dug out the 25 October 2007 Autosport magazine feature explaining his remarkable title season

It took a long time but Kimi Raikkonen has finally won the world championship title that he so clearly deserves. And, of course, it came at the expense of McLaren after his own two near misses with the British team in 2003 and '05.

This was an extraordinary season for the Finn that began with an oh-so-easy victory in Australia that proved to be a false dawn. It was followed by a series of frustrating races that even led some to speculate his future with the team was in doubt. Yet, once everything clicked, Raikkonen was more often than not the man to beat, a position that was obscured by the headline-grabbing battle between Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso.

He had a lot of catching up to do. It's hard to believe now that he was as much as 17 points behind Hamilton at the end of the Japanese Grand Prix, with only 20 up for grabs over the final two races. And a few laps into that race, when he languished at the back after a disastrous strategy gamble by the team, he was staring at a title-losing 23-point deficit.

It's easy to overlook how much is involved when a frontrunning driver changes teams. Raikkonen had, after all, spent five full seasons at McLaren, and was used to the Woking team's systems and way of doing things. Moving over from Renault, the team he'd grown up with, Alonso faced similar challenges.

But Raikkonen undoubtedly had the more difficult job, for he was also filling the shoes of Michael Schumacher. In addition, the departure of Ross Brawn meant he was joining a team that was under serious pressure to maintain its equilibrium, and had also lost the advantages conferred by its special relationship with Bridgestone.

Raikkonen was also up against a team-mate who not only had a year's head start, but enjoyed a special relationship with the team boss. It could all have gone horribly wrong - like it did for Alonso - and the fact it didn't was a reflection of Raikkonen's ability to focus on what really matters.

Alonso had a slight advantage over Raikkonen in that he had a day in a McLaren in December, which accelerated the getting-to-know-each-other process. Kimi had to wait until January until he was free to drive a red car for the first time.

There was a limited amount of testing before Melbourne, and a great deal to learn. And perhaps trickiest of all was the transition from Michelin to Bridgestone, something that caught out many drivers.

"The Bridgestones were like playing on a different field," says David Robertson, who co-managed Raikkonen with son Steve. "Kimi and Alonso struggled. Lewis [Hamilton] when he was on the Michelins [in his early McLaren testing] struggled like hell - he couldn't do anything. He went to the Bridgestones, and it was 'this is it!', because that's the playing field he was used to being on. That's what we all believe, that's what Kimi believed."

Raikkonen left the winter-headline grabbing to others, but when he got to Australia things could hardly have gone any better in terms of making his mark with both the team and the tifosi: pole position, victory and fastest lap. Michael who? But he was flattered by circumstances, not least the fact team-mate Felipe Massa had a problem in qualifying and had to fight through the field.

Things got tougher in Malaysia, where the car's performance was compromised, but he took third and some useful points. Massa's early excursion suggested that Raikkonen had already established himself as de facto team leader.

"The Michelins were quite a bit different when you approached the corner and, in order to avoid understeer, you had to use the tyres in quite an aggressive way. With Bridgestone it's completely the opposite so, if you want to avoid the understeer, you need to be more gentle on turn-in" Luca Baldisserri

That perception changed abruptly in Bahrain, where Massa scored an impressive win, and Raikkonen was some way behind in third. "Australia just stunned us all, I think," says his Aussie engineer Chris Dyer. "It was just such an easy weekend. And really you kind of know that that's not going to last. We came back down to earth with a bit of a thud in Malaysia, especially with Kimi struggling there with the engine, so he was pretty much fighting with one hand tied behind his back. And then Bahrain wasn't glorious."

That weekend at the Sakhir circuit had put a negative focus on Raikkonen, and it was evident that all was not well.

"The problems started more in qualifying, to be honest," says Ferrari engineering chief Luca Baldisserri, "because he was not able to put the lap time together. Even in Brazil he was still struggling a little bit. Then he had problems to understand all our systems, to understand the tyres. At that stage we were not fantastic in terms of starts, and we improved quite a lot.

That process was still being explored in Spain, the first of a run of four races during which Raikkonen was to earn just 10 points. At Barcelona he suffered a failure after just nine laps, the first retirement among any of the top runners to date.

Another Massa win confirmed that the Brazilian was on the ascendancy. "That was a pretty bad run," says Dyer. "Spain was an electrical problem - we would have been second or third. We probably wouldn't have beaten Felipe there, but I'm pretty sure it was an easy third, with a probable second."

Having been frustrated by the unreliability at McLaren, Raikkonen was hardly impressed. Keen to get home to Switzerland to watch the ice hockey world championship final on TV, he bailed out of the circuit early. The team had let him go of course, but it created the wrong impression at a bad time. Schumacher would never have done that, we observed. Indeed, that very day Schuey left the paddock three hours after the race - and he hadn't even been driving.

The former world champion was a regular presence at that stage of the season, and there's little doubt that Raikkonen was probably as confused as everyone else about his predecessor's exact role. The Finn clearly bristled at naive questions about how much Michael was helping him. After all, he didn't need any fatherly advice from Mika Hakkinen when he started at McLaren and, at that stage, he had just one year's F1 experience behind him.

Early in Q2 in Monaco, Raikkonen made his most costly mistake of the season, clipping the Swimming Pool barrier with the front right after the back had stepped out on him. A trackrod was broken and a wishbone cracked, and he demonstrated his bravery to the team by insisting he still wanted to go out, and would take responsibility. He was overruled, and forced to start 16th. In a race of low attrition, he made laboured progressed up to eighth.

"That was the mistake he made," says Robertson. "Until that point he was right there. I'd say Monaco was the turning point, despite the mistake. He felt he'd conquered it."

Dyer adds: "Monaco was a strange weekend, with an unforced error. He's been looking pretty good up to then, really comfortable all weekend, really happy with the car. A small mistake, and you pay the price.

"Obviously he was disappointed. We're all disappointed when we make mistakes. We're disappointed when the car breaks down on him, we're disappointed when we don't give him quite the right set-up, and he's disappointed when he doesn't do the job."

The pace of the McLarens was such that Raikkonen would probably have been racing for third in Monaco and there was a similar performance deficit in Canada. This time Raikkonen edged out Massa in qualifying, but he had another poor start, and made life difficult for himself by damaging his front wing on the Brazilian's rear tyre. Later he picked up some of Robert Kubica's crash debris, and he was also delayed by having to wait behind his team-mate at the first stops under the safety car. He eventually finished fifth, after what was outwardly another unconvincing performance. The team felt differently.

"To be honest we weren't that bad in Canada," says Dyer. "We had a dreadful start, and then we got screwed like everybody else by the safety car, so it was never going to be glorious. But the signs through the race were that things weren't as bad as they looked."

Indianapolis a week later was to be even better. It didn't look too promising when Raikkonen made yet another bad start and got stuck behind Nick Heidfeld and Heikki Kovalainen but, in the late stages, he showed impressive speed and set the fastest lap as he salvaged fourth, behind Massa.

"Canada and Indy weren't good results," admits Dyer. "But we would see signs we were making progress."

"The really great thing about Kimi is he suffers for about one hour, and then it's all behind him. It's simple philosophy - and I couldn't do it - which is to say, 'That's behind me now, I can't do anything about it. Let's go forward'" David Robertson

Steve Robertson agrees the US race was significant: "In all honesty, it really clicked at the race at Indianapolis. I think he found his feet there in terms of a car he really enjoyed, and was more to his liking. And from then on I don't think anyone can question the fact that Kimi has been the strongest driver. You can't argue with that."

Nevertheless, after Indy, Raikkonen was 26 points behind Hamilton, and at that stage there seemed to be little hope of stopping the McLaren steamroller. But then things began to swing in his favour. At Magny-Cours he qualified only third, but he got ahead of Hamilton at the start and then made the most of the pit strategy to leapfrog poleman Massa. It was a critical race in many ways, not least because it featured him getting the upper hand on his frustrated team-mate.

"We struggled a little bit earlier in the year with the starts," says Dyer. "And, since Magny-Cours, Kimi's starts have been spot-on. I don't think he's lost a place since then, and more often than not he's gained places. The guys have done a fantastic job with the rest of what's required for the start."

Another win seven days later at Silverstone suggested that Raikkonen might be gaining enough momentum for a title challenge, but Nurburgring was to change that. Significantly, he took his first pole since Melbourne, but then the first-lap rain created a lottery. Raikkonen made his life difficult by understeering out of the pit entry back onto the track, and had to run an extra lap on dry tyres.

Once things calmed down, he was destined for a useful helping of points when he suffered a hydraulic glitch, at the very same track where retirements had cost him two titles at McLaren. It was his second failure of the season - the only other DNF to that point among the top four was Massa's self-inflicted black flag at Montreal.

"It was really gutting for me," Dyer admits. "I'd seen him lose two championships before due to reliability, and it's always been one of our strong points. I was not very happy to think that maybe he was going to lose another one here to reliability."

Robertson says the man himself was unfazed: "The really great thing about Kimi is he suffers for about one hour, and then it's all behind him. It's simple philosophy - and I couldn't do it - which is to say, 'That's behind me now, I can't do anything about it. Let's go forward'."

The next three races featured some efficient points-gathering: an unexpectedly close second to Hamilton in Hungary, another second, to Massa, in Istanbul and a third at Monza on a day when McLaren humbled Ferrari at home.

Baldisserri thinks Raikkonen would have beaten Hamilton in Hungary had he not lost a crucial few seconds when he ran off the road: "He lost two seconds behind Hamilton that didn't allow us to change the strategy in the pitstop, which I think we could have done differently."

Then came Spa, where Raikkonen had won the previous two races for McLaren. He took his third (and final) pole of the season and put in a masterful performance that showed beyond all doubt he was on top of his game.

Top 10: Kimi Raikkonen’s greatest F1 races ranked

A season is fought over 17 races, of course, but arguably it was Fuji that ultimately won Raikkonen the title. After three laps, it looked like he was well out of the game after the team's ill-advised (and, as it turned out, illegal) decision to start on intermediate tyres.

"We took the decision that we took," says Baldisserri. "Until the mathematics put you out of the game, our team spirit is to try, and it was the right approach."

Helped by the safety car, but mostly by a largely unsung virtuoso performance that humbled his struggling team-mate, Raikkonen fought back to third place. He was still in the title picture, but... 17 points in two races?

The impossible dream became a little more likely in China, where he hustled his way past the struggling Hamilton - after keeping his tyres in better shape - and logged a superb wet/dry win. And then came Brazil, where there was only one target: a win, with Massa riding shotgun. Incredibly, all the cards fell into place, and Massa played his supporting role. With six wins to the four of each of the McLaren drivers, no one can deny Raikkonen's claim to the title.

"He did everything right when everybody else was spouting off and saying this or that. He just kept his head down, got on and delivered. That's why Ferrari got him, and I know they're thrilled that he managed to do it" David Robertson

"He's put in some fantastic drives this year," smiles Dyer. "He hasn't let us down, but we've let him down a few times. He's gone from strength to strength, the car's been good, and he hasn't really made any errors in the last two thirds of the season. He's cool and he's fast and he just gets on and does the job."

Robertson adds: "He really is a giant - the right man has won this. He did everything right when everybody else was spouting off and saying this or that. He just kept his head down, got on and delivered. That's why Ferrari got him, and I know they're thrilled that he managed to do it."

Baldisserri offers a fascinating footnote to the season: "Michael had input into the team; he was a lot closer to the team. Kimi has a completely different approach, and he tends to accept what we give to him. It's a lot more complicated for us to understand what he needs. With Michael it was a bit easier. And Kimi drove a very good car this year. Michael showed that even with a car that was not so competitive, he could win. With Kimi, I don't know yet."

Wt happened next?

While Raikkonen's talents have never been questioned, it is remarkable to note since his F1 title-clinching Brazilian GP triumph in 2007, he has gone on to claim a further six grand prix victories, the same total he achieved across his title-winning year.

Despite this, and with the exception of his two years out of F1 in 2010 and 2011, the Finn has never been far away from the sharp end of the F1 grid until his second departure from Ferrari in 2018 to move back to the Sauber-run Alfa Romeo squad.

Raikkonen continues to make F1 history through his longevity. After surpassing Rubens Barrichello's record tally at the 2020 Eifel GP, the Finn made his 341st start in last week's washout Belgian GP and assuming the current TBC 21 November date is filled will end his career on 351 race starts.

PLUS: Why the time is right for Raikkonen to hang up his F1 helmet

While Raikkonen may have never hit the heights of 2007 since, his record remains outstanding in F1 to cement his place as an all-time great.

#Kimi Raikkonen #raikkonen #f1

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theparanormalperiodical · 4 years ago

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The Real Story Behind Insidious (2010) And The 5 WEIRDEST Stories Of Astral Projection You Need To Know About feat. The Cold War

It's one of those horror films that just gets it right.

Yes, it wears all the trademarks of overworked tropes, and sure, it has yet to shed its transphobic skin. But the beast that emerged from James Wan's mind and slithered onto the cinema screen recaptured timeless traditions with a new sense of terror.

And yet somehow the rosy cheeks of the Lipstick-Faced Demon gleaming in his various jump scares aren't the scariest thing about this film.

You see, most of the horror movies that manage to scar me for life are allegedly based on real stories - James Wan (who also directed The Conjuring franchise) is no stranger to fleshing out his dark ideas with even more twisted truths. So it was only recently when I discovered how accurate Insidious (2010) was to real paranormal phenomena that young Dalton's venture into the Further became far more terrifying.

And I need to tell someone about it. From the supernatural to the Soviet Union, Insidious is grounded in far more than rumours of a haunted house.

Insidious is based on real historic events and real experiences.

The first installment of one of horror’s most famous franchises, Insidious is already celebrating its 10th birthday. In fact, that’s how old Dalton was when he fell into a mysterious coma - and then stumbled into purgatory.

Instead of having anxiety dreams about not studying for the french exam like the rest of us, Dalton is falling asleep, separating his soul from his body, and having a gander ‘round an astral realm (like heaven or hell) called The Further. The Further is crammed full of dead people and they all want to possess the fresh young body that basically walked into the wrong room.

The first 2 films follow Dalton and his family as they navigate the all-American struggle of being followed by endless paranormal activity and various family members being stuck in purgatory.

After strange occurrences follow the family from house-to-house (which only seems to extend as far as hot-topic-goth-demons standing by the beds of Dalton and his younger siblings) a local psychic is summoned to figure out what in the f*ck is going on. Elise uses her spidey senses to determine that yep, there’s a demon and no, the house isn’t haunted.

It’s the boy, it’s Dalton.

It then turns out that this ability is hereditary (*piano wire flashback*) and comes from Dalton’s father. Josh actually worked with Elise when he was a kid after his astral projecting resulted in a ‘parasitic spirit’ of an old woman following him the afterlife. Elise therefore sends Daddy-O into The Further to fetch Dalton and bring him home.

Daddy-O does the job, and Dalton returns to his body safely and wakes up. But Daddy-O ain’t Daddy-O. Josh’s body has been possessed by the female spirit that stalks him and his soul is stuck back in The Further. The next film follows up on this plot twist and deepens our exploration into the capabilities of astral projection - namely the potential for time travel. But Insidious 2: Papa Don’t Preach mainly revolves around the backstory of the female spirit that possesses Josh.

[INSERT TRANSPHOBIA]

I’ve already dissected what Hollywood Horror gets wrong with transphobia. But I’ve yet to tumble into the world of astral projection - a world full of proof of the paranormal and political chaos, too. Dalton and his daddy issues are only the tip of the iceberg.

What Is Astral Projection?

Astral projection is an intentional out of body experience and is practised by those that follow esotericism (a religion which combines loads of different Western religious ideas) but it is present in many different belief systems. During projection the soul separates from the physical body.

The soul, or the astral body, is a body of light that links the rational soul to the physical body and is considered to be a silvery spine-like ‘cord’. The astral body travels to different astral planes which can be populated by all types of entities including angels, demons, and dead people. The Further represents one of these astral planes.

Each culture and each religion has a different take on projection, for example the Japanese believe those who are ill or comatose - like dear Dalton - are more prone to astral projection.

In Insidious we also see astral projection take a number of forms: there’s obviously the travel to different planes like The Further, but we see time travel, too. This chimes in with the different schools of thought regarding astral travel.

The history of this practice dates back to the Roman Empire, but only in the 18th century did discussion of astral projection take place when Emanuel Swedenborg wrote about his own out of body experiences. Interest in projection increased throughout the 20th century with many notable historic figures claiming they’ve ventured into other realms including noted American activist Helen Keller (she claimed she astral projected to Athens):

"I have been far away all this time, and I haven't left the room...It was clear to me that it was because I was a spirit that I had so vividly 'seen' and felt a place a thousand miles away. Space was nothing to spirit!"

Aside from being practised by historic figures, it took centre stage in a historic era, too. It was during the Cold War that the study and practice of projection took off and it became a political weapon. Beyond the cultural war, however, was a plethora of evidence suggesting the events we see in Insidious might be all too real.

The Soviet Union & The Supernatural

Unclassified CIA documents are a staple amongst paranormal enthusiasts, especially those who have a habit of following mysterious lights in the sky. A top secret memo from 1974, proposed an experiment where Patrick Price, a former police officer, would use astral projection to gain information regarding a Soviet installation in the Ural Mountains. They wanted entry and exit points, they wanted floor plans, and they wanted operations details. This was a covert operation that used paranormal capabilities already being tested and trialled by their communist rivals.

In the 1970s the Cold War took a different turn: thanks to Soviet research into ordinary people’s supernatural abilities including astral projection, American intelligence agencies sought to do the same. Just as the atomic bomb was being built, scientists Seymon and Valentina Kirlian were developing technology that could capture one’s aura in a photograph. They were investigating energy fields, trying to mentally influence animal behaviour, and practicing telepathic communication.

Yogis and masters of ancient magic were even brought in in an attempt to harness the potential of paranormal forces.

“the major impetus behind the Soviet drive to harness the possible capabilities of telepathic communication, telekinetics, and bionics is said to come from the Soviet military and the KGB”

A Defense Intelligence Agency report

Throughout the 1960s a surge in parapsychological research centres took place as ordered by a Kremlin edict. As per the Cold War, the US swiftly did the same.

But it was when the US caught wind experiments using bioplasma they grew concerned. Bioplasmic connectors to human beings echoed claims of the silver cord which - as mentioned previously - was a key part of astral projection.

A Soviet agent could travel across realms, eras, and countries in spirit-form and be going through American filing cabinets. The Americans needed to make astral projection a weapon of their own. Dr Eugene Bernard was one of the many doctors who would pioneer research into projection and sought people willing to travel to these distant realms.

Bernard was quickly caught up with the Soviet-supernatural-situ which included theories of an army of psychic spies.

Soon dozens of recruits would practice astral projection and recount their experiences including a woman called Beverly Chalker: she travelled in spirit from Dallas to a house in New Jersey and described in detail the things she saw. She saw a man asleep with a book on the floor, describing his pyjamas and the decor of the room. The team investigating her astral projection verified her claims.

She was right.

Similar stories soon leaked to the public and many ordinary Americans began to try their hand at exploring spiritual realms. Books, articles, and even a set of infamous tapes released in 1973 claimed to reveal how one could separate their soul from their body.

It used a rhythmic ticking noise to hypnotise those seeking new paranormal abilities - something we hear throughout Insidious. The tapes would be used by one Robert Antoszczyk, an infamous practitioner of projection who would mysteriously die in during a session. 6 weeks later, Patrick Price died, too. We will talk about Antoszczyk later.

Even security in the White House was allegedly amped up over reports the Russians were looking into giving their astral soldiers physical strength so they could become assassins. Interest in projection soon grew out of control, and by the 1980s the surge in serial killers was pinned on a vast number of them practicing it in prison.

(Many followed a range of extremist religious beliefs - practicing astral projection doesn’t make you a serial killer.)

Concerns also claimed some projectors could become ‘zombies’ if the soul got lost, just like Dalton was in Insidious. In fact, one practitioner demarcated several zones of astral travel with Zone C being the limbo where souls were trapped. According to some, The Further was real.

And Robert Antoszczyk was stuck there.

5 Craziest Stories & Accounts Of Astral Projection

#1 - Robert Antoszczyk

Antoszczyk was one of the many Americans swept by the incoming tide of astral projection. He had been taught the practice by a yogi whilst in India, but unlike many other Americans who tumbled into amateur projection, he delved in head-first.

He then began to have dreams about a beautiful woman. Her exotic looks and compelling voice was calling to him from a different realm and he wanted to follow it.

On the 1st of June 1975, he told his roommate not to disturb him. He went into his bedroom, locked the door, and followed the method of astral projection as explained by those tapes released in 1973.

3 days passed. His roommate grew concerned. He broke down the door to discover that Robert was dead. His seemingly healthy roommate was lying on his bed and smiling. There was no signs of a struggle or a seizure or any other cause of death.

Medical experts could offer no answer as to how he died. A local astrologer, however, claimed the answer was obvious: he simply decided not to return to his body. His death would be blamed on his astral projection and it would make headlines across the states.

But some alleged that he was not fully at fault - he was drawn in by a beautiful female entity that would call out to many others with her enticing voice. The descriptions of the woman all related to Ammut, an ancient Egyptian female demonness. And according to the Ancient Egyptians, she existed in astral planes and consumed souls of those she came across.

Laverne Landis heard the same voice. It might have killed her, too.

#2 - Laverne Landis

This mother of five was found dead in the woods in Minnesota by a construction worker in winter of 1982. She wasn’t a typical recruit for projection as a nurse working at a local hospital - but she had started hearing a voice.

The voice was from an astral spirit that promised her the power to heal the sick. So she quit her job, abandoned her children, and drove for 6 months with the voice of Ammut as her guide.

The voice grew stronger and she felt the voice vibrating in the wilderness around her. Her psychic group warned her against astral projection, claiming she might get stuck in limbo. She ignored them, and Landis and her boyfriend followed the voice to Loon Lake on a long trail road through the wilderness.

“We’ve got to stay here. They’re going to be in. I know it, I can feel it, they’re almost here.”

After Laverne passed away, probably from starvation or hypothermia, her boyfriend pulled himself through the snow and alerted a local.

Landis also reportedly was very interest in UFOs and was part of a UFO ‘cult’, and might have also gone to the woods to wait for a flying saucer to land. Either way, she was waiting for something out of this world.

#3 - Seton High School

In 1975 an entire class of students in a prep school in Cincinnati attempted astral projection. They were led in an experiment from which they would ‘travel’ home, report back what they saw, and phone calls home would prove travel via spirit was real.

(Unfortunately, this is all I can uncover on this case, but it is still creepy AF.)

#4 - Robert Monroe

Robert Monroe was obsessed with astral projection. He had often practiced it during the 1970s, even becoming angry seeing a man sleeping next to his wife in bed - before realising it was him. He subjected himself to examination at a local hospital by a psychiatrist.

They verified his astral projection put him into a comatose state rather than a sleeping state.

Monroe then spent a huge fortune on an institute in Virginia to specialise in research into projection featuring an isolation chamber to provide optimal circumstances for projection. And on one occasion he even felt a ‘trunk’ in his back during projection, something he believes was the silver cord.

The United States Army Intelligence and Security Command investigated his techniques and used his claims to inform their desire to create an army of astral projectors.

#5 - Cadell Jeansen Raja

What do Charles Manson, Herbert Mullin, and David Berkowitz have in common? Yes, they are some of America’s most infamous serial killers. But they also all studied astral projection with a desire to harness paranormal abilities they believed would provide new tools to accompany their horrific acts.

(I don’t often make mention of serial killers on this blog, but the perplexing and evil acts committed by Cadell Jeansen Raja should be mentioned.)

In 2017, Raja killed each member of his family over several days. He constantly changed the motive for murder to mislead the police, but later admitted he harboured anger against his successful family members and was obsessed by the occult.

He experimented with the separation of the soul from the body and was living in a ‘virtual world’. He then claimed his family members were killed during their own astral projection.

***

Would you dare venture into The Further?

Let me know in a comment below!

Make sure you also like and reblog this post and then hit follow to read a new article on the paranormal every weekend.

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imshatteredbutnotbroken · 4 years ago

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The wonderful world of Desiree Nguyen: A character analysis

This is a season three, episode 14-18 character analysis of everyone’s favourite MacGyver protector, Desiree “Desi” Nguyen. (Or, A.K.A, my attempt at sounding much more intelligent than I am.) If people want to read more, I’ll cover the rest of the seasons.

Now, I won’t always sound unbiased in my feelings towards Desiree, but I am going to really try my best to be. And, like I said, I am attempting to sound much more intelligent than I am, so if I miss anything or sound incredibly stupid, feel free to correct me.

There are spoilers, so if you haven’t seen season three, I recommend skipping this analysis.

It’s important to note that this is not a commentary on Levy Tran herself, and that it’s only about her character (EXTREME EMPHASIS ON CHARACTER).

There is also a Tl;dr at the end of each episode summary starting from episode 15.

Let’s begin.

Desiree (hereby known as Desi) was first mentioned by (actual) fan favourite, Jack Dalton, in season 3 episode 14, Father+ Bride + Betrayal. He first mentioned her in a conversation with Mac during the wedding:

Jack: “Matty let me handpick my replacement to watch your back. I think you’re really gonna like her. Or, kill her. One of the two.”

Mac: “That’s oddly specific. Should I be worried?”

Jack: “No, man. You’ll meet her soon enough. And, trust me, there’s nobody I’d trust more than this woman to watch your back. She is really good. Well, other than me, obviously.”

Now, there’s not much to go on, but we do get some hints. She’s tough, she’s a badass, and Jack likes and trusts her. So, Desi’s initial set up isn’t so bad. We love Jack, and if Desi comes at Jack’s recommendation, we know she can be trusted to watch everyone’s backs. Like I said, we’re off to a good start.

It’s also important to note: Jack specifically says “there’s nobody I’d trust more than this woman to watch your back.” Does this really happen only a season later? Honestly? It’s debatable. But, we’ll get there when we get there.

Season three, episode 15: K9 + Smugglers + New Recruit

Desi is initially introduced — through Mac — as advertised: a tough badass who will take her job as the team’s protector seriously. While she admits to Mac that she will hate her job as their bodyguard, she is doing it because she owes Jack. What she owes him exactly, we’re still not sure. It could be anything from repaying Jack for a chocolate bar to repaying a debt to him after Jack saved someone’s life. Who the hell knows?

In the war room, at her second meeting with Mac, Riley, Bozer, Leanna (remember her?! Why couldn’t you leave well enough alone, T.V. show?!), and Matty, Desi reemphasizes that their safety is her top priority. Like I said, Desi (in her initial intro) is a tough badass who takes her job seriously.

On the mission, Cody, (our story of the week’s gun sniffing dog) immediately finds two guns on Desi’s person. She really is like Jack in that respect! But, we soon find out she doesn’t like them (she’s really not like Jack that way!), telling Mac she only carries it because she has to, will only pull a gun when necessary, and that she’d “rather put bad guys in an interrogation room than the morgue.” Another special exception that allows her to pull a gun is against “anyone who hurts animals.”

While Mac and Riley notice Desi isn’t the warmest, Riley acknowledges that Desi is well-accomplished. She was one of the first women to graduate from Ranger school, was part of a special ops team made up of SAS, Delta, and the CIA, and, apparently, “has more awards than Michael Phelps.” So, Desi is no slouch. She also impresses everyone even more when she parkours up several shipping containers to get a better view for the op they’re on. Desi proves herself again during a fight scene by single-handedly taking out several guys with guns (and gets shot in the process, her bulletproof vest stopping every bullet). Let’s add bravery to the list of qualities Desi has shown in just over 10 minutes.

Later, she talks to Riley, who emphasizes their group’s need for Desi to be reliable (and this is interesting because Desi’s reliability is questioned in episode 21 this season). Riley found out Desi went AWOL while she was in Afghanistan, and Riley wants to know why. As Desi explains, one of the Afghani civilians she was working with was kidnapped, and she went to find him. Which Desi successfully did. As she tells the story, Desi becomes emotional, showing that she does have a heart and a vulnerable side, and you can tell she is speaking sincerely. Desi is also adamant that she would to do it again. This is an interesting contrast to her behaviour during the Codex storyline, but we’ll get there.

Desi doesn’t much like Mac’s fly by the seat of his pants behaviour because she was trained to always have plan and she can’t work spontaneously. We also learn Desi is knowledgeable about some sort of technology having to with RFID chips that I can’t personally understand, and that she went to the University of Michigan.

At the end of the episode, Desi makes an appearance at Mac’s house, saying Jack made her promise to go. She leaves as quickly as came though, not wanting to get too close to everyone…in case she has to bury them. Which, I understand, but morbid, jeez. It’s also kind of odd when you think about it because Desi is the group’s protector and is responsible for their safety. But, on the other hand, she can’t fix every situation, and there may be a time when one of them gets killed on a mission. So, while I understand Desi’s hesitation, I am not entirely a fan of it. And, this behaviour is even odder considering Desi goes on to date Mac at the end of the season. I guess Mac really did break down her walls (and that’s something I didn’t notice until writing this).

Overall, we’ve learned a lot about Desi. She’s tough, yet cold, smart, athletic, reliable (supposedly), likes a plan, and hates guns and animal abusers. Seeing her introduced this way (and introduced well) is interesting because I know future storylines and have seen how much Desi has changed as a character. She was always somewhat cold, but she initially had an adamance, confidence, and determination to do what is right. Knowing how the Codex storyline in particular goes down, the way Desi changes is interesting, to say the least.

Tl;dr: As Desi is introduced, the audience learns that she takes her job as the team’s bodyguard seriously, and owes Jack for some (still unknown) reason, and that’s really why Desi is there. We also learn she hates guns and animal abusers, is brave, athletic, reliable (supposedly), and well-accomplished. She also doesn’t want to get too close to the rest of the team in case she has to bury them, so she leaves the Phoenix’s group hangout session as quickly as she joined.

Season three, episode 16: Lidar + Rogues + Duty

At the beginning of this episode, Desi is ‘familiarizing’ herself with the lab and ‘helping’ Bozer with Sparky (really, she’s flipping through a magazine and complaining about the music Bozer is playing while he works). She says she’s lending moral support, though, so, whatever works, I guess. Anyway, Bozer asks for her help with running diagnostic tests on Sparky, and Desi agrees. But, her help is a riddle that sends the robot on an endless loop for the rest of the episode. I do like her shit disturber behaviour, though, so I’ll give Desi that.

For the main operation, Desi and Mac are on a recovery mission in Azerbaijan to bring back one of Mac’s friend’s bodies. His friend, Robert Reese, was on a covert flying mission when his plane crashed, and Mac and Desi are the only ones who can get the body.

While looking for the wreckage, Desi notices that Mac is distracted. She asks him what’s going on, and he explains why he’s distracted. And, knowing that Mac feels responsible for what happened to Reese, Desi asks Mac to tell her about his friend. After Mac does, she gets angry with him and tells Mac to compartmentalize, seemingly a turn around from being caring like she was in the previous episode. But, I understand where she’s coming from because Desi and Mac have to stay focused, or else, like she says, “Matty will be sending a team to recover us.” Fair, because if Mac lets his emotions get the best of him — while he and Desi are in a country they’re not supposed to be in — he could get into a situation he can’t get out of.

Later, we learn that Desi speaks Turkish (what can’t this girl do?!) as some of the Azerbaijani military arrive at the wreckage site. After escaping and driving away, Desi notices a parachute in the trees, indicating it’s possible Reese isn’t dead. Mac is hopeful that his friend is alive, while Desi is more logical, saying, “there are a lot of reasons why the Azerbaijani military would grab a dead U.S. pilot.” They spot footprints of U.S. Army issued boots, so their mission goes from recovery to search and rescue.

Mac and Desi are led to a small town after hearing about sightings of an injured man wearing a flight suit. There, they figure out which building Reese is hiding in. Mac and Desi find him alive but with a broken clavicle. And, while Mac provides Reese with first aid, Desi becomes all business. But, in her defence, they’re in danger, so it’s not weird Desi reacts this way.

After escaping and another mission change (this time to stopping rogue CIA agents and recovering chemical weapons), Mac improvises a plan that goes awry and has Desi and Reese held at gunpoint by the agents. Desi has to stall while Mac tries to save them and, as she talks, she uses the info Mac told her about Reese, proving Desi listened to Mac. So, while we thought Desi was being callous, she actually showed that she sincerely cared about what Mac had to say.

Later, Desi meets with Bozer to make up for sending Sparky into an endless loop. Maybe she truly feels bad, or maybe she’s doing it selfishly because she’s new. Either way, it’s hard to tell because we’re not in Desi’s head. But, I’ll give it to her because I really think Desi knows she messed up and she wants to fix it. She tells Bozer the answer to the riddle and Sparky is able to break the loop.

We are still learning about Desi, but we get so much info in the small details. My favourite part about her this episode was her shit disturbing. We also learn she speaks Turkish, prefers to be all business when she’s on a mission, and pays attention to what’s going on around her. Desi is actually quite deep in this season, and she shows that she cares about people and robots alike.

Tl;dr: At the beginning of the episode, Desi is ‘helping’ Bozer while he works on Sparky the robot. She sends Sparky on an endless loop after telling him a riddle he can’t figure out, annoying Bozer.

Desi and Mac have the main operation, which was initially a body recovery mission for one of Mac’s friends, Robert Reese. She gets Mac to open up about Reese, and then immediately tells him to compartmentalize so they can get through the mission alive.

They find Reese alive, and their mission changes to stopping rogue CIA agents and recovering chemical weapons. At the chemical weapons site, Desi and Reese are held up at gunpoint by the agents, and Desi is forced to stall while Mac saves them. She uses the story Mac told her about Reese earlier in the episode, proving she paid attention to what Mac said.

At the end of the episode, Desi goes to Bozer to help fix Sparky. She tells him the answer to the riddle, getting Sparky out of his loop, and showing Desi cares about those around her.

Season three, episode 17: Seeds + Permafrost + Feather

This episode opens with Mac and Desi in bed together. But, it’s not what you think. It’s for a mission and part of Mac’s plan to escape from the people chasing them. Desi is annoyed by the plan (because she had to get undressed) and she argues with Mac. He tries to convince her it was their best option — until the bad guys return and hold Desi and Mac up at gunpoint. I can see why she would be annoyed with Mac, but is fighting during a mission necessary? Somehow, they escape, and we can move on.

Mac, Riley, and Desi have to travel to the international seed vault in Greenland because an employee is missing. Since Mac’s dad, James (also known as Oversight), was involved in the vault’s development and planning, he’s the person to call when something goes wrong. But, James has other business, so the mission falls to Mac, Riley, and Desi.

In the vault, thanks to a comment Desi made about the employee disappearing into the mountain (causing Mac to do his Mac thing), the trio discovers an access tunnel someone dug to get into the (extremely secure) vault. And, whoever dug that tunnel killed Karl, the missing employee, in the process. There is also a possibility of seeds being stolen.

So, Mac, Riley, and Desi use Karl’s cell phone, which he had on him, to figure out the path he took and identify which seeds may have been stolen. Mac and Desi, who plays the murderer, recreate the fight, and they’re having a ball doing it. They fight, and Desi gives Mac all she’s got. She’s not subtle or gentle, but she gets the job done. Soon, they figure out which box (one of North Korea’s) the thief rifled through, and which seeds were taken (a rare form of a pea plant).

Desi explores the access tunnel and finds a room that is scattered in schematics, seed reports, and drilling equipment. From there, Mac figures out that the pea seeds are an ingredient in making a toxin, and that the seeds can be weaponized and used to create as much of the toxin as desired. Riley discovers their thief has been making monthly payments to a flower shop in Brussels, so a plane ride it is for Mac, Riley, and Desi.

On the plane, Mac calls Bozer so Mac can find out what’s going on with James. But, after hanging up, Mac slams his phone down and Desi comments on his annoyance and asks Mac about it. He says it’s the mission, but Desi isn’t buying it. When Riley mentions it’s about Mac’s dad, Desi says that Oversight seemed distracted. And, while she admits it’s not her business to know what’s going with Mac’s dad, Desi tells Mac it is his business.

The three of them go on a chase that takes them from a cemetery in Brussels to a park in the Czech Republic. The man they are running after, named Jules, wants revenge on a crime boss named Passer for killing Jules’ wife and child after Jules testified in court. At the park, Riley and Desi fight Passer’s men while Mac starts to talk Jules (who is holding Passer up at gunpoint) down. Eventually, Jules relents, and he is arrested. Mac, Riley, and Desi recover the stolen seeds and avoid an international incident with North Korea.

Desi has more of a background role in this episode because the episode focuses on Mac and his dad. But, her fighting skills, knowledge (she helped explain the seed vault to Riley and the audience), and empathy shine through. This is particularly true when she encourages Mac to figure out what is going on with his dad. This side of Desi is nice to see because while she’s tough, she is sincere in her efforts to help others.

Tl;dr: Desi is in the background this episode, but, she displays her intelligence, empathy, and fighting skills. She also encourages Mac to figure out what is going on with his dad, saying that it’s not her business to know what is going on with her boss, but it is Mac’s.

Season three, episode 18: Murdoc + Helman + Hit

This episode opens with Nicolas Helman’s return. And he gets to work immediately by murdering an FBI interrogator in a karaoke bar. How this happened, Mac, Riley, Matty, Bozer, and Oversight aren’t sure because the last time they saw him, Helman was dead — or, so they thought — because Matty had his coffin exhumed and it was empty. Since the Phoenix is responsible for Helman, they have to figure out his next move so they can capture him.

Mac, Bozer, and Desi are with Oversight this episode. Their mission? To speak with our favourite psychopath Murdoc who is still at the Phoenix Black Site. Desi gets the Helman story explained to her, but it doesn’t seem like she entirely believes how serious dealing with Murdoc is because she asks Mac, “What kind of monster are you keeping down here? Indominus Rex? King Kong? That kid from The Omen? These questions also reveal another detail about Desi that could easily be overlooked: She likes horror and monster movies. Anyway, upon meeting Murdoc, Desi seems to get it because she has a face similar to McKayla Maroney’s unimpressed face plastered on (and, really, who can blame her?). But, Mac, Bozer, Desi, and Oversight need Murdoc’s help, so they press on.

There’s a quick scene with Bozer and Desi observing Mac and Oversight questioning Murdoc. Desi acknowledges they weren’t kidding about Murdoc and notes that James is just as much of an enigma because he’s still exerting himself, despite the toll doing so takes. Bozer thinks Desi is talking about the effects having cancer has on Oversight himself, but Desi immediately corrects Bozer and says “I meant on Mac.” So, again, there’s that compassion for others Desi has displayed since her introduction.

After getting more information from Murdoc about Helman’s possible whereabouts (because Helman has killed again), Mac, Desi, and Oversight jump into action to find Helman. They, and a Phoenix tac team, storm an apartment building with Desi leading the way with a gun. They leave Bozer behind with Murdoc (which, rude). Anyway, the team starts going up to the apartment, but before they can really make their way, James starts having trouble physically. Mac, worried about his father, tells him he doesn’t need to go upstairs, but Oversight insists. Desi encourages Mac to be open and honest with his dad, but Mac says Oversight is fine. Desi tells Mac not saying anything to his father shouldn’t be an emotional decision because lives hang in the balance. She also says she’s worried about Mac, and tells him to not get distracted. This attitude harkens back to episode 16 when Desi was worried about Mac’s emotions getting in the way of their mission. So, I understand where she’s coming from and why she’s concerned.

Skipping ahead, Mac, Desi, and James go on a road trip because Riley and Matty discovered Helman had the transportation route for an FBI transport truck moving someone who is supposed to testify in a trial against his former employees. While waiting for the FBI truck, they see another (unknown) vehicle approaching. Concerned it may be Helman and that it could have explosives in it, Mac, Desi, and Oversight have to stop the vehicle. James tries to take matters into his own hands by borrowing a tac team member’s rife, but he’s having trouble steadying himself, and Desi notices. Oversight is eventually able to get his bearings and shoots out the van’s tires. While they stop the vehicle, it turns out to be a distraction so Helman could get into the Phoenix Black Site. Desi figures out that the FBI murders and attack on the transport truck were all a ruse so Helman could kill Murdoc.

Later, they realize Murdoc’s entire plan was a jailbreak so Mac and Oversight go on a car chase to capture Murdoc while Desi flies in a helicopter overhead (side note, I’m not really sure why Desi is there because it doesn’t seem like she needs to be. She doesn’t do anything in this scene other than fly overhead and worry about Mac). James and Mac do their thing and figure out a way to stop Murdoc’s truck. But, with Desi’s words in the back of his mind (probably), Mac tells his dad he shouldn’t be the one to stop the truck. Oversight agrees, and Mac does his thing. You can see as he tries to overtake the truck, everyone (including Desi) is concerned. Eventually succeeding in stopping and capturing Murdoc, there’s a shot shown of Desi’s relief.

At the end of the episode, Desi says she suggested security upgrades for the black site so no one can escape or attack the site again. This reflects her security knowledge because the Phoenix trusted her enough to give her the task. Again, Desi isn’t so useless and demonstrates her intelligence.

Throughout the episode, Desi shows she cares about other people, especially since she’s worried about the effect Oversight’s need to keep going has on Mac. She also encourages Mac to be honest with his father. And this is a thread that is shown throughout these episodes. Which leads to the following questions: What happened to that particular characteristic? Where did Desi’s empathy and compassion go?

Tl;dr: Desi’s character development takes somewhat of a backseat this episode because it mostly focuses on Mac and Oversight (again). Still, throughout their mission, Desi encourages Mac to be open and honest with his father and tell Oversight his concerns. This, again, demonstrates her empathy and her concerns for others. Mac is eventually able (probably with Desi’s words in the back of his mind) to be honest with Oversight and take over in order to do the physical labour required on the mission.

Lastly, Desi suggests security upgrades for the Phoenix Black Site that held Murdoc so that no one can break in or out again. This demonstrates her intelligence, and leads to the following question: What happened to her intelligence and compassion and empathy for others?

We learn so much about Desi in just four episodes. From her bravery and boldness, to enjoyment of monster and horror movies, she isn’t so one-note. The biggest thread is her compassion and concern for others. She wants to help people and ensure they’re safe, and Desi is adamant and determined about it. She continually displays this characteristic, especially when it comes to Mac and ensuring his feelings don’t get the best of him while they’re on a mission.

During season three, Desi is written well! She’s introduced to us based on the trust a fan favourite has with the audience and she never deviates from that. She also displays many characteristics that actually make her interesting. She’s smart, athletic, brave, and bold. So, I have to ask (again): WHAT HAPPENED?! Where did go so wrong and why?

If you want more of my character analysis, let me know! I procrastinated way too long on this, so if it seems like episode 18 is disjointed from the rest, I apologize. I had fun with this, and I feel like I like and understand Desi a little more (at least for season three).

#Macgyver #Desi Nguyen #Desiree Nguyen #Character analysis #I got really bored. Can you tell?

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theliterateape · 4 years ago

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A Look at Today’s Approach to Mental Health through the Mind of Hollywood’s Most Convoluted Antihero

By Brett Dworski

About forty-six minutes into Martin Scorsese’s 1976 neo noir thriller, Taxi Driver, Travis Bickle asks his fellow cabbie, Wizard, if he can talk to him about something. Standing outside a diner on break during their usual graveyard shifts, Travis tenses up, hesitant to speak his mind. But then the camera zooms in on Travis, and he vents.

“I just want to go out and really, really do something.” ”Taxi life, you mean?” “No… I don’t know. I just want to go out… I really… I’ve got some bad ideas in my head.”

Even after forty-five years since its release, Taxi Driver remains one of the most ambiguous films of our time. Some believe it’s a gritty, optimistic story of a bum-turned-hero, while others see a volatile loner whose dark urges get the best of him—a ticking time bomb of sorts. Both make sense, with this moment between Travis and Wizard bridging the two. But all opinions aside, there’s an undeniable certainty to Taxi Driver: That Travis—a Vietnam War veteran—is very troubled, and whether his intentions are good or bad, he takes a manic turn, resulting in one of Hollywood’s most convoluted antihero stories. While some of his actions are concrete, most require abstract interpretation, leaving questions that have plagued us for nearly five decades: What does Travis’s journey mean, and what is Scorsese trying to tell us through it?

Set in a decaying and corrupt post-Vietnam New York City, Travis—played by a stunningly grim Robert De Niro—dreams of ridding the city of the filth and perversion he witnesses during his overnight shifts as a cabbie. The more Travis drives, the more he questions his purpose in life and grows deranged, ultimately leading down a path of violence, hatred, and even redemption. De Niro went all out to prepare for the role of Travis: Besides getting a taxi license and driving the streets of New York City in his spare time, he lost thirty-five pounds and listened repeatedly to a taped reading of the diaries of Arthur Bremer, the man who attempted to assassinate U.S. presidential candidate George Wallace in 1972.

Upon meeting the lonely and depressed Travis, we feel sorry for him. But the more people he encounters, the more he becomes detached from reality, and his actions leave us questioning his morals—as well as what’s real and what’s not.

It all starts with Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), a beautiful campaign volunteer for presidential candidate Charles Palantine. After watching Betsy from afar, Travis musters the courage to ask her out. Betsy thinks he’s weird, but she’s into it. They set a date. Earlier in the film, Travis frequents a pornographic movie theater—whether out of sexual thrill or a longing for something deeper is up to us to decide—and he takes Betsy there. Unsurprisingly, she leaves in disgust. This is Scorsese’s first test for viewers: Did Travis really lack the judgement in taking Betsy to a porno on their first date, or was it all a maddening trick? Is he a perverted freak despite loathing the sexual activity he sees in the streets, or is he simply ignorant?

Creating empathy for antiheros is a constant challenge for filmmakers, but when Travis calls Betsy to apologize, Scorsese masters it.

“Would you like to have dinner with me in the next few days or something? … Well how about just a cup of coffee? … Did you get my flowers in the ...? I sent some flowers … Can I call you again? Tomorrow or the next day?”

At first, we’re drawn to De Niro’s masterful, cringey acting. We see and feel Travis’s angst and pain. But while he’s talking, the camera shifts right and pauses in an empty hallway—a tracking shot that speaks a thousand words: That in this moment, Travis’s life is too agonizing to watch. Later, Travis storms into Betsy’s workplace and berates her in front of her colleagues, saying she’s going to hell and is "just like the others.” But who is he referring to?

Another woman who attracts Travis’s attention is Iris (Jodie Foster), a child prostitute. But unlike with Betsy, Travis views himself as a fatherly figure to the 12-year-old, as he constantly dreams of rescuing her from exploitation. He tells Iris to leave New York and find her family, to be a kid again. It’s here that we even start rooting for Travis, if only briefly. He tells her he may be going away for a bit, hinting that he’s planning something—a “bad idea” of sorts. While Iris entertains the idea, she’s later convinced to stay by her manipulative pimp, Sport, in what is by far the most sickening moment of the film.

Needing to do something powerful, Travis goes full throttle: He buys some guns, shaves his head into a mohawk, and unsuccessfully attempts to assassinate Palantine at a rally. In his eyes, he’s doing a societal service—becoming the force needed to clean New York’s filth and corruption—but has gone insane while doing so. Travis’s journey reaches its apex when he ventures to Iris’s brothel and murders Sport, Iris’s client, and the bouncer.

The ending is especially ambivalent. Despite murdering three people in cold blood, Travis is deemed a hero. Newspaper clippings of his courageousness are hung around his apartment, as is a letter from Iris’s parents thanking him for saving their daughter. When he’s back on the job, Travis picks up a passenger, Betsy, who acknowledges his heroics. In this moment, everything is perfect. Travis has gotten the girl of his dreams, and he’s allowed another to achieve dreams of her own. He’s won. But here’s where Scorsese really screws with us: Upon dropping Betsy off, Travis adjusts his rearview mirror and does a double-take as if he’s seen something alarming, just as a piercing sound hits our ears. We see Travis’s attentive eyes through the windshield before the credits roll to the streetlights.

This is Scorsese’s final test: Was Travis really the hero, or was it all a figment of his imagination?

The great Roger Ebert once said that despite their flaws, Scorsese’s characters “want to be forgiven and admired.” This is surely true of Travis Bickle, and his psychotic twist and apparent redemption represents his greater struggle to relate to the world and find inner peace. Whether or not Travis becoming a hero and regaining the admiration of Betsy is reality or fantasy, the final shot indicates he’s running on a hamster wheel, always one moment away from another maniacal tailspin.

In his confinement to Wizard, Travis confesses his emotional struggle for the first and only time of the film, but Wizard provides no support, instead telling him to “go get laid.” Travis opened up and wasn’t taken seriously. In 2021, an era where mental health is more discussed and normalized than ever before, Travis is an extreme and somber expression of what can happen to people who need help but never receive it.

#Travis opened up and wasn’t taken seriously. In 2021 an era where mental health is more discussed and normalized than ever before Travis is #Taxi Driver #Robert De Niro #Martin Scorsese #Jodie Foster #Mental Health #Mental Illness #heroic

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our-kendrick · 4 years ago

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Anna Kendrick on life, love, sex toys and COVID-19

©: Janet R. Nepales

Read here, or below.

Talk about the relationships of mothers and daughters which is sometimes more difficult than the relationship between daughters and fathers.

The relationship between Darby and her mother, we don't know a lot about it until a little later in the show. And I love it so much. It has such an impact on who Darby is, and you really see that once you get to know her mother. And we get to know her mother even more as the show goes on.

There's an episode where we really get into Darby's relationship with her mother. And I was so surprised and happy. You know, happy might be the wrong word, but I was so amazed at how many women on the set, on the crew came up to me and they were like, this is my mother, this is my relationship with my mother.

Darby has a difficult relationship with her mother so it made me sad, but I definitely felt that made me really proud of the show that we were making, and that it resonated with so many people. And it also made me call my mother and say how grateful I am for what a wonderful mom she is.

There's a scene where Darby breaks down crying, and her mother doesn't know how to comfort her. And this happened a lot throughout the show; that it brought up a lot of personal stuff for me, but not necessarily to do with the content of the show.

That was one example where I have a close relationship with my mother and she's so empathetic but just having the experience of breaking down crying and having somebody just go like, what is your problem? That's something that reminded me of relationships that I was in when I was much younger. And just how painful that experience is and how grateful I am that there are things that I don't accept any more from people.

I expect empathy from people if we're going to have a relationship. It made me grateful that my mother modeled that empathy for me. Because if you don't have an empathetic home life, it's hard for you to know that you deserve empathy. The relationship between mothers and daughters is so complicated and so fraught sometimes. This show made me grateful for the way that my mother really modeled what empathy was for me.

What are the red flags for a woman on deciding relationships?

I remember somebody telling me when I was maybe, 14 or 15, I remember them saying it was a really specific example. And yet I have thought about it in almost any relationship I've ever like entered into or if I'm on a first date or something. Somebody told me when I was 14, if you're ever in a car with a guy, and he's driving, and as a joke, he lets go the wheel and makes you grab the wheel, because he's goofing around or something like that is not a guy that you want to be with. He might think, hey, I'm just joking. Why are you being so sensitive? We're just having fun. I wouldn't have let the car crash. But really, he's testing your boundaries. He's testing like what you're gonna put up with. And he's trying to make you uncomfortable. And it was such a weird, specific example. But I feel like I've had moments in my life where I'm like, oh, this is the guy letting go of the wheel to see what I'll do.

This is silly, but I dated a guy when I was 19, who tickled me all the time. And I don't like being tickled. I feel very claustrophobic, I panic and I don't like it. And I kept saying, this is a problem for me. Please don't do it. And he kept doing it and I broke up with him. And he thought I was being crazy because I broke up with him for tickling me.

I was like no, I broke up with you because you didn't respect me. I asked you for something and you did it to make me uncomfortable. I feel little things like that are so specific and you never know the exact situation it's going to be, but I'm really glad that somebody told me that when I was younger because it has come up a lot for me over the years.

Your show is titled “Love Life.” So let’s talk about your love life. Your first crush, best relationship you’ve had, worst breakup?

My first crush was in elementary school, and his name was Robbie. And I told him that I had a crush on him. And he told me that I was too short. So that was very heartbreaking for me. And now I really like being short. I actually love being a petite woman, that's fine with me.

My worst break-up was something that we tried to put in the show in a very, wait, that was like, a lot of stuff in the show is stuff that I mined from my own life, but it's all changed just enough so that I don't get angry phone calls from ex-boyfriends.

So, the worst breakup was something that I really wanted to put in the show. And I felt it was important to talk about the fact that I feel like most women don't make it out of their 20's without dating a guy who's a little scary. And you don't have to be in physical danger to be able to ask your friends for help. I was young and this was a short relationship, but he started to feel scary to me. And I felt like I was being dramatic. I felt like if I told my friends about it, they would say that I was overreacting. And it wasn't until later that I realized that my friends would have been happy to help me. And, luckily, that was a relationship that I got out of after only five or six months.

But in the show, for Darby, that relationship is longer. And so it was important to me to show that things can get uncomfortable and scary in relationships, and threatening. But sometimes when the good times are so good, it's really hard to leave. So yeah, a lot of the best and worst stuff of my relationship history is sort of in the show. Hopefully in a way where I have plausible deniability.

I watched your other TV show “Dummy.” Have you found a new appreciation for sex toys after having done that?

Well, I think during “Dummy,” which is about a sex doll for those who don't know, it did give me a new appreciation for people who are owners of sex dolls. Because it turns out that a sex doll is really heavy-lifting, way heavier than you think it's going to be. So, I feel like there's a level of commitment there to the people who enjoy sex dolls. No judgement here.

So, I tip my cap to those people. And actually, the director of “Dummy,” who created all the episodes of “Dummy,” her names is Tricia Brock, She also directed the Danny Coupons episode on “Love Life.” The one episode that opens with Darby using a sex toy. So, I was like, Tricia, you just like to have me doing something gross every time we work together.

You have lots of intimate scenes with all your love interests in the show. So talk about your views on doing nudity or intimate scenes.

It's funny that you say that because when we started doing the show, it dawned on me that in every single episode, I was gonna be doing like a kissing scene or a sex scene with someone brand new. Like each episode is a different person. So, that was nerve-wracking, but my personal feelings on nudity have stayed the same, which is that I'm not really interested in nudity for me. But I've never had a problem with simulated sex scenes. To me, that feels like that's about the character whereas I only get one body so nudity just isn't for me.

I was just so totally grateful each new episode that each cast member that we had and we had so many talented guys come on the show to say nothing of the women on the show, who like blow me away so talented. But I was very grateful that every person that Darby dates on the show is like such a class act, such a good actor, such a professional. Because it was definitely weird to know we're going to meet, and then immediately start filming. And within a week, we are going to be in bed pretending to have sex. So I was just very grateful that everybody was the coolest.

Tell us where you are right now and what are you doing for your mental and physical health during this time.

I'm in my house in LA. I'm by myself. I think it comes in waves. I could say I've been exercising every day and cooking and doing everything. I don't know what the experience has been for you, but there's definitely been days where I feel really helpless. I think that's probably something we're all dealing with. Just that feeling that something really terrible is happening and I can't help. I can't do anything and it makes you feel really powerless. You're trapped in your house and I definitely have gone through different cycles of letting that get me down and then just trying to let it happen rather than say a lot of other people have it worse than you, stop feeling sorry for yourself. So, just letting the bad feelings exist and knowing that they'll pass and that we will all get through this together.

I do feel grateful for the sense of community that exists even though we can't be together. Getting on Zoom chats, or Skype, or whatever the platform is and talking to my family, talking to my friends. Twice a week I do family movie nights. So, my parents are in Maine and my brothers in New York, and we pick a movie and we all press play at the same time. We watched that Robert Redford movie “The Natural” and “Princess Bride” and movies like that. We're all texting each other during the movie, which normally would be a no, but under the circumstances is really sweet. So, we're finding creative ways to stay connected.

Love Life’s first three episodes will debut May 27 on HBO Max, and the following seven will stream the Thursdays following.

#Anna Kendrick #Love Life #Projects #HBO Max #Interview #2020

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twentiethcenturymoviesandtv · 4 years ago

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The Goonies: The Story

So, considering that this is a charming children’s adventure movie about a bunch of kids trying to save their town, opening up with a jailbreak is kind of an unusual move, but I’ll say this: at least it gets your attention.

The movie starts outside a prison, where one of the inmates, Jake Fratelli, (Robert Davi) has faked his own suicide, tricking the guard in order to knock him out and make a break for it. Outside, his brother Francis (Joe Pantoliano) and his mother (Anne Ramsey) are ready with the getaway car. Jake gets in, and Mama Fratelli peels out. The cops give chase, and the Fratellis zoom through the town of Astoria, Oregon to evade them, passing:

Andy Carmichael (Kerri Green), a cheerleader practicing on a football field…

Clark “Mouth” Devereaux (Corey Feldman) watching a car chase on television while helping his father fix a sink…

Stefanie “Stef” Steinbrenner (Martha Plimpton), washing her hair in a barrel on the pier…

Richard “Data” Wang (Ke Huy Quan), testing out his latest invention…

And finally, Lawrence “Chunk” Cohen (Jeff Cohen), enjoying a slice of pizza and a milkshake, and immediately becoming enthralled by the car-chase.

The Fratellis lose the police and get away, scot free, as the camera pans away, cutting to a big white house, in which Michael “Mikey” Walsh (Sean Astin), complains that nothing ever happens around here, making himself feel better about the sad fact that his family is moving away from Astoria. His brother, Brandon “Brand” Walsh (Josh Brolin) continues exercising, admitting that he knows how Mikey feels.

A knock at the door brings the boys downstairs, opening the door to Mouth, who immediately begins bemoaning that they’re not doing anything on “their last weekend together…last Goonie weekend”. Following him is Chunk, who begins describing the police chase to the others, but, as he has a history of telling tall tales, the others don’t buy it. Meanwhile, Data zip-lines into the house from next door, and just like that, the gang’s all here.

This is all within the first ten minutes of the movie.

I usually wait until we’re further along in the film to stop our summary, but I want to point out some of the really interesting things that happened right away, setting up almost everything about to come:

First, that opening. I pointed out how unusual it is to start off a kid’s adventure movie with a jailbreak and a police chase, but, besides setting up the Fratellis for later, it also served as a great brief introduction to a ton of characters, whose personalities we’re beginning to see fleshed out here: Data as the Gadgeteer, Chunk as the excitable boy who cried wolf, and Mouth as a kid who’s not quite as cool as he wants to pretend he is. We know all of this, got all of these characters here, found out about their houses being foreclosed on: and the movie has just started.

This is an excellent example of pacing, keeping the audience engaged without wasting any time, but furthermore, it’s also a master-class in introducing characters without it getting confusing: each kid, as he appears, brings with him the brief flash of recognition: we’ve seen him before, and we know something about them in order to help them stick. It’s a genius tactic, and the film reaps the rewards of it throughout the entire rest of the film.

As the boys bemoan their houses being foreclosed on and their inevitable move, Mrs. Walsh comes home with a new housekeeper, Rosalita, who doesn’t speak a word of English. Thankfully (or not) Mouth does, and proceeds to abuse his skill ‘translating’ Mrs. Walsh for the sake of comedy. This is a throwaway joke, yes, but it is important that he knows Spanish. Keep it in mind.

Mrs. Walsh and Rosalita depart again to do some shopping before the move, and Mrs. Walsh instructs Brand to not let Mikey outside because of his asthma.

The instant Mrs. Walsh leaves, the boys stampede up into the attic, apparently undeterred by the veto of any outdoor activities. It turns out that Mr. Walsh is the curator of the Astoria museum, and as a result, there’s all kinds of old odds and ends cluttering up the Walsh attic, some items that the Goonies think are pretty cool: pirate hats, steering wheels of old ships, swords, clothes, and other stuff. During the exploration of the attic, Mikey stumbles upon an old picture frame, inside which appears to be a treasure map. Handing the frame to Chunk (and waiting the few seconds for him to inevitably drop and break it), Mikey pulls out the parchment: the treasure map of One-Eyed Willy.

One-Eyed Willy, as it turns out, is a topic that Mikey happens to be an expert on.

Mikey tells the others the legend of One-Eyed Willy, a pirate who sailed his ship into Astoria, on the run from the Spanish Armada, where he, and his treasure, remained buried after he killed his entire crew and set up a series of traps in order to protect the treasure forever. While Mikey is telling them this story, the boys stumble upon something else: a newspaper article about a man named Chester Copperpot, who claimed to ‘have the key to One Eyed Willy’, right before he disappeared.

Before there can be much discussion on what this means, the doorbell rings, and after pocketing a doubloon that had been hidden in the same frame as the treasure map, Mikey and company go downstairs to answer the door.

At the door are two men with foreclosure papers, who drop them off for Brand to give to their father to sign before leaving, already remarking about the buildings about to go in over the Goonies’ houses.

Back inside, Mikey bemoans the fact that One-Eyed Willy’s treasure would sure be helpful in paying to keep their houses, but Brand’s not having any of it. He can’t afford to let Mikey run loose, he’d get grounded, not with his date with Andy (the cheerleader from before) coming up, which he can’t drive to because he failed his license test.

The Goonies, undeterred, jump Brand and tie him to his chair with his own exercise equipment and make a run for it, while Mouth lets the air out of Brand’s bike tires so he can’t follow them.

Some time later, Mrs. Walsh and Rosalita return to free Brand, but it’s too late: Mikey and Company are already well on their way to another Goonie adventure. Brand eventually frees himself and steals Data’s sister’s tiny pink bike to go after them. In the process, he runs into Troy, the son of one of the guys who’s foreclosing on them, with Andy and Stef. After a dangerous moment involving Troy’s establishing character moment (running Brand off the road), Brand manages to get away and continues searching for the boys.

Meanwhile, the Goonies use the map to figure out that it’s guiding them to the coast, where Mikey holds up the doubloon, finding that it’s markings (Three holes) match a trio of landmarks, concluding that they must be in the right place. Mouth translates the map, and the boys follow it up to an old abandoned summer restaurant.

As they approach it, they see two men in trenchcoats enter. Assuming this means the place must be open after all, the boys follow, continuing to count paces until they hear two gunshots. After convincing themselves that it was probably nothing and certainly wasn’t gunshots, they approach the window and peek through. Meanwhile, Chunk has spotted the car parked in the garage and recognizes it from the police chase he saw that morning: riddled with bullet holes. Realizing the danger that they’re in, Chunk starts trying to convince the others to make a run for it, but the others, knowing what Chunk is like, ignore him and drag him into the restaurant.

The Fratellis make a show of being actual employees of the restaurant (aside from Mama Fratelli threatening to cut Mouth’s tongue off, which, to be honest, he had coming), before Mikey manages to get away to look around. While wandering around the basement, Mikey pulls the map out and tries to figure out what to do next. His train of thought is interrupted by a loud roaring sound: going over to one of the rooms, he sees Jake Fratelli singing to…something, chained to a chair.

Mikey, understandably frightened, freaks and runs back upstairs, where he runs into Brand, who’s finally caught up with him. He and the rest of the Goonies are promptly kicked out by Mama Fratelli, and outside, the boys try to convince Brand to let them stay and explore. From a safe distance, the Goonies watch the Fratellis carry something out in a bag (a body-sized bag), and Chunk again tries to convince the gang to go home.

“Mikey, Mikey, come on, our parents are worried. It’s dinnertime. Why don’t we go home?”

“Home? What home? In a couple more hours, it ain’t gonna be home anymore. Come on, guys, this is our time. Our last chance to see if there really is any rich stuff. We’ve got to.”

After Mikey’s compelling speech, Stef and Andy jump out of nowhere to scare them, and just like that, the gang’s all here.

With the Fratellis gone, the Goonies head back inside the restaurant to look around, with Andy convincing Brand to let them stay so they can spend more time together. Mikey tells the others about the ‘It’ he found in the basement, and he leads the Goonies down to get a look at it. They take one look and, scared off, the kids close the door on the ‘monster’ and rush off to another corner of the basement, where they discover a secret tunnel under the fireplace. While they’re there, Data discovers a counterfeit money machine, and Stef finds a newspaper that includes the names and pictures of the Fratellis. The boys recognize them, and for the first time, get an idea of exactly how dangerous the situation is.

Chunk, feeling vindicated, berates the group for not believing him, before he’s interrupted by the smell of ice cream. Following his nose to the freezer, Chunk discovers a stash of ice cream: and also a body. This, combined with the sounds of the Fratellis arriving upstairs, send the kids into a bonafide panic. They shove the corpse back into the freezer (and Chunk too), and hide in the tunnel under the fireplace.

The Fratellis come down into the basement and notice a water-cooler that Chunk had broken. Thankfully, they think it must be the creature they had chained up, and go to investigate, giving Chunk the chance to get out of the freezer and go for the police, while the rest of the kids head into the tunnels.

Chunk manages to get out of the restaurant and out to the main road, where he flags down an approaching car, spewing everything he knows about the Fratellis: only to discover that, of course, the car is being driven by the Fratellis. They throw him in the back with a stiff (the same one from the freezer), and immediately turn the car around, heading back to the restaurant. Once there, the Fratellis begin to interrogate Chunk, with the handy assistance of a blender for incentive. Being told to spill his guts, he immediately breaks down crying and tells them that the Goonies went down into the fireplace, but the Fratellis don’t believe him. After threatening him again, Chunk, not made of the strongest stuff, immediately tells the Fratellis every bad thing he’s ever done.

Meanwhile, Andy, apparently unable to take the strain, has a minor breakdown after finding a human skeleton crushed underneath what appears to be a booby trap. After searching his wallet, the group discovers that it’s the body of Chester Copperpot: the man who said that he had the key to One-Eyed Willy. Approximately half of the group dissolve into hysterics: if an ‘expert’ like Chester Copperpot couldn’t survive, what are the odds of a handful of kids making it?

Mikey, undeterred, takes from Copperpot’s possessions a handful of candles (dynamite) and a skull-shaped key. Data, in order to make sure nobody follows them, heads to the rear to set up booby traps to make sure they aren’t followed without them knowing. Mikey accidentally sets off one of the booby traps already set by the pirate crew, and the Goonies, in what has to be the one-hundredth near-miss of the day, escape just in time. While they catch their breath, Brand accidentally startles a nest full of (fake looking) bats, which fly past them, and explode out of the fireplace in the room where Chunk is being interrogated.

Realizing that Chunk was telling the truth, the Fratellis tie him up and leave him in a room with the It, and head down into the tunnels after the Goonies, and, more importantly, the treasure, which Chunk also told them about.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Goonies continue through the tunnels into a cave with a waterfall, where the ground is covered in coins. At first, the kids are elated, thinking they’ve found the treasure, but it turns out they’re underneath a wishing well, and the coins are just loose change thrown in over the years. Aboveground, Troy and his friends, who are hanging out by the wishing well, discover that Andy herself is down there, as well as the rest of the Goonies. The Goonies persuade him to help them up via the wishing well bucket, but as they begin to make their ascent, Mikey stops them, saying that they’ve already gotten further than Chester Copperpot.

“Don’t you realize? The next time you see sky, it’ll be over another town. The next time you take a test, it’ll be in some other school. Our parents, they want the bestest stuff for us. But right now, they got to do what’s right for them. Because it’s their time. Their time! Up there! Down here, it’s our time. It’s our time down here. That’s all over the second we ride up Troy’s bucket.”

The Goonies decide to press onward, and send up in the bucket Andy’s jacket instead, officially branding her a Goonie.

Meanwhile, Chunk discovers the It in the room he’s trapped with: Sloth, the Fratellis’ deformed brother. After another screaming fit, Chunk manages to throw Sloth a candy bar, a Baby Ruth that he’s had with him. In order to reach it, Sloth tears the chains binding him right out of the walls, freeing him, and then Chunk. Now released, Chunk goes to place a call to the police station to try to let them know what’s going on, but just like earlier on, Chunk’s stories have given him a reputation, and the cops don’t believe him. Chunk’s connection is lost, and after Sloth begins lowering himself into the fireplace to go after his family, Chunk, unwilling to abandon his new friend, follows suit.

In the tunnels, Mikey, Mouth and Data take another look at the map and the key that Mikey found, trying to figure out what to do next. Mouth’s translation of the words on the map lead Mikey to spot a series of rocks protruding from the tunnel. He fits the key to them, and turns it, setting off yet another booby trap. Data falls through a trap door that opens underneath him, only saved by his ‘Pinchers of Peril’. Dangling through the trap door, Data spots a new opening in the tunnel.

Once the Goonies safely move down into the tunnel, they take a break from adventuring (a break that is mostly important because Andy tries to score a first kiss with Brand. In what is the best example for why you should always do it with your eyes open, she gets Mikey instead, without realizing), which is cut short by the Fratellis, who have caught up. Now in an outright chase, the Goonies book it across a log that is suspended over a stream. Data leaves behind an oil slick from his ‘Slick Shoes’, which stalls the Fratellis while the group presses onwards into another room with a skeleton organ.

The group flips the map over to discover that there are musical notes written on the map, and luckily, Andy has taken piano lessons, though she’s a little rusty. Although she makes a few mistakes, causing the floor to start to crumble away, she manages to play it well enough to open the passage at the end of the room. The Goonies tumble through and land in a giant waterslide which drops them into a lagoon where there waits the pirate ship of One-Eyed Willy. The Goonies climb aboard and explore, uncovering one or two more booby traps, and finally, a secret room where the skeleton of One-Eyed Willy sits at a table, surrounded by tons of gold and jewels. Mikey shares a moment with Willy alone, dubbing Willy the first Goonie:

“Hi Willie. I’m Mike Walsh. You’ve been expecting me, haven’t you? Well I made it. I beat you. I got here in one piece… so far.”

The crew starts loading up from everywhere except a scale, loaded with treasure at the center of the table, which Mikey tells everyone not to take from. That, he says, belongs to Willy.

Just as the kids finish stuffing their pockets, shirts, (in Mouth’s case, his mouth) and marble bags, the Fratellis enter, armed and dangerous, and force the kids onto the deck. Data, proclaiming that he won’t be taken alive, tries to fight them off with his gadgets, but ultimately, the kids are forced to turn out their pockets, shirts, and even Mouth is forced to spit out his string of pearls and handful of jewels. Mama Fratelli ties the kids’ hands together before starting to make them walk the plank, starting with shoving Andy overboard, which prompts Brand to dive in after her. Mama Fratelli next pushes Mouth and Stef (who have decided to quit arguing and bickering with each other now that they’re about to die together) out onto the plank, but before she can push them in too, Sloth and ‘Captain’ Chunk appear. Sloth rescues Stef and Mouth and then takes on the rest of his family while the rest of the Goonies untie themselves and dive overboard to make a swim for it. In unimportant and mildly related news, Brand and Andy share a first kiss, prompting them to realize that she got Mikey the first time.

Meanwhile, Sloth ties up his brothers and tosses his mother overboard, diving in after the Goonies while his mother climbs back aboard the ship and releases her sons, heading for the loot. Showing none of Mikey’s restraint, she takes some of the gold from the scales at the center of the table, triggering one last booby trap: causing the cave to start to collapse.

The Goonies head for the cave wall, using one of the sticks of dynamite to blow a hole large enough for them to squeeze through. With Sloth holding the path open so that the Goonies can get through, the kids escape, reluctantly leaving Sloth behind while he goes to save his family. One-Eyed Willy’s ship, still affected by the trap, pulls up its anchors and starts to head out of the lagoon.

The Goonies, wet and worse for wear, but safely on the beach, are spotted by a few cops (one of which is played by director Richard Donner), who call it in. Soon enough, the kids are surrounded by parents, grandparents, and various other family members (many of whom are played by actual cast members’ families), all of whom are happy that their children are alive and well, if a bit disheveled. Brand has brought Mikey home safely, Chunk’s family brings him a pizza, Data’s father, evidently as much of an inventor as he himself is, embraces his son, and Mouth and Stef make up, displaying some feelings towards each other that aren’t blatant aggression. Andy shares a heartfelt talk with Mikey, and happily prepares to head off into the sunset with Brand. Mikey apologizes to his father:

“Sorry, Dad, we had our hands on the future, but we gave it up just to save our own lives.”

Everyone’s home safe, breathing a collective sigh of relief, when the Fratellis (Sloth included!) show up.

After Chunk convinces the cops that Sloth is a good guy, the Fratellis are led away in handcuffs. Chunk tells Sloth that he’s going to take care of him now.

“Sloth, you’re gonna live with me now. I’m gonna take care of ya, ’cause I love ya.”

Just as it looks like things are winding down, Troy’s father, Mr. Perkins, (and Troy himself) show up to force Mr. Walsh to sign the foreclosure papers, completely ignoring the fact that he just now found his missing kids. Reluctantly, Mr. Walsh prepares to sign, but before he does, Rosalita, the housekeeper, stumbles upon Mikey’s marble bag, full of jewels.

Mouth manages to translate fast enough to stop Mr. Walsh from going through with it. The marble bag is emptied out, revealing enough of a fortune to save the Goondocks. Mr. Walsh tears up the papers, and One-Eyed Willy’s pirate ship, breaking free of the lagoon, floats off in the distance as the Goonies, and Sloth, gather together and cheer.

The End.

So….that’s The Goonies.

So what?

All in all, the movie, on paper, doesn’t seem very special. There’s not much by way of ‘plot’ past the initial setup. It sounds like a concept film on a roller coaster, without much in twists and turns. It moves very quickly, from scene to scene to scene (I didn’t even cover all of it), one after another in a way that progresses the story, but doesn’t really add to it. That’s not even mentioning all of the very lucky coincidences and oddities, such as the pirates building a water slide into the caves, apparently, or the fact that, throughout the story, everything just seems to work out for the main characters.

This isn’t to say that’s a bad thing.

On the contrary, the movie is an exciting, fun ride from beginning to end. But as far as the plot goes, it may be a little hard to see where the charm is in this story that seems like Indiana Jones for kids.

Here’s the thing about The Goonies.

The story is rock solid in its simplicity, in its initial setup. Four kids who care about each other very much are about to be separated, and in a desperate grab to prevent it, go treasure hunting, racing against a criminal family after the same thing for selfish reasons. The rest: Sloth, booby traps, ‘Goonies Never Say Die’, etc. is all trimmings, icing on the cake of a basic story that, boiled down to its essentials, is extremely bare-bones. Even in practice, there isn’t much added to it: there are no real character subplots that tie into the main story, just minor things: Chunk finally being believed, Data proving himself a capable inventor, Mouth and Stef’s bickering growing into mild mutual respect, even Brand and Andy’s romance doesn’t really add up to directly influence the story much at all.

But that’s the stuff we remember, almost as well as the bone organ, or the first time the kids see the pirate ship. The question is, why?

The Goonies is not a mind-blowing story. It’s very basic, with less twists and turns than many contemporary kids movies, but in the end, that’s the brilliance of it.

I don’t need a long, drawn out reason for why Mikey’s father has a map in his attic. I don’t need to know what brought these oddballs together, or where Data gets the stuff for his inventions. The movie cuts right to the car chase, introduces you to the main characters, and throws you into their plight immediately. And although the problem is more small scale than plenty of other adventure films, it’s incredibly high stakes, at least, to the main characters.

The idea of losing your home to foreclosure, while not a reality for everyone, is something that an audience can instantly relate to: you don’t want to be separated from where you are, and Mikey’s passion for staying together is such that he drags his friends into a life-risking adventure to save the Goondocks. As an audience, we understand that this is maybe a little extreme, but we go with it, because it makes sense to him, and therefore, it makes sense to us. The Fratellis are incredibly easy to grasp as villains: they do nothing but bad things (albeit often in humorous ways), including mistreating Sloth, who again, is simply presented as a victim. There are no moral ambiguities in The Goonies, no moments of decision beyond ‘go forward or quit’. Once the Goonies discover where the treasure might be, the story is launched on a forward trajectory with no signs of stopping until the very end, when, of course, the Goondocks are saved, and the Goonies themselves return safely to worried parents.

You can describe the plot in a sentence, and there’s no deviation from it: kids trying to save their homes by finding a buried treasure before a criminal family does.

And yet, it works perfectly in its simplicity. Like I said, you understand exactly why the main characters do what they do, and you understand who they are, nearly immediately. The story doesn’t need to go into explaining it, or the characters, as it goes along, merely to build upon what’s already there. That forward trajectory allows the story to always keep moving, keep pushing characters forward with chases, booby traps, lucky stumbles, and so much happening at all times that it’s easy to go along for the ride, enjoying the little moments added onto the basic premise like the wishing well scene, iconic because it directly attaches to Mikey’s goal and is a turnaround point for a few characters. Nothing changes here, but things are reinforced: the initial goal and motivations, and the decision to keep moving. When Chunk meets Sloth and follows him into the tunnels, nothing feels like it’s changing, exactly, except his actual physical movement, going forward instead of retreating.

There is no ‘switching gears’ in The Goonies. Everything pushes forward, building until the climax, and the near instant the goal is achieved, the movie is over. We don’t need to see, (as much as we might like to) Sloth moving in with Chunk, or Data’s next invention, or Brand and Andy’s relationship’s next step, or even Mikey’s next Goonie adventure, because that story is over. We can close the book on these kids, and although sometimes it’d be nice to know what happened to them years later, we don’t need a winddown of a conclusion. All we need to know is that they kept their houses and stayed together.

Again….why?

Why do we care so much about these kids? It’s not like they changed, or grew as people. There’s no ‘Hero’s Journey’ for Mikey, he gets what he wants and throws away his inhaler. He never changes goals, never overcomes a character flaw. If most good stories are dictated by dynamic characters who change, it seems like The Goonies falls flat.

From beginning to end, the characters in The Goonies seem to end the film the exact same way that they started: Mikey’s an idealistic leader, Mouth’s a loudmouth, Data’s an ‘absent-minded professor’ type, and Chunk is a boisterous, easily-panicked kid. There are subtle differences, sure, like Chunk becoming a braver person and Data proving his inventions, even Mouth settles down a little, but for the most part, there’s no arc, no beginning, middle and end, no big changes that show what all has happened and how it affects each one of them.

Because it doesn’t have to.

We care about these kids because they, and the story, are simple, without being stupid, and easily grasped. Everything in this film is tailored for quick accessibility: grab an idea and move on so we can play with it. As I pointed out with the initial chase scene: instantly, you have an idea of what’s going on, and who each character is. With that in mind, especially with an ensemble cast, ‘character arcs’ don’t matter quite as much.

You can have good stories without good character arcs. Back to the Future is a great example of a protagonist who doesn’t change, but is within a deeply compelling narrative, and in the end, that’s the secret. The plot for The Goonies is deeply compelling, because we as an audience like these kids and don’t want them to lose their home. We want them to stay together, whether it’s from Stand By Me-like nostalgia for old friends, or feelings towards friends we have right now. The goals are rock-solid, and after that, the story is too.

I’m not talking about things like the skull carved into the cave face: I’m talking about the forward trajectory. Every single story beat henceforth is tight and fast-paced, each scene sliding right into the next without any real breaks. It’s a waterslide in its own right, full of excitement and consistent characters and goals, with understandable stakes and villains, and in the end, when the kids make it home safe, achieving their goal by the skin of their teeth, we cheer with them.

As it turns out, the recipe for successful filmmaking isn’t always ‘thought provoking plot + well rounded, dynamic characters’. Sometimes the way to make a good film is ‘simple, interesting plot + simple, likeable characters’.

With that in mind, The Goonies is 100% a classic.

There is a reason that this movie stuck, and it all revolves around the streamlined simplicity of its design. With so little ‘fluff’ getting in the way of the main conflict, the film is free to devote its entire focus to these goals and these characters reaching them. Thanks to this single-minded drive, the film is memorable in everything: iconic characters, great lines, wonderful setpieces, with no part being overshadowed by all of the rest.

It’s not hard to see why this movie became such a milestone for so many. It resonates with people who can find themselves in a specific character or plight, whether children themselves or considerably older, who can allow themselves to be sucked along for the ride and believe, for just a little while, that there’s still such a thing as pirate treasure.

And it’ll continue to resonate for decades to come.

Thanks so much for reading! If you enjoyed it, please stay tuned to join us for the remainder of our study of The Goonies. Don’t forget that my comment box is always open. Thank you guys so much for reading, and I’ll see you all in the next article!

#1985 #80s #Film #Movies #The Goonies #The Goonies 1985 #Adventure #Comedy #Family #PG #Sean Astin #Josh Brolin #Jeff Cohen #Corey Feldman #Kerri Green #Martha Plimpton #Ke Huy Quan #Richard Donner

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tabloidtoc · 4 years ago

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National Enquirer, November 9

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: Duchess Kate sets the record straight on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle

Page 2: Ben Affleck is wasting away and friends fear he’s taking his new health regimen too far as the six-foot-four star usually weighs 208 pounds but has shriveled to a spindly 165 -- a nutritionist put him on a sensible meal plan but he’s altered it with his own fantastical ideas such as he won’t go near bread and he’s ditched pasta and he’ll eat cantaloupe and blueberries one day and nuts and seeds the next and he’ll only drink boiled water and green tea for 24 hours then break his fast with a small bowl of quinoa -- instead of pumping iron he does exercises using his own body weight like ten-minute planks -- Ben thinks he looks great but his pals fear he’s traded one addiction for another

Page 3: Love-hungry Katie Holmes is thrilled to have a new man in her life but she’s breaking the bank to keep him happy because Katie is picking up the tab wherever she goes with Emilio Vitolo Jr. because it helps her feel she’s in full control of the relationship but Emilio may be taking advantage of Katie’s generosity because Katie has been showering him with designer clothes and jewelry and even paying for a personal trainer to whip him into shape -- Katie enjoys giving her guy things he can appreciate because he’s made her so happy but she may go broke doing it and it’s not like he doesn’t have any money; he’s worth a cool $1.5 million himself

Page 4: CNN rocked by sex scandal -- Jeffrey Toobin’s sleazy sex scandal has rocked CNN but it’s just the latest in a string of scandals at the network

Page 5: Axed Fox News anchor Ed Henry fought back against his co-worker’s rape charges in a blockbuster lawsuit by handing the court explicit selfies and texts in an attempt to prove their tryst was consensual

Page 6: Ryan Seacrest is downplaying his latest shocking absence from Live with Kelly and Ryan but the TV dynamo is battling a mystery illness that may force him to sign off for good -- the co-host who is a well known as a workaholic skipped out on the daytime show for the third time this year and used the coronavirus pandemic as his excuse -- Ryan was suffering badly from flu-like symptoms on the weekend before his absences but came back negative for coronavirus however doctors remain baffled by Ryan’s ongoing battles with exhaustion and weight loss and stroke-like symptoms, disgraced perv Bill Cosby’s latest mug shot shows he’s a shriveled shadow of his former self and the fallen funnyman flashed a maniacal grin while refusing to look into the camera in the picture snapped behind bars in September and he’s unshaven and his hair is ratty

Page 7: Lizzo has embarked on a radical vegan diet and extreme exercise program to save her life -- doctor warned the 350-pound singer that her daily intake of 5000 calories a day was a dangerous path to self-destruction and she needed to change her life or lose it and Lizzo finally got the message and is committed to this program but it’s been a living hell for her

Page 8: After surviving a fiery crash at the Daytona 500 NASCAR hero Ryan Newman is locked in an ugly $50 million divorce showdown with his estranged wife -- Ryan and Kristina Newman split in 2019 after she was caught having an affair with another man and paying her love $450,000 and now Ryan’s lawyers are trying to freeze Kristina who was once referred to as the First Lady of NASCAR out of his fortune -- court papers reveal the two split in July 2019 when Kristina went to live with her boyfriend U.S. Army Captain Joe Schwankhaus who is the Chief Operations Officer of Kristina’s company VRX USA

Page 9: Ellen DeGeneres debuted a high-flying pompadour hairstyle on her new talk show but the makeover still doesn’t get to the root of her recent problems and although her hair may be rising her show’s ratings are falling

Page 10: Hot Shots -- pregnant Kelly Rowland, Andy Cohen took his son Benjamin for a stroll in NYC, Will Smith held court in L.A. while shooting King Richard a biopic about the dad of tennis greats Venus Williams and Serena Williams, Angela Bassett caught a drive-in screening of One Night in Miami in L.A.

Page 11: Grieving Lisa Marie Presley has broken her silence over the suicide of her beloved only son Benjamin Keough saying her heart and soul went with him sharing her heartbreak on what would have been Ben’s 28th birthday and she added she’s dedicating herself to raising Ben’s twin half-sisters and actress sister Riley Keough, Chaka Khan refuses to duo with Ariana Grande again saying she’s not gonna do a song with no heifer -- Chaka and Ariana worked together in 2019 for the Charlie’s Angels soundtrack

Page 12: Straight Shuter -- DWTS pro Emma Slater kept a handle on her coffee while steering her e-bike (picture), it pays to be Brad Pitt’s girlfriend as his new squeeze Nicole Poturalski has doubled her modeling fees, dancing siblings Derek Hough and Julianne Hough are out of step over her sloppy personal life and his hot new judging career because these two were supposed to be the next Donny and Marie Osmond but his solo career is exploding while hers is falling apart, Madonna has always been a big believer in astrology but now she won’t even meet with people if it’s not written in the stars and she’s spending a fortune to have an army of people read her charts

Page 13: Losing his beloved son to cancer has sparked new fears for fragile Robert Redford because Robert has struggled with his own health over the years and losing his son to bile-duct cancer is extremely worrying; he’s already frail and this has friends fearing the worst, Jeff Bridges is confident he’ll win his battle with lymphoma by coupling medical care with a strict vegan diet and chanting and spiritual healing techniques

Page 14: Convicted wife killer Scott Peterson may soon walk out of prison and grisly photos lawyers say could set him free -- following years of appeals California’s Supreme Court overturned Scott’s death penalty and now another appeal is forcing a lower court to reexamine his conviction for murdering seven months pregnant wife Laci Peterson and their unborn son Conner -- if Scott gets a retrial his legal team will be allowed to introduce new evidence including crime scene pictures that Scott’s former defense attorney said suggests Laci’s disappearance was an abduction by a satanic cult

Page 15: Former child star Zachery Ty Bryan of Home Improvement was jailed overnight and released on $8500 bail following his bust for a fight with a galpal at an apartment complex in Eugene in Oregon -- the drama comes on the heels of Zachery’s split from wife Carly Matros the mom of his four kids

Page 16: Ryan Reynolds can’t wait to film a new rom-com with close pal Sandra Bullock but it’s causing tension with wife Blake Lively even though Blake trusts Ryan and would never forbid him from taking this part but the idea of him getting cozy with Sandra again still makes her uneasy -- now Ryan and Sandra are signed up to do The Lost City of D and despite Sandra’s denials they ever had a romance Ryan is gushing about them getting back together

Page 17: Isolated and overlooked Today show host Hoda Kotb is being bullied off the morning show because of tepid ratings and the absence of former sidekick Kathie Lee Gifford and Mean Girls treatment by co-hosts Savannah Guthrie and Jenna Bush Hager have pushed the disillusioned anchor closer to the door -- Hoda recently filled out paperwork to adopt a third child and she’s clearly putting more emphasis on family than her career and it sends the signal she isn’t happy with her role and is not thinking of Today as her top priority, trainwreck Matthew Perry is holed up in his new Pacific Palisades beach pad pounding out an explosive tell-all and his former Friends are quaking about what secrets he may reveal -- Matthew wants to rush the book out while interest in the Friends reunion special which was postponed by the COVID-19 pandemic remains high -- he knows an uncensored account of his time on Friends and his drug issues would be a bestseller and he intends to blow the lid off his on-set romances and address rumors he and Jennifer Aniston were more than friends

Page 18: American Life -- her tall tale: I have the longest legs in the world

Page 19: Jessica Simpson has been flaunting her body after dumping a shocking 100 pounds but buddies worry the drastic drop in size isn’t natural and suspect she’s been taking diet pills again and they’re worried this could escalate into a big issue

Page 20: Devastated Reese Witherspoon was hit with a depressing double whammy -- the death of her dog Pepper from cancer and the delay of her long-awaited sequel Legally Blonde 3, Hollywood Hookups -- John Cena and Shay Shariatzadeh wed, Ashley Hebert and J.P. Rosenbaum split, Cardi B and Offset on again

Page 21: Bruce Willis is back in another Die Hard but this time it’s a commercial for Advance Auto Parts and Die Hard batteries and it’s a clear statement on the state of his career that Bruce has to revisit his amazing past to make a fast buck in the present, Giada De Laurentiis has been given the green light to get married by her 12-year-old daughter Jade -- Giada has dated TV producer Shane Farley for five years and he’s been living with mother and daughter for five months during the pandemic lockdown which gave Jade a firsthand look at what it would be like to have a new daddy and Shane’s passed the test with flying colors

Page 22: Cover Story -- Prince William’s heartsick wife Kate Middleton is breaking her silence about the royal family’s tumultuous bitter break with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to set the record straight and save Britain’s monarchy and she’s tired of all the rumors and lies and backbiting and after all the drama and negativity she wants to get the truth out there and end this unprecedented crisis that’s endangering the monarchy’s survival -- friends are trying to convince Kate to do an official sit-down TV interview about what really happened between once-inseparable William and Harry and how Harry and Meghan tore the family apart even before they moved to America but Kate is resisting because she fears that could backfire like Princess Diana’s TV tell-all about her marriage to Prince Charles 25 years ago -- Kate had to turn the other cheek often after Meghan joined the family and she offered to help Meghan adjust to royal life from the start but Meghan rebuffed her and Kate in tired of Meghan painting her as the bad guy especially when it was Meghan’s antics that tore the family apart -- Kate also is upset that Harry and Meghan are portraying themselves as victims of a world that’s against them while she and William take on a phenomenal workload to cover the responsibilities the Sussexes left and losing precious time with their own three children and it’s hard not to be bitter but Kate is trying to take the high road and forgive Meghan and move forward

Page 26: With their marriage hanging by a thread Tori Spelling fears Dean McDermott will cheat on her again while filming a new TV show in Canada for six months; Tori wanted to bring their 5 children to Canada with him but Dean put her off saying it would be too distracting -- she’s been a jittery mess and he can’t stand to look at her and he only took this job because they need the money, Melanie Griffith is frustrated with Chris Martin and wants him to put a ring on her daughter Dakota Johnson’s finger -- the couple have been dating since 2017 and Melanie’s fed up with waiting for Chris to pop the question -- Melanie began to lose her patience after the couple reunited following a split last June when Chris won Dakota back with promises to settle down

Page 28: COVID Vaccines: What you need to know

Page 32: Miley Cyrus claimed she once spotted a spaceship over Hollywood and even locked eyes with an alien but she also admits she’d bought weed wax from a guy in a van in front of a taco shop, whiny Kris Jenner is blaming social media for killing off Keeping Up with the Kardashians after it helped the reality TV clan make a mint

Page 34: Ozzy Osbourne is terrified a doll has cursed him -- Ozzy told son Jack Osbourne on their Osbournes Want to Believe show that Robert the doll was responsible for his recent bad luck and failing health, Tom Cruise and his Mission: Impossible 7 team caused chaos at an Italian hospital by filming there during the COVID-19 pandemic -- Tom and his crew including 100 security staffers plus trucks and other equipment descended on the Policlinico Umberto I in Rome for a week and legions of fans also flocked to the filming creating even more commotion in the streets outside the hospital and adding to the bedlam the production commandeered an elevator drawing criticism as hospital staff were treating 140 coronavirus patients with 12 in intensive care -- filming was done in an administrative section of the hospital but still sparked an official protest as well as complaints from trade union members

Page 36: Health Watch

Page 38: Superhero screen pals of Chris Pratt rushed to rescue the actor’s reputation after he was mercilessly dragged into a silly social media meme when a Twitter user posted pictures of Chris Pratt and Chris Pine and Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans captioned with the instruction one has to go but a flood of responses slammed Pratt as the worst Chris causing his Marvel co-stars to prop him up such as Zoe Saldana and Robert Downey Jr. and Mark Ruffalo and Jeremy Renner and Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn and Chris Pratt’s wife Katherine Schwarzenegger also bashed the social media bullies, Matthew McConaughey kept saying alright alright alright to making romantic comedies until the day he was so fed up he turned down $14.5 million to do another one -- Matthew revealed in his memoir that he didn’t mind making a string of mindless rom-coms because their paychecks rented the houses on the beach he ran shirtless on but he eventually wanted to try something else so he turned down a big payday so he could get more serious

Page 42: Red Carpet -- Drew Barrymore

Page 47: Odd List

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give-me-back-my-rhodey · 5 years ago

Text

The Not-So Worst Day of Peter’s Life

This fic is a part of the @friendly-neighborhood-exchange for @fromsiberia

Rating: General Warnings: N/A

I enjoyed writing this - I hope you enjoy reading it!

Peter takes a class trip to Stark Industries. What could go wrong (or right)?

Read on ao3

“So, we have a field trip planned,” Peter mentions casually while eating lunch on Sunday.

Tony swallows the food in his mouth, “Great kid. When and where?”

“It’s this Friday, and it’s at Stark Industries,” Peter’s mouth contorts into a strained smile. “Did you do this?”

“I did not, cross my heart and hope to die,” Tony runs a finger across his sternum. “It was probably someone in our HR department. Why, you don’t want to go?”

“it just puts me in a tough spot because I’m ‘working’ here,” Peter makes finger quotations, “and no one believes me but Ned and MJ, but that’s because they know my alter ego.”

“What do you want me to do? Do you want me to call out sick and not go in that day? Or do you want me to acknowledge you and just rave about your intelligence? I’m good with that, too.”

“No! Just do what you normally do. If we run into you, you can just say hi to me to prove you know me, but I don’t need a whole letter of recommendation or anything!” Peter scoffs.

Tony nods understandingly, “I will be the ultimate professional, but I cannot speak for Happy. Or Bucky, if he’s around.”

“If I’m around where?” Bucky saunters into the room, dropping a kiss on Tony’s cheek.

“Speak of the devil,” Tony smirks. “Peter’s class is going to SI on Friday for a field trip.”

Bucky’s eyes glitter. “Good to know.” He grabs a water bottle from the fridge and walks back out. “Going for a run with Steve.”

“Make sure you shower afterwards!” Tony yells after him.

Peter turns on Tony as soon as Bucky leaves, “Please don’t let him embarrass me.”

“I will do what I can,” Tony ruffles Peter’s head. Standing up, he takes his plate and sticks it in the dishwasher. “Hey, I just got some of that stretchy material in. Wanna test it?”

Peter eagerly follows him into the lab.

+++++++++++++++++++

“So, Tony didn’t set it up?” Ned asks, biting into his pizza.

“No, he had no idea. I guess they do field trip things fairly often, so they just have someone in HR schedule them.” Peter wrinkles his nose. “Really Ned? Pineapple and sweet peppers? Ugh, that’s nasty.”

“You just have boring tastes, extra-cheese man.”

MJ shakes her head, “Bacon’s where it’s at.”

Peter and Ned look at each other and shrug. Neither of them can refute the fact that bacon is one of the better pizza toppings.

“So, Penis, are you going on the field trip on Friday?” Flash Thompson walks up to stand at the end of their table. “I wouldn’t blame you for not going, you know, because it’s going to be so embarrassing for you when we all confirm that your Stark Internship is all in your imagination. Right guys?” Flash’s little posse of friends all agree and laugh.

“I’m going.” Peter smiles at Flash.

“Alright. It’s your funeral,” Flash replies then turns to his crowd. “IF we see Tony Stark, maybe he can tell us about Spiderman! Unlike this idiot here, Spiderman actually works with Iron Man! He’s like the coolest superhero out there. Okay, let’s go. Bye losers!” He does a little wave at Peter’s table. Peter gives him a thumbs up in response.

“I mean, it’s funny to me that Flash loves you and hates you, but why do you put up with that?” MJ comments.

Peter shrugs, “It doesn’t really bother me. If he wants to run his mouth, trying to make me feel small, let him. At least he’s doing it to me, and not someone who will actually be affected by it. By the way, tomorrow night, we’re watching Clueless. Bucky hasn’t seen too many rom-coms, and I mean to change that. Tony said you are welcome to come. He’s making like six different types of popcorn.”

“I’m in.” MJ nods as Ned raises his hand and waves it to show he also will be there.

The bell rings to indicate the end of lunch break, and the trio splits up to go to their respective classes.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Tony meets Peter when he gets to the Tower after rotations. “Hey Pete, I’m sorry. I forgot to tell you that Harley’s going to be here this week.”

‘Oh ok, maybe we can finish that project now that… OH NO! Don’t tell me he’s going to be at SI on Friday!” Peter groans as Tony grimaces.

“Unfortunately, he will be, and you know there’s nothing I can do to stop him once he’s on a warpath.”

“My life is over,” Peter mourns. “Why can’t his college have normal spring break just like everybody else?”

“Probably because the universe is just bent on screwing you over.” Peter hates just how amused Tony sounds.

He folds his arms. “You’re the worst dad ever.”

“Sure son. Want to talk it over a game of catch?” Tony has his biggest shit-eating grin plastered across his face.

Peter shakes his head. “No, I just remembered. Aunt May said she’s going to have supper ready at 6:30 so I got to go. Love you, Dad.” He quickly hugs Tony then runs out the door.

“Love you, too kid!” Tony calls after him.

“Look at you, being less and less emotionally stunted as the days go by,” Rhodey comments from the doorway. “I guess Barnes and the kid are doing you good.”

“Oh, shut it, platypus.” Tony shoots back good-humoredly. “You were the one who started the process.”

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Tuesday night, dubbed “Movie Night,” comes, and Tony, Bucky, Peter, Harley, Ned, and MJ are watching Clueless on Tony’s huge theater-sized TV. JARVIS turns on Clueless, and everyone soon gets lost into the hard high-school life of one Cher Horowitz.

Peter sympathizes with Cher’s driving issues as he also had a hard time learning to drive. He cringes, thinking of the time he had to drive Flash’s father’s car to chase Liz’s dad. Tony shudders at the fashion, or lack thereof, of the 90’s.

When the movie ends, Harley points out that although Cher’s last name is supposedly Horowitz, her report card is labelled as Cher Hamilton. MJ tells them she doesn’t like that Josh is Cher’s step-brother – it just weirds her out. Peter asks Bucky what he thought of the movie.

Bucky thinks about it for a second then asks, “Isn’t this basically modern-day Emma?”

“Emma?”

“Yea, the Jane Austen novel. Like, Cher is clearly Emma. She’s so happy she got Dionne together with Murray so she thinks she’s good at this stuff. She takes Tai in order to help her become popular. That means Tai is Harriet Smith. Cher tries to set her up with Elton, whose name is taken straight from Emma – Mr. Elton. Cher thinks she’s in love with Christian, who is pulled from Frank Churchill. The only difference here is that Christian is gay, not already engaged to Jane Fairfax. Josh, of course, is Mr. Knightley, except that he’s Cher’s stepbrother, not a family friend. Because Elton says he’s in love with Cher, not Tai, Tai feels unwanted. When Josh starts showing her attention because Cher asked him to, Tai starts to fall for him just as Cher realizes she’s in love with him. This is equal to the scenes where Mr. Knightley dances with Harriet when Mr. Elton snubs her. Harriet believes he is interested whereas he’s only doing Emma a favor. Harriet tells Emma that she thinks she loves Knightley. As a result, Emma gets a reality check. In the end, Tai dates the skater boy Travis, who is the modern-day Robert Martin, deemed as unworthy by Cher/Emma.” He pauses when he sees everyone just staring at him, open-mouthed. “I’m not wrong, am I?”

“Oh my gosh,” MJ whispers. “I think I love him.”

“Sorry, he’s mine,” Tony wraps his arms around Bucky. “Bucky, darling, I don’t know because I don’t read mushy stuff like Jane Austen, but based on MJ’s reaction, you must have hit the nail on the head.”

Bucky nuzzles Tony’s cheek with his nose until Harley fake gags, “There are children present!”

“The book is better, but the movie was ok,” Bucky wrinkles his nose.

Peter clutches his chest, “It’s a rom-com classic! I can’t believe it!” He dramatically falls off the couch onto the floor, acting as if his heart had failed him.

“Oh, no, we lost him. What ever shall we do?” Harley deadpans, stuffing a pillow on Peter’s face and holding it there until Peter rolls over.

“You are all a bunch of children,” Tony laughs. “Honey, don’t you feel like the parent of some very unruly children.”

Bucky snorts, “Gee, I wonder who they got it from.”

“Gasp. Betrayed by my own boyfriend. Now I have no one in the cruel, cold world.” Tony splays a hand across his arc reactor. “Woe is me.”

All too soon, though, it was time to go home, and Peter wishes all his nights could be like this. As Peter leaves one last lingering look at Tony and Bucky on the couch, he feels Harley nudge him. “Hey, at least you can leave,” the blond nineteen-year-old grins. “I’m going to have to deal with them, and I don’t think they’re going to wait until they get to their room to start. Seriously, I may have to gouge my eyes out by the end of the week.”

Peter pats Harley on the shoulder, “I’m sure you’ll manage. Have a good night.”

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Peter spends Wednesday night with Aunt May, but Tony asks for his help in the SI lab on Thursday. Two hours into working on improving Peter’s suit, Peter admits, “I’m a little nervous about tomorrow.”

Tony immediately puts down his tools, “Ok… talk to me. What’s wrong?”

“I just… don’t know what’s going to happen, and I don’t want to make a big deal about the whole internship. Like, I don’t even care if they don’t believe me. Now it either becomes a big deal, or they'll all still think I’m a liar. And what if someone makes the Spiderman connection?”

“Hey, kid. You'll be fine, but if you don’t want to go, don’t go. You’ve got nothing to prove to anyone. I’ll support you with whatever you choose. And the Spiderman thing? I don’t think anyone’s going connect the dots. They'll probably think Harles is Spiderman before you." Tony knocks his shoulder. “All I’m saying is I will be happy to see you if you decide to go, and I would never be ashamed of being seen with you. I’ve basically adopted you. If you want to add fuel to the flames, I can even call you son.” He wiggles his eyebrows.

“No! Please don’t! I don’t need that as well.” Peter groans.

“Ok ok fine!” Tony holds up his hands. “But let me know if you need me to be a school emergency contact. I know May’s been having longer shifts, but she won’t accept my help.”

“She’s a strong independent woman, Tony. She doesn’t need you.” Peter jabs playfully.

“No she does not. I admire her. The only person I admire more than her is Pepper. And I’ve met Thor, Peter.”

Peter gasps dramatically, “Don’t diss on my Thor!”

When Peter goes to leave that night, Tony pulls him into a hug. “Love ya, son.”

“Love you, too, dad.” Peter’s heart fills with happiness. He supposes tomorrow won’t be too bad.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Friday comes, and May wakes Peter up for his class trip. He groans but gets up. “Ugh. Today is going to be a train wreck.” He tells her.

“You know, you don’t have to go on your class trip,” May remarks, looked amused.

“Yea, I know, but I feel like I should just go.”

Peter gets to school, and Flash seems to be waiting for him. “Oh, hey guys. Here he is! We’re going to see today just how pathetic Parker is. I hope you’re ready.” Flash smirks at him.

“Oh, believe me, I am not ready for this trip,” Peter concedes, “but for reasons that are so much different than what you’re thinking.”

“Ok, boys, enough fighting. It’s time to go,” Mr. Harrington calls from the front of the classroom. “Everyone, pair up and get on the bus.”

Peter and Ned fall in line together, followed by MJ and Betty. The pretty blonde taps Peter on the shoulder. “Hey Peter, for what it’s worth, I believe you.”

“Thanks Betty! I appreciate it.” Peter smiles back at her.

The four of them sit together in the back of the bus, ignoring all the chaos going on in front of them. “It gets worse,” Peter confides to Ned, “Harley’s gonna be there. You know it’s his goal in life to make me as uncomfortable as possible.”

“Relax, Pete, he’s like your brother. That’s what family’s for.”

The bus ride takes approximately thirty minutes to get to Stark Industries. Once everyone is out and lined up two by two, Mr. Harrington leads them up to the facility. He fumbles with the paperwork as he walks up to a security guard. Once the guard is satisfied, he takes them in to the front desk. Bambi is working the desk, as usual. She hands out visitor’s cards to every member of the party, and her face brightens when she sees Peter. “Oh, hi Peter! I didn’t realize this was your class. You should just be showing them around, don’t you think?” She winks at him.

Peter loves Bambi. She treats him like her own grandchildren. “Hi, Bambi. It’s good to see you. Today, I think I’m just following along with the rest of them.”

As the rest of the class had already left the receptionist desk to wait for their tour guide, no one heard Peter and Bambi’s interaction. Mr. Harrington calls him over, and Flash looks at him suspiciously. “What, did you ask her to act like she knew you?”

“No, she just knows me. That’s Bambi.”

“No shit. Isn’t that what her name tag read?” Flash retorts, and Peter mentally nods. Flash does have a point there.

“Midtown High?” A voice says, and Peter freezes. No. He knows that voice. He turns slowly to find that his fear is, in fact, reality. “Hello, my name is Harley Keener. I’m a part-time intern of Tony Stark, and I will be your tour guide today. Does anyone have any questions before we start?”

Annabelle raises her hand, “Will we see Tony Stark or Pepper Potts today?”

“You are in luck, because Tony himself instructed that I show you his lab today. Ms. Potts is the CEO of the company, so I can’t really say if we will see her or not. She is a very busy woman.” Harley smiles. Peter feels his eyes on him, and when Peter looks up, Harley’s smile becomes a smirk. Peter’s spidey-senses tingle with a sense of foreboding.

Flash nudges Peter, “Hey Porker, that is what someone who interns for Tony Stark would look like. He’s mature and actually attractive… unlike you.”

“You think he’s mature? He’s the devil incarnate. The only reason he is leading this tour is because he wants to make my life miserable,” Peter hisses.

Flash scoffs, but he just rejoins his partner at the front of the line.

“Hey, kid.” Harley addresses Flash. “I’m sorry, but I need to ask you to stay with your partner in a two-by-two line unless I say you can spread out. I don’t want to cause problems, but I’m sure you understand that we have precautions that we must take in order to let guided tours through here.” Peter holds in a laugh when Flash looks properly chastised.

Ned leans close and says, “And that’s where family has your back as well, even after you call them ‘the Devil incarnate.’”

Harley leads them through department after department, explaining how each of them work. After explaining, he would ask if anyone had any questions. Finally, on the sixth floor, Flash can’t resist any longer. “I have to ask, Mr. Keener, do you know anyone by the name of Peter Parker?”

“You mean Tony’s other intern? Yea I know him. He’s a little shit most of the time, but yea. Any other questions?”

Everyone in the class turns back to Peter, who can’t help but smile smugly. “I have a question,” Peter asks, “Why did you decide to guide this tour? This isn’t your normal job here.”

The blood drains from Peter’s face when Harley just smiles and says, “It was something I wanted to do, and Tony owed me that favor after he lost the bet.”

“Oh crap.” The foreboding tingles are back.

Mr. Harrington looks confused, “I’m sorry. I guess you two know each other?”

“Yes, we have worked together on many a project with Mr. Stark,” Harley informs him. “We just have a little harmless rivalry – like to poke fun at each other.”

Flash looks like he’s just going to faint. Peter wants to laugh at him, but he’s mature. He’ll laugh about it later.

Harley continues, “Now, if no one has any questions about this department, I will take you up to the next floor. Please be warned, this is Tony Stark’s R&D floor. We will have to confiscate any phones as we do not allow any videos and pictures on this floor.” They climb the stairs. “Before we go in, please hand all your phones and/or recording devices to Alessia here. She will return them to you once we come back out of this room.”

Once everyone forks over their technology, Harley puts his hand on the scanner, and the doors open. “Please line up against the wall, and don’t touch anything.” He tells them.

Peter groans aloud when he sees the view in front of him. Bucky frickin’ Barnes is sitting on the frickin’ table where Tony is fixing his frickin’ arm! He knows Bucky and Harley have something up their sleeve.

“You ok there, Parker?” Harley asks, grinning like the cat that ate the canary.

“Yeah. I’m great.” Peter grits out.

Tony and Bucky seem to be in their own little world because neither of them looks up. Tony closes a plate on Bucky’s arm and runs his hand down the arm until he clasps Bucky’s hand in his own. Bucky touches Tony’s face with his right arm, and Harley clears his throat loudly. Bucky slowly drops his hand, and they both turn to look at the class, Bucky’s eyes seeking Peter out.

Tony smiles his press smile, “Welcome, guys, gals, and non-binary pals to where the magic happens. This lab here is my personal lab, and very few people have access to this select lab. Consider yourselves lucky. Sergeant Barnes here just had some problems with his arm, and, as I was working here today, came to visit me. If you see over there, I have my helper bots.” Tony walks over to ELL-E. “This darling here is one of my newer ones. Say hi, ELL-E!” Everyone awws when she raises her claw and waves. “I have three of these at home, all built when I was in college. Since I work most days at the tower, I keep them there. DUM-E was the first AI bot I ever made. He’s a mess, though. That’s why his name’s DUM-E.” He claps his hands together. “Now does anyone have any questions… actually, wait, I have a question for you kids. We are in the process in updating the Stark phone. Does anyone here own one, and if so, do you have any suggestions in improving it?”

Raoul raises his hand, “Well, I must say I do love the latest update… the easy access to setting up disability features really helped my mom use her phone better. She used to make one of us use her phone for her because most phones either don’t have the features or make it hard to find where to turn them on.”

“Thank you. Fun fact – that update was drawn up and coded by your very own classmate over there, one Mr. Peter Parker. I don’t know how much of a bragger he is – I sure was one when I was his age – but that young man is brilliant. I am honored to have him working here as an intern.” Tony sends a smile towards Peter.

Flash raises his hand, “Hi, so if Peter interns for you, and you mostly work from the tower, does that mean Peter works at Stark Tower around all the superheroes?”

“Yup,” Tony smiles. “To be honest, I think he had the biggest freak out when he met Bucky over here… or maybe Thor. Sorry, Buck, I think Thor is his favorite.”

A few other students raise their hands to ask questions, and Peter zones out. A loud clapping sound wakes him from his reverie.

“I hate to interrupt, but it’s almost time for lunch,” Harley speaks up. “Do you want me to take them down now, or is there anything else you want to say?”

Tony spins back around to face them, finger in the air. “I just had a brilliant idea. Why don’t you join me and Sergeant Barnes for lunch? We’re going down to the cafeteria. Just order what you want on my dime. We’ll accompany you down in a minute.”

“Sir, you don’t have to,” Mr. Harrington sputters. “The students did all bring lunch…”

“Oh, it would be my pleasure. I have more money than I know what to do with. I insist,” Tony says. Then he smirks and says, “I know, Ms. Jones, that I should sink my money into charities and things. Please provide me with several of your choice, and I promise to make a large donation.”

MJ’s mouth opens and closes, then she nods. “Fair enough.”

“Ok kiddos,” Harley says, “let me take you down to the cafeteria. If you want your phones back, please make sure you pick them up from Alessia.”

Peter and Ned are the last ones to leave the lab. Peter turns right before he walks out. Bucky and Tony wave at him. He groans, “They’re going to do something at lunch. I can feel it.”

Five minutes later, Tony and Bucky arrive in the cafeteria, holding hands.

“Holy shit! Are they actually together?” Adria gasps in a loud whisper.

Ned rolls his eyes. “Of course. What, have you been living under a rock?”

After the power couple get their food, they sit at the table where Peter and Harley are sitting. “So, did we do ok, kid?” Tony asks.

“Well, now the whole world is going to know you’re dating. They’re not ‘just speculating’ anymore.” Peter smirks.

“Babe, we can have a make out session on the table now!” Bucky’s eyes twinkle. “We don’t have to hide anymore!”

“Gosh no, please, please no!” Peter groans. “Ugh. I hate you all right now.”

“We love you, too,” Harley coos.

Twenty minutes later, Harley and Mr. Harrington round up the class to proceed with the tour. Bucky pulls Tony up and says, “Come on, Mr. Stark, you have a meeting with Ms. Potts to which you must not be late if you know what’s good for you.” “Oh, are you giving me orders, Sergeant Barnes?” Tony asks back, and Peter knows his face is bright red.

“Just… go.” He mutters, and he’s sure only Bucky was able to hear him. Bucky takes it as a cue to leave. He takes Tony’s arm.

“Here is where I must take my leave,” Tony, ever the showman, bows. “Thank you all for touring my humble company, and I do hope you all have enjoyed yourselves. Bye, Petey.” He wiggles his fingers. Peter hides his face in his hands.

“Kill me now,” he pleads to Ned.

The rest of the field trip goes off without a hitch, and the ride back to school is peaceful. Peter imagines everyone is on Twitter going on about Winteriron or something. He realizes that Tony and Bucky did this so that no one would bother him about the internship. Once again, he is choked up to see just how caring and thoughtful Tony is. The next person who says differently can catch these hands. He thinks.

Peter leaves quickly when school ends so he doesn’t miss his bus that has a tendency to show up early. Tony is waiting for him at the tower when he gets there. “So how did we do today?”

“You guys were embarrassing, but I guess I’ve come to terms with it.” Peter grumbles. “That’s what family does. Thank you for taking all the attention off of me. You didn't have to go semi-public with your relationship.”

“Let you have the spotlight? Never! Don't you know I need it all?” Tony jokes, then smiles softly. “I only did what Rhodey would’ve done to me.”

Peter smiles, “Rhodey is a gift to this world.”

“Peter, my dear, you are brilliant, but let me tell you, that is the smartest and most correct thing you have ever said,” Tony takes him by the shoulders. “But if you ever tell my honeybear that, I will deny it vehemently.”

“Understood. Hey want to play a game of chess?” When Tony agrees, Peter gets the chessboard out that Wanda had given him. Apparently, it had belonged to her father. Peter just likes the glass pieces.

Epilogue

On Monday, Flash apologizes to him when they return to school. “Hey Parker, I… uh… I’m sorry for all that shit I said about you. I guess it just seemed unreal, and I shouldn’t have made fun of you like that.”

“Yea, you shouldn’t have. Being a dick doesn’t make you cool; it just makes you look like a dick. But I do understand. My life is pretty surreal. No harm done – just don’t do it anymore to anyone.” Peter tells him.

Flash nods, “Yea, I know. So, have you met Spiderman? Is he as cool as he seems?”

“Nah, I hate him. He’s a total loser. He once stole my ice cream sandwich and didn't replace it or apologize.” Peter smiles. “Now, Thor? He’s not called a god for no reason. He would never do that.”

Peter walks out of school much happier than usual. Maybe this field trip wasn’t so bad.

#the friendly neighborhood exchange #iron dad and spider son #iron dad #stark industries #winteriron #just a little bit #i write!

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multimetaverse · 5 years ago

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DOAFP 1x08 Review

Matters of Diplomacy was a great and dramatic ep that exploded the tensions at the core of the show’s story lines. Let’s dig in!

It was a wise choice for ep 8 to be just a day later than ep 7 in universe as it allows the momentum and tensions built in ep 7 to carry forward to ep 8. We see different types of relationships being tested tonight: the platonic friendship between Elena and Sasha, the crush/platonic friendship between Bobby and Liam, and the romantic relationship between Gabi and Sam

Bobby’s story line took big strides forward tonight. I think by the end of this ep even the most casual of viewers will have clued in that Bobby is gay and likes Liam; nothing has technically been said aloud but that kind of jealousy is unmistakable. Bobby and Gabi’s story lines share some parallels tonight as it was Bobby and Gabi who made sure that Liam and Sam would be at the dance and the dinner and it was Bobby and Gabi who mess things up

For Bobby it has been all of a day since he had a moment with Liam and he’s still giddy over the tennis ball trophy Liam gave him and Elena’s talk about the dance being where true feelings are revealed clearly got him hoping that if he and Liam went to the dance that something may happen. And that talk with the married gay hairdresser gave him a bit of a confidence boost

Among the many cool things this show has done so far is to feature both adult and kid lgbtq characters and actually have them interact like we saw with Cami and Bobby in ep 7 and Bobby and the hairdresser in ep 8. It’s nice that Bobby has these in universe role models and if the show goes on long enough I’d expect Cami to help Bobby

I was shocked that Bobby lashing out included an actual physical fight. In many ways though it is true to the teenage experience where wild mood swings and poor decision making skills are common. We’ve seen Bobby get frustrated or upset before but never this angry and for such a chill guy as Bobby to get so aggressive really shows the depths of his feelings and confusion and disappointment

I also want to commend the show for writing Bobby as such an active character and for giving him an established hobby and supporting characters dedicated to his story line. On Andi Mack we saw Cyrus get jealous but he was never allowed to act on that jealousy like Bobby does and he was certainly never allowed to get angry even when it would have been the realistic response and he was usually a passive character. The fatal flaw in Cyrus’ story line was that he was never given a hobby or team or club of his own so when his sexuality story line was being heavily censored or when the writers were screwing things up there was nothing to fall back on. At least with Bobby they can always fall back on tennis related plots if things go downhill and that will make a world of difference in making Bobby seem like an actual main character

I’ve said from the start that I don’t think Cartero is mutual and the dance did nothing to change that. The symbolism of Liam not wanting to stop slow dancing with a girl and go off with Bobby isn’t subtle. Certainly Bobby’s anger was caused in part by being hit in the face with the fact that Liam is straight. I’ve been surprised that so many people in this fandom who have come from the Andi Mack fandom have been comparing Cartero and Tyrus when all the evidence points to Cartero being the Jyrus of doafp. As I said in an ask last week, the dance serves the same function for Bobby as seeing Jonah ask Andi out at the Space Otters dinner served for Cyrus

I think for doafp it would be wise to separate Bobby’s sexuality story line from his ship story line in any analysis of the show. Cyrus’ sexuality story line was much less censored than his ship story line with TJ and in part that’s because Disney had less of a problem showing Cyrus with a hopeless crush on a clearly straight boy then they did with showing him with a requited crush on another gay kid. And of course there was never any problem showing Cyrus dating Iris. There’s a reason why Cyrus could talk about his crush on Jonah several times but never once got to talk about his crush on TJ and why Cyrus could say the word gay when coming out to Jonah but Cyrus and TJ had to have a silent handhold when they came out to each other. I expect Bobby coming out to his friends and family and using the word gay will be much less censored and drawn out then it was on Andi Mack but I think Bobby actually dating a boy is going to be much harder for the show to depict if they’re renewed. Hell even Seblos which is the only canon gay ship on Disney + has had several of their scenes cut in two different eps

There’s a saying that history doesn’t repeat but it does rhyme and I can only hope that Brandon Severs Jr doesn’t become the Joshua Rush of the doafp fandom. It’s great that he ships Cartero and wants to promote the show but he’s not just another fan and can’t act like one. In the Andi Mack fandom there were lines being blurred and crossed by actors and writers and it made things messy and unpleasant and I really don’t want to see that happen with doafp. I’m sure Brandon means well but people will take his tweets and likes as hints for the show’s future and as of now the show itself and his tweets are telling very different stories It’s one thing to support Cartero but so far there’s no evidence that Liam is gay and there’s never been a bisexual character on Disney before so unless ep 10, which is the only Liam ep left, has an unprecedented twist all this hyping he’s doing will end up being somewhat baity

I’m glad Sasha stood up to Elena who has really been a bad friend to her lately. Of all the relationships that took a hit this ep it’s Elena and Sasha’s friendship that has been around the longest which makes this fight all the more painful to witness. It looks like this conflict will play out through their school trip to Tallahassee and I hope Elena really makes it up to Sasha somehow. Also interesting to see Jessica back in the mix; she’s making up with Sasha but not Elena while at the same time not having atoned for her ditching them in the first place. As always it’s refreshing to see this show so openly tackle the reality of puberty and not shy away from discussing periods and body hair

Gabi and Sam truly are hetero goals. I like the focus on the adult problems we’re getting on the show. In some ways their conflict has the highest stakes and there’s not going to be an easy solution moving forward. For Gabi this must be a nightmare of sorts, watching Sam play the same role Robert did and worrying that it might end the same way. Sam was right in saying that he’s been going along with what Gabi wanted but that he’s a part of this relationship as well. We know Gabi flees Miami next week and drives Elena to Tallahassee so we’ll see if she decides that she’s ready to try and move forward with Sam or if she’s not ready

We learned tonight that Elena and Bobby don’t speak Spanish which suggests that Robert didn’t speak it either. We also learn that Robert was shyer than Sam (and I guess Bobby is named after Robert). Also get a nice little continuity nod with Francisca believing the same story about Iguanas in toilets that Liam’s grandmother believed

I really like that Disney + lets characters get away with saying what the hell and pissed off, it’s so much more natural than having kids with squeaky clean vocabs

I really enjoy seeing Elena pine after Joey when he’s just this dweeby kid

Elena and Bobby have such a true to life sibling relationship

The Beluga whale song prank was a good one imo

Looking Ahead:

If you’re on twitter and instagram there’s already a campaign to get the show renewed and might as well start it now when there’s still some hope

Monyca seems to have clued in that Bobby cares more about Liam than her and I hope she dumps him. Setting aside his sexuality, Bobby just hasn’t been a very good boyfriend

Looks like the last two eps take places in a fairly short span as Elena is on the school trip for both eps. I’m very excited to see how all these plots resolve, especially Bobby’s. Hopefully the show gets renewed as it really is something special

#diary of a future president #Doafp #Bobby Cañero-Reed #Cartero #Liam Carter #Elena Cañero-Reed #Gabi Cañero-Reed #Sam Faber #Doafp Reviews

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