#T sadly has not given me Loft's looks | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ralfstrashcan · 6 years ago

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3x11 Reaction / Commentary

So I haven't even started the episode and I'm already confused.

Why did Netflix put 3B in a separate folder? I mean, they didn't with 2B. What's the matter with that. Or is this just the German Netflix??

Smoooooothe move. Somewhere Derek Hale is smiling proudly.

Wtf why they so slow. I was half expecting this to be a simulation or sth because they took ages to arrive and then were walking super chill???

Seelie guy doesn't use this obvious distraction of the others to try and escape, since he knows he's just a minor character and shouldn't interfere.

Beautiful grieving sequence, especially Jace with the sketch of himself. I knew there would be a portrait of him in there before he even turned the page, I could feel it. I love how sensitive and therefore predictable the show is.

Ooooh nooooo Clary is still aliiiiiive, who whould have thought?!?!?! Okay sorry haha I had to.

lol didn't he look in a mirror recently and realize there's still no real resemblance? I mean, at least now he's not charred anymore, so I guess there's more resemblance than before, but you know what I mean. And I get it, this is supposed to be a parallelism to Lilith saying the same thing, but if memory serves right, at this point in time Jonathan was a) in a thick glass casket and b) dead so I'm wondering how he could have heard that.

wtf I'm getting sooo mixed signals from him. Does he want to give off creeper vibes or play house? Because he's kinda doing both?? Play Creeper House???

YEAH LITERALLY I WANT TO SEE THEIR HEATING BILLS

This...... doesn't sound as reassuring as it sounded in your head, Jonathan.

So, points for Clary for that ploy, but my heart is already pre-emptively breaking for Jonathan when he finds out she's playing him. The poor guy just wants family after being used and abused his whole life, man. Is that too much to ask.

More points for Clary for being sensible and grabbing a coat!!

“Clary, come on. You can't go out there. You're never gonna survive.”

Hahaha that had me laughing out loud. So Clary.

Okay, minus points for Clary for not actually wearing the coat. You had a winning streak of common sense but all good things must end, I guess.

Picturesque. But, uh, since Jonathan isn't following her she could slow down. And if she was a Slytherin, she would have waited til after breakfast with her daring escape.

LISTEN I LOVE THIS CASUAL DOMESTICITY

Also if you're more make-up versed than I am (which, admittedly, isn't very hard) and realized something was off about the way Magnus held that eyeliner stick (?) then check lynne-monstr's eyeliner salt club tag because it's hilarious. I also want to rec volunteer_of_hufflepuff's fic smile even though your heart is breaking because it's awesome.

...........................really. Really. That's how they want to play it? Ugh, okay. Ugh.

You know, I've had a whole lengthy extensive (dare I say exhaustive) rant ripening in my head since I saw this bit in the sneak peek but I'm just not in the mood, so let me cut it short: I get Simon's reaction emotionally, since losing Clary must be a horrible experience for him, but I'm still bitter about early 3A where blasting that werewolf across Taki's yard and knowing he might never walk again didn't bother Simon for one second. Repercussions should always matter, regardless of how close you are to the person affected.

Oh dear, she's still running. And her hair still looks like that?

Sure. Also

How can he keep up with her when he's walking and she's running? I mean he's not that much taller than her. Or does she run ten feet, pause to gasp and pant a little, runs again, stop and go, y'know? So on average she's just powerwalking.

Ok srsly I need to stop this nonsensical commentary.

Yeah and I guess he didn't notice the Clave-approved vampire-torture-sunlight construction Aldertree installed in this very same office (shown in 2x04 if you care to remember).

........who are you and what did you do to Alec Lightwood? You seriously want to tell me he'd consider not bringing up a violation of the Accords, and more importantly power abuse and torture, because of political reasons and he's “scared” to lose his standing with Jia? Please. He'd be enforcing Clave law. He'd be well within his right. We're talking about the guy who flat out refused to do the Inquisitor's bidding because it went against his moral code. Compared to that, this is a walk in the park. So. Please.

“I understand the kind of pain you're in, Jace.”

“No you don't. I'm sorry, you don't.”

“You're right...

Oh my god this isn't about Clary, or at least not for the most part. Jace is frikking traumatized because he wasn't in control of his body or his actions or his frakking mind for days. Btw I'm actually impressed and surprised they bothered to focus on anything but the Clary-Drama, namely Jace second-hand-killing like 33 people. And Imogen. And almost Alec. The way I see Jace he'll focus on his guilt, not the pain he feels over Clary's loss. Clary will be on his mind and that's one more thing to feel shitty about, because how can he be so selfish and think about his own pain when he brought so much more pain on other people? Jace has an incredibly intricately self-destructive mind and I love how it was portrayed here. Also loved the scene in general with some Izzy&Jace sibling feels, the tender way she talks to him, his kiss to her hand. But the focus (mainly because of Izzy) returning to Clary annoyed me a little.

And by the way, there is one person who can understand Jace. Alec. Because he was possessed by a demon and forced to kill someone, too. Granted, he doesn't have the memories of the action itself, but he saw it on tape. He blames himself because the demon fed off his own hate against Jocelyn. So I would really really love to see those two talking about it. I'm extremely thrilled to watch on and see if they do (but lol kinda hoping they don't because then I can finish writing my ficlet about it, which I sadly didn't manage to before 3B aired).

MY LIFE EXPECTANCY JUST INCREASED BY AT LEAST FIVE YEARS OKAY

Also what a damn badass nightlight, I want one as well even though I hate not to sleep in absolute darkness, that's how pretty this is.

HAHAHAHHAHHAHHAHAHA I C A N ' T

ALEC'S OFFENDED FACE AS IF THIS IS NEWS TO HIM

Wow I'm so glad they didn't forget about Iris. I was scared, not gonna lie.

Tbh I don't find Madzie's reaction that realistic. I mean, Valentine – the first person to talk to her after she got ripped from her normal life in her normal home – told her Clary got Iris into trouble. At some point they must have told her that Iris isn't coming back. But did they really tell her Iris was breeding warlocks? I highly doubt that. At most they told her Iris did some bad things. But, since they probably said the same thing about Valentine (and he was always “nice” to her) and told her Clary wasn't in fact evil, that kind of loses its meaning. And let's not forget, she is a child. A probably traumatized child, I might add, since Valentine used her to literally kill at least ten Shadowhunters that we see on screen, likely more. Her perception of what is right and what is wrong is easily swayed. And personally I think she neither really registered that Iris is supposed to be the bad guy now nor that living with Catarina / Magnus and Alec is sooooo much better than living with Iris ever was, so her having such a strong opposition against going with Iris seems unrealistic to me.

Love this. So good.

This is actually really beautiful

This is actually really dramatic for no reason and I'm soooo here for it.

Soooooo am I the only one wondering why the F Cat didn't put some wards on Magnus's place? I mean????? There is no explanation given for that, and frankly I can't come up with one. If not for Magnus, then Cat would at least put wards there while Madzie stays with him. Or....... do they want to imply Cat doesn't know that he lost his magic?? Hä?! If so, who the hell patched Alec back up from his neat little life-threatening arrow wound? Cuz I had assumed it was Cat. Since, y'know Jace pleaded with Magnus to help Alec, implying (to me at least) that an iratze alone wouldn't cut it this time. Except of course, if he asked because he didn't want to be bothered with taking out his stele and activating Alec's healing rune, but when Magnus refused because no magic he had no other choice.... and let's be real, the first scene of this episode heavily implies that a healing rune can cure just about anything in 0.3 seconds flat.

Alec wanting to bench Magnus makes no sense. Keeping him around and/or at the Institute makes more sense than, oh I don't know, telling him to stay in his loft where there are no wards. Wtf is logic anyway, right?

I liked this scene, don't get me wrong but... what's with the tough love? Alec isn't usually like that?? He's soft and firm reassurance, not aggressive and authoritative reassurance. Did he try that route before and it didn't work?? I need some answers.

“I had no idea.”

“How could you? You weren't there.”

“Me leaving had nothing to do with Simon. I just needed to be alone.

Okay, what, am I supposed to blame Maia now for needing time for and taking care of herself? She's so defensive as if her leaving was objectively wrong, and it wasn't.

“I guess when times get tough, some people need to be alone. And others need to be around other people.

Please, this is a dirty lie. Remind me again, who was it that pushed Alec away after he found out about her yin fen addiction, insisted she could handle it on her own, ran away and finally confiding in some random stranger she had just met? It wasn't Maia. Who stayed up late all night, disregarding her own emotions and rather tearing herself apart trying to fix the drama of her brothers than to mention to anyone she wasn't alright? Wasn't Maia either.

I feel strongly about this because this seems like a really cheap way to break up Saia and set up Sizzy and I don't like cheap things. I don't like Sizzy either, but my main demand is quality, not a certain content. I'll accept Sizzy if it's done correctly. But this isn't it. This is laying blame on a character who's not to blame, and making claims about another character that are plain untrue if you look at the last three seasons.

I've said it before, there would be good ways to break up Saia. For example their attitude to violence differs greatly from one another. Maia is trigger-happy and sees no harm in it, Simon is more or less pacifistic (at least when he's not having his I-don't-care-about-anything-but-my-gig-mood). Creating a conflict out of this would have been in character. Claiming Maia is somehow to blame because she wasn't there is not only unfair, but also invalidating all Maia has done for Simon before, and that was a lot. Putting up with her shitty ex, helping him search for Lilith, fighting her own pack so they don't bully him. She was about to have a face-off with the Seelie Queen – the very same creature that held her hostage not too long ago – just to be by his side. Is that all suddenly not worth anything anymore, just because she had the audacity to take a little time for herself, to sort through her own issues?

Seriously, he let her walk in that? No wonder she collapsed. Jonathan should have gotten her nice hiking boots.

EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS

CAN WE JUST.... CAN WE...... APPRECIATE.......... HOW HE BATS ALL HER MAGIC ATTACKS AWAY....... LIKE............ MAGNUS................ H O W

Btw if this is supposed to sway me and make me see that benching Magnus would have been the right call, then it's not working, because fine, let's assume Magnus had gone home. Then Iris would have had an even easier job to snatch him away, because a) no wards and b) no sword. And on top of that Alec wouldn't have had a way of knowing that Magnus was even taken, since I doubt Iris would have let Magnus call or text him.

Do you even know that? I'd like to see what you're willing to do after being tortured for ten years. Just saying. But fine. Stay there on your high horse.

Ohmygod I am stunned. I couldn't have written that summation any better and to be honest I had assumed the show would just blackpaint Jonathan as evil villain and be done with it. This is so much more than I expected. I am impressed. (And of course now I hope that there will be a redemption arc for Jonathan, but I'm afraid I'm setting myself up for heartbreak with this one.)

Do they intend to tell me that this whole place is warmed by the fireplace? Why not by a heater? Since the three billion lamps

imply there's electricity somewhere. Or was that line about firewood just Jonathan's way to exit the scene? Who knows.

“Ollie? Doesn't remember a thing. Praetor was good about getting her and Samantha relocated. New identities. They're safe now, like everyone else.”

I'm still high-key bitter about this. I love Ollie a great deal, okay, so this is a pretty disappointing solution to outsource her from the plot. Just let her forget all the shit so she doesn't have to deal with trauma. Guess she thinks now her mother died in an explosion caused by a gas leakage or something. I wonder what the mundane police has to say about that and how long it'll take them to find her, since, y'know, they have evidence against her and all that.

Edit: This doesn't actually make sense if you think about it. Did Ollie just get dropped into a witness protection program for no reason she can remember? Or does that “new identities” actually mean they have completely new identities because they don't remember ANYTHING from their old life?? I need answers.

I get it. This is supposed to make me see how rundown and wasted Luke is. But is he purposefully trying to make himself look like a confused hobo? I mean couldn't he like, prepare the notes he wanted to show Jace? It's like he's trying to reinforce to Jace he shouldn't listen to a thing Luke says because these are clearly the actions of a desperate man. Presentation is half the battle man, man.

Hah, badass. There's a reason I love him.

I totally dig Magnus in his kiddie clothes, but I also need a lot of answers because there's blood on his hands and bodies at his feet and this doesn't look like magic gone haywire, this looks like a massacre and I need answers. I wonder if they're gonna explain this flash or just let it sit there uncommented. (I hope they address it and I hope it has something to do with Asmodeus and their time together.)

Ugh do I honestly have to reiterate that parking Magnus in his ward-less loft wouldn't have helped? Also, he's a grown-ass man and can make decisions for himself, dammit.

Owning up to his mistakes unrestrainedly. There's a reason I have a soft spot for Raphael.

New York, huh? What a coincidence. Wouldn't want him to live somewhere else and have Maia burn through the other half of her paycheck to pay some warlock to portal them again, right?

Also, not to be controversial, but why don't they ask the Praetor first? Since they had a whole ass book on the mark of cain and everything. And figured out what it is. And getting rid of something so dangerous is basically their job. I mean. Just saying.

You know I always marvel at this. Just because he's old he knows shit? Is there really an age where knowledge pops into your head just because? Because I'm still waiting for that to happen to me, let me tell you. Just like being immortal somehow grants you immediate access to celebrities and the questionable honor to be in the midst of all historical events of the slightest relevance? Srsly if I was immortal I'd still be glued to my lappy and hate going out.

LOL give Iris a front row seat on how you smashed her XD XD XD

IT'S SUPER EFFECTIVE

<3 <3 <3

This exchange thing is a ploy, and to be honest, a painfully obvious one. I find it really kinda hard to believe Iris falls for it. What I've been asking myself since this plot line started is, why didn't Iris have that idea herself? Like, I honestly expected her to use Magnus as a hostage and tell Alec he either hand over Madzie or she'll kill Magnus. Makes way more sense than her just trying to find Madzie herself and then what, try to break her out again? That didn't work last time, and since the warlocks are warned by Magnus's abduction it'd be even unlikelier to work now. I get it plot-wise since it'd be a little awkward if Iris out-blackmailed the Shadowhunters, but like. Seriously. What's the in-universe-explanation for this???

I don't know why, but Magnus looks super cute in this shot.

Five bucks say this is Izzy with a shapeshifting rune, and ISTG if this is actually Madzie then I can just shake my head at them.

Okay, I totally dig Lightwood siblings working together but. Why do you have to simultaneously hurt me with plot holes.

1) Where did they get Seelie Magic? Did they employ Meliorn? Srlsy. Also, the Seelie Magic at the beginning of the episode could move so why was Illusion!Madzie standing there like a display dummy? That was super suspicious.

2) Why didn't they use a shapeshifting rune? The illusion would have held longer, Izzy could have gotten closer and tied Iris up more easily, without Magnus getting smashed first. But, drama I guess.

3) Where the f is Catarina? Please. Her ward almost gets kidnapped and all she does is go “Oh shit, gotta relocate her to some other High Warlock lol.” Her best friend gets kidnapped and all she does is go “Oh shit, but whatever, here have a fake ransom note but don't think I'll move my ass from this super important Bitching and Drinking Conference. I payed like 200 bucks to get in.” Wtf. This is shitty ooc behavior from her. Wtf. She's either suuuuuper confident that Alec and Izzy will get Magnus back no problem, or she doesn't give a shit about him, and sorry, I don't believe either of those two options.

HAHAHA I'M SCREAMING LOOOOOL!!! Is this code for “We wanted to kill her but Lilith was quicker so we'll pretend we weren't even interested in killing her in the first place”? The Clave, man. Always good for a laugh.

No, dummy, this is their R&D Department.

I'm not even kidding, remember 2x04:

Oh the good old times.

This was. Really good. Really. I'm like, reeling. I feel like show writers read too many fanfics and therefore the Malec scenes this ep were exquisite. Magnus evasively running around and not liking his “powerlessness.” Alec there to reassure him with the sweetest of words. Their kiss, not to short, but hard and determined, with feeling. Top tier shit.

Wow, even though the words that left their mouths were reassuring and good it still feels like their relationship is suddenly dying. I wonder why that is? Oh, right. Because Sizzy, that's why.

I love.

Ooooh guess the residual electricity finally ran out. And I guess Clary turned all the candles off to match the mood? Also, since it was dark outside before and now isn't anymore.... was Jonathan out collecting firewood the entire night? That's dedication, man.

.......what a coincidence that their healing rune is in the exact same spot. On that note, I've been wondering.... if the ressurection resetted his skin to a state it hasn't been in for ten years, effectively un-charring it, shouldn't his runes have disappeared as well? Did he spend the “days” Clary was sleeping with putting runes all over himself?? On that note, why the hell did Clary have to sleep for days when Jonathan was the one who came back from the dead? All that Clary did was running at Simon in slow motion. I mean, I know what I would find more taxing.

I soooo appreciate the blood on her teeth. Such care for detail <3

Okay, so I realize that this makes Jonathan look like a fanatic, but I actually understand this scene like this: He's not an idiot. He knew Clary wasn't really going to give him a chance. But this, this is his chance, because now she has no choice but to stick with him and see for herself.

Btw if you're wondering why I'm so pro Jonathan, you can read the beginning of this post where I got out all of my Jonathan Feels. Basically, until I actually see him act intrinsically evil I refuse to believe all hope is lost for him. He did terrible things, yes, and he's aware of that, but the way I see it he did them because he wasn't ever presented with an alternate choice. And now that he has one, he's holding onto it tooth and nail. He wants to leave all the pointless violence behind.

I'm aware he's a sadistic psycho in the books, but this wouldn't be the first time the show gave a character a make-over (for the better) and so far the only compelling piece of evidence on the show in favor of Jonathan's demon blood causing him to be unsavably evil was Jocelyn's vision of him killing a flower as a baby, and it's not even clear if that was intentional. So excuse me if that's not enough for me to write him off.

Gif Sources: Malec cheek kiss, Magnus being cutesy with his croc impression, Magnus brandishing his sword *facepalm* you know what I mean, Magnus batting Iris's magic away

#shadowhunters #alec lightwood #magnus bane #jace wayland #clary fray #isabelle lightwood #jonathan morgenstern #simon lewis #maia roberts #luke garroway #jia penhallow #raphael santiago #malec #magnus is badass #reaction

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anjelica-grey · 6 years ago

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Fictober Day 30: “Do we really have to do this again?”

From the Fictober 2018 Prompt List.

Fandom: Dragon Age

Rating: T

In which the Theirins and their tenants make Halloween plans.

The residents of Vigil House were arguing, as usual.

It was a crisp Saturday in late October, and Elissa Cousland-Theirin surveyed her young tenants fondly. Not so long ago, she remembered sitting in the huge foyer of the estate she’d inherited, and thinking only of how the gloomy place reminded her of loved ones lost and dreams relinquished. She’d been hesitant when Alistair suggested renting out rooms to students from nearby Amaranthine University, but had ultimately given into his characteristic enthusiasm ... and she was glad. They’d never been able to have children of their own, but somehow, living among their offbeat collection of renters had soothed a bit of that old pain and restored a sense of family she’d almost forgotten.

And like many families, they disagreed on a wide variety of subjects. Today, it was Halloween planning.

“Ugh, do we really have to do this again? Why do I even bother trying to plan anything with you guys? If we’re not going to get out and see the fall colors, what is the point?”

Elissa hid a grin behind her hand. The complaint came from Velanna, a lovely blond history major with a minor, oddly enough, in botany. “The girl cracks me up,” she’d told Alistair one evening. “She looks like she should call herself Leaf while introducing you to her boyfriend Pinecone at the Peace-and-Love Tree-Hugging Festival of Mud. But if so, she either missed out on what the other hippies were smoking, or ended on a bad trip, because she’s always about three words away from being pissed right off.” His chuckle had faded into concern, and he’d worried that Velanna was trapped in some dangerous situation. Elissa had kissed him with a smile. “Immediately wanting to help everyone is so you, my love. But no, I think she’ll be fine. She’s hinted at some family issues, and I expect she’ll open up eventually.” It hadn’t happened yet, but luckily the others were more inclined to roll their eyes than get offended.

“Ooh, we could carve pumpkins! That would be outdoorsy, plus we could use them to decorate! It would be so much fun!”

If Velanna was the angriest hippie, Sigrun was the cheeriest goth. Even shorter than the willowy blond, she was rounded and perky, wearing her dark hair in pigtails, but the girl-next-door look was offset by bold makeup and an angular symbol tattooed on her face. Today, she wore black leggings and motorcycle boots beneath a fluffy orange skirt covered in glittery silver bats, and a hoodie embellished with the words, “Sometimes I wrestle with my demons but sometimes we just snuggle.” Unlike Velanna, the geology major had been breezily open about her past, and she’d been through hardships Elissa could scarcely comprehend. When asked how she got through it all with such a positive attitude, she’d shrugged. “The worst has already happened, so there’s nowhere to go but up, right?” Sigrun reminded her of Alistair in some ways; she’d come through darkness unspoiled, and she was always quick with a smile or a hug.

“If pumpkin-carving parties have beer, I’m in.”

Oghren reacted to their disapproving glares with a smirk and a belch, showing his usual class. Of all the residents, he was the one Elissa had the toughest time making up her mind about. He was in the criminal justice program, but she couldn’t say whether he wanted to stop crime or learn how to get away with it, and she’d never seen him with a book. On the other hand, he valued his spot on the rugby team, and never missed a practice or a workout—though it was a mystery how, given his seemingly constant partying. She wondered yet again if his crass, off-putting behavior was a cover for emotions he lacked the capacity to process, if it was a sign of borderline alcoholism, or if he was just that shallow. It seemed she might never know.

“Mixing big knives and alcohol? Sure, I can’t imagine how that could possibly go wrong.”

The sandy-haired nursing major was the next to chime in. Anders lay on the floor playing with their cat, Urth (short for Urthemeow; one day she’d learn to stop letting her husband name the pets). Alistair had taken Barkspawn along when he left to run errands, so the dainty black Tevene long-hair was making the most of the undivided attention. Anders caught her looking, and grinned at her with the easy charm that explained how he’d spent the previous semester on friends’ couches. It would doubtless give him phenomenal bedside manner when he finished his schooling, but at present seemed more geared toward being in beds than out of them. She had to admit his flirtatious teasing fluttered her pulse now and then, a fact which had caused Alistair to vacillate between a glare and a pout whenever the young man was around—until she’d set out to convince him no one else could steal her heart. Elissa smirked, remembering. The dinner she’d made him, with his favorite cheesecake for dessert, had been nice. But the second dessert course lasted much longer. And involved lingerie. They may also have found additional uses for the leftover chocolate syrup and whipped cream. After that, Alistair declared himself thoroughly convinced, and was rather more kindly disposed to their resident cat lover.

“If we decorate, we’ll have to give out candy. It wouldn’t be fair to raise kids’ hopes with a big festive display and then have nothing for them.”

It always amused her that, despite Oghren’s major, the one who was most concerned with justice was Kristoff. She found it interesting he’d become friends with Anders; other than their mutual compassion for humanity, two more different people could hardly be imagined. Where Anders wore his golden hair long, with a flirty smile in his warm brown eyes and a joke at the ready, Kristoff’s dark hair was shaved to the skull, and he often reacted to humor with a distant silver stare of incomprehension. Nonetheless, Elissa was fond of the awkward young man, and impressed by his commitment to his studies in investigative journalism, a field he’d pursued as long as he could remember. Careful to ensure everyone got their chance to speak, he turned to the final member of the group. “What do you think we should do?” he asked.

“We ... we used to put up a ton of decorations at home; I highly doubt anyone’s using them now. I could ask my sister where they are, I guess. If you want.”

Elissa’s heart went out to the pain in Nathaniel Howe’s voice, despite the spiky stare that challenged anyone to mock him. Sadly, he had good reason for it. He was the son of the former governor of Amaranthine, a well-known business tycoon. Until a year ago, he’d had his own expensive loft in a trendy part of town along with anything else he wanted. But then his dad was charged with embezzlement and sent to prison after an extremely public trial. All their assets were seized. Nate’s sister was married and cushioned from the worst deprivations, but the pale, dark-haired young man with the wounded grey eyes had lost his apartment, his car, and all his more shallow friends. The defeat in his posture when he’d asked the price of the room stuck with her, but he’d persevered, and continued to work toward his degree in finance. She wondered though, without the influence of his demanding father, how long it would be before he reconsidered his interests in life.

“That’s a great idea, Nate,” Elissa said, giving him a warm smile. “More decorations would be lovely. So I guess our next step is to shop for pumpkins—which we will not be carving while drunk, thank you very much—and, what else? Oh, yes, candy.”

“Did someone say candy?” Alistair’s voice preceded him into the sitting room, until he appeared a moment later looking like a refugee from a grocery bag factory.

Elissa blinked. “Alistair? Exactly how many of those bags are filled with Halloween candy?”

“... a few?” he dissembled, setting down his haul. At her stern glare, he broke. “All right, so I may have gone a little overboard on supplies. But ... but ‘Liss, I never got to do Halloween as a kid. You can’t blame me for being excited ... can you?” He looked down at her with those bottomless golden puppy-dog eyes, and she sighed in defeat.

“You’re lucky I love you, Mr. Theirin,” she grumbled.

“Most definitely, Mrs. Theirin,” he said, pulling her out of her seat to enfold her in sweet kisses.

“Ugh, get a room, you two,” Anders teased, and they laughed.

For a collection of all my Fictober 2018 one-shots, check out Windows in Autumn on AO3.

#fictober18 #alistair x cousland #alistair theirin #anders #nathaniel howe #velanna #sigrun #justice dragon age #oghren #dragon age fanfiction #agreywrites #ag-fictober18

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acsversace-news · 7 years ago

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Fade up on a cheery tourist video for Minneapolis, lit with contemporaneously cheese-ish overbrightness, then cut to a title card telling us it's April 27, 1997 -- one week before Lee Miglin's murder. Then we're at the gorgeous, massive loft of David Madson. He's on the cordless, pitching himself for a project, and he promises he won't let the caller down as Andrew Cunanan looms into the frame, and this probably isn't the first time he's done this, but he has his t-shirt tucked into his jeans and no belt, like, why is this a thing on TV?

Cunanan awkwards up to David's workspace, his arms stiffly at his sides, as David hangs up and celebrates: "They said yes!" "I'm so happy for you," Cunanan oozes, sounding about as sincere as Siri. David looks doubtful, but out loud he accepts Cunanan's well wishes, then softens and notes that, "this weekend," they both said things they regret. Can they put it behind them -- "just be friends"? "I don't regret anything I said," Cunanan says. David manages not to roll his eyes and asks if they can move on, then. "Sure," Cunanan says flatly. David heads off to shower. Cunanan continues to stand, immobile, by David's desk, the smile leaking off his face.

David relaxes under the water, and while this isn't the Psycho shot set-up -- and while I know David is not killed in this scene -- it's still tense. Way in the back of the shot, you can see Cunanan start to come into the bathroom, then, when David turns the water off, hastily withdraw. David comes out to find the apartment empty, he thinks, but then at the end of the bedroom hallway, there's Cunanan, David's dog Prints on a leash. (The real-life dog was a Dalmatian, which the dog playing him is not, so at first I assumed thanks to the location of the episode's events that the dog's name was Prince, as in "Rogers Nelson.") Here again, I know the actual Prints came to no harm, at least from Cunanan, and I don't think the production would depart from the generally accepted timeline to make us watch a pet suffer, but Cunanan is already acting so lights-on-nobody-home two minutes into the episode that I don't want him anywhere near the hound, fictionalized narrative or no. Anyway, Cunanan doesn't say anything, so David has to prompt him as one does a child: "Taking Prints for a walk?" "Yeah," Cunanan tries to chirp, and heads for the door. David's like, "…k," and goes to get dressed.

When he comes out, though, he finds Prints tied to a leg of his desk…and Cunanan once again Nosferatus into the frame, his face a bland mask. So he's…not taking Prints for a walk, David asks, untying the dog. The buzzer goes off, and David asks who it is. "It's Jeff," Cunanan duhs. David asks if they're going out, and Cunanan duhs again that Jeff's coming up. David has clearly been trying up to this point not to betray his impatience with Cunanan's toddleresquely obtuse behavior -- no doubt because one of the things he said "this weekend," which he is going to regret more than he could ever have imagined, is that he isn't into Cunanan that way anymore -- but finally snaps that he has work to do. "It won't take long," Cunanan says, continuing to stand like a mannequin as the buzzer sounds several more times.

Then he snots, "Could you get the door?" Fern loses control of the accent somewhat as David eye-rolls that he doesn't have time for this, but gets up to answer. Cunanan's Manson lamps flip on as he hurries to say that it'll give them a chance to talk about him. David's given pause: "What did you just say?" Cunanan repeats that, when he brings Jeff up, it'll give them a chance. To talk about him. (The buzzer doesn't admit people from the loft; David has to go down in the elevator and physically open the building's front door. I lived in an apartment with that "set-up" for a while, so I didn't think much about this on first viewing, except to clock Cunanan's rudeness, but it's made more of later.) David shoots Cunanan a silent "you wish" look and storms out. Prints goes the front door when he's left and whines a little.

Downstairs, David lets Jeff in with a familiar "hey." It's nice to see Finn Wittrock as Jeff Trail at last, but like everyone else, he's coming in at the miserable end to his own story, so I'm bracing for that as Jeff asks grimly, "How's he?" Equally grimly, David says Cunanan proposed. "Are you serious?"

"Said I was the man of his dreams…his last chance at happiness." Jeff pulls another ffs face as the elevator arrives and asks how David got out of it. "Told him it was illegal for us to get married," David sighs. In the elevator, David adds that Cunanan thinks Jeff's why David says no: "Thinks I'm in love with you." Jeff snorts, "D'you tell him he's the reason you said no?" "He has no one," David says sadly, almost to himself, and Jeff snarks that he should ask himself why, but David warns Jeff, "He knows about us." What this means is debatable; per Maureen Orth's Vanity Fair piece, Jeff "was known to have warned" David that Cunanan "was a liar," but I can't find any indication in contemporary news accounts or elsewhere that David and Jeff were romantically involved, except in Cunanan's resentful fantasies. Jeff's say-WHAAAAAT head turn suggests that that's the implication here, though, as he adds in disbelief that "no one knows!" "He has this feline intuition," David says.

Coming down the hall, Jeff urges David not to feel sorry for Cunanan. Why not? Jeff does. "Not anymore," Jeff says. In fact, he never wants to see Cunanan again, and he's only there because Cunanan stole Jeff's gun.

Inside, Cunanan is lying in wait behind a bookcase, holding a hammer and wearing no expression. David finds Prints once again tied up to some furniture and angrily calls for Cunanan, but Cunanan is busy lunging at Jeff as he's closing the front door. Cut to David watching in horror and Prints barking as we hear the squelchy sounds of Cunanan beating Jeff to death. Jeff hollers. Prints barks. David backs away along the sectional as stripes of overkill blood spatter hit him and the walls of the entryway. Finally Cunanan subsides and stands up, in an odd hunchy posture reminiscent of Karl from Sling Blade. He whips some blood off the hammer and walks towards David, who crab-walks away from him along the couch. Hard to see how even Cunanan would think stroking David's face with his bloody hands, one of which is still holding the hammer, is comforting, but that's what he does while whispering that it's okay.

He touches his forehead to David's, then cradles him, covered in Jeff's gore. David somehow does not vomit all over this delusional creeper, instead allowing Cunanan to escort him as though he's an aging invalid to the bathroom; seat him; start getting undressed, removing his blood-caked glasses but still taking care not to touch the lenses; partially undress David; and move them both into the shower to wash off the blood. David is in shock throughout this oogy process but occasionally flinches away from Cunanan's affectionate ministrations. He finally manages to ask if Cunanan's going to kill him. Cunanan sounds surprised: "No!" But you killed Jeff, David says, twice. "Why?" "I lost control," Cunanan murmurs, not sounding like that's the case at all. But he loves David. David, shivering with revulsion, pushes Cunanan's hand away: "No. No! Call the police!" Cunanan tries to calm him but David scrabbles away, repeating, "Call them! Do it now!"

Cunanan puts Prints in his crate, like, could someone actually walk that poor pup? David, dry and dressed, pads fearfully out of the bedroom and into the loft's main area, where Cunanan is sitting in the dark. "Andrew?" David quavers. Cunanan melodramatically switches on the lamp on David's desk. The cordless is in front of him. "Did you call?" "I'll call them if you want me too," Cunanan says, fidgeting. "You haven't called," David says, despairingly. Cunanan says he's been worrying -- about David, who asks for the phone, but Cunanan has prepared his manipulation carefully, and goes into a disingenuous presentation about how it's David's apartment, David let Jeff in…what will the police think? David, in tears, demands the phone again, and gets an utterly chilling stare in response.

Cunanan sighs actorishly, gets up, and makes a big show of "giving in" to David's wishes by handing him the phone. David calls 911, but Cunanan is musing that he'll get 30 years, but David will get 10, and he just can't allow that to happen. He draws the gun out of his waistband. The 911 operator has answered by now, but David is ensorcelled by Cunanan massaging his own temple with the butt of the gun and whining that he can't let "this" destroy David's life. Slowly David hits the off button and hands the phone back. Cunanan beams. I distract myself from the urge to reach through the monitor and flick Cunanan in the eyeball by trying to figure out who Cody Fern looks like -- it's partly Dax Shepard, but it's someone else too, and I can't quite put my finger on it.

…Andrew McCarthy! Man, that was bugging me. Not as much as Cunanan's bugging me, as he comes into the bedroom where David is sitting, becalmed by horror, on the bed and starts digging through David's drawers for Damning Gay Stuff: porn with titles like Bear Love, some S&M gear. He comes to the bed with it; David withdraws, terrified, but Cunanan is focused on arraying all of it neatly on the duvet and informing David that the cops won't see victims in him and David -- they'll see suspects. David's like, but you'll tell them I didn't do anything, I'm not a killer. Cunanan blares that "they hate us, David," they've always hated us: "You're a [F word]." David moves to the edge of the bed and babbles that he needs to talk to his father, ask him what to do. Cunanan condescends that in that case his dad would have to turn him in, or he'd be committing a crime. Does David want to put him in that position? David has had it, and announces he's leaving; Cunanan gets between him and the door, but says David can, once he's "thought this through." David looks at the space between Cunanan and the door and repeats that he wants to leave. "Once you've thought it through," Cunanan repeats, blocking the door and fixing David with another chilling stare.

With no real choice, David exhales, and Cunanan closes the door on the camera, leaving me to think about what I would do in that situation, how I might escape, how effectively Cunanan leveraged his own self-loathing into a loathsome trap to keep Madson under control.

Later. Cunanan has seated himself near the door, on the floor, and appears to be asleep. David eases himself up off the bed and is about to try to slink out when Cunanan's eyes open and he asks with a Starman head-cock, "Were you going to leave me?" David says no, but Cunanan's on his feet in an instant, protesting that he was going to leave. David thinks fast and says Prints needs a walk -- he'll shit everywhere, start barking, draw attention. Cunanan, who seems to have forgotten there's a dead body moldering directly beside the front door, chooses to believe this more-flattering-to-him excuse, and lets David out of the bedroom…

…but once David has retrieved Prints, there's still the matter of Jeff's remains, the lake of blood in which they're resting, and their location, which makes egress basically impossible without one creature stepping on or in the crime scene. Cunanan comes up beside David and pulls an inappropriately snotty what-a-hassle face, then drags David's entryway rug over to the body and tells David to turn away. David does, but soon can't resist watching Cunanan awkwardly rolling Jeff up in the rug and just as awkwardly trying to heave him out of sight, a task he's eventually obliged to ask for David's help with. David manages not to openly gag as they drag the body around behind part of the sectional; he also manages not to snark at Cunanan that a mere four paper towels and no cleanser is not going to do anything except smear the gallons of blood on the floor around, but when Cunanan semi-realizes this and leaves off bothering to go wipe his hands, David grabs the dog and makes for the door. Cunanan cheerily offers to come along. David says he doesn't have to, and Cunanan immediately sours: "You don't want me to come?" David stammers that if he's tired…"Do you want to walk him without me?" David has to say no, he doesn't, like, obviously he does, and you obviously know why, so maybe have one moment of emotional generosity and skip the fucking playacting, but no, Cunanan strides over and repeats that he thinks David wants to go without him. David thought he might be tired. "Do I seem tired?" Cunanan grits, and David's like, jfc, fine, let's walk the dog.

On the elevator, of course a neighbor has to get on with the two men and Prints, and Karen cheerily greets both David, who very obviously looks like he just ate a handful of bugs, and Andrew, who doesn't respond or even blink.

I can't say I "applaud," exactly, the show's and Darren Criss's choices, which make Cunanan not just scary and weird but also an asocial and annoying asshole -- but they're certainly effective. I want to punch the kid in the dick. As Cunanan blouses his sweatshirt over the gun once again stashed in his waistband, Karen croons at a whingy Prints that "someone's not having fun on the elevator today." "No. Guess not," David grunts. On the ground floor, David wishes her a pointed nice day, then pauses before disembarking: "Are you gonna hurt anyone else?" "N…o?" Cunanan says. David needs him to promise, which of course Cunanan has no problem doing because: compulsive liar. "Nobody else will get hurt! As long as you're by my side."

On the sidewalk, David makes nervous eye contact with a fellow dog-walker while rambling about a story he just thought of, that he wasn't home last night and he can pretend to be discovering the body for the first time -- and by then, Cunanan will be "long gone." Cunanan, already not having it, pulls up: "On my own?" David sees a mother and child approaching on the sidewalk and gulps. "Let's go back." They turn back to the building, Cunanan possessively patting David's neck.

As Cunanan is packing them up, there's a knock at the door. Inside, David looks stricken; outside, David's co-worker Melinda is telling the building manager David would never miss work. Prints is barking and whining as David starts for the door but Cunanan grabs his arm, asking if he really wants to be there when they open the door and see what's inside. The manager bustles off to get the keys, but when she opens the door, it's clear the two sides of the door aren't in the same timeline, because Prints bolts the loft, and the women find it empty. Well, except for all the blood, some of it drag marks leading to the rolled-up rug. Melinda gasps. David and Cunanan, meanwhile, buckle up for the worst road trip ever.

MPD homicide detectives Tichich and Jackson arrive at the loft building, and Tichich is struck right away by the fact that the patrol officer has to come down to let them in. Outside the loft, the women brief the detectives: the manager, Jennifer, used her key because the dog sounded "distressed," and Melinda chimes in that David never misses work. She's trying to say she found David's body when Tichich interrupts to ask if it's David's apartment and what she can tell them about David. He's nice, he's 33, he's a talented architect…does he have a wife, Jackson asks. He's gay, Melinda shrugs, and Tichich frowns and passes a pair of rubber gloves to Jackson, which I guess could be something they were going to do anyway but, in the context of the season's continuing commentary on how far we've come (or…haven't) in our cultural assumptions about the queer community, is probably something we're meant to notice.

Tichich squats down and sort of peers into the end of the rolled-up rug, but doesn't unroll it. He opens the wallet on the counter with a pen; it's David's. "Wasn't a robbery," Tichich remarks. A patrolman notes there was no sign of forced entry. Tichich clocks the heaps of dirty clothes in the bathroom, the blood spatter on the floor, the hammer in the sink where Cunanan dumped it. I'll note here that, while reporting on Trail's murder describes the weapon as a "claw hammer," this is what you or I would merely call a…hammer, with a blunt head for nailing and a bifurcated "claw" for prying. Based on what we later see of Trail's scalp and skull -- or what Cunanan left him of it -- it's clear Cunanan used the claw end of the hammer; I'm not pointing this out as an inaccuracy. I do think it's noteworthy that, in accounts of murder/true-crime writing, bad acts committed with what would be described only as a "hammer" in literally any other situation will always have involved a "claw hammer," because it sounds so much more brutal. And…is much more brutal, obviously, but I think the idea takes root subliminally, as it had with me until I took a second to confirm it on Google, that there is a specific, discrete tool that looks more like a scythe and seems only to exist for homicidal purposes, versus the garden-variety rubber-grip hammer we all have in the junk drawer.

…This has been Tool Time with Sarah D. Bunting. Insert your own urg urg Tim Allen noises here and let's move on to the detectives finding Cunanan's carefully arranged tableau o' porn 'n' lube. Jackson seems not to know what he's looking at; Tichich does, but evinces little judgment, except in the typically narrow-minded scenario he spins, in which "a guy turns up" whom David "probably" didn't know, "they do what they do…this extreme stuff," shit goes south, and David "ends up in a rug" while the other guy runs. So, note here that they assume at this time it's David in the rug -- and that Jackson has just found the ammunition Cunanan is using. Tichich wonders where the gun is, but the short version is, they're already behind.

The coroner arrives. Tichich continues obsessing about the buzzer situation until Melinda asks for a word: David had a friend staying with him that weekend, an Andrew "Cone-onan or something." She describes him to Tichich, adding that Cunanan did a lot of bragging that "didn't sound right." Tichich confirms that Cunanan had dark hair -- and that David has blond hair. Inside, the coroner is saying he doesn't want to unroll the rug there, lest valuable evidence fall out, and on a side table, Tichich spots a Polaroid of David and (we'll see later) his dad, and carries it over to the rug, asking the others what color they think the victim's hair is. Cut to a truly gruesome shot of the ruins of Trail's head as they confirm that guy's hair is black. So now they understand it's not David in the rug…but they think it's "a man named Andrew Coo-nay-noon," and Tichich is now preoccupied with the fact that, if David is alive, that means they entered the premises illegally, so they have to go back and get a search warrant so they don't screw the pooch in court later. So now they're even further behind, and given Tichich's sticklering about the warrant, it's dumb and shitty of him to inform Melinda and Jennifer that David isn't the victim, "he's the killer," but okay.

Shot of a child's hand running through reeds as young David and his dad, who's toting a rifle and a thermos, hike alongside a lake. David dashes into a cabin, followed by Dad. Dad shares out coffee into two tin mugs, and they happily sip it. Later, David claps his hands over his ears as Dad takes a shot, then pulls David to the water's edge and wades in to retrieve the duck he's just killed. David sadly squats beside the bird and cradles its dead head in his hands. David runs off. Dad chases him, and kneels next to him, reminding him that they talked about this: "I explained. Okay?" At the end of the day, a brooding David asks if Dad is mad at him. Going against every expectation watching TV and movies has ingrained in us for this scene, Dad says of course he isn't: hunting isn't for everyone, and that's okay. "We can still go on hikes," he offers, adding that he enjoyed his coffee with David very much. Aw. It's not entirely clear to me given what happens later whether this actually happened, but it's still sweet. Dad takes David's chin and says he doesn't ever want David to be sad.

In the present day, David puts his hand out the window of Jeff's Jeep and strokes the air the way he did the reeds as a kid. In the driver's seat, Cunanan bugs out to Technotronic, car-dancing along to "Pump Up The Jam" and seeming legit wounded that David isn't reacting positively to yet another tone-deaf response. Later on, Cunanan is boasting through a huge mouthful of sandwich that he's "close" with Lee Miglin -- "Maybe you've heard of him?" -- and that the border won't be a problem; they'll get more than enough money from Lee to live in style in Mexico, plus he's been "moving product across" "for years" and he knows people. Who knows whether his whole drug-dealer persona had any acquaintance with reality, but it was definitely something that was out there amongst his circle. David can't with this fucker or with his sandwich, staring into the middle distance and not saying anything, at least until Cunanan glibs that David should start thinking about his "new life." Cunanan lies that he respects that David probably wants to "part ways" once they get to Mexico, "but we make such a great team? And the truth is we have no one else." Satisfied that he has now made this true of David as it is for himself, he takes another enormous bite.

Tichich returns with a warrant and the crime-scene team. Jeff's body is taken out, then unwrapped at the morgue. His clothes are cut off as the camera pans up to his…well, it's more tears and holes than face, now. Hideously on-point work by the production designer. Jeff's jeans are folded away to reveal his tattoo (actually Marvin The Martian; here, the generic alien they could get the rights to). The coroner finds Jeff's wallet, and ID, as the fellow dog-walker from earlier is telling the detectives that normally David would have Prints off the leash, so it was odd that he didn't when she last saw him. She didn't notice anything else about their demeanors, which is when Tichich gets a call on his Cornish-hen-sized flip phone that the victim is neither David nor Cunanan.

Those two are exiting a rest-stop men's room, Cunanan slinging his arm with awkwardly chummy possessiveness around David's shoulders.

David freezes up when a woman in a Benz gives them an icy look, paranoid that she recognizes him. Cunanan snorts that that's impossible, but David is insistent; she looked at him like she hated him! Cunanan flips to psycho mode and suggests going after her, running her off the road, and asking her why she looked at "my friend," "the nicest, kindest person" in the world like that. David yells at him to stop, that he promised nobody else gets hurt. "Whatever you say, David," Cunanan says primly, peeling out, and although I'm physically becoming exhausted by it and him, I have to give it to this episode: it really gives you a sense of how firmly Cunanan must have had David pinned, mentally, and how slowly and awfully the last days of his life must have gone by, how he must have wanted to scream not only for help but also in Cunanan's face that he's a striving dickwad.

As the detectives arrive on Dad Madson's doorstep, Cunanan burbles that he's "so glad" David "decided" to come with him. David doesn't dignify this version, saying through tears as he stares out the window that he keeps playing over what the cops will "find out about" him -- and he realizes he's done this his whole life, "playing over and over the moment people find out about me." Presumably this is why we saw the hunting trip.

Dad insists David didn't kill Jeff Trail. Tichich remarks that people saw him and Cunanan "calmly" walking the dog while Jeff's body was rotting at the loft, riddled with holes from a claw hammer that belongs to David.

David is upset at the prospect of his parents having to endure gossip about him in their small town. Who's "gonna buy from" Dad's shop?

Dad is continuing to deny that David is capable of this. Tichich informs him that Cunanan's friends in San Diego describe him as "reliable; intelligent. 'Generous' is a word they use." We know him, Dad says. He didn't do this. Tichich sighs that "there's a great deal you don't know about your son."

David wonders aloud if he got in the car because he was afraid Cunanan would kill him, or if he was afraid "of the disgrace." Cunanan murmurs that David knows he would never hurt David, which David rightly ignores. They stop at a roadside bar and Cunanan stashes the gun in his backpack as they head inside, where a woman and her guitar launch into an acoustic version of the Cars' "Drive." Cunanan urges David to eat something; he'll feel better. David ignores this also and gets up to pee, which Cunanan allows. "Who's gonna tell you when / it's too late?" begins the singer, and on my first pass through the episode, I was like, dang, that sounds like Aimee Mann. The camera then pans around to a medium shot, and I was not looking 100 percent at the screen but said aloud to the cat, "Wow, they got someone who even looks like Aimee Mann. What are the odds?" Well, it is Aimee Mann, it turns out, so: pretty good odds, apparently. Anyway, David's in the bathroom stall, contemplating his odds vis-à-vis breaking the window and shimmying out of it, and to my surprise, he does break out the window, then clear off the glass when nobody comes rushing in to stop him. "Who's gonna pick you up / when you fall," Aimee sings as David stares, terrified, out into the parking lot, probably thinking Cunanan's "feline intuition" will have him waiting directly under the window to apprehend David.

It doesn't. Cunanan's other defining trait, self-pity, has him marinating in the parallels between the lyrics of "Drive" and his own situation. As I've said, I respect the line that Criss has to walk here with this character, who is both a psychopath and a brat, and if the decision was taken to give the viewer some so-called aid and comfort by tipping Cunanan towards "pitiably hateful" versus "opaquely charming," I get it.

I also get…Crying Dawson.

Nobody's going to drive Cunanan anywhere except crazier, and I don't think we're intended to feel sorry for him. And I do not. David reappears, alas, and Cunanan grabs his hands across the table. David shoots him a confused look.

Another flashback, this one to David showing his father a departmental award his thesis has won. Dad's response is once again very explicitly, almost fantastically approving and warm: David put in the work, he deserves this. David then blurts that he's gay, and after a long pause, Dad asks for a moment: "I don't want to say the wrong thing." I think this is what David means when he plays the moments over and over; what I still can't quite nail down given the stylization of the dialogue in the two scenes is whether he's playing back what really happened, or revising it to make it go right. What gives me pause in this second flash…something is that it doesn't go all that well; Dad can't lie and say it doesn't matter, because "you know what I believe." Maybe David wanted to hear that Dad doesn't have a problem with it, but Dad "can't say that." What Dad can say is that he loves David more than he loves his own life. David's eyes spill over. There's no need for crying, Dad tells him, then asks why he waited to win the award to come out. David half-smiles. "Good news…bad news."

Then he wakes up in the back of the Jeep, which…to my point. And it doesn't really matter, but we'll get into that later. For now, Cunanan is nowhere around. David emerges from the car in bare feet, and you still hope, even knowing that it won't happen, that he'll just climb a tree or melt into the woods silently, get away somehow, put those hikes he took with Dad to use and beat the story. But Cunanan appears, holding the gun, and greets him happily. "You're not wearing any shoes!" He grabs David's hand and leads him back to the Jeep, breathing in the country air, like it's their third date.

At a diner, David asks if Cunanan remembers where they met -- on Market Street in San Francisco, a year and a half ago. The fancy clothes Cunanan wore! His "high-society friends"! He sent David a drink; David thought, who does that, "in real life"! Cunanan had everyone laughing! You can see where this is going to go, that David's reminiscence of admiring and envying Cunanan's wealth and sophistication has a sneering top note to it, but Cunanan is oblivious, preening at the memory of their $1000-a-night hotel suite and how he swanned to David about changing rooms three times to get the view he wanted. "Except it was all a lie," David finishes. "You've never worked for anything! It was all an act." This serves two purposes, I would say -- in the scene, there's the sense of a suicide-by-cop maneuver on David's part, a let's-just-play-our-cards attitude, and outside it for the viewer, a tiny tiny measure of justice in David at least clocking Cunanan for all his grand bullshit -- but you can imagine how Cunanan feels about it.

Cunanan, seeming really not to know: "What's wrong with you?" David asks if that's why he killed Jeff when he obviously loved Jeff -- that "he figured you out in the end."

"Took him a few years but he finally saw the real you," David adds. "And you killed him for it." Cunanan swallows his dread and makes a flirty moue, saying that if David thinks that night in San Fran was great, just wait 'til they get to Mexico. He blathers on about staying for a month in a fancy hotel, a room with a patio, telling the cute waiters they're movie stars from Los Angeles. David is disgusted: "You can't do it, can you." Cunanan's face falls: "I can't what?" "Stop."

In the car, Cunanan stares out onto the road. David is sitting with his back to the door, and asks why Cunanan sent him down to get Jeff. Cunanan doesn't want to talk about it. David snaps that he did it on purpose; he wanted David to see it, wanted to make David a part of it. He didn't lose control at all; he planned the whole thing. Cunanan whines repeatedly in a tone usually reserved for, like, getting turned down for prom or something that he doesn't want to talk about it. David keeps pushing: does he think they're outlaws together or something? "I'm nothing like you." Cunanan still won't discuss it so David grabs the wheel, grunting at him to stop the car. Cunanan whips out the gun, points it at David's chest, and wails that David needs to stop talking about the past, that they had a plan, they had a future.

He whips the car down a dirt side road, parks, and pulls David out, still ranting about the plan. David quavers that they still have a plan as Cunanan slings him onto his knees and, at gunpoint, bellows, "Convince me!" David begs for his life -- to the detriment, I'm afraid, of Cody Fern's American accent -- and describes the adventure they'll have together after they get money from Lee. Cunanan says David doesn't believe that, but David word-paints the place they'll live, and wisely throws in some details about Cunanan learning Spanish fast because he's "so smart," and how he'll help David, because he's always helped David. Cunanan is lulled by this for a moment, then raises the gun again: "It could have been true." David seems to see that he has nothing to lose, and gets up, telling Cunanan to listen to him: it's over. They have to contact the police. This has to stop. Cunanan's face is a smear of self-loathing: "Why couldn't you run away with me?" He'd have run away with Jeff, but not with Cunanan. He'd rather go to prison. "It's not real," David says, out of ways to explain. "It could have been," Cunanan mumbles. "No," David says, not willing to pretend now that it's over. "It couldn't." Cunanan slumps and starts to turn away. David, almost in disbelief, turns and runs towards the decrepit trailer that's near the Jeep. Cunanan turns back, sights the gun, and fires three times, but misses…

…and David lurches into the trailer, and locks the door of what is now the inside of the hunting cabin we saw earlier. He hears clinking, and turns to see Dad, unscrewing the thermoses and pouring coffee. David draws carefully near, and takes a cup from Dad, who smiles affably at him. David, delighted, smiles back and takes a seat. He takes a long sip of coffee and closes his eyes, and grins. What a lovely Jacob's Ladder to give this young man to climb into a sense of peaceful homecoming and acceptance, amidst the utter and pointless terror of his last moments.

Because of course David doesn't make the trailer. Cunanan shoots him in the back like the gutless shit he is. David manages to turn himself over and hold up his hands. His childhood hand strokes the reeds. Cunanan shoots him, through his hands, in the eye, and then as the sun goes down, snuggles with the body, finally able to possess him in death. Nestled on David's dead chest, his head right under David's unseeing shot-out eye, Cunanan looks at a cricket sitting on David's shirt, then gets to his feet and uncricks his neck. The camera pans up to watch him drive away, then up farther, over the grass, over David's body, over the darkening lake.

#acs versace #previously tv #2.02 #recap #review #article #epic old school recaps #february 2018

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imagine-loki · 8 years ago

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Across the Divide

TITLE: Across The Divide CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter Thirteen AUTHOR: wolfpawn ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Loki sneaking out of the palace as a youth to see the city and countryside, while out one day, he accidentally gets in trouble for something, but a young girl deals with the situation, allowing him to be left alone and his true identity be kept secret. She is a poor girl who is only in the city to sell goods with her father, so she does not realise it is Loki, even though she sees his face. They form a friendship as she shows him around the city, and tells him the date she comes to the city every month for a particular market. RATING: Teen and Up

Loki could only focus on Ariella as the ship quickly flew over the Aesir countryside towards the city, and in turn, the palace, where there would be the best healers in Asgard to help his friend. For the entirety of the journey, he spoke of all manner of mundane and droll matters, just so Ariella would have his voice to comfort her, he spoke of the land below them, of the weather and even of the ship they were in. in her fitful sleep her breathing was shallow and fast, and every so often, she muttered something, it was only when he focused hard, did Loki realise that the word she was saying was his name. her grip, though weak and feeble, was concentrated solely on holding onto him tight, as though she was terrified he would vanish.. After a while, he looked up, sick of Fandral staring at them. "What?"

"You really do care for her?"

"She is my friend, of course I care for her, do you not care for yours? If Thor was ill, would you not help him?"

"I care for them all, obviously," Fandral argued, "But you, no one has ever warranted your concern in such a way, the only being bar yourself you have ever shown concern for is your mother."

"I also care for my father and brother," Loki informed him, his tone showing his annoyance before he looked down once more at the woman in his arms. "And Ari."

"I thought you were merely…"

"I am aware of what you determine to be the only comprehensible reason a man and woman would find themselves in the company of one another for any manner of time period." Loki scoffed. "And contrary to what you believe, friendship is actually possible without laying with them." Fandral's scepticism was blatant on his face. "Ariella is not a loose-morale floozy like your bed partners, nor am I as perverted or as willing to use my standing as you are to bed them. Speaking of which, did your little friend make herself known?"

"Yes, and you were right, she immediately fled when I told her that I knew of her scheme, thank you."

"We both upheld our ends of the bargain, to our mutual benefit I would have to say, and you had thought that it would be difficult for us to do so," Loki stated sarcastically. Fandral said nothing, though he continued to look at the difficult to process the situation in front of him.

When the ship landed in the courtyard of the palace, Frigga watched curiously as her younger son, who she was certain despised his brother's friends, departed the contraption before Fandral, who then handed something to her son. For a moment, she was unsure what it was, but when Loki turned and realised she was nearby and froze, she noted then that it was an Aesir. Immediately, she rushed over, while noting that Loki appeared to be considering fleeing. "Darling?"

"Mother."

"What…?" She looked at the young woman in her son's arms, her eyes widening as she realised the sheer state of the girl. "How?"

"I will explain soon mother, I promise, but Ari needs to see a healer." Loki's voice almost broke, causing his mother to realise the severity of the situation.

"Of course, you get her to the healers, I will find Eir, I saw her heading to the herbal patch in the gardens." She instructed, turning and immediately rushing to exactly where she said the healer would be.

Fandral remained with Loki as he did what his mother suggested, something Loki noted, but said nothing on, considering his concerns lay elsewhere. On their way, they came across Thor and the others, it was then Loki barked at Fandral to remain, something Thor was shocked to see the other blonde warrior did, but rather than question that, he decided to question Fandral on what had occurred.

The other healers and their aides had barely readied a bed as Loki placed his friend on the soul forge before Eir and Frigga entered the room. "Where is she?" Eir demanded.

"Over here," Loki looked at her worriedly.

"Good boy," Eir smiled, seeing that Loki had had the sense to place her patient on the best place to aid her, but as soon as she saw Ariella, she gasped. "What happened her?"

"She is sick, she…" Loki's eyes filled with fresh tears as he recalled Ariella's words before she fell unconscious, she was dying, he knew it, but he could not being himself to say it.

"How did she get like this?" Eir demanded, her shock pushed aside as she forced herself to tend to her patient.

"They did not feed, clothe or care for her properly, she was never well tended to, but recently…"

Eir checked over Ariella, her touches as soft, as though frightened that she would bruise her. "She is on death's door," she stated solemnly.

"Can you…?"

"She is at death's door, but she has not passed through it yet," Eir commented. "Norn's is she a fighter to say she is still with us." She frowned. "I have seen this girl before." She noted, sieving through the thousands and thousands of young girls she had seen in her years as a healer. "What is her name?"

"Ariella," Loki informed her quickly.

Eir frowned as she looked at Ari for another moment, before looking at her foot. "She came to a clinic during one of the country markets," she recalled. "Injured, she hurt her leg, the poor girl was wearing shoes three sizes too small." She looked sadly at her. "I thought she was trying to keep her feet from growing too much, but she…" Eir stroked the butchered uneven hair from Ariella's face. "She is suffering through this life." Eir looked to Loki. "She had a brother."

"Deceased," Loki stated, it was true, Eir did not need to know it had happened before she had seen Ariella.

"Parents?"

"Also deceased."

"Any other relatives?" Eir asked almost desperately.

"An aunt and uncle."

"Have they been informed?" Loki gave a look that told the healer everything. "They allowed this?"

He nodded. "Her accommodations were a loft of a stables, cold and draughty, her bed linens mere rags and her food was whatever scraps they saw fit to give her."

"They should be hung."

"It is not illegal." Loki snarled. "I checked, it is not legal."

"That cannot be," Frigga walked forward. "How can that be?"

"They gave her food, clothes and shelter, the fact they were below par does not matter, the laws are too vague, they can argue it," Loki explained.

Frigga put her hand on his arm, causing Loki to look at her. "You have the power to change that now, darling."

"What good is it if she is gone?" He dismissed, looking at Ariella as Eir checked over her, her face telling him her thoughts of Ariella's prospects, and they were not good.

Frigga watched her son's attention to the girl on the table, she then turned her attention to the girl. She knew from her time aiding in the country to organise the schools what the poorest of Asgard's people looked like, at that girl was an outright pauper. She wondered how Loki came to know her at all since Eir recognised her from the country market, and how he came to know so much of her, but it was not the time for such things. Frigga had insisted on learning of healing as a youth, it was how she came to know Eir, they had learned together, but when she became betrothed to Odin, it was unfitting of her new position to be a healer, yet she continued to learn, unofficially of course, alongside her friend; meaning she knew that the girl her son clearly cared deeply for, was in great peril, it is was quite possible that she would not make nightfall.

As the soul forge allowed Eir to complete her analysis, she turned to Loki. "I need you to leave for a few minutes, your highness…"

"No!" Loki started.

Eir raised her hand. "I will call you as soon as we are done, but I need to have Ariella stripped, cleaned and tended to, I cannot allow a man in the room as I do so, it is not fair to her to expose her in such a manner without her consent."

Loki's jaw clenched and he blushed slightly at the reasoning for Eir's request, "As soon as is possible, please." he turned to look at Ariella, who he noted was still wearing the pendant he had given her. He leant over and took it off, immediately it turned from the cheap wicker appearance back to its original expensive pendant. "I will just mind this, for now, Ari, I promise to give it back," he swore before touching her hand softly and turning for the door. He wanted more than anything to remain by her side, but knew the faster he left, the faster the healers could work on her and hopefully save her. Looking to his mother, he saw from her demeanour that she was going to stay, so he left to wait in the corridor alone.

When he had left, Eir looked to Frigga, her face showing the same confusion and bewilderment that was mirrored on the Allmother's. Frigga shook her head slightly. "I have no idea what is afoot here," she admitted.

Eir thought for a moment. "He called her 'Ari', did he not?"

Frigga nodded. "He did."

Eir began to try to piece it all together when she remembered Ariella's urgent need for care. "Get me warm water and soap, this girl cannot possibly heal if she is caked in dirt and her own sweat," she ordered to an aid before turning to another healer. "Get the cotton, we are going to have to cushion her hips and shoulders while she heals. Frigga…?"

"What do you need?" Frigga readied herself to assist.

"Honestly, I am scared to even touch her for fear I harm her, can you use your seidr to undress her?"

It took only a moment for Frigga to do so, but as soon as she did, she wished she had not, her throat tightened as she looked at the skeletal look of the girl's body. "Eir…how is she alive?"

Eir looked at her patient, "By the grace of the Norns and also I think by the grace of your son." Frigga stared at her. "When he took that pendant from her, those warmer clothes appeared. I believe he has been tending to her for some time, in secret."

"How long?"

"If I am honest, I think over a century." Frigga gave her a dismissive look. "Can I ask my friend, is there any truth to the rumour that Loki is as proficient as you with his seidr?"

"It dents my pride to admit he surpasses me."

"Do you recall when you were forced to give up your training?"

"I do, of course."

"And of how you continued it?" Frigga froze. "I think your son is very much your heir."

"You think…?"

"I would very much wager it. In fact, I think I have bore witness to him in such a manner. The way he called her Ari just now, her 'brother' called her Ari the day I met her."

Frigga said no more as the two women watched the aides gently clean Ariella's body before Frigga placed new, fresh, clean, warm clothes on her. It was then that Eir had special brews made, one to hydrate her, another to fill her stomach with an easy to digest meal. As she did so, Frigga thought over what her friend had said, recalling Loki's potion to assist the drinker to gain weight, looking at the girl in front of her, she would have wagered all she ever owned that she was to be the recipient of such.

After what felt like an age of pacing, the door opened once more, Loki's gaze immediately fell upon it, his eyes fearful as his mother stepped in front of him. "What…?"

"I need you to talk with you Loki, I need to understand."

"Ari…"

"Ariella is being given the care she so desperately needs, and I promise you, you can return to her in only a few moments, but first, we need to discuss this matter," Frigga stated. "You swore to me that you would tell me all, please my son, tell me."

Loki looked at her, unsure of what to say.

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metawitches · 6 years ago

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The Time Twins

Episode 7, Trevor, focuses on Mac, David and Trevor. Trevor begins to feel the effects of his long life and multiple host bodies. He makes a pact with the Director so that his host body can be reused when his mind is gone. This doesn’t sit well with Grace, so she decides to find an alternative.

Assume that this recap should be filled with this emoji: 😭😭😭. I will do us all a favor and not overuse it. But, inside, I’m crying every time Trevor and/or Grace are on screen ripping my heart out. And Philip.

Mac continues his back and forth with Kat. At the beginning of the episode, he’s convinced her that all is well. Their relationship is saved, again. But he makes another mistake before long, which brings back Kat’s doubts and fears. This time, she uses reliable facts when she goes up against Mac, the kind that he can’t turn around and use to gaslight her.

I love it when we get to see Kat’s intelligence.

David continues to bury himself in willful naiveté, striving to see only the positive in people. While Mac’s illusions are being shattered, David is building a wall of illusion around himself as a form of protection. But, as Mac has found, illusions can’t actually hold back real life or weapons. David’s backup plan is his emotional dependence on Marcy. Thus, his balls are still in her purse. Handed to her, by him, on a silver platter.

Speaking of illusions, the beginning of the episode finds David out on a walk with his favorite client, an elderly man named Jim Bailey. Jim teases David about being in love, and says that he knows how David feels, because he felt the same way about his Sandra.

Jim: “I would levitate 10 feet off the floor when she came in the room. I mean every time. Took my breath away. Oh, and she would have loved you. Yes, indeed she liked nice boys. I miss her every day. I miss her right now.”

Note: Sandra is alive. They are divorced, due to his bad behavior during the marriage.

Jim moves on to pressuring David to ask Marcy to marry him. Then Jim grabs his chest in pain. David tells him to take one of his heart pills, but Jim didn’t like the way they made him feel, so he threw them away. David calls 911 for an ambulance. Once they arrive, he tries to hurry the paramedics to the hospital, but Jim insists on being chatty and friendly.

Jim is being set up for the tropes of Incorruptible Pure Pureness, which is just what it sounds like, and a variation on Too Good for This Sinful Earth. He’s so good that this cruel world has killed him. Or so David thinks.

Kat is awake and dressed up for a meeting to bid on another restaurant job, in addition to the redecorating job she’s already working on. Mac is surprised that she’s up so early and surprised that she’d take on another big job before she’s even finished the first one. She notes that he’s working long hours these days, so she needs to keep busy.

Establishing her own full-time income won’t hurt either.

Mac looks taken aback at her honesty about his work. He wants her to always be available to him and to act as though he’s always available for her.

They make plans to have dinner together that night and Kat insists that Mac call her if he can’t make it. She doesn’t want to eat vegan if she doesn’t have to. Meanwhile, Philip coms Mac with messages about the next mission, so Mac’s conversation becomes odd on both ends as he’s leaving the loft.

Trevor is riding his bike back to ops when he has another episode of locking up. He crashes his bike and cuts his face.

The mission is to shoot down a plane filled with Anthrax from a position on the waterfront. Trevor is standing by with a shoulder-fired missile launcher. When he’s given the order to fire on the plane, he locks up and freezes again. A second team shoots down the plane, just as it’s about to leave the target zone.

The team realizes something’s wrong with Trevor. Trevor decides that it’s time to confess.

Marcy comes home to find David sitting sadly by the phone. Jim didn’t make it and David is acting as the contact person for his friends and family. No one has called, not even anyone from Jim’s family. David experienced Jim as a warm, cheerful, gregarious guy, so he can’t understand why the family would abandon him.

I’m not sure how David has spent this long as a social worker and learned this little about human nature.

Now that she’s on her own and receiving an FBI consultant’s salary, Carly plans to move into a better apartment, but there’s competition for the one she wants. The building manager tells her he’ll make the decision based on references and terms. When Carly tells him she works for the FBI and he can talk to her boss, the manager wants proof. They arrange for Mac to meet with the manager.

Trevor explains the condition that’s causing him to freeze up.

Trevor: “The doctors called it temporal displacement aphasia. You see, it degrades the ability to perceive the passage of time. So I might think a second’s gone by, when, in reality, minutes have passed. Eventually, I’ll get so locked in, it’ll be like I’m catatonic… There’s only been one other case. It was the previous record holder for the longest living human.”

Mac: “You’re saying this only happens to people who’ve had multiple hosts?”

Trevor: “Yeah, yeah, that was the theory. The first case took a long time to manifest. It’s happening way faster with me. Boss, I never meant to jeopardize the mission. I thought I still had time.”

Philip: “There’s got to be something we can do.”

In an amazing coincidence of timing, Teslia calls at that very moment to tell Mac that the Director wants to talk to 0115. Teslia gets Mac’s name wrong. 😜 But he also doesn’t call Yates.

He’s gaining some excellent benefits from being part of the Travelers B team. No sense in giving Mom the chance to shut the project down.

Trevor goes into Ilsa’s room alone to talk to the Director. Mac, Carly and Marcy practically press their noses up against the window as they watch. When Marcy wonders what they could be talking about, Mac says, “The fact that he’s talking to the Director at all is incredible.”

Trevor’s talked to the Director before, as he told us early in season 2. While they were sharing a hospital room, he and Grace spoke about the conversations they’d each had with the Director. Here, we’re reminded that the youngsters are younger than the Director and see it as a Godlike being who protects them, while Grace and Trevor are older than the Director and know it’s just a machine. They seem to view it as a valued colleague.

As a historian, Philip is outside of this dichotomy. He’s been the Director’s minion since infancy and has few illusions about its benevolency, but he also understands how much power it’s amassed better than Grace does. He knows the Director runs his life and he has no choice about it, but he’s not sure that the Director is always making the right decisions. Unlike the others, he can see or guess some of the alternatives. If given the choice, I’m not sure if he’d want to talk to it and give it such direct access to his head.

When Trevor is done with the Director, he explains to the team that the Director confirmed that he has early onset temporal displacement aphasia, probably triggered by the AI extraction process. It’s incurable and will quickly progress.

Half the time that Trevor was with the Director was spent with the Director apologizing for this happening. But Trevor doesn’t blame the Director. He’s always known that this was how he was going to die.

They’ve decided on a plan of action. 0115 has lived a very long life and the host is young and healthy, so the Director is going to send a new Traveler into the body. 0115 has 36 hours to get his affairs in order.

The others are outraged, but Trevor tries to convince them that this is good news. They’ll get a new engineer so the team won’t be compromised. As he’s making his case, he freezes up again.

David calls Jim’s ex-wife, Sandra, to tell her where and when Jim’s funeral will be. He starts to give her the details, but then stops, listens for a moment, and drops his pen and notes.

David: “Well, the word “loser” just doesn’t sit well with me. And I honestly think that Jim was the furthest thing from it. So, no, I understand that your marriage was difficult towards the end, but to his dying breath, Jim had nothing but wonderful things to say about you. And I- I think that you missed out on getting to know what an incredible guy he was. And look, if you can’t get past decades old baggage just to pay your respects, I think that that’s, that’s sad. So hey- have a nice day.”

He hangs up the phone and throws it away from himself like it’s poisonous. It was, in a way, because it almost made him see Jim for who he really was. Not just the man he became after he quit drinking, and the man he presented to people he wanted to like him, but also the man his family knew, a man who likely never made amends, given Sandra’s feelings.

That was an incredibly disrespectful speech. Jim’s ex-wife has the right to whatever feelings she has about her ex-husband, and it not up to David to decide if they’re valid.

Trevor texts Grace to invite her to ops for dinner.

Mac meets with Carly’s building manager and she gets the apartment. Afterward, she invites him in to see the place. It’s furnished, and decorated almost completely in white, with touches of medium blue. These are Kat’s decorating colors of choice. She used white as the color of her house, and white and blue on the loft. Kat has come down in the world and Carly has come up in the world enough that they’ve met in the middle as near social equals now, each with her own cute, little, furnished urban place.

(Carly still faces racism, as her building manager’s doubt about her job showed us.)

Mac likes the apartment. He offers to help Carly move. She asks if it’s a real offer. He can’t understand why she’d doubt his sincerity. Then he tells her that he knows she misses her son, and he’s her team leader, so she can talk to him. She tells him not to “pull that team leader s–t with her.” Mac gives her the hysterical woman look, and says, “If that’s all you need from me…” then starts to walk out. Carly stops him again, saying, “What did you say?”

He says that he was just referring to the apartment and the move. I’m not sure if she thought he was referring to sex or if she was angry that he was continuing his BS of pretending to be helpful, and acting like he always had been helpful.

She literally begged him for help when Jeff was abusing her. She begged him to tell Social Services he was her boss when Jeff accused her of prostitution. Back then, he told her to solve her own problems. Now that her problems are solved and she appears to be of a more acceptable social class, suddenly he’s Mr Helpful Hypocrite. He’s lucky she didn’t punch him in the teeth.

Carly has learned her 21st century female behavior lessons well, and backs down instead of calling him on his behavior. She apologizes for her outburst and makes an excuse. Mac accepts that she was just a hysterical woman because of her emotions over Trevor, and all is right with his world again.

On the way out, they hear the couple next door arguing. Now Mac is concerned about domestic violence. Carly says it’s not her problem and goes back into her apartment.

Trevor has set up his dinner with Grace on a table for two, with a candle and a flower and music. And he made French fries, their special food. Grace becomes hopeful, but Trevor says that he just wanted it to be nice, he’s not trying to seduce her. This is a goodbye dinner.

Nooooo, Trevor! Don’t crush our hearts!!!

These two are my baseline for comparison with all of the other relationships in the show. No matter what, they’re honest with each other and deal with the reality in front of them. They make mistakes and get their wires crossed and fight, but at the end of the day, they respect and fight for each other.

Mac and Kat are having a nice dinner for two, as well. Mac starts to tell Kat about Trevor’s illness, but realizes that it’s too much trouble to figure out the lies and metaphors necessary to keep the story going, so he changes the subject. He asks Kat about her day, but before long she senses that he’s patronizing her. He gives her a speech about how everything he does is to make what she does possible, so her stuff is actually essential. It sounds like a speech someone used as part of their pick up strategy in bars.

Not much honesty, respect or dealing with reality happening at this dinner. It’s as though they have nothing to talk about.

But this is a seduction and they both know it, so they move on to that portion of the evening. Kat is as enthusiastic as always, but she has to stop to use the bathroom before they hit the bed. Mac makes a noise in exasperation.

Oops, reality just hit. We see Kat use the toilet from Mac’s perspective (it’s too blurry to see any detail). We’ve seen Kat disappear into the bathroom in Mac’s presence several times before, but it’s always been to soak in the bath or get clean. The fact that he’s acknowledging that she has distasteful bodily functions is a giant red flag. His fantasy woman has fallen from her pedestal.

Kat talks as she pees, mentioning that the Pattersons, whose restaurant she’s redecorating, have invited them out on their boat next weekend. Mac does a double take about taking a boat out onto the ocean, since that’s an experience 3468 hasn’t had yet, but something that Grant McLaren was probably very familiar with.

Then he makes his big mistake. He agrees to go, and says that he’d like to meet the Pattersons.

Kat blinks in confusion. “You introduced the Pattersons to me, years ago.”

And, we’re back in a Hitchcock movie. For a moment, the show acknowledges that 3468 is the villain in Kat’s story.

Then Mac dissembles, saying that he didn’t hear Kat right. Of course he knows who the Pattersons are. Kat doesn’t look convinced.

Grace is having a fit at Trevor and the Director. Her two best friends have gone behind her back and betrayed her, and the deal they made is stupid. She doesn’t even know which one she’s more mad at and asks how Trevor can be so calm.

Trevor: “This isn’t the first time I’ve gone through this. My wife and I were the first two successful consciousness transfers. You see, early attempts in the program, was one male, one female. She was a few years older than me in our first host bodies. A few years younger the second time. And the third time, our bodies were over a decade apart. But that didn’t matter. We were soulmates. Raised children in three separate lifetimes. She was my whole life. And up until now, she was the first and only case of temporal aphasia.”

Grace: “I remember the Director trying to work the problem.”

Trevor: “Yes, so you remember that the disease is incurable.”

Grace: “I’m so sorry, Trevor.”

Trevor: “Which is why it makes sense to let the Director use this host. I watched someone I love disappear. First for moments, then hours, then days. One of the last times we were together, she asked if she could see the sunlight one last time. I’m not sure if you remember, but before the ice completely covered our dome, there was this one patch uncovered where the sunlight could still stream through. It was beautiful. She never came back again after that.”

Grace: “You loved her.”

Trevor: “When you spend whole lifetimes with someone, it becomes a lot more than that. There isn’t really a word for it. But yeah, I did.”

Grace: “Those moments you had together toward the end must have been precious.”

Trevor: “Yeah, they were. They were.”

Grace, sobbing: “Well, what if I want those moments? You doing this is just robbing everyone who loves you of that time.”

Trevor: “I’d rather spare you what I went through. I’m happy…” He freezes. Grace waits. “With my decision. Oh, it just happened again.”

Grace: “It did.”

Trevor: “It’s just gonna keep happening, Grace. I hope you respect my decision.”

Grace: “I can’t compete with three lifetimes.”

Trevor: “How about these French fries?”

Grace, smiling through tears: “They’re amazing.”

It’s a terrible dilemma, played out with patients diagnosed with terminal illnesses all the time. Should the patient try to stay alive for as long as possible, by any means possible, in order to have as much time with loved ones as they can and time to finish lifetime goals? Or is it better to end life with dignity, without prolonging suffering and allowing the illness take away everything that made the patient who they are? There’s no right answer.

I suspect that Trevor’s illness is triggering his memories of going through the illness with his wife, which is bringing up all of his memories and feelings about her. That’s leading him into a deeper depression than the illness alone would, and the sense that he’s ready to move on and join her, or at least give someone younger a chance.

It’s notable that Trevor’s talked about the loss his children and his multiple lifetimes before, but he’s never said a word about his wife. Her loss is still too deeply painful to bring up in casual conversation and her memory is too precious to share. The fact that Trevor told Grace about her and shared his last memory shows how much he trusts and cares about Grace.

[Insert imaginary crying emojis here.] [Insert some more.]

Carly runs into her new neighbor, Jessica, in the hall and they introduce themselves. Jessica’s boyfriend interrupts the conversation and intimidates her into going back into the apartment. Carly begins to think this might become her problem.

David practices Jim’s eulogy in front of Marcy, so that he’ll be prepared at the funeral the next day. He’s a nervous public speaker and still isn’t sure that he can give the speech in front of the crowd at all. When he finds out that Marcy doesn’t plan to attend, since she didn’t know Jim, he’s ready to give up, until Marcy agrees to attend so that he can pretend that he’s speaking only to her.

Trevor meditates at a gorgeous spot on the shore, then suddenly Grace is beside him. She didn’t use magic, she just came during one of his temporal displacement episodes, and we’re seeing it from his perspective. He asks how long she’s been there, and she doesn’t realize that he was frozen for part of the meditation session.

Grace tells Trevor that she’s been looking over the plans for the sub-neural implant he began designing when his wife was diagnosed with temporal aphasia, and she thinks they can finish the implant and make it work to counteract his symptoms. When Trevor’s wife was ill, they couldn’t get the software to effectively predict when the episodes would occur, but Grace wasn’t on the project.

Grace: “I know exactly what its (the Director’s) capabilities and limitations are. That’s why we’re here. The Director needs programmers, people to collaborate. How many times have you been against the odds in the 21st but you still saved the day? Believe me, the Director is in awe of that. Why do you think you get away with breaking so many protocols?”

Trevor: “I never thought of it that way.”

Grace: “Well, I’m very intelligent. At least take advantage of that.”

Grace’s comments about the Director are noteworthy because she’s the only one who ever talks this way. She’s also the only one who ever talks about having conversations with the Director where they’ve debated ideas as equals. Everyone else thinks it should be either the Director making the decisions or people making the decisions.

Grace is the only person in the Travelers universe who sees herself/people and the Director as equal partners in creating and enacting the Grand Plan.

Trevor agrees to try the implant, so they gather the troops at ops and Grace starts assigning tasks. Mac interrupts to argue that this plan goes against the Director’s decision. Philip, who is always on the side of life, and Grace point out that maybe they can change the Director’s mind by giving it another option. Grace tells Mac to stop wasting time, since they all know that he wants to help Trevor, too. He backs off.

Trevor explains the implant: “It connects to the parietal lobe and basal ganglia, releases a combination of electric signals and a synthesized compound that would snap me out of a break.”

Philip and Carly will help Trevor build the implant. Marcy will do risky brain surgery to insert the implant into Trevor’s brain. Marcy is concerned about the surgery, but Grace points out that the alternative is that he’s overwritten.

For now, Grace, Marcy and Mac will time Trevor’s episodes and collect the data set which Grace will then use to develop her software, with the help of Ilsa. They’ll record the time each episode begins, how long it lasts (duration) and how long it is between episodes (interval). Ilsa will use the data set “to run enough simulations to build a predictive fractal algorithm because the displacement episodes are asymmetric.” In other words, because the episodes occur at random intervals, predicting them is complex, so she’s going to need Ilsa’s computing power to create a program to make the predictions.

Mac starts to say that as soon as Ilsa’s involved the Director will find about the plan, but Grace interrupts him to say that she’s counting on it.

Mac remembers to call Kat to tell her that he has to work all night, but she’s contemplating how to handle her latest discovery about him and doesn’t pick up the phone.

Carly asks Philip if her neighbors’ names, Brent and Jessica Moore, mean anything to him. She’s trying to figure out if she should help Jessica or if her interference will lead to more tragedy. Philip thinks about it and tells her he hasn’t heard of them. He admonishes her that he doesn’t know everyone’s fate. But then he has a vision of Carly being dragged kicking and screaming out the door by two police officers. This appears to be information from another potential timeline, rather than from his update.

As they work, Trevor’s episodes range in length from 12 seconds to 2 hours. After an episode causes him to burn his hand with a soldering iron, he’s relegated to supervising the work. Philip needs to ask for design clarifications in between episodes, and sometimes Trevor only has time to get a few syllables out before he goes under again.

Around the time that Grace decides they’ve collected enough data, they hand Trevor a wrap to eat that looks like a choking hazard to me. What if he freezes just as he swallows??? Shouldn’t he be living on some nice, safe smoothies and protein drinks?

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When it’s time to bring Ilsa onto the project, Teslia lets Grace and Mac into the lab and asks if it’s possible for him to stay “this time”. What? When was he kicked out? Has that little minx Grace been secretly working on Ilsa and the Director?

Grace tells Ilsa that she has something she’d like Ilsa to look at. Ilsa is eager to work on Grace’s project. Grace inputs and runs the data.

Trevor approves of the finished hardware for the implant. But, he tells Philip, he’s not sure if he wants to use it. Maybe he’s cheated death for long enough. Philip asks him not to talk that way. Trevor says that he’s supposed to die and his death should have been in Philip’s last update, so Philip should already know Trevor’s fate.

Philip says that he’s seeing multiple timelines, with both outcomes. Not all the time, at least not yet. Trevor is concerned that Philip won’t be able to live that way, and asks about the pills. Philip admits that he stopped taking them. “At the end of the day I want to be just as surprised as everyone else about what’s going to happen next.”

Trevor: “Buddy, you gotta keep focusing on the here and…” He freezes.

That’s some irony, right there. Now I’m going to go cry in a corner over my two lost time boys for a while. In their own way, they each have too much time. But it turns out, too much time isn’t necessarily good for you.

Philip calls Marcy over. She places Trevor in a more comfortable position and suggests that Philip get some rest. He says he’ll stay with Trevor.

Philip sees an alternate timeline where the rest of the team is comforting him as he grieves the loss of Trevor. He’s devastated. Last season, he saw an alternate timeline vision of the team comforting Mac after Kat died.

Grace has Ilsa run the data enough times that Ilsa can project the result of the next 70,000 variations. They are all failures. The Director steps in to tell Grace, “Further pursuit of this avenue will continue to result in failure.”

Grace gives the Director grief for taking so long to step in and for not talking to her in general. Then they discuss why it’s voice sounds different (Ilsa’s processors are different). Mac is amazed to hear the Director’s voice, like he’s in the presence of God or royalty, and gives Grace looks like she’s breaking royal protocol or swearing in front of the pope.

The Director explains that it can’t find a permanent solution because of the second law of thermodynamics. Mac adds, “Entropy.”

Entropy= Over time, order will always spin out into disorder, confusion and chaos. The second law of thermodynamics says that in a closed system, entropy always increases, never decreases. Sort of describes the premise of the series. No matter what they do, the relative order of the early 21st century becomes the disastrous future.

The Director tells them that it’s already explained this to 0115 and they’ve come to their arrangement. Mac and Grace try to convince the Director to let them give Trevor more time. No human life is permanent, so they’re not looking for a permanent solution. They just want more time.

Grace gets upset, and tells the Director that it’s not supposed to even be able to consider a plan like this one, which will take a life. The Director responds that it was Trevor’s idea. Grace becomes desperate, and tries to get the Director to understand how important Trevor is to her. The Director tells her that she wants to save Trevor for emotional reasons. Grace says that she saved the Director for emotional reasons, so why not Trevor?

The Director announces that it has to respect 0115’s decision, and he expressed doubt about using the implant 6 minutes ago. Director out.

Mac stands there staring at the Director’s dead eye light. Grace tells him to stop looking so awed, because the Director is being an idiot. Grace got what she needs to create the software anyway, so she packs up and they leave.

Mac looks confused. This isn’t how he thought his first meeting with the Director would go. And he never thought he’d take Grace’s side over the Director.

When Grace and Mac return to ops, they tell the team that they couldn’t get the Director to change its mind. You can almost see Philip’s heart stop for a moment. Then Grace and Mac tell them that Grace got what she needed from Ilsa and they’re going to give Trevor the implant anyway. Grace says, “Turn off the power and take the batteries out of your phones.”

She says it in a slinky, sexy voice. She’s very excited to go up against the Director again. It’s been a long time since she had a real challenge.

Mac looks at Grace with appreciation and they seem in complete agreement. It’s so nice to see them working in sync. He tells the team to turn off their coms.

Now ops is completely hidden from the outside world and the Director, so it can’t get the information it needs to establish a TELL for Trevor. Without a TELL the Director can’t overwrite Trevor.

The show takes a little time liberty with the editing here. Grace has to program the implant, then Marcy has to do brain surgery, then Trevor has to wake up from the anesthesia. But outside of ops, it’s nearly time for Jim’s funeral and David is getting nervous that Marcy isn’t going to make it in time. He leaves her a voicemail to remind her.

When Trevor wakes up from his surgery, the team explains what happened. He was out for an extended episode when grace and Mac returned, so they couldn’t consult him to get his consent. (Or his final consent. He did consent when they started the process.) They expect him to be happy that they’ve given him more time, but he’s not.

Grace: We went ahead with it anyway.

Trevor: Without asking me?

Carly: You were out.

Trevor: Well, it was my decision to make. I was at peace with it. Now I’ve broken a solemn arrangement I made with the Director. You erased what was supposed to be my final contribution.

Philip: We didn’t want to lose you.

Mac: It was my call.

Trevor: It wasn’t your call to make.

Grace: Oh, like the time you took Grace Day into the woods and tried to save her from being overwritten? Don’t be a hypocrite!

Carly: What are you doing?

Trevor: Keeping up my end of the bargain.

Mac: Trevor!

Grace: No.

Philip: Come on, man.

Trevor, shouting: Stop!! I’m not hiding. It can still take this host, like we agreed.

He opens the circuit breaker box and flips the breakers. As the lights go on, everyone flinches, waiting for Trevor to be overwritten. He’s not.

Mac: Maybe we changed its mind after all.

Trevor, in a flat, bitter voice like we’ve never heard from him: Or maybe this thing (the implant) compromised the host body. Maybe it’s not good to anyone any more.

He leaves the room. Mac calls Protocol 5.

Carly knocks on her neighbor’s door and offers to help Jessica with her abusive boyfriend. She makes the offer in veiled, but clear language.

Marcy makes it to the funeral, with David’s balls in her purse, just in time for him to give the eulogy. David met Jim when he was 16 and his own father had recently died in a car accident. When David’s mom heard that his father had died, she refused to believe it. Jim became a surrogate father to him after David’s mom lost their house, because his father had left them with too much debt for her to handle alone. His father didn’t believe anything as bad as dying could ever happen to him.

David’s mom wouldn’t leave the house, because she wouldn’t believe it was gone. She had to be forced out. David, at 16, was afraid that they would take him too, so he hid in the bushes across the street.

There is a distinct thread running through this story. David’s family has trouble facing hard truths.

Jim found David hiding in the bushes. He took David under his wing, and took him to social services. Their relationship continued, and Jim made David check in with him every other day. David gives Jim credit for keeping him off the streets. Jim cared about him, and gave him a steady adult presence in his life. He was a washed up, alcoholic old musician who lived on the street, and David wanted to be like him.

David: “Who didn’t? Who wouldn’t want to be that positive all the time? That caring?Who wouldn’t want to exchange how they feel on the best day with how Jim must have felt all the time? He was a force. He said he never had a bad day. He treated every day like it was a gift. He treated every person like they were a gift.”

It’s a lovely speech. It’s a tribute to the facade Jim wore. But it’s a fantasy. Even after all those years, David only knew one side of Jim. David only saw what he wanted to see.

He did manage to convince Jim’s ex-wife to come to the funeral, probably just for closure. Sandra briefly greets him, then walks away.

While David is talking about caring for other people, we’re shown a montage of the rest of the team. Carly gives her new apartment a new coat of white paint. Philip checks on Poppy. In another timeline, he sees her tank sitting empty.

Trevor is sitting on the couch in ops, silently crying. Grace sits on the other end of the couch. He ignores her at first. After a minute, Trevor leans back on the couch and reaches his hand out to take Grace’s hand. In voiceover, David is asking, “Who wouldn’t want to be that positive all the time?” Trevor isn’t as positive on the inside as he seems on the outside, any more than Jim was. Grace and Philip are the two people who already knew this.

Kat leads Mac down to the waterfront, to a spot with several large boulders on the shoreline. As they walk closer to the water, she looks at him expectantly, but he shows no sign of recognition. They climb up onto one of the boulders and she comments that this spots brings back memories. 3468 scrambles to share memories that might satisfy her, but the only ones he knows are the ones he recovered when he was in surgery after the plane crash in season 1. None of them happened here.

Kat finally tells him that this is the place where they met. It was an overcast August day, her 25th birthday, at exactly 3:00. She was waiting for her fiance, John who was an hour late. She was furious. They started talking, which led to dinner, which led to them spending the night together. The first thing he said to her was, “That I shouldn’t marry a man who’d stand up such a beautiful woman on her birthday.” At that moment, she knew he was the one she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.

“You’re not that man.”

Forgiveness… and a beginning?

David and Marcy against the world.

“You’re not that man.”

I don’t think Kat and Mac’s relationship is coming back from this one.

Entropy vs a Permanent Solution>> Is this the problem with the Director’s vision of the Grand Plan? Is it trying to create a Utopia that lasts forever, instead of a future that’s more livable and maintainable, but will also succumb to entropy someday? Entropy/ the end of human civilization on earth is inevitable, since the planet will eventually be swallowed by the sun. There really needs to be a committee that has regular chats with the Director about its moral dilemmas and philosophical misconceptions.

Guesses on Trevor’s age? Assuming the host bodies were all adults at the time of transfer, and he and his wife were old when they transferred each time, maybe somewhere between 200 and 250 years?

It sounds like this is Trevor’s fourth host and his fifth body, but there might have been another body that he didn’t mention between his wife’s death and his assignment to the 21st. I’ve always wondered why they kept him alive so long. This suggests that he and his wife were ongoing experiments in longevity, and were going to continue being given bodies for as long as possible.

This also gives some parameters for Travelers and consciousness jumping in this universe. Trevor’s story suggests that the mind/soul can only last about 200-250 years or 4-5 jumps before the passes through technology affect it too much and it degrades. That makes immortality out of the question, unless they can find a more durable vessel for the mind or less damaging transfer technology. Or if the time limit is due to some inner clock in the mind itself, that could be too complicated to overcome.

It’s interesting that Trevor’s wife experienced temporal aphasia when she hadn’t time traveled. Does consciousness transfer require a dance with quantum entanglement that fundamentally changes the mind? Could living for so long and in so many different bodies begin to create a sort of time dementia, where the mind gets worn out from counting time for so much longer than it was meant to, causing it to gradually lose the ability?

Since Trevor’s illness was triggered by his mind being messed with by the Director, that would suggest that it’s not actually the hosts that are the issue, it’s the mind’s passes through technology. It sounds like the more times the mind is filtered through a machine, and the more extensive the filtering, the more severe the illness. That would put Marcy at risk at an earlier age, especially since Grace had to filter some of her redundancies/backups out.

Trevor totally has feelings for Grace, but it would feel like cheating on his wife to admit them, even to himself. Look at that dinner set up: the flower, candles, the music. He even put on a tie! It mirrors Kat and Mac’s romantic set up. And he remembered her favorite food and made it for her!

He’s such a perfect man, sweet, caring, strong, supportive, protective. Who wouldn’t want a guy who loved and was faithful to his wife for 3 lifetimes, but was mentally healthy enough to go on without her afterward? And he’s not intimidated or threatened by Grace’s intelligence and position with the Director. 😍

But he’s tired of living. He’s lost so much. Raising three families means losing three families, and three sets of grandkids. Everyone he knew in his first and second lifetimes would be dead, except for a few others like him who have had repeated hosts. He’s lost his siblings, his lifelong friends, everyone with shared experiences. He probably became a Traveler to get away from the constant reminders of everything he’s lost and to ensure that this would be the last host body.

It makes me wonder how much of his cheer and zest for living is forced. Is he depressed most of the time, and pushing himself through it? He could be telling himself that every day is a gift in order to get through the days. Meditation, exercise, so many of his habits are also useful for coping with depression.

The conversation with the team after he woke up from surgery was very existential. That was a suicidally depressed man who was justifying his suicide by planning to recycle his body. He seems like his depression might be so severe and ongoing that it’s not immediately recognizable as depression any more, because it’s just his normal way of being.

Plus, there are 7 billion people on this planet, and more than 150,000 of them die everyday. I promise you the Director isn’t short of host candidates. He made way too big a deal over reusing a body that had already almost died from a major head injury, and is now going through another brain disease. That host isn’t as viable as they’re suggesting.

Parietal Lobe= The parietal lobe is one of the four major lobes of the cerebral cortex in the brain of mammals. The parietal lobe is positioned above the temporal lobe and behind the frontal lobe and central sulcus. The parietal lobe integrates sensory information among various modalities, including spatial sense and navigation (proprioception), the main sensory receptive area for the sense of touch (mechanoreception) in the somatosensory cortex which is just posterior to the central sulcus in the postcentral gyrus,[2] and the dorsal stream of the visual system. The major sensory inputs from the skin (touch, temperature, and pain receptors), relay through the thalamus to the parietal lobe. — from Wikipedia.com

Basal Ganglia= “In simplistic terms, the functions of the basal ganglia in motor control are to facilitate movement and inhibit competing movements. For example, when someone tries to make an intentional movement like reaching for a pencil, the basal ganglia help to facilitate the movement by allowing motor plans associated with that movement (reaching and grasping in this case) to be activated. At the same time, the basal ganglia cause motor plans that might counteract the movement (perhaps flexing in this case) to be inhibited. The result is a smooth and fluid movement… A balance between the ability to inhibit and facilitate movement is critical to making normal, smooth movements, and the proper functioning of the basal ganglia is essential to maintaining that balance. The basal ganglia, however, are also thought to have roles in habitual behavior, emotion, and cognition.” — From Neuroscientificallychallenged.com

It seems like the historian’s updates are based on probabilities and not certainties, given Philip’s visions of near timelines. We’ve seen characters change the outcome of a prediction more than once, so the future isn’t predetermined. The odds and the variables may be pushing a person toward a certain almost inevitable outcome, but it appears that people can exorcise free will and step outside the situation. It’s just that most of the time, people do what’s expected. It seems that the Travelers are trained to follow cultural norms to blend in, but not to do the unexpected to change the scenario when needed. Mac’s team has instinctively discovered that a surprise move will work, but most teams still follow orders.

You get a tiny sense here that David is missing the person that original Marcy would have been to him, and 3569 is sometimes emotionally exhausted by him. 3569 is temperamentally colder and more interior that real Marcy, who was a natural caretaker (S2 Ep 10, 21C). Like all of the Travelers except Philip, 3569’s natural inclination is to stand back and watch the course of events without interfering, unless ordered to do so. David brings out the warmth and caring in 3569, but it’s not her natural reaction the way it was for original Marcy. He has to draw it out of her. But they are also absolutely committed to each other, as you can see in the screencap of them hugging at the end of Jim’s funeral. It’s David and Marcy, alone against the world. Everyone else might as well not exist. Their love will overcome whatever faults they each have.

Travelers Protocols:

Protocol 1: The mission comes first.

Protocol 2: Leave the future in the past. Don’t jeopardize your cover.

Protocol 2H: Historian updates are not to be discussed with anyone. Ever.

Protocol 3: Don’t take a life. Don’t save a life. Unless otherwise directed.

Protocol 4: Do not reproduce.

Protocol 5: In the absence of direction, resume your host’s life.

Protocol 6: Traveler teams should stay apart unless instructed otherwise.

T.E.L.L.: The Time, Elevation, Latitude, and Longitude of what would have been the historical death of a Traveler’s host body.

Traveler numbers:

MacLaren-3468

Marcy-3569

Trevor-0115

Carly-3465

Phillip-3326

Grace-0027

Forbes-4991

Vincent Ingram-001 5692

Katrina Perrow-001

Simon-004 5069

Jeff- 5416

Images courtesy of Netflix.

Travelers Season 3 Episode 7: Trevor Recap Episode 7, Trevor, focuses on Mac, David and Trevor. Trevor begins to feel the effects of his long life and multiple host bodies.

#brad wright #eric mccormack #metacrone #netflix #recaps #review #science fiction #Time Travel #travelers

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June 21, 2017: Columns

Green Stamps and a mother's love...

By KEN WELBORN

Record Publisher

Among my most treasured possessions in the eclectic collection of things here at the offices of The Record and Thursday Printing are items from the old Wilkesboro grocery store owned and operated for many years by Clegg and Dessie Culler. When I learned of their plans to close, I went by mainly to get the sign off the building which proudly read Culler's Specialties with an “Enjoy Coca-Cola” panel on each end. It still hangs proudly on the wall above my office area.

As time went on and the closing sale began to wind down, Clegg gave me a beautiful Sauer's Spice display rack, some clocks, a couple of beer signs, and a wooden boat oar that he said belonged to Daniel Boone. When I cautiously asked him how he knew the oar actually belonged to Daniel Boone, he smiled his little half-smile as only Clegg could, and said, “Why Kenny, he told me so himself.”

Well, that certainly settled that, didn't it?

But on to today's column, the sign on this page is a two-sided electric S & H Green Stamp beauty which also was a gift from Clegg and Dessie. Many of you remember S & H Green Stamps, a premium given away when you bought groceries, gas, and some other retail items. The gummed stamps were then placed in premium books and could be saved up and traded in for merchandise listed in the rewards catalog.

S & H really became big business, at one time claiming to print three times more stamps than the Postal Service, and that their rewards catalog was the largest publication in the United States. By the late 80s, the stamp redemption business was basically gone, but much memorabilia remains.

And, better than that, memories.

S & H had many competitors as the years went by and the one I remember around here was the Family Stamp program which was in the Lowe's Food Stores when the chain was being expanded by its owner, J. C. Faw. There were several Lowe's Foods locations in Wilkes and apparently that qualified us for a redemption center, which was located in the space now occupied by Teresa Allred's Carousel Cafe. In those days, there was a Lowe's Food right next door.

I looked through the premium catalog all the time and had spotted a basketball and goal set that I thought might be in reach for the number of complete stamp books we had. When I checked with my mother, Cary, I was right, and my brother, T. A., took me over to the redemption center (sounds like a tent revival, doesn't it) to get my ball and goal. Mark Goodman and I had already cut a tree and built a backboard out of scrap lumber, so, in no time, we were playing basketball. Before that summer was out there wasn't a blade of grass alive in the yard around our goal.

Some time later I was again looking through the Family Stamp catalog when I noticed a page corner turned down and an electric frying pan circled, It took two more books of stamps than my ball and goal. My heart sank as I realized that my mother was saving up for that frying pan and instead gave me the stamp books go get what I wanted. When I asked her about it, she hugged me and said she had plenty of frying pans and that I didn't have a basketball.

It is all I can do not to cry as I type this.

The year I was 15, 1964, I got a job working at the Thrift Super Market for the Ball family. A guy came around with the Thomas and Howard Wholesale Company and he had an electric frying pan in his big catalog. I saved up and ordered the best one he sold for my mother's Christmas present. An odd memory of that present is that it cost $19.16—which I never forgot because my mother was born in 1916.

I honestly cannot remember what other presents I may have given my mother throughout her life, but none touched her like that one. She remembered the story about my ball goal, and she remembered me feeling guilty about her not getting her electric frying pan. She used that frying pan as long as she lived—literally—and every time it would need repair, she would call my brother, T. A., to fix it. He once told me he had rewired the control on that old frying pan five or six times, but mother would never let him buy her a new one.

It is always something different that will take you back 40 days or 40. Today it was an old S & H Green Stamp sign given to me by two of the kindest people I have ever known--Clegg & Dessie Culler.

Thanks guys.

Endurance

By LAURA WELBORN

Romans 5:3 “We also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us… “

I would like to share a story my son, Jake, told me about his trip to Nepal .

He has a volunteer project (as a side hobby) that had worked for several years and received a grant to put solar panels and computers in a small isolated village in Nepal . The village was a 14-mile up mountain hike that they would have to travel by foot. So 16 Sherpa’s and volunteers headed out expecting to reach the village in five or six hours. They took no supplies with them expecting to reach the village by nightfall.

As they say the best laid plans can go array and they did. The altitude began to affect one of the volunteers and after climbing about seven miles straight up hill. They were a long way out with no supplies. So they found a small group of huts and asked to stay the night. At first the people refused saying there was no place to put 16 people. The ailing volunteer became hysterical, so after much talking, one of the tribe’s people agreed to lend their hut. The hut had the animals downstairs and a “loft of sorts” made of slates.

The sick woman again became upset, unable to hike anymore, sick and tired she still refused to stay and was becoming even more hysterical. Jake, who loves hardships and sleeping under the stars, tried and tried to calm her down.

Finally he said, “Look you have been working years on this project, and you are only seven miles from achieving your goal of getting these solar panels and computers to these children. This is only one night out of the hundreds you have spent working on this. You can do this for one night.”

She looked up at him and calmed down. She settled down with 15 other people in the hut designed for animals and then hiked to the village the next day.

My take away from this…The group had to stay together for them all to make it.

When we are brought back to the mission (bringing the internet to a school) the mission then drives us beyond what we think we are capable of doing. And when there is a “shepherd” who can look out for the good of the “flock” and not leave anyone behind, the flock can survive.

As hard as we try sometimes things seem worse than they are. Jake reported the night as magical on the side of the mountain with the stars out, sitting around a fire with the huts people. Sometimes we think we can do it alone and fix it by ourselves, but we need to remember that it is much safer with the flock and the sun will come out tomorrow. We can do the unexpected and endure a lot more than we think we can, but most of all the hope of another day will not disappoint us.

Laura Welborn is a Mediator and Licensed Clinical Addiction Specialist. Laura works with the Justis Group in North Wilkesboro doing individual/family and group therapy. Contact her at [email protected]

How about social justice for Israel?

By EARL COX

Special to The Record

The attainment of social justice has been a utopian goal throughout history. While God created all equal, there is no society in the world where this actually exists in a pure form. There have always been advocates and champions for the poor and downtrodden so the call for social justice will always be with us. It is right to want to help those less fortunate but we must not be deceived into believing a lie over the honest truth.

On university and college campuses across America, students are particularly attracted to causes and activities which call for social justice because they are looking for something worthwhile and meaningful in which to invest their energies. This is laudable but before signing on to support a particular cause, some investigation is in order. Sadly, too many are too quick to hang their hats on the peg labeled “social justice” without analyzing the underlying facts or motives or closely examining those people and organizations who are leading the way. America’s students are being influenced by liberal professors and radical Islamic activists whose true agenda is not actually social justice for all. Islamic activists are working diligently on our campuses of higher learning capturing the hearts and minds of vulnerable students. They are motivated not by a desire to achieve social justice but rather by the ultimate goal of unraveling and dismantling the principles and values upon which America was founded. By preying on the naiveté of America’s youth, they are working on changing America from within. Once accomplished (and they are making significant progress) the consequences will be negative for both America and Israel. Remember, radical Islam openly declares their intention to destroy the “Great Satan” which is the USA and the “Little Satan” which is Israel.

Misinformation and fabricated “truths” are two of the tools in the arsenal of radical Islam which is the power source fueling the engines of terror and jihad around the world. The widespread call for social justice for the so called “oppressed” Palestinians has become a hot button to stir up strife on campuses in order to create a hostile environment for Jewish students. Israel has been painted as an evil pariah and solely to blame for the unfortunate plight of the “poor, oppressed Palestinians." In reality it is the corrupt Palestinian leadership with their misguided values which places jihad (holy war) with Israel above the need to elevate the standard of living for the Palestinian people.

Yes, despite what the Palestinians would have the world believe, Israel and the Jews are not the cause for their oppressed state of existence and Israel is not an illegal occupier. In fact, because of the historic Jewish experience, Jews feel a deep moral obligation to stand up for the downtrodden. Because Israel bashing and Jew bashing are in vogue, it’s doubtful that any of our young has ever heard this from one of their left-leaning professors. Today’s atmosphere of political correctness does not leave room for positive speech about the Jews and Israel. This is dangerous and it must stop. If Israel and the Jews were removed from the earth, the Palestinians would still be poor and desperate and there would be no social justice in Palestinian society.

If those crying out for social justice really wanted to see this become a reality, they would be on the side of Israel – the one country in the world constantly and unfairly condemned by the U.N. and others and always held to a different and higher standard than any other country in the world. Thank the good Lord the United States now has an ambassador at the U.N. who is not afraid to stand up and be counted as a friend of Israel.

Even so, the Jewish people are the subject of open hatred and hostility but who is seeking social justice for them? There was little to no outcry for justice when Jewish cemeteries were being desecrated and synagogues spray painted with ugly words and messages reminiscent of the dark days leading up to the Holocaust. The atmosphere today is much the same as it was in the 1930s and 1940s when Hitler unleashed his program of ethnic cleansing but without knowing history this would be difficult to discern. Ignorance and indifference led to the deaths of millions of Jews and others. Could it happen again?

Efforts to achieve social justice will produce positive results if rightly placed. We must not accept or condone acts of terror, incitement of hatred, or genocidal or brutal acts against humanity. We must know and stand for the truth. If our schools won’t teach our children, then we must teach our schools. Israel and the Jews are here to stay. They have a long and rich history which pre-dates all of us by thousands of years and they have a very wonderful habit of making significant advancements and contributions to the betterment of the world from which we all greatly benefit.

To Brunch or Not to Brunch

By Carl White

Life in the Carolinas

I like brunch because it’s a mid-morning activity, you don’t have to get up early and you don’t have to wait too long to enjoy it. It’s often, but not always with friends or family and you can have anything you want with your eggs.

I remember a brunch visit to Proper Restaurant in Boone NC. The drive up the mountain was relaxing, it was a good 10-15 degrees cooler and the air seemed cleaner.

I took advantage of the free meter Sunday parking on King Street. It was around noon when I arrived and a good number of people were already seated. I chose a table which provided me a front row seat for a talented guitar player who provided a nice balance of soothing music with a nostalgic feel.

My waitress was knowledgeable and colorfully charming which added even more to the experience. After hearing the specials, I ordered the quiche of the day with oven roasted potatoes. She highly recommended the collards as my second side. To which I said, “are you serious?” With a confident smile she said without hesitation, “trust me, you will love them”.

What could I say but yes. She also told me about the Biscuit Baby of the day, which was a rolled pastry with figs, strawberries, and covered with an orange zest glaze. I had to at least taste it, so I said, “yes please”.

The room was filled with a diversity of happy brunch people of all ages, an acoustic guitar version of Oh Happy Day was playing when my coffee and Biscuit Baby arrived. It was warm with a nice presentation and smelled wonderful. I also knew I had a full meal still on the way. I could foresee a to go box in my not too distant future. However, after the first bite, I could tell I was going to have a problem. The flavors were blended perfectly and well suited for total consumption.

Soon after, the main event arrived and it was even more impressive. The quiche was tall with a flaky crust. A delicate well-balanced flavor where each bite prepared you for the next. The roasted potato’s we nicely seasoned with a side of homemade tomato sauce and then the much awaited perfectly prepared collards. She was right, I loved them, they were a perfect side. I lingered with the music, another cup of coffee and casual conversation with fellow brunch folks just long enough as to not need a to go box.

I drove away with a feeling of gratitude and satisfaction.

Brunch is by no means a new thing, from what I can tell it was first written about in 1895 by Guy Beringer in the “Hunter’s Weekly” a British publication that has long been out of print. Brunch would make its way to America by the late 1920’s. Over the years brunch would evolve, after World War II Sunday morning brunch become even more popular.

Many people enjoy a mimosa or two. For others it’s a Bloody Mary with all sorts of pickled garnish, such is the case with friends Bruce and Bonnie Julian in Charlotte who perfected a blend that so pleased people that it has become a commercial business. I’m not surprised.

Some say that brunch is for certain people.

Well if you ask me, and someone did. I think brunch is for anyone who likes the idea of eating sometime between the traditional breakfast and lunch times. If you like collards with your eggs, like I now do, you my friend may be a brunch person. There are many fine places for brunch in the Carolinas, all you must do is ask a friend or google.

See you at brunch!

Carl White is the executive producer and host of the award winning syndicated TV show Carl White’s Life In the Carolinas. The weekly show is now in its seventh year of syndication and can be seen in the Charlotte viewing market on WJZY Fox 46 Saturdays at 12:00 noon. For more on the show visit www.lifeinthecarolinas.com, You can email Carl White at [email protected].

A Midsummer Night’s….. Contradiction

By Heather Dean

June 21 marks the summer solstice. Traditionally a day of celebration and even the fairies are at their merriest. Shakespeare wrote a little ditty about it- you may have heard of it- A Midsummer Nights Dream is a tale of enchantment that takes place on midsummer, a seasonal transition that was thought to be a time when supernatural beings caused widespread mischief and some plants were thought to possess magical healing powers.

Fun fact: Shakespeare is also credited with the first-known citation of the phrase “midsummer madness,” Bonfires were lit to protect against evil spirits which were believed to roam freely when the sun was turning southward again. In ancient cultures, the fires were to drive away dragons, evil spirits and witches that would poison the wells.

The word midsummer comes to us from Old English, Dutch and Scandinavian origins.

Across Europe, the Middle East, Australia, Scandinavia, The British Isles, The Faroe Islands, and both hemispheres of the Americas, people over the world people still celebrate the ancient holiday. Midsummer’s Eve is a national holiday in Sweden and Finland.

Modern day traditions, like those held in Iran, include lighting the fire, thanking God for his blessings and crops, and praying for the peace of the souls of the dead were parts of this ancient Iranian tradition. This ceremony coincides with harvesting, and newly wed couples who have married in the past year, are given white horses to ride up to the foot of the mountain. As the brides and grooms reach the mountain foot, a yellow cow is set free, as a sign of happiness and abundance for the new couples

The science behind the celebrations, are thus: solstice occurs when a planet's rotational axis, or geographic pole on either it’s northern or its southern hemisphere, is most inclined toward the star that it orbits. This happens twice each year (once in each hemisphere), when the Sun reaches its highest position in the sky as seen from the North or South Pole. For instance: on the east coast (NYC) the sunrise will be around 5:24 a.m. and the sunset will occur at 8:30 with a copious15 hours and 05 minutes of daylight. In

Fairbanks Alaska, which is closer to the Arctic Circle, they will have a glorious 21 hours and 49 minutes of daylight. So much daylight, in fact, that part of their midsummer celebration includes a midnight game of basketball.

You’re all dumb:

But Heather, what's all this "midsummer talk? June 21 is the first day of summer. Right?"

Saying June 21 is the beginning of summer is, in fact, contradict

Astronomically, the summer solstice is considered to be "mid-summer", because it is technically the longest day of the year.

Meteorologically, the summer-solstice is the time of year when things are just STARTING to warm up, so it makes sense, from that cultural perspective, to refer to the solstice as "the first day of summer", rather than "mid-summer".

Culturally, our conceptions of "summer" are the time of year when things are warm and sunny. (As if you needed something else to wrap your head around, consider that this is the WINTER Solstice for Australia, and that they celebrate Christmas in their summer season.)

In our modern world, we tend to focus on the seasons as they apply to us or our particular region, and not on the astronomical reality which few pay attention to these days. In the processes of evolving into a more urban society versus rural, the true meaning behind the dates, as has happened with so many of our holidays, has become lost. Read: Our modern calendars and mass media have misled us. And most are not remotely interested in correcting this error. So, here you are, going about your lives, never knowing you've been wrong this whole time, because the glossy paper calendar on the wall says "first day of summer", and why would you ever doubt them?

Put down your cell phone and think about it....

One has only to consider the scientific fact that the Solstices mark the MID POINT of the seasons via the course of the Sun. One of the world's oldest evidence of the Summer Solstice's importance in culture is Stonehenge in England, a megalithic structure which clearly marks the moment of the June Solstice.

Even as children, we were taught Summer Solstice was the longest day of the year, that the sun seemed to stand still, and that the days get shorter from here on out. So how could it be the beginning of anything, if in fact it begins waning after this?

It doesn't.

Summer actually begins May 1. Thus the thousands year old May Day festivities celebrating the sun becoming stronger, and brighter the closer to the earth it gets. Around June 20-22, this solar strength begins to reverse course and the days grow shorter paving the way to fall. The Autumnal Equinox occurs when the sun crosses the equator on its journey southward, and we experience a day and a night that are of equal duration is mid- harvest season. Winter as a season begins on November 1, after the all hallows eve bonfires marking the coming darkness of the Earth until the rebirth of spring. December brings The Winter Solstice, or midwinter, which like midsummer comes around the 21/22 of the month, and we experience the shortest and darkest day of the year. The Spring Equinox sees the hours of daylight and darkness again in balance, but getting warmer. And we soon find ourselves back at May Day, when summer actually begins. Not that this really matters in the grand scheme of making beach plans, but I like to think people would prefer to have the knowledge, given the chance.

Still can’t wrap your head around it? That’s ok. Let’s take a page from Shakespeare, via theatre major and Heather style.

“If this writing has offended, slip on your flip-flops, grab your fairy wings, think but this, and all is mended, that you have but rested here while these words did appear.

Gentle readers, do not reprehend: If you pardon, we shall commend: And, as I am an honest Heather, if we have pretty summer weather, to 'scape the hot sun's tongue, we will swim all summer long. Else this Fae a liar call; So, good night unto you all.

Give me your hands, if we be friends, and the goodfellow shall restore amends."

Heather Dean is a theatre major working in journalism. She keeps pinky promises, and never turns down shenanigans. You can reach her at [email protected]

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