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theteasetwrites · 3 years ago

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Soft Spot | Part 1

❧ Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Female Reader ❧ Era: Season 1 ❧ Pronouns: she/her ❧ Warnings: blood, injury, swearing ❧ Word Count: 4.5k

❧ Requested by @deathishereditary (this request—I swear you have the best ideas dude)

❧ Summary: Daryl finds his lady love injured in the woods after being separated, and everyone is surprised to find not only that Daryl has a girlfriend, but that he's very, very soft for her.

❧ A/N: Take a drink every time I come up with another pet name for Daryl/Reader. God, I love soft, protective Daryl. He's like a chocolate truffle—hard shell on the outside, soft, creamy filling on the inside (but all sweet!). We love our little chocolate truffle... Also, this fucking gif. Look at how cute he is. Look at him. He's so fucking cute. The face scrunch... I can't. I'm launching myself into outer space because of how cute this man is. Bye.

He emerged from the woods, your unconscious body draped limply over his shoulder as his feet hurried to get you to safety.

At this point, you were glad to be unconscious, lest you have to endure the pain of the bear trap’s spikes that had been embedded in your flesh.

Upon impact, you had screamed, falling to your feet above the metal contraption that had sunk its teeth into your leg. An onslaught of violent, agonized tears intermingled with your terrified screams. It was the worst pain you’d ever felt in your life, which was saying something, since even the tiniest scratch was enough to bring you to tears.

This pain, though, was near catastrophic, almost sending you into an unconscious state to escape the agony of the sharp prongs carving jagged holes into your flesh.

Despite the urge to faint, it wasn’t the pain that knocked you out, it was the figure you saw running towards you, the man dropping his crossbow to the ground with a thud and nearly flinging himself beside you to free you from those jaws clamped around your leg.

“Dar-Daryl?” you sobbed, grasping onto his shirt collar and bringing him closer, trying to see if it was really him, your Daryl. Your man. “Daryl…”

You’d passed out before you could utter another word, but you weren’t sure if it was from the pain or the shock of seeing him.

It’d been a week now since you had last seen him, when the safe zone in Atlanta was overrun and the last thing you remembered was his voice desperately calling your name amongst the crowd of panicked people that separated you until you couldn’t hear him anymore.

At least you knew he was with Merle, but for your part, you were terrified of being alone without him. He was the only person you trusted since the virus broke out, and the only person you needed. No one else could keep you safe like he could.

So you tried to find him, stumbling out into the woods on your own and somehow escaping unscathed from the grasp of the undead. You’d gone on autopilot after that, a terrified, defenseless creature just trying to survive.

Daryl had always compared you to a rabbit, even going so far to affectionately nickname you “bunny” for how easily scared you were. It was an apt comparison, as rabbits are known to have fatal heart attacks just at the first sign of threat. They’re a vulnerable species in the wild, always the prey of some predator higher up on the food chain, and you were no different. He knew that better than anyone, and now that he’d found you, he wasn’t going to let anyone touch you. Not in the slightest.

“Outta my way,” he huffed, brushing past several members of his group he didn’t care to identify as his tunnel vision focused on the old Winnebago in the center of camp.

“Dixon!” bellowed Shane, trying to match the serious man’s pace as he bee-lined to the trailer. “What the hell is goin’ on here? Who is this?”

Merle did Daryl’s talking for him, as usual. Despite his attempts to get his younger brother to forget about you, claiming you’d surely been trampled by the crowd or eaten alive by walkers, he couldn’t keep him from going out there everyday to find you.

“That goddamn woman,” he scoffed. “Thought we lost the stupid little bitch.”

“Shut the hell up!” barked Daryl, suddenly being bombarded with questions from the others as they surrounded him and the bleeding girl strewn over his broad shoulders. “She’s hurt!”

Merle scoffed again, hardly impressed by how you somehow managed to have a death grip on his heart even when you were unconscious. Two years of watching you “soften” his brother, turning him to jelly and making him beholden to your every beck and call, had turned Merle bitter towards you and your relationship.

“Who is that?” asked Shane, watching Daryl hurriedly march up the steps to the Winnebago with Merle looking on, shaking his head in dismay.

“His bitch,” he replied before spitting a glob of spit onto the dirt below, as if in disgust at the very idea of your existence.

Andrea seemed confused at the notion. “What?” she asked. Indeed, no one in the camp had any idea that Daryl was capable of affection, let alone love, since he’d never really shown it to anyone there in the week or so he’d been there, not even to his own brother, really.

“His woman,” Merle clarified. “Girl’s got his brain and his dick in the palm of ‘er hand. Swear to God, never seen a man more whipped than that… Pussy will do that to ya.”

In the trailer, the questions didn’t cease as Dale and Glenn attempted to help Daryl unfurl you onto the bed, much to Daryl’s frustration.

“I got it!” he said, pushing Glenn away as he touched your leg. “Don’t touch ‘er!” He moved frantically once he’d gotten you on the bed, rummaging through the cabinets in an attempt to find first aid for your wound. “Where the hell’s your first aid kit, old man?!”

Dale looked wide-eyed at the prickly redneck, who’d only ever had wise-ass words to say to him and the other inhabitants of the camp, if he said any words at all.

“In the cabinet above the sink,” he said, exchanging dumbfounded looks with Glenn across the way. “You know, Jacqui knows stitches, I bet she can—”

“No one’s touchin’ her but me!” he bellowed, pointing towards himself as he glowered between the two men. “She’s my woman, my damn responsibility. No one touches her right now but me, you understand?”

Dale held his hands up in defense. “Just trying to help.”

Just then, Jacqui and Carol peered in through the door, worried as they gazed in the direction of the strange woman, sprawled out on the bed and bleeding into a towel wrapped around her leg.

“Is she all right?” Carol asked. “Was she bit?”

Daryl scoffed as he hurriedly made his way over to you with the first aid kit and a handful of wet clothes to clean your wound. “She’s gonna be just fine,” he said rather aggressively despite the sentiment of his caring words. “Just got bit by a bear trap.”

He gently dabbed the wound with the wash cloth, wiping away the blood as it left diluted traces of crimson across your skin. He could see the wound better now, determining it wasn’t so bad. Of course, it must’ve hurt like hell, but he also knew just how sensitive you were, how little pain you could handle, and how your screams had alarmed him more than your actual wound. Still, you were here, breathing gently but steadily before him, tears staining your reddened cheeks as you lay there unconscious.

“Who is she?” asked Glenn, seemingly mystified by how devout the surly man was to you. Surely, you couldn’t have been a complete stranger, but it still seemed impossible for Daryl Dixon to care about anyone the way he obviously did as he cleaned your wound with the utmost tenderness. He’d referred to her as “my woman,” but it still seemed so improbable that such a sweet, frightened looking woman had love in her heart for such a standoffish, stoic man.

He didn’t answer for a while, only focusing on your leg between glances at your face, just to make sure you were really there.

“‘Er name’s (Y/N),” he said quietly before turning to glower at the younger man. “You done askin’ me questions or what?”

Glenn swallowed hard and shrugged, still quite intimidated by Daryl despite his apparent affection for you, the unconscious woman who’d quickly become the talk of the camp.

Dale rested a hand on Glenn’s shoulder, guiding him back towards the door. “We’ll leave you alone,” he said. “Come on, son. Let’s check the radio again.”

Glenn shook his head in disbelief, while Dale shut the trailer door behind him with a deep breath before joining the others, who’d gathered around outside to discuss the strange event of your sudden appearance, and the stranger reaction from the surly archer.

“You’re not gonna get that boy to do a damn thing now that she’s here,” said Merle to Shane. “(Y/N)’s top priority now. Hell, she was already top priority. You think Daryl went into them woods just to bring back squirrels for you sorry sons of bitches? Nah, he went lookin’ for rabbits.” He gestured loosely towards the trailer. “That bitch has got to go, if you ask me.”

“Whoa, whoa,” said Dale. “What the hell are you talking about? We can’t just send an injured woman back out there, let alone Daryl’s, uh… girlfriend.”

Andrea huffed, still in shock. “Wow,” she said. “I can’t believe it.”

“Can’t believe what, blondie?” asked Merle in slight offense. “Can’t believe the Dixon’s got game? I’ll tell you what, it ain’t the fact he’s layin’ pipe, it’s just that he’s whipped. Kid’s got a dick but he ain’t got no damn balls.” He groped his crotch for emphasis. “Believe me, if my kid brother had a piece of tail like (Y/N) and left it at that, I wouldn’t have a problem. Nah, it’s ‘cause that pussy don’t let up, got this effect on him. Trust me, he’ll be in that trailer through nightfall till she wakes up ‘er pretty little head and starts cooin’ at him like he was a baby. Damn girl puts stars in his eyes.”

Jacqui scoffed, shaking her head at Merle’s disgusting words. “You’re a pig,” she said.

Oh, how many times Merle had been called that. You’d thought it many times yourself, but you were too shy to say anything to his face, instead relaying to Daryl in private how uncomfortable he made you, in the most polite way possible, of course.

“I’m just sayin’,” Merle replied. “Daryl’s better off without her, y’all are better off without her.”

“Now, look,” sighed Shane. “We ain’t kickin’ anyone out. Besides, you think Daryl would let us send her back out there anyway?”

“He won’t even let anyone touch her,” answered Glenn. “All but kicked us out of the trailer.”

Merle let out a scoff somewhere between indignation and amusement. “See? Already workin’ her magic, an’ she ain’t even conscious yet.”

Yet was the operative word.

Indeed, you did awake several hours later, when the sun was just going down and outside the others prepared the nightly campfire, over which whatever squirrel Daryl had haphazardly dropped on the ground as he carried you out of the woods was being cooked in a somewhat passable stew.

Your eyes fluttered hazily, and immediately the pain from your injury shot up through your leg, distracting you from any confusion you might’ve had, having somehow ended up inside an old trailer.

You hissed in pain, sitting up ever so slightly to assess the wound, but Daryl was quick to grasp your shoulders, sitting himself down beside you and softly guiding you back down to your pillow.

“Daryl,” you sighed, wide-eyed and face contorted in an amalgam of confusion, pain, and utter overjoyment as you met his soft, sweet blue eyes. Oh, those eyes… Not long before you stumbled into that bear trap, you were thinking about how in all likelihood, you’d never see those beautiful eyes again. “What’s… What’s happening?” You felt his hand caress your cheek as you looked around, frantically trying to figure out where you were, as if there was any way you could recognize a place you’d never seen before in your life. “Am I dead?”

He furrowed his brow, studying your face for a few silent moments before breaking out into perhaps the biggest smile you’d ever seen on his face. He simply couldn’t help it—you had that effect on him. Even Daryl would admit Merle wasn’t entirely wrong. You did put stars in his eyes. That wasn’t up for debate.

“No, you ain’t dead,” he answered. His thumb tenderly petted the apple of your cheek while his eyes seemed to go a little hazy as he stared at you. With the sound of his voice confirming your waking state, you let yourself relax into his touch, always so soothing to you and your rather high-strung, fearful nature. “I found you.”

His other hand pinned your hair behind your ear just before you threw your arms around his shoulders, nuzzling your head into the crook of his neck and rocking back and forth as you let out a muffled laugh, intermingled with sobs from your crying. It was mostly a happy cry, though you were also in the midst of a deep, searing pain. Still, you had your Daryl, and that was a more potent feeling than whatever contraption had plunged its spiky prongs into your flesh.

“Oh, Daryl,” you laughed (and cried), clutching to the back of his sleeveless flannel shirt you’d last seen him in. It was almost like you’d never been apart. “It’s you… It’s really you.”

To be held by you was an addiction of his, a vice that was strong enough to turn his insides to mush. Well, if that was his greatest vice, then he supposed he wasn’t too fucked up.

He shushed you, trying to calm your crying. You always were a crybaby. “Shhh, shhh… It’s me,” he said. “I’m right here, bunny. I got ya. You’re safe now.”

Unable to withstand another moment without the feeling of your lips on his, he turned his head to kiss you, his lips catching your tears as they fell down your cheek. It was a soft kiss, gentle and warm like always. You could never recall a time Daryl had kissed you with anything but the utmost sweetness in his heart. His softness for you was in everything he did, every movement he made around you, every touch he gave you, everything.

You found yourself happily moaning into his kiss, smiling against his lips as his tongue hungrily massaged yours, still with as much tenderness as he could muster with how much he’d missed you. And, oh, how he missed you.

When his kiss finally relented, you peered over his shoulder to try to get a look at your leg again, but he grabbed your cheek, turning your gaze towards him. “Don’ look,” he drawled. “Jus’ look at me.”

He knew how much you hated the idea of being hurt, how even the smallest drop of blood could send you into a daze. Of course, you weren’t proud of that fact, and all throughout your life you’d tried to hide how sensitive you were, lest everyone ridicule you or accuse you of feigning your sensitivity for attention. Daryl, however, could never see you in such a way. He only saw a sweet, kind, beautiful woman who needed to be cared for more than other people, and he was ready to do that job. And boy, did he do his job well.

“It… It hurts, Daryl,” you said shakily.

He frowned, nodding his head in understanding. “I’ll get ya a painkiller,” he said. “Just gotta get to my tent real quick. I’ll be right—”

“No,” you said urgently, tugging him back towards you. “Please stay… I’ll be fine.” That was a lie, and he knew it, too. He could tell by the tears and the sniffles that you were in immense pain, but your need to have him beside you as much as possible at that moment was greater. “Just stay with me for now, please.”

He chewed his bottom lip, thinking for a moment. He wouldn’t leave, not a chance. You were clearly scared, and all you wanted was his presence. Surely, you’d want him to hold you like he always did, keep you safe in his arms as your body worked through the pain.

He’d done it before, namely during your periods. Your cramps were always the most intense pain you’d ever experienced before this, often forcing you to stay home from work until they subsided. He’d drop everything to stay home with you, going to the store for emergency tampons, making you dinner as you were in too much pain to even get out of bed, rubbing your abdomen to soothe your cramps as best he could while he held you tight… Yeah, he knew how to take care of you better than anyone else.

“I won’t leave ya,” he said, then turned his head towards the window of the trailer to yell out his brother’s name. “Merle!” he bellowed. “Get me the aspirin, will ya?!”

A few beats of silence passed before Merle responded from somewhere outside the trailer: “Fuck you!”

“Get me the aspirin, dickhead!”

You were still entranced by Daryl when the pill bottle landed with a rattle beside your leg, causing you to look up at Merle, the bane of your existence. Despite your distaste for Daryl’s brother, you always put on a polite face, attempting to be cordial.

“Merle,” you breathed with a smile. “Thank God you’re all right, too.”

He scoffed, knowing you really hated him about as much as he was annoyed by you and your hold of his brother. “Thank God,” he repeated sarcastically. “See you already got your nurse workin’ ‘round the clock, hm? Tell ya the truth, we were just ‘bout ready to give up on you, sweetheart. Ain’t that right, little brother?”

“You bes’ shut the hell up,” replied Daryl, unscrewing the bottle of aspirin. “And you know that ain’t true, asshole.”

He turned towards you, holding out two pink pills and a glass of water. “Come on, sit up,” he instructed, then quietly spoke under his breath: “Gonna get you feelin’ better, sunshine.”

You did as he said and took the glass and the pills from his hands, but not without noticing Merle’s obnoxious smirk. “Mhm, that’s right,” he drawled, licking his lips lasciviously. “Gotta get you all better so’s he can fuck you sideways again—”

“Goddamnit, Merle!” he yelled, tossing the pill bottle at his face. “Get the hell outta here ‘fore I beat your sorry ass!”

“Oh, yeah?” he laughed. “You and little miss Muffet? That’ll be the damn day. That bitch has got your balls locked up in a jewelry box, huh, baby brother? Thing is, I think you like it.”

“Get out!” he repeated, and with a few more choice words, which you didn’t care at this point to pay attention to, he retreated to his tent for the night, terribly annoyed by your presence, like you were some benign tumor on his brother’s heart.

“Don’t listen to a word that comes out of that son of a bitch’s mouth,” Daryl said to you, lifting the bandage to inspect your wound (careful not to show it to you, of course). “I was lookin’ for you the moment I lost you up until the second I found you… Just wish this bear trap didn’t get ya ‘fore I did.”

You laughed, shaking your head as you thought about Merle’s words. “How does such a sweet, smart, selfless man have such a… pig for a brother?”

He raised an eyebrow, surprised by your usage of the word “pig.” You were usually much more vague about your criticisms of Merle.

“You’re out there without me coddling ya for one week and you come back to me all feisty, huh, bunny?”

“I don’t have a feisty bone in my body,” you laughed. “I don’t even know how I made it out there without you.”

Indeed, he was wondering that, too. Of course, he knew you had a will to survive, that you weren’t entirely hopeless on your own, but in this world, people like you were easy prey, just like rabbits, and Daryl was more like a wolf. Well, a wolf who had developed a particularly soft spot for a rabbit, that is.

He scooted closer to you, raising his hand to your cheek once again, trailing the back of it slowly up and down your soft cheek. He just could never get enough of those adorable cheeks, especially when you smiled like you were now.

“I just love ya so much,” he drawled, breaking into his own crooked smile at the end of his sentence. “I was never gonna stop lookin’ for ya, hope you know that.”

You nodded, holding his hand as he held your cheek. “I know, pumpkin,” you cooed, and he couldn’t even pretend to hate that little pet name you’d christened him with when you first started dating. “I was looking for you, too. I mean, I had no idea where to look, and I was just… running around, eating berries and mushrooms…”

“The ones I told you, right?” he asked seriously.

You rolled your eyes, amused by his need to know you learned something from his “survival lessons.”

“Yes, Daryl,” you said. “Only the ones that aren’t poisonous. I’m just so glad you found me.”

He smiled before leaning forward to kiss you again, once on the lips, and several times on each cheek before you broke out into a giggle, tickled from the whiskers of his stubble. “Oh, hey, that tickles.”

“Mm,” he hummed against your cheek. “You like it, bunny… Hey, you must be hungry, huh? Let’s get some food in you.”

He didn’t leave room for argument as he carefully lifted you up by your arms, mindful of your injury. He shouldered your arm and helped you down the steps of the trailer, and immediately you felt more pairs of eyes on you than you had in what seemed like ages.

Daryl’s group was huddled around the fire, their voices dying down as they focused on you. They seemed dumbfounded, chewing on their squirrel while their eyes watched Daryl carefully lead you to the fire. In all honesty, he would’ve preferred to carry you, but he was already sure the group was questioning his “toughness.”

He sat you down on a folding chair, and moved frantically to find you a blanket, turning himself around and looking in every direction. “Anyone got a blanket?” he asked.

“I-it’s fine, Daryl,” you laughed nervously. “I’m fine… Sit down.”

He huffed and sat himself down, leaning forward to serve you a bowl of soup. “Thank you,” you said, trying to ignore the stares you were still getting.

“How are you?” Glenn asked, breaking the awkward silence meandering around the campfire.

He was a stranger to you, as they all were except Daryl, but you answered nonetheless. “I’m okay,” you said. “I don’t think I’m gonna lose my foot, so that’s good.”

You laughed nervously, though the others still seemed utterly flabbergasted by your very existence.

“I’m (Y/N), by the way.”

Everyone introduced themselves eventually, after the initial shock of your waking state seemed to subside ever so slightly. Still, even after dinner, and when it was only you and Daryl left at that bonfire, you could feel the stares and hear the whispers of the others from afar, watching the two of you.

Daryl didn’t seem to care, or notice, as he found himself tending to your dressing, cleaning your wound once again before holding you tight, brushing through your hair with his gentle fingers.

The only side of Daryl that you knew was his soft side, his tenderness he displayed towards you. You knew he had a temper, that he could be volatile and emotional, but in a way, he was just as sensitive as you were, he just showed it differently. In fact, he tried not to show it at all most of the time, for fear of making himself vulnerable. It was only around you he could be fully himself, and that was brought out in how he cared for you, doted on you.

Whatever side he’d displayed to these people in the last week must’ve been starkly different, and indeed it was.

“This is fascinating,” said Dale to Glenn, sitting atop the trailer and sneaking glances at the couple’s embrace beside the fire.

“It’s super weird,” agreed Glenn. “Wish I had a girlfriend.”

Shane and T-Dog made their rounds, stopping in brief disbelief at the display before them. “What the hell is a woman like that doin’ with a dumb redneck like Daryl Dixon?” asked Shane.

“She doesn’t seem to think he’s a dumb redneck,” replied T-Dog. “Maybe he’s not such a dumb redneck after all… Dumb redneck couldn’t get himself a lady like that.”

Carol and Lori ushered the children into their respective tents, and both women stared in wonderment at first, and then in a strange kind of envy. Not of you being with Daryl, but of the way he held you, the way he whispered in your ear and brushed through your hair, the way he held your hand and kissed your palm before nuzzling his nose against yours… Yeah, they wanted love like that.

All in all, the camp was in a state of confusion as conceptions about the younger Dixon brother seemed to be changing, all because one woman had come back into his life. Though for him, you’d never left.

“Why’s everyone staring at me?” you asked, absentmindedly trailing your fingers along the collar of his shirt, dipping down every once in a while to feel his sparse chest hairs. “Ever since I came out here they look like they’ve never seen another human being before.”

He looked around, immediately catching the eye of Dale and Glenn, who quickly averted their gaze, terrified of the abrasive man. He narrowed his eyes at them and protectively pulled you closer before kissing your forehead, almost in a subconscious display of marking his territory.

“Probably ‘cause you’re so beautiful,” he said, causing you to roll your eyes. “Guess I gotta watch my back… Make sure no one tries to steal ya from me.”

“I highly doubt anyone wants to steal me from you, Daryl,” you said. “Even if they did, there’s no way I’d ever leave you.”

“Mm,” he hummed, rubbing your back in appreciation for your words. “Good.”

Silence settled in comfortably before you spoke again, not convinced the camp was simply taken by your beauty.

“I think they can’t believe I’m your girlfriend,” you said. “They’re surprised… You didn’t tell them about me?”

He swallowed hard, afraid you would be upset with him for failing to mention you. “Guess it just never came up,” he said. “‘Sides… Didn’t need them knowin’ I got a soft spot for ya.”

You raised an eyebrow as you giggled at his words. “Oh, well, I think they know now, pumpkin.”

Whatever effect you had on Daryl, it changed him for the better. At least, he thought so, and as soon as your leg healed, the others thought so, too. Maybe Merle was right—maybe you made him soft, but he didn’t care. In a world where softness was hard to come by, where the only beautiful thing left was you, he didn’t mind if he was just a little soft.

Well, just in one little spot.

Thanks for reading! Likes, reblogs, and comments of any kind are always appreciated!

Masterlist Part 2

#daryl dixon x reader #daryl dixon fanfiction #daryl dixon x you #daryl dixon fanfic #daryl dixon #daryl dixon fic #the walking dead #the walking dead fanfiction #the walking dead fanfic #twd fanfic #twd #twd fanfiction #norman reedus #norman reedus fanfiction #norman reedus fanfic #norman reedus x reader

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theculturedmarxist · 5 years ago

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Idiotic “Conspiracy Theory”: John Boyega was cast as one of the leads in Star Wars because The Jews want to normalize miscegenation in an effort to effiminize American men and replace the White race!

Legitimate theory of a conspiracy: The Democrats have repeatedly stated how unpopular Bernie Sanders is with the wealthy capitalists that make up and fund their party leadership in spite of his overwhelming public support, and considering the political and professional ties of those involved and the vested interest the wealthy have in not seeing a man that wants to increase their taxes and undo some of the harm they’ve caused to the working class, the events in Iowa are at least somewhat suspicious.

The bourgeoisie get so incredibly nervous whenever people question their narrative because they are literally conspiring against the working class all the fucking time. This is in spite of the fact that they themselves admit it, boldly and openly. It’s just that when they do, they don’t use the words “conspiracy.”

Behind a Key Anti-Labor Case, a Web of Conservative Donors

In the summer of 2016, government workers in Illinois received a mailing that offered them tips on how to leave their union. By paying a so-called fair-share fee instead of standard union dues, the mailing said, they would no longer be bound by union rules and could not be punished for refusing to strike.

“To put it simply,” the document concluded, “becoming a fair-share payer means you will have more freedom.”

The mailing, sent by a group called the Illinois Policy Institute, may have seemed like disinterested advice. In fact, it was one prong of a broader campaign against public-sector unions, backed by some of the biggest donors on the right. It is an effort that will reach its apex on Monday, when the Supreme Court hears a case that could cripple public-sector unions by allowing the workers they represent to avoid paying fees.

One of the institute’s largest donors is a foundation bankrolled by Richard Uihlein, an Illinois industrialist who has spent millions backing Republican candidates in recent years, including Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Gov. Bruce Rauner of Illinois.

Tax filings show that Mr. Uihlein has also been the chief financial backer in recent years of the Liberty Justice Center, which represents Mark Janus, the Illinois child support specialist who is the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case.

And Mr. Uihlein has donated well over $1 million over the years to groups like the Federalist Society that work to orient the judiciary in a more conservative direction. They have helped produce a Supreme Court that most experts expect to rule in Mr. Janus’s favor.

The case illustrates the cohesiveness with which conservative philanthropists have taken on unions in recent decades. “It’s a mistake to look at the Janus case and earlier litigation as isolated episodes,” said Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, a Columbia University political scientist who studies conservative groups. “It’s part of a multipronged, multitiered strategy.”

Today, MLB's Owners Decide How To Wage War

MLB's 30 owners will meet in Baltimore today to elect the first new commissioner since Bud Selig took the reins in 1992—unless there is enough discord and politicking to prevent any candidate from receiving the required 23 votes. Which there almost certainly is! Today will see the first open, public battle in a vicious power struggle that promises to define MLB's relationship with its players over the coming decades, and, more immediately, the likelihood of a work stoppage in 2016.

The three finalists named by the search committee last week are MLB COO Rob Manfred, MLB VP of business Tim Brosnan, and Boston Red Sox chairman Tom Werner.

As has been reported out over recent weeks and months by The New York Times, this is a two-horse race between Manfred, Selig's underboss and presumptive successor, and Werner, a dark-horse candidate backed by a coalition of maverick owners led by White Sox boss Jerry Reinsdorf.

The battle here is not between Manfred and Werner; it's between Selig and Reinsdorf, two of the last remnants of baseball's old guard from the biliously anti-labor power structure of the 1980s, when owners illegally colluded to fix the free agency market to keep salaries down. (As always, it's important to remember that the players' strike of 1994 was really about the owners' collusion in the 1980s.)

Koch Brothers’ Internal Strategy Memo on Selling Tax Cuts: Ignore The Deficit

The billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch spent much of the eight years of the Obama presidency stoking fears about the budget deficit. Their political network aired an unending cascade of campaign advertisements against Democratic politicians, sponsored several national bus tours, and paid organizers in communities across the country to mobilize public demonstrations, all focused on the dangers of increasing the deficit.

One such ad even warned that government debt would lead to a Chinese takeover of America — which, for many voters, is a concern linked to debt. Another effort, also quietly bankrolled by the Koch network, used Justin Bieber memes to try to reach millennials about too much government borrowing.

Now that Republicans control all levers of power in Washington and the Koch brothers are poised to reap a windfall of billions of dollars through tax cuts, they have a new message: Don’t worry about the deficit.

The Intercept obtained a messaging memo from the Koch brothers’ network on how to sell tax reform legislation. The memo went out to members of the network of likeminded Republican donors, which includes dozens of wealthy investors and business executives.

“Network,” “web,” “association,” “coalition,” “group,” “foundation.” When you strip away all the corporate newspeak, they are saying that these people are engaged in a conspiracy.

Historically, anti-labor conspiracies have themselves been big business. Just take the Mohawk Valley Formula for example:

The Mohawk Valley formula is a plan for strikebreaking purportedly written by the president of the Remington Rand company James Rand, Jr. around the time of the Remington Rand strike at Ilion, New York in 1936/37.

The plan includes discrediting union leaders, frightening the public with the threat of violence, using local police and vigilantes to intimidate strikers, forming associations of "loyal employees" to influence public debate, fortifying workplaces, employing large numbers of replacement workers, and threatening to close the plant if work is not resumed.[1][2]

The authenticity of the written plan has never been clearly established. Although it was allegedly published in the National Association of Manufacturers Labor Relations Bulletin, no original copy has been found, nor does NAM list it among its pamphlets from that era.[3][non-primary source needed] Parts of the plan use language sympathetic to the views of labor organizers. The Remington Rand company did indeed ruthlessly suppress the strikes, as documented in a ruling by the National Labor Relations Board, and the plan has been accepted as a guide to the methods that were used. At least one source names the strikebreaker Pearl Bergoff and his so-called "Bergoff Technique" as the origin of the formula.[4] Rand and Bergoff were both indicted by the same federal grand jury for their roles in the Remington Rand strike.

Noam Chomsky has described the formula as the result of business owners' trend away from violent strikebreaking to a "scientific" approach based on propaganda. An essential feature of this approach is the identification of the management's interests with "Americanism," while labor activism is portrayed as the work of un-American outsiders. Workers are thus persuaded to turn against the activists and toward management to demonstrate their patriotism.[5][6]

The following is the text of the Mohawk Valley formula as quoted in the labor press:

When a strike is threatened, label the union leaders as "agitators" to discredit them with the public and their own followers. Conduct balloting under the foremen to ascertain the strength of the union and to make possible misrepresentation of the strikers as a small minority. Exert economic pressure through threats to move the plant, align bankers, real estate owners and businessmen into a "Citizens' Committee".

Raise high the banner of "law and order", thereby causing the community to mass legal and police weapons against imagined violence and to forget that employees have equal rights with others in the community.

Call a "mass meeting" to coordinate public sentiment against the strike and strengthen the Citizens' Committee.

Form a large police force to intimidate the strikers and exert a psychological effect. Utilize local police, state police, vigilantes and special deputies chosen, if possible, from other neighborhoods.

Convince the strikers their cause is hopeless with a "back-to-work" movement by a puppet association of so-called "loyal employees" secretly organized by the employer.

When enough applications are on hand, set a date for opening the plant by having such opening requested by the puppet "back-to-work" association.

Stage the "opening" theatrically by throwing open the gates and having the employees march in a mass protected by squads of armed police so as to dramatize and exaggerate the opening and heighten the demoralizing effect.

Demoralize the strikers with a continuing show of force. If necessary turn the locality into a warlike camp and barricade it from the outside world.

Close the publicity barrage on the theme that the plant is in full operation and the strikers are merely a minority attempting to interfere with the right to work. With this, the campaign is over—the employer has broken the strike.[2]

A similar, although more nuanced and longer, version was published in The Nation in 1937.[1]

The louder the capitalists cry and whinge about “conspiracy theories” the more certain you can be that the capitalists are engaged in a fucking conspiracy.

#conspiracy #conspiracy theories #conspiracy theory #bernie sanders #bernie sander for president #bernie sanders for president #iowa caucus #democratic national convention #democratic party #democrats #capitalism #overthrow the bourgeoisie #down with the bourgeoisie #koch brothers #supreme court

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omfgtrump · 4 years ago

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Tale of Two Viruses: Part 27

So the lines are drawn in the sand. In a battle for the ages the Republicans made it clear how they plan to reelect The Don. Let’s call it the “Great American Mind Fuck.”

I got to hand it to them. Turning over the production of the convention to the creators of the “Apprentice” was clever.

Producer: So what do you people have in mind for the show?

Campaign consultant: Well on a macro scale, we want you to create a character like you did on “The Apprentice.”

Producer: You mean turn a failed businessman, and a huckster, into the pillar of success and an American icon?

Campaign: Nailed it! So what we need,is a two pronged approach: a sort of high road, low road.

Producer: There’s a high road?

Campaign: A pretend one. Like in the Wizard of Oz – the yellow brick road juxtaposed with the witch and the flying monkeys. You in?

Producer: Am I in? This is brilliant. This will be my greatest creative endeavor yet.

Campaign: The flying monkey part will be easy, but it’s selling the president as a man for all people, a man of empathy, a benevolent protector, a father figure who will protect his American family.

Producer: Agreed. The flying monkey part I can do in my sleep. Protecting America from hoodlums and socialists; protecting white suburban women from the menace of undesirables who will destroy the sanctity of their cozy lives. Who do we have on board to spread the word?

Campaign: We’ve got those gun toting McCloskey’s from St. Louis who have become American heroes.

Producer: Great! We will script them to say:

“Democrats no longer view the government’s job as protecting honest citizens from criminals, but rather protecting criminals from honest citizens.”

“These radicals are not content with marching in the streets. They want to walk the hall of Congress, they want to take over, they want power. This is Joe Biden’s party. These are the people who will be in charge of your future and the future of your children.”

Campaign: Fabulous stuff. We also have mad-dog House member Matt Gaetz of Florida is ready to say that the democrats want to “disarm you, empty the prisons, lock you in your home, and invite MS-13 to live next door.”

Producer: Now we’re cooking.

Campaign: Can I tell you something off the record, a little secret? The president is having his campaign people go to the demonstrations, and to use John Lewis’ words, make “good trouble.”

Producer: Brilliant strategy.

Campaign: Totally! When the president first suggested paying people to agitate and provoke violence we were like, isn’t that going too far? He just smiled and said: this is war and you ain’t seen nothing yet. To quote him: When I get through spreading terror and fear, people will be begging me to come save them.

Producer: That’s some dark stuff.

Campaign: Usually I would say it’s just political warfare, but in the president’s case, this is the 2nd coming of the civil war.

Producer: That’s chilling, but America loves that kind of stuff. Vigilantism, maligning of the other, stoking racial animus. Makes for a good story.

Campaign: You got it. A good story. America is built on that shit, and we intend to exploit it.

Producer: Now that we have the flying monkey down, let’s talk about the golden child.

Campaign: Golden child! I just love, love, love it.

Producer: What’s with the love, love, love stuff. Can’t anybody in your camp just say that word one time?

Campaign: It’s an osmosis thing.

Producer: Right, an osmosis thing.

Campaign: So about the golden child. How do we turn the flying monkey in to a teddy bear? You know, turning the cheat, deadbeat, con artist into America’s greatest businessman?

Producer: How do you reveal that behind the flying monkey is a teddy bear? How do you get enough black people to believe he isn’t a racist? How do you get enough white women to believe he is not a misogynist and a sexual predator? Enough Latinas to forget the fact that he put people in cages and separated children from his families? Convince people that the man has done a great job with the pandemic, despite the contrary? How to get people to not see him as a mean-spirited bully who cruelly makes fun of people?

Campaign: Yeah, how do you do that?

Producer: You pay Melania a lot of money to say:

“I urge people to come together in a civil manner, so we can work and live up to our standard American ideals. I also ask people to stop the violence and looting being done in the name of justice and never make assumptions based on the color of a person’s skin.”

“We all know Donald Trump makes no secrets about how he feels about things.’’ Total honesty is what we as citizens deserve from our president. Whether you like it or not, you always know what he’s thinking.’’ And that is because he’s an authentic person.

Campaign: Wow, you think she can do that with a straight face?

Producer: She hides her cards well. Just make her an offer she can’t refuse.

Campaign: Are you saying we should off her if she refuses?

Producer: Ha! No, no, no. This isn’t the “The Godfather,” it’s more like “Let’s Make a Deal.”

Campaign: Phew, you had me worried there. Though who knows what he would do if she defied him. So what’s next?

Producer: You get black people to extol his virtues. Anyone come to mind?.

Campaign: Yeah, Hall of Fame Dallas Cowboy’s Herschel Walker just loves the president.

Producer: Perfect. You get Herschel to say:

“It hurts my soul to hear the terrible names that people call Donald,” he said. “The worst one is ‘racist’.”

Producer: Now we need the empathy card. Who do we have on board for this?

Campaign: Dan Scavino, his longest-serving White House aide. Ja’Ron, the most senior black official in the White House

Producer; How about Dan says:

“I wish you could be at his side with me to see his endless kindness to everyone he meets.

And Ja’Ron that’s a good catch. You get the black issue and empathy from the same person. He says:

“I just wish everyone could see the deep empathy he shows the families whose loved ones were killed due to senseless violence.”

Campaign: That’s awesome. What else you have in mind?

Producer: How about a live naturalization ceremony. Black, Latina, even a Muslim woman in a hijab, one-by-one granted citizenship. The catch is you don’t tell them they will be part of the convention, as they might not want to do that given the president’s comments about Muslims and ‘shit-hole countries’.

“What, we are at the republican convention? They never told us that! I hate Republicans!”

Campaign: Fucking genius! Last thing: How do we handle the pandemic?

Producer: You mostly ignore it and when you do mention it you talk about how it is something in the past.

Campaign: That’s a tricky one.

Producer. Agreed. But if you have the president give his acceptance speech in front with the White House as a back- drop with a thousand people all sitting close together without masks. Show America everything is back to normal.

Campaign: But people could die.

Producer: That’s the price of messaging when you are in a war. Always going to be casualties.

Campaign: That’s pretty dark.

Producer: He’s your president.

Campaign. My president? Aren’t you going to vote for him?

Producer: Are out of your mind? The man is a menace and dismantling democracy.

Campaign: So why are you doing this?

Producer: For the same reason Melania will say those words. And I think I will finally win my first Emmy.

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#IFTTT #WordPress #trump #politics #potus #capital hill #washington dc #white house #america #usa

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ericsonclan · 5 years ago

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Meeting Violet

Summary: Prisha meets Violet for the first time (companion piece to Meeting Prisha, but from the opposite perspective).

Read on A03:

Man, that was a serious wreck. Prisha stood before the burnt carcass of a massive steamboat, examining the massive structure with a calculating eye. Back before the end of the world this had clearly been one of those tourist attractions, an afternoon pleasure cruise for those who could afford it. Before its untimely demise though, it had been outfitted for war, the once open walkways fitted with sheets of metal to prevent those inside from being shot and killed by enemy fire. That hadn’t been enough to protect this behemoth from the weapon that had totaled it. A bomb most likely, given that the burn patterns on the wreckage appeared to mostly come from internal pieces of the ship, the outer hull still appearing relatively firm. The fact that 2/3 of the ship had sunk underwater betrayed the truth though: the hull was compromised. It was an impressive amount of destruction. Perhaps there had been a series of bombs, though a single bomb was more practicable. The bomb must have been placed somewhere that would calibrate its power to give that comprehensive of an explosion though. Perhaps the boiler room? She eyed the charred remnants of the pier. Part of her wanted to take the risk and see if she could cross it to get a look inside. Who knew what kind of untapped supplies or weapons lay waiting inside? But a larger part of her knew that anything inside would most likely be damaged beyond repair and that the most likely reward for her scavenging efforts would be a tumble into the river below and a brutal death at the hands of the dozens of walkers that likely roamed its depths. If only she had time to develop a safety harness of some sort. Then she could run a line between the trees and the wreckage and take a tour of the ship suspended safely in midair. It was an impractical dream, but still…. “Prisha! We’ve got company!” Turning around at the sound of Ed’s voice, Prisha saw that Clementine and Louis had returned as promised to trade. They had also brought another girl with them. She appeared to be around their same age, but extremely pale and skinnier than either of them. She had short blonde hair and from the harness across her chest it was safe to assume her weapon was on her back. Prisha was glad to see the three of them. It was rare enough to find friendly strangers, even rarer for them to be around her own age. The wreckage could wait for another day. Prisha made her way over to greet their guests.

As she approached, Clementine walked off with Ed and Garrett in the direction of the tents and Garrett returned to his work on the support beams. Looks like it fell to her to keep the other guests entertained. Once she’d reached Louis and the new girl, Prisha stopped in front of them, her hands resting easily on her hips. “So, you’ve come back,” Louis smiled at her and gave a dramatic bow. “Prisha! Always a pleasure,” He popped up and took his friend by the shoulders. “I’d like you to meet a dear friend of mine. Prisha, Violet. Violet, Prisha. After hearing some stories of your escapades from your group, I thought you might enjoy meeting our resident badass.” “Is that so?” Prisha quirked an eyebrow and looked at Violet. Now that she was closer, she could see that the girl had some serious scarring on her face. Burn marks covered the right side of her face and her right eye had a milky white quality to it that seemed to indicate blindness. A badass indeed. Prisha nodded towards her harness. “What’s your weapon of choice?” “Meat cleaver,” Violet muttered, looking at the ground. What Prisha could see of her expression was difficult to read. She couldn’t tell if Violet was genuinely pissed to be there, or if she simply wasn’t as eager a member of the welcome wagon as Louis tended to be. Probably both. A meat clever though! That was a new one to add to her ongoing mental list of weapons she’d come across in the last eight years. The fact that such a petite girl was the one wielding it was an ironic bonus. Prisha gestured toward Violet’s back. “Sick. Mind if I see it?” Violet took it out of the sling on her back and held it out for Prisha to see. It was an impressive blade, broad edged and clearly sharp enough to bite down into a walker skull instantly. “Impressive edge. Looks like it has good upkeep.” Violet nodded noncommittally. This girl was going to be a hard nut to crack. Prisha didn’t mind the challenge. “This is my weapon of choice,” She patted the sheathed axe at her side. Louis let out a long whistle. “That’s quite the weapon. Bet it just takes one hit to down a walker,” Prisha nodded proudly. “That’s right. This world’s full of too many goddamn walkers for me to be wearing my arms out braining each one,” Louis nodded at her words, but it was clear something was distracting him. “On that note – Oh, what was that Clem?” He turned and waved in the direction of camp. “Looks like she needs me. See ya later, Prisha!” And with that he was off like a shot. That was weird. Honestly though, Louis was a weird guy. Prisha thought she heard Violet mutter something after him, but she couldn’t catch it. A moment of awkward silence fell between the girls. Violet seemed unwilling to start up the conversation again, so Prisha took the initiative. “Your friends are good people. We had just started to set up camp yesterday when a pack of walkers showed up out of nowhere. Marie was in a tough spot when they came across us. Even after they got her out, they stuck around till the whole pack was cleared out,” The pair had endeared themselves to her group instantly. There weren’t a lot of people who followed the old rules of the world and would risk their lives for a child these days. Prisha didn’t even want to imagine what would have happened if they hadn’t shown up. She and Marie’s mother, Ana, had been closest, but they’d both known that neither of them would reach the girl in time as they’d sprinted towards her. What could have been a tragedy could now be remembered simply as another close call. Violet nodded knowingly. Her friends’ actions didn’t seem to surprise her. “Yeah, we try to keep things clear in this area since it’s a common resting spot for caravans,” “That’s thoughtful of you. Not many groups that look out for anyone besides their own these days,” Violet looked over to Louis and Clementine. They were going through some large bags Ed and Garrett had brought out. A ghost of a smile flitted across her lips. “What can I say? Those idiots wouldn’t have it any other way,” So she had a soft spot after all. Prisha wished she had something else to say that would warm the girl’s silent reticence, but there was another question that burned inside of her. Should she ask her about the scars or simply stick to easy-going small talk. It was a calculated risk. It very well might piss Violet off and end the conversation, but she had to go for it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. “I’m going to ask you a personal question. You can tell me to fuck off if you like,” Violet turned to look at Prisha in surprise. Prisha could see that her good eye was a clear, glassy green. “What?” “What happened to your eyes?” She wasn’t sure if Violet would answer, then made a motion with her head, nodding toward something behind Prisha. “An explosion. On that boat,” Prisha turned for a second to reexamine the wreckage behind them. Holy hell. Someone had survived that? The level of endurance it would take to survive such a horrific situation… Louis was right. This girl was a badass. “Sounds like quite a story,” “It’s not one we share,” Wait, had Louis and Clementine been there too? But both of them looked fine. Why was Violet the only one injured? Prisha was dying to know more, but she understood not wanting to pontificate on what had likely been one of the worst nights of their lives. So Prisha simply nodded, hoping it conveyed the respect she felt. “Fair enough,” Prisha’s tone changed, taking one a conciliatory note. “I apologize if my question came across as blunt. I find that these days it’s better to address the scars people bear than pretend I don’t see them. It tends to cut through a lot of the bullshit,” “I can respect that,” Thank God she hadn’t offended her. A thick skin was needed to have survived this long in the apocalypse, but that didn’t mean there weren’t still those who would bite your head off if you looked at them wrong. Prisha met Violet’s eyes with a level gaze. She was truly fascinating. “Prisha!” Ed called. “We need your help showing our guests how your latest contraption works!” “Coming, Ed!” Prisha turned to Violet. “Would you like to see it too? It’s a pronged fishing spear. My attempt at increasing accuracy,” Violet shrugged. “Sure,” “Awesome.” Prisha paused for a second, wondering if extending a dinner invitation would be too chummy. Whatever – she’d been successful in her conversational endeavors so far hadn’t she? “You know, if you all have time to stay I’m sure Ed will invite you to join us for dinner. It’s been a long time since we had company,” A small, quiet smile came across Violet’s face. “That’d be nice,” “The feeling’s mutual. After you,” As they walked toward the group, Prisha snuck another glance at Violet. The girl had looked downright aggressive when she’d seen her from a distance, but now, walking next to her, Prisha felt calm, like she had earned the girl’s respect. She wasn’t sure how much more she could learn about her before the night was over, but Prisha was sure that Violet’s was a face she would remember long after her group had moved on. Something about her just stuck with her, though Prisha couldn’t put her finger on it just yet. With her luck, the answer would likely come to her after her group was long gone from her life. Oh, well. Not everything in life needed an answer. For now, she would simply enjoy the uncommon blessing that was a dinner spent with newfound friends.

#clouis #twdg #telltale the walking dead #fanfic #twdg prisha #twdg privet #twdg violet #twdg louis #twdg clementine

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monmorgandy · 2 years ago

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flickr

Rosebay Rhododendron Great Smoky Mountains by Mark Via Flickr: Rosebay Rhododendron Along Walker Camp Prong Sevier county, Tennessee Mountains Accessed via US-441 (Newfound Gap Road) in Gatlinburg Date taken: July 12, 2016 While I've concentrated on Catawba Rhododendron blooms for years now, I've failed to show the same attention and appreciation to the more common Rosebay Rhododendron. I made it a point this year to spend a couple of days in the Smokies to check out the bloom along the many waterways. I found the Walker Camp Prong along Newfound Gap Highway to be particularly dense with blooms. Rosebay Rhododendron are evergreen shrubs that thrive in understory and typically can be found around riparian areas of the southern Appalachians.

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topmixtrends · 7 years ago

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CRITICAL CONSENSUS HOLDS that Wes Anderson movies are about loss. For some artists, aestheticism acts as a kind of spider’s silk: a complexly structured beauty proves best for binding and healing whatever wound. As with a play by the unloved Wilde or a mazurka by the exiled Chopin, the sheer symmetrical precision of an Anderson film knits up and covers over trauma the way that Richie Tenenbaum’s bandages knit up his slashed wrists.

But Isle of Dogs, the director’s most recent stop-motion effort, is not a movie about loss. It’s not even about losing, nor about the ethical and aesthetic miracle of sustaining a marvelously well-ordered fantasy in the face of devastation — you know, that whole Anderson thing.

By contrast, Isle of Dogs is a movie about finding: finding a dog, finding your friends and family, finding your purpose and your identity. So it is slightly difficult to integrate it into the Anderson oeuvre: its primary affect is not sorrow or melancholy but anger, its aesthetic a kind of closely controlled, roiling ickiness: packs of grimy dogs explode into fights, samurai heads fall off, planes burst into immaculate balls of cotton-fluff smoke, sushi fish are hacked up squirmingly alive. At every point in the film (and the film is surprisingly unpleasant to watch for precisely this reason), Anderson seems to ask what forms, what styles, are commensurate to rage — and not just to rage but to a double-pronged, rage-driven teen quest to defeat the patent unfairness of the world.

A first answer would appear to be taiko drumming: in a well of light, surrounded by darkness, three well-fleshed, bare-chested adolescents hammer out a theme by Oscar-winner Alexandre Desplat. We are then drawn into an epic expository sequence about a centuries-old conflict between the dogs of Japan and the cat-loving Kobayashi dynasty, which still controls the fictional Uni Prefecture, which in turns contains the fictional city of Megasaki. Cut to the issuing of a municipal decree by the mayor of Megasaki, who is also the current head of the Kobayashi dynasty, 20 years in the future, as measured from our heterodiegetic present: infected with something called “Dog Flu,” all of the city’s dogs are to be quarantined on Trash Island, now known as the Isle of Dogs. The mayor’s ward, Atari Kobayashi (Koyu Rankin), aged 12 — granted, not quite a teen, but pissed as hell, a classic Anderson pubescent — watches from the shadows as his beloved guard dog, Spots (Liev Schreiber), is sent off in a crate as proof that his guardian means business.

Revealed mostly in flashbacks, Spots’s fate furnishes one of the film’s intricate, Andersonian subplots; just as crammed with reversals, the A story details Atari’s quest to find Spots on Trash Island. He’s helped by a pack of alpha dogs voiced by regular Anderson collaborators: former house pets Rex (Edward Norton), King (Bob Balaban), Boss (Bill Murray), and Duke (Jeff Goldblum), plus Chief (Bryan Cranston), a former stray. If this sounds cute, well, it isn’t. The film’s violence is remarkably violent. Chief’s a scrapper: in his first scene he chews off another dog’s ear. It sits like a hot-sauced chicharron in the center of the screen, vaguely horrid and blood-spotted, until it’s dragged away by a rat. As they journey, the dogs pass through a series of gorgeously bleak landscapes, arguing among themselves all the while. The group’s conflicts usually center on Rex, head of the pets — who wants to help Atari — and Chief, sole gutter spawn, who’s keeping an open mind on the question of whether the dogs should just eat him. Cranston-as-Chief sometimes sounds so threateningly grumpy his performance sometimes loses its comic touch.

The B plot follows Tracy Walker (Greta Gerwig), a foreign exchange student from Ohio and the second prong of Anderson’s preteen anger force. Tracy is a cub reporter on the Megasaki Senior High newspaper; she is also very noticeably pissed. She declares she’s angry at several points. She hates the mayor, hates that he’s corrupt, hates that no one in Megasaki can see how corrupt and unfair the treatment of its dog population might be. She chews her gum so hard you can hear it — that’s how pissed she is. As she discovers that a massive conspiracy lies behind the dogs’ expulsion, she only gets madder. On the hunt for a serum to cure the dogs of Trash Island, she bursts into a bar and screams down a bereaved scientist voiced by Yoko Ono. The scene is almost unwatchably unpleasant: anger is, based on the scantiness of its representation, more unsettling than fear or grief. On the other hand, there’s a certain bravery in showing us a character’s outrage, even at the cost of showing — or trying to show us — things atrocious enough to outrage both the character and the audience.

Unlike cats, who conspire with the corrupt Kobayashis, the dogs of Megasaki are fundamentally innocent — and so, of course, people would send them to hell, misdirection of our own pain or culpability onto the nearest possible Other being the single great talent of humankind. Thus scapegoated, the dogs form their own raggedy community. And again, an ugliness, an ickiness, holds the day despite the ingenuity, the sheer (and familiar) beauty of certain of Anderson’s shots. The emaciated, dirty, insomniac creatures we see in an early montage flirt with the Burton-esque. The atrocities perpetrated on another subcommunity of Trash Island dogs — the survivors of a medical facility where they were experimented on — leaves many of them with glass eyes, tubes sticking out of their necks, or, in the case of the old, much-bereaved dog Gondo (Harvey Keitel), a face that’s half-bald and decorated with medical tattoos. (Keitel’s monologue about the loss of his own fellow canine best friend — riven by instinctive howling — is the film’s best performance.)

Anderson has never shied from medical horror, torture, arterial blood, knives, arrows, severed heads, severed fingers, small arms, pepper spray, flamethrowers, sabers, shoves out of windows and down stairs, punches to the nose, and bigtime scuffles of the squad-of-baddies-on-squad-of-hapless-heroes or bro-on-bro or even the kid-on-kid kind. In Moonrise Kingdom, Social Services threatens 12-year-old Sam Shakusky with electric shock for refusing to betray his true love, Suzy Bishop; Anderson’s previous stop-motion film, Fantastic Mr. Fox, also sports with amputations and gory gallows humor. But Isle throbs with a much darker and more disturbing intensity than any of Anderson’s other films. It flirts with the thin representational line between slapstick and cruelty. In two different instances, we are left to think that our favorite characters — sweet innocent dogs — have either starved to death or been incinerated. Audible gasps of adult discomfort accompanied both scenes both times I saw the film. Not for nothing is its PG-13 rating for “violent images.”

But that makes the film a challenge — its nearest animal-tale analogue, so far as I can tell, is Art Spiegelman’s Maus. At the very least, it helps furnish some internal answer as to what to do about movies that, like this one, seem to make people very mad.

Upon the film’s release, some heralded Isle of Dogs as prescient; they celebrated it, for example, for its celebration of student protest. But the idealism of the pro-dog movement as headed by the gum-snapping, conspiracy-busting Tracy doesn’t much resemble anything that young people might find to protest. In a certain sense — although no one in the film can know this, since the humans and the dogs in Megasaki don’t speak the same language — Chief and co. are quirky but loyal old-fashioned, white-sounding dudes who want nothing more than to find masters. Counterpoised against this wholesome if utterly outdated modus vivendi is a vision of fascist evil decidedly incomplete — a vision of camps and complete dog extermination that conjures up the Holocaust but that leaves aside other ways that fascism has expressed itself in any moment closer to Tracy’s and Atari’s or our own.

Whether it is appropriate to aestheticize the Holocaust is one question (shades of Maus again — but the film has none of the comic book’s claim to history); strong views on both sides would make for a real conversation. But the film has attracted even stronger takes. Though the critical dust has mostly settled, the film’s reception was hampered by charges of cultural appropriation: Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times wrote a scathing review of what he saw as Anderson’s failures. But as a recent piece at The New Yorker rightly points out, Anderson did not invent the commodification or appropriation of Japanese culture, and Japonism was often aided and abetted by the Japanese. Indeed, the mayor of Megasaki is a thundering Asian dictator — very close to racist stereotype — but then again, he looks not a little like the thundering dictator-to-be who runs our country. And if Anderson’s fictional Megasaki is no more than a Japanese-ish place outside of history, that’s for better and for worse, too. We learn that Trash Island was repeatedly destroyed by the natural disasters to which the Japanese archipelago is in fact susceptible — volcanoes, tidal waves — but the film’s Japan does not seem to have known the unnatural disaster that killed twice as many people as the nearest natural contender. There is something moderately disturbing about a Japan that has never known the American atomic bomb — and then again, there’s something beautiful about it, too.

To me, there is nothing (or maybe only one thing) about Isle of Dogs that seems finally vehemently unjust. In many of its aspects — perhaps especially in its complex idealization of a universal emotion — the film is a reminder that our representations can adopt a playful, inter-cultural permeability. One hopes that at the same time, though, we are still pursuing, honing, and revising a better understanding of what kinds of representations by what kinds of people are just. This knowledge — which is made and assembled and broken down and reassembled collectively, like all other forms of knowledge — involves an awareness not only of race or ethnicity or nationality but of the intersections of those constructs with gender and class and then, too, with history and with the way that historiography is shaped by power relations. And at the same time, a person has to grapple with the idea that elite internationalist culture of the kind Anderson now incarnates exploits anyone who has no access to the free movement of capital between countries.

Which is to say that that process is long and complex as hell. No one artist can be expected to manage all of these relations; no one artist ever has. Ideally, too, no critic should fly off the handle without understanding what the purpose of their flying off the handle might be.

So here I go flying right off the handle. Watch me.

Wes Anderson might or might not want to know that his film’s vision of gender struck me as frankly awful. We have Tracy and Yoko in Isle of Dogs’s human population, but there are only three “bitches” in the film. And yes, “bitch” is the word the dogs use. It’s a joke that never lands anything but awkwardly, the kind of obsolete and embarrassing joke my dad would make to utter silence at the dinner table. One, the pug, Oracle (Tilda Swinton), is sexless; the other two, Nutmeg (Scarlett Johansson) and Peppermint (Kara Hayward), function purely as love interests for alphas — or rather, and more grimly, as prospective mates. Nutmeg’s character arc consists solely of reversing her original objection that no one should bring puppies into the world of Trash Island and becoming a mother. (The change? The dogs escape from Trash Island.)

Nutmeg is a fancy show dog, and she sometimes does amazing tricks for Chief — balancing on her front paws while juggling invisible bowling balls or bowling pins — but this finally incomplete attempt to make her seem interesting only makes it too easy to imagine that with slightest story tweaks she could, er, actually do something. As it is, she exists solely to suggest to Chief that he should help Atari find Spots — that is, to use her sexual magnetism to help an emotionally stunted alpha male remember what’s important about life. And yes, Chief does eventually find a job and become a family man, a bizarrely schlocky outcome for any Anderson protagonist. Worst is that the proposition and subsequent worship of these sorts of faux-interesting female characters is an easily solvable problem, one that could have been fixed in any number of ways without altering the film’s vision.

Unless that vision is finally and most importantly the sad, worn-out vision of indomitable American masculinity. Chief can’t make a good house pet because, as he reminds us frequently, he bites. And why does he bite? He doesn’t know. He’s aggressive, he’s never known love — and even when he does, at film’s end, become a “good boy” and agree to serve as Atari’s new guard dog, he still struggles not to bite the shit out of visiting dignitaries. His ultimate virility is verified at the end of the film by Nutmeg, who assures him that she isn’t attracted to tame animals. Fine: Wildness is a virtue. But the film’s characterological structure suggests that Nutmeg only understands Chief because she is the tamest possible animal (that is, a show dog). The story of Chief and Nutmeg feels like a warmed-over Lady and the Tramp — when so much more might have been possible in terms of either character and in terms of their relationship.

Then again, their love could be read as an incarnation of the two central columns of Andersonian filmmaking and of Isle of Dogs itself: the unpredictable and chaotic in Chief, his rage and sorrow, is elaborated out into the exquisite comical expertise of Nutmeg’s tricks. And that is neither objectionable nor regrettable but rather the mark of a mature film, one that figures its own making inside itself.

The point, I think, is that any film is only ever the film that it is. But it also lives differently in each historical moment and persists or dies differently in the way that, not just each culture, but each one of us remembers or forgets it — how much we choose to argue and about what. For now, Isle of Dogs is, for me, memorable as one of the few testaments to how important it is to be pissed, how it is surprisingly possible to make and explore within a state of outrage, of conviction usually considered too much, too large, and too loud for complex and careful thought, much less for beautiful form.

Marc Dragon lives and works in Los Angeles.

The post The Madness to Wes Anderson’s Method appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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geekprincess26 · 7 years ago

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The Straw Clue: Why I Believe Jon Snow is Undercover

A/N: This is a repost of the meta I published yesterday. I’ve edited it for clarification and because the original post eliminated a couple of key details that I wanted to include. Hence the revised and (I hope) improved version of this weary Jonsa fan’s attempt to organize her thoughts about the “Undercover Jon” theory and overcome her meta writer’s block once and for all:

Over the past few weeks, I’ve explored all manner of amazing metas and discussions on Tumblr that delve into the “Undercover Jon” theory. It’s taken me a while to process them all (not to mention calm my nerves, which were so rudely jangled by the season finale) and figure out where I stand on the continuum of opinions among my fellow Jonsa fans, which seems to range the gamut between these two opinions:

1) Jon is a hopelessly honorable Northern fool, just like Ned Stark. He made the same mistake with the Northern lords this season that he did with the brothers of the Night’s Watch in season 5, when he allowed the Wildlings through the Wall against his brothers’ wishes because he believed with all his heart that it was the right and honorable thing to do, and it would serve his end goal of fighting against the White Walkers. This season, he made another highly unpopular decision – leaving Winterfell and heading south to Dragonstone – because he believed, once again, that it would serve the higher purpose of saving the North, and all of Westeros, from the White Walkers. Once at Dragonstone, he found himself outmaneuvered and in over his head. He found himself imprisoned and Daenerys (mostly) unresponsive to his appeals for assistance and recognition of the demonic force about to envelop Westeros in its icy grasp. He initially chose to embark on a suicide mission rather than give away his people’s freedom, but over the course of that mission, Daenerys helped him, saved his men’s lives, and lost one of her precious “children” in the process. Her sacrifice won his trust and respect so completely that he decided she was a worthy ally, worthy enough to rule the North as well as the rest of Westeros. Trust and respect turned to love, or at least deep admiration, and the boat scene happened. In other words, he acted like a noble idiot, just as his “father” Ned Stark did.

2) Jon Snow’s time with the Wildlings and his experiences with Northern politics have made him a capable deceiver. He’ll never be in Petyr Baelish’s league because he is honest and honorable at heart, but he’s become pragmatic and practiced enough to use deception when he deems it necessary in the service of a greater good. Before heading to Dragonstone, he (with Sansa’s counsel and approval, probably) formed a master plan to spend his time at Dragonstone (a) persuading Daenerys to believe and help him, and, in the event that failed or took any significant length of time, (b) learning every nook and cranny of Daenerys’s and her allies’ strengths and weaknesses so he could use them as leverage to persuade her, if necessary. He failed to carry out the first prong of this strategy at first, but he succeeded spectacularly at the second. He observed a great deal about Daenerys, but played the “quiet, brooding Northerner” card so that she could not discover any weaknesses to use against him. Eventually, he discovered that her crush on him was her greatest weakness, and he took advantage of it to the hilt in episodes 6 and 7 by pretending to bend the knee and convincing her that he returned her affections. However, he meant none of it, and he doesn’t trust her or her dragons as far as he can throw any of them. He only did what he did because it was necessary for him to gain her trust and assistance against the White Walkers, and he’ll abdicate the Northern throne in Sansa’s favor if he has to in order to ensure that the North stays free and independent.

The more “Game of Thrones” fans’ opinions I encountered, both within and outside of the Jonsa fandom, the more I also observed a sharp break not too far past point 1) on this continuum. People who congregate back toward 1) from that point believe some variation of the opinion that Jon truly fell for Daenerys and will be content to relinquish the North to her permanently, even if he initially did not intend to do either. On the other side of the break are those who believe that Jon’s quick relinquishment of the North and rush of apparent affection for Daenerys are too implausible and inconsistent with his character to be taken at face value. Therefore, the only plausible explanation for his actions is that he is deceiving Daenerys to some extent in service of his plan to defeat the White Walkers. People on this side of the continuum may disagree as to the extent of that deception – did he have a master plan complete with backups before he headed off to Dragonstone? Did he go there with every intention of gaining Daenerys’s assistance by honest means, only to find himself backed into a corner by her skepticism and insistence that he bend the knee, and see deception as the only way to get out of that corner and gain the friendship of a foreigner he didn’t trust but did need in the only way he felt he could? Was it some odd combination of the two? However, everyone in this camp seems to agree that at some point Jon decided he could not get Daenerys to help him by employing any means other than deception (whether about his affections, his willingness to bend the knee, or something else), and eventually he did so in order to accomplish the greater good of defeating the Army of the Dead.

When I first watched episodes 6 (ugh) and 7, I found myself in the first camp, and that hit me right in my tender, Jonsa-shipping heart. Jon Snow may be a man of few words and know how to play his cards close to his chest, but Kit Harington has always managed to convey his emotions beautifully with his mastery of non-verbal cues. Look at the way he cradled Ygritte’s lifeless body in his arms at Castle Black, or the internal war revealed by the way he grimaced while she was ripping him a new one about being loyal to “his woman” while he and the Wildlings were preparing to climb the Wall. He looked so defeated at the end of the tent scene before the Battle of the Bastards, when Sansa threw his offer of protection back in his face, that I wanted to leap through the screen and give him a hug. When he pleaded with the Northern lords to understand his reasons for going to Dragonstone in episode 2 of this season, I disagreed with him, but that sad, hurt look of resigned determination on his face made me want to yell at the Northern lords for ganging up on my poor kicked puppy. Jon Snow may not speak much except at need, but when he does, he’s usually as honest as they come. So even though I was very disappointed in his acquiescence to Daenerys, I initially couldn’t find any other explanation for his actions more plausible than “he meant it, because he said it, and Jon Snow’s always been a little too much of a Ned 2.0.”

But then I read countless metas and discussions and thought some more about this season in general and Jon’s behavior in particular. I re-watched a number of scenes that intrigued me. That was when it happened: I finally made the leap onto the other side of the continuum break. I had a number of reasons for doing so, but the factor that tipped the scales – the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back – was the way Jon acted during his final scene in episode 6, when he (seemingly) offered the North to Daenerys without even being asked to do it. No variation of the “honest Northern fool” theory could account for his behavior to my satisfaction, so that left only one alternative explanation: namely, that Jon meant to secure Daenerys’s aid by using any means necessary, including flattery (“I’m so sorry about your dragon”; “they’ll see you for what you are”), the (likely false) implication that he would hand her the Northern throne, and any other deception he thought necessary to perpetrate. How exactly did the thought process of a reluctant convert work? More or less like this:

During his last scene of the episode “Beyond the Wall,” I watched Jon Snow, heretofore one of my favorite “Game of Thrones” characters, disappear before my very eyes. Gone was the skeptical, strait-laced, reluctant (and not always competent) diplomat who had to that point stubbornly refused to hand his beloved North over to the mercurial Daenerys Targaryen, whom he had plenty of reasons not to trust. As soon as he opened his eyes from his berth on Daenerys’s ship to see her staring at him, he was replaced by the character I now refer to as “Doppelganger Jon.” He turned on a dime into a starstruck, lovelorn knight all too willing to abandon his every promise to the North and especially to the only family he had left (Sansa, Arya, and Bran) in order to please his temperamental, untrustworthy, but suddenly irresistible lady love. From that point until the rest of the season, his voice softened and his eyes lit up practically every time he saw Daenerys. He coddled her, reassured her, made love to her, and made me wonder just what manner of creature had body-snatched the King in the North - especially when episode 7 and The-Scene-That-Shall-Never-Be-Named came along.

And I found that behavior to be even more inconsistent with Jon’s character even than outright deception. Jon has shown a willingness to deceive others (albeit reluctantly) in the service of a greater purpose, but he’s never shown the slightest bent toward falling head over heels into the bed of a woman he told to take a hike two episodes prior. This is the man who refused to bed a very willing prostitute because he was afraid he’d father a bastard; the same man who refused a very willing Ygritte until faced with the possibility of blowing his cover to the Wildlings; and the same man who refused a very willing Melisandre because he was still mourning the only woman he’d ever loved. It took him quite some time even to fall in love with Ygritte, at that, and in the end he left her regardless in order to keep his Night’s Watch vows.

By season 7, Jon had become even more of a skeptic about love and about people in general than he was back in season 3, when he fell for Ygritte – and therefore, in my book, even less likely to turn on a dime and fall swooning into Daenerys’s arms. His stint in the Night’s Watch taught him both how to betray others (Ygritte and the Wildlings) and how little he could trust even his sworn “brothers” (in the cases of the mutinies against himself and Jeor Mormont). Therefore, it would take a lot longer than two episodes for him to go from telling a woman he clearly didn’t trust to stick her bend-the-knee demands where the sun didn’t shine (”Eastwatch”) to bedding her with wild abandon. Even though she did agree to help him, it was in a moment of overwhelming emotion, and her past behavior had given Jon more than enough reasons to look upon that agreement with his usual healthy skepticism. What if she went back on that agreement in a moment of anger? What if she decided to use her dragons on a recalcitrant North that refused to follow its king’s lead in bending the knee? No, Jon needed to ensure that Daenerys’s willingness to help him was permanent, and the most logical way for him to do that was to use her strongest possible motivation, i.e., her desire for a romantic relationship with him. And even if, for argument’s sake, he did grow a sudden infatuation, or even affection, for Daenerys, he would not prize it above his ultimate loyalty to his family, his people, and the survival of Westeros if he had to choose between the two. He left a woman (Ygritte) before for the sake of his “brothers,” and he’d do it again if he had to. He needed to win Daenerys over and to ensure that she would stay on his side, but it wasn’t for love. It was for the sake, once again, of a greater good: the survival of Westeros and the North and his family. The Jon Snow we’ve known for six and a half seasons would die on that hill, and his sudden apparent retreat from it at the end of episode 6 was too bizarre a turnabout for me to swallow, even accounting for the season’s exceptionally bad writing. It was the straw that broke my camel’s back and made a convert out of me. To what extent his deceptions were planned and to what extent he flew by the seat of his pants, I’m still trying to sort out in my own mind, but I believe this one thing to be true:

Jon Snow is undercover, y’all. It is known.

#undercover lover jon #jon snow #game of thrones #anti-jonerys #game of thrones meta theories #my ramblings

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jeffmarley · 6 years ago

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Walker Camp Prong Overlook, pen & marker, 2018 #drawings #inktober2018 #pen #gsmnp https://www.instagram.com/p/BodLjEkBp2i/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1g31ekusn0xs9

#drawings #inktober2018 #pen #gsmnp

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cheapfaresnews · 8 years ago

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Splurge on Select Travel Gadgets

While planning an affordable trip requires carefully reviewing your cheap travel options, including cheap fares, cheap deals, cheap airplane tickets, discount hotel rooms, discount travel deals, and cheap vacation packages, that does not mean you should travel with the least expensive travel tools.

Just because frequent travelers are endlessly in search of good deals, purchasing cheap travel accessories makes little sense if they are not going to last or perform at a high level. The following are travel tools worth investing in once and how they will improve your future trips, according to Shannon McMahon:

· Noise-cancelling wireless headphones are worth the price if you experience problems sleeping on a plane or want to block out the noise around you. “SleepPhones” look like a soft headband, but come with wireless speakers inside that allow the user to sleep in any position on the plane. These headphones are so comfortable that you might easily forget you are wearing them.

Alternatively, comfortable noise-canceling headphones that pack small such as Bose’s wireless “QuietComfort 35” are worth considering if you find yourself having to turn on your volume at its highest level to block outside noise.

· A universal power adapter will prevent you from accidentally blowing a fuse, blacking out your hotel, or shocking yourself. Purchase an adapter that satisfies your travel needs (i.e. that works in the part of the world you will be visiting and is compatible with the size of electronics you will be using). Zoppen’s International Travel Adapter works in Japan, U.K., E.U., and Australia and is designed to worked with small electronics (not larger appliances such as hair dryers) and comes with four USB ports for device charging. Its retractable prongs make it easy to pack.

· If you plan to hike, camp, or enjoy walks in the woods do not plan on wearing gym sneakers on your adventures. A durable pair of hiking boots will protect your feet and ankles from injury and fatigue. Keen offers hiking shoe variations for every type of adventure that are packable, durable and provide the necessary support.

· Since good pictures should last a lifetime, don’t skimp on a camera or cell phone that does not give you clear shots. If you want a device capable of zooming in and getting the best light, invest in a DSLR camera. While iPhone and Galaxy phones are not the best devices to take crystal clear shots, they will do for most trips and can be improved with clip-on lenses such as AUKEY’s HD wide-angle lenses. If your goal is to take high-resolution images, a package DSLR camera such as a Canon EOS Rebel should be considered.

· Hard sided luggage tends to be considerably more durable than soft sided. Briggs & Riley’s Sympatico hard sided spinner expands by 22 percent to fit more, and compresses back down to meet airline size limits for a carry-on. It comes with a lifetime guarantee promising the buyer that he or she will never have to pay for repairs.

· A portable combination back-up charger is a must in case one of your devices’ batteries run low. New combo units do double work by combining chargers with either a flashlight or a luggage scale. The “Oaxis Air Scale” provides a digital reading of a bag’s weight when it is not charging a device.

· Purchase organic toiletries such as “Green Goo” to apply right before exiting a plane that will save your skin and hygiene. Its all-natural products include skin-repair packs, face-wash spritz, and deodorant sticks.

· A crossbody travel bag can provide security, utility, and fashion. Selecting one on the smaller side is convenient and will help force you to carry only what you really need. Zippered pouches discourage pick pocketers. Travelon’s Anti-theft LTD Crossbody comes with RFID-blocking technology to deter digital thefts.

· If your destination will be a cold one, remember that bulky coats should not be taken on trips. Instead invest in a dense down jacket such as Patagonia’s “Nano Puff” for both men and women.

· Comfortable walking shoes are a must. New sockless shoes such as Suavs and AllBirds are both cozy and fashionable. AllBirds’ merino wool makes them incredibly comfortable walkers sneakers while Suavs’ microfiber insoles’ airflow and moisture-wicking elements prevent sweaty feet.

· If you want to take video of your active adventures in inclement weather or water, invest in a GoPro. These tiny mountable cameras are ideal for capturing active memories such as biking, snorkeling, and skiing. GoPros come in sealed waterproof cases.

www.cheapfares.com

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footyplusau · 8 years ago

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Bevo concerned by Johannisen contract delay

Luke Beveridge (left) says he’s concerned by Jason Johannisen’s decision to put off contract talks

WESTERN Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge has admitted he’s concerned Norm Smith medallist Jason Johannisen has put contract negotiations on hold until season’s end.

AFL.com.au reported on Tuesday the defensive playmaker’s management and the Bulldogs were poles apart in discussions, and that the Johannisen camp wouldn’t entertain further offers until the end of the season.

Beveridge revealed he had spoken to the 24-year-old about the stalemate, and had been assured by Johannisen that the former rookie wasn’t looking to leave Whitten Oval.

“Yeah, (I am) a little bit (concerned),” Beveridge said on Thursday.

“I think the simple way to look at it is (Jason) has backed himself to have a great year, and leverage a contract for the future.

“It doesn’t appear the lure of his (home) state (Western Australia) has anything to do with it.

“He wants to be a Bulldogs player, and that’s encouraging.

“I take him at his word and he’s a very honest person.”

Beveridge reminded Johannisen of the added pressure that came with the decision to delay contract talks.

“I did talk him about what he takes on psychologically, he’s aware of that (and) he’s made a fully informed decision to put the contract talks off,” Beveridge said.

“If ‘JJ’ can establish himself as that player who can demand the remuneration he’s after, then full credit to him.

“But as I said to him, if at any stage of the year he feels he wants to get something done earlier, let’s go there.

“There’s no reason why he can’t change his mind, but we’ll work that out.”

Second-year key defender Marcus Adams is the man most likely to replace the injured Dale Morris, with the three-pronged attack of Lance Franklin, Sam Reid and Kurt Tippett a real threat in Friday night’s Grand Final rematch against the Sydney Swans at Etihad Stadium.

Beveridge said Adams was over the homesickness that saw him enquire about a trade to one of the Perth clubs during last year’s trade period.

The hulking stopper held his own against star forwards Josh Kennedy, Taylor Walker and Matthew Pavlich last season before finger and foot injuries ended his debut campaign early.

“When I talk to Marcus, homesickness isn’t a factor. He misses family, but we all do when we move away from home,” Beveridge said.

“He played really well against Collingwood at VFL level last week, and we’ll definitely consider him (for selection) today.

“It’s more than likely he’ll come in and replace Dale.”

Teenage ruckman Tim English is still recovering shin soreness, but Beveridge said the 2016 first-round draft pick would be available for the opening round of the VFL season in two weeks time.

The post Bevo concerned by Johannisen contract delay appeared first on Footy Plus.

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ericsonclan · 5 years ago

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Meeting Prisha

Summary: Prisha’s my OC for TWDG. Gonna post some establishing shots of her so y’all can get to know and love her :D (She appears in most of our fanfics, so fingers crossed you like her)

Read on A03:

“Anyone care to explain again why I’m wearing these fucking stupid sunglasses while we traipse through the woods?” Violet grumbled. She narrowly avoiding a wandering tree root, the pink, heart-shaped glasses on her face dangling precariously on the edge of her nose as she, Louis and Clementine made their way down to the caravan meeting point.

Louis smiled as he slung Chairles over his shoulder. “I told you, Vi, you’re coming with us so you can meet someone special! The glasses are just to protect your eyesight from all the sunshine and also to impress that certain someone should the fancy strike you…” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively even though Violet was ahead of him and too busy quietly cussing to look his way. Clementine, leading the way, shot Violet an apologetic smile. “Just ignore him, Vi. The sunglasses are just a protective measure in case the sunlight in the clearing is too intense. But you shouldn’t have to wear them while we’re in the forest; the trees should provide enough shade,” “Thank God!” Violet ripped the sunglasses off of her face and tossed them behind her haphazardly. “I can’t stand those shitty things,” “Why, Violet!” Louis gasped in mock indignation. “I am truly hurt! I traded for these sunglasses with you especially in mind!” He bent down for a second to gingerly pick up the discarded sunglasses, tucking them in his shirt pocket. “I for one think they look quite cute on you,” Violet wordlessly gave him the finger without looking back. Clem sighed. “They are the best option we’ve found so far. As soon as something better comes along you can burn those things.” She ignored Louis’ screech of protest. Violet sighed. “I know what you guys are trying to do. But it’s not like I can’t stand some strangers gaping in horror at my ugly mug. If anything, maybe it’ll intimidate them into making a better deal with us. Clementine shot a concerned glance Violet’s way. The burns from the explosion and damage to her eyes had never fully recovered. It didn’t seem to make too much difference to Violet on a daily basis when she was hanging out with the other Ericson kids, but she had avoided venturing out into the outside world more than the rest of them and it was clear to Clementine that this was due to more than just her lone wolf demeanor. She wished there was a better alternative than those ridiculous glasses Louis had picked up a few months ago, but here they were, a year after the events of the Delta and they still hadn’t been able to trade for a good pair of sunglasses for Violet. That wasn’t the sole thing they were in search of today though. As they neared the clearing, Clem held up a hand to signal that they should pause. The three teens scanned the setup of the latest caravan that had temporarily settled on the shore of the river by the wreckage of Lily’s barge. There were about a dozen people in the group, with a range of ages and races in the mix. A few middle-aged men worked to erect a tent while a mother followed her toddler’s tottering steps round the encampment. A young woman stood by the wreckage of the ship, examining it curiously. Louis nudged Violet excitedly, pointing toward the girl. “There she is, Vi! Your future girlfriend!” “My future what?”

“Louis!” Clem hissed. “Don’t go jumping the gun like that! We’re just here to trade, nothing more.” “Aaaw, c’mon, Clem! I already told you what I saw!” “What are you talking about?” Violet demanded. Louis leaned closer to her, his voice low. “When Clem and I came across the group the other day and stopped to talk, that girl was totally checking out Clem’s butt!” Both girls glared at him in annoyance. “What?” “Seriously? That’s all you have to go off of?” “She was entranced! Mesmerized!” “She was probably just trying to see if I had a concealed weapon, Louis. You need to calm down!” “I saw what I saw!” “So that’s why I’m here?” Violet spat. “This is a hookup?” “No, it’s not!” Clementine insisted. “We just thought it would be good to have you along with us. It’s been a while since… you’ve been outside,” Violet wanted to have a snarky response to that. Part of her wanted to tell Clem and Louis to fuck off, that she was perfectly fine without any of their damn help. But looking at the sincere hope in Clem’s face and Louis’ goofy grin, she buried that instinct and let out a reluctant sigh. “Fine, I’ll go out there. But I am NOT wearing those stupid sunglasses.” As they approached the camp, the men at work took notice and put down what they were doing to come over. The oldest man spoke first. “Hello again. Clementine, right?” “That’s correct. And you’re Ed?” “Mhm, you remember Garrett and Gavin,” The man nodded to the two young men behind him. “And you’re Louis,” “That’s me!” Louis quipped, letting Chairles fall from his shoulder and offering his hand to the man. “This is Violet,” Violet tried to take in the men’s expressions as they saw her face. These last 9 years had hardened most people; though a moment of shock may have passed across their faces seeing the state of her eyes, their resting expressions remained inscrutable. “Last time we were here we also talked to a young woman in your group.” Louis continued. Violet felt like jabbing him in the ribs. Really, he was just going to lead with that? The man seemed unfazed though. “That’s right. Would you like to talk to her too?” He turned toward the direction of the river. “Prisha! We’ve got company!” The girl by the wreckage turned around, and for the first time Violet got a look at her features. She was still too far away to see clearly, but she could make out some things. She was tall and slim and her skin was dark – Violet guessed Indian or East Asian from the name. Violet felt her stomach twist inside of her and looked away hurriedly. This was so stupid. Clem turned to speak to Ed. “If you have the time now, we brought some of the goods you mentioned you had an interest in last we met,” Ed nodded. “Right. Our supplies are in the main tent. Garret, come with me and help me find them. Gavin, can you get the rest of the poles up on your own?” Gavin assented, and soon all three men and Clem had scattered. Shit, was this all part of the plan? Violet clenched her hands by her sides. “So, you’ve come back,” The girl had reached them and stood before Violet and Louis, hands on her hips. “Prisha! Always a pleasure,” Louis gave a dramatic bow, then popped up and took Violet by the shoulders. “I’d like you to meet a dear friend of mine. Prisha, Violet. Violet, Prisha. After hearing some stories of your escapades from your group, I thought you might enjoy meeting our resident badass.” “Is that so?” Prisha quirked an eyebrow and looked at Violet. “What’s your weapon of choice?” “Meat cleaver,” Violet muttered, looking at the ground. She didn’t want to admit that she hadn’t had much practice with it since the accident. “Fascinating choice. Mind if I see it?” Violet took it out of the sling on her back and held it out for Prisha to see. “Impressive edge. Looks like it has good upkeep.” Violet nodded noncommittally. She’d been doing nothing but sharpening it lately. “This is my weapon of choice,” Prisha said, patting something attached to her hip. Looking down, Violet could see it was some form of axe, though the reach was longer than a normal hatchet and the end in the sheath looked quite narrow, like an icepick. Louis let out a long whistle. “That’s quite the weapon. Bet it just takes one hit to down a walker,” “That’s right. This world’s full of too many goddamn walkers for me to be wearing my arms out braining each one,” “On that note – Oh, what was that Clem?” Louis turned and waved in Clementine’s direction. “Looks like she needs me. See ya later, Prisha!” “Louis-” Violet hissed, but he was already gone. A moment of awkward silence fell between the girls. Prisha quickly broke it. “Your friends are good people. We had just started to set up camp yesterday when a pack of walkers showed up out of nowhere. Marie was in a tough spot when they came across us. Even after they got her out, they stuck around till the whole pack was cleared out,” “Yeah, we try to keep things clear in this area since it’s a common resting spot for caravans,” “That’s thoughtful of you. Not many groups that look out for anyone besides their own these days,” Violet looked over to Louis and Clementine. They were going through some large bags Ed and Garrett had brought out. “What can I say? Those idiots wouldn’t have it any other way,” There was a pause. “I’m going to ask you a personal question. You can tell me to fuck off if you like,” Violet turned to look at Prisha in surprise. The girl’s face was confident and collected. Now that she was closer, Violet could see that she had surprisingly long hair that rested in a large braided bun at the base of her neck. Violet swallowed nervously. Her throat felt thick. “What?” “What happened to your eyes?” There it was. “An explosion. On that boat,” Prisha turned for a second to reexamine the wreckage behind them. “Sounds like quite a story,” “It’s not one we share,” “Fair enough. I apologize if my question came across as blunt. I find that these days it’s better to address the scars people bear than pretend I don’t see them. It tends to cut through a lot of the bullshit,” “I can respect that,” “Prisha!” Ed called. “We need your help showing our guests how your latest contraption works!” “Coming, Ed!” Prisha turned to Violet. “Would you like to see it too? It’s a pronged fishing spear. Sort of like a trident. My attempt at increasing the chances of getting in a good shot,” Violet shrugged. “Sure,” “Awesome. You know, if you all have time to stay I’m sure Ed will invite you to join us for dinner. It’s been a long time since we had company,” Violet felt the hint of a smile tugging at her lips. “That’d be nice,” “The feeling’s mutual. After you,” As they walked toward the group, Violet could see Louis making some sort of sign that looked like a thumbs up, which was quickly slapped down by Clem. Violet rolled her eyes. That idiot. Yet, a little part inside of her warmed up at the gesture. They’d been right. She’d been long overdue to head outside. And from what she’d seen, what they found past the old safe zone wasn’t half bad.

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