#and unfortunately mikayla always gets the guy because look at her.

[notvictims]

thinking about mikayla growing up and how any time she would realize she’s growing feelings for any of her friends she just completely ruins the entire friendship and makes the girl hate her because that dumb drama was easier to deal with than the thought of anything progressing and hiding that from her dad

[douxreviews]

Cloak and Dagger - ‘White Lines’ Review

"Well, I guess the cat’s out of the bag."

Have I ever mentioned before how much this show enjoys subverting our expectations?

Official spoiler warning on maximum, right up front. In a minute or two I'm going to talk about the big twist reveal at the very end of this episode. There is a monster at the end of this book.

You have to give them credit. When Cloak and Dagger decides to go with an unusual episode structure, they commit to it 100%. This week we got a variation on the kind of fragmented structure that normally gets associated with Tarantino, although my personal go-to association for this kind of thing is the movie Go.

Go, for those who haven't seen it, tells the story of a single night from four different characters perspective, reaching the end of the night with one character and then restarting the night back at the beginning with the same scene but following a different character from that scene onward. It's gimmicky, but when it works it really works. Go used it to explore the movie's themes by contrasting the characters' experiences. Tarantino usually uses it to disguise reveals that change our understanding of what we've already seen. This week's episode of Cloak and Dagger... seems to be just using it to disorient the viewer by presenting the end result of later sections before we have any context for them. This, admittedly, has the effect of putting the viewer in the same headspace as the character currently being followed, but all it really achieves is to make you repeatedly say, 'huh?' to yourself before each commercial break.

What I'm really saying is that in this specific case, this particular storytelling technique took more away from the episode than it contributed.

I really hate to say that, because 'too ambitiously experimental' is not a problem you come across in broadcast television terribly often, and I really, really don't want this to read like I'm discouraging it. And I can see what they were aiming for. They were attempting to use the episode structure to mirror the visual metaphor of the veve that was drawn at the crime scene, which is why the veve was the foundational image that we came back to the first two times. Every line of the veve, Auntie Chantelle tells us, has it's own independent meaning, coming together to form a symbolic whole. As thematic hooks for your episode structure go, that's not a bad starting point. The intention was that each section would have its own thematic vibe, all of which would together form the big reveal about Mayhem. Unfortunately, the independent sections weren't really about exploring theme, they were about plot reveals. They were structuring for Go, but plotting for Tarantino, and as a result the non-linear structure ended up being more confusing than revelatory.

Wow, that it a really pretentious way for me to say that the story being told would have worked better if they'd just told it in a straight line, even if that would have blown the reveal at the end.

Having overstated that, let's talk about the good stuff here, because there's lots of good stuff here. The way that they are leaning heavy into both Ty and Tandy not being over last season's finale is bold stuff. Instead of having them process what happened to them and starting a new story, the showrunners have instead made Ty and Tandy attempting to process what happened to them be the starting point of the new story. I like that. It feel more like storytelling and less like bookkeeping. So, while the scale of Tandy's victim-blaming that we see this week is a little startling, it feels like the natural development of her own anger at herself for not understanding her father as an abuser, and that just straight-up works as character growth. Similarly, Ty's growing realization that there aren't any simple fixes for the city's drug and gang problems, and that every attempt he makes at a simple solution instead makes the problem magnitudes worse are causing him to learn more about his powers in a way that feels like a mature response to his situation.

The character work for both of them has been so good in these first two episodes that I'm a little disappointed to see the season's actual plot starting to come into things.

Also in the 'good' column, I'm a bit surprised to find out that the season's plot is something separate from Mayhem's existence, but not nearly as surprised as I was by the reveal that Brigid and Mayhem are two separate people. That's a big change from the source material, and I have a million questions about it. Well played, show. It was particularly inspired the way the direction of this episode used our expectations of film language against us. We've all seen the 'good personality and bad personality of the antagonist argue with one another' sequence before, most notably with Gollum in The Two Towers and Willum Defoe's Norman Osborne in Sam Raime's Spider Man, so to use that same shot set-up, only to later reveal that they were really showing us what was literally happening and that there were actually two people there, was a great trick.

So, Mayhem is Bridgid, but is physically split apart from Brigid, a la Timothy Hutton in The Dark Half. Mayhem is distinguishable from Brigid by her sassier walk, her not being drunk all the time, and her bright green fingernail polish which is a little nod toward the character's look in the comics. I'm all in for wherever the Mayhem plot is going.

I'm not yet entirely invested in whatever is going on with the kidnapped girls and the private ambulance fleet, mostly because what little information we have about that situation was completely muddied by the plot structure jumping around. Are the drugging every girl they kidnap? Why did they shoot Mikayla full of heroin and then let her go? There's a slight implication that they let her go because she's white, but that doesn't make sense since she was kidnapped in broad daylight and the kidnappers would have probably noticed that right off the bat. I'm going to need more information before knowing how I feel about this plotline.

Bits and Pieces:

-- The two things that the pre-season publicity promised were that Ty and Tandy would power up and that Mayhem would arrive. We got both of those this week.

-- One of Dagger's big powers in the funnybooks is that her light knives clean drugs out of people's systems. I really thought they were going there when she was at Mikayla's bedside. Missed opportunity.

-- As long as we're on the subject, having people physically crawl inside Cloak before he teleports them away is a much cooler image than just having Ty hold on to them. Sadly, Ty holding on to them is a lot cheaper to do. I hope at least once this season we get to see the proper effect.

-- The veve made out of drugs with blood pooling next to it was a striking image. I have to confess that I have no idea if it was supposed to be cocaine or heroin or some other drug.

-- That was a lot of wind suddenly coming in from the hallway and then completely disappearing.

-- Ty has never been a more authentic teenage guy. Every single thing he said to apologize to Evita was completely the wrong thing to say.

-- Auntie Chantelle casting a veve to protect Ty from Evita's anger was laugh out loud funny.

-- It's nice how consistently respectful this show is to Voudon as a belief system. And Auntie's explanation of the benefits of prayer was lovely.

-- Andre's jazz career was ended by migraines. That was an unexpected character note. I was expecting the same cliched answer that Tandy was.

-- I'm hugely grateful that they made Lia the counselor a flawed human being whose first instinct toward Tandy was to lash out. Counselors are almost always shown as saintlike and flawless on television, for fear of your show appearing to criticize therapy as a process. I don't know a single therapist who doesn't appreciate being humanized.

-- This episode ended with a card for loveisrespect.org for those dealing with domestic abuse. I repeat it here, because it's important.

Quotes:

Ty: "People don’t choose to struggle Tandy. They don’t choose to hurt. Doing nothing is not a solution."

Tandy: "Maybe people don’t want to be saved."

Mikayla: "I told Jeremy that I’m in therapy, and how much it‘s helping me, and he said I absolutely need to keep working on myself. He totally supports it."

Tandy: "I lived in an abandoned church for years, and still somehow escaped unmolested by spirituality."

Woman: "I’m going to tell chief Duchamp about this outrageous behavior." Mayhem: "I’ll let you know when I give a shit."

Mayhem: "I’m a cop. I can be wherever I want."

Evita: "I came here to apologize. I mean, not for what I said, because I was right. On all of it."

I loved just about everything this episode was doing, but not so much the way it was attempting to do it.

Two and a half out of four cocaine veves.

Mikey Heinrich is, among other things, a freelance writer, volunteer firefighter, and roughly 78% water.

[zubeia]

2, 5, 9

Who is your favorite person in the world?

my dad!

Describe one of the best days of your life.

it was friday after school. the dance would start at 6:30pm, and asb was working hard to put the final touches on the posters and decorations. kelsie, katie, joie, and pluto helped me put up the soundboard poster i was in charge of. it looked really nice. pluto, alondra, joie, and i then worked on the front entrance poster. it was orange. i chose to use sparkly teal paint for the lettering. they helped me pour paint. i caught a glimpse of pluto as he was getting paint and i think i just saw an angel. he looked really beautiful. when we were painting, alondra was teasing me asking who me i liked. after a moment’s hesitation when pluto was talking to someone, i told her. her face lit up. i think pluto thought it was cute. then joie, kelsie, pluto, and i worked on papering the tables for the food area. his forearms were really nice. i stared. a lot. then gillian told me to start blowing up balloons. i went with pluto, justin, and david to do that. i handed pluto the balloons and he put the mouth of the balloon on the nozzle of the inflator thingamabob. our hands touched a lot. then i went with kelsie to starbucks bc we really needed the caffeine boost. i was super tired after staying up late doing walden journals. i had a huge headache, too. i got a strawberry acai. we talked about farts on the way back and trailed behind a group of 9th graders. when we returned, a ton of people took a sip of our drinks. we didn’t mind.

after washing some vegetables and stuff, we changed. i wore a black shirt and huge floral skirt with snakes on it. i felt like a princess. i stayed in the entrance of the school with matthew for half an hour to collect money, greet people, and give each person two glowstick bracelets. then i left to go to the food area and secretly look for pluto. he wasn’t there. kelsie later told me he was waiting for me past the entrance. i think we spent about an hour of the dance trying to find each other. eventually, ankita (one of my wing women) and riley (i guess he’s my wing man) looked for pluto and brought him to me. we served people in the food area together. it was really fun. then catie pulled me away and i hung out with her and hana. they’re by far my favorite 7th graders. they told me stories and asked me how my date was going. afterwards, i sold pulsera bracelets with pluto. then we resumed our jobs at the food area. he apologized for not getting me flowers after he saw so many guys give flowers to their dates. i didn’t even think about it until he mentioned it. i said it’s totally fine and that him being my date was already enough :) he laughed. 

finally, the dance was coming to an end. a group of sophomores went to ihop, but pluto couldn’t make it. i talked to kelsie and mikayla the way there. ihop was fun. we talked about our crushes. then my dad picked me up at 11 something pm and i had the biggest smile on my face. megan even told me that pluto looked quite nervous at the dance, for reasons which he would not tell.

i never could have anticipated any of this. first, i would never expect to like pluto. i used to think he was awkward and odd. but i started liking him. and somehow he liked me back. and through a series of strange events, we were each others dates to the dance. i never thought i would find something like this ever, let alone during my last year at fwpa. i will never forget this night. it was beyond magical.

What’s one of your fondest childhood memories?

it was fourth of july. i think i was in fourth grade at the time. each year my parents and i go to my american grandma’s place for a fourth of july barbecue. my mom was working that day, so it was just my dad and i. this year, the barbecue would be at my grandma’s sister’s daughter’s house. i always love hanging out with my american grandma’s family because they are all so warm and welcoming. i remember hanging out with a redheaded girl named mary who was a lot older than me. she and i made churned icecream, played badminton, and worked a puzzle. now she’s at gonzaga. unfortunately, my family doesn’t celebrate fourth of july anymore ever since my grandma moved out of her house with the large backyard. but i will always have those memories.

[westfivestory]

One With The Couch

I did it, I spent the entire weekend doing nothing with the kids…and yes…it was awesome and entirely by choice. I might have to do this more often because those bags that were so prominent under my eyes on Friday…seem like nothing more than a distant memory now.

The Diet

Yep, you read that right…the diet.

Now I can’t say for sure if it is a diet or “a lifestyle change” cause we all hate the “d” word, but since I’m not fooling anyone anymore and have zero interest in squeezing into spanx or whatever is the going trend, I’m going to attempt it.

The one thing I’ve learned…first of all, the food is pretty awesome, I’m not going to lie, I rarely get through reading the menu of a diet, let alone actually eating it, but this one is pretty great. No sugar that isn’t in the fruits etc., that may be my down fall. I have noticed that I do fine all day until supper is done and then the sugar and caffeine deprivation gets to me and I cave. So technically I have lost nothing yet. I need to either empty my house of junk food or have some one follow me around and slap me every time I do the unthinkable…reach for the cookie jar, bag of chips or that glass of pop.

Motivation just doesn’t seem to matter at this time of the day. Maybe getting off the couch will be the key to success, as long as that doesn’t draw me straight into the kitchen.

CBD Oil

We are still trying this. Maybe we need to try a stronger dosage…I really don’t know anymore. Is it the solution. If it is that would be awesome, I’m just wondering when the signs point to No?

I was approached to sell it. A MLM type of thing, much like Avon, Rodan & Fields etc. After some research and thought, I think I will stick to sampling and seeing where we can get the best for her, if that is the solution that works. The grade level I already have is higher than what they want me to sell. So I can’t see it being more beneficial to her. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s what research on Google says.

As we all know, you should always believe what you see on the internet.

Well, maybe not always, but in this case, I’m good with my findings.

A Milestone 

One little man is turning 6 tomorrow and he is so excited he can barely contain himself.

Apparently, being 6 opens up opportunities you wouldn’t even imagine. He believes that when he wakes up in the morning, he can literally do anything and everything that he always wanted to do but wasn’t allowed.

He seems to think he has more privileges tomorrow than his 10-year-old brother, I’m not sure where he is getting this information, but if he has these ideas, this year might be a bit of a rude awakening for him. We might have to ease into these new and oh so exciting firsts.

I guess we will see what tomorrow brings. Which side of the bed and which insane hairstyle accompanies that attitude. It’s always a guessing game.

Happy Birthday Gunnar!!!

The first thing he asked when he woke up this morning, “so I’m six now? It’s my birthday?”

I said “No, sorry, that was yesterday, you slept through the entire day, it’s now Valentine’s Day, you better get ready for school.”

“Did I get my presents?”

No, you were asleep, we didn’t go anywhere.”

“How come you didn’t wake me up?”

“We tried, but you were out cold.”

“Oh…when is my birthday going to be?”

“In a year.”

He believed me more or less all day. I even drove him up to the school doors. Mean, maybe, but we did go out and have an awesome day regardless.

First stop, after the school parking lot….Toad Hall Toys.

  We tried on costumes, played with toys, checked out the lizards and had an all around awesome time. All we left with was a lollipop and slime. Just the necessities.

Next stop…Polo Park…the Lego Store was the intended stop, but we got side tracked. So the first store was Pylon, we snuck out before buying anything. We explored the Lego Store and only left with a small Lego character before heading back to Pylon and getting a Black Panther stuffy.

Phew, now with that all done, we were hungry…Subway it is.

The lady working laughed as Gunnar explained that he would get a 6″ out of a foot long. He has a way of explaining things that really are just more confusing. Now with lunch out of the way, we nearly ran through the mall to reach our car in time to have plenty of free time to jump.

Unfortunately as we walked out of the mall, I realized Gunnar did not have the Hot Topic bag with all of his presents including his new Dead Pool wallet. Oh shit. Back in to the mall we go, this time running back to Just Cozy, I found some slippers, the Food Court, the washroom, Hot Topic, no bag, but we did learn where guest services was, so fingers crossed we made our way there to see if we were lucky enough that someone would have brought our stuff to lost and found.

Apparently we have some pretty amazing horse shoes hung somewhere and right on the counter, there was our bag with all of our items. Yay!!! Birthday saved. Thank you, whoever you are. You really made his day and mine. Faith in humanity restored. Now off to jump.

We hit up Flying Squirrel. They gave Gunnar the toddler rate, which was awesome. It was a blast, we hit each other with battle bumpers on a balance beam, took a turn at tight rope walking (we have no future in the circus), played basketball, swung from a rope onto an air bed, and jumped like crazy all over the indoor park. It was so much fun. Gunnar figures he made a new friend, the guy that worked there was super nice and showed him flips over one of the track areas. Definitely a cool place to check out. I think we will likely go again.

  After all the jumping and a slurpee to go, we were off to our next adventure.

Walmart…we needed supper food. What to get when you are 6 for your birthday dinner? You guessed it, hot dogs, chips, chocolate cake and pumpkin pie. Why not?

We had supper just our family, but our neighbors and J joined us for cake and pie.

We had a great day. One that this little man will be looking forward to until next year. He even got a video chat with grandma and grandpa. He was so excited to show them everything he had gotten today and to tell them all about his day.

Wipeout

While getting things ready for the Winter Carnival, and looking out for the safety of our guests, we should and did test out the sledding run ourselves, and if nothing else, occasionally a well-deserved break is in order.

One of my co-workers had an inflatable sled and I was equipped with a crazy carpet. If we had taken bets, we would both have assumed that my ride would have been far better and faster…and we’d have both been so very very wrong.

He made it down the hill with only one hold up. I had a few very jerky moments and a complete 180 resulting in my wipeout and snow up my shirt and down my pants. Thankfully before attempting this, I did pass my phone to another co-worker to hold. Much like holding my beer, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I guess we have some packing down and touchups for the run, but in good time, it should be a pretty great hill.

If The Dress Fits

Mikayla’s dress for the gala has arrived, well technically it arrived a week ago. We have been so busy that today was the day we decided to try it out. It fits, its a little short. Might be more of a long shirt than actually considered a dress, but throwing on a pair of tights should make it all good.

What Spews Forth From The Mouths Of Babes

In this case, there are no words of encouragement or funny sayings, nope, not this time. This time it was straight up vomit…yep hearing it hit the floor from another room and that feeling of dread and also thankfulness that I wasn’t right there to get the afterspray or the visual was actually a blessing. Poor guy. His awesome birthday yesterday and the high of that moment, only to end this day crashed on the couch all evening and then to stand in a large puddle of vomit. Gives a whole new meaning to V-Day.

The Latest Stressors

For the last couple of weeks I have had minimal sleep. Yes, Mikayla still wakes me up occasionally, and as much as I have gotten used to that, the new events have also been causing restless sleep.

I have awoken at approximately 5 am each day panicking that the events will flop, no one will show and any other possible disaster that you can think of.

I for one, am super happy that its over, maybe the turn out wasn’t quite what we projected or hoped for, but the ones that did come had a blast and that is what is important.

The gala looked awesome, everyone pitched in to help make it amazing and the kids danced all night and took so many photos at the photo booth.

The winter carnival the next day was a lot of fun as well. Danek came with me to help out and there was a lot of things that he was able and more than willing to help out with. His hard work paid off and he was able to enjoy all of the winter fun, skating, sledding, hood hustle, etc.

Drained

I’m done. Before heading to work for the winter carnival, Mikayla told me I should quit my job. She is just tired and wasn’t really prepared for the early morning affecting her as much as me I guess.

Anyway, I woke up this morning, and multiple times through the movies last night and most of today and as much as I enjoy my job most of the time, I feel like I’ve been beaten up. My legs and feet are so sore from the cold and probably not sensible shoe choices, the wind burn from the carnival sucks, much like a sunburn, my face feels swollen and my lips are seriously chapped. A blanket and disappearing from the world is about all I wanted today.

I am really hoping tomorrow is better. Maybe some more sleep and relaxation will work. Thank goodness Monday is a holiday, I don’t think I’d make it into work.

February 18, 2018 One With The Couch I did it, I spent the entire weekend doing nothing with the kids...and yes...it was awesome and entirely by choice.