#because Michael is anything but indifferent when it comes to David

[misslavenderlady]

A Little Bit Country, A Little Bit Rock ‘N Roll - Chapter 13

Summary: The truth comes out with Grandpa Emerson, and David is preparing for the worst outcome. What he doesn't know is that there's a major surprise coming his way.

TW: Chapter contains mentions of abuse, death and vampire hunting

Shout out to @britany1997 for helping me pick out Grandpa's first name. Thank you all for your patience! Please enjoy!!

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David’s head was spinning. The words of Mr. Emerson were echoing in his ears all while the old man smiled back at him.

He knew. How was that even possible? The entire summer he and the others had come and gone as they pleased, and the old man never said a word. Not even a hint that he could tell that they were supernatural creatures.  

"Is that right?" David asked. He was on his guard now. Even if it was some old, grandfatherly man, he couldn't take any risks now. Things had become so unpredictable so fast.  

"Yes, it is," Mr. Emerson stated. He moved his hand off the banister, freeing the path for David. Even so, there was little the vampire could do. At this point, he wouldn't get to the cave in time. He was a sitting duck.  

"So what? You gonna stake me or something? Don't think I'll go easy on you because you're Michael's grandpa," David warned him. His eyes flashed a deep gold, showing off that his word was not to be taken lightly.  

But the old man was not fazed by such a display. He only took a sip from the coffee mug in his hand, completely casual and indifferent. David had to admit, it took some real guts to not show any signs of fear when face to face with a vampire. Especially one that was free to do whatever it wanted thanks to the lack of limitations with power.  

It seemed like hours and hours passed before the old man finally spoke again.  

“Follow me, David. I’ve got something I wanna show you.” 

If David wasn’t so skilled at keeping a poker face, it would have been obvious that he was positively baffled by such a request. No human ever looked into the demonic eyes he possessed and reacted with anything other than horror. Yet Mr. Emerson was completely unbothered.  

He gestured for David to follow him, casually shuffling over to the other side of the room. He opened a door hidden in the corner and glanced up, silently waiting for the vampire to get a move on.  

This has to be a trap, David thought to himself. Though even if it was, there wasn't much he could do in this situation. Nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. He would simply have to follow and see where this went.  

He was certain Mr. Emerson would have him go down the descending staircase first. Probably preparing to push him down the steps and have him land on a bed of spikes at the bottom.  

To his surprise, the elderly man took the first step, casually heading down into the basement. It truly was strange. He was turning his back to a vampire and simply didn't care. Such curious behavior only drew David in more, and he figured he should see how this would go.  

He followed Mr. Emerson down the staircase, the aged wood of the steps creaking under his leather boots. It was dark in the lower level of the house, but being in places devoid of light was David's specialty.  

"I think you'll like this quite a bit. I've been working hard to do this properly." 

Mr. Emerson rounded a corner and flipped a switch on the side of the wall. When David stepped up to his side a truly unbelievable sight greeted his eyes.  

Under the warm glow of the ceiling light was a room he hadn't yet seen. But it wasn't just any room. It was a full living space.  

Four full-size beds were placed side by side along the wall. They had thick oak bed frames and soft quilts spread over the mattresses. Two couches were set off to the side with a massive, antique bookcase and lamp set nearby for reading. A radio and record player were set up for any musical needs. A round table with wooden chairs was set up on the other side of the room with a mini fridge close by for snacks.  

"Wh…What's all this?" David asked, still in awe of everything.  

"Oh, this isn't even all of it," Mr. Emerson explained. "Those doors in that one corner lead to a few other rooms. Two bedrooms. One for the little lady and one for that kid ya got. There's also a bathroom. Got a tub if ya ever want a bath." 

The more the old man casually explained the setup of the basement, the more perplexed David was. He was so lost by what was going on. It was a miracle he was able to find the right words.  

"Is this….for me and the Lost Boys?"  

Michael's grandfather had a proud smile on his face. He took another swig of his coffee before pointing up toward the top of the wall. There were thick, black curtains draped over two spaces, no doubt covering up windows on the other side.  

"Got some grade-A blackout curtains and some special sheets to cover the glass. Absolutely no sun can get through this. Can't have any of you getting fried like chicken in oil when you're tryin' to sleep."  

It was an odd way to answer the question, but that truly did confirm what David was wondering. This entire basement was turned into a living space for the boys, Star and Laddie. Someone actually took the time and energy to give them a home. 

"I don't understand," David admitted.  

Mr. Emerson nodded before taking a seat on a nearby couch. He let out a grunt and set his coffee down on the table across from him.  

"You see, son," he began, "when I was a youngin’ I was a vampire hunter. A damn good one too. I was the best of the best in all of Santa Carla. Probably the best in California." 

It was hard for David to picture this old man as a fierce hunter, but looks could be deceiving.  

"I cut back on the hunting when I got married and had Lucy. Didn't want my family getting involved. It's an ugly life, and they didn't deserve to see that kind of gruesome stuff. So, I got an office job, put food on the table, and kept the streets safe at night. My wife and daughter were none the wiser." 

"What changed?" 

"Simple. I lost the love of my life." 

Mr. Emerson's carefree smile dropped. There was a sense of pain lingering in his eyes. One that showed how time had not healed such a wound. 

"Mary Emerson. She was my soulmate, and she left this world while I was out on a hunt. Had a stroke in her sleep. I didn't even know until the next morning. I was all by myself. Lucy was raising her boys in Phoenix. I had to deal with true loneliness for the first time in my life." 

Even for a cold-blooded killer vampire, David had to admit he hated the idea of loneliness. His undead life was so much better with the boys in it. He loved them with all his heart, and he'd do anything to keep them safe.  

"I realized what a great mistake I made. My hatred for vampires blinded me to what was most important. I let hate and fear drive my actions and didn't take the time to consider all those creatures were once human too. They had parents, children, brothers, sisters, friends. I wondered how many coven members or loved ones were lonely without them. How many felt like they would die of a broken heart." 

He stood up again, his eyes fixated on David.  

"So, I'll admit, I became a bit of a hippie. My daughter was once one, so I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree," he said with a soft chuckle. "I quit hunting for good. I wrote letters to Lucy, let her come home when she divorced her bastard husband, and I appreciated life for what it was. It felt good to let go of hate. That’s why I welcomed all of you with open arms." 

"That's quite a risky move," David pointed out "You know my boys and I could have easily killed you. Tore you apart like tissue paper." 

"And yet, you didn't," Mr. Emerson retorted. "You sat at my dining table like gentlemen, helped my daughter wash dishes, and left my grandson with the biggest smile on his face I've ever seen. You may be vampires, but you boys aren't monsters. Not from what I've seen." 

That really struck a chord with David. It was such a major change for him and the others when they were welcomed into the Emerson family. They had no issue with sharing their home and their love with a bunch of no-good punks that were seen as nuisances to the Santa Carla public. They were loud and bold and always eager to sing and dance all night long.  

David had such hazy memories of his human life from over a century ago. Even so, he knew that this was his first time truly feeling affection from a family.  

"I don't know what to say, sir…" 

"You don't have to say anything, son," the old man assured him. "You've done enough in return. It warms my old, tired heart to see young love between you and my grandson. So long as you're good to him, my home will always be welcome to you. Including the times you need to hide away in the morning. I know you prefer the ceiling but you may wanna stick with the beds just so nobody gets a surprise if they ever come by the basement." 

David bit back a snicker at that. He appreciated that the Emerson elder had a sense of humor for all of this.  

Still, it was all such a shock. David hadn't had the comfort of an actual home in decades. He worked hard to make the cave as livable as possible for his vampire pack members, but it wasn't easy. They didn't have the ability to lock doors or windows or have a hellhound for security like Max did.  

Having the Emersons take better care of him than his own Sire was quite bittersweet. Even if it hurt to be shunned by his very creator, at least he had others he could count on.  

"Well….thank you, Mr. Emerson," David said, extending his arm out and offering a hand.  

He hoped the old man would accept his gesture as a genuine token of appreciation. To his relief, it was accepted with a hearty shake.  

"Call me Randy, son," he said. "You're family now." 

Family. David could get used to that.  

"Well then. I gotta get my day started and you've gotta get some rest for the end of yours. Don't worry, Lucy and the boys won't bother you down here. Just be sure to let your friends know you're okay." 

He tapped the side of his forehead, hinting at David to use his telepathy to call out to the others. The vampire gave the old man a nod before watching him trudge back up the stairs.  

David slowly slipped off his boots and shrugged off his jackets before tossing them aside on the floor. It was quite strange getting prepared for bed and not just flying up into the cave rafters. Sinking into the bed was a foreign sensation, but certainly not unwelcome. The mattress was plush and the quilt perfectly warm. Even with mere seconds of time spent lying in bed, David was already sensing the pull of slumber on his mind.  

"Hey guys," he called out to the boys. "I'm not gonna make it to the cave, but don't worry. I found cover somewhere else." 

"Where'd you end up?" Dwayne's voice answered him.  

David could feel his lips curling up in a smile as his eyes shut. He managed to get in one last response before letting sleep take over.  

"Home."  

Sending out a letter to Max was a terribly risky move, but one that was absolutely necessary. 

Sam had forged his mother's signature for school notes enough times to recreate her handwriting on her personal stationery. He and the Frog Brothers had slipped the note into Max's mailbox earlier that morning, urging the man to come by the house as soon as possible.  

This was the first part of many tests they were going to perform on the businessman. If he didn't show up during daylight hours, that was the first red flag to keep an eye on. 

"Pretty fishy that the sun is setting and he's still not here," Edgar pointed out.  

"He'll probably use his work at the video store to cover his ass if we ask about it," Sam added.  

The three boys were circled up at the table in the Emerson kitchen. They had been strategizing over peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while Lucy was out running errands. If Max truly was a vampire, Sam didn't want to risk his mother getting hurt. 

He wondered if this was what Michael was going through. Stepping up as a man to protect the family.  

"It's a small part of the plan," Alan assured the two. "We just gotta be prepared for the other parts."  

Each boy was armed with plenty of tools for hunting. Makeshift crosses, holy water from the local church, pocket mirrors, and the sharpest stakes they could find. The three of them were buzzing with energy, waiting for their guest with great impatience.  

"Just remember this. Nobody invites him in, and don't stop fighting no matter what. We've got to stay strong, men," Edgar said, voice full of confidence.  

The other two nodded in agreement. Before anyone could say anything else, a shrill sound interrupted their thoughts.  

The doorbell. He was there. No going back and no getting scared.  

Edgar, Alan, and Sam all pocketed their weapons in their pants and jackets. They could go in guns a-blazing. Instead, the Frogs followed Sam to the living room of the house, close behind as the Emerson boy went to open the front door.  

The guest of honor was standing right outside. Max Lawrence.  

"Ah! Sam! Good evening," Max greeted him. "Nice to see you, son." 

Sam didn't bother to hide his frown. This man didn't have the right to call him such a thing. It made him positively sick.  

"That makes one of us," the young boy retorted.  

"Well…I'm just here to see your mother. May I come in and talk to her, please?"  

The three rookie hunters eyed one another. Slowly and carefully, they reached for the tools they had stashed away. They were fully ready to take the man down if he truly was the bloodsucking monster they suspected him to be.  

But their plan fell through when a voice called out to Sam.  

“What in the hell is going on here?” 

The three boys swiftly turned to see Michael stepping in from the kitchen. He still wore his work gloves and carried a broom from his time sweeping the back porch. When his gaze landed on Max, his hand clenched tighter around the wooden rod of the broom. 

“Sam, you and your friends go upstairs.” 

“But Mike, we can’t do th-” 

“I said GET.” 

Sam shivered at the stern tone his brother used. He knew better than to question the eldest when he started talking like that. Though Edgar and Alan shared worried glances with their friend, it was made abundantly clear that Michael’s order was not to be taken lightly. The three of them glanced back at Max as they rushed up the staircase, making their way to Sam’s room.  

“Huh. I wonder what it was they wanted,” Max said, trying to keep a pleasant and casual conversation. Though he smiled at Michael, he quickly realized that the happy expression wasn’t going to be returned.  

“Anyway. I just came to speak with Lucy. She sent a letter asking me to stop by.” 

Max pulled the piece of light pink stationery from the inner pocket of his blazer. He confidently handed it over to Michael, who was quite bewildered at the idea of his mother sending the bastard an invitation to come over. When he glanced over the writing on the inside, a smirk pulled across his face. 

“Aww bless your heart,” he said in a condescending tone. “My mama didn’t send this, Max. Sam was just messin’ with you. Guess ya came all this way for nothing. Why don’t you head on home then, okay?” 

Michael was just about ready to slam the door in Max’s face but found the door being stopped by the hand of the older man.  

“Now, Michael,” Max scolded him. “I don’t think it’s very polite to shoo company away when they traveled all the way to see someone. Why don’t you just invite me in, and we can talk things out?” 

“There ain’t nothin’ to talk about, Max. You’re not welcome and you ain’t ever gonna be welcome. Now I’d appreciate it if you’d leave.” 

The more Michael fought back, the shorter Max’s temper got. Being such a powerful authority figure in Santa Carla, he wasn’t used to being denied the things he wanted. He didn’t tolerate defiance with his boys, and he certainly wouldn’t now.  

“You know something, son,” Max said, voice dripping in venom. “You’ve got a terrible attitude for a self-claimed ‘southern gentleman’. I should have realized that when you and your trashy family crashed my party, but now seeing you being so disobedient to your elders, I’m starting to think you deserve some manners taught to you.” 

Michael’s blood was practically boiling with rage. He loathed this man with all his heart. Not one to tolerate such treatment, he pushed his way outside, slamming the door behind him and holding up his broom like a weapon.  

“You listen and you listen good, ya son of a bitch. I don’t take kindly to people like you who look down on others just for bein’ different. My mama is too good for the likes of you and I’d rather walk on hot coals than ever call you my father. You don’t even deserve to be David’s father.” 

“Mic-” 

“I ain’t done!” the boy snapped. “You’re so stuck up you could drown in a rainstorm. You think you’re so high and mighty, but you ain’t. If I ever see you ‘round these parts again I’m gonna beat some sense into you with this broom. Now get the hell off my property!” 

Max was completely stunned into silence. Nobody had ever dared to speak to him in such a way. Even when his boys stepped out of line, he was sure to shut it down. Michael was an absolute spitfire. He could tell such threats were not to be taken lightly.  

But that didn’t scare him. Max knew this wasn’t over.  

“Fair enough,” the man said. “You win. I’ll be on my way. Have a good night, Michael.” 

The Emerson boy didn’t take his eyes off of Max for one second as he carefully watched him walk down the path and get back into his luxury car. He was just happy to watch the man finally pull out of the driveway and get out of sight.  

While Michael was feeling better to see him gone, Max was still smiling to himself as he drove back into the city. An eerie smile. One that hid the insidious thoughts he held within his mind.  

“You’re going to regret messing with me, human.” 

Tag List: @silvermaplealder @michael-after-hours @legal-lost-boy @britany1997 @ria-coolgirl @crustyraccoon @ghoulgeousimmaculate @kurt-nightcrawler @auntvamp @sunshine-wylan @thelostsouls1987 @pixielostboy @thornthehellhound @solobagginses @6lostgirl6 @american-idiot-jpg @bloodywickedvamp @anxiouslittleweirdkid @juss-soupp @bloodsuckingfiends @peachpixiesstuff @bezinful @oceansrose2002 @piratesangel @hallotonia @vampirefilmlover

[ingravinoveritas]

Hii, It's Anon #2 from the screenshot post. I wanted to say a few things. The first being, I do know that Michael is not a boomer LMAO He's around the same age as my parents so I totally get it. I just said "boomer style" more so as a reference to his texting style and not his age. Poor baby, I didn't mean to age him haha Second thing, holy jesus mary and christ that Budapest picture??? I don't follow Anna (thank god) so I haven't seen any of the stuff she's been posting recently besides that weird text so that picture was a shock to me. What in gods name would possess her to post that picture of Michael like that? I can't get over it. I looked at it for a full minute and couldn't believe my eyes. I've seen the posts you've talked about before, where Anna has posted unflattering pictures of him, and I can't for the life of me grasp why she thinks that's okay to do within a serious post? It feels like a running "joke" that we're not apart of so no one is laughing but her. I could get with it if it was a post where literally all of them were unflattering pictures of everyone with a caption that matched but like you said, it's only ever unflattering pictures of Michael which makes me feel really bad for him. 80% of the time when Georgia has ever posted something of David, it's him making a weird face that he's purposely making, and sometimes even she's in on it too. And while I do think there has been a few times where she filmed David when he didn't wanna be filmed, I would think they talk about it afterwards so she could post it with his permission... And listen, you know I hate to give Georgia credit for anything lmao but that is no comparison to the blatant unflattering, purposely terrible pictures that AL posts of Michael. (i'm getting ahead of the dreamers who are gonna try and say it's the same thing)

Honestly, that picture tells me that she had to sneak that picture because he probably doesn't want her to take his picture. For what reason, we don't know. But if you were in a relationship where everything was fine and you loved each other and liked spending time together, it shouldn't be a chore for you to say, "hey honey, let me take your picture really quick" I think with their relationship it comes down to the popular phrase, "If he wanted to, he would" and it really doesn't look like he wants to, with any of it. Obviously, we don't know what's going on inside but why the hell would you ever want your relationship presented in this way, especially if it really wasn't. It's just strange. I could never live with that. I really think AL is on something if she thinks any of us are gonna think these sort of things equal a loving relationship between the two of them. Trust me, I've seen my fair share of beautiful and weird/unique relationships alike and this doesn't fit either category.

(Link to previous post here, for those who might’ve missed it.)

Hi, Anon #2! Ah, thank you for the clarification, re: “boomer.” Haha. I totally get what you mean now. Much appreciated!

I wish I could say that the Budapest picture was a shock to me as well, but given AL’s history of posting unflattering pictures of Michael (as I detailed in my previous post), it really wasn’t. Like you said, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal if she ever posted pictures like that of herself, but every “selfie” of her is immaculate--glamour pose, makeup done, not a hair out of place. Again the contrast is striking next to Georgia, who either posts a goofy picture of herself alongside one of David, or (hopefully) clears it with him before posting something she’s filmed, and as much as he might dislike being photographed at times, he doesn’t seem to actively avoid it the way Michael does.

I also agree with your supposition that AL sneaked that picture, because there is precedent for that as well, from as far back as during lockdown two years ago. More recently, it’s visible in the post she made for her birthday last month, with this picture of him and Lyra on the beach that you wouldn’t even know was him at first glance:

And in a post from earlier this year, with this photo that was inexplicably posted for Michael’s birthday in February:

Not only was this picture taken from a distance, he looks actively pissed off in it, which...as you said, Anon, why would you want your relationship presented this way, especially if it’s not how it’s coming across here? As “off” as things have felt for the last few years, it seems even more noticeable now, especially given that AL did not make a Father’s Day post for Michael this year after having just had another baby of his a month prior (and which became even more glaring because Georgia did make a FD post for David).

Which brings me to Theory Anon. I saw that “blondie” post the other day and once again found myself in a state of disbelief. So first, here is the tweet from Neil that you mentioned for those who didn’t see it, and here is a screenshot of AL’s Insta post from a few days ago:

Yet again, we find another deliberate Good Omens reference. Like you, Anon, I also don’t believe Lyra actually said this. Now, I will fully admit that I was a hyperlexic toddler myself (I started reading the sides of Cheerios boxes at the age of 3), but it is very much a stretch to ask us to believe that a three-year-old used the phrase “olden days.” But the fact that it is yet another GO reference only adds to how planned and calculated all of these recent posts of hers have felt.

Could she have been asked to start promoting GO? I’m honestly not sure. If nothing else, the purpose here seems to be to keep AL in the public consciousness (the same reason she QTed Michael’s speech on the beach yesterday). She might well have some new projects coming up (most likely in something of Michael’s, as you said), but it seems fairly clear that all of this is being done in the interest of furthering a narrative.

I think what you said sums it up well--that their relationship is in actuality a “beneficial partnership.” I have thought for some time now that NDAs have been signed--which explains the tight hold PR has on both Michael and AL’s social media presences--and that AL is being paid good money (or via promotional partnerships and/or throwaway acting roles) to keep shtum about whatever is happening behind the scenes. Because the closer we look at what has been presented to us in terms of their relationship, the more devoid of substance it seems.

Leaving aside the notion of love and whether or not you think Michael is in love with David (though I do believe he is), what’s undeniable is the friendship that is between them...and that is precisely what is missing between Michael and AL. Friendship is the foundation of a truly strong relationship (which, again, is probably part of why I ship Michael and David so much)...but Michael and Anna aren’t friends. They never have been. They’re two people whose lives got pushed together because of circumstances, who have spent the last three years consequently trying to become friends.

But friendship, like family, isn’t necessarily something you just have or that just happens. It’s something you create, that both people need to be interested and invested in building and maintaining, and like you said, Anon #2...if he wanted to, he would.

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts, Anon #2 and Theory Anon. I think we’ll probably have a lot more to discuss as time goes on and GO 2 promotion starts kicking into high gear, so...we’ll see what happens...

[pyrrhiccomedy]

the People have requested my book report on The Library at Mt. Char so this is now a Mt Char book club.

if you have not read The Library at Mt Char there is no reason to keep reading. I hope you're having a nice day, stay safe and don't do drugs.

So Mt Char has a couple of problems, but in my opinion only one grave problem.

Not a grave problem:

Erwin doesn't need to be in this book. An astonishing amount of ink is spilled on giving us Erwin's POV and I am at a loss in regards to what that's supposed to bring to the story. I mean, it's kind of neat to see Carolyn's "trick shot" from the POV of one of the people being manipulated, but that perspective could have just been provided by Steve. Everything Erwin does of any plot significance could have been done by Steve, a character who actually matters.

Please note that I don't hate Erwin, he's perfectly fine as characters go, he just contributes nothing, and it is baffling that he and Carolyn get the last scene in the book (instead of just ending on her reunion with Michael, a scene that was emotionally affecting and felt like a natural end point to her story). We are taking no questions, Erwin needed to be cut.

Also not a grave problem in my opinion, but I am sure others feel differently and I understand why they would:

Yo, the scope of what the catalogs cover is mad vague. I mean, I get that that's the point: when you have a character whose magic powers are "anything that has to do with death or murder," that's a broad license, and I'm fine with that. These are supposed to be demi-gods. I don't require a rigorously explicated magic system.

But then like...why can't Jennifer, the healer, also heal minds? That seems weird. Or like, it's implied that she kinda can, maybe, but none of the kids talk about their therapy sessions with Jennifer: they explicitly call out that she heals their bodies. But then she talks about how Margaret and David are sick (meaning mentally) in a way she can "no longer help?" Aren't you supposed to be the God Of Healing? Why can't you help anymore? And were you actually trying to help them before - or anyone else? That's never shown. You could have just said you only healed bodies, not minds, but then it's repeatedly implied that she CAN diagnose mental and emotional problems (and therefore should probably be able to do something about them).

So that's weird.

Or like, why is there Alicia, who "sees the future," and Rachel, who "sees possible futures?" That, uh, just sounds like the author was running out of ideas. Also, if Alicia could see the future, she probably shouldn't have been in that house when the SWAT team hit, yeah?

Stuff like that. The magic the kids can do is very "they have the powers the author needs them to have when the author needs them to have them, and they can't do anything the author would find inconvenient for them to do" but that's not a deal breaker for me because overall the vibe being put off by their various magical specialties works for me. Still, there were ways of getting us where we needed to go without begging quite so many questions.

Also not a grave problem, although more of a problem than the other stuff:

You know that anime trope where a super-genius character is having an entire conversation with another super-genius character through a screen, and it's revealed that the whole conversation was a distraction and pre-recorded so that Character 2 could Complete His Scheme against Character 1? And used his super-genius brain to predict every single thing Character 1 would say? And your suspension of disbelief staggers bloodied into the alleyway and collapses because you're really trying to hang in there, Code Geass, but that's fucking stupid, you're asking for me to believe that this character's intelligence is flat-out supernatural now and you've given me no reason why that should be?

That's how I feel about Carolyn, by the time she takes over the Library. Like, okay. The kids canonically have not even been at the Library long enough for any of them to master their catalogues except for Jennifer. None of them but Jennifer are masters of even their own subject.

Carolyn has been studying in secret from multiple catalogues - which is cool! I like how she slowly reveals over the course of the latter half of the book that she has powers from other people's specialties.

...But like...

She seems close to mastering her own catalogue. She is a competent healer and can raise the dead (Jennifer's catalogue). She can block attempts to read her mind, beats David in a fight, and understands how to kill Father (David's catalogue). She speaks lion and controls the dogs that surround the Library (Michael's catalogue). She could make the mathy "Denial That Rends" thing that kicks off the whole plot, and she can make a new sun and correct orbital rotations around it (Peter's catalogue). She can predict the future with such specificity that she knows how to cause Steve to drop a clip of bullets while he's being attacked by dogs exactly where Erwin will need to pick it up later (Rachel's catalogue, also this one is stupid, she could have just given Erwin an extra clip or something, but whatever).

That's half the catalogues. Carolyn doesn't seem prodigiously more intelligent than the other kids. She's smart, sure, but they're all weird demi-gods with a genius for their specialties. The rest of them haven't even mastered their own catalogue, and I'm supposed to swallow that Carolyn has attained 'competent or better' status in six? When she has to research five of them in secret? Without falling behind in her own studies?

It would be fine if they had all been masters of their own catalogues for years and years; that would mean they would begin to stagnate, while Carolyn kept learning. But that's not the case. By the end I wasn't impressed anymore at Carolyn's resourcefulness, it just felt like she could do anything and everything, shh, don't ask questions, she's the Chosen One so she just can.

The reason this isn't a grave problem to me is because Carolyn's journey isn't about becoming more powerful: it's about her emotional journey, which isn't affected by her being stupidly OP for no reason by the end of the book. She still sucked at the things that mattered, like "feelings" and "relationships" and "not being a shitty person." But I do think it hurt the story. I should be cheering on my protagonist when her wild schemes come together, not rolling my eyes.

Anyway. All that was the aperitif. Let's talk about

THE GRAVE AND GLARING PROBLEM AT THE CENTER OF MT CHAR.

So everything that happens in the book stems from Carolyn's thoroughly justified hatred of Father (and David, but David was made that way by Father). Father treated her, and all of the other kids, with extravagant cruelty. If you haven't read the book in a while, here's a sample of the kinds of things Father did to the kids, or, if David did them, that Father did nothing to prevent:

- Cooked David alive over 2 full days in a giant bronze bull (and made the rest of the kids bring the fuel)

- Put Michael's eyes out with a hot poker every night for 2 weeks (and made the rest of the kids watch)

- Murdered Margaret every few days, often in drawn-out and painful ways

- Made Rachel repeatedly give birth, raise the babies to about 9 months, then murder them with her own hands

- Allowed David to rape all 11 of the other kids (except Jennifer, probably because she was the healer and he wanted to stay on her good side)

- Allowed David to crucify, brutalize and rape Carolyn and Peter

- Gave Carolyn a loving new family for a year when she was nine years old (those two deer), then had David murder them in front of her and blame it on her for not remembering her homework well enough, then served the two deer at a feast to 'celebrate' her returning to the family

- Whippings, skinnings, and bone-breakings as standard disciplinary actions

Whoo-ee! Okay! We are talking about mythological cruelty. I am fine with this! The story takes place on a mythological scale. As outlandish as all of that is, the cruelty feels proportionate in a story about killing and replacing god. Father is cruel, indifferent, controlling, and alien. I have no questions, Carolyn please proceed with your revenge. We seemed on track for a tale in which Carolyn defeats Father, but in doing so she runs the risk of becoming him. Will she step back from the brink and retain her humanity after all of the trauma and brutality she's endured? Let's find out!

And then

and then.

Oh boy.

And then.

...It turns out, Father is a good guy after all.

And let me be clear: THIS IS NOT, IN AND OF ITSELF, A PROBLEM.

By the time you learn that Father is actually benevolent, and loved those kids, and cares about being a responsible steward to the world, and tried to leave the universe a better place than he found it, and genuinely regretted the suffering he inflicted on them when they were growing up, it feels kind of...natural? Like, I was surprised, but also not, because there were 90 pages of book left and Carolyn had already become god. This seemed like a thematically meaningful place to take the rest of the story.

It turns out Father was training Carolyn to replace him the entire time. He had to make her hate David because it was important that she "defeat a monster" on her path to becoming god. (It's not explained why she had to defeat a monster, but sure, okay; it's the kind of mythic feat that fits with the story we're in.)

Why did he choose Carolyn to be his successor? Well, originally he chose David, but David wasn't strong enough: every time Carolyn was the monster in David's story, she defeated him, and went on to rule the universe as an unspeakable tyrant. Since Carolyn always won, Father swapped their roles. He knew he had made the right choice when he put David into the bronze bull, and heard David begging for mercy: because when Carolyn had been the fated monster, she had never begged.

...Okay, so...hang on.

Hang on.

The only rule that we've established on "how to become god" is "you have to defeat a monster," right? I'll even grant you for free that it has to be a monster who is personally meaningful to you, although that part is never stated. Overcoming a great evil which has cast you down and abused you many times before, sure, okay.

...Why the FUCK did all that other awful shit have to happen??

I did not have this question when Father was just evil! That was a good enough explanation! But now that he's not evil, you HAVE TO EXPLAIN why he treated all of the kids so brutally!

Like dude you're GOD. If you need a monster for Carolyn, I'm sure you can make that happen without TORTURING CHILDREN FOR DECADES.

There didn't even need to be any other children! You could have two kids: the languages-kid, who is the chosen one (the chosen one has to be the languages-kid so they can read the Onyx Codex or whatever it was called at the end, the one written by Original God), and the war-and-murder kid, who is the monster. They could have just been forbidden to read the other codices, if it's important to you that your chosen one still prove her resourcefulness or whatever.

Why include all of the other kids??? It wasn't to give your chosen one a sense of family: Carolyn didn't feel close to any of them except for Michael (who I liked, but whose contribution to the plot was negligible).

Or keep the kids! But then why make them, and Carolyn, hate you?? You could just say, "Hey Carolyn, I am raising you to be my successor, you have to figure it out yourself because part of proving your worthiness is this kind of abstract, big-picture thinking, but I love you and whatever you end up deciding to do, just believe in yourself." And meanwhile you're off torturing the fated monster in order to get him piping hot and ready to be served.

Was the idea that Carolyn had to endure so much horror in order to prove she was 'tough enough' to be god?? Because that's not how trauma works! Kids who have been brutally traumatized are usually not made tougher by the experience! A fact that even the book understands, because 10 of the 12 kids are completely destroyed by their upbringing (I'm giving marginal exceptions to Michael and Carolyn herself).

And like

if Father doesn't have a good reason for having treated them so badly, the whole book falls apart!

Because getting revenge for that cruelty is Carolyn's whole motivation!

We are clearly supposed to feel okay about Father going to make a new universe at the end of the book: he's going with his cool tiger friend and that little girl with the connection to the elemental plane of joy who used to be the sun, he's happy to see Carolyn embracing compassion and kindness, which means he cares about compassion and kindness. He invented light and pleasure. Carolyn does nothing to try to stop him from going. He seems like a pretty good candidate for god. And I do feel okay with him leaving! I was convinced! Father is not evil after all!

But then you have! to explain! the abuse!!

It can be a throwaway line!! "Carolyn realized that everything she and her siblings went through had to happen the way it did, because [X]," embedded in the middle of a paragraph! That would have been enough! But I need an explanation!

"They were raised the way Father was raised himself" WHY? He was raised by the Emperor, an on-the-record awful fucking dude! Father proceeded to rule the universe in a far more benevolent way than the Emperor did, why would he feel like he had to raise his kids the way the Emperor raised him?

"Carolyn needed to overcome challenges on her path to godhood" how is TRAUMATIZING HER SO BADLY SHE ALMOST BECOMES INHUMAN - SOMETHING YOU WERE OSTENSIBLY TRYING TO PREVENT, see Steve being preserved as something that could give her hope, etc - A "CHALLENGE??"

Again, none of this is a problem if Father is just evil! YOU CHOSE to make him not evil! And that's fine!! I think it's a good choice for the story actually!! But then you have to, you have to, HAVE TO explain why all of that bad shit happened!

Because all of that bad shit is the reason Carolyn made there be a story.

And it turns out it doesn't make sense.

[dreamties]

Slashers W/ a Soft Pastel S/O

A/n - So this one actually wasn’t requested, I just thought it would be super cute. And what I mean by “Soft Pastel”, I mean being into soft/pastel/kawaii fashion, I just didn’t know how to phrase it. Since there’s so many subcultures.

Trigger Warning: Slight Cursing (I say f*ck)

Also- these are gender neutral, but a few describe you in skirts/dresses, so if you’re not comfy with that, just skip that part or the whole thing?? :/

I might do more like this for other types of alternative fashion- like punk or something? Or a S/O who has a lot of body mods, I think it would be fun.

Characters: Billy/Stu, The Lost Boys, Helen Lyle, Daniel Robitaille/Candyman, Brahms Heelshire, and Amanda Young.

I didn’t add Michael Myers, but can do so if y’all want it. I just think he’d be very indifferent about it...didn’t think that would be very fun to read.

Billy Loomis + Stu Macher

Stu would be the most like into your outfits

Billy? Not so much. he just thinks you look cute in everything.

but if you did more guro-kawaii looks? they would both be all over that shit. 

it combines more of the grotesque in with the cute- which is just perfect for the boys. they get to see you dawned in all sorts of blood, guts/gore, bandage patterns/aesthetics.

and maybe even tying in different monster-ish elements. 

like wearing funky white or other unnatural colored contacts, really intense makeup(especially around the eyes), and fuck it, maybe you’re wearing faux demon horns.

I think they’d find it kinda hot. if we’re being perfectly honest here.

Now- would you able to get them into it as well?

Stu will ask you, with excitement reverberating throughout out his body and his voice. of course he want’s to at least try it!

so many clips in Stu’s hair. you haven’t even had that many in your hair before!

he may also wear rings sometimes. he thinks all the colors and designs are just so fun!

and on the other hand...

Billy, the guy that basically wore the same outfit for an entire movie? who’s closet only contains jeans and white t-shirts? trying out your style? i don’t think so lol

if you do- somehow- get him to try...

then you might have pressured him into it a bit? very jokingly, of course. 

“C’mon, humor me, babe. Stu’s already dressed and everything!” You try giving him puppy eyes to seal the deal.

“Fine!” Billy says, grabbing the garment and a few clips from your hands. He shuts the door too harshly behind him.

A short silence is shared, before you and Stu burst out laughing. “Do you think he’s mad at us?” You’re hardly able to get it out. Of course he was, but in his own odd way appreciated this adventure.

He comes back a moment later, his white t-shirt replaced with a pastel red one, an especially gory character printed on the front. and a red clip barely hanging on to one of the side pieces of hair in front of his face. You try to suppress a giggle at Billy’s messily put together look.

for the love of gosh- don’t actually laugh when he appears. he is very outside of his comfort zone, and he’s only doing this because he loves you and Stu, and just,, don’t add this to his list of reasons not to try new things.

whatever your reaction ends up being, you’re absolutely obligated to tell them how attractive they look in it(even Billy who looks hella dorky).

(my art)

The Lost Boys

the comparison between their dark, punk-ish style and then the sweet baby pinks and blues, and soft lavenders that adorned your form?? 

it’s just too sweet.

they are completely enamored by your style- even if certain vampires (and I’m not naming any names, but I definitely mean David) may not show his love for your look as openly

Marko- he’d get one cutesy patch for his jacket, so he has like a little piece of you everywhere he goes. also...he genuinely ended up really digging your style? but not enough to abandon his punk look completely. he is still totally dedicated to that.

the other boys will absolutely mess with him about the patch though

all in good fun!

David’s not letting you near his hair with any extra clips or accessories. 

Dwayne enjoys the quiet intimacy shared between the two of you. just sitting together, you might be styling his hair( super loose ponytail or braid- admit it, it would be so cute! and helpful so his hair isn’t always in his face!)...anyways, you’d use a colorful hair tie, and a few clips to help pin back his hair. 

he probably won’t go out with the clips in, but if it’s just the five of you at the cave? he’ll keep it in until it’s time to sleep. 

he loves seeing how happy and accomplished you look after finishing with his hair tho.

Paul is hands down the most likely to get into the whole look and go out in public with it on. 

makeup? hell yeah. it won’t be as intense as yours, and he probably only does the eyes and maybe some shine. sparkly vampire time

hair accessories? all of them

would try combining his look with yours, to have a perfect mess of it.

a light, light  blue mesh top, slightly darker blue jacket(with slight accents in pink, purple, white or black), and his usual sort of white jeans(?) would still look great with it. he’s absolutely rocking that look.

you are ecstatic to finally have someone else to share your passion with! (much harder to find similar folks when you’re a vampire,,)

Helen Lyle

she’s so used to the plain life around her, and she’d been living before you- you were such a breath of fresh air.

of course, you’re darling personality also drew her into you- but your fashion sense? it fascinated her.

she’s not trying it herself anytime soon, but she appreciates the fact that you enjoy it. 

the most she would ever try is a very natural makeup look. and a coat or two of a pastel color of her choice.

she would love watching you get ready. not so much help out though- she just likes seeing the way you approach things. how you choose to pair certain pieces with one another.

she’ll ask questions to better understand your interests! not that it’s weird or wrong that you’re into it, she’s just a very inquisitive person.

you’d wear a lot of blue though- because you know Helen likes that color.

imagine wearing coordinated looks for different events and such. so, when you go with Helen to help out with her Candyman thesis, you might wear candy-themed attire. (of course in this universe,, she wouldn’t die! so no worries of that! you get to keep you’re gf).

if you do gift her something, she keeps it on her bedside table(or dresser). so she can still admire it, and still serves a purpose. fun décor!

all around though- Helen would be very chill, but captivated, about you’re interests.

Daniel Robitaille - Candyman

 his life is so dark and gruesome, and he loves seeing you all dressed up. 

and while he’s dead- long dead- and isn’t really apart of the world in the same sense that you are- it gives him this happy sense of hope for the world.

because there’s this very small thing, that you hold close to your heart, that makes you smile.

Also!!

even if they’re apart of a super awful, traumatic, part of his past- the bees are just a part of the family now.  

so cute yellow/spring/bee themed outfits?? yes. ohh definitely, yes.

As for him dressing up? He’d feel hesitant.

he’s filled with immense joy around you, but is almost scared with someone altering part of his attire or self in any way(rooted back to, again, past stuff).

but part of loving is to take the person as a whole, bad parts, good parts- insecurities- the entire package. and trusting one another.

he has his whole faith in you not to do anything bad.

and so, it becomes a habit for the two of you to spend mornings together, chatting and getting ready. well, you’re getting ready, it’s more for the quality time together for him.

things are little different for Daniel. for many reasons. 

one, he has very short hair. so the clips don’t really work there..

two- he only has one hand, and he’s “working” a lot with the appendages he does have. rings won’t work out because they might fall off- and he’d hate to lose something of yours.

three- he’s not a big makeup fan. he’s happy enough watching you put it on.

and then for his actual attire- he needs the coat to cover his insides. it’s also, in a way, his uniform.

you’ve settled on two things.

making homemade necklaces that can easily hide under his big coat (either sweets or honey/bee themed).

and sewing little patterns on the inside of his coat. other’s wouldn’t be able to see it, but he would know it’s there.

Brahms Heelshire

imagine being super into sorta ‘sweet lolita’, pastel/soft colors, bows, the big skirts, all the sorta ruffles(?)

 and then especially if your shorter than Brahms(which is really,, not hard to do unless you’re insanely tall cause he’s,, 6 foot 3.)- and he thinks you look like such a doll? 

but like,, in a nice way. 

I think he’d get pretty excited if he got to help you set up your outfits!

especially if you praised him for picking out a good combo, or organizing correctly.

and some of Brahms movements are a bit awkward, he’s spent most of his life in the walls and the attic...but imagine turning on his music, and just dancing with him. having him twirl you in his arms a few times.

Brahms loves having your hands through his hair. and if hair accessories means he gets more of that love and attention? then yes,, yes he will wear them.

he just likes feeling taken care of, and along with your usual duties, you help him figure out the soft fashion styles, and how to make it more appealing and suitable for his own tastes.

because- as you insist- you want it to be something he enjoys just because he does, and not just for the closeness. though you can’t deny you love that aspect, too.

i can tell you one thing right here, though. you’re never getting makeup on him. he does not like taking off his mask, even if you’ve been in a relationship with him for a while, he still hides his face a lot.

you’d offered to do his makeup once, since he was staring so intently as you did yours. you’d made the mistake of reaching for his mask. you’d usually ask before doing so, but sometimes you’d slip up.

You apologize profusely, offering your arms out to him for a hug. “There, there, Brahms.” You smile, giving him a slight squeeze of affection. 

he does take your stuff sometimes. 

it’s a little annoying when you think you’ve lost your favorite accessory or dress or etc and then you just realize,, oh, it’s my favorite wall boy again. thank gosh you love him, so you’re not really upset or anything.

he just likes having little reminders of you, it gives him reassurance. upon other warm and fuzzy feelings.

if you’re able to find time in your day though, you’ll make cute little trinkets or bracelets for him. you’ll gift them or purposely leave them out for him-  so you’ll still have some of your stuff when it comes to getting ready the next day.

in short- he’d much rather look at you than partake on his own. 

Amanda Young

she’s never seen anything like this! :0

everyone she knows, herself included, tend to wear more dulled, plain clothes.

she’s immediately very intrigued by your attire...sort of want’s to try it, but is a bit self conscious and embarrassed to ask.

So!! you start out with small things, and fairly early on you both realize that she loves when you decorate her hair with accessories. 

gifting Amanda a pair of little pig clips!!

or little stud earrings- those would be fricking adorable on her!

and she’s just so happy,, wtf

you dress mostly for yourself, but the more you’re in a relationship with your gf- the more you want to dress for her as well. 

you can see this little sparkle in her eye when she sees you, and you want to keep seeing that look for as long as you can.

you slowly get her into it. your relationship and Amanda’s interest in your style just gives her so much light in an otherwise dim world.

if she did get into it, I think she’d do more creepy/cute. as a way to sort of cope with past trauma. that this sort of “bad” thing (the creepy) can still coexist with the good (the cute). she admires that quality.

just very sweet partners, who happen to love similar types of fashion 

[tiptapricot]

if u dont mind me asking but,,,what about some sam and dwayne interaction :0 (u dont have to if u dont want to tho <3)

OUGHHH YESSSS (also imagining this in a “the boys live” AU)

Dwayne’s the last one before David to get actually close to Sam

It’s not that he doesn’t like him, he’s just kind of indifferent and still adjusting to the Emersons being around more often

The thing that sparks them hanging out more is Sam asking Dwayne to teach him how to skateboard

He’s really not great at it (to start), but he gets better, and Dwayne is a good teacher, even though he laughs when Sam gets pissed about falling

It becomes a weekend/after homework thing

Dwayne’ll drop by the Emerson house after sunset and knock, greeting whoever opens the door with a big smile and a hug, and then check in to see if Sam’s done with school stuff

If he is, Sam rides with Dwayne down to the boardwalk, or if it’s too busy there somewhere else with decent pavement

They’ll practice until Sam starts complaining about scraped knees, and then either go join the rest of the boys and Michael, or split off so Sam can hang out with the Frogs

Dwayne steals gets Sam his own board for his birthday, and Sam covers it in paint and stickers

They click in a good way. They’re not as chill as Sam is with David or Lucy, but also not as chaotic as he is with Marko or Paul

Dwayne doesn’t suggest anything dumb or risky, but he also goes along with Sam whenever he has an idea, even if it’s something like dying his hair neon green or doing archery practice in his room

Sam goes to Dwayne for pointers after he comes out, mostly because he doesn’t think he can trust Marko or Paul’s advice about flirting

Sam is tentative when he asks about makeup, but Dwayne’s more than happy to teach him. He has Sam practice on him until he’s more comfortable, and wears the smudged and unsteady eyeliner with pride

When Star and Lucy aren’t available, Dwayne helps Sam re bleach his hair (or dye it, hence the neon green hair incident)

In return, (once hes better at it) Sam does Dwayne’s makeup and hair before parties or big events. He’s really good at braiding, and starts keeping a few hair ties on him at all times just in case they’re needed

Dwayne picks up Sam a lot, for hugs or piggy back rides or to carry him on his shoulders, and that’s probably when they get the most rowdy. Yeah, there’s no flying allowed in the Emerson house, but has Sam still hit his head on the rafters anyway? Also yes. Multiple times (not all of them because of Dwayne, Paul’s another culprit though he usually does more damage. Besides, it’s never too hard and Sam’s always laughing, so the bruises are worth it)

They get into really good conversations when they’re alone together, whether skateboarding or picking out new eyeshadow or taking an Air Dwayne flight above Santa Carla

Sam just feels really comfortable and safe with Dwayne, like he’s not scared of messing something up or dumping too much on him, and Dwayne thinks Sam is a fucking great kid that deserves to hear stories he can relate to and feel supported by

Sam gets Dwayne to play video games with him and they both get very competitive. Sometimes Dwayne can be overheard humming soundtracks or boss battle themes

Sam talks a lot about MTV and pop culture, but besides the video game references Dwayne doesn’t get any of it. Sure, he knows stuff about the artists and bands he listens to, but anything outside of that is foreign territory, and he never quite gets into it like Sam. Still, he’s super supportive

Even though the boys can’t go with Sam and Michael during the day festivities of Santa Carla pride, they have their own mini celebration with the Emersons the evening of, and Dwayne carries Sam around on his shoulders almost the whole evening

Headcanons masterpost

[bonnie-barstow-of-flag]

Killer Knightmares:

@avictimofthejazz an au based off a KR season 2 episode of the same name & knight of the drones vibe.

Dr. Bonnie Barstow is dutifully diligent with all of her work. She obsesses over even the most minuscule and trivial details to achieve perfection. It’s one of the many reasons she’s been added to the staff at the University of San Francisco under the supervision of the reputable David Halston.

___

It’s virtually unfathomable how much damage an ill-programmed microchip the size of a finger-nail could inflict. A twisted sense of insatiable fascination clutches a bewitching grasp over her complete attention. The tiny chip captured under the view of the highly advanced microscope was an absolute marvel with it’s bright ridges of gold along with it’s small valleys and backroads paved in a far duller shade of silver. It’s a coded maze that Bonnie can easily interpret. One infinitesimal change to the programming can mean the difference between life and death. Bonnie’s searching, seeking out the one piece of the prototype keeping it from functioning as designed. She could never and would never give the go-ahead on anything that could be considered dangerous. Even more so given the incidents that occurred because of Karr.

“There’s a call for you on line four, Bonnie.” Comes Halston’s abrupt half-careless words. Placing indelicate hands upon the slopes of her shoulders, he continues. “I’m starting to feel like your personal secretary.” It’s a gripe he made in earnest. He’s been, in no uncertain terms, telling her former associates to stop calling for months now. That Bonnie’s happier here without them hounding her. He delighted in being able to get her to refuse their offers to have her return. Of course, David hadn’t bothered to asked permission to make those direct assertions. He just did. Dr. Halson needed her. Even if Bonnie wasn’t fully aware of it, she had become vital to the success of his and Margo’s operations.

He leans over her shoulder to take a non-committal glance at her progress with the microchip. “It’s quite strange really.” He cryptically starts. The rest of the explanation failing to come as an immediate continuance.

Skeptical, Bonnie’s turquoise orbs lift towards her revered mentor while he speaks. Worry warps her usually beautiful countenance as she discovers herself clinging to his every utterance. Every easy breath hinged upon what would come next.

When her attention is fully upon him, he reveals against the shell of her ear all that he’d been biting back. “It’s a hospital near Los Angeles. A nurse Langly from Hoff Medical Center or other. She ‘claims’ it’s urgent.” There’s a deep trench of sarcasm imbued when his lips reach the word “claims”. He is well aware that she has no real family in the city. At least no one she should want to have contact with, given all the bridges he’s helped her burn. The remnants of her family were located in Boston. His eyes befall her with the great expectation that she’d pass it off.

Halston’s blasé indifference to the potentially serious situation doesn’t settle right with her. It lays like a load of swallowed bricks and mortar, in the formation of a thick, impenetrable, unmovable wall might; uncomfortably heavy. “I...” She swallows thickly, “I’d better get that.” The brunette rises from the stool she had been occupying and brushes past him. “It’s probably a crank call.” Arrives her half-hopeful utterance as she moves towards the thick plastic phone.

Sweeping a buoyant wake of chestnut barrel-rolls from her face, she lifts the receiver to her ear. “Dr. Barstow speaking. How can I help you?” She answers. Her lower-lip tucking between her teeth as she actively listens to the other voice. Twirling her fingers around the curly-q chord, she attempts to sort her thoughts. “Wait? What?” Panic bubbles upwards in her tone. Her once lax stance stiffens against the nearest wall. Her grip on the phone tightens to prevent it from slipping from her hand. “Are you sure?” A pause. “Could you repeat that name again?”

Nurse Langly patiently repeats, “Michael Long.” After a few seconds, she adds, “you’re his emergency contact.”

The warmth and color that usually could be found in Bonnie’s features drains as the gravity of the situation is rapidly dawning upon her. This was either a twisted macabre prank or it was a genuine emergency. Hardly anyone outside the Foundation knew that name or the history behind it. To invoke that name was to tug at Bonnie’s heartstrings. She has no other choice but to go investigate. If it was Michael and he was in trouble, she would never be able to forgive herself for ignoring his call.

Was it possible that he still had her number in his wallet? That Michael had never gotten around to changing his ICE list? If he hadn’t- why?

“Keep him there as long as you can.” Bonnie tersely instructs. Her heart skips a series of beats as she continues, “I’m leaving now.” With a glance down at her own delicate wrist watch, she calculates the amount of time it’ll take her to get that location. “I should be there in a few hours.” As she puts down the receiver, Bonnie contemplates ringing Devon and the Foundation. But she doesn’t. Not until she can fully ascertain if this is a joke or not.

Halston snags the frantic brunette’s wrist as she races towards the door. Throatily he demands, “where do you think you’re going? I didn’t give you permission to leave, and I know class hasn’t been dismissed. If you leave in the middle of our project, you’ll be costing the University thousands of dollars. You’re potentially destroying any hopes you had of a scholarship.” His concerns obviously rest with their work.

She wrestles her arm back from her professor’s clutches. Turquoise orbs darken when they lock upon Halston’s. Her expression is obviously deeply wounded and yet, out of respect for her mentor, she delays. “I’m sorry. I have to go...” Her words leave no uncertain airs about them. “I’ll be back when I can.” Bonnie is well aware that her defiance of direct orders could potentially cost her this incredible opportunity. Yet, she does not care! The Foundation has and always would be a primary concern for her. It didn’t matter how much time had elapsed since her employment with them, they were her family.

Bonnie is keenly aware that Halston is beckoning for her, yelling intangible words in her wake. She doesn’t dare turn back now with her feet already set on a steady course.

----

Only one thought prevailed as the brunette lunges past other students and into the parking-lot. Michael Knight could be in real trouble, and he needed her. She can’t fathom any set of circumstances that would require resurrecting a name that should have been buried. In her gut, she knows something is terribly amiss. But what?

Seven hours of the endless highway and traffic sprawled between the former partners. Every minute of that time seemed to conjure up a fresh, new fear as to what the explanation could be. Internally, she had been running herself through an extensive list of people who knew Michael Knight before he was the man she’d grown to love. Stevie was murdered. Tanya walker died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Vernon Gray and the others were in rotting in jail.

With the review of every case, came the discomforting realization that Michael and the Foundation were in the habit of making ruthless adversaries. Some of them were worse than others.

A startling thought does occur to her. Garthe and Elizabeth Knight knew about Wilton’s pet project. He knew that his father rescued Michael Long from that cold Nevada desert. However, Garthe and Goliath had taken a swan dive off a cliff. He couldn’t be pulling a crude trick like this. He had to be dead. Or was he? Worse still, could this be the work of Garthe’s vengeful mother? No. Why would they call her for help and risk the Foundation foiling another one of their wicked plots? They wouldn’t. Not even if they were aiming for the absolute annihilation of Wilton’s every dream.

Could it be the Chameleon? No. The man couldn’t have uncovered Knight’s former life. As far as the skilled impersonator knew, Michael had always existed as Knight. His previous life was a mystery. Or so Bonnie hoped it had remained an unsolvable riddle.

Every trudged up possibility seems to leave Bonnie with more unanswerable questions. She returned, time and time again, to square one. Frustration wells up inside of her veins as the brunette settles on the idea that Knight’s run into deep trouble on an investigation. This had to be a cry for help.

-----

Whilst Bonnie Barstow was not known for speeding, her foot increases the pressure on the gas pedal. The rev of the engine increases. Tires find themselves turning over at a quicker and quicker rate. All four heated rubber tires give a squeal of relief when she finally pulls up in front of the Hoff Medical Center.

With haste, she abandons her car in the parking-lot and races inside. Flagging down the first nurse she can find, she spurts out. “Please, I’m here for Michael Knight.” Entreating eyes catch the vacuous look to the nurses eyes and she repeated her words. “I’m Dr. Barstow. I got a call at the University where I work. I’m here for my - Michael Knight...” Ah, that’s where the issue dwells. She cringes before correcting herself. “Michael Long.”

That name garnered the desired knowledgeable reaction from the nursing staff. “This way.” The blonde nurse instructs taking up the lead through the sanitized hallway, armed with her clipboard.

“Can... can you tell me what happened to Michael?” Bonnie fearfully presses. She swallows down every fear collecting inside of her veins and penting-up in her chest. Having a breath catch in her throat, she manages to choke out. “Is he -- is he alright?” The concern taking up residence in the concentric confines of her eyes is genuine. Lord knows, she wouldn’t be able to cope with losing him.

The nurse keenly eyes her. The sympathy evident upon all of her etched features. “We’re looking at a mild concussion and bruised ribs. He’s lucky that nothing is broken. He must be in really good shape. Built like a tank that fella of yours is.” Any other man would have been in far worse shape.

Bonnie is too taken aback by the diagnosis to correct the woman’s assumption about her and Michael. In fact, she nearly misses the correlation as she is ushered into the room.

“He’s a real charmer. Your Officer Long is.” The nurse adds casting a wink in her direction.

Officer Long? God. It still felt anomalous to hear that in a sentence even with their extensive history together. She knew about his past. She was there the day Wilton brought Michael under his care. Until today, it had been years since that name fell upon Bonnie’s ears. Now, all of the sudden, she couldn’t seem to escape the shadow of the vastly unused moniker.

“Tried to flirt his way out of X-rays and everything.” The nurse actively points out. Her amusement with the fact is fairly obvious.

A perfectly manicured brow raises as Bonnie seats herself beside the man she knows under a very different name. “He really is. Isn’t he?” She fondly agrees. That had always been a part of the problem between them. Hadn’t it? His natural charisma instantly endeared him to almost every woman on the planet. She vividly recollects that he had tactfully employed it on more than one occasion to get what he wanted. He was kind enough to polish his act every time he attempted to use it on her.

Until the moment Bonnie cast her eyes upon Michael, it hadn’t struck her how intensely homesick she’d been for his familiar presence. Her heart gives off a series of palpable pangs against her ribcage as if it was sending Mores Code. Rescue was not bound to happen. No one could heed an unspoken SOSes. Could they? Despite her efforts to reign the unruly muscle in, it kept barreling ahead like an out-of-control freight train down the tracks.

Why was it that only Michael could arouse such chaos inside of her even when she had striven so desperately to move on? She tried to replace him with Dr. Halston and many other guys. Yet, nothing could fill that awful void that Michael left behind.

In that moment, with his large frame half swallowed by the hospital bed, she uncovers a dangerous revelation. She still loved him. As loathe to admit it as she is, those deeply-rooted feelings exist. They dwell in the undismissable realms of shadows where buried emotions and feelings are destined to remain.

Bonnie’s trembling hand gingerly brushes a dark-chestnut curl from the expanse of his warm forehead. The fluffy texture under the worn-pads of her fingers causes a familiar ache to awaken inside of her. “Michael, sweetheart....” She coos the term of endearment with a gentle insistence. She dare not startle him awake after the hell he’s obviously been put through with his injuries.

Her own lips bend into a shaky smile. “I’ve come to take you home.” His home? Her home? The Foundation? It didn’t really matter so long as he was back with people who loved and would protect him. As long as he was safe, Bonnie would never issue a complaint.  

[ghoul-lover9000]

The Lost Boys w/ a telekinetic s/o

You’re just trying to live out your dream of being a normal boring person, but slip ups happen and this one happened to take place in view of a feral vampire gang leader. You couldn’t help it; it was a reflex like flinching. You were in a diner, having a good time with your friends, when you dropped the fries you were munching on and you just willed them back in place. Looking around to see if anyone noticed, you see this intimidating figure surrounded by even more intimidating figures who is locking eyes with you just letting you know that he in fact saw what you did. You turn back around and suggest to your friends, who seemed to not notice anything, that you should all leave. That seemed to be the end of it. 

However, David does not forget this and every time he sees you on the boardwalk he remembers the strange event until he finally talks to you. 

David: Do you usually do freaky shit with your mind? “Do you usually come up and talk to people you don’t even know?” David: Hi, name’s David, nice to meet you, sweetheart. What’s your name? That’s nice. How can you move shit with your mind like a goddamn comic book character? “Oh, you’re such a gentleman… I don’t know. I’ve just always been able to. What are you expecting? Radioactive sludge incident?”

From then on, you and David become almost like friends and we all know what happens when you become friends with one of the Lost Boys. You become friends with all of the Lost Boys. After a while, you all become really close, like really fucking close. After a while, you have to say, “Holy shit, are we dating, guys?” And they’re just there like,  Paul: Damn, I guess. Marko: It would be a pleasure. Dwayne: What did you want a proposal? 

Before you know that they are vampires, they take you to the train tracks like with Michael and, when they all drop off, you loose it and levitate them all up. This is how you find out that they’re vampires because you’re crying, confused, and you think they just tried to kill themselves and they have to explain what the fuck prompted them to dive off a bridge. They have to carry you back home because you are drained after hauling all of their heavy asses. 

They really encourage you to use your power more because it’s badass, why hide something that’s so cool and unique? Embrace it, baby. 

Paul and Marko always are trying to test your powers. They never get over the novelty of it. They try and act like they’re “just trying to make your powers stronger”, but these motherfuckers just want to see you hold twelve different things that they’ve thrown in the air for you to “catch”.

All of them are guilty of throwing something for you to catch in the air. Like it comes out of no where. 

You serenely reading in the cave. David: Y/n! Catch! 

Paul literally jumps in the air for you to catch him, which doesn’t make any sense because he can fucking fly! Any attempts to point this out to him are shut down with “But it’s different when you do it, babe.”

You help them out during fights by messing with the other people so that they don’t get hurt as bad. You know they’re vampires and they can heal really fast, but it sucks to see them get hurt anyway. David kind of takes offense and tries to be all tough, but he thinks you’re just being sweet. Paul and Marko are just like “Thanks, babe!” Dwayne acts indifferent, but he thinks it’s cute that you try and help and that you care about them. 

For a little while, you were the cause of some fights between them because you would pull on Paul or David’s hair with your mind and blame it on one of the other three boys. Then, you just sat back and watched the chaos. Marko is the first to figure it out, but he doesn’t stop it. He just sits back with you and watches the show. 

David tries to play mind tricks on you, but it doesn’t work. You can’t explain it either, but you’re happy to not question it because he can’t convince you that you’re eating insects and shit. 

Cuddle piles go on forever now because there is no having to get up for anything. You just work your magic and everything comes to the pile. Marko wants a blanket because his undead ass is cold. Boom, boy, there you go. You need food and they need blood. Just summon some from the secret stash. David’s being a whiny bitch because he wants his cigarettes? Here you go, Davey-boy, now shut the fuck up!

You can fly with them and they think that’s really rad. Don’t think for a second that that exempts you from them trying to convince you to turn. 

When you become a vampire, you’re like ten times more powerful. You can lift heavier things with ease, you can summon up the power faster, you’re mind tricks are way more believable than the others’. You’re a force to be reckoned with. 

This turned out to be pretty fun to write. I really enjoyed it. Thank you @shadowylightcomputer for the request! Hope that you guys like it. 

[aion-rsa]

The Suicide Squad: Amanda Waller Is The Greatest DCEU Villain

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This article contains The Suicide Squad spoilers.

If you’ve spent any time in the last few years among comic book fans, be it socially or online, then it’s easy to remember one of the most repeated criticisms leveled at the tangled madness we call the DCEU: The villains are terrible. This critique is not without merit. 

Despite DC Comics being home to some of the greatest villains of comicdom—who have in turn inspired some of the greatest movie baddies like Heath Ledger’s Joker, Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman, and Terence Stamp’s General Zod—Warner Brothers’ more recent DC Extended Universe has struggled to live up to that legacy. The studio’s helter skelter efforts started serviceably enough with Michael Shannon’s take on Zod in Man of Steel, but it quickly derailed with whatever bad advice Jesse Eisenberg was getting for his version of Lex Luthor in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. And the less said about CG oddities like Doomsday and Steppenwolf, the better.

Even 2016’s Suicide Squad seemed to struggle with this problem despite being a movie populated only with supervillains. With the exception of Margot Robbie’s fantabulous Harley Quinn (who is more antihero than villain), few of the bad guys worked in that film, with actual heavies like Cara Delevingne’s Enchantress and Jared Leto’s hammy Joker falling completely flat.

What irony it is then that it took James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad to reveal five years later that the franchise and larger DCEU has had a great villain this whole time. Viola Davis did not originate the role of Amanda Waller in this weekend’s R-rated superhero sequel, but she certainly perfected it. What was already a formidable screen presence in an otherwise cluttered mess of a movie a half-decade ago has come into chilling focus here, and Davis has revealed she can give the scariest of performances within only a handful of scenes. Despite Gunn’s semi-sequel/semi-reboot being full of laughs, there’s nothing smirking about Davis’ constantly simmering ferocity.

In 2016’s Suicide Squad, Davis had more screen time and ostensibly more “badass” moments than she would in Gunn’s movie. In the final cut of that earlier film—which it should be noted is a version director David Ayer has more or less disowned—Davis gets the pre-title cards’ biggest entrance, with the soundtrack unimaginatively playing “Sympathy for the Devil” as she walks into close-up toward the screen. She also factors much more centrally to that movie’s plot, including in a scene where she is shown to murder her own technical engineers and assistants in the hope of covering up her culpability in that film’s messy plot.

Nevertheless, all of these moments intended to highlight her as a scary presence are as ham-fisted as the “damaged” tattoo on the forehead of Leto’s Joker. Davis, a powerhouse performer and one of the best actors of her generation, will always give a hundred percent on screen, but the characterization of her government mastermind always seemed underserved by the script’s broad characterization back then.

In The Suicide Squad, Davis plays the same shady lady: a morally ambiguous figure who finds different ways to blackmail incarcerated supervillains into going on suicide missions to “save the world.” Yet despite being far less central in this movie’s plot, Davis comes to dominate it as the true ultimate big bad. To be sure, there’s also a giant starfish called Starro the Conqueror, who acts like a cross between Godzilla and the facehugger in Alien. And yet, that creature is largely a physical menace in the end, and one that Gunn’s screenplay even sympathizes with. Starro ultimately comes off like an intergalactic King Kong who’s been kidnapped by humans to perform in the big bad city.

But Waller? She isn’t empathized with once by Gunn, and she is given ample opportunities to reveal a utilitarian cruelty that feels grotesquely real. It’s all fun and games at first in the opening sequence where Task Force X’s A-team is sent to be butchered on the shores of the Corto Maltese beachhead. When poor, dimwitted Savant (Michael Rooker) attempts to run away from the slaughter, Gunn’s camera almost fetishizes Waller’s power as she detonates the bomb in his neck, splattering his brain matter across the waves.

A sequence like that is expected in a movie like The Suicide Squad, and the coldness of her choice to pull the trigger on one of her own men is almost a gleeful confirmation that this movie will be going much harder than the 2016 version. However, as the picture progresses, the absolute indifference toward human life Davis embodies stops being a laughing matter.

Early on, the script does a lot of that heavy-lifting when we learn that Waller’s ace for blackmailing Bloodsport (Idris Elba) into working for her is that she’ll lean on the courts to have his daughter tried as an adult for shoplifting—thereby getting her sent to a maximum security prison where she wouldn’t last a day. It’s a vicious moment. But where Davis really brings the callousness out is at the end of the movie when we learn the story’s whole mission is not about destroying Starro, but erasing the records which prove the U.S. government is complicit in Corto Maltese’s experiments on the alien, which has resulted in the murders of thousands of civilians, including the children of dissidents.

When Starro inevitably breaks free and starts running amok, Waller doesn’t ask her team of supervillain rejects to save the day; she tells them to come home. Starro destabilizing a nation that’s become antagonistic to the United States will be good for strengthening U.S. influence in Central America, and if this alien kaiju has to kill a million people to do it, all the better.

There is a creepy cynicism to this plot twist, and it rings with an uncomfortable authenticity after a century of American foreign policy in the western hemisphere. Is it heavy-handed in a film where a giant starfish ends up battling an army of rats? Sure. But in a world where an American administration sanctioned the funneling of Iranian arms to Nicaragua in order to destabilize that country—and the said presidential administration which did this would go on to be lionized for decades to come by one of America’s two major political parties—it feels depressingly believable.

And Davis plays it all with the relentless conviction of a bureaucrat who’s seen it all and doesn’t really give a damn what anyone else in the room thinks. In fact, for most of the movie, the most compelling and unnerving thing about her Waller is how still and immobile she appears. She’s a rock for all the nuttiness of this film’s sea of supervillains to impotently crash against.

Read more

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By David Crow

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How The Suicide Squad is Different from Guardians of the Galaxy

By Mike Cecchini

The only time she ever raises her performance above a monotone is when Elba, Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, and the rest disobey her orders. In that moment, the actor who won an Oscar for wrestling a film away from Denzel Washington in Fences lets the fireworks fly. The loss of control turns Davis’ Waller into a monster far more fearsome than anything to do with starfish. She overwhelms the screen like a D.C. beltway variation of the Red Queen bellowing “off with their heads.” Her rage so consumes the screen that for the briefest of moments, it seems like the film could really end with her killing off the rest of the “good guys.”

Of course it does not go that way, and Waller is taken out of commission by her own minions in a nondescript control room for the rest of the climax—and her overlooking this blatant act of insubordination is probably the most absurd thing in The Suicide Squad. Even so, Waller remains undiminished and unchastened when the credits roll.

And that’s the most satisfying thing about Davis’ villain: unlike giant starfish or magical witches, she can’t be defeated or toppled. At best her type of realpolitik power can be merely evaded or sidestepped for a time. She doesn’t have any grandiloquent speech about gods and devils, or communion with CG beasties that lead her to babbling about “bells being rung.” She is simply a brutally efficient administrator whose effectiveness is actually a drag on the entire world around her—including the hapless antiheroes she will continue to force into suicide missions.

In a world where blockbuster antagonists more often run together in their search for MacGuffins and the ambitions to conquer the world, Davis’ Waller stands all the starker because you realize she achieved that domination long ago.

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[melisa-may-taylor72]

FREDDIE MERCURY: “WE LIKE TO TRY EVERYTHING”- PELO MAGAZINE- FEBRUARY 1985

For Freddie Mercury, Rock In Rio was a "unique event, a challenge". For the public, it was the opportunity to watch a beloved band like Queen in action. For the world critics it was, instead, a new sign of the downfall of a great of other times, who struggles daily to regain their old glory.

Link between the end of the superstar era and the punk revolution, reflecting the transition of the bright institutions of the past decade, Queen is the perfect group of the 1970s, still with minor manufacturing defects. As one English journalist put it: “Queen can be compared to an end-of-series automobile, certainly an excellent and unsurpassed version of the original design, but unfortunately lacking in the simple beauty of the first models. It is part of a chain and is therefore destined for obsolescence”. (Yeah, right, sure thing... 🙄🤨😏)

Freddie Mercury, Mr. Champion, showing a false indifference, is wrapped in a white t-shirt, “Marlon Brando style”. He plays a character of the genre " Working- Class Hero". 

First we talk about the old days, when Queen, like Roxy Music and David Bowie, "glittered" their music with theatrical effects.

"That was good because there was a lot of competition at the time," he begins to say with a speed that reflects his nervousness. 

“New bands must face strong competition. That's how you get to anything. Now, thirteen years later, there is still a lot of competition. I love the idea of competing. At that time we liked to be theatrical, almost to the extreme, and to wear costumes and make-up. Things have changed. We are more experienced and we put everything into music. But when you start you have to try to sell the package, like Culture Club does now: they reach their maximum, which is great. Thirteen years later you can't wear the same makeup or have the same attitudes. Everything has to be about music”.

-You are the most prolific composer of the group, and each one writes their songs alone. How does the band come to be strong and coherent in these conditions?

When I write a song I always think about what others can do in it, and that serves as a reference to me. Sometimes I write things that I know are gonna be difficult for everybody. Those are trophies for me. For example, I wrote "Keep Passing the Open Windows", which was intended for the film "New Hampshire Hotel" but was eventually rejected. We had to change it completely in order to adapt it to "The Works".

-Don't you think Queen is becoming a dance band?

No. Of course we do dance songs, but I don't think we can be catalogued that way. "Another One Bites the Dust" was a danceable hit, but that doesn't mean we want to do everything in that style. We like to try everything, and I have a great inclination towards black rhythms, like Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Aretha, and also Rod Stewart.

-”The Works" only confirmed Queen's usual eclecticism. Is this a way of perpetuating the pop tradition, of being a true living synthesis of the rock'n'pop tradition?

I don't think that, when we go out of circulation, everyone will say "This is the real Queen". We don't have labels. We are always doing something different, that's what I love. Before, the first five or six years, we had a very identifiable style: complicated harmonies and guitar orchestrations, but I think we've already given that up. You can call that versatility.

-How would you define the internal dynamics of the band?

It's very violent!  John thinks above all about rhythm, loves simplicity and can give others an idea of time. Roger is a fan of modern music and he's aware of everything that's going on, he is very open. Brian loves music that excites him, not only heavy music, but everything that goes directly to the body, to the spirit. He is the one who wants to convert Queen into rock'n'roll. I am myself, unpredictable. I give what they expect of me, and I can also surprise with something out of the ordinary.

-Is it difficult to be the attraction focus of the band, to polarize everybody?

It's my duty. And I love it anyway. The others chose me to fulfill that function. What am I going to do? That comes naturally.

-What do you think about Rock In Rio?

It was a challenge, a unique thing. I think that the festival will mean an opening for Brazil into the world rock market. There were people who criticized the fact that the line-up included artists from different genres, but I think it would be boring if all the bands played the same thing...

@x5vale, @natromanxoff, @his-majesty-king-mercury, @mephisto92, @moviestorian, @39-brian, @onegoldenglance, @crosmopolitan, @an-abyss-called-life, @i-live-for-queen, @toomuchlove-willkillyou, @brimaymay, @sail-away-sweet-sis, @fridarogerina, @funnydressesweirdhairanddance, @old-fashioned-roger-boy, @70srog, @briianmaay, @l-over-bo-y, @inui-mycroft, @deacytits, @iminlovewithrogscar, @totallynerdstuff, @drowseoftaylor, @brianmayislongaway, @whitequeenofrhye @brianmayoucease, @jesus-in-a-life-boat, @aslongasthereismusic, @roger-taylors-car, @silapril, @brianmayay, @sunset-shimmer-may, @tenderbri, @sail-away-sweet-sister, @brianmydear, @bri-my-love, @thosequeenboys, @millionairewaltz-carpediem, @delilahmay39@painandpleasure86, @bribrifrenchfry, @xlucylennonx, @sensitivedna921, @a-night-at-the-abbey-road, @brian-39-may, @inthedayswhenlandswerefew, @madformeddowstaylor, @queenrogertaylorfan, @let-roger-get-a-lunch, @queen-for-life, @rethought, @darlinginnuendo, @mymakeupmaybeflaking

[anuknowha]

Till Death Do We Part// Chapter 4, Too Much Fun

I would highly appreciate it if you reblog it and all its lovely tags. Thank you!

In a bedroom:

Music rang through the bedroom, everyone dancing and clapping their hands in enjoyment. The door cracked slightly.

A light skinned man who held a microphone in one hand. The tune of pop music playing in the background as he started to tap his foot to the beat. He danced across the floor, smooth as ever as his "audience" observed him in awe.

He put the microphone to his mouth and took an inhale as the words slowly appeared on the screen. He started to sing.

"I don't care what you're talking bout baby. I don't care what you say. Don't you come walkin' beggin' back mama. I don't care anyway. Dime after dime, I gave you all of my money. No excuses to make." He was in complete sync with the beat as his curly black hair bounced with his every movement.

The youngest girl was shaking her hips to the song. The skinny dark skinned guy next to her soon grabbed her by her hand and started to dance with her.

Another male, with pale skin couldn't help but gyrate his hips as he tapped his feet to the beat.

Two of the more bulky young men remained on the edge of the bed clapping their hands. The heftier guy was on the floor, admiring the man before him. And the other two women couldn't help but laugh and cheer him on.

Within a few minutes the song faded out and the room was filled with applause.

"That was great Michael!" One of the men on the floor chuckled.

"Thank you Duke." Michael bowed.

"What exactly happened to you Michael? When I was alive you were well and thriving." The young girl said, Michael couldn't help but toss her a small smile.

"Cardiac arrest, well overdose I should say. I guess its because my physician gave me too many pills and I just couldn't take it and it ended me."

"Man they didn't have to do you like that. Always gotta get rid of the black man because of the empowerment, right?" The guy in the bandanna huffed.

"I don't believe it was on purpose..." The girl stated.

"No, it probably was." Michael said nodding his head. "Tupac is right. Even though I had changed the color of my skin and altered my face it never changed the fact of the matter that I was still a black man."

"I still can't believe you did that Michael." The heavy set guy on the floor expressed.

"I've had some conflicting battles with my self-confidence, a good example of that was me hating the shape of my nose. Janet did too, and we both ended up getting surgery for it."

"Well a person like me got murdered and I still think Biggie over here did it." Tupac announced.

Biggie got up and walked over to Tupac with a face of disgust. "You weren't alive when it happened but they killed me too Tupac. Someone killed me too, and although I had a beef with you I would never hurt you like that my brother." He sighed.

"Someone shot you too?!" The girl that Tupac was just dancing with nodded her head.

"They did from what I've read and ain't nobody find out who had killed either of y'all."

"And what happened to you princess? You get shot too?" He clicked his tongue.

One of the women on the other side of the room got up and looked over at him, she went over to the girl and wrapped her arm around her shoulder in comfort.

"Aaliyah died when the plane she was on crashed in the Bahamas. It was a very tragic death."

"I-I died from a heart attack too Michael." A voice came from the guy in the back of the room, everyone shot him a look.

"We know." they all said in unison, well almost all except the two who were on the bed.  

"Now, Michael, I still don't understand why you'd want to make such a drastic change to your appearance like that but what matters is that you're satisfied son." Duke said with a smile.

"I am Duke, I am." Michael laughed. “Well more than I was before if that’s what you meant.”

Biggie and Tupac only shook their heads at Michael’s response. And although they didn’t agree with his decisions, they knew in the back of their mind that they were in support of his decision in the matter. Everyone had the right to be happy in their own way, and they all knew what made Michael feel more confident in himself.

Back downstairs; as the two Beatles entered the living room everyone gave them a wide eyed look.

"Aren't you John and George...? From the Beatles?" David eyed them, taking in their forms.

"Yeah we are... What about it?" John snorted.

"I always wanted to meet the Beatles. You know, before there were three." Kurt trailed off until he took a better look at them, he squinted. "Wait-"

"George died in 2001." David added, being the only one in the room with possible knowledge of this information.

John raised a brow and pointed to the dirty blonde sitting on the stairs. "And aren't you Brian Jones? The original lead singer of the Rolling Stones?"

Brian let out a sigh and nodded his head. Jim wrapped an arm around his shoulder and let out a laugh.

"He's still upset about being here." He teases.

Brian quickly threw Jim’s arm off with a blush. “I’m the only one in the room who was murdered, so yeah, I’m angry, I’m pissed, and I’m hurt.”

Freddie was quickly taken aback. “But, I thought it was a cause of misadventure?”

“You know damn well Freddie that a 27 year old man that owns a pool can obviously swim. He “drowned” in his own pool. It would be kind of ridiculous right? Don’t you think?” David ridiculed.

George tried to hold back a laugh, “Well at least your killer didn’t sit at the crime scene-.”

“Fuck off George. I swear. They never jailed him, because there wasn’t any fucking evidence.” Brian snarled as he stood up on the stairs, he started to gesture towards the slightly “older” man.

Jim quickly grabbed him by the arm and pulled him down, smoke leaking through his teeth as he rolled his eyes at the boy. Brian didn’t hesitate to try to free his arm from Jim who only tightened his grip.

David chortled, unable to keep his eyes off them.

By this point the two Beatles were fed up and decided to walk past them. And as they went up the stairs, Brian lunging at them like a wild dog, growling and baring his teeth, but Jim held him back not lightening his grip on his arm in the slightest.

George and John paused looking at the room filled with rock stars but soon continued their journey.  You could tell John was focused, he was quick to try to move from this room. It seemed to make him somewhat uncomfortable; or maybe the feeling was indifference.

Back in the bedroom; Tupac and Biggie were finally talking out the conspiracy many people were speculating.

"I think we can agree brother, that neither one of us are responsible for each other's death." Tupac smiled as he held his hand out.

"I agree." Biggie grabbed his hand and gave him a firm handshake.

"I'm glad everyone is gettin' along. You know back in my day, when Louis and I were swinging towns and jazzing up houses, there was too much going on, seemed that no one wanted to get along." Duke thought for a second, tapping his chin.

"All of you guys still had houses a swingin after we were long gone, huh?" Louis cackled.

"Yeah, and some of us are still on earth swinging, dancing, and satisfying the young and the old." The woman with her arm around Aaliyah spoke.

"I know I did Ms.Houston." Aaliyah nodded grabbing her hand.

"I think we've had enough talk about our troubles don't you think? Whose turn is it on the karaoke machine?" the other woman hummed looking around the room. "How about you Elvis?"

Most of the time, Elvis was cocky, but this time he was slightly reluctant about taking the microphone.

“What’s wrong? Michael questioned, slightly worried.

“You know karaoke wasn’t around much when I was.” Elvis sighed.

Michael walked over to him and handed him the mic. He gripped his hand firmly and gave him a reassuring nod. He whispered something as Elvis took the mic and walked to the front of the room. Whitney walked over and helped change the song for him.

“What song would you like?” she hummed as she scrolled through on Youtube searching for songs she possibly could have known.

“Jailhouse rock.”

The music started, and Elvis took a big breath in. He kept his eyes away from the screen and towards the others as he started snap his fingers to the beat. Everyone soon followed.

Outside the room; George and John were walking past until George caught rift of the music, he stopped. He moved closer to the door, and started watching through the crack of the door. He seemed almost in awe at the sight. John tugged on his arm.

"Let's go. I want to find that room." He stated stubbornly as he continued to walk, George's wrist in his grip.

George looked back in disappointment.

"But I actually was interested."

"Later George, first we read. I want to know how everyone died."

George let out a sigh until they passed a room in which they heard the strum of a guitar. They both stopped in their tracks and looked at each other. This door was closed, locked. Comically they both put their ears up to the door and John gave George a "shh" placing his finger over his hand to signal silence. They listened, the cords sounding slightly familiar to George’s ears, and his hand reaches towards the knob before its quickly knocked away by his band mate. Wave after wave of notes were heard by them. They wondered who was behind the door but dare not try to open it.

Nodding at each other they agreed to move on, until they got to a door that was wide open. They saw a boy sitting there, someone neither of them recognized. He seemed different from everyone else in the house.

He was drawing or something, but they dared not bother him, he seemed too into whatever it was that made the young boy a busy bee. They were both curious as to who he was but John figured they’d find out more by reading than by asking him questions. Especially since he seemed like he wanted to be alone.

After a few more down they see a tall man standing next to a giant red door. This man was built, not wearing anything but a silk red robe. His face was firm with a lack of emotion. He had curly black hair, and brown eyes that shifted over in their direction. In his hand was a scepter, it was golden and about half his height.

“You have come to read prophecies?” The man questioned, his tone and posture staying still as a statue. “You must state your names.” he announced.

“John Lennon.”

“And George Harrison.”

The man put his hand on the door, the scepter glowing. The door soon opened and John and George took a step in.

In the basement; Janis let out a small gasp, “I should’ve told them that they can’t see their own or any of their band mates.”

I appreciate feedback! 

Taglist: @lennonwhipped  @rogers-flowered-blazer  @caviarandqueen @sweet-mother-love @peacelennon

[xtruss]

Goodbye Ted Dexter, Free Spirit, Cricket Thinker, Renaissance Man

The England and Sussex captain had aura, flair, majestic batting, and impossible glamour - and that was just on the field

— Mark Nicholas | 27 August, 2021

Ted Dexter batting in a ring of close-in fielders in Sydney, January 1963 Getty Images

I don't know when the Ted Dexter affectation started but I can guess. The last thing my father did with me before he died so young was to take me to see the 1968 Gillette Cup final at Lord's. This was during Ted's short comeback and when the great man strode to the wicket, I leapt about in excitement, cheering his name for all I was worth. He didn't get many but no matter, I had seen him live. That evening Dad bowled to me in the garden as I imitated every Dexter mannerism and stroke I had seen just a few hours before.

"There is about Dexter, when he chooses to face fast bowling with determination, a sort of air of command that lifts him above ordinary players. He seems to find time to play the fastest bowling and still retain dignity, something near majesty, as he does it." — John Arlott

I fell for the aura, and for the flair in those back-foot assaults on fast bowlers. Not for a minute do I think I saw the 70 in 75 balls against Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith at Lord's in 1963 but I feel as if I did - the power, the poise, the sheer gall of it. Nothing, not even the Beatles, could drag me from the television screen when he walked to the wicket, seemingly changing the picture from black-and-white to glorious technicolor as he took guard. Frankly, much of the Test cricket of the time was pretty dull but there was a frisson, an expectation, with Ted, just as there is when Ben Stokes is on his way today. It was all too brief, he had retired for good before I started proper school.

The West Indians of the day - Conrad Hunte, Garry Sobers, Wes Hall - thought that innings the best played against them by anybody, though Dexter himself would modestly say it was just one of those days where everything came together and the bat swung freely in just about the right arc. He was well miffed to be given out lbw, however, insisting later that the DRS would have saved him. Who knows how many careers might have been changed by the sliding doors of the DRS.

The word majesty sits well with Dexter's batting, primarily because of the way in which he attacked through the off side off his back foot. This is a stroke so difficult to master that more prosaic batters choose to ignore it. It is no great surprise that Dexter thought Gordon Greenidge and Martin Crowe the two most technically correct right-hand players that he saw, citing their ability to stay sideways-on and to play the ball alongside their body as the prime reason for the accolade.

He was a huge fan of Joe Root and became near apoplectic during the England captain's relatively lean spell a while ago, when he became square-on to the bowler and was playing in front of his body. This niggled so much that he wrote to Root without mincing his words. Though at first put out, Root soon saw the kindness in a man of Dexter's age and knowledge who bothered to write, and therefore returned an email of thanks with the observation that he took the point. Who knows to what degree? It is enough to say that this year Root has batted about as well as any man could have done, and no one has enjoyed each of these innings in Sri Lanka, India, and now at home as much as Dexter.

One final appeal: Dexter (fourth from left) watches as umpire Charlie Elliot gives John Inverarity out off Derek Underwood, The Oval, 1968 Getty Images

For the best part of a year now, Ted has been banging on about Dawid Malan: simply couldn't understand why England didn't pick him to bat at three. He cited the hundred in Perth in 2017 and this year's big scores for Yorkshire before predicting near-certain success with the method that brought those runs. It is sad, indeed, that he didn't live to see the fulfillment of his prophecy in Malan's fine innings yesterday. He liked the look of James Vince and Zak Crawley too, cricketers who stand tall and play with freedom. He got a lot right, this man of Radley, Cambridge, Sussex and England.

Tall himself, strong, handsome and impossibly glamorous, Edward Ralph Dexter caught everyone's eye. With the golden Susan Longfield on his arm, they cut quite a dash and cared little for the sniping that came from those less blessed. The enigma in him - and how! - was often confused with indifference, and though cricket has remained his other great love, it was never the be-all and end-all for him - a fact that made his appearances all the more cherished and his company all the more engaging. It is remarkable to think that he first retired as far back as 1965, before returning briefly in 1968 to make a double-hundred at Hastings against Kent and be immediately recalled to the England team for the Ashes. In the brilliant photograph (above) of the moment when Derek Underwood claims the final wicket at The Oval, Ted is caught spinning to appeal for lbw with a face that smacks of a lifelong instinct for competition and achievement.

"Ted was a man of moods, often caught up in theories, keen when the action was hot, seemingly uninterested when the game was dull... a big-time player, one who responded to atmosphere, liked action and enjoyed the chase and gamble. Maybe this was the reason he was drawn to horse racing so that a dull day stalking the covers might be enlivened for him by thoughts of how his money was faring on the 3:15 at Ascot or Goodwood." — John Snow

Richie Benaud and Dexter in Sydney during the 1963-64 Ashes Frank Albert Charles Burke / Fairfax Media/Getty Images

And Snow would know for he was not the type to rise above those grey days of county cricket when the stakes were so low. Snow and Dexter, my first heroes, along with Jimmy Greaves and George Best, Muhammad Ali, the Beatles and the Stones - all of them important figures at 29 Queensdale Road, where the young Nicholas grew up with vinyl records and cared-for willow, narrow-grained and well-oiled for the garden Test matches that England forever won.

Much of the 1960s were about rebellion, revolution even, in response to the age of austerity. After the long and mainly drab post-war years, the young simply broke free and changed pretty much anything they could get their hands on. Music and fashion led the way, leaving sport's establishment to stutter in their wake. Only a few precious players could transcend the inertia, using both their talent and expression to delight the crowds and influence the young. Cricket was my thing, Dexter and Snow were the wind beneath my wings.

In Snow there truly was rebellion, against authority and the system it supported. This was not so in Dexter's case, though his free spirit and somewhat cavalier approach to responsibility gave the impression of one determined to ruffle feathers. From the outset he adored sport, worked harder than some might think at his books, and embraced diversions with the enthusiasm of a man who had more to do than could ever be done.

In many ways Ted was a contradiction: at once a conformist, as shaped by the early years of his life at home and school, and a modernist, whose lateral thinking did much to reform the structure of English cricket during his time as chairman of selectors. Richie Benaud observed that Ted's imagination and drive "will be of great benefit to English cricket in years to come. Equally, I'm in no doubt that others will take the credit for it." The rebellion in Ted was hardly radicalised but he loved to challenge conservative thinking, to take risks and to invest in his life as an adventure. Both on and off the field, this made for a terrific watch.

The best of Ted: Dexter on his way to 70 against Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith at Lord's, June 1963 PA Photos

He thought the Hundred a good wheeze and admitted he would rather like to have played it himself. He was, of course, the original thinker about one-day cricket, supporting its conception as early as the late 1950s and then leading Sussex to the first two 60-over titles at Lord's in the Gillette Cup. He paid close attention to the tactics and convinced his men that following them to the letter would do the trick. Which it did. He pushed for four-day county matches 27 years before they were incorporated and he founded the idea of central contracts for England players long before other teams caught the bug.

He was proud of his part in the development of the spirit of cricket, applying golf's moral high ground to the game that made his name. Through his own PR agency, he became a pioneer in cricket's digital-technology revolution by inventing the system of Test match rankings that first announced itself under the banner of Deloitte and is now the ICC international rankings.

On a Zoom call a couple of months back, with tongue firmly in cheek, he said, "Having a rather high opinion of myself, I can safely say that had the rankings been in place sometime around the mid part of the 1963 summer, I would have been the No. 1-rated batsman in the world." We had special guests on these calls - Mike Atherton, Michael Vaughan, Ed Smith, Robin Marlar, Sir Tim Rice and more - all keen to share a drink, chew the cud and have a laugh with the game's most original and forward-thinking mind.

Champagne days: (from left) Fred Trueman, Dexter, David Sheppard and Colin Cowdrey celebrate after winning the Melbourne Test, January 1963 PA Photos/Getty Images

We cannot jump past golf without mentioning the game at the Australian Golf Club in Sydney when Ted partnered Norman Von Nida against Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player. So enamoured of Ted's golf were they that Nicklaus suggested Ted follow him back to the USA for a crack at the tour. Player has long said that Ted was the best amateur ball-striker he ever saw and Von Nida just thanked him for securing the one-up triumph that day. Eighteen months ago Player told me that in their one head to head with each other, Ted beat him up the last at Sunningdale, receiving only four shots. "Little so-and-so," said Ted, "we played level!" They were due for a game last summer but Covid stood firmly between them. The last time I played with Ted, two summers ago now, he beat his age, shooting 83 round the Old Course at Sunningdale without breaking a sweat.

This was a man of Jaguar cars, Norton motorbikes, greyhounds, race horses and an Aztec light airplane that, in 1970, he piloted to Australia with his young family beside him, to cover the Ashes as a journalist. They flew 12,000 miles and made about two dozen stops at British military bases along the way.

Ted married the very beautiful Susan soon after returning from Australia and New Zealand in the spring of 1959. How she is hurting today. So too Genevieve, Tom and the grandchildren.

There was an eccentricity in him that was occasionally misunderstood but otherwise immensely appealing and it is with that in mind, that I turn to the man himself for the final word. It comes from his blog, which is a splendid read and will remain a platform for the family to share their thoughts about this husband, father and grandfather who brought us so much joy.

Dexter and Frank Worrell at a BBC interview with Peter West, August 1963 Harry Todd / Fox Photos/Getty Images

It was in my last term at Radley College when I had a hard game of rackets in the morning, scored 3 tries with two conversions for the 1st XV in the afternoon, was heard listening to operatic voices in the early evening, before repairing to the Grand Piano in the Mansion and knocking off a couple of Chopin preludes. "Quite the Renaissance man it seems" said my Social Tutor and I admit I liked the sound of it, if not quite knowing what it meant.

The Encyclopaedia Brittanica description of Renaissance man (or polymath) is as follows: one who seeks to develop skills in all areas of knowledge, in physical development and social accomplishment and in the arts. A point is made that you do not need to excel at any one activity. It is enough to tackle it seriously and see how far you get. I like the physical development bit obviously and I feel the social accomplishment bit is covered by my willingness to take on responsibilities all my life. Perhaps the arts bit is a bit shaky but a love for music, and particularly opera, and love of language - being fairly fluent in French, Italian, rudimentary German and Spanish - may be some modest qualifications."

Some different cat, huh. What a man. What a cricketer. Goodbye Ted, and thank you.

[awesomebrazilianprincess]

It's Neymar's Time to Complete His Rise to Royalty

If Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi has anything in common with Crash Davis—if there’s any sort of cultural crossover between the archetypes of global sports glitz and minor league baseball grime—it’ll show itself when the tape recorder starts rolling. That’s when the icons in their posh private jets heed the wisdom Davis imparted on a bumpy bus, whether they’ve seen Bull Durham or not. “You’re gonna have to learn your clichés,” Crash says in the 1988 classic. “They’re your friends.”

The galácticos have little choice but to follow this advice. Combine the fanaticism surrounding global soccer with the minimal access afforded the media covering it, and you have an environment where every crumb becomes content, where innuendo is louder than insight, where the tiniest spark can become a bombshell. In short: The less said the better; be safe, not sorry. So it’s significant, then, that in the middle of what should be the most relaxing summer of his adult life, Neymar da Silva Santos Jr. is willing to let you in, share his concerns and maybe even make a headline. He can’t hide from who he is, nor from the momentous, legacy-defining season to come.

The quiet but charismatic 25-year-old Brazilian forward has never won a World Cup. He has never been named FIFA’s player of the year. And if he remains at FC Barcelona (which was up in the air as of Monday; if he’s not in Paris a week from now, it will be a surprise), he will have to wait a bit longer until he’s even considered his own team’s centerpiece. But he’s universally deemed soccer’s best player after Ronaldo and Messi, and he’s beloved in a way that neither of them ever will be. And a big reason for that is his indifference to the Book of Crash.

Neymar can’t fake it. He’s not packaged, and he’s not a ­product—and as a result, he sells lots of them: Nike, Gillette, Panasonic, Beats by Dre. In 2013 he was named the most marketable athlete in the world by SportsPro and Eurosport. In January he was ranked the most valuable player on the Euro­pean transfer market by Switzerland’s CIES Football Observatory. And in April he was the only footballer on TIME’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people. (“I’ve always been struck by his humility,” David Beckham wrote for TIME. “He’s respectful and wants to learn...He lives to play the game, and I imagine he approaches it now the same way he did as a boy.”)

Neymar says he can’t explain his inclusion on that list—and then he tries to do just that: “Maybe because I’m an athlete or maybe because I do a lot of things on social media. But I don’t know. I don’t like to talk about myself. I try to be a good role model for my son, my family, my friends, and then I try to be a good role model for the rest of the people, too. ... I try to be myself without being anything different. I’m only one Neymar—for my family, for the public. I’m always the same person.”

When Neymar acknowledges that, yes, the next 12 months, climaxing with the World Cup in Russia, will probably be “the toughest season of my life,” he believes it. The world will read those words and discuss and dissect them, and then they’ll become even more true. The spotlight is about to get even brighter, and Neymar, who’s been soccer’s next big thing for nearly a decade, will have to confront his destiny.

This was Neymar’s first summer without a national-team commitment since 2010, when his exclusion from Brazil’s ill-fated World Cup squad caused an uproar at home. Brazil has already qualified for Russia, so he’s had the chance to indulge. He hit Oracle Arena for Game 2 of the NBA Finals, sitting courtside with Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton and posing afterward with Odell Beckham Jr. and Kevin Durant. Neymar wasn’t at all concerned about whether the Warriors’ megastar was a fan; this was no ego trip. “I don’t know if he’s seen me play,” Neymar told SI, “but I had the pleasure to meet him.”

In another photo the 5' 9" Brazilian stood on a chair and playfully lorded over 6' 7" Draymond Green. Neymar enjoys being around famous and accomplished people—he reunited with Green in Ibiza last month—not because of how it reflects on him but because he’s a fan, genuinely in awe of what they can do.

In the last year he performed a short, silly scene in which he juggles a napkin holder in Vin Diesel’s most recent Xander Cage movie—a role only for the athlete who doesn’t take himself too seriously—and kicked a ball across Hollywood Boulevard on Jimmy Kimmel Live! He’s joined musicians onstage, singing and dancing at concerts back home.

Neymar has a piano at his house in Spain—it was there when he moved in, he says, and he has been teaching himself to play with YouTube ­videos—but at an L.A. photo shoot for this story it takes some convincing to get the man watched by tens of millions every weekend to tap out even a simple a tune on a rented grand. He sits, gets up and wanders a bit before settling back in. Songs are suggested. How about Barcelona’s club anthem, “El Cant del Barça”? A Nike marketing rep asks that the studio’s ambient music be turned up, not down, so Neymar might feel a bit less scrutinized. He’s not an action figure to be played with. He’s human; he gets nervous. He says he felt it when he met Michael Jordan in Las Vegas and when he lined up to take what would be the winning penalty kick in the Olympic gold medal game last summer in Rio. Before the confidence bubbled up at the penalty spot, he admits, he endured the “worst sensation—all of the responsibility is on you.”

The Olympics play a distant second fiddle to the World Cup, but that U-23 tournament stubbornly remained the one international competition Brazil hadn’t won. And with the 2016 Games being contested on home soil two years after World Cup humiliation (also at home), Brazil named Neymar one of its three over-age players. He delivered, scoring four goals in six matches and converting that gilded penalty against Germany. Neymar was in tears almost immediately. For him, delivering the final piece of Brazil’s trophy puzzle was an immense achievement. For the public that adores him, however, it’s still not enough.

“It was like the Yankees finishing with the best record in the regular season: O.K., that’s kind of cool, but they measure everything around here by World Cup championships,” says Brian Winter, a Texan who co-wrote Pelé’s 2014 autobiography and who now runs Americas Quarterly, a political, business and cultural journal covering Latin America. As Reuters’ chief correspondent in Brazil for five years, he knows well how the nation’s sports, economics and politics intersect; he was living in São Paulo when Germany dismantled the hosts 7–1 in the ’14 Cup semifinals. That game in Belo Horizonte, he says, marked “the start of a long descent into hell for Brazil,” which has been reeling from financial and political crises since.

Neymar’s penalty and Olympic gold offered only temporary respite. “It was cool for, like, a day,” says Winter. “It created the sensation that hosting the Games hadn’t been a total waste. But once the lights went off, it was so clear that all of the promises linked to the ­Olympics—improved policing, infrastructure—had fallen short.” Brazilians, he says, are “desperately hoping for a reason to be happy in 2018. And so often—maybe too often—Brazilian soccer and politics mix.”

So the nation turns to Neymar. Four years after the misery of the so-called Mineirazodrubbing by ­Germany, which Neymar missed with a fractured vertebra suffered in a quarterfinal Thunderdome match against Colombia, Brazil has a viable shot at redemption in Russia. The 7–1 stain will never go away, but this World Cup will feature Neymar in his prime, shouldering the hopes of a country desperate for a reversal in fortune. This is the season in which it all could turn around. The season in which Neymar might finally fulfill his promise.

"Everybody wants that Neymar be the protagonist in the World Cup,” says Ricardo Kaká, the Orlando City midfielder who was part of Brazil’s 2002 title-winning team (and who, incredibly, is the last man other than Ronaldo or Messi to be crowned world player of the year—10 years ago). “This is unfair sometimes, but it’s also because of who he is as a player, for his potential, how he can decide a game, how he’s a protagonist in Barcelona. There is going to be pressure on him.”

Kaká is certainly familiar with scrutiny, but as good as he was, he never became the long-term, tactical focal point of the Seleção. Nevertheless, Neymar looks up to the former Brazil number 10, who’s 10 years his elder. Neymar admires Kaká’s piety, and Kaká appreciates Neymar’s willingness to listen and learn. They’re both part of a text-message group reserved for Brazilian national team veterans, making it one of the most exclusive clubs in the world: Kaká, Roberto Carlos, Denílson, Elano...–Neymar joined recently, and he employed the group’s advice during the Olympics.

Kaká explains: “The first games, Brazil didn’t play so good, everyone was criticizing Brazil—and he was the most important player. He tried speaking with the press, and then I said to him, ‘Now as a player we have a very good opportunity to answer without saying; we have the field to [show that] we care and that the situation is important to us.’ In the end he won the Olympics, and that was the best answer he could give.”

The members of the group, Kaká says, believe Neymar is “very smart to understand that these guys can give him something different, something that could help.”

Brazil needs Neymar because, increasingly, Brazil is Neymar. Though rocked by recessions and political scandals, the nation has seen massive gains made by the nascent middle class over the past couple of decades. For years, socioeconomic classes “often resembled castes,” Winter says. There were five—A through E—and it’s the C that’s been on the rise.

C is roughly where you would have found a young Neymar. The son of a journeyman pro player, he wasn’t impoverished growing up on the southern fringe of the São Paulo megalopolis, but his family didn’t have much either, and making ends meet was a chore. Now Neymar takes in some $37 million per year (more of it from endorsement deals than from Barcelona), according to Forbes. He’s living the modern Brazilian dream.

“Neymar has the deepest connection with the people of Brazil of any soccer player of this generation, particularly with the rising middle class,” Winter says. “The way he talks, his street-wise charm—he appeals to that segment. He’s the best pitchman in a generation.”

That appeal also dovetails with the millennial generation. Neymar is a master of social media. His image isn’t meticulously crafted or self-celebratory like Ronaldo’s; it’s not homey or reticent like Messi’s. That video of Neymar playing soccer in a backyard with Justin Bieber is more effective than anything a consultant might stage. It’s organic and honest, a window into Neymar’s effortless cool.

He’s fashionable. And he’s got a wonderfully wry sense of humor. “Social media tends to ferret out the phonies,” Winter says. “People love watching for their idols to show a glimpse of insincere behavior—but you really don’t see it from him.”

There’s a 2011 video of a 19-year-old Neymar in the locker room at his old Brazilian club, Santos, in which he dances and sings and thrusts along to Michel Teló’s cover of “Ai Se Eu Te Pego.” The more sighs and eye rolls Neymar gets from teammates in the video, the more committed he becomes.

He’s comfortable, unvarnished and fearless in the moment—the sort of person anyone with spunk or spirit would like to be around. The clip has more than 25 million views, and Neymar has 78 million followers on Instagram, making his account the 14th-most popular in the world, a hair above Messi’s.

Ronaldo has more, but Google “CR7 dancing” and among the first few hits are clips of the Portuguese star gyrating in a pink bathing suit in front of a crowd in Ibiza and another of him cavorting on a private plane. Search “Messi dancing” and you’ll find videos of the Argentine and his wife. There’s no better illustration of the differences among the three men.

Kaká certainly sees it. “Neymar just tries to be himself,” he says. “What’s in your character [takes] you where you want to go. Messi is a little bit shy, so he wants to be more out of the light. Cristiano wants to be not just a soccer player, but also a celebrity. There’s not a rightway, it’s just a choice. Neymar is the nice guy who wants to be everywhere, but he’s humble and simple. When he takes a picture with Kevin Durant, it’s: ‘This is the man, not me.’”

The soccer-loving world may worship now at the feet of Messi and Ronaldo, but that’s humanity’s appreciation for the divine and incomprehensible. Messi plays as if there are fireworks attached to his boots—the ball moves so quickly from one side of his foot to the other that it seems to occupy two places simultaneously. He’s all controlled chaos, staccato soccer. He is a savant, essentially, who doesn’t seem to be truly comfortable anywhere but on a field, and he’s been the driving force behind a three-time European champion that’s arguably the greatest side the sport has ever seen.

If Messi is from Mars, then Ronaldo hails from Mount Olympus. He’s like one of us but better, perfected. He plays like the physical specimen he is: with strength, power and panache. He’s more attractive than the statues of him. If Neymar markets to the C class, Ronaldo aims his CR7 brand, with its underwear and fragrances, at those in the A+. The guy has not only an airport but a galaxy named after him.

Yet for all their supernatural prowess, neither Messi nor Ronaldo is as adored in his homeland as Neymar is in Brazil. Argentines and Portuguese may look up to their respective icons, but Neymar prefers to look you in the eye.

Asked if he’s a little bit Ronaldo and a little bit Messi, Neymar says, “I think I’m like that. Sometimes I’m a little flamboyant, an extrovert. Sometimes I’m quiet.”

Whether he’s their peer is less important to the soccer world than whether he’s their successor. The Messi-Ronaldo duopoly has combined to win six FIFA Club World Cups, eight Champions League titles and a boatload of other honors. But Messi is 30, Ronaldo 32. Next summer’s World Cup will be the last for each man in his prime. At some point, it must be Neymar’s turn.

The Brazilian says that FIFA’s player of the year award is “very important” (Crash Davis wouldn’t like that answer), but he shrugs when asked if and when he’ll break through. “Everything happens in the right time,” he says. “The main focus is to keep playing well, keep winning games, and when the time is right, I’ll get mine.” (I’ll get mine—that wouldn’t pass the Crash test either.)

Back in June, when Ronaldo celebrated Real Madrid’s second consecutive Champions League crown with fans at the Plaza de Cibeles, he made his case for a second straight world player of the year award with a micro­phone and a chant. The thought of it—of using a team event to tout his case for an individual honor—makes Neymar squirm. “No, I wouldn’t do that,” he says.

He attracts attention in other ways. His play, like his demeanor, borrows a bit from both Messi and Ronaldo. But whereas Messi slices and Ronaldo surges, Neymar glides. He’s smoother and more efficient than either, outstanding with both feet and blessed with the creativity and vision of his great Brazilian predecessors. But his game, like his personality, is more accessible. Train long enough and hard enough, and maybe you, too, could play like Neymar. He’s human, mortal, and he speaks with a voice the next generation understands.

This is where Paris Saint-Germain enters the picture. The powerhouse French club was always going to feature in Neymar’s story, thanks to an astonishing Champions League round-of-16 series that will live forever in the lore of both PSG and FCB. Last season was a tough one by Barcelona’s standards, and its puzzling lack of ruthlessness was exposed in a 4–0 first-leg Valentine’s Day massacre at the Parc des Princes. Neymar says he was embarrassed by the performance, and he corroborates the story that he promised friends he’d net two goals in the March 8 decider at the Camp Nou—which he ultimately did, in the 88th and 91st minutes, before setting up Sergi Roberto’s clincher in a 6–1 thriller.

On a team as loaded as Barça, there aren’t many moments when a player can and must take command. But with his European season on the line Neymar was unstoppable, and for many it seemed like a turning point on his climb to soccer’s summit. In TIME, Beckham wrote that it would “be remembered as the moment he stepped up to take on the mantle of best player in the world. Neymar is ready to make his move.

But as July came to a close, it appeared more and more likely that move might take him away from Messi and back to Paris, where PSG was looking for a way to finance the payment of his record $261 million release clause. Yes, Neymar would have to wait for Barcelona to become his team—but if and when it did, then his team would be Barcelona. If he leaves for PSG, he will join a lesser league and a club that has the cash but not the chemistry to make a deep Champions League run. In NBA terms he’d be moving from the Warriors to the Clippers. And instead of Durant, whose desire to win trumped his need to be the man—as Neymar’s did when he left Santos for Barcelona in 2013—the Brazilian would be channeling Kyrie Irving, itching to get out from under LeBron James’s shadow.

Asked which of his two favorite NBA players he identifies with more—James, who was raised in the spotlight, or Steph Curry, who came up quietly at Davidson, mirroring Neymar’s lower-profile beginnings—­Neymar chooses LeBron. Let us not forget, then, James’s ultimate decision to break from the Big Three after winning superteam trophies in Miami. In order to be soccer’s biggest name, perhaps Neymar has to shine further away from Messi, Luis Suárez and Barcelona’s band of superstars.

If he ultimately stays in Spain, Neymar must launch his assault on Messi and Ronaldo while improving on his own 13-goal La Liga campaign and helping steer Barça back to the top under new coach Ernesto Valverde. Last season’s results and the upcoming World Cup apply pressure from both sides. But Messi and Suárez relieve it, at least on the club side. Neymar doesn’t have to be the best player every time he steps onto the Camp Nou field. He’ll have to be more impactful, but he can do so while remaining true to himself. He’ll have some leeway.

If he goes to PSG, he’ll be paid like a king and expected to inspire a desperate club that hasn’t advanced beyond the Champions League quarterfinals since 1995. He’ll have the headlines and the billboards to himself. When those are shared, knocking a ball around with Bieber endears you to fans. When they’re yours alone, a Bieber moment may raise questions of focus, maturity or leadership. There will be no outlets at PSG, no excuses. Either way, he’ll also have to prepare mentally and physically for the rigors of a must-win World Cup.

But it’s all manageable. It always has been—so believes the man with LIFE IS A JOKE tattooed across his left biceps. He was Brazil’s Olympic talisman, and he was thriving at the 2014 World Cup before getting hurt. “We only have one life, so we have to figure out a way to be happy,” Neymar says. “Don’t take it so seriously. That’s pretty much it. Enjoy your life.”

Neymar’s relationship with his homeland remains strong. Not even the court cases concerning his controversial 2013 transfer to Barcelona have dented his reputation. In July, he was cleared of tax evasion in Brazil; a Spanish investigation is ongoing. (“Tax evasion,” Winter points out, “is next to soccer as the national sport in Brazil.”) Neymar’s countrymen, meanwhile, remain grateful for the gold medal and for his staying with Santos as long as he did. His Q rating is unscathed.

The only thing that could hurt him at home is, of course, failure to win in Russia. After he was forced to watch the semifinal rout by Germany while recuperating, Neymar told his fellow Brazilians, “We are going to do all we can so that I can fulfill my dream. My dream is to be the champion of the world.”

Three years later he’s asking for help. “I want to win a World Cup,” he says, “but it’s not only me, you know? There are other factors. There are teammates. There are a lot of things going on.” He’s certainly right, if the Mineirazo was any indication. But then he concludes, “I think you can be a legend without winning a World Cup.”

Maybe, but not in Brazil. Sócrates and Zico, for example, were great players and remain well respected. Many pundits think their 1982 squad, which lost to eventual champion Italy in the second round, was better than the ’94 side, which won it all. But on a team with five stars on its jersey, the bar is so much higher. “If Neymar doesn’t win at least one World Cup, as much as people love him today, he will be forgotten,” says Winter. “Brazil isn’t short of epic personalities who’ve won World Cups.”

Neymar tries to make light of the pressure. “It’s very normal,” he says. “The thing is, if you win a World Cup, they’ll tell you that if you want to be the best, you have to win anotherWorld Cup! When you’re one of the top players, this is going to happen all the time.”

Perhaps it has all felt routine until now. But the next 12 months, whether he’s in Barcelona or Paris, will be anything but ordinary. A new chapter is beginning, and while the end is uncertain, it’s sure to be blessedly free of clichés.

[myflowerfriends]

Blog 4 Revision: “Injustice Anywhere is a Threat to Justice Everywhere”: Philosophical Worldviews, Education, Ethics & Sustainability

Figure 1. Jupiterimages https://www.bendbulletin.com/outdoors/nurture-a-love-of-nature/article_e49a4294-09a0-5bc8-b740-cbbf9565985d.html

This week’s focus is on the philosophy behind justice and sustainability, stretching from the types of justice, to the importance of childhood education, to how we can be leaders of sustainability into our adult life. Chapter 25 in the textbook begins the discussion by looking at the various environmental worldviews and how we can become more sustainably literate. While it does a great job as an overview, the articles we read look at these topics in more detail.

Intragenerational Justice

“Intra” refers to a description that is on the inside. So, intragenerational justice refers to actions that are happening in the present to protect people in the present. An example of this is the Environmental Justice Movement: a conglomeration of informal ideologies spurred by environmentally concerned theories and practices with a focus on distributive fairness, investigating the social aspects of who is involved in environmental concerns and in what aspect-- who is causing issues, who is receiving them.

The modern movement came about from the merging of environmental concerns and the civil rights movement-- this link in understanding the suffering of people of color and of the environment has been recognized since the start. The movement acknowledges the disproportionate distribution of harmful effects to African Americans, Latinx Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, the working class, and the poor. The imbalances of environmental justice align so closely with those of all other forms of race.

Various studies have shown that there is a significant difference between how white and minority communities are treated by the EPA, with white communities getting better treatments; though criticisms and counter-studies have shown that it is not a matter of race, but rather income levels-- that industrial workers are hurt the most. Environmental justice is also reflected in language. I think that it is still a matter of race though. That’s where the recognition dimension of justice lies: accepting that there is an exclusionary history that has brought us to where we are today.[1]

Figure 2: The Deniers, 2011. http://inthesetimes.com/article/21980/i-went-to-a-climate-change-denial-conference-heartland-institute-trump

Intergenerational Justice

Intergenerational justice refers to “the set of obligations the members of one generation may owe to people of other generations, past or future.”[2] The author of this article, Clark Wolf, discusses the proponents and opponents to the idea of helping future generations. How important are future generations? If they are not important at all, if we are truly only living in our moment, then we can do whatever we want. But we must want to allow others to have their own choices and be able to have happiness in their moments...sure, we can see as far as we can because we stand on the backs of technological giants, but also because we had the balance of the ecosystem for thousands of years by indigenous peoples…

Wolf does a great job explaining the reasonings behind the group of people I have been calling the “nihilists” in past blogs in the section titled “Rights, Identity, and Skepticism About Intergenerational Justice.”[3] This also lines up with the end of the textbook chapter discussion on denial, indifference, and inaction.[4]The points are seemingly justifiable: why should we be putting so much stress on caring for ‘future generations’ when we could be living happily in the present?

With this, I picture a storm of angry school-age protesters marching in, so as to say “look at us, we are the future!” Unless the anarchists over at vhmt.com are globally successful with this next generation, there will be new people on the planet vying for joy.[5] We were brought to life through community, and we must therefore support our communities.

A critique of intergenerational justice is that it is anthropocentric. Interspecific justice comes into balance that.

Figure 3: Aldo Leopold, https://fpdcc.com/aldo-leopold-forest-preserves/

Interspecific Justice

Interspecific justice occurs between different species. This idea shines through profoundly in Aldo Leopold’s “The Land Ethic,” where he states that “the land ethic enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land... the land ethic changes the role of homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it.”[6] This aligns greatly with my writing in the beginning of the semester, where we explained our personal environmental worldview. We must work to eliminate suffering of not only humans but living beings today and in the future. This is possible through healing all the interconnections that built up the web sustaining living beings through the land. To do this, we must stop seeing the living beings and the land as means to an economic end. Leopold says explicitly that “the evidence had to be economic in order to be valid…[but] birds should continue as a matter of biotic right, regardless of the presence or absence of economic advantage to us.” [7] I agree with this, but I also see that humans are a cog in that machine as well—in some sense it is the reason I am in college. And ironically, if I were to follow one potential path and become an environmental consultant, my career would be based upon how many companies I can make eco-friendlier solely for the economic aspect of it. I have told my father, a dentist, that he should stop handing out free plastic toothbrushes after appointments and switch to toothbrushes of compostable material, but I have been unsuccessful as I have not yet found a loophole for a better economics of it. It isn’t that he doesn’t love nature, as he’s the one who taught me to appreciate the outdoors—but he does not feel the urgency to help the environment.

Figure 4: Biophilia, https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/12039-continuing-education-biophilia

Lifelong Education

Biophilia, or love of nature and other life forms, does not have to be taught—it is an innate quality that humans contain as part of our genetic makeup.[8] Although we have evolved a long ways, we still are animals, and studies have shown that we are more comfortable in settings that mimic the natural world[9][10] Although biophilia is an innate part of us, it is not always recognized.

Children, especially in the last several generations, have been spending less time outdoors and more time indoors with technology. Nature deficient disorder is the theory that less time outdoors causes behavioral issues, rises in obesity, attention disorders, and depression, and is a real problem affecting children today. Richard Louv coined this term in 2005 with his book “Last Child in the Woods.” [11] Part of what makes humans so unique is that as part of our evolution, we began to sustain a longer childhood—humans are childlike for more of their lives than other mammals.[12] Adults have the option to decide whether children spend this childhood indoors or out. This decision will stem from their education. According to some, it is an act of citizenship to the environment to promote a sustainable community for people of all ages.[13] David Orr’s assessment of higher education is in agreement with this idea—all education needs to be environmental education.[14] The interconnectedness of life forms needs desperately to be recognized in education, because as Martin Luther King Jr. says in “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.[15]

Question: Is environmental education political? (Is anything not political?)

Word count: 1370

[1] Elliott, Michael. “Environmental Justice,” Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, p. 341-348.

[2] Wolf, Clark. “Intergenerational Justice,” Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy. P.518.

[3] Ibid p.520-522.

[4] Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 19th ed. Boston, MA: Engage Learning, 2020. p. 694

[5] The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, http://www.vhemt.org.

[6] Leopold, Aldo. “The Land Ethic,” p.201-222.

[7] Ibid p. 210

[8] Heerwagen, Judith. “Biophilia” Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy

[9] Ibid.

[10] Starke, Barry W. and Simonds, John O. Landscape Architecture: A Manual of Environmental Planning and Design, 5th Ed. McGraw Hill Education, 2013.

[11] Louv, Richard. “Last Child in the Woods,” Richard Louv. http://richardlouv.com/books/last-child/

[12] Journey of the Universe, Dailymotion, Education Channel. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5k0bcr

[13] Glazebrook, Trish. “Environmental Citizenship,” Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy. p.323-325.

[14] Orr, David. “What is Education For?,” The Learning Revolution, 1991 p. 52.

[15] King Jr., Martin Luther. “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” African Studies Center https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

[rugbyquit5-blog]

In a funny but scattered episode, The Good Place and Bad Place frantically fight it out on Earth

D’Arcy Carden, Ted Danson

Photo: Justin Lubin (NBC)

“Is that bad?” “I don’t know, but it’s weird, man!”

The Good Place has been so consistently great at subverting our expectations that even calling “The Brainy Bunch” my least favorite episode of the series so far isn’t the warning flare it might be otherwise. Things are getting sweaty and desperate in this third episode (“Every part of my body is either too dry or too wet,” complains Michael to Janet), both for the Good Place and Bad Place teams. The thing is, it also feels a little uncharacteristically sweaty and desperate for The Good Place, too.

Restating the danger represented by Bad Place douchebag Trevor (Adam Scott, you were missed) as “a diabolical, sadistic agent of evil” sees Michael once more sneaking down to Earth. Thwarted by Trevor’s ability to disruptively blend with Chidi’s study group of the damned (since Michael is known to the group as Zack Pizzazz, Gordon Indigo, and the world’s most reassuring bartender and librarian, respectively), Michael enlists Janet to keep an eye on Trevor’s attempts to drive the group apart with bad advice, bottomless shots, incessant “dank memes,” and general try-hard Ned Flanders-esque chipper obnoxiousness. (Jason thinks Trevor is cool, which is a red flag.) But, since both Janet and Michael share Trevor’s earthbound powerlessness, they’re stuck trying to counter Trevor’s deviousness from the shadows. Or, in Janet’s case, from the beer-fetching cowgirl waitress persona she adopts at the garish Cowboy Skyscraper Buffet Trevor insists they go to. (“I will go physically pick those up I guess, and then walk them back there with my feet,” says the powerless Janet through clenched teeth after failing to make the group’s first round magically appear.)

Adam Scott as Trevor

Photo: Justin Lubin/NBC

There, Trevor plants seeds of ethical misgivings in Chidi for hanging out with the subjects of his study, drives Eleanor back to her motel room with personalized team sweatshirts and reprehensible Jamaican accents (Adam Scott channeling Michael Scott at his worst), and tries to hook up a drunk Tahani and Jason, thinking that the morning-after shame will send Tahani home on the first private jet. Meanwhile, the rattled Janet is stuck being unable to just manifest things, ranting to Michael about how so much of humans’ lives is spent “just waiting for things to be over.” (Draft beer takes forever.) While Michael proclaims his faith that Chidi, like he’s done every single time over 800 do-overs, will choose to help Eleanor, he—decked out in a trenchcoat and fedora, as is his Dick Tracy conception of cool and surreptitious—can’t help but betray his shaken confidence. So much so that he tries to reprise his avuncular librarian character on the fly to Chidi, introducing his much-less-natural advice by introducing himself as “the librarian, from the library.”

But Michael, soulless creature from the pits of DMV hell that he’s been for all eternity, does have faith. “These four humans are all I care about in the universe,” Michael snaps at the smug Trevor, and, as ever, this immortal weirdo’s transformation remains terribly affecting, even as “The Brainy Bunch” admits some doubts as to the season’s direction. To start, the earthly shenanigans this time out aren’t as fresh as they have been. The Aussie all-American restaurant gags feel forced, from Trevor admiring the “swamp stench” of the Florida table, to the Mount Rushmore of Hulk Hogan, Judge Judy, Paris Hilton, and David Hasselhoff, to the restaurant’s “manifest destiny special” where you can pay extra to kick anyone off of any table you want, it’s all clever enough, I suppose. But it comes off just the wrong side of wacky, like a—and I don’t say this lightly—a latter-season Simpsons conceit. (The same goes for Eleanor’s choice of Australian gossip mag, Aus Weekly.)

Manny Jacinto, Jameela Jamil

Photo: Justin Lubin/NBC

And yet . . .

When Michael and Janet (and the gloating Trevor) are summoned by Mike O’Malley’s Doorman (we find out his name’s Jeff) back to the Judge’s realm, Judge Gen explains how all these repeated incursions have, as Michael hinted last week, caused “ripple effects” on Earth’s reality. There’s a lot to unpack in Gen’s assertions that some of the inexplicable changes (the Jacksonville Jaguars being sort-of good, The World’s Greatest Showman being a hit, Brexit) are things that have actually happened on our Earth. But it’s also tantalizing how the Cowboy Skyscraper Cafe and its attendant food gags (including the drink special, The Fourth Of July, consisting of half a blended apple pie, Southern Comfort, and Coke, served in a Chevy hubcap) smack of Michael’s effortful fake Good Place. (Think last week’s muffin cart, “We Crumb From A Land Down Under,” too.) It’s like the old reality of Michael’s neighborhood is infecting our Earth. If it is, indeed, our Earth. Conspiracy theories in the comments, please.

Manny Jacinto, jameela Jamil, Adam Scott

Photo: Justin Lubin/NBC

And then there’s the Judge, played to loopy yet authoritative perfection by Maya Rudolph. Upon discovering that Michael and Janet have disobeyed the terms of their experiment, she—after a series of exaggerated vocal tics and hand gestures that suggest just how long Gen has been bored out of her mind in her NCIS-bingeing solitude—plans to summarily whisk them both back to the Bad Place. (She simply hurls suck-up Trevor into the void.) On one hand, that’s only fair. There was a deal, one that stretched the very rules of existence, and they violated it. Gen’s still willing to let their experiment play out sans interference (saying the humans “need to hit the regular point threshold” on their own), but is indifferent to the fact that her decision means Michael will be “retired” (a lot more painful than it sounds, as you recall), and Janet will be turned into an inert marble for all eternity. Again, fair enough, if fairness is indeed what the show’s universe, as presented, is truly built upon.

Gen is by far the fairest nigh-omniscient figure we’ve met, seemingly free from Shawn’s vindictive glee in tormenting others (goo-cocoons aren’t just for his enemies), or Michael’s muddled aspiration. When the four humans told her their plight, she listened, she empathized, and she sentenced them to hell, essentially, because rules are rules. There’s a gnawing unease about that aspect of The Good Place’s universe that’s a lot more existentially frightening than all the penis-flatteners and food that turns to spiders in your mouth that supposedly await the damned in the Bad Place. Rudolph makes Gen a figure of genial, even sentimental amorality in the service of supposed impartiality. Remember when the Judge teared up at the Facebook video she made of her brief time together with the four people she was about to send to hell? That chilling mix of personal mushiness with institutional coldness runs through the episode here, just as it’s lurked through every episode of The Good Place. If the so-called arbiters of good and evil can recognize, and even embody, human faults without sympathy for those struggling against them, then we have to ask again, what the fuck sort of moral system is this?

William Jackson Harper, Kirby Howell-Baptiste

Photo: Justin Lubin/NBC

And so we cheer on Michael and Janet’s decision to use Janet’s backlog of manifested items as distraction to make a break back to Earth. And we’re roused by the dour Doorman’s decision to betray his boss, tossing his sacred key to Michael with the tersely hilarious, “Good luck, frog man. I’m pulling for you.” Gen, hurling Janet’s heap of human wishes after Trevor into the void, is cast as the villain, not because anything she’s done is wrong, but because the system she’s enforcing appears rigged against anyone who steps out of line. (Remember, we have never received reliable information about a single person who’s racked up enough points to make it to the Good Place.) And so The Good Place blows itself up again, and, as it’s done repeatedly throughout, it does so by leaping through a door before we expect it.

If the squabbles and subterfuge taking place on Earth in this third episode paled in comparison to what we’re used to from The Good Place, the fact that The Good Place (episode written by Dan Schofield) rushes ahead of our expectations suggests that Michael Schur and company, as ever, have a grand design that will only come together in retrospect.

Stray observations

For all Trevor’s assholery , Chidi and Eleanor’s bond is tested most this episode by Chidi’s enthusiasm for his new study, leaving Eleanor feeling like she’s come all the way from Arizona only to be cast aside. As she explains, “I feel like last week I had my own personal ninja master and now I’m taking tai chi with a bunch of farting housewives.”

William Jackson Harper gets some fantastic physical Chidi comedy this time out, especially when his ethical quandary robs him of all but eight non-consecutive minutes of sleep. “It’s fine, you’re not even that blurry,” he assures Simone.

In the end, Chidi and Eleanor’s bond is reaffirmed, if only for a three-month trial period while Chidi tries to find a work-friendship balance. He also answers an imaginary door knock, and can’t remember how he got to Eleanor’s room, holding a socket wrench.

Tahani and Jason, too, show some promise in recapturing their former closeness, as Jason took the very drunk Tahani safely home, and then happily spent the night in a dumpster because he couldn’t remember where he was staying.

Tahani apologizes for the only semi-professional quality of her morning-after apology notes, explaining that she couldn’t find a decent 5 a.m. calligrapher.

Trevor is also like Adam Scott’s Ben Wyatt at his worst, Ben’s Star Wars fandom transformed into Trevor’s enthusiastic wish for a Spaceballs reboot.

Another issue is that I’m not sold on Trevor’s reasoning that Shawn isn’t just outing Michael to the Judge because messing with his friends is “more fun.”

Read into Janet’s pile of manifested junk what you will: easy chair, tortoise, nachos, tractor, army tank, piles of cash, lots of cardboard boxes, backpack, bicycle, 24-hour donut hut, barrel of radioactive waste, traffic cones, steamroller, shopping cart, giraffe, and billboard (in Michael’s Good Place font) reading “Trevor stinks!—Janet.”

Judge Gen, further explaining the chaos Michael has wrought: “Blake Bortles is kind of okay, maybe? I don’t know, it’s being debated among experts.”

Also: Gen: “Byron Allen owns the Weather Channel now!” Michael: “Is that bad?” Gen: “I don’t know, but it’s weird, man!”

Planning to go into the MRI machine for Chidi and Simone’s study, Tahani wonders if her bra will be a problem, since it is made of “very thin but very pure gold.” Also, Jason brings in a very bitey spider, hoping for superpowers.

The group winds up at the restaurant’s Montana table, featuring a picture of the Church Lady. Dana Carvey is, indeed, from Missoula, Montana.

Janet freaks out because, robbed of her powers, she can no longer determine if a man in South American finished the ham sandwich he was eating. “I have to go find him!,” she tells Michael frantically.

As ever, check out our annotated Good Place, complete with stuff you caught but we missed because you’re all so smart.

Source: https://tv.avclub.com/in-a-funny-but-scattered-episode-the-good-place-and-ba-1829530347

[recentnews18-blog]

New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/in-a-funny-but-scattered-episode-the-good-place-and-bad-place-frantically-fight-it-out-on-earth/

In a funny but scattered episode, The Good Place and Bad Place frantically fight it out on Earth

D’Arcy Carden, Ted DansonPhoto: Justin Lubin (NBC)

“Is that bad?” “I don’t know, but it’s weird, man!”

The Good Place has been so consistently great at subverting our expectations that even calling “The Brainy Bunch” my least favorite episode of the series so far isn’t the warning flare it might be otherwise. Things are getting sweaty and desperate in this third episode (“Every part of my body is either too dry or too wet,” complains Michael to Janet), both for the Good Place and Bad Place teams. The thing is, it also feels a little uncharacteristically sweaty and desperate for The Good Place, too.

Advertisement

The Good PlaceSeason 3

Restating the danger represented by Bad Place douchebag Trevor (Adam Scott, you were missed) as “a diabolical, sadistic agent of evil” sees Michael once more sneaking down to Earth. Thwarted by Trevor’s ability to disruptively blend with Chidi’s study group of the damned (since Michael is known to the group as Zack Pizzazz, Gordon Indigo, and the world’s most reassuring bartender and librarian, respectively), Michael enlists Janet to keep an eye on Trevor’s attempts to drive the group apart with bad advice, bottomless shots, incessant “dank memes,” and general try-hard Ned Flanders-esque chipper obnoxiousness. (Jason thinks Trevor is cool, which is a red flag.) But, since both Janet and Michael share Trevor’s earthbound powerlessness, they’re stuck trying to counter Trevor’s deviousness from the shadows. Or, in Janet’s case, from the beer-fetching cowgirl waitress persona she adopts at the garish Cowboy Skyscraper Buffet Trevor insists they go to. (“I will go physically pick those up I guess, and then walk them back there with my feet,” says the powerless Janet through clenched teeth after failing to make the group’s first round magically appear.)

Adam Scott as TrevorPhoto: Justin Lubin/NBC

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There, Trevor plants seeds of ethical misgivings in Chidi for hanging out with the subjects of his study, drives Eleanor back to her motel room with personalized team sweatshirts and reprehensible Jamaican accents (Adam Scott channeling Michael Scott at his worst), and tries to hook up a drunk Tahani and Jason, thinking that the morning-after shame will send Tahani home on the first private jet. Meanwhile, the rattled Janet is stuck being unable to just manifest things, ranting to Michael about how so much of humans’ lives is spent “just waiting for things to be over.” (Draft beer takes forever.) While Michael proclaims his faith that Chidi, like he’s done every single time over 800 do-overs, will choose to help Eleanor, he—decked out in a trenchcoat and fedora, as is his Dick Tracy conception of cool and surreptitious—can’t help but betray his shaken confidence. So much so that he tries to reprise his avuncular librarian character on the fly to Chidi, introducing his much-less-natural advice by introducing himself as “the librarian, from the library.”

But Michael, soulless creature from the pits of DMV hell that he’s been for all eternity, does have faith. “These four humans are all I care about in the universe,” Michael snaps at the smug Trevor, and, as ever, this immortal weirdo’s transformation remains terribly affecting, even as “The Brainy Bunch” admits some doubts as to the season’s direction. To start, the earthly shenanigans this time out aren’t as fresh as they have been. The Aussie all-American restaurant gags feel forced, from Trevor admiring the “swamp stench” of the Florida table, to the Mount Rushmore of Hulk Hogan, Judge Judy, Paris Hilton, and David Hasselhoff, to the restaurant’s “manifest destiny special” where you can pay extra to kick anyone off of any table you want, it’s all clever enough, I suppose. But it comes off just the wrong side of wacky, like a—and I don’t say this lightly—a latter-season Simpsons conceit. (The same goes for Eleanor’s choice of Australian gossip mag, Aus Weekly.)

Manny Jacinto, Jameela JamilPhoto: Justin Lubin/NBC

Advertisement

And yet . . .

When Michael and Janet (and the gloating Trevor) are summoned by Mike O’Malley’s Doorman (we find out his name’s Jeff) back to the Judge’s realm, Judge Gen explains how all these repeated incursions have, as Michael hinted last week, caused “ripple effects” on Earth’s reality. There’s a lot to unpack in Gen’s assertions that some of the inexplicable changes (the Jacksonville Jaguars being sort-of good, The World’s Greatest Showman being a hit, Brexit) are things that have actually happened on our Earth. But it’s also tantalizing how the Cowboy Skyscraper Cafe and its attendant food gags (including the drink special, The Fourth Of July, consisting of half a blended apple pie, Southern Comfort, and Coke, served in a Chevy hubcap) smack of Michael’s effortful fake Good Place. (Think last week’s muffin cart, “We Crumb From A Land Down Under,” too.) It’s like the old reality of Michael’s neighborhood is infecting our Earth. If it is, indeed, our Earth. Conspiracy theories in the comments, please.

Manny Jacinto, jameela Jamil, Adam ScottPhoto: Justin Lubin/NBC

Advertisement

And then there’s the Judge, played to loopy yet authoritative perfection by Maya Rudolph. Upon discovering that Michael and Janet have disobeyed the terms of their experiment, she—after a series of exaggerated vocal tics and hand gestures that suggest just how long Gen has been bored out of her mind in her NCIS-bingeing solitude—plans to summarily whisk them both back to the Bad Place. (She simply hurls suck-up Trevor into the void.) On one hand, that’s only fair. There was a deal, one that stretched the very rules of existence, and they violated it. Gen’s still willing to let their experiment play out sans interference (saying the humans “need to hit the regular point threshold” on their own), but is indifferent to the fact that her decision means Michael will be “retired” (a lot more painful than it sounds, as you recall), and Janet will be turned into an inert marble for all eternity. Again, fair enough, if fairness is indeed what the show’s universe, as presented, is truly built upon.

Gen is by far the fairest nigh-omniscient figure we’ve met, seemingly free from Shawn’s vindictive glee in tormenting others (goo-cocoons aren’t just for his enemies), or Michael’s muddled aspiration. When the four humans told her their plight, she listened, she empathized, and she sentenced them to hell, essentially, because rules are rules. There’s a gnawing unease about that aspect of The Good Place’s universe that’s a lot more existentially frightening than all the penis-flatteners and food that turns to spiders in your mouth that supposedly await the damned in the Bad Place. Rudolph makes Gen a figure of genial, even sentimental amorality in the service of supposed impartiality. Remember when the Judge teared up at the Facebook video she made of her brief time together with the four people she was about to send to hell? That chilling mix of personal mushiness with institutional coldness runs through the episode here, just as it’s lurked through every episode of The Good Place. If the so-called arbiters of good and evil can recognize, and even embody, human faults without sympathy for those struggling against them, then we have to ask again, what the fuck sort of moral system is this?

William Jackson Harper, Kirby Howell-BaptistePhoto: Justin Lubin/NBC

Advertisement

And so we cheer on Michael and Janet’s decision to use Janet’s backlog of manifested items as distraction to make a break back to Earth. And we’re roused by the dour Doorman’s decision to betray his boss, tossing his sacred key to Michael with the tersely hilarious, “Good luck, frog man. I’m pulling for you.” Gen, hurling Janet’s heap of human wishes after Trevor into the void, is cast as the villain, not because anything she’s done is wrong, but because the system she’s enforcing appears rigged against anyone who steps out of line. (Remember, we have never received reliable information about a single person who’s racked up enough points to make it to the Good Place.) And so The Good Place blows itself up again, and, as it’s done repeatedly throughout, it does so by leaping through a door before we expect it.

If the squabbles and subterfuge taking place on Earth in this third episode paled in comparison to what we’re used to from The Good Place, the fact that The Good Place (episode written by Dan Schofield) rushes ahead of our expectations suggests that Michael Schur and company, as ever, have a grand design that will only come together in retrospect.

Stray observations

For all Trevor’s assholery , Chidi and Eleanor’s bond is tested most this episode by Chidi’s enthusiasm for his new study, leaving Eleanor feeling like she’s come all the way from Arizona only to be cast aside. As she explains, “I feel like last week I had my own personal ninja master and now I’m taking tai chi with a bunch of farting housewives.”

William Jackson Harper gets some fantastic physical Chidi comedy this time out, especially when his ethical quandary robs him of all but eight non-consecutive minutes of sleep. “It’s fine, you’re not even that blurry,” he assures Simone.

In the end, Chidi and Eleanor’s bond is reaffirmed, if only for a three-month trial period while Chidi tries to find a work-friendship balance. He also answers an imaginary door knock, and can’t remember how he got to Eleanor’s room, holding a socket wrench.

Tahani and Jason, too, show some promise in recapturing their former closeness, as Jason took the very drunk Tahani safely home, and then happily spent the night in a dumpster because he couldn’t remember where he was staying.

Tahani apologizes for the only semi-professional quality of her morning-after apology notes, explaining that she couldn’t find a decent 5 a.m. calligrapher.

Trevor is also like Adam Scott’s Ben Wyatt at his worst, Ben’s Star Wars fandom transformed into Trevor’s enthusiastic wish for a Spaceballs reboot.

Another issue is that I’m not sold on Trevor’s reasoning that Shawn isn’t just outing Michael to the Judge because messing with his friends is “more fun.”

Read into Janet’s pile of manifested junk what you will: easy chair, tortoise, nachos, tractor, army tank, piles of cash, lots of cardboard boxes, backpack, bicycle, 24-hour donut hut, barrel of radioactive waste, traffic cones, steamroller, shopping cart, giraffe, and billboard (in Michael’s Good Place font) reading “Trevor stinks!—Janet.”

Judge Gen, further explaining the chaos Michael has wrought: “Blake Bortles is kind of okay, maybe? I don’t know, it’s being debated among experts.”

Also: Gen: “Byron Allen owns the Weather Channel now!” Michael: “Is that bad?” Gen: “I don’t know, but it’s weird, man!”

Planning to go into the MRI machine for Chidi and Simone’s study, Tahani wonders if her bra will be a problem, since it is made of “very thin but very pure gold.” Also, Jason brings in a very bitey spider, hoping for superpowers.

The group winds up at the restaurant’s Montana table, featuring a picture of the Church Lady. Dana Carvey is, indeed, from Missoula, Montana.

Janet freaks out because, robbed of her powers, she can no longer determine if a man in South American finished the ham sandwich he was eating. “I have to go find him!,” she tells Michael frantically.

As ever, check out our annotated Good Place, complete with stuff you caught but we missed because you’re all so smart.

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Source: https://tv.avclub.com/in-a-funny-but-scattered-episode-the-good-place-and-ba-1829530347

[everettwilkinson]

POLITICO Playbook: RICHARD SHELBY tells Tapper he didn’t vote for ROY MOORE

Good Sunday morning. BUZZ — SOME HOUSE DEMOCRATS are talking about skipping the State of the Union in January.

THE PRESIDENT is at Trump International Golf Club this morning. He is scheduled to return to Washington later today. TRUMP’S MONDAY: The president is lunching with VP Mike Pence and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue. He will also sign a space policy directive.

Story Continued Below

BEHIND THE SCENES AT 1600 — THE BIG STORY — “INSIDE TRUMP’S HOUR-BY-HOUR BATTLE FOR SELF-PRESERVATION,” by NYT’s Maggie Haberman, Glenn Thrush and Peter Baker: “Around 5:30 each morning, President Trump wakes and tunes into the television in the White House’s master bedroom. He flips to CNN for news, moves to ‘Fox & Friends’ for comfort and messaging ideas, and sometimes watches MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ because, friends suspect, it fires him up for the day.

“Energized, infuriated — often a gumbo of both — Mr. Trump grabs his iPhone. Sometimes he tweets while propped on his pillow, according to aides. Other times he tweets from the den next door, watching another television. Less frequently, he makes his way up the hall to the ornate Treaty Room, sometimes dressed for the day, sometimes still in night clothes, where he begins his official and unofficial calls.

“As he ends his first year in office, Mr. Trump is redefining what it means to be president. He sees the highest office in the land much as he did the night of his stunning victory over Hillary Clinton — as a prize he must fight to protect every waking moment, and Twitter is his Excalibur. Despite all his bluster, he views himself less as a titan dominating the world stage than a maligned outsider engaged in a struggle to be taken seriously, according to interviews with 60 advisers, associates, friends and members of Congress.

“For other presidents, every day is a test of how to lead a country, not just a faction, balancing competing interests. For Mr. Trump, every day is an hour-by-hour battle for self-preservation. He still relitigates last year’s election, convinced that the investigation by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, into Russia’s interference is a plot to delegitimize him. Color-coded maps highlighting the counties he won were hung on the White House walls. …

— KEY PARAGRAPH: “Before taking office, Mr. Trump told top aides to think of each presidential day as an episode in a television show in which he vanquishes rivals. People close to him estimate that Mr. Trump spends at least four hours a day, and sometimes as much as twice that, in front of a television, sometimes with the volume muted, marinating in the no-holds-barred wars of cable news and eager to fire back.” http://nyti.ms/2Ap5Fe1

— NYT NOTE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE STORY: “Glenn Thrush contributed to this article before he was suspended pending the result of an investigation into allegations of inappropriate behavior.”

IN ISRAEL — AP at 7:51 a.m.: “JERUSALEM (AP) – Israeli police: Security guard seriously wounded in stabbing at Jerusalem’s central bus station.”

— DAVID KENNER in Foreign Policy: “Trump Administration Blindsided Palestinian Leaders on Jerusalem Designation”: “Just last week, Palestinian diplomats were cautiously optimistic that U.S. President Donald Trump was on a path that could deliver what the president termed the ‘ultimate deal’ — a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“According to a senior Palestinian official, their optimism was bolstered by a series of interactions with Trump, culminating in a previously unreported meeting on Nov. 30. The meeting included Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner, Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt, and Deputy National Security Advisor Dina Powell, who met with three senior Palestinian intelligence and diplomatic officials.

“The American side, however, did not inform the Palestinian delegation that Trump would recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital at the meeting — even though the president had insisted on doing so in internal deliberations days earlier.

“The meeting, which was confirmed by a National Security Council official, a former U.S. diplomat, and a senior Palestinian official, was held as the first news reports that the Trump administration would recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital were already breaking. The Palestinian delegation asked whether Trump would sign the waiver to prevent the U.S. Embassy from moving to Jerusalem, which the president did sign this week, but the American side did not volunteer the additional information about Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem.” http://atfp.co/2BXzm37

— “Israeli defense chief calls for Arab boycott after protests,” by AP’s Aron Heller in Jerusalem: “Israel’s defense minister called Sunday for a boycott of Arab businesses in an area where residents took part in violent protests against President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Avigdor Lieberman, who heads the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, said the Arabs of Wadi Ara in northern Israel were ‘not part of us’ and that Jewish Israelis should no longer visit their villages and buy their products. Hundreds of Israeli Arabs protested Saturday along a major highway in northern Israel, where dozens of masked rioters hurled stones at buses and police vehicles. Three Israelis were wounded and several vehicles were damaged.” http://bit.ly/2kNVOYg

— REUTERS/BEIRUT: “Violence flares at protest near U.S. Embassy in Lebanon”: “Lebanese security forces fired tear gas and water canons at protesters near the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon on Sunday during a demonstration against President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.” http://reut.rs/2Ar3max

— CHEAT SHEET: “The Jerusalem Issue, Explained,” by NYT’s Max Fisher: http://nyti.ms/2ycz6u5

CALLING IN THE REINFORCEMENTS — “Booker, Patrick rally black Alabamians for Jones,” by Gabe Debenedetti in Selma, Alabama: “Democrat Doug Jones needs African-American voters to turn out in big numbers for him to have a shot at beating Roy Moore in Tuesday’s Alabama Senate election. So the former U.S. attorney brought in two of his most prominent surrogates on Saturday to help: New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

“Their message, amid fears of lagging enthusiasm among black voters and polls showing a neck-and-neck race between Jones and Moore, was that there is no simply excuse for not voting in this election. ‘I know you all made, already, a million phone calls, but I’m here to try to get some folk woke,’ said Booker, addressing a crowd of roughly 200 at Alabama State University in Montgomery, three hours after Patrick appeared with Jones in Selma. ‘Some people don’t understand: the opposite of justice is not injustice. It is inaction and indifference.’ ‘Bad people get elected when good people don’t vote,’ Booker added.” http://politi.co/2jDvmx6

— THE STEP BACK: “Alabama, Despite History of Unruly Politics, Has ‘Never Seen Anything Like This’,” by NYT’s Campbell Robertson and Jonathan Martin in Montgomery, Alabama: “‘I don’t think you can compare this one with anything,’ said Bill Baxley, 76, whose first foray into Alabama state politics was as attorney general nearly five decades ago. ‘I haven’t seen in my lifetime — a long time, I’m 83 going on 84 — one this unique,’ said Sen. Richard C. Shelby, who was first elected to the State Legislature in 1970 and is now the dean of the Alabama congressional delegation.

“‘Never seen anything like this,’ said Glen Browder, 74, a former congressman, during whose political career different Alabama governors were convicted of bribery, brought down by sex scandal and indicted on a charge of stealing money to buy fancy shower stalls and a riding lawn mower.

“The special Senate election here, to be decided Tuesday, has made for one wild and ugly campaign season. It was never going to be afternoon tea, but with the airing of allegations in November that Roy S. Moore, the Republican nominee, had hounded and molested teenage girls when he was in his 30s, the race tightened — and the dialogue went south. Mr. Moore has gone about creating a real-life political science experiment, testing whether last year’s presidential campaign was an anomaly or whether voters remain just as willing to shrug off truth-stretching, multiple charges of sexual misconduct and incendiary speech.” http://nyti.ms/2BXI41j

WAPO’S BOB COSTA and MICHAEL SCHERER: “Bitter Senate race tests Alabama’s image in the country — and at home”: “For many Alabama voters, unaccustomed to a competitive election and the national attention that has come with it, the bitter showdown between Republican Roy Moore and Democrat Doug Jones has become something more personal than a race to fill an open Senate seat. It is now a referendum on the state’s identity. Supporters of Jones say with concern that a win Tuesday by the firebrand Moore would derail the state’s efforts to escape its painful history and rebrand as a forward-thinking place welcoming to Fortune 500 companies and a highly educated workforce.

“And they express a nagging feeling that a Moore victory would be a deflating sign that Alabama remains beholden to its past. … Supporters of Moore, meanwhile, see his candidacy as a conduit for their rejection of the national media and political elites who they believe unfairly caricature their home state as a cultural backwater.” http://wapo.st/2jlYfB6

— WAPO’S DAN BALZ: “For Republicans, there likely can be no truly good outcome. If Moore wins, the party will have preserved the seat but will be saddled with a new senator under a cloud of allegations, including assaulting a teenager many years ago as well as a pattern of pursuing teenagers half his age when he was in his 30s. If he wins and is sworn in, he probably will face an ethics investigation that will keep the controversy alive until his fate is resolved and perhaps much longer than that. For the Republicans, it’s a hot mess.” http://wapo.st/2BR5hRQ

— HOWELL RAINES (former NYT exec editor): “In a sense we are all Alabamians now, wincing when sophisticates abroad satirize our willingness to be beguiled by abnormality. Electing Mr. Jones, who is admired nationally for prosecuting racial crimes, would be a cultural watershed for Alabama voters and a sign that the Trump base will fracture with unexpected ease. Deep in their bones, Alabamians know that if Roy Moore goes to Washington, the wardrobe department at ‘Saturday Night Live’ will surely accommodate them by finding a cowboy vest, a tiny pistol and a Girl Scout dress, and they’re prepared to feel very put upon.” http://nyti.ms/2Arg1tW

****** A message from PhRMA: A medicine’s path from the biopharmaceutical company to the patient involves many entities across the supply chain. A new report examines how money flows through this system – which includes wholesalers, pharmacy benefit managers, pharmacies and insurers – and how that impacts what patients pay at the pharmacy. Read more. http://onphr.ma/2kgd6Nu ******

ISAAC DOVERE — “Why Democrats win even if they lose in Alabama”: “Democrats head into Tuesday’s Senate election in Alabama confident that they’ll come out on top no matter who wins. And many Republicans agree with them. If Doug Jones prevails, Democrats expect it will further excite their base, bolster candidate recruitment and fuel fundraising heading into 2018, coming off their near-sweep of last month’s elections. They will revel in picking up a Senate seat in the Deep South, especially in a state so central to President Donald Trump’s political rise and where he earlier backed the loser of the GOP primary. Practically, Republicans would have a 51-49 Senate majority, leaving them with a single vote to spare assuming Democrats stick together.

“But the alternative won’t make for bad politics, either, Democrats say. If Roy Moore wins, they’ll spend the next year yoking every Republican they can to the accused child predator and a president who welcomed him into the GOP fold. They’ll be quick to remind everyone of all the other comments Moore has made against Muslims and gays and in favor of Vladimir Putin’s view of America as evil, as well as his rosy view of slave-era America. ‘He’ll be the gift that keeps on giving for Democrats. If you’re running in 2018, Roy Moore’s going to be your new best friend. As a Republican, to think that you can win without the baggage of Roy Moore is pretty naïve,’ said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).” http://politi.co/2jkfF0U

— “Trump to cut robocall for Moore,” by Alex Isenstadt in Mobile, Alabama: “Donald Trump has agreed to record a robocall for Alabama Republican Roy Moore ahead of next week’s special election, the president’s most direct involvement in Alabama on behalf of the embattled candidate to date. The call, according to a source close to the Moore campaign, is expected to go out to Alabama voters on Monday, a day before the election.” http://politi.co/2A8teU5

SUNDAY BEST, ROY MOORE EDITION — JAKE TAPPER talks to SEN. RICHARD SHELBY (R-ALA.) — in Tuscaloosa — on CNN’S “STATE OF THE UNION”: SHELBY: “Well, I’d rather see the Republican win. But I hope that Republican would be a write in. I couldn’t vote for Roy Moore. I didn’t vote for Roy Moore. But I wrote in a distinguished Republican name and I think a lot of people could do that. Will they do it? I’m not sure. I don’t know what’s going to happen. As a Republican, I had to vote Republican. I wanted to vote Republican. I understand where the president is coming from. I understand we would like to retain that seat in the U.S. Senate. But I tell you what, there’s a time — we call it a tipping point — and I think so many accusations, so many cuts, so many drip, drip, drip. When it got to the 14 year old story, that was enough for me. I said I can’t vote for Roy Moore.”

TAPPER: “You’re going to wake up on Wednesday, and one of these two men, Roy Moore or Doug Jones, is going to be your fellow senator from Alabama. Which one would you rather deal with on a professional level?”

SHELBY: “Well, I don’t have to answer that question today. I — I had rather see another Republican in there, and I’m going to stay with that story. I’m not going to vote for the Democrat. I didn’t vote for the Democrat or advocate for the Democrat. But I couldn’t vote for Roy Moore. The state of Alabama deserves better. I think we have got a lot of great Republicans that could have won and carried the state beautifully and served in the Senate honorably.”

CHUCK TODD talks to SEN. TIM SCOTT (R-S.C.): TODD: “You know, there’s been some concern that the election of Roy Moore is just going to send a larger negative message about what the Republican Party stands for. You have been somebody, as a leader in the party, to try to talk about inclusion. I wonder if comments like this that Roy Moore said when he was revering the age of slavery when he said, ‘I think it was a great time in America at the time when families were united, even though we had slavery. They cared for one another. People were strong in their families.’

“And then I thought about that quote and this tweet from Steve King earlier this week. And he says this, ‘Diversity is not our strength.’ And then he quotes Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán quote, ‘Mixing cultures will not lead to a higher quality of life, but a lower one.’ This stuff inside your party, look Sen. Scott, I know you don’t want to associate yourself with that. But it’s associated with the Republican party. What do you do about this?

SCOTT: “Well, very little that I can do about people who speak ignorantly. And you just have to call it for what it is, No. 1. No. 2, the bottom line is both when Steve King and Tim Scott arrived in this country, we were actually creating diversity because the Native Americans were already here. So that is just a ridiculous statement. Listen, I wasn’t supporting Roy Moore before the allegations. The allegations reinforced why I wasn’t there. The good news is, thank God for leaders like John Ratcliffe, Trey Gowdy, Mia Love, a diverse group of young thinkers who will take our country and our party in a better direction.”

— MARTHA RADDATZ speaks with REP. TERRI SEWELL (D-ALA.) on ABC’S “THIS WEEK”: RADDATZ: “And congresswoman, I want to get your reaction to [a] mailer that the Jones campaign sent out to voters, which says, ‘think if a black man went after high school girls anyone would try to make him a Senator?’ Many view that mailer as racially insensitive. One African-American voter told a local news outlet he no longer plans to vote after receiving the ad, saying, for his campaign to put this flyer out it is a complete slap in the face. You’re the only African-American representing Alabama in Congress. Was that a mistake?”

SEWELL: “Listen, ads don’t, mailers don’t vote, it’s people who vote. And I really believe that the folks of Alabama will see through all of this nonsense about Roy Moore. At the end of the day…” RADDATZ: “But was that mailer a mistake? Do you think that was a mistake? I know people vote and mailers don’t, but was it a mistake?” SEWELL: “Yeah. Well, listen, I don’t think that the folks are concentrating on one piece of literature. I think that we have to look at the whole body of evidence and facts that Doug Jones has been, you know, saying as to why he is the right candidate for the state of Alabama.”

CLIP AND SAVE — NIKKI HALEY told CHRIS WALLACE on “Fox News Sunday” that she wouldn’t take secretary of State of she was offered. She said she’s happy in New York.

AROUND THE TAX REFORM HORN …

— “As tax plan gained steam, GOP lost focus on the middle class,” by WaPo’s Damien Paletta: “The GOP tax plan on the cusp of becoming law diverges wildly from the promises President Trump and top advisers said they would deliver for the middle class — an evolution that shows how traditional Republican orthodoxy swamped Trump’s distinctive brand of economic populism as it moved through Washington. The bill was supposed to deliver benefits predominantly to average working families, not corporations, with a 35 percent tax cut Trump proposed on the campaign trail as part of the ‘Middle Class Tax Relief and Simplification Act.’ …

“But the final product is looking much different, the result of a partisan policymaking process that largely took place behind closed doors, faced intense pressure from corporate lobbyists and ultimately fell in line with GOP wish lists. As top lawmakers from the House and the Senate now rush to complete negotiations to push the tax plan into law, it amounts to a massive corporate tax cut, with uneven — and temporary — benefits for the middle class that could end up increasing taxes for many working families in future years.” http://wapo.st/2kNXReU

— TRUMP ON TAX REFORM: @realDonaldTrump at 8:35 a.m.: “Getting closer and closer on the Tax Cut Bill. Shaping up even better than projected. House and Senate working very hard and smart. End result will be not only important, but SPECIAL!” … at 8:30 a.m.: “Things are going really well for our economy, a subject the Fake News spends as little time as possible discussing! Stock Market hit another RECORD HIGH, unemployment is now at a 17 year low and companies are coming back into the USA. Really good news, and much more to come!”

ON THE WILDFIRES — “Southern California’s fire devastation is ‘the new normal,’ Gov. Brown says,” by L.A. Times’ Ruben Vives, Melissa Etehad and Jaclyn Cosgrove: “Gov. Jerry Brown surveyed the devastation Saturday in Ventura — the area hardest hit by firestorms that have displaced nearly 90,000 people in Southern California — calling it ‘the new normal.’ The visit came four days after Brown declared a state of emergency in response to the wildfires. In all, blazes from Ojai to Oceanside have destroyed more than 790 structures and burned 175,000 acres.” http://bit.ly/2nRk8K7

ZINKE RESPONDS — “Zinke attacks reporting on helicopter rides,” by Ben Lefebvre: “Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Saturday attacked POLITICO’s coverage of his use of $14,000 in taxpayer-funded helicopter rides in the D.C. area — but offered no facts that contradicted the story that ran Thursday. ‘Here are the #facts the DC media refuses to print,’ Zinke said in a statement on his official Twitter account.

“‘Recent articles about official Interior Department helicopter usage are total fabrications and a wild departure from reality.’ His statement went on to note — as POLITICO’s story had said — that the trips in question had included a visit to an emergency management exercise in West Virginia and a flyover of a power line project in Virginia. Zinke also defended a separate helicopter flight last summer over two national monuments in Nevada. POLITICO had reported in September on that flight, which Interior Department documents said cost at least $40,000.

“POLITICO’s reporting was based on records that the Interior Department had released under the Freedom of Information Act. Zinke’s travels got more attention Friday in a follow-up story by The Associated Press that mentioned all the helicopter trips.” http://politi.co/2iLKlEd … Ben’s original story http://politi.co/2BOD0Lw

— SPOTTED: ZINKE dining with family at Landini Brothers Restaurant in Alexandria, Virginia, last night.

WHAT CONSERVATIVES ARE READING — “Republicans step up defense of ‘not qualified’ judicial nominees,” by Seung Min Kim and John Bresnahan: “Senate Republicans have declared war on the American Bar Association. Since 1953, the venerable legal organization has played a critical, behind-the-scenes role in assessing judicial nominees and their fitness to serve on the bench. But with the ABA emerging as a major stumbling block in President Donald Trump’s effort to transform the courts, the GOP is accusing the non-partisan group of holding a liberal slant and is seeking to sideline it.

“The ABA has deemed at least four of Trump’s judicial nominees ‘not qualified’ – a high number, although other administrations evaluated candidates privately before they were nominated. Democrats warn of dire consequences of ignoring the group’s evaluations. But Republicans are intent on a dramatic reshaping of the federal judiciary that could last for decades and so far, haven’t been persuaded by the ABA’s ratings.” http://politi.co/2BPLulW

MEDIA CRITIC IN CHIEF — @realDonaldTrump at 6:14 p.m.: “.@daveweigel of the Washington Post just admitted that his picture was a FAKE (fraud?) showing an almost empty arena last night for my speech in Pensacola when, in fact, he knew the arena was packed (as shown also on T.V.). FAKE NEWS, he should be fired.” … at 5:01 p.m.: “.@DaveWeigel @WashingtonPost put out a phony photo of an empty arena hours before I arrived @ the venue, w/ thousands of people outside, on their way in. Real photos now shown as I spoke. Packed house, many people unable to get in. Demand apology & retraction from FAKE NEWS WaPo!”

— @daveweigel at 5:04 p.m. replying to Trump: “Sure thing: I apologize. I deleted the photo after @dmartosko told me I’d gotten it wrong. Was confused by the image of you walking in the bottom right corner.”

— @NicolleDWallace: “Some free PR advice for my pals in the media – Donald Trump would love to have a fight about whether the press tells the truth – FACT: there are higher standards in every newsroom than on potus twitter feed and White House press briefing- do not take the bait. Carry on.”

LISTEN IN to the latest bonus Playbook Audio Briefing episode from our live recording Thursday night at Sixth and I Synagogue. Today we’re posting Jake and Anna’s discussion with NRCC’S JOHN ROGERS and DCCC’S DAN SENA http://bit.ly/2iMHyuF Make sure you subscribe on your favorite podcasting app (Apple Podcasts http://apple.co/2uK0bDc … Stitcher http://bit.ly/2BTyvQZ) so you don’t miss our daily briefings.

— ICYMI here’s a link to our talk with NYT’S Michael Barbaro http://bit.ly/2AGWD96 and POLITICO all-star panel of Seung Min Kim, Rachael Bade and Annie Karni http://bit.ly/2iGgf4X

FUN CLICK — SNL’s “Visit with Santa Cold Open” — “Santa Claus (Kenan Thompson) and his elf (Kate McKinnon) field some uncomfortable Christmas present requests” from kids related to politics. 6-min. video http://bit.ly/2iMtO2P

PHOTO DU JOUR: An Army Black Knights cadet celebrates the win over the Navy Midshipmen on Dec. 9 at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. Army beat Navy 14-13. | Elsa/Getty Images

AT FOGGY BOTTOM — “U.S. Diplomat’s Resignation Signals Wider Exodus From State Department,” by FP’s Dan De Luce and Robbie Gramer: “An award-winning U.S. diplomat who was seen as a rising star at the State Department has issued a scathing resignation letter, accusing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the Donald Trump administration of undercutting the State Department and damaging America’s influence in the world. Elizabeth Shackelford, who most recently served as a political officer based in Nairobi for the U.S. mission to Somalia, wrote to Tillerson that she reluctantly had decided to quit because the administration had abandoned human rights as a priority and shown disdain for the State Department’s diplomatic work, according to her letter, obtained by Foreign Policy.

“‘I have deep respect for the career Foreign and Civil Service staff who, despite the stinging disrespect this Administration has shown our profession, continue the struggle to keep our foreign policy on the positive trajectory necessary to avert global disaster in increasingly dangerous times,’ Shackelford wrote in her Nov. 7 letter, which is published below. One phrase was redacted on Shackelford’s request. ‘With each passing day, however, this task grows more futile, driving the Department’s experienced and talented staff away in ever greater numbers,’ she wrote.

“Her former colleagues said her departure — and the sentiments expressed in her letter — reflect a wider exodus of midcareer diplomats who have lost confidence in Tillerson’s management and the Trump administration’s approach toward diplomacy. ‘She’s emblematic of what we’re losing across the board,’ said one of Shackelford’s former State Department colleagues. ‘She is the best among us. We should not be losing the best among us. And that should concern people that we are,’ the former colleague said.” http://atfp.co/2ASUiKz

VALLEY TALK — “Tech’s new D.C. partner: Charles Koch,” by Nancy Scola: “The tech industry has found a surprising new ally in its effort to shape public policy in Washington: the 82-year-old libertarian billionaire Charles Koch. Two organizations founded by Koch, one an education-focused institute and the other a grant-making foundation, have spent the past year ramping up their efforts to shape public debate on tech policy topics like self-driving cars and the rights of online publishers.

“And despite their ideological distance on issues like the Paris climate accord, the Koch groups and left-leaning Silicon Valley are working together to advance the argument that innovation is most likely to flourish when legislators and regulators leave it alone. … The deep-pocketed Koch groups have the resources to help tech put on educational events, co-host conferences and fund academic research. But the alliance with Charles Koch also allows Silicon Valley to expand its contacts and influence in the age of Donald Trump — in a Washington that looks much different from what the tech executives who supported Hillary Clinton had expected after the 2016 election.

“For an industry in need of new friends in D.C., amid threats of antitrust scrutiny and criticism of its role in enabling Russian election interference, the Kochs’ deep ties to conservative circles may prove useful.” http://politi.co/2kPTf7V

****** A message from PhRMA: A medicine’s path from the biopharmaceutical company to the patient involves many entities across the supply chain. A new report examines how money flows through this system – which includes wholesalers, pharmacy benefit managers, pharmacies and insurers – and how that impacts what patients pay at the pharmacy. Read more. http://onphr.ma/2kgd6Nu ******

DEMS TRY TO MOVE FORWARD — “DNC ‘unity’ panel recommends huge cut in superdelegates,” by Kevin Robillard: “A commission set up to help reform the Democratic presidential nominating process has voted to restrict the number of superdelegates as part of a slew of changes. The Democratic Party’s Unity Reform Commission is recommending cutting the number of superdelegates by about 400, equal to a 60 percent reduction. Many of the remaining superdelegates would see their vote tied to the results in their state.

“The commission is also suggesting that absentee voting be required as an option for presidential caucus participants. It is calling for automatic voter registration and same-day voter registration. And it wants to mandate public reporting of raw vote totals from caucus states. The recommendations will now go to the Democratic National Committee’s rules and bylaws committee, and then likely to the full 447-member Democratic National Committee for consideration sometime next year, where it will need two-thirds support to pass.” http://politi.co/2ARNnkR

— “Democrats eye gains in Pennsylvania trial on ‘goofy’ gerrymandering,” by Reuters’ Joseph Ax in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania: “The 7th congressional district has become a national poster child for critics of gerrymandering, the process by which one party draws district boundaries to ensure an advantage among voters. Democrats say the lines have helped Republicans like U.S. Representative Patrick Meehan, the four-term incumbent [Democrat Daylin] Leach seeks to unseat, to stay in office.

“That could soon change, however. On Monday in state court in Harrisburg, one of three lawsuits challenging those boundaries heads to trial. The outcome could shift several battleground districts in Pennsylvania and in turn boost the Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, where they last held the majority from January 2009 to January 2011. The 7th district is so precisely engineered that at one point it narrows to the width of a single seafood restaurant, snaking past two other congressional districts so it can link two far flung Republican-leaning areas.” http://reut.rs/2iO5fCG

BONUS GREAT WEEKEND READS, curated by Daniel Lippman:

— “Tales of War and Redemption,” by Phil Klay in the American Scholar: “A soldier may call out to God while in combat, but the experiences that cause him to do so might be the very ones that later cause him to abandon his faith altogether. What kind of God would allow any of the innumerable things that happen in a war zone? This old complaint takes on a particular urgency when you’ve seen children dying slowly after going through more pain than any human being should ever experience.” http://bit.ly/2y80OIn

— “Chronicler of Islamic State ‘killing machine’ goes public,” by AP’s Lori Hinnant and Maggie Michael: “For nearly two years, he’d wandered the streets of occupied Mosul, chatting with shopkeepers and Islamic State fighters, visiting friends who worked at the hospital, swapping scraps of information. … He forced himself to witness the beheadings and deaths by stoning, so he could hear the killers call out the names of the condemned and their supposed crimes. … He wasn’t a spy. He was an undercover historian and blogger.” http://bit.ly/2BP4iS4

— “Hillary Clinton meets Mary Beard: “I would love to have told Trump: ‘Back off, you creep,’” by Decca Aitkenhead in the Guardian: Clinton: “There is a deliberate, very well-organised, sophisticated assault on facts and reason and evidence. In our country, it’s driven originally by a cabal of billionaires and religious fundamentalists, and their view is that it doesn’t matter what they say. If they say it often enough and they put enough money behind it, they’ll convince a significant number of people.” http://bit.ly/2BheTsV (h/t TheBrowser.com)

— “The Consent of the (Un)governed,” by Laurie Penny in Longreads: “The search for a more human understanding of power and consent is not simply stage-dressing for a bigger fight. It is the big fight. It’s all about the grabby old men, and it always has been.” http://bit.ly/2nFAvsZ

— “My Experience at Charlie Rose Went Beyond Sexism,” by Rebecca Carroll in Esquire: “In 1997, I joined the production team of Charlie Rose’s popular interview show. I was the only black journalist on staff. … Twenty years later, in this watershed moment of examination and reckoning as one powerful white man after another is disgraced … we’re still not talking about the ramifications for black women — or the broader connection to structural racism in America.” http://bit.ly/2jxjMUb

— “Ryan Zinke Is Trump’s Attack Dog on the Environment,” by Elliott D. Woods in Outside: “Early in his political career, the interior secretary irked fellow Republicans with his willingness to stand up for conservation. Things have changed, and whether you love or hate his ideas, know this: he’s one of the few Trump-era cabinet secretaries with the juice to make things happen, and he’s got the boss’s back.” http://bit.ly/2BXFXKP

— “Can Sexual Predators Be Good Scholars?” by Becca Rothfeld in the Chronicle of Higher Ed – per ALDaily.com’s description: “Writing and thinking are intimate activities. Does that suggest brilliant men pay an intellectual price for mistreating women? It’s comforting — and certainly false — to think so.” http://bit.ly/2A4VQO8

— “Success Academy’s Radical Educational Experiment,” by the New Yorker’s Rebecca Mead: “Inside Eva Moskowitz’s quest to combine rigid discipline with a progressive curriculum.” http://bit.ly/2AHgDIR

— “The true story of the fake U.S. embassy in Ghana,” by Yepoka Yeebo in the Guardian: “Last year, the U.S. State Department said it had uncovered a fake embassy in Accra that had been issuing a stream of forged visas. The story went viral – but all was not as it seemed.” http://bit.ly/2j9jaXU

— “Young Americans,” by Michael Hall in the December issue of Texas Monthly: “Pedro Villalobos is a star prosecutor. Gerardo De Loera is a musician. Joseph Ramirez is a tech entrepreneur. They’re young, they’re smart, they make America great. They’re also undocumented, able to live in the country legally under controversial legislation set to end. Now, with time running out as Congress mulls their fate, they—and thousands more like them—face being sent back to a place they’ve never called home.” http://bit.ly/2BUWBuF

— “When Does Work Actually Get Done?” – Priceonomics: “Sustaining focus year-round is more of a Herculean pipe-dream than a reality of the modern workplace. We come into the office with resolve and determination, pump out a few tasks, eat lunch, then gradually deteriorate into a potpourri of Reddit posts and cat videos. But there are certain times where we’re more likely to get our work done.” http://bit.ly/2jcS1Dn

— “Millennials Have Officially Killed the Holiday Office Party – Thanks Vox.com,” by The Weekly Standard’s Matt Labash: “It is a time-honored tradition … Show up to your company’s voluntary holiday gathering, where absences are informally noted by supervisors who will passive-aggressively punish the missing come January. Pretend you enjoy socializing with colleagues that you wouldn’t invite over to your house on a dare.” http://tws.io/2kPe1Vk

— “9 common-sense rules for getting the most out of meetings,” by Ray Dalio on TED.com: “Veteran financier Ray Dalio has been in every kind of meeting: the good, the bad and the ugly. Here’s how he keeps his meetings focused and productive.” http://bit.ly/2iGmPIH

— “Longform Podcast#273: Zoe Chace,” a reporter and producer at “This American Life”: “Radio is a movie in your head. It’s a very visual thing. It’s a transporting thing—when it’s done well. And it’s louder than your thoughts. It is both of those things. It would just take me out of the place that I was, where I was lost and couldn’t figure things out.” http://bit.ly/2AGqheT

— “Will Trump Inspire the Next Great American Novel?” by Tom Rosenstiel in POLITICO Magazine: “Once upon a time, Washington spawned towering works of political fiction. What about now?�� http://politi.co/2kaApEP

SPOTTED: John Kerry and Jon Hamm on Thursday night at “Hamilton” in London’s West End, where the two took a selfie together at the Victoria Palace Theatre. Kerry first met Hamm after Kerry’s speech at the Charlotte Democratic Convention in 2012. While in London, Kerry had a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace climate change dinner with Ambassador Bill Burns and met with friends from Parliament (both Labour and Tory) who work on foreign policy. Kerry, whose birthday is tomorrow, is heading to Paris for French President Emmanuel Macron’s Tuesday climate change conference titled “One Planet” …

… Rex Tillerson doing the opening coin-toss at the Army-Navy game yesterday in Philly. Also in the stands: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joe Dunford and State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert with her brother Joe Nauert, a Navy midshipman — pic of the Army kids storming the field after they won 14-13 http://bit.ly/2BsFmUn … Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) last night in the lobby of the Kimpton Lorien Hotel and Spa on King Street in Old Town Alexandria

HOLIDAY PARTY CIRCUIT — SPOTTED at Ron and Sara Bonjean’s annual Christmas party last night at their house in Alexandria where the special surprise celebrity guest was Tori Spelling: Don and Shannon McGahn, Sean Spicer (pic of Sean and Spelling: http://bit.ly/2BqYKkI), Rodell Mollineau, Brian Walsh, Doug Heye, Brian Baker, Aaron Keyak, Tim Burger, Scott Mulhauser and Kara Carscaden, Brad Rateike, Adam Kennedy, Zach Parkinson, Tyler Ross, Sarah Westwood and Jon Conradi, Michelle Fields and Jamie Weinstein, Janet Donovan, Michael and Mary Kathryn Steel, Sam Feist, Polson Kanneth, Marie Harf and Joshua Lucas, Dan Conston, Kelley Hudak, Lauren French, Mark Paustenbach, Mitchell Rivard …

… Andrew Kovalcin, Craig Gordon, Michael LaRosa, Steve Shepard, Benny and Katelyn Rieley Johnson, Brian Danza, Mike Dubke, Michael Falcone, Zeke Miller, Josh and Ali Rogin, Jahan Wilcox, Hadas Gold, Rob Saliterman, Bill McQuillen, Lauren Pratapas, Matt Dornic, Hanna Hope, Neil Grace, Jeff Grappone, Matt and Rebecca Haller, Liz Johnson, Stuart Roy, Steve Shepard, Robert and Katie Zirkelbach, Ben Jenkins, Sean Sullivan, Kevin Sheridan and Erika Gutierrez, Patrick O’Connor, Alice Lloyd, Jenna Lifhits, Hannah Yoest, Meridith McGraw, Vanessa Morrone and Mike Ambrosini, Becca Glover, Katy Summerlin, Ryan Hughes, Eli Yokley.

SPOTTED at Robert Draper and Kirsten Powers’ holiday party yesterday at their house near Catholic University: Chris Stirewalt, Karen Tumulty, Alice Stewart, Juleanna Glover, Christopher Hale, Brendan Buck and Rebecca Berg, Rebecca Cutler, Todd Harris, Tim Burger, Doug Heye, Phil Rucker, David Swerdlick, Sally Quinn, Asawin Suebsaeng and Elizabeth Brown.

WEEKEND WEDDING — OBAMA ALUMNI — “Mary Baskerville, Theodore Newman”: “Ms. Baskerville, 30, is a public relations manager in the corporate and financial practice of Burson-Marsteller in New York. Until January, she was a sponsorship manager at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York, part of the Clinton Foundation. She graduated from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va. … Mr. Newman, 35, is an insurance claims manager at the Starr Companies, an insurance and financial services company in New York. He graduated from Northwestern and received a law degree from American University. … The couple met in 2013 at a happy hour at Alero, a Mexican restaurant in Washington. Ms. Baskerville was working in press advance for the Obama administration.” With pic http://nyti.ms/2yWdZj5

BIRTHDAYS OF THE DAY: Megan Whittemore, deputy chief of staff for Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) and VP of the Senate Press Secretaries Association. A trend she thinks deserves more attention: “Opposites really do attract. My husband and I are a bipartisan couple living and working in a partisan political city, and I believe we can always use more bipartisanship in this town. That’s why I enjoy working with the Senate Press Secretaries Association, which is one of the few bipartisan organizations on the Hill that help bring people together.” Read her Playbook Plus Q&A: http://politi.co/2AIhQzE

… Dateline NBC correspondent Andrea Canning. How she got her start in journalism: “I started at ‘Extra,’ where I babysat editors’ kids so they’d make my resume reel for me. I mailed out 50 VHS tapes and was off to Greenville, MS for my first on-air job.” Q&A: http://politi.co/2BZ2reh

BIRTHWEEK (was yesterday): Brian McGuire, policy director at Brownstein Hyatt and a McConnell alum, who celebrated with his wife Ashley in New York City for the day (hat tip: Scott Jennings, who was on time).

BIRTHDAYS: Mike Shields of Convergence Media and a CNN political commentator … Symone Sanders … Fox News’ Mike Emanuel is 5-0 (h/t James Rosen) … Mercury CEO Kieran Mahoney (h/t Jon Haber) … Michael Bodley … Justin Ahn … Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) is 68 … Charlie Watkins … Politico Magazine’s Katie Fossett … former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is 61 … Greg Rothman … Misha Belikov, analyst at Point72 Asset Management … Google alum Steve Johnston (h/t Tim Burger) … Mitchell Rubenstein … N.Y. Daily News’ Erin Durkin … Robert Maguire … Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.) is 48 … Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) is 57 … Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) is 64 … Edelman’s Shawn Stafford … Kip Wainscott, senior adviser on Silicon Valley at National Democratic Institute … Chris McGrath … Bill Baroni, former deputy executive director of the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey …

… Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.) is 67. He’s “celebrating with his wife, children and grandchildren and is looking forward to a big birthday cake from world-renowned Rick’s Bakery in Fayetteville” (h/t Tim Griffin) … Jennifer Cox, chief of staff for Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) (h/t Mitchell Rivard) … Ryan Beene … Jackie Etter-Krause … Gigi Anders … Lisa Rowan … Tom Zampino … David French, SVP of gov’t relations at National Retail Federation … Ellie Bartow … Kristin Wilson Keppler … Matthew Gagnon is 37 … Doug Rosenthal … Don McDowell … Susan Milligan, political writer for U.S. News & World Report … David Kieve, partner at Hilltop Public Solutions … Laura De Castro … Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony List … Doug Badger … Scott MacKay … Jess Peterson, president and CEO of Western Skies Strategies … Gloria Loring … Hope Hodge Seck … Mitchell Schwartz … Rick Siger … Michelle Mayorga … Wayne Smith (h/ts Teresa Vilmain)

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