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dr-spencer-reids-queen · 2 years ago

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Tabula Rasa: Part Three

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~1.5k

Warnings: canon violence, canon language, canon talk of death, methods of kill

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Criminal Minds. All credit goes to their respective owners. If there is any warnings that exceed the normal death/kills from the show, I will list them. If you’ve seen the show, then it’s the same level of angst unless otherwise stated

You two turn the corner and see Mr. Corbett looking around as if he's debating something. You and Spencer slink up to his side, startling him a bit.

"Mr. Corbett. Hey, I just wanted to make sure you knew that cross-examination wasn't as bad as it sounded."

"I'm not worried," he shrugs. "I have a better understanding of things now."

"Understanding?"

"After Darci died, I started to see a therapist. I had a lot of guilt, you know. I thought that I should have been there for her, saved her somehow. I don't know. This guy, this shrink, he always brought it back to control. He said I had to accept the fact that there were always gonna be things in life I couldn't control."

"That's very wise of him," you say, and Spencer agrees.

"I realize I have no say over what goes on in that courtroom. See you later, Spencer."

Mr. Corbett walks away and shoves his hands into his pockets.

"That's weird," Spencer mutters.

"What's weird?"

"He called me by my first name."

Word got back to Penelope about Nina Moore, and she was able to find the exact woman who kept visiting Brian. Her real name is Nina Genesee who got married in 1978 where she changed her last name to Moore. Her current address is here in Madison Heights, Virginia. The confusing part is that JJ and Emily spoke to this woman, and she told them she's never even been to Roanoke.

You're not sure why she would lie, and you're not sure why she hasn't visited him since he woke up.

You need answers, and this woman has them. Rossi wants to talk to her, and you opted to go with him. If she decides to lie again, you'd be able to see the truth hiding behind her words. So as to not overwhelm her, it's only you and Rossi.

"Nina Moore?" Rossi says once she opens the door. "We're with the FBI."

"Please, come in," she says, knowing why you're here.

You two walk inside and sit with her in her living room.

"Why didn't you come forward before? Why did you lie to us?"

"I was protecting my family," she sighs. "I was a kid myself. When you give away a child, I know it sounds cold, but you just want to forget about it and believe it never happened. So, that's how I lived."

"Trust me, I know how that feels," you say truthfully. "If you wanted to forget, then why did you maintain a relationship with him?"

"Maintained? No. I only saw him once before the accident. I never thought he could do the things he did."

"When was the meeting?" you ask.

"Five years ago. He just called me out of the blue. The records were supposed to be sealed. I think he hired someone to find me."

"What did you talk about?"

"He was interested in my family and my kids. He just wanted to call every once in a while. Maybe to meet around the holidays, but I couldn't. I could barely bring myself to look at him."

"You rejected him," you say, and suddenly, his stressor becomes crystal clear.

"Whatever he became, I can't help but feel like it's my fault."

"No, don't do that to yourself," you shake your head. "This was entirely his fault."

"Why did you visit him at the hospital?" Rossi asks.

"Because it was safe, I suppose. I could be there for him and no one had to know. Because when I would read to him and listen to him breathe, it felt right."

The front door opens, and Nina's husband walks in with no knowledge of what's happening. She gets up and immediately takes him off to the side to give him some sort of an explanation.

"Her rejecting him is what's his stressor. He doesn't feel wanted and ends up killing people. She's just lucky he took no for an answer. It could have been a lot worse if he pressed the issue."

"Maybe he did," he mutters. Rossi interrupts the couple who are talking in the kitchen. "Mrs. Moore. Did he ever send you anything? Any gifts?"

Nina sighs and searches for something before taking out a large gift box. She opens it, showing jewelry, watches, and other knickknacks.

"I wanted to throw them away, but I couldn't."

"Well, now we know where his trophies went," you sigh.

Having this box of trophies that he stole from his victims will be a good thing to have in court, so the next day, when his trial continues, Hotch is ready to take down Brian. Another good thing coming from the visit to Nina, is that she agreed to testify in court against Brian. You're not sure how this is going to go, but you need to be there for it.

You and Spencer arrive after Hotch and Cece left, and as soon as you step out of the car, something doesn't feel right.

"Are you okay?"

"Something's not right." You shut the door and look around the parking lot, spotting Mr. Corbett with a determined look on his face. He's nervous, but not because of the consequences of what he's about to do, but because of what he's about to do. "He has a gun, Spencer."

You two rush over to Mr. Corbett without raising suspicions, and Spencer grabs his arm before he can go any further.

"Mr. Corbett, it won't help. Think about what this would do. Think about Darci."

"I am thinking about her," he says emotionally.

"If she knew what you were about to do, and depending on your belief system, maybe she does, do you think she'd want this? Give me the gun. You want him to suffer, but he'll be dead. He won't feel anything, you'll be in prison, and you will regret it, believe me."

"I'm already in prison." You look into his eyes, and he sighs sadly. HE hands over the gun, and you take it from him. "How did you know?"

"Your behavior. You were too calm yesterday, and you called me by my first name."

"If you're so good at predicting things, how come you couldn't stop him before he took my Darci?"

"Look, I shouldn't say anything, but there's some new evidence," you blurt.

"What evidence?"

"We found Brian's birth mother, and she is going to testify right now. Please be there. You'll be able to hear what she has to say."

You don't tell him about Darci's watch because that might make him even more upset. Instead, you leave it at that and hope for the best. Once Mr. Corbett calms down, you three head inside where the court session is already taking place. Nina is already on the stand, and you quickly take your seat.

"My name is Nina Moore," she says for the court.

"What is your relationship to the defendant?" Cece asks.

"I'm his birth mother, his biological mother. I gave him up for adoption when he was a baby."

"How long ago was that?"

"Thirty-seven years."

"So, you didn't have a relationship with him?"

"No, I never saw him until 2003."

"Did he track you down?"

"Yes. We met at a cafe, talked for a bit, and then he left.

"What did you talk about?"

"He said he wanted to be a part of my life. I told him it was impossible."

"Did you feel that he was being unrealistic? Irrational, even?"

Something in the air shifts, and you look over at Brian who is watching Nina with a close eye. His mood suddenly changes, and it changes from being in a calm state to almost rage. He's pissed, and you know for a fact that he's starting to remember. He wouldn't get this angry at her if he wasn't.

"I think he's starting to remember," you whisper to Spencer.

"How do you know?"

"He's very angry at his mother. The kind of anger that he felt when she rejected him the first time. The kind of anger that made him start killing in the first place."

"No, not at all. He was just a little lost," Nina says. "He wanted to belong to something. Turning him away was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. A person can't live two lives. I'm sorry, Brian. I'm so sorry."

"Mrs. Moore, did the defendant make any subsequent attempts to communicate with you?" Cece continues.

"A few months after that, I got something in the mail. There was no note or anything, just a postmark from Roanoke, and I knew that's where he lived."

"What were the contents of the envelope?"

"It was a necklace. Two months after that I got another. Then a watch. I thought he was trying to persuade me with gifts. I thought they were estate jewelry."

"Your honor, I'd like to enter into evidence people's exhibit 'F' through 'H'." Cece hands out the evidence to the judge before showing Nina the items. "Are these the items that you received in the mail?"

"Yes."

"In this photograph, do you see the watch that's in this bag?"

"Yes."

"Let the record reflect the witness has identified the watch worn in this photograph by murder victim Darci Corbett." Liam's emotional state skyrockets, and if he still had his gun, you know he'd use it. "I have nothing further."

You lean toward Liam who is trying hard not to cry.

"You're doing everything you can, Mr. Corbett. Darci will get justice."

"Court is adjourned until nine am tomorrow for cross," the judge announces, slapping his gavel on the desk.

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terribletoonietuesday · 2 years ago

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Heartland of Darkness (1992) aka Blood Church

Oh my GOD why did I wait so long to watch this? It is so laugh out loud funny and for all the beautiful accidental reasons. If it wasn't for the prosperous acting, the insanely intense pacing and absurd complexity of making Children of the Corn take over suburbia. Tell me if you heard this before but a single dad reporter takes over a newspaper in a small middle america town only to find he is not wanted there because the innocent looking townspeople are all deep in a satanic conspiracy. One of the best parts is that the main lead is a much better actor than anyone else in this movie, thus making everyone else in the town sound like they are crazy (which is both accidental and on purpose). The evil reverend whose church has brainwashed the town with his satanic rite is played by Nick Baldasare the star of Beyond Dreams Doors and he is equally hilarious as he is legit scary, creating a perfect b movie character. I'm also a big fan of his wardrobe choices in this movie. This never had a full release until last year when Visual Vengeance released it on blu ray and it looks so good in this complete package. Which is why it is such a shame this movie has not been seen since now as I believe Nick Baldasares life would be different if more people saw this. In honesty if it wasn't for the overly intensely played moments in every goddamn scene I might say this movie was boring. No far out fantasy and no major action until the final quarter where the film legit falls into madness (as it should) . However every scene is played so over the top in its dialogue, its improper casting choices (Linnea Quigley as a highschool teacher yet she is dressed like she always is and the leads teenage daughter played a woman way too old to be his daughter) and the dumbed down dialogue that every second is entertaining. Every scene feels like it is systematically made to be riffed on purpose. I literally could hear the voices of Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett from RiffTrax in my head dishing out comments every 10 seconds during this masterpiece of something. It feels like they got real local people to be the towns folks in this movie and their sheer confusion of what is going on in each scene works perfectly to give them all a dunwich coocoos vibe (even though they obviously don't know they are doing it). There's a sex scene that is borderline Nightbeasts levels of awkwardness. Beyond all that it is the very fact that 80s and 90s suburban "nuclear" households were really living in fear that this kind of "Satanic Panic" was happening and with this movie playing it so straight while also so insane should ,i can only hope, will prove to people how stupid it is to believe in this kind of conspiracy. It's like an NBC tv movie with the three Bs added in Blood , Boobs and Baldasare. This is B movie gold that should be seen in a group where you and your friends yell and laugh at the screen to help in some of the slower spots because right up until the very last line in the movie it is extremely quotable and when it's done all your confusion will make you say that it was god damn brilliant… yeah I said god damn alot tonight. Blame the movie.

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bloededhoine · 4 years ago

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world building cause twn doesn't part 12: the hen ichaer

i realize i've been mentioning the hen ichaer without really explaining it, and for that i apologize. but without further ado, let's go

colour code cause i fucking love colour codes - already happened/introduced, probably s2, important background info, stuff that might be in the prequel, extras

series masterpost

general

the hen ichaer is basically a magical gene that originated with the elven sorceress, scholar, and princess, lara dorren aep shiadhal

it can lie dormant or inactive for generations, but when someone is an activated carrier of the gene, they are called a source

sources have an insane capability for magic, it's so intense that without instruction they are a huge danger to themselves and/or others. remember pavetta's betrothal feast? hurricanes should not happen indoors

same thing with ciri's sonic scream.

obviously, the hen ichaer is highly weaponize-able, but it's difficult to put this into theory since the magic is so strong that it can easily kill the person who carries it

most important is that the hen ichaer can open ard gaeth, the gates between worlds. you may remember that the witcher is a multiverse, and the continent is just one of countless worlds

aen elle

the aen elle, elves who live in another world called tir ná lia, controlled at least one gate that they used to get slaves from other worlds

however, this was before the hen ichaer was seriously studied. unicorns are also capable of opening ard gaeth, and were present in tir ná lia, so the aen elle would kidnap them to be used as their world-hopping-genocide key. yeah, the aen elle are seriously fucked

the king of the aen elle was named auberon muircetach, and he was very well known for his wars with the unicorns, who weren't too keen on being enslaved for the purpose of conquering other worlds

the hen ichaer came into play when auberon noticed that his daughter, lara dorren, had pretty intense magical abilities. like, ard gaeth opening abilities.

auberon, lara, and a few other elves began studying the gene and trying to figure out how it works and how to use it.

through this study is how we got the title aen saevherne, which is used to distinguish an elven mage with extensive knowledge of history, science, magic, and, most importantly, the elder blood.

both lara and auberon were aen saevherne, as was lara's husband-to-be, avallac'h, and avallac'h's foster son, caranthir ar-feiniel

ithlinne's prophecy

ithlinne aegli aep aevenien was an elven prophet known for her incredibly dark prophecies that she delivered at totally random times. how dark were they? ithlinne's prophecies were almost exclusively about the death of all humanity and/or the end of the world. she was fun at parties.

anyway, when we talk about ithlinne we really only mean one specific prophecy, aen ithlinnespeath. to be confusing it's usually referred to as ithlinne's prophecy

here's the prophecy itself:

Verily I say unto you, the era of the sword and axe is nigh, the era of the wolf's blizzard. The Time of the White Chill and the White Light is nigh, the Time of Madness and the Time of Contempt: Tedd Deireádh, the Time of End. The world will die amidst frost and be reborn with the new sun. It will be reborn of Elder Blood, of Hen Ichaer, of the seed that has been sown. A seed which will not sprout but burst into flame. Ess'tuath esse! Thus it shall be! Watch for the signs! What signs these shall be, I say unto you: first the earth will flow with the blood of Aen Seidhe, the Blood of Elves...

what does that mean? well, the white chill (aka the white frost) is a massive ice age that has been approaching the continent for years. don't believe me? the white frost has destroyed countless worlds in the past, and it literally cannot be stopped. the only way to save the world is by the power of the hen ichaer.

here's a perfectly frightening visual of the white frost

ithlinne didn't elaborate on the how, but we now know that the only to survive the white frost is by finding a new world and massively evacuating the continent through ard gaeth, which can only be opened by the power of the hen ichaer.

genetics

clearly, the hen ichaer is important enough to literally save, or end, the world, but the aen elle did a famously terrible job of studying it. like, you'd think they'd be good at that, but no. to their credit, it is a bit complicated

first, there are multiple types of elder blood genes, the main gene, the latent gene, and the activator gene. to actually show the powers of the hen ichaer, someone would need to either have one latent and one activator, or the main gene.

let's go back to secondary school biology for a second, remember punnet squares? these fuckers

the letters in a punnet square represent a genotype, or the two alleles that are inherited from the parents. phenotypes, on the other hand, are what you see on the outside. for example, a genotype would be Aa but a phenotype would be brown eyes.

while the main gene is a simple dominant allele (shown by a capital letter on a punnet square), both the latent and activator genes are semi-dominant, meaning that when they meet they create a new phenotype: the innate magical ability that makes you a source.

it gets a little less scientific here so bear with me; this new phenotype is so powerful that it sometimes creates a whole new genotype. so instead of having one activator gene and one latent gene, the two would merge and you'd be left with only one (very powerful) main gene. this is the only single gene that actually has magic and it's a dominant gene, so you only need to have one to have the power.

but, the latent and activator genes don't always combine. you still have the full powers when they stay separate, but it is then less likely to pass the hen ichaer your children.

complicated? very much so. but in practice it's a lot easier.

for simplicity's sake i'll call the activator gene g/a, latent gene g/L, main gene g/m and a regular nonmutated gene g/r. to be a source, the genes you inherit would be g/a g/L, but they may combine to be just g/m. your average person would be g/r g/r and a carrier would be either g/a g/r or g/L g/r.

clearly, this makes tracking it pretty messy, since generations of people can be carriers without having a single source

tracking the hen ichaer

for now, let's do what those elven sages couldn't and track then hen ichaer, starting with lara dorren

eventually, lara met an exceptionally talented human mage, cregennan of lod, and they were lab partners (oh my god they were lab partners) in the study of the hen ichaer.

for all the studying, lara and cregennan's own genes have always been something of a mystery. elven mages don't tend to have any issues with using themselves as lab rats, so it's entirely possible that lara and cregennan, knowingly or not, mutated their own genes in their research.

ultimately, it doesn't matter what lara and cregennan's genes originally were. by some happy little accident, the two eventually ended up with at least one activator gene and at least one latent gene between them.

later, when lara and cregennan made their own happy little accident, riannon, she inherited one of each gene (g/a g/L), making her a source. however, riannon's genes did not combine as the elves expected, which made her a little harder to study.

riannon eventually met king goidemar of temeria (g/r g/r), and they had two children named fiona and amavet. i'll start with fiona, who the aen elle managed to figure out had the latent gene, making her g/L r

fiona ended up having a baby with king coram II of cintra (g/r g/r), they named him corbett, and he inherited fiona's g/L and one of coram's g/r.

the aen elle lost track of the hen ichaer when they studied riannon's other kid amavet. see, amavet was kind of a whore. he had twins, muriel and crispin, with the married countess anna kameny. obviously, these children weren't legitimate, and when the angry count kameny murdered amavet a few months later, he was officially childless

the elves did, however, manage to figure out that amavet had riannon's g/a gene and goidemar's g/r gene. anna kameny was just g/r g/r, and crispin ended up being g/r g/r as well. destiny does favour the hen ichaer, but sometimes it's just not meant to be. muriel, on the other hand, did inherit her father's activator gene and was g/a g/r.

let's hop back to corbett, fiona and coram's g/L g/r son. he and princess elen of kaedwen (g/r g/r) had a son, dagorad, who got corbett's latent gene and one of elen's regular ones, meaning he was g/L g/r

muriel married robert of garramore (g/r g/r), and their daughter adalia, the dramatically posed lady right there, had the same genetic combination as her mother, g/a g/r

this is where it gets even weirder

the lovely adalia married dagorad. her second cousin. they shared riannon as their great grandmother. feel better in the fact that it was not intentional, adalia's mother, muriel, was not officially riannon's granddaughter. no one would have even known, but adalia's g/a met up with dagorad's g/L in their daughter, calanthe

for the first time since riannon, the hen ichaer was back, and calanthe's parents genes combined to give her g/m g/r

while it took generations of destiny and accidental incest to make the hen ichaer happen again, now that calanthe had the main gene there was a 50% chance she would pass it to her child, which, of course, she did

calanthe and her husband roegner (g/r g/r) had pavetta, who inherited the g/m from her mother. no one knew about this until pavetta literally created a source hurricane, and was already pregnant

pavetta and duny's (g/r g/r) daughter, ciri, inherited the main gene from her mother and was a source.

sources

it's important to note that a source is not necessarily an incredibly powerful sorcerer, merely a person who has the genetic predisposition required to channel very intense magic

sources, like anyone else, can be bad students, allergic to potions, or just generally averse to magic on all levels except heredity. there is also no way to guarantee that even the most willing source will be good at using magic, in fact it's far more common that they will be really really bad at it. sources are extra susceptible to the chaotic state of magic in the world, and many end up pretty seriously harmed by it.

magical talent tends to make itself known in very emotional situations, like the death of a parent or a war. the same applies for sources, but they have an extra rule: their full powers are off limits until they lose their virginities

now, netflix has not mentioned that rule to be true or false, but i'm going to think of it as strictly book/game/etc canon, because ciri is 10 years old when netflix shows her using her source powers for the first time

the virginity rule makes things even more complicated, as customs about premarital sex are pretty strict in the witcher world (well, among nobility), and the dudes didn't seem to have fast reflexes. what i'm saying is that getting pregnant the first time you had sex was not uncommon. sources couldn't even use, and likely weren't aware of, their powers until they were already passing them on to another generation.

and even still, there is no guarantee that someone who is a source will ever actually show their powers. calanthe had the genetics, but she wasn't a mage. what happened? we don't really know. after calanthe married, cintra was pretty peaceful; there were no invasions or massive upheavals that could put enough stress on her to show her powers. plus, her parents didn't know she had any magical powers, so they didn't give her the training that would develop them, and she was a very level headed person who would likely be unaffected by many of the things that would make another source lose their shit.

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itsclydebitches · 3 years ago

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hello! loved your tbb meta posts (10/10 analyses of the batch and their respective characterizations), but since it wasn't explicitly mentioned -- did you catch the post-s1 interview with jennifer corbett (head writer) and brad rau (exec producer)? their answers about crosshair's chip being out were Interesting (tm) but fairly definitive-sounding, so I'm wondering what your thoughts on it might've been.

Hey there, anon! Thank you—I’m so glad you’ve enjoyed them :D

I’ve heard this info second-hand and ran into one written interview on the topic (idk if it’s the same one you’re thinking of), but my first response is… arguably a reach lol. Not to start off with a tin hat on, but it’s always possible that the writers are lying. Which yes, yes, we have a knee-jerk reaction against the idea of anyone lying for any reason, but in this case, it would be in service of both the writer’s plans and the audience’s enjoyment. Let’s say for the sake of argument that Crosshair’s chip is definitely still in and the entire point of this setup is a double twist: first the reveal that his chip is gone, then the real reveal that it’s actually still in and Crosshair was lied to (among other possibilities). How can the writers discuss him during hiatus without revealing that twist? By playing the current knowledge straight, despite the fact that they know otherwise. Yup, Crosshair’s chip is out. Yup, he chose this 100% willingly. Nothing else to see here, folks! To do otherwise would be to reveal the twist way too early. Even refusing to answer the question, dodging it, would give it all away. Imagine if during a season finale we’re meant to believe that a character is dead and then during hiatus an interviewer asks how the cast will mourn them. If the writer refuses to answer, every fan will realize that Something Is Up and what’s the main possibility here? That they’re not actually dead! Twist spoiled… unless the writer pretends that what the audience currently knows is definitely the truth here.

Taking my tin hat off now, these interviews are one of the main reasons why I’m worried about the writing moving forward. Because despite the paragraph above, I’m by no means convinced that the writers are skillfully keeping up a lie to avoid spoilers. It’s not outside the realm of possibility, but it’s not necessarily likely either. Which leaves us taking their words at face value and that’s… a problem. Because as so many fans have already pointed out, the writing is setting up a twist that, according to these interviews, doesn’t exist. That doesn’t say good things about their intentions for the show vs. what actually ends up on screen and that kind of disconnect becomes frustrating for viewers very quickly. Take the headaches, for example. I’ve seen a couple of fans explain Crosshair’s away using the engine accident: “His face got burned up, of course his head still hurts. You’re reading too much into this.” But imagine for a moment if I’d tried to do the same thing for Wrecker prior to “Battle Scars”: “He gets thrown around and hits his head nearly every episode, of course it hurts. You’re reading too much into this.” Other fans would have—quite rightfully—explained to me how television works and that this repetitive problem is functioning as foreshadowing of a larger problem. With a side of the fact that this is an action show where the characters consistently shrug off their injuries. We’re not supposed to take Wrecker getting thrown around seriously. He’s the brawn of the group, meant to withstand a lot of damage, with any injuries being presented as either #cool (Wrecker shrugs off Fennec’s hits to go after Omega, yeah!) or #funny (Wrecker treats Crosshair shooting him like a badge of honor lol), not something he’s going to have to grapple with in a serious manner. So the audience recognizes the question, what’s more likely? That Wrecker’s headaches are a deliberate visual cue on the part of the writers to tell us that something important is happening, or that suddenly how the genre treats injuries has drastically changed?

It's precisely the same with Crosshair. He’s not the brawn like Wrecker is, but he’s still the action (anti)hero who shrugs off injuries because this is a show interested in more fun, explosive plot, not a deep dive into recovery. (See also: the story doing nothing with Echo’s trauma.) When Crosshair is injured, he’s immediately fighting to get back into a ship and when we next see him he’s passed the recovery stage entirely. There’s only a scar to show that this happened at all. We don’t watch him getting bacta skin grafts, or worrying about his eyesight, or struggling to eat, etc. The point is that he was injured for the purposes of that episode and now he’s not. So why would we think his headaches are a long-term symptom when the show is otherwise not at all interested in writing long-term symptoms? What’s more likely, that this familiar visual cue is being repeated to tell us that this is the chip, just like it was with Wrecker, or that the story is randomly interested in something it never was interested in before?

The audience is right to think that there’s more going on because the show has been written to say, "Something more is going on." The headaches, Crosshair’s refusal to give concrete information, the group conveniently not using Tech’s scanner, the burn scar hiding where the chip’s scar would be, a lack of motivation for the Empire removing the chip, not seeing its removal when the show did include its power being amplified… all of these are deliberate writing choices to set up another reveal. But, if we take the interview at face value and learn that these weren’t deliberate details… then what? The writers are making mistakes? Throwing in “clues” for the hell of it that they never intend to cache in on? Unless there’s some amazing answer here that allows for both these inconsistencies' explanations and the writers’ hard stance—something I personally can’t think up—then we’re left with is a pretty serious flaw in the show. A flaw that’s going to undermine the audience’s trust in everything we get from here on out. The next time we see something that feels like a cool setup/reveal, half the fandom will be going, “Yes! It totally means that ___ is going to happen!!” while the other half will be going, “… does it? Because we thought things were happening with Crosshair and that went nowhere.” Writers have to tackle the implications of what they’ve put on screen. Otherwise, the story falls apart.

So yeah, I’m aware of those hard “His chip is out and this is his choice” statements and, frankly, they make me nervous for season two. Because what the show needs is to engage with what we actually got in the finale: an ambiguous state of Crosshair’s chip, a number of hints that it might still be in there, and an ethical dilemma that, so far, hasn’t acknowledged how much of an influence the group’s decisions have had on Crosshair’s. I tackled most of this in the first analysis, but something I didn’t unpack there was the “choice” of not leaving with them. I mean yes, by all exact definitions—and if we accept that the chip really isn’t there—then Crosshair absolutely had free will in that moment to do as he pleased. But life is way more complicated than that. Imagine for a moment that I put two candy bars in front of you. “You can have whichever one you’d like,” I say. You reach for the one on the left and I glare, hard. I scoff at you. I mutter about your choices, your personality, your flaws, and your mistakes. So you reach for the one on the right instead and I’m… neutral. Okay then. Right candy bar it is. “They could have chosen the one on the left” someone watching claims. “Nothing was stopping them. No one put a gun to their head!” And yeah, the concept of “stopping them” was never that extreme… but the more compassionate, nuanced look acknowledge that some measure of “stopping them” did exist. Insults. Cruelty. A clear indication that one choice was wrong and the other was right. That’s one hell of an influence, even if it's not as formidable as a gun or a chip.

And that’s what Crosshair is dealing with. Yes, joining the Empire is clearly wrong and yes, a non-chipped Crosshair has free will to walk away from it… but walking towards TBB was never presented as a real option for him. He saw that through their inaction when they never came back for him. Then in Hunter’s refusal to admit that they’d made a mistake in leaving him behind. Wrecker putting all responsibility on his shoulders, despite knowing what the chip does to someone. Tech backing him up and framing this situation as stemming solely from Crosshair’s base personality—“severe and unyielding.” It’s seen in the always-loving Omega walking away from him in the barracks, in Crosshair’s hesitation to follow them to safer ground (and boy oh boy, do I have sad headcanons about that), and most especially, in their reactions to him saving Omega. What Crosshair learns in that moment is that they honestly believe that he, not the Empire's chip, but he would shoot Hunter and that saving their little sister is not a point in his favor. It's met only with glares and a need to disarm himself. They don’t trust him and actions that should produce trust are outright ignored, so… where can they go from here? Nowhere, according to TBB’s actions. They’re not giving Crosshair any wiggle room, any hope that these relationships can be repaired, or any acknowledgement that they had a hand in things getting this bad. So when they offer to let Crosshair come with them—which is very significantly presented as an obligation, not something they want—he knows that offer is BS. Whatever their real feelings might be (because the found family show obviously wants us to believe that everyone loves each other), their actions have said loud and clear that they don’t want him. That yes, he could technically walk onto that ship… but that it would be the “wrong” decision accompanied by more insults, scoffs, and pressure to do otherwise. That once he's there, he'll be treated only as a threat with any good deeds ignored. It's an awful offer outside of it being the morally correct decision when it comes to leaving the Empire... so Crosshair reaches for the right candy bar instead.

That very long tangent out of the way, THIS is what season two has to grapple with, along with all that ambiguity and the existence of these "The chip is still here" hints. But the interviews don’t seem to acknowledge that all of this exists, instead framing things as if we’d ended the finale knowing for sure that the chip is out and had watched a season where Crosshair is 100% responsible for everything that’s happened, no Empire or TBB influence involved. The way the interviews frame things doesn’t match up with the text, so I can only hope this is an example of bad communication, or the writers keeping a spoiler under wraps, because otherwise… season two might be frustrating to watch, with fans continually going, “Why are you ignoring that this happened? Why are you pretending that all of this is simpler than it actually is?”

#TBB #The Bad Batch #Crosshair #Star Wars #SW #mymetas

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annapogorilayas · 4 years ago

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here's a bunch of my rambling, incoherent thoughts LoD S6, H, and the show's overall trajectory since S4

under the cut because it's LONG, these are just my personal opinions and feelings

the show's trajectory

i've been disappointed with the show's overall direction since S4 for multiple reasons. to be fair, the show had an uphill battle to maintain the level of quality that S2/S3 had. lindsay denton was this show's most interesting character and keeley hawes was phenomenal, and her storyline tied in perfectly with the conclusion of the caddy storyline. that was always going to be a tough act to follow.

the show has always had shocking twists and explosive action sequences, but when the show moved from bbc2 weeknights to bbc1 the show began to lean more heavily on them. in S1-3 these scenes fit in with the plot. after S4, it began to feel more like the show was a series of shocking twists/action sequences with a plot written around it.

the OCG is way too big and powerful

after S4, the OCG(s) became very big, powerful, and all-knowing, without actually showing us how they were achieving this, making it hard to believe. in S2, we had an ambush, the murder of hunter and trotman in the hospital room, the setup of dryden for blackmail, and lindsay's abduction from custody. these events were carried out/enabled by five characters: prasad, cole, dot, akers, and lindsay. we met them, we spent time with them (except cole), we had at least a rough idea of what motivated them or how they got involved, and how they pulled off what they did.

in S3, two important events (steve's firearm paperwork being forged and Urgent Exit Required) were enabled by one corrupt AFO. we didn't meet him or find out what his motives were, but i don't think we needed to - he was probably just one of dot's lackeys. but it's not that hard to believe that dot could get one corrupt AFO to do his bidding.

in contrast, since S4, it seems like the OCG has an endless supply of corrupt prison officers, AFOs, and balaclava men that they can deploy at a moment's notice, and these people are pretty disposable - how many of these people have been arrested, imprisoned, or murdered since S4? how many balaclava men died in the 6x04 ambush alone? aren't the OCG(s) running out of people to send on suicide missions by now? a story driven by a revolving door of disposable, mostly nameless people is much less compelling than a story that revolves around a small, familiar cast of believably corrupt/bent/blackmailed coppers. i think S4 and S6 could've been better if more of the plot was driven by the other officers on huntley's and davidson's teams, or just... any recognisable named character, rather than these disposable hired guns.

additionally, the OCG just silences/pays off/kills people off so easily the plot has become very predictable

the problem with H

so H wasn't an evil criminal mastermind, just some guy in it for the money. that part i had hoped for and expected - LoD is almost never about criminal masterminds with grand motives who just want to watch the world burn. LoD's antagonists/villains fall into the following categories:

a) people who make decisions that spiral terribly out of control (tony gates, roz huntley)

b) people who do bad things for the right reasons because the system offers no alternative (lindsay denton wanted to save carly; danny waldron killed his abuser; john corbett believed his crimes were the only way to unmask H because peartree was dragging its feet)

c) people who do bad things out of self-preservation because they've been blackmailed or groomed (dot, jo, maneet, ryan, hargreaves, hilton, hari baines)

d) bad people who do bad things out of self-interest, whose behaviour is enabled or incentivised by the system that fails to protect people (hunter, the murphys, fairbanks, prasad, cole, gill). these guys are not geniuses and they don't have grand motives, they do bad things because it benefits them directly and they can get away with it.

i think (?) Buckells falls into this last category. i don't have a problem with him being H in theory. i don't mind that he turned out not to be the "top man" bc i never liked the idea of there being a "top man", it's way too close to "a bad apple". i'm much more intrigued by the idea that there is a loose, semi-transient network of officers who are all acting out of a combination of self-interest (money, power, access to vulnerable people) and self-preservation (they all have an incentive to be loyal to the network because they all know dirt about each other, but if there's a motive and opportunity to take someone down without it coming back on them, they will). for this reason, i don't find it necessarily disappointing or implausible that buckells was the last man standing and that he was motivated by money.

however, the way the reveal was set up throughout S6 and executed in 6x07 was anticlimactic to me. buckells had a laptop in prison? he ordered kate's murder FROM PRISON? of course he did, that whole prison appears to be run by the OCG. this is the same problem i mentioned earlier, the OCG is just too powerful to be interesting. the reveal could've been way more effective if buckells hadn't spent the last half of the season in jail. i also would've liked to hear more from buckells about precisely what motivated him, exactly how he came to be involved, and how the other corrupt officers fit into his story. i would've loved it if, for once, someone just said fuck it and spilled the beans instead of going down the "i'll tell you a bunch of useless nonsense in exchange for WP" route.

that being said, i think this whole clusterfuck could've been avoided entirely by simply not making H into such a big deal. way back in S4, the fixation on H worked as a plot device to get hilton to issue ted with a reg-15 and cast doubt on him, but i was bored of H approximately 1.5 episodes into S5. the idea of this shadowy figure calling all the shots was inconsistent with everything this show had been about, and it dragged on for way too long. i wasn't opposed to the idea that H is a group of people not a single person, but morse code? srsly? you couldn't just have them sit down and say "hey, maybe dot just blinked on H because he'd had his eyes open for a while and also he'd lost a lot of blood so he was probably confused anyway?"

#line of duty #line of duty spoilers #spoilers

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peonysink · 3 years ago

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More thoughts on TBB finale

I really do care about this series and about these characters, and I'll always support it! That said, there are few things that still really do not make sense, and they don't add up. I only point this out because I care :)

I'll come back to Crosshair in a minute - but first Omega! In ep 1, it is established that Omega is an enhanced clone. Nala Se told Tarkin there are 5 enhanced clones left, and Tech later confirmed that she was talking about the four of them and Omega. Later, it was established that Omega is a pure clone like Bobba, which is not the same as being enhanced - and if it is, then there are 6 left, since Bobba would be an enhanced clone as well - by those standards. So which one is it then?

And Crosshair - once again. So much has already been said about his uncharacteristic blind allegiance to the Empire, now that the chip is out - all those things valid. The head writer once again confirmed that the chip is out, and that it is even possible to pinpoint the moment when that happened if one examines Crosshair's behaviour throughout the season one. Okay, let's do that!

I think it's safe to say that the ‘Good soldiers follow orders' mantra is a sign that a trooper is under chip's influence. We see Crosshair repeat that almost right away after the order 66 was given in ep 1 - so the chip is active from the start. Later we see them enhance his chip in the same episode. In ep 3, the chip is still very much active, which is why they show us Kaminoans enhancing his chip once again, we see him kill civilians and we hear him repeat the mantra. However, at the end of that episode, we see him enter his old barracks looking - sad. He sits on his bed, his body language and his face expression unmistakable - he is suffering and he is in pain.

We don't see him at all for quite a while after that, 4 episodes to be precise. First time we see him is in the Bracca episode, where he is ruthless, hunting down his brothers, showing no sign of being sad, or missing them in any way. Made me wonder why they showed him being sad the last time we saw him, but I thought it would all make sense at some point.

We don't see him again till the Ryloth episode, and now we see he has a scar, and something like two lines in the episode, nothing unusual, nothing to show us where his character is going. The second Ryloth episode, showed us him hunting his brothers again, BUT also zoomed in on his face numerous times and once again showed us that he's in pain. But if this was supposed to be a sign that he got his chip out (which I'm assuming it was...) it failed - for me anyway, since I saw that face and that expression in ep 3, when the chip has very much been active.

I do feel both in the case of Omega and Crosshair, that the writers did not have a complete picture of who they were as characters, and that this developed as they were going along. Which isn’t that unusual, if the development is true to the established nature of the character.

That being said, I also think there is a slight difference in writers and the way they write these characters, Matt Michnovetz being pretty consistent (he wrote ep 3, and the first part of the finale - both episodes brilliant! - as well as TBB arc in the Clone Wars), while Jennifer Corbett approaches Crosshair differently - to put it mildly.

#the bad batch finale #the bad batch #bad batch crosshair #imperial crosshair #tbb omega

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adhdeancas · 4 years ago

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Sunset Sound: Honey Bee

Chapter 17 is available to read on AO3 too :)

trigger warning: panic attack/anxiety attack

Dawn has not quite hit when Dean is suddenly blinded by a light. “Son of a- what the fuck?” They’re awake before they can notice, blind fear running in their veins. Dean scrambles for his keys, stomps Baby into drive, and they’re 0 to 80 in seconds.

The spotlight hits him straight in the corneas again and he swerves and almost runs into a fence lining the road. Cas jumps back into the front seat, tugs the wheel over and they crash through the barbed wire. “Cas, what the hell?”

“We need away from the road!!” Cas explains, holding a hand up to try to fend off the horrible glare. The spotlight fades as they hit forest, Dean swearing left and right as he guides Baby through tight swaths of tree trunks. They abandon her once it gets too much and make a run for it. The spotlight can’t keep up; it pans across trying to find Dean’s plaid in the overgrowth or Cas’s trench coat, but Cas grabs Dean and throws them both into a bush before it can. Dean spits out a leaf and glares at him. “You’re welcome.” Cas mutters back, except it’s breathless, because for some reason beyond the physical exertion, Cas can’t breathe. It’s then that he realizes he’d left the walkie talkie, their only connection to their friends, in the backseat of the car.

He takes in big gulps of air but it doesn’t seem to matter, or maybe those gulps of air do too much, because it feels like his head is floating. He squeezes his eyes shut and just holds onto Dean; he needs to know that he’s still there but the panic in his skull finds the image of him too much.

“Cas?” Dean whispers, and it sounds far off. “Cas.” Cas can feel Dean’s grip on his arms, pulling at his coat sleeves like he’s trying to reel him back in. “You okay? What’s going on?”

Cas shakes his head then nods. “I’m fine, I just- am having trouble-” he takes another gulp of air because he keeps running out, and his confusion mounts. Is this what running normally feels like, to humans? Is it usually so uncomfortable and debilitating? Perhaps his vessel is just woefully - as Dean would say - flabby. Out of shape.

“Breathing?” Dean gathers from Cas’s exaggerated gasps. The fear in his own chest calms down a little bit now he knows what’s happening. “Cas, it’s alright, look at me,” He puts a hand on his cheek, trying to convince Cas to open his eyes. “Cas, trust me,”

Cas finally does, of course. He takes a breath in and opens his eyes, and it’s a mixture of stunning adrenaline and comfort that goes through his body when he realizes he and Dean are sitting almost on top of each other within the poking branches of the bush. Dean pushes a stick out of his way so Cas can see his eyes clearly. “What’s happening?”

“You’re having a panic attack, doofus,” Dean smiles at him with his best bedside manner. “It’s fine, happens to me all the time. Just-” He grabs hold of Cas’s hand and raises it so Cas can see. “Up means breathe in, down means breathe out.”

“But what if-” Cas throws a glance up, focused completely on the wrath of heaven that could descend upon them at any moment.

“Since when are we scared of a couple dicks with wings? We’ll be fine. C’mon, have I ever let you down?”

Confidence leaks back into Cas at the reassurance, and a glint reaches his eyes as he says, “Well…”

Dean mimes out a sarcastic laugh and holds their hands up again. “Alright, asshole, breathe,” He lifts their hands slowly, Cas’s breath growing past what he’s comfortable with, then lets them down even slower. Over and over again until it’s all Cas is thinking about, and he knows his heartbeat has stopped hammering so fast against his ribs. It’s still there, the panic still bothers him, but it’s manageable, which he guesses is what Dean is going for. He nods at Dean in thanks.

“I’m okay. We can go.” Dean ignores him to do three more breaths, which Cas grudgingly follows. Then he highers himself into a crouch, still holding Cas’s hand.

Dean pulls him back onto the run and they sprint until they see a cabin in the distance. They make eye contact and agree; they can take whoever owns the cabin, if they need to. It’s Cas who pounds on the door and Dean who peeks in the window, which means he only looks after the owner answers the door and Cas has grabbed him by the throat.

“Corbett?”

Cas lets him go almost immediately, but the poor boy’s eyes stay wide. “Uh-D- Dean?” Dean steps up and puts a hand on Cas’s arm, pulling him back to try and make Corbett a little less on edge. It works a little bit; the nervous man withdraws slightly and rubs at his neck. “Dean… Winchester, right?”

“Yeah,” Dean nods encouragingly and steps in front to ease his way in the cabin. Cas has a hand on his back trying to push him in faster, still aware of heaven’s spotlights looking out for them. “Been a while, buddy. Mind if we-?” He pats Corbett on the shoulder as he just stands there and stutters and Cas and Dean both get to work drawing warding on the walls.

“What are you doing?”

“Sigils, to keep the angels off your back,” Dean explains quickly, glancing at the guy’s bewildered expression. “Dude, what are you wearing?”

Corbett looks down, offended, and puts his hands on his hips. “A robe- I didn’t expect visitors!” The robe is baby blue and it stops above his knees, and Dean raises an eyebrow at it. “Hey!” He throws his hands up. “Listen, I’ll change and all, but what are you doing here? And who is he?”

“Cas. He’s- well, you can trust him.”

“...why do I need to trust anyone?” Corbett says suspiciously. He walks over to his bedroom and reemerges wearing actual clothes, not comforted by Dean’s silence. “Do you guys want something to drink- water, coffee?” His politeness takes over by instinct, and he gestures his guests to his table. “Please tell me what’s going on.”

“Coffee would be great.” Corbett looks over at Cas and he nods the same. “Uh, we got angels on our trail.”

“And that’s… a bad thing?”

“I’m not on their good list.” Now it’s Corbett’s turn to raise an eyebrow from the coffee maker. Dean smiles awkwardly. To this poor guy, being on an angel’s shitlist probably isn’t a ringing character endorsement.

“It’s a long story; promise we’ll tell you some other time. But, uh, you mind if we lay low here for a while?”

Corbett shrugs, not sure he has much of a choice, but he plops down coffees in front of the three of them anyway. “Looks like we have some time then. But, um, Dean… how’s Ed?” The kid looks at Dean hopefully, flashing some puppy-dog eyes that even Sam would be jealous of. Dean looks at Cas for help, but of course Cas has no freaking clue what Dean’s conflicted about. He looks back at him without a care in the fucking world beyond burning his tongue on his coffee.

“He’s good. I mean, not- he’s- he was sad- he mourned you and all, if that’s what you’re asking.” The tips of Dean’s ears turn red and he changes the subject before he can shove his foot in his mouth. Last time Corbett talked to Ed, Ed was pretending to be in love with him. The key word being pretending. “Anyway, so, hate to break it to you but heaven sucks.”

Cas steps in then, helps soften the blow and explains with more eloquence than Dean could. Corbett takes the news surprisingly well, something about always figuring God was a dick (yeah, growing up gay in the Midwest will do that to you), although the fact that Cas was/is an angel threw him for a loop.

“So you don’t have, like, wings or anything?”

“I did. I do.” Cas frowns down at the table. After losing all but all of his grace, his wings are but a mangled decoration for him now. Especially being in heaven, not being able to fly around stings, it feels like he is moving in slow motion sometimes. Dean’s hand appears over the table and taps his, his fingers soft and consoling. He pulls back slowly and Cas wishes he would keep touching him. “I can’t fly now, not without my powers.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah.” Cas smiles up at Corbett. The simple openness of this man is making Cas instantly fond of him. It’s a refreshing change of pace from hunters and ethereal creatures’ secretive nature. “It was worth it, though. I’m alive.”

“... you’re in heaven.”

Dean snorts, and Cas nods, amused. “I’m not here… naturally. Given the ability, I believe I would be able to traverse back to the mortal realm and live as… well, as a human.” He looks up and meets Dean’s eyes, who looks shaken by the information.

Cas could go back and live on Earth as just a regular old human, and Dean… Dean’s dead. Dean’s dead at 41 and that’s that. The thought makes his heart sink like a rock in his chest.

“Well,” Dean stands up and slaps a hand on the table, breaking the quiet of the cabin. “We should probably get going.”

“Wait.” Corbett stands too and grabs Dean’s arm, an action far more forward than he’s used to. “Dean, you gotta… please, tell me. What aren’t you telling me about Ed?”

Dean sighs, looking around the cabin for a possible exit. His eyes land on a stupid framed photo of Corbett and Ed, taken like a selfie before front-facing cameras existed. His stomach twists in a knot. How is he supposed to ruin this guy’s happiness? He thinks Ed is gonna show up someday and they’re gonna be happy and together and gay in a dumb little gay paradise.

“Please. Dean, the truth.”

The knot in his stomach twists further and Dean winces. He’s gotta tell him. Better that than the guy getting his heart ripped out when Ed finally shows up and doesn’t want him. He swallows and looks up at Cas, who’s frowning at him in confusion. Dean looks away. Better to look at Corbett. “Uh, listen, Corbett… Ed… he’s not in love with you.”

Corbett blinks. “Wha- no, he- he said-”

“Yeah, he lied,” Dean sighs and sits back down heavily. “Sorry dude, but…” He shakes his head. Corbett shakes his right back.

“No, he said he loved me.”

“I know what he said!” It bursts out of Dean before he can stop it, louder than he meant. He pauses and clears his throat, and the whole cabin is silent.

Cas puts a hand on Corbett’s shoulder. “I’m sure he meant what he said, in a way.” he says, talking out of his ass. He has no way of knowing what the situation was, but Corbett talks about this Ed man like they were close, friends, pals.

Corbett keeps his eyes fixed on Dean. Dean sighs and turns his head, looking at the young man again. “Listen, I’m sorry,” But he can’t get another word out before Corbett starts crying. He puts his head in his hands and sobs, and Dean and Cas look at each other helplessly. Cas pats his shoulder, but he shrugs it off. Finally Dean heaves himself up and squats down next to Corbett. He tugs on his hands gently, pulling them away from his face, and Cas imagines this is how Dean dealt with it when Sam cried as a child. “Corbett, man… Ed loved you, just not… listen.” He stops and Cas can practically hear the ‘shit’ in his head as he searches for the right words. “Ed loved you enough to tell you he loved you, just so you’d be able to move on. To save you.” his voice is steadier now, quiet and firm. Cas stills, just listening. “And maybe he doesn’t want to come up here and shack up and watch Desperate Housewives, but,”

Cas watches Dean’s train of thought trail away as he catches his eye. He holds his gaze, and Dean looks heartbroken. He looks insecure. He looks like he did that night in the barn, when Cas recognized his self-loathing without a second thought. Now, the expression causes Cas physical pain, and he wants to reach out and soothe him. Instead, he just stares as Dean continues talking without taking his eyes off him.

“I mean, he probably still wants to, y’know, have a beer or something. And that’s shitty, it’s- disappointing as fuck but… you gotta respect that.” He clears his throat and finally looks down. “Everything’s shitty right now.”

“Everything’s shitty.” Corbett agrees, sniffing. He was too lost in his own misery to notice the considerable tension in the room. Cas can’t get the image of Dean’s face out of his head, his words playing like a broken tape-deck over and over.

The rest of the goodbyes are said through a haze of Cas’s thoughts screaming at him, and it isn’t until they get back to the car, fuzzy small talk half-remembered, that Cas gets up the courage to say something. Still, he waits minutes into the car ride, because he doesn’t want to seem like he has been waiting to get into the car. The logic makes no sense but it controls him, and it makes his voice quaver when he finally says, “Dean?”

“Yeah,” Dean smacks his lips and glances at him once, fingers tapping the wheel to the beat of the radio.

“Why did you want me?”

Dean furrows his eyebrows and looks at Cas like he doesn’t understand the question. “Why did I…?”

“Why did you bring me- to go with you to the Garden.” Cas clarifies. Helpfully. Almost confidently, if he’s being generous with himself.

Dean gives him an incredulous glance. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“I don’t have my powers, Dean. There are angels you could have brought with you that are far more powerful. Or, if you wanted to attract less attention, there are plenty of hunters who could slip under the radar, who are more skilled in combat.” Cas tries not to let his self-doubt seep into the words. He’s not sure if it works, because Dean shifts uncomfortably in his seat.

“I dunno, because I didn’t want to bring those other guys,” he says defensively.

“Dean,” Cas pushes, insistent. His heart is speeding up in his chest and he feels like he might explode if he keeps going, but he has to. His momentum is already started, and the look in Dean’s eyes as he’d talked to Corbett is giving him strength.

“What!” Dean sounds annoyed now, but it’s just more defense. He’s starting to feel like he’s being cornered into doing something terrible, like telling the truth.

“Dean.”

“Because I like you?”

It’s even and it’s uncertain and it’s vulnerable. Dean is scared as hell, but then he looks at Cas and he gets terrified. A flicker of hurt passes across Cas’s face, and it’s so severe even Dean can’t miss it.

Cas feels like a child. He feels like he’s being spoken to like a child. He had expected… but that was too much. Instead of simplicity and vulnerability, he heard patronization. “You don’t need to do that Dean.”

“Do what? I do like you, man. We’re- friends. Didn’t think I needed to spell that out for you.” Dean laughs nervously, completely un-fucking-aware of what is going on right now.

Cas looks at his lap. “Claire has explained to me what ‘friendzone’ means, and I assure you, it’s unnecessary. It always has been.” Feeling is excruciating.

Dean sputters. He had not expected the word “friendzone” to come out of Cas’s mouth like… ever. “I don’t- I haven’t-”

“You’ve called me your brother multiple times.” Humiliation burns across Cas’s face.

“No, no, I don’t mean it like- I’m not trying to friendzone you…” Dean laughs, a little crazed that he’s actually in this conversation. More that he’s about to- “I just- I want you around… because I like having you around. I want you around because I like seeing you and I like your grumpy little jokes and I like your dumb info dumps about plants and I like watching movies with you you’re only watching to humor my dumb ass…” Dean trails off, the little bit of pink in his cheeks matching Cas’s. “Listen, Cas, you’re not like a brother to me. I mean, I love my brothers, but I don’t love them like that.” He swallows, looking at the road in front of them. It stretches quiet and unremarkable, like it has no idea the progress being made in this old hunk of well-shaped metal. “Like this.”

He keeps facing straight ahead, fingers tapping out of beat against the wheel now. Cas is dumbstruck. The car is filled with the heaviness of it. It’s finally out there. Dean loves him. Cas looks over at Dean, and lights throw his face into half shadow, and he looks beautiful. Cas reaches out and grabs his hand off the wheel and holds it in his own. Dean keeps driving. One handed.

tag list:

@dochunterwitch @justonecitizenoftheearth @gnbrules @purpe @castiel-is-a-cat @alienapparatus @damian-janus-pendragon

#sunset sound #chapter 17 #honey bee #deancas #destiel #fanfic #destiel fanfic #my writing #fix it fic

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laufire · 4 years ago

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Supernatural s3

It’s so unfair that the season that has Ruby AND Bela is so short :(((. I was done with it waaaay too quickly, and now I’m speed running through s4 xD (which, like the first time around, is Strong Mixed Feelings territory).

-My girl Ruby!!!! I was so happy to have her back, I kept grinning like a loon every time she was on screen. It’s quite interesting watching the 1.0 and 2.0 versions so close to each other, instead of as they air. I have... Thoughts, on whether Ruby as a double agent was something planned or that they decided as they went, but that’s for the s4 post. s3!Ruby really doesn’t come across as one (“I don’t believe in the devil” oh I wish sometimes xD, I love my nonbelievers), imo, but the beauty of such a device is that you can rationalize anything she does as devious if you want to xD

And it goes without saying that I love her interactions with Sam. THIS SHIP ISTG. I love how immediately ~attuned to her he is lol, his present and instinctive concern for her even if he tries to mask his interest as “practical”. And all the repeated times Sam’s conflicted between her and Dean -like when he deviates Dean shot (wasting one of the Colt’s bullets lmfao) or during the argument about the virgin sacrifice xD. And the “that’s my boy”/ “little fallen angel on your shoulder” quotes!!! Ruby 1.0 deserved to be railed by Sam too, smh.

My favourite episode of hers is “Jus in Bello” (which would be my fave of the season just by virtue of having both Bela and Ruby in the same episode lol. Not interacting, of course, the world as we know it wouldn’t have survived). I just love that she gets that final moment of I TOLD YOU SO to the brothers xD. I really like how she expands on the demonic lore of the show- I love, LOVE the detail about how all demons used to be humans, how they’re souls corrupted in hell. And that in her past life she was a witch (there was this really good fic in Spanish fandom about it... I need to hunt it down).

BTW, though I think her interactions with Dean in that episode are interesting, it really hammers home how much I hate him sometimes xD. Can you stop saying misogynistic slurs for TWO GODDAMN MINUTES, DEAN (and as we know from as early as this season, only HE can have demon/monster friends!! What a fucking hypocrite xD). I freaking love the moment in the finale when she viciously yells him about how she wishes she could see him in hell lmao (and how it foreshadows that when she shows sympathy later, it’s actually Lilith in disguise lmfao). I hate Dean gets the last word in their dynamic, tbqh. Until the s15 cameo, at least xDD

One thing that’s been bothering me xD: the French fries. Demons are vulnerable to salt, like other spirits, right? (and hey, look what a nice piece of foreshadowing that was). How does that translate to food lol. Because Ruby adores French fries, and they obviously contain salt. It’s like spicy food for humans? Or like pineapple? Inquiring minds etc. xD

-I still cannot believe Bela Talbot was only on the show for six episodes lmao. Her presence still lingers in the watchers’ heads so much?? Which is understandable because she’s Lead Girl Material if there was ever any lol. The care with which they styled her even?? You don’t do that for just any character lmao (I mean, just look at most of SPN’s female characters for comparison xD).

Her ship with Dean could’ve really been something, too -even if I hate Dean in it, I can’t deny it packs a punch, narrative-wise. I mean, the Batcat undertones alone!! The fake married undercover shenanigans!! And I think it’s really interesting that she’s such a blind spot for him; Dean’s unusually intuitive about people, but with Bela he takes everything at face value and she can fool him like no other (while, OTOH, is Sam who questions her facade and wants to see more). If he hadn’t been such an idiot (and such an asshole) he could’ve had a really powerful ship. Sucks to be him lol.

Anyway. Man, I love her. So much. I love how Gordon’s threats to kill her don’t work on her, and I love that the show basically said “Bela killing her abusive parents is good, actually” (I’m so tired of forgiveness narratives, you guys. This entire show is founded on revenge, so let me get my revenge fantasies in peace!!) xDD. And I love, LOVE that she withheld that truth from Dean, that she decided he wasn’t worth it. OTOH, you know, fuck the fans that got her written out, definitely; but on the other, I do love how her story ended (and that it was a clear "fuck you" to shitty fans). Doesn’t stop me for wanting to read and re-read (and maybe write!) even more “Bela escapes hell” fix-its, but still.

Also, very important question: what happened to her cat?? It’s the cat alright?? I’m going to headcanon that she left them with that cougar friend of hers lol.

-So. THE DEAL. Okay. Oof. I love this storyline, a lot. A loooot. I love the conflict it creates between the brothers (as long as there’s still conflict and Sam hasn’t yet started taking everything lying down I can enjoy that part of their narrative lol). I love Dean’s initial forced giddiness about “making the most out of his last year” and I love the moment Dean decides he does want to try to live because it makes the last few episodes all the most desperate and cruel (and hey, I’ve heard he only went to hell because the season was cut short due to a writers’ strike... if that’s true that’s so funny lmao).

My absolutely favourite part however? That you can FEEL Dean’s unvoiced resentment towards Sam. For Dean having to die for him, even if Sam never asked him to. He lashes out to Sam repeatedly through the season, but it really came to ahead in the dreamspace episode, where Dean confronts another version of himself that talks about how Sam was “dotted on” (the revisionism asldfkaf). This show is absolutely ruthless when it comes to showing you its characters’ ugly, unfair reactions to things and it’s my favourite thing evah.

Speaking of the dreamspace episode, OMFG. I loved both brothers there. Dean’s hallucination, seeing himself as a demon? And how he let out his anger about John?? Beautiful, truly (regarding John, I also loved their different reactions when it looked like his spirit had contacted them: Dean jumping on it and Sam detached skepticism). But my favourite part has to be when Sam uses the villain’s abusive father against him. Like. Damn. That was cold-blooded o.0

The second-to-last episode, when Sam tracked down that Frankenstein doctor to try and make Dean immortal was ABSOLUTELY HORRIFYING OMG. I loved that. I love that Sam wanted to use it for both them. It was some scary shit. I also love the scene where the crossroads demon questions whether Sam really wants to break the deal, I’m gathering it’s going to be nice foreshadowing later on in the show lol.

Anyway. I also found Dean’s death scene more impactful than Sam’s. Partially because of the horror of it, but mostly because I think at this type of scenes, Padalecki is better. Sam’s grief felt more real, Dean’s got me out of the scene (it’s the voice, I think. Sometimes Ackles’ voice takes me out of scenes, it sounds... forced).

I also really enjoyed how the time loop episode wrapped around this subplot. It managed to be both heartbreaking and mind-numbly hilarious lmfao. Like?? All the deaths?? Were so pathetic?? I tip my hat to Ackles because I don’t think most actors could carry plots like this half as well lmfao.

Sidenote, it’s always a trip to see The Trickster God knowing that fucker is Gabriel. Archangel “hey Mary do you accept God knocking you up” Gabriel. Which I guess isn’t exactly a thing in this show?? Since according to the wikia SPN Jesus was “just a man” (and let me tell you, I’m tickled pink by the fact that out of ALL mythological figures, specifically all CHRISTIAN mythological figures, the show decided to go “nah” on Jesus Christ. I mean, I guess he’d take away from Dean’s, Sam’s and Castiel’s resurrection narratives, but still. It’s so funny!!).

-Gordon Walker remains a superbly acted and fascinating character with extra racist nonsense alsdkfjasdf. But I can’t deny I loved seeing him as a vampire. He was terrifying. And I’m definitely shipping him with Kubrick, ouch xD

-The Ghostfacers episode is... something. As in, incredibly exploitative and homophobic and with an egregious case of BYG (and the first where I’d say it’s incontestable to claim the trope was used. s1 and s2 are muddy territory given the circumstances, IMO, but this one is 300% BYG), but so successfully manipulative my heart hurt for Corbett and Corbett x Ed still. Fuck them for that ngl. I do still enjoy how anti-Winchesters they all are though xD

-3x01 introduces the one nice marriage of hunters so far, between a black couple. The man dies in a gross, horrifying way within the episode ofc (because he was Mean to the the brothers duh). She makes it out alive, and since she doesn’t reappear in the show she gets to live. So for now black women have a sliiiiiightly better track record in SPN than track guys there: they get to appear in a few more episodes and be more fleshed out (Victor, Gordon), but as long as they’re only in one episode they get to live!! (Cassie, Tamara).

-Rufus and Bobby are exes, right? Right?? Probably still married in some state? You know that post about how when gay marriage was legalized across the USA there were a lot of issues because some couples had split and never bothered to divorce, since it was only legal in one place? That post was made for them. Pity Rufus is a black man, and as such has a limited number of allowed appearances before he’s killed off ¬¬

-I would’ve enjoyed Dean’s moments with Lisa and Ben more (it’s just so RIGHT that in this moment he’d want Ben to be his) if my knowledge of future spoilers didn’t perpetually have me in a state of “pls keep this guy away from kids” lol.

-They had Harmony’s actress (BTVS) and they made her a vampire!! The show’s hard on for the Buffyverse is a bit of a hit and miss but I can’t say I don’t relate xDD.

-I know Jensen Ackles can sing (in fact thanks to youtube I know a few of the actors can... is there a musical episode. Does this show have its own OMWF. I need to know). So why. WHY. Does he sound like that during “Dead or Alive”??? I actually like the scene but he sounds so off-key lmao.

-BTW, I found out that apparently Katie Cassidy and Lauren Cohan originally auditioned for each other’s roles añslkdfjasf. I can’t picture it. Ruby 1.0 is Ruby 1.0 and Bela is Bela xD. Although I’ve seen each playing roles that could meld with the other, just. Nope. Good choice on the casting there lol.

#talking to the void #my thoughts #spn thoughts #supernatural #spnruby #samruby #bela talbot #deanbela #deanruby #sam winchester #dean winchester #gordon walker #ruby 1.0 #spn gabriel #ghostfacers #alan corbett #bobby x rufus #spn s3 #the winchesters get to have a tag I GUESS

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naturallysuperbullshit · 4 years ago

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S3 E13: Ghostfacers!

First || Previous || Next

GHOST! GHOSTFACERS! WE FACE THE GHOSTS WHEN OTHERS WILL NOT!

God I love these idiots

Ah there's the writer's strike callout that @marvel-and-moor told me about lmao

"Horrible horrors" jsjajajsjsj

I do love that Sam and Dean got put into the intro montage

THE FAKE SLOW-MO IM CACKLING

More unashamed racism during Spruce's intro, because we expect nothing less from the show at this point

Corbett just say you like geeky bears and move on

JFHHDDJHD THE GARAGE DOOR

So the boys really just drive around a haunted house that the cops apparently know people break into absolutely BLASTING music at top volume huh

"Not cops, just hicks" sjskdjkwkdndj what the fuck do you think hicks are what sort of definition are you going off of here

I love Corbett in full camo that's hilarious he really is doing THE most

Spruce said like a minute ago that hes mostly Jewish and then he makes a Hitler joke?????????? I'm not Jewish myself so I can't comment on if that's realistic or not but it seems really weird

I hate to say it but I really do believe that Ryan Bergara would get along famously with the Ghostfacers (Shane, on the other hand, would just be doing his best to fuck with Harry as much as possible, likely with Spruce's help)

Is Harry's EMF meter also made of a busted walkman? It's about the right size lmao

"Rats are like the rats of the world" sheer poetry

"Let's see some identification" sjdjsksjhs SAM

This episode really does prove that Sam and Dean swear exactly as much as you would expect them to. LET THE WINCHESTERS SAY FUCK!

"chisel chest" djkslakdjdn

The Ghostfacers have 0.5 of a braincell and it belongs exclusively to Spruce bc he's the only one paying attention to Sam and Dean

Corbett really is a "head empty, heart full" kind of twink huh

I do like this episode for the comedic value but damn SPN just cannot let go of "bury your gays" huh

"You got two months left" okay so it's been 8 months since Sam was shivved. Can we PLEASE show the passage of time on this show a little better!!!!!

"Does looking at this nightmare through that camera make you feel better or something?" "Um, well, I, um, yeah, I think so." "...oh." Jdjsjsks

STOP! SPLITTING! UP!!!!! MAGGIE COME ON YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE THE MOST RATIONAL ONE AFTER SPRUCE!!!!!!!

It's always Sammy -shakes head sadly-

Aaaand now we see Dean's "im gonna MURDER" face

I don't need this weird C Plot of Maggie/Harry actually can we not

Dean is thisclose to just shooting Harry and Ed i think lmao

So the Ghostfacers really were planning to try and televise a brutal murder huh

Jdhdhdhdghs the party hat I cant get over Sam, bleeding and furious, but wearing a party hat

"Inside your duffel bag?????" I told you Spruce has the braincell

Ed is a misogynistic asshole but like we been knew

"I'm not gonna whine about my fucking problems to some fucking reality show. I'm gonna do my fucking job." This is what Dean is SUPPOSED to sound like and i thank this episode for giving us a glimpse of it

"Wow, you're strong" "-flips bird-" you know I almost had this exact same exchange a couple days ago, but i was at work and didn't wanna get fired

"How do you know this?" "'cause he told me." "Oh." Gotta love a mologuing ghost

"Aw hell guys, get in your ghost-role thing, something's coming." He sounds so bored jsjsjsnsnsn

"YOU GOTTA GO BE GAY FOR THAT POOR DEAD INTERN" Iconique

Why is Ed asking Corbett to help? I thought they were just trying to put hin to rest?

GHOST FIGHT GHOST FIGHT

Can we get Sam a moist towelette for his face pls

I like to think the paper Sam and Dean handed Ed wasn't a phone number, it just said "fuck off and stop looking for ghosts you absolute ASSHOLE"

"GAY LOVE CAN PIERCE THROUGH THE VEIL OF DEATH AND SAVE THE DAY" i👏con👏ic👏

"Its bizarre how y'all are able to uh, to honor Corbett's memory while grossly exploiting the manner of his death, well done." Not only is this hilarious just bc it's true, but also Sam saying y'all sounds so weird for some reason

"Ghostfacers!" final thoughts: while this episode has its fair share of issues (outlined above), I do enjoy it. It's so different from all the other episodes, and it is genuinely funny. Plus, I'm one of those people who watches "ghost hunting shows" for shits and giggles, so this is right up my alley lmao.

#s3e13 #ghostfacers!#ghostfacers #spn s3 #supernatural #supernatural notes #fav

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gayenerd · 4 years ago

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This is a 2017 interview done by a fan for the fansite, Green Day Authority. It’s super disjointed and fan interviews never ask tough questions, but eh.

Recently, we asked Green Day's management if it would be possible to get an exclusive interview for GDA, our first ever. After some coordination, it was agreed that I could interview them in Omaha (a show I had already planned to attend). I found out on Wednesday afternoon that I would be interviewing them on Saturday, but fortunately, I had already been preparing a list of questions in case it worked out. Before I go any further, I'll tell you that I had a LOT more questions on my list than there was time for. So, if you're wondering why I didn't ask something in particular, it's probably because we ran out of time. That is the only thing I would change about my whole experience if I had the opportunity. The arrangement was that one of the tour managers would meet me at the back entrance of the arena before sound check. After going through two layers of security, that's exactly what happened. I was the only non-crew person in sound check (!) and it simply felt surreal to be in that position. I enjoyed it greatly but was, of course, also thinking about how the upcoming interview would go. I wanted to represent GDA and the fan community in a way that would not leave a bad impression while also getting some good discussion from the guys. After sound check, I was walked back to a room with a couch and a few chairs. I was able to get comfortable and had some help to set up my recording equipment — thanks again to Lauren Banjo and Daniel, my son, for helping me get exactly the right device for recording the interview. In just a few minutes, in walked Billie, Mike and Tre. I have to say that, in all the times I've seen them, they have never looked better. They seemed relaxed, happy, and bursting with good health. They all sat down, and we got started. Aside from running out of time (though, to be honest, it would have taken hours to work through all my questions), I'm reasonably pleased with the way it all turned out. The guys were so incredibly nice and seemed to be totally engaged in the moment we were all sharing together. They really thought about their answers and seemed to enjoy the discussion. Here's the first installment of the interview — we talked about music, touring, and special shows. I did you all a favor and removed a lot of my rambling when I was asking the questions. Enjoy! "J'net: Guys, you work so hard, and we see how hard you work. During shows, you give so much of your emotion, yourselves, and your life energy to what you do. What keeps you going and keeps you so passionate about what you're doing? Mike: You said it, 'passion.' We only know how to do this one way — give 100%. It's just driven into us, I guess. Tre: It's the way we're wired. Mike: The music moves us the same way with the energy from the crowd. Billie: I agree. We love what we do. I think there've even been times when I thought, 'Maybe I'll take it easy tonight,' and then as soon as you hit the stage, it's just 'All systems go!' It's just a natural response for me. Really no other way to explain it. Mike: I always think, 'I don't know if I'll always be able to give what 100% is today, but I'll always give 100% of what I have to offer.' I don't think these engines know how to run any differently. J'net: Well, it's awesome. Your fans appreciate it so much. I wish you guys could just sometimes sit out in line, y'know? We get in line as early as we can and we compare notes ... "Well, we're driving from Kansas City as soon as the show's over..." Mike: You guys should film some of that. We never get to see it, it's cool! Film some of that interaction and maybe post some of that stuff too, it's rad! Billie & Tre: Yeah! J'net: [thinks to self: challenge accepted!] I'd be glad to do that, yeah. I mean, everybody would, even the people who know how to do that [technical stuff] … like Billie, he's pretty good with all the Facebook Lives and Instagram. Billie: Yeah, I'm getting pretty awesome — Billie Joe Zuckerberg! J'net: Right … 'Now where's the off button?...' Billie: Thank God for two young sons, man! They can tell you everything. Mike: I have to call my wife [laughs]. My wife's still young, she knows how to do that shit! J'net: Music is an emotional experience, and some of your songs are so emotional. Do you ever feel overcome by the emotion when you're performing, or are you somehow in performance mode so you can rise above it? Billie: I definitely go there. Like that line 'I'm like a son that was raised without a father,' — that's a button-pusher for me. Also with Forever Now, and also lately with playing '21 Guns' acoustic … when I get emotional is when I hear people singing along — when I hear voices that loud. I think with Green Day, we create an atmosphere that's as close to a European crowd that you can get — with people singing along, almost like a soccer anthem. And I love seeing people who are normally self-conscious when they lose it. I try to push people to just lose it when they come to our shows. Some nights, people are so pent up with energy, they don't even know that they have inside them. And I try to get people to dance like no one's watching and sing like no one's listening — just go for it! J'net: Do you have favorite show moments that you like to think back on? Billie: Smashing my guitar against the Subaru just the other night was pretty fun. [laughs] That's a first. I've never done that before. Mike: There are favorite moments of each show. We go backstage after the show, and we talk about all the rad things that happened. Billie: There's so many different things that we see going on in the crowd. There was a guy that was like an ex-hippie that was in the house the other night, I think in Portland. He was in the back, and I could see him just dancing and singing all night long. He was probably about the same age as my brother — about 65, and it was fun to just watch him. That's the kind of stuff I like to remember. " Watch for the next installment of the interview! We’ll also be sharing more of the audio from our favorite moments.

The second part of our interview focuses on the band's latest movie project, 'Turn It Around: The Story of East Bay Punk.' They helped produce it with filmmaker and longtime friend, Corbett Redford. The day after the Omaha show, my son Daniel and I started the drive back home to Tulsa, but stopped in Kansas City to see the movie. We went to a great independent theater there, Screenland at Tapcade, and when it was time for the movie to start, we settled ourselves in for a fascinating evening. There's so much to absorb in this movie, but it's compelling all the way through. There is a great deal of history that is lovingly captured and discussed. We feel we need to see it again and again, so It's good to know that a deal is in the works to distribute for home viewing, and that, according to Corbett Redford, "the DVD, Blu-Ray is being worked on, designed, mastered and readied for manufacturing." So many people were interviewed for this movie that I couldn't possibly list them all. The interviews were often just as interesting, funny, or emotional as the vintage footage of events from the beginnings of East Bay punk. It was a touching movie with many emotional moments (at least for us). Two or three of the people who were interviewed in the movie came close to tears as they were talking about the past and their connection to the famed 924 Gilman Street. For Green Day fans, as well as fans of many of the other bands involved in those early days of East Bay punk, there is rare and wonderful vintage footage that really gives a feel for what those early days were like. The writing by Corbett Redford and Anthony Marchitiello is exceptionally fine — it tells a story that could have been overwhelmingly complex in an articulate, accessible, and moving way. The narration by Iggy Pop, the animations (credited to Tim Armstrong, J. Bonner, and Alex Koll), the cinematography and photographic direction by Greg Schneider, and the hand lettering (credited to Aaron Cometbus) are simply delightful and absolutely enrich the content of the movie. I loved the way some of the newer interview footage had a "distressed" look to be more compatible with the footage it was matched with in the film. As Corbett said when I mentioned this to him, "The distressed VHS happened as our crew filmed EVERY interview with an old VHS camera! So that wasn't an effect, it was real! We decided as a crew that VHS and black and white Xerox were going to be our two main go-to 'themes' - so Greg went and bought a VHS camera, and voila!" There were obviously a lot of eyes on this film making sure that every little detail was as perfect as could be. There's no question in my mind that it was made with hearts full of love. Here's part two of our interview: "J'net: 'Turn it Around' is getting such incredible response from most reviewers and many in the punk community. Do you feel more acceptance coming from the community than you may have felt previously? Is there a partial 'return from 86'? Mike: The spirit of the movie is that it was made by the people in the community, and if you took Green Day out of it, it's still an unbelievable documentary. We basically stepped aside and let the movie get made the way it should be made. We realized that should be the anchor — the beginning, that's the beginning. [We wanted] for people to understand the different ingredients it took to make where we are and … to make the beginning… Billie: For us, when I was talking to Corbett, it was — 'Let's do a documentary that could inspire the next generation to create their own scene and not just talk about how you had to be there.' Because almost every scene documentary I've ever seen has a 'glory days' thing about it, where, with this one, you see the people like Michelle Gonzalez, who's a teacher and an author, and Miranda July, who’s a filmmaker and artist, and there are people who are activists, still playing music and active in the community. We approached it like, 'Let's not turn this into a piss and vinegar fest.' Billie: And if it wasn't for Tim Yohannon, even though we had big differences in the past, we wouldn't have had a place to play because he, with other people, created and made Gilman Street happen - and that I'm super grateful for. So if there's a story that you watch out for, it's what Tim Yohannon has done for the bay area scene and globally also. J'net: And Corbett did a great job realizing the vision of the movie. Mike: Corbett kind of did the impossible. You talk about a bunch of people in the scene — you know everybody's in that scene because we're all latchkey kids and come from some fucked up background, right? So then you have to get all the bands to agree to put their music on it this many years later. We had no doubt that he's an incredibly intelligent person and an artful person, but he fuckin' did it. Tre: He's always been super resourceful, and it's kind of like now he's all grown up. Mike: All we had to do was talk him off the ledge a couple times. I mean, we'd go in his office, and it looked like 'A Beautiful Mind.' There's writing everywhere and he's like (Mike demonstrates hyperventilating). It started off he didn't have a beard, and then he turned into Father Time. J'net: Did the fact that he's so well-respected in the community and such a genuine person help him to get buy-in from the people who participated? Mike: And the other people he recruited, like Kamala Parks and Anthony (Marchitiello) and Eggplant and Tim Armstrong, are highly respected and helping to make this thing. And it's like, 'Wait a minute, this isn't like a Warner Brothers movie. This is people who were actually in the scene making it.' And when they would vouch for him, it became even more helpful." We're pretty sure we spotted a cameo of Mr. Redford himself, but I won't put a spoiler here by hinting where to watch for him! For the same reason, I'm not going to tell you details of my favorite parts of the movie. When the opportunity arises, you should pick out your own favorites, and next time we're sitting in line for a Green Day show, we can compare notes. Bottom line, whether you watch the movie because you're interested in the captivating history of East Bay punk or because you want to see how Green Day got their start or both, you aren't likely to be disappointed. The movie is great entertainment but also left me inspired to be the best I can be at whatever I choose to do. The passion that went into the scene way back then, and into the making of the movie itself, left its mark on me. I hope you'll find that it leaves you feeling the same way.

In part two, we talked to the band about the early days at Gilman Street and the new movie, 'Turn it Around: The Story of East Bay Punk.' "J’net: From there, Green Day has come so far. What were you dreaming about back then, have you achieved it, and do you have any dreams you haven’t realized yet — things you still want to do? Tre: Pizza! J’net: Really? You haven’t had pizza yet? [Everyone laughs — these guys are SO polite!] Mike: Back then it was like, 'Can we get a show? Can we get into Gilman?' That’s a goal. It’s always like a series of goals – like 'Let’s get a tour.' 'Oh my gosh, what would it be like to play that one club there?' Maybe it’s a different town — or Europe! 'Let’s go to Europe and tour Europe!' There’s always another thing to be done. We just like to keep it exciting. Even live — even live, if we feel it's not exciting and not eventful or we're just going through the motions, we'll do something to change that because we like to stay in the moment, too. Life should be exciting. J’net: [to Tre] When you gave the drumsticks to that little kid last night (in Kansas City) … Mike: I did that. But Tre does every night anyway. One of us will always do it." Backstory: In Kansas City, there was a little girl on her dad’s shoulders throughout much of the show, although security tried multiple times to get him to put her down. At one point, Mike’s bass tech came into the security pit and leaned through to hand her a set of drumsticks. "Mike: She was hitting right on the beat with them on her dad’s shoulders! A lot of people know this, but every night Tre hides a pair of drumsticks under a seat. J’net: Do you always know if somebody finds them? Tre: Well, I put a hashtag on them and sometimes they'll go and put a picture with #TreCoolsHiddenSticks if they found them. J'net: I would just want to know — if no one posted, did they get found? I would have to go back and see if they're still there. [laughs] Tre: Somebody will find them. I'll tape them under the seats. Mike: Eventually. Someone will find them — like at an Usher show. [laughs] J'net: Or a hockey game. [Laughter] J’net: I got to go to the Hall of Fame Induction and the House of Blues show. What a show! I was beating up on the people next to me, because every time something else exciting happened I was [grabbing people and shaking them], "Oh my God! Oh my God!" That was incredible. I want to ask how that felt, but I’m sure you all thought it felt incredible. But could you ever have dreamed that you would be there? And what gave you the idea to come out as Sweet Children, and have Tim [Armstrong of Rancid] come out and sing with y’all and … to celebrate it in that way? Billie: I think it was all about 'bringing it all back home,' to quote Bob Dylan. It was like, 'Let’s make this as fun as possible.' Just have a great time and do everything you can … there’s so much tension with a lot of bands that have gone in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that you literally can’t get them to be on the same stage at the same time. And someone will stay home. And for us, it was the opposite of that. I’d rather seize the moment to remember how we got there. You start off when you’re a kid in a band, and it’s the most exciting thing in the world. And it’s so important to inspire people to understand that it IS the most exciting thing in the world. J’net: Do y’all listen to any kind of music that you think would surprise people to know that you liked it? Mike: All kinds of music. I just like good songs. I don’t care if it’s country — or the other night Tre went out to a jazz club, and then Jason and I went out to the same jazz club after they’d left — the same jazz club, and we didn’t even know they went. And we saw an unbelievable band there in Kansas City. Tre: I like German AND Italian opera. J’net: Do you really? Seriously? Tre: [Laughs] J’net: Oh ... but THAT would have surprised people. Tre: No … just the German. [laughs] J’net: Well, I’m the Italian fan, myself. Tre: It’s all Greek to me! Greek music. Billie: I’m kind of an audiophile. I like to go deep with finding obscure power-pop bands... Tre: Billie makes the best playlists. And he’s the best DJ. Billie: I just read this book called Never a Dull Moment ['Never a Dull Moment: 1971 The Year That Rock Exploded,' by David Hepworth] and it’s all about the music that happened in 1971, so I put together a playlist of all [that music]. I like getting into to doing my own … which is funny, because everybody's doing playlists and putting them on Spotify and stuff like that, and I do playlists and share them with my friends. Mike: She's got to hook you up with about a million more friends to share it with. [Laughter] Mike: Yeah, when we hit the playlist side of things, he’s ready. Billie: Yeah, and it’s all kinds of different stuff, whether it's like Joni Mitchell and Linda Ronstadt, to like ... Foghat and T-Rex. It’s fun to listen to. Especially back then, there was a certain amount of — people were uninhibited. If you listen to Marvin Gaye singing 'What’s Going On?,' there’s nothing self-conscious about songs like that and what was going on back then. I think nowadays, music is so much more visual or something. Some of the stuff from the past is just inspiring. J’net: And you have lots of influences, I can hear them in your music. There are little bits that sound like country and little bits that sound like different genres. Did you get that from your family, or was it all around you, or what? Billie: Well, it was all around me with my family — and I think when I was a kid I just always wanted to be the one to listen to something different. So, when kids were listening to Kool and the Gang’s 'Celebration,' I was listening to AC/DC and Van Halen, or trying to be the first in my high school to discover punk rock, and alternative stuff, too. Nobody in Rodeo had a clue who the Replacements and Hüsker Dü was. I was like the only punk kid in my high school. And John Swett [High School] was ... 400 people, 350 at the most. Mike: Is that what it was? I thought it was a little more than that. That’s still a lot of people, though, when you think about it. Billie: Yeah, there's 80 people in that graduating class. Mike: And then there was this one kid in that high school [who was punk]. Billie: And half of them actually graduated. [Laughs]"

This is the fourth and final installment of our interview with Green Day. In part three, we talked to the band about their past goals, and the musical roots of each of the guys. I have also included some things that were not part of the interview itself, or our recording. At the beginning of the transcription below, I knew our time was running out — and during the recording, we were packing up. I was throwing on my “Still Breathing” shirt, as I call it, for my photo with the band. But I just kept talking and asking questions the whole time to make the most of every second. "J’net: So, I have one more quick question, and this is just my own personal thing that I’ve always wondered — when Mike sang the second half of 'American Eulogy,' did you [Billie] write it with that in mind, did it just happen, I mean … was it something personal to Mike, because the way [Mike] sang it and kind of spit those lyrics out, it sounds like it’s very … something [deciding to stop rambling on with this never ending question and let someone answer] … Billie: I mean, I just wrote it and asked him if he wanted to sing it. [laughs] Mike: I think you need to sing to what the lyrics are calling for. I tend to sing ... like a little girl sometimes. [laughs] J’net: Not in THAT song. Mike: Yeah, but I was conscious that, 'This song isn't for singing like a little girl.' Or if it is, it's a little girl with attitude. Billie: If you think about 'Outsider' by the Ramones, and how DeeDee sang the bridge to it, it just kind of makes more sense. It just kind of comes from the band. And what else? 'I Was There' – Mike sang the bridge on that. J'net: Yeah. Well, you [Mike] sing that 'American Eulogy' like it was written just for you. Just made me wonder … Mike: [Hamming it up] Why, thank you! A friend of mine wrote that just for me! … 'Hey Billie, I got an idea! We can go ahead and take five.' J'net: So, I'm getting a sense that it's time for you [Tre] to have your pizza that you've never had before. Any last things you guys want to say to the readers of Green Day Authority? Mike: Just that we appreciate them and that they should be good to each other and look out for one another online and offline. But, we appreciate the hell out of them, cause that's our community. They're fuckin' rad. We'll see [them] on tour. Billie: I think for me as a musician, it's always important to be a fan first. Because I'm obviously a big fan of the people I like to listen to and stuff like that. So with that said, [we're] like-minded and kindred-spirits. Tre: In the words of the wild stallions, 'Be excellent to each other!'" Thus ended the interview proper, though there was more conversation, as I asked the guys to take a quick photo with me (the first time I've ever asked for a photo with any of them ... the wait was so worth it given how the photo turned out). Then, touring sound engineer and photographer Chris Dugan reminded me that I had a t-shirt to show the band. It was from Jack Yates, Omaha-based editor extraordinaire for GDA, who has been taking all my scribblings and making them look beautiful on the site. His vintage shirt was from Green Day's first tour — the band had screen printed it by hand back in the day. He thought they might like to see it, and maybe even sign it for him (which they graciously did). Tre sarcastically joked that it was really only six months old. Mike laughed, and said he still has the original screen print stencil for that shirt. While the guys were signing Jack's shirt, I was throwing on my "Still Breathing" shirt, which you can see in the photo. The guys loved, it which prompted me to tell them that it's from the Woody Guthrie Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I'm from. Mike excitedly told me that his wife's family and Billie's whole family were also from Oklahoma. This prompted Billie to tell a story, which really delighted me. The backstory is that he began to tell this tale at the Tulsa Green Day show back in March, but didn't make it all the way to the brilliant ending. We'd talked about this during the car trip there, and Billie just spontaneously answered our question! "Billie: Yeah, my mom's from Sperry, Oklahoma. Oh, we went — this is a funny story. When we were there, I was trying to find where my mom's house was — it was like, I think, about 15 minutes outside of Tulsa. And we went into a high school, and all the people would talk about was like native burial grounds and stuff like that. So we're just looking for this one in particular. So we went into Sperry High School and talked to the administrators, and I come out and all of a sudden it was like, it clicked [snaps fingers], they were like, 'Oh my God, he's here!' and they run out and one goes, 'You're either … Bruno Mars … or the guy in Green Day!' [Laughter] Billie: 'Bruno! Bruno! Bruno Joe!' Tre: [Laughs] 'Bruno Joe.' Billie: And then they sent me all these hats, because they're the Pirates, so I got all these cool pirate hats." Now, as they were still signing Jack's shirt, and I was still "primping" for my first ever Green Day photo, we had this hilarious conversation: "J'net: Do y'all know about all the mis-heard lyrics in your songs? Billie: Mis-heard? Mike: Misinterpreted, you mean? J'net: No, like people hear them and they think you're saying something else! Tre: Oh, that's funny! J'net: Like, 'Gotta know the enemy … raw ham.' Billie: Raw ham? [Hilarity ensues] Tre: Raw ham. J'net: And, 'Somebody take my pants, I think they're falling off … into a state of regression.' Mike: [Singing] 'Somebody take my pants, I think they're falling off, into a state of regression.' [Laughing] Billie: That's amazing. That's a good one. J'net: And then, my son one day and said to me he hears, [singing ... YES, I sang in front of Green Day!] 'Dump truck! Color me stupid!' Billie: Oh, dump truck! [laughs] J'net: British people hear, 'I wore cologne, I wore cologne' [in 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams']. Billie: Oh, wow … J'net: And in 'Welcome to Paradise' — 'Pay attention to the cracked streets and the broken gnomes.' Tre: Scary. Scary. [Laughs] Billie: Nice. I've heard that one before. I think I've seen a meme. J'net: I just wondered if … because when a new song comes out, before the lyrics are published, we're all trying to figure out, "What are they saying? What are they saying?" Billie: Next time we're just going to write them out different. They'll be like just totally different lyrics. Tre: We'll do fucked up lyrics! J'net: Oh yeah, right. That would be great. Tre: We'll get like six-year-olds to say what they think the lyrics are, and then we'll have that be the lyrics. J'net: That would be great! Or me, because my hearing is shot from so many Green Day shows!" This was where our recording ended. At some point during the discussion that continued un-recorded, I told the guys that this (the Omaha show) might be my last show for a while. I said, "A dear friend of mine has a ticket for me to the Rose Bowl show, but I don't know if I'll be able to afford to get there, so this could be it for a while." After that, we prepared to take the photo, which Chris Dugan (the band's sound guy and photographer) kindly offered to take for us — so it wasn't a selfie, after all! Mike suggested that I sit in the chair, and they'd all stand around me. Of course, I can't even express how sweet this was. Then, because I'd been talking to superfan Fran Green in line that day, I said, "Do you know that girl Fran with long brown hair who's always right in the corner of the barricade?" (I motioned with my hands to show where Fran usually stands). And here's how I remember that conversation going: "Billie: Oh, I know her, she's great! She always wants to get up and sing or something, but I really like her energy right there in the corner. Mike: Which one is she? Billie: She has a lip piercing. Mike: Oh yeah! [smiling] J'net: Well, today is her 50th show! Billie: Her 50th really? J'net: Yes, and she's travelling from the 1st through the 27th and not staying in any hotels — just sleeping on the street or in the car. Billie and Mike: WOW. Tre: Sounds like somebody needs a shower!" Finally, my time with Green Day was coming to an end. I thanked them all, and they walked out. Then, as I was about to leave the room, Tre came back with his wife Sara and introduced me to her. She is just as gorgeous and sweet as her online personality seems. We chatted for a few minutes. I told her we love her because of how happy she makes 'this guy' — I point at Tre. To say both their faces were beaming would be a terrible understatement. Just looking at how happy they are together made my heart melt. As they were leaving, Tre stuck his head back in the room and said, "See you at the Rose Bowl." So now, I guess I'll have to find a way to make it to the Rose Bowl. Hope to see you all there! After all this, I was walked out on to the arena floor and asked to choose my spot. I was just dumfounded with the entire barrier to choose from … don't we all wish that could somehow happen at every show?!?! Later, after everyone came in, I couldn't see Fran in her usual spot, and I was just so disappointed, because I thought … knowing the band, they would probably do something special for her if she'd been there. Well, Billie managed to find her on the catwalk, wished her happy 50th and then started singing "Happy Birthday" to her! Hahaha! Tre also gave her an autographed drum head the next night in St. Louis, and I see that she got on stage before her tour was over. The guys are just the sweetest and love their fans so much!

#i did like billie's story about being mistaken for bruno mars lmao #also mike's line about how young his wife is.....#not as funny as you think it is man #yikes #article #interview #articles #green day

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itsclydebitches · 3 years ago

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I’m the tin foil hat anon and I wanted to thank you for the response on my bb submission, you make great points. Although I was frustrated that some of them raised even more questions I didn’t think of myself… UGH… lol the S2 wait is gonna be painful

On the point of crosshair thinking his chip was removed a looong time ago(meaning before bracca or even as early as ep1) it wouldn’t make sense bc of his response to Hunter’s “you tried to kill us, we didn’t have a choice”. He says “and I did?”. So he seems to be aware he couldn’t control himself in all their previous encounters. Does it mean he knows his actions were due to chip then?

And you say crosshair avoiding the “when” question can be due to him not caring if the horrible actions he committed are chip or himself and it’s meant to show that he truly is despicable and evil. It could be the case because he shows absolutely no remorse or regret over slaughtering civilians, never apologizes to his brothers for not only trying to kill them but almost successfully incinerating(!!!) them. On top of that (apparently) without a chip he casually murders his own squad without a blink of an eye right in front of them.

On the other hand, he shows care for Omega’s safety in that episode and wants a better place in the universe for his brothers(even if it’s obviously a mistake). He sounds hurt and betrayed by them yet he still wants what he thinks is best for them. He seemed genuine and sincere in that moment. Even after they refused to join he protected them against the droids. He had multiple opportunities to shoot Hunter or others in the back but never did(and looked like didn’t even consider it). BUT after all of that he decides to raise his gun and try to shoot hunter who already has his gun drawn?! And in front of the whole squad holding him at gun point!!! WTF was he thinking?! WHY? I know they rejected his offer but still. Did his reveal completely change his plans? I just don’t understand. I know he is meant to be “complex and nuanced character with layers” but what a mood swing lmao

As much as I loved and enjoyed the bad batch overall I’m beginning to think that all these inconsistencies aren’t meant to be a crafty set up for next season. What they most likely are is just writers being vague on purpose so they don’t write themselves into a corner.

And as to why the batch and Omega didn’t even try to rescue their brother could just be so that Hunter and Crosshair would have this drama and disagreement at the end. Despite brad rau claiming their argument was over ideological differences. And Jen Corbett saying in that same cursed interview that the batch always love and support each other no matter what because they’re family. Well, I guess not crosshair, he doesn’t count anymore lol

And I agree with you I’d rather see the batch acknowledging they could have done more to try and rescue him than go into the chip details. However, I have a suspicion the real reason or explanation on why they never went back for him isn’t going to be brought up ever. Even *in universe* it simply does not make sense. Just makes me sad seeing how many people also try to come up with explanations. That should have been the writers job to provide something besides Hunter’s “you tried to kill us” bc that’s a weak argument and a total bs since he was SHOCKED to learn crosshair doesn’t have a chip.

Btw sorry for the long posts lol I just found your takes very intriguing

The season two wait is something awful and I only just started it lol. No worries about long asks though! My blog has become quite meta heavy over the years, so this is normal for my inbox. Besides, it’s a bit of a pot and kettle situation. It's not like my answers are particularly concise :D

Okay first, I have the unpopular (?) opinion that Crosshair was never planning to shoot Hunter, partly for the reasons you lay out here. You’re right, it doesn’t make sense, and rather than just accepting that he had that kind of “mood swing" (which would be pretty bad writing based on everything else we've seen) I think it does make sense that this was never his intention at all. Rather, it’s just a setup to make the audience think he’s about to shoot Hunter—that’s the obvious goal of that moment: the shock, drama, confusion, and then relief—but that doesn’t mean that in-universe that was ever Crosshair’s goal, even for just a split second. Omega leaves the pod. Echo, crucially, says that he can’t see her, setting up that Crosshair with his enhanced sight is probably the only one who could. He grabs his rifle off screen and as he does, Hunter leans over the side of the pod as he prepares to jump in, precisely where Crosshair needs to aim to hit Omega. Hunter is in his way. He’s directly in the line of fire, not because Crosshair is aiming for him, but just because that's where Omega is and they're both aiming for her: Crosshair with his rifle, Hunter ready to dive. The little shift Crosshair makes reads to me as him ensuring he doesn’t hit Hunter, despite him being right where he needs to aim, not him full on changing targets.

Even if we choose to read it as him deliberately aiming at Hunter—because yeah, the scene is meant to be ambiguous—I don’t think he, like, meant it meant it. Crosshair, as we’ve seen throughout TBB and TCW, can be pretty antagonistic. He likes to do things to get a rise out of people, like staring at regs until they snap at him, or pushing Rex’s buttons until he swings. If he was choosing to aim at Hunter in that moment, rather than Hunter just being in the way, I think it’s only bravado. Remember the “Don’t make the same mistake twice. Don’t make me your enemy” line? Crosshair has a need to remind others of his skill and power—whether it’s playfully like in TCW, or more seriously in TBB—and that’s likely what this is here. “Hey, Hunter. Look. I got my weapon back. I’ve got you cornered. I’m about to save our sister when you can’t. Remember that I’m good and you need me.” Those feelings of abandonment are tied up in that need to be needed, so when Crosshair is seething at being left behind, brutally showing them how he can get a drop on their leader and doing the thing they can't (save Omega) is a great way to remind them of what they threw away/re-boost his own self-esteem. But none of that means shooting Hunter was ever a real possibility. Because nowhere else do we see Crosshair willingly trying to harm his team. He does while under the chip’s influence, but then he never hurts Hunter when he’s captured. He kills his new team before they can hurt the batch. He helps them fight off the droids. There’s a tussle, but it’s not choreographed like either he or Hunter truly intends harm. Crosshair demonstrates no aggression during the entire escape, willingly gives up his weapon after saving Omega, and just stands there as they leave. If this guy actually wanted to hurt them, he would. Which is more likely, that Crosshair had a split second of real murder intent across two episodes of doing everything possible to help his team, or that this was just a mean bluff?

But personally, I don’t even think it was a bluff. I think the coincidence of Crosshair needing to aim there and Hunter already being there is just meant to imply an attack for the audience, not imply that Crosshair, in-universe, ever intended to hurt him, even for just a second. If he had, he wouldn’t look so surprised and sad when he realizes the others are pointing their weapons at him. If he was out to shoot Hunter, even if only for a moment, seeing his brothers come to his defense would be expected; a given. But if he only ever intended to save Omega, then seeing their weapons trained on him would produce the emotions we saw: shock that they’d turn on him and then severe disappointment. From Crosshair’s perspective, he didn’t do anything wrong and never intended to do wrong either. Hence, looking away in disbelief that his need to aim through Hunter was taken as a serious threat. He's realizing that they honestly believe that he would hurt them. Not the chipped version of him, but just him, all on his own.

As for the rest of his characterization, I think your point that “You tried to kill us” is a weak argument is pretty important. Meaning, Crosshair knows he didn’t attack his team and nearly kill them, the Empire controlling him like a puppet did. He (arguably) doesn’t owe them an apology for something that he was as much a victim for. However, we usually expect one anyway—like Wrecker still apologizing to Omega—because that's how people who have hurt loved ones react, whether the hurt was intentional or not, but that guilt is currently overshadowed by his fury that they left him behind. For him I think it’s a bit of a circular problem. Yes, he nearly killed them… but he wouldn’t have nearly killed them if they’d come back and rescued him. With the obvious disclaimer that the Empire is the real evil here, Crosshair as a threat is a bit of a problem of the batch's own making. If they’d done the right thing and gotten him out, there wouldn’t have been these scary moments like the engine incident. If they’d at least tried, then Crosshair likely would have been more guilt-ridden because he hurt his brothers who were trying to help him. As it stands, he tried to hurt the people who claim they're his brothers, but who left him behind. That's why he presents this second chance as magnanimous: from Crosshair's perspective, they haven't done anything to earn his care, but they're getting it anyway. An apology though? That's pushing things too far. If when Wrecker turned the group had locked him somewhere in the ship and gone off planet, leaving him there under the justification “Well, he tried to kill us!" would Wrecker still return with apologies for his actions... or would he be primarily pissed at being left like that, withholding apologies because they did him harm intentionally, whereas he did harm under another's control? I mean, maybe he'd be forgiving (the huge difference between his and Crosshair’s personalities is another factor), but also maybe not. Having Crosshair apologize for the near-death experiences requires 1. For him to feel responsibility for something that was forced on him and 2. For him to not be absolutely furious at the batch for abandoning him. They've gotta work through that before Crosshair can acknowledge that guilt.

Killing his second team on the other hand… idk if the batch cares, honestly. It was the killing of civilians that they balked at, not other fighters like themselves. Even the Jedis’ execution, something they clearly didn’t like, wasn’t enough to turn them from the Empire, presumably because the Jedi are capable of defending themselves. They fell in battle. It’s only when the Empire asks them to kill kids and untrained civilians that they go, “Absolutely not. This organization is evil.” Murder of other fighters was, you know, not great, but not worth defecting over either. Crosshair’s second team is made up of fighters who have been trying to kill them, so they’re definitely fair game. If we removed Crosshair’s plan from the situation and the batch was just fighting their way off Kamino after a capture, would they have also killed the team without a blink of an eye? Probably. It's self-defense. The second they raised their blasters it became a battle and, unless you’re specifically out to stun someone for some reason, battles end bloody. The shock is which side Crosshair was on, not that one side was willing to murder the other. It’s definitely messed up from our perspective that Crosshair laid a trap to murder his team to prove a point… but from the batch’s perspective? Crosshair killed a bunch of imperial fighters who were threatening them during a battle. That’s just an average Tuesday for them, nothing much to get upset over.

And omg don’t get me started on Crosshair wanting to find Omega a family! Like yeah, it’s obviously a #mistake and his faith in the Empire is Super Messed Up but... the underlying motivation is so good. It’s another situation where there’s no easy answer. Which is more important: Omega’s emotional health where she grows up with clones like her, the people who are now 100% her family, or her physical health, where she stays some place where she’s not always getting shot at, kidnapped, at risk of going hungry, etc.? It’s easy as the audience to go, “Of course she belongs with her dads!!” but if you choose to read the story through any realistic lens, Crosshair absolutely has a point about this being terrible environment for a kid, the exact point the batch themselves were making until Omega begged to stay. I love my feral, compassionate child but let me tell you, I YELLED when she yeeted herself out of that pod. This is a traumatized, formerly isolated kid with absolutely zero self-preservation, combined with, at times, a lack of basic common sense that’s inevitable in children (like not realizing she can’t pull a very heavy droid up through the water). As emotionally gutting as the thought is and, in this particular case, a Very Bad Idea, I really can’t fault anyone for raising the possibility that she go somewhere else, somewhere she’s likely to survive into her teens 😅

#TBB #The Bad Batch #SW #Star Wars #mymetas

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fashournalist · 4 years ago

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Thank you, Isentia Content Hub: An open letter to my colleagues.

Eleven days ago, it has exactly been two years since I first started working at Isentia. I remember feeling scared whether I’d belong, and what kind of people I’ll be working with. I remember I kept telling myself “Bawal maattach, Grace, as some alumni have said, when you enter the real world, you’re there to work. Just do your job well and be a team player, but don’t invest your emotions.” But here I am, after two years, with so many beautiful memories with amazing people. I did get attached after all, and it’s worth it. Because I did not only have colleagues, I met a new family.

This was my open letter to Content Hub, which I hesitated to send at first after writing, because it’s too long. But thankfully, two of my teammates encouraged me to send it because they said what matters is I wrote it from my heart and it’s my farewell message to my friends. (I was one of the employees who got laid off.) It was here that I learned tears are really contagious, because after sending this letter, I received texts saying they shed a tear, too. Perhaps that’s because when I wrote it, I was shedding tears myself. Why do I feel like graduating from high school? Haha! I guess this is how close we have been. So here goes my letter, and pictures of some of the memories we have made. :)

Dear Content Hub,

This August 20, it has been exactly two years since I started working at Isentia. And now, 731 days and 41,283 summaries later, I just finished my last working day as a Broadcast Monitor. Permit me to be cheesy, I just want to thank the amazing people who made the past two years a memorable journey. I apologize in advance for the length of this email, but please know this letter came from my heart.

I'm really blessed that I got to work with you. I did not only have colleagues, I had a family. That is why whenever I reached the office, my update to my parents has always been "Happy place". It meant I arrived safely, I'm at OSMA already. And I know there have been hardships, times heartbreaking news crushed me, or times I went home way past my shift. Yet whenever I was on my home, no matter how tired I got, I just looked forward to facing the next day and working again. If world news were a play, we all get front row seats, binge-watching current events for at least 40 hours a week. It genuinely excited me that our job allows us to literally learn something new every day. But, I don't feel that way all the time; sometimes I just have burnouts and frustrations. So I think the real major reason that kept me going through it all is I had colleagues as supportive as you guys are. Allow me to thank you.

To Sydney Swans, my first team.

Working with helpful teammates like you added to my motivation as I traveled from LB to Ortigas every day for five months (when I was not yet able to find an apartment in Manila). Thank you for your devotion to Qld Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. It showed me what client-obsessed looks like, and I committed to following that example. Your compere inside jokes and reactions to news added a lot of fun to our job. Until now, I enjoy backreading the group chat just to see your new musings or memes. Thanks a lot especially to John, Julianne, Zennon, Marco, and Kuya Ronnie.

To Fremantle Dockers, my afternoon shift team for more than a year,

Thank you for everything; for being supportive colleagues, helping me whenever I struggled, and celebrating with me whenever I improved.

Kuya Coily’s last day at our team.

How we help one another, especially during the Christmas dinner just so everyone can go to Sambokojin on time, inspires me. This was our post-Sambo bonding at Greenfield. I am also relieved that you never judged me as “walang pakisama” even though I only drank iced tea or milkshake haha. Others tend to force me to drink, but my friends at Isentia just let me finish all the food. HAHA. I appreciate people who can respect our preferences and differences. And you are witnesses that I don’t need to drink to be drunk. Based on my energy, I am drunk by default. Haha I will miss all these sessions with you and my batchmates!

I will miss our movie nights and billiard sessions (tho I'm just watching you haha) at the lounge. I wish we played more board games, too.

Isentia Outing 2019

Thank you so much also for being there for me when I lost my mother, you had my back and that will always mean a lot to me. When my Momi was still alive, she always knew I was working with great people. Thank you to every single one of you especially AJ, Morris, Evann, Aly and Kuya Mel.

I look forward to a Dockers reunion when this pandemic is over!

And my favorite teammate, Czesar. The best meetings are the ones you participated in. Thank you for all the laughter you gave us.

I also want to thank my friends outside my team, including Tomie, Zendee, LA and Nico from Collingwood Magpies.

Thank you for the dinner sessions and conversations on life and dreams!

This was LA’s birthday salubong at Kanto Breakfast :) While the next photo is a “panel discussion” at Goto Believe haha! We talked about the news we monitored, and boi, we went home at almost 5am.

Tomie, thank you for our never-ending laughter on our way home. Normally, I just want to be quiet and regain energy while traveling, but with you, it's okay to chat all the way to Quiapo.

To my favourite comperes, who will not read this but I feel like thanking anyway because some of you might share love for them: Marc Fennell, Jan Fran, Kanoa Lloyd, Jules Schiller, Sonya Feldhoff, Anna Vidot, Dave Sutherland, Tamara Oudyn, Sammy J, Paul Barry, Jeremy Corbett, David Speers, Leigh Sales and my inspiration Jesse Mulligan. Thank you because I learned so much about the world and about life from you. I will miss blogging about your stories and reacting to your insights.

To the leaders who managed me and/or accommodated my concerns,

This is my former TL, Kuya Coily :)

TL Coily, TL Angel, TL Rem, TL Nico, TL Nic, TL Jonna, TL Geoff, TL Alni, and Sup Mitch. Thank you for all your help! Thank you for the times you inspired me and my colleagues to grow as well as the times you coached me, gave constructive feedback, and helped me overcome my weaknesses so I can continuously improve.

To our Trainer Rachel, who we can consider as Content Hub's matriarch,

thank you so much because you patiently equipped every single one of us before we transitioned to live operations. To OM Dean, thank you for your feedback and praise during my regularisation.

And most of all, to Western Borlogs fam, my home for two years, I don't even know how to thank you enough.

I'm grateful you've been my batchmates at our training--and for everything after that.

Isentia Outing 2019

Sibyullee, farewell samgyup party for Jai (her last day in the company)

Seoulgyupsal, farewell samgyup party for Aiona (before she flew to Spain to teach)

office memories :)

Pantry catch-ups. I usually eat at my desk because of all the work but I’m grateful for the times I was able to join their dinner breaks hehe.

Sambokojin, Christmas dinner 2019

Dear Borlogs, thank you for all the memories, endless laughter, samgyup sessions (a regular segment haha), Friday nights, and times we comforted each other when some of us are facing a hard time. Thank you also for comforting me and my family when you and B visited the wake of my Momi. She has always heard about you (and I'm happy she met some of you) when she was still alive. Thank you for being such a great sounding board, a safe space where we can be vulnerable and strong at the same time. Also, I've never been a milk tea person until I met you guys, so thanks for that, too. My BM experience would not be the same without you. Naz, Janelle, Joey, Patty, Billie, Lou, Aiona, Jai, Nee, Mau, C, Ady, Sarah. Thank you, sists!!

If you've read until here, thank you for bearing with my lengthy cheesy, farewell note to Content Hub. I attached some photos that captured a few of the memories I spent with you, as well as some jokes I've randomly thought about while monitoring. I was reserving them for Christmas Party or something, but anyway, here they are. I am confident they will make you cringe.

So there, I will miss you and I appreciate you always. I will not forget the memories we've made along the way. Thank you for everything, Isentia Content Hub! God bless you all and stay safe.

Arrivederci :)

Always,

Grace / Mariel

(this was me when I graduated from training and was so excited to be part of Content Hub haha)

PS. Thank you to Janelle, Jai, Joey, Jai, Kuya Coily, LA, Zendee, Dots and Troy for the photos!

PPS. Thank you so much for your heartwarming replies!!! And the food/gifts some of you sent!! I love you guys. (There, I said it. Haha! I was too shy to put that sentence in the email I sent. But this is my blog, I can write what my heart says without holding back)

^letter from AJ with a Bebi plant. She sent me oatmeal cookies and three novels too huehue she knows my weaknesses well haha thankuu ajj

^Matchaaaa from Patty thank you sist! <33

^Carbonaraaaa from Tomiee thank you siz!!!

Thank you to every single one of you. I was emotional when I wrote the open letter, but I got more nostalgic when I read your responses. I will always be thankful for the privilege of working with you and being your friend. Keep in touch, okay? We’ll still meet again. :)

Love,

Grace

#memories #grateful #work #job #Isentia #happy place #journey #personal #life #blog post #open letter #letter #colleagues #article #photojournal #thank you

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miles3855 · 5 years ago

Text

The Tracker

Sam Paxton rode his horse slowly into the alley. It was a beautiful clear day in April, the grass lush and thick under the horse's hooves, the sun already high in the purest of blue skies. But there was nothing but sadness in Sam's heart, for this day he would have to kill a young man he liked and admired.

Adam Corbett, the man Sam hunted, had turned twenty-one only the month before, and seemed even younger with his innocent blue eyes, clean-shaven face and curly, shoulder-length brown hair. Adding to his youthful appearance was his incurable habit of kicking off his boots wherever and whenever he could, and traipsing around in his sock feet. Some of the men on Old Man McCune's ranch ragged him for it, called him the Barefoot Boy, but Sam--the ranch foreman--never did.

The ribbing was mostly good-natured, for Adam was the best-liked hand on the ranch, kind and friendly as well as superbly skilled. In his twenty years as a cowboy Sam had never seen a man so young who was such a good hand at riding, roping, breaking broncos, and doing whatever came to hand. Adam was even more popular with the ladies than the me, and that more than anything was what had gotten Billy McCune's blood up.

Billy McCune was a rat. There was no other way to put it. Four times Billy had gunned down men and claimed self-defense. Because, conveniently, there were never any witnesses, and because Old Man McCune. Billy's father, was the richest man in the territory, Billy had always got off scot-free

Billy wanted to make Adam the fifth notch in his gun. But Billy, an incorrigible drunk, misjudged his man fatally.

It had been only last evening, at the Georgia Belle saloon. Adam was at a table, boots off as usual, and one of the saloon girls--one Adam and Billy both favored--was rubbing Adam's white-socked feet and making sweet talk to him. Billy, a full bottle of whiskey in his gut, stood up suddenly, called Adam a pansy, said his feet were stinking up the place, and ordered him to draw.

But Adam, who was better at most things than Billy, was also a faster draw and a better shot--even sitting at a table with his stockinged feet in a girl's lap. Also, Adam wasn't a heavy drinker.

The sheriff hadn't even bothered to arrest Adam; more than a dozen witnesses swore it was self-defense, and anyway everyone loved Adam and hated Billy. Everyone except Old Man McCune. Billy had been his only child, and the old man was as mean as Billy and even more ruthless. Adam didn't have to be told even once to get out of town as soon as he could get his boots on and mount a horse.

The old man, as soon as he had heard of Billy's death, had presented Sam with a proposition: a flat five thousand dollars to go out alone, hunt Adam down, and kill him. If Sam didn't agree, he would hire a posse from out of town to kill Adam--and they would be considerably less delicate about Adam's feelings.

The old man accomplished several things with this proposition. He knew Sam was over a thousand dollars in debt from poker games at the Georgia Belle, so he couldn't rightly refuse such a lucrative offer. He also knew Sam was particularly fond of Adam, so there was the double motive of testing Sam's loyalty and sadism at forcing Sam to kill a buddy.

Sam, for his own part, not only desperately needed the money, but also knew that if he didn't take the old man's offer, there would be an even larger bounty on his own head.

As he rode along that morning, Sam thought bitterly that McCune could have sent a heifer from his herd to find Adam, as difficult as the job would be. Adam--for all his skill with a gun--had a trusting, naïve nature, and knew nothing of outlaws' tricks. It would be pathetically easy to find Adam, if not necessarily to outdraw him.

And, sure enough, Adam was right where Adam thought he would be. There was a hillside in the valley that sloped gently to the river, where a small grove of live oaks and a tiny mountain stream flowing through. This was Adam's secret place, of which only Sam knew.

Adam's horse was tethered to one of the oaks, grazing peacefully. Adam himself was sprawled under the tree, fast asleep, his hat over his eyes. His six-gun was to his right, his boots to his left, and one white-socked foot was crossed over the other.

Sam felt cold disgust at the sight of Adam sleeping. Didn't he realize the sort of danger he faced? But with that came a feeling of unbearable sadness. Adam was so innocent of heart--he couldn't conceive of a world where his best friend would be coming to kill him.

Sam rode up softly. The horses nickered at each other, but Adam didn't wake. Sam dismounted, tethered his own horse, and walked over to Adam, gun in hand. Sam loathed the thought of shooting any man, even one he hated, who was asleep, or had his boots off. Neither of these would happen to Adam!

He knelt at Adam's stockinged feet; the outline of Adam's toes was sharp and perfect on his stocking soles. Same tickled Adam's foot with the gun barrel.

Adam woke with a start and sat upright, reaching for his gun. Sam fired at the gun, hitting it, knocking it out of Adam's reach. Adam stared at Sam, flushed, not speaking.

Sam stared back at Adam, pointing the gun at his head, cocking the trigger. "You know the rules, Adam," he said, his voice trembling. "You knew the old man would send somebody after you, and when you think about it, it was an act of kindness he sent me. And you know if I don't kill you, he'll kill me."

After the initial shock, Adam looked less fearful than hurt, like a little boy who had been betrayed. Tears started to leak from his eyes, but his gaze was steady, and he did not speak.

"Come on, Adam," Sam said, his voice not unkind. "Pull your boots on, and stand up. I won't shoot you sittin' on the ground."

Adam continued to stare at Sam silently. His face, though tears were streaming down it, was brave and resolute.

"Stand up, Adam!" Sam said, more roughly. "Get your boots on!"

"No." Adam's voice was calmer than Sam's. Always a handsome boy, he looked angelically beautiful at that moment.

"I won't kill you like this, damn it! You can either die with your boots on like a man, or in your sock feet like a pansy-ass!"

"I've lived with my boots off, and I'll die with 'em off," Ada said, sitting at the base of the tree, his voice quiet but hard. 'If you're goin' to kill me, kill me like you found me!"

"Stand UP! Get 'em ON!"

Adam gazed at Sam, blinking back tears. Softly, he began to speak. "Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name...:

Sam was in a blind fury. Not know or caring what he was doing, he dropped his gun, still kneeling, grabbed one of Adam's boots, and tried to force it on the wrong foot. "GET YOUR BOOTS ON, DAMN YOU!" he yelled. Adam tried to pull his foot away, screaming with rage.

Sam lost his grip on Adam's boot, which plopped to the ground. Sam stared wildly at Adam's foot, the strong young toes flailing in the soft white sock. The sock seemed brand-new and clean. Everything about Adam seemed brand-new and clean, even when he did the dirtiest jobs at the ranch, like mucking out the stables or pulling a calf from a mudhole.

Sam wondered why, all of a sudden, his vision was blurring. Staring at Adam's foot in his hands, he stroked it gently, then kissed it.

Adam stopped struggling; he now began to sob audibly. Sam caressed the foot, gently kissing each toe, breathing in the faint smell of dried sweat. Adam felt Sam's handlebar mustache tickle his toes, and involuntarily let out a gasp of pleasure through his tears.

The other hands at the McCune ranch had always laughed at Adam's sock feet, but Sam had always found them endearing; now they seemed considerably more than that. Feeling the warm flesh and wiggling toes through the sock, Sam suddenly felt a wave of emotion like he hadn't felt since a girl had known back in Arkansas, a girl who died...

Still kneeling, Sam dropped Adam's foot and buried his face in his hands. He realized he could no more kill Adam than himself--knowing full well that to let Adam live was the same thing as killing himself. This was still racing through his brain when he heard two guns click above his head...

Adam stood over him, pointing his own gun and Sam's straight at Sam's head.

"Now YOUR boots," he snarled. "YOURS."

Sam stared horrified at Adam as he forced Sam to a supine position on the ground. Laying down one of the guns, he ripped the boots from Sam's feet and threw them as far as he could.

Sam's socks were gray, with white heels and toes, and extremely sweaty from the morning-long nervous tension of the man who wore them. Adam picked up the other gun and, with a look of near hatred on his face, began to tickle each of Sam's stockinged feet with the gun barrels, jut as Sam had done to him. This went on for several minutes while Sam watched silently, fear and excitement mingling in his heart.

Then Adam threw down the guns and started to kiss, lick and sniff Sam's feet as if he were trying to devour them. Sam, like Adam, let out a moan of pleasure, feeling the boy's handsome face and lips against his stocking soles.

Adam put Sam's stockinged toes in his mouth, and sucked. Sam, now nearly deranged with fear and desire, thought Adam was trying to suck his toenails out.

Then Adam dropped Sam's feet, grabbed Sam's face in both hands, and kissed him passionately, full on the lips. The two men tumbled through the grass in each other's arms, kissing each other as hard as they could, fumbling for each other's trouser buttons. Within a minute each had the other's manhood in his hand, and within two they had both come, their spunk billowing onto the grass.

They lay in each other's arms for several minutes, their pants still unbuttoned, each one's stocking feet rubbing against the other's. They stared into each other's eyes, crying, confused, relied, and unshakably in love.

After a while Sam sat up and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. Finally calm--for he know now what he had to do--he looked at Adam, smiling. "We got to finish our business here," he said.

He buttoned his pants, then stood up and went to get his boots, which Adam had flung about thirty feet apart. Adam watched him, sitting cross-legged like a small child, one stockinged foot crossed over the other.

Sam picket up his gun and reholstered it. "Can you stay here tonight?" he asked.

"Yeah, I guess so."

Sam looked down at Adam tenderly. "We got to make this look right," he said. "The old man wants proof you're dead. I think he'll take it as proof if I give him your horse, gun and boots."

Adam stared back gravely. "He's goin' to want more proof than that," he said. "He's goin' to want my corpse, or a piece of it."

Sam shook his head. "A man don't give up his horse and boots--and certainly not his gun--unless he's dead," he said. "The old man knows that better than anyone." He picked up Adam's gun and boots and carried them over to Adam's saddlebags.

"Anything you want out of these?" he asked.

"My Bible," Adam said. "Also two pair of socks I got in there, and I'd appreciate my bedroll. I ain't got no money."

Sam took the Bible and socks out of the bags, then stuffed in the boots and gun. He took the bedroll from Adam's horse and brought everything over to Adam, who laid them on the ground. Sam then walked over to his own saddlebags and pulled out a box of hardtack, some strips of beef jerky, and a box of shotgun bullets. He pulled the rifle out of his saddle holster, and brought everything again over to Adam.

"The old man won't know I'm missin' my rifle," he said. "You may need it. I don't think anyone will come after you, but you never know."

Adam stood up. He took the rifle and other things over to the base of the tree. Then he embraced Sam and gave him an ardent kiss, his stockinged toes rubbing against Sam's booted foot.

"The old man promised me five thousand dollars to kill you," Sam said. "He didn't tell nobly else, so I figure you're probably safe tonight. I've known the old man twenty years now, and though I know he's an evil bastard, I also know he'll give me the full five thousand, and he won't tell no one about the bounty till I come back.

"The jerky and hardtack ain't much, but they'll last you till tomorrow sundown, which is when I'll be back." He stopped to wipe his brow; the noon sun was warmer than he anticipated. "You also have water from the stream, of course. The grove is just big enough for you to hide in if anyone comes by, and you also got the rifle. God forbid you have to use it. Don't light a fire tonight; put your blanket around you if it gets cold, and put on the extry socks too." He looked down at Adam's feet. "You goin' to be all right here? Alone all night in your stockin' feet?"

"Beats dyin' with my boots on!" Adam smiled, a full, radiant smile showing his even white teeth. Seeing the boy smile, Sam felt weak with love. He could barely open his mouth to finish what he had to say.

"Even after I pay my debts at the saloon, we'll have enough left over for a little spread of our own, far away from here. When I get back, I can walk the horse with you on it to the next town over, where we can buy you a new horse and boots--and a steak, 'cause you're goin' to be starvin'."

"Just so long as the steak ain't as tough as the boots!" Adam laughed, the first time that morning, and Sam thrilled to hear that familiar, welcome sound.

"I'll be back tomorrow, and then, God is my witness, we ain't never goin' to be parted again." They kissed once more. Sam gently lowered Adam to the ground, and once more kissed the boy's sock feet, now sweaty and wet from exertion. He kissed each toe slowly and tenderly, stroking the arches as he did so. Then he gently tickled each sole, and rejoiced in the boy's laughter.

"On second thought, I don't think I'll buy you boots after all," Sam said. "I'll buy you a hundred pair of socks, and keep you sockfooted forever."

"That'd suit me fine!" Adam said.

Sam rode off with Adam's horse in tow. it hurt him more than anything had hurt him in his life to leave the boy alone on the hillside, but he had to do it for Adam's sake.

Sam turned around one more time, and Adam was there, laughing and waving. "God is good to me," Adam though as he waved. "He brought me Sam, and He'll watch over us both." The noon sun was delightfully warm on his face, and the long grass tickled his stockinged feet. Yes, he though, everything will be fine.

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invertedeidolon · 4 years ago

Text

The Longest Library #5: The Crying Sisters by Mabel Seely

(This is a series in which I attempt to read and review all (or most of) my library of 297 books.)

Rundown: A librarian wishes for a little more excitement in her life and IMMEDIATELY regrets it. Goes to a resort with a stranger, hired to look after his kid. His kid is cute but he may or may not be a fucking literal murderer?? We don’t know!! 4/5, good suspense, great pacing, a steady read that won’t make you obsessively read for three days straight, but it will definitely overtake your lunch breaks.

This entry took me a little longer, not because it was a bad book, but because for roughly two or so weeks I got caught up in mental health shite and had to re-tweak my schedule YET AGAIN and force a half hour of reading in the mornings to make sure I actually had time to read. This book was wonderful.

I think this book marks the first actually good mystery I’ve ever read. Considering I never read mysteries, and the first one I read was catballs mcgee over here. There are some reviews that seem to be bothered by the authors occasional tendency to mention something and then go “I had no idea that would be so important at the time”. Personally, I loved it. It put me in a further state of suspense, and it had me attempting to put more things together. There’s not enough info to pin one person down, and the really obvious choice is a REALLY obvious choice, and the main heroine constantly agonizes over it, so you know the book wouldn’t do THAT, but still... what if? The very last resort my mind ended up going to in a lazy scooby doo kind of way ended up being right, but the intricacies of their place in the whole plot was still a surprise.

No, the super conservative prude witch lady had absolutely nothing to do with any of it, she was just unpleasant.

A really cool thing about this book, at least the copy that I have, is that it’s a reprint from 1944, during the war. There’s a little note in the front about book cloth shortage because of war-time rationing (you can see it in my instagram post here). So instead it was bound in a ‘sturdy paper fabric’ instead. That, plus the aging of the paper, give it a really smooth and airy feel, for a book. I love holding this thing.

Okay, onto quotes.

We already start off strong with the writer’s description of oppressive summer heat:

“In the afternoon I was a cooking waffle between two irons, the steely paving and the chromium sky; heat from below pressed up and heat from above pressed down until the juice oozed out of my bones and each eye was a separate furnace”

Hot damn that’s a HOT day.

“My imagination worked overtime a bit, but the last thing I would ever have thought was that that revolver would come into my possession”

There’s that hinting that people were talking about. But it wasn’t useless or meandering. This line appears on page seven and become EXTREMELY pertinent by the end of the story. I don’t mind hinting if it isn’t useless without giving too much away. We have no idea about the circumstances of how she gets the gun, but all we know is that she gets it, and that’s just a tiny bit exciting already. The author putting a little foreshadowing in front of us directly didn’t bother me because not only was it immediately relevant (usually within a chapter or so), but also relevant in an even more significant way by the end of the book.

“...if Cottie calls me mamma, then anyone who hears him will think I’m your wife.” “I won’t.” It was cold enough to douse me the rest of the way back to sanity. “I’m sorry, I’ve changed my mind. I‘m not going.” His answer came with the tired reasonableness of a construction boss rebuking a steel riveter who complains he is afraid of high places. “Aw, quit being a sissy pants.” Sissy pants! Before I could recover he had elbowed me aside, and was inside my car.”

What the FUCK. What a little shit! Holy fuck! This man makes me feel offended and incredulous like an amish spinster looking at capri pants! Like what the fuck!!!!

“I can see, now, how expertly he handled me, how exactly he conveyed the right amount of disinterest in me, how he goaded me into staying.”

This man is a fucking EXPERT at manipulating the heroine. Your own mind sort of starts to soften to him the further you read, because like the heroine, in the beginning there’s no reason to like or tolerate the man, but as you go on, it becomes a necessary evil if you want to figure out what the FUCK is going on. I also started to get just as curious as to who he really was and what business he had at the resort. (by the end of the book I came to understand it’s a lot like how Kain had to handle Raziel: You can’t reveal too much or you risk your plans going astray, but for fuck’s sake Kain, you could be way less of an ass about it, you know?)

“Whatever had been done in the resort tonight, for whatever reason a woman had screamed, he was staying. The cot creaked lengthily as he lay down. I tried, with an effect of pressing a lid down on a kettle that bubbled and boiled over, to suppress my expectant terror.”

Damn that’s a good description of that feeling. I used to get that way when I heard stuff at night and my (at the time) untreated, panic prone brain immediately went “IT’S A CRIMINAL, A MURDERER, A CRIMURDERER, YOU MOVE AND YOU DIE”

“Mrs. Clapshaw carried herself like a small dragoon and had a nose like a thin white claw. I thought she’d be the acid test. “A scream?” She repeated rapidly, reaching upward with the nose. “Mrs. Corbett, I’m so glad you heard it. It’s the Reds. I’ve told Mr. Loxton here. There are un-American activities going on at that Flaming Door. Nazis.” She bit at her decisive words as they went past her teeth.”

Oh my god. Thankfully we don’t really deal with this lady for long, but holy fuck. The heroine wisely doesn’t spend any more time with her on purpose.

“You can decide to treat me like a person or I leave. I don’t like being pushed over or taunted or overruled or spoken to contemptuously. I can leave here today. It’s my car.” “Sure. Why don’t you?” Why is it that being invited to make good on a threat makes you want to change your mind? As usual when I’m pushed over the edge of anger, I couldn’t find words, and stood sputtering.”

The thing about Steve (this asshole’s name is Steve) is that he doesn’t force her to stay. He makes it quite clear in his smug little way that she always had the choice to leave at literally any time, and many times gives her orders knowing full well she can very well disobey them (and she does at times). She has a gun. Why doesn’t she shoot him? Go to the sheriff? But just. God. The man is infuriating and uncomfortably manipulative, but when immersed in the book, it becomes something mildly amusing, although the real world implications and usage of this kind of manipulation are sobering. The curiosity overrode everything else.

“I didn’t know how difficult it was going to be to keep out of Mr. Sprung’s way, or for what a long section of the chain he was going to be responsible.”

Another hint. The heroine frequently refers to the thread of the mystery as a chain (i.e: Chain of events), and it’s used fairly frequently through the book, sometimes in creative ways. There’s a moment where she realizes she’s reached the point of no return, that she’s in too deep, and goes on to describe how she can feel the chain whipping around her and binding her.

“Something would come of this night business now. I had in an instant a hundred blinding expectations -- a shot through the door, harsh angry voices calling to open, Steve Corbett rushing to attack the source of the light, men tramping in to say he was caught. My internal arrangements drew out into a rope and then tied themselves into one tight knot as I sat there with all animation suspended.”

Night noises be like that though. Man, these descriptions of the heroine’s internal reactions to things have been excellent!

“I’d heard that thin, high tone before. I’d heard it walking along a country road with telephone wires over my head and a wind in the wires. It was eerie in the wires. It was deadly in the man’s voice.”

“The boy was the man’s son, and the man loved him almost with agony. Yet last night he had walked out of the cottage into some circumstance he thought might be so dangerous he might never come back.”

“Suddenly I was shaking again, clutching Steve Corbett’s arm. He wasn’t shaking, but the muscles hardened as my fingers grasped; it was like touching a sleeve holding a warm marble arm. Had this been the arm I fought against last night?”

“The eyes above me had the same blue-metal gleam as the revolver’s mouth.”

The author does a fantastic job of making Steve Corbett seem like a very threatening potential murderer, nearly everything around him is foggy, suspicious, and mildly threatening in it’s implications, and yet there’s never enough solid evidence to truly pin anything on him. Both myself and the heroine could only stand by and watch further with a distinct sense of unease as everything unfolded both too quickly and not quickly enough.

“If tampering with the truth was illegal, the sheriff was a bit unlawful himself. “She couldn’t see, it was black as pitch,” Niddie denied weakly. “So there was something to see!” Niddie wasn’t the stuff of Hoxie Moebbels; once the sheriff had an opening wedge he weakened quickly.”

I like the sheriff a lot.

“I had hardly heard her. The corner of my eye had caught the stubby white patent-leather sandals on her feet. Caught between the heel and the instep of one sandal was a dry scrap of plantain leaf.”

So, something that annoyed me a little bit in the last mystery, was that the glimpses of suspicion raising evidence sometimes didn’t mean anything. They’re were just like ‘ooooo, suspicious!!!! It MEANS something!!!’. Here the narrator (our heroine) seems way more credible, relatable, and the events preceding it turns this into a massive clue. AND it’s later actually relevant, and NOT evidence of the heroine being (understandably) paranoid!

“If ever there was an evil-eyed harridan, I thought, she was it. I wondered what had built the immense familiarity with the worst impulses of men, that lay in her eyes, the thickness of her slow, significant voice, the turn of her hands, the slide of her thick hips.”

Another good description of yet another extremely suspicious person.

“We called hello in return, Carol prinking and smiling.”

Autocorrect can’t tell me that’s not a word.

prink /priNGk/ verb spend time making minor adjustments to one's appearance; primp. "prinking themselves in front of the mirror"

Ah, so nowadays we would more readily recognize ‘primping’ as opposed to this one. Nice! I learned a new word!

“In a white rayon bathing suit her figure was as plushly luscious as an overstuffed pink satin davenport.”

So she’s cute chubby! Nice! I assume this is roughly the era or coming from a writer from an era that was just on the edge of where being ‘too skinny’ was a REALLY bad thing.

“Look, Janet.” It was the first time he’d used my name.”

213 pages in. What a piece of work.

“Wasn’t it too bad I couldn’t be placated by an ice-cream cone, I thought grimly, as I went to obey orders.”

Me too, Janet. Me too.

“This was the sheriff to whom I held with the emotion portrayed by the girl in the old oleograph of the storm swept cross.”

If anybody knows what painting this is, that would be fantastic. I can only barely imagine it based on context, but that’s about it.

The quotes and the commentary are more sparse here at the end because I don’t want to give too much away.

This was a book that I genuinely enjoyed, and I could easily recommend it for some casual but still absorbing reading. They still print this book in paperback now, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find, it’s just me that has the old as balls copy.

Good shit!

#thelongestlibrary #book review #mabel seely #the crying sisters #mysterynovel #origin1 #wri1

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