#he's said stuff like that once before something to the effect of what rick does isn't sexy like that sounds fake but ok

[andy-clutterbuck]

I actually find it sad that Andy don't find himself attractive. Idk why he feels like that??? He's gorgeous af. Did someone say something to him? Which made him think less of himself? Cuz I just wanna talk to them. Idk if you read DailyMail but there were a lot of comments appreciating Andy's looks. Even ppl outside TWD fanbase knows he's hot. Has anyone ever said he's hot to his face? Is there any gif or videos where someone complimenting his looks?

I don’t think it’s some big self-esteem issue or anything, I just think he’s not stuck up his own ass. He just doesn’t subscribe to the famous sex symbol thing, and never has: “I don’t understand this sex symbol stuff at all. I’ve never considered myself to be one not for a second. The whole thing’s ridiculous.” (2005).  He’s been famous for over 20 years and TWD is far from the first time people have thought he was attractive. I still see people wax poetically about how beautiful Egg was and This Life aired 20 years ago, so I’m sure he’s well aware that people find him attractive. He’s been beautiful his whole damn life, I’m in the midst of rewatching Afterlife (‘05-‘06) with some friends and 90% of our comments are about how distracting beautiful he is and how it’s unrealistic that no one was trying to bone him. As far as people complimenting him the first thing that came to mind was at WSC Atlanta in 2014 when a fan said he was sexy as hell and he hid behind something that was in his hand 😂 The dude is just ridiculously modest across the board though, it’s not just with his looks, he’s always quick to highlight other people’s talent and say lovely things about them before himself and usually doesn’t much care to have praise lobbed at him. I laughed during that SiriusXM interview at SDCC when Dalton told Andy he knew Andy wouldn’t like to sit there and hear his praises being sung but too bad. Being self-deprecating is just part of his humor I think, constantly makes jabs about going gray but he’s not hiding it, and he’s still out here asking if he can be naked at almost 45 😂 so I think he’s pretty comfortable with himself. During the filming of Red Nose Day Actually last year he did say that some “prestigious director” told him bits of his face were weird but all together they sort worked which is rude as fuck but I have no idea when that was or who told him that. I would gladly fight that dude in the street but I don’t think it left some painfully lasting effect on him, he just seems to view himself as a normal dude who people shouldn’t make a fuss over. Personally I think that’s crap because he’s an incredibly wonderful and special person who deserves the praise that’s thrown at him but if my choices are having him strut around with a massive ego or having instances like yesterday where I roll my eyes and tell him to leave because he seems to think cutting his hair really short will make him look like Shrek I’ll take the latter. 😂 Hack away at your hair it’s not gonna do anything, honey, have you seen your face? And to just be trash for a second (lol) I have always loved that he’s effortlessly sexy as hell, he’s not even trying he just is.

[mystic-writings]

solo run | carl grimes

PAIRING — carl grimes x fem!reader

REQUEST — anon - hii i hope you are doing good! i was wondering if you could write some protective carl grimes stuff? like maybe you go on a run by yourself and don't tell him or something? thank you!!

SUMMARY — you go on a run by yourself to look for supplies to give to negan, and carl has a few things to say about it when you return

WARNINGS — walkers, mentions of death/turning, worried carl

WORD COUNT — 1,871

NOTE — hi nonnie!! thank you for the request, i hope you like it! carl does come off as more worried than protective tho- also this takes place somewhere around early/mid season 7

masterlist | navigation

No matter how much you loved Alexandria, it was refreshing to leave the gated community behind every once in a while and explore the real world; to remind yourself of what really was, rather than pretending everything was okay.

You didn’t get to leave the gated, fairy tale town often enough unless you were sneaking out with Carl to explore the woods. And now, you were given permission to take a car and go out looking for supplies. You were able to give back to your community – or, rather, Negan – and do your part. Carl wouldn’t have liked it at all, you going on a solo run, which is why you had made sure that Rick and Michonne kept it quiet.

That’s what led you to this morning. At sunrise, you slipped out of Carl’s arms, thankful that he was somewhat of a heavy sleeper, packed a bag of what little food and ammo you were allowed to take with you, and followed Rick to the gates, where a car was waiting for you.

“Are you sure you wanna do this?” Rick asked as you tossed your bag into the passenger seat.

“Yes, Rick, I’m sure.” You chuckled. “Look, I know you’re worried, but you wouldn’t have let me go if you didn’t think I could handle myself out there, right?”

The man nodded, a knowing smile on his face. “Yeah, you’re right.” He patted your arm, pulling a map from his back pocket and unfolding it. “Here’s where you’re gonna go. It’s a strip mall. I don’t know if the Saviors got to it already, but it’s worth a shot. If we’re lucky, you should be back just after sunset. I don’t know if it’ll work that far away, but radio in if you can’t make it back until tomorrow.”

“Alright,” you nodded, taking the map and radio from Rick. Before you stepped into the car, you said, “Just make sure Carl doesn’t try to come after me, alright? You know he’ll try to do something like that.”

Rick nodded, closing the car door behind you. As you pulled out of the community, Rick waved you goodbye. You smiled, your chest feeling lighter the further away from the gates you drove.

By the time you reached the strip mall, it was already mid-day. The entrances you could see from the parking lot were closed, dust and dirt covering the glass. You started with checking the cars, siphoning whatever gas you could from them.

Entering the mall was easier said than done. The main entrance was locked, and you could hear the faint groan of walkers roaming the inside. Sighing, you found a large rock sitting by one of the pillars and threw it, effectively shattering the glass door and drawing the walkers inside toward you.

The only thing that made it easy was that the walkers were starved and skinny, making them slower and easier to kill. Once you got inside, your spirits lifted, and you were sure you hadn’t been that elated since finding Alexandria. It was dark and damp, but with the help of a flashlight, you killed whatever stragglers were left and went to inspect the mall.

You found clothing stores, toy stores, and a massage therapy place. Wandering the halls, boots scraping slightly against the dirty linoleum floors, you prayed that you could find something of value in the mall, and that the trip wasn’t as much of a waste as it was turning out to be.

Then, just past the food court, you found it. A pharmacy. The gate on the door was locked shut, but it wasn’t anything you couldn’t break with your machete. The gate rattled as you slid it upward, echoing in the store.

You opened your bag, hopping over the counter and heading to the back. You cleaned the shelves, dumping everything into your bag. At this point, it didn’t matter what was what, if you had medicine to split with the Saviors, that was good enough. When your bag was full, you realized that half the shelves were still full. Luckily for you, however, there was a luggage store that you remembered seeing a couple stores away from the pharmacy.

Cleaning out the store, including over-the-counter stuff and prescription meds, took almost half an hour and three backpacks. You were beginning to think that you should’ve taken someone with you to help carry the load, but you liked that you were able to find so much to help Alexandria survive.

Once you had loaded everything into the trunk of the car, you decided to do one final sweep of the mall. And in the long run, you were glad you did. You found boxes upon boxes of canned foods in the back of a Dollar Mart, and despite how heavy they were and how much work it took to stuff the back of the car and whatever you could fit in the trunk, it was worth it.

On your way out of the mall, you found a rack of comics. It was as if luck was completely on your side today. Some of them were ones that Carl already owned, but there were lots there that he had yet to find. You knew by now that he would be freaking out that you were out on a run alone, so you grabbed as many new comics as you could to hopefully make him feel better.

So, with the highest spirits you’ve had in a long, long time, you exited the mall with a spring in your step, glad to have found so much to help your community, your family.

You radioed Rick when you were about twenty minutes away, just as the sun was slipping past the horizon. Even he couldn’t deny the pep in your voice, excitement that you couldn’t hide. He wondered exactly what you had found, but you only told him that it was a great run and that he and a few others should be prepared for when you got back to the town.

When the gates opened, Michonne, Rick, Daryl, and Carl were waiting for you. Even from 15 feet away, you could feel how upset Carl was that you had left, but you knew that it was worth it, knowing what you’d brought home.

Slowing to a stop, you exited the car to be met with shocked and elated faces from all but Carl. Smiling, you watched Rick approach you. As you handed him the radio, you told him, “I think something better than luck was on our side, don’t you?”

“Definitely.” He marveled at the boxes of canned foods piled high in the backseat before assisting Daryl in helping bring them to the canteen, along with the gun and ammo that you didn’t have the need to use.

Michonne followed you to the trunk, waiting for you to use the key to open it. When you did, she looked at the contents wearily. “What’s in the bags?”

Wordlessly, you grabbed the straps of one of the bags and pulled it out of the trunk, the rattle of pills giving the woman an answer. She blanched, looking at the three bags. “Are they all-“

“Meds? Yeah. The pharmacy I found had a pretty big stock, both prescription and not.” A disbelieving laugh bubbled from Michonne’s throat before she grabbed the bags, heading over to the infirmary to stock the shelves.

Someone else came to retrieve the two jerry cans of gas, which left you alone with Carl, who hadn’t moved from his place in the street. You had kept your eyes on him as you slammed the trunk shut, but for the first time, you were unable to read his expression. His features were blank, but his eye was swimming with something you couldn’t quite place.

You looked away, having to grab the bag you had brought with you from the passenger seat. Slinging the bag over your shoulder, you closed the door and made your way over to Carl, who only scoffed and walked away once you got close to him. With a resigned sigh, you followed him up the street, calling his name. You should’ve known that he would act this way.

“Carl, wait up! Come on, let’s talk about this.”

“Talk? You wanna talk?” Carl snapped, turning around to face you. His hat cast a shadow on his face in the growing moonlight, but he didn’t seem any less angry. “How about we talk about the fact that you went on a run by yourself and didn’t tell me. Or how you could’ve gotten hurt, and no one was there to help you, do you know what could’ve happened to you? You could’ve died! You could’ve died and I wouldn’t have been able to help you.”

Your heart clenched, hearing the pain in Carl’s voice. You knew he would be upset that you left alone, but you didn’t realize exactly how he felt. “Carl, I just wanted to help out around here. With everything going on, we need as many supplies as we can get-“

“Supplies don’t matter if you’re dead!” Carl cut you off, and you were suddenly glad that there was no one on the street to witness Carl’s outburst. “They don’t matter if you turn into- if you turn into one of them. And I don’t know what I’d do with myself if you did.”

You sighed, not knowing what to say. Instead, you stepped closer, pulling Carl into a tight embrace. His arms snaked around your shoulders, squeezing tightly as he released a heavy breath. The rim of his hat scraped against the side of your head as he tucked his head into the crook of your neck as best as he could, considering the height difference between the two of you.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, leaning your head on his.

He squeezed you a little tighter, his words muffled by the fabric of the flannel shirt you stole from him. “It’s okay. Just don’t leave alone again, okay? And if you do, I wanna know. I can’t lose you, too.”

Your heart broke, the fragility of Carl’s voice shattering it. When he finally pulled away, you took your bag from your shoulder, reaching in to find the stack of comics, all wrapped in plastic sleeves. Pulling them out, you handed them to Carl. His face brightened and he laughed, taking them in his hands. You ignored the clench in your heart when you noticed his eye was bloodshot, instead saying, “Wanna go read these in your room?”

“Yeah. Come on,” Carl handed the comics back to you and waited for you to tuck them safely back in your bag before extending his hand to you.

As you slipped your hand into his, the moonlight lighting the path home, you couldn’t help but feel happy and upset all at once. Despite having provided enough to cover what the Saviors usually stole and more, you didn’t think you’d hurt Carl as badly as you did. You were glad to have gone on that solo run, though. Because sometimes you needed the refresher. Next time, you would just have to convince Carl to come along with you.

Permanent taglist: @simonsbluee @outer-banks-bitches @just-here-to-escape-from-reality @mazerunnerrose @theboldandthebootyful @miraclesoflove @queen-asteria06

Carl Grimes taglist: @starjane312 @thanossexual @cadencebeat2662 @moatsnow @suranne-doesstuff

taglist form is in my navigation!

[the-hidden-writer]

And Into The Fire

Chapter 6: Robo-bonding

Summary: Months after the Mitchells saved the world, Linda gets a phone call asking if she’s seen two defective Pal MAX bots. Powerful people are after Eric and Deborabot 5000, and it’s up to the Mitchells to protect them.

Check reblogs for AO3 link!

Robo-bonding

Rick usually loved the sound of crickets at night. On camping trips, he’d make it his mission to get his family to sit outside and appreciate them for at least one night. Truly, the aura of peace and serenity they brought was unmatched.

But now, he’d give anything for them to shut up and stop adding to the awkward atmosphere.

It was their first stop after a full day’s worth of driving. The route to Silicon Valley would take at least two days and the Mitchells had decided to break the journey.

Usually they’d stop at a motel for the night, but ever since they’d technically been harboring fugitives that was no longer an option. Or at least that was the case for the moment, since Rick was happy to leave the bots in the car overnight as long as they were both awake and feeling responsible.

His wife and son were currently in the backseat together, curled up closely against one another as they slept. Monchi was snoring away on his back beside them. Rick had quickly pulled out his camera and snagged a quick photo of the heartwarming sight.

They’d put Eric (actually, Deborahbot had since he was much too heavy for any of them to lift) into the trunk. Deborahbot himself had sat in silence next to his robot friend for most of that first stretch of the journey. He’d only spoken when Linda had asked him directly if he was alright, and once again when the family were saying goodnight to each other.

But when it was clear that Deborahbot wasn’t going to sleep (or go into rest-mode or whatever those robots did) when everyone else was, Rick had listened to his inner Linda and asked him to join him in the front.

Even without his wife’s guidance, Rick knew deep down that it wasn’t healthy to not take a break from watching his brother like a hawk.

So that’s where they were. Rick sitting in the driver’s seat, Deborah sitting in the passenger’s seat, and between them only the crickets had something to say.

“So, uh,” Rick eventually began in a low voice, knowing that the android wouldn’t start a conversation himself, “this is all kinda sudden.”

Deborahbot didn’t reply.

“...Right.” Rick was at a genuine loss for words. He’d obviously talked to the bots before, but never really talked to them. They came as a pair and were always sort of doing their own thing. You could guide them and give them instructions and stuff, sure, but they only really got into deep conversations with each other or maybe sometimes Linda. And even then, it was Eric that tended to do most of the talking.

“It must be hard, huh?”

Deborahbot did not lower his voice when he replied. “What do you mean?”

“SHHH!” Rick pointed at his sleeping family.

Deborahbot 5000 hung his head slightly. “Apologies, Mother’s Husband.”

“No no, you’re good.” Rick wished he’d stop calling him that, though he couldn’t think of an alternative.

“But I mean, um…” he continued. “You bots never leave each other’s side. It must be tough with him gone.”

“But he is not gone.” Deborah said. “He is in the trunk.”

Rick sighed. “That’s not what I…”

The problem with robots is that they weren’t great with picking up on subtext. But to be fair, neither were the Mitchell family.

“Still, you’re worried, right? About him? Heck, even I’m worried and I barely know you guys. I can’t imagine how you must be feeling. If you do... feel.”

There was a short pause. Rick had never realised that robots needed thinking time. Or maybe it was just a defective robot thing.

“I am worried about us, yes.”

Us..?

“Aw shoot I totally forgot they’re after you too!” Rick exclaimed quietly. “Have you had any more attacks since, or..?”

Deborahbot turned his head to face forward before answering. As far as Rick could tell, he didn’t have any cameras on the side of his head so the gesture must have just been for dramatic effect. “Not since this morning. Now that my brother is turned off, they can access him without resistance.”

Deborah said it so casually that Rick almost missed the implication of the words.

“Wait, wait wait wait, hold on,” he said as he shuffled to face Deborahbot better, “what does that mean? You mean they can still get to him when he’s like this? They’re, what, doing stuff to him as we speak?”

“Yes.” Deborahbot answered bluntly.

This was bad. All this time, Rick had assumed that the reason Eric was switched off was to stop Pal Labs from hacking him (or whatever the technical term was). But if that just made it easier for them…

“So then why are we even doing this?” He asked, his voice raising a little. “If he’s just gonna get mind-controlled anyway, why are we taking you guys right to them?!”

Deborahbot’s head turned to face him again. “We are going to ask them to stop.” He said it firmly but there was an edge of doubt creeping into his voice.

“But that was to stop them before they took over Eric, wasn’t it? What if they can’t change back what they’ve already done or something? It might already be too late- I don’t know how this works!”

“Wh-What if…” Deborahbot’s voice was barely audible.

“Yeah, man, what if?!” Rick whispered angrily. “You should’ve thought about this beforehand! We should’ve thought about it before we went along with this spontaneous plan!”

“What if…”

It was then that Rick realised what he’d said and who he’d said it to.

“Oh, Deborah, I-”

“What if they delete his memory?” Deborahbot started to speak faster. “What if they reset him? What if they fix him? What if they break him completely? What if-”

“Deborah…”

This was a mistake. Rick shouldn’t have brought it up, or at least not in front of the poor android. The two were like twins, practically joined at the hip, and were so childish at times that catastrophizing in front of one of them regarding the other was probably the worst thing he could've done. Even though his own concerns about Eric were very real and genuine, Deborahbot didn’t need to hear them.

It had taken 18 years to start getting things right with Katie. He wanted to have another chance to get it right with the bots.

“Listen, that’s not what’s happening.” Rick said, putting a lot of effort into sounding as convincing as possible. “They probably just want you guys back. But once we get there and show ‘em you’re harmless, they’ll let you go! Don’t listen to what I said, you know how I get angry for no reason, haha.”

Deborahbot seemed to think it over. Sometimes, Rick wished that they had proper faces so that he could gauge their expressions properly. It would make his life a lot easier.

At some point during that conversation, the crickets had stopped chirping. He hadn’t even noticed.

“...Do you really think so, Mother’s Husband?”

Rick smiled reassuringly. “‘Course I do, Deb.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Rick sincerely hoped that he’d mended the pit of fear he’d opened within Deborahbot. It was funny, the rift that had once been between him and Katie was caused by technology. Now he was trying to fix a rift with a piece of technology itself.

Deborahbot seemed content to just sit in silence like that for the rest of the night, but Rick wanted to get some sleep.

He nodded toward the trunk. “Hey, you might wanna get some rest. Don’t stay up all night thinking about this.”

“But-”

“Ah ah, no buts.” Rick waggled his finger. “That’s an order.”

“Ok!”

Dangit, for a moment there it had felt so much like he was talking to another human being that he’d completely forgotten to mind his language. He didn’t want it to seem like he was forcing him.

Deborahbot had already opened the door to move back into the trunk with Eric. "Goodnight, Mother's Husband."

“Deborah! Before you go-” Deborah stopped mid-motion to listen to him- “maybe cut it out with the whole ‘Mother’s Husband’ thing.”

Rick couldn’t believe he was about to do this. It was a step that Linda wanted him to take but he’d never quite felt ready for. But the bots needed family now more than ever, and who else was going to give it to them?

“Just call me ‘Dad’.”

Deborahbot cocked his head for a second (long enough for Rick to consider backtracking) before he exited the car and stood up straight.

“Goodnight, Dad.”

Comments make my day! :)

[mst3kproject]

Invasion of the Star Creatures

I promised you guys something truly awful this week, didn’t I?  Well, how about a space invasion ‘comedy’ (big emphasis on the air quotes there) produced by Samuel Zarkoff to be a double-bill with The Brain that Wouldn’t Die?  The closest thing it has to a star is Frankie Ray, whom MSTies might know as the writer of Laserblast.  He also wrote Zoltan, Hound of Dracula, which I really, really need to see one of these days.  Film Historian Bill Warren described Invasion of the Star Creatures as ‘so helplessly bad it’s almost unwatchable’.  Let’s find out if he was right.

Fort Nicholson is the world’s center for atomic research, despite apparently being staffed entirely by idiots.  The two biggest idiots are, unfortunately, our main characters.  Their names are Philbrick and Penn.  No, I don’t know which is which.  No, I don’t care.  I’m gonna call them Rick and Rick With The Squeaky Voice.  The first ‘comedic’ sequence involves Rick With The Squeaky Voice sitting in a barrel pretending he’s going to space, and getting his ass set on fire.

That sets the tone for the whole movie quite nicely. It’s stupid and it’s not funny, and it never gets any better.  In fact, as we shall see, it gets significantly worse.

For some reason, Rick and Rick With The Squeaky Voice are assigned to a mission to explore a cave recently exposed by a nuclear test.  This turns out to be the base for two seven-foot space women, Tanga and Pona, and their tuberous minions, the Vege-Men, and the entire party is soon in their clutches.  The aliens say that they have come to save humanity from destroying ourselves through nuclear war, but naturally the army isn’t into that.  Rick With The Squeaky Voice discovers that kissing the women puts them into a daze, allowing the two idiots to escape, but of course nobody back at Fort Nicholson believes their story.  Is it really up to these two to stop Tanga and Pona from heading back to their home planet with their report?  We’re doomed.

I don’t remember which review it was, but I once invited you to imagine a movie in which every character is Dropo or Watney Smith.  This is that movie.  This is proud of being that movie.  The aliens try to read the two Ricks’ minds and one is completely empty while the other is full of superhero fantasies.  Pona calls what she sees ‘completely illogical and infantile’, which is a fair description of the whole movie.

There’s a sequence where one of the army men shoots a rattlesnake that was about to bite one of the Ricks, and then cries because ‘he might have had a family’.  They try to lampoon the thing in old movies where the characters walk through the same set from different angles by doing it without cutting away or changing the camera angle, but it just looks dumb.  The Colonel gives a long-winded speech about the merits of getting straight to the point.  A forced march stops for a lovely picnic and wine tasting.  A guy gets his ass kicked by a Vege-Man and declares, “that’s the first time a salad ever tossed me.”  There’s a running ‘gag’ about fans of ‘Space Commander Connors’ recognizing each other’s secret decoder rings and immediately going into a full-on geek-out.

None of this is funny, much of it is downright embarrassing, and the worst part is that the writers have no idea how to include their attempts at comedy in the story.  Rather than the hijinks advancing the plot, every time something that’s supposed to be funny happens, the whole thing comes to a dead halt.  This gives the impression that the movie is stumbling around in the dark with no idea where it’s going.  It finally seems to settle on a plot when we find out that the spaceship is about to leave and must be stopped.  After some bullshit the Ricks convince the Colonel (and only the Colonel) to help them take on the aliens.  At this point I was thinking that this movie was pretty terrible but it hadn’t actually pushed me to the point of being tempted to turn it off…

And then it got racist.

The last ten minutes or so of Invasion of the Star Creatures are a downward spiral in which it seems like they gave up trying to be funny in favour of being actively offensive. First, they encounter what’s supposed to be a group of Native Americans on horseback.  Rick With The Squeaky Voice tries to get their attention by saying “hey, Kemosabe, I wanna buy some blankets!”  The Natives don’t speak much English but they do a lot of grunting, and threaten to kill the Colonel because they think he’s General Custer (?!).  Then they kidnap everybody and force them to smoke the peace pipe and drink firewater and the white guys only escape once the Natives have passed out.

Holy shit.  Not only is this repulsive, it is, as previously noted, irrelevant.  It has no effect on the plot other than to waste time.  The Natives do not help them defeat the aliens and neither does the Colonel, who is also in a drunken stupor.  And then, just when we think this can’t possibly get any worse, the defeated alien women declare that they must throw themselves on the mercy of the Earth Men.  This turns out to mean marrying them, and the dialogue specifically likens marriage to slavery, which Tanga and Pona seem to consider a point in its favour!  The end of this movie left my head spinning.  It’s like I watched a guy get ‘comedically’ knocked over by a punching bag for forty-five minutes and then he suddenly turned around and punched me in the face.

(Hey, I just realized… remember how I said the cave was exposed by a nuclear test?  The dialogue emphasizes how this whole area is irradiated and dangerous – and then totally forgets about it.  It’s never mentioned again and the characters take off their protective gear and never put it back on.  So… that was useless, too.)

There is stuff in this movie that could have been funny.  The secret decoder ring stuff almost got a smile out of me once or twice, because the characters seemed so earnest in their love for ‘Space Commander Connors’ and his lore.  The ‘Vege-Men’ also had potential.  We get to see a greenhouse room where they’re grown to be the women’s slaves, and the seedlings are hands or feet sticking out of flowerpots with a few leaves around them.  This is fairly amusing and I could see it being the juvenile form of a sentient plant on Star Trek TOS.  Adult Vege-Men are actors in stupid carrot costumes that they obviously can’t see out of very well, which should have been funny just because it’s so terrible, but Invasion of the Star Creatures is so bad you can’t even laugh at it ironically.

The idea of using a bumbling idiot as your main character, let alone two bumbling idiots, frankly baffles me.  Rick and Rick With The Squeaky Voice are supposed to be the guys we, the audience, identify with.  We’re supposed to like and root for them and to perhaps be able to imagine ourselves in their places, but the only thing I feel for them is contempt.  Why would anyone want to see themselves in these guys?  Perhaps it’s an attempt to say that anybody can be a hero, but the two Ricks don’t even qualify as that.  When they save the world, it’s basically by accident.  The ending, which rewards them with promotions, medals, and beautiful wives from outer space, actively makes me angry because they didn’t earn any of that!

Invasion of the Star Creatures works very hard at being pointless, and there’s very little in it that comes anywhere near a theme.  If any such thing exists, its in Tanga and Pona’s insistence that they’re here to save humanity whether we like it or not, and how the humans react to that idea.  The women say it would be a shame to see a young civilization destroy itself because nations were too stupid to work together.  Rick and Rick With The Squeaky Voice reject this entirely, which is supposed to be a joke: these guys are in the army, so if humanity transcends the need for conflict they’d be out of a job.  The rest of the plot then seems at pain to emphasize that humans cannot work together, and do not want to.

After all, the two Ricks’ attempts to summon help come to nothing.  The Native Americans never understand that these men want assistance, and the Colonel thinks it’s all a Space Commander Connors game before sliding under the metaphorical table, having never done anything useful.  The Ricks themselves spent most of their time arguing and complaining and in the end succeed only through good luck on their part and poor timing on that of the invaders.  Usually a story that begins with ‘aliens want to save primitive humans from ourselves’ would end with ‘the aliens were wrong about us’.  Invasion of the Star Creatures seems to want to say the aliens were right the whole time!

So there you have it – Invasion of the Star Creatures.  It started off kinda bad and not funny, then swirled down the cinematic toilet into outright offensive, racist, sexist drivel.  I’m trying to think of some small thing I can say about it that’s nice, but I’m having a very hard time.  I guess I kinda liked the rumbly noises that represent the alien language – that was more fun than just having the actresses spout random gobbledygook.  Other than that, I’m at a loss.  The actors suck, the sets suck, the effects suck, the costumes suck, and everybody involved was a bigoted dickweed.  Fuck this movie.

[nimmy22]

A Mistake: Chapter 7

A man and a woman, each strapped to a surgical table and naked, screaming for help. Their cries shifted from, "God, please help. Please!" to, "It's your fault, you bitch! You wanted to come to this god-forsaken town. You did this! Why am I here? I didn't want to come here. I did nothing wrong, I swear. It was all her. She kept wanting more money. She kept stealing from everyone, even our daughter."

With a bracelet authorization approval, a door slid open with a beep, revealing two staff members in yellow biohazard suits fitted with oxygen tanks and masks. One wheeled in a metal cart covered by a sterile blue drape. The cart was positioned and locked in place near the medical tables, the blue drape lifted.

The man and woman looked at the sheer size of the needles and the vails of bright purple liquid laid out neatly across the cart. Any day, they would've stolen, cheated, and lied to have the sweet relief of a drug but not like this. The irony was unwelcome.

Their wide eyes stared unblinking, their pleading lips forming incoherent words. The nightmare refused to let them go, no matter how hard they bit their tongues, tasting metal. Reality sunk in harder than the restraints digging into their raw bruised flesh. Soon the woman became delirious before fainting while the man sported a growing wetness between his legs, dripping onto the floor of the unadorned white room. The only colors in the room were the yellow of the suits, the dark brown urine, and the Umbrella logo in the center of the floor.

One of the staff members turned to the camera in the corner of the room before speaking, "Experiment number 9932-Code X, subjects are a 43-year-old female and a 51-year-old male. Treatment with Serum X41 injected intramuscularly at the deltoid site. "

The contents of the syringes were injected into the upper arm of the two test subjects. They didn't so much as blink an eye as the male begged for his life and questioning their humanity.

"Mama... please, I'll be a good boy. Please let me out. Mama..." the 51-year-old man wailed, digging his nails into the leather restraints. They retreated as fast they entered, sealing the door behind them.

"Experiment in progress, do not enter experimentation chamber number 451 due to a biohazard element in containment." The voice of a female AI sounded through the speakers, a warning to all employees on the level.

William's eyes glowed as he watched through the reinforced glass, his thumb repeatedly pressing the ballpoint pen in his hand. He leaned forward, licking his lips as the serum began taking effect. The subjects began convulsing against the restraints, their limbs spasming as their entire genome was remodeled.

With a scream, the bones of the female cracked. Her teeth tumbled out of her bleeding gums, muscles and tendons ruptured. She burst out of the restraints and threw herself against walls, pounding with bloody fists as she screeched. The serum made work of replacing her organs and connective tissue, reforming her into something stronger, faster, and more deadly—an elegant hunter of pure carnage.

William hardly paid attention to the male whose body exploded, spraying the entire room with innards. Nothing remained to identify him as having once been human. Smelling the fresh blood, the female lapped the bloodied walls with an impressively long tongue slithering out of a mouth layered with sharpened teeth. With skinless appendages, she explored the room, climbing the walls and walking on the ceiling. It wasn't long before instinct led her to devour what remained of her husband.

"Excellent! We are making progress. This is the first subject to survive injection with Serum X41 without becoming a pile of liquefied tissue. Increasing the concertation of the base chemical allowed the body to become more receptive to the serum. I can't wait to Annette and Albert know. I'm thinking of calling this project black widow." He babbled to himself, feeling like he deserves a pat on the back. All those nights spent bent over his desk were finally paying off.

Sparing one last glance at the remains of the male, William frowned. "Looks like your mama didn't quite hear you but thank you for offering yourself to science. Your contribution is greatly appreciated." William said as he began recording the experiment's findings into a clipboard adorned with the Umbrella logo. William loved making progress in his research. It flooded his brain with dopamine better than a night of good sex or winning the lottery.

------------------------- It had been three days since the last time she had seen Wesker, but she heard his voice plenty enough, calling her for hourly updates while she was alone with Sherry in his house. He didn't personally pick her up after school. Instead, He sent a very kind elderly driver under the assumption that he was employed by her' parents' to drop her off 'home.' Both were so extremely far from reality. Thankfully, the man seemed busy playing cops and robbers. She was left alone with Sherry, and while she was in a more relaxed mood, she didn't dare go exploring the property belonging to the devil. The less she knew about him and his dealings, the looser the noose around her neck.

Her actual parents were nowhere to be found. Still, she wasn't worried. Aside from the whole situation with Wesker, these were the most peaceful days she'd seen in a long time, in fact… ever. The bruises could finally heal without the addition of new ones. Her parents most likely realized the extent of their financial situation and made a break for it. The loan sharks were not going to wait forever and will soon take more forceful actions. As much as it hurt Cara, she believed they left her behind to distract the collectors. They had done something similar years back in a town not too different from Raccoon, but at least they took her with them. It worked once, and they likely believed it will again. She decided to worry about that later, placing her problems on hold. A break was much needed.

Putting on her nicer pair of sneakers and her least washed-out pair of jeans, Cara regarded herself in the mirror and opted to leave her hair down. Wondering whether she should take the cellphone, Cara spent ten minutes arguing with herself. With a heavy sigh, she stuffed it into her back pocket, hoping to 'accidentally' smash the damn thing while sitting down extra hard. What would Wesker say? You have a big butt? Don't sit down?

Today Cara was hanging out with Rick, a mutual friend. They never hung outside school before, especially on their own, and she was a little nervous about things getting awkward. Due to Cara's 'full-time job' after school, they decided to skip a few classes and go out for a hike in the Arkley mountains. This would be her most needed change of scenery, and she may walk away with a good friend.

For Cara, the past few days have been a routine, wake up, go to school, go to Wesker's home to watch Sherry, and then come home to sleep only to do it all over again the next day. Things have been calm, and so Claire's suspicion turned off its headlights, but she often complained they couldn't hang out as much.

Cara tried inviting Claire to head out with them, but she turned the offer down, smiling from ear to ear. She hinted to Cara that Rick might have caught some feelings for her and that the courage to make a move required they be alone under the right circumstances. Guys and girls alike often confessed in the Arkley mountains. It became an omen of good luck for couples to stay together longer. Of course, that was total bullshit as many of those same couples break up soon after. However, it's nice to have hope in a relationship, something Cara never experienced. She decided that if Rick did indeed liked her that she would at least give things a try.

She was shy about Rick picking her up from the bad side of town and instead promised to meet him by the start of the Arkley trails. By the time she arrived, he was already there, standing by a pickup truck in the trail parking lot. Cara smiled, catching him in the midst of fixing his brown hair and testing the smell of his breath in a cupped hand. Why hadn't she ever noticed him? He seemed like such a pleasant guy.

When he finally noticed her standing behind him in the reflection, he spun around, almost stumbling over his feet. "T-there was something stuck in my hair, I swear," He stuttered, scratching his neck while his ears roasted tomato red.

"Whatever you say, pretty boy," Cara laughed, feeling her heart grow lighter with every minute. She had a good feeling today will be very meaningful.

The two walked along a path marked with bright orange ribbons tied to the trees. They passed dozens of signs warning hikers against straying off the path, many of which were covered with graffiti. All around them, birds chirped, and strangely, a few crows cawed as they hovered over the trees.

Walking around a growth of poison Ivy, they talked about random silly things and the distant future. Cara was glad to find herself closer to another person. Real genuine friends were a shortage in her life. She always had to be to one extending a hand, reaching out first. It was nice for a change that someone else extended their hand.

"You know, Cara, despite all the things I kept hearing about you from everyone, I knew they were wrong. They judged you without knowing shit about you."

"What…kind of stuff. And who is talking about me?" Cara's voice held a hard edge, her feet taking a pause. With furrowed brows, her eyes followed Rick as he walked ahead before noticing she stopped. This was the first time Cara heard of any rumors concerning her. She never made any enemies, keeping herself relatively unnoticed at school. Cara felt betrayed, wondering if Claire heard the rumors too, and if so, why hasn't she said anything? Why does she have to hear it from Rick?

"Oh, don't worry about it. It's nothing important. What matters is that I'm on your side." He spoke quickly, scratching the back of his neck.

"Rick, what are they saying about me," Cara walked closer to him, her eyes piercing through him.

"You'll be upset," His eyes kept avoiding Cara, settling on a hole in his shoe.

"I can take it. I just want to know what was said. Please Rick."

"Ah shit…um… they've said that someone saw you walking on Chandler street where all the…dealers and escorts hang. They said you offered to give blow jobs for five bucks to some older men behind a dumpster. That the bruising on your arm because you inject heroin, that your parents pimp you out to-"

Cara expelled a breath, her eyes misting rapidly. "No! that not true. I didn't do that. Why would anyone say something like that? I'm a fucking babysitter, ok? I'm not this, I'm not…my mom." She turned on her heel, wanting to get out of there. "I'm not like her." She repeated, clenching her fists. They didn't have the right to spin stories about her, turning her into a lunchtime gossip storyline. It wasn't fair. She was wrong. She couldn't handle it. She was always pathetic, always crying.

Rick caught up to Cara, grabbing her shoulder to spin her around to face him. "I'm so sorry Cara, I knew it was going to upset you, and I still told you about it. God, I'm so stupid." He said, wrapping his arms around Cara. She was caught by surprise and tried to push him away. Eventually, she found herself leaning against him, letting out a sigh as he stroked her hair.

"It's ok Rick, I'm glad you told me. They're just stupid rumors. I don't know why I'm over- " He kissed her open mouth midsentence, softly at first but quickly added more pressure. His hands fisted into her shirt, forcing her closer. She felt the bile rise quickly.

Cara's eyes were wide open as she tried pulling back, but he held her tightly. She tried forcefully turning her head, but his hand reached up to hold her chin in a painful vice grip, his tongue demanding entrance against her lips. She whimpered, clenching her teeth shut. Her lack of participation agitated him, and he grabbed her arm with a bruising tightness. Cara cried out in pain, and he took the opportunity to force his tongue into her mouth.

Cara wanted to shout for help, her eyes darting around the forest, encircling them. Still, they were completely alone, save for a couple of crows weeping among the trees. They seemed closer than before, sensing a meal in the making.

Allowing his tongue full entrance, Cara bit down as hard as she could on it, gagging against the metallic taste. Rick shoved her away, groaning in pain as blood spilled from the corner of his mouth.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Cara spat the blood in her mouth before shouting. Her eyes burned into him as she backed away.

"I believed in you despite everyone else. I told you I was on your side, and you hurt me. Do you know how many times I defended you? How many times I got picked on for simply standing beside you? You led me to think that you felt something, and then you hurt me." He growled, nursing his tongue in his hand.

Cara let out a pained breath, closing her eyes before turning her head away. She replayed what happened in her mind, wondering where things went wrong. She said she will give him a chance but, this was wrong, so very wrong.

"Rick, stop this. I appreciate what you did for me, but you made me uncomfortable. I did not enjoy that, I did not consent to that, but you touched me anyway."

"How much would it take you to fucking notice me? I've tried being Mr. Fucking nice for two years, Two fucking years. But you never look at me differently." Rick snarled, clenching his fists. He unleashed his rage against the nearest tree punching it repeatedly. He did not stop the assault even as his knuckles split, and the blood flowed freely, staining the bark.

"Rick, please stop before you do something you'll regret," Cara whispered softly, reaching for his bloody hand.

"I will make you want me!"

Cara barely had a second to process things before a rock made a disorienting contact with her head. She saw an assortment of colors and shapes on her way to the muddy earth.

Rolling on her stomach, she tried to push herself up, but everything was spinning, or maybe she was spinning. She rested her cheek against the mud, willing the world to stop shifting. Blood trickled down her face, and she had to blink it out of her eyes, unable to wipe it away. Her limbs felt as if weights were tied to them, giving gravity a greater pull.

Cara fought to stay awake, drifting in and out of the dark, faintly aware of being dragged by her foot through rough earth. It scratched her exposed skin, forcing the back of her shirt to ride up.

[phantaloon-books]

I finally read The Tyrant's Tomb and boi I loved this one so much, so here's some my opinion on it (they're not in chronological order)

warning, this is long af and sorry for cursing a bit, I can't help it

Apollo's character arc is lowkey one of the best Rick has written, I'm sorry if you don't agree, but he's gone from wanting others to solve his problems and relying on the halfbloods to intentionally avoiding others doing things for him, volunteering for the quests and saying it should be him that faces the terrible stuff so that demigods and other creatures don't suffer

something really interesting is how his perception of himself has changed, and it's almost worrying how genuinely self depreciating his inner dialogue is, because he no longer sees himself as mighty Apollo, he sees himself as worthless and useless Lester, and his narration is highkey depressing

Also, Apollo disliking and being somewhat disgusted of the god he used to be, realizing the horrible things he had done and how horrible he was and that he looked worse as the former Apollo than as Lester, regretting things he'd done, that's top tier development

(I'm sorry but I love the entire scene with the ravens, the part where he just screams "I'm sorry" it feels as if he isn't just apologizing to the ravens, but to everyone who's been affected by what he's done as a selfish god)

Reyna so openly turning down and laughing at Apollo for suggesting they be together is my favorite thing ever lmao I couldn't stop laughing, like she knew what gods can do if you turn them down (even if it was just mortal Lester) and she didn't give a damn, it was so fucking funny

people say Rick only includes diversity for the sake of including it and to gain popularity, but I still enjoy the fact that he does, because as a teacher he must have had all kinds of students of all religions, colors and sexualities, he includes diversity because he's seen diversity. anyway my point is I love that we have Lavinia, a Jewish lesbian from a Russian family, and she's not ashamed of being any of them

I'm sorry I just love Apollo so much, I've grown to respect him so much, and even if Hermes once said them gods often forget their oaths and promises, I have a feeling Apollo won't ever forget Jason's request that he never forgets what's it like to be mortal

Frank still admiring Apollo despite everything, and despite the fact that he looks like a messed up teen makes me go all uwu

Frank being portrayed as this clumsy and awkward kid but also this powerful and brave leader is my favorite thing ever because I think Frank is underrated and I dare to say that he's one of the strongest demigods we've ever met, even stronger than some of the nig three children

the whole thing about the undead army is honestly so creepy, especially when we see it from Apollo's perspective cause se him slowly succumb to the venom's effect, and that part in Tarquin's tomb where he "calls Lester to be part of his undead" was genuinely disturbing, at least to me

some books in the past have touched the part of the nature spirits not being given enough attention, but I really enjoyed how Apollo comes to realize that he only worries about demigods and gods when all lives are worth the same - mortals, halfbloods, nature spirits, gods, and even monsters

again, I love Apollo's arc, it's just AHH he's becoming so caring of life it just makes me happy

Reyna choosing herself to make herself happy is everything, and inspiring to every single woman who is told by others that they need someone to be happy, I just love it, because self love is the most important love of all

I haven't said anything about it, but man I love Meg and Apollo's friendship, they just care so much for each other, Meg who's so scared of losing her loved ones and Apollo who's so scared of not being able to be loved or to love, but they still love each other, and I'm glad it's not romantic, because yes fraternal love is also what people need, and their friendship is what they need

aurum and argentum being cute doggos rather than the steely (no pun intended) and cold dogs we met in HoO warms my heart. I don't understand why they're so cute and adorable, or maybe that's just how Apollo sees them, but they seem to act like actual dogs in this book

the fact that Reyna never confirmed nor denied being attracted to Thalia just makes me all hyped up, like we love Theyna

Apollo just gives off Eddie Brock vibes throughout the entire book and that's hilarious asf. ever since the start he's said to look like shit, feel like shit and be injured with deathly poison that will turn him to a zombie. if that isn't Venom vibes I don't know what is

I've said it once and I'll say it again, Frank Zhang is one of the strongest demigods Rick has ever introduced in a series, and him facing two immoral and godly in power emperors, burning one to death with his own life fire and injuring the other enough for Apollo to do the final kill is top tier

"If I'm going to burn, I might as well burn bright. This is for Jason." bitch actual goosebumps

We've seen countless deaths before, but something about Frank killing Caligula and Apollo killing Commodus seems so... mature I guess is the word, or well for a more mature audience. I can't describe how or why, but it feels more real, more like actual human death

I can't deal with how human Apollo seems in this book gosh I really am sorry I keep bringing this up, but I feel such warmth

the story of how Frank overcame his curse is actual BS and as much as I love Frank, it makes no sense that they spent all that time thinking of ways to keep the wood secure only for this. idk I mean id that were the case wouldn't the curse had vanished when he broke Thanatos free? he was willing to die then just like against Caligula, so why now but not then?

Don reincarnating into a laurel is peak bittersweet feeling and it actually hurt because in a camp where fauns were seen as dumb and useless, he helped Lavinia organize everything and destroy the canon things on the yachts

I'm still not over Jason's death, he really did deserve better. It makes sense, plotwise, because out of all of the huge characters from the past, Jason, Percy and Annabeth's deaths would impact others the harder, and push them to do better. And I understand that you gotta show, not even the main characters survive sometimes. Still, I'm hurt.

Thalia talking to Apollo during the funeral for the fallen campers made me actually weep. I'm not sure if it was because of Jason, or when Thalia talked about how much Artemis loves Apollo, or when Apollo "accepted" halfblood children of Zeus as his family

Also, you know who deserved better? Harpocrates, damn right he deserved better. I nearly cried when I read his death, cause he embraced it like one would an old friend in happiness. He and the Sybil deserved better. Dakota also deserved better

On the other hand, I tried so hard not to laugh at 2 am as I read Tarquin demand answers from a cat? he genuinely thought a cat would tell him where the Sybilline Books where and I couldn't handle that

This book is cruel but in a much more human way? The maiming of the pegasi wings? that's horrifying, but in such a human way, unlike what we've seen in any of the greek/roman gods series, and it's unsettling

Meg is braver than any of the other demigods were at that age (maybe excepting Nico), cause she's not embarking on a quest to retrieve an item or rescue someone or bring back their sister from the dead, she's facing her own abusive father while aiding a somewhat weak mortal in releasing the oracles and gaining godhood back. what's she getting from it all? absolutely nothing, she's gifted some seeds and she hangs out with unicorns more than other people and she's lost everything, but she's willing to lose more to help her friend. she's heroic like no one else is, because she's the first who doesn’t want anything more than being with her friend (Percy wanted whoever was taken back, Annabeth wanted to be able to be more, Nico wanted to bring back Bianca, even Bianca wanted freedom). the only other person who didn't have somewhat selfish (but kot wrong) interests while doing something heroic at a young age has been Hazel. What I mean is I love Meg and everything she does

Thalia being that chill over Jason's death bothers me so much, as if she wasn't the happiest when she found out the brother she lost 14 years ago was alive after all, and she had a part of her family back, and it was ripped from her, and Thalia is just not one to easily forget or move on from things, it's just unrealistic that she would only need a little furious session of throwing things to be okay with Jason's death as if her brother was not just taken from her all over again. it's impulsive Thalia we're talking about, who fought Percy when dealing with Annabeth going missing, it's just not her to be over his death that quickly. Sorry for Rick but I think differently

I also kinda don't like that Tyson went from being freaking General of the Cyclops, to the guy that has the Sybilline prophecies or whatever, it's important and all, but he would have been of great help during the battle and they had him waiting for help in the shrine hill like his potential went down the drain

but a thing I really loved was how different Camp Jupiter seems from Lester eyes compared from Percy's or Hazel's or Frank's perspective, it's hilarious. The other three see this place where everyone is serious and shit but Apollo just sees beyond the seriousness and it's actually refreshing, cause he's the first not to make CHB seem immature in comparison and like I said before I hated that in previous books

also Reyna laughing watered my plants, cured my depression, and made the world okay again, I just love her

all in all, this is my favorite book of ToA so far, and I'm really excited to see what's to come, and how Apollo and Meg will face Nero and Python, but more  than anything I'm looking forward to what will happen to Apollo, and whether if given the choice, he'd go back to being a selfish god or remain mortal for a while, with his newfound friends

Also I really miss Annabeth so can I please see Annabeth, I just want to see her cause she won't deal with Apollo's shit and I can't wait to see that, I miss my girl

[ddixons-angel]

Fated: Season 2

Summary: Gloria Rhee narrowly escapes Atlanta with her brother as the outbreak reaches the city. Luckily, they find a camp outside the city and together, they fend through encounters with the living and undead.

Starts a little before Season 1 and then follows the main storyline of the show.

Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Glenn Sister!OC

Warnings: major TWD spoilers, language, violence (the typical TWD stuff)

A/N: We’re already on chapter 3 of season 2? Wow time is flying! Please stay safe and healthy everyone!!!

Chapter 3: 

Gloria glances around the room, rubbing the sleep from her eyes with her hand as she had just woken up. She sits up and looks at the clock hanging on the wall telling her that it was already noon. She figured it must have been the large feast Lori and Carol had cooked for everyone that helped her sleep so well; that and the fact that she had a comfy bed to sleep in. 

“I should get up.” she says as she looks over to the crutches leaning on the wall next to the bed, but just before she reaches out to grab them, there’s a knock on the door.

“You’re awake.” Carol smiles at her as she walks in with a tray of orange juice, and a plate of eggs, ham, and toast. 

Gloria blushes and nods, “That I am.” 

“I brought you some breakfast... or would you consider this lunch?” Carol teases as she places the tray down on the chair right by the bed. 

“I just woke up, so that,” Gloria gestures to the tray, “is still breakfast for me.” 

Carol chuckles at this, “so, how are you feeling?”

“Well, I’m pretty well rested, so that’s a plus. Don’t think I can walk on my own two feet yet though, haven’t tried.” Gloria tugs at the sheets, revealing her ankle that’s still swollen and bruised, “yeah, doesn’t look like it.”

“Take it easy on yourself.” Carol tells her, patting her shoulder. 

Gloria looks up at her and smiles, “I will, don’t worry. And once I can walk properly, the first thing I’ll do is go out to find Sophia.” 

A soft but sad smile spreads on Carol’s lips, “thank you.” 

Gloria puts her hand on Carol’s and gives it a gentle, comforting squeeze. Carol nods to the food, telling Gloria to eat before leaving the room. Gloria sighs as she takes the tray from the chair and puts it in her lap, then starts digging in. A moment later, another knock is heard on the door and Gloria looks up to see Daryl walking in. 

“Hey, how ya feelin’?” he asks.

She swallows a bite before answering, “well, pretty popular to be honest, getting a lot of visits within the hour.” 

Daryl rolls his eyes and scoffs at her answer, “what about that?” he asks, gesturing to her ankle. 

Gloria glances at it then back at Daryl, “from the looks of it, not good. Haven’t tried walking on it yet, don’t think I’m about to try, either.” 

“Sprained?” his eyes never leaving her ankle. 

She nods, “yeah...”

Without saying anything else, Daryl sits down on the chair and gently takes her ankle, slowly moving it into his lap. He starts to gently massaging it, his touch light but still effective. Gloria blushes and smiles at the gesture, remembering that she had helped him the same way when he had a light sprain on his wrist. 

“How’s this?” he asks, his eyes avoiding hers.

“Feels nice.” Gloria says, taking a piece of bread from her plate and nibbling on it, “and how are you feeling?” she asks in regards to his own injuries, as he grunts in response Gloria rolls her eyes and mocks his grunt, making him look at her. 

“Ain’ dead yet, ain’ gon’ be bedridden neither.” he finally says. 

A pang of guilt hits Gloria as she looks away from him, “not like I want to be...” she says softly.

“Di’n’t mean that.” Daryl says quickly, “look, I ain’ good wit’ words, a’right? But that ain’ what I meant.”

Gloria sighs and nods, “Sorry... I guess I’m just moody today. I hate just sitting here, sleeping all day, not doing anything. Makes me feel completely useless when everyone’s outside, earning their place here, helping out one way or another.” 

“That don’ make ya useless.” he looks at her seriously, “ya jus’ bein’ here, findin’ ya gave all o’ us hope. Gave me hope.” 

She blinks at him, her heart fluttering at his words, she then smiles gratefully at him, “And you said you aren’t good with words.” 

Daryl blushes slightly, shifting in the chair and turning his attention back to her ankle, massaging away gently, “how’s it feel?”

She smiles, “a lot better,” Gloria purses her lips together before adding, “thanks to you.” she loved that she was able to make Daryl blush the way he did around her, grinning when she saw him blushing harder at her words.

Shouting from outside turned Gloria’s attention from Daryl as she turned to look out the window where she saw Maggie storming off, leaving behind Glenn with Lori. She furrowed her brows in confusion, wincing a bit from her skin tugging at her bandage. 

“Wha’s got ya frownin’ so much tha’ it hurts?” Daryl asks with a frown himself. 

Gloria turns back to him and shakes her head, chuckling, “Nothing, just Glenn, I think he’s having girl problems. Hey, can you get him in here for me? I wanna know what’s going on with him and Maggie.”

Daryl scoffs, giving a disapproving look, “a’right.” he carefully puts Gloria’s leg back on the bed before getting up, “ya girls are weird.” he mutters before walking off to fetch Glenn.

“It’s called caring!” Gloria calls out after him with a grin. 

She hears Daryl shouting for Glenn from outside the house and shortly after, her brother is walking into the room. She gestures for him to close the door, to which Glenn does so but now has a concerned look on his face.

“Everything okay?” Glenn asks as he sits on the chair.

Gloria shakes her head as she crosses her arms, leaning on the headboard, “Spill it, what’s up?”

“What do you mean?” Glenn says back defensively, shifting in the chair.

“Should I show you a mirror so you can see how it’s written all over your face that something’s bothering you?” Gloria says, matter-of-factly, she sighs when Glenn avoids eye contact with her, “is it Maggie?”

Glenn flinches a bit when Maggie’s name gets mentioned, letting Gloria know that she hit it right on the spot, he sighs heavily, “I really can’t hide anything from you...” he mutters to himself before looking at her, “you can’t tell anyone what I’m about to tell you, okay? Promise me.”

Gloria’s eyes narrow as she sees how serious Glenn is then nods, “Promise.”

“So... last night, I was supposed to meet up with Maggie at the barn.” he starts, a slight blush creeping on his face, “For uh... things that couples do.” 

“I don’t need the details of your dates, Glenn, please spare me.” Gloria chuckles, she’s always found it amusing how easily he got flustered when it came to girls.

“Alright, well, yeah, we kinda had a date arranged, but we couldn’t exactly do anything because...” he takes a deep breath, “because there are walkers in the barn.” 

A small moment of silence passes between the siblings as an amused smile makes its way up to Gloria’s face, “So... you’re telling me that you got cockblocked by a barnful of walkers?” 

“T-that’s beyond the point, Gloria!” Glenn’s face is scarlet red now, much to Gloria’s amusement, “does the fact that we have a barn full of walkers as our neighbor not concern you, or are you just going to keep making fun of me?”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry, I just couldn’t help it.” Gloria says, her expression then turns serious, “why don’t you tell Rick or Shane about it?”

“I already promised Maggie that I wouldn’t tell anyone... but then again, here I am telling you.” Glenn shrugs, “anyway, Maggie and her family, they think that the walkers are still people, sick people that can be cured.” 

“Well, they’ve clearly been on the farm for way too long if they still think that.” Gloria comments, “did you tell her about what Dr. Jenner said to us at the C.D.C. about a cure?”

Glenn shakes his head, “I was going to after we came back from our run to the pharmacy, but things happened and I don’t think she thinks the same way about them anymore.”

“What happened at the pharmacy?” Gloria asks, curiously.

“We were looking around the shelves and then Maggie got grabbed by a walker,” Glenn sighs as he remembers back to the close call, “she almost got bit.”

“I’m glad she’s okay... but why did you guys need to go to the pharmacy anyway? I thought you got enough supplies when you went on the last run?” she questions.

Glenn ponders for a bit, “Lori... asked for something specific... something that we wouldn’t have here.” Gloria gives him a look to continue, and Glenn sighs, “Lori’s pregnant and she wanted to get rid of the baby without telling Rick.”

“Oh Jesus.” Gloria can’t help her expression at the news, “no wonder you’re stressed. Is that why Maggie stormed away from you two when you got back?”

Glenn blinks at her, not knowing that she witnessed the scene but then nods, “yeah.”

“So, what are you gonna do about... everything?” Gloria asks, willing to give any suggestions if needed.

He sighs heavily, leaning down with his head in his hands, “I don’t know... I already asked Dale for advice on what to do and he said he’s going to talk to Hershel about the barn..”

“Honestly, I think it’s best that you tell everyone about the walkers, it’s only a matter of time before they break through the doors and kill everyone.” Gloria suggests, giving him a worried look.

“I know, but Maggie doesn’t want me to tell anyone, plus it isn’t even my call to-” Glenn gets cut off by Gloria.

“It isn’t her call to make either, if the barn collapses and people are killed, that’s gonna be on you for not warning everyone first. Would you be able to live with that?” she pushes.

Glenn shakes his head and sighs again, “no...”

“Look, I like Maggie. She seems like a really sweet girl, but you have to realize that just because someone is sweet and pretty, doesn’t mean that they know what they’re doing.” Gloria advises, “okay, well, unless it’s me.” she adds with a cheeky grin to try and lighten up Glenn’s mood.

He laughs at that, smiling finally, “I’ll tell the group tomorrow then, in the morning when everyone’s together eating breakfast.”

“I can’t let you do this on your own.” Gloria reaches out and pats his shoulder, “you know I’m here for you, right?”

Glenn smiles and nods, “Of course. I’ll wait until you’re outside then, I don’t want you sleeping outside when you still need rest.” 

Gloria groans playfully, “fine, I’ll stay in this warm house and comfy bed.” she jokingly complains, earning another laugh from her brother. 

---

The next morning, Gloria wakes up as the bright rays of the sun hit her face; she purposely slept with the curtains open so that the early morning sun would wake her. She yawns as she stretches, reaching for the crutches and mounts them as she gets off the bed. Carefully but surely, she makes her way outside. Once on the porch, Gloria pauses as she blinks at the steps going down. 

“Need help?” she looks up to see Daryl making his way over to her, smirking as he sees her conundrum. 

“Yeah.” She pouts as Daryl leans on the railing, “well, don’t just stand there, help me!” she pleads.

Chuckling, Daryl pushes himself off the railing and makes his way up the steps to meet her, taking her crutches and leans them on the side rail, then picks her up bridal style without warning. Naturally, Gloria wraps her arm around Daryl’s neck, he looks to her and they both blush as they realize how physically close they are. 

He clears his throat, “grab those.” he nods pointedly to the crutches, then carefully goes down the stairs with her in his arms once she has hold of the crutches.  

“You can just put me down by Glenn’s tent.” she tells him, pointing to the little stump where the others are. 

Daryl complies and slowly places her down on the ground once they get there, Gloria hops on her good foot with Daryl holding her arm so she can keep her balance before sitting on the stump. He silently goes over to the lawnchair by Carol’s tent and sits. Gloria looks over to Glenn who is standing beside her, overlooking everyone nervously. He spots Maggie who had just come out of the house, standing on the porch and gives a stern look to Glenn, shaking her head. He sighs and looks over to Dale who nods at him. Torn, Glenn looks to Gloria for support and she smiles reassuringly at him as she nods. 

Taking a deep breath, he finally decides to do what needs to be done, “Uh guys...?” he starts, catching everyone’s attention, “the barn is full of walkers.”

Everyone freezes at his words, looking at him in fear and shock. Glenn looks around at the group nervously, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt, waiting for someone, anyone to speak.

---

Next Chapter

The news is out! Now they all know about the walker barn~ hope you all enjoyed the little fluffy moment between Gloria and Daryl, that was cute to write ehehe

In regards to everything that’s happening though, I really want to say I hope everyone stays safe and healthy, please don’t panic, we will get through this! 

And as always, I would really appreciate any comments left for me! I’ll be replying to any comments in a new post because this is a sideblog!

[that-fannerd-with-the-glasses]

Huhh so, here’s some general characterization/fun fact things for Incredibles AU!! I usually don’t post this kinda stuff but since I’m still working on chapter three, figured I might as well! 

Phoenix (36), Mr. Incredible/Bob Parr counterpart

Superpower is super strength

Superhero name is Captain Indestructible.

 Didn’t really start to realize his powers until late in high school, though he didn’t actually begin superhero work until he was in college. Mia was one of his professors and she ended up eventually catching on to his abilities and offered to be his mentor (as she’s also a super). They worked as a team together up until the point Mia was killed in a severe incident, from that point on Phoenix ended up working alone. He did end up taking Maya  under his wing since she was supposed to train with Mia before she died, though she eventually branched out on her own as well.

Was an art major, and had plans of mainly working from home as a freelance artist. 

He really does try to be a good dad, okay, and he fucking loves his kids. It’s not his fault that every job the government’s placed him sucks the life and willpower out of him. He studied art dammit, being stuck at a desk job selling insurance was his worst nightmare come true.

Was in peak shape during his hero days, but years of being hunched over at a desk and little to no exercise--not to mention poor eating habits ended up developing into a soft dad bod that he’s a tad insecure about.

Meets up with Maya once or twice during the week, they usually end up getting burgers and reminiscing about the old days together.

Tried so hard to forget about hero work and live a normal steady life with his family, but that’s easier said than done. His entire den at home is decorated with all sorts of posters and articles and lately, he’s been spending just a bit too much time in it.

He’s already blown cover on their family twice, and he’s so torn between wanting to stay put and wanting to resume hero work.

Miles (36), Elastigirl/Helen Parr counterpart

Superpower is elasticity. 

Superhero name is Flexuous. 

Has been dealing with his powers pretty much since childhood. After his parents died, he was taken in by Manfred Von Karma and trained to be his prodigy. 

He ended up breaking away from Von Karma’s teachings sometime later and tried to do hero work on his own, his first instance of this being when he and Phoenix met for the first time. For a while they actually were rivals, before becoming friends and eventually dating, and were far too amused by the media’s obsession with their supposed rivalry.

Was studying to obtain a law degree and had hopes of becoming a lawyer, but when the lawsuits started happening and superheros were all uprooted, he ended up having to abandon any hopes of having any sort of high profile career. 

Sometimes works as a legal mediator just to make a bit of extra money/put his law knowledge to good use. 

He is the true backbone of the Edgeworth-Wright household. It would be in shambles if he weren’t in charge of it, as hair pulling as such a task is. For some years he and Phoenix co-parented without a problem, but with middle age starting to settle and Phoenix delving into a midlife crisis, he’s more or less been having to manage things on his own.

Phoenix and Miles -

They formally met through a foreign language course they were both taking, though officially had actually met several times under their super personas. It didn’t take long for either of them to figure each other’s identities out, however.

By the media’s standards, Captain Indestructible and Flexuous were rivals to one another, which up until a point was true. When they started dating, however, the rivalry all became a pretense just for the public’s entertainment. Though that wasn’t to say their butting heads and bickering outside of their super suits wasn’t all real, because it very much was. 

They dated for about two years before they were engaged, but their wedding had to be put on hold due to all the lawsuits and Super-related scandals going on. 

Miles pretty much planned his and Phoenix’s wedding up to a T, which didn’t matter in the end since they couldn’t afford the venue they’d wanted. They tried to wait a while, so they could save up enough money but that didn’t work out, and thus they decided to just go ahead and have a small private ceremony at the local courthouse. 

Phoenix knows Miles will never admit it, but he’s heartbroken that they didn’t get to have the wedding they wanted, especially after all the effort he put into it. That and the venue they’d booked was where his parents had gotten married, it’d meant so much to him to have their wedding there and they didn’t get to do that. 

They made the promise to each other that someday, when they were more financially stable, that they’d renew their vows and have the ceremony they’d always wanted, however that’s easier said than done when you’re trying to pay off bills and raise three kids.

Adopted Apollo two years into their marriage, then Athena a few years after that, and just recently have adopted Trucy. 

Apollo (14), Violet Parr counterpart

Superpower is invisibility/force fields.

The oldest child of the Edgeworth-Wright family. 

Has a crush on Klavier, who’s one of the more popular students in school because of course he is.  

Struggles with having to keep his powers a secret, which in-turn causes a great deal of self doubt.

Enjoys classic literature and music. 

Is stressed 24/7. His family is weird and he just wants to be normal, please help him. 

Athena (10), Dash Parr counterpart

Superpower is super speed.

The middle child of the Edgeworth-Wright family.

Her biological mother was also a super, who was killed by an ex-villain. Something similar happened to Miles when he was young, so of course he was all for adopting her. 

She has way too much energy for her own good, and has trouble focusing on one thing at a time. Her parents have tried time and time again to find a proper outlet for her to take her energy out on, but nothing’s worked so far and has only resulted in multiple visits to the principal’s office.

She wants so badly to play sports and has begged her parents time and time again to let her try out for one of the teams, though this usually ends in disagreement. Miles will put his foot down over the fear of her having an unfair advantage due to her powers, while Phoenix wants nothing more than to let her go ahead and do it. 

She very much loves and cares for her siblings, even if she does tend to pick on Apollo sometimes. 

Trucy (11 months old), Jack Jack Parr counterpart

Superpower is transformation, but the rest of her family doesn’t know this yet shhhh. 

The youngest child of the Edgeworth-Wright family.

She was an urgent emergency adoption, as well as being a closed one, so not much is known about her birth family. 

Maya (30), Frozone/Lucius Best counterpart

Superpower is telepathy/telekinesis.

Every woman in her family ended up developing these sorts of powers one way or another, so when hers started to get out of control she confided in Mia and was promised help in the matter. When she did finally arrive in the city though, Mia was dead so Phoenix took over the whole mentor thing, even if admittedly he wasn’t very good at it.

Despite everything, with Phoenix knowing next to nothing about Maya’s sort of power, he really tried his best to be of help to her and they ended up becoming close friends, even when she went off to do hero work on her own. 

After the superhero relocation program went into effect, she started work as a medium as a low key means of using her powers without giving herself away. She now owns her own small “mystic elements” type of shop where she does palm readings and the like, though nothing too drastic since a full display of her powers would give her away and have her relocated. 

Has never once been relocated come to think of it, and Phoenix is kind of jealous. It helps that she can be more subdued about her powers, while he doesn’t really have that option. 

Pearl lives with her and works in the shop as well. She ran away from home several years ago after a fight with her mother and Maya’s been looking after her ever since.

Is the cool, eccentric aunt to Phoenix and Miles’ kids. She or Pearl are their go-to whenever they need a babysitter (since they can’t actually afford one lmao). 

Franziska (33), Edna Mode counterpart

Has no superpowers. 

Works in the fashion industry, used to be responsible for a lot of super’s suits before the whole lawsuits and relocation shit went down.

The adoptive sister of Miles, who at one point was incredibly resentful towards him due to their father paying him more attention than her due to his having powers. They’ve both made peace since then, on the account that their father sucks.

Before Phoenix had met her, he was wearing his own homemade suit which she absolutely tore to shreds upon seeing. Ever since that day, he’s been low key terrified of her. 

Is essentially that wealthy lesbian aunt who likes to show off around Christmas and dump expensive presents on her nieces and nephew. 

Travels around a lot due to her job, so she’s not around often.

Dick Gumshoe (45), Rick Dicker counterpart

Has no superpowers.

Works with the whole Agency that regulates supers and what not, personally made sure that he’d be both Phoenix and Miles’ assigned case worker since he’d already known them a while.

Is doing his best in a crappy situation. Personally if you asked him, he’d be fine with supers coming out of their forced retirement but he’s not able to do much about it in his position. Regardless, he’s still a valued family friend and the kids love it when he visits.

Is married to Maggey Byrde because its what he deserves. 

Dahlia Hawthorne (32), Syndrome counterpart

Has no superpowers so to speak, but instead relies on technology invented by her family’s company.

She and Phoenix crossed paths during a supers convention, where she tried to convince him to train her as well, going on and on about how she wanted to be a hero too. But seeing as she didn’t actually have powers and wasn’t a hero herself, he turned her down.

The first attempt wasn’t the last, as she tried time and time again to get his attention and get her to train him, and each time he would refuse. He admired her efforts but the fact was, she was a civilian and even with her technology, she could be seriously hurt. 

Inadvertently foiled his attempts to sabotage a villain that ended up causing a railway explosion. She was arrested afterwards for interference with hero work, and Phoenix didn’t see her again for a long time.

Took Phoenix’s rejection very personally, and holds her public humiliation towards her arrest as his fault. 

Moved away to the island after she got out of jail and spent the next several years building up a brand new company from the ground up as part of her revenge plot. 

Iris Hawthorne (32), Mirage counterpart

Has no superpowers.

Is the twin sister of Dahlia.

She took on many of the company responsibilities until Dahlia was released from jail, then was forced into being her assistant for the new company. 

[twdmusicboxmystery]

TWD 10x05: What It Always Is - First Thoughts

I originally started writing a ginormous post and the realized that I would need to break it into two: first thoughts and details. The bigger one, of course, will be Details, and I’ll post that on Tuesday. Today, I’m just going to give a few thoughts on broader arcs and, of course, the Donnie stuff.

***As always, spoilers abound below for 10x05. Don’t read until you’ve watched!!!***

There were five major sections here: the opening sequence with Kelly, Negan/Brandon, Aaron/Gamma/Alpha, Ezekiel, and Magna/Connie/Daryl.

Kelly/Opening Sequence:

The opening sequence with Kelly definitely has some TD symbolism in it, which I’ll get into more tomorrow. I was right that Kelly didn’t die here, but I do think this foreshadows something bigger down the road.

There’s all the Beth-ish symbolism, which suggests it may foreshadow something to do with Beth, or be a parallel to Beth in some way. But there’s also missing stuff that we didn’t see. I had to watch it more than once to catch this, but in the opening sequence, we see Kelly sit down against a boulder, and a walker reaches out for her.

When Daryl, Magna, and Connie find her, she’s sitting against a tree, and we don’t know what actually happened with that walker. The assumption is that she fought it off and kept running, falling down by the tree a little ways away. But still, there’s stuff there we didn’t actually witness, which I think is significant. I still think the walker reaching for her foreshadows her being taken by the Whisperers in some form.

Negan/Brandon:

So in terms of the arc, this definitely leads to Negan going to the Whisperers camp. That follows the CBs, and we figured this would happen. As I’ve said many times, I’m glad to see this because I think something about Negan’s arc here will lead to Beth.

The first thing we saw was Negan near some water. Brandon obviously idolizes Negan and keeps trying to be the perfect Savior to impress him. I think at least part of this, where Negan is concerned, had to do with him realizing he doesn’t want that way of life anymore. He likes TF’s way of life better. In the CBs, he goes to the Whisperers camp to prove his loyalty to Rick, and it seems to me like they’re doing something similar in the show. After Brandon kills Milo—who I think reminded Negan of Carl—he decides he wants to go back, but knows he won’t be welcome unless he proves his loyalty. So he’s off to the Whisperer camp.

And how about the school bus? It’s mostly GREEN with red and blue stripes on it.

They honestly focused way more on the kid, Milo, than on the Mom, Amelia. I had to sit and think about the bus symbol for a bit, though. I kind of realized that I don’t have a specific meaning for the bus. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve done several theories on school buses (X) and I know it’s related to Beth’s arc, or at least the death fake out arcs. But what does it specifically stand for? I’m not sure. Looking at how it’s functioned, this is what I came up with.

I thought it might stand for something that SHOULD have saved people, but didn’t. In 4a, lots of people left the prison on the bus when it went down. It was their escape plan. But they all died anyway. Similarly, in 5x05, Abraham and co were on the short bus, which should have carried them a ways safely, but it crashed.

You could also argue that someone who was SUPPOSED to die on the bus, didn’t. In S4, that would have been Glenn. Maggie left him on the bus and thought he was on it, but he got off and she didn’t realize. Similarly, as bad as the crash in 5x05 was, it’s kind of amazing no one died or even sustained serious injuries.

So what about this scene with Negan? I’m not sure. He saved Amelia and Milo, which means they should have lived. But Brandon killed them, and they died. So if anything, it’s kind of the opposite of what we’ve seen elsewhere. So I’m not entirely sure what to make of this yet. I know I say this a lot, but it will probably make more sense when we understand more of where Negan’s arc is going.

I’m wondering if he’ll somehow rescue Beth or some other kids from some kind of situation represented by the bus. He also made a big deal about how he would never kill a kid. That was partly to make him a foil to Brandon, who was obviously mildly homicidal. But I also think that’s a foreshadowing that we’ll see him protecting kids at some point in the future. We’ve already seen him save/protect Judith. I’ll we’ll see it again with either her or others So, I’ll keep an eye on this moving forward.

Aaron/Gamma/Alpha:

This actually starts with Aaron. He’s practicing his weaponry on a bridge, which is kind of interesting. He doesn’t fall off of it, so it’s not exactly foreshadowing a death fake out for him. But I think he’ll be taken from the community (represented by the bridge) in some way. At this part, we also saw a spiders web near him. (Yes, I know this pic is super blurry. I couldn’t get a decent shot of the spiders web. It went by too fast. The blur at the top left is the spider.)

I think I mentioned this before, but the spider is symbol for Alpha. Siddiq hallucinated a spider synonymously with reliving the be-headings in 10x01. He saw the spider and then saw Alpha in the barn with the machete. Since then, I’ve noticed spiders or spider’s webs several times just before something happened with the Whisperers.

So here, I would have said that Aaron would end up with the Whisperers at some point. Like, maybe this represented that they’d take him from his community. Well, we got confirmation before the end of the episode that at least Alpha wants to do this. She tells Gamma that Aaron might be useful. So I’ve said that I think some people will be taken captive and/or taken somewhere by Alpha. I’m mostly focused on Connie for that, which I’ll talk more about in a minute, but I’ve toyed with the idea of Aaron being involved. Mostly because Rick gave him Gracie in S8, which I think a foreshadow of something else.

Yeah, I think it’s safe to say he’ll be involved somehow. But I think all the associations are important here. Let’s talk about Gamma poisoning the water.

I said that the satellite falling represented Wormwood, which poisons all the water. So after it fell, the water would start being poisoned. And what do you know? Only a few episodes later, Gamma is trying to poison the water.

I honestly don’t know if this is the endgame for the “bad water” symbolism. Maybe, but it seems like kind of small potatoes, so it may only be one small portion of the symbolism. Or it may foreshadow something much bigger down the road.

But in terms of associations, we had Aaron seeing the poisoning happening, and then approach Gamma when she got hurt. That feels like a foreshadow of a much bigger arc for him that has to do with the poisoned water and the Whisperers.

Also, despite what she says, Gamma seems to be having some trouble processing her sister’s death. She’s having an almost Siddiq-like PTSD reaction to it now, which is how she hurt her hand to begin with.

In the Whisperer camp, we learn that they’re damning up the creek and trying to poison the water in order to crush TF. Again, I’m not convinced this is the endgame of the bad water stuff, but it’s interesting, and will definitely play into it.

Ezekiel:

Yeah, he has thyroid cancer. So all the theories about him being sick were true. But so was what we said: if he has cancer, maybe it can be treated with radiation. Guess what, guys? There’s basically not an easier cancer to treat than thyroid cancer. As they said in the episode, it has a 98% survival rate in our world. And that’s important. If they were just going to do a tragic death for him, because TF no longer has the medical resources in the apocalypse that they would have had in the old world, they wouldn’t be so heavily emphasizing that this type of cancer used to be survivable.

There are two major treatments for this type of cancer. Removal of the lump, and radiation. That’s pretty much it. And I’m sure most of you saw the spoilers this past week that TWD was filming in downtown Atlanta again, including filming people with white lab coats that looked a lot like doctors and even walkers wearing police uniforms. (Grady anyone?) So whether it’s actually Grady or just something very similar to them, I think our theories about Zeke’s cancer being treated with radiation are right on track.

Daryl/Connie/Magna:

Yeah, Magna is definitely spiraling. They had an interesting conversation between her and Yumiko. It sounds like Magna was in prison for killing someone who killed her cousin. Yumiko thought she didn’t actually do it, but Magna admitted that she did. Yeah, that’s kind of a problem. I’m sure the guy who killed her cousin deserved it, but it also shows that she’s willing to go vigilante if she feels she’s being treated unfairly, as also evidenced by her stealing supplies. So it will be interesting to see how this progresses, but I have a feeling we’re headed for catastrophe.

Next, on the Donnie stuff (or lack thereof). I’ve already addressed this somewhat, but I’ll say what I’ve already told my group and my fellow theorists.

I’m usually prepared for what small potatoes the Donnie or Caryl stuff is compared to what a big deal the shippers make about it. But this seemed more ridiculous to me than most other instances. Like, there was really, REALLY nothing there.

The scene everyone freaked out about where he told her the Merle story and clasped her hand? The thing I didn’t connect is that they weren’t even alone at that point. Magna was out with them, which the spoilers mentioned, but I just didn’t internalize it. So while Daryl is telling Connie that story, Magna is standing like ten feet away. She’s just not in the shot. (Okay, probably more than ten feet, but you get my meaning.)

There was definitely some Beth symbolism in there, which I’ll go over tomorrow. But I think something this clip is trying to show is how much more effectively Daryl interacts with people now. I noticed this and started thinking about it last week with Lydia. He’s been more touchy with everyone—Lydia, Michonne, Carol, of course—and obviously he’s not in love with all of them (which shows, by extension, that he’s not in love with any of them). While there’s obviously some huge symbolism and Beth vibes in this scene, I also feel like there are literal/plot take always here. Beth taught Daryl how to interact with people. Not only through touch but through sharing personal stories. There is a moment in this scene where Connie is upset and blaming herself and you see Daryl think about it for a minute before following her and launching into his story. I feel like he might have been thinking about Beth in that moment and how him telling her a story about Merle not only helped them connect but helped her feel better about her situation and stop blaming herself, so he did the same with Connie. And it worked. I also think it hearkens back to what Norman and the writers always say about Daryl’s feelings for Beth: that he didn’t understand them. By extension, he wouldn’t have had the first idea how to express them. I think this is the way they’re showing his emotional growth. So when Beth returns, he WILL recognize his own feelings and WILL be able to express them.

One more thing? Remember that every long term, soul mate couple we’ve seen on the show has done the intertwined fingers. The camera focused on him clasping Connie’s hand and they specifically DIDN’T intertwine their fingers. That’s as big and purposeful a statement as anything. This was their chance to foreshadow romance, and they very purposefully didn’t do it.

This is becoming a very close friendship, and I thought this scene was very sweet. It’s a healthy relationship—much like the one he has with Michonne, and far healthier than the one he has with Carol—but this scene specifically told us that’s it’s not heading in the romance direction. If it were, we would have seen a different kind of hand hold.

Then there’s the end scene. Connie apologizes to Daryl for asking him to lie for Magna (about her stealing the supplies). He shrugs it off and says, “Family, right?” She smiles and then points to him and then herself (You and me) and makes the sign for family as well. Then Daryl smiles. 

So it’s cute and sweet. But I think it’s important because, now that she’s said that, I think we all know Daryl would do anything for her. Just like Carol or Michonne or Aaron or anyone else, if something happens to her, or to anyone she cares about (such as Magna’s group) you know he’ll be right there to help. So they’re setting this up pretty much exactly as I thought they would.

(Notice that she doesn’t say, you and me, lovers! 😆) Also, Daryl leaves at the end. So once again he’ll be at Alexandria and she’ll be at Hilltop. Yeah, that’s what people who are in love and want to spend their lives together act. Okay, I’ll stop with the sarcasm.

My point is that this puts them squarely in the friend zone. This is what I mentioned the other day when I said the writers pretty much confirm this to be a familial, rather than romantic bond. I still think it’s possible that Connie harbors some feelings for Daryl, but this, combined with the lack of entwined fingers, means it will never be more than friendship.

I also want to point out that this entire conversation happened right next to Daryl’s motorcycle, which might be a foreshadow of something.  😉 (My theory about him and Carol leaving together on the motorcycle to find Connie.)

Okay, I’ll stop there for today. Details tomorrow!

[the-master-cylinder]

Empire Pictures/Tycin Films (1986-1987) “At the time everyone was talking high concept so I said let’s do RAPISTS FROM OUTERSPACE.” Charles Band bought the film released as Breeders as well as Mutant Hunt, which Kincaid shot back-to-back. Director Tim Kincaid was rewarded with a long term, ten picture deal with Empire in which some of the films will be made under his Tycin Films banner and others under Millennium Pictures. The latter will include some bigger budget items. Make them for under $1 million each on 10-day shooting schedules, back to back. Kincaid explained that most of the Tycin features will be produced for direct-to video sales probably through Empire’s own Wizard Video. The remaining films will see a theatrical release.

Although filmed after Mutant Hunt, Breeders (1986) was the first to land on video store shelves aided by a stylish pulp-influenced poster. Though no censors could get at his script Kincaid did have a domestic overseer. “My wife is very much into making sure that women aren’t being ripped-off in these films,” he said. “We had a lot of nudity but we weren’t brutalizing women on screen. Everything is implied. Variety speculated that BREEDERS went out on video because of problems with the rating board, but we had always planned to make it an R-rated film. Nothing has been cut for the video release.”

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The climactic scenes of BREEDERS take place in the monster’s underground lair, where it has created a nest for its victims. Kincaid filmed in a series of catacombs under the Brooklyn Bridge, used by workers who built the structure. There are vast rooms with brick and stone archways, the largest of which is a prayer room used by the men before they went into the depths to work. Kincaid learned of the location from BREEDER’s makeup effects man Ed French.

The monster’s victims were to be seen immersed in a pit of translucent slime actually gelatin. But with the actresses disrobed and immersed, the jello failed to gel. Kincaid was wary of adding the chemicals necessary for fear of harming the girls.

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“The art director jumped in a van and headed for the nearest supermarket,” said Kincaid. “He brought back ten pounds of flour and we poured it into the pit. It worked, but unfortunately it turned it white and gave the scene these sexual undertones that we never meant for it to have. The girls ended up working in the stuff for four or five hours-until 4 a.m.”

Necropolis (1986) Reincarnated “Satanic Witch” from New Amsterdam, circa 1600’s comes back to revive her cult members by sucking the life force out of people.

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Robot Holocaust (1986) Just outside New Terra (whats left of New York City), Neo, a drifter from the atomic-blasted wastelands, and his klutzy robot sidekick arrive at a factory where slaves labor to fuel the Dark One’s Power Station. He meets Deeja, a woman (Nadine Hart) who convinces him to help rescue her father. The father is a scientist (Michael Dowend) who has invented a device that can break the Dark One’s control over the factory slaves. Gathering a motley crew of allies on the way, Neo goes to the Power Station to confront the Dark One’s evil servants.

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Mutant Hunt (1987), which Kincaid calls an adventure film with a science fiction background” finds Manhattan in a state of terror as Z, a mad industrialist, alters a squad of cyborgs with a drug known as Euphoron, turning them into crazed killers. The cyborg’s original creator is imprisoned by Z, but his sister escapes and seeks the help of Matt Riker, a private operative.

Kincaid directed MUTANT HUNT in 15 days, stretching the budget to give it more value and making up the difference by cutting corners on BREEDERS, putting that film in the can in only eight days. Empire is easily the most prolific distributor of genre films and their tactic of using both theatrical and video markets to release their product should enable them to keep a constant supply of films flowing to the fans. This is fine with Tim Kincaid, who seems to get a genuine joy out of making films, even on restricted budgets.

The location is a large industrial type complex, eight stories high and several blocks long. The Army abandoned the terminal more than a decade ago. Today, it is the home of a noisy spice factory, hundreds of dilapidated city buses, and a small, but eager film crew. “There’s nothing like a set that doesn’t move,” says Rick Gianasi. The beefcake actor plays the film’s macho hero, Matt Riker. “This place is fabulous,” he observes.

The same location, with its scores of broken windows and rusty train tracks, conjures up a nice post apocalypse scenario on this windy and cloudy morning. Despite the atmosphere, Kincaid explains that his movie is not set in the next century. “Matt Riker: Mutant Hunt is not Road Warrior or Star Wars,” he notes, but it is in the future, only about six years from now.”

Matt Riker: Mutant Hunt certainly has its share of Fango moments, so don’t get the idea that this flick is simply another science-fiction yarn. The movie’s mutants are actually diseased cyborgs, exploited by an evil genius called Z, who eventually run amuck throughout the Big Apple. Kincaid, while looking around the set and mapping out the morning’s schedule, adds that his film will not take itself too seriously, either.

“It’s sort of-I don’t want to say tongue-in-cheek because that term’s overused-a contemporary adventure,” he explains. “There’s not much hardware, just some lasers and effects. It isn’t knockdown, fall about-funny, but Matt Riker: Mutant Hunt has a sense of humor. The heroes are a happy-go-lucky trio of mercenaries, adventurers for hire who share a kidding camaraderie with each other. It’s a comic strip.”

The first shot of the day, which Kincaid is now planning, will take place on a concrete walkway inside a spectacular atrium that bisects the terminal. Grey buttresses jut out from both sides of the enormous hangar-like structure. Sunshine streams in from a huge skylight above, reducing the need for artificial lighting. To the left of the walkway, New York-based special effects man Matt Vogel peers over the charred remnants of Z’s dummy corpse, the victim of a Vogel pyrotechnic effect from the previous night’s lensing.

Vogel, who honed his incendiary skills on the pyromaniac horror flick Don’t Go in the House, is also contributing cyborg sparks, various fireballs and assorted gunshots. And included in his makeshift FX lab–actually his very own spot on the floor are boxes of ornaments, Christmas balls. Christmas balls?

“We have this chemical called titanium tetrochloride, ” Vogel elaborates. “When you open it up, slivers of smoke come out. It was once used for skywriting. The smoke is nice, but you can’t contain it. If I put it in a Christmas ball and seal it up, I have a titanium tetrochloride bomb. With a small explosive charge, the ball breaks and tendrils of smoke emerge. The hardest part of my job is finding Christmas balls in September!”

A few feet from Vogel’s effects “shop” is makeup man Ed French’s cluttered work area where he and his assistants John Bisson and James Chai leisurely paint some cyborg appendages. Later, French will supply an immobile six-foot cyborg “stretcho” arm, plus the diseased facial features for a cyborg duo. French took on a multiple challenge on these dual productions. Not only is he providing the special makeup effects, but Kincaid is letting him direct most of the FX sequences as well. “In terms of directing the special effects,” French reveals, “much of it is up to me. I don’t have any designs on becoming a director, but it is something I’ll have a lot to do with on these films. My storyboards are followed very closely by the editor. They’re very practical in terms of our shooting time. We can’t compete with An American Werewolf in London, but if it’s planned intelligently, we can have a lot of fun.”

French is particularly excited about a mechanical cyborg puppet that both he and Tom Lauten built for Matt Riker: Mutant Hunt. Its enticing features include a blown-away face with missing jaw, but French resists displaying this trophy, explaining that it is so fragile that he prefers to bring it out only when the cameras are rolling. Instead, visitors to the set get to see his chicken-wire-and-foam dummy, an unfortunate body that many crew members delight in kicking.

“This is our generic, all-purpose cyborg-dummy,”French announces, pointing to the abused double. “We took him apart yesterday, and pulled his arm off and had sparking as it came out of the joint. We divide him in half for an operating table scene. He also does some falling. This is body part city. We have an action scene where a cyborg knocks another’s head off, a combination dummy-puppet. We even have industrial strength cyborg blood squirting all over. It looks like anti-freeze.”

Nearby, two of the actor-cyborgs sit patiently while their bizarre crew cut hairstyles are neatly trimmed by the set’s conventional makeup artist Laurie Aiello. With their threatening height and muscular builds, these guys seem perfect for the cloneesque cyborgs, but their haircuts make them look like demented sailor boys. “We knew what we were getting into when we were offered the roles,” jokes Beta Cyborg Mark Legan, one of this production’s chiefly unknown cast. Alpha Cyborg Warren Ulaner doesn’t mind his appearance. “I was in the East Village the other night and my haircut was, more or less, conservative.” Adds French, “The makeups and designs are very stylized and give them a punk-heavy metal look.”

“I was looking forward to playing this kind of role,” says Legan, “because these guys are as villainous as you can get. Warren does a number of nasty things to people and gets a lamp stuck in his eye. Yesterday, I got to tear somebody’s arm off. That’s more fun than saving the girl. For me, the film’s highlight will be when I attack a couple in an alley, tear the girl’s head off and roll it down the street.”

For a production that is supposed to wrap in only 10 days, things are going very slowly on this Wednesday morning. Most of the crew point to the reason: they’re recovering from late night shooting of some extra action stuff to impress Charles Band. Band flew in earlier this morning to get an advance peek at the dailies and, according to French, liked what he saw. Today’s first shot involves a short dialogue scene with the intense Z (Bill Peterson) holding a fellow scientist (Marc Umile) at laser point. Kincaid is an atypical, laidback director who stresses the “please” when he calls, “Quiet, please” as things finally get moving.

“Maybe the pace will pick up suddenly, and it will be rat-a-tat-tat, scene after scene,” predicts the hopeful Ron (New York Ninja) Reynaldi. He plays Johnny Felix, a martial arts master and electronics expert to Riker. He also doubles as Matt Riker: Mutant Hunt’s comic relief and stunt coordinator.

Following the short dialogue scenes, Kincaid readies the next few shots in which the heroine (Mary Fahey, sister of Jeff Fahey), is chased down a dark tunnel. The crew pauses for the sun to hide behind some clouds (day for night). Despite the brief delay, the director remains confident that Matt Riker: Mutant Hunt will come in on schedule.

“I plan my films like any other feature,” he notes during a lunch break. “It’s like a jigsaw puzzle. What you have to realize is that a Magnum P.I. even though it’s 52 minutes long and they have a bigger crew and bigger budget-goes out in seven days. Everything is carefully planned out in advance and really set up so that we know where we are going. We know how long it’s going to take to shoot each thing and how much time to allow for it. That’s why we’re shooting so radically out of sequence.”

After Matt Riker: Mutant Hunt wrapped principal photography a week later-inserts will be shot soon and Band’s California-based technicians are doing the post-production opticals. Kincaid and company immediately began Breeders, a tale of lustful aliens invading Fun City with sex, sex, sex on their otherworldly minds. Some new crew members have joined this film, along with another batch of unknown performers, including makeup man Ed French. Breeders is shooting in the same underground tunnels.

“I think Breeders is going faster, but I don’t know why,” observes French, while preparing a shot with a grotesque half-alien/half-human baby. “Maybe it’s the script. Breeders is more elementary and straightforward. The style, which is very ’50s sci-fi monsters on the loose, almost dictates what you should do. On Matt Riker: Mutant Hunt, the script kept getting rewritten and getting bigger and more complicated. It’s an action movie with a lot of special effects. We knew Matt Riker would go over schedule a bit since it’s so ambitious.”

French steps aside to talk with his assistant, James Chai, who is lying on the dusty concrete floor for his part in bringing the monstrous puppet to life. The baby alien is appropriately disgusting, with an immense, gaping mouth running vertically down its face. A big, bulging bug eye blinks blindly. French applies some gooey methyl cellulose to its row of razor sharp teeth. Meanwhile, gun toting actor Lance Lewman and stake-wielding Teresa Farley wait for French to call action so that they can battle the crippled beastie. As on Matt Riker, Kincaid lets French direct his own special FX sequences.

Acting is another experience French is enjoying on Breeders. The occasional actor plays a doctor possessed by the aliens. Eventually, he even turns into one. “It’s really kind of exciting,” French laughs. “There was an eerie moment yesterday. I’m supposed to be hiding this little creature and then let him loose on these people. I was in the shot, so I just couldn’t step out of the scene and check out the creature. I had to stay in character and let my assistant take care of it.”

In a connecting tunnel next door, a couple of production assistants place the finishing touches on the aliens’ “nest,” a squat six-foot-square box made of foam, goo, plastic and some broken glass. The “Gigeresque” nest is where the captive women are taken. Attractive actress Francis Raines, last featured as the first victim of The Mutilator, does not mind wallowing naked in the nest for her upcoming scene as alien breeding stock.

“This stuff is like food preservative,” explains Raines referring to the buckets of methyl cellulose ooze. “It’s not like they hired 40 Ukrainian elephants to spit in there. I go through the pit and transform to become another Breeder. I can’t wait! At least, I keep away from the dirt.

“My biggest scene is where it does its transformation and chases me around this photography studio while I’m modeling swimsuits. He gets me, attacks me, and uses me. The biggest effect occurs when this stomach cord shoots out and grabs me. Its tentacles drag me away.’

French insists that Breeders is not as lewd as it sounds, while Kincaid obviously believes that sex and violence sell flicks. “I’ve always liked the lurid exploitation movies of the ’50s when I was growing up,” Kincaid remarks. “I think the time is right for them to come back, since we’re coming to the end of the wholesome-family-type science fiction that appeals to a wide range audience. Now, we have a big video market for these low-budget pictures. There hasn’t been an audience for these movies in the last 10 to 15 years… until now.”

In addition to “tactfully” filming the alien rapes, Kincaid and French wanted an abstract look for the invaders. French based his designs on a book of insect microphotography. Most of the black-painted Breeders suit lies in sections around his ad-libbed workshop. A separate Breeders insert head is used for close-ups, and includes waving antennae. An alien hand snaps out a line like a frog’s tongue as well.

“The most challenging bit about the whole thing, and what I’m learning the most about, is integrating the monster suits into the film so that it doesn’t look like a monster suit,” explains French during a 4 p.m. lunch break. “I hate monster suits. Everytime you see this thing, we show a little more of it, like in The Elephant Man. First, you see its hand, then its shadow, a partial transformation, etc. It’s all judiciously shot and generally nightmarish. You’re not going to see a guy running around in a rubber suit.”

Monster suits or not, everyone at Entertainment Concepts is banking that Breeders and Matt Riker: Mutant Hunt serve as the first of a succession of independent New York productions all to be released by Empire… if all goes right.

“Empire has approached us about working with them as an East Coast off-shoot of their production suppliers,” Tim Kincaid reveals. “Their films are shot all over the world, Spain, Rome, California, but they don’t have a group of people to supply them from the East Coast. They like the feel and scenic look of what they’ve seen. We’re hoping it’s the beginning of a series.”

Waldo Warren Private Dick Without Brain (1988) (The Occultist, MAXIMUM THRUST) A cyborg private eye is hired to protect a Caribbean president visiting New York City. Unknown to him, the president’s daughter is in league with his country’s rebels who are trying to assassinate him.

The History of Empire Films Part Four Empire Pictures/Tycin Films (1986-1987) “At the time everyone was talking high concept so I said let's do RAPISTS FROM OUTERSPACE." Charles Band bought the film released as Breeders as well as Mutant Hunt, which Kincaid shot back-to-back.

[orbitswriter]

little lie

pairing; Rick Payne/Jim Clancy

rating; pg

warnings; none

summary; just wanted to rewrite Jim and Ricks meeting and put a little gay twist on it :)

｡ﾟ･ ──-ˋˏ 🐾 ˊ-── ｡ﾟ･

Jim had his reservations about seeing Rick Payne, the professor had been helpful to Melinda when she needed, but now he had to go, and make it seem not suspicious that he was there. He easily found his way around the campus to Paynes office. He gave a gentle knock on the already open office door to make himself present.

He saw a younger -- rather cute -- male leaning over a projector poking at it with a pencil.

"uh, hello? I'm looking for Professor-Dr Payne?" he asked figured the professor was somewhere else.

"So are half the credit card companies in the US" the male said, glancing up toward him "what can I do for you?" 

"You're Payne?" he asks.

"Yes, Unfortunately" he nods "You are?"

"Sorry I just thought you were much older" Jim says, suddenly he feels dumb, he probably looked dumb standing there shocked over seeing how young the professor was... had to be not much older then himself.

"Why don't you come back in 45 years?" he says.

Jim bites the inside of his cheek so he doesn't smile at the professors witty comments. He takes a deep breath regathering himself. He moved further into the office keeping his eyes on the professor as he continued to tinker with the projector. 

"Um, I'm Jim Clacy, Melinda Gordon's husband? She says you help her sometimes" this seems to get the young professors attention as he stood up and quickly shakes Jims hand.

There's a brief moment where Jim feels lost in the touch… what was happening to him… had to be this ghost thing getting to him… right?

"You're Melinda's husband" the man smiles "wow this is very interesting"

The shake is going on longer than needing to, yet Jim can't find it in him to complain.

"Yeah, my wife out of town, she sent me -"

"Your wife fascinates me," Payne cuts him off.

Jim feels a spike of jealousy rise in him… except he's not jealous of Payne, no, who then. Their still holding hands despite the fact they weren't shaking one anothers hand anymore. Jim wonders if Payne realize this but he can't think straight while the professors deep blue eyes are locked on to his, so full of wonder, so curious, almost like he's trying to get to know Jim without asking any questions.

"Yeah… she has that effect on people" he's surprised when he sounds bitter… okay stay calm Jim… you're just all messed up because of this ghost. "Look, sometimes she says you help her and I'm working on this project and I was wondering if you'd give me a hand" they finally let go of one another hands, except now Payne just feels too close to him, a smile on the professors lips.

"Well, what kind of project?" Payne asks.

"I'm writing a book, you know everyone's doing it these days," he says with a shrug.

"Melinda said you were a paramedic?" 

"It's a hobby"

"Saving lives is a hobby?"

This time Jim can't help but let out a small laugh "no writing"

"oh writing - writing the book is a hobby" Payne nods and it makes Jim wonder if he was this way all the time, he also can't help but want to find out.

"I'm a little lost right now, I'm playing with all this… symbolism, cats for instance, uh -" before he can finish his thought Payne starts walking away toward one of his bookshelves.

Jim looks after him confused and quickly follows. He misses how close they are, he wants them to be close again - focus Clancy. Payne grabs a book from the shelf and meets him part way at on of his desks.

"Here you go Melinda's husband" he says setting the book down "Take your pick"

Jim looks through the book, he flips a few pages, looking at the different breeds of cats. His eyes catches the one from his dream and quickly stops flipping.

"Ah, that one" he points to what book has labeled as 'The Abyssinian Cat'.

"Excellent, Abyssinian, an Egyptian cat, very spooky looking huh?" Pyan has a playful smile on his face that makes Jim smile as well, he nods in agreement, "You know the ancient Egyptians were crazy about cats Jim" 

Jim has to force himself to focus, because all his brain seemed to want to focus on was the fact that Payne said his name.

"If you killed a cat, you had to be killed… if your cat died you went into mourning, you shave off your eyebrows while in mourning - which I tell you must of been a fantastic look" 

Jim let out a slight laugh but nods, he likes the passionate glint in the professor's eyes as he tells Jim about this stuff. Jim loses himself in those eyes for a second before shaking his head slightly.

"Okay… well what if I throw some beetles in the story what would that mean?" he asks

"That would depend"

"On what?"

"The Beetle, I wasn't partial to George" 

Jim goes silent, if the professor wasn't so cute with his playful little jokes and snide remarks Jim would of been very annoyed. Instead he wants to listen to the professor talk more - he wants to see how the man conducts his classes, and how he is as a friend… maybe - damn it, it's just the ghost messing your head up. Payne moves past him and for the shortest, yet longest moment in Jim's life his arm brushes Paynes. Jim feels dazed.

"I'm joking, That's a joke" he says as he settles behind what seems to be his main desk and looks at his computer "Guess Melinda hasn't told you a lot about me" he sounds almost disappointed.

"No… No, she just said you were a great guy" he smiled, Payne did seems like a great guy, albeit a little sarcastic and coy, but still…

"Well, then you have been horribly miss informed" he said another playful smile that takes Jims breath away "what color are these beetles?"

"Their green… and their shiny, kinda beautiful when not appearing out of nowhere" he automatically feels likes he's given away to much.

Payne has that curious glint in his eyes again "Green? Those are scrabs, there's a lot of Eygiption symbolism in your book"

"Could be… yeah" Jim nods.

They not at one another, the eye contact feels too long and yet Jim wants it to last, however Payne breaks it to type something on his computer, mumbling to himself as he types.

"There's your green scarabs"

Jim takes that as an invitation to get closer to Payne again, he looks at that bugs on the screen pointing to one, but Paynes already explained.

"- usually symbolized regeneration or rebirth"

"Right so if I was - uh… if my character was getting sent these symbols what do you think that would mean?" he asks, despite all of Jim's weird behavior and thoughts he is getting the information his needs.

"Could mean a lot of things, could mean beauty, Egypt, could mean the goddess Isis she's the most powerful, most popular" he says, it give Jim's brain a jump start into actually thinking about this "but you have cats… that would make me think of the goddess Bastet, he's the protector or cats and women" Jim realizes something it must show on his face because the professor waits for him to speak.

"Did you just say Bastet?" he asks.

"Bastet, yeah, just now" Payne nods.

"Bastet cosmetics, you know Bastet cosmetics?" he asks quickly.

"Cosmetics? I - um - I'm not… that's not really my area of expertise" another playful smile that almost makes Jim forget the revelation he just made.

"You know what Doc. you helped me a lot, thanks" he shakes Payne's hand and starts to leave before he get caught up in the feeling of theirs hands touching again.

"You're leaving? Wait!" Payne moves to chase after him "Do you guys do this all the time? the two of you?"

Jim keeps walking, not allowing himself to look back, if he does he's afraid he might stay "what?" he asks getting to the door and having to pause.

"The: saying something, but I'm not telling you what I mean, and I'm being wacky and evasive thing, do you both do it?"

Jim looks back at him, giving him a playful smile "I don't know what your talking about" he shrugs.

"Yeah… " Payne smiles, it hits Jim hard, he made Payne smile "Just like that… that's good" 

Jim leave Payne forcing himself to keeping. Melinda, you love Melinda, don't go back. 

-

After talking to Melinda the next day they had settled on the choice that he should look for this model that's shown up in his dreams. He looks through every beauty and girly magazine he can get his hands on, grabbing all of them finally he finds her.

"There you are" he mumbled to himself, grabbing the magazine and going to check out.

He reaches into his pocket to grab his wallet, he hears footsteps behind him.

"Do you have Smithsonian?" It Payne, he doesn't have to look to know that and once again he's too close, yet not close enough.

Payne moved past him having to shuffle past Jims back.

"Sorry" Jim says keeping his head down, not looking at the man's beautiful blue eyes that make him question everything he knew about himself.

Payne says nothing until he gets a clear view of him then he's pointing at him "Ah your…" 

Jim hates that it hurts him so much that Payne forgot his name, he hoped it didn't show.

"Jim" 

"Jim! Melinda husband" stop calling me that - he reaches out shaking Jim's hand.

"Yeah… and your professor Payne" he says, once more the shake last a few seconds to long, was it Payne or him doing this?

"Yes I am" Jim hates what Paynes smile does to him, they let go of each others hands "But please call me Rick" 

The paramedic feels like he's been blessed, this man wants him to call him by his first name? It makes Jims heart flutter… fuck, whats happening to me? he simply nods.

"How's the book coming?" he asks.

Jim contemplated telling him the truth… he couldn't - "slowly" 

The vender starts saying out loud what he picked out and Jim feels mortified, he wants to crawl into the hole and stay there.

"- one fashion today, and one tween sheek" the vendor's voice is judgmental - Jim doesn't care about him.

He refused to look up but he sees Rick peeking over the vendors shoulder with a playful smile, like he's figured out something that no one else has, he forced his eyes back down to his wallet as he plays with a dollar bill poking out it.

"Melinda's still out of town?" Rick's voice is playful, Jim still feels embarrassed and he knows he's probably blushing, but he still loves that tone of the professor's voice.

"She's coming back soon" 

"Ah" Rick nods as Jim gets his change back.

Jim grabs his magazines and turns around to hide somewhere for awhile. Maybe for a few months until Rick forgets about this, and Jim is hopefully back to normal.

"Hey Jim" Rick says getting his attention to turn again "Maybe I can come by and keep you company while Melindas gone, or you could come by my office again and we can discuss your book" he smiles, its a genuine offer.

"Yeah… sure I'd like that" Jim nods his mouth not being able to close all the way.

Rick nods and smiles at him before turning to find his Smithsonian, Jim leaves. Looks like I have a book to start writing...

[oh-mother-of-darkness]

answers (16)

Anonymous said: A lot of these secrets are really serious and sad so heres a lighter one: me and my sister are knitting christmas socks for the whole family as a surprise. Ive never knit a pattern before but im really good!!

Amazing!! 

Anonymous said: idk if your still doing this but my secret is I fear im a terrible person who only acts nice to rick people into liking her and ik that actually does make me an okay but i still feel im doing it for the wrong reasons and someones going to get too close and find out the truth and hate me

That’s very self aware of you, I think-- probably too self aware. You’re absolutely right to say it’s the trying that matters, but I’m not gonna blame you for worrying about it. I have similar concerns about myself sometimes. I’m aware that for me personally they’re partially justified. Some of my kindness is self motivated. 

I think though (and it seems like you already know this) it’s the effect of the kindness that matters. Maybe it’s better for me if I have “pure” intentions, but if I don’t, I should still do the kind things anyway, right? Because at the end there’s still going to be good. And there’s nothing bad about actively trying to be good, which is all we’re doing. 

Anonymous said: my secret is that ive been chasing after a dream my whole life but im not sure ill ever achieve it. times running out and i dont know what to do if i cant. i feel like my whole life has been put on standby and i dont know the way out. i know ill be okay in the end but i dont know what the end will be and that scares me.

Shit that’s relatable. You really will be okay, but it’s terrifying in the meantime, isn’t it? To have those turning points bearing down on you?

Things will happen. You can’t stop that. Time is gonna continue, but you’ll still be there at the end. Your head’s already in the right place. 

Anonymous said: My secret is that I really, really like one of my friends, but he has a girlfriend and slept with one of my best friends when they were both super drunk. I want the feelings to stop and go back to being just friends, because I honestly think I don't have a chance, but there is a small part of me that doesn't want to let go. I don't know what to do.

Well that’s a bitch of a situation, isn’t it? Romantic feelings aren’t really my area, but I understand holding on to things you consciously want to let go. Emotions always feel like part of me, you know? I don’t want to tear them away. Sometimes it’s better to do it, though. I don’t know from a few sentences if that’s the case here, but I hope you find the way that’s the best for you 

Anonymous said: My secret is I used to be suicidal, in my pre/early teens. I had realised I was lesbian in a small, largely Catholic town and hated myself for it. I was awful at social situations and couldn’t make friends. I hated myself for having baby fat because I danced part time. Then as I got older I slowly got more confident until one day a friend died I realised that holy shit I used to be suicidal and I could have killed myself. I’m terrified that I might get like that again and actually do it

Honestly, and I know this is gonna sound cliche, but I’m always in awe of folks like you. I don’t handle my own mental health issues super well most of the time, and to hear about someone growing? Changing? Getting better? Amazing

Anonymous said: If you're still taking these... my secret is that I don't want to give birth to children ever, and would consider adopting instead (when I'm older), but if I were to voice that to any family member or even an acquitance, they would shun me for it and make sure they try to talk me out of it. I really hate how conservative people put so many expectations on my shoulders

Heyyyyyy same. I’m not planning on birthing any kids, but my parents have come down pretty heavily on the single-women-should-not-adopt-children thing, which is.... bullshit. I’m gonna adopt some kids one day, whether they like it or not. 

You know your own mind and your own plans. Other people don’t have to be happy about them, even (maybe especially) family members. 

Anonymous said: My secret is that I’m a bad friend. I don’t make time for the few friends I have and spend most my time working or being in my room. They deserve better than me.

I don’t think you’re a bad friend. Not being around isn’t bad-friend behavior. You’re not hurting anyone. You’re not doing anything wrong. And I certainly don’t think that it justifies the idea that they should leave you. Relationships are always kinda a difficult balancing act, but you don’t have to be perfect at balancing it, you know?

Anonymous said: My secret is that I'm extremely self-sufficient, I've always had to be. But because there's no one else taking care of me it's so hard to invest my time in others because I'll neglect my own mental state. It make sit hard to develop stable relationships. Every once in a while I re-realize that I'm no one's priority so I have to be my own. And it just sucks.

Shit anon that’s really really rough. It makes me sad with you. I’m not going to tell you you’re wrong, because I don’t know, do I? But I hope you are. 

Anonymous said: My secret is I imagine myself as OCs I create for certain fandoms like Young Justice or Castlevania, and I spend all my time daydreaming of how I would act in episodes and how I would interact with the characters. I think it’s because I’m not satisfied with my life, and I’m also afraid that this makes me either weird or crazy.

Oh biggest mood

I do that too. I’m not in a position to say whether that’s a good or bad thing, but I like to think it just makes us creative. For me, it eventually found an outlet in writing, and that’s been a big source of joy in my life. I had some unpleasant experiences sharing that stuff with people in the past, but for me? I don’t worry about it anymore. I know a lot of people that do similar stuff.

Write some fanfiction, maybe :) You might be real good at it

Anonymous said: My secret is I’m secretly attracted to people who are better than me at stuff

That’s not really my area, but seems to me that’s a pretty good thing to be attracted to. One of the sweetest things I hear around school is people talking about how their partners are going to be such good lawyers. It’s cute. 

Anonymous said: My secret is that my anxiety is crushing me. I don't want to feel this way anymore.

Oh, anon. I just.... feel you. I’ve been really struggling lately with the idea that other people move through life without that handicap, and it amazes and angers me. Why don’t I get that? Why am I like this? It isn’t fair. 

And it isn’t. It just isn’t. You didn’t ask to death match your brain every second of the day. You’re not any worse than everyone else, so why do you have to suffer? I don’t know. I really don’t.

The only happy thing I can say to you is people do heal. It’s bullshit that it takes so much time and effort, but it is possible. I’m better off now than I was five years ago, even if it did take five years and a whole lot of therapy, medication, and energy. You shouldn’t have to fight like this, but you can, and you can win. 

Anonymous said: My secret is Im so bitter most of the time that I cant be happy for others. Me and my best friend are both singers but I can never be happy for her when she gets compliments or any success bc im jealous and im scared I'll never learn to be selfless and happy for other people

You’re only human. You have human emotions. You have every right to feel them. The only thing that matters is your choices, because that’s the only thing you can control. 

I’m so sorry you’re scared. That’s another emotion you have every right to feel 

Anonymous said: My secret is that sometimes I hated myself for not express what I felt because I thought they'll hate me or make distance of me but I'm learning to express my feelings to others and try to be more confidence :) I hope you'll be brave too and do whatever you want to do 💜

I wanna be anon when I grow up 

Anonymous said: My secret is that my hands hurt all the time but in different ways, and I’m scared to get help because I’m scared they’ll tell me I’m making it up or being dramatic.

Man do I hate the shit people put you through to get medical help. Everybody’s entitled to ask, aren’t they? So why are we all making that difficult? Why are we making people feel bad about their own pain?

I understand your fear, but I hope you start asking questions anyway. Other people’s opinions about it aren’t your fault

Anonymous said: My secret is that my dermatillomania has gotten way worse since I got to college, so I’m having to wear headscarves again to keep myself from picking my scalp. I smuggled my scarf collection out of my room without telling my parents.

I’m sorry, anon. That’s difficult. That sucks. That’s bullshit. 

Anonymous said: my secret is that when one of my family members says something homophobic I'll laugh and agree because I'm afraid that they'll disown me if there's any shred of proof that I'm LGBT and it makes me feel like such filth

That’s not your fault. It’s theirs for making you feel unsafe, because your safety really should be your first priority! That’s okay! You’re not being a bad person by doing it. You’re just protecting someone. You’re allowed to make that someone you

[lespetitesmortsde]

One-Sided War, part three

Part three! @sketchywave

Except Beca does win a third time, because she works there and gets in before anybody else and stakes her claim on the spot before anyone else even has the chance.

It sparks Chloe’s irritation anew and the injustice forces it to grow. Emily can almost see the flames behind her eyes as she takes Chloe’s order and money and gestures her over to the pick-up area.

The old man is right behind Chloe, and she watches what he’s going to do as he gets his regular drip (in a white non-refillable mug) and she waits for her espresso.

To her surprise, as soon as Beca sees the man, she gets up and helps him into the chair, playfully wrapping her blanket around him and shaking his hand before walking past Chloe and into the back room of the cafe. When she emerges only moments later, Chloe’s picking up her drink, and Beca stays behind the bar, sliding easily into the rhythm Emily and Tom have set up.

Chloe slips into the same chair she had yesterday, deftly avoiding the weird bulge, and sits quietly across from the man. He reads his newspaper, and drinks his coffee, and Beca clearly isn’t coming back before he leaves, so Chloe sets up her computer. When she navigates back to her document, she cringes at the lack of work she did yesterday.

She needs to stop letting Beca distract her, so she dives right in and tries not to think about the mysterious new addition to her cafe.

Her plan doesn’t exactly go smoothly, though, because around 6:45, Beca wanders over with a mug of coffee, white this time, and sets it down in front of the old man. She swipes away his empty coffee mug and walks right back to the counter to help her coworkers.

When the old man reaches for his coffee next, after putting down his newspaper, she can almost see the chain reaction in his mind: reach for mug, oh wait there’s no coffee left, wait why is there a new mug here…

He looks up and looks around and looks imploringly over at the counter. Like she has a sixth sense, Beca looks over at that moment, sends him a smile and a wave, and then goes right back to work. Chloe can see the corners of her mouth are still slightly turned up.

“Thank you, Beca,” he calls out across the coffee shop, and Beca waves him off again.

“No problem, Rick, enjoy.”

Oh Jesus, Chloe thinks. Her anger dissipates almost entirely. She’s sweet and her voice is sexy. Chloe glances down mournfully at her computer, already admitting defeat, already knowing that today is the day she’s going to talk to Beca.

She’s also disappointed in herself. Since when does she get so irritated over small things like a chair in a coffee shop? And why doesn’t she know that the nice old man she used to switch chairs with is named Rick, when she’s been here longer?

It feels a little like she’s lost herself somewhere along the way in the past few years, settling into what she thought was a routine of adulthood, but now that she thinks more critically, seems more and more like a rut.

When did she stop making friends everywhere she goes and get so… so self-involved?

She shudders and takes a comforting sip of her macchiato. The more she thinks about it, the less she likes discovering what she’s brushed aside as the naivete of youth. She vows to be better.

Glancing over at the brunette, who’s now working the till instead of the frother, she nods to herself and even though she has almost half her drink left, she downs it quickly. She waits a moment for all the new liquid to settle into her stomach before she gets up and joins the back of the now nine-person-deep line, almost out the door.

“Hello there, can I get you another caramel macchiato?” Beca asks as Chloe approaches the counter.

Chloe beams, “Yes, please.”

“Caramel macchiato, half-sweet, for Chloe,” Beca calls over her shoulder, already ringing through the refill charge.

“Wait, how did you-”

Beca chuckles. “Emily says you’re here every day and you always get the same thing.”

Sure enough, when Chloe glances over at her usual barista, Emily gives a little wave before going right back to steaming milk.

“Well, thanks,” Chloe says, holding out her hand so Beca can pour coins into it. “Beca,” she adds.

Beca smirks. “No problem.”

Chloe steps away, toward the pick-up counter, and watches Beca interact with the next customer, and then the one after that, before she’s able to pick up her coffee and head back to her new spot.

Rick’s coffee is already three quarters gone, and he’s pushed his newspaper aside to just stare out the window instead. Normally, Chloe would’ve left him alone, but now that she’s trying to get back to college Chloe, she’s on a mission.

She sits down across from him, puts down her drink, and leans forward in her chair. “Hi there!” she greets brightly. He turns to look at her and smiles a little.

“Hello.”

“So your name’s Rick? My name’s Chloe. I see you in here a lot. Nice to finally meet you!” And Chloe sticks out her hand.

Rick takes it and gives it a good one-pump shake. “Nice to meet you, too.” He shifts a little in his seat. “You’re here early today.”

Chloe blushes a little at this. “I was trying to scope it out and see why Beca kept beating me to inheriting your chair, but now I understand.” She settles back into her new spot. “And this chair is pretty good, so long as you avoid the bump.”

That gets a laugh out of the man, and it’s so nice to have an innocent conversation with someone that it strikes Chloe how much she’s missed it.

“It doesn’t come pre-warmed though, does it?” Rick asks, playfully.

She laughs softly, “No, it doesn’t, but I guess I’ll live.” Chloe sighs a little for dramatic effect and Rick practically glows at the attention.

He drinks the last of his coffee, and looks a little forlornly at the mug. Chloe looks at him questioningly, but when Rick catches her eye, he just shrugs. “I’m not supposed to have more than one cup of coffee per day,” he admits. “Doctor said something about all the caffeine.”

Suddenly, Chloe’s good will toward Beca wanes.

“Oh, no!” She says, wringing her hands. Already, she’s thinking of ways to talk to Beca about potentially harming the health of one of her customers.

“Don’t worry about it,” a voice interjects, and Chloe turns to see Beca smiling at Rick. “It’s decaf, old man, so it’s got all the flavour and none of the crap.”

Chloe almost swoons.

Beca’s changed out of her cafe shirt, instead donning some sort of dark blue tank top with a red plaid shirt overtop, and still on top of that, a black hoodie.

“Thank you, Beca,” Rick says, as he gets up from the chair and folds his newspaper under his arm, blanket falling off of his shoulders as he goes.

“Like I said, no problem, Rick,” Beca smiles, taking a step to the side. “Have a good day!”

Rick nods, “I will, thank you, you ladies, too.” Chloe feels a little pleasurable spark at being included with Beca. He walks off and Beca drops into the chair, wrapping her blanket around herself. She reaches into her bag to pull out her headphones and Chloe realizes that her window for a conversation is vanishing as she watches.

“Hey,” Chloe says, an edge of panic to her voice. Beca pauses in her movements.

“Hey…?”

“So do you own this place now, then?” Chloe asks, the question pouring out of her. She’d meant to check if Beca was, indeed, new in town, and then try to use that as a segue to meet up with Beca outside of the coffee shop.

Beca laughs. It’s not just an amused chuckle or a couple of ‘heh’s; it’s a full on chortle, like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard in her lifetime. Chloe just sits there confused and patient.

“No, I don’t own the place. I’m just helping out for a few days. I’m friends with the actual owner, Jesse. He needed some help, I was passing through, so why not, you know?” Beca pulls her headphones onto her lap and reaches into her bag again, drawing out her laptop.

Chloe knows Jesse, has met him a bunch over the time she’s spent sequestered in what is now Beca’s chair. And she doesn’t mean to be rude, but, “How do you two know each other?”

Almost anyone aside from Chloe would’ve blushed at pressing for information, but Chloe just leans forward a little bit in her chair to show she’s interested, and smiles warmly.

Beca shifts her headphones so they lie on top of her closed laptop, and picks up her coffee instead. She scoots back, like she’s settling in for a lengthy conversation, and wraps her hands around the mug.

“We went to the same music finishing school.”

Chloe grins, “I love music! What did you two do there?”

Beca takes a sip before responding, “Jesse pursued thematic scoring; he’s really into movies. I took a degree in music engineering.” Chloe nods along as Beca speaks.

“So, now Jesse owns a coffee shop and you…?”

“I produce music. I’ve also been known to DJ a little on the side, but it happens less often these days.”

Bobbing her head, Chloe asks, “Anything I might’ve heard?”

Beca tilts her head like she’s thinking about it. “On the production side, yes, if you listen to the radio. On the DJ side, only if you find mixes in the furthest corners of the internet.”

Chloe just stares at her expectantly.

Beca sighs into a chuckle. “You know Halsey?”

Wide-eyed, Chloe nods quickly. Beca shrugs like it’s no big deal.

“That’s so awesome, Beca! Wow! She’s got some sick beats,” Chloe compliments. Beca tries to hide her pleasure at the compliment behind an awkward smile.

“Thanks.”

“Whom else?”

“Um, I’ve done some stuff with Justin Timberlake, a couple with Ed Sheeran, once I was graced to help Beyonce, and there have been a few others.” Beca fidgets with the edges of her blanket.

“Damn,” Chloe whistles. “So, you’re like, famous hey?”

Immediately Beca is shaking her head, “No, no, no, I just play with some buttons and dials and stuff. I’m not famous.”

But Chloe will not be put off. “What’s your DJ name?”

Beca blushes hard. “Oh, um, it’s just Beca Mitchell. Or DJ double B. Or DJ B. I never really wanted a DJ-something name, though. If David Guetta doesn’t need one nor do I.”

Chloe freezes. “Shut. Up.”

So Beca stares uncomfortably.

“Shut up!” And then Chloe’s vibrating with glee, talking animatedly, “I love your stuff, oh my God, you’re not as hard to find as you think you are. How did you come up with the “Bulletproof” and “Titanium” mashup? The “500 Miles” one? You did a whole slew of Halsey mashups; it makes so much sense now!”

Beca swallows audibly. “Whoa. Okay. Calm down. Still shitty temporary barista Beca.”

But Chloe ploughs on, relentlessly, “Is that what you’re doing on your computer? I knew you couldn’t be writing, but I thought maybe you were doing accounting stuff for this place. Now that I know what I know, though, is it true?”

“So you’ve been watching me?”

That stops Chloe in her tracks. “Oh, um, well, I-”

Thankfully, Beca laughs. “Relax, Chloe. Yes, I’m working on some new mixes and mashups. I don’t perform much anymore, but I still release the stuff I make in my spare time.”

Chloe visibly relaxes. “How long are you here for, then, Ms. Badass Producer Lady?”

“Well, I’m covering for Jess for another week, and then I’m heading back to LA for a few sessions. Then, I dunno. I’ll be around.”

Beca’s eyes drift down and notice that Chloe’s cup and her own are empty. She shakes off her blanket and takes them over to the counter, washing her hands before making their drinks. This time, she doesn’t make herself a black coffee because Chloe watches her pour steamed milk into both of their mugs, not just hers.

When she walks back, Chloe asks, “What’d you get this time?”

Settling back into her blanket, Beca shrugs. “Same as you. I don’t usually go for the sweet stuff, but I only added half the sweetener you get. It’s halfway okay.”

“Rude,” Chloe states, taking a sip and smiling.

“That’s what people keep telling me,” Beca agrees.

There’s a brief silence over the two of them as they both grip onto their warm mugs and just kind of settle.

“Oh wait,” Chloe exclaims quickly, putting down her cup and shoving a hand into her jacket pocket. “I owe you $2.95 for the refill.”

Beca just waves her off, “It’s on the house. Don’t worry about it.”

“Are you sure?” Chloe hesitates to put her change back into her pocket.

“I’m sure, Chloe. It’s fine. I’m the boss remember? At least for the week.” Beca glances around for a second before setting her gaze back on Chloe. “So what do you do here all day? Em says you’re here basically all day every day.”

It’s Chloe’s turn to flush lightly. “Oh, I’m a writer.”

Beca grins, “Anything I’d know?”

Chloe screws up her nose a little in thought. “I generally write historical fiction or non-fiction, and you don’t strike me as the type.”

Laughing, Beca nods, “Yeah, I barely read, but when I do, it’s generally a YA novel Jesse’s recommended or books about music.”

“The music bit is a little predictable, Becs,” Chloe informs her, leaning back comfortably in her chair and taking a sip of her drink.

“What can I say, I’m an open book,” Beca jokes. “Seriously though, what’ve you written? Maybe I’ll try it out.”

“You’ll be here tomorrow, right?” Chloe asks, changing the subject.

A little confused, Beca replies, “Yeah, why?”

“I’ll bring some of my books. If you want to read any of them, you can just have them,” Chloe says. She leans down to dig into her bag for her pad of sticky notes, grabs her pen from the tabletop, and writes herself a note so she doesn’t forget.

“Oh, no, you don’t have to do that,” Beca attempts to backpedal.

Chloe waves her off. “Show me some of the stuff you’re working on, but haven’t finished, and we’ll call it a trade.”

“Deal,” Beca agrees, “but only stuff that’s my own.” She shrugs. “Confidentiality contracts and all that jazz.”

“That’s so cool,” Chloe says a little dreamily.

Beca raises an eyebrow and takes a sip of her coffee while Chloe blushes lightly. “Sorry.”

But Beca just shakes her head with a small smile. “What are you working on right now, Hemingway?”

Chloe giggles briefly as she hits a few keys on her laptop. “Not quite the right genre, but I’ll give it to you,” Chloe answers. “As long as you don’t think I’m an alcoholic.” She turns the screen towards Beca.

Shrugging, Beca scoots forward in her seat to get a better look at Chloe’s screen as she replies, “Eh, we don’t know each other well enough yet. I’m reserving judgment.”

“So you think we’ll get to know each other more?”

Beca’s cheeks redden. “Maybe just hoping.”

Chloe smiles widely and gestures to the screen. “Right now I’m working on an article for National Geographic about territorialism in domestic animals,” Chloe explains. “Maybe you could help me with the human angle?”

Beca moves her gaze from the screen to Chloe’s face, confusion evident. “How am I supposed to do that?”

Chloe grins, happy that Beca’s taken the bait. “Well, for example, I’m very territorial about my coffee shop seat,” she trails off as she watches Beca’s confusion deepen.

“Okay…?”

“And for the last three days,” Chloe smirks, “a certain brunette best friend of the manager has been stealing it.”

Beca’s mouth drops open in a soft ‘o.’ “Oh my God–”

“Which is a clear breach of my territory, however, like animals in the wild, I can be appeased,” Chloe explains helpfully, cutting off what she assumes will be an apology. “Say dinner tonight? 7?”

She watches as Beca’s face flows from confusion and apologies to slow realization, and finally, through to a smile.

“You’re good,” Beca acknowledges, and tips an imaginary hat.

Chloe almost purrs at the compliment. “Thanks.”

Beca pulls a small notebook out of her bag, rips a page out, and writes on it. When she hands it to Chloe, she shrugs, “I don’t usually carry my phone on me, but you should probably text me an address or someplace where I’ll be picking you up.”

Excitedly, Chloe takes the slip of paper and makes a big show of entering the number into her phone, which is almost always on her. “Thanks!” she says brightly. “I’m Chloe Beale, by the way,” she waves Beca off as she opens her mouth. “We already know your last name, so I thought I would level the playing field.”

“Well, thanks, Chloe Beale,” Beca replies, playing with one of the ear cushions on her headphones. Then she gestures down at Chloe’s laptop. “When’s your deadline?”

Immediately, Chloe winces. “Like… two days ago?”

Beca’s laughter is immediate and full, even though it’s quiet to match the coffee shop’s atmosphere. “I’d be so dead if I was that late.”

Blushing, Chloe defends herself, “It’s kind of, like, a thing in the publishing industry. Writers are late. Even when we try not to be!”

“Oh really?” Beca asks, amusement evident, disbelief clear.

Chloe nods emphatically. “Oh yeah, my editors have a policy where they give all writers early deadlines so that they can afford the extra time when the writer’s late.”

Beca just raises her eyebrows.

“Yeah,” Chloe admits, “I’m not supposed to know in case I abuse the safety net they’ve created for themselves, but it still works! I just feel less bad when I’m late.”

“So how much of a cushion do you have?”

“Like a week?” Chloe says, tilting her head to the side. “Something like that.”

Beca hums. “And how close are you to being finished?”

“... Not very,” Chloe says and she meets Beca’s inquisitive stare.

The two of them hold eye contact for a moment.

“Okay, well, you work on your book, and I’ll work on my music so that A. I meet my deadline because in the music industry, you cannot be late. If you’re close to the deadline, you’re considered late. And B. So that when I take you out later and blow your mind with awesomeness, I won’t feel guilty about pulling you from your responsibilities.”

“That sounds good, Becs,” Chloe smiles.

Beca smirks. “That’s how I roll,” she says and slips on her headphones, sending a wink Chloe’s way before focusing her eyes on the screen in front of her.

[sabraeal]

I’d Appreciate Your Input

Set at the end of the first Lyrias Arc, just before they go back to Wistal

Wide Florida Bay | Previous

Shirayuki shifts on her feet, shrinking into one corner of the elevator while it creeps up the lab’s side. She should be enjoying the panoramic view of campus; after all, there’s only this paper to finish and a plane to climb on and they’re done. With Lyrias. For forever. She should just…be drinking this all in.

Instead she stares at her shoes – ballet flats, which are the only pair she’s brought with her that are not either open-toed or utterly destroyed – and asks, “Do you think they’re going to be mad?”

Obi’s slouched against the corrugated metal, head tipped back, but he drops it down to stare at her, face crinkled with incredulity. “About what? That you got a phone?”  

“No! I mean, yes, but --” she bites her lip, trying to gather up these thoughts, trying to put anxieties into words – “we left them with all that work! We should really have been writing too, it’s not fair that we --”

Obi holds out a hand, stop. “Doc. We all watched as your canoe legit tipped into dirty estuary, saw your ancient reliquary of a phone pull a Jack from Tatanic, and then – I mean if that wasn’t enough to earn you a new phone – no fewer than three of us saw Loretta eat it.”

“I mean…” She shuffles in her corner, heat creeping up her neck. “I don’t know if Loretta really eats --”

“She did.” His hand lands her shoulder, long fingers spanning over the wing of her scapula. It’s – nice. Comforting. “Listen, the worst that’s going to happen is that Kazaha will think your phone is too mainstream. Let yourself breathe a little, Doc.”

She thinks about Yuzuri, thinks about sitting over empty take-out containers the night the boys were on Turtle Watch, thinks about the way she said, take up some space, Yuki. Stop apologizing for being human.

Right, she can -- she can be selfish for once. Do something for herself. That’s -- that’s allowed. A little, at least.

“Okay,” she murmurs as the doors open. “I’ll just – do that. Breathe.”

His hand drops from her should to press over the open doors, nodding her through. “Good. Oh, hey, looks like it was the Chinese truck that was outside today.”

The breakroom is just ahead, the whole lab gathered around with Styrofoam containers and wooden chopstick, shoveling noodles into their mouths. She misses them already.

“Great,” she says, wishes she felt as strong as she sounded. “We should -- should go check in.”

They’re barely in the door when Yuzuri jams a hand out, flicking her fingers in the clear sign for gimme.

“Okay, enough teasing,” she huffs. “Show us the goods already.”

Shirayuki blinks, confused, but there’s Yuzuri, gimme gimme, and half the lab perks up from their lo mein with varying degrees of interest. Even Ryuu’s looking, big eyes staring up at them owlishly, flicking between them.

Obi rolls his neck, hands falling to his belt. “Well, all right.”

It jingles once, tongue slipping in one liquid movement through the buckle, before Yuzuri shrills, “I meant the phone! Clearly.”

“We could look at both,” Suzu offers, with a speculative glance toward where Obi stands, grin tilting his mouth.

“You two can send each other your weirdly platonic dick pics later.” Yuzuri heaves a sigh, hand thrusting out farther over the table, toward Shirayuki. “I want to see the merchandise.”

“Again,” Obi drawls with another meaningful jingle, “could mean either --”

“I want to see the shiny new tiny computer,” Yuzuri snaps, giving him a flat look. “There, is that clear enough for you?”

Obi hums, sinking into the seat across from her. “Crystal.”

Yuzuri rolls her eyes. “Great. Now come on, girl, don’t keep mama waiting.”

Shirayuki hesitates, reaching into her bag to pull out the phone. It’s so new she hasn’t even really taken all the stickers off; it feels like she could break it just by holding it too long.

“Thank you,” Yuzuri says, with a cloying look toward Obi. “At least someone here isn’t trying to show me their equipment. I mean, honestly.”

“Hey, it’s a common request,” Obi shrugs, leaning back. “I’m a hot item.”

“You wish.”

“Again, i wouldn’t mind,” Suzu puts forth.

Yuzuri spares him a disgusted look as she flicks through the screens on Shirayuki’s phone. “You don’t count. No one else wants to see dick while they’re eating noodles.”

“I don’t know,” Izuru hums, sending a speculative look over Obi. “How old are you, undergrad?”

“Old enough to buy beer,” he assures her.

She nods. “Yeah, okay, then I wouldn’t mind --”

“Could everyone please get out more?” Yuzuri sighs, tapping through some -- apps? Is that what they’re called? Oh, she really -- she really isn’t savvy enough to have something like this. “This is a sweet little piece though, I gotta admit. I figured you for something sleeker, but I’ve heard nothing can kill these Nokia things.”

“That was the draw,” Obi tells her with a grin. “Chief wanted to see if he could get one of those new iPhones, but...”

Yuzuri stares at her. “One of the sixes? They haven’t even announced them yet!”

Obi shrugs. “Our boss’s boss has connections.”

Yuzuri’s gaze swings to her, half-accusing. “And you said no?”

“The scholarship is supposed to be paying for it!” Shirayuki protests, rounding her shoulder. “And besides, it looked flimsy...”

Despite not strictly being on the market or existing, the salesman had known enough about the model to hit key points, each one making Obi nod and Shirayuki shrink. Glass screen. Lightest phone on the market. State of the art circuitry...

All she could think of was the helpless bloop her battered little flip phone had made as it sunk beneath the water, and the unearthly crunch when Loretta had taken her giant maw to it.

“I don’t know,” she murmurs, shifting in her seat. “Even this one has a lot of -- of buttons. And screens.”

Yuzuri pauses, giving her a searching look. “Well sure. But you know, you can program actual songs as ring tones, right?”

Shirayuki stares. Actual songs... “As in, the midi file, or --?”

“Real songs.” Yuzuri looks far too satisfied with herself. “Here, let me just --” her fingers fly across the screen, and in less than three minutes, she’s handing it back, pulling her own out.

“Now don’t answer,” she warns her. “It’ll spoil the effect.”

Yuzuri picture pops up on the screen, and --

The opening bars of “Short Skirt, Long Jacket” ring out in the meeting room.

“Oh,” Shirayuki breathes. “Huh.”

I don’t want it to be so complicated, Doc had told the guy at the counter as he tried to push product, eyeing the black card on the formica like it was his own personal Jesus. I’m not good at...at computer stuff.

Hard for Obi to see any of that now, her red hair falling in a curtain around her as she bends over that phone, eyes squinted at the screen, and just -- what a load of shit that is. I’m not good at computer stuff. There isn’t a single thing Doc isn’t good at when she puts her mind to it.

She settles back, heaving a sigh and rubbing at the curve of her back, and he reminds her, “You know you don’t have to have a custom ring tone for everyone, right?”

“Well, yes.” She rubs at her eyes, shaking her head like she can clean afterimages like an etch-a-sketch. “I just -- I want to. For the aesthetic.”

“For the aesthetic,” he laughs, setting his computer aside. “You’re going to need glasses if you keep squinting that hard.”

She wrinkles her nose, and hmm, he’d like that, he thinks. Cute frames that are little too chunky to be pretty, but --

But he really needs to get his shit together. They’re flying back tomorrow morning, and -- and he needs to get used to there being other people around. Other people who know Zen. Other people who are Zen.

“I only have a few people left.” She blinks up at him. “I haven’t picked out yours yet. Do you have any suggestions?”

This is far too much power. She has zero pop culture grounding, and something like this is just -- asking for Rick Astley. Or Tom Jones. Something awful.

“Ever heard of ‘The Bad Touch,’“ he tries instead. He doesn’t expect it to work -- sure, Yuzuri calls her a woodland fairy creature or luddite wood nymph -- but she’s alive, everyone’s heard --

She blinks. “No?”

PRANK THAT KEEPS ON GIVING flashes through his head in big, neon letters. and he -- he can’t not do it. It’s just too much temptation for a flawed, human man. “Here, let me see if there’s a good clip of it.”

It takes no time at all, like the planets are aligning for this one sweet prank, a file that specifies second verse with intro. Perfect.

He’s not sure how he doesn’t give it away when he hands the thing back; his grin is hardly contained by his teeth, and his hands are probably shaking, but she just smiles at him and --

And he should probably feel bad. He does, for a moment; for that whole second it takes for him to call her phone and the music to start --

Doc nods along to the beat, looking a little confused, but pleased. “Okay, that’s pretty nice!”

She stops it before the words can even start. It’s a sign. This prank is meant to be.

And who is he to stand in the way of the universe?

“Great,” he says strained, trying to swallow down his grin. “Perfect.”

[alongtimeagoinablogfarfaraway]

Favorite Albums 2018: THE TOP 5

#5- Victory Lap by Nipsey Hussle 

Congratulations to the 2018 Stay Trippy Award winner. I’ve never really listened to Nipsey Hussle. I mean this was his first studio album release after all so I guess I can’t really be blamed for that. But the raw intensity that he raps with on this debut effort is something to acknowledge. Nipsey is blunt, track 2 “Rap Niggas” kind of exemplifies that with the chorus “I ain’t nothin like you fuckin rap niggas”. A simple statement but it’s the entire theme of the song and the message he’s trying to get across. Like I’ve said before, there seemed to be a theme this year with rappers calling out the up and coming new generation. 

Victory Lap is a rap album through and through. His raspy unique voice delivers every verse with a confident brutal ferociousness. That statement may seem a bit much but it fits the way Nipsey raps in my opinion. 

 As I continued to listen to him rap, the image above is something I could picture him doing very easily. I definitely feel like Nipsey isn’t someone you want to mess with or double cross. I mean after all he does state in “Last Time That I Checc’d” that “I’m the street’s voice out west” and that is certainly is a bold and high remark to make about one’s self. But I can see it, I really can. I really liked every song on this album and yet I had never ever listened to Nipsey Hussle as I stated before so it was pretty obvious that this would be this years Stay Trippy Award winner. I should have more to say but after all I did just start listening to Nipsey this year, so we’ll see if he comes out with another within the next couple years, I’ll be keeping an eye out. 

Favorite Song

Succa Proof 

#4- Bobby Tarantino II by Logic

I don’t watch Rick and Morty and I was still laughing and loving the entire 2 min long introduction they have about listening to Logic music and listen to that Bobby Tarantino shit. Logic has taken on many alter egos but the Bobby Tarantino one started back in 2016 when he released the first Bobby Tarantino mix-tape. This is technically a mix-tape but I’m kind of considering it an LP since mix-tapes are something I’ve always considered something that you can obtain for free. Just like the first one, this second installment in the series continues the I don’t give a fuck, I’m having fun attitude. This album has the hit singles that Logic has started to become well known for but it also resurrected lots of fans favorite alter ego of his “Young Sinatra” on the song “Warm It Up”. A lot of people lost their shit when they heard him donning that name again in a song (and I was definitely one of those people). 

Logic is the perfect blend of hip-hop and rap. This album/mix-tape whatever  exemplifies that. The intro jumps right into “Overnight” and the energy never stops from there. Bobby is fun, he’s electric and he’s talented above all else. 

And his music videos are just as entertaining as he is (Example above from “Everyday” music video). “Everyday” was probably my least favorite song but after watching the music video I sort of had more of an appreciation for it but that’s the thing, even the songs I don’t really like at first I seem to end up liking them at the end of the day because Logic is just that guy. He’s goes from a very poppy song like that and on the reverse has songs like “44 More” where he absolutely demolishes the beat he raps over ending with the line “now here’s 44 more” as in he 44 more bars. I mean that’s just as fun as fun gets. Logic’s the man and he absolutely knows it now. He dropped this just to drop it and give the fans more of what they want. He didn’t need to tease some album for years and years, he just gave the people what they want; more music. And it works in my opinion. This was one of the funnest albums of the year for me. That’s why it landed so high at #4.

Favorite Song 

Wizard of Oz 

#3- Astroworld by Travis Scott

I’m going to start by saying one thing, this is not Travis Scott’s best album. In fact, this may be my least favorite of his three studio albums that he’s released. And yet here it sits at number 3. That’s because I still throughly enjoyed this album. There’s the smash hit “Sicko Mode”, which Travis had to know would strike gold like it did. There was also the hit single “Butterfly Effect” but that song is mainstream Travis, it’s just not that good in my opinion. This leads me to my main point about this album. There are a good three to four songs I could care less about on this album, which usually means it won’t land this high on my list but every other song I pretty much loved. “Yosemite”, “Astrothunder” (mainly because of the track it followed), “Skeletons” and “Butterfly Effect” really are nothing special in my opinion. “Astrothunder” follows a track called “NC-17″ on the album where 21 Savage is featured and it’s just a great song. “Astrothunder” transitions the mood a bit too much for me following that song and it just didn’t work, I don’t know ya like what ya like and that was something I didn’t like. 

But Travis did give us this song. I guess the powerful entries outweighed the less powerful because again this album landed the #3 spot. And at the end of the day this album was one that I listened more than most this year. I mean the first track “Stargazing” had me extremely pumped the first time I listened to it. Travis sings with that hallucinating auto tune of his and then out of the nowhere the beat drops and reemerges as something raw and intense and Travis just starts dropping bars and now we’re in a Travis rap song and not so much a Travis hip hop song. The production and delivery is brilliant and would you expect anything less because he is one of the best at those two things. I honestly thought that with his blown up fame and having already made two great albums that this album would honestly be a disappointment. Often now we find the albums with the biggest don’t always deliver and this was easily everyone’s most anticipated of the year. It didn’t deliver the expectations for me as much as it did for everyone else but there’s no denying that this album is a continued example of why Travis is one of the best hip-hop artists out there right now. 

Favorite Song

NC-17

#2- Kids See Ghosts by Kanye West & Kid Cudi

The most definitive spots are always #2 and #1 for me. I always usually know right then and there when I listen to the eventual nominees which ones will take the top spots and be tough to beat. This album was one of them. This album combines two brilliant artists and musical minds. Kanye is nuts but this album is that example I was talking about in the first four out when I said he’s still got it though and still has a hand in some of the best albums being made. Kanye and Cudi are a great combo and this album displays that on every one of the seven tracks. Whether it’s Cudi’s echoing ballad in “Feel the Love” to start off the album (along with the lovely guest feature by Pusha T) or “4th Dimension” a song that when Cudi dives in with his rough vocals you get chills. It’s beautiful. There really just is something about that Kid Cudi when he starts singing and humming on a track. 

There’s only 7 songs on this album but I love them all. That’s the kind of thing that will land an album with only 7 songs this high. For their first duo effort I’d say it was a huge success. Kanye’s passion and Cudi’s passion mix together very well and then on songs like “Extasy” we get an awesome feature from Ty Dolla $ign and it just works so well and fits in with the electric feel to the song. Sometimes I see how corny some of the stuff is that I say but it makes sense in my own head and hopefully somewhat to you the reader. Anyway, the album ends with Cudi sort of giving us an exit from an album that just really suits the name from start to finish. It’s a trip and a dream like kind of one at that. There’s the sounds you’d expect from a Cudi album and the production that you’d expect from a Kanye one. 

I can’t ever deny how much of a role these two have played in my love for music growing up. Cudi has reemerged as one of my favorites as he’s been a part of two of my favorite albums within the past several years; this one and his solo album “Pain, Passion & Demon Slaying” back in 2016. Kanye is Kanye as I’ve said but this album left me with the feeling that I still need to be excited when he announces that music from him and GOOD music is coming our way. I just love the passion of this album most. Well done. 

Favorite Song

4th Dimension

#1- Daytona by Pusha T 

As the chorus to the first album on this song states “If you know you know”, I certainly knew I had probably listened to what would be my #1 for 2018 after listening to this album once. Why? Because I knew I needed to listen to it again right away after listening to it the first time. Look I was skeptical. This album had been teased as King Push for a long time, years to be exact and then at the last second the album’s title changed to Daytona. It brought back memories of Kanye constantly changing his name for The Life of Pablo. I didn’t want that to happen here. I had been waiting for Pusha to drop this album and I did not want it to disappoint. I think it’s safe to say that it didn't. 

So let’s jump in then. My favorite song “Come Back Baby” where the lyrics:

“Bitch, I been had, bitches been bad  We buy big boats, bitch, I’m Sinbad” And“They don’t miss you till you gone with the wind  And they tired of dancing like a Ying Yang Twin  You can’t have the Yin without the Yang my friend” 

are said. I mean...ya just gotta love King Push. I mean he kind uses the Ying Yang Twins to shape a metaphor and to me that’s just great. Pusha doesn’t change what he does when it comes to his style of rap. He raps about being a cocaine cowboy basically. He raps about the lifestyle. He raps only as we’ve ever known him to and surprise IT WAS AWESOME. It resulted in a great album. Now I get all these rappers wanting to experiment and try something new to create all elements of their own music but what made you great, the type of music, the flow, the sound, it’s what MADE YOU GREAT. Pusha doesn’t try to be different he tries to be Pusha. It’s just seven songs of raw emotion and power coming from the likes of someone I would never want to fuck with, THE Pusha T.  

Does that look like someone you want to mess with? NO. And let’s not forget that Pusha started the infamous beef with Drake this year off the track “Infrared”. I mean I didn’t expect Pusha to come out shots firing but then again I shouldn’t be surprised. You know he’ll challenge anyone and you certainly don’t question it. But back to why this album is great and why it deserves the #1 spot. Because all 7 songs are fucking awesome. Call it a weak argument but from start to finish Push doesn’t stop dropping bar after bar over beautifully produced beats and you just get lost in this album. You want to keep hearing more and more and when Pusha is being Pusha to the max that’s really all you can ask for when listening to one of his albums. 

Pusha starts off rapping over a high octane beat to start the album and ends it letting everyone know that he’s still here and that he’s been around and he’s going nowhere. I mean he clearly calls out Drake specifically but he’s also calling out everyone else too. Like I said, a lot of these rappers who have been around and established themselves have finally had it with the new generation and rightfully so...they’re all mostly trash (I’m looking at you Lil Pump, 6ix9ine, Playboi Carti...god there’s just too many to name). This album is refreshing and honestly it’s what a rap album should be. It’s dark, it’s gritty and at the end of the day it’s King Push reestablishing himself to everyone, although I don’t think he really needed to. 

Favorite Song

Come Back Baby

So there you have it, my 2018 list. I really wanted to make something amazing this year with my list and make it more flashy (apparently I thought GIFs could achieve that) but I got lazy and didn’t prep enough. We’ll see if I can better prepare for 2019′s list and think of something to make it more enjoyable of a read. Last year I ended with my most anticipated albums of 2018. They were SremmLife 3 (SR3MM), Untitled A$AP Rocky album (Testing), King Push (Lol, Daytona), AstroWorld & Untitled Schoolboy Q album. Schoolboy’s didn’t happen and one of them ended up probably being my most disappointing album of 2018, A$AP Rocky’s Testing. Now if you know me you know he’s my favorite artist. He’s experimenting these days hardcore. Testing was a trip and a half but not one that I loved that much. Rocky isn’t as lyrical as he used to be and for me that’s disappointing. Anyways here’s my most anticipated albums for this year I guess:

Run The Jewels IV (I guess this is a thing? And if it is I’m gonna lost my shit)

Schoolboy Q - TBA

Childish Gambino - TBA (Again don’t really know if this is a thing)

Joey Bada$$ - TBA

Thanks to the very few who read this/maybe not very few. Here’s to 2019 and another great year of music!

[ocegion]

Why do you feel that Daryl is poorly written? I'm not disagreeing; just curious

Alright so, for starters, I wanna make this clear. I don’t necessarily dislike Daryl, although he’s very far from being a fave. I did like him in the first seasons, but as the show went on his characterization fell down more and more and made him unenjoyable to me. But yeah, my beef is with the writing around him more than him himself. Therefore, to whoever who keeps reading, be warned that this is probably gonna be upsetting if you’re a Daryl fan.

Alright, so my main beef is, first and foremost, how the plot and characters bend themselves to cater to him. It wasn’t so pointed in the earlier seasons, but as the show’s gone on, I’ve noticed very clearly that one of the main reasons Daryl is there is to steal screentime and focus from others. So we had him being actively involved, and to a deeper level, on looking for Sophia. Alright, this was fine, because it didn’t take away from Carol’s struggle with it. Let’s take a look now, for example, at Beth. You know, Maggie’s sister. The only family she had left. Let’s take a look at how Daryl was ever so concerned about it and Maggie barely even seemed to remember or care that she had a sister until it was a plot point. Most of the focus of the Beth storyline was given to Daryl and Maggie was swept aside. Then there’s another case with Maggie. A character who has been widowed, within show time, what, a week and a half at most? Saw her husband and father of their unborn child brutally murdered in front of her, yet she’s the one who hugs him to comfort him, not the other way around. And I don’t think Daryl was to blame, per se, of Glenn’s death, I think it was more of a thoughtless reaction than a decision, but his action were the direct cause of Glenn’s death all the same, and while I can see Maggie being able to see past that, doing it so 150% so soon after the fact? No, I’m not buying it.

There’s also Denise. Tara’a girlfriend who got killed by Dwight. She was Tara’s girlfriend, and Daryl spent the entirety of half an episode with her. Yet who is the one presented as having the ultimate right to feel entitled to claim revenge over her? Daryl, of course.

I also want to point out that in s8, the Saviors got out of the Sanctuary because of Daryl putting his own desires over the plan (and therefore, the wellbeing of a lot of people). I don’t care they said they’d have gotten out sooner or later; they got out because of him, and that ‘later’ in the sooner or later would have been enough for Rick to fulfill his plan and win the war with minimum damage. Yet everyone’s first priority when the Saviors get out is to reassure Daryl that it’s not his fault. By the way, Michonne went extremely OOC at that moment just for Daryl to have backup on his idea. Hell, Rick Grimes, who lost his son less than 24 hours ago, makes time and sympathy enough to tell Daryl that he’d done nothing wrong. Because no character’s struggles and pain are more important than maintaining Daryl’s holy cow status. They all have to put everything aside, independently of their own characterization, to cater to Daryl.

Another point I want to adress is that Daryl is, for the most part, a plain character. Not plain in the sense of ‘has no depth’, necessarily, but plain in the sense that he’s not a character that evolves. I… I honest to god can’t tell what develpment at all he’s had in quite a while. He learned not to be racist and to be less self-focused, back on the first few seasons, but other than that? Nothing. He just grunts, looks though, and goes on. And in fact, he’s gone back. I’ll take the luxury of pointing out again that he risked and effectively ruined Rick’s whole plan because he was putting his own wants to see the Sanctuary destroyed before everything and everyone else. He shrugged away the possibility of hurting innocent people. He’s gone back to being selfish and self-centered. This wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, characterization-wise, if it was adressed. Is it? No. As I said, Rick takes a moment in his grief to reassure Daryl that he was right all along. Particularly striking when Rick’s made to realize that he can’t just kill relatively innocent people just to deal with his own anger, but Daryl, who’s shown to do the exact same thing early in the season, doesn’t have it adressed at all.

And in a story that uses zombies not as a main point, but as an excuse to put characters in a dystopian situation that forces them to develop and change psychologically, a character that shows no growth doesn’t fit in at all.

Another point is that he’s… overly glorified? Not just that everything he does is suddenly the Right and Only Way, it’s like everything he does is automatically the coolest thing ever and he’s the most badass and blah blah blah. Well, you know who else is fucking badass? Literally every single character. All of them. Daryl is able to do nothing that no one else can, and that wouldn’t be a flaw… if they didn’t present him as the coolest motherfucker, within the show but mostly in publicity and shit. Hell, in my personal opinion, Michonne is by far the most badass character (how she uses the katana, man). By making him out to be the coolest, they’re actively refusing to acknowledge other characters’ merits. As @hatterized once put it, the glorification of Daryl as the most badass is in a sense the glorification of white male mediocrity.

Also, I’m not gonna question Norman Reedus’ capacity as an actor, but what I will point out is that Daryl’s writing has him being silent and broody and generally unemotional basically all the time with very few exceptions. I’ll repeat: not Norman’s fault, but the writing’s, but the point remains that the acting of his character leaves a lot to be desired, and I personally find it hard to be invested in a character that is ice personified 99% of the time.

So, in general, I think Daryl is the worst written character because he’s gotten so popular, that he’s stopped being an actual character that is treated under human psychology like all the others, but just something they use to keep it ‘cool’, when the Walking Dead is about something else entirely. 

As a personal thing, I’ll add that I just straight up find it infuriating that he’s promoted as the best and only character in the show when he’s just a secondary. I’ve wasted so much time looking for TWD stuff that’s not just Daryl’s face. It is, again, a case of not acknowledging other characters’ merits.