#i don't know how to put four people to pose in a pile

[taidotonheiluja]

Käärijätober Day 5 - Pink Dancers

Hello I'm late. drops this and runs back to the next wip

[cosmic-vacuum]

Planner/Recorder layout

not very necessary to make but will be efficient, adjust if needed

Can be done on applications like google docs though I'd advise reducing screen-time before it permanently damages our eyes. [reason I suggest this "planner" method: keeps the work over the time arranged systematically and every time we open the planner, what we're doing and the results will lay documented in front]

(There isn't a need of any "material resource" which some of us might assume we "don't have and so can't do it", I know because I've been there. If we desire, we can make even a single, daily-life resource to be tool for victory. Don't let anything of the sort stop you, make use of what you have. It's you who has to grow and not the pile of tools.)

pictorial representation at the end

VERY IMPORTANT: It's important one understands that the goal we're chasing is not to make our work "aesthetically beautiful", it is to help us record the practical efforts we put not the superficial ones.

ONE: Pick out a notebook or a diary of any type whether it be fresh or used (let's save resource) , which shall pose as a planner for the next two months. Again, the aim is not pseudo-gratification from beautifying this planner.

TWO: On the first page (of the notebook or from wherever you begin the record), draw a small-sized calendar for the months coming under this two month journey.

THREE: Break down your goal into months, then into weeks. Divide the two months into different phases, each represented by a week.

My planner has nine weeks over two months. You all can check out on your own planner 👍

FOUR: The page right after the calendar (leave the remaining space empty for now) should now contain columns with each week and the fragmented goals you must fulfill written under that along with the dates falling under the week.

FIVE: Enclose the portion with all dates falling under the week in a box. People preparing for entrances or even just studying can highlight one specific date falling on the same weekday every week as "full-week-revision-day".

SIX: On the page right after the one where all the weeks and their goals have been penned down, make a time table for your day.

Important: Do NOT do things of the sort where we're going into details like "6:00am to 6:05am - brushing teeth".

There is a way to make time tables: it's not an absolute replica of how your day is supposed to go like ideally but is meant to provide structure to the day.

[I'll put up a separate post on how to get that done properly because it's going to take up a portion of this post otherwise]

SEVEN: Under the time table, draw a line and put down the heading "WEEKLY PROGRESS" and leave the area blank for now.

EIGHT: The page starts with the heading "Week 1". Right underneath, put down all dates lying under the week and the work distribution for each one of the days.

Remember: We are all human beings not AI bots. These daily goals MUST be practically achievable. It can't be, say— I'm going to finish a whole damn textbook or even chapter from scratch in a day, or I'm going to jump directly to a hundred pushups from zero.

Be real to yourself and the world. Understand your capabilities and aid growth of self not diappointment.

NINE: One all daily goals of the week have been listed too, draw a centrally placed small line for a mild differentiation and then put down the date of the first day.

Whatever you will be planning to do on one day must be noted and planned before you sleep the previous day— a productive day begins a night before.

TEN: Record your mind in this space now. People who push their limits and work hard to attain certain goals also go through a "mental metamorphosis" and become stronger identities.

There will be several revelations along this journey so my personal opinion to it is whenever some heavy words— be it sad, hurtful, motivating, elating, or even those we feel about the world through the journey —happen to emerge in your mind, pen them down.

(Don't worry about anyone reading all this. As long as there is dedication in one's mind and results at the end, no one truly can question.)

I've just quickly drawn it over in Microsoft Paint but this is an overview in case something isn't clear above—

(in case you can, save the images and put white over all text then get it printed and use that instead of bothering to write it all down)

[odysseywritings]

The Church

@flashfictionfridayofficial @howdywrites

(tw blood and gore)

The quartet of zombie survivors walked away from the struggle with bloodied wounds barely covered by bandages. They needed a place to hold out and recover and it certainly wasn't going to be out in the open as dusk approached. The bloody red sun overlooking the cruel southwest desert signalled the frozen chill of night creeping in. By serendipity, the sun was toward the direction of a church with lights still on.

"Yay, someone is still alive!" the pink dyed Gabi beamed.

"Finally," the large stetson wearing Rhonda grinned. "Was afraid Tess was gonna fly away with th' wind!"

"Hush it," the tiny, gray flanneled woman said. "This is holy ground, and I don't want y'all talking like heathens while we're finally blessed."

A long haired man wearing denim and brown leather observed the pile of zombies dead and impaled while posed in upside down cross formations.

"I love what they've done with the place," Ken quipped. "Really feeling the love of God here."

Tess groaned, "Lord, forgive them and their foolishness."

Gabi knocked on the door and yelled to say they were in need of a safe house. There was no coherent answer, only some mumbled sighs. She looked at the others who were also confused, yet the chill was grating on their skin, and they chose to enter anyway.

The cobwebs and chipped pews contrasted with the ornate church's stained glass filled with colorful hagiography that felt at home to Gabi and Tess, while Ken was impressed by the artistry, and Rhonda was apathetic to it all. They looked around to find the sound's source, a constant moaning that echoed throughout the building, causing Gabi to shiver and Rhonda to aim her shotgun. Tess found a separate room and found a kneeled woman in a nun's habit sulking.

"Sister? You're alright now. We're not bit."

Gabi stepped in to see the nun and bent down to comfort her, but Tess put her arm out in case it was a trap.

"What's your name?"

With a long exhale, the woman slowly got up and looked at them, and saw Ken and Rhonda enter as she ambled over.

"I am Sister Amanda. I am the only one who has been saved in this great judgement. I hope you four are not the Horsemen come to lay waste to me."

"Hell no," Rhonda barked as Ken raised a brow at the nun's words. "But if we were, I call War, because that's the most badass one!"

"Rhonda," Tess sighed. "Sorry, Sister. We didn't mean to intrude, but night's closing in, and we needed a refuge."

"I understand. But before I let you all stay, you must do me a favor, and that is to confess your sins. It is how I remained safe from this awful plague. I insist you do the same lest the horrible curse outside befalls you all."

Rhonda rolled her eyes while Tess and Gabi obliged with Ken out of sight.

"I don't mind, Sister," Tess said. "I ain't going too private since I'm with company, but... I did a kill a man before all this. A real snake who tried to get more than he deserved."

"I killed a few m'self, ya ain't that special" Rhonda chimed as Tess glared at her. "What? Y'all wanted confessions..."

Gabi twiddled her fingers and stepped up. "I... turned a blind eye to someone being attacked. I was just so scared and didn't know what to do!"

Tess put her hand around Gabi's and Amanda gave a small smile with hands outstretched.

"Thank you all. I know now what people you are all. How un-Christian and sinful you are."

"Excuse me," Tess stared daggers at her. "Then what was all that confession shit for?"

"Call it introspection," Amanda said with a sluggish smile and heavy eyes. "You will need it in this coming Rapture. Murderers and cowards need to be reminded of their guilt if they seek salvation."

"What are you even saying," Gabi cried in confusion. "We messed up but we're doing what we can! How dare you be sanctimonious!"

"I can beat that smugness right out of 'er," Rhonda cracked her knuckles.

"You may say your barbs, but I am protected, for my deeds are only to the evil and soulless you saw before trespassing on this land. You three-"

Her heart dropped and a chill went down her spine.

"Wait, there was a fourth one. A young man. Where did he go?"

"Ladies?" Ken shouted from below, causing the others to be concerned.

Rhonda grabbed Amanda by the arm and escorted her to where Ken was. He found a cellar hidden by tapestry and went down and saw a sight that rendered him speechless and cold. The others followed his path and saw what he discovered.

Bodies of slashed clergy and churchgoers were laid neatly in a row. Many were only recently rotting and three were smaller and younger than the rest.

Ken pointed at the limbs and necks. "No bite marks."

Amanda lost balance and felt her vision distorted and swirling. She retreated to a pew and rested on her side.

"The Lord will forgive me. He always will. He knows what I had to do. They all committed grave sins. To use the apocalypse as an excuse for impure and unholy acts. To abuse all of His love. To abuse all of His laws. To abuse all of His charity."

She rambled on as nightfall pressured them to throw her outside, in her nearly catatonic state, damning her to the outside world come Hell or high water. The group had varying degrees of guilt, with Ken and Rhonda feeling no sympathy for Amanda, Gabi feeling terribly sick, and Tess thinking about their safety in sleeping without a knife around their necks. They didn't hear her as they slept through the night and assumed she met her flock.

[dethkomic]

I have a theory about the Doomstar in DSR granting Dethklok their powers. Is this also true for Nita and would she be getting the same power from something similar, or perhaps the Doomstar itself?

Get ready for a marathon question-answer-a-thon because I'm sick and it's helping me pass the time, goofballs!

So, I think in answer to the above, it's a solid maybe. I don't want to come off as knowing more than I know (which is very little to begin with in a lot of respects, hurr) but the theory you've posed, I believe is widely speculated as canon or practically canon. To me at least, it looked like the Doomstar was imbuing Dethklok with... well... something. And if that's going to lead to what most fans commonly refer to as their "god powers" or whatever coming to light, then it won't surprise me.

As for Nita, she isn't a God, if that's the implied question, here. But where she gets her powers from would potentially be the same source (whatever that is). Regardless, I don't think I'll explore that until we get some solid answers from the finale, if we do. For now, though, I'm on the side that assumes your theory is correct as it pertains to Dethklok, at least. Ask anyone -- I'm always on board for supermassive celestial entities going about distributing raw power to metal bands.

And it appears you have two questions in my pile, @hercannonyourface

Yes.

Caja is her legal name before she decided to shorten it to its male form, Caj. Skwisgaar might be doing this because he's known her since she was using her feminine name, or he might be doing it to be a dick.

As a writer, I just think it's great point of interest that she's genderfluid enough to give zero shits when Toki refers to her as 'he/him' with her preference being 'she/her' (and that the script for the very next update will see her apparently referring to herself as 'daddy'), but it drives her batshit insane that Skwis still calls her Caja.

Here again, I don't want to confirm any false assumptions that I know more than I do. I am using the Falconback logo in parts of this story as a sort of branding, and not a real allusion to the project as a whole. I feel it's just easier when it comes to plot devising to utilize it as something easily associated with General Crozier (at least, for the audience... frankly I'm damn impressed Pickles' fuzzy brain was on it enough to put the fact that he saw it on a missile's casing, and again on Cherry's tracking device, together).

tl;dr: We won't see the actual Project Falconback in this story. It's too early for it. But here again, since we know how season 2 ended, I've left it open enough to allow for the conclusion of canon to happen without anything within dethkomic getting in the way. At least, I hope I did. Watch us get a "it was all just a cocaine dream" or something for an ending. okay, I'm gonna shut up and not will that into existence, right now

Oh, for sure. Can't put out fever dream art and leave people hanging.

When it comes to knowing a little bit more about the girls in general, you're going to get a lot of back-stories right out of the gates once I start chapter four, here. I realize I have a lot of ground to cover in what I'm planning to be just 25 pages of 'komic left to go, and I don't want to have all the breadcrumbs I've been leaving lead to nothing.

You might be able to discern a few things from just the questions I've answered here, in fact, but I promise there's a lot more on the table, and I do have a script laid out that takes it somewhere. That goes for all corners of this question and what it could mean: The girls themselves, their mission and what it really is, as well as their connection to Dethklok on the prophecy front.

That's all I've got the brain power for, for now., gang Thanks for your questions as always, and remember... Dethkomic loves you!

[alloftheimaginess]

Little Morgan

Ooc Spencer Reid.

Wordcount : 2727

After filming her latest movie After, overseas for the last year 26 year old Yn Morgan was seen headed to Virginia

I hold my phone in my hand as I pose for pictures with the fans I ran into at the airport even though I look like a literal pile of shit. I work with what I have which is filters and when they are done taking photos on their phone I pull out my phone and I go to my Snapchat and I use my phone to take selfies with fans and I take like 8 before adding them to my Instagram story, getting all of their instagrams so that I can tag them.

"Arrived home to so much love. I love you all 😘💕" I add to my Instagram story as well.

"Thank you so much Yn" one of them says.

"Of course no problem" I say hugging them again before my phone starts going off.

"It was nice meeting you all, I'll follow you when I get home" I say walking off and picking up my phone.

"Hey dad" I say as soon as I pick up.

"Hey baby did you land?" He asks.

"Yeah, are you here?" I ask looking around as I grab my suitcase.

"Yeah, I'm walking up right now. I had to park pretty far" he says.

"Okay, I'm making my way to the entrance" I say putting my suitcase down and wheeling it behind me and when I see him, I run over to him and he catches he, pulling me into a hug and I hug him back.

"Hi daddy" I say kissing his head.

"Hey baby. How was the flight?" He asks and I smile at him.

"To be honest I don't know. I was so excited to see Hank that I slept the whole time because if I didn't I would have exploded" I say and he laughs.

"How long has it been?" He asks.

"I only seen him when he was in the hospital and then I was filming supernatural and then when that wrapped I had to fly out from Canada to London to start filming After" I say.

"It's going to be so good to see him in person and not just over FaceTime" I say and he grabs my suitcase.

"Well he's waiting so let's go" he says leading the way.

"Are you okay?" He asks as he gets in after putting my suitcases in the trunk and I nod.

"Yeah, it's just a little weird if I'm being honest" I say buckling up.

"I haven't seen Savannah in so long and I don't want to feel like I'm intruding" I say and he quickly shakes his head.

"I understand, it's a new place. But take your time it's no rush to get use to things. And it's only two weeks but if it was longer you wouldn't be intruding. She's waiting to get some girl time in with you" he says smiling at me before he drives off.

"A few of my former colleagues are coming over for dinner tonight. So I'm just letting you know so you have time to shower and get ready" he says.

"Thank you for the warning. I need time to get presentable" I say smiling at him.

"Welcome home" he says opening the door and I walk inside happy to finally be here instead of living out of a hotel for the past year and a half.

"You did such a good job with the house, it looks nothing like how it use to look" I say looking around.

"Hey sweetie" I hear and Savannah walks around the corner.

"Hey" I say and she hugs me and I hug her back.

"I just started dinner, so you have time to get ready" she says and I nod and Hank runs around the corner.

"Ynn" he says running over to me hugging me.

"Hi Bubba" I say picking him up.

"You've gotten some big and cute. How old are you now?" I ask kissing his head.

"I'm three" he says holding up four fingers and I put one down, smiling at him.

"That's so crazy. I remember seeing you in the hospital as a little baby" I say.

"You seen me in the hospital?" He asks and I nod.

"Yeah, I was one of the first people to hold you" I say brushing his hair out his face.

"Hank, let Yn go shower" Savannah says.

"We'll finish this conversation later" I say putting him down and holding out my fist and he fist bumps me before running off into the kitchen.

"Everything is pretty much exactly where it was it's just updated so you should have no problem finding your way" my dad says and I turn to him nodding.

"Okay" I say going up the stairs to shower and get ready.

I walk down the stairs and I hear a lot of talking and laughing and I tug on my dress before walking around the corner "hey Yn come here" my dad says opening his arms and I walk over and he hugs me, wrapping one arm around my shoulder.

"This is my best friend Penelope, Penelope this is my daughter Yn" he says introducing me to the first person I see.

"You didn't tell me your daughter was the Yn Morgan" she says and I smile at her.

"Well I feel like I'm the only one" I say laughing.

"But it's nice to meet you" I say going to shake her hand but she pulls me into a hug.

"You are so beautiful" she says and I hug her back.

"Thank you" I say smiling at her.

"This is Matt and his wife Kristy, Hotch and his wife Renae, Luke, Tara, Rossi, JJ and her husband Will, Emily and Spencer" he says introducing me to everyone and I shake all of their hands.

"It's really good to meet you all" I say smiling at them.

"I'm with Penelope here. You didn't tell us who your daughter actually was" Luke says and I turn to my dad.

"It never came up" he says and Renae laughs.

"Never came up? We've known you for like 17 years" she says.

"Geez it's almost like you're embarrassed of me" I joke and he laughs rolling his eyes.

"How long are you with your dad?" Matt asks.

"Two weeks, I'm off from filming for a while so I decided to visit them" I say and he smiles at me and I smile back and Savannah hands me a glass of wine and I sip on it.

"You're an actress right?" Kristy asks and I nod.

"Yeah I am" I say smiling at her.

"What's that like?" She asks.

"When I was younger it was a really hard time for me, I started out on a show and then my mom made me join another cast at the same time and I was doing two shows at once and I wasn't use to it so I was very moody and always tired and then after that I did a season of a show and I was quickly done with that because it sucked so I moved on to movies to let myself relax" I say taking a sip of my wine.

"And you do both now right?" JJ asks.

"Yeah, recently I started doing tv again" I say.

"You were in the Netflix series. I think it was called a Time" Will says and I nod.

"Yeah, that's what made me want to start tv again and then I did a show called euphoria with one of my best friends who is like a little sister to me and then I did supernatural and went to work on a movie" I say.

"My girlfriend and I watched Euphoria" Tara says.

"What did you think?" I ask.

"You were so good. We talked about how you and Zendaya played the roles you got so good that it seemed so real" she says and I laugh awkwardly because for me it is very real.

"She told me the day she started filming that Savannah and I weren't allowed to watch it" my dad says wrapping his arm around Savannah.

"Her parts in the show weren't as bad as others but yeah as her parents I wouldn't watch it" she says and everyone laughs.

"What else are you in?" Spencer asks.

"Im in a new series called the umbrella academy. It came out earlier this year and I occasionally do a show called 9-1-1" I say.

"So you've been busy?" Renae asked and I nod.

"Extremely, but I like it. It helps me stay active so I don’t have rid to start thinking" I say drinking the last of my wine.

"I'm going to get a refill. Does anyone need anything?" I ask and they all shake their head continuing on the conversation and I go into the kitchen and I go to the wine and I pour me a glass and I take the plastic baggie out my bra and I put a little on my finger and I stick the bag back in my bra and I hear the door open so I brush it off and I look up to see Spencer and he smiles at me and I smile back.

"Hey" I say.

"Hi, can you top me off?" He asks setting his cup on the island and I nod pouring him a glass and I sit on the cabinet refilling mine.

"So Spencer" I say smiling at him.

"Yeah?" He asks, awkwardly smiling back.

"What do you like to do in your free time?" I ask.

"I don't really get free time but I guess I would have to say I like to read" he says.

"Oh yeah I can see that" I say and I grab my purse that’s on the far end of the cabinet, pulling the book out.

"You've probably read this but if you haven't you should give it a read and let me know what you thought about it. I just finished reading it on the flight here" I say handing it to him.

"How am I going to do that?" He asks and I pull a pen out and I open the front of the book, quickly writing my number in the top of the front cover.

"There you go. I don't know how fast you read but it took me three days so I'll be waiting on the call" I say.

"It's actually not going to take me that long" he says opening the front page again and he reads the first and second page in like 30 seconds.

"Oh my god I totally forgot you're like a genius" I say and he laughs.

"I'm not a genius" he says.

"Something only a genius would say" I say laughing and he looks up as I'm drinking my wine.

"Are you sure you want to give this to me?" He asks and I nod.

"I mean it's a bit too late, I was trying to be cute and write my number down" I say and he blushes a little.

"Yeah, you're right" he says quietly and I giggle.

"Hey, nothing to be embarrassed about" I say holding up my wine glass and I nod to him and he holds his up.

"Here's to fast friend outside of our careers and good books" I say and he taps his glass against mine at the same time I go to tap mine against his and I fall forward applying too much pressure and I catch myself but I break both glasses and the wine falls out and I instantly start laughing.

"Oh my god, I am so sorry" I say and he laughs with me and I jump down to grab some paper towels so I can clean up and he helps me and I hear the door open and I look up.

"Everything okay in here?" Savannah asks and I look up quickly over the island.

"Mhm" I say.

"All is good" Spencer says and she raises a brow.

"Whatever you heard nothing is broke" I say and she laughs.

"If you need another glass they are in the cabinet beside the stove" she says and the door closes and I finish cleaning and I sit back on the floor, with my back pressed against the island and Spencer grabs us more glasses and refills them and sits beside me handing me one.

"Thank you" I say and he smiles at me.

"Here's to fast friends outside of our careers, good books and extra wine glasses" he says and I snort laughing.

"Here here" I say gently tapping his glass and we both drink at the same time.

"Anyone ever tell you how easy it is to get along with you?" I ask and he quickly shakes his head laughing.

"Never and you only say that because I've had to stop myself from pulling out all the ramblings and unwanted facts" he says and I laugh.

"Don't let me stop you, I'd love to hear some of your best facts" I say and he smiles at me and I smile back and I start to lean in and the door opens and we both quickly pull away.

"And that's when I walked out of the Emmy's" I say and my dad clears his throat and I stand up.

"What's going on in here?" He asks.

"Well I was coming in here to refill my glass" I say.

"20 minutes ago" he says.

"And Spencer came in and we started talking and I gave him a book and then I went to cheers his glass and I broke both of ours and had to clean it up and then savannah came in and told us where the spare glasses were and then we refilled our glasses" I say and Spencer stands up.

"Leave them alone" Savannah says coming in to check dinner and I laugh at my dads face and Spencer's phone goes and he looks at it and he sighs.

"I have to go" he says and my dad nods.

"I'll walk you out" I say.

"You don't have to" he says.

"I know but I want to" I say.

"Be careful and I'll see you Sunday" my dad says hugging Spencer who hugs him back and then he hugs savannah as I walk into the living room.

"There you are Yn" Penelope says and I smile.

"I'll be right back to talk, I'm going to walk Spencer out" I say and she nods and Spencer comes to say bye to everyone and I walk him out.

"It was nice getting to meet you, you are way cooler than what I've heard" I say laughing and he laughs and it dies down and it gets awkward.

"Okay I'm just going to come out and say it because I've learned my whole life to just be bold but I like you, like really like you and the time I've talked to you has been the most fun I've had in like the past year and I know it might be weird because our age gap and the fact that I'm Derek's daughter and you're probably taken because only an idiot would ever turn you down and now I'm regretting even saying anything about liking you but it's true and I'm sorry if things are weird between us now but I thought we were having a moment in the kitchen earlier but I'm an idiot and I don't actually know if it was what I-" he cuts my endless rambling off with a kiss and I kiss him back before he pulls away.

"I'm sorry I don't know why I did that" he says.

"It's okay, I don't mind" I say smiling at him.

"I wouldn't normally do that but there's just something about you" he says and I push his hair out of his face, my smile growing bigger and I clear my throat.

"I should head back inside before they get suspicious but call me when you finish the book" I say and he squeezes my hand and I smile at him running back inside and when I get into the house I watch him pull off and I shut the door.

[ageofevermore]

the full moon is coming videos here , here

other miscellaneous irl blurbs here

enjoy 6k+ words of me getting carried away, then abruptly ending this blurb

Emma was slightly uneasy, fueled with maternal anxieties as she sipped on a chilled water bottle. She had swiped it from Sprayberry's clutches minutes ago, and the poor boy had yet to realize it. They were all severely jet-lagged, hardly awake yet but managing with their ever growing excitement. Her hand was clutched in Ellery's, a grin on her face as the two of them chattered endlessly. They had caught the same flight over to France, but even spending so many hours in a confined space proved to do them no harm. Dylan had tuned them out hours ago, using the baby as an excuse to be distracted. Emma hadn't fought him much on that, thankful to have a few hours to herself while her best friend and Dylan fussed over the five month old.

To say that luxury was short lived was majorly overlooked. The minute they landed Dylan and Ellery were ushered off to another section of the airport, Emma and Logan being led to customs. The baby had been fussy for hours after that, and despite Logan tagging along to help out, nothing had calmed Everly besides her mothers attentive touch. Emma was officially running on four hours of sleep, and she wasn't sure how her eyelids even managed to stay open.

She had left Logan and Everly in the hotel room just a few blocks from the convention center earlier that morning, pre-ordering her friend a coffee as a gesture of thanks. Not every twenty-year-old jumped at the chance of taking a fifteen hour flight to France only to be a babysitter.

"Makeup did a good job." Ellery teased, laughing when Emma dug her fingertips into her sides, a taunting grin on her face that had them both in fits of delirious laughter. They pulled apart quickly after, rummaging through the pile of French candies and snacks.

When they got the two minute signal, both girls grabbed a handful of hard candy, letting it fall into their mouths without much care. Dylan had witnessed it occur, rolling his eyes at his sister and his best, maybe more then friend, friend.

They had a steady thing going since well before Everly's birth, but only after did Dylan truly prove he wasn't just in it for the chase. He had stayed over on nights when Emma had begged him to just go home and be a normal kid on her behalf. He had changed diapers at three in the morning, and sat through breastfeeding's at four without complaint. He had been her rock for months now, and steadily both of them were craving more.

"How are you late?" Emma asked Holland around a mouthful of pastel candy, "Isn't your hotel the closest?" Holland wrinkled her nose at the sight, painfully accustomed to Emma's delirious habits.

"We got lost." Holland exclaimed, "Took a left when we should have went straight, and then when we should have made a right we went straight."

Emma rolled her eyes, swallowing the mouthful of candy before bringing Holland in for a tight hug. She hadn't seen much of the redhead in recent months, being cooped up in her apartment with Dylan and occasionally her friends from back in Jersey. She was taking her time settling into the whole parenting routine, but she would never miss an opportunity for fan interaction.

When they were lined up to start heading out, Sprayberry had finally noticed Emma clutching his water bottle, the sharpie painted cap rubbing off on her fingertips as she fiddled with it. He snatched it back, taking a swig, before handing it back.

"Could've just asked." He teased.

"That wouldn't have been as fun. Besides, you're oblivious when your tired." Emma concluded, cheekily taking another sip of the water and finishing it off. She threw it out, having just enough time to smooth down her shirt before they were being called out on stage.

Ryan went out first, then Dylan, Ellery, Megan, Emma, Crystal, Holland, and Shelley. It was a line-up of one badass women after another, which didn't happen very often in the land of teen wolf conventions. The show wasn't totally male dominated, but the numbers were slightly uneven when it came to promotion.

Emma took her seat between Crystal and Megan, smiling widely at the two. Crystal gave her hands a few squeezes before dropping them and grabbing the water bottle given to her by a stagehand.

Emma pulled out her phone, sending Logan a text as the moderator asked Crystal, Megan, and Ellery about their experience and exposure to France. She was answered immediately with a picture of her munchkin. The bright blue eyes of her baby were slowly earning speckles of darker blue and brown, but her large gummy grin was still the same even behind a pacifier. Her tan onesie decorated with skin tone colored rainbows was undone at the bottom, a recent habit Everly was getting into.

Crystal had leaned over just in time to see the picture, cooing in Emma's ear as she typed out a response before putting her phone away, giving the fans her undivided attention. She looked up at Crystal with a grin, glad to be reunited with the girl.

It wasn't long before they were getting into fan questions, and the interpreter was listening intently. "She wants to know what you miss the most."

"The long hours of work. I miss that, seriously." Dylan exclaimed after a moment of his drawn out um, "I miss having purpose." He joked, Emma couldn't help but roll her eyes at him, although she did miss the long nights. Anytime you created relationships on set and then put them to the test during fraturdays or fifteen hour shoots was always exhilarating.

"People." Holland sang, "I think you miss the people, I miss JR and Ian acting like they're an old married couple." Holland paused when the crowd erupted into screams, a smile breaking her lips. "Right, you know what I'm taking about? I genuinely actually miss that."

Emma grinned, nodding her head at the many memories of JR and Ian's bickering.

"I miss school. During night shots, taking math tests at three in the morning. It sounds like absolute torture, and it was, many tears were shed in that room, but it was always unofficial crackhead shit. I think I gave Spray a concussion one time." Emma grinned, biting down on her bottom lip when laughter arose at her answer. Sprayberry didn't miss a beat though, having been waiting for this moment for at least three years.

It was nearly four in the morning during season six, the both of then were slowly finishing up their senior year, and through delirium they'd decided yoga would be a good idea. They had gotten half way through the first pose before Emma slipped off of his shoulders and the both of them tumbled to the ground. Jeff hadn't let them in the room together for nearly a month after that.

"You did! I was out of choreo for a week." He fed into the microphone.

"It wasn't a life threatening injury, you're fine." She rolled her eyes, before looking at the crowd who. The majority was teenage girls, and they were all collectively giggling at the banter. "He's fine."

Emma turned her head, sticking her tongue out at Sprayberry before she fell back in her seat laughing. Their dynamic had never changed, though being surrounded by old friends had brought out a spark that had been slowly fading with time and adulthood.

"Shelley, would you like to say something?" The moderator questioned, taking Shelley's elaborate hand gestures as her wanting to say something. Emma grinned at the shocked expression on her face before she covered it up.

"The people." She mused, "I miss the people, I miss catching up with them. I miss you guys." Shelley smiled earning cheers to go around the room.

Emma looked down at her phone, seeing the screen light up beneath her leg. From the way it was positioned she could see that it was Logan sending her pictures, she could only assume Everly was being a little shit and using her time away from Emma to meet new milestones.

"Hi, um, what was your favorite scene to film?" A fan asked. Emma had missed this, it hadn't been too long since she'd had this kind of exposure, but it wasn't as painfully frequent as it once was. Emma could never find a medium she liked, always bending more towards a side then a middle.

"My favorite scenes to film were also the worst scenes to film, whenever we had huge ensemble because they would take forever. But it was also fun because everyone was in the scene, so there was a lot of goofing off and having fun. But you would shoot certain scenes for weeks, it felt like, at least days, but your at least having fun with the same people, just like up here. We can all have fun when we're not being professional."

Dylan leaned over the look in his blue eyes gleaming as he knew his voice wouldn't be carried far into the audience because he didn't have a mic, "Do you know how to be professional?"

It was a joke from years ago, one that hadn't been brought up in at least a few months. Emma grinned leaning forward just the same, the glint in her eyes dangerous with energy, "I'll cut your balls off."

The both of them laughed as they leaned back. They weren't sure why that had been so funny, but filming season four had lead to it's creation one morning between Tuesday and Wednesday. Emma was pretty she had been nearly asleep with her head in Sprayberry's lap when he made the joke, and her groggy response had been a tad violent.

Megan was still laughing when she started explaining her answer, being handed a microphone from Holland so the audience could hear her. Crystal glanced over at Emma, sharing a meaningful look with the girl. She was always very put together during panels, the least likely of the cast to go off on wild rants of what happened behind the scenes.

"Yeah that being said, I love to do all my own stunts. Although, that being said, I don't do all my own stunts, my stunt double was amazing, but I kind of love being physical especially because most of those scenes are at night, so it wakes you up it makes you be very aware. But, yeah, those were my favorite scenes. The stunt work, and also, so this question comes up a lot and were asked a lot, and every single time that I'm asked I feel like my scenes always change, and I just thought about the scene in the pilot Holland with you and Emma, at the lacrosse game?" Crystal smiled, at the memory that resurfaced. The pilot was so long ago, filmed nearly nine years ago, but memories were still so vivid.

"Oh yeah." Holland grinned, Emma smiled at the memory.

"You were so brilliant in that scene." Crystal grinned, "But it was the first time that we got to hang out as like normal people. I don't know, it was a great scene with you guys." She grinned, making heart pumping motions with her hands when the crowd awed.

"During that scene about lacrosse I was just talking about getting fired before i had basically even been hired, like, i just hope i make it for a second season, you don't understand, you don't understand. So that's what we were -- that's what I was complaining to Crystal and Em about in the bleachers during that scene." Holland laughed, "But yeah that was a fun scene."

"It was cold too!" Emma added, "Holland and I were in mini skirts and booty shorts."

"It was so cold." Holland agreed, "And, this is a zinger, Atlanta hadn't had a lot of production at that point so there's certain tricks when your filming in cold weather to wear like under lays, and we didn't have those under layers. So we were so bitterly cold during our pilot." Holland looked over at Crystal who was nodding along to her story, a smile breaking her lips when another memory struck Holland, "And our trailer caught on fire, hair and makeup, so we had to get the hell out of dodge."

Shelley grabbed the microphone from Holland a blank gleam in her eyes, "Shit, I was listening to you guys I haven't been thinking. I really enjoy, I'll say since it's who I basically started working with, Dylan O'Brien--" The crowd went up into cheers at just the mention of his name and Emma grinned, "Yeah, that was really my first taste of Teen Wolf and he was just a great scene partner, and obviously we had so much fun, to much fun. I think we laughed, you know,  mostly when you're not supposed to. But you know, our scenes always turned out different then I think either of us expected, and there was always some cool, weird thing that would happen, I don't know." Shelley waved off her answer, clearly having initially pulled it from her ass with being on the spot.

"Ellery, Emma, do you have anything?" The moderator asked so she knew if she could begin translating what what already been said.

"I like the scene in Motel California with Ro, Posey," Emma stressed, she had referred to him as Ro, or Rosie multiple times before, but it wasn't an obvious give away that she was referring to Tyler and that often slipped her mind. "When Ellie says she loves him, that was a sweet moment. I don't know that's the only one I can remember, I blocked the first three seasons out and then season six was overrun with spiders."

Ellery had started talking before she was even offered a microphone, her soft voice picking up when Dylan shoved on into her hands. "We had to do a scene in my episode, where we were like fighting. We had to like, get in each others face, I don't think you got it, but it was like really funny."

"Like real life." Shelley interjected.

"Yeah. Exactly! Cause we don't really fight," Sprayberry shrugged his shoulders, and Ellery rolled her eyes in annoyance, "Maybe a little bit, maybe sometimes. It was fun though, cause we actually felt like real siblings."

Dylan grabbed the microphone from Ellery, his lips pinching upwards in a smirk. "We never feel like we're siblings unless we're on a TV show." Emma rolled his words, knowing full well that Dylan adored his little sister more then anything else in the world, although she had an itching suspicion that her baby was beginning to take Ellery's place. "Yeah that was fun because they let us improve a lot which was cool. Um, my favorite scenes are the easy ones. No, uh, the i fell in a hole scene is really popular, I guess. That's one of my favorite scenes that i did film because that started a whole new part of my character, and that opened up the comedic side of my character because before that I was just playing angry, and emotional all the time, and it got kind of tiring, and if by doing that it allowed people to see my character in a different light..."

Emma had tried to follow Spray's words, but she drifted off in thought when he phone buzzed again. Was it Everly? She was sure Logan would have called or gotten into contact with her PA for the day, but she couldn't help but worry. She had taken Everly all over, but never had they been separated in a foreign country. Mom guilt was beginning to eat her up inside, but she forced a smile onto he lips and took a peak down at her phone. She breathed out a sigh, seeing that it was just a picture of Everly, her hands and knees pressed to the floor as she mastered the art of crawling.

"If there had been a season seven, would you have wanted to be in it?" The moderator translated. It was a unanimous answer instantly, heads bobbing and yes's being mumbled into the microphones.

"Do you have any new projects?"

Dylan looked around, seeing that everyone was busy in their own little side conversation so he began to mumble before finding an answer, "Do you guys know Hulu?"

"Light as a feather!" A girl yelled from the audience, attempting to do an American accent but sounding overly southern. Emma giggled, pushing a few strands of hair from her eyes before looking over towards Dylan.

He went over what it was, looking between Ellery and Ryan every few words. He never was good at press, which made Emma wonder why he ranted and raved about it after every convention.

"Anybody else?"

Emma accepted the microphone from Shelley, "I have a movie called After out next year. That's all I can say."

The stage went silent once more, the remaining actors around Emma all either happily our of work or actively looking. "Anyone else have new projects they would like to talk about?"

"No." Shelley exclaimed, "We're retired."

The moderator began to translate when Emma pinched her eyebrows together, turning towards Megan with a small frown, "You have a project." She nudged her gently, her lips turning upwards into a smirk when Megan began to fiddle with her fingers.

Megan had collected a rainstorm of applause for her new gig on Charmed, and Emma smiled, poking at the girl with a taunting grin. Megan laughed and the two fell into each other, whispering about nonsense while the panel moderator directed attention to Shelley.

"Ryan just reminded me about a role I've been on hold for, um, but it's to play a former beauty queen and former addict, so fingers crossed."

"True life story." He mumbled into the mic, watching Shelley's cheeks heat up.

"Miss Teen USA 2004." Emma projected, grinning widely when Shelley flipped her off. That had been a constantly running joke between them for years, she couldn't help but break away into little giggles and grins.

"It's based on my life." She admitted, "I'm not a former addict though." Shelley mimicked downing a glass of alcohol and Emma laughed loudly, mumbling an apology as she giggled into her knees.  

The next question was about their preferred favorite season, and the audience had gone into a fit of sadness after Crystal answer 3b. Emma frowned as well, recalling the hardships they had all went through while filming and bringing to life such a traumatic event. Her own character, Ellie, had been a wreck for nearly an entire season to follow. It was an arc Emma loved playing out, having been in that position one to many times before facing the death of a multiple loved ones, but it had also put a pause on the independent women her character was becoming.

She had answered with season four, for that exact reasoning, and than handed the microphone off to Megan. She laughed when Megan answered with season 3b and 4, and then went on about how those seasons were the tipping point when the fandom hated her for taking Derek away.

Dylan grabbed the microphone from Ellery after she answered season 6b by default. "I swear to god, if you don't say season five!" She warned.

"I liked doing 6A and 6B." Emma gasped at his answer, leaning forward to grab at the the small multi-colored hard candies, pelting them towards him aggressively. They showered down on him and Ellery, and the latter of the pair laughed loudly.

Dylan threw the candy back at Emma, his smile wide and taunting as the girl flipped him off with a playful glare. "Why season six?" She demanded to know. "It was literally full of spiders."

DAY 2

Emma had gotten more sleep tonight, thankfully. She hadn't gone to the party with the rest of the cast, instead turning in for a quiet night in her hotel room with her baby and best friend. Logan had been more then happy to have Emma with her as the two of them watched Disney movies, hardly caring that although their excuse for watching children's movies was the baby in the room, Everly was more interested in her feet then she was Tinkerbell and Elsa.

She was in between Holland and Sprayberry for the group panel that morning, sipping on a Starbucks refresher while the moderator asked about the party. Logan had gotten up with Everly just before six thirty, surprising Emma with a few extra minutes of sleep and a refreshing wakeup call.

Dylan reached for the cup, eyeing the light pink liquid. He had ordered for Emma many times before, usually supplying the younger girl with a strawberry lemonade but her drink was evolving by the month it seemed. Emma rolled her eyes playfully, handing the cup to Dylan and watching as her quizfully took a sip. He scrunched his nose up at first, but went in for another gulp and decided it wasn't as bad as he initially thought.

When asked what their favorite line was, the answers were immediate without any need to think, "Deer." Shelley exclaimed.

"A girls gotta eat."

"I fell in a hole."

Emma couldn't help but giggle at the memory, grabbing the microphone from Dylan's hand, "Always." She turned to give the microphone to Holland, sending the redhead a wink considering that line was almost always directed towards her.

"What the hell is a Stiles."

"We protect those who cannot protect themselves."

Ellery's answer was lame, but in the blondes defense she had only made an appearance in one episode. Emma just grinned, to busy making weird faces at Dylan through her impressive fit of energy. She had slept great considering the three am feeding, as well as being in an entirely different country and a hotel bed.

The two of them weren't paying as much attention as they should've been, breaking out into grins when they finally pulled their attention from their moment of weird expressions to listen to the moderator.

Froy had answered the question first, not missing a beat when he lifted the microphone to his mouth and claimed that in his free time he liked to do auditions for other projects. Shelley praised his efforts, her and Emma sharing a mutual distaste for the audition process. Most actors hated auditioning, feeling unnatural and like a ridiculed prop, but it was a necessary evil most times. Emma was convinced there was no better news then when her agent calls and tells her about a role she would only have to chemistry read for.

"What we like to do?" Ryan asked, "I like to get drunk and play with cats." He easily shrugged at the answer and Emma had to hide her grin. She had witnessed a hungover Ryan playing with animals on many occasions, and the sight never failed to be adorable.

It was no shock to Emma when Ellery answered wrestling and Crystal answered cooking. It had been a few weeks since she'd managed to take the drive to Crystal's place, but almost every night she was sent a new recipe that she said she would try and almost never did. Crystal knew this of course, but she also knew although Emma lied through her teeth about commitment, she enjoyed the texts and thought of somebody having her on their mind.

"Reading, hiking, I like the outdoors, the mountains in particular. So, I'll do a lot of audio books when I hike, and I camp. I love camping, so that's usually where I am." Holland grinned before handing the microphone off to Emma.

"I love sleeping." She exclaimed, a goofy grin on her face at the idea. "Usually, I'm hanging out with my baby, or this goon. Sometimes I'll take a random dance class." She nudged a thumb at Dylan, the two of them practically roommates. It wasn't often that Emma spent the night alone with Everly, having to force Dylan back to his own house so there was at least a small reason for him to be paying monthly bills and utilities.

She handed the microphone to Dylan, smiling softly at him before taking another sip of her drink. The way Dylan was sitting looked either genius level comfortable or completely horrible for his joints. She wouldn't be surprise if in a few minutes he'd start complaining about his tailbone or his back, but for the moment he was completely spaced out thinking of an answer.

"Um, I like doing Muay Thai, and wrestling, and I like reading. And um, spending time with this goon." He returned the favor, his grin sheepish when he snapped his gaze to Emma who was playfully rolling her eyes and kicking at his leg with her vans covered foot. Neither one of them missed the way Shelley excitedly gasped at their answers. The pair couldn't go a day without Shelley asking if they'd made it official yet.

Emma was sure she wouldn't say no if Dylan asked, but the guilt of tying him down with a kid at twenty-years-old was a lot of process. She was still only nineteen, they had so much life to live.

Megan took the microphone from Dylan, "Exercising. I just got into yoga, I also just got into Barry's bootcamp which is some intense stuff, and I also just also, also just also, I'm really tired, um, I got into cooking as well, I got into hors d'oeuvres, just getting all into that. And yeah, auditioning. I hate it, but it's what I do in my free time."

"Lucky." Shelley exclaimed when she grabbed the microphone, Emma laughed, shaking her head at the girl. They'd spent many nights curled up on Shelley's bed, or in Emma's, just talking about what the future held for them creatively. It wasn't like their opportunities were limited, rather the work offered way dry. It was either to far fetched from themselves, to boringly similar, or a role to close to one they'd played before. "I love to dance, and uh, I mean, Spanish, duolingo my app."

Emma and Dylan were once again in their own world. They were energized on sleep, Dylan getting an extra boost from the coffee he sipped tenderly. Emma had never really gotten into drinking it, though Holland had tried on multiple occasions to pass her an americano while on set. Kicking at him a little to hard, Emma flinched when she missed his leg and instead rammed her foot into the leg of his chair.

Sprayberry doubled over in laughter whilst Emma pouted, attempting to nurse the ache in her toes but distracting herself with the Starbucks refresher in her hands. She hadn't been kicking him all that hard, just little taps that would become annoying, which was her goal, but apparently the chair had other opinions of her pestering.

The next question was about what era they'd like the live in. Emma's answer hadn't changed since she was seven years old, the nineties being a time she would have liked to experience, or at least remember, because she couldn't deny that she did technically live during them, although it was as an infant.

"The sixties." Shelley answered.

"Considering my ancestry, right now. For free." Megan exclaimed and Emma couldn't help but giggle, though the weight of her statement weighed true and was something Emma thought about too frequently. She was a person of color living in America, but despite her mixed heritage she wasn't called out as often as her dark-skinned colleges and friends, but that didn't mean she was free of any racist interactions.

"Now might be the best time." Dylan agreed, "Um, I would say the nineties, what no! Like the early nineties, when nirvana was a big thing. Like I wish I lived in Seattle when those bands were all around because they were all friends and I would have liked to be apart of a band like that. Now all music is shit. Let me know how it was, yeah." He laughed.

"Is it cool if I say the nineties too? I don't have good reasoning, I just want to know what the hype was about Blockbuster."

"Did you never go to a blockbuster?" Ryan asked, leaning forward in his chair so his voice traveled to Emma.

"No, it was a, here's Netflix, kind of thing."

"When were you born?" His eyes were wide in shock now, clearly interested in the upbringing Emma had considering she hadn't even visited a blockbuster.

"End of ninety-eight." Emma grinned at his exasperated face, "So I have probably been to a blockbuster, but not that I can remember."

Holland had a blissfully teasing glint in her green eyes when Emma turned towards her and offered her the microphone. It was a given to be picked at because of her age. Being twelve and working with twenty and thirty-year-olds just came with the teasing territory. She didn't mind though, usually because Holland always came to set the next day with random products from the nineties, claiming it was to further educate Emma, when really it was just to give her an excuse to buy them on amazon at two am.

The next question wasn't as light hearted, a girl standing up and asking what advice they had for somebody that's sad. Emma had figured out from personal experience that when a question like that is asked it's never for somebody else or conspired out of the blue, it's somebody that's going through a hard time and needs to hear something other then their own internal monologue.

Froy and Ryan had given inklings of advice whilst Emma was in her own head, trying to find words that could soothe. She had faced depressive episodes that lasted weeks and months, and she had felt sadness that lasted days. The two wore different faces, but often they were confused and shoved into the same category. It was a category that not many social outlets or people liked to touch upon.

"I think it is important to realize it is completely fine to feel sad, it's not a bad thing, in fact it only feels really bad when we try to actively push it away. Some of the most beautiful literature, and poetry, and art, and exploration has come from people feeling sad, and in fact if we didn't feel sad we wouldn't know what it would be to feel happiness. If we didn't have heartbreak we wouldn't know what extreme love would feel like, sadness is apart of our human experience and it's something we need to experience, and I think that when you accept okay, I feel sad today, and you don't try to actively push against it lightens it. I think it's just important to realize we actually need it, and it can provide great perspective if you let it, and learn from it."  Crystal spoke, her words hitting Emma deeply. She knew the feeling of denial all to well, and pushing aside what she was actually feeling had been a default reflex since before she could remember. It had gotten so bad at one point, there had been a time when she couldn't even name what happiness was. She had pushed everything away to the point where she felt numb.

Emma accepted the microphone from Holland after the girl shared, her heart heavy at the topic they were touching at, "I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder when I was eleven and depression when I was thirteen. I think what helped me the most was looking at it from the perspective that shit happens. I think it's so ignorant when people assume you're incapable of functioning with a mental illness, or being medicated is the only way to deal with it. Letting yourself feel anything that's not happiness has such a negative stigma in society, and you're fed bullshit by so many outlets. I just take a step back from it all. When I have the time to stay home, I stay home. Sometimes I sit in silence for days, and I don't talk to anybody. It's just about finding what works for you."

Emma didn't think twice about handing the microphone off to Dylan. She had never been opposed to talking about her own struggles, but it was a conversation controversial to some, and her emotions were so heavily guarded it was hard to express them at times. Sprayberry offered Emma a genuine smile before he tried to find his own remedies at the tip of his tongue.

She didn't really listen to much to what her other former cast-mates said, busy picking at the skin around her nails and starring off into the audience. Miniscule details were catching her attention, her heart beating in her ears. She wasn't good at being vulnerable, or listening to other people being vulnerable. She had gotten better at it, but it was still able to make her antsy.

That was the last question of the panel, and happily Emma accepted Dylan's hand when he helped her down the stage stairs. His touch had brought her out of the distracted daze she'd fallen into, but the topic still weighed heavily on her. She pulled her phone from the waistband of her pants, frowning curiously when she noticed that Logan hadn't sent her any messages.

When they rounded the corner to a green room, Emma was slightly taken aback to see Logan smiling sheepishly. Her baby was wide away, suckling on a pacifier and playing with her fingers, no sign of a nap in her wide blue eyes.

"You left with my phone." Logan held up the phone in her hands, proving to Emma that the phone she'd been checking all morning hadn't been her own. She hadn't even realized that the case and background was different, to caught up with everything else going on. "And I couldn't get into yours, because you changed the password, again."

Ellery and Dylan both made an advance for the baby at the same time, glaring at each other childishly. Everly didn't mind the attention though, soft coos falling from around her pacifier.

"Did she nap at all?" Emma sighed, switching Logan's phone for her own when she came close enough to the blonde. "I swear if you leave me with an overtired baby later, I'll have your head."

Logan rolled her eyes, "Princess here decided she wanted to sleep until ten this morning." Emma gaped at the news, looking over at her baby with a betrayed gleam. Dylan had her cuddled up into his chest, hands softly caressing's her thin and fragile hair.

"Ten?" Emma whined. She was lucky if Everly slept in past seven. She had quickly learned how to do basic house chores with a baby on in her embrace. "You going to head back to the hotel?"

Logan had mentioned a trip to the shops yesterday, so Emma wouldn't be surprised if she came back to the hotel later and her daughter had an entirely new wardrobe. Logan didn't even need to answer for Emma to roll her eyes. "Don't buy all of France, please." She bargained.

"I'll try not to babes." Logan reached for Everly, hardly bothered by the teary gleam she received. "Say bye to Mommy." Emma pressed a kiss to the babies head before Logan and Evie were gone again, off to spend too much money on tiny shoes and clothes.

Her mood had improved greatly, turning to give Dylan a wide grin and pull him over to the large stack of sweets. Shelley was already rummaging through them with Froy, extending a chocolate covered wafer to Emma the second she approached.

This was exactly the place she wanted to be.

[latestnews2018-blog]

We Don't Need 'Who Is America?' To Tell Us How Bad Things Are

New Post has been published on https://latestnews2018.com/we-dont-need-who-is-america-to-tell-us-how-bad-things-are/

We Don't Need 'Who Is America?' To Tell Us How Bad Things Are

His pants lowered to bare his buttocks, Georgia state Rep. Jason Spencer scuttled backward at his opponent, who was portraying an Islamic terrorist. “America!” Spencer bellowed. “I will turn you into a homosexual!” he tells the terrorist.

Welcome to the second episode of Sacha Baron Cohen’s Showtime comedy “Who Is America?” The premiere arrived last week on a wave of critical buzz, thanks to a torrent of outraged statements from conservative politicos who’d been fooled by the actor into advocating for the arming of small children.

But despite the anticipation, the debut ratings were dismal. Though the numbers edged up with encore and On Demand viewings, viewership was weak compared with the debuts of cable TV’s recent successful political comedies, like TBS’s “Full Frontal with Sam Bee” and HBO’s “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.” Even Comedy Central’s “The Opposition with Jordan Klepper,” canceled thanks to abysmal ratings after one season, started stronger than Baron Cohen’s new vehicle.

Why is “Who Is America?” opening with more of a whimper than a bang? Perhaps we’re tired of political humor, or it’s been too long since Baron Cohen’s last hit. Or perhaps this particular brand of comedic exposé has lost its appeal. After all, it’s not like we really need it anymore to grasp how bad things are.

Not that Sunday night’s segment with Spencer wasn’t jaw-dropping. The Republican lawmaker believed he was taking part in anti-terrorism training with an Israeli former military officer, Erran Morad (Baron Cohen in heavy, rather obvious makeup). Morad put Spencer through his paces, having him participate in exercises in which he yelled racial slurs as a diversionary tactic, performed an offensive parody of a Chinese tourist, and took an upskirt photo of a person in a burka to check for weaponry. 

It was an astonishing display, even for a politician previously best known for threatening a former Democratic state rep — a black woman — that she might “go missing” in the swamp due to her public support for removing Confederate statues. Spencer, who in May’s GOP primary lost his bid for a fifth term, put out a statement before this embarrassing footage aired, saying, “It is clear the makers of this film intended to deceive me in an attempt to undermine the American conservative political movement.”

But meanwhile, the party’s leader, President Donald Trump, was in the midst of a rather typical evening of tweeting: referring to his long-ago opponent in the presidential election as “Crooked Hillary,” then sending an all-caps threat of military engagement to President Hassan Rouhani of Iran. 

Of course, no statement needed to be issued to explain how the president was tricked into this unhinged behavior. With Trump leading the way, conservatives have become more and more comfortable showing their own asses unprompted. 

Sure, it’s still quite alarming to see lobbyists and congressional representatives eagerly advocate arming kindergartners with stuffed animal guns. In the most successful sketch from the premiere, Morad peddles a program, “Kinder-Guardians,” intended to solve America’s school shooting epidemic by arming schoolchildren as young as four. As a work of entertainment, the segment is masterful ― and it takes the gun debate in a daring direction by pulling in the right-wing fascination with Israel and its military culture.

Showtime

Gun rights advocate Philip Van Cleave participating in an fictional ad campaign for stuffed animal guns for children in the premiere of “Who Is America?”

The Republicans caught by the Kinder-Guardians trick are defensive and embarrassed, at least for now. Being fooled by a liberal comedian makes them look gullible. But then again, they really weren’t fooled into revealing much that didn’t already exist out in the open.

There was a moment, when “Da Ali G Show” and “The Daily Show” were in their prime, that comedy like this could be genuinely revealing. In the old-fashioned days of the aughts, seeing Baron Cohen or a “Daily Show” correspondent coax a shocking statement out of a public figure, or even a random person on the street, had the power to truly jolt us.  Comedy interviews stood to expose the depths of our fellow humans’ carefully hidden cravenness, bigotry, ignorance, extremism.

“Da Ali G Show” character Borat Sagdiyev, a Kazakh reporter also played by Baron Cohen, made a specialty of baiting subjects with his own professed anti-Semitism, racism and sexism. During a wine-tasting segment, he asked Norman Harris, the head of a Mississippi wine organization, whether the black waiter was “his slave.” Harris responded that slavery had been outlawed, which was a good thing. “For them,” he added. “For you, not so much!” Borat replied jovially. Harris agreed.

“That guy normally would never say that he thought it’s a shame that slavery doesn’t exist anymore,” Baron Cohen told The New York Times. “But because he’s in the room with somebody who’s totally naïve and seems to not mind that slavery existed, he was fully honest.”

By comfortably displaying racist views, a character like Borat made interviewees feel safe in revealing their own. In another interview, the comedian described the technique as “a dramatic demonstration of how racism feeds on dumb conformity as much as rabid bigotry.”

Now, 14 years later, that seems hard to dispute. We don’t even need to turn to edgy comedy for overt demonstrations of the phenomenon. Trump himself functions as an always-in-character version of what Baron Cohen pretends to be for a comedy show: a public figure who offers tacit encouragement for others to voice and enact bigotry by doing so himself.

Baron Cohen’s variety of comedic exposé was perfectly engineered for a time when the kind of middle-class white liberals who watched “Ali G” and “The Daily Show” weren’t confronted with the extremity of others’ views all the time. Back then, it was relatively easy to avoid people who think things were better before the Civil War or that, I don’t know, you should give high-powered weaponry to children on the cusp of learning to use a fork.

But we’re bathed in it now, in the ambient Pizzagate conspiracy theories and “build the wall” rants we face on every platform. We don’t need Borat to bust GOP officials and candidates when they’re recklessly posting racist memes to their own Facebook pages. 

As for random citizens, they easily can, and do, broadcast their own anti-Semitic, misogynistic, anti-gun control and racist views to Twitter ― no comedic sting required. During the second episode, NPR host Dr. Nira Cain-N’Degeocello, another Baron Cohen character, announces the construction of an enormous new community mosque to a meeting of Kingman, Arizona, residents. They respond with trembling outrage; one shouts that he identifies as “racist against Muslims,” and several more argue that they already tolerate black people, although they don’t like it. The scene felt gratuitously painful, an unfunny rehash of a racist debate we already know too well.

Then again, much of Baron Cohen’s shtick has always been a straightforward troll. In “Who Is America?,” he subjects Bernie Sanders to a mathematically incomprehensible presentation on how to move all of the 99 percent into the 1 percent while the senator, with a single-mindedness familiar to those who followed the 2016 Democratic primary, steered the conversation back to his stump speech. This showed nothing new about Sanders, but Baron Cohen didn’t seem to be aiming to.

Showtime

“Bachelor” star Corinne Olympios poses as an aid worker who helped combat an ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone. She didn’t perform such service, and the scene for the second episode of “Who Is America?” was filmed in front of a green screen.

Aside from Morad’s interviews with conservative officials and activists, Baron Cohen’s antics seemed tame, even pointless, compared with the charged conversations we deal with daily in real life. Take the segment in which one-time “Bachelor” star Corinne Olympios, while endorsing a fake charity supposedly providing relief for an Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, blankly reads a script for an ad urging people to support child soldiers by providing them with training and equipment. Yes, yes, reality stars will do anything for attention; it’s hard to recall a time when such a revelation would have rocked anyone to their core.

In “Who Is America?,” Baron Cohen repeatedly whiffs on opportunities to illuminate what bizarre things people really would support. Why send an absurd parody of a lefty NPR host to the home of GOP local bigwigs? Without exactly giving a flattering read to the Trump-supporting couple, it does offer them an opportunity to politely condemn behavior that most on the left would also decry, like forcing a young girl to stand while urinating. The takeaway is muddled at best. Getting liberals to cosign those choices on camera ― that might be a coup.

Resurrecting his particular brand of stunt comedy journalism ― honed in a very different cultural and political context ― for a Trump era already awash in gleeful incompetence, extremism and trolling, might seem like a perfect fit for the times. Instead, it’s outdated. (Perhaps that’s partly due to the outdated writers’ room, which consists entirely of men, including one who lost his job on “Inside Amy Schumer” after publicly bragging about choking his ex and sending hordes of sexist trolls after female writers.)

We also must ask whether his approach could be as harmful as it is informative and entertaining. Baron Cohen’s provocations have always raised the question of whether the end of exposing prejudice justifies the means of recreating it, and the evidence is piling up that comic bigotry may only make people more comfortable with the real thing. Take the spillage of Reddit Nazism-for-lolz into genuine radicalization and violence. Take Trump himself.

GOP politicians certainly haven’t become less openly racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Islam and sexist than they were when Baron Cohen first started scamming them in the early aughts. And given how far-right shit-posting has likely helped accommodate the country to outright white nationalism, I found myself wondering uncomfortably whether the guns-for-kids stunt on “Who Is America?” might not also be absorbed into the political debate. Maybe irony can move the  Overton Window, too. 

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