#i told her about the facility i work for because her dog is reactive and teetering on aggressive

[hazard-and-friends]

out of order response by what's on the top of my mind: the problem with both the body blocking and the non-negotiable sit is that for Hazard and 2 of the 4 reactive rovers in my most recent class those exercises involve spacial/social pressure and they would completely disconnect. if at the start of our journey I'd told Hazard "you need to sit, stay in a sit, every time you get up I'll reset you, no I'm not going to pay you for it", he would've politely told me to get fucked and refused to engage with me in that location possibly for the rest of forever.

(aka: turn away, stop sitting on cue, tuck tail, refuse treats when offered, possibly go under a chair. notably this would do absolutely nothing to his feelings about other dogs/people, except that I would have no way to get him back on track.)

that being said, I can think of a team in that class who would have benefited from a "default heel and step across her line of travel if she gets out of place", because the dog in question is spatially oblivious and would not be particularly upset by her person suddenly getting in her way. so it's an exercise going in my toolbox but I'm probably reserving it for specific teams and not the class as a whole.

(I agree that in general doing exercises out of context helps neutralize them for the dog and make it less a "I am punishing you for screaming at a dog" and more a "oops I got in your way, Again, maybe you should fix that?". Hazard is just out here on the border collie end of the spatial sensitivity scale and has made me hyper aware of what I'm doing with my body.)

anyway, I also have people come in individually for the more challenged classes (reactive rover, control unleashed), everyone's behind visual barriers. my first exercise is getting them settling on a mat but I could easily try replacing that with the "treat for noise" one, because the goal is the same--get 4 highly aroused dogs to all shut up at the same time.

I also use the "what do you love about your dog" as an ice breaker/set the positive tone, it works very well for that. all of my facilities are "get the aversive off the dog as soon as safely possible", but there's a lot of muscle memory in the humans and god knows you can certainly deliver leash corrections on a flat collar or harness. so always trying to replace "pop the dog" with literally any alternative behavior (.........should bring m&ms to class, DRO anything but leash popping). I can see where body blocking would be helpful there! I'll keep pondering it.

lmao I also regularly get to look like an idiot in front of classes. last night everyone was struggling with sudden movements, so I had them pull open the barriers slightly and then did a bunch of jogging. good for the dogs, made the humans laugh, win/win. (Hazard does a slight weight shift forward. K'seil by the time I've noticed is already moving, rip.)

in theory we also have a shy dogs class but there's a lot of "the best defense is a good offense" dogs who end up in reactive rover, and also the shy dogs class is offered at a bad time whereas RR is a weekday evening and fills instantly. yay? for better or worse I very rarely have classes where all dogs are on roughly the same page. it certainly keeps me on my toes.

increasingly convinced that reactive dog owners should do a session of a self defense class

almost every one i see has two underlying problems that have nothing to do with their dog and everything to do with them

1, can they assess the threat level of a situation and do they understand how to raise/match/lower intensity in order to change the risk of violence? i talked about ways to handle off leash dogs in class last week and felt like i was going insane trying to explain that using spray shield etc increases tension because now the owner is mad that you just "pepper sprayed" their dog.

2, do they have literally any body awareness. can they balance on one foot. do they understand how to use their weight. it's not that i can't be pulled forward by a large dog, but especially if i'm in the mindset of "i'm walking a potential bite risk", it's very unlikely they'll get more than one step from me. and i am tall and i do have muscles, but mostly i know how to set my weight at the end of the leash so even a 150 lb dog can't make me move too much.

and like. we CAN talk about this in class but i'm not a self defense instructor/martial arts instructor, i've just had 7 months of jiu jitsu and got some things beat into me. but oh my god.

[fayeandknight]

Today was a good day.

Was able to recall both dogs off a stray cat that bolted out of the yard. And they played really nicely for the hour we were out there.

After a break inside I took Forte to the dam for training. Last time we were there he was so distracted I had to scrap training and just do a sniff walk. This time he was a little distracted at first but focused on me more and more we worked. I kept it fun, lots of food and toy rewards, and stuck to easy cues he knows well - mostly sits and calls to heel.

Then I switched to working on llw/engagement. On our way to the actual dam I decided to switch his harness out for his vest since I didn't want people letting their dogs approach him. I think he's starting to understand that the vest means he needs to be more focused because he took himself down a notch and really paid attention to matching my pace. We even got in some orbits in motion which was super cool!

Came back home and he napped while I played with Faye for a while.

Then I remembered I needed to go to the grocery store. I hate going to the grocery store. It's such a struggle for me, no matter how short the trip. Cue internal debate about whether or not I should take Forte.

On the one hand he's gotten really good at blocking and having space makes a huge difference for me. On the other hand, I feel very pressured to have my dog behave impeccably around food other people will buy.

So I picked up his vest and asked Forte if he wanted to work. He jumped up from the floor he was half asleep on and put his head through the strap. Faye was always gear shy and while he's definitely not, it gave me feelings to see him so enthusiastic about it.

He was a bit distracted coming out of the car so we just practiced heeling and being attentive outside for about 5 minutes before going in. He was a rockstar. Heeling nicely even when my hands were full and I stopped rewarding him with food.

Also shout-out to the veteran told me to cut in line ahead of him at the self checkout (I had three items) and said he (Forte) was doing a good job watching my back. I get the feeling that man understood Forte's job more than your average person.

So yeah, today was a good day.

[themonkeycabal]

WandaVision Episode 9 Spoilers

I can't believe we're already at the finale. 

This has been better than I expected, though I didn't have any particular expectations one way or the other. I had hoped it would be bonkers, and it's had its moments, but I didn't expect it to be breaking my heart. I'm glad Wanda (and Elizabeth Olsen) got this moment to shine. It was very well done, and it's been nice to have fun with a Marvel property again. It's been a little while.

My wishlist for this episode is simply that somebody, anybody punch Acting Director Dick square in the face. And also that Jimmy Woo arrests him. A lot.

Other than that, I don't know what to expect, or how they wrap this up in 30 minutes.

Previously on: Wanda finally earned the name Scarlet Witch after Agatha made her relive the worst moments of her life. Harsh, Agatha. Vision uttered a line that launched a thousand gif sets. And Hayward revealed his genius masterplan which is a reactivated Vision, devoid of color and powered by the energy bleeding from Wanda's hex. I'm sure that will go swimmingly for him.

Let's see how this all ends.

Agatha still has magical tethers around Billy and Tommy's necks, which obviously Wanda doesn't like. Agatha gives the boys a tug, knocking them back, and Wanda lets loose, walloping Agatha. The boys are now free, but Wanda tells them to go to their room. They object, she insists, Tommy grabs Billy and they zoom off. Wanda hits Agatha again with a hex, but Agatha sort of collects it into a little glowy ball in her hand. Oops.

"I take power from the undeserving. It's kinda my thing."

Wanda notices her hand turning gray and gnarly — the look of somebody about to be magically mummified. Agatha hits her with a hex and taunts her some more.

"You're clearly in over your little, red head, so why don't you surrender your magic to someone who knows what to do with it?" Agatha, you're pushing your luck. "I'll let you keep this pathetic corner of the world all to yourself. What do you say?"

Wanda says she will throw a car right at your face, Agatha. I laughed. Didn't see that coming, did you? Knocked Agatha right out of her boots.

As Wanda is investigating, Director Dick's white Vision floats down behind her. He's creepy looking.

Wanda walks over to him, staring at him. "Is it really you?"

He puts his hands on her face, all gentle like, but it's a lie. He starts to squeeze. "And I was told you were powerful."

Gross, AD Dick. I hope you get stepped on by Ant-Man when he's being Giant-Man.

Sitcom World Vision (hereafter just plain old Vision) makes a timely reappearance, and takes out Not!Vision. He wants to know where the boys are, Wanda assures him they're safe, and she apologizes for everything and that she should have told him what was happening, "the moment I realized what I'd done". Poor Wanda. He tells her it's alright. She says she can fix it. Not!Vision climbs out of the burning remains of a camper.

Agatha reappears to note the awkwardness of the situation. She asks Wanda who she's going to choose, the ex or the boyfriend. What happens when Wanda hits you with more power than you can contain, Agatha?

Wanda tells Vision "this is our home." He agrees, "then let's fight for it." I hope for the best for you two crazy kids! Marvel has a dicey record on happy endings, though. Sorry!

Vision takes off towards Not!Vision again. Agatha flies off, too, and Wanda follows.

Across the street Monica is pounding on a window, calling for Wanda. Fietro, lounging with a guitar in his … stoner den?, tells her nobody can hear her. Can we talk about how Monica's SWORD uniform looks like ST:Next Gen unis? I can't stop seeing it and it's distracting. Anyway, she tries to escape, but, Fietro is still all fast and stuff, so she's thwarted.

In the sky, Vision and Not!Vision battle. Not!Vision says Wanda must be neutralized and Vision must be destroyed. Hmm. Not!Vision tries to rip out the stone in Vision's forehead but Vision goes intangible. More fighting with intangibleness. It's pretty cool.

Outside Westview, AD Dick is feeling cocky as he watches both Visions on tracking monitors. I loathe him so much. Jimmy Woo is brought in handcuffed by a pair of SWORD goons. I'm sorry, who the f is SWORD? Like, they have arrest powers now? Dick says "hey, it's my favorite member of the Bureau." New wishlist: everybody gets to take turns punching AD Dick in the face.

Dick asks his minion to reconfirm mission objectives while Jimmy listens carefully, mentally noting each and every violation of federal law and the Sokovia Accords. 

The minion says she can't get through to not!Vision, his system is overloaded. A cellphone rings on a desk nearby and Jimmy eyes it, then tells Hayward that he'll never be able to cover up these shenanigans. 

While Dick is busy boasting and the SWORD goons are doing everything but paying attention to their prisoner (in my head all the SWORD goons applied to SHIELD but Maria Hill laughed at each and every one of their applications and then called Pepper to laugh some more and then texted choice bits to May tagging them "RE: LOL"), Jimmy eases over and grabs the phone.

"Wanda canceled her show,” Dick says with the sort of confidence only an enormous prick can muster, “so there's no footage proving there was ever more than one Vision."

Jimmy points out that that is dumb, because there is other footage, from SWORD HQ and stuff, and probably evidence of tampering. He casually sits on a table, shaking his head, like he's just so disappointed (i'm hoping he's somehow managed to use the phone to record the monolog-ing) .

Dick is still too far up his own ass to notice Jimmy being sneaky. "No one's going to care once I've eliminated Wanda Maximoff. They'll believe that the Vision that emerges from the Westview rubble is the one she illegally tried to bring back to life."

Wait, bringing him back to life is illegal? You're full of shit, Dick. And also, an extremely terrible person, who will destroy a whole town for … something? A Vision weapon? Who are you fighting, Dick? BTW, I award him no sympathy points for surviving in the post-Snap world. So if he's been scarred by that or whatever, I don't care. Trauma doesn't excuse murdery megalomania. As has been said before: Cool motive, still murder. I hope Vision intangibles him into a lamp post that gets peed on every day by a parade of small dogs.

"They'll thank me for recovering such a valuable asset. You could be part of that victory, Jimmy. If only you had a little more … vision" says the smug prick who is asking for it. And by it I mean something both terrible and humiliating to happen to him asap.

Jimmy fake laughs back. "That's a good one, Hayward. Okay, I'm convinced. The trouble is my friends at Quantico will probably have something to say about your plan. When they arrive. Inside the hour." heh.

Oh, poor Dick doesn't like being mocked back. He tells his brain-dead goons to remove Jimmy. The goons throw Jimmy into a … stack of hay? In a fenced in cage thing? As you have on your pop-up military facility. Where he sets to work removing his handcuffs with a clip he also stole, because Jimmy Woo is cool like that. Close Up Magic! See the things you can learn from criminals. "Flourish" lol. 

He calls his friends at Quantico. "I was hoping you could get here … inside the hour?"

Back in Westview. Wanda is looking for Agatha while the town goes about its business. Weirdo delivery guy drives by "Don't shoot. I'm just the messenger. ha ha."

Then she gets hit in the back by a purple hex. Ouch. She has hit the pavement hard kind of a lot in this episode already. That hurts, my dudes, I know this from personal falling down experience. Wanda's hand, by the way, is still looking ashy and not very healthy.

Agatha taunts her from a rooftop. "Did you know there's an entire chapter devoted to you in the Darkhold." How could she know that, Agatha? Also, boo the Darkhold. That bit of nastiness led to the Framework, and I'm still a little scarred by that myself. "That's the book of the damned," says the witch standing in front of a billboard for "Squeaky Shine" lol.

Agatha produces the Darkhold and recites from it, "The Scarlet Witch is not born, she is forged. She has no coven, nor need for incantation." Wanda insists she isn't a witch, nobody taught her magic.

Agatha continues, "Your power exceeds that of the Sorcerer Supreme" Steven Strange will like that. Not much. He's so twitchy about things like that. "It's your destiny to destroy the world." Always with the destinies. FREE WILL FOREVAH!

Wanda insists she's not the Scarlet Witch thingy. Agatha says "oh really?" and uses her mojo on Emma Caulfield. Hi Emma Caulfield! She seems to be 'awake' and introduces herself to Wanda (who knew her as Dottie) "My name is Sarah. I have a daughter, she's 8, maybe she could be friends with your boys. If you like that storyline. Or the school bully, even. Really anything, if you could just let her out of her room. If I could just hold her." Wow, ouch.

Speaking of free will or the lack of, Wanda accuses Agatha of doing this, but Agatha says "She's your meat puppet. I just cut her strings." Poor Wanda. And now Agatha wakes up the whole town, who all head towards Wanda.

And we cut to Fietro's den of manchildness. Monica asks what that place is, but come on Monica, it's clearly a den of manchildness. Fietro is making himself a smoothie and explaining the purpose of a mancave — chillaxing.

Monica ignores him and rifles through his bills and whatnot. She finds a headshot of Fietro with the name "Ralph Bohner" underneath. Because, people just keep their headshots lying around willynilly. Wait, are we saying Ralph is an actor? Lol. 

Fietro meanwhile is planning for a Steven Segal marathon — my dad and I watched all of those movies and for the life of me I could not tell you why. We didn't *like* them. I mean, mostly we laughed, but still. Why?

Anyway, Monica is trying to solve the mystery of Fietro. It's not Agatha's house (obviously) it's Fietro's (Ralph). He's an ass and asks if she wants to fight some more, so she flips him over her shoulder and pins him down, trying to figure out how Agatha is controlling him. With her new glowy eyes, she notices the bead necklace he's wearing sparkles in a magically way. She rips it off and Fietro becomes Ralph.

Elsewhere the Visions are still battling in the sky and the boys are watching from their bedroom. They lose sight of dad, but Billy gets a vision of mom in trouble in the town square. He and Tommy run off.

The townsfolk are confused and scared. Wanda tells them they're all going to be fine. "When you let us sleep, we have your nightmares." Ouch. Wanda insists she kept them safe. Wanda, sweetie, you're very far in over your head. 

"You feel, you feel at peace," she tells them, kind of hoping that works. It doesn’t. "We feel your pain." "Your grief is poisoning us." "Please let us go." This is an awful thing to do to Wanda, Marvel!

It escalates with all those voices begging her to free them and she screams, grabbing her head, and when she does that, red light appears around the throats of the townies, silencing them, choking them. Wanda realizes and puts her glowy hands up "stop, stop, I'm sorry", releasing them all.

"If you won't let us go, let us die." Wanda promises to let them go. Agatha wonders what's stopping her from actually doing it.  

"Heroes don't torture people." Agatha's a very sink-or-swim kind of teacher.

That does the trick and Wanda throws her arms back and yells to the sky, releasing her power up at the hex surrounding the town. "Go, all of you. Now, go." The people run and the town flickers through the eras and the barrier starts to fall.

Outside, Director Dick tells his morons "this is it, we're going in!"

The Visions keep on battling, but as the barrier falls, Vision starts to falter himself. I was afraid of that.

The Morons roll in with their big trucks and big guns because … reasons. I have a very low opinion of SWORD. Maria Rambeau's agency deserves better than this shitshow.

Vision falls and it looks like bits of him are chipping off. He hits the ground hard, he gets up, but he's glitching, too, falling apart as Wanda takes down her spell. He reaches for her. The boys appear now, too, screaming for mom, but they seem to be flickering as well, flying apart in pixelly pieces. Poor Wanda.

Agatha says "Now do you see? You tied your family to this twisted world and now one can't exist without the other." This is terrible. "Save Westview or save your family." TERRIBLE.

Wanda pulls the hex into herself again, recreating the barrier. The kids and Vision recover and run to her. Outside, as the hex closes, Jimmy Woo is, yet again, left to stare at the barrier, cut off from the fun inside. Poor guy, lol. But, his FBI buddies are arriving, so at least he won't get lonely.

Agatha throws a hex at Wanda and Wanda throws up a shield to protect her family. Which Agatha starts to draw towards herself like the magic vampire she is. Greedy Agatha. Wanda's arms are all gray. And SWORD rolls into town square, because that's what this confrontation needed — these dipshits.

Anyway, the Family stands ready to face Director Dick and his morons, in a quality recreation of the Incredibles family pose. "Listen boys, your mother and I never really prepared you for this," dad says. Because your boys are like three days old, Vision, it's okay. "But you were born for it," Wanda assures them very fiercely. Get 'em, sister!  

As they square off, Vision's like "oh crap, it's the other me, back in a mo'" and flies off to tackle Not!Vision who's trying to sneak up behind them.

They destroy the town library and Vision wants to know why Not!Vision gotta be like that. "My programming directive is to destroy the Vision." 

Ha ha, says Vision, a loophole. "But, I'm not the true Vision, only a conditional Vision."

Hmmm, says Not!Vision, and they stop fighting, "I request elaboration". Hey, Vision, move into Not!Vision's body and you can be true Vision again! Problem solved, my work here is done.

Back to the street where we find Dick and his Morons and Agatha who is not making this situation at all better. The morons point their guns at Agatha who magics them up off the ground like thirty feet in the air, "Same story, different century. There will always be torches and pitchforks for ladies like us, Wanda." I'm not going to say you're wrong, Agatha, and God knows these SWORD morons are morons, but you're also a pain in the ass. So …

Anyway, then Agatha drops them and Wanda reaches out to catch them. But once caught, she does let them drop the last five or six feet. They'll be fine, but also they deserved it, so I laughed.

"Boys, handle the military. Mommy will be right back." They're my new favorite family.

Wanda flies up to tangle with Agatha and Agatha is super ready except … Wanda throws a curveball and disappears. Suck it Agatha.

Down on the ground the SWORD morons continue to cover themselves in glory and point their guns at CHILDREN. I don't care if they're powered children, you know what I'd like, I'd like if one of the morons would just be like "um, but … they're kids and how about no? I'm going to get Jimmy Woo! He'll know what to do. Don't try and stop me!" That doesn't happen.

Billy freezes the soldiers in place and Tommy super speeds by and steals their guns and hats. AD Dick, being the absolutely loathsome, vile, lower-than-a-maggot, piece of shit that he is, gets out of his humvee and shoots at the CHILDREN.

Monica, who has just arrived to the party, runs and throws herself between Dick and the boys, taking the bullets meant for them. Her new powers render her sort of … I don't even know. Not quite intangible, but she kind of looks like a ballistics gel dummy and the bullets go through her but they slow down a lot as they pass and then just sort of fall on the ground. Dick, crossing the line into pure evil, fires again, the bullet misses Monica and heads towards Billy, who just raises his hand and stops it with his power then he grins at Monica.

"Nice tricks," she tells him.

"I like yours, too," he says.

Dick tries to fire AGAIN! But he's out of bullets. He only had four? Or maybe his gun jammed. Anyway, like the brave man he is, he runs to the humvee, gets in, reverses at speed, stops and looks like he's going to put it in gear and drive at them because the dude is unhinged. But! Lo! It's Darcy and the funnel cake truck, that is apparently built like a tank, though come to think of it, it probably was an armored vehicle in the real world.

Anyway, she t-bones Dick's vehicle, thwarting his evility for the moment. "Have fun in prison." Lol

Back to the Visions. They're having a philosophical debate. "You are familiar with the thought experiment "The Ship of Theseus" in the field of identity metaphysics," Vision prompts Not!Vision.

  "Naturally." And Not!Vision helpfully spells it out for us. "The ship of Theseus is in a museum. Over time its planks of wood rot and are replaced with new planks. When no original planks remain, is it still the ship of Theseus?"

  Vision presses his advantage, "Secondly. If those removed planks are restored and reassembled, free of the rot, is that the ship of Theseus?"

To sum up, neither is the true Vision, both are the true Vision.

"But I do not have the mind stone," says not!Vision.

  "And I do not have one single ounce of original material," replies Vision. "Perhaps the rot is the memories. The wear and tear are the voyages. The wood touched by Theseus himself."

Not!Vision says he doesn't have the memories, though, but Vision insists he does, the data is still there, hidden. Not!Vision says nah, Vision must be the true Vision because he believes himself to be. But, Vision says that's not true anymore, he plays the reverse card, "upon meeting you, I have been disabused of that notion." This is the most philosophy nerd game of 'not it' ever.

Vision continues to try to get at Not!Vision's memories. "As a carbon-based synthazoid, your memory storage is not so easily wiped. May I?" Not!Vision allows Vision to touch the glowy bit where the memory stone used to be, and Not!Vision is flooded with Vision's memories. Not!Vision's eyes go … normal, I guess you'd say, no longer robot-like and glowy.

"I am Vision" he says and flies off. It was a lot to take in, I guess. He needs a little me-time.

I guess we're going to have to go back to calling Vision Sitcom!Vision, anyway, he goes outside and the boys run over to him and there's hugging and stuff.

Agatha stalks them from the rooftop, but it seems she might have forgotten Wanda for a second, because Wanda appears behind her and does that thing she does where she makes you see your worst fear. Enjoy that, Agatha!

Agatha sees herself bound to the stake in the woods again. Her coven dead. Wanda is there in the vision, too. "You see the difference between you and me, is that you did this on purpose."

The coven rise from the dead and shuffle to her while Agatha begs for it to stop. But, then Agatha gets control of herself, I guess, and the undead mummy witches start saying Wanda's name and pointing at her. You're just no fun at all, Agatha.

Now the coven ties Wanda to the stake. "You can't win, Wanda. Power isn't your problem; it's knowledge." That is, actually, very true. Wanda's Scarlet Witch headpiece appears on her all magical-like, marking her as the Scarlet Witch of myth, I suppose.

"Give me your power, and I will correct the flaws in your original spell. And you and your family and the people of Westview can all live together in peace."

If Agatha is so smart, why doesn't she just take Wanda's power, hmm?

"And no one will ever have to feel this pain again. Not even you," Agatha tries cajoling, but that was the wrong tack to take. Wanda gives her the head tilt of imminent ass-kicking, and her powers explode outward, flinging way the weird creepy coven of zombie mummies. Then Wanda knocks them both back into Westview.

She starts hammering Agatha with her powers. "Take it, I don't want it." Vision tries to fly up to help her, but she blocks him with a spell.

Witch fight in the clouds. Every time Wanda misses Agatha, her hexes hit the shield. Outside Jimmy Woo looks on, concerned.

"There's more," Agatha says, "I want it all." Wanda's looking a little mummified, but she's still flinging hexes left and right while Agatha cackles evilly. Eventually Wanda runs out of steam and just sort of hovers there.

"About our deal. Once case, a spell can never be changed." You're terrible, Agatha. Very cruel. "This world will always be broken. Just. Like. You." Low, Agatha. Lower than dirt

Agatha gathers herself and tries to hit out at Wanda with all that yummy power but it just fizzles. Nothing happens. Oh noes, Agatha, what's wrong?

Wanda starts looking like her normal self again and behind her glows a giant rune. Oh, dear, Agatha, you taught Wanda something. When she was missing Agatha and hitting the shield all those times, she was actually casting runes. LOL to you.

The sky is angry and red and stormy. Monica, Vision, and the boys look on.

"In a given space," Wanda says, "only the witch who cast them [runes] can use her magic. Thanks for the lesson, but, I don't need you to tell me who I am."

 The Scarlet Witch headpiece reappears and now Agatha has her a fright. I like you Agatha, you're rotten in fun way, but you took it too far, sister. Wanda takes her power back with prejudice and she is transformed into the Scarlet Witch. Updated version of the classic costume. Nice, I like it.

"Oh god," Agatha gasps, "You don't know what you've done." Wanda drops her on the ground more gently than she deserved.

Agatha asks if Wanda's going to lock her up somewhere. And Wanda says, yeah, here in lovely Westview. "I'll give you the role you chose; the nosy neighbor."

"You have no idea what you've unleashed. You're gonna need me." "If I do, I know where to find you." lol

And Wanda turns Agatha back into Agnes. "Hiya, hon. Say, that some kind of getup you're wearing. Did I leave the oven on, or is that just you, hot stuff."

Wanda says goodbye and walks over to her family, kissing her boys.

Vision says their dream home has turned into a fixer-upper. "I know you'll set everything right. Just not for us."

"No," Wanda agrees because Marvel likes to hurt us all. "Not for us."

Monica kind of bounces on her toes, trying to get Wanda's attention, but probably also not entirely wanting Wanda's attention. Wanda gives her a hesitant nod as she and Vision leave with the boys.

The field around town starts to shrink, the circus turns back into the SWORD base.

They get home and tuck the boys into bed.

"Big day today," Vision says. "Your mother and I … are very proud of you both."

"Very proud," Wanda agrees. "You know, a family is forever. We could never truly leave each other, even if we tried. You know that right?"

They kiss their boys goodnight. Outside the window, the field flickers and fails. "Boys, thanks for choosing me to be your mom."

The town of Westview returns to its sad old self, street by street. Wanda turns out the lights in their home.

But, Vision turns one back on. "Oh, I read somewhere, that it's bad luck to say goodbye in the dark." "No, you didn't." You guys are killing me.

Why did this have to be so good and sad?

And finally the collapsing field reaches their street, they watch it coming. 

"Wanda, I know we can't stay like this, but before I go, I feel I must know, what am I?"

She touches his face. "You, Vision, are the piece of the mind stone that lives in me. You are a body of wires and blood and bone that I created. You are my sadness and my hope, but mostly you're my love." Stupid show, my screen went blurry there for a second.

Vision cries a bit, they both are a little astonished by the tear. 

"I have been a voice with no body, a body but not human. And now, a memory, made real. Who knows what I might be next." Aww, Vision, I love you.

Here comes the field.

"We have said goodbye before, so it stands to reason—" "We'll say hello again." STUPID SHOW why do you have to make me feel things?

The field collapses and everything is stripped back into nothing. "So long, darling." And Wanda stands in the empty lot, in the foundations of the home that never was.

She walks away again. Poor Wanda. And back into town. The people look at her, they don't seem happy. I don't know why she chose to do that, she does have a car. Ah, she's going to talk to Monica.

"They'll never know what you sacrificed for them," Monica says. "It wouldn't change how they see me," Wanda tells her. "And you? You don't … you don't hate me?" "Given the chance, and given your power, I'd bring my mom back. You know I would." "I'm sorry, for all the pain I caused."

Wanda promises to figure out her power and then files off. The End.

Heartbreaking. Good, but heartbreaking.

Mid-credits scene. Jimmy Woo is large and in charge. He's setting up the incident response in town, ordering folks around (in his good natured way).

Jimmy spots his friend. "Monica!" "Authority looks good on you, Jimmy." "Where's Darcy?" "Something about ‘debriefs are for the weak’?" lol "But we can thank her for that." 

And down the street AD Dick is being arrested. Nobody punched him in the face. I'm sad. Darcy came closest, I guess. What with hitting him with the very large truck. It will have to do.

Monica is summoned to the theater by another agent. Hmm nobody there. The agent follows. "I was sent by an old friend of your mother's." And the agent is a Skrull. "He heard you'd been grounded. He'd like to meet with you."

"Where?"

The Skrull points up. 

What was Fury's Skrull buddy's name? I don't recall. I didn't actually like the Captain Marvel movie. I felt like they told it backwards, and also they should have just cast a younger actor to play young Nick Fury. That bugged me. And I wanted more of Annette Benning’s character. Anyway … I guess we know where we’ll see Monica again. 

Well, that was fun. Like I said, I'm not sure what I expected from this series, just that it be some degree of fun, I guess. But it was much better than whatever I had half-envisaged. AND SADDER, MARVEL.

Thank goodness for the multi-verse. I'm sure we'll see some version of the boys again. And also Not!Vision, who is probably also Vision at this point, knocking around the world, trying to find himself. Talk about identity crisis. I feel you, brother. Stay safe, get plenty of whatever passes for rest for you!

See you guys in a couple of weeks for Falcon and the Winter Soldier. I WANT NO TEARS FROM THAT ONE! Unless it's tears of laughter. 

ETA: FOR THE SECOND POST CREDITS SCENE THAT I MISSED. Stupid Marvel hiding things from me. Thank you, @beelzebufo

Mountains, a mountain lake, a place I’d like to be right now. Wanda sits on the porch of her lonely little cabin. The tea kettle whistles and she goes inside. There’s a rattling and whispering from the other room, where the astral projection(?) of the Scarlet Witch reads the Darkhold and her children call for her. I don’t know, Wanda, seems dicey, that’s not a very nice book. 

FOR REAL THE END THIS TIME

[five-rivers]

Long Night in the Valley chapter 7

Oof, this chapter kept getting longer.

.

It was times like this that really drove home the fact that Eri had been raised by yakuza.  

Normally, it was easy to forget.  Eri was an angel, almost too well behaved at times, and Mirio loved spending time with her.  Being asked to look after her while her foster parents were away was a privilege, not a chore.

Right now, though?

Now, Eri was in the middle of total meltdown and screaming threats at the news anchor who had just… reported something totally unbelievable and, if he was being honest, incredibly aggravating, even for him.  

Mirio hoped Eri didn’t know the meanings of half the words she was shouting but, Chisaki Kai being the utter horror that he was, she’d probably seen at least some of them done to people in front of her.  

Once again, Mirio was filled with the totally reasonable, if unheroic, desire to punch Chisaki until his legs came off like his arms did. As this was not, in the moment, a helpful impulse, he pushed it aside.  

“I’m gonna kill you!” screamed Eri, throwing another marker at the TV screen, tears streaming down her face and horn sparking dangerously.

On one hand, it was great that Eri felt safe enough here at UA and around Mirio to have this outburst.  On the other, Mirio really, really did not want to get de-aged out of existence.  

It would be really great to have his quirk right now. Or Tamaki.  If only he and Hado hadn’t been at their internships today, maybe they could have solved this together.

He was currently alternating between trying to verbally calm Eri down and serially dialing every teacher involved in Eri’s care.  

Aizawa-sensei’s phone just rang and rang.  

Yamada-sensei’s went straight to a completely unhelpful voicemail.  

Kayama-sensei’s went to an even less helpful voicemail that also had the side-effect of making Mirio feel incredibly embarrassed.  

All Might-sensei was supposedly “kidnapped.”

Recovery Girl had her ‘medical emergency’ message on.  

This left a single, terrifying recourse.  

Nezu.  

With shaking hands, he pressed the call button and prepared to pray to the Rat God.

“Hi, Principal Nezu!” he said, loudly and brightly as soon as he heard the phone pick up.

“Hello, Togata-kun!  I take it that Eri-chan has seen the news?”

“I’m going to tear out your eyes and sew them to your a—”

Hoooo, boy.  

“Yeah,” said Mirio, “and she’s not taking it well.  I’m really sorry, but I need help.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for!” chirped Nezu.  “Knowing when to call for backup is something we try to instill in all our students.  I’ll be over right away.”

There was a beep as the line went dead.  Mirio put his phone back in his pocket and winced as Eri took a deep breath and let out another round of invective.  

“Eri,” he said, deciding to make one more attempt to calm her down before Nezu came, “don’t you think that’s a bit much?  She’s probably only saying what she’s been told.”

Eri whirled, incensed.  “But that’sa lie!  Deku isn’t a villain!”

“I know, but—”

“It’s the news!” she said, stomping her foot.  “They’re not supposed to say things that aren’t true! That’s what Yagi-san says!”

“She might not know it isn’t true,” said Mirio, smiling consolingly (he knew this particular smile was consoling, because he’d practiced extensively).  “Sometimes, people believe lies.  Even good people.”

This was something Eri knew well, so Mirio hoped this reasoning got through to her.  

It did not.  

“But,” said Eri, incredulously, “it’s Deku.”

Mirio agreed with that sentiment, he really did.  But the sheer level of fury currently concentrated into Eri’s tiny body was too much for him to handle.  

Still, she seemed to be thinking instead of yelling or crying, so that was good.  

“I’m going to bite them,” she said, dreadfully calm.  

“Who?” asked Mirio, dreading the answer and knowing the storm had only stopped momentarily.  

“The people who come to interrogate me,” said Eri, as if it were a given that she’d be interrogated.  He was impressed she knew the word, right up until how she must have known it hit him.

“Why are you going to bite them?”

“Deku said that if a stranger tried to make me go with them or do something I didn’t want I should bite them and scream.  And also…”  She proceeded to describe a series of actions that would probably have the average assailant lying on the ground in a fetal position, defeated.  “And you, and Amajiki-san, and Hado-san said I should…”  Mirio vaguely recalled being consulted for and contributing certain portions of this but combined with Midoriya’s contributions and Eri’s anger it became significantly more sinister.  “And ‘Zawa agreed and he told me I should…”  Ah.  That was worse.  Much worse. And knowing Aizawa, he’d probably taught her how to do at least some of it.

Mirio abruptly realized that, out of all the people Eri knew, he was most likely the second sanest.  He, as a person who saw no issue with appearing nude on national television multiple times, was not used to having such a position.  

If the commission were wise, they wouldn’t send any of their people anywhere near Eri.  They’d die.  

The door burst open.  “Am I a dog, a mouse, or a bear?  One thing’s for sure, I’m the principal!”

Mirio now understood why Tamaki spent so much time hiding in corners.

.

His students screamed alongside him as he fell.  He twisted, surprised and uncontrolled, in the air, flashes of skyscraper windows passing in and out of his vision.  Above him, the woman, Nana, stood on the air, looking down.  

Uraraka had reflexively stopped herself fairly quickly with her quirk, but she was now too far away to reach himself, Iida, or Todoroki. Todoroki was trying to copy one of his father’s moves and fly with the flames produced by his left side, but obviously trying to do something like that with no practice wasn’t going to work well.

Suzuki was there, too, but Aizawa’s first responsibility was to his kids, not the idiot that got them into this mess.  

He swung his capture weapon upwards, trying to reach Uraraka, but the tumbling threw his aim off.  

Green lightning flashed in the corner of his eye, and he found himself wrapped in black tentacles and moving sideways at great speed.  They crashed through one of the windows into an oddly blurry and muted office space.  

Midoriya released Aizawa and set down his classmates carefully. “Can you get Ochako down?  Blackwhip is still… difficult.”

Aizawa looked Midoriya over quickly.  He was wearing his hero costume.  It had the same tears in it as it did after the aerial battle with Chisaki Kai.  

There was a pattern here.  

He nodded and walked to the window.  Now that they were no longer falling, his aim was true, and Uraraka, who had been inching closer by deactivating then reactivating her quirk, caught the end of the capture weapon easily.  He reeled her in.  

“Izuku!” she said bouncing over to him and hugging him.  “You’re okay!”

“Haha,” said Midoriya, “yep.”

“You let Suzuki fall,” said Aizawa, who had been contemplating much the same thing.  

“I would have done something different,” said Midoriya, “but it wasn’t entirely up to me.  Nana would just drop him again.  It’s a dream, besides.  Worst that will happen is that he’ll wake up and then we can use that to wake you guys up.” He turned away.  “Come on, Six is this way.”

“Six, not seven?”

“Nana’s taking care of,” he waved his hand in the direction of the broken window, “that.”

Uraraka glanced that way.  “I wasn’t sure before, but that’s Skyrunner, isn’t it?  I didn’t think she was still alive.”

“She isn’t,” said Midoriya, shortly, before beginning to stride across the room.  “We really don’t have time to stand around.  Six will explain things better than me.”

“Who’s Skyrunner?” asked Todoroki.

Aizawa kept his eyes on Midoriya.  He seemed distracted, his movements were lower energy than usual, as if his mind was miles away.

“She was a hero ages ago.  She’d be in her eighties, I think, but that was her.  I found her when I was doing research on quirks similar to mine.”

“They aren’t really the same,” said Midoriya.  “Float is an at-will telekinetic type quirk with a personal range.  Yours is a five-point touch physical property alteration quirk.”

“Application-wise,” said Uraraka.  “But how can we be in her head if she’s dead?  You said before, we were in All Might’s head, so…”

“Wait, what?”  How the heck were they supposed to have gotten into Yagi’s head?  Was this something Midoriya’s dreaming subconscious came up with?  Or was there a massive problem about to smack him in the face as soon as he woke up?

More massive than the Hero Commission feeling justified in running a quirk-assisted interrogation on a minor.   A minor who was unconscious and may have been moved to another facility, away from any adults who might be on their side.  

Midoriya had stopped to lean against a doorway, pinching the bridge of his nose.  “I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m not completely here.  I can’t—I’m busy, it’s hard to process.”

“Busy doing what?” asked Todoroki.  

“Being awake,” said Midoriya.

“You’re awake?” repeated Aizawa.

“Halfway.  It’s just—Unexpected quirk interaction.  When I was shot—” He broke off and shuddered.  “Six will be able to explain it better.  I’m on the run, sensei, I’m sorry.”

“You’re awake and on the run from the Hero Commission.”

“Mhm,” said Midoriya.  “Six will explain.  Probably. I haven’t directly met Six yet.”

There were so many concerning things about that statement that Aizawa didn’t know where to start.  Midoriya pushed off the doorway and kept walking.  

“We need a contact point,” he said, “so we can cross over to Six.  I don’t know where they’d be for Nana and Six, though.”

As they walked, the building slowly changed from a generic office space to something that, at least to Aizawa, resembled a hero agency.  An old, dated hero agency.  

“Does this have something to do with ‘first contact?’”

“It doesn’t need to be first contact,” said Midoriya, waving over his shoulder.  “Just contact.  The rules are weird, apparently?  I think they’re different, normally.  I’m not sure where to go…”

“I’ll show you.”

Aizawa was incredibly tired of people showing up out of nowhere. And Nana really had shown up out of nowhere, suddenly materializing in the hallway, not even having the courtesy to step out of a doorway or from around a corner and pretend this world operated on anything approaching hard and fast rules.

“Hey, hey,” said Nana, “you guys are all really tense, aren’t you?”

“You did drop us from fifty stories up.”

“Haha, yeah, I did,” said Nana, grinning and ruffling Midoriya’s hair.  “I’m still dropping that jerkface back there.  Hopefully, he’ll decide to nope out before too long and we can get the rest of you out of here without the whole Journey to the West reenactment.”

Midoriya squinted up at her, listing slightly to one side. “Every time you use slang it’s so weird.”  

“Come on, kid, I’m not that old.”  She sighed.  “I’d give you Float now, but given present circumstances, you’ll probably want Six’s or Two’s.”

Midoriya straightened—And was it just Aizawa or did his outline become clearer?

“You can do that?” he asked.  He brought his hand up to his chin, index finger resting beneath his lower lip.  “It could be possible, depending on the mechanism,” he mumbled.  “But then would getting out be…?  No, it can’t be something like that, or it wouldn’t even be mentioned, and it didn’t work with Suzuki…  But it’s worth testing—Aizawa-sensei, can you use your quirk on Todoroki? Todoroki, think really hard about waking up while you do it.”

They tried this.  Nothing happened, other than Todoroki not being able to use his quirk. Aizawa had the sinking suspicion that this conversation was about Midoriya’s quirk gaining yet another, bizarre manifestation.  Did his quirk have something to do with split personalities?  Loading other peoples’ personalities and quirks into his head?

“It isn’t that, then,” said Midoriya.  “Saito’s quirk could still have a mechanism like that.”

“Or it could be the interaction between your quirk and hers,” said Nana.

Midoriya was silent for a moment.  “I guess,” he said finally.  “But we have to test—”

“We don’t want to overload you.  Like I said, I think you’ll want Six’s or Two’s more than mine.  Or even Four’s.”

Midoriya shook his head.  “No, considering what we’re up against, Float would be very useful.  Can we try?”

Nana nodded, put her hands on his shoulders, and bent at the waist to whisper something in Midoriya’s ear.  The room briefly flickered into sky, a sunset or sunrise throwing brilliant color from horizon to horizon.  The sound of wings presaged a flock of birds.  Aizawa braced for a fall.  Nana stood back up.  The room returned.  “Did you get it?”

Aizawa checked to make sure all of his (shaken) students were still there.

“I think so,” said Midoriya.   He took a deep breath.  “Yes.  I have it.” He looked back at Aizawa.  “I’m sorry, I really have to go, now.”

Aizawa was also getting really tired of people disappearing, he decided.

Nana sighed.  “Anyway, come on, we have to get going.”

They all looked to Aizawa before following.  Aizawa sighed.  They didn’t have any other leads on what to do, and if they didn’t, they might get dragged along anyway.  “Might as well,” he said.  “This had better be a great explanation.  And I’d like it before we get to this ‘Six.’”

“Yes,” said Todoroki.  “Does Midoriya have multiple personality disorder?”

“It’s Dissociative Identity Disorder, and no,” said Nana.  “Not as such.  For now…  We’re part of Nine’s—Izuku’s—quirk.”

“Funnily enough, I had put that together.  Why you?”

“I used to ask myself that, you know.  Six is the one who can answer.  In the meantime… consider this a quirk history field trip.  Here we are.”  They stepped into a conference room, a projector springing to life along with the faint murmur of phantom voices.  “I was just a sidekick back then,” she said.  “Not his, though.  It’s funny. Toshinori was mine, you know. Before his debut.  He didn’t even go by All Might back then.”  The room glitched.  

Aizawa managed to get the impression of a surreal, almost Lovecraftian, landscape, rubble, and the words ‘You’re next.’

Aizawa could have gone his entire life without knowing that All Might had cribbed his last words as a hero from his teacher.  

Nana laughed.  “To be fair,” she said, patting his arm (patting his arm), “he’s not the only one. Come on, I want you four worlds away from Suzuki.  Let’s get this show on the road.”

The lighting in the room shifted, and it filled with ghosts much like in Izuku’s school.  Another, younger, version of Nana sat among them, looking up at the projector.  

The underground hero Fidelity is here today to discuss a possible smuggling ring based out of Musutafu…

As the young man walked in, the whispers arrived… But there seemed to be fewer whisperers.

First contact.  

.

Izuku managed to levitate a centimeter off the ground before settling himself again.  Enough not to be noticed by anyone but Toshinori.  

Toshinori who was close to tears.  Izuku blinked back a few of his own.  

This was good.  With Float and the right planning, they could possibly break their trail even without the more complicated maze-path he and Toshinori had planned out. Some of the words in Trace’s file seemed to indicate her quirk only worked over solid objects, and she didn’t work with the Coast Guard, even though her quirk would, otherwise, be quite useful there.  The conclusion couldn’t be trusted, of course, but if he could manage to stay floating, and get Toshinori to float as well, it would be well worth it.  

He almost laughed at himself.  Mastering a quirk in so little time, worth it.

“If anyone could do it,” said Toshinori, “it would be you, my boy.”

Izuku’s heart filled with warmth as the others agreed. He could almost feel Nana ruffle his hair again.  

.

In theory, the plan to acquire the keys to the testing center’s off-limits areas was very simple.  

In practice…  It was also very simple, shockingly enough.  Maybe it was because the human explosive and the deceptively destructive sunshine child weren’t involved.  No, that couldn’t be it.  

Hitoshi walked up to a security guard, said excuse me, used his quirk, and asked for the keys.  Then he handed them to Yaoyorozu so she could make copies.  She gave the guard back the keys, and Hitoshi told the guard to forget him.  That order didn’t always work, but they weren’t having the guard move, and the whole operation had taken under five minutes.  There wasn’t much to remember in the first place.

“What now?” asked Hitoshi.  

“Now,” said Yaoyorozu, making more copies of keys.  “We get lost.”

.

The benefit to having a blunt and straightforward demeanor was that people rarely thought Tsuyu was lying.  

Well.  The UA uniform helped, too.  Even among heroes, UA was known to take only the best of the best.  The most trustworthy.

“Excuse me, kero,” Tsuyu said, sidling up to a young hero in civilian clothing.  “I was told to tell everyone to go into the back—They want us to spread out, for when the police arrive to question us?  The doors are already unlocked.”  She pointed.  “But our teachers have come to pick us up, and we’re going with them, so can you help?”

“Oh, of course.  That’s what heroes do, right?”  Bubble Girl shot her a pair of finger guns.  “Hey, you’re one of Deku-kun’s friends, right?  This is so weird.  Have you seen the news?”

“Yes, kero.”  

“Sorry, sorry, I know that’s probably not something you want to talk about.  I hope everything works out for him.”

So did Tsuyu.

.

The plan to flood the relatively empty back hallways with people and unleash a dance of chaos the Hero Commission, false warriors of light, could not hope to contain, went… Interestingly, in Fumikage’s opinion.  

There were several different entrances to the back that people were directed to, and, predictably, some of them were turned back, even though they had unlocked the doors.  There were commission people back there, albeit relatively few of them.  

The class slipped in among the others.  He led the way, as the sneakiest person after Hagakure.  Well.  Sort of.

It was hard to figure out who was in the lead with all these people everywhere.  

Plus, he got… Ahem.  

He was swept away on the tide of darkness, with no beacon to guide his way.  

Dark Shadow cackled in his ear.  “Just admit you’re lost, Fumi,” she said.  

“I am not!” he hissed back.

“Besides there are fire escape maps over there.”

Oh, that was helpful.

.

When Chiyo woke up this morning, she had not expected to face the fact that Toshinori had finally lost his mind, and the entirely baseless accusation that Midoriya of all people had kidnapped him (the reverse was much more likely, in her opinion).  And yet.

When Chiyo had been asked to organize and accompany the fleet of ambulances to pick up their unconscious students and staff members (something she had done many times) she had not expected to be point blank refused by the Hero Commission.  And yet.

When Hizashi and Nemuri had asked the fleet to pull around to the back of the testing center, near a loading dock ‘to make room for other traffic,’ she had not expected her coworkers and eleven students to slam up the rolling overhead door of the loading dock and run out at full tilt while carrying ten unconscious bodies.  

And yet.

Maybe, after everything, she should have.  

She grabbed the radio from the dash and started rolling down the window.  “Open the doors!”

The students knew what they were doing, at least with regards to casualty transport.  They should.  They’d passed the licensing test.  Hizashi and Nemuri had better hope this nonsense didn’t get any of those licenses stripped, or, oh, she’d have words with them.

“Hey!” shouted a hero with a prominent commission badge pinned to his costume.  He extended his arm and delicate rays of light shot forth.  He was aiming mostly at Hizashi and Nemuri.  Typical.  One of the rays of light hit Hizashi’s heel, and his shoe turned to stone, causing him to stumble.  

Chiyo calmly stuck the end of her syringe-shaped cane out the window and depressed the well-hidden trigger.  A small sedative filled dart his the hero in the neck, where he was not protected by his costume.  He dropped.

One or two of the students did a double take.  Chiyo rolled her eyes.  

Really.  She was a licensed Pro Hero.  Pros had to be able to act, regardless of how many of their expectations were being subverted.  

The students could stand to learn that.  

.

Large public TV screen at the intersection caught Izuku’s attention, despite how he was keeping his gaze on his feet, the better to monitor his use of Float.  

But, then, Izuku had practically trained himself to notice any screen with All Might on it.  That this one also had his picture on it was just frosting on the cake.  

They’re moving fast.  

Of course they are.  We’re a threat.  

We weren’t!

We’ve always been.  Do you remember—?

They aren’t putting quirk users into concentration camps.

No, just training camps.

Not the time.  We’ll have to deal with the Hawks problem later.

… We were hoping for more time.

“The Hawks problem?” asked Toshinori.

“I have no idea,” said Izuku.  “Come on, we have to keep going.”

.

Trace was very good at what she did, and Hawks was genuinely hoping that she would be the one to find Midoriya and All Might, not him.  He didn’t want to be responsible for what was going to happen to the kid, spy or no. He didn’t want to get on All Might’s bad side, either, retired or not.  

Really.  The commission should have taken the hint when All Might left of his own accord. Hawks didn’t know how he’d found out about the commission’s plan to psychically interrogate Midoriya, but obviously he did.  And he objected.  Strenuously.

It might have been better for him to go public, though, rather than spirit the kid away.  

On the other hand…  It had only been a couple hours at this point.  Maybe he hadn’t had the chance.  Getting the kid out of commission hands might have been his priority, depending on how much he heard.  

What Hawks had heard…  Yeah.  Not great. One guy in particular had seemed overly enthusiastic about Midoriya’s possible rehabilitation.  

He sighed and took off his goggles, so he had a better view of the city below him.  Hawks had lucked out in the color receptor department.  Like most birds, he had four, as opposed to the baseline human three. If anyone could pick out Midoriya’s green mop and All Might’s eye-watering blonde in these crowds, it would be him.  

And if they had changed their appearances?

Well.  Their heights were distinctive enough on their own, especially when paired.  

Hawks genuinely hoped Trace would find them first.  But he wasn’t counting on it.  

Well.  This was far from the worst thing the commission had asked him to do.  

.

Samson and Delilah were a relatively new duo. Samson had a gorilla mutation. Delilah had a ‘conditional status ailment’ quirk that doubled as a boost to herself.  Kind of annoying to activate, though, honestly.  Who else had a quirk that made them eat hair?

Anyway, this was their first assignment from the commission. All they had to do was pick up a potential witness.  

“Or colluder,” said Samson.  

“Come on, have you seen her face?”  Delilah gestured with the photo in her hand.  

“She’s his mother.  Mothers know everything.”

“Your mom, maybe,” said Delilah.  “I think this is it.”  She checked the door number.  Yep.  “You knock.”

Samson’s knock was loud and intimidating.  It got no response.  

“Again?” suggested Delilah.

But no matter how many times Samson knocked, he would get no answer.  Midoriya Inko was not home.  

.

Inko checked the piece of paper with Dr. Tsubasa’s current address on it again.  Hisashi had always told her that if anything happened, and he couldn’t be there, she should go to Dr. Tsubasa.  She never had.  The wound he had given her son when he was five had never completely faded, and she couldn’t help but hate him for that.  

But Hisashi wasn’t picking up his phone, and this, this was bigger than she could hope to deal with.  

Dr. Tsubasa had better be able to.  Or else.  

(Inko did not know if the ‘or else’ was for herself, Izuku, Hisashi, or Dr. Tsubasa himself, but it was most certainly there.)

(Incidentally, Hisashi was going to get a lot of ‘else’ from her regardless, for not picking up his phone.)

.

Once, when he was young and stupid, Tomura had thought of life as a single-player game.  First person. A shooter, maybe.  First person RPG.  

Before he’d turned twenty, though, he’d realized that to get anywhere, he’d need a party.  Obviously, he was still the only player, other than Sensei, and Sensei didn’t count.  Sensei was different.  Everyone else was NPCs.  Interesting ones, maybe.  But just look at Twice!  He could turn everyone into infinitely respawning mobs.  As things were meant to be.  

But the USJ, Hosu, and everything that happened that summer had taught him better.  This was a co-op, and when someone got a permanent game over, when they were logged off forever… It made something burn inside him because those were his party members.  

He’d found Magne annoying.  But when she declared herself everyone’s big sis…

Even so, he’d hung on to the notion that they were fighting the CPU.  No intelligence on the other side.  Just violence, power, and an assortment of unfair, programmed-in cheat codes.  

This, too, was a false impression of the world.  This revelation hadn’t come as quickly as the last. In fact, if he were to be honest with himself (a despicable practice) he’d have to admit the realization had been building, percolating, since the USJ.  It was something he’d acknowledged, even, although he hadn’t realized it at the time.  

This game had a Player 2.  And the noob had just finished the tutorial.  

He smiled wide enough to make his lips crack and sting in the dusty air of the current hideout.  The pinging news alerts on his phone faded into the background as he made his plans.  

Tomura was supposed to be following the main questline, gathering party members, and powering up, but what was multiplayer without griefing?  What was an open sandbox without distractions?

“Hey, guys,” said Tomura, lazily, not even looking over his shoulder.  “You up for a side quest?”

[bk-201-314]

Watching Canine Intervention so you don't have to.

It's so very bad. Do the world a favour and do not give this show any more views. In fact join a petition to have it removed from Netflix.

Right off the bat you can't even get through the intro without a pack leadership comment. For those of you who don't know, any trainer who tells someone they need to be a 'Pack Leader' or assert their dominance over a dog, is a trainer to be avoided. These are huge red flags, telling you this person is working using very outdated and disproven, and potentially harmful tactics.

EP 1: Lady Macbeth

I'm going to preface this by telling you it took me multiple tries to get through this episode. I didn't make it 10 minutes into the episode my first try because around the 8 minute mark was the very first interaction between dog and trainer and it was so unprofessional I literally turned it right off. Here's why.

He enters the home knowing this dogs behaviour already, no trainer or behaviourist is going to walk in blind. The dog is crated upon entry to the home because she reacts to strangers approaching her and the owner especially with the intent to touch. This dog is in her safe place and is calm and this is how the trainer approaches.

As he approaches you can see the dog side eye him, you can see the whites of her eyes even in the above photo. These are already blatant signs of discomfort to any professional worth their salt. But he gets closer anyway, towering over her and sticking his hand up to the crate door to provoke a reaction. Which he gets. Something he didn't need to do already knowing her background. He is just causing her undue stress. The only thing he did right here was approaching with his side turned making him slightly smaller, but it's for not when he towers over her.

He has the owner remove her from the crate and initiate play, then he goes and provokes her again multiple times in a row. Reaching out to her and in one instance even stomping his feet (a blink and you'll miss it situation), and then charging her and running away in turn. This dog is confused. I'm fucking confused as to what the point of all this is and how it's suppose to help.

There's one thing I keep thinking as all this is going on. This dog is getting frustrated and is going to redirect. This owner, who has yet to be told not to hold the dog or stop hugging her or putting his face and hands by her face and throat is going to get bitten. And sure as shit she grabs the owners face.

The trainer goes on this huge spiel about positive reinforcement but the next session he has with her is absolutely mass confusion. I'm again left absolutely befuddled as to what he intends to teach the dog by yelling no in its face with a tug to the leash and then following up with praise.

He then takes the dog to his facility removing it from the home. As a kennel worker I know that taking a dog out of the home and putting it into a pound or shelter is incredibly stressful on that animal, she is going to need days if not weeks just to settle. There is no reason why she couldn't stay at home mind you other than it does one thing. It forces the dog to rely on him for all of its needs to be met. It's forcing a bond, reducing her likely hood of lashing out.

He talks a good game about getting her stimulated and excited and dopamine counter acting anxiety, but as someone with anxiety I know quite frankly being excited and being anxious honestly feel so similar it's hard to tell them apart sometimes and I'm not a dog getting incredibly mixed signals from someone pulling on my throat with a shoelace, and towering over me.

He introduces another "handler" and at this point they are just dragging the dog around and forcing it to comply to commands and forcing her to allow touch. Even the camera crew is confused because they don't seem to know where to look and it starts giving me motion sickness.

Also, I bet you all thought I was exaggerating when I said a shoelace right? Well I was, but I also wasn't wrong. I flipped fucking shit when I realized he literally was using a shoelace as a collar on her.

The end of her time at his facility they show her miraculous turn around. By showing her interact with . . . His staff. So people again she's been forced to bond with. They introduce her to one other person where the trainer immediately takes control of the dog and recognizes that she is still going to lash out and pushes the other person away. Which good on him for preventing an attack on the gentleman, but at the same time, how could he expect any other reaction? Then as he talks you realize, he did expect this reaction, he knows she is still a reactive dog to strangers. Which he again explains that she will continuously be a work in progress. He is not wrong. But he has also done nothing to mitigate her behaviour or make her feel more secure in my opinion. He taught her obedience training, but as for dealing with her actual behavioural issues, there didn't seem to be any progress. Especially any that couldn't have been done within the home, and I think he knows this.

He then hands the leash to the guy she almost just attacked. He has the man work the dog, giving her commands, feeding her treats, and then allows the dog to get in the guy's face and then laughs when the guy reacts as expected. Which is quite frankly still unprofessional.

In summary:

the trainer stressed a dog out unnecessarily and repeatedly, barely helped the dog overcome her behavioural issues if at all, used confusing corrections and caused frustration and overstimulation, and put at least 3 different people at risk over the course of the episode, oh and used a shoelace as a collar to train with.

[womenofcolor15]

Cardi B Donates 20,000 Meal Supplements To Medical Staff After Hospital Stint + Oprah & Jeff Bezos Donate Over $100M To Coronavirus Relief

Celebs are joining forces to pitch in for Coronavirus relief efforts. Deets on what Cardi B, Oprah and more are doing inside…

The Coronavirus crisis is taking a toll on everyone. More people are being confirmed to have tested positive and more people are dying from it. As of the time of this post, the United States have over 257,000 confirmed cases and over 6,500 deaths.

As most of us have been staying inside to help slow the spread of the deadly virus, celebs are pitching in to help healthcare workers on the front lines and citizens who need help feeding their families.

Last week, Cardi B and DJ iMarkkeyz announced they will be donating the “Coronavirus Remix” proceeds to those affected by the pandemic. Now, Bardi is doing more.

The Grammy Award winning rapper has donated 20,000 bottles of OWYN – a plant-based, vegan meal supplement – to healthcare workers and staff in NYC hospitals and ambulance crews. It’s reported the “Press” rapper donated the drinks because she wanted to gift workers something to put on their stomachs when they don’t get a chance to eat during shifts. As you can imagine, they’re likely eating very little if at all while on the clock with the way the pandemic continues to spread.

  Raise your hand if your Cookies n Cream order is on it's way pic.twitter.com/9wusmdrVsA

— OWYN (@liveowyn) April 8, 2019

  The "Money" rapper made the donation after she went to the emergency room for stomach pains.

  Cardi B Rushed To Hospital with Stomach Pains pic.twitter.com/SAWIE1leRB

— Kollege Kidd (@KollegeKidd) April 2, 2020

  Thankfully, her health issues aren’t related to COVID-19. She shared with her fans that her stomach had been hurting for four days and that she dropped six pounds, so she went to the ER. Good news is she’s doing well now.  And it's equally good news she's no longer calling Coronavirus a consipiracy that celebs are being paid to say they have....

          View this post on Instagram

                  @chefjoseandres and Claire Babineaux-Fontenot have teamed up with @leonardodicaprio, Laurene Powell Jobs and @Apple to launch America’s Food Fund to help feed local communities. I was struck by the work these organizations are doing and while everyone’s priority right now is to stay safer at home, I know there are many of us looking for ways to help. I believe that America’s Food Fund will be a powerful way to make a difference for our neighbors in need and am committing $1 million to this fund to support those facing food insecurity. I am donating $10 million overall to help Americans during this pandemic in cities across the country and in areas where I grew up. For more on this Fund and how everyone can be of service, tap the link in my bio to watch this free AppleTV+ conversation.

A post shared by Oprah (@oprah) on Apr 2, 2020 at 5:45am PDT

  Several celebs have joined forces, gathered their coins and launched a new initiative, America’s Food Fund, which will provide funding to help feed vulnerable citizens impacted by #COVID19, including children who rely on school lunch programs, low-income families, the elderly, and individuals facing job disruptions. The organization has already raised $12 million and will work with hunger relief organizations World Central Kitchen and Feeding America to continue providing meals.

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio serves as a co-founder of America’s Food Fund with philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs. Apple and the Ford Foundation are also donating funds to the movement.

Yesterday, Oprah donated $1 million to help launch the new initiative.

  Thank you, @JeffBezos, for your extraordinary $100 million gift. Read more: https://t.co/gQuozZvqXT pic.twitter.com/u27ihEhPbj

— Feeding America (@FeedingAmerica) April 2, 2020

  Jeff Bezos - Amazon founder & CEO - made a huge donation to Feeding America that will be distributed to food banks in the U.S. to help amid the crisis. He donated $100 million to Feeding America.

          View this post on Instagram

                  Even in ordinary times, food insecurity in American households is an important problem, and unfortunately COVID-19 is amplifying that stress significantly. Non-profit food banks and food pantries rely in large part on surplus food from a range of food businesses. For example, many restaurants donate excess food. But during this time of social distancing, restaurants are closed, and many other normal channels of excess food have also shut down. To make matters worse, as supply is dwindling, demand for food bank services is going up.⁣ ⁣ Today, I want to support those on the front lines at our nation’s food banks and those who are relying on them for food with a $100 million gift to @FeedingAmerica. Feeding America will quickly distribute the funds to their national network of food banks and food pantries, getting food to those countless families who need it.⁣ ⁣ Feeding America is the largest non-profit focused on food security. Millions of Americans are turning to food banks during this time. If you want to help, the link to Feeding America is in my bio. They’d be excited and grateful for donations of any size.

A post shared by Jeff Bezos (@jeffbezos) on Apr 2, 2020 at 11:00am PDT

  "Even in ordinary times, food insecurity in American households is an important problem, and unfortunately COVID-19 is amplifying that stress significantly," Jeff wrote on IG. "Millions of Americans are turning to food banks during this time."

“We are deeply grateful for Jeff Bezos’ generous $100 million contribution to Feeding America’s COVID-19 Response Fund," said Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, CEO of Feeding America. "This donation, the largest single gift in our history, will enable us to provide more food to millions of our neighbors facing hardship during this crisis. Countless lives will be changed because of his generosity.”

You can donate to the fund here.

While we're def happy Jeff offered up that uber generous donation, maybe now he can listen to the workers in his warehouses who have been complaining about working in unsanitary conditions. A recently fired Amazon worker wrote an open letter to Jeff Bezos to air out his frustrations.

Below are a few excerpts:

Dear Jeff Bezos,

When I applied to work at Amazon, the job description was simple. It said you need to have a high-school diploma or a GED (general educational development) and you have to be able to lift 50lbs. That’s it. Now, because of Covid-19, we’re being told that Amazon workers are “the new Red Cross”. But we don’t want to be heroes. We are regular people. I don’t have a medical degree. I wasn’t trained to be a first responder. We shouldn’t be asked to risk our lives to come into work. But we are. And someone has to be held accountable for that, and that person is you.

I have worked at Amazon for five years. Until I was fired last week from the Staten Island warehouse in New York City, I was a manager assistant who supervised a team of about 60-100 “pickers”, who pick items off the shelves and put them on conveyer belts to get sent out for shipment.

At the beginning of March, before the first confirmed case of coronavirus at the facility, I noticed people were getting sick. People had different symptoms: fatigue, light-headedness, vomiting. I told HR. I said: hey, something’s wrong here. We need to quarantine the building. I wanted us to be proactive not reactive. Management disagreed and assured me they were “following CDC guidelines”.

The lack of protections worried me. Inside the warehouse, there are gloves, but they are not the right kind. They are rubber instead of latex. There are also no masks. Hand sanitizer is scarce. There are limited cleaning supplies. People are walking around with their own personal hand sanitizer, but good luck finding one in a local grocery store.

Because of those conditions, I didn’t feel safe, so I took paid time off to stay home and avoid getting sick. Eventually, though, I ran out of paid time off and I had to go back to work. Other colleagues don’t have that option. Many of my co-workers and friends at the Amazon facility have underlying health conditions. Some have asthma or lupus or diabetes. Others are older people, or pregnant. They haven’t gone to work in a month, so they haven’t been paid. They’re only doing that to save their lives: if they get the virus they could be dead. One of my friends, who has lupus, is living with his relatives so he doesn’t have to pay rent. Can you imagine if he couldn’t do that? He’d probably be homeless.

Another problem is that Amazon has imposed mandatory overtime to keep up with the demand of everyone ordering online. The result is that Amazon employees are going to work sick as dogs just so they can earn $2 per hour on top of their regular pay. Do you know what I call that? Blood money.

The Amazon worker started to raise awareness about the unsanitary conditions. When a worker became sick, management told the worker to NOT tell the other associates. He said he contacted the New York state health department, the governor, the CDC and the local police department to try and get the warehouse closed down so that it could be properly sanitized. It never happened.

Because Amazon was so unresponsive, I and other employees who felt the same way decided to stage a walkout and alert the media to what’s going on. On Tuesday, about 50-60 workers joined us in our walkout. A number of them spoke to the press. It was beautiful, but unfortunately I believe it cost me my job.

On Saturday, a few days before the walkout, Amazon told me they wanted to put me on “medical quarantine” because I had interacted with someone who was sick. It made no sense because they weren’t putting other people on quarantine. I believe they targeted me because the spotlight is on me. The thing is, it won’t work.I am getting calls from Amazon workers across the country and they all want to stage walk-outs, too. We are starting a revolution and people around the country support us.

If you’re an Amazon customer, here’s how you can practice real social distancing: stop clicking the “Buy now” button. Go to the grocery store instead. You might be saving some lives.

And to Mr Bezos, my message is simple. I don’t give a damn about your power. You think you’re powerful? We’re the ones that have the power. Without us working, what are you going to do? You’ll have no money. We have the power. We make money for you. Never forget that.

Chris Smalls is a former Amazon employee

  There's also this:

  Nah, sexual enhancements - especially that are geared mainly (but not all) toward women - are most definitely essential.  Stop the misogyny, because we all know men wouldn't say this same thing about condoms or Viagra.

You can read the letter in full here.

    Photos: JStone/ Tinseltown/Shutterstock.com

[Read More ...] source http://theybf.com/2020/04/03/cardi-b-donates-20000-meal-supplements-to-medical-staff-after-4-day-hospital-stint-oprah-

[gamerszone2019-blog]

The Outer Worlds' Best Feature Might Be The Friends You Make Along The Way

New Post has been published on https://gamerszone.tn/the-outer-worlds-best-feature-might-be-the-friends-you-make-along-the-way/

The Outer Worlds' Best Feature Might Be The Friends You Make Along The Way

There’s a lot to like about Obsidian Entertainment’s next RPG, The Outer Worlds. It’s pretty much a conglomeration of all the best things about the developer’s past games, like Alpha Protocol and Fallout: New Vegas, with a big emphasis on an expansive conversation system and plenty of consequences for your actions. It utilizes its turn-of-the-century aesthetic perfectly to create the game’s expansive, funny send-up of capitalism and corporate culture. And it provides you with a band of companion characters who react to the story and situations as they unfold, and who make the game a lot more interesting with their presence.

Obsidian recently gave GameSpot a chance to get hands-on with The Outer Worlds, providing roughly two hours to dig into one of the game’s locations, a lawless and hostile world called Monarch. As Obsidian has detailed in the past, you play a character of your own creation, with the game reacting heavily to your choices as you decide whether to be good, evil, or something in between. Instead of venturing straight out in a random direction to tangle with various creatures, I spun around to speak with the other two major characters of the demo: your companions, Nyoka and Parvati.

“They have opinions of their own and they’re reacting to the choices you’ve made.”

Companion characters are a big part of The Outer Worlds, as they have been in other, similar Obsidian RPGs, like New Vegas. You can have two in tow at any given time once they’ve joined up with you, and of course, they help in combat with whatever weapons you decide to equip them with. They’re also a major component of your story in The Outer Worlds.

“We wanted to integrate companions quite a bit more, so each of the companions has a backstory and a companion quest,” lead designer Chris Staples said during an interview at the press event. “Talking to them along the way opens up those companion quests and you can do things for them. But also, how those companion quests play out influences what they think of you. Your decisions and how you treat various factions also plays into that.”

“For example, a companion might not like the Board [the corporate overlords of The Outer Worlds] at all, and if you start helping them, they’ll have issues with that,” he continued. “They’ll bring that up and say, ‘Hey, I don’t like what you’re doing, if you keep doing this, we can’t work together.’ We wanted to make sure that there was a lot of–I mean part of the space fantasy is, you know, building your crew and flying through space and having adventures with your crew. And that is sort of what we’re going for, to try to make sure they are involved along the way. They have opinions of their own and they’re reacting to the choices you’ve made.”

Helping Out

With no quests on the docket, we were free to wander into a nearby outpost and talk to its denizens or go tromping across Monarch’s monster-filled fields to see what we might find. As it turned out, though, our demo had a companion quest ready to go from Nyoka, a character who has been living on Monarch, working as a hunter and general monster killer. Talking to her triggered a conversation that gave the backstory for her companion quest. She told a story about her former crew, several of whom had been killed during a monster attack and hastily buried or, worse, left behind. Nyoka asked for help in retrieving some mementos from the burial sites in order to properly honor the team–and take some sweet revenge on the giant alien mantiqueen that murdered them. If you accept, things get altogether more complicated than that.

The first part of the mission sends you running across the fields of Monarch in search of the gravesite of one of Nyoka’s friends. Getting there isn’t exactly easy since the area is populated by groups of bandits (who also have alien attack dogs) and families of vicious aliens that can spray you down with swarms of bugs they exude from their abdomens.

Luckily, you’re pretty proficient in combat, too. Your backstory is that you were frozen in cryostasis for decades while Monarch and its counterpart planet, Halcyon, were colonized. Now that you’ve awoken, your experience has given you the strange capacity to slow down time, allowing you to line up shots or melee strikes on specific parts of enemies’ bodies. The Outer Worlds packs a variety of weapons, from blades that poison to sniper rifles and giant mini-guns, and in our demo, we had a variety of different tools for blasting away at enemies.

Combat felt strong during our demo, especially compared to New Vegas, which The Outer Worlds draws inspiration from. But it’s your companions who give the whole experience a fast-paced, strategic feel. Each companion has a special ability move, Staples said, which comes with a cooldown timer. You can activate it on the fly with one button, ordering your teammate to use it on whoever you’re targeting. Doing so triggers a brief cutscene as the character executes their move–Nyoka unloads a torrent of armor-shredding ammo from a mini-gun, while Parvati winds up for a big, stunning strike with an electricity infused melee weapon. Both moves were essential to victory in battles, as teammates could stun some enemies briefly while weakening others.

You also have a few squad commands. Similar to what you might expect from a Mass Effect game, you can order your teammates to specific locations or to focus fire on a particular enemy. Mostly, though, you’ll let your teammates handle their own fights, but you can dictate their behaviors from The Outer Worlds character menus. The game provides all sorts of options, allowing you to set how aggressive a character is, from what ranges they’ll attack, and a lot more. You can even set one of your companions to function as the squad leader, shouldering the burden of commanding the team. They’ll still follow you around, but if you’re a person who’s not great in combat situations, letting another character lead can make things a bit easier.

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Bantering It Up

Nyoka’s mission involved picking up a decaying necklace from the grave of one of her friends and then looking to enlist some help to find the cave where the rest were killed. That meant finding two members of the team who’d left Monarch, which required the help of a local hermit with access to some communications gear. We found him on top of a nearby mountain, which was surrounded by mercenaries who’d basically taken the place over.

Nearby, we found a team of mercenaries who had been contracted by the facility’s owner to protect the place. Their contract stipulated that they had to stop attackers coming from a nearby cave–since it didn’t mention anyone marching up the mountain pass the way my squad did, the mercenaries ignored the attackers. In order to talk them into doing their jobs (and therefore putting them into the line of fire, instead of us), we had to venture into the cave and help their missing commanding officer

Working our way across Monarch gave Nyoka and Parvati a few chances to swap stories. Mostly, those became opportunities for more of The Outer Worlds’ humor to creep in. Despite comments from Obsidian about how the game doesn’t take a political stance, it’s clearly a pretty hilarious send-up of capitalism. At one point, Nyoka mentioned that her life on Monarch wasn’t so bad because she at least got weekends–a concept completely foreign to Parvati, a resident of the completely corporate Halcyon.

Which companion you bring with you will matter beyond the banter you’re likely to hear on missions. Staples said that having the right character with you can change how a mission plays out.

“Sometimes you’ll talk to a quest-giver and they’ll mention it, or like Nyoka has a history with some of the other characters on Monarch,” he explained. “So she can chime in and say certain things that might open up either different paths of a quest, where if you didn’t have her, that option wouldn’t be available.”

Each character has one main companion quest, Staples said, plus the ability to interject and influence a lot of other quests, as well. It’ll be up to you to pay attention to the characters, talk to them, and learn about them, to find out where, when, and with whom they’re most likely to have an impact.

I wasn’t able to finish the mission in the demo–although I did talk a local corporate mercenary gang into fighting the bandits for me–The Outer Worlds did give a taste of how a lot of its systems will work, most notably its companion characters. Staples said a big priority for Obsidian is making the game feel highly reactive to you and your choices, and that means presenting different options based on your chosen character traits and the personality you flesh out through conversations. And that goes for which characters you have with you, too.

From our short time getting hands-on with The Outer Worlds, spending some time with your companions seemed to be the best part. Combat works well, but it’s better with your AI buddies. The same goes for exploring the world and trying to talk your way out of all the trouble you’re liable to get up to on various planets. While Obsidian’s dumb, hyper-capitalist sci-fi world is fun on its own, it’s the characters you hang around with that really make it feel real. And it seems like spending time to get to know your companions will pay off, not just in what it adds to the story, but in the gameplay capabilities and options they offer to help you accomplish your goals in The Outer Worlds–whatever they might be.

Source : Gamesport

[blueboyluca]

Angry Boys pt. 1

Yesterday Luca and I attended his first reactive dog class. I am going to call this series Angry Boys because it’s funny to me. I’m just going to describe how it went for anyone who might be wanting to know how it works or how they might want to implement something similar.

I go to Good Golly for this one, which is the local trainer I like best. She’s very friendly and she made this class specifically for four of her reactive dog clients. There are only four of us, which is great because her training facility is a small warehouse.

The first class was last week but without any dogs, where we were told the set up and the methods we’d be using. I don’t think this trainer has read BAT, but she did go to a Bob Bailey seminar recently and seems to have picked up a lot of ideas from it. So the whole class is marker-reward based.

So the set up is the room is divided into four sections with areas blocked off with covered fences so the dogs can’t see each other. We leave them in the car at first, come in and briefly chat about what we are going to do, then bring them in one at a time. I bring Luca in first because he’s up the end. Mark and reward for all calm behaviour on entry.

The rest of the class is marking and rewarding for desired behaviour. First up, we wanted to begin solidifying default behaviours, which are ‘sit’ and ‘watch me’. Most of the dogs already knew all of this, but we are starting from the beginning to ensure it’s solid. We also began practising U-turns, which is a BAT technique, to begin teaching the dogs to leave with us abruptly.

As for Luca, he did amazingly well. He had maybe 8-10 mini freakouts at the dog next door, trying to get around the fence to see it. But he got faster and faster at recovering each time. I prepared well with treats, I cut a block of cheese into teeny tiny pieces as a high-value reward and brought his regular kibble as a follow-up reward. At the end, Luca was even calm enough to practise a couple of tricks!

Once we are all done, the process is to take the dogs out one at a time in reverse order, so Luca last. If the dogs aren’t calm we will do this before debriefing and discussing next week, but the first lesson went very well and all the dogs were able to sit in their stations calmly while we listened to the trainer.

All in all, I feel very good about this class. I think my trainer has put a lot of thought into the set up and the processes, so I am thankful. She is also extremely understanding about reactivity with no judgment, which is nice. And since all the other people there are going through the same thing, nobody is judgmental. The four dogs are a mixed bag of reactivity too, some are overly friendly which causes over-arousal, while some are anxious which causes fear reactions. I would still say Luca is in the middle, mostly frustrated which can manifest as anxiety.

But I feel confident that perhaps with this class and reading BAT 2.0 I can make some solid progress! I am also deliberating whether to take a reactive Fenzi class or to continue with my engagement trajectory and do engagement 101. Decisions!

[amateurfan227]

Shitlist Reviews - Alien 3 - 1992 - Part 1 of 2

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m Amateur Fan 2.27 and welcome to the Shitlist, where bad movies burn, the last time on the Shitlist, I looked over the sequel to the hit movie Alien from 1986, Aliens... this time I’m looking into the 3rd instalment in the franchise, another reason I decided to dive into it is because of the story behind it, mainly because it’s the beginning of the downfall of the franchise.

This movie in particular is stated to be the perfect end of the franchise as it breaks Ripley’s character from survivor into a hero, mainly because of her relation towards the extra-terrestrial threat that she rightly fears, It’s also how the main factor on her relation towards Wayland-Yutani’s downfall as well as she fears that the Aliens are more unpredictable than ever, especially in an environment where no-one is on her side.

As usual, it’s time to dive into the production history first which is pretty important as well as a fun fact for you Seven fans out there, this is David Fincher’s debut as a director. With the success of Aliens, 20th Century Fox approached Brandywine Productions with further sequels but the company wasn’t invested in the idea of it with Producer David Giler explaining that his partners Walter Hill and Gordon Carroll wanted to take it into new directions to explore more of the mythos.

The trio discussed ideas to explore Weyland-Yutani Corporations fascination with the Xenomorphs as well as using them for biological weapons, as well as taking the idea of Aliens towards a different protagonists story-arc, this story eventually settled with a two-way story-arc featuring the underhanded Weyland-Yutani Corporation facing a militarily aggressive culture of humans who have a different ideology causing them to separate Earth’s society.

Michael Biehn’s Corporal Hicks would star as the main lead leaving Sigourney Weaver’s character to star as a cameo only to return in the fourth instalment of the series, the 20th Century Fox was quite sceptical about the idea but they agreed to finance the development of the story as long as they managed to get Ridley Scott to direct the film.

They also asked that the two movies were shot back to back to lessen the production costs, similar to Richard Donner as he directed both Superman and Superman 2 at the same time during production; Scott was interested on returning to the franchise he refused due to the director’s schedule.

In 1987 Giler and Hill approached Cyberpunk author William Gibson (Neuromancer) to create a script for the movie and he gladly accepted due to into his writing was influenced by Scott’s first movie. Feared of an impending strike from the Writers Guild of America, Gibson was told to deliver a script by December of that year, as well as heavily drawn by Giler and Hill’s treatment the script was of course completed

The following year, Finnish director Renny Harlin (Nightmare on Elm Street 4, previous reviewed) was told by Fox for ideas in the film which had ideas from the first 2 movies such as visiting the Alien homeworld or the Aliens invading Earth. Shortly after a failed screenplay Gibson declined to work with them due to the Producers engagement with the films ideas.

Following his departure, Harlin suggest Eric Red who worked on The Hitcher (1986) and Near Dark (1987), Red worked less than 2 months to finish the draft on February of 1989 leading him to state that it was ‘the one script I completely disown because it was not ‘my script’. It was the rushed product of too many story conferences and interference.’

His approach had a new set of characters and subplots with a new breed of Alien; the story was set around a marine team that would take the survivors who fell to the Aliens to a small USA city in a bio-dome in space. This was rejected by Brandywine which left future sequels to be given up. Writer David Twohy (Riddick series) had the idea on setting the story on a prison planet which held illegal experiments on the aliens for Biological Warfare.

This led Harlin to walk out on the project leading Fox president Joe Roth to bring Ripley back due to Sigourney Weaver’s popularity at the time; Hill and Giler did a first draft attempting to enhance the story on the Fasano script, feeling creatively drained hiring Larry Ferguson as a script doctor. Ferguson wasn’t well received in production especially by Weaver who felt that Ferguson destroyed Ripley’s character.

In short time before filming, Hill and Giler took fill control of the screenplay themselves mixing scripts and Twohy’s idea of the Prison Planet to be the basis of the film, Weaver had a clause written in her contract stating that the final draft should be written by Hill and Giler  to also write Ripley effectively. Fox also interviewed music video director David Fincher to replace the current director which he gladly accepted.

Filming began in January 14, 1991 at Pinewood studios without a finished script as well as $7 million dollars spent on production; majority of the movie was directed at Pinewood while some of the scenes were shot at Northumberland’s Blyth Power Station in the UK, the reason with this if for exterior shots on the planet.

Stan Winston, who was responsible for the creature effects of both Alien and Aliens was not available for the effects but recommended former workers from his studio at Amalgamated Dynamics (Mortal Kombat, Starship Troopers). Before Principal Photography had begun, the practical effects team made numerous models of the Alien as well as corpses of the Sulaco victims.

Small shots were created with the use of CGI such as the cracking alien head one the sprinklers cause thermal shock as well as the shadows cast by the rod puppet alien. Fincher wanted something different when it came to the Alien such as a beast rather than a humanoid which lead to thinner legs and removing the pipes around the spine.

The movie was released in the U.S. of May 22, 1992, debuting at number 2 in the box office just beaten by Lethal Weapon 3 with a mass gross of $23.1 million which rose to a total of$159 million of that year, leading it to be a flop in North America with a total of $55.4 million of its $50 million budget on a week’s basis.

Critical reception was given mixed reviews from critics who were disappointed and compared it negatively to the preceding films of the franchise; Rotten Tomatoes gave it a fully bad rating at 44% which is even worse than the fourth adaptation in the series with Resurrection standing at 54%.

You know it’s gotta be a bad one with this instalment is when the worst of the franchise has beaten it on a critical scale. Well that’s what I’m here for folks, so let’s attempt to dive back into the nightmares and see if there’s something good out of a bad situation.

This... regrettably is Alien 3...

 We start our movie back on the Sulaco as we see the residents from the last movie (Ripley, Newt, Hicks and Bishop are returning to safety from the Xenomorph threat to a more safer home only to be unaware that a Facehugger xenomorph has invaded the ship causing one of the residents to be infected, leading the ships computer to launch an escape pod containing the four of them into space.

The pod crash lands on Fiorina ‘Fury’161, a foundry facility as well as a penal colony, otherwise known as a Prison Planet, inhabited by male inmates who suffer from a genetic mutation which presents brutal antisocial behaviour including rape and murder. Fortunately Ellen is saved however for her colleagues are unfortunately unable to live another moment aside from Bishop who is deactivated due to the damage.

Ripley is taken into the infirmary unit by the Prisoners for examination and recovery as we see another living Facehugger reaches towards a dog during the recovery of the escape pod; there are quite a lot of prisoners in this movie so I’m going to look on IMDB to state the names and actors, I’m only going to place some but not all of them.

The Prison Warden, Harold Andrews (played by Brian Glover) informs the prisoners Dillon (played by Charles S. Dutton), Jonathan Clemens (played by Charles Dance), Assistant Warden Aaron (played by Ralph Brown), Morse (played by Danny Webb), David (played by the late Pete Postlethwaite), Junior (played by Holt McCallany) and Gregor (played by Peter Guinness) about the situation as well as stating that a rescue will be there within a week to remove her from the premises.

Wouldn’t it be a lot more easier to attempt to research the part of the ship that she was ejected from to find out more about her or the crew that followed her to begin with rather than just letting her recover in the Infirmary?

Another question would be reactivating Bishop in the first place to discover what caused the escape pod to land or to gain more information about where they came from or the company that he was made by?

Clemens states that she is unconscious due to the crash but will remain in the Infirmary wing until the rescue team arrives, Clemens returns to see if Ripley is still ok only for her to wake up and request were she is, Clemens also informs her that he is the medical officer at the facility due to it being a working prison.

He also informs Ripley what happened with the escape pod as well as the people who were travelling with her are unfortunately dead from the crash; aside from Ripley’s eagerness to leave, Clemens informs her of the facility that it used to be home of 5000 but reduced to 25 staff members due to accidents in work which is revealed to be a blast furnace as well as a mining facility that collects lead sheets for toxic waste.

They bring the wreckage in leading Ripley to request to see the bodies which is held over to the Morgue of the facility after she notices a burnt hole in Newt’s Cryo-tube. In the meantime another inmate, Murphy sees that his dog, Spike (same dog from earlier on) has strange marks over his head mostly from the Facehugger.

Clemens performs the Autopsy which Ripley cries at which is pretty convincing as Newt was like a daughter to her in the sequel, in belief that the Facehugger may have impregnated her with an Alien embryo. I have to admit it is a good suspenseful scene which relates to her beliefs only to be dismissed due to the fact that Newt was killed via drowning and embryo free.

Clemens and Ripley are interrupted however as Andrews arrives and attempts to sort the situation out along with his assistant Aaron, especially due to the fact that Clemens performed an autopsy without his consent, Clemens thinks of an idea with the help from Ripley to get the bodies cremated in case of an unlicensed virus which Andrews approves.

During the cremation, Spike (the dog) falls extremely ill leading to a new breed of Alien to burst out of its chest only to grow instantly into full size, killing the dog, and by god that look of the new Xenomorph looks completely horrendous; couldn’t they at least try to make it convincing? Ripley however has shaved her hair to mingle with the prisoners only for them to disown her due to the fact that she’s the only woman in the prison.

Clemens informs her about the facts that Dillon will remain leader of the group due to the fact that he is more of a spiritual leader rather than Andrews when it comes to Rescuing Ripley but she discovers that Clemens has a crush on her despite him being a convict. The Alien to make its way through the air shafts and brutally kills Murphy.

Clemens though is denied answers from Ripley’s true search over the bodies leading Clemens to be called away due to the current death of Murphy which brings the attention of Andrews; though Clemens finds something interesting as a vent is clearly burnt off near the scene of the death. Ripley on the other hand manages find the wreckage only to be questioned by Clemens about what happened about the burn.

Ripley informs him that she will tell him the truth as long as he finds something in use to look through a flight recorder which he recommends Bishop, who was tossed in the trash; Clemens then leaves to join the Warden in a discussion that Weyland-Yutani is looking for her and ordered the prison warden to keep her looked after.

Ripley on the other hand finds the wreckage where the prisoners are keeping Bishop only for several Prisoners to intervene by attempting to rape her, though this is stopped when Dillon stops them by hitting all of them with a crowbar; though the Alien on the other hand manages to kill 2 more of the prisoners but turns one of them (Golic) into a complete nervous wreck.

Ripley manages to activate Bishop back in the Infirmary where he (once again played by Lance Henriksen) informs her that Xenomorph Facehuggers were found on the ship before they left the planet, ok I have to admit, despite the look of the new dog-alien, the makeup effects they had for Bishop are surprisingly effective, creepy but effective.

Bishop requests her to take him offline which she complies with, only for them to be interrupted when Golic is found and brought into the Infirmary about what he saw that attacked him, which causes the warden to arrive again to question Ripley over her motives as well as the knowledge of the creature.

This review will continue in the near future as time restraints have caused some slight problems with the current schedule especially at the moment at hand, though aside from a separate review entirely underway this will conclude for next year unfortunately which will be interesting at that.

I hope you guys will understand, as always I’m Amateur Fan 2.27 and I’ll see you guys at the next review, Have a nice summer.