#it’s fine. i’m taking some liberties for the sake of the story ok

[raiiny-bay]

good morning. we officially have world lore for the mbzAU

[bvccy]

Hi!!! Hope you're doing great

Can I please have a mix between number 2 from the soft and 8 from the dark one

Thanks, lost of love ❤❤❤

Thank you so much, nonnie! I am so sorry this took so long, I meant to post yesterday but it wasn’t done. Also, the 8th dark prompt was requested just before you sent in this one, so that is filled separately here.

I tried to do the mix you asked for, and I took the liberty of writing this with Bucky (specifically 40s!BB), and I hope that it’s ok. It’s a bit of a more specific story, actually, that I’d wanted to write for a while. I also did a kind of first for me, because it involves Steve x reader as a backdrop 😂 Anyway.

Lots of love to you too, my dear! 💗💗💗

— PAIRING: soft!dark!Bucky x Reader • preserum!Steve x Reader — PROMPT: Asteria - gazing at one’s object of affection, from afar + Prassius - an impossible desire, and unclean love — LINKS: Masterlist • love stones prompt list — WORDCOUNT: 2.5k

It had taken long enough, and sometimes it seemed like it would never happen, but he finally found Steve a girlfriend — or rather, his girlfriend found him one. Dottie had exhausted several of her close friends and most acquaintances, but she knew how tired Bucky was of seeing his friend mope around, feeling like a third wheel, getting into trouble to pass the time. And honestly she liked Steve too, just not like that — but, wonder-worker that she was, Dottie found a girl that did.

She agreed to come on a double-date one night, and she and Stevie hit it right off. It was the first time Bucky met her too, and he didn't think much of the girl. Small, shy, not quite sickly-looking but not far from it, shoes a bit scuffed, clothes a bit too big for her and smelling of plain soap — in a word: perfect. She was perfect for his sickly, skinny friend who nobody else wanted, and by the looks of things, nobody had wanted her either because she seemed to have no idea what to do around a dance hall. As they were returning home that night, he even heard her confess to Steve that she had never been to one before.

They went out on two more dates, all four of them, within as many weeks. Bucky loved to dance, and Dottie too, but Steve and his girl weren't so fond of tripping over their feet and being laughed at. So they sat together at the table like a pair of broken toys, sharing an ice cream sundae, swinging shoulder-to-shoulder with the music when they liked the tune. Bucky waved at them when their eyes met, and they waved back and cheered at his dancefloor performance, but that happened less and less as they got caught up in each other. Steve would start to sketch things on the napkins while they chatted: the band, the sea of dancers, the fancy chandeliers, and eventually her.

"She said nobody's ever drawn her picture before," his friend said dreamily as they walked back, after they wished a good night to the girls. "Can you believe that?"

"Sure can…"

"She almost didn't let me do it. But she's so pretty, Buck."

"Mhm, nice girl."

"I mean yeah, she's no Dottie, but… I don't know, there's just somethin' I like so much about her… I guess her eyes, the way they look when she's smiling, or how her hair looks when the sun shines on it…"

"Get a load a' you," he grinned, wrapping his arm around Steve's shoulder in a playful grip that moved his friend's whole body. "One dame's sweet on you, and all of a sudden you're Romeo."

"At least I'm not a punk like you," Steve teased, slipping from his grasp.

"You know what I like best about her?"

"What?" he asked, with a hint of jealousy.

But Bucky smirked without a care. "How she keeps you out of trouble."

It had, indeed, been a while since Steve got in an alley brawl, and by their fifth date his last few bruises healed. He'd almost gotten into one by a cotton candy stand at Coney Island, but his girl was there to pull him back.

"Stevie, leave him alone…"

"You heard what he said?!"

"Who cares," she sighed, clinging to his arm and throwing the other man a hateful look. "Come on, didn't you want to win me that stuffed teddy bear?"

"Better listen to your girl, pal."

"Oh go find a sty to wallow in," she hissed.

"I ought'a smack some manners into you, you two-bit broad!"

"I'd worry about my own manners if I were you, buddy." Bucky slipped between them, coming from behind, standing now close enough to punch the guy if things got heated. But, seeing himself outnumbered, the other man cursed them and left. Just then, Dottie finally caught up.

"What's going on?" she asked, a little out of breath.

Bucky turned around, and was met by the heart-melting sight of Steve and his girl holding each other, her hands on his cheeks as she quietly chastised him, but loving enough that it made him smile and giggle. She closed it with a kiss to his cheek that made the boy blush, and a kittenish rub of their noses together.

"Nothing, everything's fine."

It was around the time they went to see a movie together that Bucky's joy for Steve turned into something else. They sat in the back while some musical played, and through the flashing lights and the corner of his eye, he could see his friend with his sweetheart holding hands on top of her lap throughout the whole performance. Meanwhile Dottie kept rubbing up against him, sometimes leaning her head on his shoulder, daring in the darker scenes to kiss his neck, but when she tried to get more of his attention —

"Buckyyy, what's wrong?"

— he shook her off. Hearing his name spoken by her voice suddenly felt disappointing.

He caught himself staring more and more, and not just when they went out together. Sometimes, the girl came by and spent some time with Steve, looking at his newer sketches, trying her hand too — oh and how disgusting they looked, Steve taking advantage of the situation to sit behind, and wrap his arms around her, and whisper in her ear. The pair greeted him cheerfully when he stepped through the living room and caught them, and he grinned back at them as he took a glass of milk, but all his appetite was gone.

And when they walked together through the park, and he saw them holding hands again… When Steve dug for some change to get her an ice cream, and they giggled stupidly as they made a mess of sharing it… When she fell asleep by his side one night at the dance hall, and Stevie woke her up with a tickle down her cheek, and she shivered and murmured like a bird and hid her face in his unworthy shoulder…

"Why don't you ever wanna dance, doll?" he asked as they were fetching drinks.

"Not much good at it, I guess," she shrugged. "The fast ones make me dizzy and I always trip."

"I can teach you. It'll work out great! Stevie teaches you to draw, I teach you how to dance… What do you say?"

The girl seemed to think, but shook her head. "Hmmm… No, not right now. Thanks," she smiled politely. "Besides, what would Stevie do meanwhile?"

She told him no just for the sake of keeping his scrawny little friend company, and Bucky had never felt more insulted — not that she wouldn't dance with him, although that hurt enough, but that he couldn't remember the last dame that gave something up just to stick with him, or got into fights for him, or kissed his wounds away, or held his hand in hers with no ulterior motive, and he'd found a girl that did that, and he wasted her on Steve.

So what if she was a little on the smaller side? So what if her dresses didn't fit right? So what if she came down with the cold at every change of season? He put up with it for Steve and he wasn't half as charming. The girl, instead, looked very delicate, more feminine in her own way, like when she braced her fingers on a table as she talked and mindlessly swung back and forth, animated in whatever she was saying, and her digits bent in such a childish way he feared they'd break, and it only made him want to kiss them. Or when she took her shoes off when she came to their apartment and he could catch a hint of shapely ankle, just perfect for his grip, or a peachy pink instep small enough to fit his palm. And when she fell asleep on their couch that one time and Bucky saw her all curled up, and noticed the arch of her hips and the cinch of her waist and pictured how good it would feel to hold them, and angle them upward, and…

Slowly, he started to appreciate some of what his friend had said that night, because she did have lovely eyes, and hair that looked so soft and warm, and her scent, unburdened by perfume, was sweet and girlish, and her lips looked kissable, and her wrists and knees and ankles too…

"Going out again, tonight?" he asked as the blond boy fixed himself in the mirror.

"Yeah, she wants to try this new place we —"

"Alright, alright…" sighed Bucky, already sick of hearing more. "So, that's all you're gonna do?"

"Well… yeah."

And then he voiced an evil thought. "Don't you ever want to… you know?"

"Y-you think we should?" Steve asked, turning away from his pallid reflection.

Bucky sat sprawled across the couch, and shrugged. "If she really likes you, she'd be up for it, don't you think?"

"I don't know about that, Buck."

"No? Ok," he nodded. "After all, what do I know?"

The aftermath of this particular advice was a draught of dates for poor ol' Steve, because just like Bucky had expected, the girl shrinked at the suggestion and couldn't stand to see him. For a while.

"Can you believe it, Buck?!"

"Yeah…"

"She'll see me again!"

"That's great, Stevie."

"What's wrong? You're lookin' real dour today."

Bucky knew he shouldn't. "I just…" He knew that it was wrong. "Look, it's great that she's forgiven you, but you gotta be realistic about this, pal." He had been happy for Steve at one point, long ago.

"What do you mean?"

But that was before he saw just how much love a girl could give, and realised he'd never felt it.

"Just don't delude yourself this is anything more than what it looks like, ok? She's only forgiven you because she knows nobody else will have her."

"That's mean, Buck."

"Yeah, well… I'm just looking out for you. You're my best friend, you know that. I don't want you getting hurt." It stuck in his throat to say it, but the bitterness stuck more.

And after Steve went to bed that night, Bucky took out the box of candy and the pricey perfume he had bought for her, threw them in the trash, and firmly promised to himself to never wait too long again.

But as he learned a bit later on, when they went back to double-dates, he might not have had a chance at all, because there was an unwitting element of truth to this cruel tirade.

"I can't exactly blame you, honey," Dottie consoled her as they stood in line for the ladies room, not knowing Bucky was just behind the thin divider leading to the men's. "If he does something like that again, I know this other fella —"

"Oh no, Dot, please… We're fine now. He explained things and… he's really sweet, I think he just had a moment of —"

"But just let me introduce you to Jim, see if you don't like him better."

"I… I don't know."

"He's a real charmer," Dottie grinned, "and he has these big, broad hands, jaw like an anvil. He just broke it off with Marcie cause she was a flirt."

He didn't hear anything next, but the girl must've shook her head cause Dottie asked, "You're sure?" and "Really? Well, if you change your mind…"

"Thanks, Dot," she lightly laughed.

"I don't know why you're so stubborn though, it's not like he's that far out your league. You just need to fix your hair a little bit and get a better brand of powder."

"It's not that easy."

"It's all it took me to get Bucky on my arm. That, and a better set of heels," she laughed.

"Yeah but you've always been pretty, Dot. Like, really pretty, and you know it. I guess some girls are for the James Barnes of this world, and some are the for the Steves."

She giggled as she said it, with not a hint of anger or resentment, and that's what stung the worst.

Bucky arranged to go see a late night movie with Dottie after that, while Steve and his girl went back to the apartment to listen to a boxing match on the radio and have some cherry sodas. Dottie went ahead to buy the tickets while Bucky walked them home, and after wishing him good night, she went upstairs to set things up. Steve was meant to go to the store and buy the drinks, but he stayed to chat with his friend a while.

"I can get some eggs and milk as well while I'm at it," he offered, swinging on his heels with his hands in his pockets.

"Sure."

"Or do we have enough for breakfast tomorrow?"

"Go ahead and buy them, pal," Bucky smiled, pretending to be less tired than he felt.

"Ok. And what about — darn!"

"What is it?"

"I just realized, I forgot to give her the keys," he said, taking a hand out of his pocket and holding them out. "I gotta get to the store, can you go up and give them to her?"

"Er, why don't —"

"You know I always trip on the stairs when I'm in hurry, Buck, they haven't changed the lightbulb yet. Don't make me do it."

"Fine, I'll go."

"I owe you big."

"You always do," he grinned, and took the keys from him.

Steve made off for the corner store, while Bucky started the long slow climb upstairs. It was completely dark inside at that hour, and the few candles some neighbours left to light the way had all gone out.

"Stevie, is that you?" he heard her call, standing right outside their door.

He kept one hand against the wall and walked his way toward her, stopping as he heard her whisper, "I think I lost the keys."

Blindly, she moved her hand forward, coming right across his chest. He felt her jolt at the unexpected contact, then burst into a giggle. Bucky could already feel the fanning of her breath right at the level of his chin. With an unseen smile, he took her hand, and placed the keys within it.

"Oh," she laughed. "You had them."

As her hand closed around them his own moved up her shoulder, fingers threading around her hair, and as he touched her jaw he felt her tilting slightly upward, shivering under the feeling.

"Is everything alright?" she asked.

He felt the warming tickle of her breath as he leaned close until, through the pitch black, he touched his lips to hers. Bucky did it lightly, just a little, just enough to taste and sip a kind of love he'd never really had. She stood surprised but took his kiss, and he felt her smiling into it, even beginning to kiss back just as he was parting from her.

"Your lips are softer than before," she giggled, in a sweet but altogether crushing way that made Bucky's heart beat stronger. "Stevie?"

Her hand moved through the air to touch him but felt nothing anymore, and down the stairs the heavy steps echoed, moving downward and away.

[gebtoons]

my contribution to the bapo timeline discourse bc i’m just gonna propose a timeline and will not be taking criticism <3 (under the cut bc this is gonna be a long post probably) 

ok disclaimer I am quite stupid, however I’m gonna use my knowledge from my own 12 years in american public high school and what little info I have about american boarding schools/catholic schools that I have from my friends lol. so. idk. 

i’m also gonna date songs/major events and i’m gonna be taking some “just trust me bro” liberties bc y’all are right it does NOT make that much sense. 

January 6: Epiphany; this is like an actual holiday lol. like its always on the sixth. idk its good that this is the starting point bc its an actual date yknow? For the purposes of this timeline were going with that its early in the week, so lets go with Monday idk

January 6-13: You and I, Role of a Lifetime; so we’re all kinda in agreement that this timeline (at least the beginning) only really makes sense if you and i/role of a lifetime aren’t like. a singular moment and are instead multiple days. so yeah, of this first week, this is like. monday-next sunday ish yknow. 

January 14: Auditions, Plain Jane Fatass; ok so having auditions for a spring musical right after kids get back from break actually makes perfect sense to me, like i can see it being like “ok take break to prepare so as soon as you come back we can have auditions so we can jump right into rehersals” yknow? and since the rave is clearly on a friday (”we’ll meet in tanya’s room on friday night”) so i’m going with the monday before.  

as for pjf, i know it doesn’t make a ton of sense for them to get a two week late birthday package their first few weeks back from school, but hear me out it makes sense. the implication throughout this entire show is that the twins have decently shitty parents. from bits of dialogue (in this song in particular lol) i’m kinda inferring their the “only concerned with how their kids make them look to others” kind of neglectful. so I don’t think it’s too outside the realm of possibility that they went away for the holidays, didn’t bring the twins, and instead mailed them a birthday package and having it show up two weeks late. realistically the timing of this isnt that important and the explicit “two week” time frame could’ve been an exaggeration on nadia’s part to mock her shit parents (idk its in her character) basically ppl are a little two fixated on this imo but anyway. moving on. 

January 18: Wonderland, A Quiet Night At Home, Rolling, Best Kept Secret; a very agreed upon point in the timeline. its the friday following the auditions. moving on. 

January 21: Confession; also very agreed upon. the monday following the rave. moving on again 

January 23: Portrait of a Girl; the date here is kinda arbitrary, but bc sister chantelle says “ok lets try to put yesterday’s rehearsal behind us” and i for the life of me cannot think of a scene she could be referring to (there’s none in the script either) that implies it wasn’t the same monday as confession (bc even in a boarding school i think holding extracurriculars that aren’t sports over the weekend (especially when they are no where near crunch time lol) is weird and not common) so i just picked a random day during the week

January 25: Birthday Bitch!, One Kiss, Are You There?; from matt’s line in wonderland, ivy’s birthday is a week after the rave. in my timeline that’s january 25th (an aquarius queen). 

btw given all grown up’s “17, how will i manage?” ivy is 16 during 17 at her party, which is strange given shes a high school senior and seniors are typically 17 during 18. so either a) she skipped a grade, not an unheard of thing. or b) shes not a senior, shes just a junior who hangs out with a bunch of seniors, which is also pretty common. and looking through the script i can’t find any mention that she is also a senior, other than yknow she graduates with them, but she isn’t mentioned during the class ranking scene? so idk not that it really matters just a fun detail 

February 3 (at night): 911 Emergency!; ok controversial. i know i like the joke about how its funny that peter having a weird dream when he was high prompted him to want to come out and really ruined his relationship with jason. BUT. i think the dream (despite it’s weirdness) would have a lot more meaning if it wasn’t the result of being really high, but if it was a dream he had like a week later as a result of a building sense of guilt/anxiety bc he told matt. also it fits better given later timeline things. (this timeline literally only exists if there are weird jumps in time that don’t make a ton of sense) (EDIT: I forgot one line about Jason crashing at ivys but fuck it forget that bitchass line this makes for more drama its staying this way)

February 4: Reputation Stain’d, Ever After; the next day following peter’s dream, idk what else to say, moving on. 

February 25-28: Spring; another jump! i’m sorry but the only way for this to make sense logistically is for there to be quite a few time jumps! however, i also think this one works bc i think it gives time for everything from around ivy’s party and peter and jason’s break up to stew emotionally. like obviously a musical only has so much time to tell a story so the audience cannot see every realistic beat, but honestly i think it makes the whole thing a little more dramatic™ if there’s space for everything to settle, and for ivy to come and apologize and such. also, the reason it’s multiple days is bc in the script, ivy is trying to study (presumably for some sort of midterm) while nadia is playing, so that probably takes place a few days before they move out, so before finals. but in the script, jason and peter are packing and peter is leaving, so that part of the song/staging takes place on the 28th. yes, that’s weird, but we are clearly thinking more about the logistics of this school than the writers were so. 

March 1: One; assuming st. cecilia’s works kinda like boarding schools here, they probably do staggered move out/move in, just bc that would be a lot to have people coming and going at once so it makes sense that peter left the day before, while jason and ivy are leaving the next day. also, given that peter is trying to call jason while he and ivy are banging, it’s probably been a hot minute since the actual break up, since peter was clearly very hurt by the whole thing, it would make sense (at least to me) that peter would reach out a month ish later, rather than like a few days later (you have to make so many assumptions to make this timeline work granted they aren’t super out there assumptions but still this is annoying) 

March 1-25: Spring Break. the coworkers I have who are in boarding school work over their school breaks, which are longer than the public school breaks (which are only a week) so i put their spring break at 3 weeks. it makes sense, and it makes the later part of the timeline make sense. 

I know i’m already halfway through this, but to me it makes sense for their to be quite a few time jumps in the story bc its a musical. they cannot show every day. there are a lot of other shows (particularly shows set in high schools) that are set over a whole school year, but if you just look at the events of the story that doesn’t make sense, so you have to imply that obviously they are not showing every little detail. moving on. 

March 25: Wedding Bells, In The Hallway, Touch My Soul; peter wakes up from his nightmare in the church, so im assuming he fell asleep in church (like he almost did during epiphany). also it makes sense that class ranks are announced in late march-early april, I know my school announced ours in like, the first week or so of april? so yeah. moving on.

(from this point on i was giving myself a headache trying to make it make sense so its all weird from here!!)

April 4: See Me, Warning; the date doesn’t really matter here, I picked a random day in early april. the script said peter is calling from him and jason’s old dorm room, as he was picking up the last of his things, so he clearly made the roommate switch after school started (makes sense to me). 

April 15-20 (approximately): Ivy finds out she’s pregnant. look google tells me on average people find out they are pregnant around 5-7 weeks after conception. i went with around 7 just so this timeline makes a tiny bit more sense given the later stuff, so yeah here we go. 

May 4: Pilgrim’s Hands, God Don’t Make No Trash, All Grown Up, Promise, Once Upon A Time, Cross; a rough night for our heroes. so given sister chantelle saying “again? wonderful.” and nadia saying “i can’t believe you missed rehearsal again”, clearly ivy has been missing quite a few rehearsals, so for dramas sake maybe from when she found out she was pregnant? also i know i’ve been saying they wouldn’t have rehearsals on weekends, and given my weird timeline this would be a saturday, but its tech week so i’ll allow it. 

May 5: Two Households, Bare, Queen Mab, A Glooming Peace; pretty self explanatory, and it makes sense to have the spring play in early may. rip jason. 

May 11: Absolution; the day before graduation peter goes to confront the priest. gives him a small amount of time to start processing, and it makes sense it would be the night before, at least to me. 

May 12: No Voice; i fucking hate this. “peter, we graduate next sunday” i hate that stupid fucking line. do you know that this timeline literally would be fine if it weren’t for that stupid fucking line? bc then, the school play would be in early may and graduation could be in late may-early june (when most high schools hold graduation) but no. keeping with continuity, they have to graduate the sunday following the school play. “peter we graduate in a month, are you really never gonna talk to me again?” would have been fine. but no, now we have beef. literally everything else about the end of this timeline being kinda weird would work itself out, except for the fucking graduation. god damn. anyway, may 12th, the graduate on may 12th which is really fucking weird bc of that one fucking line. whatever. i didn’t write the damn thing bc if i did i wouldn’t have written that fucking line. (i’ve been at this for over an hour and a half, so i’m a tad annoyed, can you tell?) 

anyway, that’s it. that’s my long as hell proposed bare timeline. if there’s anything glaringly wrong with it i don’t care bc this timeline literally cannot make sense. but honestly, now that i think about the Popular Tween High Schooler Musicals (heathers, bmc, deh) the timelines of those (especially heathers and bmc) don’t make tons of sense either. that’s just the way it is, that’s the way its gonna be. and we have to live with it. 

this post is so long it is actually slowing down my laptop as i type it

[roxannarambles]

Firewatch Review: Where There’s Smoke

This is a repost on a new blog. The original post was on Mar 4, 2016.

Contains major, major spoilers including endgame. Do not read if you haven’t played!

When I first started into this game I thought it was a horrifically depressing introduction. It opens telling a tale of a man and a woman who fall in love and it’s a lovely story and then the woman falls ill from a rare hereditary disease and slowly gets worse and loses her career and the man loses the wife he knew and struggles to care for her and it’s fucking awful. Then the game opens with the man– you– taking up a summer job in a park near Yellowstone. He’s done this to get away and have some time to think about his life.

He works in a watchtower. Lone rangers station in these towers to watch the horizon for signs of fire. He has little to do but keep an eye out and sit alone in his station up there. His only company is his supervisor, in the nearest watchtower over, whom he speaks to via walkie-talkie. (these are the days before cell phones) Her name’s Delilah.

All I was really told about this game is that it involved exploration and was story-centric. And that’s an accurate description. And while it starts off with a rather depressing backstory, the main part of the game is not all bleak and bleary. It is a story about the interaction between Henry and Delilah. There is a mystery plot involved in the game as well; the game starts off with small park dramas and tasks to ease into things, then develops a mystery, which eventually gets rather intense. But entwined with this mystery story, always central and foremost, is the character-driven plot of these two.

The voice acting is fantastic, and the writing is excellent, so it carries well. Dialogue writing is certainly not everyone’s strength, but the writers here did a very good job. The two characters have excellent chemistry; it flows naturally and is very enjoyable. The quips and interactions are fed in small bits steadily throughout the game as you explore, providing an enjoyable regular stream of interactions. It’s a satisfying blend of exploration and conversation.

The game is atmospheric and beautiful to look at, and that’s not something to dismiss either. Those factors really do add something special to a game.

And here’s the thing. I fell in love. It was such a compelling story. And the characters felt so real. I found myself deeply engrossed in the mystery and unable to stop. I found myself deeply emotionally invested in the characters and I truly cared about them. They were relatable human beings. And I loved Delilah. She was the light in the dark. The beacon in the middle of the loneliness. My lighthouse; my watchtower. Quippy, caring, flawed, human. I shared my troubles with her, and she listened.

Early on in the game, one of the conversation responses caused Henry to say something that annoyed Delilah and kinda offend her a little. I had accidentally overheard a phone conversation she was having (she left her walkie-talkie button depressed) and it sounded like kinda maybe she had been talking about me? So I asked her, were you talking about me? She was confused and surprised at the accusation and no, it had just been a conversation about work, and besides, was that really any of my business?

So the good mood killed, she stepped out for a while and I couldn’t talk to her anymore on the walkie-talkie. ‘Cause she was annoyed and didn’t feel like talking. And the thing is– I felt so bad. Like, I really felt sorry and wanted to apologize and felt I’d been a bad person for accusing her of that, and I wanted her to like me. And I didn’t want to be left alone. It was hauntingly quiet, unlike the rest of the game, when Delilah wasn’t there for company. I think this plot point was especially effective because it was in the middle of what had been at that point the deepest conversation we’d had so far, and we had been really bonding and sharing. But now I’d screwed it up.

Eventually Delilah forgave us for our rude question. And I cannot tell you how much of a relief it was. Heck, I thought I’d lost my chance and it would never be brought up again and I’d never have a chance to apologize, but she brought it up later. (She actually apologized for being so snappish over it, and said she knew what it was like to get too lost in your own head out there and start imagining things.) I felt so much better knowing we were cool again. It was that delicate part of a budding new friendship, you know, and I didn’t wanna mess it up. I really commend the game for including the callbacks to previous conversations. It enhanced the feeling of history between us and internal consistency throughout the story.

There have been many people online complaining about the way the game ultimately ended. In my humble opinion, those people are missing the point of the game. Indeed, with games like these, that have a somewhat open-ended conclusion (and there’s plenty of stories that fall into that category), how you interpret the ending and its meaning says a lot about the person who played the game. The whole point of an open-ended conclusion is for a person to think and draw conclusions, after all, but many people seem to fail to realize this.

One game that comes to mind is ‘Presentable Liberty,’ a game that you spend in a prison cell for the vast majority of the time, reading letters that are delivered to you. It had a very open-ended and nebulous ending. But that game made so many people think, and I think Firewatch makes you think a lot too.

I won’t lie, of course; I do somewhat understand where the critics are coming from. In some ways the ending did feel anti-climactic to me. It felt like it was possibly building up to something and that payoff never came. Yet … that experience in and of itself was fascinating to me.

Let me explain in detail. First of all, I reached the conclusion of the mystery plot. Plenty of people bitched about this online as well, but I loved the way it concluded. The plot was suggesting a very exciting but rather typical video-game story where a government conspiracy was uncovered that was studying human subjects (perhaps a psychological study of the effects of isolation in people), and Henry and Delilah were the subjects in these nefarious privacy-violating experiments. However, this “plot twist” of a secret government study ended up being a false twist. Instead, the story ended up in a less typical direction. As it turned out, the group of mysterious people behind all the spooky hijinks wasn’t that at all … it was one man. One lonely, desperate man living as a hermit with a tragic, awful secret he was hiding about an accident during his job as a fire watch. It was our fears and paranoia that had conjured up this imaginary, yet very real-feeling plot of conspiracy and subterfuge.

And I loved that. I loved that it was something driven by a simple lone man who was guilty and afraid. I loved that was the explanation, that it was something so prosaic rather than fantastic and fanciful. Like the best horror stories are about man as being the worst monster instead of werewolves and vampires, this showed the best mysteries were about human loneliness and desperation and guilt rather than complex conspiracies or extraordinary mojo. Indeed, you felt bad for the man who had been unintentionally tormenting us this whole time.*

After this conclusion to the mystery plot, hot on its heels– literally, because you were being chased by the spreading wildfire– was the conclusion of the Henry/Delilah plot. I was rushing out of there to rendezvous with a rescue helicopter so I could escape my post before fire consumed everything. They landed near Delilah’s watchtower, before I had made it to the rendezvous point– I’d been busy tracking down the ending to the mystery. She told me the helicopters would make another pass for when I got there, but … she might just leave now since the current copter was there.

“Wait for me,” I said into our walkie-talkie. I wanted to leave with her. Together. She was very reluctant when I begged this of her. But she finally relented that ok, ok, she’ll wait. I hollered I was on my way. I rushed as fast as I could.

I finally reached the spot– it was Delilah’s watch tower. The point in the distance I had always gazed upon but never had been to until now. But something didn’t feel right as Delilah was oddly silent on the walkie.

I entered the empty watch tower. I saw a small sign, “Pork Pond” attached to her wall and smiled faintly. I *knew* she had that sign. I put on the radio headset and called.

Delilah answered, in a tone that made it clear she knew I wouldn’t exactly be pleased to be listening to her voice over the radio waves yet again instead of seeing her standing there. She asked me not to be mad.

“I’m not mad, I’m just …”

“Disappointed?”

And yes. I was. That was it exactly.

It hurt. I genuinely felt sad and hurt that Delilah had left without me. It felt like she abandoned me. She stammered about having not want to meet me in the shadow of that poor dead child I had just learned about, but … it still hurt. After all we’d been through the least she could have done was waited. And you’ve no idea how much I had wanted to finally meet Delilah in person, dang.

But I pondered it after, and it made a lot of sense, her actions. She had been afraid to meet me in person, I think. It would have made the whole thing even more real, you know? If it was just over the walkies, fine. But … in person would have made it too real. Delilah was afraid of getting attached. Not just because she had had her heart broken by her long-term boyfriend and was afraid of getting close again to someone, but probably for more practical reasons too. Henry was still married, for Pete’s sake, and in a very complex situation with his sick wife. Any smart girl would want to avoid getting involved with a guy who’s still married. So her early departure and lukewarm response to me asking for her to come with me back to Boulder, well, it made sense.

As much as it had hurt for her to not wait, I understood and forgave her for it. In a way, I suppose, it may have made it easier for us both not to face the anguish of a relationship not working if we never saw each other in person to begin with. But … fuck. Had it been me, I would have wanted to see her in person anyway. I would have asked her to wait. At least for a goddamn hug.**

We spoke on the radio as I waited for the helicopter to swing back around to pick me up. We talked about our future plans. We both didn’t know what they would be. Delilah thought I should go back to my wife and do my best to make things right. Somehow.

And it ended once we were pulled into the helicopter.

People online whine that this ending was a 'cop out,’ not a real conclusion. I don’t believe that. I think the entire point was that feeling of uncertainty about the future and that missed chance at getting together with Delilah. Life is uncertain so often. We don’t know how to fix things, what to do, and what things mean. It’s our search for meaning that is so valuable. This game was a reflection of life experiences many can relate to. Not necessarily all the details– a wife that fell ill with premature dementia– but the general themes? Absolutely. This story is about people struggling to cope with loneliness, seeking to connect with others, struggling to deal with hardships in life, seeking purpose and meaning, seeking direction. And it does not provide solid answers at the very end, but that’s OK. It doesn’t have to. It’s OK if the players can provide some of the answers. Sometimes asking the questions is as valuable as providing the answers in a story.

And yeah, sometimes the guy doesn’t ‘get the girl.’ Sometimes relationships don’t work out. (Especially if the guy is still married and needs to deal with some shit before either staying with his wife or breaking up and pursuing something else.) That doesn’t mean our connection with Delilah that summer didn’t have meaning or purpose or value, just that … such things don’t always have a future as a long-term relationship.

I earnestly believe the ending to this game was fine as-is. I might even say it was a perfect ending. Although I admit I desperately wanted to meet Delilah at the very end***, I’m pretty sure my sense of diappointment and feeling of sorrow at not seeing her were kind of exactly the point of the story. All in all, it ended on a tone that was sad and nebulous, but not deeply depressing. There was still a sense of hope about things, and I think that’s important.

(Amusingly, much later I learned there is an option at the very end to NOT enter the rescue helicopter. It leaves without you if you wait long enough, implying suicide of your character Henry. Much darker option than the one I describe above. But again, in stories like these, it depends on player’s reactions, input, and interpretations too, and fortunately most do not have quite that bleak of an interpretation of the tale– and quite that bleak of a choice.)

So many of us sit alone in our own watchtowers, isolated, searching for any meaningful human connection we can come across. I think the themes of connection and isolation were masterfully explored in this game. You really fuckin’ felt it, you know?

And to me, it’s noble. That human beings stand in this intense loneliness but continue that search, and they sometimes find somebody. It may not always end well, but that doesn’t mean you should stop the search and that you won’t find another. Or even rekindle old flames.

Either way, you shouldn’t stop searching the horizon.

————–

Footnotes:

* That’s not to say the dude wasn’t guiltless in his actions. I think it was rather awful of him to just leave his poor kid’s body down in that hole instead of facing up to what had happened, going home, letting people and loved ones know what went on, etc. Also pretty stupid of the guy to pressure his son into doing that dangerous rock-climbing when the kid didn’t have the skills. But, ya know, you felt bad for him too.

** I should note, I have no idea if Henry should break up with his wife Julia (& tried things out with Delilah) or not. I had no opinion on it because who knows? Choices like that are friggin’ complex. Seriously.

*** And yes, I realize the game never had a model for her character anyway, so from a technical standpoint it would have been impossible, but it’s best to use in-story explanations for events, not technical explanations.

[arecomicsevengood]

Quarantine Movie-Watching Journal, Continued

Throughout all this quarantine time I’ve been chronicling my watching movies, I’ve also been reading books, but have had assorted troubles on a level that seems close to basic comprehension, or just getting on their wavelength. Part of this is having a certain tendency towards the difficult or avant-garde in terms of what I think is “good,” but also wanting things to make sense or have a certain level of clarity: It’s maybe a difficult balance to strike but I don’t know, plenty of books pull it off, I have plenty of favorites. Nothing I’ve read recently has really been hitting, the only thing I’ve found compulsively readable is Virginie Despentes’ Vernon Subutex series, which I would hesitate to recommend as I also think they’re kind of bad. I want clarity on a certain level, and mystery on a deeper one; a lot of things essentially get the formula backwards, and feel incredibly obvious and free of ideas while employing obfuscatory language. (This isn’t to say I like “straightforward” prose, the “mystery” I’m referring to is basically created as an act of alchemy when language is functioning on its highest level, and insight, mood, imagery, and motion are all generated simultaneously. This isn’t “plain speech” I’m describing, but it doesn’t short-circuit the brain’s ability to make sense of it.)

In watching a lot of older movies I find that one of the things that help them maintain a level of interest is I possess a certain confusion about their cultural context. Even if something is a perfectly straightforward mainstream entertainment, there is still a sense of confusion or mystery about it, where you can follow it perfectly, but don’t necessarily know where it’s coming from, so it’s unclear where it’s going. In contrast, watching modern movies, especially more mainstream things but also, generally speaking, everything, I feel like not only do I know exactly where it’s coming from it’s also aggressively spelling everything out, as if to avoid moral confusion. This is also combined with a certain aggressiveness to the editing, so even as everything too fast-paced on certain level, it also ends up being too long, because it needs to fit in a certain level of redundancy. Older things tend to have a greater degree of storytelling clarity that’s also premised on a higher level of trust in the viewer’s ability to intuit things. Maybe there’s also a greater level of reliance on a set of semiotic devices that we’ve become more critical of over time, but what’s emerged in their absence feels more self-consciously insistent.

Little Women (2019) dir. Greta Gerwig

After watching this I looked up on IMDB to see what Gerwig is up to now and she’s slated to direct a Barbie movie? I hate this era, where success doesn’t lead to any actual clout to make important or interesting work, but instead forces artists into these traps of economic contract where they service a trademark. Also this movie is kind of weird because all these actresses are in their twenties but I think are meant to be playing teenagers for most of it? Or even younger? This movie basically feels like it is meant to be for children but is given this gloss over it to maybe seem appealing to young adult modern feminists but it doesn’t really seem like it would be except to the extent they’re indulging a youthful nostalgia.

Shirley (2020) dir. Josephine Decker

I’ve been wanting to watch Decker’s last movie Madeline’s Madeline because a lady I met and thought was cute has a small role in it. I guess all her movies are about artists and performers? I like that this one seems capable of depicting a fiction writer without just presenting their work as autobiographical but I guess that’s because it’s, you know, a real person whose story is being told. Elisabeth Moss is pretty good as Shirley Jackson. Jackson acts real weird and petulant and destructive and I sort of went in feeling like she would be depicted as a manipulative monster, but watching it I felt like it was probably well-researched and accurate to how she was but not in a way that makes me dislike Shirley Jackson — but also I do like destructive difficult personalities and I think that’s basically a fine and acceptable way for artists, or anyone, to behave. I still don’t think this is really a good movie, Shirley Jackson is not really the lead but more like the only interesting character: She’s got an obnoxious and self-satisfied husband, but the movie is more about this couple that moves in — a woman who’s pretty dull is the focal point, and her husband is boring, and manipulative too, albeit in a very commonplace way. Pretty average.

The Predator (2018) dir. Shane Black

A movie about how people with Asperger’s are the next step in human evolution that nonetheless uses the r-word slur to describe them, filled with some of the most generic actors imaginable. I like Shane Black movies as much as the next guy, but am indifferent to the Predator franchise. Maybe because, despite the R rating, they really do feel like they’re made to sell toys, like so many cartoons of the eighties? I hope the sequel the ending transparently sets up never gets made.

The Lighthouse (2019) dir. Robert Eggers

Wasn’t able to finish The Witch and I stopped and started this one a few times. Tries to avoid accusations that “all these modern horror movies are dumb as shit” by not being a horror movie but it also isn’t really anything else — Not funny enough to be a comedy nor evocative enough to be an art movie. Sort of like High Life in the sense that Robert Pattinson isn’t actually good in it but maybe it’s surprising that a mainstream actor would be in a “weird movie,” but he doesn’t really have to do anything in either, at least as far as building a character goes. It’s underwritten enough he might not even know how to read. Willem Dafoe is ok as a guy doing the sea captain voice from The Simpsons.

The Whistlers (2020) dir. Corneliu Poromboiu

Contemporary crime thing that vaguely reminded me of all the other post-Tarantino crime movies made in the past 25 years that I don’t really remember, particularly the ones in other languages. This one’s got characters learning a whistling language to communicate in a way cops will just thing is birds. Also a semi-complicated plot, told non-linearly. The female lead also pretends to be a prostitute and has sex with a criminal dude so the police watching him with hidden cameras don’t figure out what she’s up to, although, if I understand the plot, I’m pretty sure they work it out anyway.

Pain And Glory (2019) dir. Pedro Almodovar

This one stars Antonio Banderas, is pretty plainly autobiographical, being about a filmmaker approaching the end of his life -- Penelope Cruz plays the mother in flashbacks that are then shown to be a filmed recreation as an autobiographical work is begun, which is the sort of twist that could seem corny but isn’t. The film has a weird/interesting structure, the slow revelation of details from the character’s past forming a narrative a film can be made of eventually but before that there’s this totally separate story involving an actor, heroin use, and an ex-lover. That stuff’s good but also it sort of wraps up halfway through. Like, a bundle of narrative threads culminate, and then the film keeps going, to eventually tie up other bits that seem incidental. Maybe this would be fine in a theater but streamed at home I got a bit anxious. Penelope Cruz made me think “I could watch Vanilla Sky” but it turned out I can’t, it’s unwatchable.

High Heels (1991) dir. Pedro Almodovar

I love Almodovar, my stance has been that there’s a degree of diminishing returns the more of his work you see but it’s been years since I’ve seen one of his movies, and at this point I remember very little of any of them. This one’s on Criterion as part of a collection of films with scores by Ryuichi Sakamoto — Sakamoto’s not my favorite member of Yellow Magic Orchestra but he’s certainly an adept talent, and this one operates differently than I’d expect from him, most of the music feels saxophone-led, sort of in a jazz vein. Obviously you can compose for this instrumentation but yeah, not what I’d expect. The movie itself is pretty solid: bright colors, some melodrama, a ridiculous twist, a sense of humor which feels both over the top and somewhat deadpan. A woman’s mother returns to Spain after close to a lifetime away, she ends up sleeping with the daughter’s husband, he turns up dead, the daughter reveals he killed her stepfather as a child. The movie is primarily about the daughter’s yearning for the approval for an emotionally distant mother, at one point she summarizes the Bergman movie Autumn Sonata for her, but Almodovar is gayer and more sexually perverse than Bergman. so it’s less dour than I’m maybe making it sound. At one point the daughter is wearing a sweater with the pattern of the Maryland flag on it? But the credits reveal all her outfits are by Chanel.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1990) dir. Volker Schlondorff

The score is closer to what I would expect from Sakamoto here, in a martial/industrial vein, though not exclusively. Stars Natasha Richardson, and her performance feels related to what she did in Patty Hearst — a depiction of a woman shutting down parts of herself for the sake of her own survival, displaying inner reserves of strength through the appearance of submission. This seems a lot better than the current Hulu show, although I think it’s largely dismissed? It’s been a while since I read the book so I can’t remember how many liberties it takes. Obviously there remain traces of an exploitation bent in a weird way, through depiction of women in dehumanized sexual contexts but I feel like this movie is good at depicting competition between women in the context of a rigged patriarchal system.

Merry Christmas Mister Lawrence (1983) dir. Nagisa Oshima

Never seen any of Oshima’s films, despite the allure of explicit sex in an artsy context. This has Sakamoto in it opposite David Bowie. There’s a lot of English language being spoken in a thick Japanese accent. David Bowie plays a prisoner of war Sakamoto, as a military officer, falls in love with and tries to keep from harm, his score does the heavy lifting of highlighting these emotions. Was not super-into this movie but it’s always interesting to think about how popular YMO were, and if these are the type of faces you enjoy looking at you can do that. Sakamoto’s got a weird hairline. The movie is fine considered in the context of like, 1980s movies (not my fave decade) that are period military dramas (not my favorite genre) and exist in this Japanese film context that is neither super-insane and exuberant in its style nor is it super-austere and minimal.

A Farewell To Arms (1932) dir. Frank Borzage

Very well-shot piece of romance, starring Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes, in an adaptation of a Ernest Hemingway novel I don’t remember whether or not I read in high school. Hemingway didn’t like it, maybe because there were a lot of changes, which confuses the issue of whether or not I know the source material further. I don’t like this movie as much as I liked History Is Made At Night but it makes a lot more sense as a narrative, easily reduced to a bare-bones plot: He’s in the army, she’s a nurse, people don’t want them to be together during World War I, he ends up deserting to be with her. Feels lush, romantic, dreamy and swooning, but I feel like the strengths are more in the cinematography than the characters — the leads are fine enough, though not super deep, beyond the depths of their love, but the supporting cast is a bit dull.

War Of The Worlds (2005) dir. Steven Spielberg

Feel like I had heard this one was good? I appreciate Tom Cruise in the Mission: Impossible movies, and Spielberg some of the time I guess. This is a blockbuster that feels post-9/11 in a way where I wonder what a post-Corona thing would feel like — feel like it would shy away from away from a lot of spectacle or something but probably I’m wrong about that. So this one focuses on a parent and his children making their way across an increasingly demolished landscape to make it to the other parent, alien monsters are in the way, kinda just seems logistically weird or like the premise of the quest is unsound given the stakes should probably just be survival? But maybe this is post-covid thinking of how such a thing would operate — the disaster picture with a “human element” to focus the narrative on is a decades-old form and one I don’t really get down with nor do I think is generally considered to age well - i.e. I don’t remember growing up with The Towering Inferno being on TV.

My Twentieth Century (1989) dir. Ildiko Enyedi

Weird Hungarian movie where like… angels/stars observe? As two twins are born in the late eighteen-hundreds and go on to have separate lives? One as an anarchist, the other as like a party girl type who seduces rich men. The latter gets more attention than the former. Sort of a fairy tale atmosphere, which makes the explicit sex scenes awkward. There’s also a scene where a guy gives a sexist lecture about how women should be allowed to vote even though they have no sense of logic and are obsessed with sex. He draws a dick on the chalkboard and talks about how women can’t understand beauty since they are obsessed with erections which are disgusting. Not really sure what it adds to the movie as a whole since I’m not sure which one of the two characters played by the same actress is meant to be watching it, but it’s funny. A lot of things are confusing about this movie, but it’s still sort of interesting and therefore worthwhile I guess. Apparently the director has a new movie on Netflix — I don’t have Netflix at the moment but might get it for a month or two in the future to catch up on assorted things like Sion Sono’s The Forest Of Love and the David Lynch content.

His Girl Friday (1940) dir. Howard Hawks

not into this one. Rosalind Russell wears a cool suit at first though. Features the thing where a male romantic lead (Cary Grant) is openly manipulative but it’s sort of viewed as fine and funny because the woman in question is confident and modern, which kinda feels like a fascinating view into the gender dynamics of the time, although I don’t think it works as a comedy as far as me being able to figure out what the jokes are. The journalists getting caught up in crime intrigue plot is cool though, that kind of feels like something that always works.

Lured (1947) dir. Douglas Sirk

Kind of have no idea why I watched all the older Douglas Sirk movies on the Criterion Channel at this point, even the ones I liked I don’t think I liked that much? This one stars Lucille Ball, who I don’t love. Other movies I watched recently that were partly comedies and partly suspense things worked better than this. This one’s about attractive young women disappearing and Lucille Ball getting hired by the police to be an undercover detective. She ends up finding love, but then the man she gets engaged to is framed for murder by the actual killer. Features scenes where the police (led by Charles Coburn, who’s fine in this) talk about how crazy Baudelaire was. Wouldn’t recommend.

Far From Heaven (2002) dir. Todd Haynes

Not sure I have any strong feelings towards Todd Haynes, but it seems likely I might end up watching a bunch of his movies eventually. This came out in high school, and I had no interest in it, but I’m more charitable towards the whole fifties melodrama thing it’s paying homage to now. Julianne Moore stars as a woman whose husband (Dennis Quaid) is gay and repressing himself via alcoholism, who strikes up a friendship with her black gardener, (Dennis Haysbert) which scandalizes her neighbors. The moments Moore and Haysbert spend together are maybe the most interesting - particularly them going to an all-black restaurant - but the aspect of them being watched and judged feels more cliched. Similarly, the stuff about Dennis Quaid’s homosexuality is most interesting as a lived-in thing, and his drinking, hitting his wife, etc., is less so. The veins of sensuality running through the movie are richer than the plot structure that unites them. This might be one of the things that makes Carol a superior movie.

The Violent Men (1955) dir. Rudolph Mate

This stars a bunch of people I don’t like — Glenn Ford, Edward G Robinson, Barbara Stanwyck is fine in other stuff but boring here. Dianne Foster plays her daughter, and that’s the meatiest role basically- she gets to denounce violent men. This is a western about a guy being pressured to sell his land for cheap. Criterion Channel programmed this as part of a series called “western noir” and I don’t know about this stuff. Foster’s character is definitely the most interesting part — her parents are essentially these gangsters running the town, her teen angst feels like it stems from an inherent morality and disgust with them. Stanwyck is cheating on Foster’s father (Robinson) with a guy I think is his brother who also enforces the violence. The mom tries to kill the father, and then is herself killed by a woman in love with the person she’s sleeping with, so the daughter, you would think, would go through a gamut of emotions. But she’s a totally secondary to Glenn Ford’s male lead, who she ends up riding off into the sunset with — he initially was involved in a relationship with a woman who didn’t care about his inherent morality in favor of a materialism, but she just sort of gets dropped from the narrative at a certain point. The movie really tries to play it both ways with regards to the violence, but I feel like that’s pretty common actually: While I feel like today the title might primarily be intended as an indictment, it also feels like at the time it was very much the sales pitch to the audience.

Shane (1953) dir. George Stevens

Classic western, about homesteaders just trying to live who end up needing to get in gunfights with people who want their land. Jean Arthur plays the wife and mother, which is why I sought it out (especially sicne she had established rapport with Stevens) but she’s barely in it. The titular Shane is a good dude who wanders through and ends up helping them out. The kid’s infatuation of Shane is really annoying to me personally. I love how this has two big fist-fights though, the second of which is a They Live style thing, a conflict between friends that becomes incredibly drawn out. The first fight is also just incredibly brutal and well-choreographed, probably the high point of the movie.

Cast A Deadly Spell (1991) dir. Martin Campbell

TV movie made for HBO with very Vertigo Comics energy, I started off thinking “this is dumb” but very quickly got on its side. It’s a riff on HP Lovecraft mythology set in a 1940s Los Angeles where everyone uses magic except for one private detective, whose name is Harry Lovecraft. Pretty PG-rated, some practical effects (not the best kind, more like gargoyle demon creature costumes I assume are made of foam), and a pretty easily foreseeable “twist” ending where the apocalypse is averted because the virgin sacrifice just lost her virginity to a cop. Not actually that clever but clever enough to work and be consistently enjoyable. Julianne Moore plays a nightclub singer. My interest in this is brought about because there’s a sequel (where I guess the deal is the detective does use magic, and no one else does) called Witch Hunt starring Dennis Hopper and directed by Paul Schrader.

Jennifer’s Body (2009) dir. Karyn Kusama

The climax of Cast A Deadly Spell shares a plot point with this, which I think is being reevaluated as a “cult classic” to what I assume is the same audience that valued the Scott Pilgrim movie: People ten years younger than me who think it’s charming when things are completely obnoxious. A lot of musical cues, all mixed at too loud relative to the rest of the audio, bad jokes. This tone does help power the whole nihilistic, I-enjoy-seeing-these-superfluous-characters-die aspect of the plot but the sort of emotional core of the horror is less present. This movie is basically fine, by lowered modern movies standards, but it’s perfectly disposable and not really worth valuing in any way. I watched Kusama’s movie Destroyer starring Nicole Kidman a year ago and don’t remember anything about it now.

Dead Ringers (1988) dir. David Cronenberg

Rewatch. I think for a while I would’ve considered this my favorite Cronenberg but nowadays I might favor eXistenZ? Jeremy Irons in dual roles as twin brothers, with different personalities, but who routinely impersonate each other, and whose lives begin to deteriorate as a relationship with a woman leads to them individuate themselves from each other. They’re gynecologists, and the whole thing is suffused with an air of creepiness. There’s this sense of airlessness to the movie, a sense of panic, which is present incredibly early on and just sort of keeps going, getting weirder and more uncomfortable as you become accustomed to it, that feels like a sure sign of mastery. I’m fascinated to think about how watching it in a crowd, or on a date, would feel. Most movies don’t operate like this.

Imagine The Sound (1981) dir. Ron Mann

Mann is the director of Comic Book Confidential, which I saw as a middle schooler. This is a documentary about free jazz, featuring interviews and performance footage. Paul Bley and Cecil Taylor are both shown playing solo piano, which isn’t my favorite context to hear them in. Bill Dixon and Archie Shepp say some cool stuff, there is some nice trio footage of Shepp with a rhythm section.

Born In Flames (1983) dir. Lizzie Borden

Easily the best movie I watched for the first time in the time period I’m covering in this post. I heard about this years ago but only seeing it now, when it feels super-relevant. It is shot in New York in the eighties, features plenty of documentation of the city as it was, but in the context of the movie, there has been a socialist revolution ten years earlier, and this film then documents the struggle of the women, particularly black women, who are slipping through the cracks, and fighting for the ongoing quest to make a utopia, but exist in opposition to the party in power. While focusing on black women, there’s also plenty of white women, also opposed to and more progre.ssive than the people in power, but that are having their own conversations which are very different. There’s also montage sequences of women performing labor that cut between women wrapping up chicken to close-ups of a condom being rolled onto a erect penis. The title song is by the Red Krayola, circa the Kangaroo? era where Lora Logic provided vocals. So yeah, this movie rules! It would be a good double-feature with The Spook Who Sat By The Door, though in a film school context, or a sociology context, you would need to do a great deal of groundwork first. Could also work as a double-feature with The Falls for how what you are seeing is the aftermath of a great sociological reshaping realized on a low-budget. I think I put off this movie I think because I was skeptical of the director’s self-conscious “artist’s name” but it turns out they got it legally named as a young child.

State Of Siege (1972) dir. Costa-Gavras

Also really good! Better than Born In Flames when considered in terms of its level of craft. Would make for a fine double feature with my beloved Patty Hearst. Tightly structured over the course of a week, leftist terrorists kidnap an American and interrogate him about what exactly he’s doing in their Latin American country that’s being run by death squads. He denies wrong-doing, but basically everything he’s done is already known to them. This exists in parallel to police interrogations of leftists. Pretty large scale, tons of characters, some basically incidental. Screenplay’s written by the guy who wrote Battle Of Algiers.

Olivia (1951) dir. Jacqueline Audry

French movie sort of about lesbian love at an all-girl’s boarding school that’s weird because everyone seems like they’re feeling homosexual love, but just for one instructor who eggs everyone on. Everyone acts weird in this one, basically. There’s a lot of doting. The atmosphere is pretty unfathomable to me. Chaste-seeming in some ways, but also like everyone is being psychologically tortured by being subject to the whims of each other, but also just rolling with it in this deferential way. Seems like it could feel “emotionally true” to a lesbian experience but only in highly, highly specific circumstances?

Lucia (1968) dir. Humberto Solas

Good score in this one, which is not that much like I Am Cuba but I feel obligated to compare them anyway - both are from Cuba and use this three-story anthology structure. All the stories in this movie revolve around different women named Lucia, in three different, historically important, time periods. The first is about a woman who falls in love with a man from Spain, during the time of Cuba’s war of independence, he says he doesn’t think about politics, but this is one lie among several. This ends with brutal sequences of war. The second takes place under the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado. The third takes place post-revolution, and is about a literacy coach teaching a woman to read and write under the eye of a domineering chauvinistic husband. As with I Am Cuba, it is the very act of considering these three stories together that brings out their propagandistic aspect, and makes them feel less like individual stories. They’re all beautifully shot, although it’s less in less of a show-offy way than I Am Cuba.

Mr. Klein (1976) dir. Joseph Losey

This one’s got a cool premise- About an art dealer, played by Alain Delon, who is buying art from Jews at low prices as they leave occupied France quickly, but who then starts getting confused for another person with the same name as him, who is Jewish. Gets sort of Kakfa-esque but also remains grounded in this world where there are rational explanations for things. (at least as far as the holocaust is rational) So the line gets walked between bits that feel vaguely verging on nightmare but also sort of maintain the plausible deniability of belonging to the waking world, of a paranoia for something the exact scope of which remains unnamed. Ends with Klein as one of many in a trainyard full of people being sent off to concentration camps, which to me felt sort of tasteless, as a large-scale recreation, but that feels deliberate, as a way of offsetting the scope of the film being primarily focused on one person, whose relationship to the larger horror, before it affected him, was parasitic.

Husbands (1970) dir. John Cassavetes

Not into this one. The semi-improvisatory nature of the dialogue never coalesces into characters that seem to have a real core to them, there’s always just this sort of drunken aggression mode. What even is there to these characters, besides the aggression they treat women with? What separates them from one another, makes them distinct entities, beyond the sense they egg each other on?

Casino (1995) dir. Martin Scorsese

Rewatch. Joe Pesci plays the violent Italian guy, Robert De Niro plays the level-headed Jew, Sharon Stone plays the blonde who gets strung out on drugs. Three hours long to contain everyone’s arcs, but also sort of feels like it neatly has act breaks at pretty close to the hour marks, while also telling this pretty big historical sweeping piece about how corporate control comes to Las Vegas, the notion that “the house always wins” but even the individual whose job it is to run the house is himself situated inside a larger house. Both here and in Raging Bull, De Niro plays a character whose third act involves trying to be an entertainer for reasons of ego, and it’s so weird. Yeah, a great movie, one of the few that the reductive view of Scorsese as “someone who just makes mob movies” applies to, I have no opinion on whether it’s better than Goodfella or not.

Blue Collar (1978) dir. Paul Schrader

Not great. Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, and Yaphet Kotto co-star. Sometimes feels like maybe it’s meant to function partly as a comedy but doesn’t. It’s also mostly a crime movie, about people working at an auto plant who decide to rob their union’s vault. They end up not making any money from that robbery, but the union can claim insurance funds, so they get to benefit while the working men continue to be shafted, worried about the consequences of what they’ve done. Kotto dies, and Pryor and Keitel are turned against each other by circumstance, which the film tries to play off as being about the divisions among people that keep the working class weak. I definitely feel like the Schrader oeuvre begins with Hardcore.

Mona Lisa (1986) dir. Neil Jordan

This ends up kind of feeling like a lesser version of Hardcore, with British accents. Bob Hoskins, out of jail, starts driving for a prostitute, they dislike each other at first,  but become friendly. She asks him to track down a younger girl she was friends with, who a pimp has gotten strung out on drugs. (Hoskins is also a father to a daughter, though his relationship with the mother is strained from having gone to prison.) Hoskins’ character isn’t that interesting and the film revolves around him, the female lead is more interesting but deliberately removed from the larger narrative. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a good Neil Jordan movie.

The Untouchables (1987) dir. Brian De Palma

Rewatch. Great Ennio Morricone score in this one, a real reminder of a different era in terms of what constituted a blockbuster or a prestige picture. David Mamet provides the screenplay. De Palma is pretty reined-in, while Mission: Impossible is an insane procession of sequences of top-notch visual storytelling, the most De Palma trademark thing here is a first-person perspective of a home invasion scene, watching Sean Connery, that ends up being a deliberate choice of a limited perspective to surprise as he gets lured to his death. I feel like there’s a straight line between this movie and Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy (1990), but obviously what that line runs through is the reality-rewriting effect of Tim Burton’s Batman.

Pulp Fiction (1994) dir. Quentin Tarantino

Rewatch. Can scarcely comprehend how it would’ve felt to see this in a theater when it came out. I watched it the first time in college on a laptop and headphones and it blew me away, even after years of a bunch of it being referenced on The Simpsons and everywhere else. I haven’t seen it since. Rewatching is this exercise in seeing what you don’t remember when everything’s been processed a million times. Feels like Tarantino’s best screenplay due to its construction, more so than any dialogue, which is obviously a little in love with itself. Samuel Jackson wears a Krazy Kat t-shirt after his suit gets covered in blood. Quentin Tarantino casts himself as the white guy who gets to say the n-word a bunch.

[rewordthis]

White Tiled Sorrows

the us from this moment –

1676 words SouHaru SFW

Prologue:

"If there ever was anything that could throw him off, that was probably fate — he vaguely recalls Rin to have argued about that — or maybe, just his luck."

< | [X] | >

[Part A]

… Faded-white, cement bricks on the pavement covering each plane of the road side. Trees, willowy and tall, unlike the ones on his region. A playground a few meters ahead…

"Shit—" he cursed lowly. He's gotten lost— again.

Trying to understand when exactly he had messed up his route, he mindlessly made a beeline towards the small recreational area. The place was nice. If he had to get lost in the city this was a nice area to do so; the sun was stealing in on his face through the trees, a sweet warmth hitting his cheek, down where he sat on one open swing.

It was still a bit chilly outside, considering that it was just a couple days into March. Graduation day was merely a month away, and he had to consider a gift for Gou and go wish to Ai.

'Ai…' thinking back to it, his final year as a high school student was one very fond memory for him. He had simply hoped to see Rin again, but ended up finding a family. Ai, Momo, Uozumi, all of them— they had all accepted him as one of their own. They respected him. Not because of his status as elder, but because they considered him valuable. Him — Sousuke. They didn't try to dissuade him or look down on him when they had him found out. Quite the contrary, they took him in, they enveloped him with gentleness and comfort and made him their unrivaled, unyielding hero. They gave him their strength. And filled him with new hope.

He owed them so much. So— so much.

A brazen cheering pierced through in the background, effectively bursting his bubbling thoughts.

He turned to the side to eye a cluster of children, flowing out from a place somewhere behind him.

His mind was clear. Lucid as for the very first time after eons. No troubles. No pretense. He suddenly felt a tug at his lips. He was smiling, wasn't he?

If Sousuke could see himself at that moment, he would swore he didn't know this person.

Soft eyes— shining, tender expression, an almost smile. Something familiar and fond and very nostalgic pulling at his heart. It felt horribly out of character for something this sappy to bloom out of him. Made him feel so out of place. So empty…

<<Growl>>

'hungry?'

Without much thought to it, Sousuke got up from his swing that clang noisily from the quick flurry of his movements, and headed in the opposite direction from where the echoes of cheering still reached him. He didn't ventured too far from where he had been, and he found himself standing in front of a communal pool.

There were some kids that had yet to leave the premises, blabbing energized about this and that.

He didn't plan to, in fact he had wanted to turn around and leave once his curiosity was sated, but his feet carried him all the way to the entrance.

He found himself taking a quick glance of the time table attached to one of the door leaves, as he pushed behind the other.

[ Friday: 13:00 - 14:30 elementary students practice

           14:30 - 20:00 public hour ]

He didn't even checked his watch as he noted that -something- had held those kids back for at least half an hour after their class. It was, currently,  15:15. He knows this much because he saw the time when he exited the station at 14:30 sharp and then again at 14:45 when he sighed for the umpteenth time that evening as he had lost his way.

He trod in along the entrance hall, taking in the poster-covered walls; practice notices, open invitations to past events, warnings and rules for the public and swimmers, a plaque of the buildings’ name, the founding day and the donor that had obviously put his money in the project. It was a small golden plate with neat kanji, that Sousuke couldn't find it in him to actually bother to look at. He just moved ahead.

Pushing open the double steel doors, each with a stained glass the shape of a hemisphere and a long cylindrical handle attached from top to bottom, he had felt at ease. Now, driving through another pair of doors; wooden this time and much lighter, rectangular semi-transparent panes on each panel giving little to none of what was going on behind them, he found himself buzzing with excitement. He couldn't remember when was the last time he'd felt this way. It seemed so bizarre to have all this energy all of a sudden, 'cause — wasn't he hungry?!

Upon entering he was greeted with all too many people, ranking on all ages. Young men and women enjoying the water or moving around in a relaxed manner, the elderly sitting along the benches that lined the walls, 3-year-olds that were taking their first swimming lessons from their proud parents in the kiddy pool and some slightly older ones too. And on the far end towards — what Sousuke assumed — the locker rooms, were a deep pool not quite the size of an Olympic one but big all the same, that bustled busily with chattering and splashing. A ring of spectators was circling the pool, children cheering excitedly and younger people staring amazed from the sidelines.

Sousuke stood. In the middle of the slippery tiled floor, that looked like an artificial divide between the two clashing energies in this confined space, he stood. He examined the cheering bunch, detecting the fine sound of rhythmical sloshing through water.

Someone was swimming there — a kid maybe?

(But not quite.)

He doesn't really have the time to act of his own as a kid sprints past him — and he follows it with his eyes to where it meets with a middle-aged woman, his mother, he notes — and now is quickly running in his direction again, only, the kid is loosing his footing for a moment and Sousuke reaches out one big hand and grabs him. He looks surprised — if not stunned — as if he hadn't noticed the bulk that Sousuke's sheer size was forming in the space between.

Sousuke looks genuinely surprised himself. He actually managed to catch the kid in time. He didn't think he would…

"Kid…" he started and he felt the boy flinch in his grip. Ah— he's probably intimidating, isn't he; standing almost 10 heads above, he ought to be. So he swallows and drops his tone a notch. He tries again: "kid, it's dangerous to run in the pool—"

As he releases his hold on the boy's arm he notices the distinct forming of fingerprints around the soft flesh. He bites his lip. 'Damn—'

He's got no time to apologize properly before the kid beams up a smile at him and grab a hold of his wrist.

"It's ok! It doesn't hurt. At least I didn't fell, so thank you! Also, I'm sorry for running in the pool…” He says as he drags Sousuke along, to the big pool.

"Both my old coach and my new coach tell me not to run on the wet floor—", he makes a face —indignant?— "… mom, too." He finishes as he steals a glance back to where the woman was moments earlier…

'So that's how it is.' Sousuke notes with a nod of his head. And maybe he's smiling, because the kid is training a curious eye on him now.

This boy reminds him of himself when he was little. Black, short, spiky hair and piercing gaze. But the way he's easy with a guy like Sousuke, brings forth memories of his best friend as well.

"Say, oni-chan, do you swim?"

"Ah, yeah…?" 'How— no shit, idiot! Of course the kid would ask you that. You're in a pool for fucks sake… DUH!'

And the kid appears perplexed for a brief second before he says: "No, I mean— like professionally! You know…"

And Sousuke's brain barely registers the following words as he comes into view of what the formless barrier of moving bodies reveal before his disbelieving eyes…

"… like Haru is!"

And there is positively one Haruka Nanase, gleefully drifting over and under the water with lazy movements, much like a dolphin playing freely — not in a closed off tank, but rather — out in the vastness of the ocean. Happy. Content.

And he hears, as if from somewhere far away on his right…

"Haru swims professionally, but he swims only free!"

And there is a tear at his arm — one that hopefully didn't rip open his stitches (and, could the stitches get ripped when they are already removed by his doctor? Or what?) — and he's inches away from the edge of the pool and the kid next to him is frantically waving a hand at Haru; like a cat trying to catch its masters’ attention and show him the mouse it managed to caught. Like a gift in a show of affection or something.

The kid calls at Haru.

"Haru, this oni-chan over here is swimming too! He's really nice and I think you can become good friends!"

And Nana— Haru, is stilling in his spot, shaking the excess water from his face. His eyes drift to the kid where they trace his hand back over to Sousuke's blank face.

Sousuke can tell he's surprised as well from the imperceptible rounding of his rims in awe, sharp gaze growing lightly wondering.

"Am sure you'll like him!" The kid says as he finally releases Sousuke to dive into the pool, moving close to Haru.

The man is still looking at the stone effigy that is Sousuke. Sousuke finds his lingering gaze growing even more unbearable as he lowers himself in the water, the majority of his features hidden in the shimmering liquid, his eyes alone striking with a strange glow.

And surely enough, Sousuke can hear a familiar voice from half across the earth, laughing in mirth at him and his misery… ‘just shut up, Rin!’

Because…

'Shit—' (now he wants to swim?)

…

[End of Part A]

••••••••••••••••

A.N.: please do take the world and background/buildings descriptions with a grain of salt, as I've taken some liberties in this story.

< | [X] | >

[leah-halliwell92]

Clint (And a half)

(Note: I fully blame @queensdivas for this. BTW!!! Here’s part 1 if you haven’t read.)

The following morning, you woke up in what you could only guess is one of the many rooms in Stark tower between its name sake and the Winter Soldier wrapped in the fluffiest and softest blanket you’ve ever seen and felt. For the first time since finding you that your words led to heart break you felt safe and warm in the cocoon Tony and Bucky had form around you.

“Morning pretty lady,” Bucky said as he too woke when he felt you shift.

“Morning,” you said and go to snuggle up to him.

“What no hug for me?” You heard from behind you and you chuckled as you turned to give your other bed buddy a good morning hug.

“How are you feeling?” Tony asked gently, odd since all you’d heard of the genius is that he’s a brash often the asshole-ish type.

You shrug and snuggle back into the blanket.

“Don’t go,” Bucky said as he spooned you from behind, “I know it can kill you to be rejected by your mark.”

“But we know a guy who could help stop that,” Tony finished.

You gave another shrug as you felt the ghost pains of what promised to be a hell of a day.

“What’s your mutant name anyway?” Tony asked trying to keep your mind distracted.

“Sparrow,” you said your grin growing into a smile as you remembered who gave you the name, “I was given the name Sparrow.”

“Well Ms. Sparrow...let’s go meet Doctor Strange,” Tony said getting up.

You were being helped to walk by Bucky as Tony kept a look out for Cl...him with F.R.I.D.A.Y’s help.

He knocked on a harmless looking door, which opened on its own to reveal a floating man “sitting” crosslegged. 

“Hey Doc,” Tony greeted.

“No jackass smart comment today Stark?” The floating man asked.

“Not today Stephen, please,” Tony said pleadingly.

This caught Stephen’s attention before looking to where you are standing and saying, “You can’t break soulmate bonds.”

“I know...I just want her to have a second chance. That’s all,” Tony said.

He nodded in understanding before moving his arms and opened what looked like a portal and going through. 

“Do we follow him?” You asked curiously looking at the building.

“No need,” he said as he came back through the same portal.

Stephen made his way to you and fastened a necklace with a special crystal on the end.

“This will curb the side effects of the bond’s rejection, you’ll still feel them but won’t feel as if their taking your energy fully. It’s been medically, and magically, proven that those that have survived a rejection to have a sort of new lease on who their other will be,” he said tenderly.

You understood where he was coming from when you saw a second chord around his neck. You nodded and almost jumped out of Bucky’s arms to pull the good doctor into your arms in a tight hug.

“You’ll find yours too you know,” I whispered into his ear before pressing a kiss on his bearded cheek, “If I will then you will as well.”

He blushed at that and nodded.

“Join us for breakfast Dr. Strange?” You asked him with a gentle grin.

Tony and Bucky looked on a s new bond of friends was forged between the normally solitary doctor and the newby. 

Stephen looked as if he was going to politely decline when his cape flew from him to you enveloping you in a warm embrace.

This made you giggle as the cape snuggled you up in itself and patted your cheeks like an anime meme causing all in the room to laugh.

“Ok ok we’ll go,” Stephen said letting out a laugh.

The cape floated back to its master and together you went to the main area for breakfast, where Mrs. Barton was helping Nat make the buffet of food needed to feed the Avengers.

“Good morning!” Laura said brightly as she dished up the last of what looked like pancakes.

Your stomach clenched and what little hunger you had disappeared as the happy face of your mark’s wife beamed in honest kindness and openness. 

“Morning ma’am,” Bucky giving you a trained nudge.

“Good morning Mrs. Barton,” you say extending your arm to shake.

“You must be (Y/N)!” she said taking your hand and giving it a friendly shake, “Clint’s been talking about this liaison between the X-Men and the Avengers for weeks now going on about who they would send as ambassador and please call me Laura, Mrs. Barton’s my mother in law.”

You smiled warmly at her, she isn’t at fault that her husband just happened to be your mark. And by the looks of it she doesn’t know who you are yet...and you weren’t going to be the one to tell her either, it’s not your place.

“I see you’ve taken the liberty, and challenge to make this hoard food,” you say lightly.

You shared a laugh with the woman and was surprised with how easy it was to get along with her. It gave you hope that at least one good thing would come out of this. 

You gave Tony, Bucky and Stephen a look and nod before going to the kitchen and helping Laura and Nat finish up breakfast. You sat next to Laura, who insisted you do so she could talk to you without having to yell over the gaggle of testosterone that was sure to show up. All was going well laughs were being had, conversation is flowing lightly and you found yourself having more in common with Laura than you initially thought.

The atmosphere seemed to take a nose dive when Cap said, “Good morning Barton.”

You looked up to see Clint walk up to Steve and greet him a toddler in his arms and his to oldest children at each side as they ooh and ahhh at being not only in avengers tower but with THE actual Avengers. You forced yourself to keep eating while at the same time subconsciously touching your aching mark.

Laura noticed this but kept her opinions to herself. She is smarter than she looks, she has to be to deal with a combat trained SHIELD agent and his Russian Assassin sister. She also knew it would be a matter of time before the world brought him and his mark together. 

Laura noticed how withdrawn you’d gotten when Clint approached the sizable kitchen island to get some food. You became reserved, robotic almost, in your movements as you slowly ate. Meaning, you were faking...

Faking enough to pass as though you’re eating and engaging when in reality you’re not. Laura wondered why you hadn’t said anything about you being Clint’s mark. And why do this whole thing of being nice to her and getting along with her when she’s the one married to your mark.

“Morning (Y/N),” Steve said with a grin dishing himself up some food.

“Morning Steve,” you said with a bright smile before taking a drink of your now lukewarm coffee.

“Morning...(Y/N),” Clint said with a tentative smile.

You nodded with a small grin at him and toyed with the idea that maybe excusing yourself a bit early from the breakfast table wasn’t such a bad idea. 

‘I mean...I’m having a lovely time with Laura. I can holdfast for a bit longer before leaving, its fine...I’m not in pain,’ you thought as you put your marked hand close to you but no less ready to leave just in case.

Your three protectors looked on and were ready to give an alibi should you need it.

All was running smoothly till Bucky, who was sitting next to you, stood to take his dishes to the sink and wash them. He excused himself to the restroom allowing Clint to take the now empty seat.

This got Tony and Stephen on high alert. 

Natasha who, had gotten the truth out or Clint, was also on high alert at the sudden shift. She didn’t know you, but she knew that you wouldn’t ask anything of Clint now that you knew he is married. Whether he’d have rejected you  or not.

“So,” Clint said as he dug into his food, “Did you enjoy the party?”

You resisted the urge to roll your eyes and noticed that your suddenly four body guards, bar Tony, had resisted the urge to roll their eyes.

You force a grin and say, “It was a Tony Stark party in full just as the rumors and stories say.”

He nodded and resisted the urge to ramble to fill the silence between you.

Tony took the initiative and stood giving a dramatic bow saying, “Thank you, Thank you.”

You laughed at his antics and nearly fell from your seat as you looked around to see marked couples enjoying their time with their friends as well as each other. Steve’s sitting next to Sharon, Bruce is keeping an eye on Nat whilst she never really stopped reaching for his hand, Pepper came to sit next to Tony and plopped her head on his shoulder, Dr. Foster’s with Thor and so on. You felt suddenly ill, or worse than you did when you woke up, at the sight of so many paired marks together clearly in love and happy to be together. While yours rejected you out right.

“You feeling ok (Y/N)?” Laura asked as she saw you shrink into yourself further.

You nod fighting to keep the easy grin on your face before forcing yourself to eat another bite of food.

Laura felt you tense when Clint sat next to you, but what could have had such a profound effect on you? She looked around and saw what you’d seen. She could have slammed her head on the counter at realizing that the room is filled with marked couples. The pieces fell into place and Laura couldn’t help but feel for you. And to a certain extent understood the feeling. Her own mark’s passing had had the same effect on her that she felt as if she was floating on air when she met Clint.

Bucky came back and with a quick assessment of the situation made his way to you.

Laura saw the former assassin approach and made a quick judgment call and said, “I heard from Sgt. Barnes he was going to the gym after breakfast.” 

You turned to Bucky and nearly ran to him at the suggestion. But you held back and responded kindly with a, “I heard that too,” and turning to Bucky and asking, “Mind if I tag along?”

Bucky gave you a grin playing along, “Sure doll.”

You grinned at that. Outwardly showing intrigue but on the inside feeling relief over being given the out.

Granted you didn’t go to the gym but to Bucky’s room for a long cry. No sooner had you left that you and Bucky were joined by Stephen instead of Tony, who was explaining the basic details to the rest of the team. 

//Break//

Over time (almost six months in), Clint tried to approach you. To what you didn’t know and didn’t give to flying fucks about. You’d been in contact with a close friend from back home and couldn’t be happier that he’s coming to visit in two months time.

Laura became a sort of pseudo-sister to you after Clint came clean to her about him and you being soulmarks. That didn’t help him any...

 Oh they’re still very married, you made sure to push them into counseling before anything were to happen, but Laura made it very clear that a second chance was slim for him. You on the other hand straight up didn’t care. You’d been left burned from your first encounter and have no desire for a repeat performance of that calibre. Should there be someone and they reject you...you fear it will be your end.

But he can’t leave well enough alone.

Two and a half weeks later...

“Can we please just talk?” Clint asked as you boxed with Tony.

“No,” you say simply.

Stephen, who was at the treadmill, looked his way pointedly and said, “What could you possibly want to talk to her abour now?”

“Stay out of this wizard,” Clint said annoyedly.

“He’s right,” you said giving Tony a nod to stop the activity, “What on God’s green Earth could you want to talk about with me? Your words said it all, I’m fine, by that I mean alive, and you’re alive. So there’s really nothing you can say about anything regarding our scam of a bond or lack there of.”

“But we are bound,” Clint said an agonized look on his face.

“We may be...and I am sorry this is where we are. But nothing you say or do will fix it, nor your help easy your guilt,” you said honestly and bluntly.

His constant appearances had been hard on you. Your mark still burned with every accidental touch you made as well as the attention he was giving you. It hurt, you just want to be left alone at this point.

“Come on Sparrow,” Tony said as he left the boxing ring.

You followed after Tony avoiding Clint like the plague as you made your way out of the gym Steve walked up to the both of you.

“When did you say the next group of X-Men would be in?” He asked curiously.

“Month to a month and a half,” you said, “Why?”

“Well...” 

You shard a look with Tony and made your way to the commons to find Logan, Colossus and Ellie.

Logan saw you first.

“Hey lady bird,” he said with a gentle smile as he pulled you into a hug.

You gave a quiet gasp as new words formed on your wrist where Clint’s words used to be.

“Hey, you ok little bird?” Logan asks worriedly after pulling away to look at you.

You nod afraid to say something, anything really.

“Come on little bird,” he said with a gentle nudge, “sing me a song.”

“She can sing?” The now present Stephen, Bucky and Clint asked in unison.

The three X-Men present nod much to your embarrassment.

“Logan here also has good singing voice,” Colossus said pointing to Logan, “I am Colossus but you can call me Piotr.”

“And I’m Negasonic,” Ellie said manners in full for the first time in a while.

“And I’m Logan Howlett also known as the Wolverine,” Logan said with a nod his arms still around you.

“Aren’t you the one with metal for hands?” Clint asked.

“Adamantium skeleton,” you said defensively, “And he’s a feral mutant, makes him quite the animal.”

Logan let out a deep rumble before pulling you close and rumbling in you ear, “Mine.”

“Not here wolfman,” you say as the mark hums at his acceptance.

“What the hell do you mean not here?” Clint asked in disbelief at what he had just witnessed.

“He is my second chance meaning that,” I stopped and took Logan’s hand in mine, “I am his.”

The feral growl that left him was panty drenching and I knew from then on things were going to be a hell of a lot more interesting.

Tag List: @deepestfirefun, @queensdivas, @buckyscrystalqueen, @bowieandqueen11, @brianandthemays, @disasterdeacy, @fandomgalcentral

[swimmmusic]

Kismet and Crane Boy in Search of the Perfect Mimosa

Kismet! Kismet is fate. Flirtatious. Destiny, dressed in brighter colors. Kismet is the younger sibling of Fate and Destiny. The fun one that was good at sports in High School but drinks a little too much now. A happy drunk though. Thank God, right? Kismet. Like Comet or Kermet. Kismet is goofy and adventurous. Like me! Maybe. I hope. Yes? “Kizzzz meeettt” The way a drunk girl clutching her 4th Whiskey Sour would say, “kiss me” before she bows to vomit all over your Levis 509’s. Kismet is the word my Dad used to describe the story I would like to tell you. And here is how it starts. It is Christmas day. My entire family is together on the beach. It is before noon. For the love of all things orange, spritzy and alcoholic… rain down upon us oh Lord of Mimosa! By the way a ‘perfect Holiday Mimosa' almost always means the ‘nearest Holiday Mimosa’. I decided I would hit the Shell Station across the main highway that runs parallel to the ocean. Now, the way I looked running across A1A in flip flops and my long skinny legs scissoring out of my small swim trunks must have resembled the unnatural way a bird runs before it remembers it can just fly away. A long-legged bird. Some type of Crane that spends its time sun bathing near a Florida reservoir not realizing he is a chip away from some retired Snow Bird golfing his way through retirement. (So many bird metaphors in one paragraph! The Humanity! Or rather, the Ornithurae!) Every so often one of these Jack Nicklaus wannabes takes liberties on a ‘mulligan' and ‘shanks' a ‘divot' right o’er the reservoir, scaring the rusted 9-Iron stem right out of the Crane’s beak, sending it away in a panic! Scurrying as awkwardly as a human, proportioned such as me, to safety in the cattails. This was what my step-mom saw as she happened to be driving by at that very moment. She swerved to the side of the road in excitement. I believe because, at first, she was sure a video of this strange Crane-boy running in broad daylight would go viral. But then she realized it was just a normal boy, her step-son in fact! She tilted her head to the side in a close second to that initial excitement of ‘Crane-boy siting’, and waved. Now this was kismet! I had just told my Dad how much I missed her. (Technically, she is my 'ex-step-mom' so I don’t get to see her much. Also, calling her ‘ex’ doesn’t feel right so she will forever be step-mom!) She has always possessed undeniable psychic ability, so whether it was her or me that manifested this to happen is up to the Gods of, yes… KISMET to decide! We talked about writing and she shared that she had finished the 1st draft of her book, which I absolutely cannot wait to read. And she (as she always has) encouraged me to write. And while the chance meeting above was one of many joyous moments of the Holiday season, it isn’t the only thing that compelled me to take pen to paper. Something of a different 'brand of miracle' happened to me during the same fateful Mimosa hunt! Upon entrance to the Shell Station I expected a Christmas Salutation. I was given none of the sort. The cashier, long shaggy hair, thick goat-tee, adorned with tattoos and a furrowed brow aimed solely at his phone did not even look up from the counter upon which he slouched. I thought to myself, “Ok. That’s fine. I’m going to throw out a wild hunch that he maybe loathes the holidays, is exhausted of all the Christmas songs, is tired of greeting customers with plastic cheer and hates his family.” Hush, Cookie! You needn’t jump to such sardonic conclusions just because his Facebook feed is more important than wishing his customer a Happy Holiday! I went straight for the walk-in cooler. I decided to splurge. I could barely even reach the top shelf to take down the $11.99 bottle of Champagne. But hey, money is just a number and age isn’t real. Or is it the other way around? I don’t know but it was Christmas for Christ’s sake. I approached the counter with two different types of Orange juice. I’m the most indecisive person on the planet and couldn’t bare the thought of choosing between Tropicana or Welch’s. Which is tastier? Which is from concentrate? What does that even mean? The cashier didn’t look up. I placed the items on the counter right in front of him with a semi-aggressive thud. As to say, “pardon feller, not that I need a stuffed Rudolph or a Santa to sit on, but a little eye contact and a smile wouldn’t kill ya on CHRISTMAS!” A few seconds went by and still nothing. Oh you better believe my nose was glowing bright! But then, finally he looks up and breaks into an unexpected monologue! Without even a ‘hello’, or ‘is that gonna be all for you’? He embarks… “You know the producer of ‘Die Hard’ just finally admitted that ‘Die Hard’ is in fact a Christmas movie?!” “Uh. no, I didn’t..” “Yea. I mean, no shit. It ain’t even Christmas until I watch that shit. I even made my girlfriend watch it with me two nights ago. She was like, “Can we fuckin turn this off yet or what?!” And I’m all, “Well Mel Gibson doesn’t give a shit about you either, bitch!” “Wow. Hm.. I think it was actually Bruce…. never mind.” “Of course it’s a fucking Christmas movie. Then we went to her house and she has two older brothers named Jesse and Joey and I’m all, “Good evening, Mr. Tanner!” And she didn’t even get it. It’s a Full House joke. She didn’t even get it.” After I broke my trance of nodding and smiling I thought it best to give relationship advice. “Maybe it’s time to find a more compatible partner?" “Well, she’s 23. So you gotta live with some shit for that, ya know?!” “Ain’t that the truth, brother.” Astonishingly enough, he managed to ring me up for the Mimosas. I gotta give it to him. Some impressive multi-tasking. I gathered my bags and ran like a Crane for the door. Now the point is that this was all very close to not happening. I could have driven and not awkwardly run like a Crane across the street. We could have settled for the un-chilled beer upstairs. But we didn’t. We wanted the Perfect Mimosa. And thanks to kismet, and all of its phonetic and fateful glory, I not only got to see my ‘ex’/ aka my forever stepmom… but I also got to experience the Christmas Miracle of that Shell Station! Yippee-kay-yayyy mother fuckers! -Cookie

[newagesispage]

                                                                        SEPTEMBER     2020

PAGE   RIB

 The Rolling Stones have released an old unreleased track they did with Jimmy Page. Scarlet also has a brand new video starring Paul Mescal.** The Rolling Stones will open a store on Carnaby St. in London, Rolling Stones #9 on Sept.9.

*****

Where the hell is Matthew Gray Gubler??

*****

Africa had been declared polio free.

*****

Check out Dream Hustle Code!! It is a worthy cause.

*****

Iowa has lifted the ban on felons voting. Hooray!!

*****

They have discovered the longest living vertebrate, a 400 year old shark.

*****

Hey Clockface is the new album coming in October from Elvis Costello.

*****

Drunk History has been cancelled. NO!!!!!!!!! Netflix??

*****

Michigan will pay $600 million to the victims of the water crisis.

*****

They are remaking The Thing.

*****

Fresh Prince will reunite for their 30th.

*****

Scary Clown applied for help to get a sea wall to protect his golf course due to climate change.

*****

Micky Dolenz is said to be recording Dolenz sings Nesmith, an album of songs written by Mike Nesmith.

*****

PEAD or the Presidents Emergency Action Documents are periodically revised and nobody seems to know a thing about them. Word is the rules are being revised right now but how will we know?? These are the most secret documents in the government. Congress is not even privy to them. Does that seem right??

*****

Wendell Pierce will star in The Thrill is On where he will play B.B. King.

*****

Quibi has brought us the Mapleworth murders with John Lutz, Paula Pell, JB Smoove and Tina Fey.

*****

Kutcher and Leno have been sticking up for Ellen. Watch your back, girl!!

*****

The West Wing is reuniting,

*****

Roman Polanski sued the Academy in 2019 for reinstatement but he has now lost that bid.

*****

The California Supreme court has reversed the death penalty for Scott Peterson.

*****

From Beirut to Florida to Belarus to Russia, our leaders never stop letting us down. The state of the world with the anger, the rebellion shows us just how selfish those in power are. ** The military budget: $732 billion, $ needed to bail out the Post office: $25 billion. This one we have to fight for and bring back our mailboxes for goodness sake!!** There are 3 republican Senators who are very uncomfortable with the President’s bashing of the Post Office. **UPS gives mountains of money to McConnell and Trump.

*****

This is an administration more interested in suppressing the vote than the virus. -President Obama ** Brookings.edu will tell you how well your state runs the vote.

*****

Sam Jay has a great stand up special to see called 3 in the morning.

*****

If your religion makes or keeps you stupid, it’s not a good religion. –Michael Mckean

*****

There are calls to dissolve the NRA because of massive fraud.

*****

Rep. David Schweikert was reprimanded and ordered to pay a $50 thousand fine for misuse of funds.

*****

Days alert: Gabi is right about one thing: Gwen seems like a skank.** What must it feel like for Ari Zucker to keep getting dragged back into Trump’s dirty laundry??**So good to see Paige and Eddie again!!!! **Phillip is back!** I wish they would give Eve something better to do and like last month, I wish Jack and Jen could really do something . Perhaps they could hustle stories like back in the day.

*****

Jerry Falwell Jr. has been asked by Liberty University to take an indefinite leave of absence as President and chancellor. He has now resigned. As I wrote about months ago, the torrid story of the pool boy has finally come full circle. It’s about time!!

*****

Face the Nation: When asked if he supported the tweet from that seemed to suggest he was ok with Kyle Rittenhouse, the attorney General of Ky. Daniel Cameron Said, “I condone violence on all it’s forms.” So he was of course asked if he meant CONDEMN and he agreed but I am not so sure. The first response seemed closer to the truth.

*****

Alabama legislator Will Dismukes who was spotted at a celebration for the KKK Grand Wizard, is charged with stealing thousands from a floor company he worked at.

*****

How many Trump friends own pay day loan places?? They must be making a mint on all the desperate poor.** The Trump administration is scaling back protections for over 1,000 species of birds. ** It seems MAGA hats are made in China and Joe’s hats are made in the U.S. by union members.** A Judge has rejected Trump’s latest bid to hide his tax records.

*****

Is this true? Cops make $150 thousand in Chicago to police schools. That is about half of what teachers make. Mind you, officers also still make their regular pay. The school district voted that even if a school decides not to use police in their school, that $ is still allotted for the cops and cannot be used for other things.** Baron Trump’s school is under orders to stay closed.** It is a blessing that the WH, the NBA and some companies can quarantine and test often. How about spreading some of that around to the food vendors or people at the bottom of your food chain?? It isn’t fair that so many small businesses are going under because they have nowhere to turn.

*****

Louis Dejoy was raked over the coals. He claims to have stopped taking mailboxes and sorting machines but the damage is done. He seemed to say ,”no” a lot in the hearing. He does not seem to know much about his post office. Why are the rules different for the Post Office as opposed to other government agencies?? ** Washington postal workers have reinstalled mail sorting machines. Fingers crossed that they keep their jobs.

*****

Arizona Senator McSally told supporters they might come up with more campaign cash for them if they do a bit of fasting.

****

I always get a tear when I see John McCain give the thumbs down that day or when he defended Obama from that awful woman during their campaigns.

*****

The DNC went off without much of a hitch. Everybody looked and sounded good. Tammy Duckworth was especially noteworthy.  Bloomberg seemed to have bought himself a prime spot and lashed out at Trump from the business side of things.** Jon Favreau had a good take that the RNC’s message was that if you’re rich and white, you can do anything.** At the RNC: Tom Cotton just said America is safer now than 4 years ago, but one of the themes of this convention is that America’s cities are more violent than ever, -John Avlon** Pence: Make America great again again! WTF?** The last night of the RNC  did not have to compete with sports but the DNC still won the ratings race, if that matters to U.

*****

The Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has resigned.

*****

What if we just put confederate General hats on all the mailboxes? –Conan** Hurricane Laura knocked down a confederate monument that they had voted to keep.

*****

Claudia Conway is seeking emancipation.  Her parents Kellyanne and George are stepping away from their respective opposing political roles.

*****

The Senate intel committee informed the DOJ in mid 2019 that it believed Trump Jr., Kushner, Eric Prince, Manafort, Bannon, Sam Clovis and Hope Hicks all committed crimes.** Bannon was arrested as well as Brian Kolfage, for pocketing funds from the We build the wall fund that Mexico was supposed to pay for.  Bannon was arrested by the postal service on a yacht belonging to another alleged criminal.

*****

Loved the Colbert show talking about “prayers in the air” and Trevor Noah calling out the ‘militia members’ for what they are: ‘gang members.’

*****

The Nazi brownshirts, or Sturmabteilung were born of unemployed veterans and thugs that the party reached out to act as security for their meetings. –Mike Stuchbery

*****

A former FBI agent has documented white supremacists and militias have infiltrated police across the U.S.

*****

It’s silly to believe an illness can stem from having sex with a demon, but just to be safe I’m giving it up anyway. – Emo Phillips

*****

Kamala Harris means more Maya Rudolph!!!!

*****

So Seth Meyers had a poll about his sea captain and NBC would not let them use their site?? It didn’t matter for it does not seem they took it seriously anyway. The duck, who was not part of the poll is a nice touch though as is the fish. Long live the sea captain!! That is Forte, Armisen and Samberg, right??

*****

Sturgis? Smashmouth ??really??

*****

Sen Penn married Leila George.

*****

If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you. –LBJ

*****

What if we’re the weird ones ya’ll , and he’s just Al Yankovic. –George Wallace

*****

Before Fox news, you actually had to drive to a Klan rally. –LOLGOP

*****

Larry Wilmore will host a late night show on Peacock.

*****

So, the Black*ish episode that wasn’t, will finally air, now how about letting us see the Gary Cole episode of SVU??

*****

I can’t wait for Ratched, the origin story of Nurse Ratched. Sept. 18 will bring us Sarah Paulson, Judy Davis, Finn Wittrock, Sharon Stone, Amanda Plummer, Vincent D’onofrio and Cynthia Nixon.

*****

Jim Belushi stars in Growing Belushi about his new pot farm.

*****

Why is it so hard for humans to open their minds? From law enforcement rehab to using home grown drugs for pain or listening to different cultures and religions, it should be ez to just listen. Doctors are touting psilocybin for everything from quitting cigarettes to depression.  The effects can be lifesaving and science can save us all. This is not the dark ages but on some days, we would never know that.

*****

Fire-Nado?  Double hurricanes?? Whoa!

***

Many sports teams went on strike.

*****

R.I.P. Reni Santoni, David Rossi, Wilforn Brimley, Gary Knopp, Pete Hamill, John Hume, Daisy Coleman, Helen Jones Woods, Brent Carver, Beirut victims, Brent Scrowcroft, Leon Fleischer, Trini Lopez, Raymond Allen, Sumner Redstone, covid victims, Robert Trump, Matt Heron, Linda Manz, Ash Christian, Robert Ryland, Justin Townes Earle, Allan Rich, Gail Sheehy, Reni Santoni, Jacob Blake, hurricane victims, Kenosha victims and Chadwick Boseman.

[aruneshgoyal]

12. Everyone’s Own World

KrishnaKant and Janki were living separately from their two sons – Mani & Kuldeep, although in the same city, viz. Delhi. Their daughter, Tina, too had been married to a business magnate – Arvind, and quite naturally was living separately after marriage; she was also comfortably well settled in Delhi. KrishnaKant had only reluctantly agreed to his sons living away from him partly due to the nature of their jobs and partly on account of their wives’ desires. The two had posh bungalows allotted to them by their respective offices. Janki never wanted that her sons stay away from her but it was KrishnaKant who had spoken on his sons’ behalf and allowed them the liberty of living separately in their respective hi-fi locales and working environments. 

From early childhood, Tina used to be a very introvert and reclusive personality. So much so that Janki used to wonder how she will marry and even if she somehow managed to marry, how she will tackle her in-laws? But, quite surprisingly, everything had changed for the better after marriage for Tina. She was no longer that shy introvert but rather as a mother of two, she was not only carrying her responsibilities onerously but also taking up social causes as the Chairperson of her local women’s organization – Women’s Liberation Front (WLF)! 

Mani was working with Nippon India Ltd. as the General Manager (GM) – Public Relations, and drawing a handsome salary along with other perks and benefits like  chauffeur driven car, a 24 hr. personal assistant (PA)  etc. along with, of course, the aforementioned two-story posh and decent office bungalow with the first floor being largely used by the servants and reserved for the official guests while the second one was mainly for personal use having a kitchen cum dining hall, a posh & chic bedroom and a luxurious central living room. The ground floor was utilized for car parking along with some dormitories for the cab drivers, watchmen etc. The whole building was, of course, fully air conditioned. Mani was married to Richa, a charming young lady, who had given birth to their only child – Sahil. 

In comparison to Mani, Kuldeep was working in a far less reputed company at an even lesser position (Asst. Manager – Human Resources/HR) but enjoyed almost the same perks and benefits. Office car, watchmen, a Khansama, other servants, a centrally air-conditioned office bungalow etc. all formed part of his remuneration apart from the cash takeaway of Rs.800, 000/- only (rupees eight lacs only) per annum. He was enjoying life as only he could along with his pretty wife – Nila, who was ‘modern’ in every way in context of the word. Throwing kitty parties, going to cinema/movies apart from the Disco & Bar Capital Club, was part and part & parcel of her regular daily routine. For fitness sake, Kuldeep used to go the Gymkhana once a week, that is to say, on Sundays, the weekly off apart from Saturdays as it was five days a week routine being followed at his office. 

With such a hectic schedule, the trio of the two sons and the lone daughter, viz. Mani, Kuldeep and Tina, hardly found any time for their parents – KrishnaKant & Janki, or even inquire about their welfare. Janki sometimes used to get upset about this but KrishnaKant used to pacify her – “It’s not that Mani, Kuldeep, and Tina don’t care for us! They do!! But, they have their own way of living. Let them live life their way and enjoy! Let us not sulk about it but be happy that our children are so busy and taken up by their respective works and tasks!”

Now, Janki happened to fall seriously ill and KrishnaKant was obliged to apprise his children of their mother’s illness. It was still early morning. He had thought of calling Mani first but then gave up the idea thinking that Mani usually worked till late at night and consequently got up late in the morning as well, so it would be futile to disturb him at this point of time and juncture. 

Be that as it may, he called Tina first. The phone was picked up by Tina’s confidante – Nirmala, who told him that Tina Memsahib was having a shower. On his asking, how much time it would take, Nirmala’s cryptic reply was – “I can’t say! It could be less; it could be more”. “Okay, okay, I’ll call after some time,” so saying, KrishnaKant hung up. 

Next he called Mani. It was Mani’s PA on the line. “Sahib is still sleeping in the bedroom along with Memsahib” – was the curt reply. KrishnaKant realized he had erred by not introducing himself; so he said – “okay, tell Mani Sahib that his father is calling!” At this, the PA did not know what to do. He shakily and slightly opened the bedroom door and called out in a low tone – “Sir, your father is on the line!” “Okay, transfer it to the living room”, so saying, Mani came to the central living room, picked up the phone and said – “I know! It must be Mom!!” KrishnaKant was about to say – “your mother --------- Janki-----------is………….”, but Mani cut him short – “what, Dad? You know, today I’m so busy. A foreign delegation is on the way. I’ve to make and see to all the arrangements. This contract is a question of life or death for Nippon. I’m taking no chances. I’ll call you soon. Bye!” and he hung up. 

KrisnaKant was left frowning. But, what could he do? He decided to call Tina; she must have finished her shower/bath by now. As soon as he called, the excited voice from the other end was Tina’s. “Oh, no, Dad, Mom will never allow me to rest in peace. She has hundreds of questions to ask: Tina this, Tina that! Today, I’m leading a delegation of our WLF to the CM’s office. You see the atrocities on the elderly women housewives and their even more elderly husbands are on the rise day by day. All sort of burglars intrude into their home, loot and plunder. We are going to take up exactly this issue with the CM. Please see tomorrow’s headlines. My photograph along with a cover story shall be writ large all over the place! OK, see you!!” 

“What all was happening” – thought KrishnaKant. Neither the son nor the daughter had any time for him. 

Anyway, he decided to try the younger son, Kuldeep, as a last resort. The call was answered by Kuldeep’s Khansama, who was sipping a hot cup of Darjeeling bred tea. This was his only time to relax as rest of the day Kuldeep & Nila were never together. He gingerly informed Nila Memsahib about the call from Sahib’s father. Nila gave Kuldeep a sweet ‘Good Morning’ kiss and told him that Dad was on the line. 

Reluctantly, Kuldeep got up from the bed, picked up the receiver and said – “yes, yes, Dad! I know everything. It’s Mom worrying about my cold & cough. If it were in her hands, she just wouldn’t let me go anywhere on my own. Today, I’m leaving for Paris for an urgent office work. Yes, I’m fine and will call you as soon as I come back. Bye for now!”, and he put back the receiver in place. 

Now, it was clear to KrisnaKant that whatever his wife Janki said about their three children was indeed true. While in their childhood, they might have cried and made both KrishnaKant & Janki sit up the whole night, now they had neither any use nor any time for them! 

After a few days, Janki passed away. Mani, Kuldeep and Tina each received a courier from KrishnaKant asking them to reach in time for their mother’s cremation, if they conveniently could! It further said that if any of them was busy in his/her work and couldn’t find time, he/she could well excuse himself/herself as Janki’s soul would still rest in peace, in spite of anybody’s presence / absence!!  

[listentome-ok]

The Official Witches League

SCENE: Exterior (fog machine???), dark, nighttime, brook and stream sounds, green light

Narrator (downstage): And now comes a story about three witches A story, we hope, to put you in stitches. There’s more though than that, because on this occasion These young women’s lives are about to be changing.



Here they come now, and they’re on a mission, You see, the occult have this certain tradition: When the moon is full and the spring air charming That’s when the magical do their farming.

The narrator turns and as he speaks the women enter
 The night is tonight, and the place is this stage, Our girls are looking for biodynamically grown sage.
 The first up is Mary, hunched and nervous, With a day job in internal revenue service. Behind her is Lucy, cool, nonchalant, She got that leather jacket on a trip to Vermont. Finally comes Rachel, some say a megalomaniac, She’s a manager at Body Shop, and also head of our pack.

The women then separate and Rachel walks to a position in which to address them both 
 Something I’ll let you in on that you may not glean, This sage hunt is anything but routine. The reason they’re taking such care on that creek, These women are trying to enter the Official Witch League!
 Each with different motives, each with different plans, These witches bind together, and until parted they’ll stand.

The first stage of the application is a potion, To instil, in consumer, one pure emotion.
 Rachel has enlisted Lucy - and Mary too - To make alliance with her, and help with the brew. What happens to them now I can’t yet say, Instead, if you’re ready, we’ll begin with the play…

Rachel: So my map says it’s sparse but in this general perimeter, So let’s start looking, millimetre by millimetre.


Lucy: Hold on a second, I just realised something chief, I don’t know the size, shape or smell of a sage leaf.


Mary: Well sage is a perennial, evergreen subshrub- (noticing Rachel glaring/Lucy rolling eyes) But yeah, I don’t know, yeah Lucy, join the club.


Rachel: I knew this would happen, I had no bloody doubt, So I took the liberty of bringing you fools a print-out. (hands each of them a piece of paper)


Lucy: Oooh, OK, (then turns her page to the side, right way up) oh! (then looks up from map, squinting) Oh! Over there! Look! I think I see some at that bend in the brook.


Rachel: (pause) You’re right! I see it! Come on, let’s go! How will we pick it? Should I load my cross-bow?  (met by Lucy with a ‘youre an idiot’ look) 


Mary: Wait, not so fast, don’t you see that sign warns: ‘Come closer and risk death by poisonous thorns’ (spotlight this sign at this point) 


Lucy: Mary, we witches are at one with the roots, Plus, we’re all wearing our Wellington boots.

 
 Rachel: We can’t lose this sage, the deadline’s tomorrow This is a chance I can’t let you blow.


Lucy: It doesn’t look too bad, what d’you say, Mary?

Mary: Hmm, I don’t know, it seems kind of scary…


Rachel: Mary, we’re wiccen, we’re masters of fear!

Mary: You go ahead, I’ll wait over here.


Rachel: Fine! But take my phone, and my Starmart club card I’m three stamps away from free moonbeam-drenched chard.


Narrator: So the two brave witches wade into the stream, While Mary makes worried small-talk with the local bream.

 (The two women move across the stage in a funny way
)

Rachel: I’m not sure if this is sage, it looks somewhat seedy

Lucy: You know, I think that’s something a little more weedy

Rachel: For God’s sake! There’s no time! You’re taking the piss We were looking for sage and we found cannabis.

Mary: Guys! Over there! In that Kath Kidson dish! (points at another part of stage)
 Lucy: Who told you that?


Mary: This freshwater fish.


Narrator: There was no doubt about it, there was sage in the crockery So the girls mumbled thanks to the cautious young Mary.

Lighting changes to red as they move across the stage, a cauldron is pulled out

Lucy has the nicest cauldron, so to hers they went Careful not to wake the landlord, for she had not yet paid rent.

Mary: (checking phone while Lucy stirs the cauldron and Rachel watches on) 
So the recipe says that the emotion develops itself 
 Based on it’s potion’s maker, and amount of life on the shelf 

Narrator: (watching, as if a movie, turning to audience, as if they’re next to them on the couch) Huh, that’s quite cute, yeah, that’s quite a funny notion 
I think you can apply it to general human emotion 
 Lucy: Gheez, smells disgusting, if this is what’s in store Then I don’t know if I can carry on with the application anymore 

Rachel: I cant believe you’ve never made a potion before

Lucy: Well, I’m making one right now, you know you could help!



Rachel: I did already, OK, I chopped up the kelp (Lucy rolls her eyes)



Mary: Actually, I think it might nearly be ready It is the right colour - this kind of purply-reddy  

Lucy: Hey - great news - I wonder what we got 
Mary, go ahead, take a swig from the pot 



Mary: What? Why me? Based on our dynamic that seems strange



Rachel: Everyone knows you have the most emotional range 



Mary: Okay, let me just, (takes a sip, then frowns) oof, that’s not nice



Rachel: Do you think it might work better over ice? 


Lucy: Come on, Mary tell us, what is our fate?

Mary: I think that this feeling can be articulated as Hate 



Rachel: (looong pause, everyone exchanges looks, then Rachel tuts) Great. 
I’m trying to be a Good Witch - as well as happy and free - 
 And this is what I get? How can I spin this on my CV?



Lucy: (annoyed) Okay, reign it in, we can’t all be Glinda



Mary: Both of you calm down, or you’ll cause us to hinder 
 We needed pure emotion, and that’s what we got 
 I think it’s well due time that we got on with the plot 


Light’s change colour again - purple?, in the background the witches pour the potion into a bottle and then put the cauldron away and stow the bottle for later



Narrator: Now you might be wondering why these witches are so stressed And acutely aware of time passing, well, aren’t all the best? Actually, they’re in a bit of a crunch 
Because they’re being reviewed tomorrow, over brunch 

That is, The Annual Brunch of the Official Witch League 
 Where they hope to obtain the positions they seek 
 And, of course, they have left it to the very last minute 
To prepare for new life, and everything in it. 

 The next stage is a spell to bring out one true lover 
 A very rare species, almost never uncovered 
Back in my day, this is where I plundered 
 What would happen if I’d made it, yes, I always have wondered

The girls come to the front of the stage 
 Well, here come girls, and after all that potion stewing 
 They’re going to stop dreaming, and start actually doing

Rachel: So, for this part, I tried to create another map 
 But, as you see (turns map to face audience, it is a blank page), there’s just this big gap.

Mary: We don’t have much time, I don’t know if we’ll make it 
 Even if we find someone, it’s too early not to fake it



Rachel: How will anyone be around? It’s the middle of the night!



Mary: Eeeeeeh, Rachel, you’re giving me a fright!



Lucy: Come on you two, fretting is no backup 
If you can’t be look forward, then at least shut up 
Anyway, there must be like 90 people over there (gestures to the audience)



Rachel: What?! (squinting)  Oh, I didn’t see them, well I hope they have a spare. 
Stepping forward in announcement Excuse me, all of you, if I could take a moment of your time 
We are looking for a lover, hopefully one who’s good with rhymes 
 Will anyone come forward and help us on our quest? 
If you could you would uh - well - uh - you would be the best! 



Narrator: (to girls) Sorry to interrupt, (to audience) and to thank you for your time 
We will also give you this free bottle of wine (holds up a bottle of wine)



Time given for coaxing

Somebody comes on stage



Rachel: Wow, you’re stunning, what’s your name? 



They say their name



Rachel: Oh, that’s such a good one, destined for fame



Lucy: It’s nice to meet you, and thank you for coming onstage 
I know that this might all seem rather strange  


Rachel: Yes thank you for your patience and your understanding 
You are definitely, simply, amazingly outstanding



Lucy: (raises eyebrows at Rachel) And you might be wondering, what the hell?? 
But first, of course, let’s do the spell

They begin to walk in circles around the person, making a dance as well, maybe the light changes to a redder purple for the duration of the spell, the narrator has a tambourine

Rachel/Lucy/Mary: To the north, to the west 
To the north, to the east 
 To the south, to the south 
To the most and the least 
 To all of our masters and all of our woes 
We ask the world for a second of growth 
 Please allow young love to take its turn 
Along the great stage that is ever spinning 
In this one dance, we ask love to burn 
 We ask for this one beautiful beginning 
To the north, to the west 
To the north, to the east 
To the south, to the south 
To the most and the least We know the high price for heat and passion 
We know the regrets of moving in fashion 
 That is why now we ask, with experience gained 
 For one true moment, for the fresh air of change 
So that our souls will not be stained 
 So that our hopes will not be chained 
To the north, to the west 
To the north, to the east
 To the south, to the south 
To the most and the least 



Rachel: Good going team, I think that went well

Mary: Yeah, I got it from that website, 5 pound spells 



Rachel: (to the person) You know, I think you look like a true lover 
You look a little happier, and a little tougher



Lucy: Oh my days Rachel, are you going to consummate it right now?! 
 You are being so unchill and I cannot allow! 


Mary: (tuts at them, to the person) We have a civil way to check, now indulge us please
 Would you be able to shuffle these? (hands them a pack of tarot cards)



Wait for them to shuffle them, if they are taking a while



Rachel: (flirting)  Take as long as you want, we need to bulk out the script



Lucy: (impatient) Yes, then we can move straight from here to our crypts.



The cards are given back to Mary

Mary: Thank you, thank you, now if it isn’t too hard
 Would you be able to pick a card?



The person picks a card, it has to be Two of Cups.

Rachel/Mary/Lucy: (all elated) Two of Cups!

Lucy: Wow! What luck!

Rachel: Joyous day, and we must prove so later 
This is a task for our narrator



Narrator: (walking towards them with a polaroid camera) I’m already on it, a little closer please
 Okay, ready, now say cheese 

Takes a photo 

 (to the person, handing them the wine and comically whisking them off the stage)
Thank you so much, and congratulations 
Now that you’re in love, you must feel such elation 
I must send you back now, the girls have a time budget 
But, with one step remaining, they might be able to Mudge it 

The girls stand facing the audience equal widths apart, and the light changes to something close to white or white/normal

Mary: From hate to love, next love to league status 
I woke up this morning thinking the whole world did hate us 
Now, I’m so close to witch hood, I can practically feel 
The weight of the certificate, and smell the seal 
I want to be a witch so that I can transform 
 The wrongs of the world, and make it all warm 
Who knows, who knows, if the three of us will make it 
Who knows, if we do, whether we’ll be able to take it (exit) 
 Rachel: I too am surprised that we’ve come this far 
 I remember the days when I put glitter in jars 
Tomorrow and tomorrow, I will at last join the crowd
 And my brothers will be happy, and my parents will be proud 
I come from a long line of wizards and witches 
 And this, this scroll, will bring emotional riches (happy, then alert)  
I must now go and reread once more 
 The entire history of entire folklore (exit)

Lucy: At last! They are gone! And I can indulge (farts) 
And with it, what’s worse, I’ll also divulge 
Entry to the league is the final stage of my plan 
To take over the world and become Lord of Man 
With this certificate my power will grow 
 And first thing’s first, these bloody losers must go!
 {Now I must go and feed all my bats 
And, for the meeting, choose a good hat. (exits)} 



{(or, if the audience boos or says anything) 
And you know what, I don’t even hear your boo’s 
 I know in my heart that it’s all fake news. (exits)}


Lights change to blue, seven seats come onstage (four for the league, three for the girls) and a table in the middle full of brunch foods

Narrator: Now it is morning of the brunch aforementioned 
And we’ve all taken a night bus to Daforementioned (spotlight a ‘Welcome to Daformenshoned’ sign at this point) 
A magical city in the seventh dimension. 
 Sufficient to say, the girls are a little neurotic 
 And these next few words, I warn, will be slightly chaotic



Rachel enters, shouts gibberish for five seconds, but it has to rhyme (of course), then leaves
 


Narrator: And now let me present the Official Witch League 
A group made up, of, lets say, a certain breed 

The Official Witch League comes onstage and take their seats 

The leader is Nigel, stone faced and wise 

Nigel (his face is literally stone - a mask?): (to Fiona) You know, I’ve heard good things about these guys 

 Narrator: Next comes Fiona, practical and straight 

Fiona: (to Nigel) Hmm, I don’t know, they’re three minutes late 

 Narrator: Thirdly, Kevin, amicable and charming 

Kevin: (to the narrator) That’s so sweet to say but it is quite disarming

Narrator: And finally Jez, known solely to be blunt

Jez: Oi, what did you say, hey, you’re a right—



Rachel, Mary and Lucy enter



Nigel: Welcome ladies, and thank you for coming 



Rachel: We’re so sorry we’re late! I know it’s so unbecoming!



Lucy: Thank you for having us, can we take a chair?



Kevin: I appreciate your boldness, yes there’s three there 



The girls sit down



Fiona: Can we interest you in some eggs - fried or poached?



Rachel: I would but I’m afraid my nerves have encroached



Mary: Sorry, me too, I think I’ll have to give food a miss



Nigel: Ok, then…lets get on with this. (opening folder)



Kevin: Looking at your papers you’re all from different places 
 What brings you together, and under what cases?



Mary: We did join together for success in our applications 
 But that’s not to say that we have bad foundations 



Fiona: Very fair, and you’ve done both the potion and the spell 
Both completed last night, now what does that tell



Lucy: That we’re quick and efficient, and difficult takes a day?



Rachel: We tried to do it earlier, but life got in the way!

Nigel: Well, let’s take a look deeper, I first have to ask 
 What is the emotion that’s stored in the flask?

 (pause) 

Mary: (sheepishly) Hate. (the members are all confused)



Nigel: Wait- 



Fiona: Hate?



Jez: Mate!



Kevin: Well, it’s different! And did you bring your true lover?



Lucy: We brought instead a photograph to cover.

 

Jez: (leaning in) Is that the three of you and one very confused chap 
In a theatre with an audience, I mean, what the crap?

Lucy: Look a little closer, the Two of Cups never lies 

 Kevin: Ah bloody hell, this poor guy! 

*DISCLAIMER - DOESN’T NEED TO BE A GUY/MAN/MALE/CHAP/ANYTHING, JUST EASIER FOR THE RHYME*

Fiona: So, to clarify, you met online last week 
And together you all went on a hike to a heath 
Then brewed up Hate in one of your flats 
 And honestly, that bottle smells a lot like bats, 
Then you found this random person 
I mean - can this application worsen? 
You thought a card could show your fate 
 Well listen, the rest of it isn’t great.

Nigel: What Fiona is trying to say 
Is I don’t think you’ve made the league today 
But thank you for coming and taking your time 
We offer you a parting gift of pine (points to some gift bags on the floor) 

Rachel: (getting up) Thank you, Nigel, I’ll see you next year 

 Mary: (putting down the bottle and also getting up) Yes, I think that I’ll just leave this here. 

 Lucy: No! You fools! Sit down at once! We must finish what we started, and I want my brunch! You haven’t even given us a minute of your day Before you have sent us swiftly on our way. 
We did everything you need - grand hoot and Tooty
 How can you stop us just because you are snooty?  

Mary: Lucy, it’s fair, we can try again later

Rachel: (to Mary, hissing) She needs to calm down or the league’s gonna hate her! 
Lucy: You need to calm down, OK? You’re the one they hate! 
You two have stumbled into all of their bate. 
Don’t you see that the league is twisted? 
Or has their branding had you two enlisted?

Rachel: Lucy, you’re acting crazy and making a scene! And everything you’re saying is super mean!

Mary: The league isn’t perfect but nothing really is

Rachel: It’s all a part of the wizarding biz

Lucy: (stands up on chair) One day I will eliminate you all! 
 And then the entire League will fall! (Rachel and Mary gasp) 
Yes, you’ll see, with my great plan in place 
 I’ll change the course of the wiccen race 
 Yes, of course, my cauldron made hate 
 And yes it smells of bats! I think that’s great!

Nigel: Ah, one of these, we’ve seen you before We’ve seen the likes of you and your

Fiona: You crazy kooks, you never learn The reason for our high downturn

Jez: You who think the world should all be so fair Haven’t realised  how it come’s with a fare

Kevin: Now, let’s all quieten down while we can still be civil Enough of this inequality drivel Girls, why don’t we have a closer look at your files?

Fiona: We can’t let them in now, Kevin, that would be vile-


Lucy: You are all sick and I think that you know it 
How can you go on and pretend not to show it? 
You see, when my plan finally falls into place This life will blow up in front of your face-

Nigel leans forward and takes a glass of water from the table, then chucks it over her



Lucy: AAAH!! Please don’t! Someone please start helping! 
 You fools, you fools, I’m melting! I’m melting! 

 Steam rises and she melts (Lucy exit stage)



Brief pause



Nigel: Ok, we really must go now, thank you for coming. (all stand up)



Fiona: Safe travels back, I hope they’re not too stunning



Kevin: Best of luck, girls, and have a great day!



Jez: (mumbled) For once I really have nothing to say.

NIGEL, FIONA and KEVIN exit 

Mary: (looking to Rachel) Gheez, what a roller coaster, I feel kind of drained



Rachel: To be honest, I think some of that was a bit strained



Mary: I honestly don’t know how all that just happened 



Rachel: Best not think about it too much, the day’s come to an end



Mary: (perking up) Well… thank goodness for eternal tomorrows



Rachel: Which release us from the dread of our daily sorrows (smiling) 



Mary: coyly Hey, do you know that tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow- (they exit the stage together and trail off) 

Light turns back to green like in the beginning 
 Narrator: (comes to centre stage) So that signals the end of our time on this stage And I hope, despite everything, we’ve kept you engaged. 
 Well, have a nice evening, and have a nice life, 
 And maybe we’ll meet again if we’re both ever near Fife, Good luck to you all, and may you always remember, 
That life is more than just becoming a member.

END 


[woodsyboxingandlife]

Roy Moore Is a P.O.S.

This Roy Moore character, I won’t even call him “Judge” because for lord’s sake, he was tossed from his seat, on two occasions, his case and how the public at large isn’t responding to the piling on of allegations, on the record, against him, is raising my BP.

This Moore clown…no, that’s too kind, too benevolent a characterization of an apparet predator…

This Moore fella is now running for a Senate seat representing the citizens of Alabama, sweet home to about 4.8 million people, too many of whom feel, polling tells us, that they don’t see Roy Moore as being anything other than deserving of the Senate seat given up by the current Attorney General, Jefferson Sessions.

They don’t see him as I do…which as a piece of shit. OK, I’m going with that one…harsh, reserved for the truly deserving…piece of shit.

Ouch, harsh Woods, some who have stumbled onto this, thinking I am writing about the latest great white hope in the heavyweight division or what have you. Nah, if you haven’t heard or read, this guy Roy Moore, who was a judge and then a DA in Bama, has a high regard of himself, to the point that he thinks he’d make a fine Senator. He is heading towards a place where he’s going to be the only one seeing himself as Senate material, as a continuing stream of allegations, and first-person publicly delivered accusations by women that declare that Moore, a grown man, engaged in at best unseemly and at worst straight-on sex assault of young ladies, if we are being politically correct, “girls,” some of them, if we are not, dribble out. One or two a day, now…

Five ladies, it was reported, said that Moore, who was bumped from his spot as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court after two years because of overt religiosity, a refusal to respect the separation of church and state, was a super creep.  But he still had that high assessment of self—he twice attempted to win the Governor job, and was rebuffed in the primaries. He got a second chance as Chief Justice in 2013 but again fumbled, after three years, showing blatant bigotry towards gays, by enforcing a state ban on same-sex marriage, which the Supreme Court invalidated.

So, if you are boiling it down, Moore finds it unlawful for two men to marry—but now a steady stream of ladies have come forward to relay that the man, now 70, was in decades past fast and loose with his own conduct. Moore, in the days following the allegations storm, admitted he’d date teens when he was in his 30s. They were over 16, he stated. Ewww, came the calls from a dare say a strong majority of decent minded beings, though many in and outside Alabama were dismayed when polling showed a devoted flock wouldn’t stray from their man Moore. These pro Moore stalwarts looked down on the aggrieved women who’d been harassed and seduced and/or molested by Moore back in the day, and said their sharing of the misconducts was nothing more than conspiracy politics, smear tactics by persons who apparently just deemed him such a titan of righteousness and political acumen that they decided he’d need to be character assasinated to remove him from the playing field.

So, to this point, people who’ve accused Moore of misconduct are painted, basically, as Hillary Clinton supporting Libtards. They’ve been dismissed and discounted, critiqued by Moore defenders who try to sound like Columbo when they say they find it strange that they are crying as they relay a story from 30 years ago. As if to say, how could being molested decades ago really, truly, actually bother someone so much today. You will not be surprised to know that most of the defenders are men, and painting themselves as being empathically deficient at best. And sub moronic cavemen at worst…

Some of these defenders, they seemingly just don’t comprehend how their defending of this track record of molestation reads to us with normal conscience levels. One guy brought on to cable news to be a Moore surrogate noted that Joseph was an older dude and Mary wasn’t of legal drinking age, so, c’mon, Moore was just boys being boys back then. It was the 70s, that is an excuse that comes up time and again.

It was no boys being boys, what Beverly Young Moore, a Trump voter, told media two days ago. She was 16, Moore age 30, an ADA, someone looked up to as a pillar of lawfulness. This was no horseplay gone awry when he drove with her, stopped, locked the doors, grabbed at her chest and tried to force her head to his groin. Rape attempt, is what she described. Yes, publicly, which some of these mega morons blinded by the disgraceful political climate that we are mired in point to as a point against her credibility.

She just wants attention, and money, they say.

That seems plausible to them, maybe, because that is maybe how they think…they find it so foreign that maybe someone would be holding on to such a painful memory that they go beyond their comfort zone, their fear of being disbelieved and ridiculed and shunned within the community.

"And he looked at me and told me, 'You’re just a child, and I am the district attorney. If you tell anyone about this, no one will ever believe you," Nelson said. Moore was, a paper reported, then an assistant district attorney in Gadsden, in northeast Alabama, from 1977 to 1982. You choose your description of Moore, will you? I won’t take issue with it, I bet, if you see this situation as I do.

I heard a whopper today that steams me. A lawyer Moore pays to cover for him said, "I've been with him in probably over 100 different meetings and been around probably in excess of 10,000 different ladies in Judge Moore's presence and not once, not one time, have I ever seen him act even remotely inappropriate against any woman."

Jesus H. C-Word, this man has a valid law license?

Friends, back in the day, I used to smoke pot. It was more illegal then. And can I assure you, in that time frame I didn’t spark it up in front of my mom and dad, or the principal, or any other person who I figured wouldn’t be A-OK with my deviation from lawfulness. Yeah, I hid it. As, common sense would tell you, and if you are half a sentient being or not someone being paid by Roy Moore, is what someone who seemed to be a serial perv/molester would do.

They’d sneak and slither and use their sneaky creepy methods to get their victims in a place safe for them to attempt their attack.

This Moore story is yet another one which cements the stark and sad state of where we are as a nation. We are citizens united, we are, too many of us, in our division…polarized by mind sets that virtually render us different species. 63 million people said yes, this guy who was accused of molestation or harassment by 11 women, who has a track record of stiffing vendors, playing the system by declaring bankruptcies, and defrauded innocents by promising a high level education experience and delivering an adult-ed night school status one, this is the guy we deem Presidential material. Who was on tape bragging about hitting on a married woman, and how he can walk up and grab a lady’s pussy because he is rich and famous and immune from blowback. This EXCEPTIONAL nation elected this crude con man, who walks around painted on orange spray tan year round and doesn’t get the memo that he looks like a buffoon, is an ethical black hole and you have to go back to our civil war experience to offer a similar era of instability of national morale.

Too many of those same Trumpers, it seems like, cannot ponder that this Moore off the rails story is anything other than a vast left wing conspiracy to make it so a Libtard gets the Session seat. That “reasoning” defies common sense, and points to an outbreak of madness. Because, c’mon it isn’t sane. As if we needed more evidence of that. Those that wish to hold on to power, at pretty much any cost, will over-look egregious examples of misconduct and duplicity and lying under oath to adhere to the higher power that so many of these politicians look up to, their God, their framework for living, their personal Constitution…enriching themselves, by securing and holding on to power, and the trappings, be it monetary, or ego-massaging, which come with it.

Oh, and let’s not even delve deep into the concurrent shit shows that are giving the DC follies a run for the money. The Cosby-Weinstein-Louis CK-(insert fallen idol of the hour-day here) quagmire is confirming what so many women who’d been targeted by “important” movers and shakers/liberty takers had figured out: sooo many guys use their power like a weapon. They dangle the possibility for upward mobility, or maybe even dispense with that, and just assume because they are well-known public figures they deserve to treat people like items on a buffet line. They do’t see a person, they see a tray of orange beef.

The ingredients missing in the Moores and the CKs and whoever is outed as a perv piece of shot tomorrow are…empathy.. decency…integrity..humility.

All these guys saw something, which was actually a SOMEBODY, with a feelings, and went after it. With rude voraciousness…they didn’t care or consider their actions would cause alarm, dismay, fear, terror, post traumatic stress. The millenials get smacked down for being entitled; this conduct that we’re hearing has been a Hollywood staple isn’t that the height of toxic entitlement. Aesthetic train wreck Weinstein because of his powerful seat didn’t need to match up his appeal level with a potential romantic or sexual partner, he’d be the sole arbiter if there was a “love” connection, because he saw not a human being, but a vessel to serve him, to please him. How Trump sees his office, I think.

Mark these words: Roy Moore will step down from his quest to serve his ego and be elected to the Senate. Might not be tomorrow, or the next day, but it will happen. And we can take some solace in that. Because our system of communication is not totally broken. People don’t often enough seek news, but corroborative evidence. The “news” they get from Fox News isn’t news, it’s a hit of an opiate,  to soothe them, quell their anger at the state of society, and offer them alternative targets to puncture, so that their angst can dissipate for the moment, and they can avoid for another hour their disgust at the man in the mirror and the fallacy of the validity of the American dream.  But truth still can win…it sort of seeps to the fore, caterpillar quick, and has to be lobbed to persons who don't even realize it but are actively avoiding it. The Roy Moores, the pieces of shit who deserve a jail stint more so than a Senate seat, still eventually do get what is coming to them. Of that, I still have faith.