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mcatra · 5 years ago

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Catra works at burger king part 2

AO3

art by quackleroys part 1

As promised, Adora had taken care of everything even though she never asked her to. Adora and Glimmer’s family as well as Sea Hawk’s parents had paid off the damage like it was nothing. In fact a sparkling new window with the Burger King logo appeared installed at her next shift, looking so pristine it almost seemed out of place in the dingy establishment. Rich people were scary.

Catra had expected the usual beatdown lecture from her regional manager, but to her surprise nothing came. Adora took 100% of the blame and omitted Catra from the narrative, and as much as she hated to admit it she was grateful. No way she could have ever afforded to replace the door when she couldn’t even afford a whole meal at Burger King.

Not with the $3 she had currently in her account. Right now however, she was pretending to be asleep in the back of the student council room until all of Adora’s annoying prefects left. They were currently having a meeting about the annual swimming preparations.

Usually Catra would be more outspoken to represent the students of her old school, but today she didn't want to speak to anyone. She hadn't heard a lick of an apology from the girls, who had just thrown money at the problem until it went away like it never existed. They probably expected her to thank them, and no way were they getting a thank you for something they caused.

They finished up their meeting, chatting about whether or not they should be allowed to wear bikinis or something as they shuffled out.

‘Is it really okay to just let Vice Captain sleep through the entire meeting?’ Mermista complains, and Catra tenses in annoyance.

‘Shh, don’t wake her. I don’t see you sweeping up glass until midnight from when your boyfriend smashed her workplace door.’ Adora chides, and Catra feels a little bit smug.

‘...Fair point.’

The door clicks shut, and silence settles over the classroom. Catra can hear Adora tiptoe quietly over to her.

She half expects for Adora to shake her awake, but to her surprise she feels fingers carding through her hair.

Catra freezes, trying to keep her breathing even. What was she doing?

The touch is soft, gently pushing her hair back and brushing her scalp.

She lets it go on for a few seconds, before she grabs Adora’s wrist, letting one eye lazily open. The blonde's eyes were wide, like a kid that got caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

‘Stop touching me so familiarly. We’re not friends.’ Catra says, but there's no heat behind her words. She forces herself to get up, fake yawning as she gathers up her books.

Adora's cheeks are pink, her hands bunched up around her skirt. 'Do you have another shift? I’ll come.'

'No one asked you to!' Catra replies, making her way down the now empty corridor. Of course Adora memorized her work schedule. She starts power walking her way to the school doors, hoping to lose Adora on the way.

All she wanted was to finish her shift, get a few hours of study done so she could get the damn scholarship and graduate. It was for her first choice of university, and they were granting a free ride to the top student of their school. If she could just manage that, she could get a degree and finally get a good job. Catra didn't need distractions by her rival, not everyone could effortlessly get full marks on every subject. She had to struggle for it, if she was ever going to get out of this cursed cycle.

‘Are you seriously following me to work?’ Catra says, deadpan. Adora was scurrying after her like a puppy with separation anxiety. She stops walking, watching the blonde trip over herself in her hurry to catch up to her on the street. ‘Dude I’m begging you, please get a life.’

‘Why not? I want some chicken nuggies.’ She says. Catra shoots her a look of disgust.

‘You’re going to get pimples and DIE from all this junk you eat!’ Catra whaps her over the head with her textbook. Adora winces, and almost walks into a lamp post.

‘Aww, are you worried about my health?’ Adora teases. Catra goes to kick her, but the school captain dodges it, her wide grin illuminated by the setting sun.

‘Eat a damn vegetable instead of coming to Burger King everyday! You’ll ruin your perfect figure.’ Catra shoots back, hoping that Adora would care more about maintaining her sculpted body than annoying her everyday. Wait, that wording was kind of-

‘You think I have a perfect figure?’

The brunette can feel her face heating up, and she knows she’s blushing. She shoves Adora away, turning away so she can’t see her face.

‘Fuck you and your fucking corn-cob abs, stop eating here!!! Unhealthy shite!!’ Catra curses, but Adora just laughs, clutching at her wrists so she can’t hide her furious blushing.

‘Even when you’re angry you can’t stop complimenting me.’ Adora replies, biting back a grin.

‘Don’t make me perma-ban you from the store!’

The day of the swimming carnival finally arrived, colourful flags decorating the outside pool. Hundreds of students were seated on the concrete steps, waiting to compete in the relays, or currently in line to the canteen.

Adora looked good in her one piece swimsuit. It highlighted her muscled back that was currently glistening from the pool water. Her golden hair was damp, curling around the edges. She looked almost ethereal, sparkling in the sunlight.

Meanwhile Catra sat in the bleachers in her ratty t-shirt and shorts watching her, feeling like the embodiment of that one Taylor Swift song. Stupid Adora.

Adora's friends had coordinated their outfits to match their Bright Moon house colours, all pinks and purples. Mermista's house was dressed in blue, while girls from Perfuma's house fawned around the lifeguard on duty. They had even painted their faces with coloured zinc.

How nauseating.

‘You want some hot chips?’ Scorpia asks, plonking herself next to Catra. She nods and scarfs it down, eyes laser focused on Adora’s long legs.

As the day dragged on, they were doing admittedly worse than she would’ve liked. It was proving difficult to get them motivated, and doing 3rd out of 4 houses was not a good look.

‘Scorpia, you’re up for the 100 metre freestyle relay, do not let me down.’ She pats her friend on the shoulder, glaring at the other teams.

‘Aye aye, Cap’n!’ Scorpia grins, doing a mock salute.

Scorpia was against one of their biggest competitors Huntara, another girl from Perfuma’s house. They line up at top of the platforms, and when the whistle blows she dives in.

It’s close, but Scorpia wins by a hair winning the final. Catra grins at her, and Scorpia beams back. Even though Perfuma’s house lost, the blonde was all giddy over Scorpia’s performance.

A voice blares over the loudspeaker.

50 points.

The Horde was now at second place. Catra’s heart starts beating faster, ecstatic. Now they actually had a chance at beating Adora's house! She stands up and swivels around to face her own team.

'Listen up, assholes!' Catra she barks, looking at the sea of mismatched green. Their disinterested eyes blink up at her.

'We're gonna get the most points and we will win!'

She hears a group of boys- Sea Hawks old friends, probably, mutter to themselves.

We?

Why should we try when she won’t even do one race?

I know right. Who even elected her as house captain?

‘Excuse me, what the fuck did you just say?’ Catra growls, marching over to the chad looking teenage boys in her house. Instead of backing down as most people usually did, they glared back at her. The tan one with patches of facial hair named Scurvy stands up to confront her.

‘Miss Vice Captain thinks she’s too good to compete in the relay while we do all the work.’ Scurvy says, and the boys behind him all nod in unison. ‘All of us have already competed and we’re tired.’

‘Uh, does it look like I care? Get back out there so we can beat Adora!’

‘Hell no. We’re boycotting, until you can prove you’re gonna pull your weight.’ He declares, poking a finger at her chest.

By now everyone in the Horde was staring at them, and by their defiant eyes seemed to be agreeing with him. Her position as house captain was slipping.

She slaps his hand away, incensed.

‘What do you think you’re doing, undermining my authority? If I say get back out there, then go! ’

‘Why, too scared to swim? Afraid you’ll lose?’ Scurvy challenges.

Catra grits her teeth. It’s not like she was going to admit to these extras that she was afraid of water. Usually intimidation worked, but they didn’t seem to be backing down either.

As if he sensed her hesitation, Scurvy grabs her arm and his other two friends grab the other. They're surprisingly strong, Catra's arms are like twigs in their grip.

‘Get off me!’ Catra screeches, her pulse speeding up. They start walking her to the deep end of the pool, to the sound of cheering from her house like the traitors they were.

She tries to kick at her captors, but they’re laughing, like it was all a fun game.

Catra feels lightheaded as they approach the edge of the pool. 'Stop it, it's not funny!' She tries again, feeling desperate. Where was the lifeguard when you needed him?

Scurvy gives her a cocky grin, not catching on to her fear. No one seemed to be paying attention to her internal mental breakdown, they had probably thought she was infallible. Unafraid of anything. They swing her back, and then let go.

Catra shrieks as she hits the water, making a loud splash as she falls in. That proved to be a mistake, as she inhales a gallon of water doing so. She splutters and gasps, trying to scramble to the edge but failing. Instead she was sinking, her arms flailing pathetically.

Catra couldn’t breathe, the surface seemed so far away now. She had to be drowning, water rushing through her ears, clawing through nothing. There’s only a rush of bubbles and a pressure on her lungs as they fill up with chlorinated water. People were shouting from above, but it was muffled.

There was a reason why she hated water as much as she did. Their foster mother Shadow Weaver had dunked her head into the bath countless times, holding Catra’s head in place with her sharp nails. She had always said it was to clean her properly, but she knew it was her punishment for just existing in her household. The result of that was her never learning how to swim, and a crippling fear of water.

Catra could feel her legs locking up, paralysing fear coursing through her veins. The more water she inhaled, the more dizzy she got, her limbs feeling heavier than bricks.

Spots appear in her vision, and her lungs finally give out. She had to be on the bottom of the pool by now, but it was strangely calm down here. When she feels her back hit the tile, she blacks out.

The next thing she knows is that a warm pair of lips are pressing against her own. They’re soft, and they kind of taste like strawberry chapstick. Her head is still swimming though, like she was still underwater. The person breathes in air into her mouth, and she vaguely comphrends Oh, they’re giving me CPR.

Before she can react, someone practically body slams her chest and she chokes. Before they can do it again she pushes them off her, she was going to throw up. Catra turns to the side and promptly splutters out the entire pool’s worth of water out of her lungs.

She can feel herself being unceremoniously brought back to life, weakly coughing out the last of the offending liquid. Catra can feel herself swaying from side to side, her hands shaking like crazy.

‘Hey!’

The person’s voice is muffled, but soon her ears pop and she can suddenly hear everything again.

‘Catra!’

Everything was too loud, too bright. There were people surrounding them, blurry colours mixing together like the weirdest acid trip she’s never had.

A warm pressure is on her side, and she hazily blinks up at the loud noise in her ear. Blonde hair, a red varsity jacket.

Suddenly she’s panicking for a whole other reason. Everything hits her at full force now, the crowd, the stares, fucking Adora out of all people giving her CPR. Her greatest weakness being exposed in front of everyone. She felt like a kid again when Shadow Weaver frequently tried to drown her bathing her in front of the other orphaned kids as they watched on.

Sweat beads at her forehead, everyone is talking so loudly and her gut is twisting and she can’t breathe.

She couldn’t swim?

What’s wrong with her?

Someone call an ambulance!

‘No-No ambulance-’ Catra stutters, keeling over. Like she could afford a $400 glorified taxi to the damn hospital. She tries to inhale, but it just comes out as rasping.

Catra frantically scrabbles at her throat, leaving long red marks across the wet skin. She can feel hot tears bead in the corners of her eyes, contrasting with how cold the rest of her body felt.

‘Catra!’

It was Adora again. ‘You have to sit up, open up your airways.’ Catra glares at her, but the blonde manhandles her into a better position. She takes in another breath, and to her relief air starts flooding back into her lungs again.

‘Everyone back away, you’re stressing her out.’ Adora commanded the crowd.

'Here, wear this.' She takes off her jacket and bundles it protectively over Catras shoulders. ADORA is emblazoned on the back in big white letters. Catra looks at it in confusion, until belatedly realizes her drenched shirt stuck to her like a second skin so it was almost see through. She grips the jacket around herself tighter, embarrassed.

The lifeguard and the teachers finally arrive, and she’s carted away from the crowd.

-----

Catra jolts awake to a loud rattling knock on her garage door. She blinks a few times, getting the grit out of her eyes. Since when did she get visitors? The only person who knew where she lived was Scorpia.

The knocking gets louder, more urgent. It vibrates through the concrete walls of the tiny refurbished garage. Catra gets up, still feeling groggy from the fever. Adora’s varsity jacket laid next to her, still smelling vaguely like the blonde mixed with chlorine. Somehow she had made home after the swimming carnival. The last thing she remembered was collapsing onto her mattress after refusing to go to the hospital.

‘Catra? Are you in there?’

What the hell? Is that Adora?

Catra forces herself to stand up, her bare feet pattering across the cold concrete. She kicks a few cardboard boxes out of the way so she can manually roll up the door. The automatic function broke ages ago, and her landlord still hadn’t gotten it fixed.

Why on earth she was letting her worst enemy in her home was beyond her, all of the water that went up her brain must’ve made her stupid.

She only has the strength to lift it halfway, the sunlight blinding her in discomfort.

‘Why the fuck are you here?’ Catra growls, however she must not paint the most intimidating picture. Probably gave the impression of a cracked up ogre in a cave.

Adora laughs a little, as she tries to maneuver her way into the garage. She ducks underneath the roll up door like it’s a game of limbo, and to Catra’s satisfaction she bangs her head on it.

‘I brought soup.’ Adora lifts up a small plastic bag full of ingredients. She looks around nervously for a kitchen, but becomes increasingly distressed as she starts to realize this whole place was only one room.

‘So- uh.’ Adora chokes out, clearly embarrassed. ‘This is...where you live.’

Catra rolls her eyes at her attempt to not insult her living conditions. Her furniture consisted of an old mattress, a sofa from someone's front lawn, a rotting table and chair from the council cleanup, and a tiny mini-fridge and a portable stove she got from the dump, all crammed into the small garage.

It wasn’t too bad, as terrible as it was at least it was her space. The landlord never came to bother her and charged half the amount of current rental homes in the area, so all in all it was a pretty good deal.

‘Not what you were expecting, Princess?’ Catra yawns, scratching her back to return to her bed. ‘Let me guess, Scorpia told you where I lived. God knows why I tell her anything, she can’t keep a secret to save her life.’

Adora nods, placing the groceries on the table. ‘I just wanted to see if you were feeling any better after…’ She flounders, looking extremely out of place in her iron pressed pristine uniform.

‘Take a seat.’ Catra gestures to the sofa. ‘Don’t worry, I got rid of the lice ages ago.’

Adora gives her a look.

‘I’m kidding.’ She wasn’t, but it didn’t look like Adora was gonna sit on it otherwise.

Adora gingerly sits down, avoiding the odd looking stains on the fabric. They sit in silence for a minute, as she drinks in her surroundings.

‘So, the boys who pushed you into the pool got suspended.’ Her school captain says, scratching her little blonde poof on the top of her forehead.

‘Good.’

‘How’s your fever?’

Catra sighs into her blanket, rolling around to glare at the other teenager. ‘Fine. How long are you planning to be here, anyway?’

‘Oh, uh-’ Adora gets up to rummage through the plastic bag she brought. ‘Also I was just gonna stick around to um, make you some soup. I brought meds too!'

She triumphantly brings out some Panadol, only belatedly realizing that there was no tap inside to pour Catra water.

‘There’s a hose outside if you want water. You have to boil it though.’

‘R-right.’ Adora says awkwardly, but makes no move to actually leave to go outside. Instead she picks up the contents of her plastic bag and makes her way to the fridge.

‘Oi, don’t touch my food!’ Catra calls out, annoyed.

Adora pauses, the ingredients that needed to be chilled still in her arms as she opens the fridge door.

‘There’s nothing in here though.’

‘Uh, yes there is. Don’t you see that stack of bread? Managed to convince my manager it was expired, so I got it for free. Don’t go touching it.’ Catra says proudly, smug that she had finessed the Burger King system. ‘Also Lonnie never notices the condiments going missing. You can’t use my ketchup and mustard packets for your stupid soup, you hear?’

‘Catra.’

‘What?’

‘How...how can you live like this? I had no idea it was this bad.’ Adora says, kneeling in front of the mini fridge like she was gonna have a first class breakdown.

Why was she the one getting upset? She wasn’t the one who lived here.

‘Kinda rude thing to say as a houseguest, much.’ Catra scoffs, offended. ‘Sorry for not living in the lap of luxury like you do.’

‘But even applying for welfare, surely the government could-’ Adora objects.

Catra could almost laugh at how naive she sounded. ‘What, so they could catch me and throw me back into the foster care system?’

‘You know what I mean. Even Shadow Weaver’s foster home was better than-’

‘Don’t you dare finish that sentence.’ Catra snaps, her blood suddenly boiling with rage. Just the mere mention of her name brings a flood of memories she didn't want to remember. Adora looks back at her, surprised at the sudden outburst.

‘I’d rather die than go back to Shadow Weaver. You know she used both of us just for welfare money?’ Catra seethes, stalking her way closer to Adora. They’re face to face now, the blonde frozen in place.

‘I..’

Years of resentment start spilling over, and Catra can’t stop.

‘Not like you care, since you were adopted out by a nice rich family with your new sister Glimmer. Must be nice to be picked out with your goody goody nice girl persona and forget all about the people you left behind huh?’ Catra grits her teeth, she’s shaking in rage now.

She still remembers that day when the tall rich lady with the pink and purple hair decided to adopt a child to fill the void in her heart left by her deceased husband.

When she picked Adora, even though she was going to be adopted by Shadow Weaver already as her favourite.

How Catra was left alone with nothing when Adora went with Angella, the abuse increasing tenfold as Shadow Weaver took out her anger at her. No one ever asked to see Catra, with her untrusting eyes and feral mannerisms.

‘Who would adopt me, right? What a joke. Now you come in here insulting my place when I made it here on my own, with no one to help me?!’

Adora stares at her in shock, speechless. The words hang in the air, like they were a rope choking them both. They look at each other until Catra’s rapid breathing calms down.

‘I..I’m so sorry Catra. I did try to contact you...but you never replied...’ Adora says, throat tight with grief.

Catra rolls her eyes. ‘Like Shadow Weaver personally hand delivers me mail, got it.’

Adora swallows, lip trembling. ‘I really did try to go back, I did. But Shadow Weaver told me you had run away, and I couldn’t find you anywhere no matter how hard I tried. I thought...I thought-’

A tear drops down Adora’s face, and she quickly wipes it away before Catra can react.

‘So when I saw you had transferred to my school, and that you worked at Burger King, it was like a miracle to me. You were here, and you were alive, and I was so, so happy to see you. Even if you hated me coming to your workplace everyday, or that you thought I was only doing it to rub my good fortune in your face... I just missed you so much, I couldn’t help it.’ Adora exhales shakily. Her words seemed genuine, and Catra felt her heart tighten.

More tears spill out, and this time Catra reaches over to cup her face. She can feel her last remanments of her anger dissipate as she thumbs away the hot liquid from Adora’s red cheeks.

‘Why are you the one crying? IIIdiot.’

‘Mmn.’ Adora mumbles, her hand curling around Catra’s. ‘About yesterday. Seeing you go under the water like that, I just couldn’t bear to lose you again. So I found myself here. I'm sorry.’

‘I get it. I seriously get it.’ Catra pushes Adora’s nose up so it resembles a pig. ‘You big stalker.’

Adora wrinkles her nose. ‘I’m glad you know now though. Eating Burger King everyday was awful.’

‘Then don’t eat here!’

‘But I wanted to see you.’ Adora pouts, and Catra rolls her eyes. So clingy.

‘Just you wait. I’ll take first place and get that scholarship so I can finally get out of this dump.’

The blonde smiles, but it slowly turns serious.

‘Catra...I know you don't want any help but it doesn't hurt to accept some? I'll bring food to you- proper food and not mouldy Burger King leftovers.’

The offer sounded tempting, especially to her empty stomach. But Catra forces herself to resist. She had her pride, and she knew better than to rely on Adora as a steady source of help.

‘I’m not gonna rely on you again, you know. I’m not here to fuel your savior complex, or to alleviate your guilt.’

Adora contemplates for a moment. If she thinks too hard she’ll injure her tiny brain, Catra scoffs.

‘If you won’t accept it for free...How about a trade?’

Catra raises an eyebrow, letting go of Adora’s face. ‘What do you want from me? Let me guess, same thing the other dudes who propositioned me for cash?’ She makes a lewd motion with her fingers, and Adora gasps in scandalized shock.

‘N-no! Wait, did you-’

Catra blinks, before realizing the insinuation. ‘Fuck no! I've never done anything with anyone except for-’

They both recall the CPR kiss from the day before, and they look away, faces burning.

After an awkward moment of silence, Adora speaks up.

‘How about we be friends again? That's all I ask for.’

‘Hah?’

‘Also you have to unblock me and allow me to message you!’ Adora says triumphantly, her eyes suddenly burning with intensity. It catches Catra off guard.

‘What the fuck? You see me at school?’

‘And I get to message you everyday.’

'Once a week.' Catra shoots back.

'Once every 3 days.' Adora says. She's too close, and it's frying Catra's brain.

'Fine!' Dealing with Adora was exhausting. How on earth Glimmer and Bow handled it, was beyond her.

Adora smiles, and it's almost blinding. ‘Great! I’ll start bringing you groceries then! Plus I owe you for the whole door breaking thing.’ She snatches up Catra’s old cracked phone, and starts adding herself as a contact.

‘Wait I forgot about that! Give my number back!’ She tries to swipe for the phone, but Adora lifts it out of reach.

‘Too late! Friendship is about not tallying about who owes who! It's equal!’

‘If I wasn't sick right now I’d pummel you to the ground.’

‘Nah you wouldn't.’ She was right but she wasn't gonna say that. ‘Come on, let’s take a photo together for my contact pic.’

Adora places her arm around Catra, angling the phone to get a good picture.

The flash blinds Catra, and when they turn to look at the screen it’s a less than flattering image. Catra’s face is scrunched up, while Adora has posed, looking flawlessly photogenic.

‘Ughh, do you have to be perfect at everything?’ Catra complains, ducking underneath her arm. ‘Delete it, I look like I’m having a seizure.’

‘Well I love it.’ Adora smiles, adding Catra’s number into her own phone. She’s looking at the photo fondly, sending it to herself. ‘It’s our first photo together.’

God, did Adora need to be this embarrassing all the time?

‘Yeah yeah, you sap.’ Catra grumbles, but she can’t help but smile too.

Flash .

‘You smiled! You smiled!’ Adora crows, grinning ear to ear from behind her phone camera. ‘And I got it on camera!’

‘I’m going to break your phone!’

This new 'friendship' with Adora was going to kill her.

#she-ra #she ra #spop #catradora #catra #adora #burger king au

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thetypedwriter · 4 years ago

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Imaginary Friend Book Review

Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky Book Review

This is undoubtedly the weirdest book I have ever read.

You might be thinking… but, thetypedwriter you read fanfiction! This can’t be the weirdest thing you’ve ever read! Things like ABO universes exist!

You would think that, wouldn’t you?

But no.

I shall endeavor to give you a spoiler free synopsis of the book first followed by my thoughts and criticism, but note that this is an endeavor for a reason. I have now explained this novel in depth to two different people, and both times I have found myself completely and irrevocably stuck on how to even begin, let alone end.

With that forewarning, here we go.

The novel surrounds a single mother and her young son moving to a small Pennsylvania town in order to escape the tragedies of their past that include the passing of her husband and her current abusive boyfriend.

However, while things in their new home start out well-they find solutions to unemployment, poverty, the son’s dyslexia, etc, things start to go awry when Christopher, the son, is lured into the Mission Street Woods at the edge of town by a voice only he seems to be able to hear.

As Christopher continues to listen to the voice in the form of a cloud, or a plastic bag, or even inside of his mind, he starts recruiting his friends to build a treehouse in the woods that will transport him to a different time and place. The voice, lovingly called the Nice Man, instructs him to finish the tree house by Christmas Day.

Or else everyone will die.

As Christopher struggles with newfound powers and responsibilities, coping with two different worlds, his mother struggles with her son’s sanity, the town struggles with anger, blame, and temptation, and what follows is the chaotic descent of a small town into the throes of good versus evil, love and loss, and most importantly, trying to differentiate what is real versus what is imaginary.

In the simplest terms possible (a facetious statement if there ever was one), I thought this was going to be a thriller mystery book about a single mother and her young seven-year-old son Christopher leaving their home and her abhorrent abusive boyfriend in order to start a new life with hope and potential.

And it….is?

But it doesn’t stop there. Chbosky crams so many genres, themes, motifs, and messages into this book that when you think about it, it’s unsurprising that it’s over 700 pages long with the tiniest, most miniscule font I have ever had to squint at.

However, make no mistakes like I did, this book is horror.

Yup. You read that right folks, horror.

To preface, and I might have mentioned this in another post for another book at some point, but I vehemently dislike horror of any kind. This extends to books, movies, shows, etc.

I understand that horror is a great joy and pleasure for a vast amount of people and that it contains its own literary merit, tropes, and rules, and I can appreciate that for what it is from afar, but I personally take very little enjoyment from consuming anything horror related (I apologize to all the Stephen King fans out there in the world).

I did not fully realize the extent to which this book was a true horror.

This is entirely my own fault. I was very much blinded by the rosy colored glasses from college when I first read The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Chbosky’s first and only other novel.

Perks is wonderful. It is a tragic, yet fundamentally hopeful and loving bildungsroman that shows the beauty and the pain of growing up and accepting yourself. The movie with Emma Watson is what dreams are made of.

I committed author fraud when I picked up Imaginary Friend based on the pure speculation that I would most likely like it since he had written Perks, a book I adored as both a reader and a teacher.

I’ve warned readers against this in the past, but it seems like I should have taken my own advice: just because an author has written one good book or one book you like, does not automatically mean you will like their second book, or any of their other books for that matter.

This cannot possibly ring more true for Stephen Chbosky, as not only are his two books completely different in narrative and structure, but also vastly different in genre and purpose.

I should have stuck with my gut and realized that I probably wouldn’t like this book based off the synopsis, the genre, and yes, even the cover (it looks scary to me, okay?), but I said noooooo, it’s Chbosky, you have to read it!

And this is where we ended up.

First of all, I didn’t hate the book.

I can recognize that it is extremely well written, well crafted, and well developed. I can enjoy a slew of characters, and oh boy are there a multitude to pick from, and I can give credit where credit is due.

Chbosky is a talented writer. There is no doubt in my mind about this. The way he crafts words, the way he plays with texture and space, and with fonts and sizes, is nothing less of sheer brilliance.

He undoubtedly is also masterful at motifs, foreshadowing, and symbolism. Notably, there were so many recurring objects, colors, metaphors, and so on that were sprinkled out so consecutively and intentionally throughout the novel-some I didn’t even pick up until the end-that I was left reeling from how immensely talented and brilliant he is.

Things like his use of baby teeth, blue moon, and fogs/clouds/mist struck me in particular. I know this seems like gibberish, but Chbosky truly came across as understanding what he wanted to portray and how he wanted to deliver it.

However, the biggest compliment I can give to Chbosky is the sheer magnitude of his imagination and creativity. This book almost overwhelmed me through the use of ideas and concepts I had never really thought of before.

Alternate dimensions? Check.

Supernatural powers? Check.

Incredible use of diction and figurative language? Check and check.

Chbosky had so many wild and tantalizing beautiful turns of phrases, expressions, and descriptions that it left me with the same sort of gasping epiphany that Maggie Steifvater’s writing always leaves me with, the feelings that writing can be so utterly beautiful and compelling, that it can be all-consuming as well as never ending with its potential to stun, to create, and to warp to unique needs and purposes.

It definitely was a reading experience quite like any other I’ve had.

Be that because of the horror genre or because of Chbosky’s odd, yet addicting writing style and this has definitely become a book that left me more than a bit dumbfounded. Although I’ve sung its praises and admitted to my own faults at this point, this book isn’t without flaws.

To me the horror genre itself is just not my cup of tea like I’ve stated. Strike number one.

Second, the book was...abysmally long. Atrociously long. As I’ve also said before, I do not mind large books. In fact, big books when you’re reading something you love is a true blessing. Finding that fanfiction at 3am that hooks you immediately and you look up to see its 300k? Amazing.

Starting a new book series that you fall in love with body and soul and realize you have several installments left in the series to gorge and devour? Ecstasy.

Sloughing through a single book that starts to drag on and on repetitiously for what seems like forever? Borderline hell.

This book could have been 300 pages shorter and still contained everything Chbosky wanted to accomplish. It could have had the same brilliant writing, messages, and motifs, but without all of the never-ending back and forth between worlds and battles that just kept popping up time and time again. The abominable length considering its content is strike two.

Last, the ending was a bit of a cluster. At this point in the novel, so much is going on, you are being exposed to so many pov’s that it’s almost stress-inducing, and events taking place are cataclysmic and 10/10 on drama. Chbosky bit off more than he could chew here.

The book choked itself at the end, which, after reading for 700 pages is not the feeling you want to have. The ending left me befuddled, disappointed, and also bereft of a conclusive end and explanation for the shitstorm that had just rained down. It was not the ending I wanted, could understand, or could even really grasp. Strike three.

This book has a plethora of merits followed by three enormous criticisms. If you like horror, then you’ve already crossed hurdle number one. If you can accept it’s repellant length (let alone have days upon days of free time to actually ingest said behemoth) then that’s hurdle number two.

Hurdle three is up to you. Perhaps you would like the ending where as I found it lacking in structure, content, and answers. I like my endings tied up with neat little bows. I don’t like to be left thinking...hmmmm what does this mean?

If I am going to read your massive book, I deserve an ending that satisfies the journey. Authors telling readers that it’s up for interpretation makes me want to strangle something. It comes across as enormously pretentious to me and oftentimes lazy.

In the case of Chbosky, I think he had given himself so many loose threads that the neat little bow I desired was next to impossible.

So he didn’t even try.

Score: 6/10

Recommendation: If you love The Shining, are lacking bouts of creativity and imagination, have lots of free time during Quarantine, and don’t mind having an Inception-esque ending where you might not get all the answers you want, while being tasked with concocting it for yourself, Imaginary Friend might be your new best friend.

Bonus: Here’s a pic of my kitty photo bombing this book shoot. Hope she brightens your day!

#imaginary friend #stephen chbosky #perks of being a wallflower #horror #horror book #stephen king #the shining #literature #books #book blog #book review #book rec #Book Recommendations #book reflection #book analysis #popular fiction #top books #booklover #book

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senadimell · 5 years ago

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DW: The Monster in the Closet

I realized while looking at a Girl in the Fireplace analysis that when Moffat involves a child in an episode, he chooses a particular set of tropes. It’s no secret he has favorite types of stories; this one I’ll call “The Monster in the Closet.” Moffat came onto Doctor Who writing Monster in the Closet stories; in fact, take a look at his first 6 stories: The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, the Girl in the Fireplace, Blink, Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, The Eleventh Hour, and The Beast Below. With the exception of Blink, they all fall into this category. Why? More on that below, after we look at what the episodes share.

I’m including Night Terrors in this analysis because it’s so fitting: it’s literally about a monster and a closet. It’s actually written by Gatiss, but copies many of the same tropes and subverts the ending. I’m not including Listen, because I honestly don’t remember it well enough to analyze and don’t care for a re-watch just yet. Plus, I think Moffat was trying to branch out by that point.

Here’s what’s in a standard Moffat Monster in the Closet episode.

The Child

Fake Faces

Repetition is Creepy

The Doctor’s Reputation

The Bad Guy isn’t evil, just fulfilling its nature

The child (or perceived child) is isolated from the adults in their life who should protect them but don’t realize the monsters are real. The Doctor steps in to validate them and solve figure out how to tackle their monster, who is real.

The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances: Nancy (Jamie and the kids Nancy looks after are also contestants here.)

The Girl in the Fireplace: Reinette

Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead: Cal

The Eleventh Hour: Amelia Pond

The Beast Below: Mandy (Timmy is also a contestant)

Night Terrors: George

Fake faces indicate something uncanny is occurring. The two-faced nature of the monsters suggests that the monster is not what we think it is.

The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances

The Girl in the Fireplace

Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead

The Beast Below: (Liz 10 also has a mask and initially comes off as sinister, and is revealed to be part of the problem by choosing ignorance)

This is a bit of a stretch, but here’s the face-changing Prisoner Zero from the Eleventh Hour:

It’s worth noting that the Doctor had his own face change in this episode, so we’re waiting to see if he’s the genuine article or if he’s more like the monsters.

Night Terrors. Doesn’t get creepier than this.

Repetition is creepy. This doesn’t really serve a narrative purpose beyond being creepy, other than perhaps to indicate the monster has a goal that we do not understand. When we do, we can solve the problem. This kind of reminds me of when a kid is trying to get their parent’s attention, but they’re on the phone and don’t really hear. I find that just like fake faces, the more often this is used, the more banal I find it.

The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances: Creepiest thing ever

The Girl in the Fireplace: What is that mysterious ticking noise?

Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead: (so much repetition here that any episode after it that uses repetition feels like overkill to me)

The Eleventh Hour:

The Beast Below does something a little different. It goes for a creepy nursery rhyme instead:

GIRL: A horse and a man, above, below. One has a plan, but both must go. Mile after mile, above, beneath. One has a smile, and one has teeth. GIRL: Though the man above might say hello, expect no love from the beast below.

Night Terrors:

DOCTOR: George! George, what's going on? Are you doing it? ALEX: What's happening? GEORGE: Please save me from the monsters. Please save me from the monsters. Please save me from the monsters. Please save me from the monsters. DOCTOR: George, no! GEORGE: Please save me from the monsters. Please save me from the monsters. Please save me from the monsters. ALEX: Help me, Doctor! GEORGE: Please save me from the monsters. DOCTOR: George, no! (The Doctor is dragged back into the cupboard.) GEORGE: Please save me from the monsters. Please save me from the monsters. Please save me from the monsters. (Alex is dragged into the cupboard.) ALEX: No! (And the door slams shut. Peace reigns again.)

Line about Doctor’s reputation scaring off the bad guys: The Doctor acts as a parental figure, but instead of dismissing the childish fear of the monsters, he validates and vanquishes. He fulfills a parental role, though, and just as parents scare away monsters by virtue of being an adult, the Doctor scares away monsters just by being the Doctor.

*The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances: Saving this one for last.

The Girl in the Fireplace:

DOCTOR: Even monsters from under the bed have nightmares, don't you, monster? YOUNG REINETTE: What do monsters have nightmares about? DOCTOR: Me!

Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead:

VASTA NERADA: These are our forests. They are our meat. DOCTOR: Don't play games with me. You just killed someone I liked. That is not a safe place to stand. I'm the Doctor, and you're in the biggest library in the universe. Look me up. (The Vasta Nerada desists and gives him a day to evacuate the library)

The Eleventh Hour:

DOCTOR: Okay. One more. Just one. Is this world protected? Because you're not the first lot to come here. Oh, there have been so many. (The projection shows the Daleks et al.) DOCTOR: And what you've got to ask is, what happened to them? (A run through of all the previous Doctors, then this Doctor steps through the projection with a jacket and bow tie.) DOCTOR: Hello. I'm the Doctor. Basically, run.

The Beast Below:

This one breaks the mold a bit: It’s Liz 10 who does all of the “fear my reputation lines” and pulls almost the same line as the Doctor in 11th hour (I'm the bloody Queen, mate. Basically, I rule). What ties this to other Monster in the Closet episodes is that problem’s solution comes from realizing how amazing the Doctor is, and applying that logic to our misunderstood Starwhale. Since it doesn’t need to be scared away like our past few monsters, we get this instead:

AMY: The Star Whale didn't come like a miracle all those years ago. It volunteered. You didn't have to trap it or torture it. That was all just you. It came because it couldn't stand to watch your children cry. What if you were really old, and really kind and alone? Your whole race dead. No future. What couldn't you do then? If you were that old, and that kind, and the very last of your kind, you couldn't just stand there and watch children cry.

AMY: Amazing though, don't you think? The Star Whale. All that pain and misery and loneliness, and it just made it kind. DOCTOR: But you couldn't have known how it would react. AMY: You couldn't. But I've seen it before. Very old and very kind, and the very, very last. Sound a bit familiar?

Night Terrors:

Again, the formula’s changing. Here, the Doctor’s title declaration triggers the monster and makes the scary stuff happen rather than the other way ‘round because the resolution is reconciliation between parent and child. If the Doctor were to be the substitute parental figure, he would interfere with that reconciliation.

GEORGE [memory]: Who are you? DOCTOR [memory]: I'm the Doctor. GEORGE [memory]: A doctor? Have you come to take me away? Away. Away. Away. DOCTOR: That's what did it. That's what the trigger was. He thought you were rejecting him. He thought he wasn't wanted, that someone was going to come and take him away.

(It should be noted that there’s still a title declaration where the Doctor assumes that people should know and respect his title, even though they have no logical reason to:

DOCTOR: I'm not just a professional. I'm the Doctor. ALEX: What's that supposed to mean? DOCTOR: It means I've come a long way to get here, Alex. A very long way. George sent a message. A distress call, if you like. Whatever's inside that cupboard is so terrible, so powerful, that it amplified the fears of an ordinary little boy across all the barriers of time and space. )

So that brings me back to The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances. One of my huge Doctor Who pet peeves is the Doctor’s growing hubris. I could manage it in seasons 2-4 because everybody and their dog was calling the Doctor out when he went too far, but it just kind of stopped in season 5 and the Doctor threw out more and more lines about how great or scary he was.

What I love about Nine is that he’s humble. What? you ask. The man who told us “I am so impressive!” is the most humble? Yes. Despite his “devil may care” blustering, Nine carries a huge burden of guilt and he constantly questions whether or not he has the authority to make big decisions when lives are at stake. It’s no coincidence that Harriet Jones pulls the “I’m the only elected official” card in World War Three to tell the Doctor to save the world even if she and Rose might die, or that when the Doctor acts unilaterally to let the Gelth posses corpses in The Unquiet Dead, he’s wrong, or that his actions to free the human race from the brainwashing news just leads to societal collapse and allows the Daleks a place to lie in wait, or that he’s spared from deciding Blon’s fate in Boomtown by the TARDIS. It all leads to his decision in front of the Daleks: Coward or killer? Do I have the right to decide who lives and dies? His answer is no, I don’t (then Rose saves the day).

In keeping with his personality, it would be totally out of character for him to boast of his reputation to scare away the monsters. Instead, we get this beautiful inversion of the Monster in the Closet Doctor/Parent figure scaring away the monsters by virtue of title:

DOCTOR: Amazing.

NANCY: What is?

DOCTOR: 1941. Right now, not very far from here, the German war machine is rolling up the map of Europe. Country after country, falling like dominoes. Nothing can stop it. Nothing. Until one, tiny, damp little island says no. No. Not here. A mouse in front of a lion. You're amazing, the lot of you. Don't know what you do to Hitler, but you frighten the hell out of me. Off you go then do what you've got to do. Save the world.

Instead of an “I’m the Doctor! Monsters are scared of me!” line, we get the Doctor saying ‘the monsters are scared of you.’ Then, he says he himself is frightened of humans. That’s an odd thing to say, since Nine doesn’t act frightened of humans and seems to just love them, until you consider the thematic implications. Who’s scared of the humans? The monsters.

The Doctor from ‘Dalek’ is calling.

The Doctor considers himself to be one of the monsters, even if he’s trying to atone for his past. He’s desperately avoiding whatever reputation’s left after the Time War and doesn’t pull that card until he’s facing a Dalek army. I am so so so grateful we got this line, instead of a line about how great the Doctor is.

The bad guy is not actually malicious, just following its nature: The monster is always something real here, but it’s never properly evil. I do like a good “the aliens just have different needs than humans” plot. That said, it can get predictable when you know there’s going to be a twist coming. I like the twists less and less as the episodes go on.

The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances: The monster is the child! Sort of: the good-at-healing but bad-at-AI nanogenes made Jamie and everyone else a monster since they didn’t know what they were going for as they repaired the humans.

The Girl in the Fireplace: Arguably the most sinister on this list, the droids aren’t malicious, just trying to repair their ship with re-purposed body parts because they broke down. Not evil, just following incomplete AI instructions like our Nanogenes. This was the only thing I liked in this episode. At least the monsters had a reason they were obsessed with Reinette, unlike the stalker-y actions the Doctor took that were supposed to be 100% okay, even though he criticized the Robots for doing that?

Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead: The Vasta Nerada are creepy and eat people, but it’s just because their forest was pulped and they came here in the books! They just want to be left in peace to hunt like normal predators.

The Eleventh Hour: This one doesn’t fit quite so neatly. However, it should be noted that the primary danger in the episode doesn’t come from the bad guy, Prisoner Zero, but the cops looking for him who are willing to boil the earth. They’re not evil, just callous and need to be reminded of proper boundaries.

The Beast Below: The weird scorpion stingers are just the Starwhale! It loves children. It doesn’t even care about being tortured for centuries and will keep driving everyone through space.

Night Terrors: George is monster! That is, he’s the one causing the creepy stuff to happen because he’s an alien who stressed out about the parents he brainwashed abandoning him. I guess that’s sci fi for you?

With the exception of Blink, all of the monsters are shown as innocent, if dangerous. They just need to put their energy in a different direction. It’s not until Victory of the Daleks that Moffat breaks the mold. Why? The punchline of “Monster in the Closet” stories is that the monsters are real and scary, but not evil, just following their nature. Daleks fall into the “these are actual bad guys” category, not the misunderstood monster. (Which is kinda funny, because it’s been established that Daleks are genetically engineered to kill and hate. They may be a Nazi analogue, but Nazis were people who chose evil. The Daleks are bred to hate and exterminate--note what happens to the “impure” dalek in Dalek and Evolution of the Daleks: they don’t kill people, and then they die.)

My biggest beef with these episodes that they’re all relatively close together, so it’s easy to notice the overlap. When Moffat uses almost the exact same line in one episode as in the previous episode, I notice. When he uses the same mask design, I notice. When he has a constantly repeated line and does it again, I notice. Even before I waded into anti Moffat stuff, I noticed a shift at the end of season 4. I attributed it to a new cast since I just couldn’t click with anything. Then, I learned there was a new writer, and found out he had also written my least favorite episode of New Who (The Girl in the Fireplace).

After writing this, I can’t help but parrot what I’ve heard elsewhere: Moffat’s trying to write a fairytale. A lot of the people and dangers feel more like archetypes than people, and the dialogue is witty but often unnatural--nobody goes around bantering like that all the time. The villains are identified by their form just as much as what they intend to do. There’s also this weird idolization of childhood and the innocent child. I don’t like it much. I’m more of the Coraline, Witches of Worm, Egyptian Game, and Wrinkle in Time mold, where the kids are just as realized and human as their adult counterparts and can lack empathy and be as creepy as adults. Alternatively, I’ll take Shannon Hale’s fairy-tale retellings where the bad guys are people and the solution involves personal courage and collaborative effort. (Moffat can keep his Day of the Doctor maypole children, and I will keep Chloe the scribbler, even if her episode was a little off).

My rating for these episodes, from least to most favorite:

The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances: Love Christopher Eccleston’s performance and was very creeped out by the child monsters. The solution to the problem was implied but not obvious so I didn’t get it until I was supposed to. I didn’t enjoy the introduction of a love triangle or the constant innuendo, but at least it was gone in an episode. Also, I will never not fangirl over “Everybody Lives!” and its significance to Nine.

Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead: Thoroughly enjoyed these episodes, though I do have things to quibble with (wish Lee was black like Donna’s other romantic interests--she’s got a type and it’s not “gorgeous and can’t speak a word,” among other critical things). Overall, a great episode

The Eleventh Hour, which I enjoyed, but makes me feel weirder and weirder the more I watch it between child/adult Amy, handcuffs and porn references, and the annoying “prisoner zero has escaped” mantra, plus “I’m the doctor! The earth is protected! I also didn’t like the repeat of comatose people sitting up and saying things. It was good the first time, not so much the second. Funny, but also uncomfortably awkward and creepy, and not in the “are you my mummy” way.

The Beast Below, which felt like it was recycled from earlier tropes to me. Maybe if Liz 10 wouldn’t have had the GitF porcelain mask, I wouldn’t be as tempted to compare it to other Monster in the Closet episodes. Overall, just meh.

The Girl in the Fireplace, which rubs me wrong in every way, except for the droids cannibalizing crew to save the ship--what does that say about me and the episode? I will not rewatch this episode willingly.

#anti moffat #analysis #dw meta #amelia pond #the girl in the fireplace #9th doctor #ninth doctor #10th doctor #tenth doctor #11th doctor #even if this is moffat analysis #i feel like it's too anti to tag it with a plain moffat tag #doctor who #doctor who meta #the monster in the closet

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lanottedellastrega · 5 years ago

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Out of the Shadows

Metal Hammer, Summer 2015. Transcript behind the cut.

OUT OF THE SHADOWS Poised to release their third album, Ghost have returned from their unholy slumber to reveal how their conversion mission is progressing - and when their end times might come... Words: Chris Chantler. Pics: John McMurtrie

Surely this can't be right. Hammer is awaiting an audience with a Nameless Ghoul from the Swedish Devil-worshipping cult of Ghost, half-expecting to be blindfolded and ridden to the ruins of a deconsecrated church for a clandestine rendezvous with the masked and robed envoys of Satan. Yet we're in the executive lounge of a Kensington hotel, and there's an extremely polite, alarmingly youthful-looking short-haired man in a leather jacket being introduced as "the author of Ghost." Hammer experiences some cognitive dissonance, imagining that this is a hoax, that Ghost are slyly pretending to have human faces and interpersonal skills to divert attention from the true nature of their esoteric origins or seduce us into foul practices. The only visible clue to this young man's role as Ghost mouthpiece is the symmetrically matching pair of skull-and-crossbones patches on his leather sleeves. Yet when he starts talking about Ghost's third album, the majestic Meliora, it's clear this guy knows what he's talking about.

"The first album [2010's Opus Eponymous] was about the impending doom of a more old-school Biblical sort, where death and destruction will come in the form of locusts and dark fog: it was the coming of the Antichrist," he explains in soft, measured tones, choosing his words with care, maintaining near-constant eye contact. "The second album [2013's Infestissumam] was about the presence of the devil, taking place aesthetically in a 1700's milieu with a more Baroque theme. Whereas this album is the absence of God. It's a futuristic, pre-apocalyptic record. The cat is out of the house and the mice dance on the table. But at some point, the cat comes home..."

Meliora is a godless state, where Ghost's totemic frontman-cum-sigil Papa Emeritus wields power and terror with fearful impunity. And like his spiritual predecessor, Iron Maiden's Eddie, he's renewed with each new phase of band activity, so we're now on Papa III. His city bears more than a passing resemblance to the world we live in.

"Meliora is the metropolitan landscape in which this album takes place; a backdrop that looks like a big city with a lot of hopeful people living in fear of not succeeding," he explains candidly. "Many of the lyrics on this album deal with ambition. It's ridden with a certain degree of self-loathing. I really hate ambitious people - that's why I live in a place where there's not a whole lot of them."

Ghost may not have had any grand ambitions, but five years on from their debut demo, single and LP, some of their original concept has had to be compromised by unimagined levels of growth and demand. For example, talking openly and earnestly to the press in his street clothes, his face and voice undisguised (rumours suggest he's singer-songwriter Tobias Forge, but his real name is politely unconfirmed) is something the Ghoul never intended to do. But he admits that the success of the band thus far - and the enthusiastic patronage of superstar superfans such as James Hetfield, Phil Anselmo and Dave Grohl - has greatly surprised and humbled the men behind the masks.

"Contrary to popular belief, we did not know that we were gonna get that much heat," the Ghoul affirms. "It's fun to play high horse and say it's just a trick and we're fucking with everybody, which we obviously are not. We had no idea. When we were rehearsing our debut, we had a conversation with Rise Above and were contemplating whether to make 500 or 1,000 copies. And maybe we could do a show at Roadburn. It was very innocent - even though that's a word I've never used in terms of Ghost! We've had to grow with it, and we had a lot of catching up to do between the first and second albums. But aesthetically a lot of things we're planning on doing are things we had on paper to begin with."

Realizing something magickal was happening, Ghost made a concerted decision to spread their message of Satanic arch camp horror out of the underground, moving from cult indie label Rise Above to Spinefarm, an imprint of Universal, the world's biggest major. But from their first recordings, Ghost were a musically accessible, traditional, melodic pop-rock showbiz act with influences from some of the biggest bands of the past (Kiss, Abba, Blue Oyster Cult), a strong visual identity and a mischievously lurid theology; it was clear this band needed a level of production above the average low-key doom band.

"In order to present ourselves in the way that we intended, we needed a larger setting," agrees the Ghoul. "We want Papa's hat to not touch the ceiling. We want the band to look like we're performing a mass rather than in a punk squat. What we saw in our minds was something that looked and felt solemn and larger than life."

From their earliest pronouncements, Ghost were demanding the world's attention, and with "a lot of touring," they made sure they got it. But the question of how long they can hold it for is one that the Nameless Ghoul is acutely aware of.

"We have our figure. We have our concept. We can work with that. But we're just on our third record. Out of all our favorite bands, where were they on their third record? They sure weren't chickening out and doing the same safe shit. That's not how you make a third record; that's not how Master of Puppets or Number of the Beast got made. You have to build and be as bold as you can be, even though it feels a little scary. Because we know, we can fuck this up. Especially on the third record, when you're supposed to take a big step. Are we gonna go down to the basement again? You don't know how many chances you get. This might be our last one."

To make that all-important leap forward on a pivotal album, as Metallica or AC/DC can tell you, the secret often lies in the choice of producer. Although there's a great metallic crunch to the music on Meliora, and a psychedelic audacity, Swedish pop savvy is the band's trump card. To further that end, Ghost employed knob-twiddler Klas Ahlund, best known for his songwriting collaborations with Britney Spears, Kylie, Katy Perry and Madonna.

"We felt, 'Maybe we should work with someone who can really help us redefine what we're doing,'" the Ghoul reasons. "He was keen to find a rock band with their own material, and we were looking for a producer with more of a songwriting skill, so it was a good match. As much as we could drive a car on the energy of thinking we're the best band in the world - a very small car! - we knew there must be things we can do better. Every band with self-respect should work with someone who can really challenge what you're doing, and we did that with Klas. When you're on a major label with bigger expectations, you have the opportunity to get a yes or now from people you'd like to work with. But early on we realised, as much fun as it is to look at records we love and say, 'Let's get Mutt Lange!' or 'Let's get Bob Rock!' it felt like we should get our own man. Many of these big producers weren't big producers until they did that big record that we associate them with."

As they await the world's reaction to Meliora, Ghost have already amassed "the ground basics of what will become the next album." Nevertheless, for a band with such clear vision and attention to detail, it's tempting to wonder if they've planned an exit strategy.

"I had one vision two years ago and I have another vision now, and I may have another two years from now," muses the Ghoul. "We can catapult our concept around a few times, into different eras and spheres, but it has its time and place. I don't think anybody would enjoy having us around doing this forever; when there's nothing more to say, I hope we're sober enough to yank out the cord. We're not going to use Ghost for every musical dream we have. It's all fun and games to be in robes, but it's also lots of fun playing three-piece punk rock in your t-shirt."

However, with the musical development evident on Meliora, happily Ghost look set to continue expanding their sound and mythology. Have you joined the cult?

---

WHO IS PAPA III? Three things we know about our new, mysterious leader...

Papa Emeritus III is younger than his brother, Papa Emeritus II, by three months. Nameless Ghoul: "There are several Mamas. And one big, old, really, really bad Papa. That might give you an indication of what's gonna happen in the future. There's one shark in the water you haven't met yet..."

He controls his followers in Meliora. Nameless Ghoul: "Papa is the authoritative religious leader among his followers. He comes into the vacuum of the godless contemporary world and manipulates the people. We are, together with our fans, agreeing that you are here to worship us, and we are telling you what to do. And in this era, it's all taking place in the futuristic dystopian city of Meliora."

He was inspired by Sir Christopher Lee. Nameless Ghoul: "From Scaramanga to The Lord of the Rings, Sir Christopher Lee played a large role when it came to the concept of Papa. A scary, sophisticated, handsome older man who inflicted terror and arousal. I greatly admired him."

#metal hammer #the band ghost #papa emeritus iii #interview #tobias forge #meliora #meliora era #transcript added

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phylophe · 4 years ago

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100 Warm-Up Roleplaying Questions for Players

Character: Amur Universe: Pathfinder Gender/Race/Class: Male human Paladin/Holy Vindicator Alignment: NG/CG Questions source: here

Full (long) post under the cut.

1. If your character wasn’t an adventurer, what livelihood would they lead?

His parents were peasants who worked as labourers, so probably that. If he ever receives charity from any organisation, he’d strive to work for them.

2. Who in the party would your character trust the most with their life?

If it’s strictly his life, Niyooshan - for some reason the alchemist seems to refuse to let him die or even get too hurt. Maybe it’s a healer thing.

If it’s about making decisions based on his best interest... he doesn’t trust anyone in the current party with that at the moment.

3. What are your character’s core moral beliefs?

People are essentially good.

Mercy and compassion is no less important than justice and righteousness.

Any good is worth doing.

Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity.

4. What relationship does your character have with their parents and siblings?

He left home at the age of 8, and his parents were largely absentee in those years. He honours them out of societal expectations of filial piety, but that’s about it.

He’s the second child of five. His older brother (1st) and younger sister (4th) passed when he was 7; he depended a lot on the former, and got along well with the latter as they have the most similar personalities amongst the siblings at the time.

For his surviving siblings, he is very close to his younger brother (3rd, only a year his junior), and they still exchange letters frequently. He and his youngest sister (5th) barely knew one another until they reunited recently as adults.

5. Does your character have any biases for or against certain races?

Having the privilege of being human, he has the common in-universe biases but he tries his best to check them. He does this especially consciously when it comes to race/ancestry (i.e. species) - one of his friends from his apprentice days was lynched for being a drow.

6. What is your character’s opinion on nobility? On authority?

He respects nobility who is responsible in their post, and righteous authority.

Otherwise he tolerates them and tries not to cause trouble... unless they do something with which he greatly disagrees morally.

7. Describe your character’s current appearance: clothes, armour, scars they’ve picked up along the journey, etc.

(Skipping the part about scars - addressed in #21)

He dresses in full, heavy plate armour complete with a kite shield when out in the field or in battle.

During downtime, he wears simple tunics with trousers and boots, usually with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Sometimes he wears a gambeson on top or a leather cuirass for more formality.

8. What location encountered in the campaign has your character felt the most “at home” in, or just generally liked the most?

(Answering the second part - first part addressed in #40.)

The small towns and villages they’ve passed through with down-to-earth folks. Though he also likes cities with rich histories and culture.

9. What deity, if any, does your character worship? What’s their opinion on other people’s worship?

Sarenrae - the goddess of the sun, redemption, honesty, and healing.

He respects most other gods and religions on the good or neutral side of the good-evil axis. With evil gods, he tries not to judge their believers until evil actions based on such beliefs are actually taken.

10. If your character had time to pick up any artisan’s tools, game set, instrument, etc., what would it be?

Some sort of sculpture, maybe pottery or carving. He’s a very tactile person.

11. Describe your character’s current relationship with the player character sitting to your right.

(Rolling 1d3 between 1. Amalli, 2. Mawari, 3. Niyooshan)

AMALLI: It’s complicated - he trusts that she means well and has his best interest in mind, however what she considers “best” is rather... unusual. He teeters between having faith that she is kind by nature, and being annoyed at her messed up values and principles ingrained by nurture.

12. What is your character’s current goal, summed up in one sentence?

Save the sun, keep his uncle alive, vindicate his friend’s honour.

13. Does your character ever want to “settle down” with a spouse, children, house, etc.?

He’s a sojourner who feels uneasy if he has to stay in one place for an extended amount of time. At this point he’s accepted the single life; it makes it easier to travel.

14. Has your character ever been in love?

He’s aromantic/asexual and can’t really distinguish between romantic and platonic love very well. He does love his friends and found family deeply however.

15. What battle in the campaign has been most memorable to your character?

Against a dragon turtle which is also a divine guardian of sorts. The party angered it and was having trouble hurting it at all; he used Greater Angelic Aspect for the first time to speak to it so it would stop attacking them. It eventually involved taking a massive hit for it and dying (for the first time since level 1), but it ended the battle with no further damages to the party.

16. If your character wasn’t whatever class they are, what would they be instead?

A cleric. Arguably with his temperament he’d have turned out better as one.

17. What is your character’s favourite season?

Spring - the sun gets stronger, the day gets longer, the plants and animals become livelier.

18. What would your character’s Zodiac sign be, following stereotypical astrology?

Pisces.

19. Where in the world does your character most want to visit?

If it’s only Golarion and the material plane - the Padishah Empire of Kelesh.

20. What is the biggest mistake your character has ever made?

Boy where do we begin. A few months ago he’d have said “going to pee alone that one time”, but he’s okay with that now.

He thinks his biggest mistake was to give in to despair and as a result fell from grace and lost his god-given powers. He counts the lives lost that could otherwise be saved as his fault.

21. Does your character have any noticeable scars? If so, what are their stories?

A scar on his neck from a time when he wanted to kill himself, and a stigmata in the form of a sunburst brand on his right hand from when he became a Holy Vindicator.

22. What animal best represents your character?

Bison - sometimes peaceful and absentminded, other times temperamental; bull-headed, tough and hardy, and stubborn.

23. If your character could go back in time and change one thing about their life, what would it be?

Aside from not falling from grace as per #20... pick a more common language to learn in school. See #95.

24. Which other player character does your character find themselves having the most in common with?

Those in the first adventuring party he’s had - with Adeline, Mirele, and Kebarong. Simple people with simple needs. Their personalities may be very different, but at least they live in worlds that are relatable.

25. Does your character regret any particular choice the party has made?

Anything that involves the deaths of innocents, even/especially if it’s for the “greater good”.

26. What would your character say their best trait would be?

His faith in humanity.

27. What is your character’s greatest fear? Deep, irrational?

Having his soul doomed in one way or another. Presently the most plausible method by which this can happen is to have it torn asunder and destroyed.

28. What is currently motivating your character to stay with the party?

He knows he can’t do much of anything alone - not only does he play a supportive role in combat, he needs his companions’ skills, qualities, experience, and expertise to achieve the massive goal they all share (to a degree) - see #12.

29. What are your character’s hobbies and interests outside of their class?

Animals (especially felines), writing letters, pleasant long walks somewhere outdoors.

30. What would most people think when they first see your character?

Big, shiny, clangy, scary-looking, heavily-armoured man. He himself is completely unaware of this perception.

31. What stereotypical group role does your character play in the party? (The Mom, the Mess, the Comic Relief, etc. Optionally: What role would your character play in the “Five Man Band” structure?)

Often he’s the Heart. In a Five Man Band he’d be (conditionally) the Leader, the Lancer, or the Chick.

32. What is your character the most insecure about?

His terrible schmoozing skills.

33. What person does your character admire most?

His benefactor, mentor, and mother figure - a cleric who gave up her peaceful life and comfortable home to travel the world as a missionary and healer.

34. What does your character admire and dislike the most about the player character sitting to your left?

(Rolling 1d3 between 1. Amalli, 2. Mawari, 3. Niyooshan)

NIYOOSHAN: He admires the alchemist’s resourcefulness, calm and analytical mind, general intelligence and skills in what he does.

He dislikes his cold rationality and ability to make brutal decisions without hesitation... but what he dislikes more is his own feeling of envy for such a quality. (See also #67.)

35. Why is your character’s lowest stat their lowest (the in-character reason, not “because there’s no reason for a wizard to have 16 strength, duh”)?

Strength and dexterity (I know). He grew up poor and missed out on some bulking up as a child. He’s hardy though.

36. What would be your character’s theme song/favourite band/favourite genre of music?

Folk music with lots of wind instruments.

37. What stereotypical role would your character play in a high school AU/if they attended a normal high school? (Nerd, jock, bully, goth, etc.)

Looks like a jock, acts like a nerd. Probably would get bullied if not for protective friends.

38. What treasure/item/artifact that your character has collected during the adventure is the most important to them?

His standard issue shield given by the Church (with which he shares a Divine Bond, and he has had various upgrades attached to it), letters from friends and those he considers family, a feather from the Vermillion Bird.

39. Is there any particular weapon, item, etc. that your character longs to find?

Right now, as the campaign demands - the Chronicles of the Righteous. Otherwise he’d love to come across any of Sarenrae’s divine artifacts.

40. Where does your character feel the most at home?

BACKSTORY: the Sarenite church grounds in Absalom, where he grew up.

IN-GAME: Falcon’s Hollow, despite its cursedness, where he met people he grew to trust with his life.

41. Does your character care about how they’re perceived by others? How do they change themselves to fit in with other people?

He cares how his loved ones see him insofar as he wants them to trust him, but he doesn’t compromise easily on the kind of person his principles make him.

42. What does your character think is the true meaning of life?

To find something worth loving in everything and everyone.

43. What is your character’s scent? (Bonus points for a description that sounds like it could be from a bad [or awesome] fanfic.)

Sun-burnt vegetation and a faint but unmistakable hint of metal.

44. Does your character think more with their heart or their brain?

Heart.

45. What is your character’s most recent or frequent nightmare?

His most frequent nightmares all involve fire - a child being incinerated, a pile of bodies being cremated, a gigantic flaming wheel in the sky overlooking chaos befalling a city.

46. What opinion does your character have on [CERTAIN ESTABLISHED GROUPS/AUTHORITIES IN THE GAME WORLD]? (Dragon-marked Houses, royal crown, etc.)

CHURCH OF SARENRAE IN ABSALOM: It was his home once; not anymore. Maybe it can’t ever be home again now that he’s seen how deep the corruption runs.

EAGLE KNIGHTS: They mean well, but they have a ruthless murderer in their own ranks and after all these years they haven’t sorted that out. Helpful to a point, at least.

HELL KNIGHTS OF THE SCOURGE: They’re more reasonable and likeable than he’d expected, and he’s not sure how to feel about that.

PATHFINDER SOCIETY: Crazy resourceful, shamelessly shifty.

JADE REGENT: Shit.

47. How did your character spend their childhood? Where did they grow up/who were their childhood friends?

He lived in poverty in a backwater town (Railford) in southern Taldor until the age of 8, when he was brought to the Church of Sarenrae in Absalom. His years there as an apprentice were the happiest, most peaceful of his life - he had his mentor and her companion as pseudo-parents, and made some close friends when he was training to be a paladin.

48. What aspect of your character’s future are they most curious about? (If they could know one thing about the future, what would it be?)

Whether or not he can redeem Shasriel. See also #52.

49. What colours are associated with your character?

Green, yellow, brown.

50. Who in the party would your character prioritise rescuing, in dire circumstances?

Among his current party of Amalli, Niyooshan, and Mawari, he’d prioritise Amalli because she’s been with him the longest and he knows her best out of the three.

51. Is your character the most swayed by ethos, pathos, or logos?

Pathos.

52. If your character was granted a single use of Wish, what would they use it for?

He’s wary of the repercussions and unforeseen consequences of such a powerful spell, so he’ll restrict it to wishing that the wraith feeding off of his soul be saved from undeath and her uncorrupted nature restored. See also #48.

53. What is your character’s favourite spell? If they don’t use spells: what is their favourite personal weapon/combat manoeuvre/skill/etc.?

Lay on Hands, with mercies and feats.

54. How does your character feel about keeping secrets from the rest of the party?

He doesn’t like it but he does it with people he’s not close to, out of fearing judgement. With close people he only keeps secrets if he himself doesn’t want to confront those things, which actually happens quite often.

55. What type of creature in the world is your character the most intrigued by?

Benevolent creatures that should be evil by nature - devils and undead for example.

56. When they were a child, what did your character want to be, or think they were going to be, when they grew up?

Before he went into paladin-specific training, he wanted to be a missionary cleric - just like his mentor.

57. The player character to your left admits that they’re passionately in love with your character. How would your character respond?

(Rolling 1d3 between 1. Amalli, 2. Mawari, 3. Niyooshan)

MAWARI: He’d think she’s ill, making a bad joke, or trying to curse him.

58. If somebody (an NPC, someone from their backstory, etc.) your character trusts/loves asked your character to do something against the party’s best interest, who would they side with?

It would depend of course, but at this point he doesn’t really trust his current party, so he would probably side with his loved one.

59. Does your character value their own best interest more than the party’s?

Definitely not, to a fault sometimes.

60. What decision would the party have to make in order for your character to consider splitting off from the group?

Something unequivocally cruel and undeniably evil.

61. How does your character imagine the way they will die?

In battle, protecting others with all that he can give.

62. What is your character’s greatest achievement?

Aside from the battle described in #15, being vindicated by his goddess at the exact moment he defied an order from his religious superiors.

63. Is your character willing to risk the well-being of others in order to achieve their goal?

Not at all, unless his goal also happens to be the greater good.

64. What is your character’s opinion on killing others?

He understands the necessity of killing in the kind of life he’s chosen to live, but he tries his best to avoid killing innocents, and even those who are guilty - so long as he thinks they have a chance to be redeemed.

65. What is your character’s favourite food? Beverage?

He doesn’t have single favourite, but he likes homey, hearty meals. Potatoes make him think of Kebarong, one of his closest companions. As of late he seems to have suddenly developed a constant craving for almonds.

66. How generous is your character? Especially to those they don’t know?

Very. He’d fall for any sob story; even if he knows he’s been cheated he wouldn’t change his ways, because his generosity being abused is not his problem, but the abuser’s.

67. What is your character the most envious about, regarding anyone in the party?

As addressed in #34, he’s envious about Niyooshan’s ability to make cruel but rational and/or necessary decisions. He is also sometimes envious of Amalli’s blissful ignorance of some realities of the world, but other times he feels sorry for her.

68. The player character to your left and the player character to your right are both telling your character two different versions of the truth. Who does your character believe?

(Rolling 2d3 between 1. Amalli, 2. Mawari, 3. Niyooshan)

MAWARI & AMALLI: This is a toughie. On the one hand he trusts Amalli more than Mawari, since he’s known the former for a while and became acquainted with the latter only recently; on the other hand Amalli has a way of viewing and interpreting reality that he really doesn’t understand sometimes. Ultimately he’d take Amalli’s word for it if he has to.

69. What is your character’s sexuality/relationship with sex?

He’s aromantic and asexual, although he does enjoy intimacy with friends (i.e. he’s quite touchy-feely). if someone were to pursue him romantically/sexually and he already likes them a lot, he’d do what they request if he thinks that it improves their bond.

70. What is your character’s biggest pet peeve?

People using doublespeak, especially if it’s for politics.

71. Describe how your character feels about the party’s current situation/objective/etc.

It’s a big job and he can’t even fathom how they’ll get there, but it has to be done and it seems like he and his companions are the ones who need to do it, so he’ll just have to take things one step at a time.

72. Who in the party would your character trust the most to keep an important secret?

Niyooshan - he trusts the man to exercise discretion. Amalli means well but tends to run her mouth.

73. If your character knew that they were going to die in a month, how would they spend the rest of their life?

Write heartfelt letters to his friends and family, write strongly-worded letters to his Church and the authorities-that-be, and do his best to further his and his allies’ mission.

74. What makes your character feel safe?

A nice home-cooked meal, a warm fire, knowing people he trusts and loves are close by.

75. If your character had the chance to rename the party/give the party a name, no questions asked, what would it be?

“Not-Rebels”. Because they’re totally not rebels with massive bounties on their heads.

76. What memory does your character want to forget the most?

Technically he’s already forgotten it - the process by which his soul was bound to an ancient Azlanti wraith was traumatic enough that his memory of it is now repressed.

For his intact memories, he’d very much like to forget about the time he watched a child be incinerated in an instant, or the time he’s had to mercy-kill a group of innocents who’d been afflicted by the curse of undeath... or maybe he doesn’t because he thinks he needs to carry his “mistakes” with him.

77. If your character had to multiclass into a class they currently aren’t the next time they level up, what would it be and what reason would they have for doing so?

Fighter - so he can be more flexible with gear, be more effective at controlling the battle, and - most importantly - use tower shields.

78. What television/book/video game/etc. character would your character be best friends with? (Or: what media character is your character the most influenced by/similar to?

Take all the usual Knight Templar tropes and subvert them.

Additionally, my GM compares him to Anders of the Dragon Age franchise. I created Amur way before I knew who Anders was, and some of the similarities are frankly uncanny.

79. What unusual talents does your character possess?

High pain tolerance, and (is this a talent?) diminished self-preservation instincts.

80. How does your character feel about receiving/giving orders? Are they more of a leader, or a follower?

He’s much happier receiving orders than giving them, but he can’t help but question or even defy those he considers immoral. He wants to be a follower but is ultimately too headstrong and impulsive to be a good one.

81. What does your character’s name represent to them? (Or: why as a player did you choose your character’s name?)

His name is one (of the few) ties he has with his birth family, but he’s fine if he has to use a different name temporarily for a good reason.

I named him after the Amur River. As a geomorphologist I sometimes name my OCs after landform features. All my original PCs and NPCs in this universe are named after real-world rivers.

82. Is your character more of an introvert, or an extrovert?

Introvert.

83. How far is your character willing to go to pursue the “greater good”? Do they believe in a greater good at all?

He believes in the greater good, he just doesn’t believe in having to sacrifice innocent individuals to pursue it.

84. What does your character want to be remembered by?

Kindness and compassion.

85. What would be your character’s major in college?

Humanities - more precisely, something along the lines of Anthropology or Cultural Studies.

86. Does your character consider themselves a hero, villain, or something else?

Something else - he sees himself as one who helps someone else become a hero, or turns someone away from villainy.

87. What major arcana tarot card best represents your character?

Strength.

88. Where does your character see themselves in 20 years?

Dead. Still travelling around, with or without a name, finding trouble, and doing whatever needs to be done.

89. What is your character’s relationship with magic? Are they scared of it, wish to know more about it, indifferent to it?

To him, in general magic is just another ability or talent, as much as someone can be gifted physically, intellectually, or artistically. His own magic is granted by his deity, so he sees it as a blessing and not really belonging to him.

90. Who is your character’s biggest rival?

He doesn’t consider anyone his rival, but he does have a nemesis of sorts by the name of Geminus Nero Rugatonn. The guy’s been hounding him and his friends since something like level 6.

91. What is your character’s guiltiest pleasure?

Playing with cats.

92. What does your character hope for the afterlife?

To have his soul intact and actually see Sarenrae in all her glory, and to meet those he thinks he’s failed and apologise to them.

93. Who in the party does your character trust the least?

At this point, Mawari - she’s only just joined them, is a witch with creepy curses and hexes, and is their ally only because their goals align with her being a traitor to the Jade Regent.

94. What is your character’s biggest flaw?

Impulsiveness, and being a bleeding heart who is way too forgiving.

95. How did your character learn the languages that they speak?

TALDANE: His first language, and the common tongue across most of the Inner Sea region.

TERRAN: Learned it as part of the curriculum in his apprentice days. Why he didn’t pick something less obscure is anyone’s guess. Maybe he just doesn’t want to use it much.

NECRIL: Started to learn this after being possessed (?) by a wraith.

TIAN: The common tongue in the continent of the current campaign, Tian Xia.

MINKAI: The local tongue in the country of the current campaign, Minkai.

SIGN LANGUAGE: Learned this after Niyooshan lost his speech.

96. What is your character’s favourite school of magic/type of weaponry?

MAGIC: Healing (conjuration) and harm-negating spells (abjuration).

WEAPONRY: Do shields count?

97. What is most important to your character: health, wealth, or happiness?

Happiness.

98. What advice would your character give to a younger version of themselves?

“Don’t ignore the urging of your conscience; act on it. It’s better to regret what you’ve done than what you haven’t.”

99. Are there any social or political issues your character feels strongly about?

Any sort of persecution or discrimination that is based on some neutral and often unchangeable part of someone’s identity, e.g. being slaves, low-born, or of a particular race.

100. What, currently, is your character the most curious about?

What part he has to play and how he will end up by the end of this whole deal involving nations, religions, legacies, curses, spirits, gods, and Great Old Ones.

#pathfinder #characters #amur #ttrpg #css shenanigans #nakama shenanigans #mana shenanigans #oh boy it just keeps adding up

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duhragonball · 5 years ago

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Dragon Ball Z Movie 15: Resurrection F

“Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection F” premiered on April 18, 2015. Notably, it had a U.S. theatrical release only a few months later, in August. Movie 14 got a U.S. theatrical release, but it took a lot longer, and fans didn’t really have any reason to expect that much. In 2013, we were just waiting for Funimation to release it on home video. But I think it says a lot about how successful Movie 14 was. Not only did the sequel get made only a couple of years later, but the big shots in Japan who run all this stuff finally realized that there’s an international audience just as eager to pay for this stuff. I want to say the Broly movie got released in the U.S. even faster, but I’d have to look it up. And from what I understand, the Broly movie did even bigger business than Movies 14 and 15, so I think it’s safe to say that if they keep making more of these, we can count on a speedy localization.

Do we have Fox to thank for this? I mean, would any of this Dragon Ball revival have happened if “Dragon Ball Evolution” hadn’t bombed so badly? I mean, let’s say they did a good job and made DBE really kick ass, like the Thor movies. By now they probably would have made a nice little trilogy, starring a mostly whitewashed cast. Maybe the third one would be looked down upon, or they’d try to do a reboot like with the X-Men franchise, and people would write pointless thinkpiece articles asking stupid questions about “Dragon Ball fatigue”. Teenage Justin Chatwick stans would be blogging things like “OMG Did you know there was a Dragon Ball Evolution cartoon?!?!?” Maybe those live action movies would be better than Dragon Ball Super, but they’d probably also mark the end of the franchise. At least with things as they are, there’s no telling how much more Dragon Ball content we might be getting in the 20′s.

Gee, Toei, how come your mom lets you have two logos at the start of the movie?

I just found this out last night, but Res F has the distinction of being the first movie where Toriyama wrote the actual screenplay, as opposed to just coming up with the plot and story, as in Movie 14. I’m a fan of Toriyama’s work, obviously, but I’m don’t subscribe to the idea that anything he does is pure gold and everyone else who contributes to this franchise is ruining it somehow. There are GT apologists who would try to argue that GT was more legitimate because Toriyama had some vague influence on the production, and he drew SSJ4 Goku once, so that means it’s magically awesome. It just doesn’t work. Movie 14 is better than Movie 15, and I don’t think that’s because one screenplay was better than the other, but the point is that you can’t just add more Toriyama labor and guarantee a superior product.

So there’s three big problems I have with this movie, and when I rewatched it this morning, my opinion hasn’t budged since 2015.

First, the sole premise of this movie is that Frieza comes back to menace the good guys again. That’s a bad move, period. I find Frieza overrated to begin with, and they’ve already done handful of Frieza comebacks before this movie was ever conceived. Even if it was a good idea, it’s so obvious that it’s barely worth doing. When the DBS: Broly movie was first announced, I was worried that they were making the same mistake again, but then it turned out they had a bold twist on the character to justify the effort. And that’s what it takes. If you do something obvious and predictable, if you repeat an idea you’ve already used before, then you’d better have some sort of big twist to make it fresh. Movie 15 does not have this. It does an admirable job in spite of that flaw, but it’s a pretty serious flaw.

Second, the visuals are bland and unimpressive. The point of this movie is that Goku and Frieza are going to have a rematch of their epic showdown on Namek. I just went back in my archives and pulled up a still from the Frieza Saga, and it looks ten times cooler than anything in the movie. They were fighting on an exploding planet, surrounded by red skies, lightning, molten lava, and tornadoes. Movie 15 boasts the same guys, supposedly more powerful than ever, but they fight like they’re in a video game, and the background is just this dismal cloudy sky. They had 23 years to figure out how to raise the stakes, and all they could come up with was making Frieza yellow and Goku blue.

Third, everyone acts like an idiot in this movie. Like I said, we’ve done this dance before, but everyone just repeats the same mistakes and forgets that characters can do things that they’ve done in the past. Sometimes I can’t tell whether it’s an honest flub, or a deliberate callback to classic DBZ. All I know is that I remember how it went the first time, and you’d think the characters would too, since they lived it.

Now, in spite of those issues, this film does a pretty decent job working with what it has. It’s not nearly as bad as Movies 10 and 11, which commit these same three sins and puts the main characters on the sidelines. But it’s a step down from Movie 14, and around the same time, Dragon Ball Super was starting up on Japanese TV, and that show was just adapting the movies for the first 32 episodes, so I was pretty displeased with the state of the franchise in 2015.

All right, let’s get started. The movie opens in hell, which is pretty interesting, because up until now we’ve only ever seen Toei’s version of DBZ Hell. There’s a lot of inconsistencies, like whether or not you get to keep your physical body, and whether or not hell is even that bad a place to be. Since Toriyama wrote this thing, I have to assume this is his official version of DBZ’s Hell. Conveniently, we find that it’s got plenty of layers to it, including a scary looking realm full of bats, an ocean full of Pokemon fish, and underneath all of that we have an idyllic meadow with pink trees.

This is where Frieza’s being kept, and he just has to hang from the tree in some sort of testicle-looking thing. There’s angels and fairies and a stuffed animal marching band, and it’s pretty cute, but I can see where you’d get sick of it after a while.

And Frieza’s been here for a while. This movie is set in the year Age 779, and Frieza was killed by Future Trunks in Age 764, so he’s on Year Fifteen of his infinity-year sentence. Has he been stuck in this particular torment for the entire time? Who knows? I don’t know much about Japanese afterlife mythology, but my understanding is that it’s like an even more complex version of Dante’s Inferno, where there’s all these different ordeals you have to suffer through for extraordinarily long periods of time. Maybe they let him out part of the time so he can get beat up by Pikkon and watch Goku beat Majin Buu.

One touch I appreciate is that he’s still in his Mecha-Frieza form. Does it make sense for him to retain his cybernetic parts when Trunks chopped him up into so many pieces? I don’t know, but Mecha-Frieza is my favorite Frieza, so I like the nod to that moment.

Meanwhile, Frieza’s private army somehow still exists after all these years. This movie calls it the “Frieza Force”, which I’m not too wild about, but I’ll run with it. I think it’s kind of stupid to keep calling it that so long after Frieza’s death, but maybe it’s a bluff to anyone who doesn’t know Frieza’s dead. At this point, all they have left is the name. One of Frieza’s administrators, Sorbet, has taken charge of the whole thing, and I guess he’s done a fairly impressive job if he’s kept it going this long, but all he’s really accomplished is to oversee the slow dissolution of Frieza’s holdings.

Funimation made a lot out of the idea of Frieza as an emperor, suggesting he was a head of state and the planets he conquered were part of a vast interstellar nation. I think in the dub there was a comment about how the Frieza Force used to control like 70% of the known universe, but none of that’s in the Japanese version. The original premise of Frieza is that he just has a bunch of guys fighting his battles for him, and he buys and sells planets to finance all the wine and spaceships he goes through. I rather prefer that sort of aimlessness about his organization. If he were like a Roman Caesar, you could at least balance out his brutality with the semblance of authority he brings to his conquests. A Pax Friezae, if you will. But he’s not Diocletian, he’s a trust fund baby who just happens to be nigh invulnerable. He never cared what happened to anyone else, or how things would run after he was gone.

Anyway, Sorbet just doesn’t have the manpower to hold their territory, and all he can do is pull his soldiers out when uprisings get too intense. His only recourse is to wish Frieza back to life with the Dragon Balls, except he can’t find the Namekians’ new homeworld. There’s Dragon Balls on Earth, except that’s where all the Super Saiyans live, so it’s dangerous. But today, he’s decided there’s no other way. To be on the safe side, he leads an away team with just himself and his aid, Tagoma. That way there’s less chance of them being noticed by the ki-sensitive fighters on the planet.

Sigh... this is why I hate the fucking Frieza Force right here. It’s the same old spaceships, same old uniforms, same old plans. Their shuttlecraft just looks like their regular ship, only smaller. Frieza’s been dead for fifteen years, and after all this time, their biggest idea is to try to bring back LOWARD FUREEEZA SAWMA. If that was such a hot idea, then why did he get killed in the first place?

What annoys me is that there’s probably an interesting explanation for Sorbet’s strategy. You’d think he would be happier with Frieza gone. He runs this whole outfit, and even if their domain is smaller than it was under Frieza, it belongs to him, so he’s richer and more powerful than he’s ever been. But maybe he just can’t appreciate that, and he liked it better when he was a middle-manager for a big shot like Frieza. But that never gets explored in the movie. Sorbet just acts like he’s wishing back Frieza because he’s supposed to.

Anyway, it would be risky to try to go through Bulma to get the Dragon Balls, but Emperor Pilaf has a Dragon Radar of his own, so they strongarm him instead. I wonder where he got that thing. General Copper from the Red Ribbon Army had one that was never seen again, so maybe they stole it from him?

Meanwhile, here’s baby Pan. I thought Pan’s appearance in these later movies conflicted with the final three episodes of DBZ, but maybe not. The dub said she was three, but the subs said she was four. And those last three episodes took place in Age 784, while this movie shows her being newly born in Age 779, just five years earlier. So Pan could still be four years old when she fought Wild Tiger, and her birthday just hadn’t come along yet.

Anyway, Piccolo’s keeping an eye on her while her parents are shopping.

Then the sky gets dark, and Gohan and Piccolo know that someone’s wishing on the Dragon Balls, but they don’t know who or why. Oh, by the way, there’s a big statue of Mr. Satan here, and that’s his only appearance in this movie.

So Sorbet makes his big wish to have a resurrection... of F. Which stands for “Frieza.”

Just like the title of this cartoon!

But Shenron explains that it would be kind of dumb to do that. This was the thing I never understood when this movie was first announced. During the Frieza Saga, Shenron was used to wish back everyone killed by Frieza and his men, and Kami said that this would only work for those who had died within the past year. The implication being that Shenron can’t revive people who have been dead for a really long time.

But Toriyama seems to have taken that into account here. Shenron explains that he can revive Frieza, even after fifteen years, but he can’t restore all the damage to his body.

This leads to a quick flashback of Trunks killing him way back when. I’m glad they included this, since it’s worth explaining just how Frieza died in the first place. Trunks chopped him into pieces, then blasted the pieces. Apparently, after all this time, Shenron can only undo the blasting and the dying, but not the chopping.

However, the medical technology used by the Frieza Force has advanced somewhat since the Namek Saga, so Tagoma believes they could finish the job of putting Frieza back together. Sorbet decides it’s worth a shot, so we’re off to the races.

So Shenron plats along, and a bunch of Frieza chunks fall to the ground. I like the sound effects they make when they land.

Creepily, the pieces try to gather together again. I don’t know if this is Shenron’s power trying and failing to complete the resurrection, of if this is some function of Mecha-Frieza’s cybernetics. Either way, it doesn’t work.

But the pieces are all still alive, which is siiiick. Frieza’s eye even opens and looks at them, suggesting that he’s somehow still conscious in this state. See, this movie still has some cool stuff in it.

Then Shenron asks Sorbet what he wants for his second wish, and Sorbet had no idea that he would get more than one. He considers wishing back King Cold, but before he can decide...

... Shu wishes for cash, and gets it. Sorbet’s angry about this, but he has to hurry up and return to the ship before the Z-Fighters find him. The funny thing is that Shenron leaves after this second wish is granted, but in the Dragon Ball Super version, he grants a third wish, and Mai uses that one too. This is why I’ve spent the last 16 years confused over whether Buu-era Shenron grants two wishes or three. Apparently, the deal is that it’s three, unless you use one to wish a lot of people back to life at the same time. Then it’s two. So did Toriyama goof, or was the wish to bring back Frieza hard enough that it counts as two wishes? It doesn’t matter much, since Movies 10, 13, and 14 all played fast and loose with Shenron as well.

So now they have to load all the Frieza chunks into a big garbage can and haul them back to their ship.

They almost forget a piece, but Pilaf saves it for them. I wonder what would have happened if they left that eye behind?

So then they heal the pieces in their medical machine. I don’t know how this was supposed to work, but I assume they needed someone to stitch the pieces together, then they loaded him in the tank for a while, and then they had to take him out again, dress him up in his uniform, and put him back in to cure a while longer. Also, they have Japanese punk band Maximum the Hormone playing on the stereo the whole time they do this.

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“F” is a pretty good song, and I’m glad they put it in this movie, but I’d probably like it more if I liked Frieza more. The story goes that Akira Toriyama heard this song, probably because the band wrote it as a tribute to his character, and the song inspired him to create the story in this movie.

Anyway, Frieza breaks out of the tank and splashes green crap everywhere because he’s such a drama queen.

Sorbet explains everything that’s happened, and Frieza seems mostly bemused by it all. He’s displeased that he had to wait in hell for so long, but at least he’s out. Sorbet mentions that they plan to wish back King Cold next, but Frieza tells them not to bother, since he apparently doesn’t like his dad that much. This should be the tip to these idiots that this scheme will get them all killed.

Frieza kills a guy just to see how his skills are holding up, and he declares his intent to take revenge on the two Super Saiyans who defeated him. Remember, he still owes Goku for beating him up on Namek, but Trunks killed him before he could get to that point. And that’s my main problem with all of this. We already did a Frieza comeback, and it was Mecha-Frieza invading Earth in the Trunks Saga. He miraculously survived Namek, his soldiers spent months putting him back together, and then the very first thing he wanted to do was go to Earth and kill Super Saiyans. Does any of this sound familiar?

Besides that episode, we had several other stories that repeated the same theme. Movies 5 and 6 were basically the same idea, but with Frieza’s brother as a stand-in for Frieza himself. Episode 195 of the anime had Frieza come back as part of a revolut in hell. Movie 12 had Frieza come back, only to get killed again by Gohan. Dragon Ball GT had Frieza come back and fight Goku. I think Toriyama’s attitude is that he didn’t write those stories, so they don’t count, but it doesn’t change the fact that the audience still saw all of those. By the time this movie came along, “Frieza comes back for revenge” had been done several times.

Tagoma points out that maybe we shouldn’t rush back to Earth and get wiped out in a hopeless battle. Again. He suggests that it might be wiser to focus on rebuilding the Frieza Force, but Frieza kills him for his impudence, along with several other flunkies who just happened to be nearby.

At least Frieza has a reason for wanting to start with revenge. As far as he’s concerned, the Frieza Force can’t rebuild to its former glory, not if they have to hide from the Super Saiyans the whole time. Sorbet points out that Goku’s even stronger than he was before, citing his defeat of Majin Buu. Amazingly, Frieza’s heard of Majin Buu, since his father once told him that he should never mess with Buu or Beerus.

But this doesn’t worry Frieza much. He figured Goku would become stronger, and he thinks he can as well. Frieza was born with this unnaturally incredible power that he has, so he’s never needed to train or improve his strength. But now, he thinks that if he does train, he can surpass Goku after about four months. This is basically the Dragon Ball equivalent of “Why doesn’t Bluto eat some spinach and beat the hell out of Popeye?”

Here’s what blows my mind. In the subs, Frieza estimates that he’ll reach a power level of 1.3 million. I’m amazed that they’d even cite a power level this late in the franchise, let alone a number that low. Frieza claimed to be at one million in his second form, so I think everyone agrees that we passed 1,300,000 a long time ago. Hell, there aren’t any scouters able to measure that high anyway.

Seriously, is this official canon? It has to be right? Toriyama wrote that line himself. Is he saying eveyone from Second-form Frieza to Golden Frieza ranges from 1 million to 1.3 million? So like, Perfect Cell would be 1.1 million, I guess, and Majin Buu’s 1.2? That’s wild. I kind of like it.

What I don’t like is that it’s a little convenient that Frieza can catch up to Goku so easily. It took Gokue fifteen years to reach the level he’s at in this movie, and Frieza manages to tie him in just four months? If it was that easy, why didn’t he just do pushups for a week before he came to Earth the last time? He could have wiped out Trunks in an instant.

Moving on, a few months later, Jaco the Intergalactic Patrolman arrives on Earth to warn Bulma that Frieza is coming to Earth with a thousand soldiers.

I won’t get into Jaco’s whole deal, because I still haven’t read his manga yet, but baiscally he was friends with Bulma’s older sister back in the day, and Tights told him that Bulma knows the Super Saiyan who beat Frieza. The problem is that Goku and Vegeta aren’t on Earth right now, because they’re training with Whis on Beerus’ world. Bulma can contact Whis by holding up delicious food and calling out to him, but she doesn’t know if he’s listening. Also, Jaco waited until an hour before Frieza’s arrival to say anything, so now Bulma has to scramble to alert the others.

Here’s some bank robbers. I like this bit, because in the dub, they say “We’re as rich as rich guys!”

There’s just one problem...

Krillin’s a cop.

Then Bulma calls him and tells him the bad news. I feel like somewhere in the dub, Krillin observed that Majin Buu and Gohan could at least buy them some time, but then it turned out Buu was asleep the whole time, which was why he didn’t show up in this movie. I must be thinking of the DBS version. This is why I’m not big on Buu as a good guy, by the way. They have this insanely powerful good guy on their team, and then they never do anything with him. He slept through this crisis and the Tournament of Power, and I didn’t see him in the Broly movie either.

Anyway, Frieza killed Krillin the last time they met, but Krillin’s got big brass balls, so the first thing he does is suit up to fight his punk ass. 18 offers to go in his place, but he wants her to protect their kid while he’s gone.

Also, he asks her to shave his head, so he’ll look even cooler for this.

To be honest, I liked Krillin’s hairstyle in this movie, but yeah, bald Krillin is the way to go.

As he flies off into the face of certain doom, his big brass balls clanking as he goes, 18 thinks about how cool he is. Get you a lady who admires you half as much as 18 admires Krillin.

As Frieza returns to Earth, he goes over some details with Sorbet. In particular, no one could find the Super Saiyan who actually killed Frieza, and Sorbet speculates that he may have moved to some other planet or died while Frieza was in hell. Of course we know that Future Trunks returned to his own timeline, but Frieza doesn’t and never will. This loose end doesn’t seem to bother him much, and I don’t think that makes sense. Yes, from a dramatic standpoint, he ought to be more concerned about avenging his loss to Goku, but Trunks was the one to kill him, and I feel like Frieza doesn’t spend nearly enough time in this movie thinking about his own mortality.

Sorbet points out that even if Frieza kills Goku, he could just be wished back to life like Frieza was, right? But Frieza plans to destroy the Earth along with Goku, thereby eliminating the Dragon Balls and Earth’s hell. For some reason, Frieza seems to think that Earth has it’s own particular version of hell, and the only reason he ended up in that meadow of fairies is because he happened to die on that planet. So I guess he thinks that if he blows up the Earth, that hell will cease to exist as well? How does he know that?

Is that why he’s not worried about dying again? Does he think if he dies someplace else, he’ll end up in a more favorable afterlife? What happens if you die in outer space? What sort of hell is Tagoma in right now?

At any rate, Frieza thinks he has all the angles worked out, and he checks to make sure Sorbet is prepared for his “emergency plan” in case things don’t work out. This is as close as we ever get to any sort of character development for Frieza here. The last time he went to Earth, he didn’t have a plan B, and now he does.

Meanwhile, Goku is training with Vegeta and Whis, just as Bulma said. Recall that Whis is even stronger than Beerus, who dominated the boys in the last movie. So Whis can fight them both at once without any trouble at all.

But their training wakes up Beerus, so they have to explain how they pay Whis for his lessons with tasty food from Earth. Beerus is annoyed that Whis would eat this stuff without him but he’s awake now, so he can have some of the pizza they brought over.

Meanwhile, Frieza’s ship lands on Earth, and a bunch of his goons come out.

Then he blows up North City, which he calls his way of saying hello.

So it’s up to the Z-Fighters to hold the line until Goku and Vegeta check Whis’s voice mail. Unfortunately, they’re kind of light on guys. We have Piccolo, Tien, and Krillin, and Gohan’s here, but he hasn’t kept up with his training. That’s why he wore a tracksuit to this party, because he couldn’t find his gi after all this time. Tien told Chiaotzu and Yamcha to stay out of it, since this fight would be too much for them. Okay, but why? Frieza will blow up the Earth if he wins, so what difference does it make if they stay out of this? At least if they show up they can help.

On the other hand, Krillin brought Master Roshi along, He can’t even fly! Somehow, everyone involved in making this show decided that Roshi is cooler than Yamcha, which is stone cold, 100% false. Master Roshi belongs in jail, and it doesn’t even need to be a fancy jail with a roof because he can’t fly out anyway.

Then Bulma shows up with Jaco to tell the others that she couldn’t raise Goku and Vegeta. Also, she wants Jaco to help, even though he only planned to pass along the message and GTFO. Bulma trash-talks Frieza, because she figures they still have the upper hand. After all, Gohan’s strong enough to kill Frieza, right? But Gohan explains to her that Frieza’s much stronger than he was 15 years ago, so none of them stand a chance this time around.

She asks Frieza to wait for Goku, so he agrees to hold off for ten more seconds, and then he sics his army on the Z-Fighters. I bet she wishes she had told Goten and Trunks about this rumble.

People talk about this part as the highlight of the movie, and it’s definitely one of the better parts. It’s certainly fresher,since we normally don’t see six or seven guys battling a whole army like this. Also, I like the approach of limiting the cast to a manageable number. I think it’s tactically unwise to leave Yamcha, Gotenks, Buu, and Chiaotzu out of this battle, but leaving them out of the movie is worth it, if it gives Tien a chance to shine for a moment. I’m not saying I like Tien better than the others, but we’re in a situation now where they can’t all share the spotlight, so if we have to pick one, let’s make that decision and run with it, and hope Yamcha gets a turn in a later film.

The problem I have with a fight like this is that they have all these extras floating around in the background of almost every scene, so it’s like Piccolo will do some cool spot with five or six bad guys, while fifty more just sort of stand there and watch. The only explanation I can come up with is that the Z-Fighters are moving so fast that most of the bad guys simply cannot react fast enough to keep up.

For example, you have this scene, where Gohan zips through a whole bunch of guys and takes them all out while they look like they’re standing still. Also, it’s pointed out several times that the Frieza Force isn’t nearly as strong or as well-disciplined as they used to be. Hell, the next movie makes a plot point out of how hard it is for them to recruit good fighters.

Even Jaco makes these guys look like geeks, and he’s a comic relief guy.

But he’s clever, like when he tricks the bad guys into getting eaten by a giant fish. How did he know this thing lived on Earth?

At this point, Sisami enters the battle, and he’s at least strong enough to give Piccolo a hard time.

Also, his shorts are a size too small, but his slutty uniform is his only distinguishing feature, really.

But Gohan steps in and turns Super Saiyan to take him out. Not sure that was a smart play, since they’re trying to buy time for Goku to arrive. A drawn out battle with Piccolo might have been just the thing they needed. But I suspect this scene was intended to introduce the Super Saiyan concept to the audience.

To wit, Sorbet is horrified by how easily his best warrior went down, but Frieza isn’t surprised at all, since he’s the only one on his side who’s seen Super Saiyans in action. He didn’t know Gohan could turn into one, but it’s the same diff.

This blue guy tries to apologize to Frieza for their defeat, but Frieza blows them all up. I’m just pointing him out because this guy was voiced by Team Four Star’s Scott Frrerichs, which still blows my mind to this day. Also, for some reason, I thought he played Sisima--Shisami, Sashimi... the red horny guy.

Everyone agrees that they stand no chance against Frieza as he is now, and Frieza takes out Gohan first just to emphasize the point. I guess this is his meta-revenge for Movie 12.

Piccolo has to use a ki technique to restart Gohan’s heart, and a senzu bean helas him after that, but they only have one left, so that won’t last them much longer.

Finally, Whis checks his messages and Goku and Vegeta hear about Frieza. Whis can take them back to Earth, but it’s a 35-minute trip, so it’s up to Goku’s Instant Transmission.

All right, let’s get on with this. Frieza insists that he’s learned from their last fight, and he starts out with his “final” form, except it’s not his final form anymore, because he has a new one, so right off we see that he really hasn’t learned anything. He wants Goku to turn Super Saiyan, but Goku doesn’t need to, and they fight like this for a while. Does this really make sense. Frieza came here for revenge, so why is he bothering to play-fight like this?

Eventually Vegeta gets so bored with this part of the battle that he jumps in and starts attacking Goku. Frieza mistakes this for a show of loyalty to him, but in fact Vegeta’s just sick of Goku milking his turn.

They agree to put all their cards on the table, so Goku reveals his strongest form, which he calls a combination of classic Super Saiyan and the Super Saiyan God form he used in the last movie. This eventually came to be known as “Super Saiyan Blue”, because duh, but for marketing purposes it’s still officially called “Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan” or “SSGSS” for short. I have no idea who thought that was a good name for this.

So Frieza shows Goku his new form, which is just his “final” form with a different color scheme. He says he “settled” on this color, implying that he could have made it look different if he wanted to. I like that idea, because it goes along with my contention that the Xenoverse games should let you customize transforms along with your character. If you want your guy to turn into a Super Saiyan Purple, you should be able to, or if you want your Frieza Race guy to have a Crimson form instead of Golden, you should get to have that too.

On the other hand, this is fucking stupid. It’s the same fight from 1990, except the characters are different colors. This is the sort of thing critics make fun of DBZ for, and Toriyama did it unironically. I mean, I get it, Super Saiyan 3 is just SSJ1 with longer hair and no eyebrows, but it’s the way the character is used in the story that sells the form as being more powerful.

The problem here is that both guys have new forms at the same time and they’re supposed to be stronger than almost every other character we’ve seen before. And yet this fight doesn’t look all that different from what they were doing a few minutes ago, before they transformed.

On top of that, we have these really shitty CGI animations that look like they were taken out of a PS3 game. I mean that literally, because when I watched this movie, I noticed it right away, because the way the characters move looks exactly like they do in the games I play all the time. I didn’t mind it so much on the first viewing, but now that I’m looking at screencaps of it, it just looks really awkward and bad. It’s fine in the games, because it’s interactive, and I can control what’s happening. But in a movie, it doesn’t work at all, because Goku has this blank expression on his face the whole time. Also, there’s no physics on the tails of his belt. He’s rushing Frieza here but they’re just hanging at his hip like he’s standing still.

Seriously, who thought this was a good idea? These shots aren’t even that long, and they don’t look that complicated, so I don’t understand why they didn’t just go ahead and use traditional animation. I mean, the Frieza soldiers from earlier were rendered this way too, and I get that, because there were literally a thousand of them, and they wanted to have hordes of them milling about in the background. but this is the main hero and villain in the forefront of the action. If the entire movie looked like this, I wouldn’t have a problem with it at all, really. It’s a “contract with the audience” thing. If the whole movie is CGI or 2D animation, we can accept the visuals we’re given, but once you start switching media unexpectedly, it becomes very jarring.

Then Beerus and Whis finally arrive to collect the dessert Bulma offered them. Wait, he said it would take 35 minutes to get here. Have Goku and Frieza been fighting for 35 minutes?

I get the joke here, that you’ve got this interplanetary grudge match playing out nearby, and these two dorks are more interested in eating ice cream, but it sort of undermines what little tension there was to this story. When Res F was first announced, lots of fans joked that Frieza would find himself completely outmatched by the Z-Fighters. Goten could kill him by himself. But Toriyama introduced Golden Frieza to get around that, which means at this point, Frieza has leapfrogged Cell and Majin Buu to become the strongest villain again, to the point where he might rival Beerus if he put his mind to it. Frieza’s a big deal again, except there doesn’t seem to be much concern over it. Everyone seems confident that Goku can handle it, and if he can’t then Vegeta can, and if things really got out of hand, Whis could kill everyone in one hit.

At one point, Frieza finally notices Beerus and asks him if he’s going to interfere in the battle, but Beerus insists that he’s just here for dessert, and he’s totally neutral in this.

And Frieza seems to think he’s winning, but then Goku informs him that this Golden Frieza form has a weakness. Frieza was so thrilled to have the new form that he rushed to Earth as soon as he discovered it, but he hasn’t learned to regulate his power at this level, so he’s going to tire out in a few minutes. Goku should know, because he ran into the same problem with Super Saiyan 3 a few years back, and the same thing happened to Frieza when he fought at 100% of his full power because FRIEZA HASN’T LEARNED A DAMN THING SINCE THE LAST TIME THEY FOUGHT. This movie is just so dumb. The fact that Goku has to explain this to him again is absurd.

Frieza thinks Goku’s bluffing, but this time the CGI battle shifts into Goku’s favor, and Frieza can’t hit the block button fast enough or break Goku’s combos.

Then they fight underwater, which is just as murky and grey as the sky, only there’s bubbles down here.

Finally, we reach the point where Frieza’s punches don’t even work, and Goku pokes him in the tittly and punches him.

So Goku tells him to get out of here, just like he did on Namek, and Frieza throws a fit, just like he did on Namek. This fight is the worst. I mean, it’s not Gohan vs. Dabura levels of bad, but at least Gohan and Dabura did original stuff while they were shitting the bed.

Then Frieza signals Sorbet while he’s crying, and Sorbet shoots Goku with a ray gun to take him out of the fight.

And this is dumb too, because it’s the same mistake Goku made on Namek, twice. Only this time, Frieza actually got the drop on him, which is dumb because he’s basically doing the same thing Piccolo did to Goku at the 23rd World Tournamnet. Whis even warned Goku about this overconfidence earlier in the movie. I mean, it was forteshadowing, which ought to be okay, except when everything else in this movie is a retread of Frieza’s other appearances, foreshadowing is kind of a bad move.

But Goku’s not the only dumbass in this movie. Frieza decides not to kill Goku while he has the chance, and instead invites Vegeta to do it for him. He even offers to make Vegeta his second-in-command, although his entire Frieza Force is dead except for Sorbet. Geets declines, which isn’t exactly a shock, since he’s hated Frieza for destroying Planet Vegeta. You know, the thing that happened forty-odd years ago that Frieza probably should considered before asking Vegeta to rejoin his team?

Instead, Vegeta tells Krillin to give Goku a senzu bean, and when Frieza tries to stop him, Vegeta deflects his attack so that it kills Sorbet instead.

In return, Vegeta demands to take over the fight, now that we’ve come to his favorite part, the “Frieza-murdering” part. Frieza mocks him for thinking he stands a chance, but Vegeta turns Super Saiyan Blue himself, and now Frieza realizes he’s totally screwed. I guess he figured Goku would be this strong, but he never imagined he’d have to fight Vegeta at the same level at the same time.

This is my favorite part of the movie, where Vegeta informs him that he learned to go Super Saiyan shortly after Frieza’s death. Then again, why didn’t Frieza know about any of this? Sorbet had been spying on the Earth for years, and he seemed to know just about everything else about what was going on. Why didn’t he tell Frieza that Vegeta was living on Earth and that he was about as strong as Goku? “Hey, look, I know you think you can handle Goku with this Golden form, but just understand that you’ll probably be fighting Vegeta at the same time, and he’ll be about the same level.”

For that matter, why did Frieza invade without checking to make sure Goku was on the planet first?

So it looks like everything’s coming up Vegeta in this movie, although this part of the fight is anticlimactic, becuase Goku had already softned Frieza up for him.

But then it turns out that Vegeta swallowed a bottle of idiot pills too, because when Frieza’s Golden Form wears off, he gets desperate and blows up the Earth to escape. You know, just like he did on Namek. At least I can sort of excuse Vegeta for this, because he wasn’t there the last time Frieza pulled this trick, except that Vegeta should have seen it coming, because he pulled the same stunt himself when he first came to Earth.

So yeah, the Earth explodes, again, which just makes the Dragon Ball Wiki that much harder to read, because they count both explosions as dates of death for every character. Goten died in Age 774 and Age 779 and whenever else he would have died naturally.

But all the main characters who were watching he fight are okay, because they were standing next to Beerus and Whis, who made a force field to protect them. Vegeta’s dead, though, because he suffocated when the planet blew. On the other hand, Frieza would have survived, because he doesn’t need air. On top of that, he took out the Dragon Balls, so there’s no way to undo this with a wish.

Then Whis reminds Goku that he has the power to rewind time by three minutes. Yeah, I forgot about this. Earlier, when Beerus woke up from his nap, Whis mentions how Beerus has a nasty habit of destroying things accidentally, so Whis has the power to rewind time and undo it if Beerus does anything especially stupid.

So now Goku has a chance to kill Frieza properly, which he should have just done in the first place.

KILLER QUEEN DAISAN NO BAKUDEN BITES THE DUST

So Frieza’s dead again... until they bring him back for the Tournament of Power, because for some reason fans want him to keep coming back for more of this crap.

Vegeta is understandably upset, because he thinks Goku just jumped in for no reason, but he calms down once he finds out Frieza was about to blow up the planet.

Bulma promises a big feast for Whis and Beerus for helping them, but she adds that it’ll have to wait for them to wish back everyone who died when Frieza destroyed North City. Well, that’ll take six months, because the Dragon Balls haven’t reset since the last wish, right?

Then Goku proposes that he can Vegeta actually practice working together, in case they need to really join forces next time. Vegeta’s like “nuts to that” and Goku’s like “same here”, so at least they have that much common ground.

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The end credits are accompanied by “Z no Chikai” or “Oath of Z”, by Momoiro Clover Z. This song rules, and it’s really much better than Movie 15 deserves.

In the post credits sequence, Frieza finds himself right back where he started, and the angels and fairies welcome him back to hell. Looks like Tagoma had the right idea after all, huh?

And I guess that about sums it up. I feel like this movie wasted an opportunity to do something truly interesting with Frieza. You have a guy who was invincible, then he got killed and spent 15 years in hell, only to get wished back to life by his desperate troops. This could have been a chance for him to ponder his own mortality and the futility of power and revenge. What good does it really do to kill Goku when they both know what awaits them on the other side? What difference does it make to escape the afterlife when you know you’ll just have to go back eventually? You could try to have Frieza answer those questions and have him become a much more desperate and complex villain. Instead, Toriyama just went right back to what he had already written in the Trunks Saga.

Sadly, this looks like the final entry under the Dragon Ball Z brand. Now that Dragon Ball Super is a thing, it looks like any new Dragon Ball stories, like the new Broly movie, will be produced under the DBS branding. I kind of wish DBZ could have closed out on a better note than this.

On the other hand, that Broly movie was a lot better, and even if it was officially titled “Dragon Ball Super: Broly”, I find that it’s hard for the Z to drop out of the public lexicon. When I went to see it in January, the theater had it listed as “Dragon Ball Z: Super Broly.” Old habits die hard, I guess. Maybe one of these years, we’ll see the end of the Z, but not yet.

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vios-rockland-corner · 5 years ago

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Rockland: Misfits and Professionals connection

The date of this post is 3/27/20. Please note that information revealed at this time via Patreon or any of the creator’s blogs may be subject to change after this date.

With a visual line-up of at least four characters each for the Misfits and the Professionals, I finally get the chance to delve a little into the connection between the groups.

(Few spoilers below for The Misfits: First Blood demo)

There’s an additional source of information here I’ll be using that I won’t give away yet because it’s definitely more of a “the creators should be responsible for announcing it when they feel it’s ready.” It’s a work in progress. Don’t worry though, it’s not like you’re missing a lot of information. Really the only information that wasn’t posted on tumblr I’ll be discussing here is ages and some family relations.

Let’s get the easy one out of the way: The biggest difference between the known characters that make up the Misfits and the known characters that make up the Professionals is age. The Misfits are adults but much younger (in their 20′s) while the Professionals are middle aged. The name “the Professionals” pretty much tells you all you need to know. These are established adults who know what they’re doing. While we can still speculate a little on the nature of “the Misfits,” it’s probably safe to say they likely aren’t as organized or put together (either when it comes to killing, career or personality wise) as the older characters are. To me is almost looks like you’re comparing a group of trouble-making “kids” to well-kept serial killers.

Yes I know that there’s not an official confirmation that all the characters from the Professionals are murderers as well, but I think it’s a pretty safe bet because of how closely these characters are connected. For example, pretty easy for everyone to spot in the line-up Quinton Willow, Charlie Willow and Alchemy Willow. Quinton (who I’ll refer to as Quill) is Charlie and Alchemy’s son. If you’ve played the Misfits: First Blood demo, you MIGHT remember Quill talking about learning from a man called Alchemy and talking about how the funeral home is a family business. At the time, I had no idea who this Alchemy person was. Quill kept spouting a million things a minute and throwing out all sorts of names without reservation that it was hard to decipher who each new character was. Bonus: NOW I get theSydney reference he makes when he uses an injection to knock out the MC (Hmmm so does Sydney also have such needles? Or does he have a different knock out method he prefers?)

It’s strange to me that Quill calls Alchemy by his first name. There’s three possibilities for why though: a) He doesn’t have a good relationship with him, b) he has more of a professional relationship with his father than anything or c)...on rare occasions some kids just DO refer to their parents by name when growing up (it’s not always for negative reasons either, they just do). I’m doubting it’s (a) only because Quill doesn’t sound resentful when talking about Alchemy.

Getting back on topic, Quill said the funeral home was a family business. Which means Quill has been trained as a mortician by very own family. Stating the obvious here, either Alchemy or Charlie (or both jointly) own the funeral home. Quill also specifically says “murder is a family affair,” so you know it’s a high possibility that not only do his parents know that Quill engages in sinister activities, but they may be partially the reason WHY he’s taken up such a dark interest.

That makes me wonder how far back this particular family business goes. Not knowing a lot about the Rockland universe, I have no clue if the Willow family has only fairly recently established themselves in the town/city....or if they have a long standing in the area.�� A long standing existence in the area is particularly concerning because it means they’ve been able to murder people covertly for who knows how long. How do they get away with it? Well actually, straight up owning a funeral home is a big plus for them because they literally have every means available to dispose of dead bodies without looking suspicious. Lots of police cases have started over people finding dead bodies that eventually surface from bodies of water or by someone’s dog accidentally digging up a dead body in the woods. Morbid thought I know, but what I mean is it’s not always easy to get rid of a dead human body and have absolutely NO ONE find out about it. The other reason they may have gotten away with the murders is because their position holds SOME form of power in the city/town (why, I’m not sure), or they have connections.

Now we have new characters like Dante and Rory Stryker who I’ve never even heard of until now. I don’t know what their profession is, but maybe they have something like a political position for example? That’s usually an easy way (unfortunately) to cover up rather suspicious behavior. Hard to go against the people in power.

We do know there’s also a black market in the Rockland universe. I want to say Baer works in it? Having connections with the black market probably also helps to sweep things under the rug. After all, an organization as large as the black market has to be both extremely careful and durable if it wants to say in business.

It just struck me. I’ve kind of wondered before if there would be any survival routes in the Misfits: First Blood game that allowed you to GO FREE at the end. It seemed like a strange thought to me. I can’t imagine with what the MC learns that they’d be able to just...walk out Scot-free without their kidnapper worrying about getting snitched on. Wouldn’t any self-respecting citizen like to report having been kidnapped and possibly assaulted by a maniac? The MC’s likely going to be either craving revenge against their assailant, keeping themselves safe from it happening or preventing the same thing from happening to someone else. Any one or all of these reasons at once are enough for someone to seek help. That’s why I thought if there’s going to be any survival endings, I thought it’d either end with you kind of being inducted into the group (though that sounds a little quick to me unless you play an MC that has an darker or extremely curious side to them), or you stay trapped somewhere. That’s kind of what other games I’ve seen of a similar nature do. Seriously, you can’t just threaten to cut someone up (or ACTUALLY cut someone up) and then expect no consequences.

But what if...the Misfits know that they can pretty much do whatever they want because their parents know how to clean up their messes for them? Perhaps some of the Professionals are such an intimidating figure in society that even the authorities don’t like to delve into cases around them TOO much. Or they’re just flat out too threatening towards the MC that you get too scared to try anything funny. Say they threatened to have you kidnapped and trafficked in the black market? Or even a friend or family member of yours? I know that’d freak me out for sure. Some players may value their health more than trying to get someone locked up.

Another scary thing about all this is that if you mess with even one of these characters (intentionally or unintentionally), you may accidentally set off a chain that gets you trouble with some more dangerous individuals. I won’t spoil too much, but I will tell you the Strykers are actually parents to at least two of the shown Misfits. The connections I’m not 100% on how each of them fit together sometimes (someone reading this is probably wondering the same thing because you may notice that none of the Misfits bear the last name of Stryker). Looks like there’s some adoption going on and...not sure if affairs or second marriages happening with any of these folks. There’s names I see of characters I also don’t really know anything about yet. They do connect in multiple ways though, so the point still stands that if you mess with the wrong person, then you cause the ire of another.

#Rockland #Rockland Games #the misfits #the professionals #runawayoutlaw #rottenbonethief #horror

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tumblunni · 6 years ago

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MORE UPDATES ON THINGS WHAT HAPPEN

The half week milestone of the hospital house thingie time! I think the term they use for it is "a residential stay"? Cos like its not a hospital its a shared housing block thats just full of doctors. I get to sleep in a real bed and there's a nice community room and board game nights and stuff. But its still really scary how intense the supervision can be! Like they have a window to look into your room once per hour every hour constantly. And they have to go through your undies and catalog them as part of the possessions check. I was not warned about that and it was mega embarassing trying to explain a binder to a bunch of old lady doctors! Oh and i had yo do a urine test today which was possibly the most fuckin embarassing thing in the actual universe. And you're not even allowed to take your own pills! They keep them locked in a big ominous wall of lockers and you have to come into the office and swallow the pill while theyre watching. I guess maybe because some people might be faking their illness and selling their pills on the black market or whatever? But that literally doesnt happen with antidepressants, they have no 'high' or even any effect at all on non-sick people. So it just makes no sense to me and its real embarassing cos like i said i suck at taking pills with plain water and without a straw. The ones i take are real damn chunky things the size of my thumbnail! I think i'l get better at not (literally) choking under pressure over time, tho. Hopefully.

Anyway that's all the bad out of the way! Now the good and the neutral and the just miscellaneous!

Its still nervewracking having to shower in a shared house but they have a cool walk-in shower and ive never tried one of those so it was vaguely interesting. And im allowed to take my showers early at 6am to minimize the chance of anyone else trying to use the door, lol. My biggest fear is having some staff member walk in on me when im naked like back in that homeless hostel. Oh or that time in the homeless hostel where the teenage boys filled the entire bathroom with inflated condoms wall to wall. Like wow so much damn effort to prank the stupid nervous bunni who probably would have been embarassed by literally anything else. Man this place is bringing so many memories of that homeless hostel but at least this time its a place specifically for sick people and they know i'm anxious doing shared cooking and board games and whatever so they dont make fun of me for it. But in a lot of ways that hostel had more freedoms too.. *shrug*

Anyway! A good! I get to have cooking lesson!! I know literally nothing about cooking and now i get to know several thing!! This nice doctor called Josie taught me how to make an omelette and i tasted ham for the first time! That is just how limited my life experiences are, lol. Oh and they want me to say that she's a 'mental health worker' not a doctor, but its all real confusing?? Like they have the staff that look after you and then the only ones we're supposed to call doctors are the ones who actually have the authority to prescribe pills and diagnosies. But like if youre in a hospital you'd call them all doctors, not just the actual surgeon? Or i guess theyre kinda like nursing home staff?? But they cant be support workers cos support workers are specific government assigned inspector type guys like Richard who only meet with you once a week.and i have to remember to not call him a social worker either cos social workers only work with family and custody related stuff. I dunno?? Basically the medical industry has a lot of names that dont really describe what the actual thing is, lol. Anyway the ham omelette was great and now im gonna try and remember so i can try and make it myself next time! HAM ACCOMPLISHED

Also i played bingo with a few other patients and it was fun but funny that i lost 6 times in a row when there were only 3 of us. I got a consolation prize of a pack of neon highlighter pens so hell yeah!!

I'm getting booked in to try some additional classes starting next week on monday and tuesday morning. The computer programming one was sadly unavailable, but i managed tp snag a place in "confidence building group therapy" and "basic how to use power tools". I wasnt really all that interested in that one but i thought it would be a useful skill even if its less fun. And maybe you get to actyally make something to take home at the end? A lil shelf to help organize this awkward lil room better, maybe?

And an unexpected bonus of being semi-hospitalized is that i get a free bus pass! And cos im here cos of my social anxiety theyre gonna help me get outside more and actually use this thing to the fullest! The first thing we did was the trip to actually get the bus pass itself. It was like "bus, take my money to take me to the place where i can never give you money again!" XD Ive been really stupidly nervous about going on tne bus in my old neighbourhood cos MAN it was really isolated there and everything just amplified my mental illness. An almost two hour bus ride to get to ANY SHOPS AT ALL, with only one bus for the whole town so it was always crowded and full of screaming kids and gossipy everyones. Social anxiety: maximum level proud mode!

So yeah i feel BIG ACCONPLISHED! I was able to take this bus for the first time with a doctor coming with me. Power Grandpa The Strong. His actual name is Paul and he has awesome sleeve tattoos of like anchors and dragons and sports teams and stuff! And he likes thrift stores and wearing silly hats too! Its like he's powerful enough to wrestle away everyone's anxieties! I was able to be a bit reckless too and i went out wearing my fave shirt thats like trans pride coloured plaid. A POWERFUL SHIRT IS REQUIRED FOR THIS QUEST! so we went to the office to register this bus pass and i panicked a bit cos apparantky we brought the wrong form and i wrote my name in the wrong box and then my passport photo looked terrible and aaa! But it all worked out and i was kinda freaking out for nothing. And he took me for a lil tour of the place and showed me this cool shop that does spray paint tye dye t shirts with spiderman on them?? Why does this incredibly specific shop exist and how have i never heard of it before?? There was also a new harry potter shop next to the disney shop, and the old used book store i used to visit as a kid was still there, complete with rickety spiral staircase and ominous basement trap door. I'm still not brave enough to go down there, but apparantly its just the history books section so meh. Then we actually went to a fancy coffee shop and i had this brain freeze mango ice frappucchino thing! Im trying all the new foods!!

And i was TOO HIGH ON DECADENCE and made a RECKLESS CHOICE! i blame power gramp's amazing tattoos, they were totally whispering to me that i shoukd screw the rules and ride off into the sunset on a metaphorical harley davidsen of mental health

So i was like Hey Paul I Am Totally Fine Getting Home On My Own, and it was like i was floating off in the distance somewhere begging my body to not speaketh these words. But it ended up working out okay! The excitement of it all and the sense of accomplishmebt from getting there all okay allowed me to mostly not freak out as i spent the day in town and looked at some shops and stuff. Basic Living Skills: Completed! I chilled out in the library (tho i dont have a card yet, alas!) and visited like five comic and anime stores, and got lost but found a Pizza Hut and that was SO NOSTALGIC FOR MY CHILDHOOD and it didnt taste quite as good as i remembered but the waiter guy was super nice and had a similar shirt and it was All Good! Oh and i gave all my money to a homeless person and that's why i'm broke now. And i bought a plastic slug! I just saw it from across the room and was like OH NO I AM BEING MAGNETISED TOWARDS IT OH NO IT HAS ALREADY BEEN BOUGHT. I need to think of a name for this new friend!!

So yeh i got home okay and i felt really acconplished and that was the furthest trip away that i've taken in ages! Man my mental illness makes me feel pathetic, but it also brings ridiculously big joys from the smallest of silly acconplishys!

Oh and thank you so much to the people who sent me emails! It really helped so much to keep me from giving up during the first few days before i made a bit of progress and felt like i could really do this, yknow? Especially big thanks tp the friend who sent me that mysterious super happy song that they found on a mystery disc in a german market?? Im still not sure whether its in greek or hasidic jewish but it sounds AMAZING and i hope someday i can figure out the band so i can hear their other singles!

Ok this is bunni out! BIG HUGS FOR THE EVERYONE AAAA

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bae-b-8-imagines · 7 years ago

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Youth - Poe x Reader (College AU)

Author’s Note: It took me so long to get this out, but it is finally here! I hope you like it @summerlogy! Requests are open! Feel free to message me! :) Stay gold!

Request: Hello! Could you do Poe X Reader Modern University student AU based on the song Youth, by troye sivan? Where they are best friends for life and known each-other since they’re babies and everybody knows they are best friends but suddenly Poe notices that he loves her and propose quoting the lyrics of the song. I hope this is not too much, and sorry if my english is poor. It’s not my first language btw 😭💧 And your writings are sooo amazing 💘💘

Warnings: None, Fluff

Word Count: 2100+

ALL LYRICS TO THE SONG BELONG TO THE ARTIST

Your hair was slowly falling out of the messy bun that sat atop of your head. The pencil you were holding scratched across the exam that you were writing right now. You blew air from your lips to try and blow the stray hair out of your face, but to no avail. Eventually you finished scribbling your answer on the paper and set your pencil down. The strand of hair was tucked behind your ear and you walked up to the professor to turn in your exam. He nodded his head and wished you a good summer holiday. As you walked out the door you saw your best friend of twenty years, Poe Dameron. He looked shocked to see you finished so quickly, you stuck your tongue out at him and exited the classroom.

That was your final exam before your last semester of university! You were going to graduate with a bachelors in mechanical engineering, and Poe with a bachelors in astrophysics. The two of you had been inseparable since you were about four years old. You had met at preschool and were best friends since then. You both loved and hated the same things, and there was never a dull moment when the two of you would hang out, which happened to be very often considering you were both roomates.

It had felt so normal when the two of you had moved in together. Like nothing in life could ever push you apart. It just seemed to work perfectly with you two together. One of the main things that worked great between the two of you was that each one of you were respectful about the other’s life. If there was something that Poe wanted to do with his friends, you were okay with it. Why would there be any reason not to be.

The two of you hadn’t encountered any situation with opposing significant others though. The last time you had been on a date was in high school, since then it was mostly drunken kisses that you didn’t remember the next morning. As for Poe, he had been in a long term relationship with a girl since the middle of high school till the first year at university.

As you rode your bike to the shared flat on the outskirts of the town you passed by a small ice cream shoppe that was only open in the Summer. You were happy to see that it was finally opened, and stopped by to get a scoop. The shoppe was crowded with students who had also just been released from the tightening grips of college exams, but the cold treat was worth the wait. You picked up a pint of chocolate ice cream to bring home for you and Poe to share.

When you got home you took of the bookbag that weighed down your shoulders and flung your body onto the couch that sat in the living room. You glanced at the clock that read 3:15, before closing your eyes. The slamming of a door made you open your eyes once more, slightly aggravated that you were woken from your small power nap.

“Poe, do you have to be so loud?” You groaned looking back up at the clock, only to see that you had been asleep for more than four hours.

“I wasn’t aware that you were going to be asleep. I thought you would’ve already called the take out for our celebration dinner tonight!” He exclaimed reaching for the phone.

You closed your eyes again, completely forgetting about the fact that you and Poe were supposed to order Chinese food and have a few friends over to celebrate. You could hear him speaking on the phone, but then he got really quiet and exited the room. You were confused. Poe was never the one to be quiet on the phone, especially not to the man who worked at the Chinese restaurant, the three of you had this odd relationship where you both accepted each other.

You sat up from your position on the couch and grabbed your phone from the coffee table in front of you. There were your typical instagram notifications, a few snapchats - although probably nothing more than a streak - and one or two texts from your friends who were coming over tonight. You opened Rey’s message first.

Hey Y/N, Finn and I should be there around 8:30. Do you think you could ask for extra duck sauce for us?

You laughed, whenever the two of you would go out for Chinese food and study dates she would always ask for extra duck sauce, even if she didn’t need it. Because, “It’s too precious to not use it on every bit and if you run out of duck sauce halfway through your spring roll what else is there to do in life but to die?” Sometimes she could be dramatic, but that’s just another reason why you loved her.

Glancing at the other text you saw that Hux and Ben would be here around the same time. You and Hux had shared many classes together. He wasn’t the nicest, or the coolest, dude to be around, but he had helped you so much that you figured inviting him over for some Chinese wouldn’t hurt. As for Ben, he was basically your cousin. Your godparent’s son. It was pretty much mandatory for you to invite him. Poe wasn’t the biggest fan, but he could deal with it.

After texting back Rey and glancing at your clock you realized that you only had about twenty minutes to do a little bit of cleaning and getting ready for everyone to be over. You put the little items that cluttered the room back in their places and headed to the restroom that you and Poe shared. You could hear that he was in the shower, but that was not going to stop you from using the mirror and putting on a little bit of makeup so you didn’t look like a zombie.

“Y/N? What are you doing?” Poe questioned, knowing it was you.

“What I do every time your taking a shower...duh.” You sated.

You were quickly finished and left, so that Poe would be undisturbed for the rest of the shower. You knew that he liked his privacy when it came to his hair routine. There was a knock at the door, so you closed the door to your bedroom and went to the front of the loft.

Sure enough your four friends were all standing there ready to welcome you. You hugged each of them before leading them into the living room to find a place to sit. There wasn’t much of a plan for tonight other than pigging out on Chinese food, and watching a scary movie. Immediately after you had taken your place on the couch, leaving enough room for Poe as well, the bell run. You stood up announcing that that was probably the Chinese delivery guy.

You opened the door and welcomed him in, like you normally did. Handing him the $50 bill you told him to keep the change.

“But it’s only a $32 charge, I can’t take a nearly 40% tip.” He said, cautious to take the money.

You insisted that he keep it. You were once where he was too. On the edge of 17, not knowing what you wanted to do with life, struggling to save for a college that your parents weren’t able to help pay for. Eighteen dollars wasn’t a lot, but it could help. Finally he accepted and made his way to his next delivery.

Poe came out of the restroom, hair as perfect as ever, wearing sweatpants that made him look nice. You weren’t going to lie to yourself when you said that you had the tiniest crush on Poe. It was basically impossible not to. You had always promised yourself that you wouldn’t let it get in the way of your relationship with him though. You knew that having Poe as your best friend was better than dating him and then it not working out and then not being friends at all.

Poe’s POV

Everyone was seated around the coffee table. Y/N was sitting next to me, her hair smelled so wonderful. Had she showered after she got home? That wasn’t important. I felt so nervous. Just last week I had realized the truth, that I was in love with Y/N. I had been since I broke up with Anne back in Freshman year. Y/N was the only girl I had eyes for, and I couldn’t let her slip through my fingers. Sure we would always being friends, but that wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to share everything with her, for the rest of my life. I had went out and bought a simple ring about two days ago. Finn was the only one who knew what I had planned for tonight.

“Alrighty what does everyone want to watch tonight?” He asked picking up the remote and turning on Netflix.

“Actually Finn?” I stopped him, “I have something I’d like to say to everyone.”

Your POV

Poe stood up holding his red solo cup in the air like he was about to toast.

“I just wanted everybody to know that all of you helped to make senior year great. Tomorrow we will be opening a new chapter in our lives, and I can only hope that we all continue to stay great friends. Hux, I know we aren’t the closest, but thanks for not totally freaking out when I am sarcastic with you. Ben, we may not get along, but any family of Y/N’s is a friend of mine. Rey, thanks for always being there for Y/N and for Finn. If you didn’t keep those two in check I’m not sure they would’ve graduated. Finn, thanks for being the best friend anyone could have asked for. So here’s to new chapters!” He cheered and raised his glass.

You played along with it, and raised yours as well, but you had to admit you were a bit hurt that he didn’t even mention you in his little speech that he gave. You looked into the TV screen as you drank from your cup.

“I have one more thing to say.” His voice rang out above everyone else’s cheers, “Y/N, what if we run away? What if we left today? What if we said goodbye to safe and sound?”

What was this? What was he getting at now? You weren’t entirely sure what was happening, but for some reason it made butterflies rupture in your chest, and a light blush to dust your cheeks.

“Y/N my youth is yours, tripping on skies, sipping waterfalls. My youth is yours runaway now. And forever more my youth is yours. A truth so loud you can’t ignore that my youth is yours. Y/N, we’ve been best friends since preschool. And I’ve been in love with you since high school. Our entire childhood, I have been wrapped around your finger. My youth is yours. And the fact that I love you is something you can’t ignore. I can’t imagine living another day being just best friends, because to me you are so much more than that. I want to grow old being yours. I want to spend the rest of my life with you Y/N L/N. We may have mortal bodies, but we have timeless souls. So this is me asking you. Will you marry me Y/N L/N?”

Poe was now on one knee right in front of you as you sat on the couch, cross legged, wearing your oldest tee shirt and sweats. Yet he still was here asking you to marry him. A tear made its way down your cheek and you quickly wiped it away before wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him into a bear hug.

“Of course I’ll marry you, Ace.” You choked out. That was all you could say because your throat was tight with emotion.

Poe hugged you in return, his arms clinging to your waist. You opened your eyes and could see that Finn had been recording the whole ordeal. He had to have known what was going on. Poe pulled away and placed the ring on your finger before kissing you on the lips. And while it was an unconventional proposal, you wouldn’t have had it any other way. Poe and you had spent your entire past together, so why not the entire future as well?

Tags: @heyohheyitsgabi @mrsdaamneron @o-brienwrites @summerlogy @emily-vole

#poe x reader #poe dameron #poe dameron x you #poe dameron x reader #star wars #request #fluff #college au #fanfiction #fanfic

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clairekatswritingcorner · 6 years ago

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Stutter

Word Count: 1,530

Summary: They’ve both struggled to connect with people for a majority of their lives, but when it comes to each other, it’s the most natural thing in the world.

*Author’s Note*: Another sweet confession fic for @bad-blue-moon-rising! I’ll never stop loving getting to write these kinds of scenarios T^T I hope you enjoy!

It’d been a rough week, but at least they’d managed to survive. That was a good sign in and of itself, the fact that they were still alive and relatively unscathed. Well, physically they were doing alright. Mentally, it was going to take months, years, maybe even a lifetime for everyone to process and accept the experiences they’d shared over the past few days. How does one go about understanding and making peace with the nightmare of facing aliens who’ve come to use Earth as a hunting ground? Alexys didn’t know, and none of the men seemed to have any idea of where to start, either.

The timid young woman had something else to come to terms with alongside all of that, something that was equally confusing and frustrating and scary; sometimes it felt even worse. Such a mindset may not have made sense to others, but she knew her way of thinking wasn’t always sensible. Mysteries of the universe and mysteries of the heart were equally complex, cryptic, and elusive in her eyes.

Part of her wished she could dedicate all of her time and attention to such a problem, but part of her was also relieved she didn’t have to. Sometimes her thoughts were just as overbearing and intense as the fear of knowing her life was on the line. Her feelings were in jeopardy, too, although she knew not in any literal sense. When facing the alien threat, she and the men understood that they could lose their lives at any moment; all it would take was one mistake. But when it came to confronting her budding affections, she also felt like she couldn’t make any mistakes, that one wrong move would leave her with a shattered heart.

Luckily, she wasn’t alone in her internal struggle. The downside was that she wasn’t exactly aware of this fact, and the person who was sharing her struggle was stalemated with the same concerns about her. It had been an interesting development, but they’d been inexplicably drawn to one another from the moment they’d been introduced.

That wasn’t such a bad thing, since the solace they’d been able to find in each other had undoubtedly helped them make it through this trying time. It was also obvious to those around them that something inexplicably existed between them, binding them together, linking both their minds and their hearts. It was invisible, but it was powerful, and that only made the prospect of facing the truth of their feelings more terrifying. But if things continued the way they were now, inevitably there’d come a time when everything spiraled out of control.

That was the conclusion Baxley came to, and it was starting to drive him up the wall. He was already so conflicted, so on edge, so troubled by his past and his own insecurities that he’d talked himself out of admitting how he felt more than once. Each time he did it just made him feel worse, turning into a session where he’d berate and demean the cowardice that he couldn’t seem to overcome no matter how hard he tried. It was just like the many ticks and phrases he had little to no influence on, that would take over him in times of both stress and excitement as if to remind him and those around him just how broken he was.

Alexys had never seen him that way, though, and she understood exactly what it was like. Being plagued by her own form of mental disparity, she struggled to manage the parts of life that many people found completely natural. Being stuck in large crowds, interacting with a lot of people at once, keeping a grip on her emotions despite the whirlwind of thoughts and feelings that could be stirred up in one’s mind in such settings…she’d couldn’t remember the last time she’d known the luxury of such ease and control, but Baxley had never belittled her for any of that.

On the contrary, they seemed to be each other’s biggest supporters. When Alexys was feeling anxious, overwhelmed by her thoughts or reactions or the sensation of suffocating in both her body and mind, Baxley was there for her. The first time he’d done it out of reflex, having recognized the signs that something was wrong, and that she needed some form of comfort. He still needed that kind of reassurance, too, but he hated to ask for it. He hated that he needed it at all. He knew it made him weak, made him useless…that’d been proven to him enough times throughout his life.

But when he was with Alexys, he never felt that way. When he blurted something out or started shaking due to stress, she’d simply give him a warm smile, hold his hand, or even pull him into a comforting embrace. She did it all without having to be asked, and she never had to ask him for that kind of support, either. It was so natural, so calming, so pleasant to share each other’s company; they’d formed an orbit around one another without even realizing such sentiments were mutual.

The two were currently taking the afternoon to recover at Emily’s house. They’d been granted temporary leave, a day off to regroup and recharge while their strategists outlined a new plan of action. It’d been a long, wild week, and they were both relieved to be able to walk around a normal house, eat normal food, and just be normal for at least a few hours before they were forced to leave it all behind again.

Baxley had been showing signs of anxiety all afternoon. Alexys figured it was to be expected; she was worried herself, unsure if she’d ever be able to completely shake the anxieties that’d been plaguing her ever since she got wrapped up in this mess. Spending time around one another seemed to help a little, but Alexys still noticed when Baxley hid his unmistakably shaky hands in his pockets, or let more expletives slip than usual for the kind of conversations they had.

“Here you go,” Alexys offered as she sat next to him on the couch, passing him a fresh, warm cup of tea. They’d determined that said beverage helped them relax even during the tensest of times, but it didn’t seem to help them shake the uneasy feeling lingering in the air around them now.

“Thank you…” Baxley took the cup carefully, setting it down before any could spill out as a result of his trembling. He cursed under his breath, this time on purpose, and reminded himself that this was the perfect time to bite the bullet. They could settle this now, and whatever the fall out was, they’d be back to their hazardous work tomorrow. They could focus on that disaster and forget all about whatever catastrophe took place today, if that was how things ended up playing out.

“Alexys…thank you,” he said it again, and the girl looked up, opening her mouth to ask him what he was referring to. He continued before she had the chance. “Thank you for all you’ve done for me. It may not seem significant to you, but…I’ve been living with this condition my whole life. And I’ve suffered plenty of consequences for it. But those consequences seem so small when I’m with you.”

His hands were trembling even more severely now, and he spit out another expletive, taking a breath to try and pull himself together enough to deliver his confession coherently. “I feel better when I’m with you. In every way. It’s like everything feels lighter and looks brighter when you’re around. I don’t know how we all got wrapped up in this godforsaken shitshow, but meeting you was worth it.”

Alexys was frozen, teacup still pressed to her lips as she listened to his words in stunned silence. “I love you, Alexys. I really love you, and not just because you’ve done a lot for me. I mean, I’m grateful for that, but I’ve always felt connected to you, ever since the day we met. I know we haven’t known each other for very long, but just sitting beside you that first day…I wanted to protect you, I just wanted to be near you. And I’ve felt that way ever since—”

His eyes became blurry with tears, and he cursed again. Letting himself fall apart over something like this, letting his worries get the best of him…how stupid. But Alexys didn’t think it was. Snapping out of her astonished daze just enough that she could move, she set her teacup down and scooted against him. He glanced at her and she wiped his eyes, waiting for them to close due before she kissed him. It was gentle, and wonderful, and it made them both feel whole. Alexys caressed his cheeks and rested her forehead against his, happy tears rolling down her own cheeks as she did so.

“Bax…” she murmured, voice cracking a bit. “I want you to know that I love you. I really love you, too. And I’ll never stop loving you, all of you, because I know you’re perfect just the way you are.”

#self insert #selfinsert #self ship #selfship #oc x canon #self insert fic #self insert fanfiction #selfship fic #selfship fanfiction #my writing #claire writes #one shot #bad-blue-moon-rising #commission

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covid19updater · 4 years ago

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COVID19 Updates: 10/01/2020

Israel: Police give 3,482 tickets for corona lockdown violations in 24 hours LINK

US: Up to 46 million jobs at risk due to Covid-19 aviation downturn LINK

Israel: Netanyahu says full lifting of lockdown may take up to a year LINK

US: CDC slowing pace on releasing new coronavirus health guidance LINK

World: Study finds 100% death rate in COVID-19 patients after CPR LINK

Sweden: Sweden reports 752 new coronavirus cases, biggest one-day increase since June

World: Coronavirus May Increase Premature Births, Studies Suggest LINK

OP/ED Piece from Web: We are officially in October. The winter is coming, and jokes aside..."The winter is coming". The developments in the last 10-12 days are not exactly what my model predicted, but are damn close. Like 90% fitting what my model is predicting. The discrepancy might simply be because my model is actually built on a 10% error, and I hope it is so, because the other explanation is much worse. I was expecting that the authorities would do everything in their power to hide the reality until the reality cannot be hidden anymore. But I did not expected them to ban information regarding cases in schools, or ban professionals in the education and medical system to divulge what should be public information : school clusters, hospitalization data, ICU being filled, overworking of medical stuff. Most people and most politicians are simply unable to project bad scenarios, simply because they don't want to believe that bad things can happen. Until the bad things happen, and their reactions are anything but constructive. From the start of this pandemic, people who could see what will happen, also realized that sacrifices would have to be made in order to diminish, or at least stagger the impact of this pandemic. Personally, I hate talking about the past, because the past cannot be changed. But in this instance, to understand what will happen in the future, we have to look in the past. I argued in favor of a full stop of all international and national travel, by February 5-6th. Planes, trains, buses, ships, everything should have been parked in early February. The tourism industry would have been hit hard, as well as travel industry. But this should have been done, not because it would have avoided the losses of the total lock-downs in March-May, but mainly to postpone the moment when the virus will be endemic. We haven't done that, because the economic impact would have been huge. Due to this "bad things can't happen to us", when the virus hit us in March, we got scared (and for good reason) and locked-down everything. The economic losses were 10 times greater. When the lock-downs started, I argued that they should stay for 3 months. Well, we didn't, and the lock-downs were lifted after 2 months. Where I am going with this, and what is the relevance for the future? Well, the answer is simple : the world economy cannot be shut-down for more then 2 months, or we're fucked. And this is what we have to take into consideration for the next 4-6 months, the months where the sun doesn't shine as much, the temperature is low and seasonal flu is up. Among these next months, there is the month of December, a critical month regarding the economy. The economic boost of December cannot be disregarded. Now, since we cannot shut-down for more then 2 months, and since December is NEEDED for the economy, we can understand why total lock-downs are avoided like hell. Any nation-wide lock-down must consider December. Sadly, December is bang on the middle of the next 4-6 months, where things will get really hairy. When we consider all this, what are the options, if second round of nation-wide lock-downs is coming? If the second round of lock-downs is coming, and December has to be lock-down "free", the second round of lock-downs should have started already. Since it didn't, it can only start in January. Now, this is the biggest problem we are facing : if a second round of lock-downs is needed...the governments will either lock-down after December or lock-down before December, but INCLUDING December. As always, I hope the worst case scenario won't happen, but damn, it seems that the governments are hell bent on making it happen. Before I get into what I expect to happen in the next weeks and months, I have to say that I was wrong in some of my assumptions, and not because I misinterpreted the data, but because of lack of data. First, is reactivation/reinfection. When first cases of reactivation/reinfection happened, they were recorded in South Korea, early in the pandemic. At that point, South Korea had very few Covid-19 cases, in the thousands (officially) or tens of thousands (in reality). Looking at the numbers (tens of thousands of cases in a country of 50+ million) and 2 cases of reinfection/reactivation, mathematical probability show that it was highly improbable to have reinfections (early in the pandemic, very few cases in a big country), but highly probable to be reactivation. Since then, my personal belief was that it is reactivation, but I didn't knew how and when it will happen, and how spread it is going to be. So, I decided to dismiss reactivation as a potential quantity that would have required model adjustments. You all know that I said that the Spring epicenters won't be epicenters in the Winter. My belief was that even if the life of antibodies is short (3-4 months), the former infected people would at least have an immune response when facing a second reinfection. Cities like Madrid, where I believe to have reached 20% infection rate in May, should at least be partially protected for the second wave, and while still being hit by the second wave, would not be epicenters again. In the last 10-12 days, the number of so called reinfections has simply skyrocketed (compared to earlier figures), and this is because those are not reinfections, they are reactivation of the virus. I wish I would be right, and reactivation is a minuscule part of this pandemic, but what is happening in Madrid shows that reactivation is pretty damn important. The hard part is quantifying the reactivation in modeling what is going to happen in the next weeks and months. I can't put a hard number on it, but I can add it, in certain figures, to scenarios. Another possible failure on my part, and I say possible because the official numbers cannot be fully trusted, is measuring the impact of the second wave. My model showed that the second wave would be 3 times bigger then first one, and in order to be so, we should have seen sustained official cases in France in the range of 12-13k cases / day for the last 2 weeks, and in Spain, 13-15k cases / day in the last 2 weeks. We are below these numbers in Spain by about 20%, and in France we are just under 5%. It is a big difference, but not unexpected. Spain was hit harder then France, so they should have a higher proportion of the population with some resistance to the virus. Spain also started local lock-downs earlier then France, this time. However, I expect Spain's numbers to be "corrected" in the next days, to closer match my model, and I expect this to happen because reactivation is no longer a small variable, but a big one. Big enough to push Spain’s official numbers in the next days, to sustained levels of 13-15k cases. If this will happen, if Spain will either commit to a full lock-down in the next 2 weeks (because they know that reactivation is going to count), or their daily cases are in the range of 13k-15k, I am afraid we are facing a very grim, and possibly, the worst case scenario. Why I am talking about sustained daily cases, instead rising in cases? A pandemic is not growing and growing and growing, until it burns out. Masks, restrictions of gatherings, travel limitations, etc. all contribute to a plateau of infections. Once we reach a plateau, due to measures in place, we can expect either a decrease , either a plateauing in cases. There is a chance to see a rise in cases, and I will address it later, but if we see a plateau of high numbers in the next 2 weeks, in countries like France and Spain, paired with sustained increases in other countries in Europe, the U.S., Russia and Canada, we are in big trouble. If the above will happen, and we don't see a significant decrease in France and Spain (they are the first countries to explode in cases in this second wave), while witnessing increases in other Northern hemisphere countries, middle of October is going to be our "make or break" moment, as my model is predicting to be. When we look at virus reactivation, lesser and lesser strength of the immune system in the next months, governments decision to keep the schools and universities open and the devastating impact of a longer then 2 months lock-down, I am afraid that we will witness what a pandemic REALLY looks like. They will avoid locking-down until there is no other option left. And I believe that if the lock-down comes after October, we will face a massive economic loss (much bigger then Great Depression), that will affect us for many, many years. If the lock-downs won't be in place by January, but after, to save the economy and December revenues, my model shows very, very scary numbers. Without breaking down the numbers, and considering schools will remain open through October, and disregarding reactivation and a possible mutation of the virus on the younger hosts (due to schools), we can expect up to 7% of the population in Europe, U.S., Canada, Russia and other countries on or above 40 latitude, to be hospitalized in the next 3 months : October, November and December. To put this into perspective, this means up to 23 million hospitalized in the U.S. in the next 3 months, or twice that number for Europe (the continent, not the Union). And these hospitalized will be on top of the normal hospitalizations. Let's just hope this this won't happen, because this pandemic will easily surpass Spanish flu. We can potentially see 1-2% of the population of the countries in the Northern Hemisphere dead in the next 3 months, just from Covid-19...and there is still January, February and March left, to add another 1-2%. I know this sounds really extreme, and it most likely won't happen, because we will 100% lock-down before this happen. The economic losses from a 4 month lock-down will be much smaller then the economic losses of close to 100 million hospitalized and 10 to 20 million dead people in Europe, U.S., Canada and Russia, not even counting for the massive disruptions that will come in such scenario. And that is not counting for a potential more contagious mutation or for a bigger rate of reactivation. The good part is that we won't have to wait too long to see if such scenario is on the cards. Just another 2 to 3 weeks. France and Spain will show us (by locking-down or seeing sustained daily cases in the range of 12-13k for the next weeks, with no significant drops) if we are facing a second Spanish Flu-like (or worse) pandemic.

Canada: Quebec unveils how partial lockdown rules will be enforced in COVID-19 red zones LINK

UK: Covid-19 outbreak at Sunderland car parts plant - with 14 confirmed cases. LINK

France: #BREAKING French health minister warns Paris may go on maximum virus alert from Monday

UK: Text of apology from MP Margaret Ferrier after knowingly traveling by train after positive COVID results. LINK

Italy: Italy's Daily COVID-19 Tally Tops 2,500 For First Time Since Apri

UK: UK: 6,916 new cases. 4% increase in new cases on last Thursday (6,634) 2,276 currently hospitalized. 45% increase since last Thursday (1,562)

Sweden: SWEDEN UPDATE—Sweden registered 752 new #COVID19 cases on Thursday, highest daily rise since June, the latest in a steady rise in infections in recent weeks.

Spain: Spain: 9,416 new cases12% fewer cases than last Thursday (10,653) 10,559 currently hospitalized 4% fewer than last Thursday (11,041)

France: 13,970 new cases. 15% fewer cases than last Thursday (16,496). Those who are currently hospitalized: 6,634. 10% increase since last Thursday (6,031) . 35% of intensive care beds are occupied in Paris. #COVID19

UK: Covid cases doubled under most local lockdowns in EnglandExclusive: Confusing rules blamed for rise in infections in 11 of 16 towns and cities under long-term restrictions LINK

West Virginia: Gov. Justice addresses lawsuits over map, decries politics and defends changes as necessary. LINK

Spain: Madrid will observe central government’s new coronavirus restrictions, but plans to challenge them in the courts LINK

World: Researchers call for loss of smell to be recognized globally as a symptom of COVID-19 LINK

World: Pfizer CEO told employees that vaccine development is moving “at the speed of science” and that the company would not succumb to political pressure. LINK

China: Beijing's streets during and after Covid lockdown – in pictures. LINK (Having been there, I can say that the “after” pics are nowhere close to “normal” levels)

World: COVID-19 antibodies in blood plasma donations appear to drop within just months of symptoms emerging, warns study LINK

China: China holiday: Millions on the move for Golden Week LINK

Georgia: Atlanta Falcons to use drones to clean stadium after games LINK

World: Amazon says more than 19,000 workers got Covid-19 LINK

Massachusetts: 708 confirmed Covid19 cases in Massachusetts today. The state is heading in wrong direction with 36% increase in positive tests over 7 days and 6 hospitals near surge capacity.

Israel: Netanyahu: If coronavirus lockdown doesn't work, we'll make it stricter LINK

Greece: 411 more coronavirus cases; two new deaths

California: San Diego City Employees, Elected Officials in Quarantine Following COVID-19 Exposure LINK

World: Tracking Economic Relief Plans Around the World during the Coronavirus Outbreak LINK

US: N.Y., N.J. Unveil New ‘COVID Alert’ Apps That Notify Users If They’re Within 6 Feet Of Someone Who Has Tested Positive LINK

US: House approves $2.2 trillion stimulus plan, but bipartisan deal unlikely LINK

District of Columbia: Smithsonian lays off 237 as COVID-19 continues to limit operations LINK

New York: NYS Comptroller Audit: Up To 50% Of NYC Bars And Restaurants Could Close Permanently In Next 6 Months LINK

Macau: Macau Sees Little Sign of Recovery as Gaming Revenue Falls 90% LINK

World: Expert looks at how COVID-19 problems can turn into lifelong chronic diseases LINK

North Carolina: Frustrated Wake County parents hold reopen rally outside school district headquarters LINK

Argentina: Argentina | 14,001 new cases and 3,352 deaths were reported in 24 hours LINK

US: Jacobs reports White House aide Hope Hicks is experiencing symptoms of the disease and was in close proximity to the President and mask-less this week. No comment yet from the WH on the exposure risk to POTUS.

Honduras: New Migrant Caravan From Honduras Heads Toward U.S. Border LINK

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scifigeneration · 7 years ago

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Trick or treat? A guide to Halloween's hidden (and not so hidden) gems

by Xavier Aldana Reyes

Despite concerns that Halloween celebrations might be one more concession to the rampant commercialisation of seasonal change, it would seem that more and more people are warming up to this imported unofficial holiday. Sales of pumpkins rose by 20% in October of 2013 and they are projected to rise by another 6% this year in the UK. While still considerably behind the average American, Britons nevertheless managed to spend a whopping £310m on Halloween in 2016 – 5% more than in 2015.

So in the spirit of the season, I wanted to suggest some of my favourite books and films about Halloween. They will hopefully help sceptical readers understand why some people are so passionate about the season of monster confectionery, horror reruns and skull crockery. For those who already love Halloween, these recommendations are 100% treat and 0% trick, and certainly worth revisiting.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Washington Irving (1783-1859). American author of classic short stories The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle. EverettHistorical/Shutterstock

This classic story from Washington Irving is not about Halloween, but has come to be associated with it. The tale of a superstitious schoolmaster driven out of town by the apparition of a headless horseman, Sleepy Hollow contains a number of elements and images that evoke this holiday. For one thing, events take place on a dark autumn night during harvest time after an evening spent telling “stories of ghosts and goblins”. For another, Sleepy Hollow ends with a conspicuous pumpkin and a great scare. If you like it, try Tim Burton’s 1999 adaptation.

The Halloween Tree

This is the quintessential novel about Halloween for young and old. The Halloween Tree follows the adventures of eight children as they try to save their friend Pipkin on a journey that takes them through the whole history of Halloween, from ancient Egypt to the Middle Ages and even Mexico and its Day of the Dead. In the novel, Ray Bradbury manages to capture the magical excitement of Halloween without refusing to acknowledge the nostalgic aspects of the autumn. If the novel’s briefness leaves you wanting more, try the carnival rides of Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes or the macabre short stories in The October Country.

Trick ‘r Treat

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This 2007 American-Canadian movie made anthology horror films exciting again, and it came as a surprise to those who had long hoped for a fun Halloween screamer. Trick ‘r Treat is original, scary and made with a palpable love of all things Halloween. It is made up of four independent stories, featuring new and ironic takes on traditional monsters like the vengeful ghost or the werewolf. The tales are interconnected by Sam – a burlap sack-wearing, trick-or-treater child figure who appears to those who break Halloween traditions. Despite never receiving a wide theatrical release, Trick ‘r Treat soon became a cult film that spawned two comics and a forthcoming sequel.

October Dreams

The award-winning book October Dreams: A Celebration of Halloween is possibly the biggest (at over 640 pages) and best modern Halloween-themed anthology. Expect modern twists on trick-or-treating, pumpkin-carving, mask-wearing, witching-houring and general spooking around from a host of top authors.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch

A cult horror film and interesting curio. Although billed as the third in the famous slasher series, this 1982 film is a standalone entry. Its plot about the sacrifice of children in a Celtic ritual echoes Halloween’s origins in Samhain – the Celtic festival that marked the end of the harvest season (and included no murders.). In the movie, novelty Silver Shamrock masks act as receivers of killer signals from flashy television adverts.

The Shadow at the Bottom of the World

For those who may find that all the fanfare and histrionics of these Halloween texts and films pervert the true spirit of what should, by right, be a dark and sombre season, try Thomas Ligotti’s long story, available in Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe. A warning to the curious, though: Ligotti’s soul-crushing rendition of the autumn is a powerful one, so handle it with care.

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The Nightmare Before Christmas

And finally, it may be well known but I simply could not leave out this film. Like many other holiday movies that have become traditions in themselves, watching The Nightmare before Christmas on the run-up to Halloween is now compulsory in my household. Originally developed from a poem by Tim Burton, the film takes place in Halloween Town. Its leader, Jack Skellington, becomes enamoured with a very different celebration after accidentally stumbling upon Christmas Town. Thankfully, his botched attempt at replacing Santa only reignites his passion for Halloween.

Xavier Aldana Reyes is a Senior Lecturer in English Literature and Film at Manchester Metropolitan University.

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

#Halloween #movie #halloween2017

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bigyack-com · 5 years ago

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‘Techlash’ Hits College Campuses - The New York Times

In 2006, Google bought YouTube for more than $1 billion, Apple was preparing to announce the first iPhone, and the American housing bubble began to deflate. Claire Stapleton, then a senior at the University of Pennsylvania, faced the same question over and over: What did she plan to do with that English degree? She flirted, noncommittally, with Teach for America.Then, a Google recruiter came to campus and, Ms. Stapleton said, she “won ‘American Idol.’” The company flew her out to Mountain View, Calif., which felt to her “like the promised land” — 15 cafeterias, beach volleyball courts, Zumba classes, haircuts and laundry on-site.But for Ms. Stapleton, now 34, the real appeal in a job at Google was what seemed to be a perfect balance of working for income and according to one’s conscience. Naturally, she said yes to an offer in the corporate communications department.“There was this ambient glow of being part of a company that was changing the world,” Ms. Stapleton said. “I was totally googly-eyed about it.”More than a decade later, college seniors and recent graduates looking for jobs that are both principled and high-paying are doing so in a world that has soured on Big Tech. The positive perceptions of Google, Facebook and other large tech firms are crumbling. Many students still see employment in tech as a ticket to prosperity, but for job seekers who can afford to be choosy, there is a growing sentiment that Silicon Valley’s most lucrative positions aren’t worth the ethical quandaries.“Working at Google or Facebook seemed like the coolest thing ever my freshman year, because you’d get paid a ton of money but it was socially responsible,” said Chand Rajendra-Nicolucci, 21, a senior at the University of Michigan. “It was like a utopian workplace.”Now, he said, “there’s more hesitation about the moral qualities of these jobs. It’s like how people look at Wall Street.”

Investment Banking, but Worse

The growing skepticism of Silicon Valley, sometimes referred to as the “techlash,” has spared few of technology’s major players. In 2019, Facebook was fined nearly $5 billion by the Federal Trade Commission for mishandling user data. Amazon canceled its plans for a New York City headquarters after residents, union leaders and local legislators contested the idea that the behemoth should receive $3 billion from the state to set up shop. Google, in 2018, faced internal protests over its plans for a censored search engine in China and handling of sexual harassment. (High-ranking Google employees have stated that the company never planned to expand search into China, but also that plans for a China project had been “terminated.”)The share of Americans who believe that technology companies have a positive impact on society has dropped from 71 percent in 2015 to 50 percent in 2019, according to a 2019 Pew Research Center survey. At this year’s Golden Globes, Sacha Baron Cohen compared Mark Zuckerberg to the main character in “JoJo Rabbit”: a “naïve, misguided child who spreads Nazi propaganda and only has imaginary friends.”That these attitudes are shared by undergraduates and graduate students — who are supposed to be imbued with high-minded idealism — is no surprise. In August, the reporter April Glaser wrote about campus techlash for Slate. She found that at Stanford, known for its competitive computer science program, some students said they had no interest in working for a major tech company, while others sought “to push for change from within.”Belce Dogru, who graduated from Stanford with a degree in computer science last year and is completing a master’s program at the university, said: “There has definitely been a shift in conversation on campus.”Stanford is the second-biggest feeder school for jobs in Silicon Valley, according to data from HiringSolved, a software company focused on recruiting. Some companies pay as much as $12,000 to advertise at the university’s computer science job fairs; recruiters at those events didn’t always have to make a hard sell. “It felt like in my freshman year Google, Palantir and Facebook were these shiny places everyone wanted to be. It was like, ‘Wow, you work at Facebook. You must be really smart,’” said Ms. Dogru, 23. “Now if a classmate tells me they’re joining Palantir or Facebook, there’s an awkward gap where they feel like they have to justify themselves.” Palantir, in particular, has drawn the ire of students at Stanford for providing services to U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (also known as ICE). Last summer, a campus activist group, Students for the Liberation of All People, visited the company’s office, a 15-minute walk from campus, and hung a banner nearby that read: “Our software is so powerful it separates families.” Similar protests took place at the University of California, Berkeley, Brown and Yale, according to Recode. The protests, and the attitudes they reflected, were also covered in The Los Angeles Times.Audrey Steinkamp, a 19-year-old sophomore at Yale, which sends about 10 percent of each graduating class into tech, said that taking a job in Silicon Valley is seen as “selling out,” no different from the economics majors going into consulting who are “lovingly and not-so-lovingly called ‘snakes.’”That is especially true, some of the students said, when a classmate chooses to work for Facebook, whose products have spread disinformation and helped influence a presidential election.“The work you do at a place like Facebook could be harmful at a much larger scale than an investment bank,” Ms. Dogru said. “It’s in the pockets of millions of people, and it’s a source of news for millions of people. It’s working at a scary scale.”Many students still believe that technology can help change the world for good. As Ms. Glaser put it for Slate, some of them are opting out of the Big Tech pipeline and trying, instead, “to use technical skills as an insurance policy against dystopia.”“Students have an opportunity to look at where they can have the most impact that’s in line with their values,” said Leslie Miley, a former director of engineering at Google and Slack. “The fact of the matter is Google, Facebook, Twitter are not in line with those values because they’re huge companies beholden to a lot of different masters.”

Still Got That College Spirit

Anna Geiduschek, a software engineer who graduated from Stanford in 2014, was working at Dropbox last year when she received an email from an Amazon Web Services recruiter. She replied that she wouldn’t consider a job with the company unless Amazon cut its contract with Palantir.“These companies go out of their way to try and woo software engineers, and I realized it would send a powerful message for me as a potential employee to tell them no,” Ms. Geiduschek, 27, said, noting that top tech companies sometimes spend roughly $20,000 to recruit a single engineer. “You could basically cut them off at their supply.”Her recruiter responded: “Wow I honestly had no idea. I will run this up to leadership.” Days later, Ms. Geiduschek received another template email from an Amazon hiring manager, so she scheduled a call and aired her grievances by phone. Some engineers are sharing screenshots of their protest emails on Twitter with the hashtag #TechWontBuildIt. Jackie Luo, an engineer, sent an email to Google saying that she wouldn’t consider a job there given its plans to re-enter China with a censored search engine. Kelly Carter, a web developer, emailed a Tesla recruiter with her concerns about the company’s anti-union tactics. Craig Chasseur, a software engineer, emailed the H.R. department at Salesforce to critique the company’s contract with ICE.These protests echo mounting public concerns about the power of these corporations. But it’s not clear whether they have moved the needle for prospective hires. Former recruiters for Facebook told CNBC in May that the acceptance rate for full-time engineering job offers at the company had dropped precipitously, as much as 40 percent. After the article’s publication, Facebook disputed the figure; the company “regularly ranks high on industry lists of most attractive employers,” a spokesman said. Data published the same month by LinkedIn showed that tech firms continued to hire at high rates, especially for entry-level employees.But at campus career centers, students are struggling with the dual, and sometimes dueling, desires for prestige and purpose. “It started with millennials, but now Gen Z-ers are getting educated because they want to do good in the world,” said Sue Harbour, the senior associate director of the career center at the University of California, Berkeley, which is Silicon Valley’s top feeder, according to HiringSolved. “And as we’ve seen tech companies grow, we’ve also seen the need for more tech oriented to social responsibility.” Some recent graduates are taking their technical skills to smaller social impact groups instead of the biggest firms. Ms. Dogru said that some of her peers are pursuing jobs at start-ups focused on health, education and privacy. Ms. Harbour said Berkeley offers a networking event called Tech for Good, where alumni from purpose-driven groups like Code for America and Khan Academy share career opportunities. Ms. Geiduschek said she recently left Dropbox for Recidiviz, a nonprofit that builds technological tools for criminal justice reform.But those so-called passion jobs are more challenging to come by, according to Amy Binder, a sociologist at the University of California, San Diego, and the lead author of a 2015 paper about elite colleges “funneling” graduates into certain kinds of “prestigious” careers.“For other sectors like tech it’s easier to get on the conveyor belt and fill these positions,” Dr. Binder said. “I graduated from Stanford in the ’80s, and even back then there was talk on campus about people selling out and going to investment banks, but those jobs are still getting filled. The self-incrimination hasn’t stopped the juggernaut.”Dr. Binder said elite schools have long steered students toward certain “high-status” industries — the C.I.A. in the 1950s, finance and consulting in the aughts and tech today. It’s a “prestige system,” she said, that universities enable. “As tech firms get more negative reviews in the media and it becomes clear what their political toll can be, students may have more circumspection about taking these jobs,” she said. “At the same time, they’ll continue taking these jobs because of the security and reputation that comes with them. And universities will keep sponsoring all this recruitment.”

Good Luck Changing the Culture

For years, students were told they could tackle ethical concerns about technology from the inside, working within the mammoth structures of companies like Google. Ms. Stapleton said that was part of the company’s allure: its ostensible commitment to empowering even its youngest employees to weigh in on critical problems.She spent 12 years at Google and YouTube on various teams, including internal communications, where she wrote company talking points. Her weekly emails to staff, she said, were the stuff of corporate legend. At a 2012 all-hands, Larry Page, one of the company’s founders, called her onstage to celebrate her work as colleagues presented her with a wooden plaque that read: “The Bard of Google.”Then, in 2018, Ms. Stapleton helped organize a Google walkout, after reporting in The New York Times revealed that the company gave a $90 million severance package to the Android creator Andy Rubin, who was accused of sexual misconduct. Twenty-thousand workers left their desks in protest. Within six months, Ms. Stapleton said, she was demoted and pushed to resign. In December, she wrote about her experience in an essay for Elle. Google maintained that Ms. Stapleton was not sidelined for her role in the walkout. “We thank Claire for her work at Google and wish her all the best,” a Google spokesperson responded. “To reiterate, we don’t tolerate retaliation. Our employee relations team did a thorough investigation of her claims and found no evidence of retaliation. They found that Claire’s management team supported her contributions to our workplace, including awarding her their team Culture Award for her role in the Walkout.”But Ms. Stapleton said her story should give bright-eyed students pause about whether Big Tech and altruism are aligned.“I don’t know if Google can credibly sell young people on the promise of doing good in the world anymore,” she said. “That’s not to say there aren’t wonderful people there and interesting things to work on. But if you care about a company’s values, ethics and contributions to society, you should take your talents elsewhere.”Mr. Miley, who left Google in 2019, echoed her sentiment: “It’s hard to change a system from within when the system doesn’t think it needs to be changed.”A spokeswoman for Google said the company continues to see job application numbers grow annually, and noted that the practice of having employees raise concerns about policies, whether on data privacy or human rights reviews, is part of the corporate culture. The outside attention those concerns may draw is a reflection of Google’s growth and evolution from a search company to a larger entity with many products and services, the spokeswoman said. But even companies with a market cap of over $970 billion (Google’s parent company, Alphabet) or over $614 billion (Facebook) aren’t immune to the punches of potential talent. John Sullivan, a professor of management at San Francisco State University who also advises companies on recruitment, estimated that criticisms of Uber’s sexual harassment and discrimination policies cost the company roughly $100 million, largely because of talent lost to competitors.Sarah Soule, a professor and senior associate dean at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, said in an email that there is a long history of students protesting questionable corporate ethics, with several cases of protest directed toward recruiters, yielding powerful effects.Take the case of Dow Chemical Company, which in 1965 accepted a $5 million Department of Defense contract to manufacture the flammable gel napalm during the Vietnam War. When recruiters turned up at New York University, they were met with hundreds of angry student demonstrators, The Times reported.Brendon Sexton, the student government president at N.Y.U. at the time, demanded a moratorium on Dow’s campus recruitment efforts in 1968. “They don’t care that a sin is being committed here,” he told protesters near the job interview site. Public pressure continued to mount, fueled largely by young activists. The company halted its production of napalm a year later.Ms. Geiduschek said the behavior of tech companies is especially difficult to challenge because their products are ubiquitous.“It’s hard to avoid spending your money at Amazon. I sometimes do it, especially in that Christmas-season binge,” she said. “If you want to sway this company to do the right thing, you have to attack it at places that are higher leverage, where it hurts.” Read the full article

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