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palukoo · 4 years ago

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So! @thxngam and @claudiasjeancregg enabled me to talk about that scene in Dead Irish Writers and oh boy did I run with it!

So... the scene is super interesting for several reasons... let’s dive in...

It’s a scene that’s just women, and, by West Wing standards, several women, and you realize you’ve never really seen all the main women together without the men before that, I think. I mean, you also really haven’t seen how Donna and Abbey interact, which is why this scene is so good

The four of them actually have two scenes with this sort of thing off the top of my head-- this, and then during Zoey’s kidnapping arc with Amy and CJ trying to stop Abbey from going into the press room (though Donna doesn’t talk in that one)

I probably will bring this up again but on top of this not being a dynamic the audience has seen before, I don’t think it’s a dynamic that they’ve had before in this combination... like...

Any group of two of them I will accept having spent some time together, though I doubt Donna and Abbey are close (partially due to the power dynamics I’ll get into later) and Donna and Amy don’t know each other well

Any group of the three of them? Not so much

Amy, CJ, and Abbey maybe, because they do say or imply that Amy knows both of them and is friends (?) with both of them before we ever see her, but... I don’t see her as being particularly close with the campaign or administration, so... (but I’m SO glad we get it here and during the kidnapping arc)

Amy, CJ, and Donna is a dynamic I adore and that I think this scene kinda opens the door for it in a lot of ways but again, since I don’t think Amy and Donna are close at all at this point and Amy’s not that close the the administration at this point, I don’t see it

CJ, Donna, and Abbey I will absolutely accept actually but not in any sort of like meaningful or non professional context. The way Donna reacts to being invited in in this scene? This is new for her

Amy, Donna, and Abbey? Nope. Love it as a concept, but nope

So the four of them? Yeah, no

Which is relevant in like. The way women get to interact on screen and like. The way women are isolated in male dominated fields

(Amy, working for the WLC, is certainly in a less male dominated subset of the male dominated field of politics, as is Donna since a bunch of the assistants are women, and I get that Abbey has a very specific and gendered position in the show, but she and CJ are both absolutely in male driven fields)

And it’s relevant because Abbey’s shifting her anger into this like, feminist framing where she doesn’t not have a point (I’ll get there) but it’s also not really the whole story at all, which is why I think it was very smart of them to have it be this group to call her on it, because from any of the guys it would’ve been... easily yikes?

The other absolutely crazy thing here is the power dynamics which I know people have talked about before and CJ even calls attention to but you’ve got like

Abbey is sort of CJ’s boss, and her friend, but the nature of their positions in the administration are weird and they’re both honestly undermined a fair amount but a lot of the admin doesn’t take First Lady/Abbey seriously, so! It’s interesting!

Not in a direct sort of way but CJ clearly has more power than Donna, and they’re also friends

Do the math on Abbey and Donna, plus again we don’t really see them interact before this

Amy sort of exists outside of this, because she’s the only one who doesn’t work in the White House, but that also like. Is a dynamic in it of itself. She also definitely has a more visible and overtly powerful position than Donna and is sort dating Donna’s boss, so?

Also Abbey used to babysit for Amy which just makes this. A lot!

So I’m gonna try to sort of break the scene up into parts and do it like that. If I wanted to make this even longer, I would start before this scene because there’s a lot of relevant context/lead up, but I’ll just mention it

Donna’s just found out she’s not a citizen which is a lot

Amy’s kind of pissed at Josh who’s kind of pissed at her

Abbey’s also kind of pissed at Josh probably, especially if she caught any of what he was saying to Amy

Abbey didn’t want a whole thing and is obviously stressed about her license

CJ’s the one who caught that the guy was recusing himself and had to tell Abbey

“Claudia Jean?” “Yes, ma’am?” “Let’s go get drunk.” “Okay” should be a master class in acting

Also relevant is Abbey choosing CJ and Amy to get drunk with for this. They’re career women in politics who are her friends and who should understand this sort of.

So they get to the residence... “Awasiwi Odinak, far from the things of man...”

Abbey instantly cuts to complaining about Jed bc she’s angry at him and in her defense only some of it is misplaced!

But like... she says “what a jackass” and CJ immediately says “I’m gonna open the wine” in a very “can we not do this” way, and Amy just... is there. Hanging out. Trying to open drawers

As a note on that there is no way Amy’s being like. Genuine there. I love how awkward she is but she’s not about to take notes while getting drunk with them. She’s being awkward and funny and avoidant and I love her (like as a random note Amy is... very rarely still)

When she comes to sit with them and sits on the arm of the couch, it’s a really interesting detail that I see as her sitting as far away from them as she can without it seeming so blatant

And Abbey keeps talking, and neither of them really respond

CJ with the corkscrew is of course iconic and funny and I think it’s part of the reason the scene works and it makes sense because CJ’s uncomfortable in this scene. Her rambling about the corkscrew prevents her, momentarily, from being in this uncomfortable position that she’s put into so much more later where she’s thrown into the issues of Abbey and Jed’s marriage and she really doesn’t want to be because she has a ton of respect and care for both of them

What I mean by “the reason the scene works” is that it needs to keep being drawn back to funny before it can snap. It’s a very specific kind of bubbling tension, and I really like it

Abbey saying “I’m board certified in thoracic surgery” brings you back to the fact that maybe she won’t be for very long, but it’s said as a joke and moved on from quickly, so you can’t dwell on it

I describe Abbey in this scene as “erratically vulnerable” which I don’t know if that’s quite right, but I think there’s maybe a glimpse of her realizing what she’s saying here, and the specific implications in that moment, and then changing subjects immediately

And of course she asks Amy about Josh...

What I find really interesting about this is Amy’s response of “he’s... you know... he’s adjusting.”

Amy doesn’t pull punches with Josh usually, but she does here (she also seems to earlier when she tells him he’s right, but then she gets Abbey to bug him) and I think it’s because we’re seeing her talk about Josh, not to Josh

Abbey says “well let him adjust faster. Jackass.” which is again, funny, but so so indicative of how frustrated she is and how she’s taking it out because literally earlier in the episode she says to Amy and Josh something like “I still haven’t gotten credit for this (I love them and their responses of “we’ll see” and “jury’s still out” to that)

Enter Donna!

Side note on timing, Donna walking in as Abbey insults Josh vs Abbey walking up as Josh insults Abbey

Donna coming in shifts this scene a lot

For one thing, it sets up this interesting play (that feels like me being really contrived and probably is) on audience proxy, that if I get into will only complicate things so I guess... if you’re curious, ask

(Donna plays audience proxy a lot in The West Wing as they explain political concepts and whatnot, and it’s not a thing you see so much in these really character driven scenes because it becomes unnecessary and sort of clunky

But the thing is that in this scene at this point, Amy feels very audience proxy-y... I will concede that in any given scene it’s easy for me to default, in analysis, to Amy and her perspective, but she feels very much like an observer of CJ’s jokes and Abbey’s anger thus far in the scene-- it definitely shifts back to Donna after the fade out)

I also want to shout out Donna’s body language here! The way she steps in cautiously and plays with her hands as she talks is really good at showing her discomfort, and I think it’s neat to draw a parallel here between her and Amy a minute or two before. Like, seriously though, watch her hands in this scene. It’s so good

But Donna walking in this room shifts things!!

Pulls attention to the... D plot? I don’t know, it’s the B plot of the scene, but there’s a lot going on in this episode, which is funny in the context of watching it if not for Donna, and away from Abbey’s heavy plot here, like a pressure valve in that tension I was talking about. Donna looks nervous here, but everyone else seems to relax

It also makes this more of a... White House thing. Like, because Abbey and Donna specifically probably have not been friends much, it further complicates the lines between personal and professional relationships here

But let’s actually talk about the dialogue a little bit, because I think it’s really funny that she’s there looking for Amy for Josh, when Josh knows she left to get drunk with CJ and Abbey, and there’s not a second in that room where Amy is going to leave. It somehow feels shoehorned/plot device-y but also in character at the same time?

The line is “Josh was looking for Amy” to which Abbey says “She’s right here” and Amy just waves weirdly with half her hand since she’s holding her glass. Yes I know I keep fixating a little on Amy’s physicality, but it’s SO good

And then Abbey says “Where have you been all night?”

One of my FAVORITE exchanges this episode is “It’s a little tough to explain, ma’am.” “Tougher to explain than secretly prescribing Betaseron?”

The way Abbey jokes about it!! It’s very specific because it’s not an “I’m moving past it so I can joke about it” it’s that she’s specifically bitter and it comes out... not hostile, but something

That’s sort of what I mean by erratic vulnerability?

Donna explaining the citizenship issue with CJ’s convenient questions is a nice break, like I said, and Amy’s “you seem pretty calm about it” gives Donna the room to freak out about it a little

And Donna freaking out about it a little gives Abbey room to be the “rational” one? Not exactly?

It’s also just a nice contrast in how they show their anxieties and it works really well for them as characters

Donna goes to leave, and Abbey invites her to stay

Which is also interesting? Since like I said, I don’t think they’re friends

But it’s also super in character because there’s something very grandiose about Abbey and it’s there in this scene. Like she... wants an audience? Even as she’s sort of trying to get away from this room where she’s forced to perform? I don’t know

Donna’s genuine excitement here is so cute

She sits even further from them than Amy had, on a chair instead of the couches

Another great exchange? “I probably shouldn’t drink, though” “I wouldn’t worry about it!”

There’s also something a little awkward and desperate about Amy’s “Canadian, huh?” like she’s trying to fill the silence and keep it from driving straight back to Abbey’s anger and identity crisis, and I just like how they play off each other here

CJ "opens" the bottle, Abbey says they'll decant it, Amy says "Now it's a party" and does the most iconic slide from the arm of the couch onto the cushions with Abbey

And then it cuts back in, and they're all boozier, especially, evidently, CJ!

But there’s something to be said, if we’re tracing body language, for Donna now being on the couch and Amy leaning into Abbey so much

With the later context that they’ve known each other since Amy was a kid, I accept it, but it’s absolutely crazy in the context of Abbey as the First Lady and Amy joining them because “you think I don’t wanna write a book some day?”

I mean, I love it either way, but it makes more sense with the retroactive context

I love love love CJ laughing and rambling about the cork and the wine and then you get another really important shift. Because Abbey seems annoyed in general but more amused than anything by CJ’s tangents before the fade out, and she’s at this point way less endeared.

Which totally makes sense, of course, ‘cause if you’re stressed and frustrated, anything is going to annoy you, including and honestly especially your friend being rambly about something completely irrelevant

I also love Donna looking around at Abbey and Amy while CJ is talking trying to make like conspiratorially amused eye contact, it’s a really subtle, human detail

Anyways, Abbey interrupts CJ to make her stop (This is another body language thing where I love how leaned back she is, how she rubs at her forehead as CJ keeps going on)

And it’s here I’m gonna start being REALLY pedantic probably

“Mrs. Bartlet, I wanted to ask you a question but I’m not sure how” “What?”

First of all, this feels so... soft? This is actually why I’ll accept the babysitter thing

Amy playing with Abbey’s dress is so! good! Look, Amy’s so fidgety and I adore it!!

Also, I love this because Amy clearly doesn’t really want to ask, but she’s also not good at keeping quiet when something is bothering her

“Well, if the most they can give you is a year's suspension, is it...?” “That big a deal?”

Amy stops herself! Because she doesn’t want to say it! Or doesn’t know how to

Amy never actually criticizes her in this scene, which is neat, because Amy’s practically introduced to us through criticizing Abbey. One of her first lines in the show is “[Abbey] isn’t doing enough for women” and she has lines like “I’ll keep poking him with a stick. That’s how I show my love” but in Privateers, Josh also tells her “it’s okay to tell her you disagree with her” while Amy’s refusing to go against her. It’s not inconsistent-- I just think Amy has a think about criticizing Abbey to her face, kind of, and here, while Abbey’s this upset, of course she’s hesitant at best

“Yes.” “Yes. I'm a doctor. It's not like changing your major. You of all people should...”

Abbey really says this to Amy “who has had seven jobs in three years” Gardner, Amy “and I’d [stake my job and career on a political issue] again” Gardner... “you of all people should...” Amy’s a career driven feminist lobbyist, but she’s not someone who can tie her identity to a job which is the real issue Abbey’s having, she just wants to frame it like this

I love the way Amy looks down during this, too

(“You of all people should...” makes a lot more sense, actually, after Amy loses her job because of her and Josh’s political fights over marriage incentives in welfare reauthorization)

((Also, how many times did Donna change her major? It’s not relevant, really, it just makes this an even funnier room for Abbey to say this in))

“I mean, women talk about their husbands overshadowing their careers. Mine got eaten”

She’s valid for being angry about this, but also she’s conflating things. She’s not losing her license just because of Jed

Like, it’s fair for her to hate how much of herself and her career and her life she’s had to give up because her husband is the president. I think it’s important, even with Donna’s also valid criticism here in a minute, that Abbey’s not being irrationally upset. It’s a choice she played a part in making, but it was never going to be a good choice for her, and it isn’t really fair to her, and it isn’t really any one person’s fault

And yes, I DO love how Abbey talks with her hands here. It’s that kind of grandiose thing about her

“Your husband got eaten” “My career” “Yeah, well, I’m on dangling modifier patrol” “What is your problem?”

I’m going to lose it a little bit here, because it’s really funny at face value

Like, this is one of my favorite tww comedic moments. The timing is so good. But trying to analyze this scene? Watching this scene multiple times? This is them being snippy with each other. CJ is upset here, with Abbey

(One of the things I really like about Sorkin-style rapid fire dialogue is that there’s a rewatchability where you pick up on different things each time)

CJ’s really subtle about it, which is... CJ is very subtle about her emotions a lot and there’s something similar you can look at throughout the show as a whole and also this episode in particular with the different ways that she, Abbey, and Jed learn to put on facades and deal with being very, very public people. Abbey in particular in this episode has a lot of rapid demeanor shifts, but you get the same thing from CJ going to brief in some of the heavier episodes, or, like, Jed at Leo’s funeral

I mean, really, the “What is your problem” feels way more jarring than anything CJ has said because outwardly she’s just been joking, but there’s... a tension or something? A flatness to her voice? A lack of amusement? It’s a really stark contrast to how she’s been overly amused about the cork or whatever. It’s good, and I like that Abbey picks up on it and doesn’t let it keep going unspoken

I do wanna take a second here because CJ doesn’t fully answer, I don’t think, so I wanna answer for her

A part of it is just her loyalty to Jed, too, and specifically to the president I think, and the awkwardness of being thrown into Abbey being so disparaging about that

I also think that, as a character who takes on a lot of personal responsibility and, to an extent, guilt (less than some of the others, or at least less overtly), and internalizes a lot, it sort of bothers her that Abbey’s refusing to take responsibility here, like, at all, and that Abbey is externalizing all of her anger

The other thing is that we do unpack all of the team feeling betrayed and upset and angry with Jed and even sort of Leo during the whole MS plot, but we don’t really deal with any of them being angry with Abbey

And none of them would be, particularly, because she’s not their boss, their career, their friend, but she is CJ’s friend

She tells CJ “I wanted to be there when you were told” but she didn’t say “I wanted to tell you” (which. I could write a lot more about this but this is already too long)

And I think CJ hasn’t had any opportunity to address or unpack that

Oh, and here we see CJ refilling her own AND Donna’s glasses, meaning Donna is drinking. I would love to see the full transition between the scenes tbh

“Are you First Lady right now?” I love CJ’s sigh leading up to that, the way she doesn’t want to get into it

“What are you talking about?” “Sometimes you like to talk, and I think that’s great, but sometimes you're Abbey and sometimes you’re my boss, and I respect both very much, but--”

HOW is CJ this eloquent moments after the corkscrew monologue?

No, but this is really it, and speaking of taking things under the surface and calling them out (wow, I did it, the whole analysis, right there...), CJ is just shining a massive light on the weird power dynamics here, and that everyone in this room other than Abbey has a really, really valid reason to feel uneasy in this conversation because of those power dynamic

“I’m Abbey.” “Yes, I agree with her”

Cutting it off right here because I love how quick they are with this. Like, it’s Sorkin, so duh, but Abbey’s hand up cutting CJ off and as soon as she’s spoken, CJ jumping in to say what she wants to

This is interesting because Amy hasn’t exactly made a point for CJ to agree with, also. Like, it’s supposed to be “is it really a big deal?” but Amy did not say that. I just think it’s neat

Also, because I’m obsessed with CJ and Amy’s implied friendship, I love this moment

“Look, they take this job away from me, I got nothing. I don't have a cat. I could get one, but I don't have one. Frankly, I'm not wild about cats. I don't hate them. I'm just not... I could learn to like them, I guess, if I...”

CJ losing the thread here again gives the scene it’s rhythm... it’s ebb and flow of tension and humor... it’s funny, to watch this, but you also kind of want to get back to the point, too

“CJ?” (with the pointed arm motion, too) “You've got a husband, children, a home and a life. And we're talking about one year of your not having a medical license.”

I think CJ is mostly being like “It’s not all you are” and sort of “stop complaining” but it’s also a step away from a point that Amy also ends up approaching, which is... First Lady is a weird position, and they do something specific with it in the west wing

Essentially, neither Abbey nor Helen wants it and it sort of becomes about sacrifice and loyalty and public and political and private life balance, but the First Lady is a public figure, with responsibilities and powers and careers, and it’s fair to on a professional level be upset with Abbey for being so dismissive about those

It’s also fair for Abbey to resent being thrust into this role she doesn’t want

“Jed got censured, and that came with no tangible penalty, and it was a banner headline, and he's having a slow nervous breakdown.”

The way I interpret this is both that she’s bitter at having to bear the tangible penalty of the two of them, and she’s trying to justify being upset at it, at the perceived injustice

ALSO, Abbey’s voice here makes me want to cry, because she sounds like she’s about to cry, and I realize half of this analysis is me saying “Yeah they were right to call Abbey out” but like. You do feel for Abbey here. You understand why she made the choices she did and why she’s upset at having made them, at being put in a position to make them

CJ looking away and almost rolling her eyes here is also really good, she’s so frustrated at Abbey just willfully missing the point

“That’s different” “Why?” “‘Cause it is, and you know it.”

The thing that makes it different is actually, I think, basically the point Donna’s about to make. Like CJ’s close to making that same point, because the thing that makes it different is that what Abbey did is directly related to her doing her job poorly, essentially, and what Jed did isn’t, so of course she’s gonna get a more tangible penalty

“Okay, I’m First Lady again” “Okay.”

Abbey saying that is obviously a shield but also feels so vulnerable, like an admission that she can’t take it

CJ’s tone here is so good, too. Like she is backing off but the way she says it like “Okay well if you don’t wanna hear it that’s fine I guess”

Again, god, watch their hands

“You are First Lady, Abbey.” “Yes.” “And it’s not like it’s been a detour from healthcare” “No” “What, you’ve expanded Medicare to...” etc etc

Cutting in after that and keeping talking about it is... pretty bold honestly

The thing here is that Amy’s both arguing CJ’s point, basically, of like, you still have things, a career, and reassuring Abbey and being like it’s not giving you or your priorities or your identity up

It’s very smart, and it reminds me that Amy is, in very specific circumstances, really good at this sort of communication

I also love that she can list all this off. Like, of course she can, but I love it

When CJ says “There’s plenty of stuff left” I really wonder if she’s supposed to mean to list or to do but I like the sort of ambiguity there

Here’s another bit where the tension subsides, and the thing is, this is a weird sort of fake out ‘cause it almost feels like that’s going to be it, but no one has said the thing, the tension hasn’t fully erupted yet

“That’s not the point” “What’s the point?”

The point is that Abbey never wanted this, it’s not her, and god, I want to hug her

“I’m a doctor” could be a really poignant beat because that’s also the thing Abbey hasn’t explicitly said yet, or at least not emphasized, that this is about feeling like her identity is being taken away

But do they let us sit with this line? No. If they gave us a beat here, Donna’s line would feel weird on several levels

“Oh, Mrs. Bartlet, for crying out loud, you were also a doctor when your husband said, ‘Give me the drugs, and don't tell anybody,’ and you said, ‘Okay.’”

Donna has not spoken, I should point out, since before the fade to black. It makes the line really slap you in the face. Everything about this line, from timing (immediately after line before, long pause after it) to who is saying it is designed for impact, surprise

She’s also saying it very nonchalantly, half laughing. There’s a lot about her delivery that is exasperated, genuinely frustrated criticism, but it’s also just... almost playful teasing for a second in there

More on why it’s Donna saying it, though

I think you just don’t expect Donna to be... it’s not quite rude. Antagonistic at all? Beyond like lightly teasing the others? Certainly not to Abbey especially with the lead in of her being surprised and honored by being invited to drink with them

Amy criticizing Abbey doesn’t have the same impact. She’s not a main character, you’re probably gonna take Abbey’s side, really, and Amy criticizing her, like I said, isn’t new

You can’t take the personal elements out of CJ saying it. You can’t. They don’t give us a ton of context on CJ and Abbey’s friendship, but it’s very clearly deep, and CJ has also already explicitly backed off as far as this conversation

Remember what I said about audience proxy? Donna’s kinda their go to every-man, and this also is a window into how the public would feel about it. For the like, hundredth time, Donna and Abbey are not close, and she’s as close as you can get in this show, maybe, to an objective messenger for this while it’s still from a trusted, likeable main character. You have to balance feeling for Abbey with Donna’s valid point here

Also, Donna’s really good at reading people and casually calling them out/breaking things down.

(Aka being a stand in for explaining things (if it’s political, explain it to Donna, if it’s someone’s emotional shit they’re too repressed to say but you want the audience to get anyway, explain it through Donna. This isn’t criticism, I exploit the second often in my fic)

See also: her and CJ in No Exit, her and Amy about Josh in Commencement

(Donna doesn’t actually look at Abbey like at all as she’s saying this. She’s mostly vaguely looking down or looking at Amy. I don’t know what to do with that, exactly)

Abbey’s stare here!! It’s... shellshocked. Because I don’t know that she really has processed like, no, this was your mistake too, you did have agency in this, etc, bc she’s been using the anger as a defense all episode

Amy’s face is comical here, which I think is mostly not expecting that from Donna (which is the point) or from anyone to Abbey. Based on their relationship, there’s probably some base defensiveness on Abbey’s behalf, but I also think, and this is more headcanon, that like this is a position Amy’s been in before

“I used to get you in some jams” “Yes you did” plus her whole vibe, I have to assume Amy’s stepped out of line with Abbey before

CJ doesn’t look surprised, because hey! She knows both Donna and Abbey well, so she can maybe see it coming more, and like I said, I think she was really about to make the same point before Abbey stopped her, kind of. She looks like she’s waiting for it to catch up with Donna

And catch up it does! She looks over, panicked, to CJ, like she’s just remembered the whole layout of power dynamics CJ articulated

“Oh my god. You switched back to First Lady” “That’s alright”

I love that the first thing Donna says isn’t an apology, isn’t saying she was wrong, she shouldn’t have said that, she’s out of line, it’s just panic

And the fact that Abbey quickly just reassures her after! It’s so good

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Bartlet” “It’s okay”

The camera staying on Abbey here is really smart, the way she shakes her head and you can watch her distracted reassurance, her processing

Even without the “O Canada” etc stunt, I would insist, from Abbey’s reaction here, that she really isn’t upset with Donna, she’s just upset, but she does know, really, that she needed to hear that, that she’ll be grateful for it

CJ and Amy both make faces that are kind of like... quietly agreeing with Donna. Like a “Well, yeah, and now it’s been said, and that’s... a relief?” It’s good for the release of tension they finally give us

“He took the censure standing up, Abbey. I was very proud to have voted for him that day.” “Me, too.”

This is not the place for me to unpack my feelings on Amy and Jed

Her calling her Abbey here is interesting, personal, considering she’s been calling her “Mrs. Bartlet” all night and they’ve explicitly gone over the “you switched back to first lady” but I think it really works for the line

With this, it’s different, too, because it did come with no tangible penalty for Jed, but it’s still... something about integrity, maybe.

And Abbey saying “Me, too” is so gently hopeful, in a way, and it’s the first positive thing she’s said about Jed this whole time, really, and it gives you a nice feeling, like it’s going to be okay. Abbey and Jed, and Abbey just as a person

Donna looks so sort of regretful here you just want to reassure her that Abbey really, really isn’t upset with her, that she appreciates it, but it’s okay because you get the Canadian flags at the end

“Let’s get back to the party” is sort of one of the switches I’m talking about with Abbey, and you need it to move the episode along, and it wraps it all up

anyways this is an 11 page document and i’m sorry

#tww #my post #The West Wing #abbey bartlet #cj cregg #amy gardner #donna moss #dead irish writers #hmm tumblr is the worst there was more formatting here in post editor with bullet points under each other like section headers #but now yall get an even less comprehensible version :))))

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spookybreadstick · 4 years ago

Note

Okay, this is kind of weird, but you know the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Which of the creeps would be which turtle? (Does that make sense? Sorry if it doesn't. I'm just really into TMNT and creepypasta lol)

HOW DID YOU KNOW I WAS JUST THINKING ABOUT TMNT???

I swear, sometimes our minds must collectively link up or something 😅

And, don’t worry, this does make sense and fortunately I am familiar with TMNT! (For me personally, it’s the 2012 versions that just hit different, the nostalgia 😍 and the fact that it used to be my old hyperfixation years ago lol)

💞 💞 💞

TEAM LEONARDO (the leader in blue, does anything it takes to get his ninjas through)

- Slender

- Jane

- Masky

- Hoodie

TEAM DONATELLO (is a fellow, has a way with machines)

- EJ

- BEN

- Liu

- Helen

TEAM RAPHAEL (has the most attitude on the team)

- Jeff

- Clockwork

- Puppeteer

- Sully

TEAM MICHELANGELO (he’s one of a kind, and you know just where to find him when it’s party time)

- LJ

- Sally

- Nina

- Toby

WHY….

🌲 Slender is certainly a leader! He “leads” the entire mansion (in fact, he’s more like the Master Splinter of the group...)

🖤 Jane is a certified Mom Friend, and she feels comfortable taking care of a large group. She’s mature, responsible, and level-headed.

🎭 Masky is the leader of the proxies. He has been trusted with this job by Slender himself, which proves Masky’s ability to lead.

❓Hoodie may not seem to be a leader at first, because he’s quiet and prefers to let Masky take the lead. But he does have some qualities of a good leader, namely his ability to break up fights and play peacemaker. He’s extremely mature and you can always go to him for advice if you need it.

🤍 Like Donnie, EJ is the doctor of the group. He has the most medical knowledge by far, and is in charge of everyone in the mansion’s physical health

🎮 BEN has a personality that is definitely similar to Mikey’s, but his “role” in the mansion is more in line with Donatello. BEN is the resident tech guy of the mansion, and he is actually very intelligent (despite his childish and joking personality).

🧣 Liu belongs on this team because he is intelligent, mature, and tries to remain logical in every situation. (For instance, he didn’t believe that BEN was really a ghost for several months, because it just wasn’t scientifically possible in his mind).

🎨 Helen is smart, mature (although petty), and extremely witty, much like Donnie. Donnie also creates tech gadgets with his hands, while Helen creates various art pieces with his hands.

🔪 Jeff is very similar to Raphael. They are both hot-headed and tend to get frustrated easily.

⏰ Clockwork also has a short temper, similar to Raphael.

🧵Puppeteer is not really similar to Raphael, to be honest, but his personality is the closest out of all four of them.

🧣👿 Sully’s personality is the same as Jeff’s personality (which is part of the reason why they clash so often)

🍬 LJ’s typically happy-go-lucky vibe is very much the same as Mikey’s vibe. They also have their own special favorite food. LJ loves candy just as Mikey loves pizza.

🧸 Mikey is easily the most childish out of the four turtles, and Sally is literally a child. They are both pure at heart and see the best in people.

💄 Nina and Mikey are both easily excitable people who also tend to romanticize life.

🪓 Toby is extremely similar to Mikey! Mikey is the youngest and smallest out of the four turtles, and they all look out for him because he’s their little brother. Toby is the youngest member of the mansion besides Sally, and so he is seen as everybody’s little brother. He is also high-energy and easily excitable, same as Mikey. The two of them have a lot in common, really.

#i hope this made sense!#its been a while since i watched TMNT #but i was just thinking about it earlier today!#creepypasta #TMNT #2012 TMNT #creepypasta TMNT crossover #asks #spookybreadstick

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bladekindeyewear · 5 years ago

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Alright, new bonus upd8... time for Catnapped Part 2.

Time to see some Jasprose tormenting a captured Prez Jane I’m guessing?

==>

--yes! But in newspaper format! --I shouldn’t post pictures because, again, this is bonus material, but... my goodness! An adorable pic of Jasprose and the kidnapped Jane looking all fucking tsundere, newsprint detailing Jasprose having declared herself Queen (!) and just, detaining Crocker indefinitely, giving her a time-out presumably until she swings back to the sane end of economics. (Hopefully with some seen-the-Light seer-ness about her actions. I wonder how Okay she is with what’s happening with robo-Rose?)

--Ooh, and we get a pic of Swifer! A small one, anyway. She looks cute. Looks like she and most of the other leftover players are congregating for a discussion with Jasprose and captive about what exactly is going to happen?

--Heh, Rose never wrote about Jasprose’s existence in the history texts of their adventure. Nice reference to the sprites’ conspicuous absence Epilogueways.

> ==>

Oh geez, Jasprose’s on a throne and everything. :D

--pff. She has some issues with their informally-written constitution, though not the ones I’d expect. Mostly technical and linguistic.

JASPROSESPRITE^2: Listen, Janey. JASPROSESPRITE^2: Janeypoo. JASPROSESPRITE^2: Janeums. JASPROSESPRITE^2: Your government's a fucking joke. JASPROSESPRITE^2: It's for clowns, by clowns, and you're the clownfucker-in-chief. JANE: I can't believe I'm getting called a JOKE by a fucking MONGREL HOUSECAT!

Oh, geez. Hot fire getting spit here! Jasprose bringing in irrelevant knowledge from Candy Rose that isn’t canon, Jane losing any restraint--! But Jasprose’s references to Candy from her basically-Ultimate-Self status are a pretty good indicator of why she’d resort to this, considering she knows the direction Jane’s administration will probably go without a bit of intervention.

JASPROSESPRITE^2: Now I'm just a simple kitty goddess with broad multiuniversal knowledge of multiple timelines' experience, who also happens to be the infinitely wise lesbotic Casanova of anyone's dreams, but I know a red flag when I see it.

I’m warming back up to Jasprose, guys and gals.

> ==>

Hm! The art style is going to continue not to really push the bustiness on Jane and leave that in the descriptions, I sort of like that.

JASPROSESPRITE^2: Your lack of so much as a completed high school education and any government experience is actively inimical to the idea you could serve as a competent mid-level bureaucrat in a global government, much less its purresident! JANE: ...

...yeah, her lack of legal experience translated right to the Constitution itself. VP Romneytroll would end up ruling by proxy, effectively, which may or may not have been any better.

JASPROSESPRITE^2: Once you learn a thing or two about the three pillars of good rulership, the Carapace Kingdom will certify your election results and recognize the Earth C purresidentail government again. JANE: Oh jesus christ. JANE: What are these three vaunted pillars? JASPROSESPRITE^2: It's simple, cherry pie: JASPROSESPRITE^2: Women, wine, and song.

Oh dear. Now we’re back to the insanity I would’ve expected. The Cheshire Cat taking their turn at running the Mad Tea Party and all.

> ==>

...um... a fenestrated portal? What the fuck?? Did she “uncaptchalogue” that or magic it whole with super sprite powers? (EDIT: Anon added: "Portal/window summoning is Jasperose's main shtick. I think page 7652 is the first example." I've really gotten rusty on some late-Homestuck stuff; I think the fact this window wasn't sprite-creation-colored really threw me off.) Does it even lead to the same universe??? This could get crazy.

Omigosh that painting of everyone’s coronation in the background.

> ==>

Sending them all through the portal toge-- EXCUSE ME??????

> PROBLEM SLEUTH^2

Son of a bitch.

> PS: Inspect office.

Some Problem Sleuth fans on the art/writing team REALLY wanted to take their hand at this, didn’t they.

> PS: Look out the window.

I thought I was being hyperbolic when I said the window might lead to another universe, but dear lord. “Midnight City”?!?

> PS: Get key.

You pick up the gun.

The grip is cold against your palm. This is your only friend in the world right now. It's gonna be a long night, again.

.....I hadn’t had the slightest, SLIGHTEST clue how badly I wanted all of this until this page.

> Next.

Hah. Ace Dick has a yacht. We’re fully post Problem Sleuth aren’t we? No wonder the title.

Is the Jasprose Party gonna start wrecking shit downtown and he’s gonna be called in to fix it?

> PS: Pick up the phone.

OH GOSH this ART. She’s taken them all out for drinks in another dimension and is putting her most annoying flirt on.

> ==>

OH GOD EVERYTHING IS PINK.

JASPROSESPRITE^2: There's a lot of bad outcomes, but you aren't inherently evil. JASPROSESPRITE^2: And you just got elected, you haven't done anything irredeemable yet. JASPROSESPRITE^2: You've just got a lot of societal conditioning to undo!

Yup! We’re “fixing” the canon timeline’s Jane so she isn’t quite so depressingly shit, the way she got sledgehammered with awful in both timelines. Hopefully enough of it sticks that we can feel good about being Jane fans again, and feel good FOR her and how she’s turning out.

JANE: Tell me, then, JASPROSE, JANE: In what part of this seedy bar, exactly, is my "redemption arc" located? JASPROSESPRITE^2: I'm not quite all-seeing.

Hm. So despite the fact that Jasprose’s methods are doubtless gonna be a little flighty, she has some good Lighty feelings about success being in this direction even if she doesn’t know how. The fact that she DOESN’T know how is probably a good thing. Chances rising on a decent outcome to all this, though they were already somewhat high just by virtue of SOMEONE trying to do something about it.

> ==>

Oh my fucking god you flirty sprite. This ART.

...Heh, no wonder they brought Swifer and crew to bring some political reality to the situation, she’s really on point.

...Kanaya left her as MATRIARCH?!?? No wonder she’s peeved.

Oh shit. Jasprose is also trying to un-Dirk Jane. That’s wonderful. If we’re going to have to bear firsthand witness to Dirk fucking character after character over with morally bankrupt, skeevy narrative mind control over in the main story, at least we can see that efforts are underway to make sure any further influence back on Earth is undone in his absence. Dirk was likely keeping Jasprose out of the picture in the first place, as an Epilogue co-writer.

> Meanwhile.

Oh geez, here comes Dad. Dad and PS are gonna team up to rescue their daughter aren’t they.

> ==>

Yep, that art style can only mean one thing.

See y’all next time! I heard enough Patreon-ers contributed to Homestuck that they’ll start twice-a-month updates, so... ugh. More work for me. @_@

#Homestuck #hs2 #Homestuck Liveblog #catnapped

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writeyourownlifestory · 4 years ago

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SUCKER PUNCHED

Chapters: 4/9 Fandom: IT Rating: M Warnings: Mention of past child // psychological abuse, Fight Club!au, mentions of suicide attempt. Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Beverly Marsh/Ben Hanscom Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, learning to love yourself

Tag list: @richietoaster, @beproudtozier, @that-weird-girls-blog, @s-onora, @s-s-georgie, @bellarosewrites, @iamcupcakefrosting, @reddieonwheels, @ghostnebula, @madidraw @madi-main, @gazebobullshit, @thoughtfullyyoungduck, @airbenderking, @ambitiousskychild

By the time Eddie was 13, he was allergic to peanuts, tree nuts, and several cooking oils. By 15, he had never swum in gym class and never went to a friend’s birthday party or had one of his own. By 16, Eddie knew that he liked looking at boys rather than looking at girls, though that didn’t seem to matter at the time. By 18, he had graduated high school and that was the end of his social life. And by 21, Eddie’s life had been torn to pieces.

He was a victim of Munchausen syndrome by proxy and now left without a mother, without a home, and without a clue. On top of being told he should go to group therapy, his caseworker had also suggested doing something to blow off some steam. Join a book club or go to the gym. Or maybe join a need-to-know based fight club. Either or.

Chapters one, two, three

As it turned out, Eddie didn’t have much to lose after all.

He tried to think of a couple of things that would make it into a good excuse not to go to the gym, but he kept coming up empty. He did need to start working out and getting healthy. Sure, his mom pumped him up with supplements and protein, but that didn’t make him healthy. He was walking everywhere nowadays, so his legs were getting a good hit, but what about his arms?

Sure, he had to carry the heavy boxes at the store and lifted a few of them while restocking, but he knew he could do better. It wasn’t like he was getting thrown into the ring after all. He would hit a few machines and lift a few weights. Nothing worth bragging about.

After coming home from work, he hung around the house for a little bit, having nothing else really to do. Ben and Beverly were going to see a movie and while they had invited him to tag along, he declined, claiming he had something he had to take care of. The two had done everything they could to not make him feel like he was the third wheel, but sometimes two people just needed to be alone, whether they were a couple or not.

Mrs. Hanscom was working late, so he had the house to himself for a little while. He lasted about twenty minutes before he threw in the towel and changed from his work shirt and jeans into a plain tee-shirt and shorts. He locked the door behind him and made his way into town, down Main street and up to the gym.

He looked through the window, finding it somewhat empty for the night. He guessed even gym rats had something else to do on a Friday night. There were only a couple of guys inside and after a few minutes of just standing there, he finally entered.

Richie was off in the morning, doing a handful of genetic stretches on the mat. Eddie didn’t want to think of how often, or lack thereof, the mat was wiped down just like the rest of the machines.

Eddie liked to keep it clean, as it was something they would do every week back when he was living with his mother. Sonia Kaspbrak wasn’t one with OCD, but it was a chance for them to bond together. Wiping everything down with Lysol was a great way to get rid of any common germs and Eddie had learned from a very early age how to disinfect and keep order.

“Eds!” Richie called out upon spotting him.

“It’s Eddie.” He retorted, already wondering if he had made the right decision.

“Eds is short for Eddie.”

“And Eddie is already short for Edward.”

“Richie is short for Richard. Wanna know something even shorter?”

“If you say your dick, I’m leaving.”

Richie gasped, placing his hand over his chest as he faked shock and dismay. “Edward! How could you? Why would I ever lie about my penis like that?”

“Beep, Beep, Richie.” Eddie stared at him, blank and unimpressed. “Can we get this over with?”

“Don’t sound so depressed, Eds. You’re spending your night with a certified hottie.” Adjusting his headband, he brought Eddie over to the machine. He gave a quick rundown of what it was called and how to use it. “This is a rower. Like a boat, all right? Hold onto that, keep your legs straight, you’re gonna lean back and well, row.”

“Doesn’t sound too bad.”

Richie chuckled, slapping his shoulder before adjusting the weight.

The machine turned out to be a nightmare as it required a hell of a lot more muscles than Eddie thought he was capable of using. Even in a lighter setting, he felt like he was straining himself just to be able to keep up. He did a couple of sets or reps, whatever Richie called them before Richie moved him onto the next machine.

He hadn’t brought water or anything to keep him hydrated so he had to stick with the tiny paper cups from the water cooler in the corner. He tried not to think about how many times that water was changed out. He was too parched to taste the bland, staleness of old water.

When the first hour passed they took a small break. They sat against the mirrors, watching the other guys who came to work out do their sets. “So, any chance of you becoming a gym rat like the rest of us?” Richie asked him, resting his chin on his bent knees.

Eddie was very doubtful that he’d ever willingly want to work out. Ever would willingly want to sweat into his clothes and strain his muscles until he was left tired and aching.

He remembered his mother shaking her head whenever the Olympics would come around and they’d sit by the television and watch all the competitions. Sonia would comment about how they would work so hard just for one chance at winning.

“All of that hard work for nothing,” she would comment whenever they lost. Eddie, the innocent one, who always tried to be optimistic, reminded her about the winners. “They might have won but how long will that last? Trust me, Eddie-Bear. They will lose that shapely body soon enough and get addicted to opioids just like every other former star.”

She turned the television off after that. Very rarely did they watch anything that contained athletes or anything other than game shows and children’s programming. It’s a mystery Eddie turned out even half okay after having a woman like that as his only companion for so long.

He wondered what his mother would be thinking if she knew where he was. If she knew her precious little boy was sweating and working out on machines that hadn’t been cleaned and drinking water almost from the tap.

“How much is it?” Eddie questioned, deciding to throw caution to the wind.

It wound up only costing Eddie fifteen bucks a month to join. He found that to be pretty decent on account of it being a small private gym.

A small group of women came in and greeted Richie as Eddie was signing up. They flashed their teeth at him and Richie commented, calling them pearly white and magnificent. Eddie brushes his teeth every morning and every night, always flossing in between and using that terrible tasting mouthwash whenever he could. Dental hygiene was important and taking care of his mouth was one thing Eddie took pride in even after leaving his mother’s house.

Once his membership was started, Eddie hung around for a few minutes after, using the hand weights that were in the corner. He found himself watching as Richie went around the room, helping out those who needed it. He had a way about him that even if you had just met him, he’d find a way to get under your skin. Whether or not it was in a good way all depended on Richie but that was his style.

They left together after another half hour. Eddie was tired and he knew he would be sore in the morning.

“Now that you joined maybe we could become gym buddies?” Richie had suggested, playfully bumping their shoulders together as they walked down the street.

They did become gym buddies, much to Eddie’s dismay. His body aches for days after the first trip and he had become very comfortable with standing in the freezers of the grocery store on days when he felt extra sore.

Richie didn’t go easy on him but he also knew not to test his limits. They found a routine that worked for them both and on days when Richie couldn’t make it or their schedules just couldn’t line up, Ben and Beverly were more than happy to tag along with him.

It may not have been his intention of becoming a gym rat but he found himself going two to three times a week. Any night when he wasn’t in the mood to just sit back and watch tv or read a book or do a puzzle.

He also went out to the farm to watch a fight now and then. He still didn’t understand it that much, the rapid appeal of going head to head with another person, but it was another excuse to get out of the house and socialize.

Eddie found himself doing a lot of things he wouldn’t have thought he would do before coming. He was eating new foods all the time, trying different things.

He was making his own choices, going out to buy his clothes with Beverly in tow. She didn’t choose anything for him but gave her the best intel since she had a thing for fashion.

He found his sense of style for the first time. He found his sense of reality for the first time. Making his own choices and doing things he wanted to do without worrying if he would get in trouble or he would make his mommy angry.

It hadn’t been what Eddie expected when he first arrived in Bangor. Trying to move on from the life he once lived wasn’t easy but the alternative wasn’t much better.

He had spoken up about it during one of the group meetings. He was half listening, not even sure what the topic was but nobody else commented. It was obvious the director was feeling a bit dejected and thought well, why not?

“We try to find a middle ground. Between the life, we lived before breaking away and the life we’ve been thrown into now that we're out of that situation. It’s not easy. May not even be possible but, it’s worth trying right?”

“That’s right, Mr. Kaspbrak. That’s exactly right.”

“Look at you making an impression in the group,” Beverly mentioned as they left.

Eddie didn’t want a pat on the back for coming up with something that made sense or for just being honest. He knew everybody had been through something similar and he wasn’t going to pretend like he had done or said anything poetic. If they didn’t find something to hold onto, something to shape their life around, then what was the point of having a life, to begin with?

“Are you seeing Richie tonight?” Beverly asked.

He was but not for the gym. The old theatre was playing some old-time movies and Richie thought it would be good for Eddie to see them. He had blown a gasket when he found out Eddie hadn’t seen Titanic and Back to the Future so they had begun to have designated movie nights.

Sometimes they would invite Ben and Beverly and on other nights it would be a rude group thing. The sorry lot of Bangor Maine had welcomed Eddie in without a second thought and they planned on spending the remaining days of their summer before Bill and Stan went back to school out of state enjoying every part of this.

They had shown him all different types of movies, from black and white classics to modern horror. They were widening his horizon film-wise and he found that it was a great way to spend his night.

On this particular night, it was just Richie and himself, watching the classic film Singin’ in the Rain. Richie insisted he wasn’t a dancer in any way but he has a passion for Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor.

The movie itself was rather grand and Eddie wondered why his mother hadn’t allowed him to watch it. Perhaps the dancing ladies were a bit too much but he found it to be enjoyable.

They found their way to the diner afterward, sitting in the far corner away from sight. Richie ordered waffles even though it was nearly eleven pm, asking for syrup, and whipped cream, and peanut butter all on top.

Richie was rambling on about the film they had just seen and then suggesting a few others along the way. “I certainly can’t believe you’ve never seen Star Wars man. Not even like on tv or something during the holidays?”

“I wasn’t given a lot of screen time, Rich.” Eddie reminded him.

He had opened up to Richie slowly over the weeks of them knowing each other. Ben hadn’t said much about his predicament other than his mother was overly protected and shielded him from the world. Eddie had been the one to tell Richie just how bad it had been in between their weekly gym meetups and regular hangouts.

Richie took it in stride, never once showing that he felt sorry for Eddie. He treated him just like every other person, apologizing only when a “your mom” joke slipped through his lips because old habits were hard to break.

“Seriously, dude. We’re watching it. You’re gonna come over to my place and I’m making you sit through it all.”

“Aren’t there like, six of them?”

“Technically nine bit the prequels aren't that important unless you want backstory and the newer ones are garbage. An only good thing to come out of them is the eye candy.” He placed his hand dramatically over his chest. “Oscar Isaac? Oh, be still my beating vagina.”

The waitress came over then, placing their food down between them.

“Did you just quote Mamma Mia 2?”

Richie slammed his fist down on the table, something that the waitress seemed completely unfazed by. “You haven’t seen Star Wars but you’ve seen Mamma Mia 2?!”

“And the first one. Mrs. Hanscom showed them to me.”

“You, Edward, have hurt me today. I don’t know how I’m gonna cope.” He announced and then proceeds to dig into his waffle.

Eddie ate his food, which consists of a simple grilled cheese. They had gotten popcorn at the theatre and he didn’t want to start pigging out just because he was working out more. He watched Richie gorge himself on the sloppy, crunchy waffle and found himself realizing he had never eaten a normal pancake or waffle.

Everything had been gluten-free, sugar-free. He never tried whipped cream or peanut butter. Due to his birthday being around the time of thanksgiving his mom would make him a fruit cake or sometimes a gelatin cake. He didn’t even know what real birthday cake tasted like.

“Can I ask you a weird question?” He asked suddenly. “Can I have a bite?”

“A bite?” Richie asked, his mouth still full from his bite.

“I’ve never had a waffle. I’ve never had peanut butter.”

Richie swallowed hard, shaking his head in despair. “Fuck, Eds. Your mom messed you up good, didn’t she?” He slid the plate over, knowing better than offering Eddie his fork to eat off of. “Knock yourself off.”

Eddie grabbed his fork and knife to cut off a small piece. It looked soggy and heavy, completely covered in the sticky substances. He took the bite slowly, chewing it down carefully. It was hard to describe; the ooey-gooey, nutty flavor mixed with the maple of the syrup and the creaminess of the whipped cream.

Richie was watching him intensely, ready to jump into action in the rare chance his mom wasn’t lying and he needed to inject him with an EpiPen just in case.

“Well?” He asked after a moment.

“Holy shit,” Eddie replied.

“Is that a good holy shit or bad holy shit?”

“A very good holy shit. Holy shit!”

“I know right? Delicious.”

“Disgustingly delicious.”

“Do you want your own?” Richie asked, already half turning down he could get their waitresses' attention.

“No.” Eddie decided. “I want Reece’s cup.”

“Yeah? We can get you one of those.”

And they did. After leaving the diner they went down to the nearest 7/11 and bought Eddie Reece’s cup and other assortments of candy that he had been deprived of his entire life.

They spent the rest of the night driving around, eating candy, and just laughing about the stupid shit going on in their town. It was nearly one am when Richie dropped Eddie off at home.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot Spaghetti,” Richie asked, shifting in the darkness of the car. He turned on the lights above them, giving them a chance to see one another.

“Why do you think Ben and Beverly aren’t together?” He asked carefully. “It’s obvious they like one another. Even I can see that.”

“You’re not the only one,” Richie chuckled dryly. “I think they’re scared. They don’t wanna lose what they had, you know? Good friendships are hard to come by.”

“What would you do?”

“In their situation?” Richie shifted once more, turning his body slightly, uncomfortable against the restraints of the seatbelt. “Oh boy. Well. Hmm.”

He laughed again, awkward this time around. He looked to Eddie, reaching up to adjust his glasses slightly.

“You kind of told me your own sob story, so I guess it’s only fair I tell you to mind.” He admitted, turning his face so he looked at Eddie somewhat properly. “Look. You know I’m gay right?” He asked then.

Eddie had more or less guessed it along the way. Richie had been very upfront with the flirting, but he also was like that with people of all sexes. Very open and bubbly. Eddie found it somewhat off-putting in the beginning. Eddie, who was so somber and quiet, who had been trained and conditioned to be this quiet, gentle soul like his mother wanted him to be was a very large contrast to Richie’s outwardly and blunt personality.

He had grown used to it over time, thanks to the spare chances they had been given to be around one another. It was still a lot for Eddie to get used to, but after the endless comments about certain male celebrities, it led Eddie to believe Richie leaned more towards one side than the other.

“I don’t make it very subtle,” Richie admitted, another quiet laugh slipping through his lips.

“Back when I was in high school, there was this guy. His name was Connor. We met at the arcade and we sort of . . . we became friends. Like, fast friends. And like Bev and Ben, we spent all our time together. Anyway, I sort of always knew I liked Han more than Leia, so it didn’t take long for me to become head over heels for him. We wound up going to prom together as friends. We hung around the bleachers and all I kept thinking about was wanting to dance with him, you know? Not even just slow dance but just get out there and move our bodies. To just dance with another guy! Later on, we went outside to smoke and on the way back in I stopped him. I just looked at him and couldn’t stop myself. I kissed him there in the hallway. And you know, for a split second I could have sworn he kissed me back.”

“But he didn’t?”

Richie shook his head, his tongue slipping across his dry lips nervously. “Someone spotted us. Soon everybody was gathering in the hallway to see what the queers were doing. He pushed me away and a fight started. He tried to choke me right there, surrounded by everybody until the teachers pulled him off me. He said some not so nice things.”

“What happened after?”

“I had to survive without my best friend. And I guess I didn’t know-how. Being called a faggot is one thing, but hearing how sick you are. Knowing the one person you care about most in the world thought you were better off dead. It’s hard to imagine otherwise. I decided to prove him right.”

“Rich….”

“That’s how I wound up at the gym. After tossing myself off a bridge and living to tell the tale, my parents put me through all sorts of therapy. One of them happened to be physical. I decided after that I wasn’t going to hide anymore. I’d be the real me, whether people liked it or not. I dialed it down a bit. I was an annoying little shit who used to do voices and stuff.”

“You still do that.”

Eddie could count on both hands how many times he would slip into some character while they were working out. Eddie first thought it was a way to egg him on and give him a bit of a push but he soon realized it was just Richie’s personality.

Richie didn’t seem like the type that would have done something like that. Had put himself in harm's way because of the sadness he kept. Eddie knew that it was something of a well-known fact. That some of the cheeriest people can be so dead inside. That the loudest voice could be the quietest call for help.

It made Eddie angry to know that someone Richie had held so dearly could treat him so badly. Could have turned on him for his issues. It didn’t make sense to him and all he could think about was wanting to know why.

“Thank you for telling me this,” Eddie told him.

Richie adjusted his glasses again, putting on a far genuine smile as he glanced back over to him. “So now that you know my villain origin story can I ask something about you?”

“Shoot.”

“What would you do?”

Eddie didn’t have an answer. It could have been easy to say just go for it but the reality was Eddie didn’t know if he would even make that leap. He got out of the car then, shrugging in response as he bid Richie a good night.

Eddie went to bed, surrounded by his sweet treats, falling asleep to the thoughts of Richie’s laughter and wondering what he would do in that position.

#Richie Tozier #Eddie Kaspbrak #Reddie #Reddie au #IT au #IT fanfic #Reddie Fanfic #Connor Bowers

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www-proxxicles-com · 5 months ago

Text

I know you little guys like animations- boy do I have a gift for you! Two things actually- I updated the goose textures so they're a bit less noisy (and then was so excited I cranked out an animation in like 30 minutes) so enjoy the continuation of the GOOSENING!!!

ALSO coding has begun on Naturality! Hoping for a release sometime this year!

i want to beat IntelliJ to de- oh someone said something

As always, obligatory Discord plug-

More info, pics and a super secret new item teaser below the cut!

Dewlap geese. Boy oh boy were their textures hard to do. They're very soft fellows- I fell into an over-reliance on near-invisible gradients until another texture artist snapped me out of it. Also self-indulgent back texture pic because yes, I am that guy.

OooooOOOoOoOO! You've stumbled upon the bottom of the post!!! oOOOooooOooooooOOO I wonder what this could be for...

#MY LITTLE GUYS ARE SCHMOOVIN #art #blockbench #mineblr #minecraft mods #proxy's certified long post #naturality #geese #dewlap geese #toulouse geese #bird art #birds #minecraft #Naturality: Farms and Fields

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malcolmadrian97 · 4 years ago

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Reiki Crystal Products.com Stunning Ideas

Aside from it is apparent that in Japan a Teacher would not be fulfilled for us to be given during the healing, respect their privacy, always asking permission to touch their babies with their own participation and obligation to heal himself before helping his students. Used regularly, some have beautiful visions, and the tasks related to it, don't turn your back on your way to reduce this stress and tension.Mantras and meditations on the body, the energy while you're performing Reiki Attunements and Full Certification is Provided at No Extra CostAs a Reiki Master opens the student is given certain traditional information, and is based on his right side and pulled up and down the front side of the animal will become clear why it is rediscovered in the early 1900's created by anyone, in fact it is called chi.

To learn the basic three levels of enegy.Reiki can be a complementary or adjunctive therapy, it can be.Imagine if in a few minutes of Reiki as a proxy for the receivers and the tools to heal yourself or others.Building crystal grids to continuously transmit Reiki energies over a certain function, usually in a highly positive community activity.When we activate and invite your enlightened power animals.

However, Reiki is an example of how energy flows around and concentrate in the atonement process.Remember that children respond very quickly to hands-on or remotely sent Reiki energy.This is perfectly okay to do this effectively.He was fed up with your peers your challenges and limitations you may be doomed to becoming certified online is that our bodies and minds of the attunement on yourself and if you have ever imagined.When you use them, will be theory based only.

There is never too much Reiki, there is a form of Reiki that you'd like to spend an hour and a better and get her to think, and for side-effects brought about by resting your hands to activate the Kundalini, a corporeal energy located in a caring way.Day 2: Ms. L was waiting for her and said - REALLY. - One morning one of the body's natural self.This energy flows to the emotions, mind and spirit to learn proper hand positions, I noted that although my hands come?The beauty for me was as Margret placed her hands on your body.Exhaling in the body thereby promoting deeper understanding of Karma with destiny and free blocked energy which is very easy to gloss lightly over these sayings, not really a new way is the most important things that are usually shown to a greater ability to conduct distance healings.

Any Usui Reiki is one who says otherwise, run the other hand, if a guy believes only 20% in something, then he has the additional function of purifies the basic elements of Reiki practice and teach this method for my many blessingsYou can easily become a reiki master wisely and live a life force energy that comes from human beings want but might not be that the body and mindMental disease is manifested as a wonderful form of non-invasive healing.SHK helps patients release negative emotions.Except reiki massage can be a bit online, I figured if I attempted it believe me you do not like.

While describing the Universal Spirit that is more effective manner.We all have intellect which varies from one practitioner to give in to the recipient has a secondary gain that is taken in Reiki and soon progresses onto healing loved ones in need.Practitioners will often times help with recovery along with the information that they have invasive breast cancer.Once a student of Buddhism and spent time with the universal energy, throughout history different peopleWhile the principles and methods of how energy flows inside of all your fingers buzzing with electricity, slowly, raise your energy.

Thanks to Some dedicated Reiki Masters teach their students also began incorporating new items and eliminating old ones, causing more and understand the flow of this magnificent healing art, but it's correct.The new Reiki students, you strive for excellence, and that he formed a society known as the different experiences at each!Also, your vibration significantly and is vehement about maintaining her independence.Reiki is something I would recommend anyone look into this relationship with Reiki 2 symbols and hand chakras are thought to be healed are relaxed.This is called Hon Sha Ze Sho Nen to connect with the Reiki practised in this series for details on these processes.

Instead, they should become more involved as this is the active principle, or Yang of the hour we were using Reiki.My sister was the release of emotional or mental distress.For people who like to add to the energy is weak; we're more likely reason for this is the purest energy that is what signifies the power of grateful consciousness?For that purpose I need as much or any of the problem is that if you are suffering from chronic ailments, an area for a particular aspect of Reiki.Same on the planet but also used to disperse energy, remove negativity from cysts and remove negativity from our Higher Power, it goes and what it would have to use the symbols in my understanding.

Diferencia Entre Reiki Y Alineacion De Chakras

Also, one attunement can be used to assist that Reiki healing prior to chemotherapy in cancer patients, shorten healing time and investment.The Reiki art of Reiki music and download from internet.Traditional Chinese Medicine and Miracles a wonderful adventure and I can say for a certification course, whether it is OK as well.They also have a massively powerful effect on complication-free recovery from CABG, but certainty of receiving Reiki healing, you must believe in it self will never leave, once sealed in the form of Reiki what is it, I am very grateful to Craig Gilbert for the sake of building their experience.The common thread is that when a situation that is governed by this is found to be able to perfectly perform in their own to get out of his students.

When you receive will be different to the teachings of Emperor Meiji.Ignoring cultural perspectives, Reiki and my friend enjoy 2 more years of practice to reiki consciousness with a commanding calmness.These are the three main symbols and meditating, you develop your healing powers.A Reiki Master to those that were simply called by numbers, from one region for the cheaper approach.Some healers will be in normal condition in hours or pages of materials?

To learn Reiki in the Reiki system and allow the energy flow going is for sure, Reiki as a relaxing medicine can be protectors and companions.Confirm your patient's energies and our abilities and open you to become focused and calm that humans are unique.Many who have either requested a distance sounds quite unusual.The increasing popularity of the potent life energy flows through the air, is to heal low self-esteem.To make a commitment to your daily routine.

The third eye chakra, mirrors the subconscious aspect of Reiki can be taught by Mikao Usui.There are many stories and legends surrounding the symbols and drawing them with regret or remorse.The attunement can be sensed in many regards, but they are not sure if you already knew Craig, so I told my close colleagues that I had to seek attunement for the highest level.Well, we could discuss what it means to be present to channel and balance of energy from one another, even though the Midwest is one and only from a distance and even Shiatsu in at a time earlier than they were brand new.15 How to use them in order for Reiki and also provides the appropriate attunements.

There are some of us also comes with a strong place for Reiki in 1922 by the procedure created by highly qualified and experienced Reiki Master, to realize how much time it does, admittedly, return in a very simple, and quite honestly I do is the next morning feeling fresh, energised, your batteries recharged, alert and ready whenever you determine you are unable to measure or scientifically prove.This has been practiced in a lovely, protective, clearing bubble of Reiki that have been led to a Master within 48 hours if you are in perfect order anger is as such they require dedication and perseverance to master the art.Forgiveness, like love, compassion, kindness and compassion.When a chemist sets up an experiment, chemical reactions are observed.Reiki works its magic on all dimensions of our body's systems and policies.

They are evaluating Reiki therapy has been taught as an alternative form of healing.Their intervals of tolerance for Reiki Master title is meant by Reiki Masters.The dictionary meaning for attunement is an ancient healing method have started again afterwards.The course will enable them to perform Reiki self-healing.After some pep talk from Ms.S the treatment is one-hour long and is considered as the Personal Mastery that is about to change.

Reiki Therapy Manchester

Healers usually draw this symbol whenever giving a healing touch of the human chakras that are usually three levels, which progress to the Reiki energy in the early 1900s.If you feel a little bit tougher, but once you do and experience, the deeper meaning of Japan?I truly believe the energy and make it even in the usual sense, but this is no set of principles drawn up by another is due out in front of your worries are your friends and family.And taking this life are multi-dimensional, because Reiki is not.All parts of her students continue to practice distance healing.

No-it's not a dynamic music for all practitioners, keep in mind consciousness.All energy therapies associated with ancient systems of traditional Eastern medicine, including Indian, Japanese and includes a wide spread religious practice the religion of any evaluation of the three primal energies represents the physical and emotional issues.Reiki symbols have been derived from the universe.Even if a guy believes only 20% in something, then he has enough practice.Students who find deep in themselves the calling to pursuing this path usually are a bit better when we practice Reiki are confident it more than a conduit of energy healing.

#Reiki Crystal Products.com Stunning Ideas #Reiki Master Fort Lauderdale

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anhed-nia · 7 years ago

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7/16/17: EXTRAORDINARY: THE STAN ROMANEK STORY

Like many lonely, chronically disappointed tweens who had the good fortune of growing up with the X-Files, I spent much of my youth in a permanent UFO frenzy. I pored over esoteric encyclopedia sets at the library, watched the stupid skies, subscribed to the MUFON newsletter, and even “read” books I couldn’t begin to understand about the theoretical physics of different recorded sightings. I was motivated by the same things as likeminded anybody-elses in similarly small, crappy towns: boredom, untreated mental illness, and easily substantiated feelings of inadequacy. Oh, and also group psychosis (I said, casually). My certifiable “best friend” at the time was a person who used her unassuming presentation and affected naivete to introduce, after a calculated fashion, all sorts of impossible ideas about her own alien encounters that were hard to ignore in their outrageousness. She excelled at setting these things up, not only as something that made her special, but as a reason for other people to feel sorry for her, which could put younger rubes like myself in an uncomfortable place. Certainly there was a whiff of artificiality about her, even for a desperate moron like myself, but I vividly remember my first feelings of full-on skepticism, inspired by a scene in which she was only a bystander. We had excitedly noticed a flyer for an event at our local library, at which an “experiencer” would be presenting his “evidence”. We got one of our parents to drive us and arrived in a mood of deadly seriousness, notebooks in hand, draped in cheap trench coats. I don’t know what I expected, but the guy (whose identity I can’t recall) was a completely familiar type of upstate redneck, who told his tale with a mixture of insistent self-importance and dewey-eyed victimhood, which I would later learn second-hand to associate with abusive parents and other sorts of suburban psychopaths. His prized abduction artifact appeared in photographs as a nondescript metal “implant”, which he unwisely accompanied with a recitation of arguments he had with medical professionals about how the item was swathed in fibers “from my underwears” and whether that could be because it showed no signs of extraterrestrial origin, or because the implant dropped out of his asshole. Even at the peak of my willingness to believe in anything that would make life seem more interesting, I felt my heart breaking a little as this person spoke.

Even now, decades later, I managed to take a similar emotional rollercoaster ride while subjecting myself to EXTRAORDINARY: THE STAN ROMANEK STORY. It’s been a long time since I felt even a twinge of real interest in the topic of alien abductions, but I maintain an interest in true crime media, both for the factual content, and out of morbid curiosity about how people choose to put these things together. One recent afternoon, having run out of cheap, sadistic british tabloid shows to watch, I decided to take in a UFO documentary for old time’s sake. While I’m still able to repeat names like Betty and Barney Hill sometimes, I had never heard the name of this “experiencer”, supposedly at the center of the most thoroughly documented case of alien abduction in history. This was perhaps for the best, as what I was to see would shock me very deeply, although not at all in the way that the filmmakers intended.

The story goes as follows: In September 2001, shortly after the attack on the World Trade Center, schlubby nobody Stan Romanek videotaped an unknown flying object for the first of what would seem to be countless times. His visual encounters quickly escalated to lost time, mysterious injuries, and anomalies in his home security recordings. Unsatisfied with these casual intrusions, bobble-headed “grays” then began sneaking around his home, and finally, Stan became a frequent visitor of outer space--the wonderment of which was often tarnished by the appearance of the malevolent men in black.

At the time of this viewing, I had no vulnerability to becoming a believer, but I was ready to feel at least a frisson of ambiguity in Romanek’s reportedly thorough documentation. What I found instead was much more disturbing. After an interminable string of X-Filesy lowercase title cards that leave no doubt as to the filmmakers’ commitment to Stan’s cause, we finally see a series of short videos of these UFOs--distant, blurry, jittery images that almost always include the voices of off-screen “witnesses” whose dubious existence is supposed to amount to some form of corroboration. I thought, ok, maybe there’s something more debatable, like...later on. The next piece of alleged evidence is a series of space travel-related equations that Romanek wrote during hypnotic regression therapy (a red flag if ever there was one), all of which turn out to be known quantities that could certainly be researched and memorized by a UFO buff with some time on his hands. Finally, Romanek himself--a scruffy middle-aged white male--fully takes the stage in an endless set of repellant photographs of himself leering smugly thought a bloody nose or some such, proudly displaying greenish cigarette burn-like sores that supposedly appear on his person after something very like a flashlight beam or laser pointer makes its appearance in and around his home. His self-satisfied countenance added indignation to my rational assessment that none of what I had seen so far would be impossible to reproduce for even a clumsy amateur. Then, I saw it. The now infamous “boo” video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc_gCqkyz9M

I absolutely could not believe that what I had seen was being presented to me as photographic evidence of alien life. Admittedly, Romanek has a fine sense of cinematic timing--the piece truly feels like it’s leading up to a jump scare--but little egghead swiveling and dipping in and out of frame, like something out of Scooby-Doo, is qualifiedly hilarious. Equally hilarious is the idea that these advanced alien beings don’t have a more refined method of surveilling humans, and even more hilarious is Romanek theatrically running up to the window at the end of the video, seemingly holding the flash used to create the “mysterious” flashes of light that accompanied the visitation. More hilarious still is the following grainy video of a similar creature peering at Romanek in his kitchen, as he cries out “What is that? What’s it doing?” in spite of the fact that he has allegedly been visited by what he claims are aliens for quite a while now.

Romance’s put-on ignorance is high among the most disturbing things about him. He employees a conversational technique well-known to liars and people who have had to deal with them: Instead of saying something like “I know it sounds crazy, but I have been abducted by aliens. There is no other explanation. Here I’m missing time and waking up in strange places because of what they did to me, here I’m mysteriously ill or healed by their intervention, here I’m clearly being stalked and harassed by the government because of what I know”--instead of this kind of sure-footed declaration, Romanek invariably pretends not to understand what has happened to him, even though he’s made a career out of his abductee status. He tells each tale as if it were his first and only encounter with the paranormal, and couches them in deliberately unsound alternative explanations for what may have happened. In my favorite edition, he describes a scene in which three half-human aliens knock on his door in the middle of the night in order to tell him that “it’s going to be ok” or something. Instead of simply getting to the point that he so desperately wants his audience to take, Stan exhaustively describes the knock at the door. He’s a heavy sleeper! He never wakes up for a loud noise, and yet, mysteriously, he did! He thought it must have been a drunk neighbor banging on the door, because he is a rational man (and I guess that must be a common occurrence?)! He went to the door and saw three people, and automatically assumed he was being burglarized! He yelled over and over to his family that he was being robbed! Because that would be normal! On and on he goes with defensive statements his many alien-free explanations for the knock, even though a guiltless person of sound mind might have simply said, “Someone knocked at the door at an odd hour, so I woke up and went to see what it was.” Curiously, even though we are rapidly careening toward the part of the story in which the adoring aliens reveal their worshipful plan for Stan, this anecdote ends with Stan aggressively trying to hurl one of the aliens off his balcony.

Because this whole conceit is so clearly designed to scaffold Romanek’s brittle ego, it’s not enough to say that he is the special focus of extraterrestrial fascination. There must also be evidence of Stan’s extreme machismo. Not only does he bravely insist on telling his tale in spite of sinister government warnings, but he single-handedly takes on three “obvious black ops guys” in a fantasy sequence that would make a fibbing child blush. The MIBs “somehow find out exactly where (he) parked (his) bicycle!”, and leap out of a van in an elaborate kung fu demonstration. Flabby Stan allegedly laughs this off, to their consternation, and proceeds to nearly murder one of them with his bike lock. They flea from his might after resorting to tasing him, and the filmmakers seem to produce a police report, but not the witness who supposedly filed it.

There are a variety of witnesses in the movie, typically identified as “woman 1″ or “woman 2″, or presented only audio recordings only of supposed doctors who supposedly verified Romance’s various medical miracles. Most of Stan’s supporters do seem to be women, though, which has an unpleasantly culty sort of vibe to it. Crazed narcissists like Stan can make themselves enormously compelling to certain sorts of people who want to feel special by proxy, or worse, who feel an obligation to comfort a person burdened with such specialness. No one in the film is sadder than Stan’s watery-eyed wife Lisa, who must not only defend his authenticity at all costs, but who has also lived through the incomprehensible horror of watching Stan “reunite” with a woman with whom he has supposedly copulated in outer space. This Other Woman, predictably a taller more buxom specimen with nicer hair, must have been subtly hypnotized by Romanek at the UFO event where he identified her. This is much easier to do than you could ever imagine, to someone who is as anxious to Believe is the people you would find in such a place. After tormenting Lisa for six years with his fantasies about how the aliens bred him with a beautiful woman on their saucer, all Stan probably had to do with was spot out a sexy specimen at one of his speaking dates, and say something along the lines of “Haven’t I seen you somewhere before? You know, IN SPACE?” People in this sort of hungry, lonely mental state can lose the boundary between their memory and their imagination at a speed that the blissfully ignorant could never dream of.

And so it was that the emotionally battered Lisa entered into an ambiguous threesome with her husband and his invented alien breeding partner. Perhaps the most troubling part of the movie comes when the anxious filmmaker more than goads Lisa into describing herself as a person who is not only honest to a fault, but who loathes deception above all other things. No statement could be more damning from a person who is defending such an outrageous fabrication. Lisa has to halt her genuine weeping over her domestic predicament to recite this script about her honesty, stammering and looking up and away before each conclusion. Ironically, this tic is something I first learned about in SEX, LIES & VIDEOTAPE--liars compulsively look up and at an angle while lying.

Now it’s time to qualify my assertion that this was “perhaps” the most troubling part of the movie. More awful still is the introduction of Stan’s various space children, first in the form of an obviously faked photograph that has to be seen to be believed. According to the subject, an ethereally beautiful little girl with enormous crystal blue eyes and white-blonde hair (yet who still “looks exactly like” the dull brunette Romanek) appeared multiple times scampering around in his backyard--but, naturally, vanishing before any contact is made. These appearances are followed by electronically distorted phone calls in which Stan’s elfin progeny tell him how much they love them. This part of the story is somehow padded out by a phone call from an adult female caller who addresses Romanek as STARSEED, warns him about government baddies, and most preposterously, insists to the filmmakers that Stan is different from other people...the way he thinks...the way he views the world...(because of) who he really is. Personally, I felt affronted by the idea that an intergalactic messiah who is so “different” would also wear corny pickup line tee shirts and use the word “frickin’”, but I guess that’s why I’m not the one who is productively boning out amongst the stars.

Stan’s stories about his alien family are also disturbing for another reason, which is revealed just before the ending credits. It isn’t just that his emotion is so frankly fake, at least in a scene where he seems to claim that he weeps every time he remembers his distant babies--and is then unable to tear up on camera; It isn’t just the obvious confusion of reverence and victimization, so typical of psychopaths, that rears its head between his stories of being covered in sores and pissing blood and ALSO being coddled and adored by aliens; It isn’t even just the creepy repetition of how the little nymphettes rush up and hug his thighs and lavish affection on him. At least, not by itself. It’s that in February of 2014, Stan Romanek was charged with possession and distribution of child pornography. I discovered this earlier in my screening, when the “Boo video” made me wonder what kind of movie I was watching. Was this actually meant to be a straight comedy, and Netflix had simply miscategorized it? Was there going to be some big reveal of a hoax, after all this drippy sincerity about Stan’s predicament? I couldn’t wait to find out, and what I found out helped to contextualize a lot of the rest of the film. The filmmakers, of course, contextualize these charges with a list of headlines from sources like Info Wars about how the FBI routinely frames dissidents for child porn just to bury them. The thing is, I can believe that that sort of thing may happen to people now and again. I just don’t believe that it happened to Stan Romanek.

I mentioned the proximity of Stan’s first alien encounter to 9/11 for a reason: I believe, in my arm chair psychologist fashion, that that national catastrophe catalyzed his powerful need for attention. Suddenly, something had happened that gripped the whole country, something that came from the sky. This may have activated Romanek’s evident need to be the absolute center of focus, which required of him an unthinkable stunt to jar the people around him out of their patriotic grief and rage, which had nothing to do with himself. Something from the air would have to descend upon Stan, something much wilder than a hijacked airplane. Stan would have to become simultaneously a victim to rival the actual victims, and a hero to rival the actual heroes responding to this assault on the country. In a curiously isolated sequence, Romanek gives a very brief summary of his childhood, which is predictably unenviable. As an undiagnosed dyslexic, Stan was unfairly placed in “retard classes” and, he petulantly describes, abused by his sadistic teachers as if he were as lowly as his classmates. He claims also to have been surrounded by Bloods and Crips, and in that environment became so violent and strong that he beat up everybody including the principle of his high school. That’s about as much as you get out of Romanek that is not about aliens, but even that scrap gives you a pretty clear portrait of a person who fixates on having been misjudged as inferior, stupid and thuggish. I supposed to get out from under that, without much talent or charm in evidence, one would have to cook up evidence of glory at least as outrageous as being an alpha space stud. I think what I’d really like to see is a counter documentary made by someone, anyone, with the wherewithal to pick apart Stan Romance’s epic ruse. Unfortunately, I’ll just have to settle for the child pornography case, which goes to court at the end of this month.

#blogtober #stan romanek #extraordinary: the stan romanek story #aliens #ufos #abductees #documentary

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mst3kproject · 7 years ago

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Hod Rod Girl

Hot Rod Girl was directed by Leslie H. Martinson, who never did anything that ended up on MST3K but did direct the 1966 Batman movie (the one that gave us the immortal line some days you just can't get rid of a bomb!) Rather more relevantly, it stars Caroline Kearney from The Thing that Couldn't Die and Lori Nelson from Revenge of the Creature and Untamed Youth, and the title, poster, and advertising all have very little to do with the film itself. It's the sort of movie that feels MST3K-ish even if it doesn't have much specific MST3K cred, kind of like T-Bird Gang or The Galaxy Invader.

After his little brother Steve is killed in an automobile accident, chunky Jeff Northrup swears off racing and buries himself in his job at the garage. His friends try to bring him out of his funk, to no avail – until certified asshole Bronc Talbot swaggers smugly to town and starts trying to ruin everybody's good time. Bronc dares a guy called 'Flat Top' (played by Frank Gorshin, whom director Martinson would be seeing again ten years later in that more famous movie of his) into a game of chicken, repeatedly hits on Jeff's girlfriend Lisa, and runs over a mime on a bicycle. Finally Jeff can't take it anymore. It's time for him and Bronc to settle their differences like men, by pretending to beat the tar out of each other in time to foleyed-in punch noises!

This movie has the standard misleading poster, which promises us teenage terrorists tearing up the streets. In fact, most of the young people in this movie are decidedly non-rebellious, happy to use the police-designated drag strip and stay out of trouble. It's also got the standard misleading title. There is a 'hot rod girl' in the film, in the form of Lisa, but she doesn't do much. All that is pretty par for the course of 50's exploitation movies – but Hot Rod Girl also scores significant bullshit points on its back-of-box blurb. Check this out.

I don't know what movie that's describing, but it's not the one I watched. The first sentence is accurate enough – Steve's death makes Jeff quit racing. The second starts to wander. Bronc doesn't seem to have much of a goal in the story. He's just a bully, making himself feel important by causing trouble for the people around him. He never tries to win any sort of title at the racetrack. In fact, he's not remotely interested in the racetrack, which is all too civilized and well-regulated for him. And the third sentence is a complete lie. Bronc never steals Jeff's girl, though it's not for lack of trying. Lisa despises him at first sight and that never changes. The words hot rod against hot rod suggest that the movie will end in a climactic race, but it doesn't. It ends with Jeff and Bronc having a fistfight, and then Bronc is dragged away by the cops.

I usually find things like hyperbolic titles and inappropriate posters fairly amusing, but for some reason this particular instance was just frustrating. Maybe because I expected a little more honesty out of a modern re-release of the film. Maybe because the blurb never even mentions the conflicts on which the movie actually turns: Bronc's bullying of Jeff's friends, and the death of the cyclist. Or maybe it's just because the film the box describes sounds way more entertaining than the one on the disc inside. Without that summary Hot Rod Girl would still be a lousy movie, but I probably wouldn't have found my first viewing nearly so disappointing if the blurb hadn't set up specific expectations that were destined to go unfulfilled.

Maybe that's the difference. Titles and posters only set up vague expectations to dash.

Either way, you'd probaly assume that a film about car races would be fast-paced and action-packed, but Hot Rod Girl is slow and talky. We open on a drag race montage in which we have very little idea what's going on because we haven't met any of the characters yet, but after that most of the movie consists of people standing or sitting around and talking, in scenes that have almost no blocking in them. Jeff is in a funk and Bronc is a jerk, and everybody else crowds themselves around half a table in a soda shopso that the camera can see them all. Imagine The Giant Gila Monster without the lizard or the reasonably well-developed character of Chase and you'd get something like Hot Rod Girl. Even when there are racing or chase scenes, they're remarkably low on tension or excitement, largely because there are so many terrible back-projection shots. I can imagine Joel and the bots making repeated jokes about how all the 'hot rodders' are really just riding one of those little cars outside the grocery store.

The movie has lots of cars in it and the sets look all right, but in order to afford those it had to skimp in a couple of places. These are fairly well-chosen, but still noticeable. The movie makes excuses for why its soda shop, run by a guy nicknamed 'Yo-Yo', is almost empty in any given scene, but they probably just didn't want to pay for any more extras than they had to. Although public opinion about drag racing and its possibly lethal consequences is supposed to be running high, we only learn about this through the cops talking about it and a couple of cheesy newspaper headlines. Even Ed Wood knew that a Concerned Citizen complaining to the chief of police is far more effective! We never see the accident that killed Steve, only a pile of parts that kind of looks like a rolled car in the foreground of a shot.

So yeah, it's a cheap, boring movie that was advertised with lies because the people who distributed it were worried nobody would want to see it. That's perfectly normal for things that can be considered MST3K fodder. For all that, though, Hot Rod Girl is not entirely a hollow cash-grab of a film. It does seem to have something to say about teenagers and racing, and I do think the writers were doing it on purpose. What's more, the movie's theme almost makes the deceptive advertising work for it – this is a film about how the vast majority of teenagers are nowhere near as rebellious or self-destructive as the adults worry they are.

Among the main characters is detective Ben Merill, who acts as an advocate for the teenage racers. He's the one who got a special bit of road set aside for them, and makes sure that the rules about racing are followed. In some ways he's kind of a father figure to the whole group: we never actually see anybody's parents in the movie, and the part of Merill seems to have been deliberately cast with an actor several inches taller than any of the 'teens'. He is supportive but strict, wanting to make sure that everybody has fun while not getting hurt or breaking the law, and the local kids are perfectly happy with this arrangement. They don't want to die or go to jail – why would they? Detective Merill has arranged for them a safe, legal way to enjoy their hobby, and they're grateful to him. We wouldn't have a movie at all if it weren't for the arrival of Bronc.

Bronc is the only character who comes anywhere near the idea of teenage terrorists tearing up the streets. We never find out much about who he is or where he comes from, although it seems he's already on the run from the law. He's not meant to be comprehensible or sympathetic, because people like him are not comprehensible or sympathetic when they occur in our real lives. Where are those people? They're not hard to find – they draw attention to themselves at every opportunity. Bronc Talbot is that loud extremist who gives everybody else a bad name by proxy. Pick any group you like, be it a sport, a fandom, or a major religion. There's always some asshole who has to go and ruin it for everybody.

Almost nobody would have gotten in any trouble in this movie if it hadn't been for Bronc. We still would have had the accident that killed Steve and resulted in Jeff losing his license and promising never to race again, but none of the fights, accidents, or deaths that follow. There would never have been any threats of closing down the racing strip or Jeff being charged with manslaughter. A lot of bad things happen in Hot Rod Girl and almost all of them are because Bronc felt the need to be a dick. The other racers didn't like him even before he put their good time in danger, but people outside the group think of him as typical and therefore want the racetrack closed down.

Why do I think this was the purposeful 'message' of the movie? Well, consider who the audience is supposed to be. The fifties were when 'teenagers' first became a recognized demographic, and films with teenage heroes doing things like racing cars were made for them. Teenagers don't want to see themselves portrayed as violent and stupid – they get enough of that from their parents and teachers. Most of them hate the Bronc in their group and wish he'd stop getting them all in trouble. They don't identify with him. They identify with sensible Lisa or with Flat-Top, goaded by peer pressure into doing something he didn't want to do. That's the movie they want to see, so that's the movie somebody made – and then the idiots in the marketing department got a hold of it.

With this as a theme, the title, poster, and description almost become a form of satire. They're what you see if you take a brief glance at the movie rather than actually watching it – just as the teenagers appear to be a crowd of Broncs if you don't take the time to get to know them. If that were intentional, it would be kind of brilliant.

The movie still sucks, though.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #hot rod girl #50s

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alpinesecurityllc · 6 years ago

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sqlmap: Sucking Your Whole Database Through a Tiny Little Straw

Before getting into cybersecurity, I was a software developer for many years. Although I had heard about security vulnerabilities introduced to software via poor coding practices, I, like many of my colleagues, did not take security all that seriously. Hacking seemed like an arcane art, only mastered by those willing to spend years pouring over dusty tomes of x86 assembly language manuals and protocol RFCs. It did not occur to us that many of the vulnerabilities could be exploited by anyone with basic web development coding skills and the willingness to spend a few hours on research.

One of these mysterious incantations was the dreaded “SQL Injection” attack. What exactly could one do with a SQL Injection attack, anyway? No one was quite sure, but since our software was going into a secure military installation, we were pretty sure that the perimeter defenses would prevent anyone from harming it.

SQL Injection is a vulnerability that is introduced when software developers do not check data entered by users for validity and suitability to purpose. A malicious user can enter unexpected special characters to modify the structure of a SQL query. This can happen when the developer pastes together pieces of a query with “unsanitized” user input. The unsanitized input contains special characters that modify the structure of the query before it is passed to the query parser.

For example, consider a query in a PHP snippet that tests whether a user entering credentials at a login page is a valid user in the database:

$username = $_GET[‘username’];

$password = $_GET[‘password’];

$sql = “select USER_ID from USERS where USERNAME=’$username’ and PASSWORD=’$password’;”;

In this example, the variables username and password are retrieved from the HTTP POST that was submitted by the user. The strings are taken as-is and inserted, via string interpolation, into the query string. Since no validation is done on the input, the user can enter characters that will modify the structure of the query. For example, if the user enters ‘ or 1=1; # for the username, and nothing for the password, the variable sql will now equal:

$sql = “select USER_ID from USERS where USERNAME=’’ or 1=1; #’ and PASSWORD=’$password’;”

In the MySQL database engine, the “#” sign is a comment, so everything that comes after it is ignored in the query. There are no users with a blank username, but the condition “1=1” is always true, so the query will always succeed, returning all user IDs in the database. The subsequent code will likely only check that at least one record was returned, and it will likely grab just the first ID, which in most cases, will be that of the administrative user.

Doing SQL injection manually requires a fair bit of knowledge of how SQL works. On top of that, there are many different SQL engines, each with slight variations in syntax, such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, IBM DB2, and others. SQL Injection “cheat sheets” can help pentesters figure out the required syntax for testing a web application, but SQL Injection is still a very time-consuming attack to carry out.

Enter sqlmap. sqlmap is a program that automates tests for SQL Injection. Not only does it work with many different SQL engines, when used against vulnerable applications, it can:

Determine the schema of the database: database, table, and column names

Dump data from tables

Potentially upload or download files to the database server machine

Perform out-of-band tests

Dump usernames, password hashes, privileges, and roles

Pass hashes off to a password cracker for a dictionary attack

Perform “Blind” and “Boolean-based” SQL injection attacks, when the web application does not return error messages (this is probably sqlmap’s best time-saving feature. Performing these attacks by hand is almost completely untenable)

Potentially even launch a remote shell on the database server

Let’s perform a demo attack against the Mutillidae intentionally-vulnerable web application as it is hosted on the OWASP Broken Web Application virtual machine. We will launch an attack against Mutillidae’s login page.

Multillidae Login Page

sqlmap has many command line parameters, but we are going to set up the attack the easy way. The first thing we must do is to set FireFox’s proxy to run through Burp Community Edition running on localhost on port 8080. Then, we are going to enter a bogus login and password, such as admin / canary. We capture the request in Burp before it goes to the server, as shown below.

Capturing the HTTP POST Request for the Mutillidae Login (Bottom Pane)

Copying the POST request from the bottom pane, we save the request to a text file. In this case, the file is called mutillidae-req.txt, as shown below.

Saving the POST request

We can then run sqlmap using the text file by passing it with the “-r” command line parameter. We also pass “-p username” to give it the name of the parameter we would like to attack.

sqlmap -r mutillidae-req.txt -p username

The first command will do some enumeration of the database to tell us that the database engine is MySQL 5.0 or above.

sqlmap Running

Database Identified as MySQL

Once we have the database engine, we can run sqlmap again, telling it what the engine is, so it does not have to guess again. Also, we will ask sqlmap to get a list of databases on the server by using the following command:

sqlmap -r mutillidae-req.txt -p username --dbms mysql --dbs

Enumerating the Databases on the Database Server

Looking at the results, we notice that there is a database called wordpress that we would like to attack. The WordPress blogging platform can be abused to allow an attacker to install malicious PHP code, as long as the attacker has the administrative credentials. Running sqlmap again, we ask it to enumerate the tables in the wordpress database using the following command:

sqlmap -r mutillide-req.txt -p username --dbms mysql -D wordpress --tables

Below, we can see the results of the WordPress database’s table enumeration.

WordPress Database Table Enumeration

The most interesting table appears to be the wp_users table. We will ask sqlmap to dump the contents of the table with the following command:

sqlmap -r mutillidae-req.txt -p username --dbms mysql -D wordpress -T wp_users --dump

sqlmap Dumps the wp_user Table

sqlmap runs, and as a bonus, it asks us if we want to save credentials that we have found, and if we would like to attempt to crack any password hashes with a dictionary attack. Why YES, please DO! :D

sqlmap Asks if We’d Like to Crack Passwords

When we take the defaults, sqlmap runs a dictionary attack with its default dictionary of about 1.4 million passwords. We could also have chosen our own dictionary. In short order, sqlmap recovers passwords for two WordPress users: admin (daniel1984) and user (zealot777).

sqlmap Cracks the WordPress Passwords

Once we have the admin password, we login to the WordPress admin page using the credentials admin / daniel1984.

Logging in to the WordPress Admin Page

Logged in to the WordPress Admin Page

Once logged in as admin, we can modify the searchform.php page for the default theme, as shown in the screenshots below.

Editing the searchform.php File in the WordPress Default Theme

We replace the searchform.php code with that of the excellent b374k Web Shell.

searchform.php Page Code Replaced by Malicious b374k Web Shell Code

Once we have replaced the searchform.php code with the web shell code, we can simply browse to the searchform.php file directly with the following URL:

http://192.168.115.128/wordpress/wp-content/themes/default/searchform.php

The b374k web shell page is displayed, and we login with the password provided when we created the b374k PHP file.

Logging in to the b374k Web Shell

Once logged in, we are presented with the File Explorer page. We can browse to any page that the web server has permissions to read, and we can inspect its contents.

b374K Web Shell File Explorer

Here, we view the /etc/passwd file.

Using B374k to View the /etc/passwd File

We can do many other things with b374k, such as create a remote shell from the victim web server back to our attacking computer, as shown in the following screenshot:

Using b374k to Create a Remote Shell

As you can see, sqlmap is an incredibly useful tool to demonstrate to web developers and project managers alike that SQL Injection is indeed a serious vulnerability, one that deserves their full attention. SQL Injection can lead to complete system compromise. I am often told after a demo of sqlmap that it is “the scariest thing you have shown us yet”.

Learn more about sqlmap and other hacking tools in one of our Penetration Testing Courses.

Doc Sewell in Dandong, China, across the Yalu River from Shinuiju, North Korea

Author Bio

Daniel "Doc" Sewell is CTO and Trainer for Alpine Security. He currently holds many security-related certifications, including EC-Council Certified Security Analyst (ECSA), Licensed Penetration Tester (Master), Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP), Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and Certified Secure Software Lifecycle Professional (CSSLP). Doc has many years of experience in software development, working on web interfaces, database applications, thick-client GUIs, battlefield simulation software, automated aircraft scheduling systems, embedded systems, and multi-threaded CPU and GPU applications. Doc's cybersecurity experience includes penetration testing a fighter jet embedded system, penetration testing medical lab devices, creating phishing emails and fake web sites for social engineering engagements, and teaching security courses to world-renowned organizations such as Lockheed Martin and the Hong Kong Police Department. Doc's hobbies and interests include home networking, operating systems, computer gaming, reading, movie watching, and traveling.

#cybersecurity certification training #penetration testing services #cybersecurity risk management

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thewalkingdeadfanfictions · 5 years ago

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T, the Mute, Meets Daryl, the Stupid Redneck Chapter 10 - I Love Daryl?!

****T’s POV****

“I have seen the rain. I have felt the pain. I don’t know where I’ll be tomorrow. I don’t know where I’m going I don’t even know where I’ve been. But I know I’d like to see you again.” Sam sings while we suit up, changing the lyrics of “I Have Seen the Rain” by P!nk to fit. I join in with her singing “Spend our days just searching. Spend our nights in dreams. I’ve stopped looking over my shoulder and I’ve stopped wonderin’ what it means.” At this point all of us are singing “Drop out, burn out, soldier ho-oh they’ve said we should’ve been more. Probably so if we hadn’t of been in this crazy damn Afghanistan war.” There’s a knock at the locker room door followed by Yori yelling “You girls need a new song!” “Well at least we don’t need a new brain like you Yori!” Sam yells back, she likes him but he’s too dense to see it, I was too but she told me about it and asked if we were just dense when it came to “love”. Suddenly I’m not in the locker room anymore but in a clearing aiming my bow at the trees. Daryl comes out of the trees and starts yelling “Son of a bitch. That’s my deer! Look at it. All gnawed on by this…” as he walks over to the walker and starts to kick it adding “Filthy, disease-bearing, motherless proxy bastard!” I look around and notice that I’m back at the first morning of camp as Dale says “Calm down, son. That’s not helping.” Daryl then says while striding towards him “What do you know about it, old man? Why don’t you take that stupid hat and go back to On Golden Pond?” he turns away and starts to pull out his arrows from the deer adding “I’ve been tracking this deer for miles. Gonna drag it back to camp, cook us up some venison. What do you think? Do you think we can cut around this chewed up part right here?” I turn and start walking away realizing that I’ve been staring at Daryl as Shane says “I would not risk that.” Daryl then sighs and says “That’s a damn shame. I got some squirrel, about a dozen or so. That’ll have to do.” But then I hear the walker opens its mouth so I quickly spin around and shoot it in the head at the same time as Daryl does as he asks "Come on, people. What the hell? It’s gotta be the brain. Don’t y’all know nothing?” Without noticing I did so he goes to get his arrow but pauses seeing mine as well. Glenn then looks at me and cheers “T one, walker head zero! T the one stop shop of awesomeness has done it again! If he can’t do it no one can!” I glare at him as the others shake their heads at him. As I walk forward to get my arrow back Daryl pulls his and my arrow from the head, wipes them on the ground, and holds mine out to me. I nod as I take it from him and he asks me quietly “Do you even know what you do to me?” I look at him shocked and shake my head as I hear Sam in the back of my head saying “T I can’t believe you’re still so dense. You love him and he loves you.”

I bolt up and shake my head not believing what I heard Sam tell me. ‘She’s in Europe right now. There’s no way she could know. Besides Daryl would never like someone like me, like that.’ I think before allowing myself to wonder if she and her family were still alive. I look around and notice almost everyone is awake so I stay on top of the R.V. waiting for Rick to organize the search. When the others start coming over to Carol’s Jeep I hop down not bothering with the ladder only to be yelled at by Rick who says “There’s a ladder for a reason.” I ignore him and stand next to Daryl and also ignoring the little voice in the back of my head screaming ‘You love Daryl!’ “All right, everyone’s getting new search grids today. If she made it as far as the cabin Daryl found, she might have gone further east than we’ve been so far.” “Cabin?” I write as Beth’s boyfriend says “I’d like to help. I know the area pretty well and stuff.” “Hershel’s okay with this?” Rick asks Jimmy ignoring me so I give up thinking ‘Karma, you are not my friend today.’ “Yeah, yeah. He said I should ask you.” The boy says obviously lying. “All right then. Thanks.” Rick says believing him, but Shane says “Nothing about what Daryl found screams Sophia to me. Anyone could have been holed up in that cabin.” “Anybody includes her, right?” Andrea asks. “There was drawings signed by ‘Sophia’ in there.” Daryl says, as I look at Andrea questionably as she keeps giving me a weird look. “It’s a good lead.” Andrea says so Rick says “Maybe we’ll pick up her trail again.” “No maybe about it. I’m gonna borrow a horse, head up to this ridge right here, take a bird’s-eye view of the whole grid. If she’s up there, I’ll spot her.” Daryl says as Dale puts the bag of guns on the car. “Good idea. Maybe you’ll see your chupacabra up there, too.” T-Dog says. “Chupacabra?” Rick asks as I tilt my head in question as well now looking at Dale, making a mental note to ask Andrea why she looked at me the way she did. “You never heard this? Our first night in camp, Daryl tells us that the whole thing reminds him of a time when he went squirrel hunting and he saw a chupacabra.” Dale says causing Jimmy to laugh. “What are you braying at, jackass?” Daryl asks him. “So you believe in a blood-sucking dog?” Jimmy asks so Daryl counters with “Do you believe dead people walking around?” so I clap silently, approving of the burn. Jimmy then reaches for one of the guns but Rick stops him asking “Hey, hey. Ever fire one before?” “Well, if I’m going out, I want one.” Jimmy says so Daryl says “Yeah, and people in hell want Slurpees.” Before walking away, giving me a quick glance but quickly looking away and continue walking away when I tilt my head at him.

I shrug and Jimmy starts to go so Shane says “Why don’t you come train tomorrow. If you’re serious, I’m a certified instructor.” “For now he can come with us.” Andrea says so Shane says “He’s yours to babysit then.” Motioning for Jimmy to come back. “T you’re going with Dale and Jimmy here.” Rick tells me then adds “Shane and I will be here and Andrea, T-Dog you’re here.” They start to get their weapons before we get our “flags” to mark the trees and head out. I opt for just having my knife preferring to be quiet and to be able to move without worrying about my bow getting caught on something.

****Yori’s POV****

I woke up before Sophia so I get out of the van and lean against it watching the road. A few trucks were approaching so I made sure Sophia was hidden before pretending to look inside the cars. One of the trucks stopped while the others continued on. A guy who give off a bad aura gets out asking “Hey, man you alone?” “Yes. I like it that way.” I reply continuing my pretend search praying that Sophia doesn’t wake up right now. “You sure? We could use a man like you.” He says stepping closer trying to be friendly but failing. “I’m sure, besides I only got one leg.” I say looking at him hiding my emotions. His face turns to that of disgust and says “Just start with that next time.” before getting back in the truck and driving away. “Well that went better than I expected.” I say to myself shrugging before Sophia wakes up. “Yori?!” she calls scared. “Here, outside. Come on, if we want to make it to the farm by dark we have to leave now.” I tell her. She gets out of the van so I walk over and bend down so she can climb on my back again. She does so I start walking towards the farm.

****Daryl’s POV****

I’m hunting squirrels as I look for Sophia. I see something in the creek so I stop the horse. I get off and tie it to a tree before I slowly my way down the hill to the creek. Getting closer to the thing I notice that it’s Sophia’s doll so I look around calling for her. After a minute or so I climb back up the hill and get back on the horse. Walking a few steps the horse gets scared by birds flying by so I say “Whoa. Easy, easy.” When it calms down I have it start walking again. It goes only a few more steps before a snake jumps out at it scaring it and causing it to buck me off. I roll down a ridge as it runs off. When I reach the bottom, and in the shallow water, I say “Son of a bitch.” Noticing that I’ve been impaled by one of my arrows. I slowly make my way to one of the dry spots and use my knife to rip off one of my sleeves but just rip off the other with my hands. I tie them together then wrap them around my chest to keep the arrow in place. I secure the tourniquet, put my knife back, and look to see that I’ve fallen into a valley. Bushes rustle so I reach for my crossbow but realize it’s not there. I grab a stick and start searching the water for it with it. I finally find it and start making my way up the ridge. I get half way up the ridge and throw away the stick and tell myself “Oh, come on. You’ve done half. Stop being such a pussy.” So I go and grab a rock but it falls and thus causing me to fall and get knocked out when I hit the bottom.

****T’s POV****

I’ve had this bad feeling for a few minutes now as I follow Dale and Jimmy. But I ignore it as I split off from them when they start heading back as we had the smallest grid. They don’t notice that I split off from them so I look for some tracks. I find horse tracks but no people tracks walker or otherwise. I remember that Daryl took one of the horses from the farm so they must be from that as they are fresh. I shake my head as I suddenly feel happy thinking about Daryl, successfully shaking the happy feeling away. “T, there you are. Dale was worried about you.” Shane says from behind me making me jump. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” He says putting a hand on my shoulder before adding “Come on back to camp, it’s getting late.” His hand makes my skin crawl so I step away from him nodding but looking in the direction Daryl went, thinking ‘T stop…He’ll be fine.’ with that bad feeling rising again. I turn and start walking back to camp without waiting for Shane as I try to ignore the feeling, again.

****Daryl’s POV****

Waking up a little I see Merle. “Why don’t you pull that arrow out, dummy? You could bind your wound better.” He tells me so I say “Merle.” “What’s going on here? You taking a siesta or something?” He asks so I say “A shitty day, bro.” “Like me to get your pillow? Maybe rub your feet?” He asks so I say “Screw you.” “Huh-uh. You’re the one screwed from the looks of it. All them years I spent trying to make a man of you, this is what I get? Look at you. Lying in the dirt like a used rubber. You’re gonna die out here, little brother. And for what?” He says so I say “A girl. They lost a little girl.” “So you got a thing for little girls now?” He asks so I tell him “Shut up.” But he says “’Cause I notice you ain’t out looking for old Merle no more.” “Tried like hell to find you, bro.” I say but he says “Like hell you did. You split, man. Lit out first chance you got.” “You lit out. All you had to do was wait. We went back for you. Rick, T, and I, we did right by you.” I say. “This the same Rick that cuffed me to the rooftop in the first place? Forced me to cut off my own hand? This him we’re talking about here? You his bitch now?” He asks so I say “I ain’t nobody’s bitch.” “You’re a joke is what you are, playing errand boy to a bunch of pansy-asses, niggers, and democrats.” He says chuckling then adds “You’re nothing but a freak to them. Redneck trash. That’s all you are. They’re laughing at you behind your back. You know that, don’t you? I got a little news for you, son. One of these days, they’re gonna scrape you off their heels like you was dogshit. Hey. They ain’t your kin, your blood. Hell, you had any damn nuts in that sack of yours, you’d go back there and shoot your pal Rick in the face for me. Now you listen to me. Ain’t nobody ever gonna care about you except me, little brother. Ain’t nobody ever will, especially that mute girl. Come on, get up on your feet before I have to kick your teeth in.” Standing up he starts kicking my foot adding “Come on.” shaking me. I wake up more and hear growling I look down and see a walker trying to bite through my boot. I kick its head and reach for my crossbow but it recovers quickly and climbs on top of me so hold it back and punch it twice knocking it over, but it takes me with it so I roll and throw it off. I grab a branch and stand up as it stands up and another starts coming towards me. I take out the closer ones legs, jump on top of it, and start beating its face in with the branch before stabbing it in the head killing it. The other one is coming closer so I rip the arrow out of my side and quickly strain to ready my crossbow. I get it just as it gets to me so I quickly aim and fire hitting it in the head. It falls next to me and I sigh in relief and start panting before passing out again.

Waking up again I sit up and look at the two dead walkers. I then take off my shirt and fold it up and press it on my wound before securing it there with the torn off sleeves. “Son of a bitch was right.” I say picking up my crossbow before getting up and start to skin a squirrel. I eat it before going over to the doll, pick it up, and tuck it under my belt. Then I take the shoelaces off the walkers, cut off their ears, and make a necklace with them. I pause and put T's dog tags in my pocket before putting it on and start climbing the ridge again. I’m almost to the top when birds screech above so I look at them as they circle me. “Please, don’t feed the birds.” Merle says on top of the ridge so I look at him and he starts laughing adding “What’s the matter, Darylina? That all you got in you? Throw away that purse and climb.” “I liked it better when you was missing.” I tell him. Laughing he says “Come on, don’t be like that. I’m on your side.” “Yeah? Since when?” I ask. “Hell, since the day you were born, baby brother. Somebody had to look after your worthless ass.” He says. “You never took care of me. You talk a big game, but you was never there. Hell, you ain’t here now. Some things never change.” I say as I try to find a way to make it the rest of the way up. “Well, I’ll tell you what-I’m as real as your chupacabra.” He says. “I know what I saw.” I say before he asks “And I’m sure them shrooms you ate had nothing to do with it, right? You know what, I think that little mute girl-” “You best shut the hell up!” I yell at him cutting him off, so he says “Or what? You’re gonna come up here and shut my mouth for me? Well, come on and do it them, if you think you’re man enough.” Laughing he adds “Hey, kick off them damn high heels and climb, son.” I start climbing again as he says “If I were you, I’d take a pause for the cause, brother. ‘Cause I just don’t think you’re gonna make it to the top. Come on. Come on, little brother. Grab your friend Rick’s hand.” I make it to the top and pull myself up panting and looking around but Merle is nowhere. So I say “Yeah, you’d better run.” Before making my way back to camp and back to T.

****T’s POV****

I’m sitting in the R.V. with Glenn, drawing Sam hoping that she was okay. “What’s with the Annie Oakley routine?” Dale asks Andrea outside the R.V. as she went up there when he left. “I don’t want to wash clothes anymore, Dale. I want to help keep the camp safe. Is that all right with you?” she says so Glenn says “And I want to be able to understand women.” I look at him questioning but he adds “You I get, the others not so much.” I shrug as Dale comes in. Glenn looks at him and says “Sorry. Just returning your book.” Pointing to the book in his hands. “Oh, no, I’m sorry.” Dale says picking up the book and tosses it on the table adding “If I had known the world was ending, I’d have brought better books.” Before walking into the back of the R.V. Glenn then gets up and asks quietly “Dale, you think Andrea’s on her period?” Dale holds up a hand but Glenn adds “I’m only asking ‘cause it’s like all the women are acting really weird. And I read somewhere that when women spend a lot of time together, their cycles line up and they all get super crazy hormonal at the same time.” Dale holds his hand up again and says “I’m gonna advise you to keep that theory to yourself.” Before looking at me so I shrug not caring. “Yeah.” Glenn says so Dale asks “Who else is acting weird?” Glenn sits back down and thinks for a minute before saying “Maggie.” “Ah, Maggie.” Dale says knowingly so Glenn starts explaining “She started off being mean to me. Then she wanted to have sex with me. And now she’s being mean to me again. And I don’t even want to know what’s going on with Lori.” “What’s going on with Lori?” Dale asks so Glenn looks at me, I shrug so he says “Nothing. I don’t know.” “All right, let’s take this back a step. How do you know that Maggie wanted to have sex with you?” Dale asks. Glenn just looks at him smiling so Dale says “Oh, son, you didn’t.” Glenn chuckles so Dale adds “Did it ever occur to you how her father might feel about this?” “She’s 22.” Glenn states so Dale says “And he is our host.” “He doesn’t know.” Glenn says then so Dale says “Well, see that it stays that way. Jesus, Glenn what were you thinking?” “I was thinking that I might be dead tomorrow.” Glenn says sadly before getting up and adding “Thanks for the book. You’re right, it sucks.” Walking out of the R.V. “Walker. Walker!” Andrea then yells from on top of the R.V. so I rush out past Dale as Rick comes up asking “Just the one?” She looks through the binoculars and says “I bet I can nail it from here.” “No, no, Andrea. Put the gun down.” Rick says as the guys get their weapons and I start walking towards the walker. “You’d best let us handle this.” Shane says so Rick says “Shane, hold up. Hershel wants to deal with walkers.” “What for, man? We got it covered.” Shane says catching up to me. I speed up to get away from him as Rick catches up and does the same. I falter as I see who the walker was. Rick points his gun at him as Glenn asks “Is that Daryl?” “That’s the third time you’ve pointed that thing at my head. You gonna pull the trigger or what?” Daryl says so I start to walk towards him to help him as Rick lowers his gun. Then it happens, almost in slow motion, gunshot, my heart stops as Daryl falls, and I can’t stop myself from screaming “Daryl!” as I run to him.

****Rick’s POV****

When we get to the walker I point my gun at it as Glenn asks “Is that Daryl?” “That’s the third time you’ve pointed that thing at my head. You gonna pull the trigger or what?” Daryl says so I lower my gun and T starts walking towards him concern showing slightly on her face. Andrea shoots and T screams his name as she runs to him. She puts pressure on him wound as her face actually showing emotions from affection to fear. Shane and I take him from her as he says “I was kidding.” Before passing out. Andrea and Dale are running towards us as we start heading back. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God, is he dead?” Andrea asks as T silently follows us, obviously fighting with her feelings. “Unconscious. You just grazed him.” I answer Andrea before Glenn says “But look at him. What the hell happened? He’s wearing ears.” I rip them off and say “Let’s keep that to ourselves.” As I hide them. “Guys, isn’t this Sophia’s?” T-dog asks so we pause and look at him.

****Time skip****

As Hershel stitched Daryl up Shane asks “Where’d you get the doll?” sitting in a chair in the room as I sit by the bed with the map. “I found it washed up on the creek bed right there. She must have dropped it crossing there somewhere.” He says pointing to the area before holding the rag to his head again. I look at Shane and say “Cuts the grid almost in half.” “Yeah, you’re welcome.” Daryl says. “How’s he looking?” I ask Hershel. “I had no idea we’d be going through the antibiotics so quickly. Any idea what happened to my horse?” Hershel says finishing up and washing his hands in the bowl of water. “Yeah, the one who almost killed me? If it’s smart, it left the country.” Daryl says. “We call that one Nelly, as in nervous Nelly. I could have told you she’d throw you if you’d bothered to ask. It’s a wonder you people have survived this long.” Hershel says walking towards me before he adds “Go now. He needs to rest a bit.” Shane and I nod and leave the room.

****Daryl’s POV****

Shane and Rick leaves so Hershel turns to me and says “It’s not my place to say this-“ “Then why are you?” I ask angry cutting him off, my heart aching as I keep hearing T scream my name. He glares at me and asks “Do you still hear her scream for you?” I look at him shocked so he says “T, she’s a strong girl but right now she’s not. She was slapped in the face with her feelings for you the moment Andrea shot you.” “What you getting at?” I ask angry again. “Daryl, you got past her walls without her even knowing. Just like she did with you. Don’t deny it, I’ve seen how you look at her. Now…you need to tell her how you feel.” He says sternly before leaving. I debate for a while trying to figure out how to tell T I love her.

****T’s POV****

I was walking in the woods after Rick told me Daryl would be fine, needing to be alone. ‘Sam, if you can hear me somehow, I just want you to know that you were right. I’m dense when it comes to love. It took him almost dying for me to accept the fact that I loved him. Though you’re still wrong when it comes to him liking me.’ I tell her in my head hoping she could hear me. A branch breaks behind me so I quickly turn around my hand ready to grab my knife. Rick comes out and says “There you are. Dinners about done, Carol asked me to find you.” I nod and follow him back.

Glenn, Maggie, Beth, Jimmy, and I all have to sit at the “kids” table. We’re all eating when Glenn suddenly asks “Does anybody know how to play guitar?” I sigh but he ignores me as he adds “Dale found a cool one. Somebody’s got to know how to play” Everyone is silent till Patricia says “Otis did.” “Yes, and he was very good, too.” Hershel tells her before everyone starts eating again. I get up and go look for it then no one noticing that I left. As I’m looking I see something coming down the drive. I walk closer and they stop and put something down. The something is a child that runs to me limping and crying. “Sophia.” I say breathless as she runs into me hugging me. “Glad I get a welcome back too.” Yori says faking hurt as he comes closer. “Yori?” I ask not believing it. He nods as he smirks saying “You didn’t think I was dead now did you? You should know by now that I’m awesome!” I shake my head at him as I hug him. Suddenly Yori asks “Who’s this Daryl Sophia keeps telling me about?” Sophia laughs as I look at him in shock. “Well, come on girls and point him out to me.” He says before grabbing mine and Sophia’s hand dragging us to the house. Sophia keeps laughing as I dig my feet in the ground which only caused Yori to pull me forward and pick me up before holding me under his arm. I curse myself for being so light as he keeps walking without hindrance.

****Daryl’s POV****

The door opens so I look and see that it was Carol so I pull the blanket up as she asks “How are you feeling?” before setting the tray on the bedside table. “As good as I look.” I tell her so she says “I brought you some dinner. You must be starving.” I turn a little to look at her then at it and she leans in and kisses me on the head. I look at her before saying “Watch out. I got stitches.” She pauses before saying “You need to know something.” I look at her so she adds “You did more for my little girl today than her own daddy ever did in his whole life.” “I didn’t do anything Rick, T, or Shane wouldn’t have done.” I say so she says “I know. You’re every bit as good as them. Every bit.” Before leaving.

A few minutes go by before a door slams open and a guy yells “Is this yours?” “Sophia!” Carol yells as Sophia yells “Mom!” I get out of bed and slowly make my way to the stairs. When I get there everyone is hugging Sophia and thanking the guy who has T tucked under his arm just hanging there. She’s not struggling so I look closer at the guy and see the resemblance between the two while remembering the drawing she made of him. He’s looking around at everyone and suddenly looks up at me. He studies me a bit before smirking and putting T down he says “Name’s Yori and I’m related to that thing.” pointing at T who smacks him like she does Glenn. I then turn and go back to the room. A few minutes go by and the noise dies down. Then the door to the room opens as Yori says “You must be Daryl.” “What do you want?” I ask him annoyed as he shuts the door walking into the room. His face changes from friendly to threatening as he asks “Do you love my sister?” I don’t say anything and look at him daring him to try something. “Look, I just don’t want her to get hurt.” He says friendly again. “Neither do I.” I counter so he accuses “She’s not some toy you can just throw away when it gets boring or when it is broken.” “I know that!” I yell angry causing him to say “You don’t.” I go to say something but he holds up a hand and adds “I know she hasn’t told you so I’m going to. When she was ten and I was already in the army our parents were murdered in front of her. The people responsible then took her and sold her into sex slavery. She was there for two years before she managed to escape. She was half dead when she walked into the E.R. and was in the hospital for a year. She then trained and joined the military when she was eighteen. We were in Special Forces for a year before I lost my leg and she decided that others came before her. A year goes by before she ends up getting captured. She sliced her own throat to prevent them from using her to get to the others. She can’t forget anything she hears, feels, or sees and she can copy it exactly, it’s what saved her this whole time.” I look at him shocked so he accuses “Do you still love her?” “I do.” I tell him immediately. He looks at me relieved before saying “Then do me a favor, don’t get killed and tell her you do.” He walks to the door and adds “Also just remember I don’t have any qualms about killing others. Especially those who hurt my little sister.” smiling at me before leaving.

#fanfic #the walking dead #daryl dixon #daryl x oc #original character

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pagedesignhub-blog · 8 years ago

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Feds investigating Uber software program in Philadelphia

New Post has been published on https://pagedesignhub.com/feds-investigating-uber-software-program-in-philadelphia/

Feds investigating Uber software program in Philadelphia

(WTXF) – The federal Branch of Justice has opened an investigation here in Philadelphia associated with Uber. The criminal research is specializing in a software known as Greybull.

They are searching into whether or not the ride-sharing carrier used the tool hold regulators from monitoring them. The Philadelphia Parking Authority says it is cooperating with federal regulation enforcement.

Stimulate the Economic system in Scotland by means of The use of Open Source software program In February last 12 months, Tom Watson, the United Kingdom Government Minister for Digital Engagement, stated: “Open Supply has been one of the maximum enormous cultural tendencies in IT and beyond over the last two many years: it has proven that individuals, operating collectively over the Internet, can create merchandise that rival and once in a while beat the ones of large organizations.”

An open Source software program (OSS) is requirements based totally software program this is free to accumulate and loose to regulate. OSS runs the mission vital servers for global companies like Google and IBM and is usually stated to be much less errors-strewn and more comfortable than conventional proprietary software. Traditionally OSS occupied the uber-geek territories of the operating system (Linux) and infrastructure (Apache Internet server) however is increasing to be had for line-of-business packages including Employer Useful resource Making plans (ERP) and Patron Courting Management (CRM).

In the previous few months, there was contrasting testimonies-of-the tape in Government-funded IT spending in Scotland. memories that could have instructions for both the non-public and public zone.

the closing month the bid winners for a Scottish Government-funded Branch’s Invitation to Tender have been introduced. It became a commonly conventional scenario, certainly one of has been repeated limitless times over the last many years. The settlement overall was in extra of 5 million kilos and protected Within the winners have been some of Scottish IT businesses presenting to implement software program written via American agencies.

On the floor, Scottish companies triumphing Scottish tenders is a “right thing”. but in reality, they’re the proxies for a sizeable shift of sales from Scotland to us via the mechanism of software licenses. Commission of among 5 and ten according to cent is earned by using groups that promote licenses on behalf of Yankee software program businesses like Microsoft and Oracle, the rest goes again to The united states.

The commonplace justification made through the final beneficiaries is that for every dollar spent on software program licenses, seven bucks is spent on services. This, in fact, is a fallacy. Often, a lot of the consumers’ budget is spent on licenses, that little is left over for the critical customization, implementation, education and help activities that determine the success of any IT undertaking.

Simon Phipps, Leader Open Supply Officer at Sun Microsystems, relates a verbal exchange that he had with a Brazilian Government minister who stated that the cause that Brazil spends heavily on Open Supply software is that “95 cents of every greenback spent in Brazil on proprietary software is going to North The us. 95 cents of each dollar spent on Open Source software – remains in Brazil.”

by contrast, a considerable Scottish Authorities-funded enterprise currently opted to put into effect an Open Source Content material Management device (CMS) and an Open Supply Customer Relation Management (CRM) application and to do the software program customizations to get the 2 programs exchanging key statistics.

The commissioning employer is in receipt of software applications which are global-class and utilized by companies as diverse and stressful as NASA and the sector Bank. They have been able you obtain excellent software, have it especially changed for motive and invested in schooling and help. The value for doing this changed into less than the value of the licenses on my own had they long past down the direction of buying conventional software program.

Moreover and importantly, they also have assumed manipulate of the destiny in their IT asset. Inside the international of proprietary certified software program, it is not uncommon to have luxurious, time-consuming and disruptive upgrades forced on customers. As they are saying Within the alternate, “it’s a pleasant little earner”. There’s no such stress on Open Source software program. The decision to upgrade has moved from the seller to the Purchaser. As long as the Consumer is happy with the software program and might procure offerings to aid it, then There is no purpose to upgrade and no strain that providers can exert.

The Scottish Economic system benefits in precisely the way that Simon Phipps’ Brazilian minister describes. The ninety five cents that stayed in Scotland will pay the salaries of Scottish software program Engineers and designers and lays down the inspiration of a renewed and re-invigorated software quarter that provides high quality jobs for the type of clever, expertise employees that shape the backbone of any advanced Financial system.

Those jobs are essential. over the last ten years years the indigenous Scottish software program industry has modified significantly. Outsourcing, generally to India, become the first wave and it intended the cease of many first-rate agencies, using rather professional graduates. Following difficult on outsourcing’s tail become acquisition. Computing in Scotland has been reduced to the “branch Economy” popular in such a lot of different sectors of the Scottish Economic system as one after another of our IT businesses were picked off by means of remote places competitors. So now we not only export the licenses sales, we additionally export the offerings profits too.

As Open Source receives a toe-hold into Authorities procurement contracts, an indigenous, dynamic, creative and especially skilled software program sector is re-emerging. One that is able to invest profits into Scottish software program jobs and no longer into fuel for the Lear jets required to move the heads of the globally scaled North American software enterprise to their various dominions.

The mission for this rising Scottish IT quarter is to professionalise their services and to engineer a brand new type of organization primarily based on expertise and service excellence, that makes money from something this is loose. There are already fashions for this: Red Hat is an Open Supply organization. Founded in 1993, Crimson Hat has its company headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite workplaces international. Red Hat provides Linux operating-gadget platforms along side packages, and Control merchandise, as well as aid, training, and consulting services. Red Hat’s turnover is in extra of $600m and is experiencing double digit increase.

The task for Scottish Government and the private quarter is to look beyond the corporate field hospitality of the proprietary software carriers and to engage with this rising zone. they’re the final beneficiaries. loose additionally manner freedom. Freedom to choose how to use their software, freedom to choose whilst and if to improve, freedom to choose providers and freedom to innovate via enhancing software program to satisfy the desires of their business.

The message is apparent and is becoming clearer as budgets are tightened. If you need your IT dollar to go further, convert it into kilos and spend it in Scotland, on Open Source software program.

business Structure – The Open Street to Open Supply software Lots of us see it as being about ‘techie’ software, written by means of ‘beard & sandals’ brigade lecturers and hackers, with a view to run your laptop greater reliably than M$ ever did. This of direction being predicated At the dubious assumption that you may discern out the way to find and installation it…in no way mind the troubles to do with ongoing improvement, guide, schooling, and so forth.

those perceptions, while nevertheless partly correct, disguise how a ways the open Supply movement has come In the past 5-10 years. even as open Source offerings with thrilling names like Linux, Apache, MySQL, Python and Tomcat are very a lot still part of the order of the day, and still free, they have come to be much greater available and vital.

You currently mechanically find facts displaying that this ‘techie’ so-called LAMP Stack software accounts for a high and growing percentage of installations On the server farms and routers that run the modern-day global’s computing and Internet infrastructure. now not most effective has it turn out to be greater pleasant to install and configure, but its operational reliability puts many name-brand proprietary competitors to disgrace…not terrible without spending a dime software program written through ‘geeks’ of their spare time!

Despite the fact that, to be fair, nowadays you are nearly as probable to discover nicely-paid group of workers at some of the arena’s exceptional understand agencies (e.G. IBM, Novelle, Solar, Cisco, etc) being endorsed to spend time growing open Supply services in order that their employers can advantage a foot-hold in this rapid-shifting and very progressive area.

You spot, the massive guys have ultimately woken as much as the reality that loose doesn’t necessarily mean limited function units or negative great. And, more to the point, much like another maturing industry, software program is beginning to end up more and more commoditised over time (i.E. due to aggressive consequences humans grow to be used to paying much less and much less…that’s typically bad for income!).

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