#the point of that short is that donald is having a nightmare. he wakes up at the end and is thankful

[prompt-master]

Isn't donald duck a literal nazi though? Like there's an episode where he's a full on nazi

You know NOTHING about donald duck, shame on you

[valorxdrive]

Sleep Meme!

type of bed.

Before the adventure: A plain Full Size bed. While the mattress was bought, the framing was actually made by his dad who took up wood carving alongside of fishing.

During the adventure/Post-games: His primary bed is one actually made from Soft-G gummi blocks. Malleable and form fitting, it practically adjusts to his body's size and position making for extremely relaxing/revitalizing sleep. At other times during rest in the wild, he'd actually just sleep on his Balloonga spell for the same descriptions as the above.

number of blankets.

He'd either go with one blanket or none at all. Sleeping upon a tropical climate to the adjusted set up of the Gummi ship, Sora's warm disposition would make blankets more of a hindrance compared to anything else. If anything he'd come to use it as additional bedding for underneath the body.

That said, when he's upon colder worlds he'd actually rack up the blanket count to two. Being someone who already loves his sleep to begin with, the blanket cocoon + chilly weather combo does wonders in knocking him out quick.

Honestly speaking though? His favorite type of 'blanket' would be to just embracing his special other.

number of pillows.

He'd either go with one or none at all. Too many pillows would wind up hurting his neck. That said, he does prefer just having one giant pillow instead. It does wonders for those nights he likes to have his arms spread out.

type of clothing.

Boxers while usually accompanied with either a T-shirt or a tank top of his choosing if he's on the ship. During camping trips on various worlds, he'd pack some sleeping shorts too alongside the aforementioned, just incase he needs to wake up and handle some action-y business or talk to someone.

does it matter where they sleep ?

Not really no. Give Sora enough time to acclimate to the environment he's in and he'll find comfort in just about any setting that's reasonable to rest in. Through Merlin's and Donald's teachings, he's learned how to use his magic for convenience in making that a lot more bearable.

Idle spells such a flow of mana that keeps bugs at bay, bad scents or any other pest/annoyance that would get in his way.

what do they do if they cannot fall asleep ?

If he's within a new world during the Keyblading usual, he'd take that time to keep watch as his companions come to rest.

If it's his turn to sleep, he'd stay up a little longer, talking with either whoever is up or just going through his belongings for more fond memories. Normally those would quell the disturbances within his heart to help him get some genuine sleep.

At other times, his Dream Eaters would nudge at his Heart if they could feel their friend has trouble dozing off. They would coddle it, bringing a wondrous sense of security. They would allow his restless Heart freedom from the body, allowing for it to rest as Sora's essence shakes off the excess energy in other ways.

Being awake as a Heart thankfully doesn't burgeon as an issue to his physical body.

frequent dreams, nightmares.

For Sora the dreams are rarely dreams anymore at this point. It happens semi-frequently, and often it's his heart just propelling itself off to the hidden sides of the KH cosmos for one reason or another. Whether it's just personal peace, preparation for events to come, or handling dreams in a more bizarre fashion is up to circumstance.

That said, he does still have dreams! They're usually a primordial soup of events he's already dealt with, memories that are continuously trying to give hints that he still has them, but that he needs make a more appropriate reach for them.

As for nightmares, they're pretty seldom. The Dream Eaters are protective of Sora's heart in this regard, so they make conscious judgements on what to and what not to filter. Normally if it's for his development, even if it's tough, they'd let it pass. While nightmares made from burgeoning shots of his negativity are promptly devoured, as they're irrational in essence, allowing for him to have a more sound mind.

Very rarely would he had those nonsensical, fun type of dreams. These are naturally what Sora enjoys the most as it's like a little adventure in their own right, even though he'd hardly remember them as he wakes up.

deep slumber or naps ?

Sleeps like an absolute rock. Normally when someone is getting him up, they're quite literally giving his Heart a reminder to realign with his body again. Naps sparsely if never happen at all, as momentary rest like that is a sign that things just aren't okay for him.

Sora is someone who once he's up, typically keeps awake for the rest of the day, that is if he's slipping on getting his full hours. In that case naps would be a lot more common, just as a means to catch up on the missing rest.

That said! If he's extremely bored with a situation (Such as waiting for results while people fuss over computers), he will not hesitate to get a few winks of sleep in. Situations where he has to wait like that just makes it too easy. That said, the hum of machinery also has a little magic in making him doze off as well.

when do they sleep ?

Probably the most complicated question on this list. LOL.

See for Sora's case, traveling to different universes means entering different time/space axis's overall. Where some worlds have it at night time, others can be in the day, in between, so on and so forth. Being someone who is a Starseeker, the best answer would be whenever the opening for it really crops up.

Normally that would be on the Gummi Ship rides in between, or when night time strikes at the particular world he's frequenting.

It's impossible him to get a schedule established with a frame of hours. For him, it's the situation itself that opens up when he's going to get adequate rest.

what could wake them up ?

Loud noises. Animals licking his face. A lot of shaking to his body, or an abrupt cut to his dreams/heart travels.

tagged by. @regnantlight Much appreciated!

tagging. @foolshoujo, @ghostlyanon, @redfabled, @cursedfortune, @spiras-summoner, @knightshonour, @keytosolidarity and anyone else who wants to hit up tbh. Go nuts!

[popculturebuffet]

House of Mouse: Mickey and the Culture Clash (Commission by WeirdKev27) or “What the Hell, Clarabelle?”

Hello, hello, hello... I wish I could say I was in good spirits but i’m tired, have covid induced chills running down my spine.. and oh yeah there was an armed insurrection i the captial last night that showed just how broken this country was. And while Monster Bash would still be relevant... I couldn’t do it. I admit to being unable to do an episode where the millitant racist nutjob who harms people runs off into the night, and does much worse in later episodes, while the people she harassed are arrested the night after a bunch of millitant, racist, sociopathic, selfish nightmares sieged the captial, killed a woman, raised the fucking maga flag over the buildling and took pictures like they were goddamn heroes.  We got a stark reminder, not a wake up call, not an opening a REMINDER of just how badly broken our country is last night, and it wasn’t till this morning I found out just how BAD it was. The deaths, the flag, the fact josh fucking hawley, MY STAT’ES SENATOR and registered piece of shit, raised  A FUCKING FIST IN SOLIDARITY, which gives me the crippling fear his stupidity and unabashed racisim and support of a cou could mean riots at best and attempted uprisings at worst and who knows what kind of hate crimes against those of color and those in my own queer community. I am afraid, tired, and I am pissed and I feel we could ALL use something wholesome, warm and far removed from the shit going on. And in my hour of need to figure out something like that to put on the schedule.. Kev brought up a wonderfufl idea.  Every month this month till the end of it Kev is going to comission one episode of a show near and dear to both our hearts that has it’s 20th birthday this month. House of Mouse. He was intitally going to request Pete’s One Man Show, which is one of my faviorites, but was ironcially one I already planned to cover next month to celebrate both the show’s anniversary and Pete’s Birthday. But since he was happy to wait till then to comission it, he instead asked for another classic and one with easily my faviorite character on the show: Moritmer Mouse. 

One of the best things House of Mouse did was bring back Mortimer Mouse. Introduced in Mickey’s Rival, Mortimer was an ex of minnies who showed up for one short to be a dick to mickey before running off and leaving Minnie at the mercy of a bull he pissed off. He also weirdly kept electrodes and a car battery in his pants. The short itself is.. not great mostly because Minnie dimissies Mickey rightfully being pissed someone is hitting on his girlfriend in front of him, making jokes at his expense, and generally being a pillock as being jealous... which yeah, yeah he is. Most of the time jealousy and supscison of your partner is ugly, gross and damaging to a relationship.  You should trust them unless you’ve been given good reason not to, and if your paranoidly jealous about every friend she has she could be attracted to.. get some fucking help. Seriously, I need to, not for this for various other problems, but get some therapy to help with your trust issues or if your just being the kind of dick who naturally assumes men and women or men and men or women and women or men and nonibinary persons, or women and nonbinary peeps and so on and so on cannot be friends if they could possibly be togehter romantically... grow up.  I say all of that because those are serious underlying issues and I didn’t want it to seem like for a moment I was supporting them... and because sometimes i’ts OKAY to be jealous, to either just feel a little jealous of someone, or to you know be irate because your girlfriend’s ex is hitting on her in front of you and she’s being entirely receptive to it. 

So yeah i’ts really hard to feel bad for minnie’s bull attack or find the ending sweet after Minnie was you know, what ramona said for an entire short. However my point for this rant, besides giving out about the short again because I clearly didn’t enough in my Mickey Birthday Special, is that Mortimer is still pretty great. He’s a frat bro in the 40′s sense sure, but the idea of a local douche hoping to swoop in and woo minnie away, who has an oddly specific sense of humor and a bizzare, memorable and wonderful walk, seriously the short is worth watching for mortimier’s “I got two car batteris in my pants’ walk, is a good one. While he’d naturally show up in comics and what have you Mortimer just sort of vanished. But clearly someone on the House of Mouse staff, and Mousewerks before it, agreed because Morty was made easily one of the best and most recurring characters in the HOM, and often more prominent than Horace or Gus. While he still tried his old “I’m gonna do your common law wife act” a few times he was mostly there to be an annoying douche when the ep needed one and to be taken down a peg by everyone in the house. And that VERY MUCH includes Mickey. That’s also part of why I love this show bringing him back: It gives Mickey someone besides pete to give out too on a regular basis. He’s still his charming self about it but it’s lovelyt os ee Mickey sarcastically roast someone. And I honestly attribute the main factor of his sucess on the show to VA Maurice LaMarche. While his original VA, Sonny Dawson, was fantastic.. it’s Maurice who very clearly made the character his. While others like Jeff Bennet have taken over since i’ts Maurice who gave him his signature “ha-cha-cha” catchphrase, swagger and signiture voice. And no i’ts not lost on me that one of Maurice’s OTHER best roles is another cartoon mouse.. and I now very badly want him to meet Pinky and the Brain. But yeah, Maurice just oozes the smarm that defines mortimer for me, oozes condescinon and assholery and he, is., glorious. He was a faviorite as a kid, he’s a faviorite now, and Disney needs to use him more.. and also have Maurice voice him for wonderufl world of mickey mouse, though Jeff Bennett is not bad at all I just prefer the master at the role. 

So obviously, after the nightmare of an evening america had yesterday, an episode not only about how wholesome mickey and minnie are but about Mickey teaming up with Mortimer was EXACTLY what i needed. So pitter patter, this is Mickey and the Culture clash. As always for house of mouse i’ll be chonking it up and since this one starts right with the wraparound, and sicnce you know I spent a godo few pagraphs going over mortimer and he’s only IN the wraparound this episode... let’s start there

Mickey and the Culture Clash: Don’t Go Changin, To Try and Please Me So we open the episode and the review proper with Mickey performing a banjo sernade for Minnie, their song in fact. It’s a really sweet scene.. that’s quickly ruined by Clarabelle being an asshole, who says i’ts a bit crude. Minnie counters that while “It’s not mozart”, it’s nice and she clearly likes it and the gesture. Instead of you know leaving it there like a good friend, like she’s SUPPOSED to be to Minnie in most continuities, Clarabelle.. takes the things she said and her having to run out to wrangle pluto out of context, painting it as her thinking he’s not sophisticated and then running out because of it. Oh and she tops it by pointing to a classified add from a MM looking for sophisticated companionship. 

It just paints Clarabelle not as Minnie’s friend or a chatty gossip, but as a heartless bitch who has no trouble implying one of her best friends would cheat on her boyfriend TO HIS FACE, and is fine wrecking a perfectly lovely relationship just to have more to talk about. Seriously she starts gossiping to everybody on top of it just in case you thought Clarabelle was a decent person in any shape this episode. She’s the one thing about this episode that dosen’t work despite being integral to it.. well two but hte other thing is a small, end of episode gag we’ll get to. This.. this is an integral part of the plot. It also relies on Daisy and Donald being absent for the episode for what I can only assume is their annual sex decathalon because otherwise the second she heard about her friend doing this, before reassuring Minnie, Donald would be holdiing her while Daisy beat the absolute shit out of her for hurting thier closest friend and not bothering to take a look into anything when leveling such a rough accusation at Minnie. In a really stellar, really well paced episode, Clarabelle being so heartless stands out. It’s also, might as well get this out of the way, teh final episode not inlcuding the two holiday specials.. and it’s a good note to go out on otherwise, I just can’t ignore the obnoxious cow in the room.. in both senses of the word. 

So yeah Mickey’s trying to be fancy, and Mortimer gets a good dig in about him reading “You having trouble sounding out the words”, but once he hears what’s going on, or rather once he realizes mickey things Mortimer’s personal add is in fact his girlfriend cheating on him, he decides to help Mickey. And to his credit for this con.. Mortimer actually thought things out on how to trick his rival, and his plan here is douchey as hell but incredibly genius: he offers to help mickey and while that’d normally be suspcious he offers a genuine, and very mortimer explination for helping him become a bit more sophisticated to win minnie back: if Minnie finds a handsome, sophisticated guy to date, what chance does MORTIMER have against that? At least with Mickey, in his deluded egocentric view of things anyway, he has a shot at beating him. 

So Mickey classes it up a bit, taking some sopshitcated stances when announcing and trying to woo minnie by talking in ye olde english. When that fails, she just finds it silly but charming, Mickey finds Jose.. hitting on her.

Just.. I expect better from you man. Woo ladies all you like as long as your respectful but I expect better than to hit on someone else’s girlfriend.. which granted he has but given the last time we saw him do that, he nearly got stabbed a bunch and the last time he agressively hit on a woman he got punched in the beak as he should, you’d THINK he’d of learned something. Seriously once again Donald is only missing because this time Daisy would be holding Jose down while Donald hit him. Or possibly they’d take turns. Point is Jose REALLY shoudln’t be doing this and knows better.. marginally. But.. it is in character enough so ti’s not as bad as Clarabelle the homewrecker. 

So Mickey tries being fancy and goes on to do poetry instead of letting O’Malley and the Alley Cats play.. which is a nice running gag the series does as they NEVER get to play.. which while funny is a shame since I love the Aristocats. So then we finally get what Mortimer’s been playing at, he swoops in, claims MICKEY dosen’t need HER, and uses the same personal add to trick her. See, while what Mortimer’s doing is vile.. unlike clarabelle I can repsect it at least. I don’t condone it and i’m glad he gets foiled.. but as a bad guy plan it’s pretty clever and for someone like Mortimer whose usually pretty incompitent.. it’s pretty suprising he could pull this off. It’s still pretty damn low and scummy, no question, but props to being able to outwit and nearly outplay two people who deal with your crap on a regular basis and still convincingly conning both.  Thankfully while he tries to take Minnie out Mickey, in a great visual gag, puts two and two together, and busts out their song, with Mickey and Minnie heartwearmingly reuniting on stage as seen above. Then we get that gag I mentioned not liking: Mickey gets Morty back by planting a false marriage proposal from Moritmer to Clarabelle, again under MM and he gets carried off.. HAHA HE’S BEING FORCED INTO A MARRIAGE HE DOSEN’T. LAUGH. LAUGH AT IT. The gag just really hasn’t aged well, as otherwise it’s clever Mickey used Mortimer’s own trick against both him and the person who caused all of this but really.. Clarabelle gets no real compuance. At worse sshe finds out she was tricked.. but she again you know tried to break up her close friends relationship for shits and giggles. But .. it’s at the very end of the episode and very easy to ignore, so it dosen’t really bother me too bad, and compared to some gags of the type i’ve seen, it could be MUCH worse.  Overall this wraparound is one of the series best and a good one to go out on. it has a simple premise, a brilliant antagonist plot, some great bits from all involved, and even a great Belle and Beast cameo. All in all a really good wraparound only hampered by a sexist and dated ending and Clarabelle being portrayed as ...

She’s the worst, in the world. Okay onto the shorts.

Mickey’s Piano Lesson: That was a Fun One

It really was. It’s a simple premise: Minnie wants MIckey to do a piano recital and he decides “I don’t need practice i’m mickey mouse. “ And it’s REALLY nice to have a short that has, rather than aw shucks mickey, shenanigans mickey. While thanks to the new shorts we’ve had tons, it’s still nice to get one in the House of Mouse era, and it’s just fun to see Mickey take the usual donald roll of letting his overconfidence punch him in the face> It fits both though: Both are everyman and while I lean towards the duck, to no one’s shock, Mickey is just as capable, and his lack of practice comes off less like the angry and hostile way donald would dismiss it and mroe just loveable procastination. And as someone who REALLY struggles with procastination I related to this short, as Mickey does everything else he’d rather do from bathing the dog to skydiving till Minnie, in a great bit informs him everyone from the president, to several dignitaries from other countries, to a televised audience will see. We then get two really great and really beatuifully animated bits as MIckey wrestles with the notes on thep age then fights with his piano as he performs, still pulling it off but destroying the thing and rightfully earning a glare form his girlfriend. Just a fun, slapstick short with a great premise. 

Dance of the Goofys: Scary Children Set to classical music, this one has a bunch of goofys as Fairy’s, who are making the flowers go and the one who sleeps in ends up saving the king from a horrifing looking little brat. He reminds me of Montanna Max a bit.. speaking of which Creer Summer recnetly announced Elmyra won’t be in the reboot. And while this does make me fear actually good characters like Fifi, Montana Max, and more will be cut like the animanics reboot and I do feel for Cree not getting to be involved and hope they find another roll for her as, given her status in the industry she deserves better.. THANK FUCKING GOD. I’ll go into this in another review I have planned for the future but unlike the cuts made to animaniacs this was a REALLY good decision i’m really greatful for. Thank you crew thank you. 

Back on topic, it’s just a fun, really beautifully animated short about the goofies and hteir shenanigans with a really great high concept. 

Maestro Minnie: Brahm’s Lullabye: Simply Irresitable Another simple but clever and lovely to watch one, and one I like quite a bit more. Minnie is conducting some living violins to Brahm’s Lullabye to get a baby Violin to sleep, and we get some really beautiful shots of her as she does so.. only to get comically interuppted by other insteruments turning up the noise. Not much to say on this one as it’s short and simple.. but sometimes short and simple is just what you need and the fun premise nad really beautiful especially for tv animation at the time visuals really sell this one.  ONce again, good stuff. 

Overall: This was a REALLY good note to go out on. While as I said the Clarabelle stuff can eat my entire ass, everything else is really damn good and I highly recommend checking this one out. Next time, in about a month, we’ll be looking at Pete’s spotlight episode for his birfday. While you wait tommorow we have my first look at legend of the three cabs. But for now, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. 

[thebiscuiteternal]

"Donald Duck was not a real Nazi, watch the actual goddamned cartoon," has apparently become my hill to die on. Okay.

"Der Fuerher's Face" was a wartime Disney cartoon aimed at mocking Hitler and inspiring American patriotism. A full version of the song written for it was released before then short itself and became a massive hit, resulting in the animation's title change from its original "Donald Duck in Nutzi Land". The short was popular enough to win a 1943 Oscar and, along with "Education for Death", is one of Disney's most well-known propaganda films.

In the short, Donald Duck wakes up to a completely miserable life in a caricaturized version of Nazi Germany where he is forced at bayonet-point to build ammunition (half of which is shoddy because of the sheer amount he is required to make) and show constant adoration (heiling) of his dear leader. At the point where he finally snaps from the strain and begins *hallucinating*, it's revealed that this is all a *nightmare* he's having, and he is in fact (deliriously happy to be) in the US.

Subtle? Not in the slightest.

Short (with a recent historical context prologue by Leonard Maltin):

Song:

[janetbrown711]

“I didn’t mean to wake you up…” Huey Dewey Louie

The month in which Donald was gone felt like it would never end, at least to Louie. He appreciated his mom and her efforts to make up for the gap, but it still felt empty. He missed his jokes.

They all did, but they didn't admit it to each other. After all, he was having the time of his life! Relaxing and taking a break away from their chaos. It was a shame he didn't get to see his sister though. But soon enough, he'd come home.

Right...?

Louie's subconscious never seemed to agree. At least one dream every three days was about Donald being in trouble. Once, he even imagined he was taken prisoner by aliens. Louie knew the idea was ridiculous but still, they haunted him.

The nightmares would feel so real and intense he often found himself unable to sleep, and sometimes he'd wake up at 12:30 am and would have to find a way to spend the next eight or nine hours.

He often could himself wandering into the houseboat. One time none other than Della was there, but most times he found himself entirely alone.

He didn't like the feeling of the houseboat when he was alone. It was cold and unfamiliar, lacking the warm feeling he had craved. But he stayed there night upon night when he found himself alone with his insomnia.

He missed Donald.

One night he awoke, shooting straight up in his bed, heart and head pounding, and clutching his mattress. He sat awhile, clearing his mind and making sure he hadn't awoken his brothers. He rubbed his face and groaned to himself as he checked the time on his phone.

1:34.

What a miserable time.

He grabbed his hoodie from the ground and put it on over his pajamas before walking his way down the stairs and to the houseboat as was usual now. It was so routine now that Duckworth didn't even question seeing the young boy walk through the moonlit halls at an hour of which only he was usually awake (not that ghosts could sleep per se. It was more like he was the only one doing things that early in the morning).

He went to the pool and went into the houseboat, keeping the light off and walking straight to Donald's room and picking up a book while lying in his hammock. His eyes glossed over the words, not taking them in. His mind wandered elsewhere, though he couldn't quite explain what it was he was thinking. Eventually he closed it and sighed.

He really missed Donald.

He leaned back in the hammock and closed his eyes, realizing the familiar feeling of Donald in the hammock was starting to fade. Louie's eyes shot open at the realization and he got off, lying on the floor instead. He stared vaguely at the hammock, not really thinking anything. It was really too early for cognitive thought.

"Louie?" A voice called behind him. Louie shot up and had to focus his eyes as he saw vague silhouettes of his brothers against the light.

"Oh sorry. I didn't mean to wake you up..." Huey apologized.

"What're you doing here?" Dewey asked, crossing his arms.

"I could ask the same of you," Louie instinctively got defensive.

"Welllll... we noticed you haven't been sleeping well since Donald left and we just both decided that maybe it was time we came to check up on you," Huey explained. Louie eyed him.

"Why now? Why not earlier or later? And how did you know I was in the houseboat?" He questioned.

"We didn't know if it was getting better, we knew someone came to comfort you last week, we assume mom, and it's clear you're missing Donald and I've seen you through the window walk in here half asleep," Huey explained.

"Yeah, you really aren't that sneaky," Dewey smirked a little.

"Yeah yeah, I get it. What's your point?" Louie crossed his arms.

"Well..." Huey and Dewey shared a look.

"We were missing Donald too," Dewey sighed. Louie sat a moment.

"Oh..." he mustered. He didn't know why, but he hadn't considered his brothers missed Donald almost as much as he did too.

"I know, i know, its hard to realize the world doesn't revolve around you," Dewey teased, but Huey elbowed him which made him quickly drop his attitude.

"So... now what?" Louie sheeped, curling his knees to his chest.

"Well- I- uh..." Huey scratched the back of his neck. Clearly, he hadn't thought this through.

"I mean... we do have to go on an adventure again tomorrow, so i guess our best option is to just stay here and sleep," Dewey said.

"You are so stupid. I can't sleep," Louie shot a look.

"You sleep during the day," Dewey pointed out defensively.

"Short bursts and who cares. It's not enough. I... I want Donald back," he shuddered and rubbed his arms.

"Hey," Huey crouched down to his level, "The month is almost over. He'll be back soon." His attempt at comfort was somewhat effective but Louie still wasn't reassured. Huey must've seen his hesitations because he touched his shoulder and added on.

"You're dreams aren't real. He's out there on a cruise, relaxing like a king, just like he deserves," He smiled softly.

"...you promise?" Louie asked. Dewey glanced at Huey, unsure if that'd be wise.

"I promise," Huey didn't heed Dewey's silent warning. Louie slowly nodded.

"Okay... I... i might be able to sleep now," Louie stood up.

"We can sleep in here and together if you'd like," Huey suggested. Dewey nodded in agreement.

"I'd... like that," Louie nodded too. Slowly (and through a few flipping overs) the three brothers got onto Donald's hammock and it rocked the three of them asleep together, sound in the comfort of having each other.

[dukereviewsxtra]

Duke Reviews Xtra: A Goofy Movie

Hello, I'm Andrew Leduc And Welcome To Duke Reviews Xtra, Where Today We Are Continuing Our Look At Disney...

And Last Sunday On Duke Reviews I Did A Look At The Disney Animated Movies That Were Entirely Made Up Of Shorts Which Got Me Thinking That Three Caballeros Is Basically Donald Duck The Movie...

So Why Not Look At The 2 Films Starring Goofy, Starting With, Of Course, A Goofy Movie...

I Got To Tell You, Guys I Am Not The Biggest Fan Of This Movie, Not That It's Not Good It's Just Not High On My List Of Disney Animated Movies But After Hearing That It Has A Cult Following I Suddenly Got Interested...

Is The Movie Better Than I Thought It Was?

Let's Find Out As We Watch A Goofy Movie...

The Film Starts With A Dream Max (Voiced By Jason Marsden) Is Having About The Girl Of His Dreams, Roxanne..

When Suddenly..

(Start At 1:20, End At 1:44)

I Got To Tell You Guys, When I Saw That Scene When I Was A Kid, It Scared Me...

Waking Up From His Nightmare, Max Gets A Phone Call From His Friend, P.J. Who Tells Him That He's Late For School. So, He Gets Ready Only For His Dad, Goofy (Voiced By Bill Farmer) To Burst In To Do Some Vacuuming...

Eventually Ready To Go, Goofy Gives Max His Lunch Before We Go Into Our First Song, After Today...

(Start At 1:30, End At 3:35)

First, I Think It's Okay But Not That Great Of A Song, And Second, I Think I Should Mention That The Singing Voice Of Max Is Former Mighty Duck And Now, Mr. Idina Menzel, Aaron Lohr...

Tell You The Truth, That Kind Of Makes Me Wonder If Anyone Has Done An Elsa/Max Fanfiction Because Of That...

Meeting His Friends, P.J. (Voiced By Yakko Warner) And Bobby (Voiced By The Person Who Owns The Tenth Circle Of Hell, Pauly Shore) In The Hallway, They Hijack The Auditorium Stage In The Middle Of Principal Mazur's (Voiced By Rex, Who's Going For Fearsome But Is Just Coming Off As Annoying) Speech..

And Create A Small Concert Where Max Tries To Impress Roxanne By Performing While Costumed As Powerline Which Leads To Our Somewhat Next Song, Stand Out...

(Start At 1:29, End At 2:54)

And I Think Next To Let It Go, This Is The Most Parodied Disney Song On YouTube...

Not That It's A Bad Song, I Like It, It's A Great Song, But I've Seen So Many Parodies Of This On YouTube It's Gotten To Let It Go Levels...

Stopped By Mazur, Max, P.J., And Bobby Get Detention But Max Gets What He Wanted As Roxanne Invites Him To A Party Her Friend Is Having To Watch The Powerline Concert...

But Unbeknownst To Max, Mazur Calls Goofy, Overreacting About What Max Did To The Point It Has Goofy Thinking That Max Is Going To The Electric Chair Which Leads Goofy To Decide That It's Time To Re-Establish His Relationship With His Son, By Going On A Fishing Trip To Lake Destiny In Idaho...

Despite Trying To Dissuade Goofy From Doing This, Max Is Shoved Into The Family Car And They Take Off. However, Convincing His Dad To Stop By Roxanne's Quickly, Max Lies Telling Her That He Can't Go To The Party Because He's Going To Be At The Powerline Concert...

With Roxanne Buying The Lie, Goofy And Max Take Off On Their Uneasy Road Trip As We Get Our Next Song, On The Open Road....

And I Like This Song...

I Love The Up Tempo Beat And I Enjoy The Mickey Mouse And Donald Duck Cameo In The Song..

Starting The Trip At Lester's Possum Park, They Watch A Country Bear Jamboree Style Show Only For Max To Be Embarrassed Afterwards When A Possum Falls Into His Pants And Goofy Forces Him To Dance...

Attempting To Hitchhike Home, Max Eventually Decides To Get In The Car With His Dad And Drive Off As The 2 Say Nothing To Each Other...

The Next Day, They Camp In The Forest Only To Run Into Pete And P.J. Before They Have A Fishing Practice Session Where Goofy Teaches Max Something He Calls The Perfect Cast...

However, When They Do The Perfect Cast, They Steal One Of Pete's Steaks And Accidentally Capture Bigfoot. Locking Themselves In Their Car, They Spend The Night In There...

However, While Goofy Is Sleeping, Max Changes The Road Map Destination From Idaho To Low Angeles. Stopping At A Diner For Breakfast, Goofy Decides To Make Max Official Navigator Of The Trip, Unaware Of The Change In Direction...

So, The 2 Go To Places That Max And Goofy Like And The 2 Rebuild Their Relationship While Having Fun.

(Start At 1:31, End At 3:12)

But When They Meet Up With Pete And P.J. Again At The Motel They're Staying At, Pete Discovers That Max Changed The Map And How They're Headed For L.A. Instead Of Idaho...

Telling Goofy, He Doesn't Believe Pete At First But After Checking The Map, Goofy Discovers That Pete Isn't Lying. The Next Day, They Approach A Highway Junction Where Left Goes To L.A. And Right Goes To Idaho, Max Picks Left, Knowing That Max Did Not Choose The Route To Idaho...

With Goofy Angry, He Stops The Car At A Mountain Viewpoint And Storms Off To Think Things Through..

(Start At 1:27, End At 3:50)

This Leads Into Our Next Song, Nobody Else But You..

(Start At 1:09)

And It's A Good Song And It Seems Very Emotional But It's Just Not My Favorite Song In This..

So, Explaining To Goofy About Why He Wanted To Go To The Powerline Concert In The First Place, Goofy Completely Understands And Decides To Take Him To L.A. But Unfortunately They're Approaching A Large Waterfall...

(Start At 0:52)

This Leads Into Our Next Song As Max And Goofy Arrive At The Concert, I2I...

And This Is Probably The Best Song In This Movie..

I Mean It, I Absolutely Love This Song And Every Time I Hear It, I Sing Along And Dance With It..

The Next Day, Goofy And Max Pull Up To Roxanne's House In Their Car So Max Can Tell Her The Truth. Forgiving Him Mainly Because She Has Liked Him Ever Since He Heard Max Laugh, They Make A Deal Not To Lie Anymore Before Sealing It With A Kiss..

But When Goofy's Car Blows Up, He Crashes Through The Roof Of Roxanne's Porch Which Leads Max To Introduce Him To Her...

And That's A Goofy Movie And It's...Complicated...

While I Do Like Some Of The Songs, The Rest Of The Movie Is Just Okay And It's Better Off Being A Direct To DVD Movie Than Just A Stand Alone Movie But I Guess If Nothing Was On I'd Watch It So I Say See It...

Tune In Tomorrow As We Look At The Direct To DVD Sequel To This Movie, An Extremely Goofy Movie, Till Then, This Is Duke, Signing Off...

[hellyeahomeland]

“Designated Driver” | Directed by Michael Offer, Cinematography by David Klein

Sara: If I had a dollar for every Homeland episode that opens with Carrie speed-walking while looking over her shoulder every four seconds… I would have about ten dollars. 

Gail: The imagery of Carrie looking over her shoulder is very reminiscent of the pilot episode. The closer we get to the end of the show, the more it feels like we have come full circle.

Ashley: Hi everybody, I’m joining Director’s Chair for the very first time because I’m feeling left out. I have no idea what I’m talking about. Anyway, Carrie’s paranoid, and rightly so, but it’s not paranoia if the guy you’re in love with just stuck a needle in your neck.

Sara: I had to take a screenshot of this because this is Claire’s actual handwriting, and long-time readers of this website will know that it seriously bugs me when they try to pass off someone else’s handwriting as Carrie’s. Anyway, this is the real deal, people.

Gail: Another scene that shows a character versus a gang of three. Here the Pakistan Ambassador is up against Hayes, Zabel and Wellington... or is he? Wellington has inched closer to the inner circle of trust, but hasn’t quite made it behind the desk yet. If Hayes represents the center, only Zabel is on his side, while the both the American flag and Wellington are not. 

Ashley: This shot, from above, has the same feeling of watching a bomb about to drop. The desk is the target. Will anybody in this room survive the fallout of what’s coming? (Please let it be Wellington.) (What even is coming?)

Sara: I love this shot because of the body language of the four men. Hayes and Zabel are both leaning forward in aggressive stances. Linus has his legs crossed, hand to his chin, thinking of new ways he’d like to be swallowed whole. The ambassador leans back, sort of resigned to this entire clusterfuck.

Ashley: The look on Balach’s face is so… everything. The furrowed brow, clenched jaw, and the intensity of his eyes — he’s barely holding it together, and his expression is pure murder. 

Sara: I love this actor who plays Balach (Seear Kohi). He has been so great all season. I finally figured out this week that he looks surprisingly similar to Donald Glover. It’s been bugging me for weeks. 

Gail: Balach is not faring as well as advisor to his new boss, (ugh) Jalal, as Wellington is to Hayes. I love the angle they chose for this scene. We see Balach from above and it gives the impression that he is looking down at Jalal, which based on his point of view, he most certainly is.

Gail: Carrie is back in the same place where President Warner thanked her and recognized her for all that she has done. Feels poignant that she shares this moment with Worley back at Bagram. He put President Warner in that helicopter and indirectly, so did she.

Sara: IJLTP.

Sara: I feel like Jenna’s entire storyline really paid off this episode. I loved this detail of her hand shaking when Mike mentions the ops team in the Pakistani jail. 

Ashley: Jenna’s been a wildcard all season and this episode humanized her in a very real way. I don’t want more Homeland, but I would be interested in Jenna’s story moving forward. So she’s probably gonna die.

Gail: Jenna’s got a long way to go in her training at the Carrie Mathison Spy School if a little treason gets her this nervous.

Sara: This is such a cool shot. There is an identical one of Quinn in “Iron in the Fire,” which was also directed by Michael Offer.

Sara: This shot reminds me of two things:

that moment in the cartoon How the Grinch Stole Christmas when everyone wakes up and their houses are completely bare. 

that moment in “Super Powers” when Carrie paces back and forth, weighing her next move and hesitating, after Jonas leaves.

Everything this season is reminding me of something else, not in a bad way! 

Gail: It reminds me of a surveillance shot with the camera mounted up high, giving a full view of the room. We don’t know it at the time, but maybe this is a subtle nod to Carrie being under surveillance while looking for Yevgeny, who finds her with Arman, her designated driver, a short time later.

Ashley: This reminds me of “A False Glimmer,” actually. Carrie returning home to her apartment, mostly expecting Jonas to be gone, but calling his name anyway — ultimately opening a closet to find his things still there; and she’s reassured of his presence. She didn’t expect to find Yevgeny here, but he’s left nothing. The disappointment, to me, reflects her relief at finding that Jonas hadn’t left.

Gail: Ugh, Jonas.

Sara: Yay, Jonas.

Sara: I love the reveal of the other Russian officials seated around the ambassador, watching his phone call with Saul. It’s such an ominous setup.

Gail: Such a great reveal! Very interesting choice to keep the people in the background, out of focus, in this shot. Feels symbolic--the audience can’t see what’s coming, and neither can Saul.

Sara: I stan this friendship. 

Gail: My theory that everything goes to hell every time someone smiles still holds.

Ashley: It’s amazing to me that Carrie still has people who are so loyal to her. Don’t they know better?

Gail: Well, Arman is still alive, so, no.

Sara: This Carrie/Yevgeny scene is so great. I love the way it shifts as Carrie processes what Yevgeny is asking for her--as she says later, making an offer she has no choice but to accept. You can see her cycle through the stages of grief: denial that the asset exists, anger that Yevgeny is asking her to do this, bargaining with him (she’ll do anything else), depression when she realizes she has to do it, and finally acceptance. 

Gail: Interesting that they had her cycle through the stages of grief. It must mean something is gone that she’ll never get back. The choreography of Carrie walking away from Yevgeny and turning her back on him as she processes what he’s just said is telling too. Not only is he not on her side, he just became her Russian handler.

Ashley: It’s a dreamy shot too, everything blurred behind her, but we’ve really found ourselves in Carrie’s worst nightmare.

Gail: Sorry, Jalal. Yevgeny has already trademarked that lean.

Sara: There was a lot of imagery involving children this episode, which I find very interesting. Here Jalal is literally training young boys to shoot and kill. It gives a new sense of hopelessness to the entire situation. As Balach says, they’re inviting more endless war, and they’re lining up their next generation of soldiers. 

Gail: Saul’s body language has continued to morph into a submissive and defeated posture. The stress this man is under makes me worried for his health. A person can only take so much before they break and it seems like Saul is almost there.

Sara: Me watching this damn show.

Ashley: I second.

Sara: I found this moment where Carrie observes the two young girls playing to be especially poignant and a very Homelandian detail. It immediately calls to mind Franny, or, as Gail said on the podcast, the various little girls we see in the opening credits each week, versions of Carrie who have grown up watching war and conflict play out on her television screen.

Sara: Carrie using her earring to remove the SIM card in her phone is such a Carrie thing to do and I have to stan on that one. 

Gail: I love the detail because it’s also a callback to Allison in season five when she “tears down her comms” while going into full flight.

Sara: The expression in Carrie’s face here, as she turns herself in, also strikes me as one of grief. To be patted down by soldiers, to have to utter the words “I’m Carrie Mathison. I’m wanted by the FBI”... for a patriot like Carrie, we know this is her absolute worst nightmare. 

Gail: I agree. I think Carrie is devastated that it’s all come to this but she also looks resolute. Her gaze is determined and steady, and her movements are calculated. Her line to Saul keeps echoing in my ears: “I did what had to be done.”

Sara: I found a lot of parallels between Carrie’s and Balach’s situations in this episode. Maybe Balach finding his two sons was meant to mirror Carrie seeing those two girls earlier. They act ultimately for those children. 

Ashley: The horror at finding his children on-site — I find it hard to believe that Balach didn’t know what this meant at the very second he saw it. He, too, goes through the stages of grief at record speed.

Gail: Ashley’s right, Balach goes through the same stages of grief as Carrie. It’s clearer what Balach is losing in this moment and never getting back: his life. Is that true of Carrie as well?

Gail: Carrie’s cool demeanor versus Jenna’s anxiousness sets up such a powerful scene between them. The coloring of the room is cool, too, done in trademark Homeland blue and gray. 

Sara: This is quite a role reversal. Now Jenna towers over Carrie; still, Carrie ends up maintaining the upper hand. I loved this scene and how it paid off the season-long quasi-mentorship between them. Carrie has been teaching her lessons all season, just teaching them the hard way.

Sara: Carrie being on the other side of the interrogation table is not something I ever thought I’d see on this show. 

Gail: Carrie’s posture is confident. She is sitting upright, head tilted slightly forward. Her hands are under the desk, revealing nothing. Carrie has probably been in a million interrogations and knows how to play the game.

Gail: So many emotions play across Saul’s face here. We’ve seen Carrie and Balach cycle through the five stages of grief this episode, both of them having their cycles shown within one scene. Saul on the other hand has cycled through his stages over the course of the episode, ending with acceptance in this conversation with Wellington.

Sara: It’s ironic that in the episode where Saul finally steps up to acknowledge the ways in which he’s used Carrie over the years but can’t turn on her now, she makes the crucial decision to potentially betray him. There is a great contrast between Linus’ motives--about optics and politics--and Saul’s--which ultimately boil down to loyalty.

Ashley: I never thought I’d see Sara talking about how Saul’s motives boil down to loyalty, but 2020 is a helluva year.

Sara: IJLTP.

Gail: It looks like a chess board. If Mike thinks he put the Queen in check, he’s got another thing coming.

Sara: Carrie looks stun-ning here. (Requisite acknowledgement of yet another scene where Carrie is filmed from outside a car window.)

Gail: I love this storytelling device the show uses to give us a window into Carrie’s current emotional state. What’s great about this shot specifically for me is the familiar jazz music from Homeland’s opening credits that softly plays in the background as Carrie is being brought home almost a full year later. It’s the first time we’ve heard jazz music in a scene with Carrie all season long. We can see reflections in the window, but over Carrie, the glass is crystal clear. Earlier in the episode Carrie says she can’t see a way out of the hole she’s dug for herself. But just as the glass here is crystal clear, so is Carrie. She knows what she must do.

Sara: Gail, a “window into Carrie’s current emotional state”... literally! 

Sara: Love the “GOODBYE PAKISTAN” sign as we’re leaving this setting and returning to America the homeland for the final two episodes. 

Ashley: The “GOODBYE PAKISTAN” is interesting because it is in English. Obviously this is for the viewers, but it comes off like a warning. 

Gail: It is most definitely a warning. Look at what awaits them on the other side.

Sara: This scene was so stunningly shot. It reminded me a lot of Brody’s tape from “Marine One” and Carrie’s from “Why Is This Night Different?” 

Gail: The details were all crafted so well too. From the prop department and set designers, to the moving score from Sean Callery, to the beautiful writing, to the performance from Seear Kohi. Balach accepted his fate in the earlier scene with Jalal, and now he is resolved to do what needs to be done.

Gail: I mentioned this on the podcast, but good Lord does this woman give great side eye. This is the exact same look I give my kids when they say they don’t have homework. I stan.

Sara: Gail, you’re so right. Vanessa Kroll gives excellent side eye.

Gail: Parker, the character shown here, also cycles through the five stages of grief. 

Sara: It’s not just Carrie who’s been trapped. The special ops team being literally trapped inside the bus, desperately yelling to be let out, was especially heartbreaking. This season, the show has portrayed multiple characters--major and minor--who are trapped in an endless cycle of war, prisoners of their own ideas and the system in which they operate.  

Ashley: There is also just the fact that people are physically entrapped consistently — but they can still see what’s outside. Being able to see things and not stop them or escape them… it’s kind of a motif in this show, amped up to 1000 this season.

Gail: And now, acceptance of a fate he can’t escape. 

Sara: This entire sequence was expertly edited, the shouts and commotion drowned out by Sean Callery’s excellent score. Weirdly there is a sense of quiet to it all. 

I appreciate the contrast between these two reactions. Parker looks at the bomb barreling toward him and seems to have a sense of acceptance about his fate. Jenna, meanwhile, mostly out of harm’s way, ducks behind a car and her expression is one of fear. 

Sara: This final moment where Balach lets out an excruciating scream as flashes of his crying sons play across the scene is heartbreaking. He dies so that they can live. I thought it was--ironically-quite beautiful. 

Ashley: Agree that it was beautiful, but it’s terrible insofar as his children are going to grow up under Jalal’s rule. They will never see the peace that their father wanted; they will never even know that’s what he wanted. Balach didn’t have a choice, but his legacy is now embedded in terrorism — not peace.

Gail: Balach had a choice, he chose his family. From their perspective, he’s a hero.

Gail: The symbols on the side of the bus are symbols on the Pakistani flag. The star symbolizes light and knowledge, the crescent moon symbolizes progress. Quite a contrast to the people being held prisoner within.

Sara: The split second before it happens -- the palms pressed against the bus windows is a breathtaking image.

Gail: We don’t need a car window to locate Carrie emotionally now. She’s looking straight ahead, and like Balach in the car, begins her journey to the end.

Sara: The parallel to Carrie in the airplane is an unexpected one, but it fits. She has the same look of resolve in her eyes as Balach. She knows what she must do. She’s blowing up her life in her own way, setting a match to it all. Is she a martyr, or is she a traitor? This scene fits between a cut to white and a cut to black, and that’s where Carrie has always been: in the grey, searching.

Ashley: God help me.

[horrorhouse]

A Response to Josh Gad

On August 28, 2019, actor Josh Gad decided to post a lengthy Twitter thread regarding our political climate. I decided I wanted to post it in its entirety as one long letter instead of just posting each individual tweet and then give my response point by point. So here we go.

I don’t want to be the guy always shouting at the top of his lungs about the same thing. Life is too short. So this (I’m hoping) will be the last time I try to put into words how I feel about the current political situation we are in and reach out to those of you content with where things are right now in our country. So here we go. I know some of you wanted and hoped to throw the whole system out and see what happened if we disrupted political norms and elected a “guy who says it like it is” and in a weird way, I guess I even understand that impulse. But this is where we are now objectively: Donald Trump has never been fit for office and it appears that he is mentally unhinged. We can talk around it. We can play word games. We can debate what that means. But by all appearances he is truly a “madman.” I know it sounds funny and entertaining to hear the absurdity of the President of the United States threaten to nuke a thunderstorm to send it away or get angry at a country for not selling him another country but it’s not funny. It’s actually debilitatingly [sic] sad. Because our lives aren’t a reality show, even if he thinks he’s living in one. We have all lost the plot. We are chasing him down a rabbit hole of insanity and avoiding real issues like gun violence, immigration, health care, poverty and most importantly the very real threat of climate change, something this man doesn’t even believe exists because apparently he knows more as a realtor than the entire scientific community. We aren’t on the precipice of catastrophe or at the doorstep of doom...we are sadly past it. We need leadership to help us formulate how we adapt, grow & tackle environmental changes unlike any humanity has seen in the last few thousand years. But we don’t have that. Instead we have a man more interested in who likes him & who doesn’t than in anybody’s welfare currently reading this thread. I know some people out there believe he must be supported because he represents the religious and moral values you and your family share. But, the truth is, I know nobody really believes that because each and every single version of religious texts I’ve come across say that lying, cheating, stealing, coveting, and deceiving are not moral attributes worthy of lauding. He’s the definition of a fraud. You know it. I know it. Hell, even Fox News knows it. For them, it’s just another inconvenient truth. This isn’t about moral leadership. If you can sleep at night telling yourself that this President is a morally righteous, mentally sound, truthful man, I envy you. I wish I could fool my brain into believing a single syllable of that sentence. I’d have much fewer gray hairs. But I’m not living with my head in the sand. I can, sadly, see what a child should be able to see...we are all in danger as long as this demagogue is in the Oval Office. He is a monster. A racist white Nationalist, who doesn’t even bother using dog whistles, but is singing out loud for all to hear. Our allies are now our enemies. Our enemies are now inside our gates making a mockery of our system while our President cheers them on. 2020 isn’t an election year. It’s the single most historically important moment for our country in the modern era. We have already failed this test once. If we fail again...there is no do-over. History will bury us in its annals and assail us like those fools whose mistakes we repeated because we were too greedy, stubborn or polarized to do the right thing. After all, this is no longer about political differences. This isn’t a football game where we’re all on different teams. This is one union. One country under God that has been through hell and back but carried a torch of greatness on its shores promising something better than anywhere else in the world...opportunity. “The American Dream.” For far too many that dream has become a waking nightmare. Let’s wake ourselves up. Let’s come together. Before it’s too late. Register. Fight. Educate. Learn. Read. Resist. And most importantly. VOTE. Vote like your life depends on it...because this time it does.

Josh, I hope that you have the chance to read my response and consider what I have to say. Part of the problem with the condition of our country is the divisions created when people aren’t willing to listen to and respect each other’s differing viewpoints. First of all, you say that you don’t want to be the guy screaming about the same thing at the top of your lungs and life is short, yet you say you’d have much fewer gray hairs if you could go to sleep at night believe the President is a morally righteous, mentally sound, truthful man. If life is so short, why are you keeping yourself up at night over your own personal beliefs? It’s self-sabotage, and maybe you should consider seeing a doctor for the benefit of your mental health and also a cardiologist so you don’t have a coronary. I voted for President Trump, and it wasn’t to throw a wrench in the system and shake up “political norms”. I weighed my options. I didn’t vote for him in the primaries. But between Trump and Hillary Clinton, I chose who I felt at the time was the lesser of two evils. Voters had no real yard stick with which to measure Trump’s political accomplishments or failures. We had one for Hillary, and clearly the American people didn’t want her in office. She has a history of racism going all the way back to her time as First Lady of Arkansas. There’s video of Hillary on the campaign trail from March 2016 at a coffee shop in Minnesota when she snapped at a young female person of color for questioning her on whether she planned to address the diversity of elected officials. Not to mention the emails that leaked days before the election no doubt had an affect on voters. Her history with her husband’s victims didn’t help her, either. The President isn’t avoiding issues like gun violence, immigration, health care, poverty -- you just don’t agree with what he has done on those issues. He’s addressing the issues and looking for bipartisan solutions. For one thing, he instituted a ban on bump stocks. He pressured Mexico to crack down on migrants passing through their country to get into the United States (the majority of whom were entering the country illegally -- you can hate the law all you want but until it changes, it’s the law that exists and should be enforced), his administration has expanded access to prescription drugs and the slowdown in prescription drug price growth during his time in office has saved over $26 billion. With regard to poverty, President Trump created 4.7 million jobs in his first two years and lowered the unemployment rate to its lowest in recorded history, particularly for African-Americans and Hispanics. I’d love to hear what your solutions are for these issues.  As for climate change, President Trump said climate change is a complex issue and added “I’m not sure anybody is ever going to really know” the cause. There are several theories that have been explored by scientists and numerous solutions presented, both small- and large-scale. Some aspects of earth’s core temperature changes have nothing to do with man - they’re do to natural environmental effects. So how do you intend to completely eradicate global warming? I know the President isn’t perfect. I know he’s not a paragon of moral virtue. But in my opinion, he’s still a better leader than Hillary Clinton would have been. At this point, you sound like someone standing on a street corner holding a sign that says THE END IS NIGH. If anyone’s mental state should be considered and questioned, perhaps it’s your own. Just from reading your tweets, it comes off that you’re some foaming-at-the-mouth lunatic.

[emeriethevalkyriegirl]

The 8th Court (Dusk in the Wind)- Chapter 1

Summary: Ester had the nightmare again. Though she doesn’t know how to get rid of it.

12 years later

Ester shot out of her bed, breathing heavily. She placed both hands over her heart, clenching her fist to get the pain out of her chest. She had it again. The nightmare. Well, more like a memory. She’d been having that nightmare her whole life. Not once has she slept peacefully.

“Ester!” Ester flinched as her aunt burst through the door of her bedroom. It was her aunt Harper. She’d been living with her ever since the war of Hybern. Not once as she remembered a time where she wasn’t with her. But then again, she wished otherwise.

Her aunt had never fully recovered from the war. Her mind was shattered when she heard the truth about her brother Donald (Ester’s father). Even though Ester told me a million times that her aunt wasn’t to blame, it didn’t stop the hurt knowing that she had to work around the house without any help.

Her aunt came in crying. “Honey, the chicken is burning.” Ester raced out of her room and straight into the kitchen. Harper never cooked in the house. It was always Ester. Her aunt says she got the skills from her mother, but Ester assumed it was only to amuse her a bit. By the time she was in the kitchen, the chicken was far gone. Ester turned off the stove and the fire vanished into thin air. Ester struggled to cool down the chicken. “Why did you try to cook auntie? You know you can’t cook.”

“I’m sorry Ellie. I just wanted to be useful for a change.” Harper replied, looking down in sadness. Harper only calls her Ellie when she’s sincere. Ester’s face soften a bit as she walked over to her aunt. “It’s okay auntie. You just scared me a little that’s all.” she said as her aunt placed both of her hands on each side of Ester’s face. “Oh baby, you work so hard. Why don’t you rest some more.” Harper suggested but Ester declined. If she closed her eyes for a moment longer, she’ll never be able to get through the day. “I have to run errands remember?”

“But the sun is still rising.” Harper pointed out as Ester sighed and kissed her brow. “I’ll be fine. I’ll be back in a hour.” Ester said as she went back into her room to get dressed.

-------------

The sun had risen and Ester was out of the house by the time she placed her left shoe on her foot. She walked down the steps to her house and looked around the other houses in the suburbs. No one was out of their beds yet. Good. She hates crowds.

Ester walked slowly and soundlessly to her first errand. Baudelaire's flower shop. The Baudelaries have owned this shop long before the first High Lord had been born. The shop was still standing even during the war. When she was a child, Ester would sneak in just to smell the flowers. It reminded her of her father. He use to want to plant a garden full of flowers. It was Ester’s favorite place out of this whole town.

Ester walked in, the bell chiming from above announcing her arrival. “Hello. Mrs. Baudelaire?” she called out as she walked to the front desk. She leaned over to see a small dog sleeping on his dog bed. Ester rolled her eyes. “Trevor, wake up boy!” she called out as the dog yelped and woke up. He barked happily upon seeing Ester. She reached to pet him if it weren’t for the desk between them. “Good morning Trevor. Is your owner around.”

“She’s right here.” Ester turned to see a light skinned woman with blonde hair. Her hair was messy and her pajamas were torn up a bit. She must’ve just woken up. Mrs. Baudelaire shook her head. “Some times I wonder if you ever get as much sleep as we do.” she said referring to everyone in town. She smiled at Ester who smiled back. “Morning. I was hoping you got my order.”

“Right here, dear.” Mrs. Baudelaire replied, bending down a bit to pull out a long stemmed daisy. It was pure white with a yellow center. It’s leaves were short but still growing. Mrs. Baudelaire sniffed a bit. “Take it child. My allergies are killing me.” Ester quickly and gently took the floor from her as Mrs. Baudelaire sneezed. Ester couldn’t help but giggle. “Why don’t you own a different shop?” she asked as Mrs. Baudelaire finished cleaning out her nose. “You know I could never do that. The shop is my home.”

“Even if it causes trouble with your nose.”

“At least they’re not in my bedroom.” Mrs. Baudelaire smiled in triumph. Ester rolled her eyes and proceeded to grab her money from her pocket. Mrs. Baudelaire waved her off. “Now now dear. It’s on the house.” Ester gasped as Mrs. Baudelaire smirked. “Thank you Mrs. Baudelaire! It means a lot.” Ester cheered as she skipped out of the shop with the daisy in her hand.

-----------------

She would’ve be happier if she’d not remember why she got it in the first place. Ester looked down at the daisy and sighed. She made her way into the far woods, just behind Tamlin’s now vined up castle. It’d been like that before the war had even started. However, Ester never knew why. Nor did she care.

Ester stopped in front of a river. The water viciously ran with the fast current. Ester held back the tears that threatened to fall. This was her father’s favorite stop. He use to come here with her and they would get in the stream together and play in the water. When they got out, their feet would be all muddy and sticky, but she didn’t care. She was with her father. That’s all that mattered.

And now she was here alone. With his favorite flower. She didn’t leave the house to run some stupid errands. She left to grieve for him. She couldn’t grieve in her house. She needed to be strong for her aunt. She needed to be strong for her people. Because she cared about her people. She cared about her aunt, Mrs. Baudelaire, Trevor, everyone of them.

Ester placed the daisy in the water and watched it flow with the current. “Now you can play the river forever daddy. Wait for me, okay?” she whispered as the flower refused to slow down.

A galloping sound was heard from the left of Ester. She gasped trying to find a place to hide but it was too late. The horse rode up to her along with it’s rider. She had pale skin and her blonde hair was curvy in a way that resembled a wave. She had green eyes like a leave. She was about Ester’s age. She looked at her with confusion but Ester saw a bit of fear. “Who are you?” she asked, the white mare tapping it’s hooves. Ester was too stunned to form words. “I...uh...”

“Tambria!” The girl flinched and grabbed Ester’s hand, hoisting her up onto the horse. “Woah, what’re you-” Ester didn’t have time to shout, because the mare was already running down the woods.

[jewrocker]

Biden’s “Impossible Dream”

Along with the other eighty-million Americans with an IQ over five, I too am doing backflips at the prospect we’re just weeks away from flushing this unprecedentedly corrupt and incomprehensibly cruel administration into the cesspool of infamy where they belong.  However, as ecstatic as I am at the thought of an actual human being once again occupying the Oval Office, one must still be realistic as to what to expect going forward.  Sadly, it seems, to the contrary of our president-elect.

President Biden’s statement that he intends to be a president ‘...to all Americans’, while admirable and more than a welcome change from the incoherent ramblings of the Mad King, seems to be more than a bit out of touch with what’s actually going on in this country in 2020, and beyond.  While he may indeed devote every ounce of energy to this seemingly insurmountable task, unity is still a two-way street.  Last we checked, there’s a massive concrete divider in the middle of this one.  A concept that the president-elect inexplicably doesn’t seem to fully have grasped.  Especially, considering, as a former vice-president, he lived through eight years of Senate Republicans sticking it to his boss every chance they got.  I mean, “Hello, McFly?”  Do you really believe Congressional Republicans are just going to snap out of their near twenty-year trance because you’re friends with them? 

Exhibit One: Leader McConnell.

If you’re old enough to remember the Obama years, you’ll have no trouble recalling the now-infamous line uttered by that bastion of Honor and Ethics, Mitch McConnell.  That being, “My only goal for the next four years is to make Obama a one-term president.”  Aside from being borderline treason for a Senator to openly admit he’s going to spend every waking moment betraying his oath in order to achieve his despicably anti-American goal, “Moscow Mitch,” as he’s now affectionately known, hasn’t changed a bit.  In fact, he’s gotten worse, and, thanks to his miraculous re-election in a state that had him at just an 18% approval rating, more emboldened. 

After shamelessly defending our Russian-asset POTUS at every opportunity, including predicting the outcome of an impeachment hearing before it actually took place, the worst leader in the history of the United States Senate spent the past four years doing NOTHING, but filling an unprecedented number of conservative judgeships; including, surprise, the Supreme Court, where the louse seemed to actually revel in reneging on his own call to wait until after the election to choose a replacement for Justice Ginsberg.  No policy.  No compromise.  No nothing.  Nothing, that is, but increasing the deficit by trillions and making sure his corporate cronies are exempt from responsibility due to their shameful response to the pandemic.  I guess that’s something. 

Thus, unless our incoming president is suffering from severe amnesia, he should have no illusions that, following the Georgia runoffs (should Republicans maintain the stranglehold they currently enjoy), there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell McConnell, the demonic amphibian he is, will allow any dissenters to side with the president, on anything. Not a bill to curtail the amount of robocalls one gets on a daily basis, nor a motion to change the ketchup dispenser in the congressional cafeteria.

Exhibit Two:  Trump’s Minions 

If, after witnessing 126 House Republicans sign onto what is nothing short of a statement supporting the overthrowing of our Democracy, as well as several Republican Senators coming out in support of objecting to the States’ already-certified electors, anyone who thinks president Biden will somehow get these cockroaches to join hands singing Kumbaya, is living on another planet.  In fact, from what we’ve seen in the last six weeks, alone, it’s fair to say Congressional Republicans are now more of a threat to our nation than ISIS.  Yes, that ISIS.  At least, the Islamic State have the decency to tell you to your face exactly what their objective is: The total destruction of American Democracy.  Period.  Modern day Republicans have proven they have the same exact goal; they just do it from within, disguised as “patriots.”

Exhibit Three:  Seventy-Million Idiots

In spite of the Deplorables on The Hill, the biggest hurdle the president, and vice-president, have in front of them may very well be the American People, themselves.  While there’s got to be a few million in the human Chernobyl’s base of seventy-million-plus who aren’t full-blown, racist psychopaths, there are still way too many who’ve shown they’re fully committed to the cult of Trump.  Even now.  Even though their government led them into a year-long nightmare of misery and misinformation: even as their apathetic leaders choose to bail out their billionaire buddies, while sending them a $600 slap in the face, they continue to support them. Unmoved.

Even though Benedict Donald has spent the past two months proving he has zero interest in/reverence for this Democracy and in a peaceful transference of power, truth is, outside of maybe a handful of ‘awoke’ individuals who’ve finally seen enough, he’s most likely not lost a single one of his hardcore supporters.  In fact, many of them have doubled down in their support of the village idiot - going as far as to organize a “parallel inauguration” on Universe Two - the fantasy world where Trump will still be president (Most pundits refer to Trump supporters as living on ‘Earth 2,’ but their thinking is so alien to facts/common sense, IMO, they deserve their own universe.).   These sad, sorry fools fell hook, line and sinker for the president’s claims of “fraud”, to the tune of stocking his post-election war chest with a cool quarter-billion dollars.  Translation: you’re looking at an entire sect of people who have no basis in reality.  So, who’s worse?  The Trump supporter?  Or the one who tries to reason with the Trump supporter? 

These Trump-described “suckers,” who, in spite of everything they’ve seen, in spite of the fact we have a president who’s golfing while millions can’t even put food on their table during the holidays (those still alive that is) are still so consumed with hate for the other side, they’d rather see their nation brought to the brink of civil war than be governed by a Democrat.  They’d rather elect a corrupt, bottom-dwelling QAnon conspirator to Congress, than an honest, sane liberal whose major crime is refusing to believe Tom Hanks and Bill Gates are partners in a global kiddie porn empire.  Case in point, the more than dozen House seats that flipped red this past November, and, with them, some who actually believe the above.  This kind of unhinged, spiteful, masochistic thinking suggests the hate modern day Republicans have towards liberals is greater than the love they have for their own children.   Good luck overcoming that type of home-grown martyr, Mr. President.  

Exhibit Four: Biden, Himself:

The welcome, sorely needed public comments seeking to reunite a hopelessly divided nation, notwithstanding, by stating what the New York Times calls “no interest” in pursuing any type of retribution/Justice, re: the myriad of crimes committed by this horrific administration, IMO, the president-elect has already stepped in it.  Especially after the Georgia phone call. 

It’s never a good idea to address your supporters, many of whom feel they’re owed some form of payback after being forced to watch helplessly as their Constitution was consistently used as toilet paper by a mob boss POTUS for four, long years, and, right out of the gate, say you’re just going to forget the whole thing.  After all, this isn’t Nixon we’re talking about here. This is a thousand Nixons... on steroids.  This is treason in all its forms.  The attempt to “find” 11,780 votes, just one more than Biden, is the most egregious crime ever committed by a U.S. President. Yet, the president-elect continues to spew this type of disappointing, non-confrontational rhetoric. While hopefully just said for the cameras, it definitely gives many of the incoming president’s supporters, including Yours Truly, night sweats.  

In fact, IMO, SDNY aside, letting these, spineless, racist, anti-American miscreants sail off into the sunset, with free health care for life and full pensions, on us, would be worse than all their crimes put together.  As it will not only show the next corrupt bunch of lawless idiots to come down the pike they can do whatever they want and they’re guaranteed a free pass from the next guy, it will end our experiment in Democracy as we know it; as it will have all-but-proved the president is, in fact, above the law.  I really hope I’m wrong.  Fingers crossed Biden is just doing his job and saying all the right things, while privately working to nominate Sally Yates for A.G.  IMO, should Ms. Yates get the nod, she will see to it Justice is served on all fronts.  If not, you can bet there’s a damn good reason.

Mueller made the fatal mistake of playing fair with Trump and Barr, and their legion of sycophantic sheep in Congress, and wound up looking like a timid, outmatched eunuch. After living through the Obama years, after living through The Trump years, after seeing the literal definition of treason on a daily basis, it appears Biden is choosing to ignore these screaming red sirens and walk down that path, as well, at least with his words.   

How much more proof does the president-elect need to know these individuals on the other side of the aisle are only interested in one thing? Total Dominance, by any means necessary.  Even if it’s a flagrant violation of their oaths to defend The Constitution.  Every single low-life choosing to join a wanna-be fascist in his reprehensible attempt to overturn our national election are only Americans by birth.  That’s where it ends. 

In Alan Parker’s classic film, Mississippi Burning, there’s a great line in the scene where the two FBI agents, played by Willem Dafoe and Gene Hackman, realize playing by the rules with these racist bastards will never get them the Justice they seek.  Straight-laced Dafoe says, “Don’t drag me into your gutter, Mr. Anderson.”   To which, no-nonsense Hackman replies, “These people crawled out of a sewer, Mr. Ward!  Maybe the gutter’s where we outta be!”  Here’s hoping there’s more of Anderson than Ward in our next president. 

[heartlandhq]

❝ i know where my soul is. i am a woman and a valley of blood. ❞

INFORMATION,

full name ⋯ Nayeli ‘Naya’ Esperanza Kennedy Cruz age ⋯ 27 years old pronouns ⋯ She/Her/Hers origin ⋯ Walla Walla, Washington affiliation ⋯ Charles B. Washington Library position ⋯ Scavenger

SURVIVABILITY,

advantages ⋯ dauntless & pragmatic disadvantages ⋯ stubborn & calculating preferred weapon ⋯ mattock, .380 taurus

BIOGRAPHY,

trigger warning ⋯ none

BEFORE DECEMBER 25th, 2017,

AEGEAN BRONZE AGE ( 3,000-2,000 BCE )

when nayeli is small, she hears the story of her birth a thousand times. she can recite it by heart. it is a perfect day in may and her mother dolores has been walking for days, tired of carrying around a belly so swollen with life that she is certain she could fit her own body inside of it. it has been five months since dolores has seen her husband and she does not think he’ll ever come home from some godforsaken war across the sea. the truth is that he never does–not even for his only daughter. donald kennedy dies alone on the same day his daughter nayeli takes her first breath after an arduous labor in the back of an ambulance on the way from pioneer park to saint mary medical center.

dolores tells the story as if she was in both places at once. at her husband’s side as a fatal bullet cut him down like a blade of grass and holding her own hand as she pushed and screamed on the rigid gurney. naya thinks that her mother must see everything. it is that childhood belief that protects her from the troubles that follow her cousins like black cats and shadows. it’s different as an only child, she knows that her mother has only one person in the whole wide world and she must live up to her mother’s need to be whole.

next door, the abandoned house sits behind a chain link fence. dozens of stone animals litter the yard and porch and it becomes young nayeli’s playground. she digs in the dirt, unburying hidden treasures and her cousins laugh and call her indiana jones. the book of greek myths her father left behind is never far from her mind and even as a small girl, naya knows she will walk in the colosseum and excavate along the mediterranean.

school is easy for nayeli who is an avid reader and an energetic learner. she quickly earns playful jeering from her cousins for being a pocha as she works hard to fit in. despite focusing on student government and basketball, naya is well regarded among her peers. she is the kind of girl that makes it hard not to like–an easy going, laid back girl with a jock’s ponytail and a sharp wit. the girl is made for something great and her mother works tirelessly to afford uniforms and ap textbooks. nayeli kennedy cruz is going somewhere.

MINOAN PALATIAL PERIOD ( 2,600-1,400 BCE )

it’s not the dream she had far away in the esteemed halls of colleges like cambridge, oxford, or harvard. no, whitman college–so named for the whitman incident in which a missionary is forced to pay for his crimes and yet is remembered as the white hero–is just down the street from her modest childhood home. it’s strange, then, how different of a world it seems to her. the liberal arts college is not the place she belongs as she did in high school. it’s an entirely different world. she works in the cafeteria to offset the costs her scholarships don’t cover, plays basketball for the team, and has dinner with her mother every sunday if not more. it’s not a bad life.

the classroom and court are the places where naya feels like she can really be herself. pieces of her are lost in conversations among classmates that she does not relate to and she plunges herself head first into work and family, which is the most she’s ever known. when she finds her true calling, she’s paralyzed–they don’t offer a major in bioarchaeology. with the help of a couple of advisors, she makes her own–blending anthropology, biology, geology, and chemistry together in a blissful salve that mends even the deepest wounds gained in the thirst to prove that she can be everything her mother needs. her sacrifices will not be for nothing.

when she graduates, nayeli feels a whirlwind sense of accomplishment. she is accepted to field school in crete where she can study the minoan and mycenaean cultures to her heart’s content. it is there she develops her fascination with bones and death and focuses her interest on funerary archaeology–a subject she will study at length at the university of tennessee’s bioarchaeology doctoral program. she can sometimes hear her father calling her and she knows that she must reunite the dead with their loved ones.

THE HEROIC AGE ( 1,600-1,100 BCE )

on a quiet, hot summer night she falls in love with another doctoral student a few years her senior. they drink raki and let the waves and sand massage their weary feet. they return to tennessee and nayeli feels her stomach swelling with the prospect of life. rodrigo is a warm heart and though he is not prepared for fatherhood he takes to it, like he does with most things, with gusto. if there is apprehension in naya’s heart it is quelled by the worry in her mother’s voice through the telephone lines–please tell me you are going to marry him, mija.nayeli kennedy cruz has never broken her mother’s heart.

guadalupe natividad esparza is born, much like her mother, on a summer’s day and is named for rodrigo and naya’s grandmothers. naya holds her so tight that rodrigo is afraid she might break her. the young parents find that they love guadalupe enough that it doesn’t matter if they love each other half as much. it won’t be long before they find out that they don’t love one another at all anymore.

weddings and motherhood do not stop a determined woman. naya knows that women have always persevered more obstacles than their male peers and she is determined to not let her dreams fall by the wayside. their lives are not easy–both spend long hours teaching and learning while preparing their own research. dolores moves from walla walla, selling their home by the house with the stone animal statues, the train tracks and the cornfield–which is now a burger king and a dollar tree. she does sewing and odd jobs while she cares for her granddaughter lupita with her chubby cheeks and bright brown eyes.

in their final years, the couple move to crete to finish their research in the field. both grow tired of working, living, and raising a daughter together and the break-up is messy. lupe is five years old when they realize they can no longer make their relationship work and when the grant money runs out, naya is forced to return to the united states to finish her doctoral thesis with no funding and no job prospects. rodrigo stays on at the research center and there is no arguing that lupe is better off living with a parent who can provide for her. nayeli is crestfallen.

a friend from field school hits her up one lonely afternoon in tennessee where nayeli is drowning her sorrows in the bottom of a tequila bottle. melissa has focused her interests on the early settlements of nebraska and has secured a lovely grant investigating cave systems out of omaha. dolores agrees to move with her daughter into a two-bedroom apartment in the nebraskan city.

in her spare time, nayeli works on her own thesis, but pays for it with melissa’s paid post-doc position. the exploration reinvigorates her and she remembers how to breathe again. it’s hard to wake up everyday without braiding her daughter’s soft curls and listening to a giggling tale of the girl’s dreams from the night before. she misses greece and, on her worst days, she thinks she might even miss rodrigo.

THE MYCENAEAN PERIOD  ( 1,300-1,000 BCE )

as things fall apart in europe, so does the spite behind the custody battle. nayeli has a stable income and home once again and, more than that, she has family and routine. rodrigo grows worried that the reports of sickness are more than just coincidence and as his anger melts it is replaced with guilt from having kept a daughter from a mother he knows would rip apart the moon itself for her. the phone sits warm in his hand after choking up and breaking down with nayeli on the other line, he sends his little girl to stay with her mother with the promise to move himself to omaha to finish his thesis when the research portion is complete. he never walks on u. s. soil again, but lupe does.

the airport seems like a warzone when nayeli picks up her daughter, finally reunited she seems so much older in such a short span of time. they quickly settle into a routine, but as the time between phone calls from rodrigo grows, so does the sinking pit in her stomach. something is wrong in the world and it is spreading. some nights dolores wakes the apartment up wit nightmares about satan devouring the world and she says her mouth is full of sand. nayeli knows in her bones that something is slithering its way to devour their new found happiness and she feels helpless to stop it.

AFTER DECEMBER 25th, 2017,

DARK AGE OF GREECE ( 1,100-700 BCE )

even in the dead of winter, nayeli is driven into the snow by melissa’s work. a bootlegger’s cave on the edge of private farming property is in danger of flooding when the snows melt after irrigation plans by the owner have broken ground. they have a weekend to explore the caves and collect data before the owner completes the project and fills in the entrance and exit. with the stirrings and rumors of an epidemic, nayeli is reluctant to leave lupe and dolores alone for a weekend, but her mother insists that the pair will do just fine.

they set off, three women and two men into the bowels of a harsh december, beneath dirt harder than stone. melissa takes point with dave, juan, and sarah close behind. naya and emily follow behind, both reluctant to disappear in the dank darkness disguised by pure fallen snow. while blood spills on christmas day red against the crystalline white, naya is not with her mother and daughter making tamales and setting out milk and cookies for santa claus. instead she is regretting her commitment to her friendship while shivering in a seemingly endless bootleggers cave that had, more or less, proven to be a wash.

it’s not four hours in when dave, who had been looking sickly and pale since the beginning of the trip–and as naya suspected, had been vomiting up his dinner as he started to trail behind even emily–collapses over onto himself. naya had been avoiding him since they set out because he had seemed cagey and aggressive. unwilling to leave a man behind, emily and juan work to make an impromptu stretcher to bring him out while sarah stays faithfully by his side.

as he worsens, dave throws a scraggly punch at sarah and scratches the side of her cheek. inside the cave, screams are muffled and fear is suffocating. naya’s heart beats against her ear drums so loud that she worries they might burst. as they push forward in the cave system, melissa assures them that the exit is closer than the entrance, but dave rapidly deteriorates and sarah seems to be growing weaker now too. melissa is headstrong and determined that the trip not be in vain, but as the pair worsen, everyone agrees they must send someone for help. emily and juan stay behind with sarah and dave, while melissa naya head for the exit.

half an hour longer of walking has melissa and nayeli feeling no closer to the exit than before when the screams start behind them–magnified in volume by the cavernous acoustics of the bootlegger’s path. melissa and naya both want to check on their friends, but something primal within them tells them they must push forward and not backward. there are some sounds that, no matter how brave or kind a person is, will make you run.

it’s not a straight shot to the exit and the climb slows them down as their pursuer seems to keep a constant speed. there is the distinct sound of something wet against the cave floor; each thud makes naya’s stomach turn. as they grow closer to the exit, she realizes that she does not hear melissa’s footfalls falling evenly behind her and turns as her friend calls out in surprise ‘dave, my god–’ as naya watches on, paralyzed by fear she is a stalagmite more than a woman.

when melissa lets out a hearty scream as dave bites into her throat, naya rushes to meet them and shoves dave to the ground. he is unrelenting and the face she can hardly make out in the darkness barely looks human. he doesn’t stop until she shoves her hand trowel through the back of his neck. it startles her how easily the blade slides through flesh. when her breathing regulates, she stands and finds melissa is dead on the ground.

THE GEOMETRIC PERIOD ( 900-700 BCE )

the drive back to town takes hours against the chaotic traffic and abandoned cars. hell rains down on omaha, nebraska like ash on the city of pompeii and the ground below even seems to shake with the force of mount vesuvius. all naya can think of is getting home to her mother and daughter and she curses herself for having ever listened to melissa in the first place. some stupid nsa sponsored project cost the lives of their entire research crew and maybe dolores and lupe’s too. naya promises god that she will never put work before family again.

when she finally reaches their home, nayeli is horrified that the chaos outside has slithered its way into a home that still smells faintly of pork and chile california. there is blood sprayed across every surface of every room and dolores is nowhere to be found. clumsily formed letters spell out in blood on the kitchen wall by the calendar with little cats on it ‘lo sie–’ as an unfinished goodbye. lupe does not come when called and naya collapses upon her daughter’s small bed–breathing in the smell of her as she sobs, unable to catch her breath.

beneath her desperate gasps for breath, she hears the small whine of a young girl from the closet door. behind it, lupe emerges from her modest mountain of stuffed animals and screams when she sees her mother. the two fall into each other’s arms and then they fall apart. when the dust has cleared, naya packs bags for them both, says a prayer for her mother’s spirit ( wherever it may be ), and sets out in the path of a safe place. she finds that in the charles b. washington library, but for how long–only time will tell.

CENSUS,

faceclaim ⋯ Lindsey Morgan played by ⋯ Buffy

[blyanten]

THE DUCK AVENGER PK2: #11 THE WEIGHT OF MEMORIES

This issue could be named Constant Internal Debates With Myself: The Issue. But it’s finally time for some backstory! Geena Onair opens this issue introducing their brand new program: What the Fuck is Everett Ducklair’s Deal?

Yeah, we’re all wondering that, so this should be fun. Also, the program has the much less accurate, but much more poetic name “the Weight of Memories”.

It opens with a recreation of a scene that took place many years ago. During a storm, Everett Ducklair was washed ashore at Goose Beach, half-dead and with no memory except his name.

I dig the hair.

Angus is visiting the place to interview the locals, starting with the man who rescued Everett, Eardin McEloin. Unfortunately, Eardin seems to have a case of stage fright, and the interview is cut short after Angus has to tell everyone who was rescued when Eardin fails to answer the question of who he saved that night.

Angus tells Donald, who’s been brought along as bodyguard/cameraman. He’s not happy to be stuck with Angus, and is wondering why Lyla felt the need to make him do this.

Or maybe he’s worried about Angus.

Well, it turns out that Angus is pissed over how the live interview with Everett went, and has decided to really start digging. Hence, Goose Beach, where Everett made his first known appearance and where he started building his fortune. Lyla was worried that might end badly, so she sent Donald along to make sure it didn’t.

Donald tries to look on the bright side. He might learn something useful! Provided Angus doesn’t get into a fight with the tavern keeper and his baseball bat.

Rough place, Goose Beach.

Donald tries to get out of the fight, mentioning that he has a green belt in quack fu.

…I have a green belt too, and I’m still not stepping between some asshole and a baseball bat. One of many reasons why I’m unsuited to be a superhero, I guess.

Luckily, a mystery woman decides that this fight is not on. Not until she knows why they’re asking questions about her father.

Tavern keeper suddenly changes his mind, and Donald is genuinely surprised that the quack fu line worked. Then Korinna steps out of the kitchen, asking to leave as she’s done for the day, and suddenly the entire incident makes a lot of sense.

I would like to remind everyone that this woman can read minds. Think louder, Donald, louder!

A bit later, Donald pretends to go to bed for the night, hesitating for a second as he feels like he’s being watched. Luckily for… either him or Korinna, depending, he decides it’s because he’s been spending too much time around Angus and goes to change into the Duck Avenger outfit.

Outside, Korinna decides it’s time to act.

Inside, Angus is surprised at how good the TV is. Looks like junk, but has every channel ever. He’s working on the interview he made earlier that day, with Everett’s adopted parents.

They look nice.

Anchor and Evinta ask if Agnus thinks Everett will watch their interview, and Angus s sure of it.

When Everett washed up on the beach, the two took him in as they had a free room and always wanted a son. And Everett was such a good kid.

This turns into a flashback of the first time they bring Everett home. It’s a pretty sweet scene, with just the right touch of awkwardness.

I love the hippie look.

Everett asks for something to do, and Anchor decides to take him along to his repair shop the next day. In three or four years, Everett will know everything he does.

A few days later, Everett somehow turns a B&W television into a colour TV. A few days after that, he pretty much does all the work, to Anchor’s annoyance. They close shop early, and head home in the rain.

*laughs helplessly at this mess*

I really like this page. Everett tries, but he doesn’t have a clue, and Anchor is probably starting to realize that he’s out of his depth. On top of that, if you know where this is going, or maybe even if you put the clues together, you also know that Everett is a) a grown (though probably young) adult at this point, and b) has two kids, and yet he’s slipping into the role of a teenager, no problem. 

Like, what the fuck are that standards for “mature adult” at your planet anyway? Because I think I disagree with them.

It’s nobody’s fault, but it’s still messed up on every level, and it’s not going to get better.

In the present time, the Avenger is following Korinna, and considering whether he should approach her. They’re both fighting Everett, so he takes the chance that they might be able to work together, and flies down, right in front of her.

The already on edge Korinna does not take it well.

Word of advice to... well, everyone. Do not jump in front of people in the middle of the night, especially while carrying weapons.

She uses her powers on him, and he finds himself waking up from the nightmare she put him in much later, at the docks. When he asks where Korinna is, a cranky sailor comments that there’s always a woman involved.

In another flashback, Everett nearly show up late for the opening of another repair shop, in a different town, as Anchor is expanding the business. Everett’s been looking for information about himself, but, obviously, he’s finding nothing.

Sometimes I think it might have been better for Everett if he didn’t recover his memory. Would suck for many other people, though.

In the present… well, in the present time, in the recording Angus made of the interview, Evinta explains that Everett was still not satisfied, needing to know where he came from.

There’s a brief interlude where Donald falls over with the camera, as he’s too tired to stay awake.

Evinta then says the next thing that happened was something no one could expect.

Angus has fallen asleep watching the interview, but is awoken by the tavern keeper, who drugs him and says he’ll take Angus to Profunda.

The Avenger arrives moments later, noting that something’s off. Angus would never leave footage unguarded like that. He presses play, and the interview continues.

The old couple explains that Everett had refused to go near the sea after he arrived. Nearly drowning does that to you. Unfortunately, one day there was a storm that hit unusually fast, and Earidan McEloin was stuck out at sea, with no one willing, and really, no one able, to go rescue him. It was that bad.

Everett refused to accept this, and took a water scooter to go rescue him.

Listen, there’s no need to glare at other people just because they’re not crazy.

This is very Everett. Not listening to anyone else, taking an enormous risk, quite possibly making everything worse… and it’s done with the best intentions.

So of course it goes wrong. Evinta calls it the worst moment of her life.

These poor people.

In Angus’s room, the Avenger finds himself surrounded by the villagers. Profunda wants to see him. The Avenger escapes them easily, though he does break a window in the process.

In a real flashback, rather than an interview flashback, because now we’re onto a part of Everett’s story that nobody knows, Everett is drowning. His last thoughts are of his adopted parents. Then he’s rescued.

Convinient place for the second attempt at drowning.

In the present, Korinna is pissed. The villagers failed at capturing… I assume Donald, because he was busy, and when the villagers tell her they wanted to capture the other, masked, stranger, she says that he wants to take her back to her father, and that’s not happening. The villagers want to help, and the Avenger is rather confused at what Korinna actually wants.

In the flashback, Everett is waking up to an AI calling him Zardoz. He’s rather confused about… everything.

Not sure how I feel about finding Everett adorable.

He gets up and finds a toy that triggers some memories. He starts walking, repeating the word “no”. The ship’s AI tells him he’s fine, but that for his own sake he should not go in that direction.

In the present, Korinna is leading the villagers towards the ocean. She shouts that the ocean will welcome them, and that she’ll show them the way to reach a better world.

The Ducklair family is not overly burdened with sanity.

At the beach, the Avenger block the villagers from getting into the sea and drowning themselves. Korinna offers the Avenger the chance to join her army, trying her mind tricks again, but the Avenger resists her this time.

Except that it was all a distraction. Korinna dives into the sea, telling him that she doesn’t need anyone. The Avenger follows, using the shield to create a mini-sub to protect himself from the elements.

In the flashback, Everett ignores the AI telling him he can still turn back.

And sanity takes another hit in three, two, one!

This issue aims directly for heartbreaking.

In the present, Korinna turns out to be an incredible swimmer. (A possible explanation for why Everett survived drowning twice? It’s an alien thing?) She reaches the same ship that saved Everett the second time and heads inside. The Avenger follows.

Korinna tries to activate the spaceship, but it’s been underwater for 17 years, and it shows.

The Avenger interrupts, mocking her about not knowing how submarines work.

She turns the mocking right back at him, asking if he doesn’t recognize a Coronian spaceship. He’s rather shocked at the news that he’s in one.

The ship starts leaking heavily, and the Avenger decides to put that on hold in favor of getting out of there. Korinna agrees, but decides they can talk while they walk. There’s something the Avenger should know.

The Ducklair family comes from the planet Corona. Everett abducted them when the girls were just children. Everett, in his cowardice and selfishness, separated them from their mother. Juniper and Corinna were put in hibernation, but something went wrong. The crashed, and Everett abandoned them. When he returned… well, we saw that.

The way Korinna tells this is so simple, yet very subjective. There’s no why it happened, only how it happened, and how she feels about it. I don’t think that’s something she left out on purpose, exactly, but more how she, who was a small child when it happened, remembered it and how she, now more grown up, tries to put it into context. She is missing several pieces, but you can’t blame her for not going to Everett and asking about it. Based on what she knows and what happened last time they met, that seems like a bad idea.

I’d also like to note that, while telling Korinna the truth would obviously be difficult, Everett haven’t told Juniper the truth either at this point. We know she’s recovered a lot, and some conversations are really necessary to have as soon as possible. “Why I kidnapped you from your mother" is definitely one of them.

Meanwhile, the flashbacks are the real story, but of course we don’t get all the information at this point, so we’re still in the dark about most of what happened before they crashed on Earth. All we know is that Everett felt they needed to be removed from their mother, while the girls clearly don’t feel the same.

Korinna asks the Avenger how he can be friends with her father after he stole their childhood, how can he think of returning her to him?

The Avenger focuses on the most important part.

Late to the party. I mean, this was revealed to you pages ago.

It’s facinating how the Avenger’s mind sometimes. Korinna tells him they’re all aliens = jokes. Korinna asks hard questions = wait, Everett’s an alien? It’s like he’s... deflecting? He’s not dealing with the alien reveal right now, so he gathers info via jokes. He’s apparently not willing to answer Korinna’s questions, so he decides to process the earlier reveal.

And it is a pretty good question. Why is he, if not friends, but at least going fairly easy on Everett? Considering everything, including the rather fond face he makes at the thought of Everett at the very end of the issue... seems like he’s not over that friendship.

Their conversation is interrupted as the old spaceship can’t handle the pressure anymore and a wall collapses. The Avenger starts to drown, but Korinna will only help if he promises to help her.

The flashback continues as Everett swims back to shore, to the delight of the entire village, but especially his parents. The delight turns to confusion as he gets to land and gives everyone the cold shoulder, accepting a blanket, but just walking off afterwards.

Evinta and Anchor gives him space, promising that they won’t abandon him.

He’s already lost to you, by his own choice.

In the present, Korinna decides to help the Avenger even if he’s currently unable to promise her anything back. She’ll call in a favor later. She activates the shield’s mini-sub and sends him on his way.

And that’s why I know how to fly an airplane. It’s Earth tech!

Korinna knowing how to use the shield is also interesting, because it suggests that they were somehow taught a bunch of stuff while in cryo.

The ship collapses right after, falling deeper into the depths of the ocean.

The Avenger reaches land safely, if a bit… well, half-drowned. The village recovers their minds, and heads back to the tavern. They leave Angus behind, because no one likes him. The Avenger gets him back to his room, before going to get some well deserved sleep himself.

Angus wakes up, having no idea what just happened, and goes back to work. We then get the last part of the interview.

Evinta and Anchor tells Angus that after the storm, Everett had changed. He was only focues on making money, and he was good at it. But the most important part is that their son turned bad. He abandoned them, and haven’t been back since.

The show then turns into a summary of Everett’s life since then, the busy businessman who seems to be surrounded by mysteries.

This transitions into Donald back at Duckmall, having watched the show with Rupert, who’s impressed that he managed to stand Angus for a weekend. Rupert also notes that Everett seems really determined, a hard guy.

Leading straight into the last page.

I really like this issue. It hits the emotional points really well, presenting both Everett and Korrina’s sides of the issue, even if Everett’s gets the “objective” treatment, being flashbacks rather than told by a character like Korinna’s is. But I think helps both characters. With the number of people Korinna hurts, getting her side is necessary. The facts build under that, showing that while it was an accident... well, if somebody accidentally runs you over with a car, that doesn’t mean they didn’t fuck you up for life. Being angry and wanting to stay away at all costs is a fair reaction, you know? 

Even if, of course, she takes it too far, because if she didn’t... well, we’d probably be all on her side, and it might be foreshadowing about how she and Juniper thinks about people in later issues, when we know for sure they’ve both recovered from the cryo.

But by keeping the flashbacks to what happened after they came to Earth, it still leaves the question of whether Everett was right in taking them away.

And I think that, to a certain degree, it also shows that Everett had other options. He had people who might have helped. Regular, stable people who clearly wanted what was best for him. And he decided not to trust them, and deal with everything on his own.  Focusing on making a ton of money, which would be very useful in protecting himself, his kids... sure, why not? That can only help, but considering the way he went about it involved pushing away everyone.

Again, he probably meant well, for everyone. Involving Anchor and Evinta might put them in danger. Might put the Ducklairs in danger too, because your son telling you that “btw, I am an alien and also an adult. With two children” would be a lot to deal with for anyone. 

Which is another strenght of this issue, IMO. Much of this is up for debate, with maybe no right answers. It’s emotional, messy and allows you to sympathize with both sides.

[disneydreamlights]

So uh, about the exact placement of Strelitzia's scars, let's just say that her canon outfit leaves them exposed, which is basically the in-universe explanation for her changing her outfit (I already told you the out of universe reason). Her first action upon being restored would be to hug Lauriam and cry out of sheer joy at being alive. Lauriam would, in order to keep Strelitzia on his side, hide his disappointment at no longer having two Keyblades to wield.

That’s actually a good explanation for an outfit change though post KH3. Be a completely different outfit I think by that point, and now I could actually see them doing it.

Okay so, the more I think about it, the more trouble I have actually deciding where exactly I want Strelitzia's scars to be. I mean, I know the general area, one on her chest, one on her back, but I honestly can't decide how high on her chest/back the scars would be, which would affect how visible they'd be when she's wearing her sundress. I guess it depends on the angle at which she was stabbed... All I know is that the heart piercing imagery/symbolism would still be there.

Right over the heart. You want direct symbolism, you got right over the heart.

So yeah, Strelitzia's mind is basically shattered and spread thin across the entire Unchained State following her demise, with her barely clinging to consciousness and constantly trying to find some sort of focal point to pull herself together. She becomes more aware when Lauriam, Ven, and the Player ascend. She chooses Lauriam because the Player wouldn't recognize her and she thinks Ventus hates her due to how she used to get on his nerves. He would have been more than happy to help her. 

So, I'm not sure if Strelitzia would've chosen differently if she had known Ven didn't hate her or note. I mean, since she told Lauriam that she was a Union Leader, I can see her assuming that Lauriam would be able to tell that something was up if he didn't see her there (again, she'd refuse to believe that her friend would even DREAM of hurting her). On the other, I'm not sure if she'd want to burden Ven with the responsibility of finding and exposing the traitor.

She should’ve chosen Ven honestly that would be a great universe in general in which Ven and Strelitzia are sharing the same heart. Definitely make them more siblings than ship but idrc it’d make for adorable scenes. And prevent Strelitzia from being too mislead. 

I think she’d still choose Lauriam though, for the following reasons:

Lauriam is her best friend in this AU. He knows her best friend and she trusts him.

If anybody’s going to help her catch her murderer, she’d assume it’d be him.

She’d want to cooperate with somebody she knows Ava did not give the book She’d have no idea if Ven had one or not, she knew Lauriam did not.

Okay so Strelitzia probably wouldn't admit her crush to the Player for fear of looking creepy/making things awkward between them, while the Player would have learned about her crush during their battle with Lauriam but wouldn't bring it up to her because they don't want to make her uncomfortable. Not quite a "can't spit it out" situation since the Player may or may not reciprocate her feelings, but it would likely end in a "you can read into their relationship however you want" situation.

I’d actually have it more of a “I’m respecting your boundaries thing” since she never told them. Strelitzia would have to bring up the crush on her own, and I think eventually she would. Probably because of Ven being an idiot. XD

Like with before, rest under the read more. (This is basically Strelitzia dump.)

Okay so, after watching the Secret Ending on Destiny Islands in the MMO, you'd be taken to the "Battle Report" Screen, which would depict Strelitzia and the Player setting on the dock at the Play Island, your Pet Spirit sitting in Strelitzia's lap, Chirithy might be sitting in the Player's, with the final Union Rankings being displayed next to the two of them. Returning to Destiny Islands would take you straight to the Battle Report.

...This image honestly sounds adorable. Sounds like it locks you out of viewing the DI scene though in game in the future though.

Strelitzia's decoys wouldn't have revenge values, so there'd be nothing to stop you from stun-locking them. Additionally, all of her decoys would take damage whenever Strelitzia herself does, but Strelitzia has Revenge Values, and all of Strelitzia's doppelgangers would aide Strelitzia in her counterattack when you set it off. During the battle with her in Radiant Garden, Lauriam would automatically destroy her decoys whenever it's his turn.

Lauriam sounds like he would make the battle a little easier just by existing thank fuck.

The thinking or talking about Lauriam wouldn't trigger Strelitzia's PTSD, but it would be enough to make her fall quiet or, depending on on her mood, provoke feelings of extreme anger or sadness, sometimes both. A part of her would always miss the Lauriam she could call a friend.

I don’t think having her truly hate Lauriam would ever be fair. She was in his heart for a while and I think on some level she’d understand he did love her.

I think she’d be mad at him, and hurt, and she’d never forgive him, but she wouldn’t hate him. 

I do think thinking about him in the context of what happened though would set her off.

So, KH3 would actually have DLC titled "Spectral X[chi]" which is basically about how Strelitzia became the way she is when Sora meets her for the first time in Corona Kingdom. The tutorial would be Strelitzia looking for the Player, with her Chirithy serving as a guide. The first "real" level after her death would have you exploring the Keyblade Graveyard, chasing phantoms until she meets Lauriam, where she'd be absorbed into his heart, and fight Sora in a symbolic Nightmare Sequence.

After the nightmare sequence, we'd get a cutscene of Strelitzia, Lauriam, and Larxene's Somebody waking up in the woods outside Beast's Castle. From here, Lauriam and, let's call her "Arlene" would be Strelitzia's Party Members. The Beast's Castle arc is parallel to DDD, with our flower trio raiding the Castle and getting into a scuffle with the not yet human Beast before Belle convinces them to leave. Well, she convinces Strelitzia to leave and her "friends" so she'll think she can trust them.

I have no idea how the rest of the DLC would go after that, save that it would end before Strelitzia challenges Sora in Corona Kingdom. Also that Lauriam would have a Link where Divine Rose transforms into a Scythe while he and Strelitzia show off some good old fashioned Teamwork, while Arlene's Link would involve the two using electrically charged attacks somehow. A Corridor of Darkness would be the hub all the other worlds are visited from.

Actually, scratch that, Sora would be the final boss of the Strelitzia DLC. He'd have help from Donald, Goofy, "Flynn", and Rapunzel. You can defeat Sora's party members, but true to the main story, they'd revive eventually. Depleting half of Sora's HP would cause him to activate "Second Form". Bringing him down to one bar of HP would activate the final cutscene of Strelitzia's story. The post credits scene would be Strelitzia arriving in Radiant Garden.

I’m for this if for no other reason than Arlene/Lauriam/Strelitzia all travelling together. I’m a little confused as to how it takes place parallel to 3D if Beast isn’t human since it’s implied that he becomes human a little after KH2. I guess if this takes place during the Realm of Sleep it really doesn’t matter, but still.

So, I imagine that, either during Spectral X or after KH3, Strelitzia would get a haircut, partially to symbolize her new life. I haven't thought much more about it beyond that Strelitzia would either lose or shorten those pig-tails. I imagine that, even if she'd always have a somewhat "cute" look (kinda like Namine and Kairi), Strelitzia herself would visibly look less innocent. Her KH3 outfit would be designed to look ghostly, for example.

Complete hair cut. Like chop off all the hair up to her shoulders, maybe make her go Xion or KH1 Kairi short but like just have her get rid of it all after KH3. She wants to be removed from all that she went through and a change like this is a part of her coping methods.

Oh, I just thought of something! You know that necklace Strelitzia wears? What if, in the first game to feature the two of them after the MMO closes, Strelitzia were to give the Player her necklace in a scene that parallels Kairi giving Sora her lucky charm? And it even acts as the Keychain for an angel-themed Keyblade? You know, just something that serves as a heartwarming alternative to "Failed Rescue" (which Sora would receive after Strelitzia is Norted in KH3).

Player/Strelitzia and SoKai parallels I am ALL for that shit. I would love this scene, Player taking something of Strelitzia’s and using it to have her be awesome, it’d be great. owo

I just realized something mildly amusing about the MMO AU. Strelitzia, dresses in white, acts cute, looks like a cinnamon role, would listen to the Shadow the Hedgehog soundtrack unironically, and manages to be that edgy anti-hero most anime seems to have while still looking adorable. Brain/Minerva, dresses in black, is a total rebel, DEFY THE SYSTEM, totally once missed his bus because he was helping an old lady cross the street and is basically a cinnamon roll trying to edgelord.

Strelitzia loves edgelords and is forced into an edgelord position because her story forces her to in this AU but is still a pure cinnamon roll despite how dark her story gets.

Blaine is a cinnamon roll who tries his hardest to not embrace his cinnamon rollness.

In an AU where the two here of this Blaine is just like “Strelitzia next time save some angst for me I wanna be an edgy fuck.”

“I’m supposed to be edgy?”

Strelitzia would feel homesick after her restoration. This would be difficult to take care of, seeing as her hometown was vaporized by an exploding universe thousands of years before the events of KH3. Fortunately, there happens to be a Memory Witch and a very determined family who want nothing more than to make her feel safe and happy, and so her room in the Land of Departure would undergo a makeover to be more like her room from Daybreak Town. Cue tears of joy from Strelitzia.

Namine and Strelitzia interacting would honestly be the best thing this MMO AU could produce. It’d honestly be so sweet of Namine to try to help her like that and she’d probably do other things to help Strelitzia remember her home.

So, you know how the specter's first form vaguely resembles a woman in a white cloak? Strelitzia would dress kinda like that in KH3, with a white coat over her dress, and either leggings or tights under that dress, and would most definitely try to come across as ominous and threatening to Sora, which would be kinda funny at first because she's 12 and therefor smaller than him but kinda sad when you realize it's to mask her fear of her perceived murderer.

The white coat is actually more of a cloak than the black coat the organization wears. As such, it would look more like traditional depictions of red-riding hood's, well, hood, albeit with sleeves and with the intention of looking kinda spectral. You know, because she technically died. I mean once she starts to move past this she'd go for a less threatening look, but until then enjoy the idea of Strelitzia trying to emulate the appearance of a vengeful spirit.

Strelitzia trying to look intimidating when she’s probably like fourteen and still a kid.

Man, this is something I always hate remembering like holy shit all of these guys are still kids. They suffer and they’re like...children. ;w;

Even after learning that Sora wasn't the one responsible for her (first) death, Strelitzia would feel somewhat uncomfortable around him until she can finally accept that Lauriam betrayed her. This would REALLY hurt Sora because he only wants to help this poor kid and yet he's indirectly the source of a lot of her pain. Actually, Sora would go through a huge bout of self-blame in KH3, particularly regarding what happened to Roxas and Xion. Strelitzia would just bring it to the surface.

...Sora’s gonna need a lot of hugs after this because Roxas and XIon and probably Ven too are gonna be causing him a lot of strife and then there’s now Strelitzia on top of all this. ;w;

[itsfinancethings]

November 29, 2019 at 07:00AM

List season has hit particularly hard this year, as the end of our first full decade of social media immersion has culminated in a multi-month spree of ranking and revisiting the likes of which humanity has probably never seen before. So I feel compelled to open by thanking you, the reader, for giving yet another highly subjective hit parade your attention.

My hope is that along with a few of the zeitgeisty critical darlings (Fleabag, Watchmen, Succession) you’re sure to find in every other top 10 of 2019, this list will point you in the direction of some equally wonderful series (Vida, David Makes Man, Back to Life) that haven’t gotten the shine they deserve. What you won’t find here, incidentally, is anything from the initial slate of shows on brand-new streaming services Apple TV+ or Disney+. Whether that disappointment turns out to be a pattern or a fluke, only time will tell.

10. Back to Life (Showtime)

Few characters have embodied the saying “you can’t go home again” as fully as Back to Life creator Daisy Haggard’s Miri Matteson. Out on parole after spending half her life in jail for a crime she committed at age 18, Miri returns to her small English hometown—not because she’s missed the place, but because she has nowhere to go but her parents’ house. While enduring harassment at the hands of neighbors who will never forget what she did, she struggles to find work, companionship and peace. From the producers of Fleabag, this quieter, gentler traumedy weighs Miri’s crime against the less extreme but more malicious transgressions of her family and friends. It poses the question of whether anyone who pays their debt to society really gets a fair chance to start over—and it suggests that you can tell a lot about a community by getting to know its scapegoats.

9. When They See Us (Netflix)

Ava DuVernay is the rare popular artist fueled by an irrepressible optimism about building a better future as well as righteous anger about the past and present. She brought both of these defining traits to bear on this four-part drama about the Central Park Five—whom her miniseries rechristened the Exonerated Five. Along with exposing how and suggesting why a broken New York City criminal justice system was so eager to vilify blameless children of color in the aftermath of a monstrous act of sexual violence, DuVernay and her stellar young cast worked with the real Five to create multifaceted portraits of regular kids with hopes, ambitions and communities that suffered as a result of their incarceration. And she found echoes of their story in the current movement against mass incarceration and in the presidency of Donald Trump, who stoked public fury at the boys. When They See Us celebrates the righting of a grievous wrong while acknowledging that no vindication, or remuneration, could fully heal such deep wounds.

8. Watchmen (HBO)

For those of us who haven’t enjoyed our culture’s never-ending superhero craze so much as endured it, the news that the most prestigious of all prestige cable outlets was adapting a DC Comics book sounded kind of like a betrayal. Et tu, HBO? But we should never have doubted The Leftovers creator Damon Lindelof’s ability to make Alan Moore’s brilliant, subversive 1980s classic resonate more than three decades later. Instead of revisiting the Cold War, Lindelof set his Watchmen in an alternate 2019 where the events of the comic are canon, Robert Redford (yes, that one) has been President for decades and a white supremacist group called the Seventh Kavalry is slaughtering police who are loyal to the liberal administration. Into this mess rides masked vigilante Sister Night (Regina King, in the would-be hero role she’s long deserved), a cop who is supposed to have retired from crime-fighting. There is (or should be) enough carryover from Moore’s original to appease its cult fandom, but the show is at its best when contending with our confused, misinformed, politically polarized current reality. And in that respect, it’s every bit as intelligent, provocative and mysterious as it is entertaining.

7. Undone (Amazon)

Fans worried that BoJack Horseman mastermind Raphael Bob-Waksberg would turn out to be a one-hit wonder could take comfort in this wildly imaginative sci-fi dramedy that he co-created with Kate Purdy, about a disaffected young woman (Rosa Salazar’s Alma) who narrowly survives a catastrophic car crash. In hospital-bed visions tied to her sudden physical trauma and preexisting mental illness, Alma reunites with her long-dead father (Bob Odenkirk), learns that he was murdered and allows him to guide her on a time-travel mission to prevent the crime from happening. Yet Undone is more than just a high-concept mystery; it’s a journey into human consciousness, a beautiful example of Rotoscoped animation and a subtle meditation on family, identity and spirituality.

6. David Makes Man (OWN)

The success of Moonlight sent ripples through Hollywood, elevating writer-director Barry Jenkins and a cast including Mahershala Ali, Jharrel Jerome and Janelle Monáe to the highest echelon of their art form. It also opened industry doors for MacArthur honoree Tarell Alvin McCraney, who wrote the play on which the film was based. This year he unveiled David Makes Man, a lyrical drama about a smart, troubled 14-year-old (Akili McDowell, astonishing in his first lead role) in the Florida projects who’s struggling to get into a prestigious high school and avoid being drafted into a gang, while mourning a mentor. Though it shares a lush aesthetic and many themes—black boyhood, complicated role models, queer identity—with Moonlight, the expanded format allows McCraney to explore the people around David. His privileged best friend (Nathaniel McIntyre) suffers abuse at home. His gender-queer neighbor (Travis Coles) takes in runaway LGBT teens and plays a delicate role in the local ecosystem. And his single mother (Alana Arenas), an addict in recovery, holds down a degrading job to keep the bills paid. This isn’t just the old story of excellence and poverty battling for the soul of one extraordinary child; it’s the story of a community where both qualities must coexist.

5. Lodge 49 (AMC)

At least once a year, a series too smart for prime-time gets canned even as network execs re-up long-running bores like NCIS for 24 more functionally identical episodes. In 2019, it was Lodge 49 that ended up on the wrong side of the equation. A loose, semi-stoned account of a young man (Wyatt Russell’s Sean “Dud” Dudley) treading water in the wake of his beloved father’s death, the show expanded over the course of its first season into an allegory for the isolation of contemporary life. The Southern California landscape around Dud, an affable dreamer, and his self-destructive twin sister (Sonya Cassidy) had been scarred by pawn shops, breastaurants, temp agencies, abandoned office parks. Refuge came in the form of the titular cash-strapped fraternal organization, where Dud found two precious things late capitalism couldn’t provide: a sense of community and a mysterious, all-consuming quest. Both propelled him and his cohorts to Mexico in this year’s funny, bittersweet second season; perhaps sensing the end was near, creator Jim Gavin’s finale provided something like closure. Still, the show—which is currently being shopped to streaming services—has plenty left to say. Here’s hoping the producers find a way to, as the fans on Twitter put it, #SaveLodge49.

4. Vida (Starz)

In its short first season, creator Tanya Saracho’s Vida assembled all the elements of a great half-hour drama. Mishel Prada and Melissa Berrera shined as Mexican-American sisters who come home to LA after the death of their inscrutable mom, Vida—only to learn that the building and bar she owned are on the verge of foreclosure. It also turns out that Vida, whose homophobia destroyed her relationship with Prada’s sexually fluid Emma, had married a woman. Meanwhile, their angry teenage neighbor Mari (Chelsea Rendon) raged against gentrification. These storylines coalesced to electrifying effect in this year’s second season, testing the sisters’ tense bond as they found themselves in the crosshairs of activists who saw their desperate efforts to save the family business as acts of treachery from two stuck-up “whitinas.” Thanks largely to the talented Latinx writers and directors Saracho enlisted for the project, Vida brings lived-in nuance to issues like class, colorism and desire—yielding one of TV’s smartest and sexiest shows.

3. Succession (HBO)

Right-wing tycoons and their adult children have gotten plenty of attention in the past few years—most of it negative. So why would anyone voluntarily watch a show in which the nightmare offspring of a Mudoch-like media titan (Brian Cox) compete to become his successor? A rational argument for all the goodwill around Succession might point out the crude poetry of its dialogue (from creator Jesse Armstrong, a longtime Armando Iannucci collaborator), the fearlessness of its cast (give Jeremy Strong an Emmy just for Kendall’s rap) and the knife-twisting accuracy of this season’s digital-media satire (R.I.P. Vaulter). But on a more primal level, one informed by the increasingly rare experience of watching episodes set Twitter ablaze as they aired, I think we’re also getting a collective thrill out of a series that confirms our darkest assumptions about people who thirst for money and power. It’s a catharsis we may well deserve.

2. Russian Doll (Netflix)

To observe that there was a built-in audience for a show created by Natasha Lyonne, Amy Poehler and Leslye Headland in which Lyonne starred as a hard-partying New York City cynic might’ve been the understatement of the year. But even those of us who bought into Russian Doll from the beginning could never have predicted such a resounding triumph. In a story built like the titular nesting doll, Lyonne’s Nadia Vulvokov dies in a freak accident on the night of her 36th birthday. The twist is, instead of moving on to the afterlife or the grave, she finds herself back where she started the evening, at a party in her honor. Nadia is condemned to repeat this cycle of death and rebirth until she levels up in self-knowledge—a process that entails many cigarettes, lots of vintage East Village grit and a not-so-chance encounter with a fellow traveler. Stir in a warm, wry tone and a message of mutual aid, and you’ve got the best new TV show of 2019.

1. Fleabag (Amazon)

Fleabag began its run, in 2016, as a six-episode black comedy about a scornful, neurotic, hypersexual young woman caught in a self-destructive holding pattern of her own making. The premise didn’t immediately distinguish creator and star Phoebe Waller-Bridge as all that different from peers like Lena Dunham, Aziz Ansari and Donald Glover. But the British show’s execution was sharp, funny and daring enough to make it a cult hit on both sides of the Atlantic—and to anoint Waller-Bridge as TV’s next big thing. She went on to helm the exhilarating first season of Killing Eve, giving this year’s second and final season of Fleabag time to percolate. It returned as a more mature but, thankfully, no less audacious show, matching Waller-Bridge’s somewhat reformed Fleabag with an impossible love interest known to fans as the Hot Priest (Andrew Scott). The relationship offered a path to forgiveness for the kind of character most millennial cris de coeur have been content to leave hanging. By allowing Fleabag a measure of grace without sacrificing her life-giving vulgarity, Waller-Bridge conjured the realistic vision of redemption that has so far eluded her contemporaries—and closed out the 2010s with the decade’s single greatest season of comedy.

[thisdaynews]

'Ready to kick it into fifth gear': Democratic regulators lay out a nightmare future for tech

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/ready-to-kick-it-into-fifth-gear-democratic-regulators-lay-out-a-nightmare-future-for-tech/

'Ready to kick it into fifth gear': Democratic regulators lay out a nightmare future for tech

The dissents come from a series of 3-2 party-line votes that mark a break with tradition for the FTC, a once-sleepy agency whose institutional culture has long emphasized consensus. But more than that, the dissents lay the groundwork for a profound shift in how the commission approaches the giants of the tech industry, should it eventually go back to Democratic control.

“What Slaughter and Chopra are doing is exceptional,” said David Balto, who wasan FTC policy director during the Clinton administration. “It’s not just a question of voting ‘no,’ but of articulating sound antitrust policy that would, hopefully, strengthen enforcement in the future.”

“If the election flips, you’ve got two people who are really ready to kick it into fifth gear,” he added.

Chopra and Slaughter issued loud dissents in two recent, headline-making tech cases: the $5 billion settlement in July with Facebook over privacy violations and this month’s $170 million fine for Google’s YouTube over its handling of children’s data. In both cases, Chopra and Slaughter sought to dismantle the Republican majority’s arguments, concluding that the penalties fall far short of fixing what they see as the companies’ dangerous practices.

And plenty of opportunities remain for the commissioners to keep pressing for a more aggressive posture: The FTC has begun an antitrust probe of Facebook, and it is making inquiries related to Amazon. The commission’s 15-person technology task force, launched in February to gather information about the industry, has shifted to investigating potential anti-competitive behavior among Silicon Valley’s leading firms.

The Democratic presidential field, meanwhile, is also auguring a much more hostile future for the tech industry than the easy relations it enjoyed under the Obama administration. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has pledged that her administration would break up Amazon, Google and Facebook, calling them “monopolies.” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has staked out a similar position, while former Vice President Joe Biden has said dismantling Facebook is “something we should take a really hard look at.”

Republicans at the FTC reject the notion that they’re soft on tech, pointing out that the fines in the Facebook and Google cases are record-breaking — the $5 billion Facebook penalty, for instance, was more than 200 times greater than any comparable fine in a privacy case. They also argue that the concessions extracted from the companies, such as Facebook’s promise to create a privacy oversight board, will serve as a check on future misbehavior.

Negotiating such settlements is a better deal for the public than taking the cases into a lengthy and uncertain legal battle, FTC Chairman Joe Simons has argued.

“The only real world choice here was to take a historic settlement that provides immediate and important protection to American consumers or wait for years to get far less relief,” said Simons, a Republican who was a veteran FTC lawyer before President Donald Trump nominated him for the panel, in announcing the Facebook decision.

He and fellow Republican Commissioner Christine Wilson said after the YouTube deal that the fine and required changes in Google’s conduct were “almost certainly better” than what the agency could have gotten through litigation. “We choose not to gamble the protection of children now in hopes of hitting a jackpot in the future,” they wrote.

The agency’s Democrats, however, have called not only for harsher penalties against the Silicon Valley giants but also fundamental changes to their core business model, particularly the targeted online advertising that Chopra refers to as “mass surveillance.”

“The behavioral advertising business model is broken, and we cannot let it continue to tear us apart,” he wrote in his dissent of the agency’s settlement with Facebook.

Both Democrats have also argued that to deter companies from behaving badly, it’s sometimes necessary to hold high-profile executives liable for privacy breaches and other corporate failings. That’s a particular threat to major tech companies where CEOs are often the companies’ founders and hold enormous sway over how they’re run.

In the case against Facebook, Chopra wrote, the lack of legal liability for Zuckerberg and his fellow executives amounted to a “giveaway” by the FTC.

“Rather than accepting this settlement, I believe we should have initiated litigation against Facebook and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg,” Slaughter wrote, adding that she backed that strategy even if there was a chance of losing in court.

At a recent Media Institute lunch in Washington, Slaughter said that where “views diverge” at the FTC, the Democrats will “stick with what we believe is the right outcome and try to articulate that respectfully and clearly — rather than agreeing to do something we don’t think is the right thing to do for the sake of consensus.”

Chopra’s office declined to comment.

Some FTC watchers say the Democratic commissioners’ approach has been a long time coming. They contend that the agency fell down in policing the rapidly rising tech industry during the Obama era, and that it ignored issues ranging from Google’s amassing of consumer data to Facebook’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.

The Obama FTC also drew criticism for declining to bring an antitrust case against Google in 2013, following a nearly two-year investigation of the company’s business practices. The Wall Street Journal later reported that an internal FTC staff report had recommended suing the company.

“The FTC’s track record in the tech sector is unbelievably weak, and this administration has inherited that and needs to move much more aggressively to shift course,” said Gene Kimmelman, a senior adviser at the consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge and a former chief counsel in the Justice Department’s antitrust division. “The strength of the dissents should be a wake-up call.”

But others, including some fellow Democrats, say Chopra and Slaughter are overindulging in their objections, knowing they’re not going to be casting deciding votes.

“The partisanship is pretty striking, and the string of partisan dissents is a pretty big departure from tradition at the FTC,” said one Obama administration official who worked on competition issues and spoke anonymously to discuss intra-party differences.

The former official warned the sharp splits seen at the FTC on tech cases risk turning the agency into something akin to the highly politicized FCC, whose more than decade-long regulatory ping-pong match over net neutrality has produced head-spinning policy changes and years of litigation.

While individual FTC commissioners are said to be personally close, as a whole the group has had little chance to bond, according to people close to the agency. Federal transparency laws limit their ability to meet in private, and even on major cases they don’t vote in person but through electronic forms completed by staff. Because the five sitting commissioners arrived at the agency at about the same time, it did not have a bevy of veteran members on hand to welcome newcomers. Chopra, a long-time consumer advocate, was meant to be the pick of the Democratic left and a concession to Warren. He had spent five years working at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau set up by the now-Massachusetts senator.

Slaughter, a former aide to Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, was Schumer’s choice for the FTC and seen as a more moderate pick. Chopra was always expected to be an outspoken agitator, but a memo he issued in his early days on the job, setting out what he saw as the commission’s past mishandling of ill-behaved companies, rattled many inside and outside the agency. “FTC orders are not suggestions,” he wrote, criticizing what he viewed as the agency’s history of lax enforcement.

Slaughter’s forceful dissents in tech cases have also surprised some FTC observers given her previous role as a behind-the-scenes congressional staffer. But anyone shocked at her statements hasn’t been paying close enough attention, according to another Obama administration official who dealt with competition issues in government.

“She’s not a bomb thrower because she’s a smart tactician, and some people on the extremes read that as ‘Oh, she’s going to be moderate. She’s not going to rock the boat.’ But that’s misunderstanding her, frankly,” said the official who requested anonymity to discuss internal FTC dynamics.

The Democratic dissents may be particularly vexing for Simons, whohas shown signs of being even more interested than past chairmen in winning unanimous decisions in major cases. During his Senate confirmation process, he pointed with pride to the “high degree of bipartisanship” that characterized his previous stint as director of the FTC’s competition bureau. Simons was not available for comment.

Balto, the former FTC policy director, said even if Trump wins reelection, Chopra and Slaughter will wield influence at the agency given that Simons is eager for 5-0 votes.

“Even on the margins, it’s going to make a difference,” said Balto, pointing to the FTC’s Republican majority. “They will behave differently because they want to have unanimous decisions.”

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About that Omarosa book: This is what complicity looks like

Everyone is the hero of their own story — but in telling that tale, people often reveal much more about themselves than they realize. That is true of autobiographies in general, and of Unhinged by Omarosa Manigault Newman more than most.  The tell-all book, released Tuesday by the famous former reality show star and communications staffer, has plenty of beans to spill on the dysfunction and casual racism of Donald Trump and his White House.  It's also the story of how the kind of person who seems to think in soundbites could help elect and participate in such an administration without ever really knowing what she was doing. And how, even after reflecting for a year, that person thinks she can avoid doing much soul-searching about her role.  In short, it's a case study in complicity.  SEE ALSO: The 10 most unhinged parts of Omarosa's 'Unhinged' Omarosa doesn't actually call herself complicit anywhere in Unhinged. She did say she was "totally complicit" in a new interview with The Daily Show's Trevor Noah, but said "I didn't go [into the White House] thinking we were going to lie" — a fact that ignores the lies told on the campaign trail, recounted in her book.  She also said she was "complicit in deceiving this nation" in a Meet the Press interview, but quickly pivoted to how everyone in the Trump administration lies all the time. There's not even a sliver of daylight into which a mea culpa can creep.  The book is full of pivots like that — so speedy in spinning our attention away from questions about her moral obligations, it'll give you whiplash.  In the chapters that function as a 2016 campaign diary, Omarosa is repeatedly "troubled" by Trump's racially-charged statements. She is "concerned" by the arrival of campaign chief and alt-right guru Steve Bannon. Disturbed by the "classic dog-whistle racism" in Trump's acceptance speech, she resolves to tell the candidate that "words matter."  But so far as the reader knows, she never actually does that. In the next paragraph, she and Trump slap each other on the back for their success in winning the nomination.  Later, prepping for three disastrous presidential debates, Trump fails to retain any of the anti-racist talking points she feeds him. But not to worry! Time to wipe her cares away by filming an episode of Say Yes to the Dress.  After the Access Hollywood tape dropped, SNL ran a musical parody that features Omarosa quitting the campaign; she watches and laughs and dances around the room, utterly missing the message.   This habit of skimming along the surface of things (and focus on racking up her "media hits") continues once Trump is in power. Scanning the sea of white faces around her on Inauguration Day, still troubled by Trump's recent attack on Civil Rights legend John Lewis, Omarosa solemnly "made a vow that day to increase diversity in Trumpworld."  How she planned to do that, we don't know; she spends the next few pages gushing about the size of her new office in the West Wing. Scouring the detritus of the Obama administration, she scores a 60-inch flat-screen TV with split-screen programming built in, so she could watch all the cable news networks (plus C-SPAN!) at once.  Did Omarosa actually swing the election? Although many post-White House autobiographies are ghost-written, that doesn't seem to be the case here. It's not just that Omarosa boasts of the "strong writing skills" she picked up from a journalism professor; it's that a ghost would surely save her from being so terribly, repeatedly, unintentionally ironic.  The greatest irony is that Omarosa presents herself as having the skills to be so much more than a malevolent mouthpiece. A hardscrabble student who took herself from food-stamp poverty to Howard University, she was ambitious and service-minded. She shook off the horror of her father's and her brother's untimely death. In her 20s, she worked in Al Gore's office before moving to the Clinton White House.  But she'd been winning beauty pageants too — a part of her biography that gets very downplayed here — and the siren call of television turned out to be stronger than that of public service. When The Apprentice was announced, she threw herself into studying Trump like he was a PhD course; her audition tape was a shoo-in.  He became a mentor and she learned exactly what he had: stir conflict, never apologize, and they'll make you a star.  It seems likely that Donald Trump would never have been elected without Omarosa Manigault Newman. Not only did his ratings suffer when she wasn't on the show, but her "diversity outreach" on his campaign probably made all the difference in the world. She got Trump into black churches in key districts when he really didn't want to go.  For some in the African-American communities of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the mighty Omarosa was a persuasive voice — and as we should never, ever forget, Trump won by a grand total of 77,000 votes in those three states.  It didn't have to happen like this. In 2015, still a registered Democrat, Omarosa was hard at work fundraising for the Ready for Hillary PAC — the stand-in for the Hillary Clinton campaign before she announced. But after she did, the African-American finance committee of Ready for Hillary wasn't rewarded with the positions on the campaign they'd been promised by someone close to the candidate.  It was a slight she would not forget, and Trump called at just the right time. Suddenly she was somebody again — a surrogate in her friend's campaign, persuading herself that the anti-Mexican comments he made straight out of the gate were "racial rather than racism," whatever that means. Besides, she thought, he would never actually win.  In an alternate universe where one PAC staffer was offered a role on the Hillary Clinton campaign, Newman is writing a tell-all memoir about all the scandals in the second Clinton White House.  Back in this universe, a Democratic celebrity who once told Hillary fundraisers to "get behind this sister" ended up telling "every critic, every detractor" to "bow down to President Trump ... the most powerful man in the universe."  The latter comment is something she curiously omits altogether from Unhinged. ADD vs. the KKK Once everything starts to go south in the Trump White House, Newman cuts a pathetic figure. She repeatedly tells us she had "one foot out the door" before another month's worth of narrative goes by. Like the protagonists of Waiting for Godot, her vague desire to move never gets her anywhere.  Not even the nightmare of Charlottesville, a resurgent and murderous Klan full of what Trump called "very fine people," can cause her to do more than wring her hands. She's distracted by fears that her mentor is losing his mental faculties, by a conference she's putting on, by pointless little personality feuds with Kellyanne Conway (for whom Newman reserves her cattiest remarks) and Betsy "Ditzy" DeVos, by the whole clown car.  It's not just the shadow of the KKK that stalks the Trump administration; it's also this kind of ADD.  Omarosa hung around long enough that new Chief of Staff John Kelly was able to fire her on a technicality; some nonsense about using an official car for the Congressional baseball game. She claims the firing was really because she was hot on the trail of an Apprentice outtake tape in which Trump allegedly uses a racial slur. But this is the fuzziest, most-choppily edited part of a very edited narrative, and Newman has already changed her story on whether she's actually heard this tape or not.  The irony here is that a principled post-Charlottesville resignation would have put Newman in the glare of the media spotlight she craves; it would have made everything all about her in a good way. Why didn't she?  To hear her tell it, the answer is "loyalty," but Newman isn't exactly a reliable narrator at this stage. The reader can see she's conflicted, and it's part of a conflict that permeates her life. Is she built for service — such as the ministry she was called to in her post- Apprentice, post-Hollywood life — or for merrily skimming along the surface of things, not caring about the mess in her wake?  Instead of confrontation at a crucial moment, she opts for cowardice, which amounts to complicity — and a cautionary tale for generations. The only thing required for evil to triumph, it turns out, is that a reality show star said nothing. WATCH: Sarah Huckabee Sanders' most ludicrous moments as press secretary

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