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helenarlett-rex · 5 years ago

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Goosebumps Review #4

When I started this project, someone who will remain nameless asked me to do Camp Jellyjam. I understand now why you asked for this. You knew didn’t you? You knew what I was about to get myself into and you wanted to see my reaction. You wanted to see me suffer.

Well, moving on with my quest to read all the Goosebumps books I never got to read as a kid…

(Spoilers ahead)

The Horror At Camp Jellyjam

Goosebumps (Original Series) #33

I have a lot to say about this one. More than I normally do. And let’s start out by saying, WTF did I just read? I remember this book from when I was a kid. I remember not reading it. That cover just freaked me the hell out. The man pictured on the cover is camp counselor Buddy, and just look at him. He’s pure nightmare fuel. Looking at the cover you would think this has the potential to be a really scary book. But then there’s that title. Camp Jellyjam? What kind of name is that? I had visions of a camp where they feed you some kind of weird jelly that turns you into a super happy, upbeat zombie, with an unnatural grin on your face, no longer in control of your mind as you try to force others to eat it while jelly gushes out the sides of your mouth… I think that may have actually been a thing… somewhere… I can’t remember… Maybe it was Are You Afraid Of The Dark… Well, that wasn’t what this was about…

So this story ended up being about something that is truly scary… to me… Sports Camp. The most extreme sports camp, where kids are never given a moment’s rest, rushed from one sport to the next, constantly playing sports from morning to dusk, and being pushed to always win. There is no such thing as 2nd best. You have to win, win, win! This terrifies me. Sadly the story itself did not.

So the story is about Wendy and her younger brother, Elliot, who are on a boring road trip with their parents. They decide to ride in the travel trailer hitched to the back of the car to get a break from their parents and as they are going up a mountain the trailer comes unhitched and they roll down the side until crashing into the woods. When they get out they find they have crashed right outside a summer camp called King Jellyjam’s Sports Camp and are instantly greeted by Counselor Buddy, who tells them they can rest at the camp while he contacts the authorities and tries to find their parents. And yeah, Buddy is described exactly as he is pictured on the cover. There is no doubt from the moment you see him that this guy is a grinning, mindless, forced to always be happy, zombie of a human being. So I find these kids really stupid for going with him.

In fact, everyone in this book, other than Wendy, is too stupid to live. I’m of the opinion that Wendy should have been the soul survivor and everyone else would have deserved to die. And don’t say, but this is a Goosebumps book, people don’t actually die. You clearly don’t know what book we are reading here. This thing has an actual body count. And I’m not talking about ghosts. Yeah there are a lot of Goosebumps that have ghosts in them, and for there to be ghosts, it means someone had to die. But in those books any deaths have already happened and they are already ghosts when the book started. We don’t actually see anyone die over the course of the actual story. I’m talking about people who are alive when the story starts, but by the end of the story they are dead and there is no bringing them back. We actually have that in this one.

I don’t know if this is the first, or only, Goosebumps to actually kill kids outside of the implied deaths in some of the twist endings, but it’s the first time I’ve seen it. So you may be thinking this sounds kind of awesome? What’s my problem with it? Well I have a number of problems with it.

As soon as the kids get into the camp they aren’t treated like two kids who just went through a traumatic experience and need to find their parents. They are treated like normal campers and the counselors start pushing them right away to start competing in sports and even assign them bunks. And the kids just go along with this. Elliot, in fact, revels in it. He thinks the camp is the greatest thing ever and he doesn’t even seem to care about his parents, who are probably having a heart attack at this point. Wendy at least thinks something is off and wants to get back to her parents, but she doesn’t put up much of a fight when she is told to go play sports and act like the rest of the campers. These kids are dumb as mud… And they aren’t the only ones.

There is a thing at King Jellyjam’s Sports Camp where every time you win a competition or something, you are awarded a gold coin with a picture of the camp mascot, King Jellyjam, on it. (King Jellyjam is a big purple blob with a gold crown on his head and his picture is everywhere.) And when you win 6 “King’s Coins” you get to walk in the victory march that night. There is a victory march every night for all the campers who won 6 coins, and no one who walks in the victory march ever comes back. Her first night there, Wendy’s bunk mate, Diedre, is in the Victory March and she doesn’t come back. Wendy and her other two bunk mates, Ivy and Jan, decide to sneak out after lights out and try to find her but instead they find a younger girl named Alicia running through the camp crying and screaming, telling them “I followed them! It was horrible! We have to get out of here!” So what is their reaction? Once Alicia runs away they decide to go back to their bunk. Because that seems natural. Clearly nothing is wrong here. But oh wait… Now all of Diedre’s clothes and things are gone. They have been removed from the cabin. So yeah they just go to sleep…

Next morning Wendy asks Buddy about Diedre and he just checks his clipboard and is like, “Oh yeah, she gone. Don’t know where. It just says she’s gone. Oh Alicia? Hmm… Yep, she’s gone too.” And when Wendy tries to tell this to Ivy and Jan? “Sorry Wendy can’t talk now. Got to go to our next event if we want to win 6 coins!” After everything they went through literally the night before, the next morning they have already stopped caring and are back to trying to win coins so they can be in the victory march… that no one ever comes back from… Even her brother, Elliot, suffers from this unimaginable stupidity and lack of concern for anything. Wendy is all like, “We have to get out of here and find Mom and Dad. The kids are disappearing every time they go on the victory march.” And Elliot is all like, “I can’t leave yet. I haven’t won my sixth coin yet. Don’t you ruin this for me. We will find Mom and Dad after I get a victory march.”

See what I’m saying? Everyone in this book is too stupid to live and it’s ridiculous. Wendy is at least trying, but she’s not trying hard enough. And it’s not like there is some kind of supernatural force making the kids forget or compelling them to need to be in this victory march. The whole time I was waiting for that to be revealed as a thing, but it never was. They are just all literally that stupid and unconcerned with anything other than winning at sports.

But when you stop to think about it… Maybe this is actually quite brilliant. Have you ever known any super hard core sports fans? People who only care about sports and if you aren’t talking about sports they won’t even give you the time of day? Those parents who just watch ESPN all day long and the only time they spend with their kids is when they take them to play sports that they forced them to sign up for? I’ve been related to people like that. It’s part of the reason I hate sports. Could it be that R.L. Stine was trying to make a point here? Taking this obsession people have with sports and stretching it out to it’s most extreme lengths? Showing us what happens when you let sports rule your life and stop caring about everything else? That’s actually really brilliant and quite frightening. Maybe I misjudged this book…

Oh… wait… I just read the last few chapters… Never mind. I retract all statements of this being brilliant.

So in the final few chapters we see Wendy sneaking out after dark again and following the camp counselors who all sneak off into the woods. They all meet up in a building that is shaped like an igloo for… no reason that was ever given… where they all sit in front of a stage and watch as Buddy uses a gold coin on a chain to hypnotize them. Every night Buddy hypnotizes all of the counselors, himself included, into emptying their minds, forgetting everything and becoming blank slates just there to serve their master. And who is their master? Well down in the basement of this secret cult igloo is King Jellyjam, the purple blob who’s image is posted all over the camp.

Oh but he’s not a blob like you are thinking. He’s not made of slime or goo. He’s a giant (the size of a house) blob of flesh, with a head and two arms. And he stinks. And his body is covered in slime. And he sweats snails. No you heard that right… When he sweats instead of liquid, he has living snails push themselves out through his pores. I can’t make this shit up. And all the kids who win 6 coins? They are taken to him to be his slaves. It’s their job to wash him constantly because he stinks so bad he has to be bathed 24/7. The kids have to just keep washing him constantly, never given a break. If a kid stops working, even for a minute, King Jellyjam eats them. This is the most batshit insane, out of nowhere crap I have ever seen in a Goosebumps.

But this is also where our body count comes in. Diedre and Alicia, who are still alive somehow even though they have been down there for like 3 or 4 days by this point, tell Wendy all of this. They emphasis it by informing her that he already ate 3 kids today. There’s 3 kids who have actually died in a Goosebumps book and there is no bringing them back after the monster is killed. They are just gone. But when you think about it, if he eats someone the moment they stop working, how many kids has he eaten over the 5 or so days Wendy has been there? Working non-stop? Not even aloud to sleep or eat? I’d be amazed if most kids could last 2 days. This is the point where you have to realize that most of the kids you saw go on the victory marches through the course of the book are already dead at this point. That just strikes me as interesting because it’s the first time I’ve seen it in Goosebumps.

Now naturally Wendy kills King Jellyjam. She tells all the kids to stop washing him and lay fat on the floor. Because King Jellyjam’s fingers are so fat that if they are laying flat on the floor he can’t pick them up. I’m not sure how the logistics of this actually work, but for the sake of the book it works. He can’t pick any of them up to eat them and when all the kids stop washing him it only takes a matter of minutes before the smell is so bad King Jellyjam actually chokes to death on his own stench. I kid you not.

Again I’m questioning the logistics of all of this because if the smell is bad enough to kill King Jellyjam in only a couple of minutes, how does it not kill all the kids who are having to lay on the floor until he’s dead? For that matter, how did any of this even get started? Has King Jellyjam always been like this? What did he do to keep from stinking to death before he had a camp to help him enslave children? I’m assuming the hypnotized counselors built the camp for him but how did he get a bunch of hypnotized counselors in the first place? This is a summer camp… if he eats the kids the moment they are no longer able to keep working, what does he do during the rest of the year when he doesn’t have a daily supply of fresh kids brought to him?

But none of those questions will ever be answered. King Jellyjam dies, the kids all leave the igloo, and within minutes the police are storming the camp to rescue them. Apparently the smell was so bad that it only took a matter of minutes to attract the entire police force… I’m not sure how… Was there a police station just minutes away in the middle of the woods on the side of a mountain? But whatever, I’m not sure how anything else in this book worked either.

I would like to give this book credit for not having a ton of fake out scares at the end of every chapter. There are some but not a ton. Although I did find it weird that Stine ended the book on a fake out scare instead of the traditional “not out of the woods yet” twist ending. Maybe after actually killing a bunch of kids in this book he wanted to end it on a more comical note… But I also have to take away credit for all the sports stuff. I kid you not, the first 12 or so chapters focus more on sports activities than the actual scary stuff you are reading it for. I mean describing every action of every game being played for the first quarter of the book white the scares are just an afterthought. It’s not until Diedre goes missing somewhere around chapter 13 that Stine finally stops talking about sports and starts trying to scare us.

All in all I just don’t know what to make of this thing. Is it brilliant social commentary? Is it lazy story writing? Or is it just the batshit crazy ramblings of a mad man?

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ellanainthetardis · 6 years ago

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The temperature increases today! Let me know your thoughts!

[ff] or [ao3]

Chapter 5 : Escapism

Two weeks later Haymitch had proved his point that a circus ran far more easily when there was a foreman and a crew to handle the manual labor, but it still hadn’t been enough to win the troupe to his side. The show was slowly getting better but the others were changing things at a snail pace. The only one truly willing was Trinket – in the spirit of encouraging the others to do the same, he figured – but aside for insisting she used a safety net until Chaff had had an opportunity to replace the busted ropes, there wasn’t a lot he could say about her and Finnick’s act. It was good, it didn’t need changing.

He was starting to settle in though and the others were starting to include him, which was good.

Now if only the weather would cooperate… It wasn’t that fun living on the road when winter was this harsh.

The knocking on his door distracted him from those considerations and he stopped glaring at the portable heater in the corner of the trailer to call out for his visitor to come in.

Trinket stepped inside with obvious relief, shivering despite the fur coat that she shed almost as soon as she had closed the door behind her. She was wearing a blue dress that day with a matching scarf holding her puffy curls away from her face. She always looked classy even when it wasn’t show time, no matter that the rest of them preferred to run around in comfortable clothes.

“Rue said you needed me?” she asked.

Her eyes roamed around by reflex even though she had been in his trailer once or twice by that point so she knew what she would find: a mess that had her wrinkling her nose in distaste. Clothes were tossed around, the props that hadn’t been crammed in one of the storage trucks were stuck in a pile and the bed was unmade. Her gaze lingered on the couple of liquor bottles but she didn’t comment. It was for the best because… He had been trying to ease off the stuff a little and he was grumpy about it.

“Yeah.” he confirmed, glad that the kid was fast at running errands. He was still contemplating the assortment of chains and handcuffs spread on the bed. “I need you to tie me up.”

He couldn’t keep on pulling rabbits out of his hat. He needed to go back to daring acts or he would get bored before long and being bored meant more drinking. He had always been good at escapology and had the vague idea of making a whole spectacular act out of it. Assuming he could convince Trinket to spare the money for a human sized fish tank and that she would be willing to trap him into one…

“Do I get to gag you too?” she joked, getting to work without protest.

He was so shocked by that comment that he barely realized she had put the handcuffs on before his arms were secured at the small of his back.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t expected the flirting. Flirting was all they were doing when they weren’t fighting – and sometimes even the arguments themselves felt like an odd sort of seduction act. But that was taking it a little further than simply commenting on the shape of each other’s body or hinting at stuff… This was… Really not what he had thought she would say.

A girl like her… A girl who came from where he suspected she came from – money, privilege – you didn’t expect that girl to know about that kind of things. You barely expected her to know about sex at all because it wasn’t proper and shit. Sex, to people from her background, was still something linked with marriage and…

Maybe she hadn’t said it like that. Maybe it was his mind, a little too feverish when she was concerned, that was taking leaps. Still…

He let out a low whistle. “And there I thought you were a proper lady…”

He was careful to sound teasing, a little vague just in case she really didn’t know what she was implying. She still might have taken it as an insult but she laughed it off instead.

“Your mistake, then.” she hummed, wrapping the chain around him without much efficiency. She secured the padlock and considered her work with amusement. “I find tied up men are much more likely to comply with my demands.”

He turned around to face her with lifted eyebrows. “Don’t need to tie me up, sweetheart… I’d be more than happy to let you play around…”

Her lips twitched. Her blue eyes were sparkling with amusement but watching him carefully, considering maybe.

“Somehow, I have the feeling you are more fond of giving orders rather than taking them.” she replied.

He took a few steps toward her, backing her against the wall of the trailer. She went willingly enough though. She was still looking amused when he pinned her between him and the hard surface.

“Is that a bad thing?” he challenged.

“Not necessarily.” she replied in the same tone. “Although you are the one currently tied up so…”

“Am I?” he smirked.

Did she see it coming? A flick of his elbow was all it took for the chains to fall. He didn’t give her time to react. He had the handcuffs around her wrists in a flash and her arms stretched over her head in shorter time than that. She gasped in surprise but not in fear and he leaned a little closer, his smirk deepening when he felt her heart racing up against his chest. He placed his free hand on her waist, running his thumb up and down the thick fabric of her dress… Could she feel it? He wasn’t sure.

“You play with fire, you’re gonna get burned, Princess.” he said.

“Is that so?” she hummed, arching her back a little, pushing her breasts toward him. His fingers were clenching around the chain holding her wrists together.

“Don’t be reckless…” he warned because somehow… It wasn’t how he had expected this to happen. He wanted it. There was no doubt. And she wanted it too, that too he knew for certain. There were signs and the tension between them for the last two weeks had been thick enough to slice with a knife. But she was…

Classy.

And her propositioning him in his trailer wasn’t how he had seen that going. He had thought she would make him work for it, make him chase her a little longer before surrendering… He hadn’t thought she was the kind of girl who gave in that easily. Not that he wasn’t happy for it or that he judged her but… He hadn’t expected that.

She kept on surprising him, that girl.

“I dance on a tightrope for a living.” she reminded him. “Don’t you think I am a little reckless?”

“Point taken.” he snorted, letting his hand wander up her waist to her breast, hesitantly stroking the swell of it over her dress. Her breath caught and she licked her lips. He pressed his hips hard against hers, leaving no room for doubt as to what he wanted. She pressed back.

He almost fell into her.

He brushed his mouth against hers, grasping her breast a little more firmly… It was on the small side but it fitted so well in his palm… She gasped again and he smirked because he could tell she would be vocal and… That turned him on.

“Guess we need to get it out of our system anyway, yeah?” he mumbled distractedly, searching her mouth.

She drew back a little. “Out of our system?”

“Once should do the trick…” he shrugged, dropping a kiss on her jaw. “Then maybe we’re gonna be able to talk without jumping at each other’s throat…”

“Once?” she repeated and her tone was icy enough that he frowned and stopped retracing the line of her jaw with his lips to look at her. She was frowning and that wasn’t good. “You do not want this… You do not want me…”

“Sweetheart, I very much want you…” he scoffed, jutting his hips forward to prove his point.

She didn’t gasp or press back this time though and he took his hand off her breast to place it back on her waist, not really enjoying how unresponsive she had become.

“But only once.” she huffed.

“Ah.” He winced, finally getting what the problem was. He stepped back, giving her back her space. “I ain’t interested in a relationship. Sex is… Sex is alright but…”

“Of course, sex is alright.” she deadpanned with enough sarcasm to chill the whole room, letting her bound hands fall in front of her. “My apologies, I clearly misread the situation and you clearly mistook me for what I am not.”

“Hey, you’re the one who waltzed in all knowledgeable about gagging and shit…” he retorted and then winced again. “Look, I’m sorry… For what it’s worth, I never thought you were…”

“A slut?” she finished when he let his sentence trail off. “No, you simply thought I was the kind of woman who slept around for fun apparently. And why? Because I am an unmarried woman running a circus by myself? I thought you were different.” She pursed her lips. “I think it is far better for the good of the troupe if we forget this even happened. Let’s remain friends.”

Haymitch had a bad taste in his mouth. He felt guilty and for no good reason of his own. He hadn’t promised her anything. He hadn’t courted her or some shit… He hadn’t even really initiated this. She…

“Let me get those off you…” he awkwardly mumbled, nodding to the handcuffs still encircling her wrists.

“No need.” she snapped and, in clicking sounds that seemed almost deafening, the handcuffs slipped off her wrists and onto the floor. He must have gaped a little because when he looked back up at her, she looked both smug and irritated all at once. “You are not the only one who is gifted at escaping, Haymitch.” The fact that she could have gotten out of the shackles at any moment somehow made him feel even worse. “I trust you not to blab about this around the others.”

“Course not.” he scowled. “Ain’t that kind of asshole…”

She snatched her coat and slipped it on with jerky angry moves. He watched her toss her hair over the collar with an impatient flick of her arm. He tried to catch her eyes but she wouldn’t look at him. He thought they were shiny and, more than anything, that made him want to reach out, to salvage this.

He didn’t dare try to touch her again.

“Effie…” he whispered and she froze for a second. It was the first time he had used her name, he realized.

“Let’s stay friends.” she insisted. And then she was gone.

The door swung shut quietly behind her and he would have preferred for her to have slammed it.

#hayffie #effie trinket #haymitch abernathy #thg circus au #The Greatest Show

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carterashofficial · 7 years ago

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Thanks, Aearyn

@aearyn was so unbelievably kind to tag me for this

rules: answer these 85 questions and tag 20 people (ahaha no i wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy this took forever)

— what was your last…

1. drink: water. from the fridge. there might’ve been a dog hair in it because Scout and Abbey show their love through shedding. I didn’t care. 2. phone call: my old internship asking why I never got my w-2 form 3. text message: a coupon from World Market, if that counts. If not, i texted myself a spoiler for the kotfe fic so i don’t forget 4. song you listened to: Champion by Carrie Underwood b/c i love it and I NEED THE POSITIVITY 5. time you cried: UH... writing the kotfe fic. But i wasn’t actually crying. it was more like “im tearing up at this one scene b/c its breaking my heart”. Actual crying? been... so long i can’t remember.

— have you ever…

6. dated someone twice: ahahahhahahahahahaha.... ahahahhaha..... ahahahhahahahaha despite my best intentions, i’ve never dated anyone. I’ve been trying to change that. I want romance in my life. 7. kissed someone and regretted it: That would imply i’ve had my first kiss, and im 22 years old and still haven’t had it. APHRODITE WHY AM I SINGLE. I’M READY TO MINGLE 8. been cheated on: see above. Can’t be cheated on if you’ve never HAD A DATE 9. lost someone special: i would rather not consider this question, but Domino, Jewel, and my Grandma (all were very, very sudden and hit me like a bag of bricks). 10. been depressed: ha ha ha apparently i’ve had depression since i was 15. I was officially diagnoses in January of 2017 and have been on medication since. ahahaha 11. gotten drunk and thrown up: no I can barely get drunk even when i try, let alone enough for a damn hangover. Seriously. I can drink like Carmadda and not get drunk.

— fave colours

12. soft eggshell green 13. the blue at the edge of the horizon 14. metallic anything

— in the last year have you…

15. made new friends: ........yes? i think? 16. fallen out of love: ahahahahaha no b/c i’ve never been in love (in the romantic sense and that’s how im taking this) 17. laughed until you cried: always 18. found out someone was talking about you: in the worst of ways 19. met someone who changed you: yes 20. found out who your friends are: oooooh yes 21. kissed someone on your facebook friends list: never been kisses

— general

22. how many of your facebook friends do you know irl: all? how else do people find you on there? 23. do you have any pets: many. Scout, Abbey, the neon tetras (named the Heralds of Zildrog), my various shrimp, and Corypheus and Valkorian the golden inca snails 24. do you want to change your name: no, but i used to 25. what did you do for your last birthday: went bowling 26. what time did you wake up today: i woke up 3 times, once to Bug getting ready for school, then my mom asking if i opened the vitamins, then... i think 9 was when i finally crawled out 27. what were you doing at midnight last night: playing swtor or looking up some fresh and funky memes 28. what is something you can’t wait for: finished the next kotfe fic chapter and breaking everyone’s hearts. Or the next major expansion of SWTOR. I NEED ANOTHER CINEMATIC TRAILER LIKE GODDAMN 30. what are you listening to right now: nothing my house is silent and in the far, far distance, sometimes i can hear cars on the toll road 31. have you ever talked to a person named tom: i have an uncle named Tom. I have spoken with him. So Yes. 32. something that’s getting on your nerves: socialization. I can only take so much around others. If I was a Sim i’d have the lonely trait. 33. most visited website: Tumblr or my school’s student login page 34. hair colour: blonde/brown im really smack in-between and i just dye it lighter to make it blonde enough for me to be blonde 35. long or short hair: long. so long. down to my butt long 36. do you have a crush on someone: not sure. i like him, he’s funny and thinks im funny, and teases me back, but im shit at reading signs and far too much a coward to ask him out. I’m not sure. I had a major crush in high school that resulted in me falling in love with a guy but we never offically dated and then he crushed my heart. Long story. So i try to avoid crushes lest i break my heart again. 37. what do you like about yourself: bitch im fabulous 38. want any piercings: i got 3 in the lobes of each ear and cartilage in the left. If i get any more I think my mom would have a heart attack 39. blood type: ??????? no idea. I know my sister is O 40. nicknames: Milky (only drank milk as a kid, but this nickname has sorta phased away). Other nicknames give away my real name. But I do respond to my sister’s name. 41. relationship status: single and ready to flamingle 42. sign: Aquarius 43. pronouns: she/her 44. fave tv show: i literally can’t pick one b/c ive watched nearly every cop show on Netflix, including some that aren’t in english. All the cooking competitions i can find on Netflix and youtube, and im running out of TV to watch when i do art. Halp. 45. tattoos: Zero because my fatal fear is needles. 46. right or left handed: Left. left left left seriously i can.... maybe dip a french fry in ketchup with my right but that’s it 47: ever had surgery: wisdom teeth removed count? 48. piercings: 7 total in the ears and nothing else. 49. sport: I watch baseball and hockey (SPEAKING OF WHICH, GO DUCKS!). Used to play softball and some soccer. 50. vacation: if i can graduate a quarter early I want to go visit my family in florida and michigan 51. trainers: is... this british for shoes? i wear berkenstocks. only berkenstocks. because crocs are so comfortable but people judge. I also have hella wide feet where ever ‘wide’ shoes are too narrow. I can get by in Vans or my old old Nikes that i hardly ever wear

— more general

52. eating: whether or not if ketchup should go on it, ketchup is going on it. Unless if it’s breakfast food or desert. Breakfast food is my favorite and i could happily live off it it. 53. drinking: water, tea, juice, milk, Mike’s black cherry hard lemonade, monster energy drinks, RC Cola.... i drink a variety of things. Mostly water and tea. 54. i’m about to watch: i dont know I’VE RAN OUT OF THINGS TO WATCH ON NETFLIX 55. waiting for: myself to go out on a date and/or meet The Guy 56. want: many things. 57. get married: One day. 58. career: ssssssssttttttttttuuuuuuuuuudddddddeeeeeeennnnnnntttttttt

— which is better

59. hugs or kisses: i want both but maybe not from the same people. 60. lips or eyes: depends what each are doing tbh 61. shorter or taller: taller b/c im short and can’t reach the top shelf 62. older or younger: older but at this point im 22 and a lot of my classmates are 21 so like.... my generation. 63. nice arms or stomach: arms 64. hookup or relationships: relationships 65. troublemaker or hesitant: depends. like really depends. I’ll probalby go with troublemaker b/c they tend to be funny and on-the-spot and im a planner.

— have you ever

66. kissed a stranger: never kissed anyone..... ha ha ha 67. drank hard liquor: so yes. 68. turned someone down: ahahahhahahahaahaha haha ha. Actually yes I got asked to homecoming my senior year by this one dude who still gives me the creeps jsut tihnking about him. I politely said no. 69. sex on first date: never been on a date, never kissed anyone. Never ‘done the deed’. Would not do on the first date. 70: broken someone’s heart: uh my mom’s when I told her I had Depression and wanted to kill myself all throughout sophomore year highschool 71. had your heart broken: oh. Yes. 72. been arrested: no 73. cried when someone died: more like wailed loud enough that half the dorm floor heard 74. fallen for a friend: *side-eyes my sister* yeeees

— do you believe in

75. yourself: it varies over what. 76. miracles: I mean.... to an extent. 77. love at first sight: no 78. santa claus: I AM 22 YEARS OLD of course 79. angels: its complicated. my mom found a dead rat in our old house’s garage when i was 4-ish and all i remember crying for the dead rat when my dad tossed it in the garbage. My mom explained that an angel had already taken the rat’s soul to heaven. What did I picture the angel as? A carrot, wearing a tie, with mickey mouse-esque white gloves carrying a rat dramatically. This still haunts me.

— misc

80. eye colour: blue enough that you might drown in the ocean 81. best friend’s name: @athenascrown 82. favourite movie: if you think I can pick only one you’ve got another thing coming. but.... any star wars movie. If i had to pick one, Empire Strikes Back or Phantom Menace or The Last Jedi.... or Rogue One.... or Revenge of the Sith... 83. favourite actor: The guy who played the stormtrooper who hits his head on the door in Ep 4 84. favourite cartoon: the old Ducktales was a childhood favorite 85. favourite teacher’s name: I don’t want to put her name out here but she was my art teacher all through high school and she is one of the kindest souls ive ever met and if it wasn’t for her, i wouldn’t have gotten back into art

because this post took 5ever im not tagging anyone but if you want to do it, just say I tagged you and I’ll say i did

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eenefangirlanalysis · 7 years ago

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Eddy immediately starts racing around the park calling out for Bro. He inadvertently smacks Ed and Edd against a boardwalk in his excitement.

Did you notice how Eddy became a tad abuseful towards his friends in the later seasons? He’d push them to their limit and even hit them. Honestly, Eddy didn’t know better. All his mannerisms are from Bro.

I head canon that Bro had two friends of his own. He was much more physically abusive. And he never looked at them as if they were his friends. They were more lackeys. And that’s what Eddy considers Ed and Edd for some time. He’s always had trust issues. Nobody has given him a chance.

Is that a shrimp ride??

Duh, I just noticed the sign. Interesting, I’ve never seen a ride like that before.

If Bro is the true owner of this amusement park he is a man known to like being different. Bro’s room is the best evidence to support this detail.

“There’s so many places he could be, Eddy,” Edd remarks rubbing his sore head.

His head is very delicate. Why is it always Edd’s head that has to get hurt? He’s had enough pain in that area.

Does Edd think any differently about the scar now? The confession scene would have given the movie a much more deeper outcome. It would also have given is more of a powerful insight regarding why Edd was the first to step forward in the famous scene that is to come. He’s more confident in himself knowing that they scar doesn’t make him a monster. The scar does not mark him.

Will Edd stop wearing his hat some day? I think he’ll be more comfortable taking his hat off in front of his friends but not the cul-de-sac kids. The Eds have taken an emotionally profound journey. The kids would never understand Edd’s past like Ed and Eddy.

Eddy runs passed a ticket booth in the shape of a shark’s head.

Think about Bro standing inside that shark’s head. The predator is looming towards you when you least expect it.

That’s some dark symbolism.

First the snail and the salt symbolism at the beginning of the movie and a shark. Bro also owned a snake as a pet. Bro has a very dark mind.

The Eds runs all around the park checking any ride, any game or machine. It’s a cartoon world. Anybody can take advantage of cartoon physics.

Eddy even demonstrates is acrobatic/part squirrel skills. He climbs up at the post as if it were nothing and slides across this electrical pole... oh wait, or is it a rope? There are megaphones attached to this pole? Do you think it’s an electrical pole? If so I was going to point out that Eddy’s use of taking advantage of cartoon physics will so come to a close.

Ed suddenly spies that their are a million people looking at him.

Ed, you’re not tracking down Samara Morgan are you?

Ed’s mouth practically falls to the ground at the sight in front of him.

“Keep looking! Keep looking!” Eddy calls out.

Okay, this screenshot is the best. Eddy retraces his steps to silently mock Ed.

"Hey, why don't you quit standing there and do something–"

In the past Eddy would be more abusive towards Ed. Instead of gently tapping him he’d whack him upside the head. It just goes to show you that Eddy has learned quite a lot about morals and his behavior. He’s practically a new person.

Sadly Eddy is still a magnet to slapstick.

“WHAAAALE!!”

A house shaped like a whale.

Say, didn’t Eddy say that his brother was a whaler?

Oh, head canons, we love that you exist. I go back and forth on whether this is Bro’s permanent address or if he switches from house to house. There is a chair and grill sitting outside. And a TV antenna.

He’s one town away from Peach Creak. His parents must know that Bro lives here. And Bro went out of his way to mail a huge box full of baby things just to mock Eddy. He’s messing with his mind.

Is this trailer home similar to the Kanker’s where it’s bigger in the inside? I’ve already analyzed that Bro isn’t one to take advantage of cartoon physics. He doesn’t care what he does whether it’s against the law or not. He can’t even handle physical slapstick. I’m judging this observation because of the tub filled with water on the side.

And there is another trailer home! Hmm, are there multiple owners for this amusement park? Okay, this other trailer home changes everything! If there were an someone occupying this trailer wouldn’t they hear the commotion?

There was a deleted shot where we were supposed to see Bro’s mail box. And inside the mail box was the untouched video tape the Eds recorded in An Ed is Born.

Okay, this has to be Bro’s permanent address if he sends mail. And his parents know his address. Eddy’s parents are living in constant fear that there son may return or Eddy will find out that his brother is close by. Eddy doesn’t a thing about his brother.

Wait, okay another dark head canon. Was this whale once alive?

“THAT’S HIS PLACE! THAT’S GOT TO BE HIS HOUSE!”

Our boys are so giddy that they can hardly contain themselves.

How does Eddy know this is Bro’s place?

In the short amount of years he was living with his brother Eddy knows he has a peculiar way or living. He bed is a pull out from the refrigerator, he has a beach in his room, bricked up the windows, and he kept a car parked in there as well.

Bro lived in the dark. He’d rather be alone so nobody will ridicule the way he lives. Bro is clearly not right in the head. He may have been trying to get attention but they’d all shoo him away. Eddy’s parents did their best to understand their son. They weren’t mature enough to take care of a baby when they had Bro.

Ed believes he has the power to fly like in I Am Curious Ed.

“I’m okay.”

Ed, you’re perfect. We love you. Don’t change.

“Opinion please, Ed...”

Wow, Edd is asking Ed for his opinion on something? Normally Edd asks Eddy.

This journey changed how Ed and Edd think of one another. They’re close friends who like to hang out without Eddy. It doesn’t matter if you’re different. Being the same is boring.

“What do you think? Plaid? Stripes. Perhaps more conservative, yes?"

Edd has been carrying around a handful of ties this whole time? And he picks out his trademark tie from season 5. Honestly, that’s the only tie which looks good on him out of any of the ties on the rack.

Edd feels the need to dressed upon for his meeting with Bro.

It’s been a while since they’ve met someone new.

Out of context if you think about this as an EddEddy moment, Edd is meeting Eddy’s relatives and is trying to make a good image.

“Our problems are over, boys,” Eddy announces as he marches off screen to find out if his brother occupies the whale-house.

Eddy looks like he’s praying.

Religion has been brought up a few times within the series. The show takes it rather seriously never making fun of the serious subject once. The character will occasionally make remarks such as ,’Oh, my Lord!’ Eddy has also talked to the heavens on occasions.

He’s praying that everything will go okay and he’ll get what he is looking for.

Will it?

#ed edd n eddy #eene #ed edd n eddy big picture show #EddEddy #the eds #Eddy's Brother #Ed #Edd #Eddy #character analysis #eene analysis #religion #eene season 5 #eene head canons #Eddy's parents #The Ring #Samara Morgan

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tl-the-celestiamod · 7 years ago

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Goosebumps Review #4

I understand now why you asked for this. You knew didn’t you? You knew what I was about to get myself into and you wanted to see my reaction. You wanted to see me suffer.

Well, moving on with my quest to read all the Goosebumps books I never got to read as a kid...

(Spoilers ahead)

The Horror At Camp Jellyjam

Goosebumps (Original Series) #33

I have a lot to say about this one. More than I normally do. And let’s start out by saying, WTF did I just read? I remember this book from when I was a kid. I remember not reading it. That cover just freaked me the hell out. The man pictured on the cover is camp counselor Buddy, and just look at him. He’s pure nightmare fuel. Looking at the cover you would think this has the potential to be a really scary book. But then there’s that title. Camp Jellyjam? What kind of name is that? I had visions of a camp where they feed you some kind of weird jelly that turns you into a super happy, upbeat zombie, with an unnatural grin on your face, no longer in control of your mind as you try to force others to eat it while jelly gushes out the sides of your mouth... I think that may have actually been a thing... somewhere... I can’t remember... Maybe it was Are You Afraid Of The Dark... Well, that wasn’t what this was about...

So this story ended up being about something that is truly scary... to me... Sports Camp. The most extreme sports camp, where kids are never given a moment’s rest, rushed from one sport to the next, constantly playing sports from morning to dusk, and being pushed to always win. There is no such thing as 2nd best. You have to win, win, win! This terrifies me. Sadly the story itself did not.

So the story is about Wendy and her younger brother, Elliot, who are on a boring road trip with their parents. They decide to ride in the travel trailer hitched to the back of the car to get a break from their parents and as they are going up a mountain the trailer comes unhitched and they roll down the side until crashing into the woods. When they get out they find they have crashed right outside a summer camp called King Jellyjam's Sports Camp and are instantly greeted by Counselor Buddy, who tells them they can rest at the camp while he contacts the authorities and tries to find their parents. And yeah, Buddy is described exactly as he is pictured on the cover. There is no doubt from the moment you see him that this guy is a grinning, mindless, forced to always be happy, zombie of a human being. So I find this kids really stupid for going with him.

There is a thing at King Jellyjam's Sports Camp where every time you win a competition or something, you are awarded a gold coin with a picture of the camp mascot, King Jellyjam, on it. (King Jellyjam is a big purple blob with a gold crown on his head and his picture is everywhere.) And when you win 6 “King’s Coins” you get to walk in the victory march that night. There is a victory march every night for all the campers who won 6 coins, and no one who walks in the victory march ever comes back. Her first night there, Wendy’s bunk mate, Diedre (What the hell kind of name is that? I don’t even know how to pronounce it.) is in the Victory March and she doesn’t come back. Wendy and her other two bunk mates, Ivy and Jan, decide to sneak out after lights out and try to find her but instead they find a younger girl named Alicia running through the camp crying and screaming, telling them “I followed them! It was horrible! We have to get out of here!” So what is their reaction? Once Alicia runs away they decide to go back to their bunk. Because that seems natural. Clearly nothing is wrong here. But oh wait... Now all of Diedre’s clothes and things are gone. They have been removed from the cabin. So yeah they just go to sleep...

Next morning Wendy asks Buddy about Diedre and he just checks his clipboard and is like, “Oh yeah, she gone. Don’t know where. It just says she’s gone. Oh Alicia? Hmm... Yep, she’s gone too.” And when Wendy tries to tell this to Ivy and Jan? “Sorry Wendy can’t talk now. Got to go to our next event if we want to win 6 coins!” After everything they went through literally the night before, the next morning they have already stopped caring and are back to trying to win coins so they can be in the victory march... that no one ever comes back from... Even her brother, Elliot, suffers from this unimaginable stupidity and lack of concern for anything. Wendy is all like, “We have to get out of here and find Mom and Dad. The kids are disappearing every time they go on the victory march.” And Elliot is all like, “I can’t leave yet. I haven’t won my sixth coin yet. Don’t you ruin this for me. We will find Mom and Dad after I get a victory march.”

But when you stop to think about it... Maybe this is actually quite brilliant. Have you ever known any super hard core sports fans? People who only care about sports and if you aren’t talking about sports they won’t even give you the time of day? Those parents who just watch ESPN all day long and the only time they spend with their kids is when they take them to play sports that they forced them to sign up for? I’ve been related to people like that. It’s part of the reason I hate sports. Could it be that R.L. Stine was trying to make a point here? Taking this obsession people have with sports and stretching it out to it’s most extreme lengths? Showing us what happens when you let sports rule your life and stop caring about everything else? That’s actually really brilliant and quite frightening. Maybe I misjudged this book...

Oh... wait... I just read the last few chapters... Never mind. I retract all statements of this being brilliant.

So in the final few chapters we see Wendy sneaking out after dark again and following the camp counselors who all sneak off into the woods. They all meet up in a building that is shaped like an igloo for... no reason that was ever given... where they all sit in front of a stage and watch as Buddy uses a gold coin on a chain to hypnotize them. Every night Buddy hypnotizes all of the counselors, himself included, into emptying their minds, forgetting everything and becoming blank slates just there to serve their master. And who is their master? Well down in the basement of this secret cult igloo is King Jellyjam, the purple blob who’s image is posted all over the camp.

Oh but he’s not a blob like you are thinking. He’s not made of slime or goo. He’s a giant (the size of a house) blob of flesh, with a head and two arms. And he stinks. And his body is covered in slime. And he sweats snails. No you heard that right... When he sweats instead of liquid, he has living snails push themselves out through his pores. I can’t make this shit up. And all the kids who win 6 coins? They are taken to him to be his slaves. It’s their job to wash him constantly because he stinks so bad he has to be bathed 24/7. The kids have to just keep washing him constantly, never given a break. If a kid stops working, even for a minute, King Jellyjam eats them. This is the most batshit insane, out of nowhere crap I have ever seen in a Goosebumps.

But this is also where our body count comes in. Diedre and Alicia, who are still alive somehow even though they have been down there for like 3 or 4 days by this point, tell Wendy all of this. They emphasis it by informing her that he already ate 3 kids today. There’s 3 kids who have actually died in a Goosebumps book and there is no bringing them back after the monster is killed. They are just gone. But when you think about it, if he eats someone the moment they stop working, how many kids has he eaten over the 5 or so days Wendy has been there? Working non-stop? Not even aloud to sleep or eat? I’d be amazed if most kids could last 2 days. This is the point where you have to realize that most of the kids you saw go on the victory marches through the course of the book are already dead at this point. That just strikes me a interesting because it’s the first time I’ve seen it in Goosebumps.

Again I’m questioning the logistics of all of this because if the smell is bad enough to kill King Jellyjam in only a couple of minutes, how does it not kill all the kids who are having to lay on the floor until he’s dead? For that matter, how did any of this even get started? Has King Jellyjam always been like this? What did he do to keep from stinking to death before he had a camp to help him enslave children? I’m assuming the hypnotized counselors built the camp for him but how did he get a bunch of hypnotized counselors in the first place? This is a summer camp... if he eats the kids the moment they are no longer able to keep working, what does he do during the rest of the year when he doesn’t have a daily supply of fresh kids brought to him?

But none of those questions will ever be answered. King Jellyjam dies, the kids all leave the igloo, and within minutes the police are storming the camp to rescue them. Apparently the smell was so bad that it only took a matter of minutes to attract the entire police force... I’m not sure how... Was there a police station just minutes away in the middle of the woods on the side of a mountain? But whatever, I’m not sure how anything else in this book worked either.

I would like to give this book credit for not having a ton of fake out scares at the end of every chapter. There are some but not a ton. Although I did find it weird that Stine ended the book on a fake out scare instead of the traditional “not out of the woods yet” twist ending. Maybe after actually killing a bunch of kids in this book he wanted to end it on a more comical note... But I also have to take away credit for all the sports stuff. I kid you not, the first 12 or so chapters focus more on sports activities than the actual scary stuff you are reading it for. I mean describing every action of every game being played for the first quarter of the book white the scares are just an afterthought. It’s not until Diedre goes missing somewhere around chapter 13 that Stine finally stops talking about sports and starts trying to scare us.

All in all I just don’t know what to make of this thing. Is it brilliant social commentary? Is it lazy story writing? Or is it just the batshit crazy ramblings of a mad man?

#Goosebumps Review

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sequeldespair-blog · 8 years ago

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oró, sé do bheatha abhaile! (for once in your lifetime, will you do what you want, not what you have to?) | Nagisa | ENDGAME

you really fucked it up this time, didn't you, nagisa?

When Miho came by where they stood, and they felt his smooth, nimble fingers brush across their hair, Nagisa felt their breath stop, and their heart skip, and they knew that they were never going to let go of all of this anytime soon, no matter how hard they tried. (they were weak. they were so, so weak.)

The world danced around them at uneven speeds, slow as a snail and as fast as lightning all at once, and they could not keep their heart from pounding as if it was about to burst from their chest as Miho spoke softly to them (it was real it was real it was real he lied about nearly everything but something something was real), and as he pressed his phone into their shaking hands (don't go don't go don't go please just don't leave--), and as all they could choke out with was:

"...I...I-I d...don'...t...u-un...d-derst..st--"

No, not that--

"I...g-- g...ge...t y-you, I...tha...nnnngh...I...l-li-- I...hhhhhhaaaaagh...l--"

(i love you? i hate you? thank you? i'll miss you? see you? goodbye?)

--But they were silent, then; and the most they could muster was the saddest, slightest of tiny waves farewell, and after that? All they could do was sit and shudder.

It was the end.

---

And then, it really was the end. And when it finally hit their deadened, delirious fuck of a brain exactly what the setting was that the crooked lovebirds of the hour had chosen for their last hurrah, they just couldn't fucking help but have their hand goddamn fly up to their mouth and--

"Nnnnnnnnnf--f-fuck-k...! F-F-fffuckin'--"

(and ain't that a fucking tableau for ya, kid! nagisa kelly, abandoned by God and lured in by the Devil, only to have him leave you behind, too! forgone and forsaken by anyone who could ever give a damn, and what can you even do, now?)

They watched. (Because of course they did.) Their whole world was corrupted footage, rewinding and fast forwarding at equal speeds, and nothing made sense and everything was falling with them and then they were gone, and there they were, fucking sobbing and convulsing and dragging their fingers down a face they could barely even feel, and it was his voice that thundered in their head above all else, and they hated it and hated him and hated hated hated that they couldn't even pretend that was true, not a goddamn bit.

(you're so cool, nagisa-chan! we're friends, nagisa-chan! i want to be your knight, nagisa-chan! by the way, nagisa-chan, did i ever tell you i'm a fucking con?)

It felt like a million years before the lights came back on.

---

Sasahara was dead. Koochi was gone. It barely even registered.

Trailer 11 was all they cared about, their final stop before freedom; as they yanked out their keycard and flung the door open, fetching up their darling Camilla (or Cami, wouldn't they have to call her now), and grabbing anything else they could throw over their sharp shoulders and fit in those shaking surgeon-like hands of theirs, and then they were staggering away, despite every bone in their body screaming for them to just collapse to the floor and never wake up, and soon, it was the eight of them, a wretched octet of desperate, traumatised children stumbling their way into light and noise and real goddamn people and freedom, fucking freedom, at long last.

---

They slipped into unconsciousness swifter than any of the others, the stress finishing them off in that department long before even the sickness; Camilla in their lap, voice recorder in one pocket and his phone in the other, and more than therapy or medicine or anything else in the world all they wanted was to be held, close and tight, and to have someone brush back their hair and murmur into their ear that it was fine, that it was over, that they were forgiven, and that they were safe.

---

They woke up in their clean hospital bed, and the first thing that popped into their head was that they were surprised that they weren't still crying.

The real human people from hours ago were back, and they were introducing themselves, and explaining how thoroughly fucked the lot of them all were. They stared, observing with what seemed like an almost detached interest; not because they didn't care, but because God, everything still ached and burnt and hurt so much that the future wasn't something they could even begin to consider yet. And then they were gone, and all that was left in the ward were the eight of them.

(Eight. Eight survivors who had lived to tell the tale, or keep it shut up tight for the rest of their lives. One hell of a motley crew if there ever was one, huh? Aiko Sato, Declan LeBlanc, Ayato Akiyama, Kazumi Kido, Warato Fukumi, Mio Fujihara, Maria Santiago, Takumi Ueno-- and them. Them, Nagisa Kelly. That one, they'd never could've guessed.)

(Some months on from now, late in the evening in an apartment with stained white walls, they find themself trying to forget in the company of an old almost-friend; he asks them, "Man, an' how the fuck did y'survive all that?", and they answer, with a hollow snicker and smirk, "Why, with my incredible charm and good looks, 'course." They're not entirely wrong.)

Their entire body, their soul, even, felt heavy. Weighed down by the whole world. Those former survivors had no answers for them. They had no answers for themself. What the everloving fuck did they do now? Their thoughts flickered to it all, every little responsibility and obligation they'd left behind, and suddenly they were tempted to lie back down again.

"...But don’t misunderstand me: You don’t owe them anything."

Once upon a time, Nagisa Kelly, going-on-sixteen years old and entrenched in their own guilt, had fled their former existence to try and start again. They'd failed, and had made it back here, going-on-nineteen years old and swamped by the horrors they'd witnessed, ghastly thoughts they knew were never going to quite fade, no matter how hard they willed.

But Miho-- goddamn brighteyes, their twisted, crooked, sadistic saviour-- maybe he was right. Maybe they could just do what felt right rather than what was responsible, maybe just not think about and just...be. Whatever that meant.

They didn't know. Everything hurt, and they had no idea what was going to happen to them next. But maybe, maybe for now, maybe all they had to do was close their eyes, and let the sunlight fall across them, and tomorrow, they could restart it again. Just maybe, but God knew that was all they had, now. And maybe that was what they'd have to use.

(So much lay ahead of them, so much they had yet to know; clasped hands, late night breakdowns, so many more opportunities to be an idiot and cry and laugh where neither was appropriate, reunitings and partings that hadn't quite happened yet, questionable hobbies to fill the void with and antique knives to satisfy their own paranoia they had neither taken up nor collected. It was a vast, vibrant future ahead of them, and not a thought of it had yet to enter that drained head of theirs.)

They laid their head back down again.

So it goes, huh? C'est la fucking vie, hah.

Nagisa Kelly did not know about it, not yet. But if their life could be defined as some twisted cinematic epic of their own, then here, with the sun shining across their closed life and silent, still self, was where it was truly about to begin.

And that's a wrap!

#Cinema Despair #IC #Nagisa #submission

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preciousmetals0 · 5 years ago

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The Fed Rolls On; Sticking Stamps.com

The Fed Rolls On; Sticking Stamps.com:

In a Crisis, 3’s a Crowd

Great news, everyone!

The U.S. economy is fundamentally solid and the outlook “is a good picture,” at least according to Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Richard Clarida.

The Fed’s vice chairman also touted the U.S.’s labor market — the strongest in 50 years — calling it a “huge positive.” Clarida also said that inflation is holding close to the central bank’s goals.

And, as far as that nasty virus is concerned … the Fed is watching. (That’s honestly what it does best … watch.)

However, what the Fed’s watching and what’s actually happening may be two completely different things. Specifically, two separate analysts came out today to warn that investors greatly underestimate the COVID-19 outbreak’s risks.

The first out of the gate was health care policy analyst Chris Meekings from Raymond James Financial Inc. (NYSE: RJF): “If you see companies come out later in March and say this will impact second quarter too or if you see a big outbreak in the U.S. at some point, I think those could be the triggers that would result in the market really having an adjustment.”

Next up was Peter Oppenheimer, chief global equity strategist for Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS).

In a note to clients this morning, Oppenheimer dropped the “correction” bomb: “In the nearer term…we believe the greater risk is that the impact of the coronavirus on earnings may well be underestimated in current stock prices, suggesting that the risks of a correction are high.”

So, while the U.S. economic outlook is a “good picture,” the Fed is still watching things develop. And when the COVID-19 situation finally comes to a head, that picture won’t be pretty anymore.

The Takeaway:

Back on January 21, I said that the coronavirus “is a really big deal with the potential to impact markets around the globe.” I warned you then to start preparing for the worst.

I’m glad that some of the financial talking heads are finally echoing the concerns that Great Stuff brought up a month ago! I don’t care if you have “coronavirus fatigue” … you need to take this seriously.

How seriously?

Let’s go to Banyan Hill expert Michael Carr for an answer:

I have a chart that shows a different view of volatility. And it’s not bullish.

In fact, it just flashed a huge warning sign for the stock market.

This indicator gave the same exact warning right before stocks plummeted more than 13% in December 2018.

You’ll notice that Mike isn’t directly talking about COVID-19 here … he’s talking about market volatility. And that volatility is about to turn quite bearish.

You can read more about this crucial indicator in Mike’s latest (and unsubtly titled) article: “WARNING: Major Sell-Off Imminent.”

Now, Michael Carr doesn’t say it, but I believe this shift in volatility is tied to concerns about the virus outbreak. While Wall Street doesn’t seem to want to acknowledge the problem publicly (yet), market makers and institutional investors are clearly worried. That worry has to show up somewhere, and it could manifest in market volatility.

However, what Mike does have to say on the market is still quite chilling: “Despite media headlines about new all-time highs, right now is a terrible time to buy shares.”

But if you don’t buy stock, how do you make money in the market … especially a market that’s headed for a potentially sizable correction?

One word: options.

After Mike’s two-plus decades in the U.S. Air Force, this Renaissance man turned from programming rocket trajectories to crafting even more explosive trading systems.

It’s a trading strategy that puts the market’s volatility in your favor — no matter the direction!

While buy-and-hold investors cower in their bunkers when volatility strikes, Mike jumps into action with incredible consistency.

That’s the best part of following Mike’s trade recommendations: Rally or correction, Mike’s readers still get the chance to land consistent triple-digit gains in any environment … no matter Wall Street’s panic or mania.

Click here to learn how Mike’s strategy could work for you!

The Good: Lick It and Stick It

Say … have you heard about stamps? Those sticky things that we put on packages to send via snail mail?

Apparently, stamps are big business again. Just ask Stamps.com Inc. (Nasdaq: STMP). The company announced this morning that fourth-quarter earnings more than doubled year over year, coming in at $2.12 per share. Revenue dipped a bit to $160.9 million but still beat Wall Street’s estimates.

The kicker here is that Stamps.com also set full-year earnings guidance 40% above the consensus estimate. And it’s all thanks to a new postage reselling agreement the company struck with the U.S. Postal Service. Well, that and a few deals it worked up with United Parcel Service Inc. (NYSE: UPS).

The thing is, e-commerce is only getting bigger. Shippers gotta ship, and Stamps.com brings that postage right into your shipping dock. Investors were so excited today, they sent STMP shares soaring more than 50%.

And you thought stamps were stuck in the past!

The Bad: Morgan Munches Merger

It was just a matter of time. After Charles Schwab Corp. (NYSE: SCHW) gobbled up TD Ameritrade Holdings Corp. (Nasdaq: AMTD), you knew someone else in the discount brokerage market would make a move.

That move came today when Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) snapped up E-Trade Financial Corp. (Nasdaq: ETFC) in an all-stock deal valued at $13 billion. MS stock is down more than 3% on the news, while ETFC has jumped more than 24%.

“E-Trade represents an extraordinary growth opportunity for our wealth management business and a leap forward in our wealth management strategy,” said Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman.

Why’s this bad? Well, I’m hearing a lot of “me, me, me” in Morgan Stanley’s statements surrounding the merger … not a lot of “This will help our customers.” With the advent of $0 trading commissions on stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), it was only a matter of time before online brokers made up the difference with volume and size.

That’s what this merger is about: volume and size.

The Ugly: Six White Flags

Investors in Six Flags Entertainment Corp. (NYSE: SIX) waved the white flag today.

The theme park operator missed Wall Street’s earnings expectations, slashed its dividend and said that Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President Marshall Barber will retire.

By the numbers, Six Flags reported a net loss of $0.13 per share, versus the consensus for a $0.14 profit. Revenue just barely edged out Wall Street’s $260.1 million target, arriving at $261 million.

As for its quarterly dividend … Six Flags trimmed that by nearly 70% from $0.83 per share to $0.25 per share.

And finally, the company’s partner in China defaulted on its obligations for development of Chinese theme parks. So, no new Chinese revenue or profit in 2020 … but at least it doesn’t have to worry about COVID-19 … right?

You jibber, I jabber. It’s time for another edition of Great Stuff’s reader feedback!

This week, we asked about your thoughts on the COVID-19 outbreak and Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. (NYSE: SPCE). What we got was a bunch of conspiracy theories on the virus — which, as crazy as we are here, we won’t publish — and complete and utter silence on Virgin. I’ll take that last point as a good sign: You’re not interested … nor should you be.

So, what else did Great Stuff readers send in? Let’s take a look:

Crazy, but That’s How It Goes…

You can be crazy and still be correct.

Remember, you’re only paranoid if they’re not out to get you!

Gary W.

You know what, Gary? I like you. You’re not like the other people here in the trailer park. Seriously, though, until Goldman Sachs, Raymond James and our own Michael Carr finally chimed in this week on the market’s perils, I felt like I must be crazy. I must’ve missed something.

Turns out, I was just ahead of my time. Thanks for writing in!

What If I Told You…

You are the one.

Thank you for your email.

Ava F.

Flattery will get you everywhere, Ava. Thank you for your kind words.

Sense and Sustainability…

Fundamentally, TSLA seems way overvalued. The announced dilution didn’t cause a decrease in stock price. Nor has coronavirus news…

Now, you recently had a poll regarding whether or not investors consider environmental impact in their investment decisions. The results seemed to show most respondents don’t really care. However, I have noted a number of relatively new “green” ETFs, and BlackRock recently announcing that it will “make investment decisions with environmental stability at its core.” Apparently, there is a lot of capital flowing into these funds.

So, my question is, in deciding where to invest, how do you balance the poor fundamentals of companies like TSLA versus the apparently large inflows of capital from ETFs, BlackRock and the like? The “hot trend” seems to be directing money to places that fundamentals would indicate it should not go. Will this influx of capital continue to drive up stock prices in these companies, even though fundamentals might not justify the stock price? Do you think these trends are sustainable?

I would love to get into another line of questions regarding possible disinflation/deflation as we observe the interactions between bonds, U.S. dollar and European rates, etc., but I’ll save that for another time.

Thanks for all the great insight and advice that all of you at Banyan Hill provide. You have made a wonderful impact and will never know what a difference you make in people’s lives. Please keep up the great work.

Eric C.

First, a big “how y’all doing” to a fellow Kentuckian! Thanks for reading and for the kind words, Eric. It means a lot.

Second, to your question on fundamentals, valuations and sustainable trends … I don’t think this overall market trend is sustainable. Large capital inflows into ETFs and index funds are part of the problem. But so, too, is the mania gripping Wall Street right now. As I noted yesterday, the market is ignoring significant risks right now that must be dealt with eventually.

Tesla Inc. (Nasdaq: TSLA) is a good example. Why does a stock rally after the company announces $2 billion in share dilution? It doesn’t … under normal circumstances. But this situation is far from normal. Something’s got to give sooner or later.

Now, I like Tesla, and I have a long-term bullish outlook on the company for multiple reasons. But I agree with you that the company is overvalued. What you do with that information is up to you. I’m sure Tesla will make another appearance in Great Stuff soon, so stay tuned.

As for disinflation/deflation, U.S. bonds, yada, yada, yada … if you write in about those topics, I’ll be forced to pull in my good friend Ted Bauman. He’s the expert on those topics.

If you wrote in and I didn’t get to you, it might be because you cursed too $%*?@#! much. I still really appreciate the feedback, even if they won’t let me publish it.

And if you haven’t written in yet … what’s stopping you? Drop me a line at [email protected], and let me know how you’re doing out there in this crazy market.

That’s a wrap for today. But if you’re still craving more Great Stuff, you can check us out on social media: Facebook and Twitter.

Until next time, good trading!

Regards,

Joseph Hargett

Editor, Great Stuff

0 notes

goldira01 · 5 years ago

Link

In a Crisis, 3’s a Crowd

Great news, everyone!

The U.S. economy is fundamentally solid and the outlook “is a good picture,” at least according to Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Richard Clarida.

And, as far as that nasty virus is concerned … the Fed is watching. (That’s honestly what it does best … watch.)

Next up was Peter Oppenheimer, chief global equity strategist for Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS).

So, while the U.S. economic outlook is a “good picture,” the Fed is still watching things develop. And when the COVID-19 situation finally comes to a head, that picture won’t be pretty anymore.

The Takeaway:

Back on January 21, I said that the coronavirus “is a really big deal with the potential to impact markets around the globe.” I warned you then to start preparing for the worst.

How seriously?

Let’s go to Banyan Hill expert Michael Carr for an answer:

I have a chart that shows a different view of volatility. And it’s not bullish.

In fact, it just flashed a huge warning sign for the stock market.

This indicator gave the same exact warning right before stocks plummeted more than 13% in December 2018.

You’ll notice that Mike isn’t directly talking about COVID-19 here … he’s talking about market volatility. And that volatility is about to turn quite bearish.

You can read more about this crucial indicator in Mike’s latest (and unsubtly titled) article: “WARNING: Major Sell-Off Imminent.”

However, what Mike does have to say on the market is still quite chilling: “Despite media headlines about new all-time highs, right now is a terrible time to buy shares.”

But if you don’t buy stock, how do you make money in the market … especially a market that’s headed for a potentially sizable correction?

One word: options.

After Mike’s two-plus decades in the U.S. Air Force, this Renaissance man turned from programming rocket trajectories to crafting even more explosive trading systems.

It’s a trading strategy that puts the market’s volatility in your favor — no matter the direction!

While buy-and-hold investors cower in their bunkers when volatility strikes, Mike jumps into action with incredible consistency.

Click here to learn how Mike’s strategy could work for you!

The Good: Lick It and Stick It

Say … have you heard about stamps? Those sticky things that we put on packages to send via snail mail?

And you thought stamps were stuck in the past!

The Bad: Morgan Munches Merger

It was just a matter of time. After Charles Schwab Corp. (NYSE: SCHW) gobbled up TD Ameritrade Holdings Corp. (Nasdaq: AMTD), you knew someone else in the discount brokerage market would make a move.

“E-Trade represents an extraordinary growth opportunity for our wealth management business and a leap forward in our wealth management strategy,” said Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman.

That’s what this merger is about: volume and size.

The Ugly: Six White Flags

Investors in Six Flags Entertainment Corp. (NYSE: SIX) waved the white flag today.

The theme park operator missed Wall Street’s earnings expectations, slashed its dividend and said that Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President Marshall Barber will retire.

As for its quarterly dividend … Six Flags trimmed that by nearly 70% from $0.83 per share to $0.25 per share.

You jibber, I jabber. It’s time for another edition of Great Stuff’s reader feedback!

So, what else did Great Stuff readers send in? Let’s take a look:

Crazy, but That’s How It Goes…

You can be crazy and still be correct.

Remember, you’re only paranoid if they’re not out to get you!

Gary W.

Turns out, I was just ahead of my time. Thanks for writing in!

What If I Told You…

You are the one.

Thank you for your email.

Ava F.

Flattery will get you everywhere, Ava. Thank you for your kind words.

Sense and Sustainability…

Fundamentally, TSLA seems way overvalued. The announced dilution didn’t cause a decrease in stock price. Nor has coronavirus news…

Eric C.

First, a big “how y’all doing” to a fellow Kentuckian! Thanks for reading and for the kind words, Eric. It means a lot.

As for disinflation/deflation, U.S. bonds, yada, yada, yada … if you write in about those topics, I’ll be forced to pull in my good friend Ted Bauman. He’s the expert on those topics.

If you wrote in and I didn’t get to you, it might be because you cursed too $%*?@#! much. I still really appreciate the feedback, even if they won’t let me publish it.

And if you haven’t written in yet … what’s stopping you? Drop me a line at [email protected], and let me know how you’re doing out there in this crazy market.

That’s a wrap for today. But if you’re still craving more Great Stuff, you can check us out on social media: Facebook and Twitter.

Until next time, good trading!

Regards,

Joseph Hargett

Editor, Great Stuff

#Timor Invest

0 notes

scoutess-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Summer Project

Tasks

Once I was accepted into graphics course, the class was set a task to introduce us to our first new topic. Which was poetry. To help us get stuck into the tasks we were first asked to look at some poets: Sylvia, Walt Whitman, Eminem and many others.

Sylvia - Lady Lazarus

I have done it again. One year in every ten I manage it—— A sort of walking miracle, my skin Bright as a Nazi lampshade, My right foot A paperweight, My face a featureless, fine Jew linen. Peel off the napkin O my enemy. Do I terrify?—— The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth? The sour breath Will vanish in a day. Soon, soon the flesh The grave cave ate will be At home on me And I a smiling woman. I am only thirty. And like the cat I have nine times to die. This is Number Three. What a trash To annihilate each decade. What a million filaments. The peanut-crunching crowd Shoves in to see Them unwrap me hand and foot—— The big strip tease. Gentlemen, ladies These are my hands My knees. I may be skin and bone, Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman. The first time it happened I was ten. It was an accident. The second time I meant To last it out and not come back at all. I rocked shut As a seashell. They had to call and call And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls. Dying Is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell. I do it so it feels real. I guess you could say I’ve a call. It’s easy enough to do it in a cell. It’s easy enough to do it and stay put. It’s the theatrical Comeback in broad day To the same place, the same face, the same brute Amused shout: ‘A miracle!’ That knocks me out. There is a charge For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge For the hearing of my heart—— It really goes. And there is a charge, a very large charge For a word or a touch Or a bit of blood Or a piece of my hair or my clothes. So, so, Herr Doktor. So, Herr Enemy. I am your opus, I am your valuable, The pure gold baby That melts to a shriek. I turn and burn. Do not think I underestimate your great concern. Ash, ash— You poke and stir. Flesh, bone, there is nothing there—— A cake of soap, A wedding ring, A gold filling. Herr God, Herr Lucifer Beware Beware. Out of the ash I rise with my red hair And I eat men like air.

I particularly enjoy this poem as I feel it has a lot of history and emotion to the point that I feel like I know the person well enough, like I can see her life through her own eyes in just one poem. It uses many illustrative words and phrases to create a very clear picture, almost like a movie. Personally, the poem is a extraordinary piece of work as even though the topic is extremely morbid it almost gives way to a hopeful ending. It uses no rhymes, long phrases or even heavy descriptions. Yet, it can communicate powerful, emotional feelings through single words or small phrases. Especially, once I read it out loud.

Walt Whitman - One’s-Self I sing

One’s-Self I sing, a simple separate person, Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse. Of physiology from top to toe I sing, Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I say the Form complete is worthier far, The Female equally with the Male I sing. Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power, Cheerful, for freest action form’d under the laws divine, The Modern Man I sing.

This poem is much shorter than the previous one but uses longer and more complex words and phrases. I believe the poem is communicating the fact that even if society dictates whom is stronger, worthier he will not bend to them as all are equal in life with their own choices. He has freedom of speech as is the modern way. The changes that were currently happening during the time the poem was written.

Eminem - Lose Yourself

Look, if you had, one shot, or one opportunity To seize everything you ever wanted. In one moment Would you capture it, or just let it slip? Yo His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti He's nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready to drop bombs, But he keeps on forgetting what he wrote down, The whole crowd goes so loud He opens his mouth, but the words won't come out He's choking how, everybody's joking now The clock's run out, time's up, over, blaow! Snap back to reality. Oh, there goes gravity Oh, there goes Rabbit, he choked He's so mad, but he won't give up that Easy, no He won't have it, he knows his whole back's to these ropes It don't matter, he's dope He knows that but he's broke He's so stagnant, he knows When he goes back to his mobile home, that's when it's Back to the lab again, yo This whole rhapsody He better go capture this moment and hope it don't pass him [Hook:] You better lose yourself in the music, the moment You own it, you better never let it go (go) You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow This opportunity comes once in a lifetime (yo) You better lose yourself in the music, the moment You own it, you better never let it go (go) You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow This opportunity comes once in a lifetime (yo) (You better) The soul's escaping, through this hole that is gaping This world is mine for the taking Make me king, as we move toward a new world order A normal life is boring, but superstardom's close to postmortem It only grows harder, homie grows hotter He blows. It's all over. These hoes is all on him Coast to coast shows, he's known as the globetrotter Lonely roads, God only knows He's grown farther from home, he's no father He goes home and barely knows his own daughter But hold your nose 'cause here goes the cold water His hoes don't want him no more, he's cold product They moved on to the next schmoe who flows He nose dove and sold nada So the soap opera is told and unfolds I suppose it's old partner, but the beat goes on Da da dum da dum da da da da [Hook] No more games, I'mma change what you call rage Tear this motherfucking roof off like two dogs caged I was playing in the beginning, the mood all changed I've been chewed up and spit out and booed off stage But I kept rhyming and stepped right into the next cypher Best believe somebody's paying the Pied Piper All the pain inside amplified by the Fact that I can't get by with my 9 to 5 And I can't provide the right type of life for my family 'Cause man, these goddamn food stamps don't buy diapers And it's no movie, there's no Mekhi Phifer, this is my life And these times are so hard, and it's getting even harder Trying to feed and water my seed, plus Teeter totter caught up between being a father and a primadonna Baby, mama drama's screaming on her Too much for me to wanna Stay in one spot, another day of monotony's gotten me To the point, I'm like a snail I've got to formulate a plot or I end up in jail or shot Success is my only motherfucking option, failure's not Mom, I love you, but this trailer's got to go I cannot grow old in Salem's lot So here I go it's my shot. Feet, fail me not This may be the only opportunity that I got [Hook] You can do anything you set your mind to, man

Eminem is one of my favourite rap artists because he makes all of his songs realistic since it is usually what is going in his life at the time. however, they still seem to relate to everyone like this song as it speaks to people about not missing your chance at life. The language is mainly modern slang but is easily understood and much easier to rhyme with. When I tried to speak it out loud it didn't really sound as good as the original as I found it difficult to just speak it when it should be rapped.

Step Right Up

For the second task our main objective was create some poetry verses based on advertising, signs and pictures that are around shops and roads. The task is based off from the song “STEP RIGHT UP” from 1977. Honestly, it is not to my taste but is certainly catchy and made it much easier to create verses by using the song as a reference.

Leave it to dame

Touch you must pay

Only £1

To make a house a home

Spend it all to get it all

Because you’re worth it

I’m lovin’ it

Every little helps

Maybe she’s born with it

Just do it

Karaoke Poetry

Task 3 was slightly more difficult as we had many more choices of content since we had to use our top 10 favourite songs. I chose my favourite songs first then i cost songs that a similar theme like genre or just the topic.

Once I chose my favourite songs I listened and picked out my favourite lyrics so I could have a variety of choices for the poem as the lyrics could be mixed to create differently themed poems.

1. Take It Out On Me

-Thought i had it under control

-You wanted it to be picture perfect

-You don’t have to throw it away

-Just let it go

-Take it out on me

2.Stressed Out

-Nw I’m insecure and i care what people think

-My name’s blurry face and I care what you think

-Wish we could turn back time

3.Superhero

-Hands up if you’re ready for the fight

-I don’t need you to believe in me

-I know how to change my destiny

-We can change the whole world

-Tell me that you’re in it

-Don’t you wanna be a superhero

4.Nicotine

-You’re worse than nicotine

-I’ve lost control and I don’t want it back

-Just one more hit then we’re through

5.Satellite

-You have to cross the line

-I’m passing over you like a satellite

-So shine your light on me

-It’s not too late, we have the rest of our lives

-This is the life you can't deny us now

6.Immortals

-They say we are what we are

-I’m bad behaviour but I do it in the best way

-I’ll be the guard dog of your fevered dreams

-Cause we could be immortals

-I am the sand at the bottom of the hour glass

-Pull the black out curtains now

7.I miss the Misery

-I miss the misery

-I’ve been a mess since you stayed

-i’ve been a wreck since you changed

-I’ve tried but i just can’t take this

-I’d rather fight than just fake it

-Don’t let me get in your way

8.The Resistance

Am a soldier, I won’t surrender

-Who’s gonna stand up, who's gonna fight

Heavy as a hurricane, louder than a freight train

-Heart beating faster, feels like thunder

9.Blood

-And rid myself of all my sin

-I swear I have sense

-We will gain nothing from this

-If you come closer I will lose control

-Cause you’ve been asking for it

10.X Gon’ Give To It Ya

-It’s what hearing, listen

-X gon’ give it to ya

-Fuck waiting for you to get it on your own

-I’ll do it again cos I’m right

-Ain’t never gave anything to me

By inserting the key phrases I found it easier to complete a poem and I experiment with different orders.

Poems

CONTROL UNCHAINED

Thought I had it under control

I don’t need you to believe in me

Now I’m insecure and I acre what people think

I’ve lost control and I don’t want it back

I’m passing over you like a satellite

I’m bad behaviour but I do it in the best way

I’d rather fight than just fake it

Heavy as a hurricane, louder than a freight train

If you come closer I will lose control

There is a beast inside, breaking free

[Insert photo sketches]

IMPERFECT TIME

They say we are what we are

You wanted it to be picture perfect

You can change the whole world

We will gain nothing from this

It’s not too late, we’ve have the rest of our lives

Don’t let me get in your way

You’re worse than nicotine

Ain’t never gave nothin’ to me

Heart beating faster, feels like thunder

Wish we could turn back time

DEATH’S DOOR

I’ve tried but I just can’t take it

Take it out on me

I swear I have sense

Am a soldier, I won’t surrender

I am the sand at the bottom of the hour glass

Its what your hearing, listen

Tell me that you’re in it

Wish we could turn back time

Just one more hit, then we’re through

This is the life you can’t deny us now

ME X YOU

You don’t have to throw it away

Now I’m secure and I care what people think

I know how to change my destiny

I’ve lost control and I don’t want it back

You have to cross the line

Pull the black out curtains now

I miss the misery

Who’s gonna stand up, who’s gonna fight

Cause you’ve been asking for it

X gon’ give it to ya

Evaluation/ Reflection

When I first looked at the starting brief I was surprised about the topic since it was not something I previously associated with graphics. however, once I started completing the tasks it became more obvious that the point of the brief was to introduce us to the relationship between text and image. A graphic artist is not only someone who creates art pieces on the computer but instead communicates through their artwork with a message. Whether that is from product design, advertising or simply creating a comic.

0 notes

infinitehouseofbooks · 8 years ago

Text

BLOG TOUR - Wellington Beaus

Welcome to Shannon Muir’s Infinite House of Books!

DISCLAIMER: This content has been provided to INFINITE HOUSE OF BOOKS by Bewitching Book Tours. No compensation was received. This information required by the Federal Trade Commission.

Wellington Beaus

Wellington Cross

Book Five

Cheryl R. Lane

Genre: Fiction/Romance/

Historical/Victorian

Publisher: Cheryl R. Lane

Date of Publication: May 6, 2017

ISBN: 1539035492

ISBN: 978-1539035497

ASIN: B06Y5JVWFW

Number of pages: 288

Word Count: 92,709

Cover Artist: Cheryl R. Lane

Book Description:

Two Wellington brothers, Godfrey and Bertie, find love and loss in 1895 in the small town of Charles City, Virginia. Godfrey, the older one, is married and expecting his firstborn child, but when tragedy strikes, how will he carry on?

Will Malynn Selman, who comes to live at Wellington Cross Plantation, be able to help him through his grief? Meanwhile, Bertie has just proposed to Amanda Adams, but when an old flame comes to live and work at the boarding house, Adams House, will she tempt Bertie into being unfaithful?

She is recently widowed and brings her two children with her along with her own troubles. Will the two brothers eventually find happiness?

Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/P-zppqOjaj0

Amazon BN Goodreads

Interview with the Author:

What initially got you interested in writing?

I always used to play pretend when I was little. I loved making up scenarios, mostly of TV shows I watched. I didn’t start writing stories down for fun until after I had graduated high school. I had a manual typewriter that I took outside one summer to our picnic table under the trees and wrote a Civil War love story.

How did you decide to make the move into being a published author?

When I moved to Virginia Beach, my husband and I toured old plantation homes, and I got inspired to make up stories to people that I imagined lived there. This was when I first wrote Wellington Cross, my first book. I sent off letters to a few publishers at the time and was rejected, so I put writing aside for many years while our son was young and growing up. I had a job (and still do) as a medical transcriptionist. When he was a teenager and driving his own car, I had a little more time to write again, and I revamped that book and sent letters off to the literary agents once again. I got rejection letters once again and decided to self-publish with Amazon.

What do you want readers to take away from reading your works?

I want readers to enjoy the stories, enjoy the family interactions, fall in love with the lovers in the stories, and I like to provide an escape from everyday life. I especially enjoy writing historical romance because it’s easier to be taken away to a different time period and try to imagine what life was like back then. I want my readers to take that journey, too.

What do you find most rewarding about writing?

I just think it’s fun to make up stories. Every time I finish a chapter, I feel a sense of accomplishment and my mood improves. It’s just something I love doing.

What do you find most challenging about writing?

I think the most challenging thing is writing historical fiction. For my Wellington Cross series, which is set in the late 1800’s, I have to do a lot of research and look things up for what they had back then. I try to be as historically correct as possible to make it seem more authentic. That takes a lot of work.

What advice would you give to people want to enter the field?

If you want to write, you have to read other people’s books to get a sense of storytelling. Also, don’t give up. If you enjoy writing, keep doing it, whether you publish it or not. Do it for the enjoyment of it.

What ways can readers connect with you?

Readers can connect with me through my website, email me, send me a letter through snail mail, and I have accounts as Cheryl R. Lane on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Goodreads, and an author page on Amazon.

Excerpt:

Chapter One

Charles City, Virginia

Adams House

July 1895

Amanda Adams walked out onto the front porch wearing her best blue dress with leg o’ mutton sleeves and waited for guests to arrive. She was having a birthday party and had invited a few of her family and friends to attend that day.

Her actual birthday was in June, but she had delayed a party so that her cousin Jason could have a proper honeymoon with his new wife, Belle Wellington. Belle had worked at the boarding house where the three of them lived and took care of Adams House. Most guests were just passing through town, but one guest had been a particular nuisance and caused a lot of trouble to all three of them at the boarding house.

Mister Wade Brewster aka Wayne Trueman, Jr., had forcibly raped Amanda back in February when he first came to visit the boarding house. He’d been handsome and charming, and she’d made a terrible mistake.

She had ended up being with child and called on a doctor in Richmond to try and get rid of the baby. She didn’t think she could bear looking at a baby every day who had been the result of such a brutal act of violence and violation. She found a Doctor Gardner, and he’d come to the boarding house in May to perform the surgery.

However, Mister Brewster had returned, found out what she was doing, and tried to stop it. Doctor

Gardner ended up having a heart attack and died before completing the surgery, before sewing her up. She’d bled a lot and the next day, Doctor William Brown and his wife Ginny had taken over her care. She’d taken a long time to heal, both physically and emotionally, and had eventually moved out to the country to stay at her Aunt Paisley’s plantation for a while. Her savior had been Bertie.

Albert Wellington, whom everyone called Bertie, had come to visit her at Carter Manor on a regular basis, and the two of them started taking walks outside on the plantation. First they walked in the garden, then the walks got longer and they’d walked around some of the crops and even over into the woods a little.

He was the sweetest man she’d ever met, and he knew how to make her laugh. He seemed to care a great deal about her.

Truth be told, she was in love with him. The day he saved her and his sister, Belle, from Mister

Brewster, by shooting him after he’d shot Belle in the stomach, was the day she realized she loved Bertie.

He’d sacrificed his life, which he did quite often being deputy of Charles City, but she knew he would do it for her at any given moment, should the need arise. He’d told her so on one of their walks. That he would do anything for her to prove to her that there were good men still left in this town.

Amanda had felt guilty about Belle getting shot and that it was her fault since she was the one who had gotten involved with Mister Brewster. It took her a while to forgive herself, even though Belle said she didn’t blame her at all. She’d insisted that since Mister Brewster had lived in the boarding house when he was growing up, he would’ve been back anyway, whether Amanda had taken up with him or not. Amanda knew that was true, but it didn’t help assuage her guilt sometimes.

She also felt guilt for getting rid of the baby. She had been the cause of an innocent life being terminated. Essentially, she had committed murder. Not actually with her own hands, but it was still her fault. She was the one who’d asked Doctor Gardner to perform the surgery that terminated the baby’s life.

She felt just awful and dreaded that she might not ever have another baby again, either as a result of the procedure or as punishment.

She tried most days not to think any of those thoughts and quickly pushed them out of her head as she straightened up her dress. It was her best dress, one she had gotten at Belle’s sister Lillie’s shop. She first wore it to the Wellington’s Spring Ball last year. She hadn’t been able to go this year because of all the mess with Mister Brewster. She was happy she could wear it now. She’d sent it out to the lady who does their laundry, and it had just barely arrived at the boarding house in time – that very morning!

She rested a hand on one of the white porch columns and looked around the town until her eyes paused at the Sheriff’s Office where Bertie worked and then the small house down the street from it where he lived.

He said he would ask for the whole day off so he could attend the party. She couldn’t wait to see him. And dance with him.

“Amanda, everything is nearly ready,” Belle said behind her.

Amanda turned around as Belle walked out onto the porch. She looked so much happier since she’d married Jason. Amanda was happy for them both but felt a twinge of jealousy. She wished she could feel so completely happy. She thought she just might be able to, someday. Maybe with Bertie.

“Wonderful,” Amanda said. “Thank you so much for all your hard work.”

Belle had cooked all the food for the party, including a ham, a large roast turkey, a round of beef, and scalloped oysters. Also served would be four kinds of finger sandwiches – cucumber, egg salad, ham and goat’s cheese, and tomato-and-basil – as well as fresh vegetables from the garden, tomatoes, cucumbers, and carrots, which would be served alongside peach cobbler, ice-cream, and a three-layer cake made with strawberry jam inside the layers.

When Belle first started working for Amanda, she was tasked with cleaning the rooms, cooking, checking people in and showing them to their rooms. After Belle married, she recuperated from her gunshot wound and had only recently started cooking again as her sole duty. Amanda was checking people in, and another lady, Malynn, was cleaning the house.

Malynn Selman had been involved with Mister Brewster out in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and had followed him to Virginia just before his tumultuous demise. She had also become impregnated by Mister Brewster and had a baby girl named Mabel who was now two months old. Amanda marveled at the woman’s tenacity and ability to make the long arduous journey all the way from Colorado after such a short period of time since birthing a baby. Malynn had helped Bertie trap Mister Brewster and decided to stay in Charles City after the incident. She said she wanted a quieter place to live and raise her baby.

“You’re welcome, Amanda,” Belle said, stirring Amanda from her thoughts. “It’s the least I could do.

Jason helped me before he left. Is he back with Aunt Paisley yet?”

Jason had driven a carriage to go and fetch Amanda’s aunt, as she was planning to spend a week at the boarding house. Amanda had insisted that she stay in her own room, which was located on the second – main – floor of the house near the check-in area. That room had been Belle’s room at first, but after

Amanda’s procedure and Doctor Gardner’s subsequent death, Amanda wanted no further part of the room she used to occupy with all its bad memories, so she had switched rooms with Belle. When she moved back

from Aunt Paisley’s while Belle was recuperating, she had taken the same room on the second floor, still not ready to face her ghosts in the other room on the bottom floor.

“No, not yet, but I expect them anytime,” Amanda said.

“All right. Send Jason to the kitchen when he arrives. I need to check on the beef.”

“I’ll be sure and tell him. When your brother gets here, I’ll have him help carry the food up.” The food was going to be served in the dining room on the second floor, while the kitchen was on the first floor.

After Belle went inside, Amanda turned around and saw Bertie walking her way. She broke out into a big smile and pushed a loose strand of her copper-colored hair behind her ear.

Their eyes met, and he began smiling, too.

“Amanda, you’re breathtaking,” he said upon reaching the top step of the porch. He took her hands in his, leaned in, and kissed her temple.

She blushed a shade that competed with the color of her hair. “Thank you, Bertie. You look very nice yourself.” She was used to seeing him in his deputy uniform, though he had worn a rugged Norfolk jacket or cutaway morning coat on many occasions when he came to visit her. This time, he wore a more formal dark dinner jacket with a shawl collar over a light gray waistcoat, white shirt, and a dark tie. “You didn’t have to get so dressed up for the party. It’s not a big to-do, just a nice quiet little party.”

“I know, but you weren’t able to attend my family’s party in the spring, so I wanted to look nice when I dance with you.”

She smiled and her stomach fluttered a little bit at the thought of dancing with him. “I can’t wait, Bertie.” She straightened his collar, just wanting to touch him somewhere.

He closed his eyes briefly and took her hand in his. When he opened his eyes, he looked troubled.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“No, I, uh, no, nothing at all.” He seemed nervous all of a sudden.

A carriage pulled up then – it was Jason and Aunt Paisley. After him was the Wellington carriage which held Bertie’s parents, and another carriage behind that which belonged to Bertie’s brother, Godfrey.

Amanda felt herself getting nervous at the thought of mingling with Bertie’s family because of how close she felt to him now. She barely knew his family at all, had only met his mother once. It was time she got to know them.

It was time for the party to begin.

An hour later, the party was in full swing. A string band played inside in the parlor, and with the windows open, the music could be heard inside as well as outside on the wraparound porch. Food was spread out in the dining room at the back of the house in a room with red walls, white trim, and windows on three sides, which afforded views of the garden and cottage out back. Jason and Belle were the perfect hosts, making sure the food and drink were plentiful.

Bertie mingled with Amanda as well as his family who were there – his parents, his older brother

Godfrey and his wife Cecilia, and his three sisters – Lillie, Lizzie, and Belle – along with spouses Ian and

Jason. Lizzie was visiting from Boston and would be going back home the following morning. She was found out to not actually be a blood relation to the Wellingtons, but he still considered her a sister. Her husband, Josiah, was actually the one who was a Wellington, and even though they were nearly the same age,

Josiah was his uncle. He didn’t travel down for this visit, as Lizzie wanted to stay for four weeks and Josiah could not be away from his occupation as a banker for that length of time.

The only other people present were Amanda and her small family – her cousin Jason and her Aunt Paisley. She had lost her parents in an accident three years ago and Bertie knew she missed them a lot, especially her mother. Especially on her birthday. That was one of the reasons he decided to propose marriage to her at her birthday celebration, so that she would have a new memory to think about and something happy to celebrate instead of feeling sad.

He was nervous and tongue-tied around her. He’d been engaged before, had been in love before, but the woman had broken the engagement and he swore off women for many years. Until he met Amanda. In all his twenty-six years, he had never met a more formidable and yet vulnerable woman before. He loved her for her sweetness, her determination, and her courage. She’d been through a lot and he wanted to take care of her, more than anything, for the rest of his life.

She was on the back side of the wraparound porch looking over the garden when he walked up behind her. “Amanda, there you are.”

She turned quickly, looking startled.

“Hey, Bertie. I was just looking out over the garden…thinking about my mother.”

“Oh. Would you rather be alone?” Although he thought he would die if he put off proposing to her any longer.

She looked at him and smiled. “No, I’m glad you’re here. We haven’t danced yet.”

“Oh, yes. Dancing. Could we, uh, talk for a minute first?” he asked her.

“Of course. What did you want to talk about?”

Bertie cleared his throat and fumbled inside his pockets for the ring he was going to give her. He found it and kept his hand on it for the moment until he worked up the courage to present it. “Would you take a walk with me in the garden?”

“Now?” she asked. “Can we not talk here where we can still hear the nice music?”

“We can most likely still hear it out there,” he said. “And then we will dance after, um, after we walk in the garden. It’ll only take a moment, I promise.”

He took her hand in his and kissed it, hoping she would comply. He was so nervous that she would decline his proposal.

“All right,” she agreed. “A little walk and talk, and then we’ll dance.”

“Yes.”

He followed her around to the back of the porch, past the dining room windows where Bertie knew others would be watching. He glanced inside and saw Jason looking his way. He smiled broadly and gave him a thumbs-up. Bertie quickly looked away and nearly stumbled as he followed Amanda down the outside stairs leading towards the garden and stables. When they got to the last bottom step, he placed his hand on the small of her back and pointed towards the cottage and they walked behind it where there was a black wrought iron bench. This was a secluded spot away from view of the house, and it overlooked a tall group of sunflowers and the woods beyond. They walked over to the bench and he motioned for her to sit down on it while he kept standing. She looked at up him curiously, and he looked around them nervously, not wanting an audience for this.

“What is it, Bertie?” she asked him. “Just tell me.”

He reached into his pocket again and pulled the ring out, not showing it to her yet. He might as well get this over with before he exploded. He dropped down onto one knee and Amanda looked stricken. Did she know what he was going to ask? Why didn’t she look happy?

“Amanda,” he squeaked and cleared his throat again.

“Yes?” she whispered.

He took one of her hands in his and with the other he presented her with a silver-banded ring with a square-shaped small diamond on the top. It was brand new; he’d ordered it at the mercantile a month ago.

Amanda gasped.

“I know this is sudden,” he said, licking his lips. “We’ve only known each other a short time, but I…I love you and I want to spend the rest of my days with you. Would you…will you marry me?”

She closed her eyes, looking like she wanted to cry. Why was she sad? “Oh, Bertie. I would love to, but…”

He felt like he’d been slapped. “But what?” he whispered. “Is it too soon after…your ordeal?” He cleared his throat again and spoke louder. “Because I’ll wait as long as you want to. We can have a long engagement.”

She brushed tears back with her free hand. “It’s not that, Bertie. I don’t…well, it is partly because of that. I’m not good for you, Bertie. I’m not…pure.”

His jaw dropped momentarily and then he recovered himself. “You think I don’t know that? I know what procedure you had done and how you got that way. I’m not naïve.”

“I know you’re not, but I’m just not good enough for you, Bertie. You deserve better.”

“Not good enough? Amanda, how could you think that? You are a beautiful woman who cares about other people. You have gone through many challenges in your short life and yet you smile and wear a happy face. And you have made me happy in the short time I have known you. You absolutely are good enough for me. You’re all I’ll ever want.”

“You have made me happy, too, Bertie, but I hide my feelings a lot. I…I have a lot of burdens in here,” she said, putting her hand over her heart. “A lot of sadness.”

“I know, but I can change all of that. Haven’t I made you happy at all in these past few months? Don’t you care about me?”

She closed her eyes and sniffed, opened them and said shyly, “Yes, I have come to love you dearly, and yes, you have lightened my burdens a lot, but I still don’t feel that I deserve you.”

“Amanda. No marriage is perfect. Even my own parents had difficulties. My father took another wife when my mother had lost her memory for a year and couldn’t be found. I’m not perfect either and I’m not looking for perfection…just love. And I love you like no other. Won’t you please be my wife? We’ll lighten each other’s loads and fill our lives with love. I’d like no one but you to share my life with.”

She looked at him, then at the ring, and then back at him. “Are you sure your family will approve?”

He could tell she still felt down on herself for her past mistakes.

“They already like you, and once they find out that I love you and want to marry you, they’re going to love you, too. Belle already does.”

“What if I can’t have any more children? You know what I did to Brewster’s baby.” She looked down again and he saw tears in her eyes again, which she tried to hide.

“I don’t care. We don’t have to have any children. It won’t change my love for you.”

She glanced up at him under her long lashes, her green eyes making his insides melt.

“Please?” he whispered. “Please say yes. I’ll treat you better than any man ever has before.”

She finally smiled. “Yes,” she whispered.

“What’s that?” he asked, grinning happily.

She smiled even more. “Yes,” she said louder.

He pulled her into a quick hug, released her quickly, and then stood up. “Thank God! My knee is killing me, and I didn’t know how much longer I could stay on it like that.”

Amanda laughed, making him so happy. He pulled her up against him. “Thank you,” he whispered. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Bertie.”

He placed the ring on her left third finger and then leaned down and kissed her sweet lips.

About the Author:

Cheryl R. Lane was born and raised in Tennessee and went to college at East Tennessee State University before marrying her high school sweetheart and moving to Virginia Beach, Virginia.

She started writing as a hobby while in college after purchasing Southern Heritage cookbooks, which were filled with pages of old plantation homes. She wrote more after moving to Virginia Beach and visiting beautifully restored homes in Williamsburg as well as plantations on the James River.

She has been working as a medical transcriptionist for over 20 years while writing on the side, and finally decided to self-publish her first book, “Wellington Cross”, on Amazon through Kindle Direct Publishing as well as in print through CreateSpace. She has since published four more books and a novella in that series as well as starting a modern-day fantasy Angel series and has two books in that series so far.

She is currently working on her next novel, book six in the Wellington Cross series.

She is still married to her sweetheart after 28 years and they have one son and a Havanese bichon.

Website: www.cheryllaneauthor.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cherylreneelane/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/cheryllane01

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6653858.Cheryl_R_Lane

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/crlaneauthor/

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Cheryl-R.-Lane/e/B00ALDXOAY/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzQ_khfhYc7oRwXEmCd-XHg

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BLOG TOUR – Wellington Beaus was originally published on the Wordpress version of SHANNON MUIR'S INFINITE HOUSE OF BOOKS.

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