#wanted to draw plane josh being really big so here it is

[serafphim]

Hi im new! :D

PLANE PLANE PLANE!!!!

Hi!! PLANE!!!!!!!!!

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

9/11 and 1/6

How an American nightmare becomes real

Timothy Snyder

A moment ago I awoke from a nightmare about 9/11.

I was visiting the Empire State Building in New York when an airplane crashed into it from the side.  The whole building buckled for a moment, then nothing else seemed to happen.  I was by myself, without any friends or family, and I just ran down to the exit, staircase after staircase.  Getting out was the thing to do.  But no one else was doing it.

I think this sense of inertia during an emergency was something that stayed with me from the real 9/11, when the World Trade Center was attacked.  When the first building was hit, it was somehow not clear that the second building should also be evacuated.  

In my dream about the Empire State Building, there was no siren.  When I got to the lobby, people were just milling around, and all of the doors were closed and locked.  There seemed to be no way out.  One handicapped entrance was opened for a moment, to allow a woman in a wheelchair to come in.  In the dream, I felt a little guilty as I squeezed by her and went the wrong way through the door.  The doors closed again.  No one else left the building.  My example did not make a difference.  They were all going to die.

I somehow ended up in a nearby building, some kind of tourist center where people waited before entering the Empire State Building.  Inside was a group of senior citizens, waiting for a tour of the building.  I tried to explain to them what was happening.  If people would not leave the Empire State Building, at least more should not go in.

But I was just a guy, I wasn't wearing a uniform, I didn't have a microphone, and they didn't pay attention.   They gave me that look people give you when you are the entertainment and the entertainment is not good.  They hadn't seen the plane hit the building, and they thought that I was some sort of nut.  A lady to my left, wearing a red-white-and-blue dress and with some kind of red-white-and-blue ornament in her hair, starting laughing at me.  They were going to have their tour.

In the dream, I knew that the building was going to come down.  And there seemed to be nothing I could do.  The problem was as clear as day, but no one wanted to see it.  People preferred to risk everything rather than believe that there was a risk.  With the senior citizens were two security guards.  They had seen the plane hit, but they could somehow not draw the conclusions.  They wanted to talk to me about how it could have happened.  Wasn't it just some kind of accident?  Wasn't someone in charge?  And wouldn't everything somehow be okay in the end?

Are your dreams as easy to analyze as mine?  I sometimes have, in real life, that Cassandra feeling that I had in the dream: when I predicted that Russia would invade Ukraine in 2014; when I broke the story of Trump and Russia in 2016; when I asked people to work against American regime change in 2017; when I predicted in 2020 that Trump would try some sort of coup to stay in power, or tried to explain that his big lie would be his legacy.

The obvious trigger of this dream was the Senate vote preventing an investigation of the domestic insurgency of 1/6.  The proposal was modelled after the 9/11 commission, which is why 9/11 was on my mind.  9/11 is unforgettable; nearly three thousand Americans lost their lives.  The terrorist attacks of 9/11 raised questions about foreign policy and airport security.  The terrorist attack of 1/6 raised deeper questions about how our country is governed, and who we have become as a people.

In 2001, speaking in the House of Representatives, President Bush said that Al Qaeda hated "what they see right here in this chamber: a democratically elected government."  That is what we wanted to hear, because it meant that we were attacked because we were the good guys.  That probably wasn't really what Al Qaeda had in mind on 9/11, but it was what Americans had in mind on 1/6.  They stormed the very chamber in which President Bush spoke, and they were there to halt the procedures of a democracy.  They were attacking, precisely, "democratically elected government."

I have the Cassandra feeling this spring because it is so obvious where all of this is heading.  President Trump tells a big lie that elections are rigged.  This authorizes him and others to seek power in extra-democratic ways.  The lie is institutionalized by state legislation that suppresses voting, and that gives state legislatures themselves the right to decide how to allocate the electoral vote in presidential elections.

The scenario then goes like this.  The Republicans win back the House and Senate in 2022, in part thanks to voter suppression.  The Republican candidate in 2024 loses the popular vote by several million and the electoral vote by the margin of a few states.  State legislatures, claiming fraud, alter the electoral count vote.  The House and Senate accept that altered count.  The losing candidate becomes the president.  We no longer have "democratically elected government."  And people are angry.

No one is seeking to hide that this is the plan.  It is right there out in the open.  The prospective Republican candidates for 2024, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Josh Hawley, are all running on a big lie platform.  If your platform is that elections do not work, you are saying that you intend to come to power some other way.  The big lie is designed not to win an election, but to discredit one.  Any candidate who tells it is alienating most Americans, and preparing a minority for a scenario where fraud is claimed.  This is just what Trump tried in 2020, and it led to a coup attempt in January 2021.  It will be worse in January 2025.

9/11 led us to the invasion of Iraq, the foreign policy disaster that marked our century.  1/6 leads us to a catastrophe on that scale, but inside our own country.  It is not at all clear that the plan to take power undemocratically will work, but it is clear that it will generate a lot of resistance.  African Americans are right now being told the absurd lie that the problem in America is that it is too easy for them to vote.  As the scenario plays out, all Americans will face an open denial of everything they have been told about their country.

In such a scenario, it is not clear what the armed forces or civil servants would do.  Most likely they would fracture.  An oath to defend the Constitution is hard to honor when it is unclear what it means.  Both those who were stealing an election and those who were defending votes would claim that the Constitution was on their side.

The Supreme Court would rule, but would anyone pay attention?  Those who have decided to overthrow democracy believe that the Court is on their side, which is why they are proceeding as they are.  If they were proven wrong in January 2025, it would be too late; they would not change course.  Those who are defending voting rights expect the Court to rule against voting, since that is what it generally does.  If the Court rules against voting in the setting of antidemocratic regime change, this will seem screamingly illegitimate to a very large number of Americans. No Court, no Constitution.  No Constitution, no rule of law.  No rule of law, widespread violence.  The collapse of the United States follows.

When Trump told his big lie, the airplane hit the building.  What unfolds from there has a certain logic.  It can be stopped, but only if it is understood.  Everything happens fast.  It is so easy to look away, to imagine it was all an accident, to think that institutions will save us.  They will only save us if we save them first.

The anti-voter laws proposed and passed by Republican state legislatures around the country move the scenario to its next step.  Halting them might well be the only way to halt the scenario as a whole.  Businesses that want to avoid chaos between now and 2022 and prevent system breakdown in 2024 would be well advised not to donate to politicians who repeat the big lie and suppress the vote.

We have to act now.  This is what no one wants to hear.  We want to believe in American democracy.  We want to take pride in new laws, a growing economy, the end of covid.  I get all of that.  I want to feel that way too.  I have not yet figured out how to tell this story.  In waking life I feel as I did in the dream, facing those senior citizens.  I couldn't convince a single one of of them.  And so I just stood in the doorway and kept talking.  And woke up in the middle of the night and wrote this.

[oveliagirlhaditright]

Hoping to Help

An AU story about who I thought might have been Swallow for a while. Neo spoilers (moreso in the AN than anything, I think, but still maybe stay away if you haven't finished the game, to be safe).

https://archiveofourown.org/works/33528064

Author’s Note:  Just imagine that in this AU, Rindo and Shoka just fall for each other because of the Game and the Game alone:)

‘Don’t worry, Rindragon. I’m coming to get you,’ Eri thought, as she typed a message to her most recent friend and prayed beyond measure that Neku and Shiki might be able to get him out of the Game.

For you see, Eri was none other than Swallow: Rindo’s online friend he’d been worrying about so much during his Reapers’ Game.

And Eri, honestly, was only ever in the UG a few times (the instances that Joshua would let her in to help Neku and Shiki with whatever mission they were on about something called an “Inversion”. And the Composer was far more lenient with Shiki coming and going from the UG than her… probably because if Josh had his way, Eri never would have been told about the Reapers’ Game at all). So Eri sometimes being in the UG (the times Josh would let her) explained some of the reason that she and Rindragon were still able to text.

But the other, Eri imagined, was that maybe in being around so many Ex-Players… they had somehow touched her, so that fate itself thought she was one of them and always in the UG, too.

And Eri would of course happily take being able to still talk with Rindragon this way, over Neku’s situation… where he wasn’t a Reaper yet, but every day Joshua was getting closer and closer to breaking his defenses down so he would choose that, Eri thought. Though part of her did wish that she was in the UG constantly, so she might be able to do anything for Rindragon.

And, yeah… Eri had technically lied to Rindragon, something she never wanted to do, about her being in the UG (all the time)—but it had been simpler than explaining her actual situation. And she really wasn’t even supposed to do that, according to Joshua, since he warned her that the Higher Plane would probably strike her down for knowing so much without being a former Player, if she wasn’t careful.

So, most of the time, Eri was mum’s the word about it at all, over anything that could be traced, and wouldn’t talk to Shiki, Neku, Beat, or Rhyme about other Plane stuff over the phone and might even go so far as to only whisper to them about it in their houses… but now Eri was almost willing to the risk of being murdered by the Higher Plane, just if it gave her one shot at saving Rindragon!

He was younger than her—Eri had been able to tell that right away—but she didn’t mind it. She’d always been popular with most ages, honestly, and he had been there for her when she’d been somewhat left out of Reapers’ Game talks with her friends (they tried with her. They really did. And Eri appreciated them for it, but it was clear that there were some things about it that they could really only share with each other) and wanted to start a game of her own with a new friend, like Shiki had new friends… it was why Eri had started playing FanGo to begin with.

But now, it almost seemed like her dream of playing FanGo with Rindragon was going to fade, too. And Eri was a go-getter, who worked so very hard and usually achieved her dreams that way… so lately, the fact that she’d been losing so much (like with Neku’s death, that had mortified her until she got to see him again) didn’t sit right with her at all, and she wanted to fix some of it… somehow and someway. And so, she’d try.

“Neku… I feel like you’re the key to going in and saving him, oh, Legendary Player. Any chance you can do that for a friend here?”

And if Eri wouldn’t have known better, she would have thought it was just a normal night with the three of them, sitting around her apartment, casually eating pizza… but of course with her luck lately, it was anything but.

“I’ll try, Eri,” Neku promised her, sending a small smile Eri’s way (he saved his big one’s for Shiki), while he pulled the cheese off his pizza (he was thinking about going vegan lately, Eri knew). “Even though the Reapers are trying hard to create walls I can’t pass—and will be on my ass the moment I try it--…but you do know there’s a chance we’ll have to fight him, right? If he remains Kubo’s lapdog? I’d say it would just be me doing that… but the way Josh is, the asshole may try to recruit you guys into the UG, too.”

And as Neku was clearly starting to get worked up here (at the idea of having to fight an innocent, or the two of them entering the UG again like him), Shiki reached over on the couch they were on together and ran soothing circles all over Neku’s back. And Eri found that she couldn’t blame Neku for being stressed… especially since he was pretty much a murdered specimen right now. Eri was stressed, mostly for Rindragon, but she didn’t even have the half of Neku’s issues going on for her. “Hopefully it won’t come to that!” Shiki encouraged Eri too, sending the large smile her way that Neku had been incapable of—but Eri thought it was kind of nice, in that regard. This couple clearly completed each other… even if it made her feel a bit lonely to see sometimes. “I’m sure Neku—and us, if it comes down to it—will find a way. Like when Neku got the Red Skull Pin off of my person, so he wouldn’t have to defeat me… We’ll think of something, Eri, I know it. And Rindragon seems strong,” Shiki continued on, proving that she was still very much was the new Shiki who believed in things, and not the old one who so easily got tripped up.

But Rindragon most certainly was that, Eri knew. You didn’t become one of the top FanGo players for nothing; you had to walk all over and work hard for it, to be strong enough and savvy enough catch the best creatures. So Eri knew that Rindragon was clearly fit—and had gamer’s hands, and therefore fast reflexes—but she was still so paranoid about him here.

“Shiki’s right, Eri,” Neku promised, squeezing her hand—that had still been on her keyboard—in an aim to comfort her even more now. Was she really that shaken up? “I’ve been in so many Games now, that I’m not going to make them say that I can’t have my way without a fight. And even though I don’t think I’m as reassuring as Beat would be here… If I need to carry all of us in the Game, I’ll do so.” And Neku did end up attempting to do that for them—which Eri knew she would always appreciate him for—but she ended up helping Rindragon (Rindo, who she properly knew the name of by then) against the Plague Noise, too (and Shiki aided in it as well, whose Imagination had gotten so powerful, that she didn’t even have to be a Player or Reaper to use some of her powers now. Eri got desperate and did kill herself for Rindo’s sake—and entered the Game that way—and that was something that Rindo gave her a mouthful for: and Eri had smiled amusedly at that, because in some ways… it felt weird to be chewed out by a kid. But it was a kid she adored, so she would take it… especially since she knew that if she survived, Josh had promised he would bring her back, so Rindo would no longer be able to be mad at her for throwing her life away for him then).

But it was no easy thing. Eri imagined she had as much trouble finding a psych she could use, as Shiki once had. But eventually, Eri had learned that if she carried pieces of fabric around, and something to draw on them with, the clothes would transform into what she’d drawn on them and she could then use them for a bomb… that took a while to set up this way, but did massive damage when it was done, so she could try and really best the bird that giant phoenix.

Then, everything was finally over. Peace rained in her friends’ lives again, and Eri couldn’t have been happier for it… and that Joshua kept his promises.

And now, Rindo was meeting up with Eri after he had aided his girlfriend, Shoka, find a better apartment to stay in, than the one Joshua had rented for her.

“It’s still so weird to think that you’re Swallow…” Rindo remarked, as the two of them played FanGo on their phones and headed towards 104 to shop some. “One of the lead designers of Gatto Nero. Damn, what are you doing hanging out with a loser like me?”

And at that, Eri had to laugh and give Rindo a quick hug around his waist, because he didn’t even know! “…Actually, I was starting to feel like the loser in not having played the Game… it was why I got into FanGo and met you. And I’m so glad that I did! But then when I found out you were in the Reapers’ Game… well, it was ironic, for sho, but I was afraid I would send Shiki and Neku to save you, and I would do nothing… and so you’d have no good opinion about little old me, when you finally met me at all! So, it meant a lot when you actually chewed me out for joining you in it, and throwing my safety away!

“You’re a good kid, Rindo. A good kid, I’m happy to be friends with,” Eri said, as the two of them dug out the lollipops they’d bought and sucked on them now… She hoped she wasn’t sounding too much like a mom here now, and scaring Rindo off, but when she looked over at him, she could tell that he still looked happy and deep in thought about this all. Good. “And you should totes intern with me for Gatto Nero, if you want. Your friends can too, really!!”

Rindo was guffawing now, as the two of them decided not to go into her and Shiki’s store, but rather up the stairs of the 104 building just to get a nice view.

Eri had no doubt that the girl who had given Rindo lots of advice in the past had finally reared her head, unlike the scared version of her, who had only been able to send him a few scared words in texts lately. And Rindo must have realized that, and been moved by it, because Rindo suddenly took Eri’s hand to shake it, and he smiled. “Sounds like a good deal, Swallow. Count me in!”

Author’s Note: Man, I had so many theories about Swallow while I played the Game… that all turned out to be wrong. Hahaha.

At first, I REALLY thought it was Rhyme, because Swallow sent Rindo a squirrel picture (essentially) and her name is “Swallow.” And I was like, “Squirrel Noise? And Rhyme got SWALLOWed by a Shark Noise?” Also, she’s around Rindo’s age. Ehh?!), but it quickly became clear that that wasn’t the case.

Then my next best guess was Eri for the longest time (which I wrote here), mainly because for a second, I was thinking the person at the computer (Rhyme) and Swallow were the same person, so all of this jumped into my head as to how it COULD have been Eri, even though I really didn’t think they would go this way (because I kind of figured they wouldn’t include Eri, sadly). Though it would have been cool.

Then I thought it was Shiki, for the same reasons I thought it was Eri (and I know that when I was thinking girl at their computer—Rhyme—was Swallow, the color palette should have been a dead giveaway that it was Rhyme. And really, it was. But I thought they MIGHT try and pull a fast one on us, sort of like they did with the Neku and Beat twist, and change the character’s color palettes or something), though clearly they didn’t. But then I didn’t think they would do that, because it might seem like Shiki was in love with Rindo over Neku or something… even though that would be kind of silly, because girls CAN have guy friends that are JUST their guy friends. So, I was really thinking Eri the most, out of the two of them.

I also thought it could be Joshua, for obvious reasons, but mostly I knew Swallow was a girl from the way they talked… typed.

And I think I thought it could have been Neku for five seconds, because when I thought the person at the computer desk and Swallow were the same person, and we then saw “Neku” come and save the Wicked Twisters (like computer-desk-person, Rhyme, had said about coming to save him [Beat], but at the time I thought she meant Rindo), I thought it was Neku because of that, fulfilling the promise, maybe. But I don’t really think I ever truly thought it could have been Neku. I think he was the one I imagined the least, because it would be too obvious.

Somehow, I missed the Shoka thing entirely… even though it seems so obvious now. But I’m kind of glad that I did, because it was a cool twist for me that way.

But here’s the Eri idea. I might the rest of them for fun, too (I already wrote the Shiki one… before this actually, so I hope in doing that, I didn’t steal some of this one’s thunder). Who knows?:)

Hope you all enjoyed!

[bazwillendinflames]

Here I Am, Pry Me Open (Norkus)

When Markus visits Washington, leaving North behind as his second-in-command, she finds herself desperate for her best friend to return. Finding herself comforted by an old human story of connection, she waits for him to return. Or, the story of the red string of fate, as shown by a pining North desperate to pull Markus back to her.

Read on Ao3 

North can’t stand human cliches. She can’t stand most humans at all, truthfully, but something about their little collection of sayings irk her. They’re misleadingly optimistic phrases for a species that have brought nothing but destruction and hate for as long as she can remember. (And there’s so much more she can’t but if she could, North knows she’d be furious about that too.)

But, there’s one story, one little saying, that she likes a little. The red string of fate. It’s old and almost sweet (as if she’d use the word sweet ) and a strange comfort as she watches Markus walk away out the window of a dusty church. He turns for a moment, finds her somehow, smiles one last time and North could have swore she felt a tug on an invisible string linking them together.

Despite all the shit she’ll get for it later, she smiles back at him, waves goodbye, ignoring the urge to pull him back to her on string no one else could see.

Androids didn’t sleep - they either go on standby mode or recharge mode - neither are needed every night the way humans rest. But, on the first night Markus spends travelling to Washington, North is restless.

She kept imagining an endless cord of red unravelling between them as he got further and further away; it was the furthurest they had ever been apart before.

It was a big step for deviants - Markus was allowed in the human section of a plane for one - the Washington negotiations were key if they wanted to follow up on the equality they had fought for nation wide.

Despite this, there was a selfish part of North that wanted Markus to stay. Washington was unfamiliar territory. He was smart and diplomatic (and calm : something she’d always be jealous of) but she couldn’t bring herself to trust the human politicians to look past their prejudices to see that.

Even with so much talk of peace, North couldn’t help but worry he was flying into a trap. With him hundreds of miles away, she couldn’t have his back like she usually did.

North pulled on the invisible string on her fingertip, hoping it wouldn’t snap in the ever-growing space between them.

    “It has been confirmed that deviant leader, a rare RK-200 model by the name of Markus, has arrived in Washington earlier this morning. With the situation in Detroit still tense, the negotiations between human and deviant representatives are more important than ever. Now, to our Washington correspondent.”

North crossed her arms, watching the blurry footage of Markus being escorted from the airport whilst journalists crowded around shouting questions.

“North?”

Ignoring the obvious concern in Josh’s voice, she frowned at the tablet. “He looks like a right idiot in that outfit. I mean, seriously, a suit?”

“He probably felt like it would help him fit in with the humans,” Simon replied from behind her.

“Markus shouldn’t have to fit in. His long grey coat would work better. Makes him look like a real rebel.”

“I think you’re the rebel in your relationship.”   

She frowned at the implications of the word relationship (it was, god forbid the curse of human cliches, complicated).

“North, you’ve been watching the news all morning. The talks don’t even start till tomorrow.” Josh caught Simon’s eye and they exchanged some kind of worried look, before he continued, “it’s helping you.”

“I’m just keeping an eye on things.”

“Markus put in charge of operations,” Josh added, never one to back down from anything.

“I can multitask.”

“You can’t keep an eye on the news and Jericho.”

Josh made a grab for the tablet. “Come help us sort out supplies.”

“Please,” Simon added.

“What kind of supplies?”

“Medical.”

“Boring.” Still North got up to follow them. “But, I’m checking the news again in an hour.”

They walked through the Church together, back to the friendly teasing she was used to.

The red string of fate didn’t always have to be romantic. North imagined a trio of strings tangled in the space between the three of them: companions for life. She also imagined two more strings connected to Markus in Washington, maybe not as tight or well monitored. But, always present if you knew where to look.

    The string of fate was red because it was human story. It was supposed to represent a heart string. By that logic, for androids it should be a blue string, for blue blood connecting blue hearts.

But North loved red. It was the colour of flames burning elastic underwear, the colour of broken code, the colour of artificial blush she never worked out how to turn off that only Markus’ soft words sparked.

So, their strong of fate was red. And now it was like an endless loop that stretched to Washington and back, threading back through the place on the tablet where Markus’ heart was.

For most of the androids at Jericho (despite the gossip), the meeting between Markus and North could be seen as a weekly update about their cause. For those who could visual the red link between them, it was clearly more.

“I want to have at least one signed treaty before I come back,” Markus continued, “I need something solid to prove we are moving forward.”

“How long do you think that will take?”

“A while. Washington isn’t as forward thinking as they wanted us to believe. They still look at me like I’m some kind of liberated toaster.” Markus laughed at his own joke. “But, there’s some progress. As long as they don’t think it’ll cost too much, we might come out with something.”

“If anyone can convince them, it’s you.”

There was a moment before he replied, the connection was flickering in and out.

“I hope so.” He leaves forward. “How are you?”

“Jericho is still running. We’ve been organising the new medical unit-“

“No, I asked about you . Obviously I care about Jericho. But I care about you too, North. So, tell me how you are, all the little things.”

“Okay, I feel…” feeling was part of being deviant but it wasn’t easy to talk about, usually she just showed him, “overworked. I’ve been managing the Jericho emails and it gave me a lag when I logged in. I don’t get how you do it.”

“Well, I type in the password-“

North laughed, for the first time since Markus had left. “Okay, idiot.”

He was smiling at her.

No, more like… he was looking at her like was something precious. She was the source of his smile, that much North was certain of.

“What?”

“Nothing, the screen froze that’s all.”

“Damnit, stupid computer. Was I pulling a stupid face?”

“No, you just looked really happy for a moment. It was-” Markus shook his head, looking at her in the insufferable fond way, “anyway, you said you were feeling overworked?”

They kept talking until the signal finally died and left North staring at a black screen.

The endless string of fate knitting them together was stretched out again and when she put her hand to her chest, she could have sworn she felt it tugging on her heart.

    Androids didn’t sleep but whenever North recharged, she never felt safe to do so unless she was with someone to watch over her. She hadn’t realised how used to that person being Markus she had gotten until his trip.

Despite the fact North’s energy levels were in the red, she was still yet to recharge. Instead, she paced around Markus’ office, trying her best to avoid looking at the plush airchair she usually recharged herself on. The door may be locked but North couldn’t quite bring herself to sit and put herself into recharge mode.

It was embarrassing to admit that the reason she had always gone to Markus’ office was because he made her feel safe . He made everyone feel safe, which was why so many androids looked up to him.

But, sometimes it seemed like he had a special kind of safety he reserved for her. The kind of kinship from bringing freedom to their people side by side, now carried over to her recharging in his office, knowing he’d never leave her there vulnerable and alone.

Androids didn’t sleep but they dreamt (maybe just deviants dreamt) and when North she dreamt, it was with Markus watching over her, like an angel.

Now, as she put herself on recharge mode without him, it felt like she was missing a key part in her routine.

(Truthfully, she was missing him.)

    “Confirmation that congress are drawing up an agreement with the androids, as represented by deviant leader Markus, suggests the previous silence towards policy about androids may be broken. President Warren is still yet to make any press statements about the deviants since they revolted in 2038 but it seems like congress's plans suggests a change in policy. Speculation on exactly what rights deviants will be granted is yet to be confirmed. Back to you Josh.”

“I knew he could do it.”

“It seems like diplomacy works after all,” Josh replied, a little slyly.

Ignoring his jab, North turned her attention back to the news.

“I need something solid to prove we are moving forward.”

North wasn’t going to admit it, but part of her excitement was more selfish than about progress for the deviants cause. If Markus could make a deal, pass an act, make his mark, he’d come back to Detroit victorious.

He’d come back to her, shorten the stretch of string connecting them.

He’d come back to her and she’d feel safe again.

    Human congress took long enough to pass acts as it was but the human protest at anything to do with android rights slowed it down further. (How Josh could justify any kind of peace with people who had defended their imprisonment for over a decade was a mystery to her. Who were petitioning to get Markus kicked out of Washington. North had woken up due to the cruelty of a single human man. She hadn’t closed her eyes since.)

Markus, to his credit, never shouted back. He looked almost regal, with his calm walking, head held high. There was something admirable about it really, North would have snapped after a single comment and blown something up. (Exactly why she was left behind.)

“He kinda looks like a rock star,” Simon muttered, glancing to check Josh hadn’t heard. (If she and Markus were complicated, Simon and Josh were just idiots. If it wasn’t so fun to tease them, she’d intervene.)

“He looks better than that,” North replies. Simon looked up and they shared a brief nod of understanding. Markus was… well there was something about him that meant they weren’t alone in thinking of him as some kind of hero. Heroes were always attractive to people. North would hate that kind of attention, although she was aware some of the androids must look at her in the same way.

Most of Jericho looked at Markus like he was made of gold or something. And, somehow, he chose her to intertwine the string connecting their artificial hearts. If she looked at him like he was golden, Markus looked at her like she was equally precious. (Precious was different to delicate. She appreciated that.)

    Another month crawled past and North started to feel more confident in her temporary position as Jericho’s leader. She called Markus for advice weekly (although the topic always wandered away from that.) Still, she was happy to return to second-in-command as soon as Markus had sent the message he was coming back. It was exclusive - a whole three days before the news ran headlines on the Android Work Visa Act - but her joy at progress was overshadowed greatly by the news that Markus was booking a flight back to Detroit.

(That was how much she liked him. Before, she was willing to die for their cause. Now, she wanted to survive for a life with Markus.)

She crowded in the projector room, between Josh and Simon, watching the live press coverage.

“Markus, Markus!” They yelled eagerly.

“Total rockstar,” Simon muttered. She elbowed him.

“Will this act take work away from humans?”

“Not at all. There’s been a huge need for people to take up the roles left unoccupied since we got our freedom. Now, we can work together to keep our cities clean and supported.”

North grinned; he was wearing the long grey coat, the back of it flying in the wind like the rebel leader he was.

    “You’ve done your hair.”

“Shut up Simon.”

North pushed back a loose curl behind her ear, suddenly self conscious. She may have twisted her hair back into a carefully styled bun for Markus’ return but she had hoped no one would actually notice. It would probably only further Jericho’s gossip circles.

Markus’ flight had landed an hour ago and she was with the office door open. It made her feel like some kind of housewife.

“No, it’s nice.”

“Stop pulling that face.”

“You’re not even looking at me.”

She shut off the tablet and turned around. Simon may be wearing a neutral smile now but she could sense the smugness underneath. (And after she hadn’t mentioned that Josh wore his sweater in last week's meeting. Traiter.)

“Lucy wanted your help. She’s in the conference room.”

“We only use that for emergency meetings.” North pulled on her jacket. “Is it an emergency?”

Simon shrugged. “She just messaged me for your help. You know you’re Lucy’s favourite, right?”

“As I should be.”

    The conference room was in the basement of the Church, a location mostly chosen as it was insulated by thick walls.

“Lucy?” she called, pushing the door behind her, “Lucy?”

“Not quite.”

North turned around at the familiar voice. It was the first time in months she had heard it in person. “Markus?”

“Hey.”

“You- how did you get in without me noticing?”

“Back exit. I needed some time to recover before everyone questioned me on my trip.”

“I might question you on your trip.”

“Oh,” Markus smirked, “sure. Do you want to know about negotiations or policy first?”

She laughed, still half-convinced she was glitching or something.

Markus moved towards her so they were standing an arms reach away.

“I’m not going to say I missed you.”

“I was going to say I missed you.”

North chuckled despite herself. “Okay, I did miss you.”

“Wait,” Markus pulled a small package from his pocket. It had been wrapped in Washington newspaper. “I got you something.”

“I hope it’s a bomb.”

“North.”

“Joking.” She unwrapped it carefully, finding a little glass dome in her hands. “A snow globe.”

“It’s the Washington monument. I didn’t get to see much of the city but-”

“I’ve always wanted a snow globe.”

“I know,” Markus said, “You said it was one of the few human traditions you found cute. Like a tiny world to rule.”

“That was months ago.”

“I can’t forget anything. And… I wanted to get you something. Take it as proof that I was thinking of you.”

North put it down on the table, watching a glittery snow storm fall around a tiny Washington. “I don’t have anything to prove I was missing you.”

“I know,” Markus said, moving his hand to his heart, “I know.”

Just like that, North was reminded of her own heart and the string connecting them, now shorter than an arm's length after months of being stretched out of shape. When Markus touched his heart, he seemed to shorten it further, pulling them closer and closer together, until North was looking up at him.

She had kissed Markus before but it was the same day that Jericho sank and they fought and won their freedom. They hadn’t done it since, even if they stood side by side eyeday.

Now, they were standing chest to chest. The last of the red string faded away as North leant up on her tiptoes to kiss him.

[thisguyatthemovies]

We’re not in IKEA anymore

Title: “Midsommar”

Release date: July 3, 2019

Starring: Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, William Jackson Harper, Vilhelm Blomgran, Will Poulter, Isabelle Grill, Ellora Torchia, Archie Madekwe, Liv Mjones, Anna Astrom

Directed by: Ari Aster

Run time: 2 hours, 20 minutes

Rated: R

What it’s about: A group of young people travels to rural Sweden for a summer festival and finds themselves among a pagan cult.

How I saw it: Watch “Midsommar,” the sophomore effort by “Hereditary” writer/director Ari Aster, and you’ll likely leave the theater confused by everything you’ve witnessed. There’s much to like here, and a lot to not like so much. It’s a film that will have you rehashing it for days in your mind, and it’s fodder for great conversation. And it would seem capable of holding up to multiple viewings, but only if you have the stomach for it. It’s a horror movie, though not solely a horror movie, with a bit of complexity and symbolism and a slew of “WTF?” moments. It’s one of those films that seems to want to draw a line between “love it” and “hate it.” But you’ll have an opinion one way or the other.  

“Midsommar,” perhaps even more than an in-broad-daylight horror story, is about a dysfunctional romance between a young, emotionally needy woman, Dani (Florence Pugh), and Christian (Jack Reynor), a heartless dude bro who is being urged by his college buddies (Williams Jackson Harper, Vilhelm Blomgran, Will Poulter) to ditch Dani. But then unspeakable horror happens to Dani’s family, and she needs Christian even more than ever, even if he isn’t capable of being emotionally available. Unbeknownst to Dani, the guys are planning a summer retreat to rural Sweden, where they will attend a festival that happens only once every 90 years. Dani ends up tagging along, and her relationship with Christian deteriorates even more once the group finds itself in the midst of a pagan cult.

The wise thing for Dani and the boys to do would be to run at the first sign of trouble, but this being a horror movie, we know that’s not going to happen. Also, if you travel to a foreign land and are driven out to the middle of nowhere and don’t know what you’re getting into, at a time when you are emotionally unstable, maybe don’t indulge in hallucinogenic drugs. It can’t help. And it doesn’t as Dani, Christian and friends are sucked into the weird Swedish rituals and it becomes clear that the “Midsommar” festival is a lot like the Hotel California – you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

Let’s look at the bad and then finish strong with the good:

THE BAD

·        “Midsommar” is long (2 hours, 20 minutes) and it’s slow, and that makes it seem even longer than it is. Perhaps this is done to replicate the feel of a multi-day festival that takes place during a time of year in Sweden when there is little darkness and thus not much sense of time. Or maybe it’s just slow because that’s what artsy movies are supposed to do.

·        Outside of Dani, the characters aren’t flushed out. Christian and Josh (William Jackson Harper) have a bit of a dispute and rivalry about a thesis paper, but that just leads to one plot point (and a ritualistic death). Will Poulter is clearly playing it over the top as the horned-up Mark, but his main purpose in the movie is to rattle off one-liners that are hit-and-miss funny (he makes a reference to Waco, Texas, that few under the age of 45 will get, and the main audience for this is well south of 45). Christian, Josh, Mark and Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren) are almost comically male and privileged. They are annoying, as is Dani, who, when she isn’t on the verge of an emotional breakdown, just gives Christian this weird glare when he is being inattentive and unsympathetic. Seemingly dozens of Swedish people dance around in robes and flowers, and they start to all seem alike, which might just be the point.

·        The ending. Without giving all of it away, Christian meets a terrible fate (as do his buddies), one that is perhaps deserved or, depending on your view, perhaps excessive. Christian is by all accounts a terrible person and the worst boyfriend imaginable, but Dani could have left his awfulness behind long before getting on a plane to Sweden. It begs the question: What makes for a stronger woman – breaking free and going on with your life independently and then finding someone who really cares for you, or getting revenge in horrific fashion?  

THE GOOD

·        The “WTF?” moments. They are intense. And it’s not just the gore, which is brutal by mainstream movie release standards. When someone leaps off a cliff headfirst into rocks below, the results are not going to be pleasant. Nor are they when someone leaps off the same cliff feet-first into the rocks and then must be put out of their misery. Aster doesn’t shy away from showing the mangled bodies up-close. Just as unsettling are a dance marathon to determine the festival’s May Queen, with the participants drugged for good measure; and an orgy in which a drugged Christian has been brought in to impregnate a young village woman as several other women of various ages and body types stand and watch and even give Christian a hand, so to speak. Warning: “Midsommar” shows male full-frontal nudity in a couple of places.

·        The cinematography (by Pawel Pogorzelski) is, if at times a bit showy, dazzling. A prologue that tells Dani’s story is so mesmerizing that you could forget how disturbing the content is. Part of the cliff scene is shot from above, giving us a sense of how high the cliff is and how isolated those on top of it are as they await their fate below. When the story shifts to Sweden, everything is awash in sunlit whites and yellows, and while that might not be the stuff of traditional horror stories, it adds to the unsettling feeling. Also, the festival is full of wide-open spaces, and if Alfred Hitchcock taught us anything in the famous airplane sequence in “North by Northwest,” open spaces leave little place for us to hide from the bad stuff.

·        The score by the British artist known as The Haxan Cloak (Bobby Krlic). He mixes electronica with acoustic strings and other folksy sounds that perfectly complement the disturbing and yet often beautiful visuals.

My score: 77 out of 100

Should you see it? “Midsommar” is so spectacularly and interestingly shot that it deserves to be seen on a big screen. Whether or not you can stomach some of the content and can be patient enough to wait out a long, slow film is a matter of preference.

[ohprettyweeper-moved]

Caught on Fire

Part 6

Summary: Josh takes you away for a relaxing vacation, and none too soon -- drama may be waiting for you back home.   Pairing: Josh Dun x Reader Word Count: 1595 Warnings: Mentions of doing the dirty (or not doing it?). I think that’s it? A/N: Feels good to be back posting! The week off was helpful. Hope everyone enjoys this chapter! Oh, and apologies for forgetting tags in the last chapter! 

Series Masterlist

“Let’s take a trip.”

You raised your brow and looked to Josh where he was sitting on the couch next to you. The two of you were eating Chinese takeout from the containers. It was eleven o’ clock in the morning, both of you were fresh off of an overnight shift. You had decided before you even opened your lo mein that this was something you could get used to very quickly. 

“You want to take a trip? To where?”

Josh shrugged. “Somewhere warm. On the beach. You in a bikini, me slathered in sunscreen …”

“Only sunscreen?” you laughed. 

Josh laughed, too. “Maybe, if we find the right beach.”

You laughed so hard you snorted. You set your lo mein on the coffee table and gulped down some water to help you calm down. When you had composed yourself, you turned back to Josh to say something else, but he was still waiting for an answer. 

“You’re serious. You really want to take a trip. With me?”

“With you,” Josh confirmed. “C’mon. Doesn’t have to be immediately, but let’s plan it, get it on the books. I want to do this with you.”

You looked around the room, as though the decor or the floor or the ceiling or even the walls held the answer. You and Josh had been dating for a couple of months now, had survived your first fight … maybe it was time for a trip together. A second later, you realized you were overthinking this. It wasn’t a hard question. You nodded. 

“Yes. Let’s take a trip together.”

“Perfect,” Josh smiled, going back to his teriyaki chicken. 

Two weeks later, you were standing on the balcony of a beautiful room near the ocean on the Carolina coast. You breathed in the salty air, lifting your face to really take in the warmth of the sun. The two of you had managed a week off of work each, giving you five days of freedom to just be with Josh and enjoy yourself. Nobody was dying, nobody was bleeding or being diagnosed with cancer, nobody was stuck in a burning home. Life was perfectly peaceful. 

“Bags are all up from the rental,” Josh said, coming up from behind and kissing your neck. He balanced himself with a hand on the rail on either side of you, and you leaned back against his chest. 

“This was a really good idea,” you commented, enjoying the relaxation that was already releasing the constant tension in your muscles. “Thank you for bringing me here.”

“Well, thank you for coming with me. What do you want to do first?”

You turned in his arms and kissed him softly. “Beach. Duh.”

“Duh,” he returned, in a perfect valley girl voice. “You can change first, I’ll change out here.”

You bit your bottom lip and nodded, digging your suit from your bag and heading for the bathroom. The whole changing-in-the-same-room situation had not crossed your mind, somehow, until you were on the plane. Even Josh seeing you in a swimsuit was more than you found yourself entirely comfortable with. You two had stayed with each other before, of course, but you slept in shorts and a t-shirt, and Josh usually in gym shorts. Not that you hadn’t slept with anyone before — wow. How did your mind get to that?

“Y/N? You okay?” 

Josh’s knock on the door broke you from your thoughts. You pulled on your cover-up and opened the door. “Okay, listen. We’ve slept together, like in the same bed, but we’ve never seen each other even half-naked, and now I’m in a bikini and we’re staying in a room for five days alone, by ourselves, and I just — I think that maybe we’re not there yet?”

“We’re there. We’re in the room,” Josh teased. You rolled your eyes, and he reached out to pull you closer by the hips. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. Listen, we didn’t come here to put you or me or anyone in an uncomfortable situation. We can get separate rooms, if you want. It’s not a big deal.”

“No, we don’t need separate rooms. I don’t want to — I mean, if you have expectations, I��m just saying, I don’t know if I can, you know, meet this expectations.”

Josh nodded. “So it’s been a while?”

You rolled your eyes again. “Yes. It’s been a while. And I really enjoy being with you and if we rush things, I’m afraid that we’re still new enough it will ruin our possible future.”

“Do you know how adorable you are right now?” He pecked your lips. “I have zero expectations this week, except for spending time with you. I promise. Okay, yes, I am absolutely looking forward to seeing you in a bikini —”

“Okay, that’s the second time you’ve mentioned seeing me in a bikini.”

Josh shrugged. “What can I say, I’m still a dude.”

“A very good looking dude who is going to be drawing lots of eyes in his swim trunks,” you added. “Including mine.”

Josh grinned again; you kissed him a little deeper, a gesture he returned in kind. A minute later, the two of you pushed away from each other and cleared your throats. You hopped down from the sink counter you had somehow sat on, and started getting your beach bag ready while Josh searched out the sunscreen. 

On your last night in Carolina, Josh took you to dinner, then dancing. Your legs and feet were throbbing from all the activity, but you still couldn’t pass up his offer to take a walk on the beach. 

“It’s so peaceful out here,” you commented, taking in your millionth deep, refreshing breath of the Pacific. “Nothing like the ER or Trauma. Not that I’m complaining.”

“I always knew you were kind of a fan of the chaos,” Josh smiled, adjusting to lace his fingers between yours instead of leaving your hands clasped as they were. 

You nodded. “Is that why you like firefighting?”

“I like saving people, helping them. But yes, I think the chaos, the fact that I can at least help control it, that’s part of it, too.”

The two of you fell into a comfortable silence then, walking hand-in-hand and barefoot through the warm sand. You couldn’t believe that it could be like this; that being together could be so simple, so effortless. Josh and you were so similar, but you tolerated and accepted each other’s differences. Remembering how sad you had been when Chad left, you had the thought now that, just maybe, Chad had been a season in your life to bring you to the reason: Josh. Maybe he had been the one your heart needed all along. 

“Whatcha thinkin’ about?” he asked, stopping a couple of feet above the shoreline and tugging your hand. You settled with your back against his chest, the both of you facing the bright moon over the ocean water. 

With a slight blush, you shook your head. “Just letting my heart run away with my head.”

Josh wrapped his arms around your shoulders, then kissed your cheek. “Me too.”

Far before you were ready, you were standing next to Josh in the security line at the airport. It was time to go back to Ohio, and even though you had a day to recover before going back to work, that didn’t stop you from wishing you could just stay in your peaceful little beach bubble a while longer. 

The two of you got past security without any problems and headed to your gate. Josh found you two seats together, and you settled in next to him, scrolling through your phone while waiting for the plane to board. When Nicole called, you smiled. 

“Hey, miss me too much to wait for me to come home and talk?” you teased. 

Nicole chuckled, but the laughter seemed forced. “Something like that. Y/N, Chad’s back. He’s got a job with the station again.”

You looked at Josh, who had his eyes closed, headphones covering his ears. “When did he come back?”

“Few days ago, I think,” Nicole answered. “Tyler wanted to make sure you and Josh knew. He wanted to wait, but you know me.”

This time, it was you who forced a chuckle. “Yeah, I do. Thanks for the head’s up, Nic. We’ll see you back in Ohio soon.”

You ended the call and shoved your phone in your bag. Had you and Chad parted simply because of the distance, that would have been one thing. But now knowing that he had cheated on you, that made all the difference. 

When the flight attendant called for boarding to start, you nudged Josh with your elbow. He put his music away, and the two of you waited patiently for your zone to be called. 

“You okay?” Josh checked, noticing that you had become quiet. 

You nodded. “Did you know that Chad was coming back to the station?”

Josh’s eyes were the size of Oreos. “No, I didn’t, I swear. I would have told you.”

“I figured,” you sighed, “but I also wasn’t sure because of wanting to protect me before. Nicole called and said that he’s been back for a few days.”

Josh put an arm around you and kissed your temple. “It’s all gonna be okay, Y/N/N. You’re with me now, and I’m not gonna let anyone hurt you. Maybe it won’t even be a big deal.”

You nodded, hoping as much, though you felt entirely uncertain that Chad would let this go. 

Tags:@takenvysleep @faceofcontvsions @svintsandghosts @adversaryproject

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael After Midnight: Avatar

Hyperbole is a real bitch. No matter what direction it goes in, it can seriously hamper a movie’s reputation. It’s the reason why I always just give a broad recommendation at the end of my reviews rather than a score; I find saying “Hey if you like this genre/subject matter/actor/etc, you might like this film” is a lot better than saying “This is a 10/10 five star masterpiece that all humans who ever shall exist need to see.” All too often the latter is what you get from mainstream publications when they praise a film.

Look what happened to Frozen; it was called one of the better Disney movies in recent memories and was praised to the heavens and back, which led to a bunch of people on the internet vocally disagreeing with said opinion, which then led to an entire anti-fandom of obnoxious basement dwellers who felt the need to constantly remind everyone Frozen sucked on any animation post they could find. All of this for a movie that, in hindsight, is just a solid, standard Disney princess flick.

Tonight we’re talking about a similar case, a film that when it came out was hyped up as a groundbreaking masterpiece of visual effects and a box office smash that grossed insane amounts of money… and was then derided as forgettable and a ripoff of Pocahontas or FernGully or what have you in the years to come. Yes, tonight we are talking about James Cameron’s smash hit, Avatar, and honestly? It’s probably the second best thing named Avatar out there, after Nickelodeon’s series about the last Airbender. After spending years being an obnoxious hipster douchebag and not watching it because it was popular followed by several more years of being an obnoxious douchebag who bashed whatever it was that was popular to bash, I finally sat down and watched James Cameron’s silly blue alien environmental movie… and frankly, it’s a pretty damn good movie. And I don’t just mean “oh it’s better than I expected but not great,” I mean “I can genuinely see to an extent where people were coming from when they were praising this.”

The story goes like this: In the far future, Earth is a polluted pile of fuck, so humans have taken to looking for resources elsewhere. One elsewhere? The moon of the planet Polyphemus, known as Pandora, which is home to a rare mineral that humans ironically dubbed “Unobtanium,” as it is rather hard to obtain due to the richest source being located amongst the native population: the ten-foot-tall blue alien beings known as the Na’vi. Jake Sully, a paraplegic former marine, is selected to utilize a remote-controlled artificial Na’vi body called an “avatar” so he can gain the native’s trust and maybe convince them to move, though there are tons of problems he has to overcome, not the least being that he starts crushing hard on Neytiri, the daughter of the chief (and seeing how she’s a hot blue alien played by Zoe Saldana, can you really blame him?). Can Sully help the humans and Na’vi reach a peaceful conclusion, or is the warmongering Colonel Miles Quaritch gonna get his way and start routing the natives out by force?

Interestingly, a lot of the movies that people claims this ripped off came out after this movie had been written; Cameron’s been working on this movie since 1994, when he wrote up an 80-page treatment for the film. He wanted to start working on this after Titanic, but the technology of the time just wasn’t right to fulfill his vision. Frankly, it’s a good thing he waited, because as I’m sure you know from all the praise it got, the visuals in this film are simply stunning. The Na’vi, the creatures of Pandora, the forests, all the glorious details of this alien planet and its inhabitants are just incredibly well done. If this had been done earlier, there is no way the Na’vi would have avoided the uncanny valley as well as they did; as it stands, they’re probably one of my favorite alien races in fiction, just from the visual standpoint alone. How good this movie looks compared to the story - which by comparison to the groundbreaking effects is rather basic - would almost make you think this film is just style over substance…

...But I’d argue that’s not exactly the case. While it’s glaringly obvious that the effects are the biggest draw, the story is still enjoyable and solid. It may seem rather derivative, but that’s mostly because in the span of time the film took to get made everyone and their mother cranked out environmental films or films about aboriginal people being joined by an outsider who learns from them and then fights back against people encroaching on their way of life, especially during the 90s. This movie quite frankly has an edge over all of those films; for one, this film looks way better than any of them, even Pocahontas (which is undeniably a beautiful film to look at). It also helps this film avoids the, uh… unfortunate implications that often come with these kinds of stories. I’m not here to get to into this aspect of those kinds of movies, but in the hands of less talented writers and directors there tends to be really nasty undertones. While Jake Sully does help lead this foreign culture to victory over their technologically advanced foes, it’s more due to him having knowledge of how humans work combined with the skills the Na’vi themselves have. Neither would have won without the other’s help. So yeah, the story is pretty simple, but pretty good. Not truly groundbreaking or original, but it really doesn’t have to be.

While I will say the story is the weak point, it IS carried by some truly great characters… just not Sully. While he’s a decent protagonist and all, he’s quite frankly overshadowed by just about everyone around him, with three enormous shadows being cast by Grace, Neytiri, and Quaritch. Grace is played by Sigourney Weaver. That is literally all you need to know to understand why she utterly steals every single scene she’s in, but for the sake of this review, let me explain in a bit more detail: her establishing character moment has her awakening from her avatar pod asking where her cigarette is, she openly is suspicious of Sully being added to the avatar program, she is the most honestly sympathetic and noble character in the entire movie, and her avatar is a stunning work of CGI. There’s really not a bad thing I can say about her; she’s basically Ellen Ripley with a more positive attitude towards aliens. She takes no shit and she does all she can to keep these people from being exploited by the greasy corporate shitweasels, no matter what she has to do. What a fucking hero. Can you see why Sully just seems kinda weak in comparison?

Then we have Neytiri, played by Zoe Saldana. She’s gorgeous, she’s badass, and she has quite the likable personality. She almost singlehandedly gives Sully a basic rundown on how not to die and spends most of her early screentime saving his ass. This was one of Saldana’s big roles in 2009 alongside playing Uhura in the Star Trek reboot series, and it brought her tons of praise, fame, and helped get her typecast as “Badass space babe with colorful skin.” Without this, Gamora might have gone to a less impressive actor who wouldn’t have been able to showcase the emotional range required, so at the very least I’m thankful to this movie for that.

And now finally, and perhaps most importantly, we come to Colonel Miles Quaritch, played by Stephen “You wished he was Cable until they cast Josh Brolin” Lang. Quaritch is what seems like such a simple villain: a military man with some serious bloodlust, a guy who just seems to be itching to go to war. But really, there’s a lot more to him than that. One really gets the sense Quaritch really does believe what he’s doing is for the betterment of humanity, and he doesn’t go right to gunning down the Na’vi even when he’s given the word to remove them by force. There are a lot of ways to interpret him, but frankly, no matter what way you cut it he’s at the very least genuinely concerned with the safety of his subordinates (outlined in his establishing scene); this leads him to becoming probably one of the single most badass anti-villains ever conceived. The man frequently steps out into the hostile atmosphere of the moon, holding his breath, to take shots at foes before putting on a breathing apparatus. He jumps out of an exploding plane in a mini-mech, which he uses to get into a knife fight with Sully. And every heinous and violent action he takes is one he takes to protect men from dying, something he has seen far too much of. And while this makes him sympathetic to a degree, his utter disdain of the Na’vi and his bloodthirsty attitude also makes sure you want to see him gets what’s coming to him.

There’s some side characters here and there that are good, but it’s mainly these three carrying the story when it starts seeming a bit too basic for this lofty world Cameron has built. And really, this is a fantastic world he’s created. This is truly a stunning film visually, with some flavorful characters to ensure that the vision doesn’t wear on you throughout the running time. For the most part, it really does work; guess that’s just the magic of James Cameron.

This is a very good film. Not the greatest film of all time, but definitely an enjoyable, ambitious, and groundbreaking one. If I ever make a list of the best sci-fi films (and you know I will eventually), this will most certainly be on there… somewhere. It’s at least top 25 material. While Aliens and the first two Terminator films are definitely the best stuff Cameron has done, this is still quite an impressive piece of pop sci-fi he created; if you like environmental movies, science fiction, creative worldbuilding, awesome visuals, or James Cameron movies, this film is worth a watch. Hell, it’s worth a watch if you’re a fan of Weaver, Lang, or Saldana too, because their performances really drive this film. It’s a good movie, plain and simple.

...Though I don’t think it’s good enough to warrant four sequels. Fuck off, Cameron.

[reject-princess97]

Josh Matthews-Girl Meets World

I walked up to the right door and knocked. The door quickly opened on Cory Matthews invited me in. “Hi Guys.” I smiled to everyone as I walked in, I got a quick hello from Riley and Maya before they left.

“Hi Y/N honey, how are you?” Topanga asked as I set my bag on the table and hugged her.

“I’m great thanks, where is the little guy?” I asked but my question was short what I heard a little voice behind me as he crashed into me.

“Y/N!!!!!”

“Auggie, Hey.” I laughed as I lifted him up and smiled at him. “You wanna watch a movie tonight? I have a few DVD’s in my bag.” I asked the little boy I was babysitting while grabbing my bag. I set him on the ground and pulled out five DVD’S I had watched with Auggie in the past and a brand new DVD that I had bought for this occasion.

“Yeah, what you got?” He asked sitting on the couch next to me.

“I’ve got Shrek, The Lion King, Moana, Mary Poppins and The Avengers. I also have a new DVD for us, Despicable Me 3.” I told him placing the DVDs on the table in front of us. He sat on the floor and just starred a the DVDs, so I took this time to speak to Cory and Topanga.

“So Mr and Mrs Matthews, how are things in the land of Law and School?” I asked as I gave them both another hug.

I have known the Matthews family since I was about two years old, they moved into this apartment block with their new born daughter Riley since then my Mum and Topanga have been really close and I am the one of the only people Topanga will allow to look after Auggie when she and Cory go out.

Riley and I are close, we are all like family including Maya who I unofficially adopted as my little sister because we have a lot in common, My dad left when I was four years old and I had been brought up by my mum who worked a lot, so I was so lucky to have Cory and Topanga to take me under their wing, so to speak and guide me in the right direction, just like they’re doing with Maya.  When I turned 16 I got a job at a little Cafe and when Topanga took over she let me keep my job and raised my pay a little. I still babysat so I had that little extra to keep myself fed and clothed when I’m at college. I moved out of my mums flat when I was 18 and moved a little closer to the college with my roommates Danielle and Kayden, both same age as me and taking the same classes as me, so we help each other out a lot with homework.

“Things are great.” Topanga smiled at me answering my question taking a seat at the table. Cory however sat and sulked.

“My Riley has a boyfriend.” He snorted. I smiled and nodded back at Topanga.

“It was bound to happen eventually Cory, she’s growing up, but do you want me to tell you a secret?” I asked him to which he nodded. “Riley Matthews will have boyfriends, a few of them may break her heart. But, if she has taken in everything you and Panga have taught her, as I have,  she will become stronger with each heart break and learn from her mistakes. She’ll be able to protect her self and most importantly, she will be fine.” I smiled at him but he only huffed in response. “Do you not remember my last break up, I was so heart broken I locked myself away for weeks, it wasn’t until you and Riley came and talked to me that I even left my room. She knows whats out there, and she knows you here for her when you need it. She will always know that.” I patted him on the head making him smile again.

“That’s true.” Cory replied.

“So who is it?” I asked

“Lucus.”

“Oh I like him he’s sweet.” I smiled and laughed when I heard Cory mumble something I didn’t quite understand.

“So hows College, Is everything going smoothly.” Panga asked,

“Things are great, I mean it’s a lot different than High school and all, but I like it.” I replied, taking a seat at the table.

“What are you doing at NYU? Did you figure out your major?” Cory asked, I nodded and pulled out my camera from my bag.

“Photography and English, I decided a wanna travel, see the world and I figured why not document my adventures.” I smiled. “I have planned to put away all my money from babysitting and working at Topanga’s,  save up enough by the time I have finished college and figured a few things out I’ll have plenty to fall back on.” I explained.

“I have taught you well young one.” Panga laughed before checking her watch. “Ok, it’s almost Five we need to go. Y/N Auggie needs some dinner so order pizza or cook which ever you feel like doing, We’ll be back by 10 so you know the bed time schedule so I’ll see you later.” She rushed  as she get her coat on and give Auggie a kiss before she and Cory left.

“So, did you pick a movie?” I asked sitting by Auggie and grabbing the remote. He nodded and held up the box to Mary Poppins and smiled a big toothy grin.

“Ok, let’s watch.” I grabbed the box and placed the DVD in the player and we both sat back on the couch and watched the movie.

We were about halfway through the film when the was a knock at the door and in walked Josh, Cory’s little brother. “Hello Auggie and Y/N.” He called.

“Hi” I said and waved.

“UNCLE, JOSH!” Auggie called jumping off the sofa and into Josh’ arms.

“Hey, Aug, what you watching? Oh Marry Poppins nice.” He sat down on the sofa and placed Auggie in between the two of us.

“So, Y/N hows it going?”

“Great, enjoying life and seeing where it takes me.” I shrugged.

I guess you could say I’m a free spirit of sorts. I never used to be, I became obsessed with planning my life out as perfectly as I can, I hated the Idea of not knowing where I would end up an five, ten even twenty years from now, I wanted everything to be perfect…The I broke up with my boyfriend Alex and I was a wreck, I felt like all my planing had before nothing because now I had lost the one constant in my life I was lost. but then Topanga had spoken to me and told me that It didn’t matter where I ended up, as long as I was happy and enjoying my life it I didn’t need everything to be planned put for me, I just needed a goal to work towards and then just let life take it’s course.

“And has life given you anything good since the last time we talked?” He asked. I thought for a second and nodded,

“I guess, I’m just trying to figure out what to do about it.” I told him. It had been two days since I had last spoken to Josh. At first being at the same College we bump into each other every now and then and after the fourth time we kind of just started hanging out and eating lunch together after classes, he visits me at work quite a lot and I would help him with work when he needed it. and he was just always there. I had developed feelings for him in a big way but I didn’t say anything because it was never the right time and I didn’t want to spoil our friendship.

“Oh really, what is it, anything exciting, a new photo opp, and new friend…oh don’t tell me it’s another chance to take part in a community event to build something or other. Oh no, did the universe tell you the world was going the end soon.” He laughed.  I

“Josh Matthews, are you making fun of me?” I asked him, raising my eyebrows at him.

“I would never, you let the universe run your life and I will be here when you decide to come back down to earth.” He laughed. I nodded and turned my attention back to the film.

“Oh are you ignoring me now?” He asked but I kept quiet,

“Y/N?”

Still I said nothing.

“Auggie, I think I broke Y/N.” He told the small boy who was just watching telly.

“No, you just made fun of her so now she is not speaking to you. watch. Y/N?”

“Yeah?” I smiled at him and turned to look at him.

“I’m getting hungry can we have dinner soon?” He asked I nodded and stood,

“I’ll got grab the take out menus, be right back OK?” I told him and walked to the hall where Cory kept the phone and draw of Menus.

“I’m sorry.” I heard Josh speak form behind me, “I didn’t mean to make fun of you, I know you don’t believe in stuff like that.” He apologized, I nodded and shrugged.

“OK.” I said simply, not letting off the hook so easily.

If there was on thing I hate was people making fun of me for being the way I am. I’m not what some would call a ‘hippy’ but I do like to do what I can to give back the the community, I volunteer a lot at the local High school when I don’t have classes, I do my part for various charities and I am proud of that. I don’t believe in the universe, in fate or destiny but I do believe in living life you want to live and making it count.

“I’m really sorry Y/N, I was being stupid and I will do anything to make it up to you.” Josh said, grabbing my hand and turning me to face him. I looked up into his eye’s and I saw a flicker of pain in his eyes. I nodded and smiled.

“OK, you can take Auggie and I for Ice cream after dinner.” I told him, he nodded and hugged me tight, lifting my feet off the ground and spinning me around.

“Actually that works out great because I saw Cory on the way here and gave me some money so we could go out for dinner if we wanted.” He said pulling out some money. “I was about to tell you but you began ignoring me.” He laughed.

“OK, well, we should ask Auggie.” I smiled, I noticed he still held me hand and I blushed a little. I pulled him into the living room to see Auggie sat on the couch.

“Hey, Aug, Me and Uncle Josh were thinking maybe we could go out for dinner, then we could go get Ice cream.” I asked to which he nodded and ran of towards his room, I assume to get his shoes. He ran in seconds later, shoes on his feet. “Can we get hot dogs?” He asked, I nodded and looked to Josh how nodded too.

I grabbed my keys and we all put on jackets before we left the apartment. It was warm out so we didn’t need big coats. We exited the building and stopped, on the corner of the street.

“OK, we will go to the cafe by the subway, they do great hot dogs there, plus amazing coffee.” Josh smiled as we walked towards the subway entrance.

“Sounds like a plan.” I smiled up at him. “And I forgive you.” I continued.

“He laughed a little and pulled me into side hug, kissing the top of me head, coursing me to smile like and idiot.

"What?” He asked, a nervous look in his eye.

“You kissed me, on the side of the head.” I smiled at him. We arrived at the cafe, so we ordered three hot dogs, and two coffees which we had to go and we walked to a near by park were was sat on a bench eating our food in silence. After we finished we put the rubbish and the bin.

“Can we go to the park?” Auggie asked. Josh and I both nodded and we walked over to the playground were Auggie ran off to. Josh and I sat on the grass and watched Auggie play happily.

“I..I don’t mind that you kissed me you know.” I spoke up, cutting our silence short.

“What?” He asked, maybe he didn’t hear me.

“I said I don’t mind that you kissed me. I liked it actually.” I told him, looking down to my feet.

“Really?” He asked in disbelief.

“Yeah, in fact, you can kiss me anytime you want.” I laughed, looking into his eyes.

“What?” He asked.

“Yeah, that thing I mentioned before about life giving me something but I needed to figure out what to do with it. Well that was you and I decided I would see what happens.” I told him, turning my body to face him. “I like you Josh, maybe I would even go as far as to say I love you. a lot. I understand if you don’t like me back but..”

I was cut off but a pair of lips crashing into mine. The kiss was slow and gentle but it was filled with love and passion. I smiled into the kiss, wrapping my arms around Josh’s neck, pulling him closer if that were possible.

“I love you too Y/N, I have done since we met when we were younger, when I used to come and visit Cory and Topanga with my parents and there you’d be looking absolutely beautiful.” He told me as he pulled away. “ I used to look for you at college, just so I could see you smile at me.” He laughed. I smiled at him and kissed his cheek again.

Josh grabbed my waist and pulled me closer so that I sat in between his legs, my back to his chest, and he began playing with my fingers as he held my hand, kissing my head every now and then and laughing when ever Auggie did something funny. We sat like this for a while until we heard somebody call our names.

“Josh? Y/N?”

We turned to see Riley and Lucas walking towards us, we smiled and waved and once they reached us they sat next to us.

“Hey Ri” I smiled. “What are you two doing here, I thought you were with Maya?” I asked but before Riley could say anything We heard Farkle’s voice calling over to Lucas.

“Riley, Maya want Ice cream!” He called, he walked over, he and Maya holding hands.

“Hey Kiddies.” Maya smiled as she sat by Riley smiling. Riley just watched Josh and I, not paying any attention to anyone until Auggie came over and sat on her knee.

“Hey Riles.” He smile. She turned her attention to Auggie and whispered something in his ear before he did the same.

“They what???” she shouted shocked, turning to look at me,

“You kissed my uncle!” She yelled, Josh only laughed while everyone else just turned to look at us.

“Yeah.” I answered, but it sounded more like a question.

“You kissed my Uncle and didn’t tell me.” She smiled, I laughed relieved she wasn’t angry.

“It only just happened and it would have been rude to pull out my phone out at start telling his niece what had just happened.” I told her, she nodded and smiled. I turned to see Maya watching us intently. “Maya, are you OK with this?” I asked her “I mean I know you liked him and all and…”

“Y/N it’s fine, I Have Farkle now and besides, you’re the same age as him.” she smiled at us, holding Farkle’s hand as she spoke. “But Uncle Boing, if you hurt my Y/N, I will go all Maya hunter on your butt and hurt you. I don’t care if you are my best friends uncle.” she threatened, pointing her finger at Josh, making everyone laugh.

“I promise Maya, I will love her until she tells me to stop.” He  told her, wrapping his arms around me pulling me closer.

“Oh god, you’re gonna be my aunt.” Riley huffed jokingly.

“So, what is this?” Farkle asked pointing to the two of us.

“Well that depends.” Josh shrugged,

“On what?” Lucus added.

“If she’ll be my girlfriend or not.” he laughed, I turned to smile at him, “So, what do you say, will you be my girlfriend?” he asked.

“Of course I will.” I smiled at him, He smiled back and kissed me quickly while everyone awwed and cheered.

“Ok, I want Ice cream.” Maya shouted,

“I do too, Y/N, Uncle Josh can we go for Ice cream now?” Auggie asked, we both nodded and we stood up, Josh helping me up. We all walked over to the nearest Ice cream shop and each ordered our Ice cream.

“Right it’s almost 7:30 so we need to be getting Auggie home and ready for bed. I’ll see you guys later ok?” I told everyone. they said good bye and Josh Auggie and I waked back home eating our ice creams as we walked.

As we entered the building and then the flat as the clock hit 7:45. Auggie ran to get his PJ’s on and I made him Josh and I a hot chocolate. By 8pm, Auggie had finished his drink and was falling asleep in Josh’s arms so he took him to bed while I changed the DVD over to The Avengers.

“That’s Auggie asleep, Do you want me to stay here with you until Cory and Topanga get home?” Josh asked as he sat next to me, I nodded and laughed.

“Of course.”

“OK, what we watching?” He asked as he pulled me into his side and let me snuggle into him.

“The Avengers.” I smiled up st him.

“Good choice” he laughed as I hit play on the remote and the movie started playing.

*Third Person*

Two hours later, at exactly 10pm Riley walked into the apartment and smiled as she saw her uncle and her other best friend sleeping on the couch, snuggled into each others arms. She smiled and shook her her head as she pulled out her phone, snapped a picture and sent it to Maya. She sent a text to her parents and told them that Y/N and Josh were asleep so be quiet when they come home. She quietly walked into the closet and pulled out a blanket and placing it over the sleeping couple. She kissed the top of their heads and turned off the TV before she walked to her bedroom and changed into her PJ’s and climbed into bed and fell asleep.

It was only Half and hour later that Cory and Topanga walked into the apartment and smiled at the two on the couch.

“You own me $20.” Topanga whispered, a reluctant Cory fished out a $20 from his pocket and handed it over to his wife. He should have known better that to bet against her, she always won, but he loved the way her eyes lit up when she won a bet and he couldn’t help but smile when she waved the money in his face like a child.

“Come on, let them sleep, It’s Saturday tomorrow so they don’t have school anyway.” Cory whispered to his wife, she nodded and followed Cory to their bedroom.

“So are you gonna go protective MAMA bear on my brother?” Corey asked Topanga as she exited the bathroom, dressed and ready for bed.

“What do you mean?” She asked sliding into bed.

“With every boy Y/N brings to meet us, you become a little protective over her, like she is your kid.” Corey told her, she thought for a second and smiled.

“I guess you’re right. It’s just because I see them with her and I can’t help but think he is all wrong for her, Josh Loves Y/N, he might not of told her that yet but I can see the way his eyes light up at just the mention of her name and the way he looks at her while she’s working at the cafe. She looks at the the same and if not today, then someday they will realize they belong together and they will live just as happily and we do.” She told her husband before kissing him goodnight and turning if the lights.

The Matthews home was quiet as the family slept, Josh Matthews stirred in his sleep and opened his eyes for a second to see Y/N, his girlfriends, sleeping peacefully in his arms and he couldn’t help but think this was how he wanted to wake up every morning for the rest of his life. He kissed his girlfriends forehead before he laid he head back down and fell back to sleep, a content smile resting in his lips.

Masterlist

[babylon-bitch]

Just Friends ~ Looking Back On Memories (part 46)

Harper White is best friends with Luke Hemmings, they always have been. Not only is she friends with the rockstar, but with the rest of 5 Seconds Of Summer, as well as a really nice girl named Erika.

Harper has a few secrets, she can play all the instruments the boys play and many more. It’s a talent she has kept hidden, only very few people know.

What will happen to the six teens, wondering around the world together?

***

The airport is bursting with life, sleepy, busy, cranky, bored, uncomfortable, and happy people; somthing I can’t seem to feel anymore.

It’s pitch black outside, the lights inside this building remind of school, and I’ve been waiting for someone to pick me up for an hour. So with that, I’m not in the best mood and I’ve got a sore bum.

I’ve got week off from university, and my parents insisted that I come home for the week. I’d rather not, and instead forget everything around me by playing/creating music or going out to parties. Not sitting on my arse all week, looking at everything and being reminded of the memories of him.

He’s not even here, I haven’t talked to him in ages, let alone seen him, yet he’s controlling me and making my life hell, just by being him.

I haven’t spoken to Michael, Ashton, Calum, Erika or Maddie in ages, and I kinda miss them. In a way, I’m greatful I’m not in contact with them, I’d just get reminders of all these memories that I couldn’t handle. Plus, if I talked to any of the boys, they’d transfer everything I’d say, to Luke, and I don’t want anything to do with him.

Luke’s stopped talking to me, the last text I got from him was a day after we talked on the phone. I couldn’t be anymore greatful for that, I can finally get on with my life without looking back anymore. Most of my memories include Luke, most of them are good, and I sometimes have to remind myself that he’s not in my life anymore, then it all hits me harder than the last time.

I don’t think it’s ever gonna be possible for me to not think about him at least 500 times a day. He was such a big part of my life, so to not have someone have this big chunk of my heart is excruciating emotional pain. He never gave it back though, he tore it up and stomped on it, then expected me to either mend the shards myself or think I’ll be fine without that key piece.

I’m constantly bearing this heavy feeling in my chest, and I haven’t lost it ever since we were on that damn trampoline back in Australia.

“Harper?” Someone questions behind me.

Whipping my head around and see a girl who is around 14 or 15.

“Oh, hey.” I plaster on a fake smile.

“Hi! I’m such a huge fan, and I’m sorry if I’m bothering you, because it’s really early.” She apologises.

“It’s fine.” I chuckle.

“Can I get a picture?” She asks.

“Of course.” I agree and bend down slightly to get to her level.

I put on a fake ass smile and wait for her to take the picture. The only times I’ve smiled recently is when I think back on memories of Luke and I, but I usually end up crying after that, or when I’m watching tv or somthing.

“Thank you so much, I love you and Erika so much, even though I’m a little sad that you don’t actually make videos together anymore.” She sighs.

“Yeah me too, maybe we can make a video soon.” I shrug.

“That would make my year! Please you have to.” She begs.

“I’ll see what I can sort out.” I wink.

“I saw Luke’s post, and I’m so sorry. You guys were utter goals for many of us, it was such a shock to all of us.” She says.

“It was kinda a shock to me too, but it’s in the past and it had to happen.” You tell her.

“I should get going, my parents are probably expecting me, love you!” She grins and I wave at her with a small smile.

I wish I could brush all this off as easy as I brushed that off.

Sighing and turning around, making my way outside to get some fresh air. You would’ve thought that my Mum or at least someone would remember what time my flight comes in, but no, I had to call and text my Mum and my Dad multiple times to come pick me up.

I still don’t get why I have to be here, Angus and Josh don’t have to, so why me?

Sitting on my suitcase and rolling back and forth to find some kind of amusement. I can’t go on my phone or I’ll end up crying or just be in a really fowl mood. I had to hide the Twitter app, because that’s where I follow most fan accounts and post more.

It’s been so hard seeing his name everywhere, seeing pictures of him everywhere, being sent things about him, it feels like I’m poking a bruise every time I see these things.

I haven’t tweeted, posted anything on Instagram for weeks, I’ve posted videos on YouTube, but I haven’t dared to look at the comments.

Seeing the familiar short woman walk towards me with a big smile and sympathetic eyes.

“I’m so sorry we forgot what time your flight was, we thought it was tomorrow at 2:15 in the morning.” She apologises and pulls me into a hug.

“I slept a lot on the plane anyway so I’m not that tired.” I shrug.

“Again, sorry.”

“Where’s dad?” I ask.

“He’s still in bed.” She chuckles.

“It is 3:30, can you blame him?”

“True.” She nods and helps me put my suitcase in the back.

“Thanks.” I mutter and walk towards the passenger seat.

“How have you been?” She asks as she turns the engine on.

“Fine.” I say what I’ve rehearsed for the past couple months.

“So, your birthday is coming up soon…” She trails off.

“Oh shit, yeah.” I realise.

Am I really gonna be 19 in a few days?

“Got any plans?” She asks.

“No, I’m going back home the day after so I don’t wanna do anything too crazy.” I tell her.

“Okay, what do you want?” She questions.

Happiness? Self-esteem? Confidence? Mental stability?

“I don’t know, Mum.” I shrug.

“Well have a think about it, you’ve only got a few days.”

“Can I have an Ashley Purdy?” I ask.

***

“But I’m trying too hard again.” I sing. “Wait, no, get out of my head.” I scold myself.

Do you know how hard it is not to sing such great songs? I’ve had to delete all of their songs from my playlist, but somtimese I put a daily mix on and their songs come on and I can’t stop myself from not listening just to hear his voice again.

“Hey, Harper, I just got a load of film developed from the past couple of years, including some disposable cameras from your room, so if you want to have a look at them, they’re in a box in the living room.” My mum walks into my room.

“Uh okay, are there any pictures of, uhm, Luke?” I ask with a shaky voice.

“There’s a few, he’s been part of your life for a long time, there’s bound to be a few, love.” She sympathetically smiles.

I nod and stand up, I can’t let him do this to me for all of my life.

Walking into the lounge and being hit with nostalgia, but I try to reel myself away from getting sucked into those memories making me feel like it’s real but it’s just a false reality.

Who am I kidding? I’m about to look at a load of pictures from the past few years, I’m gonna choke on the nostalgia.

Standing over the box, I already get faced by his stupid gorgeous face.

“What? Gonna break my heart again? You’ve already done it, so how hard could it be to do it again?” I spit at the picture.

“What am I doing with my life? I’m talking to a damn picture of my ex boyfriend.” I bitterly chuckle at myself.

“You have no idea how much I wanna rip you to shreds but then stick you together again.”

“I really have to let you go.” I sigh and pick up a stack of pictures.

“The oldest ones are at the front and they go back to when you were 15 or 16.” My mum calls from the kitchen.

I nod, even though she can’t see me, and put the stack back, grabbing a stack from the front.

This looks like when I was 16, when I was at one of my lowest points, and to be honest, I’m walking along that edge of falling down a very deep, dark hole, whilst the Jaws theme tune plays, and it’s gonna take a really long time to climb out again.

I wouldn’t say I’m depressed, I haven’t given myself time to get there, I’ve just busied myself away from that sticky situation, but saying that, I might of fallen in that hole a long time ago, I just haven’t noticed, and I’ve mistaken this heavy feeling in my chest for heartbreak, not depression.

I even hate that damn fucking word.

Going through a few photos, they are just of my family or of the cat, then skimming past a few until I find some of me, not to sound vain or anything.

“Oh my god, I haven’t seen this in ages.” I chuckle.

It’s a picture of Michael, Luke, and I, we’re all wearing these funny sunglasses, paint and pen on our faces,  have customized shirts on and are in mid laugh. I think it was some fundraiser thing at school. I vividly remember drawing a dick on Michael’s cheek.

Taking a picture of the photo on my phone, which may not be very wise to do for the long run, but I don’t care much right now.

“Remember this photo?” I ask my mum with a smile when she walks past.

“Oh my God yeah, it took ages to get that paint and pen off your bodies.” She laughs.

“Luke and I spent about 2 hours in the bathroom scrubbing each others faces.” I smile at the memory. The first genuine smile in a while.

I have to post this, I need to share it with someone. Revealing the app again, not daring to read anything, but just clicking the small circle in the corner and attaching the picture, with the caption: ultimate throw back 😂.

Not tagging either of them, just posting it, not expecting anything to come out of it, it’s just a picture after all.

Putting my phone down after I posted it on instagram too and going back to the pictures.

One of me and Erika, we were at a party or something and Ashton brought a camera out, so we took some pictures together, nothing too special about it, but we looked happy, despite me being so down that whole time.

After skipping a few, just of me and the boys and just Erika at the time, or of the boys alone. I go through a stacks or two, before I get to when I was 17, that was quite a good year, I had a budding relationship with Luke and made some good memories with even better people.

Picking up a new stack and leaning back on the sofa. Straight off the bat, I’m faced with a heart breaking picture of me and Luke. Luke’s looking at the camera whilst I’m looking at him, I’m not sure if I was waiting to see what he was doing or if was just looking at him randomly, but you can literally see the love in my eyes. We weren’t even dating then, we were still just friends.

Putting that to the back, then looking at the next one, it’s just of Luke, very candid, he is playing guitar, looking very determined/concentrated. It’s very Luke.

The one after that is another one of Luke and I, if I can remember correctly, I think we were at Calum’s house for a party in celebration for something. I’m pressed up against the wall, Luke’s forearm is above my head on the wall, his whole body is inches away from mine, and we’ve both got smirks on our faces. We’d probably had a bit to drink and were flirting a little.  

If only they knew what would happen to them.

Putting that to the back again and a small smile grows on my face when I see the one next to it. Luke and I are standing somewhere I don’t recognise, and our arms are wrapped around each other, Luke’s kissing my cheek but you can see he is smiling into it, he is holding my chin, and I’ve got a big smile going on.

Aw, so naive.

After a while of going through stacks of pictures, I didn’t know how big of a lump was in my throat when my Dad said hello to me.

I’ve early finished going through the age of 17, I’ve just put back a stack from halloween and a little after that.

Pulling out a new bunch, and my breathing hitches as I see the first one. It’s from the time we went to Dubai, where it all started; where all this mess started. The Sun is setting, the clouds are all pink, Luke’s standing beind me while I’m standing in front of him, and he’s kissing my head as I’m taking a picture of the sky for my Instagram.

I think the only person who knows that Luke was doing that to me whilst that picture was taken is the person who is behind the camera.

Going through a couple more, until I find another one of Luke and I. I remember this moment vividly, Luke is standing next to me, but facing me and he just whispered something in my ear, it was a stupid dirty joke that I can’t remember, then he laughed when I finally got it, and placed his hands on my stomach and back, pulling me closer towards him. Suddenly someone came up towards us, I think it was my Mum, and she said ‘cheese’ as Luke kissed my cheek, so he quickly whipped his head towards the camera, having a big grin on his face.

Looking at a few more until I realise I’m crying, seeing a few droplets splash onto the picture of Luke and I, he’s looking at me whilst I’m looking at the camera, you can see the love in his eyes.

If he loved me so much, why did he throw my heart away as if it didn’t matter to him?

Luke’s P.O.V.

“Has anyone seen Harper’s Twitter?” Calum breaks the silence.

“No?” I question.

“Go have a look.” He gestures.

I give him a sceptical glance before typing in her all too familiar username into Twitter, clicking on her profile and wait for it to load for a few seconds- the internet is shit here.

My breathing stops and a smile makes it’s way onto my face.

“Awww, I remember that.” I chuckle.

“I’m looking good.” Michael laughs.

“Nice hair, Mike.” Calum says.

“Where?” Ashton speaks up and I show him my phone. “Aw, look at these three cuties.” He cooes.

“Shut up.” Michael and I say in unison.

“Where was Calum?” Ashton asks.

“I’m not sure, but he definitely wasn’t there that day.” I shrug.

“It took me ages to get that shit off, how long did it take for you guys to get it off?” Michael questions.

“It took us hours, we were in her bathroom for hours, just scrubbing each others faces, arms, and legs. I think the process would’ve sped up if we weren’t together, half the time we were just messing around.” I laugh at the memory.

“Didn’t Harper draw a dick on my face?” Michael asks.

“Probably.” I smile.

I’m not sure when the last time I properly smiled and laughed was- probably when I was with her. It feels so good to feel happiness again, even better because she caused it, but it also feels bad because she’s no longer with me, and I can’t relive these memories with her.

That was one of my favourite things to do with her; relive memories. We have so many together, that there’s endless amounts of hours that could be spent reliving these memories.

I think that plays a big part in why this hurts so much, I’ve known her my whole life, I’ve got far too many memories of her for me to be okay with that.

***

“Oooooh, Australian air!” Michael excitedly says and runs off.

“What a child.” Ashton shakes his head.

“Yeah.” I agree.

“Hey, if you weren’t so sad, you’d be with him, most likely in front of him.” Calum points out.

“Shut up.” I mutter and go on my phone.

We’ve come back to Australia for a few days for a mini break. We’re all a little homesick I think, so it will do us all good, and to refresh our minds.

“Luke!” My mum grins and pulls me into a motherly hug.

“Mum!” I mock and wrap my arms around her shoulders.

“How have you been?” She asks pulling me back, keeping her hands on my arms.

“Alright.” I dismiss and she looks at me sympathetically.

“You have to deal with this at some point, Luke. You can’t just keep brushing it under the rug.” She tells me.

“I know mum, can we just go home? I’m tired.”

“Whatever, come on.” She gestures with a nod.

“Bye guys, I’ll see you later or something.” I say the boys and they all wave with a small smile.

We walk away from the airport, and head back towards the place where it all started.

We’ve been in the car for a while now, I’ve just had my headphones in the majority of the time.

“How does it feel to be back home again?” My mum asks as we turn into our road.

“Uhh,” I pause as we are coming up to Harper’s house, looking at her window, the sun shining in, making an orange tinge light it all up. Her car is still the on the driveway, I remember the times we would drive around if we were bored or couldn’t sleep, and just play really loud music, singing along together, we’d usually drive to a fast food place, and eat, talking about whatever comes to mind. I must be imagining it, but I could’ve sworn I just saw her or someone very similar walk past the window.

I really need to sleep.

“Luke?” My mum interrupts my thoughts.

“Oh yeah, uh, it feels good to be here again.” I nod.

“It’s her birthday tomorrow, isn’t it?” She points out.

“Yep.” I say and look at my lap.

“Are you gonna wish a happy birthday?” She gingerly asks.

“Probably not, uh, yeah, probably not.”

“What’s the worst that can happen, Luke?” She questions as she pulls into our house.

“I can’t do it Mum, I can’t bring myself to do it.” I dismiss and slam the car door behind me, before making my way to my room.

[seathose2-blog]

The Linc - Eli Manning could be staying in the NFC East for “years” to come

Let’s get to the Philadelphia Eagles links ...

Pat Shurmur still thinks Eli Manning has years left as a quarterback - Big Blue View Shurmur was asked if, as he indicated when he was first hired, he believes Manning still has “years” of productive play left. His answer? “Yes, I do.” Finally, Shurmur was asked why he believes that. His answer? “Because I’ve seen him play good football, and I’ve seen how when we have a coordinated effort of protecting him, running the football effectively, and being able to run the ball throughout the game, it helps us. We threw the ball more than I would have liked to in the game that was really one score, but seven of those throws were two-minute before the half, and then there were 15 in the fourth quarter when we were down by 17. That skews the numbers. The important thing about yesterday in our coordinated effort was we didn’t get enough out of the runs when we chose to run the ball.” All of that certainly sounds like a coach willing to cast his lot with Manning again next season.

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10 thoughts on the Eagles’ huge win over the Rams - BGN The Eagles don’t have a quarterback controversy. Carson Wentz is still very much the Eagles’ franchise quarterback. He’s the long-term answer at the position. Go back and watch his 2017 tape if you need to remember why that’s the case. In the short-term, though, Foles should probably continue to start for the Eagles. If Wentz was healthy, he should be the one starting. The problem is he’s not healthy right now. Wentz’s back fracture requires three months to heal, according to Pederson. The Eagles should just rest him and roll with Foles.

At the Podium #15: A “Complete Team Game” - BGN Radio A new voice graces the At the Podium series with new starting quarterback Nick Foles in the rotation. He and Doug Pederson both talk about the Eagles playing a complete team game for 60 minutes in their upset of the Rams. In total 3 pressers included: Doug after the game, Foles after the game, and Pederson the next morning. FLY EAGLES FLY! Powered by SB Nation and Bleeding Green Nation.

Handing out 10 awards from the Eagles-Rams game - PhillyVoice Jim Schwartz has been out-coached a few times this season, but on Sunday night he had Sean McVay’s number. He dialed up blitzes at the perfect moments, and helped fluster and confuse Goff all game long. McVay, the (cough) 2017 NFL Coach of the Year, had some questionable moments. To begin, he messed up clock management late in the fourth quarter. And worse, he didn’t go for two with the Rams down eight after they scored a touchdown to draw within one score. Earlier in the season, Doug Pederson was in the same situation, and he explained the bulletproof logic in going for two in that scenario.

There is Hope - Iggles Blitz The Eagles have now won three out of their last four games. The only loss was at Dallas and we know that game could have been very different if the officials gave the Eagles the ball at the 16-yard line after the opening kickoff. That didn’t happen and the Eagles never could completely get their feet under them in that game. Injuries have significantly hurt this team and the Eagles aren’t going to play at the same level as last year. We can talk about Next Man Up and toughness and chemistry, but at a certain point you just don’t have enough talented players. Getting Avonte Maddox back made a real difference in the secondary. That gave the Eagles a competent CB. If the Eagles could get back Jordan Hicks, Tim Jernigan and Sidney Jones, the defense could take another step forward.

Explaining The QB Picture; Leftover Notes From Sunday - PE.com While Wentz remains the starting quarterback here – and there is no gray area at all in Pederson’s mind – the short term (meaning Sunday against Houston) belongs to Foles. The Texans are powerful up front defensively with J.J. Watt and Jadeveon Clowney on the edges, so Foles and the offense will see a whole new set of challenges against a 10-4 team. The long term belongs to Wentz – if the Eagles make the playoffs and Wentz is healthy, he likely starts, and he’s certainly the starter in 2019 and for many years after that.

Avonte Maddox: A Skeleton Key For Eagles Defense - The Draft Network What is Avonte Maddox in the healthy Philadelphia Eagle secondary? I’m not too sure, but I do know this: it’s not your average rookie, who can start at three different alignments (two of which he didn’t even dabble in in college) and provide quality reps from each position. Your average rookie corner doesn’t even hold his water against the Rams if he A) has been starting on the outside all season and B) was drafted in the early rounds! Maddox has been an absolute gem for Philadelphia — arguably the highest-impact draft pick they’ve had since Carson Wentz back in the 2016 class. He has more than earned a starting role somewhere next season — I’d imagine at nickel corner — but more than that, he has held this threadbare defense together long enough, well enough, and just strongly enough the Eagles playoff hopes are still alive.

The NFL’s biggest surprises, and who could copy them in 2019 - ESPN The Eagles have a 28.8 percent chance of making the postseason, and while they’re left with a pair of winnable games against Houston and Washington, I’m not sure that the formula we saw Sunday is something Philly could sustain into a long playoff run. They were able to hold a frustrated Sean McVay to 23 points on five red zone trips, as Jared Goff struggled to hit open receivers and made naive decisions with the ball. They won the turnover battle 3-1, which is going to be tough to do week after week with Nick Foles at quarterback. Pederson seemed to struggle to get the aggressiveness balance right yet again, but the Eagles managed to pull out the game when the Rams lost one possession on a fumbled punt and were stopped in the red zone on their subsequent try.

The Winners and Losers of NFL Week 15 - The Ringer “They’ve got Nick Foles” shouldn’t be a good thing. We saw him struggle in September. There are full years of evidence that Foles isn’t that good at playing quarterback, and just a few odd wins in December, January, and February to support the notion that Foles is an unstoppable clutch god. But it’s December. The mild-mannered backup quarterback just went into the phone booth, and he came out wearing a Super Bowl MVP’s clothes. It’s Nick Foles season.

How a Players-Only Meeting Sparked the Colts’ Recent Turnaround - MMQB While we’re there, a key number from that Eagles win: 30. That’s how many times Philly ran the ball, even with Josh Adams and Wendell Smallwood doing the heavy lifting, and it sure seemed to change the offense’s dynamic. I had a coach who’d played the Eagles a few weeks ago mention to me how hard the running back injuries seemed to be hitting them. What they needed, it seems, was more balance. Sunday night’s performance (31 passes, 30 rushes) went a long way to getting the efficient effort they did from Nick Foles.

Fletcher Cox battles through injury to ruin Jared Goff’s night - NBCSP “Nothing was going to stop me from finishing that game,” Cox said after the game like it was obvious. Nothing. Not only did Cox return to the game, on his first series back in the second quarter, but he also made a huge play. In a contest that featured some of the best pass rushers in the league, including the NFL’s sack leader on the other sideline, Cox in the second quarter picked up the only sack for either team on Sunday night.

Needy Camden families receive holiday baskets from Eagles player foundation - Courier Post A foundation headed by Philadelphia Eagles safety and Super Bowl champ Malcolm Jenkins gives away holiday food baskets and toys in several cities, but on Monday he expanded the program to Camden and with an unexpected personal visit. Fresh off the Eagles plane that landed Monday morning in Philadelphia following a 30-23 win over the Los Angeles Rams just before midnight Sunday, Jenkins arrived by 10 a.m. at the Antioch Baptist Church on Ferry Avenue in Centerville. There he helped wrap food and toy gifts for nearly 140 needy Camden families, working alongside approximately 100 volunteers from city churches, the local government and other organizations.

What kind of person wears a Kenjon Barner jersey? Stories behind the 10 oddest jersey choices at Eagles-Rams - The Athletic “I’m a Chargers fan. I was kind of butt-hurt when the whole thing went down with L.A. and them moving. My roommate at the time was an Eagle fan. He gave me the jersey. I got rid of all my (Chargers) shit. Before they won the Super Bowl, so I’m not a bandwagon jumper! And, it was a free jersey, that’s why I took it.” — Karl

A tradition unlike any other: The Cowboys falling apart down the stretch - Yahoo! Sports OK. How about this for a reality check: These Dallas Cowboys – despite digging themselves out of a hole and smoothing out some rough edges during a five-game winning streak – still look like the same, old franchise that finds a way to fall apart when everything is supposed to be coming together. You can call that a coaching problem. You can blame some talent holes. You can curse the decades of Jerry Jones failures. But whatever you do, don’t call this team anything different than so many others that have teased the fanbase and then collapsed when it mattered most. That’s the reality, and here is the check: Until Dallas proves it’s capable of something different than the decades of frustration we’ve come to know, assume this kind of loss. Where the only silver lining is reaching for a suggestion that getting beaten down on the road against a good (but not great) team is somehow precisely what the franchise needed.

Looks Like Someone Has a Sixpack of the Mondays - Hogs Haven Before we talk about that potential victory, let’s give Josh Johnson some love. The 32-year old (because apparently the Redskins aren’t allowed to have quarterbacks younger than 32) played well enough to help the team get a win. What he lacks in “established success” and “pedigree,” he makes up for with effort and passion. Because of the money wrapped up in Alex Smith, and because Colt McCoy is likely to be the projected starter in September 2019, the Redskins are in need of a cheap option to consider going into camp next summer. Someone was/is going to be able to play their way into at least those plans. If Josh Johnson manages to helm this Redskins team to an unexpected playoff appearance, he will have earned the right to come back next summer and compete for a spot. While I am not saying this is the case now, he could even give the team an excuse to not draft a quarterback early in the draft. Maybe...maaaaaaaaayyyyyyybe. The Jaguars defense has not been the top-ranked unit we have seen in recent seasons, but it still has a load of talent and Johnson deserves some love for keeping the offense in the game.

Should Los Angeles Rams fans be hitting the panic button? - Turf Show Times The Rams are 11-3 and I believe, despite what I’ve said up to this, that they have as good a shot as any other team to win the Super Bowl this year. This isn’t the same kind of frustration I’ve felt during the Jeff Fisher, Steve Spagnuolo, Jim Haslett or Scott Linehan eras. This isn’t the hopeless feeling of rooting for a team destined to finish 4-12. This is the fear of watching what is probably the most talented roster in the NFL get dropped in the divisional round. Swept away and forgotten by everyone but us Rams fans. And all we’d be left with is a series of “what-ifs.”

The Cowboys should fire offensive coordinator Scott Linehan while it still matters - SB Nation The Dallas Cowboys were shut out Sunday for the first time since 2003. The 23-0 loss to the Indianapolis Colts took the wind out of the sails of a team that entered Week 15 on a five-game winning streak and comfortably ahead in the NFC East. It’s not panic time, though. The Cowboys are still ahead of Washington and Philadelphia, and finish the year with winnable games against the 5-9 Buccaneers and 5-9 Giants. Winning just one of those games would be enough to lock up the division crown. But some urgency to fix a clear problem is warranted — especially if the Cowboys hope to win in January. It’s time for the Cowboys to fire Scott Linehan. Or rather, it’s long overdue.

...

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Source: https://www.bleedinggreennation.com/2018/12/18/18145955/eagles-news-eli-manning-could-staying-nfc-east-years-giants-philadelphia-quarterback-nfl-new-york

[conorpmaynard]

All Started With a Song Part 12 // Conor Maynard

Word Count- 1982

Summary- Conor sees your cover and contacts you

A/n- (feel free to change the friends name I was just too lazy to write y/f/n that may times) IT’S HERE! bet ya weren’t ready for that plot twist ;)

~~

The night ended with all six of you heading back to the hotel. It wasn’t until about 2 am that the guys left.

“Wait!” you protested as they stood up. “We all need to switch numbers so we can have group chat after we leave!”

“Ok,” Justin laughed as he grabbed your phone.

“Gimme,” you motioned for Tyler to give you his phone.

After everyone had each other’s number, the boys left.

“Alright, I’m going to bed.” you said as you plopped onto the bed.

“Same,” Alice yawned.

“I’m gonna go call Sean,” Olivia grabbed her phone and headed to the balcony.

~~

You three didn’t wake up until about 11 am. And none of you rushed to get ready.

“Hey, I’m gonna call Anth and see what the plan is,” you said as you walked out to the balcony, leaving the other girls to continue getting ready.

After a few rings, Anth picked up. “Hey, Y/n.”

“Hi. What’s up?” you ask, looking at the city below.

“Nothing, just chilling at home.” He sounded hesitant, but you brushed it off. It was probably nothing.

“Do you still want to go to the Santa Monica Pier?”

“Listen, Y/n…” he trailed off.

You laughed, “You can say no.”

“It’s not that…” he said and you began to worry.

“What’s wrong?”

“Y/n, Conor left.”

“What do you mean he left?” your voice cracked.

“He went back to London last night. He was really upset,” Anth was biting his slip almost to the point of drawing blood. He didn’t want either of his friends to be sad. He just wanted them both to realize that they were in love.

“About what?!?!” you yelled, tears threatening to fall. “What could he possibly be upset about?”

“He saw that you were hanging out with another guy,” Anth explained.

“Oh. My. God.” You sighed. “He’s so fucking childish! Maybe if he actually talked to me then he would know he was just a friend.”

“Y/n, just please try to fix this. You guys are perfect for each other.”

“Obviously we’re not Anth!” you began crying. “He plays me like a fucking game. He treats me like crap and then gets mad when I’m not interested anymore!”

“He likes you a lot,” Anth tried to level with you.

“He has a real shit way of showing it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” you yawned. “Sorry for flipping out on you; you didn’t deserve that.”

“It’s okay,” he chuckled. “You still want to go to Santa Monica Pier?”

“Sure,” you smiled even though he couldn’t see it. “Meet us there in an hour.”

~~

You tried. You tired really hard. But you just couldn’t. Every time you weren’t talking, your mind would flood with him. Whether it be his smile, his hair, his voice or anything else. It was him. Always had been and always will be.

You walked down the pier trying to stay tuned in to the conversation, but you just couldn’t. You wanted to see him, feel him, and be with him. And you couldn’t. And that killed you.

You needed him.

“Y/n? You aright, love?” Alice asked, wrapping an arm around your waist.

“Yeah, just a lil homesick,” you plastered on a fake smile.

“C’mon babes,” Olivia smiled. “We’ll be home soon enough.”

So a few more hours were spent at the pier and then you four went out to lunch.

After lunch, you guys arrived at Anth’s apartment at around 2 o’clock.

“So, you girls are leaving tomorrow…” Anth said as you three entered his apartment.

“Yeah, our flights at noon.” Alice frowned.

“I don’t wanna leave,” Olivia pouted.

“Same, but I couldn’t stay here forever.” You said, sitting on the floor.

“I could, 100%. This place is like paradise,” Alice laughed.

“Have you ever considered moving to London?” Olivia asked Anth.

“Yeah,” he chuckled. “I have actually. But I’m super close with my family and I couldn’t do that to them. Tours are hard enough as it is.”

“That’s understandable,” you give him a small smile.

“So what do you ladies want to do on your last night in LA?”

“Hmmm, movie night?” Alice suggested.

“Yes! Let’s have a Harry Potter marathon!” Olivia squealed.

“Do you have the Harry Potter movies?” you asked.

Anth gasped and put a hand over his heart, “I am truly offended that you even had to ask.”

Anth put in the first of eight and you four spent the rest of the evening making jokes and reciting entire scenes.

~~

As the fourth movie came to a close, you looked at the time.

“Bloody hell, its two in the morning!” you laughed.

“We better get back and pack,” Alice said.

“Since when are you the responsible type?” Liv giggled, earning a glare from the brunette.

“Do you guys need a ride to the airport?” Anth asked.

“Thanks, but we’d hate for you to go out of or way.” You said.

He laughed, “It’s no big deal, I promise.”

“Wanna help us pack too?” Alice said sarcastically.

“No, but I can keep you company if you like.”

“Sure!” Olivia said. “Let’s use the little time we have left to our advantage.”

“We’re not dying, Liv.” You laughed.

~~

“Who knew packing could be so fun?” you laughed as you shoved a pair of shorts into your suitcase.

Anth had decided to show you girls his playlist; which was lit as hell. You all began singing while he watched you three back your bags.

Anth paused the music, “Its 10:30, you girls should probably be at the airport by now.”

“Just a few more things!” Olivia said, cramming a few more souvenirs into her bag.

“Here,” Alice laughed, grabbing one of the bags. “I can put it in my bag.”

“Thanks,” she sighed.

“C’mon, you’re gonna be lateeeeeeeee.” Anth whined, already halfway out the door.

~~

The ride to the airport was also filled with many good songs. Once you got the airport, the goodbye to Anth was sadder than you expected.

“Thank you,” you cried into Anth’s shoulder. “For trying to help us.”

“Of course,” he hugged you tighter.

After you finally let go of your American friend, you three silently walked to your gate. None of you wanted to leave, but you all three wanted nothing more to be home. The flight back home was filled with sleeping. Alice and Olivia slept the entire way, except for small bathroom breaks. But you, you only slept for a little bit. After a tiny power nap, your mind was racing. You thought of all the things you could do when you got off the plane. But only one stuck out.

You had to see Conor.

~~

“Do you guys want to go to my place, and just chill before we get back into our daily routine?” Alice asked as you three waited for your Uber.

“I’m down as long as you have wine and pizza,” Olivia smiled.

“Sure, but I have to go somewhere before that.”

“Where?”

You rolled your eyes sarcastically, “I wonder…”

“Do you want us to go with you?” Olivia gave you a heartfelt smile.

“No, this is something I need to do on my own,” you said. “But thank you.”

“Anytime,” she winked.

The Uber ride to Alice’s was normal. You girls quietly chatted until the car had arrived at her place.

“Alright, I’ll be back soon.” you said to the girls and gave the Uber address Conor’s address. The nerves started to rise in your stomach as you grew closer to the apartment. You had no idea what was to come.

~~

You walked up the stairs to his floor and slowly walked to his door. You knocked, and stepped back, heart beating faster than usual.

The door opened and Jack Maynard stood there, a smile quickly approaching his lips.

“So you’re the girl my brother went to America for,” he chuckled, leaving against the door frame.

“Yeah, uh is he here?”

“Yep,” he said, opening the door and motioning for you to come in.

“Conor!” he shouted. “Someone’s here for you!”

You followed him into the living room where Josh was sat on the couch, controller in hand.

“Who’s this?”

“Y/n.”

“Oh. My. God. You’re her?”

“Yeah…” you said slowly, who else knows about you two?

Everyone. Literally everyone, you dumbass.

“Who could possibly be here to see me?” Conor laughed from the hallway.

You and Jack turned around, watching his expression change.

It went from comical, to confusion, to sadness but then settled on anger.

“What do you want?” he said coldly.

You were slightly taken aback, “I want to talk.”

“Why?” he crossed his arm.

“I think you know why,” you looked at him, your heart breaking into a million pieces.

“Fine,” he said and led you to the balcony.

“What do you have to say?” he scolded.

“Okay. First of all, you can lose the attitude. And second of all, I want you to explain.”

“Explain what?” he asked.

“I just want to hear your side of the story.”

“I don’t have one,” he said simply.

“So you can’t tell me why you did what you did? Why you flew all the way to bloody America for me, but then left before actually apologizing?”

“No,” he sighed. “I was just confused. I was jealous, but then I relished that I fucked up. But then I saw you with the other dude. And I just got so angry.”

“What other dude? Clayton?” you asked.

“I don’t know how he is. He was on your Instagram, and he was obviously into you. I just felt unwanted.”

“Really?!?! YOU felt unwanted? Are you fucking kidding me???” you yelled at him. “You treated me like actual shit but got pissed off when I wasn’t still hung up on you! You’re literally the epitome of a fuckboy, yet I can’t help being in love with you! You piss me off more than anything in the world yet you were the first person that I wanted to see when I landed! So don’t you dare say that you felt unwanted?”

“You gave me mixed signals! You would seem interested but when you had picture of you kissing a guy! How was I supposed to know if you were interested or not!!”

“What picture of me kissing someone?”

“The one with the balloon where you’re on his back!”

“Oh my god,” you laughed, yet you were far from showing humor. “That’s my fucking brother, which you would know if you bothered to get to know me!”

He stepped towards you, “I tried! You were the one who got short with me!” he poked you in the chest.

Jack opened the door to the balcony, “Mate, back up.”

“Stay out of this Jack!” he yelled, yet his eyes stayed looked with yours. “You said something. Say it again.” His features softened.

“Which part?” you asked.

“The part where you say you love me,” he said, turning his pointed finger into a flat palm, he wanted to feel your heartbeat.

“I am so incredibly in love with you Conor Maynard.”

“I’m in love with you too, Y/n.” he smiled. “Can I kiss you?”

You giggled, “Of course.”

~~

After you two awkwardly went back into his flat and awkwardly said goodbye to Josh and Jack, you headed over to Alice’s.

You were all lounged around her living room, a pointless show playing in the background.

Conor was deep into an awkward fan story when there was a knock at the door.

“I’ll get it,” Olivia said.

“No! Alice should,” you smiled.

“Wow thanks.” She rolled her eyes but got up nonetheless.

Get up you mouthed at Liv who gave you a questioning look. You two and Conor followed the brunette to the door.

She opened the door and froze. Liv did the same, yet you were smiling ear to ear.

“Brandon?”

[topfics]

Spring Break College!AU with Tyjo

A/N: alright guys so here is the spring break au/headcanon with Tyler. There will be a Josh one too! I will post it only if this post gets to at least 75 notes!!!! Josh will not be posted if it’s any less!!!! So pls REBLOG and spread this around!!!!!!!!

Tyler Joseph

Okay so here’s how spring break would go with TyJo. Y’all would definitely travel somewhere with a beach, I’m thinkin like Hawaii or something?? He would definitely be saving up, and so would you.

Soooooo you would leave school early, like skip a few days of class. You and Ty head to the airport, you having to comfort Tyler all the way because he is an anxious baby.

You soothe him on the plane until he eventually falls asleep, you ending up taking lots and lots of pictures of him, even contemplating drawing on his face with Sharpie. Because why the hELL NOT IT’S SPRING BREAK BABY!!!

But you didn’t because you knew he would hate you and that would make him even more anxious since there’s so many unfamiliar faces on the flight with you guys.

SO as soon as you land in Hawaii, you head straight for the hotel room, changing into your swimsuits and shit. You head straight for one of their beaches, immediately knowing that you want to tan to wash away the cold winter.

You and Tyler set up your towels and lawn chairs that the hotel kindly let you borrow, because I feel like Hawaiians would be super nice like that?? IDK when I went they were!!! But anywhoooooooooo you lie down on your beach towel, smiling to yourself at how good the Hawaiian sun felt on your skin. You put on your sunglasses and sprayed yourself with some sunscreen, just in case you started to burn. After about half an hour, you turn to on your stomach, wanting to give your backside a bit of attention too. You grab the book you had brought on the flight over, deciding to read a few chapters.

Tyler, being the little goon he is, went to the local shack to grab some snacks and a drink for the both of you. He quickly comes back to you, shutting your book and gives you a cheeky grin.

YOU ARE MAD AT HIM BECAUSE YOU WERE AT A REALLY GOOD SPOT!!! YOU HIT HIM PLAYFULLY AND GIVE HIM THE STINK EYE.

“What do you want?!” you would ask suspiciously. And he would giggle to himself like a child.

“Can I turn you into a mermaid….? You know… with the sand…?”

He would stare at you uncomfortably for what felt like a good ten minutes before you caved. You agreed and he went on a high for like half an hour while covering you with sand from your waist down.

He gave you a beautiful tail and even decided to give you scales. He took a few pictures and posted them on Instagram for the whole world to see. He captioned it; “This is my masterpiece.”

OKAY so after the beach, you guys headed out for a nice dinner, and you stuffed your faces with as much food as you could eat. Tyler stole a piece of food from your plate, and you did the same, deciding you guys wanted to switch dinners.

So your trip is pretty much all beach days, and you guys would go to get snow cones and you would go hiking on some of those amazing trails that they have. Maybe go see that volcano like I did!!! Tyler would be an asshole and smash his snow cone on you, making you all cold and sticky with the damn syrup. So you would do the same just to get revenge, and he would chase you around trying to give you a hug.

You both wanted to learn how to surf, so you went to the ocean and you tried your damn best. It was actually embarrassing because you completely BOMBED IT IN FRONT OF THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE!!!! But it’s totally okay because he did the exact same thing and got super frustrated that he kicked his board. You couldn’t help but laugh at the frustration, but you did your best to comfort him by saying that it was just an amazing experience just to try.

After the humiliation finally disappeared from him, you took a boat ride to get to a sandbar nearby. (I did this and it was so fucking fun omg) You saw some sea turtles swimming near your boat, and even some dolphins came to say hello!!! You reached the sandbar after a wild boat ride, and they ended up setting up a volleyball net for people to enjoy.

The trip is winding down, and on the last night, you guys had a luau to go to!!!! You both were adorned with leis and they served DELICIOUS FOOD ALL NIGHT! You felt like you were going to burst with how much food you managed to eat. You pushed Tyler up to the stage when they brought out a ukulele and called for a taker to sing and play His face immediately started turning bright red. You ushered him, giving him positive vibes. You continue to encourage him until he gives in, taking the ukulele. He clears his throat and looks at you. You could tell he was nervous but you knew he would be great. You gave him a big nod, smiling at him. He smiles back slightly at you, taking a deep breath.

He begins to play Can’t Help Falling In Love because you know… ELVIS FUCKING PRESLEY AND HAWAII ARE A GOOD COMBINATION. The dancers begin to hula dance behind him, making a fantastic vibe in the luau area. Couples begin to get up from their table and slow dance, you swayed to the strum. You walk up to the stage and blow him a kiss, smiling brightly. He keeps his eyes on you the whole time he sang.

After he finished, he jumped off the stage, pulling you into his arms and giving you a passionate, yet gentle kiss.

“I love you.” he whispers. And you couldn’t help but grin at the words. “love you too, Tyler Joseph.”

[ratmonologue]

You know the drill, all tHE ASKS

Why

Spotify, SoundCloud, or Pandora? I don’t actually use any of them

is your room messy or clean? Room is okay, but desk looks like a war zone

what color are your eyes? brown

do you like your name? why? Yeah? It’s fairly unique but it’s spelled how it sounds, which is nice. And I’m used to it so

what is your relationship status? in a polyamorous relationship with about a dozen fictional characters

describe your personality in 3 words or less um…. obsessive, spontaneous, triestobeagoodfriendbutidkhowconsistentlyisucceed (that counts as one word right?)

what color hair do you have? brown

what kind of car do you drive? color? 20 years old and don’t have a driver’s licence eyyyy

where do you shop? At stores? Mostly of the grocery variety

how would you describe your style? Pretty casual I guess. Jeans and tanktops/t-shirts, dark colors, boots, army jacket

favorite social media account Does the OT count as social media? If so that

what size bed do you have? Sad little twin-sized mattress with very broken innersprings (yay college apartments)

any siblings? one younger sister

if you can live anywhere in the world where would it be? why? I’m honestly loving Edinburgh so staying here for the time being would be great

favorite snapchat filter? don’t have snapchat, so don’t know

favorite makeup brand(s) whatever’s cheap and doesn’t smudge

how many times a week do you shower? Usually every other day, so, like, 3-4. If it’s hot out then closer to 5-6

favorite tv show? FIREFLY. With additional special mentions to Blackadder, M*A*S*H, and Merlin

shoe size? US size? UK size? European size? CAN YOU TELL I’VE HAD A CONFUSING TIME SHOE SHOPPING OVER HERE??? (US 8, Euro 39, UK a Mystery)

how tall are you? 5′5″

sandals or sneakers? COMBAT BOOTS (but converse are second place so sneakers)

do you go to the gym? pfffft no

describe your dream date A ride in the Millennium Falcon with Han Solo would be pretty cool

how much money do you have in your wallet at the moment? *checks* around £55

what color socks are you wearing? not wearing socks

how many pillows do you sleep with? two

do you have a job? what do you do? college student who really does need to start thinking about an actual job, seeing as how they’re graduating in a few months

how many friends do you have? I think that number really depends on where you draw the what-defines-a-friend line but, um, a decent enough number I guess? I do need more irl friends over here though

whats the worst thing you have ever done? Some high school friends and I were kinda shitty to this one girl in our group, so maybe that. Idk, I’ve done a lot of small-ish terrible things but nothing super dramatic so it’s hard to pick one as the /worst/

whats your favorite candle scent? IKEA had this one green-apple-scented candle that to this day I wish I would have bought.

3 favorite boy names That’s so hard to narrow down and now all I can think of are fictional characters that I like. Um… *throws darts at mental dartboard* Sam, Nathan, Adrian. Although those might be pretty heavily influenced by the fact that I’ve met awesome people with all of those names so. For fictional characters, Kaz Brekker is a fantastic name, as is Han Solo, as is Ronan Lynch, and…. I should stop. There are so many names that I like though

3 favorite girl names Same problem as above. *throws more mental darts* Sierra, Lyra, Clare

favorite actor? I’m currently in watch-everything-that-Diego-Luna-has-ever-been-in mode. More long-term favorites are Harrison Ford and Richard Armitage

favorite actress? Catherine Tate is pretty fantabulous.

who is your celebrity crush? I like how the question asks for “crush,” singular

favorite movie? Raiders of the Lost Ark and Jurassic Park

do you read a lot? whats your favorite book? Not as much as I used to. Favorites (yes, plural) include The Book Thief, Six of Crows, Illuminae, Inkspell, The Dream Thieves, Half Moon Investigations, and so many more…..

money or brains? For me or in others? Either way, both is always nice xD

do you have a nickname? what is it? Well the OT crew knows me as Clary so. My camp counselor name was Coconut

how many times have you been to the hospital? I’ve been to the ER once or twice, but I don’t think I’ve ever stayed overnight in a hospital

top 10 favorite songs How dare you. Okay, um…. *tries to pick from a variety of bands and not just my 1-2 faves* Save Yourself, I’ll Hold Them Back (MCR), Daze (Poets of the Fall), When Everything Comes to an End (Plan Three), Brush it Off (Plan Three), Boulevard of Broken Dreams (Green Day), Morning Tide (PotF), Subrosa (Plan Three), What About Now (Daughtry), Ambulance (MCR), Rogue (PotF)…. that’s ten…. that didn’t even come CLOSE to covering them all (and so much for a variety of bands, heh)

do you take any medications daily? nope

what is your skin type? (oily, dry, etc) Pretty normal? Maybe slightly on the oily side

what is your biggest fear? jellyfish and plane crashes

how many kids do you want? ZERO, ZIP, ZILCH, NADA, NONE, KEINE, NUL. NO THANK YOU.

whats your go to hair style? Well seeing as how my hair’s kinda too short to do much with it, either down or in a partial ponytail

what type of house do you live in? (big, small, etc) grimy old student apartment woohoo

who is your role model? Nina Zenik

what was the last compliment you received? I have no idea

what was the last text you sent? “Honestly though I can’t say I’d mind if he actually did invade my hotel room. He’s one of the few people that could get away with it ;D” …..I’m not sure whether the context would make this better or worse

how old were you when you found out santa wasn’t real? 8, maybe? There was never a dramatic earth-shattering reveal; understanding was kinda gradual

what is your dream car? a spaceship

opinion on smoking? it’s disgusting why would you ever

do you go to college? yes

what is your dream job? underwater archaeologist by day, bestselling novelist by night. space pirate is also an option.

would you rather live in rural areas or the suburbs? Can I just say smack-dab in the city center? Is that not an option? Because that’s where I am now and I’m loving it.

do you take shampoo and conditioner bottles from hotels? No but the last hotels I was in provided instant tea/coffee/hot chocolate packets and I stole all the hot chocolate packets

do you have freckles? no

do you smile for pictures? usually

how many pictures do you have on your phone? 1248. I need to delete a bunch.

have you ever peed in the woods? Yes, many times. I’ve also peed in the desert many times.

do you still watch cartoons? Yes, although different ones than from when I was a kid

do you prefer chicken nuggets from Wendy’s or McDonalds? Neither, honestly

Favorite dipping sauce? There’s this one place in San Francisco whose french fries are, like, award-winning and they have a zillion dipping sauces, one of which is a lemon saffron aioli and it is heavenly.

what do you wear to bed? a t-shirt and sometimes pants, if it’s cold enough

have you ever won a spelling bee? no but I think I was in the top ten?

what are your hobbies? wasting time, reading, watching movies/tv shows, writing and drawing when I have the motivation

can you draw? Kind of?

do you play an instrument? Clarinet for 11 years, plus saxophone, mediocre piano, and mediocre guitar

what was the last concert you saw? Poets of the Fall. I died. Many times over.

tea or coffee? neither honestly, though tea if I absolutely had to pick

Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts? Don’t really care

do you want to get married? If I somehow find a way to make fictional characters come to life, sure

what is your crush’s first and last initial? S.B.

are you going to change your last name when you get married? Unless I marry someone with an impossibly cool last name, no

what color looks best on you? probably black. purple and olive green look good too

do you miss anyone right now? The SOAR Squad

do you sleep with your door open or closed? Considering I share an apartment with five other students, closed, always

do you believe in ghosts? not really, no

what is your biggest pet peeve? When people are unwilling to look facts in the eye

last person you called? Maybe my mom?

favorite ice cream flavor? COOKIE DOUGH

regular oreos or golden oreos? Does golden mean no chocolate? If so then regular, why would you take away chocolate

chocolate or rainbow sprinkles? always chocolate

what shirt are you wearing? a purple one that for once isn’t fandom related

what is your phone background? Sir Gwaine in sunglasses

are you outgoing or shy? It honestly depends. I think I’ve gotten a lot better at pretending to be outgoing

do you like it when people play with your hair? Depends who that person is

do you like your neighbors? I’m gonna interpret this as apartment-mates and while I don’t really know them too well yeah they seem pretty alright

do you wash your face? at night? in the morning? Whenever I shower

have you ever been high? Only on sugar and sleep deprivation

have you ever been drunk? Yes, but not enough to black out or give me a hangover

last thing you ate? Cheesy bacon-ey mushroom-ey salsa-ey scrambled eggs

favorite lyrics right now “And now assassination is just the only waaaaayyyyyy…..” by the cowboys in Dr. Horrible

summer or winter? Winter if there’s snow, but summer’s great too. idk

day or night? Night

dark, milk, or white chocolate? All of the above?

favorite month? October has the best weather

what is your zodiac sign? go away

who was the last person you cried in front of? My friend Josh (some of you might know him as medieval dude 1.0) because I went to see Rogue One with him

[aion-rsa]

The Blair Witch Project to Skyman: How Director Daniel Myrick Came Full Circle With His New Sci-Fi

https://ift.tt/2CyBT8K

“Blair Witch, which I consider incredibly fortunate to have been a part of, does come with its own set of baggage,” says Daniel Myrick, one half of the duo who made the found footage phenomenon which scared the hell out of audiences when it was released in cinemas in 1999 and went on to change the face of horror as we know it.

We’re chatting (via Zoom) in the context of Myrick’s new movie, Skyman, a documentary style sci-fi which feels like it could be real, featuring elements of found footage and starring relative unknowns Michael Selle and Nicolette Sweeney, who play Carl Merriweather and his sister Gina. Carl believes he encountered an alien when he was just 10 years old and he’s convinced the being he calls the ‘Skyman’ is going to return for him on his 40th birthday. Along with a documentary film crew, Carl, his sister, and their friend Marcus (Faleolo Alailima) venture to the tricked out shelter in the desert where the encounter took place all those decades ago.

It’s easy to see parallels between Skyman and The Blair Witch Project – both are low budget, with a small cast, shot on location and in documentary style. It was something that Myrick was very aware of when he was developing the script. 

“Even though I felt intrinsically drawn to the documentary form for Skyman I was very conscious of people making direct comparisons to Blair,” he says. 

“I have three versions of the script. I’ve got one that’s a straight-up scripted narrative, I’ve got another version that is a complete found footage version, where it’s just all Carl’s found footage. And then I’ve got the one I ultimately shot, which is sort of an Errol Morris-style documentary following a character, and drawing my own conclusions, both consciously and subconsciously with the way I put the film together.”

Similarities aside, Skyman is tonally very different. Though the marketing material positions this squarely as hard science fiction the end result is more like a sympathetic character study. 

“I wanted to look into the life of a lot of these ‘experiencers’ and people that we would normally write off and maybe dismiss at first glance,” says Myrick. “Carl, I think, represents a subculture of experiencers that, even if you don’t believe what they say is real, they believe it, and it has a huge impact on their lives and their families’ lives. I thought it was a different take on the UFO genre and not necessarily a procedural or whether they’re real or not that we’ve seen a million times. I wanted to take more of a character approach to it.”

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Skyman is a portrait of Carl. He’s a bit of an outsider. He’s a smart guy who can fix things but he’s also a little bit odd. He sincerely believes aliens made contact when he was just a child but it’s clear Carl is haunted not just by this experience but by the passing of his and Gina’s father and the stress of trying to connect with and support their mother who is now in a care home. 

Myrick knew what he was looking for – or rather what he definitely didn’t want – when he held open auditions for the role of Carl – a part which would make or break the film.

“What I wanted to avoid is the typical or stereotypical wacko that you see oftentimes portrayed as UFO experiencers,” he says. “What I thought was important is that you had to like Carl. Whether you believed in him or not, you had to like him, you had to find him somewhat endearing. He has a little bit of Asperger’s going on so I needed an actor that could play that and all his subtleties and not come off as an over-the-top Rain Man in that.”

Selle nails it, as does Sweeney as the fierce, funny, sister who teases Carl but loves him and sees him clearer than anyone. While Skyman, like Blair Witch, is a journey of three people into the unknown, rather than venturing deeper into a feral, folk horror forest until they are impossibly lost, Carl, Gina and Marcus travel to the wide open spaces of the desert, a place which is, as Myrick rather beautifully puts it, “a vast openness blanketed by stars that are so vivid, you can almost reach out and touch them.”

It’s a very spiritual place for many people, he explains. Myrick seems particularly interested in spirituality, or rather belief, whether that’s in UFOs, ghosts, religion, myth, or anything else – our need to believe there is something more than us out there. 

When Myrick was a kid he had a UFO club with his friends where they would research ufology, Roswell, Area 51 and the like. It was around the time when Close Encounters of the Third Kind came out, “so it really tapped into my imagination as a kid – I wanted to ride on a spaceship!” he laughs.

“But as time moves on you start to become more realistic about whether or not there’s little green men living in your backyard,” Myrick says. He’s certainly not ruling out the possibility of intelligent life on other planets but he says what fascinates him more is why people are drawn to it.

“What is it about this subculture and the similarities between the need for explanation in ufology and the need for explanation in religion? There’s a lot of overlap there. We also have to be careful as individuals not to come in with too much preconception of someone we see. It’s easy to polarize and cast generalities on people.”

There’s no more polarizing moment in Skyman than when Carl’s journey takes him to a UFO convention, in search of the truth but also to meet like minded people. These scenes were shot at a real UFO convention and Myrick tells us that in some of these sequences it was just Selle and Myrick and the camera, really getting a sense of intimacy against the backdrop of the busy carnival-like celebrations.

“I wanted to get across that Carl isn’t the festival type of guy. He’s not there to check the parade out or enter the alien costume contest. He’s there to really seek answers,” Myrick explains. While Carl’s there he’s mockingly interviewed for a blog and declares that it’s good to know that he’s not alone, in a sequence where to the viewer he’s never looked more alone.

“Going with unknown actors and taking this approach to it, I felt made the film more intimate and more sincere,” explains Myrick, and he’s right – like with Blair Witch, the subtle and completely convincing performances are what gives the film such pathos.

When The Blair Witch Project arrived, premiering at Sundance, the marketing material tried to convince audiences that Heather, Mike, and Josh really were missing. The actors had to genuinely pretend to be dead. While Skyman definitely has a real life vibe there’s no serious pretence that it’s actually real. In fact it’s debatable whether another Blair Witch could ever really exist in this day and age.

“I mean, I never say never,” says Myrick when we pose this. “Paranormal Activity came out 10 years later and blew everybody away, which was its own phenomenon arguably.” Paranormal Activity certainly started its own found footage boom and deserves a spot in the horror pantheon but whether it’s as culturally significant as Blair Witch is another matter. 

Heather Donahue has certainly talked about the down side to her sudden shot to fame at the same time as having to play dead, but for Myrick, who was making his debut with Blair, there were different consequences.

“Yeah, it was quite the whirlwind. I think Ed Sanchez, who co-directed it with me, and I were … we were ill-prepared for how big it became. I mean, if you could pick a film that was smaller by design that ended up being bigger in the consciousness of the culture, you couldn’t find anything bigger than Blair Witch,” he recalls. “I remember joking with Ed. We were in a little crappy office in Orlando, and Blair Witch was really hitting its stride at the box office. And I had the box of these 12 little videotapes that were the raw footage of the movie. I said, ‘This is what this is all about. These stupid little videotapes.’”

12 little videotapes that changed the face of horror and the careers of Myrick and Sanchez almost overnight.

“We had hoped that we would make a movie that would be a calling card project,” he says. “When we got into Sundance, we thought we hit the motherlode and maybe we could get a project or another gig out of it. Our primary concern at the time was just to get the investors’ money back and move onto the next project.”

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They ended up getting much more than that.

“Nobody anticipated how big it would become. I know at Sundance, we started getting an indication it was going to be pretty popular. The whirlwind started building there at Sundance in the industry. But it wasn’t until Cannes, I think, for me, that it became much bigger than ourselves, that suddenly it was international.”

Myrick recalls being on a panel at Cannes in the South of France, right on the beachfront, with Spike Lee and John Sayles in the same line up. “We were like, ‘What are we doing here? We have no idea,’” he laughs, saying that he and Sanchez spent a lot of time on planes for the next couple of years. They were the golden children of low budget, high impact horror, and that involved getting sent a lot of bad scripts. 

“They wanted us to direct Exorcist 4, which I didn’t want to touch with a 10-foot pole,” Myrick says. 

 “Artisan, at the time, that bought Blair Witch, wanted us to do a sequel, and offered a lot of money for us to do it. Ed and I felt that it just was too soon, and we wanted some of the hype to die down for a couple of years and revisit some of the other ideas that we had on the Blair Witch mythology and explore some of the backstory. But Artisan had other plans.”

Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows followed just a year later in 2000 with neither Myrick or Sanchez behind the camera. It was a meta-horror in a completely different style to the original which imagined fans of The Blair Witch Project, the movie, travelling to Burkittsville to investigate the story. Director Joe Berlinger was bought in – Berlinger would later make his name as a documentarian, mostly recently making excellent series The Ted Bundy Tapes, and less successful Bundy dramatization Extremely Evil, Shockingly Wicked and Vile. Book of Shadows had a much bigger budget and in no way replicated the success of the original, either critically or in terms of box office.

“The pressure’s very high to continue the money machine for Hollywood, and they don’t really care too much about your creative whims and what’s inspiring you and what you’re passionate about,” Myrick says. 

“It’s one of those things that you get pigeonholed in, and it’s hard to get out of. Especially when they’re throwing money at you and saying, ‘Do this or that.’ It’s tough to say no when you’ve been broke most of your adult life, having to make these choices.”

Instead Myrick moved to Hollywood to forge his own path. Teamed with a couple of studio producers he struck a deal with Warner Home Video where he made six features back to back – movies he describes as Twilight Zone-esque.

“On paper, it’s like a great setup, where we had six films funded, and we write the stories ourselves, but they all had to fit within this kind of marketing box, that Warner DVD wanted us to be within. Naively, I thought ‘Oh, I can make that work, and I can get my vision on the screen’ but it was a rude awakening. You realize that you don’t even get to choose your own title of the film or what the poster looks like or how it gets marketed. They were successful efforts. There’s nothing against that period of time, but I also felt it was very restricting for me. I’m just not good when I don’t have control over my own destiny.”

The Blair Witch legacy wasn’t over then, and perhaps it’s not over yet. 2016 saw the surprise announcement that a mysterious Lionsgate horror called ‘The Woods’ was actually a direct sequel to The Blair Witch Project, entitled simply Blair Witch. Myrick was involved as executive producer and says it’s his favorite interpretation so far, because it doesn’t mess with the mythology of the original. Though the movie wasn’t especially successful Myrick isn’t ruling out a wider Blair Witch expanded universe – and even one he might want to be involved in more directly.

“I would love to do a black-and-white noir Rustin Parr period piece, which I think would be super-creepy,” he says. ‘It’s a bit of a risk, right? Lionsgate, who owns the rights now, would have to go, “All right, Dan, go do your black-and-white noir.’ But it would be cool. I don’t know a Blair Witch fan that I haven’t mentioned a black-and-white Rustin Parr story to, that doesn’t go, ‘Oh, man, I’d go check that out.’”

Oh man. We would go check that out.

More than 20 years on and Myrick has of course matured as a director but there are lessons he says he has learned back from his days on Blair Witch. Namely that a film taking on a life of its own is something to be celebrated and not fought.

“That is a big thing that I learned, especially through Blair Witch, which was an experiment in its own right and tossed out a lot of the rules we were taught in film school about how to direct and how to position the camera and lighting. All that got thrown out, so it really forced you to, in a way, un-direct – to allow the process to happen and recognize when it’s going right and when it’s going wrong, but not be your own worst enemy, trying to steer it too much.”

Perhaps this is part of the key to the special ‘realness’ that comes across in both The Blair Witch Project and Skyman, as different as the two might be. Whether you see similarities in the content and style, what definitely links the two is that they are personal and they are Myrick’s own, through and through. They are passion projects, and they are what he wants to make.

“I’ve just seen too many people in Hollywood, making a ton of money, absolutely miserable making movies, and I never wanted to be that person,” he says. “I would rather live more humbly and make smaller films and have a blast doing it, like we did with Skyman. I can die a happy man if that’s all I get to do.”

The post The Blair Witch Project to Skyman: How Director Daniel Myrick Came Full Circle With His New Sci-Fi appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[top1course]

How To Create “Generational Wealth” w/ TRILLION Dollar Man – Dan Peña

Well then I mean I’m thrilled that you’re here, after so many years that were in the trophy room a lot of dead things in this room, and I’m looking forward to being with your group in 10 days, and maybe I’ll add a header to, from assembly, pictures, but seriously I’m looking forward to it, and for you to come back after all these years and see, such a dramatic difference, and at a seminar we were teasing me saying, when you were here, that was from 456 of you I gave you the information, i pounded for a week or so and then I kicked in the butt kicked out the door, no Mentor program no nothing no nothing you just did, just made it on your own and a lot of guys didn’t make it on their own, and so, cuz now, other than hold their hand when they’re taking a pee, I mean they have all this stuff that’s, it’s in the process of cyst, procedures, and templates after, the templates, mm slides and documents after document, why is my remarkable, 10 years later but it’s, am I, silent 27th year, it is quite remarkable and the fact that you saw on the webinars, the last of the second the second to the last guy, that was one of my current success stories, the Canadian even though I teased the Canadian, he’s making it happen, and when you guys go back on your 124, let’s go back to Canada there’s no competition, and it ain’t creating now you know what generational wealth, and you’ve already been a super success and now you’ve come back to, put some fine edges on your model, and to grow it based on your previous, success and based on your previous and current and future brand I mean you’re going to knock, Correct D1 you said that, i’m so familiar, immerse my, watch the video listen to audio, hundred, but, the castle seven, when I can, and I’m shocked, but how young, 20 something, 17 years, i’m doing deals, i’m from, man woman, from all walks of life, different backgrounds right, the different backgrounds, cretin, and the, and I kind of Shame, when we saw the 17 18 19 20 rolls, doing this you know I’m kind of Shame the older generation, hawaii demographics have changed, when you were here at there was a 35, and now it’s 15, 235, and we have a profound preponderance, avion kids, and you were actually the average age, abu, the oldest was 55, youngest was 18 in this group, and as averages a37, and it it’s quite remarkable and ever we had a lot of Canadians, in this group and we had five women which is not normal, they don’t know me at 5 we don’t have one to maximum 3, But the opportunities Hill.

As I said interest rates are the lowest rate in 5,000 years and they’re literally throwing money out the door at your group having to be, we are just at the ideal time because, 75% of all commercial bank loans are made the last 90 days of the counter deer and will why is it easier, videos at the end of the year, because the banks want to pay bonuses, i took a Bank employees is that, ionians, familiar with, it sometimes, see maybe beat, deals on, and they think I don’t know if, sometimes, oasis, about, you know self-esteem, and that’s part of it, but can you walk assuage, what’s the, as you mentioned it so, a commercial., that base model that I copied off of Andrew Carnegie, did he get a hundred years ago, and the old man, Acquainted. It was just out from down the road, ian Scotland he didn’t like Equity investors because it would reduce his ownership, so he did everything humanly possible just to borrow, money from Commercial Bank, and what it is we’re buying businesses to motivated sellers, motivational Normani mom-and-pop, from 1 to 325 million dollars in Revenue total revenue whereas, totally Finance from a bank and if the bank that cannot be covered by the existing free cash flow, then we had a great commercial debt like a Royal Bank of Canada Bank of America whatever, and they are we’re buying these and the kids, are creating generational wealth, well that we normally take 20-25 years, create and 3 to 7 years, 3 years if they do everything right, 7 years of alien, f****** something, and I’m currently am I poster child, is that an out 21 year old but he was 17 year old, josh camaquin kid, who is going to be a multi-millionaire, By riding his own jet plane now, he came to me, as a 17 year old had a 15 speed bicycle, that only after they had that was as collateral for the loan, and we’re buying in various areas, healthcare Telco, are the two hottest areas in Tellico has morphed into, cyber security, internet internet, exactly but Healthcare, it’s hot, i bet I mean is all kinds of species that are hot but slightly sarcastic, mortuary, crematoriums, funeral homes, are all hot assisted living is the hottest and we called bedpans the lowest level, an assisted living place in Country Club Assisted Living where they have golf courses tennis courts, basketball courts, all the way down to bed pans weather, poor old people in a in a room, and the doctor comes at once or twice a week Assisted Living especially for healthcare, my generation is going to die, And you spend, whatever my day and their families, cars mini whatever money the team alive to big success stories of my panties, one restaurant, the current senator of, state of Florida where I was born, he started, columbia Healthcare what’s going to be the largest Healthcare company in the world back in the late 80s early 90s, and here in Britain, we were the founders of the idea, four Seasons Healthcare, which was the largest Healthcare roll up, assisted Living, and you’re up, and again another one of my manatees was at the Forefront of that and those videos of the hundreds of millions and billions, but there is much smaller deal, that have been done in the middle, and the kids would no money of Their Own, that’s the key, no money of Their Own, fairly quickly build up net worth of several million dollars, Are you ready Canadian kid today.

On the webinar, from Toronto I believe it’s been gone from the seminar 37 days, your head to the seminar in July is knocking it out of the park he should complete his, his first acquisition in the next few weeks, any just attended East 34 years old, father of 75, and he saw me, truview, a lot of the kids see me through you can back in the group that it was here several of the kids are here because of you speak favorably, i mean they wanted me to high-tech his clothes in Coolmath with him, pennsylvania, then we talked about, my relationship with you, we showed some pictures of you 2003, wedge, is hard to believe that was you, but I know it was you because you hear some glasses, pimple face, and on the 13th request when my secretary said yes, which is a diopter, To say, understand like I was a kid, i got nothing to, to offer, you know what this, any wasn’t, anyone sing like, cleveland, not the, oh I spend 5 minutes with, we spend at, dragon breath, intense times, very valuable, didn’t notice, from Adam, the offer, but it’s, just to me it was, turning point of my, it’s almost like, having in, i believe in you, cuz I don’t like, beetling believe, tractor, what to do, you got some for 10, dolly Parton, well and Anna and I was fortunate that I am considered a good pic of talent, and I’m a good pic of Rothschild, but I saw that first of all you made the commitment to fly down, and I didn’t even think about the cost of the airline, didn’t even dawn on me because beds, that was not a a small speed bump for you, but you got down there and we had breakfast, Is a couple of a couple hours, and you did, much of what I suggested and we kept in contact over the years, ultimately a few years later, what kind of sandwich you know you’ve been one of the price of my mentorship and, my Association, baybayin, extremely successful your brand is a big f****** deal, and if I don’t say so myself, and into people I do, i’ve indirectly touched minions, oh yeah because you’ve touched, how do you stand to smell the leather, abilities, you’re picking up the phone right, fancy it just do closing, what is the same, spirit, cracked, it’s almost like, qla basic moon phases, the kindergarten, and the fact that you not attempted but you, brought to fruition being all you can be, and that’s the basic Ula, and you hear it in your voice you hear it in your whole grams I watch your videos of the kids don’t believe in them, Enough, you think that they could aspire to doing some of the things that you’ve done, and then you got it, what they don’t realize is that you were them, okay that’s hard for them to Grass because now they see where you are, today correct, imagine, how f***** up, we all buy a pair, and you will challenge, whatever whatever you believe, house, the program, looking for you, oh well they my dad was a believe in tough love, he transcended tough love to get whacked a lot, i deserved all the beatings I got I’m not complaining about that, but in today’s environment would be considered, child abuse continues to beat me up, but the the kids that we have live bubble wrap lives, the kids did you know I had really no week, Week week.

Saab, 11 parents of Love got the job done, we would be having Wars, if love got the job done, and religion in love got the job done today that would be the stripes, any battles around the world, but, my father used to ask his brother and sister, when they said Manny, my father’s first name, angelita Ruffin, come back and waist sister day, well how’s your crack w**** daughter doing, how’s your program with her working out, and how is your jail written son, to his brother about his son how is your phone working, and even though my dad was very harsh on me, is Pokemon, and I’ve been here a long time, and the one time they visited for a few days, and we’re walking we walked into the drawing-room what you’ve been in, and I got my arm around the shoulder and he looks at me and he says, Just tell me it’s not drugs, because the only thing that he can relate to, that made that much money that quickly, had to be drug-related, has to be legal, it’s kind of addictive but their your legal fees legal, and so that’s he was happy as hell but I mean your programs for the kids are watching age, how’s your program workout, how do self help for personal development workout for you, probably not too well, the only thing that probably is a workout for you, is Euro training to Dan here, and high ticket closing, i mean that’s that’s that’s why the kids wasn’t it so much, could you give me an opportunity to make, my name is super six figures, that’s a big number, the most people, most of their parents in Nexus player, and when we’re at the black tie event in a week or ten days I’m looking forward to what I’ve looked at the video from last year, How they’re all going crazy and how you’re throwing money Adam and, and yoga are you going to get my car and all that, i’m looking forward to that end and help, lift their self esteem, little b******, has come forward, and you know and and give them their money’s worth, give me a good joke, and a but I mean, i started sales you and I were late because I started the sale, how does cells help, it seems to me, the ones who have, natural, salesman, south woman, play tent, oh absolutely, because they understand rejection, they understand cold calling, okay numbers gave me understand that unless you’ve been through some kind of sales process you don’t understand that, i don’t understand, and the first time somebody hang the phone up on you or says no to you, And I you take it personally, and it’s not what happens to us in life, it’s how we interpret what happens to us in life, anna and salespeople know that you’ve got to take it to a lottery Jackson, a lot of nose, now the better you are the sales person, the better the closer you are, get last node, directions work, i even get nose and I consider myself a world-class salesman, i mean I get nose I get a rejection, but there are much fewer than when I started my career, you know decades ago, and I ended up getting back to the sales Visa V the qla, the more you can handle the rejection the more you can handle, the other nose, to get to the yeses, how are the probability you going to be all you can be, Sooner than later and that’s why.

Salespeople, the guys in the gals do much better in the beginning especially, because they’re used to, make a note sales calls never made a sales call, canova’s, anxiety, did you tell her you need a lot of, lawsuit, yep, 28cm is not different not all that different selling a product, selling the furniture, institution, and I think, most difficult thing is, because when we selling the product, we could say hey, this is the product this is, good or bad whatever, bacio a whistling noise, correctly put ourselves on the line, when we are pushing a board member, it’s a yes or no they’re not saying yes or no, to a product and yes, correct, adding decimals, correct and that we have two bank accounts in life we have emotional bank account we have a financial bank, most people are taught by their parents wrongly said that you should be more concerned about your financial bank, That’s not the one that your emotional baggage how well do you take, when things don’t go your way, how well do you take when your back’s against the wall and you got to perform, i ended the bigger your emotional bank account, ultimately the financial bank, following creates, generational welfare yourself we’ve been out of 26 years, we created a 775 billion dollars, trulia, 50 billion dollar man suit, but the, fast approaching a trillion dollars, and I’m here to stay until I reach a trillion dollars, and as I said during summer I’ve got three or four guys and gals still working on 23 billion dollar deal, that I’m obviously keeping my fingers crossed weather January 18th in London at the Sofitel Hotel, it’s the first time and I will have given, outside this Castle, in 20 years, The century to try to keep up with demand because our seminars are all sold out this year, and right now I’m holding back, my gunpowder I’m saying when mr. Trump gets re-elected if asked I Will Survive got the two movies, three documentaries and two books, that I’m studying with I’m going to go forward and that’s all out of work, okay, dental Works, consider a sphere lucky, vacuum, thank you in it and it’s great to have you and, and your wife and, and Desmond here I take a lot of time out of your schedule and I’m looking forward to you guys when you come back for the hardcore, jasmine Lister, the night’s not over so I’m not making any promises, choking, but I’m sure some of the b****** in your, remind me choking him program, has strict parameters, hi benchmarks because what gets measured gets a cop, And and we we could type measurement, on the kids as they go through the mentor program watch this, the seminar ends today, and when you go back to your homes are all over the world got a great group and they is my job my time, ask my Endeavor to keep you headed towards to go high for these next months, why you’re in the mentor program our relationship supersedes at because we’ve known each other a long time I get excited, window and when I see these things accomplished, and I just had my 74th birthday in the Paul I’m still fit I’m still healthy and I plan on doing this as long as I’m healthy and, until I reach a trillion dollars, okay, and I’m sure that the my house though hold-ups it’s been a lot of fun it’s this room, is remanence, the previous life and I used to be a professional Hunter cuz I’m not anymore I haven’t killed any, Animals in almost thirty years it’s very significant in.

That was a benchmark in my life now a trillion dollars is a big part of my life to seeing you so damn successful, is another Benchmark in my life, i’m into they said that I can assist you and moving forward as we discussed this week, you know you can count on me and the first step will be, for me to attend your seminar Sallie Mae Yorkshire why but they had some fun jumping, stage, choking some of those little s***,

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The Linc - Eli Manning could be staying in the NFC East for “years” to come

Let’s get to the Philadelphia Eagles links ...

Pat Shurmur still thinks Eli Manning has years left as a quarterback - Big Blue View Shurmur was asked if, as he indicated when he was first hired, he believes Manning still has “years” of productive play left. His answer? “Yes, I do.” Finally, Shurmur was asked why he believes that. His answer? “Because I’ve seen him play good football, and I’ve seen how when we have a coordinated effort of protecting him, running the football effectively, and being able to run the ball throughout the game, it helps us. We threw the ball more than I would have liked to in the game that was really one score, but seven of those throws were two-minute before the half, and then there were 15 in the fourth quarter when we were down by 17. That skews the numbers. The important thing about yesterday in our coordinated effort was we didn’t get enough out of the runs when we chose to run the ball.” All of that certainly sounds like a coach willing to cast his lot with Manning again next season.

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10 thoughts on the Eagles’ huge win over the Rams - BGN The Eagles don’t have a quarterback controversy. Carson Wentz is still very much the Eagles’ franchise quarterback. He’s the long-term answer at the position. Go back and watch his 2017 tape if you need to remember why that’s the case. In the short-term, though, Foles should probably continue to start for the Eagles. If Wentz was healthy, he should be the one starting. The problem is he’s not healthy right now. Wentz’s back fracture requires three months to heal, according to Pederson. The Eagles should just rest him and roll with Foles.

At the Podium #15: A “Complete Team Game” - BGN Radio A new voice graces the At the Podium series with new starting quarterback Nick Foles in the rotation. He and Doug Pederson both talk about the Eagles playing a complete team game for 60 minutes in their upset of the Rams. In total 3 pressers included: Doug after the game, Foles after the game, and Pederson the next morning. FLY EAGLES FLY! Powered by SB Nation and Bleeding Green Nation.

Handing out 10 awards from the Eagles-Rams game - PhillyVoice Jim Schwartz has been out-coached a few times this season, but on Sunday night he had Sean McVay’s number. He dialed up blitzes at the perfect moments, and helped fluster and confuse Goff all game long. McVay, the (cough) 2017 NFL Coach of the Year, had some questionable moments. To begin, he messed up clock management late in the fourth quarter. And worse, he didn’t go for two with the Rams down eight after they scored a touchdown to draw within one score. Earlier in the season, Doug Pederson was in the same situation, and he explained the bulletproof logic in going for two in that scenario.

There is Hope - Iggles Blitz The Eagles have now won three out of their last four games. The only loss was at Dallas and we know that game could have been very different if the officials gave the Eagles the ball at the 16-yard line after the opening kickoff. That didn’t happen and the Eagles never could completely get their feet under them in that game. Injuries have significantly hurt this team and the Eagles aren’t going to play at the same level as last year. We can talk about Next Man Up and toughness and chemistry, but at a certain point you just don’t have enough talented players. Getting Avonte Maddox back made a real difference in the secondary. That gave the Eagles a competent CB. If the Eagles could get back Jordan Hicks, Tim Jernigan and Sidney Jones, the defense could take another step forward.

Explaining The QB Picture; Leftover Notes From Sunday - PE.com While Wentz remains the starting quarterback here – and there is no gray area at all in Pederson’s mind – the short term (meaning Sunday against Houston) belongs to Foles. The Texans are powerful up front defensively with J.J. Watt and Jadeveon Clowney on the edges, so Foles and the offense will see a whole new set of challenges against a 10-4 team. The long term belongs to Wentz – if the Eagles make the playoffs and Wentz is healthy, he likely starts, and he’s certainly the starter in 2019 and for many years after that.

Avonte Maddox: A Skeleton Key For Eagles Defense - The Draft Network What is Avonte Maddox in the healthy Philadelphia Eagle secondary? I’m not too sure, but I do know this: it’s not your average rookie, who can start at three different alignments (two of which he didn’t even dabble in in college) and provide quality reps from each position. Your average rookie corner doesn’t even hold his water against the Rams if he A) has been starting on the outside all season and B) was drafted in the early rounds! Maddox has been an absolute gem for Philadelphia — arguably the highest-impact draft pick they’ve had since Carson Wentz back in the 2016 class. He has more than earned a starting role somewhere next season — I’d imagine at nickel corner — but more than that, he has held this threadbare defense together long enough, well enough, and just strongly enough the Eagles playoff hopes are still alive.

The NFL’s biggest surprises, and who could copy them in 2019 - ESPN The Eagles have a 28.8 percent chance of making the postseason, and while they’re left with a pair of winnable games against Houston and Washington, I’m not sure that the formula we saw Sunday is something Philly could sustain into a long playoff run. They were able to hold a frustrated Sean McVay to 23 points on five red zone trips, as Jared Goff struggled to hit open receivers and made naive decisions with the ball. They won the turnover battle 3-1, which is going to be tough to do week after week with Nick Foles at quarterback. Pederson seemed to struggle to get the aggressiveness balance right yet again, but the Eagles managed to pull out the game when the Rams lost one possession on a fumbled punt and were stopped in the red zone on their subsequent try.

The Winners and Losers of NFL Week 15 - The Ringer “They’ve got Nick Foles” shouldn’t be a good thing. We saw him struggle in September. There are full years of evidence that Foles isn’t that good at playing quarterback, and just a few odd wins in December, January, and February to support the notion that Foles is an unstoppable clutch god. But it’s December. The mild-mannered backup quarterback just went into the phone booth, and he came out wearing a Super Bowl MVP’s clothes. It’s Nick Foles season.

How a Players-Only Meeting Sparked the Colts’ Recent Turnaround - MMQB While we’re there, a key number from that Eagles win: 30. That’s how many times Philly ran the ball, even with Josh Adams and Wendell Smallwood doing the heavy lifting, and it sure seemed to change the offense’s dynamic. I had a coach who’d played the Eagles a few weeks ago mention to me how hard the running back injuries seemed to be hitting them. What they needed, it seems, was more balance. Sunday night’s performance (31 passes, 30 rushes) went a long way to getting the efficient effort they did from Nick Foles.

Fletcher Cox battles through injury to ruin Jared Goff’s night - NBCSP “Nothing was going to stop me from finishing that game,” Cox said after the game like it was obvious. Nothing. Not only did Cox return to the game, on his first series back in the second quarter, but he also made a huge play. In a contest that featured some of the best pass rushers in the league, including the NFL’s sack leader on the other sideline, Cox in the second quarter picked up the only sack for either team on Sunday night.

Needy Camden families receive holiday baskets from Eagles player foundation - Courier Post A foundation headed by Philadelphia Eagles safety and Super Bowl champ Malcolm Jenkins gives away holiday food baskets and toys in several cities, but on Monday he expanded the program to Camden and with an unexpected personal visit. Fresh off the Eagles plane that landed Monday morning in Philadelphia following a 30-23 win over the Los Angeles Rams just before midnight Sunday, Jenkins arrived by 10 a.m. at the Antioch Baptist Church on Ferry Avenue in Centerville. There he helped wrap food and toy gifts for nearly 140 needy Camden families, working alongside approximately 100 volunteers from city churches, the local government and other organizations.

What kind of person wears a Kenjon Barner jersey? Stories behind the 10 oddest jersey choices at Eagles-Rams - The Athletic “I’m a Chargers fan. I was kind of butt-hurt when the whole thing went down with L.A. and them moving. My roommate at the time was an Eagle fan. He gave me the jersey. I got rid of all my (Chargers) shit. Before they won the Super Bowl, so I’m not a bandwagon jumper! And, it was a free jersey, that’s why I took it.” — Karl

A tradition unlike any other: The Cowboys falling apart down the stretch - Yahoo! Sports OK. How about this for a reality check: These Dallas Cowboys – despite digging themselves out of a hole and smoothing out some rough edges during a five-game winning streak – still look like the same, old franchise that finds a way to fall apart when everything is supposed to be coming together. You can call that a coaching problem. You can blame some talent holes. You can curse the decades of Jerry Jones failures. But whatever you do, don’t call this team anything different than so many others that have teased the fanbase and then collapsed when it mattered most. That’s the reality, and here is the check: Until Dallas proves it’s capable of something different than the decades of frustration we’ve come to know, assume this kind of loss. Where the only silver lining is reaching for a suggestion that getting beaten down on the road against a good (but not great) team is somehow precisely what the franchise needed.

Looks Like Someone Has a Sixpack of the Mondays - Hogs Haven Before we talk about that potential victory, let’s give Josh Johnson some love. The 32-year old (because apparently the Redskins aren’t allowed to have quarterbacks younger than 32) played well enough to help the team get a win. What he lacks in “established success” and “pedigree,” he makes up for with effort and passion. Because of the money wrapped up in Alex Smith, and because Colt McCoy is likely to be the projected starter in September 2019, the Redskins are in need of a cheap option to consider going into camp next summer. Someone was/is going to be able to play their way into at least those plans. If Josh Johnson manages to helm this Redskins team to an unexpected playoff appearance, he will have earned the right to come back next summer and compete for a spot. While I am not saying this is the case now, he could even give the team an excuse to not draft a quarterback early in the draft. Maybe...maaaaaaaaayyyyyyybe. The Jaguars defense has not been the top-ranked unit we have seen in recent seasons, but it still has a load of talent and Johnson deserves some love for keeping the offense in the game.

Should Los Angeles Rams fans be hitting the panic button? - Turf Show Times The Rams are 11-3 and I believe, despite what I’ve said up to this, that they have as good a shot as any other team to win the Super Bowl this year. This isn’t the same kind of frustration I’ve felt during the Jeff Fisher, Steve Spagnuolo, Jim Haslett or Scott Linehan eras. This isn’t the hopeless feeling of rooting for a team destined to finish 4-12. This is the fear of watching what is probably the most talented roster in the NFL get dropped in the divisional round. Swept away and forgotten by everyone but us Rams fans. And all we’d be left with is a series of “what-ifs.”

The Cowboys should fire offensive coordinator Scott Linehan while it still matters - SB Nation The Dallas Cowboys were shut out Sunday for the first time since 2003. The 23-0 loss to the Indianapolis Colts took the wind out of the sails of a team that entered Week 15 on a five-game winning streak and comfortably ahead in the NFC East. It’s not panic time, though. The Cowboys are still ahead of Washington and Philadelphia, and finish the year with winnable games against the 5-9 Buccaneers and 5-9 Giants. Winning just one of those games would be enough to lock up the division crown. But some urgency to fix a clear problem is warranted — especially if the Cowboys hope to win in January. It’s time for the Cowboys to fire Scott Linehan. Or rather, it’s long overdue.

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