#i know this has to be partially scripted or held back because literally talking about how these people have destroyed their bodies

[do-your-socks-have-holes-in-them]

Til the End of the Night / Ch22: Finale pt. 2

Previous / Masterpost 

Summary: It’s time to go home.

Warnings: same fantasy violence stuff as ever, the emotional aftermath of All That

A/N: it’s f i n i s h e d holy shit i’m done

AO3

~ ~ ~

Virgil did not like the plan. Virgil, in fact, hated the plan, but it was the best they had, so he went along with it- story of his freaking life, lately. He huddled behind the shield with Logan and Patton, who still hadn’t moved after what Virgil had accidentally done to him, and watched as Roman stormed up to the witch again.

She wasn’t even in her dragon form anymore, that was how confident she felt that the fight was over. She smoothed out her clothing and merely smiled at Roman’s approach. “Well?”

“Undo it,” Roman demanded. “Now.”

“Why would I do that? Caring about whether things are fair is more your, ah… personality flaw.”

He glared at her.

“You’re not going to threaten me. There’s nothing you can do.”

“That’s where you’re mistaken, fiend,” said Roman, and threw a potion rather dramatically in her face.

The witch blinked and wiped the liquid away from her eyes. It was clearly taking a lot of restraint to stop herself from just punching Roman in the face, but she managed to keep her dignity. “What,” she bit out, “exactly, what that supposed to do, aside from making me want to kill you even more than I already did? You can’t hurt me. You’re only doing more damage to him.”

Roman smiled back, just as confident suddenly as she’d been a second ago. “Oh, I don’t know… I’d say it worked exactly as intended.”

That was Virgil’s cue- no, literally, Roman had insisted on taking a minute to come up with an actual script for all this. He looked down at Patton, who, thank god, was starting to wake up and open his eyes again and looked a little more alive, if no less unsettlingly empty. That final healing potion had done its job. Logan carefully shifted Patton over to him before scooting back a healthy few inches. Virgil took a steadying breath, placed his hand over Patton’s heart, and looked up to lock eyes with the witch, who had finally realized something was up and shifted her attention to him and Logan. The fear present in her eyes for just a moment was, he had to admit, extremely gratifying. Maybe even worth the effort of getting the timing right, although he was absolutely never letting Roman know he’d had that thought.

“Sorry,” he whispered to Patton, just in case he could hear him and just in case this didn’t work out perfectly. He gritted his teeth and focused, and shot all the offensive magic he could muster directly into his best friend’s chest.

The Dragon Witch screamed, stumbling back. “This isn’t over,” she somehow managed to yell at them all, and then she was gone in a highly ambiguous puff of smoke. Logan and Virgil looked at each other uncertainly before both turning to Roman.

“What did that-”

“Is she-?”

Roman hurried back over to the rest of them. “Don’t worry, she does that every time she’s defeated. I can’t very well kill her off for good if I want to keep using her as a character, although I’ll be very sure to keep better control of things next time.”

“Bold of you to assume I’m letting you anywhere near here after this,” Virgil snapped.

“Bold of you to assume you can stop me,” he shot back, before sighing. “It will… probably be a while before I do come back, though. After this.”

Patton stirred, scrunching his face up in pain and confusion, and everyone went quiet. After a second that felt like an eternity, he opened his eyes and looked up at them.

“Did you win…?”

Roman smiled reassuringly and squeezed his hand. “The witch has been defeated, dear Padre.”

“Oh… good.” He smiled back at all of them and closed his eyes again. This time, the sleep he slipped into was much more peaceful.

“He’ll be okay now,” Logan said quietly, partially to himself and partly for the sake of everyone else’s nerves. “Roman? Please don’t tell me we’re going to need to walk all the way back to the portal we came here through. I’ve run out of materials for healing potions, and… I’m tired.”

“Oh! No, no need to worry yourself about getting back. Now that we’ve resolved this story, the Imagination should just…”

They didn’t get to hear the rest of his sentence, but they also didn’t particularly need it. A bright light filled the room with no visible source, whiting out everything, and there was a feeling almost like falling. When the sides’ vision cleared again, they were no longer in the wrecked throne room of the Dragon Witch’s castle, but clustered together on Roman’s bedroom floor sometime in the middle of the night.

It was… jarring, almost, to be so suddenly back to normal. No, not almost. It was incredibly strange. Their usual outfits had returned, the bag Logan held was once again full of snacks and other supposed essentials, and none of the harm they’d suffered in the fantasy world carried over- they weren’t even dirty. Roman was surely used to this sort of transition, but Logan and Virgil were still struggling to adjust when Patton blinked himself awake and sat up.

“Patton!” Virgil grabbed his hand. “I… are you okay?”

He looked down at himself, brow furrowed. Flexed his hands and patted at his limbs. “I… I guess so? None of that was real. It was just- imaginary.” He laughed, but it didn’t come out quite right. His hands were shaking. “I’m fine.”

“Pat…”

“It’s- I mean, I’m not hurt! None of us… everything is, everything is fine, a-and it was all…”

Roman touched his shoulder, and he flinched. Virgil’s grip on him tightened reflexively. Logan still hadn’t spoken, looking distantly around the room as if trying to memorize it.

“…Hey. Listen to me, okay?” Everyone turned to look at Roman. “I understand… well, first of all, I understand that all of this was… at least somewhat my fault, and I take full responsibility for that. If you want to be angry with me, I only ask that you wait until we’ve all had a nap, because I do not have the energy to get yelled at right now.” He smiled thinly and didn’t quite laugh at his own joke. “But I also need to make sure you all understand that… well, just because it happened in the Imagination, doesn’t mean it wasn’t real to us.”

“As real as anything else that happens in Thomas’s mind,” Logan muttered.

“Exactly. And I know better than anyone that these things can still leave a mark, even if it isn’t physical. What I’m saying is…” He sighed and tugged on Patton and Logan’s sleeves. “Come here.”

“Group hug,” Patton said quietly, leaning in and pulling Virgil with him, and then his breathing hitched and he was crying into Roman’s shirt.

“There you are… there, I know I- I really messed this one up, and I’m…”

“You didn’t know.” Logan’s voice was muffled somewhere in the tangle of a group-hug. “If you had made that happen on purpose, it would be another matter, but… I seem to recall you weren’t enjoying yourself much, either.”

“…No.”

There was a long silence, in which everyone slowly began to calm down and then began to realize how exhausted they were. They were going to be in danger of falling asleep where they were and waking up very uncomfortable if they didn’t get up soon- apparently, tiredness was the one thing that didn’t go away as soon as they returned home. Logan was the first to sigh and sit up, muttering something about going to bed, although he didn’t look any more eager to move than anyone else. The others followed suit and reluctantly gathered themselves in preparation to get off the floor.

Patton stifled a yawn and paused, looking thoughtful. “It wasn’t all bad, though, right? The adventure?”

Virgil looked at him like he’d grown a second head. “We almost died, Patton. A lot.”

“Yeah, but before that… It was fun at the beginning, right? At least a little?”

He exchanged a look with Logan, and they both made vague and begrudging noises of assent.

“A little. Maybe.”

“I thought that little town was really nice,” Patton insisted, and it didn’t escape his notice that Roman perked up from his guilty moping at the compliment. “And… some of the forest, anyway.”

“I could take you back there sometime, I swear it would be safe-”

“Nope,” interrupted Virgil, “don’t even wanna hear you talk about that, no…”

Patton leaned over to Roman and whispered in his ear. “Maybe when we’re all feeling a little better, okay?” He smiled.

Meanwhile, Virgil wasn’t done. “Actually, you know what, I’m not letting any of you out of my sight for like, a week, and you’re all just gonna have to deal with that ‘cause you don’t get a choice.”

No one disagreed.

“You can all stay in here for the night,” Roman suggested. “I’ll just…” He waved a hand behind him, and the bed in the middle of his room, which was already large enough for at least three people and ridiculously luxurious, expanded even further.

Logan nodded slowly, blinking. “Good. Sleep… is good,” he said seriously, clearly needing some very badly himself. Patton covered his mouth with his hand and pretended to be yawning again rather than laughing at him.

“Yup,” Virgil agreed, pulling him upright. “And you need to get some before you pass out on the floor.”

“Mm.”

The tangled pile they ended up sleeping in, once they got themselves into bed, was comfortable in that special “I would be okay with sleeping on Legos right now and this is infinitely better” sort of way. The low ambient light in Roman’s room was comforting, and they all held on to each other, each assured the others were with them and safely home, and drifted off to sleep. Everything else could wait until the morning.

---

Thomas Sanders woke up to the sound of his alarm going off, and smacked at his phone blindly until he managed to turn it off. “Five more minutes,” he muttered to himself, turning over to shove his face into a pillow and hide from the sun. “Or maybe more like five more hours. Or… days.” For whatever reason, he felt like he’d hardly gotten any sleep at all, and his mind was still disoriented from… wait.

He sat up straight in bed, blinking against the light, and fumbled for his phone once again. A minute later, Joan picked up, sounding almost as tired as he felt, and very reasonably asked why the hell he was calling them first thing in the morning.

“Sorry,” Thomas said quickly, a little sheepish. “But, listen- I just had the craziest dream.”

#sanders sides #it's done i'm free i can stop worrying about it #my post #my writing #til the end of the night

[justtheendoftheday]

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

“They’re coming to get you, Barbra.”

When the bodies of the recently deceased begin coming back to life to try and kill and eat the living, a group of strangers take refuge inside an empty rural home.

—————————————

Fright: 1.7 / 5  Barbras

For me the most unsettling moments of fright are near the beginning when the attacks first start occurring. Sure, packs of the undead banging on your door is a creepy idea, but the potential for some stranger to suddenly attack you is just so much more real.

I feel like this was probably a very frightening movie when it came out, but time has dulled its blade a bit. For devotees of the genre Night of the Living Dead probably doesn’t even cause a blip on their fear radar. But for less desensitized viewers I think it probably walks a nice line between being spooky enough to creep you out a little, but tame and dated enough that it won’t keep you up all night.

It’s easy to look back on this one and not remember any big scares. But that’s probably just because the movie isn’t really into big scares. It prefers to charge the atmosphere of a scene with spooky tension. Who will live? Who will die? What’s going to happen next?

Gore: 2.3 / 5 Butcher Counter Scraps

This one is tough to measure. Old school gore gore rarely measures up to modern standards, and the whole movie is in black & white (which always makes things seem a little less visceral to me). So by modern zombie movie standards this one is pretty tame.

On one hand there certainly is a bit of gore, but on the other hand it is generally used to suggest that something rather gruesome occurred instead of actually showing it happening.

For instance, they never show anyone getting bit or pulled apart or anything like that. But they do imply that such things have happened and then show the ghouls eating “human flesh.” Yet it’s pretty obvious to an adult viewer that the actors are just creepily munching on a prop arm or some meaty bit acquired from a butcher shop.

There’s also a couple of quick shots of a slightly decomposed skull.

For the most part the only gruesome things you actually see being done to people are things like getting shot or stabbed.

Jump Scares: Very few

There are a couple of potential startle moments, but they are a bit tame by today’s standards. I didn’t notice any really aggressive jump scares to speak of.

Review:

Night of the Living Dead is a film that goes beyond the confines of its spooky premise to work as a powerful metaphor for its time. While its depiction of women is unfortunately quite bland, the way it deals with race is incredibly interesting. It’s a movie that delights in creating tension more so than going for aggressive scares. While certainly tame compared to modern zombie films, it remains a really fun movie that establishes the heart of a Romero-style zombie movie: a group of survivors who are forced to question whether the real terror is being alone outside with the zombies or inside together with the other survivors.

Thoughts:

Ah, Night of the Living Dead, one of those cinematic classics that everyone has at least heard of even if they’ve never seen.

Is it just me or is anyone else always wary of “classics?” So many of them turn out to be quite boring, or dated, or—worst of all—problematic. And sure, they might have made a big impact on the field, but that doesn’t mean they’re inherently great art, especially decades down the line.

And yet sometimes you’ll watch a so-called Classic and you totally get it.

Oh! Yes, this is why everyone keeps talking about this one.

One of my favorite things about the Horror genre is that so much of it is built up from a foundation of independent works and passion projects. And so much about what makes this movie a classic is because it was made by a bunch of film nerds who just wanted to make a movie. The only limitation placed on them was the scope of their imagination and the confines of their budget.

And that is exactly what allowed it to work outside the usual studio box and synthesize something new.

Here is a movie that has lots of gore (unusual for the time), was shot in black and white (also quite unusual for the time), and it cast a handsome black man as the main character and definitive hero of the movie (very unusual for the time).

Now keep in mind that movie was made in late 1960s America! A time where institutionalized racism was clashing against the force of a powerfully determined and ever-growing civil rights movement. To see a black man being portrayed as the hero—let alone one who heroically fights against white bodies—was almost unheard of in the cinematic pop-culture of the time.

Romero has said that his script hadn’t called for a black man to be cast in the role of Ben, but Duane Jones was chosen for the role simply because his audition had been the best. And while it’s easy to believe that Duane Jones aced that audition (because he’s friggin’ phenomenal in this movie), it’s hard to imagine that they would have even considered casting a white dude in the role. If they had gone that route it would have fundamentally changed the nature of the story (which is just a nice way of saying that it would have ruined everything).

But luckily for us the creators were open-minded enough to cast the role without race in mind. And because of that Night of the Living Dead was able to (inadvertently) tap into the energy of its time. It’s charged with this backlash against American racism. Ben is literally surrounded by white people that want him dead. They either want to ignore his humanity and simply consume him, like the hordes of ghouls do, or they want him dead for threatening the status quo (like Mr. Cooper does inside the house). And in spite of everything he still sticks his neck out to protect the people around him.

In spite of how well it’s held up over the years, for a modern audience one part hasn’t aged especially well: its depictions of women. Now don’t get me wrong, it never goes for the overt sexism that many horror movies manage to. And yet its female characters still manage to be the most bland characters in the film.

The lack of depth is on full display in their depiction of the film leading lady: Barbra. She starts out well enough, but for the vast, vast majority of the movie she is reduced to a hollow character. She is near catatonic most of the time and even when she’s lucid she tends to just ramble on, only partially aware of reality.

If that wasn’t bad enough there are only 3 other women in the movie and their characters almost never step outside the frameworks of The Wife, The Girlfriend, and The Daughter. All the female characters seem to exist only to add depth to the male characters who are the actual movers and shakers of the movie.

(Although in her defense I will say that Mrs. Cooper’s occasional scathing remark to her idiot husband are highly enjoyable.)

The first time I saw this film was in high school and I had heard it hyped up so much that I ended up thinking it was all a bit silly when I first saw it. While I’m sure it was more shocking to see during its time, by today’s standards it is a rather quiet movie. But when I ended up giving it another try, I found that the quietness is one of my favorite things about it.

One of the little details I love is how they use cricket sounds throughout the movie. In spite of all the horror and death we witness, nature continues unabated. It’s as if to say the world doesn’t care about these people’s situation. That little sound that evokes quiet peaceful summer nights is twisted here and it adds this brilliant extra layer of creepiness.

One of the things I’ve always loved about Romero’s zombie movies is that they are always focused on the survivors, not the zombies. The ghouls are slow and stumbling, their only real threat is if they catch you unaware or you let them overpower you with their numbers. The real source of danger is always shown to be the people you’re locked up with.

After all, in these modern times what is more frightening: the masses pounding on your gates or the people you find yourself locked in with?

—————————————

—————————————

Content warnings: I didn’t notice anything particularly triggering in this one, but let me know if I missed something!

After-credits Scene?: None.

—————————————

Directed by: George A. Romero

Written by: John Russo & George Romero

Country of Origin: USA

Language: English

Setting: Butler County, Pennsylvania, USA

Sequel: Dawn of the Dead (1978)

If you liked this you might also like: Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1985), The Last Man on Earth (1964), Shaun of the Dead (2004)

—————————————

Context Corner:

Night of the Living Dead may be the great grand-daddy of the modern zombie movie, but many might not know that plenty of zombie movies existed long before it was ever made. The first zombie movie being the 1932 film White Zombie starring Bela Lugosi as an evil witch doctor named Murder Legendre [100% serious. That really was his name].

However, these original zombie movies were very different things from what we consider zombies today. These pre-NotLD films were generally based around second-hand ideas of zombies as seen in Haitian folklore (and misattributed to the religion of voodoo). They featured dead bodies that were reanimated as mindless tools of their master or living people put into a zombie-like trance, not autonomous creatures on the hunt for living flesh.

The closest precursor to Romero’s vision of zombies was seen in the fantastic film The Last Man on Earth, a 1964 picture starring Vincent Price and based on the novel I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. There a plague sweeps across the country and the infected dead return to life as a type of vampire-esque zombies.

Fun Fact: In spite of its influence on the zombie genre the word “zombie” is never used in Night of the Living Dead. The undead are referred to only as “ghouls.”

—————————————

“So long as this situation remains, government spokesmen warn that dead bodies will continue to be transformed into the flesh-eating ghouls. All persons who die during this crisis, from whatever cause, will come back to life to seek human victims.”

#Night of the Living Dead #George Romero #John Russo #1968 #1960s #Zombie Movies

[metalgearkong]

Alita: Battle Angel - Review

Directed by Robert Rodriguez (20th Century Fox)

Based on the manga by Yukito Kishiro, Alita: Battle Angel is a cyberpunk story about Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) who finds a mysterious intact core of a female cyborg (Rosa Salazar) and puts her back together. The story takes place in the far future, and 300 years after an event known as “The Fall,” where the societal elite live in a floating city above the lawless slums where most of the movie takes place. Alita herself is an extinct model of advanced cyborg left over from the war, but has no memory of that time period at first. Most of this film involves Alita discovering her past and exploring her abilities. The movie moves at an extremely rapid pace from Alita being found in a junkyard, to her waking up and integrating with society quite easily.

Amnesia movies are commonplace for sci-fi/action films, but to also make this movie centered around an AI (because she is) makes the basic setup much more complicated than what this script could handle. I had more questions than answers for who Alita was and what her limitations are, not including her physical abilities. And no, the excuse is not “well that’s explored in the sequels.” She came equipped with a winning, charismatic, kind personality, something that an ancient uber soldier cyborg wouldn’t have, right? She’s as altruistic, curious, and caring as a Disney princess, and I couldn’t suspend my disbelief of her being so conveniently lovable. This was not a memory wipe or mental reset, she simply wakes up and automatically is the daughter any father would kill for. I found it lazy and uninteresting, even if she is such a likable person, and even if that’s supposedly the tone the movie wants to go for.

The CGI is absolutely astounding. If Alita: Battle Angel doesn’t win the Academy Award next year for best visual effects, I may as well jump off a building now. Even before seeing Avengers: Endgame or Star Wars: Episode IX, I am convinced this is the best CGI I have ever seen, and at least will see in the near future. Alita is brought to life in a way that automatically makes me empathize with her and want to protect her from the big bad world (if not for the lazy and predictable script). Rosa Salazar was the motion capture actress for this character and she does an amazing job. Salazar’s face and were eyes widened, I’m guessing to look more like the original manga, and it doesn’t take long to see a photo realistic anime girl walking and talking among a live action cast and look natural. I was glad to see this movie on the big screen because of the level of detail I was able to pick up on that I may not have otherwise. Alita is definitely a reason to see this movie on a large format if you can, if for nothing else.

Christof Waltz does a mediocre job with his character, but he isn’t given anything elaborate to work with. If you’re a big Waltz fan, you could survive skipping this movie if it’s just to see his next performance. All other characters also do a middle of the road job with their acting, usually engulfed in CGI bodies or surrounded by interesting visuals. I do like this movie’s art design, which can partially be credited towards the manga, but I found the combination of old tech and new tech very appealing and, dare I say it, believable. Not everything is a slick new piece of technology, and it’s right up the ally of other “dirty” “rusty” or “smudged” cyberpunk design. I can tell plenty of sets were built for many of the scenes filmed on the streets, with what I can imagine have CGI extensions to round out the neighborhoods, vistas, and streets. This movie is a visual feast all around, but I wish it held up a screenplay as worthy.

I’m sure this film only scratches the surface on the manga’s mythology, but the movie still feels packed with terminology and events that I struggled to care about. What I would have preferred is less exposition (hence less straight knowledge of the world) and more time spent with characters doing stuff other than teaching the audiences what things are. Do we have to be told what “hunter warriors” are if they keep referring to each other as such? Do we need names of factions and entities of the past if we barely see any of it? Keep it simple, and keep it present. It’s why they didn’t talk for 5 minutes about the Clone Wars in the original Star Wars: Episode IV. But worse than occasional exposition heavy dialog is how this movie lacked greatly in tension. In a big budget sci-fi movie with lots of action and interesting tech or weaponry, I want to be on the edge of my seat. 

The biggest problem of Alita: Battle Angel is how powerful our main character is. The two biggest fundamentals of a protagonist should be that they are an underdog and relatable. We want to see them grow from an ordinary person into something new or better, conquering fears and goals. Alita, while extremely likable, is the strongest, fastest, most agile character in the entire movie. Not only does she contain programming for elite martial arts only performed by cyborgs of her type back in the day, she goes from one place to another winning every fight she encounters, and every fight she starts herself. From the beginning she is a character that has everything handed to her and comes off as privileged and sometimes pretentious. Once she figures out she can literally kick anyone’s ass and dominate in a multiple person brawl, she goes around telling people who have spent a lifetime earning their techniques and fighting abilities that they are lesser than her, and to prove it, she provokes them to get their asses kicked just so she can show off and preach about a cause she’s just heard about.

Even after fighting multiple bad guys and then fighting someone several times her weight, experience, and size, she still defeats him with three out of her four limbs severed. This takes the whole “I could beat you with one arm tied behind my back” to the next level, and I found it obnoxious. How are we supposed to feel tension when she’s set this far apart from everyone else from the very beginning? What also doesn’t work and feels corny is her romantic relationship with THE VERY FIRST guy her age she meets. He has a secret agenda of his own, but I rolled my eyes when the first person she meets besides her father also turns out to be her prince charming. His acting is also nothing special, but the fact that this movie pulls a full on Disney by having them say they love each other after knowing one another for a few days and one kiss felt absolutely nauseating in a 2019 PG-13 film.

I could see this movie working well with kids or teenagers, especially those looking for good female role models. Alita herself is the number one reason to watch this film, and I found her personality constantly endearing. The CGI used to bring her to life as well as the rest of the characters and world is also breathtaking, especially in the close up intimate scenes and shots. But I was bored from a plot and dialog perspective because Alita is simply all-powerful without having to earn or struggle for an ounce of that power. She is born perfect, and only grows more and more capable as the story goes on. I never felt tension or stakes from one action scene to another because I knew she would come out of it on top. I am all for strong female role models, but to be on this level simply feels like pandering. It's overcompensation in place of creating a truly well-rounded and realized hero people can relate to. Alita may be the biggest strength, and greatest weakness of her own film. The story certainly sets itself up for sequels, which I’m not sure it will get, but I will approach any future Alita movies with much more caution than the optimism I had for this film.

5/10

#alita #battleangel #alitabattleangel #rosasalazar #robertrodriguez #christofwaltz #jamescameron #scifi #fantasy #2019 #film #review #moviereview #marysue #strongfemalecharacter #cgi #motioncapture

[fanficsofmine]

Wake Me Up - Chapter 2

Summertime. Young. Single. Free.

You were living your dream life. You had a great place, amazing friends and a steady job. Independent and happy and free, what more could you ask for?

You didn’t think that meeting Chanyeol at a concert or Minho on the beach would influence your life as much as they did. They weren’t supposed to, anyway.

What exactly are you to do with whirlwind romances that show up when you weren’t expecting them?

Characters: Park Chanyeol, Choi Minho, OC’s and appearances by others.

Soundtrack: Lightning in a Bottle: The Summerset

Word Count: 2,111

Chapter 1

“Are we actually doing this?” I took another giant gulp of coffee as I turned up the air conditioning in the car. Presley shot me a dirty look, but I shook my head. “The cold is keeping me awake. I can’t believe we are driving to Austin at one in the morning.”

“You’re the one that agreed to go.” Presley reached behind her into the back seat and grabbed a sweater.

“With absolutely zero objection from you!” I pointed a finger at her and she laughed.

“Okay. Okay. I know.” She handed me a candy bar she had picked up from our last stop at a gas station and I took it. Literally anything would help me stay awake right now.

She spent the next hour of the drive dialing hotels in Austin before finding one near the venue that was only partially sketchy and had a room available for a late arrival. The rest of the trip consisted of me questioning Presley about Chanyeol. I interrogated her with questions like, “what has The Ex said about him?” (Followed quickly by, “you could call him ‘Kihyun’ you know,” and me choosing to ignore her.)

Presley shrugged. “I don’t know much about him other than he hasn’t really dated anybody. He’s picky about who he chooses to spend his time on. Although he’s friendly to everyone, it’s rare of him to find someone to spend his time on. Kihyun has tried to get him to date people and he’s always turned them down. It takes a lot to catch his attention.”

Butterflies appeared in my stomach. That had to mean something good, right?

We got to the hotel and, despite the coffee in my system, I was able to pass out immediately.

I was woken up the next morning by Presley’s pillow hitting me on the head followed by an aggressive, “wake up!”

Whining, I pulled the blanket over my head. “Nope. This was part of the deal. I was allowed to sleep in today.”

I couldn’t see her face, but I could feel Presley’s eyes roll at me. “It’s 1:30 pm. Plus, we have company. The guys brought us breakfast.”

That woke me up.

“What?!” I jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom mirror. I was in just my shirt from the day before and my underwear. We were planning on going and buying new outfits for the show tonight, but we hadn’t stopped for pajamas. I quickly grabbed my jeans off of the bathroom floor and, only managing to stumble over once in my rushed dressing, was able to get them buttoned up as Presley opened the door to the hotel room.

Kinhyun’s voice rang out a loud, “good morning!” followed by Presley’s giggles. I peeked around the corner with my toothbrush that I had bought at the lobby’s front desk hanging out of my mouth to see Chanyeol walk in the door. Blushing, I waved before ducking back into the bathroom to finish making myself look awake.

My hair needed a lot of work, but there wasn’t much to do with it right now but keep it at a semi-presentable bedhead. I rubbed the residual-mascara-raccoon-eyes away and deemed myself as socially acceptable.

I walked out of the bathroom to see that the guys had brought a huge box of donuts, a drink carrier full of coffees, and their drummer. He walked up and shook my hand and introduced himself as Dojoon.

Chanyeol took his turn to say hi and walked up to me, wrapping me in a giant hug. His arms wrapped around my waist and he squeezed me tight. He leaned over and whispered, “I’m really glad I’m getting to see you again.” He let go of the hug and smiled a giant, beaming grin.

As he walked over to the bed that I had been sleeping on that was now occupied by a box of Krispy Kreams, he asked what kind I wanted. I went and stood by him and examined my choices.

“Hmm. You can never go wrong with plain glazed…” I said.

“Right, but why play it safe when there’s chocolate there?!” Chanyeol gasped in faux shock.

“I could go completely wild and eat this one with sprinkles!”

“Woah!” Chanyeol raised his hands, “are we getting that crazy this early?! We’ve only just met and you’re going to eat a sprinkled donut in front of me. That’s a bit forward.”

The fake banter was fun. Talking to him and joking felt completely natural. I had completely forgotten that everybody else was in the room until Dojoon interrupted with, “the sprinkled one is actually mine.” and he quickly reached around me to grab it. It felt good to laugh with them.

“You drink caramel macchiatos, right?” Kihyun asked me as he handed me a cup.

I glared at him, unashamed of my dirty look in front of everyone. Taking the coffee, I said, “I’m only accepting this because I need it. We aren’t cool.”

It was said in a “I’m going to say this in a joking tone so everyone thinks I’m teasing you but also know that I’m completely serious” tone. Everyone else giggled, but Kihyun held my eye contact, a knowing look in his eyes.

“Coffee toast!” Chanyeol bounded to his knees on the bed and cleared his throat as if he was about to give a big speech. “To adventures and friendship! We live one hell of a crazy life and I’m glad to be on this adventure with these two assholes,” he pointed at Kihyun and Dojoon, “and thankful for the great company that comes along the way.” He glanced at me with a small grin and everyone in the room “cheers-ed” with their coffee cups and I took a sip, completely giddy on the inside.

After we had eaten, Presley and I talked about needing to go buy new clothes for tonight. We didn’t really want to go spend the money, but we also felt gross wearing day 2 clothes for a rock show again.

“I at least need to buy a new shirt.” I groaned as I sniffed my t-shirt. It didn’t smell awful, but it also wasn’t ideal

“Oh! I have an idea!” Chanyeol said as he grabbed the keys off of the nightstand and took off out of the room. Confused, we all waited for him to come back, speculating where he had run off to. A few minutes later, he opened the door and brought in two duffle bags.

“We stopped at a laundry mat two days ago and did laundry. The joys of tour life. This is all clean!” He tosses a bag at Kihyun who was not ready for it. He fell backward a bit, but then realized what Chanyeol was doing. They both began digging through their bags.

Finally, Chanyeol pulled out a white t-shirt. It had black script letters across it that read “Darling.” He handed it to me and I couldn’t help but let the butterflies start in my stomach again. “This will save you money! You’ll be able to wear something clean and I can hold the bragging rights that you’re wearing my shirt.”

I was positive that I turned nine shades of red right then and there. Thanking him, I went to the bathroom and changed. It hung down to my knees, Chanyeol was a tree after all, but after some front tucking and rolling of the sleeves, I examined myself in the mirror of the bathroom and determined that I looked pretty cute.

There was a knock on the door and Chanyeol was there when I opened it. He had the widest grin slapped across his face as he said “well that’s a damn good look.” My heart skipped a beat and I felt a blush cross my cheeks. He offered me his hand and said “come on! Come with us to set up. You can keep me company as I tune my guitar.”

Chanyeol rode with us to the venue so he could direct us where to go. Conversation moved just as easily between us that day as it had the night before, despite the bundle of nerves living in my stomach. He was easy to talk to and I couldn’t remember the last time that I laughed as hard as I did around him.

Once we had arrived at the bar they were playing at, we parked around back and Chanyeol jumped out of the car to go check in with Kihyun and Dojoon. Presley and I stayed back to finish touching up our make up, and she kept looking over at me.

“What is it, Pres?” I asked as I brushed a layer of mascara on over my night before‘s layer of mascara. I really needed to get in the habit of washing my face at night.

“It’s just… Interesting.” She quit running a brush through her bright red hair and smiled at me. “You haven’t been too keen on giving anybody a chance at all.” She wasn’t wrong. After my last big break up, I had sworn off all forms of romance. I had gone out on dates, sure, but nothing that was worth wasting my time on long term. I had become the queen of ghosting, not that it was a proud title to have.

“I dunno.” I brushed some chapstick on my lips and flipped the visor up. “There’s something different about Chanyeol.”

Pausing, I sighed. “Besides, after tonight, it’s likely I won’t even see Chanyeol again. He’s a damn musician and, no offense to you, I don’t see how people can deal with it. How do you trust them to not be smooth talking other girls? How many other girls has Chanyeol talked to like this?” I started to anxiously nibble at my thumb.

“Don’t you start!” Presley scolded me. “I already told you. This isn’t like Chanyeol. He doesn’t waste time on random flings. Give yourself some credit. You are wearing his T-shirt after all.”

I looked down and sighed. “You’re right. I’m just letting nerves get to me.” Shaking my head to clear the negative thoughts away, I said, “okay. Let’s go inside.”

This time, I watched Chanyeol more intently. I watched as he closed his eyes and rolled his neck back when he got super into a song. I watched as he and Kihyun circled around Dojoon’s drums and all rocked out. They looked as if there were no audience at all. They looked like three best friends just having a damn good time, and it was so much fun to watch.

Their pop punk sound was infectious and I drug Presley away from the bar and made her dance with me with the rest of the audience. I shook my head and threw my body around, letting myself feel more free than I had in a while. I glanced up at one point to see Chanyeol beaming at me as he sang his harmonies and played his guitar. I waved at him before joining the crowd in their jumps. I managed to remember a few words of their choruses and sang along, having the time of my life.

Eventually, their set was over, and I was exhausted. I asked the bartender for a few bottles of water, and tossed one to Presley. As they were quickly tearing down their set for the next band, I ran up to the stage and placed three more bottles down for the guys.

“Oh my god, I could kiss you. I needed this so bad.” Chanyeol gasped as he reached for some water.

“Prove it.” I winked at him, and this time, it was him who was blushing all the way up to his ears.

I giggled. “Didn’t think you could you could turn more red than you were from playing.”

Instead of a response, he jumped down from the stage and pulled me close. He leaned down and placed a soft kiss to my lips. Nobody else was in the room at that moment. You could have told me everybody had faded away and I would have believed you.

How had this happened? How had this guy that I had just met yesterday managed to have stolen my heart so quickly?

Chanyeol pulled away and I opened my eyes to look into his. His hand was on my cheek. He looked nervous as he waited for my reaction. I wanted to say so much. I wanted to describe how quickly he had made me feel giddy; to tell him how I was nervous at how much he made me feel so fast.

Instead, all that I said was, “wow.”

#exosnet #chanyeol #park chanyeol #exo #shinee #choi minho #kpop #exo fanfic #exo fanfiction #kpop fanfiction #kpop fanfic #exo fan fiction #exo fan fic #kpop fan fiction #kpop fan fic

[takaraphoenix]

The Bible isn’t “pro gay” in the slightest, but it isn’t as condemning as some people make it out to be. My mom took it well, I’m just stalling to tell my dad... you know... “homosexual agenda” in media is something he talks about. Honestly, I still don’t see homosexuality as being ok, I just stopped caring after years of trying to change. I don’t know when I’ll tell my dad, but I do know that I’m dreading it.

Oh, but it is. And that’s the misconception.

It’s pro love, that, by definition already, makes it pro-gay.

It depends on the way you read it.

The cherry-picking dicks decide to take that one line about men lying with men being an abomination and act like that is literally all the Bible has to say as a total. I recently read about that line being a mistranslation though and it meaning to lay with a boy, as in being against pedophilia and not homsexuality, but you’d have to fact-check that one because I only rad it in passing.

And anyway, I kinda doubt they stick to the script about everything, like the shit with with the shrimps and lobsters that you shouldn’t eat and whatever else other ridiculous, outdated rules men put down in the name of God back then.

If the Bible-thumpers would actually stick to every stupid little thing that was deemed bad 2000 years ago, yeah. But this cherry-picking bullshit’s gotta stop. God should be about love and loving all of his creations. That’s the greater good, not to follow the Bible word-by-word like it’s a manual to life. Which it isn’t, especially not to modern life, 2000 years later.

I don’t really get why it is not more obvious that a book written over 2000 years ago is obviously outdated. You can read a book that’s been written 200 years ago and find wildly outdated views in it and have to read it critically and with the time it was written in in mind. And just like every other book, this one too has to be read critically and with the time it was written in in mind.

That’s how my high school religion teacher made me very slowly come around on Christianity at least. Because I used to really truly hate it, mainly based on the propaganda it is used for by homophobic arseholes and partially because of the way it had been taught to me up until that point; as a story-by-story going through it kind of situation. Then we finally started to separate Christianity from the Bible and started looking at the Bible as metaphors and suggestions, not as set-in-stone rules, but as something that should be thought about, metaphors that you gotta think about.

It’s not about the religion, any religion, it’s about the way you use it. And if anyone takes any religion to justify bigotry, hatred and suppressing others, then they are doing religion wrong. Because at its very core, every religion serves the purpose to comfort people. It was created because humans had questions they could not answer and needed the comfort of an answer, some higher power that held everything together, seeking a reason for the suffering they had to endure, solace and shelter and the sense that it will all work out in the end. It was created to be something good and comforting. And abusing it to justify hatred is disgusting.

Maybe this could be a good read on that for you? Maybe if you got some things to rattle Bible-based homophobia, you’ll dread the confrontation a bit less.

Either way, I wish you luck.

#Phoe Giving Advise #I got Strong Feelings on the subject #and while I feel like I am defending Christianity here #if I still managed to accidentally offend anyone #I apologize #Religion #it's such a touchy subject #uchiarifly

[sapphicscholar]

A/N: I haven’t been posting the letters here, since I’ve been traveling, so if you’re only following on Tumblr, make sure you go catch up first! 

Letter 64

March 9, 2012, 5:03pm

Dear Alex,

I know I don't have to, but I enjoy writing to you. And you're not bad at it, trust me. I think...I don't know, the beginning of any relationship is a little awkward, and with both of us being new to the long distance side of it, that makes it so much harder. But I still love getting your emails. And responding is a nice chance to sit down after a long day while pretty much everyone else is spending time with their families.

I'm sure you and the head librarian normally get along perfectly, so I doubt one snort will jeopardize that relationship. But if it does, she can take up any and all complaints with me. Also, it's sort of adorable that you thought they deserved play time. Probably for the best that you found them all, though.

Practical loopholes are the best! And no, I don't imagine I'll ever get that confession. It'll always be pinned on Kara, right?

Really...you're gonna tease me for Snoopy when you want to make your dog the laughing stock of the dog park? Gertrude is the name of, like, the single old lady who lives next door and has tissue lint-covered butterscotch candies in her purse. And you're gonna be out there with some big-ass German shepherd barreling toward you as you yell, "C'mere, Gertrude!"

Anyway, I think it's awesome that you and some of the other volunteers have been learning a bit of ASL. We didn't offer it beyond the beginner level at my school (you had to go take classes at another university, but financial aid wouldn't cover them—anyway, it's a long story and basically boils down to: bureaucracy sucks), but one day I'd also like to learn. I've often wondered whether it might not be a better "universal" language for communicating with the majority of off-worlders who've landed in the States, many of whom don't have many of the same sounds as English does. Then again, I'm sure there are plenty of morphology-related issues that could make signing equally difficult. Perhaps if we made both…who knows! I'm rambling at this point.

And of course you'd be into da Vinci's lab. Well, if you ever end up in Italy, you could go visit plenty of da Vinci museums. Personally, though, I prefer the testing site for his flying machines up in Fiesole, one of the hill towns outside of Florence. I went running up there while I was in Florence, and it's absolutely beautiful. Also, the woods in the area have all sorts of signs warning about attack pigs (okay wild boars, which I know are much more threatening, but I enjoy the thought of attack pigs more because then I can focus on being amused instead of frightened). I'd definitely recommend it as a less tourist-y spot!

I…I'm refraining from making a whole lot of inappropriate comments about the phrasing of your request for my help in making food. I would like some credit for my will power here. Please and thank you. Now that I've gotten it out there, yeah, I'm happy to help. I don't know how much help I'll be from afar when our video feed often freezes every few minutes, but dammit, I'm down to try. Also, you think my recipes are bad? You should see the ones passed down through the generations. "Boil the potatoes until done. Mash potatoes and add egg yolks…etc." Literally nothing is specific and everything is to taste. But once you've got a sense of how things should taste in a general sense, you can start figuring out how you most want them to taste, and that's a pretty cool thing.

You've got me so intrigued about this news! Good luck with whatever it is!

Last but not least, your questions!

1. What TV series to do you keep coming back to and re-watching? -Okay…honestly, I've rewatched The L Word more than I should. It's awful and overly dramatic and everything, yes, but it's also representation. And we don't die (RIP Tara). Okay, lies! One very important character dies (okay also another one, but she’s still in every fucking episode, and that was a betrayal of the deepest sort), and I'm still bitter, but in case you haven't seen it (I assume not…) and want to one day (that's up in the air), I won't spoil it. It's nice to have a show that, for as bad as it was, normalized women dating/loving/fucking (should I do the whole theme song?? No, it's okay, you probably won't get that joke) other women. And, even though I totally bashed on it a sentence or two ago, I do love a good Buffy rerun. I'm especially partial to the dark Willow episodes when I'm annoyed with the world.

2. What are some things everyone should try once? -Oooh, so many things! I think everyone (who can afford to) should try to live alone and/or travel alone at least once. I get the joy in being surrounded by others, but I think being alone for a somewhat extended period of time breeds a level of self-sufficiency and self-awareness that can be really healthy and helpful. You can't lean on everyone around you, and so you learn what your strengths are and where you struggle, but you also learn how best to deal with your weaknesses, and I think it makes you stronger, even if it's hard at the time. And there's also something a little freeing about being on your own--you get to do the things you want to do on the timescale that you've set for yourself. Want to spend an entire day in one room of an art museum? Fucking do it! There's no one telling you about the "right" way to do things or live.

3. What would a perfect morning be like? -Great question!! I'd love a morning with no alarm. I probably couldn't sleep in too late, but being able to wake up naturally is a wonderful feeling. And then I'd love to have a free day in front of me. And then, okay, two possibilities! Option 1: Sunny, warm day. I'd get up and go for a short run to one of those outdoor yoga classes. I'd come back, shower, and then go out for breakfast at someplace that serves really amazing coffee and has a patio so I could eat outside. I'd love to do the breakfast (and really the rest would be cool too) with someone. Could be a friend or a date—either way—someone to enjoy the day with. We could go to a farmer's market or walk around for fun without any real goals in mind. I'm also partial to people watching, so maybe get more coffee or tea and sit outside and watch the people go by.

Option 2: Cold, rainy/snowy day. Sleep in a little bit later. Waking up with someone I like there could be pretty great too. I'd love to have big windows to watch the rain or snow coming down. And if it were snow, a fireplace would be amazing! And then we could make breakfast together, and since it could be a sleepy morning, maybe we could do hot cocoa instead of coffee (or mix them together for a homemade mocha type thing). We could eat by the fire and do the crossword together. Maybe even be bold and use pen! Later, we could put on a movie. For some reason, when it snows, I always want to watch Harry Potter, especially the first one. It feels right. Maybe afterward there's a hot bubble bath involved or something nice and warm.

Hmm questions from me…this is tricky, ya know? There are lots of things I want to know about you, but sometimes it feels like…like maybe I know them too early? Or I'm missing something important. Like…if we went out on our first date in person, would we have done the whole back-and-forth about which one of us should pay? Would we have split a dessert, or are you someone that doesn't like sharing food? Would we have held hands? Or would it have been that awkward moment where it doesn't matter that, say, you already drunkenly groped each other in a bar bathroom, because now you've still got first date jitters and don't know if a hug is even appropriate. Not talking from personal experience at all. Would never… But you know what I mean? Would we have gone off script? Would the date have gone on for hours with neither one of us wanting it to end? Would we have kissed at the end of it? Would it have been great or totally awkward and something that we'd laugh about later? I get that it's part of the territory of doing anything long distance, but it comes with a unique set of frustrations (not with you! with, you know, the situation). Sorry, I don't mean to hate on what we're doing or anything like that. And I know the questions were my idea, so I'm certainly not saying we should stop or anything! I don't know what I'm saying.

But okay, questions. Umm…let's think. If you could have any superpower in the world, what would it be? Slightly different: what do you think your superpower would be (as opposed to the one you'd choose)? What's your worst habit? And, hmm…any embarrassing high school moments?

Can't wait to talk to you on Sunday morning (for me)! Maggie

#sanvers #fluff #letter fic #long distance relationship au #maggie sawyer #alex danvers #co-authored fic #fanfic #ao3feed

[stevedonnellyfaith-blog]

Evolution (Post 93) 6-17-15

Some friends of my parents stopped by this week.  They are a fun couple.  He is a folksy, puttering, retired physics teachers who once took my father’s side in a debate with other faculty members about why the lighting fixtures in the dining room were swinging back and forth in time. “Hal’s conjecture is both right and wrong,” Mr. Dorson offered in mediation, “While he is right that this is an earthquake, Hal is wrong about the oscillating motion of the chandeliers. They are stationary; it is the building that is moving back and forth.”  

It is helpful to have a physics teacher around to interpret natural phenomena, but for his wife, a liberal librarian, being married to an ultraconservative who is going deaf can be a trial. I believe she has taken up gardening and visiting museums as a means to deal with the relentless onslaught of Fox News with the volume turned up to eleven. It heartens me to see two people with differing views living together in toleration rather than consternation.  It is easy to see though, who a blaring news or sportscast could upset peace within an American family.

The news doesn’t really interest me much anymore.  Today my mother asked me what I thought of the drama of some felons that had escaped from prison somewhere quite a while ago but hadn’t been caught yet.  Initially, I thought she was talking about the Texas jailbreak from about a decade ago. Come to find out she was talking about a new escape that I had only vaguely heard about accidentally.  I am currently in kind of a news gray-out status with the expectation of placing myself under an out and out cone of silence in the Christmas season once the presidential hi-jinks begin in earnest.  By February every broadcast on every channel will be wall to wall politicians, people who used to be politicians and people who once worked for politicians for the foreseeable future.

While temporal debates are consequential and do impact The Church, I seem to be developing and increasingly lower tolerance for posturing, weasel words, taking others out of context, flamboyant exaggerations and smarminess.  Then once the commercials are over, I can’t stand the news commentators either.  It does seem like whenever Joe Biden blows his nose, Fox News will air alternating Democrat and Republican operatives who will dramatically exaggerate the significance and importance of the color of Joe’s handkerchief.   MSNBC will cover the same story with two Democrat operatives who refer continuously with nauseating condescension to a particular hanky that they both remember Dick Cheney using at one point last decade.  I vaguely remember that there may actually be another cable news channel, or there once was one, but it has become so irrelevant now that it is only watched in airport waiting areas by travelers who have forgotten to pack earphones as protection.  So that pretty much leaves the often biased CSPAN broadcast as my only probable news source. Unfortunately CSPAN is pretty much a consensus pick for the most boring channel not dedicated to auctioning shiny baubles.  So I mostly ignore the political news.

With regard to social issues, my views are mostly insulted on MSNBC and so vociferously agreed with by Sean Hannity that even I begin to question axiomatic beliefs that I have held all my life.  Mostly, I listen to a couple of minutes of Al Kresta on my drive home and compare my own conservative views against whatever Pope Francis has to say.  I try to allow his words to change my heart in a way that my mind can make sense of after the fact. Sometimes his views challenge me, but I am confident that Francis truly believes what he says and that the Pope doesn’t add spin. In general, whenever a Vatican mouthpiece is pontificating for him though, I change the channel as fast as I can.

With respect to matters of the faith, I do buy into whatever Pope Francis has to say lock, stock and barrel, whatever that means. (I search Google for stuff like that all the time and send kind thoughts towards David Katreeb as I’m doing it.)  Anyway, I think, for instance, that the Pope quite reasonably explains the Church position on evolution in a rational way that is consistent with a man who holds a degree in chemistry.  I agree with Francis when he articulates that evolution as a theory is not inconsistent with Church teaching.  God most likely may have chosen to work His design using evolution as a tool to mold the earth until Jesus entered creation in the flesh of a man.  As Supreme Being, He could also have chosen the more unlikely path of creating a whole mess of fossils and bones as a kind of archeological window dressing so that people wouldn’t be forced to believe in Him.  I don’t expect that He would do that, but as a man, I am not a self-appointed umpire of all that He does.  I am also not a competent judge of the intricacies of how other men think creation happened.  My only strong belief is against the neo-Darwinist spin that the theory of evolution proves that God doesn’t exist.  I know God does exist so I try to take a pass on things like hedonism, euthanasia, eugenics and genocide for which atheism provides license.

Here is a metaphor to explain my feelings on how neo-Darwinists extend the evolutionary theory into atheistic excess.  Nicholas, Abby and Natalie were visiting Pam’s parents in Maryland this weekend.  During the visit, Nicholas discovered a record turntable and a nunchaku set in the basement.  He also ran across a Bud Light clock but that is entirely beside the point.  His conjecture that both relics were a cool find is perfectly acceptable.  If Nicholas extended his reasoning to assume that when placed before a karaoke microphone, his grandfather would belt out, Kung Fu Fighting by Carl Douglas, Nick would be pretty far afield.  His grandfather is actually partial to Roy Orbison – the Okinawan fighting sticks belong to Nick’s Uncle Chris.

Anyway, my point isn’t that the neo-Darwinist (Darwin believed in God) atheists have been hitting themselves in the head with sticks too much, even though I don’t agree with their misguided negation of God.  It seems as if we can reasonably believe that dinosaurs became birds or whatever inference paleontologists can reasonably support with evidence.  It doesn’t bother me that no fossil evidence of a missing link between me and Zippy the Chimp.  I’m sure a very low percentage of living troglodytes were actually preserved in shale sandwiches, so I am unconcerned by missing monkey bones.

To me it seems reasonable to believe that proto-evangelical Jesus oversaw evolution; that seems to be what Francis either believes or allows. That interpretation is also consistent with what Jesus has lead me to believe through the Holy Spirit and my discussions with Pam.  It doesn’t bother me when Traditionalists take the Old Testament more literally. To me the Pentateuch doesn’t read as Adam’s, Abraham’s and Moses’ diary any more that the New Testament reads as a Jesus’ memoir.  The Bible provides us with enough information to feed our faith a healthy meal, while still allowing the atheists enough freedom to come to the conclusion that random chance bred herds of allosaurs, then extincted them, while leaving their bone caches so that we can script an increasingly ridiculous Jurassic movie franchise.

Science is wondrous.  Georges LeMaitre, a Belgian Catholic priest used science to formulate the Big Bang Theory which gives us a window or inkling into how God created all of this and all of us.  For those less interested in the beauty of God’s creation, there is also a funny television show by the same name.  God intended us to engage in science so that we can discover more and more about what He has wrought.  Certainly, we will not discover it all, any more than we will find all the dinosaur bones, but what we do find will lead us closer to Him … if we engage in science honestly.

Not everybody follows the scientific method that was originally formulated by the Catholic Church.  Agendas other than truth can warp scientific findings and theories like evolution into false doctrines. Eugenics, for instance, the bastard child of evolutionary thought, lead men to massacre their neighbors.   Whether the corpses were Armenian, Jewish, Cambodian or Tutsi was immaterial, the blood was on the hands of atheists who purported to be using junk science for rationale.  The last century was bulwarked and sandbagged with bodies killed by men liberated from the enslaving belief in a higher power.  In this century the Neo-Darwinists are bringing us contraception and chemically induced gender selective abortion on demand, an abomination that would have horrified Hitler himself because it is double-decimating his master race within the course of several short generations.

For faithful Catholics, let us forgo intramural arguments about monkey DNA.  Because our observations are made of potshard fragments of a complete vase of knowledge, we will never fully understand the entire tableau that God has wrought until we learn everything we desire to know in the fullness of time.  I look forward to answers about Fatima and Lourdes and the Tilma of Guadalupe as well as how exactly the Big Bang was boomed.  With regard to evolution I have one last thought that interests me:  could there indeed be evolution beyond Jesus incarnation?  Also is Jesus’ glorified body an evolution of a different order that we will follow into, leaving our monkey relatives to their banana smoothies? In the meantime, let’s stick together as Catholics and try to sway the thought of those who no longer recognize evil and cruelty for what it is.

#God #Jesus #The Holy Spirit #The Virgin Mary #The Church #politics #unity #grace #hope #faith #love #Al Kresta #Pope Francis #evolution #creation #Proto-evangelical #Pentateuch #Georges LaMaitre #eugenics #atheism #Fatima #Lourdes #tilma #Guadalupe #The Incarnation

[schrodingers-rufus]

So. Marble Hornets Haunted House AUs. 

Historically, I tend to inflict Haunted House AUs on every fandom I find myself in. (And I’m not talking literal haunted houses here; I’m talking about those places that pop up around Halloween or year-round, where you walk through spooky sets and actors jump out at you. Sometimes there are free-roaming actors in scarezone-type things.) I just...love haunted houses/haunts. Very much. And therefore it becomes fun to think about how a cast of known characters might behave in one of them.

Harbly Marblies, however, is a little tougher, because here we’ve got a cast of characters who are living in a modern-day world where haunts would exist...but who are also deeply traumatized by supernatural spookythings, probably to the point where there is no chance in hell you’d ever get them through the front doors of a haunt. 

So we’ve got some options here. Here are a couple of them.

(Cut because holy cow this post got longer than I expected.) 

Option #1: Everything Is Fine AU. Nobody’s been affected by the Operator, but for the sake of recognizable characterization, everybody’s still got some existing issues. Let’s say this is the October after the movie shoot, so now the gang all knows each other. 

Going to the haunt was Alex’s idea, because of course it was. Brian may be the Alpha Extrovert of the gang, but Alex is the Idea Guy. Alex comes up with stuff to do, and Brian’s the one who actually ropes most of the gang into doing it. 

Alex: “It’s Halloween. This is what people do on Halloween. If you’re too old to go trick-or-treating, you get drunk or you get scared.”

Brian: “Or both.” 

Alex: “Definitely both.”  

Jay tags along because he guesses Alex is a friend, and friends hang out, right? That’s what they do? Also he’s been curious about this place for years, but it’s not like people go to haunts by themselves. And they definitely don’t bring cameras. That would be weird. (He definitely was planning to go by himself the previous year and upload footage from it in case the internet might take interest, but he got struck down by midterms and a nasty cold and had to miss it.)

Tim’s not sure if he can handle it, but Brian’s going, and maybe if he makes himself small enough the scareactors won’t notice him. Also, a part of him cynically points out, he’s probably seen worse. 

Jessica’s going because Amy’s going because Alex’s going. Amy might or might not be hoping Jessica latches onto Brian in fear. Or Brian’s cute friend Tim, but she doesn’t really know if Tim’s on the market. Maybe Jay? She barely knows Jay, but she’s not sure if she wants to inflict him on her poor sweet roommate. They’d probably just stare awkwardly at each other for hours, and cute as that is, it’s lacking in passion. Also she heard a rumor that Jay has secret cameras set up in his apartment, so not the place for romance. 

Seth and Sarah tag along because they don’t have anything else going on that night, and they get discount tickets through the university. Also Sarah and Brian have a running bet that Seth’s going to try to use her as a human shield when something scary jumps out. 

Everybody piles into the disaster of a minivan Brian inherited from his parents. (Everyone except Sarah and Seth, that is, because they want an easy out in case the place sucks.)

The structure of this place: Five “mazes”, a couple of “scarezones”, and a few food trucks/pop-up food vendors. The whole thing’s held in a pair of old warehouses, and it makes the property-owners enough money that they keep the warehouses empty in the off-season. It’s like the Spirit Store of haunts.  

Alex is insistent: They’re doing all five mazes, crowds be damned. 

The Line of Suffering--i.e. the order they follow when going through the first couple mazes--is structured thus: Alex out front, with Amy behind him. Jessica’s holding onto the back of Amy, and Jay’s behind her (trying very carefully not to lay hands on her). Brian’s behind Jay, with Tim next to him, gripping his arm like a vice. Seth and Sarah bring up the rear. (Seth is indeed using Sarah as a human shield, but since they’re at the back of the line, this means she’s behind him, defending from any surprise threats from behind. She thinks he’s an idiot, but she’s endeared.) 

Alex tries Very Hard not to jump when scareactors target him. And oh do they target him. They know an easy mark showing off for his girlfriend when they see one, and he’s painting a target on his forehead by leading the group. 

Jay knows there’s a method to the madness. He’s seen enough horror movies (and watched enough haunt walkthrough videos online in preparation) to recognize the old tricks--hallways lined with doors, windows that can snap open, a room full of dummies mixed in with actors--and he is ready. His head’s on a swivel, camera roving over every inch of the walls. They won’t get him. They won’t. He has to keep the camera steady or the footage won’t come out right. He wonders if he’ll have to go through each maze twice, once with night vision and once without, like the other walkthrough channels do.    

Tim knew this was a bad idea. He’s praying that he hasn’t actually bruised Brian’s arm, but he knows he’s probably left a mark. Seeing things twitching at the edges of your vision is one thing, but having a real, solid person in a rubber mask jumping out at you activates a whole different set of instincts. Tim nearly socked the first guy in the face, and since then, his grip on Brian’s arm is half to steady him and half to keep himself from reeling back and doing it again. 

Amy thinks this is the best time she’s had in months. Jessica’s in a constant state of “AMY WHY”. Alex is Amy’s meatshield, while Amy’s Jessica’s meatshield. It works out.

Brian doesn’t want to let on how much this place unsettles him, but it’s really starting to wear on him. After the second maze, Tim asks if he wants to duck out and get a hot dog or something, and Brian happily agrees. 

After Maze #3, Alex insists that “we should all stop for a snack” (because  he’s getting burned out, but he sure as hell doesn’t want to say that). The gang sees Brian and Tim finishing off a truly ridiculously large order of chili cheese fries. Alex didn’t even notice they were missing. 

Jay is exhausted from being so wound up and too wound up to calm down. He wonders if the scareactors are allowed to mess with people at the picnic tables. He wonders if he’ll die if he drinks a can of Coke with his burger. He buys it anyway. He leaves the camera running. Tim sees his hands shaking and gives him a look. Jay doesn’t think anyone who ducked out after two mazes is qualified to be giving him a look. 

Seth and Sarah leave early. Seth says he has a project he has to get started on. Sarah wants to point out that it’s the middle of fall break and that he literally told her this morning that he didn’t have any homework over the break, but she doesn’t need to. Even Jay seems to have noticed how flimsy his excuse is. Sarah’s pretty wiped anyway, so she basically says, “So long, suckers,” and leaves the rest of them to suffer without their Rear Guard. 

Tim and Brian rejoin the gang for Maze #4, now emotionally recharged and full of chili cheese fries. 

Alex is very, very tired of being out front, but there are only two more and he just needs to power through it. (Also, he doesn’t feel like it’s right to force anybody else to take the lead, and nobody’s asked, so he’ll just suck it up and keep going. Somebody has to be out front, and it might as well be him.)

This house has a trick where a hatch slides open at about knee-level, and a scareactor reaches out for your legs--not close enough to touch, but close enough to make you notice. Jay doesn’t see it coming. He makes a truly embarrassing noise, a noise that will forever be immortalized on film. (No, he’ll edit it out in post.) At this point, Jay is well and truly shaken. He thinks he sees spots flashing in front of his eyes, but it’s too dark to really tell. It’s probably from the strobes from earlier. Maybe he’s breathed too much fog machine fog. (Is it true that stuff can burn holes in your lungs?) Jay’s fine. Really, he’s fine.

The gang shares a look of weary resignation before getting in line for Maze #5.

The last maze is alien-themed, something about invaders from another dimension. It’s new this year, and it shows. The animatronics are smoother, the sound design is great, and the makeup is--

One of the monsters has no face, just pale latex skin stretched taut.

Brian’s not sure why Tim just hid his face against his back, but he’s not going to make him move. Sure, he’ll miss the neat sets--Brian’s especially partial to the rusted-out feel of the old spaceship; it reminds him of Alien--but Brian’ll tell him about them later. Brian inches forward, and Tim follows, gripping the back of Brian’s sweatshirt for dear life. Brian wonders if they’ll have enough time to get another snack before they leave; chili cheese fries may not fix anything, but they seemed to help before. 

The maze culminates in a brief scripted battle, as a pair of actors wearing scuffed-up space suits fire on the aliens while strobe lights fire off from a truss above the set.

Jay thinks something feels off. 

Jay wakes up outside the maze, splayed out across the grass and surrounded by paramedics. No, he doesn’t have a history of epilepsy. No, it’s probably just anxiety, really, we don’t need to go to the hospital.

Jay wakes up in the hospital. 

A few hours later, he’s finally released. (Brian stays in the waiting room while Alex and the rest of the gang drops Tim off at his apartment to get his car. Yeah, I’m good to drive. Just a bit shaken, that’s all. No, really, you stay here, and I’ll go. I hate waiting rooms.) 

Jay comes out with a doctor’s warning and a six-month driving ban. (Tim snickers into his hand when Jay tells him.)

Jay laments the fact that his footage for the last maze is unusable and asks if they can go again. Tim somehow manages to give him a look while still keeping his eyes on the road. Jay’s as impressed as he is offended. 

Option #2: The Gang Runs the Haunt AU. Alex’s family runs a haunt and they’re short on help, so Alex ropes the gang into helping him. 

The Kralie haunt is pretty small-scale, as haunts go, but it’s been in the family for generations. (Well, Alex’s dad and grandfather started it in the early 80s, so Alex thinks that counts as “generations”.)

Growing up around all this stuff helps mold a young mind sometimes, and while Alex is still pretentious as all get-out, he wants to make horror movies. He wants to elevate the genre. 

Alex suggested to his grandfather that they try one of those “intense”, full-contact haunts one year. His grandfather looked him straight in the eyes and told him that was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard, but if he wanted to be an idiot, he could make his own haunt. 

(Alex did not have the resources to make his own haunt. He’s still biding his time. Waiting.) 

Jay tagged along with Alex’s family to an out-of-state haunt convention that spring, and he helped them pick out some spotlights and a new projector effect. 

This may have been what planted the seed in Alex’s head for an idea that August: friends = free labor, right? 

Jay agrees to help build sets and set up lighting on the condition that he’d be able to shoot some footage for his midterm project on-set. (The thing’s not due until mid-October, so the sets’ll be done with enough time to film and edit, right?) 

Brian agrees to do the same on the condition that he’d be able to play a monster on the weekends. (From Alex’s perspective, that was a no-brainer; double the free labor!) 

 Tim agrees because he knows Alex is garbage at sound design, and he’d like to do something that’s actually helpful for once.

Amy’s been looking into being an SFX makeup artist (maybe as a full-time job, maybe on the side; competition is steep) so she wants all the practice she can get. 

Amy tries to convince Jessica that monster makeup’s “just like regular makeup, really! It’s easy! Come on, I can’t do all the actors myself!”

Monster makeup is not just like regular makeup. Jessica feels a lot more comfortable painting sets, but she doesn’t want to throw Amy under the bus, so she also does a little bit of the makeup, too. She thinks her monster stuff looks awful, and from the look on Amy’s face, she knows she agrees. At least the haunt is dark. 

 Alex picks up a pair of stilts at a nearby Goodwill and begs Amy to design a monster for them. 

Various ideas are brought up and shot down, including The Obvious. Tim vocally objects to The Obvious, for Obvious reasons. Alex concedes.

The haunt that year is themed after a haunted crypt (just like it was the past five years), so they wind up with Alex dressed as an eight-foot reaper in a cloak. (The cloak is to cover up the stilts.) Alex thinks it’s corny. (He secretly likes lurking around and looming into the edges of people’s field of vision. It’s satisfying. He Likes To Be Tall.)

Alex initially plans to make Brian a forgettable background skeleton, but then his mother has the idea to make Brian into a skeletal “barker” character who stands out front and improvises banter with the guests. Brian’s been taking some improv classes since that summer, and the improvements are noticeable. (Alex entirely blames the classes. No way was his lousy script to blame for Brian’s lackluster performance that summer. Alex is a genius. Brian’s just a psych major.)

Alex calls Brian “The Cryptkeeper” once. Only once. 

Brian knows too many puns. 

(Ten years later, Jay thanks every deity he can name that Undertale didn’t exist during the fall of 2006.)

The sets come together in time (barely). 

Jay shoots what he needs for his project in time (not really, but what’s a few all-nighters among friends). 

After an extended battle with a speaker rig that looks like it hasn’t been updated in fifteen years, the ambient sound design comes together in time (barely).

Jessica looks up lots of makeup tutorials.

The First Weekend of October Is Coming. 

Actors: hired

Rehearsals: done

Costumes: done

Lighting and sound: checked and re-checked

Sets: safety regulation compliant

Everyone: smells like liquid latex and fake fog

The First Night Arrives. 

Alex has a fever of 103. His parents say that, between school and the haunt, he must’ve overexerted himself. 

Alex has seen Tim coughing the past week or so. Alex knows Tim is Patient Zero. Tim should’ve dropped out the second he started coming down with something; now he might’ve spread it to the whole crew.

Alex calls Tim up and curses him out through a sore throat. Tim can barely understand what he’s saying. Tim eventually hangs up. 

It’s an hour until doors open, and somebody needs to wear the reaper outfit. 

Brian’s already in costume as the barker, Amy and Jessica are busy, and everyone knows the last thing Alex will want to hear is that Tim took his part. 

So that leaves Jay.

Jay has never worn stilts before. 

Jay has never scared people before. 

(Not on purpose, at least.)

Jay tries his best. 

Mercifully, he doesn’t fall over, but he does get close a few times. He has to grip the foam-painted-to-look-like-stone wall for support for most of the night. The cloak would look baggy on anyone, but Jay’s swimming in it.

He still gets a few good scares in. (He sees why Alex likes it. It’s a power thing, he thinks.)   

The next few weekends, once Alex is back on his feet, Jay shoots promotional footage of the guests going through the haunt. Jay prefers this job; he gets to dress in stagehand-black and lurk around the sets trying not to be noticed.

He gets some of his best footage out front, watching Brian. The guy really is a natural at this. 

Tim stays backstage every weekend, monitoring lights and sound. Jay gets a little footage of him, too, to his mild annoyance.

Jay tapes interviews with Jessica and Amy one Saturday before the doors open. Amy turns the whole thing into a tutorial, seemingly out of pity after Jay stumbles through a couple of awkwardly worded interview questions.

When Alex’s family realize he didn’t set aside any money in the budget to pay his friends, they swiftly correct the error. The gang doesn’t make much, still, but it’s a nice surprise.

October ends. The sets are dismantled. The costumes are put away. 

Brian tells Alex that if he ever needs more help next year, he’ll try to be around. 

Brian’s off to medical school at the end of spring semester, but he's going to try to get into a program in the area. Alex rolls his eyes and tells him that maybe they’ll be able to come up with a mad doctor for him to play.

“Mad psychiatrist.” Brian wiggles his eyebrows.

“Isn’t that an oxymoron?” 

“Not as often than you’d think.”

Jay cuts his footage into a trailer for the website. Alex’s family is thrilled. Jay asks if can bring his camera to the haunt convention next year, and the answer is a resounding “absolutely”. 

Jay might have found His Element. 

It gets worse when he discovers that unsolved crime forums are a thing.

Then Jay’s either traveling around taping haunt walkthroughs or trespassing on private property looking for evidence. 

Alex thinks Jay would make a great character in one of his movies.

The gang keeps coming back year after year, especially Jay and Tim. Brian has to miss a few years because of school. Jessica ends up at a grad school out of state but comes back as a guest a few times. For Tim and Jay, though, it’s decent seasonal work.  

Alex is still trying to elevate the genre. Tim and Jay have a running bet on how long it’ll take for one of Alex’s movies to get wide enough distribution to win a Razzie. 

Everything Is Actually Fine

#marble hornets #tim wright #jay merrick #alex kralie #brian thomas #jessica locke #amy walters #haunted house au #plotbunnies #You Have Activated My Special Interest #my fanfiction #sort of

[wewithus]

The Five Minutes for Freedom series is a collection of small, step-by-step walkthroughs designed to help you take concrete political action in support of the principles of We With Us. The articles in the series are designed to be read and their steps followed in order, as later posts frequently build on earlier ones. A chronological index of all posts in the series can be found here. While this information is targeted primarily at US readers, we welcome readers from all countries and encourage you to adapt these strategies as necessary for your jurisdiction.

5M4F 13: Fight for Immigrant Rights [The wall, the immigration ban, sanctuary cities, + supporting 3rd-party orgs fighting for immigrant rights.] Dependencies: 5M4F10, (light dependency on) 5M4F9.

I’m a little bit under the weather and running behind on drafting this, so I’m going to try and keep this brief, which is not my strong suit. So. Bear with me.

This week we’re calling to protest the executive orders on the wall and banning immigration from Muslim-majority countries, and we’re going to offer our support to local “sanctuary cities,” whose federal funding is under threat due to another executive order, as applicable. Right now, the organizations on the front lines fighting this stuff directly are the ACLU and immigrant rights organizations like the National Immigration Law Center: the ACLU was the organization helping the two Iraqis held at JFK successfully get a stay for the executive order for immigrants who had already arrived in the country, and many other organizations are also doing good work in this area, so we’re also going to be offering support to those organizations however we can, whether it’s financial support, volunteer hours, and/or getting the word around to our family and friends who may have those resources to spare.

If you want to do this all in one go: unfortunately, these can’t be completely finished all in one go, because of the issue of keeping individual calls to a single representative focused on a single issue. But what you can do is script all your calls together (that you can do today, and it’s basically a copy-paste job, so it shouldn’t be too onerous), then make your calls about the wall on Monday, calls about the immigration ban on Tuesday, et cetera.

If you want to do this five minutes at a time: easier! Your scripts for a single issue will probably only take you about five to ten minutes to assemble, depending on how many calls you have to make, and one call will probably take about five minutes to make. You can sprinkle your scripting throughout the day today, and sprinkle your calls throughout your field offices’ business hours during the week; or script your calls about the wall today, then call about wall and script for the immigration ban Tuesday; whatever.

Note: if you live in a sanctuary city, like I do, in Los Angeles, you are almost certainly going to have more individual calls on that issue than on any other task we’ve had so far. Plan accordingly!

I’ve broken each task down a little more behind the cut. Shortcut links:

The wall.

The immigration ban.

Sanctuary cities.

The ACLU and other third-party organizations.

A note on how to protest amid breaking news.

How to write your scripts.

What to do if you can’t make calls.

I also want to make a quick note, for anyone who is feeling overwhelmed and scared: there’s pretty overwhelming evidence that far from just not having a mandate for these actions, the overwhelming majority of Americans, including the white Americans and men who made up the core of Trump’s supporters, do not support Trump’s racism and xenophobic actions, and that what support he does have has been consistently falling. We aren’t alone. That little ember of hope is something we can fan into a flame, and it doesn’t take a lot to do it.

So don’t do a lot. Do a little.

I really do encourage you to think of this as a group of five-minute tasks. If you only make one five-minute call, that is one five-minute call that would not be made without you. And if you are having a particularly rough week, you can always write emails or letters this week instead of calling, and go back to calling next week. Some people can’t make calls at all, and that’s OK too. Another thing you can do is to talk to your friends and family, and see if you can work through the things on this list together. You don’t have to make your calls alone: you can do it with someone (figuratively or literally!) holding your hand. And if you can bring yourself to discuss these things with your friends and family, you might get them to make calls or write letters and emails, too—and that is how we get things done. More action and more energy fighting on these issues makes us more likely to win.

The wall: The wall between the US and Mexico is part of a broader xenophobic alteration in US immigration enforcement policy that will almost certainly increase racial profiling. It’s also going to be massively expensive, and no matter who builds it and no matter what Trump says about making Mexico pay for it, and whether or not it actually has any deterrent effect on migration, the people who are actually going to pay for it are US taxpayers. Also, it and the associate proposed tariffs may start a trade war with Mexico, and no one wins in a US trade war with Mexico. Make calls to the White House, to your senators, and to your representative in the House to let them know that you strongly object to this racist, ineffective, expensive, and dangerous executive order.

The immigration ban: Continuing our theme of xenophobia and stupidity, the travel ban on immigrants from Muslim-majority countries (at present: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, though it opens the door for more countries to be added later), including immigrants with legal US visas and holders of US green cards (speaking of breaking news, this literally changed while I was drafting this post), from entering or re-entering the United States is flat-out racist. It also is causing a massive disruption in the lives of many people who have entirely legitimate reasons to enter the US and have in fact upended their lives elsewhere to do so. It blocks the US from accepting Syrian refugees indefinitely, which I feel is a good place to remind everyone about the results of American immigration restrictions in the 1930s (Holocaust cw). The current travel ban is also pointless, since Islamist terrorism is already a smaller threat than home-grown terrorism (e.g. the “sovereign citizens” movement) in the US. While the ACLU has successfully gotten a stay for immigrants who have already arrived in the country, the executive order itself has not been stayed or overturned, and visa holders outside the country are still not being permitted to enter. Make calls to the White House, to your senators, and to your representative in the House to let them know that you strongly object to this racist, disruptive, dangerous, and pointless executive order.

Sanctuary cities: There’s a good rundown on sanctuary cities on the NY Times, but the short version is this: some jurisdictions (states, cities, counties) in the US have put limits on how much their local law enforcement officers can or are expected to enforce federal immigration law. Not only is it not their job, codifying these restrictions improves the relationship between immigrant communities and local law enforcement, making it so that communities with large undocumented populations can report crimes and rely on the police to enforce public safety without worrying that if they report a break-in, the cops will end up deporting Grandma because she doesn’t have papers. Sanctuary status interpreted more broadly also means that other local public institutions, like public universities, can provide equal access to services to everyone who walks in the door without screening them to see whether or not they’re in the country legally. I should note that this is the constitutional right of state and local jurisdictions, which cannot be compelled to enforce federal mandates themselves.

Make calls to the White House, to your senators, and to your representative in the House to let them know that you strongly object to the federal government’s unconstitutional effort to strip federal funding from sanctuary cities. If you live in a sanctuary city/county/state (see the NY Times article linked above), you also should make calls to your relevant city/county/state representatives to let them know that you support their efforts to maintain sanctuary status for your city/county/state. If you don’t live in a sanctuary city/county/state, but you live in a community with a large undocumented population, you could also make calls to your relevant city/county/state representatives urging them to adopt sanctuary status in defiance of federal actions, though I don’t entirely know how this would work.

[I do also recommend that, if you are a student at a university that has declared itself a sanctuary campus, you write a quick note to your chancellor or whatever other person or body has made that declaration thanking them for protecting the rights of undocumented students, but that’s not officially going on as a task because it probably applies to a pretty small subset of people reading this post.]

The ACLU and other third-party organizations: If you’ve done 5M4F9, “Assess Your Resources,” you may have already decided to kick some time or money over to the ACLU or immigrant and/or Muslim rights organizations (partial list of orgs we recommend over here) on some kind of schedule or under some conditions, but if you haven’t done 5M4F9, now’s a good time to dig around under the sofa cushions and see what you can send their way to help fund legal fights, or see if they need volunteers in your neck of the woods. If you haven’t got money or time, but you can spread the word about the need for funding and volunteers, do that instead. Social media’s not everything, but it’s not nothing, either.

I’m not going to say that everyone can find money, or can find time, because that frankly isn’t true, but I do encourage you to be honest with yourself about where you can maybe find some money, or some time, if it’s possible. It doesn’t have to be a lot—a little is better than nothing at all.

A note on protesting amid breaking news: Because I can’t know when, precisely, you’ll actually make your individual calls, the exact nature of how you protest these executive orders may need to change a little bit based on what’s happened with legal challenges and so forth by the time you’re calling.

When you call the White House, you can make it clear that you object to the executive orders themselves, because Trump has control over them and can himself rescind them. But this is a little bit different from making calls for the confirmation processes because executive orders bypass the House and Senate, so when you call the House and Senate, it’s more like calling your House representatives during Senate confirmation hearings. You want to urge your representatives to go on-record as opposing the executive orders if they haven’t already; or be thanking them for doing so, depending on what if any statements they’ve made publicly, and making it clear to them that you continue to watch their statements and voting behavior to see whether or not they will have your vote in 2018 (or 2020, or 2022).

Anyway, to handle how fast this is moving, I recommend that you plan on searching a reputable news source, like The Guardian, shortly before you make your calls, for any breaking-news updates that may require you to tweak your scripts. It’s often also useful to check your representatives’ website to see what press releases they have on a given subject, so you know whether (for example) they have already gone on-record as opposing the wall.

How to Write Your Scripts (excerpted from 5M4F-5):

The basic phone script for calling your representatives goes something like so:

Hi, {can I ask who I’m speaking to? <, if they don’t say when they pick up>} [Jot their name down.] Hi, <their name>. My name is <your name> and I’m one of <your representative’s name>’s constituents in <where you live>. I wanted to let <your representative’s name> know that I strongly <support | oppose> <the thing you’re calling about>, because <succinct explanation of reason why you’re calling>. Is <your representative’s name> planning to <do the thing you want>?

Then you have to plan for a few different responses:

They’re with you: Thank you. Could you please let <appropriate pronoun> know that <expression of gratitude> and <indication that you will continue to watch your representative’s behavior and hold them accountable>?

They’re neutral: This subject is very important to me because <longer, more in-depth and emotive reason why you’re calling>. I would very much appreciate it if you could let <your representative’s name> know that I feel very strongly about this and would really encourage <appropriate pronoun> to <do the thing you want>. Is there any way I could follow up with you or <appropriate pronoun> later?

They oppose you: This subject is very important to me because <longer, more in-depth and emotive reason why you’re calling>. Can I ask why <your representative’s name> is <not doing the thing you want>? [Let them give you a reason, and write it down.] Okay, thank you. I understand <appropriate pronoun> concerns, but as one of <your representative’s name>’s voting constituents, I would really appreciate it if <appropriate pronoun> revisited <appropriate pronoun> decision because <alternate succinct explanation of reason why you’re calling>. Is there any way I could follow up with you or <appropriate pronoun> later?

<expression of gratitude>! <polite send-off>!

I want to point out that you probably don’t actually really need to plan for all of these responses. You can probably make a pretty good guess where your representative stands based on their party affiliation. However, especially if your representatives are moderates and often vote across the aisle, it’s not a bad idea to spend a little time planning for all three cases, because then your behind is covered, and you can recycle this language over and over on later calls, to different representatives. And yes: we will be calling other representatives.

This is the sample script that I wrote back in November, on a different issue and to Barbara Boxer, who has been replaced by Kamala Harris, but it gives you an idea how the Mad-Libs-filling process works:

Hi, {can I ask who I’m speaking to? <, if they don’t say when they pick up>} [Jot their name down.] Hi, <their name>. My name is <Ginny Washington>, and I’m one of <Senator Boxer>’s constituents in <West Hollywood>. I wanted to let <Senator Boxer> know that I strongly <support> <her resolution to amend the Constitution to eliminate the Electoral College>, because <I think every American’s vote should count equally>. {I just wanted to thank her for all her hard work on behalf of the principles of equal representation and equal protection under the law.}

<Thank you so much for your time>! <Have a nice day>!

If you can’t make calls: I recommended before that if you can’t make calls, you copy down snail mail addresses so you can send snail mail letters, and that you grab an email address or online contact link no matter what. Calls are the most effective, if you can make them, but please, do send snail mail letters if you can’t, or an email if you also can’t swing a stamp or get to a post office. You can use the script above as a template for your letter, but you’re probably going to want to default to assuming that your representative opposes you, and you’ll have to of course make it sound like a letter and not a phone convo.

If you care about correct forms of address: weirdly, because these things are super arcane, technically the correct way to address your senator or representative is still “The Honorable <whoever>”, as in, “The Honorable Barbara Boxer.” That goes on the envelope. You can then write “Dear Mr./Mrs./Ms. <whoever>” as your salutation.

#we with us #five minutes for freedom #5m4f #immigrant rights #muslim rights #sanctuary cities #sanctuary campuses #the aclu

[adriennescomingbacktolife]

(I ½)

The days all kinda blurred together. It wasn’t that she was depressed or anything. Adrienne didn’t believe that. Loss … losing the cat wasn’t easy but everyone who has a pet deals with that reality. She should be ecstatic. Just days away from getting her chance in that ring. Her chance to prove that she could do this, too. And with the right attitude, she should even do better.

A raised voice on the other side broke her introspection.  

“...are you even listening to me, lady. I’m not paying you a fuckin’ thing.”

Startled, she looked at the computer screen in front of her, clicking around through a myriad of sticky notes containing what ifs. The account information, this time a fifty four year old man living somewhere in the outskirts of Chicago, was delinquent in a near decade old credit card. 

“Sir, I am authorized to settle this balance with you for--”

“Hey. Shut the fuck up. How about this, you dumb bitch, how about you suck my cock?”

“Okay.”

Adrienne clicked a little red phone icon and the call was terminated. She was unphased and she knew that she had thirty seconds before her line automatically made another outbound call to someone else probably just sitting down to eat dinner with the family.

But instead, her Teams icon flashed and Nate, her supervisor, chimed in. 

I’ve put you on break. Stop by.

She removed her headset and hung it on a hook attached to her cube wall. Adrienne pondered on her workplace briefly. She could clean out of her desk in a matter of moments and just be gone. No one would notice. There was a partially torn envelope on her desk, lightly coated in dust. 

Sorry for- in a decidedly solemn looking script. 

She swiveled in her chair and stood up. Like a woosh, all of the chattering of the hive mind came over her. Dozens and dozens of people in rows and rows of cubes were talking to people all over the world who for whatever reason haven’t paid their bills. When she started, Adrienne was haunted by the stories these people would share. But four years and thousands of calls later, she was numb to it. It wasn’t that she was heartless, it’s just that she literally couldn’t afford to care.

Adrienne snatched up her security badge and walked apprehensively towards Nate’s office. 

His door was just ajar. She rapped her knuckles on the frame. 

“Come in.”

Nate’s office like everything here was repurposed from something else. A small room that was previously a storage area. No windows to the outside and a hatchet job on all of the outlets and network connections.

“Hey, Adrienne, how are you-hey, is that the same shirt from yesterday?”

She took a seat in one of those plastic bucket chairs in front of his cheap Ikea desk. Sheepishly, she looked down at her choice of attire, he was right. She hadn’t slept much in between the last two days. Not at all, actually. That’s what mandatory overtime does to one’s schedule. Of course, Nate called it voluntary but unless one volunteered to stay over to catch all of those west coast deadbeats, their hours dried up.

“No, I just really like Doritos.”

Nate chuckled.

“Who doesn’t? Anyway, so I saw your PTO request.”

She tensed up, she knew what was coming.

“Monday’s our busiest day of the week. Nobody gets Monday off.”

Adrienne tried to remain calm. To most people, she was always calm. In fact, no one in this office had seen her react to much of anything in quite some time. On the inside, she was furious.  

“It’s for my other job.”

Nate had her email pulled up on the screen.

“Yeah, I see that. Didn’t your husband do that?”

She nodded.

“Look, Kaplan company policy is that an employee can seek secondary employment as long as it doesn’t interfere with her obligations here. I can’t approve this.”

“I...already have a plane ticket. I’ll be back for Tuesday.”

“...not only that, you’re asking for Monday off every two weeks. No way, there is no way this can happen.”

“This is something…”

She shook her head. He wouldn’t understand.

“You going up to Baltimore… really, Baltimore twice a month doesn’t align with the values this team has. Not only that, your collection numbers have been down. Below average. So I can’t approve your little trips and I’m going to put you on a performance plan. You’ve got a week to get your percentage back up or…”

I quit.

Adrienne looked down at her beat up work sneakers. They used to be Adidas but the logo had long faded.

“You getting this, Mrs. Levi? You’ve been here a long darn time. Longer than most but you know how it is. You’re--

In the most subdued tone possible, she stated, “I ...quit.”

Nate hadn’t heard her. Carnage Wrestling was paying her a grand per appearance. And she heard there were winner’s bonuses, but she wasn’t going to be that arrogant to think that she was going to be very good at this. Maybe she could sell t-shirts out of the trunk of her car like she did Danny’s. There was that time someone said they’d pay her five grand for a “modeling gig” but … nevermind. 

“So tonight, you could stay over.”

“No…”

“Hey, look, Janey left early. Something about her kid again or whatever. I’m sure she’s making it up but I doubt you have any plans. Who doesn’t like to make an extra dollar an hour?”

He smiled sincerely, like that extra dollar really helped. 

“I can’t…”

Adrienne suddenly had Nate’s full attention. For her entire life, Adrienne never did anything on impulse. But as of late, she was by herself and she had reconsidered that taking care of her own needs every once in a while wasn’t really that selfish.

“Because?”

Adrienne stood up, breaking away the lanyard that held her badge. Her tone was as emphatic as she could muster.

“Because … I quit.”

Before Nate could react, she turned around - nearly tripping over the chair. After nearly planting her face into the office door, she tossed her credentials to the carpet and stormed out. Heads of long time co workers popped up from their cubes as Nate hurried out from his closet, calling after her.

“Hey, hey, you don’t mean that. Just … take the night off. Come back to…”

The former collection agent didn’t hear the rest of his plea as the back door to the outside slammed behind her. She had triggered the fire alarm but … well, she didn’t give a shit.

#carnagewestling #character development