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B5 S03E19 Grey 17 Is Missing previous episode - table of contents

I'm not sure how this episode is going to go, because prior to this I have always watched B5 high (I started this saga while taking hydrocodone pain meds I was allergic to post-wisdom teeth removal) or sober (which I quickly stopped doing, because the recaps were a dry and stale recounting of the plot in a most unpleasant way), but now I can't have THC for awhile (pre-op instructions for what will hopefully be my last surgery for awhile) and so I am experimenting with liveblogging while tipsy. 

So far I thimk that tipsy b5 blogging may be the era of run-on sentences. play video. 

Harry Sanders says in response to the question "are you a telepath,": "sure." 

I am guessing that Mr Sanders is not a telepath. But I am a huge fan of people fucking with Zack Allen. Queer icon Harry Sanders tries to flirt his way into the job. sadly, he fails.

Unnamed maintenance worker gets sucked into a maintenance tunnel with random wires trailing out of it. That probably won't be relevant later :)

Someone, I am assuming Sinclair, spoke of Delenn "with great reverence" to his Minbari friend regularly. I LOVE THAT OMG. *shipping intensifies* 

Harlan Ellison consulted on this one, too?? That's so cool. My Eepectations just went up. Minbari With The Nose thinks that Delenn should take over as Ranger One. Are they going out of their way to not say his name? 

Calling a gun with bullets a slugthrower is a pretty amusing thing to share with Star Wars. I once read a crossover fic where Han Solo (iirc) went on smuggling runs to B5 to pick up kyber crystals, which the B5 people have been using for mere data storage. 

"I swear it's like the Centauri triangle in there - something's always going wrong."

I only support Garibaldi's casual racism because actually, everything IS always going wrong with the Centauri....but has the Bermuda Triangle myth been supplanted with a centauri space equivalent?? And what makes it a triangle in 3d space?

Stephen Franklin is looking rough. Withdrawl. Withdrawal? Sad plotline. Space AA is not my favorite plotline. Also, Mr Dr Franklin, maybe don't compain about people following you around when you haven't even left Babylon Five???? That's a cry for help if ever I saw one in metaphor. If you wanna be alone like...barter some medical attention for a ride to an abandoned planetoid. 

Gray 17 is a level of b5? Cool. I thought it was going to be a person that disappeared. And it is several of them at least. But there's also thirty official grey levels but only 29 accessible. I like it. 

Delenn looks extra pretty today. 

Why does this Minbari know about siren songs? Convergent cultural evolution, or does this guy like Earth ancient-greek sailor myths? 

It's genuinly hilarious (and apropos) for a Minbari Ranger to think it pollutes the rangers for humans to be admitted. This warrior class Minbari thinks it's heretical for Delenn-of-the-clerics to consider taking command of the Rangers, which he thinks are the rightful domain of the warrior caste. 

hm. Where'd he go. That won't come up later, either. 

Garibaldi is leaning into one of his strengths: investigation. He's counting the seconds the elevator takes between Grey levels. Grey  like the grey council, or pure coincidence?

ALSO. no minbari has killed another minbari for a thousand years?? I find that very hard to believe. Domestic violence? manslaughter?? What kind of statistical fuckery are they employing to make that something Delenn can say without winking??

Delenn: "I want your word that you will not tell [Sheridan] about [the warrior class dick threatening to kill me]. Your. Word." 

*cue Lennier hinting unsubtly about Delenn's life being in danger*

I did not expect Level 17 Grey to come up. Where is the missing number if Grey 17 is missing, it goes to Grey 30, but there's only 29 levels? This mystery is deeper than I expected it to be!

 The missing floor, once Garibaldi rules-lawyers the lift into stopping there, is trashed. And it says Grey 17 in a different place than the other floors. AND there's what looks like a technical diagram for a trash can where the other floors have their designation signs. Idk what this means, but it's a data point!! 

Well. I would drop kick that puppet if it talked to me on a trashed level. But Michael Garibaldi let it DART him. like a SCHMUCK. Don't let it do that. hit the follow button for more HOT TIPS FROM MICHAL. (pronounced like McCalll, not like Michael).

Lennier!!!! YES HE IS TELLING SOMEONE. But not Sheridan. Love his rules-lawyering. Super cute. My guy. Lancelot (purely platonic version).

I would kiss Lennier all over his sweet face. And he would not like it. I am sure. 

Garibaldi has recovered-ish from his darting of unknown substance. FUCK THAT PUPPET. burn it with fire or smth. 

Who is this council of lost persons?? Jim Henson's dream?????!

"My name is Jeremiah. Welcome to the end of the world." 

YES PLEASE. This is good plot, and I like it. 

Delenn is really beautiful this episode. I think the red/blue rich, saturated colors particularly flatter her. But she is always unfairly pretty and generally lickable.

Delenn's mother entered the sisters of valeria soon after Delenn was born, and she's only seen her twice. TWICE. And Delenn's father died ten years ago. She does not mention siblings. How old is Delenn? If it isn't a plot-relevant spoiler, please let me know if you know it. 

Her thoughts on missing her father are both relatable and wistful. It made me thoughtful about the same topic. 

Jeremiah says the reason the Minbari almost defeated the humans in the war was because the Minbari are closer to the truth than humans. AND we have learned that the people on Grey Level 17 is because they hacked the system and detached themselves from the rest of B5. Isolationists being isolationist on a tiny little level of a space station is illogical and funny and very, very human.

The Minbari offended by Delenn running the Rangers is called Neroon! That's super familiar and I think I've met him before. He says "During the war I killed fifty thousand of you....what's one more?" Well my dude. I bet you didn't kill fifty thousand humans in one-on-one combat. And I'm gonna go ahead and bet on Marcus's staff-fighting prowess over his. 

GET 'IM MARCUS.

This is a well-choreographed and filmed staff fight. 

Jeremiah on Grey Level 17 actually is super aligned with Delenn's philosophy on the universe. But is far more freaky about the practical side of the philosophy. tbh. I think Jeremiah did LSD one too many times. 

Garibaldi isn't super serious about his threat because his choke hold lacks a fulcrum...Jeremiah could break it anytime he liked if he knew how to identify what wrestling hold he was in....signed...someone whose father wrestled in highschool and taught them from a young age to identify and break choke holds by neck-feel....

GO MARCUS GO GET NEROON. 

Neroon: "Why? You must have known you could not win....so why do it?" Marcus: "For [Delenn]. [...] In Valen's name." 

LANCELOT MOVE OVER, GALAHAD HAS ARRIVED

Jeremiah: "Listen. Listen. The only way out is-is to find a purity of thought. A purity of belief! That is the door! The door of the mind." 

Hm. This dude is craycray. And his further speech does nothing to dispel the notion. What is screeching?? 

If Sinclair was Entil'Zha, wthen what was this Minbari Ranger going to designate Delenn?

Damn it, Neroon lives. Bring! Back! Galahad! fuck u neroon. You don't deserve a capitalized proper noun name.

wtf is this thing hunting on level 17 grey?? I don't recognize its silhouette. 

Michael Garibaldi (paraphrased): HOW DO WE HURT THIS THING??? *looks at .38 bullets in hand*

Me, reliving my misspent youth: IF YOU GRAB THE SHELL OF THOSE .38s WITH PLIERS THEN HIT THE PRIMER WITH A BALLPEEN HAMMER U CAN SHOOT IT

(yes I did this shit for fun as a child and I am EXTREMELY LUCKY I did not have a mishap of a permanent injury variety)

hmm. Garibaldi sorta used my childhood fun trick but with a pipe to protect his fragile hands.. UNLIKE ME AND MY PLAIN PLIERS AND HAMMER

Neroon kicked Marcus's ass but Marcus is going to recover -a relief. But Neroon!! FUCK OFF. 

"you are more noble than I" - Neroon (paraphrased)

THAT'S A GALAHAD MOVE. psych. Marcus got you with his ideological purity and ironic wit!!

The murderous thing on Grey level 17 was a "zarg." OK. Please, if it isn't spoilery, remind me what that is. 

This episode feels a bit more disjointed than they usually are, but I liked it. And fuck Neroon!!! Get behind Delenn or shut the fuck up. 

*a perfectly good episode. but also. GET BEHIND DELENN OR STFU!!

onward

Eddie!! 👨‍👩‍👦

This is the ask game

I haven't posted any proper headcanon giving Eddie a backstory because I'm fuzzy on the details, but the vague vibes that I have is that I'd make Eddie's parents addicts: mom overdosed, dad was charged with manslaughter, or with posession of drugs kind of thing.

There's something there that would work well (I think) with how society perceives Eddie: the fucked up kid from a fucked up couple (and also because the other most obvious option is fridging Eddie's mom and I don't like at all the fridging women thing) . Like, at a societal level I think there's a lot of people who see drugs as a tragedy when it comes to rich people and some sort of divine punishment when it comes to poor people (even when that's bullshit, even when there's a whole range of issues that play a role when it comes to drugs) and Eddie always seems on the verge of being an autofulfilled prophecy: if everyone tells you that you're a fuck up, how are you not going to end up being a fuck up?

(I hope it makes sense)

But given that I'm fuzzy on the details and that it's you who have messaged me 😉.... Let me propose something less dark:

The band is somewhat professional, okay. Corroded Coffin has earned their spot on the hideout fair and square because they always do interesting shows, sound very okay and atrack the slightest bit of a following (and Eddie's always on time. It's true that that's because they use his van to move the instruments around but let him be proud, okay, he's not on time for most things).

However the first audition, the one that got them the opportunity, was because Wayne called in a favour from Sam (either because he asked her to let them play one night or because he asked her to mediate with the owner (not sure about the timeline you have for her) so he wouldn't have an aneurysm the first time Eddie played a solo balancing himself on top of his amp, or decided to show up with war paint (that was his Möntley Crüe era, which a couple of months later changed to ac/dc, which a couple of months later changed to dio...)

Eddie, of course, doesn't have a single idea, and anyway was way too inmensily excited while telling Wayne the news to notice that Wayne didn't seem much surprised.

Cops and Paramedics Involved in Elijah McClain’s Death Charged With Homicide

The police officers and paramedics who stopped 23-year-old Elijah McClain and administered a fatal dose of ketamine are being charged with homicide.

The police officers and paramedics who stopped 23-year-old Elijah McClain and administered a fatal dose of ketamine to the unarmed Black man are being charged with homicide, more than two years after his death. A grand jury indicted three Aurora, Colorado, police officers and two paramedics on a total of 32 counts Wednesday afternoon in a rare move to hold them accountable for acts while on duty. Every defendant is facing one count of criminally negligent homicide and a count of manslaughter, according to Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, while assault charges vary among those involved in McClain’s death.

“Our goal is to seek justice for Elijah McClain, for his family and his friends, and for our state,” Weiser said Wednesday. On August 24, 2019, McClain was walking home from work wearing a ski mask he wore to keep himself warm, because he was anemic. After a resident called police because McClain looked “suspicious,” Aurora police officers Nathan Woodyard, Randy Roedema, and Jason Rosenblatt pulled up and told the young Black man to stop. But McClain kept walking because he had headphones on at the time of the verbal command, according to body camera footage. The cops then accused him of resisting, tackled him to the ground, and began to handcuff him. At one point they even placed him in a chokehold, a maneuver now banned by most police departments after the 2014 death of Eric Garner in New York. McClain fainted and vomited during the arrest. “I was just going home,” McClain can be heard saying on body camera footage during the struggle. “I’m just different, I’m just different, that’s all, that’s all I was doing. I’m so sorry.” Paramedics were called to the scene of McClain’s arrest by police after they determined he was suffering from “excited delirium,” a controversial state of agitation often diagnosed by cops, which later appeared on the Black man’s death certificate. The paramedics then injected McClain with ketamine, which is often used as an anesthetic treatment.

But McClain went into cardiac arrest as they transported him to the hospital and was declared brain-dead on August 27. He was taken off life support three days later.

On top of the homicide charge, two of the police officers who arrested McClain, Roedema and Rosenblatt, also face an additional charge of second-degree assault with intent to cause bodily injury and one count each of a crime of violence related to the assault charge. And both paramedics who later arrived on the scene, Cooper and Cichuniec, each face second-degree assault with intent to cause bodily injury, second-degree assault for recklessly causing bodily injury by means of a deadly weapon (ketamine), second-degree assault for a purpose other than lawful medical treatment, and one count of a crime of violence.

Their indictment comes just over two years after McClain’s death, which combined with the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others helped usher in a new era of scrutiny and accountability in American policing. Weiser was assigned to investigate McClain’s death last year, but COVID-19 restrictions continued to delay the meeting of the grand jury, Weiser said Wednesday. During that time, questions into how Aurora officers handled their encounter with the Black man continued, and an independent investigation in February determined the cops had no reason to place him in a chokehold in the first place. The grand jury made their decision last Thursday, but Weiser said his office delayed an announcement to the public to inform McClain’s family first. “We’re here today because Elijah McClain is not here, and he should be,” he said. “He was a son, a nephew, a brother, a friend. When he died, he was only 23 years old. He had his whole life ahead of him. His family and his friends must now go on and live without him.” Last month, Weiser announced his department is currently looking into whether the Aurora fire and police departments have a pattern of violating the civil rights of its community members. The Aurora police department has been involved in several violent arrests that have received national attention.

In July, an officer was charged with several crimes, including assault and official misconduct, for pistol-whipping and choking an unarmed man. In August 2020, Aurora officers forced a family of young Black girls and their older relative out of a vehicle at gunpoint and handcuffed them after mistaking their van for a stolen vehicle.

A Killer Revealed...

Rounding up a week in Hollyoaks (17th-21st May 2021)

The mystery of Hollyoaks’ latest whodunnit was solved this week as George’s killer was revealed. As the week began, things were looking bleak for John Paul. The video from George’s iPad had found its way into James’ hands and a star witness had placed John Paul at the scene of the crime. As a result, James advised him that his best hope of getting a reduced sentence was to plead guilty to manslaughter. However, John Paul was determined that he was innocent and refused to take James’s advice, leaving James with no option but to step down from the case. Meanwhile, the McQueen’s decided that John Paul’s best hope now was to track down the star witness and prove they were lying and Theresa soon had reason to suspect PC Smith, one of George’s former colleagues. Deciding to extract a confession from him, Theresa begged James to help, and after some persuading, he agreed to help out. Miraculously, Theresa managed to get the evidence she needed, resulting in the case against John Paul collapsing...

John Paul was released from prison, much to the relief of his family, whilst PC Smith was suspended pending further investigation. However, he still believed that one of the McQueen’s was guilty of murder and told DS Cohen that he was determined to get to the truth. In a bid to put the wind up the family, PC Smith arrived at The Dog, in full uniform, and announced that the murder weapon had been found. However, when John Paul spoke to DS Cohen, she revealed that PC Smith had been suspended and that the location of the murder weapon remained a mystery. Later, PC Smith watched as a mystery figure entered the city walls, confirmed that the murder weapon was still in place, and then fled. The person was soon confirmed to be Theresa...

Theresa had to face some tough questions when the police asked to speak to her and the timing couldn’t have been worse as Nana brought Kathleen Angel back from Spain. However, as we’ve come to expect from Hollyoaks whodunnits, all was not as it seemed and Sally confessed to a horrified John Paul that she was the killer. Flashbacks showed Sally walking in on an argument between George and Theresa over his abuse of John Paul and, realising that George was about to harm Theresa, Sally whacked him over the head with a bookend. Deciding that she couldn’t let Theresa take the blame, Sally prepared to hand herself in, however, just as Theresa was being charged with George’s murder, John Paul turned up at the station and announced that he was the killer...

Meanwhile, John Paul’s predicament was causing problems for James and Ste this week, with Ste worrying about the amount of time that James was spending with John Paul. With this in mind, Ste was relieved when James decided to step down from the case. However, Leah later overheard the McQueen’s thanking James for everything he’d done for John Paul and, realising that he’d lied to Ste, went straight to tell him. However, Ste didn’t take too kindly to Leah’s ‘interference’, and poor Leah was hurt when Ste told her to mind her own business. Despite this, the seeds of doubt had clearly been sown and Ste was unsure whether or not James was to be trusted...

By the end of the week, James had apologised to Leah and she came up with a way for him to get back into Ste’s good books - buy her the costume she needed for her 80s dance recital. However, with this being a task beyond James, the job was outsourced to Marnie, who ended up buying a costume from the wrong era, leaving Leah disappointed and Trish seething. In fact, Trish was so annoyed that she dropped Leah from the recital. Not only that, but Ste, too, was angry when he realised what had happened, and warned James never to use his kids again...

In other news this week, Darren was determined to get out of the ‘friend-zone’ with Nancy but was left disappointed when she stood him up, whilst Cher continued to gaslight Mercedes. Brooke, struggling with her identity, borrowed Charlie’s clothes and finally, after initially insisting she didn’t want her cancer treated, Martine had her first chemotherapy session. 

This Week’s Cast:

Brooke, Celeste, Charlie, Cher, Darren, DS Cohen, Felix, Goldie, Grace, Jack, James, John Paul, Juliet, Kathleen Angel, Leah, Luke, Marnie, Martine, Matthew, Mercedes, Misbah, Nana McQueen, Nancy, Peri, Ripley, Sally, Ste, Sylver, Theresa, Toby, Trish and Walter.

Blasts From The Past:

Mitchell Deveraux, George Kiss, Breda McQueen, Myra McQueen, Frankie Osborne. 

TLND Ch1: The Theatrics of it All

Disclaimer: I DO NOT own Vice City or any of it’s characters, I only own my OCs. Also, many of the images and gifs used are not 100% representative of the story, there are chosen to help create ✨~ambiance~✨. 

Summary: Tommy has come to Vice City to kill people for money. For him, it’s business and a duty as a member of the Forelli crime family. Dallas has come to Vice City to kill people for money. For her, it’s business and an art form and a lifestyle that has been apart of her family for a long time. A lot might not see it, but they were made for each other. 

Trigger Warning: Blood, graphic depictions of violence

Prickle Pine, Las Venturas

1986

Most people in Prickle Pine always associated with people their neighbors have never seen. This is usually where the rich elites always found hanging out in the Strip lived anyway. So some old couple with nothing better to do but to people-watch probably wouldn’t be calling the authorities any time soon on seeing strange people come out of different houses every day of the week because it was too natural at this point.

So when a midnight blue Sentinel XS pulled up to the Michaels house. No people-watchers thought it was too suspect to see them get a wealthy-looking visitor. The front door opened revealing a man in a faded red and white striped bathrobe known as Bane Michaels. A middle-aged white man who made an infamous name for himself by helping produce some of those pornographic, action-oriented movies the porn industry has ever seen.

He was regular on The Strip and many of his more prudish neighbors came to know him for always having younger women visit while his much more older wife, went off to the hospital for treatment. People watchers merely thought it was another one of those visits.

Bane stood in the doorway a jittery mess as the driver of the Sentinel stepped out of the vehicle. By the look of her outfit, you’d be forgiven for thinking this was a woman whose husband died in “mysterious” circumstances. She was wearing a black pencil dress with a pair of black peep-toe wedges along with some thick-rimmed black sunglasses and a black shoulder purse to make the outfit look a little more perfect. For Bane, she was like an angel of death walking towards his door. This was the woman that would help solve his problems. 

“Well...don’t you look excited to see me.” She commented.

Bane moved aside and let her into the house, immediately locking the door and showing her to the spacious living room which looked like it never left the 60s. It didn’t help that there was a TV playing an old sitcom of that era.

The woman sat down on one of the single-seated couches across from Bane who relaxed as he sat down, waiting for the good news. “Well?”

“I’m sure you’ll be happy to know that you are now a widow, Mr. Michaels.”

Bane’s smile grew wide. “Hahaha! Thank you! Thank you SO much!” The man quickly stood up, grabbing the woman’s hand and shaking it frantically, much to the woman’s clear disdain. She yanked her hand out of his grasp. The man took the hint and sat back down. “Y’know, I heard about you from Carlos. I was so sure he was going to do the job until he recommended you.”

The woman shrugged. “Carlos got wrapped up in a more steady gig.”

Bane took the hint and nodded. “Once the life insurance comes through, I promise you, you’ll get your money. Never done something like this before so I’m not quite sure how long it’ll take.”

“Well, I have. Just make sure you don’t say or do anything stupid and suspicious. Remember, when the hospital calls, you don’t know she’s dead.” The way the woman spoke held an air of both sultriness and coldness. Bane was definitely talking to someone who has experience. “Unless they called already and you messed it up.”

Bane shook his head. “Nope, no call yet. Why don’t we…” Bane scooted forward a bit and flashed the woman a smirk. “Maybe we can wait together?” He asked.

The woman tilted her head to the side. “Are you trying to flirt with me?” She asked with a blunt tone of voice. There was no hint of reciprocation in her words.

Bane shrugged. “Well,” He casually leaned back against the seat. “I am a single man after all.”

“You’re wife’s body not even if a coffin yet.”

“That old broad’s been dead for years. Shame though...she was a real cougar, that one. It was fun running around with an older woman. Especially, when they’re loaded. The probably is, what we men want from an older woman gets lost REAL fast when age starts catching up with them.” He continued going on. “Tits start sagging, they need every pill in the fucking book to keep functioning, hair starts going gray, y’know?” He asked with a chuckle, but the woman didn’t respond. Once he realized she wasn’t going to laugh, he sighed and kept going. “Only reason I stayed with her was because of the money. Porn is nice and all but I wanted to do more. I wanna be big but in this city, you gotta pay big to win big, y’know? Edie, love her to death, but she wasn’t going to understand what I needed. I couldn’t let her divorce me either, she’d take her money and run, leaving me with nothing.”

“So you plan to find some young girl?”

He nodded. “Unless you’re willing to fill the position?”

“No.”

Bane chuckled. “Worth a shot.” The brown-haired man stood up and went over to a brown foyer table holding a variety of liquor bottles as well as a couple of whiskey glasses. He proceeded to pour himself a glass as the nearby landline phone began ringing. A smirk on his face, Bane waltz over to answer, prepared to pretend to be heartbroken.

“Michaels Residence, Bane speaking.”

“.....Michaels Residence?” The evil smirk on Bane’s face slowly disappeared. The man glanced back to the woman sitting on his couch. She was currently paying him no mind as she watched the silent erratic movements of the sitcom still playing. He turned his back towards her and continued the conversation. “Edie?” He asked in a terrified whisper.

“I’m not even in the dirt yet and you’ve already claimed my house?” The older woman said and the smile could be heard in her voice. Bane didn’t say anything in response. “What? No funny remark? You used to be made of them, Baney.”

“You’re alive?” He whispered, not wanting to alert the woman behind him since he planned on giving her a piece of his mind.

“Of course I am. You tried to pay for the Montoya’s to kill me using life insurance? I got something more reliable...an owed favor.” There was so much vile as she said the last part of her sentence.

PHT!

If the walls had eyes, they would be covered in the blood that quickly shot out of Bane’s forehead. With the little thinking energy he had left, the man’s eyes had shot up to try and catch a glimpse of the hole in his head. In a second, his body fell forward, colliding with the wall and crashing down on the table, knocking over the different bottles and sending them to the floor with a series of loud crashes as the phone in his hand was let go and fell in one of the puddles that began soaking the ugly colored carpet.

Turning his back to the woman proved to be a fatal mistake. His last mistake. Once he did, she had quietly made her way over to him, calmly pulling out a suppressed .22 pistol and waited for her moment to pull the trigger.

The woman flashed a satisfied smirk as she put away her gun before bending down to pick up the phone. “Ms. Rubio?”

“I wish I could’ve been there to see the look on his face.” The older woman sounded more than happy with the outcome.

“Well, he was very scared if that makes you feel better.”

“I suppose that’ll do.”

“You never told my cousin what you wanted in terms of body disposal.”

“I have some guys of my own. I want to see what’s left of the fucker. If it wasn’t for MY money, that ingrate wouldn’t have what we had now. To think that son of a bitch was plotting to kill me.”

“Small world though.”

“Indeed. When are you and your cousin leaving Las Venturas?”

“Should be by the end of this week.”

“Should have your money by then.”

“No need. This is a favor, remember?”

“I always tip.” The line went dead.

The woman shrugged and hung up the phone. She took a long look at the corpse before letting out a single chuckle and leaving the residence, locking the bottom lock behind her. As far as the neighbors knew, the woman in black that left Eden Rubio’s house was another young fling of Bane’s.

Several days later

Portland, Liberty City

Marco’s Bistro

“Tommy Vercetti? Shit...didn’t think they ever let him out.”

Sonny Forelli had a loud voice. Everyone in the Forelli family knew that. Hell, everyone in the families knew that. It wasn’t a voice that commanded respect but one that wanted fear. The Don of the Forelli family reveled in the fact that others feared him and if he felt someone didn’t fear him, he would take care of them. The idea of catching more bees with honey was a concept lost this Forelli man. He was a man-sized brat but no one in the Forelli Family would call him out on it.

The Don was currently sitting in his brother’s bistro alongside two associates, Casio Graci and Vincent Moreno, who had informed the man that Tommy Vercetti was officially let out of prison. The man that was now known as the ‘Harwood Butcher’ was sentenced away fifteen years ago on 11 counts of manslaughter. The thing is: he was only supposed to kill one guy.

No one besides Sonny knows the specifics of what happened and how a simple hit by a Forelli mobster turned into a bloodbath. It worked out though for the Forelli family’s reputation among the families. If someone like Tommy Vercetti was working for the Forellis, the other families kept their ears perked for any more Forelli men. Sonny didn’t like to admit it, but Tommy helped him...again.

Only a few men in the family knew this, but Sonny despised Tommy’s very existence. No one was dumb enough to comment on it though, out of fear of Sonny’s wrath. No one knew the specifics of it but it was clearly some sort of paranoia. The thought that everyone would look at Tommy the way they SHOULD’VE been looking at Sonny. There were some outside of Sonny’s close circle that had ideas but they were thrown out of the window upon hearing Sonny and the Forellis kept Vercetti from getting the death penalty.

“He kept his head down,” Casio explained. “It helps people forget.”

Sonny chuckled. “People will remember soon enough. When they see him walking down the streets of their neighborhood, it’ll be bad for business.”

The two associates glanced between each other with worried expressions. Cutting Tommy loose was probably not the best idea cause then one of the other families might take him in. Can’t have a hitman like Tommy working the Sindacos, the Sicilians, or the Leones. Definitely not the Leones.

Casio looked at Sonny. “Well, what are we gonna do Sonny?”

The Don sat back in chair thinking for a moment. Truth be told, Sonny didn’t want Tommy anywhere near him. He didn’t want him asking too many questions upon returning. Fifteen years? Vercetti was definitely simmering with curiosity. “Alright,” He leaned in towards the table, his face illuminating a bit more under the green light. His gesture causing the others to do the same. “We treat’em like an old friend and keep him busy out of town, ok?”

The two looked confused.

Sonny leaned back in his seat once more. “We been talking about expanding down south, right? Vice City is 24-Carat gold these days. The Columbians, the Mexicans, hell, even those Cuban refugees are cutting themselves a piece of some nice action.”

Vincent shook his head. “But it’s all drugs, Sonny. None of the families will touch that shit.”

The only reason Vice City had become a gold mind was because of drugs. Not just any drugs but the classic white girl, Cocaine. Most of the Italian mob stationed in Liberty City didn’t go anywhere near drugs. The most they dealt with being weed. Florida, Vice City, in particular, was a place where cocaine was becoming the wave. As of now, it was unknown territory to the families.

“Times are changing. The families can’t keep their backs turned while our enemies reap the rewards. So, we send someone down to do the dirty work for us and cut ourselves a nice quiet slice, ok?” He explained. Sonny looked over to Casio, “who’s our contact down there?”

“Ken Rosenberg,” Casio replied with an eye roll. “Schmuck of a lawyer. How’s he gonna hold Vercetti’s leash?”

“We don’t need him to. We just set him loose in Vice City, we give him a little cash to get started. Ok? Give it a few months,” Sonny relaxed in his chair. “Then we go down, pay him a little visit, okay? See how he's doing.”

Escobar International

Vice City

Tommy’s been down south maybe like...once. It was only a business trip and he’d stood in as one of Sonny’s bodyguards. The was fifteen years ago back in 1970 and he knew the city had probably changed a lot since then. The man wasn’t someone into the latest trends but still, the thought of missing out on a whole decade did something to him mentally. After all, he was barely an adult when he got locked up but hand the bodies of professionals that’s been in the game long before his birth.

Tommy thought about a lot while on the inside. He was grateful for the Forellis for keeping him off death row, he really was, but he was also suspicious of the events in Harwood. Unfortunately, Tommy would have to keep his questions to himself since the first thing that happened upon being released from prison was him being sent to Vice City.

Now instead of killing men left and right which, granted, he may have to do anyway, Tommy was meant to simply help the Forellis make some deals down south. Setting themselves up amidst all the other gangs that have claimed territory in the city.

He didn’t really know what his face looked like but it apparently caught Lee’s attention. “Don’t be so nervous Vercetti,” Lee advised, catching the man’s attention from watching the plane land through its window. “Harry and I have done deals like this before. Simple procedure, go in and out, hasn’t changed since you’ve been locked up.”

Tommy felt annoyed. “I know how these things work.” He shot back with a mild attitude.

Lee didn’t say anything or indicated that he was offended at the response, merely shrugged and went back to reading the magazine. “ Big Shot Porn Producer Reported Dead...robbery gone wrong? ” The man muttered.

Tommy turned his attention back to the window, trying to get back on his previous train of thought.

The air in Vice City was most certainly dry. Tommy almost felt sorry for anyone who didn’t dress down enough. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the bugs here were plenty and HUGE. The worst he dealt with in Liberty City were big ass rats and roaches and flies if a place was filthy enough. Here, the bugs have 34 wings and are always out to cross boundaries. Tommy wished he could’ve stayed inside the airport where the air was cool and the bugs were kept at bay.

But the sight of a white Admiral pulling up provided some quick relief. Though, the appearance of a frantic, curly-haired man in a white suit sort of dimmed in down. He never met Rosenberg but from what Casio and some of the others told him, Rosenberg was easily startled, like a lamb.

The car stopped before the three men and Ken got out, leaning on top of the car’s roof to greet the men. “Hey, hey, guys! It’s, uh, Ken Rosenberg here!” The man shouted. “Hey! Heh, heh, hey, great, hey!”

‘I hate this guy already.’ Tommy thought to himself.

He and the others not replying sent a chill down Ken’s spine, making the neurotic man even more nervous. The Forelli lawyer let out a nervous chuckle. “Well, uh, I’m gonna drive you guys to the meet, ok?” The three nodded and began entering the car, Tommy found himself situated in the back sitting next to Lee once again. Meanwhile, Rosenberg kept explaining the whole deal. “Now, I’ve talked to the suppliers and they’re very keen to start a business relationship, so, uh, if all goes well, we should, uh, be doing very nicely for ourselves, which is, y’know, good.”

With everyone situated in the vehicle, Ken began driving and explained the whole all the way to the docks about the sellers they’ll be purchasing from. Tommy wasn’t too bothered to make any type of comment or even inquire more about, a tiny part hoping Lee or Harry would do that for him, especially Harry, considering that he was the one sitting next to Ken and getting the most of the yammering. To no avail though.

The now 35-year-old let out a silent, annoyed breath as he looked out the window watching his new residence for the new months pass by him in a blur. This would all look nice to gander at if he wasn’t on business. ‘Maybe some other time…’ he thought. For now...just get the deal done was all that was on his mind.

Vice City Docks

Upon the vehicle pulling up to the docks, Tommy was a little on edge. Maybe it was because, in Liberty City, every hour was working hours, he assumed that the docks would be filled with workers paid to mind their own business with maybe one or two ‘ upstanding citizens ’ trying to play the hero.

However, the Vice City docks were damn near-deserted. No sign of anyone clocking in. Maybe the people they were selling to had those types of connections. To make a bunch of construction workers disappear with a snap of their fingers. But, since they weren’t already here, Tommy kind of tossed out that line of thinking.

The sound of a helicopter getting louder caught the attention of the four men in the car. Shaking off the jetlag and gaining their full attention.

“Ok, that’s them in the chopper,” Ken stated. “Ok, here’s the deal,” Harry and Lee began exiting the car while Tommy stayed to hear the rest of the stipulations. “They want a straight exchange on open ground. Alright?”

Tommy nodded, “Right.”, before exiting the car and walking with the other two Forelli men. Meanwhile, one of the dealers, a slightly overweight dark-skinned man wearing a red shirt holding two briefcases, no doubt the product, exited the chopper while his pilot waited and made his way over to meet Tommy and the others.

Once all four had come face to face the deal started. Tommy’s done these before. It was nothing new and nothing had changed. In and out. Get this over with and once all is said and done, focus on finding out what happened back in Hardwood. This is was the only reason Tommy didn’t make a fuss about immediately being put back to work upon being released. He wanted to ease everyone else who worked with him in order to get them talking. A good 20 minutes and he can get to work.

“You got it?” He asked the man in the red shirt.

The man smirked. From the demeanor, Tommy could tell that this man was someone who didn’t take nonsense much like him. “One hundred percent pure grade-A Columbian.” The man replied, placing the two silver cases before the trio.

Tommy gestured his head towards the cases. “Let me see’em.”

The man stopped for a second, looking up at Tommy. “The greens?”

Harry and Lee opened the cases they were holding, showcasing the money. “Tens and twenties,” Tommy replied, “used.”

The man nodded with a smirk, straightening up his posture. “Then I think we got a deal, my friend. Hahaha--”

They only needed a few more minutes to get this deal done but life showed that it had other plans when the sound of multiple gunshots rang out across the docks.

Tommy instinctively ducked as the bodies of both Harry, Lee, and most likely the man in the red shirt. The guy in the copter most likely lifted off and got the hell out of dodge.

That left Tommy to sprint like the wind towards Rosenberg’s car. Taking the phrase ‘leap of faith’ to a literal level when he vaulted through the open window of the backseat. Rosenberg peeled out as Tommy shouted for him to get out there.

Just like fifteen years ago, a ‘simple’ job went terrible in an instant. Between the adrenaline rush of the shootout and the deja vu from back then, the escape from the stocks turned out to be a blurry one for Tommy Vercetti.

The only words that came to his mind were ‘ah shit’ as Rosenberg frantically whimpered in the front seat.

Next Chapter ⏩

Randy’s Ultimate Birds of Prey Review (first thoughts)

I want to preface this by waxing just a little poetic here, because I can. The true spirit of the Birds of Prey has been and will always be in the way women love and support one another. As friends, as teammates, as sisters-in-arms against whatever the world throws at them. And while not every comic, not every story, will be Completely Outstanding or without fault, I can say with certainty that when given to competent writers and loving artists, to diligent crews and hard-working casts, that that spirit is seen and felt just as strongly.

First we’ll be tackling the comics, separating them mostly by run (with Dixon to start, the Simone’s turn at the line to follow, then 2010, New52, and BatBoP). Then we’ll discuss the two separate forays into live-action that the Birds have taken (BoP02, and BoP20 respectively) And to finish it all off, we’ll take a prospective look at HQatBoP, given that (at the time of this posting) it has only one issue, and more than enough untapped potential. To keep myself focused and keep things hopefully brief, we’ll be discussing each run’s Line-Up, Writing and Art, and finally overall Plot/Character Development. I will also try to keep things as spoiler-free as possible, but it’s also been a decade since some of this stuff was written, so... YKNOW Spoiler Caution Advised.

Without Further Ado, Let’s Fly~ 

The Dixon Era:

The Line-Up 

As the Definitive Starting Point for the team, this era is marked most notably by the sole members, Dinah and Babs, and their numerous memorable one-off adventures. They are joined on a few occasions by other heroes. Or, while working separately from one another, will team-up with others as they lead their individual lives. The core of this budding ‘team’ remains as a duo for the majority of this part of the run, however.

The Talent

Dixon and his writing is not without faults, of course, as any given international mission could fall prey to stereotypical archetypes and pitfalls. For the most part, Dixon’s writing remains among some of the most entertaining I’ve found, comparatively speaking. With a knack for wisecracks and poignant thoughts alike, I find myself looking forward to more of his work, with a great sense of cautious optimism.

The art, in this same vein, can be also be hit or miss at times, just as much as exploitative panels/questionable dialogue make their inevitable way in. I cannot recall anything outright offensive or demeaning, but one should approach with measured expectations.

The Development

Easy to follow along, but with plenty of twists and turns to keep me interested in the direction any given mystery would lead our duo. The banter and camaraderie that’s slowly and surely built up between Dinah and Babs had me falling ever more in love with their dynamic and with their bond as they grew to not only work well with one another, but into becoming fast friends. The focus is in the development of these characters and this new season of life they find themselves in, rather than grand-sweeping, or long-running plots. But with fun enough jaunts and adventures regardless, I already find myself looking forward to rereading these issues in the near-future.

It is important to note, that in the interim between these two general eras i have marked, that there are numerous Other Writers that took their own cracks during this particular run of BoP, both preceding and superseding Simone. As she and Dixon have the longer-running pens, and that they have the most notable influence in the fandom consciousness, is the biggest reason for why i’ve named these sections as such.

Simone’s Turn:

The Line-Up

A Turning Point for not only the run itself, but the group dynamics as well! This era is marked by the permanent reintroduction of Huntress onto the team, Lady Blackhawk being another quick to follow, and the team’s subsequent rotating cast expanding to many heroines beyond as well. Simone’s writing doesn’t miss a beat in the banter, however, and takes the team from Dixon just as steadily as runners pass a baton.

The Talent

Again, the writing itself usually never misses a beat, and the art, as memory serves, carried very well alongside it, something most usually without offense and downright enjoyable in some places to pour over. While there were certainly some moments and dialogue that gave me pause, for the greater majority of this run, one can expect entertainment, nonetheless.

The Development

While the preceding run had focused moreso on interesting stories and one-off adventures, here is where longer-running plot threads began to take root, and more complicated games and chases between heroes and villains were given room to unfold. Most notably as the Calculator takes more and evermore dramatic actions against Oracle and her team. Not without its fair share of delightful rough patches as team dynamics shift right alongside the cast rotations, anyone who appreciates a long game and character development is likely to come away satisfied from this run, even as it draws to brief close... Which brings me to...

BoP (2010):

The Line-Up

Picking up not too long where the previous run ended, Oracle brings her team (Black Canary, Huntress and Lady Blackhawk) back together with a couple new faces (Hawk and Dove) to wrap up a few loose threads, and, hopefully, begin something anew.

The Talent

As before, Simone doesn’t usually miss a beat with this team, even while taking account the changed dynamics and time apart the group has spent. Dialogue and plot threading is just as tight as ever.

Unfortunate, however, is the fact that the art in the run ended up with more misses than hits for me, mostly in the first half of the run and most often in the sense of objectifying and oversexualizing our heroines in fashion that is disappointing, but unsurprising coming from the comics industry.

The Development

The plot takes a bit of a beating, rushed in some places as Flashpoint and the New 52 reboot loom heavily on the horizon, but Simone and the team superseding her take those changes in stride, delivering a story that may or may not satisfy everyone’s tastes. For those who were left wanting from the way the first run ended, it’s important to note that the threat of the Bird’s longer running nemesis, the Calculator, comes to a much more satisfying and final end after his temporary defeat in the Oracle: The Cure miniseries. While not entirely necessary, I would highly suggest reading that mini, and the issues of Batgirl (2009) which include Babs, to get a clearer sense of the arc that Barbara and this villain have taken. While this run is not a perfect ending, per se, it provides an ending nonetheless, and an entertaining adventure to cap off the series that once again perfectly encapsulates what camaraderie and sisterhood is all about for this team.

The New 52:

The Line-Up

With a fresh new universe and timeline to make one’s mark in, this team is kick-started alone by Dinah Drake-Lance, though Barbara (as Batgirl) is later to follow. For the first part of the run, Dinah is joined by a new character Starling, (whose mannerism and role on the team most closely resemble of fusion of previous members Huntress and Blackhawk) Katana, and Poison Ivy (acting a role of anti-villain, mostly). For the latter half of the run, following Ivy’s betrayal and Katana’s desire to strike out on her own, the team is joined by Condor (a meta whose backstory and powers are explored as the series progresses) and Strix (a former Talon who brings extra and endearing muscle to the team).

With many members carrying secrets or ulterior motives, tension often runs high among these birds. Those who enjoy drama or a little more disarray in a team, may find themelves entertained by the turns these ladies will take on one another. Most certainly a break from the norm previously established, and from those to come.

The Talent

The writing for this run is filled with many quick quips and snaps, each character developing a distinct voice and personality. While the New 52 is often a point of contention among DC fans, anyone wishing for something fresh or different from pre52 characterization of these characters may find themselves delightfully surprised.

Art-wise expect similar fare as the 2010 run, as some costume design choices are questionable at best. The action itself is entertaining, though, with some interesting opportunity for unique visuals as more metahumans and meta dangers are brought along.

The Development

What sets this run apart from the others, certainly has to do in the dynamics that are laid out over the series. Every character has their own motives or secrets to hide, creating a delicious tension that helps keep a reader guessing just how this team will inevitably break apart. Story arcs themselves are usually pretty well-paced, though with such heavy focus usually on whatever threat immediately faces the team, moments of character development and interpersonal development can be lackluster at best, nonexistent at worst. And while that was certainly frustrating, I personally found myself intrigued enough by any given on-going plot to nearly forgive it... Nearly.

BatBoP:

The Line-Up

In the Wake of Rebirth, the Birds find themselves once again starting anew, with Batgirl (Babs) and Canary (Dinah) forming what each believes to be a brief alliance. With the Huntress crossing their path, eventually the trio recognizes how well they work together, and these three remain once more as the core members for the majority of this run.

They are joined for a brief time by Gus Yale, taking on the Oracle identity to provide technical back-up. Even more brief is a memorable team-up which included Gotham heroine and villainess alike for the Manslaughter story arc.

The Talent

While exposition is often written with a flair of humor, and many interesting one-liners can be found, overall that humor can grow tedious, and the dialogue itself often came across as either very stilted or simply unrealistic. Many characters can fall very flat, while others feel like shadows of their pre52 selves. Whether the writers intended to make these characters their own or to emulate previous characterizations, I could care less about, as the pacing and plotting itself leaves such a poor taste in my mouth.

This run’s saving grace, however, is most certainly in the character design and the artwork. Given practical costumes, colorful palettes, and powerful posing, visually it’s a breath of fresh air.

The Development

Quick and simple story-arcs is the name of the game here, but unlike during Dixon’s era, these one-off adventures are all too often infantilizing and condescending towards its audience. The development of this trio’s friendship also feels extremely rushed, the camaraderie and kinship unearned compared to the toil and work put in during previous runs. With a completed long-running story arc set from the beginning issues and brought to a neatly-wrapped conclusion by the end, one can walk away satisfied that a story has been brought to completion. However, with no true middle act in the issues between, this remains one of the weakest of Birds runs for me, as the plot borrows much too heavily from pre52 (what with the return of the Calculator as a main villain), while also neglecting to produce too many original ideas of real note.

BoP02:

The Line-Up

In usual fashion for TV, we mainly follow a trio of gals, this time consisting of Barbara Gordon (as Oracle), Helena Kyle (as the Huntress) and Dinah Lance. Rounding out the supporting cast is Alfred Pennyworth as a confidant to the team, and Detective Jesse Reese, Huntress’ ally within the police. The main antagonist for this series is none other than Harley Quinn, who is introduced first to the audience as Helena’s therapist.

The Talent

It takes a team to pull off any performance art, but that especially rings true for television. While the writing and acting can be a tad hammy in many places, even by early 00s standards, there’s a clear level of love and care taken by the actors and crew alike. Outfits and costuming is fairly typical, fashionable for the time, even, and the same can be said for the soundtrack as well (which rings with an air of nostalgia, as someone who listened to plenty of pop/rock tracks of this time period well throughout my child & teenagehood).

I’ve often described this series to friends and fans alike as a ‘so bad, but good’ kind of show. Which isn’t entirely fair. Rather, it’s a guilty pleasure, because it’s perfectly imperfect. It’s got the heart and the soul and a lot of vision that falls just a little short at times. But it can be a pleasure to view all the same. I do not begrudge anyone who chooses not to view it, however, as in many ways it feels like a spiritual predecessor to what would eventually become the CW/Arrowverse. And we’ll dive more into that just below...

The Development

In an odd enough twist for the time, as by 2002 Huntress (Bertinelli, that is) had only joined Canary on a few missions in the comics, the show runners have replaced Bertinelli with the other known Huntress, Helena Wayne (or known here, rather, as Helena Kyle). Made stranger still, is forgoing the use of Dinah’s character as Black Canary and replacing her Canary Cry with psychic meta-abilities instead, simultaneously transforming her into a runaway and aging her down to her mid-teens, further differentiating her from her fellow cast members (as Kyle is portrayed as early 20s, & Babs’ as early 30s). This dynamic is a very dramatic flip compared to the comics, but (but!) not entirely an unwelcome one, for me. 

While giving Babs the chance to act more as a leader and den-mother alike to these two budding heroes. Kyle, in similar fashion, taking on an elder-sibling/mentor role to Dinah’s naiveté. Dina’s portrayal of Babs has certainly set a standard for those who may follow, as she captures so much of the dual love and sternness the character carries. Kyle’s character takes a simple, but satisfying arc as she learns to trust those around her, despite her past and what she believes to be her nature. And finally Dinah just starting to come into her powers and her identity, one could see further development for her character, had the series progressed beyond the first, and only season.

Alas, with one lone season, we shall never know what may have been. I can say, however, that the slow build up of Harley as the main threat facing New Gotham, and their swift, but hard-won defeat of her, was wonderfully satisfying. And with enough of one-off and self-contained episodes in between, it makes for an interesting, but quick and relatively painless binge.

BoP20:

The Line-Up

In another case of Adaptation Deviation, taking center stage for this story is none other than the Clown Princess of Crime, Harley Quinn. In this tale that our protagonist narrates, we’ve also got BoP staples Dinah and Helena (Bertinelli this time) returning, and former guest ‘Birds’ Renee and Cassandra to round out the protagonist team. The Black Mask, Roman Sionis, and serial killer, Victor Zsasz, serve as the primary villains.

The Talent

WHERE to even BEGIN. If television takes a team, movies take an entire goddamn VILLAGE to pull off, and to pull of WELL. For all intents and purposes, BoP(atFEoOHQ) is an absolutely goddamn DELIGHT for the senses. The sheer amount of COLOR, choreography and every moment acting as villains and heroes alike are at the TOP of their game. The soundtrack is something that I’ve been listening to for well over two months at this time of posting (& likely will continue to listen to well after). There’s almost too much to be said and has already been said about the love and labor that clearly went into this film, but suffice it to say, it’s something I’ve come to appreciate even more every time I’ve had the chance to rewatch it. On viewability alone, even with a strong, and well earned R-rating, one can’t help but simply sit back and enjoy it for the ride that it is.

The Development

The plot, despite even Harley’s sometimes roundabout storytelling skills, is simple enough to follow. And with character introductions and motivations padding out the rest of the runtime, and leading up to a predictable but nevertheless astounding 3rd act team-up, fans new and old should walk away satisfied. That being said, with Harley as our protagonist and her character arc taking precedent over the others because of that, this movie does come across as more of a Harley Quinn Show with a Side of Birds. Another point of contention is the absence of Barbara Gordon, either as Batgirl OR Oracle, and the drastic change of Cassandra’s characterization. While these two points are definite drawbacks that sadden me, the overall production is damn-well near enough to make me forget. This movie, while nowhere near a Complete adaptation of any particular Birds comic, is nonetheless a fun romp, and captures enough of the essence of what Birds should be about; women uplifting other women.

HQatBoP:

The Line-Up

To tie in with the movie, this line-up follows the same five female protagonists, this time as Harley finds danger following her as she makes a prodigal return to Gotham City. With only one issue out, and hints of the Gotham mob and Joker alike to be facing our team, only time will tell just how many heroes or villains may be involved in this miniseries.

The Talent

With Harley Quinn alums, Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti spearheading this story, and with the blessing of the DC Black label, fans who enjoy the raunchier or more violent side of comics, and who enjoyed the Harley series, will find a fantastic start in return to form in this comic. It might be a little too soon to tell, but from what I have read from this duo already, I have nothing but hight hopes for how they’ll flesh out this story.

The Development

An interesting start and lots of exposition to ease new readers into place, this comic seems to be a good bridge for those unfamiliar with any previous Harley work (though they do sample heavily from their old runs), or those who may be coming solely with knowledge from the movie. Once again, Harley will be taking the center stage in this series, but already with Helena and Cassandra joining her fight, and Renee making an antagonist entrance at the end of the first issue, this series feels full of promise. Certainly not quite like any Birds series that’s been published before, but hopefully the herald of something more to come.

---

While I firmly believe each comic run has their merits, I would be remiss not to recommend the original run (and the 2010 follow-up) above all else. It is the definitive run, after all, and with over 100 issues to pour over, plus one-offs and miniseries from the same era abounding, anyone looking to get into Birds will find themselves with plenty to parse through, and plenty to enjoy, when reading.

While I certainly have more to say about these runs and even more so about these characters, as I close out my reading for the first time on Birds of Prey, I can only hope for more adventures for this team in the future.

Fantasy Booking - Smackdown: Getting Old and Growing Up

Soooo, how about that ending to Super Showdown, huh? Yeah, I’m still reeling from that myself, but thankfully, this has altered this fantasy booking only a small amount. I guess I sat on this for too long! Rather than do a “what-if” of alternate events rather than the one we got, I figured why not run with what we’ve got? It’s even got a message I felt passionate about sharing, something I’ve been holding on to as a nostalgic person. Also, I promise this is the last one of John Cena I do for a while. Promise.

Tagging my favorite new people to talk wrestling with: @mith-gifs-wrestling and @adriennegabriella! Without further ado, here we go!

Friday Night Smackdown, the night after the Super Showdown pay-per-view. Goldberg is out, celebrating his win, as you expect - negative reactions. People are upset, angry. Almost as though they were in mourning. Goldberg cuts a promo about how he has let the WWE Universe down too many times. 2004, Wrestlemania 20, the night he left. 2017, Wrestlemania 33, his loss to Brock Lesnar before riding off into the sunset towards retirement after not being able to keep up with Lesnar. 2019, Super Showdown, the night he and Undertaker put on that horrific match. Yet, after defeating a horrifying monster, he is met with boos and jeers. “What does it take to please you people?!” The frustration and tension in the air is palpable from the sheer hatred from the WWE Universe, that Goldberg meets in kind. He’s done being Mr. Nice Goldberg, he doesn’t care what everyone wants, he just cares about “WHO’S NEXT?!”

Cue the Firefly Funhouse, as Bray Wyatt cheerfully welcomes everyone, even Goldberg. He claims that he and The Fiend harbor no ill will towards Goldberg. Goldberg has no history with Wyatt, so therefore The Fiend did not feel any need to dominate, not to mention never fighting Goldberg before. Now that Goldberg took something away from him, however, he doesn’t rule out collecting that debt. He then goes on to state that he never truly intended on obtaining the title. He was just after Seth Rollins at that time. Seth and Bray had a complicated past, so The Fiend had to make him pay like he made Finn Balor pay. Just like he eventually made Daniel Bryan pay. Miz, being the only exception, was targeted by Bray,not The Fiend, as there was little history, none of it hurting Bray in the past. The title means nothing to him, and he doesn’t mind moving on. Bray goofily asks “who’s next?” before resorting to that growl and saying the familiar “Let Me In.” 

This night, John Cena returns to a warm welcome. He’s happy to see us as much as we are happy to see him. Cena states he doesn’t know how long he has left to provide to the WWE, but he knows this is his home. He remembers where he came from, the place he held it down. Just the usual standard stuff. Nothing too big, but the backstage footages of him subtly show Firefly Funhouse puppets lurking around in the background. Ironically, it is Cena that can’t see them. 

Next Smackdown, the go-home to Elimination Chamber, Goldberg comes out to cut a promo asking “Who’s Next?” Out comes Roman Reigns, having ended his feud with King Corbin, and Roman looks annoyed. Pissed, even. He eyes down Goldberg, who smiles, confused. 

“Roman Reigns, nice to finally meet you in person. I see you’ve adopted my spear. So what brings you out here, and what’s on your mind, son?” Goldberg does not take his eyes off Roman.

“I’mma just say this once, Bill. The Fiend worked his ass off to get to where he was. He found himself - whoever the hell that was - and the fruits of his labor was paying off. You know how hard that is to do in this company? I’ve been finding out the hard way after my ass got taken out. Y’know, I too lost the Universal Title, and I’ve been busting my ass to get back there. It’s almost fate it’s here on Smackdown with me. Now, here’s my problem with you, and people like you.

“Y’see Bill, we are the new generation, and we’ve been dying to bring something new to the table. We leave it all in the ring only to hear that today’s product sucks. That we need to bring back the Attitude Era, and now the Ruthless Aggression Era. Everyone is stuck in the past, and that’s where guys like you come in. Some familiar face that the casual fan comes in to see, and all of a sudden wrestling is magical again, it’s captivating again. Out the window goes our hard work, all that easily ignored. Of course you wouldn’t know what that’s like, you’ve had a rocket strapped to your back your whole career. Squashing people left and right in WCW, and starting off dominant coming off into WWE. Then you couldn’t handle it and you left. Came back again, and lost, and guess what? You left. You gonna leave again? Might as well leave it to someone more capable.

Unfortunately Roman isn’t done with Corbin, as he comes to the ring, and cuts a short promo, followed by Robert Roode (planting seeds for dissention between their trio involving Dolph Ziggler). Then Shinsuke Nakamura and his mouthpiece Sami Zayn (with a tinge of longing and jealousy in his voice as he gazes at the title Goldberg holds.). Braun Strowman comes out, wanting to add another title belt around his waist. Daniel Bryan comes out and cuts a promo about how lost he’s been, and he needs this Elimination Chamber match to find out which direction he needs to go. Goldberg chuckles and leaves. The match has been set and the figures are in place. To the victor goes the spoils.

That same night, John Cena issues an open challenge for Elimination Chamber, and the Firefly Funhouse music plays. Bray greets John. “Hiya John! Yowie wowie, it’s been ages since I seen you! Let’s go Cena, Cena sucks! Remember that? I do...” then Bray transitions into a growl. “And so does he.” Back to smiles, Bray continues: “You’re a hero! A legend! Shoot, at Wrestlemania 30, you defeated me, even with the help of my former Fireflies! Your many, MANY fans loved it, but there’s someone that didn’t. HE still doesn’t like that, John.” Bray goes into a hush, “Maybe he wants to meet you again. Maybe at Elimination Chamber, he wants to get his hands on you... Let me in. See ya, bye!”

Unsettled but undeterred, Cena accepts, confident. If Goldberg could take down Fiend, why not him? But it was all a trick, as at Elimination Chamber, Bray comes out instead of The Fiend, but not even as Funhouse Bray, but Muscleman Dance Bray. Just like with The Fiend, Muscleman Dance Bray (MDB for short) no-sells every move by John Cena, and dances to taunt him. Desparate, Cena goes for every Attitude Adjustment and Five-Knuckle Shuffle (enough to the point the lead-up to his moves becomes shorter, until there is no lead-up.) Cena drops more and more moves from his arsenal: Running One-Hand Bulldog, Flying Shoulder Block, and what seems most effective, the STFU. Bray powers out of each, almost rhythmically, as he goes in for the win.

Jump to the Elimination Chamber match, starting out with Shinsuke and Roode. Shinsuke seems to dominate at first, but Roode starts powering out more. They go back and forth until the next entrant comes out: King Corbin. Sami tries to help in the back, trying to distract against Corbin and Roode, which works to a degree. It matters not, for Shinsuke still struggles. He reaches for Sami, as though expecting something and Sami reaches back, barely through the Chamber wall, before being attacked by Elias and laid out. Corbin gets the pin on Shinsuke, eliminating the King of Strong Style. As he’s rolled out, Corbin hits a surprise End-of-Days on Roode, covers him for the pin, bringing the fight down to four people. Out comes Daniel Bryan, who gets the boot by Corbin. Bryan takes opportunity of this by grabbing Corbin’s leg, pulling him down for a leg lock, shades of Ric Flair. This is broken up a bit later by the next entrant, Braun Strowman, but not without a bit of wait time. His pod door won’t open, so he breaks through and breaks the submission. Grabbing Bryan, Strowman carries him and slams him down on the mat and gets the pin. A roar erupts from the Monster Among Men, taking his eyes off Corbin, who dishes out a low-blow. As Roman steps out of his pod, Strowman kicks out at 2. Roman pulls Corbin to his feet, backs to the turnbuckle and dishes out a Superman Punch. That pin is broken up by an enraged Strowman. Tying Roman to the turnbuckle using the ropes, Braun barrels into him over and over again. Corbin crawls outside near the Chamber wall, watching as this goes on. Braun takes notice. “I’M NOT FINISHED WITH YOU!” as he steps over the top rope and grabs Corbin by his head. Roman gets untangled and wraps his arms around Braun’s head until he is brought over the top rope, but he lands on his feet. Two spears from Roman later, and Strowman staggers. Roman grabs his head, looks to the audience and gives a cocky smirk as he lifts Strowman up for a Jackhammer, ending with a powerful slam. 1, 2, 3. Now it’s Roman and Corbin. The two stare for a bit, Roman ever so determined, but there’s something different in Corbin’s eyes.

“I QUIT! Corbin raises Roman’s hand, and walks out of the Chamber. Confused, Roman shrugs it off and celebrates. 

Next Smackdown, Roman brags about his win. “Y’all, this has been a long time comin’. My ass fought long and hard to get back to the title I never lost. I kicked leukemia’s ass. I came back and dominated, even survived a crappy attempt at manslaughter by Rowan. Most importantly I survived Corbin, and I thought that would never end!”

Almost as if a reply, Corbin’s entrance theme plays. All seriousness with Corbin as he walks to the ring. “Don’t think this means we’re buddy-buddy. I still hate you. But I hate moments when old, legendary part-timers come in and take time from us. I know that’s cheap coming from me. I got so much camera time and I’ve had that “go away heat”, but this has got to end. It’s our time, Roman. And you might just be the one to stop Goldberg. I mean, he hasn’t even showed up for a match since he won the damn title! Meanwhile, you come in every week and do your job. You’ve kicked my ass I don’t know how many times over the past few months and did you complain? No. You’ve got the heart of a lion. No matter what happens, you do not stop until he is down, you got me? You take his ass down, Roman! Put an end to this, before I put an end to you! You owe it not to yourself, or even these idiots out here. You owe it to me and everyone else backstage. Get that title, Roman. So I can take it off of you.” Corbin leaves, and Roman isn’t smiling anymore. This isn’t fun and games anymore.

In the ring later that night, Goldberg is interviewed by Michael Cole. Cole asks if Goldberg is worried about Roman, which Goldberg shrugs off and laughs. “You’re asking me if that young pipsqueak has anything on me? Please, I took out the best of ‘em. Hogan, Raven, Sting, DDP, Jericho, even Brock Lesnar. Roman’s just a guy. He’s next alright, but not for the title. He’s next for a spear. He’s next to be my victim. Come Wrestlemania, he’s dead meat.”

John Cena’s theme song hits, and he walks down the ramp. “Seems you forgot, you got one more pay-per-view between now and Wrestlemania, pops. Fastlane, remember? Isn’t that where you took out Kevin Owens?”

“Maybe, but I figured it was just a pit stop, y’know?” Goldberg retorts, his dumb old grin spreading. Meanwhile, Michael Cole steps out, knowing how this goes, being a vet to the industry. “It’s just a formality at that point. It’s a foregone conclusion. C’mon, I’m Bill freaking Goldberg. You’re just Mr. Hollywood now, so run along now pretty boy. I bet I don’t even have to hit a Jackhammer on you!”

Cena chuckles. “Now ain’t that an arrogant way to see things? After all, why not deny these people a chance to see a dream match they didn’t know they wanted?”

“Screw these people! I come back and they turn on me.”

“They’ve been against me for half my career, it ain’t nothin’ new to me old-timer. I still came in regardless. They turned on Roman too, he ain’t never turned on them though. So I think it’s time I take your old ass down a few pegs and make you humble. How does Fastlane sound?”

“Really, Cena? You think you can take on me? Name one thing you think you got that makes you think you can go toe-to-toe with me!”

A smile spreads upon Cena’s face. It’s been a while he’s been asked this. “RUTHLESS AGGRESSION!” A slap to Goldberg, which is no-sold, as per usual. He pushes Cena, and crouches for a spear, which Cena dodges, as he gives the Flying Shoulder Block. “Remember Goldberg, at Fastlane, as you’re laying flat on your back and the ref counts to three, just remember that you were next. Cena out.”

Fastlane approaches, and the two legends face off in the main event. Cena displays an offense we haven’t seen in a long time from him. He’s brutal, attacking before Goldberg. Goldberg hits him with three spears in between Cena’s bigger arsenal of moves. Still, Cena persists. Cena resorts to heelish tactics, like tricking the referee, hitting Goldberg with weapons, and using the environment to his advantage. He’s wearing down Goldberg the best he can. After an AA, he sets it up for the Five-Knuckle Shuffle, knowing an AA won’t be enough to put Goldberg down. As he gets ready for the drop, the arena goes black. With the little amount of lights, Cena can be seen suffering a Mandible Claw at the hands of The Fiend until he is incapacitated. The arena brightens up again and The Fiend is gone. Goldberg takes advantage of this and gets the pin over Cena. Goldberg is then boo’d out of the building. 

The Friday following, Goldberg brags about how Cena was just another guy. “Yeah, he made me give out everything I had, but it just wasn’t enough. LIke I said, I didn’t even have to hit a Jackhammer on him! I’m going through everyone like I did him. I’m the bullet that’s shooting through all of your heroes!” He drops the mic and as he heads back through the entrance, he is met with a spear by Roman Reigns, mic in hand. “You still got me to deal with, grandpa.”

Later that night, Cena sits in a chair in the middle of the ring. The arena is dark, with all lights on him. “So I stopped your momentum back in the day, Bray. I get it. I was on my own power trip that I didn’t let you have your moment. Again, I get it. Someone with your capabilities could have taken over this company, yet I took out you and your goons. But you need to stop right now. I’m not just someone looking for a big payday. This is my home. If you keep coming after me, I will do all I can to put your ass down. Maybe I won’t last against you, you’re a different beast now. I may be looking at my next big defeat. Whatever it takes, come Hell or high water, I’ll do what it takes, even if I gotta take this golden shovel everyone claims I have, and I’ll bury your ass back to Hell where you belong!”

The Friday before Wrestlemania, Cena doesn’t show up, but he is shown in a montage vignette of getting himself in shape to take on The Fiend. Further into that evening, a Firefly Funhouse promo plays out, with The Fiend and the gang discussing John Cena. Ramblin’ Rabbit pleads with Bray to not go after Cena, before being killed again. Mercy the Buzzard says he wants to see blood run from Cena’s face. Abby the Witch asks Bray to make it quick so she can get back to her beauty sleep. Huskus the Pig simply sleeps. Bray stops the kiddie talk at the end, saying: “You’ve stopped me from taking everything over before, John. You’re next... Let me in...” Cheerful Bray returns, “See ya in Hell! Bye, bye, bye!”

The night ends with a contract signing between Goldberg and Roman Reigns. Roman signs first, not saying anything...yet. Goldberg cockily proclaims, “You’re awfully eager to get speared into an early grave! You sure you don’t wanna back out and play out the rest of your career? It’s only the end for you after Wrestlemania, young man!”

“I’m not gonna say your catchphrase, about bein’ next or whatever. I’m not gonna make any snide remarks. I am gonna  put your ass down, and make an example out of you. I’m gonna send a message for every old, decrepit fossil that decides they gonna step in the ring with my generation that we ain’t gonna take it anymore. We’re sick and tired, and it’s our time. If it takes my ass getting boo’d again, so be it. At Wrestlemania, you’re not next, last, or whatever you like to say. At Wrestlemania, Bill, you’re done.” Roman leaves and Goldberg signs. Commentary remarks about how rare it is that contract signings don’t end in a calamitous brawl.

Wrestlemania time:

John Cena vs The Fiend Bray Wyatt - John shows up in regular, red and blue wrestling shorts. No more jean shorts. The Fiend stares him down regardless. Cena hits low blow after low blow, and changes his AA into an FU. Not even that stops Fiend. Shoulder Block, Five Knuckle Shuffle, Running One-Hand Bulldog, and even the Sixth Move of Doom isn’t enough to end Fiend. Each time he gets up, he hits the Mandible Claw, only to have it broken out. Cena even removes the pad from the turnbuckle, and Irish Whips Fiend in that direction, only for it to be reversed and Cena hits it face-first. There is one move Cena hasn’t tried though, and doesn’t get to try after Fiend transitions his Mandible Claw into an STFU. Cena looks like he’s about to pass out, as drool drips from his mouth and blood drips from his forehead. He taps out. The Fiend has just collected another debt. 

Goldberg vs Roman Reigns (Universal Title) - Both men hit a spear on each other, first thing. Both men are flat. Goldberg attempts to knee Roman, but misses as he hits the Superman Punch. Roman even brings back moves he doesn’t use as much, such as the Drive By and the Moment of Silence. Goldberg gets up from those and spears Roman twice. Roman no-sells both of them, patting his vest, which he then takes off for the first time since he put it on in his wrestling career. He hits Goldberg with another Superman Punch, which only staggers him before giving Roman a Jackhammer, and goes for the pin, which Roman kicks out a second before the ref could count to three. Goldberg beats down on Roman’s head, until the referee forces him off. Goldberg watches impatiently as Roman gets to his feet, and quickly moves out of the way as Goldberg’s spear hits the turnbuckle post. Roman hits the “OOOH-AHHH!” before lunging another spear at Goldberg, and gets his leg up for the pin. 1, 2, 3 and Roman is reunited with the Universal Champion again.

Goldberg stays retired, having realized the error of his ways. He grows up and realizes those years as a dominant force are to be left behind him. Roman has a lengthy and entertaining reign (see what I did there?), and loosens up again, being laid-back and entertaining to the fans. John Cena sticks around for a bit, becoming more brash and abrasive, having gone heel, and he targets Roman, who has to teach another old man a lesson. As for Bray, he hints at targeting Roman in the future. Maybe not now, but someday, he will get that title back, as he still has a score to settle with Roman. But next on his agenda? The Undertaker. Survivor Series. Four decades since The Deadman's debut.

Post Season 8

•As the weeks pass, construction is underway to rebuild the damaged parts of the city. Cersei is kept in her newly appointed chambers; Qyburn is kept in the cells along with Euron Greyjoy. During these weeks, the Lords and Ladies of Westeros are brought in.

•Rhaegar discovered a very nearly dead Ellaria within the cells; he ordered her to be taken for immediate attention and to be nursed back to health. By the time of Rhaegar’s coronation, she is able to hold herself upright and feed herself, though she is still too weak to walk on her own. Whenever she sees Trystane and her daughters, she breaks down in sobs. She can be seen sitting beside Trystane in a wheeled chair, with her daughters standing behind her.

•Lady Sansa and Bran had made their way to King’s Landing in lieu of the battle, as well as: Robin Arryn, current Lord Paramount of the Vale: Gendry Baratheon, the new Lord Paramount of the Stormlands: Tyrion Lannister, current Lord Paramount of the Westerlands: Edmure Tully, current Lord Paramount of the Riverlands: Lord Bronn of the Blackwater, current Lord Paramount of the Reach: Tristan Martell, the Prince of Dorne: and Yara Greyjoy, Queen of the Iron Islands. Each house is present for the coronation ceremony, as well as all of King’s Landing. Sansa, Bran, Arya, and Jon stand to the side closest to the dais upon which the Iron Throne sat. Daenerys stands to Rhaegar’s right, dressed in a gown of rich ruby and black, the Targaryen colors; a circlet of silver sits upon her brow daintily, and a cloak of black trails from her shoulders with the Targaryen house sigil upon it.

•Samwell Tarly begins the coronation, seeing as how there is no longer a high septon. Rhaegar kneels before Sam and swears his oaths: to lead Westeros into an era of peace, to rule justly. He wears no armor, but rather, a high collared black tunic, black trousers, and a ruby red cloak that falls from his shoulders. Sam places the crown of silver and ruby upon his brow, speaking his title loud and clear: Rhaegar of House Targaryen, First of his Name, King of the Andals and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm. The crowd erupts into cheers, and the sound of the dragons bellowing can be hear above it all as they fly over the coronation.

•Afterward, he calls a meeting with the Lord and Ladies of the Seven Kingdoms. Here, he explains his plans: they would each choose one person to represent their kingdom, and that person will remain within King’s Landing, forming a Great Council of the Seven Kingdoms. This is met with surprise and confusion- what was the need for a great council? Rhaegar states that having one man rule over the seven kingdoms does not bode well with him- that the winds have changed, and a new era is upon them. He wishes to open up trade once more to allow the Seven Kingdoms to flourish as they once had, as well as open up pathways for growth. He now has many connections within Essos; Ser Barristan Selmy was currently on his way back to Meereen to check in on Daario Naharis and how the situation bodes there.

•He makes it clear that he does not want an answer right at that very moment- a celebration was underway, and he wished to be with the people. But it was something that they need to think on; he would want an answer by the end of the week. He leaves the lords and ladies to talk amongst themselves. Sansa follows after him, calling out to him. She states that the North wishes to be independent. Rhaegar nods in understanding, and agrees that the North should be independent- it has practically been so since it’s creation. He will leave the details for her to discuss with her siblings, and to bring him their final decision whenever they make it.

•Rhaegar can then be seen doing what he once loved to do- be among the people. He stopped and talked, sharing stories and laughs. The people accept him quickly, as stories of his generosity had never died out. 

•Later, he can be seen standing before the Iron Throne. Jaime Lannister approaches him and asks when he will be knighted once more, to which Rhaegar replies with a simple “now”. He turns, drawing his blade. For a moment, Jaime thinks that Rhaegar means to strike him down, but instead, Rhaegar gestures for him to kneel without a word. He kneels, and it brings him back to the day he was first knighted at fifteen, with Rhaegar watching him. Now, so many years later, Rhaegar is the one holding the blade and repeating the oath. “In the name of the warrior, I charge you to be brave. In the name of the Father, I charge you to be just. In the name of the Mother, I charge you to defend the Innocent. Arise, Ser Jaime Lannister, a knight of the Seven Kingdoms.”

•Jaime rises, and Rhaegar nods- once- before Jaime turns to leave, his head held high, shoulders squared. A knight once more.

•It is night when Daenerys finds Rhaegar sitting alone before the large painted Map of Westeros. The siblings sit in silence for a while before she speaks up, asking him what he intends to do. When he asks for clarification, she gives him a look- a knowing look. He responds that he will not choose an heir right now- there is too much happening, too much to be done. He leaves her to retire to his chambers for the night. Before he can leave, however, she asks him if it hurts to be here. He replies that it does- that he can still see Elia and Aegon and Rhaenys playing in the courtyard.•Come morning, the trials begin. The first one on the stand is Qyburn, who is found guilty on multiple accounts of manslaughter, of human testing, of abuse of power. He is sentenced to live out his days in the cells; Jaime adds that perhaps he should pray to his god for mercy. The next trial takes significantly longer, for it is Euron Greyjoy- who looks worse for wear, bruised and cut up. He is found guilty of kinslaughter, of piracy, of plotting against the rightful heir to the iron throne, of attempted murder, among other charges. He is sentenced to return to the Iron Islands with Yara and Theon; they will be the ones to determine what should become of him, whether he lives or dies.

•The final trial is Cersei Lannister. Jaime and Tyrion are both present for her trial. Cersei, smug, expects for her brothers to testify in her defense. Instead, neither do. They testify against her, much to her growing horror. She pleads with Jaime to not do this, but Jaime responds that this is the right thing to do- that what she has done can not be overlooked. It is a tearful betrayal for the twins. Rhaegar, aware of Cersei’s pregnancy, is hesitant to sentence her to death. Jaime asks that her sentencing be put off until she is able to give birth. Rhaegar agrees, and rather than sentence Cersei to death right then and there, sentences her instead to be sequestered in King’s Landing in a secret location that only a select few would know of. She would be watched day and night until she has given birth, after which her sentence shall be carried out: death. She asks if he will burn her in this very hall like his father liked to do. Rhaegar does not respond at first, drawing out the silence as the masses gathered strain to hear. He responds that dragonfire would be too merciful a death for her, and orders for her to be taken away.

•Later, after the trials have finished, Rhaegar meets with the Lords and Ladies of Westeros. They have come to an agreement- that yes, a Great Council would be the best decision. However, Sansa rises, stating that the North wishes to be independent. This causes an uproar, which Rhaegar quickly silences by agreeing with Sansa, explaining that the North has been practically independent since it’s beginning. No one is able to argue with this. Rhaeagar asks if they will still send a representative- Bran speaks up and states that that is the very reason he has come this far. Trystane Martell states that Obera Sand will remain in King’s Landing to represent Dorne. The other houses have not decided on who will be their representatives just yet. Rhaegar is pleased, and adjourns the meeting.

•The next manner of business is his Small Council; Daenerys remains as his hand, with Ser Davos Seaworthy becoming his Master of Ships, Tyrion becoming Master of Coin, Samwell Tarly becoming his Maester, Varys remaining his Master of Whispers. When asked who will be the Master-at-Arms and Master of War, Rhaegar replies that he has yet to talk to either person on this subject, and will speak with them shortly.

•He can then be seen approaching Brienne of Tarth, who is surprised to see Rhaegar. The two stand in comfortable silence, watching the reconstruction of portions of the Red Keep’s roof before Rhaegar asks Brienne to be his Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, surprising her. She responds that there could surely be someone better for the position. He counters by asking if Sansa had released her, to which she replies with yes. He then gives her a smile and states that someone who had defeated The Hound in combat, who had spent years protecting Sansa Stark, who fought and survived the Battle of Winterfell, and was knighted by Jaime Lannister is more than deserving of the role of Lord Commander. She accepts with a barely-hidden smile, which makes Rhaegar chuckle as he clasps her shoulder.

•He makes his way to visit with Jaime Lannister next, and does not allow for him to even think on taking up the role of Master-at-Arms. Rhaegar explains that he knows Jaime is a damned good fighter, having trained him himself when they were younger, and seeing him fight in the war against the dead solidified that. Jaime, surprised but honored, accepts the position. Rhaegar informs him that his duties begin immediately, and when Jaime does not move, Rhaegar leans close and whispers that immediately means now. 

•Jon is summoned by Rhaegar that night; he wonders if he has done something wrong. Rhaegar greets him warmly, asking for him to take a seat, for there are matters that need to be discussed. Jon becomes worried that Rhaegar is going to send him away, and before Rhaegar can begin, asks if Rhaegar wants him to stay. Rhaeagar, surprised, replies that of course he wants him to stay- he is his son, after all, and he would like to get to know him- if he wishes to stay, that is. Jon takes a moment to respond before replying that he would like to stay. Rhaegar then asks him how he would feel about being his heir. Jon replies simply that he’s a bastard, and has not earned the Targaryen name. This baffles Rhaegar, who argues that he’s more than earned it, but seeing Jon uncomfortable with the mere thought has him second guessing himself. Jon admits that he thought Daenerys would be his heir.

•Rhaegar replies that, if Jon truly does not wish to be the heir to the Iron Throne- then he will give the position to Daenerys. Jon replies that he never wanted any throne, to be any sort of king or lord. That isn’t who he is. Rhaegar agrees after a moment, before asking one more question: if not a king or a lord, what about a Master of War? To which Jon, surprised but pleased, agrees- and for the first time, Rhaegar sees his son smile.

•Rhaegar approaches Daenerys in the morning, requesting that she join him for a walk through King’s Landing. The siblings take a leisurely stroll, accompanied by only two guards. The people respond better to Rhaegar than they did Cersei or Joffrey; Rhaegar pauses often to lend a hand. When a group of children run up to him, he kneels down, Daenerys following suit, and gives the children a few gold coins to go spend on sweets. They run off, and Rhaegar rises to his feet slowly. Daenerys finally asks him what this was about, to which he responds that he has chosen her to be his heir.

•She stills in place, looking at him as if he’s completely lost his mind, and asks him if this is some sort of joke, to which he replies that it isn’t. He’d spoken with Jon, who refused the throne. He then tells her that he had always planned on naming her his heir, seeing as how it is more than likely that he will not have any more children. She asks if the Hand can also be the Heir- Rhaegar replies that he isn’t sure, but he makes the rules now. She grins and agrees. He then begins to pry into her personal life with Jon Snow, to which she actively avoids and attempts to change the subject, drawing forth a laugh from the king.

•Months pass; King’s Landing is flourishing, with efforts being made to create a system to filter in clean water and filter out waste; Flea Bottom is currently being renovated and rebuilt. Trade routes have been reopened, and peace has finally come to the Six Kingdoms. The dragons have taken to staying in the Dragon Pits; Rhaegar finds himself wandering there often. Jon and Daenerys find him here, where he sits with Rhaenyx, the dragon sound asleep as Rhaegar plays a soft tune on a silver stringed lap harp. Rhaegar greets them by putting a finger to lips, a cue for them to be quiet. He rises, slowly, and motions for them to follow. He leads them into the tunnels beneath the Dragon Pits, and to Daenerys and Jon’s surprise, he leads them to a clutch of dragon eggs- four, to be exact. He isn’t sure who laid them, but they are here and very much alive.

•Daenerys becomes distracted by the eggs, which allows Jon to take Rhaegar aside and quietly asks Rhaegar’s permission to take Daenerys as his wife. Rhaegar, unsurprised, tells Jon that he was fairly certain he’d given him his blessing by not having him killing on the spot for taking his sister to bed on the boat. Jon flushes and becomes embarrassed. Rhaegar laughs, and the trio make their way to the surface. Jon and Daenerys leave Rhaegar, who stands amongst the three dragons, and for the first time in a very long time, finds himself at peace. He climbs atop Rhaenyx, who is now awake, and takes to the skies over King’s Landing, soaring over Jon kneeling before Daenerys, over Brienne of Tarth training new knights, over Jaime Lannister holding his newborn daughter and watching Brienne, over Bran sitting alone in a garden, over Obera Sand sparring with Arya Stark, who is visiting, and out over the harbor. Rhaenyx releases a loud cry as they circle back around, Vhagon and Meraxal having come to join them in the air.

Mac's Wild Years: By Michael Hurtt.  Originally published in Offbeat Magazine

Mac Rebennack was born in 1941. Dr. John was born in 1967. What happened in between would color his whole musical career. "In New Orleans, everything--food, music, religion, even the way people talk and act--has deep, deep roots; and, like the tangled veins of cypress roots that meander this way and that in the swamp, everything in New Orleans is interrelated, wrapped around itself in ways that aren't always obvious."--Mac Rebennack In 1967, Malcolm Rebennack, Jr., exiled to the West Coast after a final drug bust that forbid him "to go to or through New Orleans," donned face paint, glitter and plumes and emerged as Dr. John the Night Tripper. His debut album Gris-Gris, and the stage shows that followed it, hawked a brand of psychedelic New Orleans R&B that mixed Mardi Gras Indian street chants with the primal gospel of holiness churches, the pianistic funk of Professor Longhair, heavy doses of hoodoo mysticism and nearly every shred of ritualistic South Louisiana culture that he'd absorbed during his decade and a half in the New Orleans music scene. From the drag shows at the Dew Drop Inn to the electric guitar evangelizing of the Reverend Utah Smith, it was a netherworld far stranger and more colorful than anything the pioneer of voodoo rock could have dreamed up. His role in it, though often been eclipsed by his later metamorphosis, established a reputation that would inform every aspect of his later musical life. Populated by high school greasers, high-rolling gangsters, down-and-out dope fiends and jive-talking record men, it was a world that had rapidly begun evaporating with the election of District Attorney Earling Carothers "Jim" Garrison in 1961. Prior to his widely known investigation into the Kennedy assassination, Garrison made his name locally by leading a systematic crack down on Crescent City vice that padlocked night clubs, juke joints and gambling dens. He often led the raids himself, pistol in hand, and by 1963 had managed to single-handedly dismantle the around-the-clock-party that had been Rebennack's entire young life. It had been one of after-hours jam sessions that lasted well into the next day, followed by "record dates" that produced aural snapshots that just reeked with crazed rock 'n' roll atmosphere: Jerry Byrne's frantic "Lights Out" and "Carry On," Roland Stone's narcotic anthem "Junco Partner," and Mac's own sinister, tremelo-charged "Storm Warning." "If we didn't have an artist and we had some studio time we'd just be the artist," Rebennack says of the sessions that produced hundreds of singles under monikers from Ronnie and the Delinquents to Drits and Dravy. The former's 1959 "Bad Neighborhood" was a greasy period piece if there ever was one. Meant to commemorate "the end of the zoot suit era," its gleeful lines of "Lie, steal, drink all day / good folks try to keep away," was an outright celebration of the lifestyle that Garrison sought to eliminate. And the Delinquents moniker was really no joke. "When we hired Ronnie Barron to be the singer with us, he was a li'l thug," says Rebennack, who'd had remarkably bad luck with great front men thus far. "We lost more singers to the penitentiary," he says, naming nearly everyone who preceded Barron with the exception of Frankie Ford. "Deadeye went to the joint for manslaughter, Jerry Byrne fell and went up for statutory rape, then Roland Stone went up on narcotics." Local disc jockey Jim Stewart once recalled that Rebennack's teenage bands "were always high, always late." But somehow through the haze, Mac would manage to simultaneously wear the hats of talent scout, A&R man, composer, producer, arranger, session musician, and when the need arose, singer. It might have stayed that way had Barron not refused to take on the Dr. John persona, which was invented with him in mind. Rebennack had started flirting with drugs when he was 12, already well seasoned in the art of skipping school and Mass to catch the street car to the early morning R&B jams at the Brass Rail. Since his father owned an appliance store that serviced jukeboxes, his childhood was spent wearing out stacks of hillbilly, jazz and blues 78s when they came off the boxes. Schooled on "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie" by his piano-playing aunt, he soon took up the guitar. By the time rock 'n' roll hit during his freshman year at Jesuit High School, he was more than ready. At Jesuit, Rebennack formed his first band the Dominos, with Henry Guerineau, then joined Guerineau's the Spades with whom he played "the Holy Father Circuit," as he refers it, starring at CYO dances from Redemptorist in the Irish Channel to Saint Anthony's in Mid-City. His teachers were current and future Fats Domino guitarists Papoose Nelson and Roy Montrell, who took an axe to young Mac's brand new green and black Harmony guitar. "He broke it all up, called my Pa and said, 'Mr. Rebennack, I ain't teachin' your son on that piece of shit. Go pick him out something nice.' I thought I was going to get killed. My Pa was hip, though. He knew it wasn't about the guitar as much as having that guitar to bring on the gig." Montrell took Mac to a pawnshop where he picked out a Gibson that he worked off lugging appliances for his dad. "My father didn't say a word til later," Rebennack wrote in his autobiography Under a Hoodoo Moon. "Apparently Roy had taken him aside and told him, 'I taught your son a lesson, that you don't get things because of the way they look. You get them on how they work." "He had a way of teaching that kept me coming back for more. During the lesson, he strung me along with ordinary riffs--but then right at the end he'd play some killer lick, his back turned so I couldn't see his fingers, and say, 'Hey, wanna learn that shit, kid? Come back next week. Now get the fuck outta here." Having already met studio owner Cosimo Matassa, who was a friend of his father, Rebennack spent his schooldays honing his songwriting skills. "Man, I used to go to school, I had a couple of comic books where the outside cover looked like a loose leaf binder. And I'd sit there in class reading that. They thought I was doing something in school but I'd be sitting there writing songs, ripping them off from Mad or Tales from the Crypt." He'd also begun hanging out at Warren Easton High School on Canal Street, a hotbed of hip musical activity that had already birthed New Orleans first bona-fide white rock 'n' roll band, the Sparks. It was here that he first encountered saxophonist Leonard James, whose band was blasting out a set of Sam Butera songs in the school gymnasium. It turned out that James knew all about the Brass Rail too, and dug the same hard-driving sounds as Rebennack did. They were soon rehearsing at James' house in the notorious St. Roch park neighborhood with guitarist Earl Stanley--now playing the recently introduced electric bass--and drummer Paul Staehle. "Leonard lived on Robertson not too far from the park and Stanley used to live around there on Dauphine," Rebennack says. "One of the things St. Roch Park was known for was as a good cop spot. St. Roch church was famous, too, because they'd take the grease out the bells by the cemetery, mix it with some graveyard dirt and some gun powder, add extra nitrate and put that all together with Patchouli oil to make goofy dust. Now, what you did with it was according to how rank a motherfucker you were." The mysterious worlds of drugs and hoodoo fascinated young Mac, but in his new musical partners he found an even deeper magic. "Paul Staehle was bad. I remember him having drum battles with Edward Blackwell and all the top drummers. And Stanley had a finger-plucking style of guitar like Snooks did, North Mexican shit that he'd learned from his daddy. He was into Earl King and Guitar Slim just like I was. We liked those cats because they did something different." Rebennack had picked up on the flamboyance of his guitar heroes a little too acutely for the priests at Jesuit, who'd brought his high school career to a halt after a Christmas talent show where they accused him of making "lewd gyrations" with his instrument. The real beef, Henry Guerineau later told Tad Jones, was that they were playing R&B instead of big band swing or Dixieland. "At the time," he recalled, "it was heresy." Stanley, who became the Spades' guitarist after Rebennack left the band, was having his own issues over at Nicholls High. "I used to hang with the gangsters, all the tough guys," Stanley says. "I was so bad they threw me out of Nicholls but they couldn't throw me out of school. So they asked me to leave and I went to McDonough on Esplanade for a couple of months, then I quit when I was 15. That was in '55. "I didn't know Mac when he was in the Spades. I just remember seeing him playing guitar at the dances. I thought, 'That guy's pretty good.' Then I got with Leonard and through Leonard I met Mac. They had a guy playing piano with them, Hal Farrar, he went by the stage names 'King Helo Attaro' and 'Spider Boy.' Now Hal was a character, he was the character of them all; the main lunatic. He liked to drink vodka, he could care less about anything, just a wild man. He used to have this Cugat jacket he'd wear and he'd play piano and try to do all of Little Richard's stuff. He even had the little moustache. In fact, he recorded the original demo of 'I've Been Hoodood' (later to become the flip side of the Dr. John hit "Right Place, Wrong Time") with Leonard." Vocalists Wayne "Deadeye" Herring and Jerry Byrne were also drifting into the group at this point. "We used to do the old low-down blues," Herring told Jones. "There weren't too many white bands that could do it. Back then if you sat in with a black band, boy, they'd jump on your ass when you come outside. People took a dim view of that but we did it anyway." While band names revolved from the Skyliners to the Loafers to the Night Trains to the Thunderbirds, the foundation remained James, Rebennack, Stanley and Staehle. "Crippled" Eddie Hynes and Eddie Shroeder often floated in on trombone and baritone sax respectively. "Whether it was Leonard's band or my band, it was all pretty much the same crew of guys," says Rebennack, "Nothing really changed other than we changed the name of the band quite frequently. It kinda helped us get some gigs and win some talent shows. We lost them under one name and won them under another." The core foursome debuted on wax with an album of raunchy guitar and sax instrumentals, Boppin' and A Strollin' with Leonard James, recorded for Decca in 1956. Rough, ready and loose, the LP was the perfect soundtrack of noir New Orleans; at once evocative of French Quarter strip joints, high school dances and hood hangouts like the Rockery Inn. Along with discs like the Saxons' "Camel Walk' and the Sparks' "Merry Mary Lou," it stands as a testament to city's incredibly potent--but often obscured--white rock 'n' roll underground. "Leonard always took pride in combing his ducktail perfect," recalls Rebennack. "I mean, he would stand in front the mirror for an hour and then put his be-bop cap on--perfect. He had his little zoot suit pressed, more than the rest of us. We'd just wear them. They were the kind that didn't wrinkle any way. "Leonard was a great hustler. He used to walk in joints where they never had a band in their life. I remember us getting a gig in the Ninth Ward at a grocery store. Leonard conned this guy into hiring us but he wanted country music. We didn't know any country music so we'd play 'Comin' Around the Mountain' or whatever. As long as we were working, we didn't care nothing about none of the rest of it." From dives like the Club Leoma, the Blue Cat and the Jet Lounge, they moved up to the Clock on St. Charles Avenue and finally, the Brass Rail. "While we were working there Paul Gayten says, 'If y'all want to keep the gig, you're going to have to quit playing songs like the record.' And that became kind of a theme with our band. We didn't play them like the records, we played them our way." Gayten also took issue with their slightly out-of-date stage wear. "We had the same suits for so long that I don't think anybody ever considered getting new uniforms until Paul started fuckin' with us: 'Nobody wears zoot suits in Chicago; they wear continental suits.' Man, here we had all our money invested in these royal blue zoot suits. And what do we do? We got some new suits from Harry Hyman's or old man Sutton's on South Rampart--continental suits--and we wore them in Gretna when they had a gang fight at Cass's Lounge. They throwed us all in the drainage ditch out behind the joint. We ruined our new suits and we hadn't even paid for them yet! "When we worked at any of them joints on the West Bank, shit happened. At Spec's Moulin Rouge, old man Spec used to have guys walking around with pieces dressed like police but they wasn't official police, they was just guys who worked for old man Spec. Gang fights was, like, prevalent. When the Choctaw Boys and the Cherokees would have their annual beef at the Wego Inn on the Hill, it would be around Carnival. And it would be like, 'Goddamn.' You know the shit's going to happen; it's just when it's going happen. I would be trying to play close to the slot machines that were on the bandstand because I figured the slots could deal with the slugs better than me. When I saw anything that looked like it could be trouble, I'd back up toward the slots. But this is the kind of shit you had to endure back in them days because you were dealing with a bunch of crazy motherfuckers. And we were crazy, too." If there was one song that distilled the insanity into the length of a 45 RPM record, it was Rebennack's "Lights Out," cut by Jerry Byrne for Specialty in 1958. Punctuated by stop-time drum breaks, a foghorn-like saxophone riff and a searing piano solo courtesy of Art Neville, "Lights Out" has justifiably been called "the perfect rock 'n' roll song." Byrne's breakneck vocal nods to a personality so bent on bringing the house down that fights--and sometimes worse--often ensued. "Jerry was one of them suckers who worked the house," says Rebennack, "but he was a piece of work. He drove me crazy a number of times in my life. He was special with that. Hey, guys wanted to shoot me over things Jerry did. He had the ability to kick up more shit with more motherfuckers than anybody I know." In 1959, Byrne cut Mac's equally boisterous "Carry On" and then got sent to prison on a trumped-up statutory rape charge. Deadeye was already behind bars. "It was a never-ending thing," says Stanley, "just make a record and things happen, you know?" Despite the trouble, says Rebennack, "our band was really popular." They'd toured with Frankie Ford behind "Sea Cruise" and Byrne behind "Lights Out" as well as backing the traveling rock 'n' roll caravans at both the Municipal Auditorium and Pontchartrain Beach Amusement Park. And the records kept coming, from Bobby Lonero's "Little Bit" to Morgus and the Ghouls' "Morgus the Magnificent." "I don't think any of us thought that much about doing a record date," reflects Rebennack. "The gigs were the fun part. When I started working for Joe Ruffino's record company, Joe asked my daddy if I could be the president of the company and my daddy says, 'What are you crazy? This boy can't even find his fuckin' shoes!' But there were so many guys we did sessions for like Andy Blanco at Drew-blan in Morgan City and a bunch of other guys that had different little labels in the country. We played on all of Cos's Rex stuff and then we did a lot of crazy stuff all through the days we were working for Johnny Vincent over at Ace. I remember we stole 'Jimmy Crack Corn' and called it 'Ain't No Use.' We cut 'Row Your Boat' with Big Boy Myles. And I don't know how many different versions of 'Junco Partner' we cut with Roland Stone. We were some plagiarizing motherfuckers." Stone, the most prolific of Rebennack's vocalists on record, had already blazed the white R&B trail with local luminaries the Jokers when he waxed the regional smash "Just a Moment" with Rebennack in 1961. His entrance roughly coincided with the departure of Leonard James, who was replaced by Charlie Maduell after he joined the Air Force. "Charlie was just as crazy as Leonard was, but Leonard never got high. On the other hand, Charlie fit right in with the rest of us because he liked the narcotics, too. Probably the only one that wasn't a really serious drug addict was Stanley. If we were somewhere in the country, we would burglarize drug stores. When we were in the city, we forged 'scripts. We were strung out dope fiends, what the hell you going to do? There was a pharmacy on the corner of Dorgenois and Canal that used to sell to all the dope fiends. You had to go in there and ask for certain things, that's when I started getting my collection of Mad comic books together. If I got a comic book and a bag of pork rinds, that meant I wanted some opiates. Everything you ordered meant something else. We used to have so much fun that who'd have ever thought we'd wind up in jail? "My favorite gig was when Roland was singing with us and we started working at Little Club Forest on Jefferson Highway. At Club Forest, you could tell what audience hit because when all the junkies would come in, they'd just want to hear 'Junco Partner' over and over. When the whores came in they'd want to hear whatever their song was that night. So there were all these songs that fit the set. That gig was so fuckin' off the hook, so much crazy shit happened at that gig alone, I couldn't even describe it. "Between Charlie Maduell and Paul Staehle, they would always hide the stash for the band. One night they had a raid and Paul had the whole band's stash in his sock. They didn't shake us down, but the FBI came in and they emptied the joint. Somebody paid everyone's bond and before the night was over, Wes, the Jefferson Parish narc, was selling the customers back their dope in the band room! This is how out there it was. "And then Charlie went out and walked the bar and did the dance of the Seven Veils. He's out and there doing a striptease walking the bar. It's one of them gigs that's printed in my brain. And we always had what we used to call our 'band-aids' back then. Before they called them groupies, we called them band-Aids." When Stone fell for one of the young ladies a little too hard, friction arose. "I told Roland, 'Hey, listen, you can't marry this girl. She's our girl. She belongs to the band.' I thought I was doing him a favor but it backfired. He was obviously pissed." Stone showed up for his next recording session with three henchmen in tow including prizefighter Pepi Flores. "They stomped my ass. Charlie went out and got a gun and was firing in the air. I says, 'Charlie, quit shooting in the air! Shoot these motherfuckers!' He didn't even have real guns. They were replica weapons he'd loaded up! But we all went to work the next night together. Me and Charlie wound up having to wear shades and makeup to hide the black eyes. That's when I learned, hey, when it comes to matters of somebody's heart, stay the fuck out of it." The good times had to come to an end and they eventually did. Stone was busted on a narcotics charge, as was Maduell, who remains in Angola today. Within just a few years, Paul Staehle would die of a drug over dose. Rebennack's own luck ran out on Christmas Eve of 1961 when he intervened in a scuffle between Ronnie Barron and a jealous club owner who accused Barron of having an affair with his wife. "I walked in to get Ronnie at the last minute because Ronnie was like Leonard James, he'd take forever to get himself all perfect. So I go to get him and the guy's pistol-whipping him. Miss Mildred, Ronnie's mama, said if anything happened to her son on the road she was going to take a butcher knife and chop my cajones off. So I'm thinking, 'Man, if anything happens to this guy, his mama's going to fuck me up.' And hey, she was much more frightening to me than this guy was. I thought I had my hand over the handle of the gun, but it was over the barrel. I'm beating his hand on the bricks and as I'm hitting it, all of a sudden the gun went off and my finger's just about to fall off of my hand. It was hanging by a piece of skin and then I went crazy. I took Paul Staehle's ride cymbal out the case and just fucked up the guy's face. I was trying to pull his eyeballs out his head." Doctors managed to reattach the finger, but Rebennack had trouble playing guitar with the intensity he'd become known for. He concentrated on the keyboard, playing organ on virtually all of Huey Meaux's New Orleans sessions, most notably those of Barbara Lynn and Jimmy Donley. The first--and perhaps wildest--chapter of his musical career officially came to a close when he was busted and sent to federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas. Upon his release in 1965 he headed to California and his future as the Night Tripper. "You know what the kicks of it was?" Rebennack asks. "We wanted to play music so bad that we didn't ever think about it. We were trying to make a hustle just off of the gigs and that was part of the fun of it. Everything we done, we had fun doing it. That was the one thing that I always treasured about them days. It was just something that happened. When you're young and crazy and stupid, you do a lot of crazy, stupid shit. But a lot of that shit is great because you're too stupid to know better. I know that we made it a point to always have kicks, to always have good times no matter what was going to go down. We never thought, 'Oh, this is a suck-ass gig we're going on.' We went on all kinds of suck-ass gigs! But while we were doing them, we had a ball."

Robert Blake. This case is not as cut and dry as i originally thought.

Robert "Bobby" Blake was a child actor who played one of the little rascals. He has talked a lot about his father, apparently young Bobby was the one supporting his whole family and though that was his father's doing, dad greatly resented him for it. There was physical abuse aplenty in that home. He moved out at the age of 16 and supported himself from then on. As an adult he did something very difficult- he successfully transitioned from child to adult star. Robert starred in several movies and won an Emmy for his role on the 70's hit tv show Beretta- during this role he also gained the reputation of a hot head. I'm not much of a fan but I gotta admit he's an amazing actor- the problem is you never know when he's acting and when he's not.

Robert was first married to Sondra Kerr in 1961. The couple had 2 children, a son and a daughter named Noah and Delinah Blake. Sondra has reported that Robert was very abusive towards her. They divorced in 1983.

It wasn't until the late 90's when Robert met a younger woman by the name of Bonnie (or Bonny) Lee Bakley. I never speak ill of the dead in my posts, but in this case it's important to tell what kind of person Bonnie really was- it's very relevant that the woman had quite a few enemies. Bonnie's "business" was scamming people. She would place personal ads or respond to ads she read, sweet talk the men she was writing to, and send them Pornography. Bonnie would write a single letter, copy it by hand, and send it to many different men. She'd pretend to be someone other than herself, she kept different mailboxes all over the country. She gave these men sob stories, told them how badly she needed money for this or that tragedy. She made promises to these men, told them she'd come to see them if they'd help her through her problem, financially. Maybe she'd say her car was broke down; or that her kid was sick- she always needed money. Then she'd turn around and blackmail these men with anything she could use against them. If she believed a man was wealthy enough, she actually did meet him- hell some she married. One woman who came forward says Bonnie married her grandfather and took him for 80K. Then she stole the grand daughter's identity and began scamming men using her name- on top of that she absolutely destroyed this woman's credit. Bonnie did this to several women, she kept several different drivers licenses on her. Some men made her beneficiary of their life insurance, others cut their families out of their will and added Bonnie. This is how she supported herself, in the pre internet era she made 300K a year doing this! Bonnie had been in serious legal trouble for her scams, arrested multiple times for drugs, writing checks, and fraud. But her real ambitions went much further than scamming lonely men through the mail. She wanted to be rich and she thought the way to do this was to trap a celebrity. She was known to stalk older celebs, targeted big names such as Frankie Valli, Dean Martin, Gary Busey, among others. She badly wanted to be a part of Hollywood; her close friends say that her goal was to get knocked up by a celeb, and she did just that. More than once, she claimed. The first time was the infamous Jerry Lee. She said he fathered her 3rd child- Jerry's sister says she believes her brother paid Bonnie a settlement. It was determined through a DNA test that this girl did not even belong to Jerry. Later, when she was sleeping with Robert, she was also with Marlon Brando's son, Christian.

Bonnie met Christian Brando while he was in prison for manslaughter- he shot and killed his sister's boyfriend. Bonnie began writing him, chatting him up, sending him porn. When Christian was released, the two dated. Christian thought he and Bonnie were in an exclusive relationship. He was wrong- Bonnie was also sleeping with Robert Blake.

Bonnie told Robert she was on birth control, she could not get pregnant. This was a blatant lie- a friend would later admit she was actually undergoing fertility treatment. When Bonnie became pregnant she told both men that the baby was theirs. Robert did not want another child at all, especially with a woman who had purposely tried to trap him- he knew what she'd done to Jerry Lee. He was pissed, he wanted her to abort the baby. Bonnie originally agreed, but then refused. All along she allowed Christian to believed the child was his, and when the little girl was born Bonnie named her Christian Shannon Brando. Christian bonded with the baby he believed was his. A DNA test was not given until later when Robert saw a picture of the child and he realized she looked just like him. DNA proved that Robert was the father, and baby Christian Shannon Brando was renamed Rose Lenore Sophia Blake- Rosie for short. Christian Brando was understandably pissed, he Is quoted for telling Bonnie, "You're lucky somebody ain't out there to put a bullet in your head".

Once Robert knew Rosie was his, he would've done any and every thing in his power to keep her near. Though it doesn't appear he even liked the woman, Robert married Bonnie- obviously a marriage of convenience. There was an air tight prenup in which Bonnie agreed to give up her "business" of scamming men.

Just a few months after they wed, Bonnie was dead.

May 4th of 2001. On this night, Robert took Bonnie to dinner at his favorite fancy Italian restaurant, Vitello's. After they had eaten, the couple walked out to the car. Robert claims he left Bonnie sitting in the passenger seat of his car after he realized he'd forgotten his gun inside the restaurant. When he returned to the car, Bonnie was bleeding profusely. Though Robert said he thought she'd been beaten up, she'd been shot. She was gurgling when Robert found her; by the time the ambulance reached her she was dead. Bonnie was 44 years old.

By all accounts Robert ran around like a chicken with his head cut off- he went to a nearby residence to ask for help, he then ran back to the restaurant for help. He was screaming, crying, even vomiting- just hysterical. Some say this was his best acting yet.

During a search of Robert's home, Police found 12K cash inside one of his dressers. There was also a box of bullets just like the ones that killed Bonnie- in the 100 count box exactly 3 were missing. That's exactly the amount of bullets that was used in the murder.

Robert did have motive, all the motive in the world. The star had found that Bonnie was still scamming people, which he absolutely despised. Friends say he was very afraid that Rosie was destined to have a horrible life if Bonnie raised her, that she'd become a scam artist like her mother- he expressed concern that Rosie would become a prostitute. But there really wasn't any concrete evidence against the star. It was all circumstantial- like why did he take the woman he hated out to dinner? Why not park closer to the restaurant? His leaving a gun in the restaurant while his wife was shot made him look so guilty. He told police that he was packing heat because there had been threats against Bonnie's life, that there had been attempts to kill her. There was some gunshot residue on him when police tested him that night, and a friend of Bonnie's said that right before her death Bonnie confided she was afraid Robert was going to kill her. Still, he may never have been charged with the murder at all had a couple of stuntmen named Robert Hambleton and Gary McLarty not told police that Robert had tried to hire them to kill Bonnie- and there was proof that Robert had called them. The year after Bonnie's death, Robert was arrested for her premeditated murder.

Of course Robert was wealthy, he could afford the best defense money could buy. We all know that goes a long way in a murder trial. The defense team managed to discredit the stuntmen. About that gunshot residue- I'm not a forensics kind of girl, I enjoy the psychology of murder. But this is how i heard this explained: There was very little gunshot residue on Robert that night- just 5 gunshot particles. But the gun that was used to kill Bonnie, a German WW2 handgun found in a dumpster near the scene, was old and left a lot more residue than usual. The weapon was tested and found to leave 2,440 residue particles when fired twice. So while there was a bit of residue, it wasn't a red herring. The defense claimed that the residue found on Robert that night could've been from handling a different gun, he was a gun enthusiast who had a license to carry. Prosecution claimed he must've gotten rid of it somehow, wiped it off or something.

It's more than likely that some of the jurors thought he probably did it, there just wasn't enough evidence to find him guilty of capital murder- especially in a death penalty case. In March of 2005, Robert was found not guilty of Bonnie's murder.

Just months after the murder trial was over, not unlike OJ, Robert was promptly taken to civil court where it is much easier to be found guilty. In November of '05, Robert was found liable for his wife's wrongful death, he was ordered to pay Bonnie's children 30 Mil- an appeal knocked that figure down to 15 million. After all the lawyer fees and paying Bonnie's family, he was bankrupt. Robert was poor for the first time in his life, depressed, cooped up in his small dwelling where he became a hermit- he spoke to no one. Rosie, who is 18 today, was reportedly raised by Delinah Blake, Robert's adult daughter. They have had zero contact with their father. The latest news on Robert Blake was last year when he filed for a marriage license to marry a long time friend, 55 y/o Pamela Hudak. There's no news on whether the two actually did wed.

Whatever Bonnie did in life does not make her deserving of this ending. Very few people deserve that. I do apologize for trashing her, but it's important to realize how many enemies she had. While Robert had plenty of motive, he wasn't the only one- she had quite a few victims herself. My opinion on this case has changed considerably since i began researching this. If you asked me last week what i thought of Robert Blake, I'd have said guilty. I'm not so sure now. If he did do it, which is very possible, I believe he paid someone. I don't believe he physically pulled the trigger. I do not blame the jury- I doubt I'd have convicted him with the death penalty on the table, either. If they'd have tried him without the death penalty option, he may have been convicted. Maybe he'll make a death bed confession some day. Though that's unlikely- he's too narcissistic. If Christian Brando had a part in this, It's unlikely we will ever know. He's already deceased- as are both stuntmen.

What do you think?

FIVE STAGES OF GRIEF~ self para [PG]

↪ TAGGING: Noah Puckerman ( @pucketknife ); mentions of Tzion and Calev Puckerman and Chevalier D. Syerus, Alderman of the SGA; ↪ LOCATION/TIME: NYADA Campus, Apeliotes #101; May 7th & 8th; Monday morning through Tuesday morning; ↪ SYNOPSIS: After the verdict, Puck has to figure out what comes next; ↪ WARNINGS: language and slight signs of depression, if any, but nothing major;

Monday morning starts just like any other day, before dawn with a quick run through the empty Campus, nothing but a few faces in sight (either drunk people still unaware the weekend is over or other runners, some people he recognizes from his slaying courses and people he sees on a regular basis, who wave or nod at him as he passes them by). Still, Puck doesn’t usually pay attention to anything but his music and the path ahead of him, the burn of his muscles and the rhythm of his breathing.

That's why he’s surprised when the music stops with the incoming call. He stops and answers as he walks to a water fountain and takes a sip, and it’s even more surprising to hear no one but Tzion Puckerman on the other end of the line. His uncle never calls, and his voice is stern even through his headphones, clearly unhappy to be having this conversation.

"What is it?" Puck asks, his breathing fast due to the jogging as he begins stretching, "Why're you callin'? Did someone die?" It’s not a joke. He couldn’t think of any other reason why Tzion would bother picking up the phone. For a moment, he thinks of his cousins, wonders if he should be worried, but his uncle is fast to blow him off, tells him everyone's okay and that there’s something else he’s calling about. 

"Then what is it? It's not like you're one of those people who just calls someone when they miss-"

"The Assembly's gonna call you in a moment," Tzion cuts him off, clearly not amused with Puck's little one-liners, "You're suspended without pay."

Puck freezes, and if the phone had been in his hand, he would’ve probably dropped it.

"The fuck? What the-"

"There was a trial,” he says, “something about a fire. You forgot to mention it, I assume. They said you killed some Lusus. I'd say good job, but, y'know. I'm not happy about the news."

He's most definitely not happy. Clearly. But neither is Puck.

"I didn't do shit," he replies through gritted teeth, adrenaline flowing through his veins, anger filling up his chest.

"Well, it's clear you didn't," Tzion barks back. "You didn't cover up your fucking tracks, Amram. And now it's our Clan that has to pay for your mistakes."

"That's not-"

Puck can't finish his sentence before Tzion is talking over him again.

"You were supposed to be better than this," he voices, low and dangerous. It reminds Puck of his own father. It makes him flinch involuntarily. "You were supposed to be the next big thing."

"Tzion..." He's frozen, unable to know what he's supposed to say, what he's supposed to do.

"Don't," the head of the Puckerman Clan states, and Puck can almost see the disappointment and anger painted on his face. "Don't dishonor our Clan any further with your excuses. Don't call us, Amram."

The call ends and the music comes back, but Puck feels like he's been beaten up with a bat, left bloody and broken in a ditch.

His life is over, and for what.

This cannot be happening.

He goes straight back to his dorm and checks the news, punching the keyboard keys loudly until the headline appears in the NYADAily.

"The end of an era..." It sure was.

Puck swallows hard as his eyes fly through the article, the monster inside him growing as he reads more.

Fuchs’ claimed that he had also been brainwashed by Lusus Naturae, a trickster who took advantage of his position to use his home as a “base for [their] illegal happenings.” Fuchs says he was also tricked into seeing his home as a “picture-perfect dollhouse. [He] was unaware of the decor or how it had been changed.”

Bullshit.

Defence lawyer Jennifer Walters, L.L.M, has acknowledged that Fuchs kidnapped various Lusus Naturae victims ranging from selkies to lamias, but successfully countered the prosecution’s claim that the defendant used enchantment magic and killed several victims in premeditated assault. 

Bullshit.

Evans and Puckerman had been charged with involuntary and voluntary manslaughter

Bull

Evans, under the prosecution, is getting off with a $20,000 fine for model behavior. The jurors believed it to be a honest mistake. 

Puckerman, however, has been demoted to an unknown rank in the Slayers’ Guild, has been stripped of his weapons and badge, and is on unpaid leave until further notice as internal investigations are underway.

Shit.

His knuckles go white as he holds onto the edge of his desk.

One trial member, who does not wish to be named, says it was “deserved… That brute was no different than a thug.”

His computer claps loudly as he closes it shut and he throws the chair across the room, feeling the tears prickling at his eyes, a painful yell toring his throat.

He should've never tried to help.

"You have to understand, Cal," Puck hurries his words, tries to find a way to explain himself to his cousin that calls as an official Secretary of the Guild to let put the final nail to his career's coffin. He tries to stop the unavoidable ending even when he knows neither of them have a voice in the situation, but he can't make himself stop.

"I don't know what happened. You have to tell your dad, it's not my fault." 

In other circumstances, he'd rather be caught dead than begging, but right then and there, he can't do anything but. "Please, Cal. I did nothing wrong. Nothing. I was set up by those fucking lawyers, I was protecting someone else! I was protecting myself! You have to know I'm not lying, you have to know, he's the one who should be paying, not me!”

"I'm sorry, A," he says, and even if his voice is warmer than his uncle's, more human and almost pitiful, almost caring, it doesn't make it any better. "There's nothing to do. One of the Aldermen is heading your way right now. Just hand him your badge and weapons. Don't make it harder than it needs to be."

Puck can't even reply, and he bites down on his lip hard.

"I'm really sorry," Calev repeats with honesty.

He feels the salty taste of tears on his lips.

"Yeah," he nods to himself, voice cracking only slightly. "Me too."

It's past midday when Alderman Syerus knocks at his door. Puck has finally managed to compose himself, but as he sees him there, his soul falls to his feet. The man asks for his things, and Puck is almost ready to plead his case, tell him exactly what happened in Fuch's house, tell the whole story again and again until he understood he was making the wrong call, he was punishing the wrong man for something he was forced to do.

He’s abotu to open his mouth when he remembers Tzion's words.

Don't disgrace us any further;

He remembers Calev's apologetic voice.

Don't make this harder than it needs to be;

So, he doesn't. He gives the Alderman his badge and his favorite gun, the first one his father ever gave him, the first one he's ever held, the first one he's ever killed with, and lets him know where his truck is, how he can get the rest. 

Just like that, his whole life comes to a halt.

Puck stands on the threshold long after Syerus leaves, eyes fixed on the elevator in which he disappeared as he tries to figure out his next step.

When he closes the door behind him, he still doesn't know what to do. He’s at a blank.

So he sleeps.

He wakes up in the middle of the night, the clock ticking loudly in contrast to the silence of the empty room. He's glad Finn's not here, that the school had chosen such a perfect moment to do their exchange program and that he won't have to talk about the result of the trial and his future for at least a week or two. His stomach is empty, growling, but he eyes the little fridge from his bed and groans, turning towards the wall as he curls into himself.

Maybe later.

He stares at the ceiling, eyes fixed in the white roof on top of him. His alarm had gone off a while ago, but unlike any other day, he's still in bed. The sun is up, shining bright, warm light through the open window, and Puck's gaze is blank as he replays the day of the Brownstone fire in his head.

He wonders what had been said about him in the trial; how he ended up without a future while Fuchs didn't get his magic revoked; how Sam had gotten away with a $20,000 fine while he had been punished for doing nothing but his job.

He had done everything he thought right, keeping a low profile after giving his statement, keeping cool and keeping to himself. He avoided all kinds of conflict and applied himself to school, studying hard and even getting good grades (at the very least, good for him). He had even rejected the few jobs the Guild had offered him only to keep a good appearance. Everything for a jury of people he didn't know, in a case he didn't care about, for a cause he didn't believe in.

If he had known how'd that go, he wouldn't have wasted his time in the first place. If he had let the Lusus burn in the fire, he wouldn’t be standing where he was right then.

A breeze seeps into the window, caressing his skin as he lets his eyes fall shut for a second, and he can’t help but wonder what comes next.

Puck doesn't remember a life before being a Slayer. 

He knows there was one. A place where he came from, somewhere he called a home, a kid he used to be, something that meant everything to him, a person he was supposed to be. 

But it’s all gone; he doesn't have it anymore. It was left behind when he met his father, and whoever he was then had died long ago.

He couldn’t look back. He simply couldn’t.

Yet the question invaded his mind, and the words seemed to glow up on top of him.

If I'm not a Slayer, then what am I?

It made him feel lost, like a faint memory of a previous life in which a kid called out for his mother in the middle of a supermarket as tears washed down his face. It made him feel useless and out of place, wonder what was he still doing there if there was a chance he would never become the person he had planned to be.

However, that was not all there was to it. Something brewed in his stomach, bubbling like a boiling cauldron, fighting to come out like an alien. It was something he had never felt before, or at least not with the same intensity, a question that was always there, but he never dared to ask.

If I can't be who I am, then, who am I going to be?

He can't remember the last time someone had asked him that and he had replied with anything but "the best Slayer ever known." Yet his response couldn't be that one anymore, at least not until he served his time. It only left an open door to a new answer, something he had never really asked his own self:

Who do I want to be?

He sighs and checks his phone to see it was just half past ten. He had never been in bed for so long. He had never slept for so many hours straight. He had never had so much time to just chill and do nothing. He had never had time to figure out what he really wanted.

A small smile formed on his lips as the realization dawned onto him.

Even after the trial, even after being suspended, even after being targeted as a brute and a thug, Puck was given something new, something he had never had before.

Puck had a choice.

The only downside to it was, Puck didn't have any idea what he was supposed to do with it.

What did you mean by Goro “walking over dead corpses to resolve some daddy issues?”I’m not defending him or anything, but we don’t know truly feels how he feels about his actions.We don’t how he felt after first killing someone unlike Adachi. And it’s not like he could he said to Shido “I don’t want to kill anymore”, or Shido would have him killed. Again, I’m not defending him or anything, but I feel we do not know enough to judge him.Plus there’s the issues with the japanese foster care system.

I’ll put this right in front here so there’s no misunderstandings:

I, quite subjectively, do not like Goro Akechi. He’s a character I don’t personally relate to or find sympathetic, and all in all, he just doesn’t do much for me. That’s not to say he’s not an interesting character - he is - but I find it very difficult to feel sorry for him with all we know. So now, the following post does not come from a place of objectivity. Be aware of that.

That’s not to say my feelings can’t still change. I thought quite similarly about Adachi after my first play-through of Vanilla Persona 4 (in which the character is under-developed and under-explained beyond all reasonable measures). It wasn’t until Golden expanded on how being raised as a child of the Bubble Era by a Kyoiku-Mama affected the guy, that I took interest in his backstory and found it more interesting to explore him. And yes, you’re right, if future material, like an expanded portable version or spin-offs elaborate on how Goro  felt while acting under Shido’s order and how he justified his actions to himself, that might change things. I am quite aware that Japan’s foster and adoption system is utterly broken, and while right now, the game does not give me any indication that this is enough to justify that boy becoming a ruthless assassin with an agenda, elaboration might help, just like how elaboration on Adachi’s life as a bubble-era kid had helped. 

However, that doesn’t change anything about how I read his character right now. 

(more, under the cut)

As of right now, I find it hard to feel sorry for Goro in any capacity when I know he isn’t just the one who caused Wakaba Ishiki to kill herself in front of her 11 years old, socially awkward daughter, but also caused various other incidents with a body-count far, FAR beyond anything that Adachi’s one manslaughter, one murder and induced kidnappings ever caused. In fact, with Adachi, he even ended up compulsively apologizing to Dojima (at the time for no discernible reason) when Nanako got involved. Don’t get me wrong, Adachi is a shithole, a trash person, who deserved everything he got, but his killings were acts of childish tantrums and cowardice (which makes them worse in a way, but also paints him as someone who wouldn’t have been able to kill these people if he’d had to look them in the eye while doing it), but moments like when he compulsively apologized to Dojima in the hospital at least show he’s remotely capable of remorse, even if he’s still too shitty to outright apologize.

Goro? When the chips were down, all he kept going on about was about how his life sucked, and he deserved better, and he just wanted to be worth something, and YES, while his life was far more traumatic, and a far bigger reason to go insane than Adachi’s ever was, his misdeeds are also disproportionately worse. Adachi’s body-count is 2, you guys, 3 in the bad endings. Don’t forget that. Goro’s, meanwhile, is EASILY in the double digits, if not higher. He stands right in front of Futaba, for crying out loud, and doesn’t even think about saying “Sorry I killed your mom in such an unusual and cruel way and put you through much the same pain that I had to suffer through, that was uncalled for.” He doesn’t even glance at her with a pained expression or something.

No, the fact that he killed under someone else’s orders is NOT an excuse for me! He still offered to do it, and he still did it, and that alone shows that he’s quite capable of looking a human being in the eye before ending their life by pulling a trigger, repeatedly. 

Now, maybe he didn’t realize who Futaba was (which, given his profession, i find unlikely), but even if he didn’t know his deeds affected her in any way, he STILL tried to murder the protag in cold blood, and the best thing he got to say to him is “I wish we’d been friends earlier, because then my life would have been better.”

Bottom line, Goro Akechi is an assassin who killed a number of people, at least a few of them entirely innocent, for no other reason than to carry out a plan to take revenge on his father, because his own life sucked. In doing so, he made  people suffer arguably even far worse mental anguish than what he himself had to go through, and he never showed and remorse for that. 

Meanwhile, Tohru Adachi is an overworked, disillusioned child of the Japanese bubble era, who killed two people because he was given Persona powers while having all the emotional maturity of a Furby at the time (since his upbringing never allowed him to learn how to properly deal with life) and just kinda went “YOLO” with it, then spent an entire year flailing about like a headless chicken trying to not go to jail where he belongs.

While the later is clearly not morally superior over the former, I really don’t feel like the former is any more deserving of my sympathy than the later. 

Nestle, a Swiss company, makes billions on a public resource, fresh water, and pays almost NOTHING for it.

In rural Mecosta County, Mich., sits a near-windowless facility with a footprint about the size of Buckingham Palace. It’s just one of Nestlé’s roughly 100 bottled water factories in 34 countries around the world.

Nestlé SA started bottling in 1843 when company founder Henri Nestlé purchased a business on Switzerland’s Monneresse Canal. “Ever the curious scientist, [he] analyzed and experimented with the enrichment of water with a variety of minerals, always with a singular goal: to provide healthy, accessible, and delicious refreshment,” reads Nestlé’s website. Today there are thousands of bottled water companies worldwide—there’s even Trump Ice—but Nestlé is the biggest globally in terms of sales, followed by Coca-Cola, Danone, and PepsiCo, according to Euromonitor International. Nestlé Waters, the Paris-based subsidiary, owns almost 50 brands, including Perrier, S.Pellegrino, and Poland Spring.

Last year, U.S. bottled water sales reached $16 billion, up nearly 10 percent from 2015, according to Beverage Marketing Corp. 

They outpaced soda sales for the first time as drinkers continue to seek convenience and healthier options and worry about the safety of tap water after the high-profile contamination in Flint, Mich., about a two-hour drive from Mecosta. 

Nestlé alone sold $7.7 billion worth worldwide, with more than $343 million of it coming from Michigan, where the company bottles Ice Mountain Natural Spring Water and Pure Life, its purified water line.

The Michigan operation is only one small part of Nestlé, the world’s largest food and beverage company. But it illuminates how Nestlé has come to dominate a controversial industry, spring by spring, often going into economically depressed municipalities with the promise of jobs and new infrastructure in exchange for tax breaks and access to a resource that’s scarce for millions. 

Where Nestlé encounters grass-roots resistance against its industrial-strength guzzling, it deploys lawyers; where it’s welcome, it can push the limits of that hospitality, sometimes with the acquiescence of state and local governments that are too cash-strapped or inept to say no. There are the usual costs of doing business, including transportation, infrastructure, and salaries. 

But Nestlé pays little for the product it bottles—sometimes a municipal rate and other times just a nominal extraction fee. In Michigan, it’s $200.

Today, Americans often drink bottled water for what they hope is not in it.  That said, bottled water isn’t necessarily more pure than tap. In the U.S., municipalities with 2.5 million or more people are required to test their supply dozens of times each day, whereas those with fewer than 50,000 customers must test for certain contaminants 60 times per month. Bottled water companies aren’t required to monitor their reserve or report contamination.

 The United Nations expects that 1.8 billion people will live in places with dire water shortages by 2025, and two-thirds of the world’s population could be living under stressed water conditions. 

Supply may be compromised in the U.S., too. A recent Michigan State University study predicts that more than a third of Americans might not be able to afford their water bills in five years, with costs expected to triple as World War II-era construction breaks down.

Failing infrastructure has already led to a near-total reliance on bottled water in parts of the world. Nestlé started selling Pure Life in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1998 to “provide a safe, quality water solution,” the company says. But locals wonder if the Swiss multinational is exacerbating the problem. “Twenty years ago, you could go anywhere in Lahore and get a glass of clean tap water for free,” says Ahmad Rafay Alam, an environmental lawyer in the country. “Now, everyone drinks bottled water.” He adds that this change has taken the pressure off the government to fix its utilities, degrading the quality of Lahore’s supply: 

Nestlé has been preparing for shortages for decades. The company’s former chief executive officer, Helmut Maucher, said in a 1994 interview with the New York Times: “Springs are like petroleum. You can always build a chocolate factory. But springs you have or you don’t have.” His successor, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, who retired recently after 21 years in charge, drew criticism for encouraging the commodification of water in a 2005 documentary, saying: 

“One perspective held by various NGOs—which I would call extreme—is that water should be declared a human right. … The other view is that water is a grocery product. And just as every other product, it should have a market value.” 

Compared with the water needs of agriculture and energy production, the bottled water business is barely responsible for a trickle, but it rankles many because the natural resource gets hauled out of local watersheds for private profit, not used in the service of feeding people or keeping their lights on. There’s also, of course, the issue of plastic pollution.

In the U.S., Nestlé tends to set up shop in areas with weak water regulations or lobbies to enfeeble laws. States such as Maine and Texas operate under a remarkably lax rule from the 1800s called “absolute capture,” which lets landowners take all the groundwater they want. Michigan, New York, and other states have stricter laws, allowing “reasonable use,” which means property owners can extract water as long as it doesn’t unreasonably affect other wells or the aquifer system. Laws vary even within states. New Hampshire is a reasonable-use state, but in 2006, the municipality of Barnstead became the first nationwide to ban the pumping of its water for sale elsewhere.

Towns in Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin have turned away Nestlé. In Washington, the mayor of Waitsburg, Walt Gobel, resigned last year after it was revealed that he’d conducted secret talks with the company about building a $50 million plant. “The representatives asked for confidentiality of this proposal until they could determine the feasibility,” Gobel wrote in his resignation letter. Town leaders later voted to reject Nestlé’s advances.

Elsewhere, Nestlé has largely prevailed against opposition. In Fryeburg, Maine, it took the company four years to successfully appeal a zoning board resolution to build a facility it said it needed for its Poland Spring line. Last year it gained rights to extract water for the next 20 years—and perhaps 25 more after that. In San Bernardino, Calif., Nestlé has long paid the U.S. Forest Service an annual rate of $524 to extract about 30 million gallons, even during droughts. “Our public agencies have dropped the ball,” says Peter Gleick, co-founder of the Pacific Institute, which focuses on water issues. “Every gallon of water that is taken out of a natural system for bottled water is a gallon of water that doesn’t flow down a stream, that doesn’t support a natural ecosystem,” he says.

Nestlé isn’t the only bottled water company operating in Michigan, but it’s the most controversial. Pepsi and Coca-Cola bottle municipal water from Detroit for their Aquafina and Dasani brands, respectively; they pay city rates, then sell the product back for profit.

 In Mecosta County, Nestlé sucks up spring water directly from the source, which water conservationists say does more damage to the flow of streams, rivers, and wetland ecology. Municipal supplies come from larger bodies of water, so massive depletions, they argue, have less of an impact. 

It’s impossible to talk about water in Michigan without raising the crisis in Flint. Beginning in 2014 thousands of families were exposed to dangerous levels of lead and bacteria in tap water. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder cut costs by switching the city’s water source, after which the state failed to properly treat the water with anticorrosives. An outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease killed at least 12 people and led to manslaughter charges against five state and city officials. Snyder also tried, unsuccessfully, to block a federal court order forcing the state to deliver bottled water to residents. He argued that, at an estimated $10.5 million a month, it would be too costly, put more trucks on the road, and overwhelm Flint’s recycling system.

But since the crisis, Flint residents have paid thousands of dollars to purchase bottled water for drinking, cooking, washing, and bathing. “Between 2005 and 2016, Nestlé has taken over 4 billion gallons of our water for pennies and sold it back to us for huge profits,” said Case, the opposition group president, the first of about 50 people to speak at the hearing. “

A tool for conservationists might be the public trust doctrine, which says natural resources belong to the public.

 David Zetland, author of Living With Water Scarcity, says governments must decide how much water they want to protect under the public trust doctrine and the rest should be divvied up on the open market. “Political allocation is usually corrupt,” he says. Olson doesn’t think a market is a good idea. “The poorest among us have the same rights and should enjoy the same basic access and enjoyment of water as the wealthiest,” he says.

Line of Duty: Ranking Every Bent Copper By Level of Corruption, Mother of God!

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“When did we stop caring about honesty and integrity?” asks Supt. Ted Hastings in the Line of Duty series six trailer. His words could be this show’s battle cry. The first series of the BBC crime thriller was inspired by the 2005 fatal shooting of Jean-Charles de Menezes, an electrician mistaken for a terrorist by a Metropolitan Police surveillance team. In the four series since, it’s drawn on other real-life failures of the law – the framing of vulnerable people for serious crimes, child abusers being protected from investigation because of their status, officers leaking to the press and accepting bribes to facilitate organised crime.

This is a drama born in reaction to the ‘post-truth era’, repeatedly staging misgivings about the ongoing conflict between PR manipulation and unflattering realities. As such, it wouldn’t be a stretch to see the tagline for series six “Lies cost lives” intended as a critique of the government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. Underneath the trappings of this high-tension, high-action, twist-packed thriller is real concern about what people in power are getting away with.

The show’s villains can generally be divided into one of three categories: desensitised brutes, high status hypocrites, and people trying – with varying degrees of success – to dig themselves out of a hole, usually of their own making. Below are 30 such characters from series one to five, all police officers who’ve committed a crime of some kind – whether they’ve been caught or not – ranked in order of immorality.  

Come back at the end of series six, which starts on Sunday the 21st of March at 9pm on BBC One, to see the new additions, and who may have moved up the ladder.

30. Supt. Ted Hastings

Crime: Robin Hooding £50K of dirty money Working for the OCG? Not on your nelly Currently: Commanding AC-12 but on a final written warning Sit. Rep: Let’s make one thing clear: Ted’s only on this list because he broke the letter of the law to commit an act of kindness. Instead of letting £50K of the cash with which the OCG attempted to bribe him in series five sit around in an evidence bag, he secretly gave it to the widow of DS John Corbett, a pawn in Gill Biggeloe’s cruel and corrupt game.

29. PC Maneet Bindra

Crime: Suppressing a line of inquiry that incriminated her cousin, leaking sensitive files Working for the OCG? Indirectly and initially, without her knowledge Currently: Deceased Sit. Rep: PC Maneet Bindra (RIP) was good police and a loyal cousin. When ACC Hilton asked her to leak AC-12 secrets in exchange for him stopping her gambling-addict cousin from losing his job, she followed the orders of a much senior officer. When her cousin was bribed by the OCG to help them plan an ambush on a shipment of heroin, Maneet tried to protect him. When that cost her job, she tried to put it right and they killed her.

28. PS Colin Brackley & Co.

Crime: Manslaughter and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice Working for the OCG? No Currently: Still serving, as far as we know. No charges were brought against the team Sit. Rep: In the opening minutes of the first ever episode, Sgt Brackley shot dead an innocent man – Kareem Ali – after the team mistook Ali’s No. 59 flat for the target flat No. 56 due to a broken door number. At the behest of Chief Inspector Philip Osborne, the squad colluded in an attempt to cover up the botched killing, but Steve Arnott refused to lie, which led to his recruitment by AC-12.

27. CC Philip Osborne

Crime: Conspiracy to pervert the course of justice Working for the OCG? Jury’s out on that one Currently: The CC of Central Police, aka the top dog Sit. Rep: Come back in seven weeks and Chief Constable Philip Osborne could well have shot straight to the top of this list. The reason he’s in such a low position currently is that we only know that he pressured his Counter-Terrorism team to cover up a botched op. We suspect though, that he could well be up to his neck in the OCG. Is he the fourth senior ranking officer in their pay?

26. PC Kieran Bloom

Crime: Faking an ambush to divert resources from the Eastfield depot raid Working for the OCG? Indirectly, yes Currently: Presumably no longer a police officer Sit. Rep: DCS Hargreaves (blackmailed by the OCG, who obtained his DNA when he abused an underage sex trafficking victim at a gang-run ‘brothel’) made PC Bloom call in the fake ambush on the night of the Eastfield Depot raid, so he’d have an excuse to be in the area.

25. DCI Mark Moffatt

Crime: Conspiring to bribe and frame Supt. Ted Hastings Working for the OCG? Yes Currently: He was arrested and charged by AC-12, so, serving time? Sit. Rep: We met Moffatt as Roz Huntley’s Police Federation Rep. in series four, and maybe he was already in the OCG’s pocket at that point. He clearly was by series five, after his retirement from the force, when he used his new property development position to attempt to bribe Ted Hastings with £100K of the gang’s filthy lucre.

24. PC Jane Cafferty

Crime: Stopping a police convoy so the OCG could ambush it Working for the OCG? Yes Currently: Presumably serving time Sit. Rep: Cafferty was recruited by DI Cottan in 2015 when the OCG blackmailed her, threatening to release CCTV footage of her affair to her husband and family. She was forced to pass information and assist in the ambush of the heroin convoy, and later provided the info they needed to ambush a shipment of weaponry.

23. PC Kevin Greysham, PC Ray Randhawa, PC Carl Waldhouse

Crime: As above. Working for the OCG? Yes. Currently: Shot dead by the OCG. Sit. Rep: In Jane Cafferty’s police interview, she confirmed that the three officers killed by the OCG during the heroin ambush weren’t innocent men. Greysham and Randhawa were both on the take from the gang, while Waldhouse was being blackmailed by them over his use of sex workers.

22. DS Jayne Akers

Crime: Rerouting a police convoy to allow a witness to be murdered; bribing DI Denton Working for the OCG? Yes, in cahoots with DI Cottan Currently: Shot dead by the OCG Sit. Rep: Jayne Akers appealed to Lindsay Denton’s sense of moral justice to convince her that the only way to see Carly Kirk’s abusive pimp Tommy Hunter punished was to break the law and allow the OCG to get to him. Perhaps she also felt that she was on a crusading mission? Either way, they both took the gang’s bribe money.

21. DC Jamie Desford

Crime: Tipping off ACC Hilton so he could evade capture, attempting to abscond with suspect Jimmy Lakewell Working for the OCG? Yes, via ACC Hilton Currently: Fired from the police Sit. Rep: DCI Roz Huntley did two good things when she realised that the jig was up: she arrested Jimmy Lakewell and talked Jamie Desford down from what would have been the very serious crime of shooting a police officer. Like PC Maneet Bindra, Desford seemed to be another officer exploited by Hilton, who didn’t care who he used.

20. DC Nigel Morton

Crime: Leaking stories to the press, faking his disability for benefits, spitting on Kate and leaving excrement in Steve’s car, and most egregiously: finding out Dot was the Caddy but not telling anybody Working for the OCG? No Currently: Retired on a cushy pension Sit. Rep: Perhaps the laziest bent copper on this list, Neil Morrissey’s character did a lot of little bad things and got away with them all.

19. Merchant and Leland

Crime: Assaulting prisoner Lindsay Denton with boiling water Working for the OCG? Yes Currently: Rumoured to be returning in series six Sit. Rep: These two aren’t technically police officers, but employees of SecuritVite, the private security firm that staffs HMP Brentiss. Not strictly bent coppers then, but definitely a couple of wrong’uns who abused their power to try to keep Lindsay Denton quiet inside.

18. Tim Ifield

Crime: Planning to dismember and dispose of DCI Roz Huntley’s corpse Working for the OCG? No Currently: Accidentally killed by DCI Roz Huntley Sit. Rep: A tricky placement, this, and technically another civilian. In series four, forensics coordinator Tim Ifield was the squeaky wheel convinced there was something wrong with the evidence incriminating Michael Farmer, and he was spot-on – Farmer was being framed by the OCG. So far, so honest. When Ifield wrongly thought he’d killed DCI Huntley in a struggle though, it was much less honest of him to attempt to dispose of the body than to report it.

17. PS Martina Tranter

Crime: Attempted murder of witness Gill Biggeloe Working for the OCG? Oh yes Currently: Dead, we think. Last seen being stretchered out of HQ after Steve shot her Sit. Rep: What a twist. When Gill Biggeloe was rumbled, the OCG decided she wasn’t worth extracting so instead had bent AC-3 copper try to kill her in the Ladies toilet. Luckily, Steve and Kate were there to save the day.

16. PC Hari Bains

Crime: Conspiracy and murder Working for the OCG? Yes, through Dot Cottan Currently: Presumably serving time Sit. Rep: In series three, Danny Waldron forced PC Bains, PC Kennedy and PC Brickford to corroborate his version of the killing of Ronan Murphy, then Dot blackmailed Hari to kill Waldron, who was investigating an historical paedophile ring run by the OCG. Hari shot Waldron and the others covered for him initially before Rod threatened to talk and Dot killed him, faking his suicide.

15. DCI Tony Gates

Crime: Laddering his stats, covering up Jackie Laverty’s hit-and-run, colluding with the OCG to cover up the Greek Lane murders Working for the OCG? Under duress, yes Currently: Killed himself by walking into traffic Sit. Rep: Gates started out mildly corrupt – massaging his team’s results to provide ACC Hilton with better stats and accepting the odd free breakfast. When his OCG money-laundering mistress ran over her accountant and he helped her to cover it up though, he got entangled with the gang, who killed Jackie and threatened to frame him for her murder if he didn’t assist in covering up a series of drug murders. Gates did bad things, but redeemed himself by bringing in Tommy Hunter before he reached the end of the line.

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Line of Duty Series 6 Cast: Who are the New Characters and Who’s Coming Back?

By Louisa Mellor

14. DCI Roz Huntley

Crime: Attempting to cover up the manslaughter of Tim Ifield Working for the OCG? No, though her boss ACC Hilton and husband’s pal Jimmy Lakewell were Currently: Serving a 10 year sentence for Manslaughter in HMP Brentiss Sit. Rep: Huntley’s corruption may have been OCG-adjacent, but she was just trying to save her own skin after accidentally murdering a man who was about to dismember what he thought was her corpse. Instead of coming clean about what happened with Ifield, she cut off his fingers and tampered with evidence to protect herself, but was eventually caught out by a symbolically festering wound.

13. DI Lindsay Denton

Crime: Accepting a bribe to reroute a witness transport so the OCG could ambush it, driving a car into DS Manish Prasad Working for the OCG? Yes, but also working for moral justice Currently: Shot dead by DI Matthew Cottan Sit. Rep: More sinned against than sinning? Denton was bent, absolutely, but her corruption perhaps says less about her than about the limitations of the law in seeing justice done. Knowing that Tommy Hunter was a child-exploiting pimp, Denton agreed to collude in his murder, recognising that his immunity deal would otherwise protect him from punishment. When she rammed DS Prasad (see below) with a car, it was because he was another child-abusing bastard who frankly, deserved everything he got.

12. DCC Mike Dryden

Crime: Officially, perverting the course of justice. Unofficially, being a pervert Working for the OCG? He says not, but they had blackmail material on him Currently: Resigned from the force Sit. Rep: This may seem a high position for Dryden, but really, what a scumbag. Even forgetting Dryden’s affair with Lindsay Denton, he had a sexual predilection for underage girls and engaged in a sex act with exploited teenager Carly Kirk – set up by Tommy Hunter so the OCG could blackmail him with Kirk’s dead body (or a body made to look like Kirk’s – she’d actually managed to escape). When Dryden’s wife was caught speeding, he lied that he was driving to get an alibi for the time he was abusing Carly. Nasty, selfish, and only out to protect himself.

11. DCS Les Hargreaves

Crime: Colluding in the Eastfield Depot raid, sexually abusing trafficking victims Working for the OCG? Yes, blackmailed to do so Currently: Shot dead by DS John Corbett Sit. Rep: The OCG ran the illegal brothel Hargreaves visited to have sex with underage trafficking victims, which meant they had blackmail material on him. Not just that, they kept his used condoms in a freezer, ready to plant his DNA on any murder victim they chose. That’s why he helped them steal the £50 million of goods from Eastfield depot, where he was killed.

10. DS Danny Waldron

Crime: Murder, kidnapping, torture, conspiracy Working for the OCG? Absolutely not Currently: Shot dead by PC Hari Bains Sit. Rep: This is another tricky one. There’s no doubt that Danny Waldron did terrible things, but much like Lindsay Denton, he did those terrible things to some truly terrible people. Ronan and Linus Murphy were part of the paedophile ring that abused boys at the Sands View Children’s Home. When Danny killed one, and tortured and beheaded the other, it was hard not to sympathise. Once again, his acts showed a police officer not trusting the legal system to provide justice.

9. AFO Lambert

Crime: Shooting fellow officers to bust DI Cottan out of HQ, helping to frame Steve for Lindsay Denton’s murder Working for the OCG? Big time Currently: Shot dead by DI Kate Fleming Sit. Rep: A surprise maybe, that a character with no lines would be so high up this list, but AFO Lambert did very bad things. When Dot had been rumbled and requested an urgent extraction, it was Lambert who shot his fellow guard and escorted Cottan out of the premises. Prior to that, he’d helped Dot doctor the firearms paperwork that almost had Steve framed for the shooting of Lindsay Denton. In the end, Kate took him down.

8. DS John Corbett

Crime: Murdering at least five bent coppers, torturing Roisin Hastings Working for the OCG? Yes and no. He ran it, but as an undercover officer Currently: Killed by the OCG Sit. Rep: Like Ted Hastings, DS Corbett was on a mission to rid Central Police of bent coppers, but unlike Ted Hastings, DS Corbett took an unlawful shortcut. He had the heroin convoy coppers killed, had Maneet’s throat slit and personally gunned down DCS Hargreaves. The really unconscionable act though, was his torture of Roisin Hastings.

7. Gill Biggeloe

Crime: Major cover-ups, perverting the course of justice, enabling institutional corruption Working for the OCG? Absolutely Currently: In witness protection, somewhere bleak Sit. Rep: “It’s complicated”, Gill told Ted when he asked her why she’d tried to frame him as ‘H’, but then she’s always had that “non-exclusive relationship with the truth”. It wasn’t complicated; Gill Biggeloe was just greedy and took the OCG’s money to fund her silk blouses and posh car. Not strictly an officer, she was Central Police’s Senior Legal Counsel, and as such enabled multiple crimes. Most heinously of all, she very nearly succeeded in framing Ted Hastings and disbanding AC-12.

6. DC Jeremy Cole

Crime: Murdering the 5th September ambush cops, pushing Georgia out of a window, killing Tommy Hunter, impersonating a nurse Working for the OCG? Hundo P Currently: Beaten to death by DS Prasad (see below) Sit. Rep: Just an absolute bent bastard. Along with DS Prasad, these Vice cops groomed vulnerable underage girls to be sexually exploited by Tommy Hunter’s operation.

5. DS Manish Prasad

Crime: All of the above, plus beating DC Cole to death Working for the OCG? Oh yeah Currently: He requested immunity, so probably in witness protection Sit. Rep: Prasad and Cole were evil pieces of work who abused their positions to exploit the vulnerable, carried out gangland executions and generally provide the OCG’s muscle. DI Denton did get a confession out of Prasad, but seeing as she obtained it by breaking his legs with a car, it wouldn’t have been admissible in court.

4. SPO Ryan Pilkington

Crime: Years of low-level drug dealing and runner work, the murder of DS John Corbett Working for the OCG? He’s the new Caddy, basically Currently: A new recruit for Central Police Sit. Rep: Ryan got in with the OCG when he was just a lad, and even at that age took part in some dreadful business including the torture of Steve Arnott. He’s seemingly without a conscience, happily slitting John Corbett’s throat, bullying Terry Boyle and cracking jokes about Jackie Laverty’s corpse. His recruitment as a student police officer was series five’s bitter punchline.

3. ACC Derek Hilton

Crime: Conspiracy to murder Steve Arnott and frame Michael Farmer, aiding DI Cottan’s career progression, recruiting Maneet Bindra and Jamie Desford for the OCG Working for the OCG? Yes Currently: Shot dead by the OCG in what we assume was a faked suicide Sit. Rep: ACC Hilton’s very high up on this list for a character who, as far as we know, didn’t personally kill or torture anybody, but just because he didn’t get his hands dirty doesn’t mean he wasn’t responsible for some truly terrible things, not least the attempted murder of Steve Arnott in series four. Being the Assistant Chief Constable, he had oversight of so many police operations and did untold damage to lawful investigations while being blackmailed by the OCG.

2. DI Matthew ‘Dot’ Cottan

Crime: A career’s worth of corruption assisting the OCG, the murders of PC Rod Kennedy and DI Lindsay Denton, lord knows what else Working for the OCG? Since he was a boy Currently: Shot dead by the OCG Sit. Rep: He was ‘The Caddy’, a legendarily corrupt officer who audaciously transferred to Anti-Corruption Unit 12 after series one to curtail their investigations into the OCG. He enabled countless crimes and committed many himself, including the blackmail and recruitment of fellow officers. He’d be top of this list, in fact, if it wasn’t for Craig Parkinson’s humanising performance in the series three, where Dot was revealed not to be a moustache-twirling villain, but someone in well over his head, who’d been groomed and exploited since he was young. And how’s this for redemption? Dot died taking a bullet for Kate Fleming. In his Dying Declaration, he regularly continues to provide AC-12 with insider tips from beyond the grave. You can hate what the Caddy did, but you can’t hate him.

1. Ch. Supt. Patrick Fairbanks

Crime: Participating in and covering up the long-term sexual abuse of children Working for the OCG? In cahoots with them, yes Currently: Serving a 10 year sentence Sit. Rep: The dreadful nature of Fairbanks’ crimes combined with his seniority are what make him the worst of the worst. A mason, he used his connections and position to quell the voices of the children he abused, and colluded with fellow abusers in the OCG to kill the sole adult who tried to help them – social worker Oliver Stephens Lloyd. A criminal protected by his status, he’s a symbol of corruption, who was living a comfortable retirement as a pillar of the community until Danny Waldron and AC-12 did their jobs and sent him down in perhaps the most satisfying collar of the series as a whole.

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Line of Duty series six starts on Sunday the 21st of March at 9pm on BBC One.

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