i don’t get how people can complain about the writing “doing Martha dirty” when that same writing gives her an ending that addresses her treatement over the course of the season, allows her to finally put her to foot down, to establish her self-worth as an individual and to air out her grievances, and gives her the most respectful and satisfying exit from the TARDIS we’d yet seen in the show . like it’s one thing to dislike the direction the writing team took with her arc and to criticise it (perfectly fine) and another to somehow miss it entirely lmao . the ‘martha feels out of place, second best, and like a rebound’ is an intentional piece of writing that gets resolved by the end of the season . like that wasn’t smth they threw in for shits and giggles, it had in-story repercussions

My greatest apprehensions for the new My Little Pony movie & generation.

Today MLP Generation 5 has been made available on Netflix, and on Saturday I’ll be seeing it with my friends in the Milwaukee Bronies. I’ve had an uneasy feeling about it, and finally putting much of that into words was helpful. It was certainly interesting, and I’d like to share it with other people. I’ve done so with only a few, but I want to put this out there before anyone thinks my opinion is contaminated by either seeing the movie, or something getting spoiled. Tomorrow I may be relieved, let down, or just impressed that I managed to predict so much. Something I’ve definitely kept in mind is that with Generation 4’s premieres, finales, and own movie, the trailers were always cut unimpressively (IMHO). So I tended to be pleasantly surprised with pretty much everything I watch from G4, when I even bothered looking at the trailers. So I’ll be quite happy to be proven wrong this Saturday. Now…

They certainly didn’t intend to be flipping off everything Gen 4 established. No creator ever tries that when they’re brought into a franchise in the payroll of the IP owners. But for their society to regress to this point of segregation? The only thought process I can think of for this bizarre departure are A) The new show staff threw their hands up on matching anything with G4... or B) they came up with a totally fresh setting and timeline, and then some exec or analyst at Hasbro said “Heck no, you are GOING to connect this with our previous money-printing machine. Got it?” And that level of mandated storytelling doesn’t fill me with confidence.

I’ve heard at least one comparison to the Sequel Trilogy, which I expected. True, there’s some notable superficial similarities. It’s decades(?) later, the original heroes are spoken of as myths, for various reasons the world is in trouble, and our protagonist is a disciple-slash-fangirl of what the previous heroes fought for. But this is way more drastic and bizarre of a development.

The conflict in the Sequel Trilogy for the galaxy at large is that the Empire has returned, but rebranded. A new set of new jerks wanted power, teamed up with some of the old jerks, got a bunch of big guns, and held the galaxy hostage. That’s something that just happens in repeated strokes of history. It’s the re-drawing of a bunch of borders. The only moral failing there is being lax with fascists.

Having the Sequel Trilogy retread a plot also isn’t as weird as the My Little Pony franchise. The Force Awakens was made decades after the OT concluded, and the previous Prequel Trilogy took a really different direction and wasn’t received well. Then the franchise got completely new owners. So going back to its roots to start things out was a logical move. It’s only been THREE YEARS between these different shows of MLP, so the repetition doesn’t have much charm. Although repetition may not be the right word, since the setup for this show’s racial dilemma is way more extreme.

Equestria for some reason has gone through a jaw-dropping morale decay. Not only have they embraced division they were fighting against in seasons 8 & 9, they’ve regressed to the level of segregation before Equestria was FOUNDED. The Star Wars equivalent of that would be not only everyone fighting the First Order, they also suddenly don’t allow Wookies and other aliens to drink from the water fountains. Like, how the heck did that turn into a problem?

If the only progress undone from Gen 4 were the relationships with the non-ponies introduced later, that would actually make more sense. Social equality has reactionary backlash, which often occurs immediately after landmark victories. Ponies were the ones that held the most power on the world stage (some kinds more than others in Equestria).

But the WAY bigger issue isn’t internal logic and retcons. I learned long ago to set aside any expectation of a reward or pandering for my years-long commitment to a toy franchise. It’s the potential mishandling of the topic of racism, and I worry we’ve already on shaky ground. The morale of “segregation is bad” feels like bottom of the barrel, kind of copout way of tackling racism. At least, it does for settings that are extremely modern like Generation 5 clearly is. Segregation of people by ethnicity, by rule of law, has fully shifted to obsolesce in the cultural landscape of first world countries. Not even the most deranged lunatics in our government like Boebert or Greene advocate for it (not yet anyway). Stories about segregation can still be done really well of course, but it can’t just be about wiping it off the lawbooks and solving everything. It needs look at why people do this in the first place, who fights for it as the status quo, and what social structures and habits keep the thing in place despite the efforts of good people.

Of course, we still HAVE segregation in society. Not legally, but de facto thanks to economic status and civic planning. And not just physical separation, but grotesque imbalances of power and means. Look at job opportunities, home ownership, insurance evaluations, scrutiny by police, investment in local schools, etc. In G4 it was pretty clear that WAY more unicorns got to live in the lap of luxury or centers of commerce and education. Earth ponies were more spread out, rural, and based on an agrarian existence to feed the country. It’s not that G4 did much with it, but that kind of setup is way closer to modern day inequality, and would be a more fertile bed for those kind of stories. Admittedly, the Pegasi city in the trailer looked absolutely LOADED, so maybe we do have that element in store.

What the trailers and press releases are saying feels weak even as just a segregation story. The ponies separating makes segregation look like a bunch of people moving out like feuding roommates… instead of being put in place by a group of people with WAY more power and money than everyone else. Segregation is portrayed as a mutual agreement, not exploitation. My worry is that they’re going to go to Pocahontas routes, and make the root of racism a select few rich figureheads spreading lies. And undoubtedly, rich people in the private and public sector DO profit off of ignorance and violence, and divert attention from real problems. But when white people in America were treating everyone as subhuman, it wasn’t FEAR that was driving it (at least, not exclusively). For one, it was profit and sheer convenience. Manual labor and the least desirable tasks could be foisted on to ‘lesser’ peoples, and they wouldn’t even require a humane wage. Even if there hadn’t been those empirical benefits, discrimination also brought the sadistic sense of self-importance that comes from standing on someone else’s neck. The imaginary structures of racism let people feel comfortable about their place in the universe.

I wouldn’t call Zecora’s introductory episode all that nuanced, but it was definitely more accurate to real life than the (hopefully hypothetical) scenario I described above. In Bridle Gossip, it’s extremely apparent that the Pony majority of Ponyville are the ones acting like tools, and singling out Zecora for being different. They are the ones obligated to apologize to HER. (Even though it’s of course awkward that they wrote Zecora as a rhyming witch doctor, when she’s meant to represent an African person. It might not be so bad if she wasn’t the ONLY Zebra, and the only creature coded that way.)

Companies and studios will gladly tell their audiences to sympathize with victimized individuals and populations of oppression, and hate the individual acts done upon them. But then they’ll get cagey about making some members of the audience feel any kind of guilt, from distantly benefitting from that system; or maybe even subtlety being part of one. It’s not good for the bottom line to name a civilian population for taking any racist, oppressive or outright murderous actions. No, it’s a single evil dictator (or CEO, or general) and their gaggle of cronies, who just needs to be overthrown. We see this toothless crud play out over and over because corporate entities are either A) that naive, or B) scared of some losers with megaphones losing their minds over the suggestion of self-examination. Some people are SO fragile at the idea of self-examination, or guilt. Because it goes back to having an identity, an innocent and sympathetic self-image.

Patio Walk Maker Stepping Stone Concrete Paver Molds

The estimated mildew life is 2000 castings with proper storage and use. Always use a release agent (We suggest G-1 Release) and retailer on a flat, surface in a cool, dry location out of direct sunlight. While utilizing the molds outside, throw a tarp over them or maintain them out of direct daylight. The analysis presents the performance of every participant active within the global Pultrusion market. It also provides a abstract and highlights the present advancements of every participant available in the market. This piece of data is a superb source of research materials for the traders and stakeholders involved out there https://columbiamachine.com/concrete-molds/.

All you have to do is borrow expertise developed hundreds of years in the past by mariners.

But keep in mind that the concrete paver molds for every paver must be equivalent, else you might face a problem whereas laying them.

Note, as nicely, that you can make many other concrete materials with this method.

The producers say that you do not actually must lubricate the mildew prior to pouring in cement, in contradiction to other reviewers who've ceaselessly suggested that that is the case. As properly, should you only wish to use one sq. part of the mildew, you can add the concrete just to that utilizing a small carton like a coffee can. This concrete path kind offered by Kenley is well-made, durable, useful and suitable for making straight edges, curves, and angles. Users love the price and the patterns, but some do observe that it’s small. It's best to ease the shape out of the ground, somewhat than simply lifting it up vertically- it helps prevent sticking cement. You can even create partial, or single, cobbles by selectively pouring the concrete using a halved gallon jug.

Kerbstone Mould

This possibility features hydraulic proportional management to vary the width of the mildew while paving, to provide a tapered slab. Lateral travel and vertical plow control can be operated manually or set on automated. Three proximity switches present horizontal directional control of the spreader-plow. A single change is set at every finish of the specified plow travel.

and therapy from a doctor expert in working with mould sufferers. I also convey hard-earned knowledge from my years of experience coping with and remediating my house and physique for mildew efficiently. My relations and I are now symptom free, and our home has tested mycotoxin-free of mould. As with any new merchandise or well being protocols, I advise you to hunt out your individual experts and medical doctors and to not solely base your recovery on ANY suggestion or methodology I write about in this blog.

As a development materials, concrete could be forged in virtually any form desired, and as soon as hardened, can turn out to be a structural element. Concrete can be used within the development of structural elements like panels, beams, and avenue furnishings, or could also be cast-in situ for superstructures like roads and dams. These could also be supplied with concrete combined on website, or could also be provided with 'ready-combined' concrete made at everlasting mixing websites. Portland cement can also be utilized in mortars , for plasters and screeds, and in grouts (cement/water mixes squeezed into gaps to consolidate foundations, street-beds, and so on.). The lower the amount of water in a traditional concrete mix, the lower its droop. Low droop values in traditional mixes typically mean greater high quality concrete.

Rubber Paver Mould Tiles Manufacturers

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The reason for the 4-5 inch thickness is because of cracking. Would it not be affordable to suppose that the energy lies with the individual items being so small? Sure, I may even see some cracking within the mortar joints, however that might be easily patched.

Rubber Paver Mildew In Mali

So to avoid having any surprises with color, I strongly suggest that you simply make two take a look at pieces before beginning this stepping stones project. It’s protected to calculate 1 bag per massive 3’ x 2’ diy concrete stepping stone. The are decorative stepping stones and could be made by including mosaic glass or other embeddable supplies. Making my very own concrete stepping stones required much less prep work with the ground as a result of the concrete is self-leveling. So I decided I’d make stepping stones that might appear to be real fieldstone, using concrete after all.

If you have an space with a big concentration of mildew or algae, use the laundry additive undiluted together with your scrub brush. This will kill what is there and can prevent additional development. Now, I obviously realize that Tim is giving the best and soundest recommendation he is aware of, and I additionally understand that I am NOT an expert builder.

A reviewer shares that you simply want eighty lb of cement to make 4 steps and that the mould is easy to use. He highly recommends it to every DIY fan as the best stroll maker. Another reviewer shares that 60 lb of concrete are sufficient to fill the form, and he advises that you spray the stroll maker with Pam every time to attain clean edges.

Since I'm in no rush and have loads of time I would like to hear from someone who has actually tried this technique before. I even have 225sqft I'm going to be putting in pavers on so roughly $500 or so for normal formed pavers. My spouse is wanting completely different designs so if this method is cheaper it might be a great route. Of course, there is a distinction between common concrete paver molds and the poisonous black mildew that we hear about on the information. If you think you could have toxic black mold rising in your paving stones, concrete or bricks, it is best to bring in mould remediation consultants who can safely take away this potential well being hazard. It is, at greatest, an unpleasant nuisance and, at worst, a health hazard.

My Interview With Indoor Air Quality Extraordinaire

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With the mold sides in place and the entrance latched, seal the corners with paraffin. Determine how a lot concrete to combine by the amount of the mold. After taking up each mildew, you will want to spray the fresh concrete with water whereas it is curing.

A professional contractor informed us that after all of the concrete has set, it is a good idea to do some strain washing on the finished stone patio and apply some semi-transparent stain.

The Walk Maker® can be placed on any relatively flat floor.

Concrete with plasticizers and a excessive stoop may very well have less water than a traditional concrete combine with a low slump.

You wish to take preventative measures to maintain any plaster out of your working clay, so we wanted to maintain this as contained and tidy as possible.

Toward the tip of my stone making, I skipped taping the ends together as a result of the mildew held its shape in part because I was in a position to push some extra pebbles up against the sides.

Technically, the stones will reach their full cure in three-4 weeks- which means their full power. Now you'll use the plastic bag to realize two issues, one is to mix the colors more and the opposite is to create the stone-like texture. Blend these colors into the stone and into each other the best way you might with a watercolor portray. If your pigment is a powder, then mix some water in with it.

Concrete Walkway Path Maker

Test the bleach on a small area earlier than continuing with a full-blown assault on the mould. Don't use muriatic acid; this liquid is just too sturdy and could damage the pavers, Carvalho warns. Wear old clothes and ensure to guard your eyes and face. Vollert is the leading expert associate for concrete works, building firms and property developers when it comes to trendy precast concrete manufacturing. They have ardour to produce intelligently designed plant and machinery ideas that are optimally tailor-made for you. Vollert know-how ensures economic processes mixed with an optimal level of automation. High-tech machines ensure efficient work processes from CAD/CAM-managed shuttering robots, to totally automated concrete spreader to innovative vacuum turning gear for double wall production.

Plowing and snow blowing are a catastrophe, not to mention the overall look of it. I've at all times been a big fan of stone / cement due to the low upkeep and longevity. Pressure handled lumber just isn't what it use to be anymore. Lay things out on paper, make the cuts you want , stack your blocks where you possibly can reach them, and get to work.

Continue this course of to make as many pavers as you’d like. If you want smaller pavers for sure components of your project, rigorously cut them with a specialty brick saw.

Jungleland.

“You’re in the most beautiful place you’ve ever seen, but it’s hell.” Colombian filmmaker Alejandro Landes takes us deep inside the extreme filming conditions of his acclaimed jungle thriller Monos, and the art of letting life come onto the page.

Alejandro Landes’ second fictional film Monos follows a ragtag group of Colombian teen soldiers enlisted to care for an American hostage known as Doctora (played by Julianne Nicholson) and a conscripted milk cow, but struggling to function under power-trips and adolescent recklessness.

The film has been gathering awards all year, including Sundance’s World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award, and praise for Mica Levi’s score. Monos is Colombia’s submission for the Best International Feature Film Oscar (the Academy Award category that, until last year, was known as Best Foreign Language Film). Hot on the heels of last year’s Birds of Passage, Monos is a fresh source of pride for Colombian movie lovers.

With Landes’ raw approach, Monos belongs in the same club of gritty war films as Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket and Come and See. Letterboxd members dig its “captivating, alluring atmosphere” and “the immensely physical performances”; it’s “a brutal, unflinching fever dream that takes you hostage for 102 minutes.”

‘Monos’ director Alejandro Landes.

We caught up with director Alejandro Landes, a journalist-turned-documentarian who has made his way to dramatic cinema, and asked him to take us into his experience of making the film.

What inspired this jungle thriller? Alejandro Landes: Coming from Colombia—a country that’s had six years of civil war—inspired the idea of making a film that is in part a war film. The nature of that conflict that’s in the shadows is very similar with what’s happening with war today. It doesn’t have those epic front lines that maybe our great-grandparents or grandparents experienced in WWI or WWII. Most operations are done by special forces or drones in Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan.

The idea of creating a film from the backlines is something that speaks to my generation, and creating a mirror to the conflict of adolescence when you’re between a child and being an adult. You want to belong but also be alone, hair comes out of places, your voice changes—and so the film is this exploration of this borderline.

You’re in the most beautiful place you’ve ever seen, but it’s hell. You don’t know if they’re fighting for left-wing guerilla forces or the right-wing paramilitary force. I wanted to create this allegory where you’re forced to latch onto the humanity and presence of the characters instead of a big ideology. That was very much what drew me into the film.

When it comes to the back-stories of the characters, and even the time and place where it’s set, you leave a deliberate ambiguity. What motivated that decision? Many times we latch onto first names and last names, ages, dates, names of places, because they make us feel safe. They’re kind of stickers. Like when you fill out a sheet at a job application or at a doctor’s office. But these hard facts can feed into your prejudices. I thought it was interesting because the world is so polarized today.

You don’t know if Doctora is a CIA operative or an NGO officer. You can’t look at the character through the lens of their occupation, or their last name even. That’s why the characters have a nom de guerre and I think that for me was key for the metaphor to act subversively and kind of just work against any prejudices you might have.

We always want back-stories to justify and explain actions and a lot of the time it ends up being expository or a filmmaker’s psychoanalysis. Here, I wanted to enforce something very radical which made people feel uncomfortable in war. I wanted you to experience it from the humanity of a group which is basically the lowest rung of the ladder—and many times they are kids.

As fantastical as it sounds, it’s actually very common. I read a lot of first-hand accounts of people who had been kidnapped by well-known organizations and although the high command had been the one negotiating—be it for political leverage or money—the day-to-day custodianship ended up being the youngest soldiers. The people that were kidnapped experienced being in the hands of kids going through their adolescence and it was a peculiar situation.

The film relies on its ensemble, so you really depended on efficient casting. What do you think it was that pulled these young actors through the brutal challenge to be a part of this film? I think it was the time that we spent together before we even started to shoot. I looked at over 800 kids all over Colombia and ended up bringing that down to about 25. We did a mock training camp and had them do acting improv exercises in the morning. They were doing pieces of the screenplay without knowing they were scenes from the same script. They thought they were random exercises.

In the afternoon they would do military drills; not classic military boot stomping, but sometimes dancing, barefoot drills, carrying a weapon. We were trying to create this clandestine army and by seeing them live together I was able to see who flirted with who, who fought with who, what chemistries there were, and that way we were able to build the group who would be the final eight.

During this process of the boot camp we wrote the screenplay, trying to bring the lives of each one of them [into it]. I knew that Boom Boom was a big hip-hop dancer. I knew that Rambo’s most important thing in her life is her brother. Certain things helped the screenplay and the emotional states that the actor would later go into during the shoot.

What were you looking for when recruiting the Doctora role, and why did Julianne Nicholson fit the part for you? I thought [Julianne] had this very loveable sweetness to her, and I thought it would be a challenge to take that sensitivity with the maternal instinct that she had with her captors and turn it violent. She was willing to bring that physicality to the screen and she’s got that iconic look to her that reminded me of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I thought of the film as a sort of fairytale. I thought the way Julianne was able to portray that switch was something we haven’t seen on screen.

She was also willing to go down [to Colombia] and make it happen. That was a big thing. She spent time with the kids to really be there for weeks in these incredibly tough conditions. She was willing to go, not just when it was her scenes, but she spent time in [Doctora’s] cell. She drew all the charcoal paintings you see in her room, they were done by hand by her.

Much of the drama depended on your choice of shooting locations. How did you shape the narrative around these limitations and how did shooting in these remote places affect the cast and crew? Shooting 13,000 feet [above sea level], there was really very little oxygen up there. Going down to the jungle canyon where you have to take a donkey, take an off-road, take a raft, take a kayak all the way to reach base-camp. Everyone is at their limit. On the first day of shooting, we had to bring someone down from the camera department who had an epileptic fit. I needed to be carried out of the jungle [due to suspected appendicitis] on the shoulders on these gold miners that were there. They taught us how to live on the river.

Something the locations gave me that was really special was the narrative arc of the film. That highlands you see in the beginning, it’s a big reservoir of water which is a very delicate ecosystem called páramo. The water trickles down the mountain and gains more speed until it reaches the currents in the lowlands. That path of water was what we were following in the film. The idea of how a river moves in a winding way with different speeds and velocity was what we were trying to echo in the structure of the edit.

Remember too, that once the water reaches the lowlands, it condenses, goes up to the clouds and comes down again in the highlands. So in a way there’s something about the cyclical nature of violence and the circular movement of water that made sense to me. That all sounds great but it’s another thing to make it work in the edit, and we really worked hard so you never thought you were looking from the back of the river—you were always in the river.

The look of the film is remarkable. The clouds, the silhouettes, you have a literal ‘fog of war’. How did you set out to achieve this? The important thing is to look at what was in front of you. My first film was a documentary. I didn’t go to film school so making that film was my film school and a documentary forces you to look at what’s happening in front of you. As much as we had a very detailed screenplay and everything storyboarded, the locations change on a dime so we couldn’t count on luck every day.

We had to just to be there, be present, and have the confidence to move on, switch and let things come into the page. If a scene was under sun, and then on the day all you get is fog and rain, you discover a new way to come into the scene and let life come onto the page.

Mica Levi [also known as the musician Micachu] has already gained a strong reputation for film composing. How did you manage to wrangle her for Monos? Mica came on board after seeing a rough cut of the film. She connected immediately with it. I didn’t think it needed music but she was on it very quickly. She sent me a very epic whistle that reminded me of spaghetti westerns. The idea was to create something that was minimal but at the same time had that monumental, epic feel.

We wanted to juxtapose those very primal, basic sounds like blowing into a bottle with a quartet of strings, and later you have sounds that are a shot of adrenaline that sound like they could come out of a Berlin nightclub. That mash of sounds I felt was very important; it allowed you to give emotional cues to the characters, similar to [Sergei Prokofiev’s story-symphony] Peter and the Wolf. It was great working with her and my sound designer Javier Umpierrez because we were trying to make this soundscape that was specific but also otherworldly.

Monos has been submitted for Best International Feature Film at the Oscars. That must feel good. All these prizes help the film get seen and that’s an important thing. This is a film that started on a shoestring and we were trying to build something very radical. It’s a film that was done through absolute blood, sweat and tears of these people who believed in it so I’m just glad that it’s finding its public—and the fact that we’re distributing pretty big in the US for a Latin American film.

It’s going to open in more than 30 countries and it’s blowing up in the Colombian box office, which is really special because Colombia still hasn’t really seen their cinema. It’s a polarizing topic to have a war film after everything they’ve lived. Having more than 200,000 people go to see it in its first three weeks is a huge thing. For a point of comparison, it’s the same amount of people who went to see Tarantino’s film [in Colombia].

What film made you want to become a filmmaker? Wow. That’s your toughest question. I don’t know if I can point to one exactly. When I was young my dad wouldn’t let me watch TV. We had the apparatus but not cable so he had his own movies and I remember he had that German submarine film Das Boot. I watched it so many times I started to see the stitches of how it was made and that got me onto thinking “ah, okay I understand this, I like this”. I’ve never watched it in a movie theater, that would be cool.

Das Boot has a similar atmosphere to Monos so it’s an interesting choice for you. Yes, those were the films I was thinking for my second fiction film. I think it comes from that part of time when I watched those epics, including some David Lean films.

‘Monos’ is released by Neon and is screening in US theaters now. For more Colombian films, check out ‘Colombian Cinema: Six of the Best’, a list made for Letterboxd by ‘Birds of Passage’ directors Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego.

Superhero Spotlight: MCU Post Phase 3

With all this talk about ideas and hopes for the Marvel Cinematic Universe after Avengers 4 wraps up the first 11 years of said universe, I am slightly concerned as to whether or not anyone has actually sat down with Kevin Feige and said “Seriously, what are we doing after 2019?” because so far the talk is about how Avengers 4 is going to be the last hurrah for our original Avengers from Phase 1, with a possible exception, and also the arrival of the X-Men and Fantastic 4 now Disney has bought Fox.

So I thought i would offer some realistic suggestions for where the MCU can go post Phase 3 and where I think it should go both to keep the universe fresh after it potentially rotates the Avengers team roster and also now Feige has double if not triple the toys.

What’s Coming:

So what we know as confirmed movies for the MCU going forward is that hotly anticipated Captain Marvel movie, Avengers 4 which will end Phase 3 and potentially an era of the MCU and the start of Phase 4 which will be Spider-Man: Far From Home all scheduled for release in 2019.

I have to say just that year of movies itself makes me excited both as a Marvel fan and movie goer because people are buzzing over finally seeing Carol Danvers join the MCU, obviously everyone wants to know the final fates of most of the MCU characters post-Infinity War which includes Peter Parker and also his sequel will introduce Jake Gyllenhall as Mysterio.

However, after 2019, due to problems that have faced Disney this summer with firing James Gunn, no confirmed dates are on the cards post-2019. Guardians 3 is still on the table but its release date has been pushed back. This means that, unless Feige pulls an ace out of his sleeve rather quickly with either a surprise announcement or a distraction, the Marvel Cinematic Universe will not have any slots in 2020 which will be a huge loss for Disney considering they’ve striven to have up to 3 Marvel movies a year for years, that’s been their formula for practically the 10 years.

What’s Most Likely:

Now as fans of the MCU have come to realise, Kevin Feige likes to keep things simple...even if it means not faithful to the source material. This hit home for me with Ultron and how he was created by Tony Stark rather than Hank Pym. Simple because they already had Tony Stark established, not faithful because Ultron is possibly one of Hank Pym’s greatest storylines and they gave it to RDJ.

The other thing to consider when understanding Feige’s mindset at the moment, is that he is in the centre of a major s&*tstorm right now. Not only with the fact he has had to put Guardians of the Galaxy 3 on hold until he can find a new director due to this past summer of trouble with James Gunn, but also with the fact one or two vocal members of the Guardians cast, Bautista especially, are being brutally honest about not trusting Feige or Disney anymore. So Feige I imagine will strive to keep his creative decisions as simple as possible while also pulling some major damage control to try and keep both actors and fans happy.

I did an entire post on how I think he could fix his Guardians problem with introducing the Asgardians of the Galaxy, however if he doesn’t choose to go down that route and they do bring out Guardians 3 as scheduled, then I have a way to create a positive media buzz around the film.

A b-storyline in Guardians 3 could be rebuilding the Nova Corps, which was destroyed along with Xandar in Avengers: Infinity War by Thanos in order to acquire the Power Stone. So to recreate the Corps, how about bringing in the original Nova - Richard Rider  Now just listen to this set up: “When the last surviving member of the planet Xandar's elite Nova Corps, Rhomann Dey, is dying, he selects New York high school student Richard Rider to replace him.” Firstly, Rhomann Dey has already been introduced in the first Guardians of the Galaxy portrayed by John C. Reilly, he only needs to appear as a cameo or flashback on how Nova was chosen. Not forgetting Thanos, off-screen, ravaged Xandar to acquire the Power Stone leaving the fates of the Nova Corps unknown, so what a perfect set-up for Guardians 3 or even Avengers 4 to introduce a young Richard Rider. If they wanted to retcon him slightly he could even go to the same high school as Peter Parker. But to be contemporaries with the other Guardians I think Feige will be best to cast in a similar age to Pratt and maybe show his origin in a Nova movie.

Bringing in the Mutants:

Another suggestion and possibly a more realistic option for Feige is to introduce the X-Men. They have of course been hotly anticipated to join the big leagues for years, and now they are owned by the Mouse House it’s just a question of when and how they’ll debut.

I have doe a Fan-Casting Frenzy post where I make suggestions for the MCU’s version of the Brotherhood of Mutants because a YouTube channel I watch has already appropriately cast the MCU’s X-Men team. But while I think an X-Men team movie potentially with the Brotherhood as the villains is inevitable, I do believe introducing individual X-Men members first to tease the movie is the way to go. Not only will it save us as fans having to meet an entire team of characters at once but, as Feige is known for, it’s a great way for fans to have their favourites going in.

I personally feel, like most, that Storm should definitely appear in a Black Panther sequel. It’s just too perfect to not happen! Not only is Ororo Munroe the wife of King T’Challa in the comics but also it would create hopefully an interesting love-triangle between the already established T’Challa and Nakia. Lupita N’yongo is someone everyone wanted to see play Storm and I still feel she would have been perfect for the role, but now she’s settled for the girl that needs a copy of He’s Just Not That Into You when Storm flies onto the scene, also yes make the Weather Witch fly for goodness sake! Two simple character traits; she has to fly and actually be African, and Ryan Coogler did a spectacular job honoring African culture with the first Black Panther movie, so surely he is the right person to bring Storm into the MCU.

Another place to introduce more X-Men members is in that hopeful Doctor Strange sequel. Both T’Challa and Stephen Strange are hot commodities for the MCU currently not only being part of the new wave of heroes to take centre stage after Phase 3, but also starring in solo movies that were highly successful with both critics and fans. Also with a Doctor Strange sequel, the two most logical ways to go with the story are either a House of M retelling which would see Scarlet Witch appear in the sequel, but the other way is Doctor Strange: Illuminati which could see him become one of the founding members of the secret government that works behind the scenes. The team also includes Iron Man as well as Professor X, Mister Fantastic and Namor. The latter three of which are now owned by Disney from Fox.

I am not saying a Doctor Strange sequel is the best place to introduce three characters, but if they don’t focus on them in terms of major character development and simply focus on the fact they are in the MCU and will be developed in future movies it could be a great introduction.

Fantastic Four:

Speaking of Mister Fantastic, introducing Marvel’s First Family would be a logical suggestion for the MCU due to the fact Disney has found storming success with Pixar’s Incredibles franchise. Yes they have co-morbidity in their powers but the Fantastic 4 did come first.

There however lies the problem Feige may face, being compared to the Incredibles. Yes there is a different family dynamic with the Richards-Storm-Grimm set-up to the Parrs, but there is no reason to say that a CGI and live-action version cannot co-exist. If anything I think the Fantastic 4 can learn from the Incredibles particularly with what to do with Mister Fantastic. The trick is not falling into the same trap as what has come before in attempts.

A-Force:

An idea that has been batted around a lot recently is an all female Avengers movie, logically speaking this would mean A-Force. While every female hero in Marvel seems to have been a part of the team in the comics. It makes sense in the MCU to have a team comprised of the already established female heroes, along with Captain Marvel who could easily lead the team. We’re talking Scarlet Witch, Black Widow, The Wasp, Nebula, Captain Marvel, potentially Gamora and maybe Okoye & Valkyrie. That’s eight female members already established. With the potential additions of Storm, Jean Grey and Rogue from the X-Men and even Sue Storm from the Fantastic Four and you have a full roster. I do not think Jessica Jones, Elektra and Quake will be elevated from their TV serials but to be fair I think those 12 are more than enough.

Young Avengers:

One suggestion I will always favour is the teenage “sidekicks” to the Avengers. This team would either make a great movie or Netflix series and definitely show up DC’s upcoming Titans series.

As a purist obviously I want to keep to the founding members, as such the team should be comprised of Nate Richards aka Iron Lad, Eli Bradley aka Patriot, Billy Kaplan & Teddy Altman aka Wiccan and Hulkling, Kate Bishop aka Hawkeye, Cassie Lang aka Stature, Vision 2.0. and Tommy Shepherd aka Speed. That is the main line-up of the original team.

Now I would say to stick with the original team because the current team does not have Cassie Lang and so far she is the only member established in the MCU. However, the later incarnation of the team is more racially diverse so maybe they can be brought in at a later date.

Wiccan and Speed are the twin sons created by Scarlet Witch, Hulkling is the son of Mar-Vell and a Skrull princess both of whom will most likely appear in the upcoming Captain Marvel. Others can easily be introduced either in a film or TV series.

But when thinking about the storylines; you have Wiccan and Hulking who would be the first openly LGBT characters the MCU has but also teenage gay characters hopefully in a realistic portrayal of a homosexual relationship, Patriot does kind of represent teenage substance abuse, there’s the family dramas with both Wiccan & Speed but also Stature and how Scott Lang feels about his daughter being a superhero not to mention Hulkling discovering his true heritage and maybe contributing to the Kree-Skull war that could be shown starting in Captain Marvel. Not to mention the first Young Avengers story which sees them face off against Kang the Conqueror who in the comics is most likely a descendant of Reed Richards. Numerous possibilities.

Nuhumans:

My final suggestion is a way to firmly solidify the connection between the Movies and TV Shows by introducing the newest generation of Inhumans, known as Nuhumans, in a movie and then giving them their own TV series possibly on Netflix or on Disney’s new streaming service.

Firstly the Nuhumans are mostly credited for introducing the new Ms. Marvel, who not only has gone on to join the Avengers but also could very easily become the new heart of the MCU.

Now the team could easily be led by Daisy Johnson aka Quake and would be a way to keep Chloe Bennett around or get her away from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as I do not see much more longevity in that series. But because she is a TV actress primarily, it could work for her to appear in one movie and then go back to television just with a bigger budget for her Quake powers and costuming.

The movie could introduce Ms. Marvel, Inferno, Moon Girl, Blizzard and Ana Kravinoff to the movies. In essence they are all teenagers and yes I do have a preference for bringing in a younger generation of heroes to the MCU post Phase 3 but I do think this opening line-up could not only form a good team but also a solid fanbase.

Some die-hard comic book fans may notice that Blizzard has already been introduced in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. portrayed by Dylan Minnette...well yes he has but has since gone on to form his own fan-base in both 13 Reasons Why and 2015′s Goosebumps as well as being in an Indie Rock band. Blizzard aka Donnie Gill was treated more as a mutate than an Inhuman but after his final fate in the TV series saw him frozen in the water leaving his ultimate fate unknown and these Nuhumans emerged from a water contaminate outbreak, it makes sense that Quake, who has a history with Donnie, either finds him or he finds her and becomes the troubled student of the team maybe along with Ana who is Kraven the Hunter’s daughter.

All the characters suggested would be great to see portrayed but my hotly anticipated pick is Moon Girl for the pure and simple reason that I feel she’d be a great start for an up and coming child actress considering in the comics she is supposed to be 9 years old. She should also be accompanied by her dino sidekick Devil Dinosaur.

It could also be a wonderfully diverse cast of characters if cast regionally appropriate; we already have Quake portrayed by Chloe Bennet both of whom are of Chinese descent. Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel is Pakistani American so finding a teenager or young adult actress of that heritage would be brilliant, Ana Kravinoff, like her father Kraven, is Russian, Moon Girl is African-American and Inferno is Latino-American.

In case anyone is wondering why I’m not trying to introduce the Inhuman Royal Family into the movies, Marvel already tried that and the result was a rather horrendous TV series whose cancellation was dragged out unintentionally. Yes Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. introduced Inhumans into the MCU in their Season 2, but to get the real experience of Inhuman powers you need a higher budget that a movie or maybe this new streaming service can provide.

I am not saying the Royals can’t be in this film/series, in fact if they want to either retcon or recast the series I would be happy with that. I would love to see Medusa done right and who doesn’t love Lockjaw? But in terms of where the MCU is going I feel a younger more current generation is the key.

So those are my suggestions for where the MCU should be headed post Phase 3, what do you guys think? Are you wanting to see the Inhumans done right? Do you think Chloe Bennet should make the jump from TV to film? Is a younger generation of heroes the way to go? Are the former Fox-owned properties the MCU’s best hope? How would you feel if Guardians of the Galaxy 3 did not focus on the current team we have?

Post your comments and check out more Superhero Spotlights as well as other Movie Reviews and posts.

A Rag and a Bone

As some of you saw, I found one of my “lost” Doctor Who holy grails, Daniel O’Mahony’s A Rag and a Bone! I’d been hunting high and low for this piece of fiction because the idea of O’Mahony writing a Sabbath-centric story was too good. There was literally no information whatsoever online as to what the story was actually about, but I love O’Mahony’s writing and the idea of him tackling Sabbath seemed like a match made in hell.

Finally getting a hold of this story, I must say that calling it “a Sabbath story by Daniel O’Mahony” is incredibly disingenuous, and while I dissect this story and share it all with you, I have to be completely honest and say that I have never been more confused at such a short piece of fiction in my life. Delighted, mind, but very confused. 

This story was published in 2003′s Myth Makers Essentials, the famous fanzine’s special 40th anniversary celebration. Myth Makers has been rather a white whale of mine, most long out of print issues holding onto other holy grails, most notably Parkin’s Saldaamir and The School of Doom. 

This story is more than a Sabbath tale, being a celebration of Doctor Who’s history, the history of the humans who keep Doctor Who going, as well as a celebration of the 2003 BBC prose continuity that, for all intents and purposes, was the Doctor Who at the time alongside Big Finish’s 1999-2003 years.

It’s also written by one of the closest things Doctor Who has ever had to Clive Barker, meaning that it’s a very disturbing celebration. 

O’Mahony introduces his story with a discussion of what he considers one of Doctor Who’s essential elements: 

In O’Mahony’s view of the series, Doctor Who is about humanity. Human history, ingenuity, sacrifice. Without humanity, Doctor Who is nothing. It’s a much more grounded view on the series, and while I’m not sure I quite agree with it, it makes literally every Doctor Who story O’Mahony has written make a lot more sense. 

I go into the story’s eccentricities and references (SO MANY REFERENCES GUYS, I’M SO HAPPY) under the cut. Reminder that a) O’Mahony, while a beautiful writer, is a very brutal one; his whole brand is painting objective horror and worldly ugliness in the richest, wine-like prose ever, and it’s definitely not for everyone, and b) this story, like Bidmead’s wonderful With All Awry, is far less literal than it is figurative. The continuity of the time is a factor in the story, but it’s rather useless to try and squeeze it in anywhere, that’s not it’s point. 

A Rag and a Bone is an author’s thesis on the spirit of Doctor Who, as well as a simultaneous criticism and celebration of its state in 2003, all the while managing to use Sabbath in the manner he was intended, rarely seen outside of Lawrence Miles’ writing. 

I’m not doing every passage of the thing, just the meatier ones. Enjoy and watch me stretch my English degree! 

(Note, the story starts in first-person from Fitz’s POV, shifts to weird surreal mix of Fitz and O’Mahony himself, back to Fitz, and then ends with third person omniscient.)

The story opens up simply enough (which, given what appears to be going on, it’s really funny to say “simply”): 

Already, this story seems to be following the beats of The Adventuress of Henrietta Street, the idea that in the universe without Time Lords, the universe is free game and humanity (led by Sabbath) needs to step up. But, it’s also a meta commentary. The passage is vague as to what’s really going on, but I think the war/looming disaster is something very specific, that I’ll touch on later. 

1) The date. Lmao. What could that possibly be a reference to?

2) Sabbath frequently had agents and allies throughout his novels, and one of these two, the Angel Maker, is actually from Lloyd Rose’s Camera Obscura. I don’t know if that gives an idea of the placement, or just further shows O’Mahony’s “I’m playing with current continuity” schtick. 

3) “Miss Kapoor went through the inevitable ritual struggle with her ideological opposite [...] We watched the catfight from the bar balcony - Bollywood Queen of Sin versus the [Angel Maker]...” Perhaps a smirking jab at the rules or sterotypes of storytelling? Set certain characters against the idealogical opposites. Anji often went toe-to-toe with the ideologies and beliefs of people in her novels, far more than Fitz or the Doctor did, so I think that’s what this is a nod to, wrapped in the story’s theme of ritual and symbolism and framed as “the Doctor’s female companion must face Sabbath’s female companion in a duel!!!!!!!” 

4) “... a dog-faced parahuman whose name I missed. He was the softest spoken of us all, fresh from the plane of the First Time War, resplendent in Gallifreyan scarlet.” This is Wardog (or a contemporary of Wardog), originally from Alan Moore’s DWM Black Sun Trilogy, portraying the First Time War. He had been recontexualized into Cold Fusion/The Infinity Doctors’ canon in Lance Parkin’s Executive Action, published in 2001′s Walking in Eternity, making him an (admittedly tangential) interesting cog in the EDA’s history and continuity. 

1) First time reading this passage, I couldn’t decide if this was purely Fitz or O’Mahony inserting himself into the narrative... and then I realized it’s both. There are two major critical takes on the companions, and this is the first: the role of the companions in the series is to give the audience someone to relate to and, in some cases, live vicariously through. Enjoying the adventure, experiencing the sights, etc. This section is both Fitz Kreiner and Daniel O’Mahony, trying to make sense of what’s going, while the story is already giving us the implications that, despite trying to create a narrative of the Doctor’s condition, he is actually not real. 

2) Marvel at Fitz dragging himself in every possible way. Maybe a reference to how the novels (since the VNAs) really hadn’t had any qualms with pushing the flaws and imperfections of their characters? O’Mahony in particular is a writer who would go into great detail about how flawed people were. 

3) “... Miss Kapoor - whose sins are much more scarlet than mine - wouldn’t stoop to.” I choose to believe this is a slight reference to how Anji was treating by some writers at the time. The EDA authors wither loved Anji, or hated and demonized her. I could be reaching with that one, but it doesn’t quite make much more sense otherwise. Maybe a reference to her earlier distrust and betrayals of the Doctor (such as in Mark Clapham’s Hope?)

1) This is why I think O’Mahony was attacking the negative handlings of Anji, because the description of her character in the first few sentences is so... good. Beautiful, caring. 

2) “The entropy rolling from the Deep...” I’m convinced that, in the end, the threat coming to destroy the universe, the stagnancy, the entropy, the “war,” is Doctor Who’s continued cancelation. Its the 40th anniversary, fourteen years since the show was cancelled, the series kept alive by a small and committed group of book readers and BF listeners (during BF’s early years). I’m adamant that the Wilderness Years produced some of the most creative and original Doctor Who ever, but it is very easy to see why people considered continuing the story a losing battle. More and more, the series slipped out of public consiousness and become more and more of an exclusive cult

3) The second critical take on companions in Doctor Who is a negative one (but one that needs to be said in some cases): in the end, they’re all interchangeable. None of their backstories or quirks matter in the end because they’re interchangeable stereotypes that need to stand their and ask the Doctor questions. What’s gorgeous about this sequence is how it tackles that idea in such a meta and independent way. Anji, realizing that she is, in fact, the latest face in a countless list, takes power from that. She reaches back to her predecessors and uses their abilities, their attributes, for her own agenda, all the while dressing as Anji Kapoor, praying to Ganesh as Anji Kapoor, being the unique and seperate entity that is Anji Kapoor. 

4) “Babewyns.” The Ma’lakh grotesques, the villains of The Adventuress of Henrietta Street and one of the major elements in Faction Paradox. 

This section operates on two levels, both fictionally and metafictionally. The idea that the Doctor is now a vacuum and Sabbath must either fix or flat-out replace him is the central conflict of their relationship and adversity throughout their novels. There’s also a pun on the EDAs’ “Earth arc” which was the start of the status quo that brought in Sabbath. But, you’ll notice, the “Earth arc” here is not The Burning... it’s An Unearthly Child. Sabbath’s (very morbid) take of what happened to the Doctor isn’t the plot of the EDAs, it’s the beginnings of Doctor Who. The Doctor became part of human consciousness in 1963!

So why is the Doctor now a puppet? A doll, an inhuman echo? Because the show is cancelled, and despite the series living on through, there’s this overwhelming feeling that maybe, just maybe, the final end is fast approaching. 

(Actually reading this theme in a story published two years before the show returned is rather nice, isn’t it?)

Sabbath’s take on this is, of course, negative and condescending, while Fitz focuses on the positivity of the Doctor. How he brings goodness and love into our lives, and that by “forgetting him,” (the show being cancelled) we’ve let horrible things into the world. That what Fitz is traveling with is the idea of the Doctor, the “totem” of what’s left, pushing through because Fitz/O’Mahony/the authors/the fans are still holding onto him. 

This section also shows how Sabbath really, in the end, cannot replace the Doctor. His best appearances outside Adventuress (Parkin’s Trading Futures and Rose’s Camera Obscura) stressed his limitedness, his flaws, his (debatable) inability to rise to the occasion. He talks to Fitz about power vacuums and the state of the universe, and then Fitz immediately confronts him with his antiquated 19th century beliefs and ideals. Lawrence Miles always claimed Sabbath was never meant to actually replace the Doctor, but several authors, including Lance Parkin, have since expressed that this was not common knowledge and that many authors fully believed Miles was trying to push Sabbath on them as “the new Doctor.” That’s what I think this is a response to (and mind, O’Mahony and Miles were colleagues and friends).

Here we see, we don’t need or want Sabbath. We just want our Doctor back. 

“Sometimes he believed that TV would save the world.” What a sad line, knowing the meaning of this story, huh? 

In the end of the story, Fitz and Anji rebuild their “Doctor-totem” from the junk of IM Foreman’s yard, literally using the ruins of the character’s humble 1963 beginnings to build the foundations. But remember, their Doctor is the Doctor of the novels. There’s more work to do to recreate their perception of him.

1) “Dawn Brigades of parahumans and the killer-cats of Gallifrey as they fought over the nature of the newborn universe.” Wardog’s Special Executive (representing the might and will of Rassilon) and the villains planned for the original story replaced by 1977′s The Invasion of Time (who I think here represent the Pythia), clashing during the universe’s minting (later known in Faction Paradox as the anchoring of the thread). This take on Gallifrey’s history (VNAs, EDAs, FP) is THE Gallifrey at the time of 2003. 

2) “Their tales would be told by the Needlefolk at the End of Time...” The Needle, seen in The Infinity Doctors, Unnatural History, Father Time, Miranda, and alluded to or contextual related to in Hope and The Gallifrey Chronicles. An important aspect of the lore at the time!

3) This ending is so beautiful, if sad. Here is where Fitz and Anji fully represent the Doctor Who fans and creators at the time. Using their stories, their (new) adventures to further coax their Doctor back to life. He’s built from the junk and refuse of the dead Classic series, he’s lavished with the stories and lore of the Wilderness Years. He is part of humanity, he’s in us, as long as he as friends (the fans) trying to keep him alive.  

On Identity

First published in October, 2020.

At the age of fourteen, I found myself in my first online chatroom. "Asl," they asked — early Internet slang for age, sex, location. It was never self identifying information. No one was interested in names. No one cared about what you looked like. You were free to be anonymous as long as you provided a small token of details from which the rest could be inferred. Your interests were apparent from the room you were in and your avatar dropped other crumbs of personality. The concept of anonymity was still years from making sense to me yet the obliviousness to physical identity was real. The idea of a fourteen year-old from India soon became dull. So, I decided to get creative.

Some days I would be a 75 year-old living in rural Mongolia who had just purchased his first computer after selling 25 of his favourite sheep. On another, a divorced mother of three, fresh out of prison, looking for advice on everything from makeup to homeschooling. Each day was a blank slate, a new role to fill, a fresh start. Identity on the web is as literal as fiction. It could be as entertaining as you wanted it to be.

Regardless of how you chose to portray yourself, your personality was a central component to how each story was laid down. Regardless of how out there you wanted to go, to an extent, most would assume you were giving out correct information. In theory, you could be the Pope pretending to be the Queen. Not many would care but most would find it funny.

No one can judge the unknown. On forums such as Reddit, getting a new identity is as easy as coming up with a new username. There’s no one to question your motives, judge you by the colour of your skin, or ban you for being too young.

You have no age on the Internet, no gender and you have no country. Your username might change, your writing will mature over time, new subreddits will be found, some will disappear.

Yet, like real life, people can and do judge you based on certain criteria. Online, credibility is based on reputation — call it Internet points, karma, the number of followers, likes, etc. To some online services, these signify your commitment to your role. Like seniority in a real life occupation, Internet points signify how long a profile has been around. The Reddit karma system which was primarily developed as a reward mechanism also serves as an easy way to distinguish between credible profiles and inflammatory and digressive posters — trolls. If you post worthwhile content, you get upvotes — points! On the other hand, if people don’t like what they see, you get negative points. Unlike the virtual world, physical age plays a very important role in real life in determining your credibility. It gives people an easy excuse to ignore your opinions depending on how old you are while giving way to cultural cliches such as respect your elders or tradition is sacred. One of the harshest — kids are stupid might almost seem like a mathematical axiom but ignores certain aspects of the child that are seldom found in adults such as the ability to quickly master languages or adopt new skills.

ASL in the offline world is very much like the Internet. The major difference is that it’s much easier to catch someone lying. As an Indian teenager, I could never pretend to be a 75-year old Mongolian even with the best makeup advice. Yet, there were other ways to pretend. At the time, I thought of myself as shy but I could still stir up some confidence when I had to talk to strangers. I only had to pretend to be charming, smart, and interesting. Society even had my back. “You can be anything you want to be when you grow up,” they told me at school. “Always dream big,” they proudly added. Years later, I realized all these statements only translated into, “get a bigger salary.” So, yeah, they were pretending too. Eventually I came to the conclusion that everyone was pretending. Everyone I interacted with had a story to tell. They all had a big bag of words that they used to confidently describe themselves. Most interesting of all, they all took the story they told themselves and others very, very seriously and would happily clock you in the mouth if you merely hinted at anything otherwise. Like calling someone out in the chatroom for their alleged fakery, painting someone as a liar in real life was akin to assault. But my conclusions weren’t based on some impulsive thought. They were carefully considered observations. The wall of pretense we erect is not even a conscious decision. Almost always, it is based on years of cultural indoctrination.

Who are we?

Culture is a weird one. The typical North American and South Asian of the 1950s could be considered living centuries apart from each other. The Indian, most likely an illiterate farmer barely making ends meet, could not dream of life in the American Golden Age — minimum wage that could pay for two cars and a mortgage. He could not conceptualise the existence of luxuries such as refrigerators, ovens, swimming pools and shopping malls, hospitals and discotheques, or the ability to travel the world on tips earned while bartending. The average Indian farmer desired healthier bulls, better harvests, regular rainfall, obedient wives for his sons. But then, as much as now, drastically different cultures still overlap in certain ways. The Indian farmer, much like his American counterpart, looked to his neighbour to understand himself. If the Jones next door bought a fancy new car, everyone living in the neighbourhood wanted something better. If the Kumars next door threw a huge wedding for their son, inviting everyone from the closest twenty villages, the Chopras dreamt only of throwing a larger party next year. The collective psyche of each culture is only a reflection of the desires of each individual. But cultures, homogeneous or otherwise, are an echo chamber. They consciously or subconsciously produce edicts, rules and regulations that individuals integrate and pass on. Whether it’s capitalism good, communism bad in the American psyche, or India good, Pakistan bad in the Indian, from economic policy-making and government initiatives to television programming and pop art, everything must adhere to cultural norms and traditions. Unless it fits the identity of the collective and follows a cultural narrative, it will be discarded.

Take the never ending list of Indian god-men and celebrities who are routinely treated as infallible figures worthy of worship. Devotees are often so unflinching in their faith that they are willing to overlook overwhelming evidence of rape, murder, exploitation and extortion. This is not unique to India. Charismatic personalities have sway over swaths of people all across the world. Whether it’s Trump, Duterte, Bolsonaro or Modi, the ability to pander to the masses and speak to the cultural norm is more important than competence at one’s job. Trump gave voice to a collective that was scared of immigrants taking over their jobs. Years later, his ineptitude would lead to one of the worst administrative failings in American history and the death of over 400,000 people in the course of the pandemic. The actions of the Indian government during the second wave need no mentioning.

In many countries, questioning one’s cultural norms is akin to treason. Similar to questioning a person’s opinions, questioning the integrity of a political ideology often leads to terrifying consequences. The BJP’s rise to power in India has been followed by the arrests of intellectuals, academics, students, poets, and doctors for voicing opinions against the party. This is quite the routine for authoritarian governments. In the 1950’s, Mao Zedong’s government in China persecuted and killed half a million of its educated populace before launching the Great Leap Forward, a project that aimed at transforming China from an agrarian economy into an industrial power. While it looked great on paper, it led to the greatest famine in history and resulted in the deaths of at least 20 million people. This failure politically weakened Mao. In response, he launched another program to weed out and eliminate dissidents, killing another million in the process while leading to the destruction of thousands of Chinese historical and cultural artifacts. What was the outcome of this violence? It only strengthened Mao’s hold over the masses. His personality was now a cult.

To call humans sheep would be unfair because sheep are never pushed off a cliff by their masters. Human societies, on the other hand, are rife with power struggles, deep hierarchies, discrimination, and violence. Yet, each of us identifies as a good person. We can rationalize why we are good, therefore we must be good. No country in the world would ever think about labeling itself as a force of terror, cruelty, and animosity, but we can easily call “the other” any number of names. We look to our family, friends, and society to support and reinforce these views — call them nationalism, patriotism, freedom, equality — regardless of how accurate or even relevant these views might actually be.

Oscar Wilde said, “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”

Our identity does not quite work in favour of our individual or collective happiness. We associate a feeling of national pride towards statistics, numbers, and symbols. Rising GDP is popularly correlated with the “wealth” of a country, but many forget that this number just smashes together a country’s total economic output over a period of time without distinguishing between “good” and “bad” economic activity. Even the man who came up with the concept, Simon Kuznets, was of the opinion that the number had nothing to do with individual well-being.

We look to our history to understand where we came from without realizing we have many incomplete pieces to an enormous puzzle. Many contemporary Indians would associate themselves with the iconic Indus Valley civilization and think of the core of their cultural and religious identities as unchanged for thousands of years. However, the morals and the values carried by the average Indian today — monogamy, marriage, vegetarianism, holidays and celebrations, rites and rituals — all stem from thousands of years of mingling with the outside world. What we define as violent invaders and conquerors today have played an important role in shaping our culture into its current form. Not only did the Mughals contribute to our aesthetics and our lexicon but they also brought with them mathematics, science and philosophy. Global trade helped carry the Indo-Arabic number system (the numerals 0 to 9) to Africa, Europe, and eventually to the rest of the world. The British brought their own legal and judicial systems, passed down from the Romans, the railway infrastructure, and a bizarre penal code which sought to divide the subcontinent culturally, morally, and geographically according to their own prudish Victorian attitudes.

Hinduism, a major global religion today, has its roots in the Vedas, a collection of manuscripts believed to have been written by ancient sages at least a thousand years before the birth of Christ. The Vedas described the lives and spiritual pursuits of the priestly class, the Brahmins of ancient India. Before being written down, they were orally passed on from teacher to pupil. The Vedas described the lives of gods, rites and rituals, spells and incantations, all of which have their roots in even earlier animistic traditions, or the worship of animals, plants and nature — a theme common to the birth of nearly all religions. These texts were central to the agrarian communities that inhabited the Indus Valley. However, one might be hard pressed to call this Hinduism. These ancient traditions later branched out into numerous schools of thought such as Samkhya, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Yoga, Mimamsa, and Vedanta, each with their own unique set of philosophies.

Due to the geographical scale of the Indian subcontinent, the diversity in language, culture, and race, the ideological descendants of Vedic traditions were in the hundreds, if not thousands, and were regarded as a way of life by those who practiced them. The word ‘Hindu’ was simply used to describe people living near the Sindh, a river that flows through the northwestern part of the subcontinent. The word had nothing to do with the individual beliefs of these people. The modern form of Hinduism developed in the 18th century through reformist movements started by Ram Mohan Roy who wished to rid Hindu traditions of superstition and promote rational and ethical ideas about the religion. Thinkers such as Dayananda Sarasvati, Paramahamsa Ramakrishna, and Swami Vivekanada, would develop the idea of a unified Indian continent and seed missionary movements that brought Hinduism to the shores of Europe and later, the United States. Savarkar, who used the term hindutva to describe ‘the quality of being Hindu’, brought on a politically-charged connotation to Hinduism. This was further fueled by the Indian Independence movement that promoted the idea of ‘India as a Hindu nation’ before the eventual partitioning of the subcontinent along religious lines.

It is a topic of much debate whether an organized and unified Hindu nationalist identity that brought the sheer variety of the subcontinent under one banner to overthrow colonialism would have naturally evolved without the presence of the British Raj. More importantly, the idea of a ‘Hindu nation’ starkly contrasts the cultural openness of the early inhabitants of the subcontinent, and their acceptance of hundreds of cultures and different belief systems, which is ironic considering the foundation of Hindutva is based on the myth that India has always been a country for Hindus.

What are we?

Does my cat know he’s a cat? Do animals know of themselves? What about viruses and bacteria? You might say no to all of these questions and state that the ability to know oneself is unique to homo sapiens. The correct answer is debatable but not really the point I am trying to make. What if I asked you what you made you believe you were human, or conscious, or even real? There is good reason for you to believe in all of those things because you might think it’s ridiculous to believe we are just deterministic machines running on genetic code. Surely, we must have free will. Surely, we must be the most intelligent byproduct of evolutionary pressures. Surely, we must be the only creatures capable of stewarding the Earth. Surely, we must be correct about the things we know and accept as fact.

How comfortable would you be if none of these were true? I won’t attempt to answer these questions here because these are an entirely separate discussion but my point is that we believe we are a number of things only because we have identified with these beliefs for a good portion of our lives. Like the Ptolemaists who believed the Earth was the center of the Universe, or Creationists who believe ‘the Earth is 6000 years old and dinosaur bones exist only to test our faith in god’, there may still be numerous misconceptions of reality that we accept as common fact. Regardless of what these beliefs are, it’s critical to understand that our beliefs are our identity. Through many years of indoctrination, people on opposite sides of the Korean Demilitarized Zone still identify as human beings, but their world views are starkly different. One might defend the ideals of capitalist society while the other might think his leader is god and gladly give his life to protect this belief.

There is no distinguishing between one’s beliefs and oneself. Our beliefs form our habits, which in turn form our personalities. We live our lives from the point of view of our beliefs; a home forged from our own subjective interpretations of the world. We hold ourselves accountable to our identity; define ourselves with tokens of adjectives, layers of tradition and symbolism, while in the meantime, we fight to preserve every shred of it, and live the rest of our lives in a struggle to cultivate it. We try to keep it sacred, unique, and immutable. Otherwise, we ask ourselves, what is the point? We work tirelessly to make sure we’re not just another cardboard cutout while raking in trophies, certificates, photographs, children, exclusive club memberships, Internet points — anything to expand our fairytale legacy; anything to suppress our natural mortality and increasing vulnerability. We judge ourselves not through the motivations, beliefs or struggles of others; we judge others based on ourselves. Identity is a relational web. It is a comparison sheet we use to analyse our place in the world. It helps us weave a meaningful story to answer difficult questions such as: What am I? When did I begin? What will happen to me when I die?

No one is born religious. No one is born to identify with a particular piece of land. No one is born to identify with a particular political party. No one is born as a specific identity. We are all simply products of indoctrination. Every single day, from the moment we are born, our education begins — not towards an ideal of truth but towards survival. The agenda of the education system is only a reflection of the cultural landscape it inhabits. Perhaps only science can claim the ability to course-correct and steer its way towards better models of the universe. Humans, meanwhile, are not so flexible. Between years three and four, most children start forming opinions about the world and themselves. I am this. I like that. This young identity is shaped through an education system whose primary objective is passing exams, failing which the child is immediately labelled as stupid. The child is routinely compared with their classmates, labelled any number of things — shy, honest, hardworking, problematic, unmotivated. Their place in the world begins to solidify. The child, in most cases, assimilates these assessments as accurate characteristics about themselves, never questioning their validity.

Over the course of a lifetime, many layers of identity are crafted and worn, each accentuating every other. Our identity has an appetite. It must consume knowledge and meaning or risk starvation. Some may be consumed by this hunger, turning into narcissists and megalomaniacs. Others might see through the illusion. Yet, most people never manage to leave their opinions behind, not enough to provoke a different perspective because the need never makes itself apparent. Most people internalise their self-beliefs themselves to the point where they are defined by them. People tend to stick with people who think like they do. They fall into a loop of self-compliant views and confirmation biases. Eventually, this simplistic view of the world and the self becomes hardwired and impossible to outgrow. Anything that challenges these hardwired beliefs is first ignored as fake news, but eventually, it brings forth an increasingly agitated response. The stronger the hold of identity, the greater is its tendency to fight back against change. People might call themselves vegan, neo-marxist, jazz aficionados, liberal, Muslim, pan-romantics, Indian first, Maharashtrian second, [enter artist’s name]’s biggest fan. They might have good reason to suspect these words as truth. Regardless of their accuracy, these are just layers of identity, to be worn as per the demands of the situation, like seasonal clothing.

When people communicate, it is a specific identity that does the talking. When I am speaking to my boss, I wear the mask of a loyal employee; when I am speaking to my son, I wear the mask of a loving father; with a stranger, all the politeness I can muster; with a foe, skepticism, mistrust, anger. We carry countless and distinct identities, only to utilize a specific ASL — a condensed and limited disclosure of the ego based on the situation and circumstance. These are like webpages which hide the underlying HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code while only showing you what you wanted to see — a funny cat video. The individual’s relational web grows with every new encounter, every new discovery about the world. It begs to answer only one question — Where is my place in the world? The relational web offers a map to reality; a model that seeks to understand and tailor itself based on experience. This is an intrinsic biological mechanism without which the ego cannot survive.

Our identity is life itself. It is the very antithesis to death. These are polar opposites: creation and destruction. Identity forges meaning while death snatches it away in an instant. While the pursuit of meaning is a lifelong endeavour, ageing is a paradox. Ageing in the modern world is the contradiction between wanting a longer life as well as infinite youth. A trillion-dollar anti-aging industry that only seeks to postpone the inevitable, is testament to this fact. In the meantime, all we are left with is the pursuit of polishing our individual story. Some might cherish the annual event that signifies the day they were born while others might hate it, resenting the lives and achievements of others associated with a smaller number while casting everyone else into a basket of irrelevance. Perhaps this is why the shadow of anonymity offered by the Internet is such a comforting place to live. But whether offline or online, my ASL is whatever I want it to be as long as it gives me the joy that I seek and the comfort I need to go on.

There is no point in living in a cage of dubious and limiting self-beliefs. I am not suggesting you could fly simply by identifying as a bird. I am merely suggesting identity is an emergent phenomenon. It is a continuous carving and remodeling of the ego. It evolves in response to experience of an immediate environment because it is essentially a tool evolved for survival. With that knowledge, at the very least, it might bring you a step closer to staying open to new ideas and possibilities. Just don’t take yourself too seriously.

A White Actor Grows Some Bollocks - Quill’s Scribbles

You may recall that movie studio Lionsgate got themselves into a bit of hot water last week when they announced the casting of Ed Skrein as Major Ben Daimio in their upcoming Hellboy reboot. The problem was Major Ben Daimio is a Japanese character in the source material, making Hellboy the latest of numerous sci-fi and/or comic book adaptations to whitewash a prominent Asian character. I and many others made our views heard, voicing our strongest and angriest objections to this blatant bit of racist erasure (for whitewashing is objectively racist and totally inexcusable) just as we did with the likes of Doctor Strange, Death Note and Ghost In The Shell. But unlike those projects I just listed, the most extraordinary thing happened. Somebody listened.

Oh not the studio obviously. No, it was Ed Skrein himself. Realising the hornet’s nest he had kicked, Skrein actually announced via his social media accounts that he was dropping out of the role.

This open letter has received a positive response from fans and readers. Hellboy producers Larry Gordon and Lloyd Levin made a joint statement in support saying:

“Ed came to us and felt very strongly about this. We fully support his unselfish decision. It was not our intent to be insensitive to issues of authenticity and ethnicity, and we will look to recast the part with an actor more consistent with the character in the source material.”

Even Hellboy creator Mike Mignola chipped in to offer his praise for Skrein’s decision to step down.

Now it would be easy to take a very cynical approach to all of this. Perhaps claim that Skrein only stepped down because he realised the damage all of this backlash could do to his career, but for once I’m willing to put aside my cynicism. I do actually believe Ed Skrein’s sincerity here. He seems to be genuinely apologetic, initially not realising the implications of what he was doing and now seems determined to make amends.

However I’m not exactly willing to praise him for his decision. At least not to the same extent others are. I can understand why people are praising him so heavily. This is an almost unprecedented move. Having put up with loads of A list white actors giving the weakest and most pathetic excuses to justify their own racist bullshit, the idea of a white actor growing some bollocks and actually stepping down from a whitewashed role purely on moral grounds is a novelty. He quit a tentpole movie purely because it was the right thing to do, and I am grateful for that. But can we try and keep this in perspective? This decision wasn’t courageous or brave. It’s just an actor turning down a role. A role that should never have been offered to him in the first place. While I’m pleased that Ed Skrein did the decent thing in the end, the fact is this entire situation should never have happened in the first place. Asian characters should be played by Asian actors. That should not be a difficult concept for filmmakers to wrap their heads around, and I feel I should point out I still don’t trust Lionsgate in the fucking slightest. Oh they’re going to cast a Japanese actor as Ben Daimio now if they know what’s good for them, but if Ed Skrein didn’t take the moral high ground, they wouldn’t have learnt a damn thing. Let’s not forget the studio’s initial response to the controversy came from this now deleted tweet from Hellboy executive producer Christa Campbell:

We don’t see colours or race. The slogan for closet racists the world over. 

See this is what so many white people in positions of power and authority within the industry need to understand when it comes to POC presentation. Being colourblind sounds good in theory, but in practice it can be very dangerous. When you make an actor’s performance or marketability the only criteria, you end up making stupid mistakes like this. When you racebend a white character, it’s fine. We already have plenty of representation, plus 9 times out of 10 being white isn’t actually integral to the character. For characters of colour on the other hand, you’ve got to take these other factors into consideration. Usually the culture of said character is integral plus it’s important for non white characters to be portrayed on screen not just for equality, but also for variety.

Recently I finally got to watch the Disney movie Moana, and I’m currently slightly obsessed with it. Not just because it’s a fun, smartly written musical with a great female protagonist, lovable characters, funny jokes and a heartwarming message behind it. It’s also because it explores myths and cultures I’ve never got to experience before.

Moana takes a lot of influence and inspiration from Polynesian culture and mythology, most notably adapting the stories of the demigod Maui (played by Dwayne Johnson). I have no idea how accurate this is, but I still loved it because it was something different. After seeing so many fantasy stuff like Lord Of The Rings and Game Of Thrones, which are essentially variations on Norse mythology, as well as the trillions of Christian inspired fantasy stories, Moana feels incredibly fresh and unique. I found all the stuff about Maui and Te Fiti fascinating, and I would love to see more movies exploring these Polynesian myths and legends. There’s such an incredibly rich vein of creativity you could tap into here.

Something else I loved about Moana was they actually cast Polynesian actors as the characters. I’ve already mentioned Dwayne Johnson as Maui. There’s also Jemaine Clement as Tamatoa the crab, Nicole Scherzinger as Moana’s mum, Jango Fett himself Temuera Morrison as Moana’s dad, Rachel House as Moana’s granny, and newcomer Auli’i Cravalho as Moana herself. This is why diversity is so important in films. Not only does it give actors of colour more exposure and allow new talents like Cravalho to emerge and flourish, but it also exposes general movie going audiences to stories and cultures we wouldn’t normally get to see. And that’s why whitewashing is so offensive. It takes job opportunities away from actors of colour and also causes creativity to stagnate. When it’s an Asian character in an Asian inspired story, there’s lots of different directions you can go. When it’s a white character in an Asian inspired story, there’s only one story you can tell. The outsider. The stranger. The foreigner to their ways. That’s not interesting. We’ve seen that done loads of times. Plus if you truly want to immerse the audience in another culture, isn’t it better to have a character that actually represents that culture rather than some white dweeb who knows jackshit about it?

Basically what I’m saying is we need more movies like Moana and less movies like...

No I’m never dropping this. Fuck this movie and all who support it.

So while I’m pleased that Ed Skrein decided to do the right thing in the end, I’m still going to judge this Hellboy reboot with the suspicion and scorn it deserves. Sure they’re probably going to cast a Japanese actor as Ben Daimio, but only because they have to now to save themselves from further embarrassment. It’s not because they want to. If it was someone like Scarlett Johansson or Tilda Swinton, the studio would still be sticking to their guns and trying to justify their racist bullshit. 

I’m glad Skrein managed to fix things and reveal A list white actors like Swinton and Johansson for the selfish, racist, privileged pricks that they are through his own selfless actions, but until the industry properly recognises that whitewashing is NEVER a good idea, nothing has actually changed as far as I’m concerned.

Hi, I was wondering if there was any blog that could answer questions about grief and loss in general? I searched for script grief/ script loss but nothing came up so maybe they have a different name(? Or if you know anyone who could answer questions related to that topic Thank you! ^^

Quick disclaimer that Script X blogs ONLY do Writing Advice, not life advice.Also, obviously, trigger warning for DEATH!! because…obvious reasons?  ^^ But on that note…Apologies for this being long (lordy did it get long, wow); but oh, what a weighty subject you have picked! Hopefully this post helps people out, though, because this is one of those Universal Themes that gets very complicated to handle very fast.You’re right that there isn’t one ScriptX blog devoted specifically to “grief” or “loss” - but that’s partly because those are pretty broad subjects that could actually connect with several depending on context.Off the top of my head I’d probably suggest:@scripttraumasurvivors because death is a COMMON traumatic event or trigger, especially if it happens to someone they know, and is sudden or violent, or they witness it themselves, or it just reminds them of something that traumatized them previously.  TS is sometimes a bit slow with asks but that’s because they get SO MANY, so please be patient with them, they’re very nice :) (Also, FYI they are totally fine with multi-part Asks too. So if you have a specific plot in mind, “Feel Free to Get Wordy” with them!)@scriptshrink - for how people might deal with it in therapy or how it might result in mental illness; though that blog is on Hiatus at the moment, as I write this, it could be a valuable source! If the death results in a trauma which results in PTSD, for instance, Shrink has a “Demystifying the DSM” post about the requirements for it, that could be helpful. (Also keep in mind that even if the resulting impact doesn’t rise to official PTSD diagnosis, it could still include symptoms of PTSD, such as nightmares or shifts in self-perception etc. PTSD is a diagnosis for getting to a certain critical mass of symptoms resulting from trauma of very specific kinds, but some of the symptoms can still happen independently of full diagnosis; for instance there’s an “Acute Stress” disorder that is more temporary, which Shrink has also done a “Demystifying” post on, and you can show just one or two symptoms from either disorder without “having the disorder”, and it could still be a realistic approach to how trauma and loss effect people psychologically. I’d lean towards looking at what TS has also written about PTSD though if you go this route, as they’ve got a great post going into what those same symptoms manifest as, or feel like, that is a great complement to the more clinical coverage over at ScriptShrink) @scriptstructure MAYBE could help too, in the sense of helping you plot out a good narrative arc with a death or grieving character in it; Mason gave me some GREAT advice (it’s in ScriptStructure’s archive if you poke around!) on writing an arc with a character whose child is killed off early in the story to drive the plot; though my question was more about how to humanize the kid character so she wasn’t flat as a character or her death emotionally meaningless outside the Plot, Mason’s thoughts on the matter went past that, and were VERY insightful and helpful in terms of how to write such an arc, and definitely have impacted how it’s going to be portrayed. :)Believe it or not, the mods at @scriptflorist might have some advice on this too come to think of it! Check their archives, at least, because there’s a post where they replied to one of my asks about how Mexican American families might send botanical condolences to each other that you might want to check out! That post was FANTASTIC for exploring things like how “out of it” fresh grief makes people, or how people who work in a profession where they regularly come into contact with grieving people, deal with that and how that grief looks and feels to other people than the character who is experiencing it directly.@scriptmedic could maybe answer questions on how say, doctors and paramedics handle grieving or upset friends and family. (Her Ask box is open at the very beginning of each month if you choose to include this element in your story and want to ask about it; please note that she empties the Ask box at the end of the month, so you may need to resend it if she doesn’t get to it in the first month you send it) I KNOW @scriptcriminaljustice has done at least one post explicitly addressing Death Notifications; search their archive as it’s quite a good post, the external links given there included some very helpful information, such as common immediate reactions to grief when a sudden violent loss happens, and how to handle it professionally from a police perspective when you have to inform someone they’ve lost a loved one. And finally, last but absolutely not least!: @scriptpastor could help you write a priest/pastor/minister giving comfort to a grieving person or family. It’s definitely in the category of “pastoral care”, so if the character is religious (especially if it’s in a branch of Christianity, which is closer to ScriptPastor’s own training), this one a great person to ask to advise you on writing the stuff related to that, as comforting people is a huge part of clergy’s duties. :) Could probably also give you ideas both on how clergy and other would-be comforters would approach grieving people, and how grieving people tend to act in the aftermath of a loss, especially when they’re say, at a funeral or wake, or when they first start to reach out to others? Worth a shot!(So tldr maybe ask ScriptPastor first XD)To kick off your research though - I’ll also chime in with some advice and thoughts based on what I’ve learned over time (simply by being lucky with what I was exposed to). This consists of two Big Things To Consider:1.) Different cultures, religions, and even subcultures approach death and loss differently. Things like a character’s religious beliefs and cultural background impact reaction to a death significantly. For instance, some religions and cultures believe the dead never really leave us, many are relatively “accepting” of death, while others…aren’t. Someone who doesn’t believe in any kind of afterlife or continuance of existence (e.g. a hardcore atheist) might have a very different approach to a sudden untimely death than someone who believes their loved one is going to Heaven or will hang around in some way. This might seem like a pretty obvious thing to point out but it’s important to keep in mind: beliefs about death, and how they’ve been raised around or away from the concept of death, factor in a lot to how they ultimately could react.Some people keep a careful, clinical distance from death; they live a safe, quiet, healthy life with modern medicine keeping everything tidy and sterile, so does everyone else they know, and their exposure to “death” or “violence” is just like, movies maybe……making it a much more shocking, devastating experience to brush against; death of a loved one is usually worse, the more unprepared you are for it. The more distant a possibility it seems from you, the more horrifying it is for it to finally come knocking In contrast, to those who live under the shadow of violence or disease, or who are in professions like “surgeon” or “mortician” - people who stare human mortality in the face almost daily, and sometimes have a morbid sense of humor to cope with it - it’s less shocking. Less unexpected. Still awful, but less of a suckerpunch.And that’s not even considering how different cultures approach the emotional turmoil that can come with loss. For example, several Latinx cultures accept as commonplace and normal,  intense displays of grief (think like, tossing yourself weeping and wailing over the casket type displays); several Asian cultures (e.g. Japanese, Filipinx) more generally favor emotional restraint, so “intense emotional displays” wouldn’t likely be encouraged - grief would be more likely to be internalized, or bottled up, so as not to ruffle feathers or cause a bother. Which doesn’t mean it won’t hurt; they’re just trying desperately to keep it to themselves. Or else they could keep it to themselves just fine but so and so who wasn’t expecting it is wailing on the coffin and oh lord, what do…In other words, grief/loss - and the aftermath of it all - will have different impacts on your characters depending on their culture, and their personality, and their profession, and their subculture, and of course, the circumstances… …and also all of those same elements of the characters surrounding them, which impacts how in turn how the surrounding characters interact with the grieving character (which in turn impacts the grieving character! And maybe even the plot, especially in character-driven or Mystery or Thriller works!). For this reason, if you’re writing characters in cultures other than your own?I advise you to please do research on that circumstance for that culture, such as reading up over at @writingwithcolor (NOT a ScriptX blog but I trust them about as well as one), or by finding and asking people from that culture about how their culture approaches death and grieving (…politely! And only if they’re willing to answer questions! Don’t harass people for this info, really really don’t); likewise with religions other than your own, or sometimes professions outside of your own; please do some research. It’s an important topic. You have more wiggle room than you might realize in terms of individual emotional arcs with grief, but you can’t afford to get something really wrong about cultural approaches to death and grieving.  It will add richness and resonance if you get it right; it will take away from your work if you get it too wrong.Don’t be scared to do the work; your writing will benefit, and maybe, so will you! Just make sure you’re prepared for Upsetting Things to be heard, and pace yourself! :) 2.) You’ve heard of the Five Stages of Grief?Yeeeah. About that. This is a very modern-day-famous psychological model for “grieving” and how it (supposedly) happens, also known as the Kubler-Ross model, or DABDA (for the acronym Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance, which you might be most familiar with it from);  but there’s some serious flaws with, if nothing else, how it’s usually understood or applied by laymen and especially in fiction. Here’s the problem with how it’s usually viewed, vs lived human experiences:-Not everybody goes through the “Stages” of grief in the listed order. Everybody quotes it as DABDA, and fiction ALL THE TIME depicts people going through the stages in specific DABDA order, and often in rapid progression to boot. This drives me (and I’m sure quite a few psychologists) nuts! Put simply: The human psyche is NOT that consistent!Yes, some people go through them in that listed order (there’s a reason, after all, that it got listed that way). Some people even go through them rapidly…but plenty of people take months or even years to grieve (or even never quite stop grieving their whole life, depending on how close they were to the person). And plenty of people can not only experience the “stages” out of order, but even bounce back and forth between several “stages”! (Including for example, hitting Acceptance after a few months, only to become Angry or Depressed when the anniversary of the death or some other reminder pops up)- NOT everybody who suffers a loss goes through ALL the “Stages” of grief, regardless of order. It’s entirely possible to skip one or more “Stages” entirely. Yes, really.Heck I’ve seen someone seemingly jump straight to Acceptance before! (The loss was I guess not sudden, and they apparently had a firm religious belief that their husband was in Heaven. They were seeing me about preparing something for a memorial service for him, so the death was really recent, and they seemed totally fine, even happy, which is extremely atypical, but, well…there they were, smiling at me and totally relaxed because “It’s okay; he’s with the Lord, now!” - see what I mean about religions impacting this?) That’s…rarer, mind.  Usually you get SOME sort of emotional or cognitive disruption, even if they really do believe their loved one’s soul is intact and fine somewhere. But like… you can skip straight over Denial or Anger or even Bargaining pretty easily! It all depends on the character, and their circumstances, including the nature of the loss and their personality (e.g. people tend to hit Acceptance a lot sooner, sometimes even before a death happens, if it’s not an unexpected loss; when I lost my grandmother a few months ago, for instance, it was after a long period of having to worry about and care for her as she declined mentally and physically, so I was prepared for it a lot better than say, my mother, who was still firmly in Denial right up until her mother died).So to recap:Yeah, they can have them out of order and may skip some entirely; some never achieve full “Acceptance” of a loss; some never Deny it; some bounce back and forth purely between Anger and Depression, some never get Angry, only Denial/Bargain/Depressed states etc…this is because:- The “Five Stages” are better described as “States” of Grieving.They are POSSIBLE reactions, but never the ONLY possible reaction, and certainly can’t only happen in that specific order; they are states you can go into and out of and heck, even have simultaneously (Anger and Depression aren’t actually mutually exclusive, for one!) - in short?It’s not an orderly, predictable chain of events. At all.Western culture in modern times (MODERN times, mind you, not like, 300 years ago) believes pretty widely that it does happen in a specific order, that it has to, and that it’s weird to say, not have a Denial or Anger or Bargaining step… but it doesn’t have to happen in that order, and it’s not weird if a person experiences it differently from the “listed” order. It’s perfectly “normal” to never experience some or even most of those states in response to a loss.It’s also perfectly “normal” to experience all of them…in that order or otherwise, or to fluctuate between them, sometimes more than once.It’s normal to backslide right out of Acceptance.  It’s normal to experience SLIGHT versions of them; to experience for instance, a tiny flash of anger but no real capital-A ANGER! - - or to be “sad” but not outright Depressed (in fact, some skeptics have lobbed considerable criticism at Kubler-Ross proponents because they feel it’s led to a rise in people being misdiagnosed with “Depression” when it was really just understandable, temporary “sadness” that didn’t rise to the clinical level)tldr…People can experience a lot of things when they grieve. They can also not experience a lot of things when they grieve.Grief is complicated that way. Grief is awkward. And unpredictable; uncomfortable - messy, just like the thing that triggers it.And like the loss itself? It will always, ALWAYS be specific. Unique. Personal. No two people will grieve the same death the same way.  Even the same person might grieve the same loss differently at age 16 than they would at age 60. And different losses will feel different to the same person, and the same loss will feel different to different people. Or even the same person, on different days or at different hours.They might feel mostly angry at their father for dying of lung cancer, but feel everything when their mom gets in an accident. They might feel relief when Grandma “finally” passes after a long illness, and then feel bad and guilty that they can’t connect with everyone else who’s bawling their eyes out at the funeral.They might resent their well-meaning Aunt or Mother or Born-Again Brother for saying “he’s in a better place now”… or they might be only able to keep it together at all because they keep telling themselves that.They might get PTSD. They might not. They might recover; they might never get over it. They might recover at all only after years of talking it out with people who shared similar experiences, or they might only be able to get over it when other people finally shut the hell up and stop reminding them of it.They might be fine - except…for once in a while, when they’re not.Story time.I was relieved when Grandma died, because it meant less suffering on her part. And because it was devastating to see her slowly lose her mind to Alzheimer’s, while her body also fell apart more than she ever wanted to admit it was. I don’t know if she’s “in a better place” or not, but she’s not suffering, which is better, and it’s…so much less. Because it was so much; too much to deal with for the three long years we did. She loved us; she kept worrying about us, telling us not to burden ourselves; she’d rather have gone quickly in the hospital like she did, than for us to keep running ourselves ragged, and I know this. I knew it then, and still know it now. I felt more pain at seeing my mom upset when she died, than at knowing she was dead, because she would have been okay with it if she’d had her mind still intact enough to know what was going on, and she wasn’t…going to get any better. She hadn’t been, and she wouldn’t. She was over 95 years old, and it was a miracle she lasted that long. It was a relief. It was a relief, mostly, when she died. Because I felt I’d already gone through the grieving, ahead of time. I was mostly just…awkwardly patting my mother’s back and then giving her distance to sort out her own grief. Because I didn’t know what to say. She was grieving; she still needed to. I was okay, though. Because we could finally move on. I had already hit Acceptance.I still cried at her funeral a week later. I cried, because the pastor made us talk about what she meant to us when she was alive. Nobody else spoke up first, because it was awkward, when he asked us “what do you think of when you think of Ruth?. There was no eulogy prepared; we sat under a tent in a light rain and it was up to us to do it, and the silence for that long moment became oppressive, claustrophobic. So I blurted out:  “Love”.He made me elaborate. And when I talked about how ridiculously, frustratingly self-sacrificing she was, how I knew she wanted to give and give and give, how I used to take care of her and I worried for her and she was always trying to put others first, even then, to literally terrifying extents - I cried a little. I had been fine for a week, and then digging that salt in just hurt, and I cried.But I was fine after that. For months.And then…A teddy bear that she’d gotten from a volunteer at the rehab place less about four months before she died. She’d given it to me, for Christmas, because she was stuck in the rehab place and “couldn’t get out to shop”, and she didn’t really “need it” and she saw I liked it. (See how she always thought of others? Guh)I had been cuddling it sometimes, because it was really soft, and I’m one of those very tactile people.  I had been cuddling it for months, since before Christmas, since she gave it to me. And then one day, sometime after the funeral, I looked at it again and…I didn’t cry. But I felt…sad.Sometimes I cuddle it and I feel better.Sometimes I can’t stand to look at it.It’s in a closet right now, because this week I had too much to worry about and didn’t want a freaking teddy bear to be a downer. I don’t think I could stand to donate it though. At least just yet.I felt relief when she died, but in the aftermath? I feel kinda sad. But not all the time. Just sometimes. Just randomly - except it’s never truly random. It just feels like it is, because I’m never prepared to feel sad looking at a cute, fluffy stuffed animal with a bowtie.Grief is…weird.Grief is all over the place.Grief can be anything and everything.Or it can be nothing. Up until it’s Something again.I’ve made myself sad, a little, thinking about that - but now, as I hit the end of the post I’m…suddenly smiling a little (because it might help someone, yeah? This post? Maybe!)I might cuddle that teddy bear in a few minutes. I just realized that, I might actually cuddle it, and not even feel sad. Huh.Grief is weird.And THAT’s the best advice I could ever give on How To Write About Grief and Loss. :)(….yeeeah that wasn’t very tldr. Sorry. XD)-Mod Vorpalgirl 

The Movie in My Mind: Wicked

The Movie in My Mind: Wicked

WELCOME!! To a new post segment called The Movie in My Mind where I will be dream casting movie adaptations of musicals/plays. And as a bonus for my loyal followers/fans, I will be explaining my reasoning behind the casting. This post gets is name from my favorite musical Miss Saigon. Now before everyone attacks me please know this is solely my opinion and I would be open to having a discussion about this just DM me and be polite about it. Now, this is in no way official this is all just my opinion none of these people have actually been cast or have been considered for the roles as far as I’m aware of.

Now before we start this endeavor for this cast list my thoughts were the two lead women need to be veteran stage actresses. At first I tried to think of Hollywood names who could do the roles of Elphaba/G(a)linda, but I felt the best thing for this movie was to fill up the supporting characters with big names while the two female leads are Straight Outta Broadway (That was a bad joke... Sorry.) In the Honorable mentions, I did list several Hollywood big names who could potentially do the role as well. Please let me know what you think and DM me if you want to chat about it otherwise reblog and leave your comments. No hate when you do comment let’s keep this civil people.

Jessica Keenan Wynn as Elphaba

I don’t think you guys realize just how difficult it was for me to cast this role. This was extremely difficult! I kept going back and forth between either Hollywood actresses and Broadway actresses. I even once thought of maybe using a former Elphaba and then I realized “No let’s get some fresh blood up in here.” This casting choice was so extremely difficult! I ultimately ended up going with a stage actress because their voices would be best suited for the role of Elphaba. I ended up going with Jessica Keenan Wynn for the role because with her recently announced turn as Young Tanya in Mamma Mia and her star turn as Heather Chandler in Heathers proves she can be a fierce, belting warrior. I think Keenan Wynn would prove to be a formidable force as Elphaba. She can no doubt hit the high notes required while also acting her ass off as the green girl. I think her Elphaba would be superb and haunting while also hilarious and heartwarming. Also a plus as a way to promote the movie she can do the show on Broadway.

Honorable Mentions- Anna Kendrick, Lena Hall, Naya Rivera, Nicole Scherzinger, Samantha Barks

Sierra Boggess as Glinda

Boggess is perhaps best known for being in several productions of The Phantom of the Opera as Christine as well as portraying her in the sequel Love Never Dies. I think the role of Glinda has to be done by someone with stage experience because of the vocal range required for the role and I think Boggess would knock the role out of the park. Plus since she was Christine we know she can hit those high notes in “No One Mourns the Wicked” and “Thank Goodness” and she wouldn’t be the first woman to go from Christine to Glinda. Other actresses who have done this are Annalene Beechey, Asako Tomado, Gina Beck, Kim So-Hyun, Maria Coyne, Sara Jean Ford, Tamami Sai and Valerie Link. While she may not be a big Hollywood name I think that is better off for Glinda to be a veteran stage actress. Also just like Keenan Wynn as a way to promote the movie she can do the stage show as well.

Honorable Mentions- Brittany Snow, Emmy Rossum

Brendon Urie as Fiyero

Urie has wanted to broaden his horizons and he recently finished a stint as Charlie Price in Kinky Boots and his ridiculous fans would bring in tons of money. Plus from the bootlegs I’ve seen of him in Kinky Boots he’s actually not that bad.

Honorable Mentions- Adam Lambert, Zac Efron

Christopher Walken as The Wizard

Christopher Walken would bring in the older generations and he is no stranger to playing the villain in a show. He has also been in Peter Pan Live! and Hairspray so he has musical abilities.

Honorable Mentions- John Travolta, Mark Hamill

Jessica Lange as Madam Morrible

It’s Jessica Lange... Is there really any more I need to say? She has a cult fan base...

Honorable Mentions- Imelda Staunton, Liza Minnelli

Ben Platt as Boq

As much as I don’t like Dear Evan Hansen and how much Tony love it didn’t deserve Ben Platt did deserve the win. He is a good actor and his Pitch Perfect, as well as Dear Evan Hansen fame, would also draw a good audience.

Melissa Benoist as Nessarose

Besides the fact that she would bring in a wave of Glee fans she would honestly be thrilling to watch in this role. I have no idea why, but something about the thought of Melissa Benoist belting “Just her and me! The Wicked Witch of the East! We deserve each other.” Sends chills down my spine.

Honorable Mention- Auli'i Cravalho

Brian d’Arcy James as Doctor Dillamond

I think it would be nice if they gave this role to a veteran stage actor as well. Also with James having been in two cult shows 13 Reasons Why and Hamilton so he’d bring in a massive audience.

Honorable Mention- Robin Williams (I know he’s dead, but he would have been an amazing Dr. Dillamond)

Wicked Alumni Cameo’s

Idina Menzel as Witch’s Mother

Norbert Leo Butz as Witch’s Father

Kristin Chenoweth as Glinda’s Mom *I know it’s not a role in the show, but it would be cute if they added her in via picture or maybe dropping Glinda off at Shiz. It would be especially cute with Idina playing Elphaba’s Mom*

Jessica Vosk as Midwife

Others as Citizens of Oz, Emerald City residents, Students/Professors at Shiz University.

“You what?” Sophia asked. She was sure she’d heard him wrong.

“I, uh, I had your clothes moved here.”

catch up here

// The Movers Are Here

September 15th, 2019

It had been a little over two weeks since Sophia had come to stay at Harry’s for just a little while.

By then, it had definitely been longer than just for a little while but neither of them had any real reason to end their new living arrangement. Sophia thoroughly enjoyed the king-sized bed and cloud-like mattress in the guest room.

Her room, as Harry had started calling it.

He never made her feel like she’d been overstaying her welcome. On the contrary, actually. Anytime she’d mentioned running out of fresh clothes to wear he’d either put on a wash, offered her full access to his wardrobe or driven her round to her flat so she could get some more of her stuff.

They had fallen into a nice, domestic routine and even started some rituals such as Harry always preparing any kind of juices in the mornings while Sophia fixed them an omelette or avocado toasts or whatever else they were in the mood for. In the evenings they always watched a film. Mostly thrillers or scary ones that always resulted in the both of them falling asleep cuddled close together.

Not once had they talked about their nightly cuddling sessions since they started.

It was another one of those mornings where they sat in companionable silence and ate their breakfast, both of them scrolling through their phones when Sophia stumbled upon an article in The Sun.

“In case you didn’t know, you got me pregnant,” Sophia summed up the nonsense she’d just read.

“Yeah, I saw,” Harry sighed and held up his phone to show Sophia that he’d seen the same article. “Was just a matter of time. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Sophia said.

She knew that whenever her name popped up next to Harry’s in the news he felt guilty even though it was not his fault that people always jumped to the most ridiculous conclusions.

“I know. Still am, though,” he gave her a weak smile and locked his phone, putting it on the table face down.

Sophia hated that he took headlines like that to heart. He always said he didn’t pay too much attention to what was written about him and the people around him but she knew that deep down he wished he could protect his loved ones from the unwanted attention of the public eye.

“You know I don’t care about all of that stuff, right? Never have and never will. You’re my mate and whatever people are saying doesn’t matter to me,” she told him and hoped he would really hear it.

“I know that,” he simply said before he changed the topic. “What are your plans for today?”

“I’m gonna go meet Sara at the shop. We have a few things to discuss and I wanna make sure all of my clients have been set up with one of the others for their upcoming appointments,” she told him.

“Was it a hassle rescheduling everything?” Harry asked.

“It wasn’t that bad actually. Everyone was really understanding and happy for me,” Sophia explained. “I guess Sara just wants to know for how long they’re gonna have to manage without me. Too bad I don’t have a definite answer for her.”

Harry could tell that Sophia dreaded meeting her sister and it made him sad. The two of them had always been really close but since Sophia had announced her pregnancy, Sara had distanced herself from her sister. Sophia didn’t let it show how much it hurt her not to have her sister rooting for her. She always just said that she’d come around eventually but he could tell it was weighing on her more than she let on.

“Maybe you can, uh, talk about stuff today?” Harry asked tentatively.

“What is there to talk about other than business?” Sophia asked, frowning. “She doesn’t understand my decision and she’s not really trying to either. It is what it is.”

“But she’s your sister,” Harry started but before he could add anything, Sophia cut him off.

“She’s not acting like it, though,” she said and stood up, taking her plate and mug over to the sink. Her way of ending the conversation.

“I’m gonna go to the gym with Nick but I’ll be back around noon I think. Would you like to hang out later?” he asked and carried his dishes over to the sink as well where Sophia took them from his hands.

“I’d like to try some of the pregnancy yoga DVDs I got the other day because my back is killing me and I wanna try everything that could possibly help but I think it’d be best if someone was there to make sure I don’t fall over,” she giggled. “So if you don’t mind?” she looked at him while she dried her hands on a dish towel.

“Sure we can do that. Promise you’ll wait ‘til I’m home, yeah?”

“Promise,” Sophia rolled her eyes but smiled. She knew he meant well.

***

When Sophia walked into the tattoo shop an hour later, Amir and Clara both had clients so she just waved at them and walked straight through to the back where their shared office was. Sara was sitting behind her desk, focussed on something on the screen of her computer but when she saw Sophia walk in, her bump entering the room before she was fully in, she looked up to greet her sister with a smile.

“Hiya,” she said. “How are you doing?”

Sophia plopped down on her office chair and huffed out a breath. It was an unusually hot day for the middle of september and she was sweaty and her feet were swollen. She was not going to complain about it to her sister though because she was not in the mood of dealing with her ‘I told you so’ attitude.

“I’m doing great!” she said instead, trying to smile as wide and genuinely as possible without looking like a maniac.

“Glad to hear that,” her sister said and it even sounded like she meant it.

“I’ve been round to your place, like, three times in the last week but you were never home,” Sara said.

Sophia ignored the accusing tone in Sara’s voice. If she had really wanted to come see her she could have called. It’s not like she’d dropped off the face of the earth.

“I’ve not been home,” Sophia said. “I’ve been staying at Harry’s.”

“Oh?” Sara seemed surprised. “How come?”

“I dunno,” Sophia shrugged. “He was worried and suggested I could stay at his place for a bit.”

“Why was he worried? Is everything alright?” Sara sat up straight in her chair and looked Sophia up and down as if to check everything was still where it needed to be.

“Yeah I’m fine. We’re fine,” she said and brought her hand to her bump. “I had a little breakdown at the doctor’s office the other week and he came to get me. Nothing serious, though, I promise.”

“You could’ve called me, you know?” Sara said in a small voice, playing with one of the pens that were strewn about her desk. “Just because I’m… because I-”

“Just because you don’t want me to have a baby?” Sophia finished Sara’s sentence, only half-joking.

“Stop it. You know I’m happy for you. If this is what you want then I support you, one hundred percent, but… it’s just so sudden. I don’t know why you never said anything,” Sara repeated what she told Sophia the night she found out about her pregnancy. “I feel blindsided.”

“Listen, I can see now that I maybe should have told you sooner. I guess I was just scared you were gonna try and talk me out of it. But I want this. I promise you that I have thought long and hard about this and I really, really want this baby and I’m so happy that sometimes I think my heart is going to burst,” Sophia said. Crying again, of course.

“I’m sorry I haven’t called,” Sara said, her eyes glistening as well. “I should have called. We should have talked about this sooner.”

“Yeah, well, I haven’t called you either. We’re too alike sometimes,” Sophia chuckled and wiped away a few tears.

“Apart from being polar opposites,” Sara joked.

There was a long stretch of silence between them and Sophia started looking through her calendar, once again checking that they hadn’t missed to contact any of her clients. However, Sophia could tell that her sister had something else to say.

“Do you think it’s such a good idea to be with Harry all the time?”

There it was.

Sara liked Harry and she didn’t have anything against him as a person but she had always been wary of how the media portrayed his and Sophia’s friendship. She was the older, protective sister and she’d hate for Sophia getting caught up in the whirlwind that was Harry’s life. She knew it was not his doing or his fault but she’d always been the one who told Sophia to be careful.

“Sara, please, not this again,” Sophia groaned. “Harry is my friend. My best friend even, I guess. He’s been so great to me through all of this and whatever the yellow press is saying about him or me is bullshit and you know it. I never cared about any of it and neither should you.”

“I know, I know,” Sara reiterated, “I just don’t want you to get hurt. And if people start thinking he knocked you up things are gonna get real ugly. You know how it is.”

“Like I said, I don’t care about what people are saying or thinking. I’m fine, I promise,” Sophia tried to reassure her sister.

Maybe she even tried to reassure herself.

Sara sighed but dropped the subject and moved onto the next one.

“So, you live with him now?” she asked.

“I don’t live with him, no,” Sophia clarified even though she wasn’t sure it was actually still true. “I’m just staying there for a bit.”

“Okay,” Sara said, her tone suggesting she didn’t quite understand but, surprisingly, she didn’t question it any further.

After that, they worked in silence for another hour before they said their goodbyes. Sara promised to keep Sophia up to date on all things regarding the tattoo shop and Sophia promised to at least text her sister every day to let her know she was okay. Sara had to compensate for Sophia’s absence in the shop so they didn’t know when they’d be able to hang out again but they did agree that they needed an evening for just the two of them to reconnect.

Their talk could have gone better but it could also have gone a lot worse, Sophia thought when she left.

***

All Sophia wanted to do when she arrived back at Harry’s house was to take a bath. It might have been a hot and humid day but Sophia’s body was aching and she craved the feeling of a nice, hot bath that would surely relieve some of the tension in her back. Pregnancy yoga would have to wait for another day.

She cranked the air-con up so that by the time she traipsed into Harry’s bathroom - it was the only one in the house with a tub - her whole body was covered in goosebumps. She’d taken her clothes off in her room after having checked the time to make sure Harry wouldn’t be home for at least another one and a half hours. She made sure the temperature was right and then dropped the Pink bath bomb she got from LUSH on her way home into the tub and climbed in carefully. She sighed when the pale pink water enveloped her body. It was exactly what she needed.

She had been in the tub for merely fifteen minutes when the door to Harry’s bathroom swung open and her state of complete relaxation came to an abrupt end.

“Jesus fucking Christ what the fuck?” Harry shrieked when his eyes landed on Sophia, her belly and breasts poking out from between the mountains of foam on the water.

Sophia had tried to cover her nipples with her hands but she had a feeling it was already too late.

“HARRY!” she squealed. “HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF KNOCKING BEFORE YOU ENTER A ROOM?”

“YOU’RE IN MY BATHROOM FOR FUCK’S SAKE! I DON’T KNOCK ON MY OWN BATHROOM DOOR!”

He stared at her, his eyes wide and cheeks bright red and then his eyes flickered to Sophia’s breasts for a split second but still long enough for her to notice.

“DON’T LOOK!” she shouted and tried rearranging the bubbles so that she was at least somewhat decent.

“I’m sorry!” Harry apologised weakly. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“What does it look like?”

“Well, I know what you’re doing but why are you in my bathroom?” he asked.

“Because the guest bathroom doesn’t have a tub you genius. This is your house. You should know the basic layout,” she mocked him.

“Yeah, right, uh-”

“Get out!” Sophia couldn’t believe he was still standing there in his workout clothes, gawking at her sitting in his bathtub.

“Yeah, right, uh,” he mumbled again but seemed glued to his spot. “You might wanna put some clothes on. The movers are here,” he said before he finally left Sophia alone again, closing the door behind him.

“The movers?” she called after him but he didn’t answer her.

She got out of the tub and remembered she hadn’t brought any clothes so after she dried herself off on one of Harry’s plushy towels she checked to make sure he’d left his room and raided his closet for something to wear. She found a pair of joggers and a ratty Hardrock Café t-shirt and went in search of Harry and the ominous movers he’d mentioned minutes earlier.

With her wet hair soaking the front and back of the t-shirt and the air-con still on full blast, Sophia and her hard nipples found Harry in the kitchen. Again, his eyes dropped to her chest for the briefest of moments, her eyes following his. She quickly brought her hands up to cover her chest.

“Harry would you stop looking at my tits!” she half yelled, half laughed.

“I’m sorry but… fuck they’ve gotten bigger,” he said, not even sounding a little ashamed of his observation.

“I know. Believe me, I know,” Sophia whined.

“Excuse me, Sir,” an unfamiliar voice interrupted their awkward exchange. “Where should we put the boxes?”

“Uh it’s, uh, upstairs. First room on the left. Thank you,” Harry told the man.

“That’s my room,” Sophia said, looking at Harry. She was completely clueless. She then quickly corrected herself. “I mean that’s the guest room?”

“It’s your room,” Harry said. “I got your clothes from your place so you don’t have to go back and forth between here and there all the time. Thought it was easier,” he said and ran a hand through his hair before it came to rest at the back of his neck.

“You what?” Sophia asked. She was sure she’d heard him wrong.

“I, uh, I had your clothes moved here.”

“Why?”

“You’ve been basically living here already anyway for the last two weeks and I dunno, it works, doesn’t it? You know I… you know I get lonely sometimes and I think it must be nice for you as well to have someone around. I know you don’t need anyone to take care of you or whatever but this arrangement works for the both of us, doesn’t it?” he rambled, pausing shortly to gauge her reaction.

When Sophia didn’t interject, he continued.

“We go to your place almost every other day to get more stuff so I figured… I thought if you’re not gonna go home anytime soon it’d be easier if I brought your stuff here,” he explained and shrugged as if it was the most obvious thing.

“So what, you decided I’m living here now?”

Sophia wasn’t really angry at him. In fact, she was incredibly endeared by the fact that Harry liked having her around as much as she liked being around him but he couldn’t just decide something like this on his own without mentioning it to her at least once.

“I can see now that my plan has flaws,” he admitted and grinned sheepishly.

Sophia hated him.

She did not hate hate him, of course. But she hated that it had always been like this. He was a cheeky bugger who knew he could get away with basically anything as long as he made sure he’d flash his stupidly gorgeous smile. Even if they were just friends, he definitely had always had an effect on her and when he looked at her like that she knew that the decision had already been made before she herself had even entertained the thought of actually moving in.

“Fine,” Sophia said and threw her hands up.

“Fine? So you’re not mad at me?” he asked.

“Not mad at you,” she confirmed. “But!” she exclaimed and held her hand up, pointing a finger at Harry.

“But?”

“I get to use your tub whenever I want,” she said with conviction.

“Deal,” Harry said and held out his hand for her to shake on it.

And that was the day Sophia had moved in with Harry.

// I Hate Scary Films

After the movers had left, Harry gave Sophia some privacy to put her clothes into the closet of what was now officially her room. He told her he’d fix them something for dinner but that she should take her time sorting through her stuff.

Sophia kept thinking she should feel weird about all of this but she just didn’t. She was comfortable around Harry and she loved her room and her bed and Harry’s tub and the fact that he’d once again allowed her to take anything from his closet she’d wanted in case she’d need anything. She felt taken care of and it was nice.

A delicious smell wafting up from the kitchen made her stomach grumble and she noticed she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. She decided she’d done enough unpacking for the day and padded downstairs, still wearing Harry’s joggers and t-shirt without underwear underneath. He’d seen her naked twice in the course of a couple of weeks so she just didn’t bother with putting any on.

So what if upon her entering the kitchen his eyes roamed over her body once again. She hadn’t felt sexy or desirable in a while with all the changes her body had gone through and she like to pretend Harry’s glances her way were appreciative of her looks.

“You look cute in that t-shirt,” he said absentmindedly as he looked away from her and drained the pasta.

Sophia smiled. “Thanks.”

“It smells fantastic,” she said and walked over to the stove where he was stirring in two different pots. “What’re you making?”

“Just some pasta, nothing special,” he said and smiled when she bumped his hip with hers. “And some veggie soup for tomorrow.”

“Well it looks and smells great. I’m starving,” she said and started setting the table in the back corner of his kitchen.

“Have you eaten since we had breakfast?” he asked over his shoulder, probably already knowing the answer.

“No, I forgot,” Sophia answered.

“You gotta eat, love,” he just said, not wanting to lecture her but unable to bite his tongue.

“I know. Good we have you to take care of us,” Sophia said and if she had looked at Harry she would have seen a proud smile on his face.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t ask you before I had all your stuff brought here,” Harry said as he put both of their bowls on the table and took a seat across from Sophia.

“It’s okay,” Sophia said. “Is it weird, though? Me living here?”

“I don’t think it’s weird. I like having you here,” Harry said, a shy smile on his face. “Do you think it’s weird?”

“No, not at all. That’s why I asked. I thought it should feel weird but it just doesn’t,” Sophia shrugged.

Harry watched Sophia inhale a bowl of pasta and then another one for good measure before it was time to search for a film to watch.

That night they decided on Insidious and Sophia knew it was a bad idea before they even started watching. As always, they were both sitting in their respective spots on the couch, getting comfortable. Harry finished typing something into his phone and Sophia put hers on silent and put it on the coffee table.

“I hate scary films,” she said.

“Me too,” Harry agreed and looked over at her.

He lifted the corner of the throw blanket he had draped over his legs, another silent invitation for Sophia to come over for a cuddle. At this point, they both knew the scary films were just an excuse for them to be physically close but if any of them seemed to think it was a bad idea, they kept it to themselves. She accepted his offer without saying a word and took her usual spot, tucked against his side with her bump partially resting on Harry’s lap and her head on his chest. He put the blanket over both of them and scooted down a little so that he could rest his head against the back of the couch and pressed play.

His hand brushed over Sophia’s belly ever so softly before he pulled it away. Sophia wouldn’t have minded if he had kept there.

Talking About My Journey with Anxiety and OCD

I'm not good at sharing. I'm starting with that sentence so if this doesn't seem like I'm sharing much you know why. It doesn't come naturally to me. I tend to keep things close to the vest. Here's an example. When I'm in the hospital the only reason my friends and extended family find out is if my mom tells them. I might not even mention it after it happens. So they may never know if it weren't for someone else telling them. That's just the way I am. So to share is not a natural thing for me. Maybe this has to do with my social anxiety, I don't know. Anyway, I know that we as a society have such a hurtful stigma against mental illness. Just the term often brings about feelings of shame. I want to change that. I can't do it single handedly but I can be a part of it, I can help. And I think that helping starts with sharing my story. Even if it's just some of it. You have to start somewhere, right?

I know it looks like I'm choking my cat here, I'm not. hahaha. Just hugging him and having him protest. He actually lets me hug and cuddle and kiss him quite a bit and does the same to me quite often. What does this have to do with anything? Well, Sawyer (my cat) is something that helps me immensely. Just petting him and cuddling with him calms me down. Oh, how I love this little guy. <3

So, my mom says she noticed signs of my anxiety and OCD (which is technically an anxiety disorder) from the time I was quite young. I don't really remember doing anything compulsive when I was younger, but that may just be because it was normal to me.

Wait. Before we go on, let me put the definition of OCD right here:

"Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a  mental disorder in which people have unwanted and repeated thoughts,  feelings, ideas, sensations (obsessions), and behaviors that drive them  to do something over and over (compulsions).

Often the person  carries out the behaviors to get rid of the obsessive thoughts. But this  only provides short-term relief. Not doing the obsessive rituals can  cause great anxiety and distress."

This definition is taken from MedlinePlus. I include it because too many people believe that OCD only encompasses wanting things neat, orderly, tidy, et cetera. Like when you see someone line up their pencils in a perfect row. I'm not saying that isn't part of it I just want it to be clear that it is much different than what society tends to portray it as. A well known example would be someone who has to repeatedly wash their hands. For no apparent reason, they just keep washing. There are infinite numbers of compulsions, though. Counting is a popular one. And it's one that I share to a degree. Which I find sort of ironic because I hate math. (Just trying to diffuse a little humor...) My number of choice is 4. I count things in rounds of 4. Once I get to 4, I start again. I sometimes count my steps.

I prefer even numbers to odd. I find it hard to do anything in odd numbers. To give an example. the volume on the television. It has to be on an even number. If it starts on 26 I can't go up to 27, I have to turn it up to 28. Now, to throw a wrench in what I just said, there are exceptions to this even number rule of mine. One is if someone else puts the volume on an odd number. Then I don't have to change it because it wasn't me who did it. Something else, though. Well, it's hard to explain. There are certain odd numbers I'm okay with, but there are very specific reasons for it. The number 7, for example. I'm okay with that number. Why? Well, in history 7 is meant to be a powerful magical number. There are also 7 Harry Potter books. So, I'm okay with that one. There are others, too.

I'm not being neat and orderly isn't part of it for me. I do often have to straighten things out that are uneven. Like pencils. I fix the books on the shelves in Barnes and Noble. And I can't even tell you how many times I've said my room is messy and anyone there strongly disagrees and says it looks neater than their room ever has.

Trying to explain your compulsions to people, oh boy, is that a nightmare. Many people (including me) often try to hide these things, but sometimes it's just not possible because you HAVE to do it. You HAVE to. Why? Because if you don't, whatever the obsessive thought is will then happen. Does that make sense? No. And I'm well aware of that. But it's almost like two separate parts of my brain. Two separate voices. Two little beings on my shoulder. One telling me I don't have to and one telling me I need to, or else that thing will happen. The second voice tends to win out. What causes OCD? There's the kicker. We don't know yet. Here's another snippet from MedlinePlus.

"Health care providers do not know the exact cause of OCD. Factors that  may play a role include head injury, infections, and abnormal function  in certain areas of the brain. Genes (family history) seems to play a  strong role."

It's often infuriating. I think some people may be able to do the compulsion a certain number of times and then go on. With me, yes, a number comes into play but I have to do it right. If I don't, I need to repeat the compulsion over and over until I do get it right. What's worse? Usually, I'm not even sure what right means. Something in my brain just clicks to tell me that I got it right and then I can move on with my day. I have spent fairly significant amounts of time trying to get it right. As I said, infuriating. And to try to explain it...might be more infuriating because it's so hard to explain. But the jury is out on that.

That brings us to anxiety. General and Social Anxiety. The first panic attack I remember having I was seventeen. We were going to Florida. I was on an airplane. I'm terrified of flying. I started having a panic attack because it wasn't as if I could get off that plane, and I was stuck doing something that terrified me to the bone. Even just writing that brings up some of that panic in me.

Things went pretty well for a while. What's interesting is, looking back, it's quite possible I had smaller anxiety attacks in the years between this one and my next big one.

This panic attack took place in college. I was twenty-one, sitting in the library with a few friends. I'm not sure to this day what brought it on. I know that my friend brought me home. I thought maybe it was because of the people around but I'd been in the library countless times.

I also remember sitting in my Poetry class after having been in the hospital and starting to feel a panic attack come on. Shortness of breath, light headed, this feeling in my chest...it's so hard to describe, so hard to do justice to it. I got up and nearly ran outside to get fresh air. Mind you, it was February. I had on a sweatshirt but I had a coat, too because it was freezing. I didn't bring my coat with me, I needed that cold air hitting my skin.

In one of my Literature classes, I felt the symptoms come on once more. I got out of class as quickly as I could and locked myself in a bathroom stall to ride it out. I think I threw up that time, as well.

Another time, I didn't catch the symptoms in enough time to get away and ride it out. I'd just come back from the ladies room, I thought everything was fine. I sat down in my Spanish class and it came on quite suddenly this time. My Spanish professor noticed and came over to my desk. She picked up my things and told me to come with her to her office. I sat there with her and she actually told me to call someone to take me home, that was how bad it was.

Social Anxiety. This is something I remember having for well, as long as I can remember. I didn't call it social anxiety I just remember always being nervous around people. I most definitely still am and would usually prefer to be alone. Or just with a small group. Again, just thinking about this makes me a little nervous. Honestly, there are very few people I've never been nervous around. Even the people I love.

I think my General Anxiety and OCD have gotten a bit better. What's difficult is trying to pin point why, what did it. I think routine is a part of it, at least for my anxiety. A lot of the time, my anxiety would stem from being literally paralyzed by not knowing what to do first. To the point that I just did none of it. This did not work so well for me. With a routine, I know what to do when. Maybe it sounds restrictive but it's really not. It's not a down to the minute plan every minute detail routine. It gives me enough structure to know when I'm doing my morning ritual, when I'm setting up medicine for the night, when I'm working on content or when I'm writing or editing, when I'm off of work for the day. And it's not rigid, I honestly believe it's more about the order of the things.

My mindset is another thing. And I'm sure some of you are rolling your eyes. I get it. I don't think mindset can cure anxiety disorders like some people do but I DO believe that it can help. Having a morning ritual with some meditation (by the way, it's only 2-5 minutes), reading and journaling has honestly done wonders. I also do yoga nearly every day now.  I try to workout every day, too (and have been pretty consistent) but yoga is something I've grown to love. It's sort of another form of meditation. And carving out more time for writing my books is helping a lot. That's something I've quite recently started. I decided I was too focused on the media and not the writing. So I decided to change that and it's helped a lot. I mean, the writing is what I love to do. It's what I'm here to do.

Gratitude. Thinking about all the wonderful things and people I already have in my life. All the experiences. The books I've written, people I've met. The fact that I'm still here even though my doctors gave me until age sixteen when I was diagnosed with Nephropathic Cystinosis. I feel immensely grateful and I realize how amazing life is.

Trying to go easy on myself when I have a bad day. Sometimes it's going to happen. It'll be a struggle to get one thing done. Or even to get dressed. I'm making a more conscious effort not to beat myself up about it.

Music helps quite a lot. It's hard to be anxious belting out a song. Or if I am anxious (or irritable, etc.) by the middle of the song I'm usually fine. Reading, books, stories. Any type of storytelling helps. It always has. I'm quite attached to many fictional characters, as you know, but did you know those characters ease my anxiety and even my OCD at times?

I think over the past five years my anxiety and OCD has gradually gotten better. And in the last year I've seen myself make huge progress. It will never go away, and that is okay. It's a day to day thing. And I'm proud of how far I've come.

If you want to talk you can send me a message on Facebook, Instagram or through email. But remember, I am not a mental health professional. If you need to reach out to someone (and it is totally OKAY if you do) please look for someone in your area. Or, if you'd rather check into online counseling, BetterHealth is one site you could check out.

Here's a link to a free anthology where people write letters to their mental illnesses. It's a powerful book and it shows that you are not alone. Far from it.

Lady in Waiting? I really love your take on Rey - it feels very genuine!

Alright, here goes my first DVD commentary. I wrote this story for @sosobriquet as part of the @fandomtrumpshate‹ exchange. She had a couple of different requests and, after struggling to decide I went with “Rey and Poe bond while Finn’s in a coma. You can read the story without commentary here. Story with commentary below the cut.

The staff was cutting Finn out of his clothes by the time Rey found the med bay. The grey medical droid sliced along the seams while the human doctor peeled off the resulting rags. The exposed wound on Finn’s shoulder was both better and worse than Rey had imagined. It wasn’t bleeding or anything, but it shown an angry red against the dark brown of his skin and smelled strongly of overcooked meat. Rey swallowed hard and looked away as the doctor gently rolled Finn onto his side to examine the slash across his back.

I actually had this scene planned out and bouncing around in my head way before anything else. Like, even before I got the prompt. It was nice to be able to work it in somewhere. I find it always pays to stick those random ideas somewhere because you never know when they might come in handy.

Rey’s gaze landed on Finn’s jacket, crumpled like a dead thing in a heap on the floor. It had been spared the same fate as his shirt and was largely intact. There was still the small burn on the shoulder and the larger, more horrifying one which bisected the back, but Rey could fix that. She darted forward and snatched it up.

Unfortunately, someone else had the same idea. No sooner had Rey gotten her hands on the collar than somebody grabbed a sleeve. Rey glared up at her competition. He was a human male, maybe ten or so years older than her with dark, sweat-soaked curls and light brown skin. A pilot too, judging by his bright orange flight suit. Rey felt like she should know him though she couldn’t say how or why.

Disconcerted by the feeling, Rey narrowed her eyes and tightened her grip. “Scavenge from the dead, but this is Fin’s,” she said and yanked.

Rey often gets portrayed as this ray of sunshine, and she’s really not. She’s fiercely territorial and used to fighting for every scrap of everything.

The man let go so fast Rey overbalanced and stumbled backwards, crashing into a tool-laden cart. Medical instruments clattered to the floor, drawing the doctor’s attention.

That’s one way to win at tug-of-war! This is the start of a pattern with Poe. Every time Rey expects resistance from him, he does a yielding parry instead and utterly disarms her. Seriously, start counting the number of times it happens as you read this.

“Are you hurt?” She frowned first at Rey, then the man, and back again.

They both shook their heads. Rey’s back was one massive bruise from where Ren had thrown her into the tree, but nothing was broken or bleeding or burnt.

“Good.” She jerked her head toward the door. “Now get out so I can help your friend in peace.”

The man reached for Rey’s arm, but she shook him off and saw herself out. In the hallway, she squared her shoulders and braced for the fight. She didn’t want to hurt him, not like she’d wanted to hurt Ren, but she would if it meant Finn would wake up and wear his jacket again.

“You must be Rey,” he said with a disarming smile. “I’m Poe.” He offered his hand, but didn’t seem bothered when Rey didn’t take it.“Thanks for looking after BB-8.”

So, I part of the reason it took me so long to write this story was that I wasn’t really comfortable writing Poe after seeing the film. There didn’t really seem to be enough to get a good read on him. I went out and bought the Before the Awakening book and then read all the Poe comics. Not only did it help a lot, it was really entertaining.

It took a moment for his words to register. “Poe? Poe Dameron?” BB-8â’s kind-brave-master Poe? The-best pilot-in-the-Resistance Poe? The original owner of Finn’s jacket? That Poe? “Finn said you were dead.”

You know both BB-8 and Finn just gushed about this guy to her. He’s practically   a Han Solo-level legend for her thanks to them. 

Poe just shrugged. “The way we landed I thought he was dead. Good thing we were both wrong.” He glanced back at the closed med bay door with a furrowed brow. Then he sighed and the tension melted from his face. “We can’t do any good here. Let’s say we grab a bite. My treat,” he added with another one of those easy smiles.

Rey’s stomach rumbled at the mere mention of food, but she hesitated, looking back toward the med bay.  It felt like years since those few mouthfuls she’d snatched at Maz’s, but what if? What if Finn woke up and she wasn’t there? What if the medical equipment broke and she wasn’t there to fix it? What if he died?

My Rey has a lot in common with Anakin. They both have lost so much and have so little left that they tend to cling. Also, she’s spent so long being responsible for pretty much everything that the idea of letting someone else handle it has to be kind of terrifying.

“Rey?”

She turned back toward Poe’s patient, smiling face and sighed. He was right. There was nothing they could do here. Standing blocking the hallway wouldn’t make Finn wake up any faster than wearing her hair the same way for ten years had made her parents come back. Poe hadn’t said anything about claiming Finn’s jacket, so Rey shrugged it on and let him lead the way.

***

Poe was ridiculously friendly, and not just with Rey. They’d barely sat down with their food trays when what seemed like half the planet stopped by.  They crowed about their victory. They wept over missing friends. They even asked about Finn. More people came in five minutes than passed through Niima in five months and somehow Poe knew all their names. Some of them stared at her curiously, but Rey just kept her head down and made the most of the free food.

Poe seems like the kind of guy who is effortlessly popular, mostly because he takes the time to learn everyone’s name and actually listens when they speak. 

It was easily the best thing she had ever eaten. Like the prepared meals she’d found on her Ghtroc 690, it was meat and vegetables in a sweet and sour sauce, but this was served over some sort of cooked grain. It was all so fresh the vegetables crunched. Rey devoured it like a starving gnaw-jaw. She was already eating her last forkful by the time Poe had finished socializing long enough to take his first bite.

This bit about the Ghtroc 690 and the food came from the Before the Awakening book. The bit about her just shoving everything into her mouth came from her behavior in the film and the common traits of kids who grew up with persistent food insecurity. I did quite a bit of research on that even though it only showed up for, like, 10 seconds.

His eyes widened as she lifted the plate to lap up the last of the wonderful sauce. “Wow. I guess you really like sweet and sour shaak.”

Rey has never heard of table manners. Seriously, what are those even?

“Ah uh,” Rey grunted. It was amazing and the only complaint against it she could make was that it was  too moist and squishy to be stuffed in a pocket for later. If only she had a rigid container. Who knew when she’d be able to have something like this again?

Hoarding is another thing kids who grow up with food insecurity tend to do.

Poe shook his head with a rueful laugh. “Well, the kitchen will be glad to know at least one personâ’ll be happy eating it every other week.” He wrinkled his nose and dug in like a man rushing through an unpleasant chore.

What sort of worlds had Poe lived on that he could turn his nose up at fresh vegetables and real, actual meat? His attitude probably wouldn’t have hurt so much if Rey hadn’t known such worlds existed. She had though. She’d flown simulations of them and lived off their scraps. She had yearned for them, but never reached. It hurt to know she could have eaten like this ages ago if she’d had the courage to fly away with Devi and Strunk.

Devi and Strunk are another book reference. I really liked the idea that she’d a) had friends who betrayed and abandoned her and b) had opportunities to leave that she refused to take because of her family. It makes Finn coming back all the more poignant.

“You planning on sticking around?” Poe asked.

Rey shrugged. She was stuck here at least until Finn healed, but beyond that? She thought longingly of her island. Too bad it was only a dream.

This story is about Rey learning to let go of her fears in order to move on with her life. She needed a reason to want to leave and, honestly, looking for Luke Skywalker wasn’t good enough. She has zero connection to him. She had expressed zero interest in learning how to Jedi. The island, on the other hand, could itself be draw thanks to her dreams and the Force. 

“You’re from Jakku, right?” Poe pushed his plate away and lounged back in his chair. “I was stuck there for just one day.” He shook his head. “I can’t imagine you want to go back there.”

“I do or I did. Before Starkiller, I mean.”

Poe quirked an eyebrow and Rey flushed. He must think she was mad. Why else would anyone want to go back to sand and starvation once they’d gotten away? “My family. They left me there when I was a little girl. I thought…I thought if I just waited long enough, they’d come back.”

Poe’s easy smile slipped from his lips. “They never came back, did they?” he asked quietly.

“No, I—” Tears gathered in Rey’s eyes. She snuffled and dashed them away. “I knew, deep down, that they wouldn’t but…” She shrugged. “It was easier to stay and pretend. I didn’t have to live, just wait.”

“So what now?”

Rey stroked the sleeves of Finn’s jacket. She had never felt so loved as she had wrapped in Finn’s embrace. “I’m going to fix Finn’s jacket. I’m going to stay until he’s better.” She had been waiting her whole life for someone to come back for her. She wasn’t about to leave him.

“And then what?”

“I—” And then what? Had Rey ever thought about that before? She used to tell herself stories where her family came back, but they always ended there. Finn would wake up and then they would do….something.

The island, the island, the Force seemed to whisper. Go soon, go now.

“I don’t know,” Rey lied and pushed the Force away.

****

BB-8’s map slotted into place, completing the galaxy. It filled the gloomy command center with the light of more stars than Rey had ever dreamed. They sang like a calling.

I feel really proud of the phrasing here and also in the first line of the next paragraph. It’s almost like poetry, if I do say so myself. 

Poe wandered through the constellations, tracing the glowing path that led to Skywalker. He tapped the planet at the end of the line with a slow smile. “General” —he turned to face her— “I can have the Black Squadron there in an hour.”

General Organa raised an eyebrow and favored him with a sardonic smile. “And bring Luke home on your lap?” She shook her head. “How about something a little roomier than an X-wing?”

“I can pick Luke up with the Falcon,” Chewie offered.

Canon never bothers to translate Chewie, but damn it, I was going to. Rey speaks Wookie. There was no reason for her not to understand exactly what he was saying. 

Poe nodded crisply. “And I’ll go with him.”

Rey’s stomach sank. Chewie and Poe were the only conscious people she knew on this base. They couldn’t just abandon her.

The general pursed her lips, considering, then shook her head. “It won’t work. Finding Luke was the easy part. We need something, someone to lure him back here.”

The weight of her gaze fell on Rey and suddenly it was hard to breathe. The stars’ song swelled to a crescendo as the scent of the sea filled the air. The Force was like a push at her back. Go, go, it whispered. Rey shook her head to clear it.

The Force is aggressive and has issues with boundaries and consent. Rey’s lucky it didn’t knock her up.

“Rey” —the general took her hands— “you are strong in the Force. You have his lightsaber. It has to be you.” Her eyes were like quicksand, sucking Rey in until her words seemed reasonable. She could find Skywalker where everyone else had failed. She would just have to leave Finn to do it.

Look, I enjoyed the film, but there was no logical reason to send Rey as articulated by the movie. Finding him has been Poe’s mission, pretty much since he joined the Resistance according to the comics. Leia is his twin and Chewie is one of his oldest surviving friends. Any of them would have made more sense as someone to send to pick Luke up. Heck, R2 and C-3PO would have made more sense than some random girl who’s lineage and connection to the Skywalkers was never explicitly established. It took me a long time to come with a reason to send Rey and it’s still a pretty shitty one. 

“No!” Rey wrenched her hands from the general’s grasp. “Finn’s hurt. He needs me.” She backed away. “I haven’t even started fixing his jacket.” Hands reached for her, the stars reached for her, but Rey shook them off and ran.

*****

She wasn’t hiding, Rey told herself. She was working. It just so happened that the med bay was a quiet, perfect place to do both. Rey sat hunched in a chair by Finn’s bed, struggling to repair his jacket. The leather that had felt so supple and soft pressed against her face as they hugged was proving surprisingly tough. It took real effort to force the needle through. It would probably be easier if she had an awl or something to pre-punch her holes. As it was, her fingers ached.

“The general wanted to send me,” Rey recounted as she worked. Talking to an unconscious man felt a bit like yelling at the desert, but the doctor said it would help. All the more reason for Rey to stay. Who else was going to come and talk to Finn? “Skywalker’s her brother,” she grumbled, stabbing with the needle and yanking it through the resulting hole. “She should be the one to go and—”

My thoughts exactly, Rey. I mean, I guess she has to general and shit, but, it still makes more sense then sending a complete stranger. Whatever. Work with what canon gives you. 

The whoosh of the med bay door cut her off mid rant. Rey looked up from her work to glare at whoever had found her. Poe. The general must have sent him to talk her into the mission. Well, it wouldn’t work. Rey braced her shoulders and raised her chin. The only way she was leaving was if Poe dragged her out of her chair.

Rey’s stomach clenched as Poe strolled across the room. Her tension only mounted as he claimed the chair on the far side of Finn’s bed and proceeded to ignore her. “Hey buddy,” he said quietly, taking Finn’s hand, “you having a good nap?”

I love the way Poe calls BB-8 buddy, so naturally I had to use it here. 

Finn, of course, remained silent except for the faint sound of his breath and the steady beep of the heart monitor. His doctor was keeping him in a medically induced coma to keep him from moving until his back was healed. He’d only be allowed to wake once the bacta-jell bed had worked its magic. Rey tried to tell herself that watching him sleep was better than watching him suffer, but the unnatural stillness of his normally expressive face was all wrong.

Finn being unconscious when she left didn’t make much sense unless it was a medically induced coma. I mean, he could have passed out from the pain back on Starkiller, but there’s no medical reason he should have still been unconscious when she left based on his injuries. If anything, she should have been in a coma after being thrown into that tree and knocked out for several minutes. That’s some serious brain damage right there.

The three of them sat their in increasingly uncomfortable silence as Poe stared at the monitors and squeezed Finn’s hand. Any moment now he would start in on her. Her muscles quivered with anticipation. Any minute. “Well?” Rey finally demanded, unable to take it any more.

“That’d be easier if you used a punch,” Poe said mildly, nodding at Rey’s sewing project.

Like her cramped and aching fingers hadn’t already told her that. Rey ground her teeth in frustration. “Why are you here?”

Poe crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Finn’s my friend too, you know,” he said. “In fact, he was my friend first,” he added with a smirk.

He was.

Rey colored and looked away. Finder’s rights on a person was a pretty dubious claim, but she got what Poe was saying. He had just as much right to Finn’s bedside as she did. She cleared her throat awkwardly, searching for something to say to reset the conversation. “Finn said he helped you escape?”

Poe smiled fondly. “I’ll never forget the first time I saw his face.” The smile slipped from his lips and, for a heartbeat, he looked almost haunted. “I’d been captured, tortured, had my memories just” —he ground his fist against his temple— “ripped out of my head. I’d blown my mission, given Ren everything, and I thought they were going to kill me. Then this guy showed up.” Poe’s grin reappeared like the sun bursting out from behind a cloud. “‘This is a rescue,’ he said. I have never been so glad to see anyone in my life.”

For real, what happened to Poe was awful and traumatizing and I don’t think he magically got over it just because he escaped. I hope TLJ touches on that, but it probably won’t. 

That certainly sounded like Finn. Rey smiled faintly, remembering. She had more or less rescued herself back on Starkiller, but the sight of Finn, the feel of his arms around her? That was the moment she knew she’d be alright. “Then you understand why I can’t leave him.”

Both of these people are just so into Finn, but really, neither of them know hardly any thing about him. They’ve both built him up in their heads based on some fairly intense encounters. He’s Poe’s hero. He’s the family that was promised Rey. Once he’s awake, he’ll have a lot to live up to.

“Do I?” Poe leaned forward, the intensity of his gaze pinning Rey to her seat. “During the months we looked for Skywalker, my team and I went up against a monster, got trapped in a high-security prison filled with dangerous prisoners, and almost died more times than I can count.” From anyone else it would be a litany of horror, but Poe made it sound like the time of his life. “I wouldn’t trade a second of it, but you’re what? Giving it up to sit here and sew?”

Poe’s an adrenaline junkie of the finest order who grew up on stories of the heroes of the revolution. The idea that anyone would not want to be part of that is just so foreign to him. Also, I had a line here originally where he mocks her sewing abilities but I cut it. Being unnecessarily dick-ish isn’t Poe’s style.

A surge of hot anger took Rey’s breath away. Her fists clenched tight around the jacket. “You know it’s not like that.” The mission might succeed. The island might be real. Finn and his love for her were the only sure thing in her life. She wasn’t going to give that up just for the possibility of an adventure.

“You could be a Jedi, Rey, but instead you’re just” —he threw up his hands— “doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Waiting.” He reached out and squeezed her hand. “Please, don’t make Finn your next excuse not to live your life.”

And here we come to the crux of the story. I needed a good wham line to get her to let go of her insecurities and actually leave. 

****

Rey sat and watched the gentle rise and fall of Finn’s chest. She hadn’t even left yet and she missed him with an intensity that made her own chest ache. “We’ll see each other again.” It was a promise to herself as much as to him. “I believe that.” She laid a kiss on his forehead. “Thank you, my friend.”

And now we’ve caught up to canon. 

They would see each other again. With each step she took away from his bed, she reminded herself of that. They would find their way back to each other. They had done it before; they would do it again. Finn would wake up. Rey would come home. For now though, Rey was done waiting.

The end.

28.05.2000

May 28

Dear Ellie, From this day on I pretty much stuck to this line, even currently, almost 18 years on:) But I won't include it in this transcript because there is no much point to it.  

Today we went to a shopping centre far away. I wanted quite a lot of things but dad only got me some glow-in-the-dark stars and snowflakes. We played bowling whole 4 times. And then dad let me take a photo in this photo booth where your photo turns into a pencil drawing. I really liked it.  Although I was really embarrassed when I realised there was a screen outside the booth on which dad could see how I was trying to make a good face of myself as a photo was being taken...

That Anne Frank movie was so good! I think the thing that impressed me most about it was that Anne was my age when this all happened and also according to the way she was portrayed in the movie, she was a very happy and life-loving girl. Ah such a pity that she died! I was just reading the footnotes... It said that Anne had met a friend of hers (from before the war) in the concentration camp. They cried and cried. I think it was the one that Anne referred to as the best friend in the diary. I can almost cry myself! I really want to read more stories like this, or watch movies. Why does no one keep diaries? And I so wish I had someone to talk to about this! Yuki is not interested. Dad probably isn't either. Of course I have you, Ellie, but you are probably sick of it by now. I hope you can understand me. But still, I cannot wait for an opportunity to talk or write about this, perhaps at my English class. One problem though, I don't really like the fact that Anne is so famous. I like liking things that most people don't even know about. I guess a lot of people think this way. I should stop thinking about the movie and go to sleep.

May 30

I could not sleep last night thinking about Anne. I figured out how to describe this one feeling I was confused about. I feel like I have been trapped with all of my feelings in a cage and I am not let out. I am planning to turn this into a drawing for my art class! Obviously there are good feelings that I don't need to escape from. But there are negative ones too, like when I remember above all that Ann died. Just before the war ended too! If not, she would have been 70 years old now and she would have published a lot of great books. So want to share with someone. That's why I keep writing to you so much about this.

I have been watching a show about E.R. So scary! How do the doctors manage? They have so many cases just in one day! It is disgusting to just look at some cases but they have to think within seconds.It's fascinating how people get saved!

May 31

We have fresh teachers at school. That is, students who want to be teaches come for placements. The science teacher is really bad at explaining and she is not well liked because of that. But I feel a little sorry for her. Because I imagine how she must be feeling. So I raise my hand a lot! To help her out!

Jun 1

Today I am going to have a discussion following Anne's example. I keep getting people ask me "are you sad without mum?" I usually smile and try to get away from the answer because I never really think about it. I don't think it's because I don't love her. I mean I love her of course, but somehow I don't think about it. Perhaps I have some sort of longing, but I don't focus on it. Maybe that is because I don't have time. When mum is here all we ever do is fight. And she constantly complains about her eye hurting. By the way, I noticed that it is quite manageable without cleaning and making my bed. However, recently I did think about mum and Pete. They will be coming back at the end of June.

I thought these days that it's a pity that my life is not interesting and my journal is boring consequently. But then it occurred to me, what sort of life would be considered interesting? And I didn't have an answer. Really, what do I mean by that? I thought that Anne's life was interesting. But then she did not actually have anything special happen! Of course it was tragic and interesting but it's not like she was describing something clearly fascinating. Maybe apart from that romance with Peter. It does not mean that I want to fall in love myself! Perhaps she did not think herself that her life was anything special. I guess it just turns out that everyone wants something. Let me try to describe what sort of life I would like.

To start with I think I want to live in... No idea. America can be alright. Definitely not Japan. But I don't want it to be scary. America sounds scary to live in. We have a big house and everyone has their own room. Mine is very cozy. Like you'd see in TV. The walls are covered in pictures and posters. Ideally I'd have the bed with curtains around it. I have a cute little dog. Pete is still a vandal but he washes his hands after toilet. He is just naughty and snatches things. A weird wish hey? It's because otherwise I wouldn't have a reason to lock up my diary. But I do need to have a door with a lock. Mum and dad can keep their personalities but mum needs to be more cheerful and fairer. It is a pity that I have never been to a live concert. Wonder if I can count the one that I went to when I was 5? And this may be something trivial but I want to have magazines in the house. I just wanted to find a book with pictures for my drawing this morning and could not find any. I wanted to find someone to draw that looks like the actress that played Anne. ... Ah I'm bored with this!

Nothing fun at school. I do wish I could have had it the way I described before. But then no matter what your life is like, you get used to it and want something exciting. I should remember this when I think again that my diary is boring. Everyone has their own life. That's what makes it fun. Wonder if this is really so! I do want something unusual! Awwww am I a sweetheart or what? The irony is, everyone that I ever mentioned to growing up in Japan to considered it the coolest thing ever.

Yuki has been wearing a bra all the time lately. Wonder what she thinks about it? How can she be not disgusted? Want to talk to her about it at some point. As I was walking back from school, I had a feeling that she betrayed me somehow. Perhaps it is not really fair, but I did not feel like talking to her.

Dad went to the bathhouse again. I felt sad and lonely. I turned the music on, switched the lights off, wore a pretty dress and jumped around the room. It must have been stupid but I felt better and it was very fun. See you!

Its 6:26 pm warm/muggy/writing

  Welcome to 8 Questions with……

I met our next guest,Allyn Morrison,about six weeks ago when I asked her if she would like to do a interview with me. She very graciously said “I would like that” and of course I sent her my questions. Now normally I have a 21 day turnaround period so I can these interviews coming but as we were entering May,I just lost track of what I was doing,meaning I was (and am) struggling to keep writing. May is not a fun month for me. So I reached out to Allyn to see about her interview and she wrote back saying how sorry she was,she wrote her mother had a dance with something I know all too well. I admit,reading Allyn’s response choked me up,imagine having to tell a stranger whom you just barely met that you are facing a potential life altering event. I know sometimes that “fearless” is a somewhat overused word but it Allyn,whether traveling to Belize to help children learn,deciding not to play it safe career wise and chase her dreams or even writing films reviews like the cheetah and I do (trust me,you need DO need to be brave to do that),I don’t think there is a mountain that Allyn wouldn’t be afraid to climb. After seeing this,how can you not like this hard working actress whose love of family is so strong,am I right? While this pandemic has stopped everything in its tracks,it hasn’t stopped us from introducing some amazing artists like Allyn who just want to create and entertain us. I really hope you enjoy getting to know a all around outstanding actress (and an amazing daughter) Allyn Morrison as she answers her 8 Questions……

  Please introduce yourself and tell us what your current project is at the moment. 

Hi there! My name is Allyn Morrison, and I am an actress based out of the Dallas- Fort worth area of Texas. I’m not working on a specific project right now what with Covid-19 happening, so I’m doing lots of research and getting ready for the future!

How are you coping with the Covid-19 pandemic? What are you doing to stay sane? 

Quarantine has definitely been hard. I live by myself, so I’ve had to get creative in order to stay cheerful. I’ve been going on walks everyday, and the fresh air and sunshine definitely help keep me sane. I’m keeping in touch with my family and friends and zooming with people pretty frequently. I’ve also made myself a to-do list, and that has given me some structure. 

What was growing up in your house like? What was your favorite vacation as a child? 

I’m originally from Arizona, land of the heat, and that was an experience let me tell you. I’m the youngest of three kids and was actually pretty shy as a child. When I discovered theater during junior high, I felt really alive for the first time. My family has been really blessed in that we’ve been able to travel quite a bit. I hate having to pick a favorite trip, but if I had to choose I’d say it had to be the trip to Scotland and England my family went on when I was around 10. My family’s Scottish, so we wanted to go see where our ancestors were from haha. Scotland is absolutely beautiful, and England has so much history. I’d go back again in a heart beat if I could. 

  What led you to become an actress? What steps did you take in realizing your goals? 

  Like I said earlier, I was very shy growing up as a kid. However, I distinctly remember watching movies at a very young age and thinking, “I could do that. I could get up in front of a camera and say lines.” Ironic, I know. I was cast in my first musical in seventh grade (I was Mrs. Paroo in The Music Man Jr.), and my parents were actually pretty concerned. They told me, “You know you have to get up in front of people and sing right? On a stage?” And I said, “Yeah I know.” They told me later that when they came to opening night they were both dumbfounded while watching me perform. “What happened to our Allyn?” They had absolutely no idea haha. I continued doing theater throughout junior high and high school and wanted to pursue it in college, but my parents and I realized that I wouldn’t make much money pursuing acting. So I decided to become a teacher instead. However, as soon as I started tutoring during college I realizing that a) I didn’t like tutoring and b) I wasn’t very good at it. Go figure. And I realized that I really loved acting. I graduated from college with an English degree and took a year off to do a leadership/discipleship program before I started working as an extra part time for two years. I’ve been pursuing acting full time now for a year and a half. 

Walk us through your first audition…..how did you handle that entire experience and what did you learn from it? 

   My first real audition for a speaking part went really well (or at least I thought it did). I made the people in the room laugh, and one casting director gave me a redirect. Now looking back, I realize that I made a few mistakes. First of all, I shook everyone’s hand both before and after my audition! I didn’t know that you’re not supposed to do that. Oops. Also, I wrote down on a form that I wasn’t very available during the shoot dates. I now realize that that was incredibly stupid. No one wants to hire someone who isn’t available! Needless to say, I didn’t get the part. 

How do you approach the roles you play? Do you do anything special or different before you hit the set? 

Each role is different. In college I took classes that centered on the Stanislavski method, which includes sense memory and dealing with the given circumstances of a role. That basically means that I try to take experiences from my past and incorporate those experiences into my current role. I won’t have experience to draw from for every role (example: I’ve never murdered anybody), so I have to envision how and why my character is the way she is. 

Recently you have started to move behind the camera, what led you to do this? Would you like to get into directing someday? 

   I actually started working as a production assistant so that I just could be on set. During my first year of pursuing acting full time I also did a program called Friends in Film. This program gives you the tools to get on set as a crew member and then work your way up into the niche that you ultimately want to get to. Learning how a crew works and how everyone’s job works together has given me a fuller understanding of what a set looks like. It’s not just about actors and people behind the camera. We each have a part to play (no pun intended), whether we’re crew or cast, and together we make something much bigger than ourselves. Plus working in production is a wonderful networking opportunity. I get to tell people that I am an actor, and hopefully they’ll remember me for future jobs. I’ve already gotten a few jobs from working as a PA! I used to want to be a director but I’ve since learned that I don’t have those particular skill sets. Big picture thinking isn’t my strong suit. However, I think I could be a pretty decent producer. Detail work and spreadsheets are my jam. 

What is the acting community like in Ft. Worth? How do you learn about upcoming films being shot around you? 

  The acting community in Fort Worth is definitely small, but we are a very tight knit community. I attend class at a wonderful actor’s studio every week (shout out to Fort Worth Actor’s Studio!), and classes are led by working actors. Our community is very supportive, which is amazing and invaluable as we try to make it in this business.       I have an agent in Dallas who submits me to projects in and around Texas, but I do a lot of research on my own. I participate in a lot of acting Facebook groups, and I keep up with new projects that way. If there’s a project that I definitely want to be considered for, I let my agent know. 

Who has given you the best advice/encouragement and what did they share with you? 

My acting teacher Nathan has told me and everyone in our class multiple times that the right project will come along. If I didn’t book after a particular audition, that means it wasn’t the right project. In an industry where there can be a lot of downtime between projects, it’s encouraging to be reminded that the right projects are out there; they’re just not here yet. 

What three roles do you enjoy playing the most and what three roles challenge you the most? 

I enjoy any type of role that makes people laugh. Whether that means being the side character whose sole purpose is comic relief or having a larger part, comedic parts are my favorite. I’ve been told that I’m particularly good at portraying people in high authority, such as a lawyer, cop, or doctor. I’m a very laid back person, so portraying someone who is more authoritative and bossy can be a bit of a challenge, but it’s a good one for sure! 

What do you like to do in between projects? 

   I love to read. Like, I LOVE to read books. I’ve been keeping book lists since high school, so I’m definitely a nerd. Historical fiction is my favorite genre, but I try to throw in Christian theology, nonfiction, and acting books. I also love to watch movies. Every week I try to watch at least one movie that I haven’t seen and write a review on it. They can be award winning movies, cult classics, or popular films I haven’t seen yet. I call it #movieresearchnight and you can find my reviews on Instagram! 

How important is it to promote yourself as an artist and how do you promote yourself? 

    As an actor, you are self-employed. The only way that you can grow any business is by promoting it. And when you’re an actor, you are your own business, so self promotion is extremely important. For me that includes being active on my acting social media pages, networking with other actors and casting directors, and working as a production assistant. 

The cheetah and I are flying over to watch your latest film but we are a day early and now you are playing tour guide, what are we doing?

If we’re in Fort Worth, we’re going to Heim BBQ and Melt Ice Cream for some quality Texas food, next on a tour of Sundance Square in downtown Fort Worth, and then an exploration of the Stockyards. If you’re lucky, I’ll take you to my favorite spot: the local library! Just kidding. Kind of.

I like to like Allyn for taking the time to chat with us in what was a stressful time.  Right before I posted this,her mother got a happy ending and thank heaven for that. I hope you enjoyed meeting Allyn and thank you for supporting her interview. 

Like everyone,Allyn has various social media outlets so you can follow her next steps in her career.

You can follow Allyn on her InstaGram page You can what Allyn’s next project will be on her IMDb page. You can also visit Allyn’s personal website here.

If you are new to the blog and the “8 Questions with” interview series,you can catch up by clicking here and read over 100 interviews with folks from all over the world.

8 Questions with……….actress Allyn Morrison Its 6:26 pm warm/muggy/writing Welcome to 8 Questions with...... I met our next guest,Allyn Morrison,about six weeks ago when I asked her if she would like to do a interview with me.

Should Filing Bankruptcy Be The Last Resort?

Although we’ve mentioned it time and again on the forum, it bears repeating: filing for bankruptcy is not a decision to be entered into lightly. In fact, it is important to get good information and carefully weigh your options.

Is Bankruptcy Always a Last Resort?

Having said that, delaying too long can cause unnecessary financial strain and serve to compound existing problems. Is bankruptcy always the last option? Some of the common things consumers do before they consider bankruptcy include: • Cash out their retirement funds to pay debt • Pay a debt settlement company to settle their debts • Settle their debt by dealing directly with the creditor or its attorney In some cases, these bankruptcy alternatives can be just what the doctor ordered, however in others they can put you in deeper trouble without meaningful debt relief.

Depleting Your Retirement To Pay Debt

Selling assets to avoid bankruptcy is often a bad idea and a retirement account is no exception. As Bankruptcy Lawyers in Utah like to point out to everyone who meets with us about bankruptcy…

The fact is that the lingering recession is causing a lot of people to file for bankruptcy who never thought they would. While the recession is is undoubtedly a sad turn of events, I am also seeing an even more disturbing trend. Namely, a lot of them are selling all of their property in an effort to stay current with their bills and avoid filing for bankruptcy. By the time they come to me, they have already gone through everything they own. While these efforts are always well-intentioned, they are catastrophic for their finances. In a lot of cases, people are selling assets that they would otherwise be able to keep if they would have thought about filing for bankruptcy a little sooner.

Perhaps nowhere is this point better illustrated than in the context of a retirement account. ERISA qualified 401(k) accounts and many IRAs are completely exempt in bankruptcy. This means you can file bankruptcy, shed your debts and keep your retirement. As Jacob describes, it is always difficult to see someone liquidate their retirement only to be forced into bankruptcy a few months later. For more information, see: Retirement Savings and Bankruptcy.

Debt Settlement vs. Bankruptcy

Debt settlement companies promise the world but rarely deliver. They often charge fees that far exceed the cost of bankruptcy and actually require their clients to go deep in default in order to settle their debts. Here is how the process works: you, the debtor, stop paying on your credit card accounts and other bills and instead save some of the money. When you’re deep enough in default, the creditor has written off the debt and may agree to accept a reduced payment in satisfaction of the balance. You fork over the money you’ve saved plus a hefty fee and you’re out of debt. That’s how it works sometimes, but definitely not all the time. While you’re waiting on the debt settlement company, you’re creditors are definitely not waiting on you. They’re reporting delinquencies on your credit. calling and sometimes actually suing to collect. By the time you’ve reached your debt settlement goals, your wages may already be in the process of being garnished or a judgment might have been entered against you. Sure, filing for bankruptcy can help with most of these problems, but why wait?

Negotiating With Creditors instead of Bankruptcy

While the debt settlement waiting game is expensive and often ineffective, sometimes negotiating directly with creditors can be a nice alternative to filing for bankruptcy if you already have the cash to make a deal. If you stand to have more assets liquidated in bankruptcy than you’d save in debt, dealing with the creditor through an attorney can often result in signifcant savings and a permanent solution to the problem. In these cases, bankruptcy may very well be your best option. For example, let’s say you owe $50,000 on a delinquent business loan but have $150,000 in cash and stocks. Filing for bankruptcy would result in the trustee liquidating your stock portfolio to pay your creditors, in fact, they’d likely get paid in full. In these instances, it makes much more sense to negotiate a reduced payment directly with the creditor.

Fresh Start For You

Although the costs are not insignificant, the purpose of bankruptcy is to provide those struggling with debt a fresh start. Sometimes, the bankruptcy card is only to be played as a last resort, however, in some cases it offers the most thorough relief on the best timeline. Each situation is different, if you’re contemplating bankruptcy, be sure to meet with an experienced attorney.

Free Consultation with a Bankruptcy Lawyer

If you have a bankruptcy question, or need to file a bankruptcy case, call Ascent Law now at (801) 676-5506. Attorneys in our office have filed over a thousand cases. We can help you now. Come in or call in for your free initial consultation.

Ascent Law LLC8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite CWest Jordan, Utah 84088 United StatesTelephone: (801) 676-5506

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Source: http://www.ascentlawfirm.com/should-filing-bankruptcy-be-the-last-resort/