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UkiyoAtHome
2020.08.19 03:00 ukiyoau UkiyoAtHome
Ukiyo At Home is our way of bringing our cinematic stories and escape room experiences directly to you. It’ll be like living in a movie, a TV series, a Murder Crime podcast or an Episode of Black Mirror—An Alternate Reality Game all in the comfort of your own home.
2023.03.21 17:29 myawallace20 i can’t stand my own dad
CW: GROSS
I feel so horrible saying this. But I don’t know what to do, I can’t live like this anymore. My dad is 52 and is the laziest, most unhygienic person i’ve ever met. I don’t know how my mum deals with him, I didn’t realise how bad it was growing up, but now it’s gotten unavoidable and I don’t know how to live with this. I’m 22 and haven’t been diagnosed for long, so I don’t think moving out is possible for me at the moment, i’m still coming to terms with my disability.
Here are some things that I need to put up with on a daily basis: We have an elderly dog that can’t always hold the toilet in, we have puppy pads down for her, in my mum and dads bedroom, if she uses the puppy pad, my dad will leave it all day in their closed bedroom until my mum comes back home, expecting her to clean it. he will close the bedroom door so sometimes i don’t notice it, unless i’m going in for something which isn’t often.
he smells so bad, you can tell when he’s been in a room after he’s left because he leaves behind a smell, ive heard my mum bring up his hygiene before, in a sensitive manner, but he will get embarrassed and defensive and shut the conversation down before it can be had. he soils the toilet and floor without cleaning it, i constantly bring this up, will ask him to go and clean after himself before i use the bathroom, but nothing ever changes.
it really upsets me he’s like this because i know my mum has been fighting this battle for years and has just stopped trying. when i was a teenager she told me of a time he said they could maybe foster kids, and she said no because she would end up doing all of it herself, rather than see how she feels and try to change, he just guilt tripped her and made her feel bad. i’ve also caught him lying about things if he thinks he will get out of it in order to continue this lifestyle, which is disrespectful, misogynistic towards me and my mum as he expects us to clean up after him, and just generally a fucking biohazard. i don’t know if this is the place to talk about this, but i can’t think of a subreddit to vent about your family members who are comfortable living amongst squalor.
submitted by myawallace20 to BPD [link] [comments]
I feel so horrible saying this. But I don’t know what to do, I can’t live like this anymore. My dad is 52 and is the laziest, most unhygienic person i’ve ever met. I don’t know how my mum deals with him, I didn’t realise how bad it was growing up, but now it’s gotten unavoidable and I don’t know how to live with this. I’m 22 and haven’t been diagnosed for long, so I don’t think moving out is possible for me at the moment, i’m still coming to terms with my disability.
Here are some things that I need to put up with on a daily basis: We have an elderly dog that can’t always hold the toilet in, we have puppy pads down for her, in my mum and dads bedroom, if she uses the puppy pad, my dad will leave it all day in their closed bedroom until my mum comes back home, expecting her to clean it. he will close the bedroom door so sometimes i don’t notice it, unless i’m going in for something which isn’t often.
he smells so bad, you can tell when he’s been in a room after he’s left because he leaves behind a smell, ive heard my mum bring up his hygiene before, in a sensitive manner, but he will get embarrassed and defensive and shut the conversation down before it can be had. he soils the toilet and floor without cleaning it, i constantly bring this up, will ask him to go and clean after himself before i use the bathroom, but nothing ever changes.
it really upsets me he’s like this because i know my mum has been fighting this battle for years and has just stopped trying. when i was a teenager she told me of a time he said they could maybe foster kids, and she said no because she would end up doing all of it herself, rather than see how she feels and try to change, he just guilt tripped her and made her feel bad. i’ve also caught him lying about things if he thinks he will get out of it in order to continue this lifestyle, which is disrespectful, misogynistic towards me and my mum as he expects us to clean up after him, and just generally a fucking biohazard. i don’t know if this is the place to talk about this, but i can’t think of a subreddit to vent about your family members who are comfortable living amongst squalor.
2023.03.21 17:20 keithplacer S16 The Action House: The Ravages of Age
 | submitted by keithplacer to Thisoldhouse [link] [comments] 100 Martin St. before any work began The major project of season 16 was The Acton House, a 1710 former farmhouse that was the oldest house in Acton, once part of a large farm most of which had been sold off over the years, and which now sat on 5 acres of quite attractive property at 100 Martin Street. The homeowners were Terry Maitland, trained as a journalist and historian, now a broker of high-dollar luxury homes, and Sima Maitland, a schoolteacher. Their house was largely original and while it looked large from the outside, the interior spaces were cramped and dated, with low ceilings and inadequate space for them and their three children, thanks in part due to the intrusion of the massive central chimney stack. A new addition off the east side was deemed the answer, and the Maitlands were prepared to contribute $150,000 to the project. A preliminary examination of the house by Norm and Tom revealed some dubious structure but they vowed not to try to fix every problem and only deal with what was necessary to accommodate the new addition. Ah, dreams… Homeowners Terry and Sima Maitland in a very '90s-looking shot The first order of business was getting a set of plans, so Chris Dallmus of Jock Gifford's Design Associates firm was called in and after numerous iterations, came up with plans for a 2-storey addition off the east side of the old place with a master suite, new kitchen, mud room, and family room. The old milk shed that currently occupied the site needed to be relocated, and proved to be an entertaining use of the Silva's creativity in sliding it out of the way using skids and a dump truck. Herb Brockert of Construction Services Co. arrived with his big excavator to dig the large hole the new addition required as Norm and Tom began to realize the existing house was so crooked that it was going to be a challenge to mate with the new structure. Meanwhile another big hole was dug for the new septic system that was also deemed necessary for the project. The Silas slide the milk shed to its temporary location Tom and Norm assessed the scope of the demolition needed in the old house. The amount of slope in some of the floors was extreme, and the carpenters were against trying to fix very much of it at risk of blowing the budget. But as excavation continued, the issues involved with the old stone foundation and terribly compromised structure made those vows weaken. Many of the original beams and sills were rotted, and alterations over the years resulted in what Norm called a “terrifying” situation with the entire building slowly sliding towards the backyard. Tom devised a support structure to allow the house to be jacked up enough to replace the rotted sills that they originally weren’t going to repair. With the house so supported, the old stone foundation adjacent to the new addition was pretty much demolished in short order by hand with just a bit of help from the heavy equipment. Mel Zimmerman of Superior Walls supplied his precast concrete foundation sections for the new crawl space and the team was amazed at how quickly it all came together. Before they could celebrate too much, they had to deal with more of the old house’s structural issues. A trip to Concord showed what could be done if you had deep enough pockets with the mind-blowing reconstruction of the old Stratton Tavern originally in Northfield, MA and relocated piece by piece to the new Concord site. The owner was only identified as Anna, but Brian Cooper was the remarkable restoration contractor who took great pains to make the new look old. While the cost must have been astronomical, for me this was one of the more memorable places ever shown on TOH, and I would love to learn more about it, but information about it is remarkably elusive. The mysterious Anna and contractor Brian New addition off the back attached to an original reconstructed 18th century addition The reconstructed Stratton Tavern and new additions in Concord The original Stratton Tavern before relocation Framing of the new addition moved quickly even with a gigantic steel beam needing to go down the center of the first floor ceiling, and soon the new spaces began to take shape. A bit of a cloud appeared when one of the Maitland children showed an elevated level of lead in the blood, leading to an analysis of lead paint in the old house. Isolated sections inside were found to have elevated levels of lead although most did not, but all of the windows on the exterior were far above limits. Meanwhile more good intentions vanished as Tom decided to demolish the back corner of the old house, saying correctly that there was nothing to save. Quickly, new Andersen windows went in, the new stairs to the second floor were built, and rotted beams in the second floor ceiling were replaced with more new structure. In what must have been a slow period for the project, Norm took a lengthy visit to the Porter-Cable tool factory in Tennessee, which must have paid for a lot of biscuit joiners. Tom even made use of one of those in trimming windows. The heretofore largely mute Charlie Silva made one of his first on-screen speaking performances on this project, still sounding exactly like he does today. Tom demonstrated his famous swinging story pole trick to get the clapboard spacing correct, an early example of his ingenuity in construction. An tour of the new MBR space showed an area that didn’t seem overly generous and had the still-typical TOH phone booth shower stall, but it was certainly an upgrade over what the Maitlands had previously. Because of the lead paint issues, the homeowners decided to replace all 27 windows in the old parts of the house with new modern replacements, a decision that would have budget implications far beyond the windows themselves. Meanwhile the apparently accidental discovery of an old well led to that being recommissioned for irrigation purposes. Glenn Berger returned as kitchen designer, this time dealing with high-end Kennebec Company cabinetry for the new kitchen. Sima insisted on cherry. When replacement of the old windows began, all good budget intentions quickly went out the windows. The installation of them was expensive in itself, with the original clapboards needing to be laboriously trimmed to fit the new exterior trim. On the front of the house, Norm found the clapboards there to in such bad shape thanks to their southern exposure that the decision was made to scrap them all and replace with new. When that was done, more major structural problems were discovered, with rotted sills and posts galore, which explained the bulge in that wall that was noted in the first episode. The old sheathing under the clapboards was stripped off to reveal problems with rot and damage in the wall structure along with very questionable building methods, all of which required more jacking of the house to fix. Bee nests were found in the blown-in cellulose insulation which would also need to be replaced, something I found odd given that cellulose is usually treated to resist insects. Even with the repairs being done, the front wall would continue to lean back about 4”, something that they just could not fix, and they had to stop short of replacing all the sills due to cost. Tom noted that at this stage the budget had increased to $195,000 given all the changes and surprises. At least the TOH requisite central vacuum system was donated by Vacuflo, saving the homeowners $1000. Meanwhile the Maitlands wanted a new exterior paint scheme, so Steve visited Deerfield MA with architectural conservator Bill Flynt to look at various preserved examples of 18th-century homes, along with providing some history of the community in those times, an interesting segment. In the end, the Maitlands decided upon a pumpkin color that they saw on a house in a nearby town, with trim in a straw shade. Roger Cook and his crew arrived to install some drainage around the perimeter of the house, build a walkway to the mud room entrance, and re-do the lawn using a hydroseeding contractor. The homeowners also decided to replace the roof shingles on the original part of the house to match those used on the addition, which Tom said required lots of work to repair the rot in the roof sheathing first. Stephen Roy, a preservation stonemason, declared the existing fireplaces to be in mostly good shape aside from the one in the old kitchen needing some repair, but found that the exposed part of the chimney stack above the roof needed to be rebuilt as it had been subject to improper repairs some time earlier, a job he estimated at $5000. Lenny Belliveau built an elaborate staging to take down the old 5-flue chimney all to a level just below the roofline and then reconstruct it with new brick. Lenny Belliveau and his staging (below) https://preview.redd.it/2pzmvx8o64pa1.jpg?width=1415&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=60b2d5cc734c1bfe28587b045b6fa48c60397619 Electrician Paul Kennedy was back on the project, and he was not a big fan of the steel studs Tom used in some of the new portions of the house. The costs were adding up fast, but luckily the Maitlands got a break on the then-new style spray foam insulation from Insealators which was featured as a donation. Architect Chris Dallmus enlisted Norm and his workshop to build a new, though now mostly ceremonial, front entrance inspired by examples found in the area. Sima wanted old-style wood floors in her new kitchen, and Norm visited North Fields Restorations in New Hampshire, a recycler of old buildings and their materials, to see what they could supply and found the perfect old pine for the job. Once Lenny was finished rebuilding the chimney top, Rich, Steve, and Bobby from Trethewey Bros. installed a stainless flexible flue liner to solve condensation problems and provide for safe operation of the furnace. Sima selected slate bathroom floor tile sourced from the now-defunct Shep Brown Associates and Mark, Joe and Chuck of Ferrante Bros. did the installation. Joe was frustrated with the time involved in grouting the uneven slates, which looked like a pain. Jeff Hosking was back to install the antique (and magnificent-looking) antique pine floors in the new addition, at a staggering 1994 cost of about $20 per sq. ft. A boo-boo occurred when Terry, following a tip from Norm, visited a twin to his house that had its dining room ceiling exposed to the upstairs floor and beams by its owners, which not only added some much-needed headroom but also gave a look he envied. He decided to do the same at his house, but when they removed the ceiling, they found a bit of a mess with hacked-up joists and a disfigured summer beam, so it was back to the drawing board and another budget hit. The new entry door built by Norm and Tom encountered problems upon installation since the front wall of the house was leaning back so severely, leading them to build a subframe behind it that partly compensated for the angle. The Kennebec Company cherry cabinets were beautiful with a satin finish, and the Glenn Berger layout seemed ideal, although they used an unusual mix of stone and laminate for the counters. Steve visited the cabinet factory in Bath, ME for a tour in return for their donation. As finishes began to be revealed, the requisite TOH phone booth shower was seen in the MBR bathroom and we saw Rich install yet another toilet. Tom replaced the DR ceiling that was torn down and it looked good, but he did sound a note of caution about the costs of everything – each of the 27 original windows that were replaced cost about $800 once new trim and wall repairs were taken into account, and Terry revealed that when counting the $120,000 in donations, the total cost of the project was over $300,000, a sum that would be more than double that today. Hopefully he had a good tax accountant to minimize his tax liability on that donation amount. Thankfully the expensive brass Baldwin door hardware was part of those donations thanks to a factory visit feature. The last 2 of the total 18 episodes of the project felt a little strange, with the usual somewhat dragged-out pieces with interior designers and decorative painters, but also some somewhat jarring segments. After not seeing them for the entire project, both landscape designer Tom Wirth and lighting expert Melissa Guenet showed up in the final episode to play catch-up. Even more jarring was an exterior walkaround with Tommy and Norm that was all about what was left undone. Major (and according to the way they delivered the message, urgent) work was needed on the rest of the sills and bearing structures below the old house to keep it from continuing to sag and twist, and the old cow barn, which we had only seen from a distance previously, was deemed by Tom to be dangerously unsupported and so unsafe that it shouldn’t even be walked into, and needed to be taken down. All in all, a bit of a down note. A more upbeat walkthough of the finished spaces was more cheery, with the old kitchen now being a rather cozy sitting area, the old upstairs bath now brought up to date, the surprisingly small-looking MBR space being pleasant enough albeit over-decorated, and the new kitchen and family room being apparently what was asked for, though it was hard to tell given the crush of people occupying it during the wrap party. We did not see what happened to some of the other old spaces in the original house, likely because that had not been determined at that point. The finished project circa 1995 The Maitlands have continued to live in the house ever since, and hopefully those urgent needs have been taken care of. I liked them as homeowners, and I enjoyed the project for the most part, particularly for seeing the repair work that Tom and Norm undertook on the horrible structural problems. It’s the kind of thing we generally don’t see on the show these days, and the project helped illustrate the money pit that a very old house can become. |
2023.03.21 17:17 Unfair_History3520 AITA For not wanting to make breakfast
My family are early risers. I get up around 3 and everyone else by 5. I have severe food allergies so I make separate meals for us. I am gluten-free, dairy-free, 80% plant-based. They get up, eat and do their thing. I work from home and don't usually eat until 8 when I take meds. My son eats at 6 am. But both he and his dad will come out of their rooms to see what I'm making for breakfast. I have offered to make then a "regular " version of what I'm eating, but they want my food. My food is expensive and hard to find in the area we live. I have offered to only make the food I eat and replace the other food. They say they want to eat their food too. So I have started not eating until everyone leaves or not eating until dinner when I don't mind making a bunch of food. AITA for not being Burger King?
submitted by Unfair_History3520 to AmItheAsshole [link] [comments]
2023.03.21 17:17 TouyaK1999 Omori and Creed 3: "You can't run from your past"
"You can't run from your past"
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JSceWT7E4xDqSdWGj85cUB0W9sFenQ4A/view?usp=drivesdk
After looking at Creed 3's movie poster tagline and understanding the story, I found that the movie and Omori have a similar main theme: overcoming guilt. Despite being tied with a series known for epic boxing training montages, Creed 3 managed to convey the struggle of forgiving one's self and showed some parallels that really reminded me of Omori.
1. Partners in Crime
Seeing Adonis "Donnie" Creed and Damian Anderson's relationship reminded me of Sunny and Basil's friendship after Mari's death. The two stories started on the premise of how covering up the crime of one's best friend lead to a broken friendship. At the aftermath of both coverups, one of them gets to live their dreams (figuratively and literally) while the other is left alone to face the harsh reality after covering up the other's crime. Sunny became a shut-in for four years, living in a dream world where everything is okay and Mari never died. Meanwhile, Basil was left alone with overwhelming guilt over the coverup of their crime and faced bullying due to the constant anxiety he displayed from that secret.
In Creed 3, Donnie and Damian once lived together in a group home where they bonded and became best friends. However, they also lived together with an abusive caregiver named Leon. One day, Donnie and Damian met Leon and his friends in front of a liquor store. They got into an argument that escalated into a brawl after Donnie punched Leon. In a moment of panic, Damian pulled out a gun just as policemen arrived to stop their brawl. Everyone, including Donnie, managed to run away while Damian got caught and went to prison for 15 years. However, Donnie never checked on Damian during his time in prison and instead lived the dream that Damian was aiming for: becoming a legendary boxer.
When he was released from prison, Damian used his connection with Donnie to get him a boxing fight for the world heavyweight title. However, after Damian won the title, it turned out that he only wanted to spite Donnie for abandoning him by telling the world just how much of a fraud he is for letting him rot in prison. Damian felt betrayed by Donnie because he took a fall for Donnie's crime and yet he left him alone in prison for 15 years while Donnie got to enjoy his life as a legendary boxer.
Damian's anger towards Donnie's abandonment of him paralleled Basil's feeling of being betrayed by Sunny. After Basil covered up Mari's death as suicide, they promised each other to always be there for one another. However Sunny chose to indulge in escapism as Basil was left alone to deal with the aftermath of their coverup. When they finally met again after four years, Basil's slowly deteriorating mental health finally snapped after he learned that Sunny will leave him soon.
Fortunately, Donnie only got a blackeye from Damian's heavyweight punch while Sunny got his eye gouged out from Basil's garden shears.
2. Remembrance
There is even a sort of truth sequence in Creed 3 where Donnie opened up to his wife, Bianca, on how his friendship with Damian got strained. It turns out that during Damian's time in prison, Donnie lived with a new caregiver named Mary. Mary hide away the letters that Damian had been sending to Donnie for 15 years because she thought that Damian was a bad influence for him.
This was why Donnie never bothered to check on Damian because he thought Damian never bothered to contact him in the first place. It was also revealed that Donnie was ridden with immense guilt because he felt that Damian's arrest was his fault. He even tried blocking out the memory of Damian's arrest by not contacting him during those 15 years.
Donnie trying to block out his memory behind Damian's arrest because of guilt parallels what happened to Sunny after Mari's death. For four years, Sunny avoided any form of reminders that Mari is dead by holing up in his house. However, Sunny and Donnie got a wake up call to remember their respective truths. Sunny finally stepped out of his home and saw how Mari's death affected his friend group. Meanwhile, Donnie finally remembered the truth of Damian's arrest after seeing Damian, once his best friend, become bitter and despise him because his guilt prevented him from being there for Damian during his time in prison.
3. Self Forgiveness
Finally, Omori and Creed 3's peak moment is Sunny and Donnie overcoming their respective guilt. Just like Sunny's final battle with Omori, the penultimate moment of Creed 3 is Donnie's boxing fight against Damian. Moments leading up to their fight, Damian really channeled his inner Omori and tells the world just how much of an awful person Donnie is and how Apollo Creed (legendary boxer and Donnie's father) would have been ashamed of him. Omori did that too against Sunny when he berrated him and told him that Sunny's friends would only hate him once they know the reason behind Sunny's guilt.
Donnie's fight symbolyzes his complicated feelings he had over what happened to him and Damian: shame and guilt over abandoning his best friend and taking away what could have been Damian's career as a pro boxer because he got imprisoned. Donnie's fight mirrors Sunny's feeling towards how he took away his friends' happiness and the future that they could have with Mari. Finally Donnie persisted and overcame his fear and guilt over what happened to Damian to win the his fight, just like the Duet moment where Sunny finally forgave himself.
At the end of the movie, Donnie finally managed to properly face Damian who was once the source of his crippling guilt and come to terms with what happened to him in the past.
In Omori, Sunny managed to forgive himself and tried to reconnect with his friends by telling them the true reason behind Mari's death.
Both Omori and Creed 3's protagonists managed to forgive themselves over the guilt they suffered for years. My take on the parallels between this movie and Omori is that they managed to challenge the stereotype that fighters, especially boxers, are hardened men with no emotional baggage. Overall, you should definitely give Creed 3 a try if you are a fan of boxing and Omori.
Feel free to comment if you guys find other parallels between Omori and Creed 3 or know other movies that remind you of Omori.
submitted by TouyaK1999 to OMORI [link] [comments]
"You can't run from your past"
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JSceWT7E4xDqSdWGj85cUB0W9sFenQ4A/view?usp=drivesdk
After looking at Creed 3's movie poster tagline and understanding the story, I found that the movie and Omori have a similar main theme: overcoming guilt. Despite being tied with a series known for epic boxing training montages, Creed 3 managed to convey the struggle of forgiving one's self and showed some parallels that really reminded me of Omori.
1. Partners in Crime
Seeing Adonis "Donnie" Creed and Damian Anderson's relationship reminded me of Sunny and Basil's friendship after Mari's death. The two stories started on the premise of how covering up the crime of one's best friend lead to a broken friendship. At the aftermath of both coverups, one of them gets to live their dreams (figuratively and literally) while the other is left alone to face the harsh reality after covering up the other's crime. Sunny became a shut-in for four years, living in a dream world where everything is okay and Mari never died. Meanwhile, Basil was left alone with overwhelming guilt over the coverup of their crime and faced bullying due to the constant anxiety he displayed from that secret.
In Creed 3, Donnie and Damian once lived together in a group home where they bonded and became best friends. However, they also lived together with an abusive caregiver named Leon. One day, Donnie and Damian met Leon and his friends in front of a liquor store. They got into an argument that escalated into a brawl after Donnie punched Leon. In a moment of panic, Damian pulled out a gun just as policemen arrived to stop their brawl. Everyone, including Donnie, managed to run away while Damian got caught and went to prison for 15 years. However, Donnie never checked on Damian during his time in prison and instead lived the dream that Damian was aiming for: becoming a legendary boxer.
When he was released from prison, Damian used his connection with Donnie to get him a boxing fight for the world heavyweight title. However, after Damian won the title, it turned out that he only wanted to spite Donnie for abandoning him by telling the world just how much of a fraud he is for letting him rot in prison. Damian felt betrayed by Donnie because he took a fall for Donnie's crime and yet he left him alone in prison for 15 years while Donnie got to enjoy his life as a legendary boxer.
Damian's anger towards Donnie's abandonment of him paralleled Basil's feeling of being betrayed by Sunny. After Basil covered up Mari's death as suicide, they promised each other to always be there for one another. However Sunny chose to indulge in escapism as Basil was left alone to deal with the aftermath of their coverup. When they finally met again after four years, Basil's slowly deteriorating mental health finally snapped after he learned that Sunny will leave him soon.
Fortunately, Donnie only got a blackeye from Damian's heavyweight punch while Sunny got his eye gouged out from Basil's garden shears.
2. Remembrance
There is even a sort of truth sequence in Creed 3 where Donnie opened up to his wife, Bianca, on how his friendship with Damian got strained. It turns out that during Damian's time in prison, Donnie lived with a new caregiver named Mary. Mary hide away the letters that Damian had been sending to Donnie for 15 years because she thought that Damian was a bad influence for him.
This was why Donnie never bothered to check on Damian because he thought Damian never bothered to contact him in the first place. It was also revealed that Donnie was ridden with immense guilt because he felt that Damian's arrest was his fault. He even tried blocking out the memory of Damian's arrest by not contacting him during those 15 years.
Donnie trying to block out his memory behind Damian's arrest because of guilt parallels what happened to Sunny after Mari's death. For four years, Sunny avoided any form of reminders that Mari is dead by holing up in his house. However, Sunny and Donnie got a wake up call to remember their respective truths. Sunny finally stepped out of his home and saw how Mari's death affected his friend group. Meanwhile, Donnie finally remembered the truth of Damian's arrest after seeing Damian, once his best friend, become bitter and despise him because his guilt prevented him from being there for Damian during his time in prison.
3. Self Forgiveness
Finally, Omori and Creed 3's peak moment is Sunny and Donnie overcoming their respective guilt. Just like Sunny's final battle with Omori, the penultimate moment of Creed 3 is Donnie's boxing fight against Damian. Moments leading up to their fight, Damian really channeled his inner Omori and tells the world just how much of an awful person Donnie is and how Apollo Creed (legendary boxer and Donnie's father) would have been ashamed of him. Omori did that too against Sunny when he berrated him and told him that Sunny's friends would only hate him once they know the reason behind Sunny's guilt.
Donnie's fight symbolyzes his complicated feelings he had over what happened to him and Damian: shame and guilt over abandoning his best friend and taking away what could have been Damian's career as a pro boxer because he got imprisoned. Donnie's fight mirrors Sunny's feeling towards how he took away his friends' happiness and the future that they could have with Mari. Finally Donnie persisted and overcame his fear and guilt over what happened to Damian to win the his fight, just like the Duet moment where Sunny finally forgave himself.
At the end of the movie, Donnie finally managed to properly face Damian who was once the source of his crippling guilt and come to terms with what happened to him in the past.
In Omori, Sunny managed to forgive himself and tried to reconnect with his friends by telling them the true reason behind Mari's death.
Both Omori and Creed 3's protagonists managed to forgive themselves over the guilt they suffered for years. My take on the parallels between this movie and Omori is that they managed to challenge the stereotype that fighters, especially boxers, are hardened men with no emotional baggage. Overall, you should definitely give Creed 3 a try if you are a fan of boxing and Omori.
Feel free to comment if you guys find other parallels between Omori and Creed 3 or know other movies that remind you of Omori.
2023.03.21 17:16 Shoddy-Attorney3414 What is the best IPTV subscription?
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2023.03.21 17:16 trivik0 Chikmagalur’s Best Luxury Resorts
 | submitted by trivik0 to u/trivik0 [link] [comments] https://preview.redd.it/e3qi8vjs74pa1.jpg?width=1067&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e863f82c30ec27fb7841c24e82bda3bca1e088db Chikmagalur is prominent for its quiet ecological elements, verdant woods, and high mountains. It is consistently implied as the coffee area of Karnataka and is truly outstanding for its coffee. An endeavor without help from anyone else, staying at one of the eminent coffee farms in Chikmagalur. These coffee estates generally consolidate old, explorer designing and stick to interesting inside plan examples to make you feel like you’ve returned to some time in the past. These spaces, which are among the luxury resorts in chikmagalur, allow a splendid opportunity to experience the beautiful thought of the district and its luxurious air since they are ordinarily arranged on tranquil slants from the city’s traffic. As well as staying in one of the critical homestays, you have the decision of experiencing close by culture. As indicated by the perspective of neighborhood individuals, finding Chikmagalur’s less famous destinations is a marvelous opportunity. Chikmagalur is one of those places that are significantly liked for its quietness and displays a perfect identification of lovely, serene fields. It has been a picture of a magnificent scene with a charming typical radiance that entices everyone. This region is no exceptional case for being a notable week’s end place to getaway for city occupants due to its famous customary fascination and rich history. Recorded underneath are extravagant resorts in Chikmagalur, all of which get the district’s quietness and tranquility. Random data Motels and Resorts We research each chance in offering the best help, eating, and redirection to make your visit a truly basic one. We put vigorously in furnishing you with the best blend of luxury, unwinding, and convenience across our properties as a rule, while reliably blending in with our standard climate. We guarantee that we care for the environment and live as one with the climate of amicability and serenity gave to us by our lovely ecological components. This is a luxury homestay in Chikmagalur. The luxurious Trivik Resorts, one of Chikmagalur’s eco-obliging retreats, is circled by coffee bequests and gives first class comforts despite a pleasurable stay. The Chikmagalur Resort welcomes you to broad, rich rooms that have lavish sofas, minibars, tea/coffee makers, and a lot of other in-room solaces. Nevertheless, the component of your visit here will undoubtedly be arousing to the grim first light and amazing mountain sees! The 1200 square-foot suites are furnished with an evolving region, exhibition, and a Jacuzzi to give your outing a more rich feel. You can pick a Nursery Suite, a Coffee Suite, a Mountain Suite, or a Family Suite depending on the view you might want to stir to. Trivik gives free home visits and breakfast, and there is similarly a vast pool, a diner serving overall food, a bar, a rec focus, a colossal fire pit, and an indoor wilderness rec center for youths. It’s the luxury hotels in chikmagalur for everyone! |
2023.03.21 17:16 Shoddy-Attorney3414 What is the best IPTV subscription?
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The Fastest IPTV Service ProviderIPTV GREAT is the best IPTV subscription service provider for the last three years. We’re giving access to watch more then 35.000 TV channels from all over the world including VOD (120.000 movies & series) in multiple languages. Gladly, you will be able to watch all the sports & live PPV events on our IPTV service.
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You left your country for your job in other country and you missing your favorite channels from your sweet home , or are you home , but are you tired of paying too much bills for too little channels list?! With iptvDEVICE from now you can watch all channels from the globe in HD,Full HD or 4K , enjoy owr exlusive offers and watch your favorite channels , movies tv shows , from any location on Any Device.Latest cinema relased movies in FHD translated in English,French,Spanish,Italyc,Arabic,German,Romanian…
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2023.03.21 17:15 faueth_hanna Need Advice TL;DR: Mother of 3 rats, have to move in with parents temporarily, parents do not want rats in home, no new apartment of my own till August
I will be temporarily moving back home for the summer before returning to live on my own again in August. I have 3 rats who I love very dearly. Unfortunately I can not say the same for my family, who I am staying with in the summer. My parents do not want the rats in their home and do not see them as pets. Financially speaking, living with my parents temporarily is not an option and more of a necessity. However, I really need my girls and they will be able to live in my apartment in August for sure.
I do not know what I should do for this Summer with my parents unwilling to compromise, I hate the idea of temporarily keeping them hidden as it requires a small place and that could stress them. It feels inhumane. So any advice at all is appreciated. I post this here as I was wondering if temporarily having someone else care for them with me visiting frequently is a good idea or even a possibility? Please forgive me, I am new to mothering rats. No hate please only actual advice
For more context: My BF and I have discussed owning rats for a long while and prepared heavily for it. I currently live in a dorm where they were allowed by a nice RA. They have plenty of room and I let them out of the cage whenever I am in the dorm (which is almost all the time). When I first got them I was under the impression my BF would also be helping with them, however he seems to only visit them and nothing more while I care for them. So asking him to take them is not an option considering a lot of things going on in his personal life. (Especially because he has not been around to see how I care for them, though he does send me articles and videos about rat care often so I am always informed on things)
submitted by faueth_hanna to PetAdvice [link] [comments]
I do not know what I should do for this Summer with my parents unwilling to compromise, I hate the idea of temporarily keeping them hidden as it requires a small place and that could stress them. It feels inhumane. So any advice at all is appreciated. I post this here as I was wondering if temporarily having someone else care for them with me visiting frequently is a good idea or even a possibility? Please forgive me, I am new to mothering rats. No hate please only actual advice
For more context: My BF and I have discussed owning rats for a long while and prepared heavily for it. I currently live in a dorm where they were allowed by a nice RA. They have plenty of room and I let them out of the cage whenever I am in the dorm (which is almost all the time). When I first got them I was under the impression my BF would also be helping with them, however he seems to only visit them and nothing more while I care for them. So asking him to take them is not an option considering a lot of things going on in his personal life. (Especially because he has not been around to see how I care for them, though he does send me articles and videos about rat care often so I am always informed on things)
2023.03.21 17:13 Greedy-Bimbo How do I [22F] make my [25M] bf be a functioning adult?
I can't believe I have to turn to Reddit for this but I don't know what to do. I know this isn't the biggest issue on here but I feel like I can't take it anymore.
My boyfriend and I have been together for a little over 2 years (known each other for 5), we have been living together for the past 6 months and it's honestly been very nice living with him besides the occasional fights but nothing to complain about.... except this man does not do a single bit of housework and it drives me mad and dedicates most of his free time to gaming. Whenever I ask him to do housework it always turns into a fight and a guilt trip.
I am the one who is usually home more because my job is casual so I might get 1 shift a week or 5 just depending on how busy we are. He does work a full-time job, and makes A LOT more than me a year. We don't have shared funds, but we do pay for things equally I know his job can be tiring but I can't understand how it is SOOOOO tiring that he can't load the dishwasher, tidy our room or do any laundry (the entire time we have lived together he has not folded a single piece of clothing without me telling him to). His job isn't something that is physically demanding, I can understand it can be mentally draining but everyday?
We are both pretty messy people so the mess is equally ours but I am the one that usually cleans it.
His whole solution for this is to just hire a maid and get them to do the cleaning for us, anytime he is faced with a problem all he does is throw money at it. Don't want to mow the lawn? Hire a guy! Don't feel like cooking tonight? Order in for the 9th day in a row! Want me to drive you somewhere? Can't be bothered, call an uber! I am spending so much more money than I should because of this, I've tried to put my foot down and tell him that we need to start cooking/buying groceries but he also refuses to go to the grocery store, again because he is always too tired.
Most of his free time outside of work is dedicated to gaming and when I mean most I mean ALL. Which I did know about before we got together but I feel like he prioritises that more than our relationship and the outside world. I understand gaming is an outlet for him and I really don't care that he plays video games but sometimes it is all he does. When we have days off together we don't go on dates anymore we just sit at home doing nothing. I suggest a date or errands and he says "yeah sure" but pretty much as soon as he opens Valorant or WOW there is no chance we are going out that day unless it is to buy something that HE needs. In his mind with his free time, why should he bother with housework because its "not worth his time"
I'm scared that if we have kids together I will be left to do everything by myself, that i will forever be stuck by myself doing chores and looking after the kids with no support other than money. I don't want to be a housewife and I've told him this so many times but I just feel like that's all I'm becoming.
How do I make him realise what he is doing? I have tried to talk about it with him many times but there doesn't feel like a point to talking anymore bc he always makes it out like I'm attacking him and nagging him. I've tried to not clean at all and still, nothing happened.
TLDR; Gamer boyfriend doesn't want to clean or leave the house because it isn't "worth his time" outside of work.
submitted by Greedy-Bimbo to relationship_advice [link] [comments]
My boyfriend and I have been together for a little over 2 years (known each other for 5), we have been living together for the past 6 months and it's honestly been very nice living with him besides the occasional fights but nothing to complain about.... except this man does not do a single bit of housework and it drives me mad and dedicates most of his free time to gaming. Whenever I ask him to do housework it always turns into a fight and a guilt trip.
I am the one who is usually home more because my job is casual so I might get 1 shift a week or 5 just depending on how busy we are. He does work a full-time job, and makes A LOT more than me a year. We don't have shared funds, but we do pay for things equally I know his job can be tiring but I can't understand how it is SOOOOO tiring that he can't load the dishwasher, tidy our room or do any laundry (the entire time we have lived together he has not folded a single piece of clothing without me telling him to). His job isn't something that is physically demanding, I can understand it can be mentally draining but everyday?
We are both pretty messy people so the mess is equally ours but I am the one that usually cleans it.
His whole solution for this is to just hire a maid and get them to do the cleaning for us, anytime he is faced with a problem all he does is throw money at it. Don't want to mow the lawn? Hire a guy! Don't feel like cooking tonight? Order in for the 9th day in a row! Want me to drive you somewhere? Can't be bothered, call an uber! I am spending so much more money than I should because of this, I've tried to put my foot down and tell him that we need to start cooking/buying groceries but he also refuses to go to the grocery store, again because he is always too tired.
Most of his free time outside of work is dedicated to gaming and when I mean most I mean ALL. Which I did know about before we got together but I feel like he prioritises that more than our relationship and the outside world. I understand gaming is an outlet for him and I really don't care that he plays video games but sometimes it is all he does. When we have days off together we don't go on dates anymore we just sit at home doing nothing. I suggest a date or errands and he says "yeah sure" but pretty much as soon as he opens Valorant or WOW there is no chance we are going out that day unless it is to buy something that HE needs. In his mind with his free time, why should he bother with housework because its "not worth his time"
I'm scared that if we have kids together I will be left to do everything by myself, that i will forever be stuck by myself doing chores and looking after the kids with no support other than money. I don't want to be a housewife and I've told him this so many times but I just feel like that's all I'm becoming.
How do I make him realise what he is doing? I have tried to talk about it with him many times but there doesn't feel like a point to talking anymore bc he always makes it out like I'm attacking him and nagging him. I've tried to not clean at all and still, nothing happened.
TLDR; Gamer boyfriend doesn't want to clean or leave the house because it isn't "worth his time" outside of work.
2023.03.21 17:07 faueth_hanna Need Advice TL;DR: Mother of 3 rats, have to move in with parents temporarily, parents do not want rats in home, no new apartment of my own till August
I will be temporarily moving back home for the summer before returning to live on my own again in August. I have 3 rats who I love very dearly. Unfortunately I can not say the same for my family, who I am staying with in the summer. My parents do not want the rats in their home and do not see them as pets. Financially speaking, living with my parents temporarily is not an option and more of a necessity. However, I really need my girls and they will be able to live in my apartment in August for sure.
I do not know what I should do for this Summer with my parents unwilling to compromise, I hate the idea of temporarily keeping them hidden as it requires a small place and that could stress them. It feels inhumane. So any advice at all is appreciated. I post this here as I was wondering if temporarily having someone else care for them with me visiting frequently is a good idea or even a possibility? Please forgive me, I am new to mothering rats. No hate please only actual advice
For more context: My BF and I have discussed owning rats for a long while and prepared heavily for it. I currently live in a dorm where they were allowed by a nice RA. They have plenty of room and I let them out of the cage whenever I am in the dorm (which is almost all the time). When I first got them I was under the impression my BF would also be helping with them, however he seems to only visit them and nothing more while I care for them. So asking him to take them is not an option considering a lot of things going on in his personal life. (Especially because he has not been around to see how I care for them, though he does send me articles and videos about rat care often so I am always informed on things)
submitted by faueth_hanna to Advice [link] [comments]
I do not know what I should do for this Summer with my parents unwilling to compromise, I hate the idea of temporarily keeping them hidden as it requires a small place and that could stress them. It feels inhumane. So any advice at all is appreciated. I post this here as I was wondering if temporarily having someone else care for them with me visiting frequently is a good idea or even a possibility? Please forgive me, I am new to mothering rats. No hate please only actual advice
For more context: My BF and I have discussed owning rats for a long while and prepared heavily for it. I currently live in a dorm where they were allowed by a nice RA. They have plenty of room and I let them out of the cage whenever I am in the dorm (which is almost all the time). When I first got them I was under the impression my BF would also be helping with them, however he seems to only visit them and nothing more while I care for them. So asking him to take them is not an option considering a lot of things going on in his personal life. (Especially because he has not been around to see how I care for them, though he does send me articles and videos about rat care often so I am always informed on things)
2023.03.21 17:07 MjolnirPants Jerry and the Apocalypse: Part 53
Part 52
Glenda Wilmington, Kinda Digging This Whole Cop Gig
"If you hear anything else, give me a call," Glenda said, handing the woman a business card with her cellphone number on it. The woman accepted it and then squinted skeptically at it.
"Cooperation with an investigation is the sort of thing that parole boards like to hear about," Glenda said in response to the woman's look. That seemed to do the trick. The woman slipped the card into her ample cleavage and met Glenda's eyes.
"I will call. I have no loyalty to that man." Her sing-song Norwegian accent, as well as her tall, thick frame and bright, yellow-blonde hair contrasted with the environment; a run-down housing project in the heart of Compton. But housing for convicted felons on parole was limited, and she'd had few choices in this area. Glenda wondered idly why the woman hadn't elected to return to Norway, where they tended to be a bit more sympathetic to ex-cons. The woman, Duke's one-time head channeler, didn't seem prepared to answer any more questions, however.
Glenda nodded and stepped back. The woman took a step outside, careful to keep the foot with the ankle monitor inside the door and took a look around before withdrawing back into the house. Glenda turned and walked down the steps off the creaky wooden porch and back to the rental car, where Jack dozed lightly in the passenger seat, his cowboy hat pulled low over his eyes. She climbed behind the wheel, trying not to wake him, and started the engine.
He woke anyways. Jack had always been a very light sleeper. He turned his head slightly towards her, not adjusting the hat at all.
"Anything?" he asked. Glenda shook her head. "Nobody's heard from him. I think it's safe to say he's not looking to connect with any of his old associates, at this point."
"Ayup," Jack agreed. Glenda pulled away, heading north, towards the 105 that would take them back to the airport. They were done here. As she drove, she couldn't help but note the scowling, suspicious faces that turned to watch them. She took in the low, chain-link fences that separated yards, the equally low concrete block walls that surrounded paved driveways. The odd mix of Spanish colonial and more traditional American architecture was like a sign. It told her that she could find a bag of the white lady, a bag of weed, or a bag of something more exotic here. She could find a gang, beefing with another gang, and maybe convince one side to pay her to make someone on the other side vanish.
It was almost nostalgic.
They passed a tan-painted Spanish colonial house with a faux wrought-iron fence, and she knew right away that a dealer lived there. The child's play set in the front had never been touched by anything more careless than the wind and rain. The SUV in the driveway might have belonged to a small family, except for the large speakers she could see through the rear window. The tint on the windows of both car and home added to the effect. The kicker, though, was the white-haired, middle-aged man stepping out the front door to squint suspiciously around before heading back up the street in the direction of the channeler's home, where Glenda had spotted him walking this way just a few minutes ago.
Without bothering to ask anyone, she could say with confidence that whoever lived there sold mainly cocaine, but he also had cheap weed for those who couldn't afford the prices at the dispensary. He'd have rocks too, but he probably wouldn't sell them to you if you knew where he lived. He'd sell them on the weekends, manning a street corner, alongside a thug from whatever gang he ran with or paid tribute to.
Everyone knew they were cops, of course. Years of living in rural Canada had faded Glenda's tan and affected her fashion choices. Once, she'd had moved through an area like this in gym shorts, sneakers and a faded old t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. Showing off enough muscle to make the usual idiots think twice about harassing her, but not showing off so much skin than people might take her for a street worker with a schtick. Today, she drove in blue jeans, hiking boots and a flannel shirt. Next to her, Jack wore the same, complimented with a denim jacket. Only a couple of cops would dress like that in this neighborhood.
Though that wasn't strictly true -Jack's jurisdiction ended many hundreds of miles north of here- it might as well be. They were private investigators, working on behalf of the federal government, who was footing the bill for Dylan's recapture. Whether or not they were technically considered law enforcement officers depended entirely upon their needs and some paperwork. So far, they hadn't needed any LEO powers.
As she turned onto the 105 and marginally sped up in the dense traffic of the highway, Jack's phone rang. He begrudgingly lifted the brim of his hat up, squinting in the bright daylight at his screen. Apparently satisfied with what he saw there, he hit the accept button and pressed the phone to his ear.
"S'Jack," he said, then he listened for a bit.
"Ayup," he said. He glanced out the window, then covered the tiny mic at the bottom of the phone. "Get off the highway," he said to Glenda. She nodded and put on her turn signal, eyes searching for a chance to get over. A minivan in the next lane, slightly ahead of them, promptly slowed down to pace them.
"Awwright," he drawled into the phone. "We'll check it out. 'Preciate the heads up. Take care, now."
He pulled the phone away from his ear and tapped the screen again before slipping it back into his pocket jacket.
"That was intel. Said that a bank account belonging to one Dylan Boucher just got emptied by a wire transfer to one Derek Garcia. Just a hair over ten grand. Transfer woulda taken place about a week ago, intel didn't pick up on it until it cleared."
"Garcia, that's the one that calls himself the 'Planewalker', right?"
"Ayup," Jack said. Glenda finally got tired of trying to get behind the minivan and sped up to cut him off, instead. Jack could see that it was being driven by a heavily tattooed white kid with dredlocks. He honked and flipped them off, but she ignored him. She'd had her turn signal on, and tried to get behind him, but he had slowed down and sped up to block her.
Out of pure spite, she tapped the brakes a few times.
Jack bounced forward against his seatbelt as she did and gave her a dirty look. She smiled sweetly at him. "What? That's how you drive around here. You used to live in Atlanta, you've got to know this by now."
"We didn't generally make an effort to piss people off in Atlanta," he grumbled. Glenda turned onto the ramp to get off on Crenshaw, heading south.
Glenda scoffed. "Now you're just lying. I've been to Atlanta. Worst drivers in the bottom half of the country by far."
"You sure about that?" Jack said, eyeing the rear-view mirror. Glenda glanced up to see the minivan still behind them, the driver jabbing his finger at them and ranting.
"Huh," she said. "Maybe this fucker's about to prove me wrong."
"Well, we need to get gas anyways, if we're driving all the way down to San Clemente," Jack said. "Might as well pull over at the first station we see and get it over with."
Glenda chuckled, mostly at what the angry man behind her was about to experience and kept her eyes peeled for a gas station.
The minivan never wavered, staying behind her through multiple lane changes, all the way down to Artesia Boulevard, where she finally found a Shell station. She pulled in and pulled up to a pump.
"You wanna have a white knight moment, or is today an 'equality of the sexes' day?" Glenda asked as the minivan pulled in behind them and stopped, blocking the entrance.
"Sheeeit," Jack drawled. "I mean, I guess I'll handle him if ya want..." He unbuckled his seatbelt and opened his door as the irate young metalhead stomped towards them. He made sure to be outside the car by the time the kid got within angry dick-measuring distance.
"What the fuck is your bitch's problem, asshole?!" the young man demanded. Jack didn't answer, he simply strode forward, within striking distance. Normally, Jack liked to deliver a good, bone-chilling threat, followed up by taking a more reasonable tone as he continued to stare through whomever was causing problems and imagine himself blowing their head off as he de-escalated the situation. It was a tactic that had served him well, many times. But today, Jack was tired.
He'd been hunting Dylan down for weeks now, and only just got their first promising lead as this little shit had gone out of his way to stop them from changing lanes for no discernible reason. So Jack simply slugged the kid right in the nose. He caught him off guard and sent the kid sprawling onto his ass. Before he could gather himself back up, Jack kicked him in the chest with the sole of his boot and drew his large revolver. He crouched down, boot still pinning the kid to the ground, and held the gun casually where the kid could see it.
"You know what a turn signal means?" he asked calmly. The kid's eyes went wide as he spotted the gun.
"Y-y-yeah," he stammered.
"Good. Ya had a little lapse of judgement there. Ya might wanna see to that." Jack stood, holstering his gun and walked back over to open the gas cover and insert the company credit card into the pump. He picked the mid-grade and inserted the fuel handle, locking the valve open before he turned back.
The kid was still sitting there, wiping blood from his mouth where his nose was bleeding. "They oughta have napkins inside," Jack told him mildly. "They're usually by the hot dogs."
Jack filled the tank while the kid picked himself up and went inside. A cop arrived a few minutes later, stopping in the entrance that the kid was blocking and turning his lights on. The cop stepped out and walked around the minivan and into the gas station.
Jack waited for the tank to fill, then replaced the nozzle and climbed back in the car.
"You wanna stick around?" Glenda asked. "Shoot the shit with the locals, make sure the kid gets the short end?"
"Naw," Jack said. "Read about the LA cops. Not exactly whom I'd like to consider comrades-in-arms, if you catch my meaning."
Glenda shrugged and they pulled out right as the kid and the cop both emerged back into the parking lot. Glenda thought the cop look pissed and the kid looked dejected.
They got on the 405 and drove it down to California 73, then took that south to Interstate 5, which brought them to San Clemente an hour later. Glenda got off the highway and turned into a neighborhood full of upscale, tightly-packed Spanish colonial homes. Unlike Compton, most of the yards weren't fenced, and those that were tended towards white picket fences. The lawns were universally well-cared for and nobody looked twice at them as they drove through the neighborhood and up to the address highlighted on the GPS.
It was a small, modest-looking home with a distinctly 70's asthetic. It didn't match most of the tile-roofed, square walled homes around it, but it hardly stood out, either. A BMW sat in the driveway, framed by a pair of shaped topiary trees. It looked like something off the cover of some homemaking magazine, Glenda thought.
They parked on the street and climbed out.
"The air is crackling with magic," Glenda said. "He's in there, doing something right now."
Jack walked up and pounded on the door. Glenda held up a hand, fingers splayed. Jack would understand what she meant. The magic was currently at a five, and she'd let him know if it diminished, and by approximately how much.
She kept her hand still for a while as nobody answered the door. Five minutes passed before Jack turned to her.
"Okay, this is your gig, now," he said. He walked back to the car, opening the trunk to reveal the bound, squirming and sweating Caliope there. He yanked her gag down and fed her from a water bottle.
"Been a long drive, ain't it?" he asked, conversationally. Caliope sucked greedily at the bottle, managing to drink every drop that didn't get splashed into the trunk.
"Fuck you," she muttered weakly. Jack smiled. "Looks to me like you're the one what's fucked, darlin'. Guess you shouldn'ta gone and fucked with your sister's collar like that. I mean, if you'd played by the rules, we'd have overlooked the whole issue of you not actually being any help whatsoever, and taken your good faith efforts as enough to fill your end. But ya had to go behind our backs, causing trouble. So now you're stuck in a trunk until we get back to the airport."
"Fuck you," she gasped again.
"'Scuse me," Jack said, reaching past her for an armored vest. He pulled it out and tugged it over his head, getting the flaps velcroed in place and adjusting it. When he was done, he pulled Caliope's gag back up.
"Awright, girl, you jes sit tight while we check this out. Won't be but a little bit, then we'll be heading to the airport."
She tried to say something, but the gag turned it into a muffled wail. Jack smiled as he closed the trunk and returned to the front door. Glenda stood there, watching him, fully kitted up with her armor and a carbine in her hands.
"Ready," Jack said. Glenda turned and, without preamble, kicked the door open with a thunderous blow. She rushed inside, rifle up and leading the way, Jack hot on her heels. Neither made it very far, though.
The living room had been converted into a ritual chamber. The walls were festooned with runes and the twisting lines that connected them. The floor had a large, ornate circle in the middle, runes etched into it and twisting, spiral designs encasing the whole thing. But that wasn't what gave them pause.
In the middle of the circle hovered a shimmering mirage, through which Glenda could see a city. It looked like something out of a sci-fi film, all rounded corners and smooth, off-white concrete. The windows in the buildings were mirrored, or else none of them had lights on inside, because they all reflected a sunrise coming from behind the view.
"What the hell's that?" Jack asked. Glenda carefully felt the magic around the apparition. "I think it's a portal."
"Okay, so where does it go, do ya think?"
"I haven't got a clue. I don't recognize that city."
"Kinda looks like Mos Eisley, a hundred years after they found oil or something," Glenda said.
"Think that's what Dylan was paying for? A trip to wherever that is?"
"Looks like," Glenda mused. "We're gonna need to call this in."
"Ayup. Let's clear the house, first."
They did just that. They found a den set up in one of the bedrooms, an obviously-lived-in kitchen and a master bedroom used for its intended purposes. In the last bedroom, they found an arsenal and storage space. It was full of survival and camping gear, weapons and ammo.
"Missing rifle," Jack said, peering at a gun rack.
"Yup," Glenda agreed. She opened an ammo tin. It was only half full.
"Somebody geared up here," she said.
Jack sighed. "Let's call it in, then. We'll hand over our little helper when the backup gets here."
----
It took two hours to get a team there, mostly because the LA regional office was all the way up in Burbank. But they eventually arrived. Two security officers took Caliope off their hands, to bring her back to prison. They brought another collar, to replace the modified wet blanket spell Glenda had been holding since the riot. It hadn't seemed like a lot of effort to hold the spell in place, but as soon as she finally let it go, she felt a wave of relief.
"Julie sent some extras along," the leader of the relief force told Glenda once Caliope had been seen to. She'd already spotted the two middle-eastern men in different uniforms than the rest. She thought she recognized the older one.
"We'll take all the help we can get. Any of you boys willing to go jaunting across reality with us?" The man chuckled. "No, thanks. Besides, we've got orders to secure this building and wait for the feds. Gonna see if there's anything illegal here, so we can nab this Garcia fellow as soon as he gets back."
Glenda nodded, then looked at the two middle-eastern men. She jerked her head in a 'come here' gesture and they stepped forward.
"Glenda, right?" the older one asked, holding out a hand.
"Yup," she said as she took it. He shook firmly, then let go. "I am Aqib, and this is my assistant, Mateen. We've been running around, helping out where we can for months now. It seems it is your turn to accept our assistance."
"Either of you got any magic?" Glenda asked. Mateen hefted his rifle and then tapped his body armor. "All of our gear is enchanted. We have rings, as well," he held up a hand bedecked with silver bands. "They will help us heal from injuries and allow us to see in the dark and other such useful things."
"Good, good," she said, then stopped. Aqib. That name rang a bell. She squinted at the middle-aged man.
"You were at the Wyrm facility when we took it," she said. "About six years ago." He nodded.
"I was with your friend when she fell. She saved my life," he said. Glenda nodded. "I remember that. I'm glad you're still here, then. Glad you're with us. I, uh..." She stopped speaking before she got choked up and cleared her throat.
"Are you two ready?" she asked.
"We have our gear," Aqib said, nodding at a pair of large backpacks leaning against one of the DCM branded trucks. "Camping gear, food and water for three days. Spare ammo, tools. We were told you had much more supplies yourself."
"Yup. I've got fresh food, enough for a couple of weeks for the four of us. Plus a couple months worth of dehydrated foods, MRE's and other food that'll keep for a while. I've got water and other shit to drink, camping gear, etcetera, etcetera. As long as you guys brought your own tents, we're golden."
"That is good," Aqib said.
"Do you have battery packs?" Mateen asked.
"Battery packs?" Glenda responded.
"Yes, for phones and other electronics. To keep them charged. I have a solar recharger, but it takes a long time, and it isn't always convenient to set it up."
Glenda shook her head. "Nope. Never been much for carrying a bunch of electronics around. Besides, I doubt our phones will work, where we're going."
Aqib grinned at his companion. "No video games until we're done, Mateen," he said. Mateen rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah."
"Mateen is still a child at heart, even though he has children of his own," Aqib explained as he stepped forward to get a good look at the portal, still hovering in the middle of the room.
"As long as he can fight," Glenda said. Jack approached, finished with the field paperwork. He had a backpack slung over one shoulder, and a rifle slung over the other. He still wore his armor.
"He fights like a cornered dog," Aqib said mildly. At Glenda's quirked eyebrow, he clarified. "He is very fierce."
"Good," Glenda said. She turned to Jack and gave him a quick kiss. "We ready?"
"Ayup," Jack confirmed. "All the paperwork's done, we're good to go."
Glenda pushed past Mateen and Aqib as they moved to pick up their packs. "I'll take them," she said. Mateen frowned, but Aqib simply nodded and stood back. She grabbed both packs and sent them to hammerspace, accepting Jack's pack and giving it the same treatment. Mateen shook his head slowly, but Aqib seemed unimpressed.
"Okay, let's boogie," Glenda said and strode through the portal before she could work up any doubts.
----
"None of 'em rotted," Jack said. "They're all mummified. All the plants are dead, but none of them are rotted, either." He stood in what seemed like a small park, a few trees growing in clusters at the four corners, and an open field of dead grass in the middle. Bodies lay strewn about, adults and children alike. Many lay draped over the benches, or slumped in a pile in front of them. One cluster of small bodies had a large, rubber-ish ball laying next to them, as if they'd died in the middle of some sort of game.
Glenda eyed the surroundings. They hadn't encountered a single living being in the hours they'd been moving through this city. "What do you think happened here?" she asked.
"I'll be honest, I ain't got a fucking clue, darlin'," Jack said. They stood in silence for a bit, reflecting on what they'd seen and wondering about it. An entire city, dead. No signs of decay, except for rusted metal. Glenda had seen large piles of rust that she took to be cars, based on the plastic and ceramic components still in them, along with the bodies. An entire city, dead. And yet the bodies remained. They'd held up better than the metal, for sure.
Mateen came around a corner at a jog and made a beeline for them. "Aqib has found something, a fresh body. Recently killed."
"Lead the way," Glenda told him. They followed him back around the corner, two blocks down and then around another corner, where they found Aqib standing over a bloody, headless corpse, resting against a building under a sign written in a language Glenda didn't recognize.
"Sheeit," Jack said as they drew up. "That's certainly out of place. Wonder where his head got to."
"Over here," Mateen said. He gestured to what looked like a bus stop with a trash can next to it. There, fetched up against the trash can was a severed head. A sparse trail of blood led from the body to it. Glenda walked over and crouched down, peering at the head.
"I think this is Garcia," she said. She pulled the photo she had of the man from hammerspace, checking it against the head.
"I think you're right," Jack said, peering over her shoulder. "And the chopped off head. That sounds like something Dylan would do."
"I think we're on the right track then," Glenda said. "But how do we know what direction he went?"
She straightened up as they all looked around. Nothing stood out to them.
A moment later, a terrifying roar sounded from off in the distance. They all turned towards it, weapons rising.
"I do not like that, but I think we know what direction to check now," Aqib said.
"'Fraid I gotta agree with ya," Jack said.
submitted by MjolnirPants to JerryandtheGoddesses [link] [comments]
Glenda Wilmington, Kinda Digging This Whole Cop Gig
"If you hear anything else, give me a call," Glenda said, handing the woman a business card with her cellphone number on it. The woman accepted it and then squinted skeptically at it.
"Cooperation with an investigation is the sort of thing that parole boards like to hear about," Glenda said in response to the woman's look. That seemed to do the trick. The woman slipped the card into her ample cleavage and met Glenda's eyes.
"I will call. I have no loyalty to that man." Her sing-song Norwegian accent, as well as her tall, thick frame and bright, yellow-blonde hair contrasted with the environment; a run-down housing project in the heart of Compton. But housing for convicted felons on parole was limited, and she'd had few choices in this area. Glenda wondered idly why the woman hadn't elected to return to Norway, where they tended to be a bit more sympathetic to ex-cons. The woman, Duke's one-time head channeler, didn't seem prepared to answer any more questions, however.
Glenda nodded and stepped back. The woman took a step outside, careful to keep the foot with the ankle monitor inside the door and took a look around before withdrawing back into the house. Glenda turned and walked down the steps off the creaky wooden porch and back to the rental car, where Jack dozed lightly in the passenger seat, his cowboy hat pulled low over his eyes. She climbed behind the wheel, trying not to wake him, and started the engine.
He woke anyways. Jack had always been a very light sleeper. He turned his head slightly towards her, not adjusting the hat at all.
"Anything?" he asked. Glenda shook her head. "Nobody's heard from him. I think it's safe to say he's not looking to connect with any of his old associates, at this point."
"Ayup," Jack agreed. Glenda pulled away, heading north, towards the 105 that would take them back to the airport. They were done here. As she drove, she couldn't help but note the scowling, suspicious faces that turned to watch them. She took in the low, chain-link fences that separated yards, the equally low concrete block walls that surrounded paved driveways. The odd mix of Spanish colonial and more traditional American architecture was like a sign. It told her that she could find a bag of the white lady, a bag of weed, or a bag of something more exotic here. She could find a gang, beefing with another gang, and maybe convince one side to pay her to make someone on the other side vanish.
It was almost nostalgic.
They passed a tan-painted Spanish colonial house with a faux wrought-iron fence, and she knew right away that a dealer lived there. The child's play set in the front had never been touched by anything more careless than the wind and rain. The SUV in the driveway might have belonged to a small family, except for the large speakers she could see through the rear window. The tint on the windows of both car and home added to the effect. The kicker, though, was the white-haired, middle-aged man stepping out the front door to squint suspiciously around before heading back up the street in the direction of the channeler's home, where Glenda had spotted him walking this way just a few minutes ago.
Without bothering to ask anyone, she could say with confidence that whoever lived there sold mainly cocaine, but he also had cheap weed for those who couldn't afford the prices at the dispensary. He'd have rocks too, but he probably wouldn't sell them to you if you knew where he lived. He'd sell them on the weekends, manning a street corner, alongside a thug from whatever gang he ran with or paid tribute to.
Everyone knew they were cops, of course. Years of living in rural Canada had faded Glenda's tan and affected her fashion choices. Once, she'd had moved through an area like this in gym shorts, sneakers and a faded old t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. Showing off enough muscle to make the usual idiots think twice about harassing her, but not showing off so much skin than people might take her for a street worker with a schtick. Today, she drove in blue jeans, hiking boots and a flannel shirt. Next to her, Jack wore the same, complimented with a denim jacket. Only a couple of cops would dress like that in this neighborhood.
Though that wasn't strictly true -Jack's jurisdiction ended many hundreds of miles north of here- it might as well be. They were private investigators, working on behalf of the federal government, who was footing the bill for Dylan's recapture. Whether or not they were technically considered law enforcement officers depended entirely upon their needs and some paperwork. So far, they hadn't needed any LEO powers.
As she turned onto the 105 and marginally sped up in the dense traffic of the highway, Jack's phone rang. He begrudgingly lifted the brim of his hat up, squinting in the bright daylight at his screen. Apparently satisfied with what he saw there, he hit the accept button and pressed the phone to his ear.
"S'Jack," he said, then he listened for a bit.
"Ayup," he said. He glanced out the window, then covered the tiny mic at the bottom of the phone. "Get off the highway," he said to Glenda. She nodded and put on her turn signal, eyes searching for a chance to get over. A minivan in the next lane, slightly ahead of them, promptly slowed down to pace them.
"Awwright," he drawled into the phone. "We'll check it out. 'Preciate the heads up. Take care, now."
He pulled the phone away from his ear and tapped the screen again before slipping it back into his pocket jacket.
"That was intel. Said that a bank account belonging to one Dylan Boucher just got emptied by a wire transfer to one Derek Garcia. Just a hair over ten grand. Transfer woulda taken place about a week ago, intel didn't pick up on it until it cleared."
"Garcia, that's the one that calls himself the 'Planewalker', right?"
"Ayup," Jack said. Glenda finally got tired of trying to get behind the minivan and sped up to cut him off, instead. Jack could see that it was being driven by a heavily tattooed white kid with dredlocks. He honked and flipped them off, but she ignored him. She'd had her turn signal on, and tried to get behind him, but he had slowed down and sped up to block her.
Out of pure spite, she tapped the brakes a few times.
Jack bounced forward against his seatbelt as she did and gave her a dirty look. She smiled sweetly at him. "What? That's how you drive around here. You used to live in Atlanta, you've got to know this by now."
"We didn't generally make an effort to piss people off in Atlanta," he grumbled. Glenda turned onto the ramp to get off on Crenshaw, heading south.
Glenda scoffed. "Now you're just lying. I've been to Atlanta. Worst drivers in the bottom half of the country by far."
"You sure about that?" Jack said, eyeing the rear-view mirror. Glenda glanced up to see the minivan still behind them, the driver jabbing his finger at them and ranting.
"Huh," she said. "Maybe this fucker's about to prove me wrong."
"Well, we need to get gas anyways, if we're driving all the way down to San Clemente," Jack said. "Might as well pull over at the first station we see and get it over with."
Glenda chuckled, mostly at what the angry man behind her was about to experience and kept her eyes peeled for a gas station.
The minivan never wavered, staying behind her through multiple lane changes, all the way down to Artesia Boulevard, where she finally found a Shell station. She pulled in and pulled up to a pump.
"You wanna have a white knight moment, or is today an 'equality of the sexes' day?" Glenda asked as the minivan pulled in behind them and stopped, blocking the entrance.
"Sheeeit," Jack drawled. "I mean, I guess I'll handle him if ya want..." He unbuckled his seatbelt and opened his door as the irate young metalhead stomped towards them. He made sure to be outside the car by the time the kid got within angry dick-measuring distance.
"What the fuck is your bitch's problem, asshole?!" the young man demanded. Jack didn't answer, he simply strode forward, within striking distance. Normally, Jack liked to deliver a good, bone-chilling threat, followed up by taking a more reasonable tone as he continued to stare through whomever was causing problems and imagine himself blowing their head off as he de-escalated the situation. It was a tactic that had served him well, many times. But today, Jack was tired.
He'd been hunting Dylan down for weeks now, and only just got their first promising lead as this little shit had gone out of his way to stop them from changing lanes for no discernible reason. So Jack simply slugged the kid right in the nose. He caught him off guard and sent the kid sprawling onto his ass. Before he could gather himself back up, Jack kicked him in the chest with the sole of his boot and drew his large revolver. He crouched down, boot still pinning the kid to the ground, and held the gun casually where the kid could see it.
"You know what a turn signal means?" he asked calmly. The kid's eyes went wide as he spotted the gun.
"Y-y-yeah," he stammered.
"Good. Ya had a little lapse of judgement there. Ya might wanna see to that." Jack stood, holstering his gun and walked back over to open the gas cover and insert the company credit card into the pump. He picked the mid-grade and inserted the fuel handle, locking the valve open before he turned back.
The kid was still sitting there, wiping blood from his mouth where his nose was bleeding. "They oughta have napkins inside," Jack told him mildly. "They're usually by the hot dogs."
Jack filled the tank while the kid picked himself up and went inside. A cop arrived a few minutes later, stopping in the entrance that the kid was blocking and turning his lights on. The cop stepped out and walked around the minivan and into the gas station.
Jack waited for the tank to fill, then replaced the nozzle and climbed back in the car.
"You wanna stick around?" Glenda asked. "Shoot the shit with the locals, make sure the kid gets the short end?"
"Naw," Jack said. "Read about the LA cops. Not exactly whom I'd like to consider comrades-in-arms, if you catch my meaning."
Glenda shrugged and they pulled out right as the kid and the cop both emerged back into the parking lot. Glenda thought the cop look pissed and the kid looked dejected.
They got on the 405 and drove it down to California 73, then took that south to Interstate 5, which brought them to San Clemente an hour later. Glenda got off the highway and turned into a neighborhood full of upscale, tightly-packed Spanish colonial homes. Unlike Compton, most of the yards weren't fenced, and those that were tended towards white picket fences. The lawns were universally well-cared for and nobody looked twice at them as they drove through the neighborhood and up to the address highlighted on the GPS.
It was a small, modest-looking home with a distinctly 70's asthetic. It didn't match most of the tile-roofed, square walled homes around it, but it hardly stood out, either. A BMW sat in the driveway, framed by a pair of shaped topiary trees. It looked like something off the cover of some homemaking magazine, Glenda thought.
They parked on the street and climbed out.
"The air is crackling with magic," Glenda said. "He's in there, doing something right now."
Jack walked up and pounded on the door. Glenda held up a hand, fingers splayed. Jack would understand what she meant. The magic was currently at a five, and she'd let him know if it diminished, and by approximately how much.
She kept her hand still for a while as nobody answered the door. Five minutes passed before Jack turned to her.
"Okay, this is your gig, now," he said. He walked back to the car, opening the trunk to reveal the bound, squirming and sweating Caliope there. He yanked her gag down and fed her from a water bottle.
"Been a long drive, ain't it?" he asked, conversationally. Caliope sucked greedily at the bottle, managing to drink every drop that didn't get splashed into the trunk.
"Fuck you," she muttered weakly. Jack smiled. "Looks to me like you're the one what's fucked, darlin'. Guess you shouldn'ta gone and fucked with your sister's collar like that. I mean, if you'd played by the rules, we'd have overlooked the whole issue of you not actually being any help whatsoever, and taken your good faith efforts as enough to fill your end. But ya had to go behind our backs, causing trouble. So now you're stuck in a trunk until we get back to the airport."
"Fuck you," she gasped again.
"'Scuse me," Jack said, reaching past her for an armored vest. He pulled it out and tugged it over his head, getting the flaps velcroed in place and adjusting it. When he was done, he pulled Caliope's gag back up.
"Awright, girl, you jes sit tight while we check this out. Won't be but a little bit, then we'll be heading to the airport."
She tried to say something, but the gag turned it into a muffled wail. Jack smiled as he closed the trunk and returned to the front door. Glenda stood there, watching him, fully kitted up with her armor and a carbine in her hands.
"Ready," Jack said. Glenda turned and, without preamble, kicked the door open with a thunderous blow. She rushed inside, rifle up and leading the way, Jack hot on her heels. Neither made it very far, though.
The living room had been converted into a ritual chamber. The walls were festooned with runes and the twisting lines that connected them. The floor had a large, ornate circle in the middle, runes etched into it and twisting, spiral designs encasing the whole thing. But that wasn't what gave them pause.
In the middle of the circle hovered a shimmering mirage, through which Glenda could see a city. It looked like something out of a sci-fi film, all rounded corners and smooth, off-white concrete. The windows in the buildings were mirrored, or else none of them had lights on inside, because they all reflected a sunrise coming from behind the view.
"What the hell's that?" Jack asked. Glenda carefully felt the magic around the apparition. "I think it's a portal."
"Okay, so where does it go, do ya think?"
"I haven't got a clue. I don't recognize that city."
"Kinda looks like Mos Eisley, a hundred years after they found oil or something," Glenda said.
"Think that's what Dylan was paying for? A trip to wherever that is?"
"Looks like," Glenda mused. "We're gonna need to call this in."
"Ayup. Let's clear the house, first."
They did just that. They found a den set up in one of the bedrooms, an obviously-lived-in kitchen and a master bedroom used for its intended purposes. In the last bedroom, they found an arsenal and storage space. It was full of survival and camping gear, weapons and ammo.
"Missing rifle," Jack said, peering at a gun rack.
"Yup," Glenda agreed. She opened an ammo tin. It was only half full.
"Somebody geared up here," she said.
Jack sighed. "Let's call it in, then. We'll hand over our little helper when the backup gets here."
----
It took two hours to get a team there, mostly because the LA regional office was all the way up in Burbank. But they eventually arrived. Two security officers took Caliope off their hands, to bring her back to prison. They brought another collar, to replace the modified wet blanket spell Glenda had been holding since the riot. It hadn't seemed like a lot of effort to hold the spell in place, but as soon as she finally let it go, she felt a wave of relief.
"Julie sent some extras along," the leader of the relief force told Glenda once Caliope had been seen to. She'd already spotted the two middle-eastern men in different uniforms than the rest. She thought she recognized the older one.
"We'll take all the help we can get. Any of you boys willing to go jaunting across reality with us?" The man chuckled. "No, thanks. Besides, we've got orders to secure this building and wait for the feds. Gonna see if there's anything illegal here, so we can nab this Garcia fellow as soon as he gets back."
Glenda nodded, then looked at the two middle-eastern men. She jerked her head in a 'come here' gesture and they stepped forward.
"Glenda, right?" the older one asked, holding out a hand.
"Yup," she said as she took it. He shook firmly, then let go. "I am Aqib, and this is my assistant, Mateen. We've been running around, helping out where we can for months now. It seems it is your turn to accept our assistance."
"Either of you got any magic?" Glenda asked. Mateen hefted his rifle and then tapped his body armor. "All of our gear is enchanted. We have rings, as well," he held up a hand bedecked with silver bands. "They will help us heal from injuries and allow us to see in the dark and other such useful things."
"Good, good," she said, then stopped. Aqib. That name rang a bell. She squinted at the middle-aged man.
"You were at the Wyrm facility when we took it," she said. "About six years ago." He nodded.
"I was with your friend when she fell. She saved my life," he said. Glenda nodded. "I remember that. I'm glad you're still here, then. Glad you're with us. I, uh..." She stopped speaking before she got choked up and cleared her throat.
"Are you two ready?" she asked.
"We have our gear," Aqib said, nodding at a pair of large backpacks leaning against one of the DCM branded trucks. "Camping gear, food and water for three days. Spare ammo, tools. We were told you had much more supplies yourself."
"Yup. I've got fresh food, enough for a couple of weeks for the four of us. Plus a couple months worth of dehydrated foods, MRE's and other food that'll keep for a while. I've got water and other shit to drink, camping gear, etcetera, etcetera. As long as you guys brought your own tents, we're golden."
"That is good," Aqib said.
"Do you have battery packs?" Mateen asked.
"Battery packs?" Glenda responded.
"Yes, for phones and other electronics. To keep them charged. I have a solar recharger, but it takes a long time, and it isn't always convenient to set it up."
Glenda shook her head. "Nope. Never been much for carrying a bunch of electronics around. Besides, I doubt our phones will work, where we're going."
Aqib grinned at his companion. "No video games until we're done, Mateen," he said. Mateen rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah."
"Mateen is still a child at heart, even though he has children of his own," Aqib explained as he stepped forward to get a good look at the portal, still hovering in the middle of the room.
"As long as he can fight," Glenda said. Jack approached, finished with the field paperwork. He had a backpack slung over one shoulder, and a rifle slung over the other. He still wore his armor.
"He fights like a cornered dog," Aqib said mildly. At Glenda's quirked eyebrow, he clarified. "He is very fierce."
"Good," Glenda said. She turned to Jack and gave him a quick kiss. "We ready?"
"Ayup," Jack confirmed. "All the paperwork's done, we're good to go."
Glenda pushed past Mateen and Aqib as they moved to pick up their packs. "I'll take them," she said. Mateen frowned, but Aqib simply nodded and stood back. She grabbed both packs and sent them to hammerspace, accepting Jack's pack and giving it the same treatment. Mateen shook his head slowly, but Aqib seemed unimpressed.
"Okay, let's boogie," Glenda said and strode through the portal before she could work up any doubts.
----
"None of 'em rotted," Jack said. "They're all mummified. All the plants are dead, but none of them are rotted, either." He stood in what seemed like a small park, a few trees growing in clusters at the four corners, and an open field of dead grass in the middle. Bodies lay strewn about, adults and children alike. Many lay draped over the benches, or slumped in a pile in front of them. One cluster of small bodies had a large, rubber-ish ball laying next to them, as if they'd died in the middle of some sort of game.
Glenda eyed the surroundings. They hadn't encountered a single living being in the hours they'd been moving through this city. "What do you think happened here?" she asked.
"I'll be honest, I ain't got a fucking clue, darlin'," Jack said. They stood in silence for a bit, reflecting on what they'd seen and wondering about it. An entire city, dead. No signs of decay, except for rusted metal. Glenda had seen large piles of rust that she took to be cars, based on the plastic and ceramic components still in them, along with the bodies. An entire city, dead. And yet the bodies remained. They'd held up better than the metal, for sure.
Mateen came around a corner at a jog and made a beeline for them. "Aqib has found something, a fresh body. Recently killed."
"Lead the way," Glenda told him. They followed him back around the corner, two blocks down and then around another corner, where they found Aqib standing over a bloody, headless corpse, resting against a building under a sign written in a language Glenda didn't recognize.
"Sheeit," Jack said as they drew up. "That's certainly out of place. Wonder where his head got to."
"Over here," Mateen said. He gestured to what looked like a bus stop with a trash can next to it. There, fetched up against the trash can was a severed head. A sparse trail of blood led from the body to it. Glenda walked over and crouched down, peering at the head.
"I think this is Garcia," she said. She pulled the photo she had of the man from hammerspace, checking it against the head.
"I think you're right," Jack said, peering over her shoulder. "And the chopped off head. That sounds like something Dylan would do."
"I think we're on the right track then," Glenda said. "But how do we know what direction he went?"
She straightened up as they all looked around. Nothing stood out to them.
A moment later, a terrifying roar sounded from off in the distance. They all turned towards it, weapons rising.
"I do not like that, but I think we know what direction to check now," Aqib said.
"'Fraid I gotta agree with ya," Jack said.
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2023.03.21 17:05 ThrowRAaccount289 I [23M] lost the girl of my dreams [21F] due to immaturity and don't see how it can ever get better.
2.5 years ago I saw a girl that fit my type exactly and I ended up asking her out and we hit things off right away to where we agreed to be boyfriend/girlfriend after the first date, the chemistry was that good.
The first year of the relationship I was just kind of a bad person and that led to her crying a lot.
The last 1.5 years, it was more due to me being a bad person that caused her to cry a lot. I put this girl through the ringer, including telling her "I don't miss her" (not with bad intent; I just didn't feel her void in my life yet on that vacation), telling her "you look Amish" after she got all dressed up once (I might have mild Asperger's?; not sure) and more socially unaware episodes like that.
She broke up with me in May after I let my room get disgustingly dirty due to depression, and feeling like I wasn't listening to her. She ended up taking me back after a few days, after I promised to be better with cleaning, listening to her, and trying Adderall. After she took me back, I just remember looking at her with the most admiration I've ever looked at anyone in my life and being so grateful to have another chance with her.
We had a good summer living together; there was a few conflicts because she had to teach me how to do a bunch of chores that I never learned at home. I did my best to change for her and to be cleaner, but I was starting at such a deficit that it ended up causing a lot of problems.
We agreed to try to do long distance the last 4 months and I ended up getting very complacent with our relationship. I would travel 8 hours to see her every few weekends, which I was proud of, but in terms of the long-distance parts when we were away, I totally neglected to Facetime her and didn't really enjoy listening to how her day was. We would facetime for like 15 minutes total some weeks.
There were a few incidents in particular that upset me, like when I neglected to wash her $80 bikini after it accidentally ended up going home with me after our vacation and it ended up getting mold, getting her a birthday gift a few days late (because i was so obsessed with getting the perfect one) and just generally not listening to her.
When she came to visit me two months ago, I ended up losing her prescription at a pharmacy 3 minutes away because I went to a nearby store to try to get her sprinkles for ice cream we had back at home. She said that was a turning point and it led her to viewing me as incompetent. (I have ADHD that I couldn't take medication for due to bad side effects).
Well, after that, we talked for a few weeks after and we decided to give it one last try, where I went up on a first date with her two weeks ago. She said it felt "hollow" and that though she was content, it did't feel right (no shit, we were broken up for 6 weeks) and then the next day I ended up crying in front of her asking for another chance. After that didn't work, we ended up spending the last 2 days together, where I was pretty aloof and rude, which I regret being. I ended up kind of being a nuisance the last two days.
She ended up texting me later saying "before, I never thought the chances of us getting back would be 0. Now, though, seeing how much better my life is without you, it is 0."
As unbelievable as it sounds, I never really acted maliciously, I am just pretty emotionally stunted and immature. Now I'm really down because this girl treated me perfectly with such tremendous patience, checked all my boxes (like seriously, every one--she was out of my league) and I mistreated her to where I will never have a chance with her again.
The way I was raised, a partner was someone you enjoyed spending time with and got gifts for, as opposed to someone that you learn the intricacies of their every day life and learn about their day and bake them gifts, etc.
I'm now realizing that regardless of my next girlfriend, I'm going to have to do that emotional labor anyways and listen to how their day was, but now I'm bummed because it will be the same cost for what I can't imagine to be as good of a reward.
I'm just sad how little of a chance I gave us. I wish I could go back, be on my meds, listen to her, and maybe be cleaner. Maybe then, we would have had a chance.
Now, it feels like I crashed a Lamborghini as a five year old, and now I'm gonna have to settle with driving a Prius to work later (and do my best to forget that I ruined my chance of a Lamborghini).
TL;DR: I mistreated my ex due to some immaturity, wish I had been able to go back and take my ADHD meds and maybe give us a chance.
1 CommentShareSave
submitted by ThrowRAaccount289 to relationship_advice [link] [comments]
The first year of the relationship I was just kind of a bad person and that led to her crying a lot.
The last 1.5 years, it was more due to me being a bad person that caused her to cry a lot. I put this girl through the ringer, including telling her "I don't miss her" (not with bad intent; I just didn't feel her void in my life yet on that vacation), telling her "you look Amish" after she got all dressed up once (I might have mild Asperger's?; not sure) and more socially unaware episodes like that.
She broke up with me in May after I let my room get disgustingly dirty due to depression, and feeling like I wasn't listening to her. She ended up taking me back after a few days, after I promised to be better with cleaning, listening to her, and trying Adderall. After she took me back, I just remember looking at her with the most admiration I've ever looked at anyone in my life and being so grateful to have another chance with her.
We had a good summer living together; there was a few conflicts because she had to teach me how to do a bunch of chores that I never learned at home. I did my best to change for her and to be cleaner, but I was starting at such a deficit that it ended up causing a lot of problems.
We agreed to try to do long distance the last 4 months and I ended up getting very complacent with our relationship. I would travel 8 hours to see her every few weekends, which I was proud of, but in terms of the long-distance parts when we were away, I totally neglected to Facetime her and didn't really enjoy listening to how her day was. We would facetime for like 15 minutes total some weeks.
There were a few incidents in particular that upset me, like when I neglected to wash her $80 bikini after it accidentally ended up going home with me after our vacation and it ended up getting mold, getting her a birthday gift a few days late (because i was so obsessed with getting the perfect one) and just generally not listening to her.
When she came to visit me two months ago, I ended up losing her prescription at a pharmacy 3 minutes away because I went to a nearby store to try to get her sprinkles for ice cream we had back at home. She said that was a turning point and it led her to viewing me as incompetent. (I have ADHD that I couldn't take medication for due to bad side effects).
Well, after that, we talked for a few weeks after and we decided to give it one last try, where I went up on a first date with her two weeks ago. She said it felt "hollow" and that though she was content, it did't feel right (no shit, we were broken up for 6 weeks) and then the next day I ended up crying in front of her asking for another chance. After that didn't work, we ended up spending the last 2 days together, where I was pretty aloof and rude, which I regret being. I ended up kind of being a nuisance the last two days.
She ended up texting me later saying "before, I never thought the chances of us getting back would be 0. Now, though, seeing how much better my life is without you, it is 0."
As unbelievable as it sounds, I never really acted maliciously, I am just pretty emotionally stunted and immature. Now I'm really down because this girl treated me perfectly with such tremendous patience, checked all my boxes (like seriously, every one--she was out of my league) and I mistreated her to where I will never have a chance with her again.
The way I was raised, a partner was someone you enjoyed spending time with and got gifts for, as opposed to someone that you learn the intricacies of their every day life and learn about their day and bake them gifts, etc.
I'm now realizing that regardless of my next girlfriend, I'm going to have to do that emotional labor anyways and listen to how their day was, but now I'm bummed because it will be the same cost for what I can't imagine to be as good of a reward.
I'm just sad how little of a chance I gave us. I wish I could go back, be on my meds, listen to her, and maybe be cleaner. Maybe then, we would have had a chance.
Now, it feels like I crashed a Lamborghini as a five year old, and now I'm gonna have to settle with driving a Prius to work later (and do my best to forget that I ruined my chance of a Lamborghini).
TL;DR: I mistreated my ex due to some immaturity, wish I had been able to go back and take my ADHD meds and maybe give us a chance.
1 CommentShareSave
2023.03.21 17:02 fredslapels To my dad
I used to come here looking for posts that might have been made by my dad. I never found anything that could have been from him, but I think he would have liked it here. I want you all to know that my dad existed, and that I think he would have found solace in this community.
Nobody is speaking at my dad's funeral. I'd like to share what I had intended to be a eulogy here (but became something else altogether), to the people I think would have understood him best. I hope that is okay. I'm sorry it's long.
First, my dad wasn't an alcoholic because he didn't drink shorts. He wasn't an alcoholic because he had a job and a mortgage, a wife and kids. He wasn't an alcoholic because he only drank socially, and he wasn't an alcoholic when he would stay at the pub night after night until closing. He wasn't an alcoholic because in the middle of the night, he would finish the last of the can he fell asleep drinking rather than getting a fresh one. He wasn't an alcoholic when his breath smelt sour and sharp. He wasn't an alcoholic when his work were concerned for him. He wasn't an alcoholic when he switched from lager to wine, wine to whiskey. He wasn't an alcoholic when minuature bottles of spirits were found underneath the pebbles of the decorative fireplace. He wasn't an alcoholic when he was admitted for supervised sobriety and he wasn't an alcoholic afterwards, because then he knew his limit - one drink, maybe two, special occasions only. He wasn't an alcoholic when his hands would shake, and he wasn't an alcoholic when he compared his shaking hands to those of Slash, the notable alcoholic. He wasn't an alcoholic when my parents divorced, and he wasn't an alcoholic when he lost his job. He wasn't an alcoholic when he stopped answering calls. He wasn't an alcoholic when his home deliveries consisted solely of clinking glass bottles that strained the plastic bags they were delivered in. He wasn't an alcoholic as his world became myopic, tethered only to the realisation of his next drink. He wasn't an alcoholic when the satiation of his illness eclipsed everyone he ever loved and who ever loved him. In the end, he wasn't an alcoholic at all. He was completely alone.
My dad wasn't around for birthdays or Christmas or graduations. If plans were made, he'd forget them. It surprised me, in my twenties, when I'd walk back to my mum's house, stifling tears and holding the birthday card I'd bought for him, how it still felt like a punch in the gut. When we did speak, our conversations were stilted and shallow, neither of us willing to upset the carefully constructed scaffolding of our relationship.
As a child, my dad wasn't always a pleasant man to be around. He could be violent, and unnecessarily cruel, but there was always a point - around 5 cans in on a Saturday morning, the sun would shine into the living room in jagged triangles of honey-steeped light - when my dad would have a palpable optimism. The world was good, then. I would sit beside him and he would tell me why his football team were going to win the league, why the bands he listened to were the best I'd ever hear. He'd place his guitar on my lap and teach me clumsy chords, and he'd lie and say I was a natural. He'd tell me jokes I didn't get, and I'd laugh anyway, blessed to be bathed in his attention. I wanted those moments to stretch into eternity, for him to always be one sip past tipsy, kind and awake and my dad. But 5 drinks lead to 6 which lead to 10 which lead to more.
My dad still came round after the divorce. He'd knock at the door with 2 6-packs nestled under his arms, and my mum was too exhausted from working and looking after us to put up a fight. By that point I'd hope he'd fall asleep in a stupor on the sofa. Whatever started him drinking, whatever held him captive, had twisted him bitter and mean. By the end of the night, if he hadn't collapsed or decided on the pub, he would argue and shout and smash things and tell us that having children had ruined his life. I don't think he meant it, but I don't think he could say aloud what kept him sad.
After university he started sending me gifts. I panicked. I was living on the other side of the country and I'd been so guarded about my dad that him knowing my address made me feel vulnerable. The first one was an Echo and The Bunnymen discography on CD. The second was a Smiths t-shirt. The third was a mug for my partner, printed with the local football team logo. I phoned him and we spoke. He'd been drinking but he was fluent, he quizzed me on geography and history, he told me he'd been volunteering. We kept talking, once or twice a fortnight. I started to wonder if, when I went home, maybe we could meet up and have lunch. I told my siblings I thought he might be getting better. I started another degree, and I worked in a sweetshop part-time. I bought my dad a big bag of his favourite sweets and said I'd be at my grandparents to give them to him. He wasn't there. My grandparents phoned him, over and over, and when he answered, he told them to tell me to leave the sweets. I did. The phone calls stopped.
There would be times where I'd see him in passing. I'd go to my grandparents and he might be there. He didn't look well. I asked after him, asked how he was getting on. He'd ask me the same. Then one of us would go. I started having counselling. My siblings didn't speak to him. I started to think they were right. Years passed and thinking about my dad made me feel unwell. It felt like a rope was tied beneath my ribs, pulled tighter and tighter, and I felt guilty. My counsellor told me I should have boundaries, that I should work to recognise that his illness is not my fault.
My dad called me a year ago. He phoned from my grandparent's house phone and when he spoke I started shaking. I wasn't expecting it to be him. He was rude and I was defensive. He asked me, "why don't you like me? is it because I drink?" I told him his drinking was the least of his concerns. He told me not to worry, because I'd never hear from him again. I never did.
I cried a lot the week of that phone call, but I also felt proud of myself. I thought I'd finally set boundaries, that I didn't allow myself to get spun into his wild orbit. I thought, why did he call me, and not my siblings? And I thought it was because he knew I was a soft touch. Now, of course, I hate that day, and that I ever let this last year pass without reaching out and just trying. That conversation swims in my head at any moment of peace. My mind has changed and changed back: he called me because he thought I would understand, he didn't show up at my grandparents that day because he thought i'd be disappointed in him. I'll never know. I still have the CDs and t-shirt.
I never knew my dad without alcohol, but I knew him before it was everything. He was smart, and he was funny. He loved music, great music, and he always rooted for the underdog. He knew a lot about history, about the world. He could play songs from hearing them and seemed to have an encyclopedic knowledge of 60s/70s/80s bands. He was proud of his city. He did bad things, but he hated himself for it. He tried, I think, in misguided ways. My dad was stolen from everyone by his illness, but no more than himself. He could have been great man. He could have been a great dad.
I choose to remember my dad sitting on the couch on a Saturday morning, 5 cans down and one sip past tipsy. His team are going to win the league, the music he plays is the best in the world. The sun is shining through the window, dust-motes catch the light. It is calm and he is happy. My dad is with his family, who he loves, and, despite his every effort to deny it, have always loved him back. They were always rooting for the underdog, too.
To my dad. I hope you're at peace.
submitted by fredslapels to cripplingalcoholism [link] [comments]
Nobody is speaking at my dad's funeral. I'd like to share what I had intended to be a eulogy here (but became something else altogether), to the people I think would have understood him best. I hope that is okay. I'm sorry it's long.
First, my dad wasn't an alcoholic because he didn't drink shorts. He wasn't an alcoholic because he had a job and a mortgage, a wife and kids. He wasn't an alcoholic because he only drank socially, and he wasn't an alcoholic when he would stay at the pub night after night until closing. He wasn't an alcoholic because in the middle of the night, he would finish the last of the can he fell asleep drinking rather than getting a fresh one. He wasn't an alcoholic when his breath smelt sour and sharp. He wasn't an alcoholic when his work were concerned for him. He wasn't an alcoholic when he switched from lager to wine, wine to whiskey. He wasn't an alcoholic when minuature bottles of spirits were found underneath the pebbles of the decorative fireplace. He wasn't an alcoholic when he was admitted for supervised sobriety and he wasn't an alcoholic afterwards, because then he knew his limit - one drink, maybe two, special occasions only. He wasn't an alcoholic when his hands would shake, and he wasn't an alcoholic when he compared his shaking hands to those of Slash, the notable alcoholic. He wasn't an alcoholic when my parents divorced, and he wasn't an alcoholic when he lost his job. He wasn't an alcoholic when he stopped answering calls. He wasn't an alcoholic when his home deliveries consisted solely of clinking glass bottles that strained the plastic bags they were delivered in. He wasn't an alcoholic as his world became myopic, tethered only to the realisation of his next drink. He wasn't an alcoholic when the satiation of his illness eclipsed everyone he ever loved and who ever loved him. In the end, he wasn't an alcoholic at all. He was completely alone.
My dad wasn't around for birthdays or Christmas or graduations. If plans were made, he'd forget them. It surprised me, in my twenties, when I'd walk back to my mum's house, stifling tears and holding the birthday card I'd bought for him, how it still felt like a punch in the gut. When we did speak, our conversations were stilted and shallow, neither of us willing to upset the carefully constructed scaffolding of our relationship.
As a child, my dad wasn't always a pleasant man to be around. He could be violent, and unnecessarily cruel, but there was always a point - around 5 cans in on a Saturday morning, the sun would shine into the living room in jagged triangles of honey-steeped light - when my dad would have a palpable optimism. The world was good, then. I would sit beside him and he would tell me why his football team were going to win the league, why the bands he listened to were the best I'd ever hear. He'd place his guitar on my lap and teach me clumsy chords, and he'd lie and say I was a natural. He'd tell me jokes I didn't get, and I'd laugh anyway, blessed to be bathed in his attention. I wanted those moments to stretch into eternity, for him to always be one sip past tipsy, kind and awake and my dad. But 5 drinks lead to 6 which lead to 10 which lead to more.
My dad still came round after the divorce. He'd knock at the door with 2 6-packs nestled under his arms, and my mum was too exhausted from working and looking after us to put up a fight. By that point I'd hope he'd fall asleep in a stupor on the sofa. Whatever started him drinking, whatever held him captive, had twisted him bitter and mean. By the end of the night, if he hadn't collapsed or decided on the pub, he would argue and shout and smash things and tell us that having children had ruined his life. I don't think he meant it, but I don't think he could say aloud what kept him sad.
After university he started sending me gifts. I panicked. I was living on the other side of the country and I'd been so guarded about my dad that him knowing my address made me feel vulnerable. The first one was an Echo and The Bunnymen discography on CD. The second was a Smiths t-shirt. The third was a mug for my partner, printed with the local football team logo. I phoned him and we spoke. He'd been drinking but he was fluent, he quizzed me on geography and history, he told me he'd been volunteering. We kept talking, once or twice a fortnight. I started to wonder if, when I went home, maybe we could meet up and have lunch. I told my siblings I thought he might be getting better. I started another degree, and I worked in a sweetshop part-time. I bought my dad a big bag of his favourite sweets and said I'd be at my grandparents to give them to him. He wasn't there. My grandparents phoned him, over and over, and when he answered, he told them to tell me to leave the sweets. I did. The phone calls stopped.
There would be times where I'd see him in passing. I'd go to my grandparents and he might be there. He didn't look well. I asked after him, asked how he was getting on. He'd ask me the same. Then one of us would go. I started having counselling. My siblings didn't speak to him. I started to think they were right. Years passed and thinking about my dad made me feel unwell. It felt like a rope was tied beneath my ribs, pulled tighter and tighter, and I felt guilty. My counsellor told me I should have boundaries, that I should work to recognise that his illness is not my fault.
My dad called me a year ago. He phoned from my grandparent's house phone and when he spoke I started shaking. I wasn't expecting it to be him. He was rude and I was defensive. He asked me, "why don't you like me? is it because I drink?" I told him his drinking was the least of his concerns. He told me not to worry, because I'd never hear from him again. I never did.
I cried a lot the week of that phone call, but I also felt proud of myself. I thought I'd finally set boundaries, that I didn't allow myself to get spun into his wild orbit. I thought, why did he call me, and not my siblings? And I thought it was because he knew I was a soft touch. Now, of course, I hate that day, and that I ever let this last year pass without reaching out and just trying. That conversation swims in my head at any moment of peace. My mind has changed and changed back: he called me because he thought I would understand, he didn't show up at my grandparents that day because he thought i'd be disappointed in him. I'll never know. I still have the CDs and t-shirt.
I never knew my dad without alcohol, but I knew him before it was everything. He was smart, and he was funny. He loved music, great music, and he always rooted for the underdog. He knew a lot about history, about the world. He could play songs from hearing them and seemed to have an encyclopedic knowledge of 60s/70s/80s bands. He was proud of his city. He did bad things, but he hated himself for it. He tried, I think, in misguided ways. My dad was stolen from everyone by his illness, but no more than himself. He could have been great man. He could have been a great dad.
I choose to remember my dad sitting on the couch on a Saturday morning, 5 cans down and one sip past tipsy. His team are going to win the league, the music he plays is the best in the world. The sun is shining through the window, dust-motes catch the light. It is calm and he is happy. My dad is with his family, who he loves, and, despite his every effort to deny it, have always loved him back. They were always rooting for the underdog, too.
To my dad. I hope you're at peace.
2023.03.21 17:01 WreckageHothHead A New plot Hole thread 7B): left-over points not covered in the previous ones (Lando System suddenly pops into existence?; Emperor retcon; and 2 unprecedented Obiwan/Leia problems?!!!)
2)
In addition to making a trip between 3 different "(star) systems" without FTL within at most a few months, and clearly having the ability to pick between all kinds of systems to choose to go to without FTL (even if limited by "somewhere around here", of course), as highlighted in this earlier thread:
https://old.reddit.com/MauLecomments/11hki5e/ot_discontinuity_thread_number_3_schroedingers/ ""OT discontinuity" thread number 3: Schroedinger's gigantic space distances"
, an additional aspect of this scene here:
They're looking for a place "somewhere around here", a place they could reach without hyperspace within a reasonable amount of time or something (or perhaps without losing their fuel) - and the place they've found themselves at here, the "Anoat system", also isn't that far away from Hoth;
so if all it took Han to learn / be reminded of the fact that Lando is residing "nearby", was to spend like 10 seconds looking at his blue display screen, why hadn't they looked around who was residing near their new rebel base all this time - and learned that Lando was among them?
This would've certainly been some kind of potential fact of interest, given the Rebels' as well as Han's unstable position and possible need for refuge or assistance or who knows what, if particular situations were to arise.
And that's provided Han did learn new things from that screen, as opposed to just being reminded of what he already "knew" - in which case his years-long obliviousness would be even less explicable, since now all he would've had to do was just think of Lando, without even having to go through space charts for 20 seconds.
That's whom he got his current spaceship from... something one would think ought to have been closer to the surface of his mind this whole time.
(And it's really quite impossible to tell from the scene which parts of what he tells Leia about are his own additional knowledge, or new information he's seeing on the screen - which may or may not be reminding him of further knowledge that he already has - but Leia is struggling to catch for some unclear reason.
Is the text on the screen encrypted / in a different language/alphabet?
Or is it no text and just graphics/maps/images that Han for some reason gets more information out of than Leia is able to?
She manages to see that it's a "mining colony" - but he clarifies that it's a "tibanna gas mine"; is that also explained on the screen but only comprehensible for him, or is he already familiar with this mine? Or this "type" of mine?
He says "this is interesting" as if he did just see something that was news to him - but what could that be? The fact that Lando happens to be nearby running this mine that he's already familiar with somehow?
Or did he see something that made him indirectly recognize that Lando's involved? But how would that work?
It's rather clear that there are no words on this screen that Leia can read, because:
and Leia is apparently unable to read this information from the screen despite looking at it intently, since she asks "where are we" while it's beaming blue light into their faces - however Han can read it and learns that it's the Anoat system. (Which she then turns out to already have been familiar with, enough to know "there's not much there.)
All in all it's not entirely clear why Leia is lagging behind him in reading that screen - while Han is seemingly getting some kind of unclear combination of new information, things he recognizes, and/or things he's being reminded of.)
Although more precisely, he doesn't mention he got the ship from him either (only saying "they go way back"), that's only "revealed" in their subsequent meeting when Han tells him the ship is damaged - so does THAT piece of history also pop into existence at that very moment?
Just like Lando hadn't existed before Han opened that particular slide on his blue viewing screen?
Can an old friend with a history + a gas mine pop into existence in the middle of a scene, the way a man can pop into existence inside a casino's prison cell?
And there are two additional questions arising from this pivotal scene:
2a)
Aside from the question what would happen to the Falcon if their Stardestroyer had gone into hyperspace with them on the hull (without warning, and without having dumped the garbage first in accordance with their protocol, giving them the opportunity to detach unnoticed) - what makes Han think the Stardestroyers are gonna go into lightspeed?
And why are they going into lightspeed?
And Vader said to calculate their trajectories.
So why are they jumping into lightspeed, where are they going?
2b)
They noticed that while in the middle of a desperate situation:
So now that they've found themselves in this lucky situation with all the Imperial ships having zipped away from the area (for reasons about as inexplicable as the Falcon's success at hiding from them on the hull of the Stardestroyer and no one managing to think of it aside from Boba Fett) - why have they seemingly completely abandoned that line, instead of resuming their work as they're floating among the garbage, or after flying away from it?
If they succeeded, they wouldn't have to rely on "finding a safe port", or Lando fixing it, or any of that, and could head directly to the rebel base....
So why even look through all those charts of space ports when their Plan A should've been
3)
So the Emperor is a "plain man" in Ep4, but is then Vader's Force Master in Ep5 - not much more needs to be said here?
Alongside with this drastic retcon, there's also a general subgenre shift that takes place between ANH and ESB:
in the first, the Empire is primarily a "space fascist" government, militaristic technocracts that have one high-ranking sorcerer-knight among their ranks - he's the last remnant of the magician order that they wiped out in order to get into power;
however in the second, the Empire is Space Mordor led by a Dark Lord and his right-hand Dark Lord Knight, the latter of whom operates from a demonic-looking fortress ship with red lights - and all the admirals and officers are no longer individuals with their own ambitions, agendas and views, but rather glorified minions doing their masters' bidding on the pain of death.
The Ep7-9 trilogy is seen playing around with the juxtaposition between these 2 paradigms, when Kylo takes over as Supreme Leader and now starts pushing all those previously confident and autonomous fascist higher-ups with their own views and voices around and forcing them to follow along.
4-5 don't show such a "development" however - even if one can be assumed to have taken place off-screen.
(Just as it's possible to suggest that the Emperor has revealed himself as a Dark Lord at some point between 4 and 6, after having kept it secret initially - and that this is therefore not a real retcon.
However that's just an interpretation that relies on an huge assumption.)
So then when the ST presents another "subgenre shift" by having lightsabers act more like Excalibur, or the Sith having a forbidden Black Speech language (or having Rey instantly instinctively download new Force powers like the Matrix or Marvel mutants), then yes, that's what's going on here - however it's also true that the OT has pulled this sort of thing before, reinventing its genre and continuity in the very 1st sequel.
4a)
If Luke was "hidden" "after he was born", does that mean he was initially born way elsewhere, and then given (as in ""hidden"") to Owen and Beru?
In which case the obvious next question is (which still applies to the RotS ending, even with all its altered continuity issues), why not hide him with Obi-Wan instead - so he can raise him into a Jedi hero from the get go, all in secret and properly anonymous and far away from his family's known home at that?
In addition to properly taking care of the world's "only hope (or one of 2, anyway)", it would've also freed up Obi-Wan to do all kinds of useful things throughout the galaxy, trying to influence things in a positive direction, and available as an asset to the nascent and eventually fully emerged Rebellion;
this way however, he's now stuck on Tatooine, seemingly completely inactive in all of this until Leia's message, because he now has to guard Luke all the time whom his family is emphatically keeping close to home and away from the cause?
Before this line, and within ANH, it seemed like Luke had simply been already born into his family, and Obi-Wan simply didn't want to forcibly take him away from them or even go against Owen's wishes to keep him away from his father's light saber, all the relevant truths, and so on (plus, hey, maybe that was even literally impossible cause it would've "led to the Dark Side" or something - like Gandalf forcibly taking the Ring to do good, or something) - so he had no choice but to stay on Tatooine and prevent himself from being a great asset to the emerging Rebellion.
But now it turns out they apparently voluntarily gave Luke to his family, leading to this outcome? Well, maybe Owen started out with a different attitude but then soured on the idea of exposing Luke to the truth - although he had already been against his brothecousin leaving and getting involved, so wouldn't really much seem that way.
(Of course, the "in order to watch over Luke" reason for Obi-Wan living there as a hermit wasn't ever explicitly stated in 4 or 5-6 - it could be very reasonably concluded to have been the reason, but it still wasn't stated; and certainly didn't have to be the only reason for this choice.
What could some of the other reasons have been? Intending to hide as much as possible from the Empire, lest some kind of "not absolutely crucial and most desperate hour" involvement with the Rebellion compromised him and endangered his potential role in some, well, absolutely-crucial-and-most-desperate-hour task down the line - i.e. like the Death Star destruction? As well as his role as Luke's protector?
Not absurd, except a lot of his behavior in ANH of course isn't consistent with that mindset - from the "real surname" thing, to not thinking about the Empire searching for these droids until seeing the destroyed Sandcrawler, to displaying his lightsaber in a bar with Stormtroopers looking for them outside on the streets;
however those behaviors "inconsistent with the imperative to lead a hidden life" don't automatically disprove the presence of such an imperative outside of these inexplicable deviations.
Some yet entirely different reason for living as a quiet hermit and having cut himself off from the cause? Even having forgotten details from his past active life, like "having owned R2", or seemingly not having even thought about his real name for a long time, in addition to not having heard it?
And of course a related question is why no one had contact him until this moment - was he only known as a potential asset to Leia and her father, and really no one else? Or they knew not to contact him unless absolutely necessary?
Loads of unresolved questions here.
4b)
So albeit "safely anonymous", Leia was then given to an adoptive father (let's call him "Organa Sr.") whom "Obi-Wan had served during the Clone Wars";
a possibly prominent figure from the Clone Wars, that shouldn't have been unknown to the Empire or Vader (who now is the Skywalker Sr. who fought in the same (Clone) wars as Organa Sr. and Obi-Wan), and someone who'd go on to become an active Rebel (and possibly had been a proto-Rebel from the get go, analogously to Bail) - and Leia then also joins, either raised to do so from the start, or autonomously perhaps even despite her "father's" efforts, who knows.
So was this whole outcome in accordance with the original intention to "protect the children from Vader and the Emperor" (while also having them as the "only hope" to topple them)? Like, Leia remains anonymous, but as a prominent figure of the Rebellion, not "safe from Vader" in any way - except from getting pulled into the Dark Side that is - and in fact almost gets executed.
How much worse would it have been to start training her in the Force, if she was already a prominent Rebel with a huge target on her back?
Or would Organa Sr. also have been against this somehow? No indications for that.
Or was this outcome not in accordance with their intentions, and Leia was supposed to keep a low profile before quietly being recruited into the Only-Hope apprenticeship?
Did Obi-Wan only find out about all this now, having had no clue what's going with that other sibling? Or was he fully aware and up to date (despite having such a buried recollection of his name and active life)?
Questions here as well.
HOWEVER - this is firmly "well duh, of course the Leia=sister reveal was invented on the fly and makes no sense if you go back to 4 - RotJ has big issues after all" territory now, so there's less of a need to keep covering this "a lot more obvious" ground here now;
and I've been told that EFAP are in fact "RotJ skeptics" to at least some extent - so until I know more about that extent, going through more points (and there are quite a few) and potentially getting increasingly redundant might be a bit pointless.
However one further thing probably worth highlighting here, given its high relevance to the ST:
4b.1)
Has anyone noticed how there's essentially 3 different Leias in RotJ?
It's kinda of very similar to Padme/Amidala, who switches between several personas/personalities/attitudes depending on dress/appearance or the chapter in the story - though not quite as extreme, one might think.
There's the almost Blues Brothers like version that shows up to free Han (not quite counting the "bounty hunter role" and "slave" phases of that chapter), there's the "normal" friendly-but-sarcastic-and-assertive Rebel General version, and then there's the emphatically diminutive and vulnerable "Ewok princess" one - before she changes back to the "General" personality in the final act following this scene here:
However this "somehow known that Luke is her brother" is clearly not taking place in the same continuity as "somehow known that Luke is in trouble under Cloud City", just to highlight this point an additional time.
So in TFA, Leia appears to be a "regular" person, knowing much about the Force just like Han but showing no signs of having access to it herself, or seen talking about it in any way distinct from how Han talks about it - except the moment where she senses a disturbance when Han is killed.
Then in TLJ, there are no psychic moments before or after, except the part where she shows powers while frozen in space and floats inside a ship, while an emphatic version of her leitmotif is played - almost as if the movie suddenly remembers how this side of her character has been neglected too much and at least 1 epic moment like this was needed;
at the very end, she and Rey talk about they've sensed Luke's death.
And finally in TroS (but using archive footage, originally intended for the earlier movies I think?) Leia turns out to be a full Jedi Master now training super-Rey, and is also shown in a lightsaber flashback with Luke;
in the movies the way they were released, where was all of that in TFA, or even TLJ? Leia seemed to be slightly psychic there, someone who's never really worked on or developed these sklls after all, but shows being tuned into it at the very least in the most dramatic moments - but who could've guessed she was a full ultra-Master who could've been giving lessons and instructions that whole time, incl. when interacting with Rey?
Lots of off-screen development between these 2 happened at some unspecified point.
However... it'd be prudent to remember that this confusion and cognitive dissonance about just how magical Leia was supposed to be after showing emerging powers in Ep5, started right then and there in 1983, and the Sequels merely inherited this already schizophrenic and contradictory legacy and naturally only continued the confusion, forgetfulness and cognitive dissonance instead of successfully "fixing" it in some way.
(One could say the same also applies to most every other aspect of 7-9 and 4-6, in fact.)
And fittingly enough, the film with the least cohesive seeming vision, TLJ that is, is the one that pulls the bizarre "oh f, we need Leia to be magical, completely forgot that!" moment - while the other 2 movies with the much more coherent tone and approaches are the ones that at least committed to 1 interpretation/version of her character each, respectively, in mostly convincing ways:
TFA to the "almost non-psychic" one, and TRoS to the "full-on Jedi Master" - amounting to a splintered narrative, just like RotJ was, and the 1st 2 films as well (even if not necessarily with Leia's character in particular - although even then, it's clear that ESB decided to leave the whole "princess trope" emphasized so much in the 1st movie behind, in all but name - somewhat justified in-universe by them having been chased off Yavin where they had some kinda old culture and huge throne rooms going on; then again them having been chased out into a cold outpost goes against ANH's sequel set-up, see 1st thread).
submitted by WreckageHothHead to MauLer [link] [comments]
In addition to making a trip between 3 different "(star) systems" without FTL within at most a few months, and clearly having the ability to pick between all kinds of systems to choose to go to without FTL (even if limited by "somewhere around here", of course), as highlighted in this earlier thread:
https://old.reddit.com/MauLecomments/11hki5e/ot_discontinuity_thread_number_3_schroedingers/ ""OT discontinuity" thread number 3: Schroedinger's gigantic space distances"
, an additional aspect of this scene here:
"With the rest of the garbage... Then what?"is that this is the 1st time traveling to Lando ever occurs to Han - does he just pop into existence (with a fully (or partially) formed past) in that very moment?
"Then we gotta find a safe port somewhere around here... Any ideas?"
"No, where are we?"
"The Anoat system."
"Anoat system, there's not much there..."
"No...
Oh, wait - this is interesting... Lando!"
"Lando system?"
"Lando's not a system, he's a man; Lando Calrissian. Card player, gambler - scoundrel, you'd like him."
"Thanks..."
"Bespin, it's pretty far, but I think we can make it..."
"... A mining colony?"
"Yeah, a tibanna gas mine. Lando conned somebody out of it... We go back a long way, Lando and me."
They're looking for a place "somewhere around here", a place they could reach without hyperspace within a reasonable amount of time or something (or perhaps without losing their fuel) - and the place they've found themselves at here, the "Anoat system", also isn't that far away from Hoth;
so if all it took Han to learn / be reminded of the fact that Lando is residing "nearby", was to spend like 10 seconds looking at his blue display screen, why hadn't they looked around who was residing near their new rebel base all this time - and learned that Lando was among them?
This would've certainly been some kind of potential fact of interest, given the Rebels' as well as Han's unstable position and possible need for refuge or assistance or who knows what, if particular situations were to arise.
And that's provided Han did learn new things from that screen, as opposed to just being reminded of what he already "knew" - in which case his years-long obliviousness would be even less explicable, since now all he would've had to do was just think of Lando, without even having to go through space charts for 20 seconds.
That's whom he got his current spaceship from... something one would think ought to have been closer to the surface of his mind this whole time.
(And it's really quite impossible to tell from the scene which parts of what he tells Leia about are his own additional knowledge, or new information he's seeing on the screen - which may or may not be reminding him of further knowledge that he already has - but Leia is struggling to catch for some unclear reason.
Is the text on the screen encrypted / in a different language/alphabet?
Or is it no text and just graphics/maps/images that Han for some reason gets more information out of than Leia is able to?
She manages to see that it's a "mining colony" - but he clarifies that it's a "tibanna gas mine"; is that also explained on the screen but only comprehensible for him, or is he already familiar with this mine? Or this "type" of mine?
He says "this is interesting" as if he did just see something that was news to him - but what could that be? The fact that Lando happens to be nearby running this mine that he's already familiar with somehow?
Or did he see something that made him indirectly recognize that Lando's involved? But how would that work?
It's rather clear that there are no words on this screen that Leia can read, because:
Han: "Then we gotta find a safe port somewhere around here... [blue light...] Any ideas?"Somehow they have no idea which system they're in (just how many star systems did they cross on their way from Hoth to the asteroid field to now?), and need the information from that blue viewing screen to learn that they're in the "Anoat system";
Leia: "No, where are we?"
Han: "The Anoat system." [.../blue light]
Leia: "Anoat system, there's not much there..." [blue light...]
Han: "No..." [.../blue light]
and Leia is apparently unable to read this information from the screen despite looking at it intently, since she asks "where are we" while it's beaming blue light into their faces - however Han can read it and learns that it's the Anoat system. (Which she then turns out to already have been familiar with, enough to know "there's not much there.)
All in all it's not entirely clear why Leia is lagging behind him in reading that screen - while Han is seemingly getting some kind of unclear combination of new information, things he recognizes, and/or things he's being reminded of.)
Although more precisely, he doesn't mention he got the ship from him either (only saying "they go way back"), that's only "revealed" in their subsequent meeting when Han tells him the ship is damaged - so does THAT piece of history also pop into existence at that very moment?
Just like Lando hadn't existed before Han opened that particular slide on his blue viewing screen?
Can an old friend with a history + a gas mine pop into existence in the middle of a scene, the way a man can pop into existence inside a casino's prison cell?
"We go back a long way, Lando and me."
"D-d-don't let the wrapper fool you, friend... Me and the First Order codage... - go way back. And-t-t-t-the.... ..If the price is right... - I can break you into old man Snoke's boudoire."
2a)
Aside from the question what would happen to the Falcon if their Stardestroyer had gone into hyperspace with them on the hull (without warning, and without having dumped the garbage first in accordance with their protocol, giving them the opportunity to detach unnoticed) - what makes Han think the Stardestroyers are gonna go into lightspeed?
And why are they going into lightspeed?
"Lord Vader - our ships have completed their scan of the area and found nothing. If the Millennium Falcon went into lightspeed, it'll be on the other side of the galaxy by now."Does "deploy the fleet" mean go into hyperspace, and why would the do that? Either the Falcon had jumped into hyperspace and could now literally be anywhere, or it didn't and is still somewhere around here.
"Alert all commands. Calculate every possible destination along their last known trajectory."
"Yes, my Lord. We'll find them." "Don't fail me again - Admiral."
"Alert all commands. Deploy the fleet."
And Vader said to calculate their trajectories.
So why are they jumping into lightspeed, where are they going?
"The fleet's beginning to break up.Does that necessarily mean they're gonna go into hyperspace? As opposed to splitting to go search for the Falcon in the surrounding area?
"Well, if they follow standard Imperial procedure, they'll dump their garbage before they go to lightspeed, and then we'll just float away."Well, if it was just a guess and then it turned out they weren't jumping to lightspeed, at least nothing bad would've happened - however Han seems really sure that it'll happen, and then it does. How and why again?
2b)
"Transfer circuits aren't working."Has anyone confirmed that this means they now definitely can't fix their hyperdrive on their own, and need external help now?
They noticed that while in the middle of a desperate situation:
"One more direct hit on the back quarter and we're done for.", but no one said they had no options left if they got out of that hairy situation and could calmly take a look at those transfer circuits?
So now that they've found themselves in this lucky situation with all the Imperial ships having zipped away from the area (for reasons about as inexplicable as the Falcon's success at hiding from them on the hull of the Stardestroyer and no one managing to think of it aside from Boba Fett) - why have they seemingly completely abandoned that line, instead of resuming their work as they're floating among the garbage, or after flying away from it?
If they succeeded, they wouldn't have to rely on "finding a safe port", or Lando fixing it, or any of that, and could head directly to the rebel base....
So why even look through all those charts of space ports when their Plan A should've been
"Well, if they follow standard Imperial procedure, they'll dump their garbage before they go to lightspeed, and then we'll just float away."to float away and then start working on their hyperdrive; and then maybe contemplate other options if that completely failed and turned out to be hopeless?
"With the rest of the garbage... Then what?"
"Then we gotta find a safe port somewhere around here...
So the Emperor is a "plain man" in Ep4, but is then Vader's Force Master in Ep5 - not much more needs to be said here?
Alongside with this drastic retcon, there's also a general subgenre shift that takes place between ANH and ESB:
in the first, the Empire is primarily a "space fascist" government, militaristic technocracts that have one high-ranking sorcerer-knight among their ranks - he's the last remnant of the magician order that they wiped out in order to get into power;
however in the second, the Empire is Space Mordor led by a Dark Lord and his right-hand Dark Lord Knight, the latter of whom operates from a demonic-looking fortress ship with red lights - and all the admirals and officers are no longer individuals with their own ambitions, agendas and views, but rather glorified minions doing their masters' bidding on the pain of death.
The Ep7-9 trilogy is seen playing around with the juxtaposition between these 2 paradigms, when Kylo takes over as Supreme Leader and now starts pushing all those previously confident and autonomous fascist higher-ups with their own views and voices around and forcing them to follow along.
4-5 don't show such a "development" however - even if one can be assumed to have taken place off-screen.
(Just as it's possible to suggest that the Emperor has revealed himself as a Dark Lord at some point between 4 and 6, after having kept it secret initially - and that this is therefore not a real retcon.
However that's just an interpretation that relies on an huge assumption.)
So then when the ST presents another "subgenre shift" by having lightsabers act more like Excalibur, or the Sith having a forbidden Black Speech language (or having Rey instantly instinctively download new Force powers like the Matrix or Marvel mutants), then yes, that's what's going on here - however it's also true that the OT has pulled this sort of thing before, reinventing its genre and continuity in the very 1st sequel.
"To protect you both from the Emperor, you were hidden from your father when you were born. The Emperor knew, as I did - if Anakin were to have any offspring, they would be a threat to him.Aside from the most obvious question of "why then NOT have Luke also anonymous and instead have him live with his real family, under all their real names, with "Ben" living right next to them also under his real surname" - which of course would've already been the way to go even in ANH's "Luke's father was killed by Vader" continuity - the slightly less obvious question arising from this piece of information is:
That is the reason why your sister remains safely anonymous."
If Luke was "hidden" "after he was born", does that mean he was initially born way elsewhere, and then given (as in ""hidden"") to Owen and Beru?
In which case the obvious next question is (which still applies to the RotS ending, even with all its altered continuity issues), why not hide him with Obi-Wan instead - so he can raise him into a Jedi hero from the get go, all in secret and properly anonymous and far away from his family's known home at that?
In addition to properly taking care of the world's "only hope (or one of 2, anyway)", it would've also freed up Obi-Wan to do all kinds of useful things throughout the galaxy, trying to influence things in a positive direction, and available as an asset to the nascent and eventually fully emerged Rebellion;
this way however, he's now stuck on Tatooine, seemingly completely inactive in all of this until Leia's message, because he now has to guard Luke all the time whom his family is emphatically keeping close to home and away from the cause?
Before this line, and within ANH, it seemed like Luke had simply been already born into his family, and Obi-Wan simply didn't want to forcibly take him away from them or even go against Owen's wishes to keep him away from his father's light saber, all the relevant truths, and so on (plus, hey, maybe that was even literally impossible cause it would've "led to the Dark Side" or something - like Gandalf forcibly taking the Ring to do good, or something) - so he had no choice but to stay on Tatooine and prevent himself from being a great asset to the emerging Rebellion.
But now it turns out they apparently voluntarily gave Luke to his family, leading to this outcome? Well, maybe Owen started out with a different attitude but then soured on the idea of exposing Luke to the truth - although he had already been against his brothecousin leaving and getting involved, so wouldn't really much seem that way.
(Of course, the "in order to watch over Luke" reason for Obi-Wan living there as a hermit wasn't ever explicitly stated in 4 or 5-6 - it could be very reasonably concluded to have been the reason, but it still wasn't stated; and certainly didn't have to be the only reason for this choice.
What could some of the other reasons have been? Intending to hide as much as possible from the Empire, lest some kind of "not absolutely crucial and most desperate hour" involvement with the Rebellion compromised him and endangered his potential role in some, well, absolutely-crucial-and-most-desperate-hour task down the line - i.e. like the Death Star destruction? As well as his role as Luke's protector?
Not absurd, except a lot of his behavior in ANH of course isn't consistent with that mindset - from the "real surname" thing, to not thinking about the Empire searching for these droids until seeing the destroyed Sandcrawler, to displaying his lightsaber in a bar with Stormtroopers looking for them outside on the streets;
however those behaviors "inconsistent with the imperative to lead a hidden life" don't automatically disprove the presence of such an imperative outside of these inexplicable deviations.
Some yet entirely different reason for living as a quiet hermit and having cut himself off from the cause? Even having forgotten details from his past active life, like "having owned R2", or seemingly not having even thought about his real name for a long time, in addition to not having heard it?
And of course a related question is why no one had contact him until this moment - was he only known as a potential asset to Leia and her father, and really no one else? Or they knew not to contact him unless absolutely necessary?
"I'm getting too old for this sort of thing..."Well there certainly was a period where he wasn't too old and would've been of much more help than baby Luke, right? So why was LUKE the "only hope" and not Obi-Wan while he was alive and not too old?
Loads of unresolved questions here.
So albeit "safely anonymous", Leia was then given to an adoptive father (let's call him "Organa Sr.") whom "Obi-Wan had served during the Clone Wars";
a possibly prominent figure from the Clone Wars, that shouldn't have been unknown to the Empire or Vader (who now is the Skywalker Sr. who fought in the same (Clone) wars as Organa Sr. and Obi-Wan), and someone who'd go on to become an active Rebel (and possibly had been a proto-Rebel from the get go, analogously to Bail) - and Leia then also joins, either raised to do so from the start, or autonomously perhaps even despite her "father's" efforts, who knows.
So was this whole outcome in accordance with the original intention to "protect the children from Vader and the Emperor" (while also having them as the "only hope" to topple them)? Like, Leia remains anonymous, but as a prominent figure of the Rebellion, not "safe from Vader" in any way - except from getting pulled into the Dark Side that is - and in fact almost gets executed.
How much worse would it have been to start training her in the Force, if she was already a prominent Rebel with a huge target on her back?
Or would Organa Sr. also have been against this somehow? No indications for that.
Or was this outcome not in accordance with their intentions, and Leia was supposed to keep a low profile before quietly being recruited into the Only-Hope apprenticeship?
Did Obi-Wan only find out about all this now, having had no clue what's going with that other sibling? Or was he fully aware and up to date (despite having such a buried recollection of his name and active life)?
Questions here as well.
HOWEVER - this is firmly "well duh, of course the Leia=sister reveal was invented on the fly and makes no sense if you go back to 4 - RotJ has big issues after all" territory now, so there's less of a need to keep covering this "a lot more obvious" ground here now;
and I've been told that EFAP are in fact "RotJ skeptics" to at least some extent - so until I know more about that extent, going through more points (and there are quite a few) and potentially getting increasingly redundant might be a bit pointless.
However one further thing probably worth highlighting here, given its high relevance to the ST:
4b.1)
Has anyone noticed how there's essentially 3 different Leias in RotJ?
It's kinda of very similar to Padme/Amidala, who switches between several personas/personalities/attitudes depending on dress/appearance or the chapter in the story - though not quite as extreme, one might think.
There's the almost Blues Brothers like version that shows up to free Han (not quite counting the "bounty hunter role" and "slave" phases of that chapter), there's the "normal" friendly-but-sarcastic-and-assertive Rebel General version, and then there's the emphatically diminutive and vulnerable "Ewok princess" one - before she changes back to the "General" personality in the final act following this scene here:
"If I don't make it back, you're the only hope for the Alliance."So the obvious question here is, is it "RotJ Leia" who's suddenly never had any hint of Force powers and sensed Luke hanging on below Cloud City, or is it just this particular version of her within RotJ?
"Don't talk that way - you have a power I don't understand... and could never have."
"You're wrong, Leia - you have that power, too. In time, you'll learn to use it as I have. The Force is strong in my family. My father has it. I have it. And... my sister has it."
"Yes. It's you, Leia."This sounds like a semi-psychic intuition of some sort, or at least it makes one think of psychic abilities since she's supposed to have dormant talent in that area - however since it's described as having been a subconscious kind of thing that she's only realized now, it doesn't really contradict the "I could never have these powers, since I'm definitely not related to your wizard bloodline" from seconds ago.
"I know. Somehow... I've always known."
However this "somehow known that Luke is her brother" is clearly not taking place in the same continuity as "somehow known that Luke is in trouble under Cloud City", just to highlight this point an additional time.
Then in TLJ, there are no psychic moments before or after, except the part where she shows powers while frozen in space and floats inside a ship, while an emphatic version of her leitmotif is played - almost as if the movie suddenly remembers how this side of her character has been neglected too much and at least 1 epic moment like this was needed;
at the very end, she and Rey talk about they've sensed Luke's death.
And finally in TroS (but using archive footage, originally intended for the earlier movies I think?) Leia turns out to be a full Jedi Master now training super-Rey, and is also shown in a lightsaber flashback with Luke;
in the movies the way they were released, where was all of that in TFA, or even TLJ? Leia seemed to be slightly psychic there, someone who's never really worked on or developed these sklls after all, but shows being tuned into it at the very least in the most dramatic moments - but who could've guessed she was a full ultra-Master who could've been giving lessons and instructions that whole time, incl. when interacting with Rey?
Lots of off-screen development between these 2 happened at some unspecified point.
However... it'd be prudent to remember that this confusion and cognitive dissonance about just how magical Leia was supposed to be after showing emerging powers in Ep5, started right then and there in 1983, and the Sequels merely inherited this already schizophrenic and contradictory legacy and naturally only continued the confusion, forgetfulness and cognitive dissonance instead of successfully "fixing" it in some way.
(One could say the same also applies to most every other aspect of 7-9 and 4-6, in fact.)
And fittingly enough, the film with the least cohesive seeming vision, TLJ that is, is the one that pulls the bizarre "oh f, we need Leia to be magical, completely forgot that!" moment - while the other 2 movies with the much more coherent tone and approaches are the ones that at least committed to 1 interpretation/version of her character each, respectively, in mostly convincing ways:
TFA to the "almost non-psychic" one, and TRoS to the "full-on Jedi Master" - amounting to a splintered narrative, just like RotJ was, and the 1st 2 films as well (even if not necessarily with Leia's character in particular - although even then, it's clear that ESB decided to leave the whole "princess trope" emphasized so much in the 1st movie behind, in all but name - somewhat justified in-universe by them having been chased off Yavin where they had some kinda old culture and huge throne rooms going on; then again them having been chased out into a cold outpost goes against ANH's sequel set-up, see 1st thread).
2023.03.21 17:00 Wine_Dark_Sea_1239 I own an abandoned motel and I’m ready to meet my doom
[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7] [Part 8] [Part 9] [Part 10] [Part 11] [Part 12] [Part 13]
When my screams subsided, malevolent laughter filled the uneasy silence. Discordant, cruel laughter that sounded as though it bubbled from underwater. I turned around to see the macabre faces of the Kane sisters behind me, pressed against the window of their cottage, black teeth chattering.
“Where did they take him?” I demanded. My anger increased their delight.
“Where did they take him?” Margery mocked, my own voice coming out of her blackened mouth.
“Poor, poor girl lost her puppy!” Margaretta cackled.
I felt the rage rise within me, but I was utterly helpless. I knew they had the information we needed, but even if they were willing to speak, they could not be trusted.
Suddenly, their faces changed. Their dead white eyes widened in terror; their smiles had melted. Mina shrieked, a cacophonous cry that sent my hands to my ears.
It was René. Their eyes were fixed on him. His very presence caused them to tremble in fear.
“What is he doing here?” Margery hissed.
“Come back to hurt us again, he has!” Mina shrieked.
“Devil take you, vampire!” Margaretta cried.
I looked at René in astonishment. He wore an expression I had not seen before, a smile that was almost cruel.
“Well if it isn’t the old charlatan sisters!” He said. “I would have never guessed that she would still be keeping you around, but then again, she’s always loved the most pathetic of sycophants.”
“Be gone, vampire! Be gone!” They shouted.
“I would love nothing more. But you heard Nora. You have information we need. Where did they take the werewolf?”
Margery turned to me.
“Stay away from him, girl! Stay away!”
“He hurt us! He hurt us!” Mina moaned.
“How about we make a deal?” I said, thinking quickly. The sisters cocked their terrible heads in curiosity. “You can tell me your story. Tell me what he did. But in return, you must tell us where they took our friend.”
René raised his eyebrows, but did not protest.
“And I will know when you are lying,” he added menacingly.
The sisters looked at each other and began to nod eagerly.
“The girl says she will listen!” They whispered excitedly. I felt a pang of pity.
“Do you agree?”
“Yes,” they hissed, the glee returning to their voices. The door to the cottage opened.
I stepped inside with René close behind me. The sisters glared at him.
“Whatever you’re going to do, do it without drawing blood this time.” I said, remembering the claw marks in my wrists.
“No appreciation for the fine art of channeling,” muttered Margaretta.
The sisters gestured to the chairs at the table. René and I sat, but I kept my arms tightly crossed. The sisters closed their eyes and moved from side to side rhythmically, putting themselves into a trance. They moaned and their mouths opened, emitting a thick, ectoplasmic mist.
“Gross,” I whispered to René, who smirked in response.
The mist enveloped us and our ramshackle surroundings, along with the sisters, vanished. In their place appeared a mid-19th century parlor: a finely carved mantle draped in black crepe, the ornamental mirror on top covered with black cloth. It was night, the heavy damask curtains were drawn, elegant oil lamps were lit on a large oak table, also draped in black. The sisters sat at the table, very much alive, dressed in ostentatious displays of mourning, their wide skirts spread across the chairs they sat in, jet bracelets clattering at their wrists. Human hands wreathed by delicate lace grabbed those of an older man who trembled with emotion.
A small audience observed the séance, dressed for an evening’s entertainment. There was one man in particular, whose clothing was undoubtedly the finest, with a dazzling silver jacquard waistcoat. Though he wore a pair of blue tinted spectacles, I immediately recognized him as René. His brown hair was longer, combed away from his face and curling just under his ears. He was smiling, that same strange smile I had seen before.
The sisters made their usual dramatic entreaties to the Great Beyond and the crowd gasped when the spirits responded intelligently to their questions with a series of rapping sounds. The man begged them to contact the spirit of his young daughter who had perished in a carriage accident decades before. The sisters obliged, making contact through the rapping. With a flourish, Mina threw her head back and out of her mouth squeaked the voice of a small child. The man collapsed in tears. Women in the audience dabbed their eyes with their handkerchiefs. René was no longer smiling.
When the audience had shuffled out, René lingered. Margaretta gave him an unctuous grin.
“How may we assist you, sir?”
“I would like to schedule a…private appointment.” He lowered his glasses and fixed his grey eyes on her. Margaretta’s eyes widened. She stared vacantly as though in a daze.
“We are entirely booked. We are in such demand, after all. We leave Rochester for our world tour this Saturday.” Margery said. Mina peered at René over her sister’s arm and smiled. He winked at her.
“Such lovely ladies you are. Money should be no issue, of course. I think you will find that you are free tomorrow evening” he said slowly. Margaretta nodded.
“Yes, yes. We are.”
“Very good. I very much look forward to our session.”
“Yes!” Shouted Mina, clearly enamored.
René smiled and put on his top hat, taking his leave.
The next night, the sisters eagerly awaited their guest. René arrived with a veiled woman on his arm, wearing lace gloves, matching the sisters in a black silk gown. Mina looked slightly disappointed to see the woman, but the other sisters grinned at her obvious finery, expecting a hefty sum for their services.
“Ladies, I hope you do not mind I have brought my wife,” he said, almost unable to hide the sinister grin that crept across his face.
“Of course, of course, welcome, madam!”
The veiled woman made no response. René escorted her to the table and they joined hands. The sisters began their show: the room erupted in rapping.
“The spirits are many in the ether tonight,” Margery moaned. “To whom do you wish to speak?”
“I wish to contact the spirit of our deceased child.” René said, watching the sisters carefully.
“Ah yes, it is a child who has appeared before me now, a beautiful child!” Margaretta cried. “Child, rap twice for yes, or once for no. Are these your beloved parents before you?”
Two distinct raps were heard on the table. Mina made an exaggerated gasp.
“The child wishes to speak through my sister!” Margery shouted.
Mina began to speak in that same squeaking voice as the previous evening. René could no longer contain his fury. With one swift movement René rose and flipped over the table before them. He grabbed Mina by the neck.
“I have no child, you insidious swindlers!” He shouted. He dug his fangs into Mina’s neck and the sisters began to scream. The witch stood and removed her veil, green eyes glowing, black teeth grinning. She raised her hand and the remaining two sisters rose into the air. René threw the corpse of Mina at their feet. They sobbed hideously, begging the witch for mercy.
“I have no use for such talentless fools,” she said.
“We will do anything, we will be your most faithful servants,” they cried still suspended in the air.
“Ask them how much money they’ve bled from the grieving, how they’ve bankrupted their victims in the name of their lost loved ones!” René said, enraged, fangs bared. “Let me finish with them!”
The witch sighed. “Forgive my friend with his tedious sense of justice. Would you really do anything? Bind yourselves to me for all time?”
“Yes! Yes!” Margery and Margaretta cried.
“Idiots,” René muttered.
The witch curled her hand into a fist and the women began to cough, hands clawing at their necks. Their eyes rolled in the back of their heads. The body of Mina rose to join them. With a sickening snap, the necks of Margery and Margaretta broke and they joined their sister in death. The corpses’ mouths opened, so wide the jaws were broken and three familiar specters climbed out. The ghosts fell at the feet of the witch, making obsequies, hailing her their mistress.
The mist that had descended around the cottage dispersed, leaving the sisters glaring at us.
“Time to fulfill your end of the bargain,” René demanded. “We don’t have much time.”
They chittered angrily and turned their ghoulish heads to me.
“Girl! Have you nothing to say of the crimes of your beau?”
What I had seen had certainly shocked me, but it was something I could not bear to process at the moment.
“He’s right. Show us where they took Jake.”
“No lies.” René warned.
The sisters grumbled among themselves, but once again broke into a trance. A vision appeared before us. It was the river, a great gray mist hanging over it. A large, shadowy structure pushed its way through, revealing the towers of an elaborate stone castle. The castle was familiar to me. Around here, we call it Bellevue Castle, an abandoned Gilded Age flight of fancy on a private island that is now our most famous tourist site. During the winter months, it is closed to guests, leaving the island abandoned. The vision dissolved into smoke.
René stood up to leave.
“You’ll never reach him before dawn,” hissed Margery.
“Yes, yes, the sun is rising, revenant!” Margaretta cackled.
He ignored them. I followed him out, feeling their hateful stares at my back, leaving them to howl and complain among themselves. They had not been lying. The sky had lightened considerably, a thin line of orange had appeared on the horizon. René cursed and shielded his face.
“Let’s get to my cottage,” I said. We arrived just as I began to feel the sun behind me. René had bolted for the dark bedroom. I found him sitting on the bed, his face in his hands, shoulders tense with frustration. I was frustrated too. We’d been outmaneuvered and I feared for Jake’s safety. Would she make him the object of her retaliation? I was certain of it. But there was no way I could sail for the castle without René. I may have a death warrant, but I do not have a death wish.
“We leave as soon as the sun sets tonight,” he said, as though convincing himself.
“I don’t think we have a choice,” I said.
“Not if we want to find Jake.”
“Do you think…do you think we’ll be too late?” I didn’t want to contemplate it.
“I do not think she would kill him without us there to witness it. She wouldn’t deprive herself of the spectacle. We have to understand that she is anticipating exactly what we are planning on doing.”
“This is it then,” I said, trying to sound strong, though I felt like a fist were gripping my heart. René lifted his head and took my hands.
“I won’t let it happen,” he said. “I swear to you.”
“I don’t think that’s something you can promise, René.”
I pulled my hands back from his. It was hard to look at him, when Mina’s face flashed before me, eyes filled with terror just before he buried his fangs into her neck.
“I realize that you have not seen me feed before,” he said quietly.
“Feed? You make it sound so…casual.”
He raised my chin to his face, gray eyes resolute.
“I have spent many decades in utter misery, disgusted by myself, by what I am. That self-loathing is still with me and will be forever. But I cannot change the past and I cannot restore what I have lost. If I can channel this bloodlust, this propensity for violence, against those who have done evil, then perhaps through evil, I can accomplish something good, spare an innocent. This thought was the only thing that sustained me in that century of servitude by her side. This is something … something I hope you never have to understand.”
“I’m trying.”
“I know.”
“I’m going to take a shower.”
“If you return while I am at rest, remember—”
“You’ll look kinda dead. I know.”
He smiled sadly.
I was desperate for the warmth of the shower. The cold within me was not merely the effect of winter, but a numbness that I couldn’t shake. I tried to reach back to a couple months ago, before the sky had changed to that ghastly green, before the abyss opened before me. It was as though I were viewing another person’s life on a different planet. And yet the life I am living now does not seem like my own either. I am straddling the lives of two strangers.
I tried to imagine death. I tried to imagine not existing. Of course, I could not. Who can? I had to hope that there would be peace, that the spirits were not lying to comfort me. After all, I had already witnessed the existence of far more unlikely things.
The sound of the water soothed me. I stepped inside, relishing those first few drops, immersing my body, emptying my mind. The future didn’t matter. At that moment, I was alive and that was glorious.
I don’t know how long I had been standing there, when the water began to feel different. Thicker. Metallic tasting. I opened my eyes to find myself covered in blood, it was pouring out of the shower head. My skin began to burn, my hair falling out in clumps, my teeth loosening and I spat them out. I screamed.
I found myself on the floor of the shower, bruised but wet from water alone. My hands fluttered to my mouth, my hair. Nothing was amiss. I dragged myself upright, trying not to sob. She would take even those small moments away from me… I toweled off with trembling hands and allowed myself a brief glance in the mirror, too fearful of what might stare back if I lingered. Beyond some considerably dark rings under my eyes, I looked relatively normal.
Before, I had contemplated watching the full sunrise, sitting in the sunshine until eventually dozing on the couch. Instead, I went back to the dark bedroom and climbed under the covers of my bed. In my current state, my only comfort came in the form of the reanimated corpse next to me. I curled up beside him and fell asleep.
++
René woke me up at sunset. Despite everything, I actually felt well-rested and at ease. René prepared by downing a large thermos of blood. I secured my uncle’s knife under my coat in a leather belt sheath, my movements calm, almost mechanical. René handed me my silver bracelets and a wave of sadness passed through me.
“We don’t know what state he is in,” he whispered. I nodded and put them on my wrists.
We set sail in silence, the boat’s movements for once not triggering nausea. It was desperately cold on the water, despite the promise of spring in the near future. The cold struck through my gloves and burned my face. René was clearly not bothered by the climate; his coat wasn’t even zipped. He stared ahead with his brows furrowed, scanning all around us for ice and other enemies.
I thought of the summer and of the river crowded with life, with people laughing, speeding past each other on their boats, picnicking under the turrets of our destination, Bellevue Castle.
“Do you know the story of Bellevue Castle, René?” I asked.
“Manhattan hotelier wanted to build the grandest home in all of the Islands, but his wife died before it could be completed.”
“And in his grief, the husband asked all the workers to put down their tools and step away, leaving the castle a half-finished husk, a monument to lost love.” I added.
“I actually think he just ran out of money. I spent some time on that construction site in the 1890s.”
I laughed.
“Of course, you did. Don’t burst the bubble of anyone on the tourist board, alright? That place is a big money maker around here.”
It was good to smile with him, even if just for a moment.
As we neared the castle, a mist descended around us, just as in the vision of the sisters. The air felt heavy and old, as though rife with mildew and rot, difficult to inhale. The visibility severely decreased, but René was able to continue to navigate towards our destination, its hulking shadows barely detectible even by his eyes.
Our boat was hit by a wave, as though from the wake of a boat. René and I looked at each other, thinking the same thing: there was absolutely no one else on the river. A great creaking sound echoed all around us, the groaning of wood and metal. A veritable flotilla of ships and boats broke the surface all around us, arising from the depths glowing a ghostly green. There were wrecked wooden speed boats, steel-hulled freighters from the turn of the century, coal steamers, massive three-masted schooners, and frigates built for the wars of two hundred years ago.
No crew piloted these vessels, which groaned and sighed with the sadness of their years at the bottom. Something was weaving its way through the wrecks, howling through the air with the screeching of a cyclone. René leaned forward, craning his neck to spot it, when a rotting hand shot out of the water and grabbed his shoulder. He pulled it off, but another joined the attack, and another, until a great host of drowned, rotting corpses were pulling at him, threatening to board the boat.
I grabbed a paddle and whacked at them, but there were too many. They were pulling him overboard, despite our best efforts. I clutched his arm and with all my strength tried to drag him back in. The cacophony was approaching, my hair whipped around my face as the freezing winds accelerated. Something caught my boot and my grip on René’s hand slipped away. I was hurtled into the swirling air. I saw below me René’s struggling body dipping below the surface of the river, drowned dead glaring up at me lifelessly.
The whirlwind hummed with the cries of miserable souls. I was suspended among them, falling upwards and upwards until I could breathe no more.
x
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When my screams subsided, malevolent laughter filled the uneasy silence. Discordant, cruel laughter that sounded as though it bubbled from underwater. I turned around to see the macabre faces of the Kane sisters behind me, pressed against the window of their cottage, black teeth chattering.
“Where did they take him?” I demanded. My anger increased their delight.
“Where did they take him?” Margery mocked, my own voice coming out of her blackened mouth.
“Poor, poor girl lost her puppy!” Margaretta cackled.
I felt the rage rise within me, but I was utterly helpless. I knew they had the information we needed, but even if they were willing to speak, they could not be trusted.
Suddenly, their faces changed. Their dead white eyes widened in terror; their smiles had melted. Mina shrieked, a cacophonous cry that sent my hands to my ears.
It was René. Their eyes were fixed on him. His very presence caused them to tremble in fear.
“What is he doing here?” Margery hissed.
“Come back to hurt us again, he has!” Mina shrieked.
“Devil take you, vampire!” Margaretta cried.
I looked at René in astonishment. He wore an expression I had not seen before, a smile that was almost cruel.
“Well if it isn’t the old charlatan sisters!” He said. “I would have never guessed that she would still be keeping you around, but then again, she’s always loved the most pathetic of sycophants.”
“Be gone, vampire! Be gone!” They shouted.
“I would love nothing more. But you heard Nora. You have information we need. Where did they take the werewolf?”
Margery turned to me.
“Stay away from him, girl! Stay away!”
“He hurt us! He hurt us!” Mina moaned.
“How about we make a deal?” I said, thinking quickly. The sisters cocked their terrible heads in curiosity. “You can tell me your story. Tell me what he did. But in return, you must tell us where they took our friend.”
René raised his eyebrows, but did not protest.
“And I will know when you are lying,” he added menacingly.
The sisters looked at each other and began to nod eagerly.
“The girl says she will listen!” They whispered excitedly. I felt a pang of pity.
“Do you agree?”
“Yes,” they hissed, the glee returning to their voices. The door to the cottage opened.
I stepped inside with René close behind me. The sisters glared at him.
“Whatever you’re going to do, do it without drawing blood this time.” I said, remembering the claw marks in my wrists.
“No appreciation for the fine art of channeling,” muttered Margaretta.
The sisters gestured to the chairs at the table. René and I sat, but I kept my arms tightly crossed. The sisters closed their eyes and moved from side to side rhythmically, putting themselves into a trance. They moaned and their mouths opened, emitting a thick, ectoplasmic mist.
“Gross,” I whispered to René, who smirked in response.
The mist enveloped us and our ramshackle surroundings, along with the sisters, vanished. In their place appeared a mid-19th century parlor: a finely carved mantle draped in black crepe, the ornamental mirror on top covered with black cloth. It was night, the heavy damask curtains were drawn, elegant oil lamps were lit on a large oak table, also draped in black. The sisters sat at the table, very much alive, dressed in ostentatious displays of mourning, their wide skirts spread across the chairs they sat in, jet bracelets clattering at their wrists. Human hands wreathed by delicate lace grabbed those of an older man who trembled with emotion.
A small audience observed the séance, dressed for an evening’s entertainment. There was one man in particular, whose clothing was undoubtedly the finest, with a dazzling silver jacquard waistcoat. Though he wore a pair of blue tinted spectacles, I immediately recognized him as René. His brown hair was longer, combed away from his face and curling just under his ears. He was smiling, that same strange smile I had seen before.
The sisters made their usual dramatic entreaties to the Great Beyond and the crowd gasped when the spirits responded intelligently to their questions with a series of rapping sounds. The man begged them to contact the spirit of his young daughter who had perished in a carriage accident decades before. The sisters obliged, making contact through the rapping. With a flourish, Mina threw her head back and out of her mouth squeaked the voice of a small child. The man collapsed in tears. Women in the audience dabbed their eyes with their handkerchiefs. René was no longer smiling.
When the audience had shuffled out, René lingered. Margaretta gave him an unctuous grin.
“How may we assist you, sir?”
“I would like to schedule a…private appointment.” He lowered his glasses and fixed his grey eyes on her. Margaretta’s eyes widened. She stared vacantly as though in a daze.
“We are entirely booked. We are in such demand, after all. We leave Rochester for our world tour this Saturday.” Margery said. Mina peered at René over her sister’s arm and smiled. He winked at her.
“Such lovely ladies you are. Money should be no issue, of course. I think you will find that you are free tomorrow evening” he said slowly. Margaretta nodded.
“Yes, yes. We are.”
“Very good. I very much look forward to our session.”
“Yes!” Shouted Mina, clearly enamored.
René smiled and put on his top hat, taking his leave.
The next night, the sisters eagerly awaited their guest. René arrived with a veiled woman on his arm, wearing lace gloves, matching the sisters in a black silk gown. Mina looked slightly disappointed to see the woman, but the other sisters grinned at her obvious finery, expecting a hefty sum for their services.
“Ladies, I hope you do not mind I have brought my wife,” he said, almost unable to hide the sinister grin that crept across his face.
“Of course, of course, welcome, madam!”
The veiled woman made no response. René escorted her to the table and they joined hands. The sisters began their show: the room erupted in rapping.
“The spirits are many in the ether tonight,” Margery moaned. “To whom do you wish to speak?”
“I wish to contact the spirit of our deceased child.” René said, watching the sisters carefully.
“Ah yes, it is a child who has appeared before me now, a beautiful child!” Margaretta cried. “Child, rap twice for yes, or once for no. Are these your beloved parents before you?”
Two distinct raps were heard on the table. Mina made an exaggerated gasp.
“The child wishes to speak through my sister!” Margery shouted.
Mina began to speak in that same squeaking voice as the previous evening. René could no longer contain his fury. With one swift movement René rose and flipped over the table before them. He grabbed Mina by the neck.
“I have no child, you insidious swindlers!” He shouted. He dug his fangs into Mina’s neck and the sisters began to scream. The witch stood and removed her veil, green eyes glowing, black teeth grinning. She raised her hand and the remaining two sisters rose into the air. René threw the corpse of Mina at their feet. They sobbed hideously, begging the witch for mercy.
“I have no use for such talentless fools,” she said.
“We will do anything, we will be your most faithful servants,” they cried still suspended in the air.
“Ask them how much money they’ve bled from the grieving, how they’ve bankrupted their victims in the name of their lost loved ones!” René said, enraged, fangs bared. “Let me finish with them!”
The witch sighed. “Forgive my friend with his tedious sense of justice. Would you really do anything? Bind yourselves to me for all time?”
“Yes! Yes!” Margery and Margaretta cried.
“Idiots,” René muttered.
The witch curled her hand into a fist and the women began to cough, hands clawing at their necks. Their eyes rolled in the back of their heads. The body of Mina rose to join them. With a sickening snap, the necks of Margery and Margaretta broke and they joined their sister in death. The corpses’ mouths opened, so wide the jaws were broken and three familiar specters climbed out. The ghosts fell at the feet of the witch, making obsequies, hailing her their mistress.
The mist that had descended around the cottage dispersed, leaving the sisters glaring at us.
“Time to fulfill your end of the bargain,” René demanded. “We don’t have much time.”
They chittered angrily and turned their ghoulish heads to me.
“Girl! Have you nothing to say of the crimes of your beau?”
What I had seen had certainly shocked me, but it was something I could not bear to process at the moment.
“He’s right. Show us where they took Jake.”
“No lies.” René warned.
The sisters grumbled among themselves, but once again broke into a trance. A vision appeared before us. It was the river, a great gray mist hanging over it. A large, shadowy structure pushed its way through, revealing the towers of an elaborate stone castle. The castle was familiar to me. Around here, we call it Bellevue Castle, an abandoned Gilded Age flight of fancy on a private island that is now our most famous tourist site. During the winter months, it is closed to guests, leaving the island abandoned. The vision dissolved into smoke.
René stood up to leave.
“You’ll never reach him before dawn,” hissed Margery.
“Yes, yes, the sun is rising, revenant!” Margaretta cackled.
He ignored them. I followed him out, feeling their hateful stares at my back, leaving them to howl and complain among themselves. They had not been lying. The sky had lightened considerably, a thin line of orange had appeared on the horizon. René cursed and shielded his face.
“Let’s get to my cottage,” I said. We arrived just as I began to feel the sun behind me. René had bolted for the dark bedroom. I found him sitting on the bed, his face in his hands, shoulders tense with frustration. I was frustrated too. We’d been outmaneuvered and I feared for Jake’s safety. Would she make him the object of her retaliation? I was certain of it. But there was no way I could sail for the castle without René. I may have a death warrant, but I do not have a death wish.
“We leave as soon as the sun sets tonight,” he said, as though convincing himself.
“I don’t think we have a choice,” I said.
“Not if we want to find Jake.”
“Do you think…do you think we’ll be too late?” I didn’t want to contemplate it.
“I do not think she would kill him without us there to witness it. She wouldn’t deprive herself of the spectacle. We have to understand that she is anticipating exactly what we are planning on doing.”
“This is it then,” I said, trying to sound strong, though I felt like a fist were gripping my heart. René lifted his head and took my hands.
“I won’t let it happen,” he said. “I swear to you.”
“I don’t think that’s something you can promise, René.”
I pulled my hands back from his. It was hard to look at him, when Mina’s face flashed before me, eyes filled with terror just before he buried his fangs into her neck.
“I realize that you have not seen me feed before,” he said quietly.
“Feed? You make it sound so…casual.”
He raised my chin to his face, gray eyes resolute.
“I have spent many decades in utter misery, disgusted by myself, by what I am. That self-loathing is still with me and will be forever. But I cannot change the past and I cannot restore what I have lost. If I can channel this bloodlust, this propensity for violence, against those who have done evil, then perhaps through evil, I can accomplish something good, spare an innocent. This thought was the only thing that sustained me in that century of servitude by her side. This is something … something I hope you never have to understand.”
“I’m trying.”
“I know.”
“I’m going to take a shower.”
“If you return while I am at rest, remember—”
“You’ll look kinda dead. I know.”
He smiled sadly.
I was desperate for the warmth of the shower. The cold within me was not merely the effect of winter, but a numbness that I couldn’t shake. I tried to reach back to a couple months ago, before the sky had changed to that ghastly green, before the abyss opened before me. It was as though I were viewing another person’s life on a different planet. And yet the life I am living now does not seem like my own either. I am straddling the lives of two strangers.
I tried to imagine death. I tried to imagine not existing. Of course, I could not. Who can? I had to hope that there would be peace, that the spirits were not lying to comfort me. After all, I had already witnessed the existence of far more unlikely things.
The sound of the water soothed me. I stepped inside, relishing those first few drops, immersing my body, emptying my mind. The future didn’t matter. At that moment, I was alive and that was glorious.
I don’t know how long I had been standing there, when the water began to feel different. Thicker. Metallic tasting. I opened my eyes to find myself covered in blood, it was pouring out of the shower head. My skin began to burn, my hair falling out in clumps, my teeth loosening and I spat them out. I screamed.
I found myself on the floor of the shower, bruised but wet from water alone. My hands fluttered to my mouth, my hair. Nothing was amiss. I dragged myself upright, trying not to sob. She would take even those small moments away from me… I toweled off with trembling hands and allowed myself a brief glance in the mirror, too fearful of what might stare back if I lingered. Beyond some considerably dark rings under my eyes, I looked relatively normal.
Before, I had contemplated watching the full sunrise, sitting in the sunshine until eventually dozing on the couch. Instead, I went back to the dark bedroom and climbed under the covers of my bed. In my current state, my only comfort came in the form of the reanimated corpse next to me. I curled up beside him and fell asleep.
++
René woke me up at sunset. Despite everything, I actually felt well-rested and at ease. René prepared by downing a large thermos of blood. I secured my uncle’s knife under my coat in a leather belt sheath, my movements calm, almost mechanical. René handed me my silver bracelets and a wave of sadness passed through me.
“We don’t know what state he is in,” he whispered. I nodded and put them on my wrists.
We set sail in silence, the boat’s movements for once not triggering nausea. It was desperately cold on the water, despite the promise of spring in the near future. The cold struck through my gloves and burned my face. René was clearly not bothered by the climate; his coat wasn’t even zipped. He stared ahead with his brows furrowed, scanning all around us for ice and other enemies.
I thought of the summer and of the river crowded with life, with people laughing, speeding past each other on their boats, picnicking under the turrets of our destination, Bellevue Castle.
“Do you know the story of Bellevue Castle, René?” I asked.
“Manhattan hotelier wanted to build the grandest home in all of the Islands, but his wife died before it could be completed.”
“And in his grief, the husband asked all the workers to put down their tools and step away, leaving the castle a half-finished husk, a monument to lost love.” I added.
“I actually think he just ran out of money. I spent some time on that construction site in the 1890s.”
I laughed.
“Of course, you did. Don’t burst the bubble of anyone on the tourist board, alright? That place is a big money maker around here.”
It was good to smile with him, even if just for a moment.
As we neared the castle, a mist descended around us, just as in the vision of the sisters. The air felt heavy and old, as though rife with mildew and rot, difficult to inhale. The visibility severely decreased, but René was able to continue to navigate towards our destination, its hulking shadows barely detectible even by his eyes.
Our boat was hit by a wave, as though from the wake of a boat. René and I looked at each other, thinking the same thing: there was absolutely no one else on the river. A great creaking sound echoed all around us, the groaning of wood and metal. A veritable flotilla of ships and boats broke the surface all around us, arising from the depths glowing a ghostly green. There were wrecked wooden speed boats, steel-hulled freighters from the turn of the century, coal steamers, massive three-masted schooners, and frigates built for the wars of two hundred years ago.
No crew piloted these vessels, which groaned and sighed with the sadness of their years at the bottom. Something was weaving its way through the wrecks, howling through the air with the screeching of a cyclone. René leaned forward, craning his neck to spot it, when a rotting hand shot out of the water and grabbed his shoulder. He pulled it off, but another joined the attack, and another, until a great host of drowned, rotting corpses were pulling at him, threatening to board the boat.
I grabbed a paddle and whacked at them, but there were too many. They were pulling him overboard, despite our best efforts. I clutched his arm and with all my strength tried to drag him back in. The cacophony was approaching, my hair whipped around my face as the freezing winds accelerated. Something caught my boot and my grip on René’s hand slipped away. I was hurtled into the swirling air. I saw below me René’s struggling body dipping below the surface of the river, drowned dead glaring up at me lifelessly.
The whirlwind hummed with the cries of miserable souls. I was suspended among them, falling upwards and upwards until I could breathe no more.
x
2023.03.21 16:58 Jazzlike-Swimmer-617 I lost the girl of my dreams because I neglected her and now I can't see it getting better.
2.5 years ago I saw a girl that fit my type exactly and I ended up asking her out and we hit things off right away to where we agreed to be boyfriend/girlfriend after the first date, the chemistry was that good.
The first year of the relationship I was just kind of a bad person and that led to her crying a lot.
The last 1.5 years, it was more due to me being a bad person that caused her to cry a lot. I put this girl through the ringer, including telling her "I don't miss her" (not with bad intent; I just didn't feel her void in my life yet on that vacation), telling her "you look Amish" after she got all dressed up once (I might have mild Asperger's?; not sure) and more socially unaware episodes like that.
She broke up with me in May after I let my room get disgustingly dirty due to depression, and feeling like I wasn't listening to her. She ended up taking me back after a few days, after I promised to be better with cleaning, listening to her, and trying Adderall. After she took me back, I just remember looking at her with the most admiration I've ever looked at anyone in my life and being so grateful to have another chance with her.
We had a good summer living together; there was a few conflicts because she had to teach me how to do a bunch of chores that I never learned at home. I did my best to change for her and to be cleaner, but I was starting at such a deficit that it ended up causing a lot of problems.
We agreed to try to do long distance the last 4 months and I ended up getting very complacent with our relationship. I would travel 8 hours to see her every few weekends, which I was proud of, but in terms of the long-distance parts when we were away, I totally neglected to Facetime her and didn't really enjoy listening to how her day was. We would facetime for like 15 minutes total some weeks.
There were a few incidents in particular that upset me, like when I neglected to wash her $80 bikini after it accidentally ended up going home with me after our vacation and it ended up getting mold, getting her a birthday gift a few days late (because i was so obsessed with getting the perfect one) and just generally not listening to her.
When she came to visit me two months ago, I ended up losing her prescription at a pharmacy 3 minutes away because I went to a nearby store to try to get her sprinkles for ice cream we had back at home. She said that was a turning point and it led her to viewing me as incompetent. (I have ADHD that I couldn't take medication for due to bad side effects).
Well, after that, we talked for a few weeks after and we decided to give it one last try, where I went up on a first date with her two weeks ago. She said it felt "hollow" and that though she was content, it did't feel right (no shit, we were broken up for 6 weeks) and then the next day I ended up crying in front of her asking for another chance. After that didn't work, we ended up spending the last 2 days together, where I was pretty aloof and rude, which I regret being. I ended up kind of being a nuisance the last two days.
She ended up texting me later saying "before, I never thought the chances of us getting back would be 0. Now, though, seeing how much better my life is without you, it is 0."
As unbelievable as it sounds, I never really acted maliciously, I am just pretty emotionally stunted and immature. Now I'm really down because this girl treated me perfectly with such tremendous patience, checked all my boxes (like seriously, every one--she was out of my league) and I mistreated her to where I will never have a chance with her again.
The way I was raised, a partner was someone you enjoyed spending time with and got gifts for, as opposed to someone that you learn the intricacies of their every day life and learn about their day and bake them gifts, etc.
I'm now realizing that regardless of my next girlfriend, I'm going to have to do that emotional labor anyways and listen to how their day was, but now I'm bummed because it will be the same cost for what I can't imagine to be as good of a reward.
I'm just sad how little of a chance I gave us. I wish I could go back, be on my meds, listen to her, and maybe be cleaner. Maybe then, we would have had a chance.
Now, it feels like I crashed a Lamborghini as a five year old, and now I'm gonna have to settle with driving a Prius to work later (and do my best to forget that I ruined my chance of a Lamborghini).
TL;DR: I mistreated my ex due to some immaturity, wish I had been able to go back and take my ADHD meds and maybe give us a chance.
submitted by Jazzlike-Swimmer-617 to offmychest [link] [comments]
The first year of the relationship I was just kind of a bad person and that led to her crying a lot.
The last 1.5 years, it was more due to me being a bad person that caused her to cry a lot. I put this girl through the ringer, including telling her "I don't miss her" (not with bad intent; I just didn't feel her void in my life yet on that vacation), telling her "you look Amish" after she got all dressed up once (I might have mild Asperger's?; not sure) and more socially unaware episodes like that.
She broke up with me in May after I let my room get disgustingly dirty due to depression, and feeling like I wasn't listening to her. She ended up taking me back after a few days, after I promised to be better with cleaning, listening to her, and trying Adderall. After she took me back, I just remember looking at her with the most admiration I've ever looked at anyone in my life and being so grateful to have another chance with her.
We had a good summer living together; there was a few conflicts because she had to teach me how to do a bunch of chores that I never learned at home. I did my best to change for her and to be cleaner, but I was starting at such a deficit that it ended up causing a lot of problems.
We agreed to try to do long distance the last 4 months and I ended up getting very complacent with our relationship. I would travel 8 hours to see her every few weekends, which I was proud of, but in terms of the long-distance parts when we were away, I totally neglected to Facetime her and didn't really enjoy listening to how her day was. We would facetime for like 15 minutes total some weeks.
There were a few incidents in particular that upset me, like when I neglected to wash her $80 bikini after it accidentally ended up going home with me after our vacation and it ended up getting mold, getting her a birthday gift a few days late (because i was so obsessed with getting the perfect one) and just generally not listening to her.
When she came to visit me two months ago, I ended up losing her prescription at a pharmacy 3 minutes away because I went to a nearby store to try to get her sprinkles for ice cream we had back at home. She said that was a turning point and it led her to viewing me as incompetent. (I have ADHD that I couldn't take medication for due to bad side effects).
Well, after that, we talked for a few weeks after and we decided to give it one last try, where I went up on a first date with her two weeks ago. She said it felt "hollow" and that though she was content, it did't feel right (no shit, we were broken up for 6 weeks) and then the next day I ended up crying in front of her asking for another chance. After that didn't work, we ended up spending the last 2 days together, where I was pretty aloof and rude, which I regret being. I ended up kind of being a nuisance the last two days.
She ended up texting me later saying "before, I never thought the chances of us getting back would be 0. Now, though, seeing how much better my life is without you, it is 0."
As unbelievable as it sounds, I never really acted maliciously, I am just pretty emotionally stunted and immature. Now I'm really down because this girl treated me perfectly with such tremendous patience, checked all my boxes (like seriously, every one--she was out of my league) and I mistreated her to where I will never have a chance with her again.
The way I was raised, a partner was someone you enjoyed spending time with and got gifts for, as opposed to someone that you learn the intricacies of their every day life and learn about their day and bake them gifts, etc.
I'm now realizing that regardless of my next girlfriend, I'm going to have to do that emotional labor anyways and listen to how their day was, but now I'm bummed because it will be the same cost for what I can't imagine to be as good of a reward.
I'm just sad how little of a chance I gave us. I wish I could go back, be on my meds, listen to her, and maybe be cleaner. Maybe then, we would have had a chance.
Now, it feels like I crashed a Lamborghini as a five year old, and now I'm gonna have to settle with driving a Prius to work later (and do my best to forget that I ruined my chance of a Lamborghini).
TL;DR: I mistreated my ex due to some immaturity, wish I had been able to go back and take my ADHD meds and maybe give us a chance.
2023.03.21 16:56 dota2nub Meeting my wife's boyfriend tonight
My wife is bringing home her boyfriend tonight. We weren't planning on interacting much. We'd meet and say hello, they'd retreat to the living room and sleep on the couch while I get the bed.
But I got a new much better job offer today so we're gonna sit down and celebrate a little with some ginger beer.
My life is weird.
I wonder how I'm gonna be feeling tonight. I really can't predict it.
submitted by dota2nub to polyamory [link] [comments]
But I got a new much better job offer today so we're gonna sit down and celebrate a little with some ginger beer.
My life is weird.
I wonder how I'm gonna be feeling tonight. I really can't predict it.
2023.03.21 16:52 TommyTallaricoBot Remember Tommy's claim that he has never drank any alcohol? Russell Pitts (former game journalist and author) has a story that says otherwise
 | submitted by TommyTallaricoBot to tommytallarico [link] [comments] |