college – Page 3 – A Piece, of the Sky

Hay’s youth is showing. She’s very smart, but only 21 and impressionable. She’s mature, an ‘old soul,’ for her age but her adult life has only just begun.

Hay is completely on the outs and it’s really sad. However, especially since production is giving her a bulletproof edit, because she is so young, CBS might think they have a winner – a new, young star, who can come back in future BB seasons and play better – like Boston Rob when he first started out.

Then we can see the evolution of Hay, throughout the seasons of the show, like the aforementioned Rob. That might be a better future for Hay, after striking out, this season.

JC has been getting into real hot water, with Tyler, but if he can cease and desist, I will continue to support him. What’s going for JC, strategically, is that Tyler needs him. JC isn’t going anywhere.

On the personal side, JC should dump his romantic feelings for Tyler, like he did for Fessy. Only talk to Tyler on a game level, because right now, JC is coming on too strong, and I don’t want JC to take himself out of the game.

My strategy for JC (and Kaycee) was to avoid being HOH, since that puts you on the spot and forces you to show your cards. However, if you are going to remain in the shadows, you also have to be ready to go up on the block, as a pawn.

The division of labor that has worked for Level 6, is that people like Tyler and Angela, take the heat, as HOH, and the ninjas, the shadow masters and the moles, like Brett and Kaycee, take a different sort of heat, going up on the block, next to the target.

JC hasn’t touched the block, which is great. But he hasn’t taken the other role, as the ‘face’ of the organization: the HOH. I don’t want him to touch the block, so it may be time for JC to win a HOH and put some muscle behind his punch.

JC really wanted to win the last HOH, with the spinning and the pie of doom, but he was first out, as usual. Still, for this week, at least, JC will get what he wants: Kaycee won her second veto; Scottie will go home (again).

JC has also calmed down, to Tyler, at minimum, on his real plans to evict Angela and Kaycee. However, next HOH comp, JC needs to push his crushes, on Tyler and Brett, to the side and put the pedal to the floor. This is JC’s time.

This battle-back is just a setback (Rewind. Groundhog Day, Doctor Who). Get rid of Scottie. He was already voted out and has outlived his usefulness.

Scottie doesn’t know when to stop talking. The juice isn’t worth the squeeze or having Sam (!) as a swing vote. Hay just needs a light touch, and she will get rid of Sam, and then be evicted, the week after.

A bitter jury is a lame tactic, but it’s still a tactic. This is why I have been pushing for the Level 6 civil war to happen sooner, rather than later – so that there will be, at least, someone from Lvl. 6, in the jury, with enough BB mist, to sway the vote. It’s a counter-intuitive strategy, but going forward, it seems jury management will include more than just GBMs.

August 24: “This doesn’t make sense.” RIP Scottie

“Yes, Level 6 doesn’t care about Bay and Rockstar’s jury votes, but as more Foutte members join the jury, they will form a voting bloc, with their own definition of reality and their own demands for justice. By the time the Level 6 people hit the jury, the narrative, for the finale, will be set, and it will be too late.”

I am glad #Tangela will be cancelled, even post-BB20. I never saw the attraction. Their personalities just don’t click. Angela, the Queen, deserves someone better than the villain, ‘Interview with the Vampire,’ Tyler.

Dan stood by the window of Hod’s study, watching the storm outside. The fire cracked and popped in the hearth. Hod sat on a huge, scarlet armchair, patterned with subtle, yellow flowers, in his magenta smoking jacket, – with the black, velvet trim – the paragon of fine sensibility and sophistication.

“I wouldn’t have taken you for such a dandy,” Dan remarked, still looking out the window, holding his familiar snifter of whiskey.

Hod also had a snifter on the table, at his side. In his delicate fingers, he held a cigar, Honduran tobacco. As he took a drag, the butt burned crimson. “Do you know why you’re here?” he said.

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Dan answered, finally turning around. He was in a black blazer, no tie, no socks, burnt sienna loafers. A Persian rug lay between them.

“Do you know why serial killers act the way they do?” Hod asked, taking a sip of whiskey.

Dan came closer, into the light of the flames. He could see a bleached skull and a golden Solar System ellipse on Hod’s desk, “Again, I haven’t the foggiest clue.”

He chewed slightly on the end of his cigar, even though he wasn’t supposed to do that, “The first step, is that serial killers – or unsubs, as we call them – won’t, or can’t, communicate with the entity that’s really bothering them.”

“Like their mothers or ‘the system,’ right?” Dan guessed.

Hod nodded, “Their own lives are chaotic, confused, frustrating. They won’t, or can’t, establish control, in what we consider to be ‘normal’ life.”

“For whatever reason, they don’t feel like they’re getting their due,” Dan added again.

A degree from Yale, lay behind glass, glittering in the darkness beyond, near the bookcase, “People break up; people get rejected. These are things that happen to everyone – but to the unsub, they are stressors. Why?”

Dan put out a hand and leaned on the mantelpiece, “The problem lies in the way the unsub thinks…”

“Yes,” Hod answered, looking at Dan directly for the first time, “Rob Ressler thought so, too.”

“You know,” Hod said, getting up and topping off his whiskey, “unsubs crave power and control; they just wall it off into one area of their lives. This process of reasserting power and control, though, eliminates the one witness to their great exhibit of dominance – the victim.”

“The nature of their crime thus becomes serial!” Dan realized, slapping his hand on the mantel.

“Correct,” Hod said, as he turned back around. Where his head had been, when he was seated in the chair, was a photo on Hod’s desk, of himself, Sebastian and a sandy-haired teenager.

“Your son?” Dan indicated the direction, with a slight movement of his head.

“Yes!” Hod raised his heavy eyebrows and looked behind him, picking up the frame, “Jon’s visiting his aunt this weekend.” He smiled for the first time that evening.

Dan looked wistful, “It’s a hard job, isn’t it?”

“Indeed,” Hod replied, solemn, setting the picture back down.

“Why did Cai bring me into this?” Dan wondered aloud.

Hod laughed, “That lothario with the curls, wearing coats redolent of Lord Dracula’s cape? The anti-avatars we’ll be hunting, are like the unsubs I mentioned, if not worse…”

The blood in Dan’s veins dried up. “Really?” he rasped.

“Of course,” Hod spread his arms wide, glass in one hand, cigar in another, “You didn’t think the spirit world was some sort of heaven, did you?”

Rain beat a staccato on the windowpane. Dan set his snifter down on the mantel and looked at his shoes on the 18th century rug. “He really pulled the rug out from under me, eh?” Dan said, glancing up, with a painful, rueful grin.

“The earth is shaky beneath everyone’s feet,” Hod intoned, as he reclined in the armchair once more.