{"id":1359,"date":"2012-11-01T05:00:38","date_gmt":"2012-11-01T12:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=1359"},"modified":"2012-10-27T08:26:12","modified_gmt":"2012-10-27T15:26:12","slug":"mark-reads-feed-chapter-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2012\/11\/mark-reads-feed-chapter-23\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8216;Feed&#8217;: Chapter 23"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the twenty-third chapter of <em>Feed<\/em>, the team heads to Sacramento for a vital appearance, and I am agonizingly cliffhanger&#8217;d. <em>Again<\/em>. Intrigued? Then it&#8217;s time for Mark to read <em>Feed<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><!--more-->Chapter Twenty-three<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>NOPE. <em>NOPE<\/em>. WHAT IS GOING ON. I AM SO FREAKED OUT AND SCARED AND <em>WHAT IS HAPPENING<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Ugh, that fucking cliffhanger. You know what? I&#8217;m sure it&#8217;s one of like 100 more I&#8217;m going to have to survive. <em>Damn<\/em> it, why couldn&#8217;t I review these books like I did <em>A Song of Ice and Fire<\/em>? Right, because <em>where&#8217;s the fun in that<\/em>?<\/p>\n<p>For the most part, chapter twenty-three chronicles the gradual decline in Georgia and Shaun&#8217;s mental state and general health as they try to navigate a world that is infinitely more complicated than it once was. Part of that comes from the sheer exhaustion of what they face. Buffy&#8217;s murder caused logistical problems on top of emotional ones, and we learn what those issues are here. Turns out Buffy hid recording devices <em>everywhere she went<\/em>. So on top of having to deal with that, the team has to rebuild all of Buffy&#8217;s work <em>FROM SCRATCH<\/em> to avoid any further implications from her actions.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, right, <em>and they have to work<\/em>. Their job in Houston doesn&#8217;t go away, and they can&#8217;t turn down the trip to Sacramento. Up until this point, I&#8217;d never stopped to think that Ryman might have a stake in Tate&#8217;s terrorist nightmare. I assumed he was a good guy. Why on Earth would he be complicit in Tate&#8217;s horrific actions? Georgia had to spell it out to me:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Then again, Shaun and I were adopted to satisfy the Masons&#8217; desire to prove the zombie war had been won by the living, and they&#8217;ve never stopped us from walking into the jaws of death \u00e2\u20ac\u201c if anything, they&#8217;ve encouraged it, living for the ratings, because when they lost Phil, the ratings were all they had. So who are we to judge the sanity of parents?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Just\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I don&#8217;t want this. Now I have to accept the possibility that even <em>Ryman<\/em>, who I enjoy very much, could have had a part in all of this. What if his whole persona is a facade? It&#8217;s not entirely out of the realm of believability. And that&#8217;s the worst part! I can&#8217;t look at the facts and say, &#8220;NOPE THIS ABSOLUTELY CANNOT HAPPEN.&#8221; It&#8217;s a possibility, as uncomfortable as it is, and now I can&#8217;t stop thinking about it. Fuck, can this <em>not<\/em> happen?<\/p>\n<p>Regardless, everything is just messed up and awkward. The team can&#8217;t trust Ryman yet, so they distance themselves from him for <em>weeks<\/em>, and he&#8217;s bewildered as to the reason why the team has changed so drastically in such a short period of time. It&#8217;s an endless cycle of confusion, and until the team <em>can<\/em> trust Ryman or distrust him, they&#8217;re stuck. What are they supposed to do? They can&#8217;t reveal their hand unless they know he had no part in things.<\/p>\n<p>So it was relieving to read that Shaun was at least getting out during their trip from Houston to Sacramento. I wanted to know what he did to get such impressive footage! Alas, I&#8217;m sure they&#8217;ve all seen enough trauma to last them a lifetime, so it was clear Grant was moving on to Sacramento pretty quickly. Which, okay\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I haven&#8217;t lived in the Bay Area <em>that<\/em> long. It&#8217;s been just over two years, and I already support all efforts to talk shit on Sacramento. That place not only sucks moisture out of you because IT&#8217;S SO FUCKING HOT THERE, but it sucks out <em>all hope<\/em>. I&#8217;m sorry, I <em>do not<\/em> like that city at all. And it&#8217;s not like I&#8217;ve had any particularly bad experiences there or anything! I&#8217;ve had a few good meals, and once I went to a protest at the Capitol Building and THERE WERE SO MANY PUPPIES THERE. But it&#8217;s hard to enjoy anything there when Oakland and San Francisco are just over an hour away. Plus, my <em>god<\/em>, have you ever been there during the summer? Don&#8217;t. Don&#8217;t do it. <em>This is your only warning<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>I was kind of excited to see Steve again! He&#8217;s awesome. Georgia reveals that Ryman will be in Sacramento for seven days, so that means SEVEN DAYS OF STEVE. I approve of this itinerary. Plus, while Rick and Shaun go off to cover Ryman&#8217;s keynote speech, Georgia stays behind with the van. Oh god, THE VAN. Is it weird that I&#8217;m attached to it? It&#8217;s comforting when Georgia is inside of it. I feel like she&#8217;s home!<\/p>\n<p>I should have known that this brief moment of comfort wouldn&#8217;t last long. This <em>very<\/em> brief chapter ends on a frustrating, terrifying note. Georgia decides to use a CHAT RELAY to speak with Dave, who had worked with Alaric to provide the team with files relating to what they&#8217;d discovered inside Buffy&#8217;s files. Like, okay, I am expecting the worst, but <em>this<\/em>?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Getting myself to stop hyperventilating took another twenty minutes. When my lungs stopped burning and I was sure I could control myself, I shut down my laptop, returned it to its case, and rose. I needed to get myself dressed; it was time to crash a party.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>NOOOOOOO, what did they find out??? What would make Georgia react so dramatically? I NEED TO KNOW. It doesn&#8217;t help that there&#8217;s an UNPUBLISHED blog entry from Georgia at the end of this, and in it, she states that she regrets wanting to work in news. Some journalists \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it&#8217;s unsaid \u00e2\u20ac\u201c have clearly been involved in this nightmare. And I don&#8217;t know who. And I don&#8217;t know what they did. And I am FUCKING TERRIFIED of where this is going.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mark Links Stuff<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; You can follow me on\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/markdoesstuff\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0for any updates and live commentary on upcoming reviews I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m writing.<br \/>\n&#8211; You should read this\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2012\/10\/hello-mark-does-stuff-community-lets-discuss-things\/\"><strong>very important post<\/strong><\/a>\u00c2\u00a0about supporting Mark Does Stuff!<br \/>\n-\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2012\/10\/mark-reads-harry-potter-and-the-half-blood-prince-is-available-for-purchase\/\">I have just released\u00c2\u00a0<em>Mark Reads Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0for $4.99!<\/a><br \/>\n-\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/category\/the-shoebox-project\/\">I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve started reading\u00c2\u00a0<em>The Shoebox Project<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0for Mark Reads<\/a>, the first fanfic \u00e2\u20ac\u0153series\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever covered! Join me!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the twenty-third chapter of Feed, the team heads to Sacramento for a vital appearance, and I am agonizingly cliffhanger&#8217;d. Again. Intrigued? Then it&#8217;s time for Mark to read Feed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[261,260],"tags":[262,249],"class_list":["post-1359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feed-newsflesh","category-newsflesh-2","tag-mark-reads-newsflesh","tag-mira-grant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1359\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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