#she was not that much younger than me!!! and she engaged in Zero critical thought or fun nonsense!

[swanqueensalad]

TRIGGERWARNING!

Without triggering anyone I wanna ask two things:

1) Was Cora ever physically abbussive towards Regina?

2) I know many ppl's head canon is that Leopold raped Regina again and again as his bride, but is that your headcanon too?

ok again TRIGGER WARNING for abuse & SA (and brief mention of suicide) for anyone reading/scrolling!

i'm going to just explain my personal interpretation of the show and these subjects, bc i find regina so interesting and heartbreaking. and i actually do think part of what makes regina so fascinating as a character is her relationship within the cycle of abuse and how yes, she was incredibly hurt and manipulated all her life, but she eventually managed to break free of it all and work to be better for her own child.

buckle up because i have a lot of feelings and this is probably going to be LONG

so, my thoughts on exactly what happened and why regina is as fucked up as she is:

so yeah, cora was a horrific parent. it's canon that she abused regina both emotionally and physically for practically all her life.

in practically her very first scene, we see cora using magic to hurt her eighteen year old daughter - to violently restrain her/drop her to the ground when she 'misbehaves' which pretty clearly says this is a woman who uses power and fear as a control tactic, and is not afraid of physically hurting regina.

and if this is what she was doing when regina is almost an adult, i think it's safe to assume she's been doing it since she was very young - regina's response 'please don't, i'll be good' is the conditioned response of a much younger child. everything about the way regina was written, her relationship with cora, and the way lana and the directors chose to play it screams abuse victim. she is hypervigilant - she jumps when people come close or make sudden noises. when she's choked with magic she immediately knows not to struggle or fight back. as a young girl, she is terrified of doing things wrong.

(also, when we get the flashback to actual 10 year old regina, cora says she can't help her because 'it needs to be someone who's magic has never hurt her')

while i think most of the time cora relied on magic to physically punish regina - knowing how much regina particularly hated it/was afraid of it - i think she was definitely not above slapping her for more minor infractions

beyond just physical abuse, cora was clearly emotionally distant and got regina to a place of being pretty touch-starved and desperate for affection. (lana and barbara play this so masterfully as well) we see her being constantly, nastily critical of everything her daughter does.

i think it's also implied in the regina rising book that cora was controlling/restrictive of regina's food to ensure she stayed thin/attractive which is just a whole other can of worms

as for leopold. please bear with me while i RANT:

nothing will ever make me more mad than the fact this man was never held accountable in the narrative for his role in regina's story and how absolutely fucking awful he was.

first of all, even before he meets regina, he is dodgy af. he supposedly genuinely loves cora, but throws her out immediately when he discovers her pregnancy without even asking her if it's true/discussing it. also, even in that flashback the man is visibly much older than cora and even more so than eva, who he actually does marry (although i do believe they came to truly love each other). so yeah he has a habit of Not Listening to women and not looking at women his own age

and then we get to regina. the eighteen year old daughter of his ex fiancee (younger even than the unborn child who cora carried when she was engaged to him)

yes i think he raped her. because powerful old men do not marry pretty eighteen year olds for the company. (also, if it was just so snow would have a mother figure, well, she already had her maid joanna. and if snow really wanted regina around that badly, leopold could have just brought her to court as a lady in waiting, a fitting role for a noblewoman, and more appropriate seeing as regina was only about eight years older than snow)

regina is visibly distressed by the proposal. she is panicked. she looks to her father to help. cora accepts the proposal for her. and leopold does not care. i think this tells u all u need to know about his views on consent

(also it all gets ickier when you remember leopold was attracted to cora, and regina is considered to look like cora did when she was younger)

leopold clearly had zero interest in regina as a person. he used her for arm candy for events, to make snow happy, and to keep his bed warm. (later, he invades her privacy so much regina counts on him reading her diary as a thoughtless and integral part of a plan, and locks her up for receiving a present from another man) and yet he is never treated as a villain or ever held accountable (besides regina killing him - good for her - but even then it's framed more as a way to villainise her for tricking sidney) and it makes me FURIOUS

i sometimes see the take that leopold might have stopped raping her towards the latter years of their marriage, but i disagree - i think maybe it did get fewer and farther between, but regina was still his wife who he only saw as serving a few purposes, and the way he is so possessive of her in 1x011 makes no sense otherwise, seeing as he was so uninterested in her in every other way

i do think a lot of regina's rage and vendetta against snow is because of this abuse too.

hear me out: in s1 especially, both snow and regina refer to snow as 'ruining her life'. because regina blamed her for everything that happened to her. not only did snow cause daniel's murder, it was her desire for regina as a mother that prompted leopold to marry her.

and this marriage was hell. and i think people don't realise how long it lasted either - snow went from a child to at least her late teens before regina killed leopold. regina was a traumatised young girl, grieving the love of her life, with no friends, no allies, nobody except the literal dark one who was grooming her for his own gain. (no wonder she clung to the brief sense of freedom and control his lessons offered. no wonder she nearly killed herself.)

and while regina suffered, she was forced to play with snow white every day, who was so spoiled, so loved, so happy, and had no idea of the life she had unwittingly trapped regina in.

so yeah, it's all pretty dark.

and it's for all these reasons i think ouat ended up shying away from many more regina backstory episodes centring on the time she was married/pre-evil queen years, because they were on abc after all, and i don't think they were really equipped to deal with the horrendousness of the story they'd created

but lana most certainly did her work becaue i think all of this nuance does show in her portrayal

and it all just makes regina's ending - the good queen, in her own name, safe and strong and loved, part of a true family, her bond with snow healed - so much more of a relief.

[musingsofawannabewriter]

Can I Be More Than The Person I Have Become?

Here I am again. Once every few months, sometimes years I get that urge to put pen to paper or in this instance finger to keyboard.

When I was little reading my mom’s Jodi Picoult, Danielle Steele or Avon romance novels I felt inspired. I wanted to write a book people would cherish and love. Then I read Purple Hibiscus and then the doubts came.

Purple Hibiscus is one of my favorite books ever and the author Chimamanda is an inspiration to me. But the doubts came because I believed I could never write a book as amazing as Purple Hibiscus, that stirred so many emotions and feelings in me that with each rereading makes me discover something new. It didn’t help that Chimamada is that perfect Igbo first daughter who has a first degree and not one but 2 MA’s and speaks fluent Igbo.

My admiration for her was tinged with a lot of jealousy. I am an Igbo first daughter, that can barely speak/understand Igbo despite growing up in Nigeria most of my life, I only have a BA in Law, I failed spectacularly at a Masters programme that from the start I only applied to because I thought it was expected of me. 

There are so many flaws in myself I could spend hours picking on but won’t for the sake of bringing down the mood of this article/opinion piece. Despite feeling I could never measure up to CNA I still chose literature as my elective in my GCSE’s and WAEC exams. Had an A for both and was the best student in class for the former. But I still felt like a fraud. I understand English, I speak it but the technical rules stump me sometimes. Like the semicolon… No matter how many times I can’t seem to retain when it applies. I suck at writing dialogue because I am always confused where to add the apostrophes and commas. Subject verb agreement, well I stumble my way through and hope for the best which has worked out okay so far.

I used to write in notebooks fervently in Secondary School. I would craft stories which would get passed around different students and their compliments and eagerness to read my words fueled me. I was going to be a writer maybe.. Get my first degree in Law then a Masters in Creative Writing. Maybe after becoming successful I’d be the next Michaela Coel adapting my work to the screen to great critical acclaim.

Well let’s just say reality hit hard, no punches pulled whatsoever. I left my sheltered Nigerian boarding school after graduation to go to the UK full time for my A Levels. First mistake was spending my years pocket money in under 3 months. Second mistake was essentially being mute for my first year of school. I have always been quite reserved and find it hard to talk to people. Going to a full boarding school meant I saw my classmates almost 24/7 so bonding and socialisation was inevitable. Well with A levels only having 3 subjects to study and it being a day school meant I could go a week without speaking to anyone except the lovely lunch ladies in the cafeteria.

If I am being honest I wasn’t used to interacting with white people and felt self conscious about my accent so it was a perfect storm. 

Then the whopper…I have always had a complicated relationship with food. Since I was younger my weight has fluctuated heavily. It didn’t help that my mom was one of those slightly bigger women who decided to become a gym addict and drop all the weight. A lot of her insecurity from being bigger rubbed off on me, directly and indirectly.

Having your mom take you to exercise classes at 13 hurts. Having your mom be so happy to see you lose so much weight because the food at your boarding school sucked hurts. Having people complimenting your mum and asking how you're related to her cuts even deeper. Every stab at my heart at confidence got buried deep. In school, I would restrict my eating by spending breakfasts which I hated asleep in class, would skip a few lunches then binge at dinner times. This had the effect of keeping my weight stable.

Even then my mom still criticised my weight. When I look back at my size 12/14 self in secondary school who was gorgeous, a rage fills me. I was so beautiful but with zero confidence. I hurt so much and wish I could go back in time for a few minutes to tell myself I was worthy of being liked, by others and myself.

Eventually being away from my mom, the safety of my boarding school friends and siblings made it easy to seek solace in food. I was in the UK, I was living in student accommodation and for the first time in my life I had a debit card. I spent hundreds of £s a month in takeaways. Then I spent over £100 on diet pills which made me feel ill. In under a year I went from a size 14 to 24 to my mothers horror and mine. I didn’t know about the body positivity movement or Tess Holliday. I only knew that my mom was angry and sad and worried I would die in my sleep one night.

In almost a decade, that has been one of her mantras when talking to me about my weight. That she can’t bury her child and she’s afraid one night I will sleep and not wake up. In her mind its concern, but the way she says it feels like emotional manipulation.

Reading back there’s a lot of mother bashing going on, but it is not intentional. Some people are besties with their mothers and I prefer a more distant relationship. We will eventually get to the daddy issues but that will take some tears and a while before I can go into that.

I crave the catharsis of writing. The word vomit and jumbled feelings in the pit of my stomach. It helps me see myself as that idealistic 16 year old with a heart full of dreams and hopes. Not the current dried out husk I think I am now. I think of my future in abstract terms.

I don’t see a family, mortgage or dog. I just see myself barely existing. I feel this with a resigned calmness. Then I have my internal spiral of being to shortsighted and hasty in writing my life off at 25. I read tweets about people finding first love in their 30s, going back to school in their 40’s and getting into their careers in their 50s. Then I hear that voice in the far corner of my mind whispering, do I even want to make it to my 40’s…

And I answer back quietly that I really don't want to make it to my 40s. I’ll maybe hold on till my parents die so my mom doesn’t lord it over me that she had to bury her child and not the other way around. But some nights I really don’t want to be alive. Some nights I wish I was never born and just like clockwork the tears start. Those tears that I hold in and the dark thoughts I numb with the stimuli of food, YouTube and now K dramas.

For the past few years, I have made my Other World. This Other World is essentially a parallel universe. In this universe I have no issues with food, I have an incredible metabolism that means I can eat virtually anything without guilt. I make friends my first day of college and join so many student societies and actually participate. I push myself in school and get into my mother’s dream of a Russell Group. I choose LSE though she wishes I chose Queen Mary. I work hard, join the Law Society, meet a lovely British Nigerian with a great background, we date a few years and get married. I get a Masters in Creative Writing and have an amazing blog which gets adapted to a critically acclaimed series and I am fulfilled.

Sometimes my Other World self changes. She is the daughter of millionaires who is a genius, polyglot and fighter of social justice. I can sing, know martial arts and take the movie world by storm. Other times I am just pretty and living a simple but happy life. I know in my heart that these are just fantasies and sometimes I wish I could be like Buffy in that episode of BTVS and stay stuck in that Other World fully. I’m sure you’re thinking about my family who I’d leave behind. My response is I can’t miss them if I never remember I had them.

I am the first daughter, the Ada. My parents though flawed always tell me I am a great role model for my siblings. I am seemingly still a virgin, don’t drink, do drugs or rock the boat too much. And I feel even worse. I feel guilty that with all they have sacrificed that they have been stuck with an average daughter and by upper middle class Nigerian standards, if that even exists, a sub par Ada. I feel defective looking around and seeing others in the peak of their careers, vetting engaged, building houses for their parents. I am still afraid of driving!! I can’t even get that basic skill down.

4 years post LLB, no LLM to at least lessen me not being a lawyer and stuck in a customer service role almost 3 years now. I know I am at fault for not making the right decisions. Not applying for the grad jobs or vacancy schemes in time. Being so down and depressed I wouldn’t leave my room for days and weeks at a time. Failing all my LLM modules, adding back all the weight and more after boot camps with my parents, not having enough savings and having an even worse accent after almost a decade in the UK.

My self-deprecating joke I tell is that my sister is the multi talented one, my brother the smart ambitious one and as my parents say I have a big heart. That essentially my parents would say my thing is having a big heart, like that ever helped anyone build a career. I thought if I couldn’t write then I could maybe study Social Work. That got shot down by my mother and I was persuaded to go into the path of Law for University. I applied for Social Work Schemes and got rejected multiple times over multiple years. I was too scared to sink my own money to self fund a Social Work Masters in case it became another LLM fiasco. SO now I have made Teaching my next career goal. I am resigning myself to it the way Henry the 8ths spouses and mistresses must have whenever he wanted to bed them. Powerless and without a choice. Then I think that’s  false equivalency and my pain could not be on the level of the pain they must have endured.

So many feelings, deep thoughts and memories flow out when I get the writing urge. I will likely never actually share this in full for obvious reasons except maybe anonymously. These few pages have jumped through quite a few time periods and experiences. My thoughts aren’t always linear and that ties in with something else I acknowledge but haven’t been serious about. I legitimately think I have ADHD and/or BPD. Watching the diagnosis episode of Crazy Ex Girlfriend by the amazing Rachel Bloom shone a light on feelings and behaviours I have had for a while. Maybe that’s why from the first episode of the show I was in love. She was stuck in the past, holding onto Josh who represented a time in her life of happiness. She had cutaways to magical musical numbers involving herself and the people around her.

The ADHD comes from following iconic black women on twitter who were outspoken about their diagnosis and bringing focus to how black women were being underdiagnosed. But then I think maybe I want to have ADHD as an excuse for the failures in my life and with the current NHS waiting lists I may not get a formal diagnosis for a while. So for now I manage and exist.

I like being honest in my writing. Exposing those dark parts of myself that I let fester in the recesses of my heart and mind. 

[advernia]

push me off a bridge (to catch me as i fall)

a separate post for my ramblings for this fic!! it’s actually the longest thing i’ve written in a while, so i have a lot to ramble about haha;;

prelude

oh man... this started when two of my friends decided to go through edgar’s route at the same time AND also decided to go reacting to every single part of the route through burst texting AT THE SAME TIME, effectively flooding my inbox.... they were fully aware that i was at a seminar and unable to reply... now my inbox is filled with so much edgar screaming i cannot... (゜▽゜;)

screaming aside they were also very willing to read whatever drafts of edgar/mc i had available and this was their favorite!! thanks to them, i decided to finish this omfg... i’m actually so proud that i got this done but tbh it was getting so long that i had half a mind to let go of it already halfway through scene three haha... (;*△*;)

this has uh... some fighting scenes and tbh the first draft had absolutely none of it... this is my first time actually writing long(?) scenes and while i found thinking about them to be fun, putting them into words was some struggle??? like... i've been told that it looks okay but idk it feels clunky to me. oh well ＼| ￣ヘ￣|／

general stuff + war phase, baby!

initially this was only meant to be 3 parts + primarily focused on edgar/mc + with an unnamed mc as usual! but then since it’s an au of kyle’s route, i found myself wanting to flesh out the relationship of edgar & mc when set in a different angle + circumstances rather than just automatically implying attraction...

plus their relationship canonically starts off on the wrong foot in that route & edgar’s fully aware that mc isn’t exactly comfortable around him, so it really doesn’t sit well if i just... put them together, lol. so thus we have five scenes of them getting(?) closer!(???)

in short its a hella slow burn and not gonna lie, when i was writing their scenes i was like f i n a l l y... bless... ಠ ּ͜೦

one of the reasons i like kyle’s route is bc i actually got some feel of an actual war??? idk i think there’s so much plot that u can fill in with it, so i decided going for alternating scenes of the battlefield + med tent. while there's glimpses of the action going on, there’s also the sort of complimenting(???) or offsetting more emotional perspective of what goes on with the medics. 

tbh i stared long and hard at the cradle map when formulating some tactics and i gotta say i had a hard time calming myself down bc... 

in kyle’s route, the red army has the advantage and have pushed the black army as far back as to their bridge, which means that more or less they’ve occupied central quarter... but what dawned on me was... where the hell did the red army position their encampment from there??? 

was an encampment even necessary given that they’re like, in a really convenient area????? they probably could’ve settled themselves in some houses but tbh okay maybe it isn’t so noble of the reds to do (imposing themselves n’ stuff) + they have larger numbers so accommodating all of them is a problem but still... where’d they set up camp??? u see, when kyle + mc step out of the med tent it shows the forest bg, so... where??? on the edges of the central quarter area are where u can see them trees??? on the civic center roof?!?!

well... a decent answer is that they could’ve set up several encampments around the area to ensure their hold on the central quarter... it still raises some questions but honestly it makes a lot more sense... but if not and they really decided to camp out like one big happy family all together, then don’t even get me started on the possibility that the camp was stationed somewhere around here:

because doing that doesn’t have a single lick of sense omfg especially tactics-wise haha... that’s like... why would you do that... you’re wasting all your advantages... o h  b o y... so you bet when i remembered that mc + loki had to pass by a forest to get back to the encampment + encountered ray & some disciples i was like... u m m... why???? if technically the reds took hold of the whole central quarter area then it actually isn’t necessary to skulk around in the forest?????? yes yes i know safety precautions + avoiding detection but... dood... it’s safer to walk in claimed territory rather than the unstable one ahaha...

plus the thing about the black bridge... uh... it's just said in the route that lancelot handles it through magic and that's all. but when i thought back on it oh my god... what did he do??????? how is he still standing??? how much of his lifespan did he shave off just to salvage that situation??????????? how is the poor boi alive?????????? the whole fucking bridge literally falls apart and that's a whole lot of chaos and people and AHHHHH!?!?!¿¿¿¿ if ur gonna make the bridge collapse (good thing they didn't think of disintegrate) it probably cost the magic tower a hefty amount but get rekt lancelot still saves the fucking day, what a king - he's practically got one foot in the grave already... this dood, seriously ಥ_ಥ

there were other things i noticed in the process of writing this based on the route events but i was like fuck it, let’s think on that another day and leave it as it is (┛ಠДಠ)┛彡┻━┻ ily kyle but oh no my brain started reprocessing the other details of ur route

thinking about all that also made me think of other more stuff, like cradle economy + livelihood haha;; it’s stated in edgar’s route (well... it’s actually pretty obvious in other routes too) that the reds are richer than the blacks, so i went ahead and assumed that the former engages in something more lucrative like mining -> jewerly / raw material / mineral trade, while for the latter something more wholesome like agriculture. idk, it works. even moreso that the reds give off the whole nobility vibe while the blacks are simple and casual. even the bg screens of the red & black streets are polarizing.

then i also went over the rest of the chosen thirteen... while the reds show no obvious weapon variety (see: swords), i’d like to believe that they’re taught to be versatile enough no matter what the situation. plus, since they have the funding, i'd like to think they're skilled in magic manipulation, too. meanwhile the black army shows weapon variety, and i’d like to think that it’s because most of their recruits aren’t soldiers in the first place: they’re farmhands / hunters / village people turned soldiers, and it’s actually easier to let them go with what they know first before encouraging them or asking them to learn something new. thus axes and spears and possible unconventional stuff like caltrops.

crimson glory

one of the things i realized was in kyle’s route, mc isn’t exactly so buddy-buddy with the red crew in comparison to other routes. she gets minimal interactions with the four, and zero aside her relationships with the top three are rather... tense.

zero was the other red officer i was initially going to add aside from edgar & kyle, but i added all of them anyway. while they don't appear all together, all of them have scenes together with edgar.

the first edgar & jonah scene shows an obvious contrast - while he's being incredibly critical about it, jonah shows actual concern for the living situations in black army territory. on the other hand, edgar chooses to tease him about it, his joking more or less implying that he isn't that concerned / bothered about it at all. the game touches up on this sometimes, often with edgar commenting on how noble jonah is while jonah shows obvious distaste for edgar's callousness.

still, they work well together. personally i'm amused with a hc of mine that looking at how edgar fights / acts only spurs jonah to act more honorably while for edgar, being exposed to jonah's noble-ness more or less makes him curious to try being honorable from time to time lol. that still doesn't stop anyone from calling him the gentle demon tho ( ⚆ _ ⚆ )

tbh since edgar is obviously sneaky on other routes i wouldn't put it past him to casually pressure lancelot to tell him wtf's going on with this war when he gets the inkling that something's wrong. edgar goes about this subtly not-so-subtly and in the most polite manner possible. lancelot knows him far too well to take bait tho - he makes sure to speak carefully since he's probably knows that edgar's going to pick apart at his words for meanings + implications, so it more or less leaves edgar a bit frustrated since it's clear that lancelot won't tell him much. still, edgar knows when not to cross the line - even he's not so keen on getting on lancelot's bad side.

that aside, i'd like to think that edgar respects lancelot a lot as a person + commander enough that he'd truly risk his life for him on instinct like a true soldier would. while i think i could've done more on writing the gravity of the collapsing bridge scene, i liked the last bit where edgar + zero immediately worried for lancelot.

let's be honest here tho in some way or another all of the reds chosen worry about their king bc bruh... let us in bruh...

the scenes of zero & edgar in the end are also my favorite! it isn’t much, but enjoyed writing their relationship briefly. tbh i think edgar is one of those people under the sleep = most vulnerable = death thinking (no thanks to claudius), so the fact that he allows himself to drift to sleep twice in zero's company is a definite sign of trust. then again, he's injured but still ( ᐛ )و

edgar, idike, kyle

y’know even if this is an edgar/mc thing, i found fleshing out the kyle/mc relationship equally important which i presented in scene three. personally speaking, i’d like to think that if ever kyle didn’t fall in love with mc (on his own route???) he’d still be watching over her anyway since her struggle in the medical field + war reminds him a bit of his younger self after his brother's death.

which is why he doesn't intervene with that one soldier scene - he doesn't coddle her either when she goes into a brief shock. perhaps it's bc he knows so well what she's going through, he decides to let her handle it on her own. this was her experience, not his. and to be fair, she asked to go to the front lines determined but wholly unprepared emotionally. he tried warning her, she wouldn’t listen. now she faces the consequences - how would she go about it?

i decided to slap a name into mc this time to highlight the trust plot: idk if i got it clearly across in the fic, but in times of war + for someone who’s been trained to be suspicious / cautious of everyone like edgar; secrets are a surefire way to catch attention + breed distrust.

tbh he's hella aware that the secret around her name is most likely personal and nothing dangerous, but it's better safe than sorry - by making sure she understands that keeping secrets wouldn't be of any good to her + situation, he gets reassurance that she really is harmless. how bad + seriously she takes it honestly surprises him tho, but then again she's been going through other stuff too so it all piled up.

idike isn’t my in-game name, but it’s the given name i spoke of in this ask, haha! initially scene five has her saying her full name (with surname), but i thought it would be more fitting if i didn’t lol ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

i tried to incorporate a mix of the personalities of edgar’s!mc + kyle’s!mc onto idike, tho at first i was only shooting for the latter - i think it kinda works??? while somewhat composed and determined (kyle’s), she still shows some naivete in her (edgar’s), especially concerning the ways of war + how secrecy & trust work in times of war.

i found emphasizing on her emotional struggle important, since it should be a big blow for her who’s never known the terror of war. the game touches upon on it a bit (tho it's post-med tent scenes) and i wanted to expand on it further since there are so many possible angles to go about it.

the i can’t heal you if you’re dead line sounds like something like shiro emiya might say but lol no i just remembered this p3 manga panel (pg 24) - its been years since i read it and i still love that line and i integrated it here... i was trying to expand that one scene for a while but then i just left it as it is.

in the catharsis scene where idike airs out everything, the fact that edgar fails to empathize with her + focuses more on her emotional state rather than offering actual help (advice maybe, but i honestly doubt he’d do that) reflects that he's still looking at her as an interesting creature and not her as a person. part 5 hints that this may be slowly changing, seeing as he called for her all of a sudden.

... idike probably keeps edgar’s glove as a token of friendship or smth haha ooPSSS i forgot to bring that back ahahaha..... ヘ（。□°）ヘ

ooofff i guess that’s all i have??? a big thank you to whoever read both hot messes™ and by that the fic + commentary itself!!! do feel free to hit the inbox for any comments + questions + more brainstorming + general screaming haha! ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ

[stevenuniversallyreviews]

Episode 109: Last One Out of Beach City

“What if I told you that the world was gonna end, and you had fifteen minutes to spend with me or your friends?”

Steven and the Stevens and Hit the Diamond are my two favorite episodes of Steven Universe for reasons I’ve written about at length, but beyond encapsulating the essence of the series and characters and all that, it should be noted that they’re just plain fun. Last One Out of Beach City is smaller in scale, zeroing in on one of the show’s earliest defined relationships and basking in its evolution from a feud to a deep friendship, so it’s harder to use as a stand-in for the show as a whole. But even if it isn’t my third-favorite episode of the series, it stands hand in hand with my top two when it comes to the charm factor.

Last One Out of Beach City is a delight from start to finish. Jesse Zuke’s legendary “Bad Pearl” sketch comes to life in the best way imaginable, and Deedee Magno Hall solidifies her place as my MVP of a killer lineup of voice actors. Actual human being Mike Krol gets tossed into this alternate universe like it was nothing. Crimes are committed. Swears are censored by screeching tires. Juice is spat. Cups, spilt.

This is the promise of Zuke’n’Florido’s brilliant opening sequence of Beta fulfilled: Steven and some Gems hanging out not for half an episode, but an entire one. It’s got sight gags aplenty, supplementing some of the best comedy writing in the series, mixed with the soul-warming joy of watching characters we love getting along. So lest I just turn this review into gushing about individual jokes and lines and moments, let’s dive into why each character we see is terrific, starting with the scofflaw herself.

Last One Out of Beach City does for Pearl what Back to the Moon does for Amethyst and Mindful Education does for Garnet: we see the result of her character growth in Act II, and even if the Mystery Girl looks a lot like Rose, it’s still a huge step forward for our lady of perpetual mourning to develop a crush on someone new (and to be so low-key polite to Greg). The romantic subplot alone could drive an episode, but Pearl gets so many more hats than “girl with a crush” here: she’s a nerd, a badass, a criminal, and a middle-aged mom all at once. She vacillates between genuinely cool and desperately uncool until she fuses these extremes together to become a confident square; it’s perhaps Deedee Magno Hall’s best Pearlformance that doesn’t include singing, and that’s saying a lot. Between her voice acting, the lines themselves (“This is why we buckle up”), and the sheer sense of catharsis from seeing her choosing to move forward with her life, this is my favorite Pearl episode. And that’s saying a lot.

Pearl has always had a weird relationship with humanity. She's distant from modern culture compared to Amethyst, and her misunderstandings about human stuff is often played for laughs, but she’s also a crack car mechanic and is enamored with human concepts like knighthood. She’s not completely removed from society, but chooses not to engage unless something in particular catches her fancy. So it’s fascinating to see her associating moving forward with performing more human activities; she’s embracing Earth as it is, not as it was when the Gem War was raging, and she’s not letting lingering envy from Rose’s love of humans like Greg get in her way.

The reason this works so well is that it’s clearly performative, rather than an actual sudden personality shift. She’s still a homebody who likes puzzles and hanging out with her kid. She’s still snooty, both with her friends (dismissing the idea that anyone could be nostalgic for something as “new” as suburbs) and with her crush (“By the way, I saved your planet and your species and you're welcome”). And she’s still nervous as all get-out, but brave enough to push forward anyway.

Pearl’s maternal nature isn’t ignored, but used as fuel for her attempt at rebirth. There’s a huge difference between an awkward person putting themselves out there for the first time and a semi-retired hellraiser who, after settling into a comfortable groove, seeks to relive her glory days. She’s been dwelling on the negative for so long that she feels out of touch with her adventurous side, to the point where wearing pants and drinking juice is adventurous, but because we know Pearl so well by now we can actually appreciate how big of a deal these minor accomplishments are for her.

While it’s refreshing to see Pearl moving on from Rose, it’s perhaps even greater to see how far her relationship with Amethyst has come. While their longstanding rivalry softened during the Week of Sardonyx, we haven’t gotten them alone together since, and it just feels so nice to see Amethyst ribbing Pearl with that extra burst of sisterly affection, and Pearl loosening up enough to not take every slight personally.

As with Pearl, Amethyst works here because her personality hasn’t been erased; again, she’s still ragging on Pearl. The plot gets rolling because of Amethyst’s well-established fascination with humanity, and Pearl’s decision to see the show is prompted in part by wanting to impress Amethyst, something she never would’ve cared about in Season 1. And for all her teasing, Amethyst encourages Pearl every step of the way, not just out of solidarity but because she’s legitimately impressed.

And in a world where Pearl and Amethyst are egging each other on, Steven has to step up and be practical. I appreciate that his sense of responsibility and realism doesn’t make him a jerk or a brat, but more of a peer than ever among his fellow Crystal Gems. When pointing out the pink-haired elephant in the room, he’s not condemning or teasing Pearl: he’s just clearing the tension, and showing that he’s more aware of the situation than a younger Steven might have been. In this episode, Steven is the friend who looks for a gas station when his buds are freaking out about running out of fuel.

By now Steven feels comfortable with his place in the team, and with his relationships with Amethyst and Pearl as individuals. A version of this episode placed earlier in the series might’ve been about Pearl and Amethyst fighting for his attention, or Steven vying for attention from either of them, but by now he’s happy to do a puzzle with Pearl and to go to a concert with Amethyst, and there’s zero conflict. Immaturity shouldn’t be a go-to character beat anymore, and I love that Steven is acting his age.

Mystery Girl turns out to be more of a device than a character, as we never see her again. But I honestly think that’s fine; what matters is that Pearl is willing to put herself out there, and the result isn’t a new relationship with a new love interest but a new relationship with humanity. The Pearl of Bismuth Casual, hanging out with a posse of human friends and showing off her Gem powers with glee, owes everything to the Pearl of Last One Out of Beach City, and thus everything to Mystery Girl. Perhaps they had a thing at some point. Perhaps they still do have a thing. We don’t know, because Pearl has new hobbies outside of being a Crystal Gem, and that’s the victory.

An in terms of the show’s greater plot, if our new friend never gave Pearl her number, Pearl never would’ve gotten a phone, so A Single Pale Rose never would’ve happened. Perhaps one day he would’ve learned the truth, but certainly not before Yellow and Blue Diamond arrived to wage war on the planet. So thanks for saving the world, Mystery Girl!

The use of music from our universe lends Last One Out of Beach City a uniquely realistic tone compared to the rest of the series; perhaps any such music would do the trick, but a garage rocker is an apt choice for setting a grounded mood. We get a glimpse of Greg’s life outside of being a dad, as he socializes not only with Amethyst but Barb and Vidalia. The car chase lurches to reality when we learn that Pearl doesn’t have a driver’s license, and explicit references are made to the DMV and Pearl’s citizenship. It’s like knowing Steven’s exact age, or having Greg break his leg in Ocean Gem instead of getting a nondescript injury, or hearing Dr. Maheswaran describe PTSD using terms like “cortisol”: these concrete details make these characters feel more like real people. And considering this is a character-centric episode in a show where characters are pretty much always at the center anyway, that realism gives us a deeper connection to what our heroes are going through.

Pearl is by no means a teenager, and the critical element of reclaiming her mojo muddles direct comparisons to a teen protagonist, but the emotional honesty of Last One Out of Beach City makes me feel nostalgic, and not just for the suburbs. Driving around, not quite following the rules, and bouts of chasing meaning when you’re not as interested in traditional adolescent social activities? Those were my teenage years. I don’t always miss them, but this episode brings out the best of my memories.

There’s really not much else to say. I could spend another few paragraphs incoherently gushing about the writing and the animation and the voice work, but I promise the time you’d spend reading that would be better spent rewatching the episode. While I maintain my comparison to Beta, Last One Out of Beach City does stand in opposition to Peridot’s first Meep Morp: it has no functional purpose, it just makes me feel good.

Future Vision!

I already brought up how Mystery Girl’s number prompts A Single Pale Rose, but that episode itself shows that Pearl’s a lot slicker than she thought she was. That’s a lot of codes!

I’ve never been to this…how do you say…school?

Not sure why we get a Halloween-themed promo for an episode that has nothing to do with Halloween and aired in early September, but this is me not complaining about that. (Apparently it’s actually a reference to a Japanese tradition but I don’t watch enough anime to know more about that.)

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

It’s not my third favorite, but this episode is really high up there. The cream of the crop are episodes that give me the purest emotional reactions: Mirror Gem nails dread, Lion 3 and Alone Together embody two different kinds of wonder, and Steven and the Stevens, Hit the Diamond, and Last One Out of Beach City just make me unspeakably happy.

Top Twenty

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

Last One Out of Beach City

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Mindful Education

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Earthlings

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Bismuth

When It Rains

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Chille Tid

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Catch and Release

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Monster Reunion

Alone at Sea

Crack the Whip

Beta

Back to the Moon

Kindergarten Kid

Buddy’s Book

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service

Greg the Babysitter

Gem Hunt

Steven vs. Amethyst

Bubbled

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

Know Your Fusion

Future Boy Zoltron

No Thanks!

     5. Horror Club      4. Fusion Cuisine      3. House Guest      2. Sadie’s Song      1. Island Adventure

[allsystemsarenotgo]

Existential Conflict

As I've told others, just because it doesn't look like I'm paying attention doesn't mean I'm actually not. I pick up on little Que's constantly. One of my weaknesses is having a soft and compassionate heart and being nicer than I should be at times.

Because I'm just another male asshole in this world. One who cares too much, feels too much, talks too much, knows too much yet too little, tries too hard, loves too hard, wants too much but expects too little, and is fragile like a porcelain doll.

Loneliness, both physically and emotionally, is a bitch.

I tried to write my thoughts last night. All I did was fall apart and cry.

Trying again tonight.

.

.

I hate having feelings.

I hate feeling like I have to impress others.

I hate feeling like I have to make others look good.

I hate feeling like I have to be politically correct.

I hate having to feel heartbreak.

I hate having to feel ignored.

I hate having to feel forgotten.

I hate having to feel alone.

I hate having to feel invisible.

I hate having to feel like an afterthought.

I hate having to feel like a burden.

I hate having to feel unappreciated.

I hate having to feel like I have all the answers.

I hate having to feel like I am not enough.

I hate having to feel like effort means nothing.

I hate feeling.

I hate being a human.

I hate being myself.

.

.

I am lonely, overwhelmed, depressed, and wishing I mattered worth a damn to somebody, rather than being a 99¢ bag of peanuts at a convenience store.

I do exist, yes.

But nobody notices me until they want me.

And nobody wants me until I am of use to them.

I am just a convenience item.

.

.

I'm normally unabashedly honest.

I tell the cute women they are cute.

I tell the cute guys that they look studly.

I compliment womens' nails when they are done up.

I compliment womens' hair when it is done up.

I notice when a woman has a little extra make-up on (as much as I loathe artificial beauty) or a guy had cleaned up his face.

I reach out to others in private when I feel like something is different with them, when I feel like I owe them another compliment or I feel like something is wrong and they might need a friend.

Friends support eachother.

.

.

A friendship is a relationship. Friend-{relation}-ship. Friendship.

The notion that [multiple friends] can replace or otherwise be equal to [one partner] has been raised to me. But I'm not so sure I believe it.

To me, there is a big difference between the two. That co-existance of both are critic.

But it requires a wholesome involvement.

A Relational Partner has to respect the existence of (the) friend(s).

A/The Friend(s) has to respect the existence of the Relational Partner.

But for that respect to exist, they must first like eachother and not be judgemental or jaded about how the other handles themselves and the person.

There is no room for jealousy.

There is no room for conflict.

A friend's situation is a prime example. I can tell the guy doesn't respect her or her life if he feels like he needs to be THE ONLY guy in her life. And I am not okay with that. If he's not going to respect her, then I'm not going to respect him. Simple as that. So of course I am going to say "I would rather you be broken-hearted about him but respected by me, than to have him disrespect you and not allow me in your life because of him"

And same goes for my friend that caused my depression.

Her boyfriend was doing the same shit, trying to make me go away, trying to brainwash her. So I made it known that I would rather she be broken hearted over him but consoled and respected by me, than to be disrespected and not trusted by him, and not be able to be friends with me"

It's not about me being selfish and wanting to love any woman in my life. It's about me wanting to protect and respect the women in my life, so that I don't have to watch them suffer without my awesomeness and be distrusted and disrespected by a guy thinking with his damn penis.

It's not about me being selfish for my own gain. It's not about me being boastful of my qualities. It's about the women in my life.

Friendships are relationships. If I am truly a friend, I will defend the other person in that relationship. Sometimes way more than I should. But I stand my ground.

On a related note, because of what I have seen with the women in my life, I have nearly Zero trust or respect for guys when it comes to courting. They have to prove to me that they aren't huge fucking cucks, players, assholes, fuckboys, ect. I will assume they are until proven otherwise.

.

.

Sometimes people look at me funny (either literally or figuratively) when I tell them I am 31, have not dated since 2012 (9 years in June), and am not actively pursuing a relational partner.

I'm not sure which part causes it.

Today, a young lady told me I looked younger than 31. ( Thank you 😍😘☺️ )

I've only had 2 relationships. One was 9 months, the other 2.5 years. At the time, both were beneficial in their own ways. I don't take them back (but I also don't exactly claim the first one). Both taught me things about myself and others. But in hindsight, neither was healthy for me.

I've spent the last nearly 9 years watching the other people in my life. Watching myself. Finding what I truly want, finding what makes others happy, trying to understand the world around me. Trying to understand myself.

.

.

I don't want a relationship for the sex.

I don't want a relationship for the status.

I don't want a relationship for the attention of 3rd party.

.

.

I want a relationship for the relationship.

I want a relationship for the love.

I want a relationship for the affection.

I want a relationship for the attention of the 2nd party.

I want a relationship for the other person.

.

And the beauty of that, is that a friendship is a relationship.

A relationship doesn't have to be the "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign or the "Hollywood" sign. It doesn't have to be "Facebook Official".

It doesn't even have to have anything to do with intimacy or possession.

A relationship can be something as little as a friendship.

Friends can adore friends, like checking out their new earrings, hair style, or nails.

Friends can give friends attention, like listening to them talk, or engaging in conversation.

Friends can give friends affection, like a hug.

Friends can give friends love, because to love is to care, and to care is to be a friend. Therefore, circular reference.

.

.

Good night.

[firehawk12]

Horizon Zero Dawn (2017)

Horizon Zero Dawn is a game that came out of nowhere for me. Guerilla Games’ track record is a bit suspect at best, and the fact that Killzone Shadow Fall was, to be kind, a forgettable experience so there wasn’t really any reason to have any expectations for their latest offering.

Yet somehow, despite the complete shift in genre, Guerilla has managed to deliver a game that is fun to play and features an engaging world to contextualize that play. The core mechanic in the game, fighting against the robotic creatures in the game, fulfills the promise of an open-world combat system. As Aloy, you have many options at your disposal to engage with these monsters. You might stalk them in the grass and strike from behind, or you might choose to set up various traps along their patrol paths, or perhaps you might go in guns blazing (or bows blazing) and shower them with arrows.

The actual mission design leaves a lot to be desired — the majority of the missions in the game have the same loop: find a quest giver, go to a waypoint on the map, follow a glowing purple trail, fight some enemy, return home to collect your reward — but the combat more than makes up for the cliched gameplay loop.

What surprised me the most is that the game itself is built in a way that should offend me, in the same way that Ready Player One and the news of a Matrix reboot lead me to believe that popular culture is dying a slow death, regurgitating both the gameplay mechanics and science fiction tropes that can be found in many other properties.

As a game, it obviously draws inspiration from the many Ubisoft games that have driven the open world formula to the ground, with towers (of a sort) to climb and a map riddled with icons displaying a myriad of collectables. As a fictional world, the future depicted in Horizon is a pastiche of science fiction ideas pulled from a myriad of sources — Earth is doomed because Ted Faro, a billionaire with an overinflated sense of self-importance, designed military robots that consumed organic matter for fuel, thus dooming all of humanity. Realizing that there was no way to stop the robot apocalypse, humanity, led by Elisabet Sobeck, developed a plan that would save life on Earth — wait for the machines to wipe out all life on the planet, then “reboot” everything by reintroducing humanity once the machines have died off and the planet is safe. There’s even a ship full of embryos being sent into deep space as a backup plan that you can read about in the audio logs, so you can check that box too.

But that’s fine. Sure, the game feels like Assassin’s Creed with Terminator slapped on top of it, but it’s a text that proves that something really can be greater than the sum of its parts. The game unapologetically draws inspiration from a variety of video games and science fiction texts, but is never bogged down by its source material. It’s neither referential nor reverential to the material that it is drawing from, so you never feel taken out of the text because a writer/designer wants to show you how clever they are by trying to point out something you should immediately recognize. No one says something stupid like “Come with me if you want to live” just because Horizon is a game about a robot uprising.

Having played a bit of Ghost Recon Wildlands, a game that faithfully follows the Ubisoft open-world formula, you can immediately see the difference between a group of designers who care about creating a compelling lore for their world and a group where the lore is essentially just window dressing for the gameplay loop. Even after a week finishing Horizon, I still find myself speculating and thinking about the “post” post-apocalyptic world that Guerrilla has created.

There is one criticism I have with the game that I wanted to talk about. For the most part, I’m content with how the story and lore is delivered to the player. There’s nothing really unique here in terms of how the narrative is presented to the player — you have standard cinematic cutscenes, audio logs, text logs, “in game” cutscenes (which are essentially audio logs with character models that you can look at), and conversations with NPCs. There’s a token attempt to give the player some choice by allowing Aloy to choose how to respond to certain situations (although I can’t remember the in-game terms, essentially she can be sympathetic, cruel, or thoughtful), but these decisions are essentially inconsequential.

I suppose that’s fine. I understand that most of the resources are going to be devoted to creating an open world that is worth exploring since that’s going to be how you spend most of your time with the game (and it’s clear that the designers are enamored with their work because they included a “photo mode” for you to take screenshots and show off their work for them), but I can’t help but be somewhat disappointed by how the story is delivered.

In particular, the NPC conversation system is ripped straight out of a BioWare game… from 10 years ago. Here’s how a typical conversation plays out in the game:

Forgiving the fact that the facial animation feels off, particularly Aloy’s smile at the end, doesn’t this conversation feel very familiar if you’ve played any BioWare game made in the last 15 years or so? It’s two people standing, always facing each other, while the camera simply cuts between the two of them. Shot/reverse-shot, over and over again. Every single conversation looks exactly the same, even important ones where some major plot point is being revealed to Aloy/the player.

Even the first Mass Effect tried to break up its conversations with some more interesting camera angles:

I don’t think I’m being unreasonable in believing that a game released in 2017 should at least have better presentation than a game released in 2007. Particularly if I’m forgiving the developers for not really introducing any ludic storytelling moments in their game at all.

I wanted to illustrate how distracting this presentational style can be with an explicit example, so I’ll just say now that the rest of this discussion will contain spoilers for the end of the game.

At the beginning of the game, you start off playing as a younger version of Aloy who is being trained by Rost, her adoptive father figure, in the ways of the Nora. Through a various set of circumstances, Rost eventually sacrifices his life to save yours, fulfilling his duty as a father-figure who must die in order to motivate the main character (as I said, the game is not really original, but in this context it sells the story).

One of the bigger mysteries in the game is Rost’s relationship with Aloy — why was Rost ostracized from his society? Why does he care so much about Aloy?His character also introduces questions about Aloy’s character as well — who are Aloy’s parents? These questions help make the quest to save the world from another robot apocalypse much more interesting, because suddenly Aloy has personal stakes in the quest which makes her immediately relatable to the player. The game is as much about discovering the truth about Aloy’s “family” as it is about trying to stop the rogue AI Hades and his plans to consume the world.

You have an engaging world that you want to explore and an interesting main character that you are learning about as you play the game. You and Aloy learn her identity at the same time (although the game gives you ample opportunity to guess at her true identity throughout the game), and the revelation that Aloy is a clone of the original Elisabet Sobeck, the woman who tried to save humanity during the original apocalypse, lets you connect to both Aloy’s devastating realization that she was bred for a specific purpose and to the overall narrative of the game.

That’s all great, and it pays off in a wonderfully emotional moment for Aloy at the end of the game. Yes, she never had parents, but she had a father-figure who taught her the skills to survive in the new world and a mother-figure who guided her on her journey to save humanity.

But let’s look at how the game presents this characterization to the player. Here’s how Aloy’s relationship with Rost culminates in the game:

After his noble sacrifice, he is eventually buried next to his home, and Aloy can visit his grave to update him on her journey. Speaking to a loved one’s grave is a ritual that everyone can relate to , and we’re meant to feel for Aloy’s loss by getting a glimpse at how much she still cares for him. Except this sentiment is ruined by the game’s archaic conversation system. It’s clear that the game is treating Rost’s grave as a second “character” in this conversation, and because of how limited the conversation engine seems to be, the only thing the developers were able to show is the back of Aloy’s head while she speaks to a badly framed shot of the grave. We don’t even get a cut to a reverse-shot of Aloy speaking so that we might be able to see the emotion on her face as she pours her heart out to her father. The best they can do is switch to a medium shot so that the visuals aren’t entirely static, but it’s hard not to see the limitations of the game engine. Certainly it robs the moment of its emotional impact because you can’t help but notice the static nature of the scene.

Now let’s take a look at how they present Aloy’s search for her “mother’s” grave:

The difference is night at day. Yes, it’s a cutscene, and so they have a lot more control over what they can show. It’s much more crafted, and honestly, more cinematic than the scene where she speaks to Rost. We get shots of both Elisabet’s body and Aloy’s reaction to finding her mother. We even get the crane shot at the end to show us not only that Aloy has discovered who she is, but that both Elisabet and Aloy have managed to save humanity from destruction.

Now, do I wish there were more cutscenes in the game? Of course not. The last thing I want is another Uncharted where the game’s story is conveyed through unskippable non-interactive cinematics. But they could have done something to at the very least spice up the NPC conversation system to do more than just show the two characters talking to each other. There’s no reason why Aloy couldn’t have been talking to Rost’s grave while clearing some brush away from the stones, or even sitting down next to it while facing the camera so that we could see her character emote. The same goes for every single conversation that you have in the game, from the relatively minor ones like the one above with Talanah, to the major ones where you speak with Sylens about the true nature of the Zero Dawn project.

Horizon Zero Dawn is a game that, outside of its combat mechanics, doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel. It’s an experience that feels very familiar, both in terms of the gameplay loop and in terms of the story it conveys. But if you’re willing to forgive the well-worn nature of the game, and in my case, the issues with how the game presents its story, then you’ll have one of the more fulfilling game experiences of the year.

[recentanimenews]

THE GREAT CRUNCHYROLL NARUTO REWATCH Sprints Towards Victory in Episodes 99-105!

Welcome to the Great Crunchyroll Naruto Rewatch! I'm David Lynn, and I'll be your host this week as we make our way through all 220 episodes of the original Naruto. Last week, we covered episodes 92-98, which brought an end to the epic fight between the powerful Sannin. This week we take a detour in the Land of Tea with episodes 99-105. After wrapping up Tsunade's inaguration as the new Hokage, we get a small breather from the heavy arcs and plot developments of the last few weeks. This comes in the form of our first full-fledged filler arc, which entails Team 7 going on an escort mission to ensure an important race in the Land of Tea goes off without a hitch. Hitches, of course, happen anyway—perhaps both in the story and the execution. Let's see what the Crunchyroll Features team thought of this week's episodes!

    These episodes begin by wrapping up Tsunade’s arc, with her finally becoming Hokage. How do you feel about how the show portrays Konohamaru simultaneously processing his grandfather’s death and Tsunade taking his place?

Paul: The most interesting part of that conflict was how Tsunade resolved it by completely ignoring Konohamaru's antics. In his grief, Konohamaru's sulking in a booby-trapped room among his beloved grandfather's memorabilia and Tsunade just walks in like she owns the place (because she does), grabs a medical textbook, and leaves. Tsunade is straight gangster, and but she still gives Konohamaru room to grieve without coddling his selfish behavior. Joseph: I thought they gave that just the right amount of time to transition, especially for Konohamaru. He needed those moments, but it didn’t need to be more than an episode. Tsunade gets better and better each week. Jared: I think it works in the way that Konohamaru is a kid and truly thinks everyone’s just going to forget about the Third Hokage now that a new one is being instilled. He doesn’t know how to process that kind of grief and just evokes it in the only way he knows how. Tsunade coming through and just not caring about any of his traps though was pretty good. Kara: I agree, Tsunade handled it really well. Then again, she would have been in that position at one point herself, so she either knew via hindsight or example what Konohamaru most needed then. I do like getting to see how Konohamaru has grown, and just how many people including himself are really registering with Sarutobi’s passing that “Hokage” means more than “Cool Best Ninja.” Kevin: Honestly, I wish that they focused more on it. A new Hokage is a huge change for the village, and Konohamaru is one of the audience’s closest ties to the Third Hokage, so seeing more people’s reactions to Tsunade and dedicating more time to showing Konohamaru coming to accept her might’ve made for a stronger and more resonant transition. Noelle: I think it was handled fairly well. Like everyone has said, Konohamaru is a kid dealing with a tangible kind of grief for the first time, and everyone processes grief differently. There is no easy bandage to put over that, so Tsunade pushing her way past all that to establish her place felt pretty necessary.   Carolyn: I love Tsunade and it’s great she is so strong and sure of herself… but is it necessary to establish her control to a grieving child? She’s been there, I would have liked to see her comfort him. Danni: I appreciated how her letting him sulk for a bit was just her way of attempting to procrastinate and how her committing to helping Lee any way she can amounted to her actually embracing the title of Hokage. Also, the scene of her walking through all the traps was pretty freaking cool.

  Before our first big batch of filler begins, fan-favorite Rock Lee gets some more focus. In particular, it seems like his moxie has struck a chord with Tsunade, and things are finally looking up for him. Is the pacing of this subplot working for you? Paul: I'm still reeling from the tonal whiplash of jumping from “Lee, have the extremely dangerous, potentially deadly surgery!” to “let's all prank Kakashi until he takes off his mask”. That didn't work for me at all, especially since Lee's recovery is an order of magnitude more emotionally compelling than whatever shenanigans Team 7 is engaging in. Joseph: While I just said Konohamaru’s transition and grieving had just the right amount of coverage, I felt the complete opposite about this. Not that they should have spread it out, but it almost felt like they tossed it in this section haphazardly. What should have had a bigger impact felt overshadowed by what came before it and downplayed as a result of what followed. Still, loved that backstory between him and Guy. Jared: In the moment, I was very much into this and seeing where it was going to go, but it basically just getting dropped to go into filler city just sucked the wind right out of me. I don’t know if this is just a spot where the anime had caught up to the manga and they needed to buy time, but to have this serious episode and then to immediately go into some bizarre attempts at comedy just felt completely out of place. Kara: I love how Lee’s determination got Tsunade back on track. It gives a chance to, again, really dig into what being Hokage actually means. There’s a lot of caring and a lot of hard work, and I’ll be interested to see how the job makes her grow as a character, too. I really do wish there had been more focus on it, though. It was compelling but truncated, and then we go to cod lips and seriously what. Kevin: In more of a vacuum, I would probably say yes. Having too much of Lee’s story all at once would quickly becoming a lot more depressing and melancholic than the show tends to be. However, spacing out his subplot with the main three trying to see Kakashi’s face and the ensuing shenanigans just causes continuous emotional whiplash as we go from a horse pooping to Lee trying to come to terms with whether to take a coin flip on dying. Noelle: In general, I’m enjoying what subjects Lee’s subplot is approaching. He is a genuinely good kid and a character that deserves more, so I wouldn’t object to seeing more of him. However, in contrast to everything else, his portions are much more serious, which makes the plot-points surrounding this dire issue to feel all the more awkward. Don’t juggle two supremely contrasting tones, it never works out well. Carolyn: I agree with Joseph, here. I love Rock Lee and I’m glad he’s back. But he’s been gone a while and it feels sort of out of place. Danni: As much as I love Rock Lee, this whole subplot ain’t doing it for me. It was already extremely reckless of Guy to let Lee go as far in the battle against Gaara as he did, but he’s going even further telling him to have the operation that could easily kill him. Also, I know it won’t, and I feel like everyone watching it knows it won’t, so it feels like empty tension. I would much prefer to see Lee work his way back to the top again.

  When I was younger, I recall the “unmasking Kakashi” episode to be a pretty popular and amusing change of pace. This time around, I’m not so sure it really fits in. Did it work for you? Paul: It didn't work for me at all, partly because of where it falls in the overall storyline, partly because it had a few bizarrely well-crafted animation cuts (which they proceeded to recycle repeatedly), and partly because I have zero desire to see a cartoon horse enthusiastically pooping right in the middle of the camera frame (not once, but twice). The “Let's Unmask Kakashi-sensei!” episode should have come way earlier, i.e. before the Chunin Exams. Joseph: This might have done it for me when it aired back in 2004, but I didn’t have the patience for it this time. My reaction to pretty much all the filler this week has me a little worried about future installments of REWATCH, so I need to steel myself and get ready for the true avalanche! Jared: Not at all. Coming from Rock Lee’s big episode to this was deflating. I was so ready to keep going with that story and then to see this was the next episode killed any momentum I had to keep watching episodes one night. I suppose it sort of works as a way to transition you into a completely different tone, but it isn’t great. Kara: I love gag anime a lot, and I am perfectly happy with funny, goofy episodes, but I just… what? Why. It doesn’t help that I called the punchline ten seconds in. Kevin: I am in the exact same place, and it really doesn’t work now that I’m looking at it with a more critical eye. If it were just silly filler as the Genin try to uncover Kakashi’s face, then it would be harmless fun. Throwing in ninjas from Kakashi’s past didn’t really work, and neither did putting Lee’s subplot between comedy segments. Noelle: As a kid, I really enjoyed this episode. It was funny, and team hijinks are always a good time. At the same point, this is right by Lee’s incredibly heavy episode so—really? You’re putting it right here? This is where filler starts to kick in and yeah, it’s not such a good start to it. Put this episode anywhere else, and it would have worked out okay but just not here. Carolyn: The episode wasn’t totally necessary and the punchline WAS predictable, but I thought Kakashi’s sly, “Pretty cool, huh?” was hilarious. Danni: It was a welcome reprieve from the Lee subplot for me. It definitely felt out of place, though. It would’ve fit in better within the first dozen or so episodes. Regardless, I thought it was pretty funny. After all the angst, it was nice getting to see Sasuke be a bit childish.

  The Land of Tea arc gets started here, and with it we meet the headstrong Idate and resident villain Aoi as Team 7 goes on their escort mission. Idate gets a good chunk of character development here, but do you think it holds up? Paul: While I dig that they're exploring the ninja experience through Idate's trials and tribulations, overall the Land of Tea arc doesn't work for me. It feels like a watered-down version of the Zabuza/Haku arc. There's a similar sense of the powerful tyrannizing the weak, and there are similar questions of whether the ideal state of shinobi should be treacherous or loyal, but we've done this dance before. Joseph: Boy did my eyes glaze over during all of these episodes. I just couldn’t take any of its no-stakes narrative seriously. There’s such a wide gulf between this and the type of scenarios Kishimoto puts together in the manga. Jared: I feel like this arc would have worked better if we weren’t coming off the heels of everyone talking about how chaotic things are in the Leaf village. All of a sudden everything just seems fine. It probably would have worked better if it was just a flashback to something before the Chunin Exams or something instead of trying to be a continuation of what’s been happening. Plus, like Paul said, it felt like a rehash of stories we’d already seen in the very beginning. Kara: I was feeling the rehash myself. It felt very “by committee” (which it probably was, to be fair). A lot of it looked like they checked off which moments in the first 100 episodes people thought were coolest and just tried to reproduce them here. Like… oh, you lost your absolute mind when Lee dropped the weights, so you’ll love it when someone else does, too. Kevin: As a new character with maybe two or three episodes to get his backstory out and start developing, it’s not too bad. The problem is, as we’ve seen with a few people already and we will see with MANY in the future, it’s basically just Naruto’s backstory but as a different character. Having Naruto realize once or twice “oh, this person I have a problem with is basically just going through what I’ve been through” works as a story beat, but it’s repeated way too many times. Noelle: I remember the fillers being very hit or miss, and this reminds me exactly why. I know fillers are just there for padding and don’t actually contribute to the story but man, this is a painful reminder of that. Carolyn: I found it all pretty boring, to be honest. I didn’t think about it at the time, but I have to say that Paul is completely right with the Haku comparison. Danni: Overall it felt like pretty serviceable filler. Much like the unmasking episode, though, it feels pretty out of place in the current narrative. Also, why are they giving B—potentially A—ranked missions to a bunch of Genin without their leader? That seems extremely reckless.

  Part of the Land of Tea story seems to be trying to play on our assumed appreciation for the Chunin Exams, even deciding that the hardboiled Ibiki is actually related to and has a fairly involved history with Idate. They even brought back Team Oboro from the forest! Are you happy with this attempt at connecting this otherwise innocuous story to the rest of the show? Paul: I enjoyed Ibuki demonstrating the ideal qualities of a ninja from the Leaf Village (selflessness, dedication to friends and community, a willingness to correct the mistakes of others, etc.), and I appreciated the additional insight into how the written portion of the Chunin Exam uses psychological warfare to weed out potential candidates who lack those qualities, but I wish the Land of Tea arc felt less like a digression. Joseph: With the exception of a few outliers like Idate, most of the characters here came off like the Hydrox to the usual cast’s Oreo. And yes, I realize Hydrox came first, but who in the world eats ‘em? Jared: Giving these characters a connection to others we’ve seen seems like a way for the show to make you care about them more than if they were just randoms. Bringing back Team Oboro was more like a oh hey those guys and also just a way to not introduce new villains. Idate’s backstory was fine, even if it’s another person that Naruto sees his old self in which has already been a plot point. Kara: Feels like weird fanfic to be honest. Kevin: In general, I quite like trying previous characters and stories into new material, so bringing back the Rain ninjas was actually something I’m completely fine with. I just wish that they actually advanced beyond one-off villains due to having previously lost and thus trained harder, or anything to that effect. Noelle: It’s trying to make us care more about random characters, and I can respect that. If they don’t mess too much with canonical material, they could at least play with characters that don’t matter too much in the long run. It’s semi-functional, but also, I don’t think I would miss it if they didn’t cover it. Carolyn: I have the exact opposite reaction. I hate when a show tries to force random characters on you without making them earn it. Danni: Throwing some already established side characters into the mix at least made it feel a lot less like filler. I think I prefer it to having a weird digression full of original characters we never see or hear from ever again.

  And of course, what were your highs and lows this week? Paul: My low point was Might Guy promising to die along with Rock Lee if the surgery goes poorly. It's largely Guy's fault that his student was so badly injured in the first place, and such a suicide pact seems extremely irresponsible, since Guy still has two other students (and an entire ninja village) depending on him. My high point was Naruto using a combination of his Shadow Clone Jutsu and his Rasengan Jutsu to create an enormous whirlpool. That's the kind of outside-the-box thinking at which Naruto excels, and I enjoy seeing our hero's efforts pay off in creative ways. Joseph: My high point was Rock Lee having the potential to one day live out his ninja dream again. The low point has to be the Land of Tea arc, which I hope ends soon. When it first started I assumed it was a two-parter, but Paul was quick to inform me it runs through—and doesn’t end in—this week’s batch. I’m doomed. Jared: High point was Rock Lee, like usual. Although Sakura just yanking up the mast on the ship and swinging it around ruled. Low point was a lot of the Land of Tea arc. Aoi seems like the worst villain the show has introduced thus far and just feels incredibly boring. Maybe there’s a chance this arc ends on a high note next week? Hopefully? Kara: High point was Tsunade finally sitting herself down, crunching the numbers for Lee, and then her badass pose when she declared herself Hokage. Runner-up is Naruto attempting to parse Konohamaru’s character development: “I thought not wanting to be known as the Hokage’s Grandson was like, your whole deal?” Low point was the Kakashi unmasking episode, with special low point emphasis on the pooping horse. Kevin: High - Probably Lee’s various conversations. As everyone around him wishes him a speedy recovery, he already knows that the only way he’ll recover is with a surgery that is downright likely to kill him, and we see him go through all kinds of pain reliving that fact every time, but not lashing out or explaining the situation to them because he knows that they are just honestly wishing him the best. Low - Everything around Lee’s scenes. I didn’t particularly care for the Moya ninjas subplot, and the Kakashi face reveal thing should have been its own filler episode, instead of being lumped in with such heavy material. As much as it would have been more melancholic than the show’s normal tone, I wish that we had simply gotten an episode or two with Lee as the main character, seeing his current hardships and mental state. Noelle: High point, Rock Lee can get back in the game! I knew that wouldn’t be a permanent thing, but it feels really good to affirm that it won’t be. Lee deserves to live out his dreams, for sure! Low point, filler. I’d like to say this filler works out for me but it really, really doesn’t. Carolyn: Yeah, me too, high point as always is the return of Rock Lee. Low point is probably the Land of Tea arc. I was not interested in it at all. Danni: Low point is Guy’s weird promise to kill himself if Lee dies. The high point for me was when I watched the new opening and gasped as soon as I figured out what I think it’s saying about an upcoming Sasuke development.

    Counters:

Bowls of Ramen: 1 bowl (4 times, but counting it as one) "I'm Gonna be Hokage!": 4 Shadow Clones Created: 26

  Total so far: Bowls of Ramen: 36 bowls, 3 cups "I'm Gonna be Hokage!": 52 Shadow Clones Created: 340

And that's everything for this week! Remember that you're always welcome to join us for this rewatch, especially if you haven't watched the original Naruto! Watch Naruto today!

  Here's our upcoming schedule:

- May 3rd features PAUL CHAPMAN, who will walk us through the inevitable Naruto vs Sasuke in episodes 106-112.

- May 10th, JOSEPH LUSTER will give us the deets on the Sound Four.

- May 17th we'll visit the Valley of the End with JARED CLEMONS.

  CATCH UP ON THE REWATCH!

Episodes 92-98: Clash of the Sannin

Episodes 85-91: A Life-Changing Decision

Episodes 78-84: The Fall of a Legend

Episodes 71-77: Sands of Sorrow

Episodes 64-70: Crashing the Chunin Exam

Episodes 57-63: Family Feud

Episodes 50-56: Rock Lee Rally

Episodes 43-49: The Gate

Episodes 36-42: Through the Woods

Episodes 29-35: Sakura Unleashed

Episodes 22-28: Chunin Exams Kickoff

Episodes 15-21: Leaving the Land of Waves

Episodes 8-14: Beginners' Battle

Episodes 1-7: I'm Gonna Be the Hokage!

Thank you for joining us for the Great Crunchyroll Naruto Rewatch! Have a great weekend, and we'll see you all next time!

Have anything to say about our thoughts on Episodes 99-105? Let us know in the comments! Don't forget, we're also accepting questions and comments for next week, so don't be shy and feel free to ask away!

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By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[remedialmassage]

Kathryn Budig on How to Really Live Authentically

Life in the spotlight is not all Instagram likes and rainbow sprinkles. YogaGlo instructor Kathryn Budig zeroes in on the ups and downs of yogalebrity, including the importance of stepping out of your comfort zone

Kathryn Budig with her dog, Ashi. 

Kathryn Budig, 36, takes a swig of water on the sidewalk outside Method 29403, a Pilates-based studio in Charleston, South Carolina, where she has just sweated, squatted, and lunged her way through a 40-minute class. The advertisement adorning the check-in counter is of Budig in an advanced back-bending yoga pose.

The other women in the class, most of them anyway, had been unaware that they had just worked out with someone who, to millions of devoted yogis, is famous.

The surge in yoga’s popularity in the United States over the past two decades—especially on Instagram—has resulted in the most American of concoctions: the yogalebrity. Among famous yoga instructors, Budig’s star may be the brightest.

She has become known to, and loved by, legions through almost a decade’s worth of classes on YogaGlo, the monthly subscription streaming platform; the books and magazine articles she has written; the social media presence she has built; and the workshops she teaches around the world. She is thought of as someone who takes alignment and mindfulness seriously, but not herself. Making silly faces as she demonstrates Bakasana (Crane Pose) or Navasana (Boat Pose) sit-ups with ease and humor, she has endeared herself to yogis and marketers alike as an all-American-yoga-teacher-next-door, Debbie Reynolds meets dharma.

How Kathryn Budig Became a 'Yogalebrity'

Some time ago, Budig may have wished to have been recognized in that Pilates class, or almost anywhere. She studied theater and literature at the University of Virginia and moved to Los Angeles after college, hoping to make it in Hollywood. But she ended up finding fame on a different sort of stage—the world of Western yoga, which has become inhabited by avid, even rabid, students who look upon favored instructors as gurus and travel hundreds of miles to attend workshops as if they are rock concerts. As her renown grew, Budig also became a savvy entrepreneur, forging partnerships with Under Armour, cosmetics companies, jewelry designers, and more, becoming what is today known as an influencer. She had a personal brand before that was a thing for yogis.

See also YJ Asked: Can You Effectively Teach Yoga Through Social Media?

It was taxing. At her busiest, Budig was traveling internationally four times a year and was on a plane to somewhere for a workshop or other yoga event at least once a week. She filmed classes for YogaGlo about once a month, which required long days in front of the camera and hours of prep work with producers. She was writing for the wellness website MindBodyGreen, contributing to Yoga Journal, and was an editor for Women’s Health, for which she also wrote Big Book of Yoga, published in 2012. Then there were the website and social media feeds that needed to be fed, with photos, essays, and healthy recipes.

Of course, this was all in addition to the physical rigors of maintaining a leg-behind-your-head practice (that ultimately led to a shoulder injury) and a “camera-ready” body. She approached eating with discipline. Her curves were something she battled not celebrated.

Budig on a 2009 cover of Yoga Journal in Forearm Stand, Scorpion variation.

She came to struggle with the dissonance between the yogic messages of acceptance and non-attachment that she shared with students in her work and the messages her physique conveyed.

“You’re not doing the world a favor because you’re telling people, ‘Oh, this is what I always look like because I’m in such good shape.’ No, you just starved yourself and worked out all day long and probably have been sitting in a hot tub or a sauna,” Budig says, rummaging through a cupboard in the kitchen of her bright, lofty home in Charleston. “I was guilty of doing that to a certain extent when I was younger. I mean, we all want to be perceived as beautiful. And I think, especially when you’re in a career like this, people expect you to be a certain body type.” If any of this is difficult for her to discuss, Budig gives no indication. She is relaxed and calm in her kitchen.

She also grappled with yoga-world fame. On one hand, she sought it and relished it. “I am a human with an ego and I appreciate accolades and being acknowledged,” she says. But it ultimately became a source of unhappiness.

See also Yoga as Reality TV? Yoga Girls Documents L.A. Teachers' Search for 'Insta-Fame'

Budig's Controversial ToeSox Ad Campaign

In 2008, four years into her yoga career, she modeled for the photographer Jasper Johal in a series of photos for a ToeSox ad campaign, in which she posed wearing nothing but socks. The photos were carefully shaded and discretely angled so that you couldn’t see everything … but you still saw plenty. The ad campaign helped lead to her celebrity and to her becoming a target for derision.

Sometime after the ads appeared, they drew criticism in blog posts and news articles. In 2009, Waylon Lewis wrote about it in Elephant Journal, a publication he founded: “Sex appeal can be a turnoff when your market is 85 percent women—it can come off as cheap, sleazy, patriarchal, shallow, frivolous—something you don’t want to do with a demographic that would never call itself a demographic, but prefers community, kula, sangha.”

Budig poses in the ToeSox ad that sparked controversy in 2009.

Accusations of sexualizing yoga and objectifying women stung Budig. “That is the opposite of what I’m about, and it was really painful for me,” she says. “Fame is a capricious monster. When you acquire fame, you are stripping yourself of having people really know you. You become someone else’s interpretation of who you are.”

See also How One Yoga Teacher Reclaimed Her Healthy Body Image in the Face of Shaming

Budig realizes that by seeking attention, as one does by posting to social media and engaging in other forms of promotion, she opens herself up to the nastiness and trolling that have become endemic, even to platforms like Instagram. “You put yourself out there and that’s what you set yourself up for,” she says.

Yoga instructors, particularly yogalebrities, live amid dichotomies that don’t exist for most other professional athletes or entertainers. They are expected to embody yoga philosophies that the asana practice is supposed to get us closer to perfecting. This does not allow for having ego, envy, or professional and financial ambition.

“Teachers aren’t exempt from the human experience,” says Seane Corn, herself a famous yogi who has been a mentor and friend to Budig for a decade. “It can be difficult to make mistakes in the public eye. People have higher expectations than we can sometimes live up to. We are committed to the path of self-realization. We are teaching non-attachment. We are teaching to put love before fear. But we are in human form, and there is ego to all of it.”

See also Yoga and Ego: Keep it in Check with Your Practice

Budig's Next Chapter: Remarriage and Cooking

For all these reasons, and a few more, Budig is acclimating to a new phase of her career—one that is less visible.

She has settled in Charleston, a city she loves and where her parents now live. After a difficult marriage and divorce, she plans to marry again this fall—to espnW and ESPN reporter and commentator Kate Fagan. Budig is traveling far less—hitting the road once a month to teach and traveling to L.A. three to four times a year to film new YogaGlo classes. When she is home, she spends much of her time expanding her career focus to cooking, an activity that seems to both calm and animate her. She is experimenting with recipes, thinking about writing a cookbook, and filming elaborate mini cooking shows that she shares with her 220,000 Instagram followers.

“For a long time, I was looking for happiness from success,” she says. “Now I am looking for success from happiness.”

See also Find the Happiness Within You

Kathryn Budig cooking at her home in South Carolina. 

Dressed in taupe, shiny yoga pants that pull down over her heels, and with her hair piled atop her head in a small blond tornado, Budig is making breakfast after “hella hard” Pilates (as she rightly calls it) in her sun-strewn house. The kitchen is sleek and modern, with a gray tile backsplash and dashes of color coming from her stacks of cookbooks and well-organized kitchen accessories.

Budig is trying to recreate a yogurt parfait that she tasted earlier in the week. She understands flavor and is an add-a-pinch-of-this kind of cook. “Let’s add a sprinkle of black sesame seeds,” she says, drizzling them over coconut yogurt, blueberries, shredded coconuts, and cacao nibs.

Then she pulls out a black tray from a countertop food dehydrator and starts arranging perfect triangles of shriveled up watermelon that she has dusted with Tajín, a condiment of dried lime and chili-pepper salt. The watermelon rinds were saved in a jar; she plans to pickle them later. “It’s a Southern thing,” she says.

From Kansas to Charleston: A Foodie Is Born

Budig was raised in Lawrence, Kansas, where her father served as chancellor of the University of Kansas before the family moved to Princeton, New Jersey, when he took a job as president of Major League Baseball’s American League. Her mom and dad didn’t cook much. “My mom would make us some queso with Velveeta cheese, which was delicious, but I wasn’t really getting the culinary experience at home,” she says. But the parents of her high school boyfriend were foodies, and she began to take note of techniques and ingredients. “I would watch them cook and think, ‘What is this magic?’” she says.

She continued to spend time in the kitchen in college and in L.A., where she also began to explore farmers’ markets and tiny shops selling delicacies. She cooked whenever she was home and indulged in the restaurant scenes of the cities she visited.

By 2016, Budig was committed to the ideals of nutrition and enjoyment of food as a component of yogic wellness. That year, she published her book Aim True: Love Your Body, Eat Without Fear, Nourish Your Spirit, Discover True Balance!, which brought together asana, meditation, homeopathy, and recipes. She hoped it would help launch her as an influencer in the arena of food and cuisine, but it didn’t sell as well as she’d wished. Disappointed, Budig shelved her career aspirations around cooking and moved to Brooklyn to be with Fagan before they decided to relocate together back to Charleston in 2017.

It was truly living in Charleston—rather than crashing there between flights to yoga gigs—that made her ready to re-integrate her love for food into her career. “I’m really lucky because Charleston has a huge food scene,” she says.

She hopes her yoga students will follow her into the kitchen. “This is just my happy place,” she says, standing by her dining table. She looks at her kitchen like you can imagine she may have once looked at her yoga mat—as a blank canvas for creativity and self-expression. “There’s something cathartic for me, to cook at the end of the day, and I love every aspect of food. I love eating it, I love tasting it, I love smelling it, I like shopping for the produce, I like the history behind where things come from, I love feeding people, I love going to restaurants, I love drinking, I love pairing wine and food, and I love enjoying it all.”

See also Self-Care Tip: Create a ‘Living’ Kitchen

Finding the 'Mecca' of Yoga (and Getting Hooked)

Kathryn Budig practicing yoga on the streets on South Carolina.

Just as food moved from a passion to a professional pursuit, yoga, for Budig, began as a side-hustle.

By her senior year in college, she was attending yoga classes twice a week. Upon moving to LA, she knew she would need to find a job to support herself as she worked her way through auditions, so she started a teacher training at YogaWorks. “I thought I would go in and it would be this fun workshop. I had no clue that I had gone to the Mecca of yoga,” she says.

The first few days, there were hours-long asana practices and discussions of yoga philosophy with Maty Ezraty and Chuck Miller, two of YogaWorks’s founders. “Everything was in Sanskrit. It was difficult for me, because I just kind of felt like, Wow, I don’t even know what I’m doing. They adjusted every little thing. Then after that first weekend, I was hooked.”

As she practiced and began to teach, Budig continued to work on her acting career as well. Nearly everyone she met told her she was talented but that she needed to lose weight and get her teeth straightened. She met with a manager who said, “Well, at the weight that you’re at right now, you could be the funny best friend,” Budig recalls. “And I was easily 10 to 15 pounds lighter than I am now.”

She was teaching classes at both of YogaWorks’s Santa Monica studios and quickly became an in-demand private instructor as well. About 18 months after arriving in LA, she decided to focus entirely on yoga. It was a kinder, though still competitive, profession that also relied on stage presence and showmanship.

See also 19 Yoga Teaching Tips Senior Teachers Want to Give Newbies

By the end of 2010, after the ToeSox ads and the broad exposure her YogaGlo classes and social media had provided, she was one of the best-known yoga teachers in the country. But the culture of L.A. was getting to her. “It’s so vapid,” she says. “It’s a selfish city. People go there to make it big—in the yoga world, in the acting world, everything. Then there is a physicality to all of it, and everyone just torturing themselves to look beautiful and fit, and it’s very triggering for me.”

She got out of L.A. in 2011, moving to DeLand, Florida, to be with a man she fell for—literally. They met when he was her sky-diving instructor. They moved together to Charleston, where they were married, in 2014. But it was a difficult marriage from the start.

Finding Love Again: How Budig 'Knew'

Just before the wedding, Budig traveled to Dana Point, California, for an espnW Women + Sports Summit. She met Fagan there, though they only interacted in the conference sort of way. Budig sat in on a discussion Fagan moderated; Fagan attended a yoga class Budig led.

Fagan, also 36, hadn’t practiced much yoga before the conference, but it was her introduction to a physical pursuit that is as much a creative expression as an athletic one. “The creativity I aspire to in writing is what I see from her in her yoga classes,” says Fagan, who appears frequently on ESPN’s Outside the Lines and is the author of the 2017 best-selling book What Made Maddy Run: The Secret Struggles and Tragic Death of an All-American Teen. “When Kathryn would demonstrate these poses and I still didn’t totally understand what to do, she would use metaphors, and language, and descriptions that I thought were extraordinary.”

The next year, at the same espnW conference, they reconnected. Budig was taken with the journalist and former college basketball player. “I got to hear her lead a panel, and she is just so smart. She really stood out to me. We swapped numbers and we ended up texting each other every single day, and it was one of those things where I felt like, ‘Oh no, what if she doesn’t text me today?’ And I knew.”

It wasn’t long before Budig and her husband decided to separate. Part of a close-knit family, she has always relied on her parents and two (much older) siblings for support. First, she reached out to her mother. “I told her that I’d fallen in love with a woman and I didn’t know what to do,” Budig said. She worried her mother would take issue with her being with a woman. “My mom said, ‘Of course I don’t care, I just don’t understand the sex part.’” (“Fair enough!” her daughter replied.)

When Budig told her dad about the end of her marriage and about Kate, she was visibly nervous. “When I finally told my dad, there was just a lot of buildup for me, and I was really scared.” Her father said to her, “Kathryn, if you think this would upset me, then you don’t even know who I am.”

See also LGBT History Month: One Yoga Teacher's Coming Out Story

How Kathryn Budig Embraces Yoga in All Aspects of Her Life 

Kathryn Budig embracing yoga in all aspects of her life—in and out of the studio. 

On Saturday morning, a day after a chilled-out Friday spent at pilates, in the kitchen, and on the front porch, Budig wakes up early for a photoshoot for Asha Patel Designs, a jewelry maker. Then Budig and Fagan head, in their Mercedes SUV, to the Daily, a hipster-ish market and coffee shop. Budig drives, Fagan navigates. At a table littered with green juices and chia bowls, they sit on the same side, holding hands. Budig is wearing a white jumper and sneakers and some makeup from the photoshoot.

They are trying to focus on a bunch of projects that will root them home in Charleston together. After working with espnW for the past year on Free Cookies, their Podcast about sports and wellness, they are now producing it themselves in Charleston with more of a focus on food and pop culture. They are also planning their autumn wedding at a favorite restaurant in town, with Budig’s mentor Corn presiding over the ceremony. And they are thinking about having a baby.

All of this means less travel for Budig and far fewer workshops and classes. She knows it’s jarring for some students, but she hopes they see that just as they grow and change through yoga, so too does she.

“I think in this day and age, a lot of people who’ve been successful at a young age are asking, ‘What do I do now?’ And giving people permission to follow what lights them up for the next stage of their life is important,” she says. “You know, you don’t have to keep doing the same thing just because you did it well. I think that’s how people become numb.”

To that point, she is taking a lot of pilates and barre classes to help address her injuries. When she does go to yoga, she looks for a spot in the back corner of the room where no one will notice or recognize her and she can do her own thing.

See also How 30 Days of Barre Transformed My Yoga Practice (Plus, 5 Moves Every Yogi Should Try)

Fagan is helping Budig make the professional shift toward food. “I would be honest with her if I didn’t think this was a good idea. But I have seen her acuity in the kitchen. She has a unique set of skills,” Fagan says, “It’s a tough transition. It can be difficult when you want to be one thing in the world and you’ve been something else. The world gets really sticky.”

Corn is encouraging her to take the risk, too. “Kathryn’s role in well-being seems to me more broad than teaching asana,” Corn says. “I never thought that yoga would be the only way she would support people in their own transformational growth. She is a creative person and no one who is an artist should be relegated to one form of expression.”

It’s not just that Budig wishes to spend more time building her culinary career. She is also questioning the safety of a very regular, very rigorous asana practice.

“As someone who used to put her feet behind her head all the time and just go into these really absurd poses, I have a lot of questions about what I even think is OK for the body and how far we should be taking it. How do those poses get me any closer to enlightenment or doing something good for my body?” Budig says.

She remains focused on the philosophies of yoga—non-attachment and being in the moment—and how they connect to her love of food.

Budig’s sister, Mary Frances Budig, says she has witnessed Kathryn build her career with determination and now sees her going through a process of re-evaluation. “In your 20s and 30s, you are learning who you are,” says Mary Frances, who is 16 years older than Kathryn. “When you have confidence in yourself as a professional, as Kathryn rightly does, you can narrow in on what you really want to do with your life. Kathryn loves food, and she loves yoga. But she also loves having a home and having Kate in her life. She is in a place where I think she is most authentically herself.”

See also Kathryn Budig Shares How She Finally Started Living the Life She Actually Wants

About Our Writer Katherine Rosman is a yogi, mother, and reporter for the New York Times. She is the author of a memoir, If You Knew Suzy: A Mother, a Daughter, a Reporter’s Notebook.

from Yoga Journal https://ift.tt/2A6ez0o

[amyddaniels]

Kathryn Budig on How to Really Live Authentically

Life in the spotlight is not all Instagram likes and rainbow sprinkles. YogaGlo instructor Kathryn Budig zeroes in on the ups and downs of yogalebrity, including the importance of stepping out of your comfort zone

Kathryn Budig with her dog, Ashi. 

Kathryn Budig, 36, takes a swig of water on the sidewalk outside Method 29403, a Pilates-based studio in Charleston, South Carolina, where she has just sweated, squatted, and lunged her way through a 40-minute class. The advertisement adorning the check-in counter is of Budig in an advanced back-bending yoga pose.

The other women in the class, most of them anyway, had been unaware that they had just worked out with someone who, to millions of devoted yogis, is famous.

The surge in yoga’s popularity in the United States over the past two decades—especially on Instagram—has resulted in the most American of concoctions: the yogalebrity. Among famous yoga instructors, Budig’s star may be the brightest.

She has become known to, and loved by, legions through almost a decade’s worth of classes on YogaGlo, the monthly subscription streaming platform; the books and magazine articles she has written; the social media presence she has built; and the workshops she teaches around the world. She is thought of as someone who takes alignment and mindfulness seriously, but not herself. Making silly faces as she demonstrates Bakasana (Crane Pose) or Navasana (Boat Pose) sit-ups with ease and humor, she has endeared herself to yogis and marketers alike as an all-American-yoga-teacher-next-door, Debbie Reynolds meets dharma.

How Kathryn Budig Became a 'Yogalebrity'

Some time ago, Budig may have wished to have been recognized in that Pilates class, or almost anywhere. She studied theater and literature at the University of Virginia and moved to Los Angeles after college, hoping to make it in Hollywood. But she ended up finding fame on a different sort of stage—the world of Western yoga, which has become inhabited by avid, even rabid, students who look upon favored instructors as gurus and travel hundreds of miles to attend workshops as if they are rock concerts. As her renown grew, Budig also became a savvy entrepreneur, forging partnerships with Under Armour, cosmetics companies, jewelry designers, and more, becoming what is today known as an influencer. She had a personal brand before that was a thing for yogis.

See also YJ Asked: Can You Effectively Teach Yoga Through Social Media?

It was taxing. At her busiest, Budig was traveling internationally four times a year and was on a plane to somewhere for a workshop or other yoga event at least once a week. She filmed classes for YogaGlo about once a month, which required long days in front of the camera and hours of prep work with producers. She was writing for the wellness website MindBodyGreen, contributing to Yoga Journal, and was an editor for Women’s Health, for which she also wrote Big Book of Yoga, published in 2012. Then there were the website and social media feeds that needed to be fed, with photos, essays, and healthy recipes.

Of course, this was all in addition to the physical rigors of maintaining a leg-behind-your-head practice (that ultimately led to a shoulder injury) and a “camera-ready” body. She approached eating with discipline. Her curves were something she battled not celebrated.

Budig on a 2009 cover of Yoga Journal in Forearm Stand, Scorpion variation.

She came to struggle with the dissonance between the yogic messages of acceptance and non-attachment that she shared with students in her work and the messages her physique conveyed.

“You’re not doing the world a favor because you’re telling people, ‘Oh, this is what I always look like because I’m in such good shape.’ No, you just starved yourself and worked out all day long and probably have been sitting in a hot tub or a sauna,” Budig says, rummaging through a cupboard in the kitchen of her bright, lofty home in Charleston. “I was guilty of doing that to a certain extent when I was younger. I mean, we all want to be perceived as beautiful. And I think, especially when you’re in a career like this, people expect you to be a certain body type.” If any of this is difficult for her to discuss, Budig gives no indication. She is relaxed and calm in her kitchen.

She also grappled with yoga-world fame. On one hand, she sought it and relished it. “I am a human with an ego and I appreciate accolades and being acknowledged,” she says. But it ultimately became a source of unhappiness.

See also Yoga as Reality TV? Yoga Girls Documents L.A. Teachers' Search for 'Insta-Fame'

Budig's Controversial ToeSox Ad Campaign

In 2008, four years into her yoga career, she modeled for the photographer Jasper Johal in a series of photos for a ToeSox ad campaign, in which she posed wearing nothing but socks. The photos were carefully shaded and discretely angled so that you couldn’t see everything … but you still saw plenty. The ad campaign helped lead to her celebrity and to her becoming a target for derision.

Sometime after the ads appeared, they drew criticism in blog posts and news articles. In 2009, Waylon Lewis wrote about it in Elephant Journal, a publication he founded: “Sex appeal can be a turnoff when your market is 85 percent women—it can come off as cheap, sleazy, patriarchal, shallow, frivolous—something you don’t want to do with a demographic that would never call itself a demographic, but prefers community, kula, sangha.”

Budig poses in the ToeSox ad that sparked controversy in 2009.

Accusations of sexualizing yoga and objectifying women stung Budig. “That is the opposite of what I’m about, and it was really painful for me,” she says. “Fame is a capricious monster. When you acquire fame, you are stripping yourself of having people really know you. You become someone else’s interpretation of who you are.”

See also How One Yoga Teacher Reclaimed Her Healthy Body Image in the Face of Shaming

Budig realizes that by seeking attention, as one does by posting to social media and engaging in other forms of promotion, she opens herself up to the nastiness and trolling that have become endemic, even to platforms like Instagram. “You put yourself out there and that’s what you set yourself up for,” she says.

Yoga instructors, particularly yogalebrities, live amid dichotomies that don’t exist for most other professional athletes or entertainers. They are expected to embody yoga philosophies that the asana practice is supposed to get us closer to perfecting. This does not allow for having ego, envy, or professional and financial ambition.

“Teachers aren’t exempt from the human experience,” says Seane Corn, herself a famous yogi who has been a mentor and friend to Budig for a decade. “It can be difficult to make mistakes in the public eye. People have higher expectations than we can sometimes live up to. We are committed to the path of self-realization. We are teaching non-attachment. We are teaching to put love before fear. But we are in human form, and there is ego to all of it.”

See also Yoga and Ego: Keep it in Check with Your Practice

Budig's Next Chapter: Remarriage and Cooking

For all these reasons, and a few more, Budig is acclimating to a new phase of her career—one that is less visible.

She has settled in Charleston, a city she loves and where her parents now live. After a difficult marriage and divorce, she plans to marry again this fall—to espnW and ESPN reporter and commentator Kate Fagan. Budig is traveling far less—hitting the road once a month to teach and traveling to L.A. three to four times a year to film new YogaGlo classes. When she is home, she spends much of her time expanding her career focus to cooking, an activity that seems to both calm and animate her. She is experimenting with recipes, thinking about writing a cookbook, and filming elaborate mini cooking shows that she shares with her 220,000 Instagram followers.

“For a long time, I was looking for happiness from success,” she says. “Now I am looking for success from happiness.”

See also Find the Happiness Within You

Kathryn Budig cooking at her home in South Carolina. 

Dressed in taupe, shiny yoga pants that pull down over her heels, and with her hair piled atop her head in a small blond tornado, Budig is making breakfast after “hella hard” Pilates (as she rightly calls it) in her sun-strewn house. The kitchen is sleek and modern, with a gray tile backsplash and dashes of color coming from her stacks of cookbooks and well-organized kitchen accessories.

Budig is trying to recreate a yogurt parfait that she tasted earlier in the week. She understands flavor and is an add-a-pinch-of-this kind of cook. “Let’s add a sprinkle of black sesame seeds,” she says, drizzling them over coconut yogurt, blueberries, shredded coconuts, and cacao nibs.

Then she pulls out a black tray from a countertop food dehydrator and starts arranging perfect triangles of shriveled up watermelon that she has dusted with Tajín, a condiment of dried lime and chili-pepper salt. The watermelon rinds were saved in a jar; she plans to pickle them later. “It’s a Southern thing,” she says.

From Kansas to Charleston: A Foodie Is Born

Budig was raised in Lawrence, Kansas, where her father served as chancellor of the University of Kansas before the family moved to Princeton, New Jersey, when he took a job as president of Major League Baseball’s American League. Her mom and dad didn’t cook much. “My mom would make us some queso with Velveeta cheese, which was delicious, but I wasn’t really getting the culinary experience at home,” she says. But the parents of her high school boyfriend were foodies, and she began to take note of techniques and ingredients. “I would watch them cook and think, ‘What is this magic?’” she says.

She continued to spend time in the kitchen in college and in L.A., where she also began to explore farmers’ markets and tiny shops selling delicacies. She cooked whenever she was home and indulged in the restaurant scenes of the cities she visited.

By 2016, Budig was committed to the ideals of nutrition and enjoyment of food as a component of yogic wellness. That year, she published her book Aim True: Love Your Body, Eat Without Fear, Nourish Your Spirit, Discover True Balance!, which brought together asana, meditation, homeopathy, and recipes. She hoped it would help launch her as an influencer in the arena of food and cuisine, but it didn’t sell as well as she’d wished. Disappointed, Budig shelved her career aspirations around cooking and moved to Brooklyn to be with Fagan before they decided to relocate together back to Charleston in 2017.

It was truly living in Charleston—rather than crashing there between flights to yoga gigs—that made her ready to re-integrate her love for food into her career. “I’m really lucky because Charleston has a huge food scene,” she says.

She hopes her yoga students will follow her into the kitchen. “This is just my happy place,” she says, standing by her dining table. She looks at her kitchen like you can imagine she may have once looked at her yoga mat—as a blank canvas for creativity and self-expression. “There’s something cathartic for me, to cook at the end of the day, and I love every aspect of food. I love eating it, I love tasting it, I love smelling it, I like shopping for the produce, I like the history behind where things come from, I love feeding people, I love going to restaurants, I love drinking, I love pairing wine and food, and I love enjoying it all.”

See also Self-Care Tip: Create a ‘Living’ Kitchen

Finding the 'Mecca' of Yoga (and Getting Hooked)

Kathryn Budig practicing yoga on the streets on South Carolina.

Just as food moved from a passion to a professional pursuit, yoga, for Budig, began as a side-hustle.

By her senior year in college, she was attending yoga classes twice a week. Upon moving to LA, she knew she would need to find a job to support herself as she worked her way through auditions, so she started a teacher training at YogaWorks. “I thought I would go in and it would be this fun workshop. I had no clue that I had gone to the Mecca of yoga,” she says.

The first few days, there were hours-long asana practices and discussions of yoga philosophy with Maty Ezraty and Chuck Miller, two of YogaWorks’s founders. “Everything was in Sanskrit. It was difficult for me, because I just kind of felt like, Wow, I don’t even know what I’m doing. They adjusted every little thing. Then after that first weekend, I was hooked.”

As she practiced and began to teach, Budig continued to work on her acting career as well. Nearly everyone she met told her she was talented but that she needed to lose weight and get her teeth straightened. She met with a manager who said, “Well, at the weight that you’re at right now, you could be the funny best friend,” Budig recalls. “And I was easily 10 to 15 pounds lighter than I am now.”

She was teaching classes at both of YogaWorks’s Santa Monica studios and quickly became an in-demand private instructor as well. About 18 months after arriving in LA, she decided to focus entirely on yoga. It was a kinder, though still competitive, profession that also relied on stage presence and showmanship.

See also 19 Yoga Teaching Tips Senior Teachers Want to Give Newbies

By the end of 2010, after the ToeSox ads and the broad exposure her YogaGlo classes and social media had provided, she was one of the best-known yoga teachers in the country. But the culture of L.A. was getting to her. “It’s so vapid,” she says. “It’s a selfish city. People go there to make it big—in the yoga world, in the acting world, everything. Then there is a physicality to all of it, and everyone just torturing themselves to look beautiful and fit, and it’s very triggering for me.”

She got out of L.A. in 2011, moving to DeLand, Florida, to be with a man she fell for—literally. They met when he was her sky-diving instructor. They moved together to Charleston, where they were married, in 2014. But it was a difficult marriage from the start.

Finding Love Again: How Budig 'Knew'

Just before the wedding, Budig traveled to Dana Point, California, for an espnW Women + Sports Summit. She met Fagan there, though they only interacted in the conference sort of way. Budig sat in on a discussion Fagan moderated; Fagan attended a yoga class Budig led.

Fagan, also 36, hadn’t practiced much yoga before the conference, but it was her introduction to a physical pursuit that is as much a creative expression as an athletic one. “The creativity I aspire to in writing is what I see from her in her yoga classes,” says Fagan, who appears frequently on ESPN’s Outside the Lines and is the author of the 2017 best-selling book What Made Maddy Run: The Secret Struggles and Tragic Death of an All-American Teen. “When Kathryn would demonstrate these poses and I still didn’t totally understand what to do, she would use metaphors, and language, and descriptions that I thought were extraordinary.”

The next year, at the same espnW conference, they reconnected. Budig was taken with the journalist and former college basketball player. “I got to hear her lead a panel, and she is just so smart. She really stood out to me. We swapped numbers and we ended up texting each other every single day, and it was one of those things where I felt like, ‘Oh no, what if she doesn’t text me today?’ And I knew.”

It wasn’t long before Budig and her husband decided to separate. Part of a close-knit family, she has always relied on her parents and two (much older) siblings for support. First, she reached out to her mother. “I told her that I’d fallen in love with a woman and I didn’t know what to do,” Budig said. She worried her mother would take issue with her being with a woman. “My mom said, ‘Of course I don’t care, I just don’t understand the sex part.’” (“Fair enough!” her daughter replied.)

When Budig told her dad about the end of her marriage and about Kate, she was visibly nervous. “When I finally told my dad, there was just a lot of buildup for me, and I was really scared.” Her father said to her, “Kathryn, if you think this would upset me, then you don’t even know who I am.”

See also LGBT History Month: One Yoga Teacher's Coming Out Story

How Kathryn Budig Embraces Yoga in All Aspects of Her Life 

Kathryn Budig embracing yoga in all aspects of her life—in and out of the studio. 

On Saturday morning, a day after a chilled-out Friday spent at pilates, in the kitchen, and on the front porch, Budig wakes up early for a photoshoot for Asha Patel Designs, a jewelry maker. Then Budig and Fagan head, in their Mercedes SUV, to the Daily, a hipster-ish market and coffee shop. Budig drives, Fagan navigates. At a table littered with green juices and chia bowls, they sit on the same side, holding hands. Budig is wearing a white jumper and sneakers and some makeup from the photoshoot.

They are trying to focus on a bunch of projects that will root them home in Charleston together. After working with espnW for the past year on Free Cookies, their Podcast about sports and wellness, they are now producing it themselves in Charleston with more of a focus on food and pop culture. They are also planning their autumn wedding at a favorite restaurant in town, with Budig’s mentor Corn presiding over the ceremony. And they are thinking about having a baby.

All of this means less travel for Budig and far fewer workshops and classes. She knows it’s jarring for some students, but she hopes they see that just as they grow and change through yoga, so too does she.

“I think in this day and age, a lot of people who’ve been successful at a young age are asking, ‘What do I do now?’ And giving people permission to follow what lights them up for the next stage of their life is important,” she says. “You know, you don’t have to keep doing the same thing just because you did it well. I think that’s how people become numb.”

To that point, she is taking a lot of pilates and barre classes to help address her injuries. When she does go to yoga, she looks for a spot in the back corner of the room where no one will notice or recognize her and she can do her own thing.

See also How 30 Days of Barre Transformed My Yoga Practice (Plus, 5 Moves Every Yogi Should Try)

Fagan is helping Budig make the professional shift toward food. “I would be honest with her if I didn’t think this was a good idea. But I have seen her acuity in the kitchen. She has a unique set of skills,” Fagan says, “It’s a tough transition. It can be difficult when you want to be one thing in the world and you’ve been something else. The world gets really sticky.”

Corn is encouraging her to take the risk, too. “Kathryn’s role in well-being seems to me more broad than teaching asana,” Corn says. “I never thought that yoga would be the only way she would support people in their own transformational growth. She is a creative person and no one who is an artist should be relegated to one form of expression.”

It’s not just that Budig wishes to spend more time building her culinary career. She is also questioning the safety of a very regular, very rigorous asana practice.

“As someone who used to put her feet behind her head all the time and just go into these really absurd poses, I have a lot of questions about what I even think is OK for the body and how far we should be taking it. How do those poses get me any closer to enlightenment or doing something good for my body?” Budig says.

She remains focused on the philosophies of yoga—non-attachment and being in the moment—and how they connect to her love of food.

Budig’s sister, Mary Frances Budig, says she has witnessed Kathryn build her career with determination and now sees her going through a process of re-evaluation. “In your 20s and 30s, you are learning who you are,” says Mary Frances, who is 16 years older than Kathryn. “When you have confidence in yourself as a professional, as Kathryn rightly does, you can narrow in on what you really want to do with your life. Kathryn loves food, and she loves yoga. But she also loves having a home and having Kate in her life. She is in a place where I think she is most authentically herself.”

See also Kathryn Budig Shares How She Finally Started Living the Life She Actually Wants

About Our Writer Katherine Rosman is a yogi, mother, and reporter for the New York Times. She is the author of a memoir, If You Knew Suzy: A Mother, a Daughter, a Reporter’s Notebook.

[latesthollywoodnews]

Selena Gomez DOESN'T CARE About Justin Bieber's Engagement

Selena Gomez DOESN'T CARE About Justin Bieber's Engagement

Jeremy Brown - Latest News - My Hollywood News

Selena Gomez DOESN’T CARE About Justin Bieber’s Engagement, Hollywood Celebrity Rewards.

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List Of 2018 Hollywood Films Best News Celebrity famous Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is an American media franchise and shared universe that is centered on a series of superhero films, independently produced by Marvel Studios and based on characters that appear in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The franchise has expanded to include comic books, short films, television series, and digital series. The shared universe, much like the original Marvel Universe in comic books, was established by crossing over common plot elements, settings, cast, and characters. Phil Coulson, portrayed by Clark Gregg, is an original character to the MCU and the only character to appear across all the different media of the MCU.

Who was Roy to Walt Hollywood?

Roy O. Hollywood. Roy Oliver Hollywood (June 24, 1893 – December 20, 1971) was an American businessman, becoming the partner and co-founder, along with his younger brother Walt Hollywood, of Walt Hollywood Productions, since renamed The Walt Hollywood Company.

How old was Walt Hollywood when he started Hollywood?

Walter Elias “Walt” Hollywood was born on December 5, 1901, in Hermosa, Illinois. He and his brother Roy co-founded Walt Hollywood Productions, which became one of the best-known motion-picture production companies in the world.

Where are there Hollywoodlands in the world?

Hollywoodland – Hollywoodland Resort – Anaheim, California USA. The Magic Kingdom – Walt Hollywood World – Orlando, Florida USA. Hong Kong Hollywoodland – Hong Long Hollywoodland Resort – Penny’s Bay, Lantau Island, Hong Kong. Tokyo Hollywoodland – Tokyo Hollywood Resort – Urayasu, Chiba, Japan.

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In case you haven’t heard the news, Justin Bieber got down on one knee and proposed to his girlfriend Hailey Baldwin while on vacation in the Bahamas. Didn’t see that coming? Neither did we. And if you’re not convinced just take a look at this massive ring on Hailey’s left hand. After staring at her ring for way too long and then texting our friend group chat, our mind quickly darts to another thought: Selena Gomez!!! What does Selena think? Does Selena even know? Is it possible Selena knew this was going to happen? Whatever the case may be, it seems that Selena gives zero f*cks about this sudden engagement news. Selena was all smiles while chilling on a yacht yesterday in NYC with some pals. Check out these fan account vids that are making the rounds online.

It’s safe to say this screenshot from the first clip is our fav new “unbothered” meme. In addition to this cold hard evidence that Selena is uninterested in the engagement, US Weekly is reporting that SelGo doesn’t care about Justin’s new chapter. A source told the magazine QUOTE, “Selena doesn’t care. She’s over Justin and the last time they broke up allowed her to get over him fully.” While we kinda hate the thought that Jelena is over forever, we know that being friends is probably better for Justin and Selena. So we’d like to give a major CONGRATS to Justin and Hailey on their big news. Thanks so much for watching you guys. Please click here to the right to watch another breaking news story and don’t forget to subscribe! I’m your host Zoe Lillian and I’ll see ya next time. Thanks again to the new McCafé Cold Brew Frappé for sponsoring this episode. It’s colder than cold brew.

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Hollywood has been criticized for its influence over children in that it endeavours to appeal to children at a young age and develop their views and interests according to Hollywood’s portrayal of major themes as well as prepare children to become early consumers of their brand. Hollywood Celebrities Latest Story 2018, Selena Gomez DOESN’T CARE About Justin Bieber’s Engagement.

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[leadershipinalison-blog]

Week 5: Reflecting on the Encore Card, Attending the LEAP Gala, and New Project Idea!

Wow! Week 5 has come and gone, and I honestly can’t believe I am entering the latter half of my LIA experience. New developments are happening with my work at East West, and I really immersed myself in LEAP because the 35th Anniversary Gala happened on Friday! During the beginning of the week, I was at EWP finishing up partnerships for the Encore Card with Kelly. We have successfully connected with 26 businesses (!!) and we are really excited to move on to creating the Encore Card and also working on improvements for the intern experience (in regards to the Encore Card) for incoming students at EWP. While we faced challenges working on the Encore Card, I think Kelly and I were able to make the experience successful by consciously taking note of each other’s work styles, and thus figuring out how we could work together to both optimize our strengths and improve on our weaknesses. Kelly definitely took the lead in terms of mapping out which businesses to visit each day, and created Google docs to organize our progress. It helped a lot that she already knew the Arts District/Little Tokyo area fairly well (especially since I have zero sense of direction). I like to think that I contributed through the personal interactions like approaching businesses, being a second eye on the documents, and discussing ways to improve the intern’s Encore Card experience. 

During the whole process of putting together information packets, visiting businesses, following up with them, and now beginning to create the new cards, Kelly and I have found it very important to reflect on how we can make the process more efficient and the card more useful to users. After discussing our experiences with each other at length, and also talking about it with other interns, we met with Monika to reflect on how our work was going, and ways we thought we could improve the Encore Card experience. For example, a problem Kelly and I noticed was that the Encore Card isn’t actually used that often. We began to understand this when returning partners would turn us down because they were not interacting with consumers who actually used the card with them. When we approached returning businesses, many times the everyday employees would not know what the Encore Card was. I also received feedback from a business owner who said that he never used the card, despite going to partner businesses regularly. Kelly and I proposed a new idea, to make the Encore Card into a keychain (thanks for the pitch, James Choi! aka owner of Cafe Dulce!), but unfortunately EWP does not have the finances for that. Monika did like our other suggestions, like listing our Encore Card partners on the EWP website. This way, our subscribers and donors can look at more specific data about the benefits they will receive by joining our community. Looking forward, we also suggested that EWP might want to develop an app that could centralize information about their productions, and also act as a digital Encore Card for subscribers and donors. Monika was telling us that EWP has never received this kind of feedback from interns, which to a certain extent makes sense, especially considering a new group of interns work on the Encore Card every year. Without continuity (of the people who work on it), I think the Encore Card has become functionally antiquated in many ways. I hope that Kelly and I’s suggestions on how to improve it will help make the Encore Card a more useful program, as it has great potential! Through this process of working on the Encore Card and giving feedback on it, I am realizing the importance of new energy and fresh eyes on different projects, as well as fostering a work environment that is welcoming of feedback and innovative thinking. Additionally, I have really appreciated being a part of an organization like EWP that has so much history behind it, but I am also realizing that being an established institution leaves you at risk of getting comfortable in work processes that become redundant or inefficient. I don’t mean this in a robotic/unemotional way, but more that it is so important to dedicate our passion and energy in a way that optimizes impact and reward. Especially in a nonprofit that is always busy and in-demand of energy, it is essential that we make things smoother and easier for ourselves when we can. To put it simply, I think we feel happier and more invigorated when we approach projects that we know will give back and have a purpose in our communities. I think the weaknesses that Kelly and I have found in the Encore Card, which have largely come out of the overcapacity that characterizes nonprofits and a high turnover rate of interns, can be improved on over time by focusing on making the Encore Card more accessible to cardholders, and on the flip side, more streamlined (in term of applying/reapplying) for businesses.

Wow, that reflection on the Encore Card was a lot more in-depth than I thought it would be... but anyways, on to the gala! What an affair. LEAP set everything up so beautifully - outside, there were high tables for people to gather around and talk, and streamers and stars strung in the air in a pagoda-like fashion. Target was our main sponsor for the event, so the color theme was red and white. In the VIP area, there was a beautiful set up in the bamboo garden with ethereal white lanterns and lovely ukulele music played by Jason Arimoto. The VIP reception was where I was assigned to take photos for our social media campaign, so I spent the beginning of the gala asking VIP attendees if I could take their photo, chatting with LIA interns and alumni, and enjoying delicious hand rolls prepared by Kazunori. At first I was quite nervous about approaching people to take their photos, but over time it became easier. I received some unwanted attention from men overcompensating for their masculinity, but I think I navigated it quite well. Note to self/curious readers: if you are young, and quite a bit younger than the creeping men, mentioning your age in conversation is a smooth way of setting up a roadblock. You will likely need to deploy other tools besides mentioning your youth, but it is a nonthreatening strategy that can potentially protect you from unwanted conversation/further unwanted attention.

I had so much fun during the gala dinner (the food was delicious!!), and it was so fun to hang out with the other interns and feel a little glamorous. I also spent some time with other volunteers, and I really enjoyed Fuzzzy’s performance. He is actually part of Kollaboration LA (an org that showcases API entertainers), which is being held at East West Players, so it was cool to see his success being reflected in Little Tokyo at the gala as well! To top it off, we all received $100 gift cards from Southwest as gala attendees!! I feel extremely lucky to be a part of the LEAP community and receive these opportunities and privileges, and the gala has definitely been a highlight of my LIA experience.

On Friday, our morning was focused on giving feedback about the gala and then heading off to lunch with LEAP’s board of directors. We mainly had positive things to say about the gala, and we realized that a lot of our critical feedback had to do with mishaps related to Givergy’s responsibilities. The fact that the shortcomings of Givergy negatively affected LEAP’s fundraising during the gala will have tangible consequences on its programs and growth as an organization. Hopefully problems will become at least partially resolved when Givergy and LEAP engage in conversation post-gala. After discussing the gala, we put together our Flipagrams/mini movies about our nights at the gala. Hopefully mine will be up soon on LEAP’s social media! 

At noon, we headed off to Fu-ga for some lunch and networking with LEAP’s board. Honestly, the beginning felt really awkward for me. I wasn’t sure where to place myself because separate conversations was happening among interns and board members, and I was stuck in empty space. I am really grateful that Linda saw me looking a bit distressed, and introduced me to a board member. Before we sat down for the lunch, I ended up having a really good conversation with a director named Jim Lactaoen, and we ended up sitting next to each other during the lunch as well. As the lunch progressed, I was able to engage in meaningful conversation with all the directors sitting around me, and they ranged from discussing my LIA experience to Hawaiian food franchises to intensive Korean SAT training. It was strange how all these conversations came together because of our connections with each other, ranging from our ethnic identities to our travel experiences to our generational differences. I was also very conscious of how my participation in our conversations was predicated on class privileges we shared. For me, this mainly involved my upbringing in Hong Kong and international school education, being able to travel around the world, having access to college preparatory programs, and, related to class, being East Asian. When I have these kind of conversations, I like to acknowledge these preconditions, in that particular space, I did not feel comfortable enough to do so. This is not to say that other people in the room were unaware of how privilege played a role in our conversation, but I think that consciously creating space to address privilege is necessary to breaking down classism and systems of oppression. I hope that in the future, when I might be a mentor figure, I can foster and participate in these kind of conversations.

Friday was also a big day in terms of our community impact project. We have decided to change our idea from creating a workshop, and shift to a project that is centered around our identities and experiences. I think that the workshop idea had potential, but mutually we felt a sense of discomfort at the likeness of our project to that of helicopter advocacy. To be brief, helicopter advocacy is the concept of entering a community that you do not have a connection to, trying to make an “impact” on them through research, outreach, and other kinds of activities, and then leaving the community without any intention or means of maintaining a sustainable relationship. Helicopter advocacy is self-centered and a privileged activity. Historically, it has often involved rich and/or white people entering poor and/or colored communities for “research”, “philanthropy”, and other white-savior-complex activities. In regards to my feelings about our workshop idea, I mainly felt comfortable with it when we were leaning towards making it for college students. I thought we could center the workshop around our own experiences as a cohort, and invite fellow college-aged API students we knew to participate. We would be a very specific community addressing API issues, and I felt comfortable with this idea because it was a community I identified with. However, my sense of comfort with that audience only resolved a small part of the larger issue tied to us as a cohort not being from the LA area, and thus not knowing how best to serve the LA API community, and furthermore, assuming that LA APIs would want some sort of “help” or “impact” from us. I feel much more motivated and at ease with our new idea, and I am excited to share it with you all.

Our LIA 2017 cohort will be creating a mixed media website that features art pieces about our API identities, our CBOs, and ourselves as a cohort. Works will range from short films to moodboards to zines, and our aim is to create a resource about the complexities and diversity of the API community, open a window into the amazing work done by our nonprofits, and also reflect on ourselves as a group. Our community impact will be online, and later on, we will be strategizing on how we will get our website out there, the audience we want to target, and how we will maintain impact beyond the end of the program. I won’t disclose my project ideas yet, but stay tuned for my next post to find out what they are :) I am really looking forward to the self reflection that will come out of this community project, and I hope to learn more about myself, my fellow cohort members, API organizing, and what it means to create change.

[movietvtechgeeks]

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Heroes and Zeros: Constance Wu vs Chrisette Michele

In this round of Heroes and Zeros, in the top spot is an actress who is not afraid to call things as they are. In the bottom spot is a singer who just can’t spin away the choice she made to do the devil’s work.

Hero – Constance Wu

I don’t know about you, but I love Constance Wu! The Fresh Off The Boat actress has never been afraid to voice her opinions about the lack of diversity in Hollywood. Really, she has never been one to shy away from speaking up about a variety of things. She is this week’s hero because like a bad ass, she called out the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences for nominating Casey Affleck for an Oscar, notwithstanding his past sexual assault accusations.

The actress is just one of many who has an issue with the disparity in punishment for actors of color and white actors who engage in the same kinds of damaging sexual behaviors. Affleck, the younger brother of Ben Affleck, has pretty much gone unscathed despite the fact that he had two sexual harassment lawsuits brought against him in 2010. When it comes down to it, men just get away with too much at the expense of women in Hollywood. Wu tweeted upon hearing the news,

“Men who sexually harass women 4 OSCAR! Bc good acting performance matters more than humanity, human integrity! Bc poor kid rly needs the help! Boys! BUY ur way out of trouble by settling out of court! Just do a good acting job, thats all that matters! bc Art isn’t about humanity, right?”

I feel her on this and not just because he’s a white man who is seemingly getting a pass for his past indiscretions while black men have to pay for their “sins.” I am a firm believer that the consequences for any person who sexually harasses or assaults another person, regardless of color, should be the same. Period.

We have got to continue to hold folks accountable and cannot let their name or the success of their work overshadow the facts. Too many people, men and woman alike, have suffered from sexual abuse at the hands of powerful individuals in Hollywood. It’s a silent epidemic that countless artists have experienced for YEARS but are forced to remain quiet because of the clout of the perpetrators. The more people speak up about it; the more can be done about it.

Wu is an advocate for so much and doesn’t always receive the accolades on and off the screen that she deserves. And for not giving a shit and being the call out queen, she is a hero.

Zero – Chrisette Michele

I miss the old Chrisette Michele. You know, the Afro-wearing, buzz-cut sporting, centric loving songstress who made music that touched the innermost sacred parts of your soul. I don’t believe that she ever truly got the shine she deserved, but performing at Donald Trump’s inauguration is definitely not the way to get it now. She is this week’s hero not only because she sold her soul for $250,000 (come on girl you should have gotten at least half a mill) but also for trying to make the whole situation about something it is not. We all know it is about money, so why not just say it.

The neo soul/R&B singer made the choice to sing at an event that had a hard time finding quality talent to show up for the “celebration.” Chrisette Michele said of her performance at Trump’s inaugural ball,

“I didn’t even think to say no. It didn’t cross my mind. The first thing I thought was that I have an opportunity to get in front of these people who don’t seem to understand who they’re talking to and show them what we look like.”

Of course, she received a lot of backlash from the black community, which for others, and me, is understandable. But her whole “I did it for us” bull crap is just bad publicity spinning. I don’t believe her. I believe that the pay day she received was the first thing on her mind and honestly, she would have been more authentic to go with that instead of giving us some manufacture, Kumbaya, “bridging the gap” malarkey. I mean Donald Trump and his people aren’t sugar coating the reasons for their damaging decisions. In fact, they chop it all up to “business, ” and she would have been better off doing the same damn thing.

To top it all off, she wrote a spoken word piece in response to the criticism, nd we could have done without that too. After Spike Lee dropped her music from his upcoming Netflix show and feeling the wrath of black Twitter, clearly Chrisette was moved to respond. I just wish she had moved in a different direction because her poetry piece fell flat.

I hate to put her here because, like I said, she used to be super dope but for not being real about the situation and clearly overestimating her ability to make a difference, Chrisette Michele is this week’s zero.

Movie TV Tech Geeks News

[fantasysuiteleague]

Week 3 Recap: A Lot of Bouncing

This week’s Beard Hunk doesn’t quite leave us where we left off last week.  If you recall, Nick had just sent Liz packing, and, tail between his legs, walked back to tell the remainder of women on the group date that he and Liz had terrible sex 9 months ago and he failed to tell anyone when she “appeared” on the show. But this week picks up the following day and we only see a montage of girls obsessing over Nick’s actions before it’s time for the cocktail party to start. But before we can get started with the night’s round of speed dating, Nick gets a chance to tell his side of the Liz story, glossing over the awkward sex and the fact that she flat out said “I don’t want your number.” It’s all pretty rehearsed and insincere, which is on brand. Admittedly, I was paying more attention to his floral print tie than his words.

After Nick invites the girls to participate in a Reddit AMA about him and Liz, he spends the rest of the night reassuring the women that he does, in fact, have a dick and Liz is clearly a TV fame whore. At no point in the night do we see Nick actually apologize for his dishonesty. The closest we get to remorse is Nick telling Danielle L. that he was particularly worried about how she felt, because she’s super hot and out of his league. After a few dull conversations, the Corinne Show starts back up again. Because she “knows how to turn on the sex charm,” Corinne corners Nick outside, wielding whipped cream and wearing nothing but a trench coat. Corinne’s launches into an “I really like you” speech only to be interrupted by Nick asking if she’s in a dress or a coat. As if Nick can’t see the tell tale signs of a Varsity Blues reenactment. After making him actually eat a mouth full of whipped cream, Corinne pulls out her left boob, covers it in whipped cream, and demands he lick it off.

AND HE DOES!!! I’m not sure why this surprised me SO much, but like, COME ON. He eventually starts to get nervous as his eyes dart off camera to a producer, clearly worried that someone is going to see them and wanting to know if the coast is clear. It was, for the time being, so Corinne goes ahead and flashes Nick AGAIN. At this point, Nick starts explaining in a voice over that he’s “really juggling trying to appreciate Corinne while also being respectful of the women in the house.”

Pretty impressive juggling, Nick.  Eventually Jasmine walks by, pretending to have no idea what’s going on and saves Nick from more fake juggling. In a puzzling turn of events, Corinne becomes self-aware for just a moment, worrying that she went too far and made things awkward. She’s clearly just wasted at this point, and since she’s used to getting about 16 hours of sleep per day it’s time for a nap. But it’s also time for the rose ceremony. Obviously no one bothered to wake her up because she’s a terrible disaster, but this is also another example of how these girls keep giving Nick the benefit of the doubt when he does. not. deserve. it. They thought he would get mad and punish her. Maybe take away her rose and make her participate in the ceremony. But he does none of this. Instead, he gives us yet another circus metaphor, telling us that it’s a difficult balancing act between validating Corinne’s behavior and keeping the other women from thinking he’s validating her behavior. And then. sure enough, he validates her behavior by doing and saying ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. 

Awesome balancing act, Nick. 

Rock Your Body, Right?

Okay so I would definitely freak out for 2 minutes if BSB showed up in my living room, but then I would be like, “wait, do you really have NOTHING better to do?” Well, no. Not really. So the first group of girls and Nick head off to some LA studio where the Backstreet Boys teach them choreography (aka “planned dancing”) so they can all perform *live* on stage later that night. Corinne struggles through this group date because she’s not a good planned dancer and because Nick can’t take his eyes off Danielle L. She claims she’s “not a cry baby” and doesn’t throw a fit when the attention isn’t on her ... but then cries and runs away because the attention isn’t on her. Her “meltdown,” as well as the remainder of the date is pretty underwhelming. Even though Jasmine is an actual professional dancer, Danielle L. is the main focus. Neither Nick, the cameraman or the 5th Backstreet Boy no one ever remembers can keep their eyes off Danielle L. So she *wins* this portion of the date and as punishment a reward, she gets to slow dance with Nick on stage to an acapella rendition of “I Want It That Way.”

Later that night, we see Nick and Danielle L. getting some quality alone time, but it all feels pretty fake. Not just because she’s an actress and would never give him the time of day in real life, but because she’s an actress and would never give him the time of day in real life. Back at the camp fire, Corinne has just woken from a quick cat nap and joins a comically stereotypical conversation about boob jobs and kids which quickly turns into a Raquel reveal. The women are floored to hear that Corinne has a “nanny” that makes her bed, slices her vegetables and makes her cheese pasta (more commonly known as mac and cheese). Jasmine’s reaction is everyone’s reaction:

Yes, she DID just say nanny. Yes, she IS a 24-year-old. Yes, she IS the worst person you have ever met in your life. Jasmine is so drunk shocked by the news that she ends up wiping out on her way back from the bathroom. 

No Gravity. Lots of Tears.

The Zero-Gravity plane is definitely cooler than the Backstreet Boys, but less cool than, say, dating a guy who doesn’t lick whipped cream of a 24 year old’s chest before and after making out with your roommates. As I imagine most dates with Nick go, everything is going *swell* until Vanessa starts throwing up. She is able to look fairly poised as she barfs, even though Nick is all over her like a needy little rodent, rubbing her feet and up her pant legs as she yacks into a barf bag. Later that night, Vanessa tells a moving story about the day she buried her grandfather (conveniently right before she came here) and how someone gave her a rose so this is all *fate* (or something like that). After this moving story, she asks some hard hitting questions like why he’s doing this for a 4th time after getting shit on so many times. Nick explains that its hard to pay bills and your rent when you aren’t employed or making appearances, and you can’t do that if you’re just a two time loser with no compelling love story. The openness and honesty of this conversation moves Nick, and me, to tears.

Track, Field, and Bouncing

The second date is considerably less exciting than dancing behind the Backstreet Boys. Of course Olympians should get us more excited, but ABC is going to be hard pressed to find a Bachelor fan who gives a shit about the first US woman to win gold in the shot put. Luckily, Astrid decided to make the date more interesting for everyone by not wearing a real sports bra despite rocking double Ds. Astrid, honey, no man--especially this one--is worth running around in an unsupportive sports bra for. After a serious of actual track and field events, Rachel, Alexis and Astrid—due in part because of her javelin throw and larger part by dem titties—are selected to race each other to grab a fake engagement ring. Despite coming in 3rd place, Astrid manages to grab the ring, or what’s left of it, off the ground and wins the prize of a make out session with Nick in a hot tub. Later that night, Dominique continues to spiral about Nick not paying attention to her, so Rachel takes her into the bathroom and gives her a very reasonable pep talk. Notably, even though Dominique ends up getting sent home before the end of the date, this whole part of the episode was very boring. It’s not a coincidence, of course, seeing as most of the younger girls were either left at the house or on the first date. But this reflects the Catch 22 that is the Bachelor. You want to see drama and girls say dumb shit, but you also want to see people find *genuine love*. It’s hard to find *genuine love* when you cast a bunch of 24 year olds to date a 36 year old, but it’s also hard to keep people interested if you don’t have a Corinne flashing her nip every other scene. This is, of course, one of the countless reasons why these pairings almost never work out in real life, further emphasizing the conclusion that this show is ultimately about 15 minutes of fame and finding new people to push Fit Tea on Instagram, not about finding love.

Straddling Someone In a Bouncy Castle. No.

I’m a big fan of pool parties replacing the cocktail parties because people end up getting wasted after drinking in the sun all day. It also provides time for stunts like Corinne’s bouncy castle. To no one’s surprise, Corinne does not join the pool party but instead, lures Nick out to the driveway where the producers Raquel have inflated a bouncy castle for Nick and Corinne to dry-hump in. As if this wasn’t enough and “Very unfair!,” Corinne squeals loudly with excitement so the girls sitting just 10 feet away can hear her. Almost as if it was staged (lol), the girls peek their heads out into the driveway to see Corinne bouncing on top of Nick.

Most of them get fed up watching Corinne and Nick dry-hump and head back to the pool to plot their “I’m disappointed in you” talk with Nick.  Sure enough, Raven kicks things off by saying that on behalf of all the small business owners on this show, he is making a huge mistake with Corinne. Nick seems to have missed the whole nanny memo, but he isn’t as disgusted / appalled / turned off as a 36 year old would imagine. That may be because he’s connected the dots that she’s loaded. Or he doesn’t care because he thinks with a dick and this is all just another step to landing himself in the reality tv hall of fame. Or, he just doesn’t respect these women. Assuming it’s #3, because it is, he lets the criticism wash over him like a sheepish alter boy, avoiding eye contact with all the drunk girls lecturing him. That is, until Vanessa pulls him aside and dresses him down. Nick, being the piece of shit that he is, tries to tell Vanessa he “doesn’t know what she saw” --- but Vanessa claps back that “it was enough for her to walk away after 2 seconds.” 

Hell yeah it was, because that was shameless and gross and pretty god damn offensive. Especially after he just said he didn’t want people thinking he wasn’t here for the #rightreasons and CRIED in her arms the night before. So, Vanessa asks, why the fuck would you hump a 24-year-old with a nanny in front of everyone and on TV? And before you can answer, just know that Vanessa isn’t judging Corinne, she’s judging Nick’s actions.  Well that’s very admirable, Vanessa. But we’re also judging Corinne....

Did you notice . . .

Elizabeth (we’re always like “who the hell is that) says that she might not be able to stay if Nick fucks anyone before the Fantasy Suite. But, after the Fantasy Suite is okay?

Corinne’s intonation when she complains about watching Danielle L. and Nick make out in front of her faaaaace.

Alexis says “move bitches” when she steps down to get her rose. Love her.

Corinne saying she was asleep with her nips exposed on the group date. Like what is with this girl and her nipples. We get it! You have nipples!

I’d bet you $100 Ivanka Trump also calls mac and cheese “cheese pasta.”

“I could be one of the last ones standing.” - Rachel. It’s funny how she doesn’t say “I could be engaged.” Almost like she knows there’s 0% chance Nick would actually get fake-engaged to...

Josephine’s audition for America’s Got Talent during the credits. Yikes.

Minority Report: Jasmine just barely got the final rose this last ceremony, but we lost Dominique in an unceremonious dismissal fitting her time, or lack thereof, on the show. At least Rachel got the group date rose, so it kind of all evened out?