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thediamondgirl17 · 4 years

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Feitan Porter x Reader: A Long Time Ago

Hey everyone! I'm not dead I promise! I have been BINGING HxH and JJK for anyone who is interested in knowing. And let's just say Feitan caught my eye and sparked a bit of my creative interest! I still don't know a lot about the PT so your gonna have to give me a bit of artistic liberty here. As always if you want a second part to this, or want me to write something for you feel free to go to my ask box! I'm always open to new ideas! Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

Warnings: PG-13, light HxH Season 3 spoilers, mentions of sensitive subjects.

You didn’t grow up in Meteor City. You lived just outside of it growing up. That meant that you weren’t exactly the most wealthy person in the world, then again not the poorest. However, you had known of the City. Murmurs, whispers, and tales of the cursed city were always among the gossip in your home town. It was never anything abnormal when the adults would whisper things to each other out of your earshot when you were little. However the one thing that had stuck with you the most was the warning that every adult gave you when you went to play by yourself as a child.

“Stay away from the edge of town.”

That was it. Nothing more and nothing less. However, children’s minds tend to block out the logical reasonings of adults so that it is able to explore the unknown for itself. And that is exactly what happened to you.

You had packed a bag with some food in it for a picnic. Your parents were home, and not exactly caring where you ran off to as long as you came back before sunset. So your little legs carried you through town as quickly as they could to get to the edge of town. It wasn’t that long of a walk but it had made you a bit tired. As you got closer to the far edge of town, the grass began to die and the trees begun to wilt. It was as if you crossed over to a whole new deserted world.

You had told yourself that you were going to stop at the edge of town. Told yourself that you were just going to admire the scenery and then head back. Of course though, children never listened, even to themselves. So you continued on, eventually finding yourself walking along broken down buildings that looked like they would collapse. The air was dry and polluted, which made it hard to breathe.

“Look what we have here.” An older man had said. He looked to be in his 40s. He had this disgusting smell of cheap cologne and a dirty five o’clock shadow that covered his chin. “A cute little girl. C’mere...Let’s talk.” He smiled, revealing crocked yellow teeth.

Now, you had not been scared up to this point, but this worried you. You gripped your bag tightly in your hands and took a weary step backwards, away from the man in front of you. Your heart rate had quickened and you closed your eyes, moving your head away from him fearing the worst.

It was only until you felt a hand in your own quickly drag you away from the creepy old man that you opened your eyes. A young boy, much scrawnier than yourself, but obviously your age dragged you along. Your legs had a hard time keeping up with his experienced ones. From the looks of him, he was a native. He stopped after being sure that the two of you weren’t followed. You heaved after the two of you had stopped running and put your hands on your knees to catch your breath.

“Th-Thank Y-you...,” You gasped, trying to catch your breath. But there was only silence. So you tilted your head up to look at him, only to see a small pocket knife aimed between your eyes.

“Give me your money.” He stated. His black hair was greasy and dirty from not having been washed in a while. And his clothes were tattered and much to small for him at this point. You blinked and looked down at your bag. His cold tone had shaken you to your core.

“I-I don’t h-have any m-money o-on me...,” You said softly. “B-but...D-do you wanna split my sandwich?” You asked looking back up at the boy, from the way that you spoke to him, the two of you knew you would have asked that question whether or not that knife was aimed between your eyes.

“...80:20.” He demanded. And you had offered him the softest smile that he had ever seen in his life. Though on the outside he didn’t falter, the inside of him felt...different. You reached into your bag and pulled out your sandwich. You ripped it much over half way and handed him the larger piece.

He was hesitant at first when he took the food. He slowly lowered the knife and began eating, quickly shoving it into his mouth before anyone or anything else could get to it. You sat down on the ground beside him and began eating your own piece.

“Why are you staying? I could kill you.” He demanded to know.

“Then you already would have and taken the rest of my sandwich...I have a water bottle in here too.” You added. “Do you want it?” He nodded. You reached into your bag and pulled out the water bottle, handing it to him. “Here.” He quickly took it out of your hands and drank half of it in one go. His shoulders relaxing ever so slightly from it.

“In one week.” He said, keeping his demanding tone. “You will come back and bring me food and water.”

“Any requests?” You asked tilting your head. He looked down at you.

“Just make sure it’s edible.” And with that, the black haired boy was off.

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From that day forward, every week, you brought him food. You learned his name and where he took shelter. You had learned how many people he had killed, and what happened to his parents. You learned his favorite food. And learned that he was a total sadist. However, you kept coming back to provide him food and water. The last time you say him was many years after your first encounter. The two of you were 15 years old. He had begun to look more handsome in your eyes. And vice versa, though he would never admit it. The two of you sat on a run down bridge that looked old and crumbly.

“Don’t come anymore.” He said sipping from the water bottle.

“Huh? Why?” You asked looking over at him.

“I am able to get myself food and water more often now.”

“Well duh...That’s obvious...I had noticed you started gaining weight like three months ago.” You paused. “I meant that as a good thing.” \

“I know you did.” He said, talking slow like he always did, being sure to pronounce each syllable of the word. “But still.” He stood up and stretched out a bit. “I don’t want to see you anymore.”

“Bullshit!” You called. “Fei...What’s up with you?” You asked softly.

“Get out of this region. Leave and don’t come back. Make a life for yourself.” He said in that same demanding tone of his. “I have. it’s time you do too.” He turned and faced away from you. “Goodbye.”

“Will I see you again?” You asked standing up and staring at his back.

“If you do...It will end up with you dying.” And those were his final words as he walked away.

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Each week after that you brought food to your usual meet up spot. Enough for two. But he never came. It took about five weeks for you to finally get it through your head that he...was gone.

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You had made a life for yourself outside of Meteor City. You had moved away to a nice countryside where everything was peaceful and relaxed. Life was almost perfect. Your job had provided you with enough money to live comfortably and go on vacations every couple of years. However, something in your life was missing. And you knew exactly what it was. However, the only thing you had taking up your mind at the moment was your vacation to York New City. Everything with the Phantom Troupe had just ended. The city assured visitors that the troupe was dead, and not a single one remained to roam free any longer. That news gave you comfort.

Stepping off the train, the bright lights of the city were burning brightly in your face, even though it was nighttime. You had wanted to enjoy it more, so you went to your hotel, put down your things and quickly headed out for a fun night on the town. You had your purse in one hand, and your other was free and by your side.

About 20 minutes of walking had passed before you had reached an old abandoned part of town. That little child that still lived inside you urged you to go and explore it. ‘A look around couldn’t hurt.’ You thought to yourself. Your shoes gently clacked along the sidewalk as you continued to walk. Through the allies and dust ridden streets. All of it reminded you of a place a long time ago, and an old friend whom you hadn’t seen in ages.

However, your nostalgia had faded the moment you heard a small gust of wind come from behind you. It had made you pause where you stood, and your whole happy demeanor shifted. In the last few years you had spent with Feitan, he had taught you some self defense.

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“Your small...like me...and easy prey for anyone.” The black haired boy said, standing up from his spot beside you. You were sitting on the edge of Meteor City where there was some dead grass.

“And why is this important?” Your thirteen year old self said to the thirteen year old boy beside you.

“I can’t always save your ass.” He replied in a slow and snarky way.

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That little training session had taught you a lot. Like how to unconsciously use zetsu. Of course back then you had no idea what it meant, after doing some research on it when you were older you learned it was helpful. So, you masked your presence from the person who was currently following you. You gently slipped off your shoes to limit the sound of your feet on the ground and silently began to walk forward again.

A woman had pinned you against the wall behind you with strength outnumbering your own. She had a large nose, a blonde bobcat, and her chest was exposed from how many buttons were unbuttoned.

“Who are you?” She demanded. “Why are you here? Who sent you?” She asked, holding a knife to your throat. You gulped and steadied your breathing, another thing that Feitan had taught you. Her eyes were directly on yours. ‘Good’ You thought to yourself. You lifted your leg to kick the knife out of her hand, but her other hand caught your leg with ease. You used that momentum to flip yourself over and kick the knife out of her hand. However, her hand remained grabbed tightly onto your ankle.

You moved and started kicking your free foot into her arm, it wouldn’t do much damage to someone like her, but would at least leave some bruising. She grumbled something along the lines of, ‘I’m gonna kill you,’ and grabbed your other leg, sending you to the ground on your back. You coughed up a little blood and used the shoes in your hand to throw harshly at her face. It caused her hands on your ankles to falter just enough in order for you to get up and start running. “If you can’t win. Run.” You heard from the memory of your old friend. You were panting and looked behind you to see if she had been following. However she stopped. And just watched from a distance. You had no idea what hit you until you were on your stomach with your face pushed to the ground and a foot harshly stepping onto your back.

“I’m gonna enjoy this kill...,” A familiar slow voice said from above you. Your eyes widened and you stopped moving. “Scared?” He asked teasingly.

“F-fei...?” You questioned and let out a cough right after. The black haired man currently standing above you felt his eyes widen ever so slightly. His grip softened and he released you. You coughed on the ground and sat up, looking as dirty as you did as a child.

“Leave.” He stated. “...or you will die.”

“Fei wait! Talk to me it’s been year-,” You were cut off when a strong hand wrapped around your neck from behind and held it harshly.

“You know her Feitan? How great!” A happy blonde said lifting up your body off the ground by your neck. “Let’s take her to the boss! I’m sure he’ll be happy to meet her!”

“No...,” The black haired man said looking at the blonde.

“Flip a coin. Call it in the air.” The woman from before said and flipped a coin.

“Tails.” Feitan called. Unfortunately the coin landed on heads.

You had quickly felt the air escaping your lungs. You scratched and struggled and squirmed in his grip for all but no avail.

“She’s got fire! I think the boss will have fun!” He said happily and dropped you onto your knees. You gasped and wrapped your hands gently around your sensitive throat. After regaining a bit of oxygen in your body, the three had started to lead you with them. You were silent with your head facing downward. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Once you had gotten to the hideout, you saw how everyone laid around relaxed and only really looked up when they saw your figure. It was quiet, dark, and damp. It was cold and held hostility.

“Hey Boss! Look what we found! She is very entertaining!” The blonde said happily into the dimly lit room. A man whom sat at the center of the room looked up from his book and made direct eye contact with you. You felt a shiver run down your spine and glanced away to avoid eye contact.

“Why is she here Shalnark?” He asked leaning back a bit.

“She was coming here. She knew how to use Zetsu...and she gave Pakunoda a few good bruises. I thought she would be entertaining!” He admitted almost like you weren’t a person at all.

“Tell me.” The leader said, looking at you once again. Even with looking away from him you still felt the intense eyes on you. “Why are you here?”

“Fuck off.” You spat and kept looking away from him.

“Feisty...Maybe we can force it out of you.” He said and leaned back more.

“She seems annoying.” A black haired girl with glasses said, looking up from whatever she was doing.

“Her attacks were...,” The blonde girl said. “Not experienced...but definitely survival.”

“I’ll ask one more time.” The man up front said. “Why did you come here? To the den of spiders?”

“Spiders?” You whispered. Then you eyes widened and you shot a look over at Feitan. However he didn’t move, just kept is eyes forward in a bored way.

“Ah...So it seems you know him. Feitan, care to explain.”

“She is an old friend. From Meteor City.” He said slowly.

“A native?” The blonde asked.

“...no.” You said and looked up at the boss. “I lived right outside the city.”

“So still in poverty. I’m sure being that close to the city, you had met Feitan before correct?”

“Yes...,” You said softly.

“Were you trying to find him?”

“No...I-I’m on vacation...I came to the city to enjoy it...But this area reminded me of home...so...I took a walk...,” You admitted and looked down. “Are you going to kill me?”

“Probably. You know where out hideout is now.” He said and sighed. “Though I don’t care. You will either stay, or die.”

“Die!” Most of them shouted.

“Stay.” Feitan said loud enough beside you to allow him to hear.

“Then we flip a coin.” He stated and pulled out the same coin that the girl had. He flipped it. “I call tails.” And it landed on it’s head. “Then she shall stay. Feitan, she is your responsibility now.” He stated and that was it. Everyone went back to what they were doing.

“Come.” He stated and started walking down the hallway. You quickly followed behind, now noticing the slight height difference. You were only taller by a few centimeters, but it was taller. Once out of sight from the Troupe he paused. “I told you to leave.”

“And I wanted to see you again! It has been years after you left! Now letters. No pictures. No post cards! Nothing! I still waited for a whole month for you to come back and you didnt!” You shot at him.

“Still a loudmouth?”

“Still a heartless sadist?”

“It’s more of a hobby.” He said coldly, but you knew it was a joke. You smiled softly and stepped closer to him.

“Your so pale...Were you always this pale?”

“Yes. Where you always this annoying?”

“You know it.” You replied.

There was a long moment of silence between the two of you. You stepped closer to him and hesitantly reached up, and gripped on to his collar. You slowly pulled it down and moved your face closer to his, of course it was all slow and hesitant. The only time it wasn’t was when he craned his neck forward to finally meet your lips.

The kiss wasn’t long, or deep, but definitely was not one a friend would give. You gently pulled away from him and he did the same. Your cheeks were warm and his had the slightest tinge of pink on them, that is if you looked hard enough.

“Come with me.” He said lifting up the collar around his neck. “I’ll show you where you will be staying.”

And even though you were in a damp, dark, musky, run down building that was probably going to collapse. Everything finally felt perfect once again.

#hunter x hunter #feitan #feitan x reader #anime #xreader

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dornish-queen · 4 years

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Pedro Pascal on Fame and ‘The Mandalorian’: ‘Can We Cut the S— and Talk About the Child?’

By Adam B. Vary

Photographs by Beau Grealy

At some point during this particular visit, Pascal needed to go to the bathroom, and his parents let him go by himself. “I didn’t really know how to read yet,” Pascal says with the same Cheshire grin that dazzled “Game of Thrones” fans during his run as the wily (and doomed) Oberyn Martel. “I did not find my way back to ‘Superman.'”

Instead, Pascal wandered into a different theater (he thinks it was showing the 1979 domestic drama “Kramer vs. Kramer,” but, again, he was 4). In his shock and bewilderment at being lost, he curled up into an open seat and fell asleep. When he woke up, the movie was over, the theater was empty, and his parents were standing over him. To his surprise, they seemed rather calm, but another detail sticks out even more.

“I know that they finished their movie,” he says, bending over in laughter. “My sister was trying to get a rise out of me by telling me, ‘This happened and that happened and then Superman did this and then, you know, the earthquake and spinning around the planet.'” In the face of such relentless sibling mockery, Pascal did the only logical thing: “I said, ‘All that happened in my movie too.'”

He had no way of knowing it at the time, of course, but some 40 years later, Pascal would in fact get the chance to star in a movie alongside a DC Comics superhero — not to mention battle Stormtroopers and, er, face off against the most formidable warrior in Westeros. After his breakout on “Game of Thrones,” he became an instant get-me-that-guy sensation, mostly as headstrong, taciturn men of action — from chasing drug traffickers in Colombia for three seasons on Netflix’s “Narcos” to squaring off against Denzel Washington in “The Equalizer 2.”

This year, though, Pascal finds himself poised for the kind of marquee career he’s spent a lifetime dreaming about. On Oct. 30, he’ll return for Season 2 as the title star of “The Mandalorian,” Lucasfilm’s light-speed hit “Star Wars” series for Disney Plus that earned 15 Emmy nominations, including best drama, in its first season. And then on Dec. 25 — COVID-19 depending — he’ll play the slippery comic book villain Maxwell Lord opposite Gal Gadot, Chris Pine and Kristen Wiig in “Wonder Woman 1984.”

The roles are at once wildly divergent and the best showcase yet for Pascal’s elastic talents. In “The Mandalorian,” he must hide his face — and, in some episodes, his whole body — in a performance that pushes minimalism and restraint to an almost ascetic ideal. In “Wonder Woman 1984,” by stark contrast, he is delivering the kind of big, broad bad-guy character that populated the 1980s popcorn spectaculars of his youth.

“I continually am so surprised when everybody pegs him as such a serious guy,” says “Wonder Woman 1984” director Patty Jenkins. “I have to say, Pedro is one of the most appealing people I have known. He instantly becomes someone that everybody invites over and you want to have around and you want to talk to.”

Talk with Pascal for just five minutes — even when he’s stuck in his car because he ran out of time running errands before his flight to make it to the set of a Nicolas Cage movie in Budapest — and you get an immediate sense of what Jenkins is talking about. Before our interview really starts, Pascal points out, via Zoom, that my dog is licking his nether regions in the background. “Don’t stop him!” he says with an almost naughty reproach. “Let him live his life!”

Over our three such conversations, it’s also clear that Pascal’s great good humor and charm have been at once ballast for a number of striking hardships, and a bulwark that makes his hard-won success a challenge for him to fully accept.

Before Pascal knew anything about “The Mandalorian,” its showrunner and executive producer Jon Favreau knew he wanted Pascal to star in it.

“He feels very much like a classic movie star in his charm and his delivery,” says Favreau. “And he’s somebody who takes his craft very seriously.” Favreau felt Pascal had the presence and skill essential to deliver a character — named Din Djarin, but mostly called Mando — who spends virtually every second of his time on screen wearing a helmet, part of the sacrosanct creed of the Mandalorian order.

Convincing any actor to hide their face for the run of a series can be as precarious as escaping a Sarlacc pit. To win Pascal over in their initial meeting, Favreau brought him behind the “Mandalorian” curtain, into a conference room papered with storyboards covering the arc of the first season. “When he walked in, it must have felt a little surreal,” Favreau says. “You know, most of your experiences as an actor, people are kicking the tires to see if it’s a good fit. But in this case, everything was locked and loaded.”

Needless to say, it worked. “I hope this doesn’t sound like me fashioning myself like I’m, you know, so smart, but I agreed to do this [show] because the impression I had when I had my first meeting was that this is the next big s—,” Pascal says with a laugh.

Favreau’s determination to cast Pascal, however, put the actor in a tricky situation: Pascal’s own commitments to make “Wonder Woman 1984” in London and to perform in a Broadway run of “King Lear” with Glenda Jackson barreled right into the production schedule for “The Mandalorian.” Some scenes on the show, and in at least one case a full episode, would need to lean on the anonymity of the title character more than anyone had quite planned, with two stunt performers — Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder — playing Mando on set and Pascal dubbing in the dialogue months later.

Pascal was already being asked to smother one of his best tools as an actor, extraordinarily uncommon for anyone shouldering the newest iteration of a global live-action franchise. (Imagine Robert Downey Jr. only playing Iron Man while wearing a mask — you can’t!) Now he had to hand over control of Mando’s body to other performers too. Some actors would have walked away. Pascal didn’t.

“If there were more than just a couple of pages of a one-on-one scene, I did feel uneasy about not, in some instances, being able to totally author that,” he says. “But it was so easy in such a sort of practical and unexciting way for it to be up to them. When you’re dealing with a franchise as large as this, you are such a passenger to however they’re going to carve it out. It’s just so specific. It’s ‘Star Wars.'” (For Season 2, Pascal says he was on the set far more, though he still sat out many of Mando’s stunts.)

“The Mandalorian” was indeed the next big s—, helping to catapult the launch of Disney Plus to 26.5 million subscribers in its first six weeks. With the “Star Wars” movies frozen in carbonite until 2023 (at least), I noted offhand that he’s now effectively the face of one of the biggest pop-culture franchises in the world. Pascal could barely suppress rolling his eyes.

“I mean, come on, there isn’t a face!” he says with a laugh that feels maybe a little forced. “If you want to say, ‘You’re the silhouette’ — which is also a team effort — then, yeah.” He pauses. “Can we just cut the s— and talk about the Child?”

Yes, of course, the Child — or, as the rest of the galaxy calls it, Baby Yoda. Pascal first saw the incandescently cute creature during his download of “Mandalorian” storyboards in that initial meeting with Favreau. “Literally, my eyes following left to right, up and down, and, boom, Baby Yoda close to the end of the first episode,” he says. “That was when I was like, ‘Oh, yep, that’s a winner!'”

Baby Yoda is undeniably the breakout star of “The Mandalorian,” inspiring infinite memes and apocryphal basketball game sightings. But the show wouldn’t work if audiences weren’t invested in Mando’s evolving emotional connection to the wee scene stealer, something Favreau says Pascal understood from the jump. “He’s tracking the arc of that relationship,” says the showrunner. “His insight has made us rethink moments over the course of the show.” (As with all things “Star Wars,” questions about specifics are deflected in deference to the all-powerful Galactic Order of Spoilers.)

Even if Pascal couldn’t always be inside Mando’s body, he never left the character’s head, always aware of how this orphaned bounty hunter who caroms from planet to planet would look askance at anything that felt too good (or too adorable) to be true.

“The transience is something that I’m incredibly familiar with, you know?” Pascal says. “Understanding the opportunity for complexity under all of the armor was not hard for me.”

When Pascal was 4 months old, his parents had to leave him and his sister with their aunt, so they could go into hiding to avoid capture during Pinochet’s crackdown against his opposition. After six months, they finally managed to climb the walls of the Venezuelan embassy during a shift change and claim asylum; from there, the family relocated, first to Denmark, then to San Antonio, where Pascal’s father got a job as a physician.

Pascal was too young to remember any of this, and for a healthy stretch of his childhood, his complicated Chilean heritage sat in parallel to his life in the U.S. — separate tracks, equally important, never quite intersecting. By the time Pascal was 8, his family was able to take regular trips back to Chile to visit with his 34 first cousins. But he doesn’t remember really talking about any of his time there all that much with his American friends.

“I remember at one point not even realizing that my parents had accents until a friend was like, ‘Why does your mom talk like that?'” Pascal says. “And I remember thinking, like what?”

Besides, he loved his life in San Antonio. His father took him and his sister to Spurs basketball games during the week if their homework was done. He hoodwinked his mother into letting him see “Poltergeist” at the local multiplex. He watched just about anything on cable; the HBO special of Whoopi Goldberg’s one-woman Broadway show knocked him flat. He remembers seeing Henry Thomas in “E.T.” and Christian Bale in “Empire of the Sun” and wishing ardently, urgently, I want to live those stories too.

Then his father got a job in Orange County, Calif. After Pascal finished the fifth grade, they moved there. It was a shock. “There were two really, really rough years,” he says. “A lot of bullying.”

His mother found him a nascent performing arts high school in the area, and Pascal burrowed even further into his obsessions, devouring any play or movie he could get his hands on. His senior year, a friend of his mother’s gave Pascal her ticket to a long two-part play running in downtown Los Angeles that her bad back couldn’t withstand. He got out of school early to drive there by himself. It was the pre-Broadway run of “Angels in America.”

“And it changed me,” he says with almost religious awe. “It changed me.”

After studying acting at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Pascal booked a succession of solid gigs, like MTV’s “Undressed” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” But the sudden death of his mother — who’d only just been permitted to move back to Chile a few years earlier — took the wind right from Pascal’s sails. He lost his agent, and his career stalled almost completely.

As a tribute to her, he decided to change his professional last name from Balmaceda, his father’s, to Pascal, his mother’s. “And also, because Americans had such a hard time pronouncing Balmaceda,” he says. “It was exhausting.”

Pascal even tried swapping out Pedro for Alexander (an homage to Ingmar Bergman’s “Fanny and Alexander,” one of the formative films of his youth). “I was willing to do absolutely anything to work more,” he says. “And that meant if people felt confused by who they were looking at in the casting room because his first name was Pedro, then I’ll change that. It didn’t work.”

It was a desperately lean time for Pascal. He booked an occasional “Law & Order” episode, but mostly he was pounding the pavement along with his other New York theater friends — like Oscar Isaac, who met Pascal doing an Off Broadway play. They became fast, lifelong friends, bonding over their shared passions and frustrations as actors.

“It’s gotten better, but at that point, it was so easy to be pigeonholed in very specific roles because we’re Latinos,” says Isaac. “It’s like, how many gang member roles am I going to be sent?” As with so many actors, the dream Pascal and Isaac shared to live the stories of their childhoods had been stripped down to its most basic utility. “The dream was to be able to pay rent,” says Isaac. “There wasn’t a strategy. We were just struggling. It was talking about how to do this thing that we both love but seems kind of insurmountable.”

As with so few actors, that dream was finally rekindled through sheer nerve and the luck of who you know, when another lifelong friend, actor Sarah Paulson, agreed to pass along Pascal’s audition for Oberyn Martell to her best friend Amanda Peet, who is married to “Game of Thrones” co-showrunner David Benioff.

“First of all, it was an iPhone selfie audition, which was unusual,” Benioff remembers over email. “And this wasn’t one of the new-fangled iPhones with the fancy cameras. It looked like s—; it was shot vertical; the whole thing was very amateurish. Except for the performance, which was intense and believable and just right.”

Before Pascal knew it, he found himself in Belfast, sitting inside the Great Hall of the Red Keep as one of the judges at Tyrion Lannister’s trial for the murder of King Joffrey. “I was between Charles Dance and Lena Headey, with a view of the entire f—ing set,” Pascal says, his eyes wide and astonished still at the memory. “I couldn’t believe I didn’t have an uncomfortable costume on. You know, I got to sit — and with this view.” He sighs. “It strangely aligned itself with the kind of thinking I was developing as a child that, at that point, I was convinced was not happening.”

And then it all started to happen.

In early 2018, while Pascal was in Hawaii preparing to make the Netflix thriller “Triple Frontier” — opposite his old friend Isaac — he got a call from the film’s producer Charles Roven, who told him Patty Jenkins wanted to meet with him in London to discuss a role in another film Roven was producing, “Wonder Woman 1984.”

“It was a f—ing offer,” Pascal says in an incredulous whisper. “I wasn’t really grasping that Patty wanted to talk to me about a part that I was going to play, not a part that I needed to get. I wasn’t able to totally accept that.”

Pascal had actually shot a TV pilot with Jenkins that wasn’t picked up, made right before his life-changing run on “Game of Thrones” aired. “I got to work with Patty for three days or something and then thought I’d never see her again,” he says. “I didn’t even know she remembered me from that.”

She did. “I worked with him, so I knew him,” she says. “I didn’t need him to prove anything for me. I just loved the idea of him, and I thought he would be kind of unexpected, because he doesn’t scream ‘villain.'”

In Jenkins’ vision, Max Lord — a longstanding DC Comics rogue who shares a particularly tangled history with Wonder Woman — is a slick, self-styled tycoon with a knack for manipulation and an undercurrent of genuine pathos. It was the kind of larger-than-life character Pascal had never been asked to tackle before, so he did something equally unorthodox: He transformed his script into a kind of pop-art scrapbook, filled with blown-up photocopies of Max Lord from the comic books that Pascal then manipulated through his lens on the character.

Even the few pages Pascal flashes to me over Zoom are quite revealing. One, featuring Max sporting a power suit and a smarmy grin, has several burned-out holes, including through the character’s eye. Another page features Max surrounded by text bubbles into which Pascal has written, over and over and over again in itty-bitty lettering, “You are a f—ing piece of s—.”

“I felt like I had wake myself up again in a big way,” he says. “This was just a practical way of, like, instead of going home tired and putting Netflix on, [I would] actually deal with this physical thing, doodle and think about it and run it.”

Jenkins is so bullish on Pascal’s performance that she thinks it could explode his career in the same way her 2003 film “Monster” forever changed how the industry saw Charlize Theron. “I would never cast him as just the stoic, quiet guy,” Jenkins says. “I almost think he’s unrecognizable from ‘Narcos’ to ‘Wonder Woman.’ Wouldn’t even know that was the same guy. But I think that may change.”

When people can see “Wonder Woman 1984” remains caught in the chaos the pandemic has wreaked on the industry; both Pascal and Jenkins are hopeful the Dec. 25 release date will stick, but neither is terribly sure it will. Perhaps it’s because of that uncertainty, perhaps it’s because he’s spent his life on the outside of a dream he’s now suddenly living, but Pascal does not share Jenkins’ optimism that his experience making “Wonder Woman 1984” will open doors to more opportunities like it.

“It will never happen again,” Pascal says, once more in that incredulous whisper. “It felt so special.”

After all he’s done in a few short years, why wouldn’t Pascal think more roles like this are on his horizon?

“I don’t know!” he finally says with a playful — and pointed — howl. “I’m protecting myself psychologically! It’s just all too good to be true! How dare I!”

#pedro pascal #jose pedro balmaceda pascal #variety magazine

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thekillerssluts · 4 years

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We’ve Got A File On You: Win Butler

In a year when a lot of our plans have been on hold, Win Butler has been busy. In April, the Arcade Fire ringleader let us know that the band had been working on music shortly before lockdown, and then he let us hear some of it. Last week, on the night of the election, the band debuted a new song called “Generation A.” Apparently, Butler was one of the people who found quarantine more inspiring than suffocating. Just a couple weeks ago, he amended his previous hints with the update that he’s written “two or three” Arcade Fire albums thanks to having to stay still all year long.

It seems like there’ll be a whole lot of new Arcade Fire goings-on to parse sometime on the horizon, but that isn’t the reason Butler and I got on the phone one recent October afternoon. Butler’s not quite ready to talk about forthcoming music yet, aside from saying this era of writing gives him flashbacks to that which preceded The Suburbs and promising “The new shit is about some of the best shit we’ve ever done” as we say goodbye.

In the meantime, there have been some milestones this year: The Suburbs turned 10; Butler turned 40. There is, of course, a whole lot of rich Arcade Fire history between their early ’00s origins and now. There are too many high-profile collabs to dig through, too many pop culture crossovers to cover, in just one conversation. But before Arcade Fire’s next chapter begins, while we both had a moment of quiet at home in the year 2020, Butler and I took some time to dig back through highlights and surprises from across his career.

Appearing In Bill & Ted Face The Music (2020)

How did this happen?

WIN BUTLER: They were filming in New Orleans. I’m kind of the exact age where Bill & Ted really has a soft spot in my worldview. [Laughs] That was just like, yeah, of course I want to be in the Future Council. That’s the part I was born to play. No, it’s funny, it was just one of these random things that come through the email. Usually, it’s, “Nope, nope, nope, nope.” But this was, “Tell me when, tell me where, I’ll be there.” It was on soundstages. When we were filming it, Tommy Lee from Mötley Crüe was back there, and he sort of disappeared at some point. I got to bring my son, who’s six. He was hanging out and we were talking to Keanu about Canada and punk bands back in the day. It was a pretty sweet hang. It was a bright spot in 2020, let me put it that way.

You say you get these emails — is that random stuff they want Arcade Fire to do, or there’ve been other cameos you turned down?

BUTLER: Oh, no, it’s mostly random licensing or stuff that goes to the junk box. But every once in a while, it’s like, “Hey, that sounds like a nice way to spend the day.” I started out in film. I went to Sarah Lawrence College in New York around 2000. I had really wanted to go to film school, and I could never get in. [Laughs] Initially, the song “The Suburbs” was an idea I had for a film and it seemed easier to make a song than a film.

The Suburbs (2010)

That was a convenient segue. The Suburbs just turned 10. I was wondering if you have gone back and revisited it much amidst that anniversary.

BUTLER: The whole experience of Funeral was such a rollercoaster. We were on the road so long. We didn’t have much of a break going into the second record. For The Suburbs, Régine and I — I don’t think we saw anyone for a year straight before we even started demoing or anything for that record.

It was a time in my life… I don’t know, I was in my late twenties, and there were all these details of my childhood in Houston. You know, I moved to Canada when I was 19. [Houston] almost felt like this other life I had. I would close my eyes and imagine riding my bike through town and trying to find the edges of my memory. There was kind of all this emotion that came up through that, and I wanted to capture it. It’s funny, as a songwriter, most of the time I feel like my mind is living in the near future. You’re listening for these little signals in the air. This was almost inhabiting the emotional space of these memories but thinking about it as the future.

When you say it like that, I’m curious if the album feels different to you now that you’re a father yourself and another 10 years down the line. Like another layer to that refracted youth, sort of?

BUTLER: Totally. In a way, I feel like the last year has been a parallel to that year before The Suburbs. Then I was kind of a hermit by choice, and this has more been the world conspiring to make me a hermit, but it has been a really introspective. In a sense, the material that we’ve been working on feels the same way, this hybrid of your emotional landscape and the future.

It’s almost seasonal, like a trade wind that blows in once in a while. I remember we played with Neil Young when he was still doing the Bridge School Benefit and hearing him sing “Old Man” as an old man, almost like he wrote the song when he was 22 to sing when he was 80. I think there’s an element on that Suburbs record that’s like that as well.

Winning The Grammy For Album Of The Year (2011)

Obviously that was a huge turning point for Arcade Fire because you won the Grammy the following year. As a suburban indie fan at the time, I had no real grasp on how big certain bands were. From where I was, it was pretty trippy that you guys won that.

BUTLER: I mean, tell me about it. It was definitely pretty trippy.

There are very, very early moments of you guys getting linked up with some iconic artists. Arcade Fire got plenty of respect from the beginning. But at the same time, the Grammys is something different. That’s a moment of mainstream insurgency. Ten years on, you’re one of the big indie bands of your generation, but also one of the only rock bands to get to that level in recent times.

BUTLER: I don’t know it was the best record that year, but it was definitely the best record nominated that year. I mean, we were up against a Lady Gaga remix record and like, Katy Perry. We weren’t up against a great Eminem record, we were up against a not-that-great Eminem record. In a certain sense, I was like, “Well, I think we should win.” [Laughs] I think we had the best record.

I remember in high school Radiohead and Björk were the two [new artists I loved]. I bought The Bends the day it came out, I bought Homogenic the day it came out. And then everything else I listened to was artists that had broken up 20 years earlier. I remember watching the Grammys the year OK Computer was nominated and it didn’t win, and I was just like, “Oh, that thing must not mean anything then.” I remember Dylan won, and it’s a really great Dylan record, but objectively OK Computer was the best record. So if that didn’t win, then what the hell does that thing mean? After that, I didn’t think about the Grammys that much. It wasn’t on my list of my dreams of my career and what I could accomplish and what I wanted to do.

For me, I was looking more at a band like the Cure or New Order, these bands that were really just artistic entities but you would hear them at a pharmacy once in a while. Like, I’d hear “Bizarre Love Triangle” come on in the pharmacy in Houston and just be like, “Is this from outer space? What the fuck is this?” My dreams for our band was to do for other people what those bands did for me, which was just throw me a fucking lifeline. Because I was just like, “What is this world, and where are my people, and how can I feel OK existing?” My grandfather played in big bands and played with Louis Armstrong, and he bought me a guitar when I was 15. I held on to that thing — if I didn’t have that I don’t think I would’ve made it out of high school. It literally saved my life. I don’t think I could exist without that.

For me, the Grammy thing was strangely moving. Even up until the moment we won, I just felt like an interloper. Even when we won, people looked at us like aliens. Like, “Who? What?” You know, I’m a competitive person. It was really exciting. Cool, awesome, the universe makes sense for one second. It’s interesting, I didn’t expect it to mean anything until we won, and then it meant something.

David Bowie (2005, 2013, Throughout)

I alluded to this earlier but: The Grammys were like an industry stamp of approval. From the beginning, however, you guys were embraced by a lot of elder artists — particularly artists who were influences on the band. One I wanted to talk about was David Bowie. He was a very early supporter; you performed together in 2005, which turned into a live EP. Then he shows up on “Reflektor” in 2013. Somewhere around 2015, you talked about how you’d come to regard him as this professor-type character in your life. He came to your first New York show, right?

BUTLER: Our first headlining show, when we played at the Bowery, Bowie and David Byrne came to that show.

Wow, no pressure huh.

BUTLER: It sort of set the table. Like, “Well, I guess this is how it’s going to be right out of the gate.” [Laughs] It’s funny, I have a photo of David in my studio that I look at when I’m working sometimes. It’s just him in a dressing room with one of those kind of Hollywood mirrors behind him. He really… I don’t know, he felt some sort of spiritual connection with us. It wasn’t like he wanted anything from us. I just think he wanted to say, “Hey guys, you’re going on the right path, keep going.”

I was emailing him over all those years. I don’t know if you have anyone close to you that’s died and you go back and read those emails, it’s really these strange digital fragments of someone you care about. After he sang on “Reflektor,” Régine and I bought him a painting in Haiti as a thank you gift. We were supposed to mail it to him and we got busy and forgot about it, and in the interim he passed. I knew he wasn’t well, but I didn’t know he was dying. Maybe a couple months later I remembered the painting and I dug it out and it was a painting of a black star. A voodoo painting of a black star with rays coming out of it.

I didn’t know anything about his record being Blackstar or anything like that. Now it’s on the wall of my bedroom. Shit like that sometimes happens in my life. I take it for what it is. I don’t know exactly what that means and I just feel grateful… I don’t know man. Even just how inspiring, what he put into his art even in death. He’s someone I think about at least on a weekly basis.

Backing Up Mick Jagger On SNL (2012), Playing With The Rolling Stones (2013)

Obviously that was an ongoing relationship, and you’ve worked with David Byrne too, and you referenced playing with Neil Young. Still: Being onstage with the Rolling Stones seems particularly daunting.

BUTLER: We were Mick’s backing band on SNL. SNL is maybe one of my favorite American institutions. I don’t know if it’s the Canadian thing since Lorne [Michaels] is Canadian. The first time we did it, it was just like, “This dude is my friend.” I don’t know if Lorne’s kids like Arcade Fire or something. But I was in New York randomly and he was like, “Mick’s doing a thing,” and I said, “We do a pretty amazing cover of ‘The Last Time,’” and he said “Come on down, let’s do it.” Then we’re Mick’s backing band. I don’t know, pretty fucking cool.

What is Mick Jagger like to work with?

BUTLER: Mick is like: As soon as the light goes on, he’s a different person. When he turns it on, it’s like this muscle memory — like if you were with the greatest ballet dancer ever, and you say go and this energy comes out of him that is so practiced. It’s someone who’s an absolute master, after practicing something for decades and decades and decades. That was pretty amazing to see. You’re chatting with someone, we’re at the piano and we’re talking about an arrangement, “OK, let’s do a run,” and then, “Boom! Shit!” There he is.

It’s this other level. I feel like people at that level, music’s not something they’re fucking around with. [Laughs] Music is a spirit. You hear something, and if it strikes a chord with you, it connects something at your deepest core. People like that, when you see them do their thing, it really is this other plane. It’s not this show thing. It’s more of a possession. You can hear it in the music.

I feel like I’ve listened to more music during COVID than any time since I was like, 18. I had this moment when I was listening to these amazing records from the 1950s. You can hear the room. It’s almost like audio VR — you can hear the drummer here and the bass player over here. There’s a sense of space, particularly to that older music. It’s a snapshot. If you hear “La Bamba,” right now, that is what it is. It’s a spirit captured on vinyl, on a piece of tape. It’s alive within that.

With people like Mick, they’re a little bit closer to the spirit of rock ’n’ roll — a literal spirit, not a figurative spirit. Bowie was the same. When he played with us in Central Park, the second he hit the stage he’s illuminated. You’re like, “Oh, shit, that’s what it is.” He’s a human when you’re talking to him and as soon as he’s in it, he’s touched by another thing.

SNL (2007-Present)

I’m glad you brought SNL up, because you’ve been on it a bunch of times, but you’re also one of the musical acts they’ve brought into skits. Like, they actually wrote a game show around you. How does that work? Did they write that sketch with you guys, or you walked in and they’re like, “Hey, by the way…”

BUTLER: I can’t remember, I think we’ve been six or seven times. We’ve been there for a couple different casts at this point. The Lonely Island dudes, those are so my dudes. In another life, I would’ve been in Lonely Island, that would’ve been my dream to just fuck around with my friends; when we were first writing music we were kinda joking around because you’re too insecure to try. A lot of times [at SNL], we’ve played for the staff when we’re there, because you get so fired up to play one or two songs and you’re playing live so your endorphins are running so we just sort of keep playing afterwards. I feel like they appreciate that, it kinda feels like you’re on the same team or something.

I was backstage at SNL once last year, and it is pretty crazy to see it all from the inside like that.

BUTLER: It’s so crazy. They write it all that fucking week, and then to see the differences between the dress rehearsal and the live show. They do a little meeting in Lorne’s office. They’ve done the dress rehearsal and it’s still this tiny office and every cameraman and every cast member is crammed in this little office and Lorne’s like, “Make it a blue light instead of a green light at minute 23, and change this word to this word, I don’t think that’s funny, change that, OK, go,” and everyone’s got pencils writing this down. It’s still fucking that. And you know, it hits and misses sometimes, but they’re doing it.

How long did you have to work on your De Niro impression for that skit?

BUTLER: It’s actually more of a Billy Baldwin impersonation, but it seemed to work for De Niro as well. [Laughs] My only real impression is I can look exactly like Billy Baldwin if I want to. If there’s any casting directors reading this and you need a Billy Baldwin impersonator, I’m your man.

LCD Soundsystem’s Goodbye Show (2011)

You’re the one who ended up serendipitously coining the title of the live album.

BUTLER: [Laughs] That is true. That was genuine. He was being a little talky.

I moved to New York before I moved to Montreal, and I would go to the city and go to shows and I didn’t see one fucking thing that was good in the whole year. I was like, “Wait, I thought New York was the shit, where is it?” All I saw was bad, very industry bands. I couldn’t find anything, I wasn’t cool enough to figure out what was going on. There’s very few bands that I really think of, like bands of my generation where I heard them and thought “These are my people.” For me it was the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, LCD, and Wolf Parade. When I heard those bands, I thought, “These are my fellow pilgrims.” It was art, DIY, no bullshit, just trying to make something great that communicates to people. It’s real and emotional.

James is really just one of us. He’s just such a great engineer and really into the way things sound and really passionate about details. It’s rare to meet people like that. James was working with us when Bowie came in, when we were in Electric Lady. James had never met Bowie before. The first 7” he ever bought was “Fame.” We’re in this studio, and the last time Bowie was there he had cut “Fame” with John Lennon, in the same studio. We were all like, “This is the right place to be.”

James is just a man after my own heart. We did a tour with them on Neon Bible. We were playing to a thousand people in Salt Like City and I was like, “Man, in a couple years a lot more people are going to wish they were at this show.” What a fucking great live band.

Scoring Her (2013)

What kind of headspace did you have to get into for this vs. making an album?

BUTLER: Spike [Jonze] came to a bunch of our early shows on Funeral. The second I met him he was just immediately one of my best friends. He thinks about the world the same way. Even though we work in different mediums he was someone I knew I’d be working with in some capacity. I was visiting LA and I was staying with Spike just randomly one time, in the early days of him working on the script for Her. I was reading the script and immediately thinking about how it could sound, and I was like, “Well, we should fucking do the score to this movie.”

When you’re working on a record, it’s so rigid, what works on a song and what doesn’t work on a song. It can be so limiting in a way. Within the band, there’s so many different talents and color palettes and things people bring to the table, so it was cool to do something where the boss is the picture. It doesn’t matter how anyone feels about a piece, if it’s working for Spike, if it’s working in harmony with the picture, that’s what the boss is — the emotionality of the picture. It’s not about you, it’s in service to this bigger thing. It was a cool opportunity for all of us to use different aspects of things we do, and to work with Owen [Pallett], who had done a lot of strings on our records. It uses a totally different part of your brain.

Do you want to do more of that kind of work, or was it this specific story from Spike that spoke to you?

BUTLER: I can say pretty confidently that I’ll work with Spike in the future. It definitely takes a lot of energy. It’s definitely something I’m interested in, but I feel like while I’ve got the juice it’s good to spend as much energy writing songs as we can. It’s pretty fucking hard to make a record, believe it or not.

Future’s “Might As Well” Sampling “Owl” From Her(2017)

Are you a big Future fan?

BUTLER: I love Future. There’s something in the rhythm of the thing he does that actually reminds me of some music from Haiti, in this really deep, subtle way I can’t put my finger on. There’s something almost mystical in the way he sounds, and I thought that was really cool that they sampled that soundtrack. His shit does sound like the future still. I think it’s pretty special.

The Reach Of ”Wake Up” (2004-Present)

This song has had this big pop-culture reach over the years. U2 used it as their walk-on music in the ‘00s. It was used in the trailer for another Spike movie, Where The Wild Things Are. Macy Gray and John Legend both covered it. Microsoft ripped it off for a commercial. It was used in a commercial for LA’s bid for the Olympics.

BUTLER: That Microsoft money went to Haiti, by the way. They did rip it off. [Laughs] Thank you Microsoft.

As far as I know that’s far from an exhaustive list, too. It’s just one of those songs that’s gone out and become a part of the atmosphere. Even a lot of big bands don’t necessarily have a song like that. What do you think it is about “Wake Up” that’s registered in so many different contexts?

BUTLER: From the time we wrote that song to now, the biggest difference in my life is I’ve traveled the world and I’ve been able to play music in all these different cultures and feel the ways different countries feel music. Not only listening to the music in other countries but seeing how they feel the music I play.

I remember around The Suburbs we played in rural Haiti. It was our first time playing in a place where nobody in the audience had any of the reference points of the music we played. We were playing in the mountains, there were people walking in barefoot to the concert. We were playing these songs we had been touring the world with, and the energy from the crowd was so different. The things they responded to, the things they felt, it actually fundamentally changed the way I heard my own music. It made me start to think about music not just from my own perspective but culturally how people hear it and feel it.

I think the one thing that kind of transcends everything across all cultures is melody. Régine was playing that melody on piano in our rehearsal room. I hear it like it was yesterday. It was like, “That’s the shit.” [Laughs] Being present and being in the room, hearing something and really giving yourself to it, just singing that shit like it really meant it and feeling the power of that melody and trying to push it until it breaks. That’s something I think about, just how great it is to have people to play music with. To say it like you mean it.

I remember singing that song in Montreal, in these lofts. Most of our early fans, the first time we played that song, they were like “Fuck this shit, I want the acoustic shit.” People were so negative. I remember a lot of early fans didn’t come to our shows after that because we were suddenly screaming at the top of our lungs and playing electric guitars. It was like, “Everyone here hates this, that means we must be going in the right direction.” [Laughs] But yeah, don’t be discouraged if people hate something. It doesn’t mean shit.

https://www.stereogum.com/2105395/win-butler-interview-spike-jonze-arcade-fire-snl-mick-jagger-david-bowie/interviews/weve-got-a-file-on-you/

#Arcade Fire #Win Butler #interview

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troop-scoop · 4 years

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Mistakes & Regrets V

Summary: When a trip to your Dad’s hometown of Hawkins goes wrong, you end up in the year 1983, and have to learn how to cope with being stuck in the past.

Pairing: Steve Harrington / Future!Reader (like, a really slow burn)

A/n: Italics are memories!

•••

You were scared, and alone.

The star and moonless sky sent chills up your spine, and the cold made you feel like it was winter. But this place didn’t have any seasons. It was just cold, and empty. And slimy.

It always felt like your feet were slipping whenever you tried to sneak around whatever those things were around you. They were terrifying, growling, and faceless.

And you made a big mistake, you’d ran away, you broke the rule of never going into the woods alone. This was on you. And you wanted nothing more for your phone to work. To be able to call your dad, either one of them. You wanted to apologize for being an idiot, for not being responsible.

You were hiding, holding your keys. They were too loud. All the keychains you had on it were jingling drawing attention. You were trying to take them off of the ring as quietly as you could, the first one to go was your Millennium Falcon keychain, quietly slipping it into your backpocket. The second was the Avatar keychain, that one being slipped into your hoodie pocket. You needed to seperate them, keep it so the jingle was no longer there. So you could get by them easier.

The last one you hesitated on. The rose quartz crystal keychain your brother had bought you from the dollar section in Target for your birthday. You didn’t really have an opinion of crystals, you thought they were pretty, so you kept it on your keyring.

You hesitated, before deciding against it, holding your pepper spray as if it would do anything, the pale pink can being gripped in your hand, fingers wrapped tightly around it, your nail polish a dark shade of purple, contrasting the pink, even in the dark.

“Could you find a way to let me down slowly.” You sang as quietly as possible, holding the keychain in your hand, trying to calm your down as much as possible. They’d seen you once. You didn’t want to risk it again. You’d lost your skateboard along the way, having dropped it the moment you saw one of those. . . things.

“A little sympathy I hope you can show me.” Tears were close to going down your cheeks as you grabbed your bag, holding it to your chest as tightly as you could. Your phone died a day before. And you’d been here a total of two. Evading the creature’s, never really getting a good look at them. Just knowing that they towered over you and looked emaciated, and their hands were huge, if you could even call them hands. They looked more like claws. And reminded you of the Windigo from that one video game whose name kept slipping your mind. And that’s what you called them, because that’s what they looked like, even if they weren’t because you knew these things had to be a different species, not a cannibal turned monster from Native American lore.

“If you wanna go then I’ll be so lonely.” Your low voice cracked a bit as your grip on the

sketchbook inside of your bag tightened. Your knees meeting your chest as you held the red material of the Jansport bag.

“If you’re leaving, baby, let me down slowly.” A loud noise came from down the street. Away from where you were hiding. Looking from the tree branches to the dark uninhabited houses you saw one of them moving. But you moved quicker. Hopping down from the tree and carrying your bag while you ran

•••

You didn’t know where you were going, you were pretty sure you were just running. Maybe there was something behind it. Some reason you were going towards the center of town, like a gut instinct telling you that you needed to go, run away from the motel you’d been living in for the past months.

The second the bowl had shattered and Linda snapped you out of it, you’d ran, going for your room again, and packing a few things you thought were necessary, and you went running down the street, it’d been 15 minutes now.

And at the end of those 15 minutes, you turned a corner, and almost ran straight into an older woman, who looked upset, and frazzled. An unreadable look on her face. But you knew it wasn’t a happy one. Maybe one of being deep in thought? Contemplation maybe.

It took everything in you not to call her what you knew her as, but you also knew that would get a strange look before she left. But as she steadied your by grabbing onto your shoulders, you grabbed her arms.

“Mrs. Byers! I was just looking for you.” Realization struck, your instincts telling you to run into town, where Joyce would be at the coroner's office, to tell her that Will couldn’t possibly be dead, because you were still there, you hadn’t disappeared like in all of those movies where something bad happens and someone was never born.

Or this could be like in Avengers, where something caused another timeline to happen. But then what would that mean for you? For the rest of your family here? For Will? Would he really be dead?

You refused to believe that. It didn’t feel right.

“I’m sorry? Do I know you?” Joyce looked more confused than she could have ever been in the entirety of her life.

“No, you don’t.” You spoke sadly, looking down to the ground, blinking away quick tears before looking back up to Joyce. “I’m new to Hawkins, just please listen, this is about your son-”

“If Jonathan told you anything-”

“There’s no way he’s dead!” You interrupted, grip on her sleeves growing tighter before she slowly pulled her hands away from your shoulders, eyeing you cautiously, almost as if you’d found out a secret.

“Wh-what?”

“You’re going to think I’m crazy, like, psych ward level crazy, like needing to be so heavily medicated that I wouldn’t be able to function normally-”

“Sweetheart, I’ve been the crazy one in town the past few days. I’ve seen it. . . What’s going on?”

You felt your heart swell a bit when she called you ‘sweetheart’ because that was what she’d always called you. Dad called you ‘baby’ and she always called you ‘sweetheart’. You blinked away more tears as you tried to muster up the courage to speak, but you couldn’t.

Carefully, and almost hesitantly, you pulled off your bag, and opened it. Taking out the large notebook and closing the backpack again, flipping to the page you were looking for, the image you and your dad had drawn together. You handed over the sketchbook, and you saw her eyes widen a little as she looked down at the carefully drawn image.

“This is- this is Will’s Dungeons and Dragons character-”

“Will the Wise, Right? A Cleric, a healer, he’s clever and smart, and he helps people! And that’s my character that he helped me make when I was nine, she’s a half-elf rogue, I named her after Elizabeth the first!” You explained.

Growing up, you played D&D with your Dad and uncles whenever they came to visit or you went to visit them. They weren’t actually related to you, but rather the kind of uncles that everyone else had, the uncles that were your parent’s best friends. They all helped you make your favorite character.

“When you were nine? Will’s only been playing with his friends for a year and a half? Right after he turned 11, he asked for the set for his birthday, there’s no way, and he doesn’t know you. He has three friends.”

“Check the date. Upper right hand corner.” You told her, watching as he eyes darted to the date on the paper, and you watched as her face fell before she looked back up at you.

“January 21st 2019? That’s. . . like 40 years from now-”

“36, actually.” You corrected quietly, a small shrug given when her face now turned into a scowl at how you corrected her.

“What are you saying?” She asked cautiously, flipping through the sketchbook. “I know I have no right to say someone else is crazy, I mean- I’m talking to Will through my christmas lights, you being from ‘2019’ sounds more believable.”

“There’s no way that Will’s dead, because I’m his daughter.” You admitted to her.

“Tell me something about him then. Only someone who knew him would know.” She demanded, closing the sketchbook and handing it back to you.

“He has a birthmark on his right arm, I had the exact same one, but then I burned myself on a pan, and it went away. . . Um- His favorite song, it’s ‘Should I Stay Or Should I Go’ from The Clash. Uncle Jonathan introduced him to it. Dad introduced it to me.”

Joyce’s face was once again, unreadable as she stared at you, eyes tracking over your face carefully, catching every detail, and everything that was asymmetrical. Everything that made you look like a Byers.

“Oh my God. You’re not lying.”

•••

“So, I’m your grandmother.”

You nodded as you grabbed the boombox, setting it down on the table, examining the christmas lights she’d put up around the house. It looked like something a crazy person would do. Put up this amount of christmas lights. And paint the alphabet on the wall.

“And you have two dads?”

You turned your head to her, giving her a look. You’d explained everything to her, how your dads had met, how you’d been conceived and born, how you’d grown up, and who your brother was. How close you were to your Uncle Jonthan, and that your favorite non-related uncle was Uncle Lucas, which sold her even more into the fact that you were really from the future, and were really her son’s daughter.

“Yes, I have two dads. But I’m biologically Will’s.” You explained once again.

“Okay.” She said quietly, taking the tape out of the boombox, rewinding it with a pencil. “Alright, one more question.” Joyce started again, making you sigh. “How’d you get here?”

You paused, looking down at your dirtied and almost ripped converse. You didn’t quite remember. All you could remember was running into the woods after getting away from Enzo’s, trying to take a short cut to the motel, and then you fell through the ground, into something cold, and gooey. What you imagined it would feel like to stick your hand into a dead body for an autopsy. But you didn’t remember anything after that. Just waking up, in dirty clothes laying on the ground in the woods, backpack on, skateboard gone. And you had gotten up, legs feeling weak, and wobbly, before you’d found yourself back in town, but it had all been different. You hadn’t realized that it had been a different century until you’d gone into Melvad’s and saw something with the expiration date of ‘November 28th 1983.’

“I don’t remember. But I remember I made a mistake, and I ran off. And I regret it. If I could take it back I would.” Looking back up you noticed she was looking up at you, sympathy written on her face, and you knew what she was thinking. And you knew that one day her sympathy or your situation would turn to empathy for your Dad. Who would be going through what she was now.

You reached down and pressed ‘play’ before standing up straight again, giving her a soft smile as you looked up at the lights. This was not the house you’d assume belonged to a perfectly sane woman. And yet, it did.

“Come on Will!” You yelled “Do your weird magic bullshit!” Joyce started a bit before standing up.

Banging came from the wall, and you turned your head to look over. Joyce stopped the music and went to the spot on the wall where the banging continued, with you following shortly after.

“Mom?”

Joyce gasped. “Will?”

“Holy shit.” You murmured

“Mom?” The boy asked again, banging on the walls continuously as if trying to get through. Something told you that it wasn’t as easy as Joyce thought it was by running outside while you placed a firm hand on the wall, nails digging into the wallpaper and peeling it away.

“Will?” You questioned.

“Where’s my Mom?”

“Will!” Joyce yelled, running back inside seeing that the wallpaper in her living room was ripped off and you were staring at what looked like a thin layer of skin. Maybe a membrane. You didn’t like it, and that feeling came back, of being on a roller coaster drop, but the drop never ending. It was a bit sheer, and you could see the outline of the small boy banging against the membrane.

“Mom!”

“Will! I’m here! I’m here!” Joyce yelled back.

“Hello? Mom?”

But when she put her hand over the membrane you froze up, standing and watching in terror, because all of a sudden, you knew how you got here, and the growling of something getting closer to Will made a shiver run through your entire body, goosebumps showing up on your skin.

“Mom, it’s coming!”

The image of what ‘it’ was was fuzzy, but you saw it, like a memory. Almost ten feet tall, and so skinny their bones protrude, and almost sickly pale, white skin stretched out over the body. And the claws. You could almost feel the scratch of one of them against the back of your neck.

Reaching a hand up to your neck you could feel a skinny and elongated bump in your skin

that had never been there. But it felt like a scab. Like a scab over a healing scar.

“Tell me where you are! How do I get to you?” Joyce cried, her hand over Will’s.

“It’s like home, but it’s so dark. . .It’s so dark and empty. And it’s cold! Mom? Mom!”

You couldn’t even attempt to hold back the tears that were burning at your eyes and making

your vision blurry as you could hear the echoes of your own voice, calling out for an older version of him, the version that knew you the entire time you’d been alone. You’d been scared, and freezing in just a t-shirt and pair of ripped jeans. Holding a broken skateboard that you’d landed on in your fall.

It came to you briefly, running into the woods after Pa had yelled at you at Enzo’s. But then the rain had gotten worse, turning into the thunder, and loud noises never really scared you, it was the lighting that was a little too close to you that had you running, searching for any way out, yelling and screaming for both of your fathers, for anyone.

And then you took one wrong step, in the wrong direction. And you fell into the ground, instantly feeling cold, and as if the temperature was going to kill you. It felt like falling through cold slime before you’d landed on your skateboard, breaking it in half.

Everything there had echoed, and it felt like the entirety of the town had been placed inside of an infinitely large and inescapable cave. You’d cried out even louder for your Dad, getting no response. You’d begged and pleaded for the nightmare to go away, but it never did. You remembered screaming out “Dad! Dad please, I’m sorry!” And then you remembered waking up in the woods, sun shining down on you, a real sky in view.

•••

Let me know if you want to be tagged!

@disneyprincessbuffyannesummers @jxnehxpper @yllwtaxi @songofcosplay @potatopooper05

#steve harrington #steve x reader #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #stranger things x you #stranger things x reader #stranger things slow burn #Steve Harrington slow burn

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leepace71 · 4 years

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When Pedro Pascal was roughly 4 years old, he and his family went to see the 1978 hit movie “Superman,” starring Christopher Reeve. Pascal’s young parents had come to live in San Antonio after fleeing their native Chile during the rise of dictator Augusto Pinochet in the mid-1970s. Taking Pascal and his older sister to the movies — sometimes more than once a week — had become a kind of family ritual, a way to soak up as much American pop culture as possible.At some point during this particular visit, Pascal needed to go to the bathroom, and his parents let him go by himself. “I didn’t really know how to read yet,” Pascal says with the same Cheshire grin that dazzled “Game of Thrones” fans during his run as the wily (and doomed) Oberyn Martel. “I did not find my way back to ‘Superman.'”

Before Pascal knew anything about “The Mandalorian,” its showrunner and executive producer Jon Favreau knew he wanted Pascal to star in it.

“The transience is something that I’m incredibly familiar with, you know?” Pascal says. “Understanding the opportunity for complexity under all of the armor was not hard for me.”

“I remember at one point not even realizing that my parents had accents until a friend was like, ‘Why does your mom talk like that?'” Pascal says. “And I remember thinking, like what?”

“And it changed me,” he says with almost religious awe. “It changed me.”

And then it all started to happen.

“It will never happen again,” Pascal says, once more in that incredulous whisper. “It felt so special.”

After all he’s done in a few short years, why wouldn’t Pascal think more roles like this are on his horizon?

“I don’t know!” he finally says with a playful — and pointed — howl. “I’m protecting myself psychologically! It’s just all too good to be true! How dare I!”

#pedro pascal #variety #interview

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lovemesomesurveys · 4 years

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1. When you have a container of Neapolitan ice cream, what flavor do you leave for last? Chocolate.

2. Would you rather be caught in a thunderstorm without an umbrella or a snowstorm without boots? Snowstorm without boots. As someone in a wheelchair, boots wouldn’t make a difference for me.

3. Let’s say you have access to a time machine, but it can only go either backward or forward. One or the other. Which do you choose and where do you go? Backwards. I would probably go just a few years back so I could change some things that are affecting me now.

4. If you could choose to have any superpower ever, what would you pick? Time travel would be pretty dope.

5. Tomorrow morning, you wake up in the body of a celebrity, like in a ’90s body-swap movie. Who is it? How do they react to your life? What do you do when you’re “them”? Would you choose to switch back? Hmm. Maybe Oprah. She’s a billionaire and lives a pretty low key life. Ha, not sure how she’d react to waking up as a 31 year old paraplegic who is dealing with physical and mental health issues and spends most of their time in bed, not doing a whole lot, and is certainly not rich. Maybe she’d be able to catch up on rest if needed? ha. As for me, I’d like to just go to a nice private getaway somewhere. Buy a house for real me and my family to have when we switch back and furnish it. If we weren’t in a pandemic, I’d love to travel. I’m sure she has a private jet. I’d have to remember I’m Oprah, though, so I couldn’t just go out and about freely without being bombarded. I’d figure out something. Anyway, I definitely would switch back, but it would be fun for a little bit. I could feel what it’s like to be successful and a functioning adult with a very comfortable income.

6. Any allergies? Just seasonal ones.

7. What would you be more embarrassed to buy: sex toys or adult diapers? Sex toys.

8. Did you get enough sleep last night? I never do.

9. You’re the sole witness to a Mafia murder. Witness protection has to set you up with a whole new life in a totally new country. You have to leave everything behind, but you can pick where you move to. Where do you go? Uhhh. Wow, I have no idea. That would be horrible.

10. If you could star in a biopic about any famous person ever, who would it be? I don’t want to be in a movie or TV show.

11. What’s the biggest animal you’ve ever killed? I’ve never killed any animal.

12. Would you rather have millions of dollars but always feel nauseous when you go outside, or be dirt poor forever but never get sick again in your entire life? Oh man. Not be to sick ever again sounds amazing, but... that’s tough. Can I take Dramamine for the nausea? ha.

13. A wizard offers you immortality in exchange for your two front teeth. Do you take it? No.

14. Could you win the Hunger Games? Absolutely not.

15. What was your favorite Halloween costume as a kid? How about as a teen/adult? Hm. I was a witch or a vampire a lot as a kid. As an adult I was a vampire a few times, but a “cool” one cause I had a leather jacket. haha.

16. Do you bite your nails? I pick at and clip my nails. Constantly.

17. What was the first movie you remember seeing in the theater? The first one I remember is The Rugrats Movie, but I know that’s not the first one I ever saw.

18. Do you prefer music with male or female vocalists? I enjoy a variety of music from both.

19. You and the love of your life are having a baby, and you get to choose the name! There’s only one catch: your partner INSISTS that it be the name of a place, real or fictional. What do you name your baby? Sydney.

20. If you could reboot or remake any movie, what would it be and who would you cast? I don’t know, man.

21. If you could automatically know how to speak any language or play any instrument, which would you choose? I’d love to be able to play the piano. I took lessons when I was younger, but was just alright. I think I had potential had I taken it more seriously and practiced more. But yeah, I’d love to be a fabulous pianist.

22. For you, would getting amnesia be a good thing? Um, no.

23. If you curse loudly and then realize that there are children nearby, what is your reaction? I don’t curse very often as it is and I’m pretty good about who’s around when I do, but I’d just be like, “whoops, sorry.”

24. Of what animal are you most afraid? I have this irrational fear of killer whales. I never encounter them, thankfully, but the fear is still real. I can’t even look at a photo of one. However, I don’t really have like an active fear of animals, if that makes sense. I just avoid any photos or videos or anything of killer whales. And like, there are many animals that could rip me apart and that’s terrifying, but it’s not as present or active or whatever as my fear of bugs, which I do encounter and are much more likely to.

25. Pizza or oral sex? Odd combo, but I’ll take the pizza.

26. Without looking them up, can you explain the rules of football? How about Quidditch? Nope.

27. You’re in the car, switching channels on the radio when you hear a song that makes you go “OH SHIT, THAT’S MY JAM!” What song is it? It could be a lot of songs, from something more recent to something from back when I was growing up.

28. Have you ever paid to see a Step Up movie? No.

29. If you were being executed tonight, what would you choose for your last meal? I really don’t think I’d have an appetite.

30. Have you ever bought an item of clothing because it reminded you of something a fictional character would wear? No.

31. If you were invisible for a day, what would you do? Would I be immune to the virus if I were invisible? If so, then I’d travel.

32. Have you ever been punched in the face? No.

33. How do you take your ramen noodles? I like to add shredded cheese to mine. It’s so good.

34. Do you ever rehearse or plan conversations before you actually have them? Yeppp.

35. How much black do you wear on a regular basis? That’s a lot of my wardrobe.

36. Do you have any tattoos? Do you want any? No. I’ve kinda wanted one for years, but I really don’t see myself ever getting one.

37. If someone offered you a free pet snake, would you take it? NOOO.

38. Do you know how to pronounce the word “pinochle”? I don’t know if I’m saying it right, I’m not familiar with the word.

39. Can you think of anything more boring than bird watching? Watching paint dry.

40. Are you better with numbers or words? Words, definitely.

41. At the movies, do you stay for the credits? Only for certain movies that have end credit scenes, like the Marvel movies.

42. Is morality universal or relative? Hm.

43. Let’s say you’re getting married to someone you absolutely adore. The only catch is that you met them through a Craigslist hookup ad that was supposed to be just for one night of casual sex. Would you tell your friends how you and your fiance met? I might leave out it was just supposed to be for one night of casual sex.

44. What’s the worst name you’ve ever been called? I’ve said the worst things to myself.

45. Would you eat human flesh if it had been harvested and prepared humanely? Um, HELL no. It would make no difference to me how it was prepared, it’s not happening.

46. At what age did you stop believing in Santa? I think I was 8.

47. Do you get along better with old people or little kids? Older people.

48. If you had to choose, would you rather become a nun/monk or a drug dealer? None.

49. What’s your best bodily feature, objectively speaking? I hate my body, I’m very self-conscious about it.

50. Who is your favorite late night talk show host? I don’t have one anymore, but back in the day I used to watch Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien. I was around for the whole late night TV drama that went down years ago between them.

#personal #text #survey #surveys

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hip-young-beamslinger · 4 years

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Stupid Ask List, feel free to answer these questions yourself

1. What’s one animal you wish you could have as a pet but can’t? Probably one of those huge Frisian horses? I can’t have them because I have no money and horses intimidate me.

2. Favorite thing to wear to sleep? When I’m cold I wear a long nightgown. I love long nightgowns

3. What song really gets you going? That is actually a song I came across on tumblr once: Mahishasura Mardini (Droplex Remix) - Shanti People https://open.spotify.com/track/3NWXBvMdXaoEvW8Tvw8qk3?si=XlTRbI01TPu1K11kiPRZbg

4. Where do you usually eat your meals? On the couch, in front of the tv

5. Favorite meal: breakfast, lunch, or dinner? Dinner!

6. Most embarrassing habit? I pick at scabs a lot. And I sniff my fingers.

7. Chocolate or fruity candy? Chocolate 1000%

8. Soft or hard tacos? Soft ones!

9. Worst way to break up a fight? Getting punched?

10. Best thing to say in an elevator of strangers? NOTHING.

11. What color/design are your bedsheets? Something IKEA. I believe it’s the purple one with a Baroque pattern.

12. Any hidden talents? Can sleep everywhere.

13. Favorite thing to drink out of (mug, glass, etc.)? Mugs for everything and I like to drink my tea out of small cups (like the Japanese type of cups)

14. Socks or bare feet around the house? Feetsies!

15. Favorite board game? Rummikub (I hate board games)

16. Do you sleep with the fan on or off? On, I am super bad at regulating my body temperature.

17. Heat on or keep it cold with lots of layers? Keep it cold, I get warm very easily.

18. Do you sing in the shower? Nope.

19. Favorite song to belt out at the top of your lungs when you’re alone? Love me Wrong by Allie X & Bad Romance by Lady Gaga

20. Last thing you cried about? I wrote a sad RP tag

21. At what age did you first have alcohol? Sixteen, Fifteen? It was Baileys.

22. Relationship status? Single with cats

23. What’s the most amount of money you’ve spent on a single item of clothing? Nike Air Max shoes for 250 Dutch guilders.

24. What do you typically wear to formal events? Fancy dress

25. Favorite memory? My trip to China and Tibet in 2013.

26. Gum or breath mints? None.

27. Favorite shoes? I love my Dr. Martens boots. They’re high boots with embroidery on the side.

28. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? My nose.

29. What is the natural state of your hair? Straight and uninteresting.

30. Have you ever had braces? I think in total for at least 10 years, yeah

31. Most dangerous thing you’ve ever done? Jumped from a boat into the sea

32. Most embarrassing thing your parents have caught you doing? Probably finding my collection of sex ads. I collected sex ads from the newspaper which were mostly texts like ‘my ____ are so big and your ___ is huge’

33. Last time you had an orgasm? A week ago? I don’t know, don’t keep up.

34. Celebrity crush(es)? Richard Madden

35. Windows or Mac? Mac!

36. How old were you when you learned to ride a bike? Six or seven.

37. Makeup or natural? Both.

38. What color do you wear the most? Yellow and black, but also blue.

39. Favorite season? Spring

40. Umbrella or rain coat? Umbrella

41. Have you ever fallen out of a tree? Nope

42. First car you ever owned? None.

43. What time do you usually go to bed? Midnight

44. Are you a competitive person? A little.

45. Least favorite color? Bright fluorescent things

46. First pet you’ve ever owned? A bunch of fish

47. Sweet or salty? Salty

48. Favorite pasta dish? Chicken with pesto

49. Favorite kind of chips? Ringlings!

50. Talk about something you’re passionate about. I am deep into Fate hell recently, won’t recommend it. 0/10, won’t do ever again.

51. What are some of your hobbies? Drawing, embroidery, online roleplay, being a goddamn boring hermit

52. Caffeine? If so, what kind? Tea and sweet iced coffee (frappuchinos)

53. Favorite kind of pizza? The truffle pizza from New York Pizza. Also 4 cheeses.

54. Fast food or sit-down restaurant? Sit down 100%

55. Lots of acquaintances or a handful of close friends? Handful of friends

56. Something that ruins your appetite? Bugs.

57. Favorite labels about you? I don’t get this question. Define labels?

58. Are you a religious person? Oh no. Noooo.

59. Night out with a bunch of friends in public or night in with one friend having deep conversations? I’m too old to go out so deep conversations it is

60. What size shoe do you wear? European size 40

61. Favorite thing about yourself? I’m creative??

62. Have you ever told someone you loved them first? Nope.

63. Have you ever had sex on the first date? I have had 2 dates in my entire life, come on.

64. Heroes or villains? Villains

65. Favorite fruit? Banana and apple

66. Least favorite fruit? Not too wild about melon

67. Favorite vegetable? Spinach

68. Least favorite vegetable? Celery and cauliflower

69. How many plates can you eat at a buffet? One well filled one

70. Favorite dessert? Ice

71. Do you play any sports? Not currently, no

72. Age you learned how to swim? The moment we got swimminglessons at school. I was 5 or 6

73. Tell a funny story. I was once in New York together with my friend. We were attending NYCC and who do we encounter? An old friend I haven’t seen in ages. Like this Dutch dude just being there after 8 years. That was funny.

74. What’s one interesting thing about your culture? Idek, really.

75. What’s one annoying thing about your culture? Probably Black Pete

76. What job would you be terrible at? Anything with children. I don’t like kids.

77. Would you rather watch a TV show or a movie? TV show

78. What’s your favorite compliment to give? Any compliment.

79. What’s your favorite compliment to receive? That my art is good.

80. Has your opinion changed on something recently? Yep.

81. Do you always order the same thing at a restaurant or order something different each time? I’m an adventurer

82. What’s something you’ve always wanted to try but haven’t yet? Going to the gym. I really need to do something about my stamina.

83. If you could learn to do anything right now, what would it be? Probably proper digital coloring

84. Favorite physical feature about yourself? I have an hourglass figure?

85. Least favorite physical feature about yourself? I have a big butt and there’s this extra lump on it that makes me an L on the top and an XL on the bottom. My nose.

86. What’s one amazing thing you did that nobody was around to see? I scuba dived

87. If you could change your height, would you? Nope

88. What’s something you would rate 10/10? My ability to eat large amounts of food in a short time.

89. Heels or flats? Flats!

90. What’s something you wish you had more knowledge about? Programming

91. Would you want to be famous? Never! :D

92. What’s something you would get arrested for? I jaywalked.

93. What’s your spirit animal? A sloth

94. What’s the luckiest thing that’s ever happened to you? That the previous owner of my apartment accepted my offer instead of the other two.

95. Are you the type to have an organized mess, or no mess at all? Organized mess.

96. Do you tend to make decisions based on the past, present, or future? Future

97. Are you a planner or a more spontaneous person? Planner

98. Thoughts on the oxford comma? It’s a comma and it has to do with English grammar and I’m Dutch.

99. What do you hope never changes? I hope my family will be alive for a long time.

100. How would you celebrate your 100th birthday? Alone in a nursing home

#about me

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homosociallyyours · 4 years

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@ha-larry-us and @livqueer tagged me to do this! Here we go :)

1. what is the colour of your hairbrush? light amber wood color

2. a food you never eat? beets, tho i keep trying

3. are you typically too warm or too cold? neither, usually my body regulates temp well. but being sick that’s a little different and i never know if i’ll be shivering or having a hot flash

4. what were you doing 45 minutes ago? going back and forth between instagram and tumblr

5. what is your favourite candy bar? uhh maybe a snickers or a 100 grand bar

6. have you ever been to a professional sports event? i went to the Oakland A’s gay day a few years ago with co-workers. It was really fun!! but i could never attend a serious sports event to cheer for a winning team.

7. what is the last thing you said out loud? "come on, ding dong, you can do it” --said to my dog who was hesitating jumping down off the chair where she’d sat while i washed my dishes

8. what is your favourite ice cream? McConnell’s salted caramel and chocolate flake. or anything that’s a mascarpone or goat cheese base. yum.

9. what was the last thing you had to drink? decaf yorkshire with milk

10. do you like your wallet? YES! i have a scarf that has a secret pocket in it! it holds cards and other small essentials and it’s very sneaky.

11. what was the last thing you ate? granola with milk

12. did you buy any new clothes last weekend? nah bruh i haven’t bought new clothes in ages!

13. the last sporting event you watched? i watched the last season of GLOW when it came out. that’s as close as i get.

14. what is your favourite flavour of popcorn? chicago mix babyyyy! cheddar and caramel together at last.

15. who is the last person you sent a text message to? my housemate, it was the landlord’s contact info

16. ever go camping? YES, and i miss it!! i used to camp regularly and really love my pseudo-glamping life: cooler full of good food, a double high air mattress, and a tent that allows you to stand up in the center (to change clothes). i haven’t gone since coming to california, which is a total bummer.

17. do you take vitamins? yes, vit. D and fish oil daily, ideally i would have a good multi, PS, and maybe a couple other things, but i can’t afford them all right now. my minimum is a D though, since yr body really does NOT get it from sun exposure. i know it sounds silly but vitamins are basically the concrete you pour in a hole to stabilize a beam (yr food). they’re very good and they help a lot!

18. do you go to church every sunday? NO, thank goodness! i even stopped having to go with my family when i visit them.

19. do you have a tan? no, and i rarely do. SPF all the way.

20. do you prefer Chinese food or pizza? pizza please

21. do you drink your soda with a straw? only fountain sodas with ice

22. what colour socks do you usually wear? bright/mixed colors

23. do you ever drive above the speed limit? occasionally, but i’m pretty careful and definitely don’t do it in residential areas.

24. what terrifies you? zombies (seriously) and loss/lack of control of myself

25. look to your left, what do you see? the side of the couch and the blank wall.

26. what chore do you hate? doing the dishes

27. what do you think of when you hear an Australian accent? the crocodile hunter

28. what’s your favourite soda? cherry coke or dublin dr. pepper (the cane sugar kind made in texas) orrrr cheerwine

29. do you go in a fast food place or just hit the drive-thru? i drive thru everywhere except in-n-out, where it often takes less time to walk in.

30. who’s the last person you talked to? my housemate and i had a little conversation, but i messaged with my bff earlier and that was a real conversation.

31. favourite cut of beef? umm i really like cooking a ny strip, but i don’t necessarily have a favorite

32. last song you listened to? "fancy” as sung by bobbie gentry bc instagram didn’t have the reba version. WHICH IS UNACCEPTABLE, just so you know.

33. last book you read? my friends, i have a confession. i haven’t read an actual book in ages. i used to read A LOT and then when i got sick it was like my brain said NO THANK YOU and i just stopped. i still read loads, it’s just mostly fic or articles. that being said, i just finished i must admit i thought i’d like to make you mine by @disgruntledkittenface and it was EXCELLENT.

34. favourite day of the week? Thursdays. like for as long as i can remember. it was hamburger day when i was a kid, and now it’s thursday hersday. and of course it was must see tv night all thru my adolescence.

35. can you say the alphabet backwards? i mean i probably could but why would i want to?

36. how do you like your coffee? with whole milk (and if i’m doing it myself, a little cinnamon, a pinch of salt, and a pinch of sugar)

37. favourite pair of shoes? my dog face flats (they’re bob’s for dogs, you can maybe google them) even tho they are really worn out now

38. at what time do you normally go to bed? between 4-7am. i am a cryptid, please do not look at me

39. at what time do you normally get up? between 2-5pm, again i beg you to look away and judge me not

40. what do you prefer, sunrise or sunsets? sunsets!! (SAME!!)

41. how many blankets are on your bed? 4 right now. 2 super soft, 1 electric, and 1 duvet/comforter.

42. describe your kitchen plates? the classic 70s/80s unbreakable plates, some with the gold flowers around the rim and some with the tiny olive green ones. truly i think i have only seen a plate like this break once in my entire life. i bought these at a store in nyc (i definitely overpaid BUT it was still like $20 for 6 or 8 plates that will never break)

43. do you have a favourite alcoholic beverage? a properly made sidecar is HEAVEN, ok? so good!! but you gotta use good brandy and fresh lemons and i would get one if i could go back to my fave nyc bar and have pietro (a very good bartender) make me one. but really the thing that i will always want and have difficulty turning down is champagne/sparkling wine in the style of champagne.

44. do you play cards? yes! i used to play all the time with my ex. don’t so much any more but i still love it when i get to!

45. what colour is your car? dark orange

46. can you change a tire? YES!! @ha-larry-us when the quarantine is done I will show you!! it really isn’t too hard unless your bolts are on super tight.

47. what is your favourite state/province? California, i think. though part of me wants to name a southern state because I was born there and the mountains feel like home.

48. favourite job you’ve ever had? the one i currently have but am physically unable to work at right now-- cheesemonger at a worker owned grocery store

49. how did you get your biggest scar? i was borrowing stage makeup from a friend in another dorm before our choir performance. the door was usually propped open, and so when i left the building i sorta jogged down the steps and pushed really hard on the door with my momentum. it was NOT propped open, and I put my right arm through the glass (and knocked out two more panes with my knee and foot). the RA was training to be an EMT and helped me get cleaned up. I didn’t get stitches, but the scar is very long (maybe 3 inches). the best part of the story is that i went to make sure the choir director knew i wasn’t performing but would sit in the audience, and her response was “we don’t have time to give you sympathy.” she was having a rough year but DAMN that was an ice cold response to an injured 18 year old.

50. what did you do today that made someone else happy? hmm probably just chatting with my bff. that makes both of us happy, always.

IDK WHO TO TAG!!! who is the sort of person to answer 50 random questions?? @alienfuckeronmain maybe? how about @slowdownsugar? hmm maybe @crinkle-eyed-boo and uhh @pompomoffinland. And you, friend!! YOU who is sitting there really wishing you were tagged, I am definitely tagging you!!

#about me #50 questions #text post #long post #alcohol mention #injury mention #this took me back to the old livejournal days

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master-sass-blast · 5 years

Text

Announcement for the CHC -11/1/2019

Okay, so, here’s the thing.

Some of you may not know this, but I do not work or go to school. A couple years ago, I suffered from a near total breakdown of my mental and physical health, and as such I had to put everything on hold to focus on stabilizing and getting better.

In that time, I really came into my own with writing fanfiction, especially for the Colossus Hyperfixation Collection. I love doing it; it’s one of my favorite things.

However, since I’m finally getting better, I need to try and at least get my career back on track. I was working on writing a novel before my health spiraled, and I still want to get it finished and try to get it published. I also have a massive series and novel-verse entailed with that novel that I want to do, along with some e-reader stories that I want to try my hand at.

The only way I’ve ever been able to post once a week for this series is because I’ve literally had nothing else going in my life. It’s been fun, and at times challenging, but... my life is changing. And that means that I won’t be able to post as often.

None of that is easy for me to admit. I have OCD, which means that any sort of deviation from my routine is very distressing for me. I’ve been keeping this schedule for over a year, so I’m sure you can imagine how deeply ingrained it is in my head.

I also don’t know what my new posting schedule is going to look like in the wake of getting back to living life and doing adult things --which is also not comfortable for my OCD. The CHC is not going away, by any means; I intend to see it through to the end of its story because I love it dearly. I’m just not sure how fast that story is going to be told after a certain point.

This change will be coming at the beginning of 2020, since that’s the time marker I set for myself to try and step back into being a professional novelist. I’ll be posting as usual up until then, but after that... we’re just going to have to see where the chips fall. The schedule will be dependent on my health and capacity first, time available second. Just because you have “time” doesn’t mean you should necessarily spend it in certain ways.

Thank you all in advance for understanding and bearing with me while I get this all figured out. This is a challenging time for me, with my OCD and whatnot, and I appreciate your patience as I try to navigate the next part of my journey.

However, since we’re about at the halfway point of the CHC (at least as far as storytelling goes, if not fic count), I thought it’d be a good time to introduce some fic concepts I’ve been toying with for a while to y’all! They’ll be listed under the cut with little descriptions and their respective “main” pairing(s). Feel free to peruse the list, and if anything strikes your fancy, let me know via reblogging, commenting, sending in an ask, and/or DM-ing me! (Hopefully, Tumblr will be nice and let me see everything.)

[Also, these aren’t all the fics I’ve been toying with, just the ones I feel most confident/passionate about. I also reserve the right to strike any of these fics from the list in the future depending on my interest and ability at the time.]

Something Wicked This Way Comes -Piotr Rasputin x Reader: Piotr winds up meeting and dating the Reader who, unbeknownst to him, is a reincarnation of Baba Yaga and operates as a vigilante in Hell’s Kitchen. He also keeps his identity as a mutant and X-Man a secret from the Reader due to fear of persecution (and also plot drama). Shit hits the fan when they discover each other’s secret identities --and then again when it’s revealed that an ancient goddess is meddling in the affairs of Hell’s Kitchen with intentions for evil. It’s up to the X-Force, the Reader, the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, and the Punisher to save the day before it’s too late. (Piotr’s POV; features Frank Castle x Karen Page, Matt Murdock x Elektra Natchios, and Nathan Summers x Wade Wilson. Would probably be around 15-20 chapters.)

High School/Non-Mutant AU -Piotr Rasputin x Reader: Begins at start of sophomore year and follows through until senior year/after senior year. Follows Reader as she recovers from car accident wherein she lost both her parents and adjusts to living in New York and with her uncle. Reader meets Piotr, a Russian transfer student, in class and assigned to him as a study partner. The two initially butt heads, but eventually manage to resolve their differences and become friends. Piotr loops the Reader into his friend group (featuring Wade, Nathan, Neena, Karen Page, and Frank Castle), and the group spends the rest of high school going on adventures together and dealing with school. The Reader and Piotr also develop feelings for each other, but will they ever be brave enough to act on them? (Yes, yes they will. Reader’s POV; features Frank Castle x Karen Page and Nathan Summers x Wade Wilson. Would probably be around 30-40 chapters.)

Cinderella/Non-Mutant Retelling -Piotr Rasputin x Reader: Essentially Cinderella, but with a lot of liberties taken and extra plot jammed in. Set somewhere in Russia-ish, don’t ask me what time period. (Reader’s POV; would probably be around 12-14 chapters.)

Storyteller/Non-Mutant -Piotr Rasputin x Reader: The Reader, after dealing with too much stress while living in New York, decides to head to Maine for a multi-month sabbatical to work on her latest novel. The house she rents in next to an artist and teacher’s named Piotr Rasputin. The Reader, despite being eccentric and awkward, manages to charm Piotr with her quirky behavior, and the two wind up becoming fast friends. Set during winter, lots of fireside fluff, very meta oops. (Reader’s POV; feeling around 18 chapters but I could be wrong.)

Mafia/Non-Mutant AU -Piotr Rasputin x Reader: Aka the one I reserve the right not to do because of how much sin will be in it, but essentially: the Reader is a sex worker who meets Piotr when he hires Nathan and Wade for some mercenary work. The two decide to strike up a “professional” relationship --meaning he hires her for sex and they have a lot of it. Over the course of the story, the two grow closer and closer together, until they finally wind up in a relationship of sorts. Unfortunately, Hell’s Kitchen isn’t even a safe place for the Wicked, what with vigilantes looming around every corner. (Reader’s POV; features Nathan Summers x Wade Wilson and Frank Castle x Karen Page. Easily over 30 chapters.)

If You Get Yourself a Duckling -Frank Castle x Karen Page: Probably the one I’ve talked most about on my blog. Essentially, Frank Castle winds up accidentally adopting a murder!kid who then helps him get together with Karen. Follows the events after Season 2 of Daredevil, the events of the Punisher Seasons One and Two, Season 3 of Daredevil, and my take on Season 3 of the Punisher/Season Four of Daredevil, and yes in that order because I want Frank around when Bullseye shows up. Also has two different “after” stories attached to it, so this one’s a chonker. (Frank Castle POV.)

Rock Star/Music Critic AU -Frank Castle x Karen Page: Frank Castle is a frontman for a rock band, Karen is a music critic/journalist. The two meet through Karen’s work and hit it off. The story follows their relationship as it buds and blossoms. (Mixed POV; either 15 chapters or over 40, no way of telling until I write it.)

Close to Home -Frank Castle x Karen Page: Frank and Karen reconnect after the events of Season Two of the Punisher and try to work together (along with Matt and Foggy) to solve a string of mob-perpetrated crimes and catch whoever’s behind them. However, the true mastermind of the crimes is much closer than they ever realized... and seems to be gunning for Karen. (Frank POV; probably around 20 chapters.)

Stripper!Reader Fic -Frank Castle x Reader: The Reader is a stripper who works at one of the clubs that Frank cleans the Irish out of in Season Two of Daredevil. The two wind up running into each other several times and helping each other with various problems. Eventually, they develop a camaraderie (and feelings for each other). (Frank’s POV; definitely over 30 chapters. This one also has two AU fics based on the main fic... so yeah.)

Your Love is My Drug -Frank Castle x Reader: The Reader is a friend of Jessica Jones and is introduced to Frank Castle --whereupon she realizes he’s her soulmate. However, the Reader is certain that he’ll want nothing to do with her due to her issues with substance abuse and her family’s history as a “mob” type family. She does her best to stay away from him and her demons, but she can’t outrun either of them forever. (Reader’s POV; definitely over 30 chapters.)

#sass speaks #chc stuff #fanfic #lots of changes coming on the horizon #i thank y'all in advance for letting me do what i need to do to adapt

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canaryatlaw · 5 years

Text

okay, it’s late so let’s go. today was kinda a clusterfuck in a bunch of different ways, but had a pretty solid ending so I’m willing to forgive some of the earlier fuckery. Woke up at 6 am, same deal, I’m usually the first person to get to the office in the morning, but there are two other people who sometimes come in like way earlier, but not all that often. I was on the train this morning (so the second half of my commute) when I got an email to the office from one of those people saying when she arrived the sheriff escorted her back to the office because apparently somebody had broken a window in our office. I got there like 15 minutes later and hoooooooooly shit, it was so bad. it was a huge window and pretty much all of it was completely shattered, and there was glass EVERYWHERE. it was insane. thankfully it wasn’t my office directly, it was in my work buddy’s office next door. so all throughout the morning we had people coming in and out and documenting what happened and cleaning things out and eventually boarding up the window, and of course it’s fucking cold because it’s freezing outside and there’s now a gaping hole letting all of that cold in. but yeah, it got boarded up for now, hopefully they’ll get around to actually fixing it soon. so that was a little bit of a fun pre-work adventure. it was my clinic day which normally means if I have court I’ll get someone else to cover the cases, but I had a motion up that I had been working on so I needed to cover that. court went well, the motion didn’t end up going but after talking to OC it looks like they’re just going to strike the motion and set a hearing date after I pointed out that his motion completely ignores the part of the law we’re using, so....lol, so that was satisfying. clinic was a bit of a mess, we had an older client who didn’t speak English and had a complicated situation, and it just ended up going up to the wrong judge who just dismissed the case without any opportunity to explain, and it was a huge mess with nothing we could do about it, so that was super frustrating. then none of our afternoon volunteers showed up so I had to pull the two that were there all day onto different cases. all that was going well till I realized at like 4:40 that the case I approved like half an hour ago hadn’t actually filed yet when the filing deadline is 4:30, so that was a major FUCKKKK and then we had to fight with the clerks office over it because they’re the fucking worst and it turned into this whole big deal where I just had to be like, look, when I was asked if we had another case to go up I said yes, I can’t tell you what happened from there. but thankfully we did get the case to go up and the order was granted which was a huge relief to me because I would’ve been really livid if that hadn’t happened. I was able to leave around 5:45, not bad for a clinic day I’d say. commuted home, friend came over for legends and I cooked dinner. I was making chicken fried rice but I didn’t account for the sodium content being higher in the chicken and rice because I’d cooked both of them in chicken broth, so when I added the soy sauce it ended up being very salty, but strangely had an almost addictive quality to it?? it was very odd but I just kept wanting to eat it, lol. anyway, Legends. ahhh. this is probably my favorite episode so far this season, and so so much of that has to do with the fact that I adore Courtney Ford as both an actress and a person and I so loved that it was clear she had so much fun filming this episode and that really just made me so happy to know because she is the loveliest person and it’s been almost a year since I’ve seen her and I’m so so so excited to see her next month at a con because she really is the best and the last time I saw her she totally mom’ed me while talking and we had a really heartfelt conversation, and when we had to say goodbye she legit hugged me for a minute straight, not exaggerating, and gah, I love her so much. okay now that I’ve gotten that out, other parts of the episode that were also awesome was definitely Ava and Zari, I absolutely loved their working together this episode, it worked so so well for them and just made me so happy to see. I know a lot of people have been ragging on “Zari 2.0″ as being dumb and wanting old Zari back and I’ve largely stayed out of that discussion up to this point, but I think it needs to be acknowledged that the Zari we have now is the fulfillment of the Zari we had’s greatest wish, to save her family and be able to live an actual life. this is what she was working towards. and even if she seems vapid now we know the character that is still there and is obviously going to come out as things unfold. This is Zari who’s led a life with so much less trauma, where she got to keep her family and isn’t forced to be a fugitive on the run, this is what she wanted, and I think it’s very short-sighted to judge her character from the very little we’ve seen from her so far. I’ll probably go on a tweet rant about this at some point tomorrow as I clearly have strong feelings on the matter. but anyway. legends was over, friend went home, I watched tonight’s episode of The Resident, then the news for a bit before deciding to shower and start getting ready for bed, and now I’m here and like I said it’s late, almost 1 am now and I am going to sleep till 6:30 tomorrow but even still I need to be getting to sleep, so I will be doing that now. Goodnight dearies. Sweetest dreams.

#daily journal #February 2020 #Rachel watches Legends of Tomorrow

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wheredidhiseyebrowsgo · 6 years

Note

do you have good long ass fic (oneshot or multi) with high school or college sterek? i mean at least 10k+, no maximal limit! bonus if derek is still a werewolf or the hales are still alive. thanks!

Here’s more than 10k, high school and college Sterek! - Anastasia

Worth the Wait by Dexterous_Sinistrous

(1/1 I 13,381 I Explicit)

Stiles always had a thing for Derek, but then again, so did everyone else. Stiles just wanted to be seen as different, which was why he waited.

But maybe he waited a little too long.

When You're Close I Feel the Sparks by Leslie_Knope

(4/4 I 39,671 I Mature)

The guy is hot as hell, sure—leather jacket and glasses, Jesus, be still Stiles' poor, bisexual, beating heart—but more importantly, it must really suck being new on the first day of senior year.

“We’re adopting him,” he decides, tugging Scott and Kira by the elbow in that direction. “Let’s go.”

You'll Never Stop Running by Heizpilz

(18/18 I 87,750 I Mature)

Stiles blames Mr. Harris really. He’s the one making them do this – over and over again. As time goes by, Stiles has to admit he doesn’t mind it too much… possibly, maybe.Meanwhile Derek never cared in the first place. He has other problems, problems he needs to keep secret. Story of his life.For Stiles, however, secrets are simply there to be uncovered.Or: Derek and Stiles are lab partners. A High School AU without the cute.

(In)decent Proposal. by witchbreed

(26/26 I 96,446 I Mature)

Stiles Stilinski is a broke (straight) college guy with a mountain of debt, a low-income job and a three-month late rent - and, worse, no idea how he's gonna fix all that. When all hope seems lost, an old figure from his past comes back in town, with a rather indecent proposal.

Second Self by disseria

(27/27 I 98,889 I General)

It was just a kiss. Derek had been trying for months to work up the courage to tell Stiles how he felt. But instead, he just kissed him. And luckily, Stiles kissed him back.

There was no way they could have known that someone was watching, no way for them to know that the kiss would throw them into the middle of a secret war being waged against the people of Earth by an ancient alien race. Now, they are running for their lives, and the only thing standing between the planet Earth and utter annihilation, is their love for each other and for their friends.

Hidden Omega by Akinasky

(40/40 I 107,401 I Explicit)

As Stiles leaves for college, he must hide who he really is and then he meets his roommate and likes him ... a lot only there is no chance for him to fill the needs that Stiles has as an Omega. Then he also finds his Alpha, Derek Hale (of course) and they all struggle to find their way and learning more about the special aspects of being an Omega and trying to have a unique relationship that will never be typical especially with Stiles, pushing and bossy Stiles as the Omega.

Bad Habits by Fudgebug

(12/12 I 108,296 I Explicit)

"Mmmmh pretty.“ Stiles purrs in a way that makes a wild fire torch the planes of his skin.He knows Stiles is drunk and that the boy would probably stroke a pineapple and compliment its attractiveness, but Derek can’t help the way his heart starts to be a huge backstabbing dick, thundering uncontrollably against his chest.It’s painful, because Derek knows it isn’t real.

A story about goody-two-shoes Derek crushing on a Polish Prince Charming with a drinking habit - also the universe keeps on shoving astral poop into his face. It's utterly spectacular.

Now Kiss by Vellenox

(!5/15 I 112,638 I Mature)

Stiles and Derek should be together, and in fact they would be if the two of them would stop it with their denial and just get on with it already. Lydia knows this. She sees the way the two of them react to each other - all bright and teasing, like they're more than content to just be within each other's presence, and that's enough to make them happy. But there's more to it than that, a longing gaze and clenched fists, like they want to reach out and touch but for some (stupid) reason they don't think they can. So Lydia's gonna ensure that her beloved best friend opens up his eyes and realizes that he can be even happier, if he'd just let himself. Same goes with the Alpha. She'd see it happen before they graduated from Berkeley, and that was just a fact.

a mountain to climb by grimm

(11/11 I 126,412 I Explicit)

"Don’t do it,” he mutters. “Don’t do it, please, don’t do it.”

But there it is, a soft pink line appearing right next to the control. Stiles’ legs give out from under him; he sinks to the bathroom floor, hands shaking, his entire body shaking. It’s hard to breathe, his vision blurring around the edges. There’s a knock on the door behind him and then it opens and Scott sits down next to him.

“I’m fucked,” Stiles gasps, tears prickling at his eyes. “I’m fucked!"

Silence is Loudest by codarra

(16/16 I 132,553 I Explicit)

Monday dawned fresh and cool and with a lack of Stilinski.

The buzz in the school changed over the week, once Derek started paying attention to it. No longer was the student body talking about where the students were going on vacation, or lack thereof for the more middle-class populace. They were bandying about a different series of words instead.

“Accident.”“Car crash.”“Hit and run.”“Sick. Really sick.”“Disease.”“Brain damage.”“Brain dead.”“Stilinski.”“Stilinski.”“Stilinski.”

Mommy Dearest by BeyondtheKilljoy

(30/30 I 150,439 I Mature)

Stiles was supposed to be put in weight training, but due to scheduling problems he was dropped into Health. It was fine, really, it was up until the point where Coach assigned the baby project. And the kicker?His partner was the reclusive, intimidating Derek Hale - so it really wasn't fine anymore; especially with a baby who wouldn't give him a moment of rest if Hale wasn't there. However, when the project forces him to get closer to Hale than he would even imagine possible, he learns new things about the Hale family and maybe begins to see Hale in a different light.Even if he'd totally be the mom.

Sowing Season by WeAreTheCyclones

(40/40 I 253,020 I Mature)

Just a bunch of kids doing teenage stuff: starting bands and terrorizing teachers and hurting like hell and falling for each other. The usual.

#teen wolf #sterek #stiles stilinski #derek hale #college au #high school au #anon #Anonymous

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unproduciblesmackdown · 5 years

Note

40, 47, 59, 62, 76

lmao hell yeah thanks for All this support i love it!! quastions

40. weirdest thing to ever happen at your school?

really idk i feel like even our schools’s Antics were pretty par for the course and i was just sitting in the corner reading the whole time basically......trying to think if anything wild happened in college but even then it was p similar. well you know what, whatever donors covered the majority of the cost of the school’s black box theater being renovated apparently Stipulated that every other year a rodgers and hammerstein production be put on. absolute freaks. my roommate/friend and their then-boyfriend, the one mormon i have Knowingly Known in my life, were in pirates of penzance (sic?) together. hilarious

47. favorite type of cheese?

i like cheddar and like, parmesan, smoked gouda.....let’s get that shit Sharp!!! and hard lmao

59. if you were a video game character, what would your catchphrase be?

idk i’d be like an npc just doing their weird thing on their own. i’ve never played pokemons unless you count pokemons Go but i think about the famed “i like shorts they’re comfy and easy to wear” npc kid. like, yeah. i feel the same. and would say similar bullshit nobody asked about

62. seven characters you relate to?

oh god.........recognizing the self through the relatable characters :|

well let’s just talk about the wrol roles right off b/c the characters that Most occupy my gay thoughts (which is to say: my general thoughts) will inevitably get priority when it comes to Remembering things

1) whom among us doesn’t relate to jared kleinman........will roland emerging from relative obscurity and coming for our entire fucking lives like the goddamn legend he is. it’s tough b/c it’s like, oh well alana is relatable too, so is evan unfortunately sorry evan, and in ways i might ~usually act~ like one of those two more than jared but. no. it is Jared who wins the relatability contest, and we all get to be beautifully haunted by it forever

2) leaning hard into winston even with the few glimpses of him b/c somehow will Cannot play an allistic cishet. and this is even More of a case where maybe i don’t much have winston’s demeanor.......even without winston being a beacon of confidence, he has more confidence lmao. and he has that ability to just Be Himself in a situation which, i wish i had that moxie lmao. i am a lot more [usually trying to be accommodating wayyyy harder than i should], booo......even though he’s clearly not great at conflict considering how it doesn’t take Too much to put him out, it’d be pretty impossible for me to be all “called them hacks and lame” or carry out a very irritated monologue in front of four people in the first place lmao. but who knows. and it’s more in the details of like, oh no winston’s the odd one out even though he hasn’t really Done Anything, but we all ~understand~ why he Deserves it.........his expectation / treating it basically as Fact that he will disappoint people.......the [weird] [offputting] behaviors and his way of speaking in What he Says and How He Says It seeming wrong to people.......like it’s only 15-ish min of content that we have here and we don’t have the least info about will’s own thoughts on the character but it’s like. how is this such an iconic Gay Autistic Quant b/c these vibes are so rare. and i appreciate that he can be ~difficult~ lmao. same with jared though i didn’t mention it. i can be difficult!! love it for us...

3) briony atkins from murder of bindy mackenzie as a character who Does act more like how i Usually Act Like lmao.....god we’re only on three i forgot there was seven of these. and yet i know there’s probably at least 2 dozen characters who could make this list and i just won’t think of most of them unless directly reminded......but anyways yeah i mean in person i mostly do Not want attention unless i feel comfortable enough / in my element or whatever. especially if it’d be some situation like “sitting in a group of randos” lol. i mean it depends b/c i also can sometimes be ~on~ in terms of Masking and trying to be like Haha I’m Social I’m Regular and i def engage in Nervous Chatter sometimes, but like, very often it’s like god don’t talk to me and i don’t want to talk either.....and then yeah people Will be surprised that like, idk, i’m opinionated as shit and idk that i Enjoy Things / Have Thoughts And Feelings coz the assumption i guess is that you must simply have nothing to say. so the dismissal of this person who seemingly has nothing to contribute and must be Boring rings true lmfao.....but then of course it’s also important that her personality Under that is the one getting mistaken for emily’s lol cuz yeah At Heart i am sure of that dramatic / intense / excitable type Sometimes. but it takes some excavation before i am like “oh i can engage in my actual self” and like weeks and months to get comfortable w/ people and i’m always suspicious that anyone actually would enjoy it and i’m not too much......i am a motormouth actually and have something to say about any and everything and like to Have Fun Here but like. idk i come off as boring and can be Notably Quiet lmao

4) oscar martinez from the office is weirdly [Haha Same] sometimes lmfao. sort of keeps to himself but also has to pipe up with Opinions and Pedantry and the kind of Drama of a restrained theatre gay. some deleted scene from an episode where during an interview clip of Jimothy in a theater lobby and you have oscar call from across the group in that [wearied Ugh God] way of ‘jim, they’re remaking ___’ while jim just kind of gives a cursory “wow gosh” or whatever and like, i sure don’t have lots of Theatre Opinions but that “oh jeez i have a Take on this and have to share it with someone” vibe is like hahaha yeah.....it’s funny in the “the gang goes to the ice rink for a third of the ep” bit where you just catch oscar doing [ice skating turn] with some solemn intensity.......the “here’s a question nobody’s asking: is this worth it” quote.........way at the end where there’s a whole deal with one of the indoor plants and he’s like “why is it a He” @ the collective gendering of the houseplant lmfao.......i love the one thing where he and pam and uhh toby right? have the Finer Things book club or whatever and jim wants to join just like ~ironically~ and pam has to tell him that oscar doesn’t want him to join b/c he’s not going to take it seriously and use it as a Jokes Vehicle. and then you get the scene at the end where jim Is basically doing that and they’re just like taking it out of him and oscar’s all very seriously like “did you get it all out of your system” lmfao like yeah, earnest members only lmao.....the thing where he gets mad at angela’s like Jazz Musician Posed Babies posters all “it’s kitsch it Destroys art” lmaoooo and in a totally different season all “this is the problem with debate” over the completely inconsequential “is [whichever actress, i forget] Hot” “”””debate””””.......the whole tendency to get involved and always have a take to get across.....opinionated-sometimes-to-the-point-of-petty central. also that he’s the canon gay, are there even any others? anyways and as the us office’s spiritual successor i’ll add on to this by uh what’s the name of billy eichner’s character on parks and rec? it’s craig right. that Self-Powered Intensity is very #me as well.

5) augh god........im like lmfao shit who represents my Hater Club side. hmmm. oh no wait you know what. totally different but i love Prof Beatrice Hotchkiss in the trt nancy drew pc game. she’s holed up in her room writing all the time and just is weird when you try to talk to her all like no i won’t open the door, bring me food, do this Research, bring me my Ski Boots i guess......and then when you do meet her it’s all at like post-midnight in the lounge and she’s all like, encouraging you as a Night Owl and your investigative curiosity and all and i’m like oh word yeah being up in the dead of night is the shit. she’s just weird and passionate and this is another character i might not Act hardly at all like but who i vibe with lmfao. hotchkiss was the supportive adult in my life

6) remembering how hotchkiss is a historian made me think of academia which made me think of like, once again with “these vibes are So So Rare” i really ought to put the wrol role of Nato on the list cuz like. that essential representation of “gets gr8 grades but isn’t really ~academic~ / doesn’t care about that and really just cares about Hanging W Friends and [real specific interests]” is like wow damn that’s the Mood. coz like to an extent i can always Relate to the ~overachiever~ types a la the [nerd character gets all-A’s and other nerd shit] deal, but there’s eventually the issue of like.....those characters like bindy mackenzies and alana becks Care about their achievements (not exclusively as some ppl would have it 9_9) and are Studious whereas i always hated school and was a godawful student in terms of Habits and always got good grades b/c the devil was with me or something and like people will think i must have tried real hard and dedicated myself to Academics and stuff and it’s like.........no................not at all hardly, sure i did my hw every night but at like 11:29 pm or studied for a midterm at lunch right before the class lol or flipped through a lil bit of the sat study guide the night prior.........the “low-effort dumbass who Academically Excels Anyhow” representation is so crucial like!! i run into a wall when it’s the Good Grades nerd character who is real studious and focused and stuff like. couldn’t be me. meanwhile the “naturally weird + probably some ‘deliberate’ weirdness” and “likes animals” and “most likely to just wanna Roll With It” and “shitty focus lol” and “non sequiturs” and “without [activity] i do nothing” is all like....ahahahohoho..........nato rly got to make this list. and honorable mention for Wrol Jeremy. again: whom doesn’t relate!!!!!!!!

7) damnit i know there’s So many answers to [characters i relate to] and whom cover like, more particular Facets here but i’m struggling lmao. Uh. like i’m like, who’s the Hot Mess / continually evolving disaster characters i vibe with......who’s the peak despresso detached Haters rep......who embodies the solo production lifestyle........dammit you know what lol i tend to Feel for like, the background ~nobodies~ who might just get like totally destroyed in some movie with life or death stakes just to like, show how much danger our heroes / Important Complex Protags are. same w/ jeremy not feeling like the Hero / the one who the story’s about / the cool guy / player 1 / etc etc etc i’m like oo i’d be the npc who doesn’t really do anything, i’d be the rando getting blown away in the background of someone else’s story. on a totally different note another shoutout / honorable mention to wybie from the coraline lmfao one of the best characters invented from thin air for an adaptation......tangentially relevant b/c he’s entirely here to support the protag / not his story at all, just here to help and prompt interactions / exposition really.......but love that [weird loner kid who’s best friend is a cat and annoys the other kid and doesn’t Get it and has specific interests and entertains himself and just is doing weird shit around here tf dude lmao killing it] like, #mood. #lifestyle. less dismal to relate to than the bg person who dies......his counterpart who totally dies is somewhat fleshed out / given Investment so it doesnt Really count as [background Nobody who’s really just fodder for “defining the stakes / threat level”] Character Concept

76. what’s your favorite potato food (i.e. tater tots, baked potatoes, fries, chips, etc.)?

latkes maybe......Yummy

#i expect to now just think of like ten dozen Other Characters who would've been great to mention #c'est la vie!!! c'est comme ca!!!! speaking of. thinking of the hc that winston jsut. drops french phrases into his speech sometimes #building on the moi....tbt ur benston fic w quelle horreur.....#nothingunrealistic1

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spongebobsins · 6 years

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Everything Wrong With The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

(Full disclosure: I actually did this before on DA a few years ago, so this is a spruced up version of that post. It’s been updated with my current standards and some new jokes but isn’t totally different. Still, hope you enjoy)

1.Viacom

2.There’s a whole opening scene with pirates, yet Patchy is nowhere to be seen

3.This guy thought it wouldn’t be a good idea to step out of the way of the door before the guy came out.

4.Because this is a SpongeBob movie, I can ignore a lot of stuff here, but there are like 50 pirates here, and only like 6 tickets.

5.These pirates are making a huge rowdy mess…and yet if I was there, it wold still be one my better theater expereinces.

6.Wait, the movie within the movie just starts with no title? There’s s no title in the credits, which is part of the movie within the movie, so what kind of movie has no title in it at all?

7.Also, the screening just starts with no trailers?

8.Why wasn’t the manager here to begin with, if the place was open.

9.They seriously called the cops about the cheese? Can’t someone else just…put cheese on it

9.“Weird sound in dream turns out be normal sound waking them up” cliché.

10.It being a dream forgives a few sins…but it’s still a dream cliche so..

11. Let’s talk about the Krusty Krab 2. How could have a hugely popular restaurant, function for this only with only ONE in existence?

12 Also, at no point do we see them hire extra employees for the other KK, there’s just a new manager, but there’s like 2 employees in this place besides Mr Krabs. …How did a place like this ever function with only two employees, anyway?

13.Spongebob has underwear in this shot, but when his pants…open up, he’s nude.

14.Also, Butt joke.

15.SpongeBob’s teeth should not be in good shape if he only brushes his eyes.

16.Even for SpongeBob, barging in Squid’s shower is…creepy.

17.There’s nothing under this rock so where did Patrick’s pants come from? 18.All this excitement over a place that has never been mentioned before now.

19.Wait, KK 2 is next to the first one? That’s really stupid.

20.”Lord knows I’ve tried” Which lord though? Is relgion a thing under the sea?

21/know Plankton doesn’t always have common sense, but he seriously has never heard of the letter Z?! Or at least he hasn’t seen that file clearly there.

22. Plan Z seems to be Plan Porn, ew.

23.The Chum Bucket isn’t directly across the street like it should be.

24.How he does not hear his screams?

25.Also, the plankton smear vanishes in the next shot.

26.“I paid 9 dollars for this?” ‘I paid ten”. That’s racist.

27.I know SpongeBob is” immature” but Squidward is literately the worst worker ever, so why was he picked? At least SB is a good worker.

28.If you listen really closely, you near hear Mr Krabs whispering jackass. That’s sinful because he said swearing is bad back in Sailor Mouth and got trouble with his Mom over it.

29.Another butt joke. 30.Wait, he doesn’t like people touching the crown yet he hired someone to clean it?

31.Even if this is meant to a different character than the God Neptune, why are we only just now knowing there’s a King of the sea, especially since he’s so close to a place the leads apparently go to a lot?

32.How the hell did no one notice Plankton taking the crown? Mindy is looking in the general direction of it, and while plankton is tiny, they should at least hear it moving or something.

33.There’s no guards outside to possible see the crown flying away.

34/Goofy Goober has a lollipop in this shot, but when that hand thing comes out, it’s gone

35. There’s only one row of chairs in the nut bar here, but when SpongeBob starts to leave, there’s another corner where more chairs are over there. 36.And they’re drunk, in a family film.

37/They didn’t kick them out for getting drunk in front of kids?

38.Wait, if they’re at the KK 2, who is taking care of the first one right now?

39.”You left one DAMNING piece of evidence-” Whoa, Language!

40.We did not see Plankton bring paper with him at all so I must question this.

41.Also, Mr. Krabs could try to find some stuff he wrote to show this isn’t his handwriting. 42.There’s never a phone here but it’s now there for this joke.

43.How can Plankton hear over anything over the phone if Mr Krabs hung up?

44.Mr Krabs’ clothes magically grow back

45.Discount My Leg!

46.Everyone in the Krusty Krab magically appears before that part, and disappears right after. Hell, you can see two fish eating in the background like nothing’s happening!

47.Patrick, out of nowhere!

48.Patrick being horny for Mindy goes nowhere and is a bit creepy.

49.The wheels are made of pickles in this shot, but when they leave, they are real wheels.

50.There’s seriously no one at the Krusty Krab or even outside to see this?

51.Stereotypical hillbillies are Stereotypical, and a bit annoying.

52.”No Patrick they’re laughing next to us” Hey, only I get to be pedantic around here!

53.How did no one see that guy coming?

54.How did she get that footage?

55.I like that the airhorn from the previous scene is sitll here but it was nowhere to be seen before than so..

56.The thug doesn’t recognize Patrick from earlier.

57 No one in the bar is seen with any tools normally used for bubble blowing, and since they somehow don’t know it came from the bathroom, no one in that room should be suspected.

58.They were standing in place the whole time and everything was far away when they beat up the double dude, so how did Patrick get the key?

59.Villain asks who can stop them now and it cuts to the heroes cliché.

60.A monster having an part that looks like a talking old lady makes no sense and you know it, so let’s move on.

61.How did the bubble soap get outside?

62.The stairs to the trench randomly appear and reappear throughout this scene.

63.Patrick has only worn those underpants once in the whole show…and it was in an episode after this movie!

64.Even with that carriage, how did Mindy get here so fast? She has no mermaid magic.

65.“Did you see my underwear?” “No Patrick ‘ “Did you want to?” …Ew.

66. The plankton statue in complete in this shot, but in the next shot it’s under construction.

67.I know Plankton wanted Neptune to fry Mr Krabs, but since he controls everyone, couldn’t he storm the castle and use the bucket on Neptune to get the job done quicker?

68.Hate to get critical, but sometimes these cuts to Dennis ruin the flow of scenes.

69.How does that seaweed stay on?

70.“Why did we jump over the edge instead of taking the stairs?” Spongebob would be great at SpongeBobSins.

71.This song is awesome until you realized they lazily reused some title card music from the show.

…But it’s still awesome, so..

71. ”Even the hideous disgusting monsters!” That’s racist.

72.“That way you’ll never found out that he stole the crown” Dennis is an idiot.

73.Man, what is with this movie and characters appearing without being heard?

74.You know, randomly walking around underwater in a desolate area with barely any fish isn’t really that efficient, given what he’s using them for as we find out in a minute.(Although it clearly worked before so this sin is debatable)

75.Why does he wear his diver’s outfit while on land?

76.“Alexander Clam Bell!” Booooo

77.Okay, so how did Plankton get the crown all the way here anyway?

78.How the heck did they not see that huge crown this whole time?

The entire scene is insanely emotional, especially for SpongeBob. I’m not made of stone so…yeah.

78.The pirates ruins it a tad though.

79.Discount Potty, which makes the lack of Patchy worse. He’s even voiced by Stephen!

80.“Tears bring someone back to life” cliché.

81.Also, these detectors do not work that way.

82..Because a bit of water will bring dead fish back to life, right? It makes sense for the duo but not the ones that have been dead for ages.

83.Poop joke.

84.The Hasselhoff cameo is funny but how many kids even know him, even I 2004?

85,I’m not even gonna ask how Dennis got here with the boot. Still sinning it, of course.

86.Hoff barely feels this epic battle going on, on his back.

87.You’ve got a time limit but sure, 10 seconds to liftoff.

88.They made a big deal out of that lock but now it’s just gone.

89.Karen isn’t there before SB and Pat show up, but now she’s here.

90. Why didn’t he put the bucket on Neptune beforehand? Would have made this a lot easier, makes my previous sin more of an issue.

91.Now the talking cheese is gonna preach to us!

92.This is amazing, one of the best things ever…but it’s also the biggest Deus Ex Machina ever.

93.”No freakin’ way!” The soundtrack version changes this because freakin’ is just too intense for kids I guess.

Eh screw it, sin removed!

93. From the looks of it, the town literally fixed itself in a matter of hours.

94.“I was just tell you that that your fly is down!” …He doesn’t wear pants. 95,Freeze frame ending.

96.The credits feel the need to inform us that Karen is a computer wife.

97. Way too many minutes of credits for the sake of padding the soundtrack. 98.Post credits scene. SpongeBob is my favorite Marvel movie.

MOVIE SIN TALLY: 98

SENTENCE: Beaten senseless (by every able boded patron in the bar)

And after a slight delay, this is finally done. Even though I had to refurbish something I already did, this sitll took some more, to see what new sins to add and what to keep I tried my best to make sure the sins are good here and hopefully only a few are weird/filler.

This is certainly a few easy movie to sin, but is still highly enjoyable. Might do a win post for it someday, we’ll see. But for now, here are the sins of a good representation of the series.

With that out of the way come back in about mid February or a bit later as dive into Season 4 and see how sinful it ends up being. I’m judging all SpongeBob on the same level, so we’ll see how the sins are.

See ya then.

(Dedicated to Stephen Hilenburg)

#SpongeBob #Movie #Sins

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bookishbloggerreviews · 6 years

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Book Chat #1 -- Book consumerism, Amazon takeover, and the destruction of the literary market.

So many of you might have been unaware, or perhaps you just haven't cared, but the book community is on the verge of a downward spiral. And I'm not saying that, "oh, this is really bad but it will fix itself!" I'm saying that this could be the beginning of a new type of censorship we didn't even think could happen--the censorship of books.

(To make myself clear, I'm not talking about a company coming in and saying "you can't write that!" I'm saying that because of the direction the market is heading, small brand or indie authors are going to be crushed with the changes that are going to happen in the next few years.)

But before I get ahead of myself, I should state what the problem really is: book consumerism.

I've seen many booktubers or popular book critics make videos on what they think about when they buy books, how they buy them, and why they might prefer different formats compared to others. A lot of them bring up some valuable points stating, "I don't make a lot of money, I can't afford to buy books but I do have a library card and that allows me to read." Or, "The literary industry is built upon people buying a book, reading it once, and then never touching it again. It's wasteful and it would be better for the common people to simply read books from their local libraries." Or, "I can't afford the physical copy so I rely purely on the digital formats and now I can't see why anyone else would ever want to own a physical book." And then they encourage thousands and thousands of readers to stop buying books and switch to their local libraries, or buy cheaper digital formats.

And while that may be beneficial for their wallet and for their state of life, if everyone did that, the book community would either 1. Vanish or 2. Have to charge ridiculously high prices to make back the profits of production, marketing, design, editing, as well as the author making enough money to actually survive. Suddenly your 15$ books would be on the upward scale of 20-30$. But why? It boils down to how many copies are actually being bought.

If you have three libraries in your area, (if everyone were to stop purchasing their books and instead rely on libraries) the total copies bought for that area would probably be less than 30. Less than 30. (Which would probably be about 1 book for ever one to two thousand people.)

Sure, more libraries would open and the library business would be expanding... but the cost of that restrict publishers and authors.

Publishers are already incredibly picky about what they decide to put out. Most authors will tell you that they send their manuscripts from anywhere from 3 to 20 different publishers--and that's with a fairly decent market for books! Now imagine a more competitive market where only a few new authors get the chance to debut. What this does is it solidifies authors who already have a long standing following and companies who very popular and well known while discouraging any competition. At which point you might say: "Just use an independent publishing platform then! No one's forcing new authors to publish with publishers!" And I can assure you that not only is this problematic, but it won't work, at least, not now it won't. (I'll return to this in a moment but I need to finish covering this topic before I jump to the next.)

So that leaves us with E-books. I bet you're wondering, "what's wrong with E-books? I still pay the authors for their services! It's not like I'm reading for free!" But that's not entirely true.

In order to examine why this is so bad, we need to take a look at how authors make their money. Let's compare traditional book sales to E-book sales.

Traditional book sale: the books are priced anywhere from 15-25$. The book price depends on which company published it, whether it's a hard or soft cover, whether any embellishments were added (sprayed pages, etchints, additional artwork, etc.), and the book store. When first publishing, the author will usually sign a contract agreeing to receive about 30% of the book sales. (That's a pretty normal percentage, though some publishers do offer more based on who the author is or what they're publishing.) The other 70% will go to covering the costs of production. After the book has been made and sent out to book stores to be sold, book stores will tack on anywhere from another 10-25% for their services in shipping and handling. So, in total, that 15-25$ price that you see at the book store? The author gets about 1/4th of that. That means out of every book you buy, the author only gets 4-5$.

E-book sale: the traditional publishing, but on a much, much, much smaller scale. E-book prices range from 1-4$. Now the author gets about 30% of that 1-4$... see the problem?

You may not be reading for free, but the authors themselves now get crumbs of what they used to get. Which, when you're trying to make a living out of that, is depressing.

(If you want to be more logical with your purchases, I suggest buying books you like, and reading books you're wishy-washy on through E-book or libraries.)

Coming back to the "why don't they publish independently???" thought, we now get to explore the commercial aspect as the bookstores vs. Amazon.

In the past few years, Amazon has opened up Amazon publishing--which has been both beneficial and detrimental. Beneficial because authors can finally take publishing into their own hands. Detrimental because the quality of those books being published is not only under constant scrutiny, but the system can be easily abused and manipulated. This results in a high amount of distrust and animosity towards books published on individual platforms, yet, with the war on traditional book stores, it seems that there will be little other option than to trust Amazon in the following years.

(For those who might be unaware, the winter/holiday season of 2018 will be determining whether Barnes and Noble, along with other publishers, will continue to see a decline in sales. Partially due the increase in switching from physical shopping to online shopping--namely, from Barnes and Noble to Amazon--Amazon is quickly overcoming their competitors with lower prices, faster or free shipping. This results in stores closing and Amazon becoming a monopoly through modern culture. Which, if you've ever studied business and the free-market... putting our books in the hands of people who may or may not care whether they're 15 or 40$ is a little concerning.)

Overall, the message you can take away from this book chat is this: find a way to support authors without removing their livelihood, be careful of where you buy and how much power you give companies to run off other competitors, and don't be surprised when prices, authors, publishers and companies suddenly start changing. It's been a long time coming.

Thanks for reading this mess of a book chat. I hope you learned something insightful or new. If you want more book chats or bookish content, feel free to hit that follow button. Otherwise...

A Bookish Blogger out!

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thesportssoundoff · 6 years

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Five Things To Draw From The Contender Series Season Two

Joey

August 20th

It has JUST enough Dana White in it

Do you wanna know why the Dana White Contender Series worked and Lookin' For A Fight doesn't? One show has too much Dana. Too much Dana and his friends doing stuff you just can't possibly care about no matter how big of a DW stan you are. Too much Dana White and his friends eating food at Guy Fieri-esque "average guy" restaurants. Too much of Dana and his friends doing EXTWEME sports stuff or making food or just being dudes. Every MMA fan watches Lookin' For A Fight for a few minutes of Dana White being rich with his not as rich friends (Din Thomas, Nick The Tooth, Gian Villante and Matt Serra) to the yuk yuks and ha ha's and for whatever fight recap we're getting. The series to me fell off a cliff when it became less about the shows and more about Dana White.

Dana White's Contender Series is JUST the right amount of Dana White. The show is named after him and the concept itself is based around him so that much makes sense. Where the Contenders Series gets it right is that it captures Dana in the place we WANT to watch him at. We watch Dana watch fights, react to fights, gush about fighters, freak out about finishes and showcase the passion he still has for MMA. That's the Dana White that made the UFC a big deal by being a relentless borderline desperate madman with a product he would not allow the public to forget about. Watching Dana White, Mick Maynard and Sean Shelby freak out after a great finish is something we can all get behind and something that's genuinely cool about the Contender Series. Seeing Dana flip out about refs, judging or just be the world's richest fan may wear thin on some but again, it's reminiscent of what made Dana White a big deal to begin with. To the fans, he IS a fan---just the one with the highest decision making power in the sport. The best parts of the Contender Series are when Dana just arbitrarily decides to fuck over Mick Maynard and Sean Shelby by saying something like "We agreed on two guys but I'm going to bring in one more guy!" is easily the most real part of the Contender Series and gives you a reason to remember the guy who Dana pulled the executive decision on.

The first season was an attack on weaknesses, the second season was an attack on size

Here is how the Contender Series breaks down across their two seasons. I've listed the number of signings and the number of fights per division. I did not include guys getting developmental deals EXCEPT for Greg Hardy because I think his deal is probably different than what guys like Bevon Lewis and Chase Hooper are getting.

DWTCS Season 1 Total Signees: 16 (15 men, 1 woman) Signees By Weight Class, signings per fight: Bantamweight- 3 3/6 Middleweight- 3 3/5 Featherweight- 3 3/6 Light Heavyweight- 2 2/6 Flyweight- 2 2/8 Lightweight- 1 1/2 Heavyweight- 1 1/3 Women's Bantamweight- 1 1/1 Welterweight- 0 0/2 Women's Strawweight- 0 0/1

DWTCS Season 2 Total Signees: 23 signings (21 men, 2 women) Signees by Weight Class, percentage of signings per fight:

Lightweight- 5 5/8 Heavyweight- 4 4/7 Middleweight- 4 4/7 Light Heavyweight- 3 3/3 Featherweight- 2 2/7* Welterweight- 1 1/3 Bantamweight- 1 1/2 Flyweight- 1 1/1 Women's Strawweight- 1 1/1 Women's flyweight- 1 1/1 Women's Bantamweight-

The UFC hid absolutely nothing as it pertains to what Season One was really about. The deepest division in MMA (lightweight) got two fights in it, the second deepest in theory is welterweight and it got two fights as well. The top division to get contender series fights was flyweight which, I suppose, might be surprising to some. The Contender Series though was about finding new talents in divisions of need and in truth, there's no doubt that flyweight needed depth. Maybe not a wealth of talent but depth to fill up the ranks. Light Heavyweight was targeted as the organization seemed to finally realize that the DC/Jones/Gus trio was in need of something new to switch it up. The same could be said for bantamweight where the UFC is probably as tired as the rest of are of this Cruz/Dillashaw/Assuncao/Garbrandt chokehold at the top of the division. Light heavyweight is tied with bantamweight and unsurprisingly enough featherweight for the number of Contender Series fights. Season two sees a return of dominance from lightweight but ALSO a rise in heavyweight, middleweight and MORE light heavyweight signings even if there's less fights. This season was a predominantly "big" one as signed 11 fighters in weight classes 185 and up. They even managed to double the number of signed females as well which is kind of good but also kinda trash since 2 women is probably STILL not enough for a series that runs eight weeks. That's gotta get fixed up.

All in all, I think we're seeing what the pattern for Contender Series' is going to be; they're going to try and sign guys and gals when they need them at specific weight classes. The nature of 145 and 155 lbs suggests that talent will always be there but as we've seen the divisions like 125, 185, 205 and HW need primary care. These divisions will get the attention regardless of what's poppin' at other weight classes.

The LFA Situation

23 fighters were signed by the UFC this season. 12 of those fighters were immediately coming to the UFC from LFA with no stop in between. That number includes Greg Hardy who had every amateur fight in LFA. The other promotions that pop up? Bellator (!), Brave FC, Valor Fights, Alliance MMA, Phoenix FC, Hex Fighting Series, CXF and CFFC. Over half of the signings came straight from LFA to the DWTCS and that number balloons if you extend it to, say, "fought in LFA within their last three fights before the Contenders Series." In many ways this really isn't much of an issue since LFA is the top regional organization in the world. It's also worth remembering that Mick Maynard probably knows more about every single fighter who has ever walked into one of those shows than he does any other organization. He may know a guy like Ryan Spann better than any fighter on the UFC roster to be entirely honest. This is more about the underlying issues when it comes to MMA organizations OUTSIDE of just LFA. This sport needs a healthy group of regional organizations producing top talent at a healthy enough clip to keep the UFC and Bellator beasts alive. Bellator can't survive just on whatever California based amateur wrestler they've signed or whatever SBG flunky they can bring in. The UFC can't survive just on whatever Alexis Davis based Brazilians and LFA champions they rack up. The sport needs to have a healthy stream of places for young fighters to fight, get paid and get experience. LFA only holds so many shows a year and as such, we need to always be cognizant of whether or not there are alternatives out there for fighters to make it to the UFC. Clemson and Georgia and Bama don't deliver EVERY NFL prospect to the NFL; you gotta have options for guys.

There will always be snubs

Rule of life for ya boys and gals; There will always be competent folks left out of jobs when the number of capable applicants outweighs the number of open positions. It was said that in season one of Dana White's Contenders Series, the UFC went into it unaware of how good the show would be and as such had a limited number of open slots available for signees. Per twitter scribes like Nolan King, they went into this season signing LESS talents because they knew the Contenders Series would take up a much larger portion of talents. Even so, there's still going to be folks who leave disappointed they didn't get signed. For instance dudes like Chris Curtis, Austin Vanderford, Julian Erosa and Dontale Mayes off the top of my head were quality fighters who didn't earn themselves deals. Don't get caught up in who did and didn't get signed because the agitation is not worth the effort. Just accept that snubs will happen and take solace in the fact that a snub just means you're going to get a short notice call eventually. If anything, the snubs from Season One created quite a few promising prospects for Season Two.

This is an unsustainable product

MMA scribes always love to talk about NEW and FRESH ideas as if those translate to money. We've seen the PFL's NEW AND FRESH idea struggle to generate an impact with the MMA consensus. Bellator's ratings are way down with "NEW AND FRESH" tournaments all over the place (and by the by, since when are tournaments new and fresh) and the Contender Series is the latest NEW AND FRESH idea people are gaga about. Dana White at the end of Season Two made what I think was the most honest statement of all the honest statements we got during the Contender Series. When asked about doing more of these on ESPN, he made it clear that they pretty much drain what they feel is the talent pool and as such, they need to let a year go to build them back up. Eventually we're going to hit a year where there won't be an immediate build up of talent on the regional circuit to put all the great fights on. Eventually there's going to be a season where you don't average nearly four finishes an episode across eight weeks. Things will eventually hit a rough patch because that's life in MMA.

We also need to accept that the value of MMA is in its quantity, not its quality. We've seen that quality fights don't do the numbers you'd expect them SO a large percentage of what is "value" is in the sheer scheduling. I hate to hurt the feelings of "LESS IS MORE!" people but the brand of MMA lives on not its immediate impact but it's impact over a 364 day stretch. The UFC doesn't do a 40+ event a year schedule because it wants to but because networks pay when you do it. "Make sure every fight feels special" sure SOUNDS awesome and great until you squint, look at your schedule and realize that to make big money in this biz, you need to almost be omnipotent on a spiritual level. Can't do that with an eight week stretch where every fight MEANS something. My suggestion is to just enjoy the Contender Series as it is and not get caught up in trying to make everything into the Contender Series.

#MMA #DWTCS #UFC #Prospects #Combat Sports

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ask-beacons-finest · 6 years

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Hope this is okay to ask, if not sorry! Ask to any muse(s) you feel this fits best. Have any of you dealt with self harm? Maybe someone you know?

Hi! Admin here! This is a bit of an old ask that we’ve received during the Vytal tournament. But it’s been on my mind constantly ever since I saw it.

I know this ask says muse(s) (i.e. any of the usual characters portrayed on this blog), but I’d like to do something different if you don’t mind.

I’d like to answer this myself.

And due to the nature of this ask I’d like to add some things.

Crisis text line: Text “HOME” to 741741 (Free support in the US)

Suicide Hot line: Call 1-800-273-8255 (For US)

The Trevor Project: Call 1-866-488-7386 or Text “Trevor” to 1-202-304-1200 (A crisis and suicide hotline specifying in LGBT youth, US)

Here’s a wiki page linking to several other crisis hotlines for various countries since I’m heavily US-centered (Which I apologize for).

I’m just popping this under a cut because I know this type of thing can be upsetting for people to read/see/etc. Not to mention the majority of you know me as the “Bright and bubbly admin of ask-beacons-finest who just wants to keep a positive light on the community and tries her best!”

So if you’d rather keep that perception of me I recommend skipping this. Honestly. If you are upset or anything by self harm, please do not read this. For your own sake. I can live with people not reading about my history with the subject, I can NOT live with the fact that someone might have been triggered into a relapse because of reading this.

Despite my personality on this blog, I’ve suffered from chronic depression for nearly a decade. And I’m only 19. And I have a horrible memory on top of that. So the majority of my memories throughout life are me being sad with nearly no explanation until I got diagnosed at the age of 15 or so. Which sucks, a lot.

I don’t know whether or not the knowledge that I’m sad because my brain literally couldn’t produce or process dopamine and serotonin like a “normal” brain should made me feel any better. But it was at least comforting to know WHY I was sad all the time.

But the reason I tell you that, is because I was diagnosed by a therapist and psychiatrist.

Because my mother checked me into therapy.

Because my father found out I had cut myself.

I was around 14.

Now, I’d like to just say that I have not harmed myself in any active way for years and years. I have not taken a blade to my skin. Or bruised myself. Or whatever for years. And I’m very thankful for that. I say “active” because there are certainly passive ways I have done myself poorly. There was a time maybe two years ago when I would have maybe one meal a day at most, with next to nothing else. I’d even go a few days without eating a thing. My junior year of high school was so full of stress and I was so horribly depressed and I wanted nothing more than to just drop dead. And even more so recently, earlier this year even. You all SAW part of it, part of me falling back into my horrible habit of not taking care of myself properly. If you remember in late January my physical health took a turn for the worse, but rather than go see a doctor immediately, I pushed it away and acted like it was less severe than it was and not a big deal. I only went to the doctor because I ended up in a position where I had no other choice but to go to the doctor.

That’s all forms of self-harm too. Not eating properly, not going to the doctor when you’re in poor health.

And honestly, “passive” self-harm was a poor choice of words. Since I made the active decision to NOT do those things.

But back on track. I was 14 years old.

It was my freshman year of high school.

I was having a very difficult time coming to terms with some things about myself.

I was in a relationship that was…not okay. And I did everything I could to stay in it too. Which in hindsight was the literal worst way to go about it but that’s in the past. What can you do?

My grandfather had just passed away and for some lunatic reason I blamed myself because I was sick and when I got better he got sick and he was throwing up and showing all the same symptoms and I know it wasn’t my fault but God did it feel like it was.

I was not in a good place.

I don’t even know what my reasoning behind doing it was honestly, and I don’t know if it’s because American society has this weird taboo love for cutting yourself. It’s in all forms of media, there was a seemingly infinite number of crappy (totally a subjective opinion but in this case, it’s pretty valid) punk-pop bands who would sing about and like, romanticize the idea of harming yourself. And I don’t know. I don’t know.

It was, is, and will always be something I regret. When my father took hold of my wrist and demanded I pull up my sleeve I cried. I burst into tears. Hell. I’m crying right now honestly, just thinking about it. I will never forget the look of heartbreak on my father’s face. Coincidentally enough I was even talking to my dad last night and he brought up how every parent has a few mistakes they make when raising their kids and he looked at me, dead in my eyes and told me to my face that his biggest regret with me was he never noticed how bad I was hurting and that he couldn’t “save me” from doing what I did that day. I watched my own father, my forty-one year old father cry in front of me last night, just as I’m crying now.

My mother cried too. My parents were divorced at the time, which I think is another thing that I struggled to handle. But my mother sobbed and held me for the longest time since I was probably light enough to be held in her arms. My mom said she booked me a therapist appointment and while I was going to protest at first the look on her face coupled with the look on my father’s that was burned into my memory forever made me keep my mouth shut. It was an eye opening moment for my mother too since she herself started to admit to me about her history with depression and the like, things I never even knew or would have guessed. It snapped my heart in two to see my mom, who I’ve seen so often be such a jovial ray of sunshine who wanted nothing more than to see the ones she loved be happy tell me about all this.

Therapy itself was strange at first. But it helped immensely. Not just with self-harm but as well as my self-image. My therapist, J.C., helped me get through that thing I referenced earlier, helping me come to terms with it. She helped me not only remove myself from my abusive relationship but move on as well. She helped me with so much and if I could ever somehow repay her I would. I know that sounds odd, considering it’s literally her job to aid people through a hard time they can’t seem to tackle on their own. She’s one of the reasons I want to become a therapist myself, and I can honestly say that woman is one of my heroes, and all she did was her job. I implore you, I beg you, if you are depressed, if you self harm. Get help. There is no shame in going to therapy, there is no shame in getting better. You deserve to live your best life, at your happiness. Please don’t let any stupid social stigmas get in the way of that.

I’m thankful in the fact that I never dug deep enough to scar my arms or legs or whatever. And I know there are some of you out there, maybe one of you reading this right now has these horrible momentos of a terrible time long past carved into your skin. I want you to know you’re strong for being around, and that I hold you in high regards and I am so proud to see you’re with us today.

I know some of you may have friends that aren’t here today because of something like this. I do too. I want you to know that despite their absence they love you dearly as I’m sure you do them.

I want to bring this post to a close, since it’s been quite difficult to write. I started this at around 4:30pm, and it’s currently 6:40.

Yeah…took a few moments throughout writing this to just kind of let it all out.

If this makes you worried about me please don’t, I’m doing well. My depression is minor, with a seasonal flare up at the beginning of the year (Which should explain my tripping into old bad habits earlier this year).

I honestly don’t know how to end this post though. I had it all planned out but now my head just hurts a bit and my eyes are puffy.

Just, please, if you suffer with these things I want you to know you aren’t in it alone. I know that’s cliche but it’s cliche for a reason. You are not alone. You’ve got friends, family, this community even.

You’ve got these text and call lines, and while I know they are NOT a proper substitute for genuine therapy they can still help wonders. You can say you want to remain anonymous and don’t have to give out a name, just please. If you feel you need to call, call.

For me.

For your loved ones.

For this community that we’ve all built together.

For yourself.

Thank you for your time, I love you all.

-Admin.

#cw selfharm #selfharm cw #admin talks

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