#Norton Help Number

[reasonsforhope]

"Despite the Central Appalachia ecosystem being historically famous as coal country, under this diverse broadleaf canopy lies a rich, biodiverse world of native plants helping to fill North America’s medicinal herb cabinet.

And it turns out that the very communities once reliant on the coalfields are now bringing this botanical diversity to the country.

“Many different Appalachian people, stretching from pre-colonization to today, have tended, harvested, sold, and used a vast number of forest botanicals like American ginseng, ramps, black cohosh, and goldenseal,” said Shannon Bell, Virginia Tech professor in the Dept. of Sociology. “These plants have long been integral to many Appalachians’ livelihoods and traditions.”

50% of the medicinal herbs, roots, and barks in the North American herbal supply chain are native to the Appalachian Mountains, and the bulk of these species are harvested or grown in Central Appalachia, which includes southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, far-southwest Virginia, and east Tennessee.

The United Plant Savers, a nonprofit with a focus on native medicinal plants and their habitats, has identified many of the most popular forest medicinals as species of concern due to their declining populations.

Along with the herbal supply chain being largely native to Appalachia, the herb gatherers themselves are also native [to Appalachia, not Native American specifically], but because processing into medicine and seasonings takes place outside the region, the majority of the profits from the industry do too.

In a press release on Bell’s superb research and advocacy work within Appalachia’s botanical communities, she refers back to the moment that her interest in the industry and the region sprouted; when like many of us, she was out in a nearby woods waiting out the pandemic.

“My family and I spent a lot of time in the woods behind our house during quarantine,” Bell said. “We observed the emergence of all the spring ephemerals in the forest understory – hepatica, spring beauty, bloodroot, trillium, mayapple. I came to appreciate the importance of the region’s botanical biodiversity more than ever, and realized I wanted to incorporate this new part of my life into my research.”

With co-investigator, John Munsell at VA Tech’s College of Natural Resources and Environment, Bell’s project sought to identify ways that Central Appalachian communities could retain more of the profits from the herbal industry while simultaneously ensuring that populations of at-risk forest botanicals not only survive, but thrive and expand in the region.

Bell conducted participant observation and interviews with wild harvesters and is currently working on a mail survey with local herb buyers. She also piloted a ginseng seed distribution program, and helped a wild harvester write a grant proposal to start a forest farm.

“Economic development in post-coal communities often focuses on other types of energy development, like fracking and natural gas pipelines, or on building prisons and landfills. Central Appalachia is one of the most biodiverse places on the planet. I think that placing a greater value on this biodiversity is key to promoting a more sustainable future for the region,” Bell told VA Tech press.

Armed with a planning grant of nearly half a million dollars, Bell and collaborators are specifically targeting forest farming as a way to achieve that sustainable future.

Finally, enlisting support from the nonprofit organization Appalachian Sustainable Development, Virginia Tech, the City of Norton, a sculpture artist team, and various forest botanicals practitioners in her rolodex, Bell organized the creation of a ‘living monument’ along Flag Rock Recreation Area in Norton, Virginia.

An interpretive trail, the monument tells the story of the historic uses that these wild botanicals had for the various societies that have inhabited Appalachia, and the contemporary value they still hold for people today."

-via Good News Network, September 12, 2024

[averagegazan]

The Gaza Redemption

I've always been a fan of Shawshank Redemption, and let's be honest—who isn't? But for me, it’s not just about the stellar acting, captivating storytelling, or brilliant directing. Nope, it runs deeper than that.

You see, I can’t help but notice the uncanny similarities between the film and our reality here in Gaza. Like Andy, we’re being punished for a crime we didn’t commit—being trapped in what feels like the world’s largest open-air prison. Yet, despite it all, we cling to hope!

Now, let’s talk about Warden Norton—who, in our story, is kind of like Israel which tries to turn us into cheap labor for its settlement enterprise. And if anyone dares to resist or speak out? Well, you remember Tommy.

But here’s the kicker: just like Andy, we’ve taken to digging tunnels as our own way for seeking redemption.

So, tell me, how do you relate to Shawshank Redemption?

Now, here's where you come in! Help me find my own redemption. You could lend me a rope and some rocks (I promise I’ll use them wisely!), or you could support my GoFundMe campaign and share my story. After all, every Andy needs a Red!

✅️ My campaign is vetted by @gazavetters, my number verified on the list is ( #252 ) ✅️

[sweetwolfcupcake]

Wildflower: 06

The Secret Garden

John Wick x Reader

Category: Short Series

Warning: Stalking, mentions of violence

Note: John is relatively younger in this fic( late thirties to early forties)

*Thank you the original creator for making such an amazing GIF. I downloaded it from Google.

Unedited

Wildflower 05

According to John’s rational, calculating mind, his job was done. He got her to the hospital, paid the bills, played his part in Winston’s unexplained act of taking the young woman under his wing, and ensured his name was nowhere in the records. 

The hospital's owner knew’ John and was an old acquaintance of Winston. By now, John was sure Winston learned of John’s visit and that he brought her to be admitted there.

According to John's rational mind, he should be at the Continental, or at least answer Winston's messages (only two since the morning– he was too refined to send more than that).

But for once, his rational mind was conflicting with his instincts. It was not the first time, but it was a rare occurrence. But there he was, blended among the hustle and bustle, hiding in plain sight— keeping his eyes on the hospital. The entrance, precisely. She could be walking out any moment and with the concussion, he might have to—

His jaws clenched at the sight of Norton helping her out. The younger male’s hand rested on her waist, supporting her. Something was burning in John’s chest because he realised that he had been thinking of being at Norton’s place.

John frowned, realising how irrational he would sound if he vocalised his thoughts. Where were his thoughts going anyway?

What the hell was he doing?

He had an explanation for… his ‘treatment�� of the petty criminal. He needed to take back her mother’s ring for her. 

But this?

This was not how he was supposed to feel. He felt like he was losing control over his instincts and John hated losing control. Having control over himself helped. There was a feeling that at least he had some control over his life, some sort of freedom.

Losing that control threatened the little freedom and control he had over his life that was perhaps sealed for hell the moment he was born.

He was a man who moved with a purpose— what was his purpose there? He should be relieved, she would not need any help and he could just go home, or to the Continental. 

Instead, he stood there, discreet with his eyes and body language but could not help the scowl that faintly appeared on his otherwise unreadable face. 

His eyes followed them as they got into a taxi. With his gaze zeroed on the vehicle, he quickly noted the number in his mind before getting inside his car. He knew he could not rest until she was safe in her home. 

Without the shadow of Alex Norton lingering around.

John found himself feeling slightly at ease after Alex left. Another open contract. John received the message already.

Three million dollars was a lot. No wonder Alex chose to take it. But John could not bring himself to leave just yet. He sat in his car, just watching her window. At nightfall, it was easier to make out what was happening with the lights on and her fumbling around. Her shadow stumbled a bit now and then, and John found himself frowning in frustration.

Why was she moving so much?

Stupid girl!

John was surprised at the level of obliviousness that surrounded her. Who would go to a park near dawn? And for what? To watch the sunrise?

Not that John did not appreciate such peaceful moments, but he was John Wick. But she? He could tell she had never even thrown a punch at anyone. He felt it when he first shook her hand. He was taken aback by the softness. He was not used to it, but he would admit it felt… good.

John gulped. 

He would rather not remember how her form felt pressed against his. He could be gentle, he was gentle with the women when he wasn’t fighting them for survival, and even then, he was never brutal with the kills. He made it quick.

But touching her felt different. It made him think twice about pressing too hard, holding too tight, even the day he just let her bump into him, he somehow regretted wearing the vest because he could see that it hurt her.

John was not a boy. He was old enough to understand where this was going. He simply could not bring himself to look into its eyes and admit it.��

If he did…

He tore his gaze away from the window and busied himself with drinking some water. He stubbornly kept his gaze down, refusing to look up again. His phone dinged with an alert.

An exclusive contract. 

There were people he could not deny, after all. 

With one last glance at her apartment window, John twisted the keys and drove away into the night. It was time to hunt.

—------

Laying on his bed with a bandaged ankle was not something ‘normal’ people would enjoy. John, on the other hand, was thankful. He was half-expecting a fracture. A sprain was no big deal— nothing compared to what he was trained to endure, or what he endured growing up. 

John had turned numb to the pain. He would go on, despite the pain. He would go on without acknowledging it, at least until he was done with his task at hand. People might say he had a formidable sense of commitment and focus. But in reality, it was all he knew. To John, it was the way of life. It was how he was trained, and how he grew up.

The world outside gave him much more agency. Not exactly freedom—but the chain binding him loosened up, and the cage expanded. But he was owned; the whole jungle was the High Table’s prison, after all.

He had been a part of this ‘jungle’ for as long as he could remember. Ruska Roma was simply a prison within this prison— this great ‘system’ he was pulled into the moment he was left orphaned. He thought he could live with it because this was all he knew.

But then came (Y/N) (L/N)...

With her expressive eyes brimming with determination, a smile so kind and sweet it made him sigh. A laugh that sounded like bells of spring and a carefree, oblivious kind of happiness he knew he could not have and a touch so soft, so non-deliberate, it irked him. 

Everything about her was simultaneously off-putting and intriguing. 

John was compelled to admit, that it irked him because her existence, her presence itself felt like a mockery to his life. She was not chained, unlike him, even though she was born to a woman who once belonged to the same hell he was now a part of. It irked him because she was everything he used to dream of as a child. She had everything he wanted so desperately during his naive years before he was finally disillusioned. 

It irked him how many times a day he thought about her. About how vulnerable she was and yet had a certain fire within that he knew would burn him down if he dared venture close enough. This flame, or whatever was within her was soothing for now, but he was afraid of it. Afraid of nurturing something he could not contain, he could not control.

Like his thoughts moving to her now and then—each day, he thought longer, more about her, each time he did, he felt himself softening in ways he never thought he was capable of. He thought he had turned completely numb. She proved him wrong even without trying to. 

And it irked him in every way possible.

Even the simplest of proximity they shared, he felt it all over his skin, in each of his veins, he felt it in his heart, he felt it in his mind. It was bizarre, bewildering, and infuriating.

But if he found her infuriating, why did he end up doing all the things he had done so far? Why did he end up watching over her behind the quiet shadows of the night, watching her sleep from the darkest corner of her room? Why would he follow her to her little trips at the parks and bicycle rides if her presence irked him? Why would he fracture the ribs of the man who hurt her, and tried to mug her? He broke his fingers, that man’s wrist would never be the same…

John felt the rage that he used to feel while growing up in Ruska Roma and watching helplessly how unfair everything was, and how powerless other children like him were. 

Maybe that was why he felt that rage—he had become someone his younger self would run to for protection. When he watched, the man hurt her. Something in him seared, it stung in all the worst ways possible, and he could not stand the feeling until his knuckles were marred with that rat’s blood.

He had been rather merciful, though. 

Anyone with a sane mind would call him a monster. Was he not a monster anyway? But at this point, he had no care for morals anymore— he was only surviving, as every other assassin like him was. To hell with the morals, John knew he was strong enough to be feared.

And if fear was the way to keep the little freedom he had earned, he would let fear reign.

—---

It was another day. Just another day of the same cycle. Waking up, having breakfast, taking the prescribed medication a week after being discharged, and going to work. Yes, that was the ‘regular’ part of the day. It was after work, when she was passing by the park, that (Y/N) noticed a familiar figure on the bench.

His hair was brushed back but seemed a bit fluffier—casual. Yes, that was the difference. He was in a plain white T-shirt and a pair of jeans. She had seen, John Wick only in dark suits. Black. Yes, that was his preferred colour, it seemed. But as she watched him sitting on the bench, a sandwich in his hand and a coffee cup by his side, he appeared so...unreal.

It did not make sense. He was a stranger, more or less, and she had seen him hardly four times(?). But he looked almost angelic to (Y/N). Especially with the setting sun casting a glow on the side of his face. 

What the hell are you even doing?

Too late, she was already within his earshot. He turned to her, alerted by the disturbance in the otherwise tranquil park. And just as she thought, the sunlight fell just the right way on his eyes, and they seemed ethereal—perhaps brown was the most loved by nature.

She was expecting some surprise in his eyes but they were so calm, so hypnotic, it surprised her instead.

“Hi.”

“Good evening.”

Wow, even his greetings were classy.

“Um, yes, good day—I mean, good evening.” (Y/N) felt the warmth of embarrassment on her cheeks before noticing the mirth in his eyes. It was faint, but it was there. 

“I saw here, and just thought, I would say hi.”

This time, the corner of his lips rose higher “Oh, you live here?”

“Yes, just a few blocks ahead…You come here often?”

He took a moment to answer, and throughout that tiny moment (it felt stretched to an hour), his eyes seemed to assess her before he replied.

“Sometimes.”

John did not verbally invite her, only removing the cup from the bench, leaving space for her to sit before turning his gaze ahead. And while, yes, this was a silent invitation, her mind had gained expertise in overthinking.

Did he really want her to sit?

Or was it him being polite?

He looked fine by himself. At peace too.

And then—

He turned to her again “Are you in a rush?”

“Uh…no?”

“Then, please...” He gestured with his hand, glancing at her. It seemed more like a side-eye but, whatever.

“You like to sit here alone?” She asked, taking a seat beside him, not too close, but not noticeably far.

“Solitude is good for my sanity.”

Stoic and quiet, he seemed every bit of a man who would appreciate solitude over company, like her.

“You seemed so to me.”

From the corner of her eyes, she could see him turn to her. Even seated, he towered over her, sitting straight—as if a soldier were on alert. 

“How much of me do you know?”

“Enough to draw precise conclusions, I believe.” (Y/N) turned to him. The last of the sun’s rays kissed his face tenderly. He was a sight to behold, she realised.

There was a twinkle in his eyes, and the shade of brown softened. “You know only what you see from afar. There is no reason or good for you to get any closer.”

“Why? My mother was a part of this world.”

“And she kept you away. That is for a reason. There is nothing to see here, (Y/N).”

“I have unanswered questions. If Winston could—”

“I believe he does what he sees as best. Especially for you.”

“Why does he care so much about me? Why did my mother trust him over anyone else?”

John sighed “I’m afraid I have no answer.” 

He answered with a contemplative frown and looked away, setting his sight once more on the darkening sky as the remnants of the set sun remained.

“Sorry, I am not great at conversations, and the past months of moving in all the information have taken a toll, I guess.”

“I understand.” He assured her kindly.

A long silence followed after that. It was indeed awkward initially. She had no new words or energy to set another tone. But it grew to be comfortable, at least for her. They sat there in silence until the street lights blinked on and the moon turned more prominent against the black sky.

“It’s late; I should go now.” (Y/N) stated, but made no effort to stand up.

“Sure”

“It was good talking to you.”

Faint amusement danced in his eyes as he turned to her. “I do not recall much talking.”

Yes, they had been sitting in silence for at least fifteen minutes. The of sight of mirth in his eyes made her smile

 “I cannot say I hated it.”

He smiled at her. It reminded her of an intimidating and misunderstood large canine trying to socialise. An awkward smile that came with a nod. But nothing mattered because it was in his eyes.  The soulful and melancholic pools of molten chocolate had the perfect tinge of golden brown when the sunrays fell on them a few moments ago before the sky darkened.

“Okay, so, see you around? I guess?” (Y/N) forced her gaze away, not wanting to come off as creepy.

“Maybe.” John replied, “Let me walk you home.”

“Oh no, there’s no need. My house is just a few blocks away…”

 By the time she was closer to finishing the sentence, he was on on his legs.

“Even better, it’s not far then.”

“Yes and—”

And he was already walking ahead. It turned out, that walking home in a comfortable silence was not that bad.

****

[yns-world]

timeless

pairing: edward norton x actor!reader x brad pitt

a/n: inspired by the lovely @bradpittwh0re, 2000s au, italics are narration

pics are not mine, credit to original photographers

GQ: “Fight Club” stars Edward Norton, Y/N L/N, and Brad Pitt arrive at the red carpet premiere as a trio.

y/nfan49: release the pics where their hands were on her waist

y/nfan37: there would be no fight club without y/n 

bradpittfan06: their chemistry was insane ngl…

edfan22: they all definitely fucked 

y/nfan12: insane comment 😭 but you’re so right

As the limousine pulled up to the first red carpet event since the release of Fight Club, the blinding flashes already began to get into a frenzy before the doors opened. 

The cameras were doing enough damage as Ed and Brad stepped out of the limo, but the black night had turned white as the two men helped Y/N out of the car. Once she was completely out, Y/N waved towards the cameras as her two co-stars both held a hand on her waist as they escorted her down the carpet.

Neither star left the trio group the entire night as they all stuck by each other’s side. This definitely irked the few bloodthirsty reporters who wanted solo shots of Y/N.

“Y/N! Drop those bums and look this way!” An insolent reporter called, shoving his camera towards Y/N. Immediately, Brad stepped out and pushed the entire camera and reporter back in line while Ed’s grip on Y/N tightened as he pulled her back from the savage line. 

“Back up, bro. I’m not gonna tell you twice.”

For the rest of the night, Brad kept a watchful eye on the audience of reporters, shooting glances as he moved with Y/N through the event, and keeping his full attention on her when she spoke in interviews.

“What is one experience you’ll cherish from your time on the set of Fight Club?” A female reporter from Vogue asked the trio.

Edward and Brad looked between them at Y/N to answer. 

“Well, speaking for myself, my friendship with these two dorks has been my favorite part of the shoot. You would not believe the number of times we had to stop and restart shooting just because of the idiocy of it all.” As she answered, both Ed and Brad’s smiles on their faces grew as they kept their eyes on her the whole time. 

“Guilty as charged, but it was mostly Brad causing a ruckus on set.” Ed confirmed with a chuckle.

“No! You are not going to blame everything on me!” Brad jokingly bickered, waving a finger in Ed’s face. 

“We could’ve released this film an entire year earlier if you didn’t pull all your stupid stunts!” Edward fired back, all the while the two men proved Y/N’s point exactly. 

Caught in the crossfire, Y/N chuckled at the scene and let them have at it. 

For the rest of the night, the trio floated around until they decided to leave the event early.

The group of stars made an effort to quietly say their goodbyes to those they knew and silently moved past most of the crowd to their limo. Of course, they wouldn’t go unnoticed by the sharks swimming nearby.

“Y/N! Norton! Brad! Where are you running off to??” A multitude of reporters called out but they simply just waved as courtesy and climbed into the limo--Brad and Edward helping in Y/N first. 

“Drive.” Y/N told their chauffeur just as the vicious reporters came banging on the car. When they were finally moving, Y/N was able to loosen her hair and take a real, deep breath. 

Brad sighed as he unbuttoned his suit and threw his arm over Y/N’s headrest; Ed layed his head back and closed his eyes. 

Looking at both men, Y/N raised a mischievous brow.

“Should we light up?”

Brad sent a grin at Ed, who matched one back. 

a/n: i hope you enjoyed!! it was fun writing something like this, let me know if you guys want to see more of this :)

as always, requests are open, just be sure to read my pinned page 🫶

[emby-m]

It's you!

Despite everything, it's still you.

My wonderful boy @sazeracs gave me the idea for this diptych while he was watching Undertale playthroughs with me.

About three weeks before the manor and about five years after the manor.

HCs below the cut

- Alice and Norton escape the manor during a game

-Alice is not hurt; Norton gets stabbed by Melly and gets his face kicked in by Orpheus and left for dead

- Despite hallucinating, Alice goes back for Norton and carries him out of the manor to get help

- Norton almost dies

- Norton does not die, despite wanting to. As soon as he can sit up and he feels even a smidge normal, he proposes to Alice

- After a lengthy recovery, the two of them go to visit Frederick in Vienna for a number of reasons, and they make the spur decision to get married there

- They don't feel like they can stay in England, so they decide to move to the US

- Neither of them know it until they're in the US, but Alice is pregnant with their first kid. First kid is born within a few months of them landing in the US.

- They move night continuously as Nort tries to find steady employment; during this time Alice is pregnant again

- And then Norton, the US native, says he'll go scout ahead for nice places on the west coast (?!?)

- So Alice is left alone with two kids and all sort of fears and doubts about her husband.

- Norton does actually find a good plot of land near Sacramento, California; he has some savings which he uses to buy the land and a house from the Sears catalog

- The family moves in after some time. All their friends from the manor come to help finish the house.

-And at that point, Norton looks in the mirror and sees someone he can stand to be. Not raring to go, scrappy lil Nino, just... Himself.

[tzikeh]

PayPal phishing scam going around

So, you'll get an email from a ridiculous email address, looking something like this:

I hope all of you would immediately recognize this as a scam - weird, unofficial email address, person you've never heard of, etc., plus a meeting you don't know about and a purchase you don't know about.

This is all badly written and should instantly tip you off that this is a scam -- but I want to point out ways they work to make you believe it even if your first instinct is "This is wrong."

Your attention is immediately drawn to the the invoice image in the body of the email, which looks like this:

If you aren't looking too closely, it looks like a PayPal invoice, which goes a long way to convincing people that this is legitimate. But there are a pile of clues that this is a scam:

Right under your name and the "Transaction ID" number is the Customer Support phone number. That's not where a customer service phone number usually appears on an invoice. Generally you'll find that number in the footer or somewhere at the end of the invoice. If anything, it should be *your* phone number or email there, as part of the customer ID info.

They put the phone number up there so that you're immediately thinking "call customer support to get my money back." They want "Someone has my credit card information" or "someone made a big mistake" to be front of mind, so that your first thought of "scam" is overridden by "I need to get this money refunded."

Then the words "final reminder." This is another thing that should tip you off that this is a scam, since you will not have received previous reminders. But again, if you're thinking about several hundred dollars being charged to you that you probably can't afford, then you're not thinking "Wait, I haven't seen anything else about this" because you're thinking "I can't afford to lose this money." Or you may do what so many of us do, and think "How did I miss the other reminders?" -- immediately blaming either yourself or tech, giving the scammers an out.

And the word "final" means you better act now or else - more false urgency.

Below the "bill" it says that if this charge is wrong, you have 24 hours to rectify it. Again, omg omg omg call them RIGHT NOW. And hey look at that, there's that useful phone number again! Right after the word "refunds" -- just what they want you to be thinking about.

And then the phone number AGAIN in a big blue box. (Which, if they were better at their scamming job, would be a button you could tap to dial the phone number.)

That's a lot of appearances of the customer service number.

Now take a look at the small print.

"Thank you for using PayPal to purchase Norton 360 Security for 2 years."

Have you ever seen a PayPal invoice? That's just not what they say.

Immediately followed by another repetition of the fact that you need help and the support team is standing by to help you.

Then there's some stuff about "our secure platforms" and "we accept all major platforms."

That was written by someone who doesn't really know what words they need, possibly someone for whom English is not their first language. "Our secure platforms" is super-vague, but it's the "We Accept All Major Platforms" that's a giveaway - did they mean "We Accept All Major Credit Cards?" If they meant "platforms" to indicate alternate methods of payment (Venmo, CashApp, Zelle), they would have listed them, or at least extended the sentence to clarify.

This is very clearly a scam, but for fun, I called the phone number. This is another dead giveaway -- the person on the other end of that phone call.

When they picked up, they said "Hello--thank you for calling customer service."

That's not how any company's customer service would answer the phone - they would begin with "Thank you for calling $COMPANYNAME customer service."

The thing is, scam call centers are fielding calls for dozens, if not hundreds, of scams. The computer in front of the scam worker identifies the *phone number* you called to tell them *which scam* you have fallen for, so they answer generically while the computer brings up the appropriate script.

I said, "Who am I speaking to?"

He said "This is PayPal customer service."

Then I asked him this: "Can you tell me why I've called PayPal's customer service phone number?"

This is different enough from anything that anyone who has actually fallen for the scam would say that they don't have a script for responding to it. So they become annoyed and rude right off the bat, because they have ZERO customer service training and don't actually know how to talk to people on the phone if it doesn't fit their script. He raised his voice and said "You called us! You called us! How do I know why you are calling us!"

If you miss every other clue on your journey through an email that urges you to call customer service for anything (but usually money), think about how customer service representatives are trained to deal with customers. Think about all of the legitimate interactions you've had with customer service. They thank you for calling a specific company. They give you their first name, they ask how they can help you and/or ask for your name and why you are calling today. They identify themselves and ask you to identify yourself. They try to be helpful. Scammers are trained to follow scripts, and not much else. If you step even just a little bit outside of the lines, they are lost.

One last thing - it's an unfortunate reality that googling "$COMPANYNAME's customer service phone number" is no longer a reliable way to get customer service phone numbers, because so many scams are talked about on the internet that Google is returning scam phone numbers as legitimate ones. (This happened to me with Amazon - I got a scam email telling me I'd made a purchase on Amazon and to call the given number for customer service. I called, I knew it was a scam, and then I googled the phone number. It came up as "Amazon customer service." I was able to email an Amazon customer service manager a screenshot of my Google search of the scam number and Google saying it was an Amazon customer service number. So Amazon then had to deal with getting Google to fix that issue.) The point being, we have to rely on ourselves and our critical thinking skills for these scams, because the internet is now garbage.

Good luck everybody -- and when all else fails, ask the weird question.

[camisoledadparis]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … January 7

Bayeux Tapestry - hawking

1130 – On this date the medieval poet Baldric Of Dol died (b.circa 1050). He was abbot of Bourgueil from 1079 to 1106, then bishop of Dol-en-Bretagne from 1107 until his death.

Balderic's poetic works were written almost entirely while abbot at Bourgueil. The 256 extant poems are found almost exclusively in a single contemporary manuscript which is most likely an authorized copy. They consist of a wide range of poetic forms ranging from epitaphs, riddles and epistolary poems to longer pieces such as an interpretative defense of Greek mythology. A praise poem for Adela of Normandy describes something very like the Bayeux Tapestry within its 1,368 lines. Two themes dominate his works: desire/friendship (amor)—including paedophiliac—and game/poetry (iocus).

In his collection My Dear Boy: Gay Love Letters through the Centuries, the scholar Rictor Norton publishes Baldric's many letters to male lovers.

1829 – William Maxwell is the last English sailor hanged for sodomy.

1899 – Francis Poulenc, French composer (d.1963); Poulenc was one of the first out Gay composers. His first serious relationship was with painter Richard Chanlaire to whom he dedicated his Concert champêtre: "You have changed my life, you are the sunshine of my thirty years, a reason for living and working." He also once said, "You know that I am as sincere in my faith, without any messianic screamings, as I am in my Parisian sexuality."

Poulenc also had a number of relationships with women. He fathered a daughter, Marie-Ange, although he never formally admitted that he was indeed her father. He was also a very close friend of the singer Pierre Bernac for whom he wrote many songs; some sources have hinted that this long friendship had sexual undertones; however, the now-published correspondence between the two men strongly suggests that this was not the case.

Poulenc's life was one of inner struggle. Having been born and raised a Roman Catholic, he struggled throughout his life between coming to terms with his "unorthodox" sexual "appetites" and maintaining his religious convictions.

Poulenc was profoundly affected by the death of friends. First came the death of the young woman he had hoped to marry, Raymonde Linossier. While Poulenc admitted to having no sexual interest in Linossier, they had been lifelong friends. Then, in 1923 he was "unable to do anything" for two days after the death from typhoid fever of his 20-year old friend, novelist Raymond Radiguet, Jean Cocteau's lover. However, two weeks later he had moved on, joking to Sergei Diaghilev at the rehearsals he was unable to leave, about helping a dancer "warm up."

In 1936, Poulenc was profoundly affected by the death of another composer, Pierre-Octave Ferroud, who was decapitated in an automobile accident in Hungary. This led him to his first visit to the shrine of the Black Virgin of Rocamadour. Here, before the statue of the Madonna with a young child on her lap, Poulenc experienced a life-changing transformation. Thereafter his work took on more religious themes, beginning with the Litanies à la vierge noire (1936). In 1949, Poulenc experienced the death of another friend, the artist Christian Bérard, for whom he composed his Stabat Mater (1950).

Poulenc died of heart failure in Paris on 30 January 1963 and is buried at the Père Lachaise Cemetery.

1917 – Alfred Freedman (d.2011), who was responsible for removing homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses, was born in Albany, New York. After earning his undergraduate degree at Cornell University in 1937, Freedman graduated from the University of Minnesota Medical School in 1941. He began an internship at Harlem Hospital but left before completion to enlist in the United States Army Air Corps. He left the service having attained the rank of Major.

After initially studying neuropsychology, Freedman trained in both general and child psychiatry, undertaking a residency at Bellevue Hospital. He became the chief of child psychiatry at the SUNY Downstate Medical Center, a post in which he served for five years, before becoming the first person to serve full-time as the department of psychiatry Chairman at New York Medical College, a post which he held for 30 years.

In 1972, Freedman was approached by the Committee of Concerned Psychiatrists, a group of young reform-minded doctors, who encouraged him to run for the presidency of the American Psychiatric Association. He won the election by 3 votes out of some 9,000 that were cast.

In his position as president, Freedman immediately supported a resolution offered by Robert L. Spitzer to delete homosexuality from the list of mental illness diagnoses. On December 15, 1973, the APA's board of trustees voted 13—0 in favor of the resolution, which stated that "by itself, homosexuality does not meet the criteria for being a psychiatric disorder" and that "We will no longer insist on a label of sickness for individuals who insist that they are well and demonstrate no generalized impairment in social effectiveness."

LGBT rights organizations have hailed this decision as one of the greatest advances for gay equality in the United States. Freedman himself believed that passing this resolution was the most important accomplishment of his one-year tenure as president. A second resolution called for an end to discrimination based on sexual orientation and the repeal of laws against consensual gay sex.

Alfred Freedman died in Manhattan on April 17, 2011, following complications after surgery to treat a hip fracture.

1919 – Robert Duncan, American poet, born (d.1988); An American poet and a student of H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), who spent most of his career in and around San Francisco. Though associated with any number of literary traditions and schools, Duncan is often identified with the New American Poetry and Black Mountain Poets.

Duncan's mature work emerged in the 1950s from of Beat culture and today he is also identified as a key figure in the San Francisco Renaissance. Duncan's name figures prominently in the history of pre-Stonewall Gay culture, particularly with the publication of his The Homosexual in Society.

Duncan had his first homosexual relationship with a male instructor he had met in Berkeley. In 1941 he was drafted and declared his homosexuality to get discharged. In 1943, he had his first heterosexual relationship. This ended in a short, disastrous marriage.

In 1944, he published The Homosexual in Society, an essay in which he compared the plight of homosexuals with that of African Americans and Jews. The immediate consequence of this brave essay was that John Crowe Ransom refused to publish a previously accepted poem of Duncan's in Kenyon Review, thus initiating Duncan's exclusion from the mainstream of American poetry.

Also in 1944, Duncan had a relationship with the abstract expressionist painter Robert De Niro, Sr., the father of famed actor Robert De Niro, Jr.

Duncan was the first poet to use the word "cocksucker" in print, and the first to strip to the buff during a reading. Nevertheless, he is in spirit, if not in fact, a modern romantic whose best work is instantly engaging by the standards of the purest lyrical traditions.

In 1951 Duncan met the artist Jess Collins and began a collaboration and partnership that lasted 37 years till Duncan's death in 1988.

1946 – Jann Wenner is the co-founder and publisher of the music and politics biweekly Rolling Stone, as well as the current owner of Men's Journal and Us Weekly magazines.

In 1967, Wenner and Ralph J. Gleason founded Rolling Stone in San Francisco. To get the magazine off the ground, Wenner borrowed $7,500 from family members and from the family of his soon-to-be wife, Jane Schindelheim. In the summer following the start of the magazine, Wenner and Schindelheim were married in a small Jewish ceremony.

In 1995, Wenner found himself in the middle of a media storm when it was revealed that he was leaving his wife Jane after more than 25 years of marriage and had become involved in a relationship with Matt Nye, a former male model turned fashion designer. Wenner's outing, which may or may not have been at his own instigation, seems to have had little effect on his business empire, but it inspired a number of accusations regarding an alleged "Velvet Mafia" of powerful closeted gay men.

Although it had long been rumored that Wenner's marriage was an "open" one and gossip of his bisexuality was widespread and had been mentioned in gay magazines, in 1995 he was publicly outed—on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, no less—when the newspaper revealed that Wenner had left his wife of 28 years for Nye, a considerably younger man who was a former Calvin Klein underwear model.

Rumors of an alleged conspiracy to suppress the news began to circulate. Several journalists reported that the so-called "Velvet Mafia"—a coterie of powerful media, entertainment, and fashion executives who are reputedly gay—had threatened to pull advertising from any publication that wrote about the breakup.

1969 – Rex Lee is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Lloyd Lee in the HBO series Entourage and his role as Elliot Park in the television sitcom Young & Hungry.

Lee was born in Warren, Ohio. His parents emigrated from Korea to the United States. He grew up in the states of Massachusetts and California. He graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 1990. Although Lee was studying to be a professional pianist, he decided he wanted to act after taking a theater class in college.

Prior to landing the role on Entourage, Lee had various jobs including performing in the children's theater company, Imagination Company, as well as working as a casting assistant. He was the casting director for the TV movie The Cure for a Diseased Life. Lee has also played roles on a variety of TV shows, including Twins, What About Brian and Maurice on two episodes of Zoey 101.

On Entourage, Lee played Lloyd Lee, the gay assistant to Ari Gold, the character played by Jeremy Piven — eventually becoming an agent and interim head of TMA's television department. Lee began his role in the first episode of the show's second season, "The Boys Are Back in Town", which introduced Lloyd as the replacement to Ari's previous assistant. Lee won the award for Outstanding Supporting Actor, Television at the AZN Asian Excellence Awards in 2007 and 2008.

Lee had a series regular role in the first two seasons of the ABC sitcom Suburgatory, playing Mr. Wolfe, a clueless high school guidance counselor. He appeared as one of the judges at Nationals in the Fox Television Comedy-Drama Glee in season 3. In 2014, he had a starring role in the ABC Family (later rebranded as Freeform) television sitcom Young & Hungry where he plays Elliot Park, the publicist and "right-hand man" to a young tech entrepreneur named Josh. Young & Hungry ran for five seasons, concluding in 2018.

Lee is gay; he came out to his parents when he was 22. In an interview from 2011, Lee said that he was single and looking for something permanent, but that it was difficult to find the right relationship.

1969 – David Yost is an American actor and producer known for his role of Billy Cranston on the television series Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie and Power Rangers Zeo.

Yost was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa and moved around throughout the United States, winning many gymnastics competitions nationally, most notably the state championships Iowa and Montana. In 1991, graduated from Graceland University in Lamoni, Iowa with a B.A. in Communication and Dramatic Arts. He moved to California with hopes of becoming an actor and auditioned for a role in the Power Rangers series only three months after arriving. He won the part of Billy Cranston, the Blue Power Ranger.

Yost starred in more than two hundred episodes of the show's first four seasons. He was the only Ranger to appear in every single episode of the original series, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, playing the part of Billy, the Blue Ranger. With powers and motifs based on creatures such as the Triceratops and Wolf, the Mighty Morphin Blue Ranger is still one of the most popular in the franchise thanks to Yost's commitment to the role; Billy never switched colors or passed on his power coins to successors like the rest of the original cast. Yost's most high-profile work was his appearance in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, which took in over thirty million dollars at the box office in 1995. The movie was in theaters between the second and third seasons of M.M.P.R. and served as a non-canonical alternate opening for the third season.

After Mighty Morphin Power Rangers ended and Power Rangers Zeo began in the fourth season, Yost stayed as Billy, but Billy's role within the show changed. Instead of his previous role as a Power Ranger, he became a technical advisor to the others. Yost eventually left the show toward the end of the Power Rangers Zeo season. His character's final episode, "Rangers of Two Worlds", employed footage from previous episodes as well as vocal work from a separate, uncredited actor, to conceal the fact that Yost was not present during the taping. A tribute to the Blue Ranger and Billy was seen in the closing credits of this last Billy episode.

While it was originally believed that he had left the series due to insufficient pay, Yost later revealed in his 2010 interview with No Pink Spandex that he left the series because he could no longer handle harassment by the production crew that targeted his sexual orientation. According to Yost, he was often called a "faggot", and the producers frequently questioned other cast members in private about Yost's sexuality. Yost left late in the fourth season after a week of contemplation instead of continuing work another six months into the second film. He claims that his co-workers involved with writing, filming and producing the show considered him "not worthy" to be where he was and that he "could not be a superhero" because of his homosexuality.

After Yost left Power Rangers, he tried to get rid of his homosexuality with conversion therapy for two years, but this failed. Eventually Yost had a nervous breakdown which resulted in his psychiatric hospitalization for five weeks. After Yost checked out, he moved to Mexico for a year and eventually accepted his sexuality.

In 2002, Yost performed in a play called Fallen Guardian Angels at "the complex" located in Los Angeles for A.P.L.A. (A.I.D.S. Project Los Angeles). The play was about six actors dealing with HIV in various situations. The proceeds went to benefit The Children's Hospitals AIDS Center. The entire production raised over $25,000 and Yost himself raised $5,000 for the hospital and received good reviews from LA Weekly Theatre.

1977 – John Gidding is a Turkish-American architect, television personality, and former fashion model.

Gidding was born in Istanbul, Turkey to an American father and a Turkish mother. He lived in Turkey until moving to the United States for college after attending Leysin American School in Leysin, Switzerland. He graduated from Yale University in 1999 with a BA in architecture, then the Harvard Graduate School of Design with a Master's in architecture.

At Yale he sang a cappella with The Society of Orpheus and Bacchus, and choral music with the Yale Glee Club, and at Harvard he sang with the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum. He was voted one of "Yale's 50 Most Beautiful People" in 1999 by Rumpus Magazine, one of "Boston's 50 Most Eligible Bachelors" by The Improper Bostonian in 2002, one of "Atlanta's 50 Most Beautiful People" by Jezebel Magazine and as one of Atlanta Homes and Lifestyles's "Emerging Talent: Twenty Under 40" in 2008.

He is openly gay and, as of August 2013, married to dancer Damian Smith.

Gidding started modeling in 2000 as a graduate student, performing runway shows for Armani, Gucci, and Hugo Boss before being represented by Wilhelmina Models in New York City. He's also been on the covers of numerous romance novels.

Gidding moved to New York City where he started John Gidding Design, Inc. after working for two years as a landscape architect for Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates.

Gidding's start in television was with the ABC Family TV show Knock First, where he and three other designers took turns making over teenagers' bedrooms. Designed to Sell (Giddings' previous show from 2006 to 2011) was canceled in early 2011 but still airs repeats on HGTV, and Knock First is still running in syndication internationally.

He is currently best known for being the architect-designer on Curb Appeal:The Block where his team spends $20,000 on improvements to the exterior landscaping of chosen homeowners. Less expensive touch-ups are done for 2 or 3 nearby neighbors' homes to improve overall neighborhood property values.

1989 – Stephen Wrabel, better known by his stage name Wrabel, is an American musician, singer and songwriter based in Los Angeles.

Wrabel attended high school at The Kinkaid School in Houston, Texas. After high school, he studied at the Berklee College of Music for a semester until he left Boston to move to LA and focus on songwriting. He got his first big break when he was signed to Pulse Recording as a songwriter.

In 2010, Wrabel recorded the theme song for the NBC game show Minute to Win It, "Get Up", produced by Eve Nelson.

Wrabel was signed to Island Def Jam in 2012.

In 2014, Dutch DJ Afrojack released a version of Wrabel's song "Ten Feet Tall", resulting in an international hit. The song premiered in the United States during Super Bowl XLVIII in a Bud Light commercial and was viewed by around 100 million viewers. Wrabel later released the original piano-based version of the song on May 19, 2014. BuzzFeed named the Afrojack version of "Ten Feet Tall" one of the "35 Best Pop Songs You May Have Missed This Summer".

Wrabel is gay. His song "11 Blocks" is autobiographical describing his feelings about his first love who had moved 11 blocks away from him in California. In his song "Bloodstain", directed by Isaac Rentz, the video displays suffering and heartache in a relationship, while the star Wrabel is fighting for his life.

1990 – Michael Sam is an American football defensive end. He attended the University of Missouri, where he played college football for the Missouri Tigers football team for four years. Recruited by a number of colleges, he accepted a scholarship with Missouri. He was a consensus All-American and the Southeastern Conference Defensive Player of the Year as a senior.

Sam is the seventh of eight children born to JoAnn and Michael Sam, Sr. His parents separated when he was young. As a child, Sam watched one of his older brothers die from a gunshot wound. Another older brother has been missing since 1998, and his other two brothers are both imprisoned. A sister who was born before him died in infancy. At one point in his childhood, Sam lived in his mother's car. He was once accidentally maced by police who were arresting one of his brothers.

Sam argued with his mother over playing football, as she did not agree with those pursuits. Sam often stayed with friends while in high school; the parents of a classmate gave him a bedroom in their house and had him complete household chores. Sam is the first member of his family to attend college.

After completing his college football career, Sam publicly came out as gay. If he were to be signed by a National Football League (NFL) team, which analysts think is likely, he would become the first active NFL player to have declared his homosexuality publicly.

In August 2013, Sam took the opportunity of a team introduce-yourself session to inform his Missouri teammates that he was gay, and found them supportive. He avoided talking to the media to avoid addressing rumors of his sexuality. He came out to his father a week before coming out publicly. The New York Times wrote that his father, a self-described "old-school ... man-and-a-woman type of guy", said "I don’t want my grandkids raised in that kind of environment." His father told the Galveston Daily News that he was "terribly misquoted", though The Times maintained that he was quoted "accurately and fairly."

On February 9, 2014, he announced that he was gay in an interview with Chris Connelly on ESPN's Outside the Lines, becoming one of the first publicly out college football players. If he is drafted in the 2014 NFL Draft or signed by an NFL team as an undrafted free agent, he could become the first active player who was publicly out in NFL history. Though he was projected as a third- or fourth-round pick in the NFL Draft, anonymous NFL executives told Sports Illustrated that they expect Sam to fall in the draft as a result of his announcement. Those statements caused National Football League Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith to respond that any team official who anonymously downgrades Sam is "gutless". From jail, his brother Josh said "I'm proud of him for not becoming like me. I still love him, whatever his lifestyle is. He's still my brother and I love him."

On February 15, Sam returned to Missouri with the Tigers football team to accept the 2014 Cotton Bowl championship trophy at a ceremony held at the halftime of a Missouri Tigers basketball game at Mizzou Arena. It was the first visit to his alma mater since he came out as gay. Anti-gay activist Shirley Phelps-Roper and about 15 other members of the Westboro Baptist Church, an organization widely considered a hate group, protested his appearance. Students organized a counter-protest numbering in the hundreds if not thousands, assembling a "human wall" in front of the protesters.

In May, 2014, Sam was drafted by St Louis Rams. He celebrated with a kiss for his boyfriend Vito Cammisano at an NFL draft party. The kiss went viral.

[antoschauniverse]

An anon observed "was just watching a Graham Norton show in which he had liam neeson and jaime dornan. He say he cant bring himself to watch 50 shades because dakota johnson is in it. He mentions how he spun her around as a 2 year old kid. He sees a child in her. To think groomer was around piper and then go on to approach and lure a child of the same age as piper he saw griwcup on set is just defeating. And he sees no issue because she is of a legal age and then all the supposed support from those around him. It's jarring, it's disgusting. I honestly hate how he has put me off mulder. Fuck Hollywood and it's fucking wierdos who can't control perverted appetites."

There are some good points here that say a lot about decent and "real men". Real men don't have to prey upon the youth, naive, immature, and inexperienced. It's also the decent man who will respect a young woman's opportunity to live their life in an unadulterated manner. When he preyed upon his now bride, he had lived her lifespan twice and then some change. That's not fair. A real man understands where their lust and desires are only theirs and should draw a line. Didn't the Police have a song about young girl fantasies in "Don't Stand So Close To Me" to which the speaker knows they must draw the line?

One of the main issues that I have with this abhorrent relationship is that many of us parents worry about our daughters from birth and how every aspect of society is trying to take advantage of them from advertising, social expectations, social media, and of course pressure from men. Let the youth be young and grow up with the same privileges and safety they deserve and not be groomed and humiliated as a plaything.

Why does there seem to be an uproar amongst a good amount of people? Maybe because collaboratively a social sector rejects the abuse and without a voice to call out the behavior, these types of scenarios get brushed under the rug or become normal. It's not and it shouldn't be ignored because it takes a village to raise and child and to protect the youth. 18 is just a number and doesn't miraculously change a child's maturity, brain, and need for protection from 17.

Unfortunately, defenders of such relationships also repeat, like a mantra, that age is just a number and the age difference does not matter if the child has reached the age of 18-21 years. These hypocritical statements help horny old men like David justify their relationships.

It's sad that these old men don't even respect their sugar babies. David's daughter has to live her own life, she has to get a degree, start a career and date her peers. But his wife should not have any of this, she should serve the old man and be content with such a life.

There are fake feminists who claim that this is true feminism - to let a woman do what she wants. But have generations of women fought for young girls to be valued only for their youth and body, and for men to consider young girls only the object of their sexual desires? They have no equal partners, but only toys that can be bought if a man has enough money, and a girl is poor and not educated enough to understand that she is selling her life.

[mintytealfox]

Hypothetically, if someone were to happen to Alice and Norton....

Who do you think would be the people they trust to care for their kids.

For best to worst.

OH MAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!

When it comes to the people they both know:

MELLY IS NUMBER ONE FOR SURE and LIKELY THE ONLY ONE LOL 👀💪💪💪 I feel like her core thing is 'to protect'. She protects the innocent and the vulnerable. Her focus is insects until she meets Alice. After meeting Alice and realizing that she is in fact 'Alice' she starts putting things in action to help Alice get out, including convincing Norton to switch sides. She would do everything in her power to make sure the kid had the best up bringing and she has the money to do so as well 🙏🙏🙏 She will also eliminate threats and ya know what good for her lol

the more I think about it, the more she would be the only one that both Norton and Alice would agree would be the best fit

cause liiiike,

They can't really trust the kiddo to Frederick cause I can see him kinda too zoned out and distracted and run down to be able to care for a kiddo ;; He might sort himself out as best he can to help the kid but not sure he could do it for the long run. But who knows, maybe the kid would help keep those voices at bay

Definitely not Orpheus, heck they need to protect the kid from Orpheus. He doesn't even take care of himself (judging how he is as a detective) he is far too unstable oh my GOSH He might not be able to separate that the kid is from Alice and Norton, that the kid is tainted because Norton was the father and I am worried that the nightmare side of him won't treat the child well because of that. And like make the kid pay the price Norton was supposed to. To make the kid the villain Norton was supposed to be 😨😭😭😭 But then there is the other side of wanting to protect the kid because they are also half of Alice.... so the kid would be his 'dangerous nightingale' ugh

Alice knows other people that would protect the kiddo as well, likely, but Melly would be the one that they BOTH know and trusted back then and can trust now and in the future and I am sure Frederick would visit and help where he can~

Orpheus would have to be kept away oh my gosh 😵‍💫

[starstruckbyacomet]

There Is No Safe Word (Part 2 of 10)

(Source) (Part 1) (Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5) (Part 6) (Part 7) (Part 8) (Part 9) (Part 10) (Prewarning)

Neil Gaiman in 2002. Photo: Getty.

Editor’s note: This story contains content that readers may find disturbing, including graphic allegations of sexual assault & child abuse.

In The Sandman, the DC comic-book series that ran from 1989 to 1996 and made Gaiman famous, he tells a story about a writer named Richard Madoc. After Madoc’s first book proves a success, he sits down to write his second and finds that he can’t come up with a single decent idea. This difficulty recedes after he accepts an unusual gift from an older author: a naked woman, of a kind, who has been kept locked in a room in his house for 60 years. She is Calliope, the youngest of the Nine Muses. Madoc rapes her, again and again, and his career blossoms in the most extraordinary way. A stylish young beauty tells him how much she loved his characterization of a strong female character, prompting him to remark, “Actually, I do tend to regard myself as a feminist writer.” His downfall comes only when the titular hero, the Sandman, also known as the Prince of Stories, frees Calliope from bondage. A being of boundless charisma and creativity, the Sandman rules the Dreaming, the realm we visit in our sleep, where “stories are spun.” Older and more powerful than the most powerful gods, he can reward us with exquisite delights or punish us with unending nightmares, depending on what he feels we deserve. To punish the rapist, the Sandman floods Madoc’s mind with such a wild torrent of ideas that he’s powerless to write them down, let alone profit from them.

As allegations of Gaiman’s sexual misconduct emerged this past summer, some observers noticed Gaiman and Madoc have certain things in common. Like Madoc, Gaiman has called himself a feminist. Like Madoc, Gaiman has racked up major awards (for Gaiman, awards in science fiction and fantasy as well as dozens of prizes for contemporary novels, short stories, poetry, television, and film, helping make him, according to several sources, a millionaire many times over). And like Madoc, Gaiman has come to be seen as a figure who transcended, and transformed, the genres in which he wrote: first comics, then fantasy and children’s literature. But for most of his career, readers identified him not with the rapist, who shows up in a single issue, but with the Sandman, the inexhaustible fountain of story.

Neil Gaiman with estranged wife Amanda Palmer in 2010. Photo: Getty.

One of Gaiman’s greatest gifts as a story-teller was his voice, a warm and gentle instrument that he’d tuned through elocution lessons as a boy in East Grinstead, 30 miles south of London. In America, people mistakenly assumed he was an English gentleman. “He spoke very slowly, in a hypnotic way,” says one of his former students at the fantasy-writing workshop Clarion. He wrote that way, too, with rhythm and restraint, lulling you into a trance in the way that a bard might have done with a lyre. Another gift was his memory. He has “libraries full of books memorized,” one of his old friends tells me, noting that he could recall the page numbers of his favorite passages and recite them verbatim. His vast collection was eclectic enough to encompass both a box of comics (Spider-Man, Silver Surfer) from his boyhood and the works of Oscar Wilde he received as a gift for his bar mitzvah. For The Sandman, a forgotten DC property he had been hired to dust off and polish up, Gaiman gave the hero a makeover, replacing his green suit, fedora, and gas mask with the leather armor of an angsty goth, and surrounded him with characters drawn from the books he could pull off the shelves in his head, from timeless icons like Shakespeare and Lucifer to the obscure San Francisco eccentric Joshua Abraham Norton. Norman Mailer called it “a comic strip for intellectuals.”

Gaiman and the Sandman shared a penchant for dressing in black, a shock of unruly black hair, and an erotic power seldom possessed by authors of comic books and fantasy novels. A descendant of Polish Jewish immigrants, Gaiman had gotten his start in the ’80s as a journalist for hire in London covering Duran Duran, Lou Reed, and other brooding lords of rock, and in the world of comic conventions, he was the closest thing there was to that archetype. Women would turn up to his signings dressed in the elaborate Victorian-goth attire of his characters and beg him to sign their breasts or slip him key cards to their hotel rooms. One writer recounts running into Gaiman at a World Fantasy Convention in 2011. His assistant wasn’t around, and he was late to a reading. “I can’t get to it if I walk by myself,” he told her. As they made their way through the convention side by side, “the whole floor full of people tilted and slid toward him,” she says. “They wanted to be entwined with him in ways I was not prepared to defend him against.” A woman fell to her knees and wept.

Neil Gaiman with Henry Selick and Dakota Fanning at the Coraline premiere. Photo: Getty.

People who flock to fantasy conventions and signings make up an “inherently vulnerable community,” one of Gaiman’s former friends, a fantasy writer, tells me. They “wrap themselves around a beloved text so it becomes their self-identity,” she says. They want to share their souls with the creators of these works. “And if you have morality around it, you say ‘no.’” It was an open secret in the late ’90s and early aughts among conventiongoers that Gaiman cheated on his first wife, Mary McGrath, a private midwestern Scientologist he’d married in his early 20s. But in my conversations with Gaiman’s old friends, collaborators, and peers, nearly all of them told me that they never imagined that Gaiman’s affairs could have been anything but enthusiastically consensual. As one prominent editor in the field puts it, “The one thing I hear again and again, largely from women, is ‘He was always nice to me. He was always a gentleman.’” The writer Kelly Link, who met Gaiman at a reading in 1997, recalls finding him charmingly goofy. “He was hapless in a way that was kind of exasperating,” she says, “but also made him seem very harmless.” Someone who had a sexual relationship with Gaiman in the aughts recalls him flipping through questions fans wrote on cards at a Q&A session. Once, a fan asked if she could be his “sex slave”: “He read it aloud and said, ‘Well, no.’ He’d be very demure.”

But there were some who saw another side of the author. One woman, Brenda (a pseudonym), met Gaiman in the ’90s at a signing for The Sandman where she was working. On signing lines, Gaiman had a knack for connecting with each individual. He would ask questions, laugh, and assure them that their inability to form sentences was fine. After the Sandman signing, at a dinner attended by those who had worked the event, Gaiman sat next to Brenda. “Everyone wanted to be near him, but he was laser focused on me,” she says. A few years later, Brenda traveled to Chicago to attend the World Horror Convention, where Gaiman received the top prize for American Gods, the book that cemented him as a best-selling novelist. The night after the awards ceremony, she and Gaiman ended up in bed together. As soon as they began to hook up, the feeling that had drawn her to him — the magical spell of his interest in her individuality — vanished.“ He seemed to have a script,” she tells me. “He wanted me to call him ‘master’ immediately.” He demanded that she promise him her soul. “It was like he’d gone into this ritual that had nothing to do with me.”

Back to: Part 1, next: Part 3

[sinisteryanderescribe]

Hi I've been reading your Norton Headcannons and was wondering what made Nurse Reader a nurse?

A bit confusing to ask, but I can't help but thought how Nurse Reader became a nurse and for what reason as well

…………………………………………………………………………….

Ohhhh yes let’s do some digging! here is the back story to our nurse reader!

In the midst of Victorian England's industrial landscape, Nurse Reader's path into nursing within the mining community was deeply intertwined with her family's esteemed legacy in the medical profession. Hailing from a lineage of renowned physicians, Nurse Reader's upbringing was steeped in the traditions and expectations of a prestigious medical heritage. Her father, a distinguished doctor, and her mother, a respected practitioner in her own right, had long paved the way for her to follow in their footsteps.

Despite this esteemed lineage, Nurse Reader harbored aspirations that diverged from the family's medical tradition. Fueled by a passion for justice and the pursuit of truth, she yearned to pursue a career in law. However, the weight of familial expectations and the weight of her father's influence as a prominent figure in the community left her with little choice but to acquiesce to their wishes for her to continue the family's medical legacy.

Even though if she passed the highest classes in law…she would still be probably rejected due to her being a woman.

It was against this backdrop that an influential figure, a man of considerable standing who owned the very mines that defined the town's existence, sought the expertise of a capable nurse to attend to the escalating number of injuries and accidents plaguing the miners. Leveraging her family's connections and her father's authority, Nurse Reader found herself thrust into a role that she had not anticipated nor desired—a nurse within the unforgiving and perilous confines of the mines.

Reluctantly assuming her new responsibilities, Nurse Reader faced the daunting task of tending to the miners' injuries and safeguarding their well-being in an environment fraught with danger and adversity. As she navigated the challenges of her newfound role, she grappled with the conflict between her own aspirations and the expectations placed upon her by her family and society.

And here is when our dear nurse reader met Norton Campbell.

…………………………………………………………………………….

[mediaevalmusereads]

The Red and the Black. By Stendhal (trans. Robert M. Adams). Norton, 2008 (originally 1830).

Rating: 4/5 stars

Genre: 19th century French literature

Series: N/A

Summary: Handsome, ambitious Julien Sorel is determined to rise above his humble provincial origins. Soon realizing that success can only be achieved by adopting the subtle code of hypocrisy by which society operates, he begins to achieve advancement through deceit and self-interest. His triumphant career takes him into the heart of glamorous Parisian society, along the way conquering the gentle, married Madame de Rênal, and the haughty Mathilde. But then Julien commits an unexpected, devastating crime - and brings about his own downfall. The Red and the Black is a lively, satirical portrayal of French society after Waterloo, riddled with corruption, greed, and ennui, and Julien - the cold exploiter whose Machiavellian campaign is undercut by his own emotions - is one of the most intriguing characters in European literature.

***Full review below.***

CONTENT WARNINGS: violence, suicidal ideation

OVERVIEW: This book has been on my TBR pile for ages and I finally picked it up thanks to my New Year's Resolution to read more chonky books. Overall, I can see why this book is highly regarded, but I think readers will struggle with it if they don't have a strong background in French history. Reading the Norton Critical Edition certainly helped, as I'm no expert myself. I can't speak for the translation's accuracy, but it was helpful to have a number of critical resources available.

WRITING: Since I do not have the original French edition of this book, I can't speak to the accuracy of the translation - only the impression that I have from the English.

It seemed to me that the prose jumped around a bit. Sometimes, the authorial asides were quite funny and charming. At other times, time skips appeared at random and were so jarring that they interrupted the sense of flow. There were also phrases that were repeated multiple times, so much so that they were distracting, but even so, I can't say that I disliked the prose. It's fairly interesting in a 19th century sort of way, but I can see how some people may struggle with it.

PLOT: The plot of this book follows Julien Sorel, the youngest son of a provincial carpenter, whose ambitions for status and wealth are at odds with his own pride and passion. Julien begins by accepting a position as a Latin tutor for the mayor of the town, and after embarking upon an affair with the mayor's wife, must escape to seminary in order to avoid scandal. From there, he attaches himself to a priest who gets him a job as a secretary for a prominent Marquis. Julien then embarks upon another affair and things spiral downward from there.

There was a lot about this plot that I found quite interesting. I liked the way Stendhal interacts with the political climate of the 1830s and how Julien's ambitious fit in with various parties vying for power and influence. I also really enjoyed the way the heroic past is utilized, both in defining Julien's ambitions and in characterizing Mathilde's passion.

I can see how this book may be a struggle for some readers, however, as much of its significance derives from knowledge of Stendhal's interaction with French history and politics. In that sense, the Norton Critical Edition was invaluable; I'm no expert myself, so it was helpful to read through the secondary sources to get a sense of what Stendhal was doing.

CHARACTERS: Julien, our protagonist, was interesting in that he constantly thwarted his own ambition by getting caught up in emotion and passion. It made him something of a slippery fish but without much cunning; he wasn't ruthless, but he was nevertheless constantly thinking, and that was kind of fun. I also was never sure whether to see him as sympathetic or not; he would sometimes act abominably, but his point about the upper classes and social hierarchies are on point. In the end, I don't think sympathy mattered all that much; his attitudes were terrible and amusing, so what more can one ask for?

Mathilde, one of Julien's lovers, was more interesting to me personally because of how she embodied aristocratic pride and its relationship to the past. I was intrigued by Mathilde's wild desire for passion and danger, especially since it contrasted with the boredom of the present upper class, and her adoration for her ancestors and heroic past was particularly thought-provoking.

Mme de Renal, Julien's first lover, is fine. Her devotion to Julien is fun in a gossipy, scandal-making way, and she provides an interesting contrast to Mathilde.

Various other characters serve their purpose well, and several of them are instrumental for understanding the political climate I'm which Julien is operating. His various friendship were heartening even if they were risky, and his quarrels with various people were good fodder for exploring the barriers to his ambition.

TL;DR: The Red and the Black is a fascinating piece of 19th century French literature, though if you're not familiar with history, I would definitely recommend an edition with supporting materials.

[gchoate17]

I watched 47 movies in 2024 – up from 25 last year, and the most since 2021. Here they are, ranked in order. It was fun to revisit some classics with my boys, who turned 7- and 3-years-old this year. Movies denoted with an asterisk I'd seen before.

Dune – Part Two

So ethereal and beautiful and Hans Zimmer is brilliant. My only complaint is that Josh Brolin doesn’t belong in this world.

2. Meth Storm

Brilliant story, well-told, unbiased. The level of access they have to these meth users is crazy. I can’t imagine what filming this must’ve been like.

3. Oppenheimer

Worthy of the hype.

4. Star Wars*

I don’t know how to rate a movie that helped shape my childhood, man. It holds up, though.

5. Society of the Snow

Fascinating story about surviving in the Andes Mountains. FWIW, I’d eat a person in a heartbeat in that situation, so maybe don't get on a plane to the Andes with me?

6. The Exception

I’m in a WWII phase right now. I’m also in a Lily James phase. And I like stories that allow for normal, well-meaning people in the role of villains (re: Nazis). This one checked all those boxes.

7. Fury

World War II Tank Squadron’s perspective on the war. A solid ensemble cast, fighting against all odds. Ridiculous at the end, but good nonetheless.

8. Nate Bargatze: Hello World

I’d watched a few dozen clips before I watched this comedy special, and it wasn’t until my wife said something that I realized how clean the whole thing was. That level of humor without cussing is an unbelievable accomplishment.

9. Aniara

Fascinating post-apocalyptic space movie at a mesmerizing pace.

10. Black Mass*

I forgot I’d seen this until I was already well into the movie. Depp makes a solid villain, especially now that all the court shenanigans have happened in his real life.

11. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids*

All of the adult actors are fantastic in this. And the whole thing is a solid backyard adventure. Holds up.

12. Robin Hood* (Animated Classic)

This is probably my favorite classic Disney animated cartoon. Holds up.

13. Trumbo

Educated me to the number of great works of Dalton Trumbo, who I mostly only knew as the writer of Johnny Got His Gun. Politicians are (mostly) evil and self-serving.

14. The Revenant

I love a good vengeance piece. Leo is solid.

15. Hit Man

Fun/cute/ridiculous, but funny/Adria Arjona factor/bonus points for being set at my alma mater.

16. Am I Okay?

Interesting story that feels real, delivered with a sharp enough wit to keep my attention.

17. Birdman

I like this in premise more than in execution. I like any premise where a person is (basically) playing a version of himself. Michael Keaton and Edward Norton were fantastic.

18. Zone of Interest

[SPOILER ALERT, I GUESS] The choice to set the whole thing right beside a concentration camp without ever showing the concentration camp was brilliant.

19. Anthropoid

We went from introduction to being a spy to handling a major operation really quickly. And maybe that’s accurate, but it made the pacing of the movie feel insane. I needed some more character development.

20. Yesterday

Interesting concept, executed pretty well in a rom-com sense. The best part was the conversation at the picnic table. Great soundtrack – obviously. Also, it’s worth noting that I’m probably going to like any movie with Lily James in it.

21. Baby Driver

This was fun.

22. The ‘Vous

I enjoyed getting to know what goes on behind the curtain of this historic restaurant. The footage in the restaurant itself was especially well done – dark, like a culinary coal mine. There were multiple storylines, though, that didn’t seem to all tie up together. For example, when I thought the film was ending, a new storyline got introduced. While the music didn't have a recognizable sound specific to Memphis, it did have plenty of soul and could stand on its own.

23. Skin

This felt authentic.

24. Martha

I will always see Martha Stewart as she was in the late-1990s. I’ve always had a soft spot for her – and I liked reading Joan Didion’s essay about her a few years ago – but according to this documentary, there is nothing soft about Martha. She’s ruthless, but I still have mad respect for her. But she might be mentally unstable? I dunno. The photography from her youth was stunning. As was she.

25. Unfrosted

Absolutely stacked with starpower. The subtle (and not so subtle) references to real-life situations – at least as far as I’m aware – are hilarious. But it’s also a little too over the top. And frankly, I can’t stand Amy Schumer.

26. Top Gun: Maverick

Hollywood ridiculousness, but also exactly what it set out to be – adrenaline rush, nostalgia from the first one, etc. I wish Kelly McGillis would have made an appearance. I understand why they couldn’t, but it would have been satisfying to see them try. She could’ve been the – “You’re still doing this pilot thing?” self-doubt-inducing person to run into Maverick.

27. Dave Chappell: The Dreamer

It’s weird to rank stand-up. Chappell is funny, but he is more brilliant than funny these days. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

28. American Fiction

Moderately entertaining social commentary on the publishing industry.

29. Tell Them You Love Me

People are insane.

30. Juliet, Naked

This role had to have actually been written for Ethan Hawke. And I like any movie that pokes a little fun at fanatics of any kind.

31. Welcome to Me

Quirky, cute, awkward.

32. Land of Bad

Hollywood ridiculousness. They’re no way they have dudes in the middle of an operation while everyone else is watching sports. Enough adrenaline/action to keep my attention, though.

33. Return of the Jedi*

I’ve always loved this movie, but upon rewatch, this one is kind of ridiculous because it’s resting on the laurels of the franchise.

34. Spaceman

Tonally, very cool. Adam Sandler in a dramatic role is always good. But the giant spider turned me off.

35. Cyrus

Watch the trailer and you see most of the funny parts.

36. Dream Scenario

Nicholas Cage is great, but his character pisses me off.

37. The Kill Team

The whole time I was watching this, I got angry at the hoards of Americans who probably agree with (and celebrate) the villain.

38. Out of the Furnace

Lots of likeable star power, a well-established rust-belt vibe, but the story was lacking. I don’t believe people living in such poverty would be circulating in the wide circles these characters do.

39. Woman of the Hour

Dude was scary, and the movie had some intense, icky scenes, but it kind of felt like the intensity and the ickiness were more important than the narrative.

40. The Informant

The protagonist as a character was fantastic, but I found the story itself suffered because of an unreliable narrator.

41. Promising Young Woman

SPOILER ALERT – I had high hopes for this one. It would have been better had she just started killing dudes at the beginning. I thought that’s what I was tuning in for.

42. Untold: Johnny Football

It was nice to get a decent look at the guy as a person. But it wasn’t the tell-all I was hoping for. I still have lots of questions.

43. Dr. Delirium & the Edgewood Experiments

This mostly just made me sad.

44. Sword in the Stone*

There’s really just not a lot here. I remembered liking this as a kid.

45. High Life

Solid performances, but this concept didn’t get there for me. The “reproductive” element of this movie felt gratuitous.

46. Saltburn

Whuuuut?

47. Carry-On

I got duped by Jason Bateman’s presence in the trailer. This is terrible and ridiculous.

48. Mr. Magoo (1997)

I understand the filmmakers were trying to stay true to the original character, but not even Leslie Nielson can turn Mr. Magoo into a live-action success.

See previous years’ lists here: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017.

[fishandships]

re: that last post i thought about the same scenario with Norton and what it means to him to offer his assistance without thinking about it. at first, he’s been in the Survival Mode mindset of “look out for Number One” for so long that he’s sort of deprogrammed himself from offering help that doesn’t benefit him. but when he sees Rosario struggling with something, he understands perhaps better than anyone that not only are they too stubborn and proud to ask for aid, they too have deprogrammed themself to stop asking. he cares about them enough to want to help them, and that alone is huge for him. but as their relationship progresses, there comes a day when Rosario needs some help, however small an amount, and Norton is already there at their side. he doesn’t know exactly when it happens, but it becomes second nature to him to care for Rosario as much as he does himself.

[usafphantom2]

Tap pictures to enlarge

☝️ to Habu.org in fact, the first 6 SR-71As were retained by the US Air Force (USAF) and Lockheed (3 each) as flight test aircraft, where new systems and configurations would be tested before being applied to the rest of the fleet. The next two aircraft produced (#956 and #957) were both SR-71B trainers, and were never flown outside of the US.

So SR-71 #955 was a test bird destined to spend her flying career in the US, primarily in Southern California.

But this Blackbird had a secret life. #955 in fact was used overseas on one occasion.

Equipped with The Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar System [ASARS-1] (is a real-time, high-resolution reconnaissance system carried on the SR-71 with all-weather, day-night, long-range mapping capabilities. ASARS-1 detects and accurately locates stationary and moving ground targets).The system can survey more than 100,000 square miles of the Earth’s surface in one hour. The US Navy needed a way to photograph the Soviet Union’s submarines that were carrying ballistic missiles capable of flying over the North Pole and hitting targets in the US. What they needed was high resolution radar. The #955 was flown to Beale and repainted with the tail number #962… this was to not alarm the tail watchers that would surely notice a new tail number over in Europe. She departed on Jul. 9, 1983 from Beale Air Force Base (AFB) in California. Before arriving at RAF Mildenhall she flew across the Barents Sea. The SR was able to photograph and tag the Soviet submarines. After two more missions in Europe she return to Beale on Jul. 20 where she was repainted with tail number #955 and returned to Palmdale Keeping her secret life to herself.

The mission was such a success that it regenerated the SR-71 program. More and more requests came from Navy and the CIA. The result was that on Apr. 5, 1984 Det 4 was given blanket clearance from the United Kingdom government to permanently assigned two SR-71s to RAF Mildenhall.

The SR’s stayed there until the end of the Cold War, a true statement can be made that the SR-71’s helped win the Cold War.

Is there might be a connection between this flight to Europe and the Rudder painted #955 with the Skunk Works logo for sale for $1 million on eBay! It is now on display at the San Diego flight Museum.

This is the answer I found. There were a stack of old SR-71 rudders in the DRMO (Scrapyard) at Norton AFB to be sold off for scrap when the program closed down. A few made it to private hands. The majority of them were composite rudders that had a limited lifespan compared to the metal rudders used for most of the program. The one in San Diego likely came from this selection of scrap rudders.

Linda Sheffield Miller

[watchingspnagain]

Rewatching Changing Channels

Welcome to “‘Supernatural is filmed before a live studio audience’: A Supernatural Rewatch Blog” with Lor and Mace!

Up today, s5e8: Changing Channels.

Sam comes home to the boys’ bright, sunny apartment to find that Dean has been shirking his research in favor of entertaining a bikini-clad lady. Oh, and there’s a laugh track. What? Rewind. A few days earlier, the boys are investigating the death of a man with anger-management problems who seems to have been killed by the Incredible Hulk. Sam suspects the Trickster, and suggests trying to convince him to help them stop the apocalypse. When they go to an abandoned warehouse thinking they have a lead on where the Trickster will be, they get zapped into a hospital where everyone thinks they are doctors, doctors who seem to be caught up in a great deal of personal drama. The boys are stuck on TV, making their way through a number of shows, including Doctor Sexy, Dean’s “guilty pleasure” medical drama. They catch the Trickster, and he tells them to “play their roles” before disappearing. With the help of Cas, they figure out the Trickster must actually be an angel, trap him in holy fire, and make him explain himself. He’s Gabriel, and he insists Sam and Dean must play their roles in the apocalypse and that the boys mirror the conflict in Heaven, with Dean the faithful son (Michael) and Sam the rebellious one, who chaffed under his father’s rules (Lucifer). Dean rejects all this, but they are both shaken.

Below is a log of our real-time reactions as we watched. Remember that there may be spoilers for any part of SPN’s 15-season run here. Note also that the nature of our conversation is adult and thus it may contain adult language and themes.

 [and we begin:]

Mace:

I LOVE THIS EPISODE

Lor:

ME TOO IT'S SO GOOD

Mace:

YASYASYAS

Mace:

You know what the Latin is for a sword’s sheath, Dean? Because that’s pretty much what you are to Michael, right?

Lor:

LOLOL

Lor:

I love that they drop you in with no idea what's going on

Mace:

YES

Mace:

these silly eps are where we really actually see how amazing these two are as actors, I think

Lor:

YES YES YES I was just thinking that

Mace:

omg the theme song!

Lor:

omg the son of a bitch

Mace:

YES

Lor:

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA YES

Lor:

and the montage behind it

Mace:

how much stupid fun must they have had making this

Lor:

RIGHT?

Mace:

AND THEY’RE IN OHIO

Lor:

YES

Lor:

OMG Dean your face

Mace:

YES

Lor:

YOU WERE NOT CHANNEL SURFING DEAN YOU WERE WATCHING YOUR DOCTOR CRUSH

Mace:

poor Dean. Sammy’s scorn won’t let him admit that

smacks Sammy upside

Lor:

right? don't kick him when he's a confused muffin, Sammy

Mace:

brothers. yeesh.

Lor:

LOL!

Lor:

Banner or Norton? I LOVE HIM

Mace:

BANNER OR NORTON

Mace:

HAHAHAHA

Lor:

LOL

Mace:

Dean, bud, that doesn’t even make sense

Lor:

lololol

Lor:

"you might say you wouldn't like him when he's angry" LOL

Mace:

I was talking to the fly in the kitchen this morning and told him, “Stay right there, bud, until I get the swatter” and then I felt bad calling him “bud” before killing him. I have issues, I think.

Mace:

HAHAHAHA

Lor:

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Lor:

they are both looking particularly lovely this ep

Mace:

they really really are

Lor:

oh Dean. you're gonna ally with so many worser dudes than Gabe, honey

Mace:

right?!

Lor:

mmmm scanners. sounds like childhood

Mace:

…what?

Lor:

my dad. it was one of his hobbies. he listened to them for funsies. to the best of my knowledge, he was not using the info to hunt the supernatural

Mace:

Ah. interesting.

Lor:

OMG Sam's face after she slaps him the second time

Mace:

YES

Lor:

"that's your theory?" well, he's right, Deano

Mace:

HA

Lor:

"I dunno. it is compelling" LOL

Lor:

OMG Dean's reaction to Dr. Sexy versus all the others

Lor:

HON.

Mace:

OMG Dean’s “doctor"

Lor:

YAAAAS

Mace:

YESYESYES

Mace:

he is so crushed out

Lor:

RIGHT?!

Lor:

"yeah, you're not a fan" lol Sammy

Mace:

oooh he slammed him up against the wall...

Lor:

HE REALLY REALLY DID

Lor:

omg I love him

Mace:

YES

Mace:

“my own little idiot box” and who, exactly is the idiot here, Gabe? So. Many. Choices.

Lor:

"you two muttonheads broke the world" LOL

Lor:

HAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA

Lor:

omg his eyebrow waggle

Mace:

YAS

Mace:

the soundtrack omg

Lor:

"it's real, it's real"

Mace:

omg DEAN

Mace:

SAM’S FACE

Lor:

OH SO HE CAN GET SHOT IN THE BACK AND FUCKING SAM CAN SAVE HIM BUT A LITTLE REBAR IS THE END?!

Mace:

HAHAHAHAHA

Mace:

HE SAID STAT

Lor:

LOL

Lor:

omg the game show coming for Sam

right?

Mace:

omg their FACES

Lor:

OMG the FACES

Lor:

LOLOLOLOLOL

Mace:

HAHAHAHA

Lor:

CAS!

Mace:

YES

Mace:

PRETTY BOY ANGELS

Lor:

"mister trickster does not like pretty boy angels"

Mace:

i mean, he’s not wrong

Lor:

YES

Lor:

LOL

Mace:

he is very pretty

Lor:

he really is

Lor:

OMG Dean's face when he hits the button

Mace:

YES

Lor:

SOMEONE CAST HIM IN A COMEDY RIGHT NOW

Mace:

RIGHT?! BOTH OF THEM

Lor:

YES

Mace:

HAHAHAHA THE COMMERCIAL

Lor:

YES

Lor:

omg the side effects

Mace:

YES

Mace:

“slightly lessen the spread” HAHAHAHA

Lor:

YES

Mace:

“how is that funny?!”

Lor:

"how was that funny?" LOLOL talking to the laugh track

Lor:

YES

Mace:

YES

Mace:

oooh Cas with his little cuts

Mace:

HOT

Lor:

YESYESYES

Lor:

oooo now Dean is getting pushed up against a wall

Mace:

YAS

Lor:

OMG I FORGOT ABOUT THE CSI ONE

Mace:

ME TOO

Mace:

omg they look SO GOOD

Lor:

RIGHT?

Lor:

WOULD WATCH

Mace:

“no talent douchebags"

Mace:

HAHAHAHA

Lor:

"calm down?! I am wearing SUNGLASSES at night"

Lor:

LOLOLOLOL

Lor:

OMG THE WALK DED

Mace:

YAS

Mace:

I’m gonna need Sammy to keep that bright blue shirt

Mace:

OMG SAMMY

Lor:

YES

Lor:

I'm gonna need Dean to keep those sunglasses

Mace:

YES

Lor:

Dean, baby, the decor is the same. Pay attention

Mace:

right?

Lor:

THE MUSIC

Mace:

YES

Mace:

I LOVED KIT as a kid

Lor:

YES!

Lor:

the leaves shot

Mace:

YES

Mace:

“should I honk?"

Mace:

AHAHAHA

Mace:

“eat me”

Lor:

"should I honk?" HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Lor:

LOLOL

Lor:

"nobody's going anywhere until Sam has opposable thumbs" I LOVE HIM. he could just say "put Sam back" but no, because it's Dean

Mace:

YEP

Lor:

"we pulled it out of Sam's ass"

Mace:

SNORK

Lor:

SAMMY

Mace:

YES

Lor:

"they call me Gabriel"

Lor:

aw, Gabe. I love the little jerk

Mace:

AGREED

Lor:

"you sorry sons a bitches"

Mace:

HAHAHA

Lor:

"you were born to this boys" "as it is in heaven, so it must be on earth" I LOVE IT IT'S SO DUMB BUT I LOVE IT SO MUCH IT MAKES ME ALL BOUNCY

Mace:

It’s really nice and parallelly

Lor:

yep

Mace:

chosen ones and cycles so good

Lor:

YES

Lor:

oooo nice upside down shot in the water

Lor:

"first of all, you can bring Cas back" pets him

Mace:

YES

Mace:

Gabe has really nice eyes

Lor:

RIGHT?

Mace:

Oh Dean. Kettle much?

Lor:

yeeeeah

Lor:

he was hot when he busted the fire alarm though, so

Mace:

HAHAHA

Lor:

"I wish I was back on a tv show"

Mace:

oooof

Lor:

RIGHT?