sir-wes

[wonderstrevors]

Dick and Jason bonding in Nightwing #107 - side storie

[ameliora-j]

twin flame iii // gw x reader

words: 2.2k

warnings: angst, breakup, mention of bruising, crying, angelina slander kinda (it’s just for the story i love her sm!), yn is sorta a pick me if you squint sry, cringey mediocre writing at very best

an: i used song lyrics for some of the argument and the ending :) i hope you like it besties!

part one | part two | part four

you george! i want you!

the words had been running through his mind since the night you left. he had been going over the days leading up to your explosion in his mind for weeks. your words were in his mind day and night. your pained expression, your anger, your hurt. you consumed him. more than you usually did.

george weasley knew he fucked up. he knew without anyone telling him. but they did anyway. every waking second they did. first it was fred, calling him a jerk. then ron, who called him a “bloody idiot.” then ginny, who told him it was his own fault. and then his mum. of course his mum, who said in exact words: “george fabian weasley, this is nobody’s fault but your own. quit moping around and do something to fix it! i didn’t raise you to treat women this way!”

his last straw, however, was his older brother percy. percy of all people. who looked at him with a disappointed shake of his head. receiving a disappointed head shake from percy was nothing out of the ordinary, especially for george. it was his words that stung. percy spoke ten simple words to him that truly set george off. percy spoke “you lost the best thing that’s ever happened to you.” at his sentence, george lost it.

“i know that percy! you don’t think i fucking know that i lost the best thing that ever happened to me! and fred i know i’m a jerk and ron i know i’m an idiot and ginny i know it’s my fault and mum i’m sorry okay! i know you didn’t raise me like this i don’t know what’s wrong with me but i don’t think she’s coming back!” he fell back onto the couch as he tugged frustratedly at his roots.

“george… do you love her?” molly asked him.

“yes mum,” a whimper escaped the fiery-haired boy’s throat. “i love her more than i’ve ever loved anyone before. she’s my world,” he revealed.

“then go, george. go get her,” his dad said. “for your sake and her’s,” he told him.

“and our’s!” fred called distantly from the kitchen.

“shove off fred!” george called back before apparating to your front door. he knocked three times and waited for someone to answer it. when you opened the door, he was shocked at your state.

makeup streaked down your cheeks with your shoulder bruised and your arm in a splint. your eyes were red and puffy, but they were furthermore accompanied by dark bags as if you hadn’t slept in weeks. the truth is; you hadn’t. “hi george,” you mumbled half heartedly.

“hi butterfl-“ you cut him off.

“yn. my name is yn,” you spoke sternly.

“i’ve called you butterfly since you were three…” he murmured.

“not anymore. hurts too bad to hear it. did you need something?” you quickly changed the subject.

“i want to talk to you,” he said. you nodded and walked in, telling him to follow you. george said hello to your brother and then followed you into the lounge where you two sat on the loveseat and you turned to face him.

you sat in a long silence as your eyes traced each other’s features. you memorized him. every line, every freckle, every bump, bruise, and blemish. the silence was deafening. untill he finally broke it. “what happened to your arm?” he murmured softly.

“it splinched when i apparated home. then i apparated again and made it worse,” you bit your lip softly.

“always so reckless,” he tutted softly, causing you to shrug.

“what’d you wanna talk about? know you didn’t come to talk about my arm…” you attempted to get to the point of his visit.

“right,” he murmured softly. “yn i…” he took a deep breath. “the day that i let you walk out of my life is the day that i made the worst mistake in the history of mistakes. i’ve done some stupid things in my life, but letting you walk away has by far been the stupidest. i’m so so sorry that i hurt you the way i did, i cannot express to you how sorry i am, i truly cannot. i love you, yn. with all of me i do, you have to believe me when i say that.���

“i do believe you george. i just don’t believe that you love me the way that i love you. and carrying around that pain is killing me. i mean absolutely destroying me. you live in my mind rent free. you’ve infested it,” you told him. “you with your stupid pretty smile and your god awful jokes and your ridiculous pranks that you somehow always rope me into and your perfect hair and your pretty eyes and just. you. george. stupid you. oblivious you. godric george,” you roughly shoved his chest. “i’ve loved you for years and you’ve always looked past me!” tears rimmed your bottom lash line and your voice cracked as you lashed out on him.

“for years george, i mean years! i’ve watched you fall in love with countless girls just to have your heart broken by them. i stuck by you through everything. even when you stopped being being my friend because it made angelina uncomfortable i waited for you george! and you just pushed me to the side. i did everything for you. i executed pranks for you. i planned pranks for you. i took the fall for you. i got detention for you! i did it all for you. i mean the countless amount of things i did just to be able to call you mine and i just… you didn’t care! you’ve never cared! you’ll never love me the way that i love you and that hurts. so. fucking. bad.” you wiped your eyes.

“it kills me george. it eats at me, every single day it does. i stood by your side and i took the blame with you even when i had nothing to do with the stupid shit you pulled at hogwarts because yeah i was going down, but hey, at least i was doing it with you, right? we made so much trouble and-and we used to laugh. and be happy. we were genuinely happy and i don’t know where we went wrong but we did, but i still say that i hate you with a smile on my face! i don’t get it george why don’t you love me!” a whimper tore itself from the depths of your chest as you let out a silent sob.

“now look what we’ve became…” he murmured, tears falling from your eyes.

“all the things i did just to call you mine… and… and all the things you said but… somehow, i still hope i was your favorite crime. cause merlin knows you were mine.” you sniffled as you wiped your eyes.

“you were mine. you’ll always be my favorite crime.” he leaned over and kissed your head as another silent sob racked your body. “now it’s bittersweet to think about the damage that we did,” he smiled over at you sadly. “i love you butterfly. just as much as you love me, if not more,” he whispered as he stood from his place.

you rolled your eyes water-logged eyes, but still managed to smile. “i wish you thought about that before,” you whispered.

“i do too… i guess i’ll have to just call you the one that got away then?” he asked.

“in another life georgie… i’d be your girl. and we’d keep every promise that we made,” you told him.

“and i wouldn’t have to say you were the one that got away,” you nodded as he kissed your head again. “i love you, butterfly. i always have.”

“i love you too, georgie. i always will,” you sniffled as you watched him walk out the door. you didn’t want this. you wanted to stop him. everything in your body screamed at you to stop him. but your brain wouldn’t work. your heart said no. you were scared of being hurt again.

you wanted to do something. yell at him. tell him to come back. to hug you. to never leave you. to never let you go. but your heart wouldn’t let you. you were frozen in time.

~~

it’ll all get better in time.

you’d heard the saying time and time again. especially after your parents passed away. it was people’s favorite line to use when they saw you. the truth is… you didn’t stop hurting. the pain didn’t go away. you just got used to it. but the pain you were feeling now… you didn’t know if it would ever go away. at least it didn’t feel like it.

two months. it had been two months since george walked out of your house that night. it was nobody’s fault but your own, and somehow you couldn’t help wishing he would’ve stayed.

you saw him everywhere. in the stars in the night sky. in the sunrise and the sunset. in coffee shops and store windows. even in your dreams when you slept. so logically, you decided to stop. if you didn’t sleep you couldn’t dream. and if you didn’t dream, you couldn’t see him.

you dutifully ignored the pain in your chest like an annoying bug on a picnic. you pretended that you were fine, but the reality was; you weren’t. but you played it off. and you were able to keep up your facade. untill one day… that one fateful day tucked in the corner at ninety three diagon alley. your brother asked you to pick up ten second pimple vanisher because he had a date tonight and just received a pimple the size of jupiter on his nose, causing him to look like “the muggle myth rudolph the red-nosed reindeer” as he put it.

you walked into the shop and kept your head down as you searched the aisles. it wasn’t where it usually was. you knew this shop like the back of your hand, of course you had… you’d worked there for nearly three years. you furrowed your brows as you looked around. the shop had completely transformed. nothing was in the place it usually was. that’s when your eyes landed there. on her. right at the front, behind the till at the register you worked, in the uniform you wore was angelina johnson.

you sighed deeply as you extended your neck around the corner to where the office was. you smiled triumphantly as you saw fred sitting at his desk and began your trek. you gently knocked twice on the opened door and fred called, “come in,” distractedly.

you walked in and sat on the desk, right in front of him, forcing him to look up at you. “yn!” fred exclaimed.

“hi freddie!” you smiled as a giggle escaped your lips and you returned the death-grip hug he had enveloped you in.

“what brings you by? not that i don’t love seeing your pretty face, of course,” he shot you a playfully flirtatious wink.

“ybn needs ten second pimple vanisher because he has a date tonight and he woke up with a pimple the size of jupiter on his nose,” fred laughed loudly at your remark. “i tried to look for it, but the stores completely turned around,” you pouted slightly.

“oh yeah, we changed some things up because we needed room for our new products. they’re still in the making, but george disappeared,” he hummed.

“george what?” you asked.

“you didn’t know…?” he asked you.

“no. i… i had no idea,” you stuttered.

“yeah. after the night he went to talk to you, he left a note on our kitchen counter and all his things were packed and he just… left. we haven’t seen or heard from him since. ‘s just been angie and i running the shop now. couldn’t do it alone,” fred explained as he picked up the box. “here you are l-“ before he could finish, you were halfway out the door. “YN WAIT!” he called. “YOU FORGOT YOUR PRODUCT!”

“SORRY FRED! YBN WILL BE OKAY I HAVE TO GO!” you called as you ran out the door as fast as your feet would carry you. if you knew george weasley… and you did… there was only one place he could be. and you prayed to any and every god that would listen that he was there. you prayed like your life depended on it that he was okay. you needed to fix this. to fix him. to make it alright.

in this moment you knew that he needed you. he needed you like peanut butter needs jelly. the way left needs right. like the sun needs the moon. he needed you like you needed him. you ran and ran and ran for miles untill you got to a secluded area. then you took a breath. and you apparated.

it was exactly the way you left it. a dingy old wooden box house sitting at the highest branch of a sycamore tree. you groaned softly as you began to climb the many branches. “george i swear to godric you better be in here,” you grumbled to yourself as you climbed.

it felt like hours—truly it was ten grueling minutes at most—untill you got to the door of the house. you whispered the password and it creaked open. “georgie,” you breathed when you saw him.

there he was. laying on the floor of the treehouse wrapped in blankets and a sleeping bag with a small pillow under his head. the apple to your pie. the straw to your berry. the smoke to your high. the one you knew you’d marry.

the one that got away. your twin flame.

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[loverdrew]

Just A Little Longer | s.r

(not my gif)

Synopsis: A day out on the field doesn’t go as planned, and Y/N is thrown into am ambulance to Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital before anyone can help. 

A Grey’s Anatomy x Criminal Minds crossover.

Warnings: none (?)

There was a ringing in the air louder than the one you hear everyday. I felt my breathing hinder. My eyes can only open so wide, enough to see the light, but once by my side, could see only a dark substance quickly oozing out of my body. As I came to, I could tell it was getting harder and harder to breathe, a sharp pain with every inhale and exhale. Upon instinct, I checked my fingers for mobility, feeling that they could move slightly. At least this means I am not paralyzed in my upper body. There was no other noise for a few more minutes, just a slight rustling of trees and the dirt road beneath me. I don’t even remember the initial shot being taken, whether it was from me or him. All I remember is instantly falling to the floor once I arrived on the scene. I just laid in my own blood, the realization that no one may be coming for me.

“Y/N! Y/N! Wake up!” I could faintly hear from what felt like a mile away. My brain perked at the voice, definitively Morgan, but my body would not react. I tried with every might to move my limbs once again but alas, nothing. It was if my brain was screaming and sending pulses to my muscles but it just refused to move. I started to feel hands all over me, lifting me and placing me on what I could imagine was a gurney, as it moved. My sense of hearing coming in full force, beginning to hear people talking and shuffling. Hotch and Morgan were asking where I was being transported to and Emily and JJ consoling someone else who I could hear was practically sobbing. 

“They’re going to take care of her, c’mon let’s just go follow them now!” Emily yelled to everyone. But that distressed someone fought back.

“No! She’s not even moving! They’re intubating her! Emily she’s dying!” 

Spencer....? 

“Reid, you want to help her? Get out of here and go to the hospital.” Hotch firmly said, I could even tell he probably put his hands on Reid, as the sound of prominent footsteps were halted. And the next thing I heard was doors closing, and the sirens blaring.

Once we had arrived at the hospital, I heard a woman’s voice that sounded very strong, like she was in charge.

“What do we got?” She asked.

“GW to the left ribcage, she’s lost a lot of blood, almost 2 pints. We’ve been intubating her since we got to the scene but Bailey, it doesn’t look too good. Possible head contusion when she hit the floor as well.” The EMT stated.

“Alright I’ll page Shepard and Hunt immediately. Out of the way everybody! FBI agent coming through!” And my gurney started moving even faster, winding down a short hallway into a room where I could hear many doctors coming to look at my wounds. I felt absolutely helpless, not being able to communicate what hurts for me. What if they miss something? What if they can’t help me in time? The EMT said I lost a lot of blood, what if it’s too much to come back from?

“Hang 2 units of O neg now!” A man with a deep voice yelled out. I could feel big, callus hands turning me on my back, and the next thing I knew a needle was being shoved in my arm and a warm sensation filling my arm. 

“Owen she needs to go up to CT now or she’s not going to make it.” A woman with a softer voice spoke next to the man.

“Amelia she needs this wound patched first or she’ll bleed out and then she won’t even have a chance in CT.” He raised his voice at her, kind of like how Hotch can be sometimes.

“Let me see, I can patch quickly if everyone gives me space. Looks like the bullet left through the back as well.” This time it was another man with a softer voice than the first, and instantly felt his delicate hands holding onto my ribs, feeling a metal substance touching my skin. By my analysis, he’s most likely a plastics surgeon. Only a man in plastics has such delicate touch.

“Well hurry Jackson she’s got about 10 minutes before that brain contusion completely debilitates her and she’ll be in a coma.”

“Yea I got it.” He said nonchalant.

The sounds of beeping and shuffling were quickly interrupted by deep screams, of which belonged to the lanky pretty boy. My heart rate instantly got faster the second his voice entered the room.

“Sir, sir who are you?” The plastics guy asked urgently.

“I-I’m her, her uh- I’m just a friend, please let me be next to her.” He pleaded, rasp in his voice. I can tell he had been crying the whole ride over.

“Okay, sir you’re gonna have to wait with everybody else, she’s in a lot of distress and she’s lost a lot of blood. We’re doing everything we can for her.” Almost on cue, my heart monitor started spazzing. The loud beeping indicating I’m going into cardiac failure. 

“She’s in V-fib, get the defibrillator now!” The man with the lower voice yelled. I felt the clothing on my body being ripped open, a few buttons popping and flying off. The patches were on and in a few seconds, I felt the shock and I could feel it vibrate every vessel inside me. They cleared a second a time, my heart rate returning to normal.

“Okay Jackson you’re gonna have to finish her later she needs a head scan now.” The women voiced, and immediately I could feel the gurney being whisked and into an elevator, going up to the CT room.

Being in the big machine and hearing the slight “ZZZ” sound felt like the first time of peace since my brain fully woke up. For a few hours now I was being poked and prodded, not even getting a chance to hear my own thoughts. This was the only time I got to really savor whatever life I had left, to really hear and feel the people I love around me, and to prepare for what could happen. It felt inevitable to try and escape death, it was a part of my job. And the one regret I’d have is not being the real me with the person I loved most in this world. That tall, pretty, incredible genius was the love of my life for the past 3 years I’ve been with the BAU, and he was everything and more I could’ve ever dreamed of and better. I could physically feel my heart aching at the way his voice cracked yelling for me. I wished nothing more than to look him straight in the eye and hold his hands, telling him I’ll be okay. The way he stuttered when he said friend, so unsure. We had kissed just a few days ago, after a long day of work he came by my hotel room and finally expressed his feelings after so long. The fireworks we shared were something out of a book. The way his hands fit around my face, holding me so close and so softly as if I were glass and he was afraid to break it. We hadn’t talked about it since, but we figured we had more time. But now I realize time is never guaranteed. 

Within 30 minutes I was in a regular room, the plastics man working on sowing back up my wounds. “You, Ms.Y/N are one of the luckiest gunshot victims I’ve seen; no severe tears. Which means this just needs a quick stitch and you’ll be all set.” He said softly to me, I could feel a smile on his face as he spoke.

I heard another person walk into the room, footsteps almost so quiet. 

“H-How, how is she Dr.?” He was shaking.

“The CT showed some swelling but no internal bleeding. We’re going to keep her here overnight but I’m sorry, I don’t know if and when she’ll wake up. That’s all up to her.” The women sadly spoke, unsure of even her own diagnosis.

I heard Spencer start to cry again, a loud puff coming from deep in his chest.

“Dr. Reid, could you please sit with me.” The two of them stepped to sit in the 2 seats next to my bed.

“I know what it feels like to be in a field of study where, you know everything there is to know. And I also know what it feels like to be completely out of control in that field, when you know what to do, but you can’t even do it.” She sighed. “I am one of the best neurosurgeons in the country, I know almost everything...but yet I had a brother who died of a brain injury. I could’ve been there to help him but I couldn’t do a damn thing. I know what this feels like.” Reid started crying harder, his cries muffled by his own hands. He was trying so hard not to let the sounds leak from the room, but it did and it made my bones stand still.

“I had a mentor who was in a coma, and even though I’m in plastics”- (told y’all) -”there was still nothing I could do for him. We just had to wait. He was one of my greatest friends, one of the best people you’d ever meet, so loved. The love of his life died in front of his eyes and I think most of us knew he’d be going next, to be with her. Life was too painful without her. Do you love this girl right here?” Spencers respond came almost immediately.

“More than anybody or anything.”

“Then wait, just a little longer. If she loves you like you love her she’s going to fight to wake up and be alive.” Both of the doctors walked out, leaving me and my lover boy.

His veiny hands grabbed onto mine, rubbing softly at my knuckles.

“I’m gonna do what he said, just wait a little longer. But please Y/N, if you can hear me, come back to me.” He cried into my hand, the tears coating it.

As if the Gods granted it themselves, I moved my eyelids open. Very slowly, and it hurt to do so, but they opened. Spencer sensed movement, and his head instantly came up holding on tighter to my hand. A weak smile placed on my face as my tired eyes loving locked with his.

“Waiting for me?” 

[cyberghost-scout]

Like Ashes

(Pardon me, if characters are out of character. Sometimes it just happens)

A lone robot stood silently while the world around was chaos, ignoring her existence, that’s about to be laid to rest. The only thing left of the bomb’s act was faded brunt smoke from the stadium. Slight damage had been done, no one was harmed, overheated, and covered in the soot, and luckily they’re out.

She was covered in the grey ash, though it was hard to tell even for herself if not for the soda ash caked her lone purple accents on her body. Her red optics weren’t dim like before, thanks to the stoic mask still on her face were torn from the rescue her left cheek, both colored in a softer off-white and dark grey patch, along with the corner of her mouth exposed out to the harsh reality than the mask.

She watched the backs of the Brave force from afar. Watching the ending scene before her optics.

The Braves watch her creator--now ex. Creator- Ms. Aconite, along with few employees who choose to conspire with her to sabotage by using the bomb, getting shoved into the patrol vans. Watching the anger, crying, and defeat. But the last person going in, Aconite, had the expression of her whole career and life crushed by her own hands. The resolve flicked out as she entered the car, making the AI look away, intact part of her mask facing the direction. Of course, she and the others eventually got what they have deserved. They choose success over morals—profit and ego over doing what is right.

Now the world had fewer people like that in power. Now she’s free from the abuse; she is just free. She lightly touched her soft, exposed face. It was still foreign to her touch as her fingers slowly traced over the rough, sharp bits of her destroyed mask.

However, she let herself frown, her optics dimmed down as the feelings just started to slow into her heart. Turning into a flood as her mind went back inside the stadium.

Remembering the reason as to why her ex creator was caught in the first place. As the first explosion happened while she was trying to get the robot to transform and escape. The femme asking about the other workings--but all that gone over as “I don’t care.” Leading to the truth of what’s happening, the first time, she argued back to her as the place started to burn. The AI’s anger was boiling as it was too much from this heartless person--

When she first saw Aconite’s cold glare transformed into an emotion, she would have never expected her to have, wide with shock and whelping with fear and realization tears. Her legs were trembling as her one cheek and ear bleed from the next to the AI’s own servo, the stabbed and destroyed the wall, only a few centimeters from killing her.

The femme slowly took off the mask, turning it around, blankly staring at the damage.

GW pondered, wasn’t sure as to what her own expression during the confrontation while running her thumb on the destroyed rubbish. She wondered it matched what she felt, the rage buried and bubbling that went out to the surface, that not even this mask could hide.

She started to feel disgusted with herself. She was close to killing someone, a human. Lashing out in anger like Aconite...Of course, she changed her mind at the last minute. But she felt the horror, that she’s not going to be free of the influence. The horror change to fear, prickling her core.

The other humans... the other AIs... they must have seen it too. No way they couldn’t.

No matter how many lives she had saved. No matter that, she caught the culprit. They saw her almost killed a human in cold blood-- a fact that would...

Her servo that held the mask started to tremble.

----

The Brave Police watched the van vanishing from their view, heading towards headquarters. Still covered in the shoot but mostly wiped off. Though they felt a wash of relief of getting this criminal in jail. It did not wash out the tired, disappointment. This was supposed to be a fun time for them all, community service. Instead, they had to deal with an abusive egomaniac.

“Well, that went like a lead balloon for Mary Sue.” Gunmax let out a whistle, arms crossed, and leaned back. His comment made a few of the build team nod in agreement, especially those who were the most vocal about not letting her in the games first.

“They better not let last-minute contests if we have the next time,” Dumpson muttered, displeased that he was right.

“Despite what had transpired. I’m relieved that everyone was evacuated and save.” Deckard spoke up, getting everyone’s attention. “And it is not too bad we meet a surprise hero.” He asked, Making the young boss nod in agreement. “Yeah! Without GW, we wouldn’t find the culprit and get everything under control!” Just as Yuuta turned around to bring the AI over to the group, thanking her for the significant help. His eyes widen, surprised.

“What?! Where’s is she?” He asked, surprised to see no sign of the grey bot. This caught the other AI’s off guard looking behind, and yes. GW was gone indeed, while the young boy rushed over to look for where she was standing, only to find one piece. The destroyed mask, but it was concaved severely like it was stepped with a lot of strength.

[mollydollyjournals]

So. It is March 23rd 2021. My birthday is soon. I weigh more than 157lbs.

I haven't been as active on here because I hate looking at thinspo when I can't do anything to get there. Since I had my jab a couple of weeks ago I've been really exhausted. Because of that I've felt worse mentally and have been drinking more, which has made me more exhausted, and I've eaten more shit foods, so of course I've gained weight. I should be thankful it's not more. It feels like more. Though that weight will also be partly due to toilet issues again. I can't go a day without lax apparently.

I feel a lot right now but also not much at all and I think I can't only describe it as heartbreak. This feels like I might have said it before. I made this account in late October last year - around that time/November, I went from around 163 to 156lbs. I wanted to get to my gw by my birthday, or at least significantly lower. So that I wouldn't feel so terrible.

Last year I was sad I couldn't do anything for my birthday due to the pandemic, as a lot of us were. This year will be my second lockdown birthday. It's also my 30th. I'm someone who already feels like they lost so much of their life to various issues. I feel so behind. If you told me I was actually turning 20 next week I'd still feel like it was too soon. So 30? I'm not ready. I wasn't finished. I at least had a year and a bit left of my 20s and now it's just gone. I guess it's typical millennial talk to say I just feel like too much of a child to be getting to an age where I'm no longer considered a young person by any metric.

I don't really look old. I get IDed all the time. People tend to mistake me for a teenager (though I'm guessing an actual teenager would probably know I'm at least older than them). I guess at least I'm not aging on the outside faster than I can keep up. But that tends to be the issue most people have with getting older, like as long as they look young and don't have too much joint pain then it's okay. That's not it for me. My physical health has been bad for so long and is connected so much to my mental health that I don't really know how much of that is due to age, but as far as appearance goes it's not that I don't recognise my reflection or anything. I occasionally get one wrinkle under my eye but that's just if a smile and thinking about it it's probably the one that's been there all my life because that's how eyes work.

But I know that's all coming. And regardless, I just feel really discouraged. You're supposed to learn how to do things as you grow up. I feel like I haven't grown up. I was just forced into it too young and I played pretend with it but I'm totally lost. I can't handle responsibility. I sometimes handle it in the moment but then I always break down afterwards. The only thing that can help is constant praise as if it's some amazing feat. But you don't get that when you're 30, you get it when you're 12 and "so mature" but then it just stops somewhere.

I feel like if I haven't got anywhere by now, why should I have any hope I'll get anywhere in future? Often people talk about turning 30 as being a time when they've learned more about themselves or got more comfortable, even without going into tangible "achievements" with work and family and money and whatever. But I haven't. I got married, and I even fucked that up.

All of these things have been on my mind about my birthday. I wanted to at least lose some weight. At least some. Just get back to where I was a few years ago. With a few months of working on it, I could at least do that. I had plenty of time until my birthday. But now it's here. My weight plateaued, I got frustrated and drank too much that one day in November and made myself seriously ill for a long time, I just about recovered and had a fucking fecal impaction that made me really ill I'm still feeling the effects of, I got a little more energy then had loads of side effects from the covid jab, and even at the times when this stuff wasn't getting in the way I was either doing badly and eating too much/not exercising, or I was doing stuff but my weight wasn't changing.

And now it's fucking here already. Logically I know it's just another day, 30 isn't exactly any different to 29, freaking out doesn't help, my metabolism isn't the same as when I was 14, etc etc blah whatever. But I have always had this horrible feeling of time just going past me. I've had it since I was a teenager and all my friends from school we're continuing with their education and I was just aimlessly floating and trying to survive. Like I was being left behind, and yet somehow still getting older. I also need a lot more sleep than most people and have always had the experience of waking up late or going to bed early, one way or another missing out. All the time I've lost because I can't survive on 8hrs sleep. Most people lose a third of their lives to sleep; I lose half. I miss out on so much, but time doesn't exactly slow down for me to catch up.

That feeling is at its worst now, hitting another milestone birthday, one that means I can no longer even call myself a young adult, and one that comes after a year of sitting around doing fuck all. This past year has pushed all those buttons. I know that it's for a reason and it saves lives etc. If I didn't think that I wouldn't be doing it, I'd just go do whatever I want instead of isolating. But it's still really hard for me. The only things I could do with this time are self improvement. My weight is my biggest insecurity. It's been nearly 5 months since I lost any weight. And not because it stopped bothering me. I'd take either weight loss or not caring - one way or another I just want to feel okay in my body.

Instead I'll just feel old and expired with my weight being another aspect of that. I'm really heartbroken. I guess it really is grief - the thing I've lost that I can't get back is time. I know everyone goes through it at least a little, but I'm really feeling it a lot.

I'm also terrified that lockdown is easing and I'll be able to go see bf. We've both been vaccinated too. I do want to see him. It's been another major difficult thing about this past year. But I'm terrified because I hate my body so much and I don't want anyone to see me. I need at least another month. My hair looks stupid and I need it to grow out at least a little. I need more time on my new skincare routine, which is the only thing that's actually any good right now. And I definitely need to lose at least SOME weight because right now if anyone touched me or looked at my bare stomach I think I'd just cry there and then. I can't drink through my insecurity anymore.

I am not having a nice time right now. I'm really not. I haven't even touched on the other stresses happening both to me and those around me and in my city or country or even globally. Everything is so much. I feel like I'm just in the wrong timeline. Everything is bad. I can't deal

[ladyhistorypod]

Episode 6: Ask Santa to Bring a Vote for Mother

Sources:

Mabel Ping-Hua Lee

National Parks Service

National Women’s History Museum

Further Reading: Women’s Vote 100, 18 Million Rising

Delilah Beasley

California State University Northridge (CSUN)

New York Times

Huntington Library

Ohio History

KQED

Ida B. Wells

History Channel

National Women’s History Museum

National Parks Service

Black Past

New York Times

Chicago History Encyclopedia

Washington Post (Alana definitely did NOT cry while reading it)

Further Reading on race and suffrage: NPR

Attributions:

Dooley’s Address

“Your mother’s gone away to join the army”

Cheering Crowd

Click below for a full transcript of the episode!

Lexi: I started my internship at the Air and Space museum,

Haley: Woohoo!

Lexi: and the first day I am there, we have a live chat with a WASP expert who talks about Jackie Cochran and how Jackie Cochran might have been a racist. And I was like, there’s new layers to this story. And I know it sounds weird but I'm thrilled that this person might have been a racist but I'm just always interested to learn new things about people that I have known things about.

Haley: No I love when these stories come out and people are adding like the actual history part of it.

Lexi: the context, the history, the actual person’s views because we often just like glorify a figure.

Haley: And that’s a lot with the suffragists. This topic has it.

Lexi: But it's just so interesting because we often glorify these people. We can't accept that she did really awesome things by getting women into the Air Force but also did really shitty things by making sure Black women didn't get into the Air Force. So.

Haley: Yes. Exactly.

Lexi: But she did let in Asian women. There were apparently two Chinese American WASPs. I also learned that.

Haley: On a side note, can we– if we get reviews can we like read the reviews?

Alana: You wanna do a segment where we read reviews? 

Haley: Like every week being like– because we can do that as like our banter if we can't– and be like “our weekly review is…”

Lexi: Listener shout out. Here’s a review.

Haley: This person.

Lexi: Yeah.

Haley: Yeah

[INTRO MUSIC]

Alana: Hello and welcome to Lady History, the good the bad and the ugly ladies you missed in history class. Coming to you virtually from my closet turned podcasting studio is Lexi. Lexi, if you were a single issue voter, what issue would that be?

Lexi: Probably bird– bird care, bird health, bird ability to exist, bird ownership.

Alana: Are you a birds’ rights activist?

Lexi: I am a bird rights activist.

Alana: And her face is partially hidden by my clothes but Haley, aka a Sprinklebear McPuss-n-Boots, is here too. Sprinklebear McPuss-n-Boots, it’s been two weeks since we last recorded and we already did one episode tonight, did ya think I’d forget?

Haley: I really was hoping you would forget. I did. I kind of– I keep forgetting it’s Sprinkle McPuss-n-Boots. I keep thinking it’s Sparkle or something. But like once in a while that’ll creep into my mind.

Alana (laughing): Lexi is losing her shit.

Lexi: Please contact us and direct your message to Haley using this title, please.

Alana: To Sprinklebear McPuss-n-Boots. And I’m Alana and please, god, register to vote.

Haley: My registering to vote has not happened yet because of the god damn DMV. And it makes me so mad.

Alana: I'm still registered in California. I haven’t switched.

Haley: I’m registered in New York.

Alana: But I might be moving in January, so… 

Haley: Back to California? 

Alana: No, in with Lexi. Hopefully. We haven’t talked about that.

Lexi: We’ll see.

Alana: We’ll see.

Lexi (stammering): GW?

Alana: That’s the dream.

Lexi: But, um… 

Alana: GW has to let me into school first.

Lexi: Yeah.

Alana: Okay, who's going first that's not me?

Lexi: Mabel Ping-Hua Lee was born in Guangzhou, China on October 7, 1897 so shout outs to her upcoming one hundred and twenty third birthday. Can we get some happy birthdays for my girl?

Alana: Happy birthday in the chat.

Haley: Happy birthday.

Lexi: Happy birthdaaay. I don't know how to say Happy Birthday in Chinese because, as is a common theme on this show, none of us speak Chinese, as you may know, as you may have knowledge of. But anyway. When Mabel was four, her father, a pastor, moved to the United States to work as a missionary and Mabel stayed with her mother in China. At the age of nine, Mabel earned a special scholarship which was called the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship. I'm unsure why it is called that. That scholarship she received, and it allowed her to obtain a visa and move to the United States, to go to school in the United States. And in 1905 her entire family relocated to New York City's Chinatown so that Mabel could pursue her education in America. There is no direct record of how Mabel got involved in the suffrage movement, but it is clear that through being a young, educated woman living in New York City, she was able to participate in activities being led by local suffragists. And then, Mabel was beginning to become a leader in the movement in her own right. In 1912, Mabel helped manage a parade for suffrage and she rode horseback; she helped direct the marchers from the parade starting point at Greenwich Village. Historical accounts suggest at least ten thousand spectators witnessed the parade which she led. Her participation in the suffrage movement led to another accomplishment: she was featured in the New York Tribune and The New York Times as a teen activist and icon of New York’s suffrage movement. That same year, Mabel started school at Barnard College, a women's school founded because Colombia was a men's only university at the time. She decided to major in history and philosophy. In college, Mabel joined the Chinese American student association and wrote for the Chinese students’ monthly paper. Her essays, such as “The Meaning of Woman Suffrage,” supported her fight for women's rights. In 1915, Mabel gave a speech for the Women's Political Union and was again featured in The New York Times her speech was called “The Submerged Half” and focused on the gender divide in the Chinese American community. She urged Chinese Americans to educate their daughters and allow women to participate in civic life. In 1917, women in New York earned the right to vote in their state. In 1920, some women were given the federal right to vote with the passing of the 19th amendment, but many women, including Mabel, still could not vote. Mabel, like many other Chinese Americans, longed for citizenship and voting rights, but they could not obtain either. They were restricted from gaining citizenship through the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. Mabel would have to keep fighting in order to obtain her right to vote. After finishing her undergraduate degree, Mabel earned her MA from Columbia's Teachers’ College and she later earned her PhD in economics, also from Columbia. She was the first Chinese woman to earn a PhD in economics. She also published her thesis “The Economic History of China.” Shortly after Mabel finished her doctorate, her father passed away. Mabel decided to take over his role as a church leader, becoming the director of the first Chinese Baptist Church of New York City. She also founded New York City's Chinese Christian Community Center, which offered courses in English and vocational skills to newly immigrated Chinese Americans. The center also provided health care and child care to the Chinese community. The Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed December 17, 1943, sixty one years after it was first enacted. The repeal of this act meant Chinese Americans could become citizens, and in doing so, earn the right to vote. Mabel passed away in 1966. No record of Mabel becoming a US citizen or exercising her right to vote exists. Scholars remain unsure if the girl who fought to retain the right to vote for so many other women ever even voted herself.

Haley: Wow. I love her. I know her from…

Alana: That’s really interesting.

Haley: I know her… Where do I know her from? Oh! A history book in high school. She was like briefly mentioned. And I get into this kind of like my background and women's suffragists that she's mentioned, then never again. And that that happened so many times in high school to so many different women. They just plop their name in, but not give like a history? Like I only knew Susan B. Anthony, and I thought Susan B. Anthony in my head did everything of the suffragist, or suffrage movement, as it was explained.

Lexi: I actually think it's really amazing your high school book mentioned her because currently, as of 2020, no K-12 education standard in the United States mentions an Asian American woman by name. So...

Haley: So let me… maybe it wasn't a book– let me rephrase this. My junior year American history high school class I remember her name coming up.

Lexi: That’s just pretty impressive that your teacher included something that was off of the course standards because–

Haley: She was a rad lady. 

HALEY’S STORY STARTS

Alana: Alright Haley, go for it.

Haley: So my gal today is Delilah Beasley. So born in Cincinnati, Ohio on September 9, 1876. She was mainly the kind of known as an Oakland gal. Shout out to the American Bookbinders Museum in San Francisco. That was my summer internship. I'm finishing, actually my internship up right now and she's one of the people I had to research for our exhibit that's online now but will be in like our gallery hall. And it's celebrating “Celebrating the 19th Amendment, Suffragists in Print” because it’s a printing museum. She’s from Ohio, but she's known in like the Oakland, Bay Area so she's a local gal, for our museum. And I loved like researching the local gals knowing that I wouldn't be in San Francisco all that long. But also it was really cool if you guys look on the actual exhibit– go, again, plug– the American Bookbinders Museum “Celebrating the 19th Amendment,” we have like maps of San Francisco and where all like the printing presses from like the suffragist movement were at and like I've been to that street! Like I know exactly that building, I've been at the like Jamba Juice or the Starbucks or the Gap that’s right there. So that's very super cool. So back to Delilah. She is known as a writer, columnist, activist, suffragist, and just overall an incredible human being. Before I want to highlight that, being a Black woman, Delilah Beasley is often overlooked when discussing women's right to vote and the suffragist movement. In her early life, she attended a segregated Cincinnati public school and by the age of twelve she had begun to write and publish short social notices in the local Black newspapers and some White newspapers such as the Cleveland Gazette and Cincinnati Enquirer. She continued to write at the young age, published in high school, and spent time learning about journalism by working for the Colored Catholic Tribune. In the 1880s– so again she was a teenager– her parents died and her siblings were separated. She had to leave her life of journalism and to be employed as a maid. As a maid, she also held so many different jobs and I couldn't figure out if she specifically was a maid and then left the job, or just had three jobs at one time. I wouldn't be surprised if she had three, four– as many jobs as she needed to sustain herself and her sibling. But some of those jobs included her being a hairdresser, hydrotherapy, medical gymnastics, massage therapy, nursing– and she never let go of that ideal dream of being in journalism. In her spare time, she would be researching Black history and becoming part of the thriving women's movement, especially within Black women and social groups. Some years later, she enrolled in history courses and began training herself in historical researching by visiting various libraries, diving into those archives that us as museum gals know and love, and conducting oral interviews with older Black residents and I believe there was one, but it could have been many– this article that I read noted one in particular about their personal experiences as a Black person growing up and living in the United States. And again this is late 1800s, early 1900s. She spent several years examining California newspapers between the 1840s and 1910s, both Black and White, at UC Berkeley's Bancroft Library. I believe that's still the university library today. She soon began lecturing on Black history and eventually published articles in the Oakland Tribune and the Oakland Sunshine. After nine years of intense research on Black history, Beasley published “The Negro Trail Blazers of California” which was all about Black pioneers who had largely been left out of history books, and the stories dated back to the early Spanish exploration of the United States. And honestly I did not hear about this book in history class. So, yes this is fantastic that this was published and was circulated, but our school system needs to do better and actually incorporate this rather than gloss over it. I’m gonna just say it; I'm gonna put it out there. In 1923, she started her own column “Activities Among Negroes” in the Oakland Tribune. She wanted to use her voice to highlight the achievements of Black Americans, support Black dignity and rights, raise awareness, and overall encourage forward movements towards building space for equality to blossom. And let's just put on another note: we still need to do a lot of work. Black lives matter. She would also travel to different newspapers and– major ones and small ones, the gambit– in the peak of newspapers and the suffragist movement to try to convince the editors to stop using racial language. And honestly I can just imagine her walking in with her own column and her own work being like “I did it, look at this. We don't use bad words. We aren’t offensive. If I can do it, you can do it. Let's all try.” Like she was very encouraging of… this is not saying this is wrong which, it is wrong, let's be clear about that, but more showing the right way to do it; putting it into a more positive perspective which, honestly, it's negative. Don't use that harmful language in your writing. Bottom line. Over the next two decades, Beasley would also serve as an active member of the NAACP, the Alameda County League of Women Voters, the National Association of Colored Women, and just so many different active groups for suffragists, women's education, Black women movement, Black lives, just in general. She's also the president of the Far Western Inter-Radical Committee at the Oakland Museum, which side note, this is a very inclusive museum. Like snaps to them; they are just amazing at getting their community as Oakland involved, just the community as the Bay Area involved, trying to be as diverse as possible. It's definitely on the bucket list of Bay Area museums and I was supposed to go the week after it closed for Covid, which is really depressing because I had two free tickets from one of my classes. We just got them from like a speaker. She came in with vouchers and was like “here are vouchers that I have” and I was like “I want that.” Anyway, I digress. Delilah Beasley continued writing her column “Activities Among Negroes” until her death in 1934. She's buried in Oakland, and I even did like the find my grave so that's available out there. Be respectful if you look it up and go. And I just want to leave you all with something she wrote which I think resonates with what we've been talking about as suffragist movement, recent months with Black Lives Matter, just like Delilah Beasley in general, truly just please go Google her; such an inspiring human. ““My life plus others make a peer to move the world. I, therefore, pledge my life to the living world of brotherhood and mutual understanding between the races.” Like, so simple. That's what I really kind of admired of her, and everything I had to write about her for the exhibit and just own research for this podcast going back. She was never a person– and this is seen in the suffragist movement– of you're wrong, I'm right.

Lexi: When I worked at the Smithsonian Libraries and was working on an American women's history project, she was on our short list of women who were being considered to be featured, but unfortunately didn't make the final cut.

Haley: There's a New York Times, I believe for my– look at the show notes everyone, don't quote me because I don't have my notes in front.

Alana: Lady history pod dot tumblr dot com.

Alana: So there is like– I'm looking at my notes, there is a New York Times I used, the Huntington Library and Art Museum. But for just even I usually type in Delilah Beasley museum. I do that for all my women. I see where they came up in museums. That also connects you to like history sources. National Park Service, libraries… and like I couldn't find like bios about her. It was more they were showcasing specifically Black women and suffragist movement or women's rights. Which is not bad.

Lexi: Well the library– the library was going to consider her because they had some of copies of the stuff she wrote. So–

Haley: Oh, that’s amazing.

Lexi: I think she comes up a lot in like how you found about her from a print type–

Haley: Yeah.

Lexi: I think she comes up in like books and writing based places.

Haley: That is definitely one hundred percent true.

Alana: Okay, so, I will be talking about Ida Bell Wells, or Ida B. Wells, her middle name and her last name rhyme and when she gets married actually which is really interesting is she doesn't change her last name she doesn't take her husband's last name. Which if your middle name and your last name rhymed, I would not… I would not change my last name either. Her name is Ida Bell Wells. So she was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi on July 16, 1862 into slavery, right at the height of the Civil War. She's the oldest of eight children and then after the war her parents became very politically active, like in Reconstruction Era, especially her father helps start Rust College which is a historically Black college in Holly Springs, it's still around today. And that is where Ida went for early schooling. And eventually she was may be expelled? I couldn't find anything to back that up but somewhere was like oh she got kicked out for starting some shit with the dean or something and I was like I don't see this anywhere else but interesting, okay? In 1878, she is sixteen years old and her parents and her youngest brother died of Yellow Fever. So she lied about her age to take a teaching job. She convinced the school in Holly Springs that she was eighteen and so she could teach and that's how she is supporting her… her siblings, was by teaching. And just like, becoming a parent essentially. And then in the 1880s she finds another teaching job in Memphis, Tennessee and she moves up to there. Fun anecdote: in 1887, she bought a first class train ticket but was removed because she's Black and segregation and so they wanted to like force her into the smoking car and she refused because she was like “hello, I bought a first class ticket you're gonna put me in the first class car. That's what I paid for. Capitalism.” So when she refused, she was kicked off. She might have bitten someone. She might have bit the guy who removed her. Maybe. I hope she did.

Lexi: People were doing it long before Rosa Parks, I’m just saying. Before buses existed.

Alana: Before buses existed and we were biting people. (laughing) Rosa Parks up your game, maybe bite someone. (more laughing)

Haley: We don’t condone biting–

Alana: We don’t condone biting.

Haley: –on this podcast. Please, do not–

Lexi: I personally condone biting racists, but okay.

Haley: Okay like bite racists.

Alana: Biting racists is fine, but also keep your mask on so maybe not right now for the biting racists?

Lexi: Actually yeah. Right now no biting.

Haley: Also, when you bite people, like why do you want their skin…

Lexi: You don’t want their germs.

Haley: ...on you. Just don't bite people. Punch them maybe? Like if they're being bad bad people like don't go, don't–

Lexi: But the human jaw is a powerful tool.

Alana: It’s true!

(Lexi laughing)

Alana: Anyway, (laughing), so, regardless of whether or not she bit someone, which is my favorite thing in the whole world, she sued the railroad for making her leave, essentially.

Lexi: Even better than the biting. Sue the racists.

Alana: Even better than that: she won. Haley’s face is just like “what?” And I’m like yeah! She won. She won five hundred dollars, and I didn't really feel like doing that conversion from 1887 money to 2020 money but it's probably a lot. Unfortunately, later the Supreme Court overturned it. Like the railroad– it appealed, and appealed and appealed and the Supreme Court overturned it and Ida was forced to pay court fees, so I guess that's where the five hundred dollars went. But that's really– something that's really cool.

Lexi: Wait I just checked. It's thirteen thousand dollars.

Alana: It's thirteen thousand dollars? That's so much money. Okay. It's not that much money but it's so much money.

Haley: I would gladly take thirteen thousand dollars. That's a lot of money.

Alana: After being a teacher for a while, she's starting to publish articles about race issues under the name Iola I-O-L-A in Black newspapers and periodicals. Especially like as a teacher she talks a lot about segregation in schools and how this is like not good for the kiddos. This separate but equal that's bullshit everything sucks. And this launches her journalism career. She ends up owning shares of the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight and Memphis Free Speech, which are Black owned kind of newspapers in Memphis at the time. In 1892, she turns her attention to covering lynchings after her friend Tom Moss and his business partners were murdered because their grocery store was taking customers away from the White grocery store. And so she publishes this pamphlet called “Southern Horrors.” And that's all I'm gonna say about her investigations of lynchings because this is a fun podcast, and that's a little dark, and I think only one trigger warning episode per ten episodes, and we just about a couple weeks ago. So no. After she's calling all this attention to lynchings, she had to– she's run out of Memphis. She has to leave. And she moves to Chicago, and from Chicago, after fleeing Memphis she writes: “If this work can contribute in any way towards proving this, and at the same time arouse the conscience of the American people to demand for justice to every citizen and punishment by law for the lawless, I shall feel I have done my race a service. Other considerations are minor.” Which I just think is very poignant that like, yes you ran me out of my home but if this is what fixes it, so be it. After moving to Chicago, this is where she begins to gain international notoriety, and found some organizations. She travels around the world talking to the suffragists and criticizing them for not talking about lynchings and just being like, “Hi. This is cool, what are you doing for Black women? What are you doing for people of color? What's your deal? Tell me. Why aren't you thinking about this?” And in 1894, she establishes the British Anti-Lynching Society and comes back and settled back in Chicago. This is just like all of her really cool organizations that she's founded. In 1896, she becomes a founding member of the National Association of Colored Women. She brought her anti-lynching campaign to the White House in 1898 to President McKinley and demanded reforms. I don't think anything happened, but she did go to the White House to demand reforms so that's cool. In 1909, she was at the first meeting of an organization that would later become the NAACP, but she's not listed officially as a founding member possibly because they weren't like action based enough for her at the beginning. She wanted like real action in their mission statements and they didn't say anything about that. So on January thirtieth, and I'm only bringing up the exact date do you guys wanna guess why the date January thirtieth might be important to me.

Lexi: Because it's your birthday.

Alana: It is my birthday, you win as friends. So January 30, 1913 she founds the Alpha Suffrage Club, and they play a pivotal role as soon as that June when they get on the Illinois Equal Suffrage Act passed. They play a pivotal role in 1915 in getting Chicago's first Black alderman elected and his name is Oscar DePriest. Ida and several of her Alpha Suffrage Club members are invited to the 1913 Suffrage Parade in Washington DC, but the organizers were worried about offending the Southerners and so they make the Black women and the women of color march at the back. And Ida is pissed, and she won't march with them until the White contingent is past her and then she joins the parade. Which, cool? But also you're still marching at the back? I don't really understand what point that you were trying to prove? I don't know. But okay, cool. Just a little bit of the boring stuff, this is actually the most boring part about her is I'm talk about her husband and her children. Super boring. In 1895, after returning from England she married a man named Ferdinand Barnett who was an attorney and a fellow activist and they had four children. And Ida did not take his name, which was extremely odd for the time, and still not like as big a thing in 2020. It's gaining traction, but it's not like the norm. Another interesting thing about their relationship is that he did the cooking and the cleaning and made dinner for their children almost every night.

Lexi: You said this was gonna be boring! I’m not bored I’m interested!

Alana: This is how cool this lady is– is that even the most boring shit about her is super interesting. His activism and his law career kind of took a backseat while he was raising these children and she was going out and just being a political activist and all around badass. I mean– and he's like at home with their kids, which I think is really cool. In her final years, she was kind of fading from popularity and influence but she still worked on urban reform, especially mass incarceration was something that she was really involved in and– and actively… like that was her cause. She switched from– once women like got the right to vote she was like okay cool, sort of, for now. Let's talk about mass incarceration.

Lexi: We're still talking about it today.

Alana: We're still talking about it today. Nothing changes. Nothing changes. That's a bad– I'm going last, that's a bad note to end this podca– this episode on but… nothing changes.

Haley: Change is gradual and slow.

Alana: Change is gradual and slow. That's true. So the last few years of her life she actually becomes a probation officer and works like with these people who have been mass incarcerated and like rehabilitating them sort of. In 1930, she ran for Illinois State Senate and lost horribly, but she still ran. That's pretty cool, like she is not… Women running for office is not new, which I think is really interesting. At the age of sixty eight in 1931, she died of kidney disease. And I just feel like she was doing so much good all the way until the end, that it's very moving. There is now a– we all lived in DC for a while– there is a mosaic of her at Union Station in DC. And the mosaic is made of other suffragists and their posters and their propaganda… and no comment as to whether or not I cried reading The Washington Post article about it. No comment. I will not be taking questions at this time.

Lexi: One of my coworkers, her friend worked on the exhibition and she was able to get a poster of the pos– of the floor and it's in her house now.

Alana: That's so cool. I– I did cry. If that wasn’t obvious, I was reading about it and I cried.

Haley: Go vote. Please. Do everything in your power to vote in this pandemic.

Lexi: Visit vote dot org. Register yourself, to vote, get voting information. Go check out how to vote locally, use a mail-in ballot if you are in an area where you don't think it is safe for you to go to the polls. If you can get to the polls, get to them. Wear a mask to vote. Be safe!

Alana: There are also areas that you can sign up to be a poll worker.

Haley: Yes.

Lexi: Yes!!!

Alana: Which is what I'm doing. I have signed up for that because–

Haley: I love that.

Alana: –a lot of them are paid, and I have no money. Despite being a professional podcaster I have no money. And it's just like a way to do good in your community, especially in like underserved communities.

Lexi: So yes, get to the polls. Help your friends get to the polls.

Alana: Make sure your friends are registered to vote. Register to vote.Vote early.

Haley: Also just raise awareness. If voting is something difficult for you, like for me I might not even be able to get like a write in ballot because I will be moving and then in quarantine to go vote. It is still unknown. DMV is not handling it well for me. But like I’m still spreading the awareness of voting. Spread the history of how women, Black people, other people of color, other countries, even, getting their right to vote. It's helpful knowledge as a U. S. citizen.

Lexi: And remember some people in America who even are citizens cannot vote, so… 

Haley: Exactly.

Lexi: Use your right to vote so you can do it for them who can't.

Alana: So the two websites that you should go to in addition to our show notes are power to the polls dot org– I think it’s dot org– and vote dot org to check your registration.

Lexi: And if neither of those work for you, dude, there are so many other websites out there. Find the one that works for you, get the information you need, figure out how your state and your local community handles all this.

Alana: People I feel like are like “it's a right to vote.” And yes it's a right to vote, but also it's your responsibility. I think if you can it's your responsibility.

Haley: And voting matters. Like your vote matters. I know a lot of people will even say recently that your vote doesn't count– absentee ballot doesn't like matter. No, it matters. Come on. Our electoral college is very screwy and needs a lot of work. Just our whole system needs a lot of work, but regardless, voting is important.

Lexi: Okay.

Alana: And we have to vote out the fascist. Lexi, you can decide whether or not to keep that in. But vote out the fascist. It’s the last chance we have.

Lexi: I am sure people can already assess our political opinions based on the topic of our podcast.

Alana: People can guess.

Speaker 1: And the fact that we’re archaeologists. And out of work.

Lexi: You can find this podcast on Twitter and Instagram at LadyHistoryPod. Our show notes and a transcript of this episode will be on lady history pod dot tumblr dot com. If you like the show, leave us a review or tell your friends, and if you don't like the show keep yourself.

Alana: Our logo is by Alexia Ibarra, you can find her on Instagram and Twitter at LexiBDraws. Our theme music is by me, GarageBand, and Amelia Earhart. Lexi is doing the editing. You will not see us, and we will not see you, but you will hear us, Next time, on Lady History. Go fucking vote.

[OUTRO MUSIC]

Haley: Next week on lady history it'll be raining men. Psych. I'll be reining in my urge to sing and we will be talking about some fabulous queens.

[skinnywhorelove]

Mental health rant// talking about my problems

Hi I’m back my mental health is deteriorating and I need to cope so heres me venting.

Ig it’s impossible for someone to actually fall in love w me and treat me right. I catch feelings and get hurt I’m still hurting from what you did to me. I miss you. Why am I like this. My first relationship lasted 3 years, he was physically and mentally abusive. Every time I tried to leave he would slit his wrists and threaten to kill himself. He would beat me Over petty shit. When I finally left him he faked his suicide. I found out over a year later he was still alive. He added me back on snap and threatened to kill me. I told you that I was scared I told you about my past and why I never got into relationships anymore. You promised that you wouldn’t leave me, you promised that it’ll be okay. A month ago you left me over a petty argument after I apologized. You told me you loved me and everything was okay. It was our first real argument in months. I sucked your dick after then you went home told me you loved me and I never heard from you again. Fuck you. I guess I’m not the type of person for love. Ig I never will be. Is there something wrong with me? I give someone a chance all they ever do is use me. I’m not okay. All I ever wanted is for someone to love me and care about me. Ig it’s impossible. Am I incapable of giving you the love you need? I’m I not good enough? Am I not pretty enough, skinny enough, smart enough, funny enough? I don’t get it. I hate myself so much for the things you both did. I don’t get what I did wrong. I get it I make dumb mistakes sometimes, but why do you have to lie and say it’s okay when it’s obviously not? I’m heartbroken, I feel like I’m falling. I just want to curl up in a ball and cry. Until I’m nothing. I want to make a mess, I want to destroy myself until a point of no return. Will you love the monster I’m becoming? I want you to feel the pain you have brought on to me. I’m done pretending everything is okay.

Need to be thin for him Need to be thin for him Need to be thin for him Need to be thin for him Need to be thin for him Need to be thin for him Need to be thin for him Need to be thin for him Need to be thin for him Need to be thin

Also Something I don’t get about social media is that people only post the highlights of their lives. All the good things that happen. You never see the bad or the ugly. You never see the hurt or the pain. People make their lives seem perfect. They only post the best pictures and the highlights of their life. I get that part. Who wants to see the bad and the ugly when we already have enough of our own problems. But what I don’t get is why everyone compares themselves or their lives to a fictional reality on social media. We all see the photoshopped pictures of celebrities and instagram models and set them as “beauty standards” or ideals. We see all the best parts of someone’s lives and compare or lowest points to their best. “ oh their live seems so perfect” “oh they always are so happy” “ugh how do they get the perfect pictures on the first try” “how are they so beautiful”. I think it’s ridiculous. I hear my friends talking about it sometimes. “Ugh why can’t I be her. She’s so perfect.” I hate being apart of this false reality on social media. It can be mentally deteriorating. It really sucks that it’s an expectation now too. If you aren’t looking your best or don’t show the best parts of your life you won’t get as many Likes. If you make a post about your mental health or anything bad that happened you’ll be called out saying you’re “attention seeking”. It’s disgusting. I just want help but if I reach out too peers or friends I’ll be “attention seeking.”

If I lose 50 more lbs I’ll reach my gw and everything will be fine people will like me more and I won’t have to deal w this shit.

[dachi-chan25]

GoT Season 8, Episode 2: Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Thoughts

Like i am not even sure this episode's name is that or "The rightful queen" but I am going with the title I liked more.

I was fully intending of making a big ass Recap like I usually do but today I had a lot of work and I feel like everyone has already talked about the episode since it was leaked so I am just gonna talk about some scenes that I think will be relevant and my take on some shipping stuff.

Again I warn that I don't root for D Targy at all (but I do think she is an amazing character) and she annoys the heck out of me most often than not so... if she is your fave pls don't read this cuz it's not for you.

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On Jaime Lannister

I feel this was a great episode for him as a character, while I do wish he would have said something about the wildfire on King's Landing or the Loot Attack I ultimately think that what he did say was the best thing in his PoV because he thinks D is the North's queen now that Jon bent the knee so ofc he wasn't gonna antagonize her that much when he was at clear disadvantage.

His chat with Tyrion was also very good, tho I feel in the books this will be more on a bitter note given Jamie's confession about Tysha, but yeah they are close once again and I appreciate that.

Every scene he had with Brienne had me swooning.Brienne defending him in the Great Hall. All those stares. The clear tension between them and the fact that Brienne doesn't know what to do when they are on the same side and he is not insulting her, so they still fight and pant around each other and I love it (honestly this kind of fighting is a lot like the Jonsa one because they have to get rid of that UST but they can't fuck or even kiss yet so they bicker and pant around each other). I noticed how he stared at Tormund and immediately knew he was intrested in Brienne. And ofc him knighting Brienne was the best of the episode for me (hence my preference of the title aluding to this scene).

On Sansa Stark

Curious that we don't get Sansa or Jon's PoV this episode, just them through other people's eyes.

The Great Hall scene: while I would have loved Sansa defending Jaime like in some fics, I think it does make sense that she feels resentment towards him and his family, but she still was willing to trust him once Brienne spoke on his behalf which says a lot for their relationship and how much Sansa has come to trust and value Brienne and her opinions. She was completely a queen in that scene, she even left the place frist not giving a fuck whatsoever about D.

Tête-à-tête with the gecko queen: Sophie Turner is an amazing actress. Ok so I loved she was telling Lord Royce she wanted to leave the Gates open as long as possible, such a compassionate queen, but also the moment D steps in I lived for Lord Royce clearly showing more respect and deference towards Sansa than towards D (I mean that the whole North respects Sansa as their leader is the very reason why Jorah asked D to talk to her). We see Sansa be closed off towards D in the beginnig even when D is trying hard to be sympathetic to sansa and bond over them being good leaders to their people (bihhh Sansa laughed and so did I cuz just how deluded is D to think she is on Sansa's level of good leadeeship), and D asks the question we have since ep 1 "does that (Jon's love for D) bother you?" And I am absolutely sure that the answer to that is yes, but Sansa was never going to show herself that much to someone she doesn't trust nor even likes (this girl out played LF ffs!!!) so she went for a non-commital answer (is not a yes or a no, she is justifying her distrust for D and appears not to be jealous but a concerned sister) D is appeased by this answer and tries to show Sansa that her and Jon's relationship is real (lmaoo) by stating just how much she sacrified her goals just for his love (like nice that she doesn't pretend to care for the people she wants to be queen of anymore, the Jonsa fandom said this since last season) and straight up says she is the one being manipulated by Jon, and Sansa's face is a poem, cuz you can see exactly the moment when she figures out that Jon is manipulating D!! We even get a smile of relief and promptly she catches herself and changes her behaviour implying she should apologize (but she never actually does) and even lauguing at how short Jon is (Sansa bites her lip tho 👀👀 and D's smile is so fake idk who she thinks she is fooling) but Sansa again brings up the North and D is visibly upset at that.

Scenes with Theon: I am just going to straight up say I do ship Theonsa and I have read fics of them, but I do not think it will be canon or that it makes narrative or political sense cuz it doesn't. Their reunion was heartwarming and beautiful (tho D jealous stare bothered me, like fuck off I wanna see my babies) Sansa was clearly happy at seeing Theon more like himself and having him want to fight for their family. Their scene with the soup was cute but I did not see it as shippy at all, there is definitely affection and care but I don't think it was shot as romance or a couple's montague, it was simply showing us all the different ways the characters we know spend this night. As much as it hurts me because I love Theon, I think it is possible he will die protecting Bran (I really don't want this, but it's a big possibility, cuz I know some big characters must die in order to destroy us as much as possible, and this scenes with Sansa might just serve that purpose) so I'll just drown in theonsa fics if that happens. Also, it kinda make me go 👀👀 the fact that they made the theonsa scenes so alike the jonsa s6 ones but without all that flirty stuff on the soup scene and that it was enough for the GA and some Aegonys to ship it while we know Theon like Jon also grew up with Sansa in WF. Idk it was kinda amusing to me.

On Jon Snow

Ok so this made a lot of sense to me, Jon avoiding D post parentage reveal is what seals pol!Jon to me, if he really loved her he would have gone statight to her in the night and confess this thing he found out while crying and looking for her support and being all hopless longingly staring at her but nope he doesn't even want to look at her (he is probably thinking how he fucked his aunt and shudders). I was also like 👀👀 when he pushed past D to follow Sansa, did they talk?? Did they fight again??? I am thirsty, but it was also a good thing Jon didn't interact with Sansa cuz it would give the game away too soon, as a matter of fact Jon doesn't seek her out like last episode as far as the audience knows and I think that is because he doesn't know what to do he is having an existencial crisis in the middle of the Apocalipsis, and Sam is like have you told her yet??? He knows shit could hit the fan at any minute. I loved his reunion with Tormund and Edd because I love Jon's smile and he has been just miserable since last ep, so yeah I need my boy to be happy.

Now onto the reveal, I think Jon genuinely thought he might as well just say it, D clearly seeked him out for some loving sexy times and Jon was not on board with that, he just couldn't keep it up with her cuz he doesn't love her, never has and now she is his aunt, he just can't do that knowing they are super related, also now D can't leave them (I mean she kind of can fuck off in Drogon and maybe Rhaegal will follow, but her armies can't leave, and they have the obsidian so...) . The fact he called her D@ny is so layered, for starters she told him straight up not to call her that cuz it reminds her of Viserys, so it connects them as family and upsets D at the same time. D straight up thinks that Bran and Sam would make shit up to usurp her (bihhh no one but u and Cersei gives a fuck about the ugly ass chair) and then when she sees Jon is saying the truth she is furious (so much for the aegony marriage fix up that her stans dreamed off, also can we fucking kiss boatie goodbye?? Cuz that sure as hell ain't happening) and Jon is baffled, he knows she wants the IT more than anything and shit but really??? They are about to die, and he has left more than clear to any one that would listen that he doesn't care about titles. Not only that but Jon and her are family now,and family is important to Jon, and she reacts like this???

On Gendrya

I was a bit wierded out cuz we have seen Maise since she was a kid (lmaoo i am like a year older than her) but more power to her for the scene, also I really love Gendrya and their interactions have been so flirty and charged with chemistry. I am worried about Gendry's survival, but I think he might live.

On everything else:

I loved Gilly and Dadvos's scene, it was so good and I wish they would give Gilly more lines.

Missandei and Greyworm making plans for after the war makes me worried one of them will die, also now that D will feel betrayed by Jon, I fear she will think GW and Missandei wanting to leave is also treason. I AM WORRIED. Also to ppl doesn't trust Missandei cuz she is with d and nobody in the north trusts Targs not even children.

Tyrion talking about destroying Cersei made him seem more Book!Tyrion than ever and I just shudderd. D literally never wants to take responsability for any desicion when she refused to fight for the north if Cersei didn't joined them. Also she would really have named Jorah hand??? She is dumb as a brick. His scene with Jaime, Brienne and co. Was cute.

Podrick was looking fine and his voice was really good. Also that Jenny of Oldstone song with all it's jonsa vibes 👀👀.

[bynewtscamander]

The Crimes of Grindelwald Review (Spoiler heavy!!)

Alright I’ll start off with a basic (post writing it: it is not basic whoops) plot synopsis for those of you nosy people who want to know what’s up before seeing the movie, or for those who can’t afford to go the movies, etc. 

So basically Grindelwald escapes from prison by enchanting Abernathy and switching places with him via polyjuice potion (?) that’s my assumption just cause a spell would probably be too much work given the circumstances. He heads off to Paris and kills a family and takes over their house. He’s there with some french woman who is basically his henchman, the bellatrix to his voldemort. Newt is in London as the British Ministry has forbidden him to travel outside the country. He’s there taking care of all his creatures in his house with the help of his assistant Bunty. Queenie and a love enchanted Jacob show up and talk with Newt. Newt lifts the spell on Jacob that Queenie put, and J&Q fight and Queenie heads off to Paris where Tina is stationed as an auror looking for Credence. Cut to Tina at the magic circus (located in the diagon alley of Paris) snooping about where we learn Credence is basically the circus janitor and is in love with human form Nagini. Shows happening, Nagini transforms, and behind the scenes Credence release a bunch of creatures to cause havoc so he and Nagini can escape. They dissaperate I think. The circus packs up and moves on to who knows where. Tina runs off to investigate stuff and runs into this other guy who’s also there looking for Credence. They have a talk at a street cafe. Jacob and Newt use a portkey to go to Paris and head to the Paris diagon. Newt uses a spell to see what happened there and they follow a feather to find the guy Tina was with so they can find Tina. They meet up with said guy outside of the street cafe and have a talk. Queenie is on her own and looking for Jacob. She gets discouraged and sits on a street corner sad and french bellatrix shows up and talks with her. Newt and Jacob find Tina and they all end up getting locked in a cell by the other auror guy. He passes out and Pickett picks the lock and they escape easy peasy. Newt was told by Dumbledore really early in the movie to go to a safe house in Paris so that’s where Newt and Jacob and Tina go and they bring the auror guy to help him. They get some info from his and Tina runs off and Jacob urges Newt to follow. Jacob watches the auror, who made an unbreakable vow, while he recovers from some magical parasite. He falls asleep and wakes up and finds out Nick Flamel lives there, and the auror guy makes a break for it. Nick shows Jacob a crystal ball and he sees Q and runs off to find her. In the meantime Q was talked into following Grindelwald so she and Jacob can get married in his new “utopian” society. Meanwhile Credence and Nagini are looking for his birth mother and Grindelwald is trying to recruit him. They don’t find her. The British Ministry is keeping close eyes on Dumbledore since they know he’s in major kahoots with Newt. Flashbacks to Leta and Newt at school. Small subplot is that some gossip magazine printed that Leta and Newt were now engaged but it’s actually Theseus and Leta. Back to the main plot, Newt and Tina break into the Paris Ministry to find records of the LeStrange family. Newt uses polyjuice to become Theseus. They get in and are looking for the records and have a moment in the record library. No kissing, just a moment. Leta comes in also looking for her records. They aren’t there. Leta, Tina, and Newt fight off some ministry guard cats and head off to where the records were moved. Now we’re at the LeStrange tomb where Grindelwald has summoned his followers. Auror guy is there and ends up running into Leta, Credence, Nagini, and possibly Newt and Tina (I can’t remember exactly). They explain the LeStrange background. Leta and auror guy are brother and sister. Ther mother was enchanted away from their father by another man. She falls “in love” with him and marries him and dies after giving birth to Leta who I can’t remember now if she was half-sister to auror guy or full sister. Guy who enchanted their mother remarries and have another kid. Non blood related to auror guy and possibly Leta if she was from og parents. Credence is their brother, sort of. When going to America, Leta and “C” were on a ship and “C” kept crying so she, as a child, switched him out with another baby to get some rest. Ship goes under and “C” dies being believed to be another womans baby. That womans baby survives and is apparently the Credence we know and love. So not related in anyway. Wack. Now the Grindelwald meeting has started and Jacob finds Q there and Tina is there to spy and everyone else joins in and Theseus and his aurors are there to keep an eye on stuff. Grindelwald makes his speech, calls out aurors he knows are there, they come forward and one (planted I believe) lashes out and kills a follower of Grindelwalds. More talking and then Grindelwald tells his followers to go. Most do but obvs Newt, Tina, Queenie, Jacob, Theseus, Leta, Grindelwald, french bellatrix, Credence, Nagini, and possibly Leta’s brother are still there. Grindelwald uses fire to weed out those not loyal. Queenie and Credence both join Grindelwald. Big fight with the fire and Leta sacrifices herself so everyone else can escape. They run into Nick Flamel and they do some more fighting of the fire to save Paris. They go to Hogwarts and Dumbledore gets cleared of suspicion and it is revealed that he and Grindelwald made a magical blood pact (basically an unbreakable vow) to never right each other. Ministry wants Dumbledore to fight cause he’s the only one who can match Grindelwald. Now cut to remote mountains in Austria where Grindelwald and Queenie are discussing Credence. Grindelwald talks to him and it is revealed that he is apparently the 4th Dumbledore sibling? And this bird he was taking care of is turned into Fawkes. I think that’s everything major. 

I definitely forgot stuff and I’m sure some stuff is wrong, I’m writing this 3ish hours after seeing the movie so it is still pretty fresh but I obviously cannot remember nearly 2.5 hours of content. 

Time for my thoughts and opinions and impressions. 

So Grindelwald’s escape. They mention something while he’s in the cell that they cut out his tongue. Later when we find out that Grindel was actually Abernathy he has like a forked tongue so idk if that’s what they meant by cutting it out?? Also I wasn’t a fan of the total demotation of Abernathy as GW henchman. Like I know he wasn’t very nice in the 1st movie but come on. Btw they were moving him from British prison to French cause he committed crimes both places. The French ambassador dude has like this whole moment where he’s fighting this creature and GW and then gets thrown from the flying carriage and almost dies on impact of the water. Then he’s just floating around and never mentioned again. 

I also wanted to know if the family GW killed to take over their house was muggle or not. minor thing. french bellatrix kills like a 2 year old baby they found in the house after killing his parents and I know they’re the bad guys but like it was kinda messed up. 

Newt’s house was dope and everything I expected it would be. His assistant, Bunty, has a crush on him, but he’s too invested in Tina and the animals to care. This is never addressed again. She is never mentioned again after this scene. So I thought it was dumb that her character was even involved and has the crush sub plot. Like either stick with it or make the assistant even more of a throw away character. 

So when Q shows up with J she’s like we’re getting married yay. A few minutes into their reunion with Newt he can tell something is up. He realizes that J is under a love enchantment and urges Q to lift it but she’s all like no no no. I just didn’t understand why she even enchanted him in the first place? Like yes he was against marrying her based on the fact that he didn’t want her to go to prison but like was it necessary to enchant him? idk it just felt stupid and childish and tbh Q is a more developed character than the ditzy blonde who wants to get married. I guess it more just rubbed me the wrong way. 

So J and Q have a fight  where J is like “I dont want to marry you cause I dont want you going jail” which is a totally legitimate reason and like I cant think that there would be any significant benefits to it, i think the big thing for them would be calling each other husband and wife but tbh they could do that anyway so i just thought it made Q seem like a resilient woman who only wants a man to call her own, which like I said earlier, she’s so not. She’s an accomplished legilimens and I feel like her character got a little side lined this movie. So anyway after this fight she heads off to find Tina in Paris.

So the magic circus was super dope, definitely an aspect of the wizarding world I was excited to see. I think they could’ve spent a little more time showing it off and all that cause it was more just a setting to introduce Nagini and what Credence had been up to since the last movie. 

The Nagini Credence romance didn’t really bother me, it’s kind of whatever and good for Credence for caring about someone and having someone care about him and stick by him.

Nagini herself is a whole nother ball game. I was mad dude. I still am. I think it’s one of the stupidest plot twists ever. Cause she’s basically from bloodline that is destined to turn into snakes forever and change every night and then at some point dont change back. It seemed kinda just thrown in there and for god’s sake we didn’t need some deep backstory for Nagini. I liked that she was just a snake cause it made sense for voldemort cause it’s like his closest companion isnt even human, that’s how crazy he is. So like I also dont know if he knew she was a person or what. it poses too many questions for the canon. She had a cool costume design though so i guess thats good. 

The other creatures at the circus were cool too cause it was neat to see a different side to animal keeping that we didnt in the first movie. All chained up for show and from all over the world. I really liked the big cat/dragon creature (im not looking up names rn so as not to break my stream of conciousness too much). Like im a big cat person and im a big dragon person so it was super cute and when newt used the toy for it i was like awwww. 

Side note, Newt when he’s shown at home taking care of his creatures jumps into the water without taking off his shirt and i was hoping this movie for a more indepth dealing with his scars but alas there was none.

I think I would’ve also liked to see more of paris diagon just cause all we get is the circus glimpse and the glimpse when newt and jacob go there and you dont get to really see any shops or stuff. 

The scene where newt uses the revelio spell thats all gold and uses the niffler was great, really liked that, i thought it was super pretty and showed they werent shoving aside the beasts despite it being a more wizard driven plot this time. 

After they meet up with auror guy and are thrown in jail with tina the auror guy passes out after making some little speech about how they were trapped. I dont even think he took their wands or if he did it wasnt shown or made note of. like a minute after theyve been trapped auror guy passes out. they super easily escape with Pickett picking the lock (my guess now is pick-it was the play for his name, well done, cute). So that plot point was barely a plot point.

When they all go to the safe house we find out that auror guy has some sort of water creature parasite in his eye. its gross and tentacally. newt removes it with literal normal tweezers. all it does is make auror guy need to rest for a few hours. once again, barely a plot point.  

Auror guy is also revealed to have the marks of an unbreakable vow, now, correct me if I’m wrong as I’ve only seen the movie once a couple days ago now, but i literally cannot recall what it was for? like idk why have a character make an unbreakable vow, something that was crazy important in book 6, and then make it seem like it wasn’t a big deal or like whatever it was wasn’t significant enough.

So anyway, he escapes while jacob is supposed to be watching him and falls asleep on the job. Then he meets Nick Flamel who I enjoyed being in the movie as it was a good nod to the 1st book. He was a funny character but also very powerful and important. I appreciated that he did look super old cause I think they could’ve easily tried to “sex him up” by making him this banging hot young immortal guy. They didn’t and honestly I prefer it that way. 

Now the crystal ball thing, was Nick Flamel a seer? Once again, may be wrong but I thought like only seers or people gifted with some form of the sight could use them? and like flamel was seeing and showing some intense visions that were very graphic and well formed so it didnt seem like he was a casual. Thats neither here nor there i just thought it was an interesting thing going on.

So now we’re with queenie who is being persuaded by GW to join him so she and jacob can get married. I mean that’s consistent with her character this movie but it does make her seem a bit weak willed. I feel like she should’ve known something was up by using her legilimency to try and poke around with gw or french bellatrix. Obvs they’ve probably trained with occlumency but i think lack of hearing those thoughts would’ve been a big red flag. maybe queenie was too emotional or distraught or whatever to think of it? Seemed like a bit of an oversight. Gahh i just wish they’d shown her resisting a bit more so she didnt seemed weak willed and we could also get a better look into just how convincing gw was. 

So Nagini and Credence have located where his birth mother lived in Paris but when they go there all they find is this half (elf? i think) woman who was Credence’s nanny basically. She basically reveals his mother is dead and credence is very distraught. The one of gw henchmen (who also works for the british ministry) sneaks into the house and kills the nanny in front of credence. Side note, i did like how they showed avada kedavra in a more casual setting because it shows how merciless gw was with it. I felt like with voldemort even though he was merciless and used it a lot, there was still this big dramatic focus on it. I think the casualness added to the morbid atmosphere being presented. 

So credence obvs goes all obscurial on the dude and blows up the house basically and is bombarding him with debris while he’s using a shield charm. The dude dissapperates in the end and credence goes back to being his normal self. And then I think later on at this house gw goes to him and talks him into joining him fully. 

So cut to hogwarts for dumbledore. He’s teaching defense and “dueling” some kid. This kid turns out to be an ancestor of cormac mclaggen which I thought was a nice little easter egg kind of thing cause the kid gets his ass handed to him by dumbledore. So in the middle of this lesson ministry officials show up and they’re like kiddos get out. then a woman only referred to as mcgonagall (since I know there’s been some discourse about that in reference to her birth date and age and whether it’s minerva or not. tbh i did always think mm was the sameish age as dumbledore but i also do believe in sticking with the harry potter canon as it’s more concrete and developed than the fantastic beasts) she herds them out so the ministry can talk. 

The robes for the 20s hogwarts students were dope btw and im so mad that they i guess went out of fashion cause like the subtle ribbon sleeves and the navy blue and red plaid skirts and the focus on sweaters was sick, really really liked that. 

So the ministry is like “so newts in paris and we know it was u” and dumbledore is like “whaaaat, who knew” and plays innocent and whatever. So then the ministry gives him unlinked cuffs that can track what spells he’s casting which i thought was an interesting concept and im wondering if that’s going to be used more for law enforcement and if it was more of an old fashioned thing and thats not used during hp era? i just thought they were cool and clever. 

So while this is going on Leta is poking around reminiscing about hogwarts and she was obvs a slytherin and was like jinxing kids and was very unpopular and she finds newt in this hidden nook while hiding from bullies. newt is taking care of some grindylows and a baby crow and some other creatures i couldn’t identify. 

They become friends and newt takes out on this island on the black lake and shows her this tree he likes and then we cut back to present day where Leta is looking at graffiti under a desk that says n+l so she had real feelings for him at some point that were probably not returned or newt was too naive to notice. fairly on brand tbh. 

Leta’s outfit for this is like a long sleeved loosish satin dress, maroon, with like a cape on that back and while i wish, for every movie tbh, that wizards always wore robes, I thought it was a nice little nod to them being magical and having different fashions. 

The gossip magazine subplot was actually so stupid and I wish they hadn’t included it because it makes Tina, who believed it, seem stupid and she’s not. She’s a well trusted auror now and there’s no way should would believe a stupid gossip magazine without doing proper research. 

I appreciated the little moment she and newt had upon clearing this up in the records hall. I would still have liked a kiss or something a little more considering everything but I’m not dying for one. 

Blah blah blah ministry fight, the familiars used to guard the ministry were cool and i did like their design, however, i am a big cat person so i can see if some people disagree. 

Gw uses this really sick method of conjuring like these huge, light, pieces of fabric that cover the buildings of paris in order to summon his followers. Im assuming they were invisible to muggles but this isn’t addressed however no one except the wizards bats at eye at them. 

So now we’re at the lestrange tomb which is big and fancy and all that. So now there’s the whole credence origin reveal/lestrange background. Auror guy shows up and is like you’re my sister and credence is our brother and i was just like hmmm because leta and auror guy are both black and credence is white so how does that work. 

The plot behind it is so complicated and weird holy heck. Basically auror guys parents fall in love and have him and are wealthy and all this stuff. Lestrange man falls in love with auror guys mother and imperios her to live with him and love him. Now i cant remember if leta was by both auror guys parents or if she was from lestrange and his mother. either way his mother dies giving birth to leta who is brought up, kinda, by lestrange. He remarries to another white woman and they have a baby who is in some way related to leta and auror guy. The baby’s name is corvus which idk, its weird. So eventually leta and corvus get sent to america with the half elf woman from earlier on this ship. Corvus doesn’t stop crying so leta sneaks out and temporarily (she intended) switches him with another womans baby. The ship begins to sink and thus they never get switched back and corvus officially goes down with the ship. Leta, fake corvus, and elf woman are on a lifeboat that tips and not corvus is see falling into the depths and either leta or the elf woman is seen swimming for him. It was super unclear to me whether or not they actually saved him because they must have if credence is there but like it was super unclear and im not sure. 

I also dont understand then how credence ended up being adopted and leta ends up back in britain and goes to hogwarts and all that jazz. maybe it will be cleared up in the next movie but that part of the plot gets all fuzzy and unexplained. 

I personally haaaaatttteeed this explanation. I may be reading into too deeply but it seems like they were just trying to make an excuse as to how the lestrange family went from a totally different race to another in like 50ish years (assuming bellatrix was born around the 60s). It also just felt like this crazy plot twist to be a crazy plot twist, nothing more. I also want to now go back and look at the black family tree and see how much info on the lestranges i can glean from that. I just think it would be interesting to see how much stuff has differed there. 

So now its the followers of gw meeting. There’s several hundred to a couple thousand wizards there and legit they all look like emos. gothic emos. it’s easy to pick queenie out in her multicolored plaid jacket. I just thought that was funny that the demographic for his followers was emo wizards. 

So blah blah blah speech about how the muggles are others but how gw doesn’t hate them or anything, something apologetic like that. lots of wwII imagery used to say like here’s what the muggles are gonna do if we dont take action. I think they were trying to push the hitler comparison here. Not a fan of that cause that “trope” or whatever needs to die. feels like we glorify hitler too much as the end all be all of evil in the world and history. that’s more of a personal thing for me, like the guy is gonna live forever in infamy and we as a society have pushed that and used it every which way. he needs to die out as a figure, especially with all the horrible stuff happening in the world today. 

So back to way less serious stuff, to show the wwII visions gw literally takes a fat rip off a skull bong that french bellatrix is holding and blows out the smoke which forms into the images. I started laughing out loud in the theater because of this and it majorly lowered the seriousness of the rest of the movie for me. 

So after all this gw knows theseus and the aurors are there and like calls em out to come down and like they cant actually do anything to the followers cause listening to someone speak is apparently not illegal even if the person speaking is like #1 escaped criminal of the wizarding world. 

And then basically out of nowhere one of the aurors kills a woman, a guy who i believe to be a plant, unsure if the woman was, but it def wasnt real. So gw goes over to her body and is like “look at how sad this is, followers, please leave this place and do stuff,” and they all disapparate. so now its gw, french bellatrix, queenie, jacob, newt, credence, nagini, tina, and theseus and his aurors. (now that im thinking about it i cant recall what became of auror guy)

Gw summons some blue flames in a circle around himself that only loyal followers can pass through. all the non-theseus aurors get consumed by the flames either by charging or gw manipulating it to engulf them. So then one by one gw starts trying to convince people to join him, in the end queenie joins him much to the dismay of jacob. unsure how i feel about this, it’s an interesting duality but god i wish it wasnt queenie again. and then much to naginis dismay credence joins. gw tries to get leta to join. she wont. he lashes out at everyone with the fire but leta holds it off and theseus is like “no ill do it, escape” and leta is like “im doing it and you need to go” they (newt and theseus) linger long enough for leta to be consumed but they manage to escape dramatically. 

Once outside the tomb in the graveyard they see flamel who is like “if we dont do something the whole city is gonna burn” so they all stick their wands into the ground and create a ring of fire to encase the evil blue flames and they work super hard at holding it off and they do and thats the big epic ending fight scene. it looked really cool but explaining it it seems kinda lame lol. 

So now that paris is saved they all go to hogwarts and are standing on the bridge and have newt alone go talk to dumbledore and he shows his this heart charm thing which has 2 drops of blood in the center. dumbledore explains that in their youth they made a magical blood pact (basically an unbreakable vow in a different form) to not fight each other. Newt is like well can you un do it cause you’re the only dude who can defeat him and dumbledore is like i’ll see what i can do. he also gets his magic tracking cuffs off. 

We get to see the mirror of erised again which was cool and i really liked seeing dumbledore stand in front of his for the first time as we all know the “sock” line about it from him. he sees gw, so no surprise there. more of a nice little easter egg moment more than anything.

Then we’re in austria in the mountains. Gw and queenie are talking about how credence is and how to get through to him and then gw walks in and starts talking to him. Gw explains that he is aurelius dumbledore. so wtf. I have big problems with this as dumbledores history is pretty clearly eplained and im pretty sure his parents werent around long after arianna so how did they have another kid? how did they lose him? is he older or younger than arianna? and if we go off the lestrange story wouldnt that make the woman who leta switched the babies on mrs. dumbledore? i also really hated this bit and i want to see how they clean it up in the next movie cause yiiiiikes is it bad. super unnecessary and kinda messed up and weird. 

After this gw gives credence his first wand and turns this little bird that credence had been looking after into fawkes (assumed from earlier movie context clues etc). Which is also confusing cause like uhhh can someone actually turn a bird into a phoenix? is that even possible? was the bird secretly a phoenix this whole time? and if so why was gw able to make it grow up so fast? weird shit there.

So anyway that was my long, rambly, opinionated, all over the place, too extra, very informal and grammatically atrocious review of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. Maybe things will come to me later and I’ll add on but this is what I’ve got floating around in my head 2 days post movie. 

It was by no means a bad movie, the cinematography was great, the acting was great, I loved the characters so much. The beasts were new and exciting. My biggest gripes lie with some of the plot points brought up. 

7/10 final score I guess.  

[bluebutterflybouquet-blog]

Farm Festival Hayride Thiinspo/Imagine with a sprinkle of Romance

I write these imagines to motivate me to get through/past binges! They really help me but could be triggering for people with EDs…I write these for my own dieting motivation, not to promote eating disorders or unhealthy behavior.  These may be ridiculous, but they help me… XX

Your alarm goes off in the morning, and you reach out slender fingers to turn it off.  Warm light is streaming through the bedroom window, and you remember that it is the first weekend of November.  You sit up from bed and open the window, letting in some fresh and crisp fall air.  You feel refreshed and are ready to get out of bed…this is a huge change from how you used to wake up before you lost weight.  You used to want to stay in bed for as long as possible, not ready to face people or the day ahead. But everything is different now that you are at your GW.  

You walk to the bathroom and step onto the scale before you jump into a warm shower.  Your UGW reads back at you, and you feel so accomplished and calm.  And just generally proud of yourself.  You take a warm shower, and shave your legs quickly—there’s less surface area to cover, so shaving takes half the time.   You apply body lotion and leave-in conditioner—your hair has grown to your desirable length during your dieting and you take care of it.  When you step out of the shower, your reflection in the mirror doesn’t put you in a bad mood or make you feel ashamed of how you eat.  You feel confident and don’t feel the need to change who you are, and know that others won’t question what you eat either.  Thirty pounds ago, you got ‘should you really be eating that?’ or ‘why don’t you have some salad instead’…but now, nobody questions what you eat.

You slip into a warm robe and wash your face, and you do your hair in a way that looks effortless.  You apply light makeup that accentuates big eyes and a sharp jawline, and browse your closet as you decide what to wear for the day. You’re going to a farm festival and plan on walking around in muddy areas, so you plan accordingly…and refer to your thiinspo/pinterest saves for outfit inspiration.  You wear something that complements your personality while looking like you didn’t spend hours getting ready…and you really didn’t.  You think back on how difficult it used to be to find outfits when going to new places, and how you often ended up crying on your bed when you thought everything looked bad on you.  It was so difficult, and you’re so, so grateful that you don’t need to worry about that happening again.

You have some tea/coffee as you head out the door…you always need caffeine to get going.  You play music and have the windows down as you head to the farm, and though its a little chilly, you feel happy to be alive.  You’re typically colder nowadays, and you’re still getting used to it.

You meet your friends/cousins and walk around.  There are people EVERYWHERE even though its only 9:00 am. You get several double glances, but don’t feel self-conscious.  You used to think that people looked at you and saw somebody that took up too much space…somebody awkward and big.  But now you feel comfortable in your skin and feel like you don’t take up very much space at all.  You don’t compare yourself to anyone anymore, and are not the fat friend/cousin anymore.  It’s crazy how much more attention you get…its attention that shows that people either envy you or think you’re cute.  

Your friends end up getting some hot cider, and you’re able to get some without feeling guilty…you treat yourself now and again, and you don’t feel self conscious drinking something so caloric in front of people anymore.  Then, out of nowhere, you spot your crush in the field of people… and your friends pull you towards your crush’s friend group.  Your crush looks at you and smiles…they’ve been paying more attention to you and can’t seem to take their eyes off of you ever since you got to your UGW.  You feel really pretty and confident, and smile back. You guys all decide to go on a hayride, and surprise, surprise, your crush ends up sitting right next to you.  Their leg touches your thin leg, and you don’t feel self conscious because your thighs are nice and little and you have a thigh gap.  Then, the ride goes over a big bump and your crush catches you and uses the excuse to put their arm around your little shoulders.  You are so happy, and you never want this day to end.  

THE END.

I could make these longer, but I don’t want to fill up anybody’s feed.  Please let me know what you think and if you want me to make more!! Much love to everyone, and best wishes….stay safe please.

[novarasalas]

Second Look Review: The Feud

*This post is very graphics heavy. Use caution. Sorry*

Nnnnggggg…..

…..I hate game shows.

And you know what I hate more than game shows?

1970s game shows.

…..yay, this episode.

But I’m gonna power through it, because there’s a lot of throw backs and references here that you may not have noticed the first time around. There’s also some good plot happenings, too.

But really….

Pictured: my two moods watching this episode.

So the first reference people got almost immediately is in the Garfle Warfle Snick logo.

It’s a classic 70s design. While the asterisks and colors of the GWS logo aren't present in the original Dating game logo, they do feature in the set.

That’s Farah Fawcett, by the way.

The first game is called Pictation. It’s obviously a play on Pictionary, which had it’s own game show in 1997. The original drawing game show, however, was “Win, Lose or Draw”.

This is an episode from 1987, featuring Burt Reynolds, Annie Potts, Dom Deluise, and…

Betty White!

And now Keith is lucky enough to play.

The hair tie is to keep his emo bangs out of his face while the pacifier is to bite down on in frustration.

I know this from experience, as I was in art school starting in 2005, which was a prime year for emo kids, and they made us play Pictionary one afternoon.

Everyone’s pretty much already said it, but yes, I can confirm, Keith is a good artist.

None of us were that day, though.

Several instructors pulled all of their students into one room and broke the news that we’d be playing a game. As socially awkward and socially anxious weirdos, the news also broke us. Half the students didn’t even participate, the other half were doing what Lance is doing here: yelling random stuff that doesn’t even come close to making sense.

And we were terrible at this game. All of us.

After the 3rd round, a cry came from the back of the room:

“hOW Are wE SO BAD aT ThiS???!!!”

I wish I knew, random art kid.

What I do know is that Keith is doing far better than I did. I mean, he didn’t start crying, not even a little bit.

In the end, Team Voltron loses, giving Team Galra a chance to steal. That’s a game mechanic from The Family Feud, and it’s the only one, even though the episode is titled “The Feud”.

It’s more in the overall design of the set, really.

….

I’ve never liked “The Family Feud”. I claim legacy on that: back in the day before remote controls were standard, my sickly grandpa would drag himself out of his chair to turn the t.v. off because he hated Richard Dawkins so much.

Richard Dawkins was the original host of the show, and he was one in a line of 70s game hosts that always made me feel like I was about to be sexually assaulted.

...can’t imagine why I’d ever feel that way.

To be fair, he’s not kissing those women without consent. They asked them before the taping if they were ok with it. But still….ick. And Richard Dawkins wasn’t even close to being the worst in terms of smarmy game show hosts.

Back to the episode at hand though.

(This is a great loop, btw. I suck at gif making myself, so thanks op.)

Everything about Team Galra is delightful. I just wish there was more of it.

With a steal and a win, Zarkon chooses Lance to play.

Zarkon is so thrilled to call Lance dumb. It’s hilarious. Also, Lance fans, please enjoy this endless loop of that moment.

I kid, I kid. I like Lance. We’ll talk more later.

I don’t know what Faces from the Past is referencing, but that isolation shield seems awful lot like The Cone of Silence from “Get Smart”.

What is The Cone of Silence? It’s a class A security procedure, used to transfer top secret intel between two agents.

Demonstrated here:

The next game is more familiar.

It’s the Garflator, or otherwise known as...Password!

...wait….is that…?

Yes! It’s Betty White again. Also seen here in an episode from 1963.

Doing this research, I found out that Betty’s done a lot of game shows in her time. That’s news to me, because I still don’t like game shows.

After the dumb one is the smart one.

And everyone knows it.

Pidge plays miniature golf here.I don’t think it’s in reference to anything else, though maybe you could see a game from The Price is Right if you squint.

And then Pidge gets things done about, by calculating a shot that takes out the camera and the crazy, demi god like creature known as Bob, tackling him to the ground.

The ambition, drive and self assurance that Pidge has is amazing and no one talks about it nearly enough. I want to be her when I grow up.

So now it’s down to a vote: who ever gets voted for the most gets to leave while the rest stay for eternity. It’s kind of like a reverse “Survivor” situation, really.

And now everything gets very heartwarming as they vote for each other, but one stood out to me: Lance, voting for Keith.

Lance: He’s our leader, plus he’s half Galra, so I think he’s, like, the future.

That….was so sweet. I mean it. That face, those words. I didn’t expect Lance to say that. He’s come so far since those first episodes where he was just an unmitigated asshat to Keith. It’s growth. It’s good.

Keith, what say you?

Keith: I just don’t wanna be stuck here for eternity with Lance.

Oh no! Keith...hahah...Lance gives you something so heartfelt and that’s what you go with? Aw man…

Really, though, his ire’s not directed at Lance, not really. It’s more like he’s just done with everything that’s happening, he’s frustrated, and Lance is the only one he’d take anything like this out on.

But buck up, kiddos, your love and friendship won the day!

And lastly, one more reference, this time directly from The Price is Right:

At the end of each show, host Bob Barker would turn to the camera and say “Help control the pet population: have your pet spayed or neutered.”

Bob Barker has fought for animals rights for decades, and while I don’t necessarily agree with everything he’s done, good things have come from his work. I’d link some info on it here, but...I can’t. Channel you’re inner essay writer and go find those sources.

So, that episode was a trip. In all, it more reminded me of “Let’s Make a Deal”, where costumed contestants would be chosen from the audience to play games for cash and prizes.

Bob himself is most like Bob Eubanks, as played by Q from Star Trek. I believe the showrunners even mentioned Q while talking about Bob in this episode

That’s Bob Eubanks up there. He was the host of “The Newlywed Game” and “Hollywood Squares”.

Q, on the other hand, is:

“He is an extra-dimensional being of unknown origin who possesses immeasurable power over normal human notions of time, space, the laws of physics, and reality itself, being capable of violating or altering them in unpredictable ways with a casual thought or hand gesture. Despite his vast knowledge and experience spanning untold eons (and much to the exasperation of the object(s) of his obsession), he is not above practical jokes for his own personal amusement, for a Machiavellian and manipulative purpose, or to prove a point. He is said to be nigh-omnipotent, and he is continually evasive regarding his true motivations.”

This is him:

So...I still don’t like 70s game shows. But, I gotta say, not everything is terrible about them.

Gene Gene the Dancing Machine is fun. This is from “The Gong Show”.

Fun, if your definition includes “pure chaos”. 

The uh….energetic...host there is Chuck Barris. He’s the creator of “The Dating Game”, “The Newlywed Game” and “The Gong Show”. His shows seem to have pioneered the whole look and feel of most of these 70s game shows, and thus is my sworn enemy.

…

Don’t even think of talking to me about “The Match Game”.

In summary:

I actually had fun with this episode, as much as I don’t like the aesthetic.

And apparently Josh Keaton said that this episode foreshadows something and I DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS AND I’M SCARED SO VERY SCARED.

Next up: Wow! What a call back! -and- Kolivan’s been having a bad time.

[zeilixir]

so… tadi malem gw lupa buat ngepost log gw but it’s alright. ANYWAYS MIMPI GW ANEH BANGET ANJIR. so i had a dream, gw murid gtu(emng murid sih) TAPI SEKOLANY MASIH AL*THE*A ANJ, BUT MURIDNY MURID SP*NT*?? AND MASA GURU GW SALAH SATUNY ITU HWASEONG ? (s*onghw*) CAKEP BANGET DIA DI MIMPI GWㅠㅠ

TO HAVE TJIS MAN IN MY DREAM?? SUCH A BLESSING MASYALLAH SISTER. ANYWys, theres this girl in my class who also showed up in my dream her initials is H. SO ME N H ARE INTERESTED IN THE SAME PERSON AND THAT PERSON IS SEONGHWA. So me nd h went out one night and that night was chaotic..? we were at a field and she suddenly took a gun out and started shooting at me? i think that was it? idk everything wad do vivid lmao. so she got me in the hip, luckily hwaseong came by out of nowhere and dragged me to the car LMAO HE DRAGGED ME LIKE I WAS A FISH JE CATCHED, so in his car he had a sniper, OUT OF PAIN I GRABBED THE SNIPER AND ADJUSTED TO IT? H REALIZED WHAT WAS HAPPENING AND RAN AWAY. when she ran away ddeonghwa alrdy started driving the car, and with that i rolled the windows down and started shooting at h. i shooted rapidly and basically she dropped. idk if she was dead or nah but we ran away :/ , while driving away we stopped at an alleyway, and there he broke down and cried? idk what happened but that shit was it it made my cry too. we talked abt something but then my mom woke me up suddenly ㅍㅁㅍ, BUT YA THE DAY WENT QUITE WELL I GOT MY PHONE BACK SO THATS A PLUS WOOHOOO i had to clean the house up tho 😭😭

[clicheroadtripblogname]

Day 23: The End.

Here are a few of the things I noticed across our great nation.

There is an unbelievable number of both Jimmy John’s and Subway. Jimmy John’s doesn’t exist in NYC (right?) and Subway is probably the most-maligned of all fast food options here, but apparently the midwest fucking LOVES sandwiches. I ate at neither. I actually avoided most fast food except one Wendy’s and two Sonics late at night, plus two McDonald’s breakfasts. I tried to eat at small town spots when driving and pile on the breakfast on long drive days, and that worked out way better for about the same price.

Jesus advertises a LOT. Almost as much as the famous Wall Drug. Most Jesus ads are very vague, like, “You Will Meet Jesus” or “Jesus Introduces You To God” (that second one may be a little off, but that was definitely the gist). There were Jesus and God billboards telling me I was on my way to Hell on every highway, but the exit for Hell never did show up on Google Maps. Weird. I spent a lot of time wondering why Jesus needs so much advertising. I feel like his brand is pretty well-known and that billboard money could go toward, I don’t know, helping people in need? Like Jesus wanted? No other religion had billboards. Actually, that’s wrong. There was ONE very strange atheism billboard in Denver. Pothead heathens.

There is so much open space. And so much flat land. And so much farm land. One family can easily occupy the same amount of land as all of Queens, and that’s wild to me. I wouldn’t know what to do with all that land. I’d never want the task of farming it.

Extremely small towns make me extremely sad. I couldn’t tell if it was my city liberal elitism or just that it’s generally sad to see a place that doesn’t know what to do with itself. There were a lot of boarded-up and decaying buildings everywhere. It made me feel like I had a better understanding of Trump voters, and I’m not saying that in a negative way. I mean that I can understand the appeal to some degree. At least, back then.

And on a personal level, I was mostly amazed by how fine I was the whole trip. I went in telling people to prepare for an inevitable meltdown, for a moment when I couldn’t handle it at all and I was in over my head and convinced everything was terrible and spiraled out into a lonely pit of despair. People were on standby. But that moment didn’t come. I had one cry after Yellowstone when my camping plans went awry and I thought I wouldn’t make it to my hotel in time to check in. That’s it.

I think if I’d done the whole trip without seeing any friends the whole time, it would’ve been different. I’m not sure I could’ve lasted three weeks on only texting friends and small talk with strangers. Yellowstone might have been the full breaking point in that case. Who knows.

But a year ago, I know I couldn’t have done this trip. I was fine in a way that I 100% know I would not have been without meds. My brain has spent a lot of my life making me feel awful about myself. It’s gotten really good at making sure I feel I’m a person no one likes or cares about and I’m a completely failure. But lamotrigine has shut it the fuck up for once. Those thoughts are extremely rare, and they happen the same way anyone else’s bad thoughts happen. Not at random. Sparked by something a normal amount of bad.

I had some people ask if I was afraid to be alone with my thoughts for so many hours on the road, and I totally was, especially because I’ve had that time in the past and it didn’t go well. I certainly had moments of reflection and introspection on this trip. I thought a lot about past relationships and family during long stretches of corn. I thought about some trash times I wish hadn’t happened and thought about how they shaped me and why. I thought about dudes I wish I could see one last time just to explain that I finally understand that what they did or said to me was wrong, and they should feel really bad. I thought about things I regret and times when I was a shitty person to other people. I thought about what I want out of my future. My career, relationships, friends, family. Having that time alone with my brain was different now. It was rational and useful and sometimes (a lot of times) funny because I’m hilarious and think about weird shit.

And I didn’t get tired of driving. The only time I was tired of driving was when I couldn’t find parking in Queens today and people were being fucking stupid per usual and I HATE THEM oh god why, Queens, why. And I got literally tired sometimes. But driving has always been therapeutic for me, and that didn’t change. Driving at night still sucks. But driving in general was something I spent a long time looking forward to being able to do, because it meant I could go when and where I wanted. That’s always been extremely important to me.

All the driving didn’t feel like it was endless hours strung together for three weeks. It felt like steps. Okay, I drive six hours today, I have arrived at the place I wanted to be. Tomorrow, I have a new place to go and I’ll drive however long it takes to land there. This drive was eight episodes of Potterless long, or six episodes of Dr. Death, or three of Invisibilia. I stopped when I wanted to stop, took detours that seemed interesting, and had no set timeline aside from needing to eventually be asleep in a new location. I wasn’t looking more than a day or two ahead at any given moment, so it felt like I was just taking two-day trips repeatedly. Not one looooong trip. It doesn’t feel like it took three weeks to get back home. It feels like it took about 3 hours from Pennsylvania, with one stop for ice cream in Morristown.

It feels really weird. Three weeks happened and didn’t happen to me. I know I was gone. But I don’t feel it. I feel like I was gone for a weekend. I keep thinking tomorrow is Monday.

And it feels weird to be in a large city, especially since I went into Manhattan only a few hours after I got home and I barely even did that this summer, let alone this month. The skyline looked crazy big as I drove over the GW and there were too many people in my neighborhood. More buildings and more people than I’ve seen in weeks and my first thought was WHY AM I HERE but I remembered in Manhattan that I like all the people and buildings. I did not like my $10 vodka tonic in midtown. Stupid midtown.

I’m also home with my dumb cats, who don’t stand still long enough for a photo. They ignored me at first, and then I left for a few hours and now that I’ve returned again they’re behaving. They probably think I was threatening them with more absence. The Mr. is in his usual spot.

I know people are going to ask me what my favorite stop was and I’m not sure I have an answer, honestly. The whole trip was my favorite stop? The Badlands ended up being maybe my favorite National Park. I think. It was definitely the most unique, and it’s the only stop where I got in some stargazing. Wind farms were one of my favorite sights on the road. River swimming in Utah was a good break. Utah in general is perfect. The geysers in Yellowstone were surprisingly beautiful and interesting - minus Old Faithful, which was boring and not even colorful. You know, I guess my favorite place really was Wall Drug, though.

And I guess that’s it. My Chinese food is here. Writing this makes things pretty final, though I still have five bins in my car to unload. Welp. Until the next adventure, goooooodbye.

[catatanharianlaknat]

MY 2017 !

Holla !!! happy new year !! 2018 is in our way now !

Mungkin ini adalah new year eve tersepi yang pernah gw rasain…secara gue di Konya…Turki… it’s like most conversative city in Turkey. But anyhow… buat gue ngerasain pengalaman dapet beasiswa dan struggle dengan super duper susah itu …something!

But I am not here to tell that…..gue mau sharing tentang apa aja yang gue laluin di 2017 lalu. Happiness and sadness…pain and joy !

So here we go !

Good and Bad News

In the early of February tahun 2017 lalu gw udah nyelesein mas magang gue di GNFI yang buat gue itu merupakan masa incubator gue untuk jadi penulis. Iya, gue mencoba nulis dengan belajar secara otodidak dan berakhir dengan menjadi freelance writer di GNFI which is good news for me since many people trying to be one of the writer as well ! but…sehari sebelum gue menerima sertifikat magang dan assessment point gue. One thing that struck me so hard. Malam setelah gue dari kantor dan berencana buat bikin artikel untuk besok harinya. One message from Gania said “Mas Adli, Dita udah ga ada”.

I was in confusion…yak…gue pikir ini ga mungkin kejadian. Lha wong siang harinya gue masih sempet chatting dari instastory nya Dita,  Yet….after that…Ojan nelpon gue “Dli, dita beneran meninggal” 

 Gue langsung mual…nahan nangis…ga tau mau ngapain. . Dita adalah sahabat gue dari circle Rumah Ori. Ya…mungkin orang yang beneran nyadarin gue yang dulunya cuma nganggep temen sebagai “orang yang cuma lewat di hidup gue” tapi gue baru nyadar bahwa….friend does matter!

I have Mira, Ori, Ojan, Faris, Ichsan, Gania, Febri, Icha dan temen temen lainnya yang ga bisa gue sebut. Termasuk Dita…actually I lost two of my bestfriends….Bela dan Dita. Bela meninggal duluan karena sakit, Dita meninggal karena kecelakaan. Dan mungkin ini pertama kalinya gue nangis karena kehilangan sahabat. Gue nangis waktu Bela meninggal dimana gue sempet nungguin dia dirumah sakit sambil nge joke “ntar makan martabak kum-kum abis lo sembuh yak” karena dia pake selang untuk makan…meskipun dia insist buat beliin gue martabak kum-kum…but we never made it. I am sorry Bel…as I promised..i will get a scholarship even not from LPDP. Secondly, I lost Dita …the last time I see her face to face is when new year eve 2017. I still remember how she insisted to come to Jogja back then dengan bilang “Mas adli, aku mau ke jogja” dan saat itu gue seneng banget Dita bisa ke jogja after long time no see. I didn’t know it was my last time to see her…to see her laugh and her innocent joke.

Dita was always there for her friends even in the worst condition. Even when you contact her during gloomy night…she’ll always listen and understand you. For us…she is our family. Sampek berencana bakal nemuin anak-anak kita nanti satu sama lain but Allah has another plan.

Work hard for 3 months just to get dumped

So after I got hired to be freelance writer di GNFI, disitu lah artikel gue mulai ada harganya. Dimana per artikel yang gw buat menghasilkan uang. Gue janji sama pacar gue waktu itu (sekarang mantan) untuk pergi ke tempatnya which is kita LDR-an. Dan tiket kesana ga murah and  of course I won’t ask for my parent’s money to buy the ticket. So the date was decided at 21-24 May. Jadi gue harus kerja keras secara ekstra untuk beli tiketnya bolak-balik PLUS uang saku gue sendiri. Yes. It was draining as hell ! gue yang waktu itu juga kuliah untuk master degree gue dapet “tantangan” yang WARBYAZAK! Disaat gue harus bikin paper dan resume jurnal untuk tugas kuliah. Gue juga bikin artikel tiap hari. I can sit for 5 hours in café just to get write the articles ! gue nulis siang dan malem sampe editor gue sendiri complain kalo gue nge berondong dia dengan artikel yang siap publish. Lo bayangin aja gimana bikin 4 artikel dalam waktu sehari. Less than a day malahan. Sore sampe jam 2 pagi dan gue lanjut dengan ngerjain tugas gue. Disamping itu gue ngambil apapun yang bisa dijadiin duit. Gue jadi notulen dan MC yang waktu itu ditawarin si icha. Gw menawarkan diri jadi notulen dengan dalih gue bisa bikin artikel dengan topic penting. Waktu itu yang dateng bu Retno Marsudi. Juga gue jadi notulen waktu bu Susi Pudjiastuti dateng ke kampus gue.

One moment I was really breakdown, hampir nangis karena ngerasa ga kuat. But Icha and Diah get me backed up ! Icha nyemprot gue dengan kata-kata super bijak tapi nusuk. “Inget pah, yang muji kamu itu menteri sekelas ibu Susi. Artikel mu dibaca banyak orang Indonesia bahkan LPDP sempat nge-share artikel tulisanmu. Kamu mau nyerah kayak gini doang? If she doesn’t even worth for you, get loose! You have so much important things to do”. Icha adalah adek angkatan gue yang gue panggil “anak”. Thank you cha…tamparanmu ngebuat gue bangun.

So fast forward, gue selama 3 bulan saving money bisa beli tiket untuk nemuin si pacar yang pada akhirnya I got dumped. Shit happens. 3 months saving money by not doing fun. Working like Spartans, studying like hellhound to save my score and I got this.

Yet, I got into desperations  for two weeks. I didn’t do my work. I almost lost my score bcuz  I couldn’t focus. Sampek salah satu dosen gue bilang “saya tahu track record anda bagus mas adli, tapi sekarang saya tidak melihat hal itu”. And I feel enough!! I met Masyitoh, Diah, Ori, and Mira and they enlightened me, I even talked to kak Tary yang lagi di New York…she heard me so well till my last anger and encourage me to have a brave steps. . Gue ga berani nemuin icha …soalnya nanti kenak damprat yang lebih tajem dari dia.

So for me…it is a lesson to NEVER trust anyone BLINDLY !

GOT SCHOLARSHIP AND GO TO TURKEY !

Everything happens for a reason. God put me in my worst condition. Yet, everybody knows that gue udah berkali-kali breakdown…gagal beasiswa. Kerja serabutan. Gaji pernah di pending waktu kerja di suatu tempat dulu…sebelum GNFI. I got mockery and ridiculous laughter. Haters gonna hate. I got underestimation. Only few people who are really close to me knows how stubborn and persistence I am. Finally I got a scholarship in Turkey. Salah satu penyelenggara beasiswa di Turki nerima gue untuk belajar di Necmettin Erbakan University  di kota Konya, Turki. Yes. This is my revenge !!! akhirnya gue pun memutuskan untuk berangkat ke Turki terhitung dari 27 Agustus 2017 meski pada awalnya orang tua sempet nentang dan gue sempet nangis dihadapan orang tua. They’re just too worry about me.  Yes, we had an argument till I’m crying. What I just said was “I am doing this for them”. I’ve been failed many times dan merasa jadi anak yang gagal. And this is my opportunity to make them smile and say to everyone “my son got a scholarship” proudly. FYI, kakak dan adek gue adalah orang yang taat agama sedangkan gue adalah orang yang sedikit jauh dari agama. Bokap dan nyokap adalah orang yang sangat beragama tapi gue adalah anak yang kurang bisa dibanggakan dalam hal itu. For me, I just do anything to make them proud of me. And this is for my parent.

Studying Turkish language is not easy. For me …ini adalah bahasa yang punya grammar yang super banyak! Gue muter otak sampe jungkir balik hanya untuk “pass” di level A1 dan A2. Itu aja udah ngos-ngosan. Tapi buat gue…gue ga mau nyerah. I have my principle “give up is the only choice after my death” yang berarti sebelum gue mati, gue ga bakal nyerah!. And here I am…living in Turkey! Oh ya ! for the first time….GUE NYENTUH SALJU !! dan gue merasa SUPER NDESO !!

Gue pernah nyentuh salju di depan asrama gue dan hampir teriak “IKI SALJU JON !! SALJU !! SALJU TENANAN ! DUDU ES SERUT SEKO BAPAK BAPAK NGAREP SEKOLAHAN! IKI LHO SALJU!! JEBULE ADEM!”

So …that is pretty much what happened in my 2017.  What will happen in 2018 ? well… I don’t know…I might got married (?) still got no plan for that cz I don’t have any candidates  yet.

cheerio

[tatooedlaura-blog]

Friday

the series read as follows:

Superman … Monday … Cheezy Pouffs … Bacon … Stumbling … Trail Mix ...  Punch

___________________

Scully was truly glad it was a cloudy morning. The sun, at this moment in her life, would have killed her … instantaneous eyeball burning and brain bursting … dead in the hammock …

How the hell did they get to the hammock?

And her tongue still felt numb.

Screw it, she was going back to sleep.

&&&&&&&&&

Then the neighbor fired up his lawn mower.

Mr. Delphine was a lovely man 99.9% of the time but right now, she was going to mulch him to death with his own machinery.

At least after a minute, he moved to his front yard, reducing Scully’s unqualified hatred to functional levels, “Mulder?”

“I’m going to kill whoever the hell that is.”

Before more conversation could occur, the mower was back and being the good boy he was, Mulder shifted hands to cover her ears, holding them mercifully closed until the mower disappeared again, “true love means holding your woman’s ears closed to deafening sounds while your own head throbs like the Rockettes are dancing on your brain.”

Not wanting to deal with noise again, she pushed him towards the side of the hammock, “go inside before he comes back and I can’t be held responsible for my actions.”

They stumbled into the house, managing the back door with difficulty, clumsy fingers smacking screen several times before making it to the kitchen, the quiet pushing down stuffily on their ears. Feeling the need to whisper, “I think your tongue is blue.”

Nodding, then groaning, “will be until at least Sunday. Can you get some water?”

“Sshh, why are you yelling?”

Scully ignored him, remembering where the bathroom was after a moment but still taking out a chair in the process of getting there. Mulder stumbled in before she could flush and peed standing beside her while she washed her hands, both too whatever to care. Immediately shutting the lid, he sat down, pulling her onto his lap, burying his face in her neck, “I feel terrible.”

As they both tipped off the toilet and onto the floor, “it only gets worse, believe me.”

Maggie found them a few minutes later, leaned on the wall, wedged between toilet and sink, “everything all right in here?”

“That stuff should be banned, Mom. Every watch list in the world should contain Ruth’s punch.”

Not approaching, knowing it might be best just to shut the door and leave them be, “I should have cut you off earlier or watered it down a little.”

Mulder squinted up at Maggie, “how are you not dying like we are?”

“Decades of practice. I’ve been drinking that punch for the last 30 years. I know precisely how much I can drink and how long to stretch it out for. You, my innocent darlings, need time and aspirin.” Throwing it out there and seeing if it stuck, “would you like me to make you some breakfast? Maybe some toast to go with your aspirin?”

Mulder turned green but Scully nodded, “yes, please. You wouldn’t happen to have tacos hidden somewhere in the fridge, would you?”

“No, but I do have bacon, pancake mix and ham.”

“Ham slabs?”

“Half inch thick if you’d like.”

Mulder pushed Scully from his lap, depositing her on her side on the rug while he hovered over the now open toilet, waiting to lose his stomach contents in front of two pairs of sympathetic blue eyes. When it didn’t happen, however and the feeling passed, Mulder glanced up at them, “ham slabs?”

&&&&&&&&&

Maggie made them breakfast, burning the bacon to extra carcinogenic and slapping more butter on the pancakes than Heart Healthy Diet approved. Letting them eat in peace, she sat down across the table, beginning her grocery list. As Maggie turned the sheet of paper over, Scully’s curiosity got the better of her, “is that your shopping list? Are you packing in for the apocalypse?”

Chuckling, “remember I have most of the kids for the next ten days so they’re going to want to eat.”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot that was next week.”

Mulder, his head not quite so angry with him, managed to work up a semblance of inquiry, “what?”

“Charlie and Dave and the girls are going on a 10-day cruise to the Mediterranean for their anniversaries and asked if I would be able to watch the kids while they were gone. I’m getting them Sunday afternoon.”

Raising an eyebrow at Maggie, “either you are very brave or they drugged you into compliance.”

Maggie slid the list across to Scully, “see if I missed anything and yes, Fox, I am very brave indeed. Where do you think Dana gets it from?”

Doing her best to focus on her mother’s handwriting, she gave up in a minute, “I can’t focus, Mom, I’m sorry. Just make sure to have an industrial jar of peanut butter and boxes of pasta and they’ll be just fine.” Fingers crossed under the table, “do you need any help shopping? I can go if you’d like.”

As she moved to stand, Maggie patted her shoulder gently, “it’s Friday, honey. I think Mr. Skinner would like to have you come in to work today.”

“Damn it.”

Mulder managed to do the hard math and figured out, through squinting and judicious use of his fingers, “we have about an hour until we have to leave. We’ll be late because of showers and changing but not late enough for him to scream at us for more than five minutes.”

“Sold.” Looking up at her mom, “can we go take a nap while you’re gone?”

She waved towards the stairs, “make sure to take another aspirin and drink a glass of water with it.”

&&&&&&&&&&

They made it as far as the living room couch, Mulder on his back, one foot still on the floor, while Scully scooted in beside him on her side, her four inches of real estate enough to have her in dreamland not 30 seconds later.

Maggie took a few pictures before she left, for posterity sake and the fact that she adored them both.

22 minutes later, he had to pee. He fought it valiantly but in the end, he had to extricate himself and find a toilet. While occupied, he heard a cell phone ring and he was not pleased. Grumbling while he washed his hands and headed back to Scully, cursing quietly the whole way, he saw her already off the phone, “if that was Skinner, just tell him we quit. We can live on tuna and city water and have the dental school at GW clean out teeth for free.”

Scully found her voice, thickly coated in fear and shock, “It wasn’t Skinner. It’s Mom. She was in an accident and I need to go to DC General.”

“Shit. I’m sorry.” Hurrying over, “is she okay? What happened?” Already heading towards the stairs to get his shoes on, “let’s go.”

Standing still another moment, she managed to get her legs moving, jamming her bare feet into sneakers as Mulder dug around for the keys he’d set somewhere the previous night. As she locked the door behind them, Scully continued her narrative, “they found my number in her phone. She was in a car accident and she’s not awake but they said she was stable.”

“That’s it?”

“It’s been maybe 15 minutes since it happened.”

Rolling his eyes and opening the car door for her, “that’s 12 minutes more than you’d need to figure out what was wrong and fix it.”

Even through her mounting panic, she slipped a half-second smile, “I’m not magic, Mulder, and neither are they.”

“Yes, you are and they should be.”

Not pulling away from the curb yet, Scully looked at him, his eyes closed, his skin pale, “do you want me to drive?”

Really wanting to be the guy who took care of his girl in time of need, he nodded, his head dizzy still from the liquor, “I think I might still be a little drunk.”

Having sobered up when she heard the word ‘accident’, she got back out, switching spots with him, “I wouldn’t doubt it.”

&&&&&&&&&&&

Her hands began shaking of their own volition the closer they got to the emergency room and taking one as they walked into the building, Mulder found it freezing, skin rough, fingers small, bones protruding. Her voice, however, was steady as she asked where Maggie was and then followed the nurse to the curtained off area. He vaguely listened to the scientific jargon, registering a few words at a time, namely: broken ankles (plural, holy shit!), broken wrist (singular, workable), dislocated shoulder on same arm (been there, done that, doable), glass cuts to face and neck (need to get her a better car with that tempered glass crap), bruised ribs (totally need a few days rest but that’s it), and slight concussion from knocking the door frame (if it’s anything like a gun hilt to the temple, she’ll need several Tylenol ever four hours) …

Then, gloriously, he heard Maggie’s voice drift to his ears, “honey, I’m okay but I think the car is dead.”

Scully pulled him along as she maneuvered her way towards her mother, “don’t worry about it. We’ll get you a new car.

Mulder, overjoyed that Maggie was talking clearly, piped up from behind his partner, “what happened?”

Between wincing as the nurse cleaned her cuts and the doctor injected her with something to put her out so he could re-locate her shoulder, she managed to tell them of the red light runner that hit her just in front of the driver’s door, crushing the metal and capturing her ankles between pedal and pedal and pedal and engine block housing, the door folding in on her hand, bending it back and snapping bones and her head going through the side window. Mulder wanted to throw up a little and Scully looked positively livid, Mulder firmly believing she would kill the other driver if she ever got her freezing little fingers around his throat.

Once Maggie, mid-word, drifted out of consciousness due to drug induction, the doctor politely dismissed them while they re-socketed her arm. Mulder left immediately, taking Scully with him by the elbow. Now in the hall and behind the pulled curtain, Scully turned to him, dropping her forehead to his chest, deep breath rattling a contained sob the likes of which made him want to cry himself. Sliding arms around back, he moved her to the side, out of traffic and rested his cheek atop her head, “she’s going to be fine. She was talking and she’s going to be fine. You saw her. She’s fine.”

Pressing firmly into his shirt, her voice cracked an octave, absorbed mostly by cotton and flesh, “for 15 minutes in my head, she wasn’t and I can’t … I …”

The sentence stopped there and he didn’t push, knowing exactly how she felt, his fear different but the sentiment the same.

&&&&&&&&&&&

It took almost two hours for them to finish Maggie’s arm, get better x-rays, cast her feet up, then settle her in a room. By then, Scully had returned to her natural resting state of smart, sassy and emotionally-controlled. Mulder had returned to sober.

Safely enclosed in the room, door closed to hospital sounds, Mulder moved a chair over beside the bed, “why don’t you sit down and I’ll go see if I can find something to snack on? I can hear your stomach growling from here.”

Scully moved to the end of the bed instead, giving her mother a thoroughly medical stare, sizing up injuries, competency of repair and aftercare, “Mulder?”

“Yeah?”

“Remember that time that you broke just one leg?”

Without difficulty, he recalled the boot wrapped around his appendage for six weeks, “yeah, I recall something about it.”

“Imagine that on a 60-year-old woman but triple the difficulty and surrounded by five kids under the age of 10”

Dawning hit him like a freight train, “I totally forgot about the kids. Did you call Charlie?”

Mind already churning out a plan, “yeah. He’s on his way but they can’t cancel the trip, I mean, they can but Mom would kill them.”

“I can see the hamster wheel spinning. What are you thinking?”

Moving to his side, she stared at her sleeping mother, “I’m thinking I need to move it to take care of her and since I’ll be there, the kids can stay, too.”

“We may need more of Ruth’s punch for that.”

[fmlfpl]

Lineup Lamentations - GW4 - Walsh Wildcard Edition

Our Transfers, Captains, and Starting 11s for the week!

*AND* New starting this week we’re gonna do a Slacker of the Week Lambs, someone randomly selected from our Patreon Slack channel each week, and this week it’s Rai from Slack great lad and on wildcard too with Walsh...

This week it was not random I have to admit but every week for the rest of the season it’ll be random. Get in.

—

WALSH - On Wildcard

TRANSFERS:

Wildcard

GK:

Pope (LIV)

Pope retains his spot and seems like a great long term hold. BAPs for every clean is great and he's great. Burnley look back to basics and have had great underlying defensive stats.

DEF:

Alexander-Arnold & Robertson (bur)

Trent and Robbo also retain their spots from the old guard team.

I debated over whether to go with d33n instead of r0bbo but in the end I just trust Livp a lot more than I trust Everton and I just want to keep Robbo.

The literal worst thing I did last season was remove Robbo from my GW1 team after the first handful of games and so I'm trying to learn from past mistakes for some reason. His stats look great and he has looked great so I am sticking with him. Obv Adrian is a bit of a nutter and a lot worse than Alisson but these two fullbacks are still the creative cogs for Livp and still seem like great picks.

Laporte (BHA)

Slotting in alongside is Laporte.

I really want to have a share of the City defense and now that my break glass is gone I don't want to fuck around with Zinc or some other cuck. Laporte is as safe as safe comes and seems like a guy I could just not look at or worry about for months. See a pattern here?

MID:

Salah (bur)

Mo sticks obv. Nothing to say about that.

Sterling & De Bruyne (BHA)

Raz and Kevin are in alongside and also picks that don't really need much explanation.

Alon did float an interesting idea to go Kun over Kevin for the next couple little miniwindow of good fixtures but in the end I just didn't want to take on that risk when I view Kevin as just a guy I could hold for months.

Now that my triple City and triple Pool are out there in the open, it's time to get into the dross.

Cantwell (whu)

Cantwell is in... and although his underlying stats are questionable at best given his high points total so far... he still seems like a no brainer option right now. I have no clue how long he'll keep it up, but at his price I'll find out.

McGinn (cry)

Finally, I'm going with McGinn to round out the midfield.

I don't feel greattttt about him, but they've got pretty good fixtures in the near term and he seems to be in and around a lot of what they do so far. Villa look like they are somewhat reasonable going forward and after a nice performance against Everton maybe they will be able to score some goals in this good run.

Certainly not a long term pick here, but he'll do for now.

FWD:

Pukki (whu)

Pukki is still in... nothing to see here.

Haller (NOR)

Next to him is Haller.

He looks good and looks to be justifying the preseason hype. Realistically I was looking at him or Mount as my last call to make. I'm not sure I'm going the right direction with Haller and McGinn but it seems like an okay gamble to go for the upside play with West Ham up against NOR, avl in the next two. 

Mount seems like a better long term pick, but with a tricky next few I'll go without for a little and then reassess. Haller might also just be the truth. Pod partner loved the fuck out of him preseason, so that's a good sign. He might just be great and wetspam, as we know, are not built to defend.

BENCH:

Lundstram (che)

Rico (lei)

Nketiah (TOT)

Avert your eyes. I'm on Lundy, Rico, and Necktie.

Oh yeah and Woodman the legend.

I know the likes of Button may be in better standing with the price changes but I will not be bullied into getting rid of my Championship players. I will not stand for that. Anyway, this bench is fucking bad, but I think I'll be able to get away with it for a little bit. Lund will rotate a bit with Cantwell. Seems fine. Rico...I have no fucking idea what Edward is doing but it seems like Rico has a better chance than Kelly to have a job for more than another couple of games. Or he won't play another minute this season - who is to say.

I have no delusions about this, I will need to do something about this nightmare group at some point, but that point is not now. The biggest risk of my team is probably how absurdly bad the bench is so we'll see if that comes back to fuck me over or not.

CAP:

Sterling (BHA)

I'll be on Raz. Pretty straightforward and not going to overthink it. Should batter Brighton - hopefully he'll be in with a return or two.

—

ALON

TRANSFERS:

OUT: Pérez, Richarlison, Gomez

IN (for -4 points hit): Mount, De Bruyne, Emerson

Clearly if your name ends in a zed then you’re straight out my fucking team.

But in actuality these moves kinda wrote themselves... I had exactly four bad picks in my side after last GW and I’m off to a solid start. Three of them are now dealt with via guys that I like short term and long term and my last bad guy, Gerry D, has a fabulous fixture so just praying on that one.

First hit of the season I have to say does not feel as thrilling as I thought it might. It kinda feels like the beginning of the end??? But I’m trying to not be dramatic about it.

GK:

Ederson (BHA)

Potter is a clever lad and gave City a scare in the cup last season but as long as Pep takes his head out of his ass and starts ‘Dinho or Rodrigo then this should be a straightforward clean.

If neither start then I’m genuinely scared and might start thinking about moving away from City defense.

DEF:

van Dijk (bur)

Liverpool haven’t cleaned home or away vs. Burnley in a long ass time and it’s understandable why. They’re tough, they’re annoying, they throw bodies around, Barnes and Wood are good, McNeil is good, Gudmundsson is pretty good, etc etc... But still, this should be a clean, and Matip’s aerial prowess will be very useful... I wonder if this is the game Gomez starts over Trent at RB for another big boy to win headers and shit? TBD.

Digne (WOL)

Should be an easy clean here. Wolves have been the worst attack in the division thus far and I see no reason for that to really turn around.

Wolves will park and barely attack and as long as Everton don’t get caught with their pants at their ankles on a Jota/Jim counter then it should be a clean. And maybe Digne will dazzle us with another worldy FK like he hit in the cup.

Nightmare for all of our eyes that this match is one of the two featured matches on Sunday. It will be a disgusting viewing experience.

Söyüncü (BOU)

Leicester have been very tight to start the season and getting Ndidi back fit is gigantic for their cleansheet prospects. I like Leicester to control this game and allow Bournemouth very little... Söy is the fucking man I love him.

Emerson (SHU)

Last but not least is the first new boy into my team, Emerson gets SHU at home.

it should be a relatively straight forward clean but I say that and they’re still without Kante and Rudiger so ugh who the fuck knows... They did a great job shutting down Norwich for the final ~60 minutes of that match and I’m hoping they continue with that form.

Emerson also has been on the ball constantly for Chelsea and creating and shooting and everything good so here here to an attacking return.

MID:

Salah (bur)

It’s sorta weird how some people are still slagging off Mo and avoiding him on wildcard and he’s not been talked about for captaincy at all. I don’t get it but whatever. He’s simply the best attacker in the league and best fantasy player in the game for the third year running. /shrug.

Sterling & De Bruyne (BHA)

Welcome to the team Kevin!! Been talking about him a lot on basically every pod this season so far so it’s nice to finally have the boy in my team.

City attack are best in the world and I feel like Sterling is the biggest piece of it you can get in one player and conversely for 9.5 the value of Kevin is just incredible. 200 points coming as usual for Kev barring injury: book it.

Mount (SHU)

Mount, another new boy and another pod darling, coming straight the fuck in...

The fixtures following Sheff U. are brutal but he’s just been so fucking good. Eye test and stats and everything about him make him very easy to love from the FPL perspective. Shooting a ton and it’s not hard to imagine another goal on the break vs. Sheff U.

FWD:

Pukki (whu)

Duh Pukki easy. Dynamite fixture should be a wide open crazy game. Can’t wait.

Deulofeu (new)

The aforementioned last shitty guy in my team is this guy.

Gerry has looked pretty good in last couple and had very nice stats vs. West Ham last week.

With Deeney out hurt you’d imagine Gerry goes back up top and hopefully Sarr comes in for Hughes and maybe Watford get going this week... They really have not been as bad as their points column shows so far. Bounce back for me lad.

BENCH:

Greenwood (sou)

Hayden (WAT)

Maitland-Niles (TOT)

CAP:

Pukki (whu)

I really foresee this being an absolute barnburner no defense yolo high-scoring face-fuck of a match and Pukki is the absolute center of everything that Norwich do scoring wise - assisting goals and scoring goals. I’m expecting a double return with an upside of more...

It’s risky and punty seeing how Sterling and other City players will makeup the huuuuuuuge percentage of caps this week but the one thing, maybe only thing?, about Sterling or Kun or Kevin vs. Pukki is that City can score 5 and one of those guys can blank... We’ve seen it happen before... I don’t really see a world where Norwich score 2+ and Pukki isn’t heavily involved....... I’m riding the hottest player in the league against a bottom 3-5 defense in the league. It’s not that crazy... right?!?!?

Hold me.

—

RANDOM SLACKER OF THE WEEK: RAI - On Wildcard

The words of Random Slacker are not officially endorsed by this website nor any employees of FML FPL LLC.

TRANSFERS:

Wildcard

GK:

Pope (LIV)

An easy pick despite a less than ideal first fixture. Turf Moor is back to being a FOOKIN' FORTRESS and BUR keepers are always golden for FPL.

RIP Leno my sweet prince.

DEF:

Alexander-Arnold & Robertson (bur)

Most managers started with at least 2 pool defenders and how we react to their lack of cleans defines what kind of manager you are.

I've personally gone for the 9000 IQ move of buying Robbo back for 0.1 cheaper and I look forward to their inevitable attacking returns (and hopefully some cleans too).

Digne (WOL)

Every time I watch Everton play they look unfathomably awful but Digne keeps punishing me with an endless stream of cleans, dongs, and assists.

I had him in my draft before the absurd Carabao free kick and that cemented his place for me. Just like the Pool boys Digne is a friend with benefits: a defender, offering multiple ways to slap your anus beyond cleans.

MID:

Sterling & De Bruyne (BHA)

I'm all in on City this wildcard, their mini-run of BHA nor WAT is arguably their tastiest run of the season and if there's any time to triple on City attack it feels like now.

Not much to say about these two that you don't know already but I fully expect Kevin to break his duck and score his first dong this season at home to Brighton.

Mount (SHU)

Mount is looking like the cheap value mid on a top team that we all wanted Perez to be. He is showing a Lampard-esque knack of knowing when to make late runs to pick up goals. His price point and Chelsea's medium term fixtures make him a no brainer.

Cantwell (whu)

Interlinks with Pukki well. A pure value pick with a nice attacking fixture this week.

FWD:

Agüero (BHA)

Jesus is out for at least this fixture which hopefully means a 90 minute fuck fest for Kun. I'm hoping Pep utilizes Jesus mainly for their predictably easy UCL group. Funding Kun has meant sacrificing a Pool mid which is obviously a huge risk but ultimately I'm having fun and Kun is fun.

Haller (NOR)

A definite bandwagon pick this week but the Frenchman is proving hard to ignore particularly for all of us on wildcard.

He has a nice couple of fixtures and there are plenty of strikers priced just below him to move to if it doesn't work out.

Pukki (whu)

I delayed slightly in signing Pukki and my rank plummeted faster than a piss towel so I won't be doubting the master plan again.

He's looking like the Jimi of this season.

BENCH:

Lundstram (che)

OOP cheap lad, nothing more to say here.

Söyüncü (BOU)

Considered Kelly in this spot but Söy is much more nailed and a cheap way into a solid team.

Elneny (TOT)

Non-playing 3rd bench at 4.4 mil, if I had the extra 0.1 then this would be Dendoncker.

CAP:

Agüero (BHA)

One downside of triple City attack is having no idea who to cap.

A chance of 90 minutes of Kun is hard to ignore and I’m going with the big balls play here.