#i do not think that the writers appreciated the gravity of this journey even a fraction of what it deserved

[settle-down-frohike]

“It didn’t take did it?”

Is the most heartbreaking line in the entirety of all 11 seasons and 2 movies of The X-Files.

[moca-de-led-ger]

Throwing out my thoughts of amphibia and my funny journey with it is that I didn’t fall for it on sight. I remember watching the first two to four episodes coming out with “that was fine, albeit maybe not for me.” It’s good for a children’s show on the Disney channel but don’t know if it had anything to offer me beyond that. I wasn’t expecting anything more deep from Anne and sprig nor like them as much. It’s funny because I thought the exact same thing of gravity falls after watching like the first two episodes.

I would’ve respectfully dropped it if it weren’t for the fact that not only was I keen on watching as much of the 2010’s era of cartoons as possible, but want to expand my palette and watch/experience as much media as I humanly can. I think I recall hearing sort of good things from it so I got around watching more and came out of s1 with “that was okay, I’m glad I watched it.” Reminiscent to something like Wander over Yonder, which is a different flavor of a show but shares the same kind of quality. And I do have a soft spot for WoY even if it doesn’t get as much recognition but would be lying if I said it was as great as the big story driven animated shows people are talking about. The main cast and their swag grew on me, I appreciated the frogs of wartwood, and the slapstick has a strange charm that hits that sweet spot of entertainment value I kind of yearn haha. There’s even this innovative execution with the way the characters deliver their dialogue. I dig it. (they’re basically like the gravity falls s1 eps though only half as clever). The only real nitpick that may bog the show down for others is too much screen time of mayor toadstool (like the writers had an easier time making a conflict for an episode relating to the mayor doing something shitty and not giving any continual consequence just to excuse making him do something bad again for story material). It’s at the very end when he’s finally the only wartwood member left to respect Anne/have a form of redemption that the season reaches a sense of gratification. Though the show also has this weird formula of characters being told not to do something, only for them to do something, and end with them learning to not do the thing, which hilariously could be nearly every episode of the show.

After the way s1 ends I immediately jumped into the 5 available episodes season 2 had. And despite them being more of what the previous season is like anyway, they’re a little wackier and establish the world a little more. Those s2 episodes in addition make the show feel worth while and fun as heck. It’s probably the fact that it goes in a direction I would’ve wanted them to do earlier, to move away from wartwood. But since I finally started warming up to characters like Wally and Mrs. croaker, it just so happens that Anne and the plantars leave. Left me like “wait…what…but I like them now 🥺”

After time went on and s2 and half of s3 had been out i decided to hop back in. But instead of continuing off of s2, with how much I liked season 1 and know how it generally goes, I decided to rewatch from the very start. And I absolutely loved it, so much more than I was expecting. I wouldn’t love this show as much without Sasha, Marcy and the story threads of season 2 and a bit of s3. But the show’s main appeal to me is Anne Boonchuy and the Plantars.

[smugraccoon137]

Supergirl Season 1 Episode 5 Review and Thoughts

K: Sounds like a woman that knows what she wants

…Do you know what women want Kara? Sounds kinda fruity

K talking about Lucy: She's gorgeous, she's smart, she smells nice. Hell I want to date her

Kara what the fuck

Poor Alex and her lesbian ass being left alone with Maxwell lord handsome bachelor man

Wow I hate the concept that a girl listening to a dude's romantic problems puts her in the friendzone. That makes no sense. My demiromantic ass does not relate at all

Ew not Maxwell coming onto Alex

Also what part of the government does anything to help people?? Girl what planet are you on

Ahhh the irony of Kara getting friend zoned by James and then Winn getting friendzoned by Kara

Fucking Lucy Lane calling out James’ crush on Clark

I do like this moment where Kara realizes that Lucy is just as vulnerable as she is. I appreciate that cus there's nothing worse than girls deciding they’re enemies just because they like the same person. 

Okay not to laugh but I was not expecting Maxwell Lord's back story to be “When I was a kid my parents organs melted” lolol

 K: I don't know anything about romantic love

*Me taking notes for my autistic headcanon*

I had to look it up. That kid does not look 12. When did children get so tall??

Episode 5 the first time Kara faces the moral dilemma of not being able to save someone:

I personally love stuff like this and its something we don’t talk about a lot anymore. But used to be a big part of coming of age stories geared towards boys. Usually a kid or young man who doesn’t understand the value of a life until he takes one away from someone. And then subsequently is overwhelmed by the gravity of their actions. For some reason we just don’t talk about that anymore?

But anyways! We don’t really talk about how this affects Kara beyond the fact that the man who dies low key leaves her a mystery. One that seems to tie back to Maxwell Lord. I hope that we do in the next episode, because again this is something very worth talking about. Especially in the grand scheme of a super hero’s journey. I remember during The Batman animated series, and in the Justice League animated series that when something of that scale happened.

It was of importance, because it showed that our heroes can’t save everyone. That when someone dies, even a stranger, they feel a deep responsibility to that person. Because it is their job to protect the people in their city. They are connected to each and every one of us. And yes its a massive savior complex, but its unusual to find a Hero without one. Its a part of why they don the mantel most of the time. And especially with Kara’s history with being sent to protect her baby cousin, you’d think that that would directly be projected onto National City.

But yeah I hope we talk about it more. Instead of just “It wasn’t your fault Kara” and moving on lickety split. This is a good moment to talk about Kara so I hope the writers use it.

K: So you can have it all?

C: Of course. Just not all at once or right away

Just a line I liked and obviously a bit of foreshadowing

I can dig Maxwell as an antagonist. A man too smart for his own good. Supergirl as a person is this massive mystery right on his front door. And isn’t it just a part of the whole super hero thing to have someone obsessed with discovering your true identity?

[dancedance-resolution]

Why Batwoman 2x01 was so good:

1. The writers managed to strike a great balance between paying respect to Kate Kane and introducing Ryan. Kate Kane as a character is, of course, significant to DC. She’s an important source of representation as a Jewish lesbian, and she has a large legacy/mythos within the larger DC Comics history. Batwoman first showed respect to Kate as a character by wisely chosing to not kill her off. Next, there’s one scene where Ryan is reading up on Kate, developing new understanding and respect in the process, and every few seconds the camera cuts over to where Mary and Luke are reading up on Ryan, similarly gaining understanding and respect for Ryan. I think this scene effectively facilitate the batsuit’s—as a mantle, as a symbol, and as a mythos—being passed on to Ryan. It paid a large amount of respect to Kate as a character, pointing out some of the most significant aspects of her character, and sort of drew Ryan into Kate’s mythos as Batwoman in a way that helps facilitate her becoming Batwoman - she comes to learn and respect the history and the gravity of Batwoman as a person, as an entity, as a figure of justice, and as an icon; and as a result, she can now carry on that legacy and expand it, using it to bring even more good to the world.

But even before she learned about Kate, Ryan respected her. When Ryan first met Mary and Luke, she offers genuine condolences for their loss. She doesn’t disrespect them or make light of their grief. Even though these two people are strangers,

In the process of paying due respect to Kate, however, Batwoman did not minimize Ryan or treat her as “second” to Kate. Ryan got a significant amount of screentime and focus—as she should—and her time on screen was all truly meaningful. We’ve begun to see her backstory, see who she is as a person, and see what that will mean for her as Batwoman.

2. Ryan is a lovable character, and Javicia did an excellent job portraying her. I love Ryan a lot, guys. She’s passionate, earnest, and driven. She’s down-to-earth and has a strong sense of justice that leads her through life. And at the same time, she’s a charming dork - the type of charming dork who yells “I’m bulletproof, bitches!” after dangling helplessly from the sky by a grappling hook. I, obviously, fucking love her for it.

I also think that the writers did a great job of keeping the vibe of season 1 to a good extent. The way Ryan was introduced felt like a proper introduction considering what we know about this show’s Gotham and considering how things were done in season 1. It worked well. Additionally, it is not lost on me how meaningful it is that from Ryan’s very first scene, we see that her instinct is to selflessly help victims to the best of her ability, and it is because she went out to help them that she stumbled upon the Batsuit. Furthermore, in that scene where she does discover the suit, the flashbacks establish that this moment in meaningful beyond just this one moment of time - it has connection to Ryan’s history and motivations for becoming Batwoman. During the DC Fandome this past summer, Caroline Dries said this season would deal with destiny. I think that that first scene was a great way to introduce it as a concept without taking away any of the sense that Ryan truly deserves this mantle as well. (One last side note - the use of music and sound effects in that first scene was excellent.)

While the writers certainly deserve a good bit of credit for creating this amazing character from scratch, I think Javicia also deserves a lot of credit here - she did an absolutely stunning job as Ryan. The charm I saw in Ryan was very similar to the goofy charm she brought to Ali in God Friended Me (which I loved, by the way), and those lighter scenes were played with the same adeptness as the dark, intense, and gutwrenchingly emotional scenes.

3. Batwoman acknowledged Alice’s grief and trauma in a way that also gave viewers some closure regarding season 1 matters. I think that Alice’s grief process was written pretty well considering her already existing trauma. And that succinct summary of Alice’s plan to get her dad to kill Kate was pretty clever on the writer’s part, as it gave us some closure regarding season 1’s goings on that were interrupted by COVID (and that were unable to be seen to completion since Kate Kane is no longer Batwoman).

4. The episode had many powerful moments. Some quotes that really struck me:

“You make it sound like these are all my choices...You wanna know why I haven’t paid my fines? Because I can’t find a job. Because I don’t have a home. Because no land lord wants to rent to an ex-con on post-release. You see how this works? No one cares that the dope wasn’t mine or that the Crows were dirty. Or that I’m actually a decent human. I am a file in your cabinet. That is not having power. That is thr very definition of powerless.” This line is made all the more powerful by the fact that Ryan’s first words upon donning the Batsuit are “Time to be powerful.”

“Trust me, I know I’m not a symbol, or a name, or a legacy...I am a number. I am the 327th baby of a Black woman who died of childbirth that year. I am a twenty-dollar-a-day check to a group home. I’m Inmate 4075 serving eighteen months for a crime I didn’t commit. But I can live with all those numbers because the mama who adopted me? I was her number one. But it turns out she’s just one of a quarter million murders in this country who have not seen justice. And that is a number I can’t live with.”

“I’m bulletproof, bitches!”

5. Batwoman has a truly excellent supporting cast. I know that a significant portion of the Batwoman fandom has been in love with Mary, Luke, and Alice since day one. One common fear within the fandom was that season 2 would feel like a completely different show, but at least in this episode, that wasn’t the case. The supporting characters were all prominently featured and given a good amount of emotional depth to cover - and seeing their journey helped the show feel familiar and helped carry us viewers over into this new era of Batwoman. And because the transition from Kate to Ryan was so well done, as I discussed in point 1, I didn’t feel like there was any absence or lacking in the show.

6. They did a great job carrying over that Kryptonite storyline from last season. In fact, it makes a lot more sense to me now. I was admittedly a bit confused by the whole Kryptonite storyline last season (it felt a bit like a mere device to facilitate Kate’s relationship with Kara - which, hey, I’m not complaining; I loved that friendship and think they should have hooked up once). Perhaps it was confusing since COVID cut it short. But whatever the reason, I’m glad that I now understand the deeper purpose behind this Kryptonite storyline. And, wow, this has the potential to be super cool and interesting!

7. They called out the Crows in a meaningful way. I think I’m not the only person who is a bit uncomfortable with the Crows in both concept and practice (yes, I do understand that they’re based on the comics, though). So I really appreciated—and found it super powerful—that it was Ryan who delivered the line “The Crows were dirty.” Sometimes I get confused as to whether Batwoman is portraying the Crows as good or bad, so lines like that give me comfort in knowing that the show at the very least acknowledges the problematic nature of an overmilitarized private police force that has been contracted out to have dominion over a city whose population includes a significant amount of low income people.

8. Bonus: They did good by the shippers. Batmoore shippers got some closure by observing Sophie’s grief process and hearing the letter Kate left her. Pennymoore shippers are certainly getting emotional and significant content for their ship. And for clowns like me, the show introduced a great new ship, Mary/Ryan, that I adore even though I know it won’t be canoning, lol.

[wordsandsound14]

Switchfoot albums ranked (not including interrobang)

I've been thinking about this a lot too recently. Ik I'm late to the party on this one but I don't get on reddit often. Only got on since the band did the ama. I won't include interrobang since it's so new and ranking it seems difficult. (worst to best)

11. Learning to Breathe - While this record has some of the best written songs (Learning to Breathe, The Loser, Love is the Movement), it also has some of my least favorites (Poparazzi, Innocence Again, Living is Simple). I often just find myself bored with this album and disappointed. There are plenty of dipping of toes in ideas and then abandoning them. For instance, the beginning of Erosion is such a cool unique sound and then it's abandoned for the rest of the song. The themes of this album are also really boring to me, even when I was a christian. I just found it wasn't taking a unique perspective or doing anything different with its themes when they have done so before.

10. Where the Light Shines Through - I feel this was the band when they were the most uninspired. It feels like it was trying to sell itself to the CCM crowd and make some waves there since it's been the most consistent place of making waves and it still didn't do that. Don't get me wrong, there are great songs here (If the House Burns Down Tonight, Float, Holy Water). The first half of this album is super good. It's that back half that feels like an axe to the first half. Every song on the back half has something that disappoints me. And I'm fine with christian themes and all but it felt like this album had more just praise songs vs the questioning of faith. Would've been a great EP and it kinda made sense that they went into hiatus after this album. I also feel that the themes of the album didn't really make it to it. Jon talked about how he was in a some struggle and storm before the album and then by the time they got recording it more so became an album after the storm. And I just wonder what was going on. Cause there's only small hints. I can only feel that an album that actually talked about that or coming out of the storm would've worked but we got way after the storm and leaving a lot of good inspiration behind in a ball of mystery that we still don't know about. I don't need to know every information that he went through but the songs got effected by it.

9. New Way to be Human - I think what holds this album down the most is it's lack of direction. I can feel them trying to tackle all of their ideas from folk to pop to indie while maintaining their identity. I just don't feel these ideas get fully fleshed out. But these songs are really well written and the philosophy bleeding into these tracks and ending up being a basis of many future songs can all be tracked back to this album. This album is just a very specific listen so I don't often turn to this album. I do think Something More is the most overlooked song, with Amy's song being a close second. I also think Incomplete is a just a better version of I Turn Everything Over so it feels like a repeat track. But I really appreciate what this record represents in their career and see it as a stepping stone of sorts. (Company Car is one of their best earlier works)

8. Native Tongue - Seems a lot of people have very different feelings about this work. I think the biggest thing that makes Native Tongue feel distinct is that it feels like a Jon Foreman project with Switchfoot. Like Jon was the only one who couldn't stay away from the studio and was calling the other members. They came and were happy to but it was Jon with the initiative. At least, it's how it sounds to me. A lot of these ideas are incomplete. But when they aren't, they hit really well (Native Tongue, Dig New Streams, Oxygen). And the amount of trying different things! Granted a lot of ideas of modern production ideas but I'm glad they happened. But some I'm not too fond of (Joy Invisible, Wonderful Feeling, The Strength To Let Go). I feel this album also really fell short without a good producer. It's not the production value that doesn't work but Switchfoot works best when there is a producer there that works with them and pushes them. I fell they could have been better but it also has some solid songs in here.

7. Legend of Chin - This is one of the most fun Switchfoot records but has such a distinct sound and charm to it. I understand that a lot of songs are about girls that Jon doesn't even know any more but there isn't a bad song on here. It's all just fun from 3 guys jamming in a room. I used to not like the closing track but it's grown on me and I crave that sound more and more. Some standout tracks are Home, Chem 6A, You. With Underwater being a super creative song. I don't have a ton to say other than this is root Switchfoot and their cores are on display here.

6. Fading West - I feel this is their most misunderstood record. The struggle this album went through is tremendous. Take the two best things Switchfoot is known for and strip them away and they still make a record worth listening too imo. It's not their best but it's really ambitious, even if accidental. Originally, they were going to only strip the guitars away but when you listen to the story of Fading West, going on a journey to feel inspired. There are plenty of lines hinting that Jon was having writer's block (blood clot pen). It does mean the lyrics suffered some here but I don't think they suffered a ton. They achieved the california surf music. However, I do think they missed a huge part that I feel the fans were wanting. It's the sound that's on the ep. It's the one we were advertised and didn't receive on the album. I would loved if the album had the sound of Edge of the Earth (the song). But I really appreciate the risk cause it's a huge one. (stand out tracks: Love Alone Is Worth the Fight, BA55, Slipping Away).

5. Vice Verses - This was the best they have ever been as musicians (you could argue this for Oh Gravity too tho). But the amount of pushing their musical talent is very apparent on this album. The bass lines and drum rhythms are amazing. The only songs I'm kinda eh about are Rise Above It (still has great production and energy) and The Original (still has amazing bass and guitar parts). This album does have a weird issue with the lyrics either hitting really deep parts of your heart or being a very vague or simple line. The production is also the best imo and everything is layered super well. The only production that I disagree on is on Where I Belong (the digital claps for why and some parts sounding a little inconsistent with the rest of the album). But the choices in the sounds of the guitars and genre jumps and the grunge. Still lacking in some areas but still a solid record. (Holds my favorite Switchfoot song Thrive)

4. Oh! Gravity. - Oh yes, the golden era as I call it. I pin this album as the core Switchfoot sound. If you want to hear what Switchfoot sounds like, this album nails it. Guitars, fun, great lyrics, and musical variety. I don't have much words like I did for Chin. It's a pretty simple album to digest and it's the quickest made one (from what i'm aware of) and it shows but in the best way possible. It's also only made better by the podcast series they made. The only things that hold this album down a bit is American Dream and Burn Out Bright being repeat tracks of another (American Dream being the better one) and the double edged sword of it being simple when surrounded by high effort long works that are beyond exceptional.

3. The Beautiful Letdown - The Classic Foot album that defined their careers. It's not a joke tho that everything went up a whole level with this album. Something clicked in Jon's head that turned out some of his best lyrics and the song formats and sound just grew a ton. Jerome being an essential new member. And only one song that's a little meh (Redemption) and even the meh song is still catchy. Overexposure might be why it's not higher but I feel I have more reasons being that it does sound dated. Most of the time for better but a little for worse. I also feel that if Drew was a part of this album, it would be up a another level also. There's just a slight amount of incompleteness to this record. Not sure exactly but regardless the songwriting on this album is amazing and the questions and the way they are asked remain timeless.

2. Nothing is Sound - Grunge at its best here. I'm still not certain what Jon was going through here other than what the lyrics mention but whatever he was feeling hits hard. It resonates so much. To this day, these songs hold my throat. Not a bad song on here. It's a really good album that only gets beat by it's production value. Some songs could've been produced better (ironically Jon mentioned that recently too lol). Golden, The Setting Sun, and We Are Young Tonight are the forefront of those. And it's not like they are terribly produced but they are missing a little from what they could be. But literally it. Front to back, this record just rocks while wallowing in despair from the fallen world and the loneliness and helplessness it brings. It also represents a huge decision on what to do after a breakout record and is one of the best records after a band reached public success.

1. Hello Hurricane - The whole sound of this record is the most complete the band has ever sounded to me. The writing on this album is so great. Not one song is a waste and process this album went through is amazing. I get that they can't (prob shouldn't) do this process but damn was it worth it. This project sounds so complete and so organically made, even with two songs that I feel could have been switched out. (Always isn't my favorite but I may having it be a song for a past relationship. But it also does still have a lot of raw emotion in it that I appreciate and can get past my own perceptions. It's the lesser of the offense. Free is the other one only cause it kinda is booty in studio. It's live version makes ya wish it was that way on the record). But i adore these lyrics and I love the sounds they used without washing it up with production but still using production (Sing it Out) as a tool. It's so good and I love this album so much

quick review of interrobang is that it’s a very solid record and I love the sound of it so far. It doesn’t take my top record but it’s an insanely catchy album with a lot of listens in the future. I’d probably rank it as 2 or 3. Not sure if it’s above or below nothing is sound. but really give it a listen. It’s exactly what i’ve been wanting from the band for so long

[freddiesaysalright]

The Most Dramatic Season Ever - Week 8 - The Finale

Summary: It’s your time now! You are ABC’s new Bachelorette and this is your journey! All these men (including our fav BoRhap boys and then some) are competing for your heart! Will you find love? Will you get engaged at the end? Or will you end up heartbroken? Find out, on the most dramatic season ever!

Word Count: 6.7K

Tag List:  @psychosupernatural, @someone-get-a-medic​, @bensrhapsody​, @deakyclicks​, @crazylittlethingcalledobsession​, @minigranger​, @crazyweirdocalledfriday​, @the-moving-finger-writes​, @assembledherethevolunteers​, @rose-writes-prose​, @queenlover05​, @moon-stars-soul​, @danadeacon​, @deacyblues​, @thesundrop​, @cupidben​, @lostlittlenerd​, @delilahmay39​, @timmvrphy​, @queenmylovely​, @loveandbeloved29​, @free-pool-trash​, @fairestkillerqueenofall​, @local-troubled-writer​, @babyalienfairy​, @littlecarowrites​, @allthethingsicant​, @im-an-adult-ish​, @mirkwoodshewolf​, @squishy-gay-astronaut​, @sherlollydramoine​, @butlegendsneverdie​, @dogmom2014​, @rocketrhap917​, @26-7-49​, @lelifesaver​, @frozenhuntress67​, @drowsebaby​, @mrhoemazzello​, @lookuptotheskiesandsee​, @seasidecrowbar​ If you’d like to be added, let me know!

A/N: Alright, Y/N finally chooses! The fic isn’t quite over because there’s still the After the Final Rose! Find out if Y/N is still happy since filming ended AND find out who the next Bachelor is!

Warning(s): This chapter features an anxiety attack. As well a bunch of mushy love stuff.

Night 1  Week 1  Week 2  Week 3  Week 4  Week 5  Week 6  Week 7  The Men Tell All

Week 8/Finale here we go!!!

The next part of the journey took you to the South Island, in Queenstown. It was a smaller city, but breathtakingly beautiful. Imagining yourself getting engaged here was easy. The hard part was who you imagined getting down on one knee. You felt like your heart was being torn clear in half between Ben and Joe. 

“I am in love with two men,” you said to the camera. “I had a feeling this is how the journey would go, but I didn’t think it was going to be this hard. I have really clear pictures of what my future would be like with each of these men, and I’m struggling...I don’t know what’s going to happen right now, and it’s really scary.”

Your accommodations in your hotel were stunning. You had a great view of the skyline. But it was difficult to appreciate knowing that the end was near and you were going to break someone’s heart. Maybe even your own. As you looked out over Queenstown, your stomach dropped at the thought.

After a day to recover from travel, you had your first date. It was with Ben. You were meeting him at a marina for a cruise around Lake Wakatipu. He beamed at you when he caught sight of you, and your heart soared. For a little while, you could just focus on him and not worry about this process.

“Hi!” you called as he reached you.

He picked you up into his arms and spun you around as you laughed.

“Hello, love,” he returned after setting you down.

Then he planted a kiss on your lips that told you just how much he had missed you.

“So today, we’re taking a relaxing cruise around Lake Wakatipu,” you told him. “It’s a beautiful day to be on the water.”

“It is,” he agreed.

The sun shone brightly, making the lake look like glass in motion. Ben took your hand and helped you onto the boat that was at the dock. The captain took you all slowly out of the marina before hitting the open water. Still, his pace was even and steady, since you and Ben were toward the bow, sitting on pillows, drinks in hand. 

“Cheers to a lovely day,” he said. “With the loveliest woman in the world.”

“Cheers,” you replied with a grin.

You kissed before taking your sips.

The lake was stunning. The water was a perfect, crystal shade of blue. The surrounding mountains were lush with foliage, still blooming from the summer warmth. The sun beat down, but there was a soft breeze to keep you cool. 

“So, tell me how you’re feeling going into this week,” you said after swallowing the crisp champagne.

“I’m feeling great,” he told you. “I think we’ve come such a long way, and...well, I love you, Y/N. That’s all I really can say. I’m not great with words.”

You giggled. “Ben, you’re fine. I love you too. I’m really happy with where we are.”

“You sure there’s nothing else you need from me?” he asked.

“Not a thing,” you said. “Just keep being honest and loving me, and I’ll do the same for you, okay?”

“You’ve got a deal,” he said.

You kissed on it. 

The rest of the cruise was beautiful. The New Zealand scenery never ceased to amaze you. And the fact that you were experiencing it with Ben made the vision all the sweeter. You had a little Titanic moment on the ship. His arms around you made you feel like you could remain in them always. Your future with him seemed as bright and limitless as the horizon. 

The afternoon came to a close and it was time to prepare for the evening portion of the date. As you put your makeup on, you found yourself thinking about Joe. Would your time with him be as pleasant and productive as Ben’s? If so, what would you do? If not, could you really let him go? You needed more clarity. 

Ben: I’m in love with Y/N. I’m ready to propose to her. I know she’s the person I’m meant to love forever. I can’t put my finger on how I know it, I just...know it. 

You met Ben at his hotel room. His adoring smile greeted you before his arms did. You inhaled his scent for a moment as you whispered intimate hellos. Then he stepped back and allowed you inside. 

The room was decorated nicely. Candles lit across the surfaces. Champagne chilled and ready. It was all so perfect. You toasted to each other before sipping the champagne. 

“It looks nice in here, Ben,” you praised. “Is it always this clean?”

“I’m actually quite a tidy person, so yeah,” he chuckled. “Come on, let’s sit down and relax.”

You followed him to the couch, where he poured you each a glass of wine. You took sips and then set the glass aside to take his hand in yours. You tried to smile.

“So, tell me what you’re feeling,” you said. “Other than loving me.”

“I mean, I am nervous about later this week,” he said. “The thought of proposing to you doesn’t really scare me, but the fact that there’s someone else here who also wants that….that’s terrifying to think about.”

You sighed. “I know it’s scary, Ben, but this is all part of the process.”

“I know,” he said. “I know what I signed up for. But that doesn’t make it any easier. My heart’s on the line, Y/N. You’re the first woman I’ve ever really loved. You’re the only woman I ever want to love. You must understand why it makes me so uneasy.”

“I know, and I do,” you told him, interlocking your fingers with his. “I love you too. I’m struggling with this too. I want you to understand that you’re not alone in being scared and nervous. This isn’t any easier for me.”

“We are both struggling, but in different ways,” he said. “I know you don’t want to hurt me or Joe. You’re an incredibly kind person - it’s one of the things I admire most about you - but you were right when you said it’s part of the process.”

You nodded. “I’m sorry you’re hurting.”

“I’m sorry you are,” he returned.

“At least we have each other,” you tried to joke.

He let out a small laugh, but then looked seriously at you.

“Look, Y/N, this process is not something either of us really thought would be this difficult,” he said. “But no matter what happens - good or bad - I will always be grateful to have met you.”

You held his eyes as your own began to shine with emotion.

“You’ve shown me what it is to really fall in love,” he said. “And I know you understand how special that is.”

“Ben…”

A tear slid down your cheek and then he gathered you up in his arms, pulling you onto his lap. He held you there for a long moment. Neither of you spoke, weighing the gravity of the situation. Because the next time you saw each other, you would either be getting engaged or breaking up. 

“I know you can’t promise me anything,” he said. “But I wanted to share what was on my heart. I love you very much.”

“I love you too, Ben,” you replied softly.

The rest of the evening was spent on lighter subjects. You were glad both your feelings were out in the open, and that you each understood how hard this was on both sides of it. Ben made sharing so easy, and you ached for a longer week. More time to explore what was there. But you also considered that would make things harder. You stood to leave, Ben’s hand still in yours as he walked you to the door.

“Good night, love,” he said.

“Good night,” you returned.

He placed a gentle kiss on your lips. His hand fell slowly away from yours. Your skin felt cold without the contact of his. Your eyes lingered on each other. 

Without another word, you turned and walked down the hallway. You heard his door click shut. As difficult as that conversation was, you were relieved you had it. Your heart was now looking forward to your date with Joe. There was a twinge of fear that Joe’s date would make your decision all the more difficult.

The next day,  you had your date with Joe. You were meeting him at Gibbston Valley Winery. It was a bright, sunny day, so the fields looked bright green and lovely. You grinned at Joe as he approached you, taking you into his arms and kissing you deeply. You hummed into it, feeling content and happy.

“Hi there,” you said brightly.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he returned.

“I’ve missed you too,” you assured him. “I’m glad we have this day together.”

“What are we getting up to?” he wondered.

“We are at Gibbston Valley Winery,” you told him. “We are going to take a tour and taste some wine.”

“Sounds like a classy day for me and my classy lady,” he joked.

You laughed. “Come on, you goof.”

Joe never failed to make you smile. Today, as he took your hand and led you inside, was no different. You found it easy to let go of your apprehensions and just enjoy your time with him.

Your guide first took you out to the field and showed you how they grew the grapes. They showed you how they collected them and juiced them before taking them to be fermented. They took you next to the wine cave, where there were barrels and bottles all over the place. It looked like something out of another world. Like the cellar of an old castle or something.

Your guide led you all through the “cave,” explaining how the wine was organized and how they chose which barrels were ready for bottling. When you got to the bottles, he had you stop, and he picked one up. It was a deep red wine and the label was blank.

“This bottle was finished today,” he said. “Remind me your names, and we’ll put it on the bottle to commemorate your special day.”

“Joe and Y/N,” you said.

The guide wrote it out in a surprisingly beautiful script across the label. 

“Before we cork it, would you like to try it?” he offered.

“Absolutely,” said Joe.

The guide grabbed two glasses, and poured about a gulp into each. You and Joe made a small “cheers” and then took the sip. It was smooth, fruity, and rich in flavor. It warmed you from the inside out, which made you think it was the perfect wine to be made for you and Joe.

“What d’you think?” the guide asked.

“It’s amazing,” you said upon swallowing. 

“I agree,” Joe added. “This is the best red I’ve had in a while.”

“Tell you what,” the guide said. “I’m gonna cork this bottle and save it for you. We’ll keep it until your next special occasion.”

“How sweet,” you said. “We’ll save it for our wedding.”

You looked at Joe and beamed. An expression he shared. 

“We’re looking forward to it,” the guide said. “I’ll go take care of this, you two head to the bar, get something to drink, have a chat, and good luck to you.”

“Thank you,” Joe replied.

The guide took your glasses with him to be washed, and you and Joe headed over to the bar. You ordered two glasses of wine and then went back outside to enjoy the sunshine and the view. Joe pulled out a chair for you at one of the tables and you sat across from each other. He offered his hand, which you took.

“I like learning stuff like this,” he said. “It gives me so many ideas for the restaurant.”

“I bet,” you said. “You guys sell beer and wine there, right?”

“Oh yeah,” he said. “Although, our wine is always Italian given the nature of the place.”

You giggled. “That’s right.”

“Never tell my mother this, but I think New Zealand wine is just as good,” he joked.

“Your secret is safe with me,” you returned. “I’ll never tell Virginia what a traitor her son is.”

He feigned offense before sipping his wine with a soft smile.

“Are you really into wine?” you wondered.

“I love wine,” he said. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I also love sharing a cold one with the boys or whatever, but there’s a sort of romance to wine that I really like. My dad once took the whole family to Rioja to see the wineries out there, and I gotta say, it was amazing.”

“Rioja?” you questioned. “That’s in Spain.”

“I know, we were making an exception,” he said with a shrug. “We’d already seen a few in Italy.”

“Your mom told me about some of the trips you all used to take,” you said. “I thought it was amazing that your parents shared experiencing the world with you and your siblings.”

“It’s definitely something I want to do with my kids,” Joe said.

“I gotta tell you, Joe, a future with you is so clear to me,” you blurted out. “I see it. The marriage, the kids, the house, life at the restaurant. God, it’s as clear to me as your face right now.”

“How does it make you feel?” he asked.

“Happier than I even knew I was capable of feeling,” you said.

“If you let me,” he said, holding your gaze. “I’d like to make you feel that way every day for the rest of your life.”

You sucked in a sharp breath, but didn’t look away. There, in his eyes, you saw the promise he was making to you. Joe was telling you that you could expect a proposal from him. You struggled to form a response. You could not yet promise him acceptance of a proposal. Happy as you were here, there was still Ben, who mattered a great deal to you.

Joe: What Y/N and I have is so amazing. I love her so much. I just want to get down on one knee and propose already! Right here at the winery, I don’t even care!

“Joe,” you said through a sigh. “I love you.”

It felt like a meek response considering the implications of his statement. Even so, he smiled.

“I love you too,” he said. “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot or anything. I just want you to know where I’m at.”

God, he read you so well.

“I’m glad to know that,” you said. “I wish I could tell you where I’m at. I feel really confused right now…”

“I know that you are facing an impossible decision,” he said. “Just do whatever it is you need to do to figure out what is going to make you happiest. I’ll support you one hundred percent.”

“Thank you,��� you said.

“Now, let’s relax, enjoy the wine, the sun, and each other,” he said.

You smiled and agreed. As you looked at Joe in the low afternoon glow, you saw everything you had ever wanted. Passion, fun, kindness, family. Joe was all of these things and more. As if sensing your desire to be closer, he leaned over the table and kissed you. Everything about Joe, from his words to his deeds, promised you the life you had always dreamed of.

When the time came for the evening portion, you met Joe - like you had with Ben - at his hotel room. His suite was similar to Ben’s but with a different layout. There were fewer candles and more items a bit askew, but it was still neat.

As you snuggled up together on his couch, your mind felt uneasy. You needed to know more about how he was feeling about the following day. The big day.

“Joe,” you said. “Aren’t you a little nervous about tomorrow?”

“Of course I am,” he said. “It could either be the best or the worst day of my life. But I don’t want to complain to you, when it’s you who has the big decision to make.”

“You can complain, I wanna know what’s going on in your heart,” you said. 

“Okay,” he said simply. “I’m scared sh*tless that I’m going to find out tomorrow that as great a relationship as we have, things are better with him. That as much as you see our future, you prefer the one he can give you. That as much as you love me, you love him more.”

You opened your mouth to dispute each statement, but closed it again.

“I know that this is what it is,” he said. “Of course I’m afraid. But those fears are the same as any other relationship. You take a risk when you fall in love. I’m fully willing to put my heart on the line if it means even the chance of having you forever, Y/N.”

Tears stung your eyes. Your heart was beginning to break because suddenly the choice before you was so obvious. You wanted Joe with every part of your being. But that meant you were going to have to break Ben’s heart. And just the thought of it was about to crumble you.

“I love you,” you told him again.

You took his face between your hands, sat up on your knees, and rested your forehead against his. You both closed your eyes as you breathed in this moment.

“I love you,” you said again, this time in a low whisper.

“I love you,” he breathed back.

You could not tell him that you were choosing him, and this was a very serious rule, so you tried to convey to him some assurance through your touch. You just hoped he felt it.

You did not remain with Joe much longer. You needed to get some rest before the big day coming in the morning. He walked you to the door and hugged you for a long moment. He thought he felt you reassure him, but a small part of him still feared you would not choose him. So he held you a little longer. In case it was the last time.

“Good night,” you said.

“Good night,” he returned, pressing his lips to your forehead.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” you said.

“Tomorrow,” he said.

You kissed once more, Joe’s lips lingering just slightly. Then it really was goodnight. How you ached to tell him not to worry. But you couldn’t. 

You started down the hall, and your mind went to Ben. You couldn’t imagine the look on his face if he showed up tomorrow with a ring and tried to propose. It would be too hard for Joe to follow up and for you to enjoy that moment. To protect Ben and yourself, you looked at your producer, Laurie.

“I need to speak to Ben,” you said. “Tonight.”

She blinked. “You’ve made your decision?”

“I have,” you said. “I can’t put him through a proposal. Not when he’s already given everything.”

“Okay, let’s go to his room,” she said. 

Heart pounding, you led the way down the hall to the elevator. Ben’s room was two floors below Joe’s. But upon reaching the elevator, you found you couldn’t be still. So, you headed to the stairwell instead. You began to rush down the stairs, desperate to reach him and get the hard part over with. Light as your legs felt, your heart felt like lead. It was crying out already with the wound it knew was coming. 

Two flights down. You hardly noticed the crew around you as you swept down toward that dreaded doorway. You reached it and came to a dead stop. For some reason, you stood there frozen. All you had to do was knock, but you couldn’t even lift your fist to do it. 

“Y/N?” said Laurie gently. “Are you sure this is what you want to do?”

You nodded slowly. “It’s going to be hard.”

“Yes,” she said. 

“It’s going to be painful,” you said. 

“Yes,” she repeated. “If you want to wait until tomorr-”

“No,” you said firmly. “I’ve already taken his first time being in love. I will not also rob him of his first proposal.”

Resolute, you finally rapped your knuckles against the door. You heard his footsteps approaching and you swallowed hard. It was difficult since your mouth was rapidly going dry. 

“Y/N!” Ben gasped with a smile when the door disappeared and was replaced with his form. “What are you doing here?”

“Can we talk?” you asked.

You met his gaze, and he saw the trouble in your eyes. His brow furrowed. 

“What’s the matter?” he questioned. 

Tears were threatening to overwhelm you. 

“Can we talk?”

“Sure, come in.”

He stepped aside and allowed you through the door. He followed you into the living area, but neither of you sat down. Ben braced himself, but he still was completely unprepared for the words that came out of your mouth. 

“It’s not you,” you sobbed. 

His whole body stiffened with the shock. Tears streamed steadily from your eyes, smearing your makeup, but you couldn’t think about that now. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but closed it again. You watched him through watery eyes. 

“I’m so sorry,” you went on, unable to bear his silence. “But I couldn’t let you go through tomorrow and start to propose when I could spare you some hurt by telling you now. I just - oh God, Ben, please say something!”

“I…” he trailed off. It was as if you’d punched him and he was still dizzy from the impact. “I dunno...I don’t...I am completely blindsided right now, Y/N.”

“I understand,” you said. “But I know where my heart is, and I didn’t want you to have to go through all this stuff to get ready to propose when I...I wouldn’t be able to say yes to you.”

“You told me that you’re in love with me,” he said, voice shaking. “Is that still true?”

“Of course it is,” you said. “Feelings don’t just vanish. But I just -” You paused to take a breath. “You told me that I’m the first woman you’ve ever loved. I am taking away the hope you had of only loving one person forever, and I hate that I’m doing that. But I couldn’t live with myself if I took away a  proposal from you. Words that are meant for the person you are really supposed to spend the rest of your life with.”

“Up until now, I was sure that was you,” he said. 

“I’m so sorry,” you said again, voice faltering below a whisper. “But I just can’t let you propose to me. I can’t. Not when I’ve already hurt you enough.”

He sniffled and a single tear escaped to slide down his cheek. 

“You’re sure?” he croaked out. 

“Yeah,” you replied. 

He sat down, leaning on his knees and buried his face in his hands. His shoulders shook as he wept, but he quickly rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands to stop it. It broke your heart. You had never seen Ben this emotional. 

“F*ck,” he choked.

“I hope you know that what we shared was truly...extraordinary,” you said. “I have cherished getting to know you and falling in love with you. I-”

“Stop,” he said, swallowing. “Stop. Just...don’t.”

Your bottom lip began to quiver again. “Don’t you want to talk about this?”

“Not if it’s just going to be that,” he said. He blinked and more tears spilled down his face. 

You took a deep breath to steady yourself.

“Is there anything I can say?” you wondered.

“No,” he replied shortly. “There’s nothing that will make this hurt any less.”

You sat down beside him.

“I never wanted to hurt you,” you told him. “Saying goodbye to you will be one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.”

“What changed?” he asked. “What made you suddenly so sure?”

“I just realized that...I could picture my life with both of you,” you said. “But he’s the one I can’t picture my life without.”

Fresh tears rolled over his cheeks.

“I see,” he said. “So, it really is….goodbye.”

You nodded. Your heart was sinking. It was beginning to pick up speed again as it resisted letting him go.

“I’m so sorry.”

There was nothing else you could say, but the words still felt pathetic. You remembered how it felt to be rejected like this, and nothing - nothing you said could make it okay. 

Suddenly, he pulled you into a tight hug. His large hands clutched your shirt as he held you impossibly close. He buried his face in your neck. You slowly coiled your arms around him too, your fingers finding his hair and combing through it. This was the last embrace.

As he began to pull away, he kissed your cheek. Your eyes fell closed to the feeling of his lips once more. Out of loyalty to Joe, neither of you went for a proper kiss. You looked into his eyes - those lovely green eyes, even red and puffy - one last time.

“Goodbye, Ben.”

“Bye.”

On unsteady feet, you rose. Slowly, your hands slipped out of his. Each step toward the door had your chest tightening with this hurt. You were going to miss him terribly. But you didn’t stop. You barely remembered opening the door and the trek down to the lobby. Awareness hit you all at once when you stepped onto the sidewalk and into the cool night air.

Your heart was beating wildly, as if trying to escape the tight confines of your chest. Your fingers began to feel numb. Your brain felt hazy and your lungs were constricting. Hot tears spilled some more down your face, and you felt them intensely. You let out a wail.

“That was so hard!” you cried. “Oh my…”

You tried to take a breath but couldn’t. Your body screamed in protest at the idea of stepping any further onto that pavement and away from Ben. You clutched at your chest, begging it to open up again.

“I can’t do this,” you wheezed. “I can’t breathe…” Your vision was beginning to blur.

“Y/N?” Laurie said, eyeing you with concern.

“I can’t breathe,” you struggled to say again. “I can’t…”

Laurie’s face disappeared behind your eyelids as you dropped to the ground.

“Y/N!” Laurie cried. “Oh, God, someone call an ambulance!”

There was a medical team that ABC had on hand, and they were the first to arrive. You were swimming in and out of consciousness, but they couldn’t manage to get you fully aware. They called for an ambulance from one of the local hospitals and just as they arrived, your eyes were fluttering open.

“Joe,” you muttered, because that was all you could think of that you wanted.

“Just relax, Y/N,” said one of the medics. “You’re still out of it, we’re going to take you to hospital.”

“Joe,” you said again, noticing how dry your throat felt.

“Who’s Joe?” he asked Laurie.

“One of the guys,” she said. 

“Is he allowed to come with her?” he wondered.

Laurie shook her head. “Afraid not.”

“Okay,” he sighed, and you thought you saw him roll his eyes. “Sorry, Y/N, but he can’t come. You’re gonna see him again soon, okay? Once we help you.”

You nodded, trying to relax as they loaded you into the back of the vehicle. 

Joe couldn’t sleep. He was too nervous about what was coming. His conversation had been good with you, and he’d felt your connection so strongly before you left. He hoped that meant you would choose him. But he couldn’t be sure and that was what scared him. Finding no rest, he got out of bed. He went into the little kitchenette of the suite and fetched some water. Outside, he saw the flashing lights of an emergency vehicle. He peeked out, but couldn’t see what was going on. He watched it speed away and he hoped whoever was inside would be okay.

Just as he set the glass in the sink and headed back toward the bedroom, there was a knock on the door. Brow furrowing with concern, he went to open it. He was shocked when he saw Chris Harrison standing there.

“Hey, Chris,” he said. “Everything okay?”

“I’ve gotta catch you up on some things, man,” Chris said. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah, sure,” Joe agreed, and he stepped aside.

As they went to the living area, Joe turned some lights on. Then he and Chris sat on the couch.

“So, what’s up?” Joe wondered.

“Y/N is at the hospital,” Chris said.

“Woah, what?!” Joe cried. “Is she okay?! What happened?!”

“She passed out,” Chris explained calmly. “From what the medics said when they looked at her, it was a severe anxiety attack paired with dehydration that caused her to faint. But she was just coming around when they took her.”

“An anxiety attack…” Joe said. “Because of tomorrow?”

“I imagine so,” Chris replied. “It looks like she’s gonna be fine. I’m sure the weight of this decision just overwhelmed her.”

“I get it,” Joe said. “It’s a big decision. Will she be staying in the hospital overnight?”

“We’re not sure yet,” Chris said. “We’ll let you know as much as we can, as soon as we can, okay?”

“Okay,” Joe said. “Thanks for telling me.”

“Of course,” Chris returned. “Try to get some sleep. And I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon for the big day.”

“Night, Chris,” Joe said.

“G’night, Joe.”

Chris showed himself out. Joe was rooted to the spot where he sat. The crew got set up around him to do an interview.

“How are you feeling, Joe?” asked his producer, Lucy.

“After hearing all that,” Joe said, voice cracking with emotion. He looked up into the camera to reveal tears in his eyes. “I’m beginning to wonder if Y/N is really ready for this.”

He took a long, shuddering breath, and he blinked back the tears.

“Excuse me, I can’t do this right now,” he said shakily.

He got to his feet and walked straight to the bedroom, closing the door on the cameras. No one was certain what the morning would bring.

You woke to the sun shining brightly in your room. Only, it wasn’t  your hotel room. You were in the hospital.

The previous night’s events began to return to you. Your marvelous date with Joe, the heartbreaking goodbye with Ben, and then the feeling of suffocating before everything went black. You vaguely remembered asking someone for Joe, but you couldn’t remember their face or who it was. You looked to your right and saw Chris Harrison asleep in the chair next to you. As much as you adored Chris, you had kind of hoped to see Joe. Then you remembered you couldn’t see Joe because you were getting engaged to him later today. You smiled.

“Chris,” you said, voice a little hoarse.

He stirred and opened his eyes. He smiled gently at you.

“Hey, Y/N,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” you said. “What happened?”

“After they ran some tests, the doctors confirmed it was an anxiety attack and dehydration,” he said. “They kept you overnight to hydrate you, but you should be okay to leave this morning.”

You nodded. 

“I told Joe about what happened to you,” Chris said. “But I didn’t tell him you had ended things with Ben, that didn’t feel like it was my place.”

“I appreciate it,” you said. “How’d Joe take it?”

“He was worried, of course, but I assured him you’d be fine,” Chris said. “He’ll be meeting with Neil Lane pretty soon.”

You beamed. Neil Lane was the ring designer. Your heart went out to Joe and you hoped that soon you would be getting ready to get that ring and the man of your dreams.

Joe: I only slept about an hour and a half last night. But, waking up this morning, I feel better about things. I realized that Y/N is ready for this. The reason she was affected like that was because it matters so much to her. She wants this to work so badly. If I were in her shoes, I’d probably pass out too from the pressure. All I can say is that I’m ready too. I’m ready to propose and spend my life with her if she’ll have me.

Feeling lighter, Joe went down to the patio of the hotel. Waiting for him was an older gentleman with a briefcase. Joe grinned. He knew what was in there.

“Joe?” said the man.

“Yep,” said Joe.

“Hi, I’m Neil Lane,” the man said, and they shook hands. “I’m here to help you pick a ring.”

“Thank you so much,” Joe said.

They sat down at a table where the sunlight was good so Joe could really see the rings in all their glory. Inside the briefcase were three ring boxes. Neil opened each one and let Joe look at them. They sparkled and glittered.

“Which one catches your eye?” Neil asked.

“Honestly, they’re all kind of blinding me,” Joe joked. 

Neil chuckled.

“The one on the right is a classic oval shape,” he explained. “It’s three carats. The middle is a cushion cut with a twisted band for a unique shape. It’s three and a half carats. The one on the left is a pear shape, three carats. All rings are set in platinum, and have a halo for extra sparkle.”

Joe reached for the middle one. It had his attention throughout Neil’s explanation. The cut was classic, but he really liked the shape of the band. It was special, and unlike any ring he had ever seen before. The same as you. He pulled it out of the box and examined it closer. It was clear and beautiful. Also like you. He could imagine it on your hand from this day forward.

“I like this one,” he said.

“Good eye,” Neil praised. “That was my favorite too. I know she’ll love it.”

“It’s perfect,” Joe said. “Like her.”

He returned the ring to the box, plucked it out of the briefcase, and shook Neil’s hand again. Then he returned to his room to get ready.

You left the hospital and returned to your hotel about an hour after you woke up. Your team was rushing to get you ready. You had a stunning ivory colored gown they zipped you into while the stylists put the last touches on your hair and makeup. Then, you were going to Milford Sound for the proposal.

You arrived first. Production had put together a stunning walkway out into the water where a platform sat just above the shallow water. There was a small stool there and on it was the final rose. You took a deep breath, appreciating the warm breeze and the smell of the beautiful nature around you. This was the place you would promise yourself to Joe, the love of your life, for all of your life. With that in mind, you took the first step forward.

Walking to the platform felt like it took years. You were so eager to see Joe and tell him the good news. It was just you and him from here on out. Eventually, you reached the end. You picked up the final rose and looked out over the water. The wind tossed your hair as you waited.

Joe arrived second. He stepped out of the car to make his way to where you were, but first, he met Chris Harrison.

“Chris,” he said with a smile.

“How are you, Joe?” Chris asked as they shook hands.

“Doing well, I’m excited,” Joe said. “How is Y/N?”

“She’s doing great,” Chris assured him. “In perfect health today.”

“Perfect,” Joe said.

“Have you thought about what you’re gonna say?” Chris asked.

“I have,” Joe replied. “I know what’s on my heart, and I’ll convey it to her the best I can. If I can remember it all when I see her,” he finished with a chuckle.

“Well, good luck to you, friend,” Chris said. “Go on ahead. Y/N is waiting for you.”

Joe’s feet felt like bricks as he started down the walkway. He came around the first curve and got a glimpse of you. You looked like something out of a movie. The way the breeze tossed your hair perfectly about your face. Your dress fluttered like a flower. The way you smiled when you spotted him almost made him crumple.

“Hi,” you said sweetly as he approached.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he replied, voice catching in his throat. “You’re so beautiful, Y/N.”

Your smile widened as you fell in love with him all over again. He took your hands in both of his. You gazed adoringly into his eyes.

“Y/N, I knew going into this journey that I was taking a risk,” he began. “A big one. But I never imagined how great the reward would be. I wanted to find love, but what I’ve found in you is beyond that. You have become not only my love, but my best friend. You are the first person I want to see when I wake up in the morning, and the last person I want to talk to before bed each night. A day without you is impossible to imagine. I love you more than I ever thought I could love a person. And I promise you, Y/N, if you let me, I will show you that love every day for the rest of my life.”

You blinked back tears as you smiled at him.

“Joe,” you said. “All my life, I’ve wanted one thing, and that’s a family. A partner who is as devoted to me as I am to him. A man who I respect, admire, and adore. And who makes me laugh.” You both giggled a bit at that. “You have shown me all of that and more. You make me feel so safe and secure, but also excited. You make me feel loved and desired. But you also make me feel like I’m a part of you. And we can be our own little family. I love you, Joe. And I only want to love you from now on.”

He laughed with relief and squeezed your hand.

“I guess there’s only one more thing left to do,” he said.

With that, he released your hand and sank down to one knee. You let out a delighted squeal as he reached into his coat pocket and retrieved a ring box. Then he opened it and presented you with the most gorgeous ring you had ever seen in your life. It was like something right out of your dreams. You gasped and clapped your hand over your mouth.

“Y/N Y/L/N, will you marry me?” 

“Yes, Joe Mazzello, I will marry you!”

Both you and Joe were a mix of laughing and crying. Happy tears were leaking out, but neither of you cared. Joe took the ring out and slipped it onto your awaiting finger. 

“Oh my God!” you cried as you watched.

It fit perfectly. You grabbed Joe and tugged him to his feet so you could kiss him. His lips felt different because they were your fiance’s lips. His arms held you different because they were your fiance’s arms. All of him was different because he was your fiance. Just as you were his.

“I love you!” you cried when you parted.

“I love you!” he returned with equal enthusiasm.

“Oh, wait, there’s one more thing!” you gasped.

His brow furrowed with confusion as he watched you walk back over to the little table. He bit back a laugh when you picked up the rose. You returned to him.

“Joe,” you said, cheeks aching from how hard you were smiling. “Will you accept this rose?”

“Forever,” he assured you.

You giggled and pinned it to his jacket. Your ring caught the light as you did, and you could have squirmed with the thrill.

“Forever,” you repeated.

He took your face in his hands and started toward you for another kiss.

“Forever.”

As you kissed him, you thanked the universe for this journey. As dramatic and tumultuous as it was, as often as you felt heartbroken and helpless, it led you here. To forever with Joe. The life of your dreams awaited you.

[turquoisewave]

hey sira ..... about that post with the time periods with sinbad and treasure planet and all that ..... WHAT WAS GOING ON? you said you wouldn't rant about it in the tags so i sent this ....... i need answers ..... TT_TT

Alrighty so the main way I know about it is because I learned about the decline of mainstream 2d animated films in the US so I’m gonna be covering both, partially using a copy/paste of a rant I made months back. All info under the readmore:

HOKAY SO, this isn’t all the factors and it’s not everything it’s just what I remember. I tried to fact check this mess and I think I changed any inaccuracies but I COULD BE WRONG.

So, animation in the 2000s, why it was the way it was and why a lot of films went under-appreciated. One thing you gotta remember is that while animation is a creative field, the companies in charge of them are businesses. And businesses will almost always go for low risk/high reward shit. This means, if there’s something tried and true they’ll stick with it. This is why studios often modeled works after other studios (funny talking animals, white gloves, black eyes with that lil white slit, musical shorts like Silly Symphonies, Happy Harmonies, and Merrie Melodies which yes were all by different studios), or in direct opposition of other studios (don bluth going darker with themes to contrast disney’s cuteness, bugs bunny’s trickster personality to contrast mickey’s nondescript Good personality, etc).

But there’s only so long you can do the same stuff before people get tired of it. Most animated feature length films had the same formula: a retelling of an old tale with musical numbers and cute sidekicks. And they started not doing so good.

However, animation at this time had grown in leaps and bounds. Digital coloring and compositing, merging of 3d effects, big studios run by huge companies, and a track record for being profitable as fuck. At the time the companies didn’t want them to go under so they decided to try to get Innovative. Cause that’s how they’d stayed afloat when things went bad before.

They weren’t going to stray from adapting though, too many unknown factors in original stories (which would also require more workshopping and pre-production). So, they’re still adapting old stories. However, they’re pulling from different sources, and in the case of Disney giving them a twist.

Atlantis was inspired by Journey to the Center of the Earth mixed with the myth of Atlantis, Treasure Planet was of course Treasure Island but Pirates in Space (which is one of my favorite nonsensical aesthetics), Dreamworks SKG (their 2d animation dept) went super old school with myths and legends (Sinbad, Prince of Egypt). And both studios went ham on trying to be innovative with the tech at their disposal.

There’s another reason why they went so hard, besides of course being artists. I said before that at the time companies didn’t want their 2d departments to flop, but as time progressed a new alternative began to become prevalent: 3D animation. And this became a huge threat to 2D studios.

Important to note in this regard is the advent of Pixar in the mid 1990s. 3D animation had come a long way from its clunky, surrealist roots. And with the success of movies such as Toy Story and A Bug's Life, it proved itself to be an upcoming profitable medium. It wasn't just the animation though, Pixar had amazing storytellers and directors. And this shit was new, not directly based on an old Grimm Fairy tale or something. In short their whole package was amazing. Dreamworks started being active around this time too and added fuel to the 3D animation fire. Granted Shrek was based on fairy tales, but in a way that was a subversion and became incredibly iconic for it.

At the time Pixar was independent from Disney but working in contract with them. And the success was more than welcomed. As always in capitalism, the question of profitability comes into question. Traditional 2D animation, especially at the high framerate disney was known for, is expensive af to make. Often if directors and producers are not careful, a budget can really run away from you. For example, Toy Story only cost 30 Million USD to make. Treasure Planet cost 140 Million USD. (granted that's because of the combination of 3d and 2d elements. But Lilo and Stitch was almost strictly 2D and still cost more than Toy Story at 80 million USD.) Also, Disney also kinda oversaturated their market. They released a fuckton of straight to dvd sequels (which Disney himself was avidly against) which kinda degraded the overall quality of the Disney 2d animation brand.

There was also competition from other factors. The early 2000s saw the Harry Potter boom, and Lord of the Rings came not soon after. Those of course siphoned off a lot of attention. They were part of pre-established series. The experimental stories that Disney was doing at the time, i.e. AU versions of literary classics, fell flat because the target audience was not familiar with the origin sources, and those that were weren't interested in "kids movies" They had no fucking clue how to market them, and the target audiences didn’t know to look for them.

Lilo and Stitch actually met with success, because 1) they marketed the hell out of it and capitalized on Stitch's mascot-like status and 2) it was more rooted in the kid demographic rather than that awkward kid/teen straddle the other two had. But even Lilo and Stitch couldn't save the Orlando animation studio when Disney finally decided to shut it down. They concentrated the last of their 2D animation studios in Burbank, California. Pixar's contract with Disney ended in 2004, and Disney tried to capitalize on the success of 3D with their own films, Meet the Robinsons and Chicken Little. Both were uh...the Meet the Robinsons wasn't too bad but Chicken Little was like...trying to hard to be a hacky version of a Dreamworks movie Ratatouille was released by pixar independent of Disney which is a neat thing to note. And of course met with success Meanwhile 2D kept falling behind, and whenever it flopped like with Home on the Range it was just another nail in the coffin. Disney renewed its contract with Pixar, and after the release of The Princess and The Frog they switched gears to focus solely on 3D animated feature length films, relegating their 2D staff to tv shows. Granted there's some great shows like Gravity Falls etc but, the fact that they've given up on films is disappointing. But the numbers don't lie. Tangled was its biggest success in a long time. And then Frozen came and blew it out of the water.

tl:dr - People were tired of seeing grim fairy tales stories retold with musical numbers and sometimes talking animals. - Studios tried to use different sources for adaptations and put cool spins on them and incorporate new technology.

But it didn’t end up working in their favor and 2D animation declined because:

- success of studios that were using 3D animation (though credit can also be given to their pre-production staff/writers/storyboarders) - competition from other growing franchises, in some cases Disney cannibalizing its own profits (Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean) - Cost effectiveness of 3D vs 2D - Changing of fads and appeal to audience - Inability to market movies properly to target demographics - Studios actively sabotaging their 2d studios to have an excuse to tank them and focus on 3D work.

So yeah, that’s all I got. I’m definitely missing some nuances here though feel free to correct me whoever sees this.

[sunbird-tells-stories]

What are your headcanons for Omi, Clay, and Raimundo in reference to MW? If you don't get the chance to fit everything into your story, would you consider writing one-shots to go along with it? What was your inspiration for writing MW, aside from wanting a Jack Spicer redemption? What's your writing process? How long have you been writing? Are there other fandoms you're into besides XS?

This is going to get LONG and I don’t want to split it up because internet is bad here so apologies In advance but here we go:

What are your headcanons for Omi, Clay, and Raimundo in reference to MW?

I’ll start writing them and posting them as soon as I finish answering this one. It might take a bit, but you’ll see them up in a few hours or so.

Believe it or not those headcanons help me a lot when it comes to figuring out characters. So thanks for asking! I appreciate it.

If you don't get the chance to fit everything into your story, would you consider writing one-shots to go along with it?

Hell. Yes.

There is SO much I want to do. I want to write about how each Dragon found their element. I want to write ALL OF THE SHIP FUEL for Jack x Jermaine x Timber. I want to write about them having little mini episodic breather adventures in lots of different countries and cities, I’m talking Mumbai, St Petersburg, Venice, Paris, Capetown, Aguascalientes, Melbourne, everywhere! And maybe run ins with villains, for no reason. I want to write about them teaching each other about their strengths, like Jack explaining science to Jermaine and Timber or Timber teaching them two city boys how to fish and forage for food.

Also more moments of Jermaine reigning these two natural disasters in and teaching them how to be actual people. Because that’s always fun.

I want to write little moments between characters in Team Xiaolin during their quest to track down Team Spicer and I want to write moments between Seon Yeong, Rai and Kim as a trio. I want to write post-MW! Fics between characters and how they learn and grow after the events of the story - especially Kimiko and Timber as total opposites and the only two girls on the team. And I really want to write a ‘beach episode’ where Jack, Jermaine and Timber just end up warping to a tropical area and just have fun for once.

I want to write solo fics about Jack and Jermaine and their personal struggles as they grow up with their own troubles prior to MW!

And a part of me really, really wants to start posting a mini fic about Timber’s life in Silent Harbor, to show her slow, sad descent into the troubled teen she has now become and as a build up to the events of Chapter 6 of MW! where she runs into Jack for the first time. It would be SO spoiler-y though.

There’s a lot that might not fit in MW! And I would definitely write a bunch of mini stories. I don’t know who would be interested in reading all of that, but I might do it just to brainstorm ideas and explore character interactions.

What was your inspiration for writing MW, aside from wanting a Jack Spicer redemption?

I’ve been wanting to tell a XS story since I was a kid! This show was my everything! The characters were my everything. And even now it holds a special place in my heart. So the drive to write something for this fandom has always been there.

As for MW! itself....I’ve always had a fondness for Jack Spicer. I’ve always wanted him to find some semblance of happiness and have someone there so he’s not alone. And a long time ago, that someone became Timber.

But Timber wasn’t who she is today. She was Latina, and Californian, and a bubbly pink ray of sunshine and positivity. And Jack had a crush on her and she was his bestie and she was essentially an overly competent sidekick for him and then Clay had a crush on her and she was the Dragon Of Wood and Jack was the Dragon Of Metal and he was going to sell his soul to the Heylin side to finally earn Chase’s approval and she was gonna save him from himself...well, you get the picture. And I liked her a lot, and I still miss that version of her sometimes, but...she wasn’t interesting enough. And there wasn’t really a story there. At least not much of one. What was there could have been interesting on its own, but it was pretty self indulgent and I don’t think anyone besides me would have enjoyed reading it. And that’s no fun.

Then I had the idea to somehow bind Timber, an innocent civilian girl, to Jack through magic by having her make the idiotic mistake of betting herself in a Showdown with him over a Wu that was hers and then lose, and then essentially being dragged along on all of his adventures and slowly becoming friends with him while hilarity ensues. Then I had the idea to make a game breaking Wu that just...caused trouble. And the story then became about Jack accidentally dragging a civilian girl along on a warpy portally adventure with that Wu and run into all these villains as they become friends.

But when I did this, it didn’t feel balanced. I had someone on the Heylin side and I had someone who was Neutral. So then I needed someone as a buffer between Jack and Timber so they didn’t kill each other and to represent the side of Good aka someone who was Xiaolin.

And then Jermaine came along!

And as I developed the story more, I realized I wanted to tell something serious, and have all the characters grow and play off of each other and talk about the XS universe and answer questions and give everyone this big, long journey and great trial and give Jack actual character development and actual friends/love interests and have someone from Chinese Mythology be the Xiaolin’s ultimate adversary and Jack’s final test of character. And along the way, MW! was born.

And I’m really grateful for that.

What's your writing process?

Usually first I write up a few ideas of what I want to happen, like the general flow of the chapter. Then I make a chronological skeleton of dialogue, and I tweak it until I’m satisfied. Then I write the rest of the stuff like actions and descriptions.

One of my flaws is being redundant. Another is being overly wordy. So after I write it all out, I try to trim it down and tweak it as best as I can until these flaws are no more (I sometimes skip stuff) and then I just play around with the chapter until it feels right. It has to strike an emotional chord with me and get me excited to write it before I publish it. If I don’t feel that spark, it doesn’t go up.

I had a few people in the fandom volunteer to be beta readers, but my chapters are so long...so right now it’s just a couple of my closest friends who are looking at it, the main one being my friend CVD, who also wants to be a writer. She’s got a good eye for what does and doesn’t belong and I’m forever thankful. My other two, Trinket and Papillion, look over it and help let me know how they feel about things so they’re also a big help. So shoutout to you guys!

And then after all that noise, my stuff goes up.

However, my older chapters could use one final spellcheck and revision so I’ll eventually go back and polish those up a bit. Typos man. Typos....

A lot of times I’ll also take breaks to do some research and find inspiration music. Honestly there are days where I can’t figure a character or a scene out until I find JUST the right song for inspiration. And since a lot of characters in my fic are from a different country and cultural background than mine, I’ll do plenty of research to try to stay true to who they are. I’m doing a lot of research on the Bedouin tribe and its history and looking for a lot of pretty Middle Eastern music right now, for example. YouTube is a great resource for these things! Bless the internet!

How long have you been writing?

Since forever! I’ve always been making up stories in my head! And they’d get elaborate too! I’ve built so many worlds and characters just by playing around as a little kid, I can’t even begin where to start talking about them all. As I grew, I started to write them down and now I want to get serious about it! Besides Monkey Wrench!, I want to write a fanfic for the Ducktales 2017 fandom and the Black Butler fandom, and I have two original novel ideas I want to write out and get published. It’s my dream to make stories that other people love and that inspire others to learn, write, make stuff and have adventures and stuff. Literally my dream is to make stories that get a buttload Of fanart and cosplays and fanfic and just...move the world for the better somehow. That is my highest goal rn. Being a published and famous author.

Are there other fandoms you're into besides XS?

Hell yeah! Although I do tend to have periods where I hyper fixate on one at a time. Besides Xiaolin Showdown, I also like Gravity Falls, Storm Hawks, Steven Universe, Star vs The Forces Of Evil, and Ducktales 2017. There were a lot more in the past, such as Teen Titans, King Falls AM, The Boondocks, and Samurai Champloo, but I haven’t been very active in those fandoms as of late.

I really need to get into Tangled: The Series, OK KO, Victor and Valentino, and Craig Of the Creek. They all look phenomenal, I just don’t have time to get into them all yet.

[enkelimagnus]

🔥 about relationships in SH bc I'm emo and I really like reading about your thoughts/opinions.

Okay this is going to be a BIG answer because, I dunno what you mean by “relationships”

Romantic Relationships

When it comes to romantic relationships on the show, I find them relatively nice. If you forget that from 1x01 to 3x22 (year later not included) there’s maybe 3 months, and that as a result, Magnus and Alec got married 2 months into their relationship, Clary and Jace have dated for a month, and Simon and Izzy 3 days, of course. 

The romances are interesting. Though some parts are badly written (in season 3, every thing that Malec has a couple gains is done through Magnus as a person losing something), I find Malec especially very interesting. Clace has also a good dynamic, with a true development from Jace’s character, which is very interesting to see. And the third ship I’d say is probably in the top three writing wise: Saia. Saia is amazing, for some of the same reasons that Malec and Clace are, actually. Saia, Clace and Malec all have one interesting in common. Healing. 

Jace, Clary, Simon, Maia, Magnus and Alec all have an healing journey as they go through their relationship. They all grow, and heal old traumas and pains, and I find it very beautiful and comforting to me. Victims of abuse like Jace, Maia and Magnus finding trust and love and support and being able to open themselves to vulnerability again? That’s GORGEOUS. 

Family dynamics

I enjoy the family dynamics a lot too. Especially the Lightwoods. Though the Luke/Clary bond is amazing, it is often the only plot that Luke gets: something to do with saving Clary’s ass. And I find that sad. Luke tends to be only Clary’s dad, not his own character. 

You can have characters who put family first without it becoming their only personality trait. Because who is Luke if not someone’s dad? Maryse gets to have this growth, this enormous change in the way she portrays herself and the way she loves her children. Luke doesn’t get that. And you can probably peg this more on racism/people not knowing what to do with Luke, but it’s sad. 

As said before, I love the Lightwoods. I love the dynamic between Jace, Izzy and Alec, and the way Maryse, Max and Robert add to the trio. I find the maturing and the changes in that family the most interesting. And Izzy going from a daddy’s girl to a mommy’s girl is the best. 

Had it not been this outrageously incestuous, I would have enjoyed the Jonathan/Clary dynamic so much! I think there was a lot of wasted potential with Clary there, with the reasons behind her going dark. It’s a little too “the demon made me do it”. Too magic based, no matter what she says in 3x20. 

And of course the Asmodeus/Magnus relationship is GREAT. It’s one of the best and most fascinating parent/child relationships on this show, at least to me. There is such a history between those two, and a deep deep resemblance. it is BELIEVABLE that Asmodeus is Magnus’ son. 

They have a way of carrying themselves, a theatricality that is just similar. I love the way they move, and talk. Magnus gets some of that slow, deliberate diction sometimes, and I LOVE it. I love the feeling you get that Asmodeus raised Magnus. And I also love the enormous differences between them. It’s so GOOD. 

Ships (gonna go with canon ones here)

Malec

Obviously gotta start with Malec. The show wasn’t originally made for them. The show became theirs though, so easily. There’s gravity in that ship, and depth, and this sense of history-making. Not only in TV, but in the Shadow World. 

It’s far from perfect. Magnus gets the short end of the stick so very often, and the writing glosses over Alec’s flaws so often that it feels like they are actively trying to erase them. 

I very much dislike the way they went with Malec in season 3, even in 3A. It was just not what I wanted for them. Magnus losing his title, his magic, his home, all for Alec... this isn’t what i wanted. It’s what I got. 

And I got some very nice things with this. This building of them as a couple that happened, of them knowing each other’s habits and wearing each other’s clothing, and the wonderful, sweet domesticity of them. 

They are a ship that manages to be both extremely dramatic and extremely domestic at the same time. And it’s so nice to see, how complex it is. 

Also, like... Alec’s immortal. I’m not having it any other way. He deserves that. 

Clace

I don’t like Clace. I don’t think I ever have, and I don’t think I ever will. My dislike for Clace was born out of dislike for Jace, mostly, then was fueled by the way Clace fans tend to act.

I do get why it’s a good ship. I do get how nice it is for Jace to be able to be okay. Do I think it’s rushed? yes, of course it is, Jace deserves therapy but... yeah. 

Sizzy

Sizzy was built on friendship chemistry, addiction, and blaming Maia for taking care of her mental health. It was built out of nowhere in season 3, because the writers thought they needed to satisfy those who wanted to see them bang. I guess they are both hot and close enough to being white that it’s sexy. 

Simon/Maureen

Could have been very cute. That’s all? 

Meliorn/Izzy

In my top 3 Izzy ships. There is an understanding and comfort between these two, a deep caring, and just something that could have been so genuinely beautiful had it been given any chance at all. 

Climon

Cuter than Clace. They were sweet together, and honestly, I could have seen it become a real interesting ship had they been developed after the cute stage. These two share history, they share memories and interests, but they have this big break, when Simon became a vampire. It would have just been wonderful to truly see that history go further. 

Too bad it fell to both antisemitic tropes and the love triangle. 

Jocelyn/Luke

I don’t see the appeal to them? I think they don’t have much romantic chemistry at all. 

Izzy/Raphael

Canon them? Bad, worse than bad. It was horrible. Just something that was wrong on a lot of levels. 

I think it could be super interesting completely in another context. Especially in regards to Raphael being asexual and Izzy being a character known for being very sexual. 

Saia

Saia is just.... everything Sizzy wishes it was. It’s healthy, it’s sweet, it’s built on mutual understanding and trust. it’s built on two people finding each other. it’s built on two people who understand the other’s experience. Traumatic events and fear, anger and pain. it’s built on people who have the tools to build a future together. 

Saia is the kind of relationship you can see going far. They fit perfectly. They are different enough that it’s not like dating a copy of yourself. They are sweet, and fun, and they care about each other and RESPECT each other, and I love that about them. 

Saia is comfortable. It’s the kind of love that’s just... wholesome. That seems to be built from steady foundations. 

(yes I’m ignoring the hellfire that is 3B). 

Marcian

Luke and Maryse. What can I say? These two kinda came out of nowhere but... it works. Luke appreciates Maryse for everything that she is. Strong, smart and beautiful. Something I think Robert didn’t appreciate enough. 

And Maryse trusts Luke. She cares about him. They went through similar things, they have shared past and shared regrets. I love that about them. That they get to build what they deserved to have in the first place. 

Heline

I don’t get it. The only reason they are together is because they were written to. They seem to have 0 stuff in common. But I guess I would know more if they were more than blank slates with “science one” and “combat one” written on them. 

aaaaand. think I’m done. 

[davidmann95]

So, what's the deal with Kingdom Hearts? I mean, it's a Disney/Final Fantasy crossover, right? Hard to see why would that cause such dedicated whatever.

I’ve had this in my drafts for a while, and given today’s the series’ 17th anniversary it seems like the time to finally get back and finish it. Simple answer: the music slaps and you just want the soft children to get to go home.

Long answer: Even now people joke about the baseline absurdity of a universe in which Donald Duck can go toe-to-toe with Cloud, and while I think 17 years in we’re past the point where it’s time to accept that this is just a part of the landscape for these characters, yes, that does remain objectively bonkers. It’s not a natural, intuitive combination like your JLA/Avengers, this is Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe-level “well, I suppose they both exist in…the, uh, medium of visual storytelling” stuff, other than I suppose that they both tend towards fantasy in this case. And then that whole wacko premise got hijacked by Tetsuya Nomura for an extended epoch-spanning drama driven by labyrinthine, (occasionally literal) dream logic mythology where it’s genuinely impossible to tell at this point what’s being thrown in by the seat of the creators’ pants and what was planned out since day one, pretty much casting aside the franchises that were in theory the main appeal as relevant parts of the plot even as you still hang out with Baymax from Big Hero 6. Step back even a touch, and there will always be a whiff of derangement about the entire affair - it’s simply baked in at this point.

My controversial opinion however: it’s actually good. There are structural issues and awkward moments and aspects ill-served, I’d never deny that, but even diehard lifelong Kingdom Hearts fans tend towards prefacing appreciation with at least two or three levels of irony and self-critique. I suppose it’s in part a response to the general reaction to it I mentioned before, but no, I absolutely think these are genuinely good, ambitious stories build on a foundation that’s still holding strong. An important note in service of that point: Winnie the Pooh, maybe Hercules, and with III Toy Story aside, I have basically zero childhood nostalgia for any of the properties involved. Wasn’t a huge Disney kid outside maybe very very early childhood, and only dabbled with Final Fantasy after the fact (still intend to play through XV someday though). It won me over young, yes, but on its own.

The building blocks help: the characters designs are great, the individual Disney settings in their platonic representations of various locales and landscapes make perfect towns packed with quirky locals to roam through on your quest, the Final Fantasy elements are tried and tested for this sort of thing, the original worlds each have their own unique aesthetics and touchstones and come out lovely, by my estimation the gameplay’s fun adventure/slasher stuff even if it’s had ups and downs over the years, the actors largely bring it, it all looks pretty, and as noted, the score is as good as it gets. They’re games that look, sound, and play good made up of component parts that unify into a sensible whole. And for me, the scope and convolution of the plot that so many leap at as the easy target - with its memory manipulations and replicas and time travel and ancient prophecies and possessions and hearts grown from scratch and universes that live in computers and storybooks and dreams - is half the appeal; I live for that kind of nonsense. Not that folks aren’t justified as hell in taking jabs at it, but I’ll admit I often quietly raise an eyebrow when I see the kind of people I tend to follow having an unironic laugh at it given *gestures toward the last 40 years of superhero comics*.

All that through is ultimately window dressing. The most powerful appeal of Kingdom Hearts is I suppose hidden if you’re going by commercials and isolated GIFs and whatnot, and even the bulk of the content of the average Disney world, charming as they are. It’s deceptively easy to pick out something else as the fundamental appeal too; even if I’d call them incredibly well-executed examples of such the character archetypes it deals in are relatively broad, and while it handles the necessary shifts in its tone from fanciful Disney shenanigans to apocalyptic cosmic showdowns for the heart of all that is with incredible skill - and that might be its most unique aspect, and certainly a critical one - a lot of that comes down to raw technical ability on the part of the writers, appropriate dramatic buildup, and demarcation between environments and acts of the story.

The real heart of the matter, to speak to my typical audience, is that Kingdom Hearts in a profound way resembles 1960s Superman comics and stories inspired by the same: it’s 90% dopey lovely cornball folk tale stuff, until every now and again it spins around and sucker punches you in the goddamn soul with Extremely Real Human Shit. Except here instead of being lone panels and subtext, it builds and builds throughout each given adventure until it takes over and flips for the finale from fairytale to fantasy epic.

That can probably be credited directly to Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi suggesting to Tetsuya Nomura to try treating this weird gig seriously instead of as the licensed cash-in it seemed destined to be, since if this didn’t have a soul the target audience would recognize it. But in spite of that seriousness, it’s perhaps its most joyfully mocked aspect in its entirely unselfconscious dedication to making Hearts and Feelings and Light and/or Darkness the most important things in the universe that lets it do what it does. It’s childish in the most primal way, absolutely, but what that translates to is that there aren’t cosmic or personal stakes that swap places as major or subsidiary at any given point, because in this world they’re always literally the same thing. There’s no major relationship where the fate of a primal power or a last chance at salvation doesn’t ultimately hang in the balance depending on how it shakes out, and there’s no prophecy or ultimate weapon or grand scheme that doesn’t have direct, fundamental ramifications on the life of an innocent or the memories that define them or whether they’ll ever be able to find a place to call home. ‘Hearts’ is an all-encompassing theme, whether in strength of will or redemption or questions of personhood or the ties that bind us, and by making it a literal source of power, it lends personal dimension to the unfathomable universal and the grand weight of destiny to whether or not someone can come to terms with who they want to be or apologize to those they’ve wronged. It’s a world where emotional openness and personal growth ultimately works the same way and achieves the same results as doing calisthenics in five hundred times Earth’s gravity does in Dragon Ball. and it’s tender and exuberant and thoughtful enough where it counts to take advantage of that as a storytelling engine.

That’d be why Sora works so well as the main character, because he straddles the line most directly between those poles. He may stand out as a spiky anime boy when actually next to Aladdin and the rest, but when it comes down to it he’s a Disney character, just a really nice, cheeky, dopey kid who wants to hang out with his friends and go on an adventure and believes in people really really hard. As the stranger in a strange land he’s a tether to a wider, sometimes more somber and weighty world when he’s sticking his head into the movie plots, but when he’s in the midst of stacked-up conspiracies and mythic wars that make all seem lost, he’s the one whose concerns remain purely, firmly rooted in the lives of those connected to him. Other characters get to go out there into bleak questions of self-identity or forgiveness, but while he might wrestle with doubt and fear Sora’s the guy who holds the ship steady and reminds all these classic heroes and flawed-yet-resolute champions and doomed Chosen Ones what they’re fighting for by just being a really good dude.

Given superhero comics are my bread and butter it doesn’t come up much, but Kingdom Hearts is really about as foundational to the landscape of my imagination as Superman and company, and while 100% that’s in part because it came into my life early it didn’t take hold by chance. It manages its stakes and its drama in a way and on a scale unlike just about anything else I’ve ever seen (even prior to getting to the weird mythology stuff that’s so profoundly up my alley), and somehow the aesthetics and gameplay and dialogue and all the million and one details that needed to come together to facilitate that story joined together into something that’s become one of the most curious, beloved touchstones of its medium. It’s a small, lovely bastion of warmth and sincerity in a way that only feels more like a breath of fresh air with time, playing out over decades a bunch of kids’ journeys to try and find the people they love most and help them and go home together when everything in the universe seems to be against them. It’s special in ways that will for me always be unique and meaningful, and I’m glad it seems to have plenty more in it before it’s through.

And seriously THAT MUSIC.

[lovingnikiforov]

2018 Fic Writing Round-Up

Total year-long word count: 632,603+ words…..that’s about double what I wrote for 2017 omfg

Word count by fandom: ~ Bungou Stray Dogs: 461,813+ ~ Yuri on Ice: 166,925 ~ Kuroshitsuji: 3,865

Fics completed: 33

♥ Drabbles: ~ 5 twitter prompt fills - bsd

♥ Oneshots: ~ All Dolled Up - bsd, soukoku, pwp, wyll companion ~ Workaholic - bsd, ranpoe, canon -compliant ~ Kids Again - bsd, soukoku, bartender au ~ like a moth - bsd, soukoku, mafia boss chuuya ~ Five Steps - bsd, soukoku, royalty au ~ Writer’s Block - bsd, soukoku, sugar daddy Chuuya ~ What About Trust? - bsd, soukoku, dark era ~ On the Clock - bsd, soukoku, secret relationship, au ~ A Warlord’s Conscience - bsd, kousano, feudal era au ~ No-Show - bsd, soukoku, canon-compliant ~ Sorely Missed - bsd, soukoku, hogwarts au ~ what a pair - bsd, soukoku, sugar daddy Chuuya, Writer’s Block sequel ~ Propriety - bsd, soukoku, royalty au, Five Steps sequel ~ Something to Lose - bsd, soukoku, wyll companion ~ Perfectly Pleasant - bsd, soukoku, college au ~ Shattered Glass - kuroshitsuji, gen, canon-compliant ~ A Phone Call Away - bsd, higugin, canon-compliant, manga spoilers ~ hide the truth - bsd, soukoku, amnesiac Chuuya au, canon-compliant ~ Playing Human - bsd, soukoku, pwp, incubus Chuuya, vampire Dazai ~ Unplottable - bsd, soukoku, hogwarts au, Sorely Missed sequel ~ Closer to Home - bsd, soukoku, established relationship, canon-compliant ~ A Stupid Question - bsd, soukoku, dark era (patreon exclusive) ~ Private Lessons - bsd, soukoku, pwp,  like a moth sequel (patreon exclusive) ~ New Normal - bsd, soukoku, secret relationship (patreon early-release/coming soon!)

♥ Chapter Fics: ~ Shared Gravity - bsd, soukoku, college au, joint fic with ZODIACHUUYA ~ Equivalent Exchange - yoi, viktuuri, magic/fantasy au ~ where your loyalties lie - bsd, soukoku, arranged marriage/yakuza au ~ Rent a (boy)Friend - yoi, phichuuri, fake dating au

Works-in-progress: ~ even on the darkest night - bsd, gen/kyouka-centric, dystopia au, dyetyd sequel

This year I wrote and posted: 34 fics in total: 4 completed multi-chapter fics, 1 wip multi-chapter fic, 24 oneshots, 5 drabbles.

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d predicted? So, so much more. I almost can’t believe how much I managed to write this year.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January? Kuroshitsuji. It’s not a fandom I’ve ever written for and the fic I did write was a gift fic and a prompt fill.

What’s your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest? Ahhh that’s hard, there are a handful of stories I am really happy with. I suppose I’ll have to go with hide the truth it was a beast of a story to write and I had a lot of fun working through soukoku’s dynamic in it.

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them? Big time! I’ve been using my fic writing to really challenge myself in terms of my stories. My biggest risk was just in terms of quantity, I spent much of the year juggling four wips and a patreon with additional content. Getting through everything month-to-month was hard but it really helped my efficiency and increased my writing speed.

Your best story of this year: Hmm, this is a hard one. Honestly, I’d have to say Equivalent Exchange. It was a massive undertaking with a lot of characters and plot lines to keep track of. As a fantasy piece, the worldbuilding was extremely intensive. 

Your most popular story of this year: By a slim margin with EE, my most popular story this year was where your loyalties lie.

Story of yours most under-appreciated by the universe, in your opinion: Any rare-pair story is going to have a hard time getting views, but I honestly think A Warlord’s Conscience is one of my best stories of the year and it was my third least popular fic. 

Most fun story to write: The Hogwarts AU verse  (Sorely Missed and Unplottable) was a lot of fun! I was a big HP nerd growing up so it was enjoyable to dive back into the universe. 

Story with the single sexiest moment: Playing Human. By a long mile. Easily one of the most explicit stories I’ve written for bsd. Honorable mention goes to All Dolled Up.

Most “Holy crap, that’s wrong, even for you” story: This honor also goes to Playing Human. I grew up really religious and they’re in a church and I did not back away from any form of sacrilege. 

Story that shifted your own perceptions of the characters: Hmmm, I can’t say I had any real shift in character perceptions this year.

Hardest story to write: where your loyalties lie. There was a lot going on in that story and the character development/journeys were really delicate, especially for Chuuya. 

Biggest disappointment: tbh...I don’t think I feel disappointed with any of my stories this year. Progress!

Biggest surprise: Writer’s Block, I wasn’t expecting people to like it as much as they did, much less to the degree of requesting a sequel.

Most unintentionally telling story: where your loyalties lie. Anyone who read the Author’s Commentary of the fic probably has a good grasp of how many of my personal struggles over the course of the year got projected into the fic. There were also a few other personal things from years past that also get referenced. 

Favorite opening line(s): ~ There was something that came alive when the sun went down. - Playing Human ~ Sometimes Dazai finds it hard not to think that the person responsible for making text cursors blink just had a sick sense of humor rather than any practical reasoning for the programming decision. - Writer’s Block

Favorite closing line(s): ~ It felt like a dagger in the gut to know that he’d already made his choice. - What About Trust? ~ And if Viktor is imagining the way the moonlight seems to shine brighter when they pull back from their embrace, well, he can’t quite see a problem with that. - Equivalent Exchange

Favorite 5 line(s) from anywhere: ~ He can trace the features of the figures depicted, all wholly inaccurate but it’s not as if the religious painters would bother to consult a vampire on matters like the faces of the figures they exalted to sainthood. - Playing Human ~ The very idea is absurd but it is the only explanation that explains both his pain and the fact that he is holding a building in his hands, lifting through dense fog to float in mid-air and stare at…at…Is that a fucking dragon? - hide the truth ~ It takes a bigger effort to get to his feet than it ever has, and for a moment Chuuya wonders if his ability is working against him, if gravity has decided to press down on him in retribution for every time Chuuya has ever felt weightless - wyll, ch. 13 ~ A dependency on alcohol is gradually self-destructive, a dependency on a person is instantly debilitating. - wyll, ch. 11 ~ Just as Viktor said, it's nothing like a duel, but Yuri wishes someone had told him that a real battle was as close to hell as a living human could get. - EE, ch. 18

Top 5 scenes from anywhere you would choose to have illustrated: ~ Yuuri showing up on the battlefield - Equivalent Exchange (ch. 18) ~ Chuuya’s tattoo - wyll (ch. 20) ~ Kouyou standing in the garden - A Warlord’s Conscience ~ Drunk Phichit and Yuuri dancing salsa - Rent a (boy)Friend (ch. 8) ~ tbh any bit from All Dolled Up

Fic-writing goals for next year: Hmm, I’ve been toying with trying my hand with a new fandom. It’s been a while since I’ve taken that jump with new characters so I’d like to do that in 2019!

[bi-writes]

grounded — peter parker.001

how high can we go before they stop us? prologue

infinity series masterlist warnings: fluff, maybe language

dedication: @screamholland liz — as one of the first writers i found on this wonderful site, the first part to this series is dedicated to you. thank you for helping me get just a little more off the ground, a little closer to the stars. 

“What did you want to be when you grew up?”

“Easy. An Avenger.”

“No, Peter, I didn’t mean what you wanted to be now,” you blew a hair away from your face. “I meant what did you want to be?”

“Well, I...” A pause. You waited. “I wanted to...I wanted to be like my dad.”

You smiled to yourself. Broken people were easy to see if you looked long enough. Peter was one of them. Even looking at him now, you could see it. The crease in every fold of his heart, the blue in his blood. His smile that never quite met his eyes, not always. 

You turned over onto your stomach, moving your hair to one side so your eyes could linger without hindrance. Peter was blushing when he realized you were looking. You were always looking, and that meant he was always blushing. You grew pity on his sweet manner, looking down at your hands as you eyed the scattered notes across the floor.

“You’re already smart, Peter,” you pointed out, shrugging your shoulders. “You are like your dad.”

Peter shook his head, his smile fading, “I don’t think I want to be like my dad anymore.”

“Yes, you do,” you replied, picking up your pencil. Your scribbled handwriting had written out chemical formula after chemical formula, grams and moles and numbers of molecules littering the margin when you had run out of space. Peter’s notes were more organized, but yours were a mess. Arrows connecting two places on opposite ends of the paper, scribbling instead of erasing. It was a mess, maybe, but it was your mess.

“No, I...I don’t think I do.”

“Why did you want to be like him when you were little?”

“He was a scientist, h-he was so great to me,” Peter chuckled, leaning over to balance an equation. You moved your head to peak at his answer, making him scowl at you a little. “A-And I always wanted to be like him. But now...”

“Everyone still wants to be what they wanted to be when they were kids,” you shrugged your shoulders. “They just get older. Things aren’t so black and white when you get older.”

“You’re doing that thing again.”

“What thing?”

“That thing where you’re suddenly wiser than everybody else.”

“I am, Peter. Why is that news to you?”

Peter rolled his eyes at your answer. A silence came over the room, a new one. The atmosphere suddenly changed, one that made both you and Peter look away from one another. You swallowed hard, focusing on the problems you could calculate instead of the problems you had never seen before.

It was then that you realized you and Peter had never been alone together before. Never been without your friends in the same circle, never been alone together with just your thoughts. 

No, that was wrong. You had been alone together before, as children. That was when cats were the only animals that truly meowed. That was when crayon boxes came with only two shades of green, forest green and just green. That was when two and two always made four, when there was only black and white.

Being alone together now was different. Cats meant leopards and jaguars, lions and your neighbor’s tabby. Green was light green and yellow green, teal and aquamarine, chartreuse and turquoise. Two and two still made four, but there were many shades between black and white that no one ever prepared you for.

Everything that had once been so grounded was suddenly nowhere to be seen. How far up would you have to look before you could reach them again?

You looked at Peter, differently this time, with a curiousness you hadn’t held before. Was he always so wonderful to see? You had seen a creamy loveliness in his skin, but now you craved to reach over and touch it. You had seen love in his eyes, but now you saw the stars. You had seen a million smiles cross his face, but now you wanted it on yours. 

You were so close to him now. Shoulder against shoulder, ghosting touches that burned your skin with something beautiful. You were biting your lip at this, tempted to close your eyes so you could remember the sensation of feeling his hands against you for the first time. Maybe it was the way he was seated, maybe it was the way you were leaning into him, but this soft touch between fingers had to be something more than just coincidence.

You were looking at him now. Again. The afternoon sun had settled against the crevices of his face, but it didn’t make him any less handsome. Peter was bathed in honey light, and you suspected his lips must’ve tasted the same. You wondered what had come over you, but you were too close to him to worry about the sudden thoughts going through you. You enjoyed living in the moment; you never wanted to forget to appreciate the details.

This was something stupidly new to you. Wanting to memorize the stars in someone’s eyes, the way the light hit the wetness of someone’s mouth. You had never felt something so strong with such a pull. It was sudden and unexpected, making you nervous and excited all at once. Maybe this is what being a teenager was like, and while most were scared of everything new that came with every milestone in life, you loved it. 

You were more scared of what you already knew. You were unafraid of the unknown, less timid when it came to being the first in unexplored territory. You found comfort in what you didn’t know. You were finding comfort in Peter now, serenity in the way he was looking across your face and the smile that was growing on you now.

“What did you want to be when you grew up?” Peter asked suddenly, his voice soft as your faces came closer together. You stopped to look at him again, shaking your head. You wouldn’t give in so easily. Peter could never keep anything from you, you knew, but you wouldn’t be such an easy box to open.

“You’re gonna have to find out yourself,” you laughed, making him sigh in defeat. You made a bold move, moving your fingers underneath his chin so his eyes lifted to meet yours again. Peter swallowed, biting his lip to stop from smiling. Your fingers were tickling his skin with something foreign, a shudder threatening to shake him as he met your gaze.

“Is this is game, (y/n)?” Peter challenged, narrowing his eyes at you. You laughed again, suddenly aware how confident he was becoming underneath your touch. You squeezed his chin gently before nodding your head.

“Yeah, it is,” you agreed, smiling uncontrollably now. The radiance of your smile was spinning Peter’s heart in circles, and it only encouraged him to try harder, to keep you smiling for longer.

“And what do I get if I win?” Peter teased, and you pretended to think, licking your lips a little. You didn’t realize how Peter’s lips parted slightly at the sight, as if the mere image of you in such a way took his breath away. The light was setting with the sun, but Peter had never seen you more clearly than before. 

What was it about you that was so different now? What was it about you that looked so incredible? What was it in you that hadn’t been there before?

Peter thought he knew everything about you. You had always been so calculated, so easy to read, but now he didn’t know what that smile had meant. All he knew was how it made him feel. Like his body would leave the floor if gravity didn’t have such a pull on him, like he might be able to even touch the sky if he wasn’t so grounded by reality.

“It’s a surprise, Peter,” you decided finally, evoking a smile on him now. He chuckled.

“Well, I...I like surprises.”

this is a journey of discovery between two stupid teenagers, a conversation about the stars, and the idea that all the answers to the questions we haven’t thought of yet are written in the sky.

taglist: @tohollandback @vibraniumass @lukescool @aussie-mantle @laughingismydrug @royal1958 @curiouspeterparker @spidey-schxyler @kingstomholland @the-crime-fighting-spider @wowspideyholland @wtfholland @fairydustparker @anytimebitches @loserparker

[harrisonchute]

What’s Harison been Watching?!

9/8/2018 Edition

“Perfect Blue”

I haven’t encountered one of those “Perfect Blue EXPLAINED” videos on YouTube, though I did look for it, and any online writing about Perfect Blue is gonna be marred by very standard Satoshi Kon commentary, that he’s very influential, one of the best known in the west, he do dreams and reality. I just wanted to know what people made of this movie, what their interpretations are. I saw it for the first time Thursday night, and this is what I think: the main character’s mental breakdown caused by the existential transformation pop idol to actress, the Internet, and other celebrity life-inconveniences is then exacerbated by her manager’s serial killing. Rumi just wants to protect her, protecting her past self from exploitation, and because that murder violence is so similar to the exploitation, the main character sees herself in it -- she has to, in order to immerse herself in the new roles and grow as an actress. Ultimately, I feel like Perfect Blue is a more interesting film than it is a strictly entertaining one, like that one half of Serial Experiments Lain I’ve seen. Kon identifying all these different stressors facing popular public (and female) figures is fascinating. However, most of Perfect Blue is that space in movies that isn’t dialogue or action or exposition, it’s like mood-setting or suspense setup, like a Wong Kar Wai revision of The Strangers. I would not see that movie, but I’m glad I finally saw this one.

“Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”

I was halfway through an episode of this show when I had to go see Perfect Blue. Not surprising -- I get this way with TV shows, and it’s obviously hardly uncommon for modern media consumers. Every now and again I’ll find a show that disrupts my life, and it’s all I can think about. I was grateful for short shows earlier this year that I loved, like Fleabag and one anime show whose name I can’t remember, swearsies. And yet, I was even more grateful that Kimmy Schmidt is like four seasons -- though it’s ONLY gonna be four seasons. Regardless, it’s really surprising, and it’s especially interesting in the context of other women-led womeny shows of its day.

Upon the infamous episode where Titus is criticized for doing yellowface, I’m watching the Internet outragists shout things like “I don’t want to know the context of anything!” and was left with the startling yet embarrassing conclusion: “My God, Tina Fey is soooo white.” Like, this is what gets to her? Embarrassing because I feel like that sentiment’s been on the Internet wall for ages, with every “Tina Fey did a bad thing” headline I’ve witnessed and ignored over the years. “White people” in media usually just means this is a person whose instincts were manufactured by a system demarcated by stratification: exclusive and hostile. Revising those instincts requires some listening skills, so I was put off by the backlash to the backlash here than anything anyone was lashing against initially.

I feel like Kimmy Schmidt is the absurd comedy version of Cloud Atlas, and the word “absurd” is really the key. So much of racial representation is reliant on “realism,” it seems, threading that needle where a world needs to convincingly contain the token black friend or whoever, and “realism” comes right down to tone. I get a little put-off by absurd comedies, like the short-lived Ghosted, much as I enjoyed it, and I think that comes from my time with Futurama: as that show went on, I started to appreciate the characters more than the jokes -- always a mistake. With that one, the integrity of strict character continuity was often sacrificed for the sake of a joke. Like, Leela is not that insensitive, but she has to be kind of a blowhard in this scene for the punchline to work. Sometimes, Kimmy seems to suddenly know more about the world than I’d expect, but they make it work, because who knows where she picks up these things? The comedy/drama balance isn’t as embedded into the show’s core like You’re the Worst or the above-mentioned Fleabag; it’s got its own logic, like magical realism with abandon, more Arrested Development than Jane the Virgin.

This logic allows -- to me -- navigation through a lot of the show’s spiky territory. For example, it’s hugely problematic that Lillian shot her black husband, because he was a black man in her house at night, but it didn’t bother me (last week). The subject of criticism in the first season leading to the outrage response in the second, Jane Krakowski’s American Indian heritage, didn’t bother me because under the surface there’s that blackened but beating white people heart of “the joke is that I’m soooo white.” Lines like, “The litter in New York makes me cry” got a genuine laugh out of me, and it felt like the best possible version of “Pardon my whiteness, I’m writing a Native American caricature.” I know we’ve had 17 seasons of Modern Family for that kind of humor, but here, it didn’t bother me.

Didn’t bother me. Love that line from minorities. That means it didn’t bother anyone, right? Of course, I’m neither a black man or American Indian, so what about the Dong story line? Issues facing Asian-American men are very different from most social issues, because they all hinge on his penis and where it goes. Satiating AsAm men’s desire to be represented by anybody but Ken Jeong is a one-step process, which is why my desire no longer exists (because Crazy Ex-Girlfriend does, and Selfie before it). So it was a pleasant surprise that Dong became an actual love interest, but it didn’t change my world, and a love story is not handled with the same gravity as shows with different logic -- are we meant to take any of this seriously? Is Kimmy meant to grow as a character? Is anyone? Jane Krakoswki does, but does it matter? My brain is different watching this show, where true pathos comes from moments reached upon layers of irony and cynicism and an almost exhausting one-person race to stay ahead of the cultural conversation. For example, Titus’s romance in the two and a half seasons I’ve seen has been touching, but because it involves Titus, it’s expressed with a much more interesting vocabulary than other gay romances I’ve seen. (Though it’s probably relatively traditional and I still just think Brokeback Mountain is the raddest shit ever).

The difference between the American Indian and Dong plot lines is that I theoretically got a strand of representation out of the Asian-American element in the show, where I doubt an American Indian did from Krakowski’s plot line (though you never know until you ask). But I wasn’t asking for representation (this time), and no one else was asking to be alienated by stereotypes. So I can understand the frustration on both sides -- sometimes, it doesn’t matter how steeped in irony racism is. And as someone who’s created things for an audience once before, I know you can’t please everyone, and it’s the negative voices that resound the loudest, because they’re only echoing what’s already in one’s heart as a fragile left-brain writer variety.

My ability to excuse or at least compartmentalize the problematic in Kimmy Schmidt seems to be part of a concerted effort to appreciate a sitcom’s unique sheen. I like that a show doesn’t need to say important things to be important, that one can draw meaning from near-total meaninglessness. The joys I’ve had watching this show have mostly come from Ellie Kemper’s facial expressions and halting, intense deliveries, and I think we only get those with all the other ingredients -- contrarian satire which sometimes crosses that line from centrism to taking a side, like wow you’re so too cool for school you... went to school.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the show I’m most familiar with in this burgeoning televisual fempire, and the creators of that one are constantly listening to fan feedback, almost to a fault. They seem determined to get everything right, understanding that any one individual, no matter how much a quadruple or quintuple-threat, represents the outlook of an individual, and so they’ve built a dimensional writers room and the show reflects that with its characters and their stories. But they did all that because their show is specifically about inclusion -- off the show’s title, this is the journey of a woman from rejected by society to creating her own. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt has less of a clear thesis, and its moral lessons often feel networky and only there for some kind of conscience quota. But unlike CXG, it exists in the here and now, with dated references to The Jinx, to Marcia Clark and Chris Darden pre-American Crime Story, and now hugely insensitive jokes about shooting black men in that specific circumstance. The morality feels like a work-in-progress during an era in American society where the conversation changes every day, like the ever-shifting substance of crackling television noise.

Before CXG, I used to think it was some herculean task to listen to feedback. And on occasion, I’ll hear a video game player talk at length about how “the studio listened to its fans!” and cringe, because I know how those fans speak, at what decibel, and with what, frankly, terribly foul language. Maybe the Internet outrage episode in Kimmy Schmidt wouldn’t have stung as much had I not seen it in the context of Apu on The Simpsons. Now, there’s an example of creators who don’t give a shit. I have a lot more faith in Fey and co., with an understanding that her brand of comedy is always poking and prodding. Comedy is observation, and so much of the observation under men’s watch was “other people are different.” Kimmy Schmidt is tackling that head on, with interesting results I ultimately am not interested in, because it’s too joyous and weird.

I never regularly watched 30 Rock, but now revisiting that one via YouTube clips and compounded with a new love for Kimmy Schimidt, I’m noticing just how lyrical Tina Fey (and co.)’s dialogue is. They say there’s zero improv on that set, and I understand why -- the often tongue-twisting wordplay has a perfect cadence that’s fun to listen to and must be fun to perform. Since I’m now trying to understand rhythm in writing, this is one I’m gonna study.

Spent too much time on this, dammit. Little over two hours, I think.

PS: Anna Camp had a few guest appearances and she should’ve won an Emmy for that role if she didn’t. Or, they don’t need to make Big Little Lies season 2, because that sort of upper crust mommy wars was so perfectly satirized by that arc with Jane Krakowski. 

[crossedbeams]

The Rape of The X-Files: Chris Carter and Control

An essay on my rage. - Rose

As a relatively new fan to the show, I’ve sometimes struggled to understand the level of vitriol the fandom harbours towards the show’s creator, Chris Carter, but 12 hours from the premiere of S11, I think I’m finally starting to get it. It’s not about any one episode, or a character arc that is less successful than the show at its best. It’s not about the anticlimax of years of rose-tinted revival. 

It’s about disrespect and misogyny masquerading as creativity. 

It’s about a man who has created a project and with it a person, offering it to us as one thing - a journey for truth starring a woman of integrity and worth, uncowed by impossible odds and stalwart in a world determined to misunderstand and belittle her. But this is not actually what he is offering. Having convinced us that he values and believes in this character, that we should too, he begins, under the guise of “character development”, her total destruction; the molestation of all she holds dear, and through this act and a hundred other micro-messages reinforcing the same thing, the rape of not just one character but in essence everything the show has purported to be.

To its fans and many of the creative forces involved, writers, directors and cast, The X-Files is a show about love and hope and possibility. It is a tale of strength and loyalty and humans. It is a show I have come to love, a show that brings us all together here, which is what makes its creator so increasingly problematic.

Chris Carter has shown, time and time again, through the stories he tells when he writes that what he actually believes in is not God or Science or the capacity of those who fight and seek truth to achieve justice, but in his right as creator to borrow tragedy and torment from anywhere and anyone, without remorse or care, to feed his egotistic vision of The X-Files. He truly believes that what his audience wants is his “genius” 40 minute take on issues that he does not understand. He is liberal only in his appropriation of trauma to feed his narrative; no race, religion or gender is safe from his careless pilfering. 

I’m not saying that men like Carter shouldn’t write about these things, in many ways I wish more would, but to the service of their subject. Good writers try to look beyond their experience out of a desire to illuminate, protest and educate, to lend the privilege of their position. They create space for controversial content within their world out of a desire to be an ally and deal humanly, hopefully with the repercussions and the result. They aim to inspire change

Chris Carter just wants to cause controversy. 

When asked by EW what led him to make My Struggle III’s decision about Scully’s child’s paternity, Carter replies

 “ It adds to the characters in an interesting emotional way. “

This after ten seasons of character building. This after the pre-exisiting trauma of these seasons has driven Mulder and Scully apart. This, at the end of an episode, in which Scully has already had seizures, endured a car accident and had an assailant attempt to throttle her in her sickbed and watched her partner murder this man on top of her, all while missing her son, orphaned and fearing the end of the world and for her own sanity.

If you cannot, as a writer, find interest and emotional meaning in this rich body of work, then you are no writer. Except Carter is. He has written many interesting and innovative plot-lines for The X-Files, generated spin-offs, this whole world is born of his imagination… which leads us to a much more troubling truth.

He simply doesn’t care.

To him, The X-Files is a plaything and Dana Scully is an object. With every trauma unconsidered, every choice undermined and every abuse of her mind and body, Carter demonstrates that Dana Scully (the “two steps behind please” back-up who didn’t have a backstory until David Nutter wrote her one in Beyond the Sea) was never envisioned to be a feminist icon or symbol of female empowerment. To Chris Carter, she was only supposed to be a body for Mulder to bounce ideas against, a plot device for a conspiracy of men to use and exploit. Perhaps this is why Carter hates ‘shippers so much, because Scully was never intended to be Mulder’s equal, his lover, she was just supposed to be his foil. Her sexuality is supposed to be limited to inspiring male envy (Milagro), rage (Never Again) or reproduction (preferably medically induced to deny her agency even in this most traditional of female roles. Making Scully the body upon which to enact his fears, prejudices and fantasies at the cost of her own integrity is why Carter has become the show’s greatest Achilles Heel.

Ironically, this casting is perhaps most keenly summarised by a monologue  Carter penned himself in yesterday’s episode. While he attempts to describe the motives of the Cigarette Smoking Man he unintentionally presents an unfortunately apt description of his own relationship to The X-Files.

“He was to be the man to lead us, but he became destructive. He took only his own counsel. […] You have no idea this man’s need to control our fate.”

 - Chris Carter, My Struggle III

It’s about control, and in this case the need to maintain it when what you have created threatens to become more than you. Chris Carter was given the opportunity to be the most powerful man in a world with a long reach and the power to inspire through change. He was given 25 years of viewership and acting talent and budget to make a TV show that was revolutionary. Only he doesn’t want a revolution. He wants things to be as he sees them, his characters to be clean and platonic and known; blank canvases who spring back from torment unscathed, ready to have fresh terror and trauma rained upon them. Just to add interest. Chris Carter cannot see that the X-Files universe is one of collaboration, of unexpected circumstance sparking development, of characters becoming more than they are written. In his desire to air the biggest, most complicated conspiracy arc of all time, he is missing that many of the most beloved and iconic episodes are about small people and issues that are the more impactful for their lack of wham-bam-drama.

Why else would he, at the end of a dramatic episode that had fairly successfully fixed a tricky cliff-hanger, (an episode that I actually quite enjoyed), would he use the last three minutes to rewrite everything based on a harmful, damaging, degrading alteration of the show’s long term narrative. Mulder and Scully refer to William as ‘our son’, Scully, a medical doctor, claims William’s stem-cells will save Mulder, suggesting she knows they are genetically compatible (and we know from canon that she knows the difference between a sibling and a parental match). Given this, given the many questions that are raised in My Struggle III about a new faction of human colonisation nutters, Scully’s mental health, Skinner’s maybe-betrayal and the possibility of an apocalyptic scenario, why would we need to throw in a medical rape, ret-conning En Ami and rendering irrelevant much of the character work (Mulder and Scully as grieving parents) that he has done in the seasons since?

“Because Chris Carter” is the only reason I can come up with. It’s a self-indulgent flexing of muscles nobody asked to see and for that I will struggle to forgive him. 

The calculated cruelty of his treatment of his world, characters and audience is irredeemable, and were it not for the culture of discourse in this fandom, the possibility of appreciating much of the rest of the show, its writing and performances, my struggle  would be reconciling my feelings for Chris Carter and my love of The X-Files.

Fortunately, outside the writing room, the X-Files is beyond his control. The friendships it creates, the community it fosters have the power to keep the world of Mulder and Scully from descending irrevocably into a racist, misogynistic soup, even if canon’s gravity is headed that way. It crosses cultural boundaries, asks brave questions and it brings us together in our outrage. The wounds left by Carter are met by creative bandages, fanworks which take the best of the show and its people and make beautiful, powerful statements. So don’t be ashamed to love this mess of a show or allow Chris Carter’s megalomania to drive you away (though I do not judge you if it does). Get mad, get inspired and get loud in whatever way you can. Let Fox know that whatever comes next, either for The X-Files or a new show, behaviour like Chris Carter’s will not go unnoticed. Write letters, write emails, scream it on your social media, talk to your friends, make it clear to anyone who will listen, even if it is only one person, that The X-Files fandom will not support rape culture. Perhaps it feels small but all revolutions start with a whisper. Changing one mind is a huge victory.

Do it for Dana Scully, who deserved better and for all the little girls she inspired who deserve more than a world in which their idol is a man’s plaything 

[randomnessunicorn-imagine]

🌠 STAR TREK- FANFICTION 🌠

This is my first Star Trek fanfiction and I truly wanted to write something about it even if it’s nothing special but I could not resist! I'm trying to emulate the best I can the style of the classic episodes of Star Trek. Some elements of this fanfiction have been invented by me. This story will be composed by some chapters, it’s better this way. I accept every kind of advice as long as they are expressed with politness. I hope you can appreciate it and sorry if you’ll find some mistakes, it can happen, and the summer heat does not help me at all to think properly, I’m melting. By the way, good reading!

Don’t forget to tell me your opinion about and leave a like or share if you liked it, it would make the writer very happy.

FANDOM: Star Trek: The Original Series

PROMPT: The Collector [ by @badthingshappenbingo ]

WORDS: 1888

✰ THE COLLECTOR: first chapter ✰

Stardate: 41254.7.

 Captain's log: My faithful crew and I are traveling to a planet called Xenox Z. It will soon become part of the federation. We have been instructed to accompany their State Councillor to have some diplomatic discussion about their admission in the United Federation of Planets and to attend the ceremony. Our destination will be reached in ten terrestrial hours.

 The planet of Xenox Z was in an unexplored area of the galaxy and therefore, its entry into the federation would have allowed the exploration of new areas and the creation of new space colonies. This travel was extremely important for the achievement of an intergalactic peace between every living creature of this vast universe.

The legendary Enterprise was following the route to the planet Xenox Z, crossing corners of the galaxy that were still waiting to be explored but, despite the immense beauty of the stars and the infinite space, something disturbed the young soul of the Captain Kirk who was questioning himself about the strange message sent to him by the Starfleet.

This message informed the captain about the strange disappearances that were taking place in the galaxy. It was assumed that they were real kidnappings and someone was plotting against the Federation. Heads of state, generals and scientists disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Nothing was left of them, not even a trace. As if they had disappeared in cosmic space or sucked into a black hole.

Captain Kirk did not want to make his crew worried with his anxieties and he showed the usual grit and bravado that made of him the brave captain of today. This was not his responsibility and neither his mission since some experts have been assigned for this task by the Starfleet but the Captain could not ignore the danger of this situation.

"Mr. Chekov, have you calculated the route?" The captain asked, sitting on his throne as he watched the screen showing the immense spatial vault. A show that the captain would never tire of observing and that always filled his soul with pride.

"Route already calculated, Captain. We are traveling to the Xenoxian space station.” The young Chekov answered professionally without taking his eyes off his machinery.

The current task of the Enterprise was to withdraw the State Councillor of the planet Xenox Z, who would have been the mediator of the communication between the human beings and the Xenonians because the language of this people was unknown to men. The State Councillor proved to be very interested and open to this work and very curious about the human culture as well.

A few minutes passed from the order of the Captain and everything seemed to proceed according to the calculations.

Mr. Spock was silent and focused on his work as usual, Mr. Chekov and his colleague Sulu were driving the ship and then Uhura received new messages from the Starfleet about their task.

"Mister Captain, a message from the Starfleet. They warn us that the Xenonian Councillor has arrived at the meeting place and is ready to be teleported.” Uhura notified the Captain.

"Tell them that we are ready to welcome our guest." The captain said firmly and then he stood up his chair, making his way with Mr. Spock, Dr. Bones and Mr. Scott to the transporter room.

Everything proceeded according to plan and yet, the thought of those poor men disappeared in enigmatic circumstances continued to torment the captain’s mind because he felt powerless in view of this cruelty.

All the missing men were important and successful elements of the federation, indispensable for this galaxy, but they were taken away by an unknown entity, perhaps a ravenous alien, a criminal who ran free to the galaxy. Whoever they were, they had to be stopped.

The doctor, who knew Jim more than anyone else, noticed the discomfort in his eyes. He was able to understand when his friend was emotionally hurt and therefore could not help but ask him what happened to make him so disquiet.

"Are you alright, Jim?" Bones asked before entering into the transporter room.

The captain turned, forgetting his worries because he, the great captain Kirk, could not be seen vulnerable in front of his men. He answered to him with a confident smile.

"I'm fine, Bones. Your profession makes you see disease everywhere, but thank you for your interest.” Jim said ironically, as he watched the transporter platform and then he looked at Scott, giving him the order to activate the teleporter.

"Energy, Mr. Scott." The captain ordered.

"Yes, sir." And Scott operated by actionizing the usual machine to make the transporter work.

From the beam of light of the transporter came out an humanoid alien with a bluish skin, a bald head and a blue goatee adorned his chin. They were rather short, and they wore a long grey tunic with long sleeves that covered their hands.

"Howdy, Terrestrial. I give you my greetings from the planet Xenox Z. I am the Councillor of Xenox.” Said the alien showing a bow. They appeared polite and friendly and they tried to emulate the human’s tradition. It seemed they appreciated the human race and so they tried to use the human’s vocabulary to impress their future allies.  

Then the captain approached the guest, followed by his subordinates.

“Welcome to the Enterprise. We’re glad you and your people have decided to be part of the Federation and we’ll do our best to make your trip comfortable.” Said the Captain in his usual proud tone of voice and then he turned toward his men, presenting them, “Let me introduce you to my first officer, Mr. Spock, my chief medical Leonard McCoy and the head engineer, Mr. Scott.” Everyone of them nodded as they were called by the Captain.

“I’m sure it’ll be a great journey. Hope you don’t mind if I take a look around. I find your starship extremely mesmerising. I’m always been interested in your culture, you are such an extravagant race.” commented the Councillor and the Captain smiled seeing how this alien looked more like a human than a Xenoxian. Evidently, they were trying to adapt themselves to this new cultural environment and actually, the Councillor has been the one to recommend to his own sovereign to take part of the United Federation of Planets.

“I’m glad for the interest you’ve got for our culture. Mr. Scott, why don’t you accompany our curious guest to a tour across the Enterprise before showing them their accommodation?” proposed the Captain and the alien seemed agreed with this idea.

“I’d be honoured, Captain.” They nodded and then they followed Scott to explore the mythic Enterprise.

The preoccupations that were consuming the Captain mind have been quell for some time and it seemed everything was going well.

Jim and Mr. Spock came back to the bridge, while the Doctor returned to his infirmary. Bones did not forget how the Captain looked like before the meeting with the Councillor, he understood there was something Jim was hiding but, since the physical condition of the Captain seemed perfect and he did not show signs of sorrow anymore, the doctor had no reason to worry. The captain was able to take care of himself better than anybody else in this vast ship.

This mission was important and the Captain took his duties very seriously. It was normal he wanted to make a good impression to his new guest and show how the human race was worthy and determinate to accomplish its responsibilities. Jim was the most brilliant human the doctor knew and so he got worried a bit much sometimes.

On the screen of the bridge appeared an unknown planet, one of the many unexplored planets that constituted this part of the universe. Nothing seemed to be a source of concern, for now.

"Captain. The engines have suddenly stopped working but no failure is reported in the system.” Chekov warned the Captain about the unexpected inconvenience happened.

"We are entering in the orbit of that planet, it seems, we are attracted to it, Mister." Sulu said this time.

"Bridge to Scott. Have you verified some failure in the engines? "Asked the Captain to Scott, calling him from the intercom.

"The engines do not seem damaged. They should work very well.” Scott explained, perplexed.

"Then find out what's wrong, warn me about the situation." The Captain ordered and then he closed the call.

"The atmosphere of this planet is out of the norm, Captain. Its gravity is attracting us to the core. It's like someone trying to force us to stay into its orbit.” Spock explained, calm and attentive as usual. Not even the slightest preoccupation could be perceived in him, even the Captain appeared controlled but his feelings were mixed with worries, the same worry he thought he had forgotten.

"What kind of planet is this?" Jim asked.

"The computer defines it as a class-K planet, arid and desert, but its characteristics are abnormal compared to the other known planets of the same class. No form of life seems to inhabit the surface of the planet. The computer only reveals an unidentified source of energy.” Mr. Spock said controlling the data in the computer.

"What kind of energy?" The captain asked, looking at Mr. Spock with a stern look.

"The energy of a living being, Captain." Spock nodded, moving close to Jim, admiring the planet being shown on the large computer monitor.

"So we're stuck here until Mr. Scott finds out a way to reactivate the engines?" The Captain asked, trying to hide his irritation. Mr. Spoke just nodded, because it seemed the only solution now: to wait even if this phenomena was very strange and that planet seemed hiding a secret.

It could be hypnotized that someone on that planet was interested in meeting the crewmembers, even if they did not know the source of that energy so the captain could not ignore the current problematic.

Maybe the only thing they could do now was exploring the surface of that planet and doing some research to find the cause of this block and to locate the entity hidden behind that energy, if it could be a threaten for the Enterprise, they had to understand and be ready to every emergency.

"Captain, someone is trying to communicate with us from the planet but the frequency seems to be disturbed. It is impossible to contact the sender.” Uhura warned the captain.

"That planet must not be completely uninhabited if they are sending us signals. Do you have any theories, Mr. Spock?” Jim asked to the efficient Spock.

"Theories, Captain? This planet possess some infrequent characteristics for a common class-K planet As if someone had rigged with the nature law of the planet.” Spock explained calmly and afterwards the Captain ordered to Spock to follow him.

"Prepare a reconnaissance team! You, Mr. Spock, and the doctor Mccoy will come with me. The entity that sent that message is located to that planet and, surely, they will know how to release the Enterprise from this block” The captain explained the plan and then he went with his men in the transporter room.

The entire group prepared itself to be teleported to the mysterious planet, aware of the unknown dangers they would find there.

 [ To be continued … ]

[gdmli]

Can the Barefoot Contessa be my Mentor?

By Haley Babcock

I lost myself last year. 

Not like, ‘Oh, here I am, under the table’ lost, but more like, ‘What the heck am I doing with my life?!’ lost.

I felt anxious, fearful, and exhausted. Frankly, I was becoming unpleasant to be around. As I started realizing I was walking around in fear, without direction, my boss, Tracy Duran (Community Leadership Program, class of 2015) sent me an encouraging message to check into the Community Connect program. I really admire people who have been motivated enough to be involved in these types of programs and especially find their place in the community, but I don’t always think of myself as the ‘go-getter’ type and surely attempting to apply to a program where people probably have it a lot more together than me was not going to happen. I mean, most days after work I come home and lose half of my clothes, nest into my couch, and I don’t leave the house again until morning. (I once became so entranced in a marathon of The Walking Dead, I audibly gasped when a not-dead person walked by my house.)

But I looked into the program and was surprised by how intrigued I was and how much I wanted to just try and see what could happen. The Community Connect program seemed to promise that maybe not everybody has it together like I thought and we all need a little guidance to figure out our roadmap and once we get a roadmap, we might even be able to help other people! I realized I didn’t want to always be in my house, peeking through the blinds looking for zombies. I want to find the beauty in the world, be helpful, and figure out what the heck I’m doing.

Fast forward a few months... 

to February and I’m white-knuckling down a murderously snowy 235, going less than half the speed limit, hoping I’ll make it to the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden in time to eat as much food as possible meet a few new people and make a good impression before the program started. I was greeted warmly by Kelly Royal, Nathan Ritz, and Amy Jennings, received a shiny profesh name tag, and found some clever folks to chat with at a table in the back.

Immediately I was mesmerized by this group of 30 humans, all eager to learn and share with each other and all here for the same collective purpose: Purpose.

Er- you’ll see what I mean later on.

Dr. Christi Hegstad of MAP Professional Development lead us through an informative first half of the session to help us identify our purpose.

See, now you know what I mean!

Dr. Hegstad was inspirational, kind, and focused, giving us a safe space to reflect and help us to figure out just what the heck a purpose is. From challenging our comfort zones by meeting people around the room using “WIN-troductions” – the most joyful/awkward way to introduce yourself to a stranger by sharing something you’ve successfully accomplished within 5 seconds of meeting them, (I loved it and can’t wait to make my teenaged students do this exercise in some upcoming programs,) to identifying our strengths, sharing our passions, and picturing our future selves. This all lead up to drafting our Purpose Statement, the living, breathing sequence of very personal words that will act as a roadmap to guide us in each of our journeys. Or in my case, writing the longest run-on sentence with every last known adjective in my vocabulary, somewhat resembling a thesis statement for someone who is a Doctoral candidate in the Study of Thesauruses…

After writing, we then spent the second half of the session “Speed-Dating” with our group of 16 accomplished and honorable community mentors. We had quick heart-to-hearts with most of the mentors learning about their backgrounds, interests, and passions. As I was meeting each person, I kept thinking “Oh, so this is what it sounds like to be amazing.” Because seriously, everyone IS truly amazing.

I’m really hoping I get paired with the Barefoot Contessa.

What? She’s not an option? I guess I’ll perfect my cooking skills elsewhere then…*sigh*

At the conclusion, I felt my mind and heart buzzing with energy and ideas. 

I met so many wonderful people; people I assume will become lasting friends. I was so amped I signed up to be one of the blog writers! (I promptly sent out a desperate plea to my Facebook community: “How can I has Tumblr? Plz halp.”) So I’m sitting here writing my first blog post ever while my boyfriend is watching the Olympic games, specifically Curling. Now I’m not a huge sports fan in general, but I’ve always made time for the Olympics because I love watching humans do impossible feats of gravity and strength and the pure, overwhelming reactions that come from earning a gold medal. I mean, I did find out my top strength is ‘Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence’ from the VIA Institute on Character Strengths Survey and watching the Olympics is the perfect fix to watch people achieve their dreams and also the perfect way to make me melt into a pool of inspired tears.

But Curling?? Has anyone ever watched Curling before?

It’s a truly bizarre-looking sport where a team of two people work together to glide a smooth stone with a handle on it down a narrow stretch of ice in attempt to get their stone into a bullseye at the opposite end. One person slides down the ice, guiding its path and once they release the stone, the other teammate uses a Swiffer Sweeper-like device to maniacally “sweep” the ice to get the stone to speed up on its way to the bullseye. I would much rather watch the Figure Skating events or have another marathon of The Walking Dead or even watch zombies figure skate! Anything but Curling.

But as I watched my partner’s eyes widen with admiration and listened to him describe the rules, I noticed how the teammates were really working together, communicating, and supporting each other and how much this sport means to them. These teammates are attempting something they truly believe in and I found it warming on me.

In a way, the Community Connect program is like playing a big Curling match. The leaders of the Leadership Institute are like the teammates who are guiding us (the stones) down this icy path and they’re giving us a wonderful opportunity to get to the target at the end. Our program mentors are the other teammates, crazily Swiffering our paths so we get there faster and ultimately hit our bullseyes. We need our teammates for guidance and encouragement and once we reach the end, we’ll be more equipped to throw other people down that icy path, too. 

Er, well, you know what I mean.

We may get a little lost at times, we may sometimes be full of fear, but when we stop to evaluate our strengths, realize our passions, and ultimately find our purpose, we’re each capable of beauty and we’re then equipped to help others find theirs too. I’m truly thankful and honored to be a part of the Community Connect class of 2018. I hope that through our time together in this program we will work to see the beauty in ourselves and each other, speak those truths, find strength and grow…and heck, maybe we’ll even form a Curling team at the end!

They’re going for the gold, so why shouldn’t we?