#incredibly good at giving speeches and making money

[moonkissedvisions]

Pick an image tarot reading: Your natural gifts 🎀🍓🧁

Important: 16+. This is a general tarot card reading. Take what resonates and leave the rest. Tarot readings are not meant to be a replacement for any professional advice. I use the Rider-Waite deck. Take a deep breath, think about the theme/question of the reading and pick an image. Let your intuition guide you and HAVE FUN!

🎀 First picture

cards: 6 of Cups, King of Pentacles, 5 of Swords.

🎀 Multitalented

🎀 Inner child

🎀Generosity

🎀 Compassion

🎀 Playfulness

🎀 Creating a beautiful atmosphere

🎀 Cooking

🎀 Decorating

🎀 Jewelry

🎀 Retailer

🎀 Drawing

🎀 Painting

🎀 Collecting

🎀 Servicial

🎀 Money

🎀 Finances

🎀 Comedy

🎀 Working with kids

🎀 Poetry

🎀 Charity

🎀 Imagination

🎀 Instruments

🎀 Memory

🎀 Discipline

🎀 Self control

🎀 Material world

🎀 Counseling

🎀 Security

🎀 Self esteem

🎀 Humility

🎀 Crafting

🎀 Asking questions

🎀 History

🎀 Adaptation

🎀 Inspiring

🎀 Fashion

🎀 Philosophy

🎀 Speech

🎀 Abundance

🎀 Nourishing

🎀 Assertiveness

🎀 Therapy

additional notes: you may be childlike and/or have a baby face. you are forever young. you are outgoing. you like presents. you like learning about the past/your ancestors. you may have melancholic and nostalgic thoughts and emotions. you have a lot of energy. you are caring. you like a bit of destruction and mess (whatever that means for you). you may like wearing adornments. you may have an abundance mindset. people may feel comfortable and happy around you. you may have a hard time letting go of stuff. you may like self-care. Leave a 🎀 if you picked this reading!

🍓 Second picture

cards: The Devil, The Lovers, Wheel of Fortune.

🍓 You could be a 6 in numerology, since you got both 6 life path number cards (The Lovers VI, The Devil XV). 6 may be a significant number to you, or you embody 6 number codes and energy.

🍓 Strong sexual and personal magnetism

🍓 Attracting people

🍓 Sensuality

🍓 Dealing with taboo and dark themes

🍓 Loving

🍓 Generous

🍓 Business

🍓 Tempting

🍓 Unmasking the truth

🍓 Strong intuition

🍓 Designing

🍓 Passionate

🍓 Psychology

🍓 Making love

🍓 Holistic medicine

🍓 Dominance

🍓 Beauty

🍓 Decision-making

🍓 Devoted/devotion

🍓 Romance

🍓 Surrender

🍓 Acceptance

🍓 Wisdom

🍓 Good luck

🍓 Deep understanding

🍓 Manifesting

🍓 Communication

🍓 Effortless persona

🍓 Relationships

🍓 Good lover

🍓 Family oriented

🍓 Artistic

🍓 Beautiful

🍓 Considerate

🍓 Appreciative

🍓 Magic

🍓 Aware

🍓 Psychic

🍓 Occult/hidden

additional notes: you may be considered sexy or conventionally attractive. people are curious about you. people tell you their secrets. you go through a lot of changes in your life/identity. you may be multi-talented like the first pic people. you are considered an open-minded person but at the same time you may be a conventional/traditional or conservative person. you like having a healthy lifestyle. you may not like sharing many stuff about yourself and that could make you a mysterious person. you like witchy stuff/ are open about witchcraft. you may get obsessed easily. you may have a lot of secrets. you may have to deal with self-pity. Leave a 🍓 if you picked this reading!

🧁 Third picture

cards: King of Swords, Strength, Justice.

🧁 Compassion

🧁 Determination

🧁 Integrity

🧁 Power of thoughts

🧁 Power of the unconscious

🧁 Focus

🧁 Respect for life, its cycles and the natural order

🧁 Caring

🧁 Harmonious

🧁 Patience

🧁 Control

🧁 Veterinary

🧁 Taming

🧁 Problem solving

🧁 Wildness

🧁 Royalty

🧁 Law

🧁 Sharpness

🧁 Command

🧁 Good balance of feminine and masculine energies. ☯️ There is an overall balance in you.

🧁 Judge

🧁 Popular

🧁 Honesty

🧁 Impartiality

🧁 Rationality

🧁 Incredible logic

🧁Intellectual

🧁 Unbiased

🧁 Fatherly

🧁 Authority

🧁 Intelligent

🧁 Discernment

🧁 Writing

🧁 Sense of justice

🧁 Giving and gaining respect

🧁 Political/good at politics

🧁 Hierarchy

🧁 Leader

additional notes: you may be a control freak. you deal with emotions harmoniously but you could also seem cold or may dislike emotionality. you are deeply spiritual though. you may be or come across as judgemental to some people but you have a fair judgement. people come to you for advice and help because of your perspectives. you sense when things aren't right or something is unfair. you may love animals and nature. maybe you have a lot of pets or you fight for animal rights. you may be bookish. you like power/feeling powerful and strong and being in high positions. you may have a clean style or like neatness. Leave a 🧁 if you picked this reading!

Thank you for reading my post! I hope you loved it.

[octuscle]

I went to my high school reunion and was reminded of how so many of these guys were the big cocky jocks. I wish I could go back and be a huge cocky teenage jock like they were.

It's 11:00 a.m. and the principle of your former high school is giving an incredibly boring speech on the occasion of the farewell ceremony for the current graduating class. And to the alumni who are celebrating the tenth anniversary of their graduation this year. So here's to you and your former classmates.

You let your gaze wander through the auditorium. Some of your classmates are still as hot as they were ten years ago. Others have let themselves go a little. Unfortunately, you are one of them. Yes, your expensive suit hides a lot. But you can't deny that you are even fatter and untrained than you were ten years ago.

Fuck, now this year's seniors are coming on stage to collect their diplomas. Did they spend all of high school in the gym. Your cock produces precum in greater quantity as you watch the studs pass by on stage. What would you give to get your diploma again.

After an hour, the ceremony is over. There is a reception for the graduates and the jubilarians. Actually, you shouldn't be here. It's only been nine years since you graduated. But there must have been a mistake with the invitations. And hey, some of the guys who had left high school a year before you were really hot, with some of them you had a flirt or a one night stand or two. Fortunately, no one asks you why you are here today. Basically, every alumni is allowed to come to the ceremony. And at least you receive a few compliments. Hehehe, the last year at the gym seems to be paying off. But it's about time, you weren't exactly sporty for long enough.

After an hour it starts to get boring. You haven't been to your hometown for ages. You drive to the mall and stroll through the shops. You were actually unsure whether you should go to the prom tonight. But somehow you would like to. Finally an occasion to buy a dinner jacket. Most of the shops look too expensive for you. Or nothing fits you. But it's 4 p.m. when you stand in front of the mirror of a plus-size men's clothing store. You've been lifting iron for five years. Every free minute. And it shows. And that makes buying suits really difficult. But you look fantastic in that dinner jacket. And luckily it's reasonably cheap. You're just out of college, so your money's not that loose yet. But now just one more coffee and then back home. You promised your parents to have dinner with them before you go to the ball.

Your parents are happy when you ring the doorbell at 6 pm. After the summer, you start your senior year at college. Your mother is already complaining that she won't see you again. And why you still don't have a boyfriend. And whether you would like to adopt children. After all, they want to have grandchildren. You smile and praise her cooking.

Around 20:00, dinner is over. Your father retires to the television with a cigar. Your mother tidies up the kitchen. And you go into the garage to the gym of your father and yourself. Before you go out today, you want to pump up your muscles. Some of your mates want to go to your high school prom later. You are glad that you finally closed this chapter a year ago. For the right training effect, you give yourself another shot. Since you started using anabolic steroids. you've become a beast.

22:00 hrs. Good workout. The guys will pick you up in half an hour. You could take a quick shower. But what for? First of all, you love the smell of fresh sweat after training. And secondly, you'll just be hanging out in the car park in front of the gym anyway, maybe blowing each other. And every once in a while, one of the high school seniors will surely come from the prom, smoke a cigarette with you, and maybe get a blowjob. Or give you a blowjob. Your cock is legendary with the juniors. You're really going to miss some of the seniors next year. But then you'll be a senior in high school and it'll be the year of your life.

[katherinakaina]

Being bullied for knowing another language is a real thing. Think of all the animosity people feel towards the Bachelor for saying, what, 3-4 phrases in Latin.

Storytime.

Every Russian feminist remembers how Nixelpixel was bullied and I presume is still being bullied. It really was Russian gamer gate and Nixelpixel is Russian Anita Sarkeesian. Both were tormented for being feminists, that's the base of it. But Anita was also a target of antisemitism and anti Armenian rhetoric. Nixelpixel is a skinny white Russian, very little to add on top. So she was bullied for speaking English.

She is bilingual and as many of us bilinguals do, she mixed languages in her speech in the way that I do and feels natural to me and all my friends.

The Russian Internet was not having it, not even a little bit. Unanimous consensus was that she is doing it only to appear smarter.

For English speaking people in the first world it maybe hard to comprehend. English is just the default language. But remember how conservatives react when some nonbinary teenager makes a video about cultural appropriation or any other academic topic and suddenly they all feel like they don't know certain words?! And they have to google words to understand someone's complex speech?! This is unheard of! And what right does this "beneath me in social hierarchy" have to know something that I don't?!! Outrageous!

The core of this emotion is envy. Knowing English good enough so you become legitimately bilingual is a privilege in Russia. Knowing a lot of stuff about society and understanding complex topics is a privilege. You have time and money for education. Or you got lucky and had educated parents. Envy becomes even more venomous when the person you envy is supposed to be beneath you.

Like, I don't really get it. But that's how I make sense of other people hating me all my life for being... eloquent. As if they anticipate me being hostile because they are less eloquent than me and attack me preventively.

This is made worse by me being autistic and forgetting all the time that you must make all humble song and dance around your every achievement so not to trigger neurotypical rage. I genuinely forget which words are too smart and which are fine. The idea that I'm trying to sound smarter on purpose is so laughable to me.

Returning to the Bachelor. He's a doctor, he studied at university. Do you hate him when he uses medical jargon? What's the deal with Latin then? They study Latin in med school. It is a mandatory course. For me this trait of his always meant to signify that he took his education very seriously and knows everything that he studied very well.

When people just assume that someone, a character or a person, does anything just to look smart I'm a little triggered. I know I'm not safe in that company.

And I know that all of it is incredibly whiny. Knowledge is a privilege, as I said. Dankovsky is a privileged man. I'm not blaming those who feel uncomfortable around learned people. I'm not blaming those who are not into such characters.

But Dankovsky is not gatekeeping knowledge though! He looks like a man who would nerd out about Latin to you, if you only asked. He gives his degree away for free! It's not the same as rich people hoarding wealth. He's eager to share his knowledge! But now he is a coloniser imposing his western ideas onto indigenous society.

Oh well, damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Maybe it's not envy then? Maybe they want a smart sounding person but the one who would agree with them all the time? Like, Peterson uses a lot of long words and they love him. Hm...

[jadelotusflower]

Stargate Rewatch: 1x01 Children of the Gods

After rewatching the original film I'm kicking off with the show's pilot - I actually watched both the original version and the "final cut" because there are aspects I enjoy of both. The final cut removes a few problematic elements and adds in some new material, but also cuts a few lines I really enjoy and the original version is really where my nostalgia lies, so... as always, my feelings, they are mixed.

Cold open with some redshirts - four men and one woman, sadly representative of the gender ratio the show will have going forward.

The unlucky Smurfette is Sgt Carol Weterings, not that I think she's ever mentioned by name in the episode.

"Probably the only thing it ever did was cost money." Heh.

I will say that Teal'c turning against Apophis at the end of the episode is nicely built - starting here where he examines the gun and identifies it as technology far advanced beyond the humans they’re used to dealing with.

When your name is above the title, you get introduced with an extreme close up.

The differences between the film and the show don't really bother me - I view the show as taking place in a very similar but alternate universe to the film rather than trying to squeeze them together - so O'Neil becomes O'Neill, Sha'uri becomes Sha're, Tyler becomes Charlie, Abydos is the closest planet to Earth, not the other side of the known universe, etc etc. But I consider the events of the film to be canon to the show universe unless directly contradicted.

But otherwise the pilot tries very hard to stick as close as possible to the film, to the point that Major Samuels states that General Hammond replaced General West.

Hammond says it’s been “over a year” since the events of the film, unclear exactly how much over.

The final cut has a longer version of the dead Jaffa, revealing one of them was a woman, and with all the changes to eliminate plot holes I don't know why Brad Wright put one back in. While we do see Jaffa women in the series, Goa'uld and Jaffa society is depicted as highly patriarchal and female Jaffa soliders are rare - we never see them in Apophis's ranks. It's an odd inclusion.

"What if the aliens get it?" "Well, they could be blowing their noses right now." hee!

"THANKS SEND MORE" Remember when Daniel had allergies? Give it a few episodes and the show sure won’t!

Amanda Tapping, doing her absolute best with some terrible dialogue. Brad Wright blames the "reproductive organs" speech on Jonathan Glassner, and it is terrible and thankfully removed from the final cut version, along with some other 90's era sexism from the bros. However there is one great moment, where Kawalsky asks "Have you ever pulled out of a simulated bombing run in an F16 at eight plus Gs?" and without missing a beat, Sam deadpans: "Yes." I love Sam.

"I'll give you exactly 24 hours to either return or send a message through - no Kleenex boxes, please." Hee, Hammond isn't quite the cuddly commander we know and love yet, but he has his moments.

It's very cute that Sam has a very similar reaction to the one Daniel had in the film just before going through the gate, although his was based in the wonder of something incredible and unknown, and hers is based in the physical manifestation of knowledge - says a lot about each of them and their similarities yet different perspectives - the marrying of these two points of view is what makes them such a good duo.

Michael Shanks, doing the James Spader impression that won him the role. He was only 26!

And of course Alexis Cruz, the only holdover from the movie (other than Erick Avari, who won't appear until season 2).

The original team sure did leave a bunch of weapons with the Abydonians, didn't they? I presume they taught them how to fire the guns because there's no way Daniel could/would have. He did however teach them very good English.

"Greetings from Earth, Doctor Jackson" - very cute, it's sad that Ferretti disappears into the ether by season 2.

Not the face of a woman who is shy, but a woman who knows how to make An Entrance. She even smirks a little as she walks over.

There is however a weird little moment where Sha're is reluctant to shake Jack's hand - maybe she wasn't impressed about his little joke brushing by Daniel? Both of these beats are removed from the final cut version which is probably for the best.

It's criminal Sha're doesn't actually get to speak in this scene, and in fact how few lines she has in the episode altogether.

It's disappointing, because Sha'uri was such an integral part of the film, and yet the show tries to get rid of her as quickly as possible to get Daniel on SG-1 and give him a core drive for the next three seasons. Her abduction is the precipitating event of Daniel's ten-year character arc and defining moment of transition from film!Daniel to show!Daniel, and yet she doesn't get a character arc of her own.

However I do think Shanks and Vaitiare Hirshon sell the relationship in the few scenes they have - they're very physically connected/protective of one another, perhaps concerned that Jack's there to take Daniel back with him (which is in fact the case). And of course Sha're, annoyed at being left behind while Daniel shows the others his discovery, gives him a very proprietary kiss.

I think show!Sha're gets a bad rap, she's spunky and I love her. I just wish there was more of her.

Sam and Daniel insta-bonding - Daniel making an intuitive leap to solve the puzzle and Sam filling in the gaps with science to make it work, they really are kindred spirits.

The issue with the cartouche though is that the symbols look like hierogyphs, not star constellations/Stargate glyphs.

Back in the pyramid, there's a scene sorely missing here - imagine if rather than ogling Sha're, Ferretti had a conversation with her, giving us more of a chance to know Sha're on her own terms rather than just Daniel's wife and the object of others desire. Especially when Ferretti was on the original mission so knows she's more than a "beautiful woman" - it would also give additional weight to him remembering the gate address where she's taken later on.

Teal'c clocks Skaara's gun as the same tech he saw on Earth in breadcrumb no. 2.

"Nothing good can ever come through this gate!" "You came through it , Daniel" I mean...I realise there are a lot of problematic white savior-y aspects to the show, but idk, this scene and the Abydonians all petting Daniel to say goodbye gets me. Sean Amsing as Tobay also returns in Full Circle which is a nice callback to this scene.

The final cut removes a reaction shot from Jack which I have mixed feelings about - I get that the focus probably needs to be on Daniel at that moment, but I do think it's important for Jack to appreciate how Daniel really found a home with the Abydonians and was appreciated and loved by them, and it's nicely played by RDA.

LOL, watch out for how many times Jack pats Daniel on the shoulder. Apparently that annoyed Shanks so RDA kept doing it, but it's also a nice little setup of their relationship going forward.

There's a second shoulder pat in the hallway.

Just two dudes, drinking beer, (not) talking about their feelings.

“She was the complete opposite of everyone else, she practically fell on the floor laughing every time I tried to do some kind of chore they all took for granted.” Underrated line, because it gives important context to Daniel and Sha’re’s relationship, and perhaps more importantly, how Daniel characterises her - she is the one who keeps him grounded, who teases him, there is balance to their relationship. There’s potentially an interesting parallel there to Vala in the later seasons, although it manifests in a very different way.

“I think she forgave me for what happened to our kid, she just couldn’t forget…I’m the opposite, I can never forgive myself, but sometimes I can forget.” This is a great scene.

The Final Cut removes all the “harem scenes” and while I can see why, we do lose a bit of context to Teal'c's involvement in the process as he is the one who chooses the women from the holding cell to go into the harem, and then from the harem to be presented to Apophis.

There was a missed opportunity to actually see Sha're interact with the other prisoners - she could have had a conversation with Weterings at least, find out she was from Earth, perhaps assure her that the others would be coming to rescue them.

To the surprise of no one I’m sure, this episode does not pass the Bechdel test.

But there is a hint of solidarity among the prisoners - first in the holding cell where the others hold Skaara back, and here in the harem Sha're squeezes the hand of another woman.

Weterings is killed by the hand device which keeps the electrical current aesthetic from the movie the show will later abandon - as Teal'c looks perturbed.

Daniel back on Earth immediately getting stuck into the coffee even though no one else is drinking, lol.

"Ra played a god, the sun god, he borrowed the religion and culture of the ancient Egyptians he brought through the gate and used it to enslave them." A bit of a change from the movie here, where it was the other way around - slightly less problematic!

Everyone is in dress blues except Kawalsky who is in camo, and Daniel, who is wearing Jack's clothes.

"Colonel I'd like to remind you that rescuing Dr Jackson's wife is a secondary objective." This line was removed in the final cut and I don't know why? It adds to Samuel's bastardry.

Has everyone forgotten about Weterings?

Shoulder pat no. 3!

In the second harem scene Sha're is now sitting isolated from the other women - did she argue with them? Just trying not to be noticed? What happened offscreen?

Also what's going on in the top left corner - it looks like the healing device! Maybe Sha're did throw down with one of the others and that's why she's on her own. I have to read into things, because the show gives us so very little of Sha're and it's a real shame.

She does get a good moment fighting against the guards though - earlier she was defiant and told them she wasn't afraid of them, here she bites one of them on the arm.

I understand from a narrative perspective why Sha're is the one who gets taken over, but it really is Schrodinger’s fridging - until she’s found Sha’re is both alive and dead for the purpose of the narrative, both Daniel’s primary drive and source of inner conflict.

Christopher Judge does so much with so little. Master of the cheek twitch!

Oof, the nudity. In isolation from everything else, it doesn’t bother me - it’s intended to be horrifying, not titillating, and is effective in conveying objectification and dehumanisation by the Goa'uld.

However, it was a studio request, Wright/Glassner regretted doing it, it doesn’t fit the tone of the show going forward, but most importantly Hirshon was pressured into the full frontal when she only agreed to topless, and for that alone it should be excised.

The puppet symbiotes are so much more effective than the cgi they use later. I don’t think there’s another scene in the show that really captures the menace of the Goa’uld like this one - the symbiote (who we'll later learn is Amaunet) slithering around on Sha're's body is just so visceral and horrifying. The glowing eyes before implantation is an effective touch.

Jack sticking Daniel in it with Sam by saying Sha're was a gift could be amusing, except the conversation gets cut off before Daniel can explain. It annoys me, because Daniel not "accepting" Sha're was actually the point? It's kind of important! I assume he does tell Sam the whole story later.

"Unless we want to get ourselves a really bad reputation, I just think we should avoid shooting the first people we meet on a new planet" is a nice follow up to Daniel's sarcastic "well that would have been an excellent reason to shoot everyone" from the film. At this point, Daniel doesn't appear to be carrying a weapon other than a knife. Oh, how that will change!

The Chulak priests speak "a derivation of Arabic" and something else - the Goa'uld language is meant to be similar to Abydonian, which is based on Ancient Egyptian. Of course modern Egyptian is an Arabic dialect that came much later, but perhaps we are to assume Goa'uld - or at least the Chulak vernacular - evolved along similar lines.

Jack unable to shoot Sha're when she stands in front of Apophis is a nice movie callback.

The final cut has a good extra scene between Sam and Daniel where he is quite delusional thinking Sha're might just be drugged, and Sam tries to talk sense into him. Daniel's blind optimism against Sam's pragmatic realism will be an important aspect of their relationshio going forward.

Shoulder pat no. 4!

Teal'c P.I. sees Skaara talking to Jack and starts putting pieces together - the weapons from the opening scene, the weapons on Abydos + Jack's watch, and Daniel helpfully supplying the Earth glyph.

Alexis Cruz is committed to the film pronunciation of Sha’uri, bless him.

“But you are a great warrior, we defeated Ra together!” Skaara’s faith in Jack is so pure.

Skaara gets a shoulder pat too.

"Another fine day on planet Kawalsky" - This line was removed from the final cut! What a tragedy. I get the sense Brad Wright feels a bit cringe about the campier aspects of the show, but it's part of the charm! To be fair Ferretti was more of the wisecracker in the movie rather than Kawalsky, but I love that show Kawalsky is a little goofy.

I'm sorry, what is this silver monstrosity? I guess a sliver of credit that after the nudity not going for a sexy alien outfit, but this is a hate crime. I also have a very high tolerance, and even affection for, silly Stargate headgear, but there's camp and then there's ugly.

Peter Williams as Apophis though: 10/01, no notes.

"They're going to choose...who will be the children of the gods." I do love it when they say the title of the thing in the thing.

The subtle moment where Teal'c motions that Jack should kneel is a nice setup - Skaara being very reluctant and angry about kneeling, and being the last to do so, is nice movie continuity. Skaara really gets shortchanged by the show after this episode.

"How much would I remember if you chose me?" I wonder if Daniel ever thinks that maybe him drawing the attention of the Goa'uld contributed to Skaara getting chosen. You know, just to really lay on the angst and guilt.

So the premise is that these Apophis underlings are choosing hosts for their children who are symbiotes ready for implantation, which doesn't really fit with what we learn about Goa'uld queens/reproduction later. We also learn later that Skaara is taken as a host for Apophis's son Klorel which doesn't sqaure with these two choosing him.

Headcanon time! This is actually Zipacna who we meet later arguing for Klorel at Triad - different actor, of course, but he wears a similarly silly hat. So Amaunet now has access to all of Sha're's memories of Skaara and she and Apophis decide that he will make a good host - maybe she also likes the idea of a family resemblance between herself and Klorel (I think we can assume he is also Amaunet's son?). But Apophis doesn't want anyone to know he's choosing a host for his offspring, so sends Zipacna out to do it for him.

This makes sense of Klorel later claiming that Apophis chose his host, and also gives backstory to Zipacna showing up in Pretense. And in the scene, the Goa'uld make a very quick decision to take Skaara, while the rest get very grossly examined people before choosing.

Shoulder pat no. 5!

"I have nowhere to go." Teal'c turning on his brother Jaffa to save a roomful of people, not expecting to survive himself, really hits.

"For this, you can stay at my place." hee!

Jack not wanting to hear it when Teal'c tells him Skaara is no longer himself is a turnabout of the earlier scene with Daniel. Not so flip now it's your Emotional Support Abydonian, are you Jack?

Kawalsky getting Goa'ulded doesn't seem to hurt as much as Sha're's - because the symbiote isn't mature, or because Amaunet is particularly sadistic?

Soon to be SG-1 posing for their album cover.

It was the late 90's when tvs were tiny, so everyone had to stand uncomfortably close.

And we end with shoulder pat no. 6!

[sandinthepipes]

Hello fellow dyslexic/adhd/others who would like to enjoy fanfics through their ears, I just spent the entire day testing android apps to find one that doesn’t suck as much.

TL;DR - these two T2S, Audify

I feel like I need to share this because 90% the apps don’t even allow a web page as a source, let alone get past the log in page, and I cant be the only one who doesn’t want to download every single fic.

“Oh, but doesn’t android have a built-in text-to-speech function in the accessibility settings?” I hear you ask. Yes, but it sucks ass very badly. Firstly it only reads in the system language, so it doesn’t really work. Second, you need to highlight all that you want it to read, and seeing that I read a minimum of 15k words in a sitting, I’m not gonna do that.

Also I’m broke, I imagine you are too, but even if I wasn’t I’m not paying for this, if I did I wouldn’t even be supporting a human being, so no.

I’ll immediately break your trust with the first point, but it’s what I’ve been doing until now, and now that I know what the android mobile experience is like, I feel the need to include this. The best solution I’ve had so far (which works wonders, let me tell you) is letting Siri read them on the iPad. It’s only doable when I’m at home and it’s still an apple product, so that’s why I began the research. However the positive points are INCREDIBLE so I’m going to ads it to the list because I said so.

First of all it’s built-in and SO EASY to access, you literally just swipe with two fingers and it stars to read. It reads the punctuation, you might think that’s a given and so did I, but no. A question sounds like a question, an exclamation point does why its supposed to do, short sentences sound what they’re supposed to sound like. In apparently all the apps ever created, you won’t find any of it, just flat, monotone voices with flat little pauses. Overall excellent experience 10/10.

Cons: it’s on apple, I consider apple the same as Disney, I would love to not give them more money so that they can make the market increasingly worse. Every now and then a system update will fuck with the tts function and it will be unusable for a while. Sometimes it doesn’t like the text format on some fics. It’s not portable.

Now that we got that out of the way let us get to the meet.

Speechify - it sucks bad. At least the free version, but seen as it costs almost 10€ a month I’m not even going to consider the premium version. Fuck that. You can’t increase the speed, and as somebody who hasn’t watched a single YouTube video on normal speed since they added the function I can’t do that, too slow, I forgot what we were talking about once we get to the end of the sentence. Also you can only use those weird very robotic voices, and they’re not even that many. Don’t recommend. I felt like I had to include it since it was one of the few who allowed browser navigation and well, it’s speechify. Also you can’t t have saved more than 3 “files” per time. Doesn’t have sleep mode.

T2S - cute. It works. Again, no emotions, but it reads what it has to, nice voice selections, easy to use. The premium version adds literally nothing, they’re a good app, what they have, they give. Also you can customise the interface colour if you want. Has the sleep mode.

Audify - works exactly the same as T2S, but it saves the history and has a bit more customisation for how it reads and what it reads (which you don’t really need for ao3, but if you wanted to read, say, Wikipedia with all the notes and stuff, now you know). Has the sleep mode.

That’s all folks. Now go and be free of your reading impediment, or be free in your multitasking, or whatever you want to do. I’m done, I’ve given my datas to all kinds of shady apps, I need to go do damage control

[emchovy]

Learned about the release of this book real late, (as in, this February, when I decided that I wanted to show my roommate Epithet for the first time) but thankfully that was just in time to preorder a copy of the hardcover release, which finally came.

Or well, it came yesterday, and I'm finished reading it now. It was AMAZING.

The writing style is pretty different from the stuff I normally read, but once I got in the groove, I felt like I didn't need the audiobook (which I'm definitely gonna get eventually) because I could basically hear all the characters in my head. Also, spoilers for the rest of my review. Pick up a copy. You won't regret it.

I say review. This is disconnected rambling. Also, seriously, spoilers for the whole book delivered in a random out-of-context way.

This book is definitely Molly's story more than anything, and beyond that it's a story between Molly and her sister Lorelei. Two kids with epithets, and opposite personalities. There's a really masterful job here of balancing realistic family drama with the fun, villain vs. hero hijinks.

I love a pathetic loser, and so I was immediately taken by Rick Shades, and his quest for friends, to the point I was getting bummed out when he kept getting rebuffed lololol. However, it was all earned in the end. The scene with him and Molly was <3. Also, I am glad he's gonna get a job. Of some sort.

Naven meeting Molly in the street and just agreeing to give her speech training is an incredibly cute concept.

I liked the Neo Trio a lot, but they're surprisingly not the new faves I expected them to be, though I did laugh pretty much every time at the running joke with Feenie and money.

Actually, my favorite new character was probably Lorelei. We love a girl who's making every wrong decision and also just doesn't leave the house anymore and wonders what's wrong. Also, the Martin + Lorelei relationship was also pretty intriguing. He's more supportive of Lorelei, she's got more of his traits, but Lorelei needs someone who'll help her manage better. Martin's vague support of her 'playing', as Molly puts it, is doing more harm than good. I wasn't exactly sure how to take the fact that Martin constructs Lorelei's ideas in the real world, also. Is he plagiarizing? I wouldn't read it that way, but he's also not collaborating with Lorelei, so they could build something together. A relationship that could go either collaborative or parasitic, depending.

Also, I want Lorelei to get better (and I fully believe she will) but I really liked the end. She needs some time in the real world right now, to grapple with her actions. Neven's gentle support was good. Her and Molly need time apart, so that they can be able to be together again.

Gio and Molly remain duo of all time. Every interaction they have is cute and/or funny. Two characters I could probably enjoy watching/reading about doing basically any boring task you can think of and enjoy. Painting a fence, doing laundry, vacuuming, whatever.

Giovanni's complete blindness to romance was so fuckin' funny in this book. Him and Lorelei and him and Crusher were also distinctly different levels of complete obliviousness.

Also, Crusher and Molly, right at the end <3!! Pulling out the stool for her, her getting reassured by the fact she was nervous. Augh. So sweet. I've reread that scene like 4 times. I do hope we get Molly hanging out with more of The Boys. Crusher's coming across like a pretty gentle sweetie, but I'm very curious about how she'll integrate into the larger group.

All of that to say! Good book!! Would recommend! I'm extremely excited for Sweet Escape.

[marvanne111]

moments I love in "Tempting Fête"

"I can only read what I've got written down, Mr. Funt." "Councilor Funt! -Funn, Councilor Funn."

the fact that it's been 11 years of this Funn/ Funt debate (alternatively, that both the reverend and the mayor have addressed him properly the last three episodes and seemed to have no problem with it)

"Yes, well, I'll see what I'm doing that day" -leading the funeral, one would hope?

underrated bit of the series in general: cell service only being available in the reverend's bathroom

"I think he's quite dishy" (this scratches such an itch in my brain; I quote it once a week)

the mayor and reverend (who will be dating by the end of the episode) agreeing emphatically with the above statement

the reverend wearing eye shadow! (incredible, show stopping, spectacular, never been seen before)

"It was one mouse! and, and I don't know anything about it"

"All opposed?" "... I mean, I'd say opposed is a strong word-" "Done! Carried unanimously!"; "All opposed? "I, uh-" "Overruled! Motion carried!"

"We already have an identity: it's miserable and it works." (i want this on a t-shirt)

"There hasn't been a fête for eleven years." "Astonishing. Who's in charge of local events?" "Rudyard." "Ah."

"Look, it's easy to throw money around and get excited about rustic dancing, but we've got-" "I'LL SAY IT IS!"

"His world had once again become an increasingly scary place. There was only one thing left to do..." "Georgie?" "Yeah?" "We're emigrating."; "It was time for swift and decisive action, and there was only one place to head for: Reverend Wavering's bathroom"; at the funeral I was able to witness Rudyard, bereft of Reverend and with few attendees, deliver a stirring and entirely improvised speech about the circuities of fate, the struggles of discord, and an intractable acceptance of the way the cookie crumbles, a sermon that moved the late Basil Corbett’s niece to say, quite simply:" "We want our money back" (some really fantastic narration moments in this one that make me giggle every time)

Rudyard including Madeleine in the emigration plans is said so sweetly and it honestly makes me a little soft

"One word: Chapman." "I should return his calls-" "Chapman?" "- probably won't, though"

"Rudyard, other people do those things for you!" "Conscription?" "Volunteering!"

"I, I, I do like spreadsheets!"

(No Madeleine, I hate raffles!") (these posts are always so Rudyard-centric lol and it's helped me come to the conclusion that he really is the funniest)

"Do you know how many gallons of fluid I'll have to drain from a man that size? Possibly thousands!" "What a ridiculous lie!" (this is another one that I quote often lol)

"I wish I were Mrs. Carnegie!" "You will be, Mrs, Turner. You will be." (WHAT IS THIS RESPONSE?!)

"Fancy a funeral?" "That a threat?"; "Don't forget your funeral." "Was that a threat?"

"Socializing? That'd take up ten minutes and then what would they do? No. Perpetual scheduled activity, that's the way."

"Put some clothes on!" "IT'S MY HOUSE!"

"Antigone?" "What?!" "Helicopters!" "Go back to your side of the table."

"Now get over there and sabotage something!" "*sigh* Fine." "Do you really think that's going to help?" "Oh maybe not, but it'll cheer me up."

"Called up the family, made up a story about... well, re-organizing a fête, that sort of thing." "How did they react?" "Well, they weren't very happy..." "But?" "No, that's it, they weren't very happy."

"You know, I can actually see your future." "Oh yes?" "Mmm hmm. And it involves this crystal ball getting shoved STRAIGHT up your-"

"Alright sir! Mission accomplissshhhhed." "Hello, Georgie." "Hello..." "Get out, Georgie." "Goodbye..."

The Mayor trying to rustic dance for a couple of hours before giving up

Lady Templar's glass eye. (That's it. That's the post.)

"He'd be spinning in the grave you haven't put him in yet!" (best line of the episode honestly)

"What a dreadful little man!" "Yes... mind you, he looks good in a suit"

"Even in a crowd, they all look lonely" (🤌🤌🤌)

"Can't win 'em all" 'Winning anything at all would be a nice change." (also want this on a t-shirt)

"You like to be the hero, don't ya?" (Georgie's the GOAT)

"Rudyard. Do you know what this chap did?" "Yes, he told me" (my man is already so tired of Eric lol)

[unclewaynemunson]

And suddenly we're Thelma and Louise

Yaaayy my fic for Lex's Spicy Six Summer Challenge is finished, time for some lesbian romcom roadtrip summer vibes 💖

The sun is shining, Blondie is blasting from the speakers and Robin is riding a sugar high from the overdose of M&M's she's been eating. She looks to her left, where Nancy is sitting behind the wheel, and is struck for the millionth time by what a gorgeous sight she is to behold: her usually perfectly styled hair is blown all messy by the breeze coming in through the open windows and the tip of her nose is just a little bit sunburnt. Her pale, thin fingers are loosely resting on the steering wheel, absentmindedly drumming along to the music. And her eyes – those goddamn enchanting eyes – have that bright twinkle in them while they both sing along to Go through it at the top of their lungs.

As the trees and the rolling hills flash by, and more miles of asphalt disappear underneath the wheels of the car, Robin ponders how different Nancy looks compared to her graduation night a few weeks ago.

🚙

It was a perfect evening in the way everything about Nancy's life was to the outside world. But after having known her for more than six years, Robin knew better. She was one of the few people who got to see the Nancy behind the scenes; behind the robes and the valedictorian speech and the brightly shining sun and the big party with all her family and friends and fancy appetizers. She had seen Nancy's fake smile faltering and witnessed her tears while the two of them were hidden from view near the end of the party.

'I accomplished nothing,' Nancy had told her with wet cheeks and trembling hands.

Robin didn't remind her of her diploma solely consisting straight A's, or her internship at the New Yorker, or the job offers she received from at least three big players on the journalism market. She knew that that wasn't what Nancy meant.

'I wanted to see the world, remember? And here I am, with a degree and literally nothing else.'

Everything Robin could tell her felt like the wrong thing for this particular conversation. She knew how incredibly hard Nancy had worked, how much she dreamed of a career and success. But there was no room for what she had accomplished in her post-graduation doom spiral, which was merely built of the things she had not done over the past six years. The things she'd had to give up to get where she was now. The things Robin did get to do: parties and hookups and the stupid mistakes everyone makes when they're in their twenties; random jobs she enjoyed instead of jobs that looked good on her resume; trips to different states, even to different countries sometimes.

'You still got time to do that,' was what Robin settled on saying. And when Nancy shot her a look filled with disbelief, she decided to double down on it. 'I'm serious, Nance, it's not like your life is over after graduating. You still got years ahead of you to see the world! You know what? This is actually the perfect moment: for once in your life, you have zero obligations – you have the ultimate freedom right now! You'll find your dream job literally whenever with that perfect resume of yours, you still have tons of shady hush money sensibly saved away... There's literally nothing stopping you, right?'

It was illustrative of Nancy's determined nature when her tears made place for a small smile right after Robin finished talking.

She sniffled and wiped her fingers over the wet skin underneath her eyes, with careful precision in order not to spread her mascara all over her cheeks.

'I mean, I'd probably need to find someone to come with me,' she said.

'Really? That's the only thing holding you back?'

Nancy nodded.

'Okay, in that case, I'm sure we can arrange something,' said Robin. 'Aren't more of your journalism friends finishing up right about now? Or maybe Max wants to spend her holiday going –'

'I was talking about you, you idiot,' Nancy cut her off, her smile widening. 'You wanna go on a roadtrip with me?'

It was a proposal that knocked Robin's breath out of her lungs.

'You wanna go see the world – with me?'

'Yes, of course,' said Nancy. She let a hand trail over Robin's arm. 'I can't think of anyone I'd rather share an adventure with.'

And how could Robin ever say no to that?

Read the rest on ao3

[aceofspades-sml]

My extensive thoughts on the main characters in Newsies uk

Last post about the show I promise but I have too much to say about those guys

(Again I was sat in Manhattan and everything you guys know the drill at this point )

Starting off with Jack !

He has so many emotions ??? Like Michael is so good at portraying Jack's feelings here, and I think the one that comes back the most throughout the show is anger. He is angry at the world, he is angry because the newsies' life is literally so unfair, and don't get me started on his disgust toward Katherine in act 2. Like he doesn't even want to be near her he is staying as far away from her as possible and that's very striking

And that's the thing about Jack's anger, he is never just angry he is also incredibly sad and bitter ?? You can see exactly how broken this boy is and I love it

Also his version of Santa fe is legit so sad. Because first of all, he really makes you notice that Jack just got out of a fight. He is soaked and tired, stuggles to walk and has to hold on to everything he can find to keep his balance. And the way he sings is kind of a mix of angry and hopeless and his voice breaks and it hurts so much

And the final note ?? One of the best I've heard, it's not only the tone it's the emotion in his voice it's the way he is reaching desperately for something he knows he can't get and you can really feel that in this one note

I have so much stuff to say about hopeless Jack and I need to talk about his attitude in the watch what happens reprise because he is literally tired of this, he is desperate and genuinely scared for all his guys because he just wants to protect them and he can't. And that's why he gives up later on in Pulitzer's office, because the mention of Crutchie is enough to literally break him so don't even try telling him about Davey and other newsies going to the refuge

His speech at the rally is so heartbreaking istg I can't deal with this. The way his voice just breaks on every sentence because he understands exactly what's at stake here. And his "how long can you go without making money" line ? I'm like 99% sure he was speaking directly to Tommy boy. Tommy boy who had been a scab, and the last of them to join the strike. It's so specific and so cruel but at the same time devastating because Jack knows his newsies so well. He knows Tommy boy will be vulnerable to this I-

Also after the rally the newsies all pass by Jack shooting him darks looks and he just. Doesn't want to look them in the eyes. Excuse me while I scream in my pillow

His relationship with Katherine was very interesting too. Their dynamic was actually quite different from anything I've seen, overall much more genuine and less superficial than in some productions

+ during I never planned on you, his physical comedy is literally adorable ?? Like he makes Kath pose for him to sketch her and at some point he even tilts her chin up

One more thing I have to talk about, because getting a poc Jack is absolutely amazing and it changes so much stuff in the show ??? Like not explicitely, but the undertones are really different in the context of Jack being black. E.g. his entire Seize the day monologue feels so much more emotional, and Michael really speaks slowly to insist on every single line and make sure we know what he is talking about

Another striking scene about this is Something to believe in. I think that's part of why I said the Jack x Kath dynamic hit different, because this context really changes everything in this song, with the turning point being "I know girls like you don't wind up with guys like me". And it's not just about Jack being poor it's about him knowing very well what having a different skin color means in this world and he is scared to hell about it

The point I'm trying to make is that having a poc Jack gives a whole new dimension to the show and I absolutely adore the way Michael chooses to show this

Also I want to talk about Javey because why not but uh let me tell you Jack does not like Davey at the beginning. He is actually mean and when he talks about needing Les to sell newspapers he is clearly implying "but I don't need you." This changes later on, I really liked the scene before they run from Snyder when Jack thinks Davey need a place to sleep because it feels like okay I don't like your vibe but you're one of my guys now so I want to protect you

Anyway they become closer after that but yeah the way this dynamic starts off is very different

But then they become so intimate ?? I'll come back to this with Davey but they actually get close physically and emotionally, not only with the strike but also because they genuinely start liking each other. I think you need the context of the fandom's vision of Javey to appreciate this relationship development to it's fullest but when you have it boy oh boy

Davey < 333

This may not all be coherent because the most constructive thing I can say about him atm is very close to "alekkkajja" so deal with me here

He is autistic. And gay. Ryan kopel I owe you my soul for this

The first time he comes on stage it already looks pretty clear that he is extremely anxious socially, and as the show goes on it's literally obvious that this guy is autistic as hell

He is stimming for the entire show ??? Always fidgeting and doing something with his hands, little nervous gestures all the time, stuttering when he has to speak in front of people...

When I say stuttering, I mean it. At the beginning it's clearly because he is extremely anxious and doesn't want to speak up on front of the others, he is refraining himself from saying what he really thinks. But then it changes ! Character development !!! He starts stuttering because he is rephrasing what he wants to say so he can make it clear, not because he is afraid to speak up !

Also his character development as a whole is just so amazing. It's not just the way he gets more self-assured throughout the show, it's the way he is clearly becoming more comfortable with all the other newsies ! It's the way at the beginning he is standing very far from the other (literally the other end of the stage) because he doesn't want to be a part of the strike, and then he goes toward them, he comforts them. It's the way he goes from the scared guy who stutters all the way through the "you gave me nineteen" line, to the guy who has to speak up at the rally in front of all the others ! And it's so clear he does not want to do this, he would rather be anywhere else, but he still has the courage to do it ! I could go on for hours about this but the way he gains self-assurance is just. So interesting.

Obv I can't talk about this without talking about the watch what happens reprise. For me it was the moments where I could really see how much he had changed (and how autistic he was) because he is just so excited ! He is talking fast and loudly, he goes toward Jack, tries to establish physical contact with him ! He just got so comfortable around him, he feels free to behave like this with Jack ! Also plotwise this is really the best interpretation of this scene imo, because his excitement is SO contrasting with Jack's hopelessness and it makes the whole dialogue 100% more moving

Also the way his voice goes from "is that a real place ?" = excited bc Jack you're so talented - to "ohhh is that Santa Fe ?" = okay this is bad

Also "we. Are. Inevitable." *Ninja pose*

+ "tell me how quitting does Crutchie any good ?" "Exactly" in the most I-told-you-so singsong voice ever

Did I ever mention this boy is gay

The scene after Jacobi's ? That's gay flirting if I have ever seen it. "Why don't you come over ?- TO MEET MY FOLKS" yeah sure we believe that

"It's- it's good to have you back again" he is so bright and happy and it's just adorable to watch pls

Idk who cares about this but um. When they all get in the triangle to say their names during Seize the day. He says Davey. He doesn't say David. He calls himself Davey. I'm gonna need a moment to recover from this

Coming back to the "being comfortable around Jack" thing but !! The reaction to meeting the governor !!!! When Roosevelt's shakes Jack's hand Davey runs toward him excitedly and they both fangirl so hard like "bro did you see what just happened ???"

Okay one last thing and i'll stop but he is incredibly protective of Les. During Seize the day he is the one to drag him away from the fight instead of Jack and during the rally he is pulling Les behind him to prevent Jack from getting to him and that's honestly so heartbreaking because it also shows how deeply disgusted he is with Jack at this moment

Yes I'll stop now sorry but I love this Davey so much you don't even know

Katherine

I'm gonna be honest here, I never really liked Katherine. But Bronté's Kath ? I can and will die for her

She seems to be more aware of the situation. Like in Watch what happens and at Jacobi's she seems to actually understand what is at stake, maybe even more so than some of the boys

Also she is very responsible, during WWK she is on the aisles (right-hand side looking at the stage), taking notes about what the boys are doing ; and when she meets them at Jacobi's, instead of giving in to them turning her down and to Jack's flirting later on, she always tries to come back to the topic at hand= the strike. Imo this was very nice because it establishes her as an actual and serious reporter

Due to this it actually feels like she is very present in the show, because I think part of why I didn't like Katherine before was bc I felt as if she was established more as a plot device for Jack's love story than as an actual character (that's only my opinion tho). But here she really appears as a reporter who is essential to the strike, like a mix of Broadway!Kath and 92!Denton, which makes her whole arc so much more interesting imo

Sidenote but this essential role is also shown when she is the only one we see on stage looking at the banner at the end of Once and for all which is really cool

And she is so sassy ??? Like at Jacobi's she replies to the boy's insults in a very sarcastic tone, and during watch what happens she goes "a girl ? It's a girl ! Is that even legal ?" and mimics/mocks the attitude of the editors . Okay queen

"the guy painting places he has never seen is calling us crazy ?" is said to Davey instead of Jack

Also yeah "now would be a good time to shut up" I think a guy behind me gasped so yeah thanks queen

After the rally the emotion in her voice felt SO real and genuine. The way she proposes her plan to Jack feels like she is trying real hard to make up for not telling him everything, because she knows she has no excuse for it so now she can only try to do her best to make him forgive her. Also if I'm being honest, I never really liked Something to believe in as a song, but again, Michael and Bronté actually made me fall in love with it. Their voice were really intense - tho it was last sunday's show so I can't tell if this level of emotion with their voices almost breaking is and everytime thing or if Bronté was really losing it. Which, fair.

Moving on to Crutchie !

YES ??? This interpretation of Crutchie is just so different (in a really positive way)

Just to make it clear, I love AKB and I have nothing against his Crutchie. But after years of watching Crutchie be this little soft ball of sunshine who sometimes talks to Jack, this one really felt like he was finally allowed to express his full potential on stage

Because boy this Crutchie is loud. He is center stage. You can't miss him, he is always whistling, talking loudly, being noticed, you don't have a choice but to see him, you can't just not aknowledge him because he is right here and he makes you notice him

Also he is like. Essential to the narrative. Because he has a clear leadership role toward the other boys (telling them to run after Seize the day...). And his relationship with Jack is incredibly important here, from the beginning to the end it's them, Crutchie and Jack. That's established very clearly in the Prologue, but to me the most important scene to show this was the WWH reprise. Because Jack is so heartbroken and hopeless because of Crutchie. He is almost giving up because he's so genuinely scared for him. And don't even get me started on Jack's attitude when Pulitzer talks about Crutchie in the refuge bc my boy is this close to a breakdown

Also due to this Letter from the refuge hurts so much ?? He misses Jack and all the boys, and he clearly put the accent on telling Jack to take care of all the others ! To protect them !! He is in the refuge and all he wants his to know his friends are safe !

And his whole arc his so much darker in this ?? He is very aware of their situation, willing to buy the papers before the World will know and when Henry asks "at those prices ?" his answer is a very definitive "like we got a choice ?". And when he gets beat up after Seize the day he is actually pleading very loudly for the boys to come back for him and for Wiesel not to hit him. In Letter from the Refuge he actually seems to be in physical pain, and at the end when he gets back from the Refuge it's not just "yeah I got back that's nice" it's literally yes I went through hell and I came back. And oh boy his "may I ?" before cuffing Snyder and hitting him ? He's not joking around, he actually wants to make him pay for what he did

This is the Crutchie this fandom deserved and I would die for him thank you very much

And finally (yes I'm almost done I promise), Race !!!

Okay this is definitely my favorite Race

He has nothing to do with Ben's Race. If you ask me, he is much more like 92sies Race, though obviously not the same

He isn't just a goofy idiot joking around, he is really mature. He is one of the oldest and most mature newsies, and it shows, through the way he dresses and his attitude as a whole

Yes he still likes messing around, like in King of New York, but he is also very responsible toward the other newsies and is really shown as Jack's right-hand man, with many scenes where it's really obvious that he has a leadership role. E.g. at the beginning with his "Henry get down here", and during once and for all when he seems to be giving instructions to the newsies around the stage. Also he clearly cares a lot about them and wants to protect them so yeah overall a much more mature Race than what we got with Broadway

From what I saw he is still very close to Albert, and also to Specs ? Which makes sense because they are all among the oldest newsies. Finch also hangs out with them sometimes but less frequently

Also he is literally rough around the edges. He is actually ready to pick up a fight with the Delanceys at the beginning and oh boy don't get him stressed because then he is ready to lose it

Okay I really want to talk about his relationship with Davey because um. Race actively dislikes him for a solid half of the show (let's just assume no one likes Davey at the beginning okay). His "aren't we the hoi poloi ?" is actually mean. Maybe my take is entirely wrong, but imo the way Race sees it, Davey is just that priviledged guy who suddenly came in and has no idea what's at stake for most of the newsies, and he very strongly despises him for it. And at the beginning he is clearly not happy with Davey putting his guys in danger with the strike, which comes back to the idea of him being a leader and having to care for the younger newsies. Overprotective Race we stan

This changes after Seize the day tho, during Kony they actually seem to get closer and establish an intimate bond during the song

Also at some point (I think Seize the day ?) he gives Les a piggyback which is pretty cute

Okay I promise now I'm done ranting but this version of the show is actually amazing because the actors have an entirely different take from the Brodway show so it really feels like you're rediscovering it all over again

[inbabylontheywept]

The Condom Bomber

The crux of the story is Brother Dean. Brother Dean was…is…a hate preacher. Red or blue, everyone agreed on that. His origins and his motivations, those were a little more mysterious. Different groups had their own legends. I had a class with a guy that was part of the campus pro-life movement, and the tale he gave me is the one that I give the most credence to. According to him, Brother Dean had started out as a “normal” pro-life preacher. He’d gone around campus, led parades, given speeches… And then he’d gotten punched in the face.

This led to a lawsuit against the school. Something about failing to provide adequate protection? The main result was that he got something like half a mil. Half a mil is an incredible amount if you’re still working, but he’d tried to use the money to fund a sort of pro-life career, and it had just… trickled down. Ten years later he was running dead low on funds, and had taken to the particularly dumb strategy of trying to get punched in the face again. You know. For economic reasons. It had become kind of a vicious cycle: He’d started off saying some objectionable shit to try and goad someone into taking the punch. The worse the shit he said was, the harder it became for him to find work doing anything else, and the harder it became for him to find work doing anything else, the less he had to lose by saying really objectionable shit. Throw in two years of living on ramen, and he was so desperate to get punched that he was quoting the Westboro Baptists. If you know, you know. The pro-life group, to their credit, hated him the most out of anyone. They viewed him as the ultimate sellout, someone who was actively making their positions and beliefs look worse by the day, solely for his own enrichment. The other conservative groups held him in the same regard. The rest of the campus hated him for simpler reasons. It would be difficult to find anyone more detested anywhere else on site. Brother Dean’s antithesis was the Trojan Warrior. TW was a normal student by day, but maybe once a month or so he’d don his hoplite armor and roam around, handing out free condoms. Trojan condoms. It was kind of his shtick. Between the costume, and the whole character that he had going on, most people didn’t really recognize his alter ego. I myself am pretty good with faces, so one day I noticed he was behind me in the foodcourt and decided to thank him by paying for his smoothie. Small tangent, but if you’re looking to get good stories, buying lunches for interesting people works like magic. TW decided that he was going to thank me for thanking him by giving me something like 10 feet of condom roll. I was mortified, aggressively single, and on SSRI’s. He was not sure how many of those were permanent. I wasn’t either. He wound up giving me just a handful, and said that if nothing else, they could probably be used as water balloons. I accepted. Who doesn’t like water balloons?

I finished my lunch with the warrior and left, considering targets for the "balloons". I passed by Brother Dean near the main commons and had my lightbulb moment. I spent a few minutes watching him from a distance, trying to find the optimal angle to get him without getting caught on camera (he always had someone filing in the background, it was a necessary thing for his hopeful future lawsuit). The time delay was useful for helping me realize that it really wasn't worth it. The sun had been bearing down so hard that the glue in my shoes had melted, and getting him wet would be a favor that day. 

So, mildly disappointed, I shelved my dream and left. 

A week later the monsoons hit. I left one class and ran to a campus computer commons to try and get some shelter and study between classes. Just before I got through the door, I saw Brother Dean, umbrella in hand, setting up his speaker and mic. He wasn't technically allowed this far into campus (the commons were owned by the city) but he'd gone to where his audience was and security was probably holed up somewhere cozy. I could hardly blame them. 

I made it up to the second floor and started studying when the mic picked up. All glass buildings are not very soundproof. He was loud, and he was annoying, and he was outside a library, under a balcony, and-

And I had condoms. Water balloon condoms. 

And he was under a balcony. 

I put my laptop away, pulled out my condom roll, and went to the bathroom. I wasn’t sure how big a condom could actually stretch, so I just kept filling it until it was about the size of basketball. Maybe a smaller watermelon? And thus armed, I waddled my way out into the halls. I cannot emphasize enough just how unsubtle this was. I was cradling this big, overfilled condom like some sort of phallic ghost baby, and it was so heavy that I sort of had to squat as I went. People saw me. Lots of people saw me. I passed by one room full of computer science students, all learning C++, and three of them waved at me. And I waved back in that my-arms-are-full-but-I’m-excited-to-see-you-too way, where you jut your wrist up a little bit and flap your hand around excitedly. I did, eventually, make it to the balcony. The building’s high ceilings made the second-floor thing kind of a misnomer: I was easily forty feet up. I scooched my way to the edge, and the view I had… it was perfect. Brother Dean was directly underneath, thank God. If he’d been even seven or eight feet out, I’m not sure if I could’ve shotput the condom-bomb far enough to hit him directly. Better yet his cameraman was only a few feet away from him, far too close to catch any action going up 40 feet above. I managed to wrestle the payload onto the balcony, and with a gentle push, I sent it and Dean to destiny. I realized that I’d made a mistake almost as soon as the condom began to fall. You know that sound that bombs make in cartoons, that long drawn out whistle? The condom made that sound. I had a second education in the seriousness of my mistake when the condom hit Dean’s umbrella. It did not pop. Of course it didn’t pop. I had no experience with condoms, I swear to you, I promise, I did not know how much they could stretch. You can fit your whole leg into them. You can fit them over whole park benches. A gallon and a half of water was nothing compared to that. It broke Dean’s umbrella. It hit the top, and it snapped the stem like a twig, and then-

Violence. Unspeakable violence. It clipped Dean’s shoulder and stretched down to his knees before recoiling back to its original shoulder height. It did not bounce. It floated in space, no wasted energy in the collision. One hundred percent of the kinetic energy, all 3300 Joules of it, were discharged into this sad wretch of a man. He did not collapse. There was no time for that. He rotated on his axis. It was as if the hand of God had reached down and grabbed him about his waist, only to twist. In a fraction of a second, his head filled the space where his ass had been and his ass filled the space where his head had been, and then his cheek, carried by the shuriken motion of his body, slammed into the pavement with a noise like Shaq slam dunking a porkchop. Maybe wetter.

He did not move.

I panicked.

I want to make it clear: I did not mean to assault this man. I meant to get him wet and embarrassed. But I also have to confess that this was a beating. Mike Tyson himself can only put about 1600 Joules into one of his punches, and if he hit me I would bounce off five walls before I fell. I would not wish 3300 Joules upon anyone.

I walked into the building and sat myself in the back of the C++ class. The people next to, to my immense and eternal gratitude, did not question why I was wet.

A minute later, Brother Dean stormed into the building with his microphone.

He yelled. He screamed. He hollered. He informed the entire world that he had been assaulted, with a condom, by someone on the second floor. I was ecstatic that he was alive. 

Every person in that class knew who had brought this hell upon them. Every single one of them knew it was me. And if I’d done this to someone else, some Steven Crowder, some Ben Shapiro, someone would’ve thrown me to the wolves. It would have only taken one person in that room of sixty. But Brother Dean was hated by everyone, literally everyone, and so the entire class sat in silence.

Some of that silence was gleeful, and some of it was bored, and some of it, a very small amount, was directly disapproving, but even the disapproving silence carried an understanding. A note of, “Yes, yes, that was very irresponsible, and you should not do that again, but who could blame you? Something needed to happen. Not that something, but…something.”

Security could be given grace to ignore the man when it was raining, and he was just outside the building, but they were not given such grace when he was inside with a microphone. Just a few short minutes later, a golfcart pulled up, and he was summarily marched out. There was maybe a minute of silence after that before the professor announced that his class was not open to visitors.

I left. He’d made his point.

It was a few weeks before I saw Brother Dean again, and his black eye still hadn’t healed all the way when I did. He was, however, still preaching the same old things as always. Percussive maintenance works better on vacuum tubes than human brains. I will say that he definitely made a point to stay away from balconies after that. And the next time it rained, I actually went out to watch him put his speaker and his mic into the back of a wagon and wheel it off the campus.

It appeared that he’d developed some opinions about the kind of weather he was willing to preach hate in.

[dancefloors]

It's not a matter of Taylor losing her fame. She was sent numerous death threats. The whole world was celebrating her disappearance. It wasn't her fame they wanted dead - they wanted HER dead. She was suicidal at the time. And it's incredibly fucked up that you're just okay with that.

I'm not going to entertain this intentionally obtuse interpretation. nowhere did I say that I am "okay" with that. In fact I clarified specifically that I don't endorse behaviour that threatens the safety, wellness, and mental health of individuals, in both my post and reply to Amy.

I would encourage you to reread the post, which was written specifically about the consumer feminism aspect of it all and whether what celebrities go through at that level can be equated to structural issues. to maybe reconsider the ways in which swift herself has framed the incident(s) and what she desires - how she "got into this work because [she] wanted people to like [her], because [she was] intrinsically insecure, because [she] liked the sound of people clapping, because it made [her] forget how much [she] feels like [she's] not good enough". how what hurt her in particular is the fact that (paraphrased) when people fall out of love with her there's nothing she can do to change their minds. how she identified the striking moment for her at the 2009 VMAs was not the award being taken from her hands by k@nye but the thought that she was being boo'd by the crowd. how she has spoken herself at length (see: woman of year speech/miss americana) about how she led her career in response to public opinion and what they'd approve of, in a way that her views wouldn't confront listeners, she'd get "a pat on the head" for. how she identified that even when she DID change and want to use her voice it was a "want to be seen as a good person" (not BE, but SEEN). how she most recently phrased snakegate as a "career death" and doubled down on it (“Make no mistake—my career was taken away from me.”).

"it's not a matter of losing fame", not solely, but to deny the attachment and addiction to public approval as such a big if not the sole factor in her resentment of these incidents, is deeply delusional and blatantly ignorant of reality. she said it herself.

regarding the second half of the ask, again, I am empathetic to the pain and loneliness that comes from at a low state of mental health. I don't think anyone deserves that kind of vile behaviour towards them.

I think it's also valuable to consider the ways in which that minority of extreme behaviour has been weighed the same to her as all other callouts. e.g. those born from the unchallenged use of her image by alt-right groups (twice now) - 'her perceived overexposure to conspiracy theories about her politics. "I had all the hyenas come out and take their shots"'. Is that a good faith interpretation of criticism? Is putting out multiple puff pieces about how unphased you are to the outside voices criticising your relationship with a man who does the n@zi salute on stage, how it's the same old attempts at cancellation she's grown to ignore, how he's actually a good person, an indication of a person's perhaps black and white views on any backlash to their name? is someone who has (at best indirectly) perpetuated similarly vile sentiment her whole career via her fanbase, benefited from it, and openly stated she doesn't care or think about how the people she's writing about (and including overt and literal clues about) feel, in the position to call out bullying against her done in someone else's name?

Seemingly, any criticism of her is weighed the same (as hate) , and any criticism done in her name is not her responsibility. So, as a consumer is it not in our interest to think about how all famous people we give our money and attention to play into this contradiction - they are able to operate as an individual when criticism is made against them (we need to all band together and protect them!!) and as a brand when they are a part of the cause (it's not their responsibility and doing that could create a precedent etc etc)? what role we play in it and how often real structural issues are leveraged for our sympathy (and never again mentioned)?

Maybe the point of the post was that ultimately we as an audience should reflect on how forgiving and considerate are about the inaccessible struggle of someone who openly does not care about anyone else's. That we can be empathetic on a personal level but think about how much of ourselves we invest in that. how advocacy through consumption and idolatry leads us nowhere.

Or you can go along believing that post was pointedly about how she deserved poor mental health or that it should be dismissed entirely, if that is easier for you to grapple with. But I'm sure neither of us truly believe that.

[spectral-apparitions]

Spamton x reader thoughts

-Spamton has to warm up to even starting to date. When he crushes on you, he doubts if you’d even like him. If you approach him first, he’s afraid that you:

 Big Shot Era: want to use him for money or power

 Downfall Era:  just pity him

 He has a bit of trust issues, and he’s worried he won’t be a good lover. Give him a little bit of time though and he’ll decide that he’d like to try a relationship with you.

-He puts a lot of work into the first several dates. He wants to look and act his best. He frets a lot about taking you on dates and not just you taking him, and to give you good experiences.  -Eventually he won’t be so nervous, and is okay with more casual dates like just hanging out together. He still makes an effort to treat you well and surprise you with dates often, though. He wants you to feel special.

-He barely has any lips, certainly can’t close them over his teeth. So it’s a little hard for him to kiss you on the traditional way. He sure tries his best though, and tries gently pressing his teeth around your lips

-He actually really likes to “kiss” you by softly clicking his teeth against you (it’s more like little nips). Anytime you cuddle, he starts nuzzling and nipping.

-His speech quirks come out most when he’s nervous. So when he’s crushing on you, his speech is very jumbled. When he’s known you long enough that he feels safe with you, more of his speech is normal.

-When you fluster him, he has a hard time responding, and might make noises like beeps or whistles.

-So incredibly touch starved, and touch is something he craves anyways. The littlest touches will have him melting against you.

-He can easily fall asleep if you cuddle him or pet his back. He’s a light sleeper though, so expect that he’ll startle awake at the littlest things.

-Actually, how easily Spamton sleeps next to you is a great indicator of how safe he feels with you. Once he comes to trust you, he’ll seek you out to sleep near you and can sleep more soundly.

-Compliment him and you’ll see him light up. He enjoys the praise. Lay it on thick to render him blushy and speechless.

-He calls you a lot of odd nicknames for a while, unsure of how to actually call you anything sweet. Eventually he figures out what sticks for him, and what gets a reaction from you. Some personal favorites of his are Angel, My Light, Sweetheart/Sweet Thing. 

-He tends to resist any offer of help, as he believes he needs to earn everything for himself. But with things he feel aren’t earned, he asks you for help (disguised as business). He’ll let you help him, though, if you can offer something for him to help you with.

-He wants to treat you right, he wants to dazzle you and give you everything you want and more, wants you swooning at his feet. So he does all he can to achieve that. And he gets insecure and embarrassed when he realizes he’s not all that.

-He does everything he can to comfort you when you’re upset. He hugs you, tries to distract you with something fun, gives you (cryptic) advice, gives you anything he thinks will help. He hates to see you upset.

-His way of flirting with you is showing off, whether that’s bragging about what he used to be, boasting about business, showing you his collection of wares, showing you his battle skills, or doing something silly he thinks will impress you or make you laugh.

-His other way of flirting is complimenting you, which can range from wholesome to raunchy. He plays it safe until he figures out what gets the best reaction from you.

-Loves making you laugh. He willingly does silly stuff if it will make you laugh; his self-preservation goes out the window at the prospect of making you smile.

-He makes gifts for you. He makes little trinkets, cooks for you, writes you love letters, or sometimes paints for you. He likes to be creative, although he makes many drafts before he decides on a final version to give you. He can be a little nervous giving these to you, hoping you like them. It warms his heart to see you hold on to his gifts.

[foxsimthings]

WES(LEY) THRASHER for @mangosimoothie 's THE FAMILIAR!

Young Pre-maturely Graying Adult | He/Him Bisexual | It's Complicated (in love with a ghost) Blood Type: B-

There's just never enough time.

Wesley is, in actuality, an uninteresting man. To flip through the pages of his life would be to hear a tired story for the hundredth time. Born in a blue plastic pool around the side of the trailer he would grow up in, his mother picked up a cigarette before she picked up her son. His father favored the bottle. Wesley was raised by the only babysitter they could afford - the TV.

Most of his years were a whirlwind of bullied kids, school fights, expulsion, detention, bad grades, belts to the back of the legs, girls snuck in and out through the hole made for an air conditioner that never came. Every time Wesley was hauled through the police station to sit the night out in the drunk tank, the same speech was given through the bars;

"You keep up like this, you'll be dead by the time you're twenty, kid."

Maybe that was the point. He was never really sure. At least, until he met Jude.

Jude was everything Wesley never could be. He was incredibly smart, ambitious, talented. It felt like colour only existed when Jude was in the room, like every gathering was just an audience waiting his arrival with bated breath, their greeting like applause. Nobody waited for Wes to arrive anywhere. Nobody thought about him when he was gone. All his life he was a ghost, and suddenly someone looked at him - directly at him - and smiled.

Long nights Wesley sat up watching Jude study his tomes and textbooks. They kissed in hallowed libraries, in arcane bookstores, in the halls of Jude's school before he bolted off to his classes. Somehow he managed to soften the bully, the bulldog, and turn him into little more than a lovesick lapdog.

But nothing good lasts. Wesley couldn't stomach Jude's funeral. The mere thought of all those hands on his arms, all those eyes on his grief-stricken face, made his stomach jolt and churn. The thought of facing the dirt that stole his lover from him- it was more than he could take.

He became a man possessed, obsessed. Jude spent his life in pursuit of magic, but Wesley was nothing. Nobody. He hadn't a magical bone in his body. But he was a bulldog - a bully. If he had to get his way by force, he would.

If asked why he wants to become a familiar, it's no doubt the same as any other might give; some romantic bullshit about serving the undead and making money and providing his succulent blood. Or something. And being the big, burly bully he is, he can fetch other victims with ease, protect his charges, lay down his life if need be.

But the truth is that Wesley needs time and resources. He needs time to learn, to study. He needs access to magical archives he can't get to on his own. He needs to become immortal.

Then, and only then, might he be able to bring the ghost that haunts him back to life.

[inklyqueen]

Literally all the critics are so up in their egos

Also Spoiler warnings for the Mario movie because I'm crying and yk it's opening day I'm not that kind of bitch

I don't think many of them understand that they've got it made rn, and they've never experienced the world some of us are living in

And I don't mean it in a mental health sense or anything, I mean in an actual survival as an adult sense

I was literally surprised by how much I related to Mario specifically. He's the oldest. I'm the oldest of six (under a technicality, two of them are my dad's girlfriend's kids but yk). I'm sure his parents have preached that he needs to take care of and watch out for his younger brother (I'm assuming they're still twins in this universe, Mario was always the older twin in the games and other lore), and I've been preached that too. I'm the same way with my siblings as Mario is with Luigi. Throw trash at my sister, see that happens. "The more you fuck around, the more you're gonna find out." And at the end of the day, my parents will be only in my memories at some point, and all I'll have left is my siblings, granted if I never get married, have kids, etc (God willing I hope, not the point though) It seems to me that Mario is incredibly aware of that too, that one day they'll both be at an age where it's literally only him and Luigi and that they may literally be the only one the other has.

What also struck me was the set-up they showed with the boys. They still live with Mom and Dad, still in their childhood bedroom(s?), just trying to find their footing, I assume they want to be independent of their parents. They put their life savings into a commercial to get their company off the ground. I'm assuming they didn't have very much in the first place, especially from the speech their father gave about how "you can't just give up a steady job for a dream," and how Mario (at least specifically I'm assuming) can't hold down a job in the first place. How he's the one that's bringing Luigi down, as if Luigi can't make a decision for himself, and Mario's like his legal guardian or something. It very much seems to me that they've literally leaned on each other for almost everything more than their own parents, and that's screaming volumes for me.

I still live with my parents, and I get the same grief as well over how I haven't gotten it all figured out still. C*vid was zero help, I wasn't even a year out of high school when it hit, I was just starting college and things were not going very well. I'm just now figuring out my degree program, what I want, trying to get my career off the ground, and getting money back in the bank. I can't afford rent, God no, and I'm blessed to have a job that covers tuition now.

But it seems to me that critics don't understand that. For some reason they want this incredible fleshed-out character arc, plot and overreaching plot, Oscar and Emmy winning from day one piece, and besides the fact that this is technically intended for children, some of the ones I've read are literally making just under upper-to-upper class pay and lifestyles by being that judgemental. They don't have to worry about gas (or the electric bills if they have an electric car) in the tank or food on the table or making rent. One said that they "failed to give Mario a personality" (paraphrasing), when literally I'm seeing myself and my survival struggles in this short moustachioed plumber with older sibling anxiety.

Which, I'm pretty sure he's got a mild touch of GAD, or maybe that's me projecting. I'm not a licensed anything. Also added bonus points because I'm shorter than all of the siblings that are at an age to have actual height. One of my siblings is in high school rn and she's taller than me by a good eight inches. I'm six years older than her.

I'm literally out here doing the best I can with a $200 Insurance payment coming and $80 in the bank.

So yeah. Mario is a really good character.

So thankful for him.

[invisiblegarters]

OF Character Rankings and Ramblings - Ep 10

Last week, everyone decided to be mature and actually talk to each other for a change and it was very jarring. Mew boomeranged back to being sensible, Nick and Sand tried to feel the power of love with each other and failed spectacularly (and were very adorable about it), Top and Ray did some boundary pushing that the people they were infringing on were into in spite of their protests, and Cheum was back to her usual MO of having three lines if she's lucky. Atom was very creepy and I looked at him and said oh boy you're gonna cause all the trouble. Boeing showed up to prove that Top has a type and also to make us all understand exactly why Sand's still pissed. I get it, Sand. Also, Nick decided to move on with Daddy Dan but still made time to stalk Boston and a hookup to the toilets and give him a heartfelt speech that was actually really sweet and clearly got to him, and Ray and Mew finally fucking broke up thank all the gods in every universe. They had a great conversation that was my second favorite thing about the episode. There was lots of great communication happening.

So of course we had to make up for it this week with a lot of people being very stupid.

And be forewarned, I am very ornery today and also frustrated. So maybe don't read if you don't want to see that frustration expressed. That said, if you continue and you want to talk about any point, that would be a lot of fun. I'm always up for a friendly exchange of views.

So let's get to it, shall we?

Character Rankings (Fave to Least fave atm)

Boston. Nope, nope, and nope. Fuck you show. Fuck you for having your characters imply or outright state that Boston's sluttiness means he's on par with being a sexual predator. And fuck you for the "Atom likes girls. What did you do to him?" line. I really hope that this isn't going to be left at that, because I'm incredibly over the constant conflation of Boston's promiscuity with deviance or some sort of moral failing. He's an asshole. He likes to sleep around. The two things aren't actually related and I'm SICK of seeing them treated like they're one in the same. STOP IT. And don't think I don't see parts of fandom doing the same, because I do. People really need to stop treating promiscuity or lack thereof as though it has anything to do with morality.

That done with, I have to say that I've been super impressed with Neo and with Boston as we've gone on. I don't need or want some big sob story to be the reason that he's an ass, and I am tentatively hopeful that it won't be the case. But I have been enjoying the way we're seeing him grow by increments. Boston's not nice, he's not a very good person generally, and I think that he's been coming to terms with that and with how he feels about it as the series has gone on. It hasn't been flashy - in fact it's been subtle enough that I almost didn't notice it - but the Boston that he was in episode one is not the one we're looking at in episode ten, and I love it to bits because the type of reflection he's doing is the type I've done with myself. I really really REALLY hope they don't pull the "reformed character is now monogamous" thing because as I've said, that's not actually a problem and shouldn't be considered one. But I do really love that he's clearly reflecting on some of the choices he's made and trying to decide if maybe he doesn't want to keep making some of them in the future.

Also his reactions when he realized that his friends really believed he could do what Atom was accusing him of...just great work.

Simply put, I adore him.

Sand. My ride or die baby, this one. I've already said it, but I'll say it again. I do not care what this man does. I support him. Every stupid decision, every misstep, every ridiculously misguidedly noble thing. I will just be like "you do you baby, because you are amazing."

Was he dumb to not keep Ray's daddy's money? YES. Did I actually expect him to? Lol no. That's just not my man. Not even a little bit. It's not just limited to Ray, either. Sand has some noble ideas about money that I really would like to smack out of his beautiful dumb head because that kind of thinking only really works for people who can afford it, but I love him anyway. That said, I will maintain until that I am blue in the face he did nothing wrong (maybe that's my bias showing but let's be real here, whatever Ray's dad said Sand's desire to help Ray was always going to come from caring for him first and foremost). Honestly he should take the money as reparations for all the shit Ray's put him through. Putting the blame on him for Ray's hurt boggles my mind, because something hurts you it doesn't automatically make the other person wrong. That's a lesson a lot of people could stand to learn, frankly. But I half expect Sand to blame himself for it anyway, because that's what he does. He internalizes, blames himself, subsumes whatever he may be feeling in favor of the other person. I no longer think he's going to snap (although who knows a lot can happen in two episodes in this show) but I still think the man could use a good hug, and for someone to tell him that his constant care for people who like to throw it in his face is appreciated. You know. To him, and not an imaginary version of him that can only be full of calm acceptance.

Now, when it comes to the alcohol business. While yes, that is a source of income for him, if he's serious about helping Ray and it's going to be a real problem for him to do that (and there's every indication that it is), if he chooses to get rid I will not blame him or consider it particularly stupid. To me, it's different from dad's money because one hurts Ray's feelings, the other could legitimately fuck with his road to recovery. If he wants to stay with Ray (and there is no indication given by him that he doesn't, even after that fight), then that is a step he might need to take to help him, if he can safely do it. And to be fair, we've been given no indication that he can't do that, either. Although it would be interesting to explore what might happen if he couldn't, I don't think we have enough time for that.

Mew. God help me, I love a petty bitch.

Look. I don't do the OF tags anymore because I've found it's better for my peace of mind overall, but I've seen enough around here and elsewhere to know that a lot of people are now sick of him (although a lot of people were sick of him from episode one, lol). They think that this episode he took the petty shit too far, and that if he's not going to just take Top back he should tell him and let him move on. There's also a lot of annoyance with the way he acted during the confronting Boston scene.

To all that I say I hear you, but I'm going to have to disagree. I get him a lot with the Top thing, in fact. He was hurt, but worse, he was humiliated, and all this is because he doesn't want to be fooled again. He still doesn't trust his own judgment. He's back to testing everything Top does and says now because he wants to believe him, but if he believes him and Top does it again, then it's no longer Top who's to blame. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. And Boeing is really really good at playing with those fears.

I do feel a little more iffy about the Boston thing, though. The little pat on the shoulder amused me at the time, I won't lie, but the more I think about it the more annoyed I get. He had no right to open his mouth, and he wasn't really there to give moral support to Cheum or even because was concerned about Atom. He was there to watch Boston suffer. Not cool, my dude. I'd be more amused by the whole thing if not for the SA subject, and for the constant slut shaming that goes along with it.

Boeing. Speaking of petty bitches. This man is out here doing the most for this episode at least, I'm not mad about it (he hurts Sand though and all bets are fucking off, did you not read what I wrote about him?). I wish that he'd been brought in a little earlier, mostly because he feels extremely plot devicey, but I can't say I don't like looking at him or don't admire just how petty he can be. I genuinely don't know if he actually wants Top back or if he just wants to break him, and that's kind of fun. Also his little digs at Mew were hilarious. I kept trying to manifest a threesome between him, Mew and Top but I guess I wasn't doing it right because the show did not oblige. There's always Ray and Sand or my personal favorite, a flashback to one with Top and Sand. And that's why Sand doesn't do threesomes.

Ray. Oh, Ray. Raymond. Here's another one that I came out of the episode with initial thoughts and then the more I sat on them, the more they changed. Or not changed but. Sigh. Okay, let's try to be coherent here.

I want to start off by saying I do not blame Ray for going off the way he did when he thought that Sand was taking money from his dad. I know that sounds contradictory when I have also said Sand was stupid for not taking the money, but being able to see why Ray was upset doesn't mean I think Sand should pretend he couldn't use the money. And as I already said he kind of deserves it for all the shit Ray puts him through.

Anyway, I don't blame Ray for his upset, mostly because I really do think he was coming at it from a place of hurt, because look. I am not Ray's biggest fan and probably never will be since he is constantly hurting my personal favorite, but it seems extremely clear to me that what went down with Ray is the same thing that happened with Sand in episode 5: he found out a piece of information that made him recalibrate his entire relationship with Sand, and he came some very unhappy conclusions. The fact that he's wrong doesn't change that. Because from Ray's POV Sand went and made him fall in love with him, convinced him he cared, and now Ray's doing this huge thing for him (which is part of why I love that first therapy session - Ray treats it like a chore, like something he has to get over with so that he can appease Sand and fulfil his end of a bargain he half thought Sand would back out of, and that's EXACTLY how he should have treated it because that's how he felt about it then) and the whole time Sand wasn't doing any of it because he cared like he made Ray believe, he was just doing as his father paid him to do. He was always gonna find a way to get out of it initially anyway, but this was delicious to me personally because god help me, I love the kind of anguish that comes with caring so much for someone and then having to suspect that every time they claimed to feel the same they were doing it under false pretenses. Sue me. Only don't because I don't have a lot of money.

And I do think deep down he probably knew better. But when has rationality ever gotten a look in with Ray? He's a live wire, he's too fucking reactive to sit down for two seconds and think. Which is where my issues come in but just a sec, we're not there yet.

I really liked his second therapy session. I liked how different it was from the first, how obvious it is that he's now determined to at least try, even if he still doesn't think that he needs to be there. He's still doing it for Sand, but less in a "I'm going to tick this box so he'll shut up" way and more in a "I want to try to be better for him" way, which to me does make a difference. As the therapist said, people go to rehab for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes it's for themselves. Often it's for someone else. And that's okay. Sometimes it's easier to fight for someone else than it is to fight for yourself.

The entire last scene with Ray breaking down was painful to watch, and like everyone else I have to commend Khaotung for his performance. He really went all out and that's what makes the scene so powerful. I commend First as well, because I can't imagine how hard it was to walk the line he had to walk as imaginary Sand, and also not start crying in sympathy. I mean, it got me and I wasn't even in the same room, and we all know how First gets whenever Khaotung cries. They've certainly talked about it enough. I swear, this drama is a crash course in forcing First not to cry.

The scene was raw and painful, and I really felt Ray's desperation and sadness and remorse.

That said, I can't help but have trust issues. Ray is very good at apologizing and then demonstrably learning nothing. With one exception (Sand told him to stop throwing money at him because it makes him uncomfortable, and to my knowledge Ray has not made a habit of doing so since), Ray seems to think that apologizing means that he can go right back to the same behavior. This one does seem different in that he's way more devastated, and it was clear enough that he was apologizing for a lot more than going off at Sand in his apartment, but I can't help but worry that he'll just retreat back to form when Sand inevitably forgives him as he has so many times before (and that we'll never hear him say even a fraction of that to Sand's actual face, which if he doesn't I really hope bites him in the ass later).

I want to believe in Ray, I do. Despite myself I like the guy and I would really love to stop seeing him take one step forward, two steps back all the time. But as I said I have trust issues.

Ray's Dad. I knew he actually gave a shit. He's horrible at expressing it and he's clearly at his wit's end with Ray and his self-destruction, but he cares. And I believe him when he says that he wanted to pay Sand because he admires him. Here this dude is out here doing so much for his unappreciative son, and he clearly doesn't have the same resources that this man has. It'd impress me too. And frankly for that much alone he should have offered him money. I get that he thinks that Ray will be more likely to listen to Sand than him but also he's asking a twenty something year old to do something that he apparently can't. Hell yeah he should have put money on the table. I appreciated him setting Ray straight. I can definitely see why his way of dealing with Ray doesn't work, though. Still, it's nice that he's not the stereotypical only cares about his reputation guy he appeared to be at first, especially when seen through Ray's eyes (although I already suspected he wasn't, since Sand was so adamant that Ray's dad gave a shit. I loved the "I don't want him to end up like his mother" line, too - it made me think that maybe her death haunts him just as much as it does Ray).

Top. Still rooting for him, like I am every week. Would love to know why he's so damn passive with all of his exes. Think he's aware of exactly what Mew is up to and has decided to weather it out. That's about all I got for him this week, though.

Nick. For some reason he just didn't work for me this week, which is weird because I think his scene on the roof with Boston is one of the best of the episode. I think I wanted him to make Boston work for it more but well, that's not my pathetic dude at all. It'll never be in him to make Boston work for it, lol. Oh, Nick.

Cheum. Okay, before I say anything else I want to say that I get where she was coming from, going at Boston. I also get her not being able to calm down enough to register that not only is Atom not nude in any of those pics, he also looks the complete opposite of coerced. She's already mad (whether fairly or not) at Boston for what happened with Top, and now she's got her baby bro telling her that Boston not only sexually assaulted him, but that he's trying to continue doing so via blackmail. It's no surprise that she's so mad she can't think.

That all said, I'm still not pleased with some of the things coming out of her mouth. I can understand where she is coming from and still not like the way she's expressing herself, and boy howdy is that the case here. I've said it before, but I am SO done with the slutshaming. And I was really not down with that "Atom likes women. What did you do to him?" line. Fuck all the way off with that shit, too. I am actually really worried about what she's going to do about this, because I actually don't think she's gonna calm down and have a think before she does something really fucking stupid.

Atom. Oh, this little fuck. I knew he was gonna pull some shit, I could feel it in my bones, but I didn't expect him to go quite that low. More fool me. I don't care how upset he is, going around accusing Boston of SA because he wouldn't fuck him again is vile. Just gross. And he knew what he was doing. This shit was planned and purposeful. Vile. Just vile.

Relationships (Most to Least Fave atm)

There weren't really any friendship moments this go around (well, I guess you could say the core group had a moment, but uh), so I'll just be doing the couples this time.

TopMew. What can I say. It's still the one. I've already explained how I see things above, and I still think that these two are definitely end game. I do think that by next ep they'll be actually working things out though, as opposed to Mew paying lip service to it while he tests the fuck out of Top to see what he does. I appreciate that this ship isn't for everyone but it is for me, apparently. Come on, guys, I believe in you.

Threesomes - the order in which I crave these is TOPSANDBOEING followed by TopMewBoeing, but honestly SandRayBoeing will do in a pinch, even though I'm still in camp "Ray says he wants the threesome but what he really wants is to scare the third party off." Boeing is the last person to be scared off by that though, I feel, so. We'll see what happens. That said, Sand really doesn't appear to be Team Threesome nowadays and hopefully his opinion matters, hence my desire for a TopSandBoeing flashback.

SandRay. Yeah, I know. I'm surprised too. Still think they're made to break, but I liked their stuff this time. Everything about it was really good from an angst lover's perspective. Preview wants me to think that Sand and Boeing have a chance (and honestly I would not say nay) but let's be real here, Sand ain't going there. He might have conflicted feelings about Boeing but he's far too focused on Ray now to be with anyone else. If anything, we'll see Ray fuck Boeing first. And Boeing does seem to like going after the love interest...

BostonNick. I don't know why it wasn't firing for me this ep, but it wasn't firing for me this ep. Still think they deserve each other. Still rooting for them. But for this episode only, they did less for me than Ray and Sand.

SandBoeing. The way I need these two to kiss on the mouth. Look, my GramYok heart wants what it wants. I thought they were gonna kiss in Not Me and I was denied. Actually, they denied me a lot in Not Me. Asshole show (not really). But now that Mond's here and actually kissing guys instead of faking me out this needs to happen (and I think it will. Via flashback, most likely).

BoeingMew. What? I could get behind this. That one brief moment where Mew kissed him back really worked for me, although I don't think Mew could go through with it.

In Conclusion

I really liked this episode. The apartment fight and Ray's end scene were particular standouts, but so were both BostonNick scenes. I will appreciate it if Boeing has more to do than just cause stupid mess, but I'm guessing that he's mostly here to cause mess and either kiss or try to kiss every one of these dudes. There are worse things to exist for. Plus he's pretty.

I'm kind of glad that we only have two weeks left. I suspect that this is a show that might do better on binging overall, so if the ending is good (and by good I mean something that I personally find satisfying - I'm not claiming any objectivity here) I will probably do that. A week between episodes leaves us all with too much damn time on our hands to come up with dumb shit (ask me about how I have convinced myself Ray and Boeing are gonna do the do).

If you made it this far, thanks for reading. See you next week.