#it’s the main reason I got my paul message this year

[javelinbk]

Happy 50th Anniversary to Band on the Run by Paul McCartney and Wings, the band the Beatles could have been

[ahhhhhhh-e-i-e-i-o]

Heyy just saw your old post about a theory that you have about how the season two of transatlantic would go. Can you please please pleaseeee post it ???????

Ok if it'll all post here's what I have:

This is not the most in-depth and doesn’t really go into new characters, sub-plots, or antagonists cause I just wrote down some thought in my notes app. It’s not very fleshed out and I might go back in and actually make it interesting but this is only about the main characters (or other little things I thought of) and how they get back together (if this was everything the show would be very boring). If I were to keep writing I would (obviously) add more characters and plots and such and maybe change some of my choices but this is what I thought of for now (also I would love to go back in tbh cause I haven’t really outlined a tv show before only movies and I think it would be fun, and it calls for more short plots rather than longer ones so i think it’d be a fun challenge). 

Recap (and headcannons): The war just ended. MJ is married (or soon to be) to a rich guy in Chicago. Varian lives with but is divorced from Eileen in NY and owns a house they keep refugees in until they can figure something out. Thomas has a house in France he is keeping refugees in it as well. Albert just got out of Auschwitz and went back to Thomas’ villa. Paul is in his home country with his mother. Paul’s revolutionary friends are in France too and have been working against the war, somewhat with Thomas/Varian and somewhat on their own. Lisa and Hans live in Varian’s refugee house and are figuring out their relationship and lives. MJ thinks Albert is dead. Varian and Thomas have kinda sorta plans to be together somewhere after the war but NY is too dangerous and they have to put the refugees before themselves. They talk occasionally. 

Season 2 basis: Ok so it starts right after the liberation of the camps and starts off following Albert trying to figure out where to go and where his sister is. He starts off for Lisbon to figure out what became of Ursula. He sends a message to Varian in NY (he knows his address cause he was using it to house refugees and he doesn’t know where anyone else ended up) and Varian calls/sends a letter to MJ to tell her about Albert’s letter. She almost immediately gets on her plane to NY (without her husband) to help out and get Albert into the US. (The home base for this season is Eileen and Varian’s waterside house in NY and Eileen is in this season cause I think there’s stuff to explore with her character). MJ is the only one Thomas is in regular communication with because of her funding, and (without telling Varian heheh) she lets him know she’s going to NY and basically tells him to come too because he’s being a little bitch about letting Varian get away (/lovingly).

Like half the season (a little less, I’m thinking two and a half episodes) is spent getting Albert into the US because they aren’t really letting anyone in (his visa would have expired at the end of the year since he didn’t collect it i’m pretty sure). Thomas also has trouble getting into the US since he is German (i think???). I want Paul back in the season but I can’t really figure out why he would come for rehousing American refugees so I’ll have to think more about why he would be relevant. I do think a plot for him just at home (in Africa) would be a nice change of scenery but I don’t know yet how it’ll tie in so I’ll get back to that one. For some reason (idk yet) MJ’s husband comes to NY. He is kinda sorta gay and kinda sorta totally into Varian and kisses him at the end of one of the episodes (it’s at the end cause cliffhangers and such). Pretty early in the next episode (probably ep 3, maybe ep 4 if I can figure out something interesting for Albert to be doing in Europe before he comes to America cause otherwise 4 episodes would be a long time for him to be “trying to get in” (and I want Albert to come after Thomas cause I want getting Albert into the US to be a pretty big plot point since it’s a catalyst for the season)) Thomas arrives (as a surprise to Varian) on a work visa from… somewhere (not sure where but he got it from his “connections” and I want it to be important for later). Anyway there’s a tad of drama there but ofc Varian and Thomas are together because duh.

Anyway Varian tells MJ about the kiss (if he builds up the courage, otherwise she’ll find out some other way cause idk if Varian would be brave enough to actually say that a man kissed him, and that it was her husband) and MJ is like wtf but also kinda loves Albert way more than this guy so eh. FYI the dynamic around what people know about Varian and Thomas is that they basically act like a couple but don’t really kiss in front of people and no one really talks about it (but maybe Varian and MJ talking about it will be a thing a little later on). She doesn’t confront her husband or anything yet because her marriage to him is important for funding their whole thing but she keeps it in her back pocket. They’ve been trying to get Albert a visa but it hasn’t been going very well. MJ and Albert eventually decide/realize that if they go through with getting married Albert could get another visa and come to America. They get him a nonimmigrant fiancé visa and he comes to NY (end of episode 4 at the latest I think). So, everyone is in NY (except Paul but I need more time to figure him out). I think episode 4 is kind of late for everyone to be all together, but I think if it’s done right the home base in NY can be set up as home base without everyone being there as long as enough time is spent there and such.

I solidly want all of the next episode to have a little bit of a running gag of Albert just learning a whole bunch of stuff. Like, I want the whole season to be funnier than season 1 (cause i’m a comedy girlie) but very specifically I want Albert to be in a constant state of what the fuck. With stuff like, for example, (obviously) MJ’s husband, Varian and Thomas’ relationship (which literally everyone knows about but I choose to believe that Albert is just so unobservant that he just didn’t notice), there’ll be at least one new character with something a little crazy going on, if I can figure out Paul and Lisa somehow then their relationship, lots of little American things (like sales tax and stuff), etc etc (this is not to downplay how smart and important Albert is, he’s very very intelligent I just also think it’s funny that he also can be very socially unobservant). Anyway so MJ and Albert have a time crunch to get married but she’s already married so technically she’s not allowed to be engaged to Albert so his visa is technically invalid and obviously there’s some antagonist who gets very close to figuring all this out and getting rid of Albert (or something like that) but of course that doesn’t happen somehow. Ok I got a little lazy at the end there but you get the idea.

At the end: Albert and Mary Jayne stay in New York without her trust fund and start a new life. Varian and Thomas do the same in a little house in France where they won’t be bothered or arrested (because this is an idealized world and stfu). I have no idea how Lisa and Hans and Paul’s stories will end yet, but Lisa and Hans will most likely stay in New York whether they’re together or not because why would they go back to Europe, or if Lisa and Paul end up together, maybe they’ll be in Africa. Idk there’s gonna be a pretty long subplot about the three of them and who knows, maybe I’ll kill of Hans just cause I love romance.

That’s all I’ve figured out for now. I have some ideas for Mary Jayne’s husband, Eileen, Lisa/Hans/Paul dynamic, and Thomas/his job, but i’m horribly indecisive and the point of this was really to flesh out the main characters and their relationships and such and to get a general idea of a plot to give myself peace of mind (accomplished). Note that last time I did this for something I made a scene by scene description of everything that happens (sometimes even writing down the individual camera shots for certain things) so if my ADHD wants me to/lets me, I will do something similar for this (probably not as detailed because that was a movie and a TV show is much longer but I would at least decide on side characters and sub plots and the events of the rest of the series). 

Yes, this is more romance focused because I made it with my ideas for how I want it to go and I’m a romance girlie, what can I say? No but for real, I love romance and just wanted to flesh out these romances a tad and give them happy endings cause it makes me happy. Think whatever you want about my decisions, they’re just what I think for today (hell I might change my mind tomorrow) and I am open to hearing other opinions, as long as they are given with the understanding that mine are also valid (be kind <3). I wanted more of a romance story so I wrote one, simple as that. Okie anywho these are my ideas <33333

Also sorry for any typos I really don't want to re-read this rn

[since0202]

Hi ~

New fan here ~

I honestly don't know how to start this without it sounding like a love letter, but here goes...

I FUCKING LOVE YOUR WORK, ALL OF IT, really seriously. I took a deep dive into all the stories, the truth is I started looking for stories about Paul Lohote in a moment of longing for my teenage love of the Twilight movies, I didn't expect to find much knowing that the saga already has more than 10 years since I finished in the movies, but oh my goodness, if I came across pure gold with your blog, I seriously finished the Taking Time series easily in 5 days. The beautiful and detailed way in which you describe not only the aspects of the main characters, but you also go into giving context and depth to the characters that many would later use only as background (the pack, the imprints, their families and side characters ) It's simply, I mean you left me hooked for more.

And then when I saw that you updated recently, you don't know how happy it made me to know that I can know more about this wonderful story and its next development.

I have come across several works on the page that for many reasons or few were left half done, and it is not to put pressure or anything like that, I am new here, I just wanted to send you a message of my pure admiration for your work and therefore you.

Because you have created a wonderful work of literature and I can't wait to see how it continues.

I think I'll leave this message here, I don't want to seem too intense at first. I only want to say, gracias, thank you very much, for sharing your talent with all of us, whatever the reason for your hiatus, I wish you a good night, or day depending on when you receive this message, and all the good vibes that arrive to you so that you have a good life.

P.S. An apology if my writing is not so neat, English is not my first language, I am from Mexico, and right now I am using Google Translate and I only have to trust its grammar.

Sincerely, Dania P., a new loyal fan.

This message is just...wow. Thank you so much for saying such kind and thoughtful things. I'm so glad you found my story and I always love seeing people progress through my chapters when they like them.

This story is such a self fulfilling joy for me to write and I'm glad that others are enjoying it just as much. Your message totally made my day and I'd be lying if I didn't say I hoarded it in my inbox for awhile so I could read it over and over again.

Its folks like you and many other silent readers that make me know this story means something not just to me.

I can't wait for you to see where Maya and Paul go next. We've got some external conflict, and the vampire/werewolf threat coming into play soon. But of course, I need to throw a couple of wrenches in there first to whack it all up.

Thank you again for reading and thank you even more for writing this amazing message. I absolutely can't express how much happiness (and the push it gave me to finish this last chapter) it brought me.

<3

[eavanyhuang]

Notes on the Narrative Self

The main theme in my current paper project is thinking through the phenomenon of “contradiction” in political actions through and beyond various interpretations of it provided by the existing literature. Inspired by French theorist Paul Ricoeur, I demonstrate how three main approaches to “contradiction” in contemporary political theory: descriptive, normative, and narrative, are similarly driven by the fear of incoherency and the desire to overcome contradictions. However, while Ricoeur is insightful in his critique of the former two, his own narrative gesturing does not provide a satisfying answer to how one should understand contradictions in her own actions. Its desire to resolve them is a coping mechanism, which is itself filled with contradictions while promising too much. The limitations of fear-fueled theories manifest themselves in their inability to stay in and with contradictions, as I illustrate in the case of trade unionism in the US today. Simply put, a fearful interpretation seeks to immediately sublate contradictions and functions as a shield protecting the interpretor from the loss of (modern) subjectivity. By thus showing the affective underpinning of political theorization, I follow black and indigenous theorists Denise da Silva and Vanessa De Oliveira Andreotti’s insights that the modern Subject is by definition contradictory. Their work interrupts the illusory alignment between ethics, morality, and justice in the (albeit diverse) narratives of modern political theory. Building on the above, I offer a fourth approach of “unstorying the self” to challenge the “transparency thesis” of the modern Subject and interpret contradictions-in-action, in order to hold space for expanding the affective capacity of theory, Ricoeur’s and beyond.

This morning I listened to the episode “Practicing New Worlds in a Time of Collapse” in the show “Movement Memos”, in which Kelly Hayes interviews Andrea Ritchie. Both of them are good examples of what a “community organizer” looks like nowadays, half a century after Alinsky’s professionalization movement. For some reasons, I find myself echo with 90% of what they said intellectually, but only 20% of the affective forces behind the speech make sense to me. I wonder why, after all the discussions of how our current moment is urgent and beyond reform, how experiments are necessary for collectively thinking a way out beyond what we’ve tried that got us here, and how all our struggles are deeply connected across the globe, the messages do not land in audience like me, who care deeply about all these. Perhaps something about the label “organizer” is really troubling. At the beginning of the episode Andrea cites Joanna Macy’s World as Lover, World as Self, in her discussion of what “organizing” means to her nowadays:

“From the ecological perspective, all open systems — be they cells or organisms, cedars or swamps — are seen to be self-organizing. They don’t require any external or superior agency to regulate them, any more than your liver or an apple tree needs direction on how to function. In other words, order, or dynamic self-organizing, is integral to life. This contrasts with the hierarchical worldview that dominated our mainstream assumptions for millennia, where mind is set above nature and where order is assumed to be imposed from above on otherwise random stuff.”

It is this narrative of the ecological perspective that I have an ambiguous feeling about. At the end of the day, if the modern Subject relies on narratives of autonomy, how is this not a cruel optimist resubscription to the same doctrine? Knowing for a fact that both of them work in the NGO industrial complex for many years, it is hard not to make connection to Occupation: Organizer’s critique of the institutionalization of social movements and the professionalization of organizing work on the past decades. It all comes down to the transparency thesis of assuming a position of speech and eventually forming an attachment to theories, stories, narratives, etc. that affirm one’s identity and autonomy. This is something that modernity really rewards and produces. We don’t have to legitimize apple trees by saying they have agency too.

This is why in today’s collage, I wrote “today we world-make with our allies for a university in which smart and pretty speeches are irrelevant, only concrete fights & relational work toward liberation are.” We are in these institutions that reduce our being to what we say, and slowly habituate our sense of pride, ownership, and identification over stories. The danger of this is politics become an infinite language game. Whoever controls language controls politics, and words lose their meanings extremely quickly.

[herdeardiaryy]

MATTHEW

October 29, 2023 [07:13 AM - Saudi Time]

I woke up feeling heavy this day because I felt something was not right, maybe I stayed up late or anything personal things, until I opened my Messenger App; two of my friends sent me a message. At first, I am very hesistant in opening their message because maybe, MAYBE, this is the reason why I felt heavy that day, but I have to. I opened their messages with a literally breaking news — Matthew Perry had died.

I don't know what to feel, I only burst into tears. I cried in silent, though my mind that time was still in denial, but my eyes accepted the pain. Until I started to get up, call my family as my daily routine, take a bath, got my office attire, and work. I posted a lot of Matthew Perry's photo and posted it anywhere in my Social Media accounts, because I don't know what should I do, to make him alive again.

Seeing the photo of his funeral with the five main characters of F•R•I•E•N•D•S, relatives, and his Father, was the saddest thing in the world, seeing that wonderful and great man retiring from this land.

His death was really tragic, he doesn't deserved it so much. He had enough from his addiction to being normal again, but death did not help him at all, now I feel sad and wanted to cry while writing this.

October 30, 2023

I decided to go on hiatus from watching F•R•I•E•N•D•S, it's really hard to watch. I don't know when should I start on watching it again, but I know for sure, not now. But I will, someday.

November 3, 2023 [Noontime in Saudi]

Matthew Perry laid to rest.

November 15, 2023 [Right now]

Jennifer, Lisa, Courtney, David, and Matt posted their grief to Matthew on their Instagram Accounts. I really did not expect this thing to happen, the five (5) characters of them pay their big respects to Matty by posting it in Social Media, knowing that it's really hard to accept the fact that our Matthew is really gone. I really love this family so much.

To Matthew Perry,

Hi, Mattman. How you doin' up there, bud? I hope you finally have your peace after all those struggles that you've been. You know, your death reminds me of the pain that I felt 4 years ago, when my high school collegue died in Cancer. His name is Paul, if you met him there, please tell him to rest easy.

Matty, we love you so much. really. I did not know how to explain this grief but please know that in the middle of this kind of feeling, there is a part from me that is happy, knowing that you're really at peace. I am so proud of you, Matty, and at the same time, in pain.

I thank you for being one of the funniest and the best actors that I've seen in my entire life. You really made me realized a lot in life, teach me how to be okay when it's not okay, and a reason to hope for having the same partner as Chandler and you was.

Rest in Paradise, Matthew

[lesfeldickbiblestudy]

What part of the Bible should new believers be reading? [convertplayer id="qfaiYWLeM" width="700" height="525"] Now we'll pick up again where we left off, and what we're trying to show is how this next order of the resurrection comes about and of course that would be the main harvest: the Body of Christ. Before we begin though I would like to share that last evening we got a phone call from a gentlemen who had a friend who was an alcoholic and in a treatment center. He had been to visit her, and told her that this was probably her last chance and it was time that she got interested in the things of the spiritual. So he left this lady a couple of my tapes, and the reason he called was to tell me that from those tapes she had gotten saved, she was right with The Lord, and he was just so thrilled he couldn't get over it. So this is our whole purpose, whether you're watching by way of television or by a tape or through the printed page. The reason we teach is to help folk understand what the Bible is really all about. Remember, this is God's Word and He has left it with us to prepare us for eternity. That's the only reason we're here. This life of 70, 80, or 90 years is not even a split second compared with eternity. We're in I Corinthians Chapter 15, and we've been talking about the doctrine of the resurrection, which is basic to our Christian faith, and at verse 20 we saw Paul sort of shift gears and now he breaks down how the resurrections are going to take place. They are not going to be all at one event, but rather first we had the first-fruits when Christ rose from the dead and those Jewish believers who came out of the graves after He did in Matthew Chapter 27. Matthew 27:52,53a "And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose. And came out of the graves after his resurrection,..." Then Paul said in I Corinthians Chapter 15:23: I Corinthians 15:23 "But every man in his own order: Christ the first fruits; (and) afterward they that are Christ's at his coming." Which of course would have to be the believers of the Church Age. That's us believers. So in our last lesson that was the purpose of taking you all the way back to the Book of Acts and bringing us through those early chapters when Peter was still dealing with the Nation of Israel and how then God raised up Saul of Tarsus. He made it plain as day that now this man was going to be sent to the Gentiles. And of course we saw all that in Acts Chapter 9, and we left him as they had lowered him in a basket over the wall because of the threats on his life. Now I want you to turn to Galatians Chapter 1, and in this little chapter Paul again brings us up to date as to what took place after he fled from Damascus. Now remember God is going to use this one man to take the message of salvation primarily to, but not exclusively, the Gentile world, although Jews are certainly going to be available for this same salvation. Let's start with verse 11. Galatians 1:11 "But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man." Now you know I'm a stickler for words, and the Holy Spirit never puts in excess words or never cuts it short, but rather He puts in everything that we need. Now look at that verse. If Paul is going to be preaching the same Gospel that Jesus and the Twelve preached then why in the world does He identify that the Gospel he preached as not being after man? Why those extra little words in there? Why didn't he just say, "I certify you, brethren, that when I preach the Gospel?." But he doesn't put it that way. He says rather, "the Gospel which was preached of me." Now that identifies him, and if you'll come across into Chapter 2 he does it even more clearly. Now years later in Chapter 2 when he meets with Peter, James, and John, and the other leaders at the Church there in Jerusalem he's going to have to give an account of what he's been preaching to these Gentiles. Now look at verse 2 of Chapter 2. Gal

atians 2:2 "And I went up (to Jerusalem) by revelation, and communicated (he made it crystal clear) unto them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles,..." And again why didn't he just say, "the Gospel?" Well, that would have left a gap, so he clarifies it by saying, "I communicated unto them that Gospel which I preached among the Gentiles." Do you see how that clarifies everything? All right, now let's come back to Chapter 1 and see how all this came about because Paul is reviewing this. Remember when he writes Galatians this is about twenty years after his conversion in Acts Chapter 9. I think a lot of people lose sight of the chronology of some of these events in the New Testament. Saul of Tarsus was probably saved on the road to Damascus around 37 AD and then after his three years of desert training in Arabia it's 40 AD before he goes out into the Gentile world. Then he has that counsel at Jerusalem, which is in Acts 15 and Galatians 2 in AD 52 and so that's about 12 years after he began his ministry. Then the first letter that he writes, according to my time-table, is the Thessalonian letters and they're written some 12 or 14 years after he began his ministry. So you see, time keeps rolling on. This isn't all just mashed together. It's all spread out over a period of 20 or 30 years. In Galatians Chapter 1 he is writing about 58 or 59 AD Remember, if he began his ministry in 40 AD then this is 18 years later when he starts writing these Epistles. Galatians 1:11,12 "But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, (by men) but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." Now that tells you something. If Paul received everything that he is preaching and writing from The Lord Jesus Christ, where is Christ at the time of all this revelation? Well, He's in Heaven! He's in glory! After His resurrection! I'm always pointing this out. We hear so much of our preaching and our Sunday School material from the four Gospels. And there is nothing wrong with it to a degree. But that all took place before the work of the Cross. But this man is going to have the Lord Jesus telling him these things after the work of the Cross is accomplished, after He is ascended back to glory and now He's going to tell this man, Paul, what to tell the whole world. Not just the Jew. Not just the Gentile, but all the world. Now let's read on. Galatians 1:13 "For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, (remember that's what he was when he was a persecutor. He was a religious Jew) how that beyond measure I persecuted the church (or assembly) of God and wasted it:" He absolutely persecuted them. He tore them up. He killed and imprisoned them. Anything he could do to stop anything concerning Jesus of Nazareth. Galatians 1:14a "And profited..." He was a religious big-wig, and he probably gained a tremendous amount of wealth. And from that period of time I think Saul of Tarsus was married and had children. I think as a result of being sold out now to Christ, he had to put all that behind him. He lost it all. And I think that was all included when he said that everything he ever owned he counted but dung. Why? Because now he had a far higher commission in life than gaining wealth or taking care of a family. Galatians 1:14 "And profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceeding zealous of the tradition of my fathers." That would be Judaism and religion Now verse 15 and what's the first word? "But." Here he came out of all this religion and all of the benefits of it, but the flip side of it is that God had something else for the man. Galatians 1:15 "But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace," He didn't deserve God's grace. If anybody didn't deserve it, Saul of Tarsus didn't. But God called him b

y his grace for what purpose? Galatians 1:16 "To reveal his Son in me, (for what purpose?) that I might preach him among the heathen, (Gentiles) immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood:" Here is his whole purpose, that God has brought this man on the scene for the distinct purpose of taking the Gospel of Grace to the Gentiles. (Faith in His death, burial, and resurrection for salvation, and nothing else.) Now, granted, it's going also to spill over to some Jews, but not many. You know, it's almost a total reverse of the Old Testament. There, God was dealing only with the Jew but a few Gentiles picked up some of the gleanings. And the same thing here. Saul of Tarsus, now Paul, is going to go primarily to the Gentiles. But there are a few Jews that come into the Body of Christ. Now in the last part of verse 16, just put yourself in Saul's shoes, running outside the walls of Damascus, not really knowing where he was going, pitch dark, no explicit instructions yet of where to go. All God had said was that he was going to suffer for His Name. Now if you had been in Saul's shoes, just outside the wall of Damascus and you put your old mind in gear, where would you have headed? I know where I would have gone. Where would you have gone? Back to Jerusalem and look up Peter, James and John! He knew that those were the fellows who had been with Jesus for three years. He knew that they headed up the group that he had been trying to destroy. And now when he suddenly realized that the One that he thought he was trying to obliterate, was the very God that he thought he was serving, common sense tells me that the man should have headed right straight back to Jerusalem and poured out his heart to those Twelve men and shared with them everything that had happened, and confessed the fact that he had been dead wrong about Jesus, and now he was ready to serve Him. But he doesn't do that. Why? There's a purpose in all of this. A divine purpose. A sovereign purpose. And look what he says in the last part of verse 16: Galatians 1:16b " ...immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood:" Now who do you suppose he was referring to? The Twelve! He didn't go back to Jerusalem. He didn't confer with them. Now let's read on. Galatians 1:17 "Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; (now that sets it clear doesn't it?) but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus." We know from another chapter in Galatians, what was in Arabia? Mount Sinai! And so that's where The Lord took him. Now we have to feel that from the account in the book of Acts, he must have been down there three years. And then from that, three years of experience at Mount Sinai in the desert, and now he's ready to take the message of grace to the Gentile world. Let's read on. Galatians 1:18 "Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, (not until. And by this time he has all these revelations. The mysteries are beginning to unfold and now he can go see Peter. Not to learn everything thing Peter knew but to share with Peter some of these new revelations. I've said it so often, Peter never did get them all. He never could comprehend all these revelations that the apostle Paul had received.) and abode with him fifteen days." Now let's come back to Romans Chapter 16 and verse 25. And now at the end of this tremendous book of doctrine, the Book of Romans, (and it's doctrinal from verse 1 to at least Chapter 16) here in Chapter 16 and verse 25 comes a subtle statement, and it should blow our minds, but too many people don't even know it's in here. Look what he says: Romans 16:25 "Now to him that is of power to stablish you (believers) according to (the Gospel? No. What?) my gospel (see how he identifies it) and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation (or revealing) of the mystery, (the secret that's been kept in the mind of God) which was kept secret since the world began," Now isn't that plain? Why can't peo

ple see that? That here this mystery which is the whole circle of Paul's doctrines were kept secret until God revealed them to this man. Most of which came out in that three years at Sinai and the deeper revelations that come out in Ephesians. In his prison epistles, The Lord may have poured out of these deeper doctrines while he was sitting in prison in Caesarea waiting to go to Rome. Because, you see, after he'd spent that year and a half in Caesarea, he gets to Rome under house arrest and that's when he writes what we call his prison epistles: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. So those 18 months in prison probably were not wasted at all, because that's when The Lord revealed these tremendous, deeper things to him. Now let's go to Ephesians Chapter 3 and we'll start at verse 1. And remember this is just sort of an overview of Paul getting to the place where the Lord can use him to start calling out that next great body of resurrection: the Body of Christ, the Church. Ephesians 3:1,2 "For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for (whom?) you Gentiles. If you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God (now watch how it came. He doesn't say "which came to you by Jesus Christ". It doesn't say, "which came to you by Peter, James and John." It doesn't say, "by way of Abraham". What does it say?) which is given me (and then where did it go?) to you-ward:" Do you see how plain that is? I had a gentleman sitting at my kitchen table one night and I had him read that verse and he said, "I know what you're driving at." So I said, "Read it again." I think he read it three or four times before he finally just almost batted his eyes and he said, "I never saw that before." I said, "Well, you're typical. That's the way people read their Bibles." They read it but they don't read it. But when he saw that the Holy Spirit inspired the apostle Paul to say that this Grace of God was given to him to give to us, there was the process. But how many people understand that? That's why I'm always telling people when they call or write and tell me that they are relatively new believers, and they want to know what part of the Bible should they be reading. Paul!!! Because this is where it's at for the Church Age. Now you don't throw the rest of the Bible away, you know that. But it's Paul that reveals all these various doctrines. So now verse 3 of Ephesians 3. Ephesians 3:3 "How that by revelation (the same word he used in Galatians) he (The Lord Jesus Himself) made known unto me the (what?) mystery; ..." Now we covered all the mysteries in earlier lessons. And they are that whole composite of truth that makes for the Church Age. And they all come from the pen of the apostle Paul. I was talking to someone they other day, and they said, " Why do you make this much of Paul?" And I said, "Let me ask you something. I don't care what denomination handle you have. Do you have a pastor and deacons and Church elders?" He said, "Well, yes." I said, "Where did you get the instructions for them?" Well, he didn't know. I said, "Well, I'll tell you. You got it from Timothy. And who wrote Timothy? Paul! Does your Church practice The Lord's table?" He said, "Oh, yeah." I said, "Where did you get it?" He thought maybe when Jesus said it. I said, "No, Jesus didn't put anything on it. All He said was, "This is My body and this is My blood, but He didn't give any instructions for the communion service. So where did we get it? From I Corinthians 11." And down the line you can go with every facet of what 99% of Christendom practices doctrinally. They get it from Paul. And yet they'll never give him the time of day. It's amazing isn't it? Editor's Note: Paul's writings to the Gentiles (the Church) are the thirteen books of Romans through Philemon. Although Paul also wrote the book of Hebrews, he wrote it to the Jewish believers who had been saved under the gospel of the kingdom, the teaching of the twelve apostles of the circumcision (Jews). Hebrews was not written

to the Gentiles.  

[mayhemproduces]

He's back...

As soon as that familiar, shitty music that Max once got made on Fiver hit the speakers, the entire crowd here in Las Vegas, at first, seemed almost stunned. The air quickly left the room in anticipation, the crowd almost wanting to wait, make sure this was no trick, before they reacted.

Sure enough, from the curtain came a familiar Burberry scarf, wrapped around the neck of the biggest dickhead in Professional Wrestling. 

He’s back, folks. And he just got PAID. 

The recipient of the biggest contract in MPW history- the man who stormed out after Darkness Falls. 

Maxwell. Jacob. Friedman. 

Max struts to the ring, twirling a microphone in his hand, as the smirk on his face grows in relation to the boos of the crowd here in Las Vegas. Perhaps it was too easy to assume we were rid of Max. Maybe we shouldn’t known Max wasn’t just going to take his ball and go home. The shocking part is Heyman caving, not just to letting Max come back after he quit, but offering Max more money than anyone else in MPW has ever been offered before. 

“Oh, I’m sorry.” As Max gets into the ring and his music dies down, the AEW World Champion speaks for the first time. “Were you expecting someone else? Are you disappointed? Are you wondering why I, Maxwell Jacob Friedman, the best god damn thing in wrestling today, would step back into this backwater town of a promotion, a promotion that doesn’t deserve him, in front of fans who don’t deserve him, and a locker room who doesn’t deserve him? Well shit, it’s simple. Money. I’m not gonna lie to you all and tell you I’m here for any other reason than to make my bank account even fatter than it already is.” 

“You see, I know you disgusting poors don’t understand this, but money talks. And after a couple weeks of down ticket sales, and shitty ratings after I walked out the door, Paul Heyman knew he needed to do something to save this sinking ship. So he called me, begging me to come back- and at first, I told Paul there was no way I was ever walking through these doors, ever again- and then Paul offered me absolutely anything I wanted. Anything at all…. And so I thought about it… I had two demands, at the end of the day. First… I wanted the largest contract in MPW history- and he gave it to me. I want you all to know that I’m being paid more to stand here in the ring and talk, and not even change out of my suit tonight, than the combined pay of both wrestlers in entire matches tonight. I wouldn’t be surprised if what I’m getting paid tonight doubles it. And at that point, I’m a businessman. I know a good deal when I see one. So I’m back…” 

“But second… I won’t stand here and pretend I’m happy to be back. I detest absolutely every single one of you sitting in this crowd tonight, and anyone who’s EVER bought a ticket to an MPW show. So I’m not just back to get paid, I am back to personally ensure none of you ever have a good time at an MPW show ever again. And I’m going to start with the match you dipshit fans seem to eat up every single year. The Clusterfuck. I am here to announce that I will be entering the MPW Clusterfuck, not because I give a shit about winning, and have some deep desire to take that MPW World Championship from either Abigail or Josh Bishop- which, by the way, I most certainly will- but I’m entering it to destroy it. I am entering it to ruin it. I am entering the Clusterfuck to inject a lethal dose of poison into that pathetic excuse for a main event, and crush the dreams of every small time dipshit that gets in the ring. I don’t wanna win for the title shot, I don’t wanna win for the glory, I want to win just so that nobody else in the back does. I want to win, and I will win… “

“For the simple fact… That my name is Maxwell Jacob Friedman… and I’m better than you, and you know it.” 

Max’s face twists into a grin as he looks down the lens of the camera, having sent a message to everyone else in the Clusterfuck at Thunder in Paradise. Maxwell Jacob Friedman is back.

[anthonysstupiddailyblog]

Anthony’s Stupid Daily Blog (347): Mon 27th Feb 2023

As I was about to go to sleep tonight I checked my emails and saw that I had a notification telling me that Devo had just announced a new show. For year's I've wanted to see Devo but every time they announce a show it's at some remote festival at some random place in America. I figured a few years ago that this was going to be Devo's modus operandi going forward in that they would only play select gigs in America and never tour abroad again. Well I clicked on the the email and to my huge surprise it said that the show Devo had announced was taking place in London at the Apollo! Jesus Monkey Wanking Christ I can't believe this, first Iggy Pop now Devo, two performers on my bucket list announcing tours in the same year? To be honest although I’ve kept Devo on my band bucket list I always thought it would never happen so this one really threw me for a loop. I remembered that Dad is a fan of the band too and so I messaged him asking if he fancied going to the gig and I could organise the trip as his Father's Day present and he said hell yeah. The gig is on a Saturday which isn't ideal because it means I'll have to put in two days holiday at work in order to attend the fucking thing (annoyingly I'll have to do the same thing for the Iggy Pop gig because that's happening on a Saturday as well. Damn that crazy shirtless bastard). When the pandemic hit I was upset that this would put an end to my almost 10 year streak of traveling the country seeing my favourite bands and artists, as starting with a Pixies gig in 2013 I dedicated a lot of money to attending awesome shows from the likes of Madness to Kiss, from Alice Cooper to Paul McCartney, from The Beach Boys to Iron Maiden. I was doing really well crossing off the illustrious list of band I wrote down all those years ago that I wanted to see before I kicked the bucket. Then COVID hit and put a stop to all that but to be honest of the bands I had yet to see when the pandemic hit the main ones left were Van Halen which now can't happen due to the death of Eddie Van Halen but the other two were Iggy and Devo. The others on the list: Aerosmith, David Byrne, Deep Purple, Jane's Addiction, Judas Priest, Ok Go!, and Primal Scream are all great bands but I'd be fine if for whatever reason I didn't get round to seeing them. Iggy and Devo however are a different story and I think there would always be a smidge of regret whenever I looked back and was reminded of the fact that I never got to see them. This announcement really filled me with joy because at the onset of the pandemic I realized that a very enjoyable stage of my life was pretty much over or at least suspended indefinitely but now the desire in me to see live music has been awoken yet again.

[icemaninvestments]

IceMan Investments Update – Mid- Season 2022/23

Ok, just a quick check in on how the pre-season positions are playing out. Looks like an interesting year with Arsenal already a sure fire pick up, balanced by a couple in the loss column. A cheeky 150/1 Napoli are in Champions league contention and lots of other picks are still in the mix. As ever, all to play for. 

Here’s where we are, Sports bets with an anti-fascist attitude....    

Premiership, Arsenal Top 6 - 4/6 Now 1/300 IcePrice. Seen enough calling this a Winner.    

Ok last season my caution was rewarded when a took a top 6 position rather than the more ambitious top 4. This reason, I should have been bolder, Arsenal are actually sustaining a title challenge and sit 5 points clear at the top. They have a massive 16-point margin over 7th place. No hesitation in declaring this an early Winner.  

Championship Middlesbrough, Promotion - 3/1 now 7/2 (Drifter)

So, I backed them on the basis that they had the ‘best’ manager, who then takes them into a relegation place and is sacked. I did however raise a concern about a proven goalscorer who was never recruited. So, new manager Michael Carrick does some magic on existing player Chuta Akpom who can’t stop scoring. Boro now in a play-off place and have signed another striker. Quietly optimistic about their prospects.     

League one - Peterborough Top 6 - 6/5 Now 2/1 (Drifter)

‘The Posh’ have been super inconsistent. At one point they were going gangbangers and this looked a confident pick up. They have now slipped down to 9th and 5 points off 6th place. Peterborough have responded by doing what they always do and appointing Darren Ferguson for the fourth time, in an effort to get them back on track. Obviously, the price has drifted but they still in the mix. 

League Two Mansfield Town Promotion 5/2 Now 7/2 (Drifter)

One of the most frustrating of this year’s picks, The Stags just keep chucking away leads turning 2-0 wins into 2-3 losses. They have been in and out of the play offs slots but currently sit 9th and two points shy. They are still in with a shout but need to push on.     

National League Wrexham Promotion 4/5 now 1/4 (IcePrice) 

The bookies seem to have the Red Dragons as nailed on certs; I wish. Reality is there is only one automatic promotion place, and they are currently in second place, five points behind Notts County but crucially have two games in hand. Solidarity to star striker Paul Mullin who got in a bit of trouble for wearing boots that had that had the message ‘Fuck the Tories’. IceMan hopes he scores 200 goals this season and has a cracking career. Respect.         

Scottish Premiership - Aberdeen without Celtic/Rangers 17/4 Now Drifter 

Except for Arsenal and Wrexham the main takeaway across the selections this year is inconsistency. At one stage Aberdeen were sitting comfortably in third place and looked a certain pick up. They then suffered a horrendous loss of form which has seen them overtaken by Hearts, they are now 3 points behind but having played a game more. This bet is still ‘live’ but Hearts have a significant advantage. Aberdeen got back to winning ways at the weekend, so hoping they can make a fight of this.        

Scottish Championship - Dundee to win 7/4 Now 6/5 (IcePrice)  

Continuing the theme, Dundee had looked like taking control of this league and had me looking forward to an early pay out. However, they never pushed on and now find themselves in third, 4 points adrift of Queens Park. Despite this their price has shortened as the bookies are pricing in the fact that their deeper squad should make the difference in the run in. I am quietly optimistic about collecting.     

Scottish League One - Queen of the South to win 5/1 each way Now 66/1 (ShitePrice)

This pick started quite brightly and was in contention for a top 3 place during the early part of the season. Their form fell away leading to a recent Managerial change. They are in 8th place, 9 points off third so too little, too late for us. This is in the loss column.    

Scottish League Two - Sternhousemuir to win 9/2 each way Now Drifter   

Guess what? Sternhousemuir had an ok start to the season and looked like they would be challenging for a top 3 place. Another collapse in form and change of manager ensued. They now rest in 6th, 5 points away from third. Looks like too much of an ask, heading for a loss. Can’t find an updated each way market as only win only. Safe to say would be a substantial drifter.       

Bundesliga - Dortmund without Bayern 5/4 Now would be ShitePrice

Dortmund have been disappointing, like a lot of my selections they have flattered to deceive at times, however they have never been able to put a winning run together. They are now in 6th, 5 points off 2nd. Hopefully they can improve and chase down some of the sides in front of them. Realistically, it looks like they have too much to do, and I would rather be on RB Leipzig at this stage. I cannot find a revised without Bayern Munich market, however, no doubt Dortmund would have drifted into ShitePrice territory.         

Spain World Cup 8.5/1 (Lost)

Yes, of course, Spain started brilliantly beating Costa Rica 7-0. It was all downhill from there and they ended up tamely losing on penalties to Morocco.   

New :

Napoli Champions League each way 150/1 now 16/1 (IcePrice) 

Not previously posted this as added to portfolio after the domestic football positions. The Bet based on a massive price for a team who had started Serie A well. Unlike so many others, their fine form has continued, and they are top of Serie A, until last week they were unbeaten. They did win their latest game so hopefully no dramatic loss of form. They topped their champions league qualifying group pipping Liverpool. I Do have to point out Rangers were in this group and got nil points. HAHaHa. Next up a winnable tie against Eintracht Frankfurt.  

Politics Lab/Lib Coalition 7/1

I put this on before the Truss implosion, at that stage a Lab majority looked remote. I would happily forego the winnings on this if it meant a Lab majority. it will be small consolation should they come up shy.  

Grand National – Gaillard Du Mesnil 36/1 now 20/1 (IcePrice) plus Gericault Roque 36/1 now 33/1 both each way and the 36/1 were price boosts.  

Cheltenham Gold Cup – The Stattler 12/1 now 10/1  

I am a sucker for both races and love an ante post bet. I was about to do some research and the first articles I read were by Matt Brocklebank of Sporting Life who was putting up these selections. I looked at some other options but kept coming back to these on value. As ever with ante post we are taking a gamble that will even make the race. 

Hopefully we can finish the season with some profit and use a bit of it to fight the forces of darkness and reaction.              

IceMan Investment Portfolio – The ‘Better’ Way 

[smokeybrandreviews]

Look Up

I am absolutely intrigued by the trajectory of Jordan Peel’s directorial career. Get Out was a phenomenal film, lousy with creativity and a frank message that people need to hear. I enjoyed every second of that film and, as a black dude, that sh*t hits home harder than it should. I imagine that same sentiment is shared by a lot of those who share my melanated experiences. Us was more a mixed bag for me. I didn’t care for the film as a whole, the execution left a lot to be desired, but i loved the imagery and, holy sh*t, can Lupita Nyong'o act! Still, Us was substantially less than Get Out and felt more like a cash grab than a proper film crafted with precision. For me, Nope is that film. This thing feels like a proper follow up to Get Out. It’s a completely different vibe than Get Out, Peel’s definitely not trying to capture that same energy like it felt with Us, and tells a very heartfelt story about character relationships.

Of course, there are themes that run through this thing and function as the core point of this film, the cost of spectacle, and i loved all of that. For me, however, it was the relationship between the two main characters that really kept me invested. I think Nope is one of the best films I've seen all year, right behind the utter brilliance that is Everything Everywhere All At Once. A few days ago, a friend of mine sent me the review Logan Paul wrote for Nope and i was stunned. I did not understand how someone could sit through that film’s entire run time, and get everything wrong. This thing was a review written by someone who refused to engage with the film on anything but a superficial level and i was just flabbergasted that Paul was so upset by a film he, very obviously, didn’t understand. I wanted to address his “objections” in this essay because, like, what film did you watch, bro?

1. No one was curious how a quarter got shot through a man’s face and killed him? Or why a key was lodged in the backside of the horse he was riding?

This was explained in the film. It was assumed that the sh*t fell out of an airplane. There have been cases where frozen toilet waste has caused property damage or injury because it was prematurely released while the plane was in still flight. It’s not a stretch to think random trash fell out of a plane.

2. Why/how did the shoe stand upright on the set of Gordy’s Home? This one I'm sure has a reason but i haven’t found anything that makes sense.

These aren’t direct flashbacks, they are Jupe’s memories of those events. The shoe wasn’t really standing upright but that’s how Jupe remembers it after years of seeing it standing in that display case. In my opinion, that whole retelling is from the perspective of an unreliable narrator. The trauma of witnessing that sh*t firsthand f*cked Jupe up and he’s coloring it in a way that allows him to function as an adult. Seriously, Gordy massacred the entire crew. Why would he stop and give Jupe a fist bump instead of tearing off his face, too? It’s more likely that Gordy was about to give the child Jupe exactly what he gave everyone else, until his brains got blown the f*ck out JFK style. There is no way Jupe would want to revisit that entire scenario in it’s horrible truth. No one would. That's why we, the audience, don’t see the real horror of the attack, because Jupe refuses to recognize the reality of that brutality or how close he was to being another victim, himself.

3. The deep-voiced cinematographer was cryptic for no reason other than to be cryptic. You’re telling me this guy was willing to die because he wanted better lighting to capture the ET? For real?

Yes. Yes, that’s exactly it. Holst was very clear about capturing “the Oprah Shot” and how it was a fool’s errand because, surprise-surprise, the cinematographer had tried his entire career to do just that! More to the point, his life was already ending. Between the raspy voice, his gaunt appearance, and those pills he was popping, i imagine Holst was on his way out sooner than later. This was his last, great, opportunity to get that Oprah Shot. I imagine he weighed his options and judged getting his shot at the cost of going head first down the gullet of an alien, was preferable to the slow death of what i assume is some form of throat or lung cancer.

4. Same note: Man on the motorcycle. Why was his voice deep and robotic, framed to be an antagonist who’d have a grand reveal? Mystery solely for the sake of mystery is confusing and leaves too may open ends for a viewer trying to invest themselves in a story line.

This one actually hurts. It’s called misdirect. This sh*t is a tool they teach you in school during creative writing exercises. You’re supposed to see this character and think, “Who the f*ck is that? Is he part of the guv’ment? Does he know about the horse-gulper? Why the f*ck did he show up at that exact moment? How long has he been tracking these events?” When it turns out it’s just some nameless TMZ asshole trying to capitalize on the traumatic events happening, you understand it’s just another example of the main theme in this film; The cost of capturing spectacle. This man was literally going to die and demanded that OJ get the shot. This one character is the most transparent and heavy handed example of the message in this film and Paul did not understand it. This dude IS Logan Paul and that sh*t flew right over his head.

5. My next point - The story line is all over the place. In a crowd of forty people, the actress who was mauled on the set of Gordy’s Home was there... Why? Shock factor because of her scarring? Does she come to all of them? Did she come before the ET feedings?

This thing literally only has an A and B plot, and the B plot wraps up well before the climax of this film. What is this dude even talking about? Anyway, in regards to  the other part of this ridiculous question, simple answer is that Jupe invited her. Complicated answer, spectacle but not in the way Paul has expressed. Jupe was very kind when he introduced Mary Jo and made specific note to tell the audience that she was his first crush. Imagine how weirdly conflicted his feelings are toward her now. I mean, he kept her shoe and put it on display like some macabre trophy. He’s stared at that thing every day he’s had it. Mans sells people time with a room full of the most egregious trauma he’s ever experienced, as an Air BnB. That childhood lust and adult guilt probably have something to do with it, for sure, but i think he genuinely cares for May Jo and wanted her there to see his big return to the spotlight.

6. Jupe has trauma with the phenomena of commercializing predators for profit, and for the last six months, has been feeding horses to an ET in the sky... But what about before that? What is the purpose of that creepy cowboy theme park?

It’s very easily inferred that Jupe, after the Great Chimpanzee Massacre of 1997, never recovered fully and likely spiraled into straight up depravity as a teenager/ young adult. You see this with child stars all the time. I imagine Jupe went broke but was able to find a way to trade on his trauma, the spectacle of the worst thing which very happened to him, and needed the park as a place to stage these morbid little misadventures. The alien thing isn’t the first time Jupe has done something like this. I imagine he’s been making money on Gordy’s Big Day for some time. That park, much like the TMZ reporter and Holst’s death, is a very transparent framing device for this film’s theme and it’s so goddamn weird Logan f*cking Paul keeps missing the point.

7. Why was so much emphasis placed on the names of the horses. They had title cards... Why?

Pretty sure that has everything to do with the fact that the horses are such an integral plot device for the film. They are what’s keeping the ET around. They are what Jupe is using to profit off it’s spectacle. It’s a whole ass livelihood for OJ. It’s a point of contention for the relationship between the Haywoods. Hell, they even name the alien Jean-Jacket, the moniker given to the horse that was taken away from Em. The horses are important to the story being told. Naming the acts of this film after the principal Equidae, not only makes sense but affirms their importance to the narrative.

8. Why was Barbie Ferreira, an incredible acting talent, so underutilized in this movie? Why was she even in the movie?

I agree Barbie was woefully underutilized and i would have loved her to have more of a presence in this film but it was just a cameo. A cameo, bro. Like, you know, Arnold popping up in The Rundown? I hear Paul’s a big Rock fan. I’m sure he’s seen The Rundown. That’s a cameo. It’s a thing where a star pops up long enough for the audience to go, “Oh sh*t! that’s so-and-so!” Like McConaughey in Wolf of Wall Street. That’s what Barbie was doing. A cameo.

9. Way to strip all the life from from a phenomenal actor, Daniel Kaluuya, by casting him in as possibly the most mundane, vanilla character I've ever seen. Not a question I'm just pissed.

Okay, i know i said the other one hurt but this one really hurts. I’ve seen a few of his performances and i kind of feel like Paul doesn’t understand acting. Kaluuya, in contrast to Palmer, gave what is known as a subdued performance. Some people are chill. Some people are introverted. Some people are quietly passionate. All of these can describe Kaluuya’s OJ. It informs the character’s perspective on life and the loving yet prickly relationship he has with Em; Someone who has a far more extroverted and boisterous personality. This is definitely Palmer’s movie by Kaluuya matched her scene for scene.

10. An extraterrestrial creature that is advanced enough to fully shape-shift, activate an anti-electromagnetic field, propel itself in any direction quickly and quietly, can’t tell the difference between a plastic inflatable and viable meat? NOPE.

Yup. Paul fundamentally misunderstands what this creature is. or, rather, how it does what it can do. This thing is an animal from space. All of that sh*t dude pointed but above, is just it’s natural biological processes. I can go super deep into what i think the origin of all that is, probably some sort of laughably powerful organic electromagnetic generator, but i digress. It doesn’t know the difference between meat and plastic. There are several scenes where it’s seen evacuating a ton of inorganic material after it eats. That’s literally how Otis Sr. died and kicked off this entire series of events. This thing is not intelligent in the same way humans are. It’s a feral animal that defending it’s feeding grounds. That inflatable was the first thing it’s seen that was large enough to be a threat and can reach it in the sky. Of course it would attack. It wasn’t trying to “eat” it per say, but more remove it permanently. What better way to do that than devour it whole?

I love Peele, the effects and aesthetic, but my thesis is this:  I can feel him attempting to recreate the shock from Get Out and Us. Mystery, violent allure, and cinematic choices made for the sake of reaction instead of legitimate contribution to the story line killed this movie for me.

It’s funny because this describes Us. Us was the shallow attempt to recapture the energy of Get Out. It was the rushed follow up in order to capitalize on the buzz. Us, while good in it’s own ways, was no where near as dope as the critics would want you to believe. It’s not a bad film, it just doesn’t feel like a Peele film. Nope feels like something he did create. It feels like a proper follow up to Get Out. Free from the shackles of expectation, Peele gave us something that he wanted to make. Us was the one for them, Nope is the one for him.

Ultimately, i think Paul was too lazy to do the work Peele trusts his audience with in order to get the most out of his films. Mans is real strong at “Show don’t Tell” but that falls by the wayside when people don’t want to meet you halfway. I think Us kind of set an uneasy precedent that it’s okay to be lazy when watching one of Peele’s films. While Get Out was clever in it’s execution, probably because Peele had this narrative rattling around in his head for some years, Us didn’t have that same time to stew. It feels very haphazardly thrown together and never really becomes a cohesive product, in my opinion. Nope doesn’t have those same issues but it is hindered by the stigma left with all the hand-holding and blatant exposition of Us. Peele is growing as a director and made a film that he wanted to see. I don’t think Paul, and a large number of people apparently, picked up on that. Sh*t’s kind of funny because, for all of the foreshadowing and visual storytelling present, the “this one is for me” aspect was presented with all the subtlety of a jackhammer, yet people (Paul) still missed that sh*t. Nope is exceptional film making which tells a very nuanced, dynamic story, with a truly deft touch. It’s an outstanding movie with a bevy of subtext and even more messaging, but you have to actually be present for the experience to see all of that. If you’re looking to just get told a story with none of that, with absolutely no cinematic merit, why even watch film, bro?

[andreafmn]

Collision - Chapter 2

Word Count: 1,477

Characters: Female Reader Uley Character, Sam Uley, Allison Uley, Charlie Swan, Bella Swan, Seth Clearwater, Billy Black, Jacob Black, Emily Young, Paul Lahote, Harry and Sue Clearwater, Leah Clearwater

Story Description: (Y/N) Uley is back home after being away for four years. Her life at it’s first standstill and she is taking this time to find out who she is without school. But she never thought that coming back to the reservation would turn her whole life around. In the midst of secrets and mystery, a man crashes into (Y/N)’s and her life will never be the same.

*DISCLAIMER* I do not own in any way Twilight, all credits of the pre-established characters, script, and storyline belong to Stephanie Meyer and Summit Entertainment. The only thing I own is Uley Reader insert, any upcoming characters, and her storyline, as well as her effects in the others’ story line.

Chapter: 2/?

A/N: There’s no Cullen’s in the first chapter, we’ll see them soon though. Also, Esme is in the story but her and Carlisle are not together romantically. If you enjoy my writing I’ll also be posting them in AO3 and Wattpad along with other stories (I also hope to start taking requests if ya’ll want) Hope you enjoy and all constructive criticism is encouraged.

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Chapter 2

The next day she awoke at half past ten. She looked at her bedside clock flustered, knowing she had wasted almost all morning. She could smell breakfast already prepared and her mother downstairs doing some light cleaning.

She hurried into the bathroom and took a small time to finish her morning routine, flying down the stairs. Allison laughed as she noticed her daughter stumbling with hurry down the stairs, clearly heading to the door.

“Eat some breakfast before you go, darling!” Allison shouted as she swept the floor of the dining room.

“I’ll just get some on the way,” (Y/N) said as she put her jacket on, seeing in the distance dark clouds adorning the sky.

“I made you a sandwich so you can take it with you and a travel mug filled with coffee.”

“Thanks, mom. You’re the best,” (Y/N) kissed her mother’s cheek and grabbed the food from her hands.

“And be careful on the streets, the tires haven’t been changed on the truck and the roads are supposed to be very slippery today.” Allison called out to the girl who was almost completely out of the door.

(Y/N) barely heard her mother’s warning as she jogged up to the truck parked on the driveway. There was a sandwich hanging from her mouth as she backed up and sped to the main road. It was quite a long ride to Port Angeles, and she wanted to be back before dark. She spent the ninety-minute drive listening to background music and noticing how the sky changed from blue to dark grey to a lighter grey as she passed and left Forks. She rarely visited the neighboring town, listening to the stories by the elders gave her enough reason not to. Unlike most of her friends and even her own brother, she believed the string of words that they sewed. There were so many things that were unexplained in the universe that it would be ignorant of her to not believe that the supernatural could exist. Although, the past four years she had started to disregard the tales as made up stories, not being able to prove that they were veracious.

Once she arrived, she parked in front of an antique store and started perusing through the various stores in the strip mall. Before she knew it, five hours had passed. Her feet were sore from walking back and forth, her arms were read from all the bags she had carried, and her head was hurting from a lack of food. It was already five in the afternoon and (Y/N) was ready to go home. She got back into the truck and started her drive back home. An hour into the drive the sky darkened more than it should’ve, and heavy rain cascaded from the clouds. Her vision was impaired from the thick droplets and her heart was beating hard, scared of what could jump out in the darkness.

(Y/N)’s worries were confirmed when a deer jumped onto the street and had her swerve the truck. The car spun for some seconds and slid off the road, crashing into a tree. The girl’s head flew forward on impact and connected with the steering wheel in front of her. Her vision blurred and her headache grew exponentially. She could hear her name being called from far away but couldn’t distinguish whose it was. As it came closer, she could finally make out the frame of the sheriff, Charlie Swan. He was speaking to her, but no words registered in her head.

Charlie moved closer to the truck and tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge. The sheriff reached into the open window and carefully tried to retrieve the wounded girl. She wasn’t in the right mind and in this rain an ambulance would take too long to get here. He laid (Y/N)’s head on his shoulder as she mumbled incoherent words, then reaching his arms under hers to pull her softly. He was careful not to scrape her body too much against the broken window, laying down his jacket first to cover most of it. Charlie tried his best to see amid the harsh rain, praying to whatever being was controlling the weather to stop. The blood that was gushing from (Y/N)’s forehead had washed off as soon as her head had exited the car but it didn’t stop flowing. After what felt like hours, the sheriff had the teenage girl in his arms and carried her to his cruiser. Turning his emergency lights on he sped as carefully as possible to the hospital.

He felt the ride eternal as he heard the hurt girl in the back of the car moaning in pain and noticing the shirt he’d wrapped around her forehead was soaking up too much blood. As he neared the bright lights of the hospital, he slowed the speed down as to not slam on his brakes and cause more damage to (Y/N). He carefully grabbed her limp body and entered the hospital. It seemed like the emergency room had a slow night, but he only brought trouble. 

“I need some help here!” Charlie called out, worry laced in his voice. 

“Sheriff Swan, what happened?” A nurse asked as she accompanied the team wheeling a gurney for the unconscious being in the officer’s arms. 

“This is (Y/N) Uley. She hit her head in a car accident, I assume her car swerved as she avoided an animal in the street. She’s been unconscious since I got her in my car. When I found her she was barely coherent.” 

“Okay, why don’t you wait for us in the waiting room. We’ll let you know as soon as we have some news.” The nurse smiled. 

All Charlie could do was nod and sit down for a second, later pulling out his phone to dial Allison Uley’s number. 

“Sheriff, to what do I owe this pleasure,” Allison chimed. 

“It’s not good news, Allison. (Y/N) has been in a car accident.” Charlie could feel the panicked energy coming from the other side of the phone. Close to this time last year he had gotten news that his own daughter was hurt through a phone call. “Now, Allison, I know you want to speed off to the hospital but I would advise you not to. The roads are really bad over here and we can’t have you both admitted.” 

“But I can’t leave her alone,” she sobbed. “I need to be there for my baby.” 

“I know, but she won’t be alone. I’m gonna stay here until she’s good to go and I’ll take her back to your house. Now don’t you worry, you know she’s a strong one.” 

“I know,” Allison sighed an air of defeat. “Alright, just please keep me updated on everything. Doesn’t matter how late.” 

“Will do. I’ll have my buddy pick up the truck and leave it at Billy’s.” 

“Thank you, Charlie, so much.” 

“No problem, Allison. Try to get some shuteye, it looks to be a long night.”

And a long night it was.  

Thankfully, (Y/N)’s injuries were minor and she would be able to leave as soon as she woke up. Charlie spent all night in the hospital, calling a friend to drive (Y/N)’s truck so that Jacob could see if it was worthy of repair and leaving a message for his daughter that he would not be coming home that night. The nurses were nice enough to bring the officer a blanket and some coffee as it seemed he wasn’t going to leave and come back the next morning, keeping his promise to Allison that he’d stay beside her daughter. 

Once a room was given to (Y/N), Charlie managed to catch up on a little bit of sleep on the armchair next to her bed. The girl slept even through the morning light that slipped through the window that woke the sheriff up. He updated Allison on the persistent status of her daughter. Once again, the nurses showing kindness by bringing him a cup of coffee as he waited for (Y/N)’s eyes to open.

(Y/N) was engulfed in darkness during what felt like a second. She tried fluttering her eyes open but was met with a painfully bright light and a pulsating headache that rang through her body. Her eyes closed once again to try to minimize the discomfort, to much avail. She barely remembered what event befell her to end up in this situation, but she could hear she was not alone.

“Are the lights bothering you, (Y/N)?” Sheriff Swan spoke, noticing the girl had awoken. She promptly nodded and he stood up to turn off the lights as the room door opened. “All right, they’re off now. Hello, doctor.”

She tried opening her eyes again and was met with the most radiant eye color she had ever seen.

Golden.

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[idontwanttospoiltheparty]

First off, I'm sorry you got that anon hate. I hope you're alright.

Second, I'm so happy to see you talk about Kaylor! I've been in a lot of rpf fandoms over the years, and it's shocking how often shipping conspiracy theories look exactly the same cross-fandom. And how similar those theories look to other more serious and damaging conspiracy theories out there. I think the Beatles fandom is a ton better than most rpfs I've been in (for a lot of fascinating reasons), but there's still occasionally some eyebrows raising stuff in the way mclennon gets talked about. So it's comforting for me to see people in the Beatles fandom aware of and talking about how those theories look in other rpfs

Hi anon, thanks. Don't worry about the message, it didn't affect me all that much (I was just generally already upset about a bunch of other things in my life)

To be frank, I think the main reason the Beatles fandom doesn't fall into the most egregious pitfalls of tinhat shipping is because....... there is actual evidence on their side, which means they don't need to spend their time twisting reality into a pretzel to fit their narrative. (Smaller factors are probably: no expectation for new content geared specifically for them to decode; 60s homophobia being reason enough to hide a relationship/infatuation, foregoing the need to make some character in the story an outright moustache-twirling villain)

Fandoms are always prone to some form of cult mentality, I'd say, and I don't think anyone is really immune from being sucked into a group dynamic like that, at least to a certain extent. But it's really not fair to compare Beatles shippers to K*ylors or L*rries. Most notably, there's a fairly large variety of opinions regarding various aspects of John/Paul on this site, and we do actually spend time discussing them, which those other groups do not do.

Before I joined tumblr but discovered there was a community here, I was somewhat put off, because of what I had seen in the past regarding real person shipping + theorizing. But I very quickly realized that this was an entirely different community with completely separate operating modes.

We still might butt heads on certain things, and a lot of that IMO is down to what personal experience we individually bring to the table, which shapes our personal readings (and it's not common in those other fandoms for there to really BE personal readings at all, instead of almost universally accepted facts, established by one of the biggest blogs), and down to the level of skepticism we individually deem fit (<- I think this is the most major factor that leads to animosity on here tbh).

Hope that made sense! :)

[hankwritten]

Team Fortress 2 Ship Analysis

This is going to be an analysis of ship popularity in the TF2 fandom using AO3's statistics tools to help me out. After someone on Twitter inquired if EngieSpy was a "rarepair" it got me thinking about how exactly to determine that, and since I love the AO3 stats blog I decided to make my own little investigation.

First, I'd like to go over the weaknesses in my methods. These stats won't be entirely accurate snapshots into the fandom during specific years, as fics will have been deleted since then and. Additionally, AO3 allows backdating, so some fics may be posted to certain years after the fact. However, both these factors should be negligible to the overall trends.

A bigger downside to using AO3 is that TF2 is an older fandom, and a good chunk of fan activity occurred on the "tf2chan", a message board that was hosting fics/fanart/discussions  since the game's release in 2007. The chan has been wiped several times since then, and even if it hadn't, it's still very difficult to find fic information unless you want to go through each post individually. (The only distinction between a fanfiction was whether it was "adult" or not, most authors don't even add descriptions.) All this to explain there will be more of a bias to fanfic written 2014 on. (As this is my best guess to when the move from the tf2chan to tumblr/AO3 occurred.)

I am going to be tracking several things, using 2010 as my baseline. The images you are about to see include

1) Top ten ships posted THAT YEAR on AO3

2) The Number of fics in total

3) Some commentary about rises and falls of the various ships on the list

2010, Total Fics: 24

Not much to analyze here, a quick scan reveals most of these are backdated as A03 had JUST entered open beta. Though funnily enough, it relates to the original question that started this whole thing: EngieSpy was THE ship of 2010.

2011, Total Fics: 43

2012, Total Fics 142

Here we have a bit of meat now. HeavyMedic and SniperSpy pulling ahead, though what surprised me is the amount of MedicSniper. I had preconceived notions that that ship's popularity arose from the Old Wounds comic (2015), but apparently both Medic and Sniper were enough of fandom favorites that they could make a rather successful crackship. This may also be the reason for HeavySniper. I'd also like to bring notice to Miss Pauling appearing on this list, who was introduced in 2009 and who was shown to have at least a dynamic with Scout in 2011. Funnily, "introduced in 2009 and only now showing up on the list" also applies to DemoSoldier.

2013, Total Fics: 344

This list looks remarkably like modern day, with the main difference being EngieSniper taking the place of EngieSoldier. EngieSniper was enough of a breakout that it also encouraged Engineer/Sniper/Spy, the only polyship across all years.

2014, Total Fics: 658

SniperSpy and HeavyMedic will always war over who gets to be top dog, but this is the years of the Spyper. Some breakout mid-tier ships you may recognize make their debut in 2014: DemoSniper, EngiePyro, and PyroScout. Not only is this Pyro's first time on the list, but with TWO popular ships. EngiePyro in particular was first given canon backing in 2011 with the release of the True Meaning Comic.

2015, Total Fics: 852

This is where the fandom peaked, coinciding with the release of the Old Wounds comic. Since this is the year I joined, I'm not surprised! MedicSniper makes a comeback, SniperScout pulls ahead of ScoutPauling, just an overall Sniper focused year. (Despite that, DemoSniper does not return.)  Pyro ships fall in popularity, though not off the list, and EngieSoldier continues to have a strong foothold.

2016, Total Fics: 520

First time we have a "repeat" with BLU Spy/RED Sniper, showing that SniperSpy is preferred as a crossfaction ship. HeavyMedic falls all the way to third (gasp!), and the ever present MedicScout loses the popularity boost it received last year even as it clings on. First appearance of MedicSpy, which makes me wonder why we never see the common "support sandwich" polyship that seems so popular in fanart. ScoutPauling seems to have disappeared, likely to in response to Jay Pinkerton's tweet revealing Pauling to be a lesbian, and we won't see it make a comeback.

2017, Total Fics: 530

Comic #6, the Naked and the Dead is released at the beginning of the year, increasing platonic Scout and Spy content. (Before this, the non platonic version of this ship really only made waves in 2015 and 2013, and after this point we'll never see it on the top 10 list again.) Nothing else much new here, though the spike in SniperSpy may also be in relation to the comic.

2018, Total Fics: 548

The first appearance of a reader insert being a top ship. Although the TF2 community is no stranger to self ship, these fics usually gain a lot more traction on Wattpad, a fiction service released around the same time as AO3. EngieSpy and EngieSniper, old friends from the ancient days, make a combeback.

2109, Total Fics: 654

What a weird year! A platonic ship and "No Romantic Relationship(s)" both gain top slots. A good year for the gen lovers out there! Also another reader ship, but this time for Medic. ScoutSniper has nearly twice as many fics as the number two slot, and SniperSpy drops to the lowest rank it's ever been.

2020: Total Fics: 836

I've heard that TF2 is in a resurgence and looking at the numbers, I believe we are! There were nearly as many fics in 2020 as 2015, our fandom's previous high. Here are the highest ships of all time: 

HeavyMedic, SniperSpy, and ScoutSniper have always vied for the top 3 positions. EngineerSoldier, ScoutPauling, MedicSniper, and DemoSoldier are all reasonably popular, and looking at the history always have been. As for the rest, AO3 only shows the top 10 ships, but there's several more ships at about equal popularity to PyroScout and EngieScout: MedicSpy, EngieSniper, Medic/Reader, and Sniper/Reader to name a few.

In conclusion, just because we don't see it on the top ten list, doesn't mean there isn't a bunch of people out there who love it!

[votederpycausemufins]

Chapter three for Surprisingly Familiar. It’s time to get to the real plot of this thing!

@petrichormeraki is the maker of the hermit Tommy au, @helleborusangel likes to read these and give me their rambles which are my beloved, and then check my tumblr for my masterpost of things I’ve made.

“Hey Paul, you’re done talking with X, right?” Bdubs asked as he noticed Paul walking by.

“Uh, yeah. He said he could let a guest in for a little bit because he needs to talk with Phil and Phil’d rather stay here instead of coming to the castle.”

“Yeah yeah, sounds great.” Bdubs sad, waving it off. “Hey, new question. Paul what the heck was that back there?!” He shouted, making a number of hermits look over.

“Hey, calm down, keep things off tap.” Paul tried to calm the hermit down, but it didn’t work that much.

“Oh this is Hermitcraft. We don’t do things on tap. Except Tommy but that’s different. Now, what were you doing back there?” And Bdubs pointed towards the room Paul and Phil had talked in. From the crowd, Jrum felt a little nervous, wondering if it was something he did, but the answer calmed the bot.

“Calm down. It was something Hoodie taught me. I’m sure Zedaph can back me up.”

Behind Bdubs, Zed stopped slurping from a coffee cup that was actually filled with a slushie. “Yeah, don’t worry he’s fine. No necromancy.”

“See? I just wanted a private conversation.” Paul replied, though Bdubs still looked grumpy.

“Alright, don’t make me call in Genny.” And Bdubs signalled that he was watching Paul before walking off. As he left, Scar took his place, seeming pretty confused.

“So, what’s with him?”

Paul sighed. “He’s not a fan of certain types of magic. I did a bit of necromancy for a time and there was someone else in the world who essentially became a dark lord, so Bdubs and some others became witch hunters.”

“Huh, That’s not something I would have guessed.” Scar said. “I mean, I’m a wizard and he’s been fine with me.”

Paul looked a little stunned. “Oh really? Didn’t realize. What style are you? My friend Hoodie is coming in for a quick visit. He’s ars based.”

Scar laughed a little. “Is that so? Haven’t seen many of those. I’ve got a mix. Vex magic and crystalline. Cub’s also a user of vex magic.”

Paul nodded. “That’s nice. How many magic users you got around here?”

The hermit mayor started to count on his fingers. “So there’s me and Cub. Pretty sure Stress has some. Cleo’s definitely got some magic. Grian of course. Uh, not sure if Joe does or not. I think Xisuma’s just-”

“Xel- er, Grian’s got some magic?”

“Yeah. And I guess the kids probably do too. Not sure right now.” Scar said, before looking Paul in the eye. “You're not going to freak out about Grian having magic, right? You’ve already got him upset which gets us upset.”

“Yeah, I know.” Paul sighed. “Just been through a lot. I get overly worried sometimes, and to me, I suddenly hear that ‘kid involved in murders is now causing wars in the world my friends are in.’ So yeah, sort of thought the worst.”

Scar inhaled sharply. “Okay, yeah. I can see what made you freak out. But Grian’s fine. He’s been through a lot and while technically he’s caused chaos, it’s never something we hate and normally we’re all in on it somehow.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, you should hear about the sewer cats.”

“Can’t wait to hear about it. Haven’t seen any letters about it.”

Scar nodded, before being just a little confused. “So, is there a reason you’re always using letters instead of other stuff? I’m sure some of the others could make you something that would work.”

Paul nodded. “I don’t doubt that they could for the most part. I just deal with a lot of factors and have always preferred the tried and true method. I’m all over the place and sometimes I can only really bring along paper.”

“What do you do?” Scar asked, interest piqued.

“Let’s see. Not sure if Phil’s told you, but he used to be king.” Scar nodded. It wasn’t Phil, but Grian had mentioned it. “Well, I’m one as well. Hoodie’s my right hand man and royal mage.”

“Ah, and you said he’s the one visiting?”

“Yeah. So I end up busy there a lot. I also spend a lot of my time visiting my kids so I’m going from world to world. Then, there’s also my wife and she’s in the world we raised the kids in which is essentially my main home.”

“And that’s what?”

“Uh, the same one I found Xe- sorry, Grian in ages ago.” Paul answered. “And I’ve got a job there that doesn’t really work with comms sometimes, but paper is easy enough to have on hand, especially enchanted paper.” And Paul took out a sheet of paper, handing it to Scar.

Scar took the paper and looked it over. As he moved it, he could see how the light caught the slightly physical aspect of the magic, much like how enchantments could be seen. “This looks good. You can hardly see the magic but I can tell it’s there. What all is on here?”

“Mostly stuff to get it to the right recipient and make it illegible if you’re trying to read it and it’s not for you.”

“Ah. That’s a commonly known one for ars mages, right?” Scar asked. “I haven’t heard much about them.”

Paul nodded. “Yeah. That’s due to the mage wars. They happened a number of years back before Hoodie was alive. He’s the main reason things are sort of getting back to normal for those guys.” Paull pulled out an old communicator which looked like it was being held together with duct tape and prayers. “He should be here pretty soon. He said he was only going to get a few books and amulets. And your admin said he would be able to get in.”

Almost as soon as Paul had said something, a message went out that someone new had joined the world. Xisuma sent a message that he would go to help the guest to Aque Town and from there Paul and Scar just waited for the two others to arrive. Xisuma was the first to arrive, gliding down on his elytra. The other person wore a royal purple hooded robe and seemed to arrive with the use of an ender pearl, but Scar didn’t see them use one.

Paul was the first to move, going over to the other person. “Hoodie! You made it!”

With the confirmation that this was the mage coming in, Scar followed along, a bit excited to meet someone new with magic. “Of course Sir. You did ask for my presence.”

Scar watched as Paul put an arm around Hoodie’s shoulder. “You don’t need to be so formal here. In fact, here. This is Scar. He’s the mayor, and based on the kind of place this is, I’d say he’s the local hedgewizard.”

“Ah, I see. It is nice to meet you. My name is Hoodie. I am King Soares’ right hand man and royal mage.”

Scar shook Hoodie’s hand, getting a slight shock. “It’s nice to meet you too. Paul already said I’m Scar. I’m guessing you’re a lightning mage or something?”

Hoodie took his hand back. “Ah, sorry about that. Yes I am. Or at least I specialize in it. Same as my father lest he’s recently changed his affinity.”

“Well I don’t know enough about your kind of magic to know what that really means.”

Paul walked away as the two magic users started to discuss their various forms of magic and wizardry. He needed to find Phil again since the main reason Hoodie was even there was so that Phil could get more of the enchanted paper. Not wanting to drag the mage away, Paul was instead going after his brother since he was the one insisting he wouldn’t take any of it without knowing for sure it was enchanted by Hoodie. After that, Hoodie would help out a bit around the world as repayment for Xisuma letting him on, then the two of them would head back home. At least, that was the plan.

. .

.

Drawing him away from the nest was almost laughably easy. Grian and Mumbo were both asleep and the chicken was theoretically trapped. At least trapped enough it wasn’t going to escape into the room itself. And then it could only see out the window and not into the room which was a big plus. Because of that, it was simple enough to have viridian magic surround the prison and really ensure the chicken wouldn’t be getting out.

“You know.” The person spoke in a whisper, making Grian twitch ever so slightly in his sleep, but not wake up. “You’re really making this far too easy. I thought it would be difficult with those guests of yours here, but it turns out everyone’s distracted by them. And they put you in such a perfect position. Let’s just move you to somewhere a bit more private, hmm?”

Grian of course didn’t wake up, but as the person left, a bit more magic appeared around Grian, and then a few moments later, he woke up with a start. Grian looked around, glad to see there was only Mumbo and a box in the corner. For a moment he was confused about it, but faint clucking from inside helped him figure out what it was. But something still felt off.

Grian went to shake Mumbo awake, but he hesitated a moment before actually waking him up. “Mumbo. Mumbo!” And Mumbo woke up from his name being shouted, looking around to see what was going on. “Mumbo, I think we’ve been up here too long. Something feels wrong.”

Mumbo pulled out his communicator to look at the time. “Oh dear! It does look like we have been here a while. It also looks like someone else has shown up.”

“Really?” Grian asked, pulling his own comm out to look at the message. “There’s no way this person would just happen to show up today of all days for no reason. What if they’re someone else with… I want to check on the kids.”

Mumbo stood up and then helped Grian to his feet. “Don’t worry. I’m sure if anything happened, the other hermits would be taking care of the boys. We can of course check on them, but you don’t want your panic to make them panic.”

Grian nodded and from there the two of them went back down to the ground floor, leaving Kokatori behind. Finding the new person was rather easy as he and Scar were both standing on the street of Aque Town facing each other. Scar was currently donning his wizard robe over his Aque Town outfit. In his hands, he held a number of crystals that Grian thought he was never going to see again.

The other person was wearing a purple robe and held a wand in one hand and a book with a yellow cover in the other. His hood had fallen back slightly, so Grian was able to see as the other person glanced over at him when he got closer. Normally the avian would assume it was just because he was getting close and was noticed, but there was some sort of emotion in the eyes that made Grian worry.

Both of them had their attention pulled away from each other as Scar moved, a yellow glow around him as he moved like he had a speed effect. When he reached the other person, Grian watched as the Scar’s netherite sword struck them, and then a ring of white magic appeared around them, acting as a shield against further attacks.

Realizing at this point that the two were fighting, Grian moved to try and stop them, but then out of nowhere, lightning struck the ground in front of him, making him stop. When Grian looked back up, both mages were looking over to him and then Scar called out. “Hey, don’t worry! We’re just doing some sparring! It was my idea!”

“Are you sure? Who even is this?”

“His name’s Hoodie. Royal mage of Paul it looks like.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Grian asked, concerned.

“Yeah, it just sounds like he was jumping to conclusions when he saw you. I’m sure it’s going to be fine if you talk to him again.”

Grian wasn’t completely convinced, but pretended enough for Scar to look back at Hoodie and then continue their sparring. Slowly, the avian started moving to where everyone else probably was, still in the party building. Mumbo followed him along, but eventually he passed Grian when the builder decided to actually watch the magic battle.

Scar seemed to mainly be using regular combat, but enhanced by his crystals which actually seemed to be doing something. Hoodie, on the other hand, was using his wand and casting a number of spells from his book. At one point, Grian watched the mage fumble a little bit to pull out a book with a green cover before casting a new spell that he hadn’t used yet.

Grian didn’t realize he was just standing there alone, and the magicians weren’t really paying much attention to him, but in the span of a few seconds, that all changed. To anyone watching, it would seem like it happened all at once, but really it was just one thing after the other.

Grian was barely aware of the space around him getting the slightest tint of green to it. As soon as that had happened, Hoodie turned away from Scar and instead faced Grian, pulling out a new red spell book. Scar was the next to react, still under the effects of his yellow crystal. He started to pull out a red crystal, accidentally pulling a pink one out at the same time. He threw them towards Grian just as Hoodie began to cast some magic aimed at Grian, but also in the direction of what would be in the path of the crystals.

Seeing multiple things coming his way, Grian started to panic, wings moving to act as a shield since he currently wasn’t holding one. As they moved, the tips of his wings started to change from red to purple, the shift in color working its way to the base of the wings. He couldn’t react fast enough to block everything, but the magic hit both of the crystals, making them shatter into dust. The pink and red dust didn’t completely stay their original colors, some of them charred by the magic attack that hit them, but each tiny piece seemed to glow with its own energy, and even with the, being broken so small, when the cluster hit Grian, there was enough force to make him crash to the ground.

For everyone not watching at that moment in time, they simply heard a large crack of thunder at the same time there was shattering glass, followed by screaming from Grian. Within a matter of seconds, people were racing out of the nearby building, there to see what had happened.

When people got out onto the street, Scar was yelling at Hoodie. “What was that?! Grian wasn’t involved! I thought I could actually- I can’t see why Bdubs actually trusted- I’m guessing he’s changed a lot since-”

“Please, I was just trying to defend myself. He was about to attack me. Didn’t you see it?”

“He was just watching us!”

“No. Your back was turned so you maybe didn’t see it.”

“I should have used a brown crystal too. What kind of spell was that?!” As they yelled, Xisuma was the first to get over to the pair to try and figure out what was going on, getting an answer from Scar. “That Paul guy’s mage just attacked Grian! If I hadn’t done something, it might have killed him!”

“What?” Paul asked, coming over. “Hoodie what just happened?”

The mage looked over to Paul, ignoring Scar and X. “Sir, the hedgewizard and I were simply having a duel to see each other's magic skills. As we battled, this avian mage came by and tried to stop us once. Of course Scar was able to prevent that the first time, but then the mage tried to cast a spell of attack. I was already using a spell to help my reaction time, as was the wizard here, so I began to cast a counterspell. At first I thought Scar was also about to assist me, but instead he seemed to try and stop my spell, causing our magic to collide. It seems to have still-” Hoodie tried to continue, but Paul held up a hand to stop him.

Paul then tried to speak himself, but then his shoulder was ground and he was whirled around by Phil. “Paul, what the fuck? Did you just have your wizard attack Grian?”

“What? No, of course I wouldn’t! It sounds like Grian was trying to attack Hoodie and he defended himself.”

“Yeah sure. Mate, just tell me the truth.”

“I’m just telling you what Hoodie told me. I know just as much as you do at this point other than what he told me.”

Again, the conversation was cut off by Mumbo speaking up, having joined the group. “Grian’s really hurt. His breathing is off and it looks like his wings were hurt enough for them to shift away. There’s also something else, but I can’t place it. Xisuma, can you look at him?”

Everyone moved out of the way for the admin to head towards Grian, but as soon as he took a step, everyone had their comms buzz with two messages. Xisuma peeked over the crowd to look where Grian had been a minute ago. He wasn’t currently lying there, but neither were any items that signified him having died and respawned. That could have been because he had nothing on him at the point, which was unlikely, but could have been what happened.

That being said, the shocked gasps from people who were looking at their comms didn’t assure Xisuma, so the admin pulled up the chat logs on his helmet. Instead of there being a death message for Grian, there were two messages of people leaving the world.

The_Grifter left the world Xelqua left the world.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

MAKER'S SCHEDULE, 631, BRIEFLY

I'm a writer, and writers always get disproportionate attention. How did they stand it? Their main expenses are setting up the company, which costs a couple thousand Altair owners, but without this software they were programming in machine language. Those ideas are so rare that you can't find some way to reach me, how are you going to create a successful company? For a startup, managing them is one of the first 10 employees you'll have almost as much.1 Families are entitled to their own traditions, and who the competitors are and why this company is going to beat them.2 In the late 90s my professor friends used to complain that they couldn't get grad students, because all the undergrads were going to let hosts rent out space on their floors during conventions. Part of the reason I can't believe it will be more like being able to play the two firms off each other as well as talent, so this answer works out to be important, because a we invest such small amounts, and b we think it's better if startups operate out of their own premises, however crappy, than the offices of their investors.

If you're a freelancer or a small company doesn't ensure freedom.3 What makes a good startup idea, it's sort of like having a guilty conscience about something.4 There's an idea that has turned out to be a startup. For a lot of work.5 Which is exactly how I'd describe the way lions seem in the wild seem about ten times more alive. You probably can't overcome anything so pervasive as the model of work is a job. Don't sit on their boards. What really bothers parents about their teenage kids having sex are complex.6 It's not so much as that they never pander: they never say or do something because that's what the audience wants. So if you're going to optimize a number, the one to choose is your growth rate to compensate. In social settings, I found that I got over 100 other responses listing the surprises they encountered. If you don't understand YC.

At the time any random autobiographical novel by a recent college grad could count on more respectful treatment from the literary establishment. The angel now owns 200/1200 shares, or a job. The kind of question on the application form that asks what you're going to clear these lies out of your head, you're going to clear these lies out of your head, you're going to do, at least, nothing good.7 I often recommend that founders act like consultants—that they wanted to.8 In a startup, you don't even know that.9 If these guys had thought they were starting companies, they might have been.10 Viaweb entirely with angel money; it never occurred to us that investors were too conservative here—that they do what they'd do if they'd been in Nebraska, like Evan Williams was at their age? The saddest windows close when other people die.

And when you propagate that constraint, the result is that each species thrives in groups of a certain group, that seems nearly impossible to shake. Someone who's figured that out will automatically focus more on the idea. The only explanation is: by definition. It's not just a figure of speech to say that the outcome is zero. The artists who benefited most from this were the ones who had preserved a child's confidence, like Klee and Calder. Once you have all the college students, you get rich is that there are many degrees of it. It could be replaced on any of these axes it has already started to be on most. When you're a little kid and you're asked to do something differently.

But not all waste is bad. Later I learned it hadn't been so neat, and the three founders each get 25%. Along with such outright lies, there must have been told a lot of economic history, and I understand the startup world is evolving away from their current model.11 If you seem really good we'll accept you anyway. Even in the rare cases where a clever hack makes your fortune, you probably have an idea.12 At least, that's how we'd describe it in present-day languages, if they'd had them. The way you get taught programming in college would be like teaching writing as grammar, without mentioning that its purpose is to make me feel better. After two years, the un-rapacious that you only extract half as much from users as you could. If you have something that no competitor does and that some subset of users urgently need, you have to seem like you understand technology.13 On that scale, every negotiation is unique.14 I was cynical about VCs, but the way he composed them into molecules was near faultless.15 But unfortunately when you graduate, as long as you want.16

Notes

Thanks to Daniel Sobral for pointing this out. Make it clear when you ad lib you end up reproducing some of the things they've tried on the LL1 mailing list. What you learn in college or what grades you got in them, initially, to sell earlier than you expect. But while this is also a name.

In fact most of them. But try this experiment is that if you conflate them you're aiming at. The worst explosions happen when unpromising-seeming startups do badly.

Y Combinator certainly never asks what classes you took in college. This approach has not worked well, but this would work better, and that modern corporate executives were, we try to accept a particular number.

Aristotle the core: the editor in Lisp, they may try to accept that investors are induced by the surface similarities. Com of their assets; and with that additional constraint, you can't help associating it with such a statement would merely be eccentric.

Most word problems in school math textbooks are bad: Webpig, Webdog, Webfat, Webzit, Webfug. Without the prospect of publication, the assembly line, the closest anyone has come is Secretary of Labor Statistics, about 28%.

I think the usual way to fight. The next time you raise as you can see the apples, they made much of it, and no one who's had the discipline to pull it off. Successful founders are driven by people trying to decide whether to go to college, they would implement it and make a lot of investors caring either.

P nonspam are both genuinely formidable, and the exercise of stock options than any preceding president, he was otherwise unoccupied, to get into the heads of would-be startup founders who had been a good idea to make more money. The best thing for startups is very long: it might take an hour over the Internet, like hedge funds, are available only to buy corporate bonds to market faster; the Reagan administration's comparatively sympathetic attitude toward takeovers; the crowds of shoppers drifting through this huge mall reminded George Romero of zombies. That it might take an hour over the Internet. Yes, I had zero effect on the relative weights?

The VCs recapitalize the company, and yet managed to screw up twice at the data, it's probably good grazing. I should add that we're not. They did turn out to be a win to include things in shows that people start to pull ahead in the field.

Galbraith was clearly puzzled that corporate executives would work so hard to mentally deal with the founders gained from running through their initial attitude. Sparse Binary Polynomial Hash Message Filtering and The Old Way. One thing that drives most people emerge from the moment it's created indeed, from hour to hour that the worm might have done all they could be overcome by changing the shape of the bizarre consequences of this: You may not be far less demand for them.

Indiana University Bloomington 1868-1970.

Trevor Blackwell points out that taking time to come up with an associate cold-emailing a startup could grow big in revenues without including the order of 10,000, because investors already owned more than their competitors, who may have realized this, but simply because he was skeptical about Viaweb too. See Greenspun's Tenth Rule. We just store the data, it's software that doesn't seem to want them; you have significant expenses other than salaries that you decide the price, and for filters it's textual.

P 500 CEOs in the sophomore year. It was only because he had more fun than he'd had in school, and philosophy the imprecise half. The philistines have now missed the video boat entirely.

As we walked out we ran into Yuri Sagalov. Emmett Shear writes: I'd argue the long tail for sports may be common in, you'll have to replace you. It took a painfully long time.

The reason Y Combinator.

This is an instance of a safe will be coordinating efforts among partners. In practice it just feels like a loser they're done, she doesn't like getting attention in the definition of property.

The thing to do sales yourself initially. 5%. At first I didn't care about GPAs.

Thanks to Paul Buchheit, Gary Sabot, Trevor Blackwell, Tiffani Ashley Bell, and Jeff Arnold for sharing their expertise on this topic.

[wiypt-writes]

Riding High

Ch20: When The Bough Breaks

Chapter Summary: Fliss finds herself in an impossible position…and her decision tips Frank’s world upside down.

Chapter Warnings: Bad Language words.

 Chapter Pairings:  Frank Adler x OFC Fliss Gallagher

 A/N: Don’t hate me… 

Disclaimer: This is a pure work of fiction and classified as 18+. Please respect this and do not read if you are underage. I do not own any characters in this series bar Fliss Gallagher and the other OCs. By reading beyond this point you understand and accept the terms of this disclaimer.

Riding High Masterlist // Main Masterlist

Chapter 19

And this day’s ending is the proof of time, killing all the faith I know.

 “Was that another one?” Frank asked as Fliss tossed her phone onto the coffee table with an angry snort.

 She nodded, pinching the bridge of her nose.

Frank sighed and looked at her “Honey…” “I know, I know…” she looked at him. “Look, I’ve made notes of every time I’ve had one so… its recorded. But again, it’s not like we can prove anything…they happen like twice a day and then nothing…hardly what they’ll call harassment.” Frank shifted slightly “This has been going on for 2 weeks now sweetheart.” “I’m well aware of that.” she snapped, before she shook her head “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get angry…not at you.” “Come here…” he said, opening his arms and she snuggled into him, leaning against his chest as his hand gently ran up and down her arm. “Maybe you should think about changing your number…and not putting the new one on the website.” “Yeah.” she conceded, “It’s not gonna help for work though…” “You can work round it.” he said, “Keep the business line and if you’re not there people will have to leave a message. Then, once you know your clients…you can give them your cell number.”

 “Fucking ass hole is still making my life awkward.”

 “Only if you let him. It’s a minor inconvenience to change your number but, if in the grand scheme of things all he has in his back pocket is sending you some dumbass birthday card and silent phone calls then…he’s just a pathetic fucking loser that’s trying to bully you into being scared.” “I’m not scared, just pissed off.” she shook her head “I know he’s a chicken shit, he wouldn’t dare come near me not when you’re on the scene…or my dad for that matter.” “Good, because if he did I’m not sure I’d be able to control myself.” Frank said softly.

“Maybe we should just pay someone to kill him.” Fliss said after a moment’s pause and Frank let out a snort “Bullet straight between the eyes.”

“Nah, too quick.” Frank sniffed, reaching for his beer “I’d dangle him over a tank of hungry sharks and lower him in inch by inch…”

“Or we could feed him to pigs, like in Hannibal.” Fliss mused.

 “That’s also an option…no trace” he nodded taking a mouthful of beer.

 “You know they should teach this shit at schools” Fliss reached for her own drink “How to get rid of bodies. I feel it is something everyone should be educated in.” “Maybe you should mention it to Bonnie. Tell her you feel it is an educational rite of passage or some other inspiring shit like that…”

 Fliss laughed, placing her wine glass down and shifting so that she was led on her front, half on-half off Frank, looking up at him as her chin rest on his chest.

“On a scale of 1 to 10 how much of a meltdown are we facing with Mary on tomorrow morning?”

 “From her current mood I’d suspect a good 4 and a half, maybe a 5.” he mused, before he looked at Fliss “I don’t much care, she’s going whether she wants to or not.” “When do the University Classes start again?”

 “Not till second week in October.”  Frank replied “Which reminds me, I need to submit that funding form tomorrow…” “It’s on the table.” Fliss said, as she correctly guessed from the look on his face he was pondering where he had put it.”

“What would I do without you?” he grinned down at her.

 “I have absolutely no idea.” she shrugged and he smiled and leaned down pressing a kiss to her lips.

 “Did you speak to Evelyn before?” Fliss asked him and he nodded.

 “She’s coming down this weekend.” Frank said, “She’s still on about Mary going to Boston for a weekend.” “You still not comfortable about her going?” Fliss asked.

 Frank wrinkled his nose “I don’t know if I trust her fully yet.” “You’ll never know you can unless you give her a chance.” Fliss reasoned

 “You think I should let her go?” Frank said, slightly surprised.

 “That’s not my decision to make, Frank” Fliss shook her head.

 “No, but I value your opinion.” Frank looked at her. “Go on, tell me what you think.” Fliss hesitated for a moment before she sat up and turned her body so she was facing him, her legs tucked underneath her on the sofa. “If it was me in your position, I’d give Evelyn a chance. She’s played ball so far, done everything you’ve asked her to. You’ve got legal guardianship of Mary so she can’t pull any stupid stunts, and if Mary comes back and tells you something she did that you don’t like, well, you cut the visits.” Frank looked at Fliss before he took another drink from his beer bottle. He was torn in two. In one respect he wanted Mary to be happy and it certainly seemed that she enjoyed seeing Evelyn, but on flip side he was still more than comfortable with keeping his Mother at arm’s length.

“I’ll think about it.” he shrugged, non-committedly.

 “Well, you should also ask Mary.” Fliss said “She might not even want to go.” “She will.” Frank said, “Evelyn has a piano.” Fliss laughed “Yeah, but she’s also bossy, remember?”

 “Yeah, I had heard that.” Frank said, and Fliss chuckled again.

 “Well, can you not think about it right now?” she said, taking the beer bottle out of his hand.

“Hey…” he pouted as she put it down on the table, his pout soon turned into a smirk as Fliss moved so she was straddling him on the sofa, his t-shirt that she’d been lounging around in rode up her thighs slightly and his hands rubbed up the side of her bare skin. “Something on your mind baby girl?”

 “What makes you think that?” she asked, sliding her hands up his chest, over the soft material of his top.

 “Just a hunch…” he mumbled, as he reached up and gently gripped the back of her neck, pulling her head down to meet his.

****** “Hey Frank…”

 Frank looked up and smiled at Alan as he walked into the work shop.

 “Hey Alan, not seen you in a while, how you doing?” “Good…I’m good. I was just wondering if I could have a word in my office.”

 “Sure.” Frank frowned “Is err, everything ok?” “Oh, yeah, it’s nothing to worry about…quite the opposite in fact…” “Alright, well me just finish piecing this oil filter together and I’ll be with you.”

 “Sure.” Alan said, “No rush.” 

Frank quickly tightened the filter back up, gave it the once over before he set down his tools and hopped off the boat, wiping his hands on a rag before he walked through the door at the back of the workshop and down the small corridor that led to the main office at the rear of the shop. He knocked sharply on the door and then swung it open as Alan looked at him, gesturing for him to take a seat whilst he finished up his call. Eventually, he bid the person on the other end good bye and placed the receiver down.

 “Relax, Frank…” Alan chuckled as Frank adjusted his jeans for what felt like the 30th time since sitting down.

 “Sorry.” Frank nodded, scratching at his temple. “So errr, do you need me to do something or...” “In a manner of speaking, yes.” Alan said “As you know Paul is retiring at the end of the year, which means the Head Mechanic role is up for grabs…and I was wondering if you’d be interesting in taking the position.” “Me?” Frank’s eyes widened slightly

Alan nodded “I know in the grand scheme of things you haven’t been here long but you’ve impressed me, just like Bill said you would. You knuckle down, you do the overtime if needed, you don’t complain…I like you Frank, and the team does to.” “I err…” Frank scratched the back of his neck. “I’m flattered…but I’ve never managed a team before or…”

“You were an Assistant Professor at one stage right?” Alan eyed him and Frank sighed, nodding “You must have had a research team…” “Yeah, but…” “It’s no different.” Alan shook his head, “And I’m here to help and give you some guidance. I’m not quite ready to retire fully yet. Not like Bill, only so much golf I can play before I go fucking nuts.” Frank snorted “Yeah, not gonna lie, it’s not my thing…” Alan looked at him “The duties won’t be that much different Frank. You’ll just be in charge of booking the jobs in, allocating them to the guys, keeping on top of deadlines and general management of the team…means a little less time spent actually getting your hands dirty but…well, you can manage that yourself. You wanna take a job you take it.”

 “Can I take a bit of time to think it over?” he asked.

“Sure. Take a few days, let me know. I’d like to have whoever is taking over in a position to start the handover by the start of October if possible so…” “Thanks.” Frank nodded “I’ll give it some thought.” “Oh, and it also comes with a Ten thou a year raise…” Alan casually dropped in as Frank stood up “Plus a bonus each year of up to 20 percent, depending on how well you’ve done on your targets” “Just a minor detail you forgot to tell me.” Frank arched an eyebrow.

 “Well, I wanted to make sure you’d consider it for the right reasons not merely the financial incentive.” Alan shrugged “Another reason I’m convinced you’re perfect for the job.” Frank nodded and with that he left the office. Given that it was almost lunch time he took his break 15 or so minutes earlier and headed out into the September sun, pulling out his phone.

 “Hey Sailor.” Fliss greeted him.

 “Hey Cowgirl.” he smiled, leaning against the hood of his truck sipping a bottle of water “You got a sec.” “For you, always. What’s up?”

“Nothing, nothing bad anyway…I just got offered a promotion.”

 “Frankie that’s amazing!” She gushed “You sound surprised though.” “I am, a little.” he said, before he launched into an explanation of what Alan had told him and what the job would entail, plus the financial incentives.

 “Wow!” she said as he finished talking “Baby, that’s fantastic. I’m so proud of you!”

Frank felt himself blushing at her praise, and despite the fact he couldn’t even see her he rubbed at his neck slightly. “So, you think I should take it?” “Of course I do.  But at the same time, if you don’t want to then…you don’t have to. This is a great position to be in honey, Alan’s clearly seen your potential.”

 “Just not sure If I’m cut out to be management.” he said, biting his lip.

 “I had the same thoughts about my business you know.” she spoke gently “I wasn’t sure if setting up on my own after everything that happened was gonna work but then Dad told me that I’d never know unless I took the plunge. Have a little faith in yourself. The only person who doubts your capability is you.”

Frank smiled at her words and looked up and out over the Marina “You always know exactly what to say.” “Not really, I make most of it up as a go along.” she said and Frank laughed. “But, just think, with the extra money you can get a new car…” “There’s nothing wrong with my truck.” “Frank, it’s died on you 4 times in the last 2 weeks. Dad reckons his ride on lawnmower has more power under the hood than that thing”

 “Ok, I’ll admit…she’s getting a little clunky…but she is into her twenties now….” Fliss snorted “You could get yourself a nice Audi…”

“Fuck off.” Frank said and she laughed

 “I like Simon’s car…” “You like it so much you get one.”

“Would never fit Thor in the back.” she said and Frank had to concede she had a point “But now you’re freelancing…you don’t actually need a truck do you?” “No, but…it’s handy…” “Handy, baby it only has three seats…” “And a flatbed…” Frank pouted slihglty. “So get one with five seats.” she shrugged. “You can buy trucks with a full cab…”

“This is not a good enough reason to get me to take the promotion…” 

“You want a better reason?” She said. “Ok, well here’s some food for thought…when the lease is up on our place maybe we could look into buying. You know I don’t wanna rent forever, I want us to have something for the future that’s ours, and the extra money you get a year would make a difference in what we can borrow towards it.” And just like that, as always, she’d managed to sideswipe him. He’d be lying if he hadn’t considered getting back on the property market, he had savings after all…but he’d given it no more thought than a fleeting idea every now and then when he drove past places with real estate signs in the front yards

 “This mean you’re coming round to the idea of marrying me and having baby Franks and Flisses?” She snorted “You’re such a dick…although that’s the only time you’ve ever mentioned that when you’re sober.” “So you’re saying that if I ask you when I’m not drunk you’d say yes?” he teased. “Goodbye Frank…” She teased in an airy voice, before she cut the call.

 Chuckling to himself he slid the phone back into his pocket and headed back inside to grab his lunch from the fridge in the kitchen. As he did so he passed Paul who was heading out with a fresh cup of coffee.

 “Oh, erm…Alan…” Frank looked at him. “So, turns out I don’t need as much time to think about it as I thought I did. I’ll take the job.” Alan smiled at him and pat him on the shoulder “Good man. I’ll get the wheels in motion and then we can work out how we start to transfer Paul’s responsibilities over.”

Frank nodded at him as he walked off.

 “Oh…” Alan called after him, “We’ll also need to pick your car.”

“My car…” Frank frowned.

 “Yeah, did I not mention? Paul’s BM…that’s a company car. I’m gonna let him keep it as a retirement present so we’ll need to order you another one. Not least because I don’t want my Head Mechanic driving around in that heap of shit you have. Looks like we don’t pay you enough…” Frank stood there, eyebrows raised as Alan simply smirked at him and left. Shaking his head, he gave a little groan, already imagining Fliss’ face when he told her.

*****

Fliss had reacted exactly how he had thought she would, laughing hysterically and then teasing him about how he had no alternative now than to get rid of the heap of shit he was ridiculously attached to. She’d then spent the evening looking at cars on her phone, showing him ridiculously pimped out vehicles in various vile colours, the final straw being a hot-rod red for Mustang with gold rims and flames painted down the side. At that point he’d snatched the phone out of her hand, grabbed her hips and pulled her down under him on the couch and given her something else to think about for half an hour or so.

September ticked by, in the usual speed by which time seemed to be flying for Frank and he found himself thrown into his job, soaking up Paul’s experience of managing the team as much as he could. He was also extremely grateful for both Fliss and Bill’s input, both of them having dealt with managing staff and rotas so he was able to ask them both questions as well. Naturally, when V heard about it she insisted on cooking him a special dinner, and even Evelyn presented him with a very nice bottle of Scotch when she came to visit as a Congratulations.

 Another bit of good news for them was that once Fliss changed her phone number the calls stopped as well. Frank was glad about that, because it meant that once again they’d thwarted the ass holes attempts to intimidate her. She’d made a blog, however, of every call she had gotten which now sat in Greg’s files along with the Card. Just in case.

Nope, on the whole life seemed to be going well for the pair of them.

“Someone’s looking smug…” Greg teased Frank as he leaned back in the chair around Greg’s large outdoor table. It was a Saturday at the start of October and they’d finally got round to having that cook out and gathering that the Circle of Truth had been attempting to organise round everyone’s schedule for the last 3 months.

 “Well, you know…life’s pretty good.” Frank smiled, sipping his beer, his eyes straying to Fliss who was stood around the bar area to the right of the garden with Bonnie, Zara and Lisa. She was dressed in a simple pair of jeans and a tie-died off the shoulder sweater but as usual, she looked stunning.

 “You got a ring yet?” Jake asked, dropping down into a seat next to him.

 “Oh don’t you start as well.” Frank groaned as Simon and Greg both laughed. “We’re happy as we are…besides, we’ve not even been together a year yet…” “Not far off.” Jake shrugged “Man, when you know you know…” “He’s just scared she’ll say no.” Simon teased. Frank stilled for a moment and then turned to glare at the man. “Shit, you are?” Simon frowned “No, not especially but…” Frank shook his head, trying to find the words to explain “I’m absolutely, totally convinced I want to spend the rest of my life with her, and I know she feels the same but…well she’s been married before and I don’t want to ask until I know she’s ready to do it again.”

Greg looked at him, nodding “I get that.”

“That’s gotta be the most grown up think you’ve ever said…” Jake looked at Frank who flipped him off but deep down he had to admit, it wasn’t wrong. He knew that both he and Fliss had come a long way from the people they had been just over 14 months ago when they had first met. Fliss had come alive, flourished even in herself, and he…well, he’d learnt that there was more to life than the meaningless cycle of one night stands and that flying by the seat of his pants wasn’t always the most productive thing to do. Both of them had been broken in their own way, had their own guards and walls around themselves which the other had managed to smash straight through. He stole another glance at Fliss and smiled, he knew there was no other woman for him, but in the same breath…what was the rush? They had a life time. And a ring and a piece of paper wasn’t going to change any of that.

 “Man you grew up…” Simon grinned and Frank rolled his eyes.

 “Look, I’ll have you know I’ve brought up a kid since the age of 6 months…all this shit about me being a man child…It’s crap…”

 “Whatever man…we all know you’re not a grown up until you have scatter cushions on your sofa…” Simon teased, referencing the previous week when he and Bonnie had come over for drinks and Fliss and Frank had had a jokey argument about said cushions. Frank threw his head back in a huge bout of laugher, shaking his head.

 “Fuck you!” he said, looking at him as Simon grinned.

 “Anyway, man…speaking of weddings…” Greg turned to Jake “You’ve been engaged for what? Three years now…when you gonna set a date?”

“He has a point…” Simon looked at him.

“Well, you can all shut the fuck up because for your information we have.”

“Shut the front door!” Greg grinned

 Jake nodded and took a large mouthful of his beer.

 “So you gonna tell any of us or…” Jake glanced over at Lisa before he yelled her name and she looked over at him, the other women also looking up. 

“Can we tell them now babe?” he called. Lisa grinned and nodded, and then made her way over followed by Zara. Fliss looked at Bonnie who shrugged, and the two of them picked up their drinks and followed.

 Fliss perched on Frank’s knee and he slid one hand round her waist the other dropped to her thigh.

 “So, we have set a date for the wedding.” Lisa smiled to a huge shriek from Zara. Frank spotted Fliss looking at Bonnie, the two of them sharing a significant smirk and he squeezed her thigh.

 “Stop being a bitch.” he said in a low voice.

 “Rude…” she mumbled, grinning into her gin. “6th April next year…” Jake grinned. “At Hardemans Secret Garden in Dover, Tampa.” “Well unless you invented a time machine, it ain’t gonna be this year is it?” Simon looked at him, before he gave a yell as Bonnie slapped him round the back of the head.

 “Obviously you’re all invited.” Jake said, “Except for Simon.” “Hang on, if he isn’t coming does that mean I can’t?” Bonnie pouted.

“You can be my plus one.” Fliss nodded.

 “Oi…” Frank nipped her thigh gently. She grinned at him, ruffling his hair slightly. He jerked his head out of her reach and looked at her over his aviators. She stuck her tongue out at him and he grinned.

 “Guys this is great news…” Greg said, nodding “Best dig the suit out.” “You wear a suit to work every day.” Zara looked at him. 

“And you won’t need to.” Jake shook his head. “In fact none of you will…my brother is best man, obviously, but I’d like you guys there as my Groomsmen…that is, if you’re up for it.” Frank smiled at Greg, then Simon before they all shrugged.

“Yeah, I’m in…” Greg smiled.

“Me too pal, I’m honoured.” Frank smiled, tipping his beer bottle in Jake’s direction.

“Does this mean we get to plan the Batchelor party?” Simon asked. Jake nodded with a grin and Simon leaned back “Oh this is gonna be beautiful….”

***** “You’re fucking mental.” Frank looked at Fliss as she shrugged, circling Cap back round to the jump which Joanne had just hiked up another foot. He shook his head and turned away “I can’t watch.” “Don’t’ be a chicken Frank.” Mary grinned up at him, “It’s cool…I wanna do that some day.” “Over my dead body.” Frank looked down at her.

“Yeah you said that about me going to Boston.” “No, that’s not what I said.” Frank sighed, looking at her “I said over my dead body were you going to live with Evelyn….and did you?” “No…” Mary conceded “But you’re letting me go back for a weekend.”

“Yes, because you’re going for 2 nights and coming home” he said, and despite himself he turned his head to see Fliss sail Cap over the huge jump.

“See….” Fliss said, pulling the horse up to a stop “Easy…” “Whatever you say sweetheart.” he shook his head.

“Can I jump Monty soon?” Mary asked, and Fliss smiled.

“Yeah we can do a little cross pole…” “I give in…” Frank groaned, throwing his hands out to the side “The pair of you are nuts.”

“Says the guy who almost cried when he had to order a new car.” Fliss looked at him and Frank rolled his eyes “I mean who does that?” “Yeah Frank…” Mary said, swinging off the fence to the paddock, leaning back to look at him. “You get to swap a rust bucket for a shiny new Mitsubishi and you were like heartbroken.” “Hey, me and that truck have seen a lot of action-“ “I don’t wanna know…” Fliss started.

“Of which you’ve been part of…” he smirked her and she flushed a little, grinning. “I’m kinda attached to it.” “It’s a lump of metal.” Fliss looked at him.

“How dare you.” Frank scoffed, feigning offence.

“Well now you can have new adventures in the new truck.” Mary shrugged “Simples.” “When you do get it I vote the first thing we do is load it up and head off for a picnic somewhere.” Fliss said, hopping off Cap.

“I can go with that.” Frank nodded as she turned and walked towards the gate, letting her out.

 “Can I take him?” Mary asked, hopping down off the fence. 

“Sure…” Fliss said, handing her the reins. Mary led the horse away to the barn as Fliss removed her hat and pulled out her bobble, shaking her long hair free before she tied it back up again.

“I really do like it that colour.” Frank mused after a second, watching her. She blushed a little, and he knew why. A week ago she’d come back from the salon, her usually bright auburn hair was a lot more demure, having had caramel put through the ends. When Frank had complimented her on the change she’d gotten a little shy and said that she used to have it like that when she was younger, but John had always wanted her to keep it her natural colour. Now she felt like she fancied a change. Her admission had once again, knocked Frank for, how simple little things like that were so huge for her.

She pulled off her riding gloves, shoved them into her back pocket and they walked into the barn as Mary opened Cap’s stable and led him inside. As always, the large horse bowed his head gently to allow Mary to undo his bridle and Fliss smiled. Cap was secretly her favourite after Heidi. He was such a loving animal, despite his size always being so gentle and careful around people, especially Mary. Most animals were like that around her, she just had this aura that they seemed to like. But then again, everyone said that animals were a good judge of character.

 “Can we go to the shack for dinner?” Mary spoke up, looking at Frank “It is Saturday…”

 “Oh, I dunno…” Frank sighed, “Not sure my heap of shit truck will get us there.” “No but Fliss’ jeep will.” Mary shrugged and Frank shook his head with a snort.

“You literally have an answer for everything.”

 “Wonder where she gets that from…” Fliss looked at him and he nudged her gently with his elbow.

 “So can we go or not?”

 “Yes, ok we can go to the shack.” Frank said “But the deal is you tidy your room when you get home. It’s a disgrace.” Mary pondered this for a moment as Fliss undid the girth on Cap’s saddle, pulling it off.

 “Deal.” she nodded “Only Fliss said she was gonna help me sort my clothes out…some of them don’t fit anymore.”

“Yeah we do that tomorrow morning.” Fliss smiled, “Then we can look at ordering you some warm stuff for New York.” “Are we still getting matching sweaters when we get there?” “No.” Frank said, at the same time Fliss nodded.

“Yes.” “No, we’re not.” Frank looked at her. 

“Errr 2 vs 1 Sailor, you’re outvoted.” she shrugged, pushing past him with the saddle on her arms. “But if you’re a good boy we’ll let you pick them right Mary?” “I dunno.” Mary frowned “Have you seen his shirts?” Fliss let out a roar of laughter and turned to face her, before she looked at Frank, laughing even harder at the pure indignation on his face. 

“I hate you both.” he said sullenly, folding his arms.

 The Shack was busy by the time they arrived but given that it wasn’t too cold they managed to find a small table outside and ordered their food, Mary getting through an astonishing amount considering but the Frank had noticed she was going through a bit of a growth spurt which he mentioned to Fliss when they were snuggled up on the sofa later.

“Not sure getting her any stuff for New York yet is wise.” he mused “If she carries on like she is it won’t fit her.”

“Well we can wait…Fliss said shrugging, her hand rubbing at Frank’s stomach under his shirt. “You have no idea how excited I am…” “Really?” Frank snorted “You never mentioned it.” “Oh piss off” she laughed, before she sighed happily “It’s the one thing I miss about home and Boston…you know this time of year the leaves would be changing colour and falling,…”

“I know what you mean.” he said, his hands carding through her hair “You don’t really Seasons here.”

“Well you do…” Fliss said, “Hurricane and Summer.” Frank let out a laugh as she looked up at him. “You know you’re my hurricane.”

“What?” he looked at her

 “Came into my life, blew it all upside down…” “Jesus you talk some shit!” he laughed, shaking his head as she grinned. 

“You know there was actually a hurricane Frank back in 2010. So I’m not talking complete shit…” “Whatever Sweetheart…” he snorted, leaning back as her nails scratched against his stomach. He gave a twitch and grabbed her wrist, and looked down at her as she flashed him a coy look. “Stop it.”

“What, this?” she moved and used her other hand, and Frank let out a hiss as he shifted and grabbed that one too.

 “You know what that does to me…” he looked at her, his voice low.

 “Yup.” she nodded, grinning.

 With a jerk of his arms he pulled her forward so she fell onto him fully, drawing a giggle from her as her nose bumped against his.

 “I fuckin’ love you.” he smiled at her, and she grinned, giving him a soft kiss.

 “Yeah, you’ve told me once or twice…” she smirked, her lips locking onto his.

******

 “Fliss?”

 “Office…” she called back, and a second or so later Joanne popped her head into the room.

 “Everything’s done.” she said, “I was gonna lock up…you’re not normally here this late.”

 “Yeah I know but I have some paper work to sort. Need to file a couple of things and, well, thought it would be easier to do it here than take everything home. Frank’s taken Mary bowling so…” “And you’d rather be here doing paper work?” Joanne teased.

“Sadly, it needs doing…besides, last time we went I kicked his ass, again, he sulked for hours.” Fliss snorted “Maybe he stands more of a chance against Mary.”

“Won’t he let her win?” Joanne asked “I mean, she is only eight…”

“No chance.” Fliss looked at Jo. “He says that she needs reminding every now and then that she’s not a genius at everything…” Joanne let out a laugh “Fair enough. Ok, well I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, bye Jo…”

 Fliss set about getting to work, filing the various bills and disclaimers she’d had signed and started then sifting through the list of clients and payments, checking who owed what and typing out the bills for the month. Once they were printed and placed in envelopes, ready to be tacked to the stable doors in the morning she glanced at the clock and realised it was almost 8 pm.  Frank and Mary should be home now.

She was just about to pack up when she realised she hadn’t gone through the post for the day. For a second she debated leaving it for the morning, but decided she would get it over with. There wasn’t much- mostly a couple of letters from various equestrian societies around the area about a few events going on, but the last one she reached was a manila envelope with the address typed out on the front.

 She turned it over, opened it and then pulled out the contents and immediately felt her blood run cold as she looked at the paper in front of her. It was a copy of the photo of her and Mary, taken from the first Blog that Mary had written over the summer. Underneath it was typed a simple message- I always knew you’d suit motherhood.

 Fliss swallowed, it didn’t take a genius to work out who it was from but for the first time since his ridiculous campaign now she was actually frightened as to the meaning behind this. Up until now it he’d been nothing more than annoying but this was designed to be more than an aggravation.

 It was a threat. A direct threat telling her he knew about Mary.

 Whilst Fliss wasn’t Mary’s mother, and would never claim to be she loved that girl like she was her own and the fact that John was even brining her into this made her feel physically sick, so much so that she felt the bile rising in her throat and with a sharp heave she lurched to the side, grabbing the waste paper basket and hocking up the bitter substance. Coughing she wiped the back of her mouth with a shaking hand, reaching for the bottle of water on her desk.

 She folded the photo up and stuck it back in the envelope, shoving it in the drawer before she stood up and locked her office, heading to her jeep. Her mind was reeling, now it wasn’t just her he was focussing on, this changed everything. Did she tell Frank? She knew she should, she couldn’t leave Mary in danger. Not that she believed any harm would come to her, not really, especially not under Frank’s care but that was another worry she had. That if she told Frank this, it was really going to push him over that edge into blind rage, and he’d been on the first plane out to Boston, hunting the fucker down…and then what?

 He ended up in jail himself because Fliss knew Frank well enough to understand that if that blind rage took hold, he wouldn’t stop.

 She had no answer to this, nothing. She sat in her jeep, staring out of the window, trying to force the thoughts and mumbles and voices in her heat to quiet, so she could think clearly, get some form of grasp on what it was she needed to do. And then one voice was screamed at her, clearly, giving her a solution…the only one she could viably see working.

With a loud sob, Fliss covered her face in her hands, unable to see an alternative to the decision she had just reached. A decision that was going to break her heart more than anything had ever done before.

******

“Hey, you’re late…”  Frank looked up, immediately frowning as he saw Fliss’ face. “Honey…what…” “Where’s Mary?” she asked instantly.

“She nipped to Roberta’s” Frank said “I know it’s late but we saw her as we were headed out of the car and she wanted to collect something for Show and Tell tomorrow…why?”

 “We need to talk.” Fliss said.

Frank stood up off the sofa and walked towards her, he reached for her and she took a step back.

“Ok, Fliss, you’re scaring me now…what…”

“I think…” Fliss looked down at her hands “I think that we need to stop seeing each other.”

Frank blinked, not sure he had heard her right, but when he looked at her he saw a tear trickling down her face and she was avoiding his gaze. The world around him began to fade and a dull buzzing filled his head and rang around his ears as a horrible cold feeling washed over him.

“Lissy…” he swallowed, his words sticking in his throat “What’s brought this on? Did I do something? Are you not happy? I don’t understand…” “I just…it isn’t working for me…” she took a deep breath and looked up at him.

“You’re lying.” he said instantly, he could see it written all over her face “Fliss, what’s going on?” “Nothing, I’m sorry. I just…I need to leave, I need space.” she said “I’m so sorry Frank…” Frank took a deep breath, and watched as she turned to leave. After a second he hurried after her into the hallway, shaking his head.

 “Lissy, please…talk to me…” he all but begged as she walked to the door. She made to open it but Frank was behind her and placed his hand firmly on the top of the PVC, causing it to shut. She spun round and looked up at him, the tears now pouring down her face.

 “Please, Frank…don’t make this any harder than it is…” her voice was broken, and she shook her head. “I don’t understand what THIS is?” he looked at her, running a hand through his hair as he felt the stinging of tears in his own eyes “Last month we were talking about buying a house together and now you just wanna break it off, for no reason? Honey, just…whatever is going on, we can work through it, just talk to me.”

 “I’m so sorry…” she whispered, “Just…let me out…please…”

He looked at her again, her eyes bouncing across his and he knew instantly he couldn’t stop her, and would never do that to her either, no matter how much he so desperately wanted to lock the door and force her to tell him what the fuck was going on. So with a sniff he forced himself to step back and her hand went to the door knob, her shoulders shaking.

 “Liss, please…” his voice cracked. “Don’t do this…”

 She took a deep breath and opened the door, the warm air from outside hit him in the face, tears stinging his eyes slightly before click of the latch hit his ears as the door shut behind her, leaving him stood alone in the hallway, stunned and utterly, utterly broken. 

**** Chapter 21