#james was a protector first and foremost

[padfootastic]

harry’s ‘saving people thing’ comes from james potter and if you disagree, u can bite me because that is the TRUTH

[danadiadea]

patronus hot take(?) since we never see lily or james's patronuses: lily's was the stag/buck/male deer counterpart to sev's. the soul that manifests as the doe patronus is the healer and protector of children that sev is (under all the bad attitude), while the one who became a soldier for the order and died shielding the herd was lily, after all. take your pick whether james is a) entirely irrelevant, like he is in the larger plot, b) genuinely in love with lily to the point that his patronus changed to mimic hers/first manifested as mimicry of hers, or c) a dark mirror of the hero and protector that lily wanted to be more than be with :)

i do prefer my snily platonic but fr the only expressly gendered patronus that matches the caster's gender is harry's, we can get creative here, can't we?

Oh, I thought about that, and tho I mostly see Lily as a pretty traditional woman who is likely to have a gender conforming patronus (all the marrying an ultra masculine man right after graduation and getting pregnant before 20 thing... and she is Petunia's sister, after all), this is a plausible headcanon in itself for romantic snily! But bucks are pretty shitty fathers – they aren't involved in raising and protecting fawns and don't care about them or the does at all. So Lily's sacrifice for her child is surely not very buck-like (or stag-like, at that matter). Severus having to deal with a bunch of highly suicidal children (Harry first and foremost of course) on his own, like a true doe, makes sense, tho.

The only expressly gendered patronus IS Harry’s stag (and Snape's doe), and I think that actually, if the patronus represents a person and therefore is inherent, the biological sex of the animal is not all that relevant. Howewer, if the Patronus had taken it's form as a manifestation of romantic love, I find it logical that the biological sex of the patronuses will represent heterosexual dynamics for heterosexual bonds and homosexual dynamics for homosexual bonds. But I don't see why wouldn't a reverse het dynamics work.

I love irrelevant James, looks canon to me. I do think a stag is inherent to him, since I don't think love changes one's animagi form – and imo it's likely the animagi form and the inherent partronus would match (like in Minerva's case). So James probably was a stag, and Lily could be a hind (to match James), a buck (to match Sev), a doe (with Sev matching out of platonic love or as a wlw trans woman), a stag.... I guess?.... Transmasc Lily? Or something else entirely, because couples actually don't have to possess matching patronuses, making Severus an inherent doe. Nothing stops them from both being inherent does, but it's a pretty huge coincidence. And I don't think matching inherent patronuses mean anything, if Dolly and Minnie are any indication (unless they're secretly perfect for each other).

[apopcornkernel]

been thinking too hard about my batman mob au. so i would like to share it. this is so long im sorry let me put it under a cut

i want to begin by saying that i think the only way bruce could feasibly become a mob boss is if he was able to be swayed to see that "clean" methods would genuinely do no good and in fact succeed in achieving more harm due to how much corruption and crime permeates the system. i think it would take a LOT to convince bruce of this, so he's kind of the hardest character to put in a mob au. however for the sake of fun we will suspend our disbelief a little bit!

okay, moving on, alfred: he's long been proven to be bruce's biggest enabler. i think he would get over it and end up helping him as he does as batman

as for dick: ooh boy. okay. so first of all i DO think bruce would let him kill zucco. however!! i think as dick grows up within the mob his strong code of morals will also begin to conflict with the lifestyle. but he's stuck there because bruce. insert all those posts about how dick grayson loves freedom and he also loves bruce and those things are at constant war with each other and because he loves bruce he sometimes clips his own wings. etc etc. i think he is the talia al ghul of this whole sitch if you get what i mean

speaking of talia!!! i believe her father would still be at odds with bruce bc yes, bruce is in crime, but bruce refuses to join with the league. so they semi-preserve their canon dynamic, except i think there's more opportunity for cooperation between talia and bruce considering talia's lexcorp era. in fact i do believe that lexcorp and waynecorp would become business allies during talia's time as ceo

but jason isn't dead. what his kidnappers hoped to do was turn him against his benefactor, taunt him about how it's been months and bruce still hasn't been able to save him, had refused to save him. but one night the door's left ajar and the sound of the TV drifts in, talking about how bruce is waging a bloody gang war, the first he's ever instigated, and jason... well. :)

as for jason—i think he would be the most loyal of the bunch. the first thing i actually dreamed up wrt this AU was a reimagining of ditf/utrh! in here, he's kidnapped by a rival gang. they demand bruce an impossible ransom, and bruce has no choice but to refuse. so bruce is sent a video of jason being killed.

"but poppy," you ask. "where's babs? tim? steph? cass? helena? jpv?" ok let's be real people aren't usually asking about the last 2 rip my babygirls BUT ANYWAYS—

the most important figure is HELENA. in the absence of batman, guess who's becoming the foremost protector of gotham??? EXACTLY. HELENA BERTINELLI. her whole backstory is that she wants to bring organized crime down SO WHO BETTER TO BE THE MAIN ENEMY IN A BATMAN MOB AU.

also because i love her.

im not biased i swear.

ALSO HER FIRST "ROBIN" (not necessarily named robin i just mean like. sidekick) IS JAMES COOPER FROM CAVALIERI'S HUNTRESS. CHUCK DIXON I HAVE NOT FORGIVEN YOU FROM ERASING HIM FROM MAIN CONTINUITY. he doesn't go out into the field that much bc he's still baby but he's the oracle before oracle. although when he does go into the field he's like. remember in cavalieri huntress where he was scurrying arohnd in the sewers and planting fucking grenades and shit. yeah.

later on he and babs will be best buddies <3 babs is his favorite aunt

ALSO!!! the rest of james' family will still be alive. idgaf. it's MY au and i can randomly reveal that his family has been alive all along IF I WANT TO. comic writers stop killing black people off for shock value challenge 2k24

also, james is ABSOLUTELY the one who wheedled helena into making a lair

babs does join the fray still! her story arc is mostly the same except that she partners with the huntress instead of batman. their ages are closer together so it's a slightly different dynamic

tim will remain a civilian. he will, however, be a very helpful civilian, in that he's the one who's stalking dick grayson & trying to prove that dick's involved in organized crime. him and dick will have the saddest tragickest "we could've been brothers. but not in this life. not ever." type of relationship. like jaderoy but platonic.

also tim & helena will have the same littlebrothernephew relationship that they have in canon 🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶

i guess jpv will get roped in in a similar way to canon, but the idea of bane doing what he did to helena makes me so so sad :( however since she is taking batman's narrative space in this story then i think it should still proceed. i will then also insert a little bit of the vichelena agenda here—

in the wake of bane, JPV WILL STILL STEP IN AS HUNTRESS. "but they'll know he's not a woman" COWARDS. just give him a dye job and he'll look like helena. all white people look the same. he can pad the fucking suit or he can get the fuck out.

as for steph, she will absolutely be a vigilante alongside the huntress. her father is still cluemaster, after all, so she'll follow a similar arc to canon except it's helena and not bruce that she'll develop a complex mentor relationship with!!

i think helena can see a little of herself in steph. i think part of helena envies steph's moral compass also. iirc at steph's age, helena still thought her mafia family was okay & that it was just the people who killed them that were bad. yet steph, who's half her age, has no such illusions about her father, and is already fighting to try and bring him down

cass!!!! cass will still come to gotham!!!!! i can't see a way for cass to be on bruce's side in this au simply bc of how strong her morals are. she killed a man and never ever wanted to kill again, even with shiva where it was kill or be killed, she had already made up her mind to let herself be killed in the end. so she is going to be on the vigilante side :]

also, it would be amazing for me personally if cass came to gotham during azbats (...azhuntress?) era. ohhh lord. a situation RIPE for incredible interactions

i still haven't read damian & duke comics properly yet so that's going to have to be added in the future. but that's what's been rattling around in my brain so far!

[prince-koda]

Sick Days

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word Count: 223

A/N: Bucky Barnes is just a good guy. All my works are self-indulgent but this is even more so; I'm sick and at work and would love for James 'Bucky' Barnes to take care of me instead of having to work. I'm masked up, covid free, and eating cough drops like candy so I present to you a quick blurb I wrote on company time. No use of Y/N, 2nd person pov so reader is only addressed as 'you'. No physical description per usual but reader does not have a super soldier immune system. Constructive criticism always appreciated.

Bucky Barnes is a lot of things and despite being the Winter Soldier for decades, he’s still a caregiver; he’s protective and willing to do anything to help his loved ones.

He would take care of sickly Steve when they were younger, both when he was physically ill and when Steve would pick fights on the streets of Brooklyn.

So that’s why anytime you became sick, he did what he’s always done when he’s himself. He took care of his loved ones—he took care of you.

Helping you into a lukewarm bath to help with fevers, pulling out a humidifier at night to help you breath with as much ease as your body will allow. He has no issues with medicine runs and using his vibranium arm to rub away and cool down any aches in your back. Anything you need, he does or gets for you before you even ask.

Being a super soldier, he has nothing to fear in terms of catching a cold or any standard bug floating around, but he does get a little more on edge for your sake once flu season starts or when the news starts talking about a virus that’s going around.

He is first and foremost a protector. He protects his planet, his country, and, of course, the people who mean everything to him.

[thatbookgirl1118]

Aight y'all.

I keep seeing these Snape hate posts, and it's driving me nuts. I think a lot of people are just jumping on the bandwagon because of the disgusting things JK's been saying lately, and while I agree that she's being terrible, it doesn't have anything to do with Snape and I don't think that warrants condensing this man's entire complex, conflicting background into "guy got friend-zoned and didn't leave her alone."

So here's why Snape is not the horrible character y'all been making him out to be lately:

Number one. Lily. One of the favorite reasons for why Snape is terrible is that he's a 'creepy stalker' and wouldn't leave Lily alone.

Let's take a look at the facts.

Lily and Snape met when they were, like, eight. They were the only people who understood each other, and Snape was the one person Lily could go to when Petunia was being a royal biatch. They were BEST FRIENDS.

Then they go to Hogwarts, and they're sorted into different houses. Not just different, OPPOSITE. SLYTHERIN AND GRYFFINDOR. And you know what happened? NOTHING. LITERALLY. NOTHING. THEY STAYED FRIENDS. Yes, it was a bit of a strain, especially once Lily and James became friends, but in reality the cause of their falling out had nothing to do with her being a Gryffindor. And before she became friends with James, let's remember: she HATED him. VEHEMENTLY. And Snape agreed, especially considering he was FREAKING BULLIED BY HIM. James was a good person at heart, and he did a lot of good things, but let's please not forget that he made mistakes, too. It doesn't discount the good things about him, it makes him human, and let's please remember that THAT'S KINDA THE WHOLE POINT OF THE SERIES. So how things stand: Snape and Lily are inter-house friends, James is an ass. (Also, part of the reason Snape hated James initially was that he liked Lily, and so did Snape. The difference, of course, was that James was a complete ass to everyone INCLUDING Lily, and Snape was her best friend.) Then Snape starts falling in with the wrong crowd. And his friendship with Lily becomes a liability, because she's both a Gryffindor and, far more importantly, Muggleborn.

Now. I'm NOT saying that everything Snape did was okay. A lot of it was disgusting and despicable and generally horrible. But again. He's HUMAN. He's kinda the biggest grey area on earth, and that makes him HUMAN.

So, one day, when James is, as usual, being a complete ass, Lily stands up for Snape. And he's feeling scared, and embarrassed, and weak, and all the other things VICTIMS OF BULLYING tend to feel, and the girl he likes just stood up for him. Which had to hurt, because Snape wants her to see him as a protector, because he likes her, but she just saved HIM. Add this to all the conflicting emotions he must be having about the future Death Eaters he's hanging out with, and his desire to both have and protect Lily, and he's basically a ticking time bomb. And he explodes. And calls Lily a mudblood.

Major wtf is wrong w u moment.

But that's the point. He SCREWS UP. Because he's HUMAN.

At this point, Snape knows he's gone too far. He probably could've salvaged the relationship, and he probably knew that somewhere in his heart, but he was probably mostly feeling horrified and sick to his stomach and had also, lets remember, kinda convinced himself that Lily liked James and she could never be his. He didn't feel worthy of her. So he decides to distance himself from her, because he knows he's getting mixed up with the wrong people, but it's what everyone expects from him. But she doesn't belong there, and he wants to protect her (also one of the main reasons he probably got involved with these people in the first place, to try and protect her), so he tells her to stay away from him.

Now, if I remember correctly (I could be completely wrong because it's been a bit since I read the last book, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), Lily didn't actually stop. I'm pretty sure she tried to talk to him several more times after the incident. That's not the behavior a victim of stalking and abuse would exhibit, don't ya think? But even if this didn't happen, I think we've made a firm case for them being CLOSE FRIENDS. Honestly I wouldn't blame her for immediately abandoning his dumb butt after what he said to her.

So fast forward a bit. Lily marries James, and Snape joins Lord Voldemort. Then he hears the prophecy Trelawney gives, and not knowing who it pertains to, tells Voldemort. Voldemort then becomes convinced that it means Harry.

Now, Snape has not only just discovered that the love of his life is about to be killed, but that it was HIS FAULT. He told Voldemort about the prophecy. So he goes to Dumbledore and literally BEGS him to hide Lily. In return he turns traitor to the Death Eaters and risks his life over and over, all for the arbitrary promise he's been made that Lily and her family will be protected. AND HER FAMILY. HE DIDN'T PULL THE THING WHERE HE ONLY SAVES HER AND LETS THE REST OF THEM DIE HE SAVES ALL OF THEM BECAUSE HE KNOWS LILY DOESN'T LOVE HIM BUT HE. STILL. LOVES. HER. AND HE WANTS HER TO BE HAPPY AND SAFE EVEN IF IT ISN'T WITH HIM. Y'ALL THAT'S THE EXACT DEFINITION OF TRUE LOVE YOU'VE GOTTA BE KIDDING ME.

And then, after all that, Lily DIES. As does James, and while he may have been Snape's rival, I think we've established that Snape is human, and that had to hurt if only because he was the man Lily loved and the father of her child.

And after all this, after risking his life for a promise that wasn't even kept, do you know what he did?

He stayed and helped Dumbledore. He was one of the main reasons Harry was able to defeat Voldemort. Yes, in the beginning, it was probably just a convenient way to avoid Azkaban. But he did what Dumbledore instructed EVEN AFTER THE MAN WAS DEAD. He could've easily killed Dumbledore and then joined Voldemort for real, but he helped Harry instead, because he was still atoning for what happened to Lily.

And speaking of Harry, let's talk about that relationship. From even a conceptual standpoint, before they ever met, think about what this boy represents to Snape. He's Lily's son, yes, but because of that he's a constant reminder of her and everything that happened with her. He's also James' son, Snape's bully and the man who got Lily. And to top it all off, he's the REASON SHE'S DEAD. If it weren't for him and the prophecy, she'd still be alive. Now, these are not things that are okay to think about an innocent child. I'm not saying he was justified in treating Harry like shit. In fact, I loathed Snape with my entire soul for the first 6 books. I'm saying LOOK AT THE FACTS. Snape is not a normal person. He's a Death Eater, who's done and seen terrible things, and only switched to the right side because of Lily. So he's not going to think to himself, "this isn't this innocent child's fault." Hell, even if he did, he's not going to take it into account when he interacts with the kid. And on top of it all, as is said several times, Harry is INCREDIBLY like his father. He looks like him, talks like him, and has a penchant for getting into trouble. So when he clashes with Snape (and honestly I think even if they didn't have a history these two would've clashed, they're just too different), Snape takes it personally and treats Harry like shit. AND YET. First year, when Quirrel tries to kill Harry, who saves him? Snape. Third year, when Lupin transforms into a werewolf (and Snape's been making his potion all year and whether Dumbledore forced him or not, let's remember that Lupin was a Marauder and while he probably didn't take direct part in the bullying, he certainly didn't DO anything about it, so frankly it's a miracle Snape didn't poison him), his first instinct is to protect the children - and frankly I think that would've been his first instinct no matter who those kids were, because regardless of the terrible things he's done, Snape is first and foremost a teacher. Fifth year, while he didn't do anything to help the kids directly, he takes the warning Harry gives him (they've got Padfoot at the place where it's hidden) and sends the Order after the kids. I don't think it's ever directly stated that it was him, but how else could the Order know they were there? ALSO. I'M NOT GLOSSING OVER ALL THE SERIOUSLY HORRIBLE THINGS SNAPE DID FIFTH YEAR. But he DID send the Order, so let's give credit where credit's due. He also gives Harry Occlumency lessons, which he made exceedingly unpleasant but he was still trying to protect Harry. Sixth year he hurts Harry in about a billion ways, but to be fair the majority of those ways were ordered by Dumbledore (I have a separate rant on why he's not a bad character either but this essay is long enough). He also tries to protect Malfoy this year, yes on both Dumbledore and his mother's orders, but Snape does recognize that he's just a child and shouldn't have to do something like this.

Now. Seventh year. Snape does a lot of really horrible things this year. Yeah, he does them because he needs Voldemort to trust him so he can bring him down, but that doesn't excuse them. I'm not going to unpack all those things here, because this is already really long, but I'm NOT just ignoring them. Actually I think that they're pretty important to his development, and how he loses himself a bit. But let's look at the two moments that really show the good in him.

Number one. He refused to fight McGonagall. This woman has not only been his colleague for many years, she was his TEACHER. He's known her since he was 11. She's witnessed everything he's gone through, every choice he's made, good and bad, and even not knowing all the reasons and details she STILL forgave him. She treated him with respect, as a fellow teacher. She TRUSTED him, and as far as she knows, he betrayed that trust. That HAD to hurt, knowing she thought he was a bad guy. So in his final interaction with her, when she attacks him to keep him from Harry, he doesn't fight. He can't tell her he's on her side, because he still has a job to do, but he just deflects her spells. His refusal to fight her is the last good piece of him, fighting its way out.

The second time was, of course, his final moments with Harry. After everything he's done to him, after the years of abuse and killing Dumbledore in front of his eyes, Harry still feels pain when he realizes Snape is about to die. He still feels the need to talk to Snape in his final moments, to carry out his final request (to take the memories to the pensieve). This is personally one of my favorite Harry moments, because it shows just how good and kind he is, that he even feels pity for a man he hates and doesn't even know why. But let's take a look at Snape. He's literally dying, but his first reaction to seeing Harry is to give him the memories, so he can defeat Voldemort. He is, to the very end, loyal to Dumbledore. And his second thought - his last - is Lily. He asks Harry to look at him, so that he might see Lily's eyes one last time, even if they're not really hers. His last thought on this earth was of her, and if that isn't love, I don't know what the hell is.

The point of all this is, Snape is human. He isn't necessarily a good person, but he isn't necessarily and a bad one either. Even as a child, he was never as kind as Lily, but she made him kinder. The time when he lost his way the most was when she stopped being there to keep him good. He thought she was happy without him, so he didn't think he mattered, and he did some pretty horrible things. People go dark when they think they don't matter. That was the entire reason for Voldemort's thirst for power. And when he realized she was in danger, and there was something he could do, he did it. Immediately. Without hesitation. He joined the good side and risked his life for the chance that Dumbledore would protect her and her family, even knowing that she'd never know what he was doing. He didn't do it to "get the girl." He did it to save the girl, to let her be happy. And when she died anyway, he spent the next 16 years trying to bring Voldemort down, and let's be honest, he probably didn't do it because it was "the right thing." He did it because it was what Lily would've wanted. He did it to honor her memory, and to protect her son. Snape wasn't some creepy stalker who got rejected and turned bitter. He fell in love with his best friend and spent his entire life trying to protect her and keep her happy, and then trying to honor her memory. He was a man entirely motivated by love, and honestly, I don't know what's more beautiful than that.

[aion-rsa]

Best Romantic Movies on Hulu Right Now

https://ift.tt/3b4A8xH

Romance gets a bad rap at the movies. Until you behold the best romantic movies on Hulu.

Yes, Hulu is on the case with an expansive collection of romantic movies for you to connect with your softer side… or the side of you that screams in an eternal tormented shriek, desperately trying to find a mate whose shrieks match your tone in this expansive disappointing nothingness of existence. Love is hard. Anywho, here are the best romantic movies on Hulu right now.

Sense and Sensibility

This Jane Austen character really seems to have a handle on romance. The 1995 film Sense and Sensibility is adapted from the Austen novel of the same name and has a great deal of talent both in front of and behind the camera. Oscar winner Ang Lee directs while Emma Thompson (yes, that Emma Thompson) wrote the script.

Thompson stars alongside Kate Winslet, Alan Rickman and Hugh Grant. The movie, like the book concerns the Dashwood sisters and their sudden descent into non-stupendous wealth. Of course then the romance begins (not between the sisters, weirdos. Alan Rickman and Hugh Grant are in this thing too, remember?)

AWOL

AWOL is how indie romances should be – small, authentic, affecting. Joey (Lola Kirke) and Rayna (Breeda Wool) are two young women from a nowheresville Pennsylvania town. They meetcute at a local carnival and quickly fall for each other but circumstances threaten to crush their romance before it can even begin.

AWOL understands first and foremost that while love is easy, relationships (and arguably everything else in the world is hard). Sometimes what you want and what your environment is able to allow you to have are two very different things.

Margarita with a Straw

2014’s Margarita with a Straw is both a coming-of-age and romance film the likes of which you’ve probably never seen. This Indian film comes from director Shonali Bose and stars Kalki Koechlin as Laila, an Indian teenager with cerebral palsy, trying to achieve some independence in her life.

Read more

Movies

Best Romantic Movies on Amazon Prime Right Now

By Alec Bojalad

Movies

Best Romantic Movies on Netflix

By Alec Bojalad

That opportunity comes for Laila when she is accepted to New York Universtiy and moves to Greenwich Village. There she meets and falls in love with blind Pakistani activist. Miles from home, Laila must deal with her changing, burgeoning sexuality and live in a world not built for her. But it’s cool: she can always take her margarita with a straw. 

Hello, My Name is Doris

Between TBS’s (now HBO Max’s) Search Party and Hello, My Name is Doris, director Michael Showalter had a stellar 2016. Hello, My Name is Doris is a wonderfully sweet, equally tragic and completely hilarious romantic comedy. 

Sally Field stars as the titular Doris, a lively woman in her ’60s who after the death of her mother becomes infatuated with a younger man. With the help of cliched self-help materials she does whatever she can to get his attention. Hello, My Name is Doris is an empathetic romantic comedy that will change how you view age.

Cashback

Cashback wins a very important award on this list: most intriguing, provocative poster. But it’s more than just a pretty poster. Cashback is a British romantic comedy about the most mundane of topics: working at a grocery store.

For anyone who as ever been young and had an interest in the opposite sex (or any sex for that matter), however, they know that one’s place of employment is often an absolute fountain of sex and chemistry. If that simple exposition isn’t enough, Cashback comes along with a sci-fi twist and more importantly: Oliver Wood from the Harry Potter series. 

Let the Right One In

Let the Right One In may seem like another odd choice for a romantic movie on Hulu but it’s romantic and sweet in a way that few other movies are. Sure, the players involved are a little boy and a little girl vampire (though the fact that she’s a vampire may very well mean she’s centuries old, just try not to think about it).

It’s a spooky yet undeniably sweet movie that presents the female side of a romantic entanglement as the ultimate protector.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

50 First Dates

50 First Dates has a somewhat disappointing Rotten Tomatoes score. Ignore that. It’s probably partially due to many critics’ distaste for at least one of the actors in the above screengrab. Not that they can be blamed. The presence of Adam Sandler or Rob Schneider in any comedy can be a rough sign. In 50 First Dates‘, however, it’s not an issue at all.

50 First Dates is a legitimately funny and romantic romantic comedy. Drew Barrymore stars as Lucy Whitmore, a woman with short-term memory loss. Due to a car accident, every day she wakes up believing it is October 13, 2002. Sandler’s character Henry Roth meets her in Hawaii and the two must overcome this bizarre condition to establish a lasting relationship.

Date Night

What do you get when you take the male lead of a popular NBC sitcom and pair him with the female lead (and mastermind behind) another popular NBC sitcom? A pretty decent rom-com as it turns out! Date Night stars Steve Carell (The Office) and Tina Fey (30 Rock) as a disaffected married couple trying to spice up their love life with a romantic night out on the town. But when a reservation steal turns into a case of mistaken identity, the pair’s night gets quite dangerous.

Date Night‘s action-heavy concept isn’t anything new to the romantic comedy genre but the presence of Carell and Fey (along with Mark Wahlberg, Taraji P. Henson, James Franco, Kirsten Wiig, Mark Ruffalo, and a whole host of other impressive talent) is enough to make this a pleasant viewing experience.

The Princess Bride

So you want to watch one of the most purely lovely and entertaining romance movies of all time? Well Hulu is here to say “as you wish.” The Princess Bride is a 1987 fantasy adventure film based on a book by prolific screenwriter William Goldman. The inspiration to the story infamously came from Goldman’s two daughters requesting conflicting stories about “princesses” and “brides.” So the writer decided to do two for the price of one.

Read more

Movies

Why The Princess Bride Is a Perfect Fantasy Movie

By David Crow

Movies

Cary Elwes Responds to the Idea of Remaking The Princess Bride

By David Crow

In this adaptation, Cary Elwes stars as Westley, a young farmhand who loves Princess Buttercup (Robin Wright). But when Westley is shipwrecked and left for dead and Buttercup is betrothed to Prince Humperdinck, the hero must embark on a sprawling adventure to rescue her. And of course this is a framed bedtime story being told to Fred Savage in bed…as all movies should be.

The Boy Downstairs

So much of what goes into a good romantic relationship is timing. Sometimes the chemistry is there but the timing is not. 2017’s The Boy Downstairs delves into this phenomenon from a millennial perspective.

Aspiring Brooklyn writer Diana (Zosia Mamet) and aspiring musician (millennials are always aspiring, you see) Ben (Matthew Shear) are in a happy, successful relationship. But Diana is forced to break things off after she moves to London. When Diana returns, she finds a new apartment through her friend and guess who just happens to be the boy downstairs? That’s right: Ben…and with a new girlfriend, no less. What follows is a funny, yet mature examination of what it takes to get the right one back.

Happiest Season

The setup for Hulu’s 2020 Internet-breaking comedy Happiest Season is very romantic…to a point. Abby (Kristen Stewart) and Harper (Mackenzie Davis) are in love. Yay! Not only that, but they’re going to Harper’s parents’ house for Christmas where Abby might propose. Woo! Also Harper has not told her parents she’s a lesbian and in a committed relationship with a woman. Oh. Oh no. Poor Abby!

Read more

Movies

Happiest Season: The Problem With Harper’s Treatment of Abby and Riley

By Delia Harrington

Movies

Happiest Season Review: Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis Make Christmas Classic

By Natalie Zutter

Questionable setup aside, this an excellent, personal effort from actress turned writer-director Clea DuVall. It’s an attention-grabber and conversation-starter to be sure. It also certainly doesn’t hurt that much of the cast is mind-meltingly hot. Stewart, Davis, Alison Brie, and Aubrey Plaza are like a who’s who of TV and movie crushes. Hell even Victor Garber and Mary Steenburgen can absolutely get it. All in all, the charismatic cast and accessible concept makes for a surprisingly wholesome romance movie.

Plus One

Maybe it’s just me, but there’s something really charming about erstwhile TV stars playing the lead opposite each other in a romantic movie. Such is the case with 2019’s Plus One, which stars Maya Erskine (of Pen15) and Jack Quaid (of The Boys).

Erskine and Quaid star as long-time friends Alice and Ben enduring the portion of their twenties where every friend seems to be getting married at once. Thankfully Alice and Ben have a longstanding agreement to always be each other’s “plus one” at every wedding. But such an arrangement couldn’t possibly lead to them discovering they have romantic feelings for each other, right? Right???

Palm Springs

“Time loop” movies frequently try to distinguish themself from Groundhog Day, the progenitor and most famous example of the form, by changing up the genre. Edge of Tomorrow is an action movie and Happy Death Day is a horror movie, for instance. What’s so impressive about Palm Springs is that it leans in to the romantic and comedic stylings of Groundhog Day and in many ways bests them.

In this movie, Andy Samberg styles as Nyles, a young man living through the hell of experiencing the same day (a wedding in Palm Springs) on a loop. In one particular loop, Nyles accidentally brings in the bride’s sister Sarah (Christin Milioti) and the two must confront the reality of living the same day over and over again forever together. You know…just like any couple.

LOVE AND BASKETBALL, Omar Epps, Sanaa Lathan, 2000, (c)New Line Cinema/courtesy Everett Collection

Love and Basketball

And now we come to a movie whose title is the two greatest things in the world! Love and Basketball is about…well, what you’d think. Quincy McCall (Omar Epps) and Monica Wright (Sanaa Lathan) are two next-door neighbors in Los Angeles, California, who are both singularly focused on pursuing their respective basketball careers.

Love and Basketball is a film all about passions – both creative and romantic. The movie also does a surprisingly thorough job of marking all the important beats of a relationship from childhood through the adult years. There’s a reason Love and Basketball has become a modest cult classic – it’s a fine execution of both the romantic and sports movie genres.

The post Best Romantic Movies on Hulu Right Now appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2QlunSD

[four-am-fangirling]

Through Thick and Thin (and the Occasional Poisoning)

Throwing my hat in the ring @whumptober2019!

...

Rhodey was worried.

That in of itself wasn’t particularly unusual, especially since he had somehow become the de-facto caregiver of a too-smart-for-his-own-good-but-still-somehow-incredibly-stupid teenager. Rhodey spent a lot of time agonising over Tony, now accustomed to the ever-present knot of worry in his gut and voice in the back of his mind reminding him to make the kid eat. He had become particularly adept at looking for warning signs, the red flags in his friend’s behaviour now far easier to spot.

Red flags like his younger roommate’s shaking hands.

Tony had stumbled back to the dorm about an hour ago, having worked himself to almost-collapse on some project or other, red-cheeked and hands shaking uncontrollably. Rhodey had picked up on the exhaustion immediately, ushering the teenager to the couch and getting some half-decent food into him. This wasn’t such an unusual occurrence.

What was unusual, however, is the fact that almost an hour later Tony’s hands were still shaking. That was a big red flag for Rhodey.

“Tones?”

The teenager looked up at him, bleary-eyed and flushed from his spot on the couch.

“Yeah?” His speech wasn’t far off incomprehensible mumbling.

“Your hands are still shaking. Did you notice that?”

He knew that often when Tony came back exhausted, he was barely aware of the things going on around him. Rhodey’s suspicions were supported when the genius looked down at his hands and dazedly lifted them to his flushed cheeks, as though checking that he was, in fact, shaking.

“Huh,”

The elder boy suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. For all his many talents, Tony wasn’t particularly observant.

The worried feeling in his gut clenched a little tighter, and Rhodey looked back over to his friend. Tony’s hands, still wracked with tremors, were scratching lightly at his arms. The older boy reached over, taking the younger’s hands in his.

“Tones, why are you scratching?”

“M’itchy,” the teenager attempted to yank his arms out of the stronger grip, and Rhodey felt the shaking kick up a notch.

“Okay, man. Any ideas why you’re itchy?”

Tony simply shook his head, still struggling against the older boy’s grip. Rhodey refused to let go, alarms blaring in his mind and the worried energy in his gut clenching tightly. Suddenly, the teenager became frantic – head shaking violently, struggling and kicking. The older boy kept a tight hold on him.

“Tones? What’s up?”

“Bugs.”

“Bugs? What d’you mean bugs?”

Rhodey looked at him, perplexed and concerned. Tony twitched violently, shirt damp with sweat and his damn hands still shaking uncontrollably. Something was seriously wrong. The teenager looked up at him, brown eyes wide and face flushed a sickly pink.

“Bugs. Under my skin.”

Okay, this was not good. Pulling his friend closer, he examined his inner arms for any needle marks. This could definitely be drugged behaviour, although Tony had never acted like this when he was high before…

“Okay man, I need you to think. Have you taken anything weird? I promise I won’t be mad, Tones.”

The teenager just shook his head harder, becoming more and more frantic by the second. That’s it. Rhodey was not qualified for this shit.

“Tones, I’m gonna let you go now so I can call an ambulance. Okay?”

There was no response, but he didn’t really have to wait for one. This could just be a particularly nasty trip – maybe the kid had gotten a call from his father, gone and tried something new – but it could also be some sort of bad reaction, and Rhodey wasn’t taking any chances.

Letting Tony go, he dashed to the nearest phone, simultaneously relieved and horrified that all the kid did was continue to desperately tear at his skin with blunt nails. Dialling 911, he focussed on cataloguing Tony’s symptoms and clearly explaining the situation to the woman on the other end of the line, all the while attempting to block out his friend’s panicked mumblings, and the rough whisper of tearing skin.

The paramedics arrived not even 5 minutes later, but Tony had still managed to cover every exposed inch of skin in long, angry pink stripes – breaking it in some places and smearing traces of blood across his inflamed flesh. The image of his friend, trembling and moaning and tearing at his skin with bloodied nails as the paramedics loaded him into the ambulance… that would haunt him to his dying day, Rhodey was sure of it.

His only relief was that one kindly man asked if he would like to ride with Tony to the hospital.

He held his hands the whole way.

…

At the hospital, Rhodey spent agonising hours pacing the waiting room, stomach twisted into knots and mind blaring at him the whole time. It was almost 5am by the time a doctor came to speak to him.

“James Rhodes?”

Rhodey stepped towards the doctor, eyes locked on the woman – desperately trying to read her body language, to unravel the rigid line of her posture and find underneath it something about Tony.

Anything about Tony.

“That’s me.”

“You’re here for Anthony Stark, correct?”

Rhodey nodded, and she smiled - genuinely smiled – and a little of the tension in his gut melted at the sight.

“So, Doc, what’s the prognosis?”

“Anthony appeared to be suffering from mercury poisoning. In fact, one of the worst cases I’ve ever seen. He should be fine, although we will need to monitor him for a couple of days. Do you have any idea where he could have been exposed to a high dose of inorganic mercury recently?”

Rhodey paused, attempting to catalogue all of the information that had just been dumped on him.

“Wait. So, you’re telling me all of the shaking, the itching… he was saying there were goddamn bugs under his skin, for God’s sake! That was all from mercury poisoning?”

The doctor nodded, and her kindly smile vanished.

“As you can see, it is very serious indeed. And other people could be affected by this too, depending on how your friend was exposed to this level of mercury. You need to think – do you have any idea on how he could’ve come into contact with this?”

Tony had come back from the labs shaking…

“We’re students at MIT – Tony was in one of the science or engineering labs, working on a project. There could be other students, or professors, that were exposed to this too.”

The doctor smiled again, though her eyes looked strained.

“Thank you. We’ll sort that all out at MIT, no need to worry. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get onto that. Anthony is in room 7,” She began to walk away, but turned back after a few steps, “You’re a very good friend, James.”

…

Tony was lying in a hospital bed, his small frame dwarfed by the sterile room. He had never looked so young, and Rhodey’s heart clenched.

He took a step into the room, and suddenly Tony’s eyes were blinking open.

“Hey, platypus. How’re you doing?” His voice was soft, but regardless Rhodey felt the knot in his stomach dissolve.

Tony was okay.

It would all be okay.

So they sat, and talked together for a while - after some light chastisement on Rhodey’s part, of course. When the teenager fell asleep, the older boy made a trip back to their dorm to get some more comfortable clothing for the both of them, and a couple things to keep Tony entertained - there was no way in hell he’d let the kid leave the hospital early. So maybe this kind of thing happened too often, and maybe Rhodey’s mothering instincts were a bit too finely honed to be healthy. He knew that his life was changed forever the second this scrawny kid stumbled into it - but, somewhat surprisingly, he was okay with that. He had become an older brother, a protector, a common-sense instiller, a 24-hour revolving restaurant service and 90% of this kid’s impulse control - among other things. First and foremost though, Tony was his best friend.

And he’d never have it any other way.

[transportationunknown]

on bicycle/race

Bicycle/Race is a series of journeys. Interwoven through Adonia Lugo’s foray into the Southern California bike activism movement is her process of becoming an urban anthropologist and how she asserts her place in the movement through her identity as a Chicana. The bike movement of the 00s and early 10s was focused first and foremost on winning over hearts and minds through the traditional pathways: convincing urban planners and municipal leaders that bikes and bike lanes were worthy of respect. Also present during this time period was a gradual shift in the inclusion of race and race-based policies. Lugo struggles with the quiet exclusion of race in bicycling planning and advocacy, despite the well-archived history of transportation planning and urban renewal targeting and displacing communities of color. 

She also details her own personal struggles with approaching the field and conceptualizing her research as a Latina who is half-white. However, rather than flattening her own self in order to fit into the movement, she uses the richness of her culture to carry her through her studies, fieldwork, and ultimately build the community that both she and the movement needed. Finally, Lugo’s fieldwork and research could not be completed without the help of the communities she cultivated. In each chapter, there is a flurry of names and organizations from Portland to Bogota, from her sister Gia who inspires her interest in Spanish colonial history and moving to Los Angeles, to James Rojas, an urban planner at the forefront of Latinx urbanism, to Jakob Wolf-Barnett, her supervisor and protector at the American League of Bicyclists, and many more.

Lugo ends Bicycle/Race with a recalling of human infrastructure, her dissertation topic turned personal ethos, “…i started over in active transportation with a new focus on moving the field past tokenism like what i’d gone through. But i didn’t really start over because this time, i’m a part of a network that stretches all over the country, one that has been growing for years.” p. 190

There are three reasons for why I chose to read Bicycle/Race: 

Lugo’s place in the broader U.S. bike movement. I have a lot of personal and professional affinity with the book because of my own background in bike advocacy. Through the Boston Cyclists Union, where I spent six years of my life, I saw the gradual change, and split, from general bike advocacy to bike justice through my organization. This occurred at the same time mobility justice was making a waves, as a movement, through the UnTokening (which Lugo co-foudned). As Lugo notes in 2007, “Most bicycle advocates I met were focused on increasing public spending on bicycle-oriented street infrastructure projects.” (p. 15), and this was the focus of the movement until around 2012, as we began to see the bicycle co-opted by economic interests. 

Lugo’s background as an urban anthropologist. Anthropology will not be the basis of my second subject, however as a PhD student, Lugo’s explanations of using ethnography as her method (a process that attempts to describe and interpret social expressions between people and grounds), the development of her research ideas and dissertation, her overarching ethos, human infrastructure — which took years to conceive — and even the palpable disappointment of her first non-academic job with the League of American Bicyclists was relatable and valuable. 

Human infrastructure - the term I use to describe how social networks make particular actions seem possible or impossible. The concept formed at the intersection of my activist engagement and scholarly research. P. 114

“Culture, social networks, the people we spend time with… We carry our identities and histories with us as we mobilize into public spaces like streets, and from within our individual bodies we transmit norms and new ideas.” p. 15

Lugo’s cultural identity. Her relationship with her Chicana identity is the backbone of her research, her becoming an anthropologist , and the projects she created while being immersed in Los Angeles’ bike advocacy scene. She dedicates a few chapters of the book to only only her history, but to the history and myth of Los Angeles, which her sister (whom she looked up to) describes as the center of Chicanx culture. Lugo is sometimes as odds with her culture, as she moves across different geographies. She is also self-aware in her place and space she simultaneously inhabits and takes up in the movement, in four key cities; LA, Seattle and Portland, and D.C. As a brown woman, she incurs the same hostility from hostile neighbors and police officers in her quest to aid in the expansion of biking infrastructure, yet she also acknowledges her inherent connection to a broader economic shift: gentrification. The formation of her research, her cultural and academic background, and her status as a transplant to Los Angeles all form her consciousness as an “inner/outsider”. 

As someone who has a broad idea of what I envision my research and eventual dissertation to be, but still gets caught up in the details of how it will unfold, I appreciate Lugo sharing the evolution of her research (as stated before):

Before LA/in Portland, OR

Original research questions:

“What race and class systems limited our access to mobility?”

��Who was thinking about the street safety of the people who were usually treated like a threat to public safety?”

“…Why was cycling so low-status in southern California, when it had been a key part of Portland’s appeal?...” p.14

Original focus of dissertation: 

“The conundrum of how to promote bicycling in a place dominated by the need for speed presented a potential site for turning a dividend culture toward sustainability.” p. 14

After Portland/In LA:

Research goal: “My research goal became understanding how street contempt continued the legacy of racism and classism. My tools were bicycles, buses, trains, and my body.” p. 31 (2007)

Research gap: “This contrast between who was riding and who was the spokesperson for riding seemed like a great anthropological phenomenon to study.” p.45

(literal) Embodiment of research: “I was turning my life into my research, and in my vulnerable body, I did not see the preference for driving as something neutral. But I did want to find out what motivated other people to stay so strongly attached to it.” p.79

Research questions (born through CicLAvia):

What would it take to turn political will toward some ecologically sound but unpopular?

What would make bicycling seem like a transportation option for more people?

Topical research: During Lugo’s academic journey (2007-2013), the planning field declared Bogota and Curitiba as the poster children cities of transportation innovation due ciclovia and bus rapid transit. Lugo’s own trip to fieldwork trp Bogota as field work allowed her to envision what a ciclovia could look like in Los Angeles (eventually CicLAvia), but she is especially drawn to the reversal of geographic knowledge. Planners and advocates focused on bicycling took their cues from Northern Europe and indeed, Amsterdam and Copenhagen were the stars of the movement. Rather than continuing to learn from the global north, she decided to take lessons from the “global center” (p. 50) instead and unpack her thoughts about racism, classism, and colonialism through biking. 

Dissertation (2013): 

Body-city-machines: human infrastructure for bicycling in Los Angeles

Terminology: 

Retrofitting equity (Julian Agyeman, Tufts) - bringing in a person of color just before a project launches to fix deep-seated, structural inequities embedded within the project’s design. p.156

Invisible Riders (Dan Koeppel, Bicycling Magazine and eventually, Julian Agyeman) - term given to bicyclists who rode under the radar of the public and the police. Often were men of color (Latinx), lower-income, and immigrants. Lugo protests against this term and argues that it aids in further marginalization and prefers the term, “core riders”.

Core Riders (Stephanie Pollack, Northeastern) - same population as the invisible, but a more neutral moniker.

Sacred places/profane people - title of the chapter and also a term Lugo uses to address both planning and bike advocacy’s hidden racial biases. Parking Day was used as an example here where Lugo and a teammate set up a parking spot near MacArthur Park and were harassed by

I have chosen to not go into Lugo’s experience after leaving Los Angeles and moving to Portland to finish her dissertation and eventual hiring as the Equity Initiative Manager at the American League of Bicyclists, as while that was integral to her life, the embedding of her research in the community she worked was more useful to me. Also, I know what it’s like to be tokenized in this field, so…

[pink-spaceturtle5]

James

Full Name: James Alexander TurnerGender and Sexuality: Trans male, bisexualPronouns: He/himEthnicity/Species: Human/superpowered human, whiteBirthplace and Birthdate: Portland, Oregon on June 1st 1998Guilty Pleasures: Outraging Glitter by pretending not to know minute details of the first 2 Terminator movies, despite knowing them nearly as well as she doesPhobias: Hand mutilation, hurting someone innocent or by accidentWhat They Would Be Famous For: He would be famous as a superhero, but he doesn’t want fame nearly as much as Glitter or Becca do.What They Would Get Arrested For: He is a good boy and would never get arrested, but if he did, it would probably be for protesting, I guessOC You Ship Them With: Frances and GeneOC Most Likely To Murder Them: Hologram againFavorite Movie/Book Genre: ‘80s action moviesLeast Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: Bury your gays, gender nonconforming villains, childhood best friends seemingly doomed to a romantic subplot with each otherTalents and/or Powers: Can throw any object as far as he could naturally carry it (ex. can’t throw a car, but could throw a baseball or other small, light object almost indefinitely, could throw a heavy box of books about 1-2 blocks, etc.), and I want to give him some sort of laser powers, but I’m not sure how to incorporate them rn, tbh. Why Someone Might Love Them: He is calm, patient, caring, practical, and rational, but also protective and funny.Why Someone Might Hate Them: He tends to go too far in trying to protect people because he’s used to babysitting a chaotic neutral “younger sister”, and he has difficulty befriending people in general, often coming across as cold or disinterested, when in reality, he just doesn’t know how to initiate friendships or talk to people besides his childhood best friend. The only reason why he and Glitter became friends at all was because she thought he was nice, and either didn’t notice or didn’t care if he seemed disinterested in her, because she liked him as a friend. This obviously ends up being a good thing, because he actually very badly wanted friends growing up, but just wasn’t sure how to go about talking to people.How They Change: He becomes less dependent on Glitter after her temporary disappearance, and after his daughter shows up, he learns how to be responsible in a parental way, not just a dadfriend way. Even before Glitter disappears, he gradually learns to open up more to the people within the friend group Frances has cultivated that he and Glitter find themselves in.Why You Love Them: I love the relationship that he has with Glitter, and the dadfriend energies he unknowingly radiates, despite not being very good with people. He and his best friend have become very dependent on each other for different reasons, and while it’s good that they have such a close connection, it’s also unhealthy for them to depend so much on each other for the same specific things, but never on themselves or anyone else, and it’s helpful for me to be able to use that connection to vent. James has had to spend most of his life since he was 9 years old and lost his parents, learning how to read and take care of a very angry, unstable, and seemingly random person, someone who would never in a million years outright hurt him, but does cause him stress in ways that seem almost subtle after years and years of dealing with it from the predicaments she gets herself in. At the same time, Glitter exhausts herself protecting him from everything and everyone who wants to do him harm in any way, to the point where she stops taking care of herself because a) James’ welfare is a higher priority, and b) he takes care of her anyways, so why should she bother? He in turn is rather inept at protecting himself because a) Glitter’s welfare is more important, and b) she’s there to protect him anyways, so why bother? Their relationship is symbiotic, but it does veer into codependency fairly quickly, even when they have other significant relationships in their lives, including their own romantic partners, neither of them realize that it’s unhealthy until she disappears to save him and they’re both forced to spend 4 years apart, so James has to figure out how he fits into this world without his best friend/protector/ward. Their friendship is, first and foremost, and friendship, and they have traditions and jokes and support each other the way that best friends should, but it’s difficult to characterize one of them without the context of the other. Idk, James is just a really good character for me to project my frustrations onto, and I love how caring and responsible he is. 

Thank you for the ask!!! <3

[alnwickcastleofficial]

Alnwick Castle’s Gunpowder Plotter

If you’ve been watching Gunpowder on BBC One over the past few weeks, you’ve probably heard the names ‘Thomas Percy’ and ‘Northumberland’ – one was a Gunpowder Plotter alongside Kit Harington’s Catesby, and the other part of King James’ council. But Northumberland – or Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland – and Thomas were also both strongly connected to Alnwick Castle. One was its lord and owner, and Thomas was its Constable.

Thomas, who was born in Yorkshire in 1560, was a distant cousin of the 9th Earl; they shared a great-great-grandfather, but while Thomas’ father was a country squire, he was proud of his Percy ancestry. Growing up near Beverley where the family had had great influence, he may have heard stories of famous rebellious forebears like Harry Hotspur, or another Thomas, beheaded for his Catholic faith by Elizabeth I.

He was probably given the role of Constable by the 9th Earl around 1594. Northumberland was looking for someone active, and high-profile, to be his most important northern official; the fact Thomas was a Percy was an advantage, but probably not the only reason for getting the job.

Being Constable of Alnwick Castle meant being an official at the highest level – the Constable was directly responsible to the Earl of Northumberland himself.

Thomas and the earl were similar ages, and both had been reckless and adventurous young men. Thomas once wrote to his cousin about “the errors and idle vanities of my youth”.

When Thomas arrived in Alnwick, he would have been a large, tall man with a blonde streak of hair. There was considerable trouble on the border between England and Scotland at this time, and so one of his first acts was ensuring the tenants of Alnwick had equipped themselves with helmets, shields, pikes and horses so they could defend their interests, and those of the earl, from Scottish attack. He also had to make sure Alnwick Castle had enough brewing, kindling, horse fodder, bedding and other supplies.

However, Thomas himself was suspected of allying with Scotland several times. One of his servants, a man called Davidson, was accused of joining with Scotland, and Thomas himself supposedly sold the bell of Warkworth Castle to the captain of a Scottish ship.

Eventually, Thomas became a messenger of the earl to the court of King James VI in Edinburgh on behalf of English Catholics.

Thomas’ religious beliefs were one reason to take on this role. Though probably not the most devout of the Gunpowder Plotters, he was a Catholic, and both he and the earl hoped for increased tolerance of private Catholic practices once James became King in England too.

(Northumberland himself is known to have said he did not trouble himself much over religion.)

Other reasons why Thomas became a messenger to the Scottish court included Alnwick’s proximity to Edinburgh, his great skill as a horseman, and the fact he had served with the earl’s predecessor as a young man – and the 8th Earl was likely a supporter of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Thomas made the trip across the border several times, and it seems that assurances had been made that James would consider some kind of Catholic tolerance in England. Perhaps his failure to do so was what provoked Thomas to join Catesby and the Plotters.

Most of Thomas’ time as Constable of Alnwick Castle appears to have been spent on horseback, travelling around the earl’s territories, chasing thieves and collecting rents. He would write regularly to the earl – his last letter surviving in Alnwick Castle’s archives is dated 19th September, 1605, just a few weeks before Gunpowder, and mentions meeting Northumberland in London on Thomas’ next visit – but by 1602 the earl’s other officials were also writing to complain about Thomas’ behaviour.

Complaints included the unjust imprisonment of tenants in Alnwick Castle, taking bribes, and constantly interfering in matters beyond Alnwick that did not concern him.

The 9th Earl seems to have trusted Thomas, however; at least in his early years as Constable. Surviving letters have him described as “my trusty and well-beloved cousin” and “my loving cousin Thomas Percy esquire”.

Thomas’ letters were studied by former Alnwick Castle Archivist, Colin Shrimpton, for the 400th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot. Shrimpton describes Thomas as ‘a man of great mood swings. It is hard to put your finger on it, but there is an underlying feeling that he was up to something.’

He definitely was – as we know from the Gunpowder series, Thomas took a leading role in the plan to blow up King James and the Houses of Parliament. Star Chamber, the official court based in the Palace at Westminster at the time, described him as ‘one of the principal conspirators in this… abominable treason’.

(Thomas was also married to Martha Wright, the sister of two other Plotters, John and Christopher Wright.)

As seen in Gunpowder, Thomas leased the storerooms under the Lords’ Chamber where Parliament would meet on the 5th November, 1605, and gave Guy Fawkes (using the name John Johnson) to oversee storage of gunpowder and wood there. Thomas also had a watch delivered to Fawkes for correctly timing the lighting of the fuse, but this detail has been changed for the series, as you will see if you watch the final episode!

Thomas himself arrived in London on the 1st November, after collecting various rents in the north, and on the 4th November, he met the 9th Earl of Northumberland at Syon House, one of his London properties (and one that still belongs to the Percys today). Thomas and the earl ate together on the 4th, and probably discussed Border matters, but we don’t know if Thomas also warned his cousin and employer about the Plot and what was going to happen the following day.

Unfortunately for the 9th Earl, having dinner with Thomas the day before Fawkes was discovered underneath Parliament with the gunpowder implicated him in the Plot, whether he was actually involved or knew about it or not.

Evidence given against the earl in the court proceedings following the discovery of the Plot state that on “the Monday [Thomas] went to Syon and then had secret conference with the Earl. And that Monday at 11 o’clock at night Percy sent Robert Keyes, one other of the said traitors, with a clock or watch unto Fawkes”.

One nobleman who was warned about the Gunpowder Plot was Lord Monteagle, who received a letter warning him not to attend Parliament on the 5th November. The Monteagle Letter ultimately led to the discovery and foiling of the Plot, and Thomas, who was an acquaintance of Monteagle, was at one time suspected of having written this letter. If this was true, it would follow that he had also warned his cousin the earl, and that even if the earl was not actively involved in the Plot, he was suspected of knowing about it.

However, Mark Nicholls of Cambridge University notes that the 9th Earl had travelled into London from Syon on the evening of the 4th, and his robes had been prepared for attending Parliament the following day, so perhaps he did not know anything about the Plot. It certainly appeared like he was not intending to avoid it.

When the Plot was discovered, Thomas and the other Plotters fled. On the 7th November, at Holbeach Hall in Staffordshire, a single shot killed both him and another Plotter. Some sources say this was Catesby; he and Thomas were standing back to back defending themselves, and the bullet went through one man and into the other, killing both. Thomas’ head was then cut off and exhibited in London.

When news of the Plot, and Thomas’ involvement in it, reached the region where he had been Constable, one man – George Whitehead, from Tynemouth Castle – proclaimed ‘I wish to God he had never been born.’

Thomas was now dead, but the Earl of Northumberland was still under suspicion. He was immediately suspected of involvement because, as Shrimpton states, he was ‘the Plotters’ likely chosen regent for the realm had the Plot succeeded’.

Nicholls agrees, noting that investigators were ‘convinced that so audacious a plan had wider ramifications’ and arrested several noblemen with known connections to the Plotters. The earl was one of these, and though Nicholls argues the Plotters had not definitively chosen a Lord Protector for their new realm (they had hoped to raise King James’ daughter Elizabeth as a Catholic Queen), Northumberland was a likely candidate. He was ‘a privy councillor, a member of the old nobility, a wealthy man and, though himself a Protestant, representative of one of the foremost Catholic families in England’.

Northumberland was arrested at Syon and taken straight away to Lambeth Palace for questioning before being transferred to the Tower of London (if you watch Gunpowder you may not see this take place on screen!). Star Chamber alleged he was part of the Plot because of his kinship with Thomas Percy, their meeting at Syon on the 4th November, and that while the Plotters were fleeing, the earl’s main concern was not that Thomas was apprehended, but that he didn’t steal his recently collected rents on the way!

The final charge against Northumberland was Thomas’ appointment as a Gentleman Pensioner, the select group of bodyguards that attended the King on ceremonial occasions. The earl was captain of the Gentleman Pensioners, and may have given Thomas the honoured role as reward for his journeys to James’ Scottish court. However, Thomas had never been made to swear the oath of loyalty that went with the position, and the fact that he, now a known would-be killer of the King, had been allowed to carry a poleaxe in James’ presence without having sworn any oath of loyalty was not favourable to Northumberland’s innocence.

(The fact Thomas’ appointment as a Gentleman Pensioner coincided with the time he committed himself to the Gunpowder Plot must not have helped the earl’s case.)

The Star Chamber report explains the situation: ‘he did either maliciously or negligently prefer Thomas Percy, an obstinate papist, into the king’s service to attend as a pensioner; and put an axe of defence into his hands that had formerly sworn to kill the king. To this the earl answered that he had trusted him long and knew no ill in him in that time.’

Thomas Percy was the only man who could clear Northumberland’s name – or condemn him – or in the words of the time, show him ‘clear as the day, or dark as the night’. In fact, the first messengers to reach London from Holbeach reported Thomas was only wounded, not dead. The 9th Earl asked for an immediate examination to take place to show his innocence – but Thomas was dead, and so this could not be done.

The report from Star Chamber declares that ‘some of the lords said that they had known some others convicted of treason upon lesser and more weak presumptions than these. And what this case deserved in regard of that most execrable powder treason, let all nations be mindful, for no tongue can express what ruin and desolation both nocent and innocent had tasted’.

Reports that Thomas had told one of the other Plotters that ‘if the business did miscarry, the Earl of Northumberland would curse him’ must have also counted against his cousin Henry. The 9th Earl of Northumberland was condemned to prison.

The 9th Earl spent nearly 17 years as a prisoner in the Tower of London, but maintained he was innocent throughout. He was also fined £30,000, an enormous sum of money to be raised from his estates.

However, he lived in very comfortable conditions for a prisoner. He could control his own diet, with everything from wine to lamprey pies being delivered to him from Syon. He had his library transferred to his cell, and built both a laboratory for his alchemy experiments and a schoolroom for his two sons to be educated in. His horse was brought up from his Sussex estate for him to inspect and ride, and he could go for walks on pathways he had re-gravelled. He could play games with his sons, bowl in the bowling alley made for his cell, and study military tactics with them using lead soldiers. He also set up a counting house for his auditors just outside the Tower, and could survey and map his lands, leading to a full involvement in the management of his estate that meant he could afford the £30,000 for his release.

By 1622, the earl was free, but confined to his estate in Sussex. He never visited Alnwick Castle again. The Gunpowder Plot, described at the time as ‘that most execrable and dampened powder treason, whereby the political head and many of the principal members of this commonwealth… should at one instant have been suddenly blown up and dismembered to the utter ruin of the whole monarchy’, had had a lasting effect on the castle, and its family. As the 9th Earl’s brother Josceline put it, there is ‘seldom treason without a Percy’.

The final episode of Gunpowder is broadcast on BBC One on Saturday 4th November, or is available to stream with the whole series on BBC iPlayer.

Gunpowder: Trailer - BBC One

[keensers]

i do very much want more rambling about the 'flint being a shared persona' concept if you are alright with it bc holy shit dude

dear anon, thank you (and also cynthia @reluming) for asking! so the ‘james and miranda together are Captain Flint’ concept is really kind of a half-formed idea that i’ve really only rambled to @sidewaystime and @hellaarabella about, but it’s based in the notion that “captain flint” is simultaneously both

(1) a legend / name with accompanying mythology, initially created by james mcgraw and miranda hamilton out of a shared grief and rage and perpetuated by both of them in concert (i’m calling this Captain Flint) (2) the person who bears that legend / name, typically james mcgraw.

relevant pieces of canon: miranda and james create Captain Flint together (i think that’s part of why she says she was first and foremost “mother” to him: mother as caretaker, but also mother as maker). people think “the barlow woman” is a witch who controls Captain Flint with her dark dark evil ways; even eleanor wonders, “what do you have over him that makes what i’ve seen possible,” to which miranda responds, “you don’t know what you’ve seen.” then, because of charlestown, james totally fucking loses himself in Captain Flint from 2.10 to 3.05 (or arguably 3.03), when silver is able to fish him out again. after that, Captain Flint is more managed, more controlled, still comprised of rage, but not completely overtaking james mcgraw.

now, let’s dissect this. james says that “every day he’s worn that name, he’s hated him a little bit more” – there’s been some excellent meta written about how james mcgraw and captain flint aren’t quite as separate as certain people want to believe, but for my purposes, that’s an in-series conflation of #1 and #2 above. i think that the name changes the man, and it changes him more when he bears it alone. that’s why he gets entirely swallowed by it in the wake of miranda’s death: even as a partner who wasn’t with him all the time, who by her own acknowledgment wasn’t a “full partner” until they decide to take abigail ashe back to carolina, miranda was still carrying some of the burden of his actions. she helped orchestrate the murder of alfred hamilton, (which is pretty much seen as Captain Flint’s darkest deed up until charlestown, because james lets people believe it’s just a senseless murder. even at its most understandable, it’s still a flat-out revenge killing) and there’s an acknowledgment of shared responsibility (“we allowed that anger to drive us”). when miranda and james set out to meet peter bag-of-dicks ashe, Captain Flint is something being directly created and mythologized by both of them. they’re both holding up the weight – think about that lovely shot we get of her standing behind his chair in the captain’s cabin, like a protector. i think that’s one reason why james can say to abigail ashe, “my name is james mcgraw.” (how long had it been since he said that name???) miranda’s presence allows that to happen – Captain Flint is lighter when james isn’t the only one responsible for maintaining him. it’s also why, when they’re acting as True Partners, miranda and james can still “recognize” each other as the people at the human center of the legend they made.

needless to say, going from having a full partner to holding up the legend alone fucks james up. he commits probably his worst atrocities in those episodes (which probably span a few months at least) where he’s carrying Captain Flint entirely on his own shoulders. then, when silver “opens the door” and becomes a True Partner to james, he also takes some of the weight of Captain Flint, and it becomes a shared persona once more. silver does this consciously, too – he says that the mind of Captain Flint is “in some ways incorporated into his own.” and we see james, in s4 (and even late s3) feel much lighter. not having to carry Captain Flint / being able to share a partnership means that the weight of the legend is no longer something he bears alone. i think there’s also a tie-in with madi’s “the crown is always a burden, but it cannot be borne if you cannot stand” speech – flint has accepted silver as a partner and trusted him to help hold up Captain Flint, but silver is holding up his own legend by himself. the burden of the “crown” which madi talks about is the burden of something greater than you are, and it’s something flint accepts but silver never does. he never truly returns flint’s trust, so he’s holding up Long John Silver on his own until madi offers herself as a partner, and even then he never fully trusts her (or flint) to help him, which i think is part of why Long John Silver as a name / legend is so fucking terrifying to him and why he sheds it as soon as he can. 

anyway, i hope that made sense! discussion and debate is of course welcome, since as i said, this is all kind of half-baked :)

[authorivansanchez]

In Loving Memory of Johnny Torres 2/21/1969 – 3/27/2019

First and foremost, our family would like to thank everyone who has been supportive throughout this very difficult time in our lives, which in all honesty has caught us way off guard.

We want to thank everyone who came out to the hospital to wish Johnny a peaceful transition into his next journey. Everyone who called, wrote messages, donated money to his Go Fund Me. And to everyone who has shed tears over the last 5, 6, 7 days. But more so, everyone who has laughed over that same time period, at some silly memory of Johnny, which surely popped into your head, when you least expected it.

Let’s not forget who Johnny was, as we celebrate his life over the next few days. It’s completely understandable for all of us to mourn this tremendous loss, but please let’s not lose sight of who Johnny was at the core of his soul.

A man who would take the worst moments in life, and find some funny shit to say, to ensure that everyone’s pain was eased, if only just for a moment.  

I want to take a second to ask you all to have some patience with me, and to please send some positive vibes up here, so that I can get through this.

Though I’ve written several eulogies for my friends and family over the years. I’ve never had the courage or strength to read them out loud. 

However, for my brother Johnny, my lifelong protector, my mentor in many facets of life, and my heart. I must find the courage to honor him by standing in front of you all today and sharing a little bit about what Johnny meant to us all.

There’s a saying by Maya Angelou that states, “One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous or honest…”

For those of you who don’t know. I’ve drawn more courage from the Torres family, than I could ever explain. Through that courage, they’ve allowed me to flourish to my full potential. For that reason, I’ll do everything in my power to honor Johnny, and all of his loved ones, properly with my words.

To honor the love his mother Vilma, his father Herman Sr., his wife Mickey, his daughter Alyssa, his son Tristan, his granddaughters Gemma and Geanna, his brothers Herman Jr. and James, and his sisters, Valerie and Tabby, all hold very deeply in the depths of their souls and hearts.

Of course, we’re Puerto Rican, so while I’d love to mention everyone in the family by name, all Johnny’s nieces, nephews, cousins, aunts, uncles, friends, and the list goes on and on…

We would run out of time. Boricuas don’t die… We multiply. There are thousands of us... 

I did tell Mickey I needed 6 hours to speak about Johnny today, but she cut my time down to 4 hours, so let’s get into this celebration of Johnny’s life…

Johnny was born in the Manhattan, NY on Feb. 21st 1969, under the zodiac sign Pisces.

For those of you who follow the signs, “There is nothing weak about a Pisces. They have the heart of a soldier, and when it comes to family and friends, they would do anything…”

Let’s pause there for a moment…Because I want you all to process those words... 

And let me repeat that last sentence, “When it comes to family and friends, they would do anything…”

Sound like the Johnny we all know and love?

When you talk about Pisces being soldiers. Johnny was born into a world that was surrounded by drugs, poverty, despair, violence, extreme violence, with over 1,000 murders in NYC recorded in 1969.

The Vietnam War was still going on, the battle of Hamburger Hill happened in 1969. And let’s not forget the race riots breaking out Down South, but also in places like Chicago, and even right next door to NY, in places like York, PA, where an African American woman named Lillie Belle Allen was murdered by two white men, simply for the color of her skin.

Why should any of this matter to anyone in this room?

It matters because Johnny, our brother, our family member, our friend. Had no choice but to be a soldier being born into circumstances like these. Being born into a world in which the odds of survival were already stacked against him from the very moment of his birth. 

But do you know what Johnny had working in his favor?

He had a mother, like my Titi Vilma. And a father like my Uncle Herman, who were going to raise him to be a man of compassion, empathy, conviction, loyalty and honor.

Did Johnny have demons he had to battle throughout his 50 years here on this earth? Hell yes.

And who amongst us, sitting in this room today hasn’t battled demons, from the moment we realized this world, at times, can be a cruel and cold place, for reasons outside of our control? 

But today isn’t about that...

Today is about the fact that Johnny lived his life completely encompassed in love. Walking the earth with a heart so big, he sometimes didn’t know where to direct all his love, or even how to control it.

I can tell you in his early years, if you look at the pictures on the slide show, that he showered his family with unconditional love.

I can tell you that in so many of the pictures I’ve been looking at over the last few days, that his smile is infectious. It’s ever-present, it never leaves his face, even when we all know he had an underlying pain he was dealing with throughout life... 

It’s as if he believed his jokes, his smile, and his laughter, would erase any and all pain he had. While at the same time erasing the pain of anyone and everyone around him.

And guess what, that shit worked a lot. It worked more times than not. 

And that’s why I don’t want to cry all day today. I will cry, when the pain becomes too great. But I’ll also laugh and smile as Johnny would’ve wanted us all to do...

So, we’re talking about Johnny. And we’re talking about love…

So, who do we need to speak about next?

His partner of almost 33 years. Michelle... 

Johnny and Mickey met on August 1, 1986. She told me it’s hard to put into words why she fell so deeply in love with him.

But she recalls when she first saw him at a party, she was like, “Wow, he’s so fine…”

Mickey made it a point to say, “Fine,” was a 1986 term most of you young bucks might not remember. It means gorgeous, hot, cute, adorable... Basically Johnny was litty two titty... 

When Mick found out that a mutual friend, Myrna, knew Johnny, she asked her to introduce them…

They started talking, and one day Johnny walked her home...

And if any of you know what taking that long ass walk up suicide hill was like; you’d know immediately Johnny must’ve really thought Mickey was just as fine…

Cause all the guys in here who grew up in Kingsbridge, will attest to the fact, that we did not, I repeat we did not, walk girls up that damn hill unless they were worth it…

Anyway, during that first walk home, Mickey gets the courage to tell Johnny how “fine” he was.

She told him she was attracted to him and she wanted to see if this “thing” could go somewhere.

Mickey shared with me that when they got to the top of that God forsaken hill, Johnny gave her the most amazing, most beautiful spearmint flavored kiss she’d ever experienced.

And the story of Johnny & Michelle was born. She fell in love with him at that very moment. She never looked back. She never questioned her heart... For her it was unexplained, but it was just right... No words needed! 

For me personally, hearing a story like this, tells me, this was more than just love. It was more like, “I’ve known you in another lifetime kind of love.” It was more of a, “No matter how hard life may become along the way, I’m going to have your back, and I need you to have mine…”

It’s the love only soulmates share.

There’s a saying by Emery Allen, which reads, “I feel like a part of my soul has loved you since the beginning of everything. Maybe we’re from the same star…”

In my heart, and the hearts of most in this room. We all know that Johnny and Mickey certainly came from the same star.

And I promise you Mickey, when it’s your turn to transition back to that star. Your soulmate Johnny will be right there waiting for you with open arms, with his warmth, his love, his familiarity and most importantly with his spearmint flavored kisses.

We all know there’s good and bad in every relationship, right?

But again, we’re here today to focus on the good.

And for Mickey, the good was Johnny’s heart, the fact that he could always make her laugh. The fact that he was thoughtful, nice, loving and that she could never get enough of him. Even after 32 plus years, she could simply never get enough of this big hearted man. A man we’re all sitting here honoring for that very same reason…  His heart.

Johnny taught me a lot in life. But he never taught me how to ensure a woman could never get enough of me. Shit, my last wife had gotten so much of me she stabbed me four times to get rid of me... So, I’m a little upset with you Cuz. You should’ve taught me how to keep em’ wanting me... Not wanting to get rid of my ass… Regardless, I forgive you for that one.  

Michelle, I don’t think anyone in this room can love or appreciate you more for loving Johnny as you did! We all thank you for loving him so unconditionally, so unapologetically, so wholly and so perfectly, like only his true soulmate could have.

I know from what you’ve written to me and our conversations that you feel robbed right now. That you feel cheated, out of the time you still feel owed, to have shared so many more memories on this earth with Johnny. And if anyone deserved that wish to be granted it would be you.

I wish I had answers for you on why God chose to take Johnny at this time. But remember, he’s a soldier. In life. And now he’s a soldier in the afterlife.

I have no doubts, as he makes this peaceful transition that he’ll be pushing every other angel out of the way to stand right behind God. In true Johnny fashion he’ll say, “God listen. I don’t have time to stand behind all these other soldiers and angels you have up here. I’m built for this. So, if you don’t mind, I’m just going to stand right here next to you and fight whatever evil we need to fight together…”

I’d like to repeat to you Mickey, that this is not the end. It’s the beginning of his transition back to that star.

That same star you both emerged from, as light and energy, before you ever met here on earth in the physical form. And I promise you that your soulmate Johnny, will be right there waiting for you, with open arms, with his warmth, his love, his familiarity and most importantly with his spearmint flavored kisses.

To the rest of my family here today. Please know the same is true for all of us. Johnny will be right there, with big golden wings on, which he may or may not have earned just yet. Waiting for all of us, when we’re called on to enter the next phase of our journey.

With all of that said, I’d like to share a few of my memories, that I have with Johnny. So that those who don’t know what he meant to me, can understand that our relationship was just as special as his relationship with everyone in this room.

He loved us all the same. Even when he might’ve been a little upset with us at times. His love still managed to shine through it all.

So, Johnny taught me how to drive stick shift in his RX7. I think I was about 16. After about a 30 minutes lesson in Hunts Point, he gave me the keys to go to Fordham Rd, with one of my little Kingsbridge girlfriends.

After spending like an hour on Fordham, I had to call him because I couldn’t figure out how to turn the car back on. Something about holding down the clutch, break, whatever, whatever, at the same time. Stick is still confusing to me. I didn’t get that gift from Herman or Johnny…

Next, he gave me the keys to his Cutlass. I think it was white, had a system and rims. And I took a ride with one of my first true loves (another Kingsbridge girl) up to Riverdale. I never told Johnny, I ended up driving his car down the wrong side of the street… I smoked a little too much weed that night. And yes, I inhaled. Thank God I didn’t crash his prized possession…Not sure he would’ve forgiven me.

Another thing I think everyone in here can attest to, besides Johnny having a heart of gold, was, DO NOT COMPLIMENT JOHNNY ON ANYTHING FOR ANY REASON…

Do you all know why?

It wasn’t that he didn’t like compliments. It was that if I complimented Johnny, on anything. anything, anything, anything, and I do mean anything he’d want you to have it…

If I said, “Yo Cuz, I love that sweater,” He’d take the shit off and give it to me.” “Yo Cuz, I love that Yankee fitted hat,” Same thing, he’d take it off and give it to me.

“Yo Cuz, the sound system in your car is ridiculous…” And what do you think he did?

Yep, he took my purple Jeep Wrangler, and came back a few hours later with it. He’d taken the entire system out of his own car and put it in my Jeep.

His response, “Yo Cuz, we can’t go to the PR parade with a Jeep and no system…”

Poor Mickey. She probably went to get in the car to drive to work that Monday morning, put a CD in, and ended up watching the CD drop into a hole into the dashboard…

I’m sorry Mick…

Johnny also taught me how to take a punch. Herman did, my brother Will did, Big Rich did, they all did… To this day, you can hit me with a baseball bat and I’ll just look at you like, “Was that supposed to hurt?”

So, we all worked down on 42 Broadway, printing stock exchange reports. Big Rich thought it would be funny to write in the girl’s bathroom, “For a good time call Johnny…” And Richie wrote Johnny’s real beeper number on the message…”

Later that morning, some girls from another office come into our work area and say, “Hey Johnny we’re gonna call you later Papi…”

And when he found out why they were saying that, he was not very happy… He didn’t think that shit was funny…

Since I was always the one running around writing graffiti on everything. Big Richie got me punched in the eye that day, real hard. But almost as soon as Johnny saw my eye grow to the size of a golf ball, he hugged me and told me he loved me. And I loved him too. So, it was what it was. I just walked around for a week telling people I got jumped… Followed up by, “But you should see the other guy…”  

We learned a valuable lesson that day. 1. You can’t fight at work, even if it’s with family. And 2. You can’t tell the boss, “Go fuck yourself, mind your business, this is family business…” Because that might get you fired.

I took the blame for a long time for Johnny losing that job. But I’m here to set the record straight, “Richie, that ones on you my brother…”

There as another time, I was on Creston Ave, and Johnny picks me up in the most beautiful, light blue, 4 door Toyota Camry, with rims and a system.

We drove back to the block and met up with a fleet of cars. Spent the night driving all around the city. Herman was in a Toyota 1.8, I think, blasting Keith Sweat. Me and Johnny were blasting Al B. Sure… These tough guys from C.Y.C (Crazy Young Criminals), blasting slow jams, and tearing up the highways of NY, with like 5 or 6 cars with the hazard lights on so we wouldn’t lose each other in the nighttime traffic.

I remember complimenting Johnny over and over about how proud I was of him for getting such a nice car.

I complimented him hard on that car. Hoping he’d give me the keys.

Long story short, at one point the cops were onto our fleet of cars, trying to find out what the hell we were doing in Manhattan, driving around like lunatics.

Johnny turns to me and says, “Yo Cuz, if they pull us over ruuuuuuuuuuun…”

“Run, for what,” I said, mad confused.

“Nigga you know this car ain’t mine…”

It still makes me laugh to this day. That I’d been complimenting him all night on a car he “borrowed…”

Cause everyone in here knows, we never really stole anything. We “borrowed,” a lot of shit. But we almost always gave it back when we were done with it. Or at least left it somewhere to be found.

I seriously thought a screw driver was a key to a car, until I was like 18 years old.

Again, we NEVER stole anything. We just borrowed things along the way…

I don’t want to mention any names of the guys involved in us “borrowing,” cars all over the Bronx. But you all know who you are. My brother Will, Frankie, Herman, Joey, Big Rich, and a bunch of the other guys from the neighborhood.

Kingsbridge was our playground. And we played a lot.

And Johnny, my sweet Cousin Johnny… Man, did he live his life his way.

There are 8 million stories in NYC. And Johnny lived through about 7,999,999 of em. So, I’m only going to share one more with you that happened outside of the City.

In order for you to all understand that Johnny did leave the block once or twice in his life.  

Johnny comes to visit me in Virginia Beach with Mickey. I get my boy Joe Q to take us out on his boat. Johnny wants to swim, and my boy tells him it’s not a good idea. There’s mad Jelly Fish in the water. What do you all think Johnny did?

Yep, he stripped down to his underwear, he dove off the back of the boat, and the second he hit the water, I heard him screaming for his life…

As many times as Herman and Johnny saved my life throughout the years. I wasn’t going in the water. So, I just rooted him on while laughing uncontrollably. “Johnny, swim for your life, swim faster, swim faster… Hurry up…”

By the time he got back on the boat, he had Jelly fish stings everywhere. We cracked a beer and laughed our asses off. On the drive back to the house, he said, “Yo Cuz, I love you, but I gotta get back to the block tonight…”

I was confused, hurt, angry… He was only in Virginia Beach for a few hours and he was leaving. He called Mickey and told her to be ready. Ran into the house, changed and hit the road, right back to the block. To his home. To his place of comfort.  

It seems like Johnny was always afraid he was going to miss something in the neighborhood. And we had to understand that about him, and we had to love that about him.

If there’s anything we all need to leave here with today. It’s this……… For all the demons he fought in this lifetime. Understand this man’s heart was straight gold.

Whether him and Big Smooth were behind PS122, buying out the entire ice cream truck, to give all the kids in the neighborhood a treat. Whether he was giving his last five bucks to a homeless person, or anyone in need. Whether he was taking the shirt off his back just because you made the mistake of saying you liked it.

Johnny’s heart was pure fucking gold… The purest of the pure… Puro!  

When he talked about Alyssa and Tristan his eyes lit up. When he spoke of his grand kids, his eyes lit up. When he spoke about Mickey, his eyes welled up with tears sometimes. Knowing he’d made mistakes, that he could never make up for. But his eyes equally lit up with love, knowing he’d found his one person in this lifetime, who he’d also met in his last lifetime, and who he will meet again in the next.

When he spoke about Mommy, Pops, Herman, Val and everyone else in his family. It was always love. Even when there were tough times, arguments, disagreements, fights. He was always going to lead us all right back to a place of love… Because that was his heart.

He did that today. For many of us. Led us right back here. To each other… To love!

Whether he was putting on a devil mask, to scare the shit out of Herman, and make him run from the showing screaming butt naked. Or putting some nasty shit in your sandwich when you weren’t looking, or doing anything silly to make his family and friends laugh… That was Johnny. That was Johnny. That was Johnny…

I was thinking about him the other night. And for some stranger reason this movie-like vision popped into my head. I could hear him arguing with whoever gives out wings to the angels when they first arrive in Heaven.

Johnny was literally arguing with the Angel. Telling him or her that he didn’t want the little baby wings, the wings all the newbies get. He didn’t even want the medium sized wings, which the angels who have put in work get. He wanted the big joints. He saw them. He saw that they were large, golden, powerful and beautiful. And he knew he deserved them, so he argued with the angel in charge, to at least let him try them on.

“Come on son, let me try em’ on… Just for fun…”  

But in true Johnny fashion, he wasn’t giving them shits back. He just walked away with the big boy wings and bounced back to the Astral Plane.

He did not steal them, my people… He just borrowed em’… And guess what, they belong to him… He earned em’ in life, and he’ll earn them as he moves on into the next phase of his spirits existence.

For those of you who have never heard of the Astral Plane, Google it. It’s basically, “The world of the celestial spheres, crossed by the soul in its astral body on the way to being born and after death. And is generally believed to be populated by angels, spirits or other immaterial beings…”

This isn’t to disrespect any religion here. But this is more about spirituality. The greatest minds to ever walk the earth, Steve Hawking’s, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Einstein, Tesla, they all believed in the Astral Plane. And that’s why I’ve studied it. And that’s why I believe in it…  

What it means is, our spirits use this place as a meeting space, before we’re given life, and after we’ve moved on in the physical form. It means, our journey never ends.

And for most of the people in this room. I think you can understand that Johnny has only moved on, in the physical form, but his spirit is everywhere. Everywhere that he needs to be right now. That’s where he is.  

He’s with his grand baby Geanna, talking to her at night, letting her know he’s OK. And trying his best to bring her comfort. He probably keeps asking for soda, that’s why she’s leaving some out for him at night.

He’s with Mommy when she needs him most. With Pops, with Mickey, Herman, Val, Tabby, Alyssa, Tristan and Gemma.

Please believe me when I tell you… He’s with us all…

He’s already sent messages. He’s already let us know he’s sorry. Sorry for what exactly, those who need to know, know. The rest of us can assume, perhaps he’s sorry we’re here in pain. Or sorry he didn’t go to the doctor a little sooner, or sorry that he’s not here in the physical, any longer, to help comfort us.

Regardless of what it is he’s sorry about, in true Johnny fashion. He wanted us all to know that he is sorry for some things. This will allow him to find his peace. The peace he needs to transition on, and play his new role, as an angel, to the best of his abilities…

When you feel alone, just speak to him. He hears you. He hears us all right now, in this very moment. He’s here with us. And he is finding peace in the fact that he brought us all back together… Because that’s who he was. And that’s who he is!

I want to thank my Uncle Herman and Titi Vilma, for raising him with that amazing heart. And for passing that heart on too many of us, even myself, in many aspects of my life.  

I tell people a story all the time. If Titi Vilma had 4 pork chops, and 12 guys from the neighborhood upstairs hungry, she’d cut those pork chops into 12 pieces, so that everyone could eat.

If we all needed a place to sleep, it was about grabbing a pillow, a sheet, a blanket, use your coat as a pillow, find a corner in her living room, or one of the bedrooms, and rest your weary head down…

No one was every excluded from being a part of the family. If you came with love and respect, you were treated with love and respect in their home. And many times, that became home to so many of us, throughout our journey in life.  

I’m sorry I haven’t said this enough, “But thank you for giving me the courage to live my life to its fullest potential…” Never scared that if I had to stick up for myself in corporate America, especially in the beginning of my career. That if I lost my job and ended up homeless, I could find that corner in your living room to rest my weary head.

Thank you, Big Rich, Herman, Johnny, my brother Will, and many of the guys from the old neighborhood, for allowing me to write 100 checks my ass couldn’t cash.

And by that, I mean, when 20 guys surrounded me, I’d just say C.Y.C. I’d say Herman and Johnny are my blood. I’d say wait until my cousins, and their crew get their hands on your mother fuckers… And they’d part like the red sea...

Forever my protectors. My brothers. My everything.

I just want to leave you guys with this…

Johnny was something to everyone. But to some… Johnny was everything. Everything to everyone… Especially in their time of need.  

Let’s wish him a peaceful transition. And let’s find peace in our hearts knowing we’ll all be back together again with Johnny, someday soon… When it’s our time.  

And in the next lifetime, in the next universe, on the next star. Let’s get it more right than wrong… Let’s share more love than pain. Let’s all follow Johnny up to the window and ask for the big wings… The big ass golden angel wings, which we all work daily to earn, when it’s our time to do God’s work.  

I love you all. I love you Johnny. Until we meet again Cuzo… I will walk in your shadow forever… We all will…

Sleep now Cuz… And be at Peace knowing how loved you are!

 -          Ivan Sanchez

[downloadebooks]

THE ALPHA RULES

New Post has been published on https://joinbooksclub.com/downloads/the-alpha-rules/

THE ALPHA RULES

) Master Your Emotions. Be the island, not the waves. The Alpha Man provides a safe haven for the women in his life. Be a protector: demonstrate the ability to be a source of physical and emotional security. Women are attracted to stable, secure men and are repelled by neediness and insecurity. Never lose your cool (the James Bond mindset). Self-control is a hallmark of the Alpha Man. Deflect the traps and games that women will often try to engage you in as a means of “testing” you. Mastering one’s emotions begins with confidence and clarity of purpose.

2) Master the Art of Attraction. Elicit attraction, not affection. Don’t just be a “friend” to women; be sexually desirable first and foremost. Know how to escalate the relationship while you remain secure in your sexuality and masculinity. Often, the women who are most resistant to men are the ones who wish a man would sweep them off their feet and seduce them. The Alpha Man understands how to do so, by using the Rules of attraction to his advantage.

3) Be Unique in Your Approach, Style and Actions. Become a source of fascination to people by presenting yourself as an original: a unique individual who doesn’t think and act like the herd. When you seem typical, women are inclined to feel a typical, lukewarm emotional reaction towards you. Incorporate new details into your style and wardrobe so that you command attention. Lead and project a lifestyle that is exciting and unpredictable. Being original in these ways is a clear indicator of confidence and high self-esteem.

  https://joinbooksclub.com/downloads/the-alpha-rules/

[junker-town]

Kevin Durant is a better rim protector than most centers

He’s technically a small forward, but he doesn’t play like one. That allows the Warriors’ defense to thrive.

Kevin Durant just recorded five blocks and three steals in the Warriors’ Game 2 NBA Finals victory over the Cavaliers on Sunday.

It was a reminder how devastating of an addition Durant was during the summer, when an already dominant Golden State team added one of the most versatile players in the world on either end of the basketball court. It was also a reminder

Ron Adams couldn’t wait. It was like Christmas came early and a present he never expected appeared under his tree.

That’s how the wife of Golden State’s veteran assistant coach told it. Basketball Santa gifted the Warriors former league Most Valuable Player, Durant. Adams was licking his chops, but not for the reasons most would expect.

“Ron can’t wait to integrate Kevin into that defense,” Leah Adams told CSN Bay Area in August.

Of course, Durant is known most for his unrivaled ability to put the ball in the basket. He won four scoring titles in a five-year span — the first player to do so since Michael Jordan won seven straight from 1987-1993 — and already leads the Warriors at 25.9 points per game on nearly 54 percent shooting.

But if anything stands out about Durant in a Warriors jersey, it isn’t his shot-making. Rather, it’s his unexpected surge on the defensive end. The Golden State star is averaging a career-best 1.5 blocks per game. Opponents can’t score consistently when he’s guarding them, and he defends the rim better than most of league’s top centers.

Durant has soundly slid into a Warriors’ defensive scheme that thrives on switching, something Adams envisioned when the team signed its star forward in the offseason.

“His versatility is outstanding,” Adams said of Durant. “He’s a terrific defender, who played with great defensive consistency in our playoff series. We will expect a lot out of him in that regard.”

Durant has over-delivered on Adams’ expectations.

Warriors coach Steve Kerr hearkened back to his team’s playoff series against Oklahoma City as an example of how Durant could influence Golden State’s defense.

“He’s playing more [power forward] and playing in smaller lineups – Oklahoma City generally stayed pretty big when Kevin was there — which changes his responsibility,” Kerr said in November, according to the San Jose Mercury-News. “We need him in there rebounding, boxing out, covering up the paint and penetration, so it’s a little different vibe for him.”

The Warriors have turned from trying to fold Durant into the defensive scheme to relying on him to protect the paint. Golden State is much better defensively with their newfound anchor on the floor.

Their lineup of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Andre Iguodala, Draymond Green, and JaVale McGee — the lineup Kerr relies on most with Durant on the bench — gives up an average of 115.4 points per 100 possessions. Lineups with Durant on the floor rarely give up over 100. On the whole, the Warriors rank third in defensive efficiency, behind only Memphis and Utah.

Golden State was already a good defensive team before free agency. With Durant, their defense is slowly becoming impenetrable.

That’s because, first and foremost, he’s a shot-blocking machine.

“There’s going to be nights where I get a few (blocks), there’s going to be nights where I don’t,” Durant told reporters after posting 22 points, 17 rebounds, and five blocks in Golden State’s Wednesday 121-111 win over Toronto.

Those block parties seem more often than not.

Durant’s 1.5 blocks per game are a career-high and he has 16 games with at least two blocks this season, according to Basketball-Reference. That’s tied with Bucks’ shot-blocker John Henson and ahead of guys like LeBron James (four), Andre Drummond (nine), Karl-Anthony Towns (12), Dwight Howard (15), and Bismack Biyombo (15).

Only one non-big man has recorded more games with two or more blocks than Durant: Giannis Antetokounmpo, with 17. He’s joined by Rudy Gobert (29), Anthony Davis (27), Myles Turner (25), Hassan Whiteside (24), DeAndre Jordan (20), Kristaps Porzingis (19), Brook and Robin Lopez (17), and Marc Gasol (17).

That’s elite company, and KD’s shot-swatting prowess was on full display in early November when he recorded six blocks in a win over the Timberwolves.

Durant has also proven capable of guarding big men.

KD has come a long way since he was tabbed the lanky, frail kid out of Texas who could fill it up in a hurry. He’s gained 30 pounds since his rookie year, as the San Jose Mercury-News’ Anthony Slater pointed out, and has become much stronger, especially when it comes to post defense.

Kevin Durant on three huge influencers in his post defense: Kendrick Perkins, Mark Bryant, Monty Williams http://pic.twitter.com/CjXepH0LZ7

— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) December 1, 2016

“I learned a lot from Kendrick Perkins and Mark Bryant,” Durant said. “They taught me everything I know in the post, especially Mark Bryant. We started to go small (in Oklahoma City) with coach (Scott Brooks) probably in 2014. I had to guard some of the bigger guys and I just didn’t know the tricks of the trade. And Mark Bryant would always bring me to the side and show me film. And Perk would always tell me little stuff that he does to help him in the post, as well.”

“But at the end of the day, my length is the part of my game where I got the advantage over guys my build. Put my hand up, making a guy shoot a tough shot. Just the positioning and doing my work early, and learning that stuff comes from Mark Bryant and Kendrick Perkins.”

It was Bryant and Perkins who taught Durant to focus on positioning and do his defensive work in the post early.

You can see spoils of his hard work on possessions like one against the Timberwolves, where he strong-armed Karl-Anthony Towns off the low block and out of position. He then forced him to take a tough turn-around, fading jumper that misses badly.

In the Warriors’ Christmas Day loss to the Cavaliers, Durant prevented Kevin Love from getting too deep of a post position. Durant’s ability to guard both forward positions matches up with teams like Cleveland and San Antonio that run pick-and-rolls between their small and power forwards.

He’s altering shots at the rim.

Opponents attacking Durant at the rim shoot 48.8 percent, a generous percentage given how his length alters opponent’s shooting. For context, they shoot 44.8 percent when attacking DeAndre Jordan at the rim, 45.3 percent when attacking Dwight Howard, 46.7 percent when attacking Hassan Whiteside, and 49.4 percent when attacking Anthony Davis.

In many instances, Durant doesn’t even need to jump. The sheer threat of his wingspan forces opponents to arc shots up higher than necessary.

That’s because when he doesn’t get his paws on a potential shot, his exacting, near-7’5 wingspan forces opponents to change their shot at the rim. Only four centers (Rudy Gobert, Joel Embiid, DeAndre Jordan, and Brook Lopez) protect the rim at a better rate, albeit they do so more often than Durant.

Now, the Warriors defense looks as tough as ever.

The Warriors smother their man on defense because they know the help is always there. Everyone can switch, and everyone knows where they should be. It forces teams into tough situations, like in the opening minute of Golden State’s Wednesday win over Toronto when DeMar DeRozan bailed Toronto out with a Kobe-like contested fadeaway jump shot.

That effort puts the Warriors third in the NBA in defensive efficiency, holding teams to 101.3 points per 100 possessions. For context, the Lakers give up 110, the Knicks give up 107.9, and the Grizzlies 100.5.

Kerr told reporters in November that Durant had been “inconsistent” defensively, and that his matriculation into their scheme was a learning process. But KD has quickly surged ahead of the curve. He leads the team in scoring, rebounding, blocks, and player efficiency rating, and could enter his hat into the Defensive Player of the Year award race, as well.

It’s like Warriors adviser Jerry West forecasted, according to ESPN.com’s Chris Broussard, during the team’s free agency meeting with the seven-time NBA All-Star.

Finally, West pointed out to Durant how he believes his overall game is overlooked in Oklahoma City. Although Durant is known as one of the greatest scorers of all time, he does not receive much credit for his rebounding — he led the Thunder with 8.2 boards per game last season — or defense.

And now that Durant has hit his stride in the Warriors’ defensive system, the rest of the league should cower in their collective kicks when attacking the paint while he’s around. This is what Ron Adams always envisioned.